Neither thumbs up nor thumbs down for A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab. Fantasy.
I had picked this up before and put it down; the second time I reframed it as “Young Adult” in my head and was able to whip through it. Still, it was a book for a day on which I was too tired to move or to think very hard.… >> Read more
Thumbs up for The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson. Fantasy. Thumbs up for The River Bank by Kij Johnson. Fantasy.
Two drastically different books by the same author, but sprung from the same driving force: here is a world she loves, with the addition of female characters. In neither case is it necessary to have read the original works (Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, respectively).… >> Read more
Thumbs up for Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani. Children’s graphic novel.
A girl whose mother won’t talk about why she emigrated from India discovers a shawl that transports her to a magical version of the land. Cute, but I wish the characters had been more deeply developed. (I think that would have been possible even granted this was marketed toward children.) This seems to be the author’s debut as a graphic novelist, which seems about right.… >> Read more
Thumbs up for Smells Like Finn Spirit by Randy Henderson. Fantasy.
A satisfying tying-up of all the loose ends from the first two books! And it retains the humor of the other books, thank goodness. I do wish it had been about fifty pages shorter: there did seem to be an awful lot of running around from one fight to another.… >> Read more
Thumbs up for Obscurely Obvious: A Collection of Short Stories by Robin Lythgoe. Fantasy short stories.
So, background. Robin and I share a fan (hi Dorkas!) who told us to read each other’s books because she knew we’d like them. Robin beat me to it and she wrote a fantastic review of one of my books, which got me off my tuchas to read her work.… >> Read more
Thumbs up for Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee. Science fiction.
Another book by Yoon Ha Lee means more strange space battles, more snappy dialogue, more abstruse politics you will never understand, and more hilarious sociopaths arguing about music, playing card games, petting cats, eating sweets, cosseting onion plants, and racking up death tolls in the tens of thousands. (But mostly off-screen.)
… >> Read moreJedao was grinning at her.
Thumbs up for A Whole New World by Liz Braswell. Young adult fantasy.
I am among the minority of people who thought this book was great. Aladdin is one of my favorite movies (and I’m not a Disney buff in general) so I was curious to see how it could be twisted. This retelling begins at the same place, but skews into alternate-universe ground a few chapters in when Jafar, not Aladdin, is the one who summons the genie.… >> Read more
Thumbs up for Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. Graphic novel.
A series of important days scattered throughout the life and (possible) deaths of obituary writer-cum-novelist Brás. Beautiful in both an artistic and metaphysical sense. Highly recommended. If you’ve never read a graphic novel, this would be a good place to start.… >> Read more