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by Amanda Williams  When the average person thinks of fantasy, they may think of a princess’ tale, a dashing knight, mythical creatures such as dragons, or a brave wizard. While these are iconic fantasy elements, people often overlook the richness of West African-inspired fantasy. Birth of a Dynasty is the first book of an enchanting fantasy series by Chinaza Bado. The story is set in Ahkebulin, a continent that is ruled by a tyrannical dynasty called Zenzele. The novel follows M’Kuru Mukundi and Zikora Nnamani, two young protagonists who are motivated by revenge and prophecy. Our protagonists come from two noble houses that are prophesied to cause the fall of Zenzele if they unite. This prophecy causes Nnami’s house to be closely surveilled and Mukundi’s to be nearly wiped out. The entire story centers on themes of revenge, destiny vs. free will, and political betrayal. Throughout this enthralling novel, Bado draws on elements of West African mythology, specifically Yoruba traditions, where ancestry and spiritual power intertwine. Bloodlines can carry destiny, protection, or damnation. The prophecy involving Zikora is portrayed as being cosmical and inescapable. This reflects Yoruba beliefs where deities called Orisha embody morals and determine human fate. While West African mythology is incredibly diverse, something that appears within most myths is giants. Bado was also inspired by Egugun spirits, who take the form of giants, and Biriir ina Barqo, a legendary giant from ancient Somalia. Mukundi and Nnamani’s journeys taught me how power is often built on fear and that even though your ancestry shapes you, it doesn’t define you. Birth of a Dynasty urges readers to think about the nature of authority and how much control we have over our fates. For those who have enjoyed this novel like me and want more from the world of Ahkebulin, The Call of Crowns, book two of the Birth of a Dynasty series, is now available for pre-order and is set to release on November 24. Fun Facts about Chinaza Bado
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by Abigail Sarmiento  In Candide everything in the book is exaggerated, dramatic, and just ridiculous, but that’s the whole point. Voltaire essentially takes the idea that “everything happens for a reason” and bends it until it breaks.
The story follows a man named Candide, who starts off painfully optimistic, the kind of optimistic that honestly gets on the reader’s nerves or at least on mine. He’s taught that this is “the best of all possible worlds,” and then life proceeds to absolutely wreck him over and over again. War, disasters, betrayal, greed, and it just keeps piling on. The suffering becomes so constant and over the top that it almost feels numb, which I think is exactly what Voltaire wanted. It’s satire, but it doesn’t feel light or playful but instead it feels sharp and tired and frustrated with the world. What stuck with me most is how the book questions blind optimism. Candide keeps trying to believe that everything is fine, that there’s some grand plan, that suffering must mean something meanwhile the world is just cruel and unfair without explanation. It feels like watching someone try to romanticize their pain because accepting randomness is scarier. That hit harder than I expected. There’s something painful about seeing these just happening and not have any meaning behind it. The characters drift in and out of the story in strange ways, giving a sense that nothing is permanent. People disappear then sometimes reappear, relationships don’t feel stable, and happiness never lasts it essentially creates this restless feeling. I wouldn’t say the characters are deeply developed, but they don’t need to be, they’re more like symbols of different mindsets and flaws. Everyone represents some extreme: greed, blind faith, pessimism, vanity.It makes the world feel theatrical, like a stage meant to expose ideas rather than tell a soft, emotional story. But what I appreciated most is the ending. After all the chaos and philosophical spirals, the message becomes surprisingly simple: just tend your own garden. Stop trying to explain the entire universe. Stop believing suffering is secretly beautiful. Just do the work in front of you and build small, real peace. There’s something quietly comforting about that. It’s not dramatic hope. It’s practical survival. Reading Candide feels like spiraling existential dread mixed with dry humor and moments where you just blink at the page. It’s weirdly modern for something written so long ago. If you like stories that question everything, poke at blind positivity, and use absurdity to expose truth, it’s worth reading. It doesn’t try to comfort you instead it tries to wake you up. It’s messy, cynical, dramatic, and strangely grounding all at once. By Jonathan Sherman  Most mediocre books on philosophy are concerned with making men. The truly great books are concerned with making men into leaders, pillars of morality, and guidance for their community. The Way of Kings was created by Brandon Sanderson and is a story about one of these books, and an exploration of what a code of morals can do for a man who is lost. That is just one of three main perspectives in the book and one of the many reasons it is worth reading despite its incredible length. The other two perspectives are of two teenagers trying to find their place in the world and experiencing rather extraordinary suffering along the way. Both teenagers, by the end of the book, are transformed by their experiences and end up in places they thought were totally out of their reach, each one showing extraordinary determination and grit along the way. These three perspectives are all vehicles to showcase the book's various strengths. The first of which is the world-building, which, as always for Sanderson, is quite outstanding and extremely immersive despite its rather unfamiliar eastern-based setting for the fantasy genre. The second strength the book has is its fundamental understanding of cause and effect. Each action in this world has its consequence, and each of those consequences will branch in ways you cannot imagine. It is utterly beautiful and goes to show Sanderson’s attention to detail and the Herculean amount of effort put into this book. This book to me is a reminder to hope and persevere, that despite whatever may be going on in your life, you can always enact change on it, you can always improve, and even if you lose everything along the way, you might just find something new. Brandon Sanderson facts and life:
By Nadine Olmande-Mentor  Paradise is more than just a sci-fi thriller- it’s a deeply realistic human story about loss, survival, and expectations. The Hulu original series was created by Dan Fogelman and premiered on the streaming service on January 26th, 2025. It instantly captivated viewers, such as me, with its complex characters and detailed plot.
It follows Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) as he investigates the murder of President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), which is the first murder in their dystopian underground bunker city. Though the show is full of suspense and muster, Paradise also excels in its emotional depth. The people of this city aren’t just surviving a world-ending catastrophe- they’re also battling their inner demons, something that we all can relate to. WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD! To me, one of the most powerful moments throughout the show is a flashback between Cal and his father. Cal’s father berates him throughout this flashback. Cal is told that he’s a disgrace and never worked for anything in his life. I’m deeply connected with this scene and Cal. I feel connected to Cal because I know what he’s going through. Feeling the weight of everybody’s expectations of you while trying to prove yourself leaves you feeling overwhelmed. The feeling of never being enough makes you feel lost and self-doubt. His feelings of loneliness and self-doubt makes him incredibly relatable. Then there's Xavier. Xavier is simply a desperate man trying to keep his family together. During the world-ending events that we see through the flashbacks, his wife, Dr. Teri Rogers-Collins (Enuka Okuma), is presumed dead, leaving Xavier to raise their children alone. As someone raised by a single parent, I can deeply connect to his children’s struggles. Watching your parent bear all the stress of raising you and your sibling alone without help. Also, I constantly feel like a burden and do not want to add more to their full plate as they are constantly working, never having time to themselves, and having to provide for you and your sibling. Xavier’s pain and determination throughout the season make him one of the most compelling characters on TV. Paradise is widely loved by its watchers because it reflects real-life struggles that we all go through at one point in our lives- love, ambition, grief, and failure. I genuinely believe it’s the show of the year and should be watched. With Season 2 already in the works, I can’t wait to see what’s next in Agent Collins' life. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should. It’s not just a TV show- it’s a masterpiece and an incredible experience that I know will stay with you forever. By: Jabari Young  Sold by Patricia McCormick is a story about a young girl named Lakshmi being sold off by her stepfather into human trafficking and her experiences day to day as she learns to navigate through her new circumstances and her new life. In many ways however this isn’t just the story of 13 year old Lakshmi but of many very real women in Nepal, India and around the world. Women that have been lied to, that have had their autonomy violated and for many the last thing they’ll know in this life. The story begins with Lakshmi helping her mother patch their thatched roof dreaming of one day having one made of tin, a recurring symbol in this story, and doing numerous chores around the house. Lakshmi walks us directly through the symbol of the tin roof explaining that it is a symbol of security and financial stability something that comes into play later as she continues to reference this tin roof as her own safety and security is violated. She also lets us know that they would likely have one had her stepfather not been a gambler and an addict. Miss McCormick endears us to the story by having it narrated in first person, allowing us to view the story from the perspective of Lakshmi either feeling like she is telling the story directly to us or for some maybe even putting themselves in her shoes if they relate to her story at all. This makes it all the moreheartbreaking when you realize the ‘chapters’ of the story are basically journal entries as this is her life. This journal entry style can lead at times to feeling like you’re learning information unrelated to the story or can make the writing feel repetitive or simple but it makes sense as you realize these are being written by a thirteen year old. This medium through Lakshmi is used masterfully as MissMcCormick shows us that you don’t have have to use brutal or vulgar words to depict a truly horrific reality. As we learn more about her story the terror is shared not through vulgarity but through her confusion, desperation and eventual acceptance of her circumstances; the sheer hopelessness she feels while still somehow holding on to her thoughts of her family and of freedom. We see Lakshmi go through, trafficking, getting drugged, raped and abused all in the span of a year making and losing friends along the way but staying true to the fact that she wanted this book to be readable and digestible by a younger audience showing a level of tact but understanding of someone who has sat with the people living this reality. Patricia McCormick didn’t originally plan to write this book but was originally just supposed to be writing an article about this exact topic but upon meeting the victims hearing their stories and even interviewing some perpetrators she realizes this is worth more than just an article. Through spending time with the individuals was actually what made Miss McCormick decide to write the book from the perspective she did, allowing us to feel like we were having the conversation with you as they share their story. Learning that her book was one of the most banned books in the US was heartbreaking to her as she hoped for her book would not only be an eye opener to the world about the realities of this modern day atrocity but that t would empower young kids in similar situations to speak up about their abuse and hopefully get the help they need. She doesn’t simply dismiss the concerns of those who take issue with the book and looks into their reasoning and while she thinks it’s a very valid to not want to expose your own children to such topics you have no right to deny other children of what could be a life changing experience for them, and I am inclined to agree. You may reserve the right to discern what your own child reads and learns from you cannot decide for all kids; this blocks kids from learning about the very real dangers of the world but also let’s anyone going through or may have gone through these incidents that they are heard. In banning books like these we reinforce the idea that these topics are not to be spoken about and are shameful, potentially isolating these individuals and slowing down the healing process.  What does it mean to live? This is the central question driving the heart and themes of Interview With The Vampire. A sensual story draped in beauty and angst in a way only the 70s could have pulled off. If you ever find yourself questioning the human experience or just want to feel relatively normal by comparison, take a quick look into this particular kaleidoscope, and you might just find a way out of your rabbit hole. A quick summary of the beginning for those that are interested: a human being (Louis) finds himself staring down the barrel of grief and depression as a tragic event takes over his life. Louis is eventually given an opportunity by a mysterious benefactor (Lestat) to become a vampire like him and escape his narrow existence. Quite obviously, he agrees, and his eyes are opened to a whole new layer of beauty and appreciation for life to the point where he completely forgets his pain. But the way he describes it all, you can feel a sense of something missing now that he has changed, and it might not necessarily be all just thrills. Once you read, you can decide if his transformation is an enlightenment or just another form of addiction. This book is a challenge to those who numb themselves to hedonism, nihilism, or addiction when faced with the greater pains of life. So what does it mean to live?  Anne Rice is the author of Interview With The Vampire, which is a part of The Vampire Chronicles series. Fun facts
 Have you ever heard a story from a family member and recognized the meaning behind some of their previous actions? Maybe they spoke in a funny way growing up that at the time was quite difficult to understand, but as time passed, the wisdom they imparted might settle into your mind, which affects the way you live and in turn affects the lives of those around you. If you really think about it, every part of your life is connected to something or someone you do not know, and every action you take leads to a future you, which will also affect many stories yet to come. If you like stories that explore that idea of interconnectedness, you might be interested in the magical world of Cien Anos de Soledad , or in English One Hundred Years of Solitude. One Hundred Years is the story of the Buendía family trying their hardest to lead the town of Macondo into a place that they can be safe from the problems of civilization (this may or may not come with quite a few supernatural problems). Over time, the story of Macondo and the Buendía family becomes almost mythical and beautifully unreal, with everything from prophecies to a plague that leads to people forgetting how to read. It is a grand magical tale of epic proportions, a long family line impacted by the choices of every person that came before, and since all these little choices have an impact, every detail comes to fruition in a wholly unique way. The story is told the way your mother, grandmother, or maybe your teacher would tell you fairytales as a child. Maybe everything isn’t exactly accurate, but you can feel the magic of those old stories just reading about the Buendía family. If you ever feel you’re missing the magic of old Disney movies or you like being swept up in a grand epic akin to Game of Thrones, then I guarantee, One Hundred Years of Solitude will absolutely floor you.
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