fantasy

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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Started: 3/19/20
Finished: 3/26/20

I LOVED this book.  It’s super-weird, but the main character is hilarious (I laughed a LOT and had to force myself to stop reading parts out loud to John), and I LOVED it.  So excited to read the next one when it comes out (THIS SUMMER!!).  Queer necromancers in space.  With swords.  And hilarity.  And death (because necromancers).  Also lots of drama – despite the funny character, it is NOT a comedy. I got this from the library, but I need to own it.  And re-read it.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

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Started: 2/14/20
Gave up: 3/9/20

I really liked that other Holly Black trilogy, so I picked this book up from the library.  I couldn’t find time to start reading the physical copy, so I borrowed the audiobook a few days later and listened to it in the car…for as long as I could.  Teenagers and vampires and the angst that goes with a centuries-old vampire who finds something deep and unique and irresistible and different and blah blah blah about a 17-year-old girl and I cannot count the ways in which I do not care.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

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Started: 2/26/20
Finished: 3/4/20

Third book in The Raven Cycle (witches, psychics, magic, prep school boys, etc.), and it’s a really good continuation of the story.  We get more forward movement, more characterization, more good storytelling, AND it has teenagers being teenager-y and grown-up and all over the place in what feels real, despite the magic.  I am waiting impatiently for the 4th book to be available from the library.

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

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Started: 2/14/20
Finished: 2/18/20

Second book in the trilogy with psychics, witches, magic, ghosts, and prep school boys, and it started with a swerve that took me by surprise in a very good way, and I liked this book a LOT.  Also, turns out it’s not a trilogy, it’s a…tetralogy?

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

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Started: 1/4/20
Finished: 1/10/20

I’ve read (and liked) one other fairy story by Holly Black, and she’s a guest of honor at a convention we’re going to, so I figured I’d read more of her stuff.  This is the first in a trilogy, also about the Fae (you can’t just call them fairies when they’re trying to kill you).  It starts off DARK (bad stuff happens to some kids under 10 before they get packed off to live in Faerie), and then we jump ahead ten years and follow them as teenagers.

The Dollmaker by Nina Allan

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Started: 12/16/19
Finished: 12/28/19

Dolls are scary, right?  So I assumed this book would be creepy.  It’s not, although one or two parts are a little bit weird in a scary way.  It was good, but I don’t think it stuck the ending.  It’s about a man who goes on a cross-country trip to meet the woman he loves, who he has only corresponded with via letter.  Along the way, he reads a book of short stories by an author the woman is interested in, and the stories are part of this book, too.  Those are the parts that get a little creepy, and the main character and his love both think the stories parallel their own lives a little too closely.  Unfortunately, the ending doesn’t do anything with that, and I was left hanging.

Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce

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Started: 12/14/19
Finished: 12/16/19

First in a series a girl who wants to be a knight.  I would have eaten this up if I’d found it when I was 10 (it was published in 1983).  I enjoyed the first book (and I’ll keep reading), but I’m having a little bit of a hard time believing that this 10-year-old girl would talk the way she does, have the power (magical) that she does, know all these things, be able to do all this stuff, etc.  She makes it to age 14 or so by the end of the book, so hopefully her ability to master EVERYTHING will get a little easier to swallow as she gets older.

The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

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Started: 10/9/19
Gave up: 10/12/19

In my calendar, I wrote that I put this book “on hold”, but who are we kidding?  I gave up.  I liked the idea of it – the protagonist is the daughter of a pirate captain who, with her help, can navigate to any place, real or imaginary, in any time, as long as the map is well-drawn and the mapmaker believed in it.  That’s a cool idea.  The issue I had was with the writing.  The author kept talking about maps, but ships use charts.  I can ignore the use of walls instead of bulkheads and floors instead of decks and doors instead of hatches, but for some reason, despite my near-total memory loss of everything I learned in the Navy, I can’t get past saying maps instead of charts.

Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman

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Started: 9/14/19
Finished: 9/23/19

This is billed as a companion book to Seraphina (which I liked a lot), but it really is a sequel, and it’s just as good, if occasionally a little weirder, than the first one.  Although it is a little hard to remember that the main character is supposed to only be about 17 or 18.  She’s written older than that, I think, but as long as I didn’t focus on that, I was fine.

Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones

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Started: 8/12/19
Finished: 8/18/19

Another book that was good but one I don’t know if I liked.  It’s a coming of age story, but the framing device was a little confusing…and then I was totally engrossed in the story, and the framing device sort of starts to make sense near the end (most of the story is within the frame, so it doesn’t matter in the moment), but then the very end made NO sense to me.  The book includes an essay by the author about the themes and inspirations, and I can tell you I missed all of that. It did make everything make more sense, and I don’t mean to say that the book didn’t make sense (except for the end, which was confusing), and now I’m not making sense, so I’ll end by saying that this book could be taught in a literature course and the students would get a lot out of it.