The Five Daughters of the Moon by Leena Likitalo Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

The Crescent Empire teeters on the edge of a revolution, and the Five Daughters of the Moon are the ones to determine its future.

Alina, six, fears Gagargi Prataslav and his Great Thinking Machine. The gagargi claims that the machine can predict the future, but at a cost that no one seems to want to know.

Merile, eleven, cares only for her dogs, but she smells that something is afoul with the gagargi. By chance, she learns that the machine devours human souls for fuel, and yet no one believes her claim.

Sibilia, fifteen, has fallen in love for the first time in her life. She couldn't care less about the unrests spreading through the countryside. Or the rumors about the gagargi and his machine.

Elise, sixteen, follows the captain of her heart to orphanages and workhouses. But soon she realizes that the unhappiness amongst her people runs much deeper that anyone could have ever predicted.

And Celestia, twenty-two, who will be the empress one day. Lately, she's been drawn to the gagargi. But which one of them was the first to mention the idea of a coup?

Inspired by the 1917 Russian revolution and the last months of the Romanov sisters, The Five Daughters of the Moon is a beautifully crafted historical fantasy with elements of technology fuelled by evil magic.

There's a fascinating new trend in YA in which books that I would consider to be straight up fantasy are filed under the historical fiction genre because- get this- they're based off a real culture or country or period in history. The Walled City is one I can think of off the top of my head. Or basically all the new releases on the 2018 YA historical fiction releases lists. Usually, I avoid this subgenre because I'm not interested in fantasy. I've never been particularly captured by it, even when I was little, and with these new "historical fiction" novels I always wonder why I should read a book based on, let's say, the Austro-Hungarian Empire when I can read a book that actually is about the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I do, however, have one weakness.

Tsarist Russia.

Which is what The Five Daughters of the Moon is based on. More specifically, it's based on the Russian Revolution. It also replaces the Tsar with an Empress, and all the Grand Duchesses and the Tsarevich are turned into princesses, or Daughters of the Moon as the book dubs them. There's a little something lost in translation here, mostly because one of the biggest divisions between the Tsar and his people surrounded the Tsarevich, how long it took for one to come and also how he was hidden away from the people ever since his birth and subsequent hemophilia diagnosis. Also, Rasputin. Still, to Likitalo's credit she does give a new reason for a Rasputin-like character, Gargargi Prataslav, to enter the scene, as an advisor to the Empress. Prataslav has two roles here, actually, to replace Rasputin and, bafflingly, to replace Lenin. Now, it is not an unusual thing to villainize Rasputin, but one cannot deny that he would not have benefitted at all from the fall of the Romanov dynasty. He would have, after all, lost his main protectors, the Tsar and Tsaritsa. And the main problem with Rasputin anyway was that the other nobility didn't like him, not necessarily that the people hated him. But then again, Rasputin's an easy target to make a villain, given that he already looks like a drunk, STD ridden sorcerer. Lenin on the other hand, is often ignored by those who write books based off the Romanovs, strange given that he was the reason for their execution. I wonder why that is, as it's not like he doesn't have looks that can be caricatured anyway (he resembles a goat, or at least he does to me. A goat crossed with Leo DiCaprio). But okay, for the purposes of not confusing people, Prataslav is a strange hybrid of the two.

The Five Daughters have their obvious parallels to each Grand Duchess (and the Tsarevich, of course). Celestia is Olga, Elise is Tatiana, Sibilia is Marie, Merile is Anastasia, and Alina is Alexei. Alexei's hemophilia has been replaced by some form of mental illness, which does have some prophecy like abilities. Each Daughter had their own likes and dislikes, but I quickly grew tired of switching constantly between 6 points of view, and the chapters felt repetitive quickly.

I also wished we got more from the Crescent Empress and why exactly the people wanted to overthrow her besides focusing more on war than on the problems at home. I mean, the Russian Revolution was about that, but it was also about autocracy and how one unfit ruler at the exact wrong time can spell death to a centuries old system of government. The book lacked that.

So what does it do well? Well, I liked the writing. I mean, sure, there was a definite translated feel to it, but that didn't bother me as much as I thought it would and I liked it okay. I also really liked Likitalo's worldbuilding and how she paid homage to the time without directly ripping it off. I especially liked the bits about the souls and soul beads. 

And I did think that the Great Thinking Machine is a good, if a bit juvenile, metaphor for communism, especially to a layperson. While it would be a bit more fitting for a children's book, the idea of a machine that would make everyone equal but must be powered by human souls is, well, communism easily explained.

I mean, this isn't a perfect book in my eyes, as it does drag a bit and I never got too invested in the characters. But the world Likitalo created just captured my imagination, and it was short enough that I could read it easily. I liked it just fine.

7 out of 10

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Bad fates do not always follow those who deserve them.”- The Language of Thorns, Leigh Bardugo

Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.

Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid's voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy's bidding but only for a terrible price.

Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, #1 New York Times–bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love.

Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans, these tales will transport you to lands both familiar and strange—to a fully realized world of dangerous magic that millions have visited through the novels of the Grishaverse.

This collection of six stories includes three brand-new tales, all of them lavishly illustrated with art that changes with each turn of the page, culminating in six stunning full-spread illustrations as rich in detail as the stories themselves.

Despite not liking fantasy all that much, I like Leigh Bardugo. But this was mostly a miss for me. I mean, I'm definitely going to be in the minority here because I'm sure most fans eat this kind of stuff up with a soup spoon, but this is probably a case of "it's not you it's me". Looking back, I don't even know why I preordered this let alone bought it in the first place. As I said in my Cinder review, I like fairy tales, but not so much that I want to read retellings or modern updates of the tales that have so much history behind them and are wonderful windows in the time they were created in, a time when you could scare the shit out of children with stories of wicked stepmothers and cannibalistic witches and at the end of the day, still have the good prevail. It says something about the things people dreamed of and the influences of things like romanticism or religious morality at the time of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. Perhaps that's one of my problems with this collection- the stories have no history behind them, thus I cannot really see a point in their existence. This probably has to do with the fact that I am no longer a child and do not read fairy tales for entertainment any more, I read them for the reasons above. Blame my history major on that. 

And yes, when I say modern versions of fairy tales, this is basically it. With the exception of a couple, the fairy tales in this book are basically the same old stories just told with a "grittier" feminist edge. It gets repetitive really quickly. The man is always a villain, the prince is evil, the female characters are kind and good, etc. That's a very common thing to do in fairy tale updating, by the way, and one that I've never been too keen on. In a lot of ways, I was reminded of the stories told in A Monster Calls, but without any of the substance that those stories had. In the end, I found most of them mediocre and rather boring. And kind of confused, with the references to sexual abuse and just plain old sex. Fairy tales are written for children, thus fairy tale like stories like this should be free of that stuff, because it just kind of takes you out of that nostalgic feeling. 

Of course, maybe this book was just doomed from the start, because spin-offy books like this have never really worked for me. Even the Unwind anthology UnBound was a bit of a disappoint! That being said, I probably would have liked it better if it was just stories or mythology or the history of the Grishaverse than just rehashings of the same old tales. Like if it followed famous saints or kings and queens or grisha. Something new and different as opposed to another Little Mermaid retelling.

The only two things that did anything for me were both the loveliness of the prose- Bardugo can really write- and the wonderful illustrations (also the fact that it is a genuinely pretty book). Even those two things though couldn't save this book. In the end, though it's purely personal preference and I love Leigh Bardugo's work and will still continue to support her by reading her books, but this was, again, a solid miss for me. Maybe I'm just too old for fairy tales. Oh well. At least my younger cousin, who loves both Six of Crows and the Grisha trilogy has a birthday tomorrow so my money hasn't entirely gone to waste.

5 out of 10

Five Favorites- Speculative Fiction

Yes, here I am posting about speculative fiction, a gathering of genres I am not shy about admitting I stay away from, if you can't tell by my general lack of enthusiasm about it. I mean, the whole reason why I grouped them all together under the label of speculative fiction is because I didn't have enough material to draw it out and have a science fiction, a fantasy, a paranormal, a dystopian, and a horror list. I admit though, even with my drawing it out I am a bit embarrassed to say I had a hard time reaching five, since really only three were definites. But I need more time with my historical fiction and thriller lists, and fall is literally the only time I voluntarily bother with speculative fiction so I thought it would be nice to talk about it.

So, without further ado, here are my top five speculative fiction novels! In no particular order, of course.

1. The Unwind Dystology

  Originally, this list had a lot of nostalgic favorites such as The Girl Who Could Fly and the Percy Jackson series, but I haven't revisited those in a long time and while they both had a big impact on my life, I don't feel the need to go back to them like I did to the Unwind series. This is one of my favorite series of all time. Don't be put off by the dystopian genre classification. In fact, the first book came out three years before The Hunger Games swept onto the scene. So, what is this book about? Basically, it's set some undetermined time in the future after the Second Civil War, which was fought over abortion and resolved by the Unwind Accord, a law passed saying that 13-18 (later 17) year olds could be "unwound", retroactively aborted with all their parts used for transplants, which was a scientific discovery by then. We follow three teens, the typical YA trio of two-guys-and-a-girl, Lev Calder (he goes through like a million last name changes over the course of the series) who is a tithe which means he is going to be unwound willingly at the age of thirteen, Risa Ward, a state ward unwound because of budget cuts, and Connor Lassiter, a troubled teen whose parents unwound him as a last resort and also my biggest fictional crush. Him and Risa are also my number one OTP. There's also a lot more going on and that's just the first book. One interesting thing about the series is that the first book, Unwind, can be read as sort of a standalone, and then the other three books- UnWholly, UnSouled, and UnDivided are kind of like the actual series. It's a really great, really fucked up, and really underrated series, and has been reigning as one of my favorite books ever ever since I first read it back in middle school. It's basically my Harry Potter.

2. Marina

  Are you sick of hearing about this book yet? Well, you're probably going to hear about this book a lot more in the upcoming months. Because Marina is the current holder of my favorite book of the year, ever since reading it all the way back in March, and almost instantly became one of my favorite books of all time. This is a Spanish YA horror novel with heavy Gothic influences. It's about a boy, Oscar, who goes to this boarding school in Barcelona. As he wanders around the old part of town, he meets a man named German Blau and his daughter Marina who he becomes close to. From there, they find themselves getting involved in the dark and twisted world of Mijail Kolvenik, an inventor in postwar Barcelona. It's a very complex, complicated plot to describe, so normally I just tell people that it's basically a mix of Phantom of the Opera, Bioshock, Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe, and the science fiction-y parts of The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. It's just really damn good.  

3. The Road

  Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a post apocalyptic nightmare of a book that hits you hard in the feelings. The prose is a thing of beige beauty, simplistic with almost every sentence perfectly formed. It's bleak and depressing and even horrific, but it has an almost hopeful undertone about finding something from nothing. I could tell you that this book is about a man and his son trying to not just survive but retain their humanity in a ruined world, but that's almost too simple a summary. Reading this book is an experience, one best gone through without any prior expectations. It was my favorite book of last year and has become one of my favorite books ever.

4. Six of Crows Duology

  You can tell how much I read speculative fiction because every book on this list except one I read either last year or this year. The answer for that is simple, until last year I read almost all contemporary, historical fiction, and thrillers, as well as a lot of nonfiction. I didn't start develing into fantasy until I started getting into Booktube and that made me want to try really hard to read fantasy but alas, I couldn't do it. That being said, Six of Crows was a really great discovery, one that even I was able to really get into. Mostly because I loved the Amsterdam inspired setting and the interesting blend of 16th-17th century Netherlands with late 19th-early 20th technology and clothing all in one fantasy world. This book captured me with its atmosphere and cast of characters, a group that reminded me so much of the Unwind crew. This is one of the biggest fantasy duologies out there, so I won't waste your time talking about the plot. My favorite characters were Jesper, Kaz, and Inez, I hated both Nina and Matthias, and I felt very little towards Wylan except in relation to Jesper, in which case I was all over him. I was less invested in the second book, which disappointed me in a lot of ways, but it is still a really great book duology, even for someone not into fantasy at all.

5. The Illuminae Files

  So, we had a horror novel, 2 dystopians, and a fantasy. What about science-fiction? And well paranormal, but most people including me have kind of stopped taking those books seriously since the rise and fall of the paranormal empire. So science fiction. More specifically, space science fiction. I mentally refer to it as hi-sci-fi because I like the way that sounds. I reach for those books even less than I do fantasy because I can't stand space and have little patience for endless musings on the universe. With the exception of The End from The Tsar of Love and Techno because that last story is beautiful and you know it. But yeah, the Illuminae Files. Also known as, why the hell did I like this book. It's just a ton of fun to read, that's why. It's no great literature or anything, it's just a quick, funny, and violent read, with a great first novel, a less great but still strong second book, and hopefully a third book that will round out the series nicely, even though the second book did not feel like a middle novel at all. This is another book that I think is fairly hyped up, so I also won't bore you with plot. My favorite characters are Ella, Kady, Grant, and the AI. This book was just fun escapism, and really, what else do you need from science fiction?

What are some of your favorite speculative fiction books? Have you read any of these books? What do you think about them? Leave your thoughts below!

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both.”- A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness 

The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.

But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming…

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth.

This is the second Patrick Ness novel I've read, and if he wrote like this all the time I might be more inclined to pick his work up. The first, if you were curious, was The Rest of Us Just Live Here, which I liked, but didn't love. And if I'm being honest, I'd tell you that the only reason I picked this one up was because one of my book challenges this year was to read a book that has a movie adaptation coming out, and I heard good things about this book. 

I'm so happy I picked it up though. The first thing that I loved were the illustrations. Of course, that isn't really unusual for me, since I love art. I do draw a bit, but I prefer looking at art and taking it in and learning about art history rather than actually creating it myself. So the illustrations just blew me away. Makes me wish more YA novels had pictures in them! The book also felt nice in my hands, like a grown-up picture book. 

The story took me a bit to get into, and I didn't immediately love the monster. It reminded me of Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, albeit a bit more toned down. Also, the stories that he told weren't my favorite, and it wasn't until the second half of the book that the story actually hit me emotionally. I mean, sure, I did laugh at some parts, and I thought Conor was cute (he did feel much younger than 13, though- I would have guess 9 or 10), and the writing was good, but it wasn't what I expected given the great reviews of this book. Honestly, the first part of this book reminded me so much of The Graveyard Book, another highly praised story that I didn't love as much as I thought I would. Even the writing and story styles were similar. Also, Conor's father and grandmother were starting to annoy me with how non-straightforward they were being regarding the mother's immediate death.

But where this book picks up and packs an emotional punch is towards the end. Conor's grief is real and raw and effective. I wanted to cry reading this book (but I didn't. This is the third book where I almost cried but I didn't. Yes, I am keeping track). I think Patrick Ness' strength lies in his ability to hit human emotions- he knows how to write tragic family situations and real human feelings very well, and those were the parts I loved about The Rest of Us Just Live Here as well. Perhaps he should start writing contemporaries. I could also deeply relate to Conor's "horrible" truth. This book also ended absolutely perfectly too. It's clear what happened, but the book spares us the actual event. It's really what boosted up the rating for me.

8.5 out of 10