Arca is the second book in the Five Queendoms series, and I think it was even stronger than book one (Scorpica). I’m definitely enjoying these enough to want the next book!

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is an adventurous, swashbuckling, gloriously fun time with an incredible cast of characters. It’s the start of a series (but feels like a standalone) and I can’t wait for more in this world!

Lucy By the Sea is another cozy, resonant novel by Elizabeth Strout. While I didn’t love it as much as I’d hoped, watching Lucy process the pandemic does feel almost therapeutic for we who lived it.

A Day of Fallen Night is a fantastically rendered standalone fantasy novel. It has everything you could want: dragons, queendoms, mystery, battles, politics, and multiple POVs spanning four continents.

In Springtime is a narrative book of poetry that meditates on caregiving, identity, grief, and nature. It’s a quick but moving read, and I enjoyed it very much.

Equal Partners is a quick read with useful insights and suggestions to help everyone in a home work toward equal distribution, not just visible labor but cognitive labor too.

Winter is another quiet but profound installment of Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet. I’m once again awed by how she does so much with so little. Can’t wait for Spring!

Stone Blind is another tragic, polyphonic work of art from Natalie Haynes — this time focused on one storyline (Medusa’s). Fans of A Thousand Ships will like this!

The Sun Walks Down is a super atmospheric, polyphonic novel set in 1800s Australia about a boy lost in the desert and how the members of his town respond. I liked it a lot.

A Monster Calls is a magical and deeply moving early-YA novel about grief in the wake of a parent’s death and the range of very human emotions that come with it. I sobbed, dear reader. Sobbed!

The third in Elizabeth Strout’s Amgash series, Oh William! is another quiet but beautiful little novel. I loved how reflective this one was, both similar to and different from the first two.

Brotherless Night is a beautiful and heartbreaking and powerful novel about one girl’s coming-of-age during the Sri Lankan civil war. I absolutely loved it.

Hell Bent was an awesome sequel to Ninth House. I loved diving deeper into these characters and their relationships, all while happily along for the plot ride Leigh Bardugo is famous for.

Equal parts funny and heartbreaking, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a Sri Lankan ghost story, war story, and just all-around good story.

The Bandit Queens is a smart, darkly funny novel about a community of women who team up to kill their abusive husbands. It’s equal parts delightful and devastating.

Heart of the Sun Warrior is a fun, adventurous sequel to Daughter of the Moon Goddess. While it didn’t blow me away (mostly because the love triangle didn’t quite work for me), I did enjoy it.

The New Life is a well-written and deeply emotional novel about experiences of queerness in late-1800s London. I loved it.

The Good Life is one of those rare “self-help” books that actually uses all its pages well. I really appreciated the way it not only presented the research but also provided helpful, actionable tools to carry to its advice in real life.

Elizabeth Strout has done it again. Anything Is Possible is a beautiful and tender of a portrait of a community told through the eyes of its people, one story at a time.

Well, that was weird. Definitely smart and imaginative and impressive — just a bit over my head. Still, it was fun to read and puzzle through!