Life has been a bit stressful lately, so I haven’t posted as much as I would have liked. But I’m still reading and catching up on 2020 releases, so you can expect new reviews soon. Pinkie promise!
Until then, I thought I’d participate in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, which is all about bookish quotes. I dove deep into my reading history and, unsurprisingly, ended up with quotes from my favorite books and authors.
My favorite bookish quotes
LAINI TAYLOR – STRANGE THE DREAMER
Because Laini Taylor is a genius and Strange the Dreamer is full of beautiful quotes, I cheated and chose two:
“You’re a storyteller. Dream up something wild and improbable,” she pleaded. “Something beautiful and full of monsters.”
– Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE – DEATHLESS
It comes as no surprise that my very favorite author is featured on this list. She may make more than one appearance… Catherynne M. Valente’s Deathless broke my heart in so many ways, it’s ridiculous. And while there are many lines in that book that I can re-read over and over again without them losing their power, here’s my favorites:
“You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.”
– Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
LAINI TAYLOR – LIPS TOUCH: THREE TIMES
And I have to add another Laini Taylor book. Her collection of shorter works Lips Touch: Three Times is the reason I gave this author another chance when I bounced off another of her books hard. I’m so glad I tried again because now she’s one of my favorites.
“There is a certain kind of girl the goblins crave. You could walk across a high school campus and point them out: not her, not her, her. The pert, lovely ones with butterfly tattoos in secret places, sitting on their boyfriends’ laps? No, not them. The girls watching the lovely ones sitting on their boyfriends’ laps? Yes.
Them.
The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood. The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else. Urgent, unkissed, wishful girls.”– Goblin Fruit by Laini Taylor
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE – THE FAIRYLAND SERIES
So, every single one of the five volumes in the Fairyland Series is filled to the brim with quotable lines. I have chosen only a few to give you a taste. If you haven’t yet, go try and read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and then devour the rest of the series because it is filled with the kind of wonder you last felt as a kid, plus Cat Valente’s trademark lyrical prose.
“A silent Library is a sad Library. A Library without patrons on whom to pile books and tales and knowing and magazines full of up-to-the-minute politickal fashions and atlases and plays in pentameter! A Library should be full of exclamations! Shouts of delight and horror as the wonders of the world are discovered or the lies of the heavens uncovered or the wild adventures of devil-knows-who sent romping out of the pages. A Library should be full of now-just-a-minutes and that-can’t-be-rights and scientifick folk running skelter to prove somebody wrong. It should positively vibrate with laughing at comedies and sobbing at tragedies, it should echo with gasps as decent ladies glimpse indecent things and indecent ladies stumble upon secret and scandalous decencies! A Library should not shush; it should roar!”
– The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two by Catherynne M. Valente
“A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.”
– The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente
TERRY PRATCHETT – REAPER MAN
And another infinitely quotable writer appears on this list. Terry Pratchett was a treasure and a fountain of insight into human nature. The fact that he holds up a mirror to our society with humor only makes his books better! Reaper Man is one of his books that touched me particularly because even though Death takes a vacation in this story, his job is never really done, is it?
“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…”
– Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
THEODORA GOSS – IN THE FOREST OF FORGETTING
I discovered Theodora Goss via Cat Valente because they both write mythpunk. The short story collection In the Forest of Forgetting blew me away with its imaginative stories, deep themes, and of course, beautiful quotes.
“This is the sort of thing people like: the implication that, despite their minivans and microwaves, if they found the door in the wall, they too could enter fairyland.”
– Pip and the Fairies by Theodora Goss
MAGGIE STIEFVATER – THE RAVEN BOYS
Maggie Stiefvater is one of those author who can pull you into a story that you follow along nicely, and then she hits you with a line so perfect it’s like a punch in the guts. But, you know, in a good way. I urge you to read her entire Raven Cycle, and then throw in the Scorpio Races and have your heart torn out. Because why should it just be me. I would have added my favorite quote from that book as well but it’s the very last line and I don’t want to spoil it for you.
“Gansey had once told Adam that he was afraid most people didn’t know how to handle Ronan. What he meant by this was that he was worried that one day someone would fall on Ronan and cut themselves.”
– The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
TERRY PRATCHETT – NATION
Come on, let me have another Pratchett quote! This is a non-Discworld novel so if academic wizards, headology-using witches, or cynical city guards aren’t for you, pick this one up. Nation has so many layers and all of them are beautiful. Ever since I read it, I’ve been giving this book as a gift to everyone I could think of.
“Someone had to eat the first oyster, you know.
Someone looked at a half shell full of snot and was brave.”
“Take one strip of the vine lengthwise and yes, it needs the strength of two men to pull it apart. But weave five strands of it into a rope and a hundred men can’t break it. The more they pull, the more it binds together and the stronger it becomes. That is the Nation.”
– Nation by Terry Pratchett
YSABEAU S. WILCE – THE FLORA SEGUNDA TRILOGY
This criminally underread trilogy is such a gem! Flora Segunda, Flora’s Dare, and Flora’s Fury are the kind of books that make you feel like coming home after a long trip. You fall into this world’s alternate Calfornia and follow young Flora and her best friend Udo on crazy adventures. There’s twists and turns and quite a few emotional moments. Wilce’s use of language is quite brilliant and sets this series apart from other Middle Grade/YA tales.
“I lit the lantern, ate a bar of chocolate, put on dry socks, and felt much better. You’d be amazed, said Nini Mo, how much dry socks matter.”
– Flora’s Dare by Ysabeau S. Wilce
“It’s like Nini Mo said, They may be snapperheads, but they are my snapperheads.”
– Flora’s Fury by Ysabeau S. Wilce
GENEVIEVE VALENTINE – MECHANIQUE
This was one of those surprise books that I didn’t expect too much of and then it swept me away with its prose, its intricate characters, and the story it tells. Putting it on this list makes me want to re-read it immediately. Mechanique was so good, you guys! And it didn’t get nearly the attention it should have.
One day the wolf was wild enough to run into the forest near their camp, hunting something only it could sense. A week later when they pulled down the tent, the wolf had not come back. “Call it, if you want,” Boss told Jonah. “We’ll wait.”
That night Jonah stood for an hour at the edge of the camp, looking into the darkness of the woods. He came back empty-handed.
Ayar frowned. “It didn’t come?”
Jonah said, “I didn’t call.”– Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine
No idea if this will come out in 2017. It’s been pushed back several times and I’ll have to re-read The Republic of Thieves anyway. But despite my fading memories of a terrible reveal and new cliffhanger, I will look forward to this until it is finally in my hands.
I adored Okorafor’s Tor.com novella, Binti, and I cannot wait for the sequel. Although Binti told a full story, the world is wide open for more and I am so glad Okorafor decided to share more of it with her readers. The cover is gorgeous again.
The description actualyl doesn’t sound like my thing but it is a new Caitlín R. Kiernan novel and it’s sure to be weird and creepy and wonderful.
Here’s an unexpected one. I didn’t think I’d come to like Truthwitch as much as I did. It had flaws, sure, but overall, the fun aspect was stronger and I find myself eagerly awaiting the sequel.
f you read the synopsis, you’ll know why I want this. It has all my buzzwords right there. Fairy tales, Russian ones at that, a wild, willful girl – I need this!
This is a Labyrinth retelling/sequel/spinoff!!! I was worried for a long time because this could go so very, very wrong. However, a handful of early reviews are up (by authors and trusted people) and they all sound quite positive. This appears to be less YA-tropey than expected so I’m all in.
I feel like I’ve read a dozen informal histories of the Hugos during the last three years and their accompanying Hugo disasters. But next year I’ll actually be attending WordCon for the first time, so more Hugo writing is welcome. Plus, I love Jo Walton’s non-fiction.
. Jemisin – The Obelisk Gate
mbers – A Closed and Commom Orbit
China Miéville – The Last Days of New Paris
Foz Meadows – An Accident of Stars
Jay Kristoff – Nevernight
Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky – Sex Criminals Volume 3
1. John Scalzi – Old Man’s War
Quite by accident, September has been crowned as Queen of Fairyland – but she inherits a Kingdom in chaos. The magic of a Dodo’s egg has brought every King, Queen, or Marquess of Fairyland back to life, each with a fair and good claim on the throne, each with their own schemes and plots and horrible, hilarious, hungry histories. In order to make sense of it all, and to save their friend from a job she doesn’t want, A-Through-L and Saturday devise a Royal Race, a Monarckical Marathon, in which every outlandish would-be ruler of Fairyland will chase the Stoat of Arms across the whole of the nation – and the first to seize the poor beast will seize the crown. Caught up in the madness are the changelings Hawthorn and Tamburlaine, the combat wombat Blunderbuss, the gramophone Scratch, the Green Wind, and September’s parents, who have crossed the universe to find their daughter…
Before the Brothers Grimm, before Charles Perrault, before Hans Christian Andersen, there was Giambattista Basile, a seventeenth-century poet from Naples, Italy, whom the Grimms credit with recording the first national collection of fairy tales. The Tale of Tales opens with Princess Zoza, unable to laugh no matter how funny the joke. Her father, the king, attempts to make her smile; instead he leaves her cursed, whereupon the prince she is destined to marry is snatched up by another woman. To expose this impostor and win back her rightful husband, Zoza contrives a storytelling extravaganza: fifty fairy tales to be told by ten sharp-tongued women (including Zoza in disguise) over five days.
Magic is powerful, dangerous and addictive – and after passage of the 18th Amendment, it is finally illegal.
At Whitehall Palace in 1632, the ladies at the court of Charles I are beginning to look suspiciously alike. Plump cheeks, dilated pupils, and a heightened sense of pleasure are the first signs that they have been drinking a potent new beauty tonic, Viper Wine, distilled and discreetly dispensed by the physician Lancelot Choice.
A literary fantasy about love, music and sorcery, set against the background of Mexico City.
This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.
A swan princess hunted for her bones, a broken musician and his silver pipe, and a rat named Maurice bring justice to a town under fell enchantment. A gang of courageous kids confronts both a plague-destroyed world and an afterlife infested with clowns but robbed of laughter. In an island city, the murder of a child unites two lovers, but vengeance will part them. Only human sacrifice will save a city trapped in ice and darkness. Gold spun out of straw has a price, but not the one you expect.
Four hundred years ago, in a small town in rural France, a young woman creates the future in the shape of Rupetta. Part mechanical, part human, Rupetta’s consciousness is tied to the women who wind her. In the years that follow she is bought and sold, borrowed, forgotten and revered. By the twentieth century, the Rupettan four-fold law rules everyone’s lives, but Rupetta—the immortal being on whose existence and history those laws are based—is the keeper of a secret that will tear apart the world her followers have built in her name. The closeness between women is mirrored in the relationship between Henri and Miri, a woman at the college with whom she fall in love, and also between mothers and daughters and grandmothers and granddaughters – a heritage of affection that loops down over the centuries.
Wasp’s job is simple. Hunt ghosts. And every year she has to fight to remain Archivist. Desperate and alone, she strikes a bargain with the ghost of a supersoldier. She will go with him on his underworld hunt for the long-long ghost of his partner and in exchange she will find out more about his pre-apocalyptic world than any Archivist before her. And there is much to know. After all, Archivists are marked from birth to do the holy work of a goddess. They’re chosen. They’re special. Or so they’ve been told for four hundred years.
Sixteen-year-old Beckan and her friends are the only fairies brave enough to stay in Ferrum when war breaks out. Now there is tension between the immortal fairies, the subterranean gnomes, and the mysterious tightropers who arrived to liberate the fairies.
1. Benjamin Alire Sáenz – 
2. Maggie Stiefvater – 
3. Kazuo Ishiguro – 
4. Wolf Haas – The Brenner Books
5. Leonie Swann – Glennkill (Three Bags Full)
6. Lauren Beukes – 
7. Amélie Nothomb – Stupeur et Tremblements (Fear and Trembling)
8. Kerstin Gier – 
9. Alan Bradley – 
10. Chuck Palahniuk – 
#1 Naomi Novik – Uprooted (Agnieszka and the Dragon)
This romance is, by default, much more tame and innocent. Blue cannot kiss a boy because it has been prophecied that her kiss will kill her true love. Whether Gansey actually is her “true love” or not, everyone can see that it’s better not to risk it. Maggie Stiefvater manages, without actual kissing or sex scenes, to create an atmosphere between her characters that can only be called sexy. Blue and Gansey’s yearning for each other is tangible and the fact that they can’t act on it is as much torture for the reader as it is for them.
#3 N. K. Jemisin – The Broken Kingdoms (
This is a book with only one romance, but I really wanted there to be a second one… I kind of hate the authors for doing what they did with my second couple of choice, but I understand why there is only one couple. Man, it’s really hard to explain this without spoilers…
#5 Diana Gabaldon – Outlander (Jamie and Claire)
#6 Guy Gavriel Kay – Tigana (spoiler and spoiler)
#7 Catherynne M. Valente – Deathless (Marya Morevna and Koschei the Deathless)
8 Catherynne M. Valente – The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (September and Saturday)
Here’s the fluffy book for my list. The Lunar Chronicles in general are very fluffy, fun reads without too much depth. But the third and fourth book gave me Cress and Carswell Thorne. Thorne has been the star of the series ever since he showed up in Scarlet, and juxtaposing him with his very own fangirl Cress was bound to deliver some hilarious and romantic scenes. Their romance is a slow-building thing, mostly due to Thorne’s rogue nature, his arrogance and inability to notice when somebody honestly cares about him. I adored their back and forth, and the little moments they shared. Cress has to grow into herself, Thorne has to realise that he, too, has a heart, and it all ends up as a lovely, romantic action comedy.
#10 Sarah Pinborough – Tales from the Kingdoms (Snow White, Cinderella, and spoilers)
SFF Book Reviews 