The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home is the conclusion to Catherynne Valente’s Fairland series for middle grade readers. The first book was a revelation, and is the book that introduced me to Valente. I adored that book, loved it. I enjoyed the second and third books as well, though I don’t think they ever managed to really re-capture the magic in the first book. However the fourth book, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, was a huge disappointment. Still, even given that I’d been […]
Never get involved in a land war in Asia
I will admit, I thought I might be out-smarting these books, with the formula all figured out, but this one, the third in the “Temeraire” series, totally took me on a ride. Delightful, surprising, and exciting. Well played, Novik. Black Powder War bothers with barely any passage of time after Throne of Jade. The company is still in China, preparing for travel back to England, when natural disaster and politics coincide and intervene, causing Laurence and Temeraire to take their scrappy crew of aviators overland […]
If They Piss Me Off, They’ll Find Themselves at the End of My Knives
Rating: 5/5 Summary: Celaena Sardothien has been a slave in the Salt Mines of Endovier for over a year, yet she’s still sane and extremely deadly. Celaena is the notorious Adarlan’s Assassin and this title has been feared for many years. The reason she’s freed is so that she can compete in a competition to be the King’s Champion and she’s the Prince’s pick. If she wins the competition, she’ll serve the King for six years before being free at last. The only thing Celaena […]
The Wild Magical West
Silver on the Road is a fantasy set in an alternate version of the early western expansion, and is also the very first Laura Anne Gilman novel to completely work for me. I’ve read two others. The first, her urban fantasy, I absolutely hated and the second, the magical wine Renaissance fantasy, wasn’t quite really my cup of tea either, though I didn’t hate it. However, I feel like Gilman’s slow, meandering, detailed style fits perfectly with the western theme. The novel starts on Izzie’s […]
Schwab is killin’ it
4.5 stars. I’m a little mad that I got sucked into a book with a cliffhanger ending and who knows when the next book will be out, but at least it was an incredibly fun reading experience. I’ve got to try Schwab’s other books. If they’re as readable as this series, I know I’ll love them. Anyway, back to A Gathering of Shadows. The story starts off about 4 months after the end of A Darker Shade of Magic. Lila’s been out adventuring, meeting great […]
A Strong Finish
How do you solve a problem like having to write a review about the last book in a great YA series? It feels impossible. Thank god I wasn’t doing Cannonball Read when the 7th Harry Potter book came out. My review would have just been a string of “I don’t knows” and “oh my gods” and “I can’t evens.” I don’t want to summarize the book because spoilers, so maybe I’ll just talk around the plot. Stiefvater took on the Herculean task of wrapping up […]