Review-itas: Books that confused me

Guys, Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee confused me so much that I cannot even explain the cover of this book to you.  Does it fit with the story?  I don't know.  I mean, the story takes place in space, so that part is accurate.  But what is the spiky thing that dominates the image?  I don't know.

As far as I can tell, Ninefox Gambit is set in a civilization that really likes order.  There appears to be a massive mathematical algorithm (the "calendar") that oversees every tiny thing, especially in the military.  Possibly people exist outside of the military, but it is hard to tell.  There is also a very rigid caste system in place, with different groups of people going into different areas of study and conforming to very specific traits.  The main character, Cheris, is in the military leading her team and somehow goes against the calendar.  This means she's in trouble and she's given a very big, basically impossible task to go kill some heretics, for which she asks for help from this undead ghost who won every battle he ever fought, except he also turned traitor and got an obscene number of people killed.

There was a lot in this book that I did not understand.  This book is like all my fears and feelings of intimidation about science fiction coming to fruition.  Once I got to the end and things started moving a little faster and became more people-focused than calendar-focused (I still cannot grasp this calendar system, and it DRIVES ME CRAZY), I got more into it.  And it certainly ends on a high note that bodes well for the series to follow.  So I eventually got the high-level plot, but I could tell you nothing about the setting.

After my appalling showing in 2016 of reading only four books off my TBR list, I was determined to do better in 2017.  (To be fair, I set a pretty low bar for myself, so I feel confident I can beat it.)  I read and enjoyed Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber, so I decided to give Sister Mine a go.  Many of the same elements that I loved in Midnight Robber are present here - a strong cultural identity, humor, and fantastic female characters at the center.  Sister Mine is often compared to American Gods or Anansi Gods because it is about a family of demigods.  But whereas Neil Gaiman's book is almost entirely about men, Hopkinson's puts women very much at the center of the story.  She plays with gender, sexuality, and many other themes while she wreaks havoc with the lives of both humans and gods.

I listened to Sister Mine on audio, and the narrator is excellent.  I don't listen to many audiobooks any more, but I was pretty much instantly drawn into this one.  I enjoyed many things about this story, but parts of it were just a bit too out there for me, particularly towards the end when things became very convoluted to me.  I really liked many of the characters in this book, but with about two hours to go, I was just ready for the book to end.  There were plot points that came up that didn't make a ton of sense to me or fit into the rest of the story, and then there was this whole section at the end that I was just... I don't know what was happening.  I feel like maybe if I were reading a physical copy of the book instead of listening to an audiobook, it would have been easier for me to understand what was happening.  Or maybe I'm just so confused by the real world that fantastical and science fiction worlds go too far for me.  Regardless, this was a lighter book than Midnight Robber for sure, with humor and pretty great family dynamics.  So if you want to give Hopkinson a try but don't want all the heavy stuff, this could be a good one to start with.  But I wouldn't say it's as strong as Midnight Robber. 

Intisar Khanani's Memories of Ash

I was lucky enough to get an early copy of Intisar Khanani's Memories of Ash back in May when it was first released.  I really love Khanani's work, and I fully intended to sit down and read the book as soon as I received it.  But things do not often work out as well as you wish, and I never got around to reading this book until over the Christmas long weekend.  This ended up working out for the best, though, as I had precious hours in a row to devote to reading and became fully enmeshed in the story.

Memories of Ash picks up about a year after Sunbolt ends.  It's been well over two years since I read Sunbolt and I admit that I was foggy on some of the details (and, er, major plot points).  I highly recommend that you read Sunbolt before you read Memories of Ash, and if you are the type to re-read when a new book in a series comes out, I recommend you do that, too.  I rarely do that and rely solely on memory and chutzpah to get me through, and usually it works fairly well.

Anyway, Memories of Ash begins with Hitomi living a quiet, peaceful life in the country with an older mage, Brigit Stormwind, who is teaching her how to hone her magical skills.  But soon people come for Stormwind, accusing her of treason and other trumped-up charges.  Stormwind is taken away; Hitomi leaves soon after to go and save her.  The rest of the book follows Hitomi as she sets out to accomplish this very difficult task.

One of the greatest things about Khanani as an author, at least to me, is that she rewards her characters for being good people.  So often in fiction, people are shown to be unkind or vindictive or two-faced or untrustworthy.  In Khanani's books, people are shown to be kind and supportive.  They may have different priorities or goals, but they listen to each other and attempt to understand motives.  At a time when it feels like people just talk past each other and don't really listen and are not willing to hear anything they don't want to hear, I cannot express how much I treasure this aspect of Khanani's work.

We learn more about Hitomi's past in this book, and while that knowledge adds intriguing depth and great promise to this series, Hitomi herself remains loyal, steadfast and honorable in light of everything she finds out.  She's a pretty great lead character, so it's no surprise that she makes some really wonderful friends.

In reading this book, I also understood why Khanani spent so much time writing and editing it.  Not only has she constructed a beautifully intricate world and peopled it with a diverse and fascinating cast, but she's also given all of them rich cultural backgrounds and hinted at more to come.  There are a lot of politics at play here and Hitomi has to navigate all of that in addition to trying to meet her own goals.  She has so much empathy for people, and because of that, she really tries to understand what motivates them and what would make them believe her and help her.  If this sounds like manipulation, then I am not describing it well.  Hitomi does not pray on people's fears or weaknesses, she looks for common ground.

And this is one of the reasons I love some types of fantasy and really hate others.  I prefer the premise that people are good and can see some of themselves in others, that power is a privilege that should be wielded fairly and with integrity.  I don't like fantasy that implies that as soon as someone gets power, that person becomes corrupt and savors violence or cruelty (especially towards women).  I appreciate that Khanani seems to have that same vision; most of her characters are kind and strong and stand up for what's right, even the ones with smaller roles.  And that means a lot.  So even if it takes another two years for the next installment in this series to come out, I'll count it worth the wait if it continues this excellent trend.

"There's more hunger in the world than love." - Monstress, Volume 1

In case you thought I only reviewed books about gloom and doom in America, DON'T WORRY.  I also review books about gloom and doom in fantasy worlds!  And Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, is a SUUUUUUUUPER good fantasy comic about gloom and doom.

I had never heard of Monstress before.  I went to an indie bookstore for Small Business Saturday, and after we finished at the bookstore, my brother-in-law asked if we could go to a local comic bookstore, too.  I said yes.  I admit that I usually find comic bookstores quite intimidating, but the people at the one I went to were so nice!  And they had this wall of best-selling comics, and it thrilled me to see how many of those best-sellers were ones that featured women.  So of course, I felt the need to support both the indie store and female empowerment, and I purchased this book.

I don't know if I would have picked up Monstress if I had known how violent it is.  Or how many dark subjects it tackles.  But I'm so glad I didn't know those things and picked it up because it was SO GOOD!

(I hope that you are not the same as I am and that knowing the book is violent and dark will not drive you away from it, because that would be a mistake.)

Monstress is about many things, and I admit that I am vague on a lot of the details because it was also a bit confusing.  But it doesn't really matter because it is amazing.  The artwork is absolutely stunning, and brings to life a world that is complicated and can be difficult to grasp.  Takeda puts a huge amount of detail into each panel.  The dark color scheme she uses perfectly captures a world in the midst of an endless war.  The rich detail in the panels shows the level of sophistication that the civilizations have reached, and the trade-offs between culture and war (and how one can often drive the other).  The characters are all beautifully drawn, including a SERIOUSLY ADORABLE little fox named Kippa.  Honestly, I feel like a lot of people will judge me for this, but I generally don't find animals that fascinating.  Like, I know that puppies and kittens are sweet and cute, and I like looking at them sometimes, too, but I don't get squealy and excited or feel the need to pet them.  But Kippa just stole my heart, mostly because of how vulnerable and sweet she was, and how she would hold her tail for security like a blanket.  It's a little strange at first to see these doll-like faces (Kippa is not the only one with the perfect, adorable face) on such fierce characters, but hey, heroines come in all forms.

The artwork is great, but when you combine it with the story and the characters, the whole effect is quite pleasing.

I cannot believe I have gotten this far in my review without mentioning that this comic series is all about women.  There was probably one main male character in this story (and possibly a male cat, but I'm not sure of the cat's gender).  All the "good guys," all the "bad guys" - none of them are guys at all!  And it's not a story that's obviously about women the way Lumberjanes is.  (Though being obviously about women is totally fine, too!  I was just making a comparison in that Lumberjanes is more vocally about women and the role of women vs Monstress is about the story and features women and the fact that it features women is the statement.)

I used to read a lot of epic fantasy, the multi-volume, 500+-page per volume variety that focused a lot on building a world and a lot on sharing that world's history and a lot on character development.  I would say that Liu is a pretty amazing epic fantasy storyteller.  She populates her world with a complex group of characters, none of whom have clear motivations or loyalties or goals (except the adorable Kippa!  She's perfect in every way!).  The main character is Maika, who is clearly very, very powerful but who also has a monster living inside her.  Maika is trying to learn more about her past and who she is, but she has blackout moments when she must feed this monster inside of her.  (With, er, people.)  She tries to fight it, but, well, it's a monster (artistically rendered as a lot of tentacles and eyes), and that's hard work.

The monster at first seems like a straightforward villain, but as you get deeper into the story, you realize the monster also is confused and unsure of what to do.  Maika works hard to make the right decisions for herself, and the monster works hard to make the right decisions for itself, but the two have to work together to do what is best for both of them.  Hopefully, anyway, as no one really knows what is the best course of action.  Even at the end of this book, it's unclear whether Maika is being hunted so that people can harness her power or so that she can be killed.

I mentioned a long, on-going war.  There is one, and it's about one race exploiting another race for power.  This seems pretty standard for a lot of fantasy and science fiction novels, but it's still a very important storyline to drill into people's heads, and I liked Liu's take on it.  She has a lot here to develop and nurture over the course of the next several volumes, and I can see this becoming a very rich and rewarding series.

The Forest and the Tower

I started Naomi Novik's Temeraire series with a bang but then lost steam somewhere around the third book and never got back into it.  So I admit I was not all that excited about about her new stand-alone novel, Uprooted.  But the book got rave reviews from people I trust, so I thought I should give it a go.

Of course, the large hardcover edition came into the library just before I was off on a trip to the other side of the world.  It also came in at the exact same time as another large hardcover fantasy novel I wanted to read.  After some serious agonizing, I chose to take Uprooted with me on my trip and leave the other book behind.  And, pretty much as soon as I read the first page, I was sure I had made the right decision.

To digress for a moment, one of the reasons I get a little bit annoyed by all the love and adulation that Game of Thrones has inspired from the HBO series is that I think of Game of Thrones as a fantasy throwback.  Maybe it was of the moment when the series first started being written about 20 years ago, but now, it just feels a bit dated and outmoded to me.  The fantasy genre has evolved past the massive doorstoppers, series of 10 books each, swords and sorcery and all the rest.  I'm sure those types of books are still being written and enjoyed, but I love that the genre has expanded to include so much else, too.  And so while I really enjoyed Game of Thrones when I first started the series, I have no real desire to continue with it.  I prefer the way fantasy is now.

And that's why I think Uprooted really works for me.  While Uprooted is very firmly rooted in traditional fantasy and folk tales, it is also very much a modern novel.  The book stands on its own without two more books to follow, features a gloriously strong heroine, focuses on friendship and caring for others, and there is no objectification of women (or men).  Hooray!

My favorite thing about Uprooted is one of its key themes, the push and pull between caring for individuals and caring for populations.  How important is it to save one person when an entire group of people is at risk?  Alternatively, how easy is it to lose empathy for others if you never consider them as individuals?  I loved the way Novik explored this with Agnieska and the wizards.  Agnieska is deeply rooted to her home, her family, and the people she grew up with.  She loves them all and knows them.  In contrast, the wizards, all of whom have lived far longer than her and seen everyone they care about come and go, seem to care very little for individuals.  They care more for symbols and countries and larger beliefs.  Both beliefs make sense, and I really appreciated the way both sides played out throughout the novel.

My other favorite thing about this book was the friendship between Agnieska and her friend, Kasia.  Some readers are apparently disappointed that Agnieska and Kasia's relationship did not become a romance.  I was not disappointed by that at all; I love when authors give equal footing to friendship as they do to romance.  Friendship can be so hard to write well because it develops deeply over time.  Novik took a friendship that had existed for both girls' entire lives, and she brought so much honesty and trust and forgiveness to it.  I loved everything about how this friendship was brought to life.  It was wonderful.

There is a romance in this book, but it does not take center stage.  While I found it believable in some ways, I also don't think the male character was developed well enough for it to capture my heart or imagination.  That said, I loved the way Agnieska acted in the romance.  She never considered herself unworthy, she never considered them unequal, and even when it seemed like maybe things wouldn't work out, she went on with her life doing good things for many people.  It was excellent.

This book got me through several nights of jet lag (or perhaps exacerbated the jet lag since I was totally open to reading it at all hours of night).  I think it was a little long at the end, but other than that, it was lovely.  Exactly the sort of fantasy novel that I love; I can't wait to purchase a copy of the book for myself.  And while I know I said I'm so thrilled that this is a stand-alone novel, I also would love to jump back into this world and spend more time there.

The Wrath and the Yawn

I was very excited to read Renee Ahdieh's The Wrath and the Dawn, pretty much entirely because I love anything based on the Arabian Nights.  Ahdieh's book got rave reviews on GoodReads, which was another good sign.  But really, it was all about the 1,001 Nights and those interlaced stories.

Which is why I was pretty disappointed when I realized that this book did not in any way center on the stories that Shahrzad tells her husband each night in an effort to extend her life.  From what I recall, we hear two stories that Shahrzad tells the caliph, which is significantly less than 1,001, I think you'll agree.  It is probably unfair of me to hold this against the book, but I definitely do.  I just really wanted all those layered stories, and I got zero layered stories.

Mostly, this book is about the dramatic love story between Shahrzad and her husband, Khalid, the caliph.  And all the heartache the two must endure.  In mostly agonizing silence.

It was difficult for me to be fair to the book after finding out that there are hardly any tales shared, especially when I also discovered that this book is, to quote Care, "more YA than the YA I usually read."  I nearly laughed aloud when, early in the novel, there was Jill's telltale sign of a YA novel, the hero tucking the heroine's hair behind her ear.  (I knew it was coming because her hair whipping around her face had been mentioned at least twice by that time.)

But there wasn't a lot of laughing in this book.  It's a lot of drama and tension around Shahrzad's Stockholm Syndrome of falling for her husband (after approximately 36 hours of marriage, from what I could tell).  She is filled with angst for loving someone who has killed so many women already, including her best friend.  At least, that's what we're told.  But as Shahrzad spends hardly any time in the book thinking about her friends or family that she left behind when she got married, it's hard for readers to feel much empathy for her situation. Once Shahrzad got married and moved to the palace, it was as though she lost interest completely in the people she left behind.   I wanted to know the people she left behind so that I could understand her guilt (which didn't last long).

It's not that Shahrzad is a weak character.  She's not.  She's fierce and stubborn and beautiful, and I can see why so many teenagers would fall completely in love with her.  But she didn't really develop as a character, we were just supposed to like her because she was independent and good at everything and didn't feel bound by the rules that usually governed women.  All of that just got tiring for me.  Shahrzad just blew either fully hot or fully cold.  Promptly after falling in love with her husband, Shahrzad switches from guilt about betraying her friends to anger with her husband for not divulging all his secrets to her.

There are other characters in this book.  Khalid, Shahrzad's husband, is also tortured and dramatic and beautiful.  His cousin and Shahrzad's handmaiden.  Shahrzad's first love, Tarak, with his piercing eyes.  (Shahrzad, in contrast, has "tiger eyes.")  Bedouins and magicians and armed guards.  I think they all could be pretty interesting people except that there is so much angst around Shahrzad and Khalid that they are not given the opportunity to develop very much.  And everyone and every moment is described in such flowery language.  It's hard to imagine 16-year-olds and 18-year-olds speaking in such a manner.  It was just a lot, and in many ways, a bit too much for me.

The Wrath and the Dawn is the first book in a duology.  I am not entirely sure if I will read the next book.  Though the story had some solid points and there is a fairly intriguing curse/mystery/magic situation brewing, I don't know if these characters are for me.  Too much hot and cold, too much too quickly, and not really enough focus on developing deeper characters and deeper emotions.

A darker, more ominous Paris

I was very excited to read Aliette de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings.  I enjoyed de Bodard's short stories; she writes science fiction with a feminist, Vietnamese perspective that I love.  I was excited to see what she would do with a fantasy novel set in Paris some time after the end of an alternate version of World War I.

The House of Shattered Wings focuses mostly on the inhabitants of House Silverspires, a group of fallen angels (Fallen) and humans (Mortals) that live and work together.  The house's power comes from its founder, Morningstar (Lucifer), who set great wards and shields over it before he disappeared 20 years ago.  Now, House Silverspires is under attack by an unknown force, and the other houses in Paris are more than willing to take advantage of any weakness.

This novel is both a fantasy and a mystery; the characters spend much of the time trying to understand what is threatening Silverspires, even as they wield magic and deal with the politics that are mainstays of any fantasy novel.  I like this combination a lot as it forces readers and characters to focus on motivations and there's less about the procedure and run of events.

There is a lot going on here - possibly too much for me.  I liked that de Bodard just dropped us into her world and gave us very few footholds to understand the background or history of her setting.  She clearly knows much more about the Paris she created than she chooses to share with readers.  I love when authors do that!  But this world was, for whatever reason, very complicated for me, and I often became confused.  For example, there are both Fallen and Mortals in the book, but I could not really keep track of which characters were Fallen and which were not.  And then it seemed like humans could wield magic, too, so I was confused by that, since at other times, I thought it seemed like humans had no intrinsic magic of their own.  And there were so many flashbacks, and I didn't know how far back the flashbacks were taking me.  Twenty years?  Sixty years?  300 years?  It depended on the character, and I became quite muddled.

Another thing that stood out to me in this book was the way de Bodard brought in colonialism.  One of the main characters, Phillippe, is Vietnamese and has a magic unlike anyone else in the story.  He is immediately treated with suspicion, as an outsider, and he in turn does not feel bound by the laws and loyalties other characters have.  He was brought to Paris to fight in a war he did not believe in, dragged from his home and given very little in return for the sacrifice.  He makes so many comments about colonialism throughout the book, how even very wonderful and kind people benefit from the system and keep it propped up, so that one side can continue to gain more than the other.  This is mirrored in the relationship that Fallen and Mortals have.  Fallen don't seem to care much at all about humans; they view them mostly as expendable.

The problem I had with Phillippe, and with all the characters, really, was that I didn't feel like I knew any of them.  It's hard to justify that statement, since the book is 400 pages long.  How could I spend so much time with these people and not know them at all?  And honestly, I don't know.  They interacted but never trusted each other, so it was hard to see a lot of connection between anyone.  They all had very different back stories, and I didn't learn any of those very well, so that made it difficult.  And none of them really liked each other, so we rarely saw anyone with their guards down or willing to say anything honest or true to each other.  It was hard to break through.

There are a few shorter prequels to this book that I think I will check out in the hopes of understanding the characters and the setting a little better.  The House of Shattered Wings is the first book in a series, though it can stand alone pretty well, for the most part (in that the main mystery is solved, though there are quite a few loose ends).  I definitely plan to continue with the series; I hope at some point the plot will take us to Vietnam!  But there's a long wait before the next book comes out, and this was a complicated story, so just something to keep in mind.

Even witches go through an awkward stage

Jillian Tamaki is an author whose work I really enjoy, and her newest book, SuperMutant Magic Academy, is no exception.

I didn't know a lot about this book heading into it except that it was about mutant humans going through high school.  I was under the impression it would be one story with many characters involved in a big plot.  That's not at all how the book is set up, though.  SuperMutant Magic Academy started as a web comic, so it's written in vignettes that are usually only one page long, much like a comic strip.  Through these, Tamaki provides funny, sweet, and realistic snapshots of high school life.  The characters interact with each other in the classroom, at lunch, in their dorms, and elsewhere.  So many lovely moments in so little space.

What is great about this book is that you can enjoy it just as much by reading one or two pages at a time or by reading it in much bigger chunks.  I would love a copy for my bookshelf; I imagine myself strolling over, picking the book up, choosing a page at random, and then smiling at the humor, poignancy and all-around wonderfulness that comes through on that page.  And then I'd probably read the next page, and then the next, and continue standing there, smiling, until my legs began to complain.

This book is nothing like other fantasy books set in boarding schools.  In fact, it's nothing like fantasy books.  It's more like Calvin & Hobbes.  The characters happen to be magical, but the magic is in zero ways important to the stories that are told (except sometimes to add a dose of situational humor).  Instead, what's important is a group of teenagers nearing the end of their time at high school, making and keeping friendships, understanding truths about themselves and others, learning about what is important to them, and dealing with the normal trials and tribulations of being a high schooler.  The characters are usually very fun and kind to each other; I especially liked how very popular, beautiful, and good-at-everything Wendy always chastised her friends for being unkind to anyone else.  She is the sort of person we all want to be friends with.  And the casual acceptance the characters have for their gay classmates is quite heartening as well.  It's not a big deal.  It doesn't define them.

But even kind people make mistakes sometimes or can be cruel without meaning to, especially at an age when we are all so insecure and worried about our looks and what other people think of us.  That comes through a lot, too, particularly with the character of Frances, the artsy girl that no one quite "gets" (even though she is dating the biggest jock at school).

It's just a really lovely book.  I highly recommend it!

Carnivorous horses #ftw!

I am not sure how she does it, but Maggie Stiefvater can take plots that in zero ways appeal to me and create amazing stories from them.  She did it with the whole star-crossed lovers thing in the Raven Boys Cycle, and now she's done it (or, she did it a while ago, and I've only just got around to discovering she's done it) with swimming carnivorous horses in The Scorpio Races.

Seriously, this book description had me a little nervous when I was considering which audiobook to download next.  It's about a boy who always wins races with carnivorous horses and a girl  who has never raced carnivorous horses but really needs the money, so enters the race.  And then they get to know each other and fall in love by... guess what?  Riding horses together.

It may come as a surprise to you, but I am not an animal lover.  I enjoy animals in the wild, in that I generally like to imagine animals roaming free in the wild and doing their thing.  Sometimes I see a photo of a puppy and think, "Aww!"  But I've never had a pet, I do not want a pet, and I am often flummoxed by the very real, very deep friendships that people have with their pets because I just can't really imagine what that's like.

Also, as a city dweller, it really pisses me off that so many people have dogs but don't take on the task of cleaning up after them.

So, anyway, stories about people's relationships with animals generally don't move me the way they do other people.  It's not like I'm dead inside (but maybe I am?), but I have never experienced that connection myself, so I don't feel the need to read about it.  All that to say - I was not particularly drawn to reading a book about two horse lovers falling for each other.

But I really enjoyed the audiobook versions of the Raven Boys series, and I figured I might as well get back into Stiefvater before the final book in that series comes out at the end of April.

And wow.  I should just trust Stiefvater implicitly (Ok, I say this, but I admit that I can't bring myself to read her werewolf series, either).  This post so far is just a lot of build-up to me not being able to explain to you why I enjoyed this book so much.  Yes, there are some great characters, including the two horse lovers, their horses and the stony, isolated island that is the book's setting.  This is Maggie Stiefvater, so the magical elements are brought to life in a very distinct manner.  The best way I have of describing Stiefvater's brand of fantasy is by saying it's like those massive urban graffiti murals.  There is structure, but there's also coloring outside of the lines.  There's beauty in the grit and smog.  There's a lot of symbolism you probably miss.  But, standing in front of it and looking at it, you don't really care that you don't fully understand it because it's obviously making a statement, and you are glad that you are a witness to it.

I've told you not so much about this book or its key characters, and that's because I feel like me telling you about the plot and the characters will not convince you to read the story.  So maybe just trust me, or trust Maggie Stiefvater, and read it.  Let me know what you think.

Who cares if you don't understand the story when the words are pretty?

I feel like all my reviews of Patricia McKillip books are basically the same.  "Wow, what beautiful, evocative language!  But... not sure I fully grasped what happened here."

Alas, the same can be said of my experience with The Bards of Bone Plain.  I feel like I was totally jiving with this story until close to the very end, and then I was not at all sure that I knew what happened.  Did I over-simplify it?  Over-complicate it?  Totally misunderstand the symbolism?  What happened to the cauldron and the other thing, why was there so much focus just on the tower?  And how did the physics of things work?  Where was the logic, or was it all just kind of atmospheric?  Agh, so confused!

Honestly, sometimes the way McKillip goes really deep into the intangibles can be very difficult for me to follow.  But there's usually enough of the rest of the story for me to enjoy everything.  Here, there's a light steampunk aspect to the novel (very light) and a wonderfully refreshing approach to the way women go about their business and live their lives.

And seriously, McKillip can write.  Especially her descriptions of music.

Then he heard Jonah's music melding with Zoe's like silver braided with gold, like sunlight with sky, small birds flying out of his harp, and butterflies out of hers, their voices winding together, sweet, sinewy, strong as bone and old as stone.  Together, they transfixed him, spellbound in their spell, his mouth still hanging open, and all the unplayed music in him easing out of his heart with every breath.

So yes.  Definitely worth the read, especially if you have a deep connection with music. 

Love and violence in post-apocalyptic Africa

As often happens when I gather stats for my end-of-year summary, I was a bit appalled by how few books I read in 2015 from my TBR shelves.  Thus, I ended the year with a book I've owned for a few years, Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death.

Who Fears Death is a popular choice for A More Diverse Universe, possibly because of #Diversiverse's fantasy and science fiction roots.  It takes place some time in the future in Africa, where a seemingly never-ending war continues between the Nuru, the oppressors, and the Okeke, the oppressed.  Onyesonwu is a child of rape, an Ewu, with strong magical abilities and a destiny to end the genocide of her Okeke people.  She learns how to control her powers (to an extent) from a revered shaman but all too soon, she must face her destiny.

It took me a long time to read this book because of the violent premise; Onyesonwu is a child of rape, and that fact reverberates through much of the story.  There is other sexual violence in this novel that is difficult to read, too, and those acts also have repercussions for characters through the story.  I do not enjoy books in which females experience a loss of agency and power over their own bodies (and this happens more often than I'd like in fantasy and historical fiction).  That said, it is a realistic portrayal of what life has in store for more people than we'd like.  And in Okorafor's story, every woman, from Onyesonwu's mother to all of her friends ,becomes a change agent who is able to influence and change events.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this book, though I admit I lost some steam in the second half.  I feel like so many fantasy stories get bogged down in the whole "journey to destiny" part.  It always seems to take forever, there's always some sort of internal drama in the group that's traveling together, and everyone is just waiting for the next big thing to happen.  Who Fears Death was no exception to this, and I found myself skimming a few chapters while Onyesonwu and her friends bickered their way through the desert.  However, there were some really cool characters introduced in this section, including a whole nomadic tribe of red people who traveled with the sandstorms.  Okorafor has a great sense of creativity, and the way she can bring history and tradition and culture to life in short descriptions and interactions is really impressive.

One of my favorite things about this book was the way Onyesonwu dealt with all of the stigmas against her - being female, being Ewu, being a foreigner in her hometown and all the rest.  Okorafor used her to make so many interesting points about sexism and racism and how even those who know you best can fall prey to stereotypes and jealousy and anger.  I loved that about this book, and I am so excited to see what Okorafor does with those types of issues in her other novels.

The power of friendship with inanimate objects

Care suggested The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane to me to help me out of my reading slump.  I trust Care's taste implicitly, and certainly in these matters, so I immediately put in a request for the book at the library.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane centers on a porcelain rabbit named Edward.  Edward thinks quite highly of himself, living a coddled life with a wealthy family.  But he doesn't think very highly of anyone else.  One day, though, he is lost, and over the next several years, Edward goes from person to person, learning the importance of friendship and love and loyalty.

Kate DiCamillo tells Edward's story in very simple language.  It's an easy read in that it doesn't take long to finish at all.  However, make sure you have some tissues handy because I was sniffling through much of the story.  I realize this is a children's story, but the part that really stood out to me was Edward's complete lack of agency in his own life.  It was so sad (especially later in the story, when Edward became a much nicer rabbit) to watch him just take what life threw at him, and try to make the best of it.

I had a version of Edward when I was a child.  I say "had," but my stuffed bear Chocolate is still with me.  And sometimes, when times are rough or I feel pretty lonely, I bring him out to bed with me and have a good sob session.  Chocolate has been with me through a lot.  There's something so comforting about sharing secrets and moments of weakness with someone who will never think worse of you.  And that's what was so beautiful about this book.  Edward was not only a friend to children but he was also a friend to lonely wanderers, mourning parents, dogs and other dolls.  All of us, many times in life, and all through life, just need a sympathetic ear and shoulder to cry on.  I love that about this story.  

Stories within stories within stories

I first heard about The Encyclopedia of Early Earth from Ana.  It grabbed my attention because it's one of those layered stories, in which people tell each other stories upon stories, and they all eventually ladder back up to the main one in a gloriously onion-like manner.  (Or rose-like manner, depending on your choice of simile.)  It focuses on a boy from the far north who leaves his home in search of himself and comes across many different people.  There are gods and queens and warriors and dogs, and several wonderful stories.

The Encyclopedia of Early Earth is one of those books that truly showcases the power of story-telling.  It uses deceptively simple words to convey beauty and love and heartache.

Also, it's a comic book!  With beautiful illustrations.

I sometimes complain about books I read that just seem to tell the same story that has been told over and over again.  I particularly tire of this in the fantasy genre (seriously, how many prophecies about a Chosen One can there be?), though it's true across all genres.  But a couple of recent reads have made me realize that, actually, I have nothing against authors telling the same stories over and over again, if they tell them well.  Isabel Greenberg tells her story so well that I'm pretty convinced she could tell me her coffee was cold and I'd be utterly enthralled by the second word.

Possibly I'm still raw from reading The Shepherd's Crown and reflecting on all the horrible things that have happened in the world this year, but one of my favorite things about this book was that it was ultimately about using stories to connect, to understand that we all have much in common.  Greenberg does this with such a light touch of humor and such evocative illustrations.  I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who needs a bit of comfort when life is rough.

It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you without a dope beat to step to

Well, hello again.

It's been a few months.  Sorry about that.  I basically just got through Diversiverse and then disappeared.

I don't know why 2015 has been such a difficult reading year for me, but it has been an upward battle.  The whole year, I have struggled to finish books.  I have marked more books as DNF this year than ever before.  Often, I don't even bother marking books as DNF.  I start a book and enjoy it for 50 pages or so, and then then never get back to it.  Other books, I just don't even start.  I now have a long walk to work instead of a long car ride, and for some reason, this has severely impacted my ability to concentrate on audiobooks.

All of which goes to say - it's not that I dropped blogging after Diversiverse, it's that I haven't finished a book for a really long time.  Or at least, not a book that I feel the need to talk about.

But I am trying to be more disciplined now.  As Care and Maree know from our Twitter conversations, classical music helps me concentrate while reading.  So now my reading is accompanied by Spotify's classical music selection.  (And, as you may see on my Twitter feed, I have a growing and uncontrollable love for puns that feature classical music composers and opera titles.  Who knows where I will go next?)

I finished reading Terry Pratchett's last book, The Shepherd's Crown.  This was difficult for all of the reasons (or lack of reasons) I stated above, with the addition of being a particularly poignant and  emotional read for me as a huge Terry Pratchett fan.  Actually, I started reading The Shepherd's Crown quite some time ago, but the first chapter had me weeping so much, I had to step away from the book. I mean, it's an AMAZING chapter, but goodness.  It was rough.

I'm not going to lie, it's basically impossible for me to objectively review The Shepherd's Crown.  I absolutely adore Tiffany Aching, I love her loyalty and her Beyonce-level Sasha Fierce-ness, I adore the Nac Mac Feegles, and pretty much everything about this series.  I may be putting things into my reading of this book that Pratchett never meant to be there, but the whole story felt so much like goodbye to me that it was almost too much.  Tiffany's absolute passion for her home and her people felt to me like Pratchett was writing a love letter to England and all he feels for his country.  The absolutely beautiful section where DEATH makes his appearance after so long was like a goodbye to all Discworld fans.  And the battle scene at the end and all that happens there - it was almost like Terry Pratchett for a minute took off his mask and showed us just how terrible he thinks the world is.  And then he reminded us that, even if the world really is terrible, some people work so hard to make it better.  I don't know if I can think of any author who has had as much of an impact on me as Terry Pratchett has.  I said as much in my post about his death.

I have seriously considered giving up blogging and putting up the "CLOSED" sign on this little piece of the internet.  It's a lot of work, and I don't know that I have much to say that is particularly new or relevant.  But then I read something like Terry Pratchett's last book, and it's not as though The Shepherd's Crown was the greatest book ever written, or even the greatest book Terry Pratchett has ever written, or even the best book in the Tiffany Aching series.  But, reading it, I wanted so much to talk to all of you about it, and ALL THE FEELS it gave me.

I am not being very coherent.  I am out of practice.  But.  Well.  I miss you.  I miss talking to you, and I miss discussing books, and I miss chatting on Twitter, and I miss emailing back and forth about plot developments and events and quotes that we don't share on our blogs because they cold be spoiler-y, but that we want to share with each other because we read the same book and we were affected by that book, and we want to share that experience with each other.  That's what blogging is for me!  No matter how sporadically I may do it.  

Gloriously diverse Regency era fantasy

If you remember my post about Zen Cho's short story collection Spirits Abroad, you'll know that I was super-stoked about Cho's full-length novel coming out, Sorcerer to the Crown.  I got an advance copy of this book through the help of fate and magic and pure luck, and so now I can tell you ALL OF MY FEELS about the novel!

I am probably the prime target for this book because:
1.  It is set in late 18th/early 19th century England.
2.  It is a fantasy novel.
3.  The main female character is half Indian, and that half is from southern India.
4.  The main male character is a former slave.
5.  The other kind-of main character is an old Malaysian woman.

Actually, now that I review the list, I feel like those are five things that would probably make ANYONE want to read this book, though I understand some people don't love fantasy and some people don't love historical fiction, and even though that is my ideal combination of all sorts of books, I know that is not the case for all of you.  In general, I feel sorry for all the amazing stories you are missing, but I get it!  I am probably missing BOATLOADS of awesome stories because I veer away from "literary fiction" and women's fiction.

Anyway, back to Sorcerer to the Crown.

The story centers on Zacharias Wythe, a freed slave with super-impressive magical abilities who, much to everyone else's chagrin, becomes Sorcerer Royal of England.  But magic seems to be leaving England, and Zacharias faces opposition and threats from everywhere, not least from some tiny island nation in the Pacific where vengeful female ghosts are attacking the populace.  Luckily, he meets a beautiful and amazingly talented woman, Prunella, who technically shouldn't practice magic but is really good at it, and the two set off to make everything better.

I admit that if I had a slight problem with this book, it was in the character development.  There are just a lot of people in this book.  And while I enjoyed spending time with both Zacharias and Prunella, and I think they were both awesome, I wouldn't say that they were fully fleshed out, complex people.  I would have liked to dig a little deeper with them.  But maybe Cho just had so much going on in terms of setting the scene and introducing the magical elements and explaining the class/gender/race relations between everyone that there just wasn't enough time to also develop the characters that well.  What I knew of Zacharias and Prunella I liked, but I hope that in future books, they are more full-fledged oil paintings than pencil sketches.

But seriously, I liked so many other things about the story!

One of my favorite things about Spirits Abroad was the way Cho infused all her stories with Malaysian culture, from using dialect to describing food to incorporating folklore and so much else.  She does the same thing here, even though the book is set in London and the main characters are not Malaysian, and I love that.  THIS IS WHY DIVERSITY IN PUBLISHING IS SO IMPORTANT.  How many people would think to combine Indian history with Malaysian folklore, add a healthy dollop of English Faerie, and then make light but awesome references to equal rights for women and people of color?  Not many.

And the feminism, it is awesome.  There so many different women, most of whom wield different sorts of power that complement and contrast with one another.  And Cho doesn't just hit you over the head with the feminism, she really just kind of pokes fun at history and pokes holes in its rules, and it's a lot of fun.  And then she also shows how women in different cultures (English, Malaysian, Indian and, er, faerie) push against their boundaries even while working within their cultures.

And then there's the race stuff, too!  I think Cho maybe could have gone further on the race component than she did, but this is a pretty light book, so I can understand why she didn't.  Suffice it to say that Zacharias (and, to a lesser extent, Prunella) never forgets that he is different, and so much of his personality and actions are informed by that fact.  He's always a complete gentleman, and utterly polite to everyone, so that no one knows just how frustrated and angry he is.  All because he doesn't want to give them any reason to remember how different he is.  It's subtly done but so powerful when you catch on.

All in all, this book is great!  I think you should read it.  And then tell your friends to read it!  Perhaps for A More Diverse Universe :-)

Note:  This review is based on an advance reader's copy.  I received an e-galley of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Gaiman's superbly atmospheric short fiction

Do you ever read a book and think to yourself, this is why I love reading so much, for the exact experience of having this book in my hands and seeing these perfectly-chosen words in this exact order and understanding just how beautiful language can be?

For me, that's pretty much par for the course on any book I've read by Neil Gaiman, but I am particularly struck by how great his short stories are.  Trigger Warning is a collection of stories that Gaiman himself feels are not very tightly connected with each other, but that come together brilliantly.

I received a free copy of Trigger Warning when it came out, but I admit that I waited a while to read it because Neil Gaiman himself narrates the audiobook version, and I really wanted to listen to him narrate the stories.  So, apologies to William Morrow for the delay on this review, but I have zero regrets about waiting for the audiobook because it was very, very good and 100% worth the wait.

There are several short stories in this collection ranging from short and funny to longer and creepier to pretty much everything in between.  Most of them are in the mysterious/creepy/spooky camp, so this would be a great read for Halloween.  I read it in July, though, and got some delicious shivers up and down my back, so I suspect it would work at any time of year.

One of my favorite things about this collection is the introduction.  In it, Gaiman gives readers short descriptions and backgrounds for each of the stories he included.  So many of his stories are in appreciation of other authors or cultural figures - Gene Wolfe, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Conan Doyle, David Bowie, Doctor Who... the list goes on and is so varied.  Apparently, Gaiman is pretty much invited to write a story for everyone famous who ever interacts with him, and he often obliges.  And sometimes, he writes stories for non-famous people, too.  Or just because.

One of my favorite stories in this collection is "The Sleeper and the Spindle."  It turns the story of Snow White on its head a bit, gives Snow White the agency and gumption that is so often lacking in fairy tale heroines, and is, to my delight, being published as a storybook all on its own, with illustrations.  It's the sort of storybook that I would give to all my friends' children as a gift to make sure that the next generation knows that girls can be powerful HERoes, too.

There are also stories about loss and heartache, the importance of family and friends to combat loneliness, and the search for love and redemption.  I love Neil Gaiman's stories because he so often writes about people who think of themselves as uncomplicated, unexciting folk, but then he gives them the courage and the power to do extraordinary things.  And they do.  And sometimes it's for the good and sometimes it's for the bad, but it's always a beautiful story and a huge treat to read.

Note:  I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Steampunk computer scientists!

Pretty much as soon as I heard about Sydney Padua's graphic novel The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, I wanted to read it.  A graphic novel set in some sort of alternate universe in which Ada Lovelace grows old and uses computers to solve crimes with her genius-but-awkward partner, Charles Babbage?  Yes, please!

I was a little overwhelmed by this book at the beginning.  There are a LOT of footnotes, basically at the rate of one per sentence.  Most of them are related to mathematical theories, historical writing, obscure (to me) Victorians, etc.  I admit I didn't read all of the footnotes (mostly because, in addition to footnotes, there are also extensive endnotes), so it's possible I missed some key action points in the book.

But honestly, I didn't really care.  This book was fun, regardless.  I love the idea of just turning Victorian society on its head and showing us that maybe some of them had well-developed senses of humor and mischievous smiles and poorly-timed snorts of derision.  I always imagine Victorians as either completely buttoned up or letting loose in bizarre ways, and I liked how Padua made the Victorians much more vivid and real and relatable.

And at the center, of course, are Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage.  (And, to a lesser extent, Queen Victoria.)  Partly because of the sense of motion and vigor in the artwork, partly because of Padua's great sense of fun, and partly because Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage were just amazingly larger-than-life characters, they really made the stories come alive.

But it's not all fun and games.  Well, it is.  But it's also science and math and economics and probability and so much more.  Basically, these stories are based on the premise that Lovelace and Babbage design and refine a very complex machine (the Difference Engine) that Queen Victoria would like to use to solve ALL THE PROBLEMS.

And they make many reasonable (and unreasonable) attempts to do so, or solve more mundane matters, even including a fantastic cameo by George Eliot.  But generally, they don't really make great progress.  But again, who cares?  It's so fun.

I really enjoyed everything about this book, and I learned a lot of fun history and science along the way.  It is so entertaining and just so fun to read; I highly recommend it to anyone with even a modicum of interest in Ada Lovelace, computers, technology, Victorian England, pocket universes, or anything else.

Review-itas: Books I didn't love

Finnikin of the Rock, by Melina Marchetta, is one of those books that so many people recommended to me.  Or, I should say, Melina Marchetta is an author that many people love, and I have never read her.  But I've had Finnikin of the Rock on my Kindle forever, and I finally read it!

Or, tried to.

The book reminded me of Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana.  It's a fantasy novel about displaced people trying to find their way home.  I really liked that part of the story - all these people, separated for years, finding each other and joining in The Quest, and trying to get home.

Unfortunately, there was also a massively inconsistent romance in the book that really annoyed me.  Sometimes Finnikin and this at-first-mute but then really talkative religious-novice (supposedly) Evanjalin are BFF, and sometimes they hate each other, and sometimes they love each other, and sometimes they want other people, and it was all just TOO MUCH for me.  Also, I thought Evanjalin was all over the place, character-wise.  So I didn't finish this one.

I did finish Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles, but that's really only because I was reading it on audiobook and I figured, since the book is about the apocalypse, that I should get to the end and see what happened to the world.

In this dystopian young adult novel, the earth's rotation is slowing.  The days are growing longer, the crops aren't growing at all, and Julia is growing up.  She's 11 years old, her best friend is moving away, and she has a big crush on a sk8r boi.

It's hard to be an adolescent at the best of times, and it's probably even harder to be one when the world is ending.  Julia goes through quite a bit of heavy stuff, but she also goes through life as a pre-teen.  She loses her best friend, she faces her parents' crumbling marriage, she tries to just be normal.  I liked the way Walker mixed the extraordinary with the ordinary to show what life could really be like in such a situation - people just keep trucking on.

That said, the book didn't really succeed for me.  Julia sometimes was far too deep for an 11-year-old.  And this was a very quiet book in many ways, which isn't exactly what I was expecting from a novel about the end of the world.  I appreciate that Walker didn't fill it with massive wars or thieving hordes, but I also wish she had done just a little bit more.

OMG, Asian-themed fantasy is so, so good!

About a month ago on Twitter, a bunch of us were talking about this amazing-sounding new book that comes out later this year, Sorcerer to the Crown.  It's by Zen Cho, and the quote about the book that got me salivating is from Naomi Novik, who says:

An enchanting cross between Georgette Heyer and Susanna Clarke, full of delights and surprises. Zen Cho unpins the edges of the canvas and throws them wide.

Sign.  Me.  Up!  This book is pretty much guaranteed to be on my #Diversiverse reading list this year, once I get around to promoting #Diversiverse.  (It will coincide with Banned Books Week, since so many books by POC are banned, so it's the last week of September, if you want to plan ahead.)

Anyway, after learning about Sorcerer to the Crown, I pretty much wanted to read everything else Zen Cho has written, and so I bought her short story collection, Spirits Abroad.  And while I think some of the cultural references went over my head, I AM SO EXCITED to read Sorceror to the Crown because I loved so much about this collection of stories!  What Aliette de Bodard did for me in science fiction - feminizing, globalizing it - Zen Cho is doing for me in fantasy.

The stories in Spirits Abroad cover a wide range of topics, from a vampire's first love to an old woman's remembrances of lost love, from an immigrant's desperation to fit in at school to a sister sprouting into a house, each and every one is fresh, original, and so full of wonderful depth.

I loved the way Cho infused every story with Malaysian folklore and history, and then helpfully provided author's notes for every story in which she explained the basis for the magical beings and events that took place.  And it's not like all of her stories were set in Malaysia or some small village, either.  Some of them revolve around a lion dance troupe-slash-ghost buster unit in the UK (and those stories are GREAT), and one is set on the moon.  But the way Cho brings her culture into each story, even if it's just a bunch of kids who traveled to English boarding school with sriracha in their suitcases (YES, I totally have done that before myself!), is great.  The dialect, the characters, the magical realism, it's all so different than anything I've read before, and I just loved everything about it.  It truly is one of those instances where you get a peek behind the curtain at everything that a more diverse publishing world can provide to us, and it's such an exhilarating, exciting peek.

I don't think I have a favorite story.  I would say that almost every story had truly funny bits - like the dragon who falls in love with a very practical woman in London, or the text messages two bystanders exchange while an old woman confronts her former lover in a very public space.  Some of them were heartbreaking, like the story about a girl and her sister and the home they have made for themselves, and the one about a lonely girl who is willing to sacrifice everything for a wish.  All of them speak to Cho's originality and depth of talent, and I am so excited to read more from her.  I cannot wait for Sorceror to the Crown to come out (September 1st!).  But until it's available, I highly encourage you to check this short story collection out.  It's so fun and so great, and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

A series that improves with every book!

I generally dislike reviewing later books in a series, but I am making an exception for Lev Grossman's The Magician's Land because this series improved so much from one book to the next, and this last book in the trilogy was really, really good.

At a time when I really couldn't scrape together the effort required to finish any book, The Magician's Land was just what I needed.  I borrowed it from the library just before leaving on my trip to Europe, did nothing but read it on the whole trip to Budapest, and then finished it by reading in the evenings.  I was completely wrapped up in the story, and in a year when I've really struggled with my reading, it felt so great to sink my teeth into a book.  This year, it's really the fantasy stories that keep my attention; I seem unable to get through any other books.

The Magician's Land picks up shortly after The Magician King left off, though it's partly told in flashbacks.  Quentin Coldwater is back on Earth, and he has a new mission in life (that I won't share due to spoilers).  Suffice it to say that this mission involves many characters from previous books and brings the series to a satisfying conclusion.

Honestly, at the beginning of this series, Quentin was such a horrible person.  I wanted to spend zero time with him, and I disliked most of his friends, too.  But he really does improve with age, and in this book, he's really pretty great.  And just the whole plot of this book was fantastic.  I loved the whole Ocean's Eleven-esque heist and the dark humor with which the team approached the job, I loved Quentin's focus on his goal, I loved the time we spent in Fillory with Janet, the whole story around the gods, just everything.  Grossman clearly has great love and respect for the fantasy genre, but he's so willing to poke fun at it and turn it on its head, and it's wonderful.

Granted, you do need to read both the first book (which is, I feel, not all that great) and the second book (which is better, but not amazing) in order to reap the rewards of this one, and many people may not feel that it's worth the investment.  But I read all three books in pretty short order, and I think the world Grossman has created and the people with which he populates that world are worth the time.  The pay-off is a slow burn, but it's a good one.  Such a satisfying conclusion to the series!  I hope you give it a go, if you are a fan of the epic or urban fantasy genres.

Meet Balsa, your new hero

Moribito:  Guardian of the Spirit, by Nahoko Uehashi, is the first book in a ten-book series of which I was completely unaware.  It's set in a fantasy version of medieval Japan and centers on this amazing woman, Balsa, who is the greatest martial artist ever and who works as a bodyguard.  Her new charge is Prince Chagum, who has been possessed by a spirit.  He is being pursued by people who want to kill him and by some sort of animal who wants to eat the spirit inside him.

I am not sure how I first heard about this book, but I assume it was on a blog somewhere.  I thought it was a graphic novel, but it's not, though there is gorgeous artwork on not just the cover but throughout the story.  I also don't think I realized it was just the first in a long series, of which only the first two books have been translated into English.  Hopefully the rest are translated soon!

There were a lot of things I really enjoyed about this story.  First, it's a fantasy adventure series that features a woman as the hero, which is awesome.  Balsa is an amazing fighter who possibly enjoys fighting a little bit too much.  She has a slight romantic interest, and that man is a healer who waits patiently for her to return to him, another great example of role reversal.  A third very powerful character is an old woman.  Again - how awesome is this cast of characters?  I love the way Uehashi took what is a fairly common plot - a strong, weary person promised to help a smaller, weaker, but important person to safety - and twisted all of it around to give women and men roles they normally wouldn't get in a fantasy novel.

I also LOVED the setting.  Loved, loved, loved.  Everything felt so real, from the heavy snow in the mountains to the simple recipes.  And the way the characters interacted with each other based on class and role was so different than anything I had come across before.  It was excellent.  Uehashi wrote a novel for children and young adults but within these pages lies a lot of commentary - how facts can be embellished or erased; the power of folklore and stories; and the importance of understanding the truth, and not just listening to what people tell you.

That said, the book was not without its flaws.  The story did not flow very smoothly.  There were multiple worlds existing in the same space, which is a complicated idea to describe, and I don't know if the translator did Uehashi justice.  The description of the spirit (actually an egg) that lived inside Chagum and the animal that wanted to eat the egg were also very odd.  There were several disparate parts that were all supposed to come cleanly together at the end, but instead, it felt like cutting and pasting and the result was a little haphazard.  Hopefully the second book is better translated and easier to follow.

BUT, seriously, this book is less than 250 pages with big font and I read it on a rainy afternoon and evening.  The negatives above are, in my opinion, outweighed by the characters and the unique setting.  Check it out!