Disability – Page 2 – Marked for Plot

The Storm Beneath the World

As and English teacher, I constantly tell my kids not to judge a book by its cover. Dumb advice, but I have to try to get them to give Tamora Pierce a try somehow. It’s also undoubtedly true that a good cover is far more likely to get me to actually look at a book and give it a shot, and great cover artists are hard to find (especially since they and the authors rarely get a lot of say in what the cover looks like). And I’m ashamed to say that, with two horrible covers, I didn’t give The Storm Beneath the World a shot the first few times I saw it. Eventually, the premise of excellent fantasy featuring insect-people got me to pick it up, and thank goodness people kept hyping it. I’m now happy to say that it has a third, much better cover (for my tastes at least), and I think epic fantasy fans will find a lot to love here.

Read If Looking For: classic epic fantasy style writing in a totally alien setting, insect characters, ethical quandaries

Avoid if Looking For: books that avoid brutal violence, books with familiar settings

The Mars House

Sometimes there are books that have an enduring impact on me, where my first impressions of a linger and solidify. Other times my opinions about books shift radically the further I get from them. The Mars House is one of those books. It’s a book that had been on my radar, and I got a gentle nudge when I stumbled across it on my library’s shelves. It was a roller coaster of loving it, and slowly falling out of love with it the longer I’ve been away from it.

Read If Looking For: interesting moral questions, grounded science fiction, talking mamoths, neat and tidy endings

Avoid if Looking For: quality queer representation, healthy

Masquerade

I’ll be honest that Masquerade was a bit of an impulse purchase. Heterosexual romance focused books aren’t something I read a ton of, but the idea of a Persephone story in precolonial Africa was intriguing.

Read If Looking For: romance with a twist, competent characters, evil characters

Avoid if Looking For: high fantasy

Walking Practice

Translated Novels tend to be some of the more unique reads. It’s easy to forget how much cultures have self-reinforcing patterns in their writing, even across subgenres. Walking Practice is a great example of how translated fiction can be an engaging experience that confronts your notions of how stories go.

Assuming you’re reading in English and not Korean, I highly recommend reading Victoria Caudle’s translation notes, which will provide key context for what the hell is going on with this book’s typesetting.

Read If Looking For: horror with deep themes, gruesome depictions of bodies, gore, and sex, utterly alien narrators

Avoid if Looking For: something like what you’ve read before

The Spear Cuts Through Water

I have long been chasing classic epic fantasy stories featuring gay characters, and have been disappointed over and over again. I love romances (and read many of them) but finding stories focused on gay men where romance plot structures don’t dominate is horribly difficult. I put of reading The Spear Cuts Through Water for a long time, out of fear it would not live up to my hopes for it. When I read it, I discovered the best book I’ve ever read.

Read If Looking For: ambitious books, mythic style writing, heartrending and terrifying characters

Avoid if Looking For: a straightforward story

Mana Mirror

I’ve been a big fan and advocate of Tobias Begley’s previous series (Journals of Evander Tailor) in the progression fantasy space. I appreciated how they balanced small scale magic-school stuff with overarching plots, included quality queer rep, and had a clear grasp on characterization within a breezy writing style. So after binging book 3 in that series and seeing he had a new one coming out, I was overjoyed to see he had a new book coming out! Mana Mirror is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it was definitely mine.

Read if Looking For: side quests, magic systems, wholesome family dynamics

Avoid if Looking For: action heavy, plot driven, or deeply thematic books

Running Close to the Wind

Alexandra Rowland has been one of my favorite authors ever since I read A Conspiracy of Truths, and their writing has never lead me astray since. Their most popular novel (A Taste of Gold and Iron) is also their weakest in my opinion, but still quite excellent. So this book was an easy pick for me for this card, and it met pretty much every expectation I had for it.

Read if Looking For: Raucously funny pirates, unhinged monologues, seagulls, cake decorating contests, sexual language (but very little actual sex)

Avoid if Looking For: a book that takes itself seriously

Welcome to Forever, by Nathan Tavares

This is a book that I picked up more or less on a whim. Another book by this author (which I haven’t read yet) was recommended to me, and when I saw this was being published in 2024, I committed to picking it up for my bingo challenge. I was not prepared for a story that would make me cry, force me to sit with my emotions for about a month before I could read anything with any depth whatsoever, and rocket into my all time favorites.

Read if Looking for: experimental books, weird memory stuff, complex characters, crying

Avoid if Looking For: straightforward writing, characters making good decisions, plot focused on action and/or external conflict