Page Turner – Page 3 – Marked for Plot

The City that Would Eat the World

2025 has not been my best year of reading (yet). There’s been quite a few disappointments, a decent number of ‘good, but not great’ books, and one or two that will stay with me. I’m happy to say that I finally found something addictive in The City that Would Eat the World. It was a raucously fun adventure in an alien world that is both utterly unlike our own, while mirroring it deeply.

Read if Looking For: easy reading, weird megastructures, batshit crazy plans, anticapitalist themes

Avoid if Looking For: themes you have to dig for, gritty and dark books, romantic subplots

The Diviner (Journals of Evander Tailor #2)

The Journals of Evander Tailor series has been a guilty pleasure favorite of mine for a while. It’s the type of fantasy I wish I would have had as a kid: fun fight scenes with a nerdy gay lead. Life has been pretty hectic recently, so I went in on the audiobooks to listen to as I rip up carpets and contemplate whether I have the skill to try and refinish the floors with my pitiful DIY skills (the answer is definitely not, at least right now).

Read if Looking For: fun enchanting, asshat nobility, drama-free relationships

Avoid if Looking For: careful prose, confident characters, books free from tropes

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

It’s been nice to see witches getting more love in fantasy over the last five years. Whether or not they delve into historical witchcraft or lean into fantasy cliches, they’re just a fun archetype. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is a pretty damn good book focusing on what witchcraft in the modern age might look like. Like with a lot of modern fantasy, you’re getting some political commentary woven into the story, and this book does a good job of locking into an exciting plotline and sticking the landing.

Read if Looking For: witches, critiques of TERF ideology, witchy goodness, POVs from many ideological perspectives

Avoid if Looking For: Books with subtle themes, cinematic action

Evocation

Evocation immediately caught my eye with its cover. While I’m not a someone who subscribes to Tarot in my personal life, I greatly enjoy how it can be used as a symbolic component in stories, especially fantasy ones where its easy for me to suspend disbelief and enjoy fortune telling. That, plus a queer cast made it an easy choice for me to read.

Read If Looking For: poly romance, dynamic narration, occultism

Avoid if Looking For: flesheshed out magic systems, mystery/thriller plotlines that satisfy

An Academy for Liars

Dark Academia isn’t a subgenre I read a lot of. I tend to prefer my magic school stories on the kid-side of things. But when this year’s bingo card asked me to dive into a Dark Academia, I started looking for a 2024 release that would satisfy me. An Academy of Liars seemed like fun, and I had a great time with it, even if I had some issues with the book’s execution.

Read If Looking For: Dark Academia with a romance focus, fast paced books, rats named Gregory

Avoid if Looking For: healthy relationship dynamics, quality mental health rep, books that will make you think

A Deadly Education

I grew up in the era of Harry Potter. I dragged my parents to bookstores, standing in line for midnight releases. I went to Harry Potter themed summer camps. I asked for my mom to knit me scarves with the colors of each Harry Potter house. And while I’ve soured on Harry Potter for a variety of reasons – Rowling’s raging transphobia being only one of many – A Deadly Education plucked at the joy of magic school stories, which is something that’s never going to entirely vanish from my fantasy reading habits.

Read If Looking For: brutally fast pacing, snarky narrators, magic dystopias

Avoid if Looking For: characters growing in power, grey morality

A Conspiracy of Truths

My love for framing narratives will likely become a running theme on this blog. When executed well, I find they make stories come to life, and they inherently channel the oral storytelling traditions that the fantasy genre calls home. A Conspiracy of Truths is one of the best of them. This book was an impulse purchase from Half Priced Books, and it gave me not only one of my favorite books of all time, but an author whose catalog blows me away.

Read If Looking For: unique protagonists, political manipulation, the power of storytelling

Avoid if Looking For: stories where the main character can leave a prison cell to actually take part in what’s traditionally the ‘plot’ of a book

Jade City

When I heard about Jade City, the things people told me about were great fight scenes and cool magic systems. I picked it up because I love these things. Instead what I got was an intensely character focused family drama with organized crime (kind of) as a backdrop. Plus some cool fight scenes, of course.

Read If Looking For: morally grey leads, deep themes, character focused writing

Avoid if Looking For: lots of fight scenes

Dungeon Crawler Carl

This book is stupid. It shouldn’t work. It’s premise is insane. And yet it has captured me fully and utterly. I have listened to all the books in the series multiple times, read the paper copies, and eagerly await each new installment. I’m thrilled it’s hitting a wider audience now that it’s made the jump to traditional publishing, and am excited to return to it when I need a comfortable audiobook.

Read If Looking For: books that make you think ‘what the fuck?’, horror meets comedy, action packed fun

Avoid if Looking For: character focused stories, quality prose, books without gore, subtle humor

The Tainted Cup

The Tainted Cup was one of my more anticipated reads of the year. I loved Bennett’s Divine Cities, but found Foundryside to be aggressively mediocre despite hitting nearly every trope I enjoyed at the time. I am very appreciative that The Tainted Cup has more in common with the former than the latter.

Read If Looking For: a classic murder mystery book in an epic fantasy world

Avoid if Looking For: you don’t enjoy Sherlock Holmes