Weekly Wrap-Up: May 8-14, 2023

Happy Monday, Boozie Book Nerds!

Sam’s Update

Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim – This came in my Fairyloot. Basically, Imani’s older brother goes missing like a year ago. She’s a shield. In this world, people with magic are kept separate from people who don’t by a desert. By keeping Imani’s culture isolated, all the magic monsters stay there too. They don’t go in to the non-magic world, and have been told there is nothing out there, but naturally there is. And turns out her brother is over there. So she goes on a journey with her nemesis and a couple other folks to go back and get him because he’s clearly been bad.
Pilar Ramirez and the Curse of San Zenon by Julian Randall – This is the sequel to The Escape from Zafa. Our lady Pilar is just chillin at home when she gets an all-expenses-paid trip to the DR for her documentary. Including her mom, abuela, and sister. When things start to get crazy, her buddy from Zafa comes through her backpack and says that El Baca got out. So basically, Pilar has to go back and forth from Zafa to her world chasing down the big bad. I literally read this book in one sitting. I loved it.

Cooking at Home: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Recipes by David Chang and Priya Krishna – I read a review online that said this book is meant to be read cover to cover like a novel… so that’s what I’m doing and it’s actually fab. It helps that they’re talking a lot about Asian flavors (naturally) and I’ve been dying to learn more about those flavor profiles.

The Devouring Gray by C.L. Herman: The town of Four Points has four founding families with magic power that contain a devious monster. Honestly, I don’t have much to say about this book. the characters felt more like archetypes than people and the plot was kind of interesting?
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal: A meteorite hits the ocean off of DC in 1952 and for reasons it jumpstarts the space program. Elma, our main character, is focused on making sure that women are included in the space race efforts. This book does a great job of creating an alternate history that feels all too real in both good and bad ways. I am such a fan of this book.

A perfect rogue by Martin Berne: He hits her with his curricle and then makes her his sister’s companion. And god, this book sucks. The characters are boring, the plot isn’t interesting, and there’s almost 0 consistency outside of the side characters.
Ana Maria and the Fox by Luna de la Rosa: I’m reading this book for an online book club and it’s a really good choice. Ana Maria and her sister’s are Mexican heiresses who have been sent to London to avoid the violence happening in Mexico. Gideon Fox is a black man in Parliament who is trying to get the government to end the slave trade. The two of them meet and I’m not far in but their chemistry and banter is off the charts!
The Black prism by Brent Weeks: Gavin, the prism discovers he may have a son in the land, said son is in the middle of a minor lordling trying to become king and flexing his power by killing a bunch of people. There’s also a magic system based around color. This book is hard to summarize, much less summarize well. There are parts of this book I find interesting but it also reads like a bit of a slog. I feel like almost 50% of the way into the book we’re actually getting into the plot?

Until next time, we remain forever drunkenly yours,

— Sam, Minda, and Ginny