Book #21 of 2020: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (Akata Witch #1) This middle-grade series debut has some terrific #ownvoices African-inspired fantasy worldbuilding, but it lags behind in matching that with any significant narrative development or character arcs. So much of the novel consists of either pure exposition about the setting or else the protagonist …
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Book #20 of 2020: Unquenchable Fire by Rachel Pollack This is a supremely odd book, and I’m honestly not sure whether I like it or not. The incomplete and elliptical reveals to its slipstream worldbuilding offer ambiguities that feel worth lingering over, but they also keep the reader at a certain distance from fully engaging …
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Book #19 of 2020: Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson As a fantasy and superhero buff, I have no issues with this novel’s premise of twins who erupt in flames when their emotions get out of control. And I accept the bond that develops between them and their new caretaker. But I just cannot …
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Book #18 of 2020: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (Teixcalaan #1) Overall a delightful piece of diplomatic-anthropological science-fiction, like the Imperial Radch trilogy mixed with The Traitor Baru Cormorant and just a dash of Altered Carbon. When her people’s ambassador to a conquering space empire suddenly dies, our protagonist is sent off to …
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Book #17 of 2020: Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow Ronan Farrow is one of the journalists who helped to finally build a public case against Harvey Weinstein’s serial predation of women in Hollywood, and I initially wasn’t sure that I needed to read his account of …
Book #16 of 2020: Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci #1) The start of a long-overdue reread to this fantasy series that I loved as a child, pre-Harry Potter. (And indeed, there are some definite similarities between Harry and this novel’s hero even beyond their distinct Britishness, from the wide-eyed entrance into a world …
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Book #15 of 2020: A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen True to its title, this post-apocalyptic novel opens after the point when many stories of its genre have finished: with humanity decimated by plague, but its societies generally through the transitional chaos and now beginning to rebuild. It’s also a time of fresh …
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Book #14 of 2020: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #5) The action in this series finale is suitably epic, and the parallels to the Trojan War are cute if a little distracting. (These characters all either know a lot about Greek mythology or are the actual mythic figures themselves. …
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Book #13 of 2020: Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust This standalone fantasy novel is a neat feminist retelling of Snow White, especially for how it transforms the evil stepmother / innocent child relationship into a more nuanced interpersonal dynamic. And although the romantic element of the text is fairly understated, having …
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Book #12 of 2020: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado It took me a little while to get on-board with this memoir’s disjointed style, but the quality of Carmen Maria Machado’s prose is well worth the effort. Although the work remains fragmentary, each successive glimpse at the author’s relationship with her abusive ex-girlfriend …
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