booksthatburn's Reviews (1.46k)

ON THE EDGE OF GONE is tense and well-crafted. It hits the ground running by proclaiming that the characters are already under the particular sort of doom that accompanies setting off for a 45-minute drive with only 30 minutes to get there. Except their destination is a shelter to preserve their lives when the comet hits, and there’s no way they’ll make it in time. In fact, they don’t. Instead they take a chance and help some strangers who are just as late, but for a different shelter that offers a more immediately obtainable but ultimately precarious hope: that of exiting the planet on a generation ship. There’s a limited number of spots, Denise’s sister didn’t meet up with them before the comet, and her mom wasn’t able to get clean before things got bad. 

The end of the world is never a great place to be, and this focuses on the concerns of someone who isn't obviously in a position to make big decisions or changes. She contributes in crucial ways, but none of them are from being some big damn hero, but just being a person who sees something needs doing and tries to take care of it as best she can.

The opening is one of the most viscerally stressful things I've read, while making me need to keep reading.

I instantly related to Denise because as a kid I had years of hearing "just 10 more minutes" from the person who was my ride somewhere. It instantly connected me to the character and made the rest of the stakes relatable in a way that leaving on time but having an obstacle afterwards simply would have missed, even though the eventual outcome would be the same.

Denise’s autism is inextricable from the story, shaping her reactions and how the other characters react to her. Hers is just one way that being autistic can appear and feel, and the descriptions of what she thinks versus what she can get herself to actually say contribute to the tension in the narrative. The plot is driven by social interactions, both in the attempts to navigate this newly-formed community aboard the docked ship and in interactions with scattered survivors foraging amongst the wreckage of the old world. Some misunderstandings come from allistic and autistic communication differences (especially early on when more of the characters are strangers), but it never felt like that gap was cheaply used. 

I didn’t realize this was MG when I started it. I wish I’d had this as a kid but it’s too young for me now.

TRAIL OF LIGHTING is a bright light in my reading life, a book with urban fantasy feels but nary a city in sight. Maggie is conflicted and messy, with a supernatural ability to bring death (helped by her gun and very large knife) and not much help reconciling that with the rest of herself. 

It's about legacies of trauma and the nature of monstrosity, as Maggie grapples with her understanding of herself. Is she a person who kills monsters? Or a monster who's trying to take other monsters down with her/ Part of this is shown early on when she deliberately withholds her expected part of a culturally important greeting, not wanting to show this part of herself to people she is technically in community with. She feels alienated from them by her deeds. Complicating this is the fact that she's useful to them for the very thing that makes them feel uncomfortable around her, i.e. her talent for death which she uses for monster hunting and retribution.

I love the worldbuilding and setting, blending real climate change fears with Indigenous (specifically Diné) mythology to create a new world from the remains of our own. Some things are directly explained, especially if they relate to her personal history or the particular quirks of this particular dystopian existence, but a lot of specific definitions are left to context clues. 

I enjoyed this portrayal of Coyote, Maggie's interactions with him are interestingly tense. I like Kai, he seems like a good counterbalance for Maggie. My few complaints about him have excellent in-story justifications which come together in the end and turn them from annoying to appropriately mysteriously and foreshadow-y. 

The big reveal is excellent, I'm very pleased by that part of the ending. This was great and I'm excited for the next one!

PHOENIX EXTRAVAGANT is thoughtful and deliberate, featuring a character who gradually finds themselves as part of a revolution. Not through some showy event, but through a conviction that a particular thing cannot be allowed to stand, that it pains them at their core, and hurts their community now and into the future. It's emotionally complex, leaving room for different people to have different hurts and allegiances in a world where not everyone oppressed is on the side of the oppressed. Also there's a mechanical dragon, which is great.

The worldbuilding is very focused on what Jebi thinks about and specifically what affects them. This means there are a lot of discussions of their interpersonal ties, and what they think about art in the context of occupation and conquest. I like the tight focus, it means that whatever's brought up is detailed, well-constructed, and either emotionally or factually important to the narrative. What Jebi thinks is important enough to explain tells as much about their world as what they slowly realize they'd never thought of before.

The romantic relationship is well-conveyed, fitting naturally into the narrative and then slowly forming a new emotional goal, as Jebi moves from simply trying to have enough money to survive, to having a person they want to live with and for. Arazi fills some of this emotional space, but its ties to Jebi are of a very different (but very important) nature. 

I wish there were a sequel in this world (the ending certainly leaves just enough room for it), but it does feel complete enough to be a stopping point.  

FAR FROM THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN is a locked-spaceship mass-murder mystery with a disgraced detective and a rookie ship captain. 

The ensemble of characters is interesting, I especially like Joké. Her storyline was the most engaging for me, and I like how she comes into her own.

The main thing that frustrated me is that there was literally no way to figure out the answer any earlier than the extended sequence which explains the whole thing in great detail. The actual answer was fascinating enough to loop back around to regaining my interest, but it does mean the middle of the book dragged for me. I like the world that was built, but not really the way that it was conveyed, and I enjoyed the political wrangling.

ALONG THE SALTWISE SEA follows Avery, Zib, the Crow Girl, and Niamh as they leave the Improbable Road and find themselves in debt to a pirate captain on the Saltwise Sea. 

The beginning recap is one of my favorite ways to handle a recap. It eased me into the rest of the story by setting the tone of the narration and marking both the literal events which happened and what they meant for the characters as people. Given the storybook feeling to the tone, this was appropriate and very welcome.

Avery and Zib are growing up in a way that involves stress and disappointment in the middle of what is otherwise probably an adventure, and part of their maturing is figuring out why certain things affected them or others in the way that they did. I enjoyed how much more this book focuses on the Crow Girl, exploring her nature by temporarily denying her the ability to transform.

The world-building is gradual and layered, building on what was in the previous book in little moments as each bit of the world's rules becomes relevant to their current situation. It helps keep those moments from feeling like lore dumps, and they tend to be sufficiently brief to keep the momentum moving.

This didn’t specifically wrap up anything left hanging from the first book, it mainly continues the journey right where OVER THE WOODWARD WALL left off. The whole main storyline starts here and wasn’t present previously, with several major things both introduced and resolved. It leaves several things to be addressed later, but they’re more in the vein of lightly examined bits of the worldbuilding which the narrator has promised and/or teased will be important later in their journey (i.e. in a later book).  The (unnamed) narrator seems to be the same, though their tone felt a little bit grimmer than before. Since ALONG THE SALTWISE SEA is a more disillusioned stage of Avery and Zib’s journey, this fits the book but definitely felt a little different. The narrator retains their benevolent and knowing tone, and overall it works well.

I'm excited for the next step for these characters, and I'll definitely keep reading the series.