As Alexene Farol Follmuth, she is also the author of the young adult rom-coms My Mechanical Romance and Twelfth Knight. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, goblin prince/toddler, and rescue pit bull.
At Tor.com Blake tagged five books that reckon with the "human question of what a person is willing to sacrifice—and what the compromising of their humanity will cost.... [T]hey each follow the tightening, irresistible maelstrom of the human psyche when it comes to facing which of a person’s principles they are willing to betray." One title on the list:
Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey DyachenkoRead about the other entries on the list.
Vita Nostra proves that being recruited by a strange man to a mysterious, isolated academy for magic doesn’t always go down like butterbeer. This book is a fever dream, actively nauseating with its crescendoing surreality, and to Sasha’s credit, she is less invited to join the Institute of Special Technologies cult (okay sure, “school”) than she is forced. Still, Sasha’s ongoing pursuit of her own inherent value and worthiness of companionship and/or achievement means that despite the complicated academic system and the beautiful, empathetic things the series as a whole has to say about life, it predominantly feels like when you’re studying to set the curve or die trying.
--Marshal Zeringue
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