The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

Posted on February 9, 2024 by pagesofjulia

**Spoiler-Free!**

Following A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate, The Golden Enclaves wraps up the Scholomance series. I am very pleased with this conclusion and the whole series. For spoilers’ sake, this review includes practically no plot summary.

As a series finale, The Golden Enclaves takes on a lot, and involves a ton of action, ranging very widely in the ‘true’ geographic world as well as in the void and the magical spaces that populate Novik’s imagined world. A number of characters take great steps; this is indeed a coming-of-age for El, who has graduated from the Scholomance and achieved some real victories, but only to step out into a larger world where the monsters are decided not all neatly taken care of. She’s suffering some losses, not least in realizing the limits of her powers: she is one of the most powerful wizards ever, but there are still limits. We see her take less advantage of the friendships and alliances we’ve seen her form up til now, but also find news ones and/or revive some that have lain dormant.

I love about this whole series that it offers commentary on class divisions and the ethics of who gets to be safe and cared for in the world. Those themes are strengthened here, and complicated. There is a very pointed conflict of interests that she calls a trolley problem, of the highest order; El must face that she cannot (so to speak) save them all, that every choice has a cost. In the face of this frustration, she wavers, considers giving up. We have learned that El is incredibly strong and strong-willed; she doesn’t give up easily. But we have also never seen her tested like this.

I love the characters, including one or two who are still ‘rising’, coming to center stage. I love El herself so dearly; she struggles so hard with this book, even after having accepted help and friendship, and her struggles often yield some good snarky humor and fun amid the pathos. Novik has enormous world-building power, which was evidenced at the series’ start but is still at play here, because our understanding of the world (and El’s understanding of it!) must expand considerably in this book. I’d recommend her to anyone.

Rating: 8 bricks.

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Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

Posted on February 5, 2024 by pagesofjulia

Of the Oyeyemis, this one leans toward the more accessible for me, which is not to say I entirely understood what was going on, but I had a lower rate of whaaat?? than in some cases. I’m still not sure what it is about this author that although she frequently bewilders me I’m still on board.

Mr. Fox is, in most cases, a writer. Mary Foxe is his creation: a fictional character, or a muse, or an imaginary friend. There is also a Mrs. Fox, Daphne, who is married to Mr. Fox in the (if you will) real world; in some versions she is his third wife. She is jealous of Mary Foxe, whose existence is often in some question. There are various iterations of these circumstances throughout the book; it claims to be a novel (it’s right there on the cover!) but I would buy it as a collection of linked stories. Sometimes there are literal foxes. Often there is some reference, if oblique, to fairy tales. I don’t entirely agree with the back-of-book blurb’s description of what happens here, which is interesting. It is possible that one of us is wrong, of course, me or the blurb-writer–likely me, although I’ve seen the other happen!–but I think it’s possible that Oyeyemi has left things a bit up in the air.

I thought we had an organizing principle, briefly, in the idea that Mary was pushing Mr. Fox to do less killing off of his characters, particularly his female characters. (He is not an especially likeable man, and this is one manifestation of something unpleasant about his attitude toward women.)

What you’re doing is building a horrible kind of logic. People read what you write and they say, ‘Yes, he is talking about things that really happen,’ and they keep reading, and it makes sense to them. You’re explaining things that can’t be defended, and the explanations themselves are mad, just bizarre–but you offer them with such confidence. It was because she kept the chain on the door; it was because he needed to let off steam after a hard day’s scraping and bowing at work; it was because she was irritating and stupid; it was because she lied to him, made a fool of him; it was because she had to die, just had to, it makes dramatic sense; it was because ‘nothing is more poetic than the death of a beautiful woman’; it was because of this, it was because of that. It’s obscene to make such things reasonable.

I would have been interested in this guiding principle for the novel, but that is not this novel. It’s only a thread.

I’m going to stop saying much about Oyeyemi’s books. I more or less understood this one and it was an interesting ride. I’ll read another. If you know of a class I could sign up for online to help these books make more sense, I would pay for such a class (no joking).

Rating: 8 fountain pens.

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Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Posted on January 29, 2024 by pagesofjulia

I still love Alix Harrow! Starling House has been much anticipated, and I think it fits neatly into her body of work, combining fantasy and whimsy with darkness and grit, as well as romance and a touch of sweet, but not so much that you don’t still feel the hard bite underneath. This protagonist reminds me quite a bit of Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black; she’s hard-edged and a resolute loner, even though her heart is much softer than she’ll allow. She’s rough and dirty and antisocial, damaged but so strong.

I’m a cheat and a liar, a trickster and a tale-teller, a girl born on the ugly underside of everything. I’m nobody, just like my mother before me.

Her name is Opal. No last name, or whichever one she’s chosen for herself in the moment, like her mother before her. Her mother died when Opal was fifteen, and she’s been parenting her little brother–who was only five–ever since. Jasper is her only priority in life.

I’m a high-school dropout with a part-time job at Tractor Supply, bad teeth, and a brother who deserves better than this dead-end bad-luck bullshit town… People like me have to make two lists: what they need and what they want. You keep the first list short, if you’re smart, and you burn the second one. Mom never got the trick of it–she was always wanting and striving, longing and lusting and craving right up until she wasn’t–but I’m a quick learner. I have one list, with one thing on it, and it keeps me plenty busy.

Jasper is smart and talented, and his debilitating asthma is a bad match for the coal town of Eden, Kentucky. Opal is determined to get him out.

But she is distracted by the magnetic pull of the Starling House, a mysterious old haunted mansion that you can’t see from the road, but this doesn’t stop Opal from dreaming about it. One day she just sort of allows her body to take her there, and she meets its latest enigma of an owner/resident: Arthur Starling, an unkempt, haunted man about her own age. They both know Opal should steer clear of the House, but the House has a consciousness of its own, and once the seal has been cracked–contact made–her life is irrevocably intertwined with Arthur’s, and the House itself, and its weird and inexplicable history. The Starling House, it seems increasingly clear, is all bound up with the town of Eden and the terrible bad luck and sin and crime and hopelessness that Opal wants so badly to free Jasper from.

This is a novel that focuses on place, history, what it means to belong, to stay or to leave, and the meaning of home. Eden’s history includes coal mining, slavery, exploitation, and class divisions. The Starling family has been around for generations, and their role is ever-changing and unclear; the Gravely family has been around just as long, and they are the wealthy coal and power magnates, handing out favors around town or made of pure evil, depending on your perspective. There are a host of other compelling characters, including a loveable motel owner and an even more loveable librarian and a country cop who, again, falls somewhere between doofy and evil. I quite like Jasper, too. Harrow is good with characters, although not all of these are equally well developed.

So, a strong sense of place and a big role for place to play in the narrative. Great characters, with cleverness and snark and grit. And an emphasis on the power of storytelling, and questions about story versus history. “I told myself that writing down somebody else’s story wasn’t as bad as making up my own, the way repeating a lie isn’t as bad as telling one.” “I know that part of the story must be made up, because there’s no such thing as curses or cracks in the world, but maybe that’s all a good ghost story is: a way of handing out consequences to the people who never got them in real life.” “I saw this old map of the Mississippi once. The cartographer drew the river as it actually is, but he also drew all the previous routes and channels the river had taken over the last thousand years. The result was a mess of lines and labels, a tangle of rivers that no longer existed except for the faint scars they left behind. It was difficult to make out the true shape of the river beneath the weight of its own ghosts… That’s how the history of Starling House feels to me now, like a story told so many times the truth is obscured, caught only in slantwise glimpses. Maybe that’s how every history is.”

Finally, at the heart of Starling House is a mystery about power dynamics and the very nature of reality–as well as monsters, imagination, dreams and hopes and hopelessness, family, connections and home, and even romance. It’s a wild ride of a good time. I’m enchanted.

Rating: 8 Ale-8s.

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Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

Posted on November 13, 2023 by pagesofjulia

This very sweet story of witches, female friendship, intrigue, and coming of age was recommended by Liz. It’s a fun combination of some pedestrian features of regular life – government bureaucracy, for example – with witchcraft and magic. We first meet a group of young girls on the cusp of being inducted into the adult witch’s world of the coven; then we flash forward to find them navigating that adult world in very different ways. Witches can be people of color and queer people, struggling with what that means for any of us in the real, mundane world, as well as the parallel prejudices and oversights of witches (who might be magic but are also just people). Niamh is mourning her late fiancé and just wants to keep her veterinarian practice going smoothly, but she also can’t turn down a young warlock (or witch) in need. Elle has all but renounced her powers, enjoying her cookie-cutter life as wife and mother, until her teenaged daughter shows signs that she’s got powers of her own. Leonie runs an important intersectional coven, with the support of her beloved girlfriend Chinara, but Chinara wants a baby and Leonie’s not sure she’s ready. And Helena… well, her role as High Priestess of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven may be her logical due. Or it may be just a bit much for her. A dire prophecy appears on the horizon, and these four old friends will be hard pressed to handle it each in her own way, to say nothing of how they relate to one another.

It’s really a clever, charming, smart, modern story. These four very different women are just muddling through life as any of us does, magical powers notwithstanding. They parent, find romance, make hard choices, try to do good, and maintain important old friendships – or let them go when they no longer serve. They have to wrestle with bigotry, and they fight for what’s right. They are sweet and strong. And this novel is the first in a trilogy! Thanks for the recommendation, Liz.

Rating: 7 kittens.

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How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin

Posted on October 27, 2023 by pagesofjulia

This book took me on such journeys and brought me so much joy and enjoyment and laughter and more difficult but also rewarding feelings; I have long felt that Jemisin is a rare master, but this may be the pinnacle. I love this book. I was once mildly disappointed with novella-length versions of her world; but here she clearly perfected the short story. And I was so pleased with the wide variety of worlds we got to dip into. Every story is unmistakably Jemisin, but each is also so different. They range in the impressions they give of settings in time and in space, from recognizably referring to our world to being fairly far afield; some are set in the worlds of her novels, some stand alone, and a few closely answer another author’s work (more on that in a minute). Some, similarly, seem to fit into a timeline of our own world, while others stand apart. But they all have the flavor. I went back to immediately reread one story in particular as soon as I finished the book, and that’s a rare move.

How Long opens with an author’s introduction in which she shares her coming-of-age as a writer, her growth as a short story writer, and the struggle of being a Black woman in fantasy and science fiction, among other things. “The stories contained in this volume are more than just tales in themselves; they are also a chronicle of my development as a writer and as an activist.” For this reader, at least, it felt right to come to this collection after having read all the novels (I haven’t read all her work as published in various places, but I’ve read all the books); I felt familiar with the writer now offering a look back across those years. Such a treat. Also, I hope she lives to write many books for a long, long time more.

The first story in the collection is “The Ones Who Stay and Fight,” which is quite explicitly a response to Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” This was, again, a real treat for me; I’ve read “Omelas” for a couple of classes in which I was a student and also taught it for several years, so I’ve looked pretty closely at its concepts as well as its sentences, and that was an excellent preparation to appreciate Jemisin’s strong response in both its concepts and its sentences. To match the voice and style of another writer is not ‘mere’ imitation but a serious accomplishment in itself, and this story does that well. Jemisin has a fiery answer to Le Guin’s troubled false utopia; her Um-Helat is not “that barbaric America” nor “Omelas, a tick of a city, fat and happy with its head buried in a tortured child.” She’s got a different idea, and exhorts the reader to come along, “get to work.” (The direct address comes from Le Guin, but Jemisin grasps it firmly.) I was so delighted with this opening story, I could hardly stand it.

Other favorites include “Red Dirt Witch,” “L’Alchimista,” “The Effluent Engine,” “The Evaluators,” “Henosis,” and “The Elevator Dancer” – is Orwell just this much in our society, or in my head (recently Julia), or is this an explicit play on 1984? To emphasize the range of these stories, I will attempt a few one-line description/summaries:

  • “Red Dirt Witch”: The White Lady threatens Emmaline’s family, but she knows the red dirt of Alabama, and the magic it holds, too well to go down easily.
  • “L’Alchimista”: As a professional chef, Franca has fallen far, but she can’t resist a challenge; when a mysterious stranger shows up at her little kitchen in Milan, she will discover her art holds even greater power than she knew.
  • “The Effluent Engine”: In historical New Orleans, a Haitian spy looks for technological advantage and finds also love. (Jemisin’s website calls it “a swashbuckling adventure-romance set in 1800s New Orleans with secret societies, derringers, and bustles.” Love!)
  • “The Evaluators”: Human contact with alien species is highly regulated; why is this one trade contract being rushed? Danger! (Strong hints of Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood series.)
  • “Henosis”: In out-of-order chapters, a famous author is kidnapped by his biggest fan.
  • “The Elevator Dancer”: Security guard secretly, shamefully, watches a subversive act of dance.

Bonus: many of these stories are available elsewhere, linked from Jemisin’s site, if you’d care to go hunting that way.

This book has left my mind changed, and I’ve stepped away and back to it. Strongly recommend.

Rating: 10 frava roots.

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The Stolen Throne by Abigail Owen

Posted on September 29, 2023 by pagesofjulia

Book two in the Dominions trilogy picks up where The Liar’s Crown left off. Meren continues to carry the weight of great responsibility, even over her twin, Tabra, who is ostensibly the “real” princess – now queen – half of their twinship. Tabra carries the privileges and Meren the hard work. We don’t resent Tabra for this, however, because she is so sweet. In fact, I’m inclined to say she’s a bit too sweet – a little boring and a little less realistic than our hero, because if Meren is sometimes frustrating, she’s also a realistic teenager, as well as a brave, hard-working young woman, fighting for the good of all the people in her world, and growing up at the same time. In this installment, she realizes what good friends she has – even if some of them betray her. And she’s still navigating love, romance, and sex. There are still the two young men in her life. One is her lifelong best friend, Cain, who wants to marry but whose love tends toward overprotection and limitation. And then there is Reven, who represents risk and danger to Cain’s security, but for whom Meren feels actual fireworks; also, the two of them are bound (magically) by their trauma and having saved one another’s lives. That drama progresses here, as does the larger drama of risk to Meren’s very world and the people she (or is it Tabra?) rules over and is responsible for.

I find the interpersonal dramas more compelling than the magic in this series; the amulets, goddesses, monsters and political machinations are trappings, or framing, for the interactions between people (and gods, Shadows, monsters, etc.) that interest me. Which is not especially a criticism, but an observation. I returned to this world in search of a comfort read, and in spite of danger and death and violence and all that, I absolutely find it here. I appreciate Meren’s struggles and the push/pull she feels with Reven, especially. I remain invested in these characters and am looking forward to book three, which is promised for April of 2024.

Rating: 7 glimpses of golden thread.

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In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

Posted on September 1, 2023 by pagesofjulia

In the Lives of Puppets is TJ Klune’s third adult standalone novel, in a similar vein to The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door. These are the only three of his I’ve read, although there are more, and I may still get to those.

I said about Whispering Door that Klune excels at “the juncture of sweetness, fantasy, profundity, inclusivity, wisdom and pure silliness.” Puppets continues in that style. Rather than magical orphans or a magical afterlife, here we have a decidedly sadder challenge. The story begins with a lovely forest. A man (“who wasn’t actually a man at all”) approaches an old, falling-down house in the forest. He builds a life there, a crazy network of add-on treehouses and laboratories a la Swiss Family Robinson. He has a son, Victor. Flash-forward: we meet adult Victor with his two companions, a nurse-robot named Nurse Ratchet (that’s an acronym for Nurse Registered Automaton To Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill, and yes, think One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and a vacuum-robot named Rambo. Victor’s father Giovanni is still around, and much-beloved; they have a happy family, although Victor is the only human member of it. Like Giovanni, he is an inventor, builder, creator. He spends many of his days combing through the Scrap Yards, where the Old Ones deposit their detritus, some of which turns out to be useful to Victor’s little forest-dwelling family. It’s where he found Nurse Ratchet and Rambo, both of whom he’s patched up to become the wacky friends they are today. (Nurse Ratchet is forever hoping to murder someone or something, slowly, and document their agony. Rambo is crippled by anxiety, restlessness, and his ceaseless need to clean. He loves the old movie Top Hat.) One day, at the Scrap Yards, Victor finds a new potential friend, one who will change everything.

This book assailed me with literary allusions, some of them less obvious than the two I’ve named already. Epigraphs refer to Pinocchio; Victor’s first name and some other plot elements remind of me Frankenstein; the goofy-sidekick robots make me think of R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars as well as The Wizard of Oz. Which is to say, Klune is not working with brand-new material here (nor does he think he is). The world of robots gets a decided Klune twist, though: sweet, silly, romantic, hopeful. There are a few big reveals I won’t name here. As I already mentioned, this world feels a bit less hopeful to me than the worlds of Whispering Door and Cerulean Sea. The romance felt a full step less believable to me, somehow, although I can’t quite say why – it’s not like the pairings-off in those first two novels made perfect sense in any real world, but this is fantasy. Something about this one just didn’t go off the same, for reasons I can’t articulate. Possibly (is this too obvious?) it is that difficult to write robots (or androids) as relatable humanish characters. Maybe it’s as simple as where we were left with this love affair.

I really enjoyed this read: I was absorbed, engaged, tickled, and concerned for the characters I’d come to love. It is a good book. I just think it’s less awesomely good than the two previous ones by this author that I’ve read. I will certainly buy the next standalone novel he publishes in this same vein.

Rating: 7 butterflies.

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Dragon Spear by Jessica Day George

Posted on August 4, 2023 by pagesofjulia

Dragon Spear is the final volume in the Dragon Slippers trilogy, and I remain glad I was handed that first book by a young friend. These have been entirely fun, with positive messaging and enough grit and humor to keep me engaged. The dragon characters are as sweet and diverse as the human ones, and the women and girls, and female dragons, tend to be both clever and strong. It’s very appealing material for this age group, and I found it perfect, easy reading while on a recent trip to see family.

In this episode, once again, we think the dragons are safe until they aren’t. This time something’s different: the threat comes from other dragons, under their own power and not that of malicious humans. In fact, these dragons enslave humans. And there are some young ones at stake–as well as Creel’s wedding dress, as her union with the younger prince approaches. We lose track of Marta, which is a shame, but get a new human buddy: Creel’s brother Hagen has shown up. He’s an interesting new feature. Dragon friends, and the prince Luka, remain steadfast.

It seems like faint praise to say that this one offers nothing especially new. But I truly feel comforted by knowing what to expect, especially at this reading level. This one is faithful to the series in pleasing ways.

A final strong recommendation. And I’m a little bit considering looking into George’s other works.

Rating: 7 holes.

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Dragon Flight by Jessica Day George

Posted on July 17, 2023 by pagesofjulia

Book two in the trilogy that began with Dragon Slippers is at least as good – my young friend who recommended them to me prefers the first book but I think this one might be better. Creel, in her late teens, is now an entrepreneur, running a dress shop in King’s Seat along with her best (human) friend and business partner, Marta. Marta is engaged to marry Tobin, former bodyguard to the younger prince, Luka; Creel is less secure in her relationship, but the reader can see that Luka himself is smitten with her, commoner or no. Because this is the Dragon Slipper series, trouble quickly arises: a distant country is poised to invade with an army of soldiers riding dragons. We know that dragons are not hostile by nature, so something funny (probably of the alchemical variety, as in book one) must be afoot.

One thing I love about Creel is her genuine devotion to her dragon friends. Her first friend, really, was a dragon, while she definitely has some good human ones. She is adamant in her defense of the misunderstood dragons, anxious both to protect their reputations and keep them safe. The humans also need dragons to keep them safe, and Creel is the liaison between the two groups.

I love the friendships among and between humans and dragons. I love Creel’s (and Marta’s) innovations and puzzling through problems, and their bravery. The romances are sweet, but what I love most about the pairings is that Creel and Marta are outright heroes while their respective beaus just follow along, supportive but a little bumbling, good-natured about their partners’ impressive accomplishments. (I considered sharing this observation with the 11-year-old who recommended these books to me, then realized I’d actually rather she live in a world where this was unremarkable.)

Charming, daring, whimsical, loveable, endearing. I’m in for book three.

Rating: 7 scales.

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Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George

Posted on July 7, 2023 by pagesofjulia

My favorite 11-year-old saved this book especially to loan to me, and I was so excited to be given the assignment. And I quite enjoyed it! Rated for grades 5-6, Dragon Slippers has engaging action, humor, sweet friendships, a hint of romance, and snappy pacing. It’s also got some good messaging, which I approve of. It’s the first in a series and I thought I’d walk away after just one, but the surprise ending (and the sample chapters of book two!) got me.

In poverty and desperation, with a hint of a Hansel & Gretel dynamic, Creel’s aunt decides she should be abandoned to the rumored local dragon, in hopes that a noble knight will rescue her and uplift the whole family. (“Why should anyone be rewarded for defeating a dragon by being saddled with a dowryless, freckled wife and well over a dozen daft and impoverished in-laws?” Creel wonders, but nobody asked her.) This device gets Creel in the company of a dragon that no human has seen in generations, and she quickly learns that their hoards of gold and treasure are a false rumor – this one prefers shoes – and that they’re not terribly motivated to kill humans. She makes a friend, gains a beautiful pair of blue slippers that fit just right, and heads off to the city of King’s Seat hoping to make her own living rather than return to an aunt who tried to feed her to a dragon. Creel is a talented maker of what her late mother called fancywork: embroidery, weaving, and (if necessary) sewing. In the city, she is repeated called a country bumpkin. Events move quickly: she falls afoul of a visiting princess; meets a friendly prince (no relation); gets a job in a dressmaker’s shop; and finds herself embroiled in a few messes. One, working for a boss involves the kind of exploitation anyone in our present, real capitalist system will recognize. Two, her coworkers range from friend material to backstabber. Three, the prince’s attentions and the princess’s hostility somehow manage to entangle Creel in political intrigue and matters of state that also – surprise – turn out to involve her dragon friends.

(Following an early whiff of Hansel & Gretel, the slippers and the prince definitely recall Cinderella. Just echoes.)

I asked my favorite 11-year-old what she liked about the book, and she started with the initial meeting with the first dragon. (Dragons are one of her two favorite animals.) She also mentioned Creel: she likes her strength and her unwillingness to take any crap. She identifies with that. We talked about the friendships in the book, and the pacing. She said she wanted me to read it because she thought I would like Creel, and she was right.

If Creel’s interest in pretty gowns, sashes, and slippers is a bit prissy for me, she is on the other hand a highly practical feminist entrepreneur, with a dangerous habit of speaking her mind even to royalty, and a strong sense of her own powers. I love the urge to make her own way in the world. She’s brave. And she’s a good friend to a handful of dragons as well as humans, and might just turn out to be a hero. I appreciate the positive messaging, and the imaginative world of dragons. There were a few very minor plot holes that I think would likely be tolerated (or missed) by many adult readers, and certainly by younger ones. And as I said, I was hooked by a surprise finish. All in all, my young friend gave a good recommendation.

Rating: 7 collars.

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