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Book Summary and Reviews of Everybody's Perfect by Jo Walton

Everybody's Perfect by Jo Walton

Everybody's Perfect

by Jo Walton

  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Publishes:
  • Jun 30, 2026, 272 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From Hugo award-winning author Jo Walton comes a cozy Venetian fantasy of extraordinary warmth and appeal!

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Readers who loved the mixing of worlds in Marie Brennan's Driftwood or the world-crossing time-travel of Charlie Stross's Merchant Princes series will enjoy Walton's latest novel, as will anyone who has ever been caught up in the magic of the Carnival of Venice." —Library Journal (starred review)

"Ambitious... personal and affecting. This fascinates." —Publishers Weekly

"A satisfying narrative experience with a hopeful depiction of the cycles of history." —Booklist

"Enchanting and immersive. Every Jo Walton book takes you somewhere new and wondrous. I loved Everybody's Perfect." ―Rainbow Rowell, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of the Simon Snow trilogy.

This information about Everybody's Perfect was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Jo Walton

Jo Walton won the Best Novel Hugo and Nebula Awards for Among Others (2011) and the World Fantasy Award for Tooth and Claw (2003). She is the only writer other than Ursula K. Le Guin to win Best Novel in all three awards. Aside from her many other acclaimed novels, she has written extensively about SF and fantasy for Tor.com and other venues for over two decades. She lives in Montreal.

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Read-Alikes

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