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Put aside
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger. Read the first 30 pages on the bus on the way home, and haven't gone back to it yet, although I do plan to give it the first 50. Most reviews on goodreads adore this, but a handful were like: "this reads much younger than it's actually pitched" and man, it…really does so far. The art style, the voice, the character urgently riding her bike somewhere, and later meeting her friend at the mall… Would make an excellent 14 yr old protagonist, but she's written as 17, and it's throwing me. I'm not yet sold on the 'find the truth of a family member's death' yet either.
Update: never got back to it, and as someone had reserved it, I returned it to the library without much of a pang. Politely leaving off my ballot, I guess.
Finished reading:
Finished-not-really: with one story to go, it's on the backburner while I read library books, so…
Homesick: stories by Nino Cipri. With one story to go, holy SHIT this was SO GOOD. Seven short stories. Several genuinely scary ("Dead air", I'm looking at you), all funny and tightly written. I would read the hell out of "Shape of my name" (time travel! trans character!) as an entire novel. I'd also love to read "Presque Vu" is another one I'd read as an entire novel (spirits/ghosts have started appearing everywhere, and have started haunting people in bizarre ways).
"Presque Vu" also had the amazing moment of a joke that had me (and the main character) laughing out loud as the side character who inadvertently delivered it, blinks and says "wait, why are you laughing?" Like, impressively good shit.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. Also finalist for the YA-not-Hugo. Read the first 50 pages, was willing to give it another 50, and now I'm nearly 200 in. I'm genuinely interested in Brianna's story, and finding out what happened to her mother (this 'find the truth of a family member's death' is working for me), being Black in an all-white, old-money, old-magic secret society, and in who her mother was.
I'm interested enough that I'm willing to slog through the "…would they really be telling her allll this Secret Society information?" exposition dumps. There's the occasional motivation silence (it was not at all clear how much she knew and what her initial intentions were when she rocked up to said Secret Society and knocked on the door, for example), but the main character's overarching goal is very clear, and there's enough moments of shining captivation (her meeting her new psych was excellent). I'm not entirely sure I'm going to make it through all 500 pages, but I look forward to picking it up each time which is a feeling I haven't had a while. So far, going on the ballot at the very least.
Updated with about 100 pages to go: It's an impressive debut, and I can see how it'd be a fantastic read if you'd become invested in the secret society, but I really, really wasn't. I was extremely here for Brianna, her grief, her mother, the friend with they/them pronouns, and the whole mother-related storyline, but that felt like less than 200 pages worth of a 500-page book. I'm at a bit of a sad loss as to why it needed to be that long, and that was 500 pages of the smallest published font I've seen in some time. Going on the ballot, though.
Currently reading:
Black sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. WELP, heads up for maiming of a child by a parent. It's the first chapter, and describes how said mentioned-on-the-blurb character became the way he is. It's skip-able if need be, and probably easier to read if you know the shape of it going in, but it was harrowing to come to cold.
21 May Update: I hadn't been hooked by page 50, but the opening had been so harrowingly effective that I decided to give it to page 100, and it finally clicked for me on page 77ish. I'm extremely here for Xiala (bisexual mermaid sea captain!) and Seraipo and the story of the sea crossing. I care not at all about the Sky Temple whatevers, which might be a problem later as those stories are about to collide. But this is a fast, easy read, and I'm happy enough to roll along with it.
Up next:
Cemetery boys by Aiden Thomas has been on my radar for what feels like aaaages (read: a year, but it was 2020, so like, a decade), and now grabbed it from the library because not-a-hugo finalist.
The city we became by N K Jemisin. I feel like I've started the ebook sample several times, and was both entranced but also somehow never finished said sample. I'm hoping the physical book from the library will help.
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger. Read the first 30 pages on the bus on the way home, and haven't gone back to it yet, although I do plan to give it the first 50. Most reviews on goodreads adore this, but a handful were like: "this reads much younger than it's actually pitched" and man, it…really does so far. The art style, the voice, the character urgently riding her bike somewhere, and later meeting her friend at the mall… Would make an excellent 14 yr old protagonist, but she's written as 17, and it's throwing me. I'm not yet sold on the 'find the truth of a family member's death' yet either.
Update: never got back to it, and as someone had reserved it, I returned it to the library without much of a pang. Politely leaving off my ballot, I guess.
Finished reading:
Finished-not-really: with one story to go, it's on the backburner while I read library books, so…
Homesick: stories by Nino Cipri. With one story to go, holy SHIT this was SO GOOD. Seven short stories. Several genuinely scary ("Dead air", I'm looking at you), all funny and tightly written. I would read the hell out of "Shape of my name" (time travel! trans character!) as an entire novel. I'd also love to read "Presque Vu" is another one I'd read as an entire novel (spirits/ghosts have started appearing everywhere, and have started haunting people in bizarre ways).
"Presque Vu" also had the amazing moment of a joke that had me (and the main character) laughing out loud as the side character who inadvertently delivered it, blinks and says "wait, why are you laughing?" Like, impressively good shit.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. Also finalist for the YA-not-Hugo. Read the first 50 pages, was willing to give it another 50, and now I'm nearly 200 in. I'm genuinely interested in Brianna's story, and finding out what happened to her mother (this 'find the truth of a family member's death' is working for me), being Black in an all-white, old-money, old-magic secret society, and in who her mother was.
I'm interested enough that I'm willing to slog through the "…would they really be telling her allll this Secret Society information?" exposition dumps. There's the occasional motivation silence (it was not at all clear how much she knew and what her initial intentions were when she rocked up to said Secret Society and knocked on the door, for example), but the main character's overarching goal is very clear, and there's enough moments of shining captivation (her meeting her new psych was excellent). I'm not entirely sure I'm going to make it through all 500 pages, but I look forward to picking it up each time which is a feeling I haven't had a while. So far, going on the ballot at the very least.
Updated with about 100 pages to go: It's an impressive debut, and I can see how it'd be a fantastic read if you'd become invested in the secret society, but I really, really wasn't. I was extremely here for Brianna, her grief, her mother, the friend with they/them pronouns, and the whole mother-related storyline, but that felt like less than 200 pages worth of a 500-page book. I'm at a bit of a sad loss as to why it needed to be that long, and that was 500 pages of the smallest published font I've seen in some time. Going on the ballot, though.
Currently reading:
Black sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. WELP, heads up for maiming of a child by a parent. It's the first chapter, and describes how said mentioned-on-the-blurb character became the way he is. It's skip-able if need be, and probably easier to read if you know the shape of it going in, but it was harrowing to come to cold.
21 May Update: I hadn't been hooked by page 50, but the opening had been so harrowingly effective that I decided to give it to page 100, and it finally clicked for me on page 77ish. I'm extremely here for Xiala (bisexual mermaid sea captain!) and Seraipo and the story of the sea crossing. I care not at all about the Sky Temple whatevers, which might be a problem later as those stories are about to collide. But this is a fast, easy read, and I'm happy enough to roll along with it.
Up next:
Cemetery boys by Aiden Thomas has been on my radar for what feels like aaaages (read: a year, but it was 2020, so like, a decade), and now grabbed it from the library because not-a-hugo finalist.
The city we became by N K Jemisin. I feel like I've started the ebook sample several times, and was both entranced but also somehow never finished said sample. I'm hoping the physical book from the library will help.
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