Not Your Villain, C.B. Lee

Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I spent the first few chapters of this book being hella confused before I was able to square away the timelines of this book and its predecessor. It was honestly really disappointing to realize that the full first third of this book was just retelling the events of Not Your Sidekick. I definitely didn't feel like Bells's viewpoint added enough extra to our understanding of what happened in Sidekick to justify putting so much time into retelling it. That entire first third could have been cut and more time could have been put into Bells's family's illegal farming and the methods of resistance that his family has been practicing for decades already and how that informs the way Bells and his friends form their new resistance efforts. I feel like Lee really dropped the ball there and it made the entire reading experience kind of underwhelming.

I still love the characters of this series and I'll definitely continue it (esp since the next book is from Emma's POV and we're gonna get a lot of questioning aroace content which I am SO HERE FOR) but this installment just didn't do a ton for me. Which was unfortunate.

View all my reviews

The Afterward, E. K. Johnston

It has been a year since the mysterious godsgem cured Cadrium’s king and ushered in what promised to be a new golden age. The heroes who brought the gem home are renowned in story and song, but for two fellows on the quest, peace and prosperity do not come easily. 

Apprentice Knight Kalanthe Ironheart wasn't meant for heroism this early in life, and while she has no intention of giving up the notoriety she has earned, her reputation does not pay her bills. With time running out, Kalanthe may be forced to betray not her kingdom or her friends, but her own heart as she seeks a stable future for herself and those she loves.

Olsa Rhetsdaughter was never meant for heroism at all. Beggar, pick pocket, thief, she lived hand to mouth on the city streets until fortune--or fate--pulled her into Kalanthe's orbit. And now she's quite reluctant to leave it. Even more alarmingly, her fame has made her recognizable, which makes her profession difficult, and a choice between poverty and the noose isn't much of a choice at all.

Both girls think their paths are laid out, but the godsgem isn't quite done with them and that new golden age isn’t a sure thing yet. 

In a tale both sweepingly epic and intensely personal, Kalanthe and Olsa fight to maintain their newfound independence and to find their way back to each other.

I adore trope inversions and books that look at a genre and say "okay but what's the other half of this equation?" They are so much fun, so thoughtful, and so totally and completely up my alley. So a book whose premise is "the Quest is done, now what?" is definitely gonna be a fave with me.

The majority of the book takes place After (i.e. after the Quest is done), with some chapters set Before (i.e. during the Quest itself). It's told from the point of view of the two youngest members of the Quest: Olsa, a street thief who was spying on someone for the Quest leader when shit went sideways and she got brought along partially for her own protection and partially because it helps to have a thief along when looking for a potentially well-protected gem of incredible power; and Kalanthe, an apprentice knight with a sterling records and similar enough body size to act as a decoy for the Quest leader if necessary. 

I loved that this story was told from their perspective. As the youngest and least experienced members of the party, their reintroduction to normal life following a world-saving quest is the most difficult to manage. The other members of the party have been on quests of some kind before or have more experience with combat or magic than Olsa and Kalanthe. They can continue with their lives or, in the case of one member, retireearly to handle her wounds. Our main characters, on the other hand, are just reaching adulthood and are left to figure out how their newfound fame is going to affect the lives they thought was ahead of them as well as how to fit the new relationship they want into situations that don't seem to leave room for new additions.

My biggest complaint of the book, and the reason I gave it four stars instead of five, is how neatly everything got tied off at the end. The appeal of a book like this is that it's going to address all the complexities and difficulties that come from the aftermath of a quest. So seeing all those complexities be tied up with a dues ex machina bow was disappointing. I really wanted to see Kalanthe actually get married to Edramore. As an aroace person, I just really love the idea of a marriage of convenience for financial/legal/political reasons where both parties are truly happy in the marriage but never love each other romantically. Furthermore, they totally could have some kind of poly relationship with Olsa, and given the right approach, I think Edramore and Olsa could have been happy as metamours, even if that meant Olsa did go to work for one of the other knights from the Quest. That could have been an AMAZING story. Instead they conveniently kill Edramore, have Kalanthe basically marry him posthumously, and therefore leave her open to marry/have a relationship with Olsa with no entanglements. And it just felt too neat and easy. I wanted to to see some complicated poly negotiations actually play out. Even if the book didn't delve quite as deep as I wanted it to, it was still a solid book that raised a lot of interesting questions about what happily ever after actually looks like in a high fantasy setting.

With the Fire On High, Elizabeth Acevedo

From the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award longlist title The Poet X comes a dazzling novel in prose about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright.

Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions—doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

I'm not sure I even have words for how much I loved this book. Emoni is such an amazing character. I was completely caught up in her story, rooting for her to find a way to both support her daughter and follow her dreams to be a chef. All of her relationships - with her daughter, her grandmother, her father, her best friend, her culinary arts teacher, her ex, her love interest - were so well crafted and sincere. Despite the fact that all of her relationships were amazingly written, I loved that the focus of the book remained solely on Emoni and her plans for herself and her daughter. 

I especially appreciated that the romance didn't take over the story to the detriment of everything else going on in Emoni's life. He may have been an important part of her realizing that she's capable of planning for her own future as well as her daughter's, but so was her family and her best friend; Acevedo never tried to make the romantic relationship supersede any of the other relationships and it felt so right. Romantic relationships so often take over everything else and it's always amazing to see them coexist at the same level as other types of relationships.

Also the food in this book!! I am so hungry right now and just want to eat all of it. You can bet I'm gonna try out those recipes included at the beginning of each part because they all sound so good. The way people talked about Emoni's food felt so fabulist and I just adored it. It fit so well with her Puerto Rican heritage and the way she tried to build on her roots to create something new and unexpected. Everything about Emoni's cooking was just magical and amazing.