Started: 12/12/18
Finished: 12/14/18
A British love story that references Love Actually and Bridget Jones liberally. The beginning was difficult, but it got better largely because the friendship between the two women was well-written. The man was two-dimensional, boring, and not worth the angst thrown in his direction.
Started: 12/11/18
Gave up: 12/12/18
I have loved (or really liked) everything I’ve read by Octavia Butler, so it pains me to say I gave up on this book. SF vampires = all good, but the main character presents as an 11-year-old. I don’t care that she’s actually in her 50s or whatever (because vampires) – that makes the sex icky and weird. I tried to get past that and kept reading, but then it turned into all exposition, all the time, and I couldn’t care enough to get to the plot.
Started: 12/2/18
Finished: 12/11/18
Female spy captured in Nazi-occupied France tells her story via written confession. Fascinating, funny, sweet. Ultimately the story of a friendship.
Started: 12/1/18
Finished: 12/2/18
Third in the Wayward Children series. The first book set up the premise (which is great). The second and third explore some of the worlds and follow some of the first book’s characters. I still love these books, both for the ideas and the characters. These are some real teenagers going through some real emotional issues.
Started: 11/27/18
Gave up: 12/1/18
Someone visits people before Death does. Could have been good, but there’s no plot (I got a quarter of the way in – nothing) and the main character isn’t interesting enough to carry the book without a sense of purpose to what action there is. Gave it up.
Started: 11/23/18
Finished: 11/27/18
Young adult novel with a little time travel, a little magic, and some linked narratives. Mostly set in East Germany in the late 80s, which is a setting I don’t think I’ve ever read before. Pretty good!
Started: 11/12/18
Finished: 11/23/18
Book 4 in the Frontlines series. Still fun, still good. Revenge with a dash of moral ambiguity.
Started: 11/8/18
Finished: 11/12/18
Book 3 in the Frontlines series, light space military in the not-too-distant future. Fun and easy. Reminiscent of Starship Troopers, but nearly every space military novel told from the point of view of a soldier is.
Started: 10/25/18
Finished: 11/8/18
Very slow start, but it’s about a near future where Wikipedia (called Information and available to everyone via fancy high-tech future sci-fi gadgets) is ubiquitous and the world is split into centenals (100,000 people) instead of countries and micro-democracy is the way to go. There are global elections every 10 years and one is coming up. Interesting premise, and the plot picked up (and I plan to continue the series), but it had a really slow, pretty dry start.
Started: 10/13/18
Finished: 10/25/18
Not great. Again, it’s the writing. The story is fine, but there’s SO much exposition dumped into dialogue, there’s lampshading which only serves to point out small inconsistencies or weirdnesses that I might not have noticed without it, and there’s too much telling and not showing. Callie’s an expert at this or that? Show me, don’t tell me. I will not be continuing this series.
Started: 10/11/18
Gave Up: 10/13/18
I’d been looking forward to reading this – grimdark fantasy series with a mercenary army – but the writing style was impossible. I wasn’t getting any information about the characters, the action scenes were muddled. I couldn’t tell what was happening, who it was happening to, or why I should care. Good reasons to give up reading it.
Started: 10/10/18
Gave Up: 10/11/18
This sounded like fun – the gates of Hell open, demons possess most humans, and the only ones saved are those who make it to cathedrals which are being guarded by the gargoyles who came to life. I couldn’t get into it. The characters didn’t grab me and the dialogue was annoying.
Started: 10/5/18
Finished: 10/10/18
A Sherlock Holmes story told in the present day boarding school, with teenagers for Holmes and Watson. Lots of fun, first in a series.
Started: 10/4/18
Finished: 10/5/18
The last book (novella) in the Dreamhealers series, although it was the first story written, is a little different from the rest. Still good, but I actually thought something bad might happen in this one (it didn’t).
I couldn’t have picked a better series to read in the last weeks of my pregnancy and the first week after Jack’s birth.
Started: 9/27/18
Finished: 10/4/18
I started this one in the hospital the day after Jack was born, so I didn’t get a lot of reading done for a few days, but again, this was the right series at the right time. Calming, nice story, some drama that will be resolved without lasting harm to the characters. This is book 4 in the Dreamhealers series.
Started: 9/22/18
Finished: 9/27/18
Let’s stick with what’s working – pastoral SF that is lovely and calming and about people who don’t want to cause anyone any pain. This is book 3 in the Dreamhealers series.
Started: 9/20/18
Finished: 9/22/18
Another really NICE book, sequel to Mindtouch in the Dreamhealers series. More drama, but again, not a lot of action. More of the “Can Jahir survive in the career path he’s chosen? Will Vasiht’h be able to help?” kind of thing. Friends, found family, love but not sex.
Started: 9/15/18
Finished: 9/20/18
What a pleasant surprise this was. I heard of it in a Tor.com article about books with ESP, and it’s certainly that, but it’s also just a really nice book. There’s no action, not a lot of drama. The characters are all aliens and engineered species, but it’s about people who are different finding each other and learning how to cope with new things and becoming friends. I was totally engrossed and happy to realize it’s the first in the Dreamhealers series.
Started: 9/15/18
Gave up: 9/15/18
Started and gave up on the same day. I just wasn’t interested. The characters didn’t feel real, their actions didn’t make sense (for real people), and the plot didn’t get going before I quit. I’ve heard really good things about a different book by this author. Maybe I can get it from the library. It would be interesting to know if her style changed (improved) or if she’s just not for me.
Started: 9/12/18
Gave up: 9/15/18
The premise is interesting, but the explanations were mind-numbing. Most books explain the necessary future tech within the plot of the book, but here, we’re getting some of it that way and some of it in footnotes. Usually, I love footnotes in novels, but that’s because usually, footnotes in novels are amusing. These were dry. So dry. And filled with information that explained stuff characters mentioned but did not appear to be relevant to the actual story. This is bad worldbuilding. Pass. I’m just annoyed it took me three days to give it up.