33 replies to this topic

[Katia11]

Yes! This book was very well written. Utterly heartbreaking and honest. 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

 

 

First of all, look at the fucking cover. Absolutely gorgeous. Stunning. Catches the eye, has elements that are plot relevant (some of them not even until the end, but you wouldn't even notice they're there until you're just admiring the artwork after finishing and say "hey, wait a minute...").

 

Ahem.

 

This book was so good. Such a breath of fresh air. A fantasy based on Pacific Island mythology and folklore, written by a woman who grew up in Guam and is intimately familiar with the cultures, history, and folklore of the Pacific.

 

It's also a standalone! You pretty much never see standalones in fantasy.

 

Now, on to the actual review.

 

Dragonfruit follows two childhood friends Hanalei and Samahtitamahenele (called Sam). When Hanalei was a child, she and the princess were poisoned by the princess's spurned lover and put into a near-death state. The only thing that could save them was a sea dragon egg, called dragonfruit. Hanalei's father stole the dragonfruit that was meant to revive the princess, fled the island, and used it to save his daughter instead, making them both exiles. Ten years later, Hanalei sails the Nominomi sea studying sea dragons and searching for a dragonfruit to bring home to her kingdom to revive the princess and right her father's wrong. Meanwhile, back on the island queendom of Tamarind, Sam has been trying desperately to find dragonfruit. His grandmother is nearing the end of her reign as queen, and unless Sam can either revive his mother or marry and produce a daughter, the crown will leave his family for the first time in centuries.

 

When Hanalei unexpectedly finds herself back on her home island, she and Sam must act quickly to acquire a recently spotted dragonfruit before a ruthless sea dragon hunter does. But the pirate isn't the only danger they face, because while dragonfruit can grant your any wish, every wish demands a price.

 

5 stars. I loved this book. So glad I found it. I was feeling a bit of a reading slump coming on, and this was just what I needed to push through--something very different from anything else I've read while still being within my preferred genres. It's also not very long at all. Only 350-ish pages according to Goodreads. I listened to the audiobook, and I definitely recommend that route if you want to be able to pronounce everything, hah.

[Katia11]

I read this one too and I enjoyed it! That cover is really stunning!

[SweeneyxxTodd]

 

This is the third memoir I've read in the past calendar year. I feel like that's a record for me. I don't normally read memoirs or nonfiction in general.

 

Anyway.

 

An important read, and a harsh reminder of our need as a society to trust children, respect their privacy and agency, and fiercely defend it, and to do better to protect them from those who would do them harm. 5 stars.

 

Content warnings:

emotional abuse, physical abuse, cults, exploitation of children, grooming and sexual abuse, stalking, high-control religion

[Katia11]

Yeah, this is on my tbr too.

 

 

So very heartbreaking.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

Just finished my 11th book of the year (I set my goal to 12) late Tuesday night, making me officially 3 books ahead of schedule.

 

Here's what I've read since I last posted:

 

 

I started this last year, not long after it came out. But then I put it down for some reason and forgot about it lol. Finished it up on the way home from our Outer Banks vacay, or maybe just after arriving home. It was pretty good! I really liked Malaya's character, and seeing some things that hint at the events of The Avatar and the Fire Lord episode was interesting. I think I'd rank this below the two Kyoshi novels, but above the Yangchen novels in terms of how enjoyable it was to me. The Yangchen books had too much focus on political intrigue, which just isn't really my thing. This felt like the more character-focused Avatar episodes, and the Kyoshi books felt like the more plot-focused episodes. We'll see after the second book comes out later this year how I rank this duology as a whole.

 

 

Probably my favorite of Faith Erin Hicks' standalone Avatar comics so far. Maybe tied with The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer, idk. They're both good. I just really liked that this one focuses on Mai, who rarely gets any attention in the narrative. I also like how the plot focused on the struggles of dismantling a century of entrenched propaganda in the school system and the culture at large. Not a very common plot focus.

 

 

Cute, fluffy little chibi style comic about the Gaang throwing a surprise party to celebrate the day Aang was unfrozen. Very simple and not much happened, but it was cute. Fun for a super quick read.

 

 

Definitely my favorite of the Korra comics so far. Mako was always my favorite member of Korra's Team Avatar. I feel like he had so much potential to be a good, interesting, impactful character but they kept not giving him enough to do that showed off his strengths or only letting him have storylines that showed his flaws. Like, dude was a natural detective. Clearly shined in that career, should've had more plots where he got to do investigating. And this is all about that. Part family history exploration, part mystery hunting, part brother bonding. Very solid.

 

 

The Youtube algorithm started recommending true crime deep dives and amateur websleuthing to me about a month to a month and a half ago, for some reason. And I got into a couple of people's channels. So while browsing my library catalog, I found this book from 2014 detailing the websleuth movement--The Doe Network, Porchlight, various other cold case amateur investigating sites (some of which are now defunct). It also focused a lot on one of the earliest (if not the first) successful cases of amateur websleuthing: Todd Matthews' identification of Tent Girl, Kentucky's most notorious unsolved murder case and most well known Jane Does, in 1998. Since the writer is Boston-based (she's a science writer at MIT), there was also a lot of focus on Massachusetts' most infamous cold cases: The Lady of the Dunes, who was identified sometime after the publishing of this book. This was a fascinating read, but it was very dark and some parts were quite hard to read, notably there is a fairly detailed description of the state of decomposition that Tent Girl was found in, as well as a few other remains that were found in other cases, some descriptions of cadavers in morgues, and descriptions of the violence that many of these Does experienced at the end of their lives. So, definitely don't read if that will deeply upset you. And maybe don't read this book while you're eating your lunch.

 

 

I'm not gonna put all the covers, but I read all three Call the Midwife memoirs after I ran out of episodes to watch for free through Hoopla. I enjoyed them a lot. I got more backstory on some of the cases featured in the early episodes of the show, as well as some that were never featured. The show is definitely more hopeful, though, especially past season 2 or 3, when they ran out of source material and started having more happy endings rather than bittersweet.

 

Let's see what I come back with a review for next. I have a big stack of books on the end table in the living room, including a few more nonfiction (since when do I inhale nonfic?? lol) and a couple fluffy romances (also a genre I never read...let's see if they hook my interest enough to finish).

[Katia11]

I need to read more nonfiction. I always tend to enjoy it more than I think I will! That nonfiction book about amateur slueths looks interesting 👀

I have also been meaning to get to the avatarverse novels but I guess I have been unsure where I want to start since there are a few of them now lol

[JimmyxxCindy4EVER]

Practically all I read is nonfiction, mostly science(stuff about cats, physics, or astronomy lol), though I have read some historical nonfiction based on my fave historical figures(like Helen Keller) or info on certain time periods(like the Victorian era)... Most of the fiction I've read is just Star Wars, based on the main movies...

[SweeneyxxTodd]

Predictably, I didn't read any of the books I already have

I borrowed The Handmaid's Tale and it's sequel, The Testaments, as e-audiobooks.

I really enjoyed both of them. You could definitely tell The Handmaid's Tale was written in the 80s because everyone smokes lol. Also, this is the original recording from like, 1989, so the audio quality was a bit inconsistent. And I thought the narrator they used sounded too old. Offred is supposed to be in her early 30s but the woman reading sounds like she's at least 50. I also got distracted a few times wondering about her accent because she pronounced some words weirdly. Like the handmaids' names--Offred, Ofwarren, Ofglen. She'd pronounce them line AHV-fred, AHV-glen, etc. And she pronounced "rather" as "RAH-ther". It just took me out of the story a bit sometimes. Overall minor complaints not really about the story.

The second book had a few things it seems to have retconned about the first book. I read that it took some story beats from the show. People who read the first book a long time ago probably wouldn't notice these things, but since I read them back to back, they stuck out to me. I liked this one a lot, too. There were 3 POVs rather than just one, and each had its own narrator. Mae Whitman (Katara's voice actor) is one of them, and I really enjoyed her performance.

Both solid books, definitely recommend.

[Katia11]

I read The Handmaid's Tale years ago! I remember liking it, and I want to re-read it eventually. I didn't even realize there was a sequel. 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

Oh, another thing I forgot to talk about with the Handmaid's Tale books: They take place in Cambridge. It's never directly mentioned as Cambridge, but there are a lot of vague statements like there being a train station in the shopping area the Handmaids go to, Offred's mother living across the river in Boston, "The University" near the shopping area and church and Wall, a park near the shopping area that's by the river (obviously meant to be Riverbend Park on Memorial Drive), and suchlike. And it was so weird reading about a Puritanical Authoritarian Theocracy existing in Cambridge, and recognizing so many things. It was eerie.

[Katia11]

Really?! That is wild! I bet that made it even more trippy. 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

It did. I kept being like "...but I know this place. I literally walk through here multiple times a week on my way to work."

[Katia11]

Yeah! That’s wild!