Jepp, Who Defied the Stars

First of all, that title. Don't you want to read it for that? And if not that, then the design, because what a lovely cover! And the end-pages, and the blue text...it may all be artifice, but it is charming artifice.

I've been reading a lot of this book out loud to myself. It slows me down, and there are just some people whose words you want to say out loud. Katherine Marsh is one of those people. I've mentioned before the language of Mervyn Peake in his Gormenghast trilogy - the way he lavishes words on his readers; I don't think Marsh is quite up to Peake's standards, but she doesn't shy away from the vocab. Especially given that this is, ostensibly, a young adult novel (I can see some teen readers struggling with the language, as well as the shifts in time and tense).

At this point, I'm about a third of the way in. Beyond the language, I'm finding the story pretty engaging, although I don't know (at this point) if it would make my year-end top 10 (that's a thing I should do, right?). If it gets really good over the next 200+ pages, I'll be back with more information. Otherwise, next up is probably going to be Lovely, Dark and Deep by Amy McNamara (yes, I'm incredibly bothered by the lack of an Oxford comma there).