Started: 1/31/19
Gave up: 1/31/19
I picked this one because the author will be at the convention I’m going to in a couple of weeks, but I gave up on it almost immediately. The writing was stilted, formal, and boring, and the characters are all high-elf types with ridiculous names, and I am SO not in the mood. Hard pass.
Started: 1/30/19
Finished: 1/31/19
Supernatural mysteries! I’m a sucker for those, and this detective has a skeleton friend helping. Light, fun, and better written that I expected. It’s nice to be pleasantly surprised by the writing sometimes.
Started: 1/30/19
Gave up: 1/30/19
I gave up on this one almost immediately. The writing was bad. Very bad. I couldn’t make myself continue, even for a clone story.
Started: 1/28/19
Finished: 1/30/19
I like fairy tale retellings, and I very much enjoyed this Cinderella retelling with actual fairies (like the fae, the cannot-be-trusted types) in the background.
Started: 1/25/19
Finished: 1/28/19
A series of vignettes following a few families over several generations. It’s SF because of the reproduction processes involved, but it’s mostly about parents and children. Pretty good.
Started: 1/23/19
Gave up: 1/25/19
This is the first book in the Craft Sequence. I wanted to like it, but I couldn’t get into the story. I didn’t find the characters particularly interesting, and the pacing was odd, so I wasn’t feeling involved. I gave up after a couple of days of avoidance.
Started: 1/23/19
Finished: 1/23/19
Short story about a mystifying alien encounter on an alien planet.
Started: 1/23/19
Finished: 1/23/19
Short story about a man dealing with his family and debating coming out, set in a world where if you lie, you get drenched in rain.
Started: 1/23/19
Finished: 1/23/19
Short story about a man dealing with his mother’s death and cooking. Good story.
Started: 1/21/19
Finished: 1/23/19
Finishing the Queens of Renthia series, still good, but with more main characters I was left feeling like I needed more time with them. I suppose that’s a good thing – give me more!
We’re going to Boskone (a science fiction convention in Boston), and I have a reading plan to fill the few weeks before we get there. There’s a long list of authors participating, many of whom I’ve read, more I’ve heard of but haven’t read yet, and even more I haven’t heard of, so in the next few weeks (and for the past week), my goal is to read at least one book by an author I haven’t read before who will be participating in this convention. So far, I’ve read Updraft by Fran Wilde and I’m on the third of a trilogy by Sarah Beth Durst. Next might be a couple of short stories by John Chu or a novelette by Vajnar Rajna or the first in the Craft sequence by Max Gladstone. And I need to find a copy of Rebecca Roanhorse’s book. After that, we’ll see how much time I have before the convention and how many others I can fit in. At least a few, but how to choose when I haven’t heard of the author?
Ooh, the schedule has been posted. I’m so excited!
Started: 1/19/19
Finished: 1/21/19
Continuing the Queens of Renthia series, highly enjoyable with a surprising ending (in a good way).
Started: 1/19/19
Finished: 1/19/19
A short story about identity and acceptance and time travel. I’d like to see it expanded into a novel so I can get more.
Started: 1/17/19
Finished: 1/18/19
For some reason, I thought there were dragons in this series, but there are not. Figured you should know that up front. However, I REALLY liked this book, and I’m eager to read the next one.
Started: 1/14/19
Finished: 1/17/19
Cool fantasy, steampunk-ish, and it’s the start of a series, thank goodness, because I need to know more about the world. The main character is a teenage girl who matures as the book continues (also thank goodness), but I’m less invested in her than I am in finding out what on earth the city actually IS.
There must be a trick to transferring a sleeping baby from your arms to the crib, but the internet won’t tell me what it is. I get a lot of “put the baby down sleepy but not asleep so he can learn to put himself to sleep”, but 1) he still falls asleep nursing, so that’s harder than it seems, and 2) he screams when he hits the mattress whether he’s sleepy or sleeping, so drowsy disappears fast.
He does sleep at night, so it’s not like we can’t get him to sleep in the crib at all, but bedtime is the most stressful time of day for me. The last two nights (three? too tired to remember), it was John who was able to put him down quietly, so we’re going to keep going with that and hope it works. Of course, that limits bedtime and will eventually get us into trouble. Eventually being in two weekends, when John is out of town.
Fun times ahead.
Started: 1/13/19
Finished: 1/14/19
The Goblin King in this book is SO very David Bowie, which is great. I think the characterization of the main character shifts halfway through, and not for the better. Her motivations aren’t consistent, and she gets all worked up about things that could be resolved if she would just TALK to the guy. Same goes for him, of course. On the other hand, she’s a teenager, and she’s acting like a teenager, so maybe I should be praising the author for her realism instead.
Started: 1/11/19
Finished: 1/12/19
Music and humans and dragons and secrets and love and a plucky heroine. There’s a sequel!
Started: 1/8/19
Finished: 1/11/19
Book 6 in the Frontlines series. It’s book 6 of 6, but it clearly isn’t the end. I’m happy to believe there will be more. I’ve been enjoying this series.
Started: 1/7/19
Finished: 1/8/19
Book 5 in the Frontlines series. Have I mentioned that these are all written in the present tense? I always notice when the book starts and then stop noticing because I’m in the story.