LRRC Week 26
I was gonna make the requisite Livin' On A Prayer reference but tbh that song hits a bit different right now.
Anyway have some books!
#51: AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor
Ooh, it's been a while since I've read something that skews as young as this! I'm not entirely sure if this counts as MG because I struggle with distinctions between YA and adult as it is, and I actually read both of them frequently?
But regardless, I think I would have been perfectly happy reading this as a 10-13ish kid. It's got that sense of wonderment and fantasy that only comes from books geared more-or-less towards children, that sense of being brought into a world that is at times scary and harsh, but full of magic and friendship and love.
I know very little about the cultural component of this book, but I found it really interesting to read about and I would love to learn more. I also really enjoyed the mixing of childlike wonder with the horror of a serial killer stalking the community, and the looming of adolescence on the horizon casting an interesting light on the characters' development.
I found all the characters to be well fleshed-out and interesting, the main character, Sunny, in particular. If I had any complaints, it's that I felt the characters were a little lacking in agency. This does tend to come along with child characters, but I found myself a little frustrated with how much they are pushed along by the adults in their lives.
In any case, I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series!
#52: THE QUANTUM GARDEN by Derek Künsken
So I've had this book since last year's Can*Con? Which was in October? Sorry Derek.
Anyway, just like the first book in the series (The Quantum Magician), this book is a lot of fun. In fact, I think I might have enjoyed this one more than the first one. The time travel stuff is fascinating and heart-rending in turn, the stuff with the titular Quantum Garden follows a similar track, and the book features a lot of Iekanjika, who is my favourite character and also my wife, I've decided.
I'm admittedly a pretty easy sell for a time travel story. And, importantly, the book doesn't waste my time. It knows I'm here for a time travel story, and it launches into that almost immediately. I feel like there's a version (or maybe was, at some point in the development) where they take a third of the book or so to go back in time, but we're there within a couple of chapters.
One of the things that I really enjoy about the Quantum books is that they feel like hard sci-fi (note: I very possibly do not know enough about sci-fi to make this claim) but they don't get bogged down by that. I know very little about the science involved, but I find it easy to follow what's happening in the story regardless.
The prose is snappy, the characters are great, and the payoff really delivers on the build-up. The book is at equal turns thoughtful and funny, and just makes for a really satisfying story that manages to be a good continuation of the first book, but also a really good standalone novel.
NEXT WEEK'S AGENDA:
#53: Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
#54: A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown