Review copy provided by the publisher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am worried about this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s a romp through Mesopotamian mythology, transported into the present day in a story about a Sikander, an Iraqi-American kid who works at his parents’ New York deli. Gilgamesh makes cookies, there are some truly excellent cats and demons and fashionistas–generally it’s a really fun middle grade fantasy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am concerned that people might not find that out for themselves, because of the title and the year in which it’s coming out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I can’t even say, oh no, that’s just a marketing convention…because actually it’s not, it definitely is a book about a plague god ravaging New York, all sorts of people get horrifically ill in this book, including the protagonist’s parents. There is a section where the protag can’t visit his unconscious parents in their hospital rooms but can only observe them through the windows, and…yep, that’s a very real thing right now. If you’re not up for dealing with that in your fun kids’ fantasy, you’re going to want to steer clear of this quite well-done book, because that’s the book it is. With writing and publishing being what they are, I expect it was written before any of this, and yet…well. You can see why I’d be concerned. It’s sort of an “enjoy at your peril” situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Review copy provided by the publisher. I am worried about this book. It’s a romp through Mesopotamian mythology, transported into the present day in a story about a Sikander, an Iraqi-American kid who works at his parents’ New York deli. Gilgamesh makes cookies, there are some truly excellent cats and demons and fashionistas–generally it’s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-2959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bookses-precious"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2960,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions\/2960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}