#the library of the dead by t l huchu

[newnamesamecharlotte]

'Ladies and gentlemen, you can all eat my vag,' I say, flipping the bird on both hands.

The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle by T. L. Huchu

[blogthefiresidechats]

"The Library of the Dead" by T. L. Huchu

I finished reading this and thought I’d share. I have to admit, Ropa got on my nerves for the first couple of chapters. I don’t know what it was but I didn’t exactly like her at first. But that quickly changed and I ended up liking her. She’s a tough cookie but she has to be given her circumstances. However, she’s human enough to make her seem believable (if that makes any sense at all). I…

[torpublishinggroup]

TOR WRAPPED 2023

Books for every Spotify Wrapped listener class! 

VAMPIRE

Masters of Death by Olivie Blake

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Mordew by Alex Pheby

HYPNOTIST

The Library of the Dead by T. L. Huchu

Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow

ALCHEMIST

The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller

The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

SHAPESHIFTER

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Warden by Daniel M. Ford

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

FANATIC

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab

TIME TRAVELER

Kinning by Nisi Shawl

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

MASTERMIND

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow

Exadelic by Jon Evans

COLLECTOR

The Wolfe at the Door by Gene Wolfe

Cassiel’s Servant by Jacqueline Carey

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

[tozettastone]

Today I finished T. L. Huchu's The Library of the Dead.

It's an alternative history urban fantasy set in Edinburgh. It's about a girl who speaks to the dead who solves a mystery brought to her by a desperate ghost.

Pros: The worldbuilding is fun and immersive, the character voice is excellent, and the story is fun and quick-paced.

Cons: I found the foreshadowing to be a little heavy handed, which is a bit of a flaw for a story whose plot is driven by a mystery.

I got this book from the adult fantasy shelf, but if I had to describe it I'd say "like the YA answer to Mike Carey's 'Felix Castor' novels." I think it's just hard to write a novel that feels like adult fantasy when the main character is a sixteen year old who must carefully navigate her relationships with adults.

Generally I think this book achieved what it set out to do, by which metric it's a good book. I also enjoyed reading it and found the conclusion satisfying.

[libraryleopard]

May reads

The Moon That Turns You Back by Hala Alyan

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammond

The Z Word by Lindsay King-Miller

The Bone Way by Holly J. Underhill

Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, and Nicola Scott

The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth

All These Sunken Souls: A Black Horror Anthology edited by Circe Moskowitz

Widdershins by Jordan L. Hawk

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

Crema by Johnnie Christmas and Dante Luis

The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu 

Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot

River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta

When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung

A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland

Damned If You Do by Alex Brown

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi

Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin

Cosmoknights vol. 1 by Hannah Templer

Experienced by Kate Young

Blood, Sweat, and Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan

kitten by Olive Nutall

Let the Mountains Be My Grave by Francesca Tacchi

[obeetlebeetle]

get to know me

tagged by @chaumas-deactivated20230115 who i know slightly better now! tagging ppl i know & ppl i dont: @icaroid @waitingforgalois @emotionsandphenomena @avantguardisme @yellowcharm @fishdetective @swordatsunset @soulproof @gideonthefirst @augustales & @cactusmotif

Last song: ok well it's sidi monsour NOW. before that it was overflow by een glish, which i don't know anything abt. z put on a group playlist during our cabin-in-the-woods vacation a couple weeks ago! it's rly fun im a big fan

Currently reading: just just started (like today) the library of the dead by t. l. huchu which i got from a used bookstore, even tho it's fairly new. it's set in edinburgh and is abt a tween who can talk to ghosts, so we'll see where that goes! ive been in more of a read-a-graphic-novel-in-one sitting for months, but then i read a book on vacation and im like hm maybe this happening for me.

Currently watching: also what we do in the shadows. love u weekly shows. agree that it's past its prime, but having a little crush is fun. otherwise i chewed thru drawtectives s2 while catsitting last week, which is drawfee's youtube detective series -- the season was kind of adventure train-y which i really appreciated.

Current obsession: video game!!!! story of seasons: a wonderful life!!!! it's the sos remake of harvest moon: awl, which was one of my top three video games as a kid. it's fascinating revisiting this after stardew valley and other contemporary farming sims -- there's way less to do and time passes way quicker, i got thru year one in under a week. also, the aesthetics are a really jarring mix of the modern sos style and character/setting design from the gamecube days.

[kikiswayside]

Library of the Dead

By T. L. Huchu What a beautiful and melancholy read. I mean sure... when your main character is a ghost whisperer, melancholy is sure to follow. This was different. This is the melancholy we get just living. The sadness of struggle. It was a good read and I will read the next in the series soon.

[pentanguine]

Favorite Books of 2022

It may not be January anymore, but at least it’s not May! As always, I’m dreadfully long-winded.

12. Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

There is a reason this book has a thousand award medals on the cover. The period detail is so immersive, every sentence so real and personal, that I kept forgetting Lo wasn’t alive in the 50s and Lily wasn’t telling the story herself. It perfectly captures the giddy feeling of being a confused teenager in love, and I appreciated that Lily’s Chinese-American community didn’t feel like it was written for my understanding as a white reader. For the most part, it didn’t read like YA [YA is great, but not my thing], and the prose flew across the page in short, beautiful chapters. So glad I bought it on a whim.

11. The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu

A strange and lovely collection of stories told in beautiful prose, with Liu’s trademark ability to write complex, ruthless women. There were only seven and almost all were standouts, with the anthology moving from her darkest and most vicious story to the most charming and whimsical. Liu is a stunning storyteller.

10. A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

A few years ago I had a failed attempt to read Witchmark, another queer Edwardian fantasy full of magical political intrigue, and this was everything I hoped Witchmark would be and wasn’t. The magic unfurled perfectly, the setting was well-realized, and the romance between Edwin and Robin blossomed so naturally, with each clearly seeing the appeal of the other and bringing realistic hangups to the table. Excellent balance of romance and intrigue, and Marske’s prose is full of original flourishes without being overwrought. Overall, highly enjoyable.

9. Red X by David Demchuk

Deliciously creepy and well-written, steeped in folklore and recent queer history. The horror feels all the more visceral because of how closely it follows the same characters’ lives, like there’s no escape—you’re being hunted, trapped, you’re fated for this end. Breaking the fourth wall adds an extra chilling touch. Strangely, without giving too much away, this book made me feel queer hope.

8. The Library of the Dead by T. L. Huchu

A great take on urban fantasy, with a well-drawn main character and magics both new and familiar. I especially enjoyed being inside a teen’s head in what is very much an adult fantasy, and reading Ropa’s distinct slang-filled narration. This installment felt like it was still setting things up in a lot of ways (What exactly happened to the world? Who is the king? What about Ropa’s mother? Are we going to be learning more about the Library?) but that’s all the more effective in getting me to look forward to the sequel.

7. Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

A delightful mix of archives, transmasculinity, fandom, and vampires. Even though the story is centered on fantasy/horror concepts, it’s a told in a slice of life kind of way: Sol isn’t the one who discovers [the central problem], his concerns don’t leave the niche community of archivist vampires, etc. The romance and the sex were sweet and hot, and every trans conversation felt satisfyingly not for cis people. This book might be slightly impenetrable if you aren’t part of its niche audience, but I loved it.

6. Spear by Nicola Griffith

A story about losing home and finding it again, with all the heightened moments of myth woven seamlessly with real history. Peretur is a young person testing her strength, finding love, and experiencing loss, and my heart broke for her as she realizes what she is too late to save, and that even good, wise men are only men and can be led astray. The writing is gorgeous, precise, and lyrical, and the early chapters reminded me of my own childhood, when every story feels like an adventure you want to be part of. Highly recommend for people who enjoy myth retellings and atmospheric novellas, even if Arthurian legend isn’t generally your thing.

5. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (reread)

I first read this book almost exactly five years ago, and I remember how blown away I was by the backwards structure of the novel at the time. I’d never read anything else like it, and I knew it made me Very Sad. Now, I have a renewed appreciation for the what arc does to the story: everyone ends on a note of hope in 1947, but we follow them backward into a moment of crisis that turns the story into a tragedy. They are fated, one way or another, to “end” with the beginning of their stories and follow the resulting path into inevitable pain and disappointment. What the characters love about each other and what makes them strong is also what destroys them and their relationships and brings everything crashing down. The construction of this book is just so masterfully done.

4. The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

I devoured the last ¾ of this book, which was such a satisfying surprise after I slogged through the first 80 pages. This story has multiple narrators, and I didn’t care for the first one, but I loved everyone else’s voice and their stubborn, strong, flawed personalities. One of the many things I love about Jemisin is that she writes women, older women, and mothers so damn well, in a genre that rarely bothers to tell stories outside of a young, white lens. She also made me visualize abstract multidimensional entities with ease, and she even made me feel some vicarious affection for an ugly city I loathe. She’s a wizard. I loved it.

3. The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

A savage, near-perfect book taking on the concepts of motherhood, monstrosity, and story-telling with a highly original concept in a lovely literary prose style. It tells the story of a woman made monstrous by motherhood, and the questions it asks about goodness, complicity, the nature of love, the value of a life, and the wielding of power are complex and juicy. I think it’s the perfect book for the legions complaining that “strong female characters” are all just #girlbosses and that lesbians never get to be fucked up and messy.

2. Fitz and the Fool by Robin Hobb

Yes, this is another trilogy, but specifically Fool’s Assassin and the last 50% of Assassin’s Fate. The first book in this trilogy is so slow and domestic (but still heartbreaking! don’t worry!), but still totally immersive. I’ve realized I’m really drawn to the point in a long-running series when an author writes a slower-paced book focused on the everyday lives and relationships of characters we’ve come to know and love, and Fool’s Assassin is a perfect example. On the other hand, I also enjoy epic quests and constant peril, and the way those characters we know and love can be irretrievably broken by forces outside their control! And the ending! The ending! I sobbed for half an hour straight reading it! What an ending. That is how you write an ending.

1. Liveship Traders series by Robin Hobb

Is it cheating to list three books as your favorite book of the year? Not if it’s the Liveship Traders trilogy, because in my mind this is one long, unbroken story that happens to be split into three print volumes. I inhaled all three books one after another as fast as I could, and for the most part, I truly could not tell you what happens in one vs. another. The characters, the setting, the plot, the themes—everything is developed so richly, with such care, and everything feels real. Hobb is a master at balancing almost a dozen different perspectives while making every character’s motivations complex and believable. Even the villains are understandable, if not excusable, and not leering caricatures. Everything about the world feels magical and wondrous, and I truly couldn’t put it down. I read 800 page Ship of Destiny in 5 days. These books have set the bar so high I can barely see it anymore. If you like character-driven epic fantasy, multiple POV stories, dragons, or pirates, I can’t recommend these highly enough.

[sistahscifi]

What are you reading this holiday season?!?

https://sistahscifi.com/products/womb-city

#wombcity #tlotlotsamaase #africanfuturism #AfricanHorror ##sistahscifi #tlhuchu #libraryofthedead

“Masterful . . . Tsamaase has created a disturbing techno dystopia in a future Botswana that terrifies with its echoes of our own increasingly authoritarian cyber-policed world. This beautifully written work haunts and upends expectations with its resurrected ghosts and gods and ancestors of Motswana cosmology. What an accomplished debut!” —T. L. Huchu, Caine Prize finalist and author of The Library of the Dead

[newnamesamecharlotte]

„Gran's always told me I should be more compassionate. The problem is I find it much easier to feel for the orphans freezing outside the gate than to be sympathetic to a laird with his own private castle. Boohoo, cry me a river.“

The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle by T. L. Huchu

[mirandamckenni1]

Best To Worst Books 2022 a selection of books I read in 2022 and some opinions thereof Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction * 02:12 The Boneless Mercies - April Genevieve Tucholke 03:56 The Library Of The Dead - T. L. Huchu ** 05:56 The Stranding - Kate Sawyer 08:09 Sometimes I Lie - Alice Feeney 09:40 The Mermaid Of Black Conch - Monique Roffey *** 11:20 The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson 13:46 Winter’s Orbit - Everina Maxwell **** 17:21 The Last Human - Zack Jordan 20:35 Starve Acre - Andrew Michael Hurley 21:07 The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin 24:00 My Sister The Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite 24:50 Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse 26:05 The Tiger And The Wolf - Adrian Tchaikovsky 27:42 The 24-Hour Cafe - Libby Page ***** 28:16 Flowers For Algernon - Daniel Keyes 28:38 Dogs Of War - Adrian Tchaikovsky 29:57 The Man Who Fell To Earth - Walter Tevis 31:01 Uzumaki - Junji Ito 33:08 Earthlings - Sayaka Murata 37:42 How To Kill Your Family - Bella Mackie 39:54 Bloodchild - Octavia E. Butler 41:31 Outro __________ LINKS Support Me: ko-fi.com/shonalika Socials: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShonalikaTilak Instagram: https://ift.tt/Cl3UIxt Mastodon: @shonalika@deadinsi.de BookWyrm: joinbookwyrm.com The 2021 version of this video: https://youtu.be/0vysviKo5Yk via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9YyTrDrG9Y

[tozettastone]

In the end I picked up T. L. Huchu's The Library of the Dead at the bookstore.

What if, instead of reading this book I'm partway into and haven't liked, I go to the bookstore and make bad purchasing choices?

[brucklethings]

“I hope he found his way to the land of the tall grass.”

— T. L. Huchu, The Library of the Dead

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Library of the Dead | Author: T. L. Huchu | Publisher: Tor (2021)

[razreads]

Curiosity's killed cats, but they never mentioned kids.

T.L. Huchu, The Library of the Dead