Alaya Dawn Johnson

Ok, I was with this book until the very very end. By necessity, spoilers.

So Phyllis starts bleeding and dies in childbirth. Why? Bleeding and death is not inevitable if one is not in a hospital during labor. It is insufficient to me to just say she started bleeding and expect that to be an explanation. That's a deus ex machina, not a cause of death. Was it a placenta previa? (Unlikely but possibly?) An abruption? (Not from the description of her pain.) It wasn't a slow labor. It wasn't an obstructed labor, from the description. So why did she bleed out and die? Being in labor is not a reason for it! … (mais)

I really liked Freida, how vulnerable and emotional she was, how intelligent and conflicted she was, and her capacity for love. I genuinely cared about her, I just wish I’d better understood all that went on so that I might have been more engaged with the overall story.

I got the gist of this (to a degree) but so many of the intricacies of the story went over my head due to painfully little explanation for anything.

I wouldn’t want an author to feel like they’re compromising their artistic vision and this book was undoubtedly artistic, but at the same time, I kept feeling like surely the integrity of the storytelling could have been maintained while meeting readers part way, not dumbing it down, not turning this into an easy, simplistic read but just by adding the occasional clarifying sentence here and there and maybe a glossary of some sort that might have allowed this to be a tiny bit more accessible.… (mais)

In The Library of Broken Worlds, Alaya Dawn Johnson creates a complex science fiction-fantasy world that often overwhelms its first-person YA plot. The story is set in a far-future world in which humans, aliens, AIs, and humans—both cloned and natural—prowl the tunnels of a vast library that governs three systems. Freida is a human girl who aspires to become a librarian, one of the highest positions in her society. Dozens of tales from various subcultures break up the straight path of the adventure romance story. At times, Freida seems to be a future version of Scheherazade. I am sure this novel has a large, appreciative audience, but it does not include me.… (mais)

June lives in one of the few cities left in the world after nuclear war wiped out nearly everything, but the city she lives in is a beautiful, towering thing, run well and efficiently by a council of women, headed by a queen. As they rebuilt the city, they decided that men, who were largely responsible for the mass destruction of the war, should not be trusted with power, and so while the women rule for years and years (advances in medicine have made very long life a reality for those who want it) but kings have only one year in the 'office' and are then executed after making a mostly token gesture that marks the existing queen as the one to remain queen for the next year. But when a young, handsome, and dangerously charismatic young man from the poor depths of the city becomes the Summer King, he and June (the best artist in all of Palmares Tres) join forces to turn the establishment on its head. Can they accomplish their goals before Enki will die, and can June keep from falling for her king?

This is a great post-apocalyptic YA story. Original plot, excellent characters, and a pleasantly unpredictable ending.… (mais)