Welcome back to another edition of the Reading Roundup, where I herd all of the books I read this month into a corral and rate them on things like attractiveness, form, substance, and generally just how fun they were to hang out with.
I don’t say mean things about books, so if read something I wouldn’t recommend, I don’t list it. For transparency’s sake, I will disclose the number of books I read that didn’t make it into the corral at the end of the post.
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
This is one of those books that is just absolutely up there on another level. The writing, the world, the magic, and the characters are all amazing. It is also a very difficult book to read. I am not usually one to relay trigger warnings on books. That said, The Poppy War draws heavily on ancient Chinese history, specifically the Second Sino-Japanese War, and she pulls heavily from some of the worst atrocities that occurred in that war.
I want to note that absolutely nothing is gratuitous/for titillation factor. I feel the author brings attention to and attempts to deal with this unpleasant history, and work through the horrors and lasting impacts of war and war crimes. But if you are triggered at all by war/torture/rape/mutilation and a host of other things that are oft-overlooked facets of human history and aggression, I would not read this. I do not personally have these triggers but, even so, the hardest part of this novel to get through still makes me a little sick when I think about it. Mostly because I recognize that these are things that actually happened, that human beings actually did to each other.
This book is an absolutely stunning accomplishment. But go into it with fortitude if you aren’t used to reading this kind of thing.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
If you love fairytale retellings, Naomi Novik’s Spinning SIlver is among the best of the best, in my opinion. And I feel like we rarely get Rumplestiltskin retellings (though maybe there are a host of them out there and I am missing them?).
This book pulled me in entirely, one of those where I chain-read it in a day and was then sad that it was gone. If you want something that will absolutely make you forget the world exists, I can’t recommend this enough. And if you love it and you haven’t read Novik’s Uprooted, do yourself a favor and go read that, too.
Would I Lie to the Duke by Eva Leigh
I am absolutely loving Leigh’s Union of the Rakes series. I read the first book back in December, and this one absolutely lived up to my expectations. It was funny, charming, and as I’ve come to expect from Leigh, the heroines are smart and clever, and the men respect them.
The male love interest, Noel, is possibly the sweetest fictional duke I’ve ever read, and believably so. Jess, the heroine, is a clever woman with a head for finances and investments, who is trying to save her family’s soap making business after a fire destroyed their workspace. She poses as a Lady to try and secure investors, but ends up falling in love with Noel. Noel is accustomed to people using him to get what they want, and thinks he’s finally found someone guileless in Jess, who sees him for the person he truly is beneath the title of duke.
If Jess doesn’t go through with her plan, she’ll lose her business and her family will be torn apart. But if she does go through with it, she’ll hurt a man who doesn’t deserve it, and lose the love she’s just found. I loved every moment of this book. The next in the series, Waiting for a Scot Like You, just released, and I have it next in line to read.
Number of books I read this month that didn’t make it into the corral: 3. It was that kind of reading month.