Hi friends,
July was a much better month than May and June. We went almost the whole month without getting sick. Then Lincoln brought home a little head cold that we shared with folks at Dan’s family reunion. Thankfully, it was pretty mild.
We enjoyed the 4th of July at home, Chloe went to a few summer camps, and we worked. I also got a few good books in including Secret Project #3 from Brandon Sanderson. Let me know what you think about these books and if you have suggestions for future reading.
Cheers,
Tonya
Bloodmarked (Legendborn #2) by Tracy Deonn
Rating: 2 of 5 stars
Recommendation: the first one was better
Review: I thought that this series was a duology, so I was expecting it to wrap up with this book, but I was wrong, and I was really frustrated reading the end of this book and realizing that it is in fact the second in a series. I’m not sure how many books are in the series, but I’m not sure I’ll read any more. This was a major let-down after the first. I loved how the first Legendborn ended, and I felt like it was a refreshing and unique take on common young adult fantasy tropes, but almost everything I liked about the first one was absent in this including one of my favorite characters who only had a few scenes. This one seemed to meander and just berated the same themes that the first one explored. In particular, it focused on dealing with the choices that other people make and how those consequences affect our lives. It’s pretty slow, and there’s a lot of teenage angst, although we do get to explore more of the world that Deonn has created including learning more about the different magic systems, which was fun. Overall, it wasn’t what I was expecting after reading the first.
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson
Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes!
Review: This is the third of four secret novels that Sanderson wrote during the extra time he had during the pandemic because he couldn’t travel. This one has been my favorite so far. Sanderson is known for intricate magic systems and extensive world building, but most fans agree that romance isn’t his strong point; however, he tries to change that with this book, which is at its heart, a romance. I’ve seen a lot of reviewers say that the romance didn’t work for them, particularly the ending, but I liked it. Maybe I just like romance more in general than your typical Sanderson fan, but I was definitely invested in the relationship between the two leads and enjoyed the Sander-lanche at the end. Like Tress of the Emerald Sea, this story is also narrated by everyone’s favorite worldhopper, Hoid, but he’s much less of a presence in this one. Sanderson mainly uses him to explain the somewhat-complicated events that happen with the magic systems at the climax, which was really helpful. I loved how Sanderson put his customary twist on the body-switch trope, and I really enjoyed the East Asian influence throughout the story. I know that Sanderson can write epic series, but I’m also happy to see that he can nail some shorter stand-alones.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann
Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: Grann writes nonfiction like a novel, which is a style that I usually enjoy. In this story, he relates the tale of the crew of The Wager, an 18th century British Navy vessel that gets shipwrecked coming around the tip of South America as part of a fleet in pursuit of a Spanish treasure ship. This swashbuckling tale has it all: mutiny, shipwreck, drama, treasure, and not one, but two extremely unlikely rescues. Grann writes at a good pace with enough detail that you’re immersed in the story but not so much that it drags. One thing that I couldn’t help wondering about was how much of the story he was interpreting for the reader. There was obviously a lot of contradictory accounts of the shipwreck and whether the events that followed could really be called a mutiny. Grann emphasizes how these supposedly civilized purveyors of British imperialism quickly turned on each other and proved to be much less capable of not just surviving but also working together than the natives who helped the castaways on several occasions, but whom the British sailors continuously put down and insisted needed to be civilized.
Delta-V (Delta-V #1) by Daniel Suarez
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: In this story, a small group of adventurers takes to the stars to mine an asteroid in the employ of a caricature of some familiar billionaire space CEOs that I’m sure you’ve heard of. The first part of the book is all about putting the team together. I found that this part dragged a little bit and was excited when the team finally took off for the asteroid. It’s pretty hard science fiction, and there’s quite a few robust discussions on the ethics of exploration, the economy, the technology that supports their mining and exploration, and commercial space policy. For someone who’s into all of those things, it was a great read. There are real consequences, and Suarez takes the time to explain the technology and science behind the plot, which makes it come alive. There are, of course, a few twists and surprises for our team of fist-time asteroid miners, and this is the first in a series, so I’m reserving judgment on the resolution of all the plot lines and character development until I read further.
Fourth Wing (The Empyrean #1) by Rebecca Yarros
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Recommendation: meh
Review: This book has hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list predominantly by riding the bow wave of the book community on TikTok who hail it as the best thing they’ve ever read. I decided to see if it lived up to the hype, and spoiler alert, I don’t think it did. This is a New Adult fantasy that relies on several common tropes including a magical school setting, dragon-riding, discovering hidden powers, and everyone’s favorite, a love triangle! Just kidding, I’m really sick of love triangles. I had several issues with this book: the first being said love triangle followed by the impracticality of the death rate at the battle/magic school that our protagonist is forced to attend by her draconian general mother. Only about 25% of students who enter the school finish their first year, and so many of the deaths were just stupid and seemingly happened just to up the body count and the stakes needlessly. Also, so much of the book, literally whole pages, are devoted to talking about how hot the male lead is. The story is told from the first-person point-of-view of Violet, whose mother is forcing her to enter the bloodbath of a school for an unknown reason that isn’t adequately explained. Violet spends most of the book either narrowly avoiding being killed or oggling the bad-boy male lead. If this was written from a man’s point-of-view, I can’t help but think that people would be screaming about how much objectification is going on. All that being said, something about Yarros writing kept me reading, and quickly. This is the type of novel that you binge read over a weekend, and when it’s over, you surface and wonder why? Yarros must have done something right because I did find it compelling and had a good time reading it. That being said, I really don’t see what all the hype is about. It’s good, but it’s not that good. |
| I love it when Lincoln's baby hair pokes straight up. |
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| The girls had a lot of fun at the bike parade our church had during our July 4th activity. |
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| The girls' favorite part of 4th of July is getting their faces painted at the celebration our city hosts. |
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| This year they also got to sit in a fire truck! |
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| My cuties at the Ft. Collins temple after a stake temple trip. Families can be together forever. |
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| He's coming for the phone! |
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