This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede – ARC Review

Thank you to Hodderscape and Netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Three weddings. Three funerals. Alessa’s gift from the gods is supposed to magnify a partner’s magic, not kill every suitor she touches.

Now, with only weeks left until a hungry swarm of demons devours everything on her island home, Alessa is running out of time to find a partner and stop the invasion. When a powerful priest convinces the faithful that killing Alessa is the island’s only hope, her own soldiers try to assassinate her.

Desperate to survive, Alessa hires Dante, a cynical outcast marked as a killer, to become her personal bodyguard. But as rebellion explodes outside the gates, Dante’s dark secrets may be the biggest betrayal. He holds the key to her survival and her heart, but is he the one person who can help her master her gift or destroy her once and for all?

This book had me hooked from the beginning and I flew through the book. I really enjoyed the story and the discussions around love and that there are different types of love and being lonely. I also liked the discussions around people in power and how the poorer people are not given the same protections.

Alessa was an interesting character though she could get annoying at times especially at the risks she took but you know what if I was under the pressure she was under I may become a little reckless too. I really did sympathise with her though as she is unable to touch anyone without killing them so she has become isolated and lonely and fed the fantasy that once she finds her true partner then she will have everything she desires. But unfortunately for her she keeps killing her partners and this makes her struggle with her own self worth and whether the world would be better off without her. 

Once she meets the mysterious Dante though, she starts to believe in herself more and learns that she is more capable than she gives herself credit for and he helps her to see a world outside of her gilded cage. I really liked Dante and how he showed Alessa that the world she has been taught to believe in may not be as just and fair as she thinks. He makes her question things and see that just because something has been done a specific way it doesn’t mean that is the only way. 

I also really enjoyed the side characters and hope we get to see more of them in the sequel and how they initially did not want to be near Alessa but by the end they learnt to trust her and she learnt to trust them and they became a unit. It was so great to see Alessa build relationships that are not romantic because she had been starved of friendship too which she needed and found in them.

The second half of the book had some intense moments and some revelations that I did not see coming but I loved as it added more mystery to the world and history that we have been told. I hope we get to explore this more in the sequel.

I did feel the ending was a little rushed, I was hoping to see more of the battle that has been built up throughout the book and some of the aftermath especially regarding Dante and what happens to him. I am especially looking forward to seeing more of him and his arc in the sequel.

The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne – ARC Review

Thank you to Orbit Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Everyone knows the tale of Rapunzel in her tower, but do you know the story of the witch who put her there?

Haelewise has always lived under the shadow of her mother, Hedda—a woman who will do anything to keep her daughter protected. For with her strange black eyes and even stranger fainting spells, Haelewise is shunned by her medieval village, and her only solace lies in the stories her mother tells of child-stealing witches, of princes in wolf-skins, of an ancient tower cloaked in mist, where women will find shelter if they are brave enough to seek it.

Then, Hedda dies, and Haelewise is left unmoored. With nothing left for her in her village, she sets out to find the legendary tower her mother used to speak of—a place called Gothel, where Haelewise meets a wise woman willing to take her under her wing.

But Haelewise is not the only woman to seek refuge at Gothel. It’s also a haven for a girl named Rika, who carries with her a secret the Church strives to keep hidden. A secret that unlocks a dark world of ancient spells and murderous nobles behind the world Haelewise has always known…

I love the story of Rapunzal and so I was very intrigued by this retelling but from the point of view of Mother Gothel. I have not liked her in any version of the story but this story had me rooting for her!

This is a wholly unique take on the story where we see her from childhood to adult and all the events that led her to becoming the Mother Gothel we know in the story of Rapunzal. I really loved how Mary gave us the perspective of Haelewise who is always known as the villain and yet in this story she is so much more than the evil witch who stole Rapunzal. Her going to seek refuge in the tower of Gothel is the catalyst for how her story goes from her being an insignificant peasant girl to the legendary Mother Gothel and yet in this story we question whether she was truly the evil witch the people made her out to be.

Even as young as ten, I understood that men make up reasons to get rid of women they find disagreeable.

The story has a slow start but I really enjoyed seeing who she was and how she grew into who the legends say she was. She is fierce and cares deeply for those she loves, she is an angry woman who has been put into difficult situations just because she is a woman. I related to her a lot which surprised me but I ended up really loving her and her reliance and perseverance through everything. 

It was so interesting to see how we see a pagan religion fighting to survive in a community that called them witches and would kill anyone for practising it. How a secret society was built through a network of women where Haelewise finally found companionship and acceptance. She works as a healer and women who have nowhere else to go come to her and I just really loved how she cared so deeply for these women and did everything she could to help them.

“Will you come?” He met my eyes. “I would go with you anywhere.”

We meet Haelewise as a young girl who has fainting spells and so is shunned to the edges of the community and yet makes a friend in Matthaus. This quickly blossoms into something more but circumstances keep them apart and yet they find their way to each other again and again. I really loved seeing their story and how despite everything they keep finding each other. 

I do wish we could have seen more of her story as an adult and especially her story after she took Rapunzal to the tower and how that story wove into hers but is only a small part of her life and yet that is what she is remembered for. I would especially have loved to see more of adult Haelewise and Matthaus. 

A woman doesn’t have to be pure to be good. Girls get angry. Mothers fight for their children.

I really enjoyed this story even though it was something really different to what I was expecting and once I started I flew through the story and was completely invested in her story. The ending was a nice little twist too!

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake – ARC Review

Thank you to Tor Books for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.

Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

Most of them.

This book blew my mind! Every single time I thought I knew what was happening a plot twist came and left me reeling! This book is very character driven and we get to see the point of views of all six characters. Each and every character is absolute chaos and I love them all so much. My favourites however are Nico and Libby, I absolutely loved their dynamic.

No one here is good. Knowledge is carnage. You can’t have it without sacrifice.

This book follows six people who have some incredible abilities as well as being some of the smartest minds on the planet. I loved every single one of them, they’re all so unique and each have their own story within the main story of them fighting for a spot to be part of the society. They each have their own strength and weaknesses and they have to learn to work together despite not trusting each other. When they get to the decision of who is going to be eliminated it was so interesting to see it from each of their point of views.

Really there was nothing more dangerous than a woman who knew her own worth.

Libby was one of my favourites because although she is incredibly smart and very capable, she has anxiety which shows in how she is constantly needing to prove herself and the way she fidgets all the time and it was so relatable. Nico is so caring and loyal to his friends and I loved seeing his friendship with Gideon. I also loved Parisa and how confident and smart she is and uses everything to her advantage even the fact that she incredibly beautiful which always makes others underestimate her. Tristan’s ability was also really interesting and one of my favourite scenes is of him and Libby working together to protect the library. Callum was one who I didn’t like until the end which honestly surprised me.

Either you believe you’re worthy or you don’t, end of story.

Right from the beginning I was completely hooked and stayed up late at night to read just one more chapter because I just needed to know everything! Every time I thought I had figured things out, I was left reeling because I did not in fact figure things out and it was such a wild ride! There is a lot of science in this and when I’m reading I felt like I was sitting in class with them listening to the smart kids talk about advanced science that had me feeling like I was not as smart as school had convinced me I was.

But princesses can be monstrous at times

I loved reading this book and the interactions between the characters especially Nico and Libby and their bickering but also knowing each other so well. The last part of the book were we finally start to see all the pieces fitting together and figuring out what everything has been leading up to was so satisfying and it had me screaming. Then we get to the end which was intense and an absolute wild ride and now I am dying in anticipation for the sequel because I need to know what will happen next.

The Righteous by Renee Ahdieh – ARC Review

Thank you to Hodderscape and Netgalley for sending me this arc in exchange for an honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Pippa Montrose is tired of losing everything she loves. When her best friend Celine disappears under mysterious circumstances, Pippa resolves to find her, even if the journey takes her into the dangerous world of the fae, where she might find more than she bargained for in the charismatic Arjun Desai.

This is the third book in The Beautiful Quartet and each book just keeps getting better and better! These books can be read in any order but I do recommend reading them in the order they are released to get a rich experience.

I absolutely adored this book and I was so happy to see that we would get to see Arjun and Pippa’s point of view as they were my favourite side characters in the first two books. We also see more of Celine, Bastian, Michael and Emilie from the first two books.

Each book expands the world of The Beautiful more and more and in this book we get to spend a lot more time in the world of the fey, we see how they live and how different they are from the human world and we see their politics and the rising tensions between the summer and winter courts. It was so interesting to see this world though I did miss the New Orleans and especially the court of lions. Maybe we will see them again in the next book.

Love was for the foolish. And Arjun Desai was no fool.

This book has a marriage of convenience, only one bed scene and multiple interactions between Arjun and Pippa where he calls her a term of endearment in Urdu and she doesn’t understand! Every time he did I would just have a big goofy grin on my face because it was the sweetest thing ever! I loved the dynamic between Pippa and Arjun so much and how well they compliment each other. How they understand each other so well in such a short time and the secret pining for each other almost killed me! They notice the smallest things about each other like how Arjun promises to not let her ever go hungry in their marriage vows when she reveals that she often went hungry growing up.

Conquering a man’s country does not mean you have conquered his soul.

I loved their development throughout the book and one of the things I loved most was that Arjun was not afraid to call Pippa out on her colonialist thinking and her white privilege and Pippa took the time to listen, apologise and learn from it. We do see this discussion happen throughout the series and it is so well done.

One of my favourite things about these books is how we get fae and vampires but they’re people of colour and their cultures are shown in their courts. It was so nice to be able to see that in the story especially when we usually see fae and vampires they are always white but now we get to see people of colour and ourselves in the story.

Men had been given access to power all their lives. It was their so called birthright. Maybe it was time for them to see what a woman could do.

We also see more of Celine and Bastian in this book and it’s so interesting to see how Celine is the one who is drawn to power and Bastian doesn’t want it. Bastian has always had power, but Celine hasn’t and now she realises she can have that freedom and choice she is often denied because she is a woman. The ongoing discussions around women and how the patriarchal society pushed them down and caged them in certain roles is one I have loved seeing throughout the books. We also see how the patriarchy hurts men too, like Bastian and how he must unlearn so many toxic ideas.

We get a few chapters from Michael’s point of view too in this book and let me just tell you that I completely and entirely hate this man. He has nothing but the audacity and if Celine doesn’t slap him, I will. In the first two books I was indifferent towards him but now we see how entitled he feels and how he puts blame on others instead of taking responsibility and it infuriated me.

The writing and the story is absolutely incredible and had me completely and entirely hooked to the point where I was up late at night to read just one more chapter. The tension that built up slowly throughout the book and then chaos ensued at the end with the ending being left on a cliffhanger left me screaming. And a cameo from one of Renee’s previous books that left me shook and so incredibly happy to see!

I need everyone to go read these books because they are incredible and deserve all the love.

The Muslim Problem: Why We’re Wrong About Islam and Why It Matters by Tawseef Khan – ARC Review

Thank you to Atlantic Books for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review. I was tentatively looking forward to reading this but this book was such a disappointment.

⭐

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Why are Muslim men portrayed as inherently violent? Does the veil violate women’s rights? Is Islam stopping Muslims from integrating?

Across western societies, Muslims are more misunderstood than any other minority. But what does it mean to believe in Islam today, to have forged your beliefs and identity in the shadow of 9/11 and the War on Terror? Exploding stereotypes from both inside and outside the faith, The Muslim Problem shows that while we may think we know all about Islam we are often wrong about even the most basic facts.

The synopsis sounds like this would be a great read with a nuanced discussion however this was not what this book was. It started with talking about how Muslims celebrate Christmas and just got worse from there. It took me months to get through this book because I had to keep putting it down because it made me so mad.

The only decent thing in this book was discussing the political history which has led to the increase in Islamophobia and violence against Muslims. I actually liked how he wrote about this and truly the only good part of each chapter was this discussion. If you are going to read this book just read these parts.

I for the life of me cannot understand how he so easily insulted scholars and spoke about the companions of the Prophet (pbuh) and repeatedly stated that using common sense is enough to understand the Quran. It really isn’t because this is how people twist the words, they have no real education in any of this and go about deciding for themselves what the Quran says. He also didn’t speak to actual scholars regarding these issues, only speaking to activists isn’t enough. They have not dedicated years to understanding the Quran and the Prophet (pbuh) teachings. Especially as our first language is English we cannot truly understand the Quran unless we can read and understand Arabic which I don’t think a lot of us are. Honestly by the end of the book I was so incredibly mad about all the misinformation about Islam and the way the author dismissed and belittled over a thousand year of Islamic scholarship.

Starting the first chapter with the claim that Muslims integrate because they celebrate Christmas left me with a sense of dread as to what the rest of the book will hold because I shouldn’t have to celebrate another religions, religious festival to be considered as integrated into society. This is assimilation, the irony is that he actually discusses assimilation in a later chapter yet doesn’t see how this is also assimilation. Also saying that he laughed at scholars who have explained why we don’t celebrate Christmas, and called it inane remarks is not the progressive thinking that you think it is.

I completely lost all faith in this book when he started to say how hadith are unreliable and came after the companions of the Prophet (pbuh) saying that they were oppressive and unreliable. Truly I don’t know where he found this because the ones he specifically mentioned are known for their reliability and standing up for justice.

There was also an undertone that is incredibly problematic which was regarding “conservative Muslims” and how they were an issue. He even grouped Islamophobes and them together as if they are the same. Just because someone chooses to practice Islam in a way that you aren’t comfortable with that doesn’t make them wrong or bad. There are parts of Islam that aren’t completely compatible with the western culture and you know what that is okay. You can’t change or water down Islam and claim that this is the correct thing and look down on others. There was several instances of humble bragging that had me rolling my eyes too and I just…it’s safe to say that I did not enjoy this book, at all.

I am tired of books being published that have so much misinformation or written in a way that makes Islam palatable to non-Muslims because what is even the point of these books. If you are going to write about Islamic beliefs and integral parts of the faith then at least go speak to the actual scholars about it.

This book is called the Muslim problem and yet all it does is create more problems. People reading this will look at me and say why am I not celebrating Christmas and that I am not integrating. It’s awkward enough as it is to explain why I don’t want to take part in Christmas celebrations without other Muslims claiming it is absolutely fine. The fact that the reviews I’ve seen so far that praise this book is all from non-Muslims and the reviews from Muslims are all discussing the issues in this book and how it is not a great book to deal with these issues should tell you all you need to know about how reliable the information about Islam really is.