The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green

Four teenagers don't know it, but their paths will cross. Tash is a smoke thief, running from demons as bait and helping to trap and kill them for their intoxicating smoke. Catherine is a princess set to marry a prince she's never met and holds affections for her guard, Ambrose. Ambrose is loyal to a fault, reciprocates Catherine's feelings, and becomes the target of her cruel family so her match won't be ruined. Lastly, March is one of the last of the Abask people, obliterated in a war between two kingdoms, Brigant and Calidor. He serves Prince Thelonius of Calidor until he quits to make him pay for refusing to help his people in their time of need. They all find themselves in danger and face hard decisions that decide the fate of Brigant and Calidor.

The Smoke Thieves is a lengthy fantasy novel with a large cast of characters. Once the story gets going, I was drawn in, but it took a while to get there. The four main characters are all interesting and have different perspectives. Tasha is by far my favorite and I felt like she was shown the least. She's younger than the rest and has a fiery personality and love for gorgeous footwear. Her relationship with Gravell cracks me up. He's kind of a gruff, reluctant father to her while she can be a bit annoying when she doesn't get her way. March has the biggest journey throughout the book and starts out from an understandably hateful place. His whole world has been destroyed and people ooh and ahh at him like a circus animal. He's the only character that brings in the negative side of Calidor as a nation that stood by while the Abask people suffered because of their rivalry. Unfortunately, these two characters were not as focused on as the other two characters.

Some aspects of the book took away from the experience for me. Catherine has to marry someone she doesn't love and Ambrose is hunted for loving her. The drama between Catherine and Ambrose take up most of the book. I liked them and their romance, but there's only so many times I can read that they looked meaningfully at each other or thought about each other. Plus Catherine's plight as a very privileged woman pales in comparison to Tash or March. The misogyny of Brigant society was laid on thick and I felt for her, but other characters were much more interesting. Ambrose read as flatly good and rather uninteresting. I would have personally loved to see more depth in the relationship between March and Edyon. This style of story telling that splits the book into 5 different perspectives takes a long time for anything to come together. I also found some plot developments stretching my sense of disbelief.

The Smoke Thieves is an enjoyable novel that could have been more so in a more straight forward format. It took me quite a while to read and I grew impatient with the story. I would probably read the next book to see what happens. The ending is a mix of happy and frustrating that's perfect to set up for the second installment. If you like high fantasy and don't mind a lengthy book and a long list of characters, I would recommend this.

My rating: 3.5/5 fishmuffins

LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff

In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Eve is only trying to survive with her sickly grandpa. She only has a few credits left and fights malfunctioning robots in a mech for money, but a rigged game has her losing and exposing a power to disrupt electronics with her mind. Her power is considered deviant by the Brotherhood and they will stop at nothing to hunt her down. On top of this, a lifelike or android named Ezekiel approaches her calls her by a different name. Then her whole world falls apart around her. Along with Ezekiel, her best friend Lemon Fresh, and her voice of reason bot Cricket, Eve needs to remember her past and save her loved ones.

LIFEL1K3 is like Max: Fury Road, Pinnochio, and Blade Runner all smooshed together. The world is almost unrecognizable. California is its own island because of an earthquake. Corporations are fighting against each other in War 4.0. The Brotherhood rules all with a fantical iron fist. Abnorms and deviates came from proximity to radiation which can result in some pretty spectacular powers. There are all different types of artificial intelligence from lifelikes (now illegal) to logika to bots to blitzhunds, descending in complexity. People can be enhanced cybernetically like Eve is. She was shot in the head as a child, so her eye is robotic along with some of her skull. Technology enhances peoples lives and also irreparably destroys them.

The characters are all lovely people that I rooted for the entire time. Eve has a fauxhawk and a tough attitude with skills to back it up, only necessary living in this time. Her friendship with Lemon Fresh is super supportive, equal, and awesome. Cricket has a bit of a Napoleon complex, but he is the voice of reason throughout the novel. Ezekiel is a literal coin operated boy and developed a relationship with Eve. He's fiercely loyal and fights through anything. This band of misfits (plus a blitzhund) travel around getting into scrapes and fighting their way out of it one way or another. Their dialogue is hilarious to read. Though the story is pretty fantastical and science fiction, the book is at its core about finding where you fit in and choosing your family.

LIFEL1K3 is a crazy in your face science fiction adventure with family and friendship in the center of it all. I did have a few problems with it. Some of the action sequences didn't make sense to me in the way they were described. For instance, there are people shooting pretty close and a storm with literal glass in it, but the main characters get out without a scratch. What??? However, I really loved the ending. It's a bit of a gut punch but totally makes sense and makes me want the next book NOW.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Aftermath by Kelley Armstrong

Skye Gilchrist and Jesse Mandal were best friends in freshman year of high school and on their way to becoming a couple. Then, a tragedy interrupts their lives in the form of a school shooting. Skye's brother Luka was caught with a gun and shot before he killed anyone. Jesse's brother Jamil was shot and killed. In the three years afterward, Skye moved from place to place, trying to unsuccessfully escape the blame and torment until she returned to her home and the school where the shooting happened. Once she's there, Jesse treats her terribly and someone is playing pranks on her that become more dangerous as they go on. Will their friendship ever be the same and who is tormenting Skye?

Aftermath is an obviously titled book about the aftermath of a school shooting. Skye and Jesse's lives are both very effected by this event. Skye is much more introverted and scared to interact with people. She hasn't been able to call anywhere home for very long because of the harassment. People assume she knew something or did something terrible because her brother was one of the shooters. Skye only has happy memories of Luka, his wonderful art, and his caring nature. Jesse, on the other hand, became a track star to fill his brother's shoes and give his parents some joy in their lives. His academics suffered even though he was great at them before and he takes steroids to stay good at the sport. His school attendance is extremely spotty, but overlooked because he's a successful athlete. He has nothing but awful memories of Jamil, his abuse, and his cruel nature.

Skye and Jesse reconnect after some rough interactions and misunderstandings and work together to find out who the harasser is. Their relationship is sweet. They acknowledge the changes in each other and move on from there. I felt the harassment plotline took away from the greater story. Dealing with the aftermath of this horrific event is enough and adding a mystery plot seems a little cheap. I also felt some characters could have been dealt with better. Jamil seems like a jerk, but his brother would still mourn him. Jesse seems very callous towards his brother and doesn't seem to care a lot for him. I felt it would be more realistic if Jesse was torn and mourned him, but was still affected by those bad memories and Jamil's awful behavior. The principal is an idiot and would never work in a school. He would be sued so fast it's ridiculous because he keeps denying the harassment and escalating incidences and blaming Skye for them. If he were more calculating or nuanced, he could have been a  more effective character.

Aftermath could have been a hard hitting book about school shootings, but it gets too caught up in unnecessary mystery and one dimensional characters. The relationship featured is sweet and built organically over time. Other than that, the only really good, nuanced thing is Skye's feelings toward her brother and trying to reconcile him with what he did. If you're going to write a book about a school shooting, which is very topical as it keeps happenning over and over, it should be about the shooting itself and the real aftermath, not some manufactured whodunit.

My rating: 2.5/5 fishmuffins

Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne

Stella Ainsley works partly as a teacher, partly as an engineer keeping the rustbucket ship called the Stalwart she lives in functional despite its lack of pretty much everything. She's an orphan whose aunt abandoned her and her only way to some of the other richer, more fuctional ships is as a governess. Unexpected, a private ship called the Rochester hires her and she experiences riches she's never seen: a hige variety of food, no limits on water usage, a closet full of decent clothing, and even actual physical books. Stella can't believe her luck, but a couple things worry her. First, the captain Hugo Fairfax exhibits erratic behavior, nice to her one second in private and then rude in public plus his penchant for drink. Second, she hears laughter in the hallways and mysterious things happen like random fires being set. Is it safe for her to be on the vessel or should she return to Stalwart?

Brightly Burning is an inventive retelling of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre set in space. 210 years ago, a super volcano erupted on Earth, causing an ice age that could last for centuries more. All nations sent up ships, but poorer, less resource rich ships are being phased out or just can't run anymore. Infodumping is necessary to set up the world, but this was done within a lesson to Stella's students. It felt much more organic and skillful to do this. Because of how life is pretty hard in space, people die much younger. 35 is considered to be old, especially on the Stalwart without many medical supplies, food, and water. The difference between rich and poor is astonomical without any hope for the poor to better their situation. Stella's situation is pretty dire, but she does her best to keep the Stalwart afloat, help her young charges, and juggle a couple of crushes.

The Rochester couldn't be more different than the Stalwart from the decadent amount of resources available, to the amount of people, and the very different nature of those people. On the Stalwart, people are rather open and honest while the Rochester crew of 8 seems pretty secretive but polite. When they are alone and going through normal operations, many social protocols are relaxed like having the working crew eat with Hugo and Hugo speaking informally to everyone. I thought this social aspect was a little out of place in the futuristic setting. Hugo is much different than Rochester, which is good since he's hard to like in a modern sense. This incarnation still lords his wealth, power, and privilege over Stella when he wants to plus his overexcessive drinking makes him intolerable.

Brightly Burning is an enjoyable read that transports the Jane Eyre story to the future. I was enjoying it and totally onboard until the last quarter of the novel. An additional unexpected secret is hamhandedly revealed and resolved in an unrealistic, convenient way. The ending felt rushed and not as immersive or detailed as the rest of the story. I would read another Alexa Donne book since the book did suck me in for most of it, but the ending is a bit of a disappointment.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

Unclean Spirits by Chuck Wendig

Cason Cole was a successful MMA fighter, but grew soft and complacent as a bodyguard for E. Rose, a magnetic, hedonistic man. One fateful day, a bomb kills his boss, releasing him from E. Rose's influence and making him aware of his past for the first time in years. Cason is then drawn into a world of mythology, gods, and magic and those who oppose all of it. He has to decide how hard he will fight to get his family back.

Unclean Spirits is story that satisfies my mythology obsession, takes me on an insane adventure, and adds a healthy dash of horror. In this world, all mythological gods are real, ranging from the well known gods of Greece and Egypt to the more obscure ones of Sumeria to even local legends and fables. I was particularly happy to see Erishkagal. They have been kicked out of their realm and forced to live in the human one, most attempting to avoid general human attention. Because of their disparate natures, the gods aren't a monolithic whole, but all very opinionated and arrogant about their past accomplishments and state. E. Rose turns out to be Eros and of course Cason is blamed for his death with Aphrodite, Eros' mother, wanting vengeance. These supernatural creatures are just as they are portrayed in myth: petty, jealous, coompletely consumed with their own drama, practically immortal, and extremely powerful.

Poor Cason just wants his family back. He has been kept for them for years in what he finds out is a manufactured plot to do so. When he tries to return to his family, his wife and young son try to kill him with knives. He's lost in the real world since he's been lost in a fog, let alone in this newfound world of gods and monsters. Cason is the grounding force of the book because he's as bewildered as we are. His goal isn't to kill all the gods or anything crazy; he simply wants his family back. He meets the bomber that killed E. Rose and helps him kill other gods because he has no idea how else to fight back. Through this allyship, he sees how gods have survived all these years, either in a commune out in the country or inflitrated within the abandoned nooks and crannies of human societies.

Unclean Spirits is an amazing ride with twists and turns I didn't see coming. The ending did seem a bit abrupt pacing wise, but everything that needed to be resolved was. I would love to see this world as a series even though Cason's story is over because there are endless possibilities to stories in these gods experiences and the people they affect.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

The Bright Sessions Season 2

Dr. Bright continues to help her patients while she plans to save her brother. Her current patients include the empath Caleb, the time traveler Sam, the mind reader Chloe, and Damian, who can plant commands in people's minds. Her goal is to undermine The AM, a manipulative and dangerous company that experiments and spies on atypicals (or people with special abilites).

The Bright Sessions is a podcast that is usually confined to therapy sessions with her patients. The world opens up in this season with different modes of story telling, new characters interactions, and a plot outside of simple therapy. The audio recordings do include therapy sessions and expand to voice messages, recorded conversations in person and by phone, and verbal notes from several characters. I especially enjoyed learning more about each character, seeing them meet each other, and forming their own relationships. Sam and Chloe become good friends while both of them agree to help Dr. Bright in her quest. Caleb and his boyfriend Adam decide to stake out Dr. Bright's office to see other atypicals and meet all the other patients. Everyone becomes good friends except for Damian.

Damian was only mentioned in the previous season. From the impression on Chloe and Dr. Bright as well as his name, I expected an ice cold sociopathic murderer. He's not the most pleasant person and delights in forcing people to do his will, but his power could be abused much worse than he uses it. He gets things he wants like attention without crossing major lines. I grew to begrudgingly like him a little bit even through his smarmy nature and manipulation because his lonely interior is exposed underneath the annoying bravado. That all is obliterated with his actions at the very end of the season. Damian is the only main character with a grey morality that brings something else along with his awful personality.

The AM is delved into during this season as well. It's supposedly a non-profit organization that works with government agencies. However, they use therapists like Dr. Bright to keep tabs on atypicals, assess their usefulness, and basically kidnap them to perform experiments. Dr. Bright's brother Mark was one of these with the unique ability to replicate anyone else's ability. As a result of their cruel experiment, his consciousness was stranded in time while his body stays comatose in the present. Dr. Bright is forced to continue to give the AM information on her patients, but she tries to manipulate it to make them seem less unique than they are to avoid their attention. Her past relationship with Agent Green complicates things further and brings more drama than expected.

I devoured the second season of The Bright Sessions in a few days. It has some bizarre episodes, some infuriating episodes, and some heartbreaking episodes. I highly recommend this different view of people with special abilities and I can't wait to see what happens in the next season. The episodes are fairly short and lend well to binge listening.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Obsidio by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman

Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik are back with new seemingly insurmountable problems including fitting thousands of people into one way over capacity ship, the Mao, with few resources. They plan to return to Kerenza, but who knows what's happening there after the Beitech invasion seven months ago. Their friends and family may not even be alive anymore. The reality isn't that bad, but the remaining civilians are either enslaved to mine fuel for Beitech or imprisoned and threatened to help the miners work faster. Kady's cousin Asha survived and joined the resistance because she sees that they will all die when the mining is done. Unfortunately, her ex-boyfriend Rhys is working for Beitech and threatens her work unless she can manipulate or convince him to help her save lives. All of them have mounting problems and a corrupt, genocidal corporation to face.

Obsidio has a lot of expectations because of how good the first two books were and fulfills them all. All three books are very different, but each has relatable characters, crazy plot twists, and awesome action sequences. Obsidio has the largest cast of them all and the plot follows each of them fairly evenly, making sure we know what's going on with old favorites and meeting and getting to know the new ones. Nik, Ezra, Kady, and Hanna are all trying to process what has happened to them and how to fix these new problems. All have loved ones die and get small moments to mourn them in the middle of all of this. These moments are so realistic when wanting to see or talk to them, feeling the loss, and recognizing the new normal. In such an action packed series, these moments bring in emotions and human experience on a smaller scale. With the new characters, Asha has made a lot of mistakes and tries as hard as she can to atone. She doesn't have any crazy abilities, but she tries her best to do what's right even with such harsh opposition. Rhys goes through a huge transformation when he finally see what Asha is truly fighting against. I grew to like these characters just as much as all the others.

The minor characters also play an important role in this book. People are fighting for control on the Mao for the greater good. When crisis after crisis happens and people die under the current rule, others see weakness in the young people who have gotten them as far as they have and opportunity to overthrow to make everything better. In reality, it only serves to divide what should be unified and causes even more deaths in the long run. Their hearts are in the right place, but their actions are terrible. On the enemy side, those like Rhys are seen, people that have no love for Beitech but joined the military, those with larger dreams, and those that are following orders to survive and justifying the atrocities they commit to cope. Hard deaths are felt on all sides and even when the good guys win, good people still die because the enemy isn't monolithicly evil. On the other hand, the chain of command in Beitech is filled with corruption. Complaints about sexual assaults or unlawful deaths are thrown out and never seen by anyone higher than the planetside commanding officer and only lead to the whistleblower being punished.

Obsidio is such a good book. I read it in two days, which is saying a lot with my current schedule. It has many hard hitting moments that made me cry, exciting moments that had me on the edge of my chair, and humorous scenes to give some relief from the emotion and tension. The book is so expertly crafted with transcriptions of video, maps, digital messages, and numerous other media. I have no real criticism of this book because even with so many plot lines and characters, everything is clear and well plotted to cover each setting and character. I love how even minor characters are made important in a book where it would be easy to fade minor characters into the background. Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff are working on a new series in the same universe that I can't wait to read. I will read anything this duo comes out with.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins