Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Aerie by Maria Dahvana Headley
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-232055-1 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-232057-5 $9.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9-12
In this sequel to the sharp, unforgettable Magonia (BCCB 5/15), Aza is still adjusting to the fact that she’s not a dying girl but a bird savior who was stuffed into a human body to keep her safe until she can fight in the war that rages in the sky world of Magonia. She’s back on Earth for now, spending the past year in a new human skin, trying to stay out of the Magonian fray and just live. In the meantime, her beloved has been secretly reporting on her in the misguided hope that an agency that keeps drilling him for information is actually doing so to keep her safe, and things in Magonia are getting worse. As in the earlier book, Headley continues to keep Magonian politics and culture pretty shadowy, offering only hints of their layers, a technique that keeps readers, like Aza, piecing things together. The stunner in this novel is the romance between Aza and Jason that evolves from passionate and desperate to utter destruction when Aza learns she has been betrayed, and transforms slowly to something that is broken and imperfect but also intentional and heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Readers who haven’t read the earlier novel will be absolutely baffled, but they’ll happily return here after diving into that splendid start.
