January Minireviews // Part 4

Final batch for January!!

Twelve Percent Dread by Emily McGovern – 2*

//published 2022//

This graphic novel started strong, with an fun story and likable characters, but the story went literally nowhere.  There is a bunch of build-up and then it just… ends.  No resolution.  Every single character is left hanging.  It was incredibly frustrating.  I also struggled with this one because the writing is SO tiny and hard to read, and because many of panels are so small, it could sometime be difficult (especially at first) to tell characters apart.  And also, I’m sorry but this is just the way it is, having someone’s pronouns be they/them can make it SO hard to follow a narrative when you can’t tell if the narrator is referring to one person or several.  I really like McGovern’s artwork, and many of her short-form comics (especially the Background Slytherin comics), but this book just really fell short of the mark.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – 3.5*

//published 1818//

I had never read this classic before and was honestly quite intrigued to pick it up, considering that it is such a foundational piece of literature.  However, it wasn’t really for me.  The narrative structure can definitely be confusing (it’s someone writing a letter telling a story, and then he starts quoting someone else telling a story, who frequently quotes someone else telling a story… I mean, seriously), and while I understood why Shelley wrote it that way, it was sometimes difficult to remember who was telling who what.  Frankenstein himself drove me a little crazy and frequently did and said things that made no sense to me.  I was especially aggravated with (1) the fact that he creates the monster and then literally runs away immediately without a moment’s hesitation – seriously???  and (2) how long it takes him to actually take up arms against the monster, like literal months trailing this thing around and not actually figuring out a battle plan against it.  I also found the monster to be a bit unbelievable – I could buy him teaching himself to speak and read, but to be able to eloquently quote from ancient classics, and to formulate the kinds of arguments he did?  Well.

As a story warning about the dangers of dabbling in things we really don’t understand, and claiming that “science” justifies things like creating the atom bomb or seeing what kind of horrific diseases we can create in a lab, this reads great. As gothic horror, it reads okay.  It was definitely worth the one-time read, and I think it deserves its status as a classic, but it isn’t one I see myself rereading.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach – 2*

//published 1970//

My husband was given this book to read at an influential age, and would mention it from time to time as the first time he ever considered the concept of transcendence, so I got him his own copy for his birthday.  It’s the story of a seagull who isn’t content to just hang out on the beach and eat stuff like the rest of the flock – he wants to pursue the true magic of flight, beyond just the necessities.  Of course, this kind of attitude can’t be tolerated (for some unknown reason) so he is cast out from the rest of the flock.  Over time, Jonathan Livingston Seagull uses his extreme flight speeds to achieve another level of existence, which he teaches to the other young, rebellious seagulls as well, as they all pursue their flying nirvana, much to the horror of those boring, traditional seagulls who just want to do regular seagull stuff.

My husband enjoyed the nostalgia trip, although he wasn’t quite as enamored with the story as he was when he was 13.  That said, he did write, “Seagull is to flying as I am to _____” on our chalkboard as he contemplated what it is in his life that makes him fly haha  However, I’m not as “heady” as my husband, so I honestly just found the entire parable to be quite aggravating.  What’s the big problem with wanting to just hang out on the beach and eat breakfast?  Why does everyone have to suffer and struggle to try and transcend to the next level?  At the end of the day, it wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t a match for me.  I like doughnuts and sitting in the sunshine too much to spend my days trying to transcend!

Ben and Me by Robert Lawson – 4*

//published 1939//

Lawson wrote a few of these books, taking historical figures, putting some kind of animal in their life, and then telling the person’s story from the perspective of the animal.  This is the most well-known of them, with the life of Ben Franklin told from the perspective of his friend and companion, Amos the mouse.  Amos helps Ben make most of his discoveries and inventions, and helps him become a renown diplomat as well.  Amos lives in Ben’s hat, where it’s convenient for him to take notes and give Ben advice on the fly.  My favorite part was how many other famous people from the time had their own secret mouse-companions helping them along.  This one is fun and silly with fabulous illustrations by the author.  An all-around good time.

The Roundhill by Dick King-Smith – 3*

//published 1999//

King-Smith was incredibly prolife, writing, I don’t know, probably close to a hundred children’s books over his lifetime.  (I mean seriously, look at his list of published works on Wiki!)  I pick up his books whenever I come across them on the cheap, and have quite a few of them sitting unread on my shelves, despite most of them only being around 75-100 pages long.  With such a large body of work, some are definitely stronger than others (he’s best known for The Sheep-Pig, which is what the movie Babe the Gallant Pig is based from; I personally have a soft spot for the first of his books I ever read, The Fox Busters.)  All that to say, while this story was okay, it wasn’t one of his best (in my opinion).

Evan is a rather lonely boy who has a love for his special, secret place, which he calls The Roundhill. One day, he finds a girl there, who tells him her name is Alice.  At first annoyed that someone else has invaded his space, over the next few meetings Evan finds himself drawn to her.  However, she is also rather mysterious – to the point that Evan begins to wonder if she is even real.  This book is weirdly sad and doesn’t exactly go anywhere.  I never could particularly like Evan, who is rather mean to his visiting cousin at one point, and whom I just never quite connected to.  At the end of the book he is an elderly adult reflecting on his life, and I felt quite sad for him as he said he wished he could believe in God but just couldn’t.  All in all, there is a sad undertone to the story that kept me from really enjoying it.  At only 84 pages long it didn’t take me long to read, but I doubt I’ll pick this one up again.

Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse – 4.5*

//published 1929//

Like Meet Mr. Mulliner, this collection of short stories are all told by Mr. Mulliner from his usual spot in the Angler’s Rest.  With so many relatives inclined to get entangled in all sorts of adventures, Mr. Mulliner has a tale for every occasion.  These stories are fun and silly, and delightful Wodehouse fare.

Salute by C.W. Anderson – 4*

//published 1940//

Anderson’s Billy and Blaze books were some of my first introductions into the joys of horse stories, and I still snatch up any book written and/or illustrated by him that I can find.  He wrote several books for younger readers that are short chapter books (so a step up from the Billy and Blaze picture books, difficulty-wise), and Salute is one of those.  At only 64 pages, many of which are illustrated, it’s not a very in-depth book, but is still a fun story about a boy who is given a retired racehorse.  The odd part about this story is that Salute himself doesn’t show up until the very end of the story – it’s more about this first horse that the boy owns, helps restore to health, and then retrains to race.  Still, a nice little story that definitely added to my conviction as a child that someone would just show up and give me a horse someday!  LOL

Running Total: Books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet: 59!!!  High/Low: 97/59

January Minireviews // Part 3

The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen Flynn – 3*

//published 2017//

Add this to the large pile of books that I wanted to like more than I did.  In this one, set in the near future, time travel exists, but is used very sparingly and for very specific purposes.  Recently, a previously unheard-of letter from Jane Austen has been discovered, and it references a hitherto unheard of, unpublished novel.  Rachel and Liam are chosen to go back to 1815, befriend Jane, and then steal this novel by using fancy technology to copy it onto a flash drive-like thing.  Their cover story is to pose as a brother and sister moving to London from Jamaica to hopefully cover the fact that they don’t know anyone and maybe sometimes get a little bit of the “politeness rules” wrong.  Rachel is a doctor, and the secondary aspect of the mission is to try and find out what killed Jane at such a relatively young age.

I actually really liked the concept of this book and overall even though it was executed fairly well.  However, I found Rachel and Liam both to be extremely unlikable.  The entire story is narrated by Rachel, and they haven’t been in 1815 for very long before we start hearing about how she finds Liam strangely attractive and really wishes she could sleep with him, yadda yadda yadda.  She also acts like it’s SO horrid that she has to go SO LONG without having any sex (months!), what a burden .  She has a lot of opinions about how strong and independent she is, which means she sleeps with lots of different guys with no strings attached.  (Side note: really tired of that being the definition of “strong and independent woman”.)  Eventually, despite the fact that it wildly endangers their entire mission, she and Liam DO sleep together, and then I have to hear about THAT.  On top of all of this, Liam is actually engaged to someone back home!  But both of them think this is relatively unimportant, and in fact have an entire conversation about how it’s fine to cheat on someone because that person doesn’t “own” you.  I’m sorry, what?!?!  Rachel especially uses words like “own,” “possession,” and “control” to describe monogamous relationships, which was both creepy and insulting.  I get that Rachel and Liam aren’t actually from 1815, but it was still very jarring to have so much of the story revolve around Rachel’s sex life, all mixed up with the two of them getting to know the Austen family.  Of course, in a weird way I needed to have Rachel keep telling me how attractive she found Liam, because there was absolutely ZERO chemistry between these two, so their entire relationship felt completely forced anyway.  In the end (spoiler) Rachel and Liam do end up together, which left me pretty underwhelmed.  They both are terrible people who think cheating is fine, so I didn’t hold out a great deal of optimism for the long-term success of their relationship, and was genuinely disgusted by their completely callous attitude towards Liam’s fiancee.

Other than completely disliking the main characters, I weirdly liked the story.  The concept really was a lot of fun.  The ending was a little rushed and thus not particularly believable, but it did mostly tie things up.  The 3* is a bit of a generous rating because I did keep reading even with some unlikable characters, and I feel like the book deserves some credit for that!

Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman – 4*

//published 2004//

Another fantastic installment for the Leaphorn & Chee series.  Excellent pacing and an engaging mystery.  The characters in this series are just so dang likable, and per usual, Hillerman weaves a great deal of culture and tradition into the reading in a natural way.

Indian Island Mystery by Mary C. Jane – 3.5*

//published 1965//

Did you know that there is an Indian Reservation in Maine??  I had no idea!  The story is about two siblings who haven’t been living in the area very long and who have befriended some of the Native American children living on the reservation. The story touches lightly on being friends even if someone doesn’t look or live like you, and the main character concludes by realizing that everyone is different from everyone, and that’s part of what makes life so interesting. The mystery itself is simple but fun, and I was a bit mind-blown that their parents just let these two kids take the bus to Bangor and back on their own to see if they could find a man that none of them actually know very well…!!! This one isn’t going to be some kind of forever classic, but it’s a typical fun little MG mystery from the era and I quite enjoyed it.

The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman – 3.5*

//published 2006//

This was one of the weaker installments in this series, and sadly is also the last of these books that Hillerman wrote before he passed away and his daughter took over the series.  (I haven’t read any of her books yet, so I’m interested to see if there is a noticeable change in the writing style.)  My biggest confusion was continuity – Leaphorn has been retired for several books, yet suddenly here it’s only been a month or so.  Other changes in the characters’ lives indicate that we haven’t gone back in time, so I was genuinely perplexed.  The mystery was rather weak, and where in most books the conversations about culture and religion feel natural and engaging, here it just felt like filler, especially an overly-long section where Leaphorn and another character are driving and talk for probably a full chapter about different religions and beliefs they have in common.  It wasn’t a bad book, and I still overall enjoyed it, but definitely was not one of the stronger books in this overall fantastic series.

Frederica by Georgette Heyer – 5*

//published 1965//

It’s hard to go wrong with Heyer, and Frederica is one of my favorites.  I was happy to revisit it for the traveling book club.  The typical Heyer hero, the Marquis of Alverstoke is handsome, rich, and a bit bored.  He’s also determined not to marry, despite the pressure from all his female relatives.  Enter some distant country cousins in need of his help, which he fully intends to NOT give… only to find himself embroiled in their lives against his will.  I absolutely love this book because Alverstoke doesn’t just find love, he finds an entire warm, happy family, which is exactly what he needs.  Frederica’s siblings are just the right amount of adventurous without being too obnoxious, and Frederica herself is the typical Heyer heroine – independent, intelligent, and has a strong sense of humor.  This is one of my all-time favorite Heyer books, and always worth a reread.

Murder at the Piccadilly Playhouse by C.J. Archer – 4*

//published 2021//

The second Cleopatra Fox mystery felt like the series is beginning to find its stride.  Archer finds a (mostly) natural way for Cleo to get embroiled in another mystery, and it was fun to see some developments with the secondary characters as well.  While this series hasn’t blown me away, they are enjoyable historical mysteries.

Running Total: Books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet: 66!!!  High/Low: 97/66 – Making progress!!!

The Lunar Chronicles // by Marissa Meyer

• Cinder
• Scarlet
• Cress
• Fairest
• Winter
• Wire & Nerve
• Wire & Nerve: Gone Rogue
• Stars Above

Well, the majority of my May reading was spent in the Lunar Chronicles universe.  These books had been on my radar for quite some time, but I still went into them with low expectations because I’ve become cynical as a person haha  However, I ended up absolutely loving this series, with all of these books rating 4 or 4.5* from me.

I was gifted Cinder a while back, and actually read it in April.  I enjoyed it so completely that I decided to go ahead and purchase the rest of the series (used – have you guys checked out Pango Books yet??  I am IN LOVE with that app and have sold several books there so far – my favorite part is that it’s like eBay used to be, where you actually see photos of the book you’re purchasing, so I was able to make sure I was buying the new-cover editions, which I love), and when they finally arrived in May I absolutely devoured them!!  Conveniently, we went on vacation in May as well, which gave me some extra reading time.

So basically these books are set in the future, and Cinder is about a cyborg girl – someone who has had human parts replaced with machinery/computer parts.  Following the basic outline of Cinderella, Cinder is an orphan whose adoptive father has died, leaving her with a stepmother who despises her (cyborgs are considered barely human and can be bought and sold as slaves) and two stepsisters.  Cinder spends her day working as an android mechanic, and it is there that the prince visits her with a special android that he needs repaired.

In this world, the moon was settled at one point, but Lunars have developed a special ability that enables them to manipulate other’s feelings and even what they see.  Lunars are distrusted and hated, and Earth is on the brink of war with them.  Meanwhile, a horrible plague is breaking out all around the world.  Scientists are racing to try and find a cure or a vaccine, to no avail.  I wasn’t surprised to find out that Cinder is more important than anyone knows (including herself), but the way the story unwinds through the series is fantastic.

I loved the way new characters were introduced throughout the series.  It can be difficult to balance a lot of different characters going a lot of different directions, but for the most part, Meyer pulled it off.  I was genuinely invested in everyone, even the evil Lunar queen.  Each of the main books is a different fairytale retelling (Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Snow White) and honestly, that aspect was also done incredibly well.  Meyer rings true to the original story while adding her own twists.  These were some of the best revisited fairytales I’ve ever read.  I especially loved her interpretation of Rapunzel in Cress.

Other things I loved – the love stories!  I shipped each of these couples and there were NO LOVE TRIANGLES!  There was also no sex!  It was fantastic!  Each couple had there own issues and difficulties to overcome, but I was rooting for all of them to succeed.  Cress really was my favorite of the series, partially because I absolutely love her love interest – he’s totally my fave.

I read these books in the author’s recommended order, including inserting various short stories from Stars Above at various points between the main novels.  My biggest complaint is that she has a recommended reading order for the short stories but DIDN’T PUBLISH THEM IN THAT ORDER IN THE BOOK!  What’s the point of creating a certain order and then publishing them all together in the same book, if you aren’t going to use the order in the book!?!?  It made zero sense and aggravated me way more than it should have.

I wasn’t sure about reading Fairest.  After finishing Cress I really wanted to see how everything came together, not read the evil queen’s backstory.  However, while that wasn’t anywhere close to my favorite book or anything, I actually enjoyed it way more than I anticipated.  Meyer did a great job giving Levana a believable background that explained many of her actions and motives, but still emphasizing that her choices were her own – she had many opportunities to do the right thing, but instead found ways to convince herself to do what she knew, deep down, was wrong.  It meant Levana was somewhat explained as a character, but still didn’t become too sympathetic.

The grand finale in Winter was done pretty well.  It did somewhat feel like there was a lot more build-up than there was action, but overall Meyer pulled together the many threads and gave me an ending that I found satisfying.  While it’s the technical conclusion of the series, the two Wires and Nerve graphic novels, plus a short story occur chronologically after this book.  Those were all super fun to see how things went on with the entire gang.  I wasn’t sure if I would like the graphic novels since the main character is an android who has basically morphed into human understanding, but it ended up working for me after all.

Overall, I really loved this series.  With a total of 3363 pages, I’m not sure if I’ll read this series again anytime SOON, but I can definitely see myself rereading it at some point, as I really liked these characters a lot and would love to revisit them.  If you like fairytale retellings and some scifi, these are definitely worth picking up!!

Arc of a Scythe Trilogy // by Neal Shusterman

• Scythe
• Thunderhead
• The Toll

These books were April’s unexpected win.  They had been on my TBR for quite a while (as usual), but I didn’t have high expectations for them.  They just sounded kind of… weird, I guess, and I wasn’t sure if they would be my kind of weird.  Well, they absolutely were.  I was completely sucked into this trilogy, and even if it didn’t end the way that I personally would have chosen, I still appreciated the way everything came together.

In the future, an AI named Thunderhead has indeed become sentient and now rules the world – but whereas people from the past feared this would lead to all sorts of evil situations, in reality it has solved all of humanity’s problems.  Hunger, homelessness, poverty, disease, crime, war – all things of the past.  Since the Thunderhead took charge of humanity, it is able to perfectly predict and control everything.  Even death is no longer something that happens naturally, because humans have been enhanced with speedy healing nanites in their systems to take care of things even if something wildly unexpected happens – which rarely does, because of the Thunderhead’s ability to predict and prevent accidents and tragedies.  When people get old they can “turn the corner” and basically reset themselves back down into their 20s and start life over, feeling just as young and fit as ever.

But this has led to the potential of overpopulation on Earth.  To solve this, a organization was created to deal out death.  These people are called Scythes.  Different Scythes are in charge of different regions of the world, and are given certain quotas of death to meet (and no exceed) each year within their region.  If a Scythe taps you for death, there is nothing you can do about it.  And the only area of Earth that the Thunderhead doesn’t interfere with is Scythe business – Scythes operate outside of the rest of the world.

This system has worked for many years.  Death rates are still a tiny fraction of what they were during the Age of Mortality, and most people live to “turn the corner” many times.  But there is a new rumble in the ranks of the Scythes, a group that doesn’t view death as a serious, somber responsibility, but instead believe that killing should be embraced and even enjoyed, that Scythes, rather than living quietly and unobtrusively on the outskirts of society, should instead be front and center, rulers of humanity.  And it is at this time that Scythe Faraday takes on two apprentices, Citra and Rowan – two apprentices who end up changing the course of history.

Were these books perfect?  Absolutely not.  There were definitely gaps in the world-building and certain aspects that didn’t make a whole lot of sense if you really dug into them.  But on the whole, I found the concept to be intriguing and engaging, the pacing excellent, the characters likable (or hate-able as necessary) and completely blasted through all 1500+ pages in just a few days.  I didn’t completely love the way the series ended… it’s not exactly what I would have done… but it was still a solid ending that pulled together most of the loose ends.

Maybe part of it was that I had pretty low expectations for this series, but I really enjoyed it a great deal, and definitely see myself rereading these sometime in the future.  I’m not always a fan of dystopian fiction, but I really found these engaging, and look forward to seeing what else Shusterman has written.

Sentinels of the Galaxy Trilogy // by Maria V. Snyder

• Navigating the Stars
• Chasing the Shadows
• Defending the Galaxy

I’ve read Snyder’s Chronicles of Ixia twice now and absolutely loved them, so I’ve been meaning to pick up this trilogy for quite a while.  I didn’t love this series as much as the Ixia books, but they were still really well done.

Lyra is the daughter of two renowned archeologists, living on a planet whose entire human population is based around the archeological dig there.  The dig focuses on a set of strange artifacts that have been found on multiple planets (including Earth) around the galaxy – terracotta warrior statues.  Content with her life and friends, Lyra is devastated when she finds out that she will be moving with her parents to a new planet, one that just discovered another set of warriors.

Snyder sets the stage for her space travel by explaining that everyone uses “time dilation,” similar to basically every other space book I seem to read, starting with A Wrinkle in Time, wherein travelers pass through folds/wrinkles/etc. of space.  However, while it only takes a few hours for the travelers to pass through a time dilation, it can take decades of real time.  Thus, say you were born (I’m going to use just random numbers here because I don’t have the book in front of me) in 2000, then at the age of 10 travel to a far-flung planet.  When you arrive, you are still 10 Actual years old, but it’s now year 2052, so all of your friends from the original planet are now 52, while you’re still a child.  It’s a little confusing at first, and the repeated use of Actual Years Old began to get on my nerves, but it all in all makes decent sense.

So when Lyra’s spaceship exits from time dilation, she of course receives all kinds of messages and news from the past couple of decades (even though it was only a couple of hours for her) – including some very disturbing news about the planet (and people) they left behind.

All three of these books held together really well, without that dreaded second-book dip.  I was thoroughly engaged in what was going on with Lyra and her friends.  The pacing was good and the characters mostly likable – I especially appreciated that Lyra had a great relationship with her parents, instead of them being constantly at odds.

My only real problem with these books was that I read them so close to the Aurora Cycle.  They aren’t really that similar in terms of plot, but they do both involve a lot of space travel, time jumping, and people from the past.  I didn’t get the confused at the time, but now that some time has passed from reading both of them, I find myself having to actively remember which things happened in which books haha

This wasn’t my new favorite series, but it’s one that I can see myself rereading.  Overall, Snyder has become a favorite author of mine, and I’m still working my way through the rest of her works.  If you like YA and scifi, this trilogy is definitely worth checking out.

October Minireviews – Part 1

Okay, believe it or not, I AM making progress on these reviews!!! My goal is to be caught up by the end of the year!!!!

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough.  Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it!  Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up.  For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.

Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff – 4.5*

//published 2020//

I read the first book in this series at the end of September and rolled directly into this one, and it did NOT suffer from second-book syndrome.  SO.  GOOD.  This is what YA is supposed to be!  Fun and snarky, loads of adventure, engaging world-building, likable characters, personal growth, strong friendship, a splash of romance.  The bajillion POVs is slightly distracting and there are times where it feels like things are getting a little out of hand, but overall I just enjoyed this one so much.  The worst part – it ended on a cliffhanger and the third book didn’t come out until November!

The Ex Hex by Erin Stirling – 3.5*

//published 2021//

I’m a sometimes-BOTM member (I skip a LOT) but this one sounded fun so I went for it.  It was a nice one-time read, but I mailed it on to someone else when I was done with because I don’t see myself reading it again, although I probably could be persuaded to read a sequel.  It’s one of those books where you don’t worry about character development or think too hard about the world-building… just roll with what’s happening.  Overall it was a fun palette-cleanser after reading five 87th Precinct books, but it was just a little bit too far on the smutty/vulgar scale for me to really rate it any higher.  When I’m reading fluff, I don’t really want to be bombarded by f-bombs the entire time.  (As a side note, it’s not the actual sex scenes that bother me so much, because they’re easily bypassed, it’s when characters THINK about sex and TALK about sex and the whole thing just turns into SEX that it starts to really get aggravating.  This one wasn’t the worst I’ve come across in that way, but it still sometimes got old.)

The Jackal’s Head by Elizabeth Peters – 3.5*

//published 1968//

Peters isn’t a 100% win for me as she has definitely written some books that didn’t click with me, but in this one she returns to Egypt, where she should always set her books.  I only wish the Emersons could have made an appearance!  This story was virtually unbelievable, but it was still a great deal of fun.

The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie – 4*

//published 1936//

I actually remembered how this one came about, but I still enjoyed reading it because it’s fun to watch Christie lay the red herrings when you know which ones they are.  Plus, I got to read my beautiful special edition (HEART EYES).  I took a picture of the back cover as well because I quite liked the quote on it.

Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde – 3.5*

//published 2010//

The most entertaining part of this collection of Red Riding Hood retellings was Velde’s introduction where she explains how ridiculous the original story is.  Her actual retellings were mildly interesting but overall forgettable.

The Safest Lies by Megan Miranda – 3.5*

//published 2016//

This was one of those books that kept me reading while I was reading, but then I got done and I was like, “But what about…?????”  I also just never really connected with the characters, so a lot of the urgency was lost on me because I didn’t really care all that much about what happened to them.  This was a fun one-off read, especially if you like YA thrillers, but not one I’ll revisit.

Disclaimer by Renee Knight – 2.5*

//published 2015//

This is one that had been hanging around on my shelves for quite some time and I finally got around to it in October.  The premise sounds great.  A woman starts reading a book that’s on her bedside table – but then realizes that SHE is the main character.  Where did the book come from?  How did the author know about her life?  The only other person who knew about this situation is dead – RIGHT?  This sounds like it’s going to be a great thriller, and it was definitely compulsively readable (hence the 2.5* rating instead of like 1), but I didn’t feel like a single character in this story responded in a realistic way, meaning that no one felt like a real person.  The end of the book also just turned super preachy and also felt out of place.

I wrote a whole big long rant about this one but I’m just not feeling like publishing it.  There was a lot that annoyed me about this book, but I can see why so many people enjoyed it.  I personally find it difficult to root for a character who has lied to everyone in her life, including her husband, about really serious stuff, and then gets all offended that people don’t automatically assume that her behavior was impeccable during the situation she lied about.  But maybe that’s just me.

September Minireviews – Part 2

I’m starting to be cautiously optimistic that, in the very near future, I’ll be reviewing books only ONE month behind!!!

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough.  Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it!  Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up.  For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.

Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley – 5*

//published 2000//

I’ve reviewed this book a couple of times (here and here), because I have reread it so often.  In fact, for some unknown reason it’s because important to me to take this with me and read it whenever I go on vacation.  So when Tom and I went to Maine in September, Spindle’s End came along.  I can’t exactly explain why I love this one so much, or why I don’t get tired of rereading it, but the very act of holding this book and turning its pages has somehow become comforting to me.  I think the book is now imbued with the power of multiple happy vacations haha  At any rate, my earlier reviews do a much better job summarizing the story, so do check them out if you’re interested.  This one isn’t for everyone as it’s very rambly, but I love it a lot.

Yours Truly, Thomas by Rachel Fordham – 3.5*

//published 2019//

I also took several fluff books with me on vacation, ones that I’ve picked up on the cheap from Book Outlet over the last year but haven’t gotten around to reading.  I really liked the concept of this one – Penny works at a post office in the Dead Letters office.  In a final effort to find the recipient of a letter, the post office can open the letter and look for clues.  Penny finds letters written by a man named Thomas to a woman he obviously loves, telling her how sorry he is about how things turned out, and writing about how he is trying to live a new, better life.  Penny becomes emotionally invested in these letters and is determined to help reunite Thomas with his love.  Etc. etc. This wasn’t a bad book, but it honestly was rather boring for most of it, and then has this absolutely ridiculously dramatic ending that felt completely unrealistic.  It was readable but not one I’d revisit, and also not one that made me yearn to find out what else Fordham has written.

To Sir, With Love by Lauren Layne – 4*

//published 2021//

Continuing my trend of books-based-on-letters (I didn’t realize it when I packed for vacation, but I brought five books and four of them were based around letters??), this one is Shop Around the Corner vibes that was really fun to read.  Gracie did get on my nerves a bit, but I liked the chemistry between her and Seb (even if it was ridiculously obvious that he was also Sir) and liked the way things came together in end.

When You Read This by Mary Adkins – 3.5* (published 2019)

I was drawn to this one because of the format, which includes emails, blog posts, text messages, and other media.  Sometimes epistolary books can feel a little narrow in their scope, but including other conversations kept this one engaging, although it did sometimes get confusing if the same person said something twice in a row – so there’s an email heading for each email telling who it is to and from, but if the same two characters are going back and forth, I tended to skim that bit and not really register it… and then get confused because someone had emailed twice in a row instead of going back and forth.  Basically, the story starts because a woman named Iris has died of cancer.  She worked for years for a guy named Smith, and leaves him a letter telling him that she’s actually been writing a blog and wants him to get it published as a book after her death.  But in order to do so, Smith needs permission from Iris’s sister, Jade, who is NOT a fan of the concept.  This is one of those books that the synopsis makes it sound sort of romcomy, but it actually is a bit of a downer.  It deals not just with the death of Iris, but also addiction, cancer, and midlife crisis.  While I found the writing engaging and liked the characters (mostly), and even found myself laughing at some points, the overall tone was definitely a downer.  One of the characters has a serious gambling addiction, and it felt like that was wrapped up way too tidily by this person just being like “oh you’re right, I do have a problem so now that I’ve acknowledged it, my addiction will magically go away!”  I was also annoyed because the only person presented as having any kind of religious belief was Jade’s mother who, we’re told repeatedly, is VERY conservative and VERY Christian, yet also had a life-long affair with a married man and just… sorry, yes, I know a lot of hypocritical people (both in and out of the church), but I don’t know a single church that would agree that having a decades-long affair with a married man jives with being a Christian.  I mean, seriously.  So that came across as just plain annoying.

On the whole, this was another of those pleasant-to-read-once-but-I’ll-never-reread-it kind of books.  I was perfectly happy to send this off to someone else when I was finished.

The Picts & the Martyrs by Arthur Ransome – 5* (published 1943)

It’s no surprise that my favorite book for the month was the next installment of the Swallows & Amazon series.  Only one left after this, and I’m going to miss them!!  This one was full of the regular shenanigans and adventures of the other books.  I just love these stories SO much.  They’re so funny and adorable, and the characters feel so realistic to me.  I enjoyed every page and wished for more.

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff – 4*

//published 2019//

My second-favorite read of the month was a total surprise.  Scifi can be really hit or miss for me, so I didn’t have very high expectations for this one – and ended up being SO fun.  Snarky, entertaining, engaging – conversations explaining the world-building that felt natural – likable characters – tons of humor -I loved it!  My only slight beef is that entire thing is first person, but from SO many different perspectives, like it bounces around between ALL the characters, so that did sometimes get a little confusing, plus they don’t really sound THAT different from each other.  But it still worked on the whole, meaning this one ended up being tons of fun.

Note: This is book one in a trilogy – I read the second book in October, and the third book wasn’t published until this month, so it’s waiting for me at the library!!

The Stars Duology // by Diana Peterfreund

• For Darkness Shows the Stars
• Across a Star-Swept Sea

Quite a long while back I read Across a Star-Swept Sea, and while I overall liked it, there were parts of it that I found really confusing/not well-explained.  Well, guess what, it’s because it was actually a sequel, despite there being NO indication of this anywhere on the cover or in the front of the book.  THIS IS  A PET PEEVE OF MINE – I do not understand WHY publishers publish sequels and act like it’s a secret.  Just.  Why.

Anyway.  I’ve been meaning to go back and read both books and I finally got around to it!

The first book, For Darkness Shows the Stars, is a riff on Persuasion, which is what finally made me get around to it – after rereading Persuasion, I thought it would be fun to read this one while the original was fresh in my mind.  I thought this book did a great job capturing the basics of Austen’s story, but all the characters were somehow amplified.  In Persuasion, Anne’s dad is self-absorbed and a bit ridiculous; here he’s cruel and willing to do anything as long as he has everything he wants.  Austen’s Wentworth is a bit stubborn about recognizing that Anne had valid reasons for her past choices; here he is harsh and unforgiving, to the point of purposefully inflicting pain on Anne with cruel and snarky comments and actions.  It made this story grittier and the stakes higher, as now it’s not just that Anne’s family may have to tighten their belts and live a little more frugally, it’s that the lives and livelihoods of so many people are on the line.

This book would have garnered an easy 4*, maybe even 4.5*, from me except for one HUGE problem – the ages of the characters.  Like I think what was happening here was Peterfreund wanted this book to be YA, so she needed her characters to be YA-aged.  But the problem is that the whole POINT of Persuasion is that TIME HAS PASSED, so Peterfreund’s brilliant solution?  That the Anne/Wentworth characters were FOURTEEN when they separated and now it’s only FOUR YEARS LATER so they are still only EIGHTEEN and I’m sorry but it made the entire story COMPLETELY, and I do mean COMPLETELY, unbelievable.  Like sometimes I can kind of get behind young people doing things that are obviously beyond what they would actually do, because circumstances can swiftly mature some individuals… but this just made no sense, especially since Peterfreund also chose to make Wentworth’s character SO harsh and unforgiving about the fact that Anne didn’t come with him… WHEN THEY WERE FOURTEEN.  I’m sorry, but you’re still mad because she didn’t come with you when you were both CHILDREN?!  I can’t even begin to describe how distracting these ages were from the actual stories.  There are lots of times that I can kind of pretend the ages are different or somehow work around in my brain, but it was impossible here and it made the entire story absolutely absurd, to the point that even though I thought it was really a great story overall, I almost can’t recommend it because the age thing made the whole book just stupid and pointless.  It just turned the Anne/Wentworth story into some ridiculous teenage angst instead of an actual crucible of maturation like it was in the original story.

This just shouldn’t have been a YA story, and I think this is where the obsession with categorizing books by the age of the intended audience has screwed everyone up.  Now adults feel like they can’t writing stories about adults because obviously no teen would ever be interested in a book about adults.  I see adults basically apologizing for reading YA because it’s not “for” them, and other adults saying that only teens should be “allowed” to read YA because otherwise adults are “stealing” those books and fandoms.  It just annoys the heck out of me.  Who cares how old the characters are if the story is good??  The characters should be the age that fits their actions, attitudes, and situations, not the age of the intended target audience.  It’s just absolute nonsense, and For Darkness Shows the Stars definitely emphasized the ridiculousness of forcing fictional characters to be a certain age just so a certain age will read your book.

ANYWAY.  After that I reread Across a Star-Swept Sea.  I gave a pretty detailed review of this Scarlet Pimpernel retelling in my original review (linked above).  I enjoyed this one even more the second time around, because it made so much more sense as a sequel!  Here, the youth of the characters is still somewhat annoying, but also somewhat makes sense, because, let’s be real, smuggling people across enemy lines while pretending to be a complete airhead definitely sounds like something teens would get into.

All in all, I did enjoy both these books and actually would love to read a third book set in this world (although since the second book came out back in 2013, it probably isn’t going to happen).  There were fun scifi/futuristic reads and both (besides the age thing) were actually great riffs on their original stories, stay true to the essence of the tale while still making it something new.  I don’t particularly see myself rereading these again and again, but I did enjoy them this time around. 4/5 for the pair.

May Minireviews – Part 2

Oh no, I already started work at the orchard!  Does this mean I’ll NEVER catch up on reviews??  ::cue dramatic music::

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough.  Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it!  Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up.  For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.

The Gin O’Clock Club by Rosie Blake – 3*

//published 2020//

Add this one to my long list of books I wanted to like more than I did…  Lottie is caught up in her career and her grandpa, Teddy, is afraid that she’s taking life too fast, especially since Teddy’s wife died.  Teddy has three buddies and together they comprise the Gin O’Clock Club, which gets together for cards, shenanigans, and gin, and he enlists their help in showing Lottie that she needs to slow down and enjoy her blessings while she can, including her (live-in) boyfriend, Luke.  Basically, the guys convince Lottie and Luke to try some “old-fashioned” dates.  In exchange, Teddy agrees to try some “new-fashioned” dates, since Lottie is concerned that Teddy hasn’t really bounced back since his wife passed away.  Throughout the book, we also get letters that Teddy is writing to his wife as part of the way that he is working through his grief, and those letters were absolutely so touching and sweet without feeling over-the-top that they alone almost made reading the book worth it.

There was so much about this book that I liked.  Teddy and his friends were absolutely fantastic – funny without being cutesy – and Luke was a total dreamboat that no woman in her right mind would take for granted.  All the date ideas were great fun without being weird and I just overall loved seeing the older guys working with the younger folks and all of them learning from one another.

The problem – and it was a BIG PROBLEM – is Lottie herself.  There’s no other way to say it: she was a total bitch.  Like, hardcore.  She literally treats everyone around her like disposable trash, while spending her entire internal monologue saying Oh wow I’m treating everyone like disposable trash; I should really stop that.  And then NOT STOPPING.  And at first I was okay with it because she was showing growth, right?  Like she starts going on these dates and realizing how awesome Luke is and how important it is to hang out with her grandpa and how people are more important than things….  And then she literally just goes exactly back to where she started with no hesitation.  It was like the book was starting over!  There was also this big drama where Lottie was stressed out about something Luke was doing but Teddy couldn’t say anything because it involved someone else that he’d promised not to tell and like – the completely obvious solution was for Teddy to ASK this other person if he could tell Lottie??  But instead he just lets it keep going on and on and poisoning everything in Lottie’s life and it was SO unnecessary.

In the end, I honestly wanted Luke to run far, far away.  Lottie was emotionally and verbally abusive to him on more than one occasion.  I’m really over this whole “the female MC is a horrible person, but it’s really the fault of someone else/society, not her.”  Like no, she’s just a dreadful person, and if Luke had said/done half the things that Lottie did, he would have been crucified, but since Lottie is a woman, she gets a HUGE pass and I’m not okay with it.  I really wish that I had liked Lottie better, because I loved everyone else in this story, and everything else about it, including that the story is about a couple trying to stay together instead of breaking up and moving on to someone else.  All the not-Lottie characters were just delightful, but I couldn’t get past how horrible Lottie was.

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis – 5*

//published 1953//

For some reason, I never liked this story as much when I was a kid, but I thoroughly enjoyed my reread of it this time around, especially the character of Puddlegum.  It’s just been so much fun to read these again!

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir – 4.5*

//published 2021//

This was actually one of my favorite books that I’ve read so far this year.  I read The Martian last year and had super low expectations for it because I’m not usually a “space story” person, but I ended up really enjoying it.  Consequently, I decided to read his newest book when it came out this spring, and even though it went a completely different direction from what the synopsis made me assume, I honestly was totally here for it.  The pacing here was fantastic, the flashbacks that filled in the MC’s background were well-placed, and I couldn’t believe how much I fell in love with Rocky.  As the book was drawing to a conclusion I didn’t really see how Weir was going to give me an ending that both made sense and didn’t make me completely depressed, but he 100% pulled it off – I absolutely loved the way everything came together in the end.

There is a lot of science-y stuff here.  I have literally no idea if what he’s saying is realistic/true/practical or not.  I just rolled with the adventure haha

Anchored Hearts by Priscilla Oliveras – 4*

//published 2021//

Last year I read Island Affair, and while it wasn’t my favorite romance ever, it was still a perfectly fun little read, so when I saw the next book in the series was out, I decided to pick it up.  Luis is the male MC from the first book; the female MC of Anchored Hearts is his sister, Anamaria.  Overall this was a pretty typical romcom read with likable main characters and a splash of angst.  I absolutely loved the warm families that both these characters possessed, even if those families weren’t perfect.  Some of the issues with the male MC and his dad dragged out a little too long for me, but overall I ended up liking this one better than the first book, and I would definitely read another book in this series.

The Night Dance by Suzanne Weyn – 3*

//published 2005//

This was a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and while it was okay, it was rather choppy and the entire story revolves around literal INSTA instalove, which definitely led to some eye-rolling moments for me.  I really loved the setting – Weyn chose to have this story take place just after the death of King Arthur, with the hero one of his knights trying to fulfill a promise to the king to return Excalibur to the Lady in the Lake.  This mean that even though the story was short, the world-building didn’t feel too compromised (since the reader already has the basic gist from Arthurian lore).  All in all, a pleasant one-off, but not a new fave.

The Broken Earth Trilogy // by N.K. Jemison

Oh man, I was SO CLOSE to actually being caught up on book reviews and stuff… and then somehow the entire end of January just disappeared!!! So here I am in February, writing up some January reviews!

• The Fifth Season
• The Obelisk Gate
• The Stone Sky

I’ve had this series on my TBR for quite some time, so when Jemison came up as January’s #AuthoraMonth on Litsy, I decided it was time to finally read them. While the world-building was excellent and the concept quite good, this story was also relentlessly depressing, which made it a difficult read for me. There is also one view of the narrative that’s told in second person – it was annoying to start with and only got more annoying as the story progressed. Even when I found out who was talking and why – I was still aggravated because not only was it second person, it was second person present tense, which literally made ZERO sense within the context of the tale. Finally, the conclusion of the story really depends on the motivations and actions of one character who I felt was entirely too young for that scenario to make sense – and even if she was older, I still wouldn’t have really believed that she was willing to destroy the world because of this one certain situation, which meant that the entire third book/conclusion to the story arc left me feeling a little so-so about the entire series.

I was going to say some more about these books (mostly complain about the second person thing), but now it’s been a month since I read them and a lot of my stronger feelings have faded haha In the end – interesting but so depressing that I’m not really planning to read any more of Jemison’s books. I also felt like there was a strongly polemic undertone about racism that at times felt a little like I was getting clunked in the head with it, and that wore on me after a while.

All in all, I don’t exactly recommend this trilogy, but if it sounds intriguing to you, it’s worth giving it a try. In retrospect, the story telling really must have been pretty strong for me to stick out even though all that second person nonsense, but that really did drive me absolutely crazy.