“Eleanor Fitt has a lot to worry about. Her brother has gone missing, her family has fallen on hard times, and her mother is determined to marry her off to any rich young man who walks by. But this is nothing compared to what she’s just read in the newspaper: The Dead are rising in…
Category: Review
Release by Patrick Ness
“Adam Thorn doesn’t know it yet, but today will change his life. Between his religious family, a deeply unpleasant ultimatum from his boss, and his own unrequited love for his sort-of ex, Enzo, it seems as though Adam’s life is falling apart. At least he has two people to keep him sane: his new boyfriend…
Mort(e) by Robert Repino
“The ‘war with no name’ has begun, with human extinction as its goal. The instigator of this war is the Colony, a race of intelligent ants who, for thousands of years, have been silently building an army that would forever eradicate the destructive, oppressive humans. Under the Colony’s watchful eye, this utopia will be free…
Passage by Connie Willis
Connie Willis is one of science fiction’s most inventive authors. Her novel Doomsday Book won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, and she has continued to turn out critically acclaimed novels such as Lincoln’s Dreams and To Say Nothing of the Dog. Her latest effort, however, surpasses all expectations. Tackling the controversial topic of…
Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
“Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she…
The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford
“All Maggie, Russell, and Henry wanted out of their last college vacation was to get drunk and play archaeologist in an old house in the woods outside of town. When they excavate the mansion’s outhouse they find way more than they bargained for: a sealed bottle filled with a red liquid, along with the bizarre…
California Bones by Greg van Eekhout
“When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian. When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic…
Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire
“Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan, run off the road by a man named Bobby Cross—a man who had sold his soul to live forever, and intended to use her death to pay the price of his immortality. Trouble was, he didn’t ask Rose what she thought of the idea. It’s been…
The Remaining by D. J. Molles
“In a steel-and-lead encased bunker a Special Forces soldier waits on his final orders. On the surface a bacterium has turned 90% of the population into hyper-aggressive predators. Now Captain Lee Harden must leave the bunker and venture into the wasteland to rekindle a shattered America.” Okay, the situation with this book is kind of…
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
Let’s not mince words: this book is going to rip your heart out. Don’t expect last-minute reprieves for the characters you will come to love. Death comes for everyone, and the message of this book is that since you never know when it’s going to happen, you shouldn’t waste your life. In the case of this story, yes, Mateo and Rufus get an extra day to accomplish some of that living, but the endgame is still the same. Rufus wanted to travel and take photos, and Mateo wanted to be an architect. Neither will get to live their dreams, and no amount of living in the course of less than 24 hours can make up for that. One of the things that this book does extremely well is in highlighting the relationships in our lives and what they can mean to us. Each boy has people in their lives whom they love, but not in the sense of romantic love, and when they finally get to express that love, the sense of freedom is palpable. I especially liked Mateo’s deep connection with his friend Lidia, seeing how the two loved each other in a way that transcended any attempts to pigeonhole it. I have just such an opposite-sex friend myself, one who means the world to me, and seeing something similar in a story was so heartwarming. I felt connected to this book on a really personal level, because in many ways, I identified with Mateo. He was someone who holed up in his room a lot, watching movies and playing online, and he wasn’t one to get out and experience the world. I was like that myself for a long time, but I’ve been able to change that in recent years. In fact, I’m in the middle of planning a trip to Ireland; as a result Mateo’s journey towards life, and his realization that it’s okay to have a place to feel safe, is one that I can vouch for as accurate. I haven’t said as much about Rufus, but not because I didn’t like him. I just identified more with Mateo. But Rufus is a portrait of someone who is heading down a darker path and is lucky enough to be able to turn his life back around. The fact that it takes place in less than 24 hours doesn’t make it any less true. That’s another message from this book: the amount of time that something takes is less important than the fact that it happens. Mateo and Rufus find each other when each has less than a day to live. That in no way invalidates what they do for each other, and what they become for each other. The experience is what counts, in whatever form you want that experience to take. I hope that this book gets widespread attention, because with all the fears and uncertainties of life lately, a story with a message to get out and live is so incredibly vital. They Both…