It’s difficult to write this review, not because I have mixed feelings about the book or because of the book has both issues in bright spots, but because the reading experience felt average, although on the high side of average. I have enjoyed everything that I have read from Lim but this adult debut from her did not really make a splash. I actually did not see all that much difference in the writing from her previous works, her young adult works. Even though both main characters – mother and daughter – are adults in the opening to the story, most of the chapters from their point of view take place when they are middle to high school age, thus making most of this book read like the author’s typical young adult novels. I did find the concept and the setting highly engaging, especially as Lim explored the effect trauma has on relationships and decision-making. The narrative, however, did not make a lasting impact though, and will likely not linger along in my memory.
Kölach created a fascinating take on magic school, where the main character comes from a family full of seers but is actually a skeptic and does not have this ability. She ends up at the school, pretending that she has the ability and gets swept up and trying to protect the people around her from a threat that comes closer to her past than she thought possible. I will definitely pick up any books of the author continues to write in this potential series.
I wanted so much to enjoy this cozy fantasy. However, the narrative, as well as my own disjointed reading sessions – I read the book in much smaller chunks than I prefer since school has started back up again – lead me to a lack of connection with the plot that I eventually picked up on. For much of the first half of this narrative, I kept looking for the plot, the events that kept the narrative moving forward, without success. Much of the first 40% of this novel reads like the daily accountings of ye olde inn in a fantasy world. The plot eventually picks up, but by that point I had lost the buy-in. I wish I could recommend this book, but I cannot.
Fonda Lee created an incredibly believable futuristic world set somewhere not on earth where humans now live, centuries after first colonizing the planet. Some questions about how this colonization started and whether or not humans still live on earth were not answered in the narrative. Isako’s journey does not need these details to be established to set up Isako’s character and the unexpected decision that she has to make at the start of this novel. Lee presents all kinds of moral conundrums that the reader must encounter and wrestle with while many of the characters have accepted these new aspects of their world. I will admit, though, that I did not engage with the characters as deeply as I did in the Green Bone Saga, but I still enjoyed my reading experience and most definitely continue to read from Lee in the future.
In this slightly fantastical middle grade novel, the main character, Raven, has moved to a small town with her aunt who has gotten a new job. Her aunt has custody of her after the tragic deaths of her parents from carbon monoxide poisoning. Raven blames herself because earlier that day she had made something in the oven which was attached to the gas line that had the carbon monoxide leak. In this story, she is learning to move through her grief and accept those parts of her that she had cut off while blaming herself for her parents death. I think this book is an excellent entry into fantasy, especially for kids, whose brains are just developing the ability to think abstractly.
I really enjoyed this YA novel told in a split timeline. The main character has acted up in the past which in a series of slightly implausible events (but still plausible) ends up spending a year in a detention center, a home for troubled girls. That makes up one of the timelines. The other timeline takes place right as she is released from the detention center and goes home to her mom who has married while the main character was still in the detention center. Through the course of the narrative, the main character is battling the expectations placed on her by the system, by her mother, others in authority, and herself. I was definitely angry on her behalf for all of the assumptions that people made about her character when the actions were just those of someone her age, 15 years old. I highly recommend this novel.
Leave a Reply