Review: Cinder

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thus beginneth the best "let's-take-a-fairy-tale-and-fracture-it" story since Once Upon a Time, easily. In fact, it's actually pretty easy to see certain characters from the Once-verse as their counterparts here, but none more so than Levana:



I also liked the way Meyer kept throwing in little details that allowed me to guess where the story would go next, but not actually act on those details until much later. My favorite character by far, though, is Kai, that excellently written Prince Snarking, followed closely by Iko and Cinder herself. Not for nothing did I write an in-universe movie adaptation into Red Rain as the Snow Bros' double date with their respective love interests.

Okay. Having finished my long-overdue reread of this first Lunar Chronicles book, I'll soon be continuing with the rest of the series. Scarlet, Cress, and Fairest are already in my TBR pile, with Winter and Stars Above soon to follow. Stay tuned!

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Review: Poisoned Blade

Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first book of Elliott's Court of Fives series presented an interesting look at a class-driven fantasy society combining elements of Victorian England and ancient Greece, but as action-packed as it was, the story just didn't cut as deep as it could have, I don't think. But here, in Poisoned Blade, Elliott really ups the ante with a stronger social-commentary game in particular. Here, more than ever, it's clear that colonialism helps really inform this book and especially Jes's experiences, she being mixed-race - and one of those race being very definitely black-coded. I know a lot of people are sick and tired of Amandla Stenberg being in every YA film adaptation, but here's a role I think was tailor-made for them, giving them the chance to finally be more of a Katniss than a Rue, if you know what I mean. And while Poisoned Blade is a bit of a long slog, its thought-provoking nature, particularly when it mirrors real-world racism, makes it far and away an improvement over its predecessor. Here's hoping that Burning Heart thus caps the trilogy off in high fashion!

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Review: Thirteen Rising

Thirteen Rising by Romina Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another case, in this series, of a 3.5 which I'm generously going to round up to a 4 - and 4 is quite appropriate considering this is the fourth, and final, book. Thirteen Rising finally wraps up Romina Russell's epic blend of sci-fi and fantasy with maybe not all the loose ends tied up, but definitely a fairly neat bow. The book begins with a long Mind Screw that resolves the diabolical cliffhanger of Black Moon, courtesy of a nasty little nightmare-inducing Sumber gun, and ends with a long, bloody fight in which we get a death toll worthy of Mockingjay or Allegiant, though perhaps not Deathly Hallows. Russell, however, manages to keep things moving fast the whole time, not letting off on the brake until the very, very end.

And now to the Zodiac series, I say vas ir...anoshe.

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Review: Not Your Sidekick

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've seen some hype for this book floating around, being a very diverse YA superhero story, so on that knowledge alone, I picked this one up after finally spotting it in the wild at my library. Inside, though the book was a little dragged down by a slow pace in its early pages, I was still very pleasantly surprised by a lot of what I found inside. Not the diversity so much - I went in knowing there'd be some good PoC and LGBT+ rep, and there was even some looks at the dark side of the latter, with Jess expressing how uncomfortable she was, as a bi girl, around the gay-male-dominated Rainbow Allies club - but more the fact that, while I thought this would have a modern setting, it was instead futuristic and post-apocalyptic, sometime in the 22nd century, over 100 years after "the Disasters" devastated the world and awakened superpowers in a certain percentage of the population. That, plus the fact that the distinction between Heroes and Villains in this future world is pretty much all manufactured for PR purposes, and there's a hell of a lot of overlap between the two, actually. Though futuristic in setting, Not Your Sidekick feels very damn relevant in today's marketing-saturated world, like all good sci-fi material. My next challenge, and I choose to accept it: ensure that my library carries Not Your Villain, to which I'm especially looking forward because I'm thinking Bells will be the star of that show. And also Seven Tears, the synopsis of which (from the back of this book) I relate to all too much.

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Review: The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wasn't quite as impressed with The Girl in the Spider's Web as I was with Stieg Larsson's original Millennium series, but David Lagercrantz's second entry, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, raises his game considerably and becomes my favorite book of his yet, as well as my favorite Lisbeth Salander story since perhaps The Girl Who Played With Fire, if not Dragon Tattoo. Though a lot of the story threads established in the previous book are largely cast aside, Eye includes a few new threads that not only deal heavily in racism and misogyny (and fake news, making it very topical and timely for a series that began very heavily rooted in the early 2000s and I'm pretty sure less than ten years have passed in-universe since Book 1, but that's okay) and Lisbeth basically going undercover in a women's prison, but also in a strange, strange borderline sci-fi plot that reads like the unholy love child of James Rollins' The Last Oracle and Orphan Black. No clones, but creepy Nazi-esque psychological experimentation with twins, particularly Roma twins. Between these two main plots that Lagercrantz cooks up, he crafts a faster, tighter story than his previous effort, or anything Larsson ever wrote. No offense to the master, of course. But this latest book in the series, I'm really hoping it's not the last - and I'm dying for the movie of this one even more than I am for Spider's Web!

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Review: Turtles All the Way Down

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I promised myself I wouldn't read another John Green book after reading and not enjoying The Fault in Our Stars. I broke that promise for this book, yielding to the temptation of one of several extra copies sitting on my library's Lucky Day shelf. Turtles All the Way Down, I couldn't even finish it. I mean, not unlike TFIOS, it had its moments of fun and funny - I especially liked Harold because I've got a very similar car, though a Camry instead of a Corolla, and also the numerous Star Wars references and allusions to the fanfic that Green's cast of characters indulge in. (Though the implication that a guy would be gross enough to send an unsolicited dick pic because he also happens to be a "loser Kylo stan," I felt attacked by that, lol.)

But unlike TFIOS, this book didn't have much of a plot to keep things going. I get that Green was going for good OCD rep, and for what it's worth I've heard a fair few OCD readers appreciate his efforts, but when the book is written in such a rambling, stream-of-consciousness style, it kinda diminishes the entertainment value for me. It makes me feel like, after 60-100 or so pages of little to no plot advancement, not to mention the constant feeling that Green's just polishing this off because he knows he can write anything and people will lap it up, there's really no point in me continuing this book any longer. It really just isn't for me, my friends. Maybe next time John Green gives us a new book, I'll have finally learned to avoid it.

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Review: The Ship of the Dead

The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

More of a 4.5 than a pure 5 like most other Riordan books have been for me, but I'm gonna round up for a few good reasons. While I really, really wish this wouldn't be the end of Magnus Chase's series, at least I can rest easy knowing that Uncle Rick isn't done with this universe yet, not as long as we still have what's looking like three more Trials of Apollo novels to go. Hopefully Magnus will be an integral part of those books, even if it's just a glorified cameo like we often get these days for old faves like Percy and Annabeth. As for the story behind this book, it's surprisingly slow and heavy on the build-up - but that build-up really pays off when we get to the climax in which one of Riordan's top First Person Smartasses gets to face off against Loki in a battle of insults. It takes forever for this to happen, but when it does, it's classic Riordan in all the ways, and a very inventive tweak of the usual "final battle" trope, easily rivaling the action highs that were The Last Olympian as far as Riordan series-enders go. And on the romance front, we get some very nice developments here, helped along by the fact that Magnus - at least, according to Uncle Rick - is pansexual. Let's just say that the ship that low-key started construction for me in The Hammer of Thor gets to sail here. Not quite as smoothly as I was hoping for, but as smoothly as we can ask for, I guess.

To Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, I now say ave atque vale, though, again, I really, really hope this isn't the end of Magnus. Or Alex. Or Sam. Or any of our other friends in Valhalla.

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Review: All the Crooked Saints

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'm neither a Maggie Stiefvater super-stan nor an anti-fan, so when this latest book of hers erupted in a storm of controversy almost from the moment it was announced, I largely stayed out of it, hoping to reserve judgment till after I'd read the book. Well, I've read it - or, at least, I tried to. Because as much as I found myself relating to some of Stiefvater's heroes of this day, I also found this book grossly impenetrable, trying way too hard in a lot of departments up to and including imitating magical realism and its Latinx (specifically Mexican, in this case) cultural origins. Being white, I obviously have little to bring to the table when it comes to racial rep, but I think Stiefvater rendered the Soria family and their Catholic roots (as well as how aware they are of how they've strayed from them) as well as she could have, for what it's worth. Barring some research issues - I can't unsee the reactions from Latinx readers when they found out the book was set in a town whose name translated to "Rare Dick" - I feel like she wrote the book and its characters with more cultural sensitivity than when she wrote, say, Henry Cheng.

Still, though, persisting throughout the whole book is the feeling that Stiefvater decided to write a magical-realist story (or an imitation thereof, if you subscribe to the belief that magical realism must by definition originate, in content and creator both, in Latinx, African, or any other culture still feeling the repercussions of colonialism) not so much as an homage to the genre or to Mexican culture as an excuse to cut loose with her usual dreamy prose. That dreamy prose, not unlike in The Raven Cycle, here feels like it's an attempt to cover for thin characters and plots, to make the book seem more profound than it really is.

Don't get me wrong, the characters are often the book's greatest strength - some are kind of a saving grace for me, as I kept reading just to know if they would come out all right in the end - but only two or three really make much of an impression. Pete, of course, the guy who needs a miracle most of all because he's got a hole in his heart (and marijuana ain't gonna help much with that, is it?); Joaquin (no accent on his name? Or am I wrong?) bringing flashes of funny even as his whole "Diablo Diablo" pirate-radio persona feels like he's trying too hard to be edgy and rebellious; and Beatriz. She's a strange case for me, because the whole "chica sin sentimientos" thing she's got going on made me feel like Stiefvater coded her, unintentionally or not, as autistic. Coded, though not outright stated, and if so, reliant on some bad stereotypes which rub me, as an autistic reader, the wrong way. But I'm a little more willing to let it go than I am with, say, Adam, whom I still feel Stiefvater made canonically bi more to satisfy Pynch (and Blue/Gansey by extension) shippers than to believably write a queer boy figuring his sexuality out. Mostly because where I especially relate to Beatriz is her need to escape Bicho Raro.

Like I said, I'm not really devoted or opposed to Stiefvater and her work. This one, I'm sorry to say, isn't her best. It's on the bestseller list, of course, but really only because of both hype (from the usual Stiefvater stans) and anti-hype (from those who mistrust her for her poor track record with racial rep), and I don't think it lives up to either as much as you'd think it would. It's a beautiful book, to be sure, but it falls back on a lot of Stiefvater's biggest flaws as a writer too, being indulgent and ethereal to the point where it so often alienates me as a reader. I think next time I try a magical-realist book, I'll go for something a little more authentic.

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Review: The Flash: Hocus Pocus

The Flash: Hocus Pocus by Barry Lyga
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If I'm not mistaken, this is to be the first of a potential series of Flash adventures from Barry Lyga, based on the CW TV series - and while I know Lyga best for his often very dark YA books, this more MG-oriented book marks a much-needed return to his geeky roots.

Hocus Pocus could be a lost episode of the third season of the TV series, but with a few small changes courtesy of Lyga that make the story even better. Sadly for me, one of those changes is not a removal of WestAllen - heck, a lot of my friends in the fandom might run screaming from this book just for the prologue alone, and frankly I think the book could've done without the prologue, unless it was meant to imply that this is on an Earth identical to Earth-1 in every way except that the Flashpoint twist never happened. Just like on the show, the WestAllen scenes feel forced and corny (though at least Barry and Iris draw attention to that fact.) Also, Julian is conspicuous by his absence, with his function in the story largely given to Captain Singh instead, at least in terms of being Barry's superior and constantly wondering why the heck Barry's bailing on everything.

That said, though, I love how Lyga's takes on certain characters - namely, Wally and Caitlin - improve on their TV show counterparts, with Wally even more putting the "Kid" in Kid Flash and cutting loose in a way Keiynan Lonsdale really hasn't gotten the chance to do yet (and why can't he? The man's made of more sunshine than Supergirl, and that's saying something!), while Cait not only gets to show off her intelligence, but also doesn't have her Killer Frost powers bringing her down like the TV writers keep insisting on doing because they can't give her a Grey Jedi-like sense of balance for whatever reason. Lyga also gets Joe, Cisco, H.R. (thank God for H.R. Wells!), and especially Barry quite on point. And while Hocus Pocus isn't the darkest villain Lyga's created yet (not when we've got his books like I Hunt Killers and sequels, or Boy Toy, for that matter), his mind-controlling powers, written scarily similarly to Kilgrave, made me want to do like Reverse-Flash Wells and vibrate my hand through his chest. Especially when he turned my DC fave into his top puppet - though Bar being Bar, he's too smart to entirely lose his faculties.

While I'm extra-psyched for this book's Supergirl counterpart Age of Atlantis next month, I'm also looking forward to the promise of another Barry Lyga Flash novelette to follow up from this one. With that cliffhanger, a perfectly tantalizing teaser just like on the show, there better be one!

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Review: Origin

Origin by Dan Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've always been a fan of Dan Brown's books, even though by now I know full well they're actually pretty poorly researched in addition to just plain poorly written sometimes. But therein lies the fun, because as inaccurate as a lot of Brown's stories are (even though he'll insist otherwise), it's still as engrossing as ever because he makes you believe it, even for a moment. This fifth Robert Langdon book is no exception, and is certainly something of a return to form for Brown, as well as a retrospective look at elements of several of his earliest stories. Returning to Spain for the first time since Digital Fortress - and portraying the country in a far more positive light, even if he implies that it being the last of the great Catholic monarchies makes it a very backwards place - and giving us some ultraconservative Catholic villains to rival those of Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, Origin feels like a more worthy follow-up to The Lost Symbol as well, certainly more in line with the scientific wonders of that book than the dark, deadly Inferno (the infamous twist ending of which is hardly alluded to at all in here - maybe Brown regrets that, and I'm certainly glad the 2016 movie version removed it.)

It's a little amusing for me too with the aforementioned demonization of the religious right - from not only Christianity either, but especially a disturbing sedevacantist sect that literally canonizes Hitler and Franco - but also very timely considering the disturbing rise of the far right these days. The reference to a "forgetting pact" in Spain, trying to whitewash its own history like Franco never happened, makes me think of how the same is so often done in America, trying to sweep our sins under the rug (like they won't just fester and attract flies.) As for the science of this book, well, I won't pretend to understand it all, but it still makes a fair amount of sense - especially with the biggest twist of all, the only one I couldn't entirely see coming. And hey, I'm going to have a few thoughts in my head about humanity pretty much for the rest of my life thanks to this novel, so naturally, Brown's done his job and then some, as always.

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Review: Framed!

Framed! by Malcolm Rose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As my first read for my book group at work, I have to say this one was a fun one, if a little difficult to figure out what exactly it wanted to be. The murder-mystery part was there, sure, and it had a nice little sci-fi twist with Malc the robot sidekickj, as well as our teen-prodigy YA protagonist. (I might also want to recommend this book to middle-grade readers, though the violence level is just high enough that perhaps not.) But then there were some strange little nuggets of world-building, implying a sort of dystopian setting (after all, where else would the government be so invested in making sure artists reproduced more artists, architects reproduced more architects, etc.?), and because of how short the book is, these more unsettling elements are all but left to take a backseat to the murder mystery. I suppose maybe the sequels will expand on this somewhat - hopefully so if I'm to continue the rest of this series.

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Review: Murder of Crows

Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book 2 of Anne Bishop's The Others series doesn't really bring too much new to the table, but it does continue in the first book's strangely addictive style blending paranormal romance with urban and contemporary fantasy. Though the world-building underpinnings are still a bit uncomfortable because of the parallels between human-terra indigene relations and ongoing real-world colonialism issues (even if the indigenous-coded shifters are dominant), they're nothing compared to the highly disturbing main plot involving what basically amounts to the trafficking of cassandra sangue. Not only are they sold for sex (it seems there's a pretty widespread underground CS fetish community in-universe), but for drugs made from their magic blood. In between all of this, Bishop fills the story with tons of small character moments, usually involving Meg getting to know Simon and all the Wolf pups a little better (the cookie scenes, in particular, are pretty funny, as are, to an extent, the scenes highlighting Simon and Meg's unresolved sexual tension), and all contributing to my need to keep on reading the rest of the book. So, while it's not really my favorite series by a long shot, I'm still invested enough to keep on reading. Pretty soon I'll be picking up the third book!

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Review: Into the Black

Into the Black by Ava Jae
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was lucky enough to win a signed ARC in a Twitter giveaway from Ava Jae themself, and holy Christ I'm so in love with this book! Though I loved Beyond the Red when I first read it, about a year or so ago, Into the Black, the continuation of Jae's trilogious masterpiece of Star Thrones-slash-Game of Star Wars blows its predecessor out of the water, one of the most six-star-worthy books I've read this year - and bear in mind this has been a banner year for YA as it is, but publishing is really saving one of its best and brightest new books for the eleventh month (I almost said "hour," haha) with Into the Black, and it'll be my mission (which of course I choose to accept) to ensure you're not sleeping on it when the book comes out!

(Sorry, Cassie Clare, but I think you've fallen out of contention for one of the top prizes at the Pinecone Awards.)

The royal intrigue in which Kora and Eros find themselves entangled forms most of the story's backbone, but its real appeal lies in a lot of smaller moments and character developments. Eros' endless affection for Mal, for instance. Also the spot-on incorporation of themes of prejudice and marginalization, even more so than in Beyond the Red, particularly since Eros now provides good intersectional rep. He's bi, and pretty well in the closet throughout most of the book because he's spent his life in environments that aren't at all queer-inclusive, and then he meets the right guy who helps him start coming out of his shell in all the ways. Though I loved the Kora/Eros ship in Book 1, I'm so much more here for Eros and Deimos and their dynamic, easily comparable to Mateo and Rufus from They Both Die At The End. I see way too much of myself in Eros, especially how he feels unsafe coming out (and yet watch me, hiding behind my online alias, being a lot more open about it like Simon chatting with Blue), and for that reason, this #ownvoices bi reader gives Ava Jae all the thumbs up.

As for the main story, getting Eros to really stake his claim to the throne...well, I can't really go into that because spoilers. But what I can tell you is that Jae, using their gift for action when they're not weaponizing their gift for romance, throws down an intense climax combining elements of Beyond Thunderdome, Insurgent, and Taran Matharu's The Novice. You'll read it gasping for breath the whole time, then be sorely disappointed that you'll have to wait at least another year for the trilogy's finale in The Rising Gold.

(And speaking of that book, I'm kinda hoping for the cover to have blue as its dominant color, to complete the bi-pride color scheme we have with the pinkish Beyond the Red and purplish Into the Black covers.)

Ava Jae, you awe and some genius, I salute ye.



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Review: They Both Die at the End

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

MY OFFICIAL MATEO TORREZ THEME SONG:

"Alone and scared
I sit here and I stare into the emptiness
Feeling emptiness
I am waiting for my eyes to open wide
I am waiting for my heart to feel alive
'Cause I've been dead..."
-ChronoWulf

MY OFFICIAL RUFUS EMETERIO THEME SONG:

"I said I'm gonna buy a gun and start a war
If you can tell me something worth fighting for
Oh, and I'm gonna buy this place, that's what I said
Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head..."
-Coldplay

I think by now, for the third Adam Silvera book, I should know to expect to give him five stars for feels alone, and yet I'm never quite prepared for the Amazing Spider-Man 2-level weapons-grade feels he serves up. They Both Die At The End, spoileriffic title and all, is absolutely no exception, and as with both of Silvera's previous books, it left my feels more than a little bruised and battered.



Of course, there were also more than a few sweet moments too. Moments where we see just how much having a Last Friend can help your deathday. Moments where we port over to people elsewhere in town in this alternate world that's so scarily obsessed with death it can't possibly be real...oh wait, it pretty much is. Such is the magical-realist touch Silvera graces us with here, more than in any of his previous books - heck, I found myself thinking of Exit West time and again when the story went on one of these tangents. Moments where you start to wonder about the metaphysics of it all, which go pretty much unexplained in the midst of Silvera's genius world-building, but that's okay, because the theories Mateo and Rufus discuss at one point (like the "two afterlives" theory) are so much more tantalizing when unproven. Moments of glorious geekboyishness - the real reason, for me, why I can't and won't ever stop reading this man's bibliography, because even I don't reference Harry Potter (sorry, Scorpius Hawthorne - I mean, of course this takes place in the same 'verse as More Happy Than Not, amirite?) and Spider-Man to quite this degree, I don't think. Moments of quiet queer affirmation, the other real reason why I'm so into Silvera's work, and why I wish they were around when I was a little younger. (Insert me still searching for an alternate universe, like Griffin would, where that's the case.) And of course, moments of love and sweet awkwardness in which the boys Silvera gifts us with today really channel their inner Andrew Garfields.



Let me tell you, when I first heard this book was a thing, my mind immediately jumped to a sort of Red Band Society scenario in which They Both were going to die because they were both terminally ill. Silvera throws my expectations out the window, burns them to the ground, and dances on the ashes like there's no tomorrow in this book, in which every chapter brings up a few more surprises, and maybe a few more laughs, but always the threat of tears prickling my eyes, especially with less than twenty pages to go when they really burst forth, and then, even right at the very, very end, a surprise in store. (No spoilers.)

But those feels will gut-punch you and that's a promise. Even as I type this, I'm still looking a little like this guy, whom my most loyal Pinecones will recognize as my standard response to all Adam Silvera books for always and eternity:



Okay, now I have to go to bed because I gotta get up in less than seven hours for another day selling books, and my store STILL doesn't have a single copy of this book on the shelves at all. But you'll be damn right I'll be hand-selling the shit out of They Both Die At The End first chance I get.

And as I go to bed wondering who my Last Friend would be if I ever needed one - except not really, because I totally know who it'd be, and wouldn't you know it, we probably would wind up being Deckers on the same day - I leave you with one more awe and some GIF to perhaps brighten your heart and strengthen it before reading this book like I attempted to do with an overload of chocolate ice cream and chocolate-creme Oreos before starting my final push through the book tonight.



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Review: Every Deadly Kiss

Every Deadly Kiss by Steven James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another story with Patrick Bowers, though this one, the tenth overall, challenges expectations with its unusual blend of two major story arcs - one involving a former child star turned FBI agent (and her horrifying backstory - you'll probably never look at any child star the same way again after reading this book!), the other, a fairly reluctant jihadist, one who doesn't 100% subscribe to the same warped ideology as do his comrades, and armed with a very deadly, and very unique, weapon indeed. Set between Every Crooked Path and The Pawn - and with an ending implying at least one more good story in that in between - Every Deadly Kiss, like its immediate predecessor, benefits from James' use of a floating timeline. You'd expect this book to take place sometime in the late 90s to early 2000s (that is, if the original Bowers Files series takes place roughly around the times the books came out), but James adorns this story with the high-tech nature you expect in a story of this decade, heavy on social media apps (clearly modeled on the likes of Tinder and Snapchat in particular) and even tinges of biopunk with the big terror plot. And as with all of the other novels to date in the Bowers Files, James gives us such a blazing fast plot that well over 500 pages read all too quickly. Seriously, why aren't more people reading these books? They're some of the most underrated crime stories out there. Dark but not excessively so, and adrenaline-pumping like nobody's business.

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Review: The Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've seen Patrick Rothfuss' name floating around the internet and book blurbs for quite a while, and it's only now, after his books came highly recommended by one of my Stanford Bookstore managers, that I've finally picked up The Name of the Wind. This book, it starts out pretty slowly, but when we finally get into Kvothe's POV and he starts really telling his own story, that's when the book really begins to shine. Kvothe's story is long, but richly detailed, packed with surprises, and laced with tons of the sort of humor so often lacking in fantasy novels because they tend to be either too self-serious, too much of an homage to Tolkien, or both. It's pretty good for fans of Jay Kristoff, or of Jim Butcher, particularly the Cinder Spires series. I can't wait to read the sequel! Though, to paraphrase my manager, we'll likely all be retired by the time Rothfuss finally releases the end of the trilogy.

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Review: Never Never

Never Never by Brianna Shrum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second Peter Pan retelling I've read in the last year or so, I think this one, I enjoyed a lot more because of how uniquely it centered James Hook and his rise from a Lost Boy to a feared pirate captain. Though I've spent months, if not years (well, I've only been on Twitter for two anyway) being mutuals with Brianna Shrum, it wasn't until very recently that I found out my library happened to have this book of hers, and I'm very glad I stumbled across it after all this time.

Here, Hook's story is beautifully tragic as he gets suckered into the charm of Neverland and then, after it becomes clear that he's not the perfect fit for this place, pigeonholed into the role of villain and forced to live there for the rest of his days. And he's not the only one - all the rest of the pirates and the Lost Boys, and of course Hook's love interest Tiger Lily, are mere pawns moving around the board at the whim of the Pan, pretty much. Though this version of Pan isn't quite so outright villainous as, say, the infamously iconic Once Upon A Time version, Shrum's Pan feels all the more sinister for how understated he is.

I rather wish there was a sequel to Never Never. Or, failing that, that it could've been the first in an anthology series where Shrum reimagines famous fairytale villains as tragic anti-villains instead.

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Review: Wonder Woman: Warbringer

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

DC's answer to Marvel's loose string of original YA novels (like Corinne Duyvis' Guardians book, Jason Reynolds' Miles Morales, and Margaret Stohl's underappreciated Black Widow series) begins here with the first of the DC Icons, and thank all the gods they started with Leigh Bardugo's terrific take on a slightly younger Wonder Woman in the modern day.

On the one hand, it's a little strange, knowing that Bardugo's giving us a book set in modern times rather than an approximation of the 19th century or so like we've come to expect from everything of hers in the first five years of her career. But Warbringer feels no less like classic Bardugo than her Grishaverse, with strong young ladies doing the narrating and a beautifully diverse cast. Hell, I would LOVE to see a future Wonder Woman movie where Bardugo's version of the character, and all her friends, meet Gal Gadot's version and team up with her. Not Spider-Verse, but Wonder-Verse, you know what I mean?

(Ehh, a guy can dream.)

Bottom line, this first installment of DC Icons is a pitch-perfect blend of action and heart, every bit the awesome story that Wonder Woman deserves, and I can't wait for the rest of the books! Even if most of them can't hold up to this standard (though I bet Marie Lu's Batman: Nightcrawler will be more than up to the task, because of course Marie Lu never fails.)

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