Started: 1/4/20
Finished: 1/16/20
Book 2 of the Alanna books. She’s 14-16 (at least in the first third of the book), so it’s a little easier to take, but she can do EVERYTHING and kick ass at it. So, yay for her, but also COME ON. Still fun, though.
Started: 1/11/20
Finished: 1/16/20
Second in the fairy trilogy by Holly Black. Good middle book. Great ending.
Started: 1/4/20
Finished: 1/10/20
I’ve read (and liked) one other fairy story by Holly Black, and she’s a guest of honor at a convention we’re going to, so I figured I’d read more of her stuff. This is the first in a trilogy, also about the Fae (you can’t just call them fairies when they’re trying to kill you). It starts off DARK (bad stuff happens to some kids under 10 before they get packed off to live in Faerie), and then we jump ahead ten years and follow them as teenagers.
Started: 12/28/19
Finished: 1/4/20
Debut novel of an author I heard speak on a panel at a convention. I’d read a couple of her short stories and really liked them, and I liked her in person, so I was excited to read this one and…I LIKED IT. It was fun, fast, and a little twisty plotwise (in a good way). I’m glad it’s the beginning of a series.
Started: 12/1/19
Finished: 12/14/19
13 short stories, all SF, all really good. Two in this collection were up for Hugos in the last couple of years.
Started: 10/12/19
Finished: 10/21/19
Sequel to Lock In, same issues with dialogue, but otherwise a good story and a good book.
Started: 10/2/19
Finished: 10/9/19
I like John Scalzi’s books. I haven’t read them all, but I’ve read most of them, and I’ve really liked the vast majority. They’re not perfect – the problem I run into is that all of the characters sound the same way. The dialogue, while on the one hand can be pretty realistic, is basically the same book to book. It feels like every character is a stand-in for the author – smart, an essentially good person, heavy on the snark. HEAVY on the snark. It’s amusing, and his stories are all good, entertaining, fast-paced. I like that his characters tend to have healthy and happy family relationships (it’s a nice change from all the death and orphans and drama I get in nearly everything else I read), but they all talk the same.
So I get stuck on that sometimes.
Started: 10/1/19
Finished: 10/2/19
I chose this novella deliberately as something I knew I would like, since I gave up on the last four books I tried to read. Imagine my relief to find I still like this universe and could enjoy this story. Yay for this series!
Started: 9/14/19
Finished: 9/23/19
This is billed as a companion book to Seraphina (which I liked a lot), but it really is a sequel, and it’s just as good, if occasionally a little weirder, than the first one. Although it is a little hard to remember that the main character is supposed to only be about 17 or 18. She’s written older than that, I think, but as long as I didn’t focus on that, I was fine.
Started: 8/18/19
Finished: 8/19/19
Short story by an author I like, but I was led astray by the title. I assumed, since with one word changed, it’s the title of a Shirley Jackson book, that it would be similar or related to that book. It’s not, not at all. The title is perfectly appropriate to the story, and a cute nod to Shirley Jackson, but I spent a lot of time (for such a short story) trying to figure out the connection. I might have enjoyed it more without that. It’s about a virtual reality game company employee who has “volunteered” to do some training to avoid being fired for being a jerk, basically. Will she learn? Will she grow? Once I let go of the title, I liked it.
Started: 7/18/19
Finished: 7/24/19
This is the second novella in the Murderbot Diaries series, and it’s so great! Poor Murderbot.
Started: 7/1/19
Finished: 7/8/19
I read this a LONG time ago. Like, I think I bought it in an airport bookstore on our honeymoon in London in 2000, and I didn’t like it. I wasn’t ready for Terry Pratchett, and it was my first experience with Neil Gaiman. This time I was totally ready, reaching for it with both hands and a foot (the other foot was preventing a crawling Jack from reaching for the trash can), and I read as quickly as I could in an era where I’ve lost my free time. Ridiculous, absurd, and funny. I am ready for the TV show.
Started: 6/22/19
Finished: 7/1/19
Book 3 in the Wayfarers series. This was a NICE story, but I had a hard time getting into it at first. I enjoyed it, and I wholeheartedly recommend it (the whole series), but I don’t think it’s Hugo-worthy (this book is nominated, as is the series).
Started: 6/15/19
Finished: 6/22/19
Book 2 in the Wayfarers series. Instead of an episodic adventure story like the first one, this book follows two characters as they struggle with their identities. Universal in a very science-fictional way. It’s also a found-family story. I’m a sucker for found-family stories.
Started: 5/4/19
Finished: 5/7/19
The third Cecelia and Kate book was the 2nd best. Told in letters like the first one, although we get Thomas and James’ POVs, too, which is fun. Best, though, is what happened to the mislaid magician in the title. Fun, light, ridiculous, and fun. (Did I mention it was fun?)
Started: 4/9/19
Finished: 4/14/19
The second of the Cecelia and Kate novels, maybe not quite as delightful as the first one, but close and still fun.
Started: 4/7/19
Gave up: 4/7/19
This is hard to admit, but I gave up on Dandelion Wine. I love Ray Bradbury, but I couldn’t read this. It’s an ode to small-town life before the Great Depression. Remember when boys were boys and men were men and small towns were great and aren’t little brothers wonderful and gosh, summer lasts forever, and MAYBE if there had been a plot!
Started: 4/1/19
Finished: 4/6/19
Book 8 in the Expanse series. Even though it’s been over a year since I read the last one (Dec 2017), I was able to jump right in with no refresher. I think book 4 and maybe book 2 are the weakest in the series so far – this one falls squarely in the middle for quality, and a little higher for emotional kicks. It’s the second to last book, and it feels like it. I’m not ready for the last one, but I don’t have to be for a while yet.
Started: 3/23/19
Finished: 3/25/19
Book 2 in the Family Skeleton series. Still fun.
Started: 3/13/19
Finished: 3/16/19
Last in the Lady Helen series, we move the action to Bath and OH the drama and the men fighting over Lady Helen (even though she’s betrothed!) and the SECRETS and the clothes and poor Darby, and oh yes, fighting the big bad nasty demon-types. And I knew it, I KNEW it, and I’m not going to tell you what I knew because spoilers, but it’s nice to be right.
This was fun. I’m bummed there’s no more.