Amy 
young adult, fantasy
I read the Advance Readers Copy I picked up at ALA Midwinter--this novel comes out in May.
First of all, I do believe Laurie Forest's heart was in the right place. I believe the purpose of The Black Witch is to show how horrible it is when groups of people persecute other groups of people based on things like race, heritage, sexuality, beliefs, abilities, gender, etc. And it’s especially horrible when people with these opinions are in a place of power and control. She decided to illustrate this by writing a story set in a world full of magical beings where the main character, Elloren, has been raised in a secluded small town, raised to believe the religion and the histories of her people, and to feel superior to all other races/religions. Then, Elloren goes off to school and starts realizing that her people’s teachings and behaviors are not necessarily correct, righteous, or humane. By the end of the novel, she has a firm belief that her people have been wrong and is willing to stand against them. It all sounds like a wonderful moral. I also like that it teaches that history is subjective and that religious and historical books are written by people with an agenda.
However, in illustrating her point, most of the book was extremely offensive and off-putting. And everything in this book is an extreme—the awful people are insanely terrible. The racism isn’t just racism but racial purity at the Nazi level. There is segregation and open hostility towards those who are different. In using offensive language, showing the ugly side of this world in such vivid, horrifying detail for the majority of the book, and not giving the marginalized characters any real voice, the author turned me off. The world painted by the author is so visually beautiful. But, underneath is ugliness, racism, nationalism, and hatred for anyone or anything different. And they are a very conservative, controlling, highly religious population. I saw where the book was going and the main character did, after all, come to the university with ignorance due to being so sheltered. It took time to change her whole view of the world. I feel this was realistic for this character. But the book was almost 600 pages long and most of it made me twitchy to read the horror and hatred.
The story is reminiscent of Harry Potter in some ways: It mostly takes place at a boarding school for magical people, there are evil students out to get the heroine, most people are hateful toward the famous student, the heroine has an evil relative, there’s even a snakey science professor that immediately informs the “celebrity” that she will get no special treatment in his class.
This novel was also very "high school drama" in the sense that there are snobby, entitled students bullying those they view as weak--the obnoxious, jealous, popular girl being one of the worst characters in the novel, of course. This is not my favorite sort of YA to read. Additionally there were several unanswered questions and inconsistencies that made aspects of the story seem nonsensical. And the ending was abrupt and solved nothing. I’d have preferred less vitriol and more resolution, even knowing this is the first in a series.
Anyway, I like the intention and the storytelling but the resulting novel is flawed.
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Added 3/29/19
The Iron Flower
Amy 
fantasy
This sequel finally moved past the prejudicial, supremacist discomfort that was so rampant in The Black Witch and pushed the story line forward. It was long in the telling with a lot of repetition regarding Elloren's new and improved opinions (which are now much more respectful and empathetic of other races and belief systems) and regarding her feelings about kissing and the sensation of it "kindling her lines of fire" and her "fire flaring".
We all knew Aunt Vyvian was mean and terrible. But I thought it was insanely out of character for her to encourage Elloren to dress in a manner pushing the societal norms for the dances. They are supposed to be members of a conservative religion with strict rules. And Vyvian is a leader in the sect. Yet, she's willing to flout the rules when it comes to dress codes? I don't buy it. A religious zealot with an overriding sense of style? Silly. Of course, I understand why Laurie Forest wanted to make Elloren appear special and appealing. It just felt forced.
Also, it had been so long since the first novel in the series, I would have liked more in the way of reminding me who all the characters were. I managed to remember most of them eventually except for Ariel and Wynter. They were vaguely interchangeable in my mind and none of the details came back to me. With all the characters in this novel, I hope Black does a better job in the third sequel of reminding us about the critical characters.
Despite all of its flaws, and the fact that the end game is a given, I do plan to go along for the ride in the next sequel because I enjoy the feeling of hope within the righteous resistance effort as well as some of the characters who seem genuine or mysterious.
Amy 
Lynnie 
fantasy
The final book of Erika Johansen's Tearling series, The Fate of the Tearling wraps up the story of Kelsea and the kingdom of Tear.
Amy's Review
Overall,
this trilogy is a cautionary tale about what happens when one group of
people thinks they’re better than another group of people and when
governing decisions are not made by a representative society but,
rather, a ruling few (or one). It cautions against following people
blindly without using a fair and rationale thought process. And it
advises that history (as well as parental responsibilities) never be
forgotten or ignored--that it is paramount that people understand what
happened before they came along so that they can learn from history’s
mistakes. This strikes a chord with me in our current climate. If only
our current population could learn these lessons, the world would be a
better place.
I was disappointed by the downfalls of the two
female “bad guys”. One just sort of withered unspectacularly instead of
continuing to behave ruthlessly in the manner in which we had come to
expect. And the other accidentally fell into a fire. It was very
dissatisfying. That whole section of the journey on horseback and
temporary capture in Gin Reach was like the literary equivalent of
having the thrilling roller coaster upon which we were riding suddenly
and drastically slow down in a flat, boring lower section of track. I
kept wanting the ride to start up and get exciting again. It took a long
while before that happened.
Some questions were never answered
that I can recall. For example, where/how did the Raleigh line of
royalty begin? Who was Katie’s father? Despite having amazing parents,
lifelong training to be a leader, and being named for their good friend
who gave his life in Lily’s rescue in Book 2, why was Jonathan so
unaccomplished? The reader was never told of a single action he took for
the leadership or benefit of the Town. Rather he was just a name-holder who needed protecting in this novel.
It got a bit
weird at the end. Without giving it away, I’ll say that Kelsea’s
situation of “solo awareness” seemed inconsistent. But, I still enjoyed that
part after deciding to not let it bother me. Overall, the trilogy was a
fun ride. And you’ve gotta love a story where the ideal world includes
lots of books and librarians are heroes!
I will also mention that
I read some sections and listened to the audiobook in other sections of
this final novel. Thankfully, the publishers replaced the previous
audiobook narrator from Book 2 for a more appropriately aged narrator.
However, I did not love this new one either. She often spoke too slowly
and her male voices were insufficient—mostly monotone and emotionless
and not very male-sounding. I give her a B-.
Lynnie's Review
The
final book in the Tearling series, The Fate of the Tearling, does not
disappoint... until it does. I thoroughly enjoyed the first 90% of this
book- there was action, adventure, and answers to questions we had from
previous books. I really loved the way the pieces fit together and
issues were resolved. Where the flashbacks to the Pre-Crossing/Crossing
had bothered me in Invasion of the Tearling, I found that I didn't mind
them as much this time and even enjoyed that part of the tale and how it
really helped fill in some blanks in the story.
And then...
Wtf
did I just read? I've thought about this overnight now & I still
can't decide if I thought the ending was genius or horrible. Maybe it's
both, but damn was it frustrating! I love that it wasn't at all what I
was expecting, but I also hate it for the very same reason. In the end, I took away a star for the lack of a satisfying end.
Still,
this is one of the best series from start to finish that I've read. I
will be recommending it to people often & enthusiastically.
Amy 
memoir, historical fiction
Moonglow is a very personal novel—it's the author's, Michael Chabon's, family history. It centers on his maternal grandfather’s life of dissatisfaction and perseverance. But, the entire family is included in the story. Interestingly, the author chose to continually refer to these characters by their relation to him: my mother, my grandfather, my uncle, etc. Therefore, it felt especially personal. I’m not sure why he chose to include his family members’ actual names instead of declaring the novel to be pure fiction populated with anonymous characters. I have a hunch that it is more interesting to the reader knowing that these people really existed and really played a role in making the man Chabon became. Indeed while parts are charming and parts are extremely interesting, it’s mostly fairly boring to anyone other than the author. I suppose boring isn’t the right word. I just mean that it’s not an amazing story most of the time—just average life stories and experiences. And, I suspect that’s another reason he kept it real. But there are certainly some interesting stories in his family history and he does not shy away from including the ugly stuff.
I’m not sure that I completely trust Chabon to have told us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is a work of fiction, and as a very creative writer, I’m sure he has taken liberties in his stories within Moonglow. There is certainly much more detail than is plausibly remembered. But, as with the other novel of his that I've read, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, I enjoyed Chabon’s use of the English language and I liked his story-telling for the most part. I was shocked when he got extremely personal about his grandfather’s sex life a couple of times. I would be surprised if his grandfather actually described the sexual position he and his wife shared on one occasion and his premature ejaculation another time, as examples. And, for such a personal book, I assume he took into account that his descendants would likely read this novel but he decided to put that stuff in anyway. It’s just interesting to me.
The narrator of the audiobook, George Newbern, had a very pleasant voice. He wasn’t the best with different voices, but not terrible. The grandfather’s voice was recognizable and consistent throughout which was most important. Newbern’s accents were pretty good. I give him an A- for this novel. I struggled a bit with the timeframe jumping around in the story as often happens with audiobooks. I’m sure it was easier for book readers because they were able to refer to the written years on the pages. Another disadvantage for audiobook listeners in this case is that the audiobook excluded the many footnotes that appear in the actual book. I happened to grab a free copy of this book at the ALA Midwinter Convention in January so I browsed through it a few times to go back and catch things—for example, I was curious about the spelling of the name Aughenbaugh.
Amy
Lynnie
young adult, fantasy, action/suspense
King's Cage picks up where the last novel in the series left off with Mare captured by Maven and imprisoned. This is the story of her incarceration and the next round of battles.
Amy's Review
Another great installment by Victoria Aveyard!
I really enjoy this series because it’s full of action and adventure and is able to surprise me with its storyline at times. Having said that, this one had some seriously slow-moving sections which dimmed the brightness of this novel compared to its predecessors. But, I will concede that these slower sections were not unnecessary so I won’t judge it too harshly. As before, with so much going on in the story, I’ll need to take notes that I can review before the next sequel since it won’t be released for another year. Otherwise, I have nothing much to say that I haven’t said before about this series. I look forward to the next one.
Lynnie's Review
Maybe I've been in a literary cave but I had no idea this wasn't the last book of the series. Around 80% through the novel I had the epiphany that there simply wasn't enough time left in the story to resolve anything so I looked online to learn there is another book coming out!!! That really affected how I felt about King's Cage- I went in looking for a finale and instead, I got a middle book. ARGH!
The first half of the book is slow, sometimes painfully so. As I mentioned in my review of the second book in this series, Glass Sword, Mare's bad attitude really affected me- it's hard to enjoy a story when the person telling it is mopey and full of gloom. Of course, she has ever reason to feel that way, but Aveyard conveys how bored and miserable Mare is really well, almost too well because I was bored & miserable, too.
Things pick up exponentially in the second half of the story which was far more entertaining to read. There's romance, action, and some plot. Ultimately, I'm not sure this moved the story forward very much. Sure, some characters were added & some things happened, but if I skipped this & just read the final book, would I care? I'm not sure.
Amy
fiction
Faithful is very different from the other novels I’ve read by Alice Hoffman. For one thing, its setting is contemporary. For another, there is not really any wonder or mysticism in the story. It is the story of a very troubled, guilty, and angsty young woman. She is not particularly likable. Although the reader understands the cause of her lousy attitude, Shelby’s point of view, behaviors, and attitudes wore on me pretty quickly. In fact, I almost stopped “reading” the audiobook near the beginning because it was just too miserable and pathetic. I mean, I get why she’s so miserable but that doesn’t mean I want to keep reading about it. Thankfully, things did get a little better so I persevered. However, in the end, I’m not sure it was entirely worth it. This is definitely my least favorite of Hoffman’s novels.
Due to a few lucky breaks, Shelby’s life isn’t as terrible as it could be. Without giving too much away, it made no sense that her boyfriend a) wanted to live with her and b) tolerated her for so long. Seriously. What a saint to be willing to share himself with someone who doesn’t want to enjoy any aspects of life and who doesn’t appreciate him. What he saw in her, the reader never knows. It’s unbelievable. She’s also lucky that she had someone who cared enough to communicate via postcards and give her a tether to hope. She’s lucky that she got the position at work despite the fact that she most certainly did not deserve it. And she’s lucky to have walked into the tattoo parlor she chose out of all the possible places that exist in NYC. So, despite herself, life looks like it could turn out alright for Shelby. But, it was a somber path to reach that point. Yes, she was kind to animals and people who were down on their luck, but those good deeds were not enough to make me like her or the book. I also don’t understand the title of the novel. Perhaps the reader has to be faithful to get through the book? Shelby was not faithful.
The narration of this audiobook proves that not all actors make good audiobook narrators. Amber Tamblyn is most definitely not a good narrator. She got tolerable when speaking in the individual characters’ voices—at least she became more animated--but even then, the voices of Shelby and Ben were difficult to differentiate during conversations. And, unfortunately, they have a lot of conversations. As the narrator, she was completely monotone, not even putting emphasis on the correct words of the sentences. She sounded angry almost all the time and this did not add to my desire to continue listening. In fact, I think she is part of the reason I didn’t love this novel. I give her a C-.
Amy 
Added 3/29/19
