This was one of those books that I picked up without actually knowing what it was about (which happens less often than it should) and then found myself continually surprised by how the story played out. I was never quite sure what it would turn into, which added to my enjoyment of it. Fowler's handling of the family story where the novel slowly plays out the narrative of what happened in the past and how the main character became the woman she was is handled with surprising deftness and the combination of Fowler's empathy for Rosie and her sense of when to reveal what she knows makes for a good read while the shift that Fowler makes in making the book is what moves it up from a three to a four.

This book was sprung on me by my sister who, fortunately, knows me well. She was right - this was a good book, made particularly good because of the obvious thought that went in to the world-building and the reality of politics even (especially) in a fantasy world. The best part, however, is Marchetta's willingness to think about what it means to a strong female character and her willingness to write Evanjalin in a realistic fashion. Evanjalin breaks almost as many of the "strong female character" tropes as she embodies and the story works primarily because of who Marchetta allows her to be as a person. It's nice to read a high fantasy novel focused not just on a chosen boy, but on a powerful girl and the political situation that drives them both.

I am really really glad that I only started reading this series last week because I had the satisfaction of devouring the whole thing. Elisa remains an incredibly wonderful viewpoint character and her journey as she discovers herself remains one of the best I have read recently. Carson's sense both for what the rules of the genre are and where to judiciously break them remains excellent.
My biggest disappointment was with the bits that were not in Elisa's voice. They just seemed a bit less real and the voice seemed more generic...and the perspective didn't seem to add much to the story. Still, it was a satisfying conclusion to a great series.

3.5 is a rating that needs to exist.
As high young adult fantasy, this book does exactly what it promises to do. So much so that I found fault with its predictability. I was calling events between 50 and 250 pages before they happened--a problem for me both because of the book's length and because I do rather like being surprised in my novels.
I was pleased, at the beginning, because the author was fairly forthcoming about the world and characters in it, but that turned to frustration in the middle because I knew what was happened, knew what needed to happen and was unwilling to suspend my disbelief that the main character did not. To me, elements of the story read like the author was imposing a certain amount of willful ignorance on her heroine in order to up the stakes and create a larger catastrophe. Catastrophe is fine, but when it seems engineered, I get cranky.
The predictability of the storyline (obviously, all genres have their rules, but I shouldn't know everything that's coming) and the sense that the author wasn't allowing the character her own intelligence kept me from fully appreciating what was, otherwise, a really interesting book.

Also, I was deeply annoyed at the magical healing at the end of the book. Why must we take main characters with disabilities and heal them?

This book was basically everything I ever wanted out of a science fiction novel. Interesting premise, good world-building, an appreciation for the scientific aspects without too much meaningless jargon and, more importantly, an appreciation of the characters who populate the world. Nothing bothers me more than interesting science with flat characterization, but Lord's characters are all well-rounded and feel like real people. It's exactly the book I was hoping it would be and more.
Now I need to track down Lord's debut novel and read that.

I realize this might not be helpful if you don't religiously read all my reviews, but this book was everything that I felt Eon was missing.
Seraphina is another main YA character with a secret to hide and a tricky world to navigate as she attempts to discover who she can trust and who she can't, but she seems so much realer and more compelling than Eon. I loved Hartman's ideas of dragons and the way that created a character who is special both for her ancestry and her talents...and those talents don't tie in to traditional "strong female" traits. (Not that those are bad, but strength comes in many different forms).
It reminded me of Robin McKinley's Pegasus (only without the distinct stylistic tics that mark McKinley's writing...fortunately. One author like McKinley is enough) in its sense of Universe and world and the stakes. And I am eagerly anticipating the sequel because, of course, there's a cliffhanger.

I don't really know what to say about Americanah, other than that I really enjoyed it and thought it was brilliant. It was...evocative is the best word I can think of, almost challengingly so in its embrace of certain stereotypes and absolute refusal to embrace others. A story that tells things as they are (for lack of a better term) and both aims for and subverts a kind of honesty about the world as it is.
It is also one of the best novels about race and racism in the 21st century that I have read in a while (which, to be fair, could just be a comment on my reading list). And it was funny. It was funny in that way that makes you want to cringe (and perhaps apologize for providing the fodder before you remember how terrible an idea that is) and yet I smiled through reading it anyway. Comedic roasts don't always make good novels, but this one - placing it somewhere between the story of being an immigrant and the story of falling in love - handles all three very well.

The problem with reading so many books over Yom Tov is you start to realize that all your good reviews sound the same.
Clever world-building; good well-rounded characters, compelling story...
This is because good books, like happy families, are all alike when you're trying to describe them in a paragraph. Johnson's post-apocalyptic world is excellently done, precisely because she seems to understand that certain elements of the world will not change. People can still be good or bad, politics will still be about the hard choices and the trade-off between liberty and control will always be constantly reworked. Johnson explores one particular manifestation of that tension and does so elegantly, with a refreshing focus on the relationship between age and power in a world where life can be extended as well as a quiet but forceful refusal to pretend that sexual mores will not change.
The book itself was a really interesting read, but it was the world with its mix of cultures, its complex development and its artful use of techne (in all the meanings of the term) that really hooked me.

The worst part of this book is the plot. And the plot, though trite and hackneyed to anyone remotely familiar with the tropes of epic fantasy, was not to bad. The book's conceit, however, was fantastic and well worth the read. Ancient bookstores, secret societies, big data and early modern printing. What's not to like?
( And, yes, I'm well aware that the book lampshades traditional epic quest element. But simple self-awareness is not the same as meta. So while Sloan makes it clear that the knows that what he is doing is straight out of traditional quest fantasies, he doesn't actually do anything after that.)

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It was exactly what it promised to be—a well done historical novel that straddles the line between fantasy and history.