Book Review – Fairy Tale

I started to read Stephen King’s books at least 15 years ago when I picked up The Dark Tower series. I guess that after delving into many more of his works, I now consider myself a fan, although I still don’t read everything that he writes. When I saw that he had a book titled Fairy Tale, though, I knew that this was one I’d need to read.

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Here is the blurb:

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.” And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.

A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.


I truly enjoyed this book! The opening is very relatable and takes place in our world. There’s a mysterious old man with secrets, a sympathetic protagonist in Charlie, and a wonderful dog. You KNOW that this story is going to go somewhere fantastical though from the title.

The first half provides a lot of character background and is essentially about saving a dog. The focus then shifts to an unpredictable story about heroes, quests, and doing the right thing. King references traditional fairy tales that you know, but in a way that isn’t obvious at first. But he also brings in more modern stories that have developed their own cultural following: everything from Cthulhu and Disney characters, to his own lines from The Dark Tower series. He even trolls George R. R. Martin with his own take on “the prince who was promised.”

Like the original versions of classic fairy tales, this story has its dark aspects. However, it is much more of a fantasy story than something from the horror genre. The ending was satisfying and I might even have shed a tear on the final page. I expect that Fairy Tale will end up being one of my top books of 2023 and I’m finding it hard to even offer any criticism of it right now, so go read it!

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – In a Garden Burning Gold

When this book was released, I was immediately attracted to it by the gorgeous cover, but I wasn’t familiar with the author, Rory Power, at all. This isn’t her first novel, but she is a relatively new author, so I thought I’d take a chance and pick up In a Garden Burning Gold.

This is the first book of The Wind-Up Garden series, which appears to be a duology. I read this book in 2022 and this is one of my back log of books to review. I also want to thank Net Galley for providing this copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Here is the blurb:

Rhea and her twin brother, Lexos, have spent an eternity helping their father rule their small, unstable country, using their control over the seasons, tides, and stars to keep the people in line. For a hundred years, they’ve been each other’s only ally, defending each other and their younger siblings against their father’s increasingly unpredictable anger.

Now, with an independence movement gaining ground and their father’s rule weakening, the twins must take matters into their own hands to keep their family—and their entire world—from crashing down around them. But other nations are jockeying for power, ready to cross and double cross, and if Rhea and Lexos aren’t careful, they’ll end up facing each other across the battlefield.


The world found in this novel contained some fascinating magic, where certain rulers have magically enhanced lifespans and gain powers in a very specific sphere that help to run their world. Rhea’s power is that she helps to bring on the change of seasons by choosing a consort for a short time, then eventually murdering them. While it is supposedly an honor to be chosen as her consort, politics also plays a huge role in this system.

I enjoyed seeing how this story unfolded, and the plot took some surprising twists. However, I felt like these long-lived nobles (especially Rhea) acted far more naive than I would have expected for people with so much worldly experience. I probably won’t read the next book.

Have you read this book or any of the author’s other works? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – Never Say You Can’t Survive

This was a book that I had picked up at New York Comic-Con in… probably 2021. The full title of this how-to book on writing by Charlie Jane Anders is Never Say You Can’t Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories. It has been some time since I’ve read this type of book, so I thought that this would be a good time to delve back in to learning how to improve my writing process.

This book also won the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Related Work.

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Here is the blurb:

Things are scary right now. We’re all being swept along by a tidal wave of history, and it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not helpless: we have minds, and imaginations, and the ability to visualize other worlds and valiant struggles. And writing can be an act of resistance that reminds us that other futures and other ways of living are possible.

Full of memoir, personal anecdote, and insight about how to flourish during the present emergency, Never Say You Can’t Survive is the perfect manual for creativity in unprecedented times.


I did enjoy this book and I felt like I learned some useful tips. It has found a space on the back portion of my desk where I keep books about writing for easy reference. I have also read two of this author’s novels, so I was able to understand the given examples when she references those stories. One of them (All the Birds in the Sky), was one of my favorite books I read in 2019, review here.

Never Say You Can’t Survive is divided into 5 sections, roughly on these topics:

  1. Getting Started – this deals with creating characters.
  2. What’s a Story and How Do You Find One? – this is about how to take a premise and turn it into a story.
  3. Your Feelings Are Valid – And Powerful – this is about using emotions to write effectively.
  4. What We Write About When We Write About Spaceships – this section tackles using your political and social outlook to say something in your writing.
  5. How to Use Writerly Tricks to Gain Unstoppable Powers – this contains some specific tips on the mechanics of writing: point-of-view, structure, tone, etc.

If you are just getting started as a writer, this book isn’t the place to start, as it doesn’t deal with the basics. But if you have some writing experience already and want to look at some finer points in how to craft stories, I think this volume may be helpful.

Have you read this book? Do you think it will be helpful to your writing? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Graphic Novel Review – Demon in the Wood

I received Demon in the Wood for Christmas and decided it would be a nice short read before I jumped into the next Wheel of Time book. This story is set in Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse that is the setting for her Shadow and Bone series that I reviewed here: (book 1, book 2, book 3). The graphic novel is illustrated by Dani Pendergast.

Haven’t read any of the Grishaverse yet? Looks like you can pick up the first 5 chapters of Shadow and Bone for free on Kindle here.

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Here is the blurb:

Before he led Ravka’s Second Army, before he created the Fold, and long before he became the Darkling, he was just a lonely boy burdened by an extraordinary power.

Eryk and his mother, Lena, have spent their lives on the run. But they will never find a safe haven. They are not only Grisha—they are the deadliest and rarest of their kind. Feared by those who wish to destroy them and hunted by those who would exploit their gifts, they must hide their true abilities wherever they go. But sometimes deadly secrets have a way of revealing themselves…


This is a prequel and origin story for the Darkling – the antagonist in the Shadow and Bone series – so I don’t think it would be a good place for someone new to this world to jump in. The grisha (magic-users) feature in this tale and very little explanation of their powers are given.

Going by the name of Eryk during this story, we find him traveling with his mother as they arrive at a grisha village. Their unique power and its secrets has forced them into a nomadic existence which has never allowed Eryk to have more than brief friendships. He tries to fit in with the other grisha teenagers while a village of non-grisha exists nearby.

I didn’t expect the turn that this tale took, and it showed how harsh the life of the grisha must be. Eryk garners sympathy, but I was also able to loosely see how the trauma he went through in this story led to later events in his life.

The art throughout this graphic novel created a beautiful depiction of Leigh Bardugo’s world. I liked how there was relatively more artwork than words, and the illustrations clearly displayed the story.

My only negative comment about this book was that it was too short, really no more than a short story. I would have liked to see what happened after the events in this book. While I can see how this affected the Darkling to some extent, surely there’s more that happened to lead him down his isolated path.

Are you a fan of the Grishaverse? Which book is your favorite? Did you watch the television adaptation? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – Noor

This is my first book review of 2023! I’m going to prioritize reviewing the books I have most recently read and then backfill with reviews of books read in 2022 when I don’t have anything else ready to go.

This review is for Noor by Nnedi Okorafor and is the second book that I’ve read by this author. I previously reviewed Binti here. Unlike Binti, which is a collection of shorter linked stories, Noor is a full novel.

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Here is the blurb:

Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt…natural, and that’s putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was wrong. But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that disabled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins. In a world where all things are streamed, everyone is watching the reckoning of the murderess and the terrorist and the saga of the wicked woman and mad man unfold. This fast-paced, relentless journey of tribe, destiny, body, and the wonderland of technology revels in the fact that the future sometimes isn’t so predictable. Expect the unaccepted.


I liked this novel, but I think I was more engaged overall by the story in Binti. Our protagonist in this tale, AO, has her world changed after a sudden violent event sends her on the run. Yet she is far from helpless since she has been equipped with three cybernetic limbs and other internal modifications as a result of birth defects and additional trauma earlier in her life. She meets DNA, a nomadic shepherd, in the northern desert and recognizes him as a a fellow outsider. Their efforts to escape additional persecution are thwarted and they must keep fleeing the authorities in a world overseen by nearly omniscient corporations.

One reason why I wanted to read this book was because I knew that it was set in Africa and that the author was also of Nigerian descent and I try to read books with a variety of cultural influences. I just read more about the author before writing this and discovered that she was also paralyzed due to medical complications when she was a teenager, but eventually regained the ability to walk, which makes her choice to have AO disabled in a similar fashion in her backstory more personal.

The opening of this book grabbed my attention right away and the protagonists are easily made sympathetic as the victims of terrible situations. The near future technology was well-imagined and integral to the plot. The themes of corporate greed, privacy, and climate change are also laced into the story.

One small aspect of this story that I really enjoyed was how much DNA valued his remaining cattle, taking his steer along with them on the entire journey. They are so much a part of his way of life that he would never consider leaving them behind.

I did think that the ending of the book was a little rushed, but I also don’t want to give spoilers here so I’m not going to go into detail on that. But it was an overall enjoyable and pretty quick read and I’ll probably pick up something else by the author in the future.

Have you read Noor or any other book by Nnedi Okorafor? Did the setting entrance you or put you off? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.

Books Read in 2022

Every year, I start out with a list of books I’d like to read. Inevitably, that list evolves as the year progresses, and I never get to read everything I had wanted. But however it turns out, I like to look back at what I did read during the past year. Here is my graphic showing all 39 books I read in 2022:

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I became too busy to get all the reviews written that I had planned to. But overall, here are my favorite books that I read in 2022:

While I loved the unique story of Gideon the Ninth (review here), I wasn’t as enamored with the sequel, Harrow the Ninth (review here). I am still planning to continue the series with the latest release, Nona the Ninth. This is the kind of series where I may need to read it a second time to understand all the nuances.

Dark Matter was the first book I have read by Blake Crouch and was an exciting science fiction thriller (review here). I believe this is getting made into a series or movie. I liked it enough that I’d definitely read something else by this author.

The River of Silver is a book for fans of the Daevabad Trilogy and is a collection of short stories that is meant to be read after the first three books. However, if you have read The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Empire of Gold, then this book reads like a director’s cut of missing scenes from the main trilogy.

With the release of The Rings of Power, I had to reread some Tolkien and it was time to delve into The Silmarillion. This book also isn’t for everyone, but if you want to read all of the myths of Middle Earth, this is an essential volume. I recently ordered the new edition of The Silmarillion that contains Tolkien’s own illustrations and I can’t wait for it to arrive.

Lastly on here is a book I just finished a few weeks ago – A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. I have been a fan of her writing for some time despite the faltering ending on her Temeraire series. Her latest stand-alone novels (Uprooted, Spinning Silver) were some of my favorites reads and I still recommend them to people. In A Deadly Education, she ventures into a magic school tale, but this place is very sinister, and the school is a character of its own. I’m planning to post a full review soon.

I also read much of The Witcher series of books in 2022, but I’m going to reserve judgement on those until I find out how it ends.

Coming soon – my reading plans for 2023!

Book Review – Blood of Elves

I have been continuing my audiobook listen to The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski with Blood of Elves, the first volume that is a novel, rather than a series of short stories.

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Here is the blurb:

For over a century, humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves have lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, the uneasy peace is over, and now the races are fighting once again. The only good elf, it seems, is a dead elf.

Geralt of Rivia, the cunning assassin known as The Witcher, has been waiting for the birth of a prophesied child. This child has the power to change the world – for good, or for evil.

As the threat of war hangs over the land and the child is hunted for her extraordinary powers, it will become Geralt’s responsibility to protect them all – and the Witcher never accepts defeat.

The Witcher returns in this sequel to The Last Wish, as the inhabitants of his world become embroiled in a state of total war.


Geralt, together with the other Witchers, struggles to raise Ciri and train her in combat and magic. Ciri excels in the training and wants to be a Witcher, but as a “Child of Destiny” she starts to manifest something more. This book contains fewer action scenes compared to the short story collections (The Last Wish, The Sword of Destiny), but more moments of character development and worldbuilding that look to be setting up a greater tale.

This was a fun book to read, despite the serious themes underlying the story. Geralt passes for human in most situations, but we are reminded that he is also a target of discrimination because he is different. So even though people need his services, he must shrug off bigoted comments and slights. When this book introduces the conflict between elves and humans, Geralt instantly sees the racism on both sides.

At this time, I’m almost done with the next book, The Time of Contempt, so look for my review of that soon.

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – The Graveyard Book

I have been gradually working my way through some of Neil Gaiman’s books, having previously read some of The Sandman, American Gods, and Neverwhere (review here). Next up on my list was The Graveyard Book.

This book is classified as a middle grade novel, but it never felt like something purely intended for children. The Graveyard Book won the Newberry Medal, the Carnegie Medal, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book.

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Here is the blurb:

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Well, he would be perfectly normal if he didn’t live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard: the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer; a gravestone entrance to a desert that leads to the city of ghouls; friendship with a witch, and so much more.

But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks, for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod’s family.

A deliciously dark masterwork by bestselling author Neil Gaiman, with illustrations by award-winning Dave McKean.


I enjoyed this book and found it to be a quick read. The illustrations by Dave McKean added to the imagery and mood of the story. Apparently this novel was inspired by The Jungle Book, and many of the scenes parallel the events of Kipling’s work.

The story starts out with a frightening scene in the aftermath of the murder of Bod’s entire family. This sounds like a dark opening for a middle grade book, but it is never graphic. Once Bod is adopted by the ghosts of the local graveyard and his vampire guardian, Silas, the menace fades from his day-to-day life until later in the book.

Bod still encounters dangers, but also friends. Each section of the book jumps ahead a couple of years in time, so we see Bod grow up and explore further afield, finding trouble in a variety of places. Finally, the story moves back to the murder of his family and brings it all together for the conclusion. I thought that the ending of this book was bittersweet, but since this is also a coming of age tale, it was also appropriate to that theme.

Have you read The Graveyard Book or other novels by Neil Gaiman? Let me know in the comments above.

Find more of my book reviews here.

Book Review – Children of Dune

I’m slowly continuing my goal to read all six Dune books written by the original author, Frank Herbert. Children of Dune is the third in the series and takes up the story of Paul Atreides’ twin children. I had previously watched SyFy’s television miniseries based around this book, but didn’t remember most of that as I read the events in this book.

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Here is the blurb:

The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad’Dib, disappeared in the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities–making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of House Atreides.

Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia’s rule is not absolute. The displaced House Corrino is plotting to regain the throne while the fanatical Fremen are being provoked into open revolt by the enigmatic figure known only as The Preacher. Alia believes that by obtaining the secrets of the twins’ prophetic visions, she can maintain control over her dynasty.

But Leto and Ghanima have their own plans for their visions–and their destinies….


This book was… a lot. I did have some trouble getting through the middle, but in the end I did enjoy it. Leto and Ghanima each have their own stories, as well as Jessica, Duncan, Gurney, and Irulan. Minor spoilers below:

I feel like I only understood half of the philosophical aspects of this book and that I would need to re-read it again after finishing the series. Leto and Ghanima have a strange mysticism propelling their actions, and it was challenging to understand the depth of this while following the political intrigue of the story. I wanted more clarity about their visions and their internal struggles against Abomination. Another interesting facet was whether having foresight took away all the characters’ meaningful choices about their actions. Was their role in all of it predetermined by Paul’s earlier actions?

The Preacher is clearly Paul, but his character changed, and I wish I had seen more of that. I want to read about what he went through between walking into the desert at the end of Dune Messiah and the events of this book.

The ending of Children of Dune brings much of the story to a concrete ending. With three books to go, I’m not sure where Dune is going next. Book 4 is God Emperor of Dune!

Have you read Dune or the sequels? Please help me understand the metaphysical stuff. Let’s chat in the comments above.

Find more of my reviews here.

Book Review – Friday

I had this book sitting in a box for a long time and had meant to read it, but having it as the pick for one of my book clubs finally forced me to get to it. Friday by Robert A. Heinlein is one of the author’s later works and seems to produce strong responses from readers.

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Here is the blurb:

Friday is a secret courier. She is employed by a man known to her only as “Boss.” Operating from and over a near-future Earth, in which North America has become Balkanized into dozens of independent states, where culture has become bizarrely vulgarized and chaos is the happy norm, she finds herself on shuttlecock assignment at Boss’ seemingly whimsical behest. From New Zealand to Canada, from one to another of the new states of America’s disunion, she keeps her balance nimbly with quick, expeditious solutions to one calamity and scrape after another.

I had thought this book would have more of a spy-thriller type of plot from that blurb. And while there are moments of that, it is more of a series of smaller capers and misadventures. The main story is about Friday’s struggle to belong, both to a family and to humankind. She is an artificial person – created from a test tube and a conglomeration of genetic material from which she cannot trace any particular parentage.

In the society of this world, artificial persons do not have the same rights as normal people, but also cannot be identified through any testing or experiences. Friday chooses to reveal her real nature to others at particular points in this book and faces the repercussions of that decision.

The opening of this book is also hard to read, featuring a gang rape. While it isn’t particularly graphic, Friday’s reaction to her rape is unusual and may be off-putting to many readers. I think that Heinlein was probably using this device to show how Friday truly isn’t human and can rationalize her way through the situation.

Heinlein’s portrayal of women is both innovative and problematic in this book. At the time of its publication, there weren’t many strong female protagonists in science fiction. So while I appreciate Heinlein trying to put a woman at the forefront of his story, in other ways he doesn’t quite get past the stereotypes of the time.

There is a lot to think about in this book and while I didn’t love it, I’m glad I read it. Have you read Friday or other novels by Heinlein? Let me know in the comments above.

Find more of my reviews here.

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