Skip to main content

Featured

Series Review: The Suitable 'Verse by R. Cooper

Greetings and welcome to Reviews That Burn: Series Reviews, part of Books That Burn. Series Reviews discuss at least three books in a series and cover the overarching themes and development of the story across several books. Full Audio Here Powerful noble families known as the beat-of-fours, answerable only to a ruler and the mysterious, godlike fae, scheme and squabble amongst themselves, and go to war for the chance to put one of their own on the throne. But the fae might be pulling more strings than the nobles realize and they definitely have their favorites. A series of love stories loosely centered around the political crisis that led to the current ruler, featuring oblivious librarians, crafty though loving kings, an innocent half-fae noble, a legendary outlaw turned conqueror, worried warriors, clever guards, and an infamous beauty. PUBLISHER: Independently Published LENGTH: ~1000 pages so far AGE: Adult GENRE: Fantasy, Romance RECOMMENDED: Highly Queer Rep Summary: m/m and m/m/...
Post a Comment
Read more
Labels

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry (The Giver Quartet, #2)

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry is a dystopian novel about disability and exploitation in a small village. It builds a strange and compelling world around Kira, where syllables in names denote age and maturity, where orphaned children are redistributed, but not loved.

It's difficult to discuss much in this novel without spoilers, but it is a different society in the same world as The Giver, a society which is limited by whatever disaster broke the world into small enclaves and scattered villages with vastly different organizational structures and coping mechanisms. Kira's village is patriarchal, ableist, and harsh. She was born with a deformed foot and was only allowed to live because of her grandfather's status and reputation.

The world is fascinating, every bit of description feels precise and necessary. The only thing I would want changed is to have the book last longer. It feels... unresolved, but that's probably on purpose. It's trying to be hopeful in a very bleak world, but we don't get to see that hope fulfilled in the way I would have liked. Again, that feels purposeful and it doesn't make it a bad story, just probably not one to turn to for a comfort read.

*Edit: It’s unresolved because it’s book two of a quartet. I’ve found some of what I was missing in book three, Messenger.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment