Sep 03 2021
Who’s ready for a brand new story arc in the Enola Holmes universe? As we swiftly discover in the opening pages of this latest installment of the series, Enola has reconciled with her brothers and is living as an independent Consulting Perditologist in London. However, she’s dismayed that her brothers, famous old Sherlock and Mycroft, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/09/03/enola-holmes-and-the-black-barouche-enola-holmes-7-by-nancy-springer/
Aug 27 2021
I got really emotional finishing up this affecting picture book, in a way that my kids understandably didn’t. As an open borders absolutist, many of this book’s gentle lessons were old hat to me, but they were presented in such a manner as to remind me of the constant tension between truth and assimilation, that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/27/marty-by-rachel-noble-zoey-abbott/
Aug 24 2021
Ha, how fitting that I should read this right as I’m running my kids through their very first tabletop roleplaying game campaign! In the thirteenth volume of The Loud House series, based on the hit Nickelodeon show, whole families get involved in playing Orks, Horks, Wizards, And Pork (or OHWP, for short) after Lynn Loud …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/24/the-loud-house-13-lucy-rolls-the-dice-by-the-loud-house-creative-team/
Aug 23 2021
After a decade of seeming indifference to my role-playing hobby, my eldest child suddenly asked me one day if we could play “Magick And Monsters.” This was probably prompted by his recent re-read of Book Two of the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series, Rodrick Rules. Plus he’s been watching me game master one of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/23/hero-kids-by-justin-halliday/
Aug 19 2021
Exceptionally moving novel that spotlights the harms of a practice that most people don’t even like to think about. I can seriously say that in all my years of reading, I’ve encountered maybe one entire other work of fiction that’s addressed this issue with honesty and compassion, Ovidia Yu’s terrific Meddling And Murder. That said, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/19/songbirds-by-christy-lefteri/
Aug 17 2021
So much story, so little book! It seems churlish to demand more from what’s already a terrific novel, but I really do feel that the tale of Empress Redemptor Tarisai and the land of Aritsar would have been better served by more chapters and more details. 300+ pages simply wasn’t enough, and so much felt …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/17/redemptor-raybearer-2-by-jordan-ifueko/
Aug 12 2021
A coming-of-age novel with a queer country girl narrator playing sports and learning to interrogate her internalized misogyny while embracing who she is despite the opposition of certain members of her small town, including her nearest and dearest? I was wholly on-board even before I started reading Britta Lundin’s terrific, lived-in prose, and now I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/12/like-other-girls-by-britta-lundin/
Aug 10 2021
If I’m being perfectly honest, I did not go into this book with the highest of expectations. Papercutz is not the most culturally sensitive of publishers (and not in a malicious way, just in a, perhaps, homogenous viewpoints sort of way,) so I was definitely braced for the worst as a Muslim reader and mom. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/10/magical-history-tour-4-the-crusades-by-fabrice-erre-sylvain-savoia/
Aug 05 2021
I really enjoyed the feminist lessons of this novel — girls, don’t be afraid to be angry, to be wild, to scream! — but oh my goodness, did I want to take a red pencil to the fantasy aspects and just tighten everything up so it all fit into its own internal logic! Centuries ago, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/05/the-wild-ones-by-nafiza-azad/
Aug 03 2021
I was genuinely creeped out by parts of this horror/mystery tale, which is saying a lot because most horror novels don’t scare me at all! Courtney Gould certainly knows how to build tension, even if I wasn’t 100% convinced by the Big Bad-related world-building. The rest of it, tho, is pretty great, especially in its examination …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/03/the-dead-and-the-dark-by-courtney-gould/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire