★★★☆☆ A well-worn Gothic premise in the novel setting of 1950s Mexican countryside. This book hits all the best Gothic cliches, i.e. a young woman is sent to a creepy remote mansion with prickly secretive inhabitants and uncovers a terrible mystery…

★★★★★ Gorgeous could-not-put-it-down senior year YA queer rom-com. Like a beautiful, extra gay blend between Booksmart and Paper Towns. Casey McQuiston does it again!

★★☆☆☆ As expected, Clay’s Ark is an entirely different beast than the first two Patternist books. There is also no mention of the psionic abilities of the first two books at all except for one tenuous throwaway reference two-thirds of the way in. The setting and set-up reminds me very much of The Host by Stephanie Meyer as well as the Animorphs series weirdly enough, which I read as a kid.

★★★☆☆ Not as good as the previous ALTA graphic novels by Gene Luen Yang but still contains the signature political and moral themes.

★★★★☆ Octavia Butler deftly weaves between the supernatural - the supernatural megalomania of Doro or the supernatural empathy of Anyanwu - and real historical devastations of slavery and its legacy on American society into the late 20th century.

★★★★★

An incredibly cute magical realist WLW romance between a college student and a mysterious rugged girl trapped on a subway and…in time…

This book is kind of a nesting doll of allegories and allegorical literature. The main character is a novelist who starts off writing a romance between a typing teacher and student that sharply turns in the middle of her writing into a magical realist horror.

★★★★☆ The idea of extracting the bone marrow of Indigenous people is so chilling. But Indigenous people having the unique ability to dream in this post-apocalyptic future is a beautiful counterpoint, and something that is given several incredibly evocative narrative moments.

★★★★☆ This book was painful, poetic, cinematic, chaotic, terrifying, elegiac...The intensity and totality of Morrison’s language is overwhelming, but it completely envelops you in the drama and horror of these characters’ stories.

★★☆☆☆ This is like a John Green novel but with less of a thesis and more annoyingly obvious it’s an oblivious man writing how he thinks young women think/feel/act.

★★★★★ This might be the best book I’ve read all year, and certainly the best and smoothest reading experience I’ve had in MONTHS. Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an adventure fantasy/myth retelling set in Mexico in the 1920s Jazz Age.

★★☆☆☆ I am definitely too old for this book (which skews on the young end of middle grade) and found it pretty boring with no stakes or real character development.

★★★☆☆ DARK COTTAGECORE FEATURING CURMUDGEONLY ASTROLOGY-WITCH IN THE REMOTE FRIGID POLISH COUNTRYSIDE AND STRANGE ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR AND TOWN DEATHS. Ok but seriously though this was wicked good. Beautifully written. A dark feminist, animal rights, anti-ageism manifesto.

★★☆☆☆ A book recounting a series of crimes and insidious acts committed by a middle-school teacher and her students against one another. Story begins with the apparent drowning of the teacher's four-year-old daughter, and each character gets their own POV section recounting what happened and what happened next in their perspective.

★★☆☆☆ Not as good as the others - villain and action set pieces not as compelling or believable. The new hyper-advanced video game console at the centre of the story is VERY dated, and more obviously so than the super computers in Stormbreaker, surprisingly.

★★★☆☆ Very enjoyable and funny read. Solid character development for ditzy protagonist Lucy and great cast of characters. Gets a little rape-culture-y with the nonconsensual kissing and girl falling in love with boy anyway. Contextual character stuff holds up though and makes the romance decently believable.

★★☆☆☆ I really loved Dig, the first A.S. King book I ever read, but this one was really very mediocre. I’m not really sure why but it just dragged, I didn’t care about any of the characters, and the contemplative bits on what is art and originality got more and more irritating.