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Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

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Started: 12/26/20
Finished: 12/27/20

I can’t remember where I heard about this book, but it starts out HARD.  A twenty-something black woman babysits for a white family, and one night, the mother calls her unexpectedly to take the toddler out for a little bit so they can deal with an emergency at home.  The babysitter tells her she’s not dressed like she normally is (she was out with friends), and the mother says that’s fine, so she takes the toddler down the street to a local expensive grocery store to just kill time.  A shopper calls security on her, implying that she kidnapped the little girl, and it’s a REALLY tense scene.  It turns out fine, and the rest of the book talks about the aftermath, but in a very anticlimactic way.  Well, until the climax.  Anyway, it’s about how all these characters see each other and how they react and think about themselves, and it’s pretty funny and enjoyable, which I did NOT expect after that scary beginning.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

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Started: 12/15/20
Finished: 12/19/20

I’ve been a little off Ann Patchett for a few years.  I’m afraid to re-read Bel Canto, which I read several times years ago and LOVED and gave as gifts to many many people.  What if I have changed enough that I don’t love it anymore?  Anyway, I picked up The Dutch House.  First, it’s good.  When I couldn’t read it, I wanted to read it.  Second, turns out that in order for me to LOVE a book, I need it to have a plot.  It’s not that nothing happens – it’s a family saga, plenty happens – but it’s a family saga, so there’s no mystery to solve, no murder to avenge, no THING to DO.  And I have learned that I prefer books that have a THING the characters need to DO.

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

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Started: 12/5/20
Finished: 12/9/20

I found this thriller on a recommendation, but I can’t remember from where.  I think it was described as similar to the movie Get Out, which I haven’t seen yet – not big on horror, but I’d like to see that one if I can psych myself up for it.  Anyway, I’m lukewarm on it mostly because the thriller part doesn’t really get going until the last quarter of the book.  It’s an uncomfortable read, in a good way – it’s about the evils of gentrification as some truly racist white people get away with small, medium, and large awful things as they move in.  And if it hadn’t been billed as a thriller, I would probably feel better about it as a story.  The first part was really good (and uncomfortable).

But the male lead being a white guy feels like a sop, like the author was cautioned  that “not all white people are bad”, and while on one hand I appreciate that, on the other hand I think it undermines the point.

Gamechanger by L.X. Beckett

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Started: 11/17/20
Finished: 12/2/20

I almost gave up on this one halfway through.  It starts out really good, in a future after a climate disaster, when everyone has their minimum needs met, money is social capital, and everyone basically lives in the Matrix.  Our main character is trying to help someone who may or may not be a sentient AI, her dad is a conspiracy theorist, she’s a superstar gamer, and there’s a police officer after her client.  Super good, I was super involved.  And then, exactly at the 50% mark, they threw in a curve ball that almost made me throw the book across the room.  (For perspective, the last time I actually threw a book was at the end of The Day After Tomorrow, when they brought out Hitler’s cryogenically frozen head.  This wasn’t THAT bad.)

I kept reading, and I got hooked again fairly quickly so I could forgive the weird plot twist that messed with a perfectly good AI/Matrix book.

I know it’s not clear, but I DID like it, and I DO recommend it.

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

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Started: 11/14/20
Finished: 11/17/20

This is the first book in the Great Library series, and it came highly recommended.  I’ve been burned (heh) by that before, so I didn’t have particularly high hopes, especially when I realized that our main characters were all teenagers (sigh), but what a wonderful surprise this one turned out to be!  It starts out with one premise, immediately makes you rethink it, and then gradually gives you a whole different perspective, and I loved it.

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves: Stories by Karen Russell

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Started: 11/14/20
Gave up: 11/14/20

I read the first short story in this collection and started the second, and no, thank you.  These are not for me.  A little too graphic, a little to uncomfortable, a little too “I’m not sure what happened here”, and I decided to move on.

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

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Started: 11/1/20
Finished: 11/13/20

This book marks the first time I’ve been disappointed by an Ann Leckie book.  The style is different, but interesting-different, not off-putting, so that was fine, but I finished this book over a month ago and I cannot remember the ending.  I remember the reveal, but I don’t know what happens to the characters.  So…I suppose that’s saying something about how I feel about this book.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Started: 9/18/20
Gave up: 9/19/20

I gave up on this one, but not through any fault of its own.  I just wasn’t in the mood. It’s set in early 20th century Mexico, and maybe it’s fantasy and maybe it’s magical realism (which I generally do NOT like), but there are gods and bargains and LOTS of discussions of towns and their histories, and yeah.  Not in the mood.  It has really good reviews, so I feel bad about giving up, but not that bad.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

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Started: 9/9/20
Finished: 9/18/20

I was really looking forward to this one – it was nominated for a Hugo this year, I loved the short story she was nominated for last year, and I liked the short story she was nominated for this year.  The book didn’t start well for me.  It was interesting, and the premise is interesting, but the writing felt…amateurish.  It got better (I think), but the book within a book thing took too long to pay off.  I did eventually get hooked, but I found myself thinking about giving up on it a couple of times.  If I had read it between the ages of 10 and 18, maybe, I probably would have loved it.

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

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Started: 8/28/20
Gave up: 8/30/20

It feels familiar at the beginning, and I wasn’t in the mood for another same-old story, but I’d heard good things about it and the premise is fascinating, so I kept going. Then there were hints of something really dark and awful going on that the heroine is going to find out, and okay, I’m interested, but she doesn’t follow up!  Or she’s more interested in the same-old!  Are you kidding me?  And then I found out that it’s the first in a series, so I’m not even going to find everything out by the end of the book, and you know, I’m making up my mind to quit reading as I’m typing this.

Yup, I just read a few more pages and then skimmed a few more and NOTHING IS HAPPENING.  Next!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

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Started: 8/24/20
Finished: 8/28/20

I liked the beginning, and then I got bored, and then I got interested again, and then I was disappointed.  The book ends like it’s going to have a sequel, but I don’t think it’s planned to be a series, so it just feels unfinished.  It’s supposed to be this feminist-thriller-climate change-body horror variation of Lord of the Flies, and some of that comes through, but then it just ends.

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

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Started: 8/22/20
Finished: 8/24/20

This was a good book, YA, and a hard read.  The teenagers all feel very real, even though I was nothing like them in high school, and neither were most (if not all) if the kids I knew, but hey, times are different.  It’s emotional and disturbing, and I couldn’t put it down.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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Started: 8/15/20
Finished: 8/22/20

I wanted to love this book because I loved the one before it, but I was SO confused by it.  It seemed to be rewriting the first book in flashback, with different characters and different events, and while that does get explained, it was confusing, not gripping.  And then at around 70%, it got 1000 times more fun for me, for reasons I will not explain because spoilers, but that wasn’t enough. And then it ended, and what?  I don’t know what happened.  I don’t understand the world this series is set in.  I love the character of Gideon from the first book, and I really feel for Harrow in both books, and I WILL read the third book because I just have to know, but I was disappointed not to love this one as much as the first.