The defenestration of blog

I haven’t been successful at keeping up with… well, much of anything. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m just starting to resurface after several years of grief, stress, and anxiety. My goal is still to read more. More in general, but also to read with more intention. Here are the 26 books I enjoyed in 2019, in order of finish date:

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Story Genius by Lisa Cron
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip
The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
The Armored Saint by Myke Cole
The Scientific Renaissance by Marie Boas Hall
Gullstruck Island by Frances Hardinge
The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang
Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen
The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir
The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse
The Long Way to a Dark Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Like last year, so many of these books came from recommendations made at the 4th Street Fantasy conference in the Twin Cities and the Sirens Conference in Denver. Many were books I would never have picked up on my own and ended up thoroughly enjoying.

Among my favorites this year were The Poppy War, Trail of Lightning, The Stars are Legion, Gullstruck Island, an Ember in the Ashes, Dread Nation, and Gideon the Ninth.

“Bone Song” is now available to read for FREE on the Apex Magazine website. Check it out when you can, and if you like it, consider leaving a rating on the issue’s Amazon or Goodreads pages!

p.s. I’m also pretty excited to be listed on their “Our Authors” page 🙂

So. Um. Where to begin?

I’d heard about The Poppy War so many times, it was unavoidable as my first read of the year. People said it was devastating. Heartbreaking. Heavy. About 2/3 of the way through the book, I thought “Huh?” Sure, the subject matter was a little grim, but nothing unusual. It was just a well-written coming-of-age fantasy story about a young girl learning magic in a military school. 

Then the last 1/3 of the book happened. 

It was horrifying. It turned my stomach. My damn eyebrows were stretched toward the ceiling for hours on end. And it was heartbreaking. Just not in the way I expected. (Warning: mild spoilers ahead).

I found Rin to be extremely relatable. Her trauma response is (to me) quite familiar . She makes difficult choices because — well, she has to. She drips wax on her arms to stay awake while studying. She chooses medical sterilization (actually one of my favorite parts of the story). She kills. Many times. She does what she needs to do to survive, and it’s matter-of-fact. She doesn’t dwell on it, at least not in the moment. Every choice, even the terrible, life-altering ones, makes perfect sense. 

That’s the gut-punch. Things were either going to suck or they were going to suck in a different way. And to be honest, I like that in a book. I’m a fan of moral relativism. I like stories that tackle the idea that, while you can change things, you can’t necessarily fix them.  

The author compared this book to a darker, more fucked-up Avatar the Last Airbender. That assessment seems pretty spot-on. Emphasis on the “fucked up”. 

So would I recommend this book? Wholeheartedly, but only to those with a strong stomach and a fondness for dark, fatalistic fiction. I can’t wait to read the next one. 

Find The Poppy War on Goodreads.