Review: Chosen Ones

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, my loyal Pinecones, the time has come for me to review another Veronica Roth book, one which I was lucky to read as an ARC this time. And unlike her last series, Carve the Mark and The Fates Divide, I am very happy to say that I was not at all disappointed. Though it's not quite at the high-water mark the Divergent series left for me, the platinum standard that made Roth one of my all-time faves, it's a damn sight better than that half-baked duology she tried to come back with a few years ago. And watch how that blew up in her face when Justina Ireland said the book was racist, others said it was ableist, etc. etc. etc.

My 2019 Faves: The Fifth Annual Pinecone Awards!

Well, it's the end of a decade. And the end of a year which has seen me radically shift gears creatively, moving more towards screenwriting and adapting the Red Rain series into a new meta-fictional piece of science-fantasy, geared more for all ages and less towards YA...but I'm not about to leave those worlds of storytelling by a long shot. Not when I'm still consuming them and helping sell them to future generations too. And for this special end-of-decade Pinecone Awards - possibly the last such awards under that name since I'm adopting a new pen name as well, Ricky Barca - I'll also be adding a retrospective look at some media that really redefined my tastes this decade in some way, shape, or form. Follow me long enough and you'll no doubt know who wins these Decade Special Salutes...but for those of you playing at home, let's get back to tradition!

The Rise Of Skywalker: So Close To Perfection...

...if only Mr. Abrams had taken just a few more cues from Mr. Johnson.

***NO SPOILERS FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, BUT SPOILERS FOR THE PREVIOUS FILMS OF THE STAR WARS SEQUEL TRILOGY ABOUND HEREIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.***

So yeah. The Force Awakens stays Mr. Abrams' Magnum Opus. And The Last Jedi, while Knives Out appeals to take over as Mr. Johnson's Magnum Opus, remains the Magnum Opus of the sequel trilogy for sure. This could've been so good, and I'm not saying it wasn't...if only for a few little issues. And a big one for me in particular - one that I was in diametric opposition to my dear friend Speedy on, though there was one other development that disappointed us both.

But oh, you kid. You think I didn't like this movie? I most certainly did, ya moof-milkers. J.J. Abrams never goes wrong as far as I'm concerned, not enough to tank the movie, and The Rise of Skywalker is no exception. Not now, not ever.

Rey, my queen. And Ben, get that helmet off, I need to see how sweet you are too.

Review: Hero

Hero by Michael Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think Michael Grant said as far back as 2017, when the first of this sequel trilogy to Gone finally came out, that he was all but done with the YA business going forward. At least he finished this trilogy first...and what a finale it was, bringing us some apocalyptic destruction of New York that reminded me a lot of a certain scene at the start of Remnants in which San Francisco was destroyed. This, of course, being the cue for Dekka and Cruz and Shade and Malik and Armo and of course Sam and Astrid too - finally, Astrid gets back into the story again! - to take on the newest and nastiest Rockborn threat yet. As you can expect from Michael Grant, the action never stops, not once, except maaaaaaaaybe for the very ending when we get a taste of just how truly warped this trilogy has been all along. It's a deliberate, even trollish, game on Grant's part, which makes sense given his trollish reputation among the YA community (not that it stops me reading, loving, and selling his books, because God knows there are worse out there that I still read anyway.) Therefore, to Grant, I tip the hat and bid this story 'verse ave atque vale.

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Review: Girls of Storm and Shadow

Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Trigger warnings for this book (paraphrased from the content note at the start of the book itself): violence, self-harm, allusions to sexual assault, trauma recovery.

Natasha Ngan says this is going to be the middle of a trilogy, but Sophomore Slump? What's that? Nah, she averts it but good in Girls of Storm and Shadow. Not only does this owe to increased world-building - very helpfully, a full-page spread of a map of Ikhara dominates the opening to this book, really showcasing the immense sprawl of this land and its diverse regions - but also increased stakes as Lei, Wren, and their allies travel the land in search of more allies to finally put down the dreaded demon monarchy for good. But it's not going to be an easy road, not when key personality differences between Lei and Wren threaten to undo their fledgling relationship - or when sweet lil smol cinnamon roll faves get brutally beaten and/or killed. Ngan doesn't hold back in this book, ramping up the action all the way to a weapons-grade cliffhanger easily as Aveyardian as Glass Sword. Dear God, if the third book doesn't come out next year, I'll be sooooooo devastated...

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Review: Sword and Pen

Sword and Pen by Rachel Caine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rachel Caine returns to the world of the Great Library for the fifth and final time, with our heroes now embroiled in some of their greatest struggles yet. As nations go to war with ships armed with Greek fire ballistas, and the Archivist in Exile struggles to regain his fascistic imperialist hold on all knowledge (cheekily, Caine weaves in more relevant political subtext by having him in pretty close contact with the Russians, and the Russians all but scheming to place a puppet of their own in Alexandria), Jess and Morgan and Wolfe and all the scholars must wage the final battle to save the world from extending into a new Dark Age. And that's really all I can say without spoilers, of course, other than to finally bid this series ave atque vale as it deserves.

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Review: Children of Virtue and Vengeance

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Tomi Adeyemi took almost two years after her debut to bring us Children of Virtue and Vengeance, and the final product we got - the middle entry of the Legacy of Orïsha trilogy, that is, unless Adeyemi pulls a Victoria Aveyard and extends it to four novels, which I would NOT be surprised if she did - is more than worth the wait. And like last year with Queen of Air and Darkness, 2019 has saved its best for (borderline) last, with CoVaV all but guaranteed to earn itself the top spot in this year's Pinecone Awards.

Review: The Queen of Nothing

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's the first time I've finished reading an entire series that Holly Black wrote - which, let's be honest, isn't much of an endorsement, since she's just one of those authors that I've historically had a ridiculously hard time getting into. Probably because she's very similar in style to my own writing, but then explain why I like Cassandra Clare's books so much? Probably because let's be honest, Clare writes far more likable characters. That's really where Black falls flattest with me, her characters. At least in this case, Jude is somewhat more likable because as much as she has to be calculating, everyone around her is even more so. At least, until some asshats realize they're going to need her help, and lots of it. While I frankly think that this entire trilogy would've probably worked far better as a single volume - and probably overall a third shorter than its actual length of about 900 pages total - I can at least now say ave atque vale to The Folk of the Air. And maybe I'll enjoy Holly Black's next work...and hopefully not find it too hype-damaged like it so often is for me.

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Review: Flash: Green Arrow's Perfect Shot

Flash: Green Arrow's Perfect Shot by Barry Lyga
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There was already one trilogy of kid-friendly novelettes that Barry Lyga wrote for The Flash, and now he's finally getting to play crossover just in time for the CW's own Crisis on Infinite Earths adaptation - even if it is far more inspired by Crisis on Earth-X instead. Though still in a pretty distinct 'verse from the CW shows - which are humorously referred to as the "TV-world," short for "transmultiversal" if I remember correctly - this new series flawlessly works in the cast of Arrow at every level as awe and some as Lyga's work on the cast of The Flash. That is to say, on point characterization and then some, and I'm especially hyped that Olicity remains canon in this series. Gotta show the kids more true love, eh? The cast of Legends of Tomorrow make a few appearances as well, and with the promise of a massive cliffhanger, we could be getting to see Supergirl as well - does that mean Jo Whittemore's coming back into the picture as well? Who the heck knows, but you know I'll be reading the follow-up to this book as soon as bloody possible!

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Review: Jackpot

Jackpot by Nic Stone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Third time's for sure a charm for Nic Stone, who now proves herself once again as one of the most experimental and talented writers in all of YA. She started off harrowing with Dear Martin, gave us a seriously sticky exploration of sexuality in Odd One Out, and now, class and privilege and romance intersect in Jackpot, a gripping, emotional, and often funny sort of mystery. In addition to some little touches of fantasy when Stone writes interludes in the POVs of inanimate objects, such as the winning lottery ticket that serves as this book's MacGuffin. Or the countable threads on Zan's sheets. Or Jax's action figures. It's got a little of everything that makes great YA great, and it's another one I'll be helping eagerly sell at work for sure!

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Review: Call Down the Hawk

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not the biggest fan of The Raven Cycle - especially 'cause Stiefvater totally sank all my ships - but you know what? I went ahead to read this, if only to see where she takes Ronan next.

(Just no more problematic lines for the guy, mmkay, Maggie?)

In a lot of ways, it feels like The Raven Cycle never ended, and it's about the most perfectly mixed bag you could get. On the one hand, Ronan is our main protagonist by far for sure, while the original series so often made Blue, the ostensible protag, take such a backseat to the Raven Boys - especially Gansey, and often Ronan too, with the latter being far more justifiable in his occupancy of the spotlight. But in addition to Ronan, we have several other POV characters following their own parallel story, a story of promise in its exploration of how the world affects dreamers and dreamers affect the world. Unfortunately, as is all too often the case with The Raven Cycle, the additional storylines and POVs in this book prove very difficult to connect with or comprehend, to the point where I kept finding my eyes glazing over and losing interest in any part of the book that wasn't Ronan's story. Even when a significant part of that story is a ship that I still feel was manufactured purely to pander to the sort of fans who fetishize m/m pairings, but hey, at least the chemistry is far more present here than it was in The Raven King. So this is the first of a trilogy? I really do hope Stiefvater improves the following books...but I'm not gonna lie, my faith in her is slipping all over again.

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Review: Exile from Eden: Or, After the Hole

Exile from Eden: Or, After the Hole by Andrew Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"That's why all boys go away: to chase endlessness."

Ahhh, the long-awaited sequel to Grasshopper Jungle, aka my favorite Andrew Smith novel - even if it's overly reliant on the Cheating Bisexual trope and is a go-to example of how much Smith is, by his own admission, not good at writing women. Then again, Shaun David Hutchinson loves the shit out of it, which I'm sure most of YA Twitter would tear him apart for. Lol.

Review: Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads lists this latest installment in the Rick Riordan Presents lineup as the first of a series, but it could also work pretty well as a standalone piece. Which might explain why there's no "coming soon" at the end of the book listing the title of the next installment. But Kwame Mbalia gives us an excellent debut in Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, a sprawling and mind-bending tour through a world of West African gods and black folk heroes. And as far as Rick Riordan and Rick Riordan Presents protags go, Tristan brings a lot new to the table - not just with the stories he grew up with, but also his uniquely flawed backstory, in which both his strength and his weaknesses come out at the worst possible times. Not for nothing did Riordan tell us in his footnote that this manuscript made him cry a few times. But as Goodreads says, Kwame Mbalia ain't done with Tristan's stories yet - and I'm here for all the tears and laughs and ass-kicking action he'll offer.

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Review: Supernova

Supernova by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The final novel of Marissa Meyer's second series is as long as Renegades was, roughly. But it builds amazingly on the cliffhanger ending of Archenemies, ramping up all the dramatic irony of Nova and Adrian's secret-laden relationship for all it's worth. Ultimately those secrets come out, but then more secrets totally subvert those secrets, a true pileup of reveals that makes this the most unpredictable book Marissa Meyer has ever written to date. Or will ever write. Honestly, I never saw half that stuff coming, even if the seeds were planted even all the way back to the very beginning of Renegades. And trust me on this, you won't see it either. To the Renegades Trilogy, I may now bid a much-deserved ave atque vale.

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Review: The Toll

The Toll by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shusterman took almost two years to bring us the follow-up to Thunderhead and conclusion to Arc of a Scythe, and seeing this 600-page brick grace the shelves at my work and my library, that's no surprise. Bringing one of his finest stories full circle, Shusterman begins nearly around the time of the Great Resonance that signaled the disappearance of the Thunderhead from the world after Scythe Goddard lost the election, then threw his little snit fit and wiped out the vast majority of the upper echelons of the Scythedom and sank the fortress island of Endura under the Atlantic...

Review: A Kingdom for a Stage

A Kingdom for a Stage by Heidi Heilig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the middle of Heidi Heilig's second series, the sophomore entry in her first trilogy, it took me a few moments to remember a lot of details from For a Muse of Fire - details that were plenty, even if that ARC I read in summer 2018 was a little short of finished artwork, maps, sheet music, etc. Reading A Kingdom for a Stage in finished form was a real improvement over that "maps TK" ARC for sure, though the story, this time, has a tendency to drag. That may owe a little bit to the fact that we're much more in the thick of things as far as the Chakran revolution goes. Jetta's necromantic powers make her quite an asset, but the Aquitans aren't going to let their colony go easily. Or quietly. An alternate 19th century this may be, but Heilig gives us some real steampunk twists to the action, giving the Aquitans some fearsome working avions that can easily carpet-bomb an entire village into oblivion - are we sure this is supposed to be the 19th century, or the Vietnam War? Either way, it fits Heilig's ongoing anti-colonialist theme to a T. Though Goodreads still doesn't list the third novel yet, I think we can rest assured it'll happen. Especially with that weapons-grade little cliffhanger...

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Review: Rebel

Rebel by Marie Lu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One more Legend novel? Not the start of a new trilogy, but a single coda?

It's Marie Lu. Of course I'm in.

When last we left off with Lu's first and star-making series in the YA sphere, Champion infamously ended on a bittersweet but still pretty saddening note, at which point the story picked up with a ten-years-distant epilogue showcasing the spark of hope that perhaps the future would be a little brighter for June and Day.

Now we get the challenges they still have to face going into that bright future - as does Daniel's little brother Eden, now in his late teens and going to university in Antarctica, while late-twenties Daniel works for the AIS and still pines for June - who may just come back into the picture in an official capacity, escorting the Elector of the Republic on a state visit.

Review: Loki: Where Mischief Lies

Loki: Where Mischief Lies by Mackenzi Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

More of a 3.5 for me, but I'll round it up to a four - which is pretty par for the course when it comes to Mackenzi Lee, I guess, even when she isn't writing an official Marvel novel. And while there are no planned sequels to this one, it's at least supposed to be the first in a three-book lineup centered on some lesser-known stories of certain Marvel characters who break the usual rules of heroes and villains. And who better to start with than Loki? Being that this is a Loki book, and that it's set during the 19th century on Midgard, it feels like a logical follow-up to Lee's Gentleman's Guide series, with a rather uncouth protagonist trying to prove himself to a dad who simply doesn't have time for him, and who has a tendency to express pretty strong bi energy - though in this case, Loki's sexuality isn't a major root of his daddy issues the way it is for Monty and his extra-forbidding father. But hey, Lee does a pretty good job of focusing on how much Loki wants to break away from the fate set forth for him, even if we know that he doesn't based on the Marvel movies. I do hope to see some even more unexpected stories in this Marvel lineup from Lee going forward!

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Review: Capturing the Devil

Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The fourth and final novel of Kerri Maniscalco's debut series throws a few unexpected twists into the mix, while giving all us fans some much-needed and much-beloved closure. While the "Devil" is promised to be the same one who's been the subject of at least one popular nonfiction book set in a certain White City, there are other candidates for that Devil's identity brought up - candidates that actually make a surprising amount of sense. And while you'd expect the book to take place in Chicago, there's still a good chunk of story taking place in New York first - including some developments that threaten to undo Thomas and Daciana's relationships and inheritances. But they and their lady loves, Audrey Rose and Ileana, won't break up so easily. Certainly not Audrey and Thomas, whose romance catches fire in this book like never before. I will spoil nothing of this book - which I'm very sad that I didn't get as an ARC like I did for the previous two - but I will very happily give the series its well-deserved ave atque vale.

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Review: A Dream So Dark

A Dream So Dark by L.L. McKinney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, of course this sequel's happening. Tell us something we don't know. *insert Sherlock Holmes responding how a pig's orgasm lasts up to thirty minutes*



But seriously. I'm super overjoyed that this book has finally graced our shelves.



And with a cover so bloody beautiful, seeing it in person was amazing! Though I didn't get it as an ARC like I did for ABSB, all good things come to those who wait, eh?



And yes, I couldn't help but notice the heart on this one. Just like the first book had a spade...does that mean McKinney's got plans for four books, one for each suit? Apparently so, given that she's already announced A Crown So Cursed, plus a prequel novel. So it looks like the four suits will happen, thank God!

Review: Gideon the Ninth

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one might take me a reread or two to properly appreciate all the extensive world-building that Tamsyn Muir puts into this debut novel, and it's such an amazing one that I'm going to love digging deeper into this strange necromantic space mythos. Though deadly dark and full of terrors, the space-opera world of Gideon the Ninth is also a rollicking and adventurous one. After all, Gideon has tried to escape the skeletal order of the Ninth House (try not to confuse this with Leigh Bardugo's latest novel) almost a hundred times in her not-too-many years, and as the book begins, she's going again - this time, even willing to barter away a dirty magazine or two to get the job done. Reading like a collaboration between Laura Lam and Jasper Fforde, this first book of a highly original new trilogy is gleefully screwball and unpredictable, though one thing that's not so gleeful? The ending, in which Muir sets up a devastating cliffhanger leading up into next year's Harrow the Ninth.

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Review: Darkdawn

Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Almost exactly three years to the day when I reviewed Nevernight.

Almost exactly two years to the day when I reviewed Godsgrave.

And now, in November 2019, I finally reach the end of Jay Kristoff's best series of all, his wild and terrifying Venetian-Renaissance-inspired dark fantasy of increasingly demonic terrors, the old gods of Itreya fighting again through their newest champions, and of course Mia Corvere. Mia, that devilish little murdery one we all know and love because she's not only #stabstabstab Stabby Stabby Kill Girl like no other slayer since Buffy, but also a bicon like no other iconic bi since Clarke Griffin.

Review: When She Reigns

When She Reigns by Jodi Meadows
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, well, well. The finest series Jodi Meadows has yet written, and it's capped off in just as epic a fashion as I've come to expect after reading the stories of Mira and her dragons in The Fallen Isles Trilogy for two years now. After As She Ascends ended with the first of the seven Isles rising up in an unprecedented cataclysm - the Great Abandonment, with all the Idrisi survivors stuck as refugees, and no way to predict when any of the remaining Isles will suffer the same fate - now Mira and her allies have no choice but to potentially turn to the Algotti Emprie for help. It's a good thing that the Empire, established as they were as a Greater Scope Villain in Book 1, maybe weren't so evil as some true villains closer to home, villains with too much greed and not enough sense. But this book, it brings the series' environmental-justice themes full circle as we finally resolve all these years of conflict - though not without cost, of course. But while Game of Thrones disappointed in its eighth and final season, here, Mira shows us just how amazing a Khaleesi can truly be, caring for her dragons and her people in equal measure, and as much as her mental health problems can debilitate her, it doesn't cost her an ounce of heroism. Not when she has all the remedies at her disposal - her calming pills, her noorestones, and of course LaLa and Crystal, two of the cutest, most loyal dragons a girl could ask for. And let's not forget Aaru's love - seven gods, are he and Mira just the most shippable cuties or what? To The Fallen Isles Trilogy, I now bid ave atque vale, and I seriously can't wait to see just how amazing and imaginative Jodi Meadows gets in her next work!

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Review: The Tyrant's Tomb

The Tyrant's Tomb by Rick Riordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, we've had well over a year to properly process all that happened in The Burning Maze, and now Uncle Rick returns with the penultimate part of Apollo's adventures in The Tyrant's Tomb. The stakes were already high enough in Book 3, with that huge and unexpected major character death, but here, Apollo himself is in greater danger than ever. Maybe if he weren't still stuck in a mortal body, things would be better - but when a cut from a particularly nasty Greek-mythological ghoul starts developing an infection that resists all attempts to cure it, Apollo's days are looking pretty numbered. And the most important number of all, of course, being 4/8 - the birthday assigned to Lester Papadopoulos as a clue that that's when the old Roman emperors are about to strike Camp Jupiter. Though life at Camp Jupiter is pretty shaken up by the loss of one of their own, they still are ready and willing to fight for their lives - and their glorious model of civilization, a new Rome so much more enlightened than the real one was - and who better to fight alongside Apollo than old faves like Hazel, Frank, and Reyna? Just one more book to go in this series, and I have no idea what Uncle Rick will do after that - just stick to being executive producer of the Rick Riordan Presents lineup? Maybe. But whatever he does is going to keep all the fans happy, I'm sure - and keep on earning him new ones.

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Review: Ninth House

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This latest from Leigh Bardugo, her first new adult book...well, really, can we call King of Scars an actual YA novel? No, honestly, we can't. But it's pretty clear that as dark as that book could have been, Bardugo was saving her darkest for the back half of this year, a book that's most certainly not PG-13 in its content. Beware all the trigger warnings - there's plenty of violence to be had in this book, of satanic, sexual, sanguine, and even shitty natures. Which makes it make sense that Stephen King and Joe Hill gave it their seals of approval.

Review: Amnesty

Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The funny thing about this series is that even though it takes place during times of great sociopolitical upheaval in its alternate world, Lara Elena Donnelly makes heavy use of time skips between the books so that all the stories emphasized in her writing are not those of war. Perhaps it's because there are simply so many World War II stories that even making a counterpart story would feel troped to death, somehow? Well, if there's one thing that Donnelly is not, it's troped to death. Not only because of her insistence on building her stories around the big wars in Amberlough and the rest of Gedda, not only because of her focus on the lives and experiences of LGBTQ+ and PoC characters, but also because of the great theme of this book. Even when evil is defeated, there is still work to be done to prevent it from coming back - a lesson that apparently not enough people have learned in the years since the real World War II, or the Civil Rights Movement, or other periods of strife that should've led to longer-lasting social change. To The Amberlough Dossier, I now bid ave atque vale, and wonder if perhaps someday Donnelly will come back to this world and tell those war stories after all.

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Review: Armistice

Armistice by Lara Elena Donnelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Picking up three years after the events of Amberlough, the middle entry of the Dossier could fool you into believing that Gedda is still the center of this universe, the only place where any action happens. Well, nope. Not when this book largely takes place in Porachis, a distant land heavily inspired by India. Tropical locale, sticky history with Geddan colonization attempts (though not nearly as much as Liso, Porachis's allies), a unique writing system that Geddans have trouble reading, and of course a thriving film industry, in which Aristide has made a name for himself (and at some point lost that ridiculous affected stutter he had in the first book, symbolic of his fall from the social highs he occupied in Amberlough City.) Though quite some time has passed, we know that the Ospies aren't having an easy time of it, oppressing all of Gedda. Though even the resistance isn't as strong, as evidenced by Cordelia fleeing to Porachis to get help from Aristide and others. It's got a touch of middle-book syndrome, but I do appreciate Donnelly for taking this story in an altogether different direction than I expected given the way Amberlough progressed. One more novel in the trilogy, and I'll be reading and reviewing that one pretty quickly...

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Review: Amberlough

Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This trilogy, I've seen it often enough on the shelves at work that those pretty as hell covers made me really want to get into it. And so I've started my journey through a second-world fantasy built on the level of Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse, Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga, R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War, or Avatar: The Last Airbender - paralleling the real world, historically and politically, but for sure not our world. The only difference between this and all the others I've mentioned before is that The Amberlough Dossier is devoid of magic or steampunk or any traditional fantasy elements - it's fantasy in a loose sense, being merely an alternate world where the technology and culture is ours from a bygone era, only with the names changed.

Review: Shatter City

Shatter City by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The sequel to Impostors brings us to the midpoint of Westerfeld's latest series in finer form than its predecessor in all the ways, and not just the fact that Shatter City is a significantly cooler title. There's also the ways in which this book finally starts growing into its own thing, distinct from all the other books in the Uglies-verse that came before it - and as on point as the social commentary of the original series is, Shatter City raises the stakes by introducing us to Paz, a city built on the ruins of Baja California where the population uses implants to regulate their emotions in such a way that it eerily comes off more like drug addiction than anything else. And as Frey and Col start to gain allies in this free city - a place where liberty is so prized - they both get to become even more badass than their Book 1 selves in all the ways, ready to wage war against certain warlike First Families willing to set the remains of the world on fire just to watch them burn. Even more so than in Impostors, Shatter City leaves me wondering so much what Westerfeld has in mind for the rest of the series - two books to go now!

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Review: The Fire Keeper

The Fire Keeper by J.C. Cervantes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The middle entry of J.C. Cervantes' planned Storm Runner trilogy sees Zane Obispo having to deal with a lot of unexpected ramifications from his first adventure. Not only having to live in isolation on a faraway island where shadow magic mucks with the WiFi, but the fact that by publishing his adventure in the world, even in a form where only the godborn (that is, we in the real world) can read the most salient details, has earned him a lot of negative attention from the Maya pantheon. Nice little touch of meta-humor there, Cervantes. But for this book, it's pretty appropriate that it's The Fire Keeper, because the action keeps the plot moving blazing fast and blisteringly hot. Only one more book left, and I'm pretty scared to see what kind of epic finale Cervantes gives us. Being that she's working under Rick Riordan's auspices, this is gonna get bloody even when it's bloody awesome...

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Review: The Girl Who Lived Twice

The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Millennium series is now officially doubled in length vs. how Stieg Larsson left it, and just like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, David Lagercrantz gives us his third Lisbeth Salander story as a sort of soft ending - really, this could work just as well as Hornet's Nest as the series finale. Lagercrantz has said that this will be his last Lisbeth Salander novel, but if it's not, that'd be nice too, given the unexpected thrills and twists of The Girl Who Lived Twice. Finally picking up in earnest on the plot threads re: Camilla Salander that were left behind in The Girl in the Spider's Web, this latest novel once again puts some fictional Swedish political figures into the spotlight for crimes and scandals spanning continents - including some accidental death, possibly murder, during a climb of Mount Everest. It's just too bad that Lisbeth can't devote all her energies to unveiling these truths because she's still traveling the Continent, incommunicado, in search of the dreaded Camilla...but it's Lisbeth, of course she'll find a way to tie all the story threads together, as does Mikael Blomkvist. So while this might be the last book, or perhaps not, in any case I'm more than comfortable bidding Lisbeth ave atque vale once again. But even Lagercrantz himself said, "Never say never..."

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Review: These Divided Shores

These Divided Shores by Sara Raasch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

How long was it gonna be until someone told me there was a title and cover for this sequel to These Rebel Waves?

And after that massive cliffhanger on the first book too!

I wanna see some major-league ass-kicking in this book, too. Reylo-grade ass-kicking. We all know Raasch can make it happen!



And guess what? Being Raasch, she delivers pretty well on this, the second half of her second series, and a pretty perfect piece of duology conclusion. All the lingering questions of These Rebel Waves are answered as the story comes full circle, and with a lot more world-building to go along with it. We don't really explore other nations beyond Grace Loray and Argrid very much, but the cosmopolitan nature of the island's society really comes into the spotlight, as we get a lot more little bits of culture from other places besides Gunnar's native Mechtlands. For instance, Emerdian masonry, capable of endlessly shifting, and therefore useful for the construction of seemingly inescapable prisons.

Of course, no prison-builder or hypocritical Inquisition-like theocratic assbutt king of Argrid could have seen the likes of Lu, Vex, and Ben coming.

500-plus pages fly pretty quickly in Raasch's latest, and as always, I'm begging for more from her. But for now, I'm bidding this series ave atque vale while eagerly awating her next work!

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Review: The Fated Sky

The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The sequel to this year's Hugo winner for Best Novel, The Fated Sky is, according to Mary Robinette Kowal, the second half of a duology - but it's not the end of the Lady Astronaut series, because Kowal has at least two more companion novels planned, at least one of which is meant to be roughly concurrent with this book in the timeline. The alternate timeline, now moved up to 1961 and beyond. Nearly a decade after the meteorite impact that kick-started this whole story in The Calculating Stars, Elma York and all her fellow Lady Astronauts are fighting for their rights and recognition against a backdrop of not only the Civil Rights Movement, but also an accelerated Space Race. In these new 1960s, there's already an Artemis Base on the Moon (tip of the cap to Andy Weir there?), but the fight for racial and gender equality continues to brew both on the Moon and on Earth, forcing all our favorite Lady Astronauts to constantly side-step interfering government trouts and separatist forces of varying stripes. There's even some subtle inclusion of LGBTQ+ issues as well - though Kowal acknowledges that one character, Kam, is transgender but hasn't quite figured himself out well enough to come out publicly, meaning that Elma, as narrator, unintentionally misgenders him through the entire novel. I think that might be the only real reason why I found myself taking off a star on this book - especially since such misgendering in the prerelease copy led to the delay of The Madness Blooms. Well, at the very least, Kowal acknowledges this breach of etiquette in the author's note, and I sincerely hope that she does better going forward. Because there's at least two more novels ahead, and I can't wait to read any of them!

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Review: The Merciful Crow

The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first heard about Margaret Owen as an artist - more specifically, for her creations of the first official art of L.L. McKinney's Alice, and also one "whoops my hand slipped - A WHOLE BUNCH" sketch of Leia strangling Jabba the Hutt. Now, of course, she's got a book that's pretty well a work of art in and of itself, purely on the strength of its fantasy world-building. Comparable to Leigh Bardugo in its Russian-esque second-world style, The Merciful Crow is set in a world with no less than eleven different castes, all based on birds, all with different magical Birthrights - and while the plague-doctor Crows are the outcastes of this world, it's not the top-level Phoenixes you have to watch out for. It's the Swans, with their Birthright of Desire. It really doesn't get more clear a metaphor for the real world's race and class issues than this, and Owen's got me in for at least one more book - next year's The Faithless Hawk, for which I'm hoping it will not be another duology conclusion. This series is too well-developed for just two books!

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Review: Old Bones

Old Bones by Douglas Preston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Spinning off from Preston and Child's famous Agent Pendergast series is this, the first novel in twenty years or so to feature Nora Kelly - and also, as a major character, newly minted FBI Agent Corrie Swanson of the Albuquerque Field Office. Remember when she was Lisbeth Salander before Lisbeth Salander was Lisbeth Salander? A punk hacker type living in the cornfields of Kansas as far back as Still Life with Crows? Now she's official, thanks in no small part to Pendergast's mentorship. It's too bad that Corrie wasn't the main character of this book, because I feel like were she the primary instead of the secondary to Nora - and were she connected to Nora geographically a lot sooner - this book would be significantly improved for it. That said, though, its connection to the historical tragedy of the Donner Party is of great interest to this Californian, and while the Big Bads' plot is pretty easy to predict early on, what you don't expect is who one of the Big Bads really is. No spoilers though, but hopefully there'll be other, and better, Nora Kelly and Corrie Swanson stories in the future.

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Review: There's Something About Sweetie

There's Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sandhya Menon is one of those YA rom-com writers who never fails to get all the laughs out of me, and There's Something About Sweetie, her long-awaited follow-up to her debut novel, is no exception. In many ways opposite to When Dimple Met Rishi, here we get a hotheaded guy and gentle girl instead of Dimple and Rishi's deliberate inversion of gender stereotypes. But oh, how they both get some character dynamism over the course of the book. Especially Ashish, who proves himself so much more mature than his rebellious player self from Book 1 - even if he still scoffs at a lot of his parents' expectations, namely, his insistence on eating bacon behind their backs. And as for Sweetie, totally living up to her name, she may have a lot of internalized shame about being fat because of how hypercritical her family is about it, but she's already got such a strong core of confidence - helped in no small part by her own athletic prowess - that it really makes the difference in how she ultimately gains the courage to stand up for herself against certain nasty relatives. And, just like When Dimple Met Rishi, this book is a pretty spot-on cross-section of certain sections of Silicon Valley society: it's very diverse in all the ways, with numerous races and sexual identities repped on the side, but also highlights a bit of class divide, with Sweetie being nowhere near as rich as Ashish's family (though at least she doesn't think a gallon of milk costs twelve bucks a pop! Well, maybe at Whole Foods it does.) About the only quibble I could give geographically is how many lakes this book suggests the Silicon Valley has - trust me, if they do, they're tiny. But while I'm not sure if Menon is going to write any more books in this universe, if not, at least she ends Dimple, Rishi, Ashish, and Sweetie's universe on a high, sweet, humorous note.

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Review: The Dragon Republic

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

R.F. Kuang debuted last year with a historically-inspired piece of dark, violent, terrifying fantasy in The Poppy War, and now that we've moved past this timeline's analogue to World War II, the analogue to Mao's Revolution takes center stage. With Rin knowing that Nikara's present leadership can't be trusted, of course she aligns with a charismatic new force in the Dragon Warlord, who promises to overthrow the corrupt empire in favor of a western-style democracy. It's just too bad Hesperia, the western superpower of this universe, isn't as good as they want you to believe they are based on their press. Hesperia, after all, was the original colonizers of Nikara, even before the Mugen Federation tried to do the same. And as they return to Nikara in this book, they bring all the usual tricks and tools you can expect from a Western imperalist toy bag: physical size advantages, men with no qualms about rape, powerful weaponry, an incomprehensible and inelegant language, and disgusting racism and self-superiority (hell, there's a point where a Hesperian scientist and sister outright calls her people the "white race," ironic since Rin's third-person narrative describes them as having the color of a "freshly gutted fish..." but I digress.) Middle book syndrome? What's that? Kuang doesn't know, and nor do I know where she's going to go with the third and final book of the trilogy. Logic says that China's rapid industrialization will come into play, but given how creatively Kuang has played with historical influences already, there's really no way to predict where she'll take us.

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Review: A Crash of Fate

A Crash of Fate by Zoraida Córdova
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not the first piece of EU fiction that Zoraida Córdova has blessed us with, but this first tie-in to Galaxy's Edge (am I the only Star Wars fan who hasn't been there at Disneyland yet, though?) is a pretty sweet first official Star Wars novel of hers. Reminding me a lot of Claudia Gray's Lost Stars, A Crash of Fate takes us to Batuu in what I can only presume to be the gap between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, in which we get to see some classically Star Wars story elements - cocky adolescents of little means but lots of heroism, a love story for the ages, and a sense of sheer wonder at what may lay beyond your little backwater home. But being a work of the Disney era, it also manages to reflect 2019 values pretty well too, and Córdova writes in a hell of a lot of casual diversity - people of all races, aliens of all stripes, even the occasional bit of LGBTQ+ rep on the side. Though Batuu may be an isolated world in the middle of scenic nowhere, that doesn't stop it from hustling and bustling on the level of New York in truly cosmopolitan style. Now, hopefully it won't be long until I get ahold of Delilah S. Dawson's Black Spire to well and truly continue my exploration of Batuu.

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Review: The Calculating Stars

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This year's Hugo winner for Best Novel, and oh so very well-deserved it was - and oh, how I'm going to start reading every Mary Robinette Kowal book I can get my hands on now! A brilliant piece of alternate history that reads like the love child of Deep Impact and Hidden Figures, Kowal's novel takes us to a 1952 where a meteorite impact off Chesapeake Bay wipes out the East Coast, plunges the world into a nuclear winter, and then, by 1956, promises a huge spike in global warming due to the greenhouse effect caused by all the steam and ejecta from the impact. So the world's fledgling space agencies are now determined to start some emergency interstellar colonization...but because it's the 1950s, there's a lot of less-than-stellar gender and racial politics involved, which our heroine Elma York, as a gifted engineer and as part of a diverse team of gifted engineers from around the world, ends up having to challenge head-on. No wonder she's prone to anxiety attacks - wouldn't you in her shoes? But this is - excuse me - a damn fine novel, and I'm very glad that not only is there a sequel already available (I hope it wins next year's Hugo already!), but Kowal has promised at least two more stories to follow. Given that this is all meant as a prequel to Kowal's Hugo-winning short story "The Lady Astronaut of Mars," I can only imagine just how increasingly expansive in scope her work will get!

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Review: Soul of the Sword

Soul of the Sword by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The ARC I got of the first book lists the title as Demon of the Blade, but GR has something different...either way, I'm just super psyched this book is coming!



And super mad that I have to wait after that bloodydamn cliffhanger from Book 1!



(Edit: No, I didn't get an ARC of the second book, that was a silly slip of the type on my part!)

But after reading this second book, I'm very glad it came out less than a year after Shadow of the Fox, the way some of Kagawa's earlier books have done - because now that that cliffhanger has come and gone, the stakes are higher than ever, and there's some really nasty magic that needs to be undone if peace is ever to be had in this kingdom.

Of course, there's still one more book to go, so the wait continues. But only till next year or so. And at least Night of the Dragon has a less-than-a-year gap too, thank all the gods!

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Review: The Rise of Kyoshi

The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While we're waiting another calendar year for F.C. Yee to give us the long-awaited sequel to The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, now Yee has started up another epic crush of a series centered on a kickass girl who needs to work a little extra-hard to realize her destiny is approaching faster than she expects. Only this time, Yee is building the origin story for a character we know pretty well, except perhaps less so than we thought until now: Avatar Kyoshi. She may have lived over 200 years in canon, but way back in her teens, she still had to come into her own as the Avatar just like Aang and Korra will eventually do later on. But Yee throws in a most unexpected twist: having those searching for the Avatar find someone else who may be the one, and completely overlooking Kyoshi even as she makes it clear that she's the true bridge to the Spirit World. Meanwhile there's a whole lot of conflict between various factions in the Earth Kingdom (its sheer size really makes it ungovernable in practice, doesn't it?) as well as a team of pirates trying to bring down the four nations, but because of the fact that they're, uh, pirates, they're primarily Water Tribe anyway (something of a call forward to Amon and the Equalists?) Yee devotes over 400 pages to all these in-universe issues, and there will be at least one more book - because while it's taken quite a while for him to really take off in the publishing world, he's finally getting the recognition he deserves from this book and from Genie Lo.

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Review: Return to Zero

Return to Zero by Pittacus Lore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The final book in the series?

Of this entire story universe?

I'm sad about that. Truly, I am. But after an entire decade, it's only fitting that this tenth book of the franchise is the last one, and they go out on some pretty high notes for sure. To be fair, this book is a little bit on the long side, maybe more than it needs to be. But it finally brings a lot of story threads full circle, and brings back a few of my old faves - nice to see John and Marina and Ella again! - and perhaps the most insidious threat since the original Mog invasion, one that gets pretty personal in terms of how much it scares the hell out of me.

Again. I'm sad that this will be the end of this franchise. But hey, at least it ends with a bang.

To the world of The Lorien Legacies and Lorien Legacies Reborn, I now bid ave atque vale, for the second and likely final time.

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Review: The Kingdom

The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blurbed as it was by Dhonielle Clayton, I'm a little surprised that this new piece of YA sci-fi has slipped under the radar as well as it has. And a little disappointed in the community for not hyping this one up a little more like it deserves. Set around the end of the 21st century, it's kind of a YA Disneyland meets Jurassic Park meets Westworld, a magic-kingdom-type theme park story where there are so many cloned animals (because by this time too many have become extinct in the real world) and all the princesses are eerily lifelike robots...which begs the question, are they human enough to stand trial when one is accused of a crime? And as this book unfolds, are we sure that Ana's really the one who ought to be on trial? Because let's face it, the trial scenes we do see, they're a freaking kangaroo court - because even a hundred years or so from now, there's really no way for humanity to stop sucking when it comes to treating anyone even remotely other. Though mercifully there's no cliffhanger on this one, I'd still love to see more stories from Jess Rothenberg set in this universe, whether they be prequels or sequels or even side stories parallel to this one.

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Review: Finale

Finale by Stephanie Garber
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I honestly think that Caraval would have actually been better off as a single book. Don't get me wrong, there's enough to keep me entertained in both Legendary and Finale, but there's also enough to make me feel increasingly that this series has had nothing but diminishing returns. The ridiculously overpowered nature of Legend himself does not help, though at least it's clear that as awful as he is, there's far worse in the other Fates. And since this book is split between the POVs of both Scarlett and Tella, with a lot of short chapters and switches between them, it's a breezier read than its nearly 500 pages would suggest. To this series, I now bid anoshe, and hope that Garber improves her craft even more on her next book - gotta support local Bay Area authors, right?

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Review: Birthday

Birthday by Meredith Russo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Trigger warnings for this book: homophobia (including repeated use of slurs), transphobia (including internalized transphobia and - often unintentional on the characters' parts - misgendering), gender dysphoria, alcohol abuse, parental death, attempted suicide by overdose.

Meredith Russo debuted strongly with If I Was Your Girl a couple of years ago, and with her new novel Birthday, she blows it out of the water. Once again a relatively short piece of YA contemporary, #ownvoices with a trans girl protagonist - though in this case, she shares the protagonist and narrator positions with her best friend, a cis boy...and over the six years this story takes place, the evolution of their dynamic in all sorts of unexpected and life-affirming ways.