Sucker Punch by Laurell K. Hamilton - 2026 Reread

Oh... good... lord... this book is a slog. I hate it, so, so much. I hate it so much that having to reread it for completionist sake made me skip Serpentine on accident. Sucker Punch's looming reread just took up all my headspace. The funny thing is, I did not actually remember it as being so much of a slog. I was just remembering how much Olaf was front and center and how much I fucking hate him.

Seriously, the amount of "No" Anita should have come out swinging with in Olaf's direction is staggering. But instead we're still humoring the SOB and making other people humor him in conjunction. Anita and Edward need to just kill him already. I'm tired of knowing Anita has absolutely zero interest in actually sleeping with him and her also entertaining the idea of a relationship with him. Should have kept that shit at a professional level if you have to have any kind of relationship at all. I'm firmly of the belief that this whole leading him on bullshit is going to spectacularly backfire at some point in the future. It really is leading him on at this point and, as I'm fairly certain Olaf has maintained, women leading men on is one of the reasons he hates them so much.

Other than Olaf's mere presence, the actual slogging part of the book is how many times Newman and Anita have to explain, often to the same characters, why Newman is refusing to "do his duty" and kill Bobby. Over and over and over. Same argument. Every time. Introduce or add a character: "Why haven't you done your duty yet, Win?" I started skipping the conversations after the second time. Skipped a good portion of this book, actually. I would have DNF'd this reread if I hadn't been waiting on another book to be shipped to me.

Last thing, just to reiterate what I said in my first read review: The mystery part of Sucker Punch was incredibly convoluted. The fact that it was largely side-lined did not help. Every single side character from this little town is on my shit-list. They are all unlikable to say the least. Duke is probably the worst and that's only because Muriel and Jocelyn are barely there. Just... ugh.

You can read my first review HERE.

Take a Thief by Mercedes Lackey

A Spoiler Free Review

Take a Thief was honestly a lot of fun. I’m not sure I have too many deep thoughts about it, though. Skif was a fun protagonist to get to know and see grow. I honestly thought he was a lot older than he was while the whole stalking Jass thing was going on. It’s really no surprise that he came across as older, given what he’d been through and, as Alberich observes, had his childhood basically stolen.

That said, I don’t really need my main characters to be put-upon orphans. This is not a trope I enjoy very much and I don’t really think it does much for their character except to make them less likely to sniff at a bit of hardship. I mean… I guess it makes them a little more interesting than rando middle-class kiddo or the “I’m so spoiled everything shocks me” type… but… I dunno. Don’t know why the pair of kid main characters up til now in the chronology have had to be super destitute orphans. All that said, I do actually like Lackey’s world-building through and around Skif. I can really feel how gross the tavern is, how oppressively hot his room next to Jass is, and how disgusting that blanket at the end was.

However, I honestly find reading the “gutter speak” or whatever quite annoying. It was annoying when Mags (Collegium Chronicles and The Herald Spy) was speaking in it throughout his run and it’s annoying now with Bazie and Skif.

Speaking of, it is very clear that Mags is a pale imitation of Skif. Skif has infinitely more personality and feels much more real than Mags ever did. Skif fits better into the world he inhabits and isn’t just constantly referring to past hardships as though they’re a personality trait.

But yeah, aside from all that, I did really enjoy Take a Thief. It was interesting to see Alberich from an outside angle and know that it was Alberich even if Skif had no clue. I also actually enjoyed Skif’s spy stuff… mostly because it wasn’t referred to as such and was the thieving aspect of his life.

Very much looking forward to the next part of my Valdemar journey with Heralds of Valdemar. I have definitely read the next three books, so it'll be interesting to get to know Talia all over again... and maybe figure out why I definitely seem to remember Lord Orthallan being a baddie.

Reviews Batch 10

So hey, I've actually managed to stick with this blogging thing for over a year this time. Enjoy these short reviews from a pair of my favorite long-running series as celebration. 😁

Pale Demon by Kim Harrison
Originally Posted to GoodReads: August 1, 2020

Pretty fun, all told. Getting to spend more time with Trent and more or less proving he's not a complete a-hole was cool. Getting more of demon society, also cool, especially on the differences between male and female demons. I'm not sure exactly how effective Ku'sox was as a villain... I think Oliver might have been better, but he's closer to an Umbridge (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) than anything else. Like, I literally think of him as a male version of her. Oh, and I enjoyed Vivian.

On another note, I can honestly say the only thing I remembered from this book was the scene at Dalliance, and it wasn't even the whole scene. So... not entirely sure what that says about the book. It was an enjoyable read. The Hollows is always one of my favorite worlds to visit.

 

Sucker Punch by Laurell K. Hamilton
Originally Posted to GoodReads: August 13, 2020

Basically, a whole lot of talking and not much else. Like, pretty much just jumping from conversation to conversation and a couple different locations. Olaf surprises the heck out of everyone by being reasonable and spends a lot of Sucker Punch asking questions to wrap his head around what Anita’s asking of him/her decision making.

I liked that I didn’t have to skip past the sex scenes (a personal preference as I literally do not care about them), because there were none. However, I did feel like I really wanted to skip past the “oh, Anita’s not taking care of herself again” scene... and luckily there weren’t the usual “but you’re a GIRL and sleeping with all these guys” conversations, so that was nice.

I probably would have enjoyed Sucker Punch more if the actual mystery had been the focus of the book. It really wasn’t. It also wasn’t obvious who the perp(s) were, mainly because, again, the amount of conversations having nothing to do with the plot. I have no real memory of who did what and why and why certain conclusions were reached. Like, at all. It’s like the plot was there to hang Olaf’s stuff on, more than to drive the story. The story is Olaf questioning everything and Olaf surprising Anita and Olaf being 0% as scary as he should be because of all of it.