""when you love someone, you'd do anything to give them what they need. you'd unmake the world and build a new one."

i am on the floor sobbing, emily henry you will pay for my therapy bills.
i loved this book. i loved this book so much i don't particularly feel like explaining why ? it's just a feeling and a very intense one and i feel it all over (i say, in a non weird way).
I'm already seeing some criticisms of this book that are saying this is barely a romance and i just find that kind of stupid ngl. it's obviously not as romance-centric as her other ones are but that's still very much at the core of this. and also, this has widely been described as being more literary fiction than romcom.
so if that's a problem for you, skip this one. if it's not (and it shouldn't be because we as readers should have the ability to read and enjoy a novel even tho it doesn't focus solely on a romance), run do not walk. if your favourite emily henry is Beach Read or Book Lovers, run don't walk."

"I will be honest, I went into this book with as open a mind as I could muster, but I did not really expect to like it that much. This is because I did not end up liking the Farseer Trilogy very much at all, for a variety of reasons (despite having rated the first book in that series four stars, which I should honestly revisit and lower). Ironically, I went into those books fully expecting to love them.

But much to my surprise, and despite the book having quite a strange audiobook narrator (I never quite clicked with her, but listening was still oddly satisfying? very hard to describe), the more I listened to the book, the more I wanted to listen to the book, and by the end I had this desperate need to just find. out. what. happens. Which is not a feeling I have ever experienced with Robin Hobb's books before! I then went and bought the stupidly expensive paperbacks ($27 for a paperback!!! What!) because I just want to be able to zoom through the story and not have to listen to thirty-five hours of audiobook. I have honestly not been this emotionally engaged with an epic fantasy series in a very long time.

Ship of Magic is set in the same world as the Farseer books, but feels like it takes place in another one entirely (the characters make note of the culture that Fitz lives in, and they are hilariously contemptuous of them). Not only do they have different cultural values, but our characters live in a place that is very alien in comparison to the rest of the world they inhabit. Most of our main characters are part of the Vestrit family, who are traders living in the Rain Wilds, an area rife with danger and magic that ancient trader families inhabited largely by working together and living by a strict code. The magic in the area means beautiful things exist there, but also things like blood plagues born of magic, and one out of four human pregnancies end with a non-human baby being born, and the people who live directly on the river are physically altered, such that they cover themselves with veils when entering polite society. The big thing with trader families is Wizardwood, a magical wood that can quicken into life, and when ships are made out of them, the ships come alive, too (after three members of the same family die while aboard).

The Vestrit family's liveship is named Vivacia, and the real story here kicks off as she quickens upon the death of the family patriarch, Ephron Vestrit. We follow multiple POVs, and that worked so well here, really giving insight into the world and the cultures. We were stuck in Fitz's head (in first person, no less) for the entirely of the Farseer trilogy, but here, if one narrator was irritating or infuriating, we would move onto the next.

We get POVs from: Althea Vestrit (Ephron's daughter, who expects to inherit the Vivacia), Wintrow Haven (Ephron's grandson, a priest-in-training of the god Saa), Ronica Vestrit (Ephron's widow), Keffria Haven (Althea's sister, who is married to Kyle Haven, the captain of the Vivacia), Malta Haven (Keffria and Kyle's daughter; imagine early years Sansa except 10,000 times worse), Brashen Trell (the first mate of the Vivacia), Amber (a wood carver who lives in Bingtown, a bit of an outsider), Vivacia herself, and another liveship, the mad Paragon, who killed three crews and is now beached and alone. Oh, and then there's Kennit, a pirate captain who has ambitions, and who makes significant steps to become a pirate king during the course of the novel. His greatest dream is to capture his very own liveship.

I could say so much about this book. I have so many feelings all up and down the spectrum about all of the characters. Kyle Haven may be the fictional character I have hated the most in the past five years. I would call him my nemesis, except I think I may be doing myself a disservice there, because Kyle is a petty, stubborn, ignorant, small-minded, misogynistic, arrogant asshole with no redeeming opinions whatsoever. At first I was giving him credit for loving his wife so much, but then there's scene where (view spoiler)[he essentially mocks her for being a shy virgin during their courtship, turning all of Keffria's memories of their sweet getting to know one another into a parody of themselves (hide spoiler)], and then all that was left was hatred. I honestly deserve a better nemesis. I was watching Legend of Korra all weekend because it's on Netflix now, and something great about that show is that all of the villains are right in some sense about their causes; they have ideals and wish to make the world better, in their own fashions, even if the way they go about their plans are destructive and nefarious. I want someone like that for a nemesis. Kyle Haven is just a handsome dick biscuit.

Anyways, I'm not going to be able to get to the last two books until November and December, but I eagerly anticipate doing so. I'm so happy I liked this book!

[4.5 stars]"

"We used to tell a lot of stories about gods. They got drunk, cheated on each other, held grudges, and fought long ruinous wars over small things. They had our problems, except bigger.

Dresediel Lex used to have gods. Now Red King Consolidated runs the city, a necrocapitalist water consortium helmed by a skeleton, staffed by wizard lawyers called Craftspeople, and dead-set on making everything better for everyone (as long it's net profitable). If you get in their way, well � we'd say gods help you, but the Red King killed them all.

Red King Consolidated wants to make the Skittersill better. Don't say gentrification, please, that's an ugly word. The old neighborhood needs investment, development, and infrastructure � a chance to join the modern world. The only problem is that the people living there refuse to get out of the way.

It's starting to look a lot like a protest. And in Dresediel Lex, the will of the people is as real as fire.

Dresediel Lex has our problems, except brighter. Wardens on rainbow-winged snakes keep watch on camps of protesters struggling to get over their differences and speak as one. Lawyers with immortality contracts and contacts in Hell slug tequila and complain about their jobs on top of eighty-story step pyramids. The last priest of the old gods fights to keep his congregation together in the face of modern life � while trying to raise a son who can thrive in the new world.

It's not an easy book. In here, as in the real world, it feels sometimes like the only thing little people can do is jump into the gears of the big machine. And in here, as with us, people struggle to find the line between order and tyranny, or faith and fanaticism, or change-by-negotiation and change-by-struggle.

If we all sit down together and say our piece, can we find a solution we agree on? And if we fail this time, if it all ends up like a war, does that mean we've failed forever? Are we just going to keep fighting this thing again and again until the stars go out?

Dresediel Lex tastes like corn tortillas and dust. It sounds like man-sized dragonflies and chanted slogans. It looks like Aztec gods dreaming Blade Runner. Everyone's trying their best to make the world better. They just have different ideas of what 'better' should look like, who should be in charge of it, and who should pay the blood and money it takes to get there.

You can read some truth in here.

This was my first Craft book. I'll read the rest."