(Especially since I’m currently listening to an audiobook of Compass Rose, in which the main character is completely driven by her libido.) Likewise, it avoided another common YA trope in that Ellie’s parents are neither dead nor deadbeat. Ellie is asexual, so there actually isn’t any romance in the story which was a refreshing change of pace. Unlike many YA novels, there aren’t any love triangles or other obnoxious romance-related tropes here. It never gripped me very strongly, but I enjoyed it when I picked it up and I liked the characters. Both the reader and Ellie are told near the beginning who the murderer was, so the mystery is more about the details of how and why it happened. The plot is more or less a murder mystery. Before the story began, after Ellie’s dog died, she summoned his spirit from the dead. Summoning humans is to be avoided at all costs because they come back angry and vengeful. Ellie has the ability to summon spirits from the dead. Many people have special abilities which appear to be tied to bloodline. It’s set in an alternate version of our modern world where magic is real and everybody is aware of it. Most of the story is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old girl named Ellie, short for Elatsoe. … ( more)Įlatsoe is a young adult fantasy novel. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.Darcie Little Badger is an extraordinary debut talent in the world of speculative fiction. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered, in a town that wants no prying eyes.

She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day.Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. Some of these forces are charmingly every day, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. This America has been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. It's got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream.There are some differences.

Imagine an America very similar to our own.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger