YA Fantasy

Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor

April 30, 2019 Leave a Comment

18 hours 20 minutes| Fantasy | Hachette Audio | Release Date: 3/18/2017

We’ve been talking about Laini Taylor on this blog since Daughter of Smoke and Bone was featured in this Wall Street Journal article about new books reaching the Harry Potter generation. The Daughter of Smoke and Bone series blew me away and Taylor is back at it again in Strange The Dreamer.

In this book, we meet Lazlo Strange, an orphaned librarian who finds himself the center of a story beyond his wildest dreams. Taylor is one of the best storytellers in YA right now and this book reflects that. The worlds and magic systems she creates are so detailed and creative.

At over 500 pages and 18 hours on audio, there were times where you could feel the page count. In the acknowledgments, Taylor says this was originally one book that got made into two and I think with a little less backstory it probably would have worked as one book but there seems to be no room for standalones in YA

At its heart, Strange The Dreamer is as a unique and original tale of trauma and survival.

….I’m not really a fan of YA duologies. They always feel like one story that has been stretched and padded to become two books instead of a story that needed to be told with two books.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

April 28, 2019 Leave a Comment

358 pages | Henry Holt and Co, | Fantasy | Release Date: 06/05/2012

Wow, reading this book was a blast from the past. Shadow and Bone was first published in 2012, which was our first full year of blogging. The then-unknown Bardugo was part of a group of debut YA/MG authors called the Apocalypsies that included several other YA fantasy powerhouses like Zoraida Córdova, Sara J. Maas, Brigid Kremmer and Marissa Meyer.

On to the book!

Shadow and Bone takse place in the Russian-inspired land of Ravka that has been divided by a dark shadowy wasteland known as The Fold. Wars have broken out at the borders leaving devastation in its wake.

Childhood friends Mal and Alina are soldiers in Ravka’s First Army, which is nothing compared to Ravaka’ Second Army—made up of Grisha, individuals who have mastered the small science (magic) and can wield elements in mind-bending ways. When Alina discovers she maybe one of the most powerful Grisha of all time, she is thrown into the opulent Grisha world and at the arms of the Grisha’s charming leader The Darkling.

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Kat’s Crooked Kingdom Review (in Gifs)

March 21, 2019 Leave a Comment

I finished Crooked Kingdom so it’s time for a GIF review!

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Damsel by Elana K. Arnold

December 28, 2018 Leave a Comment

unrated | 7 hrs. 42 min. | Balzer + Bray | YA Fantasy | Release Date: 10/2/2018

So about this book. I’m not really sure what to think of it. I like that it’s not trying to be what you expect in a YA fantasy. It’s not a story about rebellions, handsome princes, faithful sidekicks, and adventure–instead, it manages to be…I’m going to go ahead and say viscerally transgressive.

I can see Damsel being used to that introduce teens the concept of how to do a feminist reading of a text or apply feminist literary theory (which is totally a class I took in college, okay) It’s chock-full of allegory and symbolism in a way that is raw and at times a bit heavy handed but it’s the kind of strangeness and unease that you can’t look away from.

And whooo, boy…that ending. Like I get what Arnold was doing but I was not expecting that. . .

Check out the audiobook review on AudioFile !

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

December 20, 2018 Leave a Comment

15 hrs 4 min | Henry Holt & Co. | YA Fantasy | Release Date: 9/29/2015

Ya’ll remember this book? I can’t believe it came out almost 4 years ago! I am the queen of reading popular YA stuff super late so here I am. I picked up Bardugo’s debut Shadow and Bonewhen it first came out and never got into it. I actually criticized it for not having enough “political nuances, rich detail, and brutality.” Well, let me tell you she stepped her storytelling game up because that pretty much sums up all of Six of Crows. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about how this book is violent AF.

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Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

December 19, 2018 Leave a Comment

Release Date: 05/8/18 | Urban Fantasy | 376 Pages | HMH BFYR

The servants bound to the home of the Parisian witch Mada Vittora may appear human but are in fact beasties–animals enchanted into humans. When Mada Vittora is mysteriously murdered Anouk, her newest beastie and the other servants find themselves on a high stakes adventure across Paris to discover the truth of their origins and find a way to stay human before time runs out.

I went into this book knowing literally nothing and was completely sucked in to this unique and thrilling urban fantasy. I think magic systems are so key to how believable a story is and Shepherd builds a complex and imaginative magic system with steep consequences and rules.

This book does the thing that I really like in YA fantasy where a girl gets hero jounrey’d, discovers she has more power than she thought possible and takes a level in badassalong the way. I appreciate that Shepherd is able to write a female-centered fantasy without a lot of violence. One thing that has turned me off some YA fantasies lately is just all the sexual violence and abuse heaped on the (particularly female) characters before they can gain power. It’s one of the reasons Ember in The Ashes didn’t work for me and almost turned me off the genre.

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