“Green” by Jay Lake. This was a Christmas 2014 gift, so it’s been sitting around waiting to be read for a while. I was looking for something to be mournful about and Jay Lake is dead, so I picked it up because he won’t be writing anything else (though I think there’s a sequel… or something else set in the same world). His short story roots showed, I thought, but in a good way. He didn’t drag a section out the way some books seem to. I found the writing nicely efficient. I also liked the variety of characters and relationships.
“The Essense of Budo” by Dave Lowry. Another karate essay book. It’s quite accessible, and didn’t make me feel bad about my karate at all!
“Codex” by Lev Grossman. The main character Edward is quite a bit like Eliot in The Magicians. Everything tied up really neatly at the end.
“Westmark” by Lloyd Alexander. I read the Chronicles of Prydain maybe 12 times as a child, and at least twice as an adult, so I was appalled to find out there are other LA books that I didn’t know about. I wasn’t too surprised by the resolution, but the characters were fun.