This year, I\u2019m binge reading science fiction and fantasy books that are accessible to young adult and middle grade audiences. I\u2019ve picked about thirty to review (1). They\u2019re books that I felt I had something to say about, not necessarily the books I loved most. They\u2019re all good enough to be worth reading, though, or I wouldn\u2019t bother to review (2).<\/p>\n
AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor (highly recommended)<\/p>\n
Teenage protagonist, Sunny, discovers that she has the ability to learn magic. She makes friends with other teens who have the same abilities. They take lessons together, explore the magical world, and eventually form a coven to fight off a serial killer who is butchering children in order to fuel his own spells.<\/p>\n
Sunny and her friends are memorable and interesting characters, each well-drawn through their traits and actions, but especially through their exceptionally written dialogue. Despite the ensemble cast, it\u2019s never difficult to remember, crisply, who everyone is and what they want. Even the secondary characters are extremely well-rendered. <\/p>\n
Reading about a setting that\u2019s still unusual in American fantasy was nice, especially since Okorafor\u2019s Nigeria seems sharply observed and non-sentimentalized. (She clearly wasn\u2019t following the rules on how to write about Africa.<\/a>) The strong imagery helps create a magic rich system that seems much more complex than what\u2019s on the page. The world-building feels seamless and deep in a way I feel Okorafor often manages, creating a real sense that the settings exist both before and after the characters wander through. Other characters seem to be having their own adventures; we just happen to be watching this one.<\/p>\n The novel suffers from a rushed ending. The plot is foreshadowed for a long time, then suddenly turns up, and all of a sudden everyone\u2019s rushing to finish things, and then the book is over in a way that feels unsatisfying. There\u2019s no time for the danger to build, no time for complexities and reversals. The bulk of the book is about the journey of learning magic, and it\u2019s rich and wonderful. The adventure feels tacked on. It\u2019s not that it couldn\u2019t have been an interesting adventure; the premises were interesting; but the structural issues caused it to pale in comparison with the beginning of the book. <\/p>\n ALL MEN OF GENIUS by Lev Ac Rosen<\/p>\n Violet Adams wants to attend college so that she can create mechanical and magical wonders, but the best colleges only accept men. Assuming her brother\u2019s identity so that she can apply, Violet sneaks into a men\u2019s-only school, knowing that if her deception is discovered, she\u2019ll be sent to prison.<\/p>\n As an educated reader would guess, a book featuring a cis-woman living as a man is going to be full of mistaken identities, farcical situations, and puzzled lovers. All Men of Genius includes all that stuff, and it\u2019s fine. It\u2019s often fun. <\/p>\n But the real joy here is the description of the mechanical and magical wonders being made at the university. They. Are. So. Cool. I enjoyed the plot and the characters, but I probably would have still read the book if it had been nothing but a list of awesome experiments the characters were doing. <\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014the book is good on other stuff, too. Fun historical details. Characters you can get behind, including the main character and her brother, but most especially an unexpectedly rich secondary character, Miriam. <\/p>\n There are some pacing problems\u2014it\u2019s clear about midway that all the characters are going to get along famously once the secrets are revealed, but the adventure plotline hasn\u2019t really begun by that point, so there\u2019s a large chunk of text that doesn\u2019t have much drive behind it. When the adventure clicks into high gear, it doesn\u2019t have much time to develop, so it doesn\u2019t feel as realistic as it might; the villain\u2019s motivations come across as thin. And the last attempts to wring suspense from \u201cwill they or won\u2019t they?\u201d read like the paper tiger\u2019s pacing the cage; not only is it clear to the reader what\u2019s going to happen, but it feels like it must be clear to the characters, too.<\/p>\n Anyway, all that\u2019s true, but the major point here is: AWESOME SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS.<\/p>\n Also, a really funny sequence with a bunny.<\/p>\n ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake (recommended)<\/p>\n Ghost-hunter Cas travels the country chasing ghost stories. When he finds the ghosts, he exorcises them with his magic knife. He\u2019s never had a problem until he encounters Anna (dressed in blood), a powerful and violent ghost whose strangeness draws Cas to investigate before he kills.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if this is the year of awesome ghosts or if ghosts are always awesome or what, but this book featured some awesome ghosts. The awesomest of all is Anna (dressed in blood) who steals the book and runs away with it. The imagery describing her is amazing, from her physical presence to the chilling murders she commits, her character is compelling, and the best part of the book is the resolution of her plotline. Cas himself is a somewhat generic protagonist, a not-so-interesting guy in an interesting situation, but some of the other characters also stand out, such as Cas\u2019s awkward, spell-casting friend. The tightly wound plot unspools suspensefully\u2026 until the very end when some things resolve too quickly and fail to meet the \u201cinevitable\u201d part of \u201cinevitable and surprising.\u201d <\/p>\n One thing that I\u2019ve discovered in this reading \u2018bout is that almost all adventure novels veer off at the end this way; it seems like it\u2019s hard to toss all those balls in the air, keep them flying, and then successfully catch them all without letting one slip.<\/p>\n ANYA\u2019S GHOST by Vera Brosgol (recommended)<\/p>\n This graphic novel depicts the story of Anya, an unpopular and resentful high school student, who\u2019s out walking one day when she falls into a hole\u2014and not just any hole, but one inhabited by a skeleton, which in turn is inhabited by the ghost of a sad girl with a puff of hair like a dandelion. The ghost sneaks a piece of her skeleton into Anya\u2019s bag so that when Anya is rescued, the ghost can follow. <\/p>\n The art here is fun, sometimes funny, and intuitive to follow, even for people who don\u2019t spend much time reading graphic novels. Anya\u2019s grumpy, awkward, angsty adolescence is easy to identify with; she\u2019s not always likeable, but she\u2019s hard-headed and determined and interesting. The central mystery kept me turning pages, but unfortunately, the book didn\u2019t quite manage to execute its leap into horror, leaving the ending a bit pallid and expected. <\/p>\n BETWEEN THE SEA AND SKY by Jacqueline Dolamore<\/p>\n Mermaids can turn into humans, but only if they\u2019re willing to endure the shooting pain of each step. After her sister is kidnapped, Esmerine braves the pain and enters the harbor city in search of her. She understands little of the human culture around her, but luckily she runs into a childhood friend: a young, bookish man with bat wings, native to the sky as she is to the sea.<\/p>\n The plot of this novel was a little weird for me in places. For instance, some of the conceits about sirens vs mermaids seemed unnecessarily complicated. The book also draws from what I assume is the mythology about selkies, saying that if a mermaid in human form gives up her magic belt (equivalent to a seal skin?) to a man, she\u2019s freed from the pain of walking, but loses her ability to transform back into a mermaid. The abhorrence of giving up the ability to return to one\u2019s natural form is central to the way the plot unfolds, but it doesn\u2019t entirely make sense\u2014the man seems to be able to return the belt, which would seem to mean that the mermaids can zip back into the ocean, then return to the land whenever they want. Or rather, whenever they can get the men to cooperate. I can see how that would be a problem\u2014many mermaids are kidnapped, and even if they\u2019re not, is it really a good idea to trust the fundamentals of one\u2019s freedom to someone else?\u2014but it doesn\u2019t seem like it\u2019s an *impossible* arrangement, the way the book seems to treat it.<\/p>\n For me, the pleasure in this book came in its quieter moments, when the characters had time to sit and talk. There\u2019s a long sequence in a bookstore which doesn\u2019t entirely fit into the quest plot line (or, at any rate, seems to take a lot of the page count when it\u2019s technically not moving the plot forward much), but it was one of my favorite parts of the novel, a kind of tactile pleasure, establishing the world the characters inhabit. Once Esmerine finds her sister, Dolamore does a delicate job of describing the awkward intimacy of their reunion as they find out they didn\u2019t know each other nearly as well as they thought they did. I wasn\u2019t up for the adventure on this one, but where the book is at its best, it evokes an interesting, quiet tone that feels almost like it comes from a historical novel.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n (1) I\u2019m doing my reviews in alphabetical order, but I haven\u2019t finished reading absolutely everything I\u2019m planning to. I may tack some on at the end, out of order.<\/p>\n (2) Consequently, please interpret \u201crecommended\u201d as \u201cespecially recommended.\u201d<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n My philosophy on reviewing: I love books and I love talking about them. My goal is to support both readers and writers. It\u2019s my hope that reviewing books and creating conversation about them is ultimately beneficial to both. <\/p>\n With few exceptions (and none here), I prefer to talk about books I\u2019ve enjoyed. Please assume that if I talk about a book here, I enjoyed reading it, even if I\u2019m criticizing the hell out of it. I\u2019m the kind of person who could nitpick through the apocalypse and still have complaints left for the howling void.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year, I\u2019m binge reading science fiction and fantasy books that are accessible to young adult and middle grade audiences. I\u2019ve picked about thirty to review (1). They\u2019re books that I felt I had something to say about, not necessarily … Continue reading