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A Few Cybils Reads – Part 2 (2019)

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West by Edith Pattou

Edith Pattou’s books are just not for me, I’ve concluded. I know that the first book in this (now) duology, East, made a big splash when it was published in 2003 and won all sorts of awards and critical acclaim. I read it in 2010, as an adult, and thought it was fine, but nothing more than that. Part of the problem stems from the story source: the Norwegian folk tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The premise of the enchanted bear forcing a young girl to spend a year with him, and the girl subsequently falling in love with him (as an animal) always rubbed me the wrong way. In most versions of the story, the bear sleeps in the same bed as the girl at night, not just in the same house. The implied assault overtones are too strong. Still, there are definitely ways to take an unsettling fairy tale and reinvent it in unique ways. I just didn’t find a whole lot that I loved in East, and my notes in Goodreads remind me that I listened to it on audio and didn’t care for the narrator.

I felt much the same about this sequel, West, with the added annoyance that it basically retold the same story as in East. The prince is kidnapped again by the Troll Queen, and Rose must travel to the ends of the earth to save him. One of my biggest annoyances in (unplanned) sequels is when the creator simply brings back the villain from the first book and expects it to feel like a new story. It doesn’t. This book in particular meandered a lot, with a lot of different points of view that didn’t contribute much to the story each time they were given page time. It felt overstuffed and slow, and once again, I didn’t care for the performance of the person who narrated Rose. Overall, this felt like an unnecessary book. I’d be interested to see what big fans of East felt about this one.

 

We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett

Debut author Bartlett tackles the Night Witches of World War II – the Soviet women pilots who flew nighttime combat missions and were the only women to officially serve in a combat capacity in the war. Bartlett’s world is held together by the Weave, and two types of magic can control it: Spark magic and Weave magic. Spark magic is a way of producing energy and is legal in the Union; Weave magic involves manipulating the fabric of the world itself and is forbidden. Only a few people have any sort of magic at all. When Revna is caught using Weave magic to save herself and others from a bombing, she feels her life may be over. Instead, she’s sent to become a pilot, where she will be paired with a Spark magic user. Together, the two types of magic can power and maneuver war planes that might be able to compete with the magical, terrifying planes of the enemy. Revna’s Spark partner is Linné, a girl who had disguised herself as a boy in order to fight and was caught. The two don’t get along at all, in part due to class differences (Revna is working class and the daughter of a traitor, and Linné upper class and the daughter of an honored general), and in part due to personality differences (Revna is less than patriotic due to her country’s treatment of her and her family and has no experience fighting in a war, whereas Linné is overconfident and has a massive superiority complex). Worst in Linné’s mind, Revna is physically disabled, which Linné regards as a liability.

Still, the two must work together; their lives, and the lives of their compatriots, are on the line each night. They’re also fighting against their own country in other ways: aside from the pervasive sexism any reader should expect, the soldiers have to contend with the Skarov, a secretive government division whose job is to hunt traitors. In Bartlett’s Union, just as in the real-world Soviet Union, no evidence is really needed for conviction. This creates an almost unbearable tension – there is nowhere any of the girls are truly safe.

I read this soon after reading A Thousand Sisters by Elizabeth Wein, a nonfiction account of the real Soviet airwomen during World War II. Having already read the true story added greatly to my appreciation of Bartlett’s twist. I knew which bits of Bartlett’s tale were based directly on the real Night Witches of the Soviet Union and their circumstances. It’s true that Soviet fighters who were shot down in enemy territory and survived would generally be executed as traitors. It’s true that the Night Witches were provided with planes that provided no protection if shot at. Certain characters in Bartlett’s book are stand-ins for real people. I was impressed by Bartlett’s attention to historical detail and how well she integrated her magical system into these real events. I fully believed that if magic existed in World War II Soviet Union, this was how events would have played out. This is a good pick for lovers of historical fantasy and women warriors, and I’d always recommend reading it in conjunction with Wein’s book – the two interact with each other so well.

Fireborne by Rosaria Munda

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Are you familiar with the concept of a book hangover? You read a book so good that after you finish, you have trouble getting through any other book, because nothing can compare. Fireborne gave me just such a book hangover. Since I finished reading it, I’ve read a chapter or two of five other books and have found myself putting them down and instead ruminating on Fireborne some more and wondering when the sequel will be out (sometime in 2020, I suppose). It’s the kind of book that reminds me why I love reading so much. It is that good.

In a previous life, before the revolution that toppled the ruling Triarchs and instituted a more equitable society where anyone – not just the nobility – could be chosen by a dragon and rise in society, Annie was a serf. Her family worked the land for a Triarch, one of the three rulers of the land who commanded great fire-breathing dragons. If serf families didn’t have enough of a harvest to tithe, they were punished. After a famine wipes out Annie’s family’s crops, the Triarch makes an example of them: he has his dragon burn them alive and makes six year old Annie watch.

Lee is the son of a ruling Triarch, a man who was murdered in his palace during the revolution, along with the rest of Lee’s siblings. Like Annie, child Lee watched it happen. He was almost murdered too, but the Protector – the leader of the Revolution – discovered what was happening and stopped it at the last moment. He quickly forgot about Lee, who was taken to an orphanage and from then on kept his true identity secret, for fear he would be executed if discovered.

Both children met at the same orphanage and grew close, having experienced similar traumas. Annie is the only one who knows who Lee really is, though neither has ever said it outright. They are now teenagers, chosen by dragons and in training to serve as Guardians, dragonriders who protect their nascent country of Callipolis. On the horizon are a series of battles that will determine who will be Firstrider – leader of the dragon fleet and likely next Protector. But this is not a book about a flying and fighting competition, though that aspect is certainly thrilling. Or rather, it’s not only about that. War is on the horizon – the ousted Triarchs may be dead, but some of their families made it out alive – and that fact will put strain on the baby country, with its high ideals and their imperfect implementation.

This is such a fun book. I’m writing about how fun it is first, because I want to emphasize that part of what makes this book so good is because it is a joy to read. It’s almost unbearably suspenseful at times. It had me racing through the pages, reading faster and faster at certain points so I could know what happened, but not wanting to read ahead because I might miss something equally important in the sections I skipped over. Munda is a top-notch plotter, and I was amazed and impressed by how the story twisted and turned but never felt anything less than authentic and genuinely motivated by her characters and their situations.

Munda’s world-building is fascinating and completely immersive. It’s some of the best fantasy world-building I’ve read in years, the kind that makes you sink into it and absorb it without even trying, without the need to backtrack and take notes and look at family trees and maps on endpapers (though don’t get me wrong, I love those kinds of things). I felt like I was living and breathing Callipolis. And despite the surface similarities to other dragon books, most notably in my experience Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, Munda’s dragons and her dragonriders feel fresh. They have different magical rules and an interesting culture as backdrop. She introduces the concepts of sparking and spilling over, both of which are completely new to me and help define this living, breathing world. (You’ll have to read the book to learn what they mean!)

And then there’s the deep stuff. Munda writes in her author’s note that she was inspired in large part by Plato’s Republic, which I have not read, but also by the concept in general of what happens after a revolution. Teens in young adult fiction often help to start revolutions, but what happens when the revolution is over? What happens when the revolutionaries have won and they have to turn their efforts to building a new, better government? Shades of the French and Russian revolutions and their subsequent aftermaths tinge her book, though there’s no direct parallel (so you can’t really look to history to guess what’s going to happen next). Munda unpacks all the possible problems that could arise, from the seemingly small (leftover prejudice against lower classes), to the potentially huge (family members of slaughtered rulers wanting revenge), to the most earth-shattering of all (what if the new regime isn’t any better than the old?).

Annie and Lee face really hard choices – and they don’t always make the right ones. Lee in particular is torn between loyalty to his family (and the visceral memory of what was done to them) and loyalty to a new way of life that he now mostly believes in. Annie has her own struggles, including an equally vivid memory of an atrocity committed upon her family. The choices these two teenagers must make in the midst of an impossible situation literally made me gasp out loud at a few points. And each choice leads to another, which leads to another, each more heartrending than the last. You will read this book with your heart in your throat.

All of the pieces of a really great fantasy come together in Fireborne: complex characters, interesting plot, vivid world-building, thorny themes, and elegant writing. And Munda makes it all seem effortless. I got lost in this book; I hope you will too.

I received an advance reader copy from the publisher. Fireborne publishes October 15.

The Brilliant Death by Amy Rose Capetta

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Set in a magical Italian-inspired land, Capetta’s high fantasy tackles gender identity and family loyalty. Teodora DiSangro is the daughter of a powerful man who controls a large swath of Vinalia. Vinalia is made up of five loosely connected lands each controlled by a member of the Five Families. The Capo, a man quickly rising to power in Vinalia, wants to join the disparate lands under one rule: his. He sends poisoned letters to the leaders of the five families, which kills most of them and gravely wounds Teo’s father. The Capo demands that a male representative of each family travel to his palace, where he will likely demand their fealty.

Rather than send the eldest boy in the family, Teo’s stepmother (not of the evil variety) elects to send Teo’s younger brother as representative, knowing that the elder is cruel and unsuitable for wielding power. But these plans go awry, and Teo finds herself needing to be the representative herself. Luckily for her, she is a strega: a witch/sorcerer/magic user. Most Vinalians believe streghe don’t exist, but Teo has been using her particular ability to change people into other objects – a punishment for those who cross her father – without anyone’s knowledge for years. And now Teo must perform an even greater change: transforming herself into a boy so she can fool the Capo, find the antidote for the poison, save her father’s life, and somehow prevent the Capo from taking over all of Vinalia.

Luckily, Teo befriends Cielo, a non-binary strega who can change their sex at will. Cielo teaches Teo how to change her body so it will pass as a boy’s in front of the Capo, and that’s when the adventure really gets rolling. Capetta herself identifies as non-binary, so it’s no surprise she has a deft touch with the gender identity issues she explores within the characters of Cielo, who has always seen themselves to be non-binary, and Teo, who comes to appreciate both aspects of her identity and both versions of her body. There’s romance between the two teens as well, which develops slowly and sweetly and authentically. I recommend reading Capetta’s interview with her partner, Cori McCarthy, at the B&N Teen Blog for more detail about the gender identity aspects of her story.

Beyond the gender identity exploration, though, Capetta’s plot also includes intricate political machinations, lies and betrayals, dangerous magic, and the explosive secret behind the “brilliant death” itself. It’s full of excitement, action, twists, and a decent amount of introspection and heartbreak as well. Her characters are well-drawn, and teens will easily empathize with Teo and want her to succeed despite the impossible situation she finds herself in.

Narrator Carlotta Brendan does a great Italian accent (at least to my non-Italian ears) and slightly voices each of the characters, adding to the texture of the story and helping it to come alive. I don’t think I’ve read another YA fantasy that feels this Italian. Capetta’s family is from Italy and she researched for five years, which shows in the details and believability of the world-building. This is a first recommendation for teens who love high fantasy and might want something a bit different from the usual fare.

Rule by Ellen Goodlett

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Goodlett brings teens a fast-paced high fantasy thriller about three girls from very different backgrounds within the fictional country of Kolonya: a Traveler (similar in description to the Romany people), a palace maid with higher aspirations, and a girl from a far-flung and almost forgotten section of the kingdom who is desperate to escape her abusive father. All three are brought to the King’s court in to learn that they are his illegitimate daughters and, now that the king’s only heir has died, must compete to earn the right to inherit the throne.

It’s a tremendous shock for all three, of course. At least one of the girls thought she knew her biological father already. But this is no ordinary story of competition a la The Hunger Games. Each girl has a deep, dark secret, and each begins receiving threatening messages – some in blood – soon after they arrive at the palace. The secrets are dark indeed, involving a copious amount of betrayal, death, and blood magic. The blood magic is an interesting world-building choice: all magic is done by cutting oneself to “tithe” blood, and some of it is done frequently and is a part of everyday life in Kolonya. But some blood magic is forbidden because of its effects, and it’s this blood magic that is most relevant and interesting. Initially a bit confusing, particularly the good magic vs. the bad magic, the magic system grows clearer as the novel progresses.

Rather than fall into the easy trope of having the girls willingly pit themselves against each other, Goodlett refreshingly has her characters do the opposite: join forces and work together to ferret out the blackmailer. Told in alternating close third person points of view, each girl’s voice is distinct and their predicaments sympathetic. Their interactions with each other – one girl’s assumptions of another, for example – illuminate how each is perceived by the public at large, often in a very different light from how we as readers first see them during their own close POVs. It’s a handy writing technique that reinforces the notion that people are, of course, more than what appears on the surface. Once the girls realize this about each other, they become a force to be reckoned with.

I listened to the audiobook version, and it’s a pretty good production with three narrators: Bahni Turpin, Lisa Flanagan, and Soneela Nankani. Turpin’s voice is always a standout, but I did have trouble distinguishing Flanagan’s and Nankani’s from each other. However, Goodlett’s mastery of her characters’ voices is good enough that I could pick up on the POV quickly anyway.

While many readers (including myself) may be frustrated by the ending, which resolves close to nothing, the story is gripping throughout. A planned duology, wise readers may want to wait to pick up this volume until the concluding volume is released in June (less than a year after the first book’s publication, much to my delight). This is a good pick for fans of Kendare Blake’s Three Dark Crowns, which never stays on the shelf for long at my library.

Top 10 Reads of 2018

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My annual Goodreads goal is 100 books, which I normally hit with no problem. Alas, this year was an off year for me in terms of pure numbers. By the end of the day on December 31, I estimate I’ll have read 80 books total. Still, my 2018 reading year was full of really great stuff. Here, in no particular order, are the ten titles I loved best, the ones that most affected me and that I find myself recommending to friends, family, and library patrons over and over again.

Books for Teens

Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough

McCullough’s debut novel is about Artemisia Gentileschi, a real painter from 17th century Rome who was raped as a teenager by a painter her father hired to tutor her. She  chose to prosecute her rapist, participating in the trial – an even more rare and difficult thing then than it is now. The transcripts of the trial survive to this day. Blood Water Paint is mainly a verse novel, but McCullough skillfully threads prose sections featuring Artemisia’s mother, who died when she was a small child, telling her the stories of Biblical heroines Susannah and and Judith throughout. The real Artemisia painted these two women many times, in ways that show their strength and autonomy rather than their victimhood or vulnerability. The technique is successful, placing Artemisia in a context where she believes she, too, can choose to embrace her power where she can find it.

The book is not all about the rape, though. It’s also about art, specifically painting, and about Rome in the 1600s and how women and girls navigated the limited paths available to them. Artemisia’s voice is young, sometimes naive, but never oblivious. She’s intelligent, angry, unsure, and enormously talented. McCullough never makes her too “modern;” she was really as remarkable as the book makes her out to be. McCullough’s verse is a just reflection of Artemisia’s artistic ability: technically excellent, expressive, and innovative. Readers who finish the book wondering what happened to Artemisia afterward will be happy to know that she lived a long time, that she continued to paint, and that her work hangs in museums all over the world.

 

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan

This book is so good, it’s the only title that can be found on both my and Kelly’s lists. I loved Pan’s writing, which is so lovely and lyrical and literary without becoming so dense that it’s a struggle to read. Her protagonist Leigh’s story of grief, infused with magical realism amidst her search for family and identity, is beautifully drawn. This is a thick book that flies by, a good crossover pick for literary-minded teens who don’t normally read genre fiction and vice versa.

 

 

The Place Between Breaths by An Na

An Na’s book is an example of the idea that the shorter a novel is, the more difficult it can be to unpack. The Place Between Breaths has a lot in common with The Astonishing Color of After on the surface: it’s about a mother with mental illness who disappeared or died, and the daughter left behind to heal. Na’s protagonist, Grace, helps her father in his work at a lab that’s dedicated to finding a cure for schizophrenia, the illness that took her mother away from her. But the story is also about a lot more, and it’s told by Na in pieces, out of order, from contradictory perspectives that require the reader to re-read and puzzle things out. The book’s structure is meant to be a reflection of the illness itself, and while I don’t have any personal ties to anyone with schizophrenia (that I know of), the feedback I’ve received from readers who do have the disease is positive. This is a book for someone who likes a challenging read, one that will surprise them and move them in equal measure.

 

Mirage by Somaiya Daud

I loved so much about this book: the irresistible hook (a girl from a conquered people is taken prisoner to be the body double of a hated princess), Daud’s lovely writing, the gradual deepening of the relationship between protagonist Amani and the princess Maram, the Moroccan-inspired setting in space and Amani’s people’s culture (clearly drawn from Daud’s own experiences but still unique to this story). It manages to be an exciting story that also tackles big themes of the evils of colonization and the possibility of redemption and change. And that cover is a stunner.

 

Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer

When it comes to horror, I’m much more likely to read books for teens than adults. I’m a bit squeamish (no horror movies for me at all!), and I find that YA horror novels usually have the right amount of scares for me. Rebecca Schaeffer did her best to prove me wrong – Not Even Bones is pretty gruesome, and it doesn’t shy away from describing in detail its setting of a market that sells body parts of unnaturals (humanoids with special abilities) and how those body parts are removed from and then used. The book is essentially an escape plot as our protagonist, Nita, finds herself imprisoned, awaiting sale in the market after freeing an unnatural her mother had planned to kill and sell for parts. I loved the relationship between Nita and her sometimes-ally Kovit, an unnatural who must eat human pain in order to survive. The plot is tense and exciting, with a fantastic twist near the end. Read my full review here.

 

Give the Dark My Love by Beth Revis

Revis’ book, a fantasy about an alchemist-in-training named Nedra who desperately searches for a cure to a wasting plague that is decimating her homeland, is a meditation on grief, and it’s heartbreaking and tragic and beautiful. Her writing is gorgeously mournful, telling the story of a good person’s descent into darkness in the midst of almost unbearable pain. Good speculative fiction always functions as a metaphor for things that are real, and Give the Dark My Love is a prime example of this. We as readers follow Nedra’s journey from hardworking girl with a purpose into obsession and finally into a darkness from which she cannot return. All the while, she is propelled by something very real and very human that affects all of us. Revis’ writing is such that we feel everything right alongside Nedra – and alongside Revis herself. Don’t skip reading her acknowledgments at the end. Read my full review here.

 

Black Wings Beating by Alex London

I loved this fantasy about a culture that reveres falconry and birds of prey and the pair of twins caught up in a treacherous quest to capture the Ghost Eagle, the most majestic and valuable bird of all. Their quest is fraught with many different dangers: a matriarchal society of Owl Mothers that live in the mountain they must traverse who want the twins for their own purposes; the de facto rulers of their town who threaten them with death if they fail in their quest; a warring sect of religious killers who intend harm upon anyone who worships the birds; and more. The relationship between the twins, a brother and sister who are very different from each other but are bonded by love and common experience, is well-wrought, as is the culture that has developed around the birds, whom readers will come to respect almost as much as the characters in the story. Read my full review here.

 

 

Books for Adults

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

Ruth Ware has published four books so far, and she’s yet to write a dud. Her mysteries are nail-biting thrillers with compelling characters and twists I almost never see coming. The Death of Mrs. Westaway, her most recent, might be my favorite of hers to date. It’s about a woman, Hal, who receives a letter in the mail stating that her grandmother has died, and she is to report to her grandmother’s house to learn what she’s inherited, along with her other relatives. The only problem is, Hal knows that she’s not the intended recipient of the letter; it’s an unfortunate mistake due to a mix-up with the names. But Hal is desperate, unable to make ends meet on her own, and decides to impersonate this other person and see if she can claim the money after all.

Ware’s latest requires a lot of careful thought on the part of the reader. One main plot point relies heavily on the way certain things are said by certain people, and judging from some of the Goodreads reviews, it threw a lot of readers for a loop, and they’re still trying to puzzle it out. But for the careful reader, one who is perhaps willing to flip back and analyze and try to figure things out on her own as she reads, this is a real treat. I recommend this for fans of intricately-plotted mysteries.

 

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

Lawrence Wright published this in 2006, five years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. I was a teenager when the attacks happened and in college when the book was published; at the time, the whole event was so awful for me, I avoided most mentions of it for years aside from very surface-level mainstream news sources: brief reports on nightly news, headlines on CNN. But this is not a great way to learn about any topic with any sort of depth or nuance, particularly one so important and world-changing as 9/11. Seventeen years later, I found myself able and willing to read Wright’s book, the standard-bearer in scholarship on 9/11 and a very readable, challenging, and even fascinating book. I read this on audiobook, which Wright himself narrates, and he does a good job. I got the sense that he was telling me the story of 9/11 as he wrote it, as he discovered it, and it drives home just how much the United States government and its various intelligence agencies knew, how inadequate the attempts were to prevent such an attack (when the focus was on it at all), how much misinformation was spread afterward, and how catastrophic the United States’ response was. This should be required reading for all Americans.

 

The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones

Ever since I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, I’ve been on the hunt for a great literary sci-fi novel that matches it. While The Salt Line doesn’t quite measure up, it comes close. Jones is a master of the ensemble novel format. She gives multiple characters their own third-person points of view, engendering sympathy on the part of the reader even for those characters who are hard to like or commit detestable acts. She’s interested in the themes of parenthood or the lack thereof (motherhood most strongly, but fatherhood as well), as most of the characters’ motivations involve their children or their desire to not have children, as well as surrogate parent-child bonds. As someone who isn’t particularly interested in having children myself, I liked the focus Jones placed on one character’s decision to not have kids. This character’s reasons go beyond the stereotypical and dig into themes of sacrifice and how a person claims ownership of her life. It’s rare to find a book that treats lack of motherhood as an equally fulfilling avenue for its female characters.