Greetings, fellow book fanatics! I come bearing recommendations đ
Now, a read-alike for a book you love is not an easy thing to come by (trust me, Iâve been trying to rekindle the Selection magic for years), but if youâve read and enjoyed any of the titles on this list, I hope I can be of help to you in falling in love all over again.
(Especially if youâre a Lunar Chronicles fan who needs to read R.C. Lewisâ Stitching Snow, now. This is too important to leave until the rest of the list. Do it. Watch Jupiter Ascending (2013), and then do it.)
1. Small Favors by Erin. A Craig đ Extasia by Claire Legrand
If youâre anything like me, Erin A. Craigâs gorgeous sophomore work of horror fantasy, Small Favors, absolutely has you by the throat. With a romance that keeps you guessing, an atmospheric woodsy setting whose trials you can feel, and salient commentary to be made about how the binds between people crumble under hardship, itâs a mesmerizing work you wonât soon forget.
Extasia, though itâs a post-apocalyptic horror about witches, has a lot of the same themes, and lands them equally well. Just like Small Favors, it gets right to the heart of what makes rigid, isolated communities so dangerous, particularly for young women. Though a bit more bloody than Small Favors, Extasia is an invigoratingly vengeful response to a similar set of evils.
2. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo đ The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
Look: I make no secret of the fact that half my personality comes from Leigh Bardugoâs Grishaverse. Iâve taken the quiz, Iâve watched the show, Iâve, umâŚread the fanfiction đ? Thereâs just something about the unrestrained fun of a girl discovering secret powers, being taken to a palace to learn how to wield them, and finding herself in a web of intrigue, that hits every time.
But nowhere else does it hit quite the same way as it does in Namina Fornaâs The Gilded Ones, where the authorâs unique combination of ultra-cinematic storytelling, explicit feminist critique, and heavy focus on on-the-page training makes this setup feel addictively fresh. The book also cinches on a masterfully-executed paradigm shift that flips our understanding of the world and its monsters right on its head. The West-African-inspired worldbuilding is also drop-everything incredible, and practically every setting Forna writes is a total stunner. (Reviewed here.)
3. Cinder by Marissa Meyer đ Stitching Snow by R. C. Lewis
My seventh grade self and I have one very important thing in common: if you pair a romp of a space opera with a fairy tale, weâre exceptionally easy to please. Such was the case when I first read Cinder: I loved the Star Wars-y energy Meyer brought to the proceedings of her Cinderella retelling, and I loved how her worldâs sense of adventure accommodated royalty and spaceships alike.
Reviewers criticized Stitching Snow for being too similar to Cinder when it first came out in 2014. Iâm here to tell you that theyâre right, but itâs entirely to the bookâs benefit. It has that same wonder, that same sense of humor, that same cocktail of space-opera worldbuilding that makes the rules of fairy tales compatible with the language of action-packed sci-fi. Plus, if youâre also a fan of the 2013 camp masterpiece Jupiter Ascending, this is the only title Iâve read so far that comes anywhere close to it in feel. You need more space Cinderella in your life, right? I think you need more space Cinderella in your life.
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman đ Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
I was utterly captivated when I first read The Golden Compass earlier this year, and I still havenât stopped thinking about it. Itâs a sprawling work of science fantasy that begins in a world with a few striking differences from our own, and expands to cover a struggle that encompasses multiple parallel universes. It comes armed with a thoughtful examination of the responsibilities adults have to children, and worldbuilding prowess that I, as a writer, genuinely envy. None of Pullmanâs concepts seem like they should work together in theory, but itâs almost maddening how well they do.
Trial by Fire, the first in a YA trilogy by Josephine Angelini, also offers a satisfying blend of magic and sci-fi. Using some of the same principles Pullman draws upon in constructing his parallel universes, Angelini crafts a North America ruled by the witches who happened to survive their Salem trials in this timeline, anchored by a magic system that takes its cues from chemistry, and a similarly compelling set of ethical struggles. As a heads-up, this book was published in 2014, and I canât speak to how well it represents its Indigenous characters, but Angelini does make an effort to include Native peoples in her re-imagining of American history.
Thank you so much for reading! Have you read any of these books? Have any other read-alikes to share? Iâd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below đ
Happy April, everyone! I’m so happy to be sharing with you what will be my fifth wrap-up in a row! (đĽł) March brought me some new favorite books, a great play or two, and myriad wonderful things to shout about in them all. Without further ado, here they are:
20. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
Boasting portals to other worlds, a fallen empire, and a few uncharacteristically funny scenes for the character who would eventually become the White Witch, this 1955 prequel to the Narnia series surprised me in a lot of good ways. In it, we follow the schoolkids Polly and Digory, who stumble into an experiment intended to rip passageways into other universes. Among these universes is the place that the rest of the series knows as Narnia, but thereâs way more than that for the book to play in, and Iâm now almost mad that the other Narnia books donât return for more. Where The Magicianâs Nephew isnât surprising, though, itâs depressingly familiar. Lewisâ magical mentor figure, Aslan, again kills conflict wherever he goes, a few later chapters are almost fatally actionless and ceremonial, and for all the bookâs potential, it has a hard time living up to its ideas.
21. Extasia by Claire Legrand
Extasia is a strange beast, but a very welcome one. Claire Legrand builds a riveting work of paranormal horror from both archaic and post-apocalyptic clay, yielding a rich story that reads sometimes like a theocratic dystopian Ă la The Handmaidâs Tale, sometimes like a taut, colonial-era suspense Ă la The Crucible, and often like something new altogether. The book begins when the solemn, pious Amity is about to be anointed one of her villageâs four Saintsââyoung girls who act as religious scapegoats for their neighborsâ anger, fear, and sorrow. But all is not well in Haven and its deadly surrounding forest, and in order to save it, Amity will have to defy her church and learn magic. From there, Extasia had me reading on with rapt attention and a white-knuckled grip: itâs excellently-paced, the characters and their terror freshly rendered, and Legrandâs observation of a fearful society searingly true. (Reviewed here.)
22. The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur
The Forest of Stolen Girls, set in Joseon-Era Korea, is a murder-mystery helmed by the daughter of a missing detective, as she re-traces his footsteps and investigates the disappearances of thirteen girls from an island fishing town. June Hur, in juggling the tasks of historical consideration and an emotionally honest story of family, seldom lets any pins fall, but when they do, they take a toll on her main character, Hwani, and her journey towards reckoning with her fatherâs flaws. The prose, for instance, often defaults to explaining rather than describing what sheâs feeling, which gives some of her most important emotional moments a distancing effect. But in atmosphere and motives for possible suspects and accomplices, Hur consistently shines. She also makes a point of using the context of time and place to the mysteryâs advantage, rather than just setting the story against itââa deep, structural choice that, in the end, sticks Forestâs landing.
23. The Lives of Saints by Leigh Bardugo
Though it doesnât quite reach the emotional power of the rest of the Grishaverse, The Lives of Saints still has something to offer people (me) who canât get enough of it. This volume collects the (often disappointingly) short tales of saints from the world of Bardugoâs fantasy booksââsome of them managing to be haunting despite their length (Anastasia), some of them actually wickedly funny (Lutkin!!), and some sadly forgettable (Petyr). Itâs a worthy experiment that Iâm glad exists, for the simple fact that series lore is my lifeblood, but almost all the stories lose something in brevity. The Language of Thorns, another anthology from the Grishaverse, does so well with its task precisely because it lets the stories get a little longer, and I canât help but feel that The Lives of Saints wouldâve been better equipped to follow it up had it done the same.
24. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials, #1)
Iâm utterly in awe of this bookâs vision. Set in a world like our own (but not quite!) it charts the power plays of conniving liturgical institutions and officials, the discovery of a mysterious new elementary particle, and the adventures of a fiercely loyal and dangerously important girl by the name of Lyra. I could talk about the system of science-magic, the construction of alternate history cultures, or the almost cinematic use of perspective intercutting at work in The Golden Compass for hours, but what I was most impressed by was Philip Pullmanâs willingness to not expound on his world before giving us a chance to walk in it. He lets the reader put the pieces together with the characters, in a way that made me just as eager to learn more about where we were as I was to find out what would happen next. And I, being the nerd that I am, was totally mesmerized from start to finish.
25. The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare
As much as I love the vibes, The Winterâs Tale might be Shakespeareâs most self-defeating play. On paper, itâs a story about redemption: the wrath of a jealous king, Leontes, kills his wife with grief, and loses him a daughter, but through the intervention of a miracle or two, theyâre all reunited with Leontes a changed man. But, really, itâs hard to read or watch, without the nagging thought that Leontes didnât need to act like he did, and none of this needed to happenââespecially if weâre going to end the play mostly in the same place we began. A fog of pointlessness lies over The Winterâs Tale that, try as it might, the play just canât shake. The fourth act, too, a pastoral starring characters only tangentially related to the earlier action, is dangerously close to insufferable. (But judging by my opinion of As You Like It, I might just hate pastorals altogether đŹ)
26. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
This work of historical fiction is based on a very real hoax. Itâs 1885 and a sea serpent is rumored to haunt the marshes of Aldwinter, as a warning from an angry higher power, or a remnant from a Mesozoic ocean long gone, or both. We follow a widow, Cora Seaborne, as she investigates the rumor and strikes up a tumultuous, intimate friendship with Aldwinterâs devoted vicar. If youâre into science of any kind, The Essex Serpent has to its advantage an erudite bent that draws on the history of paleontology and medicine, and puts them to fascinating use. Also mostly to its benefit is the central friendship, which takes on refreshing narrative importance, even if its trajectory can be frustrating. Overall, this title proved a way more compatible read for me than I expected, which has me wondering if I should pick up more historicals. (I also love Liz Gilbertâs The Signature of All Things. Recommend away!)
27. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials, #2)
As the sequel to The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife takes the trilogy in several fascinating new directions at once, only some of which worried me. The expansion of the series into new universes, one of them being ours, gives the book plenty of awesome concepts to work with, from the correlation of book oneâs science with our contemporary understanding of physics, to a power struggle that careens the storyâs scope into literally unfathomable territoryââfor better or worse. In this volume, we also meet Will, a boy whose troubled family history ties him to the fate of Lyraâs world. As deuteragonists, their shrewdness functions well against the pretense and status of those in power, and even if connecting with them is a little harder this time around, Pullmanâs reliance on the ensemble approach gives us myriad eyes to look through in the meantime. (And a vast, constantly-changing landscape to look at, too, which is always a plus.)
28. I and You by Lauren Gunderson
Lauren Gunderson is one of my favorite playwrights, and what I and You achieves in a little under 70 pages pretty much explains why. Itâs set in chronically-ill 17-year-old Carolineâs bedroom, where Anthony, a classmate from the school she can no longer attend, enlists her help for a project on Walt Whitmanâs Leaves of Grass. Over the course of a few hours, the two connect over the poem, get to know each other in a miraculous, theatrical totality, and, if youâre anything like me, will have you sobbing three times or more before curtain call. Gunderson gets something about humanity and experience and why we need each other so much thatâs otherwise inarticulable, and hearing it saidââshouted!ââin I and You was a catharsis unlike any Iâve ever experienced.
29. A Thousand Steps Into Night by Traci Chee
A witty, hopeful, spirit-studded riot of a fantasy adventure from The Reader author Traci Chee, A Thousand Steps Into Night holds delight after delight. Its heroine, Miuko, must embark on a quest to reverse the curse thatâs about to turn her into a demon, and along the way, sheâll fall in with a clever, complaining magpie, contend with a vengeful demon prince for the fate of the kingdom of Awara, and fight to keep her humanity all the while. A Thousand Steps manages a great deal in its comparatively limited page time as a standalone, from directly challenging Miukoâs weaknesses in a satisfying way to offering a broad sweep of Cheeâs ultra-vivid world in a number of one-of-a-kind scenes Iâd love to see put to animation. Characters appear and exit rather quickly, with a couple scenes of action bypassed or skimped on to the bookâs detriment, but itâs largely an unbroken joy.
30. Richard II by William Shakespeare
This history play is tragedy, political theory, and character study all at once. While it flounders with its supporting cast (a point I controversially think its prequel, King John, excels at!), Richard II has such a keen eye on where power comes from, and what it does to those who hold or seek it. Shakespeareâs Richard is as compelling as he is infuriating; a devastating indictment of inherited privilege and a bittersweet elegy for those it eats away. Shakespeare also establishes with precision the weight of his transgressions, and why they set his countrymen against him, something he struggles with in King John. I also definitely cried while watching and reading this, not least because the language in it is so hauntingly beautiful and evenââdare I say it?ââa cut above the Bardâs rest.
Thank you so much for reading! May the next month bring you small joys and many good stories âď¸ đ
The Pigeon 
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