The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

I love a good time loop, and Claire North really delivers.

Bonus points for bringing some sturdy philosophical ethical theories into the characters’ conversations and rumination, especially for calling out the oft-used “complexity is the reason for inaction”  argument against trying to live a life of consequence. 

But more than anything, I found the loves and losses—and even the eventual apathies—of Harry August to be compelling narrative. His fifteen lives, and the ways in which he creates and then unties a Gordian knot will stay with me long past the page.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow

I loved everything about this book.

Portals, stories, the story of the self, self-determination and self-discovery, the crafting of a life of meaning.

It’s beautifully written and, as El-Motar said, “unbearably beautiful.”

I love stories about the power of stories, and I think story is somehow inherently linked to the idea of freedom, and how we write the stories of ourselves, and how we reclaim that space and power when we have let others write that story, and why and how that matters.