Book #348 of 2021: Strange Dreams edited by Stephen R. Donaldson Rating each story in this 1993 collection individually, they average out to just three-out-of-five stars overall for me. It’s an uneven bunch, yet there are still some winners among the lot. (No fives, but 10 fours, along with 11 threes, 5 twos, and 2 …
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Book #338 of 2021: Terciel and Elinor by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #6) It’s always a pleasure to return to the Old Kingdom, that snowy landscape of necromancy and Charter Magic where the hereditary line of Abhorsens wield their seven enchanted bells to put the dead back to rest. Nevertheless, author Garth Nix has …
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Book #332 of 2021: A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow (Fractured Fables #1) This delightful novella is one of the more original fairy tale retellings that I’ve seen, pitching its version of Sleeping Beauty as a young woman from our world, suffering from a debilitating illness predicted to kill her within a year, who …
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Book #322 of 2021: The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik (The Scholomance #2) An improvement on A Deadly Education, which I already enjoyed quite a lot. This sequel returns us to the Scholomance, that magic boarding school / honeypot in a pocket dimension of Lovecraftian space where the students are prey to all manner of …
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Book #314 of 2021: She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (The Radiant Emperor #1) This incredible debut is a queer fantasy retelling of the founding of China’s Ming Dynasty, in which a penniless 14th-century monk-turned-rebel helped topple the Yuan Mongol rulers and forged a new empire with himself at the head. Only in …
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Book #311 of 2021: Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom by Sangu Mandanna Another title in the popular recent mini-genre of Percy Jackson-inspired #ownvoices fantasy stories involving a middle-grade protagonist coming face-to-face with certain mythological beings drawn from the writer’s cultural heritage. In this novel, the Hindu gods and demons are joined by a fun Inkheart …
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Book #308 of 2021: Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron I believe this is the first fairy tale retelling I’ve seen that incorporates the classic version of the text as official propaganda of a fascistically sexist (and homophobic) police state, so that’s an interesting premise to start from. Girls in this kingdom are taught the …
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Book #306 of 2021: Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown This autobiographical novel — or fictionalized memoir, if you prefer — tackles some very heavy topics in the childhood and teenage years of its author / protagonist Echo Brown, a dark-skinned African-American who faces racism, colorism, domestic abuse, rape, and more, not to mention the …
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Book #303 of 2021: Opal by Maggie Stiefvater I’ve heard author Maggie Stiefvater refer to this Raven Cycle sequel as a novella, but at 38 pages, it’s probably scraping the lower limit of what could fairly be given that designation. It’s really more of a quick interlude in the lives of her heroes Ronan Lynch …
Book #302 of 2021: The Unbroken by C. L. Clark (Magic of the Lost #1) [I read and reviewed this title at a Patreon donor’s request. Want to nominate your own books for me to read and review (or otherwise support my writing)? Sign up for a small monthly donation today at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke !] This …
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