Aug 12 2025

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Book Review: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

Title: The Devils

Author: Joe Abercrombie

Series: The Devils #1

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 4/5 stars

The Overview: Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds. Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends. Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side. –Goodreads

The Review:

This is Joe Abercrombie at his most indulgent. And you know what? I was there for it.

Abercrombie‘s humor is easily one of my biggest draws to his work. He has such a knack for that subtle, dry humor that hits you when you least expect it. So damn funny, he has impeccable timing (I could listen to him in interviews for hours) and a great instinct, so his humor almost always lands. Now here’s the thing, in The Devils he’s not subtle, he’s not pulling any punches (they come so often, it’ll almost reminded you of a Pratchett book) and the humor is often quite juvenile. Normally, immature, humor of this type doesn’t work for me, but I think it a combination of how much confidence I have in the author along with how well he timed the jokes and how far those jokes went to enhance character that made this work for me. I laughed out loud several times. I also rolled my eyes several times. It is what it is.

Now don’t get me wrong, events in this book are downright brutal. The overall tone was funny, but it’s still an Abercrombie. It’s not a good day’s work until someone is getting eviscerated on the page. Proceed with caution.

My favorite thing about the story were the characters. No surprise there. The book was a slow, measured experience with this wildly interesting group of individuals, all of them sort of enigmas. I lived for the many reveals of character as the story went along and found myself latching on to the least likely of them (the werewolf is my favorite). Such great character work, everything from the dialogue to subtle mannerisms – Abercrombie is truly a master at making his people distinct.

If you’re more of a plot reader, I think you’d find The Devils a bit of a slow burn. However, if you’re a character reader, I think you’d feel like things were progressing with each of them at a good clip. I’m somewhere in the middle, so I think elements of plot were too repetitive and the pacing could have moved along just a tad faster. But because I was enjoying myself with the characters, it wasn’t a huge factor.

I’ve heard through the grapevine that this is going to be, at least initially, a trilogy, with the subsequent books containing entirely new story arcs but still following a sporadic mix of the same characters. I’ve enjoyed this one so much that I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do next! He gets massive points for creativity in his world-building.

Recommendations: if you’ve never read an Abercrombie before, I’m afraid the intensity and outrageousness of this book might scare you off reading anything else by him. So I’m hesitant to say start here! However, I think if you’ve read a ton of other Abercrombie and are a fan of his general overall being, you’ll enjoy the heck out of this. It’s nice to see him do something that’s not quite so serious.

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by Niki Hawkes

Jul 23 2025

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Book Review: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

Title: Sunrise on the Reaping

Author: Suzanne Collins

Series: Hunger Games #.5

Genre: YA Dystopia

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

The Overview: When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for? As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena. -Goodreads

The Review:

I’ve mixed feelings about this one.

On one hand, I’ve long said I’d love to read a book about every single Hunger Games year in this universe. Who was involved. What the arena looked like. The whole shebang. I just love that element of competition. So when I heard there was a chance to experience another games, I was stoked!

But with this one specifically, I had a lot of trouble with the plot.

Don’t get me wrong – the physical act of reading Sunrise on the Reaping was enjoyable and nostalgic. It’s only after sitting with the content for a few weeks that I’m able to figure out why I still feel dissatisfied with what I read: the games were let down. And NOT because we already know who wins. No, what I didn’t like was that the short page count that should have celebrated the games was instead fixated almost entirely on a secondary plot that, frankly, I don’t think it needed. So much energy spent on that instead of the thing that makes these novel so special and compelling: the games.

What little attention was given to the games felt contrived, with several events that seemed there only to advance the plot more quickly. I wanted more honest competition… okay, as honest as one can get in these circumstances. The Game Makers’ involvement needed to be much more subtle.

It was a major letdown.

It wasn’t all bad though – I loved being back into the mood of the whole thing, and the rinse-and-repeat nature of the first half was actually a positive for me, reinforcing all of those familiar and nostalgic feelings. I also loved seeing some familiar faces and learning more of their backstory. That was cool.

And what’s more, I loved the character work – one in particular who started out rather unlikable, but ended up being the biggest highlight of the book for me – she’s absolutely the reason why my rating wasn’t even lower.

Overall, a mixed bag. I’m glad I read it, but I’m not happy with it. One thing of note – there were some tiebacks to A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes laced throughout that mostly went over my head. I mean, I could tell they were talking about something with deeper significance, but it had been far too long since I’ve read that one to remember more than just the basic details. Had those events been more fresh in my mind perhaps I would’ve found this one more engaging. You know that dazzly-eyed excitement when you discover an Easter egg in a book and are suddenly hit with all the implications?! Yeah, I didn’t have that this time around.

Recommendations: obviously read this if you’re a fan of the Hunger Games. If it has been a while since you’ve read A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, do yourself a favor and look up a summary so that you can pick up on some of the more nuanced details here.

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Tracey, Dagmara, Poochtee, and Kinsey! <3

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by Niki Hawkes

Jul 15 2025

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Book Review: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Title: Great Big Beautiful Life

Author: Emily Henry

Series: N/A

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 4/5 stars

The Overview: Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years–or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century. When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game. One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over. Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication. Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition. But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room. And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it. –Goodreads <-omg you don’t even have to read the book if you read this massive overview.

The Review:

This was an ambitious Emily Henry novel that hit different notes than her previous books. Overall, I found it a wild success, even though it didn’t quite give me that same “fix.“

I can see why this book was chosen for Reese Witherspoon’s book club because it was written more like a literary fiction with the romance as a supporting plot driver. It contained a story with a story that was woven throughout the chapters giving the book multigenerational vibes and a lot of additional points of interest. I usually struggle with stories within a story, often caring less about what’s going on in the secondary storyline and feel impatient to get back to the main point of the book. I felt that on occasion here, but ultimately Henry is such a brilliant writer that she managed to make me care about everything (eventually).

The real test was whether or not that story with a story ultimately worked to support the main plot between the love interests. I had doubts even though I shouldn’t have – Henry has more than earned my trust by this point and yes, it delivered in an incredibly satisfying way.

So because the book was written well, I thought it ended amazing, and it kept me hooked the entire way through, I’m rating it highly. But there’s just a piece of me no matter how obstinate that wishes even more time had been spent with the main characters. Because everything was so well woven together and dependent for that payoff, I thought the craft elements were brilliant. But if my main draw to the story was the relationship dynamic between the two main characters, I felt the story within a story a major buzz-kill when things mattered most. It broke up their relationship momentum and made me feel much more disconnected during “important“ moments than I have with previous books.

And one more thing that didn’t quite land was the whole “we can’t be together because of some stupid arbitrary reason“ component to the book. I don’t have a lot of patience for stuff like that. Emily Henry handles tropes like that better than any other author I’ve read, and I realize that the tension of the book was completely reliant on it, but I tend to prefer different relationship-dynamic structures. That one is more a personal gripe than any knock on the quality of the story, but it was just enough to make me feel like this particular contention point was my least favorite of Henry’s that I’ve read.

Conversely, I think Alice and Hayden were among my favorite characters that I’ve read so far from the author. I didn’t find either of them relatable in the slightest, but I did find them equally charming, realistic, and just downright fun to root for. It might be recency bias, but I think of all the couples that I’ve read about, this is the one I’d be interested in spending more books with. I really liked them.

Overall, if you’re not super into contemporary romance yet, but like your literary fiction, this is an excellent crossover and I think a good introduction into Emily Henry’s works. If you don’t give one wit about literary fiction, but want to try a fun, contemporary romance, pick a different Henry. All of us Henry fans will tell you we liked different books the most. My personal favorites were Beach Read and Book Lovers (…and People We Meet on Vacation, lol). She’s my favorite author in the genre, her books are absorbing and totally addicting, and I can’t wait to read what she comes out with next.

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Tracey, Dagmara, Poochtee, Kinsey! <3

by Niki Hawkes

May 27 2025

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Book Review: Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Title: Alien Clay

Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Series: N/A (…yet)

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

The Overview: They travelled into the unknown and left themselves behind . . . On the distant world of Kiln lie the ruins of an alien civilization. It’s the greatest discovery in humanity’s spacefaring history – yet who were its builders and where did they go? Professor Arton Daghdev had always wanted to study alien life up close. Then his wishes become a reality in the worst way. His political activism sees him exiled from Earth to Kiln’s extrasolar labour camp. There, he’s condemned to work under an alien sky until he dies. Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem like nothing seen on Earth. The monstrous alien life interacts in surprising, sometimes shocking ways with the human body, so Arton will risk death on a daily basis. However, the camp’s oppressive regime might just kill him first. If Arton can somehow escape both fates, the world of Kiln holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it, and might just set him free . . . –Goodreads

The Review:

Alien Clay contained concepts I’ve read before, but as it was done with Tchaikovsky’s usual flair, it felt original.

The beginning presented a plethora of compelling questions, and half the fun of the book was finding out answers to most of them. Granted, the plot wasn’t nearly as dynamic or complex as the beginning teased it could be, but overall it had more satisfying discovery moments than not.

What struck me most about Alien Clay were the odd (and varying degrees of successful) writing choices. It felt like an experimental book – containing everything from odd jumps in the timeline to breaking the fourth wall. When the latter happened it knocked me back completely, making me start questioning everything… and it kind of pissed me off. This is the book in which I discovered I’m not at all comfortable with even a perception of an unreliable narrator, which is news to me. While it certainly made for an interesting read, it didn’t do a lot to make the story cohesive.

So we have odd, experimental writing, and a plot that felt just on this side of disjointed… but only barely. At least it was memorable. But unfortunately it also led me to stop caring entirely about certain plot points as we kept switching gears. At the very least it made a great Buddy Read book because it generated a lot of discussion.

What can be celebrated, as with most of AT’s works, is the abundance of xenobiology. The flora and fauna were stellar -> every bit as exotica and exciting as the cover promises. I was wildly impressed at the ocean-modeled symbiotic nature of this world and wish I could read more.

All things considered, this lands just in the upper half of AT works, as far as I’m ranking them. Not my favorite, but nowhere near the worst one.

Recommendations: If you love great alien flora and fauna, this was a totally engaging and fun scifi jaunt. If you’re new to Tchaikovsky’s works and want to dive into the best first, start with Children of Time or Guns of Dawn (or even Ogres).

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Tracey, Dagmara, Poochtee, and Ene! <3

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by Niki Hawkes

May 23 2025

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Book Review: Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card

Title: Shadow of the Giant

Author: Orson Scott Card

Series: Shadow #4

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: 4/5 stars

The Overview: Bean, Ender Wiggins’ former right-hand man, has shed his reputation as the smallest student at Battle School. He has completed his military service for the Hegemon, acting as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender’s defeat of the alien empire that attacked Earth. Now he and his wife, Petra, yearn for a safe place to build a family – something he has never known. Yet no such place exists on Earth, a world riddled with Bean’s enemies from the past. Once again he must follow in Ender’s footsteps and look to the stars. –Goodreads

The Review:

What a great ending to this particular arc! Truth be told, I liked this series a lot more than I thought I would, especially considering it didn’t have many sci-fi elements. But this book benefitted from two things: I’m still riding the high from Ender’s Shadow – the profound character and story connections I carried away from loving it as much as I did. And I continue to find Card’s writing totally absorbing, even when the story travels miles away from what initially drew me to the series.

I also love how this tangent series added so much richness to the people who were only periphery characters in the first two books.

I don’t know why I always just assumed these continuation books would be boring and hard to follow compared to Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. Sure, they’re not on the same pedestal, but they’ve been delights in their own right. I HAVE heard the by-publication continuations (I’m reading these chronologically) weren’t as good as the originals from the majority of people I’ve sourced (I’ll be reading those eventually), so perhaps I just unconsciously clumped these in with the hearsay for those. I’m truly surprised at how much I took away from this series and how highly I’d recommend the experience. I cannot wait to continue exploring more of this universe.

Recommendations: Haven’t read Ender’s Game yet? You’re missing out on an amazing story and one of the best sci-fis (and books) I’ve read. Read Ender’s Game but not Ender’s Shadow yet? You’re missing out on the absolute PHENOMINAL. These Shadow continuations are also worth your time.

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Tracey, Dagmara, and Poochtee! <3

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by Niki Hawkes

May 22 2025

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Novella Review: Livesuit by James S.A. Corey

Title: Livesuit

Author: James S.A. Corey

Series: Captive’s War #1.5

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

The Overview: Humanity’s war is eternal, spread across the galaxy and the ages. Humanity’s best hope to end the endless slaughter is the Livesuit forces. Soldiers meld their bodies to the bleeding edge technology, becoming something more than human for the duration of a war that might never end. –Goodreads

The Review:

I liked this novella. Not because it hit all the same deeply humanistic notes that I’ve come to expect from a JSAC production, which it did, but because of how richly it expanded the Captive’s War universe.

Now I know more of what’s out there. And whether or not these livesuit players will have any roll in upcoming books, or if our time with them was more to provide hope that all is not lost… it was a tangent well worth reading. I got confused during the non-linear timeline switches a few times, but overall got the gist enough that it didn’t seem to affect my enjoyment.

I’m a big fan of the Expanse. Love the first Captive’s War book. And liked this one a full star more than I thought I would. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Tracey, Dagmara, and Poochtee! <3

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