Cinderella Is Dead is built from the shattered pieces of the cruel and sexist Western fairy tale canon. Re-imagining Cinderella by showing and fighting against a patriarchal fairy tale kingdom, with a keen understanding of stories' power to inspire real change. 

It goes beyond, "Cinderella but not how you know her", to tell an entirely new story and re-contextualize an old one. I liked how over-the-top and terrible the existing system was, it fits right in with classic (European*) fairy tales in terms of capriciousness and cruelty (*I mention European fairy tales specifically because that's the canon I'm most familiar with, and the version of Cinderella which involves a glass slipper is French). However, having a female protagonist, making that protagonist queer, and relentlessly centering strong female characters, results in a story that feels powerful and new.

The early part of the book had a lot of world to build very quickly and it was handled masterfully, leaning just enough on a basic understanding of the classic Cinderella story to add background, but not so much as to be unintelligible to someone unfamiliar with the mythos. Early on it specifically establishes that the system isn’t just unfair to queer girls like Sophia, but to anyone who doesn’t want to fit the mold of “young girl marries a man” (and even to those who might otherwise be fine with it, but find themselves controlled and abused by the men in their lives). I do mean girls marrying men, specifically, since in the world at the start of the book girls ages 16-18 are being paired with some boys their age, but mostly with men of any age who decide they’d like a wife. The implications of this system are explored enough to drive home the horror of the system, but without turning the book into a litany of abuses. 

I loved this redefinition of the classic fairy tale; it took some elements of the original and transformed them into a completely new story, one I very much enjoyed. I thought I knew where this would turn, the steps the story would take, and right as I was getting comfortable with the supposed trajectory it surprised me in a really good way. I was thoroughly and pleasantly surprised with the twists and turns. I won’t claim that no one could guess them, just that I didn’t do so and I had a marvelous time going along for the ride. 

Middlegame is fervent and beautiful; words feel inadequate but maybe numbers can do. I read this in two days because I wanted to read it forever. A book about time and distance, words and numbers; the culmination of the universe is calling and you should answer.

Finishing this book feels like waking up from a dream, I read it in sections, and loved every minute of it but now I'm struggling to say all the wonderful things it led me through. Every time I finished another section I was torn between a desperate desire to know what happened next, and the existential terror of a precious resource dwindling; not wanting this book to ever end. All the characters are complex and vivid; the villains are horrendously dark and terribly evil but also completely understandable, with simple motivations pulling them along twisted paths full of malice, greed, and efficient brutality. Roger and Dodger (named by people who should never be around children) begin as lonely child geniuses and become so much more. 

It's a story of time loops, paradoxes, trying over and over to get everything just right. I love time loop stories, but this one stands out because it's unafraid to let things go. It's surprisingly linear, reserving temporal mischief for where it's most needed, where change will be poignant and weighty. We hear whispers, catch glimpses of how-it-might-have-been-but-is-not. This book is rich with metaphors, practically dripping with them when Roger is involved. Dodger's sections are more brusque, creating a distinct feel when the perspective switches between them. I won't spoil the other perspectives we get, but the narrators have enough presence to affect the tone of their various sections and it works really well (both in each section and coming together to create the narrative). 

Book CWs for bullying, parental gaslighting and emotional abuse, murder, major character death, arson, graphic depiction of suicide attempt.

Gideon the Ninth is a dizzying blend of deaths, betrayals, reversals, and epiphanies; A necromantic locked-palace murder mystery come struggle for survival. There's a strong aesthetic sense, complicated relationships, and horrifying levels of gore.

This book felt good to read; the blend of occasional older syntax and modern vocabulary made "necromancers in space", er, "necromancers on a desolate planet" feel complete. I love this depiction of magic co-existing with technology in a decidedly-futuristic space. I don't mean to play up the tech too much, it factors in about as much as the existence of elevators does... they're relevant whenever you need to use one. But their presence is a periodic whisper of "we're in the future and there's magic too..." The language has a visceral "crunch to it", which is a style I like.

Because the POV character isn't always up to speed on what's happening, there's a blend of heavy detail and suddenly important knowledge gaps which meant that for a large part of the book I was having trouble tracking what events were important and how everything connected. This is something I have difficulty with normally, so it's not necessarily a fault of the book, but if (like me) you struggle with that, this book might feel confusing for long stretches. However, the last quarter of the book pulled everything together in a satisfying way with enough explanation that as things were resolved I understood why and how they had resolved, even though I'd been having trouble tracking the details earlier. It meant that the ending felt complete, like a real resolution, despite my previous confusion. To me this is a strength of the book, since even if someone read this over a longer period of time than I did, the ending should still feel strong.

Most of the characters have several combinations of names, titles, and nicknames, but they are often used in ways that reinforce their connection back to each person and that made it easier for me to keep track. It made the level of formality in each interaction apparent immediately, even when no body language was described, and that did a lot to set up the tone of each scene in a succinct way.

Prophecy builds on the events of Rhapsody to make a high-fantasy epic which is deeply concerned with consent, boundaries, found family, and working through past trauma. Vast stretches of the book are fun, but the heavier content gets very dark.

This is a solid book two which I think is robust enough to be read by itself if someone were to come across it and not know there's a series (though please, do start with the first book). There's a graceful balance between closing off lingering plot threads and setting up new ones, and many of them are handled in a way that means the thread isn't really closed; instead the responsibility for addressing it has been passed to a new character. 

The way the magic is handled here appeals to me, it runs on a lot of intuition and bending the shape of things to suit one's intent. It's a softer magic system, one unbothered by explaining all the rules, and instead it's getting on with the story. I also like how the characters interact, including how sometimes (often) they don't fully understand each other but have to figure it out anyway. It's shown in a way that makes their motivations and hangups very clear to the reader, even if they're not always able to speak plainly amongst themselves.

I continue to appreciate the balance of implied and explicit content, especially around sex and violence as they are described (or not) within this book. There's a nuanced understanding of consent in the text, with room for some characters to first not understand its importance, then to learn and grow. When there are scenes of violence the focus is often more on the mindset of the POV character in that moment, and how the scene feels, rather than on the mechanics of exactly how the battle occurs. There is a sexual assault late in the book which was very upsetting to read, but mainly because of its implications and who appeared to be involved, rather than how it was described in the text (it wasn't particularly graphic, but it conveyed a deep sense horror at that event).

There are large sections of the book that are sweet and uplifting and lighthearted, but part of that is because they are placed in contrast with some very tragic past and present events. The book overall feels adventurous, but I can't call it lighthearted overall because of how very very dark some sections became. If you like high fantasy and want a doorstopper with complex characters, and a nuanced portrayal of sex, sexuality, and consent, then try this book (and this series). 

All or None is unafraid of portraying darkness and despair but also devoted to addressing the implications and aftereffects of that darkness. The interpersonal dynamics and relationships highlight characters in a way that continually shows them in new light.

I love how this book runs with the premise of literal soul-mates and makes something complex and nuanced out of it. The relationships are distinct and feel natural for whatever stage they’re in. For many of them I could get a sense of how those people would be right for each other. Language barriers played different roles in different relationships, and the reality of culture-shock was transformed into a world-building opportunity.

The world-building was handled in a casually familiar way, with very few info-dumps, and the few that occur are in the context of someone from one culture trying to adjust to a new one, so they feel natural. They tended to answer things where I’d had time to be curious first. The early world-building placed things in context and assumed I could pick up on what was happening, but by and large the story was coherent even if I misunderstood something.

The ratio between trauma and aftercare in this book was surprising, in a very good way. The first part of the story has some very dark stuff (refer to the CWs at the end of this review), and the rest of the book is spent getting out and starting to deal with everything that’s happened. It feels very grounded, the characters are far from perfect and they each have different things to work through, resulting in a well-balanced ensemble. 

I'm content with where it ended, but I'm hopeful that there will be a sequel, especially when so much of the book is devoted to getting to know the characters very well, individually and in various kinds of relationships. 

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

Power Surge blends mundane kinds of trauma, pain, and grief with the heady rush of learning that magic is real and there's more going on than most people know. Erin is sad and brave and wonderful; fighting against darkness and despair.

It fits within the genre of "person who thinks they're ordinary finds out they have powers and also responsibilities", but it feels like it takes seriously the idea that these are otherwise ordinary people who have to deal with some very dark and stressful things, both because they have powers and from things that have nothing to do with their abilities. It has strong themes of unaddressed grief and trauma, and part of the story is how some of those things are examined and addressed.

The narrator is very blunt and matter-of-fact which helps to ground the story when so many strange things are happening. Depending on whether you read the prequel story, Life Minus Me, the early parts of the book can either be a gradual reveal of the truth or feel a bit like a detective story where the reader is waiting for the MC to figure out what we already know to be happening. I read Life Minus Me before this book, and I think I recommend doing it the other way around. I think they can be enjoyed in either order, but it depends on whether you want a quick sketch of the world and then to watch someone else slowly discover it (read Life Minus Me, then Power Surge) or you want to discover a brand new world with the main character, then explore an older story from it with an\ relatively experienced character as a guide (read Power Surge, then Life Minus Me).

The depictions of trauma are handled well in terms of spacing, level of detail, and relative attention paid to each one. Look to the CWs at the end of this review (they can also be found in the front of the book), but the way each event is spaced out and they are balanced in relation to each other meant that, at least for me, I had enough detail to understand Erin's state of mind without being subjected to pages of ideation all at once. This is a book which takes the time to show the lingering effects of various kinds of trauma and that means it sometimes depicts characters not handling trauma well.

The Academy is very good at showing people being bad; I've never hated a book's villain so quickly with so few descriptors. It's definitely a slow burn, but worth the payoff. It re-examines and transforms the "kid is selected by special school" genre. 

It takes what would normally be just a few introductory chapters in a book about gifted children (a special school sends a representative into a small town to grab one of its young residents to be whisked away to have their life transformed), and turns into into an examination of predatory institutions, coercive power structures, and the helplessness of being stalked and controlled. Some sections were so effective that they made my skin crawl, and I had to take reading breaks early on.

The Academy is somehow really fucking good. Early on I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book. I had been expecting it to be a different book than it was, and so it took me a little longer to see how well it was pulling off its actual story. There's a line in the prologue that made me worried it would be an unexamined well of misogyny, and I was wrong (the misogyny is examined). It's well-crafted, the villains are instantly hate-able, the early ambiguity and uncertainty about what to think about different events is almost definitely on purpose, and it's an amazingly accurate depiction of gaslighting and manipulation (though it's not the only way to show these things, what is there is completely plausible and works well).

It is a pretty long book which has really slow pacing in the start, and it might have benefited from being about 50 pages shorter, cutting out a few of the very detailed depictions of her everyday life early on... but also that level of daily detail about her mind-numbingly miserable existence has a really great pay-off so I think it ends up working. Kate's flip-flopping and contradictory feelings about the love(?) interest was initially frustrating, but it's also what I'd expect and even look for in a romance novel where the main point-of-view character is 17. Part of why this book is so tricky to talk about is that the two pov characters seem to have very different ideas about the genre of the story they're in... and somehow they're both right. Once I realized that, I switched from being conflicted to appreciating how well it was riding this fine line of keeping me just as uncertain as Kate as to what I should think about the love interest (and other events), but never letting me be free from suspicion.

Due to the CWs this is not a book to read to calm down, but a good read. I'm looking forward to the promised sequel.

Everlost by Neal Shusterman is about loss, closure, and moving on. It plays with memory and pov very effectively, developing dueling narrators to trust (or not). When I first read it the rest of the trilogy didn’t exist so I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

Everwild is a good sequel to Everlost. The characters’ growth feels natural and the interpersonal dynamics shift for specific reasons that forward the plot, rather than being driven by it. It’s definitely the low point for most of the characters, in a good way.