Bookish Thoughts

Komarr  is the opposite of a heart-breaking story. It starts by introducing us to Ekaterin, a woman who has been in a loveless and emotional abusive marriage for the past 10 years. She's grown steadily smaller, shrinking in on herself, to accommodate a husband with awful luck and a disease he won't admit to having. Or allow his son to be tested and treated for. Your heart breaks in that first chapter. But then, as Ekaterin slowly comes back to herself, rediscovering her sense of humor, her backbone, and her passion for botany, our heart gets put back together right alongside hers. Miles is in Komarr, a newly minted Imperial Auditor along to observe Professor Vorthys who has been doing this a lot longer and who happens to be Ekaterin's uncle. Miles meets and is instantly besotted by the married (and later widowed) Ekaterin. She in turn gets swept up in the case, the revelations of which first give her the strength she needs to finally leave her husband and then leave her w...

Matriarch  was a Christmas gift from Kevin. Something he picked up dirt cheap at a discount bookstore to put in my stocking. This worked out great with  A Star Shall Fall  a couple of years ago, so it makes sense he'd turn it into an annual tradition. But it took me a while to work up to this book. It's the fourth in a series, and I wasn't about to see out the first three books just to read this one. Especially because at least one of those books is no longer available in print. Which doesn't bode well for the series. So I went in with reservations, fully prepared to abandon the book after the first few chapters. It was definitely confusing at first. I ended up googling the plots of the first three books to catch myself up. I'm still not sure I'm straight on the various alien species, but I sorted it out enough for the story to make sense. And surprisingly enough, it drew me in and held my attention right up to the end. Like any good sci-fi, this story holds...

In  The Reptile Room  we begin to settle into what will be the pattern of the series. The Baudelaire orphans are sent to live with a distant and eccentric relative. Everything is wonderful for a few days. But then Count Olaf finds them, insinuates himself into their life, and kills the new guardian. The orphans find themselves needing to thwart yet another of his plots. This one involves poisonous snakes and a trip to Peru. This series could easily get repetitive, but given that it's written for 10-year-olds, that's probably part of the point. Kids like things to be repeated over and over. I still find comfort in the familiarity of a story where I know what's going to happen in broad strokes. The real pleasure always comes in the details, and the details here are pretty great. Snicket has a better grasp of his language and humor. His wordplay is more specific to the story at hand, and he has fun with some tongue twisters that need to be logicked out. The plot is a bit m...

Like every other book in this series,  Winter's Heart  is incredibly slow to start. But then it starts accelerating, and by the end you don't want to put the book down. It took me the entire bus ride from DC to NYC to read the prologue (which is over 10% of the book), and the ride back to get through Perrin's chapters that are so disconnected and full of moping and miscommunication that I hardly care. There are some characters in that subplot that I care about a lot, but right now it feels stuck. After that, though, we get Elayne and Mat and all sorts of excitement. There's more about the Seanchan, more poilitics and intrigue. Rand finally carries through with his plot to rid saidin of the taint, and another Forsaken goes down in the meantime. Although they are effectively immortal, and now that Lanfear is back I'm sure Osan'gar will pop up again at some point. The thing that I really appreciate about these books is that, while the characters all have their ...

Because what I need in my life right now is yet another series with more than ten books. At least these can all be read in a single sitting. The Bad Beginning  is the first in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. I first read it and the second book years ago when I was baby-sitting for my cousins. But at the time the series wasn't complete and I had no real incentive to track it down and read the whole thing. Then I kept hearing about it. Then Netflix announced their adaptation of it. Then it was my birthday. So I finally bought The Complete Wreck and doubled the length of my reading list in one fell swoop. But it is a very short book. 160 pages, with illustrations and large type on small pages. I read it quickly and found it delightful. Even though these books are about the terrible things that happen to the Baudelaire orphans, beginning with them becoming orphans, Snicket has a sense of humor that elevates the story. It's funny and charming while refusing to...

Before I read this book, I was warned that there was a cannibalism aspect to the murder mystery. Fearing the absolute worst, I braced myself. But it turned out that the cannibalism was mostly metaphorical, part of the book within a book that the murder is based on. So my first thought upon finishing was that it was much milder than I expected. And my second thought was that that was the strangest reaction I've had to a book in a long time. I love JK Rowling's Cormoran Strike series. Only two books in, but he and Robin are fun, smart people to hang out with. I like the way Rowling doles out clues, which leaves me feeling like I'm constantly on the verge of figuring things out. And I certainly could if I paid closer attention or flipped back to re-read passages. But as it stands I haven't been able to solve the mystery before the big reveal in either of her books. Which is a nice change of pace for someone who often sees the ending coming a mile away. If I have a comp...

Code Name Verity  is one of those books that I feel like everyone's been talking about for years. But for all that people were gushing about this book online, I managed to avoid hearing anything specific about it for a while. Then a few keywords entered my subconscious: female fighter pilots, female friendships, spies. I knew I had to read it. It's difficult to talk about this book. It deals with spies during WWII, so right off the bat you've got an unreliable narrator. As the details of her situation become more clear, it also becomes clear that something big is coming. But it's impossible to discern what that something is. Suffice it to say that this book was amazing. It deals first and foremost with female friendship, but it also focuses on women's war effort during WWII. There are female pilots and radio operators, interrogators and spies. It's refreshing to get a book that focuses on this side of the war effort, bringing to light things that have been o...

I was beyond excited when Bujold announced recently that she was releasing another story in the same universe as  The Curse of Chalion . I was even more excited when that book showed up sooner than I could have hoped for. Of course, this ended up being because it was released only as an eBook, which dampened my excitement somewhat. As much as it makes sense to release electronic copies of stories with no physical counterpart, especially for short stories and novellas, I still prefer the physical book. But it gave me an opportunity to check out the new Kindle app on my tablet, which actually has a few features that I like. Notably the "timer" that told me how long it would take to finish a chapter (or in this case the whole story). I also liked being able to change the background color - sepia was easier on my eyes in the late evening. The story itself was fun. Penric is so innocent and good-hearted (the classic third son) that you can't help but root for him. He's p...

Side Jobs  is not entirely part of the Dresden Series proper. As the title implies, it's the smaller cases that have less to do with the larger arcs. It's a collection of short stories that provide some history for fans of the series. Some alternate perspectives and smaller cases. It was a lot of fun to read, especially the stories narrated by characters other than Harry. This book collects stories ranging the whole course of the series thus far. From  A Restoration of Faith , which was written and takes place before the first book to  Aftermath , told from Murphy's perspective immediately following Harry's death in  Changes . The stories themselves are fun little bite-sized adventures. More interesting for the background they provide: Billy and Georgia's wedding, Thomas' involvement with the Oblivion War, Murphy's first meeting with Dresden, their relationship, and her grief when he dies. I really should have picked this book up before  Ghost Story . Th...

The internal chronological order of the Vorkosigan Saga bears no resemblance to the publication order. For the past 30 years, Bujold has written the stories she feels like writing when the inspiration strikes. Given this, it's actually a little amazing how well the references to earlier events work in her series. And because of it, each book contains a timeline with a brief synopsis of each book, to help orient the reader. The entry for this book simply reads "Miles hits 30. 30 hits back." Which is why I went ahead and bought this book over a year ago, even though I had, as yet, read only the beginning of the series and was intending to read the rest in chronological order. So it's been sitting on my shelf, and I have restrained myself from diving into it while I hunted down and read all the stories that came before it. This decision paid off in spades. The series has been building very organically, and now there are all sorts of great hints and references. There we...

If this book hadn't been a pick for my book club, I doubt I would have finished it. The ending lasted longer than  Return of the King 's. It's not that this book was bad. In fact it was a lot more readable than I expected it to be. Especially after I gave up on  Middlemarch  last month. But it is so far outside my normal wheelhouse. A sensation novel from the 1860s that moves impossibly slow for my more modern sensibilities. And completely predictable to boot. But getting exposure to stuff like this is why I joined a book club in the first place. There were some highlights. Lady Audley, the villainess of the piece, is nearly sympathetic until she basically throws it all away in the end. She was so close to escaping scot free. But we can't have that. So her nephew, who spends the book investigating the disappearance of his friend and having long-winded inner monologues about women, convinces her to confess her sins and locks her away in a mad house. And everyone exce...

In the third volume, Kamala deals with first love, first betrayal, and a sudden expansion to her world view. The first issue takes place at the Valentine's Day dance, which Bruno invites her to and Loki crashes. There's some really cute stuff about the disappointment of finding out that your best friend doesn't want to be romantically involved and how friendship isn't a zone to try and get out of, but a great thing in its own right. Then the book moves on to the bulk of the story, which introduces an old friend of Kamala's family. A good, smart, successful Pakistani boy they're trying to set her up with. And when he turns out to be just as geeky as Kamala and an Inhuman to boot, she starts to think this could be the future for her. Unfortunately he's part of a faction of Inhumans who would rather rule over the humans, who think their mutations make them better. This isn't a terribly novel story line, especially for anyone with even a passing familiarit...

It's funny the memories and emotions that a re-read can unearth. I read the bulk of this book, if not all of it, on a vacation to California. I was there to visit family, the summer after college ended. But I mostly remember reading this book while I was sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for Danielle and Eric to pick me up so we could get some food before heading to the airport. Maybe it's all that California sun that has me remembering this book so fondly. I was surprised to like this book less on the re-read than I remember liking it the first time through. It's not that it's bad. In fact one half of it probably remains one of my favorite bits in the Discworld universe and could very well be my favorite story about Death. But there's this entire subplot about snow globes and trolleys and wizards that makes no sense. I'm not sure it even belongs in this book, though I sort of see how Pratchett was trying to tie his themes together. But it was clumsy. It's ...

White Teeth  is the kind of book you write essays about. Essays about immigration and family and the differences between the first generation and the second. Essays about religion vs science and progress vs tradition. About learning from mistakes and repeating the same old mistakes on down the generations. Essays about colonialism, xenophobia, racism, and never knowing where you belong. Essays about teeth and all their possible symbolic meaning and whether or not Irie ever became a dentist. What I'm trying to say is that this is a very dense book with a lot going on. It's going to stick with me for a while. But I had some trouble with it. The plot jumps around a lot, and it takes a while for some of the threads to come together. It took longer than usual for me to get into this book. Not that I was uninterested, I just wasn't particularly hooked for the first few chapters. Then it ended really suddenly, and I was left wanting more. But it didn't take me too long to ma...