Review: THE TEMPERED STEEL OF ANTIQUITY GREY by Shawn Speakman

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

This book starts out with a bang—I was invested from the very first page. Basically, the image on the amazing cover is what is described in the beginning of the book, so I could already put names and faces to the descriptions. Unfortunately, my interest waned as the story progressed, and I ended up not loving this book as much as I expected and hoped to. 

One day, Antiquity Grey discovers the remains of a giant mech buried in the sand, what she believes is the last of its kind. She wants to unearth it and take it home in an attempt to recover her family’s reputation, but she is thwarted by Manson Dreadth, the son of the enemy family, who tries to claim the mech for himself. What ensues is a battle between enemies who may have to make an uneasy alliance to fight a grander off-world enemy trying to destroy the mech altogether. 

When I discovered that this book features both futuristic technology AND dragons, I was so excited!! Two of my favorite things. This is a coming-of-age story with lots of adventure and big bot battles. Despite the descriptions, however, there were hardly any dragons in this book, which disappointed me. There were mentions of dragons, and they talk about going to the Dragonell Mountains a lot, but none actually made an appearance until over 70% into the story, and even then they were barely present. 

This book features my least favorite trope, which is the coming-back-to-life trope. This book is kind of different because here there’s a hologram of a dead person, but it has that person’s memories and can communicate as if they were alive. So that kind of bugged me, and the fact that this holo-dead person is who gives Antiquity the quest that she spends the book working toward. And then of course the fate of the whole world rests on whether she can accomplish this quest or not. I don’t like when books (or movies) have the protagonist in charge of saving the whole world or the whole galaxy, etc. because that’s too unrealistic to ever be believable. I like when books have smaller stakes, but that’s just a personal preference for me. 

Another issue I had was that Antiquity and her crew spend almost the whole book going on this adventure, and then in the span of a single page, they go back home. That’s just poor writing, in my opinion, and it kind of made the whole adventure feel pointless. 

The dialogue between characters felt stilted and contrived to me, like people wouldn’t really talk like that, and the characters themselves were two-dimensional and needed more depth. I attribute those shortcomings to bad writing as well. I admit that I didn’t love the overall writing style in this book, and I think that was my biggest problem. I liked the story and the setting, but I don’t think it was put together well. 

The pacing is kind of odd in this book. It feels slow-paced during each scene because the dialogue is slow, but then the book will jump between scenes quickly. Like all of a sudden the characters were in a new place and barely any time was spent getting from A to B, but then they will spend forever in that place, talking. It was kind of jarring and not super enjoyable for me.

I would have liked more explanation surrounding the technology, the government structure, the original purpose of the mechs, and the politics surrounding the Imperium and the Celestials and Erth. The setting itself was really neat, but there was not enough world-building done to really make any aspects of the story come to life for me. 

From about the 50% mark to the end, I struggled to maintain focus on the story. I just wanted to be done. This book had so many components that I love in fantasy/sci-fi stories: a dystopian setting, futuristic technology, dragons, giant mechs, a mysterious quest, a female protagonist, enemies to friends trope, and so much more. But I didn’t entirely care for how it was executed. There wasn’t enough substance here, and the writing style wasn’t my favorite. If anyone knows of a book with similar elements but with in-depth descriptions and more sophisticated writing, let me know! 

I don’t know if I’ll be continuing on with this series or not. This first book wrapped up nicely and I don’t feel super inclined to continue the story. If I can find audiobooks for future installments I might give it a go, but I can’t see myself reading more books with my eyes, based on how I struggled so much to get through the second half of the book. I do, however, think The Tempered Steel of Antiquity Grey would make a great tv show, and I would love to watch it if that ever happens. 

Review: THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED by John Green

 

Rating: 5/5 stars

I’ve been a fan of John Green for years. I’ve read and enjoyed all of his fiction books, but this is the first piece of nonfiction of his that I’ve consumed. I haven’t listened to any of his podcasts, and I’ve only seen a handful of the Vlogbrothers videos, so I’m actually not very familiar with him outside of his young adult novels.

The Anthropocene, if you weren’t aware, is the name for the current geological era. John Green compiles 44 essays in this book (plus an introduction, postscript, and extensive notes) about human nature and life on our planet in the present day. Because of the number of essays, I won’t be sharing my thoughts on each one individually, but I will give star ratings for each (since the idea of reviewing and giving star ratings is pervasive throughout the book and the whole point of the book) and I’ll share quotes and notes for the essays that stood out to me. 

First off, I’d like to mention that I loved this book. I don’t read very much nonfiction, but I do think The Anthropocene Reviewed is worth a read. Green comments on and analyzes aspects of everyday life that never occurred to me, opening my eyes and giving me a new perspective on many different subjects, and I actually feel like I learned so much. Just read through the titles of the essays to get an idea of what John talks about—and I learned something new in each essay. He writes about how our planet has been affected by humankind over the centuries and how we as a species are impacting the world today. 

This book is highly quotable as well. Even just in the seven-page introduction, there were so many lines I was highlighting because I wanted to share them and remember them. I obviously can’t share them all (that would be the whole book so just go read it for yourself), but I will insert one that really stood out:

“Pay attention to what you pay attention to.” This isn’t even a quotation from John, but it made me stop and think nonetheless: what am I spending my time focusing on? What do I pay attention to? 

I learned so much information while reading this book, and many of the essays inspired me to lookup more about that topic. So often when I’d see the title of a new essay I’d think, “That doesn’t sound interesting. How could I possibly care about ___?” But then John Green would write about the topic in such a way that I genuinely was interested, and he would bring his own experiences in to make it more personal. I was surprised by the sheer number of essays I liked that I didn’t expect to like based on the title alone. 

I love the way John writes and the way his mind works. I really connected with what he had to share in these essays, even though they are all seemingly unconnected. And even though the title tells us so, I found myself surprised that some of the essays are simply reviews of things that John has witnessed, like the reviews of The Great Gatsby, that Beatles song, the Lascaux cave paintings, the salt flats, even sunsets. He reviewed each topic like it was in a blog or something, which I found to be pretty funny but also very unexpected. I expected philosophical essays throughout but the essay topics range widely. Even surprised by it, I still really enjoyed this book and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to read it. 

Even though my individual ratings average out to be 3.59 stars, the overall book was a 5-star experience. I enjoyed my time with it, I learned a lot, and I’ll absolutely be returning to these essays in the future. Therefore the book as a whole gets 5 stars from me. 

Introduction—5 stars

“You’ll Never Walk Alone”—2 stars

Humanity’s Temporal Range—3.5 stars

Halley’s Comet—5 stars
One of my favorite essays. Love the science in it.

Our Capacity for Wonder—4 stars
Very interesting analysis of The Great Gatsby. I don’t like The Great Gatsby but I liked this essay.

Lascaux Cave Paintings—4 stars

Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Stickers—5 stars
A surprisingly fascinating essay about smells. One of the best in the book. 

Diet Dr Pepper—4 stars
I went out and bought Diet Dr Pepper for the very first time after reading this essay.

Velociraptors—2.5 stars

Canada Geese—3 stars

Teddy Bears—2 stars
This essay, I’m pretty certain, has math errors in it. Green claims, “The total combined weight of all living humans currently on Earth is around three hundred and eighty-five million tons.” How can this be possible though when there are over seven billion people on Earth, each person averaging at roughly 150 pounds? That’s at least a trillion pounds, or about 540 billion tons. Someone please explain his math to me because there is no way he’s right.

The Hall of Presidents—1 star
Least favorite. Just don’t care about presidents I guess.

Air-Conditioning—5 stars
“Like an expensive painting or a fragile orchid, I thrive only in extremely specific conditions.” If this isn’t me…

Staphylococcus aureus—5 stars
I weirdly love learning about the history and science behind medicine, so this essay was fascinating to me.

The Internet—4 stars
There couldn’t be a proper book about our time without an essay about the Internet. “When you’re living in the middle of history, you never know what it means. I am living in the middle of the Internet. I have no idea what it means.”

Academic Decathlon—3.5 stars

Sunsets—2 stars
“You cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.”

Jerzy Dudek’s Performance on May 25, 2005—2 stars
Even though the essays about sports were among my least favorite, this one still prompted me to go look up this exact moment and wonder at it. 

Penguins of Madagascar—2.5 stars

Piggy Wiggly—5 stars
This was one of the most interesting essays in the book. It was about the advent of modern grocery stores, which doesn’t sound exciting but it really was, and I knew nothing about this beforehand.

The Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest—3 stars

CNN—4 stars

Harvey—3.5 stars
I genuinely want to go watch Harvey now.

The Yips—2 stars
I have never heard of the “yips” before now. What an interesting phenomenon.

Auld Lang Syne—4 stars

Googling Strangers—4 stars

Indianapolis—3 stars

Kentucky Bluegrass—4 stars
This essay made me realize how much I do NOT want a yard in front of my house.

The Indianapolis 500—3.5 stars

Monopoly—5 stars
A very interesting history of Monopoly. I hate the game, but I loved the essay.

Super Mario Kart—4 stars

Bonneville Salt Flats—4 stars
“One of the strange things about adulthood is that you are your current self, but you are also all the selves you used to be, the ones you grew out of but can’t ever quite get rid of.”

Hiroyuki Doi’s Circle Drawing—5 stars
This was so fascinating! I seriously love the way John Green writes. I also loved the circle drawings, which I just discovered and spent ten minutes looking at pictures of online. 

Whispering—4.5 stars

Viral Meningitis—4 stars

Plague—3 stars

Wintry Mix—5 stars
I really enjoyed that parts of this essay were told in future-tense. This was one of the best essays, in my opinion, based just on John Green’s writing style alone, but the story he tells is also very interesting.

The Hot Dogs of Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur—5 stars

The Notes App—4.5 stars
“It occurs to me that technology often brags about solving problems it created.”

The Mountain Goats—3 stars
I looked up the band after reading this essay and . . . 1.5 stars. Not my jam at all.

The QWERTY Keyboard—4.5 stars

The World’s Largest Ball of Paint—4 stars

Sycamore Trees—3.5 stars

“New Partner”—3 stars

Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance—2 stars

Postscript—4 stars

Review: THE SEVENTH QUEEN by Greta Kelly

 

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Askia starts this book in the same position she was in at the end of the first book (spoilers for The Frozen Crown ahead): she’s been captured by Radovan and imprisoned in his castle, wearing a necklace that will steal her magical power within thirty days and transfer it to him. Not a good situation to be in. Luckily, because she’s a death witch, she can see the ghosts of his six late wives, who provide her support and counsel her on how to get out of Radovan’s clutches.

I really enjoyed The Frozen Crown when I read it last year, but when I started The Seventh Queen, I quickly realized that I had forgotten so much of the first book, even though it has only been about seven months since I read it. This book reads more like a “Part Two” to the first book rather than a sequel, picking up at the exact spot, both mid-action and mid-dialogue, that the first book ended on.

The further I read, the more I remembered about the story, naturally. I love Askia’s fierce nature and how she’s not willing to compromise her morals or beliefs to get what she wants. I think she’s a great protagonist to look up to. 

I felt like a lot of this book was preamble. At 20% of the way through, I felt like I was still waiting for the story to get going. Askia runs her mouth and is given a tour of the castle grounds and learns about the social hierarchy in Roven. The whole book is about how she is gallivanting around Roven without dying, but we forget that the plot of the first book is that she was trying to save her kingdom and people from her cousin who is currently trying to rule. I feel like that original plotline kind of got forgotten about in The Seventh Queen. 

This book almost feels like it’s part of a different series from the first book because of the change in direction of the plot. It feels like Askia’s intentions have changed and the point of the novels has shifted. I honestly didn’t care as much for Askia’s story in this book as I did in The Frozen Crown, and I missed the romance aspect with Illya, which was very minor in this book. We get one chapter from Illya’s POV in the beginning and one chapter in the middle, but I really would have liked more. It feels like his two short chapters were only included to help foreshadow the reveal of a specific detail at the end of the book, and they also felt like they were included as an afterthought. 

I sadly found my mind wandering quite a bit during The Seventh Queen and I struggled to stay focused on the story. I loved The Frozen Crown, but its sequel didn’t live up to the hype for me. I still liked it a bit and would recommend the duology as a whole, but I’m disappointed the second book wasn’t a five-star read for me like the first book was. I enjoy Greta Kelly’s writing style though and I look forward to checking out more stories from her in the future. 

Review: THE ONES WE'RE MEANT TO FIND by Joan He

 

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

I was pleasantly surprised by The Ones We’re Meant to Find. I originally thought this book was a YA contemporary based on the cover, but when I finally took the time to pick it up and read the dust jacket, the blurbs on the back mentioned that this was a “futuristic world” and featured “floating cities” among other things, and I was immediately interested. I love dystopian science fiction stories, futuristic technology, floating islands, and climate-centered narratives, so I knew I needed to read this immediately. 

What if human nature is the last disease we have yet to eradicate?

We follow two sisters, Cee and Kasey. Cee’s story is told in first-person POV. She’s stuck on a deserted island with the only company being an android that she built. She lost her ability to see in color, and she has no memories with the exception of the knowledge that she has a sister out there somewhere, who she is searching for. Kasey’s story is told in third-person, and I really enjoyed that the sisters were written from different perspectives. She’s a scientist and lives in one of the floating eco-cities. She is still reeling from the recent disappearance of her sister as she also tries to find a way to protect the people on the planet from Earth’s increasing number of natural disasters. 

In the various eco-cities around the world, people use “holo mode” as a way to live more sustainably and eco-consciously, which I thought was pretty cool. Nonessential activities are done virtually from a stasis pod, which makes it feel like this book had the full-dive technology found in futuristic video games, even though video games weren’t at all present in this story. I always love to see how authors imagine futuristic versions of Earth, especially a world ravaged by unrelenting earthquakes and climate disasters that cause people to completely change the way they live and interact with nature. 

I love Joan He’s writing style in this book. I haven’t read her debut novel, so The Ones We’re Meant to Find is my first experience with her. I love that she is eloquent and intelligent, not talking down to her readers. This novel is one where she throws you into the story with lots of new terminology and big words and let’s you figure it out on your own, and I really enjoyed that because it read as more sophisticated, closer to an adult novel. 

A lot of the twists I guessed ahead of time, but that didn’t hinder my enjoyment watching them come to pass as I read the novel. I thought this book was clever and uniquely interesting, and I definitely recommend it. If you like books featuring a strong sisterly bond, floating cities and deserted islands, a robot companion, full-dive technology, a unique dystopian setting, and exciting twists, then you should absolutely check out The Ones We’re Meant to Find. 

Review: HALL OF SMOKE by H. M. Long

 

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Are you tired of reading about female protagonists who tell you they’re strong assassins but don’t actually do anything to prove it? Then you should check out Hall of Smoke! Hessa doesn’t have to spend the whole book pretending to be badass when she shows us from the very first chapter that she is: she will murder, maim, and disembowel those who get in her way. She’s an Eangi, a warrior priestess of the Goddess of War, and she has the ability to kill her enemies with a scream. This book is fierce and brutal, but in the best way. 

Hessa was banished for disobeying her goddess, and while she is alone in the mountains seeking forgiveness, raiders come and slaughter her entire village, killing nearly everyone she knows and loves.

Hessa then goes on a quest to track down and kill a certain traveler that her goddess had commanded her to kill, and the book is mostly a story of Hessa’s journey to find this traveler. There is also commentary on who to trust, including if you should trust your own gods, and what happens when gods die.

I did expect to see more “scream magic,” or Eangi Fire as it’s really called, but it wasn’t present in the book as much as I expected. We see it heavy in the first few chapters, and I think that set an unrealistic expectation for the book where I expected the whole novel to be like that, but it wasn’t. Hessa mentions her Fire a lot but doesn’t actually use it that much, and I think part of that is intentional as the god the Fire is tied to is missing for much of the novel. 

One thing I noticed is that there were some flashback scenes, specifically at the beginning, and I had a hard time telling when this was occurring until after the fact. I would be reading and then I’d be like, “when did she get here?” and then later on I’d realize it was a flashback. Those scenes could have been signaled better, in my opinion, to be less confusing to the reader.

Also, I couldn’t tell some of the gods apart. Many of them make on-page appearances and talk with Hessa and other characters, but I struggled at times to distinguish one from another and remember which gods belonged to which culture and what they were gods of. I don’t tend to like books about fantasy gods—I don’t know why, but I always struggle with the concept of what defines a god and why the gods are so fallible, and I feel like that mindset was present here too. There are multiple generations of gods, gods killing gods, gods overpowering other gods, and it all really made me wonder what exactly is a god and how did they get that way. That’s a discussion for another day though.

I also don’t tend to like books based on mythology, but I did like here that the mythos was fake, like it was all invented for this novel. We have inspiration from the Vikings, but the names of the gods are all new and different, so you don’t have to know anything about Norse mythology before starting the book. I really appreciated that because I am super ignorant when it comes to any type of mythology. 

Hall of Smoke had a really strong start, but my enjoyment slowly petered off throughout the novel. I have found through much trial and disappointment that books centered around gods or mythology unfortunately just aren’t my thing. Hessa is a great protagonist, the world-building is nice, the plot is interesting, but the gods and myths part just wasn’t holding my attention, due to no fault of the author or book—that’s just me. Because I was rather emotionally detached from the story, I didn’t feel the full weight of the consequences at the end of the book. I wanted to love this book so much more than I actually did. 

Hall of Smoke was still decent though. I don’t think I’ve read any other books about a lone-wolf warrior priestess, so that aspect really had me interested. This book features gods both good and bad, tribal clans, ancient rune magic, and a fierce female protagonist on a journey of revenge and redemption. This is also a clean book with no bad language or explicit scenes, and the battle scenes weren’t overly gory, which I appreciated. I love that this is a standalone fantasy (because there aren’t enough standalone fantasies out there), but I am also planning to read the standalone companion novel Temple of No God that comes out next year. H. M. Long has a gift for writing and I’m excited to see what stories she comes up with in the future. 

Review: INSTRUCTIONS FOR DANCING by Nicola Yoon

 

Rating: 5/5 stars

After loving Nicola Yoon’s first two books, I was excited to hear about her newest release, Instructions for Dancing.

This book is about Evie, who comes across a book called Instructions for Dancing and then becomes able to see visions of a couple’s entire relationship from beginning to end whenever she watches them kiss. She notices a pattern: all relationships eventually come to an end. Although this fact discourages her, she decides to see what she can learn from her newfound ability. 

“The problem with broken hearts isn’t that they kill you; it’s that they don’t.”

I don’t tend to like magical realism in books, but I liked it here; I thought it was done well. The introduction and execution of Evie’s visions felt natural to me.

I ended up really enjoying this book. Young adult contemporary romance is really not my thing anymore, likely because I’m not in high school anymore and I’m not dealing with boy drama since I’m now happily married, so I’m always worried when I read it that I won’t be able to connect with it like I used to. But this book was alright. Evie is about to go to college and the story is more about her experiences dancing and her friendships than anything else. 

I grew up dancing, so I loved that aspect of the story. I did ballet, tap dance, hip hop, Irish dance, and most notably, nearly every kind of ballroom dance. Instructions for Dancing is about various forms of ballroom dancing as Evie goes to classes to learn how to dance and train for a competition. I loved that the instructors gave little snippets of the history of certain dances, like how waltzing was once called “so fatal a contagion” in girls because dancing caused them to scandalously show their ankles. Ha! I learned lots of info I didn’t previously know, and it was really delightful.

This book was wholesome and fun and timely. Even though I don’t tend to reach for YA contemporary anymore, Nicola Yoon is an author whose books I will continue to read because they are enjoyable to me and not filled with petty drama. And this one wasn’t really a romance for most of it anyway; even though it’s wholly about love, at its core it isn’t a love story. 

Instructions for Dancing is my favorite Nicola Yoon book so far. The audiobook narrator was amazing as well, and she really brought each character to life with a distinct voice. This book is human and heartfelt and heart-wrenching, and definitely worth the read, especially if you love dancing. 

“If you get very, very lucky in this life, then you get to love another so hard and so completely that when you lose them, it rips you apart. The pain is the proof of a life well-lived and loved.”

Review: SIX CRIMSON CRANES by Elizabeth Lim

 

Rating: 2/5 stars

Shiori is the only princess of Kiata, but she doesn’t want to do what’s expected of her. One day she dives into the Sacred Lake and meets a dragon, who turns out to be a boy able to transform into a dragon. He tells Shiori that she has the rare ability to wield magic and he promises to teach her how to use it. Shiori uses her magic to enchant a paper crane to make it fly by itself, who she names Kiki. One day she discovers her stepmother, Raikama, is a powerful sorceress. She changes Shiori’s six brothers into cranes and curses Shiori so that with every sound that escapes her lips, one of her brothers will die.

I didn’t really like how both Zairena and Raikama were written as being irredeemably bad. People are not all good or all bad, and their being written that way made them both feel very flat to me. I also got all six of Shiori’s brothers mixed up because there are really no distinguishing factors between them all. One is a little nicer than the others and one is a little meaner than the others, but there’s not much characterization beyond that. Shiori herself was fine, but honestly, none of the characters stood out to me, and I truly just didn’t care about anyone. I did, however, like Shiori and Takkan’s relationship. I liked Takkan the best of all the characters in the book. 

Six Crimson Cranes has a similar feel to Spin the Dawn. It could just be Elizabeth Lim’s writing style, although these two series do take place in the same world. (If you look at both books’ maps though, it’s a little confusing because the maps have some of the same places but not in the same locations.) There are quite a few similarities between the two books, especially in the beginning. For example, Shiori enchants a needle to sew for her, which is uncannily similar to Maia’s enchanted embroidery scissors in Spin the Dawn, and both books even have a walnut with magical properties that can hold items inside it. Also, both books are fairytales. I don’t know if all these crossovers were intentional or not, but it was kind of weird. I almost felt like I was reading the same book, as Shiori and Maia are very similar protagonists and there were lots of references to the Blood of Stars in both books, but I know this is a completely different story.

This book reads rather young to me. I don’t know what it is but I’ve been feeling this way about every young adult book I’ve been reading lately: they all feel like they’re so simply written with a clear good and a clear bad with predictable twists and common plot beats and a protagonist who is special unlike anyone else. I don’t know if this is just the specific books I’m reading or if this is the generic structure for young adult novels, but I’m seeing the pattern repeated over and over. It keeps happening to me and I really am tired of it because I feel like I’m constantly reading the same book that I just read, with just a few differences to the setting and magic. It makes for a lackluster reading experience, unfortunately. 

I wish I could say this book brought something fresh and new to the genre, but it really didn’t. Even though the plot is different from her previous duology and the setting and characters are new, I felt like I was reading Spin the Dawn again. There are so many similarities in writing style and story beats but also in random details throughout the narrative that I couldn’t stop comparing the two novels during my entire time reading Six Crimson Cranes. 

I liked the Asian influences on the story and I’m always interested in reading more stories with Asian cultures and settings, but that wasn’t enough to make this novel feel new and fresh to me, especially with the huge amount of telling instead of showing. So many scenes were quickly glossed over because there was no depth given to the narrative, which I didn’t enjoy. 

For how much I liked Lim’s Spin the Dawn, I’m really disappointed I didn’t like Six Crimson Cranes better. It’s not that this book was bad, but I just didn’t care about the story whatsoever. I didn’t like the first 30% or the last 20% of the book, but I did enjoy the middle 50% to some extent, mostly because of Takkan. I think this book would be good for teens on the younger side, especially those interested in Asian culture and folklore, or for anyone looking for a quick and easy read that also feels familiar and fun. I also think fans of Spin the Dawn would enjoy this book if they liked Lim’s fairytale-esque writing style.

This book feels pretty forgettable to me and I was glad to be finished once I finally read the last page. I currently don’t have any desire to find out what happens next as it’s pretty easy to guess where the story will go from here, so unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be reading the sequel to Six Crimson Cranes, but I encourage you to check out the series if it sounds like something you’ll enjoy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, but it turns out it’s just not quite my type of novel. 

Review: BLADE OF SECRETS by Tricia Levenseller

Rating: 3/5 stars

Ziva is a bladesmith with social anxiety. One day she makes a magical blade on commission, but when it turns out to be the most powerful blade in the world and unbeatable, she does whatever she can to make sure it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.

I enjoyed this story, right from the beginning. I picked this up on a whim at 1 a.m. one night and was hooked. This wasn’t in my TBR plans but it looked so dang good and my best friend loved it, and therefore I couldn’t resist.

The magic is pretty cool. It’s kind of a force of its own. Ziva can give magical properties to her weapons, but sometimes a weapon will accidentally become imbued with magic on its own and Ziva then has to figure out what its powers are. In the first chapter she ends up making a mace that can make her opponent stop breathing when held a certain way, and this happened by chance when Ziva was having a panic attack and struggling to breathe herself, so that leads me to believe the weapons’ abilities are tied to Ziva’s emotions at that moment, which is pretty neat.

I loved the anxiety representation in this book. I have both generalized anxiety and social anxiety, sometimes so bad it feels unbearable, so I found Ziva to be very relatable. She doesn’t like to talk to anyone aside from her sister, she doesn’t like to leave the house, and she has occasional panic attacks. I felt very seen in Ziva. Although I will say that at times, the fact that she has anxiety felt like it was forced down our throats. It’s mentioned on nearly every page and thought about during every interaction she has, and that seemed a little over the top to me.

“I hate feeling as though I don’t fit right in my own skin. As though the anxiety takes up too much space, pushing me aside.”

I also loved the relationship between Ziva and her sister, Temra. While Ziva is the bladesmith and makes all the weapons, Temra is the one who commissions them and sells them so Ziva doesn’t have to interact with others. Temra always has Ziva’s back and helps her come down from her anxiety highs, and I loved to see that. It makes me badly wish I had a sister too.

“It’s not that I don’t want to connect with people. I desperately do, but even more than that, I want to feel safe. No one but Temra has ever felt safe.”

The writing in this story felt on the younger side to me. Ziva and Temra are 20 and 18, respectively, but the writing style felt like it was written for the younger side of young adult, like for 12-year-olds. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it’s just an observation I had while reading that kind of pulled me out of the story. 

For example, the world-building was very surface level, as were the character relationships. I have noticed that, generally, the older the intended audience is for a book, the more time spent will be spent on crafting a rich world with fully fleshed-out characters. Now, this could be because adult books tend to be longer and have more pages to devote to those details, but this is not always the case. More and more these days I am feeling disappointed with young adult fantasy, and unfortunately, this book disappointed me a little bit too. It was exactly fifty percent of the way through the book that my feelings started to change and I started wishing for the book to be over. 

The pacing was too fast, but in a how-much-time-is-actually-passing sort of way. Ziva was supposed to take three months to craft a weapon, and that was on a “tight” schedule, yet when we see her actually making it, it is written as if she crafts the entire thing in one day. Then we’re told that it’s been almost three months, and I just couldn’t believe that. Then when Ziva and her crew are on a journey, it is said to take a month, but it felt like they were on the road for a few days at most. It was very hard for me to gauge the passage of time in this novel because the story was written in a way that felt as if hardly any time was passing at all.

Also while they were on the road, Ziva is said to have developed a close relationship with Kellyn, but their interactions didn’t lead me to believe as much. The romance was very flat to me as Ziva’s attraction to Kellyn is based entirely on his luscious orange hair and not on any real reasons. Whenever they talked, I couldn’t feel her falling for him more and more; it just felt very bland to me. And then it flip-flops between him doing something good and her thinking he’s hot, and him doing something dumb and her instantly thinking he’s ugly instead. (Again why I say this reads really young.)

This is my first Tricia Levenseller book so I can’t compare the writing here to the writing in any of her other books, but I will say that I don’t really have any interest in reading any of her other books, aside from the sequel to Blade of Secrets.

Fun fact: Tricia Levenseller majored in the same degree I did at the same university I went to, so I feel like we have some sort of connection because of that. When I found that out I was very excited and it made me want to read some of her books. I am glad I gave Blade of Secrets a chance because I think it was a fun story and worth the read, but it didn’t stand out to me as much as I hoped it would. 

Overall, I really liked the idea behind Blade of Secrets and I appreciated the anxiety representation, but the story itself was written as mostly telling instead of showing, which led to weird pacing, surface-level world-building, and an unbelievable romance. I intend to read the sequel, Master of Iron, when it comes out next year because I want to know how the story ends (even though the ending of this book makes it pretty clear what the next book will be about and how it will end). Ultimately I think this story was fine but it wasn’t my favorite as it honestly feels rather forgettable and like your typical young adult fantasy narrative.