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The Maid and the Crocodile, Jordan Ifueko, 2024 YA. I liked this a lot. Charming characters, enjoyable voice, some great moments, the exact right amount of story for the space. I couldn't remember much about Raybearer except that I had really liked it (this is in the same world) but Ifueko did a good job of filling in who the overlapping characters were and anything else you needed to know. ( Read more... ) I still have three more Lodestar nominees to read but this is definitely a strong contender.

The Girl from the Sea, Molly Knox Ostertag, 2021 YA graphic novel. Selkie story, not for losers. (Sorry.) Cute and sweet story about a closeted high school girl having a summer romance, coming out to her family and friends, and finding solutions other than eco-terrorism to a local ecological problem, what's not to like.

The Deep Dark, Molly Knox Ostertag, 2024 YA graphic novel. I was hooked on this as soon as I picked it up and ended up reading it in one sitting once I got my hands on a library copy. A reunion with a childhood friend and a supernatural secret and a nicely-realized near Joshua Tree setting and a sweet F/F romance. I really enjoyed Ostertag's art - mostly black and white with some excellent use of spot color, switching to full color for flashbacks and similar purposes. One particular sequence was just - wow. The pacing and plot were all very well done too; Ostertag did some neat stuff to help us track the passage of time (ranging from setting the story around the winter holidays to showing time and day stamps on cellphones) and wove the various plot threads together in a really satisfying way. I'm definitely adding this to my Hugo Graphic ballot!

The Sapling Cage, Margaret Killjoy, 2024 novel. Fantasy, apparently first of a trilogy but I thought it stood alone very nicely. 16-year-old trans girl takes her friend's place as an apprentice witch so that she can live as a girl and become a witch. Not particularly being marketed as YA afaik but it totally deals with coming-of-age themes and I might nominate it for the Lodestar, although nobody else on the spreadsheet has (but nor does it appear on the novels tab so maybe it's just obscure or unpopular?). I really liked it; I like Killjoy's writing (she's apparently kickstartering the next one of those Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion novellas soon) and I thought the fantasy world had some nice touches. Also the cover is great.

Killjoy thanked Tamora Pierce in her acknowledgments and I was struck by (spoilers) ( Read more... )

Liberty's Daughter, Naomi Kritzer, 2023 YA (at least somewhat a pasteup of some earlier stories in F&SF, I think). 16yo on a libertarian seastead solves a series of mysteries. I enjoyed this, although I don't think it's as strong as the Catnet books. A fine thing to hope teens reading Moon is a Harsh Mistress or L. Neil Smith's Pallas might also read, what life might be like in an isolated and resource-limited libertopia for the less lucky.

Unraveller, Frances Hardinge, 2022 YA (2023 in the US, I think, thus the Lodestar qualification). A fantasy world where hate can lead to fairy-tale type transformative curses. I was pretty into this, and then kind of hit a wall somewhere around the two-thirds mark. Did eventually finish and I liked it, just, some kind of a momentum hiccup there. Some interesting, weighty stuff about trauma and fear and recidivism and decarceration, although Hardinge's ultimate conclusions on these topics fell a little flat for me. (I think she came across as a True Believer in Therapy in a way I'm really not, personally, although I realize cultural orthodoxy is on the therapy side here so it will probably work fine for most people. The book, not therapy, although I also recognize that therapy does seem to really work for some people.)

Fence: Disarmed, Sarah Rees Brennan, another tie-in novel for the Fence comic series. I think I've fallen a bit behind on the comics - there's a volume 5 I haven't read (and then a volume 6 coming out in Jan 2024) - but I didn't feel like I was particularly missing anything. I thought this was fun - I liked it more than the previous one, maybe because I was now more used to SRB's writing of them, or maybe because it was a better plot concept, or maybe because everyone has been allowed to grow up a little bit. Some good moments for everybody but most especially Seiji and Nicholas, <3.

(Note: this is not a comic, but I'm tagging for comics to make it easier to find again.)

Across a Field of Starlight, Blue Delliquanti, 2022 graphic novel. I started reading this back in the fall, and I got about halfway and it wasn't quite clicking for me somehow, and so I let myself get distracted by other things. And then I picked it up today and read it cover to cover and I loved it. I'm not sure what made the difference - just mood, or being able to focus better by being somewhat limited in options at present (our covid isolation situation is complicated and also I am the kind of sick where I have to pace myself really carefully in terms of housework). But, anyways, I'm glad I came back to it!

Delliquanti has described this book as a teen from a Star Wars society becoming pen pals with a teen from a Star Trek society - it's about cultural worldviews, and cultures coming into conflict, and also the more personal ways that you can know someone for a long time and still not get important things about their cultural context. It's about means and ends and the possibility of self-actualization in a society that guarantees basic needs and also the scariness of that as a sudden possibility. It's really beautifully drawn - Delliquanti's colors and backgrounds and character designs are all terrific - and it's queer in a sort of "obviously the future is hella queer" way while also making that important to certain character arcs and relationships. It's a neat story, we get to see interesting multi-dimensional conflicts while keeping a very personal focus, and there was a page that made me cry. I would love to see this sneak onto the Hugo ballot... the "On a Sunbeam/Mooncakes/Lore Olympus slot", you might call it?

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Axie Oh. I put this on my to-read list because the summary reminded me of Sarah Rees Brennan's story Queen of Atlantis; in fact it felt like more of a cross between Spirited Away and, hm, I dunno, what's a YA with a lot of ~destiny~ in it. Anyways, it was okay, some nice imagery, but the throughline was kind of muddled. Lovely cover.

Iron Widow, Xiran Jay Zhao. I had strongly mixed feelings about this book, and rather than try to decide which of them are spoilery I'm going to park the whole thing under a cut. I will say that I think you might like it if you really liked The Hunger Games. ( Read more... )

A Snake Falls To Earth, Darcie Little Badger, 2021. I was excited to read this after Elatsoe (which I wrote about here), but I wasn't so into it. The pacing is weirdly... flat? or episodic? or something? I would not be surprised to learn that Little Badger developed it from a series of bedtime stories she had been telling her younger cousin, or maybe a series of bedtime stories someone older had been telling *her*, or something. Which, I don't mean to say is a bad thing! That sounds really sweet! "Tell me another story about Oli," sure! The characters were neat, and if sometimes what they were doing next seemed a little random, some of it was also neat, so, hey. And if some of it was kind of underdescribed, like jumping away from something big about to happen, or having just happened, then maybe that fits in well with the bedtime-stories theory, where the listener is supposed to fill in those parts with their own imagination. If I mostly did not, I suppose that's on me. :/