Among Others

Everything I read about Among Others by Jo Walton could be summed up as “if you love books, you LOVE THIS BOOK.” The story is told from the viewpoint of  a teenage girl who is an avid reader, so there is that. She comes from some interesting family circumstances and is attending boarding school. What I really enjoyed about this book are the way the characters use books for conversation (thoroughly believable) and the female relationships characterized at the boarding school (also believable). It’s a fantasy novel of the ‘magical realism’ sort, which is to say that it’s pretty modern with fantastical elements that are important to both the story and the characters. While I did really enjoy the book, I did not love it and that was disappointing. There are so many things about it which mean I SHOULD have loved it but it just didn’t grab me as I’d hoped.