V.E. Schwab – A Darker Shade of Magic

I feel a little mean for not liking this more. I liked the general mood of derring-do, and I liked the two principal characters (especially after they met and started interacting directly). There are some fun set pieces (many of which feel like they would translate well to film). But I found the relationship of

Lucy Score – The Christmas Fix

Enemies-to-lovers + Reality-show-hijinks + Christmas = OMG The set-up is already in catnip territory for me, but this is very well executed. The protagonists’ burgeoning mutual attraction evolves naturally and credibly despite the friction their roles impose on them. The book has a large and likable supporting cast, very warm tone overall, but not treacly.

Lucy Score: The Worst Best Man

I loved Mia Sosa’s book of the same title so much that I read a bunch of reviews, looking for other readers as enthused about it as I was … and I stumbled on one that mentioned also really liking this novel. And I did, eventually, really like this too. What won me over primarily

Mia Sosa: The Worst Best Man

Things I found delightful about this book, an incomplete list: vivid, credible portrayal of my hometown (made me sorry I never went to “The Grill from Ipanema” when I lived there, though); learned a bit of Portuguese; #enemiestolovers that I believed on both sides; protagonists’ careers are important to the plot/theme, and convincingly depicted; had

Gilbert Sorrentino: Lunar Follies

One of the interesting things about Gilbert Sorrentino’s Lunar Follies is how little I can say about it, despite its formal structure, without departing for the subjective. It consists of 53 brief pieces, few more than a handful of pages long, named after features of the moon, ordered alphabetically. (In fact, its formalism and almost

Robin Sloan: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

Overall I really liked Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. Precisely observed details of the sort of tech culture I’m well-qualified to comment on the realism of are juxtaposed with a surreal shadow conspiracy, a dash of derring-do, and a hefty, but not overbearing, dose of the metaphysical. The novel explicitly acknowledges the influence of the likes

Dave Simpson: The Fallen – Searching for the Missing Members of The Fall

The Fallen has been on my to-read shelf for a while, but it was The Fall’s new release, Re-Mit that made me actually pick it up. Variously storming and shambling, Re-Mit forcibly recalls legendary BBC DJ John Peel’s oft-quoted praise of the band, “always different, always the same.” Lead single “Sir William Wray” sounds like

Jo Stanley: Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages

A history of female pirates faces formidable challenges: career criminals tends to be systematically sensationalized and mythologized, pirates were overwhelmingly from a socio-economic class virtually ignored by traditional historians, and the doings — or even presence — of women is likewise ignored by many historical sources. A handful of female pirates left a verifiable history

Dave Shelton: A Boy and a Bear in a Boat

This is an odd little book for sure. Shelton’s illustrations have some of the whimsy of Peggy Fortnum’s classic drawings of Paddington Bear, but the story of this unnamed ursine and lad, though grounded in a wealth of specific physical detail, is almost certainly too amorphous for most children’s taste. The book plainly operates at

Lynn Thomas, Deborah Stanish (ed): Whedonistas! A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them

This collection of essays about Joss Whedon’s creations (through Dollhouse; it’s pre Cabin in the Woods/Avengers) includes contributions from writers whose work I already know (Jane Espenson, Emma Bull, Catherynne Valente…) some I didn’t, and some who aren’t writing professionals. It’s kind of all over the map: there’s some really insightful critical analysis, and there’s