Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

 

Lynnie

fantasy, fiction, audiobook

 

Imagine that you stand in line for the best ramen in the neighborhood, but when you finally get to the front of the line and open the door, you are instead greeted by a magical pawn shop where you can sell your regrets. The magical pawn shop and the world beyond Tokyo are the setting for Samantha Sotto Yamboa's Water Moon.

Perfect for fans of Erin Morgenstern, Water Moon requires a leap into the unknown and the suspension of what you know to be real. I was swept away into the locations and magical elements of this book, much more than I was the relationship between the main characters Hana and Keishin, though I did like both of them. It's the world that Yamboa created, though, that fascinated me the most. A world where you can travel by puddle, and where origami is more than the paper it’s made from. It's incredibly imaginative and descriptive enough that I could picture everything, but not so flowery or descriptive that I wanted to skip over anything.

I was invested in the mystery of the story - what happened to Hana's father and can she save him, and herself, before time runs out? Can Hana and Kei overcome the future that has already been written?

I was disappointed in the ending - not because of what happened, but I felt it was just so fast. I guess I just wanted a little more.

I read the book and listened to the audiobook and I was very glad I did because I could hear how the Japanese words and names were pronounced and I could see how they were written - that was very helpful. The book was narrated by Cindy Kay & I really enjoyed her voice, her acting and her accents.

Overall this was a delightful, magical novel and I will be thinking about this hidden world behind Tokyo for a long time to come.

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

Amy       

family drama

Lily and Matthew come from two different worlds. Lily, the only child of Chinese immigrants, is an unpaid intern barely surviving on several part-time jobs. Matthew was raised with more money than he knows what to do with thanks to a successful pharmaceutical family business. Despite their many differences, Lily and Matthew connect and fall in love. Little do they know that their similarities could break them apart.

Real Americans is, overall, an interesting family drama which mostly held my interest. However, the pace tended to slow down frequently. To its benefit, sometimes the change in narrator perspective helped renew my interest. The story is told in three parts, each reflecting a different generation and the perspective of a new person. The first part of this novel read like a romance novel, centered around the budding relationship of two people from Lily’s perspective. I don’t want to give away the perspectives for the last two parts because it’s more fun if you encounter them while reading. But all perspectives were from related family members.

Rachel Khong put lots of emphasis on time and luck. Some examples I can give without spoilers are people being in the same place at the same time by chance, coincidences, fate, things viewed as “lucky” like four-leaf clovers, gifts viewed as being “unlucky”, predetermining an ideal home and then living there, and lucky guesses. I appreciated the format she crafted for this novel. Well done.

Sadly, reading about 1960s and 1970s China, the political landscape felt a little too relatable to our current political direction in America.

The narrators, Louisa Zhu, Eric Yang, and Eunice Wong all did good jobs with their sections. I was actually thrown a little when, apparently, Wong was able to change her voice to sound so much like Zhu that I thought there had been a narrator switch in the middle of Part 3. Too bad she couldn’t sound like Yang. :) I’ll give the three of them A-.  At times, they all, especially Yang, could sound robotic/bored. Although, to be fair, I think the material in those sections was usually kind of boring.

Onyx Storm (The Empyrean #3) by Rebecca Yarros

Amy       

Lynnie    

romantasy 

Amy’s Review

Picking up where Book 2 left off, there were not enough clues to remind me who everyone was in Onyx Storm. There should have been more reminders about the Gryphon Fliers, especially. Even ¾ of the way into the book, people’s names were brought up of whom I have no recollection. I’m all for not belaboring a sequel with information that previous readers should remember but, when there are this many characters, this book really needed some more hints for the ongoing readers.

I ended up liking the novel, but I was worried during the first third that this novel would be a replica of Book 2 where Rebecca Yarros just plugged in new variables to her existing formula because:

• Evil villain who is needlessly and extremely cruel – CHECK
• Some stupid reason why Violet and Xaden can’t be together – CHECK
• Complicated political intrigue which isn’t clearly explained – CHECK
• Violet going offsite into danger zones to fight against the enemy without proper authority and/or backup – CHECK 
• Some miracle that saves Violet while she’s off being a hero – CHECK 
• Extremely spicy sex scenes – CHECK 

Blah blah blah, Violet gets injured and has to be put back together again, blah blah blah, Violet is on a quest with her trusted friends because the professors can’t be expected to understand the situation, blah blah blah.

Thankfully, the story eventually changed gears and improved immensely!  It became a fun adventure! There were new places and new people and new dragons. Some mysteries had, at least, partial resolution. And I was even crying during a couple particularly heartbreaking parts of the novel. But it also still irritated me several times when Yarros’ story manipulations were showing. For the sake of no spoilers, I’ll only mention the unnecessary cliffhanger at the end. Yes, I’ll just tell you that it’s one of those sequel endings. Sigh. I don’t appreciate it when series books create big, unnecessary questions at the very end. I really feel like Xaden’s last scene was unclear and open-ended enough to get the audience to read the next book. I would’ve preferred to not have the last chapter, personally.

Onyx Storm was a good ride but with too many bumps along the way. I can’t give it higher than an average rating.

The audiobook was, again, narrated by Rebecca Soler who is terrific with this material. However, there were a few other narrators taking some brief sections to shake things up a little. Even though it jarred me at first, I appreciated the other characters’ points of view and narrators.  Jasmin Walker voicing Rhi was not my favorite. She sounded way too non-urgent and blasé for that chapter. Justis Bolding as Imogen was spot on, though, with her snarky voice. Teddy Hamilton again voiced Xaden and did a good job. But none of these tertiary narrators spent enough time reading to deserve a grade from me. I’ll give Soler an A for another job well done.

Lynnie’s Review

I was looking forward to being back in the world of the Empyrean series and while I enjoyed Onyx Storm overall, it's impossible not to notice that it suffers from middle book syndrome. Did it advance the plot? Yes. Could it have been done in a third as many pages? Absolutely. Much of this book felt like Yarros had committed to five books and now had to figure out how to fill the pages so she resorted to my least favorite middle book plot device which I always sum up as, "they wandered."

And wander they did, even going so far as creating a "quest squad." I liked the squad, but generally thought the quest itself was a waste of time with a predictable outcome, though the quest had one of the best scenes in the book AND one of the worst, which was interesting.

Violet and Xaden seemed slightly less toxic to one another in this book, but I suspect that's only because they got to spend time together, but rarely alone because no one wants to leave Violet alone with her venin boyfriend - who can blame them? I also thought the two of them did a much better job of communicating in this book so I was less frustrated with them.

As usual, I love the side characters more than Violet and Xaden. I love the interactions between the Sorrengail siblings, and the entire Fourth Wing, Flame Squad - their camaraderie continues to make me smile. Imogen is still my favorite and I was thrilled to get a chapter from her perspective. I hope there are more chapters from different perspectives in the next book, whenever it's released. Frankly, I don't see how it can be avoided. I'm looking forward to more from Aaric in the next book- I think he's one of the most interesting characters outside of the original group.

Also as usual, I found a lot of the plot points predictable and the cliffhanger ending obnoxious, especially since I've heard that Yarros hasn't even started work on the next book in the series. I just don't know how much story there is left to tell, though I guess we'll find out.

Once again I both read the book and listened to the audiobook. Rebecca Soler is a solid narrator and her voice has grown on me over the course of this series. I also still like Teddy Hamilton in his ONE Xaden chapter - I still wish he would get to read more chapters. Jasmin Walker and Justis Bolding also stepped in to narrate a chapter each, one from Rhiannon's perspective and the other for Imogen's though I don't know who was who. I liked both, but I would have preferred Rebecca Soler have read Imogen's chapter because her interpretation of Imogen's voice is one of my favorite things about the character.

Still, I enjoyed the book for the escapist fantasy I knew it would be. I still love this magical world that Yarros built, even if I'm sometimes frustrated by the story.

Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment #1) by Rebecca Ross

Amy   

young adult, fantasy

Iris and Roman are both working at the Gazette, vying for the coveted Columnist position. They are, of course, weary of and aggravated by each other. However, Iris has been typing messages to her brother who is away, fighting in the gods’ war, and she sticks her letters to him under the wardrobe hoping that they might magically reach him. Meanwhile, the person who is actually receiving the letters is Roman!  He begins to correspond with her without revealing his identity and, as he learns more about her, grows to care for her. Then, her life is up-ended and she disappears.

Told in alternating perspectives—Iris’ and Roman’s—Divine Rivals was fun from the beginning. The two protagonists are both facing struggles and the reader can tell they would be good for each other if they would just be willing to open up to each other a little. I loved their personalities.

The magic was great and the situations were engaging. I really liked these characters and wanted to keep reading about them. I was charmed by the storyline, even if their world was not as well-drawn. Obviously, this is in an alternate universe when typewriters and cars exist, but is not advanced enough to have computers or mobile phones. Magic does exist under some unexplained and limited circumstances. There are gods who seem to be taking out their personal differences on the humans of the world. And, for some unknown reason, Iris thought to put letters to her brother under her wardrobe.

It was a vague outline of a world in which to set Iris and Roman’s story, in my opinion. But I was really enjoying it anyway, until the end. I mean, I can’t spoil it, but some very unbelievable situations occurred in terms of the circumstances and with whom Iris chose to travel. And then, during those travels, there was no communication between her and her travel companion until they reached their destination. What absurdity! There is no way conversations that needed to be had simply were avoided during that time. It left me very disappointed. The characters behaved way too oddly and I felt Rebecca Ross was manipulating. Because of this, I’m really not sure I care to read the sequel. Up until the end, I was going to give this one high marks. But, alas, I am only feeling like giving it an averagely good 3 stars.

The audiobook was narrated by Rebecca Norfolk voicing Iris’ sections and Alex Wingfield voicing Roman’s. They both did a great job. I especially enjoyed that the production included these narrators’ voices when their correspondence appeared in the other character’s section. In most audiobooks with different perspectives, one person reads one character’s sections including the other voiced characters’ lines. So this was unusual because Wingfield’s voice was used when Iris read Roman’s letters in her section and vice versa. However, I also wish they had taken it even further and done the same with Iris’ and Roman’s dialogues. Alas, it was only done for their letters to each other. I assume it’s not as easy to produce that way but I really appreciated the bit of extra effort. I’ll give the audiobook production and its ensemble an A-.
  

 

The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag

 

Lynnie

dystopian, sci-fi

 

This book has been in my "to read" queue for a long time but, like many, I was inspired to get to it with the movie adaptation coming out soon.

The Electric State is a stunningly beautiful book with a heartbreaking, and also hopeful, story. I can't define this is a traditional graphic novel, but Simon Stålenhag's images are a vital and stunning part of this story. I could have spent hours just pouring over the images and I was glad to be reading it on my iPad so I could zoom in on the images and truly see the details.

As for the story, a young woman, Michelle, and her robot companion, Skip, are traveling across a ravaged America to the Pacific coast, though it's not clear until the end why they are traveling. Through their adventures, we learn about Michelle's sad upbringing while learning about the technology that has ruined America (and presumably, the world). After a war fought by drones, humans became addicted to the AI technology created for the war; they could no longer function in the real world, leading to death, destruction, and the vast wasteland of trash and people that Michelle and Skip navigate. There are alternating scenes told by a federal agent who is on a crash course for Michelle and Skip. The entire effect - the images, the back and forth between the two stories - is haunting.

This book is a work of art and the story is a moving look at a dystopian society where technology goes wrong. I recommend you read the physical copy or on an iPad so you can zoom in on Stålenhag's gorgeous artwork. A traditional Kindle won't do this story justice.   

 

The movie looks like it is VERY loosely based on this book, but I'm eager to see the scenery brought to life none-the-less.

The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore

Amy  

historical fiction

When the electrification of the United States was in its infancy, Thomas Edison held the US Patent for the lightbulb. However, GeorgeWestinghouse had also created, and was selling, his own lightbulb. Edison, the master inventor known as “the wizard” of New York, sued Westinghouse and Westinghouse surprisingly hired a very young, untested lawyer to lead his defense.

The Last Days of Night was riveting!  I can’t believe it but I was hooked from the very start. The protagonist was Paul Cravath, the 26-year old lawyer who was hired to defend Westinghouse from the 312 lawsuits Edison filed against him. Because of his personal story, I was on Paul’s side from the start. He was smart, ambitious, hard-working, clever, and open-minded.

I knew very little about the electricity wars, aka The War of Currents, taking place in the 1880s—there were no government agencies in place yet to police electricity. Rather, private inventors were installing electrical wires through the streets of U.S. cities so that they could sell their new electrically-powered devices to individuals and businesses. Therefore, there was no regulation and safety was up to each individual electric provider. Alternating current was just about to burst onto the scene, a much stronger and safer alternative to Edison’s direct current generation method.

I don’t know why I hadn’t previously appreciated what life must have been like during that time. This book managed to be incredibly informative while never boring. Graham Moore even taught his readers basic laws of electricity and engineering so we could understand some of the issues and he did this masterfully. It was all done authentically during conversations between characters—often using Cravath as the student and Westinghouse as the teacher.

The fact that Nikola Tesla was also in the novel, and depicted as a seemingly autistic genius with OCD and social difficulties, made for a touch of humor, heart, and suspense! I knew absolutely nothing about that man before reading this book other than the fact that the automaker, Tesla, is named after him. Additionally, the origination of the electric chair was incredibly enlightening (pun intended)!

With a little romance thrown in, this book was extremely entertaining and satisfying! I also loved the quotes from significant engineers, scientists, and inventors at the beginning of each chapter. And a bonus is that all these people were real and I was able to seek out their photographs and brief histories. What fun! Truly, a fantastic read! I’m tempted to only give this novel 4-1/2 stars because I was disappointed when Moore described his fabrications and alterations of the truth. I mean, I had loved it so much because the idea of it all actually happening was amazing! But, then again, so much of it DID really happen and Moore’s creativity and artistry took those truths, made the story more amazing than reality, and created a truly enjoyable novel. The novel was honest with the fact that it was fictionalized history. So I can’t hold the fact that everything wasn’t true against the author. Rather, I’m applauding him for writing a fantastic book and my first completed novel of 2025 gets 5 stars!!!

The audiobook narrator, Johnathan McClain, was fabulous with a wonderful vocal repertoire and accents as well as perfect voice acting!  A+! I really loved this entire experience.