librarymouse's reviews
430 reviews

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This addition to the Wayward Children series was different from what I've come to expect from what I've seen in the previous books. It's a great breaking away from the expectations of heroics in portal fantasy. Regan has a wonderful disbelief in destiny and fate that makes this such an intriguing story. Regan is a hero for the Hooflands because she loves its inhabitants - not because that's what humans in the Hooflands do. Heroism is not her story. Her story is being chosen and loved by her family. The people of the Hooflands are aware of the type of story they're living in, and thus it is the expectation that she must be a hero that forces her hand into becoming one. It's a cycle which Regan's dedication to the family that chose to love her breaks.
I really love the intersex representation! Regan is a girl through and through, and the repetition of the truth that "there is no wrong way to be a girl" was fantastic to see in a piece of media. The exploration of childhood friendships, comparing Regan's relationship with Laurel to her relationship with Chicory was really insightful. Watching Regan and Chicory grow up in parallel, changing how and who they are, and the shapes of their bodies diverging further from each other, but neither shape ever being wrong was such a beautiful exploration of a healthy girlhood.
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Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

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adventurous dark funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

At the Tucson festival of books, I recently heard Seanan McGuire use the phrase "load-bearing lesbians" to describe characters who are the only named representation of a given marginalized group, as characters who the author cannot kill. It is my sincere hope that Jack Wolcott and Alexis Chopper are the lesbians behind the coining of the term. I love Jack as a good and vicious monster, and I love Alexis as her tie to humanity. This addition to the Wayward Children series is both a wonderful continuation of the storyline as a whole, and a satisfying end to the tragedy of the Wolcott sisters. While we mostly get Jack's perspective throughout the series, I do find her to be the more sympathetic sister by a longshot. Violent, self-assured, curious, and interesting, she could have been horrifying as the master's daughter, and she is amazing as as Dr. Bleak's. While she, too had the capacity to be everything her sister is, Jill is a monster by the time we meet her, but she is a pitiful one - weak, and devoted to the master who only claimed her when he couldn't have Jack. I have pity for Jill, for who she could have been and what she lost along the way of growing up in the Moors, which is a testament to the skillfulness of McGuire's writing. I really enjoyed the banter between Jack and Sumi. I'm glad she's back and as weird as ever, if not weirder. The addition of fate into her character in the assurance she won't die because her daughter exists and resurrected her, so she will return to her home eventually makes her a more ominous and round figure. I look forward to seeing how Cora's time with the Drowned Gods affects the latter books in the series, if at all. At the end of Come Tumbling Down, she is the only one of the main group who is permanently physically changed by her ordeal. I enjoyed getting to see characters who were heroes in their worlds get to be heroes again to help their friend. Sometimes bending the "No Quests" rule is worth it.
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Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

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adventurous dark funny mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Smothermoss is a stand out debut novel. The story Alering weaves draws the reader into the lives of Sheila and Angie, letting us peer over their shoulders as the events unfold. Despite the 40-odd year difference in the time the novel is set and the time I read it, so much of the setting and the facets of day to day life remain the same in the foothills of Appalachia. The place of this novel is familiar and well defined.
I really enjoyed that not everything is fixed or explained by the end of the novel. With so much of the story happening within Sheila and Angie, respectively, and in reference to the relationship the two of them have, the semi-unresolved ending of the novel let's readers believe that the two are going to continue to grow up, change, and live. The coming out narrative aspect of this story is unique. It feels very real that the rope is still there, around Sheila's neck after she comes out to Angie, that she doesn't talk to Juanita before the novel ends. The novel ending with Shelia eating after hollowing herself from the weight of her secrets - filling herself with a substance of her choice - is a satisfying continuation of her story, priming her for a future of her choosing.
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Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

As a snapshot of the lives, deaths, and aspirations of the men in the early introduction of aviation into industry, post-world war 1, this was an insightful read. Much of the intrigue happens within the characters. The sincere unpreparedness and loneliness of the inspector, Robineau, abuts against Rivière's love for his men, kept intentionally under wraps beneath layers of harsh discipline, high expectations, and high hopes for the future of aviation. All the while their interpersonal interactions are surface level and lack the insights allowed by the vulnerability readers are able to see and explore as the novel progresses and a nig t flight pilot, navigator, and their plane are lost to a cyclone.
At points, it took a few rereads of sentences to parse their meaning, but I think that makes sense, as the book was originally published in French.
I probably should not have read the last half of this while on a plane.
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The Strange Garden and Other Weird Tales by Alex Kingsley

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adventurous dark funny reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

This book is all bangers! Every story is great! If I could read it again for the first time, five times over, it wouldn't be enough. Each one of these stories is so well written; crafted with skill and intention. I genuinely loved them all, and I'm looking forward to everything else Alex Kingsley writes!
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Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 3 by James Tynion IV

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dark funny mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This addition to the series adds quite a lot of context to the house of Slaughter, the lore for how monsters are made, and gave space for James's character development as he he takes steps towards learning to forgive himself.

This would be a satisfying point at which to finish the series, so I'm looking forward to what comes next and how things change for Erica, James, and Bian. I'm curious if Tommy's storyline continues. The cover art with Tommy holding a shadow of Sophie, makes it look like he either has or will capture his own monster and turn it into a kind face with which to grieve.
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Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 2 by James Tynion IV

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a great continuation of volume 1. More of the internal logic of the monsters is revealed, we see more of the organization that made Erica what she is, and we get to see how the Bian  nd James are handling the aftermath of their respective rescues.
I thought Aaron would play a larger role in the series. It was wild to see him die so soon after being properly introduced. I hope Tommy sticks around as a himbo side kick and not as a prospective love interest for Erica. Not that I think she's seeking one out, but that I don't trust the authors (sorry)
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Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 1 by James Tynion IV

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a great start to the series. I liked the 5 comic collection for the ease of reading. The storytelling is engaging and well done. The level of gore is quite high, but stylize into a bright neon. I'm looking forward to seeing how Bian plays into the latter parts of the story, if at all 
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Once Upon a Thriller by Carolyn Keene

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I picked this book up on a whim, at Dollar Tree. I was honestly pleasantly surprised by it. I have a few critiques about the pacing and characterization, but overall, most of those critiques stem from me not being the book's target audience. Readers are told a lot more than they're shown and the characters ages feel inconsistent. It's like they grow to suit the needs of the scene. At the start of the book, I thought they were preteens, until Nancy started driving. Then I thought they were older teens until the young police intern, Ian, starts flirting with Bess. I think some of those expectations may have come from the meta knowledge that this is a middle grade novel and from how young Nancy looks in the book cover illustration, as opposed to how kids could/would come into it without preconceived notions. With the target age range of their audience, what I perceive as pacing issues and being told instead of shown is a fantastic stepping stone for kids as they age out of story books and into novels. Same thing goes for what I perceive to be inconsistent characterization, in terms of age.  Their lines of logic and conversation have to be both kid appropriate and fit within standard American English grammar conventions in ways that characters in novels written for older people do not. Overall, I'm looking forward to passing this along to some of the kids in my life.
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It Devours! by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Night Vale, despite its status as horror, is something I find deeply comforting. It's consistently a story about people trapped within a world run by actively malignant corporations and governments finding joy and love within their community. I really enjoyed It Devours! both as entertainment in its own right, as well as a book whose content reflects the state of our world as it is in 2025, to a startling degree. It shows in intimate detail how religions can suck in people who believe the teachings to be parables, and find peace within them, while the organization as a whole acts in bad faith, with strict alignment with the letter of professed doctrine. The exploration of interpersonal relationships, in which success is not defined by the longevity of the relationship, but by the ability to understand and navigate boundaries as people grow and change and the bravery to end things when needed, was very refreshing. I really appreciated the variety of types of faith and devotion the characters experience, and the active discussion on how to make reparations when one's faith/devotion- driven actions cause harm.  You do need to have some background understanding of Night Vale to understand this book, but overall, worth it!
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