"No," he whispered back. "Destroy me."
I am absolutely living for this quote, fam.
I had so much fun with this book! Sure, it's very YA, the FMC has purple--excuse me, mauve--hair (lmfao), every major reveal was pretty obvious, and the schoolkid crushes were ingratiating to the point where my retinas would've detached if I rolled my eyes for the umpteenth time.
But!
Despite all of that, I still loved the characters and the setting! Also, y'all, I love vampires so I'm biased to all hell.
Arthie, Jin, Laith, and Flick each had their own unique personalities and I'd love to be friends with the gang. For a YA novel, everyone actually reads age-appropriate, which, oddly, isn't usually something you find often. (Teens usually read way too young in the YA fantasies I've been reading lately).
I loved how this is unapologetically BIPOC, with a lead FMC from a colonized nation, Ceylan, living in the colonizer's land, Ettenia, and finding success on her own terms by creating and running a teahouse/bloodhouse. I would absolutely love to read a prequel about Arthie's past. I want her as my ride or die, no lie.
I loved the setting! While I would've loved for a unique world that didn't have to rely on terms in our own world (sari, qipao, etc.), it's totally fine. This isn't high or epic fantasy.
I know this book is only about Ettenia, but the inclusion of Arawiya (which is from the author's other series, which I DNF), and learning about Arthie's childhood in Ceylan, makes me wish for more geopolitics on a grander scale.
But despite that, White Roaring reads like a fantasy Victorian London. So, it feels very familiar despite being set in a fantasy world. I'm also a huge fan of fantasy Victorian England settings, so I might be a little biased here.
Actually, this entire world is a thinly veiled colonial era England, complete with its very own British East India Company. So, if you know your world history, it's very easy to draw comparisons.
There are a couple of quotes/excerpts that I really liked that touched on colonialism:
"She'd [Arthie] spun a business out of tea leaves because the Ettenians had found her tiny island of Ceylan and cultivated it to their liking. What lives the Ettenian soldiers in red uniforms hadn't stolen were claimed either by disease or deforestation that spawned landslides and floods in a country unprepared for such wrath, simply because they wanted to make room for crops like rubber and tea."
"They collected trophies for civilizing countries that had never asked for a redefinition of the word."
Anyway, I'm so glad I snagged a signed Waterstones SE before they sold out!
I'm excited to read the next installment!
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) and NetGalley for this arc.
I am absolutely living for this quote, fam.
I had so much fun with this book! Sure, it's very YA, the FMC has purple--excuse me, mauve--hair (lmfao), every major reveal was pretty obvious, and the schoolkid crushes were ingratiating to the point where my retinas would've detached if I rolled my eyes for the umpteenth time.
But!
Despite all of that, I still loved the characters and the setting! Also, y'all, I love vampires so I'm biased to all hell.
Arthie, Jin, Laith, and Flick each had their own unique personalities and I'd love to be friends with the gang. For a YA novel, everyone actually reads age-appropriate, which, oddly, isn't usually something you find often. (Teens usually read way too young in the YA fantasies I've been reading lately).
I loved how this is unapologetically BIPOC, with a lead FMC from a colonized nation, Ceylan, living in the colonizer's land, Ettenia, and finding success on her own terms by creating and running a teahouse/bloodhouse. I would absolutely love to read a prequel about Arthie's past. I want her as my ride or die, no lie.
I loved the setting! While I would've loved for a unique world that didn't have to rely on terms in our own world (sari, qipao, etc.), it's totally fine. This isn't high or epic fantasy.
I know this book is only about Ettenia, but the inclusion of Arawiya (which is from the author's other series, which I DNF), and learning about Arthie's childhood in Ceylan, makes me wish for more geopolitics on a grander scale.
But despite that, White Roaring reads like a fantasy Victorian London. So, it feels very familiar despite being set in a fantasy world. I'm also a huge fan of fantasy Victorian England settings, so I might be a little biased here.
Actually, this entire world is a thinly veiled colonial era England, complete with its very own British East India Company. So, if you know your world history, it's very easy to draw comparisons.
There are a couple of quotes/excerpts that I really liked that touched on colonialism:
"She'd [Arthie] spun a business out of tea leaves because the Ettenians had found her tiny island of Ceylan and cultivated it to their liking. What lives the Ettenian soldiers in red uniforms hadn't stolen were claimed either by disease or deforestation that spawned landslides and floods in a country unprepared for such wrath, simply because they wanted to make room for crops like rubber and tea."
"They collected trophies for civilizing countries that had never asked for a redefinition of the word."
Anyway, I'm so glad I snagged a signed Waterstones SE before they sold out!
I'm excited to read the next installment!
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) and NetGalley for this arc.