Gooseberry Bluff Community College Of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
A very nice, quite intricate adventure tale involving a world where magic works, order is for the bad guys, and our putative heroes are working on the side of chaos and disorder.Mr. Schwartz does a nice job of creating a main character who feels very relatable, despite the fact that she has a disability that seems so very odd to me. She is face blind. That is, she looks at a face and has no idea who it is, even when she's looking in the mirror. She partly makes up for this disability by reading auras, but it's still a dangerous situation for a law-enforcement officer to place herself in. Especially when you consider that the job she's taking is one that involves sacrifice to demonic powers.An interesting look at how magic works, the nature of parallel realities and some very good character work. I'll definitely be on the lookout for more. while the story itself is entertaining, & i look forward to more of it, i think the real merit to this book was the amount of diversity in its characters. rarely do you get to read a book where so many different types of people are explicitly represented, and that was a real delight for someone who doesn't get to see themself in books very often. many of the characters are people of color, whose races are stated in the text, and many of them are also LGBT+ , also explicitly said & not vaguely hinted at, including a lovely genderqueer character, not something i have seen in a novel before. now, the book itself (& not just the characters) is very good too. i think that the multi-dimensional aspect of it leans more towards science fiction than i would've liked in a novel about a magic community college, but the system of magic is very interesting, and the way that magic having been around is integrated into our society is well done and great to see. it reminds me a bit of jonathan strange & mr. norell in that it talks about our history & magic, with instead of magic being thought of as something superstitious it's thought of as a fact of life, or at least a fact at life for some of the population. i would definitely recommend this book to many people- anyone who is a fan of n.k. jemisin, anyone who likes modern fantasy, and definitely anyone who has been to community college. the story may not be my perfect kind of story, but it's brought me enough happiness seeing myself & people who do not usually get to see themselves in stories represented, that i would give it more than five stars if i could.
What do You think about Gooseberry Bluff Community College Of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (2013)?
I liked it but there are a lot of unresolved bits from my point of view.
—shellymich0221
I enjoyed this story, looking forward to reading the next book.
—Tboy
This is an ongoing serial through Kindle. Fun so far!
—haleyho14
Saw on Amazon Kindle Deals list - sounded interesting
—puellarosae
