Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Karou is living two lives. Sometimes, she is an art student at a college in Prague. She has a friend and an ex-boyfriend and she lives in a flat. Other times, she is the messenger for Brimstone, a part crocodile, part fox, part human thing. He owns a shop, and the door opens into many different countries around the world. Karou helps him by collecting teeth. She doesn’t know what the teeth are for, but she does know that Brimstone can somehow make “wishes.” There is also a secret door that she isn’t allowed to enter.

Then she meets Akiva, a seraphim. Akiva is trying to destroy Karou’s chimera friends because that’s what angels do. Karou learns about thousands of years of war between the chimeras and the angels. She also falls in love.

This is a story of forbidden love. And it was pretty funny. Karou can’t wrap her head around the fact that some people think that the chimera are evil. Akiva can’t figure out how this human got stuck in everything. Which leads to that deep dark secret that the book has to have.

The book was a 3.4. It was well written, funny, and engaging, but a little confusing. It was like mixing two different sodas together. You're not sure how it's going to taste, then it tastes cool, and it's fizzy.

Author website: http://www.lainitaylor.com/

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The Princess Who Flew with Dragons, by Stephanie Burgis

I still am busily reading elementary/middle grade speculative fiction a in my roles as a judge for the Cybils Awards (mainly going back to re-read things I read early last year), but I am in good enough shape that I treated myself one dreary day last week to a shiny and new and much anticipated book-- The Princess Who Flew with Dragons , by Stephanie Burgis (Bloomsbury, November 2019). This is the third in the series that began with The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart (link to my review), and it's possibly the one I enjoyed most. I certainly think it was the fastest read; it was a (more or less) single-sitting of about an hour read for me (when I like a book and need to know what's going to happen next, I read faster, and it was relatively short-- 216 pages). Princess Sophia, who we met in Book 2, The Girl with a Dragon Heart , is the main character here, and when her story begins, she's being sent by her older sister, the ruling princess, to a distant city to attend a Worl...

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The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away, by Ronald L. Smith (review and interview)

I first had the pleasure of meeting Ronald L. Smith at Kidlitcon back in 2015 (PSA--come to Kidlitcon 2020 in Ann Arbor next March!). His first middle grade book, Hoodoo, a tale of supernatural horror in the south, had just been published, and I enjoyed it very much ( my review ). I likewise enjoyed The Mesmerist (2017), about kids fighting evil in 19th century London ( my review ). I never reviewed Black Panther: the Young Prince (2018)….someday I will. So in any event, I was very excited about his most recent book, The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away (Clarion Books, February 2019). This is the story of an air force kid, Simon, son of a black mom and a white dad, who's obsessed with aliens. He's convinced owl-like aliens have arrived, watching and experimenting on humans. His family has no time or patience for aliens, so Simon is alone with his fears of the Grays, as he calls them. When something very strange happens on a camping trip with hi...

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'Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend' by Matthew Green

This book is enchanting at first sight. Even before I saw the cover, I wanted to read this book. The cover of my galley is very pretty too - although I say I don't judge a book by it's cover, I do. I really do. Budo is Max's imaginary friend. However, Budo is quite real: he has is own thoughts and controls his own actions; he cannot be seen by other people, though, and cannot interact with the "real world". This book follows Budo through Max's daily life and struggles, and through the conflicts and worries of an imaginary friend. Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend is narrated wonderfully - from a 9-year-old's imagination's point of view - and delves into major concepts such as death, family, and loss. It's one of those book which you can't really classify into "children's book", "young adult novel" or, "adult fiction". It really can be appreciated at any age. It's also unique - you don't get many books tha...

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