Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Title: Divine Rivals
Author: Rebecca Ross
Publication: Wednesday Books/Macmillan, hardcover, 2023
Genre: YA Fantasy

Description: Iris Winnow’s beloved brother Forest has gone off to fight a strange war in which two gods are in conflict, her mother has lost her grip on reality, and Iris not only needs to earn a living but also has a newly developed desire to be a journalist.

Favorite Reads of 2010

According to Goodreads, I read 145 books in 2010, primarily fiction. My four favorites were from very different genres: a haunting timeslip set in Scotland, primarily historical fiction; a semi-autobiographical novel about a famous English vet; contemporary fiction about an irritable retired English officer; and a YA about a spoiled teen who doesn’t value her family and friends until she loses them.

5 stars

The Winter Sea/Susanna KearsleyKearsley mingles the present-day story of a writer searching for inspiration in Scotland with a compelling and very romantic 18th-century tale of love and heartbreak, which I could barely put aside to sleep. It’s not the first time I have tried to get people excited about this author but this is by far her best book and I think readers are beginning to catch on.

Sisters Red

While I found the three main characters and the relationship of the sisters convincing and moving, I confess my other reaction is simply supernatural overload. I like YA fantasy as much as the next person but despite appreciating the Red Riding Hood theme of this book I am getting tired of characters that spend a whole book fighting vicious bad guys, only to be confronted (they and I) with a sequel at the end. The angst never ends! In addition, Scarlett's situation seemed so bleak - having saved her sister's life but becoming mutilated in the process - she attracts pity or horror from strangers. Not to impose real life solutions on a fantasy but I couldn't help thinking rather than shunning everyone in Ellison, where they live, Scarlett needed plastic surgery and counseling . . .Overall, I liked it but am not sure I would be first in line for more in the series. You know what they say, so many books on my floor, so little time . . . This one came from the library.

A.S. Byatt's new fantasy

Here, in its entirety, is a review of a new book by A.S. Byatt called The Children’s Book
Review by Sophie Gee.

In 2003, AS Byatt wrote a notorious New York Times editorial saying that JK Rowling’s world is “for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip ... Nobody is trying to save or destroy anything beyond Harry Potter and his friends and family.” Byatt found Rowling imaginatively parochial. She also thought Harry Potter wasn’t properly magical but made up of “derivative narrative clichés” that appeal to crudely literal imaginations. Real fantasy, Byatt argued, has a “sense of mystery, powerful forces, dangerous creatures in dark forests”.

YA Fantasy

Tuesday night in a truly bizarre game at Fenway, which the Red Sox eventually won 19-17, Dustin Pedroia drove in five runs and scored five runs. The way our announcers have repeated this information, you would think he was the seventh son of a seventh son . . .

Perhaps I am thinking about such traditions because I am reading Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith, which I am enjoying so much that I was disappointed this morning to run into a friend at the bus stop (preventing me from reading all the way to work). The heroine is brave but awkward, and while the plot is fairly easy to predict, it is well done. I bought it originally for one of my nieces but realize there is probably too much internal thinking and not enough action for her. However, it would have been perfect for my undergraduate essay on Female Warriors. Funny, how that topic has become so much more mainstream since I was in college - at least in terms of popular literature. Thanks to a friend at work I have been reading much more fantasy than in recent years, including The Darkangel by Meredith Pierce and A Curse as Dark as Gold by Elizabeth Bunce (another brave but obtuse heroine).

Two of my college classmates just lost their 16 year old son in a car accident. I have been trying to write a condolence letter for several days but it seems so pointless - as if anything could comfort people going through such agony.