LRRC Week 24
I don't know why I always want to start these out with the equivalent of going "womp womp" but...there it is. It's not even that the books this week were bad! Er, well.....anyway, you'll see.
#47: THE HAND ON THE WALL by Maureen Johnson
Okay, oh boy, this has been a rocky series for me as a reader, and I'm not sure that this last book pulled it all together.
Ultimately, I think that the mysteries make sense, though I'm not sure that they live up to the way they were introduced. It kind of reads at times like the author came up with a set-up first, and then had to write her way to the end, which seems like a less than ideal way to write a murder mystery. There's also the fact that I had one of the two big mysteries figured out midway through the second book.
My issues with the characterization continued into this book, and somehow got worse. The main character is such a doormat in this book for so much of it - she doesn't stand up for herself, she doesn't make her own decisions half the time, it feels like she has no agency. And the overly manufactured drama from book 2 is still ongoing, so that's great.
At one point, she learns that an event she had assumed she dreamt was seen by someone else, and yet she continues to think that it's a dream, somehow. It almost seems like she thinks it was some kind of shared dream, which is absolutely wild. Also, so many questions go unasked, which makes it feel like the characters have a copy of the book and already know what they're working towards, and therefore don't look at things that are superfluous.
There's a part that made me laugh out loud, wherein the main character and her love interest have a conversation about how they don't understand why they like/are attracted to each other, because I had been asking the same thing! Sometimes m/f romances, especially ones that are heavily based on "wow teen hormones", are very confusing to my ace lesbian self, and I can't always tell if that's just "can't relate" or "badly written". But wow, I sure could've done without this one.
The experience of reading was fun at times, but also equally frustrating. Also, like I said about the second book, I felt like sometimes the book was lying to me, which is never something I enjoy.
#48: THE OBSIDIAN TOWER by Melissa Caruso
I really wish I could remember where I saw a rec for this book (a twitter list?? maybe??) because I thought this book ROCKED.
The world-building is interesting and fun, the plot is exciting and well-paced, and, probably most importantly, I really liked the characters. Ryx, the main character, is a fun bisexual disaster and her stakes felt real to me through the whole thing. I loved her story of finding friends who accepted her and grappling with her family relationships and guh.
I was even invested in the m/f romance! That's super rare! Usually I'm pretty "meh" on them, and maybe it's just because this was slow burn and nothing actually happened in this novel, but I would say that I do actively ship the two characters (no spoilers) and was rooting for them to choose each other and to get together.
Maybe I'm an easy sell for this kind of story right now because I love found family and I'm also feeling a bit sad and lonely in quarantine, so a story about someone learning how to belong really stood out to me, but dang. Don't sleep on this one, I thought it was an excellent time and I'm really excited about the sequel!
NEXT WEEK'S AGENDA:
#49: Only Mostly Devastated by Sophia Gonzales
#50: The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas