The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
Started: 1/24/20
Finished: 1/28/20
Last in the fairy trilogy by Holly Black. Satisfying.
What I’ve Been Reading
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Started: 1/18/20
Finished: 1/23/20
First in a trilogy with psychics, witches, magic, ghosts, and prep school boys, and I liked it far too much.
The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
Started: 1/16/20
Finished: 1/20/20
Thriller/horror story. I gave up on another Ruth Ware book, but I gave this one a try on Molly’s recommendation. I was truly creeped out by it (I stopped reading it at night), but…I can’t really say more without giving stuff away. It was pretty good.
The Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
Started: 1/17/20
Gave up: 1/18/20
Probably good, but I was not in the mood for an “I’m too old for this shit” kind of ghoul hunter.
In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce
Started: 1/4/20
Finished: 1/16/20
Book 2 of the Alanna books. She’s 14-16 (at least in the first third of the book), so it’s a little easier to take, but she can do EVERYTHING and kick ass at it. So, yay for her, but also COME ON. Still fun, though.
The Wicked King by Holly Black
Started: 1/11/20
Finished: 1/16/20
Second in the fairy trilogy by Holly Black. Good middle book. Great ending.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Started: 1/4/20
Finished: 1/10/20
I’ve read (and liked) one other fairy story by Holly Black, and she’s a guest of honor at a convention we’re going to, so I figured I’d read more of her stuff. This is the first in a trilogy, also about the Fae (you can’t just call them fairies when they’re trying to kill you). It starts off DARK (bad stuff happens to some kids under 10 before they get packed off to live in Faerie), and then we jump ahead ten years and follow them as teenagers.
Finder by Suzanne Palmer
Started: 12/28/19
Finished: 1/4/20
Debut novel of an author I heard speak on a panel at a convention. I’d read a couple of her short stories and really liked them, and I liked her in person, so I was excited to read this one and…I LIKED IT. It was fun, fast, and a little twisty plotwise (in a good way). I’m glad it’s the beginning of a series.
The Dollmaker by Nina Allan
Started: 12/16/19
Finished: 12/28/19
Dolls are scary, right? So I assumed this book would be creepy. It’s not, although one or two parts are a little bit weird in a scary way. It was good, but I don’t think it stuck the ending. It’s about a man who goes on a cross-country trip to meet the woman he loves, who he has only corresponded with via letter. Along the way, he reads a book of short stories by an author the woman is interested in, and the stories are part of this book, too. Those are the parts that get a little creepy, and the main character and his love both think the stories parallel their own lives a little too closely. Unfortunately, the ending doesn’t do anything with that, and I was left hanging.
Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce
Started: 12/14/19
Finished: 12/16/19
First in a series a girl who wants to be a knight. I would have eaten this up if I’d found it when I was 10 (it was published in 1983). I enjoyed the first book (and I’ll keep reading), but I’m having a little bit of a hard time believing that this 10-year-old girl would talk the way she does, have the power (magical) that she does, know all these things, be able to do all this stuff, etc. She makes it to age 14 or so by the end of the book, so hopefully her ability to master EVERYTHING will get a little easier to swallow as she gets older.
Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker
Started: 12/1/19
Finished: 12/14/19
13 short stories, all SF, all really good. Two in this collection were up for Hugos in the last couple of years.
Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri
Started: 12/2/19
Finished: 12/13/19
First in a series about magic based on Indian culture, set in a desert country with gods and spirits and power-hungry emperor-priests. Really good. I think the sequel follows a different character, and I’m a little bummed about that.
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
Started: 11/24/19
Finished: 12/1/19
Military SF with some weird circular time travel and a narrator who doesn’t know what’s going on, with a prisoner interrogation going on as a framing device, and really, I liked it. I’m not sure it got fully explained, or maybe I need to read it again, but it reminded me of Starship Troopers, and I liked it.
We Set The Dark On Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia
Started: 11/19/19
Finished: 11/23/19
Political intrigue on an island nation where the haves live on the mountain and the have-nots live by the sea, and the divide between them is stark and violent. Also, YA and LGBTQ+ and pretty interesting overall. There’s a sequel. I will read it.
The Wolf by Leo Carew
Started: 11/19/19
Gave up: 11/19/19
Marketed as a sweeping political drama series with battles and intrigue, it sounded great, but OH the writing. I had hoped it was just the prologue, so I pushed through. It wasn’t just the prologue. I didn’t make it through the first battle.
The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden
Started: 11/12/19
Finished: 11/19/19
Recommended by Jo Walton (an author I like and whose recommendations I trust), it’s a somewhat quiet story about a British family who goes to France for a vacation, immediately lose their mother to hospital convalescence, and hang out for the summer in this hotel pretty much on their own, over the objections of the women who run the hotel. The oldest is 16 and is sick for the first half of the book, so basically not a character until later, and the narrator is the next oldest, at 13. There are shenanigans going on the background that the narrator doesn’t understand completely. It’s good, it’s disturbing at times – I think I liked it. It definitely makes me want to go to France.
Caught Dead Handed by Carol J. Perry
Started: 11/11/19
Gave up: 11/12/19
I found this mystery series in one of those library/book publisher magazines, too, but I couldn’t get into this one at all. It’s set in Salem, so I assume magic will come into it, but it’s starting with astrology and a dead fake astrologer’s cat named Orion (dead astrologer, live cat), except they change it to O’Ryan because I don’t know why and I quit.
Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay
Started: 11/10/19
Finished: 11/11/19
I found this mystery series in one of those library/book publisher magazines. Small town librarian, all the book titles are cute puns, so I figured it was worth trying. And it was…okay. I’m not in a hurry to continue the series, but I did enjoy it, and there was a breakup scene in chapter 3 that was so very satisfying.
Invictus by Ryan Graudin
Started: 11/3/19
Gave up: 11/10/19
Young adult, time travel, heist/mystery. At around 50%, I’m not sure I’m going to finish it. I’m intrigued by the complication that arose around a quarter of the way in that has not been explained yet, but a) I feel like I can live without knowing what’s going on, and b) I’m not convinced it’s going to be explained in this book. Is this part of a series? I should find out.
I gave up at 70%. That’s when they explained exactly how they were going solve their problem. I’m sure it won’t go exactly as planned, but that’s close enough for me to know how it ends, and I put it down. Meh. Also, not part of a series.
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
Started: 10/21/19
Finished: 11/3/19
Sort of zombies, sort of apocalypse, sort of medical thriller, and really long. Really long is not usually a problem, but I’m reading at a glacial pace lately. It’s a problem.
Update: it reminded me of Stephen King, and separately but also specifically, it’s similar to The Stand. That’s not a bad thing, but I’m not a huge Stephen King fan, so I think it puts this book into the “not for me” category. Despite the fact that I finished it, which is saying something recently. I’ve given up on a LOT of books lately.
Anyway, it was good, made me laugh a couple of times, made me cringe (like HARD cringe, like I kind of wish I hadn’t read that scene because I’ll never be able to get rid of it cringe) at least twice, and if you don’t like books like The Stand, you won’t like this one.