BookOwl

  4.5/5 stars   *Spoiler alert!* I am not sure how The Poppy War didn’t win the Goodreads Choice Awards in 2018 in the category of fantasy or debut author. The first entry in the Sino-Japanese War inspired fantasy blew me away.   “Well, fuck the heavenly order of things. If getting married to a gross old man was her preordained role on this earth, then Rin was determined to rewrite it.”   Our protagonist, Rin, won me over quickly with her determination and persistence. (Notice how I say protagonist and not hero .) A dark-skinned peasant girl from the southern provinces of Nikan is slated to be married off by her criminal adopted parents and will do anything to change her fate. Her only hope of getting out of her home village is taking the prestigious national exam and testing into the tuition-free military academy of Sinegard .   Rin studies to the point of self-harm. But she passes the exam and tests into Sinegard , where she is thrown into a brutal academy to...

[Updated May 2024] Full disclosure: Science fiction is one of my favorite genres! It was extremely difficult to limit my picks to just six  books or series. However, I recognize that if I gave all of my favorites here, the amount of text would stretch from here to the moon and back.  Science fiction is one of those genres that really makes its readers think of the futures that they would want to live in. (For example, I wouldn't mind living in the semi-utopian future depicted in  Star Trek .) It is a big umbrella, covering everything from speculative fiction to space opera (think,  Star Wars ). Some blur the lines enough between science fiction and fantasy, but I prefer to have some separation between the two, with the former being one about realistic possible realities and the latter primarily uses realities that do not follow the laws of reality as we know it.  Not to diss fantasy, which is another one of my favorite genres. Imagination is equally compelling i...

  4/5 stars   *Spoiler a lert!*     “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.”     While Iron Flame took a bit of time to really get going, once it did, it absolutely went ! Took off like a dragon in the heat of battle. I feared that this book would be the last in the series until an announcement from Rebecca Yarros that it will be a five-book series, which is good, because this second book left me shaking and absolutely dreading the wait for book three, which looks to be released in January 2025.     “Violence, remember it's only the body that's fragile. You are unbreakable.”   Anyways, now back to the second book, Iron Flame .      In the second entry of the “Empyrean” series, Cadet Violet Sorrengail has joined the rebellion, whether she wants to or not, along with her bonded dragons, Tairn and Andarna . Andarna spends significant portions of the book ...