Category: Book Review Tuesday

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/22/25) – The Ephemera Collector

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Continuing with Disability Pride Month, here’s a fascinating 2025 debut! I love books about libraries and archives, both for personal reasons and because of the possibilities that they hold. Add in the queer, science fiction aspect of it, and I was instantly hooked. The Ephemera Collector turned out to be one of the more unique books I’ve read recently, both in its mixed-media approach and the sprawling nature of its vision.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Ephemera Collector – Stacy Nathaniel Jackson

2035. In a divided, polluted Los Angeles, Xandria Brown pours her passion into her work as an archivist. Collecting ephemera from prominent Black authors, artists, and activists, she fights to preserve her work as the threat of corporate encroachment in her library looms. After the death of her wife, only her health bots, which monitor her symptoms of long COVID, keep her company. But when the library goes into lockdown for undisclosed reasons, Xandria and her health bots must get to the bottom of the mystery—and make sure that her collections are unscathed.

TW/CW: ableism, eugenics, racism, violence, medical content

Though not without its flaws, this is one of those novels where you can really feel how much of a labor of love it was for the author. The Ephemera Collector is Stacy Nathaniel Jackson’s debut novel, which he published in his 60’s (!!!). It’s a mix of prose, poetry, and visual media, and I honestly wish I’d read a physical copy instead of an ebook in this case, because I feel like my Kindle couldn’t grasp the formatting fully. Nevertheless, The Ephemera Collector is a unique novel in all senses: a unique dystopia, a unique Afrofuturist novel, and a startlingly original piece of sci-fi.

Stacy Nathaniel Jackson’s vision of the United States 10 years from now was certainly bleak, but his worldbuilding was what made The Ephemera Collector stand out so much to me. No stone was left unturned in terms of what happens to America in the next 10 years, from the threat of corporate oversight on Xandria’s archives of Black history to the COVID-34 pandemic that occurs a year before the novel is set. It was bleak to me, but not necessarily cynical to me; yeah, us going into a second global pandemic only 14 years after “getting through” the first one seems a bit cynical, but given how this country absolutely bungled how we handled COVID-19, it feels somewhat realistic. Yet the weirder and further you get from the center of what makes Jackson’s dystopia a dystopia, the more imaginative the worldbuilding gets. Xandria is followed around by health bots that all have distinct personalities. There’s a whole Atlantis 2: Electric Boogaloo situation with a group of POC separatists who settle underwater off the coast of California. The weirder Jackson gets with it, the better the worldbuilding becomes; those unique touches are what stuck with me the most.

Yet even though Jackson’s vision of the future is full of polluted air and government corruption (not too far off…oof), it never fully felt like completely gloom and doom. In the end, I feel like this novel was about the importance of preserving history, and the main character’s fight is to keep corporations out of her exhibition of Black history, namely a collection of ephemera about Octavia Butler. Our protagonist is a queer, disabled Black woman who comes from a line of disabled Black ancestors, and she is standing her ground when it comes to preserving their history as a fundamental thread in the fabric of our country. Xandria putting up this fight, for me, was what kept The Ephemera Collector from being fully cynical. To imagine a darker vision of the future is one thing, but to have a character fight it, win, and outlast said corruption and hatred (somehow, she lives to be 300 years old? I assumed it was the gene editing, but it’s never fully explained) was what gave me hope in the end. Xandria, a battered woman who faced threats to her archives, non-consensual gene editing and eugenicist practices, and the death of her wife, comes out the victor in the end, triumphant over everything she fought to defeat. She is alive to preserve the history of her ancestors, but she is also proof that even the groups that America is most determined to erase will survive no matter what this country throws at them—and outlive them by centuries.

Going into The Ephemera Collector, I knew it wouldn’t be the easiest book to digest. The reviews warned me of a novel that frequently went on tangents that didn’t relate to the main storyline, and a novel that was disorganized in general. Having that in mind, I went in with low expectations. While I do think this novel was a bit disorganized at worst, I think it was partially the point. This is a book about an archivist poring through artifacts in a massive library. Jackson’s style is very stream-of-consciousness, and I feel like it uniquely reflects what Xandria’s mindset would accurately be if she spent most of her waking hours as an archivist. It reminded me vaguely of The Library of Broken Worlds, a very different book from this one, but still a sprawling, magnificent at best, deeply convoluted at worst novel set in a vast library. Maybe that’s just what you’re in for if you write imaginative books about sci-fi/fantasy libraries. There were some sections that strayed too far from the main plot for my taste (more on that later), but overall, I enjoyed the breaks in form, whether it was the switches from prose to poetry to the anecdotes about Xandria’s ancestry. It really put me in mind of an archivist, and that seems exactly what Jackson set out to do. For me, it also tied back into the theme of preserving history—all of what we see is the history that Xandria fought so hard to keep alive and non-sanitized by corporations.

Here’s the thing, though. I was fine with the earlier tangents because I could see the thread that connected them to the rest of the novel. But around 60% of the way through, The Ephemera Collector quite literally loses the plot. Without warning, it switches to an entirely new story that’s barely connected to the main story—and that’s being generous. The only possible connection I could find was that one of the characters was a relative of Xandria, but that’s it. There’s no connection to her or the library. My dilemma is that although it was very distant from the rest of the novel, it was still a compellingly written storyline. It dealt with one of the more fascinating parts of the worldbuilding: the separatist community who created an underwater settlement, and later became pseudo-climate refugees when it became untenable to live underwater for any longer. It was so strange and lovely to pick apart, but it didn’t connect to the main narrative until the very last minute. Even in the context of Xandria looking through the archives, there wasn’t a clear thread. I’m tempted to give this less than 4 stars, because although this frustrated me, the writing was just that good. In my more arbitrary system, I guess it would be more in the 3.8-3.9 range, if we’re getting really specific, but I like it more than a 3.75. It’s a weird dilemma, but so is the whole novel, really.

All in all, a deeply imaginative Afrofuturist novel that pushed the boundaries of what a dystopia can be. 4 stars!

The Ephemera Collector is a standalone and Stacy Nathaniel Jackson’s debut.

Today’s song:

NEW GUERILLA TOSS, WOOOO

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Sunday Songs: 7/20/25

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: I get more heated than I ever expected to be about Edvard Grieg, my middle school sad bastard music comes out of its cave, and, uh…what’s that? LOVE SHACK, BABY! More at 6.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/20/25

“Love Shack” – The B-52’s

This one came late because of, once again, my insistence on sticking to these (loose) color palettes. But god, I was having a blast listening to this on repeat during Pride Month. I couldn’t go to any pride parades or anything because of a) preexisting plans and b) it was, quite literally, as hot as an oven. But the amount of times I listened to “Love Shack” honestly made up for it.

Sure, this isn’t nearly as weird as some of The B-52s’ other songs—in fact, it’s probably their most accessible song—but it really is fitting as one of their signature songs. The pop joy isn’t just a product of them being upbeat for airplay—it really was a triumphant moment for them, their comeback after tragedy struck the band in 1985 after the death of Ricky Wilson from AIDS-related complications. It was them coming back from the brink and declaring that in spite of tragedy, they would stick to their mission of bringing gleefully weird pop music to the world. It’s a catchy pop song, sure, but it was also a commitment to celebrate togetherness in spite of the greatest hardship a band could possibly endure. And for a song that’s mainly just remembered as the product of a particularly weird party band, that’s such a beautiful legacy to leave. But beyond that…oh my god, it’s just so camp. It’s just so fun! How can you not grin constantly when you hear this song? Fred Schneider’s just being Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson are producing some of the best harmonies in pop music, and the whole “bang, bang, bang, on the door, baby” bridge? Who ISN’T shivering with antici……..pation at that? (And yes, that is RuPaul right there at 2:03 in the music video, as if this song couldn’t get any queerer.) I’m tempted to dismiss my instincts to get all women and gender studies with it about “Love Shack,” but if this isn’t queer joy—coming together in the face of a widespread tragedy that affected the LGBTQ+ community so fundamentally—then what is? LOVE SHACK, BABY!

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Like a Love Story – Abdi Nazemian – The B-52’s aren’t the focus of this book (Madonna is, though), but this novel is set in 1989—the same year “Love Shack” was released—and centers around similar themes of queer identity and togetherness in the face of tragedy.

“Cupid” (Sam Cooke cover) – Jim Noir

While we all wait for Jimmy’s Show 2 to come out, Jim Noir has released an EP of covers, available on his Patreon! (It also includes a mashup of Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” and Super Furry Animals’ “Northern Lites,” which is pretty amazing.) He posted this cover of Sam Cooke’s “Cupid” several months before hand, and I lamented that he hadn’t made it available for release, because unexpectedly, it was perfectly suited for him. Jim Noir’s music is full of ’60s influences, but until now, I mostly thought it was reserved for bands like The Beatles or the Beach Boys, which more readily come through in his sunnier, twinklier melodies. I should’ve known how easily that would translate to another part of the ’60s—Sam Cooke’s classic love song. It’s hard to touch any of his songs for me, not necessarily because they hold a particularly special place in my heart, but because they’re so ubiquitously him—Cooke’s songs have a quality about them that make them feel fully-formed, able to be made by nobody but him. The key to Jim Noir’s success with the cover is that he doesn’t overdo it—he’s just Jim Noir, not Sam Cooke. It’s an understated cover, but that quality makes it more intimate and calming to me—there’s a soothing quality about it, from his harmonies to the soft background strings. That’s what makes it such a genius cover—Jim’s not being anyone but him, but staying true to the spirit of the original.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Last Night at the Telegraph Club – Malinda Lo – I’m a few years off as far as the dates go, but give it a few years, and this would fit right in with the more tender, quiet moments of this novel.

“In The Hall of the Mountain King” (Edvard Grieg cover) – Erasure

I had no idea that this existed until a few days ago, and y’know what? It’s an absolutely wild pairing as far as covers go, but trust me, it sounds exactly how you’d picture it sounding. It’s just “In The Hall of the Mountain King” done entirely with synths. I do enjoy it, but I feel like it betrays the original song in a key way. The thing that most people remember about “In The Hall of the Mountain King” is that point (you know the one) where it goes absolutely, truly, off-the-wall bonkers, like they crammed chaos incarnate into whatever concert hall it was performed in. It’s about the gradual buildup!! The payoff!! It feels like a whole pack of firecrackers going off and ricocheting off the walls!! And Erasure…barely sped up the tempo? Which is a crazy move to pull when covering this…like, how does one cover “In The Hall of the Mountain King” and not go fucking nuts with it? You do you, Erasure, I guess, but…man, you already pulled the move of putting an Edvard Grieg cover as a bonus track, might as well go crazy with it!!

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Stars Undying – Emery Robin – …kinda hard to recommend a book to pair with a synth cover of classical music, but, uh…how about a sci-fi retelling based on the stories of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar? Will that suffice? Help me out here…

“Freakin’ Out” – Graham Coxon

So here’s what Graham Coxon was doing all that time when Blur was making Think Tank, which was…doing exactly what was barely on Think Tank: guitar freakouts (no pun intended). While his former bandmates were reveling in some of the more experimental sides of their musical taste and abilities, Coxon was sticking to what he loved and did best. Part of why I got so attached to Blur was his propulsive guitar playing, whether it was his bright, chugging melodies on Parklife or the darker, grungier sounds of their self-titled album or 13. “Freakin’ Out” isn’t his lyrically strongest song, but it’s got this driving, punk-inspired beat that never lets you go. Of course, in true Graham Coxon, he’s in a suit and glasses while playing all this—Weezer who? If there’s anything that Graham Coxon has committed to in the last few decades, after spending time with Blur during the height of Britpop and being pressured to conform to pop music standards, it’s being nothing but himself. We’re all better for him being a quiet, introspective person playing loud, upfront music.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Light Years from Home – Mike Chen – “Nothing to be, nothing to fear/Nothing to prove, nothing to say/Nothing to lose, nothing to gain/Nothing to feel, nothing to hate/Nothing is real, it’s all too late…”

“Happy News for Sadness” – Car Seat Headrest

The Car Seat Headrest I saw when I was 14 was a very different Car Seat Headrest than the one I saw last week. At one point in the show, Will Toledo opened up about how he didn’t like playing some of his older material, particularly that from Teens of Denial, because he was, as he said, “an angry young man of 23.” It struck me as so humble that he’s willing to admit that he’d moved on from that anger and strife and that he was committed to being in a stabler, happier place in his life. Teens of Denial remains one of my favorite albums of all time, an album that was at my side at my most lost and confused moments when I was a young teenager. Sure, I would’ve loved to hear “Cosmic Hero” (if not just to replace my video from 2018 where my off-key screeching drowned out the actual song) or something, but I’m happy that Will Toledo’s happy. And all of this was the preface for “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales,” which he played to a crowd that knew all the words. Myself included. It was one of those nights where I could feel my younger self peering out from my chest, wiping the smudge away from her glasses, and dancing. I felt her dancing with me. I danced as hard as I could that night. It’s one of those times where a concert has felt, more than anything, like a warm hug, a reassurance across time to that little girl that she would be okay.

Car Seat Headrest has a notoriously rabid fanbase, small but mighty, the kind of people who’d unironically go up to you and say something like “Oh, you haven’t listened to the absolutely crusty-sounding old recordings he put out on Bandcamp and labeled ‘just awful shit?’ Fuckin’ poser!” And…yeah, with the kind of discography that Will Toledo has, it does lend itself to the kind of Charlie Kelly conspiracy theory board types. But the other side of that coin is that you get people who will ardently do the wave to a song that’s only available on Patreon. And that’s what made the show so riotously fun—the fervor of the fans for songs old and new, whether it was the stirring intro of “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)” or the extended medley of older songs. (I’ll admit to being awakened like a sleeper agent when they started playing “Something Soon.”)

“Happy News for Sadness” was one of the excerpts from medley of older songs that they did for the encore, one that somehow escaped my unending curiosity when I was in middle school. I’d already found “No Passion” and “Sunburned Shirts,” so who knows how this slipped through my fingers. I feel like it might’ve been for the best, because I have a feeling that earsplitting, lower-than-lo-fi “BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEARGH” at 1:52 would’ve killed my headphones. “Happy News For Sadness” is as clear a glimpse into the sadder, angrier young man that defined much of Will Toledo’s career—the central chorus of “You can never tell the truth/But you can tell something that sounds like it” speaks to a lingering depression that’s been ever-present throughout his catalogue. Meandering through malaise and expired food doesn’t seem like something Toledo would revisit, given the speech he gave about Teens of Denial, but the fact that he’s able to reconcile with different eras of his own art in different ways feels like a mode of communication with the past. His songwriting was his way of telling the truth, and that truth resonated with so many people. To bridge that connection, to be able to look back and sing altered versions of the same song, is likely his way of making peace with it. Healing that younger part of yourself is different with each angle you tackle it from, but committing to that seems to be Toledo’s ongoing mission. I’m just lucky to be able to heal along with him and alongside hundreds of people.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Bad Ones – Melissa Albert – “Nobody cares about/(But I’m still ugly on the inside)/Your life and the people in it/(But I’m still ugly on the inside)/So you can stop telling me it gets better…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/8/25) – Something More

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve been looking around for books to read for Disability Pride Month, and in general, trying to find some books by Palestinian/Palestinian diaspora authors. Something More fit both of those, so I figured I would give it a go! Though it wasn’t a perfect novel, it had all of the qualities of a classic YA romance novel—angsty, romantic, and heartfelt writing.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Something More – Jackie Khalilieh

Jessie is determined to turn over a new leaf. On the precipice of starting high school, she wants to show the world that she isn’t the girl who she was in middle school—lonely, awkward, and more importantly, autistic. Keeping her diagnosis a secret, Jessie quickly makes new friends—and new crushes—at Holy Trinity High. But when her friendships begin to unravel and her relationships start to crumble, Jessie questions whether it’s worth it to keep her authentic truth a secret after all.

TW/CW: ableism (external & internalized), xenophobia, racism, substance abuse, bullying

Dude. Jessie and I would’ve been best friends in high school. I would’ve gladly welcomed another neurodivergent Radiohead girlie to go sneak off to the library with during my lunch period.

Though I can’t speak to the accuracy of the representation, I loved how Something More explored Jessie’s identity! It’s something that I assume has a lot of personal importance to the author, and Khalilieh’s explored all of the facets of Jessie’s identity with such sensitivity and love. I’m not autistic, but I am neurodivergent (I have SPD), and I deeply resonated with a lot of her struggles with fitting in and adjusting to high school while being neurodivergent. I loved the arc of Jessie realizing that there’s no reason to hide her autism from her friends, and I also appreciated that a lot of her friends, despite their flaws, were respectful and accepting of her identity. The same goes with her Palestinian-Canadian identity—again, I can’t speak to the representation, but Something More had such a lovely exploration of Jessie’s experience growing up in an immigrant household and feeling like an outsider because of her Palestinian roots. It’s a deeply refreshing intersection of representation in YA literature that I adored!

I normally don’t advocate for things becoming Netflix movies, but I swear that Something More has the perfect recipe for becoming that kind of YA classic that gets a cute streaming movie. I can already see the Clueless-esque ’90s soundtrack from here, tailored towards Jessie’s special interest and the music integrated in the novel. From Jessie’s diary full of friend and boy-related (and getting her parents to get her a phone-related) goals to Jessie’s unique spark as a protagonist, it’s got the classic tropes down to a science, yet never makes them feel tired. She injects the right amounts of both the sass and the vulnerability that comes with a lovable YA rom-com protagonist. Khalilieh perfectly captures the awkwardness of entering high school and the rocky path to fitting in and finding your place. Jessie has so much great development, from realizing her self-worth in the face of her crush being dismissive of her, to realizing that she needs to stand up to her toxic “friends.” Jackie Khalilieh has clearly done her homework on YA, and with a little refinement, is well on her way to making a classic.

Despite what I loved about it, Something More suffered from a few key flaws. The most glaring of them was that…oh my god, there were so many wild, random subplots and side tangents that didn’t contribute much to the plot. Jessie’s grandma, who was almost never mentioned, randomly dies towards the end of the book, one of her friends gets involved with a creepy older man and gets dumped in a parking lot, and the rest of the friend group continuously gets tossed between several skeevy guys, seemingly with no resolution. Yeah, high school is weird, but by the end of the novel, the relationship/ex statuses between Jessie and her friend group looked like that one panel in Diary of a Wimpy Kid with the massive relationship diagram. And that’s just her friend group of FOUR PEOPLE. It was wild. Other than the gross Mel subplot, which…at the very least, I guess it gave some depth to Jessie and Levi’s relationship, none of them added to the plot, and nor did they have any ripple effects throughout the novel. I guess there was only so much time for Jessie to reflect on her grandmother dying, but if they were as close as we were blatantly told in a handful of sentences, why did it barely have an effect on Jessie? Wouldn’t she be…y’know, experiencing some form of grief? It all just felt rushed and took away page time that could’ve been used to develop the more central relationships in the novel.

Speaking of relationships…thankfully, as the cover might lead you to believe, there really isn’t much of a love triangle. (Cue a sigh of relief.) I guess you could technically make an argument for it, but honestly, up until the 80% mark, I fully thought that things between Jessie and Griffin were going to stay completely platonic. Yet even then, Levi would’ve been the worse choice…LEVI. What a piece of work! I know that Jessie had to learn, BUT GIRL! YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN HIM! Just because he’s vaguely nice and looks like Kurt Cobain doesn’t mean that he’s not a flaky, disrespectful asshole! I get that Jessie had to learn both her lesson and her self-worth when it comes to falling head-over-heels for guys, but I feel like the writing of their relationship needed some work. I feel like the time between them meeting and having their first kiss was way too fast, even if Jessie was infatuated; their dynamic over the rest of the novel felt repetitive, and it didn’t serve much to the novel save for building the case for Levi being insufferable. As for Griffin, I did like their relationship, but I honestly think it could’ve worked romantically or platonically—I did like them getting together at the end, but I also would’ve appreciated him being part of Jessie’s (abandoned) goal of getting a guy friend and having a healthy depiction of friendships of the opposite gender.

Overall, a diverse YA romance that nails all of the factors for a classic formula, but faltered in its overabundance of subplots and awkwardly-paced relationships. 3.5 stars!

Something More is a standalone and Jackie Khalilieh’s debut novel. Khalilieh is also the author of You Started It and the forthcoming Everything Comes Back to You, which is set for release in 2026.

Today’s song:

I love this song, it sounds like being in a goldfish bowl…

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourself!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/1/25) – The Library of Broken Worlds

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles, and happy Disability Pride Month! I’ll have something up for the occasion later this week, but for now, here’s the first book review of the month.

I’ve had this novel on my TBR for a few years. I read Alaya Dawn Johnson’s Trouble the Saints several years ago and remembered it being on the denser side, so I was hesitant going into this novel, especially with the low ratings on both Goodreads and Storygraph. I understand those ratings now—this book is not for the faint of heart, but it was also victim to some serious mismarketing, in my opinion. It’s a sprawling novel that hops between worlds and genres, and despite its flaws, it’s one of the most ambitious novels I’ve read in a while.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Library of Broken Worlds – Alaya Dawn Johnson

Centuries ago, tesseract technology made travel and connection across the stars. Now, in the Library, where all of the tesseracts are held and all of the political machinations go on, Freida spends her childhood wandering amongst all kinds of strange magic and technology. She was artificially created by the Library, and has access to all of its texts. But as she grows older, she begins to understand the corruption deep within the Library. Her friends face persecution from all sides, both from mortal people and the gods beyond their reach. To save them, she must dig deeper than she’s ever ventured into the Library—and what she finds there could change her life.

TW/CW: genocide, loss of loved ones, sexual assault, colonialism/imperialism, violence

Right off the bat, let me just say: this is truly a weird book. For the most part, I mean that affectionately. It’s weirder than most YA I’ve read, and even weirder than some adult books. It’s also one of the more ambitious books I’ve read in quite some time. Straddling the line between hard sci-fi and full-blown fantasy, The Library of Broken Worlds is an ambitious—if not incredibly messy—novel.

I’ll start off by saying this: The Library of Broken Worlds really shouldn’t have been YA. Even though Freida is about 17 here, all of the concepts jammed in here really don’t feel like they should be for the 12-18 crowd. That might just be another consequence of 12-18 being a ridiculous jump in maturity for a single age range, but I digress. There are a lot of aspects that feel more well-suited for the more adult crowd. You sit in on a lot of court hearings, the politics get both deeply philosophical and intricate, and you’re dunked into the worldbuilding like one might be dunked face-first into a bucket of ice water. I think you can still work with a teenage character in an adult story (see: The Fifth Season), so I feel like it wouldn’t be much of an adjustment. As voracious of a reader as I was when I was in the peak market for YA books, I feel like I would’ve DNF’d this book in my teens. But that’s not to say that I didn’t love The Library of Broken Worlds. Had it been adjusted for an older audience, I think it might have been more successful—if not in marketing than anything else.

The case of the worldbuilding in The Library of Broken Worlds is a complicated one. It’s both the biggest strength and the biggest weakness of the novel. The worldbuilding itself is marvelous—what I could get of it. This novel is such a unique blend of sci-fi and fantasy. You have a Library as the central hub to travel to other parts of the galaxy, and the main characters is an artificially-created being created by the will of the Library itself. There’s lots of intergalactic folktales, extinct alien civilizations, a triad of nature gods that preside over the universe and form the basic divisions between its people, and a ton of worms and grubs. Gotta love the grubs. There’s a lot of ’em. The world is also refreshingly queernormative, with a variety of characters with different neopronouns and a young sapphic couple at the forefront of the story. In the acknowledgements, Johnson said that Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki were the biggest inspirations for the book. The comparison didn’t fully make sense to me, but in a way, I can see that the blend of sci-fi and fantasy, along with some of the more imagery, could feel like a darker, more convoluted version of Miyazaki. It’s such a lovingly created and multilayered world—I just wish we could’ve explored more of it.

Now, let’s go back to that word, convoluted, because it applies to…well, everything. I often talk about how writers often have the issue of vomiting all of their worldbuilding in chunks that distract from the story. This book has the exact opposite problem. From the start, you’re thrown headfirst into an exceedingly complex and convoluted world, expecting to know all of the terms and political divisions as they’re thrown about every which way. It felt like the scene from The Big Lebowski where The Dude is repeatedly getting his head dunked into the toilet (“WHERE’S THE MONEY, LEBOWSKI?”), but each time, you get a face full of completely wild fantasy terms that only get the most barebones explanations. By the time you’re sort of acclimated to the world and you think you’re getting a break, somebody’s pissing on your rug that really pulled the room together (more unexplained worldbuilding out of nowhere that overcomplicates things further). I still don’t fully know what a “broonie” is, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. This book was in desperate need of a glossary, Jesus Christ. And a lot more exposition, as well as less convoluted and all-over-the-place explanations for what little was explained beyond the basics.

The characters in The Library of Broken Worlds were also a treat to explore! I wish we got more of some of the side characters, since there were so many, but it was Frieda’s story first and foremost. Though some parts of her were underdeveloped, Frieda was a solid protagonist; although she almost falls into a very typical mold of the YA protagonist whose life is out of her control and is different from the others (and is understandably angsty about it), these things are for reasons that are fully fleshed-out—the weight on her shoulder never feels manufactured, and the way that Johnson writes her trauma, from various sources, was very sensitive. I don’t think we got enough of Joshua (he’s almost forgotten about halfway through and only comes back in the last few bits of the climax), but I did like Nergüi’s coldness and eventual insightfulness as a counter to Frieda’s passion and hunger for knowledge.

There are some fascinating themes, political and otherwise, at play in The Library of Broken Worlds. In an attempt to be more utopian, the main government has built its government and legal system on the basis of freedom from and freedom to, and the discussion surrounding that, especially where those definitions get dangerously misused (justifying planetwide colonialism and genocide). Johnson didn’t shy away from getting into a ton of moral dilemmas. However, aside from that theme, I loved how The Library of Broken Worlds handles cycles. Simply by existing counter to her original purpose, Freida is breaking a cycle of her sisters being created for a specific purpose, and embracing empathy and love. But by doing that, she is also breaking a multitude of other cycles—the personal cycles of being traumatized and taking it out on others, and the vast, historical cycles of injustice and mass cruelty. The tesseracts also felt a bit like the interconnectedness of actions as well as events throughout history, and Freida exists at the confluence of it, making her able to fully see how she is able to reshape both her destiny and the unjust system that she lives under. As rocky and convoluted of a road Johnson takes us to get there, I appreciate that it was taken in the first place, because the payoff was mostly worth it in the end.

For most of what I just detailed, I nearly gave The Library of Broken Worlds the full 4 stars. But given the state of the book, I just…couldn’t. For all of its boundless creativity, timely themes, and observant insights, this novel was just a mess. I think this could’ve been the second-to-last draft before sending it off to the publisher, because as good as it was, the writing was all over the place. You’re unceremoniously thrust into the worldbuilding, and the only reason that I ended up acclimating (and even that’s a stretch) to everything was that this novel is nearly 450 pages long. It desperately needed more exposition, as well as clearer explanations of the key terms that come into play throughout the novel. The pacing was off—though I enjoyed the explorations of politics that Johnson employed throughout, I think we could’ve spent more time getting to know the world and less time sitting in space congressional hearings. There were a multitude of loose ends that didn’t fully get tied up. I guess that’s a consequence of such an expansive world, but The Library of Broken Worlds needed some serious refinement. I don’t normally find myself saying this, but give this book 50 more pages and a glossary, and I think some of these issues could be fixed.

All in all, an expansive piece of sci-fi/fantasy with highly commendable worldbuilding and themes, but which needed more page time and another round of edits to fully achieve its purpose. 3.75 stars!

The Library of Broken Worlds is a standalone novel, but Alaya Dawn Johnson is also the author of several novels for teens and adults, including Trouble the Saints, Love is the Drug, Moonshine, Racing the Dark, and The Summer Prince.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (6/24/25) – Life Hacks for a Little Alien

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles! I’m back from my road trip with a fantastic book for you.

I try to stick to mostly queer books for June, but I read extra queerly all year…think of this as pregaming for Disability Pride Month. (Both apply to me, I get a pass, right? Hell, it’s my blog and I’ll do what I like.) Nevertheless, I bought Life Hacks for a Little Alien while on vacation (shoutout to Townie Books in Crested Butte). I’d heard great reviews of it, particularly that it encapsulated neurodivergent childhood beautifully, so of course I had to read it. What I found was a heartstring-pulling and tender depiction of neurodivergent childhood.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Life Hacks for a Little Alien – Alice Franklin

In England, a young girl grows up not knowing that she’s neurodivergent, but certain that she’s different from the other children. She doesn’t talk or think the way they do, and her parents are having trouble keeping up with her. She never shows any interest in much anything, but when insomnia prompts her to watch TV at night, she discovers a documentary on the Voynich Manuscript. Soon, the mysterious manuscript heightens her curiosity and invigorates her life. The only thing that would make it better is to find the Manuscript itself—and she’s determined to get it in her hands and decipher its impossible code.

TW/CW: ableism, vomit, bullying, institutionalization/mental illness themes

I have once again been ensnared by a book with metaphors about aliens relating to neurodivergent. It will happen again.

I’ll absolutely be reading more by Alice Franklin after this, because her writing style captivated me from the start! The first comparison that sprang to mind, strangely, was of Wes Anderson. It feels odd to jump from literature to film, but stay with me. The narrator’s voice is very matter-of-fact and particular, which are qualities than can be ascribed to both very self-assured children and comically self-assured Wes Anderson characters. The linguistic footnotes and reading lists at the end of each chapter were also reminiscent of the wry judgements of Anderson’s omniscient narrators. All of this is to say that Life Hacks for a Little Alien boasted such a charming voice. Second person POV is a notoriously difficult POV to write from; Franklin chose it for the book because she found it personally easier to write and thought that it would help the reader have empathy for the protagonist. I think it would’ve been easy to have empathy for the narrator no matter what, but the use of the second person gave Life Hacks for a Little Alien such a unique flavor. As the narrator tried to pick apart the structures of how a young English girl is supposed to act, she was methodical, but in a way that was always witty, snarky, or charming. Yet that voice, when faced with the harsher realities of neurodivergent life, never faltered in its emotional connection. I was invested in the narrator’s story from the start, and from then on, Franklin kept me hooked!

Although I’m not autistic, I am neurodivergent (I have sensory processing disorder, which has some similarities to autism), and there are so many aspects of Life Hacks for a Little Alien that resonated with me. Even if I weren’t so interested in sci-fi, the latent, never-ending feeling that you’re from another planet never fades, and the latent alienation that exists in everyday life was depicted with such authenticity and heart. Beyond that, what was depicted most accurately to me was the lingering sense of “I’m doing what the other kids are doing, so why am I wrong/why are they laughing at me/what about what I did makes it wrong?” Neurotypical society is so full of idiosyncrasies, and being neurodivergent makes you realize that from an uncomfortably young age. The narrator’s struggles with picking it apart were delivered with such sensitivity and accuracy, and I loved that her special interest in linguistics and the Voynich Manuscript was not just something that made her fall in love with learning again, but also became a survival mechanism for her to navigate a complicated world.

Beyond that, the use of the Voynich Manuscript and linguistics as a metaphor for the narrator’s experience was easily the most poignant part of a very poignant novel. Many neurodivergent people of various diagnoses often express the feeling that they were never given the same “script” as neurotypical people, a feeling I’ve often shared; if anything, we were basically given a kind of indecipherable Voynich Manuscript that the author understands perfectly, but nobody else does. The narrator’s theory by the end of the novel is that it functions as a way to help aliens navigate Earth, but what is unspoken is that she sees it as such too—she feels like the alien that has been given an indecipherable code with strange pictures in order to understand a completely foreign world. You can see how that hit me in the gut instantly…and it goes even further. English linguistics are full of similar idiosyncrasies as the neurotypical world, and you’re expected to go along with them all the same, even though they frequent contradict all manner of rules. The narrator’s interest in linguistics becomes her way of understanding—or failing to understand—the world. It’s such a beautiful, multilayered metaphor, and it struck such a resonant chord within me.

I have almost no criticisms of Life Hacks for a Little Alien, and I might’ve given it 4.75 or 5 stars if not for this one aspect. My only real problem with Life Hacks for a Little Alien is that it just…ended. Although the epilogue wrapped things up in a more satisfactory and clean manner, the real ending just…ended. For such a meticulous book, it was jarring to end in such an abrupt place. Even though we got some sort of resolution, Life Hacks for a Little Alien seemed to just plunk itself down and end unceremoniously. I’m fine with some books having neatly wrapped-up endings, but this novel seemed to need some semblance of one. I fully expected another chapter afterwards. However, I can sort of see how it might function—this isn’t necessarily the end of the narrator’s story, and her life was far from over by this point. Yet it felt like the end of this arc and the beginning of a new chapter in her life, which seems to necessitate some more closure.

All in all, a deeply poignant and beautiful meditation on neurodivergent girlhood and navigating alien worlds. 4.5 stars!

Life Hacks for a Little Alien is a standalone and Alice Franklin’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

there we go, here’s something for pride!

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (6/10/25) – When the Tides Held the Moon

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I found this novel in an Instagram post about upcoming queer releases in 2025, and this one immediately caught my eye. You put a comparison to The Shape of Water in the tagline, and you bet I’m in. (If anything, it’s right between The Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley, given the setting.) Venessa Vida Kelley has delivered a vibrant and sensitive story of queer love and solidarity amongst weirdos.

Enjoy this week’s review!

When the Tides Held the Moon – Venessa Vida Kelley

Orphaned and far from his homeland of Puerto Rico, Benny Caldera makes a living as an ironworker in 1910’s New York City, barely scraping together enough to stay afloat and out of reach of the taunts of his white coworkers. But when Sam Morgan, the owner of a sideshow, notices his handiwork, he commissions a strange project for him: a tank whose contents are unknown to him. Benny takes the opportunity for a new job, and finds an unexpected family in the sideshow’s performers. He soon finds out that the tank holds an impossible marvel: a captured merman. As Benny gains the merman’s trust, he finds himself drawn to him—and the merman to him. But when Morgan’s abuse to the merman turns deadly and the sideshow begins to crumble, it’s up to Benny to hatch a plan to save them all.

TW/CW: racism, homophobia, abuse (emotional and physical), violence, blood, ableism, xenophobia, mentions of sexual assault (off-page)

art by Venessa Vida Kelley

I may be a somewhat critical consumer, but listen…you dangle a comparison to The Shape of Water in front of me like a carrot, and goddamnit, I’m eating it right up. God forbid that a weird girlie such as myself consume even more media about found family, fish people, and the nature of marginalization!! That being said, nothing comes close to The Shape of Water, but that’s not the book’s fault. When the Tides Held the Moon is a beautiful novel in all of its parts.

When the Tides Held the Moon boasts a vibrant cast of characters, and it really felt like a feat for Kelley to balance all of them and still give them unique and complementary personalities. Besides Benny and Río, the cast is mostly rounded out by the fellow performers in the sideshow, of which there are many. Yet out of the nine (I think?) primary side characters, none of them ever felt like an afterthought. Each of them were not only rounded out, but had such thoughtfully planned interactions with all of the other characters—sometimes clashing, and sometimes meshing perfectly. There were individual romances and special friendships between the nine of them, but they were a shining example of found family done well. Despite their individual differences, their solidarity and kinship shone through on the page, making for a narrative that had no shortage of tenderness and heart.

The romance between Benny and Río shone in When the Tides Held the Moon. There was such a tenderness to both of them that gave the novel so much of its heart. I’m always a sucker for narratives about two outsiders falling in love, but I love the ways that their separate senses of outsiderness intertwined; they shared music, stories, and tales of their respective homelands. The slow burn romance was paced well, and never felt rushed. I do feel like the ending was a tad bit too close to The Shape of Water, without spoiling anything, but I think their individual way of solidifying their romantic relationship at the end of the novel separated itself enough in the end, making for a resonant, vibrant end to the novel and to their respective arcs. It was all just so wonderfully sweet, but never in a way that felt insincere or cloying—I just loved them!

When the Tides Held the Moon is an incredibly diverse novel, which was exactly how it should’ve been; even without nearly as much knowledge as Kelley has (this was a very well-researched novel and it shows), it would’ve been a disservice to show either New York City or the culture of sideshows as places that don’t have a history of diversity. Immigrants from many different countries (Puerto Rico, Ireland, India, and Russia to name a few) are at the forefront, as well as lots of queer people, disabled people, people of color, and people who overlap within these intersections. However, some novels have a tendency to have a very 21st century view of all of these things. When the Tides Held the Moon felt very historically sensitive in terms of the language it used around these characters, but not in a way that was sanitized. In fact, it didn’t hold back from depicting the kinds of horrific oppression that these characters faced. Yet it wasn’t straight-up trauma porn either—it was honest about the struggles marginalized people faced during this time period, but never in a way that felt like their trauma was being exploited for emotion. That emotion shone through naturally in the interactions that the characters had and the solidarity they fostered in the face of mutual oppression.

That being said, the major thing keeping When the Tides Held the Moon was some of the writing, particularly the dialogue writing. Even from someone with a fairly high tolerance for bombastic, dramatic dialogue (I love Ray Bradbury and the Claremont run of X-Men for similar reasons, if that gives you a good idea of where I’m at), Kelley’s dialogue often bordered on too much. As sensitive and nuanced as everything else about this novel was, the dialogue trended towards excessively cheesy and overdramatic more often than not. Though I adored Río as a character, his voice very much fell into that overly verbose, “wise”-sounding dialogue that you could slap on any fantasy character. Benny in particular had some of that pathetic “aw, gee, mister, gimme a break, why don’tcha” kind of overwritten voice that was in-character at best but almost grating at worst. The side characters had varying degrees of this affliction, but none of them necessarily jump out at me save for the very stereotypically New York mobsters (“he’ll be sleepin’ with the fishes,” etc…wait, there was SUCH a missed opportunity them to say that). The only exception I can think of was Matthias since it was established that it was his genuine personality and not a consequence of the writing. If this were any other novel, I would’ve tolerated this much less, but Kelley’s story had so much heart that I could partially let it slide…but not all the way.

All in all, a beautiful, sensitive novel about love and marginalization with a big heart. 4 stars!

When the Tides Held the Moon is a standalone and Kelley’s debut novel. She is also the author of the forthcoming graphic novel Manu Faces the Music, which is set to be released in 2026.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (6/3/25) – The Death I Gave Him

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Here’s a continuation of my recent sci-fi mood…I’ve been looking to add more sci-fi to my TBR, because I seem to exhaust my supply faster than I can keep up. The premise of The Death I Gave Him being a queer, sci-fi/thriller retelling of Hamlet enticed me, but sadly, this novel didn’t deliver—not on the retelling front, and not entirely on the thriller part either.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Death I Gave Him – Em X. Liu

Hayden Lichfield is intent on carrying out the mission that his father is pioneering—the Sisyphus Formula, a substance that could one day reverse death itself. Enticed by immortality and down on his luck, Hayden throws himself into his work. But when his father is found murdered in Elsinore Labs, Hayden has no idea who to turn to—and who wanted to murder the man who wanted to beat death. Trapped in his room with only his AI, Horatio, to trust, Hayden scrambles for answers, and everyone around him is a suspect. But is it not just Hayden’s friends, but his father that have been lying to him all along?

TW/CW: murder, blood, descriptions of injury, suicidal ideation, grief, death of a parent

Trying to describe whether or not The Death I Gave Him qualifies as a retelling feels like the Ship of Theseus. If all of your characters’ names allude to Hamlet and you set your story in Denmark, but not much else relates to Hamlet, is it still a Hamlet retelling? How much Hamlet does one need to remove for it to still feel like a retelling? Sadly, Em X. Liu is proof that there is a limit to how much you can remove before it stops feeling like a retelling. It’s Hamlet in name only.

Having read Hamlet less than a year ago, I went into The Death I Gave Him with a fairly fresh memory. However, if not for the more obvious name changes (Hamlet becomes Hayden, Polonius becomes Paul, etc.) and the fact that it’s set in Denmark, I really wouldn’t have thought that this was a Hamlet retelling. I’m fine with loose retellings, but I don’t think it should’ve been billed as such. The whole Denmark setting definitely felt like very a “see? This is Hamlet, I promise!” move and wasn’t relevant to the plot whatsoever. I’m fine with loose retellings, but I feel like the similarities end with what I just described above. I’m not sure if this even qualifies as a retelling so much as people named after characters in Hamlet. Also, none of these people were nearly crazy enough to be in a Hamlet retelling. You’ve got to have someone go at least a little insane to have a proper Hamlet retelling. Hayden got a wee bit depressed and existential towards the end, but there wasn’t nearly enough “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” insanity to make it feel like a true tribute to Shakespeare. It just felt like a rather emotionally stunted novel even though it’s based off of something so dramatic. Some tonal liberties are inevitable for any given adaptation, but these ones just didn’t feel true to Hamlet, which made the more obvious Hamlet references feel more like preventative measures to make sure that people remembered that this was a Hamlet retelling.

Having mixed formats (interview excerpts, security camera footage, etc.) can be a great tool to add some additional context—and a unique flavor—to a novel, and I think it works especially well with thrillers, which The Death I Gave Him partially was. However, I don’t think Liu properly executed this format. Granted, it’s difficult to pull off, but when it’s executed well, it adds another layer of mystery to what is hopefully another layer of mystery. The problem Liu seemed to have is that, with the exception of the security camera footage, all of the other perspectives sounded exactly the same. All of the interviews, document excerpts, and “fictional” interludes by Horatio were in the same tense and the same POV, which basically rendered the format useless. Beyond that, these interviews and whatnot were from multiple people, but they all had virtually the same narrative voice. By the end of the novel, it didn’t even matter where the excerpts were coming from—they all sounded the same. If you’re going to pull off this kind of format, you have to make each component sound unique—if everything sounds the same, what’s the point in specifying which chapter is an interview and which one is a fictional account?

Also, none of the characters seemed to have much of a purpose outside of being props, aside from Hayden, Horatio, and maybe Felicia if I’ve being generous. Even though we get a significant portion of the novel through her interviews and written segments, I never even got a specific read on her voice since it was so similar to every other character’s. Paul, Rasmussen, and Charles were just there until they conveniently weren’t. The timeless fun of Hamlet comes from seeing everybody scheming against each other and different motives clashing against each other, but everybody was just rendered into very similar characters with too similar motives to each other for the mystery to really be worth it.

The same was true of the plot. I was committed to The Death I Gave Him because I was excited by the premise and wanted to see how the plot unfolded. I will say that Liu did a great job of setting the scene and cramming us in said locked room of this locked-room mystery. However, very little happened in said locked room—other than a handful of scattered moments, the place was quite slow, and the ratio of information that was revealed to the amount of pages it correlated to was way off—it felt like we only got significant revelations every 100 pages, and The Death I Gave Him is a little over 300 pages. There needed to be much more intrigue and complicating factors and clashing motives for this novel to work as a mystery; what we had was quite lackluster.

All in all, a sci-fi retelling of Hamlet that missed the mark on its source material and its new plot. 2 stars.

The Death I Gave Him is a standalone, but Em X. Liu is also the author of the novella If Found, Return to Hell and several short stories in various anthologies and magazines.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/27/25) – Light Years from Home

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve had several of Mike Chen’s novels floating around my TBR for quite some time. I’d forgotten that I’d read a short story of his in From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, and I figured I’d give his novel-length writing a try. Plus, I was just in a sci-fi mood (as I always am). Despite the flaws that dragged down the premise, Light Years from Home was an ambitious novel that blended genres and didn’t shy away from being messy. Whether it successfully cleaned up its messes, however, is up for debate.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Light Years from Home – Mike Chen

15 years ago, the Shao family was thrown into disarray. Jakob, the only son, and their father disappeared. Their father later returned, dazed, disoriented, and convinced that he and Jakob were abducted by aliens. He died soon after.

Jakob has been missing for over a decade now. Sisters Evie and Kass haven’t spoken since the incident, with Evie diving into alien conspiracy theories and Kass throws herself into her work and caring for their aging mother. But when Jakob returns, parroting their late father’s theories about alien abduction, the sisters have no choice to bury the hatchet and reunite. As Jakob’s story grows wilder and the rift between the sisters widens, they must contend with the possibility that all of this may be true—but can Jakob be trusted? And if his story is true, what does it mean for the fate of Earth?

TW/CW: death of a parent, grief, dementia themes, substance abuse (smoking, drinking)

In the acknowledgments, Mike Chen says that this story was initially inspired by “Red” by Belly, and I’m tempted to give it another half a star just because I’ve never heard anyone outside of my immediate family or Pitchfork talk about them. The title also makes me think of The Rolling Stones’ “2000 Light Years from Home,” but that’s a vague enough title that it could be a reference to a lot of things. Although Belly didn’t save every flaw, Light Years from Home is a solid meld of science fiction and realistic fiction.

Light Years from Home has one of the most compelling beginnings of a book that I’ve read recently. You’re thrown right into the action aboard a Seven Bells spaceship in a classic space opera setting. Jakob cradles his alien comrade in his arms as they die, and thus begins his perilous quest back to Earth. But the reader and Jakob are the only people who know about this—the only other character who did (their dad) is notably dead. It would’ve been easy to just have the characters not believe him, but Jakob is already established as an unreliable person—his real life experience sounds suspiciously like an outrageous lie he would’ve told in his college days, which gives the characters both more obstacles to overcome, but more of their messy family dynamic to dissect. In terms of plot, Light Years from Home was a great study in not taking the easy way out—everything was messy and tangled, making for a book that had lots of drama and hurdles to pick apart.

Every single member of the Shao member was on the obnoxious, insufferable side (save for maybe Evie), but Chen did a great job of capturing the complicated family dynamic in the novel. Fifteen years after Jakob’s abduction, the wounds remain raw, and not a single member of the family has recovered from the fallout. Although I wasn’t satisfied at all with the character development of…well, any of the family (I’ll get to that later), Chen did an excellent job of weaving together all of the contrasting beliefs, motivations, and traumas that each family member had. All of them dealt with Jakob and their dad’s disappearance and death, respectively, in wildly different ways, and their coping mechanisms butted heads over the course of the novel. Even though this was ultimately handled poorly at the end, I did also appreciate the sensitive depiction of their mom’s dementia; Chen did a very respectful job of depicting the emotional impact of her memory loss and not being able to recognize her own children.

For all of the focus on the messy Shao family, the promised character development that their dynamic hinged on was not delivered on. There should’ve been plenty of conflict with Jakob reckoning with the man he was on Earth versus the man he was while serving in space with the Seven Bells, yet none of that happened. All of his character development happened off-page, resulting in a character that came off more flatly than I think was intended. Likewise, Kass and Evie were set up for significant development, but nothing happened with them either. Evie’s beliefs were reinforced and she and stayed static throughout the novel, not giving up her fantasies of aliens for the sake of the family. The closest Kass got, if you could call “okay, I guess aliens do exist” character development, was a brief revelation that even though she’s a therapist, that she doesn’t know everything about herself or her family, and that she shouldn’t pretend to know everything. That last half of my sentence amounted to about a paragraph around 50 pages before the novel ended, and it felt like entirely too little too soon. In the end, the character development was a jumble of unfulfilled promises—we got the shells of what could’ve been nuanced characters, but despite the bizarre journey they went on, they came out the exact same as they were before.

Also…I’m sorry, what the hell was that ending? Somehow, it was one of the most anticlimactic parts of the whole novel, and weird in ways that didn’t make sense. Jakob returns to the Seven Bells, but there’s hardly any fanfare or even extended moments of grief from the sisters, even though their brother has just decided to spend the rest of his life in space and never see them again. There wasn’t nearly enough emotion to it, and nor was there page time—this moment only gets around 4-6 pages tops. Instead of an emotional resolution with her daughters, the mom somehow un-dementias herself and remembers everything, and is also eerily content with her only son’s decision to spend the rest of his life in space. It all just felt so rushed and emotionally stunted compared to the rest of the novel, and not nearly as detailed as it needed to be. Weird is the only way to adequately describe it. I felt lost, but also robbed of what could’ve been something so bittersweet. I feel like it’s partially a side effect of none of the characters having any character development, but it felt like such a lack of a resolution. It was practically a non-ending.

All in all, a sci-fi/realistic fiction blend that embraced messiness in both plot and character, but had significant trouble with cleaning it up. 3.5 stars!

Light Years from Home is a standalone, but Mike Chen is the author of several novels. He has contributed short stories to From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and the full-length novel Brotherhood to the Star Wars universe. He is also the author of We Could Be Heroes, Vampire Weekend, Here and Now and Then, A Quantum Love Story, and many more novels for adults.

Today’s song:

NEW MARY IN THE JUNKYARD WOOOOOOOOOOO

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/20/25) – Rebel Skies

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Update: I do have something nice to say, so I’ll say something. Beyond the heinous Studio Ghibli AI trend (and if anybody here thought that was “cute,” even when the White House twitter did it, get thee away from this blog), people tend to narrow Studio Ghibli down to a very shallow, cutesy aesthetic that discounts the heart of Hayao Miyazaki’s incredible visions. Rebel Skies was one of the few pieces of media inspired by Miyazaki that clearly gets him—rich worldbuilding with whimsy and darkness in equal measure. Yet even if you take that comparison away, Rebel Skies is a YA book to be reckoned with, full of heart, spirit, and skyships.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Rebel Skies (Rebel Skies, #1) – Ann Sei Lin

In the Sky Cities, no one is more revered—and feared—more than Crafters: those who possess the power to draw magic from paper and make creatures come to life. Kurara, a young servant aboard a flying ship, has barely honed her powers, only using them for party tricks. But when her best friend, Haru, is revealed to be a Shinigami—a creature made of paper—and grievously injured, Kurara flees to a skyship in order to find answers. There, she hones her Crafting with Himura, an ornery Crafter with secrets of her own. As she gets to know the motley crew of her ship, Kurara discovers that Haru’s identity isn’t the only secret that’s been kept from her—and that there are enough to bring down the Empire.

TW/CW: fire, animal death, torture, death, descriptions of injury

Ann Sei Lin seems to know as well as anyone that we need a bit more whimsy in YA fantasy. The edgelord stuff has gotten boring. It’s fantasy, come on now! I get that if magic was the norm, people might not be impressed by it, but there has to be some wonder in your life, right?

First off, the worldbuilding was tons of fun! Though the Studio Ghibli-inspired elements are plentiful, if I had to summarize the world of Rebel Skies, it wouldn’t be with that. If anything, it’s more of a steampunk version of Kubo and the Two Strings. You’ve got Nausicaä-esque airships and floating cities (which both felt very Philip Reeve as well) combined with paper-based magic, and all of the possibilities you can think of along with it—paper animals, paper people, and monstrous paper beasts. (Oh, and the paper animals can talk. Gotta toss some talking animals in there.) I’m not usually one for steampunk, but this isn’t your garden-variety “slap gears and tiny hats on everything in Victorian England and call it a day” steampunk—not only is the world inspired by Asian cultures (mainly Japan), the blend of magic and machinery married easily, and often whimsically. Though the colors I imagined trended towards rusty and earth-toned, Lin couldn’t have made her world more vibrant—and multilayered; not only were there base-level divisions between the people who lived on the ground and the people who lived in the sky, there were all sorts of customs, stereotypes, and quirks that were given to each, which in turn influenced how all the mismatched patchwork of characters interacted with each other.

For me, it doesn’t get much better than the worldbuilding informing the themes of the book. Not only did I love all of the intricacies of the paper magic in Rebel Skies, I love how Lin used it to explore the theme of autonomy, and especially the lack of it. Kurara herself has been ordered around as a servant, and she sees the same thing being done to the magical beings around her; she sees how Himura treats Akane, his shikigami fox, and questions whether or not he’s really so content to devote his entire existence to serving Himura. Add that to the visceral trauma of discovering that her best friend is made of paper and has been seemingly puppeteered from afar, and the reigning empire is performing cruel experiments on its shikigami, and Kurara’s ultimate motive to both her personal journey and her journey to wrong the rights of her world lies in autonomy, and having a reciprocal, ethical relationship to her magic. It’s an excellent metaphor and an excellent addition of nuance to the worldbuilding—if the world relies on unbalanced relationships, how can I shift them so as not to do to others what others have done to me?

You all know by now how much of a sucker I am for a good found family story, and while Rebel Skies didn’t completely fulfill that promise, I love the group dynamic between all of the characters. Even though the subplot of Sayo and Kurara warming up to each other felt a bit rote, I liked the progression that their characters had. Kurara and the rest of the pirates were lots of fun, and they gave the skyship a lively, lived-in feel. I’m also a sucker for the trope of older, gruff characters taking excitable younger characters under their wing; Himura was a solid addition to the canon, but I feel like he’s hiding too much to truly be a mentor to Kurara. I’m interested to see where it goes in Rebel Fire, but my gut says that it’s going to be some kind of subversion. We’ll see. Either way, Rebel Skies’ motley crew lived up to its description, making the setting all the more lively and adventurous.

As someone who read voraciously in my childhood and longed for some kind of bridge between middle grade and the too-broad age range of YA (12 to 18 is so arbitrary and baffling, you’ll not hear the end of it from me), Rebel Skies automatically won me over. It’s categorized as YA, but it feels right in the middle of MG whimsy and adventure and more YA stakes and themes. Kurara, even as a teenager, has a childlike sense of wonder, and although some of her interactions came off as slightly more childish than her age, it hits a charming balance of innocence and discovery that feels like the ideal bridge between the age jump between the two categories. As a longtime YA reader, it hits a natural sweet spot, but in its balance of darker, more YA elements with the same kind of voice as older MG, Lin has written a book that could serve as both a younger YA reader’s introduction to the genre and an easy pleaser for the YA reader.

That being said, the one major flaw in Rebel Skies is that I didn’t see why Himura’s POV was necessary. He was a solid character, but this novel was clearly Kurara’s story. I enjoyed hearing his voice and Lin wrote it well, but I don’t think his input to the story served a purpose other than giving his side of events…that we’d already been shown through Kurara’s POV. We get that Kurara’s been slow in her training, and then Himura repeats it as such. We do get plot information that we wouldn’t have otherwise gotten from Kurara, but if that’s the only reason that Himura gets his own chapters, then what’s the point? There could be multiple interesting ways for Kurara to get this information that could deepen or complicate the relationship she has with Himura—she could overhear a conversation or sneak a look at some of his documents, for instance, and he could catch her in the act, adding more conflict to the plot. Again, he was a perfectly fine character, but aside from the interludes, Rebel Skies wasn’t meant to be a dual-POV novel. It’s the Kurara show, c’mon!

Overall, a memorable fantasy book with lush worldbuilding, a lively cast of characters, and a unique voice that balances middle grade adventurousness with the more matured nuance of YA. 4 stars!

Rebel Skies is the first book in the Rebel Skies trilogy, followed by Rebel Fire and Rebel Dawn. Rebel Skies is Ann Sei Lin’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

I’m totally new to BCNR, but I saw them open for St. Vincent the other night, and they were great performers!! this was probably my favorite of theirs.

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/13/25) – The Knockout

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I always feel bad whenever I come back after period of hibernation only to come back with a negative review. I just have to get it all out sometimes! I’ll probably have something nice to say by next week.

Say it with me, kids: just because a book has diverse representation doesn’t erase the flaws in its writing! Sadly, The Knockout was not the one-two punch that the title promised: it tried to hard to sound hip and teenager-y, and nosedived spectacularly.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Knockout – S.A. Patel

Kareena Thakkar knows her power. She’s been building up her skills in Muay Thai, and she’s good enough to qualify for the US Muay Thai Open—an event that could take her to the Olympics if she wins. But even though it’s where her passion lies, Kareena is divided between her Muay Thai world, her peers’ desires for her to be traditionally feminine and act the way a good Indian girl should. With her ill father and the Olympics on the line—as well as a cute boy, Kareena must decide which world she’d rather stay in—or if she needs to divide those worlds after all.

TW/CW: bullying, terminal illness, misogyny, medical content

Look. I read YA frequently, knowing that it’s a market of books about teenagers mostly written by adults. Even by that standard, I haven’t read a book so deeply how do you do, fellow kids? as The Knockout in some time. I wanted to badly to root for Kareena, but her insufferable voice—and by extension, Patel’s writing—made it a real ordeal.

Kareena’s voice was the most glaring issue that The Knockout had. Firstly, she didn’t sound or act like a 17-year-old. If anything, between her language and her maturity, she sounded closer to 13 or 14. The kind of stiff, teen movie comebacks she doled out to her bullies were nowhere near the kind of experience a person would have at 17—especially someone who had been through as many struggles as her. In my experience, what you need to do when writing teenagers (or any character who’s younger than you) is to emphasize how you (or your peers) remember feeling—what you’d prioritize, what was important to you, how you would react to situations, etc. Writing like a teenager is about the emotion, because there are a lot of them running around your brain at that age. Sure, it’s hard to nail the voice, and granted, I don’t have the age distance from Kareena that Patel has. But there’s lots of easy ways to not do it, and some of those are a) extensively leaning on what you think is “hip” slang, and b) automatically skewing the character’s voices as young as possible within the teenage range. Between the unnecessary censorship of cursing here and there and her childish outbursts, Kareena was not believably 17. Additionally, Patel’s insistence at integrating what she thought to be “current” Gen Z slang was painfully bad. If anything, it dated The Knockout leagues more than making it relevant. It’s not the teenage experience, but instead the teenage movie experience, simply parroting what adults think teenagers sound like. It positions itself as current and relatable while never encapsulating what it was like to be a teenager, making what should’ve been the heart of the novel hollow.

As with Kareena’s supposed 17 years of age, I was never convinced of the stakes in The Knockout. When Patel established how good Kareena was at Muay Thai, all it did was make Kareena feel unnecessarily overpowered. I normally only say that about fantasy or sci-fi novels, but she was just too good to the point that every fight she did seemed to be a fleeting moment of struggle before she absolutely pummels her opponent. This continued throughout the duration of the novel. Even though Kareena had the Olympics on the line, I never once got the sense that this was hard for her. Her training seemed to be the only time she struggled—other than that, she just flew through the US Muay Thai open without a problem. If she actually experienced tangible setbacks within her practice or the Muay Thai open, I would’ve been more motivated to root for her. Yet everything seemed to be handed to her on a platter, making the stakes feel almost nonexistent. I knew from the start that Kareena would get everything that she wanted, and while I appreciate the value of having diverse characters succeeding in their narratives, it made for a book with no stakes.

Bullying is a major plot point in The Knockout, but I don’t think that Patel succeeded in making all of it completely believable. As far as Kareena getting bullied by her other Indian-American peers for not being “Indian” enough went, that was one of the few parts of the book that was successful; unlike the main plot, it gave Kareena’s struggles some tangible weight. However, I wasn’t fully convinced that her doing Muay Thai was something so outrageous that she thinks that she’ll be bullied by the whole school for it. I get that it’s not a traditionally feminine sport, but with the way that Kareena talked about Muay Thai, you would think that she’s coming out of the closet. Even with the cliched interactions between Kareena and her peers, I just couldn’t imagine her being bullied for it, and not just because if someone were to slam her into a locker, teen movie-style, she’d slam right back. Kareena being a Muay Thai champion didn’t feel nearly as dirty as a secret as Patel lead us to believe, which made some of the novel’s more personal stakes less believable as well.

Additionally, I have mixed feelings about the romance between Kareena and Amit. It didn’t fully sidetrack the book for me, but I wasn’t fully invested either. I did like that Amit was instrumental in helping Kareena reconnect with parts of her Indian culture, but I don’t think he had much of a personality beyond what he did for Kareena. They seemed to have almost all the same interests, and Amit didn’t have anything to distinguish himself other than not doing Muay Thai. He was just a blank slate with similarities to Kareena baked in so that there could be some instant “chemistry” between the two of them. The only tension in the romance was when Kareena met his more traditional family, so the tension didn’t even lie with him—it was all outside factors that threatened the integrity of the relationship. The only differences I can really think of about Amit and Kareena is that he comes from a more traditional family and he’s…well, a different gender. That’s it. He wasn’t a person, he was just a boyfriend. I do think that this kind of story is good with a romantic subplot, especially considering that it’s YA realistic fiction, but like almost everything else in The Knockout, I could not get invested whatsoever.

That being said, I do have some positives for the book. I’ve seen a lot of books, especially YA ones, where the main character has to choose between their traditional culture and the more “appealing” American culture. The Knockout, by contrast, had Kareena be raised by two parents who weren’t connected to their culture in a conventional way—they were flexible with letting their daughter be who she wanted to be without sacrificing their Indian heritage in the process. Kareena was disconnected from her roots in some ways (which she begins to remedy in this novel), but both she and her parents emphasize that there’s no single way to be Indian. I can’t speak to any cultural accuracies, of course, but I loved this as a message for a YA book in this context—there’s no one way to be any identity, be it in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, or anything else. Paired with the expectations of femininity that society puts on Kareena, it’s a wonderful message. I also really liked that Kareena had a combination of multiple interests that weren’t traditionally feminine—in addition to Muay Thai, she’s also passionate about computer science. Sadly, all this was overshadowed by the flaws in most of the novel, but if you took all that away, at least The Knockout has something beneficial to say. I just wish it was said in a less cliched, more authentic way.

All in all, a book with a positive message if you soldiered through it, but was bogged down by childish dialogue writing and characters (even by YA standards) and a lack of all-around believability. 2 stars.

The Knockout is a standalone. She is also the author of several books for teens and adults, including Isha, Unscripted, The Design of Us, First Love, Take Two, The Trouble With Hating You, Sleepless in Dubai, My Sister’s Big Fat Indian Wedding, and the Venom series (A Drop of Venom and A Touch of Blood).

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!