Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

The King Will Kill You

By Sarah Henning.

Previous book here.

This is the final book in this trilogy. It's both good and yet kinda...I feel like it wraps up a bit fast? Anyway, the second book ended on a happy note, but the third book goes right on back to PATRIARCHY WINS and patriarchy outnumbering the good people, and Ama and Luca being frustrated as heck that they can't just easily get married, join their kingdoms, and have a feminist utopia. There's a line in the book, "Rights meant nothing to a woman if men said they did not," and that's still pretty irritatingly true and a lot of what Ama and Luca are fighting in the book, along with "how does Luca deal with a new kingdom" and one of their enemies ah, returning. But how do you fight a billion years of patriarchy?

SEMI-SPOILERISH DISCUSSION BEYOND THIS POINT. I'm not going to totally spoiler space it, but I find it hard to write a review without making more semi-detailed commentary.

The title character...well, I won't spoil the ending of book 2, but we'll say someone returns unexpectedly, but I don't know if I felt super menaced by that particular threat or not? Said character is pretty well preoccupied with survival for the most part, though some damage is done here and there. This series seems to have originated with the concept of "The Princess Bride" and while it's wandered off from there, I was amused that the concept of "only mostly dead" came up again here. I did rather enjoy how that got handled, for the most part. 

Much as I like how this author has a lot of strong women, frequently of dubious/kinda evil nature, by virtue of this being a world where fighting is going on, betrayals are going on, etc....ladies die a lot. And it bummed me out to lose good characters, even if there's plot-related reasons for that. I did like the explanations of the previous Warlords and their um, work, though. 

I liked the side romances in this one--they don't get much time, but they're sweet. I particularly enjoyed Ama's brother Ferdinand's relationship with his lady love, who's had a sudden rise of status that may get in the way of their relationship. I don't know if I've ever been madly in love with Ama and Luca's relationship like I'm supposed to be, but I do enjoy how they utterly support each other, especially in a backstabby world. 

In the end...well, I'll spoiler space that one for you. But I'll say it felt kinda like a fizzle and a "too easy" last-minute wrap-up that didn't feel like it would work for the world that was set up. 

Three and a half stars. I enjoyed this series but always kind of felt like it could be a bit better, somehow. 

Hench

By Natalie Zina Walschots

Anna works on the side of evil. I don't particularly know why--the character doesn't have any backstory or family history mentioned--but when we meet her, she's a temp worker/"hench" who gets employed by villains. To some degree it's like working any kind of weird temp job--her current employer, the Electric Eel,  prides himself on being sensitive and "caring" about employees and things like that. She commiserates with friends, she has a date  go wrong when work interferes.

Then she gets forced to be on television to prove that the Eel is "inclusive" (i.e. "I'm a booth babe?"), has to holde a brain-manipulating ray to a kidnapped teen's head, and gets her leg permanently damaged by Supercollider, the superhero, when he smacks her into a wall. She's immediately unemployed, living at her best friend's house, and dwelling on how superheroes cause so much collateral damage. She makes spreadsheets ,she creates a blog, and she gets recruited for a new job, working for the superhero Leviathan, who also has a grudge against Supercollider.

Anna rises in her job- earning the title/nickname "The Auditor," as she uses data analysis to strategize how to slowly, painfully, take Supercollider down by removing his support system. She loses her best friend, she gets new friends at work, and she starts having tender feelings for Leviathan, though this isn't really a romance and clearly god only knows how that would work given Leviathan's current physicality. (That felt a little weird/token/flat, honestly.) She may be handicapped, and it's ambiguous as to whether or not she has power herself or just awesomeness by analysis, but she does get respect and power of her own, even as even she feels bad for some of the collateral damage she does trying to end someone else's collateral damage. 

This book has both a fair amount about "the banality of evil," or what it's like to work in an "evil" office and how it's not necessarily all that different, and also "yeah, superheroes are also kinda evil, or a good chunk of them anyway, when they cause collateral damage on other people." Which, good point. Supercollider himself gets worse and worse so you certainly don't feel bad about his being taken down--especially what he does to Anna later on. And when his unhappy girlfriend Quantum Entanglement is brought into the mix, things get hardcore.

This is a dark book, but an interesting one, where you can certainly debate morality all day long while reading it. Everyone's got their motivations and judgments and in their own way, everyone's guilty. 

I give it four stars. I don't quite consider it a downer (it kind of ends as well as that situation is going to get), but it certainly gives you a lot to think about. 

 

 

Paladin's Strength

By T. Kingfisher.

Previous book in this world here.

Sister Clara is a lay nun* with the Order of St. Ursa. Her entire order was attacked and kidnapped. Sister Clara got sick and was left for dead, has since recovered, and been having an interesting time of things since.then. She ends up meeting Istvhan, one of the paladins from the previous book. He's on the lookout for the Smooth Men, the creepy clay/necromancy murder creatures on the loose in the last book. Clara's looking to rescue her friends, and Istvhan is totally willing to partner up and help her with this. Of course both issues come to light in the creepy town they're traveling to, where fighting pits are A Thing and the place sounds horrible in general.  

• I gather this translates into "didn't swear a vow of celibacy, is fine for her to get laid." Given that their religious order is based on a trait of birth rather than being super dedicated to religion, I suppose they might allow for people to do that under the circumstances. Also, it's a romance novel and doesn't strike me as being one of those romance novels where you're seducing someone away from their religious order.

Istvhan and Clara hit it off right away, as both of them are amiable large people and don't get to be around others like that very much. Clara...oh hell, I'll just spoil it since it comes up pretty quickly in the book: she and her entire order are lady werebears, which is A Thing That Happens where she's from, and that's why her order got kidnapped to be forced into fighting pits. Clara has some issues with being rejected for her beariness, which Istvhan doesn't mind at all. Much like the previous book (I think it's A Thing) for the author, they have issues of "But I'm a bear!" "But she's a nun!" and whatnot to drag it out some, but once they start badonkadonking, they're quite happy about it. The sex scenes are quite hot. The snark is similar yet different to the last book and I enjoyed it mightily.

This one also goes into far greater (and somewhat gorier) details about the Smooth Men, specifically as to how they came to be. I think this one sounds resolved by the end of the book, but since there's a third book, I'm not totally sure about that? It's super creepy but well done, I suppose, explaining all that weirdness magically. 

Quotes:

• "I go screaming berserk at the drop of a hat. You turn into a bear. Honestly, I'm a little relieved that I'm not the strangest one in the room any more." -Istvhan
• "I was just thinking, first you were with Beartongue and now you're chasing after someone with an actual bear's--" "Look, I'm just saying you have a type. A weirdly specific type." -Galen
• "I have made love. I have had sex. I have bedded, rutted, fucked, and on one occasion, with enthusiastic consent and a great deal of oil, I have sodomized, but I have never, not once, canoodled." -Istvhan, who clearly Has Standards
• "If I had just thrown myself on his cock like a sensible woman, this would be an amusing anecdote that happened afterwards." -Clara
• "Now. Before I lose my nerve or we're drowned in salamanders or somebody shows up wanting a fight." -Clara, learning from her mistakes.
• "Well, that's a load of horseshit if I ever heard one," said Sister Sigrid, and slapped him upside the head....If the two of you get any more in love, I'll puke on the floor right here." (I like her. Too bad she's not in it much.) 
• "Dear god, he'd told her he loved her and she'd said, "That's very nice." How was she supposed to live with that?" 

Four stars.

Truth of the Divine

By Lindsay Ellis.

Previous book here.

This is a really, really, really dark book, and I'm not just referring to the "this book talks about suicide" warning at the start. 

Cora, our main character of the first book, has whopping cases of PTSD/depression/nightmares/panic attacks/anorexia, pretty much everything.  She's suicidally depressed after living through what she should not have lived through. The girl is a broken bird. She is in desperate need of an enormous level of help that probably can't be provided enough, given her "I'm an alien translator, more or less" situation. Her alien partner Ampersand tries and is certainly working on it at the start of the book (and that's very sweet), but everything derails when one of Ampersand's syphyles (...family members, more or less?....) lands on Earth, looking for the two of them to die together as last survivors, more or less. Also, this is because the ah...head alien group...has found out about humanity being the other species in the universe, they're coming here in five years, and they will basically wipe out humanity for being a threat. And someone Cora reasonably thought was gone from the world turns out not to be, so that's also traumatizing AF. 

Meanwhile, the Earthlings are debating whether or not to consider aliens "people" or go with a "Third Option" along the lines of oh, remember that whole 3/5 of a people thing during slavery? It's one of those things where you know the right thinking people will be all "hell no" to this, but the bad guys are going to get their way about it and all things will go to hell on Earth. When two of the aliens ask for asylum, who knows what'll happen with that, either. 

The second alien, originally dubbed "Enola Gay" in the media and later renamed Nikola, takes more of a center stage in this novel, along with Kaveh, a famous journalist who decides to befriend Nikola and Cora to find out the real truth. Kaveh has connected with Cora's shitty dad Nils in the past, but this isn't as big of a deal in this book as you might think. (Shitty dad stays in Germany, thank goodness.) 

Ampersand spends most of the book in some kind of "blue screen of death" state and frankly, isn't available to do much or help for a lot of it. And Cora's so freaking traumatized by everything that it's horrifying. Therefore, the budding adorable friendship between Nikola and Kaveh takes center stage. While it doesn't become a whole literal bond thing between the two, Nikola's calling Kaveh "dear clever creature" is darned cute and I really enjoyed them together, even if NIkola's not listening to Kaveh about "no, seriously, don't go down there and meet the people" goes extremely poorly. Kaveh becomes more of a narrator since frankly, Cora's not really in the shape to do it and reading her unrelieved in this book would probably be unbearable. 

I admit, I am probably confused a good chunk of the time as to what is going on with the aliens. They are extremely alien aliens and at times I just don't think I get what they have going on. That might just be me, I don't know, I'm not very technical. There's a fine line to walk between "REALLY ALIEN ALIENS" and having them humani-ish enough for the likes of me to get it, which is where this series goes.

That said, I really enjoyed the discussions of "personhood" in this, both in the "Third Option" sort of way and in the "how the amygdalines define a person" way, which is why Ampersand created the bond with Cora that he did. Very intriguing. 

Kaveh made the book for me. He makes this work, he is a positive light in this world (along with Nikola to some degree, who's balancing between "the Earthlings are doomed and yet I am very interested in this species, is there anything I can do about this?"). On the one hand, he's a bit unreally perfect in the "I happen to be a rich genius journalist and I'm handsome and well-meaning and my family is full of nice people who made me the confident guy I am today" way. On the other hand, he's a recovering alcoholic, his brother killed himself and it really messed him up, and he behaved in a manner that ended a relationship very badly. But Kaveh has been in the dark places and gotten himself out of it, which is something really needed in this book since Cora is so far down the hole.

Kaveh and Cora become boyfriend and girlfriend. This is a bit controversial for me given the age difference and power differential (she's 21 and traumatized, he's 35 and see above), BUT he is utterly supportive of her and caring and she NEEDS THAT since literally nobody else in her world is doing that for her AT ALL. I seriously wondered if it was ethical for them to get into a sexual relationship, even though as far as both Kaveh and I can tell, she definitely consented to such and even though Cora's a wreck, she seems to be into the relationship as much as she can be. Even Kaveh himself is deeply concerned and has doubts about whether or not this is a good idea, but plugs along anyway? They are also bonded in the "we are the only two people in the world who are close to aliens" sort of way, as well. Kaveh gets that on some emotional level, if not a sexual partner level, Cora loves Ampersand--and he can deal with that. Hooray!

Before I go further, let's have Kaveh's Quote Corner:

• "Welcome to Earth. I'm not going to punch you in the head."
• "Goddamn but this situation got more and more fucked-up every second. There was no right or wrong thing to do, no way to un-fuck this, only the path of least harm, and he could only hope that whatever he did from here on in fell on that path." 
• "I'm not particularly threatened by him. Like, there are some things about being human he is never going to get. Like, he's never going to understand why 'Dick in a Box' is funny."
• "If he is a part of the package that is you...then okay. I can roll with it. We're in uncharted territory. But that's kind of fun in its own right. I said I know you're in love with him, that doesn't mean you don't love me. I know you love me differently than you love him." 

...........

And then, the ending. The ending pretty much ruined everything for me. It's not quite the level of "aliens wipe out Earth" (YET, I'm sure that's where book 3 goes if there is a book 3) level of depressing, but a certain thing happened that bummed me out so much that I don't think I will be able to continue reading if there's a third book. On a not-terribly-related note, I am a huge fan of Seanan McGuire and have NOT been able to make myself read "Where The Drowned Girls Go" because literally everything about it sounds horrifying, depressing and sad--and that's about where this book I just read here ends. I don't think I can take experiencing more things going to hell after this. I'm really sad. I'm too sad to even spoiler space discuss this. Things end on a very dark and depressing place and I'm not sure if I want to know where it goes from there, sigh. Or if I can take that while living in the already-nightmare 2020's. That may just be me, though.

I read this interview with the author (note: while I'm not spoiling the ending, this interview does towards the bottom) and I note this quote:

Also, I wrote much of this book during COVID, which I guess is pretty obvious considering it’s just a bunch of people arguing over how to deal with this slow-moving disaster. I don’t want to write a narrative where the solution is hopeless. But the longer this goes on, it’s harder to make a case for any type of human cooperation. 

....Agreed. 

Three and a half stars. 

Caraval

By Stephanie Garber.

I'm not sure what is going on with this. 

Scarlett and (Donna)Tella are sisters with an abusive father, living on some kind of captive isle. Scarlett is obsessed with Caraval, some kind of magic show/game/thing her grandmother told her about it. She's written letters to the guy who runs it, Legend, asking that he come to her isle for years. But once she writes to tell him she's engaged (to some nameless count who writes nice letters), she finally gets an invite to Caraval, if she can just get herself to some other island. A suspiciously helpful "random" sailor named Julian helps the girls escape and then follows Scarlett into the game, for reasons of his own. The game turns out to be "find your sister 'cause Legend kidnapped her," and everything is mysterious and weird.

I can't say that things come out of nowhere in this one--I feel like things are set up in world and this stuff isn't out of the blue--but at the same time, things are confusing-ish, I suppose? Other players in the game don't really matter since the whole thing seems set up to deal with Scarlett's family drama. Weird, mysterious, magical things happen like having to literally die for a few days to get a dress (not worth it, I say). It's supposed to be all beautiful and mysterious and magical and mostly I was just "....I dunno, I feel as confused as Scarlett here." 

Scarlett's perennially vacillating between desperately trying to find her sister and developing the hots for Julian even though she doesn't want to. Julian's motives are god only knows what,  but he's hot and kind of helpful and Scarlett somehow trusts him anyway? They do give great hormones, though. Tella's not in the book much, but frankly she's kind of self-centered (even Scarlett thinks so) and probably not worth this much bother. However, I did enjoy a twist at the end regarding her that gave me much more respect for her character instead of always being a selfish bimbo-y girl. 

...I don't know. I wasn't quite in love with this one and wasn't sure if I was going to finish it? Maybe it's just a Not For Me But For Other People sort of thing. Three stars. 

Tear Down The Throne

By Jennifer Estep.

Previous book here.

Loving this book. The plot of it sounds fairly simple and mostly revolves around Maeven's new scheme to force Leo and Gemma to get married by forcing him to go through "The Gauntlet", some kind of historical Unger* ritual thing. Gemma is conflicted AF between "I've had feelings for this guy since like age 12" and "Oh dear god, his mother and older brother are fucking eeeeeeeeevil murderers." Would you want to marry into the Morricones? Heck no. And of course there's a bunch of murder scheming going on with Milo and his fiancee and her secret boyfriend, and god only knows what Maeven's up to, but Gemma doesn't want to marry Leo if Maeven is in favor of it. That can't be good, right?

• Y'know what, I think the author needs to write some books on the Ungers, because man, do they ever have a weird/unusual/very forceful and stringent culture. Xenia needs a book/prequel, something, in particular. 

Anyway, this book has a lot of cool plot developments, moments of adorable, and hot sex. 

• I continue to love the use of the sentient liladorn plant. That's really cool.
• Gemma's dead mother was a time magier, and she ends up factoring into the plot in some really cool ways. 
• Gemma and Leo are ADORABLE, and the gifts section of the book in particular is full of "awwww."
• There is a baby strix named Violet who loves gargoyles at first sight AND IT'S THE CUTEST THING EVER I WANT ONE.
• Gemma and Maeven's "it's complicated" relationship continues to develop. Gemma can't bring herself to let Maeven die when the opportunity arises, and Maeven admits to having her own "it's complicated" relationship with Gemma's mom back in the day.
• I love the foreshadowing/past plot development setups in this one. 

It's hard for me not to spoiler this, because I love it so. I probably said more than I should, but screw it. Four and a half stars. 

All Our Hidden Gifts

By Caroline O'Donoghue.

This is an odd book.

Maeve is an Irish lass at a Catholic private school. While having to clean out The Chokey (yup, they call the closet this), she finds an odd deck of tarot cards that she has an affinity with, and starts doing readings for all the girls at school. Except there's one extra card called "The Housekeeper" in there, and she's got a knife, and the card will magically show up in the deck even if Maeve takes it out.

Maeve dumped her best friend Lily for popularity reasons, and feels guilty about it. When people harass her into giving Lily a reading, it goes terribly, and much like in Home Alone, Lily soon disappears. Did Maeve make her disappear? Or was it The Housekeeper? What the hell is going on here? Maeve appears to be a witchy sort of girl, and this seems to tie in with a former student at the school decades ago as well. She comse to the conclusion that Lily was somehow magicked away, and plans on getting her back.

In other fun news, someone else who appears to be magically gifted on the dark side and a total bigot is getting people to join his creepy group, The Children of Brighid, and they start committing hate crimes. 

Maeve also gets romantically involved with Lily's...presumably transgender/genderqueer/non-binary brother Rory, a.k.a. Roe. Their romance is very sweet and cute and fairly insta and cuddly, which I enjoyed. Though I admit I was totally confused as to how Roe appears to feel about gender (i.e. name change, women's clothing) vs. still going by male pronouns. Maeve pretty much calls him her boyfriend. I really, really expected Roe to change pronouns/officially go by something other than male and that felt HEAVILY foreshadowed, bit that never happened, which surprised me. I'm just another cisgender straight Karen so what do I know on this topic, I suppose. Others in the anything-but-straight community may have a more correct understanding/opinion on that one than me though. Maybe that's normal? 

As for the ending, I'm not sure what's going on, exactly. The main conflict gets more or less resolved, but some definitely creepy stuff is left open, possibly for a sequel? I guess we'll see?

I'm not really sure what to make of this at all. Three and a half stars, I guess. Intriguing but a bit confusing. 

 

Paladin's Grace

By T. Kingfisher.

Stephen was a paladin of the Saint of Steel, a god who died. (How? Beats me.) Anyway, that particular god filled his paladins with his presence and gave them berserker powers/guidance/whatever, and when he died, a lot of them just basically lost it. Now only seven have survived, and they are currently working for the Order of the White Rat, a nice organization of problem solvers with an awesome leader, Bishop Beartongue. (More about her, please? Perhaps her own book in the future?) And they....have some reservations, to say the least, about how "safe" they are to be around other people if the berserker rage hits them again without godly assistance.

Stephen is pretty much along the lines of Sam in Sleepless in Seattle: he gets up, he goes about his day, he feels depressed. Oh yeah, and he knits socks a lot, which is adorable. Then he meets a damsel in distress, Grace, in a meet-cute-fake-a-relattionship-in-a-hurry-in-public way and kaboombah, the hormones he thought were dead are rising up.

Grace is a lovely woman, a professional perfume creator who's had a rough go in life. Orphaned, apprenticed, then married to a cheating jerk, she never did manage to get her "license" equivalent in this world, and then finally she and her pet ran away to another city, where she made friends with her spy landlady, Marguerite. Both she and Stephen are super attracted to each other and SUPER AWKWARD about that sort of thing. Grace's husband made her feel like was frigid (nope) and Stephen is all "what if I go berserk?" and that stuff is going on in their heads, but every time they touch or are around each other, it's a giant AWWWWWW.

However, some shit's going down in the city, like something or other that is beheading people. Oh yeah, and someone tried to poison a visiting crown prince that Grace sold perfume to and now she's been arrested for murder.

Literally about the only thing not good in this book--or at least weak--is the poisoner mystery bit. Grace clearly has no motive for murdering a client she likes but doesn't know very well, nor any clue as to how one would poison anyone, but gets suspected because she makes perfumes and the book goes down a pretty fast slope of DANGER YOU'RE GONNA GET EXECUTED on that score. (Though I did super like her nonbinary lawyer, who has a dry sense of humor and definite sense of honor and pragmatism about it all.) By the time the mystery is revealed--some folks may have guessed what's going on already--it Makes Everything Better Real Quick, but once that's revealed it's pretty clear how weakly the whole thing was set up and how nobody was really thinking through who is suspect or even checking on the victim. However, I did like how everyone in the White Rat came together to help Grace.

Also, this book is full of delightful lines and snark and hormones and it's just really fun to read. The author did an Internet rant on the angstiness of paladins years ago and clearly she writes characters who feel guilty and need to get over it and find ways to to make up for it. Good. I enjoyed how he runs off to confess to his fellow paladin Istvhan in the middle of the night and the dude is all "Dude, get laid, get over it," more or less. It's also kind of amusing how later Stephen goes "berserk" in the book and he's all angsting about it and everyone else is pretty much like "Dude, that was not very berserk. Chill. I think you're fine." I do note that both Stephen and Grace are SUPER ANGSTY about attraction and acting on it and are kinda self-flagellate-y in their heads (see below) and this is drawn out a bit. That may bother some people, but not I.

I read a lot of excellent reviews on this book, but I think this was the one that sold me the most, so I leave it here. The romance is adorable and close and steamy, and while the review talks about "bad sex," I don't think so--they acknowledge in the heat of the moment it might not be world's best ever and then end up enjoying themselves anyway, and awwwwwww. These two are adorable just cuddling, y'all. 

Four and a half stars from me. 

Quotes:

• "He wished that he could break out his knitting, but for some reason, people didn't take you seriously as a warrior when you were knitting. He'd never figured out why." (This is followed by a gory bit in which he imagined taking out someone's eye with double pointed needles, not that he wants to do that and mess up his knitting....)
• Bishop Beartongue to Stephen: "I tell you to go talk to a girl and you foil an assassination attempt. I'm a little frightened to think what might happen if I told you to go to get laid."
• Grace's POV on interacting with Stephen: "First you grind on him like a wanton, then you swoon all over him, now you're giving him a show. This is going marvelously. What's next, tripping and falling on his cock on accident?" This is soon followed by her having to explain dealing with her pet civette's anal gland issues. "It wasn't like the morning could get any worse." Stephen's reaction: "Perfume making is clearly a very glamorous occupation. I had no idea." 
• More from Grace's POV: "This is stupid. You just handed him a teacup, that's all. My god, you've climbed the man like a tree and screamed in his ear and fainted on him and made a fool of yourself thinking he wanted to talk to you about something other than the dead man, and now you're blushing over this?" 
• Grace: "I think you can generally rely on people to be inconvenient." 
• Stephen: "And you will go back to your normal life as well, untroubled by assassinations and attractive women accidentally setting themselves on fire."
• Grace: "First small talk, then pantomimed sex acts in an alley, then murder scene. I'm doing this all wrong, as usual." 
• "Granted, she hadn't known Stephen that long, but if you couldn't bond over multiple corpses, what could you bond over?" 
• Stephen: "Am I really the only person concerned about the severed head situation in this city? Really?"
• Marguerite: "Men don't panic and make a speech about how there can't be anything between you if there isn't something between you." (MADAM, THIS IS MY LIFE. Har har. Such as that goes.)
• And finally, a quote from the author at the end: "I had it in my mind that I was going to write a fluffy romance. I am a great fan of fluffy romance. I am told that there are generally fewer severed heads and rotting corpse golems in fluffy romance, so possibly this book didn't quite get there, but I'm certain I can write something fluffy eventually. Probably." 

Before We Disappear

By Shaun David Hutchinson.

Jack and Wilhelm are two teenage boys living parallel lives (of sorts) in 1908-1909.

Jack was orphaned at age seven and was taken in by a magician/con artist (mostly going by "Evangeline Dubois" or "The Enchantress") as her more-or-less adopted child/assistant. She also took in an engineering genius, Lucia, a few years later. Jack is more or less pretty content working for Evangeline even though he knows she's kind of emotionally divey, but Lucia is pretty well cheesed off at not getting credit or getting the "well" treatment Jack gets by comparison. Jack's used to being a rolling stone and never gets too attached to any guys he's dating before he leaves again and hasn't thought super much about what else he might do with his life without working for Evangeline. 

Wilhelm is pretty obviously a fairy child (it's not spelled out here, but he's got magic powers and a whopping allergy to iron so you do the math) who was abducted at age four by "Theodore Barnes," a con artist/thief guy who's raised him/kept him imprisoned with iron the entire time. Teddy has been forcing Wil to rob things for him, as Teddy is hoping to become famous somehow, but so far his trait of leaving origami animals at the scene of the crime hasn't paid off for him. (This seems very Wet Bandits to me, just saying...) Teddy decides to change tactics and go from thievery to being a professional magician under the name Laszlo. 

Both magicians end up performing at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle for several months, where their respective assistants meet and get to know each other, and Jack deduces that Wilhelm has magical powers and that's the only way he could pull off what he does. Upon finding out what's going on with Wilhelm being imprisoned and threatened, Jack vows that he's going to take "Laszlo" down. 

The guys both make some great friends along the way. Jack befriends Ruth, an African-American performer who's looking to become a doctor someday. She's hard and tough and determined and awesome. Wilhelm befriends Jessamy, the other assistant "Laszlo" hires for his show, who's a lovely girl and a future detective/reporter. Of course she and Ruth fall for each other. (I do note that Ruth is getting sexually harassed by George, a guy who keeps hanging around and Not Taking No For An Answer, grrr. ) And Lucia is tough and stubborn but awesome. I really enjoyed seeing this bunch team up as a gang to help Wilhelm. It's a great crowd.

This is a pretty short summary for a pretty long book (nearly 500 pages), as the author takes his time with people hanging out and getting to know each other. Really, the only critique I have of this book is that it probably could have picked up the pace a bit and been a bit more urgent, though I certainly enjoyed it and kept on reading anyway. I really liked all the teenage characters and how smart and kind and loving they were (though clearly they're in a bit nicer of an environment as gay kids than they would have been in real 1909, sigh). The parallels between Evangeline and Teddy are pretty clear, with Evangeline being not-the-greatest-person and pretty self-centered/rude-ish to her "kids," but she still seems to kind of care about them on some level, at least. Teddy, well, wants Wilhelm's love and ALSO for Wilhelm to fear him, which he unfortunately isn't able to comprehend that aren't two great tastes that go together.  Jack sums them up well: "Laszlo's like a monster who remembers what it was like to be a man and has fooled himself into believing he still is one. Evangeline flirts with being a monster but hasn't got the heart to really commit." 

I have a comment on Evangeline and Teddy, but it's going to go below the spoiler cut.

Anyway, I enjoyed this very much and recommend it and give it about 4.5 stars. I'm not sure if this is the sort of book that would warrant a sequel or not--it both wraps up well as is but has potential for more--but either way, I'd be good. I like these people and would be happy to see them all again. 

The Impossible Us

By Sarah Lotz.

I read about this book a few months back and pre-ordered it (something I rarely do for a new to me author) upon the premise itself, which sounded a lot like Griffin and Sabine to me. (Disclaimer: link within is my notes on the G&S plotline and what happens there.) The day I got that book, I saw this Dear Author review and was all, "This review makes it sound bad/disturbing, I'm really concerned now." But I'd just gotten it, so I forged on anyway. 

The plot: Bee, a dress re-designer (for lack of a better phrase, but that is a cool job) gets a misaimed email from Nick, a struggling writer who's ticked at a client. The two of them end up having an extraordinary correspondence over email, really enjoy it, hit it off, decide to meet...and then the other one's not there when they go. They figure out soon after that that they seem to be living in parallel worlds that branched off after Chernobyl, with different cultural references, different energy practices, different rules about reproduction, etc. Bee lives in our world, Nick is in an alternate, more eco-friendly one. Nick attempts to get some help from a strange group he finds called the Berenstain Society, i.e. the only people who believe his story because they've had some experience of this parallel world thing themselves. One member, Geoffrey, actually has memories of another life he seems to have lived in the Beeverse before dying there (note this for later). 

Now, reading this premise, I thought this was going to go into Griffin and Sabine territory (see link above), in an "find a way to be together" sort of way. But nope. Nick and Bee conclude early on that there's no way they can ever meet, Nick is told it's not an option anyway. Then Bee gets an idea: track down the in-universe equivalents of them in their own worlds, meet those people, and presumably date them. This works great for Bee, as her world's Nicolas is a prominent author and a super sweet, nice guy and single. Nick's a bit jealous of his more successful counterpart, though he ends up using that information to become a novelist in his own right, so good for him. This does not go so well for Nick, as her equivalent, Becca, is married and has a child and her husband is an abusive rich guy. Bee smells a rat about the whole thing since Becca's done things Bee would not want to do, and she does some investigation into the husband, Benedict, in her own world and finds out he's awful. So this doesn't exactly turn into an adultery plot so much as it turns into a "how do we rescue Becca?" plot. 

There are clearly plusses and minusses to both universes and their counterparts in them, I'll put it that way. Eventually they tell a few people, who think it's unethical to be seeking out the counterparts. Is it? Maybe? I'm not sure. It doesn't quite go to straight up adultery, but you certainly kind of wonder. Is it cheating if you love someone who's an alternate version of your SO that you can never meet, if you're single? Also, is it unethical to use information you learn in other worlds, like telling Geoffrey what happened to his loved ones or trying to save the planet? 

The plot eventually goes back to the idea of "can you ever go to the other world/unite with your other self?' and that's definitely handled differently than Griffin and Sabine, for sure. I concur that the ending is...ambiguous with potential, I think? I hope? It's pretty...odd. This is an odd book for sure, but interesting as heck. Definitely not any kind of conventional romance, though, and I think how it's handled isn't going to work for everyone. It's not an easy-peasy ending, for sure. I suspect this may get a lot of discussion and conflicting opinions. That's why I'm getting as openly spoiler-y in this review as I am: I feel like you may need to know more about some of the places this book goes before you decide if you're in or out. 

I'll do a spoiler discussion below the spoiler cut on this one.

Overall, I'm giving it four stars for giving me a lot to think about. This will not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you can work with what the author is giving you, you may be up for that.