Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the first Chrestomanci book I read and I feel it’s a great introduction to the series. Set in a boarding house in a world similar but not quite like our own, where witches are real but illegal and burned to the stake, the story starts with a bang when an anonymous note accuses someone in the class of being a witch. But if there only is … (Read more)
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This a wonderful book that, in a way, could be called a fantasy of manners. The story is about a small city bordering with Fairyland, something which the citizens pretend doesn’t exist since the merchants too control of the country. The tranquillity of the town gets turned upside down when some people are found partaking of fairy fruit, and odd happenings start popping up all around Lud. It will take … (Read more)
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
While the idea of infinite parallel worlds is not a new one, Pratchett and Baxter manage to give it a new spin, touching not only on the adventurous explorations and dangers that these new world represent, but also on the very real social, economical and political effects that such a discovery would have on our own world. The exploration thread follows mostly Joshua and Lobsang, a man with … (Read more)
Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Glamour in Glass follows the turbulent honeymoon of Jane and David as they travel to a small town in Belgium right during Napoleon’s return from exile.
This is a good book and I enjoyed reading it but I think it’s not as compelling as the first in the series. First of all, Shades of milk and honey was a straight-up Austen with magic, while Glamour in Glass … (Read more)
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
After so much hype and positive reviews I admit I was expecting something more out of this book.
I liked the characterization of Katniss, and the first person narrator is definitely one of the strengths of the book: the actual Games manage to convey the sense of thrill and danger, even though the plot is often too linear and predictable, because we’re seeing them through the lens of Katniss’ … (Read more)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I don’t think there are enough words to describe the genius that Mervyn Peake put into creating the world within a world that is Gormenghast. Living in a dimension all of its own between the historical, the fantastical and the grotesque there is a land and a castle whose inhabitants’ lives are punctuated by century-old rituals. Every one in Gormenghast is peculiar – the Countess, surrounded by white cats; … (Read more)
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A quick and easy read in the style of Jane Austen, set in a world where magic exists in the shape of glamour, complicated sensory illusions, and is considered one of the arts a proper girl must know in order to fetch a good marriage. The story follows Jane Ellsworth, a gifted glamourist but unlucky in love, as she accidentally stumbles into a series of … (Read more)
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve just finished re-reading this story (this time in book format) and it’s once again as wonderful as the first time. Born as a book within a book, Fairyland grew into the story of September, a young girl who is whisked into Fairyland and ends up having Adventures, meeting a Wiverary (part wyvern, part library) and several other … (Read more)
The Folded World by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. I am slain.
I didn’t start the second part of this tale with the best of auspices. I admit that, while I loved The Habitation of the Blessed, I found it often hard to move through, as if I too were John struggling with a new world.
But this book. I don’t know what his book is.
The second part of a trilogy is usually … (Read more)
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
First and foremost, this is a story of the circus.
I discovered The Night Circus through its advertising minigame by the same name, and that probably painted my relationship with the book in a peculiar way. The game follows one’s view of the circus as a reveur, a recurrent visitor, visiting the various tents and shows, glimpsing several mysteries that are left unexplained – until you … (Read more)
