My last 5 books: three flavours of fantasy and a bit of non-fiction on the side

1. The View from the Cheap Seats, by Neil Gaiman. I just got done reading 500 bittersweet pages. Sweet because they reminded me how much I used to love Gaiman's writings, bitter because everything is tainted now. I once wanted to collect everything he had ever written and I used to be so proud of how large my collection was getting. Now I'm considering to just throw it all away. I'm usually very good at separating the art from the artist, but I'm finding it exceedingly difficult this time.  Anyway, I rarely read non-fiction, which is why this book has been hanging around unread in my book shelf for around a decade. The beginning of this book is very sweet and as someone born in the 90s it reads a bit like a history lesson or a wise elder telling me stories of how things used to be. The middle rambles a bit. Especially the music section was a drag. The ending picks up and I almost shed a tear from the last three texts. I still love the way he writes, the way he tells a story, whether it's fiction or not. With the current state of things I want to rage at this, tear it apart piece by piece, scrutinise every detail, but dammit it's a good book. I really liked it. Begrudgingly. 

2. The Devils, by Joe Abercrombie. I can never say no to a new Abercrombie book, and why would I? They're always brilliant. And historical fantasy always tickles me, like "this happened, but what if..." and then this whole mess of magic and brilliance pours forth. I love Jakob and Rikard, unsurprisingly. We have a set of useful excommunicated supernatural misfits tasked with bringing a long lost princess to her home for coronation while her cousins who are all vying for the throne take turns to come at them with all manner of disastrous (and sometimes absolutely disgusting) magic. The frequent use of slaughterhouse and fish market as descriptors are not only telling but provides a 4D experience in reading that I wasn't anticipating. I could smell that sea battle. I'm very glad I lack a reference for a smell for the battle atop the mass grave. Arcadius deserved better, actually he deserved to be more than a footnote. There were three romantic (ish?) situations unfurling between the characters. One I adored and would've liked to see evolved, one was a lot of fun and it ended in absolute despair, and one where I simply didn't feel the chemistry - I would've been fine with them simply remaining fierce friends and not lovers. As usual with Abercrombie the plot is built upon lies upon lies upon lies and I'm very content with the fact that I for once had figured out who was behind it all before it was revealed. I am not okay with that ending, Vigga and Baptiste both deserve better. I hope the next one will still feature both Alex and Diaz and that they won't end up forgotten characters settled in their new offices. I'm all for more Jakob and Rikard, though!

3. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, by V.E. Schwab. This was the first book in my new attempt to read audiobooks. It's an exercise in maintaining focus without visual stimuli, which automatically means I suck at it. It's also my first ever V.E. Schwab book and I chose this specifically because I had so much good about her writing from booktube. I had no idea this was a vampire book going in, but when Alice finds blood spots without seemingly a source my vampire obsessed mind starts wondering and I go looking for reviews. And sure enough, it's a vampire book. Soon after that discovery I'm predictably completely hooked. This book is beautiful I love the prose, how it's poetic at times, almost lyrical, but never fails to be modern. All the evocation of fruits and flowers throughout creates a powerful image of something beautiful but easily spoiled, and that's the whole idea I think. Maria was egotistical from the start, which then became borderline narcissistic. Charlotte just wants to be loved. All she really wants is to be happy and free. And I guess the same could be said for Maria, but they have entirely different approaches to it. Alice gets caught in the middle, collateral damage of a centuries old toxic relationship. More than anything this is a story about women chafing against society's expectations of their role in it. Wanting to be more than vessels for future generations, wanting to be more than somebody's wife, wanting the ability to live their lives as they choose and not just within a set template, wanting to see the road that is their life curve and bend rather than just continue in a straight line towards the end. All I really wish there was more of in this book is Matteo. I want to know what eventually became of him. 

4. Powerless, by Lauren Roberts. As soon as I started this book I was just sat there like "So this is like Red Queen meets Hunger Games? Okay, I'm game." And it really is. And I had so much fun with this. Especially the banter, and oh I love Kai. He's just the right amount of broken. Paedyn is equally broken to match. It becomes painfully obvious that nothing will happen between them in this book pretty early on. Paedyn will do everything in her power to keep them from crossing that line for as long as Kai doesn't know the truth about her. But I'm fully expecting that they'll cross that line eventually, in the next one or the one after that. For all her observational skills Paedyn is a little bit stupid, though. Like of course the Resistance wouldn't tell her every detail of the plan with how close she is to the princes, and of course the king would never get his own hands dirty by killing her father himself, and of course the Resistance's actual plan involves doing harm to the princes since it's the only thing the king actually cares about (barring his queen). With the way things ended in this book I'm very excited for the next one :3

5. Paperbacks from Hell, by Grady Hendrix. This book is insane. What the hell were people on in the 70s and 80s? *glance at modern fanfiction* nvm it's not that different. This book describes the height of pulp horror fiction and it's glorious. Just a few pages in I've already been exposed to nazi leprechauns that are actually malformed babies taken from their mothers' uteruses in concentration camps and they're telepathic. The further we go the weirder it gets. Superpowers, body horror, the devil in every shape and form you can imagine, rabid animals, and so so so much sex, and the author describes it all with a combination of mirth and despair that's both tongue-in-cheek and scathing at the same time and I eat it all up, chuckling to myself as I turn the pages. I understand this guy's sense of humour, the sometimes complaints are testaments to how much he loves this genre, not a way to belittle it. I love the craziness, the tackiness, the camp, how preposterous every described storyline is and as I read my TBR steadily grows longer. Favourite line in the entire book? "Rice gave vampires a voice. And then they wouldn't shut up." Perfection.