I finally got my hands on the Wicked King this week, and it did not take me long to finish the book. I was surprised that this book looked thinner than The Cruel Prince however, I knew that thinness doesn’t matter when we are dealing with author Holly Black. Now onto my favorite couple, *looks at the smudged ink on my palm* Cardigan and Juice.
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I always wondered how Taryn could allow her sister, Jude, to get her heart broken by Locke when she was engaged to the man. The Lost Sisters is a short novella taking place after The Cruel Prince, but before Wicked King and according to my friend Ashley I needed to read it before Wicked King. Written as a letter to Jude, The Lost Sister is Taryn explaining the events leading up to her engagement. The Cruel Prince left me skeptical of Taryn but I’m willing to hear her out.
Here is the opening title sequence for the Princess Jellyfish manga try not to fall in love while watching it.
Princess Jellyfish is one of my favorite animes to rewatch when Ineed a mood boost. Although, like most of my favorite animes, it is unfinished. Luckily for me, I spotted a majority of the volumes at my library, and I can’t wait to see where the story goes after the anime ended.
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I am continuing on my reading rainbow journey of the Red Queen series, and today I’ll be reviewing the sequel, Glass Sword. I loved Red Queen and the ending of the book threw me for a loop. However, I didn’t feel the same for Glass Sword.
One day in October, I was living my best carefree life-blissfully unaware of the Folk of the Air series until my dearest friend Nessa decided to ruin my life by casually mentioning this series followed an enemy to lover’s trope.
In case I haven’t made myself clear on my feelings about this Trope, I loved them! This trope is top-quality writing, redemption arcs, soft moments. I live for it all.
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Red Queen starts as a typical dystopian novel, but all the twists and turns are like slipping on a banana in Mario Cart. I want to preface this review by stating the first part of this blog post will be the review, while the second part will be me reacting to the plot and will contain spoilers.
I’ve done this a thousand times before, watching the crowd like a wolf does a flock of sheep.
My November TBR went from finishing up my October reads to sci-fi reads courtesy of my local library. One such book I picked up while being ditched on a boba date was Emperess of a Thousand skies by Rhoda Belleza. The title alone already had me intrigued.
Ninth House was released this October, and it is Leigh
Bardugo’s first adult novel. Ninth House tells the story of Galaxy “Alex” Stern,
a high school drop out from California, who is enrolled at Yale University to
join a secret campus organization named Lethe. Lethe is part of nine magical
houses, and their main jobs are to regulate the activities of the other houses
to make sure they are falling the rules. Lethe is small and consists of a core
group of people: Dante, Virgil, Centurion, and Occulus. Centurion goes by the
name Turner, an African American Police officer of New Haven, who has been paid
by Lethe to cover up any magical crimes despite Turner’s involvement in Lethe,
he is a good guy and a good cop. Occulus is also known as Dawes, a grad student
who spends the majority of her time working on her dissertation at the Lethe
house, but Dawes’ main job is to assist Dante and Virgil. Alex is Dante, and
Darlington is Virgil. Darlington’s job is to show Alex the ropes of all Lethe
house duties, one ritual involves scaring off ghosts or greys while another
house cuts some random person open to read the future at least that’s how I
interrupted it I’m still confused about the intricacies of that ritual.
Alex’s first semester at Yale is overwhelming, as she has to complete her assignments as an English major as well as her nighttime duties at Lethe. Darlington’s disappearence complicates everything, and Alex is left to carry out the duties of Lethe house on her own. Alex starts to sense that things are amiss when Tara Hutchins, a New Haven girl, is murdered outside one of the magical houses. Everyone insists that Tara’s boyfriend is the culprit, but Alex thinks there is something off about Tara’s death. Alex enlists the help of Dawes and Turner to help her follow the trail of clues that suggest the other houses might have had some involvement in Tara’s death.
When I first cracked this book open in mid-November I
was intrigued, but my attention was not fully captivated. I felt like I was in
a slump, and when I’m in a reading slump I distract myself with either watching
Tv or reading fanfiction. In this case, I did both.
I rewatched most of Bunheads and read some Star Wars fanfiction in case anyone was wondering.
Me tossing aside my responsibilities to devour Ninth House
However, when I realized I had three days to compete Ninth House, and I was only 100s pages deep, I knew I had to start reading and fast if I wanted to complete it this month.
When Alex became entangled in the murder of Tara Hutchins, so did I become entangled in this book. I begin to wonder what exactly happened to Darlington and maybe if Alex had killed him herself. However, after reading Alex’s longing to see Darlington again, I was even more confused. Where the two lovers? Should I be rooting for their ill-fated romance?
“I will serve you ’til the end of days.”
Darlington to Alex Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
As I continued to read Ninth House most of my questions were slowly piecing together answers. Although the world is elaborate and all the houses and what they do, are at times, confusing I found it helpful to just get consumed in the story until you forgot about all your questions.
Despite the complexities of Ninth House this book is sure to reel you in with all the cool charaters. Aside from Darlington, Lethe house’s golden boy, and Alex’s mentor into the dark world of magic, and Dawes a reserved grad student who is always saving Alex’s ass, there is also North, a ghost who lurks around New Haven and is believed to have murdered his Fiancée.
As Alex gets deeper into the investigation of Tara’s death so does North’s character development and soon North goes from becoming a suspected murderer to a real softie who scares off other ghosts from following Alex.
Ninth House is also abundant with California and English writer’s references. If you are currently studying English in college, a lot of the poetry and stories referenced will be familiar to you. The whole Dante and Virgil dynamic should be a big hint on both the themes of the novel and that other prominent English writers may be referenced. If you grew up in Southern California, the landmarks mentioned will be easy to picture.
What surprised me about Ninth House was that Alex, the main character is brown. Alex’s grandmother often sung lullabies to her in Spanish, but the dialect in which these lullabies were spoken was one that I had never heard of or knew existed. The Spanish used in this novel is called Ladino, a Judaeo-Spanish, that was spoken by Jews who lived in Spain before Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand decided to kick out the Jewish population. This little piece of information was super cool for me to learn, and it’s also insanely cool that this language becomes one of the biggest tools that Alex uses to defend herself from the greys.
“Quien se prestado se vestio, en medio de la calle se quito.”
Ninth Hose by Leigh Bardugo
Overall, Ninth House is a book that may have a slow start, but it will quickly suck you into the plot once things become interesting. Although Ninth House is the first book of the series there is no big cliff hanger in the end. However all the plot twists in this book are sure to keep you guessing. I loved this read, and I will considering adding it and the next installment onto my shelf forever.
Now for the real question.
Do I ship Alex and Darlington? Maybe so. Is this a bad idea considering what happened to one of my otps in Crooked Kingdom.
Probably.
But I’m going to casually ship them anyways.
And now a brief rant on Alex and Darlington
Sure Alex is a bit suspious, considering what she did to her “friends” back in LA, and Darlignton is the nerdy gentleman of Ninth House. The pair really have no business being together romantically. However, they’re a great team and if Darlington had been present for Tara’s investigation Alex probably wouldn’t have put herself in as much danger as she’d liked.
Plus Darlington has a cat and an attachment to his grandfather’s big mansion and if that doesn’t scream love interest then we clearly have different definitions.
I give Ninth House a five-star review, and if you have
any bookish friends who love gothic-fantasies or books with a morally gray
character, definitely pick up Ninth House. However, be aware that Ninth House
deals with serious topics such as sexual assault, rape of a minor, drug use,
suicide, self-harm, drowning, and lots of blood and gore.
Witches and vampires dating? Read it. Witches and
demons dating also read that. But witches and werewolves, nope never.
When I saw the cover to Mooncakes, I immediately knew I needed to read it this fall.
Mooncakes is a graphic novel written by Suzanne Walker and illustrated by Wendy Xu and came out this October. Nova Hoang is a witch who works at her grandmothers’ magic bookstore assisting customers with that day to day spell work. Nova also helps in solve supernatural happenings in her small town so when she hears about a giant white wolf in the woods Nova decides to investigate. However, when Nova comes face to face with the wolf, she realizes the wolf is none other than her old crush Tam Lang.
“My mother met Einstein, you know. Horribly limited man.”
Mooncakes by Suzanne walker
Tam confesses to Nova that while coming back into town, they spotted a horse demon in the woods. Nova agrees to help Tam, but they soon discover that Tam is the only one who can stop the demon by using their werewolf magic. While all this is going on, Nova and Tam decide to pick up where they left off and start dating.
I loved so many things about this book, but here are just a few of them. Nova is hard of hearing, and her blue hearing aids are visible in every panel she appears in. I loved that Nova’s disability remained visible throughout this novel. I returned to previous panels to search for them, and they were always there. My ignorance made me appreciate the visibility of Nova’s disability throughout this book, and it also made me pay closer attention to the artwork and not get swept up in the story.
” A white wolf?”
“Hugh! Like Jon Snow’s. Mrs. Crawford said it came right at her.”
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker
I loved that Mooncakes included LGBTQ+ characters. Tam
Lang, the love interest, uses they/them pronouns and is a super cool white
werewolf. Additionally, I was surprised to learn that Nova has two nanas. All
the descriptions of this book I had previously read stated that Nova works at
her grandmother’s bookshop, which is technically true, but Nova having two
grandmothers is an extra special detail that you do not discover until you read
Mooncakes.
Lastly, I want to emphasize that readers pay attention to the background artwork during scenes because there are lots of cute Easter eggs. In particular, popular YA novels are visible behind Nova in the bookshop. This is super cool, considering Wendy Xu is a curator of YA and children’s books.
I do not have many negative points about this novel, but for the sake of this review, I decided to neat pick some details of this story. One thing I could never figure out was Nova’s age. This story takes place during the fall season, and considering that Nova never goes to school, I assumed she was 18 or older. Nova also mentions becoming best friends with Tatyana in high school, and the use of past tense suggests that both of them are older than high school age. Lastly, what happened to Terry? Will we ever know the answer to that mystery?
Mooncakes is up there with Don’t Date Rosa Santos as one of my favorite books this year. Mooncakes is the first graphic novel I have ever read, and I loved the way that the artwork flows with the story. I think I may need to add more graphic novels and even manga to my tbr list based on the artwork alone.
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