I’m sharing another instalment of my Mini Review Mondays, the most recent of which was last week. In case you haven’t seen any of my previous posts, I do ‘mini’ reviews of books that I’ve previously read and am now ready to share my full thoughts about.
First up, I’d like to talk about Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker. Thank you to Sam Bonner at Penguin Random House International for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
All it took was one night and one bad decision for fifteen-year-old Violetta Chen-Samuels’ life to go off the rails. After driving drunk and causing the accident that kills her little sister, Violetta is incarcerated. Under the juvenile justice system, her fate lies in the hands of those she’s wronged-her family. With their forgiveness, she could go home. But without it? Well . . .
Denied their forgiveness, Violetta is now left with two options, neither good-remain in juvenile detention for an uncertain sentence or participate in the Trials. The Trials are no easy feat, but if she succeeds, she could regain both her freedom and what she wants most of all: her family’s love. In her quest to prove her remorse, Violetta is forced to confront not only her family’s grief, but her own-and the question of whether their forgiveness is more important than forgiving herself.
Publication Date: 15th August
TW: suicide, self harm, death, brief mentions of nonconsensual sexual contact, car accident, grief
My Thoughts:
Forgive Me Not was the type of book you sit with and mull over for a long time after finishing. Baker has crafted a staggering story.
This concept is inherently chilling. The way Baker explores the concept of forgiveness and how it marries with grief is sublime. We get so many different perspectives and thought-provoking takes on what justice actually is. There is a deeply dystopian and frighteningly realistic element to this. Of course, this is a story about rehabilitation and the prison system, particularly how it disproportionately punishes Black and brown bodies. This is taken to a new and horrifying extreme. Reading the punishments in contrast to the actual crimes committed is sickening. Baker particularly explores a thread around the topic of sexual assault and victim-blaming, which twists the knife that much further.
Violetta and her brother Vince are unforgettable characters. Their voices are so distinctive and marred by their trauma, with their emotions spilling over the page and into my heart. They are both struggling teenagers, trying to wrestle with their grief and place in the world. Those around them seek to control their emotions or tell them who they should feel. I found them to be such authentic voices, with their dialogue and characteristics very true to teenagers I know. Baker weaves different time periods, narrative voices and even forms of narration together to create a cohesive and heart-breaking story. In particular, Violetta’s letters were absolute stand-outs for me.
Forgive Me Not is an arresting and amazing book that I hope makes it onto everyone’s radars. Baker is an author that I am certainly eager to see what she does next.
Next up, I’d like to talk about He Who Drowned The World by Shelley Parker-Chan. Thank you to Mantle and Pan Macmillan for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high on her recent victory that tore southern China from its Mongol rulers. Young, ambitious, and in possession of the Mandate of Heaven, Zhu believes utterly in her own capacity to do anything – endure anything – that will allow her to seize the imperial throne from the Mongols and crown herself Emperor.
But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor, the former courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband – and her powerful kingdom has the strength and resources to wipe Zhu off the map. The only way for Zhu to defeat Madam Zhang is to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the beautiful, traitorous eunuch general Ouyang.
Nearly mad with the grief and guilt of having killed his beloved Prince of Henan, Ouyang is alive for only one reason: to enact revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan. His instability soon threatens his partnership with Zhu, who has never felt grief in her life. Zhu can’t even imagine what kind of sacrifice could ever cause her to feel it. But all desire costs, and while Zhu has already paid with her body – the true price of her ambition will break even her ruthless heart.
Publication Date: 24th August
TW: death, war, violence, self harm, suicidal ideation, marital rape, pregnancy loss, drowning, torture (not overly graphic), child harm and death (young teen), internalised homophobia, ableist language
My Thoughts:
He Who Drowned the World is at once the stealthy shadow sneaking up behind you and the explosion right before your face. This is a duplicitous, deceitful book elbow-deep in blood, guts, war and the deadly chess game of politics.
This is an incredible conclusion to the gunpowder trail started in She Who Became the Sun. That was an epic tale that weaves historical and fantastical elements together and combines them with themes of identity, fate and above all else, ambition. Parker-Chan takes every element and raises them to the next level. They take these stratospheric stakes and raise them, while also adding so much heart and personal emotions into it. Everything is a calculated move. Everyone has vendettas beneath vendettas. This book is just magnificent in every way.
Frequent readers of my reviews will know that I am very much a character driven reader and displayed here are some of my all time favourites. Zhu and Ouyang are such fractured, fascinating characters that will cheat, lie, manipulate and betray everyone in their path to glory. They will go to any ends, regardless of the cost to themselves, their loved ones or the innocents strewn on the road before them. Yet, some glimmer of love remains in each of them. They just want a world that will recognise them as they are, but they will break the world to reshape it in their image. There is no moral justification for their actions and these are pages dripping with blood.
This duology is a force to be reckoned with. Like the embittered, complex figures at their heart, they are beyond definition, existing only in shadows, stories and the smoke rising above the battlefield. He Who Drowned The World is a tour de force.
Make no mistake, Parker-Chan’s writing could burn the world down.
Finally, I’d like to delve into I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me by Jamison Shea. Thank you to Hot Key Books for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Laure Mesny is determined to make it in the cutthroat world of ballet, and she will do anything to prove that this Black girl can take centre stage. Anything . . . Even if it means entering into a bargain with a primordial power in the Catacombs beneath Paris.
Laure is promised influence and adoration – and she gets it. But that alone is not enough, not for the cruel and privileged people who surround her. Her climb to stardom leaves broken bodies in her wake, some of which aren’t her doing. As she finds herself deep within this monstrous world, she is faced with the ultimate choice: will she retreat or succumb to the darkness forever?
THERE WILL BE BLOOD.
Publication Date: 29th August
TW: racism, classism, parental abandonment, ritualistic self harm, death, murder, burning, body horror, corpses, body shaming, torture, parental neglect, violence, gore
My Thoughts:
I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me is a darkly delectable book that has stolen a slice of my hungry heart.
I absolutely loved this riveting, bloody and feral look at ambition in a Faustian take on Black Swan. There is something just so enjoyable about the vividly angry nature of this book. This is an unbridled, bloody book about the pursuit of ambition at all costs. I love Shea’s unashamed look at girls gone feral and that untapped rage within most women. This is a book that unleashes it, pulling it to an extreme. It is full of the desire to strike back at a world determined to destroy you. After all, when the world will not accept you despite all you try to sacrifice for the world, why would you choose not to tear it apart?
Shea’s writing hums with an electricity I have not seen for a while. They take you from the beautiful facade of ballet, with its scars, bruised bones and pursuit of aesthetic above all else, to dark, gory scenes of eldritch horror. This is at once a sort of coming of age narrative, a classical tale of revenge and a terrifying murder mystery. Shea balances all of these elements perfectly, with pacing that does not allow you to draw breath and twists and turns that left me staring into the middle distance. This was an all-consuming reading experience. You feel yourself tumbling into the dark pit alongside Laure. She was someone who stole my soul instantly, with such a fierce hunger and passion. Watching her character arc over the course of the story is nothing short of phenomenal. Going into the book, I did not know there will be a sequel, but now it is all that I crave.
I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me is a fang-toothed beast, determined to draw blood and demand its place in the world.
A Short Book Lover 
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