So this was a really fun book that took a while for it to really catch me, but I also think that's because reading "these days" requires more work and energy and so it just takes longer for the joy of distraction and the pull of the narrative to catch.
Anyway, I'm so glad I found this, I love the premise of the Mahabharata In! Space! And also I wish I knew the story better so I could see more of what Mandanna is doing rather than merely being wowed by the way things play out.
Because it's a retelling of a myth, there are aspects of "fatedness" and character choices that feel right in a way that might have felt forced absent the power of the narrative shaping them. Or perhaps even still felt forced, but the weight of fate both inside the narrative (aka prophecy) and outside (aka the myth has to happen) made me willing to accept the way the story goes. And also the story itself sweeps the reader along.

A friend used the phrase “ruefulness aforethought” to describe Bujold’s release of this novella in the current moment.
She’s...very not wrong.
And it was fun to be back with Penric and Desdemona even under the circumstances and also I would like an anti-Covid demon please because the downside of that oft-misquoted G. K. Chesterton quote about fairy tales teaching children not that dragons exist but can be defeated is the degree to which our fantasy revolutions and recoveries, grounded in magic and the right people in power and the reassuring KNOWN goodness in the hearts of humans, are fundamentally the fantasy that everything will be okay.
And it might be. But the power of the surety of WILL is both exquisite and devastating.

It took me long enough to get around to this book that by the time I started it, I had forgotten a) what it was about and b) why I wanted to read it.
About a page in reminded me - because Spinoza and all the bits of history and philosophy that I knew less about than I wanted to.
And in that respect, this book did precisely what I wanted it to, giving me both context and content for Spinoza's work and a sense of why he pissed off the everybody.
I still don't remember what prompted the interest in the first place (statistically speaking, it was likely a podcast from the era when I took public transit and listened to things), but now I'm glad I know.

Given that I remembered not a single thing about the first book (not the book's fault, my brain is a sieve for anything with a remotely intricate plot or setting), I got back into this one extremely quickly and was here for both intertwining plots of the story. Can I have the third one now please?
Also, Wexler really does like the French Revolution, doesn't he?

You know it's quite a book when you're not even sure how to shelve it. It's not that Emezi is intentionally genre-bending, it's that she's writing outside the categorical confines of the academy's idea of genre in the first place.
So much of this book is about de-categorizing, of re-defining, of exploring the construction and destruction of identity. I feel supremely unqualified to talk about what it is that Emezi is doing, for all that it is clear that the book itself is a project of that doing.
I keep thinking of Peter Ochs on the ways that modern western ways of thinking and logic create and prioritize conflict. I'm not sure if that's what Emezi is writing about here or if that itself is setting up a dialectic (mental illness versus cultural/historical understanding) that is external and the mark of specific aspects of modernity.
And also the book as process. I still don't know what I think about it...or the degree to which I even need to be thinking about it rather than experiencing it and letting it exist as it is.

These humans are adorable and this was a short but delightful fluffy experience to get lost in.

I love CSE Cooney’s writing so much. (You know it’s good when the author invents an in-world art style that also neatly captures their own style. Clooney is CLEARLY a voluptuist. The downside of the audiobook, of course, is I have no idea how to spell it.)
I was looking forward to this one for a while and it was just everything I wanted from a fairy story. And Cooney is now cemented on my list of authors who read their own work who I ALWAYS listen to.

Okay, D., you were right and Marchetta is a really good writer and this book was sweet and well-done and very much what I like out of my realistic fiction. The mystery was handled well and, even though there were elements that I figured out, there was no sense that the characters ought to have had the distance or knowledge to do so. And the story itself and the people was really good!

This showed up on one of Tor.com's list for goth stories and this was the one for Labyrinth lovers so obviously I'm there.
It's a lot of what I like in a story - shades of Beauty and the Beast, elements of Cupid and Psyche - and also elements of some of the things that frustrate me about YA.
But I'm going to go read the sequel right now, so I'm not complaining too loudly or anything...

Hardinge is an extremely reliable writer - everything she does will be just a little larger than life, just a bit weirder than you thought possible, and grab you just a bit harder than you expected.
This book is no different and it twists through the plot in a way that is both expected and unpredictable. Which only adds to the fun.