The Unwilling

The Unwilling is the story of Judah, a foundling born with a special gift and raised inside Highfall castle along with Gavin, the son and heir to Lord Elban's vast empire. Judah and Gavin share an unnatural bond that is both the key to her survival...and possibly her undoing.

As Gavin is groomed for his future role, Judah comes to realize that she has no real position within the kingdom, in fact, no hope at all of ever traveling beyond its castle walls. Elban — a lord as mighty as he is cruel — has his own plans for her, for all of them. She is a mere pawn to him, and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

But outside the walls, in the starving, desperate city, a magus, a healer with his own secret power unlike anything Highfall has seen in years, is newly arrived from the provinces. He, too, has plans for the empire, and at the heart of those plans lies Judah: the girl who started life with no name and no history will soon uncover more to her story than she ever imagined.

An epic tale of greed and ambition, cruelty and love, this deeply immersive novel is about bowing to traditions and burning them down.

Author: Kelly Braffet | Publisher: MIRA Books

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Rating: 4 / 5

Big thanks to the team over at MIRA Books (HarperCollins) for the advanced review copy of this book! It will be published on February 11, 2020.

The book is about Judah, who was adopted by the city’s royalty. The midwife called to deliver Gavin (the heir of the city) had just delivered Judah, and the Lady of the City couldn’t bear to let the parentless girl go. But shortly thereafter, it was clear that Gavin and Judah had an unnatural bond — the emotions and physical sensations one person feels, the other person feels as well. Most notably, if one is injured, so is the other. If one were to die, so would the other. And as she grew up Judah couldn’t be simply cast aside — she becomes a protected, but hated, member of the household.

The other main point of view character is Nate, a healer and Worker (magician, sort of) who’s been planted in Highfall by his people, after generations of planning, with a mission of getting closer to Judah and helping her fulfill the destiny she was literally bred and born for.

In her Twitter bio, author Kelly Braffet describes this book (her first foray into the fantasy genre) as “more unhappy people making bad decisions, but this time with magic.” That … is extremely accurate. And her bio on the back of the book says she wrote this as a lifelong reader of speculative fiction. So The Unwilling is not what many readers will be used to in the fantasy genre. It’s much more character-driven than plot-driven, and either there’s going to be a sequel that hasn’t been announced or the ending is meant to make you think more than to give you a sense of closure.

People who read predominantly fantasy novels may not like this as much, but I, as a person who also loves to read literary fiction — those slow-burning, character-driven stories with abstract endings — didn’t mind all these things. It was new and interesting to read a literary, speculative book, but “this time with magic.”

I took a fiction writing class recently, and the teacher spoke a lot about “debits and credits” in writing. A lot of stories are about suffering, yes, but you also have to give your readers something to grab on to, something that makes all that suffering worth it. You have to balance the debits you take from them with credits you give to them. The Unwilling was indeed about “unhappy people making bad decisions” — but without quite enough moments of happiness or light to make the story feel balanced.

That being said, Braffet still managed to pull me through this 600-page slow burn quickly and eagerly. She knocked me off balance at the end but in a way that made me think (and also hope for a sequel). And she did something different in the fantasy genre that I had never quite seen before.

What Is Missing

Costanza Ansaldo, a half-Italian and half-American translator, is convinced that she has made peace with her childlessness. A year after the death of her husband, an eminent writer, she returns to the pensione in Florence where she spent many happy times in her youth, and there she meets, first, Andrew Weissman, an acutely sensitive seventeen-year-old, and, soon afterward, his father, Henry Weissman, a charismatic New York physician who specializes in ― as it happens ― reproductive medicine.

With three lives each marked by heartbreak and absence ― of a child, a parent, a partner, or a clear sense of identity ― What is Missing offers Costanza, Andrew, and Henry the opportunity to make themselves whole when the triangle resumes three months later in New York, where the relationships among them turn and tighten with combustive effects that cut to the core of what it means to be a father, a son, and ― for Costanza ― a potential mother.

Author: Michael Frank | Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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Rating: 4 / 5

Big thanks to Michael Frank and FSG for sending a finished copy of this book my way in exchange for an honest review.

“Costanza wondered if all these other women in the waiting room had gotten themselves as wrong as she had gotten herself. What if, instead of reading, or texting, or hiding behind their earphones, they all started speaking, what a conversation that would be, what a chorus of regret and anguish! And anger, probably that too. And heartache. Not a chorus; an opera.”

What Is Missing is a lyrical, introspective look deep into the relationships and desires of a set of deeply flawed, deeply human people. The characters Michael Frank created drew me in and hooked me until the last page (and even then). I definitely enjoyed it.

The third-person narration mostly bounces between the perspectives of three characters: teenage Andrew, his father Henry, and a woman named Costanza whose famous author husband has recently died. The story opens in Italy, in Andrew’s perspective, just before he meets Costanza for the first time. Soon after they (literally) run into her in a museum, and Henry’s brought into their little world. Henry and Costanza hit it off immediately.

Three months later, in their home city of New York, the trio begin again: Costanza and Henry in a whirlwind of a relationship and Andrew caught in the middle. Soon, Costanza and Henry embark on a quest for a child, as Costanza has long wanted a baby and Henry is eager to begin a new chapter, a happier chapter, of his life. There’s a unique energy and relationship between Costanza and Henry, Costanza and Andrew, and Henry and Andrew. I don’t want to give away too much, but the conflicts that arise within each pair, and among the three of them together, are what charges the story forward and barrels it toward the ending with energy and intensity.

This story deals most strongly in the questions about the relationship between a parent and a child — before the child is born, as the child becomes an adult, and long after that child has become an adult. What makes someone a parent? What makes that relationship what it is? But also: What do our desires, choices, and actions say about us, and can we hold complex emotions at the same time, even while they exist in conflict with one another?

I was very nervous going into this novel about an experience that is so strongly rooted in womanhood — fertility and the journey to a hopeful pregnancy — written by a male author. I was glad to find that Michael Frank’s ability to capture all sides of a complex emotion, combined with (I imagine) some very good early readers who helped to ensure the voice felt authentic, helped Costanza’s character and emotions feel very real. It helps, too, that much of the story is told from Henry’s or Andrew’s perspectives. The choice to examine the conflict and issue through so many characters’ eyes was a good one, one that worked.

I’m glad that I buddy-read this book with two other friends, because the ending was something. As I got closer and closer to the last page, I found myself wondering how the heck this was going to come to any sort of a satisfying conclusion. I did not quite imagine what actually happened, and I wish I could have seen all three characters’ perspectives on what happened rather than just one, but it did feel “surprising yet inevitable,” as endings ultimately should. Can’t wait to talk through that one, though.

The Other Americans

From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful new novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant — at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.

Late one spring night, as Driss Guerraoui is walking across a darkened intersection in California, he’s killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui’s daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she’d left for good; his widow, Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country; Efraín, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora’s and an Iraqi War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son’s secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself.

As the characters — deeply divided by race, religion, and class — tell their stories, connections among them emerge, even as Driss’s family confronts its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love — messy and unpredictable — is born.

Author: Laila Lalami | Publisher: Pantheon

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Rating: 4 / 5

“Perhaps memory is not merely the preservation of a moment in the mind, but the process of repeatedly returning to it, carefully breaking it up in parts and assembling them again until we can make sense of what we remember.”

The Other Americans was longlisted for the National Book Award, and it’s not difficult to see why; it’s a timely, gripping novel. I felt pulled through the story, eager to see what would happen to these characters and how they would ultimately come closer to one another (or not).

The story takes place in the aftermath of a terrible accident in which Driss, the patriarch of a Moroccan-American family, is killed in a hit-and-run one dark night. The main character is probably Nora, his younger daughter, but we also get POV chapters from his wife, from an undocumented man who saw the accident, from Jeremy (a childhood friend of Nora’s, an Iraq veteran and now a police officer), and even a few from Nora’s older sister, Driss’s neighbor and his son, and even Driss himself, in flashbacks. However, Lalami does a great job of making each character true to voice, so it’s easy to keep them all straight and recognize who’s talking.

The central question is who hit and killed Driss, and why? But circling that question are some intricate, demanding stories about Nora’s relationship with each of her family members and with Jeremy, the parts of Driss’s life previously unknown that come to light, Jeremy’s mental health and past trauma (from the war and also before that, in the aftermath of his mother’s sudden death).

Some of these stories were more resolved by the end of the book than others, and although I would have happily eaten up more details about nearly all of them, none left me feeling unfulfilled. Overall, you can definitely feel where the arc of the novel is heading, but that doesn’t bother me; as a reader, I was eager to see how that arc would take shape along the way.

Lalami does a great job of using flashbacks in this novel, and I think that’s one of the main points; the past — our own trauma, our generational trauma — shapes the present, but the actual shape of the present depends on who’s remembering that past. I was always happy to drop into a flashback with Jeremy, who my heart squeezes for, or one of Nora’s about Driss, or the same memory by her mother seen through such a different lens. All this to say that the characters were very well developed, and each brought something essential and gripping to the story.

This book wasn’t earth-shattering or super literary, but the story it told was very good.

The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)

When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her — freedom, prison or death. With The Testaments, the wait is over. Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.

"Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in." —Margaret Atwood

Author: Margaret Atwood | Publisher: Nan A. Talese (Doubleday)

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Rating: 4 / 5

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one most travelled by. It was littered with corpses, as such roads are. But as you will have noticed, my own corpse is not among them.”

The Testaments: the long-awaited, much-hyped sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. Co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize (I suppose). I found this book to be a very enjoyable read, with an exciting and satisfying plot, although I’m not sure I needed it.

What made The Handmaid’s Tale so resonant was its eerie, introspective narration by Offred. It’s a masterpiece of character and point of view. We saw the entire world through her eyes, through her emotions and experiences. Was she a reliable narrator? We aren’t sure, but it was certainly haunting and impactful. And the somewhat open ending was the cherry on top, of a sort.

The Testaments is nothing like that. It is much more about plot than character or point of view, although we are not left without these things altogether. The story is told from three perspectives, 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale: Aunt Lydia (YUP), a girl who grew up under the Gilead regime, and a girl who grew up in Canada at the same time. Their stories start separately, but by the end, they’re firmly entwined, with connections to one another that you come to guess as you go along.

If you read To Kill a Mockingbird and then Go Set a Watchman, it’s a similar feeling (except this one doesn’t destroy one of your literary heroes, which is nice). It’s nice to have more information, and OK, the closure is nice too, but I didn’t really NEED it. The originals stand so well on their own, that anything further feels like (and really is) fan service.

That being said, I whipped through this book quickly, because the plot moves fast. It was fun and entertaining, and I’m not sorry I read it. Definitely give it a try of your own.

“As they say, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

Sabriel (Abhorsen Trilogy/Old Kingdom, #1)

Since childhood, Sabriel has lived outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, away from the power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who refuse to stay dead. But now her father, the Abhorson, is missing, and Sabriel must cross into that world to find him. With Mogget, whose feline form hides a powerful, perhaps malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage, Sabriel travels deep into the Old Kingdom. There she confronts an evil that threatens much more than her life and comes face-to-face with her own hidden destiny … .

Author: Garth Nix | Publisher: Harper Collins

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Rating: 4 / 5

“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”

I’m ashamed to say that until recently, I hadn’t even heard of Sabriel. But my friend Simone and I have recently embarked on a quest to read more classic / foundational fantasy, and this was first on her list because Tim Curry narrates the audiobook (YUP).

I started with audio (which was just as great as you’re imagining) but ended up switching to print because I was afraid that even ten seconds of a wandering mind would cause me to miss key world-building details. Personally, I just find it much easier to listen to nonfiction books and read fiction.

Anywho, I hadn’t heard of Sabriel, but as soon as I started reading it I found out how not-on-brand that is for me. I had several friends tell me they loved this trilogy — one (whose opinion I trust very much) said it is her favorite series behind Harry Potter! Where had I been???

Alright, well I’m here now, y’all. And I thought Sabriel was great. She’s our main character, and she’s the daughter of the Abhorsen, a kind of super-necromancer who is extremely powerful and travels the world, using a set of magical bells to control, banish, and bind the dead who should (but don’t always) remain that way. But then her father disappears, and Sabriel must take his place in order to save him. Along the way she picks up two friends, and together they find themselves tangled up in a centuries-old plot that must be stopped.

The style feels very classic — Garth Nix is straightforward and narrative, using a type of world-building that’s pretty different from what we’re used to with modern fantasy. Often, rather than including details in the natural course of conversation or action and relying on you to file them away in your mind, he just comes out and tells you what you need to know. This really makes it feel like he’s telling you a story, which I loved. I could imagine my mother reading this to me in elementary school. For example, from the description of her seven magical bells:

"Saraneth." The deepest, lowest bell. The sound of strength. Saraneth was the binder, the bell that shackled the Dead to the wielder's will. And last, the largest bell, the one Sabriel's cold fingers found colder still, even in the leather case that kept it silent.

"Astarael, the Sorrowful," whispered Sabriel. Astarael was the banisher, the final bell. Properly rung, it cast everyone who heard it far into Death. Everyone, including the ringer.”

One thing I learned when I was about halfway through the book was that the other two in the Abhorsen trilogy — Lirael and Abhorsen — are not told from Sabriel’s perspective. Still, I found myself surprised when Sabriel turned out to be a story contained in itself; I’m so used to sprawling stories that stretch across three books. But this makes me very curious to read the other two and see what’s in store for the Old Kingdom.

Overall, reading this one was fun and made me feel like my personal fantasy canon is a little more full. On to the next!

Disappearing Earth

One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the north-eastern edge of Russia, two sisters are abducted. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.

Set on the remote Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth draws us into the world of an astonishing cast of characters, all connected by an unfathomable crime. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty — densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska — and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused.

In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel provides a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before.

Author: Julia Phillips | Publisher: Knopf

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Rating: 5 / 5

“Revmira moved to a room in a friend’s apartment. To keep herself sane, she had to keep going, so she gave away their wedding presents, the dishes they ate off, the clothes he saw her wear, until the only scraps left of their life together fit in one buckled bag. She finished her degree, found a job, paid her bills, made her dinners. She watched Gorbachev speak about openness and change on her television. And all the while she was screaming. She never stopped. In her mind, she was still twenty-one and ten months and two days, and it was just after seven in the morning, and Gleb had been lying next to her an hour before.”

Disappearing Earth is — as you may have heard by now since it was shortlisted for the National Book Award — a stunning debut for Julia Phillips. I don’t know where she’s been or what took her so long, because she writes in a voice that you cannot look away from.

The novel reads more like connected short stories, each told from the perspective of a different person in the remote peninsula of Kamchatka, Russia. It begins in August with two young girls, who are kidnapped by a strange man near a busy city center. Every chapter that follows — one for each month for an entire year — features a woman who lives nearby. Each woman’s circumstances and story are different, but each has been affected in some way by the kidnapping, which is the thread that weaves them together. Eventually, the book builds to an exciting, page-turning conclusion that left me in a puddle of nerves.

What was most impressive to me was that while each story was left open-ended, it was never frustrating or dissatisfying. She gave you space to let you finish it on your own, however you thought was best or most likely. Normally, I don’t like it when authors do that to you, but in this case, it felt authentic and right and almost even hopeful.

I highlighted so many small passages, fragments of sentences, that hit me as just such amazing writing choices. Julia Phillips uses conjunctions and metaphors and language like an exacto-knife, so precise and clean. It lets her build a big, full, round character even in so few pages, and it creates a rhythm that won’t let you go.

A masterpiece of character, point of view, setting, and plot, all in one. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

Marilou Is Everywhere

Fourteen-year-old Cindy and her two older brothers live in rural Pennsylvania, in a house with occasional electricity, two fierce dogs, one book, and a mother who comes and goes for months at a time. Deprived of adult supervision, the siblings rely on one another for nourishment of all kinds. As Cindy's brothers take on new responsibilities for her care, the shadow of danger looms larger and the status quo no longer seems tolerable.

So when a glamorous teen from a more affluent, cultured home goes missing, Cindy escapes her own family's poverty and slips into the missing teen's life. As Jude Vanderjohn, Cindy is suddenly surrounded by books and art, by new foods and traditions, and most important, by a startling sense of possibility. In her borrowed life she also finds herself accepting the confused love of a mother who is constitutionally incapable of grasping what has happened to her real daughter. As Cindy experiences overwhelming maternal love for the first time, she must reckon with her own deceits and, in the process, learn what it means to be a daughter, a sister, and a neighbor.

Marilou Is Everywhere is a powerful, propulsive portrait of an overlooked girl who finds for the first time that her choices matter.

Author: Sarah Elaine Smith | Publisher: Riverhead

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Rating: 5 / 5

“My mother was the kind who would be very offended if you called her a racist. She talked about it all sideways at best. The most you could get out of her was: I don’t approve. And she trusted she did not need to speak any further on the subject. As, generally, she did not. Whoever she was talking to usually knew exactly what she meant. Her disapproval met in the air with the disapproval of whoever she was talking to, and the two silent moods married and had their own life, in the air all over us, in the water, in the mind. That was the trick to it, never having to say what you actually meant. Nothing is real if you don’t have to say it.”

If you read literary fiction in any capacity, if you love when words sing like music, if you read to feel, then Marilou Is Everywhere is not to be missed. I read it on strong recommendation from my friend Hunter (@shelfbyshelf), whose opinion I trust very much. And I’m so incredibly glad I did.

The story takes place in a very small, very rural town where one day, a girl went missing. She stopped on the way home from a camping trip to get an emergency car repair, and she vanished. Meanwhile, Cindy (our narrator) and her brothers are living at home without a mother (again). After Jude goes missing, Cindy’s oldest brother is never there, and her other brother is beginning to make her more than a little uncomfortable in the way he looks at her. So she (almost) accidentally slips into the life Jude left behind. Until she can’t anymore.

There is just so much to unpack from this story. There’s the need for love and belonging, there’s the sense of self, there’s alcoholism, there’s racism, there’s classism, there’s guilt and family and inner strength and reckoning.

In this book, Sarah Elaine Smith presents us with a masterclass in writing — particularly in writing metaphor. She holds MFAs in both fiction and poetry, which makes her a true gift to the world. I have never imagined metaphors like those she writes — they are almost nonsensical, except that you feel them in your bones and they make all the sense in the world.

And so what she’s able to do with Cindy as a character, and with the characters of everyone else seen through Cindy’s eyes, is incredible. Cindy is both her own person and a mirror held up to the reader, making you question who you are and what choices you’ve made in your own life. And yet this is not at the expense of plot; I turned every page more than a little eager to see how everything would resolve.

And the book’s final two sentences? They slayed me. Perfection.

“In every switch and ion there is a girl smoking her first idiot cigarette under a corrugated tin roof and etching a difference into the air. Try to find a jukebox free of the sentiment. Try to find a waterfall that isn’t made of this. You’ll die looking. I promise. The search party will quit and go home.”

The Deep

Yetu holds the memories for her people — water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners — who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one — the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities — and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past — and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity — and own who they really are.

Author: Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes | Publisher: Saga Press

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Rating: 3.75/ 5

“One can only go for so long without asking ‘who am I?’, ‘where do I come from?’, ‘what does all this mean?’, ‘what is being?’, ‘what came before me and what might come after?’. Without answers there is only a hole. A hole where a history should be that takes the shape of an endless longing. We are cavities.”

The Deep is an impressive novella, with a fascinating and heartbreaking storyline and musical, emotional language. It’s a quick read that’s going to stay with me for quite a while.

This story is about generational trauma, memory, and the importance of collective history. Yetu is the designated historian among her people, who are mermaid-like predators of the deep ocean. She holds the memories of her people’s history on their behalf, experiencing them as if they were her own. This allows her people to live happily and painlessly in the moment. Once a year, she gives those memories back for a few days so they can remember who they are and where they come from. The answer to that, by the way, is they came from the bellies of pregnant slaves thrown overboard.

But it’s all too much for Yetu this year, who feels herself being slowly eroded by the presence of her people’s collective memory. She runs away, to the surface of the water, and meets land dwellers who will both change her and bring her back to herself.

I really liked this story, and I really liked Yetu’s character. The reason I’ve dropped my rating is that I felt this could have been a very strong short story rather than a somewhat repetitive, stretched-out novella. I found myself grasping whatever the author was trying to say, but then being told it again several more times before the plot moved forward.

Still, it’s the lesson behind the story that matters most here. The pain, and hope, and trauma, and culture, and heart. I would still recommend making room for it on your to-read list; it’s worth it.

Kingsbane (Empirium, #2)

***Description and review is spoiler for Furyborn (Empirium, #1)***

Rielle Dardenne has been anointed Sun Queen, but her trials are far from over. The Gate keeping the angels at bay is falling. To repair it, Rielle must collect the seven hidden castings of the saints. Meanwhile, to help her prince and love Audric protect Celdaria, Rielle must spy on the angel Corien — but his promises of freedom and power may prove too tempting to resist.

Centuries later, Eliana Ferracora grapples with her new reality: She is the Sun Queen, humanity's long-awaited savior. But fear of corruption — fear of becoming another Rielle — keeps Eliana's power dangerous and unpredictable. Hunted by all, racing against time to save her dying friend Navi, Eliana must decide how to wear a crown she never wanted by embracing her mother's power or rejecting it forever.

Author: Claire Legrand | Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

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Rating: 4 / 5

“Like the sun and the moon. Like day and night. I am the shore and you are the sea, my darling. The wild, wild sea — ever-changing and mighty. I need your passion, and you need something steady to come home to. An anchor, warm and sunlit.”

“It is a great responsibility, to be trusted with another’s heart.”

UGH WHAT.

Hello there, if you are here because you just read Furyborn, I implore you: SAVE YOURSELF. DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL THE FINAL BOOK OF THE TRILOGY IS PUBLISHED. Just kidding. Sort of. Just be warned: This is a HELLA cliffhanger. You will have a visceral need to pick up the next book instantly.

Quick review because we’re midway through the trilogy here. Ultimately, this wasn’t a perfect book. It had solid book-two vibes, aka it very much felt like a bridge between the first book and the last. There was a lot of plot-moving. But I did think that Claire Legrand continued to do some very brave / powerful things in this book with the way she writes these characters, from who they are at their core to the small ailments that affect their everyday. And that ending. Wow. THINGS JUST GOT REAL CRAZY REAL FAST.

In Furyborn, I found myself most drawn to Rielle’s chapters. Now, I can’t wait to get back to Eliana. That might have something to do with the fact that Rielle’s arc was like slow torture — no spoilers, but my heartttttt. But I’ve also read that Claire has also shifted to loving to write Eliana more, so I think that makes perfect sense.

I can’t wait to read book three and see how much all these characters ultimately grow. I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot.

The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)

*** Description is spoiler for The Trials of Apollo books 1–3***

It's not easy being Apollo, especially when you've been turned into a human and banished from Olympus. On his path to restoring five ancient oracles and reclaiming his godly powers, Apollo (aka Lester Papadopoulos) has faced both triumphs and tragedies. Now his journey takes him to Camp Jupiter in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the Roman demigods are preparing for a desperate last stand against the evil Triumvirate of Roman emperors. Hazel, Reyna, Frank, Tyson, Ella, and many other old friends will need Apollo's aid to survive the onslaught. Unfortunately, the answer to their salvation lies in the forgotten tomb of a Roman ruler . . . someone even worse than the emperors Apollo has already faced.

Author: Rick Riordan | Publisher: Disney Hyperion

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Rating: 4.5 / 5

“Dude, this isn't cool
Dude just tried to eat my dude
That's my dead dude, dude”

I recommend Rick Riordan’s books to anyone who likes to guffaw, loves witty pop-culture-meets-greek-mythology humor, and wants a good ol’ tug on the heartstrings. Because that’s what he delivers, every single time.

Short review for this one since it’s book four of five. It picks up right where book three left off (BEWARE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 3): Apollo and Meg are returning Jason’s body to Camp Jupiter, which has just undergone serious battle against the emperors’ fleet. They arrive to find the capers ragged and exhausted, but determined as ever.

I thought the tribute to Jason by the campers was beautiful, and I was glad that we had more time to mourn him. Book three ended so abruptly that I was nervous about it, but in fact, this entire book continued to pay tribute to Jason over and over and over. Apollo, of course, continued to find his humanity, Meg continued to grow into her own, the adventure was hilarious and thrilling, and I can’t wait to read book five and see how this all wraps up.

Ultimately, this one was just as heartwarming and clever as the others. Reading it was a joyful break from a lot of the heavier fiction I usually read, but still pulled hard on my emotions. The best of both worlds.

“Have you completely made up for all the bad things you've done? No. But you keep adding to the good things column. That's all any of us can do.”

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the '80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn's story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a mesmerizing journey through the splendor of old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means — and what it costs — to face the truth.

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid | Publisher: Atria Books

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Rating: 4 / 5

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is one of the most hyped books on Instagram, but it took me a long time to finally read it. And it was great, just as everyone said it was. A masterwork in storytelling, compulsively readable and heart-wrenching.

The main character of the story is Monique, a 30-something woman attempting to carve a space for herself in the world of impactful journalism. Then Evelyn Hugo, a retired mega movie star who had famously been married no less than seven times, reaches out to the magazine Monique works for and requests an audience with her — and her alone.

When Monique arrives, she learns that she’s to write Evelyn’s biography. What follows is an account of Evelyn’s life, so different from what everyone thinks, told husband by husband. And yet none of them are the great love of Evelyn’s life. By the end, Monique comes to learn why Evelyn insisted on her as the author, and the realization is incredible.

I couldn’t put this one down and read it in only a few days — if it had been a weekend, I could have finished in one day. It wasn’t a life-changing work of literature, but it was incredibly enjoyable and really unique. I loved it.

Her Body and Other Parties

In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.

A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.

Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

Author: Carmen Maria Machado | Publisher: Graywolf Press

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Rating 5 / 5

I’m late to the party (no pun intended, I actually just typed that without realizing) on this one, but I never doubted that I would love it. So many people have spoken highly of it. Plus, sorta-weird-sorta-spooky-super-speculative feminist short stories? MADE FOR ME.

That instinct turned out to have been right. Of course, some stories are stronger than others, but all of them have something eerie and haunting about them that really makes you marinate. The first story, “The Husband Stitch,” is of course a standout, but I also really loved the one where she recounted a woman’s entire sex life as the US devolved into a plague-ridden dystopia. If that doesn’t make you think about the power of living your life and exploring your freedoms and what’s important and what’s not, then I don’t know what will.

Also, the story structured as a synopsis of all those Law & Order SVU episodes? Unbelievably creative. Mind-blowing.

I flew through this book in only a couple days. I can’t wait to read more of Machado’s work, including her upcoming new release.

On Swift Horses

A lonely newlywed and her wayward brother-in-law follow divergent and dangerous paths through the postwar American West.

Muriel is newly married and restless, transplanted from her rural Kansas hometown to life in a dusty bungalow in San Diego. The air is rich with the tang of salt and citrus, but the limits of her new life seem to be closing in: She misses her freethinking mother, dead before Muriel's nineteenth birthday, and her sly, itinerant brother-in-law, Julius, who made the world feel bigger than she had imagined. And so she begins slipping off to the Del Mar racetrack, to bet and eavesdrop, learning the language of horses and risk. Meanwhile, Julius is testing his fate in Las Vegas, working at a local casino where tourists watch atomic tests from the roof, and falling in love with Henry, a young card cheat. When Henry is eventually discovered and run out of town, Julius takes off to search for him in the plazas and dives of Tijuana, trading one city of dangerous illusions for another.

On Swift Horses is a debut of astonishing power: a story of love and luck, of two people trying to find their place in a country that is coming apart even as it promised them everything.

Author: Shannon Pufahl | Publisher: Riverhead

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Rating: 4.5 / 5

On Swift Horses is a beautiful slow burn with language that draws you in like music. Like others who have read it before me, I simply couldn’t read it quickly; I had to linger over every sentence, speak them in my mind as I read, and let them sink into my bones and heart.

The book alternates between the perspectives of two main characters: Muriel and her brother-in-law, Julius. During their time in the armed service, Julius and his brother promise one another that someday they’ll buy a plot of land in California, build a house, and settle there. Then Muriel enters the picture and Julius leaves it — a vagabond, a card player, a gay man who lives a life just beneath the society that would punish him for it.

At work, Muriel begins to eavesdrop over a table of men who speak nothing but horse racing. She takes notes and one day, sneaks off to bet on her own. What that gives her sends her spiraling toward the life she never knew — and somehow always knew — she wanted. Meanwhile, Julius takes off for Vegas and meets his eventual-love Henry, another card player. The two of them work for a casino, walking the rafters above one-way mirrors and catching those who cheat below. Then Henry goes missing, and Julius has to go find him. But he has no money and nothing but the shirt on his back.

The way these two characters stories unfold alongside one another, with one another, meeting and parting and bouncing off one another. Existing and living and loving and wondering and hurting and searching.

Every time I finished a chapter of this book — anywhere from 30 to 50 pages — I looked up and wondered what day it was. I had been so absorbed in the lyricism. If you’re looking for a plot-driven story, this isn’t it — there are long chapters that don’t move the story along much, because the real story is about the characters, not the plot. But if you like to linger over people and the things that connect us to one another, as humans, then this is the book for you.

Queen of the Conquered

Sigourney Rose is the only surviving daughter of a noble lineage on the islands of Hans Lollik. When she was a child, her family was murdered by the islands’ colonizers, who have massacred and enslaved generations of her people—and now, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge.

When the childless king of the islands declares that he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney uses her ability to read and control minds to manipulate her way onto the royal island and into the ranks of the ruling colonizers. But when she arrives, prepared to fight for control of all the islands, Sigourney finds herself the target of a dangerous, unknown magic.

Someone is killing off the ruling families to clear a path to the throne. As the bodies pile up and all eyes regard her with suspicion, Sigourney must find allies among her prey and the murderer among her peers... lest she become the next victim.

Author: Kacen Callender | Publisher: Orbit

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Rating: 4 / 5

Big thanks to Orbit, who provided ARCs of this book at BookCon this past June! It will be published on November 12.

First of all, give me alllllll the fantasy novels written by non-binary people of color about slaves revolting against colonizers using badass magic and decade-long revenge plots. YES MORE OF THIS PLEASE.

The main character is Sigourney Rose (although she ends up with several last names throughout the book), and she’s the last surviving member of the Rose family. The story takes place in Hans Lollik, a group of colonized islands modeled after the real-life Virgin Islands. Her mother was a former slave who’d been freed and married Sigourney’s father, rising to a higher status than the other elite of the island were comfortable with.

Flash forward to today, and Sigourney is years-deep in a plot to take over as Queen of Hans Lollik, revenge her family, and free her people. She’s aided by her kraft, which allows her to experience other people’s thoughts and memories. But as she gets closer and closer to her goal, she doubts herself and her love of the power she’s seeking more and more. Will she succeed? If she does, will she actually free her people?

The first chapter of this book was AWESOME. It set the stage perfectly and cast Sigourney as a complex, troubled, determined character with all sorts of virtues and flaws. Callender does jump into the vocabulary of this world’s political system really quickly, and I felt a little lost about what all these words meant and which groups of people were whom for a little while. But stick with it, and eventually it’s all explained. I had no idea how it was going to end up until it did — it kept me guessing, then revising my guess, then going back to my original guess, to smashing my guess apart, to totally surprising me.

In the end, I was really moved by this story and the incredibly human questions it asks of us.

My Sister, the Serial Killer

“Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.”

Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row is dead.

Korede's practicality is the sisters' saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her "missing" boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.

Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she's exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola's phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she's willing to go to protect her.

Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite's deliciously deadly debut is as fun as it is frightening.

Author: Oyinkan Braithwaite | Publisher: Doubleday Books

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Rating: 4 / 5

“I wonder what the chances are that the death of a person in the company of a serial killer would come about by chance.”

My Sister, the Serial Killer is a fast-paced, cutting, impactful little novel that comes in and gets out fast, but not without leaving its mark. I was really impressed with how Oyinkan was able to create such vivid characters and such a compelling story in so few words.

You’ll hear this book called a thriller, but it’s not quite. It reads quickly and involves murder, sure, and there’s definitely a measure of suspense (will she / won’t she kill again?), but the writing is a lot more matter-of-fact, a lot more cutting, than you’d expect from that description.

The narrator of the book is Korede, the older sister to Ayoola, a stunning, narcissistic young woman who has a nasty habit of killing her boyfriends. She calls Korede to help her clean up afterward, always claiming some sort of self-defense or innocence, confident that the world will simply bend to her will and charm (which it actually does). Korede, as her sister, is loyal to a fault, but she’s also caught in a can’t-win sort of situation.

But then Ayoola starts dating the guy Korede has pined after for months, and it begins to fracture a bit. Woven throughout the book are flashbacks to the days before their father died, years ago. He was abusive and domineering — and then he died.

The book is more about sisterhood than murder, family and duty than guilt or innocence. It’s about the privilege afforded to those who are beautiful and charming, and about the conflicts they leave in their wake.

It took me only three hours to read this book. The paperback is 225 pages with wide margins and chapter breaks every few pages. Also, she wrote it in only a few weeks?? And originally titled it Thicker than Water?? And wasn’t going to put it up for publication at all, except her agent happened to read it?? And now it was longlisted for the Women’s Prize AND the Booker Prize??? Like wow.

I’m glad I read it after having seen Oyinkan speak (I attended the paperback launch), because I was able to hear her reading it in my mind and keep everything she’d said about it in the back of my head.

The Dutch House

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

Author: Ann Patchett | Publisher: Harper Collins

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Rating: 4 / 5

Big thanks to Libro.fm and Harper Collins for the advanced listening copy of this audiobook!

“But we overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.”

If you keep up with the world of recent book releases, you’ve probably heard by now that The Dutch House’s audiobook is narrated by Tom Hanks. And yes, I heard you just go, “oOoOoOoh.” Your reaction is entirely appropriate. This audiobook is glorious.

The story itself, too, is beautifully written and some really top-notch literary fiction. If you’ve read any other books by Ann Patchett, this won’t surprise you either. So basically what we have here is two masters of their respective crafts coming together to make magic. MAGIC.

The Dutch House is narrated by the story’s main character, Danny. He tells us about his life, from childhood to old age, jumping forward and backward in time in creative and illuminating ways. He and his sister, Maeve, have been close his entire life. When Danny was little, their mother left — fleeing a stifling (to her) life of comfort to go “help the poor.” So they live in the Dutch House, a grand estate near Philadelphia, with their father, until he remarries a woman named Andrea who has two daughters of her own and absolutely no love at all for Danny and Maeve. (What she loves, it turns out, is the house.)

After their father tragically passes away, Andrea kicks them out, and Danny and Maeve adjust to a new reality with no one for family but one another. The rest of the story illuminates the gratingly human experience of nostalgia, old wounds, family, independence, and love.

I did find that the jumping timelines were occasionally tricky to keep up with, but once I settled into the format, I began to see how important it was to the overall story, and I think it was a really interesting literary device. I love Maeve, both as an independent character and the way Danny sees her through his own eyes. Again, this is brought to life even more beautifully through Tom Hanks’s narration.

If you are a fan of literary fiction, definitely don’t miss this one. And I highly recommend the audiobook.

Where the Crawdads Sing

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark.

But Kya is not what they say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the land, learning from the false signals of fireflies the real way of this world. But while she could have lived in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world — until the unthinkable happens.

Author: Delia Owens | Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons

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Rating: 4 / 5

“And just at that second, the wind picked up, and thousands upon thousands of yellow sycamore leaves broke from their life support and streamed across the sky. Autumn leaves don’t fall; they fly. They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar. Reflecting sunlight, they swirled and sailed and fluttered on the wind drafts.”

I’m a little late to the party on this book, but similarly to everyone else in the world, I thought Where the Crawdads Sing was beautiful, heartbreaking, and entirely worth reading. Delia Owens writes prose that cuts to the quick, leaves you aching for her characters, and opens your eyes just a little bit more.

The main character of the story is Kya. When she was a young child, her mother packed a back and left their unhappy home in the marshlands of North Carolina, fleeing a PTSD-suffering abusive husband. Shortly after, Kya’s older siblings all left as well. A few years later, her father left, too, and she lived in the marsh by herself from then on. She never went to school, she hunted for mussels to sell so that she could eat, and she hid from anyone who came near. The marsh became her mother and she fell head over heels in love with the animals, the nature, and the water.

That is, except for a boy who came and taught her to read. They fell in young love, but then he went to college. In his wake came Chase Andrews, who was drawn to her but also lived a playboy double life. Throughout this narrative, chapters jump forward in time to a few years later, when Chase Andrews was found dead. What happened to him?

One thing that I found really noteworthy about Kya’s story is how many times she needed to heal from the same wounds. She would accept that her mother is gone (or whatever heartbreak), and then need to re-accept it and re-accept it again. And I think that’s just so true to life.

I took a star off my review here because (controversial opinion) I didn’t love the ending. It’s hard to explain without spoilers, but I just think that Owens could have made some uncomfortable but brave choices that would have helped the book mean even more than it does in its current state. If you’ve read it, message me on Instagram and let’s talk about it.

Cursed

The Lady of the Lake is the true hero in this cinematic twist on the tale of King Arthur created by Thomas Wheeler and legendary artist, producer, and director Frank Miller (300, Batman: The Dark Night Returns, Sin City). Featuring 8 full color and 30 black-and-white pieces of original artwork by Frank Miller.

Whosoever wields the Sword of Power shall be the one true King. But what if the Sword has chosen a Queen?

Nimue grew up an outcast. Her connection to dark magic made her something to be feared in her Druid village, and that made her desperate to leave… That is, until her entire village is slaughtered by Red Paladins, and Nimue’s fate is forever altered. Charged by her dying mother to reunite an ancient sword with a legendary sorcerer, Nimue is now her people’s only hope. Her mission leaves little room for revenge, but the growing power within her can think of little else.

Nimue teams up with a charming mercenary named Arthur and refugee Fey Folk from across England. She wields a sword meant for the one true king, battling paladins and the armies of a corrupt king. She struggles to unite her people, avenge her family, and discover the truth about her destiny. But perhaps the one thing that can change Destiny itself is found at the edge of a blade.

Author: Thomas Wheeler, Frank Miller (Illustrator) | Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

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Rating: 4 / 5

If you like fantasy retellings and badass girl warriors, then my friend, this is the book for you. Especially if you’re familiar with King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur, Merlin, and all that good stuff. Honestly, I don’t know a whole lot about those stories, and I still really enjoyed it. And the more you know, I can only imagine the better it will get.

Our main character is Nimue, who comes from a Fey village. She has a close connection with “the Hidden,” aka the source of magic in the world, and she’s ostracized for it. Then her village is razed to the ground by militant Catholic missionaries, the Red Paladins. Her mother produces a sword from a hiding place and tells Nimue to find Merlin and give it to him — and then she goes down fighting. Nimue sets off with Arthur, a sellsword she met a few days before in the nearby trading city. Together they join up with others — many of whom turn out to unexpectedly become our beloved characters we know and love from King Arthur legends — to save the rest of the Fey Folk.

There’s also a heartwarming cozy romance that buds between Nimue and Arthur, and a nice little twist midway — the most surprising character development of the book. Plus, Nimue is a badass but flawed character in the best way.

Although I read an advanced reader’s copy of this book and so didn’t get to see them all, finished copies of this book will have almost 40 illustrations by Frank Miller! The ones I did see where fantastic, and it made the reading experience even richer.

The story was fast-paced and read quickly, which is always a plus in fantasy (especially for young readers). Note that it can be a tad graphic for the target age, but it could definitely be worse. It’s billed as middle grade, but I think teens and adults will love the story too!

Quichotte

Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where "Anything-Can-Happen." Meanwhile, his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.

Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirize the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of Rushdie's work, the fully realized lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction.

Author: Salman Rushdie | Publisher: Random House

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Rating: 4 /5

“As I plan my quest,” Quichotte said, drinking from a can of ginger ale, “I ponder the contemporary period as well as the classical. And by the contemporary I mean, of course, The Bachelorette.”

I liked Quichotte (pronounced in this variation, on instruction from the author, as key-shot). It manages to be both fun and important — witty and conversational while dealing with themes like opioid addiction, racism, loneliness, childhood sexual assault, family, and regret. (Okay, that makes the book sound really depressing, but it’s not!)

Our story’s hero is Quichotte, of course — an old man selling pharmaceuticals on the road, living in inexpensive motels and hotels that he can only hope have cable included. In his old age and loneliness, he’s really started to believe that television is reality, and so he’s fallen in love with one Miss Salma R, a sort of Oprah 2.0 (even called “Oprah 2.0” by book-Oprah herself). Both Quichotte and Salma grew up in the same tiny village in India, on the same street even, and found their way to the US.

Quichotte decides that he’s going to drive across the country to woo Salma, because this is the age of anything-can-happen and love will find a way. He also imagines a son into existence, whom he names Sancho. Salma, for her part, is bipolar, depressed, and an opioid user. And she finds herself entangled with Dr. RK Smile, Quichotte’s cousin and former employer, who sells them.

But that’s not all there is to the story. A few chapters in, we’re introduced to the Author, referred to as Brother, who’s writing Quichotte’s story. He’s also from that street in the small village of India. He is estranged from Sister, just as Quichotte is estranged from his sister. In fact the more you read, the more you realize that Brother is pouring himself into Quichotte’s story.

What makes this novel really engaging is the way you can watch Brother grapple with his own life and family as he writes his way through Quichotte’s story. Without the element of Author/Brother and Sister, I think the story would have fallen flat. But with it, we get a glimpse into the human experience through his and his characters’ eyes.

Without spoilers, the ending was weird. I’d love to chat about it with anyone who’s read the book. I also found that I could easily put it down when I was called away to other things — in fact, when I reached the end of part 1, I paused and read two or three other books with more urgent timelines before starting up again. But I still enjoyed it, I’m glad I read it, and I can see why it caught the eye of the Booker Prize judges.

The Water Dancer

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her — but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known.

So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the deep South to dangerously utopic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children — the violent and capricious separation of families — and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.

Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates | Publisher: One World

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Rating: 4 / 5

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an advanced reading copy of this fantastic book.

The Water Dancer reads like a classic — weighty, important, immersive. It’s also incredibly creative. What Coates does with Harriet Tubman as a human legend and with the language of the underground railroad is unlike anything I’ve ever read before.

The story is told from the first-person perspective of Hiram, although you can tell he’s speaking from the future, looking back on these parts of his life and telling the story of what happened. He is a slave on a Virginia tobacco plantation. The story begins from a point of action — Hiram’s horse and cart fall into the river and he nearly drowns — and then spins back to his childhood, just after his mother was sold. Something strange happens to him in both instances — the story’s element of magical realism.

Later in his life, Hiram joins “the Underground” and begins learning the art of “conduction.” He journeys back and forth, up and down the coast, finding his purpose, clarifying his own values, and making his mark on the world — big and small.

It’s not an easy life that he narrates for us, but it’s incredibly introspective. That’s what really sets this story apart from others I’ve read on the topic / era — this is about the systems, yes, but it’s even more about the people inside them (good and bad) and the sort of gray lines that exist when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

I thought the story moved a little slowly, which is why this wasn’t a 5-star book for me. But it really did feel like a classic — you know, how they aren’t always the most engaging books, but they are engaging enough, and they are also the most important books. That’s how this one felt to me.

I remain most impressed by Coates’s use of magical realism — when it’s done right, magical realism calls attention to a real-world thing, rather than to itself. It’s not the point of the story; it helps you see the point more clearly. This is what he’s done so masterfully here. And it’s fantastic.