Book #27 of 2022: Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz This YA novel has a well-drawn teenage heroine at its heart: an early nineteenth-century daughter of the Scottish nobility who longs to become a medical surgeon in an era when that was considered unthinkably inappropriate for women. At first she attends lectures dressed as …
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Book #25 of 2022: The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi (The Gilded Wolves #1) This YA fantasy novel reads as a blend of National Treasure with Six of Crows, which is not a combination that entirely works for me. (I’m not using that latter title as a shorthand for any heist story, either: this is …
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Book #23 of 2022: Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2) This sequel is rather cleanly bifurcated by a development midway through, and although both of the resulting sections have their strengths, I think the opening is more successful than the close. (Call it a five-star passage followed by …
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Book #18 of 2022: Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen (Skin of the Sea #1) I love that this YA historical fantasy novel features Black mermaids and other elements drawn from #ownvoices West African folklore, a simple fact of representation that I know is going to matter deeply to a lot of readers. I …
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Book #15 of 2022: Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #7) I might be over this series, which initially wowed me in its considerations of children who depart from dangerous yet fulfilling fantasy worlds only to discover a mundane life that no longer understands them. There’s great pathos in that concept …
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Book #13 of 2022: Reaper of Souls by Rena Barron (Kingdom of Souls #2) This #ownvoices YA fantasy novel — unrelated to the Diablo III expansion that amusingly shares its name — picks up soon after 2019’s Kingdom of Souls leaves off, with its protagonist newly empowered in the Orisha magic she never thought would …
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Book #12 of 2022: The Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1) While I think the first trilogy of this fantasy saga remains its most thematically brilliant segment, and the second neatly integrates a new co-protagonist for a different perspective and set of psychological issues to work …
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Book #9 of 2022: Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong (These Violent Delights #2) I was on the fence between a three-star and four-star rating for the first volume of this YA duology, and since I rounded up then, I suppose I’ll go with the lower score for this sequel, which I haven’t enjoyed quite …
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Book #7 of 2022: A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske (The Last Binding #1) An utterly charming gay adult fantasy from debut author Freya Marske. Set in Edwardian England, the story follows a young baronet appointed to a seemingly meaningless civil service role, only to discover that its innocuous title masks a true duty of …
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Book #3 of 2022: The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros I am predisposed to appreciate #ownvoices Jewish fantasy, but even within that slowly blossoming genre, this new historical fiction novel about a gay teen haunted by the dybbuk of his murdered best friend should stand out. The immersive details bring to life the World’s Fair …
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