Review of A Thousand Steps Into Night, by Traci Chee

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Thousand Steps Into Night

by Traci Chee

Clarion Books, 2022. 373 pages.
Review written October 7, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

From the very beginning, I felt pulled into a fairy tale. Here are the wonderful first few paragraphs:

Long ago, in the noble realm of Awara, where all creation, from the tallest peaks to the lowliest beetles, had forms both humble and divine, there lived an unremarkable girl named Otori Miuko. The daughter of the innkeeper at the only remaining guesthouse in the village of Nihaoi, Miuko was average by every conceivable standard — beauty, intelligence, the circumference of her hips — except one.

She was uncommonly loud.

Once, when she was two years old, her mother was wrestling her into one of the inn’s cedar tubs when Miuko, who had no plans for a bath that day, screamed so violently that the foundations shook, the bells rang in the nearby temple, and a respectable chunk of the dilapidated bridge spanning the river a full quarter-mile away let out a horrified groan and slid, fainting, into the water.

That was mere coincidence. Miuko had not, in fact, been the cause of an earthquake (at least not in this instance), but several of the priests, upon hearing of her peculiar vocal faculties, rushed to exorcise her all the same. No matter what spells tthey chanted or incense they burned, however, they were ultimately disappointed to discover that she was not, in fact, possessed. Instead of a demon, what her parents had on their hands was merely a loud child. Worse, a loud girl.

As you may guess, through the book, Miuko continues to be distinguished by qualities that don’t fit the expectations of the culture around her for a girl of the serving class. And it’s lovely to watch Miuko becoming more comfortable with who she is.

As the story begins, Miuko is met on the road by a death demon, who curses her with a kiss. The soles of Miuko’s feet turn bright blue, and wherever she steps, plants die. Worse, the blue color starts traveling up her legs. If it continues, she’ll become a death demon herself.

So in order to try to free herself from the curse and keep her humanity, Miuko must travel a thousand steps to the temple of the December God. Fortunately, she finds companions along her way, beginning with a magpie spirit who can take the form of a boy. Unfortunately, she also gets the attention of a demon inhabiting the body of a prince, and he wants to stop her.

It makes for a wonderful quest to heal Miuko’s curse, and ultimately to save the nation. The Japanese-inspired background of this fairy tale-type story gives it beautiful atmosphere.

The one thing I wasn’t crazy about is that there’s a time travel paradox in the middle of the book, and none of the characters comment on it at all, but just accept it as magic. Honestly, by glossing over it and not trying to explain it, the author pretty much pulls it off. But I’m persnickety about things like that, and it detracted just a tiny bit for me. But I still highly recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy.

tracichee.com
epicreads.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Pride and Premeditation, by Tirzah Price, read by Morag Sims

Austenalia, Historical, Mystery, Teen Fiction Review 0

Pride and Premeditation

by Tirzah Price
read by Morag Sims

HarperAudio, 2021. 8 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written October 2, 2022, from a library eaudiobook

I always enjoy Jane Austen spin-offs. This book takes all the characters from my favorite Jane Austen book, Pride and Prejudice, and places them in a murder mystery.

They’re in a different social setting than before. Lizzie’s father Mr. Bennet is a barrister, owning the firm Longbourn and Sons, where Lizzie helps out and wants an official position. Instead she must endure it when Mr. Collins, a distant relative who will inherit the firm, takes credit for her work. Her father challenges her to solve a case using logic to prove herself.

And then she hears about the case of the murder of Mr. Hurst. His brother-in-law Mr. Bingley is accused of the murder. Lizzie hopes to insert herself into the case, but they have engaged the services of his friend Mr. Darcy, who works for the much larger legal firm, Pemberley.

What follows is a convoluted and melodramatic case. At first, I didn’t much like this version of Elizabeth Bennet. She didn’t seem nearly as clever, and was mostly jumping to conclusions in her attempts to sleuth. (Of course, I expected her to jump to the wrong conclusion about Mr. Wickham.)

The author does admit in a note at the end that a woman could not have done the things Lizzie does in this book. But beyond that, the solution to the case seemed a bit coincidental and convoluted.

But when I stopped worrying about the logic behind things, I had to admit it was a fun ride. And it’s always fun to watch Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy gradually change their opinions of one another, whatever the setting.

tirzahprice.com

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Review of Trajectory, by Cambria Gordon

Award Winners, Historical, Mathematical, Teen Fiction Review 0

Trajectory

by Cambria Gordon

Scholastic Press, 2024. 285 pages.
Review written January 24, 2025, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.
Winner, Mathical Book Prize, High School

My committee just selected this as a Mathical Book Prize Winner, so I’m going to post a review. It’s historical nonfiction about a teenage girl named Eleanor who gets selected to work as a human computer calculating firing tables during World War II.

I’d had no idea such work happened, and that part was super interesting. Later, Eleanor gets selected to go to a desert base and help figure out how to improve the Norden bombsight. And she meets a handsome pilot while she’s there.

The setting is fascinating, based in historical fact that I’d known nothing about, and it’s always lovely to find a book that features a mathematician.

I did have some reservations. Her mathematical “gift” is portrayed as a rather mystical thing that comes and goes, and I didn’t like that portrayal. And I’m skeptical of the details about the Norden bombsight (the kind of development done seems to have mostly happened in the 1930s) and completely failed to suspend disbelief for a climactic scene where they needed a mathematician to save the day.

But – that’s why we choose winners via committee! The vast majority reminded me that this is historical fiction. And mathematics certainly go into bomber technology. And female mathematicians certainly did important work during World War II. And is it so terrible to read about a female mathematician saving the day with her mathematical skills, even if it feels a tiny bit implausible to me?

So anyway, I’m proud of our winner. You might need to suspend disbelief a bit, but there’s a good tale here about using math to win the day. And this year had more high school titles to consider than any other year I’ve served on the Mathical committee, which was a wonderful milestone.

cambrialgordon.com

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Review of Powerless, by Lauren Roberts

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Powerless

by Lauren Roberts
read by Chase Brown and Cecily Bednar Schmidt

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. 17 hours, 28 minutes.
Review written February 20, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.

I only review books I like. That has always been true. I don’t ever want to imply that my judgment is better than people who like the book – there are always some people. And I don’t really want authors to find a bad review of their book on my site. Lately, if I have too many reservations, I’ve decided just to pass on reviewing the book. The trouble with that is that later on I forget what my reservations were, and just remember a general negative. So – with Powerless, I decided to review it on my blog only. I won’t even link to the review on social media, so think of this as bonus content for those who subscribe to my blog.

All that said – I did enjoy the book, and I did listen to all 17.5 hours of it. Well, the second time I tried. This book is wildly popular with our library customers, and since I love YA Fantasy novels, I decided to find out what all the fuss was about. But when I started listening to it this time, it was just familiar enough for me to remember that I’d tried listening to it earlier and had given up after several chapters. This time I was feeling more tolerant of tropes and listened to the whole thing. And enjoyed it.

But let me talk about tropes. This one has All the Tropes. We start out with the noble thief, living on the streets, expert at thieving and fighting – but good at heart, forced into it because her father was murdered when she was thirteen.

Then there’s the trope of everyone has a magic power. In this case, the explanation is that there was a plague that killed off most of the population, and those that survived have magic powers. But those who do not have magic powers – Ordinaries – are considered diseased and a blight on the kingdom and must be executed.

That part – executing the outcast group – is a trope, too. But it strikes way too close to home as blaming a group of outcasts for all society’s ills is a hallmark of fascism and is way, way too relevant today.

Another trope is the evil, horrible, repressive king (the one whose idea it is to execute all the Ordinaries) – but with a son who is good despite his evil father. Well, in this case, they’re also half-heartedly going for a love triangle trope – so the king has two sons, both who end up interested in our heroine. But I say it’s half-hearted, because only the younger son is also a viewpoint character, and it’s with him that we get lots of talk about “wanting” each other.

Let me add in here that there’s no sex in this book, but oh my goodness there’s enormous sexual tension – even some sleeping together in vulnerable situations where sex doesn’t happen. Lots of touching in provocative ways. Going out on a limb, I’m pretty sure there’s eventually going to be sex between those characters or the readers will be up at arms.

But the trope I didn’t like at all was the competition where lots of the competitors kill each other. Because again, it was half-hearted. Called the “purging trials,” it was never remotely clear what the point was. We didn’t even find out who won at the end – because votes from spectators are part of the score, and they never told us how that went, even though we found out who finished the last trial first. We also didn’t get the scoring details of the earlier trials. We were told that the “future enforcer” needed to win to impress the people of the kingdom – but not clear why or what would happen if he didn’t. Or what the winner even wins. And it’s clear from the start that many die in the Purging Trials – but many don’t die. I never understood why killing other competitors was necessary or expected. With the kingdom watching, did it ever occur to anyone to demand that those who murder other contestants be held accountable? And even if there’s immunity from killing someone in the trials, why wouldn’t many of the competitors simply refuse to do that? Our protagonists make alliances with some of the other competitors, but others seem to be fair game – and part of the way they’re shown as evil is because they attack friends of our protagonists. Because that’s worse than the killing our main characters do? It just all feels like an excuse to have some killing and show how evil the king is who encourages that – but also the evil characters who attack the people we like.

And oh yes, the thing about the Future Enforcer. He’s the second son of the king. His older brother will be the next king – and he will be his brother’s Enforcer. What I never understood is why was he not already considered the Enforcer? There’s never any mention of a current Enforcer, but he’s already going around finding Ordinaries to execute and torturing people in the dungeon. Even thinks about torturing as a way to blow off steam after the trials. I don’t understand why he’s going to hold this title – only after his father dies.

And speaking of torturing and killing – Okay, his horrible father is the one who forced him to learn to be a torturer and an executioner. Yes, that’s all very awful. But it’s kind of a great big romantic red flag? It seems like no matter what your body’s telling you and no matter how attractive you find him or how sorry for him you feel – it’s going to be fairly easy not to fall in love with him. (Never mind the big thing she only remembered at the end. Really?) So forgive me if I’m not all that excited about that relationship. And that’s disregarding the fact that I despise men who call women they are barely acquainted with “Darling.”

Another trope is dearly loved people being killed or nearly killed. More than one. And the one toward the end of the book, I never understood any justification for calling the person a “criminal.” Just to show what an awful person the king is?

Yes, the book is incredibly violent. The future Enforcer isn’t the only one who kills people. But they’re Bad People because they killed people our protagonists cared about.

So, yes, I had a bunch of issues with this book. But I finished it, and I enjoyed listening. I might even listen to more books in the series – there’s a novella, a sequel, and the third book of the trilogy coming out soon. Can I set aside all my reservations to find out what happens next? I’m not sure, but now at least I can look up this review and remember what happened in the first book.

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Review of Violet Made of Thorns, by Gina Chen

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Violet Made of Thorns

by Gina Chen
read by Emily Woo Zeller

Listening Library, 2022. 11 hours, 5 minutes.
Review written December 11, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Violet has been a seer for the kingdom of Aveny since the day six years ago when she was ten and she used what she learned in a vision to save the young prince’s life.

Since then, she’s learned to please the king by lying about her visions and telling people what they want to hear and what the king wants them to hear. This pleases the king, but doesn’t please Prince Cyrus, and they’ve got a prickly relationship.

When the previous seer died, she prophesied a curse on Cyrus that can only be lifted with the help of his bride, but Cyrus has been slow about choosing a bride. The king wants him to hurry up about it.

And then Violet dreams that if Cyrus doesn’t die before the end of the summer, she will burn. And a way is given for her to kill him. But meanwhile, there’s a masked ball and a noble lady from the neighboring kingdom. The king wants Violet to convince Cyrus this lady is his true love.

But that lady is not what she seems. And on the night of the ball, beasts appear, and they go after Cyrus and Violet. Why does Cyrus protect Violet, endangering himself?

This book is full of plots and counterplots. Violet’s dreams are full of visions, but what do they mean and what should she do? There’s also sizzling sexual tension — in a relationship that doesn’t seem like a good choice for anybody, but seems impossible to stop.

It all barrels along with twists and turns to a bloody and surprising conclusion. We’ve got court intrigue, romantic tension, uncontrolled magic, confusing visions, fairy glamours, and the fate of nations in a novel that you won’t want to stop listening to.

actualgina.com

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Review of Dispatches from Parts Unknown, by Bryan Bliss, read by Joy Nash

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dispatches from Parts Unknown

by Bryan Bliss
read by Joy Nash

Greenwillow Books, 2024. 7 hours, 19 minutes.
Review written February 10, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Odyssey Award Honor Audiobook, Young Adult

I don’t think I can adequately express how much I loved this sweet audiobook. Because my favorite thing about it sounds hokey – and it simply wasn’t.

It’s been three years since Julianna’s father died, and she’s still grieving him all the time. She’s given up explaining to therapists about the voice of the old retired professional wrestler she hears in her head all the time. And that! That is the awesome thing about this book. The narrator reads the running commentary from The Masked Man with a gravelly voice that is always easy to distinguish from Julie’s thoughts and carries lots of humor about the situations she finds herself in – like what he really thinks of the yoga instructor her Mom is dating.

The Masked Man encourages Julie to hang out in the Mall of America after school at the Orange Julius where her best friend Max works. She gets an extra orange julius for The Masked Man. Max’s parents are long-time friends of Julie’s parents, so he knows what she’s been going through. And he’s also a wrestling fan, so he understands how she misses watching wrestling with her dad.

So Julie’s carrying on, outwardly getting by okay, when her favorite teacher twists her arm into being on the prom committee – and she makes a new friend, Bri. And typical high school things ensue, with the hilarity of two skater boys trying to switch the prom theme from “Enchanted Gardens” to “Top Gun Prom.” And Max and Bri get interested in each other, and her mother’s boyfriend shows his cracks. And the Legend is making a grand wrestling comeback in the Mall of America on Prom Night!

And – it’s all just SO sweet, tender, and so much fun. I don’t feel like that description adequately expresses how much. I think it did help me understand how my own adult child has gotten interested in Japanese wrestling, because Julie’s doing an extended essay on the stories of wrestling and what they mean to believers and how it helps them deal with reality. As well as the sheer joy of a shared fandom.

I do recommend listening to this book because the commentary in the voice of The Masked Man is just plain charming. (I continue to be convinced that Odyssey Honor Audiobooks are always good.)

bryanbliss.com

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Review of Celestial Monsters, by Aiden Thomas,

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Celestial Monsters

by Aiden Thomas
read by André Santana

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2024. 12 hours, 36 minutes.
Review written January 25, 2025, from a library eaudiobook

I finally got the sequel to The Sunbearer Trials read. It’s been a while, but it didn’t take too long to remember what happened at the end of the other book before those dread words “To Be Continued.” Let’s just say that their world is on the brink of the apocalypse, and Teo needs to save it, with the help of his best friend and the semidios boy he’s in love with.

I still enjoy the world of this story – a modern world, but it’s ruled by gods, which I think are mostly from Mayan mythology. There are quite a few transgender characters, one who switches to gender neutral pronouns in this book, which everyone is agreeable to – and it’s awfully refreshing.

The story itself is a bit too much like an older Rick Riordan book (older because more swearing) for me to get hugely invested. I have trouble with the mythology that requires human sacrifice – or any sacrifice – and I can’t quite understand how any world could get by a couple weeks without the sun. Ummm, how does that work, even if the sun is really the sun god? It’s best not to ask and try to immerse yourself in the story.

Other than that, there were lots of fights with the powerful “Celestials” released by the failure at the end of the last book. And an overarching plan to make things right that left a lot to chance. There were relationship things going on, and one of the viewpoint characters was the person who caused all the trouble, and they were beginning to get an inkling that was probably a bad idea. Our main character figuring out that sacrificing a child of the gods every ten years was a bad idea didn’t hit me too hard, I’m afraid, because, Duh? (I know, it’s what they grew up with. But I wasn’t super satisfied with what the alternative was, either.)

All that said, it’s a fantasy story with a main character who has wings and can talk to birds – which may not be as good in a fight as the powers the other demigods have, but it seems like it’s a lot more fun.

aiden-thomas.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of On the Bright Side, by Anna Sortino

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

On the Bright Side

by Anna Sortino
read by Jesse Inocalla and Elizabeth Robbins

Listening Library, 2024. 8 hours, 41 minutes.
Review written January 17, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 CYBILS Award Finalist, Young Adult Fiction
2025 Schneider Family Honor Book, Teens

This is now the third Young Adult Fiction CYBILS Finalist I’ve read and oh my goodness, the second-round judges are going to have a difficult decision. I read Anna Sortino’s first book, Give Me a Sign, in 2023 for the Morris Award, and although it wasn’t a Finalist, let’s just say that I remembered it and wouldn’t have guessed it was a debut if I hadn’t been specifically reading debut novels.

That first one was about a group of deaf kids. This one features one deaf girl, Ellie, and begins when her boarding school that had immersive American Sign Language is being shut down – right before her Senior year of high school.

Ellie had gone to that school since she was twelve, and she’d been dating her boyfriend since then. But now he’s moving to the other side of the state, and he doesn’t want to try to keep things going long distance. So Ellie has to go to a school with hearing kids, and she’s been torn away from everything she’s used to.

And her home isn’t a refuge. Ellie has a hearing aid and cochlear implants and she reads lips, so her parents never bothered to learn sign language. Her hearing sister is heading off to college, so her parents are stuck with her, and it feels to Ellie like they’re obviously settling for the less preferred daughter. So she’s got a lot she’s not happy about that first day of high school.

Our other narrator is Jackson. He was on the soccer team last year, and just as he was about to kick the ball and win the state championship, his leg went numb and crumpled on him. He was fine afterward, so everyone thought he just choked. But more and more weird things happen to him. His parents are both health nuts who urge him to work through anything.

And he’s a nice guy, involved in lots of things at the high school. So the guidance counselor asks him to help make the new deaf student comfortable and give her a tour of the school.

The book is about their budding relationship, but meanwhile, Jackson is having more and more weird things going on with his body – numbness, vertigo, fatigue, and more. On a day that he’d planned to go to a museum with Ellie for extra credit, he ends up with severe vertigo and vomiting. His parents take him to Urgent Care, where he’s given a CT scan, which is normal. By the time the doctor sees him, the vertigo has passed. So they tell him it’s probably benign positional vertigo and give him some exercises to do.

My goodness I wasn’t prepared for how hard that scene would hit me! The thing is – back in 2011, when I was 47, I had severe vertigo and vomiting – and the E.R. did a CT scan, but by the time I saw the doctor, I felt better. They told me my migraines had changed and sent me home – and it turned out to have been a stroke, which we learned when I had another worse one a couple days later. So I was just cringing for Jackson when I heard this scene. No! Don’t send him home!

And Jackson continues to have strange symptoms – and in the present day, I’ve been having a set of strange symptoms – not exactly like Jackson’s, but including vertigo – and that part just built tension in me. Especially with his parents urging him to “shake it off” and not be lazy.

I won’t tell you his diagnosis, but it’s all described so vividly that I wasn’t surprised when the author said in a note at the end that this is a condition she shares.

The book is an excellent story about two teens getting to know each other and dealing with some hard things – but it’s also a great look at disability and how it’s not obvious when you’re looking at someone that they have a disability. And it’s also not their fault. Sometimes life throws hard things at a person, but you keep your identity. Ellie is good at giving Jackson perspective on his new disability, and it all unfolds in a realistic way as they navigate what it means for their relationship.

annasortino.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Sunbearer Trials, by Aiden Thomas

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Sunbearer Trials

by Aiden Thomas

Feiwel and Friends, 2022. 405 pages.
Review written October 28, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s another wonderful fantasy with a transgender character front and center. As with the outstanding book Cemetery Boys, there is again a gendered element to the magic. In Teo’s case, he’s the son of Quetzal, the goddess of birds, and has wings. Those wings are brown and dull-colored like a female bird, even though he’s been taking testosterone for about a year. So instead of binding his breasts, which he no longer needs to do after top surgery, he binds his wings to hide them.

But that isn’t central to the plot (and we know from the beautiful cover picture that’s going to work out). What the book is mainly about are the Sunbearer Trials.

As a prologue, we get the story of how the gods made humans and the land of Reina del Sol. There’s also a hierarchy of gods, which is explained, with the Gold gods next after Sol and the Jade gods after that. Then there are the Obsidian gods who are selfish and destructive and whom Sol bound in the heavens by sacrificing their life.

Every ten years, there must be a new sacrifice to renew that protection. And to choose the sacrifice, ten children of gods compete in the Sunbearer Trials. The winner becomes the Sunbearer, who goes to the cities of Reina del Sol with the renewed Sol Stone. The loser becomes the new sacrifice.

So it’s a little like the Hunger Games, except only one competitor dies.

With that mythical background, I was surprised to find the story is about a modern civilization with television and internet and posts going viral. But gods, dioses, live among humans. Teo is a semidios, one of the children of a god.

The Gold semidioses go to a special Academy to train to be heroes. With the abilities they inherit from their parents, it’s expected that they will spend their lives protecting humans, and they train for the Sunbearer Trials along the way. Teo’s mother Quetzal is a Jade goddess, so Jade has to go to public school with mortals. The only ability he inherited, besides his wings, is the ability to talk with birds.

Normally, all the competitors in the Sunbearer Trials are Gold semidioses. But this year, Teo is chosen, and so is thirteen-year-old Xio, the son of the god of Bad Luck. It doesn’t seem at all fair, since neither Teo nor Xio has been trained for the trials, so Teo is determined to help Xio not be the sacrifice, as well as trying to avoid it himself.

Warning: This book ends with the words To Be Continued. But the book itself tells about the Sunbearer Trials, which take place in five different cities of Reino Del Sol. So you learn much about that world along the way.

Teo isn’t the only queer character in the book, and nonbinary characters and people with two dads (for example) are considered completely normal, which is all lovely and refreshing. And one of the semidioses competing was Teo’s best friend when they were much younger, but ever since he started at the Academy, he treats Teo as if all that meant nothing.

This book reminded me very much of Rick Riordan books, since, after all, it involves half-gods. There’s also witty banter and smart aleck remarks between the characters. Which all is not necessarily my favorite kind of fantasy, but kids do like it, and I did love the inclusion of multiple genders as a matter of course. There were some details about the world that made me wonder, but it was so much fun hearing about the different gods’ cities, I didn’t let that bother me as much as I might have if I weren’t as invested in the story.

And yes, I will want to find out what happens next.

aiden-thomas.com
fiercereads.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Shut Up, This Is Serious, by Carolina Ixta, read by

Award Winners, Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

Shut Up, This Is Serious

by Carolina Ixta
read by Frankie Corzo

Quill Tree Books, 2024. 10 hours, 19 minutes.
Review written January 22, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
2025 Morris Award Finalist
2025 Pura Belpré Young Adult Author Award

Shut Up, This Is Serious is about a high school senior named Belén whose life seems like it’s falling apart. Her best friend Leti is pregnant, and Leti’s going to love that baby – but she hasn’t yet dared to tell her racist parents that her boyfriend, the baby’s father, is Black.

As for Belén – she stopped caring about classes last year when her father left them and took her mom’s savings. Belén feels like no one even sees her anymore. So when she finds a college guy who’s willing to have sex with her, she doesn’t let herself notice all the things that are wrong with that, because it makes the heaviness lift for a little while.

But when she learns she has to complete one major English assignment in order to save her grade and graduate, she’s also paired with a partner whose hopes of going to the college of his choice are riding on it, too.

And that description doesn’t do justice to all the ways the pressures on Belén are portrayed and interwoven. She does lots of coping in bad ways, but let me say that the story does end with a hopeful note, and it’s an earned hope through the novel.

I was on the Morris Award committee a year ago, so it’s fun to see what they’ve discovered this year. I’ll admit it wasn’t my favorite read – a little too painful to read about the ways she wasn’t coping well. But wearing my committee hat, I do want to say that this is an outstanding debut novel, with nuanced characters and situations, and I hope the first of many more to come from this author.

carolinaixta.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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