This book had no right to be this good! I really didn’t know for sure what I was getting into with this book: I just knew it was about a prep school, This book had no right to be this good! I really didn’t know for sure what I was getting into with this book: I just knew it was about a prep school, involved queer themes, and involved something that sounded like dark academia. (Shush, I happen to love dark academia).
I started reading this stunning and tragic coming-of-age drama and got immediately sucked into it. The story of soft, impressionable Laura and her obsession with a long-dead author and his book both made me sad and fearful from the start. Moving high schools just so you can go to the alma mater of your literary hero? Moving away from your family just so you can live, breathe, eat, sleep, and learn in the same hallowed halls? That’s not a healthy thing for a teenager to do, but somehow Laura managed to convince her parents to let her attend. So she sets out to walk in his footsteps, looking for somewhere to belong, looking for something beautiful and transcendent, and she ends up becoming enmeshed with the school’s choir both due to her attraction to Virginia, their intense and charismatic leader, and because all of the choir’s members are just as obsessed with the same author as she is.
This book isn’t subtle about what it’s trying to be. It’d be kind of hard to pretend like you’re not somewhat reminiscent of “The Secret History” when you’re a mysterious, dark, and philosophical novel with queer themes set in a isolated prep school on the East Coast. But Burton was definitely more overt with the queer themes and upped the ante with a hefty dose of young white men who feel entitled to the women around them.
There is a lot of interesting discourse about the Madonna/Wh (putting the rest of the words there will get me in trouble) Complex, with two women in the story going through that dichotomy. Neither one of them can fully escape being both worshiped by men only to turn around and have those same men blaspheme them. There’s also a healthy dose of both questioning one’s sexuality and some internalized homophobia. All of it makes for an aching angst-fest that could remind some people of what it was like when they didn’t know who they fully were or what they fully wanted out of life.
In the end, all I can really say solidly is that I really enjoyed it. Like, would buy it and read it again.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
Oh how I love books that heavily embed linguistics not only the culture of the people in the book but also so deeply into the very plot of the book! IOh how I love books that heavily embed linguistics not only the culture of the people in the book but also so deeply into the very plot of the book! I may not be a linguist (that title falls to my baby sister), but both she and I grew up with a love of languages and how language evolves over time. This book made me so very happy in my linguistics pants just because it was so clever and almost effortless in how it took the English language and showed how much it could have shifted and then been embedded into the social fabric in the future. I won’t give any examples, because I really don’t want to ruin the fun. Some of the changes are just so downright spot-on they become hilarious. I found myself saying, “Of course that’s what we’d end up calling that in the future!” This book also relies heavily on how technology has changed language on a global scale, with American English, fragmented sentences, and emojis being the most common languages spoken when the digital world is involved.
I am simply mad about this book. It’s one of the best sci-fi novels I’ve read this year, and it’s not even pure sci-fi. It’s also an amateur sleuth mystery, a little bit of a thriller, and a crafty bit of speculative fiction. There are many great points to be made about first contact with an alien civilization: what kind of considerations and how many considerations would we be willing to give to an alien civilization to gain access to their technology, should they come in peace? Would they have an advantage over us once some of us could learn their language and act as translators (in case they didn’t speak out loud, which is the case in this book) because it would give them a buffering time between speaking and then having to hear someone’s reply in which to craft more questions, thoughts, decisions, and answers? Would they have an advantage in composing oneself between one statement and another just by virtue of the translation lag time?
The overall murder mystery plot is an engaging and a twisty road. It’s unpredictable and it seems that just when the mystery might be solved, it’s another red herring or the logic falls apart and we’re a few steps back again. A few steps forward, a stumble back. That’s how this book goes and that’s how I like it. And just when you think all the players have been identified, there’s sure to be another piece put into play or one of the pieces is found to have not been part of it at all. In the end, I was about 85% surprised by who it was. And then I felt like, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Trust me, pick up this book. Then actually read it. If you’re a fan of speculative fiction I can almost guarantee you’ll enjoy it.
Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan-Tor/Forge, and Tordotcom for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
This book is so much more than what it says on the box (or, in the blurb, if you will). This is no run-of-the-mill historical fiction or women’s detecThis book is so much more than what it says on the box (or, in the blurb, if you will). This is no run-of-the-mill historical fiction or women’s detective mystery. This book is part lyrical prose, part ghost story, part historical fiction, part detective story, part suspense, part thriller, and a whole lot of brilliant commentary on how missing girls are treated in America.
Our narrator is a sad sack. I’m sorry, but she really is. But that’s why I like her. She is, in a way, a miserable human being. Is it her fault she’s miserable? Both yes and no. Her misery, circumstances, and the story of how she ended up where she is in the beginning of this book show her both her culpability as an unreliable narrator and give us good reason not to like her. She’s a hustler, first and foremost. Coming in second is her curse of clairvoyance, which calls into question every memory or vision she sees.
Let’s take a step away from this narrator, who was once a missing girl herself but seems to have lived several different lives since then. Are they all her? Is she all them? In the end, shouldn’t every missing girl be equal to every other missing girl? That’s the question this book is asking. Is every missing girl the same as every other missing girl, or do some missing girls count for more? And there’s a question asked more than once in the novel hitting at the heart of this question: When does a girl stop being a girl? When do people just give up on missing girls, and when does a missing girl stop being just a missing girl and becomes more of a distant memory?
This book starts off strong and doesn’t let up. The stories within, both from the POV of our narrator and from the web of related and connected, are filled with suspense, ghosts both literal and figurative, a thin veil of terror, and heaps of longing and regret. For these characters there is really no future, but there is so much in each of their pasts that lead them to their end.
It’s a tragic and haunting story filled with almost a southern gothic feel at times, while still feeling like a beautiful piece of literary fiction.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
Before we begin, I need to know that you know who John Waters is. Do these movie titles ring a bell? Hairspray? Pink Flamingos? Pecker? Cry-Baby? SeriBefore we begin, I need to know that you know who John Waters is. Do these movie titles ring a bell? Hairspray? Pink Flamingos? Pecker? Cry-Baby? Serial Mom? This is an entertainer who wears many hats who once had his lead actress eat dog poo on film and it made both of them famous beyond compare (that movie, “Pink Flamingos”, is one of the films in the historic registry with the Library of Congress). This is a 100% gay man who loves to make fun of the gay community because he believes they have more rules than his own mother does. Most of all (and possibly closest in relation to this book), Waters says of almost everything he creates, “I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value.”
“Liarmouth” really and truly has absolutely no socially redeeming value to it whatsoever. And you know what? Just as with everything else John Waters has created: who the heck cares? It’s campy, ironic, sarcastic, derisive, spit-take worthy funny, causes snickers and constant mumbles of “I just can’t with this right now”, and caused me to deliberately stop reading so I could go and tell someone what was going on in this book I was reading right now.
This book is like John Waters built a huge campy theme park where you enter at one point, and there’s pre-planned routes where you go through one ride or one scene before it spits you out and you barely have time to recover before it’s your turn for the next one and here you go again! Are you ready for what comes next? Who knows! Who cares! You’re going whether you want to or not! Are you going to feel like someone spiked your drink? Maybe? Are you going to feel like you fell down some kind of weird rabbit hole? Quite possibly! But you’re sure as heck not going to stop reading because you’re caught in this snare: there’s no way you’re not going to keep reading, because you need to find out what in the ever-living heck happens to all these absolutely horrid people at the end of this book. You’re in until the end.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
This is a brilliant, clever book. I was automatically sucked in when I first read the blurb and couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. And once I had itThis is a brilliant, clever book. I was automatically sucked in when I first read the blurb and couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. And once I had it in my hands and I dove into the story, the book absolutely didn’t let me down.
Josh Weiss is a smart, bright author whom I hope will write many more books with as much sociopolitical savvy, sense of irony, and as deft at blending reality with terrifying alternative notions of “what could have been” in the future. Heck, I’d settle simply for Weiss’ ability to write sentences that in any other situation might read as mundane, but in the context of this novel they sound downright chilling.
I see a lot of reviews for this book rated lower than mine is, and I wonder if that might not be the age and/or gender demographic that’s been reading and reviewing it, because I simply don’t see the things other readers seem to be seeing.
There are just so many clever little easter eggs (our protagonist’s kind-of girlfriend’s name is Elizabeth Short, which (in this reality) is the real name of the murder victim most famously known as The Black Dahlia) and head trips that show just how much would have changed and how many people who gained infamy in this reality would be shoved down into ignomy if Joseph McCarthy had won if he had run for President (oh, and had Nixon for a VP, if you can shudder at that thought). Edward R. Murrow defamed and meets an untimely end before the book even begins. Walter Cronkite never being the legend of a news anchor that he became. John Huston being blackballed from Hollywood and wasting away in a moderately-sized house in Los Angeles.
Weiss also does an outstanding job of making it clear how many parallels there are between the reality inside this book to the actual reality we live in every day: homophobia, police violence, racism, linguistic fascism, housing segregation, and socioeconomic disparity. Public libraries have been replaced by offices for the House Un-American Activities Committee in almost every city, complete with their own agents (called Hueys) that operate outside of the purview of the DOJ. Any television, radio, or news you might get is regulated by the government (unless you manage to come across guerilla communications).
If you want to read a book in which the bad guys won before the book even started and it’s up to the plethora of characters in a book to try and right the wrong, then try this book. If you want a chilling look at what America could’ve looked like if McCarthyism had gained more ground than it did, then read this book. Heck–read this book just because it’s good!
Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review, and to Grand Central Publishing for also supplying me with a finished copy of the book with no expectation of services rendered in exchange. ...more
First off, this book is a trip. Second, however, is the fact this book is a dream for fans of literary analysis. I know that sounds boring when I put First off, this book is a trip. Second, however, is the fact this book is a dream for fans of literary analysis. I know that sounds boring when I put it in academic terms like that, but there are so many layers to the book that if you broke it all down you could find yourself lost for a good, long time musing over what it all means and how it all connects and relates. I know I certainly had a hard time not going back and constantly re-reading passages to find all the moments, large and small, that make this book such a compelling read.
I am very glad this book clocks in at a little less than 200 pages, because the story couldn’t have supported a longer novel. To sound all Goldilocks about it: it’s just the right size. Even so, there was a good 20% of the book just shortly past halfway through the book that sagged a bit for me, as if the wind in the sails of the story had been taken out for a little while. This might have been an intentional choice by Devlin, to give the reader a chance to process everything they had read prior to this lull, but in terms of story beats, it comes a little too early to represent the low point most story arcs come with before they rally for the finish.
Then again, this both is and isn’t some typical Hero’s Journey. It is, at its heart, a type of hero’s journey, but our hero is mainly just going on his quest because he’s kind of bored, a little curious, and (like Ulysses), just ends up going back “home” and resuming the exact same life he was living at the very beginning of this book… even if he does have to reconcile some of what he saw and did on his journey in order to put his mind and life back in order.
My main notes on this book come from the evocative prose, the deep allegorical overtones regarding narratives, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, and deprogramming oneself, and the subtler psychosocial undertones of the stories we tell ourselves and others and how those stories are sometimes only meant to help us sleep at night.
Come prepared with your thinking cap on when you go to read this book. You’ll thank me for it.
Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan-Tor/Forge, and Tordotcom for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
I’m not usually one for military fiction (I love military non-fiction, though), but the blurb for this book caught me with its premise of a British woI’m not usually one for military fiction (I love military non-fiction, though), but the blurb for this book caught me with its premise of a British woman who is unwilling to sit by and accept her fiance had simply gone missing at the Battle of Somme (during WWI, for those who aren’t in the know) and decides to spirit herself away without telling her family to travel to France in order to keep the promise to return his body to England. At the same time, there is a concurrent and intertwined storyline about a British military captain who, along with Amy (our female protagonist), stumble upon the scene of what would be considered an egregious war crime on the part of the British Army while seeking a possible spot where Amy’s missing fiance might be found.
The blurb makes it sound like the main storyline and interest lies with Captain Mazkenzie and his endeavor to get to the bottom of what happened at Two Storm Wood, but in truth it’s Amy and her indefatigable, determined, and tenacious search for the truth about her missing fiance and what happened at Two Storm Wood that truly carry this amazing book. Stalwart with love and burdened by guilt, Amy marches through sodden battlefields, sees the worst horrors of war, endures horrible conditions among hostile and period-typical misogynistic males because she simply cannot accept the word “missing” when it comes to the man she loves.
The narrative in this book pulls no punches. We get to see the horrors of war and the aftermath both through the eyes of the soldiers and through what Amy sees in her travels: war hospitals filled the sick, the damaged, the dying, and the dead. We get detailed and well-researched sections of the book that put us readers directly in the trenches, dugouts, and battlefields as the Battle of Somme rages on. Most of all, we get to see the horrors and wreckage of war without varnish. This isn’t a pretty book, but it’s a dang good one.
Last of all? This book is indeed thrilling. It’s tense, driven, and does manage to keep surprising you. And what is war if not thrilling all on its own? WWI was horrifying, and this book won’t let you forget it.
Thanks to NetGalley and W. W. Norton for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
Holy cow, wow. I just knew, when I first read the description of this book, it was going to be special. It sounded like the best kind of “Doctor Who” Holy cow, wow. I just knew, when I first read the description of this book, it was going to be special. It sounded like the best kind of “Doctor Who” episode, and it absolutely was that, but it was made even better by a heartbreaking love story, a story of found family, sociopolitical and socioeconomic commentary and barbed jabs, and slick espionage.
Let me put it to you this way: this book cost me sleep, and I love my sleep. I need my sleep. But I started this book almost right after dinner this past evening and then stayed up until almost 2:30 am reading it because I couldn’t put the thing down. I even looked at my phone for the time at about 11:00 pm and contemplated going to sleep before I just gave up and knew I wasn’t going to bed until I had finished the book.
Some books are just worth losing some sleep. This is one of those books. The ones worth a quiet evening staying up and turning pages.
The plot is clever, tight, and so dang interesting. It’s hard to make time travel digestible without plot holes a’ plenty, but the plot devices woven into the narrative account for it! That’s some clever writing and I’m not even ashamed to admit it. The main character, January, is probably one of my favorite FMCs I’ve read in a novel so far this year, and her AI sidekick, Ruby, is so freaking sassy it makes me want one. The writing is sharp, witty, and bright. The narrative is crisp and clear. The prose is beautiful. I even cried toward the end and I’m not one to tear up easily.
If you like time travel, queer love stories, time heist stories, and a whole lot of crazy, I can’t recommend this book enough.
Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review! ...more
If this fantastic, imaginative, riveting, castigating, captivating, intense, passionate, diverse, and grotesque novel is only Andrew Joseph White’s deIf this fantastic, imaginative, riveting, castigating, captivating, intense, passionate, diverse, and grotesque novel is only Andrew Joseph White’s debut effort in the mad, mad, mad, mad world of literary publishing, I cannot wait to see what he has in store for us next, because this book was not only worth the wait, but it exceeded expectations.
I’m going to go ahead and admit that I would need some time to sit and marinate with this book to give you a really good rundown of all the metaphors, parallels, and themes that run rampant all over this book. The double-sided meanings behind every Bible passage quoted and the intention behind their repetitiveness. The evolution from larvae to final form, in more ways than one. The completely justified castigation of evangelical Christianity and their hypocrisy versus the open arms with which the LGBTQIA+ community welcomes everyone and takes them in as a member of their tribe. This has always been the way of the queer community, and it always will be. When religious families kick their queer children, teens, and young adults out of their homes, the LGBTQIA+ community has a long tradition of taking these lost and often broken strays with them to safety and shelter whenever possible. This book illuminates this quite clearly. Even if it’s evident the apocalypse may be coming quite soon, the local queer community has come together and not only managed to find each other, but to stay alive and to prop each other up at the end of the world.
I couldn’t have adored more the queer representation in this book. I think maybe the only letters I didn’t see represented were B and I. And hey, that’s okay! We got more than one trans character in there, and that’s a miracle in and of itself when it comes to mainstream publishing houses.
This book is horrific in many ways, but it’s not scary. The horror comes purely from two sources: what people will do in the name of religion (which is nothing new) and body horror/gore. I say this with one caveat: PLEASE READ THE CONTENT WARNING AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK. This is AJW’s request, as there is a great deal of material in this book that could be triggering to queer youth. I don’t normally include content warnings in my reviews, but since the author himself wants to be sure people read it, I’m gonna go ahead and sling it in here.
I seriously recommend you give this book a shot. It’s horrific but absolutely justified in its righteous anger. Have you ever felt enough rage over the way LGBTQIA+ people are treated that you wished you could rain down a little hellfire on those who oppress them? Believe me, this book will give you a little taste of that.
Thanks to NetGalley and Peachtree Teen for granting me early access to this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
This is the first book I’ve read in this intriguing, alternative-Earth, fantastical mystery series set in the Westside of Manhattan during the Jazz AgThis is the first book I’ve read in this intriguing, alternative-Earth, fantastical mystery series set in the Westside of Manhattan during the Jazz Age. That being said, I really didn’t have any issues reading it as a standalone.
The setting and premise are absolutely great: intriguing, mystical, vibrant, and obviously well-researched and then redeveloped into something wholly different than what Jazz Age New York was really like. The place where fantasy meets reality closest regarding this time and age in Westside Manhattan is socioeconomics, and I think that’s a very salient point, given the author’s overall plot arc and cast of characters.
Our protagonist, solver-of-tiny-mysteries, Gilda Carr, is fierce and irreverent. She may be our main character, but the whole cast of characters is nothing to frown upon (although, there are a lot of them). The dialogue is sharp, witty, and bright.
The pacing of this book is a little slower than I like (unless I’m in the mood for something a tad more cozy than a thriller or even suspense mystery), but it can definitely read close to a noir mystery, which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Where Akers’ writing shines best is when he’s writing about New York itself, whether it be the elements closer to reality or the distinct elements that transform this New York into something from an alternative Earth.
The book is entirely worth checking out, as are the other two books before it. I love this influx of alternative Earth mysteries and fantasies focused on eras like the Jazz Age.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for early access to this title and a physical ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
I have a contentious relationship with books involving time travel. It’s a love-hate relationship, to say the very least. When they’re good, they’re vI have a contentious relationship with books involving time travel. It’s a love-hate relationship, to say the very least. When they’re good, they’re very, very good. But when they’re bad, they’re simply horrid. It takes very little to collapse a time travel story into utter drivel. When I read the blurb for this book, I was intrigued by the notion that the time travel in this book would be achieved not by our intrepid scientists and scholars traveling to the past, but by pulling the past into the future, like one would pluck the best fruit from the tree.
Only, in this case, the best fruit they’re plucking from time is Julius Caesar, moments prior to his assassination on the Ides of March.
I was somewhat worried this book would be an awful bore, but it really wasn’t. It was engaging, fun, interesting, and had a well-plotted and well-executed story arc. It hooks you from the beginning by laying a few fun seeds that end up providing exposition and helping plot points become fulfilled later in the book, which was a nifty and entertaining way of problem-solving just when you were wondering how the heck the characters were going to get out of a certain predicament.
I also worried this book would be bogged down with science jargon and academic brou-ha-ha (which you’d think I’d enjoy, being a scientist and academic myself), but the author thoughtfully didn’t try and attempt to bore her readers with too much science and instead focused on her characters, which was the right call, in my opinion. And the characters were so well-developed because of it.
And, let me just say: any book that has not only a high-speed car chase with Julius Caesar involved and then adds in an emergency escape flight by vintage plane with the same historical figure is totally worth reading.
Thanks to NetGalley and Imbrifex Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
There are two literary colloquialisms that came to mind when I finished this book: one, this is definitely a case where you shouldn’t judge a book by There are two literary colloquialisms that came to mind when I finished this book: one, this is definitely a case where you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (because this book is so much more fun than the cover suggests); and two, if there was a book I thought would make a great movie, it’s this one. Though, given Stephen Lloyd formerly wrote for various tv shows, this doesn’t surprise me. Heck, if this was a tv show, I’d watch it. A little bit Buffy (the overarching plot), a little bit Harry Potter (which you can see in the school’s librarian to an extremely creepy effect), a little bit Riverdale (in our dogged female lead, school journalist, Harriet), a little bit Supernatural (which we can see in our Vietnam vet insurance investigator, Sam), a little bit Stranger Things (puzzles, dungeons, D&D, quests, side quests)? A sprinkle of Constantine (spoilers!)?
This book is a horror book and a suspense book, but it never takes itself too seriously. There’s a dry wit to it, as well as a mean sense of humor that tickles that awful place inside of me that likes to see gory and awful stuff happen to horrible characters in books. There are deaths you wouldn’t get to see in books or movies that take place in present-day because of how technology has changed (this book takes place in 1980, which we know because one character is wearing a huge Reagan pin all the time and complains about people who love Jimmy Carter), and those deaths are such a delight because if you’re a fan of slasher films or horror films you know just how that vivid imagery would look on film and it’s delightful.
That’s another thing: this book has some seriously vivid imagery that just knocked my socks off and made this book incredibly engaging to read. This book isn’t about narrative style or atmosphere or deep-diving into anything. It’s just a fun, page-turning, propulsive, tilt-a-whirl, gory, creepy, wry, slick, and incredibly clever book that fans of genre tv will love and fans of genre fiction will find to be a fast and light read.
About that cover: it’s far too serious for how fun this book is and I think they should’ve taken that into consideration, because covers do matter in book sales, especially when it comes to social media influencing.
About that movie or tv show: can you guys get on that?
Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Group Putnam, and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. . ...more
There’s a question asked several times in this book that, essentially, forms the whole philosophical core of the text: What is a perfect map?
The answeThere’s a question asked several times in this book that, essentially, forms the whole philosophical core of the text: What is a perfect map?
The answer, obvious to anyone who’s ever taken a single cartography class (and pointed out by one of the book’s characters) is this: There is no such thing as a perfect map. There can’t be. Every map is imperfect or distorted in some way. Even maps made using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software can’t be perfect, because even those maps rely on digitized map projections that already exist. You can trust me on this: I have a degree in geography and have spent a good many hours making maps using GIS software. Many people aren’t even aware of how many map projections there are, or how varied they can be. What they distort, where they distort it, where it isn’t distorted. More than that, though, maps simply can’t be perfect! The Earth is an oblate spheroid, and it’s always shifting. No matter how hard you try, every map becomes obsolete in a matter of a year or so. There’s no way to stop it, because ther only thing that truly endures is change.
The plot of this book isn’t completely watertight, and the pacing is a little uneven. I had expected it to be a little more suspenseful and a little more taute, but that’s maybe because I knew of the concept of “phantom settlements” (AKA Paper Towns) from back when I was still in community college taking Geography 101. I even knew about the actual paper town that’s discussed in this book, believe it or not. So I was thrilled to see Sheperd take the very real concept of phantom settlements and create a hypothetical scenario in which, by some way of some fantastic magical realism worldbuilding, phantom settlements actually appear so long as a map of said settlement exists somewhere.
What I didn’t enjoy too much were the stories from the other character’s POV, because I felt it took some of the mystery and suspense away from the story. Once those characters started telling their story I quickly realized every plot twist and turn for the rest of the book. That ruined a lot of the joy that could’ve come from reading this book.
Shepherd’s prose is on point, of course, as are the overarching questions this book may cause you to ask. I love magical realism as a genre, so I enjoyed seeing my lifelong love of maps employed in such a plot.
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review, and another thank you to William Morrow and publicist D. Bartlett for my complimentary physical copy of the book. You’re the best! ...more
The thing about this book is that there’s so much to like about it, but the execution leaves just a little bit left to desirReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
The thing about this book is that there’s so much to like about it, but the execution leaves just a little bit left to desire and it left me frustrated because I wish such great material had been treated just a bit better.
I open this book (figuratively, since I was on an e-reader), and it enchants me as I read about this woman who is in a cursed land trying to complete the second of three impossible tasks set to her by a witch (which is how every Cinderella-type story before the Grimm brothers got ahold of it went, by the way). I’m drawn in, but it quickly starts to alternate with flashbacks to another time, before the witch and the impossible tasks, telling us how our protagonist got on this road. And… I’m ripped out of the narrative I just got invested in.
Don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t last too very long, but it lasts long enough that the first 20-30% of the book seems to drag. Then, I don’t know how it happens, but this book–despite its immense cleverness and wit–just couldn’t hold my attention for anything in the world. Even at less than 250 pages, it took me longer to read this book than most books that are almost 400 pages. I’d read a chapter or two and then I’d just get easily distracted. This normally doesn’t happen unless the book has uneven pacing (which this book does tend to struggle with) or is completely boring (which this book is not). The only conclusion I can come to is that between the uneven pacing and slightly poor execution of what could’ve been a story that’s both whimsical and terrifying (think Miyazaki, in a way), this book just simply isn’t well-developed enough to hold my attention as thoroughly as most novels do.
Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and Tor Books for access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. This title is being reviewed as part of my backlog of advanced reader copies, but since it has been more than a month past publication date I acknowledge this title has had widespread coverage since release. ...more
This book is like the young adult version of a Miyazaki film if the film was written into a book. Or something likMan, this book hit me in the feels.
This book is like the young adult version of a Miyazaki film if the film was written into a book. Or something like that. I think you know what I mean because you’re not stupid. It has all the color, whimsy, and emotion of a Miyazaki film, but the action and maturity of tone for a young adult novel. There. That’s closer to what I meant in more academic terms.
Whimsy is what I love. Whimsy is what I miss the most when I read fantasy. I think that’s because whimsy is something we see in dreamers and in characters who don’t exactly walk the same path as everyone else. But fairy tales? Fairy tales have whimsy to spare. When Axie Oh chose the retell the Korean fairy tale “The Tale of Shim Cheong” she may have taken out some of the more fantastical elements to make room for the sweet and compelling narrative woven here, but she didn’t skimp on the whimsy, which left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside (which is what whimsy always does for me, because I think we all need more dreams and capriciousness in our lives). Fantasy doesn’t always have to be dead serious. What’s more: fantasy centered around the afterlife doesn’t even have to be serious. It can be whimsical, warm-hearted, kind, and beautiful, too.
I will admit this book didn’t grab me and refuse to let me go. For the first third of the book I struggled a little bit to engage with it. But once I did engage with it I settled down with it for the long haul with a sweet, warm feeling inside, like I was making a new friend. If I had a daughter, I would read this book to her. If I were a young girl, I’d be delighted to get this as a gift. I have an adolescent niece, and I’m not lying when I say I’m thinking of buying her a copy. No matter your age, this is an excellent fairy tale about love of all kinds and about the nature of fate. I highly recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, and Feiwel & Friends for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
Call it a rom-com for cynics. Call it a romance novel for misanthropes. Whatever you call it, call it brilliant as well, because it really is. This boCall it a rom-com for cynics. Call it a romance novel for misanthropes. Whatever you call it, call it brilliant as well, because it really is. This book was everything it was hyped up to be, and yet it was somehow even better, owing to Crosley’s incredible prose. At times deeply philosophical before taking a turn for the equally deep emotional (or vice versa) before turning delightfully wry, achingly raw, or even throbbing with rage, there are narrative passages in this book that absolutely took my breath away.
I love the very idea of this book. If you’ve ever had friends or family that are just too invested in your love life, then you only know a fraction of what Lola (our main character, who is just about done with all the Lola references people can make) is going through in this book. I love how Crosley took that idea and just turned it up to 11. Combine that idea with the concept of a mash-up of “This is Your Life/”A Christmas Carol”/”High Fidelity” and you’ve got… well, you’ve got “Cult Classic”. And the world is all the better for it.
Crosley’s talents don’t only apply to prose, either. Her dialogue is quick, bright, and witty: fencing as speech. Lunge, parry, riposte, repeat. Watch your footwork. If you’re not smiling or laughing when conversations are being had in this book, you’ll be thinking, because there are a lot of emotional and thoughtful conversations to be had in this book.
Like all New York-centric books, I deeply appreciate how Crosley uses this book to write a love/hate letter to the isle of Manhattan. You can tell the difference when someone writes a book about New York and has an idealized vision of the place and when someone has actually lived in its bones.
Pick this book up. It’s about love, but it’s not romantic. It gives romance the finger and is the better for it.
Thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and MCD for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
No matter how a book reviewer may feel about a book, we cannot simply come online and type, “Meh. It was sort-of okay. I definitely wouldn’t read it aNo matter how a book reviewer may feel about a book, we cannot simply come online and type, “Meh. It was sort-of okay. I definitely wouldn’t read it again.” That’s not what book reviews are about. That’s closer to a book opinion. That’s telling someone simply whether or not you liked the book. That’s not a review. Neither is simply reciting the synopsis. A review takes the elements of book writing and breaks down how well the book does these things (which differs from genre to genre), while also assessing how well the reviewer enjoyed the book and whether or not the book achieved the objective it set out to accomplish.
The reason I’m telling you this, which you may or may not know, is because I got frustrated thinking of what to write as a review for this book that teeters on the edge of dipping below 3 stars and just wondered to myself (in a rhetorical manner), “Why can’t I just type ‘It was meh’, and leave it at that?” Well… see above explanation. Reviews aren’t about whether or not I simply think a book is meh. Reviews are about why I think it’s meh, how it might have gotten that way, and why the book failed to elicit a reaction from me that was in any way more enthusiastic than meh.
My primary complaint about this book is that it is too long and the pacing is uneven. For a crime-suspense thriller/mystery, there is little to no suspense. Any and all attempts to create a suspenseful atmosphere fall completely flat because our villain is just so pitiful and our hero is practically the picture of a perfect county sheriff whose only “character flaw” is that he’s gay and prefers to live alone in a small town.
As a matter of fact, Amazon has this book listed as a LGBT+ Thriller, LGBTQ+ Mystery (Kindle Store), and a LGBT+ Mystery (Books)... when the plot of the book has absolutely nothing to do with the sheriff’s sexual orientation. The book is about two missing teens and the sheriff’s efforts to find them! He could be straighter than a 2x4 of solid oak and that wouldn’t have changed a dang bit of the main storyline. The main storyline remains the same: a boyfriend and girlfriend leave their houses late one night after their parents are in bed and disappear without a trace and they have to be found. Please, please tell me how this rates as a LGBTQ+ book in any manner?
My secondary complaint is the opioid-centric drug ring component of the plot. I don’t know the state of affairs in Minnesota, but where I live, almost every drug dealer has moved on from Oxy, Percocet, and Vicodin. They’re too hard to get ahold of and the ones you get off the streets are too dangerous to risk taking unless you have a testing kit. It made what’s supposed to be a present-day novel seem terribly out-of-date. If this book was set about ten years ago, maybe the drug aspect of the plot would have seemed more believable, but in 2022, it seems almost laughable.
The book just has an overall feeling of “average”. Where it doesn’t feel average it just feels “meh”. I don’t recommend the read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. As per personal policy, this review will not appear on social media or bookseller sites due to the 3 star or lower rating. ...more
This book is both nothing like I thought it would be and, surprisingly, everything I didn’t know I wanted or needed.
It’s not a perfect book: the overThis book is both nothing like I thought it would be and, surprisingly, everything I didn’t know I wanted or needed.
It’s not a perfect book: the overarching plot line stumbles at times (as if the author has gone off on a bit of a tangent and then remembers there’s a whole other aspect of this book to write), and the large cast of secondary and tertiary characters can get a bit mixed up at times, sometimes disappearing and reappearing in a manner that can come across as all-to-convenient.
What I think is that there are two wholly different books inside this one book, and it was like keeping plates spinning without dropping them to get through this entire book without china crashing everywhere. There’s an intriguing political sci-fi/fantasy mystery novel involving a dying Emperor who, in the minutes before his death, charges his favorite mistress with solving his murder and ensuring none of his sons stay on the throne (or even stay alive); and then there’s a dramatic sci-fi/fantasy novel exploring being a kidnapped, violated, and imprisoned woman held in an opulent, gilded cage and left to her own devices and means to help stay alive in spite of a horrific case of post-traumatic stress disorder and how she compartmentalizes her captive and abusive life in order to survive.
Therein lies the problem: this could be two whole books all on their own and sometimes it feels like one whole storyline eclipses the other for a small amount of time, which makes for a disjointed story, when taken in as a whole.
The thing is: both of these storylines are so intensely interesting I couldn’t find it in myself to totally dislike it or stop reading. If Mueller had tried to explain the metaphysical/fantastical aspects of this novel in more depth I’m sure this would be a large mess, so I’m actually glad (for once) that the “magic system” wasn’t explored in depth. We knew what we needed to know, and that’s not what the story was about anyway, so it only becomes something to be acknowledged every now and again.
The protagonist… well, talking about her would be a spoiler-and-a-half. But I loved her. I love stories where a woman (or women) are so easily underestimated or easily dismissed they end up holding all the cards. But I’m a mad woman who thrives on chaos. Call this book what you want, but it was my kind of jam.
Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan Tor/Forge, and Tor Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
When I think a book is going for an overall feeling of terror and trauma, I don’t expect the vast amount of both to occur really late in the game. ThiWhen I think a book is going for an overall feeling of terror and trauma, I don’t expect the vast amount of both to occur really late in the game. This book, while well-researched and well-written, suffers from uneven pacing and repetitive inconsistencies in tone that mangle what could have otherwise been a horrific and thrilling adventure and exploration novel.
What bothered me even more than this was how let down I was with the promised exploration of the transgender main character’s gender identity and how they (and others) all dealt with it. It seemed the topic only ever came into play when something epically awful involving the ship, the dogs on the ship, or the weather were not doing something awful on page. Jonathan, the main character, doesn’t even seem to think about the topic much, even though we are living this tale through his eyes and thoughts. I would expect a transgender stowaway on a ship to be constantly worried of discovery. I would expect anxiety, constant vigilance, constant fear of discovery; but it felt like (until later in the book) the only concern Jonathan had was with their childhood friend Harry seems to keep viewing him as a woman simply disguising herself as a man than a man who was born into the wrong body and has actively decided to embrace their gender identity.
All in all, the book had a lot going for it, but it could’ve been better.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for allowing me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. As per personal policy, this review will not be posted to any social media or bookseller websites. ...more
Do you want all the delusional, spoiled grandeur and splendor of The Great Gatsby but with the creepy atmosphere that can only come with a gothic noveDo you want all the delusional, spoiled grandeur and splendor of The Great Gatsby but with the creepy atmosphere that can only come with a gothic novel? Then come into Kit Mayquist’s debut novel, “Tripping Arcadia”.
This isn’t anywhere close to a Gatsby remix or retelling. Let’s make that clear. The similarity only lies in that we have a juxtaposition between this rich family (the Verdeauxs) who see the poor as mere ants and our main character and narrator, Lena, is the fish out of water who comes to work for them as a physician’s assistant after returning from spending two years in Italy working for her aunt, a famous archeobotanist. Lena comes from a poor family, and she herself needs to pay for the student loans she has from when she dropped out of med school before she went to Italy.
This is a fantastic book. It’s as creepy as it is tragic. The prose is as beautiful as it is ghoulish. There’s as much verdant life as there is rotten death. You can see corruption alongside salvation. It’s a study in offsets. It’s a story about balancing the scales until the scale just wobbles back and forth, never quite set right but never quite set wrong, either.
I do think some of the plot slipped through Mayquist’s hands, a little. Some points just got skipped over a little, leaving me with a little of an arched eyebrow and wondering how Lena got to that point or where she learned this thing or that thing. It’s not any single incident I can pinpoint: more of an accumulation of small incidents throughout the novel that added up to a feeling of incompleteness, or maybe even of not-quite-polished.
But it’s a wonderful book I’d recommend to anyone who’s fond of gothic stories, morally grey narrators, or anyone who is a huge fan of Giulia Tofana *wink wink nudge nudge*.
Thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for my eARC of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. ...more
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