The Sapling Cage

The Sapling Cage, by Margaret Killjoy

This book is so incredibly cute! How does one make anarchist chaos, complete with witchy violence, gruesome murder, and vivid monsters, cute? I don't exactly know, but Killjoy does it. Even the mentor figure who turns out to be a serial killer/aspiring dictator doesn't mar the fundamental cuteness of this story.

I'm not usually a YA reader, since I'm old and crotchety and get impatient with The Youth and Their Feelings, but I made an exception for this when I saw it was nominated for the Ursula K. LeGuin Prize for Fiction, and I'm glad I did. Somehow Killjoy has written a teen-romance/coming-of-age story that reads clearly and cleanly, and set it in the middle of a world with wholely unfamiliar social norms and genuinely anarchist politics. It's so well-done that I think most readers won't even notice what a feat this is, but I'm impressed. Will definitely read the sequels!