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theartofangirling · 8 months

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part 3 of the 2023 version of this post: adult books!

part 1: middle grade books | part 2: young adult books

this is a very incomplete list, as these are only books I've read and enjoyed. not all books are going to be for all readers, so I'd recommend looking up synopses and content warnings. feel free to message me with any questions about specific representation!

list of books under the cut ⬇️

yerba buena by nina lacour

if we were villains by m.l. rio

everyone in this room will someday be dead by emily r. austin

i want to be a wall by honami shirono

portrait of a thief by grace d. li

the thirty names of night by zeyn joukhadar

on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong

love & other disasters by anita kelly

take a hint, dani brown by talia hibbert

boyfriend material by alexis hall

almost like being in love by steve kluger

the charm offensive by alison cochrun

something wild & wonderful by anita kelly

red, white & royal blue by casey mcquiston

something to talk about by meryl wilsner

honey girl by morgan rogers

one last stop by casey mcquiston

once ghosted, twice shy by alyssa cole

kiss her once for me by alison cochrun

a spindle splintered by alix e. harrow

finna by nino cipri

every heart a dooryway by seanan mcguire

the starless sea by erin morgenstern

under the whispering door by tj klune

space opera by catherynne m. valente

light from uncommon stars by ryka aoki

dead collections by isaac fellman

the city we became by n.k. jemisin

light carries on by ray nadine

an absolutely remarkable thing by hank green

feed them silence by lee mandelo

summer sons by lee mandelo

upright women wanted by sarah gailey

lavender house by lev a.c. rosen

fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe by fannie flagg

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid

a master of djinn by p. djeli clark

witchmark by c.l. polk

a marvellous light by freya marske

a restless truth by freya marske

when women were dragons by kelly barnhill

plain bad heroines by emily m. danforth

a lady for a duke by alexis hall

infamous by lex croucher

passing strange by ellen klages

even though i knew the end by c.l. polk

the chosen and the beautiful by nghi vo

whiskey when we're dry by john larison

wake of vultures by lila bowen

silver in the wood by emily tesh

the once and future witches by alix e. harrow

the kingdoms by natasha pulley

a tip for the hangman by allison epstein

she who became the sun by shelley parker-chan

the song of achilles by madeline miller

spear by nicola griffith

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir

some desperate glory by emily tesh

all systems red by martha wells

a psalm for the wild built by becky chambers

the mimicking of known successes by malka older

winter's orbit by everina maxwell

fireheart tiger by aliette de bodard

empress of salt and fortune by nghi vo

legends and lattes by travis baldree

the house in the cerulean sea by tj klune

other ever afters by melanie gillman

the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon

a day of fallen night by samantha shannon

a strange and stubborn endurance by foz meadows

the unbroken by c.l. clark

real queer america by samantha allen

fun home by alison bechdel

in the dream house by carmen maria machado

better living through birding by christian cooper

why fish don't exist by lulu miller

#lgbtq+ books #queer books #book recommendations #gay books #book flow chart #part 3 of 3!#AND THAT'S IT oh my god this took me days #mp

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sophia-sol · 2 years

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Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard

The last of the books I'm planning to read from the Hugo novella list for the year!! There were a lot of really good things about this one: the feeling of tension and unhappiness and like there are no good choices; fearing your lover's anger and your mother's anger and feeling like there's nobody with whom you can be at peace and uncomplicatedly yourself. The alternate-history Vietnam-like setting. All the important female characters.

But, like the last de Bodard I read, I struggled with the romance. I feel like I needed to see more between Thanh and Giang. And it feels awfully abrupt that Thanh is open to trying something with Giang so very very soon after everything went down with Eldris. I think the book just needed to be a bit longer than it actually is!

#fireheart tiger #aliette de bodard #book thoughts

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hear-the-ocean · 2 years

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Fireheart Tiger book review

Very long and Spoiler-y review of Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

Summary (pulled from goodreads) :

Award-winning author Aliette de Bodard returns with a powerful romantic fantasy that reads like The Goblin Emperor meets Howl’s Moving Castle in a pre-colonial Vietnamese-esque world.

Fire burns bright and has a long memory….

Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she’s returned to her mother’s imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria’s royal palace.

Thanh’s new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh’s home. Eldris won’t take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions.

Can Thanh find the freedom to shape her country’s fate—and her own?

Review:

When we first open with the story, I thought it would be interesting. We start it right in the middle of a scene with the first sentence "they were coming." It set the tone and gave me this urgency. Add the little confusing flashback scene of a burning palace and random objects catching fire, I thought wow things are tense, action packed and dire already! Only to be met with exposition, politics, a meeting, and a romance that had been established outside the pages. It abruptly cut off the feelings I had reading the start of the story.

There's too much exposition without any kind of set up or foundation. We don't have a ground and we are being told the details of tree leaves and flowers. There’s also too much repetition. The same little bit of that burning palace and the servant girl got repeated like 3 times in the first 20 pages (I'm reading the ebook so first 20 pages of the ebook) and the Eldris and her blue eyes bringing a single rose to her was repeated twice which obviously isn't that much but when the story has barely begun, we have very little info other than the political stuff, it's very noticeable. But even as we go on, the repetition doesn't stop and it gets exasperating. It just made me think that the story needed another round of editing.

The difficulty with short stories and novellas, especially fantasy ones, is that you have so little time to set everything, worldbuild, introduce and develop characters, stories, and arcs. Making the reader care about the characters and their problems is going to be difficult because you just don't have the space. With Fireheart Tiger, I had a hard time, after the initial beginning, to care at all about the characters. Part of me wanted to know about this mysterious fire but I also just didn't care. The repetition, instead of building anticipation like I assume it was trying to do, was instead just frustrating. The characters overall just felt flat and not real. The type of characters you would see in children’s stories each with 1 trait and black and white morality.

I didn't care for the romance and felt frustrated with Thanh's focus on it and lack of focus on her position and responsibility. There's a lot of self-pity and self-hate with her. She doesn't feel like she can achieve much and has fallen in her sisters' shadows. She lives her life confused and in fear. This isn't bad though. It's totally understandable given she was essentially a political hostage for years. There was no way for her to learn the skills needed for her position and with the fire that she barely survived, of course she will be traumatized. Doesn't mean it's not frustrating though.

That being said, literally the 2nd scene of this novella proved that wrong, gave us what I thought to be a key character trait; Thanh being skilled in politics and negotiation. People aren’t usually born with those skills so I have to assume she learned it but that means she should have other skills royals need for their positions but the decisions she makes really challenge that established characteristic lol. Like I don’t know much about royal rules but I’m pretty sure that as a Princess you would consult with the Empress about potential political alliances with other nations against one specific nation and then have a scribe or someone or maybe yourself write the letters to those nations. But? Thanh? Just? Suddenly makes the decision for alliances, writes the letters on her own and then just sends them. Hello? She gets reprimanded of course but ultimately her decision is shown as being the right one.

Over and over she makes bad decisions and gets upset when her mother is rightfully upset/angry at her. She never discusses things with her mother, they never work together and in any other story that took its politics seriously, it would be a sign of a coup. The Empress and the Princess that do what they want regardless of the other weakens the monarchy and throws everything in chaos. Worse is that the narrative keeps painting the mother as stupid and Thanh as the chess genuis who can spin a story to her favour like she did in the end.

Also I didn’t appreciate Thanh being rude to her mom. Not once did we get these 2 to sit down and talk and work through their issues and work together. It felt like Thanh was running around making bad decisions, her mom being upset and trying to figure out what happened so she can do damage control but Thanh doing whatever she wants to “fix” her mistake cuz her mom “just doesn’t understand” and thereby undermining the literal Empress?? And getting upset at her mom being upset. Absolutely wild.

It’s supposed to be a royal court but it feels so empty? Like it feels like it’s literally just Thanh and her mom running everything.

It’s annoying that Thanh talks about filial piety yet hasn’t done anything? She’s rash! Despite what we are told, her decisions show us that she IS rash and doesn’t think things through. She doesn’t understand what it means to be in charge of a nation and gets upset when her mom puts her responsibility to her people above her. Unfortunately, the life of a royal is that of a pawn. The power royals have is sometimes nothing but shadow; you can see it but can’t touch. The real power is usually held by multiple people along with the empress. At least that’s how I understand it.

By far the biggest stupid decision was her having an affair with the princess of the nation that’s trying to slowly take over her land? Of having sex out in broad daylight in the gardens and then being shocked that they were later discovered. And when she gets blackmailed about this, she accepts the terms instead of coming out clean to her mother!! Someone who is essentially her enemy and is actively negotiating with her, blackmails Thanh into giving her a favour…. Because Thanh is more scared about her mom seeing her as weak. This one decision put her entire nation at risk.

There’s a strong theme of being filial but honestly I never actually saw anyone be filial.

I don’t know why but I couldn’t connect with Thanh and at a certain point I was almost disliking her. It came to a point where any scene with her justifiably feeling scared or confused, her wanting more for herself and wanting to be seen and loved, would still annoy me. I could step away and agree that it makes sense for her to have those feelings but with the earlier frustrations with her and her stupidity, it stopped me from caring, which makes me sound so rude lmao. But honestly the contradictory actions and the self-pity was too much.

The romance was not great. Because it happened off page, I didn't care and was instead annoyed every time Thanh missed or wanted Eldris. And like I get it. Her and Eldris aren’t really the true romance but we don’t know that till the end so I count it. Plus the romance between Thanh and Giang was insta-love too. So I’m just gonna ignore the romance. To be honest, I don’t see this being about romance. To me it felt more like hey here are some different types of relationships! Thanh and Eldris have a romance going on but it's manipulative and abusive? And it does a great job of showing how Eldris manipulated Thanh, of Thanh’s feelings and reactions as a victim. To me Fireheart Tiger isn’t a romance novella. And I have to believe that because the romance between Thanh and Eldris isn’t a good one and isn’t healthy of course and the real couple get together at the end and their love had no development anyways so I’m not sure romance in general had any kind of purpose here.

The ending felt rushed and honestly the entire story felt like 5 or 10 chapters taken right from the middle of a 500 page novel. Basically it felt like we didn't get a proper beginning or ending, just a random middle. Even the conflicts that were setup didn’t get developed let alone get resolved; we just got a “we will have to deal with that in the future but we can do it!” vibe.

I said it already but truly if this story was expanded into a full novel, where everything from world building to characters was given the space to be properly set and developed (and with a healthy amount of editing) Fireheart Tiger would have been much more enjoyable for me and probably a favourite. In the end it is all preference, there are more people who have enjoyed this than not and unfortunately i was in the latter.

#book review #fireheart tiger #aliette de bodard #novella #fantasy #all female cast #vietnamese inspired #i think?#books and reading #bookblr #books #booklr #writing portfolio #my writing #my reviews #lgbt #wlw books #sapphic

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aseriesofvariousevents · 2 years

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Fireheart Tiger

I honestly loved every page of this story. The on-page negotiations were so fraught with tension, I felt like I was in the room with them. Each character felt totally distinct from the rest in a way that made the whole story just that much more real and complex, especially in its depictions of the power dynamics present throughout, both on the larger scale of colonization and more personal matters within families and relationships. I do wish the story had been just a bit longer (though not a full length novel—the novella format suits it quite well) but with what we had, my complaints are few and far in between.

Favorite Quote: Just because it makes sense doesn’t mean it needs to happen that way.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Author: Aliette de Bodard

#aliette de bodard #four stars #fireheart tiger #certified nora review

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sapphicreadsdb · 11 months

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Hi do you by chance have any sapphic fantasy recs? preferably adult fantasy but YA is fine too

sure! tho this could will get quite long... no links, sorry!, bc it was kicking up a fuss with those for some reason

+ = ya

pennyblade by j.l. worrad

lady hotspur by tessa gratton

sofi and the bone song by adrienne tooley (+)

she who became the sun by shelley parker chan

the scapegracers by h.a. clarke (+)

the third daughter by adrienne tooley (+)

the daughters of izdihar by hadeer elsbai

the malevolent seven by sebastien de castell

blackheart knights by laure eve

the warden by daniel m. ford

the unbroken by c.l. clark

dark earth by rebecca stott

witch king by martha wells

scorpica by g.r. macallister

the mirror empire by kameron hurley

now she is witch by kirsty logan

silverglass by j.f. rivkin

the woman who loved the moon and other stories by elizabeth a. lynn

...(this answer is how i discover there's a character limit per block so. doing this in chunks.)

fire logic by laurie j. marks

a restless truth by freya marske

when angels left the old country by sacha lamb (+)

the traitor baru cormorant by seth dickinson

an archive of brightness by kelsey socha

the bladed faith by david dalglish

the winged histories by sofia samatar

dragonoak by sam farren

the forever sea by joshua phillip johnson

into the broken lands by tanya huff

the jasmine throne by tasha suri

daughter of redwinter by ed mcdonald

the last magician by lisa maxwell (+)

the fire opal mechanism by fran wilde

...

the black coast by mike brooks

high times in the low parliament by kelly robson

foundryside by robert jackson bennett

the enterprise of death by jesse bullington

mamo by sas milledge (+)

from dust, a flame by rebecca podos (+)

uncommon charm by emily bergslien & kat weaver

wild and wicked things by francesca may

the unspoken name by a.k. larkwood

brother red by adrian selby

the final strife by saara el-arifi

way of the argosi by sebastien de castell (+)

the bone shard daughter by andrea stewart

ghost wood song by erica waters (+)

into the crooked place by alexandra christo (+)

ashes of the sun by django wexler

the midnight girls by alicia jasinska (+)

the midnight lie by marie rutkoski (+)

the never tilting world by rin chupeco (+)

water horse by melissa scott

...

a master of djinn by p. djeli clark

the good luck girls by charlotte nicole davis (+)

among thieves by m.j. kuhn

black water sister by zen cho

the velocity of revolution by marshall ryan maresca

sweet & bitter magic by adrienne tooley (+)

the dark tide by alicia jasinska (+)

the library of the unwritten by a.j. hackwith

a dark and hollow star by ashley shuttleworth (+)

the chosen and the beautiful by nghi vo

the councillor by e.j. beaton

these feathered flames by alexandra overy (+)

the factory witches of lowell by c.s. malerich

fireheart tiger by aliette de bodard

...

city of lies by sam hawke

bestiary by k-ming chang

the raven and the reindeer by t. kingfisher

the winter duke by claire eliza bartlett (+)

master of poisons by andrea hairston

the empress of salt and fortune by nghi vo

night flowers shirking from the light of the sun by li xing

down comes the night by allison saft (+)

wench by maxine kaplan (+)

girls made of snow and glass by melissa bashardoust (+)

girls of paper and fire by natasha ngan (+)

the impossible contract by k.a. doore

burning roses by s.l. huang

the house of shattered wings by aliette de bodard

not for use in navigation by iona datt sharma

weak heart by ban gilmartin

girl, serpent, thorn by melissa bashardoust (+)

the devil's blade by mark alder

...

we set the dark on fire by tehlor kay mejia (+)

the true queen by zen cho

moontangled by stephanie burgis

a portable shelter by kirsty logan

sing the four quarters by tanya huff

all the bad apples by moira fowley doyle (+)

the drowning eyes by emily foster

the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon

miranda in milan by katharine duckett

the afterward by e.k. johnston (+)

thorn by anna burke

penhallow amid passing things by iona datt sharma

in the vanishers' palace by aliette de bodard

summer of salt by katrina leno (+)

the gracekeepers by kirsty logan

out of the blue by sophie cameron (+)

black wolves by kate elliott

the circle by sara b. elfgren & mats strandberg (+)

unspoken by sarah rees brennan (+)

thistlefoot by gennarose nethercott

passing strange by ellen klages

(and breathe)

#recs #q

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sapphic-book-tournament · 11 months

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words-and-coffee · 1 year

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She would have let you burn

Aliette de Bodard, Fireheart Tiger

#Aliette de Bodard #Fireheart Tiger #quote #quotes

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bajoop-sheeb · 2 months

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Sorry if this is invasive in any way, but I host a queer library at my university and noticed we do not have many authors of colour hosted in our collection. I enjoy sci fi and would like to put more of it into our collection, but I'd really like for some amount of it to feature authors of colour. I know Samuel Delany is a good author for this, but I was wondering about any beyond this.

I'd love to connect more people to works by people of colour, and I think it is a genuine necessity for our library to do so to be worth maintaining. Would you have any recommendations? Thank you.

Not invasive at all! I definitely do have some recommendations for books by BIPOC + queer spec fic authors, but they're mostly fantasy. Hope that's okay--if anyone has any queer BIPOC sci-fi books to add, please do so! (There'll be a lot of overlap with my earlier post.)

Anything by Octavia Butler. My personal favorites are Dawn, The Parable of the Sower, and her short fiction collection, Bloodchild and Other Stories (sci-fi)

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (sci-fi)

The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley Parker-Chan (fantasy)

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez (fantasy)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo (fantasy)

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard, who also writes absolutely wonderful short fiction (fantasy)

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera (fantasy)

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark (fantasy)

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri (fantasy)

#an unkindness of ghosts #the radiant emperor #the vanished birds #fireheart tiger #the unbroken #science fiction #fantasy #bloodchild and other stories #ascendant #the burning kingdoms #the singing hills cycle #books #asks

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cantseemtohide · 5 months

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What I read in 2023, pretty good going 👍 (apologies for long non sims post)

1. Middlemarch by George Eliot

2. Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century: Through the Prism of Value by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts

3. The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue

4. The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction edited by Michael Emmerich, Jim Hinks & Masashi Matsuie

5. Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government: John Locke's Philosophy of Money by George Caffentzis

6. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze

7. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

8. Civilizing Money: Hume, his Monetary Project and the Scottish Enlightenment by George Caffentzis

9. An Untouched House by Willem Frederik Hermans

10. Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

11. Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

12. Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

13. Exiles from European Revolutions: Refugees in Mid-Victorian England edited by Sabina Freitag

14. The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P by Rieko Matsuura

15. A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance by Claudio Pavone

16. Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

17. Dracula by Bram Stoker

18. The Silent Dead by Tetsuya Honda

19. Lady Susan by Jane Austen

20. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century by Giovanni Arrighi

21. This Should be Written in the Present Tense by Helle Helle

22. The Citadel of Weeping Pearls by Aliette de Bodard

23. The Invention of Art: A Cultural History by Larry Shiner

24. Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

25. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

26. Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo

27. Carol by Patricia Highsmith

28. Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question edited by Nicola Diane Thompson

29. Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural & Political by James Kelman

30. Mem by Bethany C. Morrow

31. Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin by Boris Kagarlitsky

32. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

33. The History of the British Film 1918-1929 by Rachael Low

34. The Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System by Henryk Grossman

35. Mayhem & Death by Helen McClory

36. White by Marie Darrieussecq

37. Dream Houses by Genevieve Valentine

38. The Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard

39. Maigret Takes a Room by Georges Simenon

40. The Lodger, That Summer by Levi Huxton

41. Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

42. Grundrisse by Karl Marx

43. A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

44. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

#non sims #2023 reads

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