This month had a vacation, so I got lots of reading done. Much of it was frivolous.
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
A Harry Potteresque fantasy but with more interesting protagonists (gasp, my blasphemy!) A school of magic, a "chosen" hero, a supervillain, a rival in school, a smart girl best friend, a love interest that slowly devolves into a love triangle, it's got it all. A thousand times more fun than the Cursed Child.
Lockwood and Co.: Four books in the series by Jonathan Stroud
Another fantasy YA series by this author, this one lacks the brilliance and depth -- particularly the class consciousness and social commentary -- of Bartimaeus. However, it's a fun set of books. Our very young protagonist, Lucy, and her team (Lockwood and George; the three of them form the firm Lockwood and Co.) find and eliminate ghosts. The characterisation is a bit lazy (Lucy is Kitty from Bartimaeus, Lockwood is a nicer Nathaniel -- or Nathaniel who had a loving family and is therefore less screwed up, George and another character make up Bartimaeus), and there seems to be little personal growth: the main characters behave and speak much the same as they did in the first book (even though they were tweens in the first book and should have changed a lot by now). But hey, girl who fights ghosts and has no personal demons (these belong to the eponymous Lockwood), fights with swords, and is brilliant at what she does. Also, as the series is for children, the ghosts aren't scary (I can't read actual horror). If you are interested, start with the first book.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The announcement of Roy's second novel and some related tweets praising this one made me want to reread it. This time (my fourth read, probably), I really slowed down (I read really fast and often skim through and miss stuff). This time, I noticed how outrightly feminist the novel is. I also noticed how very fatphobic and generally appearance-focused it is. Good people are beautiful. Bad people are ugly. It's actually that simplistic.