library

The Charmed List by Julie Abe

Started: 10/5/22
Gave up: 10/8/22

I read a Buzzfeed article about cozy fantasy books for the fall, and this sounded promising. Magic hidden in plain sight in Palo Alto, cute little romance. And sure, those things happen. But the characters are in high school, and I just cannot. I literally said, “Ugh, teenagers,” when I put this one down for good.

Velvet Was The Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Started: 9/24/22
Gave up: 9/27/22

I don’t remember what I thought this book was going to be about, but I certainly didn’t expect a bored and thoroughly unpleasant 30-something woman, a somewhat interesting young government thug, and a missing person who sounded like someone I would find pretentious and obnoxious. Not for me. Gave it up.

Oh, wait, I know. I was confusing it with Certain Dark Things, which I am still interested in reading.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Started: 9/22/22
Gave up: 9/24/22

I have been wary of David Mitchell books. Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks sound so impenetrable, and that’s really not what I’m looking for in my fiction. So when Jo Walton wrote basically the same thing and then said that this book (and Utopia Avenue) are completely different and totally wonderful, I figured I would trust her. I HAVE to stop doing that. I started this book, and I guess I just wasn’t in the mood for 17th century Japanese and Dutch morality and hand-wringing and ugh with the overly gross descriptions. So I gave it up. I MIGHT still try Utopia Avenue when I get around to it.

The Donut Trap by Julie Tieu

Started: 9/18/22
Gave up: 9/22/22

Giving up two books in a row is never a good sign for my state of mind, but I think I’m justified here. I made it to 72% before I got tired of the drama between 22-year-olds. It started out cute, light, good immigrant family stuff, but at the point where I quit, stuff that had barely been hinted at in the first three quarters of the book was all of a sudden brought out and OH, here’s the obstacle our characters have to overcome, and ugh, I don’t care. Not a good setup.

Oona Out of Order by Margerita Montimore

Started: 9/17/22
Gave up: 9/18/22

The premise is interesting, and it got me through the first 90 pages, but no. Girl (on the eve of her 19th birthday) begins living her life out of order, meaning that her consciousness spends every year in her own body in a random year of her future life. So when she turns 21, maybe she jumps to her body when she’s 30. (I don’t know – I quit before that.)

I quit for two reasons. First, I don’t like the character, and I feel like that’s a failure of the writing, not of my imagination. She’s going through a lot, and I would like to feel sympathic and understanding when she’s bitchy to the people who are trying to help her, but even though the reader is ONLY in her head, there’s not enough to bring me to sympathy. Then again, she’s still a teenager when this begins, so maybe I should give her more slack, but THEN I feel like I shouldn’t have to put in this much effort. So I quit.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Started: 9/6/22
Finished: 9/17/22

I can’t say I liked this book. A lot of the first half was too dryly written, a little too academic. It makes perfect sense why it was that way – I mean, it takes a long time for spiders to evolve to the level of intelligence necessary for a first person point of view to be viable – but it means I didn’t really get drawn in. The problems to be solved and their eventual solutions were interesting and unusual, and maybe I’ll read the sequel, but it’s not jumping to the top of my TBR list.

Also, giant sentient spiders. No, thank you.

The Undateable by Sarah Title

Started: 9/6/22
Gave up: 9/6/22

I love Jo Walton, but I do not love all that she recommends. She likes to read a lot of romance, which is not an issue in itself; I like romance, too. I just don’t like the ones SHE likes. This is at least the second one she has really enjoyed that I have put down EARLY.

This one is about two people who fall in love despite bickering the whole book, or so I’m told. I quit before they even met. The woman seemed fine, character-wise, and the writing didn’t bother me, from what little I read, but the man! What an ass. And the writing suffered from his point of view. In a page and a half, I was hit over the head 6 times with how he lives with his little sister. His sister? No, his little sister. Who is an adult with a job. But you say he lives with sister? No, he lives with his little sister. Who cares? How is this important? It’s either bad writing or a deliberate choice to make the guy look like he’s intimidated by his sister’s success and covering it by reminding HIMSELF at every opportunity that he’s older. Either way, it makes me not like him, and why would I bother reading a romance featuring a guy I do not like? He has a job barely works at and doesn’t care about and then tries to get someone fired when she suggests that maybe she could do his job better. Anyway, I quit.

The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood

Started: 8/28/22
Finished: 9/5/22

Sequel to The Unspoken Name, which I really enjoyed. I liked this second book so much I emailed the author to thank her. And I learned there will be a third! (That wasn’t guaranteed, or even necessary, based on how it ended, but I’m happy to hear it.) There’s a time jump I found jarring at first, but pretty quickly I loved that the characters got to grow up. I think that just means I’m old, but still!

Book of Night by Holly Black

Started: 8/12/22
Finished: 8/17/22

I really enjoyed a trilogy by Holly Black (about fairies, the not friendly kind) and just could not finish a book of hers about vampires, so I wasn’t sure what I was getting into with this one. I think she enjoys writing main characters that are hard to like, which is fine, but also the magic in this was weird. It’s to do with shadows, but how and what exactly is mostly unclear (on purpose), and I just can’t tell you if I liked it. I had no trouble finishing it, though, so that may be a clue.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

Started: 7/20/22
Finished: 7/31/22

I’ve read a short story in this universe, so a novel was welcome. It’s a mystery, set in an alternate Egypt with magic. The writing was a little stilted, maybe self-conscious, but it was easy to ignore for the story. I’ll just hope it gets better with the next one.

The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta

Started: 3/25/22
Finished: 3/29/22

I enjoyed this book – it’s a really cute queer YA love story about a teenager in a bakery. It’s set in Austin, and the Austin-love felt a little much in the beginning, but either it settled down or I let it go – not sure which. Anyway, I will NOT return this book to the library until I have copied out nearly every recipe. They sound really really good, and I want to try them.

The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano by Donna Freitas

Started: 3/23/22
Gave up: 3/25/22

I just couldn’t with this book. I read an article by the author, and her description of this book was intriguing, but it didn’t work for me. We see alternate futures for this woman, all starting from one moment in time, as she makes minor changes in that moment for every iteration. Fascinating! I love Sliding Doors-type stories! Why only nine? I don’t know. I didn’t make it through all nine because the story was about a married couple who, when they got together and then married, always agreed they didn’t want kids. The woman had NEVER wanted kids. Then the husband changed his mind and basically bullied her into trying. The decision point (very beginning) is when he finds a full bottle of prenatal vitamins, vitamins he bullied her into taking, and proof she’s not taking them and not trying to get pregnant. How she reacts, in major and minor ways, drives each one of the lives.

To start, that’s infuriating. Her reasons for not wanting kids are valid and thought-out, and she has to defend her decisions to EVERYONE. That felt real, legitimate. But THEN – hang on.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

In at least two of the lives, she has a baby and never looks back, thinks to herself “how could I ever not want this baby?”, never thinks she should have stuck to her principles.

INFURIATING!

So I gave it up. Maybe she sticks to her principles in lives I didn’t get to, but I stopped caring. I don’t need to read books that make me angry.