Dec 16 2020
I put off reading this for so long because I assumed it was the kind of book a certain subset of YA readers go gaga over despite a lack of any real substance, and BOY, WAS I WRONG! This book was so good, I wound up reading in bed way past my bedtime, telling myself …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/16/the-cruel-prince-the-folk-of-the-air-1-by-holly-black/
Nov 15 2020
I read Between the World and Me a lifetime ago, in early summer when it was strange to leave the neighborhood again after so many weeks of stillness. It is a hard book, not because of the difficulty of language or of its concepts, but because of the hardness of its subject: how to live …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/15/between-the-world-and-me-by-ta-nehisi-coates/
Sep 02 2020
On the one hand, this sequel to The Traitor Baru Cormorant isn’t quite as filthy with forensic accounting as its predecessor in the series was, but it’s still one of those intellectually challenging fantasy novels that I know won’t be for everybody, more’s the pity. Our heroine, the titular monster after her villainous role in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/09/02/the-monster-baru-cormorant-the-masquerade-2-by-seth-dickinson/
Aug 23 2020
If for some reason your blood pressure is too low, this book will raise it as surely as any medicine. In Moneyland, Oliver Bullough describes in gut-wrenching detail the power of corruption in the contemporary world, how much the rich powerful and corrupt are continuously stealing from normal and law-abiding people, how thoroughly they have …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/23/moneyland-by-oliver-bullough/
Jul 21 2020
A searing, devastating indictment of both unquestioning loyalty and the corporate interests that use up workers in order to profit shareholders, extrapolated to their grimmest reality, Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade is both gripping and timely in this endless year of 2020. Our narrator, Dietz, grew up in the slums of Sao Paulo, eking a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/21/the-light-brigade-by-kameron-hurley/
Jul 07 2020
A fast, funny, incredibly relevant look at teenagers and voting in today’s America. Marva Sheridan is the kind of responsible straight-A student whose entire life revolves around how she can make a difference. She’s super-focused and organized, to the point where her parents wish she would let loose and just be an irresponsible teenager every …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/07/the-voting-booth-by-brandy-colbert/
Jul 06 2020
Look at that gorgeous cover. I want to do up a room of my house with that sort of wallpaper. And yes, I’m digressing because I want to say something nice about this book before I say something(s) that will likely sound churlish. This is not, by any means, a bad book, but it is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/06/the-ten-thousand-doors-of-january-by-alix-e-harrow/
Jul 03 2020
So on the one hand, a tale of courtly intrigue in the dazzling court of a foreign empire as seen through the eyes of a vulnerable young ambassador from a much poorer nation. In space! Based on Aztec-Byzantine history and practices instead of your standard Western Europe-Asian influences! Mahit Dzmare is from Lsel Station (modeled …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/03/a-memory-called-empire-teixcalaan-1-by-arkady-martine/
Jun 10 2020
Yes, I am totally here for open border advocacy allegories, sci-fi tales that center non-white perspectives and experiences, and sly critiques of racism, overt or otherwise! Dr Freedom Chukwuebuka is five months pregnant when she abruptly leaves Lagos to return to New York City. She leaves behind a clinic where she treated both humans and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/10/laguardia-by-nnedi-okorafor-tana-ford/
May 11 2020
Ah, if only, if only. I’ve enjoyed enough romance novels to be able to differentiate between the wonderful modern-day version and the traditional version described by Sir Walter Scott, and only sometimes do the twain meet in ways more convincing than mere bad plotting. It’s bittersweet to feel that this charming tale of the First …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/11/red-white-royal-blue-by-casey-mcquiston/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire