December is a strange month for me because of traveling to get home and other plans, and having to recon with my own success at completing my own goals (not going to touch on that whatsoever here). It was a month where I read a bunch of things in translation and a singular ARC which feels more in the direction of how I want to be reading into 2023.
December’s only blog interview:
- R.J. Theodore returned to the blog to close out the Peridot Shift trilogy with Cast-Off
ARCs
- Cast-Off (The Peridot Shift #3) by R.J. Theodore (adult, science fiction fantasy)
- Talis and her splintered crew for the final stretch of a job to stop the entire world of Peridot from being split body and soul into horrors beyond comprehension
- An epic conclusion that impressively manages to tie up all loose ends
- Author interview went up on 12/6/2022
Audiobooks
- The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk (trans. Jennifer Croft) (adult, historical fiction, 2022)
- Ambitious is too soft a word to cover the breadth and intimacy of this mosaic of mid-18th Century Poland
- Shows a multi-ethnic and multi-religious mosaic of Poland centering the life and works of Jacob Frank, a messianic cult leader
- The Deep by Nick Cutter (adult, horror, 2015)
- Man travels to the bottom of the ocean in search of his estranged brother who is working on a cure for a pandemic
- Violently fatphobic and the ending did not work for me at all
- Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori) (2020)
- A young girl believes she’s an alien and develops an inappropriate relationship with her cousin amid other traumas
- Brutal in its prose and harsh in its indictment of the ways parents and society fail children at every turn
Physical Copy
- Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin (trans. Jamey Gambrell) (adult, speculative fiction, 2012)
- A dystopian satire of Putin’s Russia told from the point of view of a fictionalized terroristic officer
- As brilliant as it is unsettling (please heed the trigger warnings)
Light Novels
- The Holy Grail of Eris Vol. 2 by Kujira Tokiwa & Yunagi (adult, supernatural secondary world fantasy, 2022)
- This second volume delivers more betrayal, more characters, more intrigue, more suspense, and more perspectives to show more of the world and the direction of the story outside of Constance and Scarlett
- We find out what the title refers to and oh boy is it satisfying
- Vampire Hunter D Vol. 2 Raiser of Gales & Vol. 3 Demon Deathchase by Hideyuki Kikuchi & Yoshitaka Amano (adult, dark fantasy science fiction western, 2005)
- More vampires, more tech, more science that feels like fantasy, and some of the grossest villains I’ve seen in a while
- D continues to be beautiful and the world continues to intrigue
Manga
- Dick Fight Island Vol. 2 by Reibun Ike (fantasy josei, 2022)
- The focus of this conclusion is on the men who love men who are chosens in the Great Wyrm Tournament
- Romantic, earnest, and full of great tropes
- The Kingdoms of Ruin Vol. 5 by yoruhashi (fantasy, seinen, 2022)
- If your favorite part of NieR Automato was when the robots learned about existentialism, this volume is for you
- The cliffhanger and set up for the next big battle is incredible and has me by the collar
- Rosen Blood Vol. 1 by Kachiru Ishizue (fantasy, shoujo, 2022)
- A girls gets into a carriage accident and wakes up in a mansion entombed in thorns occupied by vampires
- Swoony, sensual, and unexpectedly kinky
Jo Writes Fantasy 
I love this! You’ve read so many books, and a lot of them sound so interesting! I’ll have to check some of these out. Thank you for sharing, and have a happy New Year 🎆
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