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landofnowhereFun week!
A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik. I was braced for this to be really dark, but actually it's more heartwarming and less Slytherin than I expected! The narrator also gets grouchy. Definitely the first book of a trilogy, curious as to where it goes. I appreciated that the book had a diverse international cast (it's diverse and international in a similar way to how the student body at a pricey boarding school/college would be, but I feel like I don't even see that as often as would be realistic), though as a white American I'm not in a position to say if it was handled well.
How to Become King, Jan Terlouw -- a book that I loved as a kid, which I lost and found a couple times over the years (it's still popular in the original Dutch, but the English translation is out of print and very hard to find, the library system is the best bet). It's quite short -- I miss how everything was bigger when I was small. And it's just very, very fun, and cute -- I was never actually laughing out loud, but I was grinning through the whole thing. It's a "seven impossible tasks" fairy tale with a mid 20th century setting (which was contemporary in 1971 when it was written, didn't feel dated to me as a kid in the '90s, but probably would to a kid now). I think Lloyd Alexander is really the best comparison -- the protagonist, who is very much a teenager, is impertinent in much the same way that Alexander's characters can be, and accomplishes the tasks set by him with ingenuity and strength of character. There's an element of social allegory to the challenges and wordplay in the town names (the screeching birds of Decibel, the pome-grenade tree of Powdermill), but it never gets message-y.
Beyond the Woodward Wall, Seanan McGuire writing as A. Deborah Baker. This is supposed to be an Oz-era children's book that exists in the world of McGuire's book Middlegame (which I had mixed feelings about, as written here earlier), though it doesn't feel particularly period to me. Somewhat entertaining portal fantasy, though not super-grabby so far, haven't finished. I do like Zib as a character.
A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik. I was braced for this to be really dark, but actually it's more heartwarming and less Slytherin than I expected! The narrator also gets grouchy. Definitely the first book of a trilogy, curious as to where it goes. I appreciated that the book had a diverse international cast (it's diverse and international in a similar way to how the student body at a pricey boarding school/college would be, but I feel like I don't even see that as often as would be realistic), though as a white American I'm not in a position to say if it was handled well.
How to Become King, Jan Terlouw -- a book that I loved as a kid, which I lost and found a couple times over the years (it's still popular in the original Dutch, but the English translation is out of print and very hard to find, the library system is the best bet). It's quite short -- I miss how everything was bigger when I was small. And it's just very, very fun, and cute -- I was never actually laughing out loud, but I was grinning through the whole thing. It's a "seven impossible tasks" fairy tale with a mid 20th century setting (which was contemporary in 1971 when it was written, didn't feel dated to me as a kid in the '90s, but probably would to a kid now). I think Lloyd Alexander is really the best comparison -- the protagonist, who is very much a teenager, is impertinent in much the same way that Alexander's characters can be, and accomplishes the tasks set by him with ingenuity and strength of character. There's an element of social allegory to the challenges and wordplay in the town names (the screeching birds of Decibel, the pome-grenade tree of Powdermill), but it never gets message-y.
Beyond the Woodward Wall, Seanan McGuire writing as A. Deborah Baker. This is supposed to be an Oz-era children's book that exists in the world of McGuire's book Middlegame (which I had mixed feelings about, as written here earlier), though it doesn't feel particularly period to me. Somewhat entertaining portal fantasy, though not super-grabby so far, haven't finished. I do like Zib as a character.