Transitive Verve

Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it) Summary:  Books hold stories, knowledge, and magic. In Kelanna, where people have long been illiterate, Sefia is in possession of one, and she knows she shouldn't have it. Having spent her life on the run with her Aunt Nin after the murder of her father, she knows that the book, and her ability to read, is a dangerous secret. But when their pursuers finally track them down and take Nin, Sefia has to finally make sense of the book and rescue her aunt. As she follows the trail leading to the dangerous pirate Serakeen, her quest connects her to other pirates, assassins, and a boy she calls Archer, who has a dangerous history himself. As they get closer and closer to their goal, they realize that maybe the stories in the book aren't just stories after all, and that their fates are more intertwined than they thought.

Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it) Back in September, I did a write-up of the first three chapters of Soundless , so I'm going to go ahead and link it here , as it contains a summary and my initial thoughts on the setting and world-building. For the people who thought this book wasn't "Chinese" enough - what else were you expecting? Is Mead supposed to drop "won ton soup" and "kung fu" into every other sentence? The characters are Chinese, their names are Chinese, Mead draws from Chinese folklore (and I appreciated that in her acknowledgments, she mentioned that she consulted with people who knew more than she did in order to write this book), she tells  us that they are Chinese, so what else is she supposed to do? Fei and her fellow villagers experience love, suffering, desperation, and fear -  just like other human beings . Are love, suffering, desperation, and fear all white by default? Do Chinese people (or black people, or Latino p...

Thanks to First to Read , I was able to get my hands on the first three chapters of Richelle Mead's new standalone novel, Soundless , which drops on November 10th. (I wasn't able to request the full ARC.) The official blurb is as follows: For as long as Fei can remember, there has been no sound in her village, where rocky terrain and frequent avalanches prevent residents from self-sustaining. Fei and her people are at the mercy of a zipline that carries food up the treacherous cliffs from Beiguo, a mysterious faraway kingdom. When villagers begin to lose their sight, deliveries from the zipline shrink and many go hungry. Fei’s home, the people she loves, and her entire existence is plunged into crisis, under threat of darkness and starvation. But soon Fei is awoken in the night by a searing noise, and sound becomes her weapon. I was really hooked in by what I've read so far, and I cannot WAIT to read the rest of it. And yes, I've already pre-ordered it :) ...