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Grishaverse: Ruin and Rising Review
Ah the final book in the Grisha trilogy. This one I cannot keep my thoughts on the ending spoiler free but that will be under the cut. What I will say is that the book starts off strong.
Since the climax of Seige and Storm, Alina has been weak and her power faltering. A position that lets Apparet control most of her moves in the underground White Catherdral. He wants her to be a living Saint so he ccan grow his faithful army but Alina is desperate to find the last amplifier, the pheonix so they van save Ravka. The Apparet gave me such Rasputin vibes as he’s not an ally but also not an enemy but a rat waiting for the dust to settle before he makes his move and cement his own position.
Luckily, Alina’s true allies are able to get her out of their along with some faith on her part as returning to the light brings her more strength as Sun Summoner, so far that she manages to utilize the Darkling’s trick to get into his head. Unfortunately, the Darkling ha those centuries of experiences on his side and manages to unsettle her more than him.
Bardugo manages to keep things off-kilter with the plans of Nikolai and the others being quickly disrupted so they’re forced to regroup and come with new battle plans to defeat the Darkling before he enlargens the Fold.
Plot-wise, Bardugo delivers pathos and plot with the revelation of Baghara’s connection to the Darkling and thre greater heritage of Saint Mos. Character-wise, lots of great moments. Nikolai standing up against the king in regards to Genya’s treatment, Genya embracing herself as ruination, David showing his steel, Zoya being the sassy voice of reason, Nikolai fighting his volcra self and so on. For the last two I can’t wait to see them take center stage in the Nikolai duology!
Alina soon realizes that she may be one of a kind like the Darkling but she isn’t alone. All her allies have their own hurts, traumas and demons yet their ragtag group were also made of steel, they became sort of a family to her. It’s a meaningful revelarion that’s bolstered by the mini-group of Alina, Zoya, Tamar and Nadia bonding. Plus Toyla calling Alina his sister too. The character dynamics have really been solidified amidst the danger and war.
The Darkling has his fair share of development. While he may have shown some of his most heinous atrocities yet, he also shows some real vulnerability in his conversation with Alina and in his final moments. But even though he showed some humanity at those last moments, its clear that he could never be the ruler Ravka needed. While his original cause to help Grisha was just, his ego to be ruler of all through fear or death even striking down fellow Grisha just show how far gone he is after all these decades.
Meanwhile, Alina shows the greatest strength of all. It’s been theme that she wants to belong, she wants the destiny of the Sun Summoner because it will give her thatbelonging and sense of greatness that she never had as a scrawny orphan. Yet she also fears how that power will change her, possibly for the worst like the Darkling. Or maybe it’s all part of destiny. Just does she have the strength to do this?
We have seen Alina power-hungry but readers have also glimpsed that she is uncomfortable with being put on a pedestal as saint or queen so while I admire she has gained a backbone and more focused on priorities and doing what is needed but not at the cost of her humanity. That’s what makes her stronger than the Darkling, emotion-wise at least.
That leaves Mal. . .
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Grishaverse: Seige and Storm
While the first book had the weighty duty of introducing the world and magic systems Bardugo wanted to tell, it ultimately fell prey to some classic YA cliches that made it somewhat generic. The sophmore book shows grand improvements as it presents its cards straight up.
Set a few weeks after Alina and Mal’s frantic run from the Fold and the Darkling, they are hiding out in a small town, hoping to be able to get enough money to find a ride out to West Craftan where they’d be safe. The immediate problem is clear as even though she’s safe in hiding, not using her powers is making Alina weak, and moreover, she misses that rush. The Sun Summoner powers, being a Grisha is part of who she is. If they go into hiding forever, she’ll always be a liability as she spends most of her strength tamping down her powers.
Worse still is that Mal doesn’t seem to understand that and Alina somewhat resents how they’re back to their old roles with perfect, atheltic Mal and the less impressive, unatheltic Alina. Though Mal still clearly loves her even though she doesn’t look her best, looks so ordinary, it stings.
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Grishaverse: Shadow and Bone
I read this long long ago back when it first came out for one of those school read 5 books over the summer thing. But as it was homework, I sort of skimmed it. However, since it has expanded and grown to a hit tv show, I’d thought I’d actually read it this time around so here are my thoughts.
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Grishaverse: The Language of Thorns Review
These Midnight Tales by Leigh Bardugo collect stories from Ravka, Kerch, Fjerda and more showcasing her talent of taking that grim undercurrent of the original tales and delivering some universal truths about humanity and their desires for love, happiness and family.
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Ranking The Rajes
Dev brings a new spin to Austen’s famous works with her Rajes series, focusing on a formerly royal family settled in California as the hard-working new generation navigate social class nuances, chasing their dreams amid family pressures and expectations and of course, find love. For as Dev wrote in her author’s note for The Emma Project, Austen’s themes are still so relevant today:
Social class and prejudice is still important, being persuaded to give up dreams because they’re not ambitious enough, getting stuck between family expectation and your own dreams. All these are relevant in the modern day as she takes these subjects that Austen touched centuries ago and forges her own path to answer these questions. It’s a really wonderful series that not only delivers the happily ever afters but intergenerational family bonds and backstories too.
1. The Emma Project: This may just be my favorite because I enjoyed the personal baggage both Vanesh and Naina had to work through to realize what they have together is real, and mor eimportantly, that they bring out the best in each other.
The last Raje, Vansh also called Baby Prince has earned his nickname. He is a problem-solver, andoptimist. He has the Raje trait of trying to make things better for people, working on various organizations to help those without. He is upright in that he is willing to take responsibility even for things that aren’t his fault. But because of his status as the youngest and because sof his more social skills than book skills (possibly dysxlexia), he feels that he has been coddled by his family. He fears that he is babied because they secretly or at least unconsciously see him as “stupid”. So he thinks his new project, one meant to help the homeless will help prove to them and himself that he is capable.
Now, Knightlina or “Naina” as she prefers to be called is extremely copetent. She has to be to head up organization in Nepal and other places to help underserved women. Also to make up for her father’s disbelief in her capabailities. Though after all these years, she has realized that will never happen. He thinks she’s only worth something if she can get married well, a sentiment echoed by her mother who wants Naina to get back with Yash. Naina can’t do that obviously as their relationship had been a sham arrangement all along but she most certainly can’t get with Vanesh either. He’s Yash’s brother, he’s twelve years younger, she has literally seen him in diapers!
But now they’re working closely together as millionaire Jiggy will only fund her organization with Vanesh’s name at the helm. She is a bit rankled that Vanesh doesn’t realize how easily he got the job without any qualifications to back him up or that his initial optimism makes him oblivious to that he’s being used for his name. Vanesh is more than insulted that she calls his choice to help the homeless a “Emma project,” something idealistic and unfeasible and aims to prove her wrong.
That’s where the book gets very interesting balancing real concerns and policies about helping the homeless with steamy workplace tension as both struggle to ignore their feelings. Their time spent together also forces them to confront their personal flaws with Vanesh learning adminstrative side to creating a foundation. Also his personal projection, feeling that those who have been coddled just need a push to prove themselve doesn’t always work as with the case of the really talented, yet anxious Hari.
Naina is dealing with her own issues as she longs for the family closeness of the Rajes but also feels uncomfortable with it. It doesn’t help that they’ve been given her a wide berth since her break up with Yash. But more that that, she has to get root of the issue with her estranged adultification relationship with her mother that makes her feel unbearably guilty yet degraded her self esteem everytime they talk. Together, they help challemge those conceptions of themselves.
Plus, the Rajes’ eldest cousin Esha finds her own romance with Sid giving more backstory to the family’s clairvoyant and a true full circle feeling as everyone finds someone they love.
The only thing I wish was explored more was the rajes’ hypocrisy regarding naina and Vanesh. They claim they felt it was wrong because of the twelve year age difference but I feel like there were some leftover baggage from the Yash/Naina split that didn’t get to be explored.
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Cursed Review
Cursed starts right where the action left on, the stakes high as Serilda submitted to the Erlking’s proposal, become his wife, pretend her unborn child is his and obey almost all his wishes until Percheta returns. Then he could gift his evil huntress Serilda’s baby and dispose of Serilda herself. It will all be worth it to save the five ghost children she had unwittingly led to Erlking’s sights.
But Serilda is more than a mortal, she is the godchild of Wyrdith and with Gild by her side, they are determined to find their original bodies and break the curse before Erlking can wreck havoc on the world with his dark ones and his queen.
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Ranking the Women Who Dare
1. Wild Rain: Jenkins’ admits this is her first book with a cinnamon roll hero and as someone who has a weakness for that kind of man, this one comes first as Garret’s kind ways soothes the independent (and hurt) spirit of Spring Lee when he comes to her small Wyoming town of Paradise.
This is a quiet book befitting its setting in the pristine west before industrialization. While trains and lumber mills may be approching, Paradise still stands with its beautuous mountain view and spring rains in a town whose members care for each other for the most part. This landscape beauty helps to encourage the character companionship Spring and Garret share when Garret’s bruised knee leads him to staying at Spring’s place for a spell.
See, Garret McCray is a “city” man from Seattle come to interview Spring’s brother, Colton about being one of the few colored doctors in the West. He also comes to learn about the whole town and its residents including the despicable Mitch Ketchum whose harrasment of Spring will not be abated and whose partnership with a smarmy banker only spells trouble. It’s a conflict between the industrializing East and the once peaceful West as more Natives are being kicked off their land and the colored race start to wonder if the segregationist practices and prejudices will soon arrive to the territories.
It is because of Mitch and his father that Spring remains so guarded. She believes all she needs is respect for herself, her family and her homestead but Garret’s kindness, his respect, just his decency has her rethinking her stance of bachelorettehood. As she muses, meeting Garret has changed her. Not to a better person but a different one but she was okay with that because it has allowed her to be open with her feelings in a way she hadn’t been able to do so before.
What makes this one my favorite of the trilogy is how there is more external obstacles rather than the classic case of communication issues holding these characters back. There are internal issues as well, especially for Spring and her estrangement with her grandfather, Ben but that only makes the moments of trust and communication between them more meaningful.
Plus Jenkins doesn’t skimp in creating an interesting backstory for both, having Garrett come from escaping slavery which informs his familial background (especially his father, Hiram and their views when it comes to marriage) and allows Jenkins to seamlessly weave a historical lesson in the history of black naval men, sundown newspapers and lawyers. I enjoy the historical detail that makes the world more rich and teaches me something new but the history nerd in me sometimes wish Jenkins delved into things like sundown newspapers a bit more as I recall those were controversial in the day and subjected to violence and burning.
But on the subject of newspapers, Jenkins also touches on Native American bigotry as Garrett meeting Spring’s friend and business partner, Ed Prescott has him humbled that he ever believed the drival of “uncivilized savages”. She also hints at a compelling backstory and conflict of Ben and his Shoshone wife whom he drove away with his “civilizing” ways, another strike against him from Spring’s point of view.
With such a well-done couple of different backgrounds yet both have a hurt child carried within them bring light to each others’ lives, and a nice change of pace from drama of city society, this reached the number one spot for me.
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Thoughts on The Last Hours
As with The Eldest Curses, I can’t do a full trilogy overview with the third book coming out next year. But Idecided why not post this just to finish off the Shadowhunter Chronicles. it took 4 years but I finally did it! Anyway, here are my thoughts so far.
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Book Highlight: Unsung Heroines of the Holocaust
This is an important book. Discounting the rise of ahate crimes that you can see every day on the news, but survivors of the Holocaust are slowly dying out. It is an event that shouldn’t be forgotten and I certainly think people will remember but hearing and seeing witness account do stick more.
This book is a good addition to the history books and living catalogue. Swartz chose to highlight those who survived and lived after the war because living fufilling lives was another way to defeat the Nazis who had taken so much from them.
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Lev A.C. Rosen Interview
Lev is the author of Jack of Hearts, Camp and other books for all ages. Varying in genre, Rosen has been in the forefront of presenting queer stories post-coming out. When he’s not writing, he teaches creative writing at Gotham Writers Workshop. He kindly took the time to answer my questions about his work, inspiration, favorite musicals and upcoming books. Enjoy.
1. With the increase of book banning, how did you navigate your sex-positive book, Jack of Hearts involving consent, safety and education? It’s so realistic in acknowledging that teens have hookups and talk about sex, was there censorship or blowback?
So Jack of Hearts was released in 2018, and was written in 2017, ages before this new wave of book banning picked up. In fact, though Jack is, according to CBS, one of the top 50 most banned books in the country, no one even challenged it for the first few years it was out. It wasn’t until these dark money funded conservative groups decided books were the next place to try to abuse queer people – and queer kids in particular – that they were even aware of my book. So while I did expect some pushback, I didn’t really get any until recently. Since it started it’s been a bit bigger than I thought it would be originally. But again, that’s because of these conservative groups pushing their homophobic and puritan agenda.
2. You’ve talked about you want to write stories beyond the coming-out staple. What other stories are you planning to explore?
I think that coming out stories are important, and valuable to people, as what coming out is keeps changing, and especially when there are coming out stories from particular groups we haven’t seen yet, but as for writing them, I personally don’t have a big interest in them, at least not right now. I’m more interested in telling post-coming out stories that deal with the way queerness is treated when you are out. I don’t like the idea of coming out being an ending, so I focus on what queerness is afterwards.
As for stories I want to tell next, I have two more YA books coming out next year: Lion’s Legacy, and Emmett, and they’re both post-coming out stories, the first dealing with how queer history is erased and overlooked, and also how to deal with a parent who was great about your queerness, but maybe not great about other things. And Emmett is a modern queer retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, with an emphasis on the messiness of how when you’re queer your best friends, casual hook-ups and significant others all come from the same pool, and often overlap, and how to manage all that. So they both absolutely still explore queerness.
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Rachel Reads & Reviews 