A funny thing happened to me the other day at the bookstore: I picked up a book called The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, and after reading the summary, I decided I was in for a comfortable and familiar fantasy adventure.  I took it home, and quickly discovered the summary lied to … Continue reading The Girl of Fire and Thorns, by Rae Carson →

Low fantasy, you might be surprised to hear, has just as much a place in my heart as high fantasy.  I love elves and swords and high stakes, don’t get me wrong, but a story about modern characters faced with magic in the real world takes me away just as easily.  Probably because that stuff … Continue reading Fairy Tale, by Cyn Balog →

Fan fiction is one of those things that people either gobble up like a Thanksgiving dinner, or they think is tasteless and disgraceful.  I fall somewhere in the middle; I wrote lots of it when I was in high school, and, from time to time, I go back and find new stories to enjoy.  However, … Continue reading So This Is Love: A Twisted Tale, by Elizabeth Lim →

The saddest part of this pandemic, aside from the whole physical distancing thing, is missing out on comic conventions.  It’s no secret by now how much I love them, and for what reasons, so I shan’t reiterate.  But what I haven’t iterated enough at this point is how much I freaking love Ashley Poston’s work!  … Continue reading Bookish and the Beast, by Ashley Poston →

When I first read Beth Fantaskey’s Jekel Loves Hyde, I had not read the Robert Louis Stevenson classic that inspired it. Although I was not in love with this book the first time I read it, something about Jekel Loves Hyde drew me to read it again when I found a discounted bookstore copy—and now … Continue reading Jekel Loves Hyde, by Beth Fantaskey →

There are some books that take a few days to read. But then there are some that feel like a quick episode of your favorite TV show: a book you can enjoy with a box of chocolates or some ice cream. I’ve spoken of many books of that kind on this blog, but I cannot … Continue reading Just One Wish, by Janette Rallison →

Sisters Red comes with an interesting personal story. It was a Top 16 Reading List book my senior year of high school, and the author, Jackson Pearce, was invited to my school’s library to talk about it. Apparently, I read the book just in time, because I scrambled to get my teachers’ permission to skip … Continue reading Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce →

Pan’s Labyrinth is almost always among the best-ranked fantasy stories of the past hundred years. Somehow, it always remains relevant to whatever time it is read in, striking the right balance of real-life horror and thrilling fantasy. I myself have only seen the movie a handful of times, but when I noticed that there was … Continue reading Pan’s Labyrinth, by Guillermo del Toro and Cornelia Funke →

Willa Cather’s My Ántonia was a title I first learned in grad school, when I was learning how to teach. My mentor taught a few works of Willa Cather, and while My Ántonia was not among the discussed classroom titles, it was one he spoke of quite fondly. I never thought of reading it, as … Continue reading My Ántonia, by Willa Cather →

Maybe I’m beginning a reading trend now: one that involves raw and cutting voices, horrifying living situations, and dreams of escaping into a better life. Except unlike my previous review, this book is much more positive, and not at all supernatural. In fact, the true-to-life rawness is what makes it so particularly beautiful. In 1987 … Continue reading Push, by Sapphire →