source: Jo Walton

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.

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 Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

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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.

Can You Keep A Secret by Sophie Kinsella

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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).

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean

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Started: 8/9/20
Finished: 8/14/20

I don’t know how to talk about this one without spoilers.  First, several authors and reviewers I trust LOVE this book.  I know the story of Tam Lin because I’ve read two other adaptations of it (Rose and Rot by Kat Howard, which I really enjoyed, and Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, which, according to these same authors and reviewers, should also have been a life-changing experience – it was not).  Since I knew the story already, I was looking for clues early and pretty sure I was seeing them, but OH MY GOD this story took forEVER to get to the point, and then it rushed through EVERYthing right at the end.  And left a lot of questions.  NOT lifechanging for me.  Maybe if I’d read it at a younger age…or maybe not.

Old Lovegood Girls by Gail Godwin

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Started: 8/2/20
Finished: 8/6/20

I thought about putting this down shortly after starting it.  Not because it was bad, it’s very much not bad, but because it wasn’t grabbing me.  I wasn’t positive I was in the right mood for it.  But I kept reading, and I kept reading, and I kept reading, and I couldn’t stop reading, and I stayed up late two nights running because I couldn’t stop reading, and then it ended, and I’m a little sad.  It’s about two women who meet in college and then separate and how their lives went on.

Would Like To Meet by Rachel Winters

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Started: 5/16/20
Finished: 5/19/20

It’s a book, not a movie, so while I would call it a rom-com, I suppose it’s more correctly chick lit.  It’s totally a rom-com, and it name-checks every rom-com out there because part of the plot is that it steals the meet-cutes from them.  And just like a rom-com, it was SO OBVIOUS who the love interest was that it was infuriating that no one else seemed to think so.

It was light, it was mostly cute, but it seemed to go a little longer than it had to.  I’d watch the movie, but I wouldn’t re-read the book.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

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Started: 5/2/20
Finished: 5/6/20

This book started out really cute, turned absurd, got serious, took a dark turn, and ended on the cute side again without taking into account the darkness.  The second half, especially the last little bit, felt like an exercise rather than a novel, so I can’t say I fully recommend it, at least not as an immersive novel.  On the other hand, it was a really interesting exercise in use of language, and the made up months and days made me laugh, especially toward the end.

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

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Started: 4/27/20
Finished: 5/2/20

Having just finished a couple of very pleasant adventure stories with likeable protagonists, I almost physically recoiled at the main character’s attitude in the first few pages.  It’s an adjustment.  It’s also about a murder, so maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.  Pretty much all of the male characters came across as arrogant chauvinists, including (especially) the good guys, so the book was a bit much to take.  I enjoyed it, but I can’t say I liked it.

The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden

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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.

Dressed for Death by Donna Leon

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Started: 5/25/19
Finished: 6/1/19

Commissario Brunetti series book 3.  I think I see what Jo Walton meant when she said this series was about integrity.  Brunetti solves the mystery, but the ultimate bad guy doesn’t get punished (or not for the right thing).  If there’s a larger character arc, I wonder if Brunetti will go through a depression.

Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare

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Started: 4/30/19
Finished: 5/4/19

I went back and read the first of the Francis Pettigrew mysteries.  If I had read this one first, I wouldn’t be interested in reading any more.  First of all, Pettigrew is barely in it.  Certainly not a main character.  Second, the murder happens in the last 10% of the book.  No exaggeration.  And one of the suspects only got introduced a chapter ahead of it.  I MIGHT try the third one before I decide about the series, but I’m not in a hurry.

With a Bare Bodkin by Cyril Hare

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Started: 4/26/19
Finished: 4/29/19

Because Jo Walton liked it, I gave it a try.  This is the second of the Francis Pettigrew mysteries, set in England in early WWII.  Pettigrew is a lawyer, everyone is pretty isolated, and the murder doesn’t actually occur until the second half of the book.  Entertaining, but odd.

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

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Started: 4/14/19
Finished: 4/17/19

The first in a series of mysteries set in Venice that I picked up because Jo Walton says they’re wonderful and I trust her.  For some reason she recommends starting with book 2 (she’s on book 22 (!) and the author is still alive), but I started with book 1 because what kind of monster do you take me for?

I enjoyed it, even though this was one of the more disturbing motives – definitely not a cozy mystery.  Maybe Jo Walton’s recommendation about starting with book 2 was a typo.

Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh

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Started: 2/18/19
Gave up: 2/22/19

I couldn’t get into this story.  It started with so much exposition, and when we finally got into some characters’ heads, I was relieved and then disappointed.  It’s slow-moving, and the depiction of an alien race (native to a planet humans settled on) strikes me as vaguely racist, so it’s unpleasant to read.  Add to that the abundance of unnecessary commas and I had to walk away.