Book Reviews
Dragon’s Blood by Leah E. Welker
Genre: young adult high fantasy (with a portal and some romance, so… I’m not actually sure which subgenre it belongs in! But it’s definitely young adult fantasy) Overall rating: 4/5 Literary Value: 4.5/5 Dragon’s Blood isn’t a literary book by any means, but the...
A Soul as Cold as Frost, by Jennifer Kropf
Genre: Christian YA Fantasy Overall Rating: 4/5 Literary Value: 4/5 A Soul as Cold as Frost was beautifully written, with delightfully quirky turns of phrase that helped to create an immersive story world. But at several points while reading, I felt like the story was...
Caligo, by J. J. Fischer
This is a bit of an unusual review, because at the time of writing, Caligo isn’t actually out yet! But as part of the cover reveal and street team, I had early access to the book and absolutely loved it. So, if you’re reading this before the May 15 release date, I...
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
Genre: Children's fantasy Overall rating: 5/5 Literary value: 5/5 Lewis is probably my gold standard as a writer. Certainly some writers are more eloquent or complex than he is, but for sheer readability combined with beautiful prose, Lewis wins every time....
Waking Beauty by Sarah E. Morin
Genre: Christian Fairy-Tale Retelling Overall Rating: 4.5/5 Literary Value: 4.5/5 Waking Beauty is well-written, but the writing occasionally left me confused on what was happening. This wasn’t so much a sentence-level issue as a scene-level issue, and part of it...
Calor, by J. J. Fischer
Genre: Christian Fantasy Overall Rating: 5/5 I came into this book biased against it. Why, you may ask? Well, because the title is in Latin—and since I’ve spent 10 years studying Latin, I’m frequently annoyed by authors who seem to think they can spend 20 minutes on...