The Raven Scholar, and also Hugo Novels

The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson, 2025 fantasy novel. I didn't want to read this (it's over 600 pages long!) and very nearly didn't, in a mood to throw aside the Hugos and never duty-read again, but I decided to give it a shot, and, ha ha, the joke's on me, it was great. 600 pages when you want to turn them go so much faster than any number when you don't. Read it in a couple of days. It's not great literature maybe but it's so much fun and enjoyably twisty and I can't wait for the rest of the trilogy. Obvious influence from the whole Sorting Hat-Divergent-Hunger Games sort of genre but did not annoy me the way stuff in those veins tends to, like, it's a nicely realized fantasy world, there are palace-intrigue and high-fantasy plot strands going on in addition to the Houses-and-Contests business. (Maybe because it's not YA...) And Hodgson's pacing is terrific, things are constantly happening, the 600 pages felt justified and well-used. My apologies to the book club, clearly I should have agreed to this one the first time y'all suggested it.

Also I get to rank Hugo novels now.
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