Book #64 of 2019: Evermore by Sara Holland (Everless #2) Another YA fantasy duology with a promising first volume followed by a more conventional and generic sequel. The best thing about the opening Everless novel was its system of time as currency, in which the rich magically extend their existence by literally taxing the life …
Tag Archives: fantasy
Book Review: King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
Book #63 of 2019: King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo (Nikolai Duology #1) After five novels — and some short stories that I haven’t yet read — author Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse setting feels wonderfully lived-in. This latest volume is the start of a new duology in that Russian-flavored fantasy world, but it essentially reads as …
Continue reading “Book Review: King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo”
Book Review: The High King by Lloyd Alexander
Book #60 of 2019: The High King by Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of Prydain #5) This children’s fantasy series hasn’t always had the most even storytelling, but the last volume is a proper finale that escalates the conflict, delivers some stirring emotional resolutions, and brings back many familiar characters along the way — including the …
Continue reading “Book Review: The High King by Lloyd Alexander”
Book Review: The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner”
Book Review: The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth”
Book Review: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James”
Book Review: In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire”
Book Review: The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Book of M by Peng Shepherd”
Book Review: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi
Book #47 of 2019: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi (Pandava Quartet #1) This is one of those books that I don’t really love myself, but am glad exists in the world for other people. I’m sure many young Hindu readers will see themselves in the heroine, and children in general …
Continue reading “Book Review: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi”
Book Review: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Book #46 of 2019: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller As in her later book Circe, author Madeline Miller has crafted an immersive retelling of Greek mythology, here bringing to life the tragic love story of Achilles and Patroclus. The latter figure has always struck me as a bit of an afterthought in The …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 