Bookish Thoughts

Landline  is a fun, low-ish stakes story with an interesting twist. There was never much doubt that this book would  have a happy ending. But sometimes you just want to dive into a story with a known ending so you can enjoy the journey. Georgie is an ambitious television writer. She and her writing partner are working on a top-rated sitcom that they hate but that is opening doors for them. They finally get a meeting to launch their dream TV show - the one they've been working on since college. But to prepare for the meeting, Georgie is going to have to miss Christmas with her family. And when she chooses her job, it puts a whole lot of strain on her relationship with her husband. I will say that I had a hard time relating to Georgie's husband here. If Kevin had to miss Christmas because something came up at work - an emergency or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - we'd deal. He's missed Christmas before, and while it may be different with kids in the equation, it...

After reading this book, I want more than anything to be friends with Lindy West. She's smart and articulate and funny in a very specific way that I associate with Mallory Ortberg and the-toast. But more than that, she's kind. She's kind in a way I aspire to be, always believing the best of people and willing to talk to them and seeing the victories in small, incremental changes. This book was billed to me as a collection of essays, but it flows so much better than most essay collections. The transitions are seamless, and it's almost a memoir. West's writing is so personal and passionate, her personal so politic, that it's hard to distinguish between the two. She lays herself bare as a way of forcing her opponents to acknowledge her humanity. And that certainly takes a toll, but she does it with such grace that you almost miss how hard it is for her to be so naked and raw all the time. West writes about being a fat feminist, and all that entails. She details...

My favorite thing about e-publishing is the sudden proliferation of novellas. It lets authors of longer series pause between books to release shorter character studies. They enrich the world, even if they have no place in the proper novels. And since they only cost a few bucks, I happily gobble them up. This one comes after the fifth book in The Expanse  series, though it serves as something of a sequel to events of the first book. But since it hints at some pretty major spoilers in the fifth book, you gotta wait to read it. And then remember back to that first book to figure out who these characters are. Which is another fun way that characters who have been sidelined can suddenly pop back up again. The Vital Abyss  is told from the point of view of a sociopath, one of the researchers who was jailed in the wake of the attack on Eros. His justifications for what he did, his total lack of regret or empathy, his desire to do it all again and push forward is harrowing to read...

This book was greatly redeemed by it's thoroughly stunning ending. It came out of nowhere and was not at all how I expected this book to wrap up. But it was so fitting and perfect that I ended this book feeling much better about it than I had been while I was reading it. The truth is that I struggled with this book a bit. Which has a lot to do with my lack of interest in contamination stories in general. It's not that I dislike them, but they aren't my go-to. They have to be really special for me to get excited about them (as opposed to vampires, where I am all in, regardless of the quality of the story-telling). And there were some really great things in this book. But there were some not-great things that served to drag it down. First, the bad. It mostly comes down to the tense. This book is written in the present tense, with flash backs happening in the past tense. Which makes sense when you say it like that. Except that most books are written in the past tense with ...

I was never really in to Archie comics as a kid. I knew the names of the main characters, but I never sought out or read the comics. Which means that, even though I watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch religiously when it was part of ABC's TGIF lineup, I had no idea there was any connection between it and those comics. But with the success of Riverdale , a dark, edgy Archie, Sarbina's getting a similar makeover. My familiarity with the TV show helped me orient myself in this comic. I already knew most of the major players: Aunts Hilda and Zelda, Salem the Cat, Harvey the boyfriend. But the comic takes that cast in a very different direction. The series is set back in the 60s, and it is straight-up sensational horror. This presented a bit of a problem in the first issue in that I didn't really connect with any of the characters. These are horrible people (literal Satanists) doing horrible things. Things improve as Sarbina grows up and becomes slightly more ambiguous, being...

This was a long book. And yet, when I turned the page and saw that it was over, I actually said "no" out loud. I've fallen deeply in love with The Expanse  over the past year or so. Now, in the fifth book, we're officially past the point of objectivity. I love these characters and this world. I love hanging out here and seeing all the ugly, beautiful innards of humanity put on display. There is jaw-dropping evil and moments of incredible grace and caught up in the middle of it all are four humans who have finally found their family and will fight like hell for it. I was ecstatic to discover that the four points of view in the book are the four crew-members of the Rocinante. Sure, Holden always gets a point of view, and there was a novella that centered on Amos. But digging into the psyches of Naomi, Alex, and Amos, learning the backstories and what makes them tick, was an absolute treat. Less of a treat was the fact that, with the Rocinante undergoing repairs, t...

Tana French has a way of getting in my head and under my skin. I love her books, but they consume me. When I'm reading one, it's difficult for me to engage fully with the rest of my life. I come up for air as needed, because I do have a life outside of books. But French's books make me struggle with that. I want to linger over them, make them last as long as possible. I also find myself racing to the end, hoping that when I finally close the book I'll get myself back. That I'll be able to return to the rest of my life. Broken Harbor  was no exception. In fact, it got to me even more than usual. This book terrified me. It actually gave me nightmares. These books are not fantastical. There's nothing supernatural here, not even a whiff of magical realism. But the way French plays with your perception makes you doubt that. Just as I called The Likeness  a ghost story, on some level this is a book about a haunted house. A house haunted by all the crumbling hopes an...