Started: 8/18/23
Finished: 8/31/23
Post-apocalyptic story with Little Red Riding Hood vibes. I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed it. I think the apocalypse was a plague? There were a couple of monsters, but it wasn’t a zombie-type plague. Our Red has to trek across the countryside to Grandma’s house, avoiding the government and bad guys, keeping her companions safe (when she can).
Started: 8/10/23
Finished: 8/28/23
I read the first one two years ago, but the second and third books weren’t out yet, so I felt I should re-read this once I got my hands on the second and third books. I really enjoyed this series, but it’s pretty brutal. The kids are dealing with constant danger, their parents are mostly pretty awful, and the magic system is pretty weird. But I love the characters, and I love the author, and I’m glad I read these.
Started: 8/25/23
Gave up: 8/27/23
I wanted to like this, but it didn’t grab me enough to push through. A teenager who never really fit in finds out she’s part (or all? I don’t remember) alien, gets picked up by hopefully the good guys (aliens), rescues some other misfits, and I assume they save the universe, but I didn’t get that far.
Started: 8/25/23
Finished: 8/25/23
I read this in one sitting, stuck on an airplane in DC waiting out weather delays and then crew change delays. It’s YA, but YA like A Wrinkle in Time, YA like Diana Wynne Jones – you know, timeless and very very good. We have semi-normal kids going through a tough time, noticing odd things around them, and then super-crazy stuff happens and they save the world, all mixed up with folklore and history and mythology.
Started: 8/23/23
Finished: 8/24/23
I did not like this book. I finished it because – I don’t know. It was short? Dangers of tech, evil corporations, blah blah blah.
Started: 8/16/23
Gave up: 8/18/23
I don’t remember how I heard of this book, but it’s a time-loop story, and I like those. Except I really didn’t. Didn’t like the character, didn’t enjoy how the plot was unfolding. Gave up!
Started: 8/3/23
Gave up: 8/10/23
Gave this one up after a week of getting bogged down in unlikeable characters and muddy plots. How does the magic work? I don’t know, I don’t care. The wizard is a bad guy? A good guy? He used to be a bad guy, but it was for good reasons and he has repented? I’m not sure, and I don’t care. The main character is a princess (or something) and she has a double life and has to sneak in and out of her castle when she wants to lead the resistance? Meh.
Started: 3/5/23
Finished: 8/2/23
So, the Throne of Glass series got better. The writing improved, many of the characters got more interesting, and the overall story was compelling enough to keep going. I liked exploring the world and all that. I was (and continue to be) SUPER annoyed by the deus ex machina-seeming rescues that kept happening, in nearly every book (maybe all?). I know that it’s all supposed to be amazing planning on the part of our amazing magic teenage assassin-princess, but you never (or VERY rarely) see her set anything up, even mysteriously, and when you’re in her head, there is NOTHING that gives you a hint that she’s hoping her plans will work out. And when everything does work out, it’s too TA DA!
I did enjoy the rest of it, although I don’t see myself re-reading these books.
Started: 7/14/23
Finished: 7/19/23
You know how romance series pick up the next character in line to fall in love? They’re usually family members or friends of the characters who fell in love in the previous book? This one is no different. A woman who was part of a mystery in the first book gets her own story, but the more interesting part here is that her love interest is already her husband. Way to subvert the tropes!
Started: 7/11/23
Finished: 7/16/23
A cute romance with witches and demons and misunderstandings and bad family dynamics that I enjoyed. Not enough to read the next one, but this one was cute.
Started: 6/28/23
Gave up: 6/29/23
I started the sequel to Blue Remembered Earth immediately after it ended, but I gave up on it the next day. The narrator was different (not the one I LOVED from the first one), there was a big time jump, and all of the characters were different. I just couldn’t get into it.
I realized just now, when I looked up the narrator, that it was Adjoa Andoh, who plays Lady Danbury in Bridgerton, and I LOVE her. But apparently not enough to enjoy this audiobook.
Started: 6/8/23
Finished: 6/28/23
One of John’s friends recommended this to me, and I enjoyed it, but I don’t think I would have liked as much if I hadn’t listened to the audiobook. The narrator, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, is the same actor who reads the Rivers of London books, and he’s SO GOOD. Just so good.
Started: 6/19/23
Finished: 6/24/23
This book (about an orphanage for magical children) is wonderful, and I recommend it to everyone. It’s lovely, it’s kind, it’s magical, and I love it.
Started: 6/15/23
Finished: 6/19/23
More proof that I love T. Kingfisher (also, her Hugo acceptance speech last year was weird and fun). Creepy, funny horror. Really good characters.
Started: 5/6/23
Gave up: 5/27/23
Nice writing, interesting characters, but NOTHING was happening. It had a sense of foreboding, but it was taking too long to get anywhere. I gave up.
Started: 2/21/23
Finished: 5/19/23
These are the rest of the ACOTAR books (so far). I’m lumping them together because I can’t remember what happens in which books. These got SO much better after the first one – the story is better, the writing is better, and I just want to spend more time with the characters. I’m looking forward to the next one, and I probably will reread them.
Started: 4/21/23
Finished: 5/4/23
Magic mixed with steampunky tech, thieves and slaves and corrupt institutions, our heroes set out to change the world and suddenly they’re dealing with old gods? Oh, no! Also, a wisecracking animate inanimate object. Love those.
Started: 4/21/23
Finished: 5/2/23
Time travel and a mystery and a romance and a period drama in Victorian Scotland. But it is NOT Outlander. Yay!
Started: 4/12/23
Finished: 4/19/23
Weird and sad and lovely and weird. And sad. But good! But weird.
Started: 4/8/23
Finished: 4/14/23
I found this book mostly annoying. The conflict was predictable, and the two “main” characters should NOT have ended up together. The guy was truly awful, and sure, he got better, but he was specifically awful to the woman he ended up with, without EVER apologizing to her for being awful TO her! I don’t think it was in character for her to not insist on an apology or an acknowledgement or whatever. No happily ever after for them!