My last 4 books of 2020

1. Overwatch Anthology 1. I have a few friends who are reaaaaally into Overwatch and I was talked into joining them in a few games. Which I did. And had a bunch of fun. But I really lament the lack of a story mode in the game and so I started researching the characters, watched the Overwatch cinematics on Youtube and bought the comics anthology. I would've liked the comics to be a bit longer. They were all a bit on the short side. That said I did enjoy the comics starring Ana, Soldier and Reaper. The OG. I also had a lot of fun reading the comic about Torbjörn and Bastion, mainly because of the signs and headlines in Swedish (and actually grammatically correct Swedish unlike Brigitte's name and the fisherman outfit in the game). I'm a big fan of both Reaper and Tracer in the game and I also liked Tracer's comics in this anthology, especially her origin story. I hope there'll be a second anthology, but until that happens, I guess I have to read the rest of the comics on Blizzard's website. 

2. Whispers Under Ground, by Ben Aaronovitch. Really getting into this series now and it's starting to get interesting. Different kinds of magical folk, new kinds of magic and a sinister plot that we're only just beginning to uncover all dolled up as a common police procedural? I'm all for it! I love how Peter is basically just throwing his secret around and Nightingale is wincing at every turn over his lack of respect for the secrecy. The dynamic between the characters is half the fun of this series, along with all the references to Harry Potter, Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings. Just like the last book was all about jazz, this one was all about art and specifically pottery, but I enjoyed this subject a lot more than the jazz. Especially so since it offered a deep-dive into London history. In this book we have a proper murder investigation going and the victim is American so the FBI gets brought into the mix. I had a lot of fun reading this book and I'm tempted to get the rest of the series in one go and read them all in succession. But my reading backlog would hate me if I did. 

3. King of Scars, by Leigh Bardugo. I love, love, love the Grishaverse! The majority of this book was bittersweet nostalgia from the Shadow & Bone trilogy, but it was also peppered with references to Six of Crows. This book is probably the first time I've enjoyed reading about Nina. I loved Nikolai already in the first Grisha trilogy and I loved him when he showed up in Crooked Kingdom and I still loved him in this book. After five books in the Grishaverse, as a reader you feel pretty confident that you know how it works with the powers and the Saints and everything, but in the second half of this book Bardugo turns it all upside down and makes the reader reevaluate everything they think they know. I really appreciate when authors do that and when they do it so that the reader's preconceptions have to be reevaluated at the same pace that the characters' do. I really didn't see the end coming and Rule of Wolves promises to be very interesting. The ending had me actually filled with dread and anticipation of what's to come, and at the same time I'm super excited because Rule of Wolves promises the return of one of my favourite characters from Shadow & Bone. I'm stoked!

4. Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo. At this point I'm willing to read anything Leigh Bardugo puts her name on. This book was way different than the Grishaverse books she has written before, for one it's an adult novel; not YA, and for another it's urban fantasy. It did take a while to get into and the timing of the plot was a little bit confusing to begin with, but once I got to around 70-100 pages the rules of this new world had settled and things started to make sense. The most profound (and also feminist) quote of the book is: "Did she seem depressed? She was distant. She didn't make many friends. She was struggling in her classes. All true. But would it have mattered if she'd been someone else? If she'd been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she'd been a straight-A student, they would have said she'd been eaten alive by perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died." There were always excuses for why girls died. This one sentence is the basis for the whole book and it matters in ways I couldn't even imagine in the first half of the book. Heck, those words' meaning for the plot didn't become obvious until the last fifteen pages. The way the pieces of the puzzle come together is beautiful. The story is compelling. I loved this book.