I was first exposed to Leanne Schwartz through A Prayer for Vengeance, and enjoyed her YA fantasies that centered autistic and plus-size protagonists. I’d forgotten that she’d written another book featuring an autistic protagonist, and I figured it would be perfect for Disability Pride Month. While it didn’t blow me away, To a Darker Shore had a lovely setting with immersive writing and the journey of a courageous girl who would quite literally walk through hell to save her best friend.
If there’s one thing that Alesta has known her whole life, it’s that she knows that she has something to prove. Poor, autistic, and plus-size, she means nothing to the townsfolk, save for what she can provide as a sacrifice to their hungry god, Hektorus. So she throws herself into intricate inventions, hoping they can earn her favor with the king. But when a test flight of one of her flying machines goes awry at an exhibition, Alesta knows she’s bound for hell. Yet it’s Kyrian, who helped her test the machine, that takes the fall, now condemned to hell instead of her. Alesta will do anything to bring Kyrian back…even if it means venturing into the treacherous depths of Hell itself.
TW/CW: loss of loved ones, misogyny, fatphobia, ableism, violence, blood/gore, claustrophobia, panic attacks, grief, homophobia
Why does WordPress keep trying to autocorrect “Alesta” to “Alert?” I can only imagine how it was while Schwartz was writing the book in the first place…
Even though Leanne Schwartz isn’t my favorite author, I love her apparent goal of putting out YA fantasy novels with plus-size, queer, and neurodivergent characters at the forefront. A Prayer for Vengeance didn’t blow me away, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless; to an extent, I feel a similar way about To a Darker Shore, but it’s clear that her writing has improved greatly in the span of two books!
Schwartz’s lovely prose was clearly the star of To a Darker Shore. Throughout the novel, there’s a stark contrast between the fantasy, Renaissance Italy-inspired whimsy and the monstrous realms of hell, but Schwartz handled each of them with the appropriate weight they deserved. The first part of the novel did a wonderful job of immersing me in Alesta’s kingdom, and with every description of the coastline surroundings and the bustling cities, I was instantly transported. Schwartz’s balance of humor and weighty subjects (ableism, fatphobia, and purity culture, to name a few) was handled with aplomb—the strength of all of these aspects is how balanced they were. Additionally, To a Darker Shore’s writing felt like the perfect transition between Middle Grade and YA; apart from some violence and strong language, the accessible writing style and the narrative voice of Alesta could be a great bridge for younger YA readers to start in the genre.
Alesta was also a fantastic protagonist to propel the reader through this treacherous journey into hell! Schwartz did an excellent job of relying on showing to build up to the suspense of losing her best friend; by the time Alesta’s quest through hell begins, you truly do understand her relentless devotion to rescuing her friend, even if when they reunite, hell has permanently altered him. She stopped at nothing to make sure Kyrian made it out of hell alive, and you believed every part of her friendship and steadfast adherence to her mission. Her relentless spirit not only gave the story stakes (I certainly got the sense both she and Kyrian would fall apart without the other), but a reason to follow her along—at its best, there were times when I was invested in the story just because Alesta cared so deeply for succeeding in her impossible mission. Although I liked A Prayer for Vengeance, Leanne Schwartz’s way of writing her protagonists has improved since then, and Alesta is living proof.
I came away from To a Darker Shore with mixed feelings about the worldbuilding. On the one hand, I enjoyed the Renaissance Italy-inspired setting; Alesta is compared to Leonardo Da Vinci in the synopsis, and I loved the aesthetic of her wooden flying machines and the various magical contraptions that she constructed. The worldbuilding surrounding the religion that concerns most of the novel was also well-executed. Schwartz did an excellent job of setting up exposition in a variety of ways, ranging from stories that Alesta had grown up with to descriptions of religious festivals that served to explain some of the mythology. However, even with the obviously Christian inspiration that this religion was based in…why call it Heaven and Hell if it’s an entirely different religion? I get the comparisons here, but it kind of took me out of it to have a whole fantasy religion and then have the exact same names of Christian concepts in it. Considering how detailed most other aspects of this religion were, it comes off a bit lazy—either make it a more direct analog to Christianity, or give Heaven and Hell different (and more creative) names, in my opinion.
Additionally, there were quite a few side characters that surrounded Alesta that didn’t seem like they had anything to do. Along with the dreaded time skip that came out of nowhere [hisses like a vampire with holy water chucked on it], we were just as abruptly introduced to some of Alesta’s other friends. It wouldn’t have been a problem if they had any role in the novel other than to tell the reader that Alesta has made friends after Kyrian’s sacrifice. They were pushed aside as soon as Alesta ventured into hell (a section that takes up about a third of the novel), and therefore had no room to have distinct personalities or roles other than being Alesta’s friends. Since To a Darker Shore is centered so prominently around the unbreakable friendship between Alesta and Kyrian, it would have been better to scrap them entirely—or at least not give them a role that Schwartz seemed to place disproportionate importance on.
All in all, a YA fantasy that took some shortcuts with its side characters and worldbuilding, but was nonetheless a satisfying story of friendships strong enough to survive hell itself. 3.5 stars!
To a Darker Shore is a standalone, but Leanne Schwartz is also the author of A Prayer for Vengeance.
Today’s song:
no idea how I forgot about this one, but I’m so glad I did!! a nostalgic childhood staple, for sure.
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
I’m always on the hunt for books with disability and bisexual rep, and I’ll always go for a graphic novel, so Stars in Their Eyes was a natural pick for me! With a charming story and graceful handling of social issues, this graphic novel was an adorable, light read that’s perfect for readers in transition between middle grade and YA.
Maisie has saved up to go to her first FanCon, and now she’s finally on her way! She’s excited to meet her idol Kara Bufano, an action star who’s an amputee just like her. On arrival, FanCon isn’t everything that Maisie thought it would be—it’s loud, confusing, and it’s making her chronic pain act up. But when she meets Ollie, one of the young FanCon volunteers, it’s love at first sight. Maisie feels comfortable talking about her disability and queerness with them, but how will they manage when FanCon is over and they have to go home?
TW/CW: panic attacks, descriptions of cancer (past)
I’m firm in the belief that there should be some kind of smaller, transitory genre between middle grade and YA; the gulf between kid’s books and books meant for teens, especially in terms of maturity, is larger than most realize. But Stars in Their Eyes hits the perfect sweet spot between the two. With younger protagonists but a more nuanced view of social issues—and love at first sight—this graphic novel is a light, comforting read!
Even though I can’t speak to the accuracy of the specific disability rep (Maisie has a lower-leg amputation as a result of childhood cancer), it was so refreshing to see a disabled character written by a disabled author! It’s kind of painful to say that, but…the bar is so low, after so many middle grade and YA books that misrepresent disability. Nevertheless, the discussions surrounding Maisie’s disability were not only important to represent, but well-executed as well! There were plenty of natural segues that were used in Walton’s writing to get into topics such as overexertion and the importance of positive representation (!!!!), and it’s wonderful to see a pointed criticism of the narrative that disabled people exist to inspire non-disabled people. Stars in Their Eyes is bound to be so meaningful to so many young disabled readers, and it warmed my heart.
Stars in Their Eyes is also bound to be crucial for young queer people as well! Maisie is bisexual. and Ollie, the love interest, is nonbinary, but beyond that, there was an emphasis on being young and discovering your identity that I’m so glad is being represented. At 14, Maisie has only come out to a handful of people, and is nervous about being in queer spaces and going to queer events; it’s an issue that I rarely see in queer media, but it’s so important for young queer people know that it’s okay to be nervous about these things! There’s a first time for everything and everyone, and it’s natural to be shy or scared about showcasing your identity or belonging in queer spaces for the first time.
The comic con setting of Stars in Their Eyes was spot-on! I went to comic cons frequently when I was Maisie and Ollie’s age, and it’s a wondrous, nerdy experience—and it’s also an overwhelming one. It’s been several years since I’ve been to one, but I’m glad that this fictional one had a quiet-down room—I hope that soon becomes part of the institution, because what a lot of people don’t talk about with comic cons is that they’re a lot. (Man, I wish my comic con had one of those back in the day…) There’s so much to take in, from all of the booths and celebrities and cosplayers (and all of them crowded in one building), but all of that amounts to a ton of crowds and sensory overload. It’s the first comic con story I’ve seen tackle this aspect, and it’s a refreshing angle to see discussed. I have sensory issues, so that’s mainly why I got overwhelmed so easily at comic con, but it’s great to show younger readers that even though comic con is a wonderful place, it’s natural to be overwhelmed, sensory issues or not.
However, even though pop culture and comic cons were the focus of Stars in Their Eyes, a key part of it was mishandled and hindered some of my enjoyment of this graphic novel. Aside from two fictional TV shows that Maisie and Ollie bond over, almost everything is a fake reference—Barb from Stranger Things is now Bard from Danger Things, Star Wars is now Sci-fi Wars (??) and the Dark Side is the Far Side (????), and any Doctor Who-related media is referred to as “Time Doctors.” I get making faux-pop culture references to dodge copyright or establish a fictional world, but the sheer amount of them and how obviously they were referencing other very popular pieces of media just got so tiring and eye roll-inducing after a while. If it’s that obvious that you’re referencing a piece of media, it defeats the purpose of having a fake piece of media. It got so concentrated that I ended up bumping my rating down from the full 4 stars.
All in all, a lighthearted graphic novel about first love, geekdom, and the being confident in your queer and disabled identities. 3.75 stars, rounded up to 4!
Stars in Their Eyes is a standalone; Jessica Walton is also the author of Introducing Teddy, and has also contributed to the anthologies Growing Up Disabled in Australia, The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat & Fierce, and Meet Me at the Intersection.
Today’s song:
decided to give cate le bon a try after hearing her work with wilco & st. vincent…pompeii did NOT disappoint!!
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
This is going to be different from my normal Book Review Tuesdays, as I’m reviewing an entire trilogy. Normally, that would be a tall order for a single post, but this trilogy is different. It’s a series that I read so often in middle school that even the teachers started to recognize the cover when I brought it in. It’s a series that has woven itself into the fabric of my life, just as Arius’ metaphor of time as a braided rope. It’s a series that inspired me to pursue writing—specifically writing science fiction.
In light of the new (and deeply disappointing) Apple TV+ series, I decided to re-read the series for the first time in six and a half years. Some novels you loved when you were younger don’t age well, but after I devoured all three books in the span of a day each, I can say that Tony DiTerlizzi’s WondLa trilogy has stood the test of time.
When a marauder destroys the underground sanctuary that Eva Nine was raised in by the robot Muthr, the twelve-year-old girl is forced to flee aboveground. Eva Nine is searching for anyone else like her: She knows that other humans exist because of an item she treasures—a scrap of cardboard on which is depicted a young girl, an adult, and a robot, with the strange word, “WondLa.”
☆
There definitely wasn’t an ulterior motive to me re-reading this series…totally not just to replace my reviews on Goodreads from 2016 (“OMG BEST BOOK EVER SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE but BIG FEELS”). Yeah.
The Search for WondLa is the reason why I decided that I wanted to write science fiction. It introduced me to a vast world of sci-fi literature that would become my favorite genre. It showed me a rich world full of bizarre, wonderful creatures and told me that I, too, had the power to foster such weirdness in my heart and bring it into the world. When I say that I don’t know where I would be without the WondLa trilogy, I’m not exaggerating in the slightest. Tony DiTerlizzi truly has, like Arius, given gifts to the world in the form of these novels.
The Search for WondLa coexists as a startlingly original piece of worldbuilding while also paying homage to a number of novels and stories—The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, of course, but also the older sci-fi that has inspired DiTerlizzi throughout his career, from Dune to Star Wars and others. There’s Jim Henson lurking in his fanciful creatures, Hiyao Miyazaki in his alien landscapes, and Ray Bradbury in his matter-of-fact, bombastic dialogue. On the subject of both Miyazaki and dialogue, what always cracks me up about this series (affectionately) is the various names DiTerlizzi gives to his characters and places. When I watched Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind for the first time, my brother and I agreed that the long chunks of expository dialogue were all part of the hokey charm of the movie—it’s distinctly old sci-fi, and it’s so silly that it becomes charming. The same can be said for DiTerlizzi’s naming process…which is so unsubtle that it’s hilarious. Besteel? Surely he’s not a beast-like, predatory character. A fishing village by a lake? Can’t be anything but Lacus, right? Cæruleans? You’re not gonna believe what color these aliens are…but it’s WondLa’s charm. Intentional or not, these names might be one of the most faithful homages to the sci-fi genre.
Even if The Search for WondLa was the only book in the series, some of the character arcs are so expertly resolved within the span of a single book that it would be a satisfying standalone. Muthr’s may be the most clear-cut, but it’s nonetheless deeply impactful; her journey of battling with her own programming and beliefs and embracing the perilous, unknowable beauty of the natural world forms a key piece of the novel’s emotional anchor. She’s clearly the Tin Man, and although she can never fully adapt, by the end of her story, she has most definitely grown a heart. I think Rovender Kitt is the reason why I love the trope of gruff, older characters who reluctantly end up taking children under their wing on a fantastical journey. His development oscillates between heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure; Eva helped him remember to have empathy, and he, in turn, became the father figure that she never had. He never stops being gruff and sarcastic, but he rediscovers his caring core. The last few chapters of the novel are brutal for clear reasons, but Rovender’s breakdown, wracked with grief and survivor’s guilt, guts me every time. It’s a drastic shift from the Rovender we see at the beginning of the novel, but almost 500 pages is enough time for him to become the series’ epicenter of guidance and wisdom.
Part of my motivation to re-read the series was because of the Apple TV+ series (spoiler alert: it’s awful. They turned Eva into an adorkable Disney princess. Skip it.), but watching and reading them closely together made me realize what the show fundamentally gets wrong about the series: it’s weird, and it’s unafraid of being weird. All of the aliens have unique, truly otherworldly designs, with no punches held just because the target audience skews younger. Eva Nine is so far from perfect, even by the standards of young girls: her hair’s a mess, she doesn’t have a clue about surviving in the outside world, and yet confidently asserts that she can talk to animals, something that most would have left behind by the time they turn 12. But it’s all true! She’s unafraid of being weird, but that’s where her loneliness arises: she’s not just looking for humans, she’s looking for someone who understands the circumstances that molded her into the confidently strange person that she is…
Somebody hold me. No wonder I read this book to death when I was 12…
For its undeniable role in shaping the course of my life, 5 stars.
Before the end of The Search for WondLa , Eva Nine had never seen another human, but after a human boy named Hailey rescues her along with her companions, she couldn’t be happier. Eva thinks she has everything she’s ever dreamed of, especially when Hailey brings her and her friends to the colony of New Attica, where humans of all shapes and sizes live in apparent peace and harmony.
But all is not idyllic in New Attica, and Eva Nine soon realizes that something sinister is going on—and if she doesn’t stop it, it could mean the end of everything and everyone on planet Orbona.
☆
A Hero for WondLa is a truly worthy predecessor to book 1 for so many reasons, but what struck me the most upon re-reading it is how painfully accurate—and beautiful—Tony DiTerlizzi’s depiction of weird middle school girlhood is. I had to stop and remember that yes, this is a middle-aged man writing this, and yes, he has a daughter, but she was still a toddler when he wrote this…and yet he nails it. Right down to the smallest details.
A Hero for WondLa follows Eva Nine’s journey after she’s discovered that she’s not the only human. She visits New Attica, the pristine, final stronghold of the human race, where technology rules all. Eva’s first instinct is to fit in; she’s taken under the wing of Gen Pryde and her Mean Girls 2049 posse of identical, plastic friends, who are intent on making her fit in—they giggle at her sanctuary-born eccentricities, and she’s only praised when they mold her to look just like them. Even after that, they’re laughing behind their hands. She flees their false promise of friendship and into the arms of Eva Eight, her long-lost sister who has waited 100 years for her arrival. Eight hates New Attica and all of its lies, and promises Eva that she’s just like her. And yet, despite this insistence, Eva fails to find solace in her, either. It’s only when she becomes one with the Spirit of the Forest that she becomes her truest self—putting that which gives her power front and center. Like The Wizard of Oz, the (emerald) city she has spent her whole journey looking for is nothing but a sham, and in the end, there’s no place like “home”—the person that she is most comfortable being.
Oh, god. I need a minute. Ow. No other book I can think of captures the limbo of being 13 and not knowing who your real friends were lodged so deeply into my heart. Eva, like me, was so desperate for friendship and human connection that both attempts ended in complications, but through it all, everything came back to the found family she has built—the outcasts, the prisoners, the exiled. The ones who had her back. The ones who were just as confused as she was, but joined her journey after realizing the error in their ways.
The aesthetic language of A Hero for WondLa is drastically different than book one, with its pristine, plastic city of humans living in a bubble. Even the clean walls of Sanctuary 573 had a retro feel to them—likely centuries outdated from New Attica’s tech—but all of this is so blindingly new. None of the robots and automatons have the same old-fashioned friendliness as Muthr, trading approachability for sleekness and monstrous amounts of wires and tentacles. But along with it is a sinister aspect that DiTerlizzi doesn’t shy away from; I’d forgotten that, although the discussion is brief, that it’s implies that among all of the mind-control and executions that Cadmus Pryde is carrying out eugenics is casually a part of his long list of crimes against the last of humanity. The WondLa trilogy isn’t one to shy away from darkness (part of why it’s stood the test of time for me), but that aspect stood out, especially since this is science fiction we’re talking about, a genre that has a long history of portraying the eradication of disabilities as a sign of progress. I’d remembered that there are a handful of disabled characters, but having that as a clear signifier of evil in a middle-grade novel is something I can’t praise enough.
The Search for WondLa is a very self-contained story; although book sequels surpass it, in my opinion, the conclusion that it ended on (minus the epilogue) was hopeful and wrapped-up enough that it could have been a reasonable end to Eva Nine and Rovender’s journey. But this novel does such an excellent job of intensifying the stakes in so many ways. As Eva learns of a conflict that could soon entrench the whole planet in war, we get so many of the real time costs. Foreshadowed details, hinted at from the start of the series, metamorphose into sinister threats. Interpersonal relationships become tangled in this vast, interspecies conflict—nobody knows the truth. Side characters (although all but one do end up surviving in the end) often die mere chapters after they’re introduced. It’s a very tense book in and of itself, but as the setup to the massive conflict in the final book, it’s a masterclass in building up both physical and emotional stakes.
And…good god, all of Rovender’s emotional moments always kill me the most. Without going too in-depth, the scene of his complicated reunion with Antiquus destroyed me when I was younger, and it might have destroyed me even more…
It reminds me of another song that similarly destroys me:
“There will come a day/When the Earth will cease to spin/You’ll hold me close and say: ‘my God, where have you been?'” (Shakey Graves, “Chinatown”)
For the deeply emotional journey, then and now, 5 stars.
All hope for a peaceful coexistence between humankind and aliens seems lost in the third installment of the WondLa trilogy. Eva Nine has gone into hiding for fear of luring the wicked Loroc to her companions. However, news of the city Solas being captured by the human leader, Cadmus Pryde, forces Eva into action once again. With help from an unlikely ally, Eva tries to thwart Loroc’s ultimate plan for both mankind and the alien life on Orbona.
☆
The Battle for WondLa was my favorite book of the trilogy when I first read it, and I find myself agreeing with the sentiment almost a decade later. Was this influenced by the fact that, in retrospect, the original book cover almost certainly contributed to my bisexual awakening at age 12? Maaaaaaybe. In all seriousness, it’s such a brutal, beautiful, and downright exhilarating conclusion to a series like no other.
This incarnation of Eva Nine, as matured as we see her in the trilogy, has always been my favorite. After she embraces her powers and connection to the natural world, she’s such a fascinating hero to follow, partly because she never fully gives up her younger traits. In fact, her powers lie in what made her a target in the first novel—her sensitivity and empathy. Now that she can communicate with all of the creatures of Orbona, she uses her sensitivity to find it within herself to accept the machinations of the natural world and show mercy for even the most frightening of beasts. Sensitivity is her superpower, and that is such an important lesson for younger readers—especially young girls. It’s overwhelming to feel everything all of the time, especially when you’re Eva’s age, but having a heroine who wrestles with that and learns to fine tune her all-seeing empathy and use it to her advantage is so, so crucial. I’m likely among a majority when I say that my sensitivity was often treated as a weakness growing up, so having a heroine whose sensitivity saves the world is just about the best role model you could write for a young girl.
As the title suggests, The Battle for WondLa boasts some of the best battle scenes in the whole trilogy. I’m not talking about the massacre of New Attica, although that remains truly brutal, but the ones that display Tony DiTerlizzi’s talent the most is the scenes where Eva uses the sheer might of the forest to win her battles. Now that I’m older, I’ll inevitably associate WondLa with Björk for a number of reasons, but Eva Nine goes from that precocious, earlier “Human Behaviour” Björk straight into “Nattúra” as her development goes on—unflinching femininity channeling the incomprehensible power of nature. Does it get any better than that, folks? Actually, it does—watching Eva Nine take down a squadron of Warbots with the help of a herd of giant water bears. “My herd…help me.” COME ON. Eva getting injured and then being carried back into battle by the mother sand-sniper that she freed from the menagerie? GIVE IT TO ME!! A highlight of the novel, without a doubt.
What stands out to me about Battle is this novel’s willingness to make complicated characters. Whether they’re the culmination of arcs of characters who have been in the series for multiple books or side characters that only show up in the latter half of the novel, there’s something to be said for how unflinchingly complex everyone is, and how that further complicates Eva’s quest to unite humans and aliens on Orbona. Hailey, with whom Eva is still (justifiably) bitter over her treatment in New Attica, sheds his tough, cocky exterior to reveal a loyal, humble friend by the end of the novel. Zin’s scientific distance becomes a detriment to him in the wake of the death of his family—and the threat exerted by his power-hungry brother, making him realize the error in his lack of emotional intelligence. Redimus, who unintentionally caused nearly all the dominoes for the entire series to play out against Eva, is never written as fully black or white; Eva can never fully bring herself to forgive him, but she learns to accept his attempt to, in his own words, “rectify his past actions,” and to accept that everyone is a web of decisions and consequences that never fully align with each other. And that’s what makes her journey feel so much more earned.
At the heart of The Battle for WondLa is connectivity—it’s all very “I/O” to me. Loroc’s ultimate goal is to unite Orbona, but unity in the form of everyone, human and alien, being either enslaved or consumed by him. He tricks his allies with promises of harmony, only for them to realize that harmony ends up being the harmony of being together…inside of his stomach. Eva wins by championing the fact that it’s the uplifting of everyone’s unique strengths that makes a community strong, whether it’s the unity of the aliens or the interconnectedness of all of the plants and animals of Orbona. We are each an integral part of a community, whether it’s a food web or a village, and it is those unlikely connections that make us stronger. As with today, the greatest mistake that any civilization can make is thinking that we are separate from nature. To once again quote Peter Gabriel, “I’m just a part of everything,” and that is where strength—and love—come from.
All in all, an unforgettable finale for a series that changed the trajectory of my life overwhelmingly for the better. 5 stars.
Tony DiTerlizzi is the author of several books for both early readers (Adventure of Meno, Ted, Jimmy Zangwow’s Out-of-This-World Moonpie Adventure, G is for One Gzonk!) and middle grade (Kenny and the Dragon and The Spiderwick Chronicles, co-authored with Holly Black). All seven episodes of WondLa are now streaming on Apple TV+*.
*I could only make it through 5/7 episodes before I had to quit. Only watch it out of morbid curiosity or if you have intentions to read the books and see how you got robbed.
Today’s song:
thank you to my brother for turning me on to this one!!
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
I’ve been a fan of Anna-Marie McLemore since high school, but over the past two years or so, I’ve seen a decline in quality in their books; for their last two releases, I chalked it up to co-authoring (Venom & Vow) and being constrained by what they had to work with, although that could be a stretch (Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix). With their latest release, Flawless Girls, having a concerningly low average rating (3.30 at present), I expected the worst, but still wanted to believe that they could come back with something better. And…Flawless Girls was better, but only by a slim margin.
The Soler sisters—Isla and Renata—are famously wild, raised to be rebellious and questioning of their restrictive society from a young age. But their grandmother knows that society will frown upon such disobedient girls, and there is one last resort to keep them in line: the prestigious Alarie House, a finishing school famous for the assembly line of polite, high-society women that it churns out. After Renata returns from the Alarie House plagued by madness, Isla decides to dig into the dark corners of the school to see just what made her sister crumble. But what she finds in the corrupted heart of the Alarie House may put all of the girls in jeopardy…
TW/CW: prejudice against an intersex person, fire, body horror, misogyny, dysphoria, descriptions of injury, violence
For the past two years or so, I’ve seen a decline in Anna-Marie McLemore’s novels, which is something that I’ve dreaded saying. I didn’t want to force such words upon the same lyrical talent who wrote When the Moon Was Ours and Wild Beauty, but alas…maybe it wasn’t meant to last. Although it wasn’t as disappointing as Venom & Vow or Self-Made Boys, Flawless Girls was thoroughly messy, even if there were some bright spots in it.
What I want to emphasize the most about Flawless Girls is that, for all of its flaws (no pun intended), it had promise—it was just severely underdeveloped. If McLemore didn’t want to flesh out the concept of the novel, I think it would have worked spectacularly as a novella or even a short story. McLemore’s narration, even it wasn’t as lushly descriptive as I’ve come to know them for, had the feel of a cautionary fable, which was a perfect fit for this story. Even if it did feel like we were being sledgehammered in the face with the main metaphor, it nonetheless had the feeling of a dark fairytale or a fable. To be honest, Flawless Girls could work even better if it were aimed at younger YA audiences just coming into the genre, and I don’t mean that as a slight to the novel at all. It’s not subtle, but as a transitory book between middle grade and YA, it could work. With some significant polishing, of course.
Said main metaphor is femininity—more specifically the performance of it. The institution of the Alarie House served as a pointed commentary about the artificiality of our expectations for women and girls, and how unattainable and manicured these expectations are. It was especially poignant with Isla, a Latina and intersex protagonist struggling with performing femininity with a nonconforming body. Isla’s story felt incredibly personal—I had no idea that McLemore was also intersex, and it’s clear from every page that this is the story of their heart. There’s so little intersex representation out there, but that’s not the only reason why Flawless Girls, with a little polish, could be so important—it’s a fable of the madness that befalls women and feminine-presenting people crumbling under the weight of beauty and behavioral standards. Could it have been more subtle? Without a doubt. Was it impactful nonetheless? Absolutely.
That being said…a recurring thought I had while reading Flawless Girls was that it felt like a front for as many gemstone facts as possible. Next to the metaphor about femininity and performance, gemstones were right up there with the most striking motifs of the novel, but they were everywhere. Once you get past the 30% mark, characters will just ramble on about any kind of gemstone fact that they can shove in the span of two pages. At that point, a motif that bloats so much of the narrative just isn’t a motif anymore—it’s just swallowing everything else in its path. It did play a key role in the ending, but if McLemore wanted to make said ending more impactful, slimming down the endless character interactions where they just talk about gemstones for five pages would have been the right move. Like with jewelry, placement is key—you can’t just drown the narrative in a single motif and call it pretty.
Also, the worldbuilding is a mess. A complete mess. In the synopsis and the beginning of the novel, it’s stated that the reason that Isla and Renata are sent off to the Alarie House is that they’ve been raised to be rebellious and questioning of authority, and as they are Latina girls, it’s safer to teach them to keep quiet so that they don’t garner any unwanted attention. That would have been a very timely theme…if there was any indication of what society that Flawless Girls was set in! I assumed that it was a vaguely historical setting (and the author’s note didn’t clarify much else other than it being “historical”), but we get no sense of where we are in time, save for pre-21st century. Flawless Girls could equally work as being in a fantasy world or historical fiction with a touch of magical realism…but we have no idea which McLemore was going for, because outside of the Alarie House, nothing about the world is explained. No explanation of how and why the finishing schools came to be, no explanation of the technology level, no explanation of the (presumably) patriarchal powers pulling the strings and squeezing women into these molds. No worldbuilding, only gemstones!
All in all, a disappointing and messy effort from a longtime favorite that felt half-baked at best, but still shone in places. 3.25 stars.
Flawless Girls is a standalone, but Anna-Marie McLemore is also the author of Wild Beauty, When the Moon Was Ours, The Weight of Feathers, Lakelore, Dark and Deepest Red, Blanca & Roja, and Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix. They also co-authored Venom & Vow (with Elliott McLeMore) and Miss Meteor (with Tehlor Kay Mejia), and have contributed short stories to several anthologies, including All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages, Eternally Yours, Color Outside the Lines, and many others.
Today’s song:
one of my favorite songs from this album!!
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
I’ve been trying to find and read more translated books, but in my hunt, I’d completely forgotten that I’d put The Traveling Cat Chronicles on my TBR over four years ago. Any story about a cat is right up my alley (yes, I was a Warriors kid back in the day, why do you ask?), but now that I’ve read this one, I’ve concluded that it’s an essential read for all cat lovers—and anyone who’s ever experienced the unbreakable bond of having a special pet.
Ever since Satoru rescued a stray cat, from the brink of death, they have been inseparable from day one as cat and owner. Nana, named for his crooked tail that looks like the number seven, loves to spend time with Satoru. But due to circumstances that Nana has yet to comprehend, Satoru can no longer take care of his beloved cat. In an attempt to find an adequate home for Nana, human and cat go on a roadtrip in a van across Japan, visiting childhood friends in order to find a suitable candidate. On this trip of a lifetime, Nana will discover things beyond his comprehension—and a love for his owner that will only grow deeper.
TW/CW: illness, animal injury, loss of loved ones (past)
Goodness…this was the sweetest book I’ve read in a long time. It’s essential reading for anybody who’s ever owned and loved a cat, but also for anyone who has ever felt the sacred connection of a good pet. It’s full of laughs, but tugs at the heartstrings in a perfect balance—it’s a wholly human book, but a wholly feline one as well.
Having a good cat voice in a novel aimed mainly at adults is not an easy task. Especially since this book was first published in 2012, it would have been far too easy to go down the “I can haz cheezburger, hooman?” route and just derail the emotional core of the narrative. But Nana’s voice was hysterical, and not in a forced way at all. It’s clearly the voice of a cat from a longtime cat owner; Nana is very particular about everything, doesn’t like change, doesn’t like being petted the wrong way, and is very picky about his food. When Satoru makes an assumption about his habits, he openly derails the flow of the story just so he can clear the air and admit that no, he does not, in fact, like those mouse toys. What made it so funny was how believable it is—no matter the temperament of the cats you may have owned, you’ve 100% owned a cat like Nana. I found myself thinking of my sweet girl Hobbes, who has a similarly no-nonsense attitude about where and when she’s petted and likes to go after small birds but doesn’t kill them, leaving them to fly around the house and shed feathers everywhere She’s an angel, obviously.
Even though parts of the narrative switch to the perspectives of the human characters, Nana’s perspective was what made the heart of The Traveling Cat Chronicles. Throughout their trip through Japan, I loved seeing all of these new sights through Nana’s feline eyes, whether it was seeing the ocean (very bad) and Mt. Fuji (very good) for the first time or meeting Satoru’s many childhood friends. Perceiving all of this novelty through the narration of a cat wasn’t necessarily new to me, given my reading habits from ages 7-12, but for an adult novel, I loved seeing this perspective with more maturity, but the same amount of humor. Hearing Nana describe things as simple as the music coming from Satoru’s car radio (how does this cat come up with such eloquent metaphors?) to the chatter of the dogs on the boat towards the end of the novel in ways that felt so new, but wholly feline—and for that, I have to give so much praise to Hiro Arikawa; some of it was humorous, but some of these observations felt heartwarming in that they felt real, just the passing thoughts of a smaller animal in a big, big world.
However, Nana’s voice isn’t the entire novel—The Traveling Cat Chronicles also sees the backstories of not just its main character, Satoru, but of the childhood friends and family members that he visits. Nana was the star of the show, but some of these flashback sequences served to deepen the emotional core of the novel, especially in the case of Satoru; from his troubled childhood to his adolescence, we see Satoru’s life through other people’s eyes. Even beyond Nana’s narration, we only ever get glimpses Satoru, one of the novel’s two protagonists, entirely through lenses other than his own. Another strength was that these flashbacks were spaced apart perfectly: frequently enough that we could get fragments of Satoru’s backstory and understand it in concert with the current timeline, but far enough apart that they didn’t strangle the story. And each flashback was emotional in its own right, no matter how momentous or insignificant each vignette was. Each one felt authentic in its focus—in our minds, something as fleeting as sneaking off on a field trip weighs as much as a death in the family, and that was exactly how Arikawa told these stories.
I’ll refrain from spoiling the ending (although you can easily predict it from a few hints scattered throughout the novel), but it doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking—and beautiful. The cat’s-eye view on the events unfolding before Nana make them all the more harrowing, simply because you can’t quite explain these things to a cat, even if they understand in the abstract that something’s wrong. For cats, we are seemingly immortal monoliths until we aren’t—and it’s confusing for a creature that can understand our language, but just barely misses what makes us what we are. But beyond that, it reminds us of the inseparable connections between us and our pets. Our lives are short, but the lives of our cats, dogs, and other animals are even shorter; yet still, the mark that they leave on our lives, just like our friends, is a mark that cannot be replicated or replaced.
As I read the end of The Traveling Cat Chronicles, I was reminded of my Anakin, who passed about two months ago. He’d been in my life since I was a little kid, and by the time he peacefully passed at the ripe old age of 17, I was almost finished with my sophomore year of college. There will never be another cat quite like him, in all of his crusty, screamy, and truly lovable glory. His absence has been harder for me to take than some of my other childhood pets that have passed; when his lifelong companion Padmé died, I grieved heavily, but I had Anakin there to console me. When I came back home for the first time after he passed, I expected to see him in the guest room. Two months later, and I still peer over at the sofa, expecting him to be curled up between the cushions, fitfully sleeping in a pile of his own shedded fur. But that is the mark that he’s left on my life—impermanent, but unlike any other creature. Just as we must look to the small pleasures of life, we, like Satoru and Nana, must appreciate the impact of the smallest lifetimes on our hearts.
All in all, a cat-lover’s dream book which balances humor and heart in equal measure. 5 stars!
The Traveling Cat Chronicles is not part of a series, but Hiro Arikawa has also written a companion book of short stories, The Goodbye Cat. She is also the author of several other novels that have been translated into multiple languages.
Today’s song:
yeah this has a chokehold on me yet again 🕺
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Squire has faintly been on my radar on-and-off for the two years that it’s been out. I figured it would be something fun, but I didn’t expect such a hard-hitting, timely, and wholly beautiful graphic novel full of vibrant characters and sharp social commentary.
Aiza wants nothing more than to be a Squire—she’ll be able to become a knight revered in legends and lore and send money home to her family, who are barely scraping by. And as a member of the Ornu ethnic group, she’s considered a second-class citizen by the empire of Bayt-Sajji, and becoming a Squire and joining the Knighthood is the only way to become a citizen. At first, she’s elated to join the ranks of the recruits, but after failing her first test, she’s relegated to the night watch. But she’s soon discovered by Doruk, the groundskeeper, whose past may lead her to discoveries about the Knighthood that may change everything. Soon, Aiza realizes that she’s become a part of the same machine that’s destroying her people, and must make a decision—loyalty to her heritage, or loyalty to the empire.
art by Sara Alfageeh
TW/CW: war themes, racism, violence, colonialism/imperialism themes, amputation (forced)
Whew. This hit me so much harder than I anticipated. But I am all the better for it—I’m so, so glad that this graphic novel exists, especially since it’s aimed at a younger YA audience.
Squire has some of the sharpest critique of imperialism in YA that I’ve seen since Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea duology. It’s all the more poignant since the main character is so young—we never get an estimate, but it seems Aiza is on the younger side of the 12-17 age range for Squires. It’s an intimate portrait of watching everything you know about patriotism, faith, and empire be deconstructed in front of your eyes, and how that radicalizes a person—especially a young person—into enacting positive change. It holds no punches, and that’s exactly what it’s meant to do: imperialism is not something to be sugarcoated, even for younger reasons, and Squire does all of this and more.
Seeing all of this through Aiza’s eyes was what made Squire so unique. Her journey throughout the novel is as complicated as they get; at a young age, she has to grapple with the fact that the only way to gain recognition and help her family survive is to betray her own people. It’s a decision that she feels is straightforward at first, but having been fed on heroic, medieval-style propaganda, she feels in her heart that she’s right. It’s only when she fails to meet the standards of the empire that she sees the error in her ways, and her crisis begins: how can she hold an empire that she’s been groomed to love and an identity that has shaped her life in equal regard? Not such a simple decision, especially when you’re 13 or 14—and when you realize that this empire has been carrying out raids on the very same people that you once called family and friends, who the empire likens to mongrels and scum. Alfageeh and Shammas executed her journey, in all of its emotional messiness, with such care and beauty; you really feel for Aiza as she watches the reality that the empire constructed for her crumble, and her eventual mission to pursue justice was a truly resonant call to action for our times.
For the first 30% of Squire, I didn’t think that I would end up rating it 5 stars. I loved Alfageeh’s art, toeing the line of stylized and realism with ease, with each character displaying a unique emotional range. For the first third of Squire, it’s mostly seeing Aiza go through her training—a lot of running around in the countryside and playing at being a Knight. But the minute the tone shifts, it shifts dramatically—and for good reason: this is when Aiza’s image of the empire is turned to dust. Never once did the tone shift feel unrealistic; not only did it represent the drastic fall of Aiza’s faith in herself (and the Knighthood) after failing her first round of tests, but it felt true to her age and situation. If I’d been in the same situation at that age, I would have lashed out just like she did, that classic mix of sadness, anger, and deep-seated frustration at trying so hard, only to miss your goal by a hair.
Squire’s cast of characters were equally vibrant, and beautifully rendered by both Alfageeh and Shammas. Shammas’ writing made them feel like real teenagers grappling with circumstances out of their control. Like Aiza, each of them went through a complicated journey before joining Aiza and her cause; some had reason to believe that empire was beneficial to them, others never wavered in their faith until the end. Above all, they felt like confused kids—and that’s what they were. But the relationship that stood out most to me was that of the mentor relationship between Aiza and Doruk. After some hesitation, Doruk begins to see himself in Aiza—a child abandoned by the empire and forced to see the might that she once viewed as heroic being turned against her own people. I’m always a sucker for stories with ambitious, energetic kids being guided by disgruntled, older mentors, but in this case, it was a relationship that was crucial to Aiza’s development. Here was someone who had been ground through the same machine as she was and come out the other side knowing the truth; Doruk knew he had the power to change things, and mentoring Aiza in secret was his way of rebelling: teaching. God. God. Somebody hold me.
Squire’s climax was one of the book’s strengths, not just in its execution but in its symbolism, if the latter was in your face. (I’d argue that it’s supposed to be in your face—explosively annihilating a symbol of imperialism doesn’t really scream “quiet” to me.) The unity of Aiza and her band of misfits shone through after page after page of delicate development, and the conclusion, as dramatic as it was, really was the only way the book could end: in flames. What a beautiful note to end on—the physical representation of imperialism and blind patriotism, both as a character and a location, going up in flames as a result of the justice and drive of ordinary people. Yes. YES! I’ve seen some reviews that it’s a very straightforward way of going about imperialism as a whole, but I think what Squire has the power to do is be an introduction to the horrors of imperialism for younger readers just getting into the genre. Especially in these horrific times, Squire gives older MG and younger YA readers a picture of imperialism digestible enough to apply to both history and the present (especially the present). And I can’t think of any other novel fitting of the job: it’s a heavy load to carry for so many young readers, but I am so, so glad that Squire exists.
All in all, a timely and deeply emotional portrait of imperialism and war that is sure to touch the hearts of readers young and old. 5 stars!
And by the way, if it wasn’t already clear: Free Palestine.
Squire is a standalone; Nadia Shammas is also the author of Ms. Marvel: Stretched Thin, Confetti Realms, Where Black Stars Rise, and several other comics. Sara Alfageeh is also the illustrator of Not Yet: The Story of an Unstoppable Skater, and has contributed to Once Upon an Eid, Bingo Love, vol. 1: Jackpot Edition, and many other comics.
Today’s song:
I LOVE MY MOM!! (in the sense that I love my mom, and also this album, I Love My Mom.)
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Hooooooooooooo-whee…rant incoming…they’re good for the soul. Sometimes. I hate to do this so soon after I posted this year’s AAPI Heritage Month recommendations, but I just had to get this review off my chest. I highly recommend all of those books over this one.
God. I really wanted to like this one. Older YA where the characters are in college are few and far-between, and what’s even fewer and further-between is aromantic/asexual representation, much less POC aro-ace representation. I almost DNF’d this one, but I really wanted to stick it out and see if it turned out any better…and tragically, it didn’t. I hate to say it, but Dear Wendy was one of the most stiffly-written books I’ve read in quite a while.
Sophie Chi and Jo Ephron are both second-semester freshmen at Wellesley College, and they don’t know that they know each other. Sophie runs Dear Wendy, an Instagram account that gives love advice to Wellesley’s student body, and Jo runs Dear Wanda, a much more unhinged parody of the former with joke advice to contrast Wendy’s more serious online persona. The two meet in real life and immediately hit it off—they’re both aroace, and have never met many people, even in the queer community, who have experienced the same things as them. But as their online feud as Wendy and Wanda gets heated, Sophie and Jo must decide if they want to divulge their mutual secret—and risk their real friendship.
TW/CW: aphobia,anxiety, bullying, discussions of coming out/non-accepting parents (brief)
Ooof. Even from an outside perspective (as a non-ace person, but still queer), there’s a noticeable dearth of asexual-/aromantic- spectrum stories, even in YA, which is usually several steps ahead of the game as far as being progressive. So in concept, I’m glad that Dear Wendy exists, and I’m sure it will help a ton of a-spec people find their voices and feel seen. But good lord, this was easily one of the most poorly-written novels I’ve read all year. I’m genuinely baffled that I read the same book as all of the other people who left such glowing reviews. Baffled. Again, speaking from an outside perspective, but I think the a-spec community deserves better than this…
I usually preface my negative reviews with this, but I’ll say it again, because it always applies: I’m willing to give a certain amount of slack to Ann Zhao since Dear Wendy is her debut novel. It’s so hard to put pen to paper, and harder still to get it published, and that in and of itself is an intense labor of love. And I’m so glad that this book exists for some people for its discussions of AAPI, aroace, and gender non-conforming identity. I’m sure it’ll be a book that will mean a great deal to a great deal of people.
But. But.
All that doesn’t fully excuse how painfully stiffZhao’s writing was. Dear Wendy would have been a DNF for me had I not stubbornly tried to stick it out, just because I was convinced that the rest of the book wouldn’t be a disappointment. I wanted to give it a chance, with the combination of the premise and the fact that it’s Zhao’s debut. I had faith that it would get better, but it never did. For a novel that purported itself to be charming and emotional, the writing felt more like a textbook or a brochure than fiction—never once did any of the characters feel like real people talking. The novel was full of writing choices that just felt downright odd; at some point, we hear one of the main characters eavesdropping on two other characters (about the Social Media Drama™️), and after each of these side characters speak, we get their first and last names—and then never hear from them again. Characters list out song titles like they’re being read aloud by Siri, and all of the attempts at humor are just the characters doing word-for-word reenactments of jokes from Tumblr and TikTok without any attempts to hide the evidence. And for two characters that are supposed to have opposing personalities, their voices blended together in an indistinguishable, bland mess—the only way we can “tell” is through the differences in their fabricated social media personalities. If I wanted to be hit over the head with something that unsubtly, I would’ve stood under the ice dispenser in the dining hall. But through it all, I was just struck by how none of the people acted like people—they acted like social media fabrications of queer people, and the world was similarly dictated through an artificial lens.
Dear Wendy is full of a myriad of relevant topics: aroace identity and acceptance, the suffocation of allosexual culture and the unrelenting pressure to find “the one,” and immigrant parents who don’t fully accept your queerness, to name a few. I’ll say again how glad I am that these subjects are being discussed in literature, because it’s true—we do need to talk about these things! But their delivery, more than not, zigzagged around one of the most time-worn rules of writing: show, don’t tell. Although this is realistic fiction, I feel like it falls into the same kind of mistakes that some sci-fi or fantasy novels make when they deliver information that is new to the reader: they deliver it in unpalatable blocks, making time all but stop in the narrative just so the author can explain The Important Thing™️. This was how most of the discussions felt in Dear Wendy; instead of a new worldbuilding point, it was just the character’s inner monologue, uninterrupted, for at least two pages at the longest. I get that it’s crucial to weave in these points, but there’s a way to do it without harming the flow of the story—once or twice is fine, when there’s a reason for the character to be so deep inside their head, but given that this story was supposed to center around Sophie and Jo’s relationship, there could have been so many more bonding scenes where they talked about this organically! That’s not to say that those scenes weren’t there, but since we were already stuck in inner monologue limbo 50 pages ago, none of the information was new, and therefore, none of the bonding felt like new ground.
In the author’s note, Ann Zhao calls this a love letter to Wellesley College, and that although her experience there wasn’t all good, she wanted to highlight the good in Dear Wendy. Remember what I said about the stiff writing? It applied to the surroundings, too. If her writing style contained…any sort of soul, then that mission statement would have come across. Instead, I felt like I was reading a college website for some parts of the novel. I got so far in to Zhao’s descriptions of the campus and the features of the dining hall that I had to blink and question whether or not she’d been paid to write all this by the college. Look—I’m sure Wellesley is a great place (historically women’s colleges are fantastic!) and I don’t want to negate the love that Zhao had for her time there, but there were so many places where the descriptions didn’t feel, again, like people experiencing their environment—it was just being dictated through a lens so devoid of personality that I felt like I was on a college tour, forced to hear a long-winded monologue about a bunch of landmarks that I’d never see again.
Usually, I’m in favor of a little pop culture referencing once in a while. I’ve never understood the argument that pop culture references in YA fiction take them out of the story. What, is fiction supposed to exist in some kind of culture-less vacuum? God forbid your characters engage with the same media as you do…god forbid you pay homage to the creators that inspired you to put pen to paper, apparently? If there’s anything that actually takes me out of the story, it’s the fake celebrities/artists/social media apps. (I get that a lot of that is dodging copyright, but the point still stands.) The argument has never made sense to me. Sure, dumping them all in a barrage is obviously a no-no, but there’s an art to a well-placed reference, and it’s an art that I appreciate. I have a completely arbitrary Goodreads shelf for books with good music references. (This one almost went on it just for an off-hand mention of Mitski.) But reading Dear Wendy made me understand where the anti-pop culture reference people are coming from. The whole book felt like a front to shove in as many references as humanly possible. Dear Wendy is over 360 pages—it wouldn’t have killed Zhao to cut out the chapter entirely consisting of Jo and Sophie talking about Harry Styles. The only places where the music references in particular felt relevant where when Jo was DJ-ing at the college station, and even then, when she was talking to Sophie about her upcoming song choices, it felt like they were being queued up and read aloud by Siri. Mind you, this wasn’t when Jo was actually DJ-ing—this was when she was talking to her friend. It only would have been worse if she’d said “Remastered version” in verbal parentheses.
And…god. If another book tries to smother me with this many Taylor Swift references, I’m going to chew my kindle in half. It’s already bad enough that even the dining hall TV was showing me news clips about whatever mediocre thing she’s doing…please, I thought literature was supposed to be an escape…
All in all, a platonic love story with all the ingredients for something meaningful and sweet that substituted personality and charm for stiffness and irrelevant references. 1.5 stars.
Dear Wendy is a standalone and Ann Zhao’s debut.
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!
Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles! I’ve returned from finals hell!
I’ve been a massive fan of Zoe Hana Mikuta ever since I fell in love with her Gearbreakers duology a few years back. Off With Her Heads is her most recent novel, having just come out in late April, and even though I would’ve read it no matter what genre it was in, the idea of her writing a novel loosely based on Alice in Wonderland intrigued me—and it did not disappoint.
After a deadly plague ravaged the land, most of the remaining witches and magic-users have transformed into monstrous Saints: bloated, bloodthirsty beasts that scour the land looking for fresh meat. Carousel Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were brought up in a world of predators and plague, orphaned at a young age and eventually escaping their decrepit orphanage together, madly in love with each other. But their obsession tore them apart, and their paths diverged.
Now, Caro has become the Red Queen’s royal butcher, killing Saints and watching as the Queen stitches together Saints of her own through dark, flesh-binding magic. Alice has been on her own for years, slaughtering Saints to get by. With every Saint that she kills, she treads closer and closer to the Red Queen’s throne—and to Caro, who Alice will stop at nothing to bring down to size. But what she finds in the Red Queen’s palace may be even greater of a threat than the love that once tore her to shreds…
TW/CW: loss of loved ones (past), murder, graphic violence, body horror, disease, blood, gore
Dark fairytale (or fairytale-adjacent) books used to be everywhere on the YA landscape. It’s the kind of stuff I ate up from about ages 12 to 16, to various degrees of quality. What they had in common, however, were universally horrible covers. God. They’ve circled back around to being hilarious now, but you could just snag any book off of the YA fantasy shelf at Barnes & Noble, and it would have a cover with an airbrushed white girl with flowy hair and an equally flowy gown either spinning gracefully or fixing your stare with a photoshopped smolder. And the gown was usually melting into…I don’t know, feathers or blood or some shit. It was all very emo. Since then, this subgenre has slowly begun to die down in popularity (or maybe not? My tastes have probably just shifted). Whether or not Off With Their Heads is the slow beginning of that subgenre’s resurgence in YA remains to be seen, but either way, I’m glad that we’ve got much prettier covers for the next generation of budding YA readers. It’s what they deserve. (Give it up for Tran Nguyen’s gorgeous cover art!)
After the Gearbreakers duology, I figured that I would read just about anything that Zoe Hana Mikuta writes. Even if Godslayers was a bit of a lackluster series concluder, it was still a fun read. Even if it isn’t her best work, you’re going to have a good time reading it regardless. Gearbreakers got a fair bit grim, as dystopias are wont to do, but Off With Their Heads is the darkest that Mikuta has ever gone (so much so that it almost borders on new adult and not YA), and she writes it with a unique talent. Whether or not the urge was pent-up, this novel revels in the “dark” of the “dark fairytale retelling,” drenching Alice in Wonderland in bloodlust, obsession, and backstabbing. However, what a lot of the dark fairytales of yesteryear interpreted darkness as was just being edgy; most everything was for shock value and appealing to the “what if this fairytale was………BAD and EVIL” urge that ropes in all the 13-year-olds and it didn’t go far beyond that. But this genuinely feels like horror, and not being an edgelord for edginess’ sake. It’s gory, it’s grim, and it’s bloody, but more in the interest of horror than shock—these characters are surviving a truly horrific world, and it turns them into horrific people for understandable reasons. There’s a distinction to be made there, and Mikuta certainly recognized it. (Also, it’s worth noting that Off With Their Heads is unflinchingly queer, which, given that most of said older fairytale retellings only added in queerness when it was a side character that would inevitably die, is a vast improvement. The bar is low, but it’s noteworthy that it’s being exceeded nonetheless. Let’s go, lesbians!)
I’ve seen a lot of reviews call Caro and Alice “morally gray,” and…I have some thoughts. I almost see it. Almost. But if they were gray, it would be an incredibly dark gray, if anything. Maybe they were morally gray at the beginning, but by the time we get to the present timeline, they’ve both become such awful people that they’re nearly indistinguishable from the one evil person that they’re respectively allured by (Caro) and disgusted by (Alice)—the Red Queen. To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi (hey, I missed my chance on May 4th), they’ve both become the very thing they swore to destroy. They’re both just despicable people, but their differences are written in such a way that their different breeds of horridness play off of each other fascinatingly; Caro’s become this world’s version of a class traitor and idolizes the pinnacle of evil, while Alice has become so consumed with revenge that she’ll justify just about anything. Add in the fact that the root of their personal vendettas lie in their past romantic relationship, and you’ve got a dynamic that was delicious to pick apart for all 400+ pages of the novel. Again, it all makes sense for the truly cutthroat circumstances they were brought up in—they’re products of their surroundings, in the worst possible way.
Even as someone who doesn’t engage with a ton of horror media in general, I know that the key to executing it is making the suspense feel real, especially if the threats in your world are entirely fictional and alien to the audience. Mikuta had a multitude of ways that kept the suspense palpable, and all of them hooked me over the course of the novel. I’m not sure why it is that the “There are [x] remaining Saints” count excited me so much at the beginning of each chapter, but it was a failsafe way to keep track of both the danger and the kill count of the various characters—the tangible effects of the butchering they’re described as doing. Having those numbers up front also provided a sense of scale; in the present timeline, the Saints numbered in the thousands, giving an idea of just how dangerous being in Wonderland truly is—you can’t go for a walk in the woods without encountering a bloated, bloodthirsty, and quite possibly engineered monstrosity on the prowl for flesh. It’s a constant danger—and Mikuta make it feel much more dangerous just by having a chapter subheading.
However, what brought down some of my suspension of disbelief was the worldbuilding. Clearly, there was attention to detail, but only in the ways that Mikuta saw fit. There were tidbits here and there that I wished were expanded on—I loved the concept of the original Alice dreaming being this world’s creation myth, but we never got anything more out of that past the prologue. Outside of things like the Saints and the royal lineage, the worldbuilding was rather messy. I get that Off Their Heads is a very loose retelling at best—just using Alice and Wonderland and its characters as a jumping-off point for the setting—but there were so many convoluted and contradictory bits that I wasn’t completely invested. It’s mentioned that there’s a Jabberwocky court amongst the gentry of Wonderland who are described as humanoid, and yet the girls find a Jabberwocky in the woods described monstrously that has clear intention to kill them. Either that was a poorly-described Saint, or there’s some inconsistencies that need to be addressed. The reworking of Alice in Wonderland-related names into the characters were also a bit sloppy and corny; I get that there’s got to be some signal to the source material, but they were often so obvious, and barely related to the original character that they just made me cringe. I expected more from Mikuta on this front—slapping on character names just to remind the reader that, yes, this is a retelling, doesn’t seem like her style. I almost think it would have worked better if all of the Alice in Wonderland pretense was stripped away and made into a dystopian fantasy world.
Overall, an unflinchingly horrific retelling that displays Mikuta’s love and talent for suspense and obsessive sapphics—but her pitfalls in worldbuilding. 3.75 stars, rounded up to 4!
Off With Their Heads is a standalone, but Zoe Hana Mikuta is also the author of the Gearbreakers duology (Gearbreakers and Godslayers), and an untitled novel slated for release in 2025.
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!
Happy & You Know It was a book that’s outside of my usual reading comfort zone—I’m not usually a realistic fiction person, and it seemed literary, though it didn’t end up being very much so. Either way, the premise was enough to grab me out of my sci-fi/fantasy stint, and though it wasn’t executed the way I wanted it to be, Happy & You Know It was still a biting and entertaining piece of satire.
Claire Martin has been unceremoniously thrown into the lowest point in her life. After her band, Vagabond, replaces her and rockets to stardom not long after, she’s left with fewer and fewer options to keep a job—and pay the rent in New York City. But when the opportunity presents itself to become a playgroup musician for a cohort of rich, Manhattan moms, Claire jumps at the chance—she’ll be paid for music again, even if it’s just singing nursery rhymes, and they’ll surely pay her exorbitantly. Claire is thrust into a world of mommy influencers, babies that are too well-dressed for their own good, and a multitude of secrets. This playgroup isn’t what it seems—and Claire may have been sucked into their whirlwind of lies too late…
TW/CW: substance abuse, cheating/affairs
Given the first page, I was expecting for Happy & You Know It to be a wilder ride than it actually was, but that’s not to say that it was a bad novel. Though I feel like the plot didn’t reach its full potential, it was still a fantastic piece of satire—biting, timely, and hilarious at all the right times.
The gauntlet you always have to run when writing satire—or any genre, honestly—that’s somehow involved with social media is making it sound realistic. Too often, authors heavily force a hand of making sure the characters use all of the right slang and terminology, and end up falling headfirst into what looks like a boomer’s distorted vision of the internet and how it operates. I was bracing myself for Happy & YouKnow It to have some of those trappings, but thankfully, none of that was to be found! Hankin’s depiction of this inner circle of rich, Manhattan mommy influencers felt scarily true to how such figures act, from the curation of every little aspect of their lives down to the tone-deaf, over-the-top names for their babies. It was ridiculous, but that was precisely the point—those kinds of influencers who treat their growing babies like playthings for them to dress up so they can get more likes is ridiculous, and Hankin clearly understood how twisted it gets when these behaviors are pushed to the extreme.
Claire was a perfect protagonist for Happy & You Know It: an outsider who is morbidly enchanted by this world of kale smoothies and sponsorships, but is so desperate that she falls in too deep just when she realizes how right her instincts were about the morbid part. Hankin did a fantastic job of detailing all of her motivations—given the care that was put into crafting her extensive backstory with her former band and the constant, emotional reminders she gets from their stardom, almost all of what she did made sense. She’s just the kind of person who thinks that she’s smart enough to run from a dangerous situation, but cornered enough to convince herself that she can make it out unscathed. I almost with that this novel was entirely from her perspective, and we didn’t get the POV shifts from most of the playgroup mom—I guess we wouldn’t have explicitly seen the details about Whitney and Christopher’s affair, but I’m sure there’s a way that it could have been revealed. The less we knew about the moms, I think, the better.
Perhaps that was part of what made the initial reveal about the true nature of the TrueMommy supplements (no spoilers) fall slightly flat—part of it may have been that it was a bit predictable, but part of it was that we knew too much about the rest of the moms. By the time that this reveal kicks in past the halfway point, my Spider-sense was already tingling—too much for how far into the novel it was. This amount of time should’ve been enough to ramp up the suspense, but I feel like I saw too much into their heads, and therefore, had a good guess of what the first twist was going to be. Especially since we only got some of the moms’ perspectives (Whitney, Gwen, and Amara), I feel like the balance was off. With Claire as an “outsider looking in” protagonist, it would have worked so much better if that secrecy was also confined to her POV—and nailed in that feel of the novel.
On that subject, given how gloriously over-the-top the introduction was, I expected the culmination of said twist to be a lot more dramatic than it was. It looked so messy from the start, and yet the ending felt wrapped up far too neatly—just a moment of confrontation, and then a time skip where everyone is (mostly) living happily ever after in wake of this supposedly drastic revelation. The one red herring we sort of got felt too obvious, and so it was easy to point to the real perpetrator, which dampened the effect. The setup didn’t match the end result—I guess I did want more of a disastrous downfall for almost all parties involved (can you tell I like Fargo?), but if you specifically have an introduction to hint at some spectacle of corruption and ruin, it needs to deliver—and unfortunately, Happy & You Know It missed the mark on that front.
All in all, a slightly disappointing mystery, but a deeply fulfilling and sharp satire. 3.5 stars!
Happy & You Know It is a standalone, but Laura Hankin is also the author of The Daydreams, A Special Place for Women, and the forthcoming One-Star Romance.
Today’s song:
aaaaaaaaaaand that’s another album added straight to my bucket list
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Ever since it came out, Drunk on All Your Strange New Words has been on my radar; beforehand, I hadn’t even heard of Eddie Robson, but the premise was so fascinating that I just had to get my hands on it. After several trips to several bookstores with no luck in finding it, my hold finally came on Kindle—and it was a delight to read!
For Lydia, First Contact started in the mind. The aliens we greeted were called the Logi, and they communicated entirely telepathically. Lydia works as a translator for a Logi cultural attaché named Fitz. It’s a pleasant job—Fitz is good-natured, and together, they pick apart plays and literature to determine if they are suited for intergalactic sales to the Logi. The unfortunate side effect is that translating the Logi’s telepathic language into English makes her feel drunk, earning her a less-than-stellar reputation on the job. But when Fitz is murdered and all eyes land on her as the suspect, Lydia must keep the police and Logi ambassadors off of her tail—and get to the bottom of Fitz’s murder.
TW/CW: xenophobia (fictional), murder/assassination, mild violence, death threats
I am on my hands and knees trying to find sci-fi with aliens that really feel alien. The quest is ongoing. But if you’re on that same quest with me (let us join hands, sisters in disappointed with humanoid aliens), Drunk on All Your Strange New Worlds is the cure for all that ails—all that and a dose of some good ol’ British humor.
I get to go off about aliens!! I GET TO GO OFF ABOUT ALIENS!! ALIENS WOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR
First off: the Logi! Drunk on All Your Strange New Words boasts some incredible alien design and culture, and I had so much fun exploring it throughout the novel. The whole concept of telepathic aliens whose speech makes the act of translation make humans feel drunk was already fascinating to me; it was so out of left field, and a concept I’d never really considered before; the only other instance I’ve seen of alien speech having unintended physical effects on the human body or brain was in A Desolation Called Peace (though that was arguably more drastic), but it still felt truly weird, which a lot of sci-fi doesn’t touch on, strangely. I loved getting such a complex, multilayered picture of the Logi beyond that, from the head coverings they wear to protect from Earth’s atmosphere to their unexpected strength; some of the elements of them almost veered into the supernatural (technically not much of a spoiler since it happens early on, but the reveal was so cool to me that I’ll keep my mouth shut for your enjoyment), but even that felt like a marker of an alien well done—so outlandish that the only explanation that humans can come up with is paranormal.
Creating all of that excellent background for the Logi is one thing, but it wasn’t all left as a lofty concept to puff up the worldbuilding—it had real, tangible effects on the characters and the plot, which I was so grateful for. Robson executed the real-time effects of humans interacting with a lot of these alien behaviors exceedingly well! It isn’t just that Lydia feels like she’s had a few too many after a long translation job—the feeling of drunkenness extends to drunken behaviors, the consequences of which had unfortunate implications for keeping said job. Having that was also a great device to start putting Lydia under suspicion for the other characters—there were enough instances of perceived instability or unprofessional attitudes that the authorities had all the more evidence to implicate her in Fitz’s murder. This is all to say that Robson really left no stone unturned when it came to the worldbuilding, and my enjoyment skyrocketed because of that!
The cultural environment around First Contact and the integration of the Logi into human culture also felt a little too real, in the best and worst way possible. At this point, the world has advanced into an undefined point in the future, and enough time has passed between now and First Contact that there aren’t just bigots and zealots with xenophobic intention, but organizations targeting aliens and professors giving whole lectures on what they perceive as a Logi encroachment into human culture, literature, and media. Paired with the faulty software that scores the truthfulness of the news that Lydia consumes (that aspect felt very “three days from now”), it felt like a more realistic depiction of alien contact and communication than we usually get; at heart, we still fear what we don’t understand, but it’s neither all-out annihilation of the aliens nor a global, complete hippie kumbaya event of unity. It’s demonstrative of human nature in the face of what we don’t understand: the bad and the very ugly, but enough good to keep us afloat and on good terms with the visitors from another world.
For most of the novel, I was really into the mystery surrounding Fitz’s murder. (I knew it was gonna happen from the start, since, y’know, in the blurb, but I didn’t want for him to die. I just wanna see the little alien guys!! Let them vibe!!) The slow burn of it kept me turning page after page, and for most of the novel, felt appropriately paced. It didn’t feel like we were jumping from place to place for no reason—every outing had a motive and revelation that added to the mystery in a way that made sense. However, though I enjoyed much of it, I feel like it got a little too slow-burn. The subtlety was good for most of the novel, but it got to a point where I was 90% of the way through the book and we still had no idea who the killer was and who the prime suspect was, now that most of the others had been eliminated by that point. Said killer was also introduced very late into the novel and quite sparingly, which made the reveal feel unearned—if we’ve spent all this time poring through suspects and barely touched on the actual killer, then what was the point? For such a clever novel, that felt like such an amateurish move—the only reason that we didn’t suspect them was because we had no idea who they even were for almost the entire novel.
All in all, a delightful combination of sci-fi and murder mystery that boasted some of my favorite aliens that I’ve read in a while. 4 stars!
Drunk on All Your Strange New Words is a standalone, but Eddie Robson is also the author of Hearts of Oak.
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!
The Bookish Mutant 