Some Books I Loved

 **Flash fiction, some stories less than a single page, but still able to capture elusive but undeniable magic** "How the Andan Court"   Actually, I cannot offer you roses.  Roses that taste like crystallized desire when you try to smell them.  Roses whose buds are softer than the hands of the morning mist.  Roses pierced through by the needles of nightfall. Roses that count the season’s clock with their petals, disrobing red by red until all’s gone except the sun’s winter angles.  Roses growing in walls around the wells of your heart.  Roses crowding the boundaries of your cards until every shuffle is a procession of brambles. Roses laid upon the swelling waters to be swallowed by black tides.  Roses that candy themselves as they pass your lips.  Roses so shy you can only glimpse their shadows as you fall asleep. I would rather give you roses than a bouquet of words, but I do not speak the petal language adequately and it does not admit tran...

 **Simple put, a modern masterwork that's still being written.  Some of the most wonderful 'stories about stories' you'll ever read** This is actually the first time for this blog that I've reviewed two works by the same author (I reviewed "Siren Queen" as one of the inaugural posts!).  It's fitting that it's Nghi Vo, who is arguably my absolute favorite modern author.  And well, simply put, I've had this blog for too long without talking about The Singing Hills.  As we start off Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, it's time to change that The Signing Hills Cycle is a series of novellas, each one more or less standalone.  While it makes sense to jump in with the first one as it was written with the assumption that the reader would be coming in cold, you really could pick up any of them.  The only constant throughout the novel is the main character, Chih, a cleric from the Singing Hills Monastery (although they are almost alw...

Hi everyone!  Sorry the blog has been on hiatus while I'm traveling.  But at the very least, let me get this up.  It's been a fantastic year of reading for me, I hope for you all as well Not a ranking, not even a comprehensive list of my favorite books.  I like reading, I like writing, I like writing about reading, and I love being able to share.  Just what it says at the top:  Some books I loved this year * * * "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013) I always feel like I have to put out a weird explanation of, "I don't only  read speculative fiction.  Just mostly," whenever I want to talk about a book that's more "serious" literature.  But yes, although not in line with much of what I read, "Americanah" was not only one of the best books I read this year, it's the one of the best books I can recommend, period.  It is without question a masterpiece This book is a portrait of the immigrant experience, from Nigeria to bo...

It's been a good year!  I read a ton this year, a lot of time on trains and in cafes.  Starting this blog has been a ton of fun, and I'm happy to move my annual tradition of listing some books I loved over to here So here we are.  Not a ranking, not even a comprehensive list of my favorite books.  I like reading, I like writing, I like writing about reading, and I love being able to share.  Just what it says at the top:  Some books I loved this year * * * "I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself" by Marisa Crane, 2023 This is a heavy one, this was a tough one.  This was a very good one.  This one felt too close to home, at times On a scifi level, this is about an all-too-imaginable future in which the technology exists to mark criminals with a second, or third or fourth, shadow.  These "Shadesters" are allowed to live their normal lives, but everyone they meet knows instantly that they are a convicted criminal.  And it does that scifi thing of ...

**In which our main character walks away from the power and the Taoist magic and the drama in order to live a simple life as a farmer.  Hilarity ensues** A quick glossary of terms, I'll wave down below when the actual review starts, if you already know them.  Basically, if the sentence, "the main character isekais into a xianxia cultivation world, but then decides to turn it into an iyashikei instead," makes sense to you, skip below.  If it doesn't, I mean, yeah, that's fair.  Thus, a quick glossary: Isekai (異世界) refers to subgenre in which the main character is transported to another world.  The term is Japanese, and it's a very popular genre in manga and anime (to the point that these days, a lot of people complain about oversaturation).  That said, it's not particularly rare in Western literature as well, although the term "portal fantasy" is more common--"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", "The Wizard of Oz", "The...