laurareads87's reviews
576 reviews

 There is a lot I enjoyed about this novella! I appreciated Ashâke as a protagonist, the ways Orisha were incorporated into the narrative, and the world-building overall. There is a lot of world here for such a short text – Ogundiran has really effectively brought the setting to life. 

Some of what I didn’t love about this novella is that to me, it reads like YA in places which isn’t how it’s marketed nor is it what I prefer. So, spinning that into a positive: I can see this series having YA crossover appeal. 

I will definitely pick up the next book in the Guardians of the Gods series. 

Content warnings: death, child death, violence, fire injury, injury detail, animal death 

I reserve the right to come back to this one; I'm in a slump and it's more "me" than the book.

This was so good! Having really enjoyed Suyi Davies Okungbowa’s Nameless Republic novels, I was very excited to see a novella from him and am happy to say that I’ve enjoyed it a lot. 

Lost Ark Dreaming is set in a high-rise in post-flood Lagos; water has risen dramatically with climate change, flooding the city and leaving only the highest buildings habitable. This one is sharply stratified, with the ‘lowers’ toiling in poor conditions while the highest floors are reserved for elites and the ‘midders’ are, of course, in between. The story is told from three different POVs – three characters, three class positions – who converge when what first appears to be a routine mission to inspect a repair goes in unexpected directions. There is a lot packed into a short page count here – compelling character development, an exciting plot, and political and social commentary that feel highly relevant but never didactic or overdone. Definitely recommend, & will be waiting impatiently for whatever Suyi Davies Okungbowa publishes next. 

Content warnings: murder, death, classism, violence, police brutality, confinement, blood (nothing especially graphic/gory), grief 

One Way Witch follows Najeeba, a woman with natural abilities as a sorcerer, as she trains in these abilities with the intention of going after a threat stalks and takes people from the village she grew up in. It occurs after Najeeba’s daughter has left and changed the world, and Najeeba is mourning both the loss of her husband and her daughter, processing grief. I didn’t love this as much as She Who Knows – it did feel a bit ‘middle book’ in that a lot of it is backstory as well as anticipatory of what will be the plot of the final book – but Okorafor’s writing is impactful and beautiful as always and the character development of Najeeba is really effective. I will certainly pick up the final installment and finish this trilogy. 

This is a sequel to the novella She Who Knows; I strongly discourage reading this one first as key elements of the backstory of the characters would be missing. These books are also set in the same universe as Who Fears Death, which follows Onyesonwu, Najeeba’s daughter, and chronologically falls mostly between these two novellas; I have not read this book but can still easily make sense of these novellas (though they refer to – and no doubt contain spoilers – for the novel). 

Thank you to DAW and NetGalley for providing me an ARC to review. 

Content warnings: rape, sexual assault, violence, slavery (as having occurred prior to the plot of this story), animal cruelty, animal death 

I backed To Root Somewhere Beautiful on Kickstarter and received the e-book. The description reads (in part): “twenty-two diverse authors explore what nature's vengeance might be like, and how humanity could adapt and change, giving these stories of climate change and disasters a center of hope.” The stories stay close to the theme, each featuring end-of-world scenarios all related to humans having dramatically changed the earth. There is a fair amount of horror-leaning and dystopian writing though I didn’t find anything in the collection scary really – moreso thought provoking and, in some instances, quite disturbing. I did star rate each story individually just for my own reference while reviewing; almost all my ratings were 3.5 or above.

Like any anthology, any reader will enjoy some stories more than others. I do think that it was strong overall. My favourite stories included “The Last Singapore Girls” by Wen-yi Lee, “They Used to Build Parks Here” by SJ Whitby, “When the World Gives Out” by Rachal Marquez Jones, and “To Root from Flesh” by Isa Arsen.

Content warnings: body horror, violence, gun violence, murder, death of a child, racism, racial slurs, sexism, fire injury, abandonment, suicidal thoughts 

 It is hard to overstate the importance of the Combahee River Collective Statement and its impacts on political organizing and, in particular, the trajectories of intersectionality and Black feminism; I really enjoyed reading the Collective participants’ own words looking back on and contextualizing their work. Definitely recommend. 

Content warnings: discussions of sexism, sexual assault, racism, heterosexism, homophobia, police brutality, capitalist oppression 

The Magic of the Iron Pentacle is a book that, like Meredith & Parma’s previous co-authored work Elements of Magic, is inspired by a core class in Reclaiming tradition witchcraft. Unlike the prior book, this one is – at least as far as I can tell – authored entirely by Meredith & Parma. It reads as more cohesive and consistent as a result. As someone who hasn’t taken an Iron class, I found the material to be clear and thorough, definitely enough of an introduction for me to incorporate Iron into my practice. 

 The book is organized into eight parts: a brief introduction (including history, ‘how the book is set up’, etc.), a section for each of the five points of the Iron Pentacle, a section on ‘Iron Pentacle Tools’ (including both basics like grounding and centering that are relevant far beyond Iron as well as ways to run the Iron Pentacle), and finally the last part ‘Deeper Iron’ which gets into additional pentacles (rusted, gilded, and Pearl) as well as some ideas for experimenting with running iron in different ways, including in small groups. Overall, I think this structure works, though I do think that some readers will want to read the ‘Iron Pentacle Tools’ section first, particularly those less familiar with ritual structure and those who aren’t familiar with how Iron / pentacle work is run specifically. 

 Inevitably, there will be parts that work for some readers and not others. Each of the sections on a point of the pentacle includes several ritual ideas, and there are some that appeal to me that I can imagine trying and others I definitely wouldn’t, and I’m sure this will be true (with different rituals) for different readers. 

I appreciate that the authors have included a ‘further reading’ list, though I’d much prefer it didn’t include a so-called ‘feminist’ author known to be vehemently transphobic: this feels out of alignment with the rest of the book, which reads as quite inclusive. I also appreciate that they consistently identify where (ex. from Feri, from Reclaiming) different ideas and practices derive from. 

3.5, rounding up. The Barrow Will Send What it May is the second in the Danielle Cain series and the sequel to The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. The series follows Danielle and her friends who, at the beginning of the text, hitchhike with a driver who tells them she used to be dead but came back; things only get stranger from there. I think I actually liked this one better than the first book – it had fun characters and a fast plot (perhaps a bit too fast moving at some points), but the politics and the punk felt less didactic and forced and more natural in this one. 

It somehow took me three years after reading the first book in this series to pick up this one. On that basis, I would say this almost reads as standalone. The plot of this novella is relatively self-contained; however, if one started here they’d miss out on character development so I’d suggest starting with the first book in the series before reading this one. 

Content warnings: violence, gun violence, death, murder, injury detail, car accident, brief mention of transphobia, brief mention of cancer 

In Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse, Rubenstein traces theories of multiple worlds from ancient philosophy to modern physics. I found the text thought-provoking; as someone with a background in philosophy, I found it highly readable though admittedly, some parts were easier to follow for me than others (ie. I very much appreciated Nietszche's appearance toward the end but don't know that I can say I really grasp the cosmic microwave background). Perhaps most important, the book left me with more questions to ponder than I had when I started - for this, I'm appreciative.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is predominantly comprised of a 1912 journal written by a pastor that is, in the present day, discovered and provided to the pastor’s great great granddaughter. The events of the novel have their roots in an actual historical event – Marias Massacre – and interwoven with the pastor’s journal are his transcriptions of the oral accounts of Good Stab, a Blackfeet man who appears to have supernatural abilities. Stephen Graham Jones’ writing is incredible as always, the plot gripped me beginning to end, and I found myself simultaneously unable to put the book down and questioning whether reading it right before trying to go to sleep was a good idea. Three Persons / Pastor Beaucarne and Good Stab are both such fascinating POVs, and the alternation between them is really effective. Definitely recommend this novel with my only caveat being that the content warnings it warrants definitely mean it won’t be for every reader.

Content warnings: colonialism, racism, violence, gun violence, murder, torture, death, grief, animal cruelty, animal death, death of a child, death of a parent, rape, child abuse, gore, blood, body horror, injury detail, forcible confinement, genocide – the violence and gore in this book is graphic, on-page, and pervasive.