I love reading a book that makes me think "how the hell did anybody come up with this idea?" And I really enjoyed the idea's execution here.

At the outset this book really just seems like pretty straightforward YA sci-fi fare. An astronaut wakes up on a spaceship midway through its mission and has to figure out what the mission is and what he's meant to be doing, with the aid of an onboard computer... Only, as it turns out, things aren't quite as straightforward as they seem. Honestly, having read Project Hail Mary not too long before I read this one, I was sort of thinking that it was giving Andy Weir -- only to be promptly proven wrong by the events of the latter half of the book.

Honestly, the plot of this was super fascinating. I think Eliot Schrefer did such a good job dropping hints about what was going to happen, but not so obviously that I was able to figure it out before things started getting revealed. I was interested in the way the characters were developing and the relationship between them, and there were definitely clues that things were about to break bad, but when things really started racing along that's when I started thinking to myself "How the f does someone even come up with this story?"

I also really appreciated the way that the characters' queerness was handled in the narrative. That is to say, it's basically uneventful and one of the least noteworthy things about either of them. I really find it refreshing when a character being gay or bi or otherwise attracted to the same gender isn't treated as any stranger a fact about them than their hair or eye color -- especially in speculative fiction books where society has theoretically evolved past that kind of social division or oppression.

This is a YA book and it does read like a YA book, but it feels like Eliot Schrefer is an author who understands that just because a reader is younger doesn't mean they're dumb. There are some pretty adult themes handled gracefully in this story and it really felt like the author was presenting them in an appropriate way and trusting the reader to be able to handle it. I enjoyed that, because I think YA readers are a lot brighter than some authors give them credit for and I hate nothing more than a YA book that feels condescending to read. 

All in all, I really enjoyed this and I recommend it to YA readers of speculative fiction!

I keep recommending this book to everyone with the blurb, "Imagine like an 80s Hong Kong gangster film but with superpowers," and that seems to really sell it for a lot of people, so let me start off that way! 

Honestly, I love this book and I think it is an extremely good stepping off point for a series. Jade City seems mostly to be about establishing the clans in Janloon and the jade abilities and responsibilities that come with clan membership, and I think Fonda Lee does a really masterful job with that -- she focuses tightly on this island nation and its capital city and the people who live there, and she really brings the readers in close to get intimate with these characters. She makes us come to care about them quite a lot -- for better or for worse, she says, still heartbroken...

Although the issue with a second-world fantasy novel can often lie in creating a believable magic system that has its own internal logic and also follows the laws of the world in which it resides, it seems like Fonda Lee has no struggles there. The jade system and the abilities jade grants are SO realistically and firmly rooted in the sociopolitical landscape of the world she created that it feels incredibly natural and just as much a part of life in Janloon as death or taxes. I honestly don't think I've ever read a fantasy series that had a magic system so deeply and intentionally rooted in the daily lives of the average people of the world that contains it. 

Also, not to be dramatic, but this book has exactly the same problem as the Redwall series: Please, Fonda, I beg you to stop describing extremely delicious-sounding food items if you don't plan on releasing a cookbook, it's just torture at this point!

For a very long time my Goodreads review of this book just said "NORA!!!!!!!!!" and that still encapsulates many of my feelings, so let me just preserve that for posterity.

I saw someone on TikTok not that long ago refer to AFTG as a "period piece," and while I did take quite a bit of psychic damage from that, it's not like they were wrong. The original series was quite obviously written during a different time period when Nora was a different writer, and a long time has passed between her writing those books and her starting on these, so it's no surprise that this Sunshine Court series has a slightly different tone. I think it's a positive -- the original books do have some language and themes that are reflective of the times (so to speak) and it's nice that Nora seems to be aware of that and is handling things differently in this series. There's more diversity, more thoughtful handling of identity topics, etc.

And on top of that! I would fucking die for Jean and Jeremy actually. These fake lacrosse boys have me in an absolute chokehold. I really hate to use tropey language to describe characters because I don't want to minimize a long and complex series into a few sentences, but Jean really is the black cat character (who secretly has a soft heart and a desire to be loved) and Jeremy really is the golden retriever (whose constant smile actually hides the crushing weight on his shoulders). I love relationship dynamics like that and consequently this new series has me deeply fucked up. 

This book came out on my birthday and I read the whole thing in one night while at a hotel in Seattle to celebrate with my friend whose birthday is the day after me. Like, don't @ me. 

Anyway honestly I can't say that these books are the best ever written or that the narration is groundbreaking and Shakespearean. But what these books do have are characters with compelling motivations and strong internal logics (even if those logics aren't always the best) who are just trying to do their best with the shitty hands that have been dealt to them, learning how to be better for themselves and how to lean on each other as they go.

As always, respect the trigger warnings, but please do give the fake lacrosse boys a chance to break your heart! You (and they) deserve it! 

Wow! This book is like one long trolley problem. I like the way it grapples with the utilitarian ethics of the greatest good for the greatest number, and the morality of deciding who gets to live and who must die; I also like the Minority Report-esque angle of "is it right to punish a person (or a people) for a sin they haven't yet committed?" 

I liked this! It was a spooky read that was well-paced for the length, and gave House of Leaves vibes without all the turning the book upside down to read. It wasn't the most satisfying ending in the world, but the acknowledgements said he got a three-book deal so maybe there's a sequel?? Anyway, I enjoyed reading this despite my momentary confusion about why this girl in Oregon was pumping her own gas. (Which is legal now anyway so I don't know why it threw me off so bad lol)

I really enjoyed this read! It's more of a slice-of-life romance(?) type book than I usually go for, but I was intrigued by how it would handle the topic of Jude's depression in particular as someone who has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder myself.

Interestingly, although sometimes Jude's internal monologue felt like a drag, it didn't actually bother me because that too felt realistic? Which depressed bitches among us haven't gotten into a downward spiral and then though "man, even I think I'm a slog right now." I also enjoyed that it wasn't a case of magical healing dick or that Jude's depression was fixed by getting a new boyfriend. It was very clearly an up-and-down where sometimes he seemed to be doing okay and then something could kick his feet out from under him in the next chapter. By the end of the book I did sense a difference and a general upward trajectory but that had less to do with Faron himself and more to do with just having support and understanding while Jude gets himself back on track, I guess.

The one thing I wish there had been a little more of was exploration of Faron's feelings toward Jude. Of course it's a limited perspective book, but it would have been nice to get a little of what Faron was thinking through some of the events of this novel, as well as just understanding more of what attracted Faron to Jude in the first place.

I also like that it's noted in the text that there's sort of an inherent power dynamic between Faron as a Black man and Jude as a white man, but I do wish that thought had been explored with a little more depth, I guess. I kind of feel like it came up a couple times but there wasn't really much in the plot that demonstrated it out in the real-world day to day, if that makes sense.

But still, I liked the writing and enjoyed the story so four stars from me!