Reading Wednesday

Currently reading: The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker. This is the sequel to The Golem and the Jinni and it's also fantastic. It picks up where the last book left off, as the characters muddle their way through history, including the sinking of the Titanic, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the suffrage movement, and World War I, and introducing new characters whose lives were upended in the fallout from the first book. It's intricately researched and engrossing and also a massive brick that I'm about halfway through.

One of the things that I find particularly interesting about it is how risky it is compared to the vast majority of fantasy books that I've read lately. It's meandering, it is almost as wide as it is tall, it headhops not just between scenes but within paragraphs, it has about 7 or 8 POV characters, and it crosses multiple genres. It's everything that I've heard makes a book unmarketable, and it's a stronger story for it.