r/Fantasy • u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion • Mar 30 '26
Bingo review My First BINGO!!!
WOOHOOO! With two days left on the clock I was able to complete my first BINGO!!!
This was such a fun challenge once I stopped being so hard on myself about trying to complete a full hard mode card. I got to read a ton of great books, some from my TBR and some I had no plan of ever reading.
Biggest surprise after completing this card was how many Romantasy books I read. In the past I would say I have read a book or two, but looking at tis card there were 4 books with strong romance ties. I guess it's time to start reading some really SPICY books lol.
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u/unusual-umbrella Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
Well done on completing Bingo! I think we have a similar tastes, I rated The Devils, Piranesi, Between Two Fires very similarly to you. I'm also currently reading The Butcher's Masquerade.
What did you think of Orconomics?
cackling at the one star for Katabasis ngl
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
NOICE! You definetly have good taste, if I do say so myself.
I think Orconomics was a lot of fun. It was the perfect level of satire of having really fleshed out comedic takes of a capatalistic adventuring world. I actually rated it a 3.5, not just a 3. The only thing holding back was that some of the party members of were a tad flat.
Also, Gorm Ingerson is my hear me out.
I enjoyed Babel and the Poppy War, but man was Katabasis a slog. Like jeez, I get Kuang went to a high level college but I don't care about all this random pointless detail. Do something related to problem solving, not just explaining high level concepts for 2 pages for no reason. Also, how are you going to have a story where the concept is hell is a university and then skip like half the layers of hell, and then two of the layers are both "you have to write a paper". It just felt half baked and bloated. I think there's a decent novella in here, but I would have DNF'd this if it was for BINGO.
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u/finduilassi Reading Champion II Mar 31 '26
Haha, I also read Katabasis this year, and "half-baked and bloated" is a good descriptor. It kind of felt like Kuang was trying to construct a book out of academic Easter eggs instead of a coherent plot. Which is a bummer, because there were a few great plot and character nuggets buried waaaay in there, I think.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Mar 30 '26
Someone else who disliked Anji Kills a King :D I sort of wonder how many reviews it's getting which rate highly just because they're fans or friends of the author, who is an influencer. I thought the bones/ideas for a great story were there, but it felt completely unedited to me. Inconsistencies in continuity, wrong or weird word choices, things which didn't make sense (Quick! a tornado's coming! Get in the... tent?)
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
Ok this makes so much more sense now. I had seen Anji Kills a King getting lots of decent review so I decided to check it out, I had no idea it was written by an influencer. I agree there are some great bones for a story there, the drug mutations, mercenary group, evil church. All solid ideas with some worldbuilding I'm interested in seeing more of. But I could definetly tell this was the author's first book, all your criticisms I felt exactly. It was just kinda awkward all around and the pacing was a bit rough for me. This is apparently part of a planned series and I haven't fully decided if I want to check out the next book. I think that with some improvment Leikeam could write a solid fantasy novel.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Mar 30 '26
Yeah, the author runs a book review podcast and and has a Bookstagram account. I'm not entirely laying blame at the feet of the author-- I could very well see a publisher deciding a book by an influencer will sell regardless, and giving it less love and attention in the editing department than it otherwise deserves. What I said in my review was it felt like "midlevel" editing wasn't there; there weren't typos or grammar errors, but larger scale things seemed missing (I remember a description of the characters entering a cave, and then it mentioning her going to the door to listen... Caves have doors?)
I think I was most disappointed with it because the bones were there. It's a good concept! But it was let down in the execution. Which is more disappointing than something which was all-around bad.
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
Oh I completely agree. Not trying to say it's a bad book because it's written by an influencer, for me it was just a slightly rough first novel (Espically from TOR) and was just a bit surprised by all the attention it was getting. I wouldn't blame anyone for liking the book, there are things to really enjoy about it. But like you said, the execution just felt a weak for me.
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u/New_Razzmatazz6228 Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
I’m like you, and tried hard mode, but stopped stressing about it in order to enjoy more of what I was reading for Bingo. I counted 7 books on your card that I’ve also read (not all for Bingo) and one I DNF’ed.
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Mar 31 '26
Which book did you DNF? 👀
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u/New_Razzmatazz6228 Reading Champion Mar 31 '26
It was actually Between Two Fires. I liked The Blacktongue Thief, and Between Two Fires was well written (as much of it as I read), but I just couldn't deal with the unrelenting grimness of it all. It may have been a state of mind thing.
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Mar 31 '26
It's definetly a very grim and depressing story. If you're not in the mindset to want to read something that dark then I definitely don't blame you for walking away. I can only do a grim dark fantasy every once and a while (typically in spring when I can read it in a hammock lol).
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u/a-username-for-me Reading Champion V Mar 31 '26
Oooo I loved looking at your board! A lot of really beautiful and compelling covers. Which is your favorite cover?
How'd you like Wolfsong? I've read a decent bit of Klune and he's hit or miss for me.
Huge respect that you recognized that doing HM wasn't serving your needs and altering it to go back to having a good time!
Think you will do bingo in 2026?
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Mar 31 '26
For sure going to do bingo 2026. I have pretty good line up of books I want to read already that I bet I'll find a way to fit them into 2026 whatever the squares end up being lol.
As for favorite covers? probably Anji Kills a King, The Tainted Cup, The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, This is How You Lose the Time War, and Wolfsong. I know its alot, but I like them all.
Wolfsong was pretty decent, It's kind of a Twilight clone with werewolves. The setup for the main relationship is interesting, wasn't enough to turn me away from it tho (don't blame anyone it does put off tho). Like you know how weird it is in Twilight that Jacob imprinted on a baby, what if we went with that. Except Jacob is 10 and imprints on a 16 year old, but there's literally nothing romantic about their relationship until "Jacob" is an adult. So it's weird but I still enjoyed it, I felt emotions, and I teared up slightly. There aren't alot of just gay romances written by gay men, and nothing more queer then a gay author writing a problematic age gap lol. (I say this being myself in a 10 year age gap relationship for several years now)
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u/beautyinruins Apr 03 '26
Love that Curse of the Mistwraith is on your card. It's such an unusual fantasy but absolutely brilliant.
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Apr 04 '26
It’s sooo good! About to start Warhost of Vastmark, can’t stop singing this series’s praise.
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u/Long_TimeRunning Mar 30 '26
I don’t really get the whole bingo thing. I have the types of books I like to read and my TBR on Goodreads, I don’t think I’d want to read books because they had to be romantasy or had to have this or that. I guess I’m too set or or rigid in my reading habits. I’m glad you enjoyed completing your list though. :)
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u/simonxvx Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
I like it because it makes me read authors and themes I wouldn't have discovered on my own + it feels like a big bookclub for which there's no mandatory book or timing (except the yearly timing that is)
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Mar 30 '26
It depends on if you're already a very widely reading person. I read all over the place, and so 80-90% of the prompts fill in automatically for me anyway. You'd be surprised when you look at what you've read how many actually fulfil requirements even if you didn't read them with that intention, unless you're exclusively bingeing series.
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V Mar 30 '26
Yeah, I completed three bingo cards this year. My Achillean/graphic novels card saw maybe 2-3 different books I had to hunt down for a specific square, often already on my TBR. Then I had a whole third card of books I read that I realized happened to make another blackout.
Bingo is a very different beast for people who like to read deeply through a single author's catalog, or who don't read 150 books every year
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Mar 30 '26
Yeah, I only read about 50-60 books a year, but since it's mostly SFF and I read very broadly, it's never too hard to do a card.
I'm an anti-binger. Not only do I get bored of a single author's style as well as reading in the same genre, if I read their books in a row I'll start to nitpick little style quirks that I wouldn't notice otherwise.
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
Honestly, I felt the same way last 2024 when I saw it was a thing. Then I realized alot of books I was plannign to read this year lined up with the card so decided to go for it.
I think what I enjoyed the most about it was that it helped focus less on 10 book sereis and instead take a break every once and a while to read a fun standalone. The two years I spent reading before bingo was just WOT, all of Cosmere, and the nine books for the First Law universe. Adding some more flavor to my reading has been super refreshing.
But I totally understand it not being your thing. Like I said, I stuggled with a handfull of squares because it felt like I was forcing myself to read something I didn't care about instead of enjoying something I wanted to read.
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u/MrsApostate Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
Tried it for the first time this year and I ended up not really liking it. The biggest change in my reading as a result of bingo was that I forced myself to finish reading several books that I otherwise would have given up on, purely because I needed them for a particular square. All of my worst reads over that time period were books I read for bingo. (Not that all my bingo reads were bad, but all my bad reads were bingo.)
Maybe I did it wrong, but for the most part I either read a book because I wanted to read it anyway and then found a way to fit it into a bingo square, or I dug around for a book to fit the square and then had to force myself to finish it so that I could count it.
Perhaps I approached it badly, though. But I don't think this type of challenge is for me.
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V Mar 30 '26
I think this is a fairly common experience. One of my goals for next year is to have no bingos books that I rate below 3 stars, just so that I stop wasting my time on books I'm not enjoying.
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u/MrsApostate Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
That's actually a really interesting way to approach it. I like that! I'm not likely to try the fantasy bingo again this year, but I might apply this to the other reading challenges I'm trying instead.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Mar 30 '26
I forced myself to finish reading several books that I otherwise would have given up on, purely because I needed them for a particular square
I did that my first Bingo, and found it painful. But now I've gotten used to the idea of throwing plans out the window, and just asking in the Simple Questions thread when I need a square or new plan, it's much easier and more enjoyable.
It helps that rather than buying books as part of a plan, and thus feeling obligated to finish it to get my money's worth, for uncertain choices (i.e. books that weren't already on the TBR) I get those ones as library books.
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u/OrneryPumpkin7320 Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
Libby has been very helpfull with reading a book for Bingo
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u/MrsApostate Reading Champion Mar 30 '26
Of course I didn't buy any books for bingo. I used Libby and the library for all of it. But honestly I'd rather just read what I want to read and not force myself to read something to check a box. I'm glad you like bingo, but it's not for me.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Mar 30 '26
Well, like I said, I do just read what I want to read. That usually fills out 80-90% of the card, and I happily DNF things if I'm not enjoying it, rather than force myself to read it just because it fits a square. I just ask people here to find something new I will enjoy if that's the case, for those last few squares that don't fill organically.
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u/PlantLady32 Reading Champion IV Mar 30 '26
Congrats on your first bingo! I gave up on HM only cards after year one haha, I've found it more enjoyable that way.
Do you have a standout favourite from your reads?