I am admittedly, a little done with the whole dungeons and dragons characters outside of combat novels, this is sweet and charming and well written. Not a ton of substance here, but it was cozy.

I’m becoming a Becky Chambers fan girl I think. This was a beautiful character study and a fun scifi romp.

Sweet middle grade age book I read out loud to my two kids. There’s a sequel and I think we’ll pick it up. Loved all the Irish lore!

I struggled to pick it back up a few times, but then enjoyed it every time I did. I love poetry, but sometimes have to force myself to it. I read a lot of this book out loud to myself which helped quite a bit. I very much enjoyed the short stories. Favorite stories/poems: a moon kind of night, Nikki Giovanni in Space, I’m Rare, The Children (a solstice poem), and Marla and the Creation Committee.

This series is a good time, sexy, and hey! Dragons! Is it serious literature? No. Are the characters a little one-note in tone/thoughts? Yes. Did that make it less fun to read? No.

Plot in one sentence: A time-traveler, gay, jewish ringleader leads a 1920’s train circus of superheroes through the Midwest, trying to stop WWII from happening after-work, while outrunning her abusive ex whom she met when accidentally saving him the trenches during WWI. 

This is a WILD sentence. I wanted to love this more. Local author, Midwest locales, etc, but the messaging was heavy handed and the plot tried to do too much for too many characters. Also time travel almost always fucks up a story. There’s so much more that could’ve been done about the Circus King.

This was charming, and sweet, but predictable and probably forgettable. The source material was too close to the top. 

Just… holy shit. That was so good. Hard, bleak, funny, dirty. The writing was so good. Nuanced and elegant while coarse and blunt somehow.

Read aloud to kids. While formulaic this series is full of fun Easter eggs and lore. We enjoyed these extra super deep cuts together.