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Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. In this post, I will be doing a wrap up of all the books I read in May. This month was a rather slow reading month for me, and unfortunately I didn’t get to read as many books as I was hoping. It is going to be, then, a rather short wrap up this time around. But I did complete a series and read a couple of books that I really liked. Let’s begin:

1. Ravencaller  by David Dalglish

This book is the second installment of The Keepers trilogy by this author, and I have to admit it was a bit of a disappointment for me. I really liked the first book in this series (which I read several times, as you well know), but I did not like the direction the author decided to go on with this one. He totally shifted gears and decided to focus primarily on Adria than on Devan, which was fine, until Adria became utterly insufferable. Every other character in this book was pushed to the background in favor of Adria’s greatness (sorry, but I have to make a vomiting sound here), including the Dragons, dragonborn, and goddesses. But I have to say, there was so much potential here, and I could have loved this series, but I could not stand Adria by the end of this book that there were times when I toyed with the idea of DNFing it. Yes, it got that bad. Don’t get me wrong, Adria was a very likable character in Book 1, but in Book 2 she begins her journey as an antihero and Devin’s eventual counterpart as the Dragons’ avatar. And all this, I didn’t mind (even though Devin was relegated to a love-sick boy after Book 1 confused over his grief for Brittany and his budding romantic relationship with Jacaranda), it’s what she did with the power the Dragons gave her that bothered me. I won’t spoil it here, but what she ends up doing was morally and ethically wrong for me, and I couldn’t stand it.

2. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing is a literary fiction novel about slavery. It is the story of two half-sisters, each unaware of the other. One becomes the wife of an Englishman in Cape Coast Castle in Ghana while the other is imprisoned in the same castle, sold into slavery, and shipped to America. The book follows the lives of these two sisters in 18th century Ghana and their descendants through eight generations until we reach present day; each chapter focuses on a family member in a subsequent generation, and we are shown how each one of their lives is intrinsically shaped and formed by the circumstances of their birth and to the times they live in. The one constant through it all is how each one of these lives are linked together by slavery; some of them knowingly, others unknowingly. Until the end, when the two final (of the eighth generation) descendants of Effia and Esi meet and reunite.

This book is an unusual (structure-wise) yet highly engaging and eye-opening look at the history of colonialism and slavery both in Ghana and America. It is also a look at the history of racism, an issue that is sadly still very latent and present in America and I think that for this very reason Homegoing will remain a book that resonates with current readers for a very long time.

3. LIBRARY BOOK: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

This book is probably the most popular book I’ve read this year thus far, and it is very much loved by thousands of people. However, it also has not been liked by many. I liked it more than I had anticipated to be honest, despite any historical discrepancies set against it and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The book is the story of two sisters (again a story about two sisters) who lose their mother before the war and are practically abandoned by their father thereafter. Vianne, the eldest, soon finds refuge in Antoine and marries him, while Isabelle, much younger than her sister, is placed in school after school when her father and sister don’t know what to do with her. Isabelle, however, is rebellious by nature and finds her way to Vianne’s house after the war breaks out. Vianne, alone with her daughter then after her husband is sent to the Front, doesn’t see eye to eye with Isabelle and doesn’t understand her either. She thinks that the war won’t last that long and when the Germans arrive to her hometown in Carriveau, she thinks everything will be fine if she obeys the rules and doesn’t draw too much attention to herself. Isabelle, on the other hand, isn’t too keen on being meek and quiet and joins the Resistance the first chance she gets.

The sisters’ lives during the war separate them for years. When a German officer billets in Vianne’s house, she is quickly disabused of the notion that the war won’t touch her family, and soon she is forced to do things she wouldn’t do otherwise to survive. Isabelle, on the other hand, sets out to save the lives of soldiers fighting for the Allies currently stranded in German occupied France. When the war ends and Isabelle returns to Carriveau, the ending of the book becomes predictable, and we finally know who is telling the story of The Nightingale. However, it was still a heart-warming story about two sisters who learn how to love each other because of the war and the experiences they had to go through because of it.

The only thing I didn’t like all that much in the book was Isabelle’s relationship with Gaëtan. I understand that their romance develops throughout the years that WWII takes place and that a lot of time has gone by in between each time we see these two together. But still, I just couldn’t find myself rooting for them as a couple. Isabelle falls in love with him in less than a second and she doesn’t stop pinning for him throughout the entirety of the book. That got exhausting too quick, and it bored me a little. Other than that, I very much enjoyed this book.

4. END OF A SERIES: Void Breaker by David Dalglish

This is the third installment of The Keepers trilogy and, sad to say, I did not like this book either. If Adria was bad in Ravencaller, she gets worse in Void Breaker and the story just gets utterly ridiculous. The only thing that could have redeemed it for me perhaps was the interference of the goddesses, but they barely show up and one of them dies. Like I said before, the story focuses too much on Adria and her plight to give the soulless their souls, in my opinion, and a lot of other characters are left hanging; like the dragons and the dragonborn. I think this series could have been great. But I did not like the way the author decided to go with it, and unfortunately this affected my experience reading it. I will not read any more books by this author.

5. START OF A SERIES: Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan

This is the first book compendium of the Riyria Revelations, and the first book that I have read by this author. This series has been getting increasingly popular lately, and now I understand why. Royce and Hadrian are a good match and funny to boot. I enjoyed their friendship and banter, and this was a breath of fresh air for me when it comes to books about thieves such as this one. I am not particularly a fan of books where the protagonists are thieves of some sort, and I was a little worried I might not like this one either. I have read The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman before, the first of which is the first book of The Gentleman Bastards series that I will not continue and the second of which I DNF’d. So it was a rather pleasant surprise to me that I liked this one and wanted to continue with the series. I gave this book an I Really Liked It rating.

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