This is one of those sci-fi/fantasy as social commentary stories that initially had me rolling my eyes (“Oh, racism is BAD? You don’t say!”), but won me over by the strength of its characters. There are three races on whatever planet is hosting the story. The indigo, who are (duh) blue, the gulden, who are gold, and the albinos. The indigo are a supremely matriarchal society – only females can inherit land, grandmothers arrange marriages for their granddaughters, and the men just marry who they’re […]
Where do those missing socks scamper off to?
Sandy Shortt, OCD sufferer and tall person with a complex, runs a missing persons agency. She’s been obsessed with missing people and things since she was 10, and a neighbor girl disappeared, never to be heard from again. She has devoted her life to tracking down the missing, from socks to family members of desperate people. Sandy keeps everyone in her life at arm’s distance, worried that they’ll judge her for her obsessions, or that they’ll disappear on her. Since childhood, Sandy’s had a theory […]
Avoid! Unless you’re really into math.
I just recently moved halfway across the country. As I was packing up books, I left out a small stack to take with me in the car, rather than put on the moving truck – I didn’t want to run out and be caught bookless on my trek, or before the moving truck got to me. I needn’t have worried. This book took foreeeever to read, and frankly wasn’t worth the slog. It’s way in the future, and mankind has taken to mining on other […]
The author is a hit (usually); the book is a miss
Middle-school me was a big fan of Patricia Wrede, and thirty-mumble me can still see why, even if this particular book doesn’t hold up very well. It’s one of those Fantasy 101 novels, with the quest and the prince and the sorceress and the big bad and then they all live happily ever after. It’s all a bit thin, and the characters are kind of one-note, but if I had a 13-year-old niece I would totally pass this one on to her. Or nephew, I […]
John dies pretty early on, actually
This is one of those rare times where I’m actually going to recommend reading things out of order. I read the sequel (This Book is Full of Spiders) first, and loved it, and just finished reading the first book, which was a bit disappointing. It’s still manic and action-packed and bonkers in a most excellent way, but it also seems a lot more juvenile. I think there was a three- or four-year gap between the two, and maybe the author did a lot of growing […]
No matter how creepy, you are no Wednesday Addams, my dear
Flavia de Luce is an 11-year-old chemistry nut in a rambling old English mansion in 1950. Her father is a stamp-collecting recluse, and she and her two older sisters are pretty much on their own – their mother died years ago. Flavia hears her father arguing with a stranger one evening, and then later that night, finds the stranger dead in the garden. The precocious chemist, worried that her father did the deed, sets out to solve the crime on her own and befuddle the […]