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What were you expecting?

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One Second After by William R. Forstchen

February 14, 2021 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 2/12/21
Gave up: 2/14/21

Ugh. Retired military, super-capable, gentlemanly know-it-all has to save his town after an EMP takes out all modern amenities. I have read this book before. I have read better versions of this book. This one feels like a non-writer decided to fictionalize his What To Do In Case Of An EMP report, hoping it would get his point across better. It’s all tell, no show, and Mr. Only I Am Making The Right Decisions is going to be proven right. AND it’s the beginning of a series, so he’s probably going to end up saving the world. I’m sitting this one out.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fiction, John Matherson series, library, post-apocalyptic, source: unknown

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

December 27, 2020 by Zannah 1 Comment

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.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fiction, library, source: unknown

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

December 9, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

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.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, library, source: unknown, thriller

The Women in Black by Madeleine St. John

August 2, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 8/1/20
Finished: 8/2/20

Talk about a change in tone.  I went from a whole bunch of weird SFF short stories (and then Riot Baby) to this charming little story about women who work in a department store in post-WWII Australia.  Wish I could remember how I heard about it.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fiction, historical, library, source: unknown

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

April 7, 2019 by Zannah Leave a Comment

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.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fiction, source: unknown, YA

The Last Thing She Told Me by Linda Green

March 22, 2019 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 3/21/19
Finished: 3/22/19

I’m not sure who recommended this book, but whoever it was, I don’t trust them anymore.  It’s not bad – the writing is better than the last one I read – but it’s disturbing and it really hammers you over the head with the “men are horrible and it’s women who bear the brunt and feel shame their entire lives” message.  I’m not arguing the point, but goodness some awful things happen, and I wasn’t really prepared for that when I started reading.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, family drama, fiction, source: unknown

Baking Bad by Kim M. Watt

March 1, 2019 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 2/22/19
Finished: 3/1/19

A cozy mystery set in present-day England with dragons.  It’s cute, it’s lightly humorous, it set up a lot of background stuff so I’m hoping for a full series (there’s one sequel, Christmas-related), and even though the whodunit part wasn’t that hard to figure out, I still very much enjoyed it.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: dragons, ebook, fantasy, mystery, source: unknown

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

December 19, 2018 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 12/17/18
Finished: 12/19/18

A couple meet, fall in love, and flee their Middle Eastern city via a magic door.  The writing keeps you at a remove from the characters and the story, so you know how the characters are feeling, but you don’t feel how they’re feeling, but it’s well-done.  There have been several sentences I’ve read out loud to John because I liked the phrasing so much.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, source: unknown, speculative

Digging In by Loretta Nyhan

September 12, 2018 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 9/11/18
Finished: 9/12/18

I don’t remember where I heard about this one, but it was a nice read about a woman trying to recover from her husband’s tragic death a year before.  She has a teenage son and a job in advertising, and it was funny and sweet and light, despite the tragic background.  (I do occasionally read and enjoy non-SFF books.)

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fiction, grief, love, source: unknown

Butterfly in Amber by Camilla Monk

September 3, 2018 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 9/1/18
Finished: 9/3/18

The fourth in the Spotless series.  I nearly put this one down (lack of caring what happens to these characters), but it’s the last one (I think), and it was easy enough for me to keep going in the middle of the night when I was soaking my feet in the tub.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, romance, source: unknown, Spotless, thriller

Crystal Whisperer by Camilla Monk

September 1, 2018 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 8/29/18
Finished: 9/1/18

The third in the Spotless series.  Losing interest, but it was an easy read in the middle of the night when I needed distraction from my itching feet.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, romance, source: unknown, Spotless, thriller

Tooth & Nail by Michael G. Williams

June 12, 2018 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 6/10/18
Finished: 6/12/18

Second book in The Withrow Chronicles.  Withrow has a mystery to solve.  More enjoyable than the first, since it wasn’t broken up into three distinct parts.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: fantasy, source: unknown, vampires, Withrow Chronicles

After On by Rob Reid

May 29, 2018 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 5/29/18
Gave up: 5/29/18

The writing drove me crazy and I gave up within a couple of hours.  At 7% in, the narrator had mentioned a dozen times how dude’s wife’s research is critical to his business and his health, but she barely rates her own name (always X’s wife). That and the exclamation points are too much. I quit.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: AI, gave up, SF, source: unknown, tech

The Passage by Justin Cronin

May 13, 2018 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 5/6/18
Finished: 5/13/18

I feel like I’ve read this book before.  The story is too familiar.  It’s The Stand, it’s World War Z with vampires.  It’s about a government experiment that unleashes the apocalypse and then, decades later, how what society is left is dealing with it (and eventually, hopefully, defeating it).  This is the first in a trilogy (something I didn’t know when I started it).  I will admit here that I read the summaries on Wikipedia and Goodreads to see what happens in the other two books rather than read them myself.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: post-apocalyptic, SF, source: unknown, vampires

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

April 8, 2018 by Zannah 1 Comment

Started: 4/7/18
Finished: 4/8/18

Fascinating story that follows two families, descendent by descendent, across the centuries.  One stays in Africa, one is captured by slavers and goes to the US.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: African, fiction, source: unknown

First Rider’s Call by Kristen Britain

February 25, 2018 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 2/19/18
Finished: 2/25/18

Sequel to Green Rider (which I read back in Jan/Feb 2017). Good fantasy, good sequel. I found it relaxing after the pressure of reading new/unusual fiction (like The Stars are Legion – SO WEIRD).

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: fantasy, Green Rider, magic, source: unknown

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