With thanks to Tachyon Publishing and Netgalley, who provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from this book. Maybe the fact that it was set in an existing ‘verse coloured my experience of it - maybe I would’ve understood if I’d read some more of the Birdverse.

The discussion of gender in this book was interesting. One of the two main characters, nen-sasaïr, is a trans man who doesn’t fit in with the other men in his Khana society despite having ‘transitioned’. The other, Uiziya, is a weaver who’s seeking her aunt so she can teach her the fourth weave, the weave of death.

But I had trouble caring about the characters or their ultimate purpose. The writing, too, felt extremely stilted and purple: “of what we had wrought, my lover’s words within the ash, the nature of the weaves, the certainty of hope’s resilience, which is as strong as the certainty of death.”

At times, the worldbuilding was also hard for me to grasp. Why does the Collector/the Ruler of Iyar want to preserve carpets, for instance? What is so important about the four profound weaves? Why would Uiziya sit in a tent for twenty years waiting for her aunt to return? There is also a child that appears rather abruptly to randomly give nen-Sasaïr an incomprehensible message and then leaves.

Moreover, a lot of the story is told through dialogue, especially at the beginning. Nen-sasaïr comes to visit Uiziya and they have a conversation. Then they both leave, and they have more conversation with the aunt, then they go somewhere else, then they confront a villain, then there’s more conversation.

There was no sense of urgency. The stakes of the quest and the exact reasons behind it were never clear to me. Yes, the ruler is evil and he’s killing women, I understand that. But that was revealed later. Events seemed disjointed, as if the characters were just stumbling from place to place- for example, it’s only when Uiziya is taken prisoner that nen-sasaïr discovers what’s happened to his lost lover.

Gender issues: nen-sasaïr’s inability to fit in and the account of his transition were repeated several times. I found myself comparing this to Arundhati Roy’s character Anjum, in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. In six paragraphs, Roy captured the yearning ‘Aftab’ felt to be a woman, the exoticism and yet the familiarity of the world behind the kwagbah: ‘I want to be like that, like them.’ On the other hand, Lemberg’ portrayal of nen-sasaïr’s isolation from his peers was scattered over pages and brought up throughout. If it had been condensed it would have read far better.

Positives were great worldbuilding and the diversity of racial and gender identity. The middle of the book was easier to digest than the first quarter, because there was actual action, and the bone scene at the end was well done.

So, I understand this is a children’s book, but Seuss’ best-known work is a timeless classic that will entertain generations of children to come. The subject matter is quirky and, long before SATPIN, is simple enough for children to feel like they’re ‘reading a book’ while also —

Oh. Sorry. Sorry, guys, I must’ve taken too much cough medicine. Fell asleep and realised I was reviewing the wrong book.

At least Green Eggs and Ham has pictures!

If you’re after profundity, try almost any other poet: Agha Shahid Ali, A.E. Stallings, Basho and even ee Cummings, just to name a few.

If you like this sort of light, short, rhyming, metric verse, go and read Poem for Your Sprog on reddit. I’m not being sarcastic: Sam Garland puts thought, effort and emotion into their poems. Lang Leav vomits hers out onto paper.

This was just the sweet, well written and wholesome romance I needed after reading an intense horror book. Loved the Mumbai setting - it is so nice to read things not set in America or the UK - and the Marathi characters, of course. I know a lot of people hate miscommunication and obliviousness, or whatever, but I didn't mind it at all. Guess I just watch a lot of sitcoms, haha.

It's my first time reading a no-spice CR and I want more! Will definitely be reading Hegde's next book.

Annah the Javanese was my favourite story and the standout: Riwoe took a historical figure and placed her front and centre. The atmosphere was arresting.

As much as I liked The Fish Girl, it felt a bit like it was trying to do the same thing, with less success. The character of Mina didn't seem quite as compelling as Anna.

Of the contemporary stories, I liked the one about childbirth and the one about the actress. The rest fell a bit flat for me.

A solid 3.5.

First, the pluses. Elias and his militaristic world were beautifully illustrated. I could spend books reading about him, his relationship with Helene and the arena-style battles. Oh, my goodness, the battles and the near-death situations were the best part of this book. I’m not usually one for too much gore, but the battles were so spiritually (this is a terrible word to describe it, but I can’t think of another) written that I didn’t mind. (On a side note, I wish there had been some religions.) Even though the writing was a bit self-consciously dramatic in places and the Commandant was also OTT, even though I knew everyone would have their happy ending because sad endings don’t happen in books like these, Tahir kept me on the edge of my seat.

I liked the four different epithets as stratifications (Scholars, Tribals, Martials and whatever the other one was), even though that’s been used in every recent bestselling YA book.

The writing quality stood out above comparable books, such as the execrable Hunger Games, Divergent and the like. That and the diversity strengthened what would otherwise have been a run-of-the-mill YA. Tahir‘s prose isn’t as clean as Pierce’s, nor her imagery as lush as Hobb’s. But wow, did she keep me wanting to read more.

Minuses: Laia was definitely the flatter of the two characters. A lot of her plot was spent trying to escape and infiltrate Blackcliff, and I just wasn’t interested. There was none of the development Elias got, the other characters were flat and the ‘friendship’ between her and her fellow slaves felt artificial. The writing was also rather melodramatic in her sections.

Tahir’s love triangles and descriptions of romance are the worst part of what would otherwise be a solid book.

Kathryn Moon does it again. I was worried after reading Inheritance of Hunger that I wouldn't enjoy this, but there's so much h/c here and it's far less gratuitous than that in the third Tempting Monsters series.

This was my second attempt at reading this, and God, the writing is clunky. It reads like a video game, only with every action and thought laboriously described. No thanks.

In this book, we’re back in Rin, which is sowing a bitter crop of its own.

Lots of neat, subtle parallels and passages here: the slip-daisies to symbolise the connection between Maris, Rin and the Travellers, one character feeling sleepy from the scent of the berries through an open window. Things, as always with Rodda, are never as they seem, and the classic Roddean bait-and-switch is at play here: “fair makes foul, and foul makes fair”. The Travellers are meant to be the ‘transient’ ones, but they’re the ones with the most connection to the land and the ones who prove most constant in the end. Once again there are strong themes of connection with nature and shucking off prejudice.

Ogden, Zeel and the rest of the Travellers make for beautifully sly, slippery-seeming enigmas. Ogden’s tales in particular are bewitching, told in a child-friendly way that will appeal to child (and adult!) readers.

Come on, I can’t not rate this four stars.

What I disliked:

There are a couple of convenient instances where Alanna just hates or trusts someone on sight. The white saviour issue has been well noted - two thirteen-year-old white kids were able to defeat beings the Bazhir apparently couldn’t for centuries, despite the Bazhir being millennia old and clearly very magically powerful. And don’t forget Duke Baird just standing by while Alanna takes over the healing.

What I liked:

The clear, concise writing, which holds up as well as it did a decade and a half ago. The subtlety of Myles’ drinking, the focus on hard work. Alanna, George and Jon are all beautifully distinct, and Alanna is a badass at ten. Some scenes weren’t quite as vivid as I remembered them, but the description of the Black City was evocative, Ali Mukhtab is calm and wise in the space of the only five pages he appears in, periods weren’t shied away from, Eleni is a boss and I had nostalgic memories of my Jon/Alanna ship goggles as a teenager.

And, knowing the events of the next three books, I got emotional when reading about Thom and Alanna’s relationship.

This book feels like it was made for me. Julian Blake is heavily based on Nick Drake, one of my favourite singers. I loved the English countryside setting and the air of drugged indolence, as well as the magic of music. My only crit would be not to read this if you are looking for a true horror book - this is more folkloric fantasy with mildly unsettling vibes.