All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

I know straight off this book won't be for everyone, but it certainly was for me. Charlie Jane Anders has created wonderful mix of science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism with a bit of real magic and a dystopian slant. There's also a little romance thrown in, and I've heard that some people, based on the beginning, were thinking it was YA. I liked the characters. I liked their interactions. I liked the conflict that was set up (as a storyline, not as a potential reality.) I admit to being a sucker for books set in San Francisco, and this one, unlike some others, actually got the location right. If I'm not being that eloquent it's because I woke up at 2:30 and didn't get back to sleep last night.

For those that need a plot summary, the story starts with two misfit kids finding each other in middle school. That one understands the language of birds and nature, and the other is tuned to building the perfect AI is yet another mismatch. But events unfold so that they separate, only to meet up again, in San Francisco, on opposite sites of an undeclared war about how to save humanity. Plus, there are witches, robots, two second time travel, and good writing. What more could you wish in a book?

tags: 2016-read, didn-t-want-to-put-it-down, dystopian-ish, fantasy, great-cover, made-me-think, magic, magical-realism, places-i-have-been, read, read-on-recommendation, thank-you-charleston-county-library, thought-provoking, tor, want-to-re-read, will-look-for-more-by-this-author