There were three nominees for the Lodestar award that I couldn’t put down, I tried, but they demanded to be read. I loved Catfishing on Catnet for how fun and close to my online experiences it was, Dragon Pearl for the awesome mix of sci-fi and the spirit world and Riverland for how unexpected I found the portrayal of domestic abuse.
Catfishing on Catnet by Naomi Kritzer
How much does the internet know about YOU?
Because her mom is always on the move, Steph hasn’t lived anyplace longer than six months. Her only constant is an online community called CatNet—a social media site where users upload cat pictures—a place she knows she is welcome. What Steph doesn’t know is that the admin of the site, CheshireCat, is a sentient A.I.
When a threat from Steph’s past catches up to her and ChesireCat’s existence is discovered by outsiders, it’s up to Steph and her friends, both online and IRL, to save her.
I thought this was going to be a light, fun YA story about making friends and sending cat pictures. And it was that, but it also went a lot deeper in the second half. The plot went wild, the character’s backstories got crazy, the suspense was killing me and the threat level just went from everyday school worries to full-blown what the fuck. And I enjoyed all of it.
If you’re in any sort of group chat that you rely on for sanity, especially now, you’re likely to be able to relate to this book. Because she moves around so much, Steph’s closest friends online, in her group chat on CatNet, a social media site cute animal pictures are super important. I really liked how her online friends were as real as the characters she met in person.
There a lot of light and funny moments, probably most memorably involving the bot that teaches kids sexual education. It doesn’t say exactly when the book takes place but it seems near-future, technology is a little more advanced than our own, self-driving cars are very common.
Despite some dark secrets being revealed and close calls, overall it’s a pretty feel-good novel. I really liked Steph’s journey from loner to starting to fit in and make some friends.
r/fantasy bingo: Set in a School or University, Set in a School or University, A Book that Made You Laugh
Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee
THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD MIN comes from a long line of fox spirits. But you’d never know it by looking at her. To keep the family safe, Min’s mother insists that none of them use any fox-magic, such as Charm or shape-shifting. They must appear human at all times.
Min feels hemmed in by the household rules and resents the endless chores, the cousins who crowd her, and the aunties who judge her. She would like nothing more than to escape Jinju, her neglected, dust-ridden, and impoverished planet. She’s counting the days until she can follow her older brother, Jun, into the Space Forces and see more of the Thousand Worlds.
When word arrives that Jun is suspected of leaving his post to go in search of the Dragon Pearl, Min knows that something is wrong. Jun would never desert his battle cruiser, even for a mystical object rumored to have tremendous power. She decides to run away to find him and clear his name.
Min’s quest will have her meeting gamblers, pirates, and vengeful ghosts. It will involve deception, lies, and sabotage. She will be forced to use more fox-magic than ever before, and to rely on all of her cleverness and bravery. The outcome may not be what she had hoped, but it has the potential to exceed her wildest dreams.
I gotta preface this by saying I don’t know anything about Korean mythology, but I really loved this mix of science and fantasy. We have shapeshifting animal spirits, and ghosts and dragons, space travel, ancient artifacts, terraforming planets, sometimes badly, having to wear face masks outside, which felt very timely. It’s great.
I really liked the main character, she’s a tinkerer and a fox who can shapeshift into anything. The story starts with the mystery of her missing brother, who’d gone to a sort of military academy. I was hooked, I wanted to know what was up with this brother, and the ancient thing, and the dangerous planet where no one goes. I also liked how the prejudice against or in favor of certain kinds of animal spirits persisted in this futuristic world. Well maybe liked isn’t a good word, found it interesting.
I guess this is a feature of the young audience it was written for, but Dragon Pearl was really quick and easy to read. It also started in a very familiar way, small town girl gets to he big city, gets into trouble, then to an even newer place with even more trouble and so on. It was sort of grounding in an otherwise unfamiliar to me world. All of this as she was learning to use her fox powers and define herself as a person. I also liked how it’s a very personal quest, she just wants to find her brother, but she’s not blind to the dubious motivations of some of the people around her.
r/fantasy bingo: Featuring a Ghost, Set in a School or University,
Riverland by Fran Wilde
When things go bad at home, sisters Eleanor and Mike hide in a secret place under Eleanor’s bed, telling monster stories. Often, it seems those stories and their mother’s house magic are all that keep them safe from both busybodies and their dad’s temper. But when their father breaks a family heirloom, a glass witch ball, a river suddenly appears beneath the bed, and Eleanor and Mike fall into a world where dreams are born, nightmares struggle to break into the real world, and secrets have big consequences. Full of both adventure and heart, Riverland is a story about the bond between two sisters and how they must make their own magic to protect each other and save the ones they love.
A middle-grade portal fantasy about two sisters from an abusive family. I didn’t know they made kids’ books this emotional. Great book, and very heartbreaking at times. At the surface it’s a portal fantasy with a whole new world, but the main theme of the book is domestic violence and emotional abuse. I don’t read a lot of middle-grade, so I really didn’t know they made them so emotional.
The other books in this post were fun and pretty easy to read, this one was not. There’s this constant tension between what I could read between the lines as an adult, about the wrongness of the family relationship, and how the two kids were interpreting it. There was a lot of me going “oh no no no honey that’s not normal”. But this contrast made it interesting because very long into the book I was wondering whether this story would actually have magic, or was it just magical thinking. It was a really unexpected read, but I loved it and I think it’ll stick with me.
Aside from the troubled home lives of the two sisters, the magical part of the story, the world through the portal was really cool too, and I loved how it tied it to the real world and their history. One of the characters they meet there is super cute.
r/fantasy bingo: Featuring Exploration
Some other YA books I’ve recently enjoyed, (ones that I’m not behind on reviews) were: