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: 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: 7/10/21
Finished: 7/22/21
Katherine Addison’s first book*, The Goblin Emperor, is one of my new favorites. I loved it. Picking this one up was a no-brainer, and now that I have put it down, I want more. It’s a strange book – it’s Holmes and Watson, but with different names. It’s familiar mysteries, but with unfamiliar resolutions. There are familiar characters, but with supernatural twists. I wasn’t sure if I really liked it, although I enjoyed it, but I love the main friendship and I want to read more of it. So yeah, I really liked it.
*Not really her first book. Katherine Addison is a pen name for Sarah Monette, who has written other stuff. I just learned that. I have not read Sarah Monette. I will.
Started: 7/5/21
Finished: 7/9/21
Love Sarah Gailey. This book was much more SF than they usually write, much more suspense, much more psychological drama, and very good. I thought the ending was going one way, and it went another way, and I was left very unsettled. I think that’s good?
Started: 7/3/21
Finished: 7/5/21
It’s a fantasy, it’s a mystery, it’s a contemplation of a lonely life, and it’s a really nice book.
Started: 6/2/21
Finished: 6/8/21
The next Maisie Dobbs book. I’ve been saying this for several books now, but I’m not sure if I’m going to keep reading these. They’re easy, they’re good enough, but Maisie needs more as a character.
Started: 5/29/21
Finished: 5/31/21
Love Nnedi Okorafor, even though I’m not entirely sure I understand this one. It was short, and I wish there were more.
Started: 5/25/21
Finished: 5/29/21
Love T. Kingfisher. This is horror, just scary enough in the beginning and the middle that I refused to read it at night, but it got less scary after that. Very weird. In a good way.
Started: 5/6/21
Finished: 5/25/21
I loved the Linesman series so much that I jumped at these when I saw my library had them. I didn’t love these two books quite as much, but I still really enjoyed the story. Found family, spaceships, mysteries, a ragtag crew on the run – all good stuff.
Started: 4/17/21
Finished: 4/26/21
I liked, but didn’t love, her first novel, but I had heard really good things about this one. Of course, then it took me a while to get into this, but once I did, I was completely hooked. Cried twice. Good stuff, and better than her first book.
Started: 4/12/21
Finished: 4/17/21
SO GOOD, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this book is a 2021 Hugo nominee! (Just announced.) This has been on my radar since it was published last year, both because she’s great and I’ve loved many of her books and because everyone in the SF community raves about it, and it lived up to the hype.
Started: 4/3/21
Finished: 4/9/21
Book 17 in The Dresden Files, which I have been re-reading via audiobook for the last year or so. I probably should have been listing the last several as new books for me, but I’ve been lazy about it. Anyway, I’m enjoying these books more than ever, particularly the later ones, at least partly because he really dialed back the low-key sexist descriptions of women THANK GOD.
Also, something in this latest book made me cry, and there was a bonus short story at the end that made me SOB. Jim Butcher has made me yell in annoyance, shout at unexpected events, laugh many times, but he’s never made me cry before.
Started: 3/30/21
Finished: 4/3/21
Book 4, I think, in the Maisie Dobbs series. I like the stories, but I’m over my love for them. Maisie needs friends, please! Someone she actually talks to or has fun with, not just clients and employees and sponsors/mentors. She might become more human.
Started: 3/16/21
Gave up: 3/16/21
This was Paul Tremblay’s first book, and it shows. There’s a narcoleptic detective, bad at his job, unwilling to change anything to improve, and why should I care about this character? I don’t. I gave up pretty quickly.
Started: 3/14/21
Finished: 3/16/21
Volume 2 of a graphic novel full of NICE fairy tale mashups. I really really hope there’s a 3rd volume.
Started: 3/6/21
Finished: 3/13/21
Book 3 in the Maisie Dobbs series. Any pretense that she isn’t somewhat mystical is gone, and since the pretense is gone, I feel like I can relax about it. It does remove a little of my enjoyment of the mystery aspect, though. Still great characters and good stories, so I’m in the for long haul with the series.
Started: 2/27/21
Gave up: 3/3/21
People LOVE Diana Wynne Jones, but it appears I am not people. I tried one a while back – it was okay. I tried this one about British witches saving the world in the early 1990s – what’s not to like? But I feel very meh about it, so I gave up. She wrote Howl’s Moving Castle, and it’s supposed to be amazing, so I will try that sometime, but if I don’t like that one, I think I might have to be done with her.
Started: 2/21/21
Finished: 2/27/21
This one starts out weird, gets fascinating, then turns dark and fascinating. And, despite the fact that it took me a full week to finish it (I had ZERO time to read), it’s short!
Started: 2/8/21
Finished: 2/12/21
T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon when she’s writing kids’ books) is one of the guests of honor at this convention I’m (virtually) attending this weekend, so I figured I’d read her next to most recent book before then. I’ve read three before this and loved them, and I love this. I love it when I find a new favorite.
Started: 1/30/21
Finished: 2/3/21
I love Sarah Gailey and everything they’ve written. This is their first YA book – it’s about friends with magic, and it starts dark. The main character is pretty insecure ways that feel real even though they’re not how any of my insecurities work. I’m not totally crazy about how the magic works. I mean, it’s not explained and I don’t think it has to be, but the friends seem to be so convinced that this one thing will work, and I don’t know why they would think that. Except it’s likely they are trying to convince themselves it’ll work. Anyway, I liked it, I enjoyed it, and a lot of things about it were really good. I’m just not sure it’s really good.