Unfortunately, all the images I could find of this book’s cover were blurry, but I digress! This is a lovely memoir by Sheila Watt-Cloutier detailing her fight to preserve her Inuit way of life in a rapidly warming environment. Watt-Cloutier covers a myriad of compelling nuances to this struggle, including other “green” activist groups not wanting to ally with her because of her people’s long-held tradition of subsistence hunting. I loved this book and was recommended it by my tour guide Anthony during a recent trip to Churchill, Canada, to see the polar bears. Thanks, Anthony!
Another phenomenal book I read this year was This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. This sci-fi love story is told via letters written between two characters on either side of a temporal conflict. The writing in this is absolutely STUNNING! Gorgeous, gorgeous prose. El-Mohtar and Gladstone each had a specific character they “voiced,” which I find fascinating and gives me lots of ideas for a multi PoV story I am planning with my best friend.
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi I kind of lucked into reading. Its beautiful cover has haunted me since I first saw it on the shelf at the library. I’m a big fan of covers and believe an excellent cover that truly captures a book’s essence elevates it as an art form. Anyways, I am glad I knew so little about this book before reading it, because had I known it contained an age gap romance, I probably would have neglected to read it, but I would have missed out!
Emezi’s prose is fluid and cutting and damning, and their main character Feyi is painfully self-aware of how her choice to pursue the widowed father of her sort-of boyfriend will have horrendous consequences. Feyi’s inner monologue was rich and rewarding. Her connection to love interest Alim was palpable. Would I recommend their actions IRL? No, but it made for a damn good read.
At my best friend’s urging, I have also finally stepped into the GrishaVerse books by Leigh Bardugo!
