DNF 45 pages in. I don't normally read slice-of-life books but I tried this and it's just not for me. 

Tithe wraps smudged eyeliner, smoke, and cigarette ash around faerie wings, grinning past a bloody sword of oaths, duty, and blood. Faeries may be truthful, but they're never safe.

For a very long time, Tithe was the first book I'd reach for when someone told me they’d like to start reading books with fae. It’s full of the grit, darkness, capricious, and wit which, to me, are the essence of faerie stories. The female MC used to play with faeries when she was younger, but as she's interacting with the Courts for the first time in years she's seeing the cruelty and light which is intertwined within the fae. I love the way it depicts what tropes surrounding the fae could actually be like if they played out in the present day. 

The characterization is great, all the POV characters feel very distinct, and the secondary characters have enough detail to obviously have their own lives apart from the MCs. The human characters didn't feel plot-convenient, they felt like humans having normal lives and not knowing that this normalcy was in danger from their proximity to the fae. The fae in each court have their own ways of being inhuman, some of them mimic humanity (rarely virtue, frequently vice) and some don't even try. The messaging around trauma and recovery (especially how while you might still love the people who hurt you, you don't have to stay) is really good. It's a book about pain and brokenness, how beauty and pleasure aren't always bound together, and just because pain can feel good you don't need to hold it forever. 

As much as I love this book, I do have two major caveats to give before recommending it. I'll give the spoiler-free version of my caveats and then include the more complete spoiler-filled explanation further below. The MC is half white half Japanese, and never knew her Japanese father. Her biracial identity mostly matters early on in the ways that she's fetishized by guys for her appearance. It reads at first as a critique of that kind of obsession with her looks but not really having anything to do with her, but several things about how it plays out later in the book don't fit well. The second caveat relates to one of the male MCs and concerns the way he's handled as a gay teenager. His identity is heavily linked with bondage and masochism throughout the book, and while both of those things can be a lot of fun in the right context, it fills every single moment that relates to his queerness. On the other hand, for someone who is this kind of teenager, that's got to be so freeing. His queerness isn't a big deal, he's not traumatized by it, this isn't a story about homophobia and he usually doesn't feel like a prop. Having a character who's into gay bdsm comics and not ashamed about it isn't standard for a YA protagonist.

Trying to reassess my feelings about this book after writing out my caveats, I do still love it. It doesn't require the MCs to be good or to have the "right" upbringing in order to make things better and to try to do the right thing. As a kid from a broken home, this book was so important to me because it's so messy. It's not polished or pretty, the characters don't have some big internal transformation in order to stand up and save the world or something (Transformations abound, but not that kind). 

The female MC is

assumed to be mixed-race, white/Japanese. I say "assumed" because one of the things we discover is that she's actually the changeling (a pixie) who was swapped out for the actual white/Japanese child of her parents. That child is now in the Seelie Court, either stuck as a child or just aging very slowly (it's unclear). That means that not only is she fetishized by secondary characters for her appearance, it turns out that she isn't actually biracial and literally isn't even human. While I know that there are people who for various reasons aren't connected to different bits of their heritage, this doesn't read to me as an attempt at representation for people in that situation. It feels like an excuse for the MC having "upturned eyes" that are as plausibly Japanese as they are literally faerie, in a way that seems very othering. I've described her as white/Japanese because that's my best read on the character descriptions, this book very much treats whiteness as a default state.

As for the male MC's identity

as a gay guy, everything from the way he hints to the female MC that he's gay in their first conversation by asking if she knows the Japanese name for a particular kind of gay Japanese porn (then makes it clear when she finds the comics in his room), to the way he interacts with a particular faery later on in the book, are wrapped up in tropes that link queerness with masochism and bondage. Later in the book he ends up in a very toxic situation (not quite a hookup, more than a flirtation) with a male faerie who uses him for his body and his humanity as an amusement for the Court. It feels like the main reasons for this character to be gay were so that he could be used by a male faery within the narrative and for there to be no question as to whether he might get together with the female MC. It didn't feel like his queerness was about him, at all, and that doesn't sit right with me. It feels like the character is secure in his identity, which is really good, and part of why I still like this book, I love him as a character. But, thinking about the way that his gayness is convenient for the plot, it feels off.

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea conveys the capriciousness and brutality embedded in colonialism and imperialism via a story of self-discovery, terror, and survival. 

The characterization is layered and subtle; the author used multiple POV characters to their best advantage, using their different perspectives on the same events to keep the reader in the loop even when not everyone had the full picture. I loved the pacing, both how its broken up across the main sections and how the story is handled within those sections. 

This is the kind of book where no one is safe but it's mostly going to be okay in the end. It takes the time needed to get there so that when things get resolved it feels like everyone earned their endings, for better or worse. There's a lot of traumatic backstory but it's revealed a little at a time, giving the reader time to acclimate before more details (or more traumas) are revealed. That's so important here because it's ultimately a book about extricating from bad situations and coming to terms with the past in a way that lets them be whole and wholly themselves. Not everyone chooses to work through things and get better, because it's also about choices and complicity under a colonialist and brutal system writ large as well as the smaller setting on the ship. It doesn't shy away from trauma, because to show any less than it does would be to rob it of impact and importance with regards to its broader themes. A few scenes were definitely written with a particular focus to be shocking, but in a way that sharply focuses the characters and makes the stakes clear. It didn't treat trauma as a plot twist, but it understood that inflicting trauma is a form of escalation. While they might be the most traumatic or shocking to happen by that time in the narrative, they weren't necessarily the worst things that had happened to the characters at that point. 

While this is marketed as YA, I would hesitate before recommending it to anyone under 16, and at any age I would definitely recommend reading the CWs first. Having said that, there's a lot of really good catharsis in this book because it is fundamentally a book about processing trauma and being whole even when you've felt broken, and that's such an important thing to show younger readers. 

Beyond the Black Door is a magical journey of introspection and buried secrets in the wake of tragic loss, where the kingdom's fate depends on what's been hidden in several souls.

I appreciate that this book which is called “beyond the black door”, and begins with the MC talking about how they’re not allowed to open said door, doesn’t let the story drag on before the door is opened and exploration begins. There’s enough of a lead-up to build anticipation for the door opening, but the book doesn’t tease about whether or not it will indeed be opened. It has an inevitability and a poignancy without taking too long. 

Around halfway through some information about a character was revealed which confirmed something about their identity that I’d been wondering since they first showed up. It was well done, especially since from the start they were behaving in ways that first made me guess at the information, then their actions made me dare to hope I was right, then it was confirmed. It felt like getting a glimpse into someone else's story, besides the MC, I mean. I'm writing this about a very specific thing, but it could actually apply to several things because of how good this book is at foreshadowing. 

The pacing felt a little uneven but I think it ultimately works. The first third or so passed very quickly then around the halfway mark the story slowed to a crawl as a lot of information was conveyed through various conversations which were mostly infodumps and revelations. It then picked back up again as it became time to do something about all that information the MC had been given. I do like how when information we already had was discussed, the book tended to refer to the information rather than saying the details all over again. At least partly due to the first-person narration it's a very introspective book. We stay locked in on what's happening in the MC's head, and while she's pretty good about telling us what's going on around her, the focus is definitely internal for much of the time. It works well, especially since the ability to travel inside people's soul rooms allows for a kind of magical mind reading that isn't as direct as the more conventional depictions of it, while narratively allowing for some of the same mischief as the typical kind permits.

The world-building is great and the characterization is really well done. I love the way the antagonists are handled. You could argue for several different people to be the true villain, but there are definitely several antagonists who all get their own resolutions. The thing I love so much about it is that even if that resolution is that they weren't as evil or nefarious as the MC originally thought, there are still consequences for their actions in a way that doesn't lock the MC into requiring a particular kind of vengeance, if any. Attempting to say it simply: this book explicitly leaves space for everyone's actions to be understandable without requiring that they also be forgivable. It's such a vital distinction, and the way it plays out across the whole book was fantastic to read. 

The Tiger Flu is a cyberpunk fever dream built on family, sisterhood, desperation, and blood. Visceral and evocative, capturing the way dreams taken too far become everyone's nightmare.

There are two MCs, one of which is trying to do the best thing for her family even though they're basically all dying or dead; going through the motions because even the motions still matter, damn it. The other is in a holding pattern, repulsed by thoughts of the past in a way that denies the reader knowledge of it as well. The combination of their alternating perspectives helped to clarify details which are unique to the setting, since there was often one perspective from which the thing was new and therefore we'd get a bit more of an explanation than from the character for whom that details was commonplace and unremarkable.

I care a lot about how books feel to read, if you follow my reviews you probably already know that. I love the way this book uses words which are just enough like modern words for the meaning to be apparent, but far enough away that it feels like you’re being thrown into a space that’s very far away from current reality. I caught at least some of the references, but I'm sure there's even more that I missed, they're woven into the lexicon of the world in a way that feels familiar without needing to be understood as referential. The language felt visceral in a way where it just felt so good to read, even when what was happening was frequently full of gore and sometimes drenched in death. The book expected me to keep up but also made it generally easy to do so without resorting to infodumping. The world is described through the way the characters interact with it, forming itself by coming into focus as they move through it, this style allowed it to establish a fantastic and detailed setting without every quite pausing to explain. I couldn't tell you what most of the places actually looked like, but I was pulled in by how they felt as spaces in which the MCs exist. 

I'd be remiss if I failed to mention that if you like Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir you'll probably love The Tiger Flu. They're very different stories, but they share a lot of the things that make them both engaging and fantastic in how they're told. I don't know if that recommendation works in the other direction, because in Gideon The Ninth you're really not supposed to get what's going on for a large part of the book and that's not a thing in The Tiger Flu. 

Mexican Gothic is slow burn horror built on gaslighting, sexism, and a fantastic sense of aesthetic. 

If that sounds great then you’ll definitely love the first half of this book. How you feel about the second half will probably depend on how you feel about the cause of some of the paranormal horror elements once it becomes more prominent in the story. I happen to be someone who is fascinated by this particular thing and so I switched from being moderately creeped out to being very excited overall (still creeped out by individual scenes). The second half felt much faster-paced than the first, but that might just be because I got way more into the story at that point. My best guess for how it’ll feel for someone who was creeped out to start and then has any fear related to the eventual reveal is that it’ll ramp up the horror pretty steadily in the second half, with each scene building on the previous one until the very striking finale maybe lets you relax (but also maybe not, it’s that kind of ending). 

I love the aesthetic, I love the pacing, the plot was slower than I’m used to but it works really well here, and I adore the second half. The MC managed to be a pretty reliable narrator even while being severely gaslit so while I didn’t always know who she should trust or what was real, I never felt misled as a reader. 

The explanations after the secret is revealed worked well, clarifying earlier events without making them less creepy (whether they’re retroactively even creepier depends on how you feel about the explanation). I love the ending, it felt like a sigh of relief after an exhausting run; everything isn’t quite back to normal but it’s at least calmer at the moment. 

The way that sexism is used as a horror element was deft, subtle, and very effective. The plot happens because the MC is being coerced into helping on the promise of being allowed to further her education, and she has to obtain that permission from her father. Once she’s at the house she feels trapped at first because she doesn’t want to abandon her cousin and forfeit a chance at higher education on her father’s sufferance, then later she’s trapped because she’s not allowed to leave the house. The way the personal and social pressure combine to coerce her helped to make it seem reasonable (or at least understandable) that she didn’t leave at the first sign that something was very wrong.

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

Catch Lili Too is a magical murder mystery concerned with mythology, memory, and mortality. It has a respect for death, a complicated relationship with life, and just the right amount of gore.

The way this book centers the so-called "monstrous" characters and others the humans by default was really well done. It centers the MC's perspective by showing how she thinks with a minimum of translation between her perspective and a human one. I know it's not a new idea to hypothesize that humans are the monsters after all, or some variation on that idea, but this does it in a way that brings everyone, magical, mythical, monstrous, and mundane alike into a middle zone where they all could be capable of anything (including the murders) but are choosing to work together. 

I loved the characterization, both of the MC and the secondary characters, it was so good. There was space for characters to assert things about themselves, then figure out something new and grow a little without it wholly throwing off their characterization up until then. The pace at which new secondary characters were added felt really good, just as I got a handle on the dynamics between the current cast there would be a new person or two in a way that made the whole ensemble feel better.  The tension of having a mostly reliable narrator who is convinced she’s an unreliable narrator was an unexpected treat. The MC knows she can’t remember everything, and while she doesn’t actually lie to the reader, there’s a continual worry that we might be missing information or misled because she doesn’t know something she ought to know. This was especially welcome in a murder mystery novel.

The ending made me want more, which is good since this is the first in a series, but at first it felt a little rushed. As I was getting towards the 90% mark in the book I was wondering how everything was going to wrap up because I felt like there was a lot to explain, and then it happened kind of abruptly and everything was clear in very short order. Given what the ending is I think it worked, but it's definitely a slow burn that just needed one final piece of info to make sense and resolve everything, rather than a book with a lot of loose ends to tie up. It made me feel like I need to re-read the whole thing and look for clues I missed earlier, but not in a confusing way. 

Vampires Never Get Old is a pretty strong collection of excellent vampire tales. No two mythos were exactly the same and I loved most of the stories.

I liked almost all of the collection, so first let me cover what I really enjoyed. Many of the stories had really powerful depictions of marginalized people finding strength during their interactions with vampires, sometimes by being vampires and sometimes through rejecting them. My particular favorites are "The Boys from Blood River", "In Kind", "Bestiary", and "Mirrors, Windows & Selfies". I love the premise and the feeling of "The Boys from Blood River", the MC handles relaying backstory while being firmly anchored in the moment in a way that immersed me very quickly into the story. The ending was really good, but now I want even more with the MC. "In Kind" gives a voice to a real kind of victim whose killers are frequently excused or even praised for their murder. It handles a difficult topic well through a really superb story. "Bestiary" was a slow burn, gradually trickling in details to make the MC's backstory clear, crystalizing in one fantastic moment when the pieces are finally in place to understand what happened. I never really felt confused leading up to it, but that moment of really understanding felt really good, especially in a tale this short. "Mirrors, Windows & Selfies" is a story about using the internet to feel a little less alone when you can't leave. I wish this had a follow-up I could read, it implies a very interesting variation on a lot of vampire lore and I'm fascinated (plus I really care what happens to the MC). 

I cannot in good conscience recommend the final story, "First Kill". Minor spoilers to follow. It contains a gay character saying "People aren't straight... They just don't know better." I wasn't sure what to think about it as a one-off comment from a teenage character, but it erases a lot of people who are straight as well as queer, and it's a bizarre sweeping denial of people's understanding of their own identities. It's completely unchallenged within the narrative. The second thing which changed this from a story I was concerned about to one I cannot recommend is that

there's a character who is a monster-hunter, and in the backstory describing the monsters her family has killed, there's reference to a "full-grown wendigo" and a teenage character tries to take a "monstrous claw" as a prize. He's not allowed to because there's a general "no-trophies" rule.

Having that appear here just to add background details for a secondary character felt bad to read. The actual plot was interesting, but I can't recommend this collection without giving a warning about this story. Neither moment was examined, and they felt like they were there just to be filler about secondary characters, instead they're just cringey and bad.

Seven Nights for Dying: CW for

parental death (backstory).

 

The Boys from Blood River: CW for

homophobia, bullying, violence, parental death, death.

 

Senior Year Sucks: CW for

blood, death.

 

The Boy and the Bell: CW for

transphobia, misgendering, gore, death.

 

A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire: CW for

colonialism, death.

 

In Kind: CW for

ableism, child death, blood, death.

 

Vampires Never Say Die: CW for

sexism, blood, violence.

 

Bestiary: CW for

vomit, death (backstory).

 

Mirrors, Windows & Selfies: CW for

kidnapping, imprisonment, death.

 

The House of Black Sapphires: No major CWs.

First Kill: CW for

death.

TW for

discussion of body parts as trophies (wendigo).

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

A Universe of Wishes is a well-balanced and fantastic collection of emotional and thought-provoking stories with excellent pacing as a whole and individually.

I'm in awe of the editor who curated this. Stories with more stressful topics are placed with more relaxing ones between them, but in a way that (for me at least) never felt like mood whiplash. I read this slowly over several days, pausing to let some stories linger in my mind a while longer before moving on to the next one. There's a lot of them, so I've listed one or two sentence reactions with CWs for each. I loved some more than others, but that's just because heists stole my heart long ago and I've never minded since. The whole collection works really well together and while I suppose some other arrangement was possible, this one feels right. 

A Universe of Wishes: Funny and sweet with just the right amount of darkness. CW for

violence (backstory), gore, parental death (backstory).

 

The Silk Blade: I’m absolutely blown away, this feels like a perfectly chosen snapshot of much longer book. I’d happily read anything in this style, it conveys so much emotion and context in such few pages. I’m dazzled by the ending, my goodness.  CW for

violence.

 

The Scarlet Woman: I haven’t read the trilogy that this story is tied to, but it was engaging and I enjoyed it. It’s definitely made to be read in connection with the original series, as it does great job of introducing the characters but leaves a lot unresolved. As a kind of teaser for the main trilogy it’s pretty perfect. Their personalities are obvious and engaging, their dynamic is interesting, and there’s hints at some pretty dark events that happened before (presumably in the novels).  CW for

sexism (examined), gore, death.

 

Crystal y Cenzia: This gracefully handles a setup and payoff in addition to the main plot in just a few pages. I had time to notice a story element, forget about it, then have it circle back around to surprise me and be even better. It’s a small thing but I really appreciate it.  CW for

queerphobia, racism, classism.

 

Liberia: Gripping and tense, making me quickly invested in the solution to the crisis which dominates the story. 

A Royal Affair: A prologue for a series I haven’t read. It definitely feels like it’s best read in connection with the main series, but I enjoyed it. It’s complete and understandable, but its nature as backstory means it packs a lot of trauma into very few pages.  CW for

violence (brief), homophobia, abuse.

 

The Takeback Tango: So good that for a few minutes I forgot I was reading short stories and felt like I was about to dive into a long and heist-filled saga. I already knew I liked this author’s writing, but I love the feel of this particular story and I want more.  CW for

colonialism (backstory).

 

Dream and Dare: Packing the feel of a slow-burning mystery into a walk in the woods with an uncertain outcome.  CW for

queerphobia (backstory).

 

Wish: Perfectly balanced between what to show and what to imply about the setting, conveying a story which feels deeply impactful to the characters without getting caught up in minutiae.

The Weight: Plays with the tension and uncertainty inherent in desperately needing a question answered but dreading almost every possible outcome.  CW for

surgery.

 

Unmoor: A perfectly wound story of the ragged edges of grief and the lingering echoes of heartbreak. I felt winded just from reading it, the ending is very powerful.  CW for

memory loss.

 

The Coldest Spot in the Universe: The end and the remnants, and who carries their stories.  CW for

mass death (backstory), death.

 

The Beginning of Monsters: Establishes then reframes possibilities for moving and existing. I love stories like this which convey the way it feels to think about a technical topic one knows well, but without the exact details mattering to the audience.  CW for

child death (not depicted).

 

Longer Than the Threads of Time: This fits within the world of some of author’s other books, but it works really well by itself if you’re new to this setting. I hope I meet these characters again because I need to know what happens next, and it feels like there's a chance they'll show up later if the author continues setting books here.  CW for

imprisonment.

 

Habibi: A pretty perfect way to end the collection. The story touches on a lot of tough topics and ends in way that teeters between hope and despair.  CW for

imprisonment, suicide (not depicted), war (not depicted), starvation, death (not depicted).

The Toll is the calm before an even nastier storm, the ringing in the ears after a cosmic shriek. A love letter to the best and worst in future humanity, built on death and drenched in blood.

Book three swims in blood, with a higher body count than ever before but fewer direct descriptions of death and violence. It helps to keep it from feeling like a bloody slog as the antagonist takes their goals of world domination through gleaning (read: culling, massacre, and genocide) as far as they can. It's about figuring out that even a world which was supposed to be perfect... isn't. Because people aren't perfect, and trying to live in someone else's idea of perfection chafes and cuts and breaks people down until they want to scream. This book rides the ripples of a pent up scream which was built into the fabric of its existence, waiting to be heard. 

I love the MCs, including the couple of ones who are new in this book. For one character in particular I love their version of a kind of genderqueer identity which exists in the context of this book while being unequivocally queer. To me their identity feels like it fits in this world, including having this book's version of the kind of awkward conversations which happen between nonbinary and/or trans people and well-meaning but clueless cis people, all without using those contemporary words. It captures the feeling of those interactions while making them fit seamlessly within the story. I also love the returning MCs, they have full arcs of their own and everyone gets a resolution which is appropriate to what they want and what's actually possible in this world. 

Now for my sequel check, here goes: It wraps up a lot of things left hanging from the previous books, just, so many. There's a storyline, complete with a new character, which isn't present in the previous book (and they're such a great character too!). Several things get introduced and resolved within this book which were not present in the first two (though the circumstances which lead to them might have been set up earlier). As the final entry in the trilogy it wrapped up a bunch of things, major and minor, some of which I'd given up on having a satisfying resolution for (because I thought that the tone of the series meant I'd have to be content with my unhappy and slightly unsatisfying resolution from earlier in the series). This is a pretty perfect end to a fantastic trilogy, and it feels finished. I'm very happy with where the various characters end up, it's a good mix between being messy in a semi-realistic way and being narratively satisfying. The POV characters who are new to this volume feel distinct from previous narrators, including in the interstitial sections. As for whether this could make sense if someone read this book without reading the first two, no, but, really, don't pick up the last book of a trilogy and try to read it by itself, it's not worth it. If this review intrigues you then read the trilogy, the whole thing is great.

I mentioned the series' handling of fatphobia in my first two reviews, and, as far as I can tell, that's not present in this third book, unless I just didn't notice some minor instance. My conclusion as far as the series goes is that the presence of bigotry such as fatphobia in the first and second books were hints that it wasn't a perfect world long before everything else went to shit due to the events in the main story.