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 #11 of 2020: Fireborne by Rosaria Munda (The Aurelian Cycle #1) Way less bloodthirsty than I would expect for a novel advertised as ‘Game of Thrones meets Red Rising.’ I also have issues with the two protagonists, each of whom is a pretty reactive character with no clear motivation. The premise of the story …
Book #2 of 2020: The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis (The Good Luck Girls #1) I’d like to see more worldbuilding details and more distinctions between two of the supporting characters, but overall this is a rip-roaring YA fantasy western with a mainly female and POC cast. Five teen girls run away from …
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Book #1 of 2020: The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #4) Overall this is another fun Percy Jackson adventure, but there are a few issues that are bugging me about the series at large. Four volumes in, it still feels like author Rick Riordan is retelling ancient Greek …
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Book #242 of 2019: Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi (Legacy of Orïsha #2) Plotwise, this novel is a big step forward from last year’s Children of Blood and Bone, which had the same interesting Yoruba-inspired mythos but told a fairly standard rendition of the hero’s journey monomyth within that setting. (Destroyed home, …
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Book #241 of 2019: Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater (The Dreamer Trilogy #1) Author Maggie Stiefvater’s excellent Raven Cycle left plenty of open ends for potential further exploration, and this first volume in its sequel series capably picks up one of the more compelling ones: the ability of certain characters to bring forth …
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Book #230 of 2019: Homerooms & Hall Passes by Tom O’Donnell (Homerooms & Hall Passes #1) This middle-grade adventure story is lightweight but pretty fun, tracking a band of thirteen-year-old heroes who get magically trapped in the setting of their favorite tabletop roleplaying game, which happens to resemble a middle school of our reality. I …
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Book #229 of 2019: The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #3) I still sort of feel like I’m waiting for the Percy Jackson series to really hit its stride, but this third novel offers enough character growth and plot progression amid the latest romp through Greek mythology that I’m happy …
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Book #227 of 2019: Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger This incredible anime-inspired fantasy novel is a breath of fresh air for the genre and a pure delight from page one, with a Sandersonian magic system that features metalbending alongside giant daemons that can be summoned to fight like Pokémon. The characters are clever and …
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Book #223 of 2019: Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron (Kingdom of Souls #1) The fantasy worldbuilding in this YA debut gets a bit off the rails in the end, but as a cliffhanger setup for the next book in the trilogy, it just about works. And the whole novel beforehand is definitely strong enough …
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