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Reviews
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Ascender, Volume 1: The Haunted Galaxy by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen
Dear Martin by Nic Stone Death by Tea by Alex Erickson
Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang
The Electric Heir by Victoria Lee
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega
If da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur by Amy Newbold
Go to Sleep (I Miss You) by Lucy Knisley
Gone with the Whisker by Laurie Cass
The Haunting of Vancouver Island by Shanon Sinn
The Haunting on Heliotrope Lane by Carolyn Keene
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not by Robin Mayhall
Heartwood Hotel: Home Again by Kallie George
The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire Part Three by Michael Dante DiMartino
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan
Lyle and the Birthday Party by Bernard Waber
Mimi Lee Gets a Clue by Jennifer J. Chow
Nate Expectations by Tim Federle
No Mallets Intended by Victoria Hamilton
Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux
Stand Up, Yumi Chung! by Jessica Kim
This is Rome by Miroslav Sasek
The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Verse and Vengeance by Amanda Flower
We Are the Wildcats by Siobhan Vivian
When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri

Miscellaneous
March 2020 Sources
March 2020 Summary

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2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish

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All the Birds in the Sky: 04/03/20

All the Birds in the Sky

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders is about a friendship and rivalry and romance between a witch and a mad scientist. It opens when the two are children and coming into their callings and it ends years later in San Francisco when they are established adults.

Patricia Delfine learns of her powers through a meeting with the birds. It's a long and poetic scene, one that reminds me of Katherine Lundy's passage into the Goblin Market in In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire (2019).

Laurence Armstead is ostracized for his interest in science and engineering. Of course later both will be an asset, but it's weird for a little kid. He reminds me of a younger version of the present-day Alec Sadler. Like older Alec, Laurence is destined to be a dystopian super-power unto himself.

Like Red and Blue in This is How You Lose the Time War (2019), Patricia and Laurence are destined to be on opposite sides of a world-end battle. Except their friendship keeps getting in the way of the powers that be. If the world is saved it's because two stubborn kids grew up to be two stubborn adults and refused to do what they were told.

The novel also fits into the road narrative spectrum. The two main characters do ultimately become a couple and therefore count as such for the traveler (33). Their destination is San Francisco, aka The City (00). Their route is a convoluted one filled with blind alleys and confusing choices — essentially a form of the maze (CC). Altogether in terms of the spectrum, it's the tale of a couple making their way to the city via the maze (3300CC).

There's a sequel, Clover which was also released in 2016.

Three stars

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