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I picked this up because Ada Hoffmann was a guest on Breaking the Glass Slipper and her novel sounded very cool. It's definitely a modern, and very diverse take on sci-fi, with queer characters and unique world-building.

In this universe, humans are worshipping machine gods and angels. Gods are super-computers with incredible technology that humans cannot dream of matching. They require worship of humans and need their souls. They also recruit from humans, augmenting them.

Our protagonist is Yasira Shien, a queer autistic scientist who has created a reactor that can match some of the gods' technology, so this is exciting. But something goes wrong at launch, and The Outside destroys the reactor and the space station. The Outside is a kind of cosmic horror, incomprehensible beings, and dealing with them makes you a heretic in the gods' eyes. The angels of Nemesis sweep in to arrest Yasira as heretic, but the head of the angels, a smug bastard called Akavi, offers her a deal: she is to hunt down Dr. Talirr, Yasira's missing mentor, and apparently very huge in dealing with The Outside, the biggest heretic of them all.

I never fully clicked with Yasira, but thought she was portrayed very well when it comes to her autism. A fully-functioning human being with ways to handle her autism. I was not surprised to read that the author is an autistic scientist herself.

It was a fascinating story, which could have gone a bit more horror for me. I am not sure what little thing bothered me about the writing, I just know I fell asleep over it at night quite early. I don't know, I just couldn't get as deeply into the characters as I had hoped I would. However, the grand finale of the book set up some fascinating developments so that I am definitely going to read the sequel, for sure.

I read this at breakneck speed, just like the novel somehow felt super-fast paced. It has very short chapters that just keep the ball rolling. Our protagonist is Sonja, a divorcee who does not have custody over her beloved son Tomas, and dreams of the day that she has enough money to file for custody. Money is a problem for her because she is in a 'snare'. Her divorce lawyer offered her a way to make money, by smuggling cocaine from Europe back to Iceland.

The novel has three main PoV characters: Sonja herself; her lover Agla, who is involved in a huge financial scandal. She also won't commit to Sonja as she is a closeted lesbian. And then there's Bragi, a customs officer who has spotted Sonja as a mule and is planning to catch her.

Sonja's snare gets tighter throughout the book, stakes are higher, and there are some twists. I didn't give it 5 stars only because the ending is rather abrupt, not even a good cliffhanger.

If you enjoy hardboiled crime, this is really really good.

It's hard to describe what this book is about. At the beginning you're dropped in dramatically, a family mansion is burning down, and we don't know what happened. But in flashbacks, we learn. It's a family drama story about a poor single mom, Mia, and her teenage daughter, living as tenants of the wealthy Richardson family in 'perfect' suburbia. But Mia has secrets from her past, and she soon clashes with Elena Richardson. It's predominantly a book about women. About growing up as a woman, motherhood, tough stuff like abortion, and the mean things women do to each other. Male characters play side-roles, but this book is really not about them. The writing is quite excellent, once it grabs you, there's no letting go. I enjoyed myself quite a bit.

This book was such a slow burn for me. Coming highly praised, I came in here expecting a traditional school of wizardry tale. But your HP it is not. It's good though, very good.

Told from first person perspective, our narrator is Galadriel, a sophomore at the Scholomance, a deadly place of education indeed. The students learn magic simply by surviving the many horrors the school throws at them. There are no houses or anything the like, but alliances to make sure you survive your senior year. Students have to fight their way out, through masses of monsters.

Galadriel is a loner though. Secretly, she's one of the most powerful magic-users of the school, but she can only use spells of destruction. As the story progresses, Galadriel has to make alliances herself, and figure out if she and the most prolific monster killer of Scholomance, Orion Lake, are dating or not?

You get zero exposition in the beginning, you're just thrown in, as Galadriel, called El, is saved by Orion. The magic system is a bit mind-boggling at first, and El is a bit of an unreliable narrator, as she's not super-likeable. She's an antisocial introvert. Takes time for her to thaw, took time for me to warm up to her.

It is a creative story, and it successfully breaks the mold of every other wizard academy story out there.

This book was such a slow burn for me. Coming highly praised, I came in here expecting a traditional school of wizardry tale. But your HP it is not. It's good though, very good.

Told from first person perspective, our narrator is Galadriel, a sophomore at the Scholomance, a deadly place of education indeed. The students learn magic simply by surviving the many horrors the school throws at them. There are no houses or anything the like, but alliances to make sure you survive your senior year. Students have to fight their way out, through masses of monsters.

Galadriel is a loner though. Secretly, she's one of the most powerful magic-users of the school, but she can only use spells of destruction. As the story progresses, Galadriel has to make alliances herself, and figure out if she and the most prolific monster killer of Scholomance, Orion Lake, are dating or not?

You get zero exposition in the beginning, you're just thrown in, as Galadriel, called El, is saved by Orion. The magic system is a bit mind-boggling at first, and El is a bit of an unreliable narrator, as she's not super-likeable. She's an antisocial introvert. Takes time for her to thaw, took time for me to warm up to her.

It is a creative story, and it successfully breaks the mold of every other wizard academy story out there.