Lanny by Max Porter
I want to be cynical and say I didn’t like this but I was honestly pretty blown away by it as I read it. I won’t tell you too much about the plot because it might give away elements about this that really work for this novel. But the set up is that we’re in a small town about an hour outside London. New to the town is a married couple with a mother who writes mystery novels, a husband with a regular kind of […]
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
#CBR11 Bingo: I Love This First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between […]
The Stone Sky by NK Jemisin
CBR11 Bingo – Travel The conclusion of The Broken Earth trilogy sees mother and daughter, Essun and Nassun, both setting out on their own journeys to change the course of history. (as this is the end of the series, this is super heavy with spoilers; be ye warned) At the end of book 2, both Essun and Nassun are coming into their full powers and know that to affect the world in the way they see best they need to gain control of the […]
The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin
CBR11 Bingo – Award Winner (2017 Hugo Award) This is the second book in the Broken Earth Triology, and picks up immediately after book one. Basically this entire review will be a spoiler, if you haven’t read the first book… sooo… stop here if you haven’t read them, but want to?). As the disaster that is this Season intensifies, Essun and Hoa (who she has learned is a stone-eater, and not a child at all) have found refuge in a community that is surviving […]
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin
CBR11 Bingo – And So It Begins This trilogy has long been on my radar and I picked it up on vacation at the beginning of the month, knowing that I’d have a few interrupted days to really dig my teeth into them. [the bonus I didn’t realize until after the fact: each book satisfies a bingo square requirement; thank you vacation-packing gods] The Fifth Season introduces us to The Stillness, a fictional, futuristic land. It’s a land populated by humans, but some of […]
This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
#cbr11bingo #Travel The 10-to-14-year-old reader will see the literal journey Ben and his friends take, and the adult will see the metaphysical one in graphic novel This Was Our Pact. Regardless which journey you see, Ryan Andrews created something darn magical. While some of Andrews illustrations were slightly awkward for me (there is the one panel where the bear is laughing and frankly, movie Alien comparisons might not be out of place), but they always fit the mood and tone of the story. Color, or […]
