The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

 Compare a book to Naomi Novik's and Katherine Arden's work and I'm the sucker who is sure to pre-order it.  Add a fabulous review from Alix Harrow and I can't get my hands on the book fast enough.  And the cover is gorgeous.

And I'm 1/4th through the book and just not invested.  It's not for me.  I understand how other people adore this book.  But I'm bailing on this one.  Sorry, world.

Definitely give it a try.  It can't be bad, but I have too many books I'm excited to read to fight my way through one that doesn't hold my interest.

Becoming Leidah by Michelle Grierson

 

I saw the cover.  The description and reviews indicated there were selkies and Norse Mythology.  How could this not be AMAZING?

Welllllll.......  it was fine.

The first third of the book was slow. Slow enough that I wasn't invested.  I almost bailed, but continued being super hopeful that it would improve.   

Then there's the characters..

Maeva and Leidah are beautiful characters that you come to love over the course of the story.

Then there's Pieter. He can go to hell. He's a male character straight from a Barbara Kingsolver novel.  He is everything that is wrong with men.  He "means well" but is super controlling and seems to "know" what's best for everyone.  To put it simply, he's a control freak who can't trust his family.

And the worst of women are in this book. There's a village ready for a witch hunt and a self-serving witch that you hate just as much as Pieter.

The ending was ambiguous, but I think it works and is appropriate to the story.

Also, there's a bit of a Norse mythology learning curve. You'll definitely appreciate the story more if you know some basic Norse mythology.

I really loved the parts of this book that I didn't find completely frustrating.  Read it?  See how you feel about it. 

A Witch's Guide to Escape a Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies by Alix E Harrow

 Link to short story: https://apex-magazine.com/a-witchs-guide-to-escape-a-practical-compendium-of-portal-fantasies/

I've read this before.  Over and over and over.  It's a short story. that can be read in under ten minutes.  Shouldn't be anything worthy of a review, right?  WRONG.

Harrow has essentially written a beautiful love letter to books, libraries, and the special librarians who hold a special place in our hearts.  It's about the books people NEED, not the ones they or other people think they want.  It's about glorious escapism, coping, and finding and losing your place in the world all at once.

It is a short story.  It's perfect.  There's no reason to not give it the ten minutes of reading time and the mental space it will inevitably fill for the rest of your life.  This story sticks with you.  And rereading it is like catching up with an old friend.  You know it so well, but it's comforting to be aquainted with, once again.

PS: All of Harrow's writings are definitely worth your time.  The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a beautiful story with nods to classics like A Little Princess, Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, His Dark Materials.  The Once and Future Witches is historical fiction at it's finest, featuring women's suffrage and witches.  A proper review of both of these books will probably show up here at some point...

Camelot: A Collection of Original Arthurian Stories by Jane Yolen

 The short version:  Read this book if only to read the Pratchett, Springer, and Costikyan stories - they are just THAT GOOD.  The rest is a mixture of decent and disappointing.

A story by story analysis:
The Changing of the Shrew by Kathleen Kudlinski
-A sweet, forgettable story that would fit right in with The Once and Future King where Merlin transforms Arthur into various animals to teach him about the world.

Wild Man by Diana L Paxson
-Considering that Merlin is my favorite Arthurian character, I had high hopes for this one.  It was fine, but unengaging to the extent that I thought about skipping it (it didn't help knowing that the Pratchett story is up next!)

One and Future by Terry Pratchett
BUY THE BOOK FOR THIS STORY ALONE.  Pratchett is a brilliant, brilliant man.  His Mervin is perfect - quirky and clever.  This story is the best thing I've read in a while.  

Gwenhwyfar by Lynne Pledger
Oh, the crazy Welsh spelling of Gwenever!  A tale of Gwenever before she leaves the abbey for Camelot.  A fair representation of women's role in many Arthurian stories.  A criticism of the male-centric stories we are so used to, in the same vein as The Mists of Avalon (but without all the controversy around it).

Excalibur by Anne E Crompton
A unique glimpse at the story from the Lady of the Lake's perspective.  How the next Lady of the Lake becomes the guardian of Excalibur and learns that she is to give Arthur the sword.

Black Horses for a King by Anne McCaffrey
A well-written story by an excellent author, but not one that was particularly engaging.  It falls short after the previous three stories.

Holly and Ivey by James D Macdonald and Debra Doyle
A fun variation on Sir Gawain and the Green Night.

The Raven by Nancy Springer
Looks like this is the short story where Springer's, I Am Mordred (a fabulous middle grade book) started.  The first paragraph is the same as the novel's and then there are some variations.  

All the Iron of Heaven by Mark W Tiedemann
A decent read, but not memorable.

Amesbury Song by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
For a song that's only two pages of text, I couldn't do it.  Yes, I bailed on a two page poem.

Our Hour of Need by Greg Costikyan
A group of kids on Cape Cod, D&D, JFK's Camelot, and the return of Arthur.  Perfection.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

 "In the Myriadic Year of Our Lord - the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!- Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth."

Um - WHAT???

Gideon might be the only character who, in some ways, reminds me of El from Novik's A Deadly Education.  She's sarcastic and amazing.  

Muir drops the reader right in the middle of the action.  Gideon is determined to make her escape.  In this escape, you are forced to understand the dynamics and terms of Gideon's world.  It involves space, necromancy, politics, lies, plots, and lots and lots of glorious sarcasm. 

Confession: I generally avoid reading sci-fi.  Not a fan.  I can watch sci-fi - Firefly, Doctor Who, Warehouse 13, I can't recommend them all highly enough.  But I struggle with reading it.  It's not you, sci-fi, it's me.  This book proves that there are exceptions to this rule.

Apparently reading sci-fi is totally okay when there's enough humor (maybe that's why I adored Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and brilliant, refreshingly sarcastic characters.

Also, something about the strange mix of EVERYTHING in this book is appealing.  Sarcasm.  Space.  Necromancy.  Humor.  Necromancy.  Sarcasm.  Death.  Sarcasm.  Murder mystery.  Sarcasm.  Sarcasm.  Skeletons.  Sarcasm. Sarcasm.

About halfway through, this book starts to feel a bit like the movie, Clue.  And it's great.


While my go-to read is typically something fantastic and beautifully written, this book is such a refreshing read.

And look at the cover!!!  

Upcoming Reads (in no particular order)

Gideon the Ninth by Muir (for book club: https://carterhaughschool.com/the-carterhaugh-book-club/)
The Last Graduate by Novik (#NetGalley ARC)
The Harp of Kings by Marillier
Camelot: A Collection of Original Arthurian Stories by Yolen

New releases arriving in today's mail:
The Hidden Palace by Wecker (the sequel to The Golem and the Jinni)
The Wolf and the Woodsman by Reid

New-ish releases:
Half Sick of Shadows by Sebastian (#botm)
Sistersong by Holland

Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise

 

Thank you, #netgalley, for the ARC of #WendyDarling!

The short version:
This story is absolutely perfect!  It takes the main element of Peter Pan that I always found bothersome and exposed it for the nightmare it is.  Told between 1904 Neverland, 1917-1920 London, and "present day" (1931) London and Neverland, Wendy, Darling tells the story of Wendy and her family and the repercussions of her initial Neverland visit, her memories, and her brothers' lack of memories.

The lengthier, rambling version:
Was no one else horrified reading JM Barrie's Peter Pan watching John and Michael forget home, their parents, everything about their previous life?  No?  Just me? 

Well, that always bothered me.  A lot.  For a story that holds a very dear place in my heart, one of the first things I remember about the book is how unsettling it can be.

A.C. Wise takes my discomforts with the original story, and exploits them for the horror it truly is.  Wendy remembers home when she goes to Neverland.  Wendy remembers Neverland when she returns home.  Her brothers do not.  Wendy does not live "happily ever after" after Neverland, but spends a bit of time in an asylum and is eventually married off.  When her daughter Jane is the age that Wendy was when she visited Neverland, Peter shows up to reclaim Wendy, and steals Jane away to Neverland (mistaking her for Wendy).

So many Peter Pan retellings rebrand Peter as the villain.  This book is no exception, but it is brilliantly done.  Peter's a villain, because he is truly a child who has no sense of thinking beyond himself.  He is exactly what would happen if you let a little boy make his imaginings a reality with no concern for the world outside of himself.  IT IS UTTER CHAOS.

I received this book as an ARC from #NetGalley, but didn't cancel my preorder because I needed this book to physically occupy space on my shelf.  It was just THAT GOOD.

For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten

For fans of Naomi Novik's Uprooted and Juliet Marillier's Heart's Blood, For the Wolf is a Beauty and the Beast retelling with hints of Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Green Man mythology. The eldest, Neve was always intended for the throne, but being the second daughter, Red has been "For the Wolf" her entire life. With her approaching 20th birthday, she is sacrificied to the woods where she begins what is possibly the greatest adventure of her life. This book teeters on the edge of adult and YA fiction. Look at that beautiful cover that just screams "LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD RETELLING." Th main character's NAME IS "RED." Yes, there's a red cape. Yes, there's a "wolf." Yup, the dark woods, too. But is it really a Little Red retelling? Absolutely not. It's 100% a Beauty and the Beast with hints of other fairytales thrown in for good measure. The first 100 pages of this book had me super excited. It was everything I could want out of a fantasy novel: strong female characters, the dark woods, fairytale retelling. And then Beauty meets the Beast - I mean, Red meets Eammon - and the character interctions start to give the book what I can only describe as a YA flare. Still good - there's nothing wrong with YA (it's just not my cup of tea), but it changed the feel of the book, for me. The ending made up for my mixed feelings about the middle, and set the book up perfectly for book two (expected '22 release). Very excited to read the next book! Thank you, #NetGalley and Orbit, for the ARC of this book

Welcome!

 Welcome to Allison's Bookish Ramblings!  

Here is THE PLACE to find reviews of fantasy, speculative fiction, mythic fiction, and the occasional book that fits none of these categories!

Who am I?
24601!!!!  (sorry, hope some of you understand the theater geek in me...)

Ok, so who am I?  
Obviously, my name is Allison.  I'm a mother of two preschoolers who lives in Middle-of-Nowhere, NJ (yes, that is a valid section of the state),  I'm a self-employed piano teacher who spends her non-work/non-active-parenting time reading, crafting, and thinking about gardening (actual gardening hasn't happened in a very long time). 

And you read what?
Mostly fantasy.  Lately, I've been sticking to books that are not part of lengthy series (except for that Wheel of Time marathon that happened last year), so not a lot of "epic fantasy," but lots of books based on mythology, folklore, fairytales, and just other fun less-than-realistic reads.

Favorite books I've read in the last few years: 
The Winternight Trilogy by Arden * The Starless Sea by Morgenstern * The Once and Future Witchse by Harrow * Dreams Underfoot by de Lint * The Lost Queen by Pike * The Night Circus by Morgenstern * The Light of the Midnight Stars by Rossner * Snow White Learns Witchcraft by Goss * The Bloody Chamber by Carter * The Sevenwaters Trilogy by Marillier * Circe by Miller * Ariadne by Saint * The Song of Achilles by Miller * Blackthorn and Grim by Marillier * The Orphan's Tales by Valente * Fairyland by Valente * The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Gossner * The Fionavar Tapestry by Kay * Shades of Magic by Schwab * To the Bright Edge of the World by Ivey * The Wood Wife by Windling * The Snow Child by Ivey * The Priory of the Orange Tree by Shannon * The Golem and the Jinni by Wecker * The Earth Sea Cycle by Le Guin * The Last Unicorn by Beagle * Neverwhere by Gaiman

And that's just the beginning of the list of books that makes my geeky heart soar!  You can expect to find reviews of old favorites, old non-favorites that haven't yet escaped by thoughts, new favorites, new disappointments, and ARCs (so terribly excited for THE LAST GRADUATE, #NetGalley)

Occasionally, you'll find the stray middle grade book show up here - The Redwall series (no one knows whether it's middle grade, adult fiction, or what), Howl's Moving Castle, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Fairyland, etc.  Or maybe even picture books that my children and I have fallen in love with will pop up on occassion (but of these, I'll only share the best of the best!).

Welcome to the blog where you can find all (okay, most) of my geekiest thoughts in one place!