Book #58 of 2019: The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner This tale of two Jewish girls discovering their magical heritage in early 20th-century Moldova is a messy debut novel, and I wish it had better integration of its various parts. It’s both a retelling of the Christina Rossetti poem “Goblin Market” (far …
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Book #57 of 2019: The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth Another postmodern portal fantasy focused less on magical adventuring and more on what happens after a return home from fairyland. It’s most similar to Seanan McGuire’s excellent Wayward Children series in that respect, although there are also shades of Neil Gaiman’s short story …
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Book #56 of 2019: And the Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness I never know what to expect from Patrick Ness. That’s not necessarily a compliment — I’ve probably hated his books as often as I’ve loved them — but it speaks to a certain willingness to experiment that keeps me coming back to …
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Book #55 of 2019: What the Night Sings by Vesper Stamper Middle-grade fiction is sometimes tough to review critically, because much of what’s missing for an adult may actually make it more ideal for the intended audience. In this case, I think younger teens and preteens will get a lot out of this novel about …
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Book #54 of 2019: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (The Dark Star Trilogy #1) This is a dense and somewhat oblique fantasy tome, richly steeped in mythic history from across Africa. It’s sprawling and recursive, nesting stories within stories within stories, resulting in an epic closer to the original oral tradition of that …
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Book #53 of 2019: In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #4) I’ve generally enjoyed this series of novellas about children longing to escape back to other realms, but this latest installment doesn’t quite carry the same magic for me. I feel as though author Seanan McGuire never really makes the case for …
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Book #52 of 2019: Assignment in Eternity by Robert A. Heinlein This 1953 anthology collects four stories by Robert A. Heinlein originally published over the preceding decade. Each has its moments of rip-roaring sci-fi fun, but none are particularly great as a whole, and the author’s flaws are unfortunately on full display throughout. There’s casual …
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Book #51 of 2019: Becoming by Michelle Obama Overall a fantastic memoir from the former First Lady, spanning from her 1970s childhood in the South Side of Chicago through her departure from the White House in 2017 at the end of her husband’s second term. As an author, Michelle Obama is a consummate storyteller, reflective …
Book #50 of 2019: Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala This is a well-written if depressing slice-of-life novella about a gay Nigerian-American teenager navigating police discrimination, his father’s expectations, and his best friend’s well-meaning interference. However, the project as a whole feels somewhat aimless, especially given that it jumps suddenly to the friend’s perspective for …
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Book #49 of 2019: The Book of M by Peng Shepherd This post-apocalyptic novel takes a little while to click into place for me, in part because its inciting plot doesn’t exactly endear me to the characters and in part because the rules of its world feel hazy in a magical realist way that I …
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