LRRC Week 2

​Welcome to a VERY SLEEPY READING CHALLENGE POST. It's some ungodly hour as I post this, though I wrote the bulk of it in advance because I'm heading out to ConFusion! Hit me up if you'll be there!

Onto the books...

#3: WITCHMARK by C.L. Polk

​I found this book to have a bit of a slow start, but a very satisfying middle and ending.

To say much feels like it would lead too easily to spoilers, but basically, it's a bit of a mystery story that also involves magic and systemic issues and war, starring a queer MC.

The magic system is really interesting, I love that the MC is a healer and that's where the majority of the magic in the book is seen. I also think it's interesting that he's a psychiatrist. I found the culture around the magic to be a bit confusing at first, but it eventually gets explained well, and once I understood it, I found the history and the aesthetic to be really fun.

If you're going to pick this book up (which I recommend!) major CW for familial abuse and manipulation, also mention of suicide. I thought it was interesting how these issues unfolded through the novel, but I'm not really qualified to say whether or not it's handled well (i.e. his sister is semi-complicit, but is treated sympathetically).

I generally liked the mystery, I thought it was well built and the reveals worked well, but there was a bit of a goofy build-up to a reveal that a) I felt had kind of already basically been revealed and b) was obvious. This is a pretty minor critique, but it seemed worth mentioning because it did take me out of the story.

All in all, I liked it, and I'm excited to read the sequel!

#4: ONCE & FUTURE by Amy Rose Capetta & Cori McCarthy

God, my feelings about this book are all over the damn place.

On one hand, I absolutely love the concept. Arthurian Legend but gay and in space? Hell yeah! Retelling of old myths, where the characters know about the old myths? Love it! Reincarnation type stories/almost time loop type stories? Sign me up!!

The basic premise is that Merlin has been alive for thousands of years, training reincarnations of Arthurs. Now, it's the future, and the new Arthur is a girl named Ari (the first lady Arthur). He's trying to help her to overthrow Evil Corporation and save her friends and not die in the process. It's a solid outline!

My issue is that the execution...maybe leaves something to be desired? The pacing, and the rate at which character relationships develop, are all over the place. I was also experiencing a ton of emotional whiplash. A good example is that [mild spoiler] a major character dies near the climax. The death is off-screen, and mentioned only in passing. There's never really a moment for the significance of this to hit, and there's even a few lines kind of directed at the death that are, I think, meant to be comical.

There's some other bits of weirdness - the main romance, which should've been catnip for me (f/f rivals to lovers, hell yeah!) had enough oddness to put me off, and one thing that squicked me so badly, repeatedly, that I ended up coming away from the book feeling much more off than was really warranted.

I did like the character reinventions on the whole. Merlin as an anxious gay youth is fun, and the authors were clearly trying to do something with the Gweneviere story. I'm not sure they did it successfully, but at least she's not slut-shamed?

Also, one of the main characters uses they/them pronouns and is referred to as "fluid" - I'm not sure if this specifically means "genderfluid" or is just a general catch-all term for non-binary people (it seems like the latter). Another character openly identifies as ace (and is probably also aro, based on how she speaks, but she only explicitly says ace).

I come away feeling a bit frustrated, because this book is so close! There were moments where I was having fun, and when it's being a resistance novel, it really works! The problem is that half the characters feel superfluous, and I kept slamming into a wall where the narrative clearly expected me to either be more or less invested than I was.

Despite all of this, I do recommend this book? It didn't work for me, but I feel like it'll probably work for a lot of people, and none of the flaws are insurmountable - and I believe in supporting queer creators. I also look forward to see what the authors do next, I feel like things only look up from here.

NEXT WEEK'S AGENDA:
#5: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
#6: The Stowaway Debutante by Rebecca Diem

I've also got Wanderers by Chuck Wendig out from the library at the moment but it's over 800 pages, and given that I'm going to a convention this weekend, I don't actually hate myself that much.