December Review

2017 may have been a dumpster fire of a year (for many reasons), but literately it has been a great one. I was lucky enough to round out the last month of the year with some truly spectacular reads.

I started December with Rebecca Lim's The Astrologer's Daughter, which was two parts mystery, one part loss.

Avicenna's mother is an astrologist, using information from the stars to predict the future for her clients. But when she goes missing, Avicenna is thrust into a world she has been trying to avoid for years, hoping that some hint from her mother's mysterious past will help solve her even more uncertain future.

Lim's writing is descriptive without being overbearing, and the main character, Avicenna, kept me hooked for the entire 318 pages. The plot was twisty and a bit rocky in places, but the idea is completely original. The use of astrology in solving not just one mystery, but a whole slough connected by strangers asking for help is fascinating and terrifying at the same time. And through it all, Avicenna remains true to herself and the world that has been nothing but cruel to her. While the ending was left rather untidy and a little unsatisfying, the overall story was enjoyable, and I very much recommend it for anyone looking for a little bit of starry-eyed mystery.

I followed up Lim with another mystery, this one Cat Clarke's Lost and Found, about Faith Logan, who's sister, Laurel, goes missing when she's six years old. Faith, having grown up in the shadow of her sister's disappearance, then has to cope with her sudden, miraculous return. But things don't quite line up the way they're supposed to, and with each day that Laurel is back, Faith begins to wonder just who Laurel really is.

I was much more intrigued by the idea of this story than how it played out in the end. Faith was a difficult character to read, simply because I saw so much of myself in her, and the story takes a little while to really get into the mystery. The story around Faith was usually much more interesting than what Faith thought about things, although I wonder if that was done on purpose, to mirror the way nothing in Faith's life seems to even slightly revolve around her. She grows with the story, though, and by the end she's much more in charge of her narrative, which I appreciated as a parallel to the story as a whole.

Overall, it was a good book, although the ending gets darker as the mystery is revealed. It took my a while to read the first two-thirds of the book, and then a night to finish it, so stick through the slower bits to reach the ending. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Maggie Stiefvater's All The Crooked Saints was highly anticipated, both by me and the rest of the world. I've said it before, but I would read anything Stiefvater writes, because her style is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

All The Crooked Saints is a magical realism novel that follows three cousins in the Soria family, a family who, for generations, has had the ability to perform miracles on the pilgrims who travel to their town, Bicho Raro. Beatriz, the girl without feelings, Daniel, the saint with a history of breaking rules, and Joaquin, the nighttime pirate DJ who goes by the name Diablo Diablo. All three characters, plus the enormously interesting cast that emerges around them, have something to learn about inner darkness, hope, and love, and entire town full of waiting pilgrims takes the journey with them.

Stiefvater a powerful master of words, and her latest novel proves it. While nothing will ever top The Raven Cycle in my mind, All The Crooked Saints lives up to the Stievfater magic, and I would gladly read it again and again. She has given us both a story and a miracle, and in this case, they are the same thing.

I'll have to be honest now and admit that I haven't finished reading David Levithan's every day. But the premise is intriguing, and I look forward to finishing it in the next few days.

"A" wakes up in a different body, a different life, every day. They have to figure out how to live that life, as that person, for a day, before being thrown to the next one. They aren't supposed to change too much. They aren't supposed to connect with people. They aren't supposed to fall in love. But rules exist to be broken, and love will always find a way.

I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2018. May it be kinder than the year before.

Happy new year, friends, and keep writing.

Sam

Literary recommendation: The Two Sisters of Bamarre, by Gail Carson Levine

Movie recommendation: The Greatest Showman (Michael Gracey, 2017)

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