This was a story full of grand ideas, exciting characters and an adventure on the high seas grasses. For the most part, all of these things were pulled together beautifully. However, at times, they also became a struggle. I'm moving house this week and that may have added to the challenge but I often found myself excited by the story but desperately wishing it would just hurry up!
Month: January 2021
Review: The Stranger Times by C. K. McDonnell
The Stranger Times was a fun combination of urban fantasy sleuthing with something that feels like a Miéville/Gaiman dejá vu. Except that it is really, really hard to write well like both of those authors. So instead I got something that felt too familiar to be wholly enjoyable that used snark and characters being nasty to each other in a way that really jarred with me.
Review: The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin
I love a fairy tale retelling. But even more than that, I love a sophisticated fairy tale retelling - the kind that turns the original story on its head, links it with other stories and really makes you think a little differently about the message that it's actually giving your children. Cinderella is Dead, which I read last year, did this to some extent. It examined how it can be dangerous to promote stories of 'good' brides and wives can damage society when they are behaving that way because it is desired by men. The Charmed Wife is yet another Cinderella retelling, but this is a Cinderella who is thirteen years married and wants her husband DEAD.
Alpha-Beta-Hannah 