Legendborn by Tracy Deonn Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn (2020), the first book in her LEGENDBORN CYCLE, wasn’t on my radar until I saw it on the Locus Awards finalists list for Best Young Adult novel. I grabbed the audiobook and one of the YAs that lives in my house (Tali, my 18-year-old daughter) and we listened […]
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Some Faraway Place by Lauren Shippen Rose is a normal girl, and that’s a problem because everyone else in her family – her parents, her brother – are atypical. I had some hope that returning to the approximate 2016 timeframe and another late-teen protagonist who isn’t an outright villain would be a boon for the […]
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A Neon Darkness by Lauren Shippen A Neon Darkness (2020), the second book in Lauren Shippen‘s THE BRIGHT SESSIONS trilogy, is only very tangentially related to the first book, The Infinite Noise. It centers on a group of atypicals (the in-world word for people with powers) a full decade before the first book occurs. Robert […]
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The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen THE BRIGHT SESSIONS is a trilogy of spinoff novels set in the world of the podcast of the same name, both media written by Lauren Shippen. I am generally a fiction podcast fan, so when the third book in the trilogy – Some Faraway Place – hit my radar, […]
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The Nightland Express by J.M. Lee The Nightland Express (2022) by J.M. Lee is a solid YA fantasy that has its moments but also doesn’t quite reach its full potential due to several issues. It also suffers a bit perhaps from trying to take on too much, where a more streamlined approach might have allowed […]
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Rise of the Vicious Princess by C.J. Redwine I get a big kick out of reading books not specifically for my demographic. Actually, let me rephrase that. I enjoy reading books that I assume are not written for my demographic. I’m a guy, so stories about princesses are off the table. Perhaps you’re a girl […]
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The Extraordinaries by TJ Klume TJ Klune’s 2020 novel The Extraordinaries is only the second-best YA/superhero/coming of age/Spiderman movie parody/neurodivergent/ queer rom-com I’ve read this year. I’ll explain at the end of the review why it only came in second. Nicholas Bell is sixteen, gay and out to his father, friends and school. Nick lives […]
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Stars Above by Marissa Meyer Readers who didn’t get enough of Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES will be pleased to find Stars Above (2016), a collection of nine stories that give fans more backstory on their favorite characters as well as a romantic epilogue. Some of these stories can stand alone, giving you a taste of […]
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Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak by Charlie Jane Anders “Knowledge is ugly, and that’s why we wear cute dresses and eat cake.” As with most second books in a trilogy, things are bad, teetering on the precipice, by the end of Charlie Jane Anders’s second YA SF book Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak (2022). Our stalwart band […]
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Winter by Marissa Meyer Winter (2015) is the fourth and final novel in Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES series for young adults. You need to read the first three novels, Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress first. There will be some spoilers for those previous stories in this review. Winter, which is loosely based on the Snow White […]
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The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White We all know Frankenstein: the evil genius, the monster, the frozen wasteland etc. But in The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein (2018), Kiersten White offers a new spin on the classic, through an origins story that traces Victor Frankenstein right back to his childhood, through the […]
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Cress by Marissa Meyer My teenage daughter and I have been enjoying the audio versions of Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES. The third one is Cress (2014) and it follows Cinder and Scarlet, which you’ll need to read first. (There are bound to be some spoilers for those novels in this review of Cress.) Each of […]
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Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson Humanity has been on the losing end of a centuries-long war with the Superiority, the main organization of galactic races, for decades, trapped on a desolate planet called Detritus and fighting an ongoing war using outdated, small spacecraft to keep from being exterminated. In the second book in this series, Starsight, […]
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Scarlet by Marissa Meyer Scarlet (2013) is the second novel in Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES. You’ll want to read Cinder first. There will be some spoilers for that novel in this review. In Cinder we met the titular cyborg, an orphan who lives with her hateful stepmother and two stepsisters in New Beijing. Cinder is […]
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Aurora’s End by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff Aurora’s End, the final book in the AURORA CYCLE YA science fiction trilogy by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, begins and finishes with a bang — literally, lots of them — and sandwiches all kinds of wild events in between. (Note: this review includes some spoilers for […]
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Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale With Book of a Thousand Days (2007), Shannon Hale offers a delightful retelling of the Grimm fairy tale Maid Maleen. Dashti is a mucker, a low-born girl who was born on the steppes. When her mother dies, she goes to the city to take a job as […]
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Medusa by Jessie Burton If I told you that I’d killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? This question opens Jessie Burton‘s latest novel, Medusa (2021), a feminist retelling of the famous Greek myth. Told through the eyes of the snake-headed Medusa herself, the story reframes her tale as […]
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Dark Piper by Andre Norton A decade-long war is finally over and the people who live on the planet of Beltane are relieved. During the war, Beltane, where many scientists lived, was recruited for the war effort and served, unwillingly, as an experimental lab. After the war, most of the scientists left the planet, creating […]
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Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé Ace of Spades (2021) is Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s first novel. It’s a YA thriller and doesn’t have any speculative elements, but if you like good prose, good characterization and high-suspense thrillers this book might be for you. I was not the target audience for this book, but after the first […]
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Star Gate by Andre Norton Kincar’s grandfather, the warlord of their Gorthian clan, is on his deathbed. Kincar assumes that he and his half-brother will soon be forced to contend for leadership of the clan but, before he dies, his grandfather informs Kincar that Kincar’s father was a Star Lord, one of the mighty (human) […]
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Sea Siege by Andre Norton In the mid-20th century, Griffith lives in the West Indies with his father, a famous scientist who studies marine biology. Griffith, who helps his father with his research, thinks the work is pretty boring. He hopes to go back to America soon to attend the Air Force Academy. Griff suddenly […]
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Star Born by Andre Norton Andre Norton’s Star Born was originally published in 1957. In 2013 it was combined with the related prequel The Stars are Ours and released as Baen’s Star Flight omnibus. Now Tantor Media has published Star Flight in audio format with excellent narration by Ryan Burke. You don’t need to read […]
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Star Rangers by Andre Norton Star Rangers (1953) (aka The Last Planet) is the second of Andre Norton’s stand-alone novels included in Star Soldiers, an omnibus released in print by Baen Books in 2001 and in audiobook format by Tantor Media in March 2021. Star Soldiers also includes the novel Star Guard (1955). These two […]
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Star Guard by Andre Norton Star Soldiers (2001 Baen Books, 2021 Tantor Media) contains the two related stand-alone stories Star Guard (1955) and Star Rangers (1953) which together are known as the CENTRAL CONTROL novels. I’m reviewing them separately since that’s how they were originally published. I’ve read more than 20 Andre Norton novels and […]
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The Stars are Ours by Andre Norton Tantor Media has been publishing the omnibus editions of Andre Norton’s science-fiction adventures in audiobook format. The omnibus (originally published by Baen) called Star Flight contains the novels The Stars are Ours and Star Born (the PAX/ASTRA duology). Both novels are set in the same universe (ours, actually) […]
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