2022 book 100

 Juno Dawson's Her Majesty's Royal Coven

So this was a mostly very fun read, set in a world much like our own but with witches (and warlocks), some of whom are part of the government. The story here is set in England, about a group of women who were all inducted as witches together when they were girls, and now one is the head of the titular governmental coven, one has started her own, more inclusive coven (she's a black lesbian), one is a country vet, trying to stay out of things after a witch civil war, and one is a mother of two hiding her witchiness from her husband, but then her daughter starts showing powers. Ugh there is a lot of backstory in this. Anyway, the plot kicks off when a young trans girl with super witch powers is discovered, and the head government witch turns out to be a terf and also thinks the poor kid is going to bring about the apocalypse. So everyone has to team up to fight the transphobic authorities! I will say I enjoyed reading this a lot, I really liked the (nice) characters and their friendships, but I found parts of the ending to be somewhat upsetting (as intended). This is the first of a trilogy and you gotta have a cliffhanger, but that one sank my stomach. A-/B+.

2022 book 99

 Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

I’ll read anything Zevin writes, and this one I could have gulped down in one sitting had bedtime allowed. It’s about two young ppl in the 90s, Sam and Sadie, and the video games they creates together, and their friendship, and their pain. The pop culture references were right on track for me (the characters are a few years older than I am and I played many of the referenced games), which always helps. Lots of feelings and messiness and love in this one. I had some mixed feelings in the lead up to the ending, but really liked how it wrapped up. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in July. 

2022 book 98

 Garth Nix's Terciel and Elinor

I have no idea why Nix decided we needed a prequel about Sabriel's parents, since we already know how their stories turned out, but I did end up really liking Elinor as a character (especially her time at the girls' school), and was glad we got to know her. My issue here is that once again the last like third of the book is everyone getting ready to fight a Big Bad, except it’s a Big Bad we already know, and so we already know how that turns out too. So it is just a slog to get through to see where things wind up. Not super fun. B.

2022 book 97

 Garth Nix's Goldenhand

The fifth book in this series picks up where the third left off (though the fourth becomes relevant), but I thought it was one of the weakest entries so far. There are two parallel POVs—Lirael, doing Abhorsen things, reuniting with Nick; and a young nomad woman on a journey to bring Lirael a message from her long-dead mother. I still like all the characters but the plot here was basically nothing—gotta defeat another Big Bad—and the increased focus on romance was weirdly awkward (except at the very end when it was funny). I did like seeing the librarians again. B.

2022 book 96

 Garth Nix's Clariel

The fourth book in this series is set a few hundred years before the previous three, telling the story of a young Abhorsen relative who only wants to live a solitary life in the forest, but her family has moved her to the capital, where soon she becomes a political pawn. And I would have loved a book about her dealing with all the politics, and her interesting finishing school, and making friends, and putting jerks in their place. But the book goes in several unexpected directions, which at first is really interesting, but when you see where it’s going to end up, it's a really big bummer. B.

2022 book 95

 Garth Nix's Abhorsen

This is wrapping up everything that happened in book two, so parts of it are a tiny bit slow as everyone is just journeying around trying to save the world, etc. Solid ending though. A-/B+.

2022 book 94

 Garth Nix's Lirael

Ok, I liked this one much more! The protagonists are a girl being raised in the clan of seers, and I got into her story pretty quickly when she starts training to be a magical librarian and then creates a magical dog (yeah!), and then the son of the woman from the first book, who is reluctant to follow his mother's footsteps (but has other interesting talents). I will say that some things are answered/resolved, mainly involving the main characters, but the novel definitely feels like a part 1, because none of the big plot points are addressed, which is weird? A-.

2022 book 93

 Garth Nix's Sabriel

Still in the mood to read fantasy series for escapism, I figured I’d give this one a go (I have read this first one before, but years ago, and didn’t remember anything about it). Anyway, it’s about a girl whose father is the Abhorsen, a necromancer who makes sure the dead stay where they belong—except he’s gone missing. This book is kind of slow to start and I wished Sabriel had more of an interior life, but there is a mysterious cat with powers, cool lore and worldbuilding, etc. I mean it’s all kind of creepy with undead monsters and all, but I’ll give the next one a shot. B+.

2022 book 92

 Katherine Addison's The Grief of Stones

I probably should have reread Witness for the Dead before starting this one, since it’s a sequel, but Addison does a good job of reminding who all the characters are without a ton of exposition. I mostly liked this a lot but will warn that is is pretty unsavory (why does this fantasy world have child pornography?). Anyway, this finds the Witness trying to solve another murder, and stumbling onto more mysteries along the way, but this time he has an apprentice (a widow, new to the field) in tow! I am into this character and his pals and am glad that there are hints at a third book in his story. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on June 14th.

2022 book 91

 Ursula LeGuin's Powers

The final book in this trilogy is a little bit grimmer and sadder than the first two, but once again I am in awe of LeGuin's worldbuilding and characterization. The protagonist here is a boy who's a slave, but a well educated one, with the power to remember everything he’s ever read—and occasionally to remember things that haven’t happened yet. This one feels like more of a coming of age/journey kind of story than the others, but it’s an enthralling journey at least. My only complaint is that I wanted a few more chapters at the end. Or like another book. A/A-.

2022 book 90

 Ursula LeGuin's Voices

Wow, this was really good. Is this whole series about the power of storytelling and books?? In this second volume, the protagonist is a young girl in a place where people loved books and peace and diplomacy, until they were conquered by an army whose religion says that the written word is evil. But she can magically open a secret room full of books. And then the two protagonists from the previous book (now twenty years older) come to town and set great changes into motion. But also this is just about people caring about each other and trying to make a better world! I love it! A.

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Content warning for mentions of offscreen rape and torture.

2022 book 89

 Ursula LeGuin's Gifts

I don’t see people talk much about LeGuin's Annals of the Western Shore series, a YA fantasy series she wrote later in life, but I’ve mentioned before that I’m dipping in and out of all the LeGuin I’ve never read and I was in the mood for a fantasy series, so here we are. I thought this was a strong first volume, about a bunch of families with capital-G Gifts, who live up in the mountains and are isolated and have their own societal rules etc. The narrator is a young blind boy from a family with the power of undoing (very unpleasant), and his best friend is a girl who can communicate with animals (amazing). And it’s the story of his life, how his mother taught him to love stories, about love and grief and companion animals. There are some grisly parts but on the whole this was just a really engrossing and comforting book (needed just now in the world). A/A-.

2022 book 88

 Linda Holmes' Flying Solo

I was in a mood and I was also mad that the last couple books I read were just MEH, so treated myself to the new Linda Holmes, which I knew would be good. And it was! It’s about a woman, about to turn forty, who returns to her hometown to clean out her beloved great aunt's house, where she gets interested in the story of a wooden duck she finds (luckily her high school boyfriend is now the local librarian). Lots of laugh out loud moments, and I will say as a single forty-something woman I found this protagonist very relatable. I also appreciated that while there was a romance, there was a lot to show that there is something to be said for living your life the way you want to (lots of cool old ladies in this book). I did have to suspend my disbelief a LITTLE that a freelance nature writer could take so much time off work, but otherwise this was a satisfying read for sure. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in June.

2022 book 87

 Jane Glatt's Unmage

So maybe my problems with this book were about expectations, because it started strong, set fourteen years after the first two, with Kara's younger half brother enmeshed in their mother's world of magic and politics, and she’s trying to get him to escape and come live on their guild-free island, and I was like, cool, he'll escape, and they’ll learn magic and take on the bad mages and reform the system. But instead he basically spends the entire book on the run trying to escape, just wandering around and hiding for two thirds of this novel, it’s very tiresome. And then the end isn’t triumphant, it’s grisly and sad. Also, a lot more typos in this one. Lots of references to offscreen rape and torture. Not a good time. B-. 

2022 book 86

 Jane Glatt's Unmagic 

The second book in Glatt's Guild series is more of the same; I remain uninterested in the romance but it’s more of the plot here. I do still like the main character a lot and her non-romance-related actions are cool: she’s off in search of a friend who vanished mysteriously, who is trapped magically with a mage with amnesia. There were some occasionally awkward writing bits, but still entertaining. B+.

2022 book 85

 Victoria Goddard’s The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul

New Victoria Goddard!!! This is the second book in her Red Company Reformed series, but I was glad to see it picks up Pali's adventures a little bit earlier, so we get to see some of the other events in Goddard's world from her point of view (and of course Greenwing and Dart make an appearance) and see some of her academic life. I love Pali as a character (and her friendship with Jullanar) and this book has slightly less angst than some of the others, but I did wish for maybe a little more action? Of course, that’s all Pali is wishing for too, so perhaps that’s the point. :) I’m just super caught up in this world at this point (which is good, because you have to have read several other books to totally get this one) and can’t wait to see what all these middle-aged pals do next. A/A-.

2022 book 84

 Jane Glatt's Unguilded

I had the impression this was a cozy sort of fantasy based on the description, and while parts of it had that vibe, it was a little darker than that. It’s the story of a teen girl in a country ruled by powerful guilds; her birth mother is a mage and they’ve been waiting to see if the girl would develop magic. When it seems like she hasn’t, her birth mother helps her run away so she won’t be forced to breed future potential mages (there are a lot of references to rape/sexual abuse and some rape threats—sooooo not cozy). I will tell you that her birth mother only helps her for selfish reasons and is a horrible person. Anyway, the girl now has to make her own way in the world, finding friends and a new home and figuring out that actually, she can /see/ magic. Great characters here, the romance was fairly abrupt but I was on board by the end, good action. I did wish the back half was fleshed out a little bit more, but I still enjoyed this and am off to start the sequel. A-/B+.

2022 book 83

 Dhonielle Clayton's The Marvellers

Once again I am begging editors to take a firmer hand, because this book is OVERSTUFFED. Clayton clearly has so many details of this world in her head, but that doesn’t mean every single one of them has to appear in this first book! Anyway, this is the story of Ella, a girl from a family of Conjurers, a branch of magic developed by slaves and their descendants. Now she's the first Conjurer to be admitted to the fancy magic school (which apparently is for every other magical child in the world?), but of course she's faced with mean girls and cruel and prejudiced teachers. Then someone breaks out of wizard prison (there are also POV chapters from her viewpoint), Ella's favorite teacher goes missing, and more mayhem ensues. That’s not even getting into her roommate with a mysterious backstory (obvious to the reader), who does prophetic knitting (ok, AMAZING), and her other friend who can talk to animals and magical creatures and also has a slightly mysterious backstory. I wished that more time was spent on them hanging out and making friends instead of all these kind of disjointed chapters, and when the climax finally does come, it’s super quick and not really very interesting. I think this series has a lot of promise but this first one could have used some streamlining for sure. B+.

2022 book 82

 Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness

LeGuin is one of those authors I just never read when I was younger, just never came across her work somehow. So I’ve been doling them out during this pandemic as a little treat. And actually I’m glad I never read this when I was younger, because I don’t know if I’d have gotten it or fully appreciated it. It’s the story of an Envoy from an outer space collective who's coming to see if a new planet wants to join up for trading purposes, advancement, etc. The new world has interesting gender stuff going on, which is mainly what I knew about this book going in. But really this is a story about humanity, about love and loss and meaning and storytelling. I’d have torn through this much quicker if I hadn’t come down with shingles (!). A/A-.

2022 book 81

 Alexandra Rowland's A Taste of Gold and Iron

Well, you can always count on Rowland for a satisfying read. This one involves a prince (his older sister is the sultan) plagued with panic attacks who gets involved with some drama at court with his sister's baby's father (interesting world building here), which leads to more drama, politics, a mystery involving counterfeit coins, and a new bodyguard who at first thinks he's flighty but comes to respect him….and maybe more. I will say the mystery element didn’t totally work for me, because the villain is obvious and it’s frustrating how long it takes everyone to figure out, plus that plot gets a little muddled in the middle. But I loved all the characters and their friendships and the family relationships. The romance was cute too. This did end weirdly, like it doesn’t seem like it warrants a sequel but I expected more wrap-up. I will read a sequel if one comes out! A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in August.

2022 book 80

 Alice Oseman's Loveless

I really liked Oseman's Radio Silence when I read it a couple years ago, and after binging the Heartstopper show this week, figured I’d give her newest novel a go. And I did like it! It's about a girl and her two best friends heading off to college, where she's SURE she will finally experience/understand romance/sex, but instead realizes she's not into any of that. I definitely wished the protagonist figured her shit out a little earlier in the story (the description makes it sound that way so perhaps my expectations were off, it ended up feeling very asexuality 101) but I loved all the characters, I loved the discussion of how meaningful and important friendships can be, and I loved the humor. B+.

2022 book 79

 Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men

I gave up on that other series and this has been an especially crappy week for the world, so comfort reading it is. Nothing better than a practical heroine smashing monsters with a frying pan, accompanied by a horde of brawling be-kilted little fairy warriors. Funny, moving, and clever.

2022 book 78

 Tanya Huff's Fifth Quarter

The second book in this series focuses on a new cast of characters somewhere entirely different, which was a problem because I found both of the protagonists here to be very unpleasant to read about. One is a young assassin woman who would be great if she didn’t want to bang her brother, the other is a guy who keeps body swapping with people to extend his life, and has stolen her brother's body (she ends up sharing her body with her brother till they can steal it back). And then it becomes clear there's going to be a romance between these two characters, which I was doubly not into (I also didn’t think the writing on that was great). A bard and a prince do eventually come into the mix, as does a senile and terrifying necromancer, but I should not be rooting for most of the main characters to die in a book like this. The plot is also really slow, as everyone is just traveling around after each other for the entire book, boring and exhausting. If you’re wondering why I forced myself to finish, it’s because I want to read the next two books. Though the next one also focuses on these characters and I don’t know if I can do another book with them. C.

2022 book 77

 Tanya Huff's Sing the Four Quarters

Catching back up with classic fantasy series and I loved this one! It centers on a bard, whose brother the king exiled her from the family when she refused a political marriage to train to be a bard instead, and now she’s pregnant which is technically treason, oops (she is in a relationship with a woman but had a fling with a dude which is apparently fine, lots of cool queer characters in this, especially cool since it was written in the 90s). This is also a world where bards have magical powers to interact with nature spirits etc. Lots of great political plotting and families and friends and magic and love of all kinds. Just a really enjoyable read. A/A-.

2022 book 76

 A.G. Slatter's All the Murmuring Bones

I recently figured out that A.G. Slatter is Angela Slatter, whose work I like a lot, so hooray for new-to-me books by an author I like! Anyway, this is the story of a young woman who's the last in the direct line of a family that made a deal with the merfolk for prosperity and safety and whatnot, but they haven’t kept up their end of the bargain and their fortunes are in decline. So her grandmother is going to marry her off to a wealthy but awful cousin to try and restore things. I will say this story went to a lot of places I didn’t expect, and it’s always nice (or at least interesting) to be surprised. Parts of this are pretty dark/grim but the protagonist and her voice kept me engaged (I really enjoyed her) and I liked how it wrapped up a lot. A-.

2022 book 75

 Megan O'Keefe's Velocity Weapon

I feel like I’ve been reading this book for like a whole week, it’s very long and there is so much going on. So it's a pretty classic sci fi sort of story, one POV character is a military woman who has been rescued by an enemy ship after a devastating battle—and when I say rescued by a ship, I mean the ship, because it's an AI! I looooove a spaceship with feelings! And the other main POV character is her younger brother, a rising political star dealing with space politics, which I also enjoy. But then there is sporadically a third POV character, a thief on a job gone very wrong, as well as occasional interludes from a journalist (fine, I liked her) and the woman on earth in the past who spearheaded their space shortcuts. Clearly a lot of that is going to come into play in later books, but between all that and a romance and the various timelines it is kind of too much. And this ends in a cliffhanger that actually makes me not super interested in reading the later books. I really liked the siblings and their stories and wish this book was just those sections, it would have been a lot tighter. B+.

2022 book 74

 Anna Carey's This is Not the Jess Show

This is a YA novel novel about a teen girl growing up in the 90s, except actually she’s one of the main characters on what is basically the Truman Show, except nostalgia themed. I liked the characters and plot here a lot, a fun read for sure, but I could have done without the cliched teen romance. Like if you are literally on the run, maybe don’t stop to make out. That is my YA pet peeve! There’s a sequel due out in May which I may read depending on how central the romance is (I’m more interested in seeing a teen girl take down a corrupt media empire, personally). B+.

2022 book 73

 Molly Gloss' Wild Life

Sooooo this novel is about a woman living in the Pacific Northwest in 1905, a mother of five rowdy boys, who supports her family by writing adventure novels and stories, and when a little girl goes missing, she joins the hunt, only to get lost in the woods…and get adopted by a pack of sasquatches. Just getting that out there. I really liked this; it’s constructed as a diary with little excerpts of stories and newspaper articles and the like, as discovered years later by a granddaughter, who isn’t sure if it’s real or if it’s an abandoned novel. And I loved the first half, the struggle to balance writing and motherhood. It slows down a little once her wilderness exploits come into play, but it’s still very interesting, and I liked how things wrapped up (or at least thought they were fitting). A-. 

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Trigger warning for mention of rape and some unwanted groping.

2022 book 72

 Patricia McKillip’s The Bards of Bone Plain

Hmm, another interesting one from McKillip, but not one of my favorites. It’s about a cast of characters around a bard school, primarily one disaffected youth looking for a research paper topic, interspersed with the story of a famous bard from history/poetry. The modern storyline was more interesting to me, and I feel like some of those characters (mainly the women, especially a talented bard and a princess/archaeologist) and a late stage romance got short shrift because of the alternating timelines. I did like the bits about doing research and the eventual identity reveals, but I’m not sure the end totally made sense. B+.

2022 book 71

 Louise Erdrich's The Sentence

Rereading this bc I’m making my book club discuss it this month (I am the benevolent dictator of our book club). I will say I enjoyed rereading this maybe even more than initially reading it, because you can see the pieces come together (and because you’re mentally prepared to read a book that gets into Covid and the George Floyd protests in the back half). This novel is the story of Tookie, an amazing narrator and protagonist who gets out of prison and gets a job at a bookstore (the bookstore the author owns in real life). Which is being haunted by their most annoying customer. So it’s a great love letter to books and bookstores, while also talking about love and family (all kinds of families) and the experiences of Indigenous people and the connections we have to one another. This was one of my favorite books of last year and I loved it just as much this time. I just hope my book club agrees!

2022 book 70

 John Scalzi's The Kaiju Preservation Society

I’ve actually never read anything by Scalzi before, but I had this checked out of the library when a friend at Seder happened to be raving about it, so I figured I might as well! Anyway, it is a fun and mostly diverting novel (I did bodily cringe at the occasional mentions of Covid and the Tr*mp Administration) about a guy who gets a mysterious job at a place that turns out to be in a parallel earth full of kaijus, with scientists studying them and so on. Parts of this are pretty predictable, but it’s all entertaining and action packed and I did actually laugh out loud a few times. I think the world could have been fleshed out a little more (presumably more than like ten people work there) but no major complaints. A-/B+.

2022 book 69

 C.S.E. Cooney's Saint Death's Daughter

I really liked Cooney's Desdemona and the Deep, so when I saw she had a new novel out, I immediately bought it. And it was SO GOOD?? It’s about a girl who’s a necromancer, from a powerful family of necromancers and assassins, but she’s literally allergic to violence! And when her parents die and it turns out they were deeply in debt, she and her terrifying (not in a fun way) older sister have to figure out a way to keep things together. But really this is about found family, politics, magic, love, trust, and adorable undead dogs. Lots of action, lots of great characters and great relationships, lots of surprises along the way. I really, really enjoyed this, and Cooney might now be an insta-buy author for me. A.

2022 book 68

 Isaac Fellman's Dead Collections

All right, I read the trans vampire archivist book! (And he even turned out to be Jewish, so extra relevant to my interests.) Anyway, yes, this novel is about a trans dude who is also a vampire (vampirism being a cure for tetanus in this story), who’s working as an archivist, processing the collection of a lesbian sci-fi tv show writer, and falling in love with her wife. I liked both characters and liked them together, but was more interested in the archival work stuff (and how the vampirism comes into play there). I also liked all the sections told in emails/texts/Facebook posts. Interesting and a little bit weird! A-/B+.

2022 book 67

 Patricia McKillip's Song for the Basilisk

Man, another winner from McKillip. This one is full of magic, music, and politics, and I love all three. And even while all the pieces were coming together, I still wasn’t sure how it would end. Really fun variety of POV characters too, and I liked all their different relationships. It’s rare for an author to write such beautiful and interesting and satisfying stories, each one surprising in its own way. A.

2022 book 66

 Katherine Locke's This Rebel Heart

So this is the story of a Jewish girl in Hungary in 1956, on the eve of the revolution. But it’s not a straightforward historical novel—there’s a fair amount of magical realism going on, like Budapest being literally leached of colors, the river being magical, and an angel of death that happens to be hanging around (making out with local youths) (like 75 percent of the dudes in this book are bi). I think this book does a lot of things well—excellent on the Jewish stuff and Holocaust survivor narratives, dealing with the sins committed by your fathers, cool friendships and newspaper shenanigans, etc. But like my issue is that I /knew/ how this revolution went, so the back half of the book is slow and also suffused with dread, which isn’t super fun to read (I wasn’t that invested in the characters and their makeouts, but maybe it needed more of that?). I did appreciate the golem talk, though. And the girl power. The ending just didn’t totally land for me. As a side note, there is an informative author's note at the end that does /mention/ the current issues with anti-semitism in Hungary, but I really think that needed to be hammered home more since it is such a big part of the story itself. Like, that problem was not cured. B+.

2022 book 65

 Kelly Barnhill's When Women Were Dragons

Barnhill's first adult book is, I think, also the best thing I’ve read by her. It’s set in the 1950s and 60s, primarily focusing on a little girl growing up in a world constrained by the patriarchy—and in a world where thousands of women have transformed into dragons (pleased to report this does explicitly include trans women). Her story (and her family's) is interspersed with the dragon-related writings of a scientist, fighting anti-dragon sentiment. I really liked this. Just really compelling characters (including a bad-ass old lady librarian), great/interesting sister relationships, lots of lesbians, and I loved how it all wrapped up.   Just gave me a really warm feeling inside (not a dragon pun). A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on May 3rd.

2022 book 64

 Travis Baldree's Legends and Lattes

The internet has been buzzing about this book, and since I love a cozy fantasy, I figured I’d check it out. And it lives up to the hype! It’s a very cute story about a lady orc who retires from battling to open up a coffee shop (in a city that has never heard of coffee). There are still some tensions—she doesn’t want to pay protection money to the local crime boss, and also someone wants to steal her good luck magical stone—but this is mainly just a nice story about nice people making friends and enjoying baked goods. With a tiny bit of romance. More like this, please. A/A-.

2022 book 63

 Molly Gloss' Falling from Horses

 I was a good quarter of the way into this before I realized it’s a sequel to The Hearts of Horses, in that the protagonist here is the son of the protagonist in that one. Anyway, the story starts with a nineteen year old boy on his way to Hollywood in 1938, where he wants to be a stunt rider in cowboy movies. Along the way he befriends a young woman who wants to be a screenwriter. I liked the narrative voice here a lot; he’s telling the story as a much older man, looking back on his year in Hollywood, and flashing back to his childhood and to a family tragedy. I did kind of want a little bit more from the friendship, or from his older years in general, but I liked seeing the bits and pieces of it that we did get. Note that movies in the 1930s did not care about animal safety and there are some grim scenes with horses (and riders). A/A-.

2022 book 62

 Claribel Ortega's Witchlings

I really wanted to love this book. I wanted it to be the new Harry Potter, with a non-gross author. But this needed an editor with a harder hand. It’s about a little witch girl about to be sorted into her coven, but it turns out she’s a Spare, a coven-less witch treated as a second class citizen (this society makes zero sense), and she and her fellow Spares have to complete an impossible task to keep their magic or else they’ll be turned into toads. But like, nothing in this story is SUBTLE. All the plot beats are obvious, the villains are all mustache-twirling bad guys, even the friends we made along the way feels rote. There are some cool moments and characters (I was partial to the librarian and the super strong baby) but so much of this was just formulaic. Plus the word “smirk” is used about 87 times. :( I just don’t think middle grade books need so much hand-holding. B.

2022 book 61

 Adrienne Celt's End of the World House

This book was very INTERESTING but I didn’t LOVE it. It’s set in the near future (I guess?) where the world is ravaged by storms and floods and bombings, but things have calmed down enough for our two best friend characters to take a trip to Paris, where they’re invited to visit the Louvre on a day when it’s closed. Except then they get stuck in a time loop and things really go off the rails. This official description says this is “ a thought-provoking comedic novel about two young women trying to save their friendship as the world collapses around them” and that’s the novel I wanted to read, but it ends up not really being about their friendship, or at least I had mixed feelings on how it’s all resolved. I did think the main character on her journey was compelling, but the end stressed me out a little. A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on April 19th.

2022 book 60

 Patricia McKillip's Od Magic

McKillip is sometimes hit or miss for me, but this one was a major hit. Some things here I love: magic schools, politics, plants, mysteries, cute older couples, secret women's magic, a little bit of romance, optimism and love. Things start off when a young man gifted with powerful magic, who lives in an isolated village chilling with plants, is recruited by a mysterious woman to be the new gardener at her magic school. And that sets all sorts of stuff into motion. And if you think you’ve maybe guessed the plot from that little description, let me assure you that that guy isn’t the main character and the protagonists (a burned out magic teacher, a princess, and a magician's daughter) are even more interesting. I really liked this, just wished there was a little bit more to the ending. A/A-.

2022 book 59

 Molly Gloss' The Hearts of Horses

Getting around to trying more stuff by Molly Gloss, and this was interestingly a very different kind of story than Outside the Gates, in that it's not fantastic at all--it's set in Oregon in the early days of WWI, and features a young woman who makes a living working with horses. (I've never been a horse girl but I do enjoy fiction with horses.) But it is similar in that it is all about the connections between people and how to build/be part of a community. There is an adorably awkward romance to root for, and a whole cast of interesting characters with lives full of love and loss and horses. Very thoughtful sort of book and I was also super emotionally invested. I don’t know if I can get my book club to read another historical novel about farmers/ranchers, but I just might try. A.

2022 book 58

 Nicola Griffith's Spear

I’m not particularly interested in Arthurian lore (and yet I keep reading it because there is so much of it??), but I AM here for lesbians with swords, so hooray for this new novel by Griffith, which reimagines the knight Percival as a girl with mysterious parentage and even more mysterious abilities who knows she is fated to be one of Arthur's companions. So she dresses like a boy and goes off to meet her fate, dressed as a boy, keeping farmwives company along the way. Really solid story, doesn’t spend too much time going over well-trodden ground, and great characters in Peredur (Welsh for Percival, and don’t give me credit for knowing it was him, it was an author's note) and Nimue. My only complaint is that I did wish for more, this isn’t a long book, but I did really like how it wrapped up. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in April.

2022 book 57

 Liz Ziemska's Mandelbrot the Magnificent

Interesting novella based on the real life of the titular mathematician (who named fractals), centering on his teen years as a Jew in France during WWII. There is a little hint of the fantastic/magical realism/mysticism but this is mainly rooted in history….and a lot of math. I was definitely caught up in the story but it didn’t one hundred percent work for me. I think this is one of the novellas where I wanted just a little bit more, or maybe that it’s that I found it mildly unsettling? A-/B+.

2022 book 56

 Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road

Earlier tonight I was trying to read, but I was too sleepy to care about that book and wanted to read something familiar and satisfying. And as many times as I’ve read this book, and as sleepy as I was, I couldn’t put it down and read it all in one sitting! Totally heartbreaking book with a totally captivating narrative voice, telling the story of two generations of friendship and love and broken people trying to build and rebuild lives and families and homes. And somehow hopeful too? (I will note parts of this are unsettling and there are some uncool words thrown around by teen characters.) 

2022 book 55

 Emma Straub's This Time Tomorrow

It’s funny how much narrative voice matters. The last book I read, I was like, stop JABBERING and get this plot going! And for this one, I was immediately invested on page one and could have listened to the narrator talk about her life and her dying father and her friends and her teen years and her fortieth birthday and her slightly dead end job at a fancy school FOREVER before any time travel stuff happened. And I love time travel stuff! But anyway, time travel stuff does happen, as protagonist Alice falls asleep on her 40th birthday, only to wake up in her teen body on her sixteenth birthday—with her teen self's young and healthy father. I’m not gonna say any more about the plot than that, I’ll just say that her dad is the author of a famous sci fi book about time traveling brothers which became a long-running tv show, so there are lots of good pop culture references and nerd references, and the heart of this book is a father-daughter relationship, which is nice to see. And as always with Straub, it’s a satisfying story full of characters you love and want to be friends with. Hope and heartbreak, all together. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on May 17th.

2022 book 54

 Grace D. Li's Portrait of a Thief

I’m pretty much here for a novel about five Chinese-American students (well, four students and one student-aged Google employee) plotting a heist to steal back looted Chinese art. I did wish the writing was slightly subtler, though I of course enjoyed the several descriptions of Durham and its skies (two of the characters are Duke students and the author is an alum, something I correctly guessed after reading a rhapsodic description of the lights at Brightleaf). But there's just too much of that sort of description—it bogs the story down. Like, start HEISTING, already. Plus, we spend so much time (too much time) in the (melodramatic) interior lives of these characters, and yet I didn’t a hundred percent buy that any of them would be willing to commit a felony, no matter what money or morals were involved.  I will say that Netflix has already optioned this and it will make for a very fun miniseries, it has a very cinematic feel. I just wished it was tighter. B.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on April 5th.

2022 book 53

 Alexandra Rowland’s Over all the Earth

This novella does feature a character from Rowland's earlier novels, but you don’t need to know (or remember) anything about him to get what’s going on here. It’s about a young man in a tiny village on a cliff who longs to see the wider world but is too scared of heights to cross the bridge across the ravine. But when a traveling storyteller comes to town, he starts to find the impetus to make a change. There is a really interesting god/spirit thing here, and my only complaint is that the story stops right when I wanted more. Hoping these characters will pop back up in other Rowland works. A-/B+.

2022 book 52

 Victoria Goddard’s Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander

Mentioning Victoria Goddard made me remember I had a new short story of hers to read, but to my delight it was a solid 100 pager! It’s the story of Kip's great-uncle and mentor, as he travels to see Kip towards the end of events in The Hands of the Emperor. I found this /much/ more satisfying than Petty Treasons, maybe because the story itself is mostly new (uncle befriends a little girl on the train etc!), or because seeing these particular events from a different POV is just as interesting/moving as the events themselves. (I also appreciated uncle's unabashed gayness.) A.

2022 book 51

 Alexandra Rowland's Some by Virtue Fall

I liked Rowland's first two novels pretty well, but I really got interested in their work after they wrote this amazing essay about Victoria Goddard. And I feel like they’re maybe taking a cue from Goddard, bc they’ve written two novellas set in their larger world (and have a full novel coming out later this year). In this first one, two theatre troupes (and their noble patrons) are bitter rivals, and our protagonists may come to ruin bc their new play was STOLEN by the other one! Is the cute actress from the other troupe a SPY? Everyone here is super queer and also a super dramatic theater kid and all the characters are delightful. I didn’t entirely buy that anyone would go as far as the rival troupe did, but I did like how it wrapped up. Very entertaining. A-.

2022 book 50

 Jennifer Egan's The Candy House

So this is being billed as a "sister novel" to Goon Squad, even though it has a lot of the same characters (and the new characters were all MENTIONED in Goon Squad, since most of them are the kids of all those main characters). The central throughline here is one of Sasha's college friends (the black guy who hid from his white girlfriend's parents) becoming a social media mogul, and inventing a way to upload and share your actual memories--and search other people's. But the heart of this is still the way people love their lives and the connections they have to one another. Parts of this made me cackle (the email chapter especially) and parts made me cry (for a variety of reasons) and I loved all of it. (I’ll note that one chapter is from the POV of an autistic person, and I have no idea how accurate or well-done it was.) Anyway, if you liked its predecessor, this one is a winner for sure. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on April 5th.

2022 book 49

 Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad

I hadn’t read this since it first came out, and all I remembered was that a) I loved it and b) one chapter is narrated by a young girl entirely in PowerPoint. And both those things are still true! I mean, dang if I didn’t just read this all in one sitting! Anyway, we decided to read this for book club this month, since a sequel/companion is coming out in April, and it was really nice to revisit. If you somehow haven’t read this book (it won the Pulitzer), it’s a novel told in stories about an interconnected group of people in New York, primarily people in the music/cultural scene, flashing back to the characters' misspent youths (the 70s punk scene! Seedy Italian hostels!) and flashing forward to the near future . . . but this book was written in 2010 so the near future was actually . . . last year . . . insert sweat drop grimace emoji here. I will say I am glad we as a society have not started using the abbreviated text-speak Egan predicted. But the PowerPoint chapter was still very effective. A.

2022 book 48

 Ciel Pierlot's Bluebird

So this is a sci fi book about a woman who has a very Sabine Wren backstory--she's super smart and was trained as a weapons inventor by one of the big galactic powers (there are three in this world), but after creating a weapon that could be used on her own (minority) people, she takes her plans and flees, eventually becoming a REBEL! Or, well, part of a group of thieves and smugglers who also rescue refugees. Along the way she also gets a librarian girlfriend, and in this universe librarians are important, so I'm here for it. But now the powerful people have tracked her down and they want her weapon plans, AND they're holding her sister hostage! Good thing she just befriended a mysterious assassin with plans of her own. I will say the plot kind of falters in the second half, there are some frustratingly stupid character moments, and though I loved the assassin's story, the rest wasn’t super satisfying. Cool worldbuilding though. B.

2022 book 47

 Emily St John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility

So I will start by saying that I did like this a lot, but all the pre-pub hype saying it was like magical and hopeful gave me certain expectations, and I really /needed/ something magical and hopeful to read, but it didn’t really sweep me up the way I wanted. It’s the story of a weird anomaly and the three people who encounter in across centuries (one is Vincent from Mandel's The Glass Hotel) and the odd man they all encounter, who turns out to be a time traveler from a far future lunar colony, investigating the weird anomaly! And the book is really about him! But like I just needed more to be really invested; this novel is pretty short and I think could have used a few more moments with the characters. I did enjoy the meta aspects—one of the characters is a novelist in the 2200s who writes a pandemic novel just before a pandemic and has to suffer through a lot of interviews about it. Lol, I see you, Emily St John Mandel. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on April 5th.

2022 book 46

 Sarah Lotz's The Impossible Us

I am often very lukewarm on contemporary romances, but this one had a hook I couldn’t resist—it’s about a (straight) couple who meets when he sends an email to the wrong address, but eventually they realize they are in ALTERNATE WORLDS!! I love alternate worlds! Unfortunately, I didn’t love this book. I almost gave up on it early on bc I found the dude very tiresome, but they hadn’t figured out the parallel universe thing yet and I wanted to see that play out. And I was interested enough to keep reading, as he gets involved with an alternate-world-group and has some personal growth, though his love interest gets way less likable as things play out. But the end was just a whole lot of dread for how it would wrap up, and I wasn’t into it AT ALL. It's kind of a messed up ending! It just left a really unpleasant taste in my mouth. B-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on March 22nd.

2022 book 45

 Anne Tyler's French Braid

This started off a little rocky for me, since the first character we meet is a twenty-something grad student in 2010 whose narrative voice I would charitably describe as old-fashioned, which was not the vibe in 2010 (as someone who was a grad student in the early to mid-2000s I feel qualified to speak to this). Luckily we then flash back to the late 1950s, to her mother's teen years, and Tyler hits her groove with the story of a complicated family and how they grew apart. Some of the characters worked better than others, and one in particular absolutely infuriated me (Desmond! You poor baby!). This wasn’t breaking new ground or anything, but it was interesting and enjoyable. B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on March 22nd.

2022 book 44

 Katharine Kerr’s The Silver Mage

Solid ending to this epic fantasy series. I might have wished for a little less of the everybody pairing up in a hetero relationship and having babies etc as a happy ending, but that is balanced out by main character ladies who don’t have babies I guess (this series features one gay kiss and one briefly mentioned possible lesbian relationship). I mean that is kind of a sidebar to everything else that happens in this book, ha! Lots of war and action and DRAGONS and an interesting focus on fatherhood and of course on correcting past mistakes. I really enjoyed being lost in this world for a little while. A-.

2022 book 43

 Katharine Kerr’s The Shadow Isle

I will hand it to this author that a throwaway scene from several books ago suddenly matters as we get some interesting new characters who are determined to find their dragon daddies (ok, that’s just one character, but I love her enough for more). A few plot points are resolved, and a lot more are thrown into the mix. I’m just super invested in all of it! Not sure how Kerr is going to wrap up five hundred years' worth of stuff in the next volume, but I have great faith that she will do so!

2021 book 42

 Katharine Kerr’s The Spirit Stone

Everything in this world is kind of becoming an enjoyable blur at this point (there is a whole flashback timeline section in this one, and damned if I can remember a single thing about it, even though I read it earlier today! There are just so many timelines now!), but I'm not saying that to complain. Rather, it’s complete escapism and I am going to be BEREFT when I am done (there are two more books left in the Deverry Cycle, and then it looks like the author published the start of a related series in 2020?).

2021 book 41

 Katharine Kerr’s The Gold Falcon

The fourth subseries in the larger Deverry Cycle starts off fifty years after the previous book, and of course some of our longer-lived characters are still going strong, while others have been reincarnated and are getting to know each other, are relearning their skills, etc (I was very invested in all of that, and in how their souls have actually learned from the past!). Of course now there's a weird cult infiltrating things, leading to yet more war, and there’s some dragon drama, so it’s not all scribing and romantic plotting. Looks like there’s gonna be a major and long war in the follow up books, but I remain much more interested in the sorcery half of swords-and-sorcery. A/A-.

2022 book 40

 Katharine Kerr’s The Fire Dragon

Well, this wraps up several storylines in a satisfying way and hints at some interesting ones coming up in the next series, but also does something toward the end that I did NOT see coming and I applaud Kerr and her ridiculous Evander wholeheartedly. Still really enjoy her characters (she has a fascinating array of women; I of course am partial to the one that keeps recurring who is interested in HISTORY and of course to all the ones learning magic) and I liked that the plots in this one centered more on politics than on sieges. A-.

2022 book 39

 Katharine Kerr’s The Black Raven

This little sub series is a trilogy instead of a set of four, so there are a lot of pieces in motion in this book, but I have faith Kerr will bring it all together in the third volume. Lots of magic and interpersonal problems, fewer battles and grisly action scenes, so I enjoyed this one a lot. We're now getting backstory on important pieces of jewelry and honestly, I’m here for it. A-.

2022 book 38

 Katharine Kerr’s The Red Wyvern

Back on my bullshit, reading old fantasy series instead of new library books. This is the start of another sub-series in the Deverry Cycle, and introduces some new characters (including, briefly, one who seems to be in our world, or at least a world with Christianity) before linking them up with some characters from the first series. It does fill in some holes in the flashback timeline and I liked those new characters a lot, but was glad we got to see more of the mysterious magical dwarf island as well. I’ll be honest that I have lost track of a lot of the details of who is reincarnated into who across the many, many timelines at this point, but I just sort of let it all wash over me and eventually it all makes sense. The villains here are all pretty two-dimensional (read: boring) but everyone else makes up for it. A-.

2022 book 37

 Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms

I’m not sure why it took me so long to get around to this- it’s one of those books I kept checking out from the library and then getting distracted by other things, even though it had good reviews and I like the author. But hey, I finally read it, and it was good! It centers on a man who gets off a train in a world where Napoleon won his wars and there’s a big French empire in Europe, and he’s like, this isn’t right, but also I have total amnesia??? And it turns out a lot of people have weird amnesiac episodes, and his only clue is a postcard of a lighthouse. Anyway, pretty soon there are some time slips, and mysterious naval officers, and it’s all very compelling, if occasionally confusing. I did wish for slightly faster pacing, or at least for the big reveals to come a bit earlier, and I also wished the sister character was slightly better developed. But this was heartbreaking and joyful and romantic and awesome. A-.

2022 book 36

 Molly Gloss' Outside the Gates

I’ve never read anything by Gloss before, but I may have to investigate her other stuff, because this was pretty intriguing. It’s about a little boy who is cast out from his town bc he has a mysterious gift (HIS GIFT IS THE ABILITY TO BEFRIEND ANIMALS!!) and has to make his way out in the woods—but he’s not the first person to be cast out. (Not to sound ominous about it! Just the woods are full of scared people with cool gifts.) This has a hopeful sort of vibe, I just wanted there to be more of it! A-.

2022 book 35

 Erin Entrada Kelly's Lalani of the Distant Sea

I read a good review of this somewhere and at first I was pretty into it—the titular Lalani is a twelve year old girl living on an isolated island, where the mountain is deadly, there’s a mysterious beast, and it’s hard to eke out a living. Lalani loves stories and history and folklore, and I was into her journey! But this book is weirdly violent (mostly toward animals but not entirely), and the other main POV character, her best friend's nervous little brother, is a lot less interesting. I did like the end of this, but it was honestly way more depressing than I expected. B+.

2022 book 34

 Katharine Kerr's Days of Air and Darkness

I wasn’t very far into this book when I started writing a review, because I was so annoyed about several things! And dang if I didn’t have to delete all of my complaints, because Kerr turned it all around by the end! (I was especially pleased about two dudes kissing after an early scene that had real “no homo” vibes.)  I mean I am still losing a little bit of steam with this series; this was all battles and gross enemies and I really wasn't interested in some of the POV characters. Awesome dragon, though. B+.

2022 book 33

 Katharine Kerr’s Days of Blood and Fire

It’s starting to feel like a Stefon SNL skit up in here, because this book has EVERYTHING! There's elves and dwarves and humans and some other species of being! There’s spirit ghosts! There's little mostly invisible sprites and gnomes! There’s swords and sorcery and magic and mayhem! There's a siege and there’s a magical secret dwarf city! Now there’s even dragons in the mix! It rules. Small note that a young woman who seems to have an intellectual disability (but also has magic powers) is referred to several times as a “mooncalf” which feels like an uncool thing to say. A-/B+.

2022 book 32

Katharine Kerr’s A Time of Omens

I’ve reached the point in this series where what which character was doing in which book in which of their reincarnations has started to blur together, and only the most recent set piece is clear in my mind, so no plot summaries here. There’s definitely lots of action and riding around on horses and some cool new characters (I really love the characters in these books) and some cameos from some old characters, plus some dogs. I do hope we get flashbacks to Jill's research trip at some point, because I'm me, and I like scenes of people reading books even more than scenes of people riding around on horses. Another enjoyable volume, perfect escapism. A-.

2022 book 31

 Katharine Kerr’s A Time of Exile

The second set of books in the Deverry Cycle looks like it’ll be delving into Elven history and lore, and I am psyched! It starts off thirty years after the first series, though there are plenty of familiar faces (Jill and Rhodry are both still central characters). Most of the story in this one, though, is the backstory of the OTHER immortal old magician, which I was hoping would be revealed eventually. So I thoroughly enjoyed this volume. A/A-.

2022 book 30

 Katharine Kerr's The Dragon Revenant

This was a really satisfying conclusion to the first chunk of books in the Deverry series (there are four different series set in this world, plus one just starting up). Great characters, interesting action, no flashbacks to past lives (I have enjoyed those in earlier books but it was becoming a lot to keep track of) so things flowed a little better. And I really liked the way Jill's story wrapped up. I didn’t know if I’d keep going but I definitely plan to start the next book. A-.

2022 book 29

 Katharine Kerr's The Bristling Wood

I was super into the third Deverry book for the first chunk--the more modern storyline is interesting, and the flashback storyline finds Nevyn doing some interesting political stuff to bring peace to their war-torn country--but then comes a lengthy interlude where we meet a guy who can charm horses, and you're like, this is so cute, and then it turns out he can ALSO charm WOMEN, and brainwashes the main girl into running away with him and basically he makes her a sex slave. Now, to be fair to the book, this is treated as VERY WRONG AND BAD, it is definitely called rape, but it is still really stressful to read! And the rest of the book is no less stressful after that. I also had a little bit of a hard time remembering who all of the tertiary characters were but that wasn’t a huge deal. I dunno, B?

2022 book 28

 Katharine Kerr's Darkspell

So I am still interested in these characters/their world/their magic, but this second volume was more unpleasant than the first. We finally meet some of the evil sorcerer types hinted at in the first book, and they’re pretty vile (they can get power through lust and so there is a fair amount of rape, but only of dudes bc they don’t teach women their evil ways). The past life flashback section here was interesting, though also not particularly pleasant, as the main young woman pledges her life to a dark warrior goddess. Lots of riding around on horses and fighting battles, some more important than others. I breathed a sigh of relief every time a character got to take a bath! But we'll plow ahead. B.

2022 book 27

 Katharine Kerr's Daggerspell

Hooray, I found another giant fantasy series authored by a woman to get completely lost in! So this is an entertaining first volume, classic swords and sorcery stuff. It’s set in a Celtic-inspired world where souls reincarnate, and centers on a man who caused a tragedy four hundred years ago, and the gods are keeping him alive until he makes things right for the souls involved. The other POV character is a young girl who is the reincarnation of his lost love interest, but that never gets gross (he has to teach her magic for his mission to end and he often gives her “grandfatherly pats” on the head). I should note that the stuff that goes wrong in the past /does/ get gross (this was originally written in the 80s but incest was bad then too), so warning for that. Anyway, I don’t care about any of the romances, but the magic is cool, so let’s see how volume two goes. B+.

2022 book 26

 Rebecca Kauffman's Chorus

Kauffman is great and these big ensemble books, so no surprise that her latest, about a large Virginia farming family in the first half of the twentieth century, shines. The story bounces back and forth in time and each of the seven children and their father have assorted POV sections (I did get confused about the chronology a few times but it wasn’t really relevant to the meat of the story), kind of moving toward and away from the suicide of their mother. I got Jane Smiley vibes from this (particularly her Hundred Years trilogy). Really strong writing here, though I did wish for more character development from a few of the siblings. Still, excellent stuff. A/A-.

2022 book 25

 Rebecca Podos' From Dust, a Flame

Ok, now HERE is a book for which I am the target audience, as it is super queer AND steeped in Jewish folklore. Our protagonist is teenage Hannah, who's spent her childhood with her mother and older brother moving every few months. When she wakes up one morning with very weird eyes, and wakes up every morning after that with a new non-human feature, her mother vows to find help. But she doesn’t come back. Now it’s up to her and her brother to solve the mystery, find out their family history, and save the day—with the help of a pink haired girl who knows a lot about Jewish history (heart eye emoji). Great characters, great story, I really loved seeing my culture in this way. Parts of it toward the beginning were a little too Judaism 101 explainer for my taste, but not every reader is a giant Jewish nerd like I am, sooooo, shrug. I really enjoyed this. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in March. 

I hope the ARC isn’t the final version, because there was a right to left issue with a crucial Hebrew word and the letters are reversed in the copy I have. 

2022 book 24

 Talia Hibbert's Get a Life, Chloe Brown

We wanted to read something on the lighter side for book club this month, and this series gets good reviews, so here we are. I can only read romance novels sporadically, especially hetero ones, because sometimes I find them too formulaic, all the same plot beats, lots of insert tab A into slot B (this book is very horny). Anyway, our heroine is a chronically ill black woman from a wealthy family (I did like her relationships with her relatives), our hero is her white building superintendent, an artist, who she enlists to help her with the bucket list she makes after a near death experience. There was a cat, so that adds some bonus points, but I would maybe rather have read a novel about her glamorous grandmother and her yoga instructor girlfriend? This was cute and I was rooting for the couple but also I didn’t totally buy it. A-/B+.

2022 book 23

 Justina Ireland's Ophie's Ghosts

Not sure how I missed that Justina Ireland wrote a book set in 1920s Pittsburgh, but you bet I grabbed it from the library as soon as I found out! Things actually start down in Georgia, where the titular Ophelia is awakened by her father and warned to grab her mother and run--only it turns out that it's actually her father's ghost, and the lynch mob that killed him is on their way to burn down the house. (The death and fire both happen off-page.) So now she and her mother are off to relatives in Pittsburgh, working for a rich old white lady, still dealing with racism, but now also dealing with all the ghosts Ophie can see. And eventually, solving a murder. The pacing was a little slow in the middle, but things pick up in a big way toward the end, and I loved the little tribute to the Hill District. Satisfying and lovely wrap-up. A-.

2022 book 22

 Rosemary Kirstein’s The Language of Power

The fourth book in this series is top notch, as our steerswoman reunites with old friends, makes new ones, has some adventures, encounters dragons, does research, etc. Again, great characters and really good pacing in this one. This ends in a way that is honestly pretty satisfying, though the author has been working on two more books for the last several years, and I do hope they’re released someday.

2022 book 21

 Rosemary Kirstein’s The Lost Steersman

I like the first half of this more than the second; the first finds out steerswoman in a small town, dealing with a poorly maintained archive and getting to know the locals. Lots of great new characters. But when demons start invading, she comes to some unpleasant truths. The second half is slower and sort of grim and sad. I mean it is still interesting, just not in a fun way?

2022 book 20

 Rosemary Kirstein's The Outskirter's Secret

The second Steerswoman book finds our Steerswoman and her lady warrior friend on a journey to uncover the source of the mysterious jewels, making friends with the local nomadic tribes and maybe uncovering a few more answers along the way. Normally I’m not super into fantasy novels where people are just walking around all the time, but Kirstein makes it pretty compelling. Really great characters and a fascinating story, for sure.

2022 book 19

 Rosemary Kirstein's The Steerswoman

What do you do when you have eight books checked out of the library? Start rereading an epic fantasy series instead, of course! I kept thinking TikTok broke my brain and I didn’t have the attention span for novels anymore, but I just reread this all in one sitting so clearly I can still hang with a good story. Anyway, it is the story of the titular steerswoman, part of a group of mostly women who are basically mobile librarians/encyclopedias, wandering around spreading information and learning new things. But when our heroine starts trying to learn about a weird piece of jewelry, she catches the attention of the wizards, who hoard their magical secrets and want to stop her investigation! This was just as good the second time, lots of adventure and friendship and it somehow even makes me interested in MATH.

2022 book 18

 Rachel Hartman's In the Serpent's Wake

Normally when a new book in a series by an author I love comes out, I'd reread its predecessor, but in this case, Tess of the Road deals pretty heavily with learning to process your trauma, and I just wasn't up for it. Luckily there is a lengthy sea shanty at the beginning of this one that serves as a recap! (I don't usually read lengthy poems in books, my eyes glaze over, but it was useful here.) Anyway, this story finds Tess on a scientific expedition to find a giant dragon (and hopefully help her non-giant dragon friend), with a side mission of spying on some colonization/war efforts on the way. As usual, Hartman does the unexpected, which means is the first book I was actually interested in the whole way through in quite a while. Now, I did occasionally wish things were slightly subtler, and a lot of this boils down to privileged people learning to sit down and shut up, but at least that’s a good message. Content warning for a lot of mentions of rapists. A-.

2022 book 17

 Alaya Dawn Johnson's Trouble the Saints

So the world building here is really interesting—certain people (all minorities) born with magical hands that give them various powers, and the story starts off strong with a white-passing Black woman gifted at throwing knives, working as an assassin for a (white) mobster on the eve of WWII. But things get more muddled as the POV shifts to her boyfriend (his hands can detect threats), and then to a friend of theirs who is a dancer and oracle. Parts of this are very powerful and moving (the ending, oof), especially the examination and condemnation of racism, but the middle parts are just kind of all over the place. B+.

2022 book 16

 T. Kingfisher’s Swordheart

Sometimes you just want to reread something fun and chill, and this has way less death and dismemberment than the author's other fantasy romances. ;)

2022 book 15

 Seanan McGuire's Middlegame

I’d actually never read this before, because McGuire can be hit or miss for me, and I knew this was connected to her Wayward Children books, which I’m not particularly into. But this works fine as a standalone, about a group of creepy alchemists who are experimenting on children, leading to a pair of gifted twins who are separated but keep finding each other again (which gets a little repetitive at a certain point). I liked all the business with the resets a lot, and was invested in the characters, but did think things got a bit muddled toward the end. Apparently a sequel is forthcoming, which I will maybe read? B+.

221 book 14

 Donna Barba Higuera's The Last Cuentista

I consider it a sort of moral victory that I checked this out of the library five days before it won the Newbery. ;) I don’t even remember what review or mention prompted that, but talk about serendipity! And I think this might be my favorite Newbery winner since When You Reach Me (which is one of my top five favorite books of ALL TIME, so high praise here). Anyway, it’s set in the 2060s, and focuses on a twelve year old girl whose family has been selected to go on a generation ship to a new planet, because Earth is about to be destroyed by a comet. And she’s expected to be a scientist like her parents, but she wants to be a storyteller like her grandmother! Of course, that turns out not to be the biggest issue, as all their plans quickly fall apart. So this is at once a kind of sci-fi thriller AND a story about the power of stories and culture and family. A hard combo to pull off and the author does it with aplomb. Super good. A.

2021 book 13

 Claire Kann's The Marvelous

Rereading this for book club and I don’t mind a bit! I loved it just as much the second time and in fact just reread the whole thing in one sitting. How can you not love a book whose main characters are three girls of color (two queer!) who are part of a group trying to solve a game of puzzles for a million dollar prize! I don’t know if book club will be as into it (one book clubber thought it was “horror” and though there is one scene I personally found horrifying, it’s really a fun YA mystery/thriller). I just find all three narrators super compelling, even if the puzzle aspect is not up to like Westing Game levels (but what could be?). 

2021 book 12

 Linda Nagata’s Days of Storm

I’ll be honest, I didn’t find this to be a very satisfying conclusion. It hit all the expected story beats, matched all the expected characters up romantically, but it totally felt that way while reading, like it was going through the motions. Not much else to say. B.

2022 book 11

 Linda Nagata's The Long War

Solid second book in a trilogy (though it ends kind of abruptly, but second books often do). Our main characters are split up in this one, so we get to meet a bunch of new characters, learn a bit more about the society/history, see some cool new spirits, etc. I am invested in the story but also kind of wish there was a little more to it? Still, I’m excited to see how things wrap up. A-.

2022 book 10

 Linda Nagata's The Snow Chanter

This is an interesting start to a trilogy, set in a world full of gods/spirits, some of whom are friendly toward the local humans, and some who are not, including one who has created monsters to destroy them. So our main characters are a teen boy, raised as a warrior, on a quest with his older brother and cousin, and a young woman who's on a quest of her own. Lots of magic and action and intriguing characters that I was pretty invested in. Definitely reading the next one. A-.

2022 book 9

 Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven

I haven’t actually read this since it first came out, but since I recently watched and loved the miniseries, I decided to revisit the source material. Of course then I was just mentally comparing all the changes. (I think most of the changes the tv show made were great and added a lot of emotion and human connection, but the book isn’t the lesser for not having them.) Anyway, totally holds up, still a powerful piece of literature, can’t wait to read her upcoming new one.

2022 book 8

 T. Kingfisher's Nettle and Bone

This isn’t actually out for a couple of months, but if you think I was going to wait to read the new and much-hyped Ursula Vernon book, you got another think (thing? Which is it?) coming. And this was sooooo good and so satisfying. She's playing with fairy tale tropes, but in her trademark dark and creepy and cool way. We start with a youngest of three, who's grateful to have been send off to live in a convent, except then she discovers her elder sister's prince husband is actually an abusive murderer, and is determined to rescue her. Soon impossible tasks, bone dogs, and fairy godmothers are all in the mix, and it's GREAT. I just really loved these characters, and this isn’t a romance (though there is a teeny bit of romance), so it breaks the mold of the author's recent books (don’t get me wrong, I love those books, but it’s nice to read something more surprising). I just found this really satisfying, which is the best thing a book can be. A. 

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in April.

2022 book 7

 Lina Rather's Sisters of the Forsaken Stars

I should have reread the first book in this series before starting this one, because all I remembered was that it was about nuns in space and that I liked it a lot. And I think this one does an okay, but not great job of reminding the reader of the plot and re-introducing the characters. The other issue here is that this doesn’t have much plot of its own to speak of—the nuns' actions of the first book seem to have started fomenting a rebellion, they have two new people aboard, and one former nun is on a different spaceship starting a new life. But it’s a novella, none of these stories have any space to develop, the new characters are given short shrift (which is a major detriment to the plot), it’s all just kind of frustrating. I would have read a whole book about the wild liveship colony and there are like three pages. I just didn’t care about anything that was happening because I wasn’t invested in any of it. I don’t know how differently I’d feel if I had reread the first one, but I think the plot issues/lack of character and plot development are still a major problem. B.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 15th.

2022 book 6

 Joanne Harris' Gentlemen and Players

So it turns out Harris (author of Chocolat and several books about Loki) also has a mystery series set at a boys' school in England, which is pretty up my alley! The story is narrated from two POVs—one, an aging and mildly crotchety Latin teacher: the other, someone who’s gotten hired as a new teacher under a false name in order to bring the school down for Reasons (I correctly guessed who this was early on so was a bit frustrated the reveal came so late). There isn’t any murder or anything until close to the end, but information as to what the heck is going on is doled out at an ok pace, and the Latin teacher provides important context. It felt like it took a really long time to read though? Like this could have been edited down a bit to be more fast-paced. I might read the next one and see how it goes. B+.

2022 book 5

 Xochitl Gonzalez's Olga Dies Dreaming

This is one of those books that I was into while I was reading, but was never eager to pick back up again. It has really engaging characters—the titular Olga, a Puerto Rican-American woman who works as a wedding planner for wealthy New Yorkers; and her older brother, a hot young congressman (who the wealthy white New Yorkers call “the Latino Obama”). Their stories—dealing with job stress, family stuff, secrets, guilt, romance, etc—are interspersed with letters from the mother who left them when they were teens because she wanted to pursue her revolutionary ideals. I did enjoy this for the most part, though wished parts of it were a little more subtle (on the other hand, some parts were fairly hilarious), but had really mixed feelings about the ending. I might make my book club read this, I feel like this will be a hot book club book this year. A-/B+.

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Content warning for rape.

2022 book 4

 Ursula K. LeGuin's The Other Wind

Now /that/ is how you wrap up a series. As soon as I picked up what LeGuin was throwing down, I was like OH OF COURSE YES, she took all these strands from books written like thirty years apart and wove a beautiful effing tapestry of a story. There are dragons, and a kitten. There is love and sacrifice and friendship and magic. Tenar is freaking hilarious and I love her. I was rooting for every character and for their whole world. So satisfying and so well-done. Excellent in every way. A.

2022 book 3

 Ursula K. LeGuin's Tales of Earthsea

The fifth Earthsea book is actually five different stories, filling in some of the backstory and history of the characters and the world. I was most interested in the ones about the history of the wizards' school, and how it seems to have lost its original purpose, which ties into the last story (which I assume will have some relevance for the final novel), about a young woman trying to figure out her way. There was only story one I wasn’t super into, and even that one related to how the world is misunderstanding its magic/how wizards ought to be. I’m very curious about how this will all wrap up. A-/B+.

2022 book 2

 Ursula K. LeGuin's Tehanu

Just imagine a bunch of excited sputtering here, because I LOVED this book. It returns to Tenar, now a farmer's widow with grown children (the book acts like she is middle-aged bordering on elderly, but she’s forty, lol), who’s adopted a badly abused and burned child, when Ged comes back into her life. The story itself is entertaining, it moves quickly, lots of fascinating characters, but what’s REALLY interesting here is the focus on women's feelings, their place in society, their anger. I LOOOOOOOOVE annoyed adult Tenar. I love a fantasy novel so focused on the domestic sphere (and I love how neatly Ged fits into the domestic sphere!). This was GREAT. A.

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Content warning for mentions of rape/abuse. 

2022 book 1

 Ursula K. LeGuin's The Farthest Shore

The third Earthsea book is a bit darker than the first two, as Ged, now the highest mage in the land, takes a young prince on a journey to find out why the world's magic is going missing and why people seem to be sinking into depression and insanity. And maybe the journey has another purpose too. I’m not super partial to books where people are journeying around all the time, but this has some cool dragons, and I like older Ged a lot (the prince is fine, the usual YA character learning and growing etc). Solid all around. A-/B+.