Cupid Bow Mouth

Ronan and Adam. I am living and breathing for these two. I haven't shipped anyone this hard since Buffy and Angel. With Opal, Stiefvater gives us an alternately sweet and bittersweet glimpse into the life these two are winding around themselves. It's a summer in-between story presented from Opal's (nee Orphan Girl) oblique perspective on The Barns and its inhabitants. Ronan and Adam are hazed by diffused light and we get to see them folding themselves around each other in nook and cranny moments almost jealously given up by Stiefvater. Opal is full of the things that she does best: foreshadows that I suspect will stretch long into the upcoming Dreamer Trilogy, small, living moments used to reveal character (thus making me fall even deeper in love with Ronan and Adam). Opal, herself, is a great character and I loved how alien she is. She doesn't fit into the world that she now finds herself in, but at the same time she is OF IT. She's an odd, quirky corner of the Pynch universe and although I know fandom seems to like to make her a daughter of sorts (and I get that cause Ronan is totally kind of an odd dad of sorts - he SOUNDS like somebody's dad, anyway), but Opal really isn't, either. She is this curious reflection of Ronan and it is heartbreaking to realize that as much as Opal loves Adam is how much RONAN loves Adam. That realization is painful, sad, sharp, and so sweet that I ache with it.

All in all, a great tease for the coming Dreamer trilogy. My appetite is beyond whetted.

To be honest, I don't even know what to say about The Raven Boys. What I have learned over time is that not all books are for all people. Books, like many things, resonate differently for different people. That realization makes me more tolerant of readers who either love books that I hate or who hate books that I love. Hey, you just can't win them all. The Raven Boys may not be for you, but it sure as hell was for me.

There are many books in the world written about many things. Some books are written well, some not so much. Some books you swallow whole, desperate to reach the end of the story while at the same time loath for the magic to end. Other stories you might not finish because there's nothing tethering you to the universe caught between the book covers. Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys falls in the former category of each kind of book. The Raven Boys is a gorgeous carrot cake of a novel, dense and meaty and filled with all the good stuff, but also topped with the sweetness of language used very well. It's got a solid foundation in the story and Stiefvater wraps it up in a beautifully unwinding tale of longing and friendship and family. It's savagely wonderful. The characters are incredibly individual and I fell in love with each and every one of them. No one feels like an afterthought (except maybe one and even that was on purpose). This book is sumptuous and wonderful and quirky and everything BREATHES!

It's crazy that I had never heard of this author or this series because now that I've read The Raven Boys, I am hooked well and truly. I wasn't looking for a series, had actually been actively avoiding YA series, when this kept popping up on my Overdrive app (I check out audiobooks from the library for my two hour commute home). I finally caved because there was nothing else that I wanted in particular. It was the best choice I've made since I picked Joe Hill's The Fireman which was so beautifully read by Kate Mulgrew. Actor Will Patton reads The Raven Boys and he is a god! I wonder if I would love the book as much if I had just read the paperback. I don't know. Good thing that I don't have to find out! (I suspect that I would love it just as much.) When I'm done with the entire series, I have every intention of buying these, but until I get through the last it's me and Will trapped in the car. He is amazing and should be winning all kinds of awards. Surely there are awards for voice actors who read books. OMG!!!

Anyway, The Raven Boys is highly recommended. The story unfolds rapidly and no space in the story is wasted. Steifvater gives us a story full of complex, nuanced, fallible characters and it is a beautiful thing to behold. Because these people are damaged and they get things wrong, but they are friends anyway. I like stories like that. I also LOVE that this is not so much a YA love story as it is a story about a group of people who are all in love with each other in one way or another. Steifvater does what many YA don't manage, she gives them all equal time and pays homage to the different KINDS of love that exist in the world. From Blue and her haphazard and unconventional family, the (essentially) three Shakespearean witches, and the boys, these characters are knitted into each other's lives and sewn into each other's skins. There's familial love and motherly love, sisterly love, brotherly love, and romantic love. Everything gets tangled up together and examined from many angles. It takes a gentle pass at classism and poverty, does quite a lot more with issues of self-esteem, self-perception, the nature of families, and abuse.

I love that Blue is a girl who wants to be special, knows that she is not really, and is mostly okay with it. Her falling in with the titular Raven Boys has less to do with her needing them to feel better about herself (a terrible trope in many YA fantasies) and more about her curiosity and desire to have an adventure. She recognizes in them something outside of her comfort zone and she tackles that. Embroiling herself in this THING because, well, why not. She is whole-heartedly complicit in all the shenanigans and I really LOVE that.

I don't know how many ways I can say that I loved this book. There are flaws, I'm sure. Nothing is truly perfect. But to be honest, what didn't work is, for me, severely overshadowed by all that does. Including, Ronan Lynch and his knife edged smile. Ronan, who is very possibly the thing that I love best about this book besides Steifvater's glorious and deft use of language. He is such a character. An exposed nerve, a beating heart, a train wreck of a boy careening wildly and enthusiastically towards catastrophe. I ADORE him. But then so do I love all of the Raven boys, and Blue, and the ladies of 300 Fox Way. This book is so much magic. SO So So much magic!

I actually loved Every Heart a Doorway. The lower stars has more to do with the length which contributed to a stunted climax. Seanan McGuire is a beautiful writer and storyteller and she introduces a fascinating and potentially complex premise with the world of Every Heart a Doorway. Nancy, the novella's main protagonist is our entryway into Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. The Home is basically a rehabilitation center for girls like Alice Lidell who have fallen down rabbit holes and, ultimately, found their way back to reality. The characters and the worlds that they previously disappeared into are wonderfully varied and McGuire does a great job with creating that sense of diversity. Sumi was probably my favorite character, followed very closely by the wonderfully unexpected Kade.

McGuire weaves some important themes in the book: individuality, the nature of reality, the meaning of home, and hope. My complaint about this book is that it's a novella and not a full novel. We got just a taste of this world and these characters and their story, but just as things started to really ramp up the story climaxed and ended. I love short form in general, but this felt somewhat unfinished, like there should have been more in the middle. The ending was a little too pat, as well. It feels more as if the author caved to plot exhaustion than that the natural and organic ending of the story had been reached.

I loved the epilogue. It was what I wanted and what the story needed, but thoroughly unexpected.

I am heartened by the fact that there are more books in the series and I will be on the lookout for them. End of the day, I really enjoyed the read.

I listened to the audiobook edition of this and the voice actor was marvelous, creating distinct accents and speech cadences for each of the characters. Very well done.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up The Book of Phoenix. I had heard about the author, so I decided to give her a try. It was the one thing that the bookstore had and I wanted something new. Turns out it was exactly what I was looking for in the moment that I read it.

Phoenix Okore is, in essence, a genetic experiment that goes so right that it goes completely wrong. The Book of Phoenix is her story, her evolution from complacent lab rat to vengeful and avenging angel. In a world too much like our own, Phoenix ultimately fights to re-assert balance between nature and all men.

The Book of Phoenix is a morality tale and it asks some big questions about the world we live in. The framing story that bookends Phoenix's story even calls that into question. In the end, what is the nature of men and can they ever live in true harmony with the world around, must everything be continually subverted and bent to the needs and intentions of a few? Perhaps, that is the point of Phoenix Okore and the story as a whole, continual rebirth is the destiny of mankind because what happens always happens, it never doesn't happen. No matter how many times we try to change, ultimately the greed and smallness of mankind prevent them from understanding and embracing a perspective that exists outside of a dichotomy of mine vs yours.

The opening of Phoenix's story was a bit choppy in the execution, but smoothed out beautifully as it went along and the author found her feet. Much of what happens in the story felt very convenient and there was less conflict than I would have imagined given the story's premise.

Palimpsest - noun: palimpsest; plural noun: palimpsests
a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.

Oleg, Ludovico, November, and Sei are four unsuspecting immigrants caught in the intricately beautiful and unseemly net of Palimpsest, a city accessible only by dreamers. Infected by other dreamers, the "passport" to Palimpsest appears mysteriously as a segment of the city's map tattooed somewhere on the body, from face to breasts to tongue. But there's a hitch, access to Palimpsest requires an intimate kind of sacrifice, and the more Palimpsest is visited, the more desperate people are to visit. Connected by the rules of Palimpsest which require all immigrants to be psychically shackled into a quarto, Valente's cast of characters negotiate the real world and the world of Palimpsest as they seek, in varying degrees, to understand the mysterious city and their place in it.

Palimpsest is a beautifully written book. I wish I liked it more. I wanted to like it, but there was a disconnect for me between the gorgeous language and the heart of what makes a story work. Palimpsest was a great concept; as Valente presented it, "Palimpsest is an urban fantasy about a city that lives on human skin, a viral city whose citizens consist of those who bear parts of the city on their flesh, and visit it in their dreams. The story follows four such people as they search for others like themselves and a way to enter the city permanently." Unfortunately, trying to find my way through the mysterious intricacies of the city elements prismed through the four different narratives was more challenging than I cared for. There isn't a lot of weight to the story. Nowhere to anchor. Palimpsest read like a lot of sound and fury at times. Noise without meaning, but the sad part is that I think there is meaning there, it's just hard to dig it out. The fractured storytelling left me disinterested over time, I ultimately didn't care very much for any of the characters or the journeys they were on. I was also disinterested in Palimpsest itself. I made it to the Part III: The Princess of Parallelograms (pg 180) before I gave up on the book. Considering that I had hit the half-way mark and my interest was steadily waning, I opted not to continue the book. I skimmed a few pages at the end, but there wasn't anything there to inspire me to try picking up the book again.

This won't be my last foray into her fiction despite my lack of success in finishing. I find Valente to be an incredible, poetic, and singular writer.

I do not generally read anything that reeks of mainstream horror. I can't remember what attracted me to Heart-Shaped Box, but I'm glad that it found me. It was an awesome ride.

Written by Joe Hill, who I was surprised to discover today is the son of Stephen and Tabitha King, Heart-Shaped Box is a paranormal thriller from start to finish. I was scared and grossed out, but also touched by the complexity of the characters. The story is one of loss and discovery as much as it is about ghosts and revenge.

Jude Coyn, a washed-out rock icon, purchases a haunted suit from what he thinks is eBay. He doesn't believe that it's actually haunted, but when the suit arrives, reeking and tucked into a black heart-shaped box, things go to shit pretty quickly. Jude and his girlfriend, Georgia nee Marybeth, find themselves on the run from a vengeful ghost. The journey takes them home, reconnects them to each other and to their pasts. There are plenty of twists to keep things interesting and I was enraptured. Hill has a deft and easy hand with the storytelling. Apparently, it runs in the family. The pacing was great, I never grew tired. The descriptions were elegant and spooky.

( *** spoilers *** )