Reading Wrap-Up: Art Matters, Happy Place, Blood Over Bright Haven
The first month and a half of this year has felt chaotic. Is it just me?
To clarify, it hasn’t necessarily been chaotic, it’s just felt it. The best way I’ve been able to think about it is like I’m a pond—seemingly peaceful on the surface—but a heavy rock was thrown in and all of the muck and silt on the bottom has been stirred up.
Needless to say, I’m just trying to stay productive and present. I’ve made a few BIG decisions in regards to my writing and publishing and I’m very excited. (More on that soon.) But I’m also still greatly enjoying my reading! Here are some bite-sized reviews for my recent reads.
P.S. What have you been reading lately?
I’m still playing catch up with getting my reviews up on the blog, but I’ve been consuming a lot more YA recently, since that is my primary writing genre and I want to be keyed into what’s working and inspired by excellent stories.
Art Matters by Neil Gaiman (Nonfiction: Writing)
It seems kind of silly to call this a book—the audio version was less than an hour long—but for being so small, it packed a big punch.
That said, I tend to love Neil Gaiman’s wisdom, and I definitely look up to him as an author, so it was a delight to hear his guidance and encouragement, and validating to hear his thoughts on art in general.
Happy Place by Emily Henry (Romance)
This was a re-read of one of my favorites from last year. It holds up! I always enjoy my time in Emily Henry books. They are swoony, emotional, and heartwarming. She KNOWS how to take a reader on a complete emotional arc. And while I tend to prefer short and snappy, the extra pages were still satisfying and cathartic.
Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang (Fantasy)
This book was a bit out of my comfort zone. I don’t tend to go for much adult high fantasy—I prefer the heartwarming friendship, whimsical magic, or sweet romance found in lighter fantasy or in YA fantasy. But I had heard this hyped by a couple of booktubers whose taste I share, and it is self-published, so I wanted to give it a try.
A few things:
I don’t personally think the cover does this book justice. It looks like a high fantasy adventure, but when I heard it described as dark academia and my interest was piqued. It is, in fact, dark academia. It follows two perspectives, one of a clansman who seeks refuge in a magical city when he is forced to leave his homelands, and one of a scholar studying to become a high mage in said city.
On that note, this book is heavy on the world building. This is the biggest reason I tend to stay away from adult high fantasy—I typically find heavy world building tedious. I want to get into the emotionality of the story, rather than the details of the magic system. However, the magic system is incredibly important for the plot, which is an extremely emotional one.
Another reason I don’t pick up a lot of adult high fantasy is because they are often darker or more violent—which this definitely was. It was gruesome and heartbreaking, which did play into my overall enjoyment of the story. But the storytelling was good. Especially the beginning.
The beginning! The first two chapters were breathtaking. I was crying ten pages into the book! Then I was audibly whooping for joy by page thirty or forty. That’s unheard of!
All in all, I enjoyed this story, and will likely pick up her other viral book, The Sword of Kaigen, after I’ve recovered from the heartbreak of this one.
