Book 15: Serpentine by Cindy Pon

This book was given to me for Christmas by one of my brothers. The reason he heard about the book is because it was blurbed by Kristin Cashore, who is one of his (and my) favorite authors. I'm really glad that it was brought to his and then my attention, because I enjoyed it a lot.

Serpentine is YA fantasy/horror that takes place in a universe inspired by the Xia Dynasty. The main character is Skybright, who is a handmaiden to Zhen Ni. The two girls are very close friends, but there is also a fundamental inequality to their friendship. Skybright was left on the doorstep of Zhen Ni's family's home when she was a baby, and they took her in as a servant. The focus of the book quickly expands beyond the domestic when Skybright discovers that she is a serpent demon, an awakening that takes place just as a battle between the unborn and the monks erupts.

I loved this universe. It was so nice to read a fantasy world written by a Chinese-American author that explored Ancient China rather than the standard pseudo-European setting that's so common in fantasy. The friendship between Skybright and Zhen Ni is central to the book, as are blossoming romances for each of them. One of the main subplots of the book focuses on a romantic relationship between two women, which was a lovely surprise. Skybright's POV and character voice is very strong, and the writing is precise and has a beautiful flow.

The only drawback to this book was that I didn't realize when I started it that it was the first in a series; there will be at least two sequels, and possibly more. This made the end of this book feel incredibly abrupt and much more negative than I was expecting. The cliffhanger isn't too terrible, but it left me feeling frustrated, which is a shame since I enjoyed the rest of the narrative so much. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next book in the series, but I do wish it had been a standalone (or that I had known going into that it was the start of a series). I am not going to let that momentary disappointment affect the grade I'm assigning it, however, because I do think it lived up to its potential overall.

Grade: A

Book 14: Save the Cat! by Blake Synder

The subtitle of this book is "The Last Book On Screenwriting That You'll Ever Need." Given that I've never had any real interest in writing a screenplay, one might think I didn't need any book on screenwriting at all. But a number of friends of mine who write novels are big fans of this book, because what it's really about is how to structure the beats of a story so that your narrative builds and lands the way you want it to. And after the last novel I read lost the plot entirely in my view, it was very nice to read something which helped me identify why and how that happened.

The best part of this book, and the thing that my friends primarily recommended it for, is the author's beat sheet, which divides every screenplay up into a three act structure with set beats within each of the acts. Because the second (or middle) act also has a midpoint break by which point the narrative should have reached a certain moment within the story, I actually think of this structure as having four acts rather than three, but that's just how it breaks down mentally for me. The beat sheet and the storyboard visualization based on that beat sheet are the main methods he explores; there are a couple of other tips for creating characters and building tension that he mentions, but I found most of those to be either very basic or not particularly helpful for how I think about writing.

The style of the author's writing can be a bit grating, and in his view if a movie makes money it's automatically successful, and if it doesn't it's because the screenplay doesn't adhere to his laws. I don't actually think that how much money a movie (or a book) makes directly corresponds to how successful the story is narratively, but I do think his narrative structures are worth thinking about while writing. Not all of his tips can be applied to fiction writing, but enough of them can be that I think it was a useful book on writing for me to have read.

Grade: B

Book 13: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Man, what a mess of a book.

(Spoilers under the cut.)

Book 12: The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett

Okay. So I read this book as part of a "please read my favorite books!!!" exchange with my friend over at Harriet Reads Books. She's reading a bunch of books by Guy Gavriel Kay, and I'm reading The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett, which begins with The Game of Kings.

Part of why this became an official exchange/contest (if you are looking for two people who can somehow turn reading into a competition, you've found them) is because Dunnett books are very very difficult to recommend. She told me this for many many months before I started reading this, and while I believed her, I didn't really understand until I started reading it myself. It's historical fiction that takes place in the mid-1500s in Scotland and England, and the book doesn't really go out of its way to explain the history. There's a list of characters at the beginning of the book, but while that's helpful for cross-reference it doesn't help much in terms of remembering who has done what (or why). The best way I can describe the difficulty with this book is that the first two hundred pages are essentially setting up the chessboard for the rest of the book, and in fact for the rest of the series. Lots of really interesting stuff happens in those two hundred pages, but you don't understand what or why it's important until page 400 or so. And it feels like every new chapter or subchapter starts from a new POV, and so you spend a ton of time just trying to figure who everyone is and why it matters. It's not a very fast read, but putting the book down for more than a day or two is also very risky, because getting back into the flow is so difficult.

However. Having said (and meant) all of that, the payoff in the second half of the book (and specifically in Part Four) is so good that it makes every second of confusion and frustration I suffered in the first half worth it. This is a book that has reveals that are so good and so unexpected that I don't actually want to talk about any of the plot. If you can get through the first two parts, you will end up gently tossing your e-reader in shock or tearing up while reading it on the subway, if you're anything like me. For a variety of reasons, I didn't go into this book completely cold - I knew who some of the good guys were, even though the text doesn't make it clear until halfway through the book, and I also knew who a couple of the bad guys were as well. I also knew it had to have a (mostly) happy ending, because my friend would never make me read it if it didn't, even though it's not a book without its tragedy. But even the minor details that I was spoiled for didn't ruin the suspense, because I had no idea how any of the story was going to come together, or how it would be resolved. And it's not just that the plot itself wraps up perfectly - the emotional impact of everything is so overwhelming.

The book doesn't pull any punches - when good things finally happen for characters you've been rooting for, it's such a relief because they have to suffer through so much first. And likewise, the emotional impact when things go wrong is real - mistakes have real consequences, and they aren't handwaved away or anything like that. You can trust that every emotion the book wants you to have will be earned, for better or for worse.

Dunnett's writing was influential for both Guy Gavriel Kay and C.S. Pacat, who have each written some of my favorite books, so it's fascinating to read Dunnett now. Some of her influence is in the themes and the relationships that all three writers focus their main attention on, and some of it is more granular than that - Kay in particular uses a few of the same narrative techniques Dunnett did, which meant that when they popped up in Game of Kings I was immediately familiar with them. Those moments felt like little gifts to me as a reader, like a breadcrumb trail of influences; suddenly I felt like I shared something with both Kay and Pacat as readers. It was one more thing that made reading Dunnett incredibly rewarding for me.

Grade: A 

Book 11: Craving Flight by Tamsen Parker

I bought this novella because someone on my twitter feed mentioned it in passing, and I'm really glad I did. It's about an Orthodox woman named Tzipporah who manages to be fulfilled both spiritually and sexually in her marriage.

I've read a fair number of romances that involve characters who feel they need to leave their strict communities in order to be happy in their relationships, either because they're not straight or because of kink. This is the first one I've read in which someone found happiness within a strict religious community because her desires (in the case, the desire to submit sexually) could be compatible with those teachings. In her marriage to her husband Elan, they are equals outside of the bedroom, which makes their BDSM sex life even more fulfilling for both of them.

I started this book expecting her sexual desires to be the source of most or all of the conflict, and instead it was how Tzipporah, who had been raised Jewish but not in an Orthodox community, could fit in with her religious community when she hadn't been born into it. It was really interesting to see her and her husband connect via sex while still needing to learn to trust and communicate with each other outside of the bedroom. I thought the emotional arc could have used a couple more chapters to explore how that developed over time, and perhaps to show how their deepening understanding of each other emotionally was then reflected in their sex life. I wanted a bit more resolution than the novella was able to give me. On the whole I really enjoyed it, though.

Grade: B

Book 10: Act Like It by Lucy Parker

I read this book during breaks from reading a very dense historical novel (more on that shortly), because I really needed a light, easy-to-read contemporary romance to balance things out. And this fit the bill perfectly.

The book focuses on a backstage romance between Lainie, a feisty stage actress, and her broody snobbish co-star Richard, whose status as a celebrated actor is being tarnished by his off-stage reputation as a jerk. The two of them are thrown together into a fake relationship by his management in order to salvage his public image and the financial fate of their play. This is complicated by the fact that Lainie's ex-boyfriend is also starring in the play with them, and he's none too pleased by her dating anyone new, let alone Richard.

This isn't a flawless book - a lot of the theatre stuff is frankly nonsense, and Richard's poor little rich boy background only somewhat explains away his bad behavior prior to dating Lainie. But the emotional arc of their fake relationship blossoming into something real is perfect, and I always really liked Lainie as a protagonist and how the two of them function as a couple. I prefer a bit more sex in my romance novels than this one had, but the chemistry between the two of them felt convincing and real to me, at least. This is a great book to read on your commute or between other things - engaging enough while you read it, but you won't be in danger of missing a stop because you'll be too engrossed. I liked it a lot.

Grade: B

Book 9: A Gentleman's Position by KJ Charles

A Gentleman's Position is the third book in the Society of Gentlemen universe, and it really can't be read before reading the other books (and one short story) in the series. Luckily, all of the stories are fantastic, and this is an incredibly satisfying end to the main sequence.

I don't want to talk too much about the specifics of the plot of this one in case there are readers of this blog who haven't read the first three stories and are intrigued. So what I will say is that this series focuses on the Ricardians, a group of gentlemen in Regency-era England who all prefer the company of other men to ladies, and their various love affairs. Unlike a lot of historical romances (many of which I enjoy very much), this series is very firmly rooted in the actual history of the era, although all of the main characters featured are fictional. As a result, there's a complexity to the universe that isn't always present in historical romances, and I love the focus on what goes on underneath the surface of manners and expectations for men of different classes and social positions.

This is the first book that focuses on Lord Richard himself, and part of what makes the first half so satisfying is seeing him taken to task for various things he's said and done in the first two books. He's a character who has to be taken down a notch or two before he can have the happiness he does actually deserve, and it was really great to actually get those confrontations that the first two books made me want. A friend of mine on twitter described the book as transforming midway through from gay Pride & Prejudice (with a bit of Jane Eyre) into gay Ocean's Eleven, which is exactly what it feels like. The second half of the book centers on the Ricardians coming together to thwart the evil intentions of an outsider, and it's the perfect final resolution to the conflict that the entire series has been building since the first short story. There's never any doubt that it will work, because it's a romance, but how they get there is so well designed and told with the perfect level of suspense and intrigue. I loved it. The second I finished it I started a reread of the entire series from the beginning. I would happily read a million more stories set in this universe.

Grade: A