Murder Between the Pages by Josh Lanyon

Murder Between the Pages

3/5. I'm leaning into the thing where I can't focus on anything of significant length, so instead I'm reading a lot of novellas and shorter YA stuff. This is an M/M novella about two best-of-enemies rival mystery writers teaming up to solve a murder at a bookstore in 1948. Insubstantial – there should have been some richness here regarding their mutual war service and the fingerprints it left on both of them, but none of that ever deepens into anything. Still, this is the sort of empty calorie canape my brain wants right now, so okay.

Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill

Iron Hearted Violet

3/5. Warm middle-grade about the funny-looking princess whose parents rule a kingdom in a world under a mirrored sky, except there is something awful lurking in the mirrors, oh and also there's a dragon.

Lovely. I'd give this to most pre-teens, definitely. It does a lot of the expected things with the princess's angst over her lack of beauty, but folds all that in a less usual story about the failings of well-meaning grownups and the bigger failings of gods.