Holiday reading

[dolorosa_12]

I didn't read quite as much as I expected on my most recent Baltic holiday, given that large stretches of it involved long train journeys, or international flights — I found myself spending much of this time just looking out the window, marvelling at the lakes and clouds below, or the apple trees flying by. But I did read some books at least, and they were as follows:

The Love Hypothesis (Ali Hazelwood), read on the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, and the train from Tallinn to Tartu. This is a romance novel that originated as a piece of Reylo fanfic, and in spite of the AU setting (contemporary academia), once you know the book's origins, the serial numbers are not filed off so much as half-heartedly obscured. It was fun enough for travel reading, but the premise was ludicrous (would any Ivy League university pay that much attention to its academics' love lives that a fake dating scenario would be enough to convince them that their star professor wasn't planning to jump ship for another univeristy?), although I felt its depiction of academia was relatively true to life, if exaggerated for dramatic effect.

He Who Drowned the World (Shelley Parker-Chan), read on the train from Tartu to Riga, and Riga to Vilnius. The second half of the epic fantasy Radiant Emperor duology, inspired by Chinese history, and as staggeringly brilliant as the first half. This is a story about power, and about people who were made vulnerable and afraid, and whose reaction to that powerlessness, fear and vulnerability is to set about creating a situation in which they will never feel such things again, even if they have to destroy the world and make a bonfire of their every relationship to do so — which is one of my very, very, very favourite arcs and plotlines. It also features one of my favourite types of characters in Ma (a woman whose manner of exercising power is overlooked and unnoticed), and in general is just an incredibly accomplished debut work of fiction. My only small quibble is that I feel it didn't quite stick the landing, and certain aspects of the ending felt too easy and unnearned — but the journey to get to that point was so flawlessly executed that I don't really mind.

The Friend Zone Experiment (Zen Cho), read on the plane from Vilnius to Stansted, and the train back home. This is marketed as a romance novel, but feels more accurately described as contemporary women's fiction. The best way I can sum it up is Crazy Rich Asians meets Persuasion: the story of a thirtysomething couple who never quite managed to make their relationship work when they first met as university students in their twenties, against the backdrop of the financial and political corruption of southeast Asia's super rich, and their own respective family dramas. It's written with deep affection for the city of London, and the southeast Asian (specifically Malaysian, although there are also characters from Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam) diaspora community who have made it their second home, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

In a Garden Burning Gold (Rory Power), read this weekend, but since it's a long weekend in the UK I'm counting it as 'holiday reading.' This is the first in a fantasy series inspired by the history and mythology of various countries around the Mediterranean. At its heart is a dysfunctional family of characters with godlike powers and immortality who maintain their position through a mixture of coercion, bargaining, and profoundly unequal exchange (of the 'you give us one of your citizens to marry our daughter, you'll get bountiful harvest in return, and at the end of a season, she'll kill her spouse as a sacrifice' type). This state of affairs has continued unchangingly for close to a century, but inevitably, rebellion is simmering beneath the surface, and by the end of the book, all is in flux, with relationships ruptured and a new world in the making. Certain parts of the book are done very well: the sense of place, the characters' specific supernatural abilities, the experience of being adult children of an abusive parent, while other areas are perhaps weaker, but I enjoyed it a lot, and will certainly look out for the sequels.

Comments

[lokifan]

So excited for He Who Drowned the World! I loved the first one. And yeah Ma is so great.

The Rory Power sounds intriguing!

[dolorosa_12]

It's rare these days that a wildly acclaimed SFF series lives up to the hype in my experience, but that duology has definitely earned all the hype it's received.

I hope you like the Rory Power book, if you give it a try.