Started: 5/10/19
Finished: 5/19/19
I LOVED the author’s novella, so I was really looking forward to his first novel. The premise was interesting, and it started out great, but it gradually lost me. It wasn’t bad, but there were parts that were viscerally disturbing, and the reveal at the end (that will drive the rest of the trilogy) feels like something the main character should already have known. I found myself distanced from it.
Started: 5/7/19
Finished: 5/10/19
A good novella, interesting magic. The story is the member-of-nobility-hides-with-the-common-people-and-learns-a-lesson type, but it’s done well.
Started: 5/8/19
Finished: 5/10/19
I’ve heard so much about this book while also learning absolutely nothing about it, so I really didn’t know what to expect. It’s an interesting story, but I think I was looking for more to come out of it. More…plot. So I’m left feeling unsatisfied. Sort of “that’s it?” I’m pretty sure that’s the fault of my expectations, though, and not of the book itself. I need more distance from it.
Started: 5/4/19
Finished: 5/7/19
The third Cecelia and Kate book was the 2nd best. Told in letters like the first one, although we get Thomas and James’ POVs, too, which is fun. Best, though, is what happened to the mislaid magician in the title. Fun, light, ridiculous, and fun. (Did I mention it was fun?)
Started: 4/30/19
Finished: 5/4/19
I went back and read the first of the Francis Pettigrew mysteries. If I had read this one first, I wouldn’t be interested in reading any more. First of all, Pettigrew is barely in it. Certainly not a main character. Second, the murder happens in the last 10% of the book. No exaggeration. And one of the suspects only got introduced a chapter ahead of it. I MIGHT try the third one before I decide about the series, but I’m not in a hurry.
Started: 4/30/19
Finished: 5/2/19
Books don’t scare me like movies do, but even so, I take precautions and only read horror stories during the day. Luckily (sadly?), this one didn’t scare me at all. I’m not going anywhere near any of the movie or TV adaptations, though.
Started: 4/26/19
Finished: 4/29/19
Because Jo Walton liked it, I gave it a try. This is the second of the Francis Pettigrew mysteries, set in England in early WWII. Pettigrew is a lawyer, everyone is pretty isolated, and the murder doesn’t actually occur until the second half of the book. Entertaining, but odd.
Started: 4/24/19
Finished: 4/25/19
Overall, I don’t think I liked this book. I read it quickly, it drew me in pretty well, but it’s written from the point of view of this woman who never seems to have matured past college age. She’s telling the story to someone, and her voice is irritating. And her two great loves? Also irritating. I would not be friends with any of them, and oh my god, she’s just wrong. I don’t think I felt this strongly about that when I finished it. Given a week to let it sit, and yeah – I didn’t like it.
Started: 4/19/19
Finished: 4/24/19
I was hesitant to start this one because I kept getting hung up on the Lovecraftian parts of the book reviews, and the whole unknowable-horror-tentacled-monster thing is what keeps me away from Lovecraft. The other parts of the book reviews (the solid writing, flipping Lovecraft’s whole bigotry thing, the found family theme) are why I read it anyway. Final thoughts: good story, good characters, hardly any tentacles.
Started: 4/18/19
Finished: 4/19/19
This is a movie waiting to happen, and I’d happily watch it. It’s the story of a lonely, sarcastic, black French Canadian teenager transplanted to Austin, Texas in the middle of high school. In some ways it’s predictable, in other ways it isn’t, and I flew through it.
Started: 4/18/19
Gave up: 4/18/19
I couldn’t get into this one. It’s the story of a woman who died told via the emails of the people who knew her (and one person who didn’t know her but started working for her boss after she died). It might be depressing, it might be uplifting, I think it’s supposed to be funny, but I didn’t stick around to find out for sure. I wasn’t learning enough about the characters to care, and the intern really bugged me.
Started: 4/14/19
Finished: 4/17/19
The first in a series of mysteries set in Venice that I picked up because Jo Walton says they’re wonderful and I trust her. For some reason she recommends starting with book 2 (she’s on book 22 (!) and the author is still alive), but I started with book 1 because what kind of monster do you take me for?
I enjoyed it, even though this was one of the more disturbing motives – definitely not a cozy mystery. Maybe Jo Walton’s recommendation about starting with book 2 was a typo.
Started: 4/9/19
Finished: 4/14/19
The second of the Cecelia and Kate novels, maybe not quite as delightful as the first one, but close and still fun.
Started: 4/7/19
Finished: 4/9/19
Steampunk fantasy novella set in post-Civil War New Orleans. I’m not always a fan of stories that use gods to fuel the magic system (capricious gods that act like children annoy me), but I liked it this time. Details built an alternate New Orleans without a lot of exposition, and the characters were well done.
Jack sleeps on his back, of course, and when he starts to get a little restless, he lifts both legs in the air and then drops them hard back on the mattress. It doesn’t wake him up, but god damn if it doesn’t shake the whole house. The first few times it happened, we went looking for what heavy thing had fallen over. But then it happened again, and then again. (He rarely does it just once when he’s stirring.) So we checked the monitor and sure enough, our mini-earthquakes were being caused by the baby.
Every night, people.
His superpowers are developing.
Started: 4/7/19
Gave up: 4/7/19
This is hard to admit, but I gave up on Dandelion Wine. I love Ray Bradbury, but I couldn’t read this. It’s an ode to small-town life before the Great Depression. Remember when boys were boys and men were men and small towns were great and aren’t little brothers wonderful and gosh, summer lasts forever, and MAYBE if there had been a plot!
Started: 4/6/19
Finished: 4/7/19
The writing in this book was painful, but also felt painfully real and accurate for a coming of age/coming out story told from the perspective of a teenager. I have diaries from around then (a little younger, but still), and MAN are they painful to read now in exactly the same way. I got over the wincing discomfort and enjoyed this one.
Started: 4/1/19
Finished: 4/6/19
Book 8 in the Expanse series. Even though it’s been over a year since I read the last one (Dec 2017), I was able to jump right in with no refresher. I think book 4 and maybe book 2 are the weakest in the series so far – this one falls squarely in the middle for quality, and a little higher for emotional kicks. It’s the second to last book, and it feels like it. I’m not ready for the last one, but I don’t have to be for a while yet.
Started: 3/27/19
Finished: 4/1/19
Space military! Kind of. It’s the military part that threw me a bit. They all have military ranks and a chain of command, but the way they interact and feel about each other is NOT military. I couldn’t decide if it meant the author just didn’t know what she was talking about, but then it occurred to me that their mission is a bit more Star Trek than military, and that shift made it work for me. I liked it. Planning to read more in the series.
Wait, there’s more?
