Roar Cat Reads

Tag: sequel

  • I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee

    I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee

    Genre | YA Contemporary Fiction
    Page #s | 328
    Publishing Date | June 2020

    The world of K-Pop has never met a star like this. Debut author Lyla Lee delivers a deliciously fun, thoughtful rom-com celebrating confidence and body positivity—perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Julie Murphy.

    Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.

    She’ll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she’ll do it better than anyone else.

    When Skye nails her audition, she’s immediately swept into a whirlwind of countless practices, shocking performances, and the drama that comes with reality TV. What she doesn’t count on are the highly fat-phobic beauty standards of the Korean pop entertainment industry, her sudden media fame and scrutiny, or the sparks that soon fly with her fellow competitor, Henry Cho.

    But Skye has her sights on becoming the world’s first plus-sized K-pop star, and that means winning the competition—without losing herself.

    Goodreads

    I am not (yet) into K-Pop, but I am very much into empowered teens chasing their dreams (and their crushes) while crushing their haters. I’ll Be the One is a super cute book about challenging fatphobia in Korean American culture, family support, and some good ol’ fashioned YA romance.

    Skye is one of my favorite protagonists. She is the exact opposite of me, since she uses people’s verbal and nonverbal judgements as fuel for her own awesomeness. She’s a size 16 in a culture that thinks size 2 is too big, but she’s an amazing dancer and singer, so she auditions for a TV idol competition. The female judge constantly gives her a hard time about her weight (it feels like a meaningful acknowledgement of how women often police ourselves to a higher standard), but Skye continues to outperform her contestants and stands up for herself on national television in some really triumphal fist-to-the-sky moments.

    Along the way, Skye becomes friends with a lesbian couple, cutely acknowledges her bisexuality because she was checking one of them out, and then falls in love with Instagram star Henry Cho. You know how YA romances are so often ridiculous, but some of them are unbelievable in just the right way? This is one of the good ones! I loved watching them become friends, flirt, and evolve into something more. Bonus points for a double-bisexual couple!

    This is a purely fun, delightful, inspiring book, and I hope everyone reads it!

    Who Would I Recommend This Book To?

    I’ll Be the One is the perfect weekend read for when you want to tear through a story with a grin on your face.

    Rating: 4 out of 5.

    Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!

  • Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames

    Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames

    Genre | Fantasy
    Page #s | 544
    Publishing Date | August 2018

    Live fast, die young.

    Tam Hashford is tired of working at her local pub, slinging drinks for world-famous mercenaries and listening to the bards sing of adventure and glory in the world beyond her sleepy hometown.

    When the biggest mercenary band of all rolls into town, led by the infamous Bloody Rose, Tam jumps at the chance to sign on as their bard. It’s adventure she wants – and adventure she gets as the crew embark on a quest that will end in one of two ways: glory or death.

    It’s time to take a walk on the wyld side.

    Goodreads

    Kings of the Wyld, Eames’ first book, is one of my favorites, but it’s a book about old men reliving their adventuring glory days, and I can’t really justify reviewing it for my queer blog. The sequel, though? Well, Bloody Rose has three women in the main cast of five, and two of them are queer. It’s everything I wanted from his D&D-inspired fantasy world full of humor, creativity, and heart, and it works perfectly well as a standalone story, so start reading it now!

    Tam joins the legendary band (the term in Eames’ books given to adventuring parties, as they are treated like rock stars within the world) Fable as a bard to record the tales of their accomplishments. This is strange, as Fable claims to have a gig that’s in the exact opposite direction of the monstrous horde that threatens the world and has every other band eager to fight for glory. Turns out, it’s all connected, and the five members of Fable will be pushed to their limits to conquer personal demons and literal monsters with a little help from their friends. I love a story where defeating the big bad only serves to help the bigger bad.

    In this world, monster hunters have transitioned from a more legitimate “saving helpless townsfolk from marauding creatures” role to a lucrative career of touring stadiums to defeat captured “monsters” – and no one wants to look too closely at whether these creatures are truly evil. It’s uncomfortable to read sometimes, which is the point. As a character says later in the story, “We are the ones going bump in the night.” We never QUITE get the Justice for Monsters storyline that I craved, but I look forward to seeing how the world has shifted in this regard in future books.

    As excellent as the plot is, it is the characters that truly sell this story. Tam is great everywoman protagonist, and it’s a joy to watch her grow, both physically and emotionally. Rose and Freecloud are the stars in an epic romance that is all the more fun for seeing it from the side. Cura is a gothic bisexual inkwitch who summons terrifying beings from tattoos that she gave herself to memorialize, and relive, her trauma. I wrote her off as a stereotypical male-gazey manic pixie sex girl at first, but the arc of her story was probably the most meaningful of all to me. And Brune is a giant barbarian of a man, sweet and coarse, and with a family-based storyline that was really engaging and left me wanting more.

    I was impressed by how diverse and complex the women in this book are. Whether they are going through a classic coming-of-age storyline (Tam), struggling to balance personal glory with motherhood (Rose) or healing from a traumatic past (Cura), each woman is fully realized and awesomely gifted and flawed. This is also the only fantasy book I’ve read that includes an offhanded comment about women dealing with their periods in between epic battles. I love it!

    Who Would I Recommend This Book To?

    If you love classic fantasy with a lovingly snarky twist, Bloody Rose will delight and entertain!

    Rating: 5 out of 5.

    Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!

  • Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

    Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

    Genre | Fantasy / Science Fiction
    Page #s | 512
    Publishing Date | August 2020

    Harrow the Ninth, the sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor’s haunted space station.

    She answered the Emperor’s call.

    She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend.

    In victory, her world has turned to ash.

    After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman’s shoulders.

    Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath — but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

    Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor’s Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?

    Goodreads

    I’ll be honest – after rereading Harrow the Ninth via audiobook, I still don’t fully grasp the plot. But did that affect my enjoyment of the story? No, I am a big confused blob, grinning manically into the middle distance. Tamsyn Muir is just such a talented storyteller, and her words wash over you in a chaotic jumble of cleverness, leaving readers delighted regardless of their level of understanding.

    The feeling fits with this story in particular. Picking up where Gideon the Ninth left off, Harrowhark the Ninth (now the First) has ascended to lyctorhood (almost) but has an unfortunate side effect of insanity. She flashes back to events that are almost the same as the first book, but with one massive difference: where Gideon ought to be, Ortus is instead. But Harrow and the readers must piece together what has happened to her as she hangs out on a spaceship with God and her elder lyctor siblings, some of whom are trying to kill her.

    It’s interesting enough, but the story picks up like a rocket about halfway through when Harrow runs into some characters that literally made my jaw drop. Soon thereafter, there is the single greatest perspective change in the history of literature. Never has a book’s POV been so important or so subtly important. From that point on, I could not shove the story into my brain fast enough.

    Although Harrow and Ianthe are pretty much the only characters that continue from the first book (other than flashbacks), the characters that are introduced are excellent. Augustine and Mercymorn are perfect as entitled, bored, talented 10,000 year old beings, and the introduction of God/John is endlessly entertaining. There is nothing better than to see a nun of the Ninth House prostrating herself on glass before her god, a kindly human who drinks tea, eats biscuits, and horrifies her by patting her on the head.

    It’s just been announced that the series will now include four books, with Nona the Ninth coming out in fall 2022!

    Who Would I Recommend This Book To?

    You can’t read this without reading Gideon the Ninth, but if you’re invested in the Locked Tomb series, this is an excellent sequel!

    Rating: 5 out of 5.

    Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!