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ClareR (5726 KP) rated A Day of Fallen Night in Books

Feb 28, 2023  
A Day of Fallen Night
A Day of Fallen Night
Samantha Shannon | 2023 | Fiction & Poetry, LGBTQ+, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Phenomenal. Breath-taking. Complex, and well worth both the wait and the work - well, it’s not really work to read this. It was all pleasure.

To say this book is wide-sweeping would be an understatement. Set 500 years before The Priory of the Orange Tree, A Day of Fallen Night encompasses a whole world, with different religions, traditions and cultures. The complexity of this book! And then there’s the fact that I didn’t for one moment feel confused. The style of writing in each Kingdom was so distinct, that I knew immediately where I was (no reading ahead and then back again to figure out where I was!).

Matriarchal societies, societies where homosexuality is accepted (and in fact is nothing extraordinary), dragons, magic, did I say dragons? Yes, OK, I did, but I cannot stress enough how much I loved the dragons.

There’s over 800 pages of action, fighting, adventure, romance, politics, love, betrayal, religion, dragons (have I mentioned the dragons?), magic, strong women, noble men. Ah, I could go on - I won’t.

If fantasy is your thing, you’ll love this. If you’ve read and enjoyed Priory, you’ll love this. I don’t think it matters which order you read the two books in, they’ve been written as standalones in the same world. And, if rumours are true, there will be more - AND I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for my ebook copy. And you’d better bet your life that I’ve bought a hardback copy. I mean, look at that cover! It’s glorious - beautiful!!
  
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Rachel King (13 KP) rated Ash in Books

Feb 11, 2019  
Ash
Ash
Malinda Lo | 2011 | Children
4
6.7 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
The main character Aisling ages from a little girl to a young woman, but mentally she does not seem to change or mature in any way. She feels completely emotionless from start to finish, as if the story were being narrated by a computer, and not a flesh-and-blood human girl. Sidhean was quite fascinating, if overly mysterious, and the step-family were all quite distinct in their different roles. The young Huntress Kaisa seemed to resemble her predecessor, but only a little, and of course Aisling was unlike anyone else, even though I felt no connection with her. Loose ends are left wide open all over the place. We are told nothing about what happens to Aisling's step-family or what Sidhean does after she leaves him. The ending is completely contradictory to the framework built up throughout the text with the use of the fairy tales. In addition to Aisling breaking her own rules, we have a gap of time at the end with almost no explanation as to why that is. The background setting is reminescent of Regency England, but the fact that lesbianism is an accepted part of this world that the author has created is completely contradictory to the propriety and decorum of the proposed setting. Every time there is the possibility of the setting getting in the way of the plot, the author claims "artistic license" to break her own rules of world-building. Even if I ignore the acceptance of homosexuality in the text, which I do not support, it still suffers from major flaws of character, background, and plot that I can not ignore. Aisling is cold and emotionless, the ending is contradictory and breaks the rules, and multiple loose ends are left hanging. I would not recommend this book.
  
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Hazel (1853 KP) rated Love Hurts in Books

Dec 17, 2018  
LH
Love Hurts
Malorie Blackman | 2015
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Love Hurts is a young adult book containing several stories compiled together by the well-known Malorie Blackman. There are a few new short stories however most are extracts from pre-existing novels. The short stories are written by a variety of different authors such as Susie Day, Lauren Dockrill, Lauren Kate, Catherine Johnson and James Dawson. Many readers will be familiar with these authors as well as some of the books that the extracts are from, for example: More Than This, If I Stay, I Am The Messenger and Northern Lights.

The aim of this anthology is to explore what love means. Love is not a simple, straightforward concept. There is love lost and love found, bitter love and sweet love. Each story focuses on a different perspective. Some are about teenagers, some are about adults. Some are about homosexuality and others are not.

Love Hurts is an interesting concept and it is interesting to see different authors' understanding on the term "love". The biggest problem with this book however is due to most of the entries being snippets of other stories as it is often difficult to understand what was going on and who the characters were.

Another issue for me was I found some of the stories uninteresting and difficult to get into; and as they were short there was not a lot of time to appreciate the different concepts and styles of writing.

Although it would have been a challenge, it would have been better for all the stories to be brand new and unique. On he other hand, Malorie Blackman has done an excellent job at sourcing all the content.