Page Turner – Page 4 – Marked for Plot

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

Running Close to the Wind

Alexandra Rowland has been one of my favorite authors ever since I read A Conspiracy of Truths, and their writing has never lead me astray since. Their most popular novel (A Taste of Gold and Iron) is also their weakest in my opinion, but still quite excellent. So this book was an easy pick for me for this card, and it met pretty much every expectation I had for it.

Read if Looking For: Raucously funny pirates, unhinged monologues, seagulls, cake decorating contests, sexual language (but very little actual sex)

Avoid if Looking For: a book that takes itself seriously