Despite being busy designing and building a new home–not to mention packing up 5,000 lbs of books (and this is after The Great Purge)–I did manage to read a few things in 2018.

There are more YA (young adult) and MG (middle grade) novels on my bookshelf than usual, because I’ve been sending subscription book boxes to my nieces, and–being a conscientious auntie–I’ve screened all the books ahead of time. (Usually I can guess if something will be too mature for the girls, or not their style, although I have been spectacularly wrong on a few occasions, like the time I gave the younger one a copy of Holly Black’s Doll Bones, and she was “seriously creeped out.” But I digress.)

My very unscientific list of favorites, in no particular order:

• Roses and Rot. The Tam Lin-inspired debut by Kat Howard, who edited my novel Arcanos Unraveled. It’s a story about sisters, the dangers of Faerie, and being an artist.
• The Cruel Prince. Oh, Holly Black, you are a goddess. The first in a trilogy, this is about sisters, the dangers of Faerie, and being a badass.
• Voyage of the Dogs by Greg van Eekhout. You know that the space dog Laika’s tragic story has got under your skin when you read a sweet and uplifting children’s book that references it and you cry and cry, even though there’s a happy ending.
• The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang. A graphic novel about a cross-dressing prince? Yes, please!
• Magic, Madness, and Mischief by Kelly McCullough. A middle grade adventure in the style of The Lightning Thief, but with a Minneapolis skyline and a sensitively drawn mother with mental health challenges.
• Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones. Like my novel Arcanos Unraveled, this is a playful satire of a magic university. Scheming academics! Talking Griffins! I love this book so much.
• The Language of Spells by Garret Freymann-Wehr. About memory, and loss, and dragons resisting genocide in Vienna. You won’t read that book again, because the ending’s just too hard to take.