This week on Dia was almost up-to-date with reviews but fell behind again:The AI Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole, Andrei Straja by Miruna Calina and The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden.
The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole
A captivating romantic comedy with a thrilling sci-fi twist by award-winning author Alyssa Cole!
Trinity Jordan leads a quiet, normal life: working from home for the Hive, a multifunctional government research center, and recovering from the incident that sent her into a tailspin. But the life she’s trying to rebuild is plagued by mishaps when Li Wei, her neighbor’s super sexy and super strange nephew, moves in and turns things upside down. Li Wei’s behavior is downright odd—and the attraction building between them is even more so. When an emergency pulls his aunt away from the apartment complex, Trinity decides to keep an eye on him…and slowly discovers that nothing is what it seems. For one thing, Li Wei isn’t just the hot guy next door—he’s the hot A.I. next door. In fact, he’s so advanced that he blurs the line between man and machine. It’s up to Trinity to help him achieve his objective of learning to be human, but danger is mounting as they figure out whether he’s capable of the most illogical human behavior of all…falling in love.
The AI Who Loved Me was a book club read for our Happy Ever After club on r/fantasy. It’s a fun romance, with great characters, set in a world that’s a bit too dystopian for my romance taste. I listened to the audiobook which had a full cast and was amazing.
Despite the setting being a bit too much for me, I greatly enjoyed the book. I liked the main character, she’s trying to put things together and very into mr. hot AI, she’s had a traumatic accident, so I liked the parts about her recovery, and her supportive group of friends. The AI from the title is very sweet, if a bit too overprotective. He’s the “learning to act human” sort of AI, so he starts off pretty awkward, but get the hang of it. I was a bit unsure about a human-AI relationship but I liked how the book handled it. There’s also a cat, and very useful home appliances that I do want.
I had a lot of questions and theories throughout the book, and I loved how they were answered in an action-packed ending where lots of things fell into place and we got a lot more context.
r/fantasy bingo: Romantic Fantasy, Made Me Laugh
I also did a micro-review for A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole
Andrei Straja – o poveste momârlănească by Miruna Lavinia
Aflaţi în siguranţa sufletească şi în liniştea satului de la malul Jiului e Vest, doi fraţi îşi urmează chemarea. Florin, cel mai în vârstă, se află în acea perioadă a vieții în care începe să se obișnuiască cu ideea de maturitate și responsabilitate. Celălalt, Andrei, își pune întrebări despre ce se află dincolo de vatra satului
Cu o dorință aprinsă de a afla mai multe în legătură cu zvonurile bătrânilor, își urmează calea spre tainile munților, alături de fratele său mai mare, în fruntea unei turme de oi.
Pe drum, Andrei descoperă un solz care aparținuse cândva unei creaturi neobișnuite, străvechi. Un zmeu. Din acel punct, destinul celor di frați ia o întorsătură ambiguă, care îi transpune încet-încet într-o lume cunoscută doar de ciobanii munților Retezați. Lucrurile trăite acolo le vor pune la încercare loialitatea frățească până în înaltul limitelor umane, totul fiind doar la mila munților și a creaturilor sale.Andrei Straja este un basm contemporan, un studiu despre contopirea fantasticului cu realitatea, despre legendele momârlănești care prind viață, interpretate cu fiecare pagină.
I read this as part of my goal to read more Romanian books. It’s a fairytale novella, about two shepherd brothers going away with a flock of sheep and meeting two different kinds of dragons. I liked the idea, but I didn’t get along with the writting. It’s meant to be classical Romanian fairytale style, but I felt like it missed the mark. It starts off strong and ominous but then it takes a long time getting where it’s going. And there’s a lot of repetitive introspection that I just skimmed over. The dragons were very cool though, local style, a zmeu, sleek and beautiful, and a dracon, big, wolf-like and scary. I was very interested in them and happy with what we learned. It got a little timey-whimey which is not really my thing. Overall I rate it ok, could’ve been better.
r/fantasy bingo:
The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
For a young woman in medieval Russia, the choices are stark: marriage or a life in a convent. Vasya will choose a third way: magic…
The court of the Grand Prince of Moscow is plagued by power struggles and rumours of unrest. Meanwhile bandits roam the countryside, burning the villages and kidnapping its daughters. Setting out to defeat the raiders, the Prince and his trusted companion come across a young man riding a magnificent horse.
Only Sasha, a priest with a warrior’s training, recognises this ‘boy’ as his younger sister, thought to be dead or a witch by her village. But when Vasya proves herself in battle, riding with remarkable skill and inexplicable power, Sasha realises he must keep her secret as she may be the only way to save the city from threats both human and fantastical…
I read this as part of my goal to make progress on some series. I’m very much on plan this week, look at me go.
This was lovely, I put it off till we got our first snow, so I was all snug with my hot chocolate as I dove into this wintery tale. I was worried for a minute there that we’d move into summer, but really it just got colder and colder, so that was good for me, not so much for the characters freezing their butts off. There was more going on and faster faced than the first book, but I loved it and felt like a natural progression.
It starts right where we left off, and for a bit follows the other members of Vasya’s family. I did need to read a recap to remember what was up and who was who. I really enjoyed getting to know the rest better, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t spend those chapters thinking “ok, but where’s Vasya?”. And then we go back to her and things get intense. There’s fights, chases, lots of horses, bandits, fleeing through the night, really cannot stress how much horse riding is involved, mysteries, plots, scheming, danger. It’s a far more action-packed book than I remember the previous one being, and the scope is much wider, involving politics and the world. And Vasya is pretty damn awesome, really grown into herself in some ways. I thought I might miss the coziness, but it was so well balanced, we still got some moments with household spirits.
“Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.”
r/fantasy bingo: Featuring Snow, Ice, Cold; Ghost; Feminist; Magical Companion; Politics