My Life in…

I almost never read historical fiction but based on the buzz surrounding this book, I knew I had to read this. I had hoped to read it before the Newbery/Coretta Scott King announcements, but I ran out of time. This book was just lovely. It’s bursting at the seams with great prose and interesting characters. I feel like Cecille is very unique for children’s literature. Her prickliness is never full explained; it seems like she has some sort of mental/social disorder. I liked how the Black Panther’s politics are explored at the perfect level for kids. It’s not didactic; it just presents the information as a child of that era would learn of it.

This book comes out in March and I haven’t heard the type of buzz around it as I did for books like last year’s Matched, but I think it is highly deserving of praise. The writing is strong, the characters are fully fleshed out, and the story is full of drama. There are lots of quiet character moments that are quite lovely as well. This was apparently a book that had quite a lot of interest in it from the publishing world and I hope it becomes a huge breakout hit because it deserves it.

Reviewed from an ARC (that I borrowed from a friend that she won in an auction which included ARCs published by Simon and Schuster).

I got an ARC of this last January and was told if I liked Graceling, I would love this. Since Graceling is one of my favorite books ever, I took this seriously, but I couldn’t get past page 30. When it made our Mock Printz list after its publication in February, I kept hoping it would drop off the list. But it never did. So the week before our Mock Printz, I finally forced myself to sit down and read it, giving myself a quota of 100 pages a day so that I would finish it in time for the awards. It was a struggle. But once I hit page 250, I was totally hooked. I breezed through the rest, desperate to learn the secrets of Lumatere and Evanjalin. I was hooked by the slow boiling romance and the dramatic reveals. But it shouldn’t take until page 250 to like a book. I understand that a lot of world building had to go into this, but the pacing really needed work. That being said, other than the pacing, this is a work of perfection. The language is gorgeous, the characters are deep, and the book really addresses some interesting questions about heritage and country and identity. It wasn’t until the romance finally kicked in that I got sucked in, but if you like long quest narratives with high stakes, you should read this.

And in the interest of full disclosure: I actually voted for this as my number one Mock Printz choice.

Reviewed from ARC received from Candlewick.