In Short: June

Posted 30th June 2021 by Sia in State of the Sia / 2 Comments

Every Book a Doorway is officially two years old!!! It was my blogaversary on the 1st, and my fibro was so bad this month I wasn’t able to do anything to celebrate it – or to get all the Pride content I wanted to get done, done – but still! IT’S BEEN TWO YEARS AND I’M STILL AT THIS. WOAH. I feel really proud of myself, and happy, and although I couldn’t explain why I want to blog about books even if you paid me, I don’t see myself stopping any time soon.

Here’s to another year! But now, on to how I did in June!

Read

So I put this post together expecting my number of ‘books read’ to be as low as, if not lower than, last month’s nine. BUT APPARENTLY NOT??? My brain has felt so fritzy this month and I haven’t felt like I’ve been able to concentrate at all, but I guess I managed well enough because I read SIXTEEN books this month!!! WHAT. Yay!

Kushiel’s Dart, A Pale Light in the Black, Accident of Stars, The Outside, and Wheel of the Infinite were all rereads; Kushiel’s Dart was every bit as beautiful as I remembered, but Accident of Stars, The Outside, and Wheel of the Infinite all took me aback by being even better than I remember them being the first time around! Wheel of the Infinite, in particular, I didn’t remember much of, and was an absolute joy to come back to.

Also, I have GOT to include the full artwork for Wheel‘s wrap-around cover. Originally the idiot publishers edited the artist’s work to make Maskelle (the brown woman, who is the MC) grey-skinned, but this is how it’s supposed to look!

Wheel of the Infinite cover art by Donato Giancola

Isn’t it freaking stunning?! I’m going to have to hunt down a copy with that cover, now. I need it on my bookshelf!

Excluding rereads, Water Horse, Hard Reboot, and Strange Grace were the standouts this month. They’re all very different stories, but they’re all excellent (and all of them are queer! Bonus) and I fully intend to write proper reviews for them. But seriously: nab copies for yourself if you don’t already own them!

Now, out of 16 books, I read

  • 10 women, 5 men, and 3 genderqueer/nonbinary authors
  • 14 books by white folx, and 2 authors of colour.

I guess two authors of colour are better than last month, where there was no book solely authored by someone of colour, just an anthology where the authors came from all ethnicities. Two out of fourteen is still pretty bad, though. Gods damn it.

Books Reviewed

Seven reviews, even if three of them were mini-reviews, isn’t bad! I mean, I don’t feel like my write-ups did One Last Stop or Summer Sons justice, but I did my best, and I’m pretty pleased with how the rest came out.

Books DNF-ed

From what I managed to read of it, I think The Empire’s Ruin is probably really freaking excellent. Unfortunately, it’s been a few years since I read the first trilogy, and I forgot how grimdark this series is. And it turns out I am really not able to deal with any kind of grimdark at the moment. So the fact that this one got a DNF from me? Is in no way a judgement of its quality.

The same goes for The Maleficent Seven – I’m apparently very bad at judging books at the moment, because for some reason I thought this was going to be more comedic, and it turns out that it is not!!! Or, it is, a bit, but in a way that was completely overshadowed for me by the grimmness and gore. I don’t think it’s a bad book, it’s just not a me book.

Unfortunately, I thought Sisters of Shadow and Iron Widow were both pretty awful. Warning bells started going off for me two pages into Sisters, when it was revealed that the girl who lives in the woods has waist-length hair which she doesn’t tie back – um, no??? It is going to be CONSTANTLY full of twigs and leaves and dirt??? It’s going to be COMPLETELY impossible to keep clean in a pre-industrialised setting when you don’t have servants to do it for you??? Wtf? The writing was bizarrely simplistic, the dialogue was stilted (some of it was lifted straight out of a B-list horror movie, I was cringing), plot conflicts are just hand-waved…and I thought Livesey made some storytelling decisions that were not in the best interest of the story itself. Like kidnapping the bestie in the prologue and just telling us about this amazing incredible life-changing friendship these two girls have – instead of letting us see it, get invested, and then kidnapping the bestie. Also, love how the uncle was all ‘of course you must go after your friend, but of course I can’t come with you’, giving no reason for that whatsoever. I mean, I get that having Good Parents/Guardians hanging around gets in the way of the story, but please at least give me a reason why this character you want me to like is happy to let his niece go up against scary cults all by herself??? Put him in a wheelchair! Give him a chronic illness that means he can’t travel! Say they’re on the verge of penury and he can’t leave the shop closed for the duration of an adventure!!! Just give me something.

Iron Widow was heartbreaking, because I’ve been looking forward to it for YEARS…but it was such a huge letdown. Zhao tackles all these amazing-awful issues, most of which are some variation on hardcore misogyny, and has this incredible protagonist, who is the vicious ruthless cynical anti-heroine I have always wanted…but the writing. Urgh. The writing. I wish this had been written as Adult instead of YA, because the prose is so simple and bland and the twists are so obvious and everything feels watered down from the top-tier intensity I was expecting, and I am 99% sure that was done to make it Easy For the Teens (which is patronising as hell, but I’ve been seeing way too much of it in YA lately). And it feels very odd to be reading about such horrors (there are plenty of horrors) with such simplistic prose. Pretty bitterly disappointed.

The Bone Way was another one I was really excited about, but the writing was really jarring. The worldbuilding was lovely (I did not realise it wasn’t going to be set in our world, but it isn’t, and the world Underhill’s created is very cool) and there was nothing wrong with the cast…just… It felt like it had been written by someone very young. The tone often didn’t match the scene, and the rhythm of the prose was very…mechanical? I don’t know how to explain what I mean. Lots of telling instead of showing, too, and sometimes it is RIGHT to tell, sometimes you MUST tell, but not like this. It was very wooden. I think that’s the word I want.

…If I count these as mini-reviews, that brings me up from 7 to 10, right?

Arcs Received

A pretty dramatic mix this month. I’m incredibly excited for The Splinter King and The Hand of the Sun King – and The Goddess of Nothing At All is one I actually reached out to the author for (I had to fill out a little application and everything!) I’ve started reading all three, and they’re all so different, but looking great so far.

…And I’ve already explained that the other four ended up being DNFs.

Arcs Outstanding

I continue to slowly work my way through these! I’ve started all but two of them. Getting there, getting there. I finished Under the Whispering Door in the early hours of this morning, and folx, be prepared to cry, because everyone who reads it is going to cry. But in a good way??? Reviewing it is going to be so, so hard.

But the ones I’ve really got to focus on now are Hold Fast Through the Fire, The Past is Red, and The Fallen, since they all release next month! (The Splinter King releases next month in the UK, but since I’m on the US Netgalley I have until September or so for that one. Although I would like to get it reviewed in time for the UK release!)

REC LISTS & MISC

I had so many wonderful plans for Pride Month, but the fibro got in the way. But on the plus side, it’s not like I only showcase queer content during Pride!

My rec list of SFF With Polyamory turned out really well though – and has also been my most popular post in ages. I can only assume someone impressive shared a link to it!

Looking Forward

July isn’t as packed full of exciting (for me) releases as June was, but the ones it’s got are heavy hitters! NEW CATHERYNNE VALENTE NEW CATHERYNNE VALENTE NEW CATHERYNNE VALENTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

😀

And I adored A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians last year (you can see how much at my review over here, if you so choose) so of course I’m excited for the sequel, A Radical Act of Free Magic. (And are those tentacles on the cover??? I’m pretty sure those are tentacles on the cover! WILL WE GET KRAKENS? SOME OTHER SEA MONSTERS??? WE WILL KNOW SOOOON!) And while I didn’t review it, The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune was the most-fun thing I’ve read in ages – I actually enjoyed it more than The House in the Cerulean Sea, and yes, I’m aware that’s blasphemy! Which means I’m making grabby hands at that sequel as well!

The Splinter King is another sequel, and again, I loved the first book – but that was only a few months ago!!! I can’t BELIEVE we’re getting two massive epics from the same series in the same year! I feel so spoiled, and I love it. THANK YOU MIKE BROOKS!

Which is all to say that I think it’s going to be a good month, and I hope it’s a good one for you too!

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