Dora and Thistle are siblings by choice and circumstance, trapped in a viciously cruel fairyland where immortal creatures torture stolen children for sport. The Memory TheaterĪ slender, extraordinary jewel of a book, like a scrimshawed murder ballad tucked into a timepiece. But when those stories wither in the misery of Nauru’s Regional Processing Center, the ghost of a drowned girl becomes Firuzeh’s closest companion, for better or for worse. Firuzeh and Nour are siblings fleeing Afghanistan for Australia, enduring the hazards of crossing borders and oceans with only their parents’ love and folk tales to protect them. On Fragile WavesĪ tremendous and devastating work of witness, stunning and perfect. Spanning the geographies of Canada, Britain and New Zealand and the cosmologies of fairies, demons and angels, the novel more than lives up to its name. What begins as domestic realism, exploring Taryn Cornick’s grief at the sudden, violent loss of her sister, spirals into thriller territory before tumbling into epic fantasy. There’s so much vast, sprawling, protean wonder between its covers that “The Absolute Book” could be a fantasy object in and of itself. They’re organized only by the order in which I read them.

In the gray fog of an uncertain year, these books stand out in bright colors and floods of intense feeling.

Slenderman the arrival key