Started: 10/28/21
Finished: 10/28/21
I read this one several years ago, cried, emailed the author. I read it again, cried, almost emailed the author. Good story, and I love that she was inspired to write the Lady Astronaut series.
Started: 10/27/21
Finished: 10/27/21
Ah, laughs, action, love, all in a short story about robots. I should read short stories other than just the Hugo-nominated ones. I like them.
Started: 10/26/21
Gave up: 10/27/21
I really liked the short story I read of his last year set in Cairo with a possessed tram car, and there’s a whole series there I’m excited to read, so I was bummed when I couldn’t get into this one. Mashing up Jim Crow and Klansmen with Lovecraftian monsters is a brilliant idea, but I’m a little leery of Lovecraft-related stories, and this one didn’t land for me.
Started: 10/25/21
Finished: 10/26/21
Recommended to me as fantasy and manners, in a series called Regency Faerie Tales, and how could I not love it?
Started: 10/20/21
Finished: 10/24/21
Slow start, but that’s based more on the formatting than the story/writing. It’s not .mobi, so the formatting isn’t perfect. Annoying!
SO EASY to get past the formatting after just a bit. Really good story, totally sucked me in, and I’m looking forward to the sequel.
Started: 10/16/21
Finished: 10/20/21
Sarah Gailey LOVED this book, and Tor.com praised it, so I figured I’d try it. It’s a romance that falls into science fiction because there’s a time loop/stuck in time trope involved. The characters are good, the story is good, there’s nothing not to like, and yet I’m a little meh about it. There was a little too much ending.
Started: 9/30/21
Finished: 10/16/21
New fantasy series! It took me a little bit to get into it, then I was hooked, then I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it, and then I got hooked again. I can’t say whether this was just about my frame of mind or about slow parts in the book. Could be either, but the vast majority of it had my full attention, and I’m still thinking about it, and I’m excited about the next book, which – ugh – isn’t out yet.
Started: 9/22/21
Finished: 9/30/21
By the time I started this one, I didn’t remember anything about it except that it was highly recommended by Jo Walton, and I’m hit or miss on her recommendations. I was expecting something literary or dense, but I was pleasantly surprised to find somewhat hard SF with beautiful imagery. Totally literary, totally genre, and really good. The core story, which takes a bit to get to, is emotional and riveting. Good stuff.
Started: 9/19/21
Finished: 9/22/21
Set near the very end of WWII, with some jumps in time, it’s about a single line of women who are trying to get humanity into space. They don’t remember why, but they have very specific rules they live by. Most of the characters (not the main ones) were real people and most of the events were real (some minor details changed), which makes this totally fictional story completely plausible. Also, someone is hunting these women and trying to stop them. It was really good.
Started: 9/9/21
Finished: 9/19/21
I LOVE Naomi Novik. There’s only one book of hers I haven’t read that’s out right now, and I haven’t read it for the same reason I haven’t read that one last book of Robin McKinley’s: I don’t want to have read everything she has written.
That said, I almost quit on A Deadly Education. Wizard school (yay!) by an author I love (double yay!), but it started out so…unpleasant. So hard to understand. So not your typical wizard school book. I didn’t quit (because Naomi Novik has earned my trust), which is great because this totally weird book turned out to be awfully wonderful and I loved it and I can’t wait for the next one.
Started: 9/6/21
Finished: 9/9/21
My biggest complaint about novellas is that I usually want more. I really enjoyed the story, but there is so much hinted at in the rest of the world here, and I want those stories, too.
Started: 8/29/21
Finished: 9/5/21
Recommended by an author I like, this was a surprisingly well-written very silly start of a series about a retired demon-hunter-turned-suburban-mom who has to, surprise!, fight demons again. It was both predictable and not – some of my guesses were right and some were wrong. It’s a nice palate cleanser.
Started: 8/21/21
Finished: 8/29/21
There are a lot of people out there who raved about this one, about how it’s a superhero novel turned on its head, it’s about the people supporting the villain, and that’s so new and so different! It’s not THAT new, and it’s not THAT different, and I spent a lot of this book feeling like I had read it before, which isn’t really fair. We were deep within this character’s head, and I enjoyed it, and it was good. I suppose I was just (and still am, apparently) annoyed that it felt over-hyped.
Started: 8/19/21
Gave up: 8/21/21
I loved her Raven Cycle series, and I was totally hooked by the beginning of this one. It’s her writing – I can’t put my finger on it, but I like her writing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into the plot of this one. Magical realism isn’t always my thing, and this book reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude and all the ways I could not read it. So I gave this one up.
Started: 8/14/21
Finished: 8/18/2021
I think this is magical realism, which usually doesn’t do it for me, but it’s also mythology and it’s also a dark book about a kidnapping and it’s also a book about a teenager with problems. I’m not sure if that’s one element too many, but I really enjoyed it.
Started: 8/9/21
Finished: 8/14/2021
I saw this while browsing in Powell’s over four years ago, so I think I can be forgiven for not remembering anything about it by the time I actually read it. I went in thinking it would be like Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, a book I loved when I read it, although I’m afraid I won’t like that one if I read it again.
It was not like Where’d You Go, Bernadette. I did like it immediately, particularly after giving up on two books in a row the day before. The first few pages were funny, and then it took a dark turn but was still funny, and then it was less funny and I started wondering if I had been supposed to think it was funny – was I laughing at a mentally ill person?
I was unsure the whole middle of the book, and I was afraid it was going to be predictable and have an unearned ending, and then it kicked me and I cried and I liked the ending very much.
I don’t know if you should read it.
Started: 8/8/21
Gave up: 8/8/2021
Light read, supposed to be a fun romance, and OH MY GOD I DON’T CARE. The main character is not relatable, the situations are not funny, and I gave it up the same day I started it. Jo Walton, an author whose books I like and whose recommendations I often enjoy, is WRONG about this one (she thought it was terrific and funny).
Started: 8/6/21
Gave up: 8/8/2021
Interesting premise, bad writing. TERRIBLE METAPHORS. I tried, I gave up.
Started: 7/28/21
Finished: 8/6/2021
I know it’s hard to believe, but there are books by Anne McCaffrey I haven’t read. Not many, but still. And maybe there was a reason I hadn’t read this one. I’ve come across the brain/brawn ship thing in the Crystal Singer series, so I was familiar with the premise, but this was clearly a novel that had been put together from multiple short stories, and I just (I feel like I’m betraying Anne McCaffrey!) didn’t love it. The relationships feel dated in a way that makes me afraid to go back and re-read the early Pern books.
Started: 7/28/21
Gave up: 7/28/21
I’m not sure exactly what the problem was here, but I was forcing myself through every page, and then I quit. Life’s too short!