Review: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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I picked this book up solely based on the hype since I’ve been so far removed from the literary world for so long (I haven’t been a very active reader since I started college about 5 years ago), and I wanted a good entrée back into the YA fantasy genre that I hold so near and dear to my heart. Boy, was this the right choice! Everyone and their brother it seems has read this book, so I have to admit I was skeptical because I tend to be overly critical of books that become that popular. I was so impressed with the character development and world-building in this book to the point that I’m awarding it my rarely-seen five star rating – AND a spot on my metaphorical favorites shelf.

Six of Crows is an arresting novel, if I’m honest – unconventional in its approach, honest in its confrontation of difficult topics, and fully belonging to the characters and the reader. This is a twisty dark clusterf*ck of plot (in the best way possible) mixed with incredible character development and a brave approach to understanding motive and the concept of bravery. I ate this book up and I’m so happy I did!

I have to admit I was a bit intimidated at first when I realized this book has not one, not two, but six POVs – I’m not usually a fan of multi-POV books, and I was really worried I was going to hate it and never get attached to any of the characters. Bardugo is smart here though (especially in her use of third person to tie everything together), and manages to give us an intimate glimpse of the motivations of each character with intricate backstory and their interactions with other characters without shutting off the other characters as the story progresses. Instead of driving them apart, it pulls them together, and feels like a completely cohesive body of work.

These characters, while I’m on the topic, are all incredibly compelling and multi-dimensional in a wonderfully imperfect way. I’m obsessed with Nina and she’s definitely my favorite character, although honestly I feel like every last one of the main six characters has a unique, interesting, and believable storyline and persona. I applaud Bardugo’s ability to create characters that feel like they’re real people – this is a masterclass on character development, y’all.

Six of Crows moves fast, and I’m still in awe of how quickly and naturally the plot spins off itself when things seem to go wrong. Kaz Brekker is a wonder in and of himself to watch, although not without his own flaws and trauma. It was quite magical to read about a trope-y invincible protagonist who is deeply human even in spite of his ability to always come out on top. After all, “a good magician isn’t much different from a proper thief.”

I would recommend this book to anyone who remotely enjoys fantasy and adventure – the writing here is superb, and it moves quickly but not so fast that it glosses over the characters or their motivations. I picked up the sequel Crooked Kingdom as soon as I finished (review coming soon!), and I will definitely be making a point to read the Shadow and Bone trilogy/King of Scars as well!

About the Book: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (2015) is a young adult fantasy adventure novel that takes place in Bardugo’s epic Grishaverse in the sprawling fictional merchant city of Ketterdam. Notorious criminal and gang leader Kaz Brekker and his assembled group of thieves and thugs are hired to perform a heist that could either kill them or grant a massive payoff and save the world in the process.

Review: We Can Save Us All by Adam Nemett

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Oh lordy, I have lots of feelings about this book! We Can Save Us All is an adventurous and thematically laden debut novel by Adam Nemett, and definitely one that I didn’t know exactly what to expect from. This book reads like a bizarre contemporary lovechild of The Great Gatsby and Brave New World, with a bit of apocalyptic doom and a gaggle of college students masquerading as superheroes thrown in for good measure. I did enjoy this book quite a bit – I’m giving it three stars because I genuinely did enjoy the writing and themes at play throughout the novel, but the awkward and harmful handling of sensitive issues and lukewarm character development here left plenty to be desired.

CONTENT WARNING:this book contains graphic, frequent, and sometimes irreverent descriptions of sexual assault, as well as slurs and violent language directed toward queer people and women. Please read this review and this book at your own discretion.

It’s no surprise that this book reminded me of Gatsby, because Nemett’s writing is unmistakably Fitzgerald-esque in its structure and flow. I really enjoyed the way this novel reads, poetic at times, conversational when it needs to be, and skillfully interrogating the moral fiber of each and every character just between the lines enough. There is plenty to discuss after reading this book, which in my opinion is one mark of good writing when it comes from the ability to pull underlying commentary from beneath the covers.

I’d love to say that this book borders on a poignant commentary of toxic masculinity and religious propaganda, but to say that would fall just a bit short. Ultimately the characters never really confront their hyper-protective and arrogant version of masculinity, and to add salt to the wound, the characters who are not men don’t ever seem to question this dynamic outside of the context of grappling with sexual assault. Some of this is up to the reader to contemplate, but plenty of readers (especially men) might misinterpret what is intended to be a cautionary tale and instead take it as a suggestion. The main character, David Fuffman, inhabits such a problematic space of ignorance and bystanderism that he becomes almost instantly unlikable. David could be described as the antithesis of “see something, say something” – a cowardly and privileged college student who gets off on saving others and refuses to be held accountable for his actions. Someone who wants so desperately to be a hero lays awash in pure mediocrity of character, which sometimes feels like it wants to be an important lesson to those who misjudge being a hero with being a good person. More often than not, though, it just makes David seem really spineless and detestable without actually offering an alternative solution. If this was intentional, it was a complete success, but I could’ve used a really great foil to David to portray a healthier version of masculinity – which just about every notable character falls short on.

***DISCLAIMER: spoilers ahead!***

The biggest gripe I have about this book is its handling of sexual assault, especially in its failure to send a direct message about the impact of rape culture and hypermasculinity, particularly on women. While Nemett attempts to address sexual assault in his third-person narrative, the narration of the novel ends up feeling lukewarm and fails to take a firm enough stance on the wrongness of such actions. The narrative even goes so far as to place Haley’s character as a sexual assault survivor who is grappling with trauma in a position of committing tit-for-tat violence for the sake of revenge, which does nothing for her narrative except paint a harmful and unfair picture of trauma survivors as payback-hungry and immature. This revenge plot might have been somewhat successful if it hadn’t been immediately followed with consensual sexual acts between the same two characters in the very same scene in an attempt to erase what had just happened for the sake of character absolution and sexually-driven plot karma – haunted by both characters whispering “it’s fine” over and over to one another. Yikes.

Problematic depictions aside, there are some genuinely well-handled themes at work here and there’s certainly plenty of food for thought behind this book. Most notably, the haunting reminder of what can happen when people begin to worship someone who is mortally flawed and not nearly as godlike as they may appear is an important theme, especially in this political era. Themes of religion, propaganda, fascism masked by pseudo-altruism, and cultish collectivism are rampant in this novel, and are interrogated quite well throughout. Having finished this book I’m thinking of the title not as a statement, but a question: can we save us all?

About the Book:We Can Save Us All by Adam Nemett (2018) takes place in near-futuristic mid-2020’s New Jersey at Princeton University, where a group of students led by trust fund baby Mathias Blue form a rebellious band of pseudo-superheroes to fight back against the impending apocalypse. Armed with hallucinogenic drugs, homemade costumes, and an arrogant mission to save the world from certain doom, these students set out to spread their cultish message of deliverance in the throes of climate crisis, constant war, and the shortening of time itself.

Review: The Eye of Minds by James Dashner

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This book has been sitting on my to-be-read pile for a LONG time (I’m talking years), so I’m glad I finally had the time to get through it! This is a new(er) book by James Dashner (of The Maze Runner fame). I wanted to like The Eye of Minds a lot, but it definitely had some flaws that kept me from enjoying it as fully as I wanted to. I ended up rating it a solid three stars – I really enjoyed the plot and it moved quickly enough for me, but the character development was so sorely lacking that it completely took away any interest that I might’ve had in this book.

I can’t put it off any longer – good grief, these characters were flat. The development of Michael, Bryson, and Sarah was so lacking that I felt as though I could’ve been following three faceless, personality-less people through the book. I started to sort-of like Sarah toward the end of the book, but it’s really clear to me after reading this book that writing compelling female characters is just not a strength of James Dashner’s. This is something that I was suspect of after reading the Maze Runner series, but this book definitely isn’t any better. (In fact, I was originally so uninvested that I read about 20 pages and then put the book down for over a year last time I tried to read it.) Luckily, the plot of this book redeemed what the characters took away, and that was enough for me to keep reading after the storyline picked up.

I really enjoyed the scale and possibility a setting like this presented to the storyline, which was a needed breath of fresh air after some of the stale exchanges between characters. Something like the VirtNet presents an almost infinite set of possibilities in world-building, which was quite entertaining to read. Dashner’s imagination (and penchant for dreaming up completely terrifying villains) had me guessing through the entire book. Even as much as I disliked reading these characters, the plot twist at the end of the book did genuinely have me reeling – something I love in a good science fiction novel. (Duh!)

While I don’t think The Eye of Minds is a bad book by any means, if you’re looking for a quick read with a compelling sci-fi plot and a unique plot twist, this might be a good pick.

About the Book:The Eye of Minds is a young adult science fiction novel and the first installment in the Mortality Doctrine series. The book follows Michael, a young gamer whose hacking skills have gotten him noticed, but possibly for the wrong reasons. The VirtNet is an expansive and completely immersive universe of technological possibility, but in the wrong hands, it’s devastating. In the wake of a cyberterrorist takeover holding gamers hostage inside the VirtNet, rendering them brain-dead in the real world, Michael and his friends will need to risk their lives to go deeper into the VirtNet than anyone ever has to stop it.

#RereadAndReview: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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Unlike some, I have to admit I’m quite fond of rereading books, so here’s the natural choice for me – the one and only The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins! This book is one of my all-time faves and I haven’t cracked its spine in a solid few years, so it was a no-brainer as to which book would be my first re-read of 2019.

This book gets a solid (and rare) five stars for me without question. This is actually the first book I’ve ever read that features a main character who reads as asexual/aromantic, and although I have my own feelings about how that story ends up… *eye roll* …the first book is a stunning foray into the beginnings of the recent dystopian fiction craze in YA fiction.

Representation aside, this book is still one of my favorites because of Collins’s ability to write a character who is supposed to be utterly unlikeable and still make readers root for her. Katniss is flawed, deeply, and that’s precisely why she’s so easy to relate to. It’s easy for a lot of readers to see something in Katniss that we also see in ourselves, and that’s part of the magic of a great protagonist. Collins does this masterfully. (On more than one occasion – the stuck-up Effie Trinket and belligerent drunkard Haymitch Abernathy are both equally as likable as Katniss herself, which makes this novel a joy to read.)

Just as compelling as the character development in this book is the setting in which it takes place. While this isn’t my absolute favorite job of world-building that’s been done in a work of fiction, it’s certainly a damn good job. Collins is a master of the “show, don’t tell” skill set, to the point that I was actually angry watching the movie adaptation because I had imagined exact details of different locations while reading and they weren’t exactly the same on screen as they were in my head. It’s so easy to get sucked into the Hunger Games universe, largely because of the digestible and illustrative writing.

***SPOILERS BELOW!***

As far as faults go, there are relatively few here for me. Honestly, although this doesn’t become a problem until further on in the trilogy, the biggest drawback of The Hunger Games for me is its insistence that Katniss participate in a romantic relationship. While the public appeal of romance was necessary to the plot (I’m talking staying alive-necessary), Katniss’s feelings about it after the fact certainly were not mutual and it was quite clear that this was the case. I felt really slighted by the fact that her character somehow couldn’t just… be aromantic. Even if it wasn’t “official canon,” it’s VERY plausible that she just. wasn’t. interested. All of the subsequent romantic subplots felt very contrived to me, and it really only gets worse as we keep going in this trilogy – but we’ll get to that another time.

Even so, The Hunger Games is (still) one of the most satisfying, can’t-put-it-down, masterfully written dystopian YA novels of the 21st century. Even after reading and re-reading this one over and over, it still retains the charm and heart-pounding magnetic pull that it had the first time around.

About the Book: The Hunger Games is a dystopian YA adventure novel that takes place in a futuristic nation called Panem, in the ruins of what was once North America. The sadistic government keeps its citizens in line by choosing one boy and one girl at random from each of the twelve districts for an annual televised fight to the death. The story focuses on 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen from District 12, whose life will be forever changed with the results of this year’s reaping.

Review: Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

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Now, I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction – so if you told me before the New Year hit that the first book I’d read in 2019 would be a Geraldine Brooks novel about the higher education system in colonial America, I’d have laughed in your face!

Nah, I confess, this book was assigned to me for a reading review for one of my classes in grad school. (I’m studying Higher Education and Student Affairs, so this was a natural pick for my professor.) Caleb’s Crossing is not something I typically would’ve picked up on my own, but I still have some feelings about it.

Overall, I rated this book three stars – I liked the narration and writing enough, and while I recognize that Geraldine writes historical narrative very well, I really just could not get past some of the dry, hard-to-follow dialect she used. I also have LOTS of feelings about the staging of the book and the impact of colonization on both the narrative and decisions made in the storytelling… woof. This book pissed me off pretty frequently, sometimes for all the wrong reasons.

I think the biggest issue I had with Caleb’s Crossing is that the book is essentially not about Caleb Cheeshateaumuk at all. I was completely shell-shocked when I struggled to read through the first chapter just to discover that our narrator is a young settler girl by the name of Bethia Mayfield, and not Caleb himself. While Bethia is a really likable character and ends up being a good foil to Caleb in terms of comparing lived experiences of both characters, this book falls short in centering the indigenous experience that Caleb’s story is proof of. Whether this was foolish or wise on Brooks’s part, I have yet to decide – if it’s even my place to decide (I identify as white, so who’s to say here). On one hand, I want to respect Brooks’s decision, since she is a white woman, to tell this story from a lens she can speak to, especially since she tells the novel in the first person. I can’t lie, Bethia made a great narrator, and I appreciated the relatively progressive gauntlet of internal grappling with privilege (for that time) that Brooks writes her into. On the other hand, though – I have yet to see an indigenous character whose story falls center, even when the story rotates around the indigenous experience. Maybe this just wasn’t Brooks’s story to tell.

This book also takes a while to get to the point, and I found myself wondering when the plot was going to pick up and deliver our characters to the setting that we readers were promised by the book summary and our knowledge of Caleb’s actual personhood. I thought the descriptions of the book’s plot were pretty misleading, and I feel like if I hadn’t read them before starting the book, I would have appreciated it a lot more.

Overall, this was a tough read but not a bad one. Caleb’s Crossing tells an important story and one that deserves plenty of reflection and discussion, but falls a bit flat when it comes to meeting expectations.

About the Book:Caleb’s Crossing is a fictionalized retelling of the true story of Caleb Cheeshateaumuk, the first indigenous graduate of Harvard College in 1665. The book takes place in mid-1600s Martha’s Vineyard on the occupied land of the Wampanoag nation, off the coast of what is now known as Massachusetts. The story follows young Bethia Mayfield, a preacher’s daughter, and her friendship with Caleb as they grow up together, and eventually through Caleb’s educational experience at Harvard.