I love these characters, but this story just didn't do it for me. :/ ( )

Keeping in mind that this is a short book, I’ve tried to read this book really slowly but now that I’ve finished it, I’m already looking forward for the next one by Margaret Killjoy! “The Barrow Will Send What It May” involves more magic and action than its predecessor and it’s even better. ( )

Wow. I'm kicked in the head from out on left field. I got this through Netgalley based only on its cover and a single word in the blurb, but the tasting and devouring of the novella? SOOOO good. :)

What to expect? ANARCHY! Woooh Hooo!

The best description I can make is likening this to the Rowdy crew from that Dirk Gently tv series but they're hunting baddies a-la UF fiction and when they aren't mystery-ing it up like the Scooby Gang, they're making pacts with ancient Egyptian gods to resurrect dead friends.

With huge complications.

And in the meantime, the Scooby gang steals, breaks, and thumbs their noses at evil magical Feds and makes sure their lives are led in the freest way ever. Spice of life. Live like this is your last day. Because, for some of them, it was. Yes, past tense. :)

So rowdy! :) Roadtripping, resurrecting, randomizing, you name it, they're doing it. And it's a pure delight.

I do think I'm going to be keeping my eye out for this author something fierce. :) ( )

I read the first book in the series in a single sitting. This one is only slightly longer, but I had too many things distracting me, and it took longer – I think it would be better read at a quick pace since the the forward movement of the plot keeps the more serious elements recognizably brief, and I tended to ponder on them because of my slower pace. Killjoy has a quick moving narrative and a good voice for the narrator that keeps the reader engaged. I like this a lot.

What's a bit more fluid in the second volume is how she blends in anarchist concepts and the challenges of anarchist organization (or really any kind of social interaction that grants other people their independence) but never in an overtly didactic way. There's skill in this. They're both clearly didactic novels that avoid straying into explicit moralizing. In a sense this is their anarchist praxis (apart from the themes in the plot): the reader is invited to develop an understanding or interpretation rather than be told one. We also see Danielle rethinking her ideas and feelings more frequently in this volume, like having a natural response of anger or looking for an expedient solution, then rethinking her impulses ethically and rationally. That's almost a modelling good behavior for the reader, except I don't have the impression the outcome is fixed or predetermined so much as it's a modelling of good practice.

I'm already waiting for book #3… ( )

Apparently I am getting over my resistance to series, because here I am, reading Danielle Cain book #2 even after I didn't know that The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion was the first book in a series until the end. But I am now in it for the long haul -- as Danielle and her friends are like a queer, punk, post-crash version of Trixie Belden and her pals -- snooping around small Western towns and solving weird mysteries -- only those mysteries turn up necromancers and obscure magical spellbooks. Plus, I mean, an anarchist commune takes over, lives in, and runs a library in a town that just accepts them, because why not? How could any reader not love that?

Plus we get to talk about feelings and crushes and consent and boundaries on the way. I can't wait to see what's next for this bunch. ( )