How I Learned To Love Reading
When I was seven, my parents sent me to France to spend 10 days with my 70 year old grandfather. For the most part, I had a great time. Except for the two hour nap my grandfather would take every afternoon. I was seven. I couldn’t exactly go wander on my own. My grandfather’s home did have a beautiful garden, with chickens and raspberry bushes, but that only kept me occupied for the first few days worth of naps. By the time I’d adjusted to the jet lag, I came to dread these quiet afternoons of endless boredom. After a day or two of staring up at the ceiling, I opened up my suitcase to discover that along with my clothing, my parents had stuffed my suitcase with books.
Given how much I read, it may surprise you to know that I was not immediately drawn to fiction as a child. I’d struggled through first grade to learn to read, and at seven years old, I couldn’t understand why I’d want to spend any of my time with a book when TVs existed. But, I wasn’t allowed to turn on the TV while my grandfather was napping and so circumstances forced me to open a book (did my parents plan it this way? I’ll never know). So, faced with the prospect of boredom or books, I chose books. I was slow at first. I was still sounding out words and stumbling to keep the story in my head as I struggled through each sentence. But a few hours later it started to click. Within days, I fell in love and my grandfather had to start pulling my nose out of a book to get me to leave the house. By the time my parents met me in Paris a week later, I’d worked my way through half the stash of books in my suitcase—all Babysitters Club books if anyone is wondering.
Thirty years later I’m still a voracious reader. I enjoy a mix of YA sci-fi and fantasy, adult sci-fi and fantasy, and romance (though I’m not a huge romantasy fan, but that’s a subject that deserves its own post). Below are some of my favorites, many of these I read in the last month, but a few are long-standing favorites that felt appropriate to include in my first post on books.
The Books
Books that Changed My Life
Empire of the Vampire and Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff
“‘What kind of hero are you?’
Gabriel laughed, shaking his head.
‘Who the fuck told you I was a hero?’”
Before I go on and on about just how fantastic these books are, you should know these are the first two books of a planned trilogy. There is currently no release date for the next installment—though Kristoff has confirmed that he has finished writing book three. If you have lingering trauma from the years you spent waiting for the next Harry Potter book, you may want to wait until you can buy all three books and read them in a week-long binge. If you’re ok waiting a year or so for book three: read these books ASAP.
I’m ashamed to say that Empire of the Vampire sat on my shelf for about a year before I finally started it. But when I finally picked up the novel, it took about two pages for me to realize this book was special. Yes, it’s a vampire story, but don’t expect the standard tortured by their condition, but still worthy of love vampires of the The Vampire Diaries, Interview With A Vampire, or any other vampire romance that’s appeared in the last few decades.
Kristoff’s vampires are evil. They do not have redeeming qualities. They are blood thirsty fiends intent on enslaving humanity for their own purposes. The story follows Gabriel, a Silver Saint (an order of vampire hunters), on his hunt for the Holy Grail. But the magic of the book isn’t in the basics of the plot, which let’s be honest, isn’t that groundbreaking. The magic is in the narrative, which unfolds from Gabriel’s lips as he recounts his story to his jailor—a vampire historian named Jean Francois. The magic is in the dark, twisted world Kristoff has created where birds have tongues for feathers and trees are choked by fungus that thrives in the endless night of Kristoff’s setting. It’s in the characters who you cannot help but root for despite their imperfections. It’s for the beautiful lyricism of Kristoff’s prose and the lessons he weaves into the narrative that had me marking pages to return to them for further contemplation. The books are dark and bloody, but carry a kernel of hope that keeps you reading.
These two were my favorite reads of the year and I hope you’ll enjoy them half as much as I did, should you choose to give them a go.
The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden
“Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.”
This trilogy. Oh my god this trilogy. I read these books back in the winter of 2021, during that glorious week between Christmas and New Year where you get to hit the pause button on life and sink into the world of fantasy.
Katherine Arden’s masterpiece, which was also her debut (!!!), is set in medieval Russia. Vasilisa (Vasya) and her family live at the edge of the Russian wilderness. It is a precarious world where winter lasts nine months of the year and life revolves around surviving the almost endless cold and dark. It is a place where humanity holds on to life by the whims of fate. Vasya grows up alongside the household and forest spirits that exist in the wild parts of Russia. There are domovoy that help keep the household hearth burning, rusalka that live in the rivers, protecting the water sources but also threatening to drown the unlucky, and others who are both threats to humanity and protectors of the natural world. As other belief systems begin to encroach on Vasya’s village, they disturb the careful balance between life and death in the Russian forest and Vasya finds herself mixed up in the fight for Russia’s soul.
Steeped in Russian folklore, Arden’s writing will pull you right into the uncertain, dangerous, cold, and ever shifting world of medieval Russia. As I read I could feel the snow crunch under foot. I could hear the quiet whisper of snow landing on tree branches and feel the magic tucked around every corner of the wilderness. Arden’s prose is so stunning I slowed my reading to linger with her words. I tend to speed through books, desperate to know the fate of my favorite characters. Any writer that makes me slow down and savor their writing while the lives of their characters hang in the balance is something special.
Books I Loved
“Grief is a strange beast. Some battle it, their souls scarred from its abuse. Some bury it, and live life waiting for it to reemerge. And some tread water, the grief a weight about their necks. Every reminder makes the weight heavier. . . . You and I tread water, nephew. And I would not see you drown.”
Heir is a spin off from Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes Quartet. Although this review/recommendation is about Heir I would suggest reading the quartet first, as the Heir contains spoilers for the Ember Quartet, and Heir will make more sense if you’ve read the quartet. The good news is the Ember Quartet is excellent and very much worth your time to read (really this recommendation is a five-in-one! You’re welcome. :) ).
Tahir’s world pulls in middle-eastern mythology and weaves those influences through her setting, magic system, geography, and languages. It’s layered and rife with politics and intrigue.
Heir follows the story of three characters: Aiz, an impoverished orphan fighting for her people; Sirsha, an exiled mage; and Quil, the heir to an empire. It’s fast paced, with the heartbreaking twists and turns I’ve come to expect from Tahir. I won’t say much more to avoid spoilers, but I will say after that ending!!! I’m so curious to see where Tahir takes these three characters in the sequel.
My only critique of Heir is in the pacing. The first four hundred pages were near-perfect. The plot moved fast enough to make it impossible for me to put down the book, but not so fast I found myself jarred from my reading-daze to go “wait what?” And then the pacing fell apart the last 84 pages. Everything moved too fast, and felt a touch underdeveloped. It felt like it needed another hundred pages. That said, I still loved this book and can’t wait to read the next chapter of this story.
Books That Were A Good Time, But Not My Favorites
“You are the burnt bread. You are the broken glass. I cannot put you back together, but you can.”
Let me start this by saying Leigh Bardugo is one of my favorite authors. She’s an auto-buy for me. My favorite of her work is the Six of Crows duology, which remains one of my all time favorite reads. She’s a brilliant storyteller. Her worlds and settings are always familiar with a twist, creating something the reader can recognize while still being transported into a foreign place where magic is real. Her characters tend towards morally grey, but I promise you’ll want them to succeed anyway, even while thinking “wow, this person is not good.”
Unfortunately, The Familiar fell a little flat for me. It falls into a genre I’ve come to refer to as “small fantasy.” Small fantasy tells a story where no one is trying to save the world, no one is going on an epic quest, they are just trying to survive the reality they find themselves in, and it is a reality that includes magic.
The Familiar is set in Madrid during the Spanish Inquisition. Luzia Cotado is a scullion in Madrid who hides two secrets: first, she can do magic, second she is Jewish. When her abilities catch the attention of powerful people, she finds herself thrust into a world of politics and intrigue that risks revealing her Jewish heritage and upending her life.
At its heart, The Familiar is a love story. It took me a little while to finish this one, but when I got to the end, I was glad I’d persisted. I recommend The Familiar if you’re a fan of fantasy with a smaller scope. Where the magic is in the everyday. Where magic isn’t used to save the world, but to save one’s self. If you’re like me and prefer world-ending stakes, this book may not end up being your favorite. But I think it is still worth the read. The Familiar provides a fascinating peak into the Spanish Inquisition—Bardugo did her research and did it well—and time spent with Bardugo’s prose is never wasted.
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
“Sorry, we've got ghosts.”
This book was fun. I have the sequel on order, but unlike some of the other books on in this post, A Discovery of Witches didn’t consume my every free moment and my every thought until I’d read the final page.
A Discovery of Witches tells the story of Diana, a witch and historian studying alchemy at Oxford who has turned her back on her magical heritage. She want nothing to do with her powers. But when she stumbles across an enchanted manuscript, she accidentally draws the attention of every supernatural being in the area. Diana soon finds herself thrown into a dangerous world of competing daemons, vampires, and witches, forcing her to reckon with her heritage and her past.
I spent the first half of the book thinking I might DNF (did not finish). The plot was slow. Diana annoyed me. She wanted to be taken seriously, but also refused to use the considerable magical resources available to her. Her counterpart and romantic interest, Matthew, also annoyed me. He was overbearing, a bit of a stalker, and spent his time trying to save a reluctant Diana.
The book did pick up in the second half and a lot of the plot reveals explained most of these issues in ways I found satisfactory and consistent with the story. In the end it was a fun read, and I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next, but I’m not chomping at the bit to read book two (though I’ve heard that the second book is better than the first. I’ll report back).
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Read any books you loved recently? Or have thoughts on the books I talked about? Let me know in the comments! I’m always interested in new reads and new opinions on the books I love.