Book #100: The Girl Who Drank The Moon, by Kelly Barnhill

THIS BOOK.

THIS BOOK.

I am really hit or miss for Middle Grade, but Kelly wrote a FANTASTIC book here. Her politics and values are seamlessly woven into a plot about magic, legacy, inheritance, horror, and the things we do for love (even when they can go very, very badly). And absolutely STELLAR world-building. And I know that sometimes "worthy" MG books aren't actually books kids enjoy, but I think this is one of the ones that manages to do both. It tackles HUGE issues and has wonderful moments of humour and fun, and the issues are dumbed down any more than the fun is off-putting. It was just so, so good.

And also there's a really excellent Simply Enormous dragon.

Book #101: Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers

I liked this one a lot. I think it's the first adult book I've read in...well, a while (not counting The Order of the Air, which are, like, DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR ME, I mean, kinda), and I was super worried I wouldn't like it, but then I did.

Anyway: crew of not-quite misfits on year-long journey in space, shenanigans ensue (or don't, as the case may be. This book had great use of pauses). They've all got secrets, they've all got pasts, some of them have super questionable romance options...it was really well done.

I also really like space operas where humans are not The Great Saviours Of The Galaxy, so that was super fun. And there was interesting intra-human politics, depending on when they left Earth which I ALSO really enjoyed. Basically, the world-building was excellent, regardless of which world Chambers was talking about.

I did read several reviews complaining about the pacing, but honestly I am not too fond of that method of critiquing a book. Usually I think that if you don't like the pacing, it means you and the author have different ideas of what's important to the story. In the case of PLANET, apparently I agree with Chambers, because I thought the pacing and construction was fine.

There's a second book which I will get to, but this book is really well contained, so I am not in a rush.

Highly recommend this.