![]() “Knight in Paper Armor” is a dark dystopian novel set in the near future, where corporate greed and racism have completely taken over and divided up America (and I assume other countries but they’re never really talked about). We follow Billy, a young Jewish boy with incredible physic powers; able to take away the physical and emotional pain of those he touches, as well as mind controlling them if his darker tendencies get pushed too far. When Billy is finally allowed to leave the facility where he’s being tested on to attend school like a “normal” teen, he meets our female main character, Natalia. Natalia is an immigrant from Guatemala, a fact she has to hide, pretending to be from Mexico instead—though she faces a lot of bigotry for that, too. Billy and Natalia deal with extreme racism from practically the start, their world is brutal in every sense of the word, and the author is not shy about sharing their experiences in great detail. The topics covered in this sci-fi fantasy dystopian are important and very much apply to the world we live in today, but I do not think this book is appropriate for the audience it’s intended for….
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![]() I was pretty excited to read this one because so many of my friends and mutuals have loved it. Admittedly, I am late to the party (what else is new) but I really loved the premise of this YA utopia turned dystopian. Imagine a world where death and poverty and hunger and disease have all been eradicated. No one wants for anything and, when you get “too old” you can just turn a corner and reset yourself to a younger time. But when death is a thing of the past, and people’s existences become a bit meaningless, population control becomes a big necessity. Hence the creation of the Order of the Scythe, or a modern-day reaper. What they bring is the only true, permanent death, but not everything is as it should be in this order, so leave it up to a couple of teenagers to uncover that, but not for a while. And, once the world building was set up, the book became far too predictable and frustrating for me, which made me wonder, did I read the same book as everyone else? ![]() I am a huge Locked Tomb fan, just ask the tattoo of Gideon the Ninth I got on my shoulder. So to say my expectations for Nona the Ninth were high would be putting it mildly. I love the voices and characters and the gothic sci-fi fantasy that Muir has created. Her ability to create such distinct voices for each and everyone of her main cast, even outside of Harrow and Gideon is, to me, masterful. But I was worried when this planned trilogy suddenly became a quadruple series. I was curious why Nona was so interesting or unique that she required, suddenly, her own book. Unfortunately, this story was the weakest to me in the series, especially when put up against Gideon and Harrow’s title books. ![]() This is going to be a short review mainly because you can’t talk about the 3rd Compendium without spoilers for the other 2 volumes, and just for specific parts of this third massive installment of “The Walking Dead” in general. I mean, the book is over a thousand pages long! I can’t talk about the stuff I liked toward the end without massively ruining earlier story lines! So I’ll try to be as vague as possible when it comes to the story, and the things I thought did, and did not, work this time around. ![]() What happens to the world when only three of the four horsemen ride? “Misericorde” looks at that in great detail. Set in the future when all horsemen of the apocalypse—except Death—ride, the author presents a world that has fallen back into the Middle Ages. All technology is gone, there is no electricity, and people go back to living in castles in the few places where basic resources can still be found. There is a ruling class that lives in luxury, while all their servants are barely surviving. You never really meet this ruling class though, instead the reader is introduced to a servant, Lourdes, the brutal soldiers she’s tasked with serving, and an Archangel that is determined to find any human still capable of mercy in such a brutal world. This book has “Angelfall” vibes but written with literary prose full of feeling, with well crafted characters, but maybe just a tad too much description. |
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