BOOK REVIEW: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, by Alan Dean Foster

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, by Alan Dean FosterTitle: The Force Awakens by Alan Dean Foster
Series: Star Wars
Published by Del Rey
Published: January 5th 2016
Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 260
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

Set years after Return of the Jedi, this stunning action-packed adventure rockets us back into the world of Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Luke Skywalker, while introducing a host of exciting new characters, including Rey, Finn, BB-8 and Kylo Ren. Darth Vader may have been redeemed and the Emperor vanquished, but peace can be fleeting, and evil does not easily relent. Yet the simple belief in good can still empower ordinary individuals to rise and meet the greatest challenges. So return to that galaxy far, far away, and prepare yourself for what happens when the Force awakens...

 Star Wars books are my favorite reads when I want to read something fun and exciting in a universe I’m familiar with, and while I spent a lot of my teenage years reading the Extended Universe, I’ve been interested in a lot of the new stuff that’s come out since Disney got involved with Star Wars and began this new trilogy. I read Star Wars books to add more to my movie-watching experience, and more often than not, the Extended Universe, the new canon, and the movie novels add more depth to the stories unfolding on screen.

However, the novelization of The Force Awakens reads almost exactly like the film, the only differences being the a small handful of additional scenes and the lack of humor and vivacity in other scenes. It’s definitely worth reading to find out a little more backstory on Poe Dameron and how he got to Jakku, as well as a little bit more emotional background for Kylo Ren (but if I’m honest, Kylo Ren is my least favorite character, and I don’t really care one way or another what happens to him). Other than that, it’s an easy read, very much like the film, and I was able to read it in an afternoon!

BOOK REVIEW: Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuireTitle: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Series: Wayward Children #1
Published by Tor.com
Published: April 5th 2016
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 169
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations No Visitors No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

 For us, the places we went were home. We didn’t care if they were good or evil or neutral or what. We cared about the fact that for the first time we didn’t have to pretend to be something we weren’t. We just got to be. That made all the difference in the world.

Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway is a fairy tale homage. McGuire weaves in a lot of fairy tale and childhood fantasy references that make this a joy to read to try to connect all of those threads. Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children is a place where parents send their troubled, “uncontrollable” children. The children who have been sent there are those who have said that they’ve visited other worlds, other places, through actual doors or through other means that are probably immediately identifiable to those who read a lot (a wardrobe, a rabbit hole, etc).

This story really resonated with me because of the quote above. For me, so much of growing up and becoming myself meant learning how to shed the masks I wore, and sometimes still wear. When you find that place in life where you feel like you can be completely yourself without shame or fear is like nothing else. Sometimes it’s as simple as aging, sometimes it’s the people you meet and become friends/family with, and sometimes it’s the actual place in which you live that helps shape everything. And then, when you’re taken away or removed from that place, even if you only visited for a moment, all you can really think about is getting back to that place. Longing and nostalgia can be as powerful a drug as any others, and sometimes the only salve is finding people who have shared experiences and feel the same way as you. Realizing you’re not alone is such a healing thing.

If you like reworked fairy tales or stories about belonging and loss, you really need to read this. I can’t wait to read the others in this series.

BOOK REVIEW: The Refrigerator Monologues, by Catherynne M. Valente

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: The Refrigerator Monologues, by Catherynne M. ValenteTitle: The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente, Annie Wu
Published by Saga Press
Published: June 6th 2017
Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 160
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

The lives of six female superheroes and the girlfriends of superheroes. A ferocious riff on women in superhero comics.

A series of linked stories from the points of view of the wives and girlfriends of superheroes, female heroes, and anyone who’s ever been “refrigerated”: comic book women who are killed, raped, brainwashed, driven mad, disabled, or had their powers taken so that a male superhero’s storyline will progress.

 Catherynne M. Valente’s The Refrigerator Monologues is series of six loosely connected stories about female superheroes or the girlfriends of superheroes that are loosely based off of well-known characters in the Marvel and DC universes. The book is dedicated to Gail Simone, a female comic book writer fired from Batgirl who eventually created the “Women in Refrigerators” website in 1999. The website chronicles a lot of ways in which female characters are “fridged,” either “depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator.”

Each of the stories are set in Deadtown, the place comic book characters go after they die, and the characters in these six stories form “The Hell Hath Club,” which sets the frame story to connect each of these character’s individual stories. I loved that Deadtown provided that frame because it tied everything together so well. Each of the characters voices felt fresh yet identifiable with known characters in the Marvel and DC universes. I think my favorite stories out of the collection are “Paige Embry,” based off of Spider-Man‘s Gwen Stacy and “Daisy,” based off of Deadpool‘s Karen Page.

The stories contribute to the conversation about the treatment of women in comic books and in the media in general, and if you love comic books and superheroes and the women featured in these stories, you definitely need to read this book.

BOOK REVIEW: Hullmetal Girls, by Emily Skrutskie

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Hullmetal Girls, by Emily SkrutskieTitle: Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie
Published by Delacorte
Published: July 17th 2018
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 320
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley, Publisher
Goodreads

Aisha Un-Haad would do anything for her family. When her brother contracts a plague, she knows her janitor's salary isn't enough to fund his treatment. So she volunteers to become a Scela, a mechanically enhanced soldier sworn to protect and serve the governing body of the Fleet, the collective of starships they call home. If Aisha can survive the harrowing modifications and earn an elite place in the Scela ranks, she may be able to save her brother.

Key Tanaka awakens in a Scela body with only hazy memories of her life before. She knows she's from the privileged end of the Fleet, but she has no recollection of why she chose to give up a life of luxury to become a hulking cyborg soldier. If she can make it through the training, she might have a shot at recovering her missing past.

In a unit of new recruits vying for top placement, Aisha's and Key's paths collide, and the two must learn to work together--a tall order for girls from opposite ends of the Fleet. But a rebellion is stirring, pitting those who yearn for independence from the Fleet against a government struggling to maintain unity.

With violence brewing and dark secrets surfacing, Aisha and Key find themselves questioning their loyalties. They will have to put aside their differences, though, if they want to keep humanity from tearing itself apart.

 Emily Skrutskie’s Hullmetal Girls is what I’ve been wanting to see from YA science fiction for what feels like forever! A lot of the “science fiction” YA books I’ve read in the last several years have been more science fantasy, or they’ve been shelved in the adult science fiction/fantasy section, which can keep titles out of view of their targeted audiences. And I’m happy to say that I absolutely LOVED Hullmetal Girls.

Emily calls it her “standalone sci-fi Battlestar/Pacific Rim/Sens8/Snowpiercer frolic affectionately known as Cyborg Space Jam” and in addition to loving the premise of it before, seeing her own blurb of it made me want to read it even more. It definitely lives up to that tagline, and I also can’t tell you how much I love that it’s a standalone. I sometimes feel a little burnt out on series, so knowing that this is it for these characters made me get that much more invested in the story.

Hullmetal Girls will make you think about bodies, about the role of bodies and physical forms in society versus what’s going on in your mind or someone else’s (or, daresay, a collective), and about challenges and consequences do to the spirit before, during, and after action or inaction. I loved that the cyborg aspect had a little bit of alien/artificial intelligence thrown in and that the body modifications ended up being more of a symbiosis kind of meld rather than the body merely being a host for the implants and modifications.

If you liked Kameron Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion (which, SPOILER ALERT, that’s one of my favorite science fiction books ever), Hullmetal Girls is something you need to add to your TBRs immediately because the styles and themes are very much riding on the same wavelengths. RIGHT NOW! Go preorder it! I’m buying myself a physical copy too!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Delacorte for the free review copy!

BOOK REVIEW: Furyborn, by Claire Legrand

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Furyborn, by Claire LegrandTitle: Furyborn by Claire Legrand
Series: The Empirium Trilogy #1
Published by Sourcebooks Fire
Published: May 22nd 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 512
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley, Publisher
Goodreads

Follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world--and of each other.

 I think Claire Legrand’s Furyborn is going to be one of the biggest YA fantasy books of the summer. It’s full of magic, strong-willed young women, and nearly impossible challenges for each of them to overcome. The two main characters are connected to each other (and no spoilers!), but each of them live over a thousand years apart. For me, the idea behind this series is exciting, but I found that the execution of it is a little overwhelming. Connecting two characters across a span of a thousand years brings together two completely different stories told in alternating chapters.

Legend has it that two queens will possess extraordinary power. The Blood Queen will bring catastrophe and destruction to her reign; the Sun Queen will bring light and and salvation to her reign. Rielle, the prophesied powerful queen of a thousand years ago, is merely a legend to the bounty hunter Eliana. However, Eliana knows that she possesses extraordinary powers and struggles to keep her powers a secret from everyone else.

The things I loved most about this and hope will be explored more in the future books are the magic system and the history of what happened between Rielle and Eliana. I thought the initial world-building of the magic system and country engaging; I just wanted more! Rielle and Eliana are fairly well-developed, though sometimes I felt that their voices sounded too similar and had to remember which chapter I was reading (but considering their connection, I shouldn’t have been so thrown off by this!). The secondary characters really added to this story. I loved Simon and Ludivine the most, and loved the twists and connections they brought to the story.

Overall, this is an ambitious fantasy novel that will appeal to fans of Sarah J. Maas and Erika Johansen! I gave it four stars for the pacing and the scope, but it’s almost a little too much. I think maybe this could have worked better if two books of the trilogy focused each Rielle and Eliana separately and the final book bringing their stories together, because this novel felt like a very long and divided set-up for the rest of the series.

A copy of this book was provided for review by Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire; all opinions are my own.