Crystallinegirl

I'm going to buy my own copy of this book. (I read it from the library.) It is stuffed full of useful information! It focuses on growing food in your yard when you don't have much time to spend on the yard, so there's a lot of permaculture techniques and gardens that are largely hands-off once you get them set up, which is exactly what I want. With the chronic fatigue, I often don't have the energy to get outside and work on a garden, and Maryland summers exhaust me simply by stepping outside. I really want to garden and grow food, but I need easy ways to do that.

The Suburban Micro-Farm delved into planting hedgerows, which is something we've been thinking of, rain gardens (which we probably should do, we have a couple places in the yard that do not drain well), and tree guilds, which are plantings that go under trees to work together in little micro-environments. One of the tree guilds Stross specifically talks about is a Black Walnut tree guild, which I was excited to see because we have a huge, beautiful mature Black Walnut that I've been trying to figure out how to plant around. Black Walnuts produce juglone, a chemical that kills a lot of plants, so you have to be very mindful of what you plant near them.

This is an excellent reference book for suburban gardens, and she has lots of extra resources on her site, The Tenth Acre Farm. I will be exploring those as well, but I'm definitely going to buy my own copy of this book!

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I picked this up off the library shelf for the title; I took it home for the description. Were-dragon thieves? Awesome. It turns out it's not that simple. For one, the were-dragons have lost the ability to transform over the years - the last dragon to transform was Sir Francis Drake, and the book is set in modern times, so, at least a couple hundred years have passed. And humans know the were-dragons exist! I suppose without the ability to transform, they're little more than rich celebrities with parlor tricks. (Immune to fire to certain temperatures, ability to breathe fire.) What humans don't know is how much the wyverns tend to steal to enrich their hoards. And that some of them can do limited magic.

We open on Sky, sixteen, rattling around her mansion, dealing with her now dysfunctional family of three brothers and their father. Her mother went missing not very long ago, during a heist. The kids have been told she's gone, she's alive, she's not coming back, and to drop the matter. Were-dragon society almost exiled all of them for whatever their mother got into, so they're all on thin ice. Sky, of course, is having none of this. When she stumbles on a lead for where her mother went, she pursues it, and learns all kinds of secrets.

The book was okay, I suppose. I was a little appalled at were-dragon society, and that the dragons just - bow to the authority of the Council. Dragons should have more spine. The heist part was pretty cool, with Sky and her friends figuring out how to take apart every layer of security piece by piece.

I don't know. It was a fluffy book, but not a feel-good book, and I just wasn't that enthused.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I've had this on my TBR shelf for quite a while, but only got around to reading it because the library finally really wants it back. Oops! And now I'm regretting not reading it sooner because it is OH MY GOD FANTASTIC. This is one of those books that's going to be hard to talk about without giving things away about the plot, but I'm going to try. Maya is the main character, a princess with a horoscope full of doom for whoever marries her.

She's in for a surprise when she does marry, though, as she is whisked away from her father's kingdom to a palace full of hidden doors and a husband who is more than he seems. She's quickly embroiled in a mystery to find out not only the secrets her husband's kingdom is hiding, but the secrets behind her own history.

I absolutely love reading non-western fantasy because there are NEW fantasy elements to discover. This book makes heavy use of reincarnation, which is not a common trope in western fantasy. Not reincarnation as karma, anyway. There is fate, and horoscopes, and choosing your own destiny despite those things, and spirit worlds, and OH IT'S JUST SO GOOD.

The second book, about Maya's sister, came out last March, so I need to read that too.  The same author has written another book set in Paris, The Gilded Wolves, which came out in January and immediately hit the bestseller list. I'm glad, this author is fantastic. I'm not sure I'll read it though, as the description doesn't really intrigue me. But The Star-Touched Queen and its sequel, A Crown of Wishes - these are just my cup of tea!

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

You Have The Right To Remain Fat is a short manifesto on why society needs to change the way it treats fat people, and that we don't need to lose weight to fit into society. Tovar talks about the sexism, classism, and racism that is often behind fatphobia and discrimination, the way culture has shifted around looks, and feeling comfortable in your own skin. She rips diet culture to shreds, shining a spotlight on the gaslighting technique that is heavy in dieting language. (You're not losing weight because you're not doing it right. You don't have enough willpower to deprive yourself of essential nutrients? Shame on you.)

I could understand people being offended by this book - she basically says if you're trying to lose weight for the sake of losing weight, you're wrong. But if you really look at it, if that really is all you're losing weight for, to be thin, shouldn't society accept you as you are? If you need to lose weight for actual, valid health reasons, that's different. But if it's just for the sake of being thin - maybe rethink your reasons.

I'm going back on the Auto Immune Protocol as soon as we settle in to the new house - and while losing weight is a nice side effect, I'm doing it to control autoimmune symptoms. And in all the literature around AIP, it's about not feeling fatigued or nauseous. It's about getting your digestive system back on track and reducing the chronic pain. It's NOT about losing weight, though people often do lose weight on it because it boosts the metabolism and cuts sugar. (Although it's also used for hyperthyroid people, who often have unhealthy weight loss, so really it's about stabilizing your weight!)

One of the most interesting parts of the book was when she discussed a conference she'd gone to and talked to women about fatphobia and inferiority complexes. First she asked if anyone there felt inferior. Of course, no one did. But then she asked a series of follow-up questions that pointed out behaviors born of feelings of inferiority. Things like: “Are you wearing something physically uncomfortable because you believe it makes you look better? Today did you refuse to do something you wanted to do because you were worried how it would make you look to someone?”

Out of curiosity, I read all the questions (there were eight or so) to my husband. He'd done exactly one of them. I have done all of them in the past, and still do some. (I'm currently a housewife. I don't wear uncomfortable clothes.) It was rather eye-opening.

You Have The Right To Remain Fat is a quick, thought-provoking read that is uncomfortable at times but also makes you want to shout HELL YES at other times. I definitely recommend it.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Another quick novella, Taste of Marrow is the sequel to the bizarre alternate history novella River of Teeth. It picks up a few months after the ending of the first - people have had a chance to heal their injuries from the explosive ending of the first book, and hippos have begun to spread to previously safe waterways. The cast of this book consists of the surviving characters from the first, plus only one more semi-important character.

It's not quite as good as the first - no explosions and it's less of a rollercoaster - but there is some character development, and a deeper exploration of a few characters than we saw in the first book. I wish my library had the omnibus edition, because it includes two short stories set in the same world, and I'm very curious which aspects of the world she explored in those.

But this is a fun pair of books, very quick, easy reads, and it's just fun to say you're reading a book about hippos and cowboys!

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I've seen this book get raved about online, but it just didn't sound that exceptional - yet another young adult romance. Contemporary, at that. But I finally read it for the Year of the Asian Challenge, and I am SO. GLAD. I DID.

Rishi Patel stole my heart. Which, as a demisexual, is completely unexpected. But he's just the exact right combination of sweet, romantic, totally geeky, and confident. He is absolutely my favorite character in this book. I like Dimple. But I adore Rishi.

I loved that both Dimple and Rishi tried to help each other achieve their dreams. I wish they'd both been a little more communicative about how they did so, but it was still cute to see them so invested in each other's life goals, as a couple should be!

This is a super cute romance, and it deserves all the rave reviews it got. I definitely need to read the sequel (about Rishi's younger brother) now.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I felt like I was reading a horror novel instead of a dystopia. The first third of the book, specifically, was enraging. It's the setup - the explanation of how the world is now, and how it came to be that way - that made me have to set the book down twice and walk away to calm down.

The book is the story of Dr. Jean McClellan, cognitive linguist. The forced silence is particularly painful for her, a former scientist who was working on a cure for people who had brain injuries or strokes affecting the Wernicke area of the brain, where we process language. She was about to start restoring language to people who had lost it, only to have it stolen from her and every other woman in the country.

The book opens on Dr. McClellan being asked to return to her work, because the President's brother suffered a brain injury while skiing and can no longer understand language. As one of the most important advisors to the president, the government needs him. In return for the removal of both her bracelet and her daughter's, she agrees, hoping to find some way to sabotage the work.

Vox sets out a sequence of events that seems far too feasible for comfort. The religious right extends its foothold from the Bible Belt to more and more of the country, pushing a return to “traditional family values” while methodically stripping freedoms from women and LGBT people. Women's passports are surreptitiously cancelled, schools are split and classes on Christian theology introduced to the boys' schools. Girls' schools consist of very basic math (so they can continue to do the grocery shopping and cooking!) and a ton of home ec. Sewing, Cooking, Housekeeping. LGBT people are sent to prisons/camps unless they marry someone of the opposite sex and produce kids. Basically, it's the right wing's dream world.

It's a horrifying scenario. Even given all the dystopia I've read, this book rocked me. It definitely belongs in the league of The Handmaid's Tale and The Power. My only complaint is I wish the ending had been a little more drawn out, and explained the fallout in a bit more detail. Other than that, though, amazing book.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Wow. So. Where to start. The Gutter Prayer is definitely epic fantasy, which I haven't been reading much of lately as I didn't think I had time. Epic Fantasy is usually big books in long series - and this book could stand completely on its own, though the author says there will be at least one more book.

The Gutter Prayer also does something that I've always enjoyed but is somewhat uncommon - the city ITSELF is very much a character here. I attended a panel at last year's Baltimore Book Festival that talked about Cities as characters which, while not something I'd explicitly realized I liked, was a common thread in a lot of high fantasy/science fiction that I've loved. City of Brass and The Courier are good examples. So that was a selling point of The Gutter Prayer.

The book starts with a bang - literally - as the three main characters, Cari, a human thief, Rat, a ghoul, and Spar, a “Rock Man,” are robbing a building when it explodes. (Rock Men are humans who suffer from a magical disease that slowly petrifies them but makes them inhumanly strong.) The action doesn't let up much, from Rat sneaking through the underbelly of the city, to Spar fighting for his life against his voracious disease while trying to unite the lowlifes of the city, to Cari trying to figure out where her weird visions are coming from. We bounce from monsters kept captive in the deeps, guarded by other monsters, to city politics, to wars between gods on distant shores and closer to home.

The city is central to all of it, hiding secrets and labyrinths and ancient gods and alchemical workshops that spew horrors of their own. The prologue chapter even seems to be from the perspective of the city itself, as if watching our heroes crawl around its streets from above.

For all the action, the writing felt a little slow - as if it wasn't quite conveying the urgency with which things were happening. The actual events were quite fast-paced, I just think the language could have been more...I'm not sure. Intense, maybe? It didn't suck me in as much as I would have expected. It didn't quite come to life on the page. I'm absolutely going to read the next book, when it comes out; writing styles generally improve in the second book, in my experience reading trilogies.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Silence Fallen is #10 in the Mercy Briggs series, and honestly, they've started to get a bit boring. Mercy gets into trouble. Mercy gets into SPECIAL trouble that werewolves would have a hard time with, but she's special because she's a coyote shifter, and her abilities give her an edge over the pure strength of werewolves! Mercy antagonizes enemies, escapes, finds her way home. Gets revenge. That's basically the plot of almost every one of these books. I generally like them, but this one in particular fell short. Maybe it's because I haven't read them in a while, but it just lacked the urgency of some of her other adventures.

One thing that really bothered me was the big bad vampire in the beginning - who was creepy as ALL get out - turned out to not be that bad, I guess? They let themselves get used by him to fulfill a plot and weren't mad about it? I would have expected Mercy's pack to take the dude down, no matter the consequences, but that wasn't what they decided to do.

And then, very frustratingly, they revealed something in the last ten pages or so that made me go re-read EVERY SCENE with a certain character and yep, there was no foreshadowing of that AT ALL. And there should have been. That's something the reader should be able to guess, because the viewpoint character knows about it. And it's absolutely not hinted at. So that's frustrating, and changes the meaning of several scenes.

So I'm very meh on this one. I don't know if I'll continue this series. Sometimes series just overdo their lifespan. This should have been wrapped up and moved on to other characters some time ago. The second series in this world, Alpha and Omega, is still pretty good. But maybe it's time to set Mercy aside. Do a series focused on the fae, or the vampires or something.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This highly-anticipated young adult fantasy was - alright. I'm a little disappointed, actually. I love birds. I grew up with a number of parrots, and crows are still one of my favorite animals. So a book where falconry is a central part of the culture, and they have to go hunt down a mythical bird? Count me in! Unfortunately this book suffers from the “reluctant hero” trope, which is far too common in YA and gets tiring.

The two main characters in this book are twins. We have Brysen, who was never good enough for their alcoholic father, and was beaten regularly. He's also stubborn, irresponsible, and reckless. His sister has an ancient power to control falcons, but she refuses to learn how to control it because she doesn't want to overshadow her good-for-nothing brother. (She also might be asexual, but it's not explicitly stated in the book. It's heavily implied, though.)

The two dysfunctional siblings set out to capture the near-mythical bird that killed their father, in order to save the life of Brysen's lover, falconry trainer, and manipulator, Dymian. They're joined by Nyall, a boy in love with Kylee who doesn't care that she doesn't love him back. (In the truly-good-guy way, not in the creepy way. I like Nyall. He's good people.)

They of course run into dangers in the mountains that the bird lives in, and the book is about that journey. Interspersed with their story is the occasional scene of the invaders sweeping across the land elsewhere. I wish we had a better sense of time - both how long before the invaders near the Six Villages where Brysen and Kylee are, and how long their journey in the mountains takes. That could have been much better communicated.

Kylee frustrates me - she could be so amazing, and if she'd use her powers, it could get her what she wants. She's trying to earn enough money catching and selling birds of prey to get out of the business entirely. (She has to pay off their father's debts first.) So why not use her powers to call down a few of the most valuable birds and BE DONE WITH IT? How does this not occur to her? As far as I can tell, the only real reason she doesn't want to be a falconer is she knows she'd be excellent at it and she doesn't want to overshadow her brother, whose dream it's been to be a great falconer. News flash. Your brother is worthless, girl. If he wants to be great maybe he should buckle down and focus instead of blaming those around him for his misfortunes.

So I'm not sure what my overall opinion of this book is. The world-building is shaping up to be interesting, but needs more fleshing out. The writing itself is pretty good, it flows nicely but needs a better sense of time. The characters' motivations are clear but occasionally frustrating. I am a little invested in seeing what happens in the next book, but I'm not sure I'm invested enough to spend the time to read it. I'll make that decision when it comes out, I suppose.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I don't read a lot of hard sci-fi. It's just not where my interests lie. But every once in a while, I do enjoy a good space opera. Firefly/Serenity (before I learned about the Confederate connection, dammit), Dark Matter, even the occasional episode of The Expanse. Tim Pratt has written a fantastic space opera in his Axiom series. (The Forbidden Stars should be coming out sometime in 2019.) The story started with The Wrong Stars and continues here.

First, the diversity is fantastic. The crew runs the gamut of genders, sexualities, ethnicities, and religions. Our two main characters, Captain Machedo and Elena, are both bisexual women, and the Captain is also demisexual. (One of the first things she does in this book is crash her own funeral being held by her ex-husband!) I enjoyed seeing Elena and Callie's relationship continue to grow.

Second, the dialog is hilarious. The Captain and her ship's AI are both smart alecks, and sarcasm and snappy comebacks abound.

The action is also very well-done; the physics of traveling through space aside, most of the science is feasible. All of the Axiom-tech is pretty far out, and some of the other science is....well it's such a long shot that it only worked because it's in a book, but it IS conceivable it could work.

This is one sci-fi series I will continue to watch for. (And I wonder how long before it gets optioned for TV?)

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Holy COW, you guys. I keep saying “I haven't read much epic fantasy lately” and “I don't have time to read such long books/series” but I made an exception for Priory, and I'm SO glad I did. Just WOW.

So the basic premise of this world is that The Nameless One (some gigantic evil dragon) was locked away a thousand years ago, and all his minions with him. The exact details of how and who did it have been mostly lost to history. It's said that as long as the House of Berethnet rules Inys, he'll never rise again, and Berethnet queens always have one child, a daughter. The current queen, however, is unwed, and minions of The Nameless One have begun rising, and in fact have conquered a few neighboring nations. We have three main factions of countries; The East, who have dragon riders, but make a distinction between their dragons, who are aquatic and identify with the stars, and the evil minions of The Nameless One, who are full of fire. Then we have Virtudom, which is headed by Inys, and is a coalition of countries who have made a religion of the Knightly Virtues. This is the West, and they make no distinction between the draconic servants of The Nameless One and the water dragons of the East. This has forced a split between the West and the East, because Virtudom won't have anything to do with countries that have anything to do with dragons, because most of what they see is the third faction – the Draconic countries. These are countries conquered by minions of the Nameless One, and they are full of chaos, fire, evil, and plague.

This is the world the book opens on. Most of our main characters – Queen Sabran, her handmaiden Ead, the dragonrider Tané – are women, but we also have Doctor Niclays Roos, an alchemist, and Lord Arteloth Beck, a friend of the Queen. In this world, women are just as capable as men, and are treated as such. There are female knights, and same-sex relationships are just as ordinary as opposite-sex ones. There is a bit too much moral emphasis placed on monogamy/sex within the bounds of marriage, but I guess that's “Knightly Virtue” for you. Skin color is only mentioned a couple of times, but I seem to remember Lord Arteloth being described as very dark-skinned, and Ead as golden-brown. Rather nice to see a fantasy NOT all caught up in racial and gender differences. Not to say there isn't a fair amount of bigotry, but in this book it's based pretty much solely on nationality and religion. And when the biggest sticking point is “do you like evil dragons or not” that kind of makes sense!

I think the only thing I didn't like about this book was its size. It's unwieldy to read, at over 800 pages! I'm not sure why they didn't break it into a duology. Regardless, if you have the choice, I'd read it on Kindle. It would be far easier to handle. I'm not complaining about the amount of text, mind you. Just the sheer physical size. I can't imagine the story being told in less time. There's So. Much. Here.

This book goes from Queen Sabran's court to the dragonrider academy in the East, to the draconic kingdom of Yscalin, to the Abyss where the Nameless One sleeps. We see glittering courts, hidden islands, sweltering tunnels through volcanic mountains, and deep valleys with secret magic trees. We battle wyrms and cockatrices, swim through endless seas with dragonriders, sail through storms with pirate crews, and navigate the trickiest of diplomatic matters with courtiers. The Priory of the Orange Tree paints an elaborate, incredibly complex world and I am absolutely here for it.

Okay, so one tiny quibble – while I liked the romance, I feel like it started kind of oddly. I didn't see any reason for the initial spark. From there, it progressed perfectly, but I just didn't get the beginning.

This book has multiple queer couples! There's at least one same-sex couple mentioned as attending a party; Doctor Roos spends a lot of time mourning his dead lover, and there's the lesbian romance between a couple of main characters. And one character has at least strong affection for a man before falling in love with a woman; I think she was in love with both. No trans or ace rep, but plenty of gay, lesbian, and bi!

This is hands-down the best book I've read so far this year. It took me three days – it's a big book – but it is absolutely fantastic.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Yet another lady necromancer book! I do really love this topic. It's also really interesting to see the different flavors various authors can give it. Sometimes it's binding wandering spirits into physical objects, or bringing spirits back from the Shadowlands to live in our world as normal people, or being a warden against great undead beasts, or, in this case, trying to stop a cursed plague that might have necromantic origins.

There are a lot of commonalities, though, even with how different these ladies' reasons are. There's always some line, usually the line into “true” necromancy, that she shouldn't cross, and which she normally does. There's always a loved one who ultimately supports her even if they're not sure she's doing the right thing. There's always a sense of desperation driving her to what she sees as the only solution.

What's amazing is that given that framework, these books continue to surprise and delight me. Each one is still such a unique take on the “dark art” of necromancy. These ladies aren't evil. Nedra, here, is trying to save her family and her people from a plague that evades any kind of scientific explanation. They have no idea how it spreads. It usually starts in the extremities, and if you cut off the infected limb, sometimes that stops it. But sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes it starts over the heart, or right in the brain. Some people simply seem to be immune. Nedra works with the sick for months and never gets it, but some people come down with it without having any contact with a sick person. Her teacher at school finally confesses that he thinks it might be necromantic in origin, and things begin to cascade from that point.

There is a romance in the book, though it's definitely a side plot. Nedra's studies and work on the plague is the main focus. We have a bisexual character in Nedra's twin sister, but again, she's really just a side note. The book ended on a bit of a cliff hanger, and the second book doesn't have a title or a release date yet, unfortunately. “Sometime in 2019” is all we've got, which is quite disappointing because I need it NOW!

While Give The Dark My Love wasn't the best of the lady necromancer books I've read recently, it was still pretty great. I am eager for news of the sequel!

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

Confessions of the Fox is an #ownvoices novel - written by a trans author, about a trans professor writing about a manuscript about a trans eighteenth-century thief. In that way, it's quite unique, and valuable for its observations about being trans.

But story-wise - it drug on about a hundred pages too long, got bogged down by the footnotes that tell the professor's story, and ultimately went off on some conspiracy tangent that added nothing to the plot. It got weird. I think the book would have been better if it had just been Jack Sheppard's story, without the “professor-annotating-the-manuscript” framework built around it.

Jack is a very compelling character, but we keep getting distracted from his story by the professor's career and love life problems, so it feels very fragmented. I did enjoy the colorful, metaphorical language constantly being used to talk about sex, though! Make no mistake, this is a dirty book. It's mostly dirty in the most flowery of terms, so it's more entertaining than titillating, but it's something to keep in mind if you're thinking of gifting it to someone!

Ultimately, I wish I'd skipped it. I know there are people that like the book-within-a-book framework, and I do sometimes, but I feel like it distracted from the story I really wanted to read, here.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I'm a baker. I absolutely love baking, it centers me when I'm being scatter-brained and grounds me when I'm in a bad mood. So I instantly identified with Rosie in this novel, who wants to be a pastry chef, currently at a culinary school that focuses more on cooking savory things. I've been there. Granted, my culinary school was basically a crash course two-year program at a community college, not “the most prestigious cooking program for teens in the entire world” but I identify with the feeling of being a fish not-quite-out of water. I'd also never seen this put into words before:

“...it was that not knowing that Rosie hated. That was why she loved baking. Baking was all knowing. If you followed the recipe, you got exactly what you intended. An apple pie never surprisingly turned into lemon meringue halfway through the baking process.”

I have some mild anxiety, and I hadn't realized WHY baking helped, just that it did. But it's true - baking is about knowing. That quote is in the second chapter, and I knew from then on I was going to love this book. (I was already pretty sure, but that moment drove it home.)

The descriptions of food in this novel - food and cooking, and WHY some people cook - are mouth-watering. I loved seeing the backgrounds of the various culinary students, as they came from all over the world to École Denis Laurent, the prestigious school in Paris. I liked the point made, eventually, that what looks like the “cool kids clique” from outside might not be what it seems. The book even addressed toxic masculinity in the form of Henry's unwillingness to ask for help from his friends when he was struggling.

At its heart, Love à la Mode is a sweet, fluffy, clean romance with a romantic backdrop of Paris and good food. Sometimes a little bit of happy, lighthearted escapist fiction is what we all need. Especially when it doesn't neglect representation to do it - there's only a tiny bit of LGBT+ rep in the book, but the characters come from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

The Winter of the Witch is the conclusion to the Winternight trilogy that began with The Bear and The Nightingale (enjoyable, but a little overhyped) and continued in The Girl in the Tower (fantastic). And ooooohhh what a conclusion it is! Vasya truly comes into her own in this book, dealing with the Russian fae with a confidence and conviction she didn't quite have before. The war between the twin brother spirits - the Bear and the Winter King - comes to a head, with Vasya in the middle. While that war is heating up, so is the war between the Tatars and the Russians, with its climax in a version of the real-world Battle of Kulikovo.

The whole of Vasya's family history is finally revealed, which has surprises of its own. Previously unknown family members appear, and Vasya is no longer as alone in her powers as she thought she was.

It can be very hard to review books in a series - especially concluding books - without spoiling things, so I'll just say this was an epic conclusion to the trilogy and was just as enchanting as the other books. I cried at more than one point in this book, because Vasya's heartbreak is so poignant. Gorgeous book. Beautiful use of Russian mythology. This entire trilogy is just brilliant.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This book is a riot! Ari is our main character, and she's King Arthur reborn, as these stories always go. Merlin is aging backwards, as he often is, and he wakes up this time as a teenager and groans. It's pretty hilarious. Arthur's knights are various characters, of various ethnicities and sexualities. This is a HELLA queer book, and it's great. We get bi, lesbian, gay, pan, omni - honestly it seems that in this future, people have just accepted that you'll love who you will love, gender be damned. One of the knights is even ace!

There is going to be a sequel, though I'm not sure when it's scheduled to be released. Not soon enough, is the real answer, in my opinion!

I realize I haven't said much about the actual plot, but - really. It's King Arthur and her knights, as queer teenagers, in space, fighting a giant corporation. That's really all you need to know. Go read it!

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This book was alright. There was a lot of hype around it before it released and I...don't really agree. I liked both characters. I enjoyed the plot. Okay, I enjoyed the entire book, except. Except. Rachel BLINDLY hates beautiful people. Which is ridiculous, given (at least on the cover) she's far from ugly herself. I just don't get her blind hatred of beautiful people. She's spent the last three years hating Sana because, what? Sana had the guts to ask her out while being pretty? That plot point just kept pulling me out of the story. Which was otherwise really good! But two pretty girls on the cover and one of them hates pretty people but has no self-awareness that she is ALSO pretty? I don't recall the text actually saying whether Rachel is pretty or not, but Sana obviously thinks so.

This might be an issue with whoever designed the cover not understanding the plot of the book; I know authors don't always have full control over their covers. But it REALLY made that particular plot point confusing.

This book is also another example of the cover description being misleading. Rachel doesn't “realize” that Sana is perfect for the role and try to cast her; her supervisor informs her that Sana will be in that role and she'll just have to make it work. It's a bit of a different dynamic.

Sooooo I don't know whether to recommend the book or not. It was good, but I was annoyed by that plot point. Rachel and Sana were the only developed characters; everyone else was only there to further their story. Which is not always a bad thing; but I generally like the supporting cast to be a little bit more developed. They are people too, they shouldn't solely exist to drive the romance between the two main characters.

As a lesbian romance, this was great. As a well-rounded book, not so much.

You can find all my reviews and more at Goddess in the Stacks.

I have not yet read G. Willow Wilson's first novel, Alif the Unseen, but I really want to now, because this one was beautiful. I really enjoyed this story, watching Fatima mature through her travels and change from the sheltered Sultan's concubine/possession to become - well - what she becomes.

The Bird King is the story of Fatima, concubine, and Hassan, mapmaker, on the run from the Inquisition. They were both members of the house of the last Sultan in Iberia. When the Spanish (and the Inquisition) came to negotiate his surrender, one of their conditions was they wanted Hassan, because of the magic he used in his maps. Hassan has been Fatima's only real friend; he's the only man that wanted nothing from her, because he's gay and unmoved by her beauty. His sexuality has been largely ignored by the court; his maps were too important to the war effort, so it was tolerated and just not spoken of. When Fatima discovers the Sultan intends to turn Hassan over, she runs away with him. She has some unexpected help in her journey, which, along with Hassan's mapmaking, makes this a kind of magical realist historical fantasy novel. It's not really alternate history, because nobody's actions change how history plays out on a large scale.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This is yet another Pride and Prejudice retelling, as evidenced by the title. It seems to be a popular thing to do of late, but they've all been very good, so I'm not complaining! This one, more than the others, really deconstructed the story and put it all back together in a unique way.

Probably the biggest change here is that while Darcy is still a man with a younger sister and no other family, the roles of the two families have been switched. Darcy is the poor one, and Trisha (Lizzie Bennett) is the rich one. Wickham still plays the villain, though in a slightly different manner, and Darcy is not the friend of Trisha/Lizzie's elder sister's beau. (Though the elder sister does still have romantic problems!)

I really liked the swapped roles; it made for a radically different plotline than the story it's based on. What I did not like is the lack of sparks between DJ/Darcy and Trisha. They butted heads like they should, but unlike the original and most of the retellings, I didn't feel the underlying sexual tension. Trisha seemed more enamored of DJ's cooking than of DJ, and I don't know what DJ saw in Trisha at ALL.

The author also kept pulling me out of my immersion in the story with her repeated use of “XXXX” was what I WANTED to say, but of course I didn't say it, instead I simply replied “YYYY.” Just - over and over, with multiple characters. I appreciate you're trying to show us what they're thinking vs. what they're saying, but change it up.

I did enjoy the book overall; I love seeing other cultures take on this trope, from the Pakistani Unmarriageable to the Brooklyn African-American Pride, to this mix of Indian-American and British-Indian. I think Unmarriageable was my favorite of these three, but it really was excellent.

So this was good, but not outstanding.

You can find all my reviews and more at Goddess in the Stacks.

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS BOOK. I mean it. This is one of those books that is so bad that I don't plan to read anything else by the author, which is a little annoying as her debut book, Dear Martin, is the new One Book Baltimore pick. But this book, her second, is SO BAD that I can't imagine her first is any better. I will get into details, but first.

TRIGGER WARNING. BIPHOBIA. ILLEGAL SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS. (big age gaps).

Alright. With that said, let's dive in. SPOILERS AHEAD.

We have three main characters in this book, of various races and ethnicities - the racial rep is actually one of the few good things about this book. First we have “Coop,” black straight male. Then we have his best friend, “Jupe” or Jupiter, lesbian female. Then the new girl, Rae, who appears to be bi, but never outright labels herself. She is assumed to be straight by Jupiter, one of many instances of casual biphobia in this book.

All three characters fall in love with each other. From this setup, and the jacket description, I was expecting a rare representation of polyamory in a young adult book. But not only do they not wind up in a triangle, the possibility isn't even spoken of. This is supposedly a book about questioning labels and exploring your identity but alternate relationship structures don't even seem to EXIST, which is SUPER frustrating. Even if they'd at least discussed it as an OPTION, I would have been happier. But no. Monogamy is not only the norm, but apparently the only option in this book.

And OH LORD THE BIPHOBIA. Jupe has a lesbian friend who is much older than her - in college - and said friend goes off about how she won't date bi girls because they'll always leave you for men. She's not challenged on this statement. Not out loud, not in the text, nothing. And that's not the only instance. Jupe also gets drunk and pleads with this friend to have sex with her. Resulting in a 20-year-old having sex with a tipsy sixteen-year-old.

I normally don't have an issue with age gaps - and I don't, actually, have an issue with Rae, who's 15, and Cooper, who is 18 in the book. Other reviewers have mentioned that's not legal in Georgia, where the book takes place, but please. It's only a three-year age difference, and they're all in high school. But the college student giving in to the tipsy high-schooler was a little more than just “an age gap.” That's...very questionable.

BACK TO THE BIPHOBIA. There's an inner monologue about if saying you're bisexual also means you can be attracted to non-binary people or not. (Hint: bi means “attracted to your own sex AND OTHERS.” So yes.) And when Jupiter, the lesbian, decides she is attracted to Cooper, she flatly denies that that makes her bisexual.

To be fair, I've known at least two lesbians who identify as “lesbian except HIM” - one specific person. But that's not what Jupiter does. She drops her label entirely - in a GSA meeting at her school that she leads - because she still likes girls but also likes a boy. When a bisexual member speaks up with “So you're bi then? You can say it, it's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm bi.” she IMMEDIATELY shoots him down, saying it's not that cut and dried. Then she announces they'll talk about negative stereotypes of different sexualities, including bisexuality, in their next meeting and ends the meeting. The only reason she doesn't like the bisexual label, as stated a little earlier in the book, is because she's attracted to nonbinary people so she “doesn't know if bi fits.” That's biphobia.

Oh, and let's not forget when Rae kisses Jupiter and she goes off on her about keeping her straight-questioning cooties away from her. (Paraphrasing.) Rae had never explicitly talked about her sexuality, but obviously because she's attracted to boys, she's straight, right?

The book is advertised as having great representation, and it's just bad. It's bad and hurtful and frustrating and shouldn't be on all these LGBT lists because this is NOT the kind of representation we should be pushing.

Ugh. And I haven't even touched the quality of writing. Which is...not great. I don't understand the people that liked this book or think it's good rep. Did we read the same book?

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

The Good Demon is marked Young Adult, and the protagonist is fifteen or sixteen (I don't remember if the book actually says which) but the subject manner is...surprisingly adult. It's a very Southern Gothic book.

Clare, our protagonist, had a demon inside her just prior to the opening of the book. She'd had it since she was very young - in one of the many flashbacks we see their meeting. But just prior to the start of the book, the demon was cast out by a local reverend and his son. Clare is lost without Her (the only name she's had for the demon - Her) and reacts much as an addict would when going cold turkey. And then she discovers clues left by the demon, and resolves to solve the mystery and get her demon back.

Sprinkled throughout Clare's investigation are flashbacks to when she was possessed, and we learn what the demon really means to Clare. The demon has saved her life multiple times, and seems to truly care about her. But in poking around her town, Clare uncovers some disturbing relics and characters. She learns there might be a way to get her demon back, but the cost might be higher than she wants to pay. (It's also a bit predictable, but the slow-creeping horror of knowing what's about to happen is part of what makes this book amazing.) In the meantime, she's falling in love with the reverend's son, and their relationship only complicates matters.

The atmosphere of the book is perfect Southern Gothic - from Clare playing in the swampy woods as a little girl, to the one mysteriously wealthy family that controls far too much of the sleepy town, to the small-town feel and the enigmatic hermit off the highway. The broken families and alcoholics and domestic violence all hidden beneath a veneer of sociability - it's one of the best Southern Gothics I've read in a very long time.

The writing is just amazing - evocative and entrancing and - I just loved this book, okay? I'd heard it had mixed reviews, so I was a bit wary of the book, but the premise was so interesting - and then I fell in love with it. I think this is one of my favorite books this year.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

PS I Still Love You is a continuation of Lara Jean's story from To All The Boys I've Loved Before. It really is a seamless continuation - it picks up almost immediately where the first ends, in the holidays, with Lara Jean pining over Peter.

I didn't like this one as much as the first - the sisters are still here, but Lara Jean doesn't spend as much time worrying over her dynamic with her sisters as she did in the first book. This second book is all about Peter, his ex, and what's going on at school. That's fine - obviously the story needs to evolve and move, but the sisters were such a huge part of the charm of the first book that I really miss them in this one.

A second boy is introduced in this book - John - and to be honest, I like him more than Peter. I know Peter and Lara Jean are really set up as THE couple in this series, but - John's so nice. And Peter's so oblivious.

There's one more book - Always and Forever, Lara Jean - and while I'm sure it won't happen, I'm holding out hope that John will come back in book #3 and win Lara Jean over. I really, really liked him.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

This is the sequel to Royals, which I reviewed a little while back. At the time, I wasn't terribly enthused by Princess Flora, and that actually stuck through this book. I do, however, really like Millie. And I LOVE Rachel Hawkins. This woman writes sweet, fluffy romances that you know will have a happy ending, and makes them a joy to read. To see that approach with LGBT representation - lesbian and bisexual, in this specific case - is fantastic. Give us more! Hawkins still has several characters she could write stories about in this world, including the most eligible bachelor, Prince Sebastian. (Flora's brother.) She could also write a prequel about the other Prince, since the first book was the romance between the Prince Alex's fiancée's sister and one of Sebastian's best friends. Prince Alex and his fiancée were already a thing when the series opened. Daisy and Miles, the couple from the first book, do make an appearance in this one as well, as do Seb and the rest of the “Royal Wreckers.” (His posse of noble scoundrels.)

I liked that Millie explicitly likes both “lads and lasses, in the general sense” in the book; it's not just implied. Far too often we're just left to wonder, when a character dated or was married to one gender, but is shown loving a different gender, whether it's because they discovered the new gender is their actual preference, or because they are bi/pan. Plenty of homosexuals were married to an opposite-gender partner before coming out. So it's really nice to see explicitly bisexual rep!

I may have liked the side characters more than I liked Princess Flora. Lady Sakshi Worthington, especially, was great, and I may have been cheering more for her romance than for Millie and Flora!

My dislike of Flora aside, I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick, fun read, and Hawkins had better get working on the next story. I NEED Seb's book!

You can find all my reviews and more at Goddess in the Stacks.

So I'll admit. The only reason I picked this book up is because the second book in the series, Her Royal Highness, looks like an adorable lesbian romance and I thought I should start at the beginning of the series. I'm glad I did, because Royals is a delight. Daisy is a spirited, no-nonsense teenager who doesn't get the appeal of all this “royal” stuff, and she's not one to mince words for the sake of appearances. As you can imagine, that ruffles a LOT of royal feathers! Add in a posse of noble ne'er-do-wells trying to get in trouble, and you're in for some fun.

Interestingly, I'm torn now on whether to read the second book! Rachel Hawkins is a fantastic writer, so I have no doubt she'll write a great second book, but the love interest in the next book, Princess Flora, did not make a great impression on me in this book. I was glad she only made a short appearance. It doesn't sound like the next book is told from her point of view, though, so maybe it will be okay. The series definitely has a lot of potential, as there's still several members of the Prince's posse to tell stories about!

I do enjoy a good royal romance, and these are interesting in that they're contemporary, so the royals are concerned with their reputation, and treated like massive celebrities, but have lost a lot of their intimidation factor and power when it comes to normal people. Daisy sees it more as an inconvenience than anything else, it seems.

One content warning – there was a scene with an unasked-for kiss that could have been called sexual assault if Daisy had been less charitable about it. It wasn't malicious. But it was questionable. So beware if that's something you want to avoid.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.