I had problems with this book, honestly. I know it was tackling a difficult subject. I know that I am not the one to be evaluating and judging the well-being of suicidal teens, and the protagonist of this book is literally a boy planning to commit suicide, and he wants to take some people with him. Leonard’s confessional is all cynicism, antipathy, and naive self-centeredness, and right out of the gate his corrosive rationalizations for wanting to kill his classmate and himself are brashly laid […]
“Her voice carried the voices of a hundred thousand souls in it; a whole history of resistance and rage moved with her.”
3.5 stars And my cantankerous/ambivalent streak continues. Shadowshaper had so many the elements of a book I should have really liked: an inventive, unique fantasy and magic practice, a foundation in folklore that hasn’t been done to death, a dynamic protagonist, and a diverse, reliable, realistic support system for that protagonist. Additionally, the audiobook was masterfully performed by Anika Noni Rose, making Shadowshaper a joy to listen to. But something about the book, that I can’t quite put a finger on other than having this […]
brb, reading this again
Laini. LAINI. What are you doing to me? I want to cry, right now, writing this review, thinking about Strange the Dreamer. It’s too much. It’s too beautiful, too peculiar, too visceral, too magical. What is in your imagination? How do you do this? Fantasy is such a stalwart genre for me because of how it truly takes me out of the every day and into a new place, sometimes a completely different place. Good fantasy has that quality of evoking wonder and provoking the […]
Romance among resistance
Courtney Milan has been a vocal fan of Alyssa Cole for awhile now, and I’m a vocal fan of Courtney Milan, so I have been harboring guilt for waiting until now to read Cole. Something about the blurbs for her previous series weren’t setting me on fire, but An Extraordinary Union sounded unique and daring — a black woman (Elle) undercover as a slave during the Civil War who falls for a white man (Malcolm) undercover as a Confederate soldier? Wow. I’m not trying to […]