The Reading Jackalope

skimmed through the last half. the minute we start dealing with the politics of the Wierd I get annoyed. I don't buy the world devolpment and in general it's just a snooze fest.

Characters do things that should be out of character in order to get the plot moving. In the very first chapter, the first time we meet Audrey, she does something to get the ball rolling that had me pausing and thinking REALLY because it was just a weee bit unbelievable. She spends most of the rest of the novel beating herself up about it. Plus there's the fact that However, grifters and thieves are our good guys in this novel. And not anti-hero type good guys, I mean we're supposed to look at them and think, YUP THEY DO GOOD. They're not evil at all. They're just mischievous. Honestly the amount of double talking the authors had to do to make think that Kaldar and Audrey aren't horrible people was just amazing. Of course, if said grifter or thief is mean to our heroes, then they're the bad guys. Because they do things that make them evil. Like use drugs, or murder, or something.

Plus, the villains aren't just evil, they're the most super badevil that ever existed, to the point where people get physically ill around them because they're just superbadevilwrong. And even more frustrating it's not just individuals who are like this, it's an entire country full of people who are totes ok with having parts of their government being these superbadevilwrong people. It sets up a false dichotomy and I don't like it at all. The bad guys might as well twirl a mustache they're painted so broadly.

Speaking of villains they're included in the a few of the various point of view jumps in the novel. And there are lots of POV jumps. LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of them. So many that it's detrimental. I was ok with some of them, but I really don't need to know just how superbadevilwrong and evil our villain is by being in her head.

The setup has gotten a bit formulaic with these novels. Single gentleman introduced in the previous novel meets single lady who has sad events in her life that make her distrustful of men. Whateves. And it's always dudes that we've met previously, because there just aren't single women who aren't the heroine in these novels. UGH. This is hitting my big urban fantasy pet peeves. I didn't find the snarking-at-each-other-to-hide-how-much-we-really-like-each-other set up of the romance to be very believable either. It's worked a bit in previous novels by Andrews, but it just fell flat in this one. Partly because the snarking was so over the top, and partly because there was an inordinate amount of time spent oogling the other person during important plot points. YOU'RE ROBBING A DUDE WHO SHOOTS ON SIGHT, NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE KISSING GUYS.

O do like the parts with Jack, George, and Gaston.

Finally, I wish this had explored more the Edge in the Pacific Northwest, but it just really didn't. On the other hand, how exactly does the edge work? I know it's the boundary between the two worlds, but I was given the impression that it followed along a line. Except the Pacific Northwest is definitely further north of Louisiana and Georgia. And also there is Edge in both the Pacific Northwest AND California? So not so much of a line then as it is pockets where the two worlds meet? Basically the world building broke down a little in this one. In fact, the deeper we delve into the history of the Weird, the stronger I start to side-eye it, so I really wish we'd just stayed in the Edge.

I'm just disappointed and annoyed because I'm disappointed. I'm going to read the last book, but my hopes aren't very high.

The novella is hilarious. Lady Susan is the wooorst, but you can't help but cheer for her as she makes sure that everyone does exactly what she would like them to do. I would love to see her go head-to-head with Cersei Lanister or Margary Tyrell. They would eat each other alive, and it would be a delight to watch. She's a master at reputation control, and her ability to explain things so that people think the best of her and the worst of her enemies is amazing to view. Lady Susan is unique for Austin heroines, because she is the woooorst, in the other novels she would most likely have been the villain and her daughter Francesca the heroine. And though Francesca does get the heroines ending, Lady Susan isn't really punished for her behavior either. It's really quite a feminist novel in that it explores the ways that a woman can have power in a heavily patriarchal society. The fact that Lady Susan isn't really punished for her uses of soft power is what makes it stand out against other novels from the late 1700s early 1800s that dealt with manipulative women. (Vanity Fair, I'm looking directly at you.)

While I quite enjoyed the book, the end is very rushed and Austin completely gives up on the format, likely because she grew frustrated with the limits imposed on her by the chosen format. There is after all, only so much one can tell with a letter and have the letter still be a believable letter. It's a very short book though.

As for the movie Love and Friendship, the movie based on this book? Having read the book afterwards, I can say it's a pretty true adaption. They had to pad out a lot of scenes, and stated some facts where the book only heavily implied them. However, it's a decent adaptation.

I liked a lot about the book. Rose is awesome; she’s , kind, stubborn, and a survivor. I loved her family, the Andrews write children very well. The world building is interesting and I thought it was a good take on the idea of a boarder area between Faerie and this world. The plot skips along quickly and nothing feels forced or over-explained. It’s a world filled with characters I would love to visit and visit with. Plus, there are shape shifters. They’re kind of on the sidelines in this one, but they’re there and yea.

Honestly, were it not for the fact that the Andrews consistently hit my feminist rage monster buttons (if only very lightly) they would easily be among my favorite authors. As it is, I went out and got a hold of the rest of this series because I needs it. I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeds it. They get just enough right that I can overlook the occasional background misogyny even if I have to make rage faces during certain parts of the book.

I don’t like Declan, the romantic interest in this novel, as he’s a lying, manipulative, controlling jerk. I don’t hate him as much as I hate Curran from the Kate Daniels novels, but I’ve had many more books to learn just how awful Curran is so chalk one up for Declan. It drives me crazy that this pair writes romances with male leads like this because their female leads are fabulous. I do like that Rose (and Kate in her books) stands up to Declan, but I really don’t see why she falls for him. He lies to her. All the time. Constantly. It is not OK. I can see how the authors (and Rose) justify it, the lying is brushed off because he never actually utters a lie, he just lets her think the wrong thing and plays along with it thus reinforcing the lie, or he simply misleads her. You know, LYING.

But lets talk about those feminist rage monster buttons. It kills me that this pair hits them, because they do so much so well that I know they could do better. For example, in one part of the book Rose takes Declan to Wal-mart to pick up some supplies. This could have been an absolutely hilarious fish out of water scene. Instead the pair are followed around by women who can’t help themselves because Declan is so hot. Women pull their shirts down, give themselves whiplash, and otherwise act like silly twits because OMG he’s soooooo gorgeous. Guys, outside of an actual star, have you ever EVER seen this happen in real life? Because I sure haven’t, and I’ve seen some guys on the street that definitely give me pause. I’ve only ever seen it happen in romance novels, and it’s just bad writing with really ugly misogynist undertones. I hate it. It drives me crazy that the pair included this scene because I know they can write women well, so why do I get the feeling that they divide their worlds into the good kind of women (the heroines and their female friends) and the sluts?

Oh well. At least Rose has some female friends who are her age and not viewed as competition, even if we don’t get to see a whole lot of them they exist. And I hate that I feel like I’m grasping at straws when I say that. In a female driven genre like paranormal romance, or hell any genre, female leads with lady friends shouldn’t be the exception.

Boring AND irritating.

Immediately after finishing Clean Sweep, I started on this one and devoured it whole. I adore everything about this book. And what’s really awesome is that it looks like the series is adding alternate dimensions into its ‘science’ so they can add characters from their other books. (Which is what happens in this one, but they’re from a series I haven’t read yet, so I found out by reading the Goodreads reviews). It’s completely ridiculous ‘science’ and I love it.

In this one, Dina is asked to host a peace summit between three warring factions. She’s desperate for guests so she agrees. The factions include the vampires, the traders (whom we met in Clean Sweep), and a new group of warriors. All three want to claim a planet that has some very valuable ore and none of them are willing to give up their claim for various personal reasons. Plus we add a new permanent character to the inn with Orro, the melodramatic chef Dina hires to help with this summit.

The world building is expanded in lovely ways. We learn more about the Inns, and what they are. We also delve into three different alien cultures to see what makes them tick, plus we have some more shallow mentions of two other cultures. And for those of you who have read The Edge series, this book features characters from that series, so yay? I don’t know, I do know I’ll be picking that series up now.

The story is an utter delight. Complete candy-coated goodness. Except that candy coating hides some really dark stuff. I was merrily reading along and reached the two thirds mark and something was revealed that just broke my heart. And the story just kept adding blows. It was awesome. I am completely enthralled. I need more, I need it now. However, while the third book is currently out there for consumption, it’s only available in serial format. I believe the authors have released up to chapter 7. Though they do release a chapter a week, I despise DESPISE the serial format. And I think the book would suffer for it. So I have this dilemma, do I read it anyway or wait?

I ate this up with a spoon and I'm begging for more. Oh, there are problems and some of them are rather large problems, but in general it's just a fun novel that plays with the urban fantasy genre and all of it's various clichés. For example vampires and werewolves are actually genetically modified humanoid aliens. Genetically compatible with earthlings, but not human either. It's awesome. And while I feel that the story played a little loosely with 'sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" I nonetheless loved every silly bit of it.

And as a bonus, I completely adore Sean, the werewolf love interest. My biggest issue with Illona Andrews Kate Daniels novels is that I despise Curran, the love interest in those novels. DESPISE HIM. So I am completely relieved that Sean manages to avoid the alpha-asshole traits I really hate in Curran. My one annoyance with his character is that Dina keeps calling him an unstable werewolf, when Sean is about as unstable as granite.

I am less interested in Arland, the vampire love interest, especially because at one point he mouthed off some gender essentialism bullshit, which I suspect I'm meant to find empowering.

"When a man takes up arms, he does so for many reasons. Sometimes to punish, sometimes to intimidate or frighten. But when a woman picks up a weapon, she means to kill.”

Never mind that Dina has her broomstick, which is a malleable weapon, and uses it for ALL those above reasons at some point in the book. It was an eye-rolling moment, and while it's a character who says it and not the novel itself, it is indicative of the very subtle attitude of the authors that keep them from being my most favorite urban fantasy writers ever. I like them, and I enjoy their novels, but in general there are some very subtle sexist underpinnings about their works that annoy me.

However, high marks for this one. Which is a bit of a relief as I've been in a slump lately and was looking for something to remind me just how much I like reading.

Boring and predictable. Also, women problems.

Noooope. Nopenopenopenopenope. Full thoughts here

I'm really conflicted with this book. On the one hand I can say that objectively this is an excellent novel. It's well written, the characters are fully fleshed out, the plot is engaging, etc etc. However, while I was captivated by parts of the novel there were other parts that I didn't like and struggled to get through and then there were parts that flat out triggered anxiety attacks and were miserable to get through. I'm glad I read it, but I don't think I'll read it again. Nor do I think I'll revisit Willis as an author (this is the third book of hers that I've read and it's been the same thing with every book) except, of course, I'm curious about To Say Nothing of the Dog.

In Doomsday Book we follow Kivrin, who travels back to the fourteenth century and Mr. Dunworthy in the future. Mr. Dunworthy is a big worry wart and was terrified for Kivrin going back into an extremely dangerous era, especially as Kivrin is a young woman and according to him, as he tries to scare her out of going, the medieval era was full of rapists, murderers, thieves, rapists (again), and oh diseases. And then events of the book start to spiral out of control as both time periods are subjected to similar crises.

One of the things that amuses me about books about the near future which have been written in the past 20-30 years (like this one) is that they could not predict so many of the various technologies that have developed. The most egregious example in this book is the lack of cell phones. The amount of time that people spend trying to reach another person, or looking for another person, takes up probably a good quarter of the book. It's always funny to see what people in the near past thought the near future would look like.

However, while I find this kind of past-future tech-gaps amusing, this was the part of the book that triggered my anxiety. I had a moment of clarity at a point in the novel where I was reading that Mr. Dunworthy had yet again gone to look for someone and found that they weren't where he was looking and I realized that my heart rate was up, my breath was short, and a couple of other things that are signs I have come to recognize as a nascent panic attack. I stopped reading at that point and didn't go back to the book for several days. It was like a light bulb went off as I realized I'd been doing that over and over throughout this book as well as with Blackout and All Clear*, the two Willis novels I've read previously. I enjoy books that can scare me, I enjoy books that get my heart racing and excited. I do not enjoy books that send me into panic attacks because the characters can't get a hold of the person they need.

These anxiety triggering moments were exacerbated by the noise that was constant throughout the book. The bells ringing all the time, people talking over each other as opposed to talking to each other, and other background noises. I know it sounds weird to be complaining about the noise in a book, a book I physically read and so audio shouldn't really factor into it, but I can't think of a better way to describe it. Each mention of the background noise going on in the novel added the general confusion and chaos the books were trying to describe. As I was reading these portions of the book I felt the same kind of sensory overload that I get in large crowds or other noisy events. It's extremely effective and I have to praise Willis for her writing technique even if I didn't enjoy it. In the latter quarter of the book when things were slowing down and the bells and noises weren't mentioned quite as frequently, I could physically feel the calm as that storm passed.

I did get annoyed, as I suspect I'm meant to, with the historians. There's a moment when Kivrin is wondering about what the people will be like, and how they experience death because she was told death of a child was so common the contemps just brushed it off. I suspect Willis was pointing out that while statistics are useful for broad data about an era, they can't really parse the day to day lives of people. It happened a few times, Kivrin (or another character) would make a broad statement about 'the people of the era' using those statistics, only to find that the actual people she was interacting with reacted in the exact opposite way.

I definitely enjoyed the Kivrin parts of the novel a lot more then the Mr. Dunworthy parts. I'm an amateur medieval historian, so I liked it from that perspective. But also, I just liked the medieval era characters a lot more then the modern/future characters.

To sum up, I think it's a very good novel but I personally didn't enjoy reading it. I can see why it won so many awards, and I think it's a great introduction to what science fiction can do. I even admire the fact that Willis can get such a strong reaction from me with her writing. I would definitely recommend it, but I would probably do so with a strong caveat about how anxious the book made me.

*I haven't actually finished All Clear. I put it down about a month ago and haven't wanted to go back, and now that I've pinpointed this anxiety thing, I suspect that is the reason. Both Blackout and All Clear are full of that just-missed them, can't get to them, or OMG NEED TO FIND them kind of plot devices. I'm getting anxious just thinking about it.

The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home is the conclusion to Catherynne Valente's Fairland series for middle grade readers. The first book was a revelation, and is the book that introduced me to Valente. I adored that book, loved it. I enjoyed the second and third books as well, though I don't think they ever managed to really re-capture the magic in the first book. However the fourth book, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, was a huge disappointment. Still, even given that I'd been disappointed with The Boy Who Lost Fairyland I immediately pre-ordered this last book and hoped that the conclusion would recapture the magic of the first book. Sadly, I've been struggling with this book for three months now and I think I'm just done.

I had a couple of issues with the book. The first is exemplified in the summary. Look at that cast of characters, there are so many. And each one is unique and quirky. It's Fairyland, so you can't just have talking animals you have to have talking stuffed animals, and the child of a wyvern and a library, or any number of other unusual combinations. I love A-Through-L, but he's become just one more weird character in a book chock full of weird characters. I'm a big Oz fan, huge Oz fan, I love those books, and I can see Oz all over this series. However, Baum seemed to be willing to let some of his odder creations be one book characters, something Valente doesn't want to do. If the character appeared somewhere in the previous books then by golly it'll get a shot to show up here. This actually lessens the power of a character showing up at all, because you don't really get to spend time with anyone.

The other issue I had is that I choked on the tweeness of the descriptions. I've said before that I love Valente's way with words, and I do. However, sometimes she lets her pure enjoyment with shaping visuals get away from her and you end up with words jumbled together in ways that add nothing to the over all visual. It's like an artist spending hours painting a pink and orange tree in a forest of rainbow trees. That one tree is going to get lost in the rest of the trees and you can't even see the overall picture because you're too overwhelmed by the colorful forest.

But my main issue with the book is that I think Valente started writing the later books for children and made them easier and simpler because she thought that's how a children's book should be. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making wasn't really written for children, it was written as a companion novel to Palimpsest where it appeared as an imaginary novel. Valente wrote it for the fans of that novel and it kind of took off and became it's own beast and she became a surprise children's book author. I don't want to say that she started dumbing her novels down, because I don't think that's quite it. But she stopped allowing the danger of Fairyland to be a real danger, and the books went from something quite powerful to a cute little story that have little emotional weight because there's no real weight to anything.

I will say, the ending pulled the book from a one star disappointment. While there is little actual plot in the novel, Valente does have a way of wrapping things together in a nice bow and this ending is no different. It's a natural conclusion to the series, and I quite liked it.

Overall, I'm just disappointed and sad. I still love the first book, and I will re-read it often. I don't think I'll continue to re-read the rest of September's adventures in Fairyland.

Silver on the Road is a fantasy set in an alternate version of the early western expansion, and is also the very first Laura Anne Gilman novel to completely work for me. I've read two others. The first, her urban fantasy, I absolutely hated and the second, the magical wine Renaissance fantasy, wasn't quite really my cup of tea either, though I didn't hate it. However, I feel like Gilman's slow, meandering, detailed style fits perfectly with the western theme.

The novel starts on Izzie's 16th birthday, the last day of her indenture to the being identified as the Devil. He, called the Devil because of his propensity for bargains among other reasons, asks Izzie what exactly she wants to do now that she is no longer required to work off the debt of her parents. She asks to work for him and so becomes his Left Hand. What exactly that means is something that she learns alongside the reader as the book progresses. She takes to the Road with Gabriel, an experienced traveler, on an apprenticeship of sorts as she sorts out exactly what it means to be the Left Hand of the Devil. Gabriel meanwhile has made his own deal and has his own reasons for taking her along with him. There is a danger coming into the Devil's territory and Isobel must deal with it as the Devil's Left Hand whether she is prepared to do so or not. This is a story that takes early American Folklore combines it with a coming of age story, adds a journey tale, and it all blends into something fresh and lovely.

Honestly, this is less a western novel then it is a frontiersman novel. I know the differences between the two are minuscule, and only a few decades separate them out. But this west is not the west of Billie the Kid, Wild Bill, or Jesse James. This is the west, an alternate version of course, of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and Lewis and Clark. In fact, the Devil's Territory is the Louisiana Purchase, right down to the major 'cities' being located in the same spots. Again, I feel like I'm splitting hairs, but I was expecting one and was disconcerted when I realized it was the other.

I do think it's an important distinction to make though. I love alternate realities, and one of the things I get picky about with them is where history changes. How does the magic in this world change the things that happened in our history to make it the history of this novel? I think, if I'm placing the novel correctly, it's set around 1800. The American Revolution had just happened and over in the States Thomas Jefferson is president. Of course, being an alternate version of the US, some things are different. It's most likely that France never occupied this part of the US (which makes me wonder what happened to The French and Indian War, especially as that was an important factor in the US Revolution). Instead, this territory has been claimed by an powerful being, called the Devil by the Catholic Spanish explorers who first encountered him.

All the elements of the early frontier are there, the Spanish, the French, the Brits, the Natives, the new United States, but the relationships are slightly different because this stretch of land isn't claimed by any of them. Even the Native Americans have ceded control of the land to The Devil for reasons known only to them. I'm honestly unsure how I feel about that particular development. I think the novel is fairly respectful in it's treatment of the various Tribes, when they appear, but well... you've got one man claiming control or protecting the whole of it which means he made a deal with ALL of the plains tribes, and they all agreed that he would be the best being to protect/rule/control the area.

I found it extremely interesting that magic seems to be limited only to this small part of the US, between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. There are hints that magic is long buried in other parts of the world, but here and only here does it come to the surface. Why? Is it civilization? Is it something else? It seems as though something the Devil does protects the magic, as he stopped the Spanish invaders from claiming any part of this territory when the first conquistadors started exploring.

But enough history geeking. I enjoyed the slow meandering pace of this novel, like I said I think Gilman finally found a story that works with her style. She has this tendency to give you every single detail. Izzie doesn't just put on her shoes in the morning, she shakes out both boots and removes any hiding spiders and then puts them on. These details make for slow reading, and when the story is as much about the journey as it is about anything else, it works. The novel is a coming of age story, so while we experience life on the Road with Izzie, we're watching her grow into her power even as a threat looms above the characters and the Territory.

I think there's a small pacing problem, though it's more likely connected to Gilman's writing style then to an actual issue. As I said, the journey is just as important as anything else in the novel and Gilman revels in the small details of the journey. But that style does make the threat less looming and so when we finally come to a confrontation at the end of the novel it felt rather anti-climatic as opposed to something that had been building. The confrontation was simply another step in Izzie's journey as opposed to the end of a plot arch. This makes the novel's end feel rather abrupt, though also fitting as it is just one step in Izzie's journey as the Left Hand of the Devil.

I liked the novel quite a bit. There were lots of little folklorish details that contributed to making the novel feel old and real. I am eagerly anticipating the next book.

they tour the country. There are pranks. Cade slowly comes to realize how he can control his future seeing. There are miniscule advancements to the overarching plot. If I were to say this book had as much plot as meringue has substance that would be far too much credit. And yet, it's completely enjoyable. A slice of life kind of book. There is some kind of evil lurking in the background and I'm sure at some point there will be a confrontation, but mostly it's just following our four characters through their lives. They talk about the plays, and art. They get married, they have arguments amongst themselves. They get political influence by being awesome, certainly not because they want it (these are the good guys see, good guys don't want political influence with the king).

I read the first two books of this series two years ago, enjoyed them and thought, "oh I should get the next ones when they come out" and then completely and totally forgot about it. It's non stressful, light fantasy reading.

I won this book through a Goodreads giveaway, and I am pretty much done entering these. Of the books that I've won only one has been enjoyable and every other one has just been TERRIBLE. To be fair, this book isn't TERRIBLE, but it's just not good. There's some promise, but mostly I was bored out of my mind reading this and that's damning for a book that bills itself as horror.

Abomination is Gary Whitta's first novel, and is set in the era of King Alfred of Wessex. As a side note, that dude is having a bit of a comeback recently isn't he? I believe this is the third piece of fiction I've encountered in the past year that somehow incorporates him. Anyway, Alfred is defending his kingdom from the Viking invaders and not really sure how he can manage to keep it up. He find some ancient Latin scrolls, and his crazy priest manages to translate them and discovers that they're a way to turn living creatures into monsters. However, in order to make the monsters controllable, it's best if the monsters originate from humans. It's this last discovery that finally sends Alfred over the edge and ends the experiments. However, the priest has gone mad with power and escapes. In the ensuing escape and capture attempts he changes several of Alfred's men, including the greatest of his knights Wulfric. Fifteen years later, and OMG EIGHT CHAPTERS, the book FINALLY starts and we follow Wulfric and Indra. Indra is a girl who wants to be a knight, in order to do so she must hunt down and kill and abomination. Wulfric is hiding in the shadows living a cursed half life. The two meet and then of course we must wonder, will she kill him? OMG is there a secret connection between them? Will they find redemption together?

So, yea. I didn't like this book. I found the writing to be very, very dry. Whitta either never heard, or didn't understand, "show don't tell". It makes for some very boring reading. You can tell me all about monstrous creatures, but if I'm told that they're scary rather then seeing how scary they are I'm going to yawn. And guys, I am the person who stayed up all night with terror after reading And Then There Were None. I'm easily scared is what I'm saying. I think part of the problem is that Whitta's background is in screenwriting, and it shows. The difference between writing a novel and writing a play/screenplay are astronomical, they're just two very different forms of story telling.

There's also the pacing problem. Look, if you've got eight, EIGHT, chapters of prologue then you've got a pacing problem. All seven of those chapters could have been cut and the necessary background information worked in at different points in the story. I mean, look at my summary. I spent most of it detailing the prologue information and summed up the main plot of the book in a couple of sentences. Pacing issue. The remainder of the plot was fairly formulaic if inoffensive, but by the time I got to it I was so annoyed at wading through the previous eight chapters I doubt anything could have redeemed the book.

I also had a problem with the modernity of the characters. I'm all for pseudo medieval Europe fantasy stories where modern attitudes are common. But when you take an actual setting both the time and place and add magic you can't also just change the attitude of the era simply because magic. For starters, those magical experiments in the prologue wouldn't have gotten as far as they did. People were far to concerned with the influence of the devil to allow something like that to continue, especially in the main court of the King.

There's promise here. I suspect that a good editor could have helped to make improvements. Whitta needed to do more research into the era of Kind Alfred.In general though, this wasn't worth my time. It's not quite terrible enough for one star, but it's only barely good enough for two.

I think I'm going to give myself permission to not finish this one. I may, MAY, come back to it at some point. I like the idea of this book more then the execution. There are a lot of concepts I enjoy, but the execution is just a slog to get through. Reading this one I was reminded just how little I actually enjoyed reading Blackout, but funnily enough I have a pleasant memory of Blackout. It's as though the end result is better then the journey. But reading really is about the journey. Anyway. DNF @16%

I'm so conflicted on this one. On one hand Cold Days is an enjoyable romp through some crazy storytelling where the world gets expanded and Harry faces some pretty rough challenges. But on the other, reading it was like walking through a minefield. I was never sure when I was next going to be slimed by the male gaze, hit with unrepentant misogyny, or bombed with gender essentialism bullshit. And while a LOT of those mines can be justified with the character of Harry Dresden, and the challenges he's facing at the moment, I have to wonder at what point is the author only exposing this ugly underbelly of toxic masculinity and when is he just flat out endorsing it? Where is that line?

Harry is the new Winter Knight. He's bound by ancient magic to Mab and must deal with all the baggage that the mantle (power) that comes with being the Winter Knight. In some ways it's setting up the battle for his soul, does he have the willpower to overcome the urges imposed upon him by the power given to him? However, I do appreciate that Ghost Story laid out pretty clearly that he does have that choice, it's not predetermined that he will become a monster. And back to the plot. Winter Queen Mab, never one to go easy on anybody, gives Harry an assassination assignment. However Maeve, the Winter Lady is telling Harry that Mab may not be fully in control of herself. So Harry must decide who, in a court of deception, is his true ally. Meanwhile, Harry learns of the ancient battle taking place behind the scenes if Faerie. Plus, there are quite a few denizens of the Winter Court who are unhappy with the fact that Harry is the Winter Knight and have decided to kill him. It's awesome.

The meat of this book takes place over fourty-eight hours, and in that time Harry is shot, stabbed, poisoned, beaten, and bombed. You know, like a typical Dresden book. I swear half the delight in these novels is seeing each new obstacle thrown in Harry's path and then watching his resigned snarking as he figures out a way around them. At one point I threw my hands up in the air and shouted ANOTHER ONE as a new opponent decided to take a shot at Harry. It's just ridiculously hilarious at this point. I suppose the higher the stakes are, the more difficult it will be.

In many ways this book is the mirror to Summer Knight. The basic plot structures is pretty similar more so then just simply following a case to be solved, and while it's been a long time since I've read Summer Knight I'm pretty sure I could map out the beats that both novels follow. e.g. in Summer Knight this happens, in Cold Days this is the mirror, etc. However, it also felt like Butcher was answering some of the more vehement criticisms of Summer Knight, but the method in which he 'fixed' it isn't all that much better.

My biggest issue with this book is the unrelenting misogyny presented in the novel. Like I said above, this book is pretty bad on that front. All of the ugliness can kind of be explained away because much of it stems from the mantle of the Winter Knight, which is apparently steeped in toxic masculinity. The power of the Winter Knight comes with a lot of anger, possessiveness, and sexual desire. So it makes sense that Harry's view point, and the novels are written in first person so it's also the narrator's point of view, becomes more overtly violent and sexual in nature. Unfortunately this includes expressing the desire to rape every one of his female allies, hell every attractive female he comes across. My issue is that Harry's method of explaining it away is that ALL people have those urges he's just got an extra helping of them and so he can push it back down just like all people do. In other words, all men have some part of them that wants to drag off a woman and possess her sexually whether she wants it or not (you know, rape her). He explains it away as just a part of life and not part of the brainwashing our toxic culture inflicts on us. If I bring up Schrodinger's rapist (which isn't actually about the thoughts of men, more about the danger women live in in our culture) then I'm a horrible bitch who hates men, Butcher says all men think about raping women and sure yea that makes sense?

Here's another example. Maeve decides that she wants to control Harry, because she is a very power hungry character. She decides the easiest way to do this is to seduce him, which honestly is a smart idea. Harry rejects her. And he does so by calling her a hose beast. Get it, it's funny cause she likes sex. She gets offended and backs off. Now, why exactly is a woman who is clearly comfortable with sex (she's naked in this scene), has a lot of sex, and isn't part of the same culture that Harry is, offended by an insult that she has a lot of sex? It's clearly meant to be a funny moment, a kind of, 'haha you sure showed that bitch whose the boss. GO HARRY'. Maeve is startled and offended, and it's pretty clear she's reacting to the nature of the insult and not the rejection or the intention to be insulting. In other words, she's offended by being called a hose beast and not simply that Harry called her a name he thought was insulting.

Really what my issue boils down to is what I said in the first paragraph. I ask again, where is the line between exposing the ugliness of toxic masculinity and reveling in it? I don't know, but though I enjoyed the book I do think it crossed over that line. I will most likely read the next one, because I'm hooked again. God dammit. But I'm a lot more wary of the books then I was six years ago.