Hey folks! Sorry for the long hiatus. This year has been a bit of a roller coaster in terms of school and home, not to mention COVID-19. But thanks to quarantine, I’ve been able to race through a bunch of new books on Libby (my new favourite reading app). If I tried to review them all my brain would probably explode (or I’d get RSI, or you’d get tired of my reviews).
So I’m trying this new thing where I highlight my Books of the Month and hopefully my brain doesn’t explode. There is a lot of fantasy on this list, but I promise you each book brings a unique perspective and culture to the table.
Without further ado — Best Books of June!
Uprooted
Title: Uprooted
Author: Naomi Novik
Publisher: Del Rey (Random House)
ISBN: 9780804179058
“He halted and looked at me with unconcealed irritation. ‘What an unequaled gift for disaster you have.'”
Messy, disaster-prone Agnieszka knows the Dragon will take her best friend. Kasia is just about as perfect as anyone can be, and the Dragon takes only the most special of girls as payment for his protection of the valley. But when the wizard comes and takes not Kasia, but Agnieszka, she is swept away from her village and into a dangerous, magical world that seems to revolve around an annoyed wizard, a sinister Wood, and maybe even Agnieszka herself.
Based in part on Polish culture and stories, Uprooted is without a doubt the best book I read in June. Novik’s prose has a certain sparkle to it, a knack for compelling and creative descriptions and a humour especially evident in Agnieszka’s interactions with the ever-exasperated Dragon. Her heroine is funny, kind, and constantly out of her depth, but that never stops her from forging her own path. Part fairytale, part coming-of-age story, part slow-burn romance, and wholly delightful, Uprooted is the story of a woman who learns that her differences carry their own magic.
Warning: one attempted rape scene, mentions of sex and one sex scene (fairly descriptive but short), magic, violence, a bit of body horror.
Daughter of the Forest
Title: Daughter of the Forest
Author: Juliet Marillier
Publisher: Tor Books (Tom Doherty Associates)
ISBN: 9781250238665
“The Sight does not always show what a person wants to see, but maybe she had an idea as she bade her children farewell, what a strange and crooked path their feet would follow.”
Sorcha should have been the seventh son of a seventh son, blessed with magical powers and faery luck. Instead she is a girl, raised wild in the forest while her father wages war on the intruding Britons. But her idyllic way of life is ruined when her father brings home a new wife, an eerie woman who curses her brothers and sets Sorcha an impossible task to free them. Her journey will take her far away from home, into caves and over oceans, until she has to choose which love she values most.
Set in Ireland and based on the tale of the Six Swans, Daughter of the Forest is a beautifully-crafted tale of love and devotion, magic and family and courage. The historical background and beautiful prose turns what could have been an uninspired fairytale retelling into a rich and captivating epic. Marillier doesn’t shy away from difficult topics like isolation and trauma, instead weaving them into her novel as key strands of the tapestry. Daughter of the Forest is poignant and bittersweet, if a bit slow, and a credit to the historical fantasy genre.
Warning: one rape scene (not very graphic but not a “fade to black”), one quick non-graphic sex scene (the scene is more about dealing with trauma than about sex itself), mentions of abuse, violence, occasional light swearing (d*mn), magic/curses.
The Bear and the Nightingale
Title: The Bear and the Nightingale
Author: Katherine Arden
Publisher: Del Rey (Random House)
ISBN: 9781101885956
“Marina was bone in the unyielding earth, but he had seen her look just that way, when her soul lit her face like firelight.”
Vasya Petrovna has witch’s blood. She knows to leave offerings for the domovoi, the hearth guardian, lest he withers and loses his power to protect her family. And as much as her step-mother may abuse her and accuse her of lying, Vasya knows that something bad is coming when the house spirits start to languish. She will need all the help she can get, even if that means trusting a demon.
Russian folktales and mythology play a starring role in this stunning wintertime novel, where spirits and demons roam freely and monsters are not always what they seem. Arden’s prose is almost poetic, almost musical. Her descriptions are evocative and an absolute joy to read. Vasya is a thoroughly bewitching heroine, the kind of person I wish was: courageous, smart and skillful. The Bear and the Nightingale is a gripping tale of growing up and standing out, built on the back of beautiful writing and a clear love for Russian culture.
Warning: Superstition and fantasy, magic, violence, demons and spirits, mentions of sex, one instance of “d*mn”.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Title: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Author: Susanna Clarke
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9781582344164
“He was so clean and healthy and pleased about everything that he positively shone — which is only to be expected in a fairy or an angel, but is somewhat disconcerting in an attorney.”
In 1806, everyone believes magic to have disappeared from England. Everyone, that is, but a small, miserly man named Norrell. When he reveals his powers, he becomes an instant celebrity. Norrell soon takes a young, arrogant man named Jonathan Strange as his apprentice. But the two clash in their thinking and grow apart, even as a common enemy haunts them both.
Clarke’s alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars, in which magic is alive and well and wielded by two very flawed men, is written in the style of 19th century writers like Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. It is also around a thousand pages long in paperback. As you may imagine, this makes it a very difficult book to get into if you (like me) have been gorging yourself on easy summer reads. But do give it a shot. Once I got into the rhythm of the period language, Clarke’s wry wit and observational storytelling completely won me over. It is not a laugh-out-loud hilarious book, but the gentle humour of the prose is charming and smart, like an inside joke quietly referenced at a dinner party. It may take you a while to get through, but Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is entirely worth the effort.
Warning: Magic, some violence, kidnapping, and references to slavery and anti-black racism.
The Joy Luck Club
Title: The Joy Luck Club
Author: Amy Tan
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780143038092
“She said the two soups were almost the same, chabudwo. Or maybe she said butong, not the same thing at all. It was one of those Chinese expressions that means the better half of mixed intentions. I can never remember things I didn’t understand in the first place.”
The San Francisco Joy Luck Club meets to play mahjong and invest in the stock market. It has been the same women for over 30 years: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong and Ying Ying St. Clair. But now Suyuan is dead, and her daughter Jing-Mei takes her place at the mahjong table. In 16 vignettes, the mothers and daughters of the Joy Luck club tell their stories. Daughters remember growing up and rebelling under their mothers’ shadows, while mothers justify their actions through the sacrifices they made. Stories blend together, each character casting the others as sidekicks or rivals, until you can’t tell where one story ends and the next begins.
30 years after its release, The Joy Luck Club still resonates as strongly as when it was first written. Tan’s writing is insightful but not particularly flowery, making this an easy book to read despite its sometimes difficult subject matter. It resonates especially with me, as an Asian woman growing up and finding space in a Western country, because of its unapologetic roots in Chinese culture. Some scenes could have been drawn directly from my childhood (like the quintessential piano lessons), while others connect more forcefully with Chinese history. But the book is also about memory, family and history, and how these things shape who we are. Filled with moving and powerful moments, The Joy Luck Club is definitely worth a read, especially if you’re someone searching for how they fit into the past and the present.
Warning: Mentions of rape and financial/emotional abuse, death, mentions of suicide, abandonment, superstition.
The Home Library Online 