Taste the Books: Review Morsels #44 A. Deborah Baker, Kate Alice Marshall, Kelsey Sutton

Intro

Hello beauties!

Welcome again to my own brand of mini reviews! I never thought I'd do minis, until I recapped a few of my long reviews in some digest post in 2014, and then guest-posted some shorties for a blogging event in 2015. And Karen from For What It's Worth started praising my short recs/recaps 😊. Just to be clear, I'm NOT taking a break from writing long reviews - no such luck LOL (though for anthologies, shorter books or books that I didn't enjoy/I don't have enough to say about, I decided to stick to minis). But while I'm making up my mind about a new book I've read, I might as well give you the short version 😉. Just be warned - this feature will be VERY random!

Note: all the mini blurbs (in italics) are of my own creation.

Into the Windwracked Wilds by A. Deborah Baker

(The Up-and-Under #3)

★★★

With friends Crow Girl and Niamh at their side, free-spirited Zib and rule-follower Avery, still looking for a way home, find themselves in the clutches of the Queen of Swords, and have to fight in order to avoid getting turned into monsters, while looking for a way to help a friend regain her humanity.

***

Rated 3.5 really.

Seanan McGuire, under whichever pen name, is overly fond of recapitulations, so one always needs to make allowances for the first chapter of any of her sequels - but this time she coupled the inevitable summary with a sort of essay about the phrase "once upon a time" and the individual words it consists of (that is, she literally paired each word with a segment of our protagonists' journey), and let me tell you, making a discourse about an indeterminative article which is a discourse about a character's origin story is prone to having a weird outcome. Then the adventure proper started, except, wait...not really...it was more of a prologue (but also, again, a character's backstory!) reading like an excessively long homage to a certain episode from Pinocchio, and I was starting to get bored (which was still an improvement on "bewildered"). And then...
...the story finally found its footing, used a few tropes to its advantage, and made me fall in love with its characters all over again, or more than ever (mainly the Crow Girl, who may be one of the most inventive creations McGuire ever came up with - and if she had been developed just a little more, one of the most heartbreaking as well). So, the book went from 2 to 3 to 4 stars in the space of 200-ish pages, and if I should average it I would have to give it 3 stars, but I really enjoyed the last section, so I will err on the side of generosity...3 and a half star, and not 4 only because, well, structurally it's a mess 🤷‍♀️ 😂.

Note: definitive review (due to time commitments, I've decided not to write full-length reviews anymore for short stories, novellas and anthologies, except in special cases or unless they're part of a series...well, one whose installments I have already reviewed in full in the past).

The Narrow by Kate Alice Marshall (ARC Review)

★★★

At a boarding school, the lives of a troubled girl and a recluse one intertwine six years after the first witnessed the inexplicable incident that rendered the second housebound, while a water-tied ghost seems to stalk both.

***

Rated 3.5 really.

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Penguin Random House/Viking Books for Young Readers for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

I'm conflicted about this one. Both the mystery and supernatural aspect are top-notch, which doesn't come as a surprise with Marshall - she puts a whole spin on the ghost/human interaction, and after a deceptively tame start, ups the ante at every turn and introduces lots of intriguing horror elements. Also, the female friendship rep is refreshing - no mean girl in sight, just an insecure, self-deprecating 17 y.o. that ultimately realises she doesn't need to make herself small and unproblematic for her "cool" friends to accept and love her. On the other hand, I found the family drama hard to buy into, and I didn't like how the story seemed to romanticise an abusive relationship (or at least to make excuses for it, in a way). Not to mention, literally being ready to sacrifice a part of yourself for someone you've loved for a hot minute (but even for someone you've loved for your whole life) is NOT a grand, romantic gesture - and in a story, it just sends the wrong message about the value of individuality/sense of self. Finally, a small note: "depressed" is a lot more than a casual label (which I didn't even find accurate in this case), and I'm not a fan of throwing it around and not giving it a sequitur. Anyhow, if you like a modern gothic horror/sapphic romance premise with a dark academia setting (but none of its problematic tropes), ghosts with a mission and a refreshing friendship angle, this will satisfy your cravings.

Note: definitive review (I don't have enough to say to justify writing a full-length one later).

Smoke and Key by Kelsey Sutton

★★

A girl falls from her grave into an grim underworld where everyone has lost their memories, except she feels a connection with a couple of boys she meets there and finds herself reliving scenes from her previous life - too bad there's a killer on the loose who terminates the dead for good if they start to remember...

***

Rated 2.5 really.

(Carrie - sorry this one didn't work for me. I still appreciate that you went to the trouble of gifting me books! 🧡).

As a rule, I love afterlife stories, which partly explains my rating...when I read a book set in the Great Beyond, I expect much more from the worldbuilding and the plot than what I got here - not to mention, I didn't know the characters were hailing from the early 1900 before I picked this one up. None of the reviews I read mentioned it, oops - and the fact is, I typically don't like old-times narratives...Anyhow, I got this book as a gift, so even if I had known, it wouldn't have mattered. Another problem: I thought the romance would be liminal, and here I got thrust into a love triangle (square, actually, in the end). The premise/twist was cool, actually, and it had a lot of potential that, alas, remained unfulfilled (plus, I still don't know what age the protagonists were supposed to be. Based on the publisher's name, I thought this would be a YA book, and yet they sounded like they could be a tad older? but at the same time not? maybe it's a thing that comes with the period?). Also, of course the main character was said to be "not like the other ones who've fallen" 🙄 (though to be honest, there was a reason for that - but still, trope much?) One more thing: I found it convenient that she was able to recognise all the major players from her past life except the one that counted. Last but not least, a warning: there's some disturbing imagery in here (mainly regarding the characters' state of decay) and a semi-explicit sex scene. If you're in for a romantic, only slightly morbid read, proceed with caution.

Note: definitive review (I don't have enough to say to justify writing a full-length one later, and of course I don't plan to reread this book).

So, have you read/are you planning to read any of the above? And if you have, what do you think of them? Do you post mini reviews? Do you like to read them?