Book #11 of 2018: Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao (Rise of the Empress #1) I have some minor quibbles about character motivations, but overall this is an impressive debut novel that retells the beginning of the classic Snow White fairy tale without ever feeling unoriginal. Partly this is due to the …
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Book #10 of 2018: Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo (Grisha #3) This final novel in Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy is the first one that I feel really approaches the quality of her later Six of Crows series. (Or to put that more charitably, the five Bardugo books that I’ve now read get steadily better …
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Book #8 of 2018: Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman (Seraphina #2) I adored Rachel Hartman’s earlier novel Seraphina, and this sequel coasts by on a lot of borrowed good will from that. Unfortunately, Hartman has jettisoned the parts of Seraphina that I found most engaging (namely the cultural differences between humans and dragons, her heroine’s …
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Book #3 of 2018: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid There’s a bit of a disconnect between the beginning and end of this novel, but they’re both appealing in their own right. The first half tells a love story in the characters’ war-torn home country (which is never specified by name but appears to be somewhere …
Book 1 of 2018: The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (The Queen’s Thief #1) This tale of a skilled thief released from prison to rob for the monarch was somewhat predictable, but still very fun and strongly reminiscent of other stories that I’ve enjoyed. (The religious aspect feels straight out of Tortall, and I can …
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Book #265 of 2017: Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft (The Books of Babel #1) There are some definite rough spots in this steampunk Tower of Babel story, but I like how its protagonist steadily grows from a fussy schoolteacher into someone braver and more capable over the course of the novel. The Tower itself is …
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Book #251 of 2017: Drowned Wednesday by Garth Nix (The Keys to the Kingdom #3) This third volume in Garth Nix’s seven-part Keys to the Kingdom series is the least formulaic so far, which is a welcome change from the one before. I’m still not super invested in the story or these characters – still …
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Book #250 of 2017: Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (Enchanted Forest Chronicles #2) Even more so than the book before it, this second novel in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles is cute and fun and absolutely hilarious. Author Patricia C. Wrede’s wry comic tone has been honed to perfection here, and I especially like …
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Book 246 of 2017: Shardik by Richard Adams (Beklan Empire #1) I loved this 1974 story of a Stone Age civilization treating a giant bear as the incarnation of their god, a sprawling feat of worldbuilding that feels wholly different from the author’s better-known classic Watership Down. It’s slow but engaging, and I appreciate the …
Book #243 of 2017: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (The Book of Dust #1) A fairly underwhelming prequel to Philip Pullman’s classic His Dark Materials trilogy, La Belle Sauvage consists mainly of characters trading custody of the baby Lyra Belacqua like a tiny squalling MacGuffin. There’s too much focus on setting up the events …
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