I adored Andy Weir's debut novel, The Martian. I probably am not alone on that. Of course, I was insanely excited to see what Andy Weir would do with his second novel. Sadly it was the dreaded sophomore slump. Artemis starts incredibly strong. You open up on the moon, in a colony called Artemis. We're introduced to Jazz, a young woman on her own, running a small smuggling operation. We learn that she's been estranged from her dad, dirt poor, and barely getting by.

I wanted to love The Bear and the Nightingale so much. It's a book that was written with my personal sensibilities in mind. It's a fairy tale set in the wilderness of Russia, a small village full of superstition and religion. It's a dichotomy that's lived in the village for generations and one that gets' altered when a new priest comes to join the village.