Tag: Fantasy

Taipei Story by RF Kuang (Literary Fiction)

College freshman Lily Chen heads to Taipei for a summer Chinese language intensive. Having only retained the Chinese she spoke before leaving the mainland for California when she was four, she hopes to both improve her skills and get closer to the heritage that never really felt like hers. It’s a grueling and isolating experience — and when her grandfather dies in Guangzhou and she is unable to attend because she hadn’t procured a mainland visa, she achieves a whole new level of reflection about what heritage and culture really mean to the emigre.

What could be a straightforward coming-of-age story becomes something else completely in the hands of the stunningly talented Kuang who layers meticulously detailed observations with deep and evolving reflection and multi-dimensional insights. We learn about Chinese culture, politics, and history from the subjective viewpoint of our shy, thoughtful, possibly overly analytic young woman. Following her train of thought is half the fun of taking in all that she learns from the experience — all coalescing into the gestalt that is an individual.

The story spans personal experiences (some so honest as to be cringeworthy for me) as well as uncovering some fairly horrific stories from her Chinese ancestors (think Khmer Rouge) — stories nobody had ever told before. What parts of history do you integrate and what parts better left alone? I also loved the focus on linguistics — obviously an intense interest of the author. She goes into just the right amount of detail about how language affects our thinking, how difficult it is to communicate anything even slightly complex without the grammar, vocabulary, and structure available to native speakers, and how she worked to reprogram her brain to be able to speak and read more or less seamlessly.

This is billed as a novel but it felt like an incredibly well-written memoir to me. In any case, I enjoyed every minute of it!

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 8th, 2026.

The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer (Literary / Mystery / Romance Fiction)

This is an unusual book. What starts as an adventure story that blurs the lines between reality and fiction via a coven of magic infused “Book Witches,” veers off into a more meaningful, touching, existential, and incredibly meta story about the importance of literature within our lives and the incredible love and connection between authors, characters, and readers. I laughed through most of the book, but was brought to tears (of the poignant, meaningful variety) multiple times in the last half.

Rainy March is a Book Witch — “sworn to defend works of fiction from all foes real and imaginary.” She has a magic umbrella, a feline familiar (Koshka the non-Russian, Russian Blue), and a few mysteries of her own past to consider. Her adventures are humorous and quite literary (if you’re a reader you will enjoy traipsing through many of your favorite books as Rainy works to fix breaks and prevent the “Burners” from having their incendiary way). Rainy falls for the dashing (and fictional) Duke of Chicago during one of her rescues. This goes against the rules, but does make the story more interesting (and a lot more complicated). The seven section headings of the book are genres — Romance, Mystery, Fantasy, Non-fiction, YA and Horror, Thriller, and Science Fiction — and the plot does a good job of navigating through the sections in an eponymous fashion.

Clever, funny, and often poignant writing that takes an intricate worldview and serpentine plot and makes them accessible, fun, and intriguing. Some beautiful lines which I can’t include without giving too much away — except this non-plot centric funny one: “Two more !s? Something needed to be done about this punctuation abuse.“ I’m quite guilty of this abuse myself, sadly, hence my appreciation for the line. Some interesting historical tidbits on works of literature — my favorite about Nancy Drew: Apparently Nancy Drew was rewritten in the 60s to make her less feisty, a little older and better behaved. Not only did I have no idea, but all my copies are the rewrites! Grrr. Lastly, I loved the dedication: “Dedicated to librarians book, sellers and teachers fighting the good fight to save our stories and to all the world’s bedtime story readers.”

Inspired by a spate of actual book burnings in the 70s — fun, educational, and moving.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 7th, 2025.

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (Fantasy)

A heroic fantasy novel with a YA slant from the author of Spinning Silver and Uprooted. Think Harry Potter meets Hunger Games with the ironic style of The Name of the Wind.

The action takes place at Scholomance — a school for the magically gifted. Unlike Hogwarts, however, there are no kindly Dumbledores anxious to help you survive and master your skills. Indeed, there are no teachers, or adults, or even any communication with the outside. Induction into the Scholomance is sudden and permanent. The only way out is to graduate, and there a lot of malevolent beasties that will do their best to ensure you make a tasty magic meal rather than a full wizard.

El (short for Galadriel — don’t ask) has an affinity for mass destruction — not what you want if you desire to be a “good witch”! She is roundly shunned by most — but is this because of her affinity for evil or because she is rude, off putting, and endlessly defensive? And the local hero, Orion Lake, keeps saving her life. How annoying!

The world building is complete and awesome — crawling with outlandish and execrable monsters, arcane rules and physics that doesn’t work in any way that I’ve experienced. Full of action (which normally bores me but somehow the sarcasm and wit and characters that I cared about in spite of myself carried me along quickly). Some not-so-thinly disguised political commentary on the haves and have-nots, but well-done and not completely one-sided. Overall enjoyable. I admit to liking Spinning Silver and Uprooted a little bit more but found this eminently consumable. Looks like it may be a series based on the last line of this book (not a cliff hanger in any sense but a promise of more to come).

I forgot to add that our heroine comes from Cardigan, Wales. That doesn’t have a lot to do with the story but it’s a beautiful place and I was tickled to find it in the book.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group — Ballantine and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on Sept. 29th, 2020.