Posted by Hey there and welcome to SPFBO 9!! I am a judge for SPFBO 9 and I am super stoked to be here!
Here is a short youtube video intro if you’re into that
So if you’d prefer to read here we go!
I am back with Kristen https://superstardrifter.com/ and the only change up in procedure this year is that I’m going to be taking 20 of the initial batch instead of the typical splitting of 15/15 from the 30 original books we’re given. Kristen just has a lot going on right now and I am in a frantic Mood To Read — so it works out.
If you’re not familiar with me/my taste, I tend to lean more towards the “lots of magic/fantasy elements” side of things. I love Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe, The Bone Shard series by Andrea Stewart and Orconomics by Zachary J. Pike. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t also love something that’s more toned down like Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide by Quenby Olson, or Guns of Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky. My ultimate love is Pratchett and comedy, anything that makes me laugh is going to get a one-up. My ultimate all time favorite SPFBO entry was the one that won it all last year, Small Miracles. It’s in the same vein as Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and it hit the sweet spot. I don’t give out 9’s often, but I also don’t tend to go super low with my scores, either. I try my best to highlight who I think the best audience would be and scream about the books I fall in love with.
Kristen tends to take the more YA books and those with heavier romance elements, she also loves steampunk and sass. I think some of her favorites from past years have been Symphony of the Wind, Gods of Men, Small Miracles, and Scales and Sensibility. I have tried to allocate our books to match our taste. If at some point I hit a book and I’m like, “this is a Kristen book” there is a chance I will swap one out with her to give it a better chance if I’m not the target audience, and vice versa.
I read insanely fast, I use text-to-speech to get through a massive amount of books that I would never have the time to physically read. Because of that, expect my reviews to come out fast! Like first day fast, definitely the first week.
I will be accompanying all my reviews with a video — I am trying to switch over. I do court transcription and reporting and so eight hours a day I just type, and type, and type and I’d love to NOT do that for books. However, the gulf between the traffic for my written vs. video reviews is pretty wide, so I will continue to both until my videos reach about the same level as my written!
Here are the 20 books that I (Esme) am reading:
AND HERE ARE THE BOOKS KRISTEN IS TAKING
