Picture all the things you loved about Twilight, except the main character (who is still relatable and chill) is a witch with powers of her own and she's really super smart, and the vampire (while still self-loathing and full of guilt for what his love may do to his love interest) is interesting and chock full of historical knowledge. Now add in some daemons and some secret societies and lots of wine drinking. If you don't want to read this book, I can't help you.

A weird little book. Sirius the dog star is convicted of a murder he may or may not have committed, but instead of being destroyed by the council of other stars he is sentenced to live on earth as a dog. He is adopted by a young girl, and as his memories of his former life come back he teams up with the sun to find the magical item that will bring him back to his true self -- if only he can remember what it looks like, or what it is for. There are some nice moments, like the old lady who realizes Sirius can understand English, and sad moments, like when you learn why Kathleen is being raised by her aunt and uncle, and it's not exactly a bad book, but it's not exactly good either.

Insipid Percy is back with more adventures where Annabeth saves his life a lot and he slowly realizes that he is not that great of a guy and he should probably grow up a little (or a lot). I love the mythology aspects, but Riordan is not a very good writer. The rules change from moment to moment, the sheer number of children is outrageous and never explained, and he drops the ball a lot on some potentially good moments. When Percy asks why the gods didn't kill him to prevent a prophecy, Annabeth has some crappy reasons they didn't -- if Riordan really wanted to show the gods as terrible or true to their old portrayal, he would have written it so that the gods did try to kill Percy, but couldn't because of the prophecy, for example. I do like that Luke and Circe have good reasons for being villains (the gods really are shitty, after all), but it would help if I understand why Percy sides with the gods each time.

A dark and mesmerizing study of race, sexuality, and culture in the late fifties New York City. A handful of characters live and die and teach each other (sometimes unwittingly) what it means to love, to hate, and to matter. I read this because the incredible Chris Abani wrote that it was a formative book for him, and I completely understand now his fascination with Baldwin's approach to human interaction and life. It is a timeless study of people fixed firmly in a different era.

I was gifted the Prologue and first 3 chapters by the authors for review. The prologue grabbed me right away -- a vicious vampire, a dead wife, a man dismayed. Unfortunately, the next three chapters were 100 pages that had no vampires and no plot. The protagonist is a fun and whimsical girl, but I was bored by how perfect and beautiful her entire family is and struggled to understand why her parents wanted her to marry and breed with a sickly man who would likely pass his illness on to his children, if he even survives long enough to have them. I would love to read the continuation of this story but hope that it will be more fast-paced and less high society tedium.

Kell travels between the Grey London of our world, the Red London of his, and the White London everyone fears -- as one of only two people with the ability to move between worlds, he is valued as a messenger. When his interest in tokens from other worlds results in mortal danger, he finds himself at the mercy of a Grey London thief, Lila Bard, who offers her help and her sarcasm. An inventive and truly magical book, Schwab invents a miraculous and detailed history that is easy to slip into and fully believe.

A delightful primer on the history of the Jedi and what it means to be one. I'm such a sucker for gimmicky books with footnotes by characters.

This book focuses on King's Landing and Dorne, leaving us in the dark about the Wall and Daenerys but giving plenty of detail about Cersei's command of the Iron Throne, Jaime's attempt to rid himself of the Kingslayer moniker, Brienne's attempts to find the Stark girls, Sansa and Arya's own journeys, and a bigger picture of the utter chaos the realm has fallen into. This felt darker than the previous books (and they are pretty dark) because Tyrion and Tywin are both out of the picture, Jaime and Cersei don't trust each other, zombie Catelyn thinks all of her children are dead, the realm is in ruins -- well, it's all pretty bad. But I still found myself pulling out my highlighter for some truly beautiful passages. And I loved seeing more of Dorne.

Percy is finally growing up and realizing that he is not yet a hero and still has a lot of learning to do, so I found him less insufferable in this volume. I really enjoyed Artemis and her merry band of hunters, and meeting more characters from the myths. The ending was surprising in a good way, and I'm interested to see what will happen next.

Hell used to be a place of physical torment, but as the world changed so did it, and now it is a morass of bureaucracy that is beginning to center around Thomas Fool, one of Hell's Information Men. This is a noir style mystery where Thomas is seeking a demon that eats souls as he tries to navigate his uncertain future, deal with the visiting angels he is playing tour guide for, and try not to get killed (or, preferably, noticed). I love the idea of Hell as bureacracy, and Unsworth has some great pieces (the Man of Plants and Flowers, the ocean of souls) but overall it lacks depth. Why did sexless angels Fall and become creatures that use humans as prostitutes? I didn't mind the gore, but it felt a little gratuitous to be constantly describing the violence these people were subject to without it making sense or advancing the plot. Why don't any of Hell's humans remember their human lives? It seems counter-intuitive to the idea of hell to be punished for sins you can't remember committing. It was also never clear what of their human lives people remembered, and that felt important. It was a fun read, but not particularly memorable. I will be interested to see what he comes up with next.