grav_ity: (force)
This comic follows Poe in his search for Lor San Tekka, in the lead-up to The Force Awakens. This volume kind of went into the weeds a bit, as Poe squared off against his nemesis for this comic storyline, a dude named Terex. We get a lot of Terex's backstory, which is fine because he's a jerk and his backstory pays off with a couple of other Resistance storylines. It does mean that he's 100% alive, though, despite how the comic ends. ;)

ANYWAY

Kind of a quiet read. Poe is worried there's a spy in Black Squadron, but that doesn't really factor into the story much in terms of Poe's development. Threepio gets to be hilarious, which is Threepio at his best. There's a return of an old character that I was VERY PLEASED with (I found out about it in a freight elevator in New York in 2016, so it was a nice payoff!). Mostly, this serves to set up Volume 3, which is already out, so that's handy. Mine should be here this week, and it's going on the December reading list.
grav_ity: (feelings)
I do not like zombies.

Like, not at all.

So for me to read a zombie book, it either has to be an accident (which happens), or I have to REALLY, REALLY like the author. In the case of Dread Nation, it's firmly the latter. Justina is one of the best people I know.

ANYWAY

So the premise is that after the battle of Gettysburg, the dead rose up and started roaming around the US (and other places. Europe is mentioned a couple of times, but nothing is said of Mexico or Canada, which is fine: the book has other things to do). The US government responded by forcing First Nation and newly freed black people to go to school and learn to fight the dead...so that white people wouldn't be at risk.

Anyway, the dead keep coming and our narrator, Jane, is about to graduate, when she gets involved in a conspiracy and life gets complicated, quickly.

Justina's book is amazing. Her writing style is vicious and her plotting, characters, and settings are staggering familiar. Jane is mean and smart and talented and stubborn, and I loved her to bits. Katherine, one of the secondary characters, was my favourite for reasons that will be immediately apparent when you read the book.

DREAD NATION comes out in April (I fiiiiiiiiiinally got an ARC), but if you want a sample of Justina's work, you can buy THREE SIDES OF A HEART. It's an anthology, and her story is set in the Dead Nation world (full disclosure: I also have a short story in the anthology). THREE SIDES comes out on December 19.
grav_ity: (no power in the verse can stop me)
This is the second book in a trilogy, following up on Not Your Sidekick from last year (which I also SUPER ENJOYED), and focuses on the character of Bells. Bells is a shape-shifter, something of a rebel even before he learns about the massive government conspiracy (his family is also in rebelling: they believe in food freedom, and run an underground market so that people can get real food). Bells is trans.

(This is actually the SECOND series with a trans main character who is also a superhero I've read this year, WHICH IS AWESOME. The more the merrier. I really loved both books (the other is Dreadnought/Sovereign), but VILLAIN is less...intense. I've posted about Dreadnought/Sovereign before, and Danny, the protagonist, deals with ALL KINDS of shit from her family, colleagues, the press, etc. etc. That can be difficult for trans kids to read. VILLAIN isn't like that. Bells is just trans and a superhero. I cannot stress how pleased I am that BOTH OF THESE STORIES EXIST.)

ANYWAY, so we pick up Bells' story a little bit before the end of NOT YOUR SIDEKICK, and then follow him through Jess' adventure until his own comes to the front. This means the beginning of the book is a little choppy, but overall, I found it an effective storytelling method. I love the world CB has constructed here, and the way the superheroes work is just SO COOL (nutshell: your strength as a super is measured by how long you can sustain your power, not by what your power is. WHICH IS NEAT).

I loved the balance of CONSPIRACY and teenage shenanigans. I love the way Bells, Jess, and Emma interact (and how they incorporate Jess's girl-friend Abby). I LOVE THE PARENTS AND SIBLINGS.

The third book, NOT YOUR BACKUP, will be from Emma's POV, and I am pretty darn excited about it. (And not just because the book ended with her confessing that she's ace!)
grav_ity: (archaeology)
This series got off to a rocky start, but I think Riordan really hit stride in book 2, and I adored the trilogy cap. Norse mythology is bonkers (see also: Thor Ragnarock), and there's a cyclical nature to it that other mythology doesn't quite have, and I wasn't sure if it was going to work for Middle Grade, but it really, really did.

Magnus was such a good character. I liked that his homelessness was a character trait throughout, rather than something that was shaken off as soon as he had a reliable home. I loved how Annabeth played into the story, and I loved the ending on that front.

ALSO SAM. I LOVE SAM. SAM IS MY FAVOURITE. Hijab-wearing, Ramadan observing, air hug-giving, STRAIGHT UP HERO-VALKYRIE. Learns to best herself and her father (Loki) and I JUST REALLY LIKED IT.

ALSO ALEX. Last book, I observed that Alex was being written as the love interest, and I thought that was remarkable. TURNS OUT ALEX IS THE LOVE INTEREST. Yup, genderfluid love interest in a MIDDLE GRADE book.

The pacing was Riordan's usual breakneck speed, but I loved the geography and various monsters they fought. A neat variety of characters and a wide array of skills helped keep everything moving, and I liked how all the pieces fit together.

It was just really good.
grav_ity: (Default)
I read this when it was posted online as a free serial, and I had absolutely zero qualms about shelling out actual money for it because 1. Sara is a friend, and 2. Now I have book to hit myself in the face with, out of sheer delight, and you can't really do that with a laptop.

ANYWAY.

In Other Lands is a portal fantasy that knows it's a portal fantasy. Elliot, the MC, is hilarious and angry, and I like him a lot. I'm not usually here for satire, for books that predicate themselves on taking apart things you love, but Sara does it in such a way that I still feel...loved? Like, sometimes I read a satire and it wants me to feel stupid for liking the thing. Sara wants me to feel like I love it, even though it has a few practical issues we should probably discuss.

It's also funny as hell, deeply moving, sex-positive, and generally an all-around good time.
grav_ity: (feelings)
This is my first of Colbert's books, though I definitely have a copy of her debut, Pointe, around here somewhere...

ANYWAY, so Little and Lion is the story of...well, tbh, kind of everything. Little, the MC, is a black girl whose mum remarried a Jewish guy with a son (Lion), and they converted. Lion has mental health problems, so they send Little to a boarding school where, amongst other things, she falls in love with her roommate (she's bi). The story starts as Little comes home for the summer, and tries to fit back into her old life, deciding where she's going to go when it's time for school again.

It was sooooo good. Little and Lion are excellent siblings, their relationship is super-nuanced and complex, but at the heart of it, they really do love each other, and I really liked that. Also, the parent-kid relationships are all amazing. Little has a large group of friends, which is also fun to read. There was some excellent intersectionality here (mental health, religion, race, blended families, etc), and Colbert nails every part of it.

All told, an excellent book.
grav_ity: (b'elanna)
Sci-fi about medical tech, privilege, and conspiracy? I'm in, clearly. The beginning was a little weird for me (told out of order so that I would be hooked, but I think it would have been fine chronologically. also, I kept waiting for the next out of order bit, and it never arrived, so that was a bit distracting), but everything else more than made up for it, and I liked it a lot.

Sometimes with hyperfuture stories, I have difficulty visualizing what things look like, but I had no such problems with this. Pon did a great job with the architecture and also the tech itself, which helped me a tonne. I liked all the characters and I loved the world-building. And the villain was SUCH a dick. It was really good.
grav_ity: (no power in the verse can stop me)
This book is absolutely DELIGHTFUL.

I mean, "delightful" gets thrown around a lot at Middle Grade book, which is kind of annoying? But also: I was so fucking delighted by this book.

Backing up: a loose sequel to last year's FURTHERMORE, Whichwood follows Laylee, a 13-year-old girl who washes the dead because there's no one left to do it, and the dead must be cared for. But she's losing her colour and the dead are on the rise and, well, the plot is happening, and Laylee is all "FOR THE LOVE OF PICKLES" about the whole thing.

This book is very messed up, the way great middle grade is. I loved it.

Covering expectation and responsibility, stress and culture, family and legacy, Whichwood is not to be missed.
grav_ity: (aly married a crow)
God, I love this series so much. The first book was FROSTBLOOD and Elly is on some sort of terrifying "every six months" schedule, so the third book comes out soon, which is great for me as a reader even though it's deeply off-putting for me as a WRITER. (I can do standalones until the cows come home, but a trilogy? No dice.)

ANYWAY.

Fireblood is awesome because it's *fun*. I routinely describe this series as "All the things you think you're too smart to love, but you secretly love anyway, BECAUSE THEY ARE THE GREATEST" and Fireblood was a perfect continuation of what Frostblood began. Elly has a checklist of tropes and I don't flipping care, because the books are SUPER. FUN. The characters are great, the plot is engaging, and you win ten bets with yourself as you read, which makes you feel all smart and what have you.

Highly recommend for people who enjoy reading and also life.
grav_ity: (cake)
So a few years ago, Laura started writing a book where they bad guy was a real estate tycoon who was brassy and gross on TV, and bought up historic buildings to level them in the name of progress.

Then, you know.

And now we have a Middle Grade book about clever kids solving a mystery to save their family home (which is an apartment building), and also possibly find out what happened to their grandfather. It was adventurous and fun and really well written. I think it's going to be a trilogy, and I am looking forward to it.
grav_ity: (Default)
I really, really love Mary Balogh, you guys. I have a week at The Woods coming up and I was going to spend it all reading, and I might very well just take all of her books and re-read 10 or 15 of them.
grav_ity: (no power in the verse can stop me)
I loved this book a lot.

I'm not always here for faerie books because of the way the girl reacts to faerie boys, but HOLY CATS, I loved this one. It was about Craft and trust and self-worth and sisters and family and getting what you want and

There was also a trickster I liked (uncommon!), and the faerie prince was, like, Nikola Tesla-levels of bad at his job, so I liked him too (even MORE uncommon).

Basically, this book surprised me, and also a bunch of people who don't usually like the same books as me like it too. The crossover appeal in terms of difference taste is excellent, and I highly recommend it.
grav_ity: (force)
You guys.

YOU GUYS.

Y.O.U. G.U.Y.S.

I really liked this book a lot.

Taking place just before Leia gets in the mess, Gray has written a powerhouse book about destiny, privilege, friendship, family, emotionally fraught tea parties, and possibly the most awkward dinner party sequence of all time.

I thought Gray did a good job of balancing Leia's Action Girl and her Princess aspects. For example: Leia isn't a huge fan of her personal attendant droid, which is programmed to dress her and do her hair, but by the end of the book, realizes that 1. it's part of what/who she is, and 2. it's another tool she can use to operate.

Leia's reach frequently overextends her grasp in this book, but I didn't mind it. No one ever makes her feel stupid for messing up when she acts on the information she has. Instead they all talk about it like REAL PEOPLE, which I liked a lot.

ALSO ALSO ALSO

no spoilers, but JESUS CHRIST that tea party. I was on an airplane, and I had to keep setting the book down so I wouldn't freak out and alarm the flight attendants.

Also, you meet the woman who'll become Vice Admiral Holdo, and she's wonderful.

I JUST I JUST

...i just really miss Carrie Fisher. But this helps.
grav_ity: (no power in the verse can stop me)
This book is, theoretically, YA, but also has amazing potential to crossover into MG. I feel like she knew she was going to write kids as they grew, and took the opposite approach that Riordan and Rowling did (ie started with them in the upper age bracket). It works well.

ANYWAY, the most basic pitch is "Nigerian Harry Potter", but it's SO much more developed than that. Okorafor's world is brilliant and terrifying, and Sunny's magical world is MUCH closer to the real one than Harry's is. I absolutely loved it.

Penguin is publishing a book 2 (Akata Warrior) in a couple of weeks, and I am really pumped about it.
grav_ity: (no power in the verse can stop me)
This is straight-up sci-fi about a video game, the people who made it, the people who play it, and the world that's obsessed with it. Em, the main character, is a hacker who breaks onto the professional Warcross circuit, only to be swept up in the world-wide competition, more money than she'd ever dreamed up, more danger than she expected, and an adorably awkward romance that was a delight to read.

The stakes in the book are non-stop, and as someone who often has trouble picturing "video game" style action (see: the bit in Mockingjay where they attack the Capital), I could really see and feel what was going on. I love Marie Lu's first trilogy a lot, and I'm thrilled to be enjoying this one as well. The ending is open (because trilogy), but satisfying, which I always appreciate.

Warcross comes out next week, and it's YA sci-fi like I want to read more of.
grav_ity: (cake)
The Spider-Man book we deserve, frankly.

Reynolds writes my favourite kind of Spider-Man in that Miles has to do most of The Work as himself, and can only bring Spidey out for the big fight at the end. And it's BRILLIANT. The conflict was breath-taking, and I was, like, SHAKING WITH FURY at one point. (I hate bad teachers so much, you guys. I HATE THEM.)

I wanted other Spider-Man or Ironman or LITERALLY ANYONE to swoop in and help Miles save the day (and himself), and that never happened and the book was SO MUCH BETTER FOR IT.

Also there's a scene that I'll just refer to as "The Spades Conversation" that might be the most amazing thing ever written for Marvel.
grav_ity: (head first)
(Sequel to Shadowshaper, second book in a trilogy.)

I love this book so much. It's the sort where you can feel Brooklyn dripping off the page, but the addition of magic and the sheer PRESENCE of the characters stops it from feeling self-indulgent on the part of the writer (who, invariably, lives in Brooklyn).

ANYWAY.

It's been a couple of months since Sierra discovered Shadowshaping, fought off evil and brought all of her friends (and most of her family) into her crew. Now a mysterious Tarot deck has surfaced, each card connected with one of her fighters, and that makes all of them a target for the rival houses. Sierra doesn't want to lead anything, but with the bad guys out for blood and dominance, she has no choice. The whole things is done against a backdrop of the school-to-prison pipeline, and police misconduct in New York, and it's REALLY, REALLY GOOD.

I haven't blurbed this book, but if I did, it would be "An Empire Strikes Back of a second book if there ever was one." I am super excited to read the third one, and I hope I don't have to wait two years for it, but the book ENDS well enough, so I'm not, like, dying or anything.
grav_ity: (books)
This book is so GREAT. It's a pretty straightforward pirate-ish fantasy romp type adventure, but Sarah manages to do a beautiful job of it. She gives you all the pieces and lets you put them together. She deconstructs so many tropes in the most loving way. She's feminist af throughout, and her world-building is top notch.

Oh, and all the characters are DELIGHTFUL.

And, you know, SAILING.

I enjoyed it immensely, and I am looking forward to book #2.
grav_ity: (head first)
You know how you liked the Wonder Woman movie, but it was super white and didn't really deconstruct anything because it didn't have time? Let me tell you about WARBRINGER, the non-movie related YA novel about Wonder Woman that Leigh Bardugo wrote for DC.

It took me a while to get my hands on this ARC, but enough of my friends read it and said things like "You know how the movie reached? The book landed." that I was very excited. And it totally lived up to my expectations. WARBRINGER was brilliant, insightful, and FUN, and I loved every moment of it.

Pitch: After Diana rescues a human girl from a shipwreck, the island begins to suffer and the girl begins to die. Diana has to choose, and decides to take the girl to safety, even though it will likely mean her exile. Eventually, she learns that she has rescued a Warbringer, a mortal girl who unwillingly channel Nemesis and brings discord to humans, a legacy that has plagued the world since Helen of Troy. They must work together to break the cycle...or die trying.

God, I loved it. I love the whole premise. We put SO MUCH SHIT on teen girls, and then turn around and blame them for it, and I loved how WARBRINGER dug into that. It was really, really good. And Diana had friends who were girls! AND IT WAS THE GREATEST.

WARBRINGER comes out on August 29th.
grav_ity: (Default)
The summer I was nine, I read all the wrong books. The Mists of Avalon, The Firebrand, Dragonflight, Pawn of Prophecy, The Black Trillium, Tiger Burning Bright, Elvenborn, The Clan of the Cavebear, The Horsemasters.

My mother tried to fix me, forcing books she deemed appropriate, but it was too late.

Now I am thirty-three, and adult fantasy and I do not always get along. I don't like the rape in the "dark" side of the genre and I don't like the smugness in the satirical side. I'm not super interested in the way "nuanced" heroes are presented (because for dudes it invariably means they're murderers and for women it invariably means they were abused). I don't read fantasy for shades of grey. I know the fantasy of my childhood doesn't hold up well now that I understand more about how misogyny and racism work.

The Queens of Innis Lear is the book I have been training for my whole life. I would have read it at 9. I would have loved it at 9. I would have missed so much of it.

Surface Pitch: an epic fantasy re-imagining of King Lear, but focused on the daughters (a warrior, a witch, and a priest), and set on an island obsessed with star prophecy that has lost touch with the earth magic that served as the other half of the island's power. Without that balance, the island is dying...and the mainland kingdoms are starting to consider military options.

It's so good. IT'S SO GOOD. It's 700 pages of pure wonder and glory and blood, and I loved every moment.

Disclaimer: Tessa Gratton might be my favourite living author (and also one of my favourite people). I love all of her books and I love her, but OMG, THIS BOOK. Tessa writes my favourite love stories and my favourite murder stories and my favourite animal sacrifice stories, and she usually does all of those things at the same time, and QUEENS is no exception. It's wonderful.

QUEENS OF INNIS LEAR comes out in March and you should pre-order it.

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