Bookish Thoughts

Last year I was hearing a ton about Daniel Jose Older. Both this book and Half-Resurrection Blues  had just come out and they were receiving great reviews. I was excited to read both of them, but I got my hands on Half-Resurrection Blues  first. Sadly, that book was a bit of a let down. It wasn't horrible, just not as good as I'd been expecting. It wasn't enough to dampen my excitement for Shadowshaper , though. In fact, it may have been a good thing that Half-Resurrection Blues  lowered my expectations a bit. Or maybe it didn't need to. But at any rate, I loved this book. It was an excellent, magical, coming-of-age tale about a young girl in Brooklyn. Sierra has a family history of magic, but it's been hidden from her. And now that magic is dying, and it looks like it's going to be up to her to save it before her heritage dies out completely. It's a nice metaphor for the children of immigrants, struggling to find a way to honor their family history and ...

After I gave up on The Dresden Files, I was in the market for another urban fantasy series. These tend to be quick, fast-paced, and fun, which adds some nice seasoning to my regular line up of books. Sometimes you just want an adventure where you don't have to think too hard. I'd been hearing a lot of good things about Daniel Jose Older lately. Between this series and his YA novel Shadowshaper (which I also still really want to read), he seemed like a pretty safe bet. It also helped that this series takes place in the same neighborhood where a friend of mine lives - I was even able to pinpoint his apartment on the map at the front of the book. So it was a little disappointing that this book didn't quite live up to my expectations. There were certainly some highlights. The neighborhood feels very real and lived and it's mostly populated by non-white characters. I also liked that after the main character gets stabbed through the abdomen he spends two weeks in bed and...