Not Your Villain

 Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee, 307 pages.

Bells Broussard is a shapeshifter, and it's awesome. And not only because it means he doesn't have to worry about wearing a binder to school and can color his hair on a whim. He also loves being a superhero. Which is why it's particularly terrible for him when the government names him a supervillain after he gets involved in exposing the grand conspiracy of the last book. Luckily they can't tell him what to do, and Chameleon isn't done with his heroing yet.

It's unfortunate that this book is much worse than the last one, which was already only middling, but intriguing. The first third or so of this book covers the same time period as the first book, and instead of granting many unique insights to the events it mostly reads as a very long recap. There's also more things that feel like they happen to get the plot where it needs to go, instead of keeping to any internal consistency. Which is all extra a shame because Bells is a really cool character, and it would have been cool if his book gave him as much depth as Jess's gave to her. I think this series might have lost me at this point, because I'm pretty sure I know where we're going with this, but I may pick the last two books up at some point.

Not Your Sidekick

 Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee, 283 pages.

Generations ago a massive solar flare wiped caused a series of nuclear meltdowns and other disasters that led to a radical restructuring of the entire world. It also awakened a latent gene to grant some people superpowers. Although both of her parents are superheroes (and superpowers are genetic) Jess hasn't shown any signs of inheriting any powers, leaving her feeling aimless and insufficient. Which is why when it turns out the perfect internship she's been offered is actually for local supervillain (and her parents' nemesis) Master Mischief she decides to take it anyway. But soon Jess finds out that there's more going on beyond the black and white world of heroes and villains.

I liked this book, although it read as a little more juvenile than I was expecting. I thought Jess's relationship with her secret crush and fellow intern Abby was really cute, and the world building has me intrigued, even if it's not anything earth shattering.

Crumbs

 Crumbs by Danie Stirling, 384 pages.

Everything at Marigold's cafe comes with magic baked inside. You can get a cup of Calm, or a warm serving of Contentment. Ray's normal order is hot tea and Romance. Ray's visions of the present are too accurate, and too inevitable, to allow her to feel enough surprise and uncertainty of Romance. But for Laurie, aspiring musician and current Marigold's barista, she's willing to try. Unfortunately, this budding romance also stands at direct odds with her dream job on the Magical Counsel, where she currently has an internship, and who will wipe her from everyone's memory if she gets promoted to full counselor.

I actually read this comic for the first time as a webcomic, and when I saw it was getting a print edition I was curious to know how they would change it (and if being in print might increase the resolution on some of the art). It turns out it's mostly the same, which means that it's still very cute. I love a casually magical world, and this one is extremely sweet.

The Once and Future Witches

 The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, 525 pages.

In alternate history 1893 there are no witches, just women who work a little minor magic. The powerful witches all burned centuries ago. But when an odd occurrence gives them hope that it may be powerful to bring witching back into the world the Eastwood sisters, long estranged and newly reunited in New Salem, decide to dedicate themselves to helping it come back. But the more magic they work the more obvious it becomes that much darker things are at work in New Salem.

I think that the most interesting part about this book, by far, is the setting. Which isn't to say anything against the plot or the characters (which are all very good), but rather high praise of how rich this alternate history is. In the world of The Once and Future Witches witches have always existed, generally openly, and this has shaped history in a number of minor and major ways (my favorite might be all of the historical and literary figures that are casually women, such as Alexandra Pope). At the same time it is in many ways just like our own world in 1893, complete with Suffragettes (who are sometimes racist), female investigative journalists, and a disaster clearly referencing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The world is rich and interesting, and if the plot is predictable at times it's fresh and surprising at others. Overall this is a really interesting book, and it's further cementing that I'll read and enjoy anything by Alix E. Harrow.

Folklorn

 Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur, 416 pages.

Elsa Park has gone all the way to Antarctica to get as far as possible from her family and their stories (and also to pursue her doctoral physics research). Her mother used to tell her that all of the women in their family were reincarnations of the girls from her Korean folk tales, but her mother has been in a coma for decades, so now it's just her brother and father she's avoiding. But once her mother dies she is once again haunted in Sweden by her childhood imaginary friend, who drives her to look for her long lost sister and get to the heart of the stories her mother left her.

I thought all of that sounded very exciting, but that isn't a word I'd use to describe this book. I think it's probably very good, but it wasn't quite what I had expected, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if I was forty. It's complex, but also sort of slow and ambiguous. I didn't really enjoy reading it very much, but I'm sure some others would.

House of Dreams: The Life of L. M. Montgomery

 House of Dreams: The Life of L. M. Montgomery by Liz Rosenberg, 339 pages.

A reading challenge I'm participating in includes a task to read a biography of an author you admire. On seeing someone recommend this book I realized that, despite having read Anne of Green Gables *a lot* of times, I didn't know anything at all about the author. 

This is a really effective biography. It follows Lucy Maud Montgomery (who usually just went by Maud) from the time she was born to her tragic death. Rosenberg draws heavily on Montgomery's own journals and letters, but also other archival sources, which prove useful for when Montgomery is either not seeing her own life very clearly or is unwilling to admit to difficult truths. Montgomery's story is often sort of beautiful and hopeful, and many of the nicer and more uplifting aspects of it went into her novels (I had not realized how many things in the Anne books are at least semi-biographical). The biography, much like her own books, is also an interesting look into life at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. It's also often quite sad. Maud suffered a lot of terrible things, both internally and externally, and it can be hard to read how much everything fell apart for her in the later years of her life. I would definitely recommend this book to fans of L. M. Montgomery, but don't expect a very happy story.

Sensational

 Sensational: The Hidden History of America's "Girl Stunt Reporters" by Kim Todd, 400 pages.

In 1887 Elizabeth Cochran, better known today under pen name Nellie Bly, convinced the court she was insane and was committed to the insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. The exposé she wrote about the following ten days changed the face of journalism in the golden age. "Stunt reporting" covered a huge range of topics, but generally it was reporting that was very exciting, a little dangerous, and largely done by women. Stunt reporters often went undercover to get their stories, and said stories were very often about exposing social ills. However, sometimes the "stunts" were more about showing the bigness of a world that was rapidly opening up in the 19th century, and might include things like riding elephants or racing around the world in less than 80 days (another Nellie Bly stunt).

This book is mostly focused on the decade or so that stunt reporting took America by storm, and it's impact on the social landscape. I was a little nervous starting this book, despite being interested in the topic, because I've found that a lot of history books about women (as a group, not so much books about specific individuals) end up containing a whole lot of speculation (from a lack of historical records focused on women) or soap-boxing. This book avoided both of these common pitfalls completely and made for a really enjoyable work of non-fiction that felt extremely informative to read. I also really enjoyed the photographs of key subjects and reproductions of newspaper illustrations, as well as the chapter at the end where Todd talks about the legacy of stunt journalism. Definitely worth the read for a thorough look at a largely unknown piece of history.

Alias Grace

 Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, 482 pages.

This novel by Atwood takes the life of historical murderess Grace Marks as inspiration to explore her story and world. Grace was 16 and working as a maid in 1843 when she and James McDermott were convicted of the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper and mistress, Nancy Montgomery. Grace was sentenced to life in prison, although she claimed to have no memory of the murders. When this book picks up, ten years later, a number of people have been campaigning on her behalf and have hired an up-and-coming expert in the new field of mental health to evaluate her and determine her sanity. Most of the novel is Grace telling this Dr. Simon Jordan her story, which is a very full account of the life and choices of a poor young woman in the 19th century.

I thought this was a good book, but also found it a little underwhelming. As always, Atwood has things to say and writes a detailed, rich book, but I'm afraid there wasn't all that much here that wowed me, although I did find it very interesting the way that she seamlessly wove together historical fact and fiction. 

Fun Fact: This is also a limited series on Netflix! Which is actually how I came to read it, and the novel definitely cleared up some ambiguity the show left me with.

Dread Nation

 Dread Nation by Justina Ireland, 455 pages.

A monster book for October! In this alternate history novel the civil war took a different turn when the dead started to rise at Gettysburg, and a truce was promptly called to fight the zombies instead of each other. Now, about fifteen years later, the shamblers have largely become a (still very dangerous) part of life. And thanks to the Native and Negro Reeducation Act people from those two groups are now taken away from home as teenagers to learn to fight the zombies, which is societally viewed as good for both them and the country.

Jane McKeene attends Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, an elite school that specializes in training attendants, which are somewhere between lady's maids and bodyguards. However, when she starts snooping she quickly finds that things aren't what they seem in Baltimore, and are even worse elsewhere.

This was a really interesting premise. I really enjoyed how much Ireland explored how the world is both different and the same. For example, Mark Twain still exists, and still wrote Tom Sawyer, but now Tom is constantly running into problems with shamblers. Overall, this book has good attention to detail and some pretty engaging character, and the premise itself is pretty interesting. There's a plot twist or two that feels a little contrived for drama, but overall I am still excited to read the sequel!

Plain Bad Heroines

 Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth, 640 pages.

Stories nest within stories in this extremely creepy gothic horror novel. First is the Story of Mary MacLean, a (real) memoir written by Mary MacLean in 1902 that's frank emotions, controversial voice, and queer themes caused a sensation. This book is read by the (fictional) girls Flo and Clara at Brookhants School for Girls in the same year and is so inspiring to them that they form the "plain bad heroines society" as a tribute to their beloved author. When they are found stung to death by yellowjackets an open copy of the book is found nearby. This is only the first of several strange and horrible deaths and occurrences at the school in the following 2 years.

 In the modern day the story of these girls, as well as the queer and feminist history of the school itself, is introduced to the wider world in Merritt Emmons' The Happenings at Brookhants. A book that has recently been picked up as a horror movie staring former child star and second generation scream queen Audrey Wells and "celesbien" Harper Harper, Hollywood's new darling. But when filming starts at Brookhants school strange and terrifying things start to happen, and it's not clear to anyone what is created for the movie and what is the place itself.

This book is extremely spooky. It really nails the atmosphere, the pacing is solid, and I don't think I've read a book recently that uses motifs to such great effect. There are real questions throughout about what is real and what isn't, especially in the modern day, but also throughout. I thought that was especially interesting when it extended an amount of this uncertainty to you, the reader. I realized after I finished the book that Mary MacLean was a real person who wrote a real book you can read online (it's here on Project Gutenberg if anyone is interested), which is just enough to make me wonder how much more of this book is rooted in real history. Unfortunately, Danforth didn't quite manage to nail the landing. By the end of the book it is clear that there are definitely some baleful supernatural events, what is less clear is who is responsible or why they are happening. And it feels very strange and unsatisfying to have these things undefined even after what was functionally a villain monologue. Reading this book is a great experience, even if it has a couple of glaring flaws as a book.

Rejected Princesses

Rejected Princesses: Tales of Histories Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics by Jason Porath, 370 pages.

This book, based on the blog of the same name, takes various women (of varying degrees of fame) from history and relays their stories in bite-sized bits with full-color illustrations for each. You can definitely tell from these illustrations that Porath is a former Dreamworks animator, and they add a lot to the book. 

I had actually followed the blog this book is based on for a number of years, and the wealth of stories here is a real treat. I appreciate the great breadth of women represented. There are both fairly famous figures (like Ada Lovelace and Joan of Arc) and plenty of others who I had never heard of before (like Osh-Tisch and Annie Jump Cannon), in addition to mythic characters (like Sita and Xtabay). The entries are both funny and informative, which makes them very light to consume a few at a time.

The other thing that I think is really neat about this book is it's rating system. Each story is given a maturity rating from 1-5, in addition to content warnings in the sidebar for things like violence, self-harm, or rape. This organization system is very solid, and seems to work a lot better than sorting the stories by either time period or region. However, it does mean I would warn against doing what I did and reading the book straight through. The last several entries are extremely dark and fairly graphic, and causes to book to end in an extremely emotionally heavy place, so I would recommend jumping around a little to read those ones non-consecutively. That being said, I would still recommend reading them, along with all the other entries in this book, for some extremely casual non-fiction. 

Fun Fact: If you want to read some of the entries in this book (and also some not in this book), you can check out the author's website at rejectedprincesses.com