The Book of M is the first book by Peng Shepherd and it’s hard to classify. It’s sort of fantasy due to there being some magic. It’s kind of science fiction as it examines the human condition in a near future where human civilization has collapsed. It is definitely dystopian, see previous sentence about the collapse of human civilization. And urban in the sense that a good chunk of the book happens in urban centers. It has romantic themes as two of the main characters […]
This book is delightful, and now I want a tea dragon
I don’t remember where I first heard about The Tea Dragon Society but I was instantly hooked by the name, as it contains two of my favorite things, tea and dragons. While taking my ten year old gift book shopping (we always give books as birthday presents), I pointed out The Tea Dragon Society and said that I really wanted it. She remembered and gave it to me for my birthday this past weekend! Katie O’Neill wrote an endearing story with charming, beautiful illustrations and wonderful characters. The story […]
In which I determine I don’t like “choose your own adventure” books
A friend was looking to make room on her bookshelf and asked if I was interested in this book. It seemed like the right age level for my 10 year old and she likes slightly creepy stuff so this seemed perfect. What I didn’t realize at the time was it is a choose your own adventure book. Yesterday I was looking for a quick read and as this had Frankenstein in the title it was seasonally appropriate. Opening it I realized the nature of the […]
Charming manga for the tween set
Cardcaptor Sakura is a Japanese comic, commonly called manga, that is created by an all female team who style themselves as CLAMP. Fourth grader Sakura Kinomoto found an old book in her dad’s library, when she opened it a deck of cards flew out and disappeared. The cards were created by the magician Clow Reed and are colloquially called the Clow cards. Each card represents a different power, such as the four elements but also things like flying and illusion. Only someone with magical ability has […]
Bittersweet end to soap opera like urban fantasy
I say “soap opera like” in the best possible way. A disinherited heir trying to regain power, siblings facing the potential of having to duel one another to the death, a surprise twin, a scheming patriarch manipulating others to further his agenda, and everyone is trying to gain power and raise themselves in the hierarchy. All this is set amidst a magical tournament to determine which House will lead the Unseen World, the world of magicians kept secret from the mundane. Every twenty years or […]
Three quarters of the way through I finally “got” why cheese was so prominent in this book
In February 2016 two authors, Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne, were stuck in an airport and decided it was time to kill the proverbial farm boy. Specifically, it was time to make fun of white male power fantasies that typically involve a boy being destined for greater than his humble beginnings because he is somehow special, and all the tropes that often accompany those stories. And so they wrote Kill the Farm Boy. The elements are all familiar; there is a chosen one, a talking […]
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