cbr17bingo – free (replacing Arts)
Death to Anyone Who Reads This
So almost immediately after I said I wasn’t likely to read this short (100-page) sequel to The Balloon Hunter, I went ahead and read it. I’m not sure what had made me think it would be more of a horror novel than the first one. It isn’t really, although there is some more violence in this once.
Similar to The Balloon Hunter, this one is a “found novel,” but this time through journal entries instead of postcards. There’s one character who wrote journal entries and another character who is writing on the blank backsides of those entries. The book doesn’t do much to expand the world-building of the first one, but it was still an interesting read as you try to figure out who one of the characters is (the first one signs their name to their entries, so you know) and what might happen at the end.
There was a passage that really struck me. One of the characters is reflecting on how they used to have trouble suspending their disbelief when reading fiction. “How could so much happen to a single protagonist? How could every bullet miss? . . . The apocalypse is teaching me the answer: We work backwards. Take any random survivor this deep into the mess, and these are the ones the bullets (mostly) missed.”
While I didn’t like this one as much as The Balloon Hunter, it’s still an enjoyable read. PSA: The font is small and pale, which makes it hard to read on a Kindle, though it seems to be ok on the Kindle app.
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy
I really enjoyed this fantasy romance. Hart is a marshal who helps protect the world from zombie-like people called drudges, and Mercy is an undertaker. It’s basically an enemies to lovers story, with their relationship starting four years prior to the opening of the book when their first meeting did not go well.
Hart is a lonely demi-god. He doesn’t have much family and there’s some distance from one of his formerly close friends—who is now his boss. One day he opens up to the void, essentially, when he sends an unaddressed letter. A nimkilim—magical animals who deliver the mail—delivers the letter to Mercy, and they begin a correspondence, making sure to avoid writing about identifying information. They both begin to feel seen and less lonely.
I loved both of the main characters. Mercy is optimistic, loving, and passionate about her job, and she’s surrounded by a loving family. Hart is curmudgeonly, smart, and snarkily funny. And one of the nimkilim is also a funny a-hole, and I’m kind of a sucker for those. The world-building is somewhat limited but does enough to get necessary information to readers, and I appreciated the incorporation of the religious elements of the world. If you like romances, and content related to death (see above re: zombies and undertaking) isn’t problematic for you, I recommend this.