“You prefer not to see the gears of the clock, as to better tell time.” An absolute delight to read, but a serious disappointment of a story. Let me elaborate. Morgenstern is a wizard with descriptions and imagery. She builds these fantastical worlds filled with magic - right in our own back yards. Still, the story itself is difficult to grasp, as exceptions are made, things are skipped over, and ideas are not explained. Until the last 20 or so pages, when suddenly the "moral" (which is too similar to that of "The Starless Sea") is laid out word for word.

“If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.” What an absolutely surprising delight of a book. I thought I would have nothing in common with this story of a young boy going through a year in the cold war in his little home town Black Swan Green where nothing really happens. Mitchell so successfully writes from the point of view of a preteen boy that I questioned my own memories at times! (That's dramatic... But you get what I mean.) A story that does not follow a typical arc, but instead glides through a "year-in-the-life" while properly tying lose ends -- which other stories usually do not do. Fantastic.

“My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round.” Kidd is one of my favorite authors (see: life of bees), but this book somewhat fell short. A story loosely based on the life of an abolitionist/feminist who is "presented" with a slave on her 10th birthday. The story follows two parallel stories, that of Sarah and Handful, but they do not intertwine enough for my liking. It might have been more interesting to read them as two separate novels.

“Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.” A gripping story born of the civil war in Spain in the 1930s. A telling of exile, belonging, friendship, and love. This book arches over decades, which allows the reader to truly get to know the characters -- a luxury that is not often presented in a novel.