Crystallinegirl

Today, June 20, is World Refugee Day. First observed in 2001, it is dedicated to raising awareness of the plight of refugees all across the world. African Refugee Day had been observed in some countries prior to the UN declaring it World Refugee Day, but the Organization of African Unity agreed to have the two days coincide.

To honor World Refugee Day, today I'm going to talk about Little Bee. Little Bee is a Nigerian refugee in the United Kingdom. She and her sister witnessed the destruction of their village by an oil company's thugs, and were hunted down to eliminate the witnesses. In a chance encounter on a Nigerian beach, she met Sarah and Andrew, a couple from London trying to save their marriage by going on an exotic holiday. The encounter changes the lives of all three of them, and when Little Bee makes it to the United Kingdom, they are the only people she knows. She arrives at their home on the day of Andrew's funeral, and Sarah takes her in.

The book switches between the viewpoints of Sarah and Little Bee, and it does suffer from that, a bit. I couldn't wait for Sarah's chapters to be done so I could get back to Little Bee. Her viewpoint - her voice - was enthralling. Some first-person views are just the person thinking to themselves, while some first-person views are the person talking to the reader. Sarah was the first type, and Little Bee the second. Reading her explanations of the differences between her old life and her new life, and how the girls from her village wouldn't understand things, was amazing. I was hooked within the first ten pages of the book, specifically her note about scars:

I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

The events Little Bee talks about having witnessed are horrifying. And she recognizes that. She could be bitter, she could be depressed, she could be insane, but she is not. She manages to have hope, and even joy. She sees other refugees around her commit suicide, and in fact always has a plan for how to kill herself “if the men come.” Because the stories of refugees always begin with “the men came and they...” and she'd rather kill herself than let herself be taken. Despite this, she has hope for a future. Or perhaps she simply takes joy in the present.

The book is not a happy one. Like Sing, Unburied, Sing, it's an important book but not exactly an enjoyable one. There are enjoyable parts. But there are very hard parts, too. (I should note, here, a TRIGGER WARNING for a graphic description of rape, when Little Bee tells Sarah what happened to Little Bee's older sister.) It did not end the way I wanted it to, though it ended in an unexpected way. I suppose it was too much to hope for a Happy Ever After when the vast majority of refugees don't get one.

For all that there were very tough scenes to get through in this book, I'm still putting it on my Best of 2018 list. Little Bee's voice and viewpoint is amazing, the story is well researched, and the plot absorbing. This is a book I'd like to have on my shelf.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Having read the prequel to this book already, I can see why a lot of people complained about the lack of worldbuilding. Even though the prequel is based in a neighboring country, there's a lot in this book that I understood based on events in Inkmistress. I definitely recommend reading that one first.

That said, I enjoyed this book a lot. I think Inkmistress is better, but that happens often with new authors. I think the sequel, Of Ice and Shadows, due out this summer, will probably be even better, and should bring the events of the previous two books together.

Like Inkmistress, bisexuality seems to be absolutely normal in Denna's country, with Denna not expressing a preference, Mare having had male and female lovers, and one of Denna's ladies having a female lover. (There is a brief mention of a gay couple as well.) I do wish nonbinary people would make an appearance, but it's something, at least.

There are a lot of twists and turns to the plot in this book, so while Inkmistress was fairly straightforward, this one took me by surprise multiple times. It also makes it much harder to talk about the plot without giving anything away!

I wish we'd discovered more about the King's council - several members of it seemed to have ulterior motives but we never got to see what those were. If we knew their motivations, some things might make a lot more sense and be a lot more satisfying.

Read Inkmistress. If you like the world, go ahead and read this book, because the events of this will be necessary to understand the third book, which takes us back to the country featured in Inkmistress. And I want to know more about that country!

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This is the sequel to Rebel of the Sands, which I read several weeks ago. The conclusion to the trilogy, Hero at the Fall, came out in March, and I'm waiting patiently for a copy from the library. (Okay, so maybe it's impatiently, but I'm waiting!)

I love so much about this book. I always love non-western style fantasy, and this one is definitely middle-east inspired, with its djinni and deserts and fancy khalats. (A khalat is a loose, long-sleeved silk or cotton robe worn over the rest of your clothing.) The Demdji - the children of djinni and humans - are all fascinating, with interesting powers. And fantasy politics, at the highest of possible levels!

Amani is a fascinating main character, with her control over sand, her personal ethics, and her personal conflicts. She's the daughter of a djinni, and we actually meet djinni for the first time in this book! I liked her love story better in Rebel of the Sands - it seemed very muted in this book, but they did spend most of the book apart. I am eager to see where that part of the plot goes in HatF.

There were a couple of twists that surprised me - who the titular traitor was, for one. The book was full of traitors of one kind or another. I also really liked seeing palace and harem life; the first book focused on desert backwaters and outlaws, so this was quite a change, and I liked it. I'm still half in love with Prince Ahmed, though we meet his half-brother Rahim in the palace, and he's growing on me. The Sultan himself also surprised me; I expected a villainous, power-mad ruler, and he is not that. He seemed to surprise Amani, too.

I was excited to see the djinni actually make an appearance; I'd expected them to stay an abstract idea for the entire trilogy! They certainly never showed up in the first book. I mean, it was obvious they still came to humans, or Demdji couldn't exist, but no one, even the mothers, ever spoke about seeing or interacting with them. Even to their half-djinni children. I'm hoping this means they'll play a bigger role in the third book, because after the small glimpse we get here, I really want to know more about them!

Like most of the other reviews I've read, I agree that this wasn't as strong as the first one, but middle books in trilogies rarely are. It is a solid volume, though, with lots of plot advancement and world-building and politicking. Can't wait to get the concluding book!

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I really enjoyed this book. There were twists I absolutely did not see coming, and Nemesis's confusion over whether she is truly human or not is an absorbing part of the plotline.

The book opens on Nemesis, an artificially created humanoid, as a child, being bonded to her charge, Sidonia Impyrean. The chemically-induced bonding creates an artificial love from Nemesis towards Sidonia - a love so strong she will kill and die to protect her. Many years later, Diabolics - what Nemesis is - are outlawed. Rather than kill Nemesis, Sidonia's family fakes her death, and eventually sends Nemesis to court masquerading as Sidonia. No one has seen Sidonia before, so the masquerade is fairly easy, other than hiding Nemesis' real abilities as one of the last Diabolics. Thrown into a world of conspiracies and courtly intrigue, Nemesis flails a little bit, but eventually finds her footing, and I can't say anymore than that because that's when the plot twists start!

This is one of the most surprising YA books I've read. I only anticipated one or two of the twists; many of the events revealed themselves to the reader at the same time that Nemesis uncovers them, which makes sense, as the book is told from her point of view.

The bond between Sidonia and Nemesis is strong and intriguing, even across star systems. I wish their relationship had been explored more. Sidonia always believed Nemesis was truly human, even when Nemesis did not. The book did not delve deeply into the actual creation of Diabolics; I'm hoping the sequel does. I'm curious if they are actually created, or if they are genetically modified humans and that's just a closely guarded secret. (Even if they are created, they're human in every way except their strength and endurance - I'm sure they're simply modified in the womb. Or test tube. Whichever. I really hope the sequel gets into that.)

I have the sequel, The Empress, requested from the library, but it's supposed to be a trilogy. I don't know when the third is due out.

This is a fantastic, surprising YA book with interesting politics and world building. I really want to learn more about the history of this world, and hopefully the rest of the trilogy will cover that.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Jacqueline Carey has been a little hit or miss for me lately. I loved Kushiel's Dart, read that years ago. Wasn't fond of the second trilogy in that world. I read Miranda and Caliban a while back, and it was alright. This, though, blew me away. First, the idea that there are no stars in the sky. They have three moons and a sun, but no stars. Their mythology is that the Stars rebelled against their father, the Sun, and he threw them all to Earth, including one who hadn't participated as it had been a babe in the womb during the rebellion! The stars now walk the earth as gods and goddesses, and we meet several in the book. (And hear about a few more.) The one god that hadn't been part of the rebellion, but was punished anyway, has been nursing his hurt and resentment until, prophecy states, he will eventually wake and try to kill everyone. The problem is the prophecy was shattered into as many pieces as there are gods, and spread across the world. There are prophecy seekers that try to collect all the bits, but they're not very successful.

In Khai's country, the sacred twins are their gods. Pahrkun the Scouring Wind and Anamuht the Purging Fire. They can be seen on occasion striding across the desert. It is by Pahrkun's will that Khai is bound to the youngest princess as her soul twin; very rarely the royal family gets one of these, and they are always meant to be bodyguards. So Khai is sent to the temple of Pahrkun's warriors, deep in the desert, and trained in the many ways to kill. The warriors are all men, but Khai turns out to be non-binary, and this is what lets him guard the princess in a culture that includes harems and eunuchs. I love the relationship between Khai and Princess Zariya, and Zariya is no typical princess.

The book follows Khai and Zariya's adventures in court intrigue, marriage proposals, sea battles, and prophecy-chasing. The action is perfect, the world breath-taking, and the people beautifully written. I've always enjoyed the fantasies where the gods show up commonly enough that people know how to identify them and how to treat them. From the Wind and Fire of Zharkoum's arid country to the shape-changing Quellin and the terrifying Shambloth, the people that live near them build governments and societies around their gods, which makes each society stand out in their own way. World-building is definitely something that Carey is an expert at.

Starless is an amazing fantasy with a lovely queer romance at its heart. It's full of varied cultures and enigmatic gods and goddesses and I just LOVE IT. Definitely one of my favorites this year.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I don't tend to read a lot of contemporary fiction, but I had several on my beach read/summer reading list, and this one is set in Rockville, Maryland, which is pretty close to where I live. Having read it finally, I wouldn't call it a beach read, though!

Number One Chinese Restaurant follows the owners and staff of The Beijing Duck House before and after a devastating fire. There's a lot of chinese culture revealed in the book, from familial obligation to amending names with an Ah- prefix, to the immigration process to America, to knowing what region someone is from by their accent and forming opinions of them based on that. (Although I suppose we do that in the US, too - that last one might be universal.)

We start with the two brothers, Jimmy and Johnny. Jimmy is the current owner of the Duck House, while Johnny is out of the country for the first part of the book. The two brothers are opposites in most ways, with Jimmy being the back-of-house hardliner and Johnny being the diplomatic schmoozer.

(Speaking of back-of-house, this book PEGGED restaurant life. I've worked in food service quite a lot, and from the chaos of rushes to the drug and alcohol abuse, to the confusion between front and back of house but at the same time feeling like you're all in it together - yeah. This book NAILS it.)

From Jimmy and Johnny, we have their strong-willed mother, Feng, and her cousin, “Uncle” Pang, who has mysterious connections and can get things done but isn't exactly benevolent about it. The last member of the immediate family is Annie, Johnny's daughter. There is a staff chart in the inside cover of the book to help keep everyone straight, and it's quite handy, because then we get into the staff. There's really two main plotlines going, though they revolve around each other and intertwine in places. There's Johnny's efforts to open a new restaurant, and then there's Nan and Ah-Jack.

Nan and Ah-Jack have both been working at the Duck House for thirty years, and have married other people but have always adored each other. As the restaurant enters crisis, so do their personal lives, and things get messy.

In order for me to like contemporary fiction, there have to be personal hooks that interest me, and this book hit food service, minorities, and the local area. That was more than enough to make it an enjoyable read.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I really enjoy books that take mermaids (or sirens, in this case, as mermaids exist but are something different in this world) and turn them back to their murderous roots. Adding in Cthulhu-esque horror made Into the Drowning Deep especially fascinating. To Kill A Kingdom didn't have much horror - it took the fantasy adventure/quest route instead.

The book alternates between the viewpoints of Princess Lira, the siren known as the Prince's Bane, and Prince Elian. Their name is at the start of each chapter that is written from their viewpoint, but it's small and easily missed. I wish it was in a larger, more obvious font, because I kept having to flip back a few pages to figure out who I was reading.

I loved seeing the character growth of Lira as she comes to know the humans, and realizes there is another possibility besides just following her mother's brutal orders. She learns, watching Elian's people follow him, that there is a way to inspire loyalty rather than compel it by magic and brutality.

Lira definitely shows more character growth than Elian does, and the book never really explains how Elian gets past the fact that she's killed so many princes.

The beginning of the book was also a little slow - I actually set it aside for a couple of weeks while reading other things and worried a little that I was never going to pick it up again. Worried because I don't usually not finish books unless they're terrible, not because I actually wanted to find out what happened. I didn't get invested in the characters until probably about halfway through the book. Books usually catch me far before that point.

So - it was okay. If you want predatory mermaids, I would recommend Into the Drowning Deep long before this one. Though if you want more fantasy with a touch of romance, and less horror, then this is probably the book you want. Just be warned it takes some time to hit its stride.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I picked this up on a whim; the cover and synopsis made it sound like yet another maiden-befriends-a-dragon standard fantasy novel, with her family in the balance. I was wrong. I'd never heard of the author, but apparently she has been writing historical fiction since the 60s, and she took that wealth of experience and added a dragon to make this gothic tale of a family fighting to keep their sovereignty against an encroaching empire.

I actually wish the dragon had featured in the story more than he did; I want to know more about his history and why he was so intrigued by Tirza. Why they could understand each other when no one else could. I'm disappointed that was never explained.

The mysteries of the castle were never really explained, either, though one of the stories Tirza tells the dragon hints at it. Castle Ocean seems to be alive, in some ways, refusing to be altered from its original construction by slowly reverting any changes and luring invaders down dark hallways they will never find their way out of again. The gothic atmosphere of the novel was fascinating.

It definitely absorbed my attention for several hours. I'd give it a 3/5, I think. Not incredibly outstanding, but well done and a little hypnotic.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Through this entire book, I kept thinking “this feels like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.” It's a completely different setting, and a different plot, but it had the same atmosphere. Rollicking action, fantastical premise, crazy setting, huge machines with entire worlds within them. I loved Valerian - it may not have been a critically great movie, and I don't think the leads had much chemistry, but the movie was just FUN. And that's how Mortal Engines is, too.

It's a crazy world, where cities have become mobile - think Howl's Moving Castle - and they chase each other across a barren world, devouring each other for resources in a social order they call Municipal Darwinism. Some cities, like London, are huge, with six main levels, not really counting the Gut, or the center of the machinery. Other towns are small, one or two levels crawling along trying to avoid the notice of the larger, faster cities. The peoples of the Traction Cities think people who live in statics (stationary cities, or, horror of horrors, right on the ground!) or people who are part of the Anti-Traction League, are crazy barbarians. And then there are the airship captains and crews, based out of the one floating city.

It is a crazy steampunk world, and Tom Natsworthy stumbles into a conspiracy plot by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as he travels with Hester across the wasteland, trying to survive their pursuers and avert catastrophe, he learns more about her, and more about how the world actually works.

I absolutely adore the last two sentences of the book, and I'm going to post those here because they aren't terribly spoilery. And they're fantastic.

“You aren't a hero, and I'm not beautiful, and we probably won't live happily ever after,” she said. “But we're alive, and together, and we're going to be all right.”

More Middle-eastern themed fantasy! And by a Canadian writer, though she was only born there, she mostly grew up in France, so I'm not really sure it counts for my Read Canadian Challenge. But it is one I've been wanting to read for a while, and when I was at Barnes & Noble for Book Club, I noticed it on the bargain shelf, so I snagged it, along with another YA fantasy based on Norse Mythology called Valkyrie. There's two more books in the series now, Traitor to the Thone and Hero at the Fall, so I've requested those from the library because I really enjoy this world!

Amani is a girl in a country that doesn't value women, and treats them as useless property only good for breeding sons. The country is basically occupied by another country that the Sultan is “allied” with, but lets run roughshod over his people. She has her sights set on escaping her backwoods, dead-end town, and running to the capital city, where the aunt she's never met lives. All of that is derailed when she meets Jin at an underground shooting competition, and then later hides him from the armed forces hunting him.

The country is definitely middle-east inspired, but there's a lot of religion-bashing, and complaining about the culture oppressing women. It's the same problem I have with a lot of knight-and-castle era fantasy - just because historically in OUR world those time periods weren't kind to women, doesn't mean they have to be the same in fantasy. It's FANTASY! It can be anything you want! Break the tropes! It's a fine line to walk, taking the good parts of a culture without just cherry-picking and appropriating the culture, and who's judging what the good and bad parts are, anyway? So I understand it's difficult, but bashing the culture in a book inspired by their mythology is not quite cool, either. I feel like City of Brass hit a nice middle ground of embracing the culture of the inspiration without bashing parts of it.

That gripe aside, I really enjoyed the world-building. I'm not quite sold on the characters yet - Amani is far too quick to abandon things she should fight for - but I'm interested enough to see how they progress in the next two books.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I know, I'm late to the party. This book made a big splash back in September - everyone was talking about it, and it won the National Book Award. My library, however, did not have enough copies to go around, and I was late putting a hold on it, so the hold I put on it in January finally came around to my turn!

In Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward returns to the same neighborhood in Mississippi that Salvage the Bones was written about. (Two of the siblings from Salvage the Bones show up in a scene in Sing.) The story is told from three different viewpoints: Jojo, a thirteen-year-old boy and the main character of the novel, Leonie, his drug-addicted mother, and Richie, the ghost of a boy Jojo's grandfather met in prison.

This book covers so much that it's difficult to categorize - between discrimination and outright bigotry, bi-racial romance and children, drug addiction, poverty, prison life - deep south gothic, I suppose, would be the best description. Sing really only takes place over a couple of days, but it feels much longer, because Jojo's grandfather tells stories of his time in prison decades prior, Leonie reminisces about high school, and there's just this sense of timelessness over the entire novel.

It's not an easy book. These are hard issues to grapple with, and too many people have to live with these issues. Poverty, bigotry, addiction - these things disproportionately affect the black community, and white people are to blame for the imbalance.

I'm not sure how I feel about the ghost aspect of the book; on one hand I feel like people will see the ghost and decide the book is fantasy - that they don't really need to care about the problems the family faces. On the other hand, the ghost allows us to see even more bigotry and inhumanity targeted at black people. So it serves a purpose.

I'm not sure I like this book. But I'm glad I read it. And that's pretty much going to be my recommendation; it's not a fun read, but it's an important one.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I've been wanting to read this novel for a long time, as Ahsoka Tano is my favorite character from the Clone Wars cartoon, and second-favorite in the entire Star Wars series. (Because General Leia exists.) I picked the book up at a used book store in Oregon when we went home from the holidays, but I've just had so many other things to read. I finally read it for May 4th, Star Wars Day.

I didn't like it as much as I wanted to. I've read another book by Johnston, That Inevitable Victorian Thing, which I enjoyed but thought was too fluffy. And comparing this to the last Star Wars book I read - Phasma - this tilts that way too. It's not as fluffy as TIVT - people die, and the Empire is the ever-looming possible doom that it always is - but it just didn't feel as gritty as Phasma did. Perhaps it shouldn't; Phasma is a villain, and her backstory is suitably dark. And Ahsoka, here, is floundering a little in the wake of Order 66, and being alive when none of her compatriots, to her knowledge, are.

I did enjoy learning how she got her lightsabers back, and the story should lead well into the Rebels cartoon, which I have yet to watch.

So I don't know. It was an entertaining book, and it was effective at furthering Ahsoka's story, it just...wasn't quite what I wanted.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I was actually very disappointed by this one. I had high hopes - I love Tamora Pierce. I've read almost all of her books, and reviewed several of them on my blog, most recently Tempests and Slaughter. I was hoping the Timeline would place the actual books in the timeline, but it's written completely in character, so only notable figures are named. (Beka Cooper, from the Mastiff trilogy, was not notable enough to get a mention, which I am quite sad about.) I knew this was going to be written in a guidebook style, not a novel, so I was prepared for that, but it still just didn't mesh well.

There were certainly amusing parts - the Spymaster taking an inordinate interest in someone stealing the royal Chef's recipes, because he loves the man's soups, for one. Also infuriating points, like the letters between the King and the man he asks to become the new Knight trainer - a man who really dislikes Alanna and female knights in general. I found the “threat-level profiles” on characters to be mostly rehashing of things we already knew.

The few mentions of Emperor Ozorne do make me want to go reread The Immortals War set of books, which I'd already somewhat wanted to do after reading Tempests and Slaughter. Now that I know they also deal with Ozorne, I want to read them again even more!

So I don't know. I could see it being a useful reference guide, but it's not really a good read. I'm pretty ambivalent about it. I would read any other Tamora Pierce book rather than this one.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

The Female Persuasion was billed as a feminist novel, and in some ways it is, but the women at my book club all agreed it's not REALLY about feminism. The main character, Greer, works for a feminist foundation, but you could have changed what the foundation's purpose was, or made her work for a corporation, and the essence of the book would have been exactly the same. It was only tangentially about feminism. It was about women supporting each other, though, and the mentor relationship between an older woman and a younger woman, so in some ways, yes. If I was asked to make a list of books about feminism, though, it certainly wouldn't make the cut.

All of the characters have some major flaws. Greer is selfish, and doesn't understand when things don't go according to plan. Cory's life gets entirely derailed by a tragedy he couldn't prevent, but in some ways he lets the derailment happen. If he'd really wanted what he said he wanted (and perhaps he didn't) he could have fixed his trajectory. Zee is a little brash and headstrong, but the most likable character in the book. Faith - oh, Faith. Faith is the older feminist mentor who turns out to be far more jaded than expected.

I have lots of conflicts about Faith. She is one of those feminists who doesn't seem to care for individual women - she can't even remember most of the women who credit her with changing their lives - but she keeps her eyes on the big picture. And as I brought up in book club, the movement does need people who see the big picture. Those people are important - but they still need certain principles that I think Faith lacks.

IR mentioned that Cory was a good foil to all the female characters in the book, and he needed his flaws, because otherwise he would be the perfect feminist boyfriend. And no one is perfect.

We were all a little disappointed with the ending; it felt like Wolitzer skipped a whole section of the story. How did Greer get from point A to point B? (Well, really, it's more like the book covers Points A, B, C, and E. And skips D.)

I think one of my favorite quotes from the book (I misattributed it to Faith at the book club, it turns out it came from Greer) was the one about being given permission:

“I think that's what the people who change our lives always do. They give us permission to be the person we secretly really long to be but maybe don't feel we're allowed to be. Many of you here in this room.....had someone like that, didn't you? Someone who gave you permission. Someone who saw you and heard you. Heard your voice.”

I think that really sums up mentorship, in some ways. Women are often still socialized to not trust their own instincts, to lean on outside opinions for validation. (I know I was.) To be given permission and encouragement to trust yourself can be a life-changing event.

I really enjoyed this book. I saw bits of myself in all four characters - Faith's practicality, Greer's impressionability, Zee's idealism, and even a little of Cory's foggy despair and lack of ambition. I wouldn't call it a feminist classic. But it was a good book.

To see all my reviews (and my experience at the Barnes & Noble Book Club event where we talked about this book!) go to Goddess in the Stacks.

I've been wanting to read this one for a while; you know how much I like my mermaids! This one is male, and not as predatory as the rest, but still good. This is one of the books from my summer TBR list, and the second book I've read from that list so far.

I feel like this book is better classified as Contemporary Fiction than fantasy; the existence of the merman is the only magical thing about it. Everything else is an exploration on love, obsession, and the lengths people will go to to meet their needs. Broder manages to wax philosophical but with a frankness that keeps everything relatable; from missing ex-boyfriends to worrying about Tinder dates, to thinking about the empty abyss of the ocean at night, Lucy's inner dialogue speaks to the anxiety within all of us.

I went back and forth as to whether I actually liked Lucy or not. I did like her for most of the book, but then she had to go and be stupid and I'm not sure I can forgive her for that. It does illustrate how far some people will go when they're obsessed with something, so it's realistic, I suppose. But I'd rather the cost had fallen on Lucy instead of the innocent bystander.

The ending of the book wasn't entirely satisfactory. It wrapped up the story, sure, but the next to the last paragraph introduced a question that hadn't otherwise been considered, and leaves it unanswered. Which is a pet peeve of mine. It's not philosophy, it's a question of is she or isn't she, and that's not something the reader can really theorize about.

Overall, I really liked the book. There were a couple of events that annoyed me, but for the most part, this was a good summer read. It largely takes place on the beach, it's at turns funny, sexy, sad, and weird. I think it's mostly deserving of the hype it received.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This is the third comedic memoir I've read by a black comedian. I don't really know what to make of that; I've certainly read non-comedic memoirs from African Americans, and comedic memoirs from white people, but three comedic memoirs from African-Americans in the last year seems a little surprising. They're all fairly new, maybe it's just what's been getting published recently? Or maybe it's just a coincidence and not yet a pattern. Or maybe it's my way of giving my brain a bit of a break from current events while still trying to read inclusively. That last one might be it.

Anyway. While I didn't like Ramsey's book as much as I did Trevor Noah's or Tiffany Haddish's books, I did really enjoy it. I didn't really know who Ramsey was before reading her book, and that might be why I didn't like it quite as much. This book deal with internet culture a lot more than the other two do; and that pertains to my interests. What I really enjoyed is that she talks about her missteps, how she was criticized for them, and admits that she was wrong and much of the criticism was needed. She explains how she corrected her own behavior in response and strove to be better, and that's something we don't see a lot of. We see half-hearted apologies and no change in behavior from a lot of internet celebrities, and Ramsey definitely tries her best to rectify her mistakes. I really liked reading about her experiences with that, as it can be such a touchy issue. No one likes to be called out. But sometimes we need to be so we can learn to be better.

I really enjoyed this one. I wouldn't say it dealt with racism more than Noah or Haddish's books did, but it definitely dealt with combatting racism more than they did. It talked about the activist aspect of it, and how to help.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Circe was my April Book of the Month club pick, and WOW was it epic. I haven't read Song of Achilles, but I just put a hold on it with my library, because this book was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that it sent me into a bit of a reading slump - what book could follow up this masterwork?

This is actually going to be a pretty short review because I'm just in awe of this book. Circe begins as a somewhat naive child in her father's household, unaware of her own power until her brother points it out to her. For those powers, she is banished to a deserted island, but her powers only grow from there. We meet many figures of Greek mythology - from gods and goddesses to mortals and monsters like Scylla and the Minotaur.

I just don't even know how to properly review this book other than it was amazing. If you like Greek mythology at ALL, you should read this book. It's captivating.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

First off, I love this cover. Second, I am somewhat amused that Canadian dystopias always blame the US for the end of the world. It's always, always, because the US decided to be stupid. I can't blame them. It's perfectly realistic. But it is slightly amusing. In the case of The Wolves of Winter, the US carried its War on Terror too far and started nuclear war. It's unclear how widespread the nuclear winter is; the book is based in the Canadian Yukon where it's already cold. There's a brief mention of farmers farther south, so there is still some warmth somewhere. What really did humanity in, though, was the Asian flu. There's rumor that it was a biological weapon deployed by the US, that then escaped their control, but no one's really sure.

Lynn - Gwendolynn - lives in a small compound in the Yukon with her mother, brother, uncle, and uncle's ward. (The son of his best friend - I'm inclined to believe he's actually the son of the uncle's lover, but nothing was actually verified.) The only other human they've seen in years is their scumbag neighbor who occasionally steals deer out of Lynn's traps.

Until one day, while out hunting, Lynn comes across the mysterious Jax and his husky, Wolf. She brings him home for food and to tend his wound, and while her family is initially very wary of him, he starts to fit in. And then, of course, the brown stuff hits the fan.

I really enjoyed Lynn and her family. In flashbacks we see them before the flu, before they had to be survivors. I got the feeling her father always saw this coming, and was preparing her for it long before it actually happened. Lynn's memories of her father are particularly vivid and help to explain exactly how she's become who she is now.

I really enjoyed this book and read it in a single sitting, but I really like dystopias and winter settings. Ultimately, it's a pretty average nuclear winter dystopia.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

So I didn't actually realize, back when I reviewed Wonder Woman: Warbringer, that it was the start of a series of origin novels. The second is this one, about Batman, and the next is Catwoman: Soulstealer. (I can't wait for that one, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, and Catwoman have been my three favorite superheroes for ages, even if Catwoman isn't exactly a hero!) After Catwoman's book, we get Superman's book, and that's all that's been announced, so I don't know if there will be any more. Though I hope there will be, because these first two have been excellent!

The name Batman is never actually mentioned in this book; he is Bruce Wayne the entire way through. He does get a suit, towards the end, and starts his career as Batman without really realizing he's doing so. We get a few nods to the Batman mythos - he stops to watch a swarm of bats heading out to hunt, and he mentions the broken grandfather clock that he hasn't fixed yet. But this is a Bruce around his high school graduation, just starting to learn about the kinds of tech that Wayne Tech produces. We do meet a few familiar faces beyond Alfred.

I had a few moments where I wanted to shake both Bruce and the adults around him because NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD DO THAT and if it needed to happen for plot's sake make it more believable! But it was overall pretty good.

There's no need to read this in order, from what I can tell - events in Wonder Woman have no effect on Gotham. Though the Catwoman book is also set in Gotham, so it will be interesting to see if they intertwine at all.

If you like DC Comics, these are definitely worth reading - if you don't, skip them.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Well, Rosamund Hodge has done it again. I think this one was actually better than Cruel Beauty, and about on par with Bright Smoke, Cold Fire. Crimson Bound is billed as Cruel Beauty #2, but it doesn't actually seem to take place in the same world. They're only connected in that they're both dark fantasy retellings of fairy tales. Crimson Bound is loosely (VERY loosely!) based on Little Red Riding Hood. It's amazing.

In Rachelle's world, The Forest is the dominating theme - it encroaches on villages and towns, sending “woodspawn” to attack people, and Forestborn to turn more humans into bloodbound and ultimately Forestborn. Humans are sheep to The Forest; prey to the Forestborn. Once a Forestborn has marked a human, they have three days to kill someone or they will die. If they kill someone, they become bloodbound - an intermediary step before they become completely Forestborn. Bloodbound have increased strength, resilience, and fighting skills, so the King has extended an offer to Bloodbound - even though they are known murderers, since they had to have killed someone to gain their powers - he will grant them clemency in exchange for their service to the realm. Guard the people from the woodspawn, the mindless monsters the Forest sends to attack people, and he'll let you live.

So Rachelle is a Bloodbound, bound to the King. Unlike most, though, she still believes in some of the old pagan stories about The Forest and the Devourer - the ancient evil driving the Forest's predatory ways. The book is about her quest to stop it from coming through into their world and destroying everything. There are twists and reveals that I cannot mention here, but it is an AMAZING piece of world-building and myth and I LOVED IT.

I also discovered she has several short stories post on her website so I'll be binge-reading those for a while!

This book - and anything by Rosamund Hodge - is pure magic. If you like dark fairy tales, you can't do better than this.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

After reading Bright Smoke, Cold Fire I knew I HAD to find more Rosamund Hodge. She has a fantastic flair for taking fairy tales (or Shakespeare!) and twisting them into something darker but more realistic. Cruel Beauty is a twist on Beauty and the Beast, but this is no Stockholm Syndrome-suffering Beauty. She is resentful, and bitter, and angry at her father for subjecting her to this. She has trained her entire life to go to the Beast and destroy him, even if it means destroying herself too. What she find at the castle is nothing like what she expected, though, and neither is she what Hodge's Beast expects. Watching these two bitter, mocking characters dance around each other to get to the bottom of the curse and what actually happened to their world is engrossing and beautiful.

I couldn't put this book down once I started it, and I've already started Crimson Bound (Little Red Riding Hood), the next book in the same world. There's also a novella, Gilded Ashes (Cinderella), that I should snag a copy of.

The world is lovely and evocative, with gods and Forest Lords and Demons who actively participate in the world and grant wishes and make deals. It's a little bit Rumpelstiltskin, a little Fairy Godmother, a little Greek mythology, and all Rosamund Hodge. She's got talent, and writes my favorite micro-genre SO WELL.

If you like dark fairy tales, read this and then everything else Rosamund Hodge has written. It's excellent!

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

So this Nigerian-influenced fantasy made enough of a splash when it was released in October that I JUST got it in my hands from the library. That long wait....was not actually justified, sadly. The cover is GORGEOUS and the concept is really, really cool - the execution is lacking. I can tell that the author had the world pretty fleshed out in his mind, from the geography to the vocabulary - but he didn't actually pass that knowledge on to the reader. Kos is a walled city, but I'm not sure whether the Palace is within the walls or not? In one scene our protagonist LEAPS out of the castle and runs back the city - but in another scene he mentions that looking out the castle wall, Kos fits behind his fingernail. Kos is made up of several neighborhood plus a market - it's not small. So either his fingernail is HUGE or Kos is a pretty decent distance away. But it's written as if it only takes him about ten minutes to run there? Not to mention that he cracked a rib in the room that he leaped from (which is never mentioned again).

Oh and he winds up landing in an ivy maze out of nowhere - he couldn't see it from the palace? Let's see....the King regularly bombards neighborhoods with catapults in what's called a “baptism” but the people haven't revolted against this, for some reason. They talk about something called a “kanselo” but never define it. I -think- it's like an organized group or coalition, but I'm really not entirely sure.

The male protagonist treats every woman his age as a potential love interest, debating whether to give them his heart-stone, or whether people will think he's already given one girl or another his heart-stone - but never stops to ask if the girls are interested in HIM that way. Because of COURSE they would be, right? He's the Sky-Fist! The Lightbringer! The one whose tattoos never fade! (Eating sin-beasts causes a black tattoo to appear on your skin - on most sin-eaters these fade eventually.) Also he's just DUMB. He recalls that the sin-eater who ate his mother's sin had a certain tattoo, and when he runs across her years later, it takes him three or four encounters before realizing it's the same sin-eater. (The tattoo is a spider. Covering her FACE. It hasn't faded.) He makes stupid decisions - after nightmares of one love-interest being attacked by sin-beasts, he LEAVES HER SURROUNDED BY THEM to go run out into the city. He has at least FIVE love interests in this book. And only ONE of them seems interested in him in return.

I really wanted to like this book. The concept of sin-eating is great. But the main character and all the one-dimensional characters that surrounded him, along with the confusing geography, just turned me off. And I'm not even getting into the “ending.” Yeah. Definitely throwing quotes on that because that was not an ending. The book just stops.

Skip this. It was a terrible book wrapped in a deceptively pretty package.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I've been picking up books on Autism since we realized my husband was on the spectrum, in hopes of finding tools to help us manage daily life. He's too busy with school and work to do much reading these days, so I've been doing the research and bringing it to him to discuss. It's led to some enlightening conversations and we've both learned a lot about each other. Cynthia Kim's blog was one I pored over and read parts of to him, and I finally got her book from my library.

One of the things I noticed most was she details social rules in ways I never would have thought to do - she has a list of seven very specific rules for eye contact, for example. As an allistic person, most of those rules are things I do instinctively, without even really knowing the reason for them. Like, in conversation, looking up or to the side means you're thinking, looking down means you're done talking. I read that to my husband and he jumped in, surprised, with “so THAT'S why I get interrupted so much!” I never would have thought to codify that into words, but it's something I naturally do.

She talks about meltdowns vs shutdowns, which are things we've already learned the difference between with my husband, but we're both eager for strategies to avoid, mitigate, and recover from them. She gave some strategies as places to start, but that's hard to give general advice on as every autistic is so very different in that regard.

The chapter on alexithymia was really interesting. Alexithymia being an impairment in identifying and describing emotions. It leads to a lot of “Hey, are you okay?” “I don't know.” “Well, how do you feel?” “I DON'T KNOW!” We'd already been introduced to this concept through her blog, but she expands on it in the book.

Another interesting (and applicable!) chapter was the one on executive dysfunction. (We joke that I am my husband's personal assistant - I keep his calendar and remind him of important dates/events/homework due dates, and sometimes nudge him to do things if it seems he's having trouble getting started.)

Kim uses the term Asperger's in her writing (as well as autism), but Asperger's has been rolled into the greater Autism Spectrum Disorder since 2013. Very recently there's been some debate about the Asperger name, as it's been revealed that Hans Asperger at least cooperated with the Nazis, and possibly was one himself. It's still used commonly, though, and there is a large community built around being Aspies. Personally, I think using the Asperger term is a little too divisive - it's basically the same as “high-functioning.” But. I'm allistic and my opinion on the matter isn't the important one, so. We use autistic for my husband. (His choice, and when I asked his thoughts, he also thinks the Asperger term is divisive and not useful.) There's a number of Twitter threads and articles on the subject of using or not using the Asperger term, and what it means to the community.

Overall, this was a really great book for learning about how autism affects day-to-day life, and gave us lots of talking points and words for things we didn't have the vocabulary for. I'm looking forward to tackling the rest of my Autism Reading List.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

The Black Rose is the lightly fictionalized story of the life of Madame C. J. Walker, America's first black female millionaire. Tananarive Due seems to have taken over the project from Alex Haley, the acclaimed late co-author of Malcolm X's autobiography. Due is a wonderful storyteller; many biographies I've read have been dry and uninteresting, but The Black Rose is technically a novel, and kept my attention through the entire book. Madame Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, is an incredibly charismatic figure. She was born to former slaves just after the Civil War - the only member of her family born free - and the book chronicles her entire life. From her parents' deaths, to her early years working in a cotton field, to being a washerwoman, cook, then finally an entrepreneur. According to Wiki she had four brothers; the book only mentions one. Wiki also mentions a marriage in between her daughter's father and CJ Walker; that one wasn't mentioned in the book at all. So there are some differences.

The Black Rose is an engrossing look at an influential woman whose name seems to be largely forgotten. Or perhaps it's only forgotten because we're not taught nearly as much African-American history as we should be in this country. Madame Walker's company was a path to economic freedom for thousands of black women in the early 20th century. Besides the jobs she created, she also made many charitable donations and was active in politics and civil rights, participating in marches and, once, visiting the White House to speak with the president. (According to the book, the president declined to speak with her group, though.)

This is a good example of why I'm trying to diversify my reading. I didn't know the name C. J. Walker. I had no idea where she came from, or the scope of the company she built and the people she helped.

Excellent, educational book.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This is the sequel to Bright Smoke, Cold Fire, in which we were introduced to Romeo Mahyanai and Juliet Catresou, and the city of Viyara. This book concentrates much more on Romeo and Juliet instead of Paris and Runajo/Rosaline, who were arguably the main characters of the first book.

So, as a quick recap, the city of Viyara/Verona is the last city anywhere in the world, as far as anyone in the city knows. A mystical event called The Ruining manifested as a white fog and spread over the entire world, killing everything in its path, and making the dead rise as zombies. The only reason Viyara stands is because some long-dead priestess managed to create mystical walls to protect it - but the walls are fueled by blood. Willing, sometimes coerced people are sacrificed on a regular basis to fuel the walls and keep the rest of the city safe. Juliet is not actually Juliet, but THE Juliet, a nameless girl raised and mystically bound to the clan of the Catresou, obedient to the head of the clan and bound to avenge any unnatural deaths of the family. She, however, falls in love with Romeo.

The first book plays out their love story, while seeing events around it through the eyes of Runajo and Paris. By the second book, Romeo and Juliet each think the other is dead, though Romeo has discovered that's a lie, Runajo has ideas about how to save the city from the Ruining, and Romeo and Juliet have switched sides. Her mystical bindings have been transferred to Romeo's clan, and Romeo, through guilt and remorse, has transferred his loyalties to Juliet's clan.

The second book concentrates on saving the city, the last bastion of humanity. There are zombies, and sacrifices, and sword fights, and stolen kisses. Things really get complicated when Romeo accidentally kills a Mahyanai and Juliet's mystical bindings kick in, compelling her to kill him. She operates under that compulsion for most of the last half of the book, while still being utterly in love with him and trying to fight the compulsion.

It's hard to do this book justice; the web is very complex and, like any Romeo and Juliet story, only ends in death. In Hodge's world, however, the mystical bindings on Juliet have made her a key to the land of death, allowing her to cross over while still alive. So we get a journey through Death's kingdom, and it is fascinating.

I won't say anymore, but if you like Shakespeare, and you like fantasy, you should totally read this duology.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.