WWW Wednesday – January 26, 2022

Happy Wednesday! If you’re unfamiliar with WWW Wednesday, it’s a weekly blog meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words. The three W’s are simple:

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

Current Reads

I just started Jade City by Fonda Lee. I’m under 100 pages in but I’ve heard great things and I’m excited to see if it lives up to the hype.

I haven’t continued reread of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins but I’m traveling this week and have a late night plane flight when I could see myself reaching for this.

Recently Finished

First I finished Malice by Heather Walter. I really enjoyed this twisted sapphic retelling of Sleeping Beauty. The middle was a bit slow, the training montage could have gone out the window and I wouldn’t have missed it. I ended up giving it 4 stars. I actually have the ARC of the second book in this duology and I almost jumped right into it but decided to wait a bit as I had another ARC with a March 1 publication date. It won’t sit on my NetGalley shelf for long.

I then finished the audio book of The Midnight Bargain by CL Polk. This was a book with a great idea that really fell flat. The feminist story of a girl who is willing to throw everything away for magic needs a good magic system and a strong female lead. This had neither. I gave it 2 stars.

Then I read my ARC of Castles in Their Bones by Laura Sebastian and I absolutely loved it! This story follows triplet princesses who are raised to marry princes in neighboring kingdoms and sabotage them to ultimately allow their mom to conquer those kingdoms and expand her empire. The individual stories are fun traditional YA fantasy full of familiar tropes done well. But this story succeeds in tying these stories together beautifully and twisting it into fast-paced and enthralling tale. I loved it and I’m so sad I can’t pick up the next one. My first 5 star rating of the year and I’m still on a high just thinking about it. You can see my full review here. If you love YA fantasy, this needs to be on your TBR.

Up Next

I plan to pickup The Gaps by Leanne Hall next. I have the ARC for this one, it will be published February 8th. I’m looking forward to this one, it sounds intriguing and a bit of a change of pace for me. Here’s the blurb:

When sixteen-year-old Yin Mitchell is abducted, the news reverberates through the whole Year Ten class at Balmoral Ladies College. As the hours tick by, the girls know the chance of Yin being found alive is becoming smaller and smaller.

Police suspect the abduction is the work of a serial offender, with none in the community safe from suspicion. Everyone is affected by Yin’s disappearance—even scholarship student Chloe, who usually stays out of Balmoral drama, is drawn into the maelstrom. And when she begins to form an uneasy alliance with the queen of Year Ten, Natalia, things get even more complicated.

Looking over their shoulders at every turn, Chloe and Natalia must come together to cope with their fear and grief as best they can. A tribute to friendship in all its guises, The Gaps is a moving examination of vulnerability and strength, safety and danger, and the particular uncertainty of being a young woman in the world.