In August, I frantically prepared for Pitch Wars, but managed to get a few good reads in. I don’t think I started a lot of book, so it was mostly me finishing up the ones I had started back in June.

Scream All Night

What I Learned: Balancing Funny and Heartfelt

Read as an eARC from Edelweiss. Came out in July 2018. Milman has such a talent for humor woven into characters’ upset. I loved Dario’s dry sense of humor, but there were parts of the book that rang so true. At the same time, the serious parts—like Dario learning about his family and the people at Moldavia—were given the appropriate seriousness and it was so well done.

The Raging Ones

What I Learned: A Trio That Works

Read as an eARC from Wednesday Books. I featured a Q&A with the authors on release day. Came out August 2018. It seems the rule for trios is to have two boys and a girl. But in this science fiction, I loved how there was a couple, but the third never felt like a third wheel. The POVs were so well-developed and the three characters didn’t feel pigeon-holed and had their own arcs to fulfill.

Foundryside

What I Learned: Balancing Worldbuilding and Things Happening

Read as an ARC received via Goodreads and have an eARC from NetGalley. Came out August 2018. Part of my disappointment with this one is how my own hype might have killed it. That being said, this book would have been great if only the plot was allowed to move forward. There were too many jerky stops to make time for world-building. When the plot was allowed to push forward and unravel, the book was great. Too many pauses to explain things, unfortunately.

Captive Prince

What I Learned: Committing to Your Edge

I’ve heard things about this one. It was on Kindle daily deal and I was in the mood to read something mildly disgraceful, so naturally I picked this one up. So edgy. And so committed to its edginess. Pacat did not back down from anything and there is something so admirable there. Major content and trigger warnings for rape and questionable sex acts.

Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong

What I Learned: Having a Thesis

I really enjoyed this series of non-fiction narrative short stories. Dr. Offit went in with clear intentions of how to present each story, from ice pick lobotomies, to DDT, to Vitamin C. Each had a clear thesis which were all nicely wrapped up in the end.

Web Comic

Starfighter

What I Learned: Balancing Sex Scenes and Plot Development

Now that I finished writing a book, I had time to explore other media (haven’t watched a movie yet, though). I remember Elliott picking this one up at Flame Con last year and I was so intrigued. The art is really good and the characters don’t need a lot of page time for some much character development. A lot of it happens via sex scene and it is great.

Did Not Finish

The Forest Queen

What I Learned: How to Make A Fun Concept Not Fun At All

Read as an eARC from NetGalley. Came out in August 2018. A retelling of Robin Hood with gender-swapping should be fun. This, however, was not. I wondered when the part of stealing from the rich would happen and so many of the female swaps were so poorly executed. Instead of being delightful, this book left me a bit ill, so I quit reading before the halfway point.

September has been dubbed #Sleeptember and what I really want to accomplish is to clean out my currently reading list because at 9 books, it is a mess.

Happy reading,
Jo