Nico

A fabulous middle grade, which seem to be winners for me this year. Fantastic themes for younger ones and I especially liked how it features a father-daughter relationship (even though we don't really see dad on page). Faye is a servant and the daughter of the groundskeeper, who trained his daughter well. While he's away gathering supplies their egotistical and aloof wizard passes away in his sleep, but he doesn't know it yet and everyone is scared to tell him. Faye finds herself having to take charge and protect the living castle and its creatures that she loves so much, while trying to keep secret that she is a witch. Just super cute with friendship and cute creatures, and is fast-paced without being too fast-paced that I got a headache. Perfect.

Love love love love love this book. I CANNOT wait to see what Blackgoose writes next.

4.5 stars. This was great. The writing is great, it has some twists, it has character development, it has some funny moments, and some heartbreak. Definitely for Game of Thrones fans if you haven't picked it up yet.

As someone on GRs said, “no plot just vibes,” but even the vibes were a miss for me. I felt like I was kept at arms-length. It’s an interesting premise, but I never was wowed by Penny, Dallergut or the store, and - maybe because of the state of my cold, dark heart - I never felt my heartstrings pulled, even though I craved it. My favorite of the stories were about the customers addressing their trauma and the musician struggling with inspiration, but even those felt too brief and just at surface level. I just felt nothing with this one.

Penny gets a job at the Dallergut Dream Department store, a place where you can purchase dreams ranging from meeting a celebrity to seeing a family member who has passed. Told in a series of vignettes, you follow Penny as she bumbles and learns the ropes while interacting with customers.

I think fans of When the Coffee Gets Cold might enjoy this or vice versa, folks who enjoy the cozy subgenre, or *maybe* light novels (I’m pretty ignorant about these, but this somewhat reminded me of light novel The Haunted Bookstore by Shinobumaru - maybe it was just the cutsy protagonist in the vignette style, though I prefer that one).

I've read two Tiffany Achings before (yes, I'm WAY out of order) and at this point it feels masochistic reading Tiffany Aching. I feel like Pratchett was grieving someone he loved very much and that love comes through so strongly in these books. Pretty sure I teared up at least a dozen times, but I obviously LOLed too, I'm always down for some good wizard trash talk.

If you've had a grandmother or maybe parental or elder figure that you've lost this is either a content warning or a recommendation for catharsis. For me it was catharsis crying, especially the next up book, they are beautiful.

I think the next up in the series is stronger than this one in regards to the story and grief, but this is still excellent. Who can't fall just in love with Tiffany or the Wee Free Men?

YA for themes around critical thinking, trusting yourself and processing death of a loved one - which I think all translate absolutely perfectly to adult, I definitely benefit from these themes. And this does not read like YA to me at all, especially if you've read Discworld it's the same tone as the others.