Hello dreamwidth, it's been a while! I have been reading a lot of books lately, and back when I used to use LJ as my main means of communication with my friends, I used to put all my book reviews there. Well, all those friends have moved on to other platforms and my IRL-linked account no longer has anyone reading it, so I figured I may as well move content here, where perhaps one or two people will see it but at least I'll be able to find it.

I do find it very interesting that what used to be my obscure niche of literary interest is now commonplace, likely along with the rise of fanfic in pop culture and the transition of fic writers to pro writers. It means there are a lot more books out there for me to read, but it also means there are a lot more books in this genre niche that are just...not very good. It's like the difference between a small fandom with mostly good fic and a huge fandom where there's a lot of good fic but you have to wade through the not-so-good fic to find it? Though at least the grammar is generally okay in published books.

I found a post from 2005 where I summarized some features that fantasy books I liked had in common:

• some element of queerness (in 2005 I wrote "genderbending or alternative sexuality" but "alternative sexuality" sounds weird and dated 20 years later lol)
• focus on character development as much as or more than the plot itself
• plot involves some amount of political drama
• characters who are spies, thieves, prostitutes, assassins, etc.
• good worldbuilding in a way that makes the fantasy world seem more real and less fanciful
• some element of romance
• female characters who don't suck

I think these days, there's a lot more character-driven fantasy including female characters who are more than just stereotypes and which have romance and queer characters. When I was looking for books like this to read in 2005, the queer characters were few and far between.

In any case, the point of making this post was to write about some books I've read recently, and I will attempt to do so without spoilers. They'll be written in the order I read them.

( A Court of Thorns and Roses series (Sarah J. Maas) + a fic rec that is better )

( Iron Widow (Xiran Jay Zhao) )

( Empire of Sand (Tasha Suri) )

( The Folk of the Air series (Holly Black) )

And I think that is all I have to say about books for the moment. I need a real life book club where I can read these sort of books with other people and then actually have in-person conversations about them, especially because when I look at the discourse online so many people are just plain Wrong.