Beasts Made of Night

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by Tochi Onyebuchi
First sentence: “I make sure to sit where they can’t see me.”
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Content: There are a couple of mild swear words, some violence, and a bit of kissing. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

The world that Onyebuchi created is fantastic: purity means everything to the people of this city, and so to remain pure from sin and wrongdoing, the rich and powerful hire Magi to call the sin from them, in the form of shadow beasts. Then sin-eaters, called aki, destroy the beasts, and swallow the sin, which appears in the form of a tattoo on their bodies. The aki are considered the lowest of the low, because their impurity is visible on their bodies, and so they are shunned and cheated and die early.

But, unfortunately, that’s as far as the book got. There isn’t much of a plot — first our main character, Taj, is in the slums, and then he’s in the palace, and then he’s sent to train new aki — and it never really seemed to go anywhere. There’s a rebellion and a resistance and who is really the “bad guy” (was it the head Magi? Or the royals?) and the princess Taj was kissing HAD to be at least old enough to be his mother, which just creeped me out.

So, while I adored the world that Onyebuchi created, the book just didn’t do it for me.

The Wicked King

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wickedkingby Holly Black
First sentence: “Jude lifted the heavy practice sword, moving into the first stance — readiness.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: January 8, 2018
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Others in the series: The Cruel Prince
Content: There’s a lot of violence and some almost sex. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Spoilers for The Cruel Prince, obviously.

Five months after Jude engineered the plan to put Cardan on the throne of Faerie, she’s discovering that, in the words of Hamilton (the musical), while winning is easy, governing is harder. She constantly has to be on her toes, and she’s always second guessing herself and everyone else. Cardan is still a mostly unwilling participant, but he doesn’t put up too many roadblocks, and lets Jude tell him what to do. But things start unraveling as Taryn’s (that’s Jude’s sister) wedding approaches. Balekin, Cardan’s oldest brother, has been making alliances with the kingdom of the sea to overthrow Cardan (or at least to gain more power). Then Jude is attacked and kidnapped, and things unravel more.

I went into this thinking it was a duology, so I’m telling you up front: it’s not. Things just get more complicated in this book (deliciously so), and so, yes, there will be at least one more to wrap this up. But, it also has everything I loved about The Cruel Prince: a fierce, smart, but vulnerable heroine, some high stakes, and a push and pull relationship that is just thrilling to read. Black’s a magnificent writer, pulling you into her very dangerous faerie world (and I did catch the shout out to The Darkest Part of the Forest, too!) and making you never want to leave.

I can’t wait to see what’s next for Jude.

This Mortal Coil

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by Emily Suvada
First sentence: “It’s sunset, and the sky is aflame, not with clouds or dust, but with the iridescent feathers of a million genhacked passenger pigeons.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are a few mild swear words, and an almost-sex scene, and a lot of violence. It’s in the teen section (grades 9+) 

It’s the future, in which people have figured out how to write code that can write over your DNA, where everyone is literally plugged in, though panels on their arms, and VR nets in their skulls. The company Cartaxus basically rules the world, releasing apps and code updates solely though their company, controlling basically everything. 

And then the Hydra virus appears. This virus has three stages: you become infected, you get a fever,  the virus wraps itself around your cells, and then you explode. If you’re near an explosion, you get infected too. And if you’re near someone in the second it triggers something inside you that makes you go crazy and want to kill. The only way to become immune is to eat the flesh of someone in the second stage of the virus. Sure, Cartaxus created bunkers to keep everyone safe, but in doing so, they take away your freedom. 

Or so Catarina, our main character, has always thought. At the beginning of the outbreak, her father Lachlan, a genius coder, was taken by Cartaxus (at gunpoint) and Cat has been left to survive the virus wasteland on her own. And then one day, a soldier from Cartaxus shows up with the news that 1) there’s a vaccine for this virus and 2) Cat’s father has died creating it, and it’s up to her to figure out how to get it to everyone. 

It’s a lot more complex than this, but that’s the basic gist. And man, it is a fun, interesting, work of science fiction. I liked that it was intelligence — Cat’s ability to create and read code, as well as the whole theory of gene manipulation — not necessarily brawn that drove the plot (though there was a lot of shooting, running, stabbing, and blowing things up). There was a bit of a romance (which was kind of predictable) and the twist at the end wasn’t entirely satisfying for me. But mostly, I thought it was smart and fun. 

A Curse So Dark and Lonely

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cursesodarkby Brigid Kemmerer
First sentence: “There is blood under my fingernails.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: January 29, 2019
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are some inferences to sex and lots of violence. It’ll be in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore, but I bet a 7/8th grader who wants to tackle this might really enjoy it.

Rhen is the crown prince of Everfall, but 5 years ago he made the worst decision of his life: he slept with, and then rejected, an enchantress. She (because she can) put a curse on him: at the end of every season (spring, summer, etc.) he will turn into a monster for a length of time. He has to find True Love to break the curse.

(If this sounds like Beauty and the Beast, you’re right.)

Harper lives in DC, and her family has fallen up on hard times. Her mother’s terminal illness has sucked the family finances dry, and so her father turned to loan sharks and other shady characters for money. And then he split, leaving Harper and her older brother Jake to clean up the mess. That is, until she’s inadvertently kidnapped (she wasn’t the intended target; in fact, she tried to stop the original kidnapping) by Rhen’s captain of the guard, Grey. And then she finds herself in Everfall.

There was so much to love in this book. The nods to the original fairy tale. The banter between Rhen and Harper. Harper’s fierceness (she’s not a warrior, but she cares about people and she’s willing to defend them). Rhen has a painful backstory, and Grey is an amazing foil. And the enchantress? Is wonderfully, justifiably awful.

It pulled me in on page one, and didn’t let me go until I finished. The only complaint I have? That it wasn’t a stand-alone (it could have been), but instead left a thread open for a sequel (which I will probably read).

Still. It was excellent.

 

Bruja Born

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by Zoraida Cordova
First sentence: “This is a love story.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher for the Cybils.
Content: There is some mild swearing and a few f-bombs. There is also a lot of violence. It would be in the Teen section (grades 9+) if the bookstore had it, but I think a 6-8th grader who was interested could read it. 

I’ll be forthright: this is a second in a series. And no, I haven’t read the first one (yet). But this one worked as a stand alone; Cordova gives enough information that it kept me in the loop with the backstory (though I do wonder if it was too much, if you’ve already read the first one?) but didn’t really get in the way of this story. 

Lula has been growing distant from her boyfriend, Maks, for many reasons (most of which have to do with book 1, but also because she’s a bruja – a witch) and he decided that he was done trying to make this work. So, on the way to a soccer game — he’s a player, she’s part of the cheer/dance team — he did. And then the bus got into a fatal accident. Lula’s family — who are all brujas — was able to save her through magic, but Maks, well, died. Except Lula, when she recovered, wasn’t able to accept that. So, she and her two sisters — Alex and Rose — performed a canto (a spell) to save him. Which… worked. Sort of. What it actually did was trap Death (the Lady de la Muerte) in between realms and created a whole hoard of casimuertos — zombies who eat hearts instead of brains — that quickly took over Brooklyn. 

What Lula (and Alex and Rose by extension) need to do is figure out how to get the Lady back to her realm and figure out a way to stop the casimuertos before they kill everyone. 

I’ve already addressed how nice it was that this was its own story rather than a continuation of a story that began in the first book, but it’s also a lot of fun. I enjoyed the Latinx flair that Cordova brought to witches (and zombies) and I thought the story was just a lot of fun. There was romance gone wrong, consequences to choices, some fun sidekicks, and a great family relationship. 

I’m going to try and go back and get my hands on the first book in the series. It’s really a LOT of fun. 

The Wicked Deep

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by Shea Ernshaw
First sentence: “Three sisters arrived in Sparrow, Oregon, in 1822 aboard a fur trading ship named the Lady Astor, which sank later that year in the harbor just beyond the cape.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are instances of teenage drinking and lots of talk about sex. There is also swearing, including several f-bombs. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore. 

This one a hard one to summarize: it’s a slowly unfolding tale of three sisters who were accused of being witches and drowned, of a town that’s paid for their deaths for nearly 200 years through drownings of boys each summer. It’s the story of forgiveness and sacrifice and of falling in love. It’s the story of judgement and the price paid for not being open and accepting. 

It was atmospheric, as it slowly unfolded the historical tale of the Swan sisters and the contemporary tale of Penny and Bo. I was interested enough to keep reading to the end, but once there I was left with a shrug. I think I was supposed to care about the sacrifices made, about the love story. But mostly, it was all just a big meh. I guessed the twist fairly early on, and once I got to the Big Reveal, I was left kind of shrugging: yeah, so? 

I suppose I just wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did. 

Friday Black

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by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
First sentence: “Fela, the headless girl, walked toward Emmanuel.”
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Content: It’s violent and there is some strong language, including a lot of f-bombs. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore. 

I picked this one up after hearing the author on the New York Times Book Review Podcast. I’m not usually a short story sort of person — and this one took me a while to get through — but it sounded fascinating enough that I felt compelled to pick it up. 

It’s a set of mostly unconnected short stories (though there are three about working in retail that take place in the same store) about what it’s like to be black in America. It’s nominally speculative fiction: the shoppers in the title story are forms of zombies, made that way by consumer greed, literally killing each other on the way to get the Product They Need. Or, in the final story, “Through the Flash”, Adjei-Brenyah imagines a future where technology and climate change has stuck us all in this terrible time loop, doomed forever to repeat the same day and the effects that would have on people, for good and ill. 

But my favorite story — “favorite” meaning “the one that suck with me the most” is “Zimmer Land”, an “amusement” park where white people get to pay for the opportunity to extract “justice”: stop a terrorist, solve a bomb threat, or stop a “thug” from invading their streets. If, by the end, you haven’t realized that it’s a pretty damning telling of the way white people deal with crises, whether real or perceived, then I think you read it wrong. 

I didn’t get all the stories — part of my problem with short stories, usually — but that could be because I’m a white person, and I just don’t understand black life or experience. Even so, I found this to be incredibly powerful. He’s definitely a voice in fiction I’ll be watching out for more from. 

Spinning Silver

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by Naomi Novik
First sentence: “The real story isn’t half as pretty as the one you’ve heard.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some domestic violence and other violence as well as some more mature themes. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore. 

If you’ve read Novik’s Uprooted, then you know what you’re in for with this book. (If you haven’t read Uprooted, why not?) 

This takes place in much of the same place that Uprooted does: a vaguely Eastern-European/Russian country. We follow the story of Miryem, the daughter of an inept Jewish money lender, who decides to take on the family business for herself. She becomes successful enough that it captures the attention of the Staryk, a viscous race of faerie who, during the winter, stole from the humans, goods, yes, but often money. She is tasked with turning silver into gold — which she does — and as a “reward” is kidnapped and taken to the Staryk kingdom. 

So, yes: shades of Rumplestiltskin, but the inferences go deeper. There is playing with names and the importance of them (everyone who reads a lot of fantasy knows that one’s true name is to be kept close because there is magical power in them). But, there’s also a demon and quite a few very very smart women who are willing and able to play the system to get what’s not only best for them, but also for the country. 

My only real complaint is the shifting narrative — but that’s just because I’m in the middle of the Cybils, and it seems like there’s a lot of shifting narrative books out there and I’m a bit over it. I love the way Novik plays with fairy tales, meshing them with religion and folklore to create something wholly her own. 

Excellent. 

Mirage

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by Somaiya Daud
First sentence: “He is the only one of his family without the daan.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some violence, and a few mild swear words. It was in the teen section (grades 9+) but I moved it to the YA, partially because there was nothing really “offensive” in it, and partially because I think 6-8th graders might be a better target audience. 

I’ve been thinking of this one as Star Wars with a Persian flair. Let me explain: in this universe, there is a cruel imperial overlord, the Vath, who conquer lesser systems, including the home world of our main character, Amani. The cruel overlords (and their droids) have wiped out the native language and customs, though they do keep some. 

The daughter of the emperor is about to come of age, and it turns out that she is very disliked on Andala, the world she is set to rule. So, Amani is kidnapped — because she looks exactly like the princess — and made to serve as a body double, something she resents, until she discovers (you guessed it: the resistance). See? Star Wars. 

The Persian flair is what made this book stand out to me: Daud infuses the world with a rich mythology, religion, and history, sewn together with poetry and family. I liked the developing relationship between Amani and the princess’s fiance, Idris. And I even really liked where the story went, though it took a long time to get to the climax. My only complaint is the usual one: I do wish it had been a stand-alone. 

Even so, it was a unique and interesting tale. 

Audiobook: The New Farm

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by Brent Preston
Read by: Chris Henry Coffey
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content:  There’s some swearing, including a handful (6 or so) f-bombs. It’d be in the sociology or gardening section of the bookstore, if we had it. 

To be honest, this is usually the sort of book that my husband would read: the story of a couple of Canadians who got tired of working the office grind and city life, and decided to head out to the country and start an organic farm. I don’t know if that’s something he would like to do, but it’s definitely something he admires. I don’t know what made me pick it up; I suppose I was curious to see what went goes into making a sustainable, small, organic farm work and survive as a business. And I guess it just sounded interesting. 

And it was, for the most part. Preston and his wife Gillian had a super huge learning curve with this farm, and he doesn’t mince words about all the things that went wrong. Or how much money they lost during their first two or three years. He was also pretty frank about how running a small, sustainable, organic farm is a community effort: they started making progress financially when they reached out and found communities to be a part of, and ways to increase their reach. Growing excellent produce isn’t enough (though it’s important); you also need to have ways to reach people, and ways to get help working the farm. 

I did pick up some good gardening tips, things to help with the soil in our little garden, and things to help with growing plants better. And I did find the narrator entertaining (though I assumed it was the author reading it; I was mildly disappointed when I found out it wasn’t). My only real complaint is that it only went through the first couple of seasons, and it just kind of … ended. That may have been my version of the audiobook, but the narrative just stopped. But, if that’s the only complaint, it’s not that bad.