review Archives | A.S. Akkalon

Not a review of A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown

Sebastian and Rain bicker about what they did and didn’t like in A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown, a fantasy novel by a black author that was inspired by West African folklore.

A week ago I shared a list of books by black authors that had jumped to the top of my TBR pile. Ten minutes ago I finished the first, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown.

In a moment I’ll hand over to Sebastian and Rain to chat about it. In case you haven’t met them, Rain is my reader half and Sebastian is my writer half. I should warn you Sebastian is a bit of a prat, but I hope you don’t hold that against him.

The advantage of setting Sebastian and Rain loose rather than trying to write a review is that this way I don’t have to decide what I think about the book.

Genius, right?

Sebastian and Rain read more mega-popular books

My writer half and my reader half ganged up and read Maze Runner recently. The verdict was… less than rosy.

Over the past few days Sebastian and Rain read Divergent and Maze Runner. There were good reasons, I promise.

If you haven’t met Sebastian and Rain before, you can read this post. It probably won’t clear anything up.

Sebastian: I have to talk about The Maze Runner first. You made me stay up late last night finishing it, so I should darn well get to explain why I hated it so much.

Rain: Like anyone could stop you.

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Life lessons from a Fitbit called Boris

In an effort to exercise more, I befriended a Fitbit with a number of annoying habits. Fortunately, he’s also had a lot to teach.

I recently gained a new friend, a Fitbit Charge 2 by the name of Boris.

I was happy to make Boris’ acquaintance because over the past cough cough months my level of activity has been somewhere between low and catatonic. I thought Boris might help inspire me to get moving again.

The start of our friendship has been a little rocky, but we are slowly learning each other’s quirks, and I believe we have a bright and possibly even active future ahead of us.

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Not a book review of The Obelisk Gate

A week ago I wrote a post that was not a book review of The Star-Touched Queen. On a similar vein, this isn’t a book review of The Obelisk Gate, by N. K. Jemisin. And if you can’t figure out why I’m suddenly (not) reviewing books, it’s all explained here.

The Obelisk Gate is the second book in the Broken Earth series, and almost anything I can say about the plot will be a spoiler for the first book, so I won’t say anything.

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Not a book review of The Star-Touched Queen

This is not a book review, but if it were it would be a review of The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi.

You may recall that in my last post I committed to reading four recent (in a loose sense of the word) fantasy novels in February.

Easy, right? It’s not uncommon for me to finish a book in a day or two, so four in a month gives me 22 days’ leeway. Except February is a short month, which takes me down to 20 days, and I didn’t start until the 7th, so 14 days.

I also have two books I hope to beta read this month, which takes much longer than normal reading, so say 5 days apiece, and I’m down to 4 days’ leeway.

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