SLAY

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the "downfall of the Black man."

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for "anti-white discrimination."

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

Author: Brittney Morris | Publisher: Simon Pulse

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Rating: 5 / 5

Okay, everyone. I’m going to need you to go out and buy SLAY as soon as it’s published on September 24. Because Brittney Morris has written one hell of a book!

Let me say that I searched high and low for a review copy of SLAY. I first heard about it at BookCon, where Morris was on a panel I attended. She explained that SLAY is about a teenage girl who’s secretly built an entire RPG video game that serves as a Black culture utopia, with playing cards that integrate Black culture including the Michael Jackson card that raises Thriller zombies, the Purple Haze card, etc. But then someone is killed in real life because of the game, and the national attention causes people to accuse it — and her — of reverse racism. Then she has to fight to protect her world. Oh, also, Morris wrote this book in like two weeks or something ridiculous like that, for a writing competition. No big.

I immediately wanted to read it. The next day, they were giving out ARCs at one of the booths — and the line closed in about 30 seconds. I requested it on NetGalley — and they’d already given out all their allotted e-copies. I entered Goodreads giveaways, to no avail. Finally, my friend Laura @laurayaminreads (whom the world does not deserve, she is too good to us) remembered me when she was at the ALA conference and grabbed me an ARC. 🙌🏼

This book was everything it promises to be, and more. I grew up definitely apart from Black culture in a small, very white rural town. I got the feeling that this book will feel comforting, like home, to many Black people who read it. I imagine they will see themselves reflected in it and feel seen, which is obviously the point and a fantastic result. But the fact that it can achieve that and make me — an inevitably biased white person — feel like I wasn’t an outsider, but a friend looking in, was so impressive. Because while I could obviously tell that this book wasn’t written for me, it helped me. It leaves the door open for anyone who believes in the power of community, and progress, and anti-racism.

Also, I loved Kiera’s character. She’s well done, round and relatable and just a teen trying to live a normal teen life while also carving out a safe space for an entire marginalized community (nbd). Her arc was interesting and not sugar-coated. Her commentary was helpful and illuminative. And the entire plot was super exciting.

I’m telling you, don’t miss this one.

Red at the Bone

Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. Moving forward and backward in time, with the power of poetry and the emotional richness of a narrative ten times its length, Jacqueline Woodson's extraordinary new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of this child.

As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the soundtrack of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony — a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives--even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.

Author: Jacqueline Woodson | Publisher: Riverhead

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Rating: 5 / 5

Thank you to libro.fm for the advanced listening copy of this book! If you like audiobooks, try libro.fm — it works and costs the same as Audible, but supports local bookstores. (Not sponsored, but if you use my referral link you get one month free and I get a free book. 😊)

Wow. This book. What did we ever do to you, Jacqueline Woodson?? How can you be allowed to just swoop in there, break our hearts ten times in ten different ways, and then just leave?? So beautiful.

Red at the Bone centers on one family, although it’s tough to say who the main character is. Perhaps it’s Iris, who shocked her family by having a baby at the age of sixteen. But the story opens on that child’s 16th birthday, and she and every one of her family members — her mother, her father, her grandfather, her grandmother — gets a first-person perspective, plus some third-person along the way. Woodson dives in and out of these characters’ heads and hearts, pulling at their lives and experiences in a way that gives you the most complete family portrait of all time.

The story isn’t told linearly; we bounce around from past to present and then jump ahead, we get layers on layers. And while it isn’t long (only 208 pages and an audiobook run time of about four hours), this story will stay with you for a long time. It’s absolutely astounding how much of an impact Jacqueline Woodson can have on your heart in so few pages, and how full and beautiful she can make so many characters. She’s the best for a reason.

The voice cast of the audiobook was also phenomenal. I usually like to listen to nonfiction and read fiction, because I like to spend more time savoring the words in fiction. But I’m so glad I listened to this one. It was emotional and very well done.

Lost Children Archive

A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home.

Why Apaches? asks the ten-year-old son. Because they were the last of something, answers his father.

In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an “immigration crisis”: thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States, but getting detained — or lost in the desert along the way.

As the family drives — through Virginia to Tennessee, across Oklahoma and Texas — we sense they are on the brink of a crisis of their own. A fissure is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. They are led, inexorably, to a grand, harrowing adventure — both in the desert landscape and within the chambers of their own imaginations.

Told through several compelling voices, blending texts, sounds, and images, Lost Children Archive is an astonishing feat of literary virtuosity. It is a richly engaging story of how we document our experiences, and how we remember the things that matter to us the most. With urgency and empathy, it takes us deep into the lives of one remarkable family as it probes the nature of justice and equality today.

Author: Valeria Luiselli | Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group

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Rating: 5 / 5

“Something changed in the world. Not too long ago, it changed, and we know it. We don't know how to explain it yet, but I think we all can feel it, somewhere deep in our gut or in our brain circuits. We feel time differently. No one has quite been able to capture what is happening or say why. Perhaps it's just that we sense an absence of future, because the present has become too overwhelming, so the future has become unimaginable. And without future, time feels like only an accumulation.”

I read Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions, which reflects on her experiences as a volunteer translator for child refugees seeking asylum in the United States. It was fantastic, and so when I heard that she had written a novel that deals with the same subject matter, I knew I had to read it. Add in the fact that it was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, and I was doubly sold. I bought a signed first edition from Strand Bookstore — and I’m so glad I did.

Lost Children Archive was absolutely stunning. Melancholy, reflective, narrative, musical. The moments she brings to life are so creative and specific that it’s hard to believe she made them up. But be warned: It’s very literary, and getting through to the end is a commitment. That commitment pays off wonderfully, beautifully, but you have to be okay with feeling like you’re wandering around a bit before you get there.

The story is about a family — a mother (the main character), a father, the mother’s daughter, and the father’s son. None of their names are given — they’re referred to as “me,” “my husband,” “the girl,” and “the boy.” The parents are professional sound-collectors: she as a journalist, and he as a sort of artist. For four years, they worked on a project together in NYC, but now their professional goals are diverging, so the family’s future is in flux. He plans to spend several years inventorying the sounds that exist in Apacheria, the home of his ancestors. She plans to examine the child refugee crisis at the USA-Mexico border but return to NYC. So they’re driving across the country together without knowing what will happen at the end of the trip.

So the first half of the book or so is the mother’s account of this history and this uncertain future. There’s a lot about the individual family members, her uncertainty about marriage and family, and the lessons about the Apache people that the father imparts on them all. This is the part of the book that feels a little aimless — you think, I expected to read more about refugee children, when will this part of the story end?

“Conversations, in a family, become linguistic archaeology. They build the world we share, layer it in a palimpsest, give meaning to our present and future. The question is, when, in the future, we dig into our intimate archive, replay our family tape, will it amount to a story? A soundscape? Or will it all be sound rubble, noise, and debris?”

Then the perspective shifts to that of the boy, and we get to see everything from a familiar but entirely new angle. And by the end of the book, you realize that the first half of the book was not aimless — in fact, it was incredibly important and even insightful. The way everything crashes into itself at the end left me feeling like I’d been walloped in the stomach. The narrative bends and twists and reveals and breaks and will not be ignored. I’m going to be thinking about it for a long, long time.

If you like books that are fast-paced, that move along and make you wonder what’s going to happen on the next page, then this may not be for you. It’s not “exciting.” This book is for those among us who really love literary fiction for the genre’s sake, who look for a wider world on every page, who are willing to trust authors who promise that they have something important to say in the end. This one takes patience, but it’s more than worth it.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo — until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees.

As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would overwhelm the bravest of souls. Above all, they must journey to find each other again.

Moving, powerful, compassionate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. It is the kind of book that reminds us of the power of storytelling.

Author: Christy Lefteri | Publisher: Ballantine Books

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Rating: 5 / 5

My great thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of this book early in exchange for an honest review.

“Now, standing there with her face so close to mine, I could see the desire, the determination to hold on to an illusion, a vision of life, of Aleppo.”

This novel is a masterpiece of modern history. I'm still processing it, healing the small wound in my chest that it left, hoping to internalize this sliver of connection to humanity. But I will try to find the words to review it for you.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo tells the story of Nuri, a man who once led a simple, beautiful life. He was in business with his cousin and close friend — the bees they lovingly raised produced honey that fueled a small business. His wife, Afra, was an artist. His son was the apple of his eye. Today, they’re in London, attempting to seek asylum from the Syrian civil war. He is a shell of the man he once was, and Afra is blind.

Through intense and heartbreaking flashbacks, we get glimpses into the events that drove them from their home, the things that cannot be unseen, the journey and desperation that got them where they are today. Because the story isn’t told linearly, much of it comes to the audience through revelation, small and large but always eye-opening.

“[Infants] communicated without words from the most primitive part of the soul. I remembered her laughing about this, saying that she felt like an animal [when she breastfed], and how she realized that we are less human in our times of greatest love and greatest fear.”

The pacing and structure of this novel was excellent. We know they made it to London, because that’s where the present-day chapters take place. But how did they get there? How did Nuri become this version of himself? What happened to Afra’s eyes? Who is this character named Mohammad? What happened to them along the way? Where are the parts of themselves that they seem to have left behind? What will happen to them next?

In the author’s note, Christy Lefteri tells us that she volunteered in refugee camps in Athens, Greece, and that’s where the inspiration for this story came from. It’s clear that she witnessed a lot, and they way she molds those observations into a narrative are empathetic and heart-wrenching.

This is a stunning portrait of trauma, a question of what it means to see and experience traumatic things, and a simultaneously devastating and hopeful. It’s easier (and human), when dealing with terrible truths like war, to keep them at a distance. Our brains find it hard to wrap themselves around such terrible truths. This novel breaks down that barrier in a way that helps it resonate deep inside.

Cantoras

In 1977 Uruguay, a military government crushed political dissent with ruthless force. In this environment, where the everyday rights of people are under attack, homosexuality is a dangerous transgression to be punished. And yet Romina, Flaca, Anita "La Venus," Paz, and Malena — five cantoras, women who "sing" — somehow, miraculously, find one another. Together, they discover an isolated, nearly uninhabited cape, Cabo Polonio, which they claim as their secret sanctuary. Over the next thirty-five years, their lives move back and forth between Cabo Polonio and Montevideo, the city they call home, as they return, sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, with lovers in tow, or alone. And throughout, again and again, the women will be tested — by their families, lovers, society, and one another — as they fight to live authentic lives.

A genre-defining novel and Carolina De Robertis's masterpiece, Cantoras is a breathtaking portrait of queer love, community, forgotten history, and the strength of the human spirit. At once timeless and groundbreaking, Cantoras is a tale about the fire in all our souls and those who make it burn.

Author: Carolina De Robertis | Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group

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Rating: 5 / 5

Without hesitation: Cantoras is a masterpiece of a novel. It’s brimming with humanity, turmoil, heart (of both the -warming and -breaking variety), hope, and beauty. I’m about to recommend it to everyone I know who reads literary fiction, because it’s just that good.

The story begins in 1977 Uruguay, under the dictatorship. In that time and place, it was dangerous to leave the house, dangerous to meet in groups, dangerous to speak your mind, dangerous to exist at all. And especially dangerous to exist as a queer woman. So our five friends — some better friends than others — Flaca, Anita, Romina, Malena, and Paz, find a deserted beach where they can be themselves, just for one week. And it quite literally changes their existence.

Flaca is a playgirl with a big heart. Anita is a sexual being who longs for freedom, Romina is an activist, Malena is a web of silence and trauma, and Paz is a young fireball of action. Throughout their lives, they return to the beach again and again. But they also grow, change, love, fight, and intertwine themselves irreversibly.

Carolina De Robertis’s prose is gorgeous. It’s quietly stirring, grabbing your gut without being needy or assuming. It just gets out of its own way and carries you through the story. And these characters are everything. I can’t decide who I’m most drawn to — they are all so complex, and so well written, and have so many interesting things about them.

The ending left me feeling a lot of emotions, but it’s hard to put them into words. It was both sad and hopeful, beautiful and devastating. So I feel all those things at once, which I think is the mark of excellent fiction. Because one emotion is boring. One emotion doesn’t connect you to other people, not truly. One emotion doesn’t expand the way you see the world. But this? This does. Read it.

City of Girls

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves — and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life — and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert | Publisher: Riverhead

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Rating: 4.25 / 5

“Never has it felt more important for me to tell stories of joy and abandon, passion and recklessness. Life is short and difficult, people. We must take our pleasures where we can find them. Let us not become so cautious that we forget to live.”

This book has gotten a lot of hype, and it’s easy to see why. It’s well written, uniquely narrated, and a great story. There’s no denying the master-level work of Elizabeth Gilbert!

Our main character is Vivian, who’s nearly 90 years old. She’s writing a letter, telling the recipient the story of “what she was” to this woman’s father. Except she starts the story way back, just after she failed out of a girls’ college in upstate New York. Her wealthy family sends her off to live with her aunt, who owns a small theatre in New York City.

Vivian is good at two things: sewing, which she does to become a sort of costume director at the theatre, and partying (plenty of alcohol and sex included), which she does every night with her showgirl best friend. Then a major star comes to the theatre, they write a hit play for her, and just when everything is going great, Vivian makes a huge mistake that brings her world crumbling down around her. The rest of the story takes us through the remainder of Vivian’s life as she finds her way to a life that feels like her, although it’s notably unconventional.

This was a long book, at nearly 500 pages. But it reads smoothly; it doesn’t drag. And it’s a gorgeous exploration of youth, desire, shame, growing up, companionship, friendship, parenthood, love, and plenty more in between. The main characters will tug at your heart. Your cheeks will burn and your head will throb and the curiosity of who Vivian is talking to will keep you turning pages until the end.

I give this 4 / 5 because it didn’t grip me quite as much as a typical 5-star book does. But I still think it was great, and definitely worth your time. All 500 pages of it.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.

Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

Author: Alix E. Harrow | Publisher: Redhook

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Rating: 4.5 / 5

“This one smelled unlike any book I’d ever held. Cinnamon and coal smoke, catacombs and loam. Damp seaside evenings and sweat-slick noontimes beneath palm fronds. It smelled as if it had been in the mail for longer than any one parcel could be, circling the world for years and accumulating layers of smells like a tramp wearing too many clothes.

It smelled like adventure itself had been harvested in the wild, distilled to a fine wine, and splashed across each page.

But I’m stumbling ahead of myself. Stories are supposed to be told in order, with beginnings and middles and ends. I’m no scholar, but I know that much.”

I got an advanced reader’s copy of this book from the publisher at BookCon — and wow, am I happy that I did! The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a delightful, whimsical, magical story and a beautiful debut novel to have emerged from Alix Harrow’s heart.

The story is told by January, our main character, speaking directly to the reader (addressing the reader as “you,” including many quirky and informal asides, etc.). At the beginning her tale in the very early 1900s, she’s a young girl. Her father is employed by a wealthy man named Mr. Locke to travel the world and find archaeological treasures. That man also acts as January’s guardian, as she and her father live at his estate in Vermont.

But then January finds her first Door (note the capital D, as January would have you do) — a Door to another world that she seemingly wrote into existence. But Mr. Locke convinces her that she’s being childish and she reluctantly (almost) puts it out of her mind — until ten years later when, as a young lady, she finds a copy of The Ten Thousand Doors in a mysterious trunk. And then the adventure begins — an adventure filled with monsters disguised as men, a mysterious and tragic love story, secret societies, and evil intentions.

It took a couple of chapters to relax into the whimsy and informality of January’s narration, but by the end, I was absolutely in love with all of the characters and so invested in their outcomes and happiness. The story paced well — not too fast, not too slow — and there were a couple of well-placed twists.

I can’t emphasize enough how much I loved Alix Harrow’s writing. It was so gosh darn magical. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw that I couldn’t stop taking photos of certain passages and sharing them on my stories. Also, there are some truly delightful footnotes in The Ten Thousand Doors that made me laugh out loud more than once.

This isn’t a book for you if you like epic fantasy novels with big battle scenes. But it is for you if you just love magic. If you root for the underdog and believe in the power of stories and love and friendship.

This book will be published in the US on September 10th.

“It’s a profoundly strange feeling, to stumble across someone whose desires are shaped so closely to your own, like reaching toward your reflection in a mirror and finding warm flesh under your fingertips. If you should ever be lucky enough to find that magical, fearful symmetry, I hope you’re brave enough to grab it with both hands and not let go.”

Daisy Jones & the Six

Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid | Publisher: Ballantine Books

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Rating: 4/5

“No matter who you choose to go down the road with, you're gonna get hurt. That's just the nature of caring about someone. No matter who you love, they will break your heart along the way.”

This book sat on my proverbial bedside table for a long time — I kept meaning to read it in a given month, and it kept getting crowded out by upcoming releases, library due dates, etc. Then someone told me that the audiobook was supposedly really good — so I decided to do “read” it that way.

This was an excellent decision. The book is written in the form of a sort-of script, as it’s a mock collection of interview snippets from the members of the band and their friends and families. The audiobook cast and voice acting really went above and beyond to bring the story to life. I found myself riveted, heart breaking right alongside them.

Daisy Jones’ parents weren’t really parents to her, and she entered the drug scene early in her life. She found her way to her natural musical talent by accident, but her first record contract wouldn’t let her record her original songs. Meanwhile, The Six had formed, evolved a bit, and started to grow. They had their first tour, which went well for the band but poorly for some of its members. Drugs again. Eventually, they write a song that needs a female vocalist, and they find Daisy. Boom, chemistry. They skyrocket up to the very top of the rock and roll world.

But it isn’t easy along the way. Love, drugs, depression, heartbreak, excitement, family, loyalty (and not) — these things take a toll on a person’s life, and on the lives of those who love them. And then there’s a great little twist at the end.

What this novel is really, really about is love —for yourself, for others, for music and your own talent. It’s about people struggling all the time, and finding out which struggles are worth it. It’s about how the same situation looks different depending on whose eyes you view it through. And it’s about how you can be both alone and not alone at exactly the same time.

I really liked it, and I definitely recommend the audiobook. 100%.

“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else's muse.
I am not a muse.
I am the somebody.
End of f*cking story.”

A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, #3)

***Description is spoiler for book 1 and book 2 of the Shades of Magic trilogy***

As darkness sweeps the Maresh Empire, the once precarious balance of power among the four Londons has reached its breaking point.

In the wake of tragedy, Kell--once assumed to be the last surviving Antari--begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. Lila Bard, once a commonplace--but never common--thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry.

An ancient enemy returns to claim a city while a fallen hero tries to save a kingdom in decay. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible.

Author: V.E. Schwab | Publisher: Tor Books

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Rating: 4.5 / 5

“Anoshe was a word for strangers in the street, and lovers between meetings, for parents and children, friends and family. It softened the blow of leaving. Eased the strain of parting. A careful nod to the certainty of today, the mystery of tomorrow. When a friend left, with little chance of seeing home, they said anoshe. When a loved one was dying, they said anoshe. When corpses were burned, bodies given back to the earth and souls to the stream, those left grieving said anoshe.”

I loved A Darker Shade of Magic and A Gathering of Shadows, so of course I was bound to love A Conjuring of Light. This was an absolutely epic conclusion to a trilogy that reminded me why I love to read stories about magic. Because at its core, the Shades of Magic trilogy is about magic.

I’ve read other reviews where people have said that they just don’t feel connected to these characters, or these worlds. They were disappointed by a lack of any major plot twists or left-field surprises. I completely disagree.

I see this trilogy as the fantasy adventure story you loved as a kid — but grown up. Yes, things feel a bit tidy. Yes, they unfold in a sort-of-traditional, save-the-world type of plot. But it was magical and adventurous and emotional, and that, in itself, was fulfilling for me as a reader.

This series made me feel good. But it also took me on a trip through things like suspense, and grief, and love, and duty.

Also, my heart bleeds for these characters. They feel like friends. Literally all of them. They have my heart.

If you love magic for magic’s sake, then this is a trilogy for you.

The Dearly Beloved

Charles and Lily, James and Nan. They meet in Greenwich Village in 1963 when Charles and James are jointly hired to steward the historic Third Presbyterian Church through turbulent times. Their personal differences however, threaten to tear them apart.

Charles is destined to succeed his father as an esteemed professor of history at Harvard, until an unorthodox lecture about faith leads him to ministry. How then, can he fall in love with Lily--fiercely intellectual, elegantly stern—after she tells him with certainty that she will never believe in God? And yet, how can he not?

James, the youngest son in a hardscrabble Chicago family, spent much of his youth angry at his alcoholic father and avoiding his anxious mother. Nan grew up in Mississippi, the devout and beloved daughter of a minister and a debutante. James's escape from his desperate circumstances leads him to Nan and, despite his skepticism of hope in all its forms, her gentle, constant faith changes the course of his life.

In The Dearly Beloved, we follow these two couples through decades of love and friendship, jealousy and understanding, forgiveness and commitment. Against the backdrop of turbulent changes facing the city and the church’s congregation, these four forge improbable paths through their evolving relationships, each struggling with uncertainty, heartbreak, and joy. A poignant meditation on faith and reason, marriage and children, and the ways we find meaning in our lives, Cara Wall’s The Dearly Beloved is a gorgeous, wise, and provocative novel that is destined to become a classic.

Author: Cara Wall | Publisher: Simon & Schuster

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Rating: 5/5

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the advanced review copy of this book! It will be published August 13.

The Dearly Beloved is a masterpiece of literary fiction. There’s not a word out of place. It’s a gorgeous examination of what it means to exist side by side. I was hypnotized, heartbroken from the first page.

There are four characters:

• Charles, who grew up in an intellectual, university family and finds himself hit with a sudden, visceral calling to become a minister while studying history

• Lily, whose parents died when she was young, and so she buried herself in a life of risk-free isolation

• James, whose father dealt with his post-war PTSD by drinking heavily, and who just wants to escape that life for himself

• Nan, the daughter of a southern minister whose life has come easily, but whose faith and love for other people is strong

The first section follows Charles and Lily, and James and Nan, as they grow up, meet, and start their lives together. Then Charles and James are hired as co-pastors at the same Greenwich Village church, and their lives are irrevocably intertwined. We follow them all the way from childhood to middle age, and beyond.

This is not a book about religion; it’s a book about people whose lives are touched by religion. Charles and Nan believe in God whole-heartedly, James is unsure, and Lily does not believe in God at all. But the way that these characters fit together inside and around these differences in faith, and how they grow through it, is much more the focus than the idea of God itself.

This is also not a book centered on plot. It’s a book centered on the way people fit together like notches, and the way they grind against each other’s sharp edges at the same time. It’s about love between man and wife, man and friend, woman and not-friend, woman and friend, parents and children, people and their God. It’s about what it means to be human, to be a person in the world, one who loves and fears and hopes and cries.

It’s the kind of novel that makes you feel like you need to exhale all the air in your chest.

Gods of Jade and Shadow

The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own. 

Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it — and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true.

In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City — and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.

Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Publisher: Del Ray

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Rating: 3.5/5

This book was light, fun, and exactly what I needed after reading several heavy, emotional books in a row. It will take you on an adventure to a different culture, tug on your heart strings a bit, and leave you with a smile.

At the start of the story, Casiopea is a Cinderella character; her free-thinking father passed away, and now she lives with her mother’s wealthy family, who basically treat her as the maid. She dreams of independence and adventure. Then one day, she’s left behind while everyone else goes out. Driven by curiosity and rebellion, she opens a mysterious trunk and finds herself resurrecting the god of death.

Since she resurrected him, her life-force is tied to his, so she has to help him get back the missing pieces of his body and regain his full strength before time is up and she dies. So they set off across Mexico and the southwestern US on an adventure. Along the way, they meet other characters from Mayan mythology, learn that more than just Casiopea’s life is at stake, and explore the more human sides of themselves.

I think this book was categorized as adult, but in my opinion, it could just as easily be listed as YA. It actually felt a lot like the Percy Jackson books to me — funny, quirky, save-the-world adventure that takes you on a bit of a clip show of that mythology’s greatest hits.

There isn’t a whole lot of depth to the book, which is why I knocked off some stars. That makes sense in Percy Jackson because those books are middle grade, but as an adult novel it felt a little small. There is almost no character development, but in hyper-genre-fiction fashion focuses almost entirely on the story.

I think this book was meant more as a love letter to Mayan mythology, and I also feel like the narrative was meant to recall the storytelling style of that culture too. That’s why I’m not really too upset about the juvenile feeling of the writing.

At the end of the day, it was a lot of fun, and I really did like it.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Author: Ocean Vuong | Publisher: Penguin Press

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Rating: 5/5

“Migration can be triggered by the angle of sunlight, indicating a change in the season, temperature, plant life, and food supply. Female monarchs lay eggs along the route. Every history has more than one thread, each thread a story of division. The journey takes four thousand eight hundred and thirty miles, more than the length of this country. The monarchs that fly south will not make it back north. Each departure, then, is final. Only their children return; only the future revisits the past.” 

If you’ve heard anything about this book, you don’t need me to tell you that it’s phenomenal. I read it in a single sitting, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I can’t imagine having to open it and close it, open it and close it, and pulling myself in and out of that emotional state. This one is a journey, and in my opinion is best experienced that way.

In this novel, the main character is writing a letter to his mother. Because she can’t read, he’s able to bear pretty much his entire soul. We’re shown glimpses into his entire life so far as he grew up in a depressed town, the son of Vietnamese immigrants. Plus some of his parents’ and grandparents’ stories, which were not easy, and which impacted the way they raised him. Plus his years-long teenage romance with a boy who had demons of his own.

“In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.”

If you are the kind of reader who likes to get absolutely torn to shreds by the heartbreaking and human experiences of others, to feel closer to humanity in that way, then you must read this book immediately. It calls up the kind of weighty feeling in your chest like you just want to exhale, and keep exhaling forever, because that pressure belongs there.

Ocean Vuong is a poet first, and so his prose is exactly as perfect, hard-hitting, and raw as you’d think it would be. You’ll find yourself hypnotized and unable to look away.

These are the books that matter. These are the books that make us part of something bigger.

“Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.” 

Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy, #1)

In the first novel in Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. 

Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: “He has a nose,” people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.

Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written an adventure that’s also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf explores the fundamentals of truths, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all.

Author: Marlon James | Publisher: Riverhead

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Rating: 4/5

Okay, wow. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a big, heavy, adult, epic fantasy novel that is truly without compare. I liked it and I’m glad that I read it, but it took a really, really long time and a lot of patience with myself to wade through the narrative. Roxanne Gay put it perfectly in her review: “Beautifully intense prose that doesn’t allow for lazy reading.”

The main character and narrator is named Tracker. He is telling the story to a priest while he sits in jail, after everything has already happened. We get a few other tales to build the world a bit and set the tone, and then he begins to talk about “the boy.”

At the start of the tale, Tracker leaves his terrible home and finds his way to his uncle’s house. There he learns more about his background — not all welcome information. He leaves again, this time with a companion, who takes him to the secret home of a sangoma (magical healer type of woman), who saves children with birth defects and other peculiarities that would have otherwise caused their families to kill them. This is also where he meets Leopard for the first time. Soon that world, too, is upturned, and he makes his way off.

Years later, the Leopard drags him into a proposed mission: to join an unlikely group of people and find a boy who has been kidnapped under mysterious circumstances, the details about which seem to constantly change depending on who’s telling the tale. He eventually agrees, and they set off. What follows is an adventure filled with mystery, magic, politics, love, betrayal, and more.

Alright, so here’s the thing about this book: It’s A LOT. It’s super dense. No joke — I read at the rate of about 30 pages an hour. It also took a really, really long time to find the plot. There’s so much exposition, and you think the plot has started, but then it switches again, and you still feel lost. I didn’t feel like I had a good handhold on what was going on until I was almost a third of the way in — which is about 200 pages. Plus, for many of us, it’s set in a world that’s really foreign to us, so you’re finding your way in many senses of the phrase. And the language is heavy, murky — beautiful and striking, but definitely not something you can speed read.

In fact, I read the first half of this book in April and then took a break from it until now, late July. I finished it on the first day of a 24in48 readathon — and it took me 11 hours to read the last 320 pages.

Also be warned that this book is graphic — in violence, in emotion, in sex, in pretty much everything. In fact, as a content warning, I’d stay away from this book if you have any of society’s most common triggers.

Also (although this is my fault because I didn’t read very much about the book before starting it), I hadn’t realized how much gayness is a central part of the narrative. There is also a central commentary on gender and misogyny. These elements really add so much to the story, and to the experience of reading it as a white, straight, cisgender person.

So final verdict: This book was a lot, but it was also really good. It’s extremely literary, and very dense. If you like to read books quickly, or if you’re looking for a more typical fantasy novel where you can get lost and go on an adventure and fall in love with characters, this is very likely not right for you. But if you are ready to commit to a high fantasy novel with big, epic themes about our society, and you have the time and patience to make it through, I don’t think you’ll regret this one.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton

They say I must be put to death for what happened to Madame, and they want me to confess. But how can I confess what I don’t believe I’ve done?

1826, and all of London is in a frenzy. Crowds gather at the gates of the Old Bailey to watch as Frannie Langton, maid to Mr. and Mrs. Benham, goes on trial for their murder. The testimonies against her are damning — slave, whore, seductress. And they may be the truth. But they are not the whole truth.

For the first time, Frannie must tell her story. It begins with a girl learning to read on a plantation in Jamaica, and it ends in a grand house in London, where a beautiful woman waits to be freed.

But through her fevered confessions, one burning question haunts Frannie Langton: Could she have murdered the only person she ever loved?

Author: Sara Collins | Publisher: HarperCollins

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Rating: 5/5

“What are my own intentions in writing this? The simple answer is that it’s my life, and I want to assemble the pieces of it myself. Mr Defoe made a novel and a romance out of the adventures of a felon and a whore, so it must be possible that of my own life I could do the same.”

It’s been a week since I finished this book, and I’m still reeling from it. The Confessions of Frannie Langtonis heartbreaking, moving, enraging, surprising, and much more. It addresses so many different issues — race, class, slavery, mental health, substance abuse, same-gender relationships, feminism. It’s the July pick for Girls’ Night In’s book club, and I don’t even know where we’ll start the discussion.

The story is told by Frannie, who is in jail and accused of the gruesome murder of her former “employers.” She’s penning an account of her life, from her childhood as a house girl in Jamaica to her adolescence as a scribe for her slave master to her position as a maid in London, where she fell passionately in love with her mistress.

Frannie was taught to read, write, and speak formally as a child, partly as an enraging experiment in non-white intelligence. She read novels and served as a scribe. This helped her become fiercely independent and given her a strong sense of self. All that, plus her experiences with race, class, and slavery, result in an account of her life that is biting, poignant, and well crafted.

“But only a man would think splitting a baby in two was a solution rather than a problem, just like only a white man would consider slavery a difficult question. Women focus on what they lack, men on what they want. In all those Bible stories, it’s always the women who look back, who eat the forbidden fruit, who weep over hollow wombs, and fruitful ones. Yearning is always a woman’s sin. The men never turn around, nor ever think twice about taking a knife – or a cross – to their own longed-for sons.”

The characters in this book, especially the women, are complex and surprising. The toxicity of the way people treat each other and act in relationships hurts. Also, you will fall in love with Frannie, and your heart will break for her throughout the book. Each revelation she provides — some surprising, some expected yet still devastating — drops like a bomb.

I’m grateful for books like this because as a person who has a lot of privilege, they help me see glimpses into the experiences of others where I don’t have the history to empathize.

I really just can’t say enough how weighty and important and moving this book was. I think you should read it.

Hollow Kingdom

S.T., a domesticated crow, is a bird of simple pleasures: hanging out with his owner Big Jim, trading insults with Seattle’s wild crows (those idiots), and enjoying the finest food humankind has to offer: Cheetos®.

Then Big Jim’s eyeball falls out of his head, and S.T. starts to feel like something isn’t quite right. His most tried-and-true remedies — from beak-delivered beer to the slobbering affection of Big Jim’s loyal but dim-witted dog, Dennis — fail to cure Big Jim’s debilitating malady. S.T. is left with no choice but to abandon his old life and venture out into a wild and frightening new world with his trusty steed Dennis, where he discovers that the neighbors are devouring each other and the local wildlife is abuzz with rumors of dangerous new predators roaming Seattle. Humanity’s extinction has seemingly arrived, and the only one determined to save it is a foul-mouthed crow whose knowledge of the world around him comes from his TV-watching education.

Hollow Kingdom is a humorous, big-hearted, and boundlessly beautiful romp through the apocalypse and the world that comes after, where even a cowardly crow can become a hero.

Author: Kira Jane Buxton | Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

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Rating: 4.5/5

When I heard that this was an apocalyptic comedy narrated by a sweary-mouthed crow, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Still, this wasn’t it. Sometimes the summary blurb on a book does the perfect job of summing it up — in the case of Hollow Kingdom, those words are “a humorous, big-hearted, and boundlessly beautiful romp.”

This book was HILARIOUS. It was also so, so beautiful. I found myself chortling one second and then immediately clutching my heart the next. (It will be published August 6!)

Our narrator’s name is S.T., which stands for Shit Turd. He grew up in a small craftsman house with Big Jim and a dog named Dennis. S.T. thinks that humans are called MoFos, and he also identifies as such. Then, one day, Big Jim’s eyeball falls out. “Like, fell the fuck out of his head.” Thus begins the apocalypse, and S.T. and Dennis set off to join up with their fellow animals to save the world as they know it. Along the way, they dodge predators, make friends, learn about the magic of the Animal Kingdom, and find themselves and their callings.

I cannot express to you how hilariously witty Kira Jane Buxton is. This book is snort-out-your-coffee funny. It’s laugh-out-loud-in-public funny. It’s also got vulgar language and some crude jokes (so if that’s not your thing, you’ve been warned) — which isn’t usually my cup of tea, but this was so well done that it never bothered me for even one second.

But also, I never expected to fall so much in love with our foul-mouthed feathered friend. He has a heart that’s ten times the size of his body, and he loves us MoFos and the world we’ve built. He has an uncanny ability to see beauty everywhere and a bright flame of optimism that makes it impossible not to root for him. He’s one of my new favorite characters ever, probably.

By the end, I had gone from cackling to crying — in the best way. This may end up being one of my favorite books of the year.

A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2)

***Description is spoiler for A Darker Shade of Magic***

Four months have passed since the shadow stone fell into Kell's possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Rhy was wounded and the Dane twins fell, and the stone was cast with Holland's dying body through the rift, and into Black London.

In many ways, things have almost returned to normal, though Rhy is more sober, and Kell is now plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks like she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games-an extravagent international competition of magic, meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries-a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port.

But while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning, and so it seems Black London has risen again-and so to keep magic's balance, another London must fall.

Author: V.E. Schwab | Publisher: Tor Books

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Rating: 4.5/5

“I am Delilah Bard, she thought, as the ropes cut into her skin. I am a thief and a pirate and a traveler. I have set foot in three different worlds, and lived. I have shed the blood of royals and held magic in my hands.”

Alright. Book two of this trilogy, and it's sunk its claws in even deeper. This world, these characters — I am so in love. V.E. Schwab is a master storyteller who really knows how to get out of her own way and build something you want to live in forever.

So Lila left, and Rhy survived, and Kell has found himself on a much shorter leash. Lila found a ship to sail on at last — and maybe a crew to belong with and a captain to follow, too. Meanwhile, Rhy is dealing with understandable trauma and Kell is restless and lonely. Enter: The Essen Tach, a magic competition that takes Red London by storm and offers each of them something different. And in another world, darkness gathers.

The second half of this book moved much more quickly than the first half, but I loved all of it. Every time I sit down to read these books, 100 pages flies by before I can even think about yanking myself back into the real world.

What really makes these books for me is the characters. My poor little heart is literally breaking for Kell and Rhy. And I love Lila enough to be extremely frustrated with her poor decisions (lol).

A world of warning: Have book three on hand — literally right next to you — when you finish this book. There are cliffhangers, and then there's THIS. You've been warned.

The Philosopher's War (The Philosopher's Series, #2)

***Description is spoiler for The Philosopher's Flight***

Thanks to a stunning flying performance and a harrowing shootout in the streets of Boston, Robert Canderelli Weekes’s lifelong dream has come true: he’s the first male allowed to join the US Sigilry Corps’s Rescue and Evacuation service, an elite, all-woman team of flying medics.

But as he deploys to France during the waning days of the Great War, Sigilwoman Third-Class Canderelli learns that carrying the injured from the front lines to the field hospital is not the grand adventure he imagined. His division, full of misfits and renegades, is stretched the breaking point and has no patience for a man striving to prove himself. Slowly, Robert wins their trust and discovers his comrades are plotting to end the Great War by outlawed philosophical means. Robert becomes caught up in their conspiracy, running raids in enemy territory and uncovering vital intelligence. Friends old and new will need his help with a dangerous scheme that just might win the war overnight and save a few million lives. But the German smokecarvers have plans of their own: a devastating all-out attack that threatens to destroy the Corps and France itself. Naturally, Robert is trapped right in the thick of it.

Author: Tom Miller | Publisher: Simon & Schuster

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Rating: 4/5

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the review copy of this book! It will be published on July 16.

I enjoyed The Philosopher's Flight. It was worth the read and I was happy to read the sequel. I'm glad I did — because The Philosopher's War was even better. Gone are the college days and courting of first love; this was a story of camaraderie, trauma, war, and the greater good.

We open with Robert on his way to France to serve in Rescue & Evacuation for WWI. He's placed on a team of misfits who are close like family and passionate about doing good, doing their jobs. After a slightly rocky start, he finds his place among them. But it's not the glamorous life of heroism that he'd picture. It's hard and ugly and filled with trauma, and there's a lot more at stake than he ever thought. Turns out he's also the center of a master plan that could end the war and save millions of lives. Also, Danielle is back in Washington DC, so far removed from what he's going through now — physically and emotionally.

The biggest thing that struck me about this story is how much more mature Robert is. He's a year older and goes through a lot on the frontlines of the war that makes him more mature. Tom Miller brought this out not only through Robert's internal monologues, but also in the language choices Robert uses naturally, in the descriptions of all his experiences. The whole writing style is subtly shifted.

About a third of the way through the book, the story really picked up and I was hooked. Tom Miller does a great job of bringing readers into this alternate universe of a war, all action and no unnecessary, drawn out battle details. And the ending was fantastic; I had never imagined it all happening like that.

There's plot space for future Philosopher books (I hope there will be!), but it also all wrapped up nicely. All in all a solid story with good writing that is exciting and magical and fun.

Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1)

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

Author: Leigh Bardugo | Publisher: Flatiron Books

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Rating: 4.5/5

BIG THANK YOU to my friend @LauraYaminReads of the What to Read Next Podcast for loaning me her ARC of Ninth House — it will be published this October. This review is spoiler-free but also contains content warnings at the very bottom for anyone who may need them.

I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. I have loved all of Leigh Bardugo's past books, and while I knew that Ninth House was going to be really, really different, I trusted her to bring me something great. And both of those things are true: This book was WAY different than any of her other books, and it was also great work.

What this book is not: Young Adult. Part of the Grishaverse. A coming of age story. A new, magical universe to get lost in. A particularly feel-good story.

What this book is: More like paranormal fantasy mystery. Actually sorta scary. Full of potential triggers for people with certain experiences. A story about a girl who's had a really hard life.

Alex Stern is a freshman at Yale, desperately trying to forget her old life and fit into her new one. She was plucked from a hospital bed by Lethe, a secret organization that exists to keep Yale's "Ancient Eight" secret occult societies in line. But then a girl is murdered, and Alex knows something is off about it, and everything turns out to be a lot more complicated than anyone thought. It doesn't help that her mentor, Darlington, is missing. It all builds to an ending that I would be really freaking impressed if you saw coming.

We get flashbacks throughout the book that introduce us to Darlington, the Ancient Eight, and both characters' pasts. It's a really effective and ingenious construction that drips the important info to the reader piece by revelatory piece.

This book was like the most frightening parts of fantasy novels turned up to 11. I wouldn't put it in the horror genre, but there were definitely things in this book that I have never before found myself imagining. Just know that before you go in.

I really loved Alex Stern as a character. She is broken and strong and confused and daring and bad and good all at the same time. But her childhood and adolescence was bad — really bad. Holds no punches. To watch her try to start to heal and change is something special, but not always easy.

I also loved Darlington, who's perfect and fractured and passionate and doubtful all at the same time. The way Bardugo gives us these pieces of them one by one is masterful, and I'm looking forward to getting even more in the next book.

You can also really tell how much she loved New Haven and Yale and how much of herself she poured into this story. Only someone with an insider knowledge of these places could have written this book.

I CAN'T WAIT for the next one. And I can't wait for everyone to read it so we can all discuss!

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Content warnings: Rape, date rape, sexual assault, drug use, drug overdose.

A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)

Kell is one of the last Antari — magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes — Red London — and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

Author: V.E. Schwab | Publisher: Tor Books

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Rating: 4.5/5

“Aren't you afraid of dying?” he asked Lila now.
She looked at him as if it were a strange question. And then she shook her head. “Death comes for everyone,” she said simply. “I'm not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of dying here.” She swept her hand over the room, the tavern, the city. “I'd rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”

A Darker Shade of Magic is a breath of fresh air in the fantasy genre. Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy, but this one was just so light (in writing style, not subject matter) and enchanting and magical. I instantly fell in love with the world and its characters — even the bad ones.

We open with Kell, who is an Antari — aka he can travel between different worlds using blood magic. There are four worlds, and each of them are very different, except that they all have a city called London in exactly the same place. They're Red London (Kell's), Gray London (ours), White London (kinda evil place tbh), and Black London (which self-destructed on magic and is sealed off for everyone else's good). We also have Delilah (Lila) Bard, a pickpocket who dreams of bigger adventures — specifically, becoming a pirate. When Kell is tricked into bringing a seriously awful, evil magical thing across Londons, he runs away to Gray London and smack into her. Then we get to watch them team up to save the world.

This was my first V.E. / Victoria Schwab book (I know, I know), and I loved it. She's so direct and to-the-point. She doesn't waste any pages on filler or hemming and hawing — instead, she jumps right into whatever will develop her characters or her plot next. As a person who doesn't care much for drawn-out fight scenes, especially, I was a big fan of her style.

She also doesn't leave you on a cliffhanger, which is kinda gutsy and actually so considerate. She just trusts that her readers will come back, that they'll want to re-enter her universe and hang out with her characters some more. (She was right.)

Kell, Lila, Rhy, even Holland — you have my heart. See you in book two.

Recursion

Memory makes reality. 

That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome — a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

Neuroscientist Helena Smith already understands the power of memory. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face-to-face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease — a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.

But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?

Author: Blake Crouch | Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

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Rating: 3.75/5

Just like Dark Matter, Recursion was a science-rich and super-thrilling sci-fi thriller. If nothing sounds better to you than those two genres put together, then this is definitely your book. I whipped through it, intrigued and introspective in the beginning and more and more eager to see how everything would resolve itself as I got close to the end. Genre fiction at its best.

We have two main characters: Barry, whose story starts in 2018, and Helena, whose story starts in 2007. In 2018, "False Memory Syndrome" is starting to cause confusion and wreak havoc on people's minds. They suddenly have two sets of memories; one in the world they live in, and one in a world that doesn't. But the memories are super-detailed; it's not just big life moments, but tiny ones too. An entire life that they remember suddenly.

After Barry has to confront a woman with FMS who wants to throw herself off a building because her "false" life was rich with love and family and her "real" life is not, he goes down a rabbit hole to figure out what's causing all this, and finds himself right in the thick of it.

Helena, on the other hand, is a neuroscientist who wants to help Alzheimer's patients by helping them access, "save," and then recreate / re-remember their memories. She has huge dreams and no budget ... until a bazillionaire tech guy scoops her up and funds all her work. What she discovers will literally change the world forever.

This book is entirely plot-driven; there's a bit of character development, but only enough to feed the story. Not much attention is paid to broader issues, like Alzheimer's, except again to feed the story. But still, it's a really exciting, gripping read. I found myself in the very beginning suddenly doubting everything that was happening — is what Helena experiencing in the past real, or FMS? WTF is going on here? What can I trust, what can I believe?

I did feel like the ending was a bit too drawn out. I expected it to conclude at any second ... for like 100 pages. This was intriguing at first, but eventually it was a little exasperating. I just wanted it to be over already, and that's what kept me going in that moment. Maybe it was supposed to feel like that a little bit, but I felt like instead of what was probably six or seven "attempts" at an ending, I would have been happy with more like two or three. (This will make more sense after you read it.)

All in all, a fun palette cleanser to place between heavier reads, and top-notch escapism. Definitely worth a read!