2023 Year-End Reading Check, Part 2

​As promised last month, here are the rest of the fiction books that I’ve read this year:

The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan
​
I finally finished the Magnus Chase trilogy!! Read the first two last year and then got distracted by other books. But I finished it! I think the last volume is fine: interesting and funny but maybe not quite on the same level as the first two? I’m mostly just disappointed that my favorite character, Hearth, didn’t seem to be in this one as much. . . . Oh, I really like the way they defeat Loki at the end! (. . . Come on, you know they’re going to; that’s not a spoiler!)
 
Viper and Steel by Megan O’Russell

This is the third Ilbrea book, and the series does need to be read in order, so start with Inker and Crown. Hmm, I guess I have the same thing to say about this book as about Magnus Chase 3: my favorite character (Adrial) wasn’t in it as much as the previous two volumes, and that was a bummer. But this is a good book, well written and polished, an exciting adventure with plenty of magic and danger. I’m going to read the next book, and we’d better get more Adrial! And I hope better things happen to the poor guy. . . .
 
By These Ten Bones by Clare B. Dunkle

This is my tenth(?) reread of this book, so that tells you how much I adore it. Plus, it’s fairly short, which makes it an easy reread. Whenever I pick it back up, I do so in the fall, as it’s the perfect spooky story for chilly fall nights. It’s a werewolf story that takes place in medieval Scotland. It’s the cursed kind of werewolf, like in my book—hey, add this one to your gift bundle that I mentioned last month! ;)
 
Demon: A Memoir by Tosca Lee

Oh my gosh, I will never look at the world, or think about the spiritual realm, in the same way again! Lee delivers, once again, the most beautiful prose and incredibly insightful content! (This is a Christian book, FYI. I saw a reviewer complaining that the book’s marketing hadn’t made that obvious, so I’ll say it here.) I found it fascinating to get a demon’s perspective on humanity and history. I especially liked the line about how Satan is still sulking, in the present day, about failing to corrupt Job! Heh. Anyway, if the title and cover put you off, the book’s not as dark and scary as they would lead you to believe. If I had to pick one word to describe this book, it would be “enthralling.”
 
Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay

I’m not done with this book yet; I’m not even half done (as I write this on Dec 20). But I thought I would include it here anyway, though I probably won’t finish by the end of the year. It’s a very different kind of Beauty and the Beast retelling than I’ve read before; it’s sci-fi and takes place on a fictional planet that off-worlders have colonized, building domed cities to protect against the harsh desert environment. These people—known as the Smooth Skins—call the people outside the domes Monstrous because of the mutations the planet has given them to adapt. (So, you can guess the Beast character is one of the Monstrous and the Belle character is a Smooth Skin . . . with a bit of a twist I won’t spoil!) I’m liking the book so far, although it’s probably not going to end up being my favorite BatB retelling.
 
​
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and all that good stuff! Hope you’re having a lovely, peaceful end of the year.