Review: A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

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court mist fury**Spoilers**

I think I know what I really didn’t like about the last half of A Court of Thorns and Roses. The first half I liked but I felt that that second half was like a whole other book that just dragged. After reading A Court of Mist and Fury I think what I really bothered me was that deep down, I knew Tamlin wasn’t worth Feyre going through all the trials and tortures.  He may have loved her but not truly and that was only more evident as he allowed her to fade away while he tried to rebuild his court.  I get wanting to let things settle but she was clearly unhappy.  Unable to sleep through the night and he did nothing but promise once things settle down things will be better.  And worst of all trapped her in his home after she was trapped Under the Mountain.  When you compare Tamlin to Rhys, you can see how truly unworthy Tamlin is.  Rhys is not just in love with Feyre.  He understands her.  He is her equal. Rhys would have been a worthy person for Feyre to go through the trials and torture.

I’ve talked about how YA novels have treats PTSD or getting over traumatic experiences.   It’s infuriating how often they ignore it or have or other characters don’t acknowledge that the hero or heroine is suffering by making them feel worst for not getting over it fast enough.  Here we have two different reactions to Feyre’s ordeal Under the Mountain.  Tamlin seems so consumed with his own pain of what happened to him that he doesn’t see Feyre is wasting away right in front of him.  He’s too afraid of losing her again that he keeps her locked up and it’s stifling her to a point that she can’t recover.from her own trauma.  Rhys gives Feyre time to heal.  He gives her space and pushes her only when he needs too.  He encourages her to learn to read and to test out her new powers.  He does have the benefit of being connected to her through their bargain but he also has the power to read people’s minds.  He introduces her to his friends and lets her in on his plans and decision making. It’s exactly what Feyre needs.  It gives her not only time to recover from what happened to her but understand that the relationship with Tamlin was flawed and in the end unhealthy.  Of course, it also gives her time to realize that she is not only well suited for Rhys but is in love with him.  So to go back to my original point.  Tamlin wasn’t worth the torture that Feyre went through but it was for her to get to know Rhys though.  I’m glad I decided to read this book after only being so-so with the last one.

 

What I’m Listening to Now: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

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I have also been listening to a lot of classic Tupac because I keep waking up with the following 2pac lyric in my head, “Instead of a war on poverty, they’ve got a war on drugs so police can bother me.” I feel like it has been bad for a long time and some of us are just now seeing it.

Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading Challenge Update Part 2

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Since Kate posted her update, I figured I should do mine.  I’m doing much better on the Meduim/Genre/Industry Sub-Challenge then the other 2.  So far I have read Captain Marvel for my Graphic Novel with a superhero, Nimona for Graphic Novel without a superhero.  The Hidden Oracle for a book meant for Children and Cravings a cookbook by Chrissy Teigen for a book from a genre I’ve never read.  Half Lost, a book with a Queer Character. To All The Boys I’ve Loved, a book with an Asian American Character. And finally Endure by Sara b Larson for a book by a  Woman author. To be honest, I could have picked almost any book I’ve read this year for that last one because so far I have only read 3 books written by a man.

So that brings my total up to 7 out of 30. Yikes, that’s not great but it’s 1 better then Kate. ;-).

Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Challenge Update

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Sooooo…. I thought, since it is now June, that it might be a good idea to check and see how I’m doing on our book challenge for the year.

 

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So far this year I have read a book with characters from various socioeconomic classes (The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater), A book by an Asian author (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo), A book by a woman author (Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes), A book by a small press (Sad Girl Poems by Christopher Soto) , an audiobook (The feminist Mystique by Betty Friedan), and a graphic novel (with a superhero character.) (Y’all, I’ve read so much Captain America it ain’t even funny anymore.)  That’s six out of thirty.

 

I’m not even a quarter of the way done with the challenge. But, I have some things I’ve picked up that are in the pipeline that should fill out some of these categories. I hope. I just started Kindred by Octavia Butler, so that counts as a book with an African American character.

 

Are you doing a book challenge this year? How are you doing on it? What have you read on the challenge that you loved but wouldn’t have read otherwise?

Quick Review: Invision by Sherrilyn Kenyon

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invisionThis is book 7 in a wildly entertaining series.  Nick is fantastic as always with his wit and charm (he thinks he’s charming).  He can annoy even the most demonic of demons.  I love him. If you haven’t read any of these books, check out my Series You Should Read from last year because you really should read!  It’s one of those books that I can’t help but laugh out loud while reading. It’s funny.  It’s insane.  The situations that Nick and his friends get into are pretty insane.  And as sassy as Nick is he’s not alone in his sassiness.  Caleb, Kody, Acheron, Kyrian can give it right back to him and it’s awesome but no one can compare to my favorite barbecue-toting demon eater Simi.  No one tops Simi in hilarity.

Anyway, Nick has got a glimpse of his possible futures and no matter what he tries to do to stop himself from the fulfilling his destiny of destroying the world,it happens anyways.  So he chooses to drown his sorrows in beignets.  It sounds like a good idea to me too.  When word gets out that his once thought dead friend Zavid might not be dead, it breaks Nick out of his funk.  Nick has many virtues and one is how loyal he is to his friends but of course going after Zavid is not the best plan since he is being held by Noir, one of his many enemies.  Plans to rescue Zavid on hold, when Nick starts to lose his powers. The only way that Malachai can lose his powers is when his sons starts to gain his. Nick doesn’t have a son.  He hasn’t even had sex!  How can he losing his powers!  As the team try to figure out what’s going on.  Battle more demons. Do a little time traveling.  They make it through the day but not without sacrifices.  All of the books are fast paced and action packed.  It literally goes from one crisis to another.  It makes it very hard to stop reading because you are at your train stop and you have to go to work.  Work.  It just gets in the way.  You would think after seven books that it would start to get stale or repetitive but no.  Maybe that’s because they are not particularly long books so there isn’t a lot of filler.  Yet each character has a backstory.  They all have a role to play in the story. Nothing is wasted.  It’s just plain fun. Seriously, you all should read them.

The Past Couple of Months in Reality: I listened to a Feminist Classic

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So, I had a moment earlier this year where someone referenced the feminist classic the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and I realized that I hadn’t read it. It seems like something I should have read. So, I used one of my audible credits and I picked it up. And, then I spent hours cooking, cleaning and walking on the tread mill while Parker Posey read it to me.

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Isn’t that the creeepiest image?

Anyway, this classic was originally published in 1963 and it addressed a problem that women who bought (and a society that sold) the fantasy that the most fulfilling thing a woman could do with her life was get married and have children and how that not only affected those women but also had ripple effects within society. I can see, looking back, how this was a revolutionary book. It is important to know and remember that women are people and that women, all women, have capacities and interests and being stuck in and reduced to one or two roles for any person is potentially trapping.

But, this book was definitely written in a different time and was focused on different issues than the feminism is now. For one, every time Friedan wrote “women”, I found it was almost always easier to take if I added “Middle Class White” before “women”. While Friedan was probably trying to write about an ideal (and, a societal image of what a “woman” should be is certainly something everyone woman-identifying person has to contend with much like the idea of what a “man” should be is something all men-identifying people have to contend with.) most of the data she presented was about a very particular kind of woman. As already mentioned, middle class white women. And, that’s fine, but the problems that middle class white women face are not always the same as the problems that working class white women face. Or, Middle class African American women. Or, working class African American women. Or, Trans women. Or, Asian American women. Or, Native American women. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

I am glad that I read it, though. It is nice to be able to look back and think about how much we have accomplished and to note how much work we still have to do.