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Spoiler-Free Review: From Dust, a Flame by Rebecca Podos (out 2/22/2022)

Cover of From Dust, a Flame by Rebecca Podos

Genre: Contemporary fantasy
Audience: YA
Series?: Seemingly standalone, but fingers crossed!

Rating: Loved it!

For fans of: Encanto, Primal Animals Julia Lynn Rubin, Veronica Schanoes’s short fiction, The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy, primary source research, etymology, found family (both literal and metaphorical), antiquing

I don’t remember exactly how I came to have a review copy of From Dust, a Flame. I mean, I know it came from Netgalley, but I don’t remember requesting it. It was just on my Kindle one day, with its dark and foreboding romantic cover, and I once again dove into a book with no memory of the blurb.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover Rebecca Podos’s fourth book isn’t the Hunger Games-adjacent drama-and-action-and-drama fest the cover implies. (I love a dystopian YA, but it’s been, you know, a time, and I’m very tired.)

From Dust, a Flame by Rebecca Podos is a young adult contemporary Jewish fantasy novel about how trauma gets passed through generations of parents imperfectly protecting their children. Most of the action revolves around primary source research, most of the drama is familial, and the romantic subplot is sapphic. It’s what I call a “nice story”–not free from conflict or trauma, but thoughtful about how it portrays them and full of characters who are trying their best to do right by each other, even when they make mistakes.

The main character, Hannah Williams, will resonate with readers who recognized themselves in Encanto’s super strong, hyper capable Luisa (me; I bawled my eyes out). Even though Hannah and her family have not spent more than a year in the same district since she started school, Hannah is a perfect student. She sacrifices sleep, free time, hobbies, and friendships in order to maintain her perfect grades.

Hannah has this sense of herself as someone who isn’t naturally gifted in any way, and therefore has to strive four times as hard as her peers in order to earn the love that flows naturally to the rest of her family:

Nobody can help loving my brother, but I don’t need anyone to love me like that. I just need to be good enough that they can’t help but sit up and notice me … sometimes, it feels like no student-of-the-mother award or A++ essay or glowing teacher’s recommendation could make Mom pay me her full attention.

Hannah’s mother and older brother, Gabe, are eccentric, extroverted artist types. It’s Hannah’s mother’s wanderlust that keeps the family in constant motion along “a trail of borrowed houses that had been winding its way across the country for years.” It’s Gabe’s grew-up-too-fast emotional maturity that keeps them relatively peaceful anyway.

When Hannah’s mother was seventeen, she ran away from “a black farmhouse besieged on all sides by wildflowers.”

The night before Hannah’s seventeenth birthday, her mother gives her a silver pendant:

“A hamsa. It was from a friend of your grandmother’s … Someone who meant a lot to me growing up.”

… We’ve never met our grandmother on Mom’s side, never met any of her relatives. Mom rarely talks about the people or place she comes from, or anything that happened to her before [she met our deceased father]. I’ve never even seen a picture of her as a kid …

There are Stars of David engraved in the tip of each of the hamsa’s fingers. It’s the first time Hannah learns her mother’s family is Jewish–that she is Jewish.

What exactly that means is a recurring theme throughout From Dust, a Flame. As Hannah learns more about her family history, she meets Jewish people with a wide range of beliefs and practices, from atheists to mystics. Podos is clearly trying to balance Judaism for Goyim (“This is how we celebrate, this is how we mourn,” etc.) with more in-group-oriented discussions about Jewish identity.

Since I’m not Jewish, I can’t really say how well they pull it off, but I could tell how meaningful a project it was for her, and I am always won over by authorial earnestness.

The morning after Hannah opens the hamsa, she wakes up with “impossible golden eyes, and horizontal, knife-slit pupils.”

I was like “Hell yeah, werewolves, but unfortunately this is not a werewolf book. When Hannah wakes up the next morning, the not-werewolf eyes are gone, and she has another animal feature. It’s a painless transformation that happens every night while she is asleep, and it’s only ever the one feature.

Gabe’s adamant about taking Hannah to a doctor. He’s a big fan of horror movies, so I don’t know why he would think that was a good idea, but his mother talks him out of it. She says she knows “a specialist” back home. She’ll go and find this person, Gabe and Hannah will stay alone in the apartment for two weeks at the most, and everything will be just fine.

Unsurprisingly, everything is not just fine. Their mother never returns, and Hannah ropes Gabe into going after her with only a mysterious piece of mail that arrived after her disappearance to guide them.

As I read about Hannah and Gabe digging through the layers of trauma and mistakes that formed them, I was really impressed by how Podos managed to craft such thorough and well-rounded arcs for so many characters in such a comparatively short book. Even when I disagreed with the choices characters made, I fully understood and empathized with the reasons they made them. It felt true to my experience of inherited trauma: Most people do the best they can to protect their children, but their scars get passed down anyway.

The only aspect of From Dust, a Flame that didn’t work for me was the way the final conflict was resolved. I liked the outcome, but I thought too much of the getting-there happened offscreen. It felt like it was geared toward a much younger audience than the seventeen-year-old protagonist would suggest.

Overall, though, I loved this quiet little book. At a time in my life where everything feels like it’s falling apart, I found the themes of grief and inherited trauma salient and comforting.

Plus, I cannot resist gay tryhards with mommy issues, and Podos gave me not one but four of them to love. I’m hoping she will also give me a sequel with Gabe as the protagonist because I love him and I want to see him thriving in college.

Disclosure

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Can you do me a favor?

If you like this review, please like it on Goodreads and maybe follow me there.

More Info

Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Hardback Page Count: 416

Rebecca Podos won a Lambda Literary award for her second book, Like Water. You can find them on Goodreads and Twitter.

You can support your local independent bookstore by preordering From Dust, a Flame on Bookshop.org, or grab it on Amazon.

Spoiler-Free Review: Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz (Out 1/18/22)

Cover of Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

Genre: Gothic
Audience: YA
Series?: Standalone

Rating: Not for me

For fans of: Stalking Jack the Ripper, Titanic, Tuck Everlasting, Mary Shelley, rich girl/poor boy romance, old anatomical drawings, plague stories

I requested a review copy of Anatomy: A Love Story after hearing Dana Schwartz’s guest appearance on the podcast You Are Good. Sarah Marshall, one of the podcast’s hosts, called it a “grave-robber YA book,” and I was in.

It helps that cover is absolutely gorgeous. It features a red-haired white young woman in a long red gown, viewed from above so that her skirts make an anatomical heart. The font is bold and gothic.

Unfortunately, though I liked the book, it didn’t quite live up to the expectations I had based on the podcast and cover.

The book is set in Edinburgh, 1817, and told through the alternating perspectives of lady Hazel Sinnett and resurrection man Jack Currer.

Here’s my first problem: At first, Schwartz sticks to the convention of maintaining one consistent perspective per chapter, but later, Jack will get a few paragraphs or even just a single sentence in the middle of a Hazel chapter, and vice versa. Either approach (alternating between or within chapters) would be fine, but I found the lack of consistency both confusing and frustrating.

On the other hand, I loved Hazel as a character. She’s a fiercely independent and powerfully lonely young woman trying to delay what she sees as an inevitable marriage to her cousin because she wants to be a surgeon.

This is doubly embarrassing for her cousin/future husband. Ladies aren’t supposed to have professions, and surgeons are regarded as the lowest kind of medical professional:

“If you wanted to pretend that you were going to become a physician–or a nurse–I suppose that would be one thing. But surgery–Hazel, surgery is the field for men with no money. No status. They’re butchers, really!”

Which, fair. Anesthesia hasn’t been invented yet, and surgeons won’t even start routinely washing their hands for another fifty years.

When we meet her, she’s gathering a dead frog and some makeshift lightning rods to see if she can harness the electricity of a gathering storm to reanimate the dead. She’s ruthless and a little cold in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen from a female protagonist. Definitely not a young female protagonist that the narrative regards as uncompromisingly good.

When the local surgeon refuses to teach Hazel because of her sex, she makes a wager with the famous Dr. Beecham:

“The conditions: You will sit the Physician’s Examination at the end of this term. If you pass, I shall open the course to any women who wish to attend, although I warn you there may not be quite so many with your peculiar predilection as you seem to believe. And, in the unlikely event that you do pass, I will also offer you an apprenticeship–with me–at the university hospital …

“Let’s say that if you do not pass the Physician’s Examination, you’ll be unable to sit it in the future. This larger experiment, of a female surgeon, will be considered concluded.”

But Beecham warns Hazel that it will not be possible for her to pass the practical examination with only theoretical knowledge. She needs hands-on experience.

Enter Jack Currer, a poor boy who lives in the rafters of a theater and steals corpses (but never their belongings, which is a more serious crime) to make ends meet. Medical schools require stolen corpses to teach anatomy and surgery because it’s illegal to practice on anyone but executed criminals, and there aren’t enough of those to go around.

Their star-crossed romance is painfully Romeo and Juliet. When he first meets Hazel, Jack believes he’s in love with the prima ballerina at his theater. Hazel is engaged to her cousin. Their families aren’t at war (Jack doesn’t have any family.), but there’s plenty of blood and death, anyway. They share their first kiss in a graveyard, sitting on top of a coffin. Hazel’s horse is named Rosalind.

It worked for me because Jack challenges Hazel, and I appreciate a narrative that recognizes what a relief it is to have someone take you seriously enough to argue with you. They have some cute banter early on:

The boy grinned and winked, although it might have just been him squinting against the setting sun … “I don’t find myself cavorting with high society ladies like yourself too often, so doesn’t strike me as an introduction one needs to make.”

“We’ve already met. Twice.” Hazel reasoned.

“Aye, but is it really meeting if I haven’t given ye a name?” he said, and this time he winked for real.

I also liked their interdependency. Neither Jack nor Hazel can achieve their goals without help from the other, and neither exists purely to help the other grow as a character. At first.

Then, it abruptly stopped working for me. Jack lost all agency. He became a prop in Hazel’s story in a way that felt a lot like a superhero’s girlfriend alternately nagging him and needing to be rescued. It wasn’t even like that loss of agency pushed Hazel to make any significant changes, it just made it hard to remember why Hazel supposedly cared so much about Jack in the first place.

Around this time, the book took a hard shift for the gothic. I don’t know if I can say it was surprising, given the cover, but the first three-quarters of the book are solidly historical fiction. There are no obvious speculative elements, and while there’s obviously suspense, it isn’t moonless night on the foggy moors with a wailing that might just be the wind suspense. The tone is pretty standard for a historical YA.

None of this felt like a twist. Instead, it felt like I was suddenly reading a different book, and I didn’t care what happened because the characters shared only surface details with the characters of the book I had been reading, and everything I had liked about them was gone. I really struggled to finish the book, and I found the ending profoundly unsatisfying.

It’s so frustrating. I enjoyed the majority of the book, and I think putting Jack into the role of the gothic damsel and making Hazel a gothic hero could be interesting, but it just didn’t come together for me.

Disclosure

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Can you do me a favor?

If you like this review, please like it on Goodreads and maybe follow me there.

More Info

Publisher: Wednesday Books
Hardback Page Count: 352

Dana Schwartz is everywhere. She has podcasts, Twitter accounts, bylines, a Wikipedia page. I can’t even begin to list all her contact information.

You can support your local independent bookstore by buying Anatomy: A Love Story on Bookshop.org, or grab it on Amazon.

Review: If This Gets Out: A Novel by Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich (Out 12/7/21)

Cover of If This Get Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich.

Genre: Contemporary romance
Audience: YA
Series?: Standalone

Rating: Loved it!

For fans of: One Direction fanfiction (Larry?), The Charm Offensive, Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, An Unexpected Kind of Love, VH1’s Behind the Music, found family, friends to lovers

I hate when people call gay romance novels cute. It feels infantilizing. It reminds me of the way straight people will stare and point at (especially male) gay couples on the street, and when they’re caught say, “Oh, you’re just so cute.” Like gay people (especially men) are fluffy handbags, statement pieces, not entirely real people.

Also, this book is cute as hell, and it’s only partially due to the romance. I can’t remember the last time I saw a media portrayal of male friendships this open and loving. Usually, when fictional friends say they love each other, it’s a pair of girls who are about to stab each other in the back. There’s no backstabbing in this book. There’s not even a single “no homo.”

The friends are four boys who met and performed together at music camp one summer when they were fifteen: “sensitive, sweet Zach … type A, cautious Jon … wild, hilarious Angel … perfectionist, darkly sarcastic [Ruben].” Though none of the other boys knew it at the time, Jon’s father is the famous pop talent manager Geoff Braxton:

… if he decides you’re worth it he can make you a global superstar, richer and more famous than you can ever imagine. If you want to be famous, he’s a god.

Geoff watched the boys’ finale performance (complete with “terrible choreography that we crudely put together … by watching YouTube … and altering the moves to fit our ability”) “through calculating eyes” and decided they were worth it.

Three years later, Geoff has carefully shaped the boys into Saturday, a world-famous pop band preparing to leave for their first international tour. He’s given them professional choreography and more money than they know how to spend, but also entirely new personals that they have to maintain both on and offstage.

Angel, who has a model waiting in every country, is the innocent virgin, while Jon, a devout Catholic, struggles against instructions to wear less and less clothing for every show.

I’m not going to say much about Jon in this review because when things happen, he’s usually standing on the sidelines yelling for his friends to put on their helmets, but I want to get it on the record that Jon is 10/10 the best boy. Jon would bring you soup when you’re sick and never forget your birthday. If I ever come into a possession of a human son, I want him to be like Jon.

Zach, the pop punk-loving cinnamon roll, is the bad boy of the group, but his vocals have been polished free of any edge. He longs to write a song for Saturday, but Geoff continually rebuffs his efforts, telling him to think more along the lines of “something that would play … in a mall.” Fuck managers, but I actually can’t hold this against Geoff. All the lyrics Zach shares in the book are comedically bad:

I bring my pen to the page and write: You’re like a hangover … I put my notebook down, and write down mysterious ways.

Is there a song in that … you’re hot like water?

Though his musical theater background makes him the strongest vocalist of the group, Ruben is bland, a blank slate for the projected fantasies of any girl who doesn’t want a virgin, a player, or a bad boy. Which seems like a good marketing strategy, at first. However, Geoff goes beyond just dressing Ruben in neutral-colored sweaters, preventing him from showing off his true singing abilities, and forbidding him from drawing any attention to himself. Geoff is terrified someone will find out Ruben is gay, even though it’s an open secret in the industry and Ruben has been asking to make it public since he was sixteen.

Ruben is the group cynic, which sometimes makes him hard to sympathize with. There’s more than a bit of condescension in the way he thinks about his friends’ hopes that their management company will give them more freedom in the future. None of his friends know Geoff has been keeping him in the closet for years because he hasn’t told them. I often wanted to shake him, but I also found him painfully real and relatable. In addition to a gay teenager who’s way over his head, Ruben was raised by parents who are cruel and controlling, and he’s learned to keep his vulnerabilities hidden.

Though all four boys are privately struggling, they manage to keep it more-or-less together until they leave for the international leg of their big tour.

Then, it quickly becomes clear that Angel’s partying is out of control, and there’s something more than friendship growing between Zach and Ruben. (Poor Jon has very little time to worry about his own problems because he’s somehow gotten stuck with the responsibility for keeping his friends alive and out of trouble.)

Even though I have only ever read one (horrifying) piece of bandfic, I loved this setup for a YA romance novel. It’s full of opportunities for angst and drama beyond the usual miscommunication. And it delivers! This is a book that’s practically dripping in teenage angst, but the authors usually manage to keep it from veering into melodrama by making sure there are actual, clear stakes and plenty of fluff to balance it all out.

One night early in the tour, Zach gives his hotel room to two girls who get too drunk at one of Angel’s parties. Of course he can crash in Ruben’s bed. They’re best friends. It’s not weird, just two bros chillin in the same bed five feet apart cuz they’re not gay.

Then they kiss, and it’s suddenly very gay. (Did you know you’re allowed to describe an erection in YA? Because I did not.)

There are several chapters of angst while Zach tries to figure out if he actually wanted to kiss Ruben (and that would mean about him) or if he just wants to have wanted to kiss Ruben because he doesn’t want to hurt his best friend. Ruben has a tendency to attract guys, both straight and not, looking to date their way into stardom. Zach’s almost more afraid of having used Ruben like all the others than he is of admitting he’s bi. Meanwhile, Ruben is panicking that he somehow forced or manipulated Zach into kissing him, and the media is picking up on the tension between them.

If I sound dismissive, it’s not because I have no sympathy for Zach’s experience. The way the authors describe his dawning realization that he’s always been attracted to people of all genders was similar to my own internal coming out process:

Is the truth that I don’t get strong crushes on guys the way I get on girls? Or is the truth that whenever those crushes start to poke their heads up I squash them, and ignore them?

I think of Lee. I think of Eirik. I think of Ruben, and his photo.

… There’s an explanation here, and maybe … no, it can’t be that. You’d know. You’d know.

However, I do think these chapters are the weakest part of the book. While Zach’s coming out feels honest and meaningful, the conflict between him and Ruben feels unnecessarily cruel and drawn out. It’s like the book comes to an abrupt stop so they can bicker in circles for a while.

I get that they’re teenagers. I do get that, but I don’t get why they have to have the same argument over and over again, or why Ruben apparently has no sympathy for what it’s like to realize you’re not as straight as you’ve always told yourself you were. Does he not know any other queer people?

The plot picks up again when Zach decides he does want to be with Ruben. He comes out to the other members of Saturday, who are so excited and supportive I wanted to cry. He comes out to their management team, who promise they can start “thinking about” announcing the relationship publicly after their Russian tour stop. Angel’s mental health continues to decline.

I have mixed feelings about Angel’s plot. On the one hand, I think it’s important to honestly portray what that kind of fame combined with a complete lack of autonomy does to people. Having it hit a supporting character the hardest makes space for more fluff and tenderness in Ruben’s relationship, which I adored.

On the other hand, I’m uncomfortable with Angel’s addiction and mental illness being used as a plot device to create drama in his friends’ love story, especially when Angel is Asian American and Zach and Ruben are white. I’ve yet to make up my mind about how his arc is resolved mostly offscreen with a single stint in rehab. I guess I’m glad to see YA finally portraying therapy positively, but ehhh …

I did really appreciate the way Angel’s struggles motivated his friends to stand up to their management team, and I liked seeing Angel finally being able to open up about what he was going through once he’d gotten help. Again, this book has so much more emotional vulnerability than stories about boys are usually allowed to have. It’s truly lovely.

Something else you don’t see in many YA books: When things get really bad, most of the boys’ parents step up and fight for them. They form a moms’ club to lead the fight against Saturday’s management. It’s a nice change to the feelings of isolation and helplessness the boys have been dealing with for most of the book, and I appreciated the fact that the boys still maintained their autonomy to drive the conclusion.

Overall, this was a sweet read that nicely balanced tenderness with teenage angst and emotional intimacy with international pop star drama. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to people struggling with addiction, but I think anyone who likes their fanfiction with a lot of fighting and a lot of kissing will enjoy If This Gets Out.

Disclosure

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Can you do me a favor?

If you like this review, please like it on Goodreads and maybe follow me there.

More Info

Publisher: ‎ Wednesday Books
Hardback Page Count: 416

Sophie Gonzales is on Twitter and Instagram.

Cale Dietrich is on Twitter and Instagram.

You can support your local independent bookstore by buying BOOK on Bookshop.org, or grab it on Amazon.

Review: The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by Anne Ursu (Out 10/12/21)

Cover of The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by Anne Ursu

Genre: Fantasy
Audience: Middle grade/young YA
Series?: Standalone (?)

Rating: Loved it!

For fans of: Matilda, Harry Potter, Willodeen by Katherine Applegate, magical schools, feminist children’s books, found family, lonely children making friends for the first time, stories about stories, tapestries, secret languages

With its thoughtful messaging about gender equality, the importance of education, and critically evaluating how history gets written and thus remembered, The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy is exactly the kind of book I want to give to my niece and nephews when they’re old enough. Despite some dark themes, it’s also so sweet, funny, and charming that I’ve recommended it to adult friends as well for comfort reading.

Don’t get me wrong: This is definitely a book for middle grade or young YA readers. However, as someone who regularly rereads A Wrinkle in Time, I recognize that children’s stories are often worthwhile reading for adults as well, both because it’s nice to be able to talk about books with the young people in our lives and because they’re enjoyable.

The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy opens with an explanation of the role of women in Illyria. While men might have great destinies as kings or sorcerers, women raise men, make their clothing, clean their homes, provide their food, and record their great deeds in beautiful tapestries. Written by another author, this opening might be heavy handed and cringey. It’s definitely didactic, but Ursu’s clever writing style makes it fun, too.

Then, we meet Marya Lupu, who’s cleaning the chicken coop. Everyone is sure her older brother, Luka, is going to be apprenticed to a sorcerer tomorrow:

The Lupus had been waiting for this day since Luka had come into the world thirteen years earlier bright-eyed and somehow already sage-looking, as if he had absorbed enough wisdom in utero to declaim on some of the weightier issues facing a baby, if only he could speak.

Even though Marya knows the council that evaluates potential sorcerers only care about whether or not their candidates possess magic, Marya’s mother believes their house and family must be clean and proper for Luka’s big day.

Due to a combination of bad luck and an ongoing feud between the Lupu children, this turns out not to be possible. Mrs. Lupu orders Marya to stay in her room and pretend not to exist while the council examines Luka (big Chamber of Secrets vibes), but that isn’t possible either. A hungry goat finds his way into the house. When Marya tries to catch him, she only makes things worse. She not only creates greater chaos; she loses her temper and snaps at a sorcerer.

Luka and Marya both had their roles in the family: his was to make them proud; hers was to disappoint them. Someone had to do it.

It’s no surprise, then, when the family receives a letter saying Luka will not be a sorcerer. It doesn’t matter that the council explicitly stated all that mattered was Luka’s magical potential. Marya is banished to her room and forbidden from visiting her friends.

A second letter arrives a few days later stating that Marya, by order of the king, will be attending “Dragomir Academy near Sarabet, a school dedicated to the reform of troubled girls.” No one in Marya’s village has ever heard of Dragomir Academy. No one knows what will be expected of her or even what she should pack. Still, no one tries to intervene when the deputy headmistress shows up the following morning to take Marya away.

I love Marya as a protagonist. Headstrong and brave, she spends most of her time frustrating the powerful people who would like to shape her into a soft spoken, elegant lady. She sees through adults’ “pretty words” to the hard truth of what they really mean, and she continues to demand honesty and fairness long after other “troubled girls” have given up.

Despite her strength, Marya is often self conscious, quick to take the blame for injustices beyond her control and anxious to fit in with her peers:

Katya, awkward; Daria, suspicious; Elisabet, anxious; Ana-Maria, haughty; Elana, controlled …

I found her fear that the other girls in her class would not want to talk to her about the mysteries of their school’s founding and purpose both endearing and painfully relatable. Marya’s the kind of kid who’s had to take care of herself because the adults in her life won’t, and that makes me want to take care of her.

At Dragomir Academy, girls are given a wide-ranging education in everything from history to magical theory, but the emphasis is on etiquette and “character.” The school’s goal is to turn them from “troubled girls” into proper young ladies who can fill administrative and supporting roles in sorcerer’s estates. There are strict rules governing everything from the proper use of “free” time to how to use cutlery. When a student commits even the smallest infraction, her entire class is punished.

This makes finding friends difficult for Marya at first. Most of her class’s punishments come from her. However, she quickly finds a kindred spirit in Elana, the daughter of a sorcerer who wanders the halls after curfew, seeking secrets and some sense of self-determination.

Elana uncovers the first mystery of Dragomir Academy: The school is housed in an estate donated to the crown by the Dragomir family, whose family portraits still hang throughout the school. A daughter appears in three of the portraits, from young childhood to around Marya’s age. Then she disappears, and there is no further mention of her in the Dragomirs’ letters or journals.

Other mysteries soon follow: What is mountain madness, an illness that usually strikes girls in their third or fourth year at the academy and causes them to see things that aren’t there? What happens to girls afflicted by mountain madness, who return looking thin and haunted several months after they fall sick? Is the academy cursed?

Why are the magical creatures that menace Illyria getting stronger? Why won’t Dragomir’s teachers or headmaster admit there’s a problem? And why has a sorcerer, one of the country’s most precious resources, been assigned to protect a school of troubled girls?

Marya and Elana are determined to find out. As things get worse, though, they’re gradually joined in their quest by the rest of their classmates and even people outside the student body. It’s really lovely to see such a disparate group of girls, who the school’s group-punishment policy have set at odds with each other, coming together to take on the people in power.

This isn’t a Chosen One narrative. Marya doesn’t save the day through prophecy or special powers. She isn’t the smartest or the strongest or the best at anything, aside from getting into trouble. Instead, Marya takes on the bad guys with a combination of bravery, determination, rule breaking and help from her friends:

It would be nice, Marya thought, if once in a while she went into a situation with some kind of plan, as opposed to simply opening her mouth and seeing whatever came out.

I love the way she sort of stumbles headlong into trouble and then grits her teeth and hopes for the best–no strategy, just conviction. Ironically, though the adults of Dragomir Academy don’t see it, Marya’s strength of character is her greatest gift.

I can’t recommend this book strongly enough. Buy it for your kids and your friends’ kids and your kids’ friends. Read it aloud to them or save a copy for yourself.

Disclosure

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Can you do me a favor?

If you like this review, please like it on Goodreads and maybe follow me there.

More Info

Publisher: Walden Pond Press
Hardback Page Count: 432

Anne Ursu is on Twitter.

Preorder the hardcover or Kindle edition on Amazon.

Review: Wardenclyffe by Lloyd Hall (Out 10/1/21)

Cover of Wardenclyffe by Lloyd Hall

Genre: Science fiction
Audience: MG/YA
Series?: Wardenclyffe series

Rating: Liked it

For fans of: Star Trek’s Data, adventure games, the “It was earth the whole time!” trope

Achievement unlocked: I received my very first physical review copy of a book earlier this summer.

eARCs (eBooks for review) seem to be the standard for blogs like mine, and I get why. They’re much cheaper for publishers to manufacture and distribute, and reviewers can’t resell them (a controversial practice I’m not going to weigh in on right now). People with larger platforms get to require physical books for review. For the most part, I’m just happy to be invited to the party, but I was very excited to get this offer.

I was even more excited to receive the book! I can’t say for certain, but I’m guessing most physical review copies don’t come packaged so beautifully, with coordinated tissue paper and thank-you notes:

The author and publisher of Wardenclyffe, Lloyd Hall, has a fashion and costume design background, and it shows. Even discounting the gorgeous packaging, which I assume retailers like Target won’t include, the book itself is a work of art. The satiny, dark purple hardback and matching dust cover were illustrated by Abigail Spence. You can’t tell from the little digital image, but when you hold it in your hand, the drawing almost looks like a linocut. It’s stunning.

Additional illustrations throughout the book by Minna Ollikainen help bring the world of Wardenclyffe to life.

An early illustration from Wardenclyffe shows carnival booths, trees, and banners at the Illumination Festival in the town of Valentine. The image is in black and white, with geometric shapes and patterns reminiscent of mandala designs.
Featuring my latest nail polish love, Femme Fatale’s “You’re Not Even Alive!”

Despite its beauty, I had a tough time getting into this book at first.

We got off to a bad start. Though it remains popular, I’m always put off by the sci-fi trope where characters in futuristic settings talk about weird old artifacts they found that we, the readers, recognize as commonplace in our time:

Mary is behind the counter distributing large containers to the crowd. I look inside the container and see it filled with hundreds of tiny pieces of white material. I approach Mary …

“What is the material you are distributing?” I ask her.

Mary laughs. “It’s food, Bit!”

ANALYSIS — UNKNOWN

“I am unfamiliar with this food,” I tell her.

“Well you’re not completely unfamiliar. You know the corn we grow up in the fields behind the cafe?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Well that’s what this is!”

DATABASE SEARCH — MATCH INCOMPATIBLE

“It does not appear to be the same,” I say. She laughs again.

“No it is, I promise! We just found a new way to cook it,” she explains.

“What method of preparation causes the physical appearance to change?” I ask.

“Well, Bruce found us this old book of recipes. If you take the corn kernels and heat them they do this.”

This happens several times in the first few chapters, and I seriously considered DNF’ing the book because of it.

Another problem I had is the book is written in a style that feels overly simplistic for the intended audience (thirteen- to eighteen-year-olds).

This could be a deliberate stylistic choice. The narrator, Bit, is an android. Though she’s physically stronger than ordinary humans, doesn’t age, and has perfect recall, Bit lacks several basic human traits, including emotions and the capacity to recognize beauty. She’s overly literal and lacks a sense of humor.

It makes sense that her sentences would be short and direct with limited sensory details, but I still struggled with them at first. I barely made it through the disaster that cuts off all power to Valentine and the surrounding towns and Bit’s decision to journey north (for years, if she has to) in search of a scientist she believes may have a solution.

Things changed for me almost as soon as she got out of town. While I struggled to invest in any of Wardenclyffe’s characters, I found the world fascinating and mysterious.

Bit travels through a town called Paradise, where most people spend their days turning power switches on and off to make sure they use the exact same amount of power in the exact same way as they have for generations, and an island called St. Helens, where technology is reviled and melted down for scrap. The people of Paradise believe disasters are the result of breaking tradition. The people of St. Helens believe they’re caused by technology.

I started to think of Wardenclyffe less as a novella and more as an adaptation of an adventure game or a Twilight Zone episode. It gave me serious Myst vibes. That way, the odd, clunky dialogue seems less like a flaw and more like an essential element of the genre.

As Bit travels, we learn more about the history of her world. A catastrophic event referred to as “the flooding” resulted in the loss of most of the human population as well as most human knowledge, so that surviving people can use old technology but they cannot repair it or create new technology. I like that the book doesn’t try to explain what caused the flood or fill in every detail of the world before and after. That kind of granular worldbuilding has to be immaculate, and leaving it vague makes it easier to suspend disbelief.

It wasn’t until Bit reached St. Helens that I realized her world is actually our world. St. Helens is an island in a thermal lake either near or in the crater of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. June, the location of the titular Wardenclyffe lighthouse, is Juneau, Alaska. Paradise is a town in California, and I think Valentine might refer to Valentine Camp, also in California. This is maybe hypocritical, given what I said earlier, but I was delighted by these breadcrumbs and felt very smart for getting them.

Wardenclyffe, if you’re wondering, is not actually a lighthouse in Alaska. It was an “early experimental wireless transmission station” built by in New York Nikola Tesla, later torn down to settle some of his debts. I didn’t know that part in advance. Google told me.

The mysteries of the scientist and what happened to Valentine’s power are tied to the mystery of Bit’s creation and why she has outlasted all the other androids. She finds all the answers she’s looking for near Wardenclyffe, which should make for a satisfying ending. I’m still torn on whether or not it does, though. I think it’s thematically appropriate, but perhaps because I never connected with the characters, I didn’t find it particularly emotionally resonant.

Still, I really enjoyed exploring the world of Wardenclyffe, and I’m intrigued by the possibility of future books. I’d definitely pick up book two if it had a different narrator with a more descriptive voice.

Can you do me a favor?

If you like this review, please like it on Goodreads and maybe follow me there.

More Info

Publisher: Self published
Hardback Page Count: 238

Lloyd Hall is on Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.

You can preorder the book (out October 1) directly from the author’s website.

Review: Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Out 9/21/21)

Genre: Science fiction
Audience: YA
Series?: Iron Widow #1

Rating: Loved it!

For fans of: Darling in the Franxx, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pacific Rim, The Hunger Games, Strange Grace by Tessa Gratton, Chinese harem dramas, angry bisexuals who don’t flinch when they kill their enemies

Spoiler alert: I’m not going to spoil this book any more than the author has on social media, but if you’d prefer not to know what happens at all, please come back when you’ve finished Iron Widow!

Here is everything I knew about Iron Widow when I requested it from NetGalley: It’s a reimagining of the rise of the only female Chinese emperor written by the person who made those Mulan videos. I expected historical fiction, political intrigue, and maybe some family drama.

Iron Widow is nothing like I expected. If I had to write an elevator pitch, I’d say it’s a dark mecha anime with an MFM throuple that makes only minor concessions to YA conventions. There’s a makeover, a love triangle, and a homecoming, but there’s also so much violence The Hunger Games looks like a game of touch football.

It also isn’t a retelling in the sense I imagined. It isn’t set in ancient China, but rather a non-earth sci-fi world inspired by the culture and geography of ancient China. In this world, all girls are raised as sacrifices. They’re sold to wealthy husbands or to the army. Either way, their lives are cruel and rigidly confined by both their patriarchal society and their own internalized misogyny.

Wu Zetian’s older sister was sold to the army, where male pilots use girls as fuel sources to power their giant mechs in battle against the mechanical aliens beyond the Great Wall. Girls often die in battle, but Zetian’s sister didn’t even make it that far. Her pilot strangled her to death.

To her parents’ relief, Zetian finally agrees to join the army, but she doesn’t intend to die in battle either. She plans to kill her sister’s murderer. She knows she and her entire family will be executed as a result, and she believes she’s prepared to die for her vengeance.

However, before she can act, the pilot takes Zetian into battle with him, and two unexpected things happen. First, the pilot dies in her place. Second, Zetian discovers she wants to live.

Iron Widow continues my streak of LGBT books that are so delightfully fanfic-y (Queerleaders, The Calyx Charm) they make up for the fact that they’re also continuing my streak of books that are thematically heavy.

It reads like a wildly creative AU for some mecha anime I’ve never seen. (Confession: I have never seen any mecha anime.) Partially because of, you know, all the mechs, but mostly because there is so much here that I’ve only really seen in places where writers don’t have to contend with publishing gatekeepers. In a YA novel!

The MFM throuple is a fun subversion of the love triangle trope. While I’m more invested in the enemies-to-lovers pairing than the others, I was impressed by how clearly Zhao handled them all. They felt inevitable. All four of the relationships (each character with each of the others, and then all three characters together) had ample on-screen development time, including the relationship between the non-POV characters.

I had no choice but to love Zetian, who is angry, bisexual, and traumatized. That’s everything I want in a protagonist. She even gets some shit from other characters about her weight, though the cover model is thin and it’s hard to tell if Zetian is intended to be read as fat or if this is just another example of the patriarchal scrutiny she lives under.

I also loved the plot structure, which reminded me a bit of Six of Crows. Pop writing advice says that protagonists have to fail and fail and fail again until they succeed. Each challenge they fail raises the stakes, until they’re in an impossible position with the entire universe depending on them, and only then can they succeed.

Only, it’s actually much more fun to read about protagonists succeeding occasionally. In both Iron Widow and Six of Crows, we have characters who are smart and clever and good at what they do. They encounter obstacles, strategize, and then overcome those obstacles in ways that both raise the stakes and move the plot forward. Often, Zetian succeeds in ways that only end up getting her into more trouble, but at least we get to see that she truly is remarkable, instead of just being told how Special she is.

This is also my only real complaint: Zetian is Special in a way that I feel somewhat undermines Iron Widow’s feminist themes. I have no problem with Zetian spontaneously deciding to resist her patriarchal upbringing, which seems like a matter of self-preservation more than anything. I also don’t mind how much internalized misogyny influences Zetian’s perception of other women. My problem is how the narrative reinforces Zetian’s perception.

Without venturing too far into spoiler territory, other women in Iron Widow essentially fall into 3 categories: tragic victims, catty bitches, and the tragic-victim-catty-bitch Venn diagram overlap of victims who eagerly sacrifice other women.

Zetian does occasionally think about how there have to be other girls who are as remarkable as she is, and sometimes she’ll mentally challenge her internalized misogyny. I interpret that to mean later books in will contain more nuanced female characters. I’m still disappointed by their absence in Iron Widow, but I think Zhao has done enough to merit optimism for the rest of the series.

Content Warnings

From the author: “Please be aware that this book contains scenes of violence and abuse, suicide ideation, discussion and references to sexual assault (though no on-page depictions), alcohol addiction, and torture.”

Disclosure

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

More Info

Publisher: Penguin Teen
Hardback Page Count: 400

Xiran Jay Zhao is “on Twitter for memes, Instagram for cosplays and fancy outfits, and YouTube for long videos about Chinese history and culture.”

You can support your local independent bookstore by preordering BOOK on Bookshop.org, or on Amazon.

Review: Queerleaders by M. B. Guel

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Audience: YA
Series?: Standalone

Rating: Liked it

For fans of: But I’m a Cheerleader, Mean Girls, Glee, high school AU fanfiction, Dr. Pepper lip balm

This post contains minor spoilers for Queerleaders.

One quick aside before I never read another negative Goodreads review for a book I like ever again (ha): I wish readers showed as much grace to #OwnVoices writers as we do to (presumed) more privileged writers of similar stories.

Or maybe I just wish the readers with seemingly inexhaustible patience for privileged writers would pick up little indie queer books more often.

The Road To El Dorado gif where the characters say, "Both?" "Both?" "Both." "Both is good." (I don't know who these characters are, sorry!)

The only way I can describe this delightfully campy little novella is But I’m a Cheerleader meets Mean Girls meets Glee. If you like all of those properties, you will like this book. If the satirical homophobia of But I’m a Cheerleader and Mean Girls is too much for you, you will not like this book.

If you’re like, “That sounds great, but I’d literally rather die than listen to another Lea Michele cover,” good news! There is no audio component to this book. I don’t think any of the characters even mention a song in passing, though I could be mistaken about that.

The protagonist of Queerleaders, Mack, is a closeted lesbian in her senior year at a Catholic high school. She has a best friend who goes everywhere with her, the kind of supportive parents you really only see in teen comedies, and a crush on the head cheerleader, Veronica, who she believes is secretly much smarter and kinder than everyone gives her credit for. To prove to her friend that Veronica is a worthy love interest, Mack makes a list of Ronnie’s admirable traits.

Naturally, Veronica’s football player boyfriend finds the list and uses it to out Mack in front of everyone. Mack, who has never been kissed, vows to get revenge by stealing all of the football players’ cheerleader girlfriends.

Clea Duvall as Graham in But I'm a Cheerleader smokes a cigarette in an obnoxiously pink bed.

This is the most fanficy premise I’ve encountered in a professionally published book since Fifty Shades of Grey. I messaged it to my friends. Then I sent them a copy. Then I, in the depths of my Asian Readathon selections and desperate for something simple and sweet, checked it out of the library and stared at it every day until June 1.

Keeping in mind Corey Alexander’s very good essay on what we call fluff, I need to clarify that this book was simple and sweet for me because I have been out of high school for almost 12 years. Some of the bullying Mack experiences—particularly a scene in which someone sets her up for public humiliation, and the fallout from that—comes close enough to what I went through that I might have found it difficult if it were fresher. Then again, these scenes are brief, and Mack gets a satisfying teen romantic comedy ending shortly thereafter. Maybe I would have found it cathartic.

Aside from the premise and the sweet ending, my favorite part of Queerleaders was the romance. So many sapphic romances in YA feel like friendships with extra tragedy. Where’s the tension? Where’s the yearning? Queerleaders delivers on both passion and desire, along with a love interest unlike any I’ve seen in sapphic or straight romance before.

More Info

Publisher: Bella Books
Paperback Page Count: 148

M. B. Guel posts pictures of their adorable pets on Instagram.

You can support your local independent bookstore by buying Queerleaders on Bookshop.org, or grab it on Amazon. Also make sure to preorder their forthcoming novel Internet Famous (December 2021).

Spoiler-Free Review: A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi

Genre: Fantasy
Audience: Young adult
Series?: The Star-Touched Queen Duology

Rating: Loved it!

For fans of: GracelingThe Library of FatesRaybearer, enemies to lovers, high stakes fantasy games and tournaments, talking monster companions

A Crown of Wishes is lush, colorful, and delicious. It’s a fast-paced adventure with such rich sensory detail that I feel like I dreamed it, and I want to go back tonight. Plus, it manages to feel fresh and contemporary while also delivering heaps of my favorite tropes:

  • Enemies to lovers
  • Spooky animal companions
  • Found family
  • Capricious gods
  • Monsters with hearts of gold
  • Soft boys who love prickly girls
  • Healing, um … kisses

It’s the story of heirs to rival kingdoms, who have not yet met when are chosen by the Lord of Wealth to compete as partners in the Tournament of Wishes. If they can find a way into the Otherworld of magic and monsters and survive two challenges and a sacrifice, there’s still no guarantee they’ll both be allowed to leave with their lives. But for a chance at a Wish, they’ll have to risk it.

Princess Gauri is the angry girl of my dreams: “A beast. A monster. A myth. A girl. What was the difference?” She’s a princess without a country, desperate to return. To protect her people, she trained as a soldier to fight in her cruel brother’s armies, and eventually to overthrow him. However, her need to protect has made her paranoid and afraid of being vulnerable. Her coup failed, and her brother dropped her over the border in an enemy kingdom with orders for her execution.

On paper, Prince Vikram is the heir to that enemy kingdom, but his father’s council knows he is adopted and has no intention of letting him wield real power when he takes the throne. He’s a good match for Princess Gauri, first as a reluctant ally and eventually as a love interest. Despite her martial prowess, Gauri doesn’t frighten the comparatively peaceful Vikram, who accepts her initial distrust with cockiness that isn’t hiding anything.

Vikram is genuinely confident that their quest is going to make him into a true ruler. As a result, he is almost recklessly kind and trusting with the people they meet on their journey in a way Gauri can’t allow herself to be, yet.

Despite the protagonists’ tragic backstories and desperate circumstances, this is a cheerful book. It was such a relief after–you know, everything, that I almost wish it weren’t such a quick, breezy read. I’m definitely going to pick up the other books in this series as soon as I shrink my TBR pile a bit.

Asian Readathon

This is the third book I finished for the 2021 Asian Readathon. I’m counting it for challenge 2.

Roshani Chokshi’s mother is Filipino and her father is Indian.

More Info

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Hardback Page Count: 384

Roshani Chokshi is on Twitter and Instagram.

You can support your local independent bookstore by buying A Crown of Wishes on Bookshop.org, or grab it on Amazon.

Spoiler-Free Book Review: Thorn by Intisar Khanani

Early in Thorn, Intisar Khanani’s YA fantasy retelling of “Goose Girl,” the protagonist’s talking Horse advises her with the book’s central theme and conflict:

It is rare for someone who wants power to truly deserve it.

Princess Alyrra is patient, gentle, generous, curious, and honest to a fault. After years of abuse at the hands of her mother and brother, she’s almost relieved to have her identity stolen on the road to the neighboring kingdom, where she is to wed the prince. Alyrra has no desire to rule. If only she could be sure the imposter would not harm the prince, Alyrra would be content as a goose girl, trading hard physical labor for freedom from court politics.

Thorn is a deceptively heavy novel. Despite its colorful cover and accessible writing, themes of abuse, injustice, and revenge permeate almost every scene. Intisar Khanani handles these themes with consideration and respect not only for their weight but also for the reader. I particularly appreciated the nuanced discussion of defensive versus offensive violence. And amid the darkness, there are much-needed moments of humor and beauty, including stubborn horses, a sweet found family that loves Alyrra the way her family of origin couldn’t.

Of the retellings I’ve read, Thorn is among the most faithful to its original fairytale. The cast is broader and more developed, and there is a side plot about human trafficking and thieves guilds. However, the primary plot points largely mirror those of “Goose Girl.”

That isn’t necessarily a problem. Based on a quick skim of Goodreads, I’m one of many readers for whom this was our first exposure to “Goose Girl.” Khanani also worked in a few twists that would have surprised me even if I had been familiar with the inspiration. However, there is one event in the original fairytale that doesn’t make much sense to me in that context, and it made even less sense to me in Thorn. To avoid spoilers, I’ll just say I kept waiting for something important to happen as Alyrra passed through the gates, and it never did.

I also wish Khanani had done more to develop Alyrra’s world and to push back against the fairytale trope of characters that are either all good or all evil. The primary villain, who orchestrates the theft of Alyrra’s identity, is complicated and sympathetic, but no other antagonist gets the same treatment. However, I enjoyed the quieter, more contemplative scenes immensely, and I’m eager to see what Khanani writes next.

Thorn is most likely to appeal to fans of trauma narratives that are light on romance, like Raybearer and Deerskin. However, it’s also a beautiful found family story, and I think people who prefer the parts of Disney movies where princesses cheerfully clean the house with the help of their animal sidekicks would enjoy it immensely.

Asian Readathon

This is the first book I finished for the 2021 Asian Readathon. I’m counting it for challenge 1, though it could also fulfill challenge 2 or 3, or all 3 if I only wanted to read 3 books.

Intisar Khanani’s family is Pakistani.

Content Warnings

I’m still conflicted about listing these, but apparently it’s a thing I’m doing now.

Thorn by Intisar Khanani contains physical, verbal, and emotional abuse; violence against animals; torture; human trafficking of children; onscreen threats of sexual violence; offscreen sexual violence; and torture.

More Info

Publisher: Orbit
Paperback Page Count: 528

Intisar Khanani is on Twitter and Instagram.

You can support your local independent bookstore by buying Thorn on Bookshop.org, or grab it on Amazon.