This book was just as good as everyone told me it would be. Set in England and France before and during the second World War, the main character in the first third of the narrative is Briony Tallis, a wildly creative thirteen year old who pours her heart into short stories. When her beloved older brother plans a visit back to the family estate, she writes a play to mark the occasion and press-gangs three of her cousins into rehearsals. During the day of excited preparation she witnesses a scene between her older sister Cecelia and the family's gardener Robbie which leads her to believe a crime has been committed. Many years later, working as nurse in the war, Briony admits to herself that what she saw wasn't violence, but passion. She is desperate to re-write the story to create a happy ending for the doomed lovers, but life isn't fiction. Except that- this book is. Never before have I so struggled with thinking a work of historical fiction was an actual piece of history. I came away demanding "But what really happened?" An impossible and delightful question.

Fantasy used to be my bread and butter genre. In high school I'd barely pick up a book unless it had a dragon, elf, wizard, witch or sword on the cover. At a certain point I got somewhat burned out on the genre after too many books that felt like blatant Tolkien imitations. This book was a gift from a friend and I opened it a little uncertainly. Rather than a novel, I found this book is actually a collection of linked short stories each telling of one adventure of Geralt, a traveling monster-slayer. The author has a clear love of classic fairy tales- in one of the stories Geralt stumbles into a situation reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, while in another he encounters a Snow White. Almost invariably the original hero of the fairy tale is in this re-telling the monster. Not all of the deadly beasts are familiar however- interwoven are creatures from Polish and Russian folk tradition which add an intriguing eerie strangeness. This book is the first in a long series and I hope to read more.

A fast-paced coming of age comic in the vein of Raina Telgemeier. Astrid's mom takes her and her best friend Nicole to watch a roller derby game in a rink in Portland and Astrid immediately falls in love. Her best friend, not so much. Astrid signs up for a roller derby summer camp and discovers how much work it is to master a tough, dangerous sport. Meanwhile she begins to feel abandoned by Nicole who chose to attend a Dance camp instead. What starts as a story of rivalry becomes instead a tale of how people sometimes grow apart as their interests change and mature.

An emotional story of a decade long friendship between the author and a prickly, defensive, badly-behaved and demanding dog. Nicole adopted Beija at 17, and they were companions through many huge life changes. Nicole moved with her first love half way across the country to Portland, OR, began a career as an indie cartoonist, broke up, came out as a lesbian and discovered a shattering family secret. All the while Beija was was by her side, teaching her both how to show love and how to set up personal boundaries. Moved me to unexpected tears.

This story begins with a classic D&D set up... a thief, an assassin, a mage and a cleric meet in a tavern to hear about a job offer from a mysterious stranger. But what this story actually offers is a D&D flavored superhero team battling for the soul of a city. An army of undead, a corrupt government and a Batman-verses-Catwoman like rivalry unfolds over tiled rooftops, cobbled streets and in caverns deep under the ground.

Loma Shade is a bird-like native of Meta, a distant planet with a lingering interest in the scraps of nostalgic Earth culture they've collected. Shade uses her boyfriend's position as a security guard at a museum of Earth objects to steal the Madness Vest. She uses this to (somehow) transmit her soul to Earth, where she inhabits the body of a 16 year old girl, Megan. Megan has been lying in a coma after nearly drowning at a wild party with her swim team. Only her boyfriend Wes is happy about her surprise recovery- the rest of the team, and even Megan's parents, fear and resent her. Shade struggles to understand life as an Earth high school student even as she struggles to resist the raw Madness that swirls from her transport, the Vest. This book is part of the larger Young Animals series from DC, but I read and enjoyed it as a stand-alone.

An Eisner nominated short comic about race which should have won the award. Unflinching and timely.

A gorgeous sequel to Chamber's first warm-hearted, rambling sci-fi road trip novel The Long Way to the Small Angry Planet . This one follows two of the minor characters of that last story as they continue on their own paths. Loveless 2.0, the AI who was briefly installed on the Wayfarer and accidentally replaced Lovey, is now installed in an illegal body kit. Pepper, the mechanic, takes this confused AI under her wing back to live on Pepper's planet. Loveless has a lot of decisions to make about what here future will hold. Interwoven are scenes from Pepper's past as an unregistered human clone, raised in a labor colony. This one is as emotional and touching as the first. I can't wait for more from Chambers.