Review: Nine Liars

Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Maureen Johnson hooked me with the Shades of London series back in the 2010s, but having left that series hanging high and dry for years, and the diminishing returns on this series to which she’s spent half a decade instead, are really starting to unhook me as a reader of hers. I mean, it was a bold move to write a single mystery stretched out into a trilogy of novels, then a fourth novel all standalone, and this one with a standalone murder mystery…but the most annoying directions taken on the romance front. I’m not surprised to see a lot of fellow readers immensely disappointed with how Johnson handles this series’ alleged flagship (though at least Janelle and Vi don’t provoke any drama, so there’s that.) And while this book does fulfill a longtime ambition on Johnson’s part to write an English country manor murder mystery, being a part of this series in particular means it relies on some thinly contrived plot reasons why Stevie even gets to go to England to investigate this cold case to begin with. At least there was the promise of comeuppance for one of the Nine Liars…though I’ll be honest, Nine Wankers would be a more perfect title to describe the obnoxious 1995 uni students around whom this cold case revolves. I’ll be generous with the two stars, but not for the first time, I’m prepared to drop this series for good.

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Review: These Infinite Threads

These Infinite Threads by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tahereh Mafi returns to her lush and lovely Persian-inspired fantasy world in the middle novel of this planned trilogy, and as beautiful as this novel is, it does unfortunately feel like she's caught a bit of a case of Sophomore Slump in this one. At the very least, it picks up pretty quickly from its predecessor's massive burning cliffhanger, with some unexpected resolution thereof. But that, unfortunately, means that Mafi keeps Alizeh and Kamran pretty separate from each other, with Alizeh stuck so much with Cyrus - and while I suspect that Cyrus is endgame in this love triangle, I really, really hope not, because it'd just be too similar to the love triangle resolution of Shatter Me for my taste. Beautiful this book may be, but despite being shorter than its predecessor, it somehow manages to drag a hell of a lot in comparison. But while it doesn't end nearly so destructively as the first book, it's still a pretty heartbreakingly sad cliffhanger this time around.

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Review: Fledgling

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is now the fourth Octavia E. Butler book I’ve read, after her two highly prescient Parable novels and the harsh time bending classic Kindred, and this, one of her last novels (the last to be published in her lifetime, I believe) is one of the most memorably unique novels I’ve ever seen. Depicting a vampiric species in mutualistic and yet saddening symbiosis with humanity, Butler reminds us all how highly she raised the bar for both sci fi and fantasy. Naturally there’s a lot of allegory about race and sexuality to go around, with Shori and her people truly representing the proverbial subaltern, but especially Shori as a Black woman - or, more accurately, a Black woman with all the appearance of a girl, and yet she’s very clearly older than she looks and old enough to make adult decisions for herself. It does cross a disturbing line at times, especially when Shori has sex with her symbionts, but when I found an article alluding to this as Butler’s way of metaphorizing how society is so quick to strip Black children of their innocence, it makes sense. Disturbing by design, that’s how a lot of Butler’s books are, and this masterpiece is no exception.

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Review: Memoria

Memoria by Kristyn Merbeth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Compared to its predecessor, this one is a bit of a slight Sophomore Slump, but it still works well as a blazing fast fun sci fi read. Scorpia and Corvus and their misfit allies start learning a bit more about their Primus precursors than they bargained for, including that they may have been some pretty squishy wet amphibians (which just about everyone concerned agrees is gross as they have to navigate the moisture they left behind.) Indeed, though, what disappoints me the most about this book isn’t the book itself, but the fact that no library in Portland or Vancouver carries the third and final book of the trilogy. YET. But soon, soon I shall finally finish this trilogy of wild adventures in space and synthwave (seriously, get me the cover artist who worked on this trilogy stat. Lisa Marie Pompilio knows what the hell she’s doing.)

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Review: The Daughters of Izdihar

The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Shannon Chakraborty and Piéra Forde’s glowing recs, I ordered this book at the library and was very glad it came in so quickly. Hadeer Elsbai crafts a world heavily inspired by Egypt, in a city near the delta of a river very like the Nile, near a White Middle Sea and a Vermillion Sea with clear counterparts. Where it diverges is the presence of an autocratic theocratic kingdom to the west, where Algeria and Morocco would be IRL, but much more reminiscent of Iran under the Ayatollah. There’s also a fictionalized Talyana, essentially Italy, now cataclysmically wrecked to the point where its people largely live in new lands and have forgotten most of their old culture. Among their number are two main characters - Giorgina, a lower class woman in love with her protagonistic counterpart Nehal’s betrothed, and Nico, said betrothed.

Review: Hidden Pictures

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I wonder if this is what M. Night haters must feel like, thinking that every single twist ending of his is an utterly stupid one that wrecks the entire movie. This is my first Jason Rekulak novel, but I’m thinking this might be my last. Don’t get me wrong, it starts out pretty strongly, with a classic and cinematic setup of a babysitter horror story (slightly aged up), and I could’ve seen it giving a lot of vibes like Mama and (while it’s not exactly horror) Parasite. The drawings, increasingly detailed as the paranormal phenomena make themselves known, also recall the creepy photos of Miss Peregrine - so it’s no surprise that Ransom Riggs blurbed the book, especially since Rekulak used to run the very publisher that gave us Riggs’s first three novels. But then it feels really odd that Stephen King would blurb this book when it has an openly Christian lead character, when King famously likes to write Christians as villains. Maybe he thought Mitzi, the self described “Libertarian” neighbor, was a humorous caricature of the right wing (she certainly has an “I’m not racist, but…” kind of intro.) The book also subtly pokes fun at leftist parents, with Teddy’s having a tendency to look like they’re trying too hard to be “good people,” which I’m sure King could appreciate lampooning too because he himself certainly ain’t no perfect leftist (neither am I, come to that.) Unfortunately, while the twist ending makes a lot of subtle foreshadowing suddenly make sense, it feels so tacked on, with a whiplash to perfectly ruin a perfectly good paranormal mystery. It’s an absurd potboiler, guaranteed to piss off the reader for any number of reasons (leftists in particular will want to burn this book after reading), and certainly had me staring at the page all “wtf?!?!” Made no sense. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be reading any more by this author anytime soon…

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Review: Tread of Angels

Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While we wait for further adventures in Roanhorse's established series (though The Sixth World is apparently on indefinite hiatus, and the final book of Between Earth and Sky has a title and release date for later this year, but no cover), she gives us an interesting little novella with a peculiar steampunk western fantasy vibe. This mountainous mining town with a sharp class divide, rooted in past angel-demon warfare and acting as a pointed allegory for race as well (the Elect build their riches on the backs of the Fallen who can see the Divinity as it is mined, and biracial protagonist Celeste has passing privilege which her sister Mariel lacks), feels like one of the most vibrant settings Roanhorse has given us yet, and that's saying something considering she's given us postapocalypse in the Desert Southwest and a pre-Columbian-inspired Meridian. Unfortunately, the actual characters don't stand out as much, feeling like they have less personality than the town of Goetia itself - Celeste's old flame Abraxas. But being a novella makes it very easy to devour the book in a single sitting, and maybe this'll be the first of a new series...but if not, that's cool too.

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