A Perfectly Cromulent Review of Books

Margaret Owen's Little Thieves trilogy has to be up there among my favorite series to ever exist...ever. It features everything I like: realistic, messy characters, Germanic mythology, kittens...and while I was elated to receive an eARC of Holy Terrors, it was also October of 2024 and I swore I'd write a review straight away and then. Uh. Some stuff happened.

The stuff:

That, only, it's democracy.

So it's been a little hard to write anything while watching my home transform into a fascist state, but still. If anything brings me joy, it's the world of Little Thieves. So, let's hop to it.

It's been almost two years since the events of Painted Devils and Vanja and Emeric's relationship has been irrevocably broken. From Emeric's perspective, Vanja left him high and dry in the middle of the night, which, to be fair, she totally did. From Vanja's perspective, she's doing what's best for Emeric - he can't advance as a prefect with a felon for a girlfriend; she would be used against him at every turn. So, Vanja left. She totally wasn't just running from her problems or anything, or repeating the cycle of abandonment her mother started or anything.

And, if you're wondering what happened during that time between Painted Devils and Holy Terrors, go read The Fallow Year. It's on Archive of our Own, It's excellent and worth a read. Go on, read it, I'll wait.

...

...did you read it? Ok, good, you're all caught up. Hurray! Anyway.

Vanja has been....well, kind of OK. She's continued her work as the Pfennigeist, using her fortune in rubies to help those exploited by the powerful. She's formed a close relationship with her siblings, and no longer goes by Vanja Schmidt - she's Vanja Ros. Vanja has even repaired her relationship with her godmothers, Death and Fortune. Vanja has matured greatly since Little Thieves, and she's doing her best to make a good life for herself now. She's even tried to let go of Emeric, convincing herself that that is what's best for both of them.

Me, the reader:

But Vanja has tried to move on. She's had a few relationships since, none lasting very long. The only serious boyfriend she's had since Emeric, Benno, a hot, tattooed bartender (can't blame you, girl) went sour when it turned out Benno was the illegitimate-but-now-turned-legit-due-to-lack-of-other-heirs son of a Prince. Bummer.

Worse yet, Emeric, it seems, has also moved on. With a woman called Lilje who seems to be everything Vanja isn't: law-abiding, respectable, and normal.

Me, the reader:

But things aren't going great in the Blessed Empire. The felonious Prinz Ludwig, of Painted Devils fame and Benno's absent father, died suddenly. Vanja does Benno one last favor: she Pfennigeist's her way into the crypt to steal the late Prinz's signet ring so Benno can wave it around and look all legitimate despite being a bastard. Unfortunately, while nicking the ring, it becomes very very clear that Prinz Ludwig didn't just die of natural causes. I mean, to quote Evelyn from Our Flag Means Death, "murder is a natural cause." Turns out, aristocrats across the empire are being murdered. And not just any aristocrats - these are aristocrats with the power and influence to become elected Emperor.

And all of them are found with the Pfennigeist's signature red penny.

Knowing she's being set up, Vanja prepares to flee with her rubies and her adorable little rescue kitten, Junior. Only problem is her rubies are gone. Stolen out of her lodging. And before she can make a clean break for it, the long arm of the law catches her first. And not just any long arm - but the long arms of her ex-lover and sentient beanpole, Emeric Conrad.

Me, the reader:

Emeric is not best pleased to be dealing with Vanja again and he's not shy about expressing it. Worse yet, he and Lilja aren't just together. They're engaged.

Me, the dedicated Emeric/Vanja shipper:

Fortunately, the Prefects seem to realize pretty quickly that Vanja is being set up somehow and release her. But when the Blessed Empress herself dies, Vanja is brought into the investigation, much to Emeric's displeasure. Vanja heads to the capital along with Emeric and Lilja, meeting up with Gisele, Ragne, Joniza and Benno, as aristocrats from across the empire gather to elect a new sovereign. Someone has sinister designs on the throne, and they've involved the pfennigeist - or someone pretending to be the pfennigeist.

What follows is plenty of drama, courtly intrigue mixed with magic, doppelgängers, betrayal, and a hefty dose of Keanu-esque kitten mischief. But the question remains: what will become of Vanja and Emeric?

Damn, Holy Terrors is just...it's fantastic, all around. As a dedicated fangirl of Emeric/Vanja, seeing them fight and just be petty and awful to one another was painful, but, if you've ever had the experience of watching two people who have broken up being forced to interact, well, it comes across as all too familiar. Hey, the course of true love never did run smooth and all that. Plus, it's kind of hard when he's literally engaged to someone else. Lilje isn't even all that bad, Vanja actually likes her and ugh, that's just the worst. Especially since Vanja is stuck in the room next to Emeric and Lilje's and she has to hear them get up to - uh - some premarital fun. Not to mention Vanja and Emeric's tenuous 50/50 custody agreement with Junior the Kitten...

So cute...

I especially loved how, interspersed throughout the book are stories of Vanja's possible futures - what her life could have been depending on the choices she made. For a fantasy trilogy, the emotions presented are are incredibly real. That's part of what I love so much about the Little Thieves trilogy - it's a series that's not just a delightful fantasy adventure story set in a Germanic world, it's also a beautiful tale of growing up, of developing the emotional intelligence you need to survive in a world that's harsh, and how to survive goddawful people like Irmgard von Hirsching. Fuck all the way off, Irmgard.

In short, Holy Terrors is fantastic and a wonderful, fitting conclusion to the Little Thieves trilogy. Go read it. Seriously, please do. Get a copy from your local library before the fascists close them all down.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who enjoyed Little Thieves and Painted Devils - seriously what are you doing just reading the third book of a series by itself? You'll have no idea what's happening otherwise.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who dislikes YA, strong female protagonists, fun, joy, kittens, heists, intrigue...

RELEASE DATE FOR HOLY TERRORS: April 1, 2025 (wildly appropriate - that has to be deliberate, right? Right?)

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED FANGIRL RATING: 5,000,000,000,000,000/5

This is a legitimately true story, I swear. Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...by which I mean, four or five years back or so, I'd never heard of T. Kingfisher / Ursula Vernon in my life until I got into a fight with her on Twitter* on whether or not the fruit of the hazel tree should be referred to as Filberts or Hazelnuts.

For the record, I am firmly team hazelnut. I mean, they're nuts from a hazel tree. Hazel+nuts = hazelnuts. Who in their right mind wants to eat something called a filbert? But, terminology varies as T. Kingfisher is firmly on team filbert. My parents also call them filberts on occasion which is weird to me as we live in an area lousy with hazelnut farms.

Mmmm, Hazelnuts...

Anyway! I had no idea who this person was but I got into a tongue-in-cheek gif fight on Twitter with them regarding hazelnut v. filbert. Feeling bad that I got into a fight with a random person online on their hazel tree fruit name preferences, I went to their profile, saw they were an author, looked up their books and bought the two books of the Clocktaur Wars series. I tore through them, and continued on, reading all of the World of the White Rat series (I just saw that we're getting a new one in January and I might have let out a bit of a fangirl screech), and the absolutely delightful A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking and Minor Mage. So far, every single one of T. Kingfisher's books that I've read has been awesome. Nettle & Bone? Amazing. Thornhedge? I'm a very slow reader, but I devoured it in an afternoon.

T. Kingfisher writes amazing fantasy novels and I absolutely love them. She also writes horror. Which is where I hit a brick wall because I'm a baby who doesn't handle horror well. I don't like horror movies. I don't often read horror books. Because the world is scary enough without ghosts and poltergeists and demons and jump scares. Also I watched The Ring when I was 12 and it scared the shit out of me. Anyway! Oddly enough, I've always found myself drawn to horror-type stories. I mean, horror fits so well in fantasy and sci-fi (looking at you, Doctor Who episodes that gave me nightmares). As an adult, I've found myself more and more willing to dip my toe into horror fiction. Season 1 of The Terror, one of my favorite-ever TV series is considered horror (maybe because it's not jump-scare scary, it's existentially scary. Also it's set in the past. Also it's got dudes-on-boats, my favorite genre). Part of me really, really likes horror stories set in the past - no horror like 18th/19th/Early 20th century horror, amirite?

Right?

Well, whatever, I just like horror to be ye olde timey horror, OK? Like Crimson Peak, The Witch, The Death of Jane Lawrence, Mexican Gothic, The Woman in Black, The Hacienda, Vampires of El Norte, The Hunger ... spooky-scary Gothic-y-Romantic-y-type stories that have a historical element to them. Those are awesome. I'm slowly - very slowly! - getting myself to read more contemporary horror stories. I understand that The Twisted Ones and A House With Good Bones are really, really good, but....what can I say, I'm a wuss. And contemporary stories aren't really my jam. I read to get away from the contemporary world, damn it!

(Me, too scared to read contemporary horror but not too scared to listen to 900,000 true crime podcasts).

Right, where were we?

Oh, yeah. The review(s). I'm starting to understand why no one ever read this blog and why I let myself be lazy.

-

In What Moves The Dead we meet Alex Easton, a Gallacian ex-soldier on their way to visit their old friends, the Ushers, at their delipidated estate in the rural countryside of Ruravia. Alex had word that Madeline Usher was dying, and they wanted to be there for Madeline and her brother, Roderick. Roderick had been a fellow soldier with Alex back in the day and -

Wait a minute, Roderick and Madeline Usher? Delipidated mansion? Unspecified 19th century middle of nowhere...

Yep, this story is, indeed, a retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, and it does a much better job than certain series you might find on Netflix.

Moving on:

Alex, Roderick and Madeline were childhood friends, and Roderick and Alex even fought together back in the day. Alex is a "sworn soldier" - something unique to their home country of Gallacia, a small, backwater country located somewhere between Bulgaria, Hungaria and that other -Garia, a vaguely Central/Eastern European nation with a language somehow structurally worse than Finnish, Hungarian and Icelandic combined. The Gallacian language has seven sets of pronouns: there's one set used only when referring to God, a set used to refer to children before puberty, one set specifically for inanimate objects...and, as the Gallacians are a fierce warrior people (though they're not exactly great at it), there's a special pronoun set just for soldiers.

So, in Gallacia, anyone, regardless of gender, can waltz up to the nearest military recruitment post, declare themselves a soldier, and be given a sword and a new set of pronouns within the hour. Hence the term "sworn soldier."

Anyway!

Prior to arriving at the House of Usher, Alex encounters an Englishwoman, Miss Eugenia Potter, a mycologist studying the local mushrooms, and there are some gnarly-looking (and smelling!) mushrooms. In fact, the whole landscape around Usher House seems...off. Everything seems dead or dying. Random hares will stand up and just stare right at you.

And not in a cute way, either.

As if the landscape weren't bad enough, once Alex gets to the Usher House, Roderick himself barely resembles the soldier Alex once knew. His skin has gone bone-white and he's as thin as a skeleton. He seems terrified by something but can't quite articulate what. Madeline is still alive, but in bad shape. Not even Roderick's friend Denton, an American doctor, can say what is wrong with her and Roderick (Catalepsy? Anemia? Hysteria? Roomis Igloomis? Who knows?). Denton and Alex immediately figure it's something to do with their environment - the house is both rotting and falling apart around them - but Roderick insists that Madeline can't leave, and if she can't leave, he won't leave.

Determined to find out what's happening to their friends, Alex resolves to stay. But things in the House of Usher are starting to get weird. For one thing, Madeline sleepwalks far more than a dying woman should, speaking in a strange, child-like voice, there's a lake outside that seems to pulse and shine with odd lights, there's a legion of undead hares wandering around and, seriously, what is up with those mushrooms??? With the help of Denton, Miss Potter, and their trusty batman, Angus, Alex must figure out what the hell is going on with the House of Usher...before whatever it is starts to spread.

What Moves The Dead is short and sweet and the perfect book to read when it's cold and dreary outside - and definitely not one you want to read before eating a giant bowl of mushroom risotto. If you're looking for a fantastic, spooky-type read that reads like if Edgar Allan Poe and The Last of Us joined forces with an army of undead bunnies.

But!

Luckily for all of us, Alex Easton's adventures don't stop with the events at the House of Usher.

It's late in the autumn and poor Alex would much rather be in Paris. Unfortunately, Angus has successfully guilt-tripped them into a trip to Alex's family's old hunting lodge back in the Old Country, aka Gallacia. Nothing like good old Gallacia in the winter where everything is damp, cold, cold, and, you guessed it! Damp.

But the redoubtable British mycologist Miss Eugenia Potter wishes to study some Gallacian mushrooms, and Angus, who is absolutely sweet on her, pretty much voluntold Alex to come along to act as Miss Potter's translator and use their hunting lodge as a home base.

So instead of a beautiful late Autumn/Winter in Paris, Alex is stuck back home.

*Sigh* looks nice, doesn't it?

As much as Alex sulks at the thought of spending several weeks back home, it's not like they're going to say no to Angus and Miss Potter. Not after everything they went through with the Usher House *shudder*.

Unfortunately, when Angus and Alex arrive at the lodge to help get it ready for Miss Potter's arrival, the caretaker, Codrin, is nowhere to be found. A quick trip to the nearby village reveals that Codrin has been dead for the past two months. But the locals are being very cagey about what killed him - Codrin's daughter is very insistent that it was just a lung infection, nothing else, no further questions, goodbye.

Finding a replacement for Codrin proves difficult, as it seems none of the villagers want to go near the lodge because there's a rumor that Codrin wasn't killed by inflammation of the lungs, but by a creature called a Moroi - a woman who sits on your chest and quite literally steals your breath. And the rumor is, a Moroi has taken up residence at the Hunting Lodge.

Yikes.

After some effort, Alex manages to hire a new housekeeper: the ill-tempered Widow Botezatu, who brings her grandson Bors along with her. The Widow immediately hates Alex, thinking them a wastrel, but Bors is nice enough. Miss Potter arrives, complete with terrible Gallacian phrasebook, but it soon becomes clear things aren't quite right at the Lodge. Alex begins to experience strange dreams - dreams in which a woman is kneeling on their chest because, yep, the Moroi is very real, and it can get to you in your dreams, just like Groundskeeper Willie in Treehouse of Horror VI.

Which is to say like Freddie Kruger, but still.

When it becomes clear that the Moroi is after the residents of the lodge, it's up to Alex, Angus and Miss Potter to figure out how to defeat a creature that can infiltrate your dreams.

What Feasts at Night is just as creepy, eerie and atmospheric as What Moves the Dead - there is plenty of non-fungal body horror and, mercifully, no zombie bun buns. Kingfisher is fantastic at capturing the terror of having your ability to breathe taken from you, and of the dread of having to fight something you can't grasp while awake. How she manages to pack so much into two short novels, I have no idea.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone in the mood for some short, sweet spooky horror.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who gets easily queasy, someone in the middle of eating a nice mushroom risotto, someone who really, really, really loves bunnies being alive and living their best lives, anyone who might wake up in the middle of the night with their cat on their chest staring directly into their eyes...

RELEASE DATE FOR WHAT FEASTS AT NIGHT: February 13, 2024

RATING FOR BOTH: 5/5

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SWORN SOLDIER BOOKS: Chigori

*

So Little Thieves is one of my favorite books of all time. I absolutely loved it. If you haven’t read Little Thieves, then the review for its sequel isn’t going to make much sense. So why not go on and go read Little Thieves before you continue? Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Ok, did you read it? Are you all caught up? You won’t be confused as to why Vanja is carrying around a bag of rubies? Or, you know, who the hell Vanja even is? Ok, good. In that case, Painted Devils picks up shortly after the end of Little Thieves, with our favorite daughter of Death and Fortune stumbling around in the middle of the night, blind drunk. 

You know how things go when you're drunk and miserable - you might post something stupid on social media, text someone you shouldn't, accidentally start a cult, you know. Normal drunk person things. It could happen to anyone! Besides, it's not like Vanja set out to start a cult. No, she just needed to get back the rubies she spilled into a river while drunk. It was too cold to gather them all up out of the freezing water herself. So Vanja made up a story about a low God called the Scarlet Maiden (ScarMad?) coming to her in a vision to trick the townsfolk by the river into helping her get the rubies back. A simple trick, no harm now foul. She fully intended to take off the moment she’d gotten the rubies back.

Like so:

Only it doesn't end there. I mean, the book would be pretty damn short if it did. But one "miracle" after another gets attributed to the Scarlet Maiden and suddenly Vanja is the Maidens prophet and…yeah, she's leading a cult. 

Vanja keeps telling herself she'll cut and run soon, leaving the little town of Hagendorn behind and letting the cult die a natural death. Only she doesn't leave. She stays, and stays, and the cult keeps growing. Vanja even gets her own place, even if it is just a lean-to attached to the Ros Brothers' house. 

There is a problem, though (well, more than just one...). The cult is growing faster than Vanja can keep up with it. So fast, the Prefects of the Godly Courts have sent someone to Hagendorn to investigate this supposed new god. And who else do they send but Emeric Conrad himself. 

Which brings us back to the reason why Vanja was drunk and miserable and spilling rubies into a river in the first place. After Minkja, Conrad caught Vanja again, and together they decided to head up to Conrad’s hometown of Helligbrücke. Only a few days out, though, Vanja caught a terrible case of the self-doubts. She didn’t think herself worthy of Emeric, so she wanted to strike out and make something of herself - become someone more than a thief and a liar. So she wrote Emeric a letter saying as much. 

...and regretted it almost immediately. But by then it was too late: the letter had been sent, and she didn’t head onto Helligbrücke. Instead, Vanja wandered aimlessly in a different direction, got spectacularly drunk and accidentally started a cult.

And now the accounting ledger who wished to be a real boy, aka Emeric Conrad, aka the boy Vanja is maybe in love with, is here to investigate. He is not amused.

After an incredibly awkward reunion, complete with screaming goats, Emeric and Vanja resolve to talk it out. But before they can even begin to deconstruct everything that’s happened in the past few months, the actual Scarlet Maiden appears, rising out of a red mist like an evil Florence Welch.

Which is pretty damn terrifying, considering the Scarlet Maiden is supposed to be made up. 

The Scarlet Maiden promises the people of Hagendorn all sorts of blessings, so long as they hold a feast in her honor at Midsummer and sacrifice one among them who is “unclaimed.” Seeing Emeric, and sensing that he’s “unclaimed,” the Scarlet Maiden marks him as her sacrifice. So now Emeric and Vanja have two months to figure out how to break the Scarlet Maiden’s claim over him before she claims her sacrifice. 

And if you think that’s bad, don’t worry, it gets worse! Yay! 

See, Emeric is in the middle of the second phase of his testing to become a fully-fledged prefect. With him is basically a supervisor/examiner, proctor Elske Kirkling. Kirkling immediately hates Vanja, thinking her guilty of fraud against the people of Hagendorn in the creation of the Scarlet Maiden. So Kirkling decides to make the Case of the Scarlet Maiden* Emeric’s Finding - a test case that will determine whether or not he can become a full prefect.

Basically, Kirkling is trying to back Emeric into a corner, where he must choose: does he want to be a prefect, something he’s wanted since he was 10-years-old, or Vanja?

Yeah, Kirkling is the worst.

Throughout all of this, it becomes painfully clear Scarlet Maiden means when she says she wants an “unclaimed” sacrifice. She wants a virgin. Meaning, someone who has never had sex. Specifically, penetrative sex. The penis in vagina kind.** Anyway, This sends our poor demi couple Vanja and Emeric into a tizzy. They’d resolved to take things slowly, figuring out what they’re comfortable with at their own pace. So Vanja asks the Scarlet Maiden: what would happen if someone “claims” her sacrifice before Midsummer? The Scarlet Maiden offers up an alternative: if she can’t have her virgin sacrifice, she’ll take one drop of blood from seven brothers instead. 

And, as luck would have it, Udo and Jakob Ros, the brothers with whom Vanja had been living, happen to be two of seven. The other five don’t live too far away, either. So, with the help of the Ros sister, Helga, Vanja, Emeric, and Proctor Kirikling head off to track down the remaining five Ros Brothers, which, of course, leads to all sorts of adventures, including a heist in the palace of a corrupt prince, a conspiracy involving brothels and a boat that got stuck in a canal, a haunted ghost doll that doubles as a walking, talking wikipedia, a Wild Hunt led by a powerful Goddess… all that while Proctor Kirkling conspires to have Vanja thrown in prison, and Emeric and Vanja try to figure out their relationship. 

Oh, and the Scarlet Maiden keeps getting stronger. 

Vanja & Emeric’s life right now:

I absolutely loved every minute of this book. There are multiple storylines going on at once, but it never feels convoluted or confusing. There is so much love and emotion in this book, it’s beautiful and heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time. Vanja and Emeric continue to be two of my favorite characters of all time - they can be both equal parts diabolical and sweet, and they care about one another so much. Emeric even spent their three month separation mooning over Vanja, which leads to a hilarious Backstreet Boys reference (I saw what you did there, Margaret Owen. Don’t think I didn’t). There are a lot of scenes of Vanja and Emeric being a normal couple and I love it. They bicker, miscommunicate, get into fights, and then - gasp shock! - resolve said fight by actually communicating with one another. Can you imagine?!? And while they want to be intimate with one another, they don’t want to rush into it. They don’t want to force things, or do anything the other might not be comfortable with. It’s just so sweet and I love them and want to smush their faces like so:

Basically, the moment I finished Painted Devils, I was screaming, crying, throwing up...it's so good you guys. So good. It is the sequel Little Thieves needed, it is everything you will want and more. Your heart will be ripped from your chest and thrown in a bin but in the best possible way. I just love Vanja and Emeric so damn much and I can’t wait to see them again in book 3!

Seriously there are scenes that feel like:

But also scenes that feel like:

It’s just so damn good.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who enjoyed Little Thieves, anyone who likes a good, Germanic Fairy Tale inspired YA demi romance between two adorable cinnamon buns who are just trying their best, anyone who has ever gotten so drunk that they accidentally started a cult.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone not a fan of YA, anyone who doesn’t think asexuality or demisexuality is a thing (if you think that, please fuck right off and don’t come back), anyone who thinks that getting drunk and accidentally starting a cult isn’t something that could happen, brothel owners who refuse to pay their workers, proctors who have no appreciation for what is clearly true love, goats who scream exclusively in letters with ring diacritics, anyone who hates joy or long waits for the last book in a series.

RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2023

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED FANGIRL RATING: 500,000,000,000 / 5

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR BOOK 3: Too high to calculate.

HOW I FELT WHEN I FINISHED MY E-ARC OF THIS BOOK:

HOW WAITING FOR BOOK 3 CURRENTLY FEELS:

*(which definitely needs to be some sort of Little Thieves/Sherlock Holmes AU crossover fic, please make it happen internet).

How does someone who worked so hard to get her foot in the door end up as the World’s Worst Assistant? Keep reading and I’ll show you a brand-new world, one where deadlines are spurned, professionalism is seldom upheld, and you’ll never have to miss an episode of your favorite TV show.

-From the uncorrected copy of The World’s Worst Assistant.

Sona Movsesian is the first to admit she isn’t great at her job. Which is a bit of a problem when you’re the assistant to comedy legend Conan O’Brien.

Sona is a boss who doesn’t give a single fuck. But she didn’t start out that way. She came into her job as Conan’s assistant as someone eager to do a good job. But, like so many of us, as the years passed, she got comfortable in her job. 

Comfortable enough to no longer give a shit.

Now, before I get into Sona’s book I should explain: I’ve been a fan of Conan O’Brien practically since birth.

Not only is he responsible for some of the best episodes of The Simpsons, ever, (Marge vs. The Monorail, Homer Goes to College and New Kid on the Block), he’s also my favorite ever Late Night host. Growing up, they’d play last night’s Conan at 6 PM and we’d watch it religiously. In high school, we’d watch the monologue, the post-monologue bit, and then, during the interviews, my dad would try to help me do my math homework. Unfortunately, I’m both easily distracted and terrible at math. 

Now, I’m not saying Conan O’Brien is the reason why I did so poorly in math during high school but, I mean...

Who could possibly focus with that going on in the background?

I still remember being heartbroken when Andy left the original Late Night show, and how elated I was to see him come back for The Tonight Show.

And as for that debacle, well...let’s just say that was my entire sophomore year of college and I even wrote a term paper about it. I am not kidding. 

Anyway! I’ve been a Conan fan forever. I have a Late Night shot glass, a Tonight Show T-Shirt, the OG I’m With Coco shirt from back in 2010, and I went to the very first Legally Prohibited from Being Funny On Television Tour show because, lucky for me, it was held in Eugene, Oregon. I mean, major tours almost never stop within driving distance of me, but oh man. I still have merch from that tour, but they’re a bit beat up now (my Team Coco bottle opener has long since lost all its orange lettering so it’s just a plain black bottle opener now) but still. 

Fun fact: for roughly half a second you can see actual human me in the Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop documentary waiting outside of the Hult Center. That ticket was the best money I, as a broke college student with exactly zero dollars to spare, ever spent.

Anyway: big Conan fan. Cried when he ended his show on TBS but I listen to Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend every day during my morning commute. 

But enough about Conan.

Let’s talk about the Queen herself: Sona Movsesian.

Sona has been part of some of the best bits of Conan’s TBS show and on his podcast. If you haven’t seen some of the bits they’ve done together, I highly suggest you stop reading now and watch a few. Or just leave this page altogether, watch the Conan Without Borders they did in Armenia. 

As you can see from some of the bits they do together, Conan and Sona exist as foils for one another: Conan is the anxious, highly-strung workaholic, and Sona is the chill assistant who shrugs and goes “eh” and figures everything will work out fine in the end. Hilarity inevitably ensues. Throw in Matt Gourley, the podcast producer who exists somewhere in the middle ground between Conan and Sona, and you’ve got one of the top 50 podcasts ever! 

At number 46. 

Honestly, my favorite bits of the podcast are when the trio of Conan, Sona and Matt just BS amongst themselves. Together, the three of them are absolutely hilarious. I’ve always found Conan to be at his most hilarious to be when he’s interacting with others, and Sona and Gourley are perfect foils. Also, listening to them just reminds me so much of me and my siblings talking together - where we’ll banter and rag on each other and make sure one is taken down a peg when they need to be, just as Sona, Conan and Gourley interact with one another. And it’s never mean, either, it’s in that way that you see with siblings - everyone cares about each other, but by God they will poke fun when there is fun to be poked. 

Fun to be poked? Sounds disgusting, but whatever. At least I’m writing and not sitting around for eight months going “...yeah, I’ll write another post later...”

What was I talking about?

Oh, right, The World’s Worst Assistant!

Sona’s memoir isn’t just a book about being a terrible assistant. It’s a manifesto against the shitty working conditions lower-level employees face on a daily basis. Sona encourages her readers not to take shit - she uses a pretty apt Human Centipede metaphor to describe how mistreatment in the workplace is often perpetuated: the lowest employees are treated like shit, they eventually get promoted and then they treat those below them like shit…shit rolls downhill, the abused always kick downwards, etc. etc. But, as Sona points out, the way to stop this cycle is to STOP TREATING PEOPLE LIKE SHIT. Employers, quit treating your employees like shit. Employees, quit taking your employers’ shit. It’s not worth it. And, if you’ve taken shit from your employer and got promoted? Don’t immediately start treating those below you like shit. 

Reviewer, you probably aren’t asking, do you have to keep using the word shit? 

Yes. Yes I do. If you don’t like it you can leave. 

Wait, no, don’t leave! How else will I get people to read this dumb review blog? No! Come back! 

Aside from her hilarious, but very, very real take on how bosses often abuse their power when it comes to the staff who work below them, Sona also details the best ways for an assistant to get away with doing as little as possible. As someone who has worked their fair share of admin jobs (my boss referred to me the other day as their “assistant” and I was like...fair...) I am definitely familiar with some of Sona’s methods, but some are just next level. Being able to pull off a nap at work? That is the absolute dream. Alas, my current workplace has no sofas to crash on. Also I don’t believe in sleeping during the day, nighttime is for sleep, sleeping during the day wastes daylight hours that could be spent toiling in the fields. Sorry, my ancestors were all dirt farmers and I’m convinced that this is the reason why I don’t like napping during the day. But having spent so many years having to be up at, like, 4 AM to get to work on time, sometimes you need a nap around noon so you don’t fall asleep during the drive home. Someday I hope to use Sona’s nap-during-work-hours secret. Someday.

If you think that these methods are a sure way to get fired, don’t worry! Sona has a solution for that. She details all the ways you can make yourself indispensable at work while also gathering up all the things you need to make yourself unfireable. Is unfireable a word? There’s no red underline on in my google doc, so it is now. We lowly admin types are often under-paid and neglected, but, as Sona reminds us, our power lies in the fact that we know everything. Credit card numbers, where the good office supplies are kept, all the passwords, everybody’s schedule...of course, we’d never actually use any of this as a weapon, but sometimes it helps to hint that we could. Maybe. 

In all, The World’s Worst Assistant was an absolute joy to read. Sona’s writing is uproariously funny and her stories are incredibly relatable, especially if you (like me) have ever been an admin or someone’s assistant. The only criticism I can think of is that if you come into this book blind, you will have no idea what is going on. You have to be familiar with Conan O’Brien, his shows and his podcast to know a lot of what Sona is talking about - as a lifelong fan, I loved it. However, if you are like “Conan O’Who now?” then you’re probably not going to be too geared up to read a book by his assistant, even if it is one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. 

RECOMMENDED FOR: Fans of Conan O’Brien needs a friend, anyone who has ever worked as an assistant or any sort of admin position, anyone who has ever worked in or wanted to work in entertainment.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: people who have never watched Conan, people with no sense of humor, bosses, people who inherited all the money and have never had to work a day in their life, people who have ever even thought the phrase “Jay Leno is funny”, people who have something against fun and joy.

RELEASE DATE: July 19, 2022

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED TEAM SONA RATING: 500,000,000,000 / 5

NUMBER OF TIMES I SPAT OUT MY DRINK LAUGHING WHILE READING THIS BOOK: 8

WHAT THIS REVIEW BLOG REALLY IS:

OBLIGATORY PODCAST REFERENCE:

KEDAKAI!

All our times have come / here but now they’re gone..

OK, OK, no more Blue Öyster Cult references, I swear. God, I’m old.

Bubonic Plague is sweeping through the land like wildfire. In the midst of the deadly epidemic, rival nations Brisa and Oliveras have decided to put an end to their long-running war and hatred for one another through marriage. Princess Jehan of Brisa will marry the young King Rayan of Oliveras. I mean, sure, most of the party escorting Jehan to Oliveras die of Plague, but she still manages to make it and marry the king and everything is hunky dory. 

Apart from, you know, the Plague.

But it’s not it’s not like we know what it’s like to be living in a world in which a sickness is running rampant throughout the population or anything, right?

Right?

Ugh.

Anyway, within all of this, we meet Cas. The son of a nobleman, Cassiapeus (he’d much rather be called Cas, thanks) was captured by Brisan forces three years prior, spending much of that time in a miserable prison/labor camp. He only recently managed to escape because he caught the Plague, and, rather than dying like so many others, Cas wakes up in a hospital and just...leaves. Everybody else was busy being sick or dying, so no one stopped him. Cas just nabs a horse and some clothes and heads home. 

Though Cas was lucky enough to survive the Plague, it left him with an interesting side-effect: he can see, hear, and even interact with ghosts. And there are a lot of ghosts around. By the time Cas makes it to the outskirts of his home city of Palmerin, he’s learned, for the sake of his own sanity, to pretend not to see or hear the ghosts. Doesn’t stop him from being guilted into digging a grave for the old bridge keeper outside of town, though. I mean, Cas knew the guy. It’s kind of hard not to dig a grave for the guy when his ghost is literally right there and he knows that you can see him and yeah, fine, I’ll dig your grave, alright? Jeez, leave me alone. 

Cas really should’ve just called the Oliveran equivalent of Ghostbusters.

Unfortunately, the Oliveras Ghostbusters died of Plague. That’s what happens when you cross the streams.

Just as Cas gets done digging that grave for his old pal, Izaro the bridge keeper, his horse gets stolen by a girl dressed in the livery of a royal messenger. Her own horse was stolen, but she’s definitely not stealing Cas’s horse, she’s just borrowing it and she’ll totally give the horse back and she is super late and in a big hurry ok, thanks, byeeeeee!

This gif is not entirely inaccurate. 

The girl doesn’t make it far, though, as Cas only has to walk for a few hours before finding his horse again. Turns out the thief has been treed by a plague-addled lynx. Cas saves her because, horse thief or no, he’s not about to leave someone to be mauled to death by a plague-addled lynx. We learn that the girl is called Lena and she desperately needs a ride to Palmerin and Cas, being a decent human, lets her ride along with him. They reach the city, Lena takes off and Cas gets nervous as he gets closer to home. Is his older brother, Ventillas, alive or has he died of the Plague like so many others?

(This gif is extremely relevant to the entire plot of the book, by the way).

Luckily for, well, everyone, it turns out Palmerin is one of the few cities in the country where the Plague isn’t all that bad (mostly because the city is so far up in the mountains, but also because the city inspector seems to be one of the few people who have made the rats --> fleas --> Plague connection). So, of course, the royal family has fled the capital and taken up residence in Cas’s family home. The day Cas waltzes back into the city happens to be the same day there’s a massive celebration for the baptism of King Rayan and Queen Jehan’s firstborn son, named not-at-all-suspiciously after Ventillas, who was one of the few members of Jehan’s escort who didn’t die of Plague.

Cas watches the festivities, including the parade where the baby prince is being carried around by a nurse for all to admire. As the royal parade crosses a bridge, wham! ARROW! No, it doesn’t get the baby, what kind of book do you think this is? No, the arrow hits the nurse in the shoulder, causing her to fall off the bridge and into the river, and who else should come running to the rescue but our friend Cas? He jumps into the river with zero hesitation, saves the nurse and the baby and is reunited with Ventillas all in one fell swoop. He’s taken back to Palmerin Keep where, of course, people freak out in varying degrees upon seeing Cas again after believing he’d been dead for three years. Cas is also reunited with Lena who, aside from being a gorgeous horse thief is also an official court historian and the king’s half-sister. 

But! Who has time for that when there’s an assassin on the loose? Cas caught a glimpse of the archer just before they fired, and he’s certain it was a woman. But why try to kill an innocent baby? Is it Brisa, trying to stir things up again? Why would they do that when Queen Jehan is Brisan? Also, there’s clearly something suspicious going on - people are keeping an awful lot of secrets regarding Jehan’s journey from Brisa to Oliveras. As a historian, Lena is interested in knowing the finer details regarding the trip, but things aren’t adding up. As the assassin continues to target Rayan and Jehan’s household, it becomes clear that this isn’t some political maneuver. These attacks are personal. Someone is out to get the Queen. But who? And, more importantly, why? As the royal family begins their return to the capital, Cas and Lena team up to discover the truth. 

But if the truth could destroy two nations already devastated by disease and war, wouldn’t it be better to keep it hidden?

Oh man, this book is one hell of a ride. Twists! Turns! Mystery! Intrigue! Lynxes! Lynxi? Or is Lynx itself plural? Whatever: So. Many. Lynx(es)(i)! And they just live in people’s houses and both people and lynx are cool with it! I want my own lynx. I once had two cats whose grandfather was a bobcat which, I think, is as close to owning a lynx as I’ll ever get*. 

Just look at that cat!

But man. Year of the Reaper is a thrilling YA fantasy/mystery/romance/adventure that is really, really difficult to put down once you get started. My only complaint is that, unlike Lucier’s prior Tower of the Winds duology, Year of the Reaper is a standalone book. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say that the book leaves you with plenty of unanswered questions. Like, what will [Spoiler!] do once they find out about [spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler]? And why does [spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler]? Lucier definitely knows how to leave you wanting more, because I really could use a second book. 

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone in the mood for a standalone YA fantasy/adventure/romance/mystery with plenty of courtly intrigue and also: plague!

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: People who look down on YA as a genre, ghosts, plague rats, the ghosts of plague rats who look down on YA as a genre. 

RELEASE DATE: November 9, 2021

RATING: 4.9 / 5, minus .1 of a point because I need all of the answers, damn it!

PLAGUE RATING: 5 / 5 pustules

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SEQUEL EVEN THOUGH I KNOW FULL WELL IT’S A STANDALONE BOOK: Kangchenjunga 

Es war einmal...

Once upon a time...there was a little girl named Vanja. Born the 13th daughter of a 13th daughter in a magical land with no reliable methods of birth control, Vanja is considered unlucky. Wherever she goes, catastrophe follows, or so her mother says. So, one snowy winter night, Vanja’s mother takes her to a crossroads deep in the woods and abandons her to Death and Fortune. Not metaphorical death and fortune, but the actual gods Death and Fortune, who take four-year-old Vanja in and make her their goddaughter. 

Thirteen years later, the glamorous Gisele-Berthilda Ludwila von Falbirg, princess of Sovabin, fiancé to the Margrave Adalbrecht von Reigenbach of Bóern, is attending a party thrown by the count and countess von Eisendorf. The princess has a little too much Glöhwein so the countess von Eisendorf offers the use of one of her guest parlors to the Prinzessin, so she can, you know, have a lie-down and sober up a little before dinner. And thus, the drunken princess is left alone with only her loyal maid Greta to attend to her. 

“Gretaaaaaaa.....”

Or so it would seem.

Because no one in their right mind would guess that the princess, as soon as she’s alone, would take off her pearls (a lady is never seen without her pearls) and transform into someone completely different. Namely, Vanja Schmidt, goddaughter of Death and Fortune. 

Because this, good people, is a heist. 

Cue the overture to The Thieving Magpie!

See, after living for a while with Death and Fortune, Vanja became a servant in Castle Falbirg. After toiling for several years as a maid-of-all-work, Vanja became the lady’s maid to the real Princess Gisele-you-get-the-idea von Falbirg. The girls spent practically every day together. They became best friends - until the rest of the world made it painfully clear that one of them is a princess, and the other a servant, and, in this world, only one of those has value.

So, last year when Gisele was sent off to Bóern to eventually be married to the Margrave, Vanja saw an opportunity and took it: she stole Gisele’s appearance-altering pearls, assuming the identity of the Princess von Falbirg, leaving her former BFF penniless and alone. 

Sound familiar, Brothers Grimm fans?

But Vanja-as-Gisele hasn’t just been living the high life while her fiancé is off fighting wars and shit - no, she’s been stealing from the rich and - 

Sorry, there’s no and. 

Vanja is stealing from the rich and keeping it for herself because she needs the money. See: Vanja doesn’t want to actually marry the godawful Adalbrecht and be a Margravine, God, no. Once she’s saved enough money fencing her stolen goods, Vanja plans on getting the hell out of the Empire of Almandy, and going somewhere where she can live far, far, far away from the influence of her Godmothers. She almost has enough saved - stealing from the rich has been easy, after all, who among them would suspect a princess of being the notorious jewel thief known as the Pfennigeist?

(Pfennig: penny and geist: ghost, by the way - the pfennigeist’s calling card is a red penny left in place of the stolen jewels)

Anyway, all of this brings me back to...

While the princess is trying to sober up, her maid, Greta (Vanja herself, dressed as a servant, sans-enchanted pearls) pulls off yet another successful heist, emptying the Countess von Eisendorf’s jewelry box. Just as “Princess Gisele” returns to the party, the jewels safely stashed in her carriage, two massive wrenches are thrown into Vanja’s plans:

1) It’s suddenly announced that Adalbrecht von Reigenbach is on his way back from the warfront, eager to finally marry his fiancé,

And!

2) A prefect from the Godly Courts (basically this world’s equivalent of a detective) has been dispatched to locate and apprehend the Pfennigeist.

Both of these are bad. Really bad. But Vanja’s life motto is, and always has been: don’t panic. She can manage both of these situations. Really, she can! Adalbrecht is the absolute worst, - a grade A chauvinist pig - but she can manage him by playing the part of the empty-headed princess, playing to his ego while making herself seem harmless. And the prefect - sorry, junior prefect sent by the Godly Courts, Emeric Conrad? He’s a human bean-pole in an ill-fitting uniform, in way over his head, easily riled and completely flustered whenever he’s in Gisele’s presence. Vanja doesn’t need to worry about him.

Does she?

But then, just as she’s left the Eisendorf’s with her stolen jewels, Vanja runs into the biggest wrench in her plan: Eiswald, the low god who oversees the land on whom the Eisendorf’s castle sits. Furious that someone would dare steal in her domain, Eiswald curses Vanja: unless she makes up for all that she has stolen by the next full moon, Vanja will become her greed. Her body will slowly calcify into a bunch of rubies and pearls - starting with a ruby teardrop Vanja’s face. 

Yikes.

To make sure Vanja doesn’t try to wriggle out of her curse, Eiswald sends her shapeshifting, half-human daughter Ragne to monitor Vanja’s progress. Ragne isn’t quite used to being human all the time, and she often gets confused by human things like wearing clothes and sitting normally in chairs, but she takes her job to watch Vanja very seriously. Because the clock is ticking, and Vanja’s curse will come to an end, one way or another. But Vanja doesn’t quite understand how she’s supposed to break the curse - how exactly is she supposed to make up for everything she’s taken? And how is she supposed to do it with a relentless prefect (ahem, junior prefect) hot on her heels and a fiancé who is clearly up to something sinister? 

Well, first thing’s first:

Have you ever encountered a book that just feels like it was written for you, specifically? Like, it checks all of your own personal boxes when it comes to story, setting, characters, and, well, everything? 

Yeah, Little Thieves felt like that to me. I loved every moment of it. I loved that the whole novel was a retelling of The Goose Girl but from the perspective of the “wicked” maid. And, most of all, I loved the character of Conrad, the collection of billiard cues that unionized to solve crime. I loved Ragne and her aversion to clothes and chairs and how if you threaten her or her friends she will turn into a bear and claw you. I absolutely loved Vanja as a character - she is a hilarious and wildly entertaining narrator, but she is also very, very unaware of her own blind spots. She’s so convinced that she is always, always right that she doesn’t even begin to consider that she might, maybe, possibly be just a little tiny bit wrong about certain things until its almost too late. And it’s not like she believes she’s right for no reason - Vanja has learned certain truths the hard way, but, as we all do, we learn that those truths aren’t always universal. Like how, sometimes, it’s OK to panic. Or need help. Or accept that you’ve made mistakes and apologize. Vanja may come off as abrasive at first, but watching her as she transforms from petty criminal to hero is an absolute joy.

I also loved all the references to German language, mythology and culture that permeate the book - especially Owen’s inclusion of some of the more, uh, let’s say... interesting aspects of German cuisine (Weißwurst??? Blegh! Euch, of course Adalbrecht likes Weißwurst). And, if you, like me, spent over fifteen grueling years painstakingly learning the language of your ancestors only to be told your accent sounds ridiculous,  then you, too will love all of the German-language easter eggs sprinkled throughout Little Thieves. Seriously, the language nerd was positively giddy the whole time. There is, for example, a moment where Vanja calls out Conrad for being a northerner because he said “prost” instead of “prosit” when he held up his wine for a toast.

Me, during that scene:

Speaking of which, perhaps my favorite part of the whole novel was the relationship between Vanja and Conrad. Though it takes Vanja some time to realize it, there is way more to Conrad than the nervous, easily embarrassed rookie detective. In fact, Conrad might be the first person ever to cut straight through Vanja’s bravado and see her for who she truly is and, honestly, I just love the two of them so much.

Me, literally every time Vanja and Conrad are together:

Seriously, I could go on forever about how much I enjoyed Little Thieves. I really could. I can’t wait for the finished copy to come out so I can read it again. I need legendary Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon to take Margaret Owen’s sketches of the characters and turn the book into an animated movie. I need it. Seriously, look at Owen’s artwork and then watch Wolfwalkers or The Secret of Kells and tell me Little Thieves wouldn’t work as a Cartoon Saloon movie. 

Seriously, if you take anything away from this review, it’s to pre-order Little Thieves. Go ahead, the link is right there in the text. 

RECOMMENDED FOR: Fans of YA fantasy, fellow Teutonophiles, anyone up for a retelling of one of the Brother’s Grimm fairy tales, the little thieves who are just trying to live, damn it!

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: The big thieves who steal kingdoms. Seriously, those guys never get sent to the gallows and yet they’re literally the biggest thieves of all. Also anyone who doesn’t like YA, romance, fun, joy, reading...or if you’re someone who really likes Weißwurst. They’re barely even cooked!!

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED GERMAN-SPEAKING FANGIRL RATING: 5,000,000,000,000,000 / 5

RELEASE DATE: October 5, 2021

DEUTSCHE BEWERTUNG:

GEESE:

Where have I been? Ahahahahaha, where haven’t I been? Seriously, the list of places where I haven’t been could stretch on for ages, as opposed to the list of places I have been, which is, well, nowhere.

I just haven’t been updating this blog because I’ve been so busy not working on putting together a manuscript so I can become a real writer. I mean, no matter how hard I stare at the word doc, the words just won’t magically transport themselves from my brain to the page. I don’t know why. I mean, it’s not for lack of trying, certainly. Meanwhile, I go on Twitter and see other, actual writers talk about how they wrote 70k in a week and I’m over here on year three of this still-incomplete manuscript like

So I was going through my collection of galleys and I found myself looking at the ad copy for a middle grade novel called The Verdigris Pawn and, since green is my favorite color and the copy was intriguing, I thought “sure, I’ll read that.” I immediately picked up my kindle, started reading, and found I couldn’t stop until I’d reached the end.

Thirteen-year-old Beau is the heir to the Manor that controls the land. Beau’s father, the king, aka Himself (with a capital H, always) is a total asshole. He has a particular dislike for “charmers”, namely those who can do magic. Unfortunately, Beau’s mother happened to be a charmer, and when Himself found out, well, he was not pleased. In fact, he was so displeased he had Beau’s mom and all the other charmers killed. Nice guy. I’ll bet he’s great at parties. 

Anyway, poor Beau has been stuck within the walls of the Manor his whole life, kept ignorant and force-fed only the official (Himself approved) histories of the land with no first-hand knowledge of what it’s actually like out there. Beau knows he’s a disappointment to his father, because, well, Himself (loudly) lets Beau know on all of those rare occasions when Himself deigns to see his own kid. Beau’s only real friend is Fledge, who runs the stables. Fledge has been teaching Beau a forbidden, chess-like strategy game called Fist, where, for reasons that I  (someone with no brain for board games whatsoever) can’t really understand, all the power rests upon the Verdigris Pawn. Since Fist is a strategy game all about overthrowing a king, Himself sees it as a threat and getting caught playing it is considered treason. 

In case you’re wondering, verdigris isn’t just a fancy word for green - it’s the pigment you get when you apply acetic acid to copper plates. It’s also the color of the patina that forms on copper, brass or bronze turns when exposed to air and/or seawater over long periods of time. It’s basic copper carbonate. Or basic copper chloride, aka dicopper chloride trihydroxide if you’re by the sea. It’s why the Statue of Liberty is green, OK? 

Anyway, the Verdigris Pawn is very important to the game. It’s like a...very...important...thingy - alright, I’m terrible at board games, OK?? There are so many rules, like, “no that piece can’t go there!” and literal minded me picks the piece up and puts it there like “but it totally can, see, I just put it there, I don’t understand why you say it can’t when it clearly can,” and then the game dissolves and I go off and read a book or watch TV or something. 

I’ll admit I did buy a chess board after binging The Queen’s Gambit. It’s OK, I know you did, too.

Anyway, where was I? Oh. Yeah. The Verdigris Pawn.

One day, after sneaking out to meet with Fledge, Beau meets a girl his age named Cressida. In the course of a single afternoon, Cressi opens Beau’s eyes to the many, many injustices throughout the land, especially that of Mastery House, a horrible place that would make Oliver Twist’s workhouse look like a posh private school. Mastery House, where Cressi and her friend Nate were raised, is basically a Dickensian workhouse dialed up to 11 - if people can’t pay Himself’s exorbitant taxes, they’re forced to send their children to Mastery House, where the kids as young as three are forced to work for the Manor. Beau, isolated as he’s been, knew absolutely nothing about Mastery House or any of the other horrible things Cressi tells him about - like the plague spreading throughout the land or how the common folk are ready to revolt. Cressi is, at first, prepared to hate Beau, but seeing Beau’s horrified reaction to Mastery House and Himself’s other secrets, Cressi wonders if things couldn’t be better.

Only problem is, Cressi is a charmer. And, after a series of mishaps, Beau accidentally outs Cressi as a charmer to Barger, and she’s immediately arrested. Determined to free her and all the children of Mastery house, Beau, impersonating a cordwainer’s apprentice, manages to sneak out of the manor with the help of Nate, one of Cressi’s friends. Only problem is, Nate has no idea that Beau is the Heir. Since Beau has never been let out of the Manor, people assume he’s just as bad as his father. Nate wants to run off to join the gang of a famous outlaw named Doone, and Beau figures that, if he’s really going to change things throughout the land, he’ll need help - but is Doone really the Robin Hood-esque hero everyone thinks he is?

Meanwhile, Cressi has her own problems - Barger wants to use her and her charming ability to kill Beau. Only, once it becomes clear that Beau has escaped, Cressi offers to track him down. Barger gives her four days to find Beau before he comes after her to finish the job himself. But Cressi has some unexpected help from the Verdigris Pawn itself - it seems to be magically connected to Beau in a way only she, a charmer, can sense.

The Verdigris Pawn is a delightful and heartfelt middle grade fantasy adventure - I started reading it and just couldn’t stop. I really enjoyed Beau’s journey in which he confronts his own privilege and his sheltered upbringing. Poor Beau just wants to do what’s right for the land and maybe make some actual friends. He and Cressi are immediately engaging and from the very first pages you want to know what will happen next and if they’ll be alright. The worldbuilding in Verdigris Pawn is a bit sparse - we get a few descriptions of the land here and there, along with some idea of the level of technology this world has (it seemed to be to be somewhat like Ye Olde Medieval times but I’m not sure) but the focus on the novel is much more on the characters than the setting, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At no point is The Verdigris Pawn bogged down by info-dumps or long lectures on in-universe history - instead we get an action-packed, fast-paced page-turner that, like a can of Pringles, once you start, you really can’t stop.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone looking for a fun middle-grade fantasy adventure - definitely recommend for kids anywhere from 10 - 14.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Himself’s approved bookshelf, adults who think reading middle grade is beneath them (if that’s you, kindly leave and never return).

RATING: 4.9 / 5

RELEASE DATE: July 13, 2021

GREEN RATING: 

MY KNOWLEDGE OF CHESS: 

Dr. Ryland Grace wakes up in a spaceship with no memory of how or why he’s there. He’s a junior high school science teacher, what the hell is he doing on a spaceship? Also, the other two astronauts are dead. Like, really dead. So far as how things are going for Dr. Grace right now, I’ll let Pete Campbell give you a hint:

Slowly, veeeery slowly, Grace’s memory starts to come back to him: he’s on a mission to save the Earth. There’s this nasty space bacteria-thingy called Astrophage that’s dimming the light of Mr. Burns’s archnemesis: the Sun.

There’s a lot of science involved, but Weir explains, in great detail, just how Astrophage dims the Sun and why that’s really, really, really, really bad for the Earth. Like, apocalyptic-bad. Billions will die bad. Famine, disease, war, rocks fall, everyone dies and freezes to death bad. Only not right away. Over the course of several years. So everyone will die, but they’ll get to do it real slowly. 

Yay?

Like so, but it ends with everybody dead and the Earth being rendered uninhabitable. All of Grace’s wee little students will grow up watching their Earth slowly die. Unless Project Hail Mary finds a solution. And there seems to be a solution out there - Tau Ceti seems to be the only star not infected with Astrophage. Why? How? What? So this all powerful woman called Stratt, who has been given authority by just about everyone (how? Reasons. Don’t ask questions) yanks Grace out of his classroom - first to study Astrophage, and then, somehow, he can’t remember exactly, roped him into going on a dozen-light-year journey to Tau Ceti with the crew of the Hail Mary.

Only the rest of the crew is dead. Something went wrong while they were in a coma during their four-year space voyage. Grace is alone.

Inside the Hail Mary.

Full of a dude called Grace.

I see what you did there, Weir. Don’t think I didn’t see what you did there. I mean, you don’t even have to be Catholic to see what you did there.

Anyway, long-winded flashbacks and lots of science ensues. I struggled with the first quarter of the book - not for any particular reason other than I started reading this book in the latter half of 2020 and I was having a hell of a time concentrating on...well, everything. Remember 2020? Yeah, it wasn’t great. I mean, I’d need a lot of “not great, Bob!” gifs to describe just how bad those last few months of 2020 were.

And then I thought 2021 would be better. Ahahaha we barely made it six days. Seriously, everything is terrible and how do I even concentrate on a dumb book blog let alone a book all about science and the Earth slowly dying because the sun is dimming and -

Soon enough, however, Grace spots something on the Hail Mary’s radar. It’s...another spaceship? All the way out by Tau Ceti? At first, Grace thinks maybe its another ship from Earth, like a backup plan, that’d make sense, right? Only it’s not.

Who could it be?

Aliens?

Yeah, it’s aliens.

Our friend Grace gets to be the dude to make first contact with the sentient, spider-like creatures of the first planet in the system 40 Eridani. Turns out 40 Eridani is also infected with Astrophage, which is causing all sorts of problems for the Eridians, and their ship just happened to be around Tau Ceti at the exact same time as the Hail Mary. Crazy, right? Anyway, after the initial first contact and the long, drawn-out process of learning to communicate with one another (with no help from Amy Adams or Jeremy Renner), Grace and the lone Eridian, whom Grace christens Rocky, team up to save their respective worlds.

Science and plenty of flashbacks ensue.

I’m not a scientist - well, I have a master’s degree in library and information science, which, I guess, is a science? I mean, uh...I could tell you where all the sciency books are in the library. 500s if you’re using Dewey, and if you’re using Library of Congress, it will depend on what you’re looking for - you’ll want to start with Q for general sciences, QA for math books, QB and QC for astronomy and physics, QE, GC, GB, QC, TN for earth sciences, QD, TN, TP, and TR for chemical sciences, GE and bits of GF, QE, QH, QC, and TD for environmental sciences, QH, QK, QL, QM, QP, and QR for life sciences, QA75-76.9, TK5101-TK6720, TK7800-TK7895, and Q334-Q390 for computer sciences, telecommunication and artificial intelligence, Q, R, S, and T for the history of sciences and if you’re looking for bibliographies and finding aids for topics in the sciences, look under Z.

You know. Science.

OK, so I may not be a scientist. I may be bad at math because numbers somehow magically switch themselves around on paper whenever I look at them. Why? Because my brain sucks, that’s why. I may have spent most of my chemistry classes reading YA books under my desk (worth it!). I may have only passed high school physics by cheating off a girl younger than I was, but hey, the joke was on me: my high school physics teacher wasn’t even qualified to teach physics.

Gotta love rural public schools.

My point is, while the science may be lost on me and my brain which is full mostly of Simpsons quotes rather than actual knowledge, I do loves me a fun story where Science (with a capital S) saves the day. And, make no mistake, this book is fun. You might get a bit bogged down by the science, but once you get past it, this is a highly enjoyable story of one dangerously unqualified guy desperately trying to save the world with his new BFF, alien spider guy who speaks in musical notes. It’s up to them and them alone. Good luck, guys! Don’t forget that billions upon billions of lives depend on you. No pressure.

Seriously, if you loved The Martian, you’ll love Project Hail Mary. They’re similar, but Hail Mary is on a much larger scale than The Martian - there’s a lot more at stake in the hands of one guy. Plus: aliens!

Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say I would have loved more from the ending. I would’ve loved an epilogue from some of the other character’s perspectives or something. I mean, I could even go with a sequel! Maybe something where Erid and Earth are finally able to communicate? There’s a lot of potential for short stories or novellas set in the same world as Project Hail Mary - there’s got to be bonus material there and I want it. More, please? That’d be nice. I’d definitely read it. So... Hop to it, Weir!

One last complaint: Grace doesn’t swear. Like, at all. Meanwhile, Mark Watney is over here like

Come on, Grace, would it kill you to say “fuck” or “shit” every now and again? I mean, I sipped coffee that was too hot and let out a bunch of words that’d make a 19th century whaler blush. Geez.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Fans of The Martian, science-y people, people who enjoy a heavy dose of science in their sci-fi, people who just want a fun story

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: People with no mind for science, people who are against fun, anyone who doesn’t like sci-fi, aliens, fun, etc.

RATING: 4/5

ALIEN RATING:

RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021 (HEY! Don’t think I didn’t see what you did there, too, Ballantine Books!)

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SPINOFFS / SEQUELS / BONUS MATERIAL OF ANY KIND: Olympus Mons.

DID I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE?

God, now I’m really hungry and want BBQ. 

Anyway!

Shanghai! 1926! The area that we know of today as China is having a hell of a time, leadership-wise, but the glamorous  port city of Shanghai, known back then as “The Paris of the East, the New York of the West,” has wholeheartedly embraced the spirit of the Roaring 20s. Drugs, dancing, debauchery, anything you could possibly desire, just stick out your arms and spin around and eventually, you’ll hit it. Just be sure you don’t dizzily wander into the wrong gang’s territory. See, Shanghai is pretty well divided up by two rival gangs: the Scarlet Gang, headed by the Cai family, and the White Flowers, headed by the White Russian Montagov family. You might be wondering: what the hell are Russians doing in Shanghai? Well, for those of you who slept through your history classes, here’s a recap: there was this little kerfuffle back in 1917 known as the Russian Revolution. You know, the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin, the execution of the Romanovs, all that fun stuff? Unsurprisingly, this led to a mass exodus of those Russians who were less than fond of Communism. These guys were known as “White Russians.” They were made up primarily of vodka, coffee liqueur and cream, served on the rocks in an Old Fashioned glass. 

 The Dude’s drink of choice. 

Ahahaha no, I kid. White émigrés were anyone who had the wherewithal to get the hell out of Russia during the revolution - their political affiliations and drink contents varied, but a great deal of them headed south and ended up in China, roughly 20,000 settled in Shanghai - a city that already had plenty of foreigners. In fact, by 1932, just 6 years after our story is set, Shanghai would have a population of roughly 70,000 foreigners, some of whom had been living there for generations. Not as long as the actual Chinese, but, you know, long enough for the foreigners to feel like they were 1000% superior to the people who’d been living there for thousands upon thousands of years, a people whose civilization was getting shit done while we European types were busy burning witches, dying of plague and inventing a printing press two hundred years after it’d already been done.

Shanghai, everyone!

Also: the history of foreigners thinking they’re better than everyone in China is one of the things I wrote my German thesis about! Did you know there were Nazis living in Nanking in 1937? Yeah. It’s interesting but I don’t recommend writing a 40 page paper about it in German. The level of imperialist nonsense in the diaries of some of those foreigners living in China during the second Sino-Japanese war is pretty damn high. 

Even as the whitest person in all of whitesville, I was shocked by the level of white nonsense in some of those those primary resources. 

Anyway. I know I said I’d focus, but I do find the whole cultural clash between the Chinese and the Foreigners living on their soil fascinating, especially in the early- to mid-twentieth century when the political situations throughout the world were as batshit insane as they are now.

Where were we? Oh, yeah, the White Flowers and the Scarlet Gang. They’ve been in a blood feud since forever. Why? Reasons. What reasons, you ask? Just...reasons. You know. All sorts of reasons. Don’t worry about it, point is, there’s a blood feud between the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers and they hate each other. Like my cats, the two gangs assert complete control over their respective territories, and should any other White Flower or Scarlet cross into rival territory, oh you bet there will be growling, hissing and fur flying. Except in this case it’s gangsters killing each other. 

Juliette* Cai is the heir to the Scarlet Gang - she’s recently returned from spending a few years abroad in America, enjoying the flapper life in New York City. But now she’s back, and she’s determined to take her rightful place as heir.

I like to imagine that Juliette looks a bit like the legendary Anna May Wong.

Roma Montagov is heir to the White Flowers. He and Juliette are bitter enemies. Their families and their gangs are enemies. And yet, there was a point, a few years ago when Juliette and Roma fell madly in love. When they were everything to each other. When they were certain their love would overcome the divide between Scarlets and White Flowers. Pfft. Youths, thinking things like this will end well. It does not end well. Roma betrayed Juliette - he used their relationship to get information about the Scarlet Gang and use it against them. 

(Pictured: Juliette telling Roma “bye bitch”)

Or so Juliette thinks. She didn’t stick around long after Roma’s betrayal - heartbroken and royally pissed off, she left for New York with a new determination to see the White Flowers pay. 

(Pictured: Juliette planning on making the White Flowers pay)

But, aside from the war between the gangs and the rumblings from communists and the presence of so many meddling foreigners, something is seriously wrong in Shanghai. There are rumors of a monster in the Huangpu river. And there’s a terrifying illness spreading throughout the city - a  madness that spares no one, be they Scarlet or White Flower, foreign or Chinese. A madness that causes people to tear out their own throats with their bare hands. Literally. 

Seriously, people compulsively tear at their throats until they die. It’s quite freaky but also...seems like it’d take quite a while, depending on the strength of your hands. Also, what if you only nick an artery and only bleed out to the point of losing consciousness? Do you just wake up and keep tearing? I mean, you’ve got some pretty strong muscles in your neck you have to go through...Still: yikes.

As the madness tears its way through Shanghai, Roma makes a horrifying discovery: the madness spreads through these itty bitty flea-like bugs, and that these bugs might just have something to do with the rumored monster. But Roma knows he can’t figure out what’s causing the madness alone - not when he only has access to one half of the city. He’ll need help from the one person who isn’t really inclined to give it: his ex-lover and arch-enemy, Juliette Cai. 

But can the enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies again ever put aside their pasts to become allies? Or does the blood feud run too deep?

(Pictured: Juliette thinking of the many, many, many ways she could get revenge on Roma Montagov).

Oh man oh man, I would read literally anything set in 1920s Shanghai. It’s a time and a place that I find fascinating. I’m a little more take-it-or-leave-it with the Shakespeare retelling aspect - honestly, I came more for the historical fantasy set in 1920s Shanghai than I did for a rehash of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is nowhere near my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays (Much Ado About Nothing FTW), and the whole R&J star crossed lovers, two households both alike in dignity in fair Verona where we lay our scene has really been done to death. But you can scoff at the idea of yet another Romeo and Juliet retelling and still enjoy These Violent Delights. Chloe Gong manages to turn the story completely on its head - the building blocks to Romeo and Juliet are there - the feuding families, a city divided, the star-crossed lovers - but everything is given a new (and, quite frankly, refreshing) twist: instead of just two families, it’s two crime families, hashing it out in the streets of 1920s Shanghai, and the star-crossed lovers? They broke up in a bad way and now they hate each other. Also there’s a river monster, a madness plague, foreigners to the left of me, communists to the right - this isn’t anything like you’re average Shakespeare retelling. The story does start out a bit slow, but things do pick up. Unfortunately, I went in thinking this would be a standalone book. It is not. Apparently it’s a duology? Either way, be prepared for a cliffhanger and a wait for the sequel - don’t blame me when you get to the end and run out of pages. I warned you!

In all, These Violent Delights is a captivating and transporting read - want to forget about reality for a while? Try reading about gangsters in China during the 20s fighting against a river monster with madness-causing-bug-friends. It’s awesome! Also: maybe someone should arrange for a little couples counseling for Roma and Juliette. Or give them a ticket to anywhere that is not Shanghai.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Fans of YA, historical fantasy, Shakespeare retellings, Romeo & Juliet, madness-causing bugs, river monsters, anyone interested in the tumultuous time that was China in the early twentieth century, Mercutio/Benvolio shippers, enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers shippers.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Actual river monsters or madness causing bugs, rabid Shakespeare purists, anyone who doesn’t like YA, anyone who hates  enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers, the Montagues, the Capulets, ardent imperialists, anyone who doesn’t enjoy a good historical fantasy.

RELEASE DATE: November 17, 2020

RATING: 4/5 

ANNA MAY WONG RATING:

WHITE RUSSIAN RATING:

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SEQUEL:  Makalu, though probably will head up to Kangchenjunga once my post-election blood pressure lowers a bit.

PERCENTAGE AT WHICH THE SCARLET GANG IS SUPERIOR TO THE WHITE FLOWERS:

Do you need a comfort read? Do you need a book that has magic and romance and reading it makes your brain feel like it’s being wrapped up in a nice, warm hug? Do you need a book that you will willingly sacrifice precious sleep in order to finish? 

Then you need The Midnight Bargain. 

Yes, I know, I’ve been giving out a lot of 5-stars lately, but that’s mostly because right now, I need those 5-star, forget-about-reality-type books right now. But The Midnight Bargain isn’t just a wonderful, comforting read for troubled times - The Midnight Bargain is just plain great, period.

Beatrice Clayborne lives in a man’s world. Men control pretty much everything: magic, government, women’s lives, everything. In a world similar to 18th century England, in the nation of Chasland, women have little to no rights. Women capable of wielding magic are really only valued for their, uh, ability to pass magical skills down to their offspring and not much else. Women aren’t allowed to study magic the way men are - women are supposed to get married and have children because that is the natural order of things and anyone who deviates from that natural order shall be ostracized by society forevermore. 

Yes, I realize I’m not making this book sound very comforting at the moment, but trust me, it is. Perhaps it is spoilerish for me to say, but rest assured, this book has a happy ending in which the Patriarchy is given a solid kick in the balls. 

Anyway!

Beatrice, our heroine, wants to study magic. She wants to tap into her magical ability to help her family’s situation, rather than using them to make a good marriage. Only, Beatrice’s family is kind of absolutely relying on her making a brilliant match during the so-called Bargaining Season, similar to, you know, The Season that rich people in 19th century novels talk about. The Bargaining Season is a time in which the families of wealthy society women with magical abilities broker marriages. If you go through more than two Bargaining Seasons without getting a husband, then, well, you’ve failed and no one will ever want you. Plus, these seasons are expensive AF. Beatrice’s family has gone into significant debt just to pay for her first Bargaining Season, and they’re counting on her making a brilliant match to quite literally save her family from poverty.

Oh, I should mention the additional catch. The one thing Beatrice wishes to avoid: being collared. 

See, magical spirits want nothing more than a body to possess. They’d gladly possess an unborn child, so, once they’re born, they could exist in a physical form and wreak magical havoc. In order to protect women’s unborn children (please excuse me while I vomit everything I’ve ever eaten ever), upon marriage, women must be locked into a warding collar, cutting off their access to magic. 

Or, if you’re a woman and you’re mouthy, have opinions, and can do magic, you might just get locked into that collar anyway. 

The prospect of being locked into a warding collar is absolutely terrifying and Beatrice would do anything to avoid it. But she must somehow prove her mettle with magic and show her family that she can help raise their fortunes through magic, not marriage. Fortunately, Beatrice finds a grimoire that can help her become a fully-fledged Magus. Unfortunately, that grimoire is snatched out of her hands by Ysbeta Lavan, a woman of fabulous wealth who just so happens to have a few of the same goals as Beatrice. 

Those goals, however, don’t (at that moment) include sharing the grimoire with Beatrice. 

Desperate to get the grimoire back, Beatrice summons a minor luck spirit, Nadi, and strikes a bargain: she wants to share Beatrice’s body for an evening at a ball, and she wants Beatrice to dance, eat cake, and kiss a handsome man. Namely, Ysbeta’s gorgeous, liberal-minded brother, Ianthe Lavan. 

As Beatrice becomes closer to the Lavan siblings, things get more and more complicated: can she practice magic and still be married? Can she have her own family without a warding collar? Can she save her family and still find her own happiness? Can she really have all that and her teamster sub??

The Midnight Bargain is one of those rare books that I literally could not stop reading. I have to be up stupidly early for work (did you know there’s a 4 in the AM?) so I’m pretty strict about my bedtime because I’m an adult and I need my job in order to make money so I can repay my student loans and buy books. Normally, there is no book, movie or TV show that will get me to stay up past my self-imposed bedtime because falling asleep at work would mean goodbye job and money I need to repay my student loans and buy books.

I stayed up for two and a half hours past my bedtime just to finish The Midnight Bargain. This is the second time a book by C. L. Polk has done this to me - the first was with her debut, Witchmark. With three books, she’s managed to knock the ball out of the park three times in a row. I don’t know how she does it, but damn I wish I could use whatever magic C. L. Polk is using on some of my moldering works in progress. Seriously, why can’t books just write themselves? 

Anyway. I wish I had more eloquent things to say about how much I loved this book, but I don’t. 2020 has been a hell of a year, you guys. I try to, at the very least, review one book a month on this stupid blog, but, once again, I failed. September was quite literally hellish - I mean, my whole state caught fire and I had to flee my house in the middle of the night because the fires were right there, at the end of the road. I tore through The Midnight Bargain at the end of August with every intention of writing a review then, but I didn’t, because this year is the worst and it just keeps getting worse. But we still have books to escape into whenever things get bleak, so do yourself a favor, read The Midnight Bargain and escape into a magical world filled with romance, men who are kind, sweet baby angels, and the patriarchy gets the punch to the dick it so richly deserves. 

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone in need of a nice, romantic pick-me-up book to escape into for a few hours to forget what a total dumpster fire the world is right now.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who considers 2020 to be a fantastic year.

RELEASE DATE: October 13, 2020

RATING: 5/5

WHO WOULD PLAY IANTHE IN THE MOVIE: 

Why, hello there, Dev Patel...

Because everything sucks, here’s this gif:

My heart...my heart...

TOTALLY UNBIASED FANGIRL RATING: 500,000,000,000 / 5

NADI RATING: 

RUTH BADER GINSBURG:

Nimh lives on the surface of a flooded world full of ruins of an ancient, long dead civilization. Long ago, all but one of the gods fled the surface in favor of the sky. The living god who remained behind is fated to save the people of the surface...eventually. 

Eventually.

Nimh - full name Nimhara - is the 42nd incarnation of the Divine One, aka the living god. She’s basically the Dalai Lama, if the Dalai Lama was allowed to be reincarnated in any gender. But being worshiped by the people as a living goddess has it’s downsides: Nimh is forbidden from touching anyone, ever. Seriously, ever.

The who “no touching anyone, ever” thing is pretty intense. She even has to provide herself with her own medical care! God forbid she ever need to remove her own appendix. Or: what happens if she falls, cracks her skull and renders herself unconscious? How can she give herself medical care if she’s out of it? Magic? I mean, maybe. Nimh’s world definitely has magic. Nimh, being Divine, should have manifested some magical aspect soon after becoming the goddess - her predecessor, the 41st incarnation, had a talent for healing magic. Unfortunately, it’s been 10 years since Nimh was called to be the Divine One, and she’s shown no sign of manifesting her aspect. And people are beginning to talk: there’s a whole group, known as the Graycloaks for their chosen color, who believe that Nimh isn’t even the Divine One and have made it their mission to remove her from power. So she’s got enemies on one side, and the massive weight of people’s expectations on the other - if she’s an incarnation of the divine, then surely she must be able to do something to help her people? Perhaps something to stop the roving clouds of rogue magic called mist that go around wreaking havoc? 

Nimh wants to prove herself. She wants to help people. But mostly she’s lonely as hell and just wants a hug. Which she can’t have because of the whole “no touching the divine” thing. Just to reiterate: 

The only other living being Nimh can touch is the bindle cat - a giant orange floof whom she rescued as a kitten. The bindle cat doesn’t have a name - he’s just the bindle cat because, according to Nimh “You do not name a cat. He is a cat; he keeps his name to himself.”  True story.

The bindle cat, an approximation.

Anyway, the bindle cat is Nimh’s best friend, constant companion and literally everyone’s favorite character in the whole book. 

Anyway! When we first meet Nimh, she’s sneaking out under the nose of the high priest Daoman to go on a secret pilgrimage that she hopes will help manifest her aspect. Only just as she’s about to leave, she sees a light falling from the sky and chases after it...

North is a prince of Alciel, a technologically advanced kingdom in the sky. His ancestors fled the world below ages ago, and now, the people in the clouds are convinced the surface is dead, incapable of supporting life. The people of Alciel live in a world with all sorts of fun tech, like Apple watches - uhm, I mean, chronos - fancy trains, airplanes, DNA locks on doors...honestly, Alciel seems pretty great. Only there’s one problem: the archipelago of sky islands that comprise Alciel seem to be sinking. It’s been so long since the people of Alciel have fled to the sky that people don’t really remember or understand what exactly makes their sky islands stay, well, in the sky. While the adults around him engage in sinking denialism, North is convinced the only way to save themselves is to put together an expedition to the surface. After all, they came from the surface thousands of years ago - maybe the answer to keeping themselves afloat is down there? Everyone dismisses North’s idea - the surface is uninhabitable, there’s no way to get down there and back again, blah blah blah. But North has a solution - he and his friends built their own plane. 

Sounds legit.

This, of course, doesn’t impress the adults, especially North’s moms who are both like “absolutely not” because seriously, no way are they letting their son, the kingdom’s sole heir, fly around in something he built and possibly get himself killed. They tell him to destroy the plane and forget about the whole thing. 

And North, being a good son, obeyed his mothers’ demand, decommissioned his plane and lived happily ever after. The end.

Pfft, no. North, being a teenager, decides that he will prove to everyone that it’s possible to fly to and from the surface by flying his experimental plane around. Because a teenager flying around a plane he and his friends built sounds super safe and will definitely end well.

It does not end well. But not because North isn’t good at plane building - he’s actually great at it, but as he’s flying, his plane catches fire, which is never a good sign. North had only intended to fly around Alciel, just to show off that he could, but now he’s heading toward the surface much faster than he’d planned.

Meanwhile, on the surface, Nimh sees a star falling from the sky and, thinking its the sign she’s been waiting for, decides to chase it. It lands in a salt flat rendered reflective by a couple of inches of water (think Salar de Uyuni - this whole segment has some fantastic, Ghibli-esque imagery). Only, it’s not a falling star - it’s a person. 

North emerges, somewhat unscathed, from the wreckage of his plane and realizes what happened - someone has deliberately cut through his supply lines. Someone wanted him to crash. Now he’s stuck on the surface and his Apple watch has no signal. He has no way to get home or any way to let his family and friends know that he’s still alive. 

But, lucky for him, after fighting off some wild boars, he meets a strange girl called Nimh, who offers to help him by taking him back to her temple in the city. North’s mind is pretty much blown: not only are there people on the surface, they have cities. They have religion. It’s the opposite of everything he’s ever been taught. Nimh’s a bit odd, but as she’s nice enough, North follows her anyway...

Nimh, meanwhile, is ecstatic:  she thinks North may be part of a larger prophecy that will help save the world. He came from the sky, after all, where the gods live. And - bonus! - he has no idea who she is. He looks at her and doesn’t see a goddess who can never, ever, ever, ever be touched, he just sees another person, something Nimh has never experienced. 

Only once Nimh and North get back to Nimh’s camp, they find that all her friends have been murdered. North is like “what the -?” and Nimh is all “uh, yeah we should probably run for it” and thus begins the whole adventure that makes up The Other Side of the Sky and holy crap, I absolutely love it. I love everything about it - the Ghibli-esque imagery, the romance, the adventure, the kitty sidekick. Oh God the kitty sidekick! Apparently, North’s kingdom in the sky doesn’t have cats. He’s never seen a cat before. HE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT A CAT IS, PEOPLE, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. 

He should watch The Cat Returns. 

Anyway, The Other Side of the Sky is gorgeous, impossible to stop reading, romantic, exciting and addictive as hell. Like a Ghibli movie, this book was exactly the sort of thing I needed to forget the outside world for a little while. It’s easy to picture the whole story as an anime. Just picture North and Nimh as Pazu and Sheeta from Castle in the Sky! It works, I swear. 

Sometimes we need the beautiful pastels of a Ghibli movie to warm our hearts when everything is terrible. The Other Side of the Sky is the book equivalent of one of those movies. The only downside is that it’s the first book in a series, and it ends on a cliffhanger that can and will make it feel as though your heart has been removed from your body. Or that you’ve been turned into a cat and are now being forced by a crazed Tim Curry-voiced cat king to marry the cat prince. Something like that. Either way, I will be waiting as patiently as I possibly can for the sequel. 

Is it ready yet? Is it ready yet? Meow. Meow. Meeeowwwwww. Pay attention to meeeee.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone in need of the book-equivalent of a Hayao Miyazaki movie that’s also the first book in a series; anyone fond of an exciting, action-packed YA romance.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: People who have something against fun, joy, or cats; anyone who doesn’t like YA (seriously, why read YA if you don’t like it?) anyone who thinks Studio Ghibli movies are just for children (watch Grave of the Fireflies, and tell me with a straight face that it’s a kids movie. Children should NOT watch that movie!)

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED FANGIRL RATING: 500,000,000 / 5

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SEQUEL: Olympus Mons

RELEASE DATE: Not soon enough September 8, 2020.

GHIBLI RATING:

CAT RATING:

I do love the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, because, well, all German students cut their teeth translating bits and pieces of the the Kinder- und Hausmärchen. You have never known true suffering until you’ve had to come up with an original translation for bits of Schneewittchen or Rotkäppchen. Oh the horror. I mean, it’s not as bad as doing original translations of Goethe, and definitely not as fun as translating Struwwelpeter - and that was only fun because I was the only person in my class who got that the stories were meant to be a satire on contemporary children’s morality tales. I mean, Mark Twain did his own English translation! The original byline was Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder mit 15 schön kolorierten Tafeln für Kinder von 3–6 Jahren (funny stories and amusing pictures with 15 color panels for children ages 3-6). Once you see the Struwwelpeter stories as parodies of sickly sweet moral lessons for kids, it’s pretty clear that the actual lesson of the Struwwelpeter story (don’t suck your thumbs or else a crazy dude with scissors will literally cut them off your hands) is more dark humor than actual story to teach your kids a lesson and - 

Wait, where am I?

Oh. Yes. A blog where I review books. I should probably get on that.

So yes, Cinderella! A story known the world over, with thousands upon thousands of different versions across the globe. The oldest known being the tale of Rhodopis from ancient Greece, and the story of Ye Xian from China that dates back to the AD 860-850 or thereabouts, which itself is similar to stories found around Southeast Asia, like the story of Bawang merah dan bawang putih or the Vietnamese story of Tấm Cám and shit I wandered off again. Sorry. Fairy tale history is quite fascinating. Anyway, the first European version of the Cinderella story was published in Italy in 1634, but the story that we know best mostly comes from the 1697 French version by Charles Perrault in his Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités (don’t look at me, I learned German, remember?). Perrault’s Cinderella story, Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre (Cinderella and the little glass slipper, thanks wikipedia!) features all of what we know of as the traditional Cinderella story: the evil stepmom and stepsisters, the ball, the glass slippers which sound both a) painful and b) super dangerous - seriously, how could you even dance in a glass slipper without breaking them and having shards of glass stuck in your feet à la Die Hard?

Anyway. Cinderella. Very traditional story, mostly French. The Brother’s Grimm version of Cinderella is...weird. Mostly because her name is Aschenputtel, which sounds like something you hack up with a phlegmy cough. (To be fair, though, that’s most German...). There’s also a magic bird instead of a fairy godmother, Aschenputtel’s father is very much alive and doesn’t seem to give two shits about how his new wife and stepdaughters treat his own kid and the slippers are made of gold instead of glass. Gold sounds a sight more comfy than glass, but also super heavy. How can you dance in shoes that weigh roughly 27 pounds / 12.4 kilograms each? That’s assuming that each gold shoe is roughly the same size and density as a standard gold bar and - 

OK. Listen to Rihanna, Cromulent Book Reviewer. Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron!!

In the land of Marsailles, Cinderella is dead, and has been for the past 200 years. Her story hasn’t just become canon - it’s become law. Every year all girls at the age of sixteen must attend the mandatory royal ball, where the men are allowed to oogle them and pick out which one they want as a wife. The girls don’t get a choice in who picks them - once you’re selected by a man, you’re his, and if no one picks you, well...you’re only allowed to attend the royal ball three times before your family has to surrender you as a “forfeit.” Forfeits are never seen or heard from again. Attending the ball more than once is considered an embarrassment. And if you don’t want to get picked? Too bad. The girls of Marsailles have no choice - non-attendance will get you thrown in prison, and likely executed, while their families have all their possessions stripped from them. So...have fun at the meat parade, girls! Fingers crossed you don’t get picked by an abusive prick!

Sophia Grimmins (I see what you did there, Kalynn Bayron) doesn’t want to go to the Ball. All Sophia wants is to marry her best friend, Erin, and be free to have a future with her. But in Marsailles, being gay is not OK. It’s straight relationships only, Cinderella married a prince, and therefore, women can only marry men. Men marrying men and women marrying women? Forbidden. No not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars. Instead, go straight to forfeit town. Sophia pleads with Erin to try and escape their hometown of Lille and head off into Belgium the Forbidden Lands. But Erin doesn’t want to escape - she just wants to keep her head down, go through the whole disgusting selection process, and stay safe. Well, as safe as you can with a husband who is brought up to be an abusive, misogynist prick like many men in Marsailles. Seriously, with the exception of like, 3 characters, pretty much all the dudes in Marsailles are the worst. Not just the worst, but like,

Euch. And they’re the worst in a way that all women and girls will immediately recognize. Is it terrible that I’m kind of glad for the current pandemic because mask wearing has cut down the instances of strange men telling me to smile significantly? 

Anyway, the day of the Ball has arrived, and with Erin refusing to escape, Sophia has no other choice - she has to go. Her parents have gone into debt to provide her with the best hair, makeup and dress in order to increase her chances at being chosen. Sophia’s parents know about her feelings for Erin, know that she’s always preferred to have a princess rather than a prince, but even though Sophia pleads with them to do something, anything to get her out of going to the Ball, they refuse. Her parents go full Mandalorian on her, telling her that this is The Way and she’d better just hope for the best. 

Mando would NOT approve.

So Sophia ends up going to the Ball and it’s much worse than she could have expected. The dudes are gross, the king is gross, the whole damned system is gross. 

Unable to stand it, Sophia makes a split-second decision: she’s going to run. She takes off in the middle of the ball, jumps out a window and escapes onto the palace grounds. Running blindly, she finds herself in an overgrown mausoleum which turns out to be the final resting place of Cinderella herself. There, Sophia meets Constance, a descendant of Cinderella’s supposedly evil stepsister, Gabrielle. Constance has been on the run, resisting the king’s awful laws for years. She tells Sophia that everything she’s been taught about Cinderella’s story is a lie. Constance offers Sophia a choice - escape with her and rebel, or return to Lille and face the consequences of fleeing the ball. 

At first, Sophia chooses home. But when her parents make it clear they won’t do much to protect their now outlaw daughter, Sophia meets up with Constance and together they head off into the White Wood in search of Cinderella’s fabled fairy godmother, who may or may not be a witch and who also may or may not be still alive. 

Oh man, I do love me a good story in which badass young women fight against the patriarchy. Cinderella is Dead is such a fun story - well, fun in that the misogyny and injustice rampant in Marsailles is both familiar and super scary, but fun in that Sophia looks that system square in the eye and goes “nope.” Cinderella is Dead is all about the power of story - how something as simple as a fairy tale can be used as a weapon to subjugate not just women and girls, but men and boys as well. The fairy tale made law doesn’t just keep women stuck in the role as princess, but men stuck in the role as prince, even if they, too, would rather run off with a prince than marry the princess. 

Cinderella is Dead starts strong, though it does start to meander in the middle, before speeding up toward the end. Since this is a standalone book (hurray!! No getting suckered into a series this time! More standalones, please!) character development and world building is somewhat lacking, as there’s only so much you can fit into one book and seriously thank God this isn’t the start of another trilogy I have to keep track of, I’ve got way too many trilogies, duologies, quartets and never-ending serieses I have to keep track of right now. Anyway: yes, worldbuilding and character development are a bit shallow, but such is the way with fairy tales, only this fairy tales features a queer young woman of color burning the patriarchy to the ground. And that’s absolutely something I need more of in my life. Now let us go forth and burn the patriarchy, everyone!

RECOMMENDED FOR: All young girls. All of them. Boys, too. Anyone who has ever read a fairy tale, or been forced to translate Grimm fairy tales for German class, or Charles Perrault stories for French class.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who has ever used the word “feminazi.”

RATING: 3.999 / 5 

BADASSERY RATING: 500,000,000/5

RELEASE DATE: July 7, 2020. So...today! Hurray, I technically got this review done on time! Ahahahahaha the world is on fire what do you want from me.

CINDERELLA RATING:

I know what you’re thinking: it’s been a while, where have you been? Ahahahahahaha yeah, I know you don’t care. But I do try to review a book a month and last month, well...

Yeah. It’s been difficult to focus on anything right now, what with the state of everything. I’ve been glued to the news and reading for funsies has fallen by the wayside. Goodreads keeps reminding me how far behind I am on my reading challenge. Leave me alone, Goodreads, can’t you see there’s other, more important things going on right now?

The world right now is basically just 

That. 

Anyway, I was pretty much unable to focus on any of the ARCs I have cluttering up my Kindle, not really in the mood to read anything until I just said “fuck it, gimme a 19th century murder mystery.”

A murder mystery might not be the best thing for everyone to read right now, but I mean, hey, at least in fiction, none of it is real. Yay!

Bombay! 1892! It’s the British Raj! Everything’s great, if you ignore all the famine, inequality, poverty, racial tensions and the coming epidemic of bubonic plague. Still, if you were rich, white and British, the British Raj was just great. Anyway, it’s 1892, and Captain Jim Agnihotri is stuck in a hospital in Poona, recovering from injuries he received in the northern frontier. There’s not much he can do except lie there and read newspapers. As he slowly recovers, Jim becomes fascinated with a case he keeps reading about - two young women, Bacha and Pilloo Framji, died after falling from the Rajabai Clock Tower at the University. Was it suicide? Or something more sinister? The Framjis are a super-wealthy Parsee family who are basically the crème de la crème of Bombay society, and the deaths of two young women in the family is a massive news story/scandal. Jim follows the whole saga while in the hospital - there’s a trial, three men accused of being involved with murder...only they’re found innocent. But if the women had committed suicide, why did they not jump at the same time? And why did Pilloo land so far away from Bacha? As the story starts to fade from the headlines, Jim becomes even more obsessed with the case after reading a passionate letter-to-the-editor by Bacha’s widower, Adi:

Sir, I beg you do not besmirch the memory of my dear wife and sister with foolish rumours. Their loss has taken the life from our family, the joy from our lives. Leave us in peace. They are gone but I remain.  

 (From the eARC of Murder in Old Bombay)

That last line in particular sticks in Jim’s head - having survived while so many of his fellow soldiers died on the frontier. Jim, having also read The Sign of the Four, resolves to become like his new idol Sherlock Holmes, and solve the case of the two Framji women. 

There’s no real reason for me to put this gif here, other than I find it oddly hypnotic...

Anyway! The second he’s out of the hospital, Jim manages to finagle himself a job as a journalist at a paper ran by a guy who is also interested in solving the case. Lucky for Jim, his new editor gets him an interview with the widower and expert letter-writer, Adi Framji. Adi meets Jim and they pretty much instantly become best friends.

Like, seriously, they go from being complete strangers to

So Jim’s new BFF Adi doesn’t just want to do an interview for a paper. He hires Jim right then and there to be his live-in private investigator and finally figure out once and for all the truth behind what happened to his wife and Pilloo. 

Even though Jim is an ex-soldier with like only one instance of investigative experience, who isn’t really a private detective, he just read a book about one and decided “hey, I could do that.” I mean, why not? Fortunately, Jim isn’t a complete moron - he’s actually really good at this whole investigating thing. He immediately figures that the women definitely didn’t commit suicide. They were murdered. But why? The Framjis are genuinely kind people - so kind that they immediately accept the half-English bastard orphan ex-soldier Jim into their household and start acting as his surrogate family. Even Adi’s gorgeous other sister, Diana, starts making eyes at Jim. The Framjis are just super. Who would ever want to hurt them and why?

Or is it??

I do loves me my 19th century mysteries, and, for some reason, I really like mysteries that are set in India during the Raj. Why? No idea, I just do. And with the world the way it is right now, I wanted an escape and Murder in Old Bombay provided just that. Nev March beautifully evokes late 19th century India as Captain Jim chases up clues and suspects from Bombay to Lahore, donning disguises, questioning suspects, getting suckered into one last army assignment...seriously, I loved this book. It took my brain to a completely different time and place, something I desperately needed right now. Murder in Old Bombay is a fantastic read - my only complaint is that it drags a bit in the middle, but eh, most books do and that’s what final revisions are for. I sincerely hope that this is the first book in a series, and that we’ll be seeing more 19th century mysteries being solved by Captain Jim.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone desperate for a good mystery to escape into.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who would rather concentrate on the situation at hand.

RATING: 4.5 / 5

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR POTENTIAL SEQUEL: K2.

RELEASE DATE: November 10, 2020

MURDERINO RATING:

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Oh, did you think there weren’t going to be Monty Python jokes in this review? In a book based on Inquisition-era Spain?

I mean, I could do all sorts of History of the World: Part I jokes, too, if you’d like.

If only the real Spanish Inquisition had been this fun. It wasn’t. It really wasn’t.

I could do this all day. But on to the review!

Renata Convida is a Robari – she can steal memories out of someone’s mind. Renata is part of the Moria. No, not the Mines of Moria –

The Moria are a people capable of magic – most Moria have the ability to persuade or cast illusions, but Robari like Renata are rare. Even among her own people, Robari are viewed with suspicion – I mean, would you trust someone who could rip all your memories out of your brain, leaving you with a blank space where a memory should be?

The Moria used to be part of their own nation, but they were conquered by the Kingdom of Puerto Leones. Under the reign of King Fernando, there has been a massive effort to wipe out the Moria –very much like the way Spain wanted to get rid of the Jews and the Moors and basically anyone deemed not Catholic enough. Anyway, the Moria have been forced underground. The crown, however, hypocrites that they are, keeps a Hand of Moria (basically one Moria capable of each of the various abilities) under their control, using their so-called “unnatural” magic for their own ends. Because they’re not just assholes, they’re also scumbags!

(Listen to Small Town Murder, people).

When she was a child, Renata was kidnapped and brought to the palace to serve as one of the Hand of Moria, as the crown’s pet Robari. She was kept under the protection of the head Inquisitor, Justice Mendez. When she was nine, the Whispers (Moria rebels) set fire to the capital and managed to rescue Ren, taking her away from the palace and turning her into a true Moria rebel.

I mean, it’s a rebellion, isn’t it?

Our story begins with Ren and her unit, led by Ren’s boyfriend Dez, discovering that the crown possesses a kind of weapon that can drain Moria of their magic. The Whispers must act in order to stop the mass use of this weapon against their people. Only Dez is captured and taken to the capital to be executed. Ren races to save him…only everything goes horribly, horribly wrong, and Ren herself is captured and taken to the palace dungeons. Bereft of hope, Ren plays the one card left to her: she demands to see Justice Mendez, and concocts a story about “escaping” from the Whispers, and desperately wanting to return to her position as the King’s pet Robari. Mendez, who has always had a soft spot for Ren, takes her back immediately. Inside the palace, Ren has a chance to find the weapon and take down the throne from the inside...so long as she isn’t caught.

And that’s only the start of the story!

Any more than that, and I start to wander into some serious spoiler territory. Anyway: it may start slow, but do not let that fool you: Incendiary is a roller coaster of twists, turns, action, magic, romance, rebellion, revenge – it’s all there. And just when you think you know what the story is going to be – wham! Twist! More action! Revelations! It’s fantastic. Once you get past the initial setup, Incendiary goes by way too fast. I’m having a hard time focusing on reading right now (due to obvious reasons) so it took me a while initially to get into the first third of the book. But once I did…I couldn’t put it down. I was ready to sacrifice precious sleep just to know what happened next. I’d finish a chapter and then force myself to put my Kindle down so I wouldn’t be up until 2 AM, my eyes glued to the page.

And, of course, once again I’m suckered into another series. And the end of Incendiary – gah. I kept pressing my “next page” button even though it wouldn’t go any further.

Goddamn, Zoraida. For that, you get the comfy chair.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone in the mood for an exciting, fast-paced YA fantasy/adventure set in a world inspired by Inquisition-era Spain.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Non-YA fans, Cardinals Ximénez, Fang and Biggles, 15th century Catholics, anyone not expecting a Spanish Inquisition.

RATING: 4.9 / 5 (.1 subtracted for the agonizing wait I will have to endure for the sequel)

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SEQUEL: Olympus Mons

RELEASE DATE: April 28, 2020 (Hey, I got this review done in time!)

MONTY PYTHON RATING:

 And now, Cardinal - THE RACK!

Well, if you’d expect werewolves to show up in America, where else but Florida?

Ha. Florida. The butt of so many jokes. It’s easy to make fun of Florida (fun, too!), so as a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest...I’m going to continue making fun of Florida, a state I’ve never been to and will likely never visit as I have no intention of being eaten by a gator or a python or a python gator or whatever insane creatures live down there.

I kid, I’m sure there are places in Florida that are perfectly lovely. They just happen to coexist with the insanity that is the rest of Florida. 

Anyway! Werewolves in Florida! It sounds possible. Seriously, could you imagine the headlines? “Florida werewolf brings drugs to a drug bust, gets himself busted”? “Florida werewolf charged with assault with deadly weapon after throwing alligator through Wendy’s drive-thru window”? 

In this case, however, there aren’t just werewolves in Florida, but Brujas as well! Both sound like people you would find in Florida. “Florida Bruja drops pants, licks man, dances naked in Waffle House parking lot”?

Where was I? Oh. Yes. Lobizona by Romina Garber!

Seventeen-year-old Manuela Azul (she goes by Manu) and her mother, Soledad, have been living in Miami illegally for most of Manu’s life. Manu has a strange eye condition, in which her pupils and irises look like stars so she has to wear sunglasses 24/7 to avoid freaking other people out. Though I’m certain if she walked into an optometrist’s convention with eyes like those she’d immediately be the most popular girl in the whole room, but since she and her mom are in the country illegally, that sort of attention would be very, very bad.

Soledad had to flee Argentina because Manu’s father, Fierro, was supposedly high up with some bad people who disapproved with his relationship with Soledad. So much so that they killed him, sending Soledad into hiding. If they knew Soledad was alive, and that Manu even existed, Fierro’s people would kill them both.

And, as if hiding from Fierro’s people were bad enough, Manu and Soledad are on a constant lookout for ICE. If their apartment building is raided by ICE, they could be deported, back to Argentina where they’d be sitting ducks for Fierro’s murderous family and friends. So Manu has lived a sheltered life within a tiny apartment with her mom and their elderly friend Perla, who has sheltered them for years.

And! As if being an undocumented immigrant with freaky-eye syndrome forever anxious that the next car might be full of ICE agents while stuck in a tiny apartment was bad enough, Manu also - also! - suffers from horrible periods. Joy. Every month, her mom gives her a special pill that puts her to sleep for three straight days just so she sleep through the pain. That’s shit makes PCOS sound like a walk in the park. (Note: do not go for a walk in the park right now and if you do remain 6 feet away from everyone else at all times). Also, where can I get a hold of a drug that can let me sleep through my period? I like the sound of that.

So Manu has spent much of her life dreaming of escape and a life without fear. Currently, her only hope is the knowledge that her mom is doing her best to get them both legal status. Then one day, Manu notices some strange people hanging around her apartment building. Then Perla is attacked and hospitalized. In a panic, Manu rushes off to find her mom...only to find that Soledad has been lying to her for quite some time. Soledad isn’t a maid for some rich lady - she works at an underground Miami clinic. And she never intended to apply for legal status for her and Manu. 

Just as she’s reeling from this revelation, ICE raids the underground clinic. From here, the story takes a weird left-turn. On the run, Manu leaps into the back of a truck, and, after a long ride that sounded way more comfortable than a long ride in the bed of a truck should sound (seriously, there’s no jostling, no being flung about, no wind burn...I get that Florida is pretty flat, but aren’t there potholes? Rocks? Also, isn’t it illegal for someone to ride in the bed of a truck? How did no one else not see her and call the cops?) she ends up deep within the Florida Everglades. After somehow hopping out of the guy’s truck without him noticing that she was ever in there (again, how??? I drive a truck and would absolutely notice if someone were hitching a ride back there. Hey, how come I’m fishtailing significantly less than I usually do? Oh, wait, there’s a human back there) Manu stumbles upon...

A secret school for brujas and werewolves. In the Florida Everglades. And she meets people her age who have eyes just like hers. Suddenly, the puzzle pieces start fitting together - her father must have been a part of this society, not some criminal organization. Manu is half magic. She’s living the ultimate Harry Potter dream! And, somehow, without paying tuition or applying, Manu is allowed to join the school. Finaly, Manu has somewhere that she belongs, and even begins to make friends. She even starts making eyes at a hunky werewolf named Tiago.

There’s just one problem, though. The society that Manu has found herself in has some pretty strict gender roles. Girls are brujas, guys are werewolves. Period, end of sentence. But, even though she definitely belongs among this magical society, Manu doesn’t really have the powers of a bruja. She’s something else.

And there is one thing her mom wasn’t lying about - Fierro’s people are still pissed. Brujas and werewolves are not supposed to have relationships with humans. It’s forbidden. Like, really forbidden. Ultra forbidden. If Manu is found to be half-human, she’ll be killed.

So Manu has traded living forever in fear being an undocumented immigrant in America...for living forever in fear being half-human in a world of magical creatures who think hybrids are evil.

Good luck with that, Manu! Also, there’s still the question of the whereabouts of her still missing father. Is he dead? Alive? And what is Manu, if she’s not a bruja?

(If you speak Spanish, the title is a dead giveaway. Let me give you a hint: Manu’s hair is perfect. Aaooooo!)

Despite a couple of hiccups in the beginning - the book starts pretty slow before taking that weird left-turn into the Everglades and Bruja Werewolf academy. And, as is typical in the first book of a series, much time is spent establishing everything, and less on giving us closure or answers to the big questions. Like, for example, the fate of Mimitos. See, Manu has one friend in the apartment complex, an adorable cat named Mimitos. Mimitos’s owner is a bit senile, so Manu takes care of him...only after Manu flees after Perla is attacked, Mimitos disappears and is promptly never mentioned again. What happened to Mimitos? Is he OK? Is someone feeding him or giving him water and pets and cuddles and WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MIMITOS, ROMINA?!!?! I demand answers.

Maybe he went off to live in the Cat Kingdom from The Cat Returns? Maybe? Probably? Hopefully?

Ahem. Well, my ability to render a serious and well-thought out book review in the time of COVID-19 has gone to shit, so I’ll be brief. Lobizona is gorgeously written and a fascinating blend of YA contemporary and YA fantasy. I also love the warring gender dynamics within the magical society of brujas and werewolves - not everyone loves the strict binary, or the fact that they’re not allowed to hang out with humans. Ultimately, Lobizona is a brilliant story of a girl looking desperately for a place to belong within not just one, but two worlds that don’t want her - that have deemed her wrong. Illegal. And Manu is tired of that bullshit. If the human and magical worlds don’t want her, damn it, she’s going to go off and find a place that does.

Go forth and kick ass, Manu!

Another aspect of the book that I really liked (your mileage may vary, depending on how big of a language nerd you are) is how Garber discussed how there are many different dialects of Spanish. Argentinian Spanish apparently has a sing-song quality which makes me wonder if the English dialect equivalent of Argentinian Spanish would be Upper Midwest English, you know, like in Fargo. The Upper Midwest was settled heavily by Scandinavian immigrants and the Scandinavian languages do have a sing-song quality to them, then, well...

I'd love to know more about the different dialects of Spanish. If only I'd learned Spanish. I didn’t. I learned German, Schwachkopf that I am.

Which brings me to my rant, because I do love to rant. This does have something to do with Lobizona. Kind of. Anyway:

One of my biggest pet peeves in fiction is untranslated dialog. For some reason it really irks me, mostly because it reminds me of how dumb I am and how I should have learned more than just one other foreign language. I mean, seriously, I should have learned Spanish. I never did because I was that contrary moron who, upon seeing that everyone else was taking Spanish said, “screw you, I’ll take German!” Ultimately a bad idea, but, hey, Deutsch ist eine Wunderschöne Sprache. I don’t mind bits of untranslated stuff, so long as there are context clues as to what they might be saying. 

I also find it annoying to have a sentence in a different language, and then have the sentence immediately after translate the preceding sentence. For readers that are fluent in both languages, you just made them read the same sentence twice, unless there’s a bilingual bonus in there. For readers out there who don’t speak that language, their eyes just glaze over and they skip the dialog entirely, in favor of the translation. Why not just say they were speaking in [insert foreign language here] then continue on? 

I mean, I get wanting to show off your foreign language skills, or make the reader feel good about their language skills, or give a nod to fellow native speakers who also have had to master the cluster fuck of a language that is English (seriously, one of the best descriptions of the English language I’ve read is that English is basically three children in a trench coat pretending to be an adult, but as a language). Still, I find untranslated dialog super annoying. Because I dumb.

The worst example of this that I’ve ever encountered (and probably what soured me for any other instances of untranslated dialog ever in the future) was in this terrible translation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain that I read in college - you’d think an English translation of a German book would be entirely in English...yeah no, 3/4 of the way in, I found myself facing pages - multiple pages! - of untranslated....French.

French! 

In a book that had already been translated from the German.

Damn it, translator, was there some sort of contract dispute in which you said, “well, they’re paying me to translate the book from German to English, so I’ll just leave these several pages of French conversation untranslated.”

Rrraaaage. 

I was already frustrated with that book (it’s not great) but slogging through several pages of untranslated French with zero footnotes or even a translation provided in the afterward made me want to set the book on fire.

What does this have to do with Lobizona? Very little, except there are a few instances of untranslated dialog that, even if you speak zero Spanish, you’ll be able to figure out pretty quick. It just gave me awful Zauberberg flashbacks that brought back all that rrrrrage.

Fuck it, guys, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and I promise cromulent reviews, not good ones.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone looking for an amazing blend of YA contemporary lit and fantasy that features kickass werewolves living in the Florida Everglades.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Bigots, assholes, people who use the word “illegals” to refer to other human beings, werewolves who hate brujas, brujas who hate werewolves, non YA fantasy fans, anyone who objects to YA fiction containing actual real world problems.

RATING:4/5

RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2020

WEREWOLF RATING:

HOW TERRIFIED I AM OF COVID-19 RIGHT NOW:

You don’t have to be a music fan to know the name Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In fact, you probably have no idea what in the hell a Sonata in K K331 Third Movement even is until you hear it. Then you’ll know it immediately. In fact, you can know nothing about Mozart but still be familiar with many of his pieces. Maybe you had the misfortune to be forced to watch the movie Amadeus* in your German class (a movie that is probably not appropriate to show public high school students even if it’s dubbed in German) or have seen the 30 Rock parody episode where, instead of writing music, they create a porn video game. My point is: you know Mozart. Everyone knows Mozart, especially kids who were made to learn piano. Or, in my case, piano AND violin**. The main reason for that is, well, public domain, but also because Mozart is the shit. 

I mean, I’m more of a Beethoven girl myself, and I have a lot of love for the 19th century Russians (Tchaikovsky and The Five FTW!), but, seriously, if you learn anything about music, you learn about Mozart. And, as someone semi-fluent in German, who has dedicated most of her life to learning German, you have no choice but to learn about the greats of German music. Yes, Austrians count as part of German music. As I’ve mentioned before, there was no “Germany” until 1871, and I’m including any and all native German speakers as part of German music. Austrians speak German. Kind of. I mean, 99.9% of my German teachers were either from southern Germany or Austria, so I may have a bit of a bias...though my main bias is against Swiss German which literally is not German stop calling it that, Switzerland!

What were we talking about?

Oh. Yeah. Mozart. 

You know he had a sister, right? One who was a musical prodigy in her own right, who used to play for the courts of Europe alongside her little brother, right?

No?

Yeah, you probably don’t. Because back in the 18th century, women weren’t allowed to be composers or musical prodigies. Once they grew up, they got married, had children and were subsequently erased from history while the men in their family achieve immortality. 

Meet Maria Anna Mozart, known by her family as Nannerl. 

The Kingdom of Back is Nannerl’s story.

Salzburg! 1759! Nannerl Mozart is only eight, but is desperate to please her father and prove her mettle as a musician. The Mozart family is in a perpetual state of one-missed-paycheck-away-from-homelessness, and Nannerl’s stage dad, Leopold, hopes to cash in on the whole child prodigy thing. Unfortunately, Nannerl’s first demonstration for a court musician goes wrong when she’s distracted by her baby brother, Wolferl. That night, Nannerl dreams of a beautiful kingdom full of music, and of a beautiful boy with glowing blue eyes. 

As she gets older, Nannerl is as shocked as her parents when Lil Wolferl shows a knack for music. She’s horrified to discover that she feels jealous of her baby brother, who idolizes her. One night, Nannerl and Wolferl are woken up by a strange light coming from their music room. When they investigate, they find the beautiful boy from Nannerl’s dream, in the flesh. He steals Nannerl’s music notebook then promptly jumps out the window.

Like so:

Complete with broken glass.

Anyway, the next time Nannerl sees the boy, she’s out in Salzburg with her brother on a shopping trip when she opens the door to a shop’s storage room, only to find it leads to the magical kingdom she’d seen in her dream. The boy, Hyacinth, wants Nannerl’s help to reclaim his throne. In exchange, he will make sure Nannerl gets her greatest wish: to be remembered forever.

Shortly after, Nannerl and Wolferl are called to Vienna to play for the Emperor and Empress. Wolferl puts on quite the show, charming everyone in the room and even proposing to the Emperor and Empress’s youngest daughter. It’s after this that Nannerl and Wolferl’s parents decide to take them on a massive tour of Europe. In the long, dull carriage rides between destinations, Nannerl and Wolferl come up with a name and origin story for Hyacinth and the magical kingdom that they saw: The Kingdom of Back. As the tour continues and Wolfer’s fame rises, Nannerl worries more and more about being forgotten - that her fate is sealed: she will never be a composer and a musician, instead she will become a wife and mother and nothing more than a footnote in history.

But the Kingdom of Back is more than just a fantasy story shared between two bored kids. Hyacinth’s magic has an effect on our world, causing calamities and illness. As Nannerl struggles to cope with her conflicting emotions, Hyacinth starts to seem less like a fairy prince and more like something sinister. But his promises of fame and immortality to Nannerl are so very, very tempting. I mean, wouldn’t you be a little jealous if your baby brother was an 18th century child rockstar? 

(Ok, the throwing of underthings may not have happened to Mozart, but it definitely happened to Liszt so that episode of the Simpsons isn’t entirely inaccurate).

 If you come into The Kingdom of Back expecting it to be something like Marie Lu’s other novels - namely, action packed sci-fi/fantasy serieses - you are bound to be disappointed. The Kingdom of Back is unlike all of Lu’s other novels - it is a standalone historical fantasy dedicated to someone who, in spite of her talent, was relegated to the dustbin of history just because she was a girl. I adore Marie Lu’s books (the Legend trilogy is probably one of the best YA trilogies ever - if you haven’t read it, stop everything and do that now, please) and I’m also a fan of music, 18th century Germans, and 18th century German musical composers so I wasn’t at all put off knowing that The Kingdom of Back wasn’t going to be like her other books. It was more like “holy shit, Marie Lu is wrote a book about Mozart’s sister, put it in my brain immediately, please.” The Kingdom of Back is just wonderful, you guys. Lu beautifully captures what it’s like to have a sibling that you love, but also envy. Lu’s writing is lyrical and enchanting without crossing into purple prose territory. Music can be difficult to capture in prose, but Lu manages to do so without alienating the reader with too many weird technical musical terms that would be off putting to the average reader (hi!). The way time works in the book is weird - you’re never quite sure when you are at any given time or how old anyone else, unless you have the timeline of the Mozart children’s grand tour open while you read. Months can go by in a single sentence which can be a bit jarring, but the book manages to condense a decade into 300 pages. I’d rather have 300 pages and a few pacing issues than way too much detail within 900 pages. 

My absolute favorite aspect of this book is Nannerl herself. Nannerl, as an 18th century girl, is bound by 18th century constraints - she’s not allowed to compose openly, as herself. She’s not allowed to talk back. She’s expected to look after her brother, as her position as older sister makes her mom-in-training. Nannerl is a good and proper 18th century lady, and she hates it. She hates the limits placed on her by society, but at the same time, she’s desperate to please her parents and earn their praise. Because what else can she do? It’s the shit situation women have experienced since time immaterial: conform, or else. Nannerl may seem meek and submissive compared to the likes of June from Legend or Emika from Warcross, but make no mistake, she is just as strong as they are. Her strength lies in her quiet resilience. Nannerl can’t exactly fight back against the system the way June and Emika do, so she rebels in other, quieter ways. She maintains eye contact for her father, waiting for him to break first or stays quiet when she’s expected to voice her praises. She creates a whole fantasy world in which to take refuge. Nannerl’s way of fighting back is subtle because it has to be. 

Unfortunately, it takes only a click of a Wikipedia link to know how Nannerl’s story ends. It is bittersweet and something that will definitely strike a chord (pun absolutely intended) with any girl or woman who reads The Kingdom of Back. 

RECOMMENDED FOR: Any girl or woman who has ever seen her accomplishments ignored or passed over in favor of a man’s, anyone with a sibling they’re just a little bit jealous of, music fans, Mozart fans, Marie Lu fans, anyone in the mood for a gorgeously-written YA historical fantasy.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Haydn aficionados, Leopold Mozart, children who were forced to learn piano, men’s rights activists, people who would mistake an 18th century girl’s quiet resilience for weakness.

RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2020 - hey, I promise cromulent reviews, not “on time” reviews or “reviews in advance of publication.”

RATING: 4/5

MOZART RATING:

BEETHOVEN FANS, WHEN ENCOUNTERED BY MOZART FANS:

You can hear the 5th symphony with every haw.

*Please remember the movie Amadeus is also a historical fantasy - Salieri and Mozart were peers and were most likely friends, if not friendly. Also, Salieri had like, 8 kids and at least 1 mistress, he wasn’t some pious weirdo like he’s portrayed in the movie. I mean, he was Italian. F. Murray Abraham was awesome in it, though. My point is, don’t get your history from movies. It’s a bad idea.

Get it from Wikipedia, like a normal person.

That soundtrack, though. If you want an intro to Mozart’s music, that is a good way to go.