by Jo Walton
I'm not quite half-way through, and so far completely fascinated. There are so many elements woven together: coming of age, dysfunctional family, teenage girl brutality, loss, family, identity, magic, legend, science, and, most of all, literature.
The protagonist is a teenage girl who has survived a tragedy. So far, we don't know the details. She deals with her loss, and her change in circumstances, by withdrawing into books. She keeps a journal, and that's how we follow her story. She is constantly dropping comments about what she's reading that week, and what she thinks about it; if she were posting to the weekly thread here, she'd have at least 8 titles a week to talk about.
She's a lover of sci-fi and fantasy, which isn't surprising. She also, though, reads poetry and philosophy. I love seeing so many of my favorites through her eyes, and wondering if I would like the books she talks about that I HAVEN'T read.
I also love that I don't know where the story is going, or where it has come from. That's novel for me, pun intended. I can usually predict the outcome of a story within the first couple of chapters; even great stories that I enjoy reading don't have too many surprises.
This one is still a mystery.
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