Book 18: The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

A book club book! Which was also already on my list of things I needed to read, but this gave me the nudge I needed to actually read it. Unusually for this author, it's a standalone novel and also one that I think is probably New Adult rather than YA. It takes place in Spain post-Ferdinand and Isabella and focuses on a young servant named Luzia who is hiding both her family's Jewish faith in an era when anything other than public Catholicism was outlawed and her magical abilities. Her magic is discovered by the mistress of the household she works for, and a powerful noble who has a mysterious assistant wants to train her and present her in court for his own gains. 

The story unfolds more slowly than I was expecting, and then suddenly it opens up completely and takes a lot of turns. It's the third historical book about the Iberian peninsula that deals with religious identity and persecution and magic that I've read, so I was very much in the bag for the overall themes of the story, and when the narrative pace picks up it's pretty thrilling and ends up taking turns with various characters that I didn't expect and found extremely gratifying. It also made me want to pick up her adult fiction series again, which I bounced off of a bit the first time I tried it. But now I think I'm ready for the particular kind of edge she approaches stories with. 

Grade: A   

Book 17: How to be Eaten by Maria Adelmann

This was a book that was recommended by a podcast I listen to, and it sounded interesting enough for me to give it a shot, so I did! The setup is pretty interesting: it's a modern retelling of various folk tales that all basically serve as cautionary tales for women, all having to do with their relationships with men. One woman dates a tech billionaire and narrowly avoids being killed like all of his prior girlfriends; another goes on a reality tv dating show and doesn't fully realize that she's the villain; and then there's a little red riding hood taken to its implied end. They all meet at a support group that's set up by someone mysterious, who has his own agenda, and they all discover new things about themselves. 

I wanted to like this more than I did; it's not a bad story, but it's not one that felt particularly fresh or challenging for me, and a lot of it read like a bunch of MFA short stories that had gotten stapled together into a novel. But I think it's worth reading, even if I was hoping it would arrive at someplace a little less expected in the end. 

Grade: B

Book 16: Nimona by ND Stevenson

My sister wants to show me the movie version of this and had also given me the graphic novel last Christmas, so it was finally time! This was a fascinating example of me having a sense of what the story was about and discovering that I was incorrect, but not being mad about it. I thought it was about a girl with two dads, and instead it's about a monster who adopts a supervillain and has to deal with his arch nemesis. Those two ideas overlap, for sure, but I think part of the joy and revelation in this book is where the story goes versus where you think it will. Anyway Nimona is right and everyone should know it!!

Grade: A