The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

The City We Became N. K. Jemisin, 2020 Premise: A city is more than a collection of buildings and streets. It's more than its people and cars. When a city grows large enough, sometimes it... wakes up. Would this book make sense to someone who never lived in NYC?  I'm glad that I'll never know. Reading this book reminded me of everything I loved about my time in the city that never sleeps.  That is, when it wasn't giving me almost-literal nightmares about everything I hate about modern-day America. The City We Became takes place in an explicitly Lovecraft-adjacent world where when a city is large enough it incarnates into a person who is literally the spirit of the city. But this is a process, and there are beings from outside this dimension who want to destroy and consume the cities before they fully wake.  Because New York is New York, it isn't one person, but multiple - one for each borough. They are all fascinating complex characters who exemplify aspects of the...

Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, Book 3) Tamsyn Muir, 2022 Premise: Sequel to Harrow the Ninth. Nona doesn't know who she is, but she lives with people who love her and look after her. There are many things she doesn't know, but she doesn't worry about it too much. However, time is running out for a little makeshift family running from the Nine Houses. I loved this book, once I realized it was book 3 of 4, and not the end of the series. I somehow missed the fact that the planned trilogy turned into a 4-book series while this one was being written, so as I approached the end of the book I was seriously confused for a few minutes.  Independent of that, this is a delight. First, we're switching subgenres yet again. Gideon the Ninth is murder mystery/science fantasy adventure. Harrow the Ninth is more horror/sci-fi with a lot of psychological-thriller twistyness. Nona the Ninth is mostly dystopian slice-of-life, intercut with the backstory/exposition I've been waiting ...