Review: Anger Is a Gift

Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Apparently this one began as a sci-fi book, and there are still elements in the final print that read like they should belong there. A most literal police state, armed with high-tech riot gear that they're shamelessly deploying against high school students in West Oakland, dangerous military-grade technology that has a habit of malfunctioning horribly - and, by all accounts, intentionally - when put into use...yeah, there's a reason why one of Oshiro's characters says something about this story playing out like one of those "trendy dystopian novels" with white people running scared, except it ain't white people running scared, and it's a scary, scary reality.

Though I live near Oakland, I don't go there very often. West Oakland, I can honestly say I've only actually seen from the freeway or the BART tracks. But from what I know of the city's recent history, Oshiro nails it, right down to the ongoing issue of police brutality. I believe Aimal said in her review that setting the book in the Bay Area, long hailed as a progressive bastion, showcases how that "progressiveness" really only applies to places full of rich white well-meaners like Berkeley. Or Piedmont, home to Esperanza's parents, whose being white makes them ignorant af - and not in a malicious way either, which makes it almost worse.

So, yeah, there's a ton of maddening unhelpfulness from those with power, or PR-like wishy-washiness when confronted with how much hurt their privilege has wrought. But like a lot of other recent YA titles that deal with modern racism head-on - I'm especially thinking of The Hate U Give here - it's not all riots and protests. There's a lot of enjoyment of the little things in life, like friendship, especially. And what a support system Moss has got, from his mother to all his friends - who span a wide spectrum of racial, religious, and gender identities, also very true to the book's Bay Area setting - and of course his boyfriend, Javier, with the relationship between them being one of the cutest you'll ever see.

I won't sugarcoat it, though - this book is bloodydamn brutal. Though there's a lot of moments of various characters - not just students, but the teacher Mrs. Torrance too - reacting to escalating conflict at the school with world-weary snark worthy of an N.K. Jemisin novel to cut the tension, Oshiro doesn't hold back. You'll cry a hell of a lot reading this book, of that I'm sure. And when it all ends - in bittersweet fashion at best, and with a stern message from the youth whom the police have spent so long harassing and attacking - you'll probably find yourself staring into space for a good long while.

This world's too real. We need to stop letting that be so, like it's some kind of inextricable fact. We can be better to our fellow humans, treating them with the utmost respect they deserve.

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Review: Let's Talk About Love

Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been a while since I first saw this book appear on the shelves at work, and I feel like it took longer than it should have for me to finally pick it up and read it. In the weeks between me picking up the book at the library and finally reading it, I heard a few rumblings about it possibly being problematic. Something about it being lesbophobic because our main character, Alice, her ex Margo is a bit of a nasty type who breaks up with Alice because they're not sexually compatible and then starts acting pretty damn racist when confronted about it (basically saying that Alice can't be ace because she's Black, a stereotype that I've actually seen one Twitter mutual talk about because it made her hard to accept her own Black ace identity for a while.)

But I have one biromantic ace friend who read this book #ownvoices and loved it - five stars, in fact! So I go by her opinion, and with that in mind, I found Let's Talk About Love pretty enjoyable. Well, except for Margo. She's the worst. But Alice, she's one of the loveliest main characters in the various SwoonReads books I've seen in my time, and considering she's in company with Taylor and Charlie from Queens of Geek and Teddy and Bennett from Love Scene, Take Two, that's saying something. This whole book, it's a bit of a hot mess at times, but when love in any form is involved, when is it not? It's a sweet hot mess and I'm here for that and anything else Claire Kann writes for us. Especially because I'm always super psyched to spread the love for fellow Bay Area writers!

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Review: The Reckoning of Noah Shaw

The Reckoning of Noah Shaw by Michelle Hodkin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though the first book disappointed me a bit, I'm still super-psyched for The Reckoning because dammit I want Noah and Mara and Jamie and all their peeps to make it out of this new series happy!

Except if this ARC is anything to go by, they don't, but what else is new?

This one still isn't as good for me as the original series was, mostly due to a somewhat unfocused second half that kinda drags it down. But the first half, when we get an extended flashback to the time when Noah was, um, in captivity during the better part of The Retribution of Mara Dyer and Mara thought he was dead, it feels like Hodkin does a great job of finally filling in this narrative gap. Then, while that second half does feel unfocused, it unleashes a whole torrent of surprises on us the readers - including, of course, a cliffhanger just as weapons-grade as the one we got in Part 2 of Hodkin's last trilogy, if not more so.

Again, I'm really sad that the happy ending of the original trilogy is pretty much all gone at this point. But now I only have to wait maybe a year for the end? Hopefully no more than that.

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Review: From Twinkle, with Love

From Twinkle, with Love by Sandhya Menon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though unrelated to When Dimple Met Rishi, Sandhya Menon's second book captures a lot of the same style - very #ownvoices Indian, very YA, very rom-com. Though I had to say while Dimple was more of a 3.5 rounded up to a 4 for me, From Twinkle, with Love was more easily a solid 4.

I think part of the reason why I enjoyed this one more was because of the use of first-person POV instead of third - which makes sense since this one uses an epistolary style, composed mostly of Twinkle's letters to numerous influential women filmmakers (Ava DuVernay, Mira Nair, Jane Campion, Kathryn Bigelow, and more are name-dropped as recipients of the letters that form most of the book, in between various email and text exchanges between other characters.) But yeah, POV - those who follow my reviews know that I've often found myself downgrading third-person POV novels just because I've found it harder to connect to those characters. And also because Twinkle and her friends focus more on the A in STEAM, which immediately gets me more interested than the more scientifically-minded Dimple and Rishi because my trade, creative writing, definitely falls more under art. And what an art Twinkle wants to make, Dracu-lass, for which I'd frankly pay good money for the inevitable movie adaptation just so I can see at least some amount of Twinkle's project come to life. And then, of course, there's the very intriguing little love-triangle twist, in which Sahil's crushed out on Twinkle but she thinks his identical twin Neil is her secret email pen pal? One of the best in the business right there - though don't go by me too much; I'm not exactly a romance expert and I almost always ship wrong. This time, however? I shipped right.

So while this one's not directly connected to Dimple, it's still nice to know that Menon's coming back to that 'verse with There's Something About Sweetie next year. And hey, what if that book proves to be the crossover between its two predecessors? I'd love to see more of Twinkle and Sahil and Skid. :)

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Review: Dear Evan Hansen

Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A novelization of a play I've been low-key really wanting to see someday, especially given that its title character fights severe social anxiety? I could read this ARC #ownvoices just on that level alone, and so I did.

Maybe if I'd already seen the musical first, I could have enjoyed the book a bit better, but...no, especially not if it were a faithful adaptation of the musical already. Which, from what I understand, it pretty much is. And what I'm seeing here, as much as I was dying to connect super-well to the material, it just felt a little too John Green for me. Like, the whole thing starts out as a coincidence leading to a little white lie that somehow balloons into a national movement rooted in sympathy for a boy all because of his bond with another boy that never really was...and the more I think about it, the more I just feel uncomfortable with the way it's all handled. Kind of like with a John Green book, this one just fails to hit me in the feels, because I feel like it's not genuine emotion they're trying to evoke here. It's too manipulative.

Not to mention, actually kinda problematic. I found myself really cringing at the initial description of Connor, with his long hair and all, as "school shooter chic." (I later found out that that line was part of the original Broadway production but has since been edited to something less insensitive, and I'm hoping that the final printed copy of this novel follows suit as well.) The whole plot that unfurls around a nonexistent friendship sounds like it should be cute and charming, but instead just comes off creepy because of how it basically takes advantage of a family's grief after their son's death by suicide. (Not to mention how Evan basically tries to use this as an excuse to get Zoe to kiss him. Which pissed me off a bit. Honest to God, I have enough trouble getting dates as a socially anxious autistic dude without having to put up with the stereotype that people like me are manipulative at best and heartless at worst.) Then, as a bi guy, I wasn't thrilled about the way queerness was woven into the novel. As I understand it, there's no explicitly queer characters in the musical (though Jared and Connor are commonly assumed to be so); here, Connor confirms he's gay, and it's implied that getting his heart broken led directly to his death. And that's after a sort of running gag of Jared, while pretending to write letters to Evan from Connor, deliberately writes sexually charged stuff until Evan makes him stop - I guess that's why fans think Jared is gay, but it makes me think more of the trope of "he's so fixated on other people being gay that he must be gay himself."

That's not to say, though, that the book's a complete and utter failure. Like I said, I do relate to Evan on the level of being very, very, very, extremely socially anxious. I'm in therapy for it too, along with depression. My therapist has tried to have me try and do similar self-improvement exercises to the ones Evan does - most notably, the iconic "Today is going to be an amazing day, and here's why" letters that Evan's therapist has him write. Though I'm actually glad my therapist hasn't actually enforced me doing such things, because I've found that actually taking steps to ensure that today will be an amazing day, instead of repeating that same platitude over and over again and not taking actual action, has better results.

That said, though...I would never consider Evan Hansen a good role model for how to cope with mental illness. I have a lot of friends with mental health issues similar to mine. We all cope in our own ways, as best we can. Even if a lot of those ways involve some level of substance abuse. (Socially acceptable substances, that is. Coffee. Booze. Weed.) But Evan, who can only make friends by lying to people, and makes zero effort to call for help when he falls out of a tree after he, rather stupidly, climbed it? That part in particular, the revelation of how he broke his arm to begin with, that completely microwaved my mind trying to make sense of it and the fact that this is the guy we're supposed to root for.

One of my dearest friends, he cares a great deal about getting mental health rep out there. You should see how much he goes off about the garbageness of 13RW. Like, that's the lowest of the low as far as he's concerned. I'm not gonna say that Dear Evan Hansen is anywhere near that bad, but if it's to the point where I would recommend he avoid it (because I bet he'd take issue with a lot of the same stuff I did, especially since he empathizes very well with the need to defeat negative stereotypes of socially anxious and/or autistic people), I would therefore recommend everyone else avoid it too.

I guess that's another strange case of "Adam Silvera liked it, but I somehow didn't."

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Review: Shadow of the Fox

Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kagawa wasn't done with 2018 when she put out the fifth and final Talon novel - nope, now she's ready to start a brand-new, very #ownvoices fantasy series, a trilogy that's promising us all the usual we've come to expect from her and more. The ARC I traded for, it shows us how well-fed Kagawa's keeping us, her fans, with kitsune and demonslayers and ronin and samurai and eight clans of elemental magic.

Maybe there's a tad less romance in this book - okay, maybe a lot less than usual for Kagawa, which makes me low-key wonder what Harlequin TEEN's doing publishing it. Maybe it's a little hard to follow the POV switches between chapters because unlike, say, in the Talon Saga, they're not clearly indicated and I found myself having to stop frequently to absorb all the context clues to figure out who was narrating. (Maybe that'll be fixed in the final print? I hope.)

But for sure, Kagawa's still one of the best in the business at the fantasy-action game, and Shadow of the Fox, this monstrously magical first part of the trilogy, is no exception. And it all builds up to a nasty little cliffhanger that owes a lot to both Victoria Aveyard and Marie Lu in its execution, which leaves me extra-dying for the second book. (The title of which is revealed at the end of this ARC, but GR lists something different, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume Soul of the Sword is the official title now. This is an old ARC anyway, predating the cover art, even!)

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Review: The Poet X

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I haven't read too many novels in verse, but those few that I've read, I've loved. Long Way Down, of course. The poetry sections in Bronx Masquerade. And now, The Poet X, possibly the longest novel in verse I've read, and for sure a gripping read all the way through. Acevedo knows how to make use of so much blank space on the page to paint a stark picture, and wastes no time in not only smashing the patriarchy, but also taking conservative Catholicism in general to task. Though I'm not Dominican and my family's not nearly as strict as X's, I can feel so much of myself in both her and Xavier the Twin because they each have their own rebellions. Rebellions that shouldn't be rebellions. Xiomara, being an artist. Xavier, being gay. As a queer writer myself, both twins are like my biggest alienating-from-my-family sides brought to life - just like how I did with the Snow Bros in my own books. I'm for sure going to add Acevedo to my "I'm gonna read all her books now" list, and hopefully not be late to the party on them like I shamefully was with this book.

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Review: Impostors

Impostors by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was pretty surprised when Westerfeld announced that there would be not only this extension to the Uglies series, but that it would be the first of a new four-part sequel/spinoff series. It's for sure the best book Westerfeld wrote in this universe since the original - especially since Specials and especially Extras played out increasingly nonsensically and weirdly, though I'm sure I'd appreciate them better on a second read.

As for this first of the new series, it's not half-bad, but sure as hell doesn't hold a candle to the original. (Fun fact: as I typed that last sentence, a candle appeared on my TV screen in the background from the title sequence of American Horror Story: Apocalypse.) The premise is a promising one, with the idea of identical twins and body doubles, but in practice it feels a little half-baked because we're led to believe that there are bunches of "First Families" making use of this method and it seems, instead, it's just Frey and Rafi. Though this is supposed to be well after the original series ended, it still seems that there are a ton of Pretties and Specials running around, and copious use of silly "bubbly" slang and all those infamous crappy MREs (SpagBol, of course, being the most common.) So while I'm sure there's something to be said for next to nothing having actually changed - Pierce Brown and Tahereh Mafi explored similar themes in their own dystopian series continuations this year - here, it just feels a little underdone, and it's very hard to connect with most of the characters as a result.

Though, again, that's probably the point, because Frey needs to really learn how to be herself, if you know what I mean. And for the less-than-stellar worldbuilding (honestly, I managed to fool myself into thinking most of the book takes place in Europe for the longest time), Westerfeld does make up for it with some kickass action, easily outclassing any such scenes the original series ever had.

So I'm for sure not done with Impostors, but I'm hoping for a better book next year. And that we get some of Col Palafox's multilingual POV. (Also, who else sees him and his name and thinks of Cal from Red Queen?)

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Review: What If It's Us

What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Weird. I'm reading a book that Adam Silvera wrote and I didn't rate it five stars. But then, it's also a Becky Albertalli book, and I haven't rated a single one of hers five stars yet, not even the iconic Simon Vs. I just wish this one, which I read as an ARC that I picked up at work, could've been the five-star read I expected from a collaboration between two of the YA community's best and brightest.

That's not to say that this book's a bad one, not at all. A large part of why I'm giving it a good four stars (it's really a 3.5 but I'll round it up) is the hilarious dialogue, especially whenever Dylan opens his mouth ("GENTLEMEN. PLEASE UNHOOK YOUR DICKS NOW.") Also the sheer number of Harry Potter references, proving that this book is part of the Albertalli-verse if nothing else (and not the Silvera-verse where it's Scorpius Hawthorne books and movies instead, though maybe this is one of the alternate 'verses Griffin kept proposing in History is All You Left Me?) And how generally sweet and fluffy the atmosphere was, because of course Albertalli's going to give us something positively theatrical and perfectly capable of - at least temporarily - taking away from my perpetual cycle of love-related cynicism because while there's literally nobody out there for me, at least the universe is determined to ensure Arthur and Ben get together to some degree.

I can tell you that both Harry and I agreed on one thing - the ending was a little disappointing. I mean, it kinda makes sense in context, but it also comes off a little too much like Silvera had his influence and prevented Albertalli from tying it all up neatly with a bow like she usually does. Though given that Albertalli tied things up a little too neatly with Leah on the Offbeat, maybe that's for the best. Not to mention, when the fluff goes out the window, it self-defenestrates while singing "I Am Not Throwing Away My Shot" at the top of its lungs. At least Arthur and Ben get a bunch of do-overs with their initial date fails, but still, some of those date fails felt like they could've been more easily avoided.

There's at least one non-fluffy moment, though, that brought me to actual tears. I guess that's a tad bit Silvera's fault? Of course it is; he's the King Tearjerker of YA. But still, did Silvera have to write Dylan so much like one of my best friends? Did he have to give him a moment that so eerily parallels a distressing story my friend once told me?

Naturally, that scene ensured that like all other Silvera books to date, this one earns the famous crying Andrew Garfield GIF.



I do hope that Albertalli and Silvera collaborate again in the future, I really do.

And I hope by the time they do, I'll finally be proven wrong about my own inability to be loved just like Arthur and Ben.

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Review: Picture Us in the Light

Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one, I think I picked it up because Harry said it was good. Or that he was hoping to read it himself. Having read it, I have to say, I'm...not all that impressed? I mean, it wasn't a half bad book. Danny was a most likable MC, and the Cupertino setting felt pretty real - though I have to admit, the most of Cupertino I've seen is the rather scuzzy Homestead Bowl, not exactly the luxurious place where everyone knows each other from school or the learning center. But from what I've seen myself, working at a tutoring center in Union City, it does seem like the whole "family and friends" network is real.

Though how easy is it to make friends when your parents don't want to?

Now that, I could relate to the best.

Though the book's kinda hamstrung by a slow-moving first half to two-thirds - which is a big part of why the rating went down to three stars for me, that plus the constant and abrupt shifts in time like we're on an episode of Arrow or How to Get Away With Murder - I have to say that I was entirely surprised by all the twists. I thought I had a prediction of the secret of Danny's parents as far back as page 50? Suffice it to say I was so, so wrong.

I hope to read more of Kelly Loy Gilbert's books in the future, especially since I always enjoy boosting Bay Area talent whenever I can.

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Review: The Disasters

The Disasters by M.K. England
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This ARC, I picked it up because A) I recognized M.K. England's name from the Pitch Wars mentors list; B) because of the promise of The Breakfast Club meets Guardians of the Galaxy; and C) the promise of queer content.

Those promises, England meets them and then some.

Review: The Wicked King

The Wicked King by Holly Black
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another ARC I've found at work, and another review to make...and this time, I think I've finally been convinced to step onto the Holly Black Hype Train, which means I'll be catching up on her bibliography that I've missed up to now. And probably enjoying some of her other books more, because it's taken me such a long time to finally find one that I liked, but it's also been a long enough time since I read those other books of hers that they're pretty well due for rereads.

As for this sequel to The Cruel Prince, it's an improvement over its predecessor because of how much more into the mind games of the Faerie courts Black takes Jude - and us. While the first book was a little too busy building its world and establishing just how distasteful Cardan was - and also giving us some reason to sympathize with him - here, we get to see how much hate isn't really the opposite of love after all. Though I'm still not at all down with shipping Jude and Cardan, Black does make a strong case for how well they could be made for each other.

And if you thought the ending of Book 1 was a surprise, just wait till you get to the ending of this one. Though I kinda sorta saw it coming just because the title of the final book was revealed so well in advance, it's still a real roller-coaster of a ride to get there, and so many seemingly innocuously cathartic actions really have an impact on how the book actually ends.

Hopefully I'll be able to get an ARC of the final book this time next year or so. If I'm still working at the bookstore, that is, because I bet such an ARC would be a unicorn that most wouldn't be willing to trade for just anything, you know?

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Review: Rabbit & Robot

Rabbit & Robot by Andrew Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been a bit since I read an Andrew Smith novel, and after picking up this ARC at work (luckily a second one came; someone else took the first one before I could), I'm pretty glad I took another chance on his latest.

The story here is more cohesive than The Alex Crow and the Marbury Lens duology, and it feels more meta-humorous than Grasshopper Jungle. That same meta-humor might get the book in trouble with certain online types because Smith has stated that a lot of the cannibalistic chaos of the robots on this doomed space cruiser was inspired, somewhat, by people who came down on him for problematic behavior at times in the last couple of years. Hell, in the very first chapter, "spirit animal" gets appropriated in dialogue, which is sure to rile up a lot of people - even if Billy, the appropriator in question, goes and takes it back upon seeing that the animal he liked so much is an incongruously carnivorous giraffe.

Then there's Smith's usual incorporation of queer male sexuality, which, as always, comes off as more than a bit weird. As well as you can expect given that Smith is literally the original "Keep YA Weird" guy, though over the years, as Smith's books have actually helped me accept my own bisexuality, I've felt that he's not had as great a handle on the subject as he thinks he does. I still think Passenger's m/m ship was awkwardly done and would have worked much better platonically; Winger, of course, pulled a Bury Your Gays; Grasshopper Jungle was perhaps the closest Smith came to creating a character who reflected my sexuality with Austin Szerba, but even then he kinda relied too much on the Cheating Bisexual trope. (Incidentally, I've put one of my #ownvoices bi manuscripts on hold precisely because I fell into the same tropey hole.) I'm at least glad that Smith makes it clear that we're in a future where sexuality is pretty much fluid by default, though I do still think it'd have been nice to have Billy not feel afraid to say he himself was bi (which is how I headcanon him, tbh.) But then again, after the opening chapter's incident with Maurice the bisexual carnivorous French giraffe, I'm not surprised he doesn't want to have a label in common with that creepy-ass cog.

Like a lot of Andrew Smith's past works, Rabbit & Robot is weird and immature and downright disgusting. Sperm and piss and fart jokes abound, and now we get recreational drugs for good measure. And tons of F-bombs. And Parker. I'm so over the current trend of casting Timothée Chalamet in everything, and especially of typecasting him as a horny-ass teenager, but Parker is the perfect role for him. Though I bet Chalamet would probably only be able to endure maybe a hundred repetitions of "I have an erection" before he can no longer say it without laughing. Or, worse, making the entire rest of the cast corpse.

That repetition is one of many that shows up throughout the book, largely because, again, most of the cast are robots. They keep repeating their programmed lines - or are they programmed? Perhaps by the Worm that infects them all. In any case, these repetitions make the book a little dull at times, though at times I admit I laughed a little more than I should have. Especially since a lot of those repetitions parrot not only fundamentalist Christians (who, because they're characters in an Andrew Smith novel, have mouths as foul as everyone else's), but also the sort of endlessly self-victimizing discourse endemic to social-justice Tumblr.

As always, Smith gives us a book that takes me, in particular, to a certain dark side of mine. In this case, as I'm telling one of my best bros (to whom I'm sending this book later this week), the side that sees everyone else submitting to vice like it's a game, and totally wants to join in anyway. Because, gorrammit, that's way too much me and I need to be a better human than that.

Which character am I most like? Parker? Milo? Lourdes? Billy? Juan? Rowan? Meg? Jeffrie? Cager Messer?

Maybe they're all me.

And I bet my buddy will feel the same whenever he reads the book himself. (Though obviously he's Billy.)

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Review: A Blade So Black

A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"We can change the whole world
Gonna take it over, gonna start it over
Don't you know what we could be?
A new beginning, fight until we're winning
Tell me that you're in it
Don't you wanna be a superhero?"
-Simon Curtis

"Heroes always get remembered, but you know legends never die!"
-Panic! at the Disco, "The Emperor's New Clothes"

The last ARC I traded for online in August, finally reviewing now, and I'm gonna call this one a case of saving the best for last.

Sorry, Splintered, but I think I have a new favorite Alice in Wonderland retelling. As I expected based on the stellar sneak peek we got in, I think, Entertainment Weekly a few months back alongside the cover reveal - my God, that is a beautiful cover! But yeah, that sneak peek was just a small taste of L.L. McKinney's gift for action, though there's a lot more to this book than that.

McKinney lines her debut with - to quote Margaret Stohl's blurb for Jason Reynolds' Miles Morales: Spider-Man - "equal parts hero and heart." I remember when McKinney was a Pitch Wars mentor a few years back, I was considering submitting to her because of how much of a Spider-Fan she was, and it really shows in this book. Not only in Alice's secret life as a Buffy-grade ass-kicker in Wonderland and the real world both, but also in her mom's anxieties about Alice constantly being late for curfew and incommunicado. Like Aunt May - I'm especially thinking of Sally Field's and Marisa Tomei's portrayals of Aunt May here - but of course with the extra worry that perhaps Alice will become another police brutality statistic. Tellingly, the book repeatedly references such an in-universe extrajudicial shooting, and it's indicated that Nightmare monsters from Wonderland are helping influence the increased prevalence of this and other racist acts.

Alice feels these fears pretty acutely too, but she's got a ton on her plate to worry about as one of the select few Dreamwalkers tasked with helping keep the human world safe from Wonderland's threats. Luckily, she really isn't the only one - among others, we have the reimagined Tweedles, a pair of Russian twins named Dimitri and Demarcus Tweedlanov, who eerily resemble Spike. The book does have quite a few close analogues to certain Buffy-equivalent characters - for instance, Chess and Court read to me, respectively, like if Willow were a soft boy and if Xander were a girl who needed a ton of attention; also, there's Addison Hatta (whose last name will only ever make me think of how Marissa Meyer used the same phonetic-in-an-English-accent spelling of "Hatter" in Heartless), who plays like Angel but, mercifully, without much of an Angelus side. (Though who knows? Angelus didn't really come out of the woodwork until the second season of Buffy - McKinney could have similar plans for her series here!)

I won't go too deep into the plot because I want everyone to be as well-surprised as I was, but let's just say McKinney's got the twist game down pretty well. I mean, there were a lot of plot developments I frankly couldn't see coming. And let me tell you, there's no way this is a standalone, not with that practically Aveyardian cliffhanger that's probably come closer than any other to reaching the infuriation levels provoked by Glass Sword 2.5-plus years ago.

Bottom line, if you love your books full of unabashed geek flag flying (I may be wrong, but I think McKinney based some of Alice's cosplaying history on her own), propulsive mile-a-minute thrills, and authentic and inclusive casts of characters, A Blade So Black better be on your fall reading list.

P.S. I'm pretty sure I know exactly which book Alice says, on page 179, she can't get more than one chapter into no matter how often she tries.

P.P.S. Alice dual-wields on the cover. We all know what that means! :D

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Review: The Point

The Point by John Dixon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It kinda surprised me last month when I saw, on the bookstore shelves, a new book by John Dixon. His first in, what, three years? But while it's not a confirmed follow-up to Phoenix Island or Devil's Pocket, it's a for-sure welcome addition to the man's bibliography. Continuing in Dixon's classic style, here we get into a pretty deadly YA military-sci-fi thriller. Though my workplace puts this book on the adult shelves - not without reason, given the bloody horror, telepathic terror attacks, and allusions to sexual assault. Perhaps I wasn't quite as into this book as Dixon's prior two, but Scarlett Winter, our Posthuman heroine, shines pretty brightly despite all the trouble she endures in her past and present both.

As for her future, well, there's definitely room for a sequel. But like Dixon's first two books, this one works pretty well as a standalone too.

I still hope for a sequel, though, because there's no way Scarlett's journey ends here. Not on a satisfying note, anyway.

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