I discovered Tanita Davis memorably at an event where I was supposed to be doing things and paying attention, but because I had gotten so wrapped up in her middle grade novel Peas and Carrots, I just read and read and read it and ignored the events happening all around me. Which was/is kind of surprising! I don’t think of myself as a huge reader of middle grade books. Even at a time when middle grade is clearly undergoing an explosion of awesome content, it doesn’t tend to do much for me. I have, tragically, aged out of it. (I’m…
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Review: On This Unworthy Scaffold, Heidi Heilig
Published 12 May 2021
by
Gin Jenny
On This Unworthy Scaffold concludes the Shadow Players trilogy, and I am remarkably sad to see it go. In part because of the pandemic, I feel like this trilogy has flown under the radar. I want to take this opportunity to put it on your radar as loudly as possible, because it’s a unique, strange, thoughtful, and anticolonialist fantasy YA series that explores themes of family, life and death, performance and reality, mental illness, and so so much more. The first one was For a Muse of Fire, if you are interested — plus now, all three of them are…
Leave a CommentReview: Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi
Published 5 Apr 2021
by
Gin Jenny
Ordinarily I would start a review by describing the book’s premise, but Helen Oyeyemi’s Peaces, like so many of her books, resists the idea of a “premise.” As time goes on and Helen Oyeyemi approaches a Helen Oyeyemi singularity, it becomes harder and harder to encapsulate her books into anything as mundane as a “premise.” There is a train; some newlyweds and their pet mongoose are traveling on the train; things go a bit wrong. Former Oyeyemi premises include: A male author writes a lot of female deaths; things go a bit wrong. Twins live in a haunted house; things…
Leave a CommentReview: Phoenix Extravagant, Yoon Ha Lee
Published 9 Nov 2020
by
Gin Jenny
When Jebi signs up to take the examination for the Ministry of Art, they expect two things: a job, and for their sister Bongsunga to get really really mad at them. Which she does: The Razanei government oppresses Jebi and Bongsunga’s people, the Hwaguk, and the last thing Bongsunga wants is to see her sibling assimilating. She throws Jebi out, and the next thing they know, they’ve been forcibly recruited to paint the magical sigils that power the Razanei army’s automatons. Most particularly, Jebi has been tasked with finding out what went wrong with the dragon automaton Arazi, which went…
Leave a CommentReturn! of! the! Thief!, by Megan Whalen Turner
Published 13 Oct 2020
by
Gin Jenny
I only sort of believed this day would come. Part of me really thought that Return of the Thief would be like King Arthur returning to save the country in its hour of greatest need. I wasn’t even sad about it. In some ways I thought the promise of Return of the Thief was even better than actually having Return of the Thief in my own two hands. But now Return of the Thief has come at last, and it honestly is like King Arthur returning to save the country (of Queen’s Thief fans) in our hour of greatest need…
Leave a CommentNull Set, S. L. Huang
Published 14 Oct 2019
by
Gin Jenny
WHAT a fantastic follow-up to the first Cas Russell book, Zero Sum Game, which was one of my favorites of 2018. Two things I adore in fiction are aftermaths and superheroes being stripped of their superpowers, and Null Set (kinda) has both. Cas and her friends are dealing with the fallout from their takedown of Pithica in Zero Sum Game, and trying to cope with the uptick in crime that Los Angeles is seeing as a result. Rio is God knows where; Arthur and Checker and Cas are chasing down child trafficking rings, while Cas grows more and more frustrated…
Leave a CommentReview: Playing House, Ruby Lang
Published 14 Aug 2019
by
Gin Jenny
Apparently when you dream of a house, the house is you. (The other people in your dream are also all supposedly you? I don’t know. I love interpreting other people’s dreams but I do think it’s a lot of the time nonsense.) When you dream of finding new rooms in your house, for instance, it’s meant to represent exploring new sides of yourself. Whether that’s true of dreams or not, I don’t know, but I like the alignment of house with self. One of the reasons (I suspect) house-hunting and house-renovation shows are so popular is that it’s fun to…
Leave a CommentReview: An Unconditional Freedom, Alyssa Cole
Published 25 Feb 2019
by
Gin Jenny
Alyssa Cole is one of the best romance novelists working, and a new book from her is always cause for celebration. An Unconditional Freedom is the third in her Loyal League series, which follows Union spies working behind Confederate lines to ensure an end to slavery. Daniel Cumberland joined the Loyal League to seek revenge: Born free, then sold into slavery by white men pretending to be abolitionists, Daniel has never recovered from the psychological scars his years in slavery inflicted. He has no interest in a new partner, let alone one as pretty and vivacious as Janeta Sanchez, a…
1 CommentReview: Love to Everyone, Hilary McKay
Published 29 Oct 2018
by
Gin Jenny
Despite the thing I am going to complain about later on, Hilary McKay is the contemporary children’s author I most wish had been writing when I was a little girl. When I’m sad, the books most likely to cheer me up are her Casson series (the first one is Saffy’s Angel and yes, you should read it immediately). Her latest, Love to Everyone, is an offshoot of her Binny series (which, yes, you should read immediately), the story of three children growing up in Edwardian England and then World War I. (Love to Everyone is called The Skylarks’ War in…
Leave a CommentReview: Revenant Gun, Yoon Ha Lee
Published 11 Jun 2018
by
Gin Jenny
The third Nicefox Gambit book is out — the series is actually called Machineries of Empire, but I like Nicefox Gambit too much to resist using it. So before I get into this book, Revenant Gun, here’s a quick, spoilery recap of the story in Nicefox and Raven Stratagem. A rebellious foot soldier has the ghost of a dead traitor general installed in her head. The hexarchate — the ruling powers — intend for the general, Jedao, and the soldier, Cheris, to win a particularly challenging battle for them — they’ve used Jedao’s ghost in the past this way, to…
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