I’m reading The Hollow Place by T Kingfisher, which is very different from other books I’ve read by her, but so far I like it.

I read The Twisted Ones (which I think is connected to The Hollow Place) and it scared me enough that I wouldn't read it at night. So I'm giving the other a pass. But enjoy!

So far I haven't found it particularly scary.

Yeah, The Hollow Place was very different. I know I liked it, I think the world-building (if that's the right word, core concepts maybe?) was interesting. I don't have any familiarity with the works she's riffing on for Hollow Place and Twisted Ones but I did what she does with them.

I finally read the first Sholomance book while traveling this week! I enjoyed it, although it's one book that might be better in hard copy than on Kindle, because my Paperwhite doesn't show the illustrations very well. I should probably google up a schematic of the school.

I do have a question, though: I must have missed the bit where Novik explains why children are so at risk: are the maleficaria just more attracted to kids, or are they just less able to defend themselves? And how is the mundane world not aware of any of this?

There are illustrations? Hm. Kinda want to reread that to be able to discuss it intelligently...and the next book comes out next week so that's a better idea than I first supposed!

Unrelatedly, I am frustrated that I can’t search audiobooks for a character name to remind myself how we originally met this particular character 7 books ago. My theory that binge-listening to the Flavia Albia series would let me keep details from earlier books in mind by the time I got to the most recent is not playing out as well as I hoped. Oh well, slightly more retention of knowledge is worthwhile.

Thanks to my freshman-year Maleficaria Studies textbook, I know that our deliciousness goes up another order of magnitude every six months between thirteen and eighteen, all wrapped up inside a thin and easy-to-break sugar shell instead of the tough chewy hide of a grown wizard.

That may be all the explanation we get

Thanks for the recommendations, Cashmere.

It does have illustrations and they are even labeled in the table of contents. Hard to see while reading on my phone but pretty nice on the Kindle Fire. I’m all excited about book 2 again, whee!