Ahab by E.B. Dawson (Book Review)

Sooo, I’ve got a review for a scifi Moby Dick retelling today! (I also posted it on my Instagram so this post is about the same as that, if you’ve already seen that, just with other info. :))

Title: Ahab

Author: E.B. Dawson

• Date read: November 14, 2020
• Rating: 4 stars? I don’t even know how to star this because most of it’s, like, 6 out of 5 stars. XD And then the ending is not okay. T_T So. ???
• Genre: Sci-fi / Space Opera / Retelling
• Age: YA/NA?
• Year pub: 2020
• Pages: 191 (ebook)
• Series: No
• Fave character: Don’t make me choose between Ahab and Starbuck. They are both amazing in different ways and are the best working together.
• Source: The author (e-ARC) and Amazon (finished ebook I preordered)
• Links: Goodreads • Amazon • Author’s Website

I physically can’t properly review this. I couldn’t handle that ending but otherwise AHAB was amazing and until then I loved every second of it!

E.B. Dawson’s scifi is my favorite, and this one blended old and new, a wonderful Moby Dick retelling set in space, chilling and charming at turns. And Ahab and Starbuck are everything. Buddy stories are the BEST. This came SO close to being one of my top fave books of the year. 1800s-ish feeling but IN SPACE?? So amazing. 💚

I need happy endings, though. I NEED them.

I saw this sad ending coming but foolishly held out hope. Heh. So yeah, while I hated the ending and will not apologize for that (#happyendingsadvocate because #hope), the rest of the book was AMAZING and if you like buddy stories and don’t mind some feels/tragic-to-bittersweet endings, you will LOVE this.

(It also says something about the sheer quality of this book that I don’t hate the book, only the ending–which often makes me write a book off completely. It was utterly entrancing, overall.)

So yes. Good book. Sad ending. Like, couldn’t fall asleep, type sad. 😭 (If you need even MORE feels while reading, you can listen to In the Embers by Sleeping At Last, Brother by Kodaline, and Burn the Ships by For King and Country, which is what I did accidentally. Um. Yeah. Some awesome songs I’ve been listening to lately and a very feelzy combination with this book. It felt quite…ironic.)

The book was amazing while I was reading it, though. Just. Wow. Every word was just–on point. And, again, that 1800s feel? But scifi at the same time? It was perfection. How often do you get a buddy story with intense space voyages but also a gorgeous ball/party and walking 1800s-type streets. I could read this foreverrrr. All of it was incredible until the last chapter or so.

Now excuse me while I go lowkey imagine a (non-heartrending) alternate ending and also flail about how spectacular the rest of the book was.

Aaand I’ll just go cry now, thx. 😭

(Confession: I’ve never actually read the original, and the Moby Dick “book” in this picture is actually a wooden bookend. 😂 Maybe the original prepares you for the ending? 😬 I wouldn’t know. 😅 Also, I adored getting to the part near the end which is basically the Voyage of the Pequod short story, just a little different. I reread it along with the book and enjoyed it immensely. And hey, if AHAB sounds amazing but like me you can’t handle tragicness, do pick up VOYAGE OF THE PEQUOD.)

Thanks to the author for the e-ARC even though I ended up reading the final ebook I ordered since I read it after release because I’m so behind on my reading. 😂

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Thanks for reading! 🙂

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4th Blogiversary & Jan. 2020 Book Ishness!

Happy New Year! Hey, it’s only January 3rd—I’m still allowed to say that. XD Speaking of which, today is J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday! (Always have to commemorate that day since he’s my favorite author. ^_^)

Also, January 1st was the fourth anniversary of when I started this book blog, so I’m pretty excited! Happy Blogiversary to the Page Dreamer. ^_^ And… it’s 2020. Not quite sure how. O_O

Anyway, I’m here to share a few January releases and what I read in December!

But first, a few quick stats in honor of my blogiversary!

• 228 posts
• 281 followers (1,136 including connected social accounts)
• 1,784 likes
• 2,576 comments
• 6,249 visitors
• 13,973 views
• 218,842 words of posts

Also, I apparently wrote 50,376 words on this blog in 2019 alone, which does not count my other blog, so… O_O

Anyway, this is a fun time to look back at four years of this book blog. I’ve had a blast with it so far!

But better than any numbers is getting to chat with y’all about books I love, and all of YOU, my blog readers, who are the ones who make this blogging thing fun. 🙂

Thanks so much for hanging out with me here these last four years, and here’s to four more!

JANUARY 2020 RELEASES

• Beyond the Shadowed Earth by Joanna Ruth Meyer — (Jan. 14) This one is very soon on my TBR and I’m hoping I can read and review it by the time it releases, but I’m SO stoked about this book! It’s a companion novel to Beneath the Haunting Sea, which I read last year and adored. (And it’s by the author of Echo North which was one of my top reads which I shrieked about early last year and have been shrieking about since. XD) Also, I hear there are some snazzy preorder goodies.
• The Geppetto Codex by Kyle Robert Shultz — (Jan. 17) Guyssss, it’s the next Beaumont and Beasley book! Remember how The Stroke of Eleven came out awhile back? And then there was The Hound of Duville novella and various other shorter B&B adventures… Well, this one is the next B&B novel and it’s releasing in just two weeks! *gasp* There’s a preorder where you can read more about it, but I edited this one and it features Gareth the faun and Sylvia the dryad, scary puppets, and the Afterverse version of Venice. YES PLEASE. And, of course, lots of the usual snark and humor. 😉
• The Black Claw by Jessi L. Roberts — (Jan. 20) I copyedited this a couple of months ago and it’s an excellent space opera novella! I’m so excited to read Hand of Steel, which is the book before this one (and I remember seeing it at Realm Makers when it had just released), so that I can get the “backstory” on these characters. If you need a bit of space pirates and bounty hunters and excitement to kick off your year, check these out. ^_^
• Hidden Current by Sharon Hinck — (Jan. 28) I don’t know a lot about this one but it’s the next book from Enclave and it’s GORGEOUS! Plus, a fantasy novel that prominently features dancing sounds really unique.

December 2019 Reads

Christmas reads

I went on a bit of a Christmas story reading-rampage. XD I just felt in the mood and devoured several short works which I’d been saving up.

Most of these I mentioned in my Christmas books post, so I won’t repeat thoughts about them here. The last few were after that post, though. 🙂

• Brown-ears by Stephen Lawhead (re-read!)
• The Least of These by Kate Willis
• The Dragon and the Santa by Emily Martha Sorenson
• The 12 Cats of Christmas by Perry Kirkpatrick
• Nyssa Glass’s Clockwork Christmas by H. L. Burke
• The Grift of the Magi by Ally Carter
• ’Twas an Evening in Bethlehem by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt (adorable picture book!)
• Holidays at the Castle by Jessica Day George — Fun short story.
• Some Christmas Camoflage by E. S. Grayson — Really enjoyed this historical fiction short story. 🙂
• The Ninjabread Man — Okay, so it’s not totally Christmas, but it’s a gingerbread man picture book retelling, but with ninjas. It’s basically The Gingerbread Man meets Kung Fu Panda and I loved it. XD

Non-Christmas reads

• Knife’s Edge by Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock — A graphic novel! I read the first one, Compass South, in November, and was so excited to get this one from the library and finish this duology. Swashbuckling high-seas middle-grade historical fiction graphic novels. They were SO much fun and I loved them so much! ❤
• Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks — This novel was a tribute to P.G. Wodehouse, and I’ve been meaning to read it for YEARS so I was terribly pleased to pick it up at the library and finally read it. It was absolutely hilarious and I loved it so much. XD Jeeves and Bertie have to switch places, Jeeves being a Lord Etringham and Bertie his gentleman’s gentleman, and that’s only the beginning of the shenanigans. Yes, it wasn’t Wodehouse, but it wasn’t pretending to be, and on the whole the author did an absolutely terrific job of capturing the essence of Bertie Wooster’s narration and the shenanigans that always happen. It was just SO much fun and it made me happy. 😀
• My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse — So then I was in the mood for some more Jeeves and I dug this one out of my Kindle and read the short stories in it that were Jeeves-ish (which, yes, means I skipped half the book, but who’s counting). HILARIOUS. Wodehouse’s classic characters are… well… classic. Hurrah for Jeeves!
• A Storm Grows by Janeen Ippolito — Poetry collection, very short, which I opened on my Kindle app on my phone to look at and ended up reading the whole thing. It felt kinda dark and sad but I liked some of them, even if poetry isn’t usually my thing. XD
• Murder on New Year’s Eve by P. Creeden — I was sorting my Kindle app and found this and so obviously I had to read it on New Year’s Eve. XD It was a pretty interesting short story.

Also, if you want to check out the books I read in 2019, Goodreads has a handy-dandy list right here.

I’m going to sign off with some books I got for Christmas, and collage of my top nine most liked pictures on my Instagram!

That’s what I have for today. I’m not sharing a TBR right now since I’m not sure what I’ll be able to read this month, and I haven’t figured out my New Year goals and things. But I’m in the middle of way too many books right now. O_O I must finish some before I go crazy. XD

I’ll be back hopefully soon-ish with a list of my favorite books I read in 2019!

Thanks for reading, and happy 2020! May it be full of books!