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Everybody's Perfect
Piranesi meets Swordspoint in an elegant relay race through fantasy Venice from Hugo award-winning author Jo Walton
The Serenissima is built from mist and belief, a mythical shadow sister to Venice and crossroads of the nine worlds.
When a laborer called Tiry has a dream that Serenissima will have a doge, and that they will marry the sea, he tells it to a fortune teller named Khadsha. She tells her apprentice, a gondolier called Taddeo, who tells a cop named Gom, who's heard it from five people this morning already. And by that point, it's already settled into the bones of the Serenissima, more than half-fated.
Everybody's Perfect is a gentle, shifting, structurally inventive narrative of startling beauty that will make you rethink everything you think you know about fantasy.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Serenissima is built from mist and belief, a mythical shadow sister to Venice and crossroads of the nine worlds.
When a laborer called Tiry has a dream that Serenissima will have a doge, and that they will marry the sea, he tells it to a fortune teller named Khadsha. She tells her apprentice, a gondolier called Taddeo, who tells a cop named Gom, who's heard it from five people this morning already. And by that point, it's already settled into the bones of the Serenissima, more than half-fated.
Everybody's Perfect is a gentle, shifting, structurally inventive narrative of startling beauty that will make you rethink everything you think you know about fantasy.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
264 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 30, 2026
About the author
Jo Walton
90 books3,177 followersJo Walton writes science fiction and fantasy novels and reads a lot and eats great food. It worries her slightly that this is so exactly what she always wanted to do when she grew up. She comes from Wales, but lives in Montreal.
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September 5, 2025Most fantasy novels that are about Venice are about Venice at carnival, whereas this is about a Venice that is both more and less real. The Serenissima isn't Venice, it's fantasy Venice, a place of canals palazzi and shifting reality, where nothing stays where you put it and different species from different worlds live together in complex patterns. It's about daily life in an unreal city. I wrote it to get myself unstuck after a long pandemic burnout, and it seems to have worked. It has multiple first person points of view, which is always fun for me to write, and the novel works like a relay race, handing off POV from one to the next as it moves.
I think it's pretty good. It's a bit weird, but all my books are a bit weird really. I had fun writing it. I hope you have fun reading it.
I think it's pretty good. It's a bit weird, but all my books are a bit weird really. I had fun writing it. I hope you have fun reading it.
September 13, 2026
Jo Walton is such a phenomenal author, and I feel like she doesn't get enough recognition. In writer circles, she's an absolute icon, but I feel like she deserves more recognition for the strange and amazing stories that she tells. Each one is so unique, each one is so meticulously crafted!
Want to Read
September 10, 2025Normally not a fan of cozy fantasy, but anything Jo Walton writes will be interesting.
July 1, 2026
7/18/26: This review (and many others) plus essays and booklists are now available on my blog!
In the wondrous city of Serenissima, a strange shadow of Venice, time evades understanding and many species live in not-so-perfect harmony. A laborer’s dream unmasks a prophesy that promises to change a world that seems to defy change.
Hm, okay, how do I feel. Well, first of all, I’m absolutely obsessed with the premise of this world building. Serenissima is another world (or seemingly a nexus between many worlds) with a gate to Venice on Earth, though its existence is kept secret. Beings from many worlds all live in Serenissima, and on the occasion that they visit Venice their alien features are mistakes for Carnevale/Commedia Dell’Arte costumes. That last bit is so cool to me and I just love the concept but the rest of the book…I can take it or leave it.
The book is split into nine chapters, each with a different character POV. Usually I love multiple POVs and an ensemble cast, but the satisfaction comes from the ways that the POVs meaningfully interweave to create this more complex story. In this book we don’t really get that. I guess the POVs overlap, but there isn’t the sense that one is building on the other. It really drags the plot down as well because each POV involves a very lengthy explanation of the character’s backstory and info dumping about their species. By the time they’re done, I’ve lost the main plot line. I also think there’s very little distinction between each of the character’s narrative voices. They all kind of sound the same, and considering they’re entirely different species that really doesn’t make sense.
The plot is ultimately kind of anticlimactic. We’re told that this is a paradigm shift, but the dreamlike nature of Serenissima really deprives it of any stakes. It’s sad to see such a unique and magical world kind of fall flat, but the author would have had to go in a completely different direction for it to have worked.
This is definitely the book for someone, but I have some trouble recommending it. Never hurts to give it a shot, but if you aren’t into it pretty quick I don’t think you should try to stick it out.
Thank you to Jo Walton and Tor Books for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!
Happy reading!
In the wondrous city of Serenissima, a strange shadow of Venice, time evades understanding and many species live in not-so-perfect harmony. A laborer’s dream unmasks a prophesy that promises to change a world that seems to defy change.
Hm, okay, how do I feel. Well, first of all, I’m absolutely obsessed with the premise of this world building. Serenissima is another world (or seemingly a nexus between many worlds) with a gate to Venice on Earth, though its existence is kept secret. Beings from many worlds all live in Serenissima, and on the occasion that they visit Venice their alien features are mistakes for Carnevale/Commedia Dell’Arte costumes. That last bit is so cool to me and I just love the concept but the rest of the book…I can take it or leave it.
The book is split into nine chapters, each with a different character POV. Usually I love multiple POVs and an ensemble cast, but the satisfaction comes from the ways that the POVs meaningfully interweave to create this more complex story. In this book we don’t really get that. I guess the POVs overlap, but there isn’t the sense that one is building on the other. It really drags the plot down as well because each POV involves a very lengthy explanation of the character’s backstory and info dumping about their species. By the time they’re done, I’ve lost the main plot line. I also think there’s very little distinction between each of the character’s narrative voices. They all kind of sound the same, and considering they’re entirely different species that really doesn’t make sense.
The plot is ultimately kind of anticlimactic. We’re told that this is a paradigm shift, but the dreamlike nature of Serenissima really deprives it of any stakes. It’s sad to see such a unique and magical world kind of fall flat, but the author would have had to go in a completely different direction for it to have worked.
This is definitely the book for someone, but I have some trouble recommending it. Never hurts to give it a shot, but if you aren’t into it pretty quick I don’t think you should try to stick it out.
Thank you to Jo Walton and Tor Books for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!
Happy reading!
July 27, 2026
Venice has always seemed to be an ethereal city - the canals are the roads, the Doge marries the sea in a ceremony, and the people wear elaborate masks during Carnival.
Jo Walton imagines an alternate Venice that exists on another plane, created by people from various worlds, including Earth's real Venice. The 'people' are humanoid but have unusual heads - cats, dogs, birds, grotesqueries - just like the masks of Carnival.
The story runs only during a few days in the alternate Venice, but it's a critical period for the city where a cure for a plague is sought, and the ceremony of the Doge marrying the sea is remembered. At the beginning of the story, this Venice doesn't have a Doge, although everyone is well aware of the concept.
There are seven worlds that connect through this alternate Venice, and while spaceflight doesn't exist, people can travel via this connection. There are also other alternate planes where a magus can journey and take others with him or her.
The story is recounted from the viewpoints of multiple characters. The same scene is often recounted from another POV, in the style of Rashomon. So the reader stitches together the total story from the various viewpoints. It all comes together in the end with the viewpoint of a creature or civilization that hasn't manifested itself before.
This would probably be called a comfort read, as Walton is laying out a concept of an alternate Venice that is intriguing and can be manipulated by anyone living there. Nothing really bad happens, but people's relationships change and the city seems to be better off in the end.
Jo Walton imagines an alternate Venice that exists on another plane, created by people from various worlds, including Earth's real Venice. The 'people' are humanoid but have unusual heads - cats, dogs, birds, grotesqueries - just like the masks of Carnival.
The story runs only during a few days in the alternate Venice, but it's a critical period for the city where a cure for a plague is sought, and the ceremony of the Doge marrying the sea is remembered. At the beginning of the story, this Venice doesn't have a Doge, although everyone is well aware of the concept.
There are seven worlds that connect through this alternate Venice, and while spaceflight doesn't exist, people can travel via this connection. There are also other alternate planes where a magus can journey and take others with him or her.
The story is recounted from the viewpoints of multiple characters. The same scene is often recounted from another POV, in the style of Rashomon. So the reader stitches together the total story from the various viewpoints. It all comes together in the end with the viewpoint of a creature or civilization that hasn't manifested itself before.
This would probably be called a comfort read, as Walton is laying out a concept of an alternate Venice that is intriguing and can be manipulated by anyone living there. Nothing really bad happens, but people's relationships change and the city seems to be better off in the end.
August 1, 2026
Several of the other reviews have referred to this as "cosy fantasy". I can see why they said that, but note that Serenissima is a place where people with a disease are disposed of by throwing them into the sea to drown, and where warfare between the worlds has occurred in the past. Cosy it is not. However all the characters in this story are rational, level headed and .. well ... nice, and that does make it a cosy story.
Speaking of stories, there isn't one. Nothing much happens in this book - it is all world and character building. But what a wonderful world and what wonderful characters Walton has built. She has taken the Carnival of Venice as a framework to build her world of Serenissima and the result is a wonderfully rich and imaginative world. In a way the lack of plot is a good thing as it's hard to imagine a plot that would live up to such a wonderful setting. I have seen the book compared to Susanna Clarke's book Piranesi and I think that's a good comparison as in both books the world building is the main point of the book and the plot plays only a supporting role.
This is one of those books where you are not sure at first what is going on. It is written as a series of sections from the perspective of different characters, and it's only at the end where it's revealed why the book is written like this and what exactly you are reading. I love this style of writing, but it isn't for everyone so if it's not for you then consider yourself warned.
For me this was a captivating book, and it was an easy five star rating, but I can see it being polarising. If you want an action story then this is not for you. It is a gentle and lyrical journey through a beautifully imagined world and the key to enjoying it is to relax and enjoy the scenery as you glide through the book.
Speaking of stories, there isn't one. Nothing much happens in this book - it is all world and character building. But what a wonderful world and what wonderful characters Walton has built. She has taken the Carnival of Venice as a framework to build her world of Serenissima and the result is a wonderfully rich and imaginative world. In a way the lack of plot is a good thing as it's hard to imagine a plot that would live up to such a wonderful setting. I have seen the book compared to Susanna Clarke's book Piranesi and I think that's a good comparison as in both books the world building is the main point of the book and the plot plays only a supporting role.
This is one of those books where you are not sure at first what is going on. It is written as a series of sections from the perspective of different characters, and it's only at the end where it's revealed why the book is written like this and what exactly you are reading. I love this style of writing, but it isn't for everyone so if it's not for you then consider yourself warned.
For me this was a captivating book, and it was an easy five star rating, but I can see it being polarising. If you want an action story then this is not for you. It is a gentle and lyrical journey through a beautifully imagined world and the key to enjoying it is to relax and enjoy the scenery as you glide through the book.
September 19, 2026
The Serenissima is a shadow world, a multi-verse iteration of Venice, and a crossroad of many worlds hosting many species. It's a door into time itself, and travelers come and go poking into and out of their own realities. In the Serenissima, dreams can become a reality, and in the thread of the narrative, a laborer named Tiry who is stricken with a Ferlenghetti's Blight has dreamed that a doge will marry the sea, which is a dream that becomes rooted in the nature of the Serenissima itself. Another fortune teller sees the truth in the dream, and another truth in the eventual cure of the Blight. And in their Blight support group, different species are all just trying to survive.
Everybody's Perfect is a swirling and contemplative slice of life narrative with enough threads of plots connecting the characters to keep it moving. Jo Walton implements clever worldbuilding through the structure of the novel which mirrors the way the characters seems to interact. Each character feels unique, and I found it fascinating to be in each of their heads. She plays with gender and sexuality, divorcing them entirely from the body in some species and keeping them more familiar in other species. (Were you born at night? You use one set of pronouns. Those born during the day use others.) Most of the POV characters are stricken with Blight, and all grapple with the disease in a different way.
I put off reading this until the audiobook was available (released several weeks after print publication), because Walton's books tend to work best for me on audio. This is probably a good tandem or immersive read for many readers, as Walton is inventing a lot of places, names, and species, with a distinctly Venetian flavor. I ended up really loving it, though, and recommend for anyone interested in beautiful prose that will make you think.
Thank you to Tor for an eARC. Everybody's Perfect is out now.
Everybody's Perfect is a swirling and contemplative slice of life narrative with enough threads of plots connecting the characters to keep it moving. Jo Walton implements clever worldbuilding through the structure of the novel which mirrors the way the characters seems to interact. Each character feels unique, and I found it fascinating to be in each of their heads. She plays with gender and sexuality, divorcing them entirely from the body in some species and keeping them more familiar in other species. (Were you born at night? You use one set of pronouns. Those born during the day use others.) Most of the POV characters are stricken with Blight, and all grapple with the disease in a different way.
I put off reading this until the audiobook was available (released several weeks after print publication), because Walton's books tend to work best for me on audio. This is probably a good tandem or immersive read for many readers, as Walton is inventing a lot of places, names, and species, with a distinctly Venetian flavor. I ended up really loving it, though, and recommend for anyone interested in beautiful prose that will make you think.
Thank you to Tor for an eARC. Everybody's Perfect is out now.
August 18, 2026
Really beautiful writing in a dreamlike liminal Venice between worlds, reminiscent of Piranesi or Gormenghast, but more hopeful. The different types of people inspired by Venetian Carnavale masks (dog/bird/cat-headed or crowned with flowers that grow out of their faces) reminded me of the West Passage. Lovely reflections on disability, religion, fate, free will, and love. My favorite new thing Walton has written since the Just City series and Among Others.
R/fantasy book bingo 2026 square: vacation spot, generic hard mode card.
R/fantasy book bingo 2026 square: vacation spot, generic hard mode card.
July 13, 2026
This book was a cozy read about a fantastical Venice, where various alien species live. It's kind of a commerce hub but also dreamlike and mysterious. It is also about plagues and sexually transmitted diseases. Each chapter is the point of view of a different character, which makes it interesting. I also recently saw an exhibit of Monet in Venice when I was reading this, and it added a dimension to it.
April 14, 2026
I won this ARC before it came out. I mainly entered because of the cover and the hook that it had to do with Venice. You can put two and two together and deduce that somehow it has to do with Carnival in Venice, and yet it doesn’t. Had I just read the blurb on the back of this book I would not of picked it up and bought it.
The best I can do to describe it is that it’s a meandering story about an other world overlay of Venice where there are other species/races that are based off of popular carnival masks and how a dream ends up weaving the lives of one person from all of the races together over the span of a few days (for the most part).
I didn’t have any idea on where this was going for the majority of the book, but the little things that were dropped as we moved along had me interested in how these different races existed in their homelands and in this over lay Venice. I wouldn’t mind reading more books focusing specifically on each of the races. I got enough of the homelands to understand them and wanting to know even more about them.
If you are okay with meandering stories with no clear path on where you will end up and enjoy other worldly fantasy world building, give this book a try. If you need a line to follow with the story, I doubt this will be a book you will enjoy.
The best I can do to describe it is that it’s a meandering story about an other world overlay of Venice where there are other species/races that are based off of popular carnival masks and how a dream ends up weaving the lives of one person from all of the races together over the span of a few days (for the most part).
I didn’t have any idea on where this was going for the majority of the book, but the little things that were dropped as we moved along had me interested in how these different races existed in their homelands and in this over lay Venice. I wouldn’t mind reading more books focusing specifically on each of the races. I got enough of the homelands to understand them and wanting to know even more about them.
If you are okay with meandering stories with no clear path on where you will end up and enjoy other worldly fantasy world building, give this book a try. If you need a line to follow with the story, I doubt this will be a book you will enjoy.
July 25, 2026
Jo Walton all the stars
It is impossible to overstate how delicious is (are?) the variety, beauty, imagination, set with riches of character, setting, and intellect / fact, across Jo Walton's works. Often I started one thinking, well, I don't like the premise but it's Jo Walton. And each time I finish one, I think well, there'll never be another book this good. Wrong! And her works move between genres or sub genres and stay so very good. It shouldn't be allowed.
This one felt to me like what she confirmed it to be in the afterword. I too love and ponder on Venice. I wanted to go so badly during "the plague," when it would be quiet, and see the dolphins in the canai, but I knew the thing that would bring me such joy was one of the things that pollute the canai so terribly - tourism.
I was enchanted with the possibilities Jo found hidden away in Venice, an open secret. I loved the format and how each character would be seen as shockingly, unbearably different in this life, but was sympathetic and worthy of care and connected to all the other characters in their own story.
Did it grip me like other fiction? No. Did it touch my soul and make me think? More so than ever. I am so sorry it was such a short read.
It is impossible to overstate how delicious is (are?) the variety, beauty, imagination, set with riches of character, setting, and intellect / fact, across Jo Walton's works. Often I started one thinking, well, I don't like the premise but it's Jo Walton. And each time I finish one, I think well, there'll never be another book this good. Wrong! And her works move between genres or sub genres and stay so very good. It shouldn't be allowed.
This one felt to me like what she confirmed it to be in the afterword. I too love and ponder on Venice. I wanted to go so badly during "the plague," when it would be quiet, and see the dolphins in the canai, but I knew the thing that would bring me such joy was one of the things that pollute the canai so terribly - tourism.
I was enchanted with the possibilities Jo found hidden away in Venice, an open secret. I loved the format and how each character would be seen as shockingly, unbearably different in this life, but was sympathetic and worthy of care and connected to all the other characters in their own story.
Did it grip me like other fiction? No. Did it touch my soul and make me think? More so than ever. I am so sorry it was such a short read.
June 13, 2026
This is a book that’s trying to do something quite different, with a fair degree of success. It takes place in a dreamlike, magical version of Venice that connects Venice to several other worlds featuring other sentient creatures with humanoid bodies but different heads, cultures, religions, etc.
There are eight chapters of around 30 pages each, all written in first-person from the perspective of eight different characters from eight different races. There are flashbacks to life on their birth worlds, but the present-day segments generally take place in the span of a couple days. In the first two or three chapters, it’s disorienting and feels like infodumping. But as the story finds its footing, we see new POVs that had appeared as side characters in other chapters, and the whole thing begins to feel more cohesive.
There is something of a plot, but it’s a dreamlike one—this is far from plot-driven. There’s also a lot of musing on culture and religion, and there’s a pervasive STI that leaves people stranded in the only place that can stave off the progression of the disease, often being socially ostracized either for their moral or medical uncleanliness.
I’m not sure all of the cultural relatively completely lands—for instance, there’s one world that assigns pronouns and some pretty strict gender essentialism based on the time of day in which someone is born, rather than any physical facts, and while I take the point, I’m also not moved by that as a plausible cultural perspective—the plot certainly doesn’t drive anything forward, and there are plenty of loose ends at the conclusion. That said, the more the reader learns, the more interesting the story gets, and there’s some really interacting thematic work on the way cultural belief makes things real. I wasn’t stunned, but I had a good time.
15/20
There are eight chapters of around 30 pages each, all written in first-person from the perspective of eight different characters from eight different races. There are flashbacks to life on their birth worlds, but the present-day segments generally take place in the span of a couple days. In the first two or three chapters, it’s disorienting and feels like infodumping. But as the story finds its footing, we see new POVs that had appeared as side characters in other chapters, and the whole thing begins to feel more cohesive.
There is something of a plot, but it’s a dreamlike one—this is far from plot-driven. There’s also a lot of musing on culture and religion, and there’s a pervasive STI that leaves people stranded in the only place that can stave off the progression of the disease, often being socially ostracized either for their moral or medical uncleanliness.
I’m not sure all of the cultural relatively completely lands—for instance, there’s one world that assigns pronouns and some pretty strict gender essentialism based on the time of day in which someone is born, rather than any physical facts, and while I take the point, I’m also not moved by that as a plausible cultural perspective—the plot certainly doesn’t drive anything forward, and there are plenty of loose ends at the conclusion. That said, the more the reader learns, the more interesting the story gets, and there’s some really interacting thematic work on the way cultural belief makes things real. I wasn’t stunned, but I had a good time.
15/20
Want to Read
March 10, 2026The new novel by one of my favorite writers. Of course I'll be reading it. The author's comments are nearby: "It's a bit weird, but all my books are a bit weird really. I had fun writing it." I love the cover art!
Due out at the end of June 2026.
Due out at the end of June 2026.
July 19, 2026
This is a dreamlike cozy fantasy with multiple POVs. I typically find multiple POVs confusing but I think it added to the dreamlike quality and overall message that we all have our special abilities, appearances, and preferences. Nothing is perfect, but everything is perfect.
July 4, 2026
No wonder this was getting rave reviews, it is such gorgeous writing and a good story (but it does leave you wanting more, merely by existing). The last chapter - oh, if I could write prose like that I would do nothing but write all day.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 21, 2026
4.5* This is a book with a specific audience, and that audience is me. It's beautifully crafted, the voices and worldbuilding are superb, and it's hopeful and soothing.
June 29, 2026
Everybody’s Perfect was a perfectly enjoyable read, but it ultimately didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. There wasn’t anything I actively disliked about it—the writing was solid, the story flowed well, and I can absolutely see why it would resonate with the right reader. It just never quite reached the point where I felt emotionally invested or eager to keep turning the pages.
For me, it falls into that middle ground of being “good” without being particularly memorable. If someone asked me whether they should read it, I’d have positive things to say and wouldn’t discourage them from picking it up. At the same time, it’s not one of those books I’ll be enthusiastically recommending to everyone I know or thinking about long after I finished it.
Overall, it’s a decent read that I don’t regret spending time with, but it didn’t spark the excitement or emotional connection that turns a good book into a favorite.
For me, it falls into that middle ground of being “good” without being particularly memorable. If someone asked me whether they should read it, I’d have positive things to say and wouldn’t discourage them from picking it up. At the same time, it’s not one of those books I’ll be enthusiastically recommending to everyone I know or thinking about long after I finished it.
Overall, it’s a decent read that I don’t regret spending time with, but it didn’t spark the excitement or emotional connection that turns a good book into a favorite.
Want to Read
March 10, 2026Rec. by: Previous work, going back decades, and a GR Giveaway
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
Errors:
Page 12: "The Serenissima didn'thave a doge, ..." (spacing error)
I was fortunate enough to win a printed advanced copy on Goodreads in a giveaway in March and received it mid-April. I would rate this 2.5stars if able on this platform, but with all the issues, I have to dock it to two stars. I wouldn't read this again.
I've never read a Jo Walton book before, so I had no preconceived notions or expectations. The interior denotes she's authored dozens of books and based on that I'm led to infer she has fashioned her craft in a way for accessibility that generates profit for the publisher.
Maybe not so on the accessibility front for this one.
What initially drew me to this title was enjoying stories about yokai from anime and assuming the narrative approach would be more relatable, endearing, or intuitive from the publisher's descriptive copy. I had never read Piranesi nor Swordspoint, but had been exposed to and enjoyed stories with culturally foreign folklore explorations. Shows like Hozuki no Reitetsu and Natsume Yuujinchou had narrative styles that dropped you in the middle of a conflict between humans and otherworldly/world-adjacent creatures, or between otherworldly creatures themselves, with a mediator or protagonist that provided focal context. However, after pressuring myself to finish the work, I've come to find a suitable deconstructionist description for the book that provides contextual insight where none of the back cover or publisher's blurbs manage:
In Everybody's Perfect, even with all of the manners of describing the character at the beginning of a section (a la aspects in Tarot, which is supported in the Acknowledgements section), I was still clueless as to how this information was intended to cultivate an understanding for these... Creatures? Figments? Embodied allegories? I'm not sure what they are, like Pell or Helike or Andomans or Ronan or Zanguo or Reshuna or Lindassi or Shunan or Denshado... No connection to what any of these words mean. Walton either provides no context outside the term and search engines are just as clueless to assist explaining etymology or anything about these things as keywords to have even a vague hint at what simply proper nouns are intended to denote later on when referenced. A map or glossary would help tremendously.
Chapters are written like a character diary, and different diary-like entries are numbered. This very casual style, which is typically charming, made me feel held hostage. I nearly DNF'd at the first chapter, bombarded with info dump paragraphs meeting or exceeding entire pages. Also, the Bauti are considered notorious for their stoicism and lack of candor... SO WHY PUT HIS CHAPTER (or really, three chapters in one section) RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING? Do you WANT people to stop reading and not like your book?! Reading the first chapter was like being asked to dice an onion by chewing it unpeeled and whole, and the narrative flow was just as ghastly. At no point do I feel the reader is inferred to be there in conversation at all, but that we're intended to be subjected to a stream of consciousness without abating. Instead, page 5 and 6 goes into a long spiel about why "names don't matter" to his people regardless of others needing methods of differentiation when scent and presence are unavailable (this becomes important only in the next-to-last chapter). Instead, Tiry rambles on about their abduction by in-laws as a child, defensively validating a "low body count" of partners (Laura, and Pietro and Gina and Dimitri), as the kids would say, the subsequent allegory of AIDS named Ferlenghetti's Blight that stole loved ones from their life, all these things and despite the info dump, I know nothing about why I should care at all about these characters.
I didn't until Chapter 5 (page 121), in fact.
What did help me better understand the characters? SHOW the reader, don't TELL the reader how these different species operate in society. Seeing characters of diverse backgrounds interacting in chapters two and three was the only time any kernel found in these page-long walls of text popped. Greetings, mannerisms, describing facial reactions (this didn't really happen until chapters five and six habitually) all SHOW the reader how the chunk of aspect descriptor at the beginning of each chapter function without actually needing their inclusion. The tension between Tiry's peers about his condition said more than the pages he spent whining about how Bauti aren't identified in the singular but by familial and occupational collectives. This singular complaint I list isn't an outlier; it's indicative to the entirety of the plot as its tidal girth eddies the reader further into the work for a compulsion of clarity than genuine investment.
It would help if the cover art reflected the characters' masks more than tangentially. On page 2, Tiry the Bauta's mask is described as dark red with a little golden dappling; Kreshun, another Bauta has "plain maroon... no freckling, nothing at all to distinguish her from anybody else" (22). Nonni, a Laodikan like Pell, whose "feathers are pale blue, with a white line along the base of his crest" (21). Khadsha on page 15 is described as having a golden mane and gold domino around purple eyes; the only vague notion it's supposed to represent her are the same blue roses adorning it that bloom in her garden. Taddeo is described with "luxuriant grey-and-white fur" (35) but the mask on the cover is orange with golden accents. Nothing of the sort is depicted on the front for reference or grounding. Who is the person holding all of the masks supposed to be? Why did Caroline Jamhour even bother with making art for the cover at all if they had no intention of reading the book?
Don't judge this book by its cover; not the art and especially not the blurbs. The blurb "where reality bends to human will" is wildly incomplete. I have never seen such atrociously vague author recommendation lines in years.
Also, while the name is lifted from Orain's chapter (as well as the entire conception of the book, the entire fulcrum of the work's climax buried at the end), ... It sucks. It's shallow. It is not "giving" any of the intrigue or creativity that actually exists within the pages. Its simplicity neuters the vivacity. "Mists of Serenissima", "Isles of Fog and Fancy", "The City of Haze and Fog", "Serenissima's Splendor": anything that might elicit more fantasy and less self-help "Chicken Soup for the Soul" humdrummery.
At no point, as a reader, did I feel engaged with what was happening, until Chapter Five, on page 121. Races, prejudices, and societal norms are continuously framed as relatable in the narrative yet none of it sticks. Laodikans having an astrological caste system turned up to11 nor did Khadsha's Zanguni Spanish Inquisitionesque conversion therapy reinforce any basis for her motives. It was just there to pinion empathy from the reader, nothing more. If any stereotyping triggers a relation to a certain people group, I automatically feel bigoted in the attempt to facilitate any conceptual overlap in my flailing efforts to craft these peoples in my mind's eye. I know next to nothing about Venetian culture and don't feel any more enlightened from reading this, either.
Other reviewers say "Jo Walton writes weird things and I like weird things," yet this is a type of weird that's weirder than the weird T. Kingfisher and John Wiswell and Joe Hill and Sarah Maria Griffin and . I just got done reading the first three Dune books, so it's not like I'm uninitiated to w e i r d. There's also better books out there to read if there are characters you actually enjoyed in this book. Khadsha is easily mimicked in Julie Leong's "The Teller of Small Fortunes" or a more snarky version in Gina Chen's "Violet Made of Thorns". Did you connect with Yix, but want her to possibly marry a prince instead and succeed in trials based on her street smarts? Try on "The Rose Bargain". Do you want to follow Pell as she struggles to aid and assist the blighted in the Serenissima, but with more supernatural elements? Leigh Bardugo's "The Familiar is right up your alley! Would you like to explore learning magic no one thought you capable of, to then traverse dream realms and confront monsters like Taddeo? You might like "Dream By The Shadows". Want a book with timey-wimey flippyfloppery meets "Lord of the Flies"? "Repeat After Me" by Jessica Warman is right up your alley.
I'm typically a YA reader, but found this work categorized on the interior cover as intended for Adult Fiction sections. Surprisingly, only one curse word (in a city full of Venetians that have heard or may know curse words [or others learned them from Venetians]) is ever written/spoken and it's "fucking" on pag 188. Granted, characters discussing quantity of sexual partners, children theorizing they were too ugly for child prostitution, conversion therapy, archaic methods of legislative enforcement depicted in a gory mural on the walls of the prison/police station, mentions of suicide, and discussions regarding terminal illness are mature subject matter, but that doesn't imply exclusion in contemporary teen-intended works. On the whole, despite lots of TL;DR, this adult fiction work would be suitable for a Young Adult audience... The classification may be due to the difficulty a reader may have following or understanding/interpreting the work, rather than the content enclosed.
Like all those complaints I had above. Too bad it's too late to get these suggestions to the editors/publisher in time for release.
I have many other qualms that have nothing to do with how the plot rides the landslide of lore that deluge readers, but they don't really warrant analysis. Do I need to know how many sexual encounters each character has had? No. If they contracted Ferlenghetti's Blight from a singular sexual partner, knowing their other victims remain within their circles of influence curries no favor with me. And even if it's part of the intentional bombardment of information so the reader does form a negative opinion, relay that in passing sneers or some revelation in an interconnected scene... Walton, you really don't have to do both. Tell or show.
Shouting out their Discord group full of parasocial sycophants with fiscally vested interests in the Acknowledgements section didn't coalesce how Walton thought it might, either. If the help was free, it was still too expensive.
Page 12: "The Serenissima didn'thave a doge, ..." (spacing error)
I was fortunate enough to win a printed advanced copy on Goodreads in a giveaway in March and received it mid-April. I would rate this 2.5stars if able on this platform, but with all the issues, I have to dock it to two stars. I wouldn't read this again.
I've never read a Jo Walton book before, so I had no preconceived notions or expectations. The interior denotes she's authored dozens of books and based on that I'm led to infer she has fashioned her craft in a way for accessibility that generates profit for the publisher.
Maybe not so on the accessibility front for this one.
What initially drew me to this title was enjoying stories about yokai from anime and assuming the narrative approach would be more relatable, endearing, or intuitive from the publisher's descriptive copy. I had never read Piranesi nor Swordspoint, but had been exposed to and enjoyed stories with culturally foreign folklore explorations. Shows like Hozuki no Reitetsu and Natsume Yuujinchou had narrative styles that dropped you in the middle of a conflict between humans and otherworldly/world-adjacent creatures, or between otherworldly creatures themselves, with a mediator or protagonist that provided focal context. However, after pressuring myself to finish the work, I've come to find a suitable deconstructionist description for the book that provides contextual insight where none of the back cover or publisher's blurbs manage:
Everybody's Perfect is a Venezophile's version of RENT set in an Italian faeverse. Lindassi, Andoman, Zanguni, Laodikan, Gatti, Tisani, Bauti, Venetian, and Vannandi are all races or species of inhabitants found within this Yggdrasil'ing of regions ("a set of interlocking spheres" on page 98), and different streams of consciousness (hypostasis) are reminiscent of Dante's Inferno.
In Everybody's Perfect, even with all of the manners of describing the character at the beginning of a section (a la aspects in Tarot, which is supported in the Acknowledgements section), I was still clueless as to how this information was intended to cultivate an understanding for these... Creatures? Figments? Embodied allegories? I'm not sure what they are, like Pell or Helike or Andomans or Ronan or Zanguo or Reshuna or Lindassi or Shunan or Denshado... No connection to what any of these words mean. Walton either provides no context outside the term and search engines are just as clueless to assist explaining etymology or anything about these things as keywords to have even a vague hint at what simply proper nouns are intended to denote later on when referenced. A map or glossary would help tremendously.
Chapters are written like a character diary, and different diary-like entries are numbered. This very casual style, which is typically charming, made me feel held hostage. I nearly DNF'd at the first chapter, bombarded with info dump paragraphs meeting or exceeding entire pages. Also, the Bauti are considered notorious for their stoicism and lack of candor... SO WHY PUT HIS CHAPTER (or really, three chapters in one section) RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING? Do you WANT people to stop reading and not like your book?! Reading the first chapter was like being asked to dice an onion by chewing it unpeeled and whole, and the narrative flow was just as ghastly. At no point do I feel the reader is inferred to be there in conversation at all, but that we're intended to be subjected to a stream of consciousness without abating. Instead, page 5 and 6 goes into a long spiel about why "names don't matter" to his people regardless of others needing methods of differentiation when scent and presence are unavailable (this becomes important only in the next-to-last chapter). Instead, Tiry rambles on about their abduction by in-laws as a child, defensively validating a "low body count" of partners (Laura, and Pietro and Gina and Dimitri), as the kids would say, the subsequent allegory of AIDS named Ferlenghetti's Blight that stole loved ones from their life, all these things and despite the info dump, I know nothing about why I should care at all about these characters.
I didn't until Chapter 5 (page 121), in fact.
What did help me better understand the characters? SHOW the reader, don't TELL the reader how these different species operate in society. Seeing characters of diverse backgrounds interacting in chapters two and three was the only time any kernel found in these page-long walls of text popped. Greetings, mannerisms, describing facial reactions (this didn't really happen until chapters five and six habitually) all SHOW the reader how the chunk of aspect descriptor at the beginning of each chapter function without actually needing their inclusion. The tension between Tiry's peers about his condition said more than the pages he spent whining about how Bauti aren't identified in the singular but by familial and occupational collectives. This singular complaint I list isn't an outlier; it's indicative to the entirety of the plot as its tidal girth eddies the reader further into the work for a compulsion of clarity than genuine investment.
It would help if the cover art reflected the characters' masks more than tangentially. On page 2, Tiry the Bauta's mask is described as dark red with a little golden dappling; Kreshun, another Bauta has "plain maroon... no freckling, nothing at all to distinguish her from anybody else" (22). Nonni, a Laodikan like Pell, whose "feathers are pale blue, with a white line along the base of his crest" (21). Khadsha on page 15 is described as having a golden mane and gold domino around purple eyes; the only vague notion it's supposed to represent her are the same blue roses adorning it that bloom in her garden. Taddeo is described with "luxuriant grey-and-white fur" (35) but the mask on the cover is orange with golden accents. Nothing of the sort is depicted on the front for reference or grounding. Who is the person holding all of the masks supposed to be? Why did Caroline Jamhour even bother with making art for the cover at all if they had no intention of reading the book?
Don't judge this book by its cover; not the art and especially not the blurbs. The blurb "where reality bends to human will" is wildly incomplete. I have never seen such atrociously vague author recommendation lines in years.
Also, while the name is lifted from Orain's chapter (as well as the entire conception of the book, the entire fulcrum of the work's climax buried at the end), ... It sucks. It's shallow. It is not "giving" any of the intrigue or creativity that actually exists within the pages. Its simplicity neuters the vivacity. "Mists of Serenissima", "Isles of Fog and Fancy", "The City of Haze and Fog", "Serenissima's Splendor": anything that might elicit more fantasy and less self-help "Chicken Soup for the Soul" humdrummery.
At no point, as a reader, did I feel engaged with what was happening, until Chapter Five, on page 121. Races, prejudices, and societal norms are continuously framed as relatable in the narrative yet none of it sticks. Laodikans having an astrological caste system turned up to11 nor did Khadsha's Zanguni Spanish Inquisitionesque conversion therapy reinforce any basis for her motives. It was just there to pinion empathy from the reader, nothing more. If any stereotyping triggers a relation to a certain people group, I automatically feel bigoted in the attempt to facilitate any conceptual overlap in my flailing efforts to craft these peoples in my mind's eye. I know next to nothing about Venetian culture and don't feel any more enlightened from reading this, either.
Other reviewers say "Jo Walton writes weird things and I like weird things," yet this is a type of weird that's weirder than the weird T. Kingfisher and John Wiswell and Joe Hill and Sarah Maria Griffin and . I just got done reading the first three Dune books, so it's not like I'm uninitiated to w e i r d. There's also better books out there to read if there are characters you actually enjoyed in this book. Khadsha is easily mimicked in Julie Leong's "The Teller of Small Fortunes" or a more snarky version in Gina Chen's "Violet Made of Thorns". Did you connect with Yix, but want her to possibly marry a prince instead and succeed in trials based on her street smarts? Try on "The Rose Bargain". Do you want to follow Pell as she struggles to aid and assist the blighted in the Serenissima, but with more supernatural elements? Leigh Bardugo's "The Familiar is right up your alley! Would you like to explore learning magic no one thought you capable of, to then traverse dream realms and confront monsters like Taddeo? You might like "Dream By The Shadows". Want a book with timey-wimey flippyfloppery meets "Lord of the Flies"? "Repeat After Me" by Jessica Warman is right up your alley.
I'm typically a YA reader, but found this work categorized on the interior cover as intended for Adult Fiction sections. Surprisingly, only one curse word (in a city full of Venetians that have heard or may know curse words [or others learned them from Venetians]) is ever written/spoken and it's "fucking" on pag 188. Granted, characters discussing quantity of sexual partners, children theorizing they were too ugly for child prostitution, conversion therapy, archaic methods of legislative enforcement depicted in a gory mural on the walls of the prison/police station, mentions of suicide, and discussions regarding terminal illness are mature subject matter, but that doesn't imply exclusion in contemporary teen-intended works. On the whole, despite lots of TL;DR, this adult fiction work would be suitable for a Young Adult audience... The classification may be due to the difficulty a reader may have following or understanding/interpreting the work, rather than the content enclosed.
Like all those complaints I had above. Too bad it's too late to get these suggestions to the editors/publisher in time for release.
I have many other qualms that have nothing to do with how the plot rides the landslide of lore that deluge readers, but they don't really warrant analysis. Do I need to know how many sexual encounters each character has had? No. If they contracted Ferlenghetti's Blight from a singular sexual partner, knowing their other victims remain within their circles of influence curries no favor with me. And even if it's part of the intentional bombardment of information so the reader does form a negative opinion, relay that in passing sneers or some revelation in an interconnected scene... Walton, you really don't have to do both. Tell or show.
Shouting out their Discord group full of parasocial sycophants with fiscally vested interests in the Acknowledgements section didn't coalesce how Walton thought it might, either. If the help was free, it was still too expensive.
Want to Read
September 23, 2025I’m already on board for anything Jo Walton writes, ever, and just hearing about the metaphysics of this world already made my head explode with joy. Can’t wait!
August 20, 2026
This was an awfully charming book. I really appreciate reading things these days where no character is particularly evil, and there's no grand life or death struggle. It's just an exploration of peculiar, inviting world(s).
The linked story structure has always appealed to me and the way the last few chapters reveal some of the fascinating connections with the Venice of our world (double-entry bookkeeping!) Is quite fun.
I'd happily revisit this world in different books if Walton is so inclined.
The linked story structure has always appealed to me and the way the last few chapters reveal some of the fascinating connections with the Venice of our world (double-entry bookkeeping!) Is quite fun.
I'd happily revisit this world in different books if Walton is so inclined.
June 30, 2026
The story emerges from the very same mists that enshroud its setting, the Serenissima. At first, it seems like a magical place, and it is. It’s fantasy Venice, not Venice during Carnivale, but Venice as if Carnivale were real life.
Which, in its own way, it is, just not quite like this.
The story itself begins with a dream. A day laborer who dreams that the Serenissima will have its very own doge, just as the real Venice does. But the Serenissima is a place where dreams have power. So do wishes. So does WILL. If enough people believe a thing, there is enough magic in the Serenissima to make that dream, or wish, or intention, come true.
Which turns Everybody’s Perfect into a story within a story, as it tells the tale of the day when Tiry’s dream of the Serenissima’s doge turns into history and fact, as told by one member of every class and race from the nine worlds who became caught up in the history that was to come.
Told decades in its aftermath in a place where time refuses to be measured consistently – or sometimes at all.
So this is the story of a magical Venice, set in a magical mist, suffused with the magic of the nine worlds but tied, just as magically, to the real Venice of this world, for good and ill and everything in between.
It’s also the story of a place and a country that recognizes that “everybody’s perfect”, because they are all aware that there is beauty to be had in imperfection, even if they were all conditioned, back in their own real places of origin, to believe the exact opposite.
Which is just the merest bejeweled sliver of the magic of The Serenissima.
Escape Rating B: In the end, this is utterly delightful, but it takes a while for it to get there. There’s a LOT of mist involved. I spent a lot of time and pages trying to figure out where it was going and how it was going to get there as the whole thing gets revealed very slowly and carefully.
Then there’s a ‘AHA’ moment about 2/3rds of the way through and the whole thing starts coming together.
Which makes the whole thing feel more like a vehicle for things the author wanted to say, and a bit of experimental writing to work her way out of a writing slump (she admits that second part in her afterword). It doesn’t completely gel into a story until near the end, and it makes you rethink everything you’ve read up to that point.
That doesn’t mean it’s not fun, or that it’s not interesting, or that it doesn’t have a lot of interesting things to say, just that it takes a while to figure out how those things work together and into a whole.
One of the things that’s neat and cool and either immersive or distancing depends on how much one knows about the Carnivale of Venice and the meaning behind its iconic masks. Many stories that deal with worlds other than our own, both epic fantasy and science fiction – and the author writes both – is that both include other races as well as humans. In this magical, mythical, fictional Venice, the other races embody the appearance of and meanings behind the traditional Carnivale masks and it helps to go look that stuff up. A LOT.
This is also a story that sits on the border between fantasy and SF, and the reader needs to decide to ‘just go with it’ for it to work. If your brain gets invested in trying to decide, the reading experience is basically toast. It’s not that the Serenissima isn’t linked to the real Venice, and it’s not that the linkage doesn’t create real problems for Venice, but that that’s not what the story is about.
Rather, it’s a ‘day in the life’ of a group of very disparate beings, all observing or participating or bringing about an important crossroads in the life of their world at the behest or encouragement of the magic in it. And it is a story about found family and finding perfection in imperfection.
Those parts of the story, and the way they come together, are absolutely lovely, no matter how much mist obscures the way.
Originally published at Reading Reality
Which, in its own way, it is, just not quite like this.
The story itself begins with a dream. A day laborer who dreams that the Serenissima will have its very own doge, just as the real Venice does. But the Serenissima is a place where dreams have power. So do wishes. So does WILL. If enough people believe a thing, there is enough magic in the Serenissima to make that dream, or wish, or intention, come true.
Which turns Everybody’s Perfect into a story within a story, as it tells the tale of the day when Tiry’s dream of the Serenissima’s doge turns into history and fact, as told by one member of every class and race from the nine worlds who became caught up in the history that was to come.
Told decades in its aftermath in a place where time refuses to be measured consistently – or sometimes at all.
So this is the story of a magical Venice, set in a magical mist, suffused with the magic of the nine worlds but tied, just as magically, to the real Venice of this world, for good and ill and everything in between.
It’s also the story of a place and a country that recognizes that “everybody’s perfect”, because they are all aware that there is beauty to be had in imperfection, even if they were all conditioned, back in their own real places of origin, to believe the exact opposite.
Which is just the merest bejeweled sliver of the magic of The Serenissima.
Escape Rating B: In the end, this is utterly delightful, but it takes a while for it to get there. There’s a LOT of mist involved. I spent a lot of time and pages trying to figure out where it was going and how it was going to get there as the whole thing gets revealed very slowly and carefully.
Then there’s a ‘AHA’ moment about 2/3rds of the way through and the whole thing starts coming together.
Which makes the whole thing feel more like a vehicle for things the author wanted to say, and a bit of experimental writing to work her way out of a writing slump (she admits that second part in her afterword). It doesn’t completely gel into a story until near the end, and it makes you rethink everything you’ve read up to that point.
That doesn’t mean it’s not fun, or that it’s not interesting, or that it doesn’t have a lot of interesting things to say, just that it takes a while to figure out how those things work together and into a whole.
One of the things that’s neat and cool and either immersive or distancing depends on how much one knows about the Carnivale of Venice and the meaning behind its iconic masks. Many stories that deal with worlds other than our own, both epic fantasy and science fiction – and the author writes both – is that both include other races as well as humans. In this magical, mythical, fictional Venice, the other races embody the appearance of and meanings behind the traditional Carnivale masks and it helps to go look that stuff up. A LOT.
This is also a story that sits on the border between fantasy and SF, and the reader needs to decide to ‘just go with it’ for it to work. If your brain gets invested in trying to decide, the reading experience is basically toast. It’s not that the Serenissima isn’t linked to the real Venice, and it’s not that the linkage doesn’t create real problems for Venice, but that that’s not what the story is about.
Rather, it’s a ‘day in the life’ of a group of very disparate beings, all observing or participating or bringing about an important crossroads in the life of their world at the behest or encouragement of the magic in it. And it is a story about found family and finding perfection in imperfection.
Those parts of the story, and the way they come together, are absolutely lovely, no matter how much mist obscures the way.
Originally published at Reading Reality
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for allowing me to read this e-arc prior to its official release.
I was lured in by the description: “Piranesi meets Swordspoint in an elegant relay race through fantasy Venice”. However, I think it’s misleading. This is not a story of high-stakes adventure. There is no racing. It is a slow exploration of a world, and even multiple worlds, with several fascinating concepts, but it is slow, nonetheless.
The story was like a meandering, shifting dream where you’ve forgotten who you are in real life and instead live as an entirely new person in the dream world, completely different from yourself, yet somehow all your thoughts are your own and no matter how strange or illogical the dream seems after you wake up, while living in the dream, everything made perfect sense.
Indeed, this story is set in Serenissima, a cloudly, dreamlike Venice that connects several worlds (including ours). What people believe becomes true, although not easily. For example, the collective belief of the inhabitants causes the cloudy sky to lighten and darken, mimicking day and night although there is no sun.
It took me a while to differentiate and remember the characters of the different peoples/species, each of which are human-like but with differing heads. Thankfully, at the beginning of each section, there is at least a description of the main character’s species and appearance which helped. We flow from one person’s perspective to the next, each connected to each other. Some perspectives were more fantastical, others more modern (a girl’s love for wikipedia), but in all of them there was something relatable.
Each species’s world and cultures were truly fascinating: the Zanguni who valued learning above all and killed those with magic or the supernatural, the Laodikans who define gender based on time of birth, day or night in rigid delineations, etc. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to different groups of people in real life. I loved how the cultures were explored through each POV character, most immigrants to Serenissima, but some born there, and how each of them were outcasts in their own ways yet held complex longing for their home world or closer connection to others of their species.
The last line of the book: “There are no answers, never answers, only questions” describes exactly how I felt upon finishing. A satisfying yet unsatisfying end at the same time. There were several threads I thought were leading somewhere but didn’t come up again, hints of political intrigue in Serenissima that I wanted to see more. But again, if we return to the idea of this book being a dream, such an ending also makes sense. I’m already nostalgic for this world, wishing I too could go to Venice and explore Serenissima and all those other strange yet familiar worlds.
Overall, the setting and world-building were the stand-out with charming characters I felt for. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a narrative fantasy that explores a lot of intriguing ideas.
I was lured in by the description: “Piranesi meets Swordspoint in an elegant relay race through fantasy Venice”. However, I think it’s misleading. This is not a story of high-stakes adventure. There is no racing. It is a slow exploration of a world, and even multiple worlds, with several fascinating concepts, but it is slow, nonetheless.
The story was like a meandering, shifting dream where you’ve forgotten who you are in real life and instead live as an entirely new person in the dream world, completely different from yourself, yet somehow all your thoughts are your own and no matter how strange or illogical the dream seems after you wake up, while living in the dream, everything made perfect sense.
Indeed, this story is set in Serenissima, a cloudly, dreamlike Venice that connects several worlds (including ours). What people believe becomes true, although not easily. For example, the collective belief of the inhabitants causes the cloudy sky to lighten and darken, mimicking day and night although there is no sun.
It took me a while to differentiate and remember the characters of the different peoples/species, each of which are human-like but with differing heads. Thankfully, at the beginning of each section, there is at least a description of the main character’s species and appearance which helped. We flow from one person’s perspective to the next, each connected to each other. Some perspectives were more fantastical, others more modern (a girl’s love for wikipedia), but in all of them there was something relatable.
Each species’s world and cultures were truly fascinating: the Zanguni who valued learning above all and killed those with magic or the supernatural, the Laodikans who define gender based on time of birth, day or night in rigid delineations, etc. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to different groups of people in real life. I loved how the cultures were explored through each POV character, most immigrants to Serenissima, but some born there, and how each of them were outcasts in their own ways yet held complex longing for their home world or closer connection to others of their species.
The last line of the book: “There are no answers, never answers, only questions” describes exactly how I felt upon finishing. A satisfying yet unsatisfying end at the same time. There were several threads I thought were leading somewhere but didn’t come up again, hints of political intrigue in Serenissima that I wanted to see more. But again, if we return to the idea of this book being a dream, such an ending also makes sense. I’m already nostalgic for this world, wishing I too could go to Venice and explore Serenissima and all those other strange yet familiar worlds.
Overall, the setting and world-building were the stand-out with charming characters I felt for. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a narrative fantasy that explores a lot of intriguing ideas.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of this fantasy novel, set in a world on top of our own, maybe slightly to the left, with a diverse cast of characters and species and a dream that might unite them.
When I first started reading fantasy novels most of what I read came down to a sword, a sorcerer, maybe a dragon, maybe a quest, but lots of fighting. This was what I liked a as a reader, and most of my genre favorites followed this basic idea, just add in criminals or criminal where needed. I don't know when I started realizing, or being interested in fantasy stories that offered more than this. This is the problem with memory. I can remember every embarrassing incident in school, but I can't remember the books that made me realize that literature could be more than I thought it was. The past is elusive, a good word in a way to describe this novel. Just as one gets an idea on where things might be going, things change. Always for the better in this cozy book of fantasy and whimsy. Everybody's Perfect by Jo Walton is about a city, a dream, the various species that share space and time with each other, and how one can shape reality if one only believes.
Serenissima is a city that shares space with nine other worlds, a highly traveled destination made of dreams and thought. Serenissima touches out world in the Italian city of Venice, which has shaped the city in many ways, from festivals, to masks, to art to the way they deal with themselves. Nine different species dwell in Serenissima, each similar and different in a variety of ways. The town has had a problem with a plague, one that will seem familiar, but so far has been unstopped by the best of healers. One night Tiry, has a dream. That a cure will be found for the plague, and that the city of Serenissima will appoint a Doge, a leader which is not usual, and that this leader will marry the sea and that change will come. Both dreams seem impossible, but as the dreams spread so does the reality of what could be, and might come of it.
This is a hard book to summerize. This is a series of interconnected short stories, each one told from a different species, but dealing with events from previous actions. There is an airiness to the story, which makes sense as it does cover the whole of the city, and those that dwell within. Each chapter is from a different point of view, and species, all with attributes, both good, and bad, with reasons why they believe this dream, and why the don't. Walton really went all in on the world building and the ideas.
There is a comfort here, a book to be read that won't load the soul, but will take the social media noise and make it stop, for at least awhile. A cozy book, full of wonder and ideas. The exact reason I take consultation in books so much.
When I first started reading fantasy novels most of what I read came down to a sword, a sorcerer, maybe a dragon, maybe a quest, but lots of fighting. This was what I liked a as a reader, and most of my genre favorites followed this basic idea, just add in criminals or criminal where needed. I don't know when I started realizing, or being interested in fantasy stories that offered more than this. This is the problem with memory. I can remember every embarrassing incident in school, but I can't remember the books that made me realize that literature could be more than I thought it was. The past is elusive, a good word in a way to describe this novel. Just as one gets an idea on where things might be going, things change. Always for the better in this cozy book of fantasy and whimsy. Everybody's Perfect by Jo Walton is about a city, a dream, the various species that share space and time with each other, and how one can shape reality if one only believes.
Serenissima is a city that shares space with nine other worlds, a highly traveled destination made of dreams and thought. Serenissima touches out world in the Italian city of Venice, which has shaped the city in many ways, from festivals, to masks, to art to the way they deal with themselves. Nine different species dwell in Serenissima, each similar and different in a variety of ways. The town has had a problem with a plague, one that will seem familiar, but so far has been unstopped by the best of healers. One night Tiry, has a dream. That a cure will be found for the plague, and that the city of Serenissima will appoint a Doge, a leader which is not usual, and that this leader will marry the sea and that change will come. Both dreams seem impossible, but as the dreams spread so does the reality of what could be, and might come of it.
This is a hard book to summerize. This is a series of interconnected short stories, each one told from a different species, but dealing with events from previous actions. There is an airiness to the story, which makes sense as it does cover the whole of the city, and those that dwell within. Each chapter is from a different point of view, and species, all with attributes, both good, and bad, with reasons why they believe this dream, and why the don't. Walton really went all in on the world building and the ideas.
There is a comfort here, a book to be read that won't load the soul, but will take the social media noise and make it stop, for at least awhile. A cozy book, full of wonder and ideas. The exact reason I take consultation in books so much.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I received a free copy from Tor Books via Netgalley in exchange for a free review. Release date June 30th, 2026.
I've read almost all of Jo Walton's books, so I was very excited to get an advance copy of her latest. In Everybody's Perfect, a series of linked vignettes follow the lives of people in the Serenissima, a strange misty Venice between worlds. Fortunes are won and lost, hearts are broken, and a new Doge slowly rises out of rumors.
Everybody's Perfect has nine point of view characters, each with their own section. All of the characters are loosely entwined, and every new section jumps to a new character introduced in the previous vignette. Each character is a different species from another world linked to the Serenissima, and all of them have the faces of Venetian masks: harlequin, dogheaded, garlanded by flowers, etc. This is a bit gimmicky as a speculative biology feature, but Walton does an excellent job making each culture feel distinct. Also, all of the characters feel fresh and individual, probably because they strongly disagree with each other on everything from basic facts of their world to judgements on other characters. For instance, scheming, ambitious magus Khadsha thinks compassionate Pell who volunteers for a charity is far too softhearted. Gina from our own February 2020 thinks Khadsha's visions of the future are entirely a scam, and she's discovered a bananapants scheme involving Venetian time travel supremacy on Earth which never comes up in any other character's section. It's a delightful mixed bag.
On a number of levels, this book hit what I want out of "cozy fantasy" but never quite find in books that are explicitly marketed as such. The book's stakes are mostly small-scale and intensely personal, with no titanic battles or fate of the world at risk. Still, they matter very much to the characters, whether it's living with chronic illness or the very young Yix struggling to keep her family afloat. While there's not much of a throughline in the plot except the collective manifestation of the doge in the background and the expanding consequences of an AIDS-coded deadly sexually transmitted plague, all of the stories refer back to each other and mesh together in unexpected ways. It felt like a cohesive whole rather than a collection of short stories.
A reading experience that felt very much like the best bits of reading a Septimus Heap book as a kid: all of the little stories at the back telling you about what happened to minor characters. Possibly not my favorite Walton book to date—it's a very competitive field—but bright, conversational, and intriguing, with a sharp touch for worldbuilding. Recommended.
I've read almost all of Jo Walton's books, so I was very excited to get an advance copy of her latest. In Everybody's Perfect, a series of linked vignettes follow the lives of people in the Serenissima, a strange misty Venice between worlds. Fortunes are won and lost, hearts are broken, and a new Doge slowly rises out of rumors.
Everybody's Perfect has nine point of view characters, each with their own section. All of the characters are loosely entwined, and every new section jumps to a new character introduced in the previous vignette. Each character is a different species from another world linked to the Serenissima, and all of them have the faces of Venetian masks: harlequin, dogheaded, garlanded by flowers, etc. This is a bit gimmicky as a speculative biology feature, but Walton does an excellent job making each culture feel distinct. Also, all of the characters feel fresh and individual, probably because they strongly disagree with each other on everything from basic facts of their world to judgements on other characters. For instance, scheming, ambitious magus Khadsha thinks compassionate Pell who volunteers for a charity is far too softhearted. Gina from our own February 2020 thinks Khadsha's visions of the future are entirely a scam, and she's discovered a bananapants scheme involving Venetian time travel supremacy on Earth which never comes up in any other character's section. It's a delightful mixed bag.
On a number of levels, this book hit what I want out of "cozy fantasy" but never quite find in books that are explicitly marketed as such. The book's stakes are mostly small-scale and intensely personal, with no titanic battles or fate of the world at risk. Still, they matter very much to the characters, whether it's living with chronic illness or the very young Yix struggling to keep her family afloat. While there's not much of a throughline in the plot except the collective manifestation of the doge in the background and the expanding consequences of an AIDS-coded deadly sexually transmitted plague, all of the stories refer back to each other and mesh together in unexpected ways. It felt like a cohesive whole rather than a collection of short stories.
A reading experience that felt very much like the best bits of reading a Septimus Heap book as a kid: all of the little stories at the back telling you about what happened to minor characters. Possibly not my favorite Walton book to date—it's a very competitive field—but bright, conversational, and intriguing, with a sharp touch for worldbuilding. Recommended.
July 31, 2026
Walton has said that she wrote this to get over/recover from burnout, and I can see that: Everybody’s Perfect is Walton indulging herself in her favourite things to write. Fair enough! Unfortunately, it didn’t end up being one of my favourite things to read. It’s rambly and meandering, functionally plotless, and the setting is far less overtly magical than the book’s description makes it sound. It’s very clearly a Jo Walton book, it very obviously belongs to the same family tree as Among Others and My Real Children and the rest – but those books worked (in part) because the characters were brilliantly compelling. Here, each chapter is written from the POV of a different character, so we’re never with any of them long enough to really fall into their story. And to be honest, the characters themselves bored me terribly.
Also I am sick of non-humans who don’t feel truly alien, and the ones here really don’t. It’s not about making them clannish or giving them a different way of determining gender, they need to THINK fundamentally differently to humans. And I have an irrational, baseless dislike of anthropomorphised animals/humans with animal heads, which is what a lot of the ones here are. None of that is objectively bad writing, obviously, it’s a taste/preferences thing, but alas, it did mean I was annoyed by the non-humans when I expected to be fascinated.
When I said it was plotless, I wasn’t kidding. Each chapter is its own slice-of-life thing, but they don’t go anywhere, they’re not (at least as far as I could tell) tied to the other chapters at all, and there’s something so abrupt about how each chapter we’re with a different character. We follow one character around for a day and then BAM, they’re gone, we’re with somebody else who has virtually no connection at all to the character we were just with. I don’t have time to care about any of them, and the story doesn’t have time to craft any kind of narrative with any of the characters. I can’t even call this a short story collection because there’s no story to the chapters!
And beyond all of that…it just felt really heavy to me. Not thematically, but in the mind-numbing way that makes me sleepy.
Bored senseless, massively disappointing, thanks but no thanks. Whoever called this Piranesi meets Swordspoint should be banned from marketing forever.
Also I am sick of non-humans who don’t feel truly alien, and the ones here really don’t. It’s not about making them clannish or giving them a different way of determining gender, they need to THINK fundamentally differently to humans. And I have an irrational, baseless dislike of anthropomorphised animals/humans with animal heads, which is what a lot of the ones here are. None of that is objectively bad writing, obviously, it’s a taste/preferences thing, but alas, it did mean I was annoyed by the non-humans when I expected to be fascinated.
When I said it was plotless, I wasn’t kidding. Each chapter is its own slice-of-life thing, but they don’t go anywhere, they’re not (at least as far as I could tell) tied to the other chapters at all, and there’s something so abrupt about how each chapter we’re with a different character. We follow one character around for a day and then BAM, they’re gone, we’re with somebody else who has virtually no connection at all to the character we were just with. I don’t have time to care about any of them, and the story doesn’t have time to craft any kind of narrative with any of the characters. I can’t even call this a short story collection because there’s no story to the chapters!
And beyond all of that…it just felt really heavy to me. Not thematically, but in the mind-numbing way that makes me sleepy.
Bored senseless, massively disappointing, thanks but no thanks. Whoever called this Piranesi meets Swordspoint should be banned from marketing forever.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Electronic ARC provided by Edelweiss.
I never know what to expect when starting a Jo Walton novel, and I am never disappointed when I finish one. Everybody's Perfect is a dreamy meandering novel whose story is more about a place then about individuals. The Serenissima is a sort of shadow reflection of Venice that exists at an intersection of worlds, each world being populated by a different fantastical race of people. While mirroring our Venice, the Serenissima is a mysterious archipelago where reality is based at least somewhat on belief, and the landscape shifts and changes. Gondolas carry folk through the mists as people of all sorts (and from various time periods) go about their daily lives. People come to the Serenissima for all sorts of reasons, with the most common being trade, and though most move on there are also those who end up staying, either by choice or because they end up contracting the "Blight", a disease that means a quick death outside of the Serenissima but a lingering life within.
Everybody's Perfect comes together slowly through chapters that trade point of view between representatives of each of the races that share the space. All of them have different goals and histories, and all are looking for something different from the Serenissima. The experience of reading the book is almost like reading a short story collection, except that each individual story adds to what we know about the Serenissima and ends up creating a detailed vision of a fully realized though dreamlike place.
While reading Everybody's Perfect I kept being reminded of Walton's Philosopher trilogy (which is great, and anyone at all interested in a truly original take on Greek philosophy should go find it immediately). This book felt like a spiritual successor to the Philosopher books in that it was almost more about ideas then individuals. It's a gentle and kind book that will linger in your mind--and perhaps in your dreams--long after it is finished. Don't go in expecting action or traditional resolution, just open the book and let the experience of reading it take over.
I never know what to expect when starting a Jo Walton novel, and I am never disappointed when I finish one. Everybody's Perfect is a dreamy meandering novel whose story is more about a place then about individuals. The Serenissima is a sort of shadow reflection of Venice that exists at an intersection of worlds, each world being populated by a different fantastical race of people. While mirroring our Venice, the Serenissima is a mysterious archipelago where reality is based at least somewhat on belief, and the landscape shifts and changes. Gondolas carry folk through the mists as people of all sorts (and from various time periods) go about their daily lives. People come to the Serenissima for all sorts of reasons, with the most common being trade, and though most move on there are also those who end up staying, either by choice or because they end up contracting the "Blight", a disease that means a quick death outside of the Serenissima but a lingering life within.
Everybody's Perfect comes together slowly through chapters that trade point of view between representatives of each of the races that share the space. All of them have different goals and histories, and all are looking for something different from the Serenissima. The experience of reading the book is almost like reading a short story collection, except that each individual story adds to what we know about the Serenissima and ends up creating a detailed vision of a fully realized though dreamlike place.
While reading Everybody's Perfect I kept being reminded of Walton's Philosopher trilogy (which is great, and anyone at all interested in a truly original take on Greek philosophy should go find it immediately). This book felt like a spiritual successor to the Philosopher books in that it was almost more about ideas then individuals. It's a gentle and kind book that will linger in your mind--and perhaps in your dreams--long after it is finished. Don't go in expecting action or traditional resolution, just open the book and let the experience of reading it take over.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The Serenissima is a city of mist, shadow, and belief. Formed from the imaginations of everyone who inhabits it, it serves as the crossroads of the nine worlds, where those who have no other place to go can try to find a new life, or where trade between the worlds can flourish. Time moves strangely in the Serenissima, and objects can disappear into the fog if one does not completely believe they will be there upon their return. But it is a beautiful place, too, full of a wide assortment of people who do their best to make a life for themselves and get along with their neighbors. One day, though, an ordinary young worker named Tiry has a dream that the Serenissima will have a doge who will marry the sea, as they do in Venice. He tells this to a fortune teller named Khadsha who tells her apprentice, Taddeo, who tells a policeman who has already heard it from many other people that day. When many people begin to believe a thing in the Serenissima, it has as good as happened and thus a new day begins to dawn in this strange city of mist and faith.
Everybody's Perfect is not your usual sort of novel. It flows from one character to another, collecting their individual stories, one by one, to form a whole that has no real beginning and no real end. It is a gentle, often sad but often humorous look at a collection of people who make up a city with their differing cultures and customs and loves. Some are rich and some are poor, but they all have simple enough desires: a secure place in the world and to be with the people they care about, those others also want fame and fortune. There is a place in the Serenissima for all of them, though. Here, everyone is flawed and everyone is perfect. Everyone has a story to tell, and no matter how lowly it may seem, it matters all the same.
Like Walton's Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel, Among Others, Everybody's Perfect is deceptively calm. The surface of its story seems gentle, but there are undercurrents of darkness and danger that the characters don't always notice or acknowledge. While those undercurrents aren't dealt with outright by the book's end, one gets the sense that the Serenissima will, thanks to the belief and hope of its citizens, begin to deal with the corruption that hides within the mists. But even if you just look at the surface, Everybody's Perfect provides a beautiful collection of intertwining tales that bring the strange city of the Serenissima to such vivid life that you, too, might begin to believe in it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the advance copy for review.
Everybody's Perfect is not your usual sort of novel. It flows from one character to another, collecting their individual stories, one by one, to form a whole that has no real beginning and no real end. It is a gentle, often sad but often humorous look at a collection of people who make up a city with their differing cultures and customs and loves. Some are rich and some are poor, but they all have simple enough desires: a secure place in the world and to be with the people they care about, those others also want fame and fortune. There is a place in the Serenissima for all of them, though. Here, everyone is flawed and everyone is perfect. Everyone has a story to tell, and no matter how lowly it may seem, it matters all the same.
Like Walton's Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel, Among Others, Everybody's Perfect is deceptively calm. The surface of its story seems gentle, but there are undercurrents of darkness and danger that the characters don't always notice or acknowledge. While those undercurrents aren't dealt with outright by the book's end, one gets the sense that the Serenissima will, thanks to the belief and hope of its citizens, begin to deal with the corruption that hides within the mists. But even if you just look at the surface, Everybody's Perfect provides a beautiful collection of intertwining tales that bring the strange city of the Serenissima to such vivid life that you, too, might begin to believe in it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the advance copy for review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of Everybody’s Perfect by Jo Walton. I hadn’t read any Jo Walton before this, but I know that there are a lot of people who really enjoy her so I wanted to give it a shot.
I’m a tad undecided/underwhelmed after reading to be honest. I really like the idea of a shadow Venice that’s both real and not. That also extends to the carnival aspect that is almost always incorporated into fantasy set in Venice, but this is different enough to be different while also being the same (if that makes any sense). I like how Walton puts the idea of this being real and not real, almost hidden in mist or shadow, into your head and carries it throughout the book.
At first I was a bit daunted by the nine points of view. Each character is of a different species and each have their own section of the book, as opposed to a back and forth as we normally expect from a multiple POV story. With this setup you really do get to feel like you’re seeing through a whole new set of eyes and thoughts with each new section. It also gives you time to settle in with each character and have the chance to get to know them and their cultures more fully. Seeing how all of the separate stories intertwine and make a whole picture from the individual pieces made me like it a bit more than I had initially anticipated.
The story is definitely more character and setting focused than plot driven which was a bit of a hard pill for me to swallow. That being said, I have to give credit to the worldbuilding. It was incredibly vivid and immersive and this played a large role in holding my interest.
This was definitely more a “cosy” fantasy, which is not something I would typically read. I can’t say that it made a convert out of me, but it was certainly an interesting read. I want to rate this a 2.5, but will round up to a 3 because I recognize that much of what I didn’t like was just based on my own personal preferences.
I’m a tad undecided/underwhelmed after reading to be honest. I really like the idea of a shadow Venice that’s both real and not. That also extends to the carnival aspect that is almost always incorporated into fantasy set in Venice, but this is different enough to be different while also being the same (if that makes any sense). I like how Walton puts the idea of this being real and not real, almost hidden in mist or shadow, into your head and carries it throughout the book.
At first I was a bit daunted by the nine points of view. Each character is of a different species and each have their own section of the book, as opposed to a back and forth as we normally expect from a multiple POV story. With this setup you really do get to feel like you’re seeing through a whole new set of eyes and thoughts with each new section. It also gives you time to settle in with each character and have the chance to get to know them and their cultures more fully. Seeing how all of the separate stories intertwine and make a whole picture from the individual pieces made me like it a bit more than I had initially anticipated.
The story is definitely more character and setting focused than plot driven which was a bit of a hard pill for me to swallow. That being said, I have to give credit to the worldbuilding. It was incredibly vivid and immersive and this played a large role in holding my interest.
This was definitely more a “cosy” fantasy, which is not something I would typically read. I can’t say that it made a convert out of me, but it was certainly an interesting read. I want to rate this a 2.5, but will round up to a 3 because I recognize that much of what I didn’t like was just based on my own personal preferences.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Out June 30!
💫 Mesmerizing and strange, Everybody's Perfect is as shifting as the mists blanketing the canals of Venice on a winter night.
✏️ This book is written in a unique form, almost like interviews for a documentary or glimpses of a rumor as it flits through a city. Except in this city, belief is enough to change reality.
"The Serenissima is Venice's magical shadow-self on another plane of existence, the gateway to the out-worlds and a source of her power."
The masks of Venice are the faces of the Serenissima, where creatures from across the worlds -- cat-faced Gatta, dog-eared Andoman, the Zanguo with their manes and domino and the Bauta with their blank faces -- mix in a city without sun or stars, where time doesn't quite make sense
Each featured character tells their bit of the story, one after another. The tale weaves between them, starting with a dream, and then a fortune-teller, and then the rumor, the belief, is everywhere: a cure for the blight is coming and soon the Serenissima will have its own doge, a doge who -- as they do in Venice -- will go out to marry the sea.
❤️ The sheer creativity was delightful. Such a diversity of characters and voices, weaving the story forward. In reading the acknowledgements, I was not shocked to find the author had a distinct memory of a friend reading Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities out loud in August 2021 in a still mostly empty Venice.
💔 I sometimes felt that this was all excellent background material for something with actual stakes. On the upside: this could inspire some excellent fanfiction.
✉️ The power of belief is a central theme, as is the complexities of life in a city so otherworldly as Venice.
👥 For the odd ones. For those missing Venice.
📍 Read, sadly, not in Venice, though my winter trip there continues to haunt my daydreams.
❗Thank you Tor (@torbooks) for providing this book for review consideration via @NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
💫 Mesmerizing and strange, Everybody's Perfect is as shifting as the mists blanketing the canals of Venice on a winter night.
✏️ This book is written in a unique form, almost like interviews for a documentary or glimpses of a rumor as it flits through a city. Except in this city, belief is enough to change reality.
"The Serenissima is Venice's magical shadow-self on another plane of existence, the gateway to the out-worlds and a source of her power."
The masks of Venice are the faces of the Serenissima, where creatures from across the worlds -- cat-faced Gatta, dog-eared Andoman, the Zanguo with their manes and domino and the Bauta with their blank faces -- mix in a city without sun or stars, where time doesn't quite make sense
Each featured character tells their bit of the story, one after another. The tale weaves between them, starting with a dream, and then a fortune-teller, and then the rumor, the belief, is everywhere: a cure for the blight is coming and soon the Serenissima will have its own doge, a doge who -- as they do in Venice -- will go out to marry the sea.
❤️ The sheer creativity was delightful. Such a diversity of characters and voices, weaving the story forward. In reading the acknowledgements, I was not shocked to find the author had a distinct memory of a friend reading Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities out loud in August 2021 in a still mostly empty Venice.
💔 I sometimes felt that this was all excellent background material for something with actual stakes. On the upside: this could inspire some excellent fanfiction.
✉️ The power of belief is a central theme, as is the complexities of life in a city so otherworldly as Venice.
👥 For the odd ones. For those missing Venice.
📍 Read, sadly, not in Venice, though my winter trip there continues to haunt my daydreams.
❗Thank you Tor (@torbooks) for providing this book for review consideration via @NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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