How to make an Iron Widow: weld together the righteous feminist anger of The Handmaid‘s Tale, the media-saturated high-stakes battles of the Hunger Games, and the giant robot vs monster action sequences of Pacific Rim but turn the volume ALL THE WAY UP on the rage and revenge, throw a wrench in the classic love triangle, and build it all on a foundation of Chinese history and lore. This book will take you on a ride that will leave you BREATHLESS.

I love Robin McKinley and her Robin Hood retelling was a long overdue read for me! As the title suggests, McKinley is interested in the community of outlaws that gathers around Robin Hood as he sets out into Sherwood Forest, allowing plenty of stage time for several strong female characters, old and new. While the pace is definitely slow, the characters are lovable, and The Outlaws of Sherwood makes for a gentle, pleasant, historically-set read.

Maia, the kind-hearted, relegated, half-goblin son of the elven emperor, suddenly finds himself rushed to court and crowned after his father and brothers perish in an airship explosion. Maia must learn the court on his feet, forge alliances, protect himself from coups—all while looking for his father‘s killer. What ensues is a masterpiece of political fantasy that thoroughly engages the mind, full of lovable characters who utterly warm the heart!

I had such a blast reading this steamy romance and loved the academic setting! DON‘T LISTEN TO THE RUMORS that this is basically a Kylo Ren/Rey fanfic set in a grad school lab!! I mean, are these ridiculous rumors true? Yes, yeah, they‘re definitely true BUT you don‘t have to be a Star Wars fan—If you‘re a fan of grumpy/sunshine pairs, fake dating, or women in STEM, that‘s all you need to SEE STARS for this FUN, SPICY, and HEARTFELT romance!

Pictured is my copy of this now scarce 1901 collection of fairy tales by the suffragist Mary De Morgan (1850-1907). Wind fairies teach a miller's daughter how to dance only to have her accused of witchcraft, a rare tree and its beloved pool of water are separated and reunited through the magic of the water cycle, a boy's beautiful voice is stolen by an evil sorcerer and the girl who loves him goes on a quest to return it to him, and more! 🧚

This genre-defying work merges the story of the scientific search to understand eels throughout history with a son‘s memoir of fishing for eels with his late father, but it also verges on the metaphysical, making a moving argument for the place of mystery in our understanding of the universe, our connection to the natural world, and in our most intimate relationships. If you weren‘t fascinated with these enigmatic creatures before, you will be.

In this fairy tale, it'll be 'happily ever after' after the princess murders the prince, not marries him. Join princess Marra and her companions—a ghost-raising gravewitch, a frizzy fairy godmother, an exiled knight, a dog made of bones, and a chicken with a demon—on an impossible quest to save her sister from the hands of a cruel prince. Gruesome and bewitching, yet full of hope and humor and heart, Nettle & Bone is my new favorite fairy tale.

Dark, bloody, and lit up like neon glinting off fangs, Certain Dark Things is a vampire novel unlike any I‘ve read before. I really enjoyed the world-building, the action-packed plot, and the main characters—garbage collecting street kid Domingo and beautiful and menacing vampire brat Atl, but I don‘t think noir—or even neo-noir or neon-noir as SMG calls it—is my genre! I appreciated but didn‘t love this, same way I felt about SMG‘s recent noir.

As eerie, gruesome, creepy, and horrifying as it promises, Neil Gaiman‘s Coraline really is a special work of middle grades horror. I loved that no matter what terrors Coraline encounters, she is never truly daunted. Her courage in the face of fear lends a counterweight to the thrills and chills the reader encounters alongside her. Neil Gaiman‘s narration of the audiobook is superb—and the musical interludes and rat voices delightfully repulsive!

Return to India Holton‘s magical Victorian England full of flying battlehouses and dangerously debonair pirates! This time, meet the pirates‘ mortal enemy—witches. When the British Museum displays a long lost amulet from their shared origins, which is promptly stolen, Irish pirate Alex and prophesied leader of the witches Charlotte are hot on its trail—and each other. A hilarious, madcap, sexy, and fantastical read ensues! Because of the tone… 👇

This 3.5 hour audiobook (or 128 page novella) is one of the most unexpected, inclusive, and inventive fairy tale retellings I‘ve had the pleasure of reading, and that‘s a favorite genre of mine! A Spindle Splintered is Sleeping Beauty as I promise you‘ve never encountered her before—queer, multiversal, and feminist, yes, but also just plain FUN. I loved spending time in these worlds and look forward to more in this new “Fractured Fables” series!

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner is a classic introduction to the magical craft. As an ex-vangelical, I was wary of this book and the possibility of falling back into damaging religious thought patterns, but Cunningham‘s disavowal of any dogma and repeated assurances to do what works for you really put me at ease and allowed me to simply learn about Wicca. Clear, accessible, and highly recommended for anyone curious about witchcraft!

Friends have been telling me for years to read this first book in the Tiffany Aching cycle of Terry Pratchett‘s Discworld series, and they were right of course! The Wee Free Men is a charming, clever, fun romp of a book full of characters to root for and rich worlds to explore. Highly recommended for fans of The Princess Bride or anyone in the mood for smart and light-hearted fantasy.

Weaving fairy tales, critical theory, witchy magic, and memoir together, this autobiographical novel follows Ariel as a single teen mom at college, reading her toddler bedtime stories from Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Gloria Anzaldua, becoming a witch and a queer feminist activist, navigating family court‘s sinister bureaucracy, pressing back against her professors‘ phallocratic narrative structures and forming a narrative structure of her own.

The half spooky half sweet, all feel-good, skeleton-articulating, witchy middle grades graphic novel you never knew your lonely little Halloween heart NEEDED. When Snap encounters her town‘s rumored witch, Jacks, she finds an old lady who sells roadkill skeletons online…and who may just have actual real magic—but Snap can‘t begin to guess at all that both past and future have in store for them both—and their families, immediate, furry, and found.

Published in 1926, later becoming the very first Book Of The Month, Lolly Willowes is a classic of feminist literature—and unapologetically, literally witchy. Laura, called Lolly by her niblings, is a spinster smothered by family obligation. She moves to the countryside alone to pursue her own life. This is a brief but slow-building novella but the payoff is worth the wait for Laura and for her readers.

This second chance romance didn‘t knock my black and orange striped socks off but it was solid. Hot magical people in instant love bores me. What I most enjoyed was the setting of Graves Glen, a magical college town in the North Georgia mountains that gave me major Stars Hollow vibes. I was very disappointed that the audiobook narrator didn‘t even really attempt the love interest‘s Welsh accent. It really was a pleasant listen all said though.

This unusual, understated, yet potent fantasy had me spellbound and immersed. Mori is a Welsh teenager in 1979 whose fight against the dark magic of her mad witch of a mother has left her twin dead and Mori disabled and sent to an English boarding school. Through her diary, Mori recounts her days, full of both the mundane and the magical, as reads sci-fi voraciously, finds love and friendship, and explores the moral dimensions of her own magic.

This spooky young adult novel is set in Ireland and features a mysterious set of tarot cards. I really enjoyed the main character‘s voice and narration, the LGBTQ+ representation, the social and political and personal themes, and especially learning about tarot and witchcraft alongside Maeve. A touch slow on the pacing at times, but really realistic for the age of the characters. Looking forward to the next in the series which comes out next year!

This was the first book I‘ve read by middle grade lit icon Kate DiCamillo! Set in a medieval time and place, this warmly-narrated audiobook is full of huggable characters and the power of love and story to conquer injustice and greed. Answelica the hard-headed goat by far steals the show, however!

A conwoman in 18th Century Cairo accidentally summons a djinn and is immediately swept away on a journey marked by grave danger, powerful magic, mysterious heritage, complex court politics, unexpected alliances, and promising romance. The first half is a slow build but so incredibly worth it. City of Brass is as rich and immersive as it is action-packed and exciting—a magic carpet ride through Middle Eastern mythology that absolutely dazzles.

Thomas is dead, but due to an administrative error, he‘s sticking around on Earth for a little while. In the meantime, he‘s not supposed to incur any “regrets,” by doing things like contacting those who knew him or having sex—the latter of which he does in great detail and in varying states of bodily manifestation. Interesting premise but all the characters occurred to me as rather vapid and shallow, and I didn‘t feel invested in any of them.

This charming illustrated collection follows the titular Little Witch Hazel through the four seasons as she minds a wayward egg, takes a pleasure cruise on a raft, investigates a haunted stump, and heals the ailments of her neighbors. Phoebe Wahl‘s illustrations are just enchanting and your time in Little Witch Hazel‘s world will warm you from head to heart to toe—all while making you fall a little more in love with our own world, in every season.

This retelling of the myth of Circe, best known for turning men into pigs and bedding the Greek hero Odysseus, is complex, gorgeous, and as enchanting as it is enriching, touching on subjects of feminism and empowerment, generational trauma and healing, redemption and overcoming the shame of past transgressions. Madeline Miller has rightly won all the laurels she‘s received. Song of Achilles and Circe are must reads.

This book was so beautiful, so uplifting, and so dear, so powerful with its LGBTQ+ representation—and then I read a review that calls out its historical parallels 😫 The worst part is a friend just told me another favorite book had problematic representation of King Leopold II of Belgium, the worst mass murderer in history who brutalized the Congo—and I still didn‘t recognize the mc‘s father in this book is King Leo of Belgium, same time period.

I‘m not a mystery reader, but this cozy drew me in with its main character, the 11 year old chemist and poison enthusiast Flavia de Luce, as unique as she is lovable, and its setting, the sprawling country manor house of Buckshaw in the tidy little village of Bishop's Lacey. TW: a brief, historically accurate but unnecessary instance of racist anti-Asian caricature.

This incredibly moving and informative graphic memoir memorializes and shares actor and activist George Takei's experience as a child imprisoned with other Japanese-Americans within American concentration camps during World War II. Beautifully structured and illustrated, with clear relevance to similar injustices in America today, this is a must-read for fans of graphic nonfiction, especially the March trilogy.

A play-by-the-rules East Coast socialite moves across the country on the whim of her childhood crush only to get hooked on a bait and switch—with a new roommate who just happens to be a famous adult performer. Porn and personal growth ensue! The Roommate is a quick, fun, and feminist read.

P.S. It did bother the heck out of me that the cover doesn‘t match the physical descriptions of the main characters.

This retelling of the story of Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Greeks, his partner Patroclus, and the siege of Troy is dazzling and immersive from the very first page and holds you in its grip far beyond the last one.

In the acknowledgments of the last Isabel Allende book I read, she says she starts a book on the same day each year and finishes it within a year and that has really colored how I feel about her writing. While I valued learning about the history of Spain and Chile, A Long Petal of the Sea doesn‘t read like a novel but like a draft of a college assignment on family history.

In this seventh volume in the Wayward Children series, Cora, resident mermaid of Eleanor West‘s Home for Wayward Children, flees the reach of the Drowned Gods of the Moors by transferring to the anti-magical Whitethorn Institute. This is an action-packed, odd-numbered quest book and I find I prefer the immersive, even-numbered books in the series, but I will gladly spend any time in the Wayward Children‘s worlds, even if it‘s my own! Out 1/4/22.

As a fan of Emergent Strategy, one of the author‘s nonfiction books on activism, I was really disappointed by this pandemic novella. I hope in the finished copies they‘ll communicate more clearly that this is the first in a proposed trilogy—as you don‘t find out until the end of the acknowledgments in the ARC. If you‘re content with very few answers and intense interiority, then I would still recommend Grievers.

I was pretty intimidated by this book before I started, and there were definitely a few technical sections I didn‘t fully grasp, but the overall view this modern classic and bestselling science book offers is simply breathtaking. With Carl Sagan as your warm, welcoming, and ever ecstatic guide, I don‘t think you can help but be swept away on this inclusive and expansive journey through space and time.

After being enthralled by this book cover for months, I‘m glad I finally listened to this beautifully narrated audiobook edition of Deesha Philyaw‘s short story collection. These nine stories span four generations, focusing on the vulnerability, sexuality, secrets, religious constraints of the Black women at the center of each story. These stories display such range, alternatingly funny, shocking, tender, and wise, each, above all, achingly human.

I‘ve never seen a single episode of the Duggars but I was drawn to this book. Well-written and engaging and satisfying, The Book of Essie draws on fundamentalist headlines from the Duggars to Ruby Ridge to conversion therapy. Essie is the 17 year old, secretly pregnant youngest daughter of a Christian celebrity family—and Essie has a plan to break free, but it‘ll take every trick she‘s learned on her family‘s reality tv show.

I know I‘m pretty new to historical romance but this book is basic af. The two leads are really hot and instantly attracted to each other. The action is rote and predictable and it doesn‘t feel like there‘s any real stakes. And there‘s really no historical grounding—often it feels like dialogue and reactions and social mores are anachronistic. The saving grace was that it‘s a quick read. Meh.

Read for August Bookland Challenge: Fiction—Backlist

“The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.” So begins this philosophical guide to time management, narrated with warmth and commiseration by the author, a reformed efficiency junkie who will give you all the permission you need to not get EVERYTHING on your checklist done every day. I really appreciated the frame of mind this book got me into while listening.

My childhood self felt so seen by this moving graphic memoir about family addiction, parental absence, and what helps us survive childhoods out of our control and create happy and healthy adulthoods all our own. For Jarrett Krosoczka, it was his love of drawing. For me, it was my love of reading! Highly recommended.

Watch my TikTok review: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMRMgkTWp/

This charming, sweet, and true-to-life graphic memoir about the making of a wedding from bestselling cartoonist Lucy Knisley gets into the nitty gritty of nuptials, from the marketing onslaught to the DIY decorative details to navigating social niceties and negotiating parental priorities. I‘m already married, so it was a bit nostalgic to read—would make a great gift for an engagement party!

Read for August Bookland: Graphic Novel, Friend Pick

The time finally came for me to read the bestselling science fiction book of all time! Dune is daunting, and I think it helps to know going in that 1) you‘re going to be somewhat confused for a while, 2) it really takes off at around 150 pages in, and 3) there‘s a glossary in the back. But believe—the magnificent, ecologically-informed world-building, complex politics, rich religious traditions, and massive sand worms are totally worth the hype!

This fantasy adventure is perfect for anyone who loves a rogue rich with wit and charm and cheap when it comes to scruples, a scamp who‘ll steal your heart along with whatever you‘ve got in your pockets. The audiobook is truly excellent, with the author performing a myriad of voices and dialects and singing all the gorgeous traditional ballads woven through the book.

Reread with audio! Tetley lives on a floating patch of garbage, the only solid ground left on a flooded earth. Tetley‘s not alone but she is the only one who knows the truth—Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world. The Past Is Red is an electrifying parable for this era of climate change, as bitterly optimistic and cheerfully furious as this dire hour demands, sure to steal that gorgeous garbage patch in your chest you call a heart.

Gather your wits and get ready to swoon for this fantastical historical romance full of flying houses, dastardly deeds, literary quips, and pirates as polite as they are deadly! There's no more worthy successor to The Princess Bride--Swoon-worthy romance? Check! Fun with puns? Check! Madcap adventures? Check! Unlikely heroes? Check! Hilarity ensues? Check! Danger, betrayal, epic fight scenes? You can bet that dagger hidden under your bodice on it!

Kristin Neff‘s book Self-Compassion was recommended to me by my therapist, as was this follow up. The first was deeply helpful to me and I continue to think about it often. This one is basic feminism plus self-compassion—the studies from Lean In with different advice. I can tell from the Goodreads complaints about how “political” it is that a feminism primer is necessary and needed, but it wasn‘t news to me or what I was seeking in this book.

One Booker Prize-winning author, four titans of Russian literature, and seven celebrity narrators await you in the audiobook edition of an MFA class George Saunders has been teaching at Syracuse University for the past 20 years! I can‘t decide what I loved more—the stories narrated by Nick Offerman, Glenn Close, Rainn Wilson, and Renee Elise Goldsberry or the rich, warm, life-affirming, and soul-stirring analysis and advice by George Saunders.

In an alt-postwar England, practical Jane Shorefield is in want of a husband, and, based on her calculations, Dr. Augustine Lawrence is the ideal solution. But this is a gothic novel, so the good Dr. Lawrence turns out to have a tragic past, a crumbling family manse riddled through with ghosts, and…an ability to alter reality to his will? Magic and mathematics, 19th century surgery and some serious twists and turns await you…just open the door.

It‘s never too late to find where your heart belongs—even when your body‘s six feet underground. Wallace Price was a jerk when he was alive, and now he‘s dead and a snarky reaper named Mei‘s hauled him to Charon‘s Crossing, a whimsical tea shop in the middle of nowhere where she lives with an emotional support spirit dog, a grumpy ghost grandpa, and a dangerously lovable ferryman named Hugo. Hope, happiness, love, & life (and death) lessons ensue!

Reread through this beautifully narrated audiobook edition! Never have we needed Becky Chambers' "hopepunk," sci-fi self-care visions of the future more than now. Part hilarious odd-couple road-trip, part soulful parable for a lost and battered world, A Psalm for the Wild-Built brings all the warmth, comfort, and elusive wisdom of a steaming mug of tea poured by someone who loves you. Take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, and drink it all in.

My 12-year-old niece picked this audiobook for our trip together, and it is beautifully narrated, funny and entertaining, with a complex and ambitious heroine. So why the so-so? I was uncomfortable with the pure adulation given to the Presidents and capitalism throughout. I know this is for a young audience, but I think that makes this a problematic read I wouldn‘t want to recommend to another kid without preparation for a lot of conversations.

If you‘re not listening to Joshilyn Jackson‘s books on audio, you are missing out! She‘s is an award-winning narrator who brings each character to life. In this, her 2nd book of domestic suspense, privilege and power, rape culture and purity culture, income inequality and gender inequality, all come into play in a plot that completely kept me guessing. Read for complex domestic suspense with all the thrills and so much to discuss for a book club!