Alexa

This is not a book I would have normally picked up. I'm not typically a fan of romance, of historical fiction (even the alternate universe kind that this one is), and stories about manners and etiquette often bore me. And yet, The Beautiful Ones was the most enjoyable read I've had in ages. I became so emotionally invested, that by the time the climax arrived I was stamping my feet with excitement and trying not to startle the other people sitting by the pool where I was reading.

Which is interesting considering that The Beautiful Ones is an emotionally powerful song strung together with quiet, understated notes. This is not a story about love at first sight, its not about two people immediately swept away by everlasting love. Its about two people who are inextricably connected, but have a remarkable amount of growing to do before they can love each other in the right way. Hector is a driven theater performer consumed with an infatuation with a woman who he was engaged to years ago, and seizes an opportunity to get close to her again by courting her husband's young cousin, Antonina. In the process he realizes what a foolish thing he is doing, and that Antonina, a young woman who is in many ways the polar opposite of the object of his obsession, has a value and beauty all her own.

I don't think I've related to two characters on opposite sides of a situation as I have with Hector and Nina. I know exactly what Hector means when he describes what its like to be so consumed with the idea of a person that it becomes a part of who you are. I was startled when I saw Nina doing the same thing I did when I was trying to rid someone from my mind - repeating their name habitually in an attempt to make the sound mean something else. These are two very honestly-written characters. They are distinct, flawed and endearing but also deeply relatable, and the same can be said for the story's antagonist.

Throughout the book Hector's once-love, Valerie, evolves from a complex woman forced to make a terrible decision, to an outright wrath-inducing villain. This isn't a simple case of pitting two women against each other - one shallow, vain and superficial while the other is more “real”- but rather the ugliness of a system that uses women as bartering chips and the choices a person is left with when they are a part of it. Because for all of Valerie's fury and pettiness, she had a choice. She had many choices - she could have taken the risk and waited for Hector, she could have decided to care for the husband her family chose for her instead of resenting him for not being the man she turned away, she could have supported other women so that they could have more options and more happiness than she was allowed. She did none of the those things, instead she boiled herself in anger and self-hatred until the only thing she had to offer anyone was bitterness. By the end of the book, Valerie is easy to hate, but she's also easy to understand, which makes her all the more effective as a villain.

Oh right, and then there's that business about telekinesis. There's also the fact that even though this setting looks a hell of a lot like 19th-century France, its not actually France and this isn't our world. It's a world where you can go to the theater and watch a man actually levitate things with his mind, and no one talks about Paris but rather Loisail. Ultimately, the science fiction of The Beautiful Ones is much like the pretty gowns that the women wear, and Nina's love for insects and the natural world - it adds flavor and detail to the story, and does have a role in the climax and in Nina's growth as a character, but its far from the central focus. This treatment takes the story from science fiction to magical realism. Not the same unruly, unpredictable magical realism that defined the genre, but rather in the idea that magic is intensely, mundanely normal. Neither Hector or Nina's abilities are ever viewed as a threat, merely a curiosity. Hector can levitate himself on mirrors and turn a glass full of water over in the air, but still no one thinks “Hm, maybe I shouldn't start a fight with this guy.”

Instead, the presence of telekinesis serves as a way to connect our main characters, but also as a means of illustrating the limitations of the upper class. To the aristocracy of this setting the only things that matter are money and appearances. Love, happiness, even personal growth and satisfaction are useless sentiments, so its no wonder that there's little place for superpowers. Their only issue with Nina's use of her ability is that it will drive suitors away, but otherwise no one considers that they shouldn't back a woman into a corner when she can break all the windows in the house with her mind. Clearly, no one in this universe has seen Carrie. For these people, it never occurs to them that someone from a lower class or disenfranchised group could ever have power over them. It's a brilliant, perplexing and absolutely wonderful take on genre fiction. All that said, I still wish Nina had given Valerie at least one telekinetic smack in the mouth.

I loved this book. The Beautiful Ones carries you confidently and easily through an emotional arc that is satisfying and exciting, despite its mostly calm waters. Its most thrilling and climactic moments have a way of sneaking up on you, so I wouldn't recommend this to someone looking for a fantastical roller coaster. Rather, its for anyone looking to be swept off their feet in a way that you don't even realize your feet are leaving the ground.

Not gonna lie, a couple chapters into this and I started thinking, “What the hell am I doing?” This is about a teenage girl and teenage boy falling in love and not much else. It doesn't even pretend to be about much else, the wolves, the cold, they're just set dressing. Do I read books about teenagers falling in love and not much else?Apparently I do, and I enjoy them too. Or at least this one. Though I should clarify, Sam and Grace do not in fact fall in love. They already are in love by the time they meet in human flesh. They've pined for each other for years through different kinds of eyes and between trees. Sam as a wolf, Grace as a human girl who should be a wolf and still kind of is. Shiver is not quite as lush as [b:The Raven Boys 17675462 The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1) Maggie Stiefvater https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1370659760s/17675462.jpg 18970934], the prose not as flashy, but it is a quieter, more simple story after all. The characters are likeable, and for Sam this is particularly remarkable, considering the pedigree of supernatural male love interests he has behind him. He's a sweet, intelligent, loving guy. Grace I don't entirely get. If the other characters didn't so frequently reiterate how rational and efficient she is, I never would have noticed. Likewise, her best friend Olivia I never felt like had much of a personality outside of her very last moment on page. Isabel I enjoyed thoroughly though - her acidic but self-aware dialogue reminded of the moments I like so much in The Raven Boys.And like that only other book I've read by Stiefvater, Shiver doesn't really have a core plot. It meanders in the same way. There are some attempts at an antagonist (Shelby I feel like exists entirely to set up conflict for later books), but mostly it's just Sam and Grace and their efforts to huddle close and keep out the cold. Despite this, it's not at all a chore to read. It's honest and sweet. It's a nice little something to curl up with when it's snowing out.

At this rate, nothing is going to beat [b:The Replacement 7507908 The Replacement Brenna Yovanoff https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1360176667s/7507908.jpg 6911742] for me, which was not perfect but still a really moving book. Paper Valentine is pretty stale in comparison. None of it felt like enough. The ghosts weren't enough to make it a horror story, the serial killer wasn't enough to make it feel like a mystery, Hannah and Finny weren't enough for it to be a romance. I liked Hannah's relationship with Lillian, but I also feel like its been covered in things like Pretty Little Liars. Finny is a much more watered down version of Yovanoff's usual broken boy, and Hannah is still developing as a person, only really coming into her own until the end. I still like the way Yovanoff creates atmosphere, but it didn't feel as rich as in her previous work. It was a smooth read, but with little pay off and I never felt really invested in it.

There is a very annoying thing that happens when some people realize that they have unwittingly enjoyed a piece of horror fiction - they try to convince themselves and everyone else that it's not really horror. “It's really about a family struggling!” “It's about mental illness!” “It's about friendship!” It's horror. Those things are all horror. Like every genre, horror is the backdrop on to which a variety of different kinds of stories are told. However, horror is uniquely equipped to talk explicitly and ferociously about one thing in particular - what scares us. It's where we unabashedly explore the terror, violence and agony of family, friendships, technology, strangers, love, loss, trauma, you name it. And yes, high school is terrifying. Loving your best friend more than you've loved anything on earth is terrifying. And being a girl who dares to see things as they are, not as she's been told to, is quite possibly the most horrifying thing in this world.

Abby and Gretchen have been inseparable since the day Abby had a birthday party and Gretchen was the only one who showed up. It is the eighties, Satanic Panic and Reaganomics are the ever present background radiation of their world, and they are the upper crust of an elite Southern Catholic school. Abby is the poor scholarship kid and Gretchen the rich girl with uber religious parents, while their two other friends, Margaret and Glee, round out their high-achieving preppy girl squad. And then an experiment with LSD goes wrong. And then Gretchen begins dissolving and lashing out, and then changes entirely and then Abby is suddenly standing on the outside as her life as things begin spiraling out of control. Abby's only care in the world, outside of her social status and her own image, has been Gretchen Lang, and she finally realizes that she may have to give up everything to save her best friend from what has clearly taken control of her - a demon.

I am a big fan of demonic possession stories, but they typically fall into a particular pattern. This is because they depend heavily on certain mythology - that there are sentient, evil supernatural creatures that can take control of one's body against one's will, and that the only way to cast them out is by calling on a higher power. There's usually a lot of shouting involved. Exorcism movies often remind me of action films that inevitably end with muscly guys throwing buildings at each other. Like, is this the best we can do in the face of evil? Make loud noises and throw things? How come the best exorcism I ever saw on screen was in the opening scene of Constantine, and I have never seen anything like that again?

Without giving too much away, I can say that My Best Friend's Exorcism uses those known tropes while also drastically subverting them in exactly the way I wanted to see. The way Hendrix takes the idea of the exorcist and the hip youth pastor and smooshes them together into a Jesus-talking pop culture abomination that also serves also an commentary on religious institutions and toxic masculinity? Goddamn. And the moment Abby realizes the power she individually has to save Gretchen? It's perfect. It's absolutely on point. Because an exorcism is not just a religious rite - it's a spell. And as any witch will tell you - you can charge a spell any way you want. Even with The Go-Gos.

My Best Friends' Exorcism is not relatable teen content for teens (it's too hyperaware of what kind of people teenagers really are to really be appropriate, I mean I'm sure some will enjoy it, but I think it will mean more to adults), nor is it pure 80s nostalgia cash grab. It's an exploration of the horror of being a teenage girl. It puts a magnifying glass to our youth, our insecurities, the things we allowed ourselves to believe and turns it all into a paranormal nightmare. The pacing is so good its almost precise. I knew that when I sat down on my lunch break I would be able to read two chapters in twenty minutes and those two chapters would be barn burners. It takes the tropes of a horror movie - ticking off hapless teens until there is a final girl left - and again twists it. Instead of centering the narrative around a single person at a time, you are with Abby as she helplessly watches the systematic destruction of the people around her. Hendrix uses body horror, psychological horror, and straight up spooky demon shit to create a suffocating atmosphere that is pure genre. Yes, this book has pink details on the cover and 80s references and satirical humor, but it is scary as shit, make no mistake. It's scary because it does not look away. It does not look away from a body wasting a way, from a mind violated, from the oppression of not being believed, from having your life distorted to meet someone else's ends, from being in love and afraid you're going to fail.

I loved this. It's probably the best October selection I've made in years, and I'm glad I ignored the reviews that said “it isn't really horror.” This book is colorful and satirical and deeply touching, but yes it is horror. It is the definition of horror.

Oh, wow.

So, stepping into this, you have to think - this a really clever teenage, narrative voice, it's ironic and almost lighthearted despite the initial premise (dying brother, family makes last ditch attempt to save his life by moving out to the middle of nowhere). A main character whose not afraid to call himself a slut, a snarky merboy who uses “whatever” every other word, and a totally adorable romance. What could possibly be devastatingly soul-crushing about this?



I mean, this is beautiful. But painful. This is the first time I've read any Moskowitz, and now I'm both excited and terrified to read her other stuff. I was talking with my family about the fantasy genre, and how it rarely is just about the supernatural and otherworldly, if its done well. It's often a vehicle for talking about real world issues, and considering Moskowitz typically writes contemporary, Teeth is an excellent example. When I explained the basic conflict, my dad said, “So, it's basically an allegory for a clash of cultures.” Which is precisely on point, and because the setup is so small and insular its also capable of going into why culture clashes happen. Because morality is subjective. So is the value we put on the people and things we love, even if we don't want to admit it.

Rudy and Teeth are two characters both looking for meaning in their lives and the meaning of their lives. They're afraid that they are disappearing. Rudy because he has been moved away from his old life to save the life of his brother, to an island that they will probably never be able to leave if Dylan is to survive. And Teeth because the purpose he's chosen, to protect the magical fish that cure the islanders of any ailment, he begins to realize is meaningless if it hurts the only person he's come to care about. So Rudy wants to make Teeth happy, so he helps saves the fish, which in turn hurts Dylan and the other sick people on the island. The fisherman are invaluable to the islanders because only they know how to catch the fish, but they also like to beat and rape Teeth in their spare time (I should also note that while all the rape happens off-screen, it is horrifically violent, so if you have a hard time reading that kind of thing, I would not recommend this). Also the fish are rapists, too. Jesus Christ.

When it comes down to it, people and animals will do what they need to to survive. But people need more than survival, they need love and independence and the knowledge that the world has not forgotten them, that they weren't created just to feel pain. That's the question that you find yourself asking at the end of this book. Are Rudy and Teeth just surviving? Have they simply find a way around their pain, or are they choosing something that is meaningful in a way they didn't anticipate?

Certain Dark Things is a great case for making big worlds into little stories. I don't say that to belittle Moreno-Garcia's novel, this story is not small in a bad way, but it is tight and rather simple. And yet behind it is some pretty sophisticated world building.

Moreno-Garcia alternate universe is one where vampires have been out of the coffin (as Charlaine Harris would say) for fifty or sixty years. Humanity has done its best to create vampire free zones without antagonizing their superiors on the food chain (this did made me think quite a bit about how you manage a society where one group of people needs to eat the other to live), and one of those supposedly safe places is Mexico City. This is where the young vampire Atl runs when her vampire-narco clan is wiped out by a rival cartel. There, she runs into Domingo, a naive but charming street kid who decides to help her get out of the city while the Necros, the police and Mexico City's cartels are trying to kill her.

Domingo is a refreshing main character in many ways. I always appreciate it when a writer creates a character that isn't smart. A character doesn't have to be brilliant, or even particularly wise to earn my respect or interest. Despite living on the streets for a few years, Domingo's knowledge - of the world, of vampires, of emotion and relationships - is limited. He barely knows how to express his affection for Atl other than telling her she's “pretty.” But he is dedicated and loyal, and I like to think he knows a good person when he sees them. Atl has both parts bad ass supernatural chick, and sheltered narco brat who barely knows how to take care of herself on her own. Both her and Domingo are emotionally vulnerable and immature in this way and its why, while their romance is light-handed, its still effective. It's also why Nick Godoy, the Necro heir that comes to Mexico City hunting after Atl, serves as a good foil for both of them, but Atl in particular. Much the same way, Nick is a spoiled son of a vampire cartel boss who thinks he can do and get whatever he wants, and what he wants is for Atl to suffer. He's an easy villain to hate, and one that keeps the pace fast and the adrenaline high.

As said, this is a tightly wound book. Moreno-Garcia doesn't spend a whole lot of time dwelling or ruminating on anything with maybe the exception of the relationship between Domingo and Atl. Nick's hatred of Atl is summed up in a brief flashback of them meeting in a club and his anger about her attacks against his family. Nick's personality is summed up in his greed and petulance - he's not complex. The suggestions that there was a relationship between the Revenant, Bernadino, and Atl's mother are indulged for a just a moment and then left hanging. Moreno-Garcia also treats us to the inner workings of some more seasoned characters involved in the conflict, only to give them rather unceremonious and rather disappointing endings. I am glad though that Bernardino had his moment. I had a feeling once we began to learn what a Revenant was that this guy was going to have moment. That, thankfully, did not disappoint.

Certain Dark Things is enjoyable, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there's supposed to be more, that there's a deeper story hidden between the lines. Maybe I'm projecting a little bit. There's a fascinating little glossary of different vampire subspecies at the back of the book, and even though I'm not really sure its Moreno-Garcia's thing, I'm really crossing my fingers for a sequel, or some sort of expansion of this world. This book felt like a snack, a tasty snack, but I feel like somewhere there's a meal.

I might be feeling particularly tender at the moment, but the ending of this story struck me. Everything about it, in fact. People waving the banners of Ravka as they celebrate the destruction of the Fold. Mal and Alina's little life in the epilogue. And their grief - of their losses, but also of who they were up to that point. Of living on while something is gone within them, but still finding meaning in their future.

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that I feel this way, as this is a tender book. Which is quite something for a 420 page final installment in a fantasy adventure trilogy. There's battles and action sequences, of course, but they're largely tedious and uninteresting. There's a lot of travelling from one location to the next that made it difficult for me to stay focused. But the meat of the story is between Alina and Mal, as well as their friends (in some ways I feel like this was a precursor to the motley crew of Six of Crows, not as well developed or established, but a prototype nonetheless). There's also a smidge of something spiritual - Bardugo goes into some really fascinating gray areas with her magic system, which I thought was really impressive and creative.

Bardugo's writing is a lot richer here as well. Far more than Shadow and Bone, and especially Siege and Storm, this is an atmospheric, immersive book that takes time to notice the people in the background - the servants, the soldiers, children and commoners. She does a lot more to build a more intricate tapestry of Ravka - from its religious zealots, to its street peddlers. These asides detailing the places they pass through and people they encounter does a little bit to show Alina's change in priorities, though in some ways I felt like it was just padding out the page count. The conclusion - from the reveal about the amplifiers, to the final confrontation with the Darkling - I think was all very well done and well-earned.

This is a hard book to rate. Past the midpoint, it became too tedious to read for me to rate it more than three stars, but the ending is good. It's too bad this series came to be at the height of YA trilogy madness, because three books seems just really cumbersome for this story, and it makes sense that both follow-up stories in this world are duologies. I'm glad that Alina got her happy ending though - maybe not a fairytale one, and not even the “good for her” ending that I found myself craving at the end of the second book, but one that is real and meaningful. I've been thinking a lot about what it takes to be happy in a painful world, and I think Bardugo nailed it here.

A partner who loves you, work that involves helping and raising people up, and a rich benefactor. I think that pretty much sums it up.

This is super fun. Short and punchy, dripping with attitude. Eve & Adam is Animorphs all grown up and saucier, and considering the fact that Animorphs could get pretty saucy, that's saying something.The appeal here is the pacing. If you like science fiction and genetic engineering, that's cool too, but this is far far from hard sci-fi. The actual science is just hand waved. It assumes that there are people involved who understand how all this works, but those people are not the main characters. The main characters are interested mostly in each other, but also tangentially with the secret goings on of Spiker Biopharmaceuticals (also a side plot involving gang bangers and dumb boyfriend which is completely dropped by the end of the book, which I was fine with because it was kind of dull). So there's a taste of ethics involved as well. But mostly its snarky dialogue, zippy pacing and caustic, compelling characters.The last book I read was [b:Shiver 6068551 Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #1) Maggie Stiefvater https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388196030s/6068551.jpg 6244926] and I complained that while the main character, Grace, is said to be a highly logical young woman, I never really got that impression when reading about her. However, when Evening's (or Eve, or E.V. depending on who you ask) is described by her mother as someone who can think both like an artist and a scientist, you don't have to believe her, because you know its true. Likewise, when people say Solo, her love interest, is not the sharpest tool in the shed, you know that for a fact because from his first chapter you can tell that boy thinks he's way smarter than he actually is. And can I talk about for a second how refreshing it is to occasionally have a character that is not supposed to be that smart? Solo is driven and clever for sure, but rather oblivious. Which is fine, no one can be everything. Like how Aislin can be Evening's supportive best friend, but also someone with poor impulse control and judge of character; and Evening's mother, Terra Spiker, can be dragon lady personified but still have a moral core. Grant and Applegate's greatest strength will always be their characters, and that's what makes a story feel whole.I mean, the romance I suppose is rather instalove-ish, but most teenage romances are. Love is animal, not conscious, and in a story about science and genetics and building the perfect boy, the unconscious is key. The point is that Solo and Evening find something in each other that they want more than what they thought they were looking for. Like this book, they're more than the sum of their parts.

I have a lot to say about Shadow and Bone. I might have too much to say about it. There is nothing more wonderful than a book you can't get out of your head. Leigh Bardugo's stories consistently do this to me, and it's interesting that Shadow and Bone does it when it does not have the same kind of scope as Six of Crows.

I know comparing Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone might be an inappropriate thing to do. But I'm going to, because honestly the contrast between the two is fascinating to me. Shadow and Bone came first, but I'm reading it after already completing the Six of Crows duology, and one might assume the first trilogy came about when the world was less developed and Bardugo was not quite as strong as a writer. I don't think this is the case. I wouldn't even argue that Shadow and Bone is what it is because it was meant for a “younger” audience. I think it is the way it is because it was made for the only audience that was seen as relevant at the time – the same audience that devoured Twilight, The Hunger Games and Divergent, as well as their many many clones.

Stop me if you've heard this one before – a plain, mousy teenage girl is plucked from obscurity and thrown into an extravagant and new world due to something inherent in her that is unique (and she has no control over) while attracting the attention of a powerful immortal that also happens to look like a teenage boy. I am speculating, of course, but I think this was very much intentional. I think Bardugo had a world and realized the best way to get it in front of other people's eyes was to use it to tell a story that had proven effective in the past. But because Bardugo is the phenomenal writer she is, it's astronomically better.

Six of Crows in general is much more immersive. I think I actually have a better understanding of the Grisha and the magical system from Six of Crows than I do from this book (I mean, what is the Darkling's ability even called?). There's also a lot about this story that is strikingly anachronistic. In Six of Crows, while the speech and thoughts of the characters are relatable and accessible, Kaz, Jesper and Inej all very clearly belong to their neo-Victorian magical version of Amsterdam. If you took Kaz and dropped him in our modern world the son of bitch would probably adapt as quickly as a chameleon, but he would have to adapt. Alina would not. Her snarky sense of humor, while distinctly her own, is also distinctly modern, as is much of the dialogue and interactions in Shadow and Bone. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of atmosphere. I was feeling the tsar punk, and I cannot believe no one thought to do this before. But, take the Darkling, for example. Going in I expected a dark, mysterious, perhaps slightly inhuman overlord. And there's a glimmer of that when he's first introduced. But after that he's just one of the guys. Casual, occasionally ruffled, not even that mean. Of course, there's a reason for his easy engaging demeanor in terms of story, but stylistically I think it was another means pulling the reader closer.

The intention of this story is to tell a grand Cinderella epic that of course falls apart by story's end. And to be honest, I was broken-hearted for Alina in a way that I haven't been for other heroines in her place. She's an orphan that discovers that she has a power that can save the world. She should get to wear pretty dresses, and have prettier women be jealous of her, and fall in love with the dark and powerful prince. When the lie is revealed, I was not entirely surprised but I was sad for her. I think that's why I wasn't bothered by the fact that Alina has very little agency and doesn't make a single decision for herself until the last act. Or that there was so much fixation on the beauty and wealth of the Grisha girls and the catty way they treated Alina. The intention was to tell a grandiose, compelling version of boiler plate “paranormal romance” with significant mature undertones hiding just barely beneath the surface.

Shadow and Bone is achingly easy to read. As stated, not a whole lot happens during the first three quarters of the book, and yet they vanish before you even realize it. Alina doesn't have a central desire, there isn't much of a conflict (aside from her own initial inadequacy), and the world is very minimally explained. There's so much about this that just shouldn't work, and yet it does. The prose is swift, Alina is funny, the glamour of the Grisha world is tantalizing, and the Darkling is just the right amounts of scary and sexy (ok, he could have been a little scarier, in my opinion). And then the shoe drops, and it's in that last act that I found myself saying, “Ah, there you are, Alina.” Hiding beneath the tropes was in fact a character with a soul, a love interest and best friend who is genuine and real, and a villain whose desire for her is born from his deep loneliness.

I want to swim in this world, I want to roll in every word. Logically, I know there are pieces missing from this story, but none of it is sloppy. Everything that Bardugo accomplishes here is intentional, and that's fucking amazing. Now that the initial YA framework that got people in the door is cast aside (ok, I imagine the love triangle thing might stick around for a bit), I am so excited to see how she expands this story in the next two books.

Honey Girl is the kind of book that somehow seems to take itself far too seriously and not enough. It is rote with flowery, indulgent language to tell its story of a drunken Vegas wedding and a young woman adrift in a life of high expectations. It is also littered with quirky side characters seemingly taken straight out of a CW drama, complete with pop culture references and startlingly honest witticisms. Also, it kind of turns into an extended therapy session in the last 60 pages or so.

Grace Porter is the high-achieving daughter of a strict military father who, after finishing her doctorate in astronomy, finds herself at a loss for where to go next. The feeling of completing her father's plan for her isn't enough, the jobs dominated by pretentious white scientists are not enough. So, naturally, she goes to Vegas and gets herself drunkenly married to a stranger. As one does. Unable to hold it together after going home again, Grace gets in touch with her mythical wife, Yuki, goes out to New York to spend the summer with her, and maybe even falls in love with her. But even still, there's the question - is it enough?

Grace Porter is one of those main characters that only vaguely resembles a real life person. I mean, the inspiration is clearly there. I've known high achievers and military brats in my life. I actually knew someone who abandoned their doctorate in physics and astronomy when they realized the pressure was not worth it. They made chocolates at a bakery for a while afterward (now they work in UX). But Grace never reminded me of any of them. Maybe it's because we're meeting her in the middle of a breakdown, but there's little conception of the strictly controlled, meticulously put-together woman that is supposed to be coming apart here. Instead, Grace comes off as extremely fragile. Admittedly, it's difficult to write about someone losing it without it coming off as contrived, but from her Vegas wedding (I don't drink, so I don't even know what it's like to be that inebriated) to her skin-picking, it all felt like things that were tacked onto this character. The claim by her father and others that Grace frequently “runs away” when things get hard was particularly frustrating because at no point was it mentioned that she had a history of this (only that her mother does). Besides, spending a summer in New York after completing your doctorate is far from running away. It's just getting a different perspective.

The events that play out in Honey Girl are of course maximized for drama and entertainment, but there is something deeply indulgent about this book. It reminded of fan fiction, actually, and considering the premise (“drunken Vegas wedding” is right up there with “pretending to date” and “there's only one bed”) I wouldn't be surprised if it had its roots there. It reminded me of being a teenage girl and imagining what my life in my twenties would look like - I would have friends that I would gush with love for, lovers I would speak in poetry to, a life that had all the overly witty dialogue and quirkiness of the teen dramas I saw on TV. As I actually came into adulthood, I realized that not only was this ridiculous, but I didn't even really want any of that. I don't think Morgan Rogers came to the same conclusion. The relationships between Grace and her two best friends, Agnes and Ximena, and the family she works with at a tea shop were borderline nausea-inducing. No one actually talks to their friends like this, no one takes referring to their friends as “siblings” that seriously. And the fact that she has these deeply intense bonds with these people is probably why the introduction of the idea in the third act of the book that she abandons relationships for her ambitions comes so out of left field for me.

Yuki Yamamoto is one of things I liked about this book. When she arrives its like the whole story seems to just relax. She's that different perspective the book needed (though her fixation on monsters and mythical beasts is probably another allegory that this story didn't really need). All the dialogue that between Grace and her besties, stepmom and coworkers felt so try-hard, just suddenly seemed to flow when it was just Grace and Yuki. I'm not sure what it was exactly, maybe Rogers had a better concept in her mind of Yuki as a character than the others. Even in all her strangeness, Yuki felt very real. That said, I wish I could have known a little more about what brought Grace and Yuki together in the first place. The flowery language of the opening prologue was pretty, but I wish it had at some point unraveled to show a real woman who found an escape in another. The story in general flows better when Grace is in New York, even if the conflicts between Yuki and Grace don't entirely make sense (marrying someone with a doctorate is a bit like marrying someone in the military - you have to be prepared to bounce around the country a bit). I didn't necessarily feel their chemistry or love, I think I was interested in what being around Yuki revealed about Grace.

This book is a weird 3 stars for me, and is perhaps closer to a 2.5. Not because it is a middling achievement, but because it has some solid moments and some borderline disastrous ones. I came very close to abandoning it in the first 50-60 pages, worried that I would have to put up with a whole book of characters talking in absurd poetry at each other. Thankfully, the lyrical nature of the prose does taper off after a while. But the fact there's so much effort put into wit that isn't even funny, characters with all these details but don't seem remotely realistic, make this book seem really rough and amateurish. Honey Girl does have its charm, and I like to think there is a place in the world for contemporary lesbian romances with such indulgent flourishes and contrived narrative devices. Clearly, this type of work has an audience. I think I'm just looking for something more grounded.

I was handed this book by someone who wanted to know what all the fuss was about. He had seen the nominations and blurbs it got, but when he read it he was unimpressed, and wanted to get my thoughts. I have to admit my reaction is similar, though maybe not quite as harsh. Novellas, to me, often feel like abridged versions of what should be longer, richer books. With the exception of [b:The Ballad of Black Tom 26883558 The Ballad of Black Tom Victor LaValle https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1447086249s/26883558.jpg 46932536] most underwhelm me, and leave me itching for the book that could have been.River of Teeth was no different, but at the same time I feel like its what its supposed to be. The writing is quick and immersive, the characters are distinct though not particularly rich, of course. I liked that it was simple. I liked that there was a straight forward romance between the swaggering bisexual leading man and the nonbinary demolitions expert. There's minimal fuss about having a nonbinary character, no one gets hung up on pronouns. It's refreshing, it's not really realistic and I don't care. I like that Houndstooth gets nervous every time Hero even looks at him, and I wish I got to see them kiss and stuff more. Emphasis on “and stuff.”That said, I found the story a little lackluster. A Mississippi River full of feral man-eating hippos is a pretty dope concept, but the heist (I'm sorry, “operation”) never really grabbed my interest, and even Houndstooth's revenge subplot felt less like a story arc and more like the arc of a fish flopping down a set of stairs. I liked the atmosphere, but I was kind of glad this was as short as it was because I found myself getting bored. I'm giving this book three stars by a hair, and in a more perfect work it would be 2.5. Overall, a fun little venture into an America that could have been with some good character dynamics, but not a whole lot of substance beyond that.

There are two major issues with this book. The first is the characters. They do not have enough differentiating them - in particular, their characterization and their voices, but also in background. What makes the best heist thrillers exciting is a bunch of characters coming from different places, different motivations and often having different goals. There is none of that here - all of these characters are elite college students, all coming from families with high expectations, who all have a similar motivation of returning a piece of their ancestral history to its home. That leaves the story with little friction or dissonance to make things exciting to read, and on top of it there is no distinctive voice to any of them.

Which leads me to the second problem - the prose style. For a heist book, the prose here is very....sleepy. Dreamy, if I'm being generous. It's pretty, at first, but it becomes a droning one-note very quickly. The pace never picks up to create any sense of urgency, and descriptions are often so repetitive that they evoke very little. So while I wanted to stay in it at least to the first of five heists, by the time I got to it, I was mostly skimming. At which point, I realized I had to give up.

This is a pretty big bummer. I was hoping for something exciting, slick and fun. But on top of the very unrealistic premise (five students with zero experience get randomly chosen by a company to conduct a huge complicated heist?? in what universe??), which I was initially willing to let slide as a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy, this book doesn't have much else to offer in terms of characters or tension.

I wanted to read Bone Gap because it promised midwestern magical realism - whispering corn fields that hide pathways to other worlds, gossiping townsfolk, disappearing girls and a beautiful boy who sees beauty in an entirely different way. It delivered on that promise in droves, and also surprised me with its thoughtfulness, and with a twist on one (or some) of my favorite myths.

Finn O'Sullivan is a clever answer to the type of characters that frequently show up in Young Adult books. He and his brother Sean are literally without parents - after their father died, his mother took off with a new love and left them to fend for themselves - and they're both smart, good-looking and well-liked by the town, but in different ways. Sean is the muscular savior who always wanted to be a doctor, Finn is the spacey heartthrob who literally has no understanding of his appeal (and I do mean literally, that turns out to be quite important).

Because this book when its not about supernatural beings who steal people into the Underworld, its about how we see each other, and what beauty truly is. Roza, the lost girl who shows up in the O'Sullivan barn, lives a life through Poland to the United States to someplace that no one can reach, and through it all people don't actually sees her. They see her beautiful face, and it overpowers her strength and compassion. It was hard to read about what Roza went through. It's hard to be reminded of what women have to go through on a day to day basis. Petey, or Priscilla, is on the opposite side of the spectrum as Roza - as she is deemed the “ugly” girl - and in much the same way assumptions are made about her and her relationships because people don't actually see her.

But Finn does. Finn is sweet and adorable and awkward and he's not supposed to be a hero. But he is because he won't quit - he won't stop looking for Roza, he won't stop loving Petey, or trying to make his brother happy, or make a better life for himself. You understand why he is loved, but not quite trusted. When he finally decides to step forward and take matters into his own hands, its because he understands that he sees things the way no one else does, and that's he why he's the only one for the job.

Laura Ruby's writing is subtle and clever, the interludes of Petey's poems and Finn's “essays” are funny and touching. She creates characters and a setting that are tactile and real, but are still are lifted by magic. There's a bitterness in Roza's portions of the story that is hard to swallow, and the scenes where she is first kidnapped are so surreal in comparison to the more earthy magical realism of the town of Bone Gap, that the first half the book feels a little disjointed. But it all comes together really beautifully. This book is incredibly unique not just for being a damn good read, but also the message it has and the way it tells it.

I have tried to read several short story collections. This is the first one I've finished, and read front to back. This book goes far beyond just zombies, with stories that are exciting, disturbing, moving, funny, thought-provoking, and even kind of sexy. I've always had faith that the horror genre had so much more to say than people give it credit for, and this book is a perfect example.

Ok. I'll admit it, I am impressed. Starting out, The Iron Trial feels more or less like any magical boarding school fantasy, complete with an evil enemy and a long sought chosen savior. By the time I was halfway through, I conceded that while it was entertaining, it felt largely juvenile (I have plans to read something much more grown-up next.) And then everything changed.I shouldn't act like the book does a total about face. From the beginning, Call isn't your typical hero. He's too smart, too acidic, and genuinely not interested in the spotlight at all. He's the weird kid on the bus who doesn't want to go to magic school, who really does suck at magic even though he has immense raw ability. His disability – a bum leg – keeps him from showing physical prowess of any kind, and though he comes to be somewhat skilled magically, as the climax of the book shows, not being able to move well will still get in the way of saving the day. It's not until the big switch mid way through the book that you begin to realize what Callum Hunt's story actually sounds like - that of a villain's. Because that's precisely what he is. His blonde-haired, Steve Rogers-esque best friend, Aaron, is the chosen hero, and if the laws of the Cinquian are to be followed (fire wants to be burn, water wants to flow, air wants to rise, earth wants to bind, chaos wants to devour) they will find themselves on opposite sides of a war over immortality and the void. And obviously, that's what's going to happen, we've got five books left, and don't we all love a story about brothers forced into conflict with each other.I haven't had the pleasure of reading Cassandra Clare yet (that was sarcasm there, mild sarcasm, but still), but I adored Holly Black's [b:White Cat 6087756 White Cat (Curse Workers, #1) Holly Black https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358274572s/6087756.jpg 6264661], and I could definitely detect her flavor in Call's wittiness and in many of the story's darker elements. Those who are familiar with Clare's reputation will probably raise an eyebrow at how derivative Magisterium sounds of Harry Potter. JK Rowling did not invent the magical boarding school, but I can definitely see the resemblance nonetheless. We have a golden trio of two guys and a girl, an evil enemy of the previous generation who seeks to conquer death, a protagonist who was raised dissociated from the magical world he should've been born into, and we even get a Draco clone in a pompous bully by the name of Jasper. However, I get the feeling that this was partly intentional - referencing the common tropes we see in the genre, and then giving them a little (or a big) twist. The magical lesson plan is deconstructed into something much more free form (instead of learning spells out of a book and making potions, Call and company spend hours sorting grains of sand), the bully begins to earn sympathy points early by being from a disgraced family and putting himself under immense pressure to reclaim their prestige (I realize that that's exactly Draco Malfoy's trajectory in HP, but in this case we didn't have to wait six books for it), and of course the whole fostering the soul of the enemy inside oneself is given way more play . It is derivative, sure, but I'm of the belief that that doesn't stop something from being entertaining or of possessing quality.Because this is very enjoyable. It's quick and clever, there are funny moments, scary moments, and touching moments too (I feel like we're looking at a long road of Call and Aaron having touching moments). The characters are complex and well-drawn, Call is character that you can really get behind, despite his obvious flaws. There's even an adorable zombie wolf-cub, and now I totally want one for myself. Even though it's very clearly middle grade, it doesn't talk down to its audience. Obvious twists and plot points aren't drawn out for the sake of suspense, it assumes that the reader is just as quick as the plot. On the downside, it's not particularly complex, and it doesn't have much depth in the world building or set dressing. So far, the use of magic seems really flimsy and all over the place, and I'm curious as to what kind of magical world exists outside of the Magisterium (I suppose that's the HP nut in me talking).I'm not really the type to get super eager about getting the next installment in a series, but I gotta tell ya, when I turned that last page, I was making grabby hands for the as-of-yet imaginary second book. I want to know where this goes. Badly. Because it looks like we're in for more bonding with creatures infused with the void, alchemical magic (seriously, we'd better get more about how this shit works), a protagonist debating the benefits of becoming the villain of the story (and there are serious benefits, for one, the body of Callum Hunt is high maintenance to say the least, and the body of Constantine Madden which he would return to if he chose to retake his identity is presumably in good condition), and angst (kind of super psyched about seeing Call interact with his dad, when his dad knows for sure that he is Constantine Madden, because they were enemies and presumably friends in a past life, and now he's his son, ugh, I love it). So much angst.

I like to think that there's a lot of things you can do with Colonial Marines and the xenomorphs of Alien mythology. I guess most of it will revolve around shooting things. Which is fine, I like stories about shooting things. But in the form of eighteen back-to-back short stories set in the same universe, it got a little tiring.

The best stories, unsurprisingly, or the ones that thought outside the box. A lot of the others wanted to recreate the atmosphere and the energy of Aliens, and the great battles between Ripley, Hicks, Hudson and the rest of the marines against an army of xenomorphs. That's not a bad endeavor, since there are plenty of expensive movies that try to do the same thing, but going into this anthology I was expecting something more adventurous. The immediate standouts were “Broken,” an origin story about Bishop, “No Good Deed,” the story of an escaped convict and the bounty hunter who chases him all the way to LV-426, “Zero to Hero,” when a zombie-ish outbreak occurs on a mining colony, protected by a team of marines totally unaccustomed to conflict, and the unusual “Episode 22,” a transcript of an documentary episode on the development of the famous pulse rifle that Ripley uses to take on the xenomorph queen in Aliens.

I liked these stories because they took elements of the universe without holding too close to them. “No Good Deed” and “Zero to Hero” both had themes of corporate corruption, which is a significant element to the Aliens universe, but went somewhere very new with it other than Weyland-Yutani asking a bunch of grunts to get a live sample of a hostile creature (seriously, unless they are sending them in with an expert in hostile organisms, what is the point in missions like that?). Stories like “Reclamation” which starred Dwayne Hicks trying to find out what happened to his dead wife (cue my loud and obnoxious snoring) just used pieces of the stories and slapped some familiar tropes on them. I love Dwayne Hicks, don't get me wrong, but please, no more dead wives.

There was a small amount of stories that really went into some challenging territories, which is what I was really after. “Empty Nest” is a very creepy story that I won't spoil for you, but allows for a different kind of response to being faced with a parasitic alien. There is also Scott Sigler's “Dangerous Prey,” a well-researched story told entirely from the xenomorph's point of view, first through the eye of the “protector,” then the egg, the “courier” and then of course a newborn queen. It's exactly the kind of story that I picked up this anthology for - it's unique, well-written, and introduces some ideas that keep you thinking after you finish. The rest of the stories are mostly action-packed thank-you-ma'am jobs that provide some brief entertainment, but nothing really profound. A fun read, but not terribly special

Listening to this while driving in to work was like carpooling with someone in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Every time he screamed “GODDAMMIT” (which was often) I jumped a little bit (ok, not really, I usually started laughing actually, because I'm a terrible person). The voice acting was, needless to say, fantastic. The story itself was good, a tad repetitive, and difficult to get through. At one point I got stuck in traffic and I had to say sorry Robert Neville, but I can't be depressed in traffic and listen to you be depressed about the end of the world. But it was a good, contained story about madness and loneliness and zombies. Er, vampires. Whatever.

After reading [b:Blackbirds 12944651 Blackbirds (Miriam Black, #1) Chuck Wendig http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1334862930s/12944651.jpg 18101226], it was hard to think there could be anything scarier than the wholly unhinged Miriam Black. Turns out, Miriam with a sense of conviction, righteousness even, is far more vicious and frightening.If Blackbirds was a tumbling fall down a rocky mountain, than Mockingbird was a steep zipline. It was cleaner, tighter and wrapped up in a sense of purpose. Miriam is not only discovering who she is now, but her place in the world and what she's meant for. She may not like it exactly, but she is what she is, as is said over and over. It begins when Miriam is introduced to a whole school full of little versions of herself. Bad girls. Drug users, violent offenders, sugar and spice and everything gone wrong, and then she finds out that several of them are marked for death by a serial killer in a plague doctor's garb. She's forced in her quest to save them partially by the specter she comes to call the Trespasser, the thing that comes in nightmares and now in hallucinations so vivid she occasionally ends up scarred. But a large part of her desperately wants to save the girls. Because its the right thing to do? Because she identifies with them? It's never really answered, and that's what makes things so fun.The whole thing got me thinking about bad girls, and what it really means to be one. There's that flicker of what I loved about [b:The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 2429135 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) Stieg Larsson http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327868566s/2429135.jpg 1708725], that dismissal of all those pseudo-intellectual serial killers who think they are doing something extraordinary but really are just reinforcing something ancient. The hatred of women. Think of bad girl as opposed to bad boy. Bad boy is a trope. It's a fantasy. The dangerous boy with the heart of gold, or the slick trickster who steals your heart. Either way, he is well regarded and practically worshiped by teenage girls. But a bad girl? A bad girl is an affliction, something that needs to be stamped out. We put them on reality TV shows and laugh at them. We design heroic Nice Guys to save them. They aren't romance, they're pornography. And Miriam points it out perfectly.“Why is it you hate girls?” Miriam asks. “You don't look for trouble in boys. You don't kill anybody with a dick. Just young girls. Bad girls.”“Because girls are poison. Whores if you let them be.”So much for glorious purpose.The last section in particular was intoxicating. Not only does the plot get wilder and stakes higher, but Miriam and the Trespasser just take things to whole other level. Oddly enough, I don't think this was as nasty as Blackbirds, but that might've been because we're already dealing with girls getting their heads chopped off. You don't want to over do it. Or Miriam was actually trying to watch her mouth. As if.ARC provided by NetGalley.com

I'll be honest, the reason why I picked this up was because at the time I had been reading [b:The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America 1870771 The Ten-Cent Plague The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America David Hajdu http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311996409s/1870771.jpg 3271080]. I was just really appreciating the fact that after all the shit that the comic industry has gone through, that I am able to go into a bookstore and pick up a graphic novel as filthy and ridiculous as this. I had no idea what was going on most of the time, but it was good fun and I could probably stare at the artwork for days.

There was a lot of hype around this book, so its a good thing it wasn't terrible. But it wasn't tremendous either. It was good, clean fun - quick-paced, likable characters, punchy action. Not really memorable though, and aside from one instance, not really scary. Three stars feels a little mean, but four just doesn't seem justified.

I think my favorite part of this was all the horror references, but this is YA, so pretty much all of them are called out, which was a little disappointing. I'm a big kid, I know my horror, I like to be able to spot the references to Poltergeist, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Exorcist, The Shining etc on my own, thanks. But that's what I get for hanging out in this shelf so much.

I don't think I've read from the perspective of a modern teenage boy in....checks read list ok, just about never, so this was refreshing. Cas is smart, witty and admirable. The set of friends he develops is a unique one - a queen bee who isn't vilified and acidic, but rather revered for the value of her social skills; the awkward psychic who proves himself to be a capable witch and rather heroic as well; and then there's the frenemy, Will, who is smart enough to recognize trouble when he sees but not enough to get out of the way when he should. They're interesting, and well-drawn and they're played off Cas really well.

I didn't really get why he loved Anna though. But I never really get why anyone loves anyone, so maybe I should stop complaining about this. But you figure, she's dead, that should shut off the inclinations towards potential love interest. I suppose its like that time I developed a crush on a flamboyantly gay friend, and knowing he was gay only allowed my brain to tuck my sad sad crush into a hidden corner of my mind, showing up every once in a while to make me blush and leave me confused. Parts are parts, I guess, regardless of orientation and apparently, even if you're dead. So they love each other, and they're interactions and affectoin were really cute, but it didn't have much draw other than that.

Speaking of deadness, the lore in this is skimmed over at best, probably in order to maintain the pacing. The whole time I was wondering what the hell an athame is but was too lazy or too into it to bother Googling it. The ghosts are American Horror Story ghosts - fully corporeal, but either locked in a state of mind or place - which I typically can't stand. It kind of ruins the creepy vibe when the ghost can help the main character's mother unpack the car. Likewise, a lot of the horror elements didn't shock or scare or even unsettle me, and for the record, I am not completely desensitized, Rick Yancey frequently makes me jaw drop. A lot of it seemed way too similar to popular scare tropes used in movies and TV these days, like a ghost's flickering image (guys, seriously, that worked in The Ring because she manifested through a videotape, it doesn't really make sense in other instances).

So it was fun, and I'll read the sequel because Cas might be fun to see angst-ridden and pining for his dead girlfriend, but its really not anything extraordinary.