Powerless by Lauren Roberts
Goodreads blurb : She is the very thing he’s spent his whole life hunting. He is the very thing she’s spent her whole life pretending to be. Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya—the exceptional, the empowered, the Elites. The powers these Elites have possessed for decades were graciously gifted to them by the Plague, though not all were fortunate enough to both survive the sickness and reap the reward. Those born Ordinary are just that—ordinary. And when the king decreed that all Ordinaries be banished in order to preserve his Elite society, lacking an ability suddenly became a crime—making Paedyn Gray a felon by fate and a thief by necessity. Surviving in the slums as an Ordinary is no simple task, and Paedyn knows this better than most. Having been trained by her father to be overly observant since she was a child, Paedyn poses as a Psychic in the crowded city, blending in with the Elites as best she can in order to stay alive and out of trouble. Easier said than done. When Paeydn unsuspectingly saves one of Ilyas princes, she finds herself thrown into the Purging Trials. The brutal competition exists to showcase the Elites’ powers—the very thing Paedyn lacks. If the Trials and the opponents within them don’t kill her, the prince she’s fighting feelings for certainly will if he discovers what she is—completely Ordinary.
My take: 4.5 out of 5. This is the type of fantasy that I love to get lost in. Very YA but it does develop a great world. There is such great banter between the two MC, there is some wonderful very slow burn buildup, all within this crazy setting of a Hunger Games style battle. I really enjoyed it and rushed to read Reckless as soon as it was done to get the rest of my fix, because fair warning it has a VERY dramatic, very cliffhanger ending.
Reckless by Lauren Roberts
Goodreads blurb: The kingdom of Ilya is in turmoil… After surviving the Purging Trials, Ordinary-born Paedyn Gray has killed the King, and kickstarted a Resistance throughout the land. Now she’s running from the one person she had wanted to run to. Kai Azer is now Ilya’s Enforcer, loyal to his brother Kitt, the new King. He has vowed to find Paedyn and bring her to justice. Across the deadly Scorches, and deep into the hostile city of Dor, Kai pursues the one person he wishes he didn’t have to. But in a city without Elites, the balance between the hunter and hunted shifts – and the battle between duty and desire is deadly. Be swept away by this kiss-or-kill romantasy trilogy taking the world by storm.
My take: 4.25 out of 5. It is not as good as Powerless, and it is definitely a sandwich book of a trilogy, which means nothing much happens but its the necessary bridge to what I feel is going to be a gerat conclusion. I really liked the relationship and anticipation buildup. This one has another power cliffhanger of an ending, with the problem that now I have to wait quite a bit more time to get to Book 3, which Im very much looking forward to!
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
Goodreads blurb: In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich tells a story of love, natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people’s lives. History is a flood. The mighty red . . . In Argus, North Dakota, a collection of people revolve around a fraught wedding. Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can’t read her future but seems to resolve his. Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He’s determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker. Kismet’s mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary’s family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter’s and her own. Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the everchanging clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day. The Mighty Red is a novel of tender humor, disturbance, and hallucinatory mourning. It is about on-the-job pains and immeasurable satisfactions, a turbulent landscape, and eating the native weeds growing in your backyard. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor. A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.
My take: 3.25 out of 5. I started to read this book without reading the goodreads description. I saw it was a book club selection and know the writer so just went in as soon as I got my Libby hold. Once I read the description to put here I was taken aback. Was it really supposed to be about all that. For me it definitely did not feel as deep or as transcendental as this description makes it out to be. It is beautifully written and had such promise, but little happens and I was basically bored. There was one line that i loved, when they called champagne ephemeral blip.
Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown
Goodreads blurb: How far would you go to belong? Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion—it’s been a decade since she graduated, and she is looking forward to seeing old faces and reminiscing about her time there. This visit is special because Maya will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi. But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya’s worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on. As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister’s death, she begins to realize how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya’s warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus—the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it. The more Maya uncovers, the more terrified she becomes that Naomi’s decision to follow in her footsteps might have been what got her killed. Because Maya’s time at Princeton wasn’t as wonderful as she’d always made it seem—after all, her sister wasn’t the first young woman to turn up dead. Now every clue is leading Maya back to the past . . . and to the secret she’s kept all these years.
my take: 3.75 out of 5. I enjoyed the parallels between the two timelines, and they were so interestingly interconnected that sometimes I lost track in which timeline I Was in. The whole inner workings of secret societies was also cool, and it is actually a great setting for a thriller and a mystery. In the end it was good it just wasn’t amazing. The twist in the end was cool, but not utterly unpredictable and the book leads you there. It might just be that i wanted more justice in the end?
The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
Goodreads blurb: The propulsive and powerful new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train. Welcome to Eris: an island with only one house, one inhabitant, one way out. Unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day. Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago. Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation. But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling. And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge…. A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, The Blue Hour recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Hawkins’s place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.
My take: 3.25 out of 5. This was a weird one. I don’t really know how to categorize this book, I might say its a cozy thriller maybe? The concept of untangling an artist’s legacy and motivations post death felt like a very interesting one for me. However the execution felt a bit flat for me. It was slow and a bit boring. We also had a lot of side characters, and not all of them were really pulling their weight. Also what is going on with the ending? I wanted way more resolution than what we got after having powered through all the narrative.
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