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Tournament of Losers by Megan Derr
Previous attempts at Megan Derr’s older books have been somewhat hit-or-miss, but the summary for Tournament of Losers sounded like something right up my alley, so I decided to give it a go. And that was an EXCELLENT DECISION, y’all! Tournament of Losers is the BEST Megan Derr book I’ve read yet! I think it’s a combo of increased writing skills + many tropes I adore + completely adorable characters + wonderful worldbuilding. One of my complaints about MD’s earlier books was the treatment/lack of women characters, how everybody’s white, and sometimes-weird chemistry between the leads. With her newer books, many of those things have been addressed. For instance, in…
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The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton
The Philosopher Kings gets off to a bad start, tbh. The Just City has separated into multiple cities, all with differing ideas about what Plato Really Meant, Aristotle-the-fly disappeared, Pallas Athene never came back, and worst of all Simmea, my favorite character from The Just City, dies. She’s murdered during an art raid. She’s dead! And that really hurt. Apollo didn’t much like it either, and he spends the majority of the book trying to come back from his overwhelming grief. Maia is also dealing with things, including her rapist from The Just City wanting to apologize and be friends again. Everybody’s depressed from the raids and people dying and…
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The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin (2012)
My first N.K. Jemisin book was The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, a fantasy story set in a world which does not have European fantasy tropes. The Killing Moon is another fantasy story set in a non-European fantasy world, only this time it’s one based around Egyptian/Mediterranean/etc. cultures. It’s not set on Earth, so really it’s only got the flavor of those cultures, but it’s enough of a flavor to make me really happy. I LOVE it when a fantasy isn’t just another pseudo-medieval Europe expy! More diverse settings/characters/worlds, please!
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A Hero at the End of the World by Erin Claiborne
A Hero at the End of the World has been getting lots of positive reviews lately, and for good reason. It’s funny and cute and hugely enjoyable; past me, why were you so slow getting to this? You’ve had a copy in your possession since October! For shame, past-me. Present-me is totally gleeful, though, because I had such a good time reading it! I found myself highlighting like a fiend in the first ten pages because every other paragraph had some funny thing in it. It was also a weird kind of comfort read, maybe because it has some tropes I recognize from the world of fandom/fanfic.[1. Since Erin Claiborne…
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Prosperity by Alexis Hall
Memory wrote an excellent review of Prosperity back in October, and it was SO excellent that I went on NetGalley and found Prosperity and requested it for review myself! And I’m so glad I did, because I LOVED it. There is steampunk (or maybe gaslamp)! There is alternate history (kinda)![1. It’s actually set in an alternate universe! Love love love alternate universes.] There are air ships and monsters living behind the sky and lesbians and a bisexual protagonist and crime lords and a nonbinary ship captain and a floating city and, really, the only thing missing was a band of sky pirates. (Maybe they’ll be in another book.)
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A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar
How did I decide to buy this book? I must have seen a review of it somewhere and added it to my wishlist.[1. Previous to it winning the 2014 World Fantasy Award for best novel. Congrats!] It’s exactly along the lines of what I like best in a fantasy book: non-European style countries, travel, adventure, and intrigue, with spooky magical things. The only thing that would’ve made it better is if there’d been dragons somewhere and if the protagonist were a woman.
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The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson
I really wanted to like this book more than I did! The first third of the story is kick-ass: contemporary setting with wonderful characters, strong protagonist voice, and mysterious foreshadowings. Then the rest of it happened, and I lost the plot. Part of the problem is that the first third is so VERY strongly rooted in contemporary YA language/style. It’s Real Life and it’s totally convincing. And then the Chaos incident happened and things got weird.
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Runaways, Vol. 1-3 by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona
Okay, so this is the first major story arc for Runaways (I think). These three volumes comprise a complete story, so theoretically you could stop there and be perfectly happy![1. Especially because I’m in the second series right now and it’s not as good, nope.] I was perfectly happy, because I love stories about teenage superheroes having personal problems. The fact that their personal problems consisted of evil supervillian parents was just icing on the cake. Other personal problems: friendship, learning to trust, betrayal, romance and squishy teenage feelings, sometimes sounding like they spent too much time watching Dawson’s Creek or whatever show was popular back when this series ran,…