Hey there booktube Katie here and you're
watching Katie Loves to Read. Today I'm
here with my May wrap up. I actually
read quite a bit in May for someone who
was sitting a bunch of exams.
Anyway this wrap-up was just going to be
the things that I read that weren't for
Asian Lit Bingo and then I will talk
separately in another wrap-up about the
own voices Asian lit that I read during
the month of May. First things first I
finished off Tyrants Throne by Sebastian
de Castell which was the final book in the
Greatcoats series. I have a full series
review of sorts slash video trying to
convince you to read this series that I
will link on the screen. Basically its a
three musketeers-esque adult high fantasy
that was so much fun. I really enjoyed
the way in which it tied up however
I did not feel that it was strongest book
in the series so I only gave it a four
or a four and a half stars. But overall I
just really really loved these books
they're so much fun, they're so funny and
I'm really sad that they're over. I know
that Sebastian de Castell plans to write
another series in this world with
different characters but I'm kind of
heartbroken that I don't get to hang out
with Falcio, Kest and Brasti anymore
especially Brasti, it does break my
heart a little bit. Next then I finished
off the Geek Feminist Revolution by
Kameron Hurley. This is a nonfiction
essay collection with lots of essays on
feminism and geek culture. I liked some
of these essays, I didn't like others. I
felt I was a little bit out of my depth
with the pop culture stuff, I don't think
I know enough about science fiction and
fantasy outside of books. I don't watch a
lot of SFF TV shows; I've never seen
Star Wars or Star Trek don't kill me please.
I have watched Doctor Who, I've watched
Firefly that's kind of where things end.
If you have an entire essay about Mad
Max I don't know what you're talking
about and so therefore I felt like some
of the essays just left me floundering
some of them were empowering and some of
them were just kind of meh. I don't know --
I know a lot of people love this essay
collection but for me it was just so-so
and I gave it three stars. Next then I
read Fourth World by Lyssa Chiavari
which was a Kindle book I had for a
while and I was really glad that I
finally got to this. It is both science
fiction and fantasy so it's a YA
science fantasy. It is set on Mars and we
follow a character who is of Mexican
descent one day he finds this coin that
his father had and it looks really
similar to something he sees when he is
on a trip at school and everything
starts to unravel there are conspiracies
on the part of the government, there is
time travel and parallel universes and
everything that you could possibly want
and then one of the characters our main
characters
explicitly says that he is demisexual
and we also have another main character
who hasn't said they're asexual but it
certainly seems that they are and maybe
that they just don't have the words for
it. I really enjoyed this, it was a really
quick and easy read but it was full of
diversity in terms of both sexuality/
sexual orientation. Pretty much all the
characters we have were people of colour/
The asexual bit is own voices
but Lyssa Chiavari is at least as far
as I can tell white so the rest of it I
can't speak and say that the
representation is incredible as a white
person who am I to speak to that but I
did really enjoy this book and I am
excited to read the sequel and if you're
looking for a dystopian YA science
fiction fantasy thing that has great
asexual representation this is probably
the book for you. Next then I read my
favorite book of the month which could
arguably be in my Asian Lit Bingo
wrap-up but it's not own voices but this
is River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay.
It's set in Sung Dynasty China. It deals
with the invasion of the Khans from the
north or I think in this book they call
them the Kaghans because it's an
alternate Sung Dynasty China and things
have their names changed but you know
what's going on you know it's supposed
to be China at war with the Mongolians
in the north but I really really enjoyed
this.
It followed many main characters so I
don't even really want to outline the
plot beyond there's a war between the
Chinese and the Mongolians and the
Chinese want their thirteen northern
provinces back and our main character
Ren Diane feels that he is going to be
able to make that happen.
this was my last Kay book, I was nervous
that I wasn't going to like it as much
as I had some of the earlier books
because I'd been kind of getting the
dregs of his books; the ones that were
weaker that people disliked for
reasons, good reasons. This one did not
disappoint while it took a while for the
whole plot line to become clear for me
to see how all of the different stories
were going to tie into one another once
they did I was really impressed by how
Kay had done it it was quite subtle in
that regard. We got lots of different
perspectives,
we got strong female characters, we
actually got and explicitly gay
character I think for the first time in
any of Kay's books so that made me
excited even though naturally it was
something that the character didn't
really exhibit to the world. It was
talked about with the people in his life
but naturally enough I can imagine in
Sung dynasty China it wasn't particularly
acceptable to be openly gay but that
made me excited because I always whine
about how Guy Gavriel Kay's books are hetero
normative and they are still
heteronormative but at least that that
was something that made me happy. There
was a lot of Chinese mythology woven
into this like we had the fox woman I
can't remember what the specific word
for that is and I'd read about that idea
and that myth in Ken Liu's short story
collection so it was really interesting
to see how Guy Gavriel Kay woven into
the narrative here. And overall I just I
feel like I'm kind of randomly gushing
about bits that I liked but yeh
writing the sense of place everything
that I expect from a Guy Gabriel Kay
book was here and more. I really enjoyed
this and I gave it five stars, it's now
one of my favorite Kay novels. Next I read
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo
Okparanta obviously because I need
to get away from the heteronormativity
and have a book with some gay characters.
So this is a kind of historical novel I
would say it goes from the end of the
Biafran war right up to present day
pretty much and it follows our main
character who is a Nigerian and she's
also a lesbian and when her father dies
during the war she gets sent off to live
with a family friend and there she meets
a girl from another tribe and they fall
in love and it just follows her life
from then on. It's kind of it's a
forbidden romance, this is a part of
herself that's not okay [in the eyes of society], she has a very
religious mother and it was
heartbreaking and wonderful at the same
time and I really really enjoyed this. I
saw some reviews that kind of said this
was like a weaker version of the
Fishermen or than Purple Hibiscus but it
just had the lgbtq bit tacked on and I
haven't read either of those books so I
can't specifically speak to that but I
think it's really really important to
have stories of gay characters in
repressive regimes and for that reason I
do value what was very good
representation I believe it was almost a
biographical story of the author's
mother so I thought it was very powerful
and in the end I gave it four out of
five stars
and I would highly recommend it so do
with that what you will.
Then I read another Nigerian book this is
Dear Ijeaweale I probably got that wrong so
sorry
or a feminist manifesto in 15
suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
and this is exactly what it says on the
tin.
It's basically a letter that she wrote
to her friend who was having a child and
she wanted to raise her child
as a feminist and Chimamanda makes 15
suggestions for how to do that and it's
very much like a practical guide to
raising a feminist child from the
perspective of a Nigerian woman and
relevant specifically to a Nigerian
child but I do think that it has wider
relevance to all of us across the globe
whether you're living in an African
country or a European country or in
North America or wherever you're living
I do think this definitely has relevance.
I think the reason I struggled a little
bit with this was a lot of its geared at
raising your own child and I'm not a
hundred percent sure if I want to have a
child and if I do it's going to be off
in the future a good bit so some of it
maybe wasn't directly relevant to me
right now
there were other bits that definitely
were she talked about slut-shaming and
body issues and things like that things
that I've unconsciously done that I
don't mean to do but that I'm beginning
to learn a bit more about and to kind of
rethink my own attitude towards and
they've kind of prompted me to think
further about it to talk to some people
about it so I definitely appreciate it
for that and I did give it four stars
it's definitely worth reading even if a
Adichie needs to work on her opinions of
trans women and learn more on that. Next
I'm going to talk about Luna New Moon by
Ian McDonald this is one I had really
high hopes for they just didn't really
do it for me
basically it is set on the moon that
there are five powerful families on the
moon, captains of industry and a war
breaks out between them essentially. This
is crazy and violent and absolutely
nuts and it definitely has a very dark
atmosphere and I liked all of that. It
maybe has too many perspectives. We're
following so many characters that at
times it's challenging to remember who's
doing what and why they're doing that
and also I grew to love certain
characters and not others so I wanted to
be reading about them not about the
person that they're related to and while
I could see how all of the narrative
threads tied in together in the end I
was just a bit meh. There were a few
of the characters where I was like I want to
read about you, I don't want to read about him
and him and him and her. So I wanted to
read about the matriarch of the family
and Lucasinho nd I didn't really
want to read about the rest of them and
I could see the value of all of their
different plot lines to the overall
story but as characters they weren't
interesting or engaging to me. Also there
were so many sex scenes in this that
were so gratuitous and unnecessary but I
was like why are you here. Anyway what I
did think it did well was representing
people who are gender non-conforming and
people who are -- and then it's also like
not heteronormative at all you can be
heterosexual you can be homosexual you
can be bisexual and nobody cares
whatsoever it doesn't really have any
trans people though it might have it
has people who are arguably I suppose
maybe non-binary and there are people
who use another pronoun because they're
wolves as well as humans but there
aren't any trans or explicitly
non-binary people that I picked up on
but that might just be because I started
skim reading it because I found the
middle really boring. I found start great
up in the end great middle was I don't
know. I wanted a lot more from this book
than I got basically so I gave it two
and a half stars. Then the final book
that I've read is Heir of Novron by Michael
J Sullivan I read both of the books in
this bind up so they're called
Wintertide and Persepliquis like
Persepolis spelt differently. So this was
the concluding installment of the Ryeria
Revelations which I have now
finally completed yay! It's an adult
sword & sorcery fantasy and it follows
Royce and Hadrian
who are thieves for hire. I really
enjoyed this I really enjoy Royce and
Hadrian and Princess Arista as
characters and always getting to spend
more time with them is great. We also got
to learn a lot more about Thrace or Empress
Medina it was lovely to get to know her
a bit better and to really see her
growing into herself and as characters I
think they're wonderful and I really
appreciate how Michael J Sullivan
explored all the different characters
even a lot of the side characters in
these two books became very dear to me
and I appreciate that. As plotlines go oh
this was so predictable, there was so many
predictable twists and turns like you
could tell like hundreds of pages before
what was going to happen
you could call
everything pretty much not all of it but
lots of it and I don't know I hadn't
noticed that about it up until now, up
until these two installments maybe
because I read them back-to-back which I
don't generally do but yeah I was
impressed by just how predictable the
twists and turns that got us to the end
were but whatever I did really enjoy it
it is a fun ride it's a great comfort
read. It's also really quick to read, I
can get through like 100 pages in an
hour or so which is fast for adult
fantasy as far as I'm concerned and in
the end I think I gave it about four
stars overall I think I gave both
instalments four stars but yeah I do
highly recommend this series, they're a
lot of fun. Anyway that's it for today if
you want to hear more about what I read
during the month of May be sure to check
out my Asian lit bingo wrap-up when it's
up thank you guys for watching I'll see
you my next video bye!
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