Review of A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher, read by Patricia Santomasso

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

by T. Kingfisher
read by Patricia Santomasso

Tantor Audio, October 2021. 8 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written March 30, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2020 Andre Norton Nebula Award Winner
2021 Locus Award Winner for Young Adult Fiction
2021 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Winner for Children’s Literature

I loved this book! I listened to it while driving to and from vacation, and it helped make the driving delightful. Patricia Santomasso’s English accent captured the voice and tone of the main character beautifully.

The book begins when 14-year-old Mona goes in to work in her aunt’s bakery in the wee hours of the morning — and finds a dead body! Even worse, when the authorities are alerted, they think Mona is suspicious because she’s a magic worker. Never mind that her magic is confined to working with bread.

Mona can make dough rise quickly, keep bread from burning, and even make gingerbread men dance. She’s got a sourdough starter in the basement named Bob that seems to be sentient. But she certainly wouldn’t be able to kill anyone with bread!

Fortunately, when Mona is brought before the duchess, things get straightened out — but that’s only the beginning. More magic workers are dying, and Mona, even confined to bread magic, may be a target. And things keep going and escalating — until the fate of the entire city may depend on Mona using bread magic to defend against an invading army.

This book is just so much fun. Mona is resourceful and compassionate and knows her own limits. The book is full of humor and joy as we read about a worthy heroine thrust into impossible situations and figuring out how to do her best.

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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 I Have No Secrets, by Penny Joelson

Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

I Have No Secrets

by Penny Joelson

Sourcebooks Fire, 2019. Originally published in 2017 in Great Britain. 288 pages.
Review written December 4, 2020, from a library book

I Have No Secrets is a Rear Window type thriller for teens. The main character is Jemma, a 16-year-old with cerebral palsy. She can’t speak or control her muscles, but she is fully intelligent. She has a loving long-term foster family with two other special-needs siblings. Even eye-movement technology was not able to help her communicate.

And Jemma’s aide Sarah has a sinister boyfriend. Because Jemma can’t communicate, when no one is around, this boyfriend, Dan, tells Jemma his secret – that he’s the one who murdered a teen boy in the neighborhood recently. He enjoys telling Jemma he’d be happy to put her out of her misery, too.

Unfortunately, Jemma also knows that Sarah is cheating on Dan, having never broken up with Richard, her earlier boyfriend. When Sarah disappears after going to a concert with Richard, Jemma knows who to suspect, but she has no way of telling anyone. But then her family hears about a new technology that can use sniffing to communicate, which might be able to help Jemma. In their happiness, they mention it to Dan, who says he’s worried about Sarah’s disappearance.

Okay, the plot is a little bit predictable, but it’s carried out in a way that helps you understand Jemma’s life and relationships when she can’t communicate with anyone. The reader has to have some suspension of disbelief, since it’s told in present tense from Jemma’s perspective – even while she’s unable to communicate. But it does help you understand what that experience would be like.

This would be an interesting follow-up to Out of My Mind, which is a book about a younger girl with cerebral palsy becoming able to communicate. If nothing else, both books help the reader empathize with someone with a sharp brain being completely underestimated because of bodily limitations.

pennyjoelson.co.uk
FIREreads.com

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Review of The City Beautiful, by Aden Polydoros

Historical, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The City Beautiful

by Aden Polydoros

Inkyard Press, 2021. 462 pages.
Review written February 1, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2022 Sidney Taylor Award Winner, Young Adults
2021 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction

The City Beautiful is set in 1893 Chicago, during the World’s Fair. Alter Rosen works in a print shop, scraping and saving to bring his mother and sisters to America from Romania, still haunted by the death of his father during their voyage to America.

Then Alter’s best friend Yacov is found dead. Alter hadn’t even been able to admit to himself that he was in love with Yacov. He’s convinced this is connected to the disappearances of other Jewish boys in the neighborhood, but the police scoff at the idea.

And then when Alter is trying to tend Yacov’s body, he gets possessed by Yacov’s dybbuk. He is haunted by Yacov’s memories and a compulsion to find the man who killed Yacov — and his family back in Russia. It’s clear that if Alter doesn’t fulfill this mission soon enough, the dybbuk will take over, and they will both die.

So we’ve got a mystery with some twists and turns. Along the way, we learn about the horrible hatred that followed the Jewish people across the ocean. And a young gay teen trying to come to terms with his emotions. And a young man trying to survive in America and make a home for his family.

The author helps you understand the world of 1893 Chicago and what kids and immigrants were up against, simply trying to survive. One of Alter’s friends works for an anarchist newspaper, and we’ve got background about that movement as well.

This is an atmospheric historical mystery with heart.

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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 Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao

Science Fiction, Teen Fiction Review 0

Iron Widow

by Xiran Jay Zhao

Penguin Teen, 2021. 394 pages.
Review written January 27, 2022, from my own copy sent by the publishers for the 2022 Cybils
2022 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction

Iron Widow is about an angry young woman who starts out seeking vengeance and moves on to destroy the patriarchy. It’s set in a completely different world, but with a culture reminiscent of elements of Chinese history.

Huaxia is besieged by aliens called Hunduns, made of spirit metal. But pilots can fight them, using their qi to control giant Chrysalises to battle and destroy the Hunduns. But pilots can’t channel all that qi alone. They need a pilot-concubine in the cockpit next to them, contributing qi and helping to channel it. There’s one major problem: More often than not, the concubine can’t handle that much qi and dies.

Zetian’s older sister was sold off by her family to be a pilot-concubine, but she didn’t even live long enough to die in battle before the pilot, one of the biggest celebrities in the country, killed her. So now Zetian is determined to enlist as a concubine — and kill him. But before she has the chance to carry out her vengeance, the alarm goes off and they’re pulled into battle. And it turns out that Zetian’s qi is so strong, the one who is overwhelmed and ends up dead is the pilot.

But that’s not the end for Zetian. Next, the army matches her up with the Iron Demon, a man who murdered his family before he became the most powerful pilot of them all. And he is not what Zetian expects. But the more involved she gets, the more she finds out about the pilot system and how it treats girls as disposable.

Zetian herself has bound and broken feet, so it’s always painful to walk. Her feet were broken by her grandmother when she was five years old, so that she would be refined and acceptable to men.

This book has a love triangle with a rich boy Zetian has known for years, but the love triangle has bonds of love (and off-page sex), rather than jealousy, between all three. I tried not to think about whether it would be likely that all three would feel that way about each other. We do see Zetian learn to see and understand more deeply than externals.

Much more disturbing for me, there’s a scene where the main characters torture and kill someone. This person has tortured many others and deserves whatever he gets, but I’m from the Don’t-Sink-To-Their-Level school of thought. I think an atrocity is still an atrocity, even if the victim has committed multiple atrocities himself.

That scene does highlight how horribly the people currently in power are using their power — and that Zetian will do absolutely anything to fight back. She goes from wanting vengeance for her sister to wanting to topple the entire system and save more girls from being sacrificed to the system. And she’d like to win back the province of Zhou from the Hunduns as well. She does an amazing job of defeating the bad guys, and you can’t help but root for her.

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Review of The Mirror Season, by Anna-Marie McLemore

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Mirror Season

by Anna-Marie McLemore

Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan), 2021. 311 pages.
Review written January 15, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2022 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction

Wow. This book is transcendent and magical. But also horribly tough.

It begins with a warning. I’ll include it as well:

This book contains discussions of sexual assault and PTSD. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please know that there’s help, and there’s hope.

If you don’t know where to start, start with RAINN: rain.org/resources or (800)656-4673.

So, yes, this book involves sexual assault. As the book opens, Ciela is taking a boy to the hospital. She doesn’t know his name or even where he’s from. She tells the nurse, “They drugged him. We were at a party.” And then she gets out of there before the police show up. She knows he’ll have to wake up alone, knowing only that something bad happened to him. But she can’t stay.

And on the way back to her car, she sees a rose turn to mirrored glass. As she reaches for it, it shatters, and a shard gets into her eye. And as the days go by, she can feel its hard cold glass going into her heart.

And something bad happened to Ciela, too. Something so bad, she’s not yet ready to even tell herself exactly what happened. And she feels responsible for what happened to the boy, who turns out to be a new kid at her private school, on scholarship like she is.

Ciela works at her families pastelería. She has always been able to tell what pan dulce a customer wants or needs before they ask, inheriting that magic from her great-grandmother. But since the party, that ability is gone. And she keeps seeing flowers turn into mirrors. She wants to save anyone else from having one of those sharp pieces get into their heart.

This isn’t a retelling of The Snow Queen, but it has echoes of the Hans Christian Anderson story. The book is set in San Juan Capistrano, and the swallows, too, have a role in the story.

I usually have trouble with magical realism – I like my magic logical and orderly. But Anna-Marie McLemore has a deft hand, and I discovered that symbolism is the perfect way to deal with trauma and its aftermath. The magic in this book is powerful and helps Ciela reclaim her own body and find her voice and her gifts again.

Yes, this book deals with hard things and frightful events. But there’s healing and compassion here. The healing isn’t instant, and the trauma leaves marks, but it’s all helped along by magic, transforming about a book about something awful into one of the loveliest books I’ve read in a long time.

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 A Snake Falls to Earth, by Darcie Little Badger

Award Winners, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Snake Falls to Earth

by Darcie Little Badger

Levine Querido, 2021. 372 pages.
Review written February 14, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2021 National Book Award Longlist
2022 Newbery Honor Book

Because Darcie Little Badger’s debut novel, Elatsoe, was one of my favorite books I read in 2021, I had this book all checked out ready to read as soon as I finished reading for the Cybils Awards. So I felt like I’d won the jackpot when it won Newbery Honor, and I already had it checked out.

Like Elatsoe, this book features an older teen protagonist and is on the Young Adult shelves at my library, but has no sex or graphic violence and will appeal to middle school readers as well as older teens. Also like Elatsoe, A Snake Falls to Earth is steeped in Native American tales from the author’s Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas.

This book follows two stories. One is the story of Nina, a sixteen-year-old Lipan girl who lives in Texas and is worrying about a hurricane headed for her Grandma’s house. That house is on land that has long been in their family, and Grandma gets sick if she leaves it. The story her dying great-grandmother told Nina might shed some light on the reasons why, if Nina can manage to translate it.

The other story is about one of the animal people in the Reflecting World. In his true form, Oli is a cottonmouth snake. In his false form, he’s a boy with scales in place of eyebrows. When we first meet Oli, his mother has sent him away from home, and Oli has adventures looking for a place of his own. He makes friends along the way, and when one of those friends gets in trouble, Oli is willing even to make the dangerous journey to Earth to help.

And of course those stories come together in unexpected and delightful ways when Oli makes it to Earth.

Something I loved about Elatsoe was that kids didn’t hide magical events from the adults in their lives, and that’s true in this book, too. There’s a strong sense of community, including parents and elders. Altogether, this is a magical adventure that feels like a yarn you could hear at a storyteller’s feet.

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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 Vespertine, by Margaret Rogerson

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Vespertine

by Margaret Rogerson

Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster), 2021. 387 pages.
Review written January 24, 2022, from a library book.
2022 Cybils Young Adult Speculative Fiction Winner
Starred Review

Vespertine is set in a version of medieval Europe troubled by spirits of the dead. Artemisia, a girl with the Sight, lives at a convent in Loraille, training to be a Gray Sister who cleanses the bodies of the deceased so that their spirits won’t possess the living. Before Artemisia came to the convent, she was possessed by an Ashgrim, a spirit that had died in fire. The nuns are helping her trauma heal, and she only wants to live a quiet life in the convent.

Then the convent is attacked by an army of possessed soldiers. They need to use the relic of Saint Eugenia, which holds a powerful revenant. But when the wielder of the relic dies in the fight, someone must take control of the relic and save the convent. Artemisia is the person it falls to.

And so begins Artemisia’s story. When she wakes from the battle, she’s bound and being taken to the capital city to have the revenant exorcised and sent back to the finger bone of Saint Eugenia. But the revenant doesn’t want to go back. And Artemisia doesn’t want to be exorcised. They come to an agreement. But they also discover that Old Magic is being used in the capital city and many people may be killed and devoured. Can Artemisia save the country?

Artemisia is a wonderful and flawed heroine. She got intense social anxiety and can’t handle being around people, but she’s hailed as a saint. The world-building in this book is fascinating and we gradually learn the different orders of spirits and the rules for dealing with them. And the conversations between Artemisia and the revenant inhabiting her mind are wonderful, full of spice as they each try not to be controlled.

My plan as soon as my Cybils reading is done is to read Margaret Rogerson’s other books. It had wonderfully crafted fantasy with all the details holding together and making sense. (I always appreciate that!) And the characters made me want to spend more time in this world. (Well, not actually – I wouldn’t want to live in a world with all those spirits of the dead. But I enjoyed reading about it.)

MargaretRogerson.com
Simonandschuster.com/teen

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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 Excalibur Curse, by Kiersten White, read by Elizabeth Knowelden

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Excalibur Curse

Camelot Rising, Book Three

by Kiersten White
read by Elizabeth Knowelden

Listening Library (Penguin Random House), 2021. 10 hours, 55 minutes.
Review written January 14, 2022, based on a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

The Excalibur Curse is the conclusion to the amazing Camelot Rising Trilogy and was everything I hoped it would be.

The entire trilogy stands everything you know about Arthurian Legend on its head. In this volume, Guinevere has trapped her loyal knight Lancelot in a shield dome protecting Camelot while she sets off to find out who she really is – she has known all along that she was not the real Guinevere.

Or is she? In this book, Guinevere finds out exactly how she came to be and the terrible cost for her identity. She wants to make it right.

But there are dark forces at work, and Guinevere has trouble knowing who to trust. So many with great power do not care about little humans. Guinevere’s purposes throughout this book get twisted and diverted, but she’s always trying to do what’s right.

Guinevere makes a new friend in this volume, Feena, a princess of the northern kingdom who is at first her captor. I am crazy about every word of Elizabeth Knowelden’s narration, but I especially loved Feena’s Scottish accent representing the northerners.

I don’t want to say too much since this is the third volume of a trilogy that you should definitely read in order. Let me just say that this trilogy will forever change the way I think about King Arthur’s court. It brings a feminine and compassionate outlook to the whole story and shows the power of being a human girl – a power that is often overlooked.

Such a wonderful trilogy! I can say that confidently after now finishing the whole thing. And I do recommend listening to it because Elizabeth Knowelden’s narration is unbeatable. I listened to this even when I should have put it off because of award reading I had to do. Magnificent in every way, but it also makes you think about the human cost in epic history.

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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 Beasts and Beauty, by Soman Chainani

Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Beasts and Beauty

Dangerous Tales

by Soman Chainani
illustrated by Julia Iredale

Harper, 2021. 320 pages.
Review written January 6, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2021 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #7 Teen Fiction

This is a book of fairy tales – delightfully twisted, sinister fairy tales. I had read the first few stories some weeks before, but it ended up being the last book I finished in 2021 – I knew from the beginning that I’d want it to be a Sonderbooks Stand-out.

Here’s how the first story, “Red Riding Hood,” begins:

On the first day of spring, the wolves eat the prettiest girl.

They warn the town which girl they want, slashing the door to her house and urinating on the step. No one sees the wolves, just as no one sees the dew before it sops the grass. As winter wanes, the town thinks the curse is broken, seduced by the mercy of spring. But then the marking comes. Sometimes a few weeks before she will be eaten, sometimes a few days, for wolves decide on a prey in their own time. But once a girl is chosen, she is theirs. Neither child nor family can appeal. On the eve of spring, the wolves howl for their meal and the town marshals her to the edge of the forest and sends her in. Fail to deliver her and worse things will come than the loss of a pretty girl, though no one knows what these worse things could be. Soon the second howl echoes from the forest’s belly: quieter, sated, the wolves’ work done. The people disperse. The girl forgotten. A price to pay for time unfettered.

It’s unquestionably a sinister beginning. But the weak and apparently powerless have a way of triumphing in these stories.

We’ve got Snow White with black skin, Rapunzel’s witch a man, Jack of the Beanstalk looking for his missing father, living with an abusive mother, Hansel and Gretel’s missing mother a baker living in a house of sweets, a new twist on Wendy’s adventures with Peter Pan.

“Dangerous” is a good choice for describing these tales. They’re not the fairy tales you’ve heard before. They’re subversive and triumphant.

somanchainani.com
evernever.com
harpercollinschildrens.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 Blackout

Audiobooks, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Blackout

by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon

performed by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Dion Graham, Imani Parks, Jordan Cobb, Shayna Small, A. J. Beckles, and Bahni Turpin

HarperAudio, 2021. 6 hours, 55 minutes.
Review written December 30, 2021, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2021 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Teen Fiction

This is a lovely collection of six love stories written by six outstanding authors for young adults. All the stories are set on the day of a major blackout in New York City, and all the teens are Black. All the couples are also gravitating toward a block party supposed to happen in Brooklyn that night.

But given those constraints, we’ve got lots of variety. One story is presented in five acts as the couple attempts to walk across New York City from Harlem to Brooklyn to get home. They had recently broken up after years together, and now they’re stuck with each other again when the subways aren’t running. Another story has a boy helping another boy in the dark of the subway — and he’s only beginning to admit to himself that he’s attracted to that boy. One story takes place on a tour bus with a class from Jackson, Mississippi, exploring New York. There’s a love triangle on the bus. Another girl is helping out residents of a retirement home when she finally meets the girl her grandfather’s been telling her about. One girl wants to get to the party to confront her ex and get him to take her back. That plan is disrupted by the driver of the car she hired. Another couple have been friends for years and now they’re on a quest to settle a bet in the dark in New York Public Library after they were supposed to leave with everyone else.

All of the stories are charming, and all of them are fun to listen to. Tiffany D. Jackson’s story in five acts begins the collection, and then another act is presented in between the other stories. Each story happens a little bit later in that fateful evening as we hear about the couple walking across the city. And as that couple progresses through the city, they come near each other couple along the way. The listener gets a sense of walking through the city, but focusing in on side stories along the way.

And as they chose outstanding writers for this collection, they chose amazing narrators for the audiobook. This collection is a complete delight.

epicreads.com
harperaudio.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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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