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Mini reviews of everything I've read while lying on a beach for a week:

Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman - YA fantasy - don't get spooked by the YA tag, this book doesn't pull its punches. It's about Tess - a depressed alcoholic mess of a girl (who has been through some traumatic shit) deciding to screw everything and start over by going on a journey to find the World Serpent. The focus is firmly on Tess, finding out what exactly happened to her, and her inner journey, with some bits of intriguing background worldbuilding. Philosophically it's nothing new but the overall message of "just keep going" resonated with me quite a bit (enough that I've saved some quotes which I rarely do), and the writing is really good. The plot is not fully wrapped up and I've put the sequel on my to-read list, but the emotional journey of the main character (aka the actual most important part of the book) feels complete, so this can be treated as a standalone. Can heartily recommend.

Even the pagans knew: you will wander the dark places under the earth, but you will come back with the sun.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling - sci-fi/horror - a caver takes a suspicious but very well paying caving job to fund her obsession with finding out what happened to her mother. Her handler turns out to have an even deeper obsession with finding out what happened to her parents in a deep and dangerous cave. This is basically two unhealthily obsessed people + claustrophobia: the book. Fun enough if you want to read about intensely flawed and unlikeable people (which tbf I do like that), but overall I expected more... idk, everything? The blurb made me think that most of the horror would come from Em (the handler) being a controlling asshole while Gyre (the caver) is deep underground and reliant on her for everything, but that kinda fizzles out very quickly. In conclusion: nothing special, not scary enough, but the characters are fairly entertaining trainwrecks.

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather - sci-fi novella - nuns travelling the stars on a living starship. Just... how cool is that premise, huh? The plot is a bit tacked on but I enjoyed the characters a lot - good people doing good things despite the hardships is something to enjoy after all the years of grimdark we've been subjected to in fiction (thankfully that has been petering out for a few years now). There's (obviously) a lot of grappling with your faith and stuff going on - nothing that deep but the circumstances elevate it. Very fun, quite emotional, short, and to the point. Apparently the sequel isn't all that good.

We should go because I would want someone to come for us. We’re all just scattered, lonely specks out here, unless we try to be more. We shouldn’t be brutal just because the universe is.

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman - historical fiction/horror - a knight-turned-brigand and a girl who can see angels go on a mini-Crusade against the forces of Hell in France. During the Black Plague. Fun times. This author is really good at literary body horror - I've read one of his newer books (The Blacktongue Thief) and that one was even better, but this one has the setting working overtime for it. It's... basically a redemption/fatherhood story with a lot of gruesomeness + cool historical touches? It switches very rapidly between slice of life/travelogue in plaguelands, and devils out of medieval manuscripts doing horror things. I liked Blacktongue Thief more, it's much more polished + has enjoyable dark humour, but this one has a cooler premise. Can recommend either of them in a heartbeat - just, uh, all the content warnings.

Catharsis by Travis Bagwell - litRPG - it's a very competent litRPG. That's... basically all I can say, litRPG is not a deep or varied genre and something of a guilty pleasure for me. Guy gets bullied at school, guy starts playing a new VR game and becomes a badass in it and takes revenge on his bully because he is smart and ruthless and all the while numbers are going up. There's cool fight scenes, and an evil and intelligent protagonist (but not actually evil because it's explicitly just a game). It's really good for what it is. It's fun. ¯\(ツ)/¯