December was a great reading month. I read a whopping 19 books. And I really loved so many of them.
I started several new series, continued with some series I’ve been reading all year, and finished a few series. I also read several stand-alone books. I hit a bunch of genres and age categories too this month: fantasy, sci fi, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, and nonfiction, as well as middle grade, young adult, and adult books.
So let’s dive right into it.
First, I read the Furthermore duology by Taherea Mafi, Furthermore and Whichwood. I am once again on the hunt for comp titles for my middle grade fantasy book, which is to say books that are similar enough to mine that I can reference to publishers. So I read a lot of middle grade books this month, including these too. While they are definitely not good comp titles for mine, I really enjoyed them. Alice lives in a world where magic thrives, and the more colorful you are, the more magic you have. But Alice has no color at all, and so everyone thinks she has no magic. Worse, Alice’s father has vanished, and life at home has become unbearable to Alice. Then a boy named Oliver invites Alice on an adventure to find her father in another world called Furthermore. Furthermore, turns out to be incredibly tricky and dangerous at every turn, and Oliver also isn’t being totally honest with Alice. These books reminded me a little of Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books, with these vivid and unique worlds and a narrator with a personality. They were really fun, but also pretty dark at points. And I definitely recommend these books.
I started 2019 reading the first three books of Rick Riordan’s Trials of Apollo series, which follows his Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series. The fourth book, The Tyrant’s Tomb, came out this fall, and I finally got my hands on a copy and read it in December. After the tumultuous end to the last book, Apollo and Meg journey to Camp Jupiter, only to discover that the emperors are planning to attack. Adventures ensue to save Camp Jupiter. Things that I liked about this book: is Apollo finally getting some character development? Frank and Hazel. So much Frank and Hazel. The climactic battle, which I obviously can’t tell you about because spoilers. Things I didn’t like about this book so much: honestly these books are all starting to feel the same. I know I read a lot of books in December, but I actually had to look up a plot summary for this one because I was getting it mixed up with the first three. These books are like fun popcorn, but that’s about it, which is unfortunately not how I felt about Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series.
Throughout December, I continued my reread of Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books with her Immortals series. I read all four Immortals books this month, Wild Magic, Wolf Speaker, Emperor Mage, and The Realms of the Gods. These books held up a lot better on this reread than the Lioness books did. There’s a relationship in the fourth book that I seriously disapprove of, but I have always disapproved of it so that isn’t a heart shattering discovery. But on the whole I love journeying with Daine as she discovers her magic and makes friends and finds a new home and has such great adventures. Also these books have such awesome human and animal friendships and I love them.
Next, I read One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. This was another book I picked up in my search for comp titles—it wasn’t a good comp title either—and I ended up with such mixed feelings about this book. After her stepfather beats her and her mother up, Carly ends up in foster care. With her new foster family, the Murphys, Carly learns what it’s like to have a real family in a normal home. She makes friends, deals with bullies, and generally is happier than she’s ever been. Then her mother starts recovering in the hospital and wants to reconnect. This book made me cry. A lot. And okay it doesn’t take much to make that happen. But once I got over my feelings, I spotted the problems, and once I spotted the problems, I couldn’t unspot them. I love how Carly’s feelings are depicted in this book. It feels really authentic, and it’s really well-done. But even though my knowledge of the foster care system is limited, I’m pretty sure there are significant problems with how it’s portrayed. Carly would probably have a therapist to help her through all this, and she would also have an attorney to represent her interests in any court proceedings. At thirteen, Carly would be old enough that her views and desires would be taken into consideration in any proceedings too. And once we find out more about the situation that sent Carly to foster care, no way would her mother be able to reconnect with her so easily. And the ending. Ugh the ending. That’s just not how that would go. It’s possible that the author was trying to keep the book a little simpler for middle grade readers, but if the foster care system had been depicted more accurately, it actually would have given Carly more agency and made it a stronger book, in my opinion. All in all, I did enjoy this book. It gave me serious feelings, and that was the strongest part of the book. But the problems with how the foster care system worked in the book really dragged it down for me.
After that, I read A Path Begins by J. A. White. This is the first book in White’s Thickety series, and I’m in the middle of the second book now. When Kara was five years old, her mother was accused of witchcraft and executed by her village just hours after giving birth to Kara’s younger brother, Taff. Now Kara is twelve, and with her father still struggling with grief for her mother, she has virtually become her sickly brother’s guardian and the sole caretaker of her farm. She is shunned by the rest of her island village because of her mother. Then she discovers an old spellbook and begins to practice her mother’s forbidden magic and to learn about her mother and what really happened that night. The island is also dominated by this super freaky forest full of dangerous magical plants. The forest, called the Thickety, is constantly trying to encroach on the village, and Kara also discovers there’s an evil forest demon who’s after her in particular. This was an incredibly dark and creepy middle grade book, and I loved it. I particularly enjoyed watching Kara grapple with her new power and whether it means her mother was evil and now she’s evil too because her religion forbids witchcraft. I loved how all the characters in this book learned and grew and changed. I love how complex the plot is. And the climax and ending of this book were just so amazing. This was a great book and a great start to a series. I’m currently stuck in middle of the second book because my library copy expired and I’m waiting to be able to borrow it again, but I can’t wait to get back to it.
This month I discovered the Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend. I blazed through the first two books, Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow and Wondersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow. I won’t be able to do this series justice with my description, but I’m going to try. Morrigan Crow is a cursed child. She was born on the last day of the last age, and so she is destined to die on the eve of the next age. On top of that, she is blamed for every little thing that goes wrong in her town. But just hours before she is expected to die, a stranger named Jupiter North appears and whisks Morrigan away from her neglectful family, snatching her from the jaws of the Hunt of Smoke and Shadow which has come to kill her. Jupiter brings Morrigan to the wondrous world of Nevermoor and enters her as a candidate in the trials to join the Wondrous Society. Morrigan is soon falling in love with her new world and her new friends, but the only way she can stay in Nevermoor is to pass the trials and be admitted to the Wondrous Society. In order to do that, she needs a knack, and Morrigan is positive that she doesn’t have one. And if she’s sent home, the Hunt of Smoke and Shadow will get her. I won’t go into what happens in the second book because it is super spoilery, but everything about these books is spectacular. The world is just so vivid and unique, and the characters are fabulous. I just fell in love with this series and now I’m raving about it to anyone who will listen. I’m also deeply disappointed because for some reason I thought the third book was coming out this week and then realized that it isn’t coming out until August and that’s just too long to wait guys! On the plus side it means if you haven’t read the NEVERMOOR books, you have time to get caught up. So go read them. Go read them now.
Next, I read The Institute by Stephen King. I’ve never been a huge Stephen King fan, but I picked this up because the summary sounded eerily similar to a project I’m working on. Luke is a child genius. One night, strangers break into his house, kill his parents, and kidnap Luke. Luke wakes up in a strange place called the Institute, where he learns that he has telekinetic powers, and the people running the Institute are experimenting on him and kids like him for some nefarious purpose. This book definitely kept me reading from start to finish, but on the whole it just wasn’t really my thing, and I can’t quite explain why. The portrayal of the kids was really weird, and I didn’t like the point of view shifts so much. And there were just some needlessly brutal details. I don’t know. If you’re a King fan, you’d probably really like this book. There were definitely parts that I loved. But on the whole it just wasn’t my kind of book.
Next, I read The Fog Diver by Joel Ross. This was another book that I picked up in search of a comp title, only to realize it’s sci fi so not the right genre for my purposes. That was a very misleading description when it came to genre. Anyway, I blew through this book in just a few days. Hazel, Swedish, Chess, & Bea are a crew of orphans operating an airship and salvaging things hidden in the fog on earth below. Chess, our protagonist, is the one who dives into the fog, which is poisonous to almost everyone else. The kids are trying to earn enough money to get the woman who took them in out of the slums and over to another city where her fog sickness can be cured. But of course everything goes wrong and they end up on a rollicking adventure through the air, chased by an evil lord and a bunch of pirates. This is a fun exciting book. I really liked how today’s culture is depicted as totally scrambled ‘up in the future, and I love the kids’ teamwork and friendship. On the other hand, the writing in this book was pretty simplistic, and that really got under my skin. There was a lot I liked in this book, but it just didn’t stand out to me the way so many other books have this year. I’m not sure I would recommend this book to friends, and I’m not sure I’m going to go on to read the sequel.
After that, I picked up Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. This book is about a girl who is abandoned by her family and shunned by her whole town. She basically grows up on her own, with practically everybody in the town hating her. Then in the present we’re following a police investigation into the murder of a very well-liked young man, and the marsh girl is the main suspect. Sorry, I can’t remember anyone’s names and I’m too lazy to look this book up again. The writing in this book was beautiful. Delia Owens does a great job with vivid descriptions, and I felt like I was in the North Carolina marshes. I loved the parts about the girl growing up on her own. I didn’t like the murder investigation storyline as much. Like a lot of present-day storylines in books like this, it felt forced, like the author was trying to shoehorn in some more plot, and it just didn’t grip me the way the rest of the book did. I know a lot of people absolutely love this book, but I came down pretty neutral. On the whole, I didn’t love it, but I didn’t dislike it either.
I’ve been working my through The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey this year. I’ve been getting the books out of the library, and there have been really long wait times, but this month I was able to read the fifth book, Nemesis Games. After the fourth book, the ship needs some pretty major repairs, so while that’s going on, the crew splits up to do some personal stuff, and then terrorist attacks start happening and everything goes crazy and our four crewmembers have to fight their way back together again. I really loved the character work that went on in this book. We really dive into Naomi’s backstory, which is great. We also get a lot from Amos and Alex too. But the pacing of this book was weird. It just kept building and building and building and then it ended. Like I didn’t realize the climax had happened until the book ended. It was confusing, to say the least. This definitely wasn’t one of the strongest books in the series, but it also wasn’t as bad as the third book, so I’d say this is a medium book. It felt like a bridge between the fourth book and whatever comes next. And this series is definitely growing on me, so I’m still looking forward to getting the next book out of the library.
After that, I sped through Greetings from Witness Protection by Jake Burt. Finally, something that could maybe be a comp title for my middle grade fantasy book. If only it was fantasy. Nikki has bounced from one foster home to another ever since her father was arrested and her grandmother died. Then U.S. marshalls arrive with a proposal for her: that she join a family going into witness protection as part of their disguise and also as an extra layer of protection. This book was full of so many great things. It was tense, because the family is trying to hide and stay out of public notice, but it’s also full of feelings because Nikki is discovering family and friends and a normal life. And of course it all comes together in a fabulous climax, and it’s just so great, and if you’re interested in a tense and heartfelt contemporary middle grade book, this is for you.
Next, I read Baker’s Magic by Diane Zahler. Bee is an orphan in a crumbling kingdom, but when she steals from a baker and he catches her, he allows her to work for him to pay for what she stole. Soon, she’s his apprentice, and she’s discovering that she might just have a little bit of baking magic herself. Bee learns about her powers and makes new friends, including the kingdom’s lonely princess. And when the regent magician attempts to marry the princess off and seize the kingdom for himself and the princess asks for Bee’s help, Bee, her new friends, and her little bit of magic embark on an epic adventure. This book has it all: evil magicians, baking, baking magic, strong friendships, found family, and even some noble pirates. ‘I do feel that it kind of simplified and glossed over some of the darker, more complex issues that came up, but it was still a fast, fun read, and I definitely recommend.
And then I finished off my middle grade reading spree of the month with Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty. Serafina has lived hidden in the basement of the Biltmore estate all her life, and she has been told by her father to never go into the woods. Yet when a mysterious man in a black cloak starts wandering the estates grounds and children start disappearing, the woods might be exactly where Serafina needs to go to stop him. This was a fairly good book. I found the pacing to be kind of off. There were times when the book was really slow, and times when it was very tense and fast-paced. I also found the writing kind of telly in places. It was a fine book, but it didn’t stand out to me, and I’m not sure I would recommend it or go on to read the rest of the series.
Last month, a coworker took me to a book talk sponsored by the D.C. Bar Association. The book talk was the first part of the D.C. Bar’s celebration of the 100-year anniversary of ratification of the 19th Amendment—women’s right to vote. At the talk, Elaine Weiss was speaking about her book The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. It was an excellent talk, and I got a copy of the book and started reading it right away. Unfortunately the book was not as good as the talk, in my opinion, and it took me two months to finish it. I found the subject-matter very interesting, but for something that was described as a nail-biting thriller, I was kind of bored. The book kept jumping around in time, and there were moments when the same event was discussed multiple times, and then other moments when something was referred to as if we knew what it was when the book had never talked about it before. At the same time, I think the book did a good job grappling with important issues like the problematic nature of the mainstream suffrage movement’s treatment of minorities and minority suffrage—basically they were willing to let that go in order to get white women the right to vote. But on the whole I was kind of disappointed that this was the last book I read in 2019. Definitely not finishing the year with a bang. On the other hand, I have heard that this book is being made into a TV series, and I’d definitely be interested in watching that.
And that’s it for December. While some of the books were a letdown, there were also so many books I read this month that I love unconditionally. Several of them are making it onto my 2019 favorites list, which I plan to post later this week. Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?