The first 200 pages were not written well. I was bored and felt growing discomfort with the mangled Middle Eastern culture this fantasy book was premised on. At least the next 150 odd pages picked up a little in terms of plot and also storytelling, so I didn’t end up thoroughly hating Rebel of the Sands. Still, this book has so many problems, I’m relieved I didn’t order the sequels before finishing this one first.
SPELLSLINGER by Sebastien de Castell
Spellslinger is a rather quirky book, which I enjoyed very much. A young mage who’s struggling with magic, a traveller passing through who can’t keep her hilarious social commentary to herself, and a snarky talking squirrel cat? This combination was most peculiar, making me laugh and smirk throughout.
WITH MALICE by Eileen Cook
With Malice kept me up at night because I couldn’t sleep without knowing how it would end. Of course, the job of a psychological thriller is to keep readers up long after everyone’s gone to sleep, so it should be the expectation when picking up such a book.
MORE HAPPY THAN NOT by Adam Silvera
For the month of February Hazel picked More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera as her book recommendation for me to read. What made this round of Epic Recs different was that we specifically chose to go with audiobooks. This also meant that for once we didn’t pick books the other already owned, and so had free rein.
