Bookish Thoughts

Tana French isn't one to shy away from morally messy people. She likes taking complicated people, finding their buttons, and turning up the pressure to see whether they break or rise to the equation. I've liked a few of her protagonists, but most of them leaving me feeling off balance and a bit queasy. So it should be no surprise that Antoinette, narrator of The Tresspasser , is a difficutl character. She's angry and paranoid. The world has been hostile to her, and she responds by being hostile right back. Often proactively. It was hard to be in her head for an entire book. Honestly, her level of anger and defensiveness just exhausts me. She tries so hard to prove that she doesn't care that she ends up spending all of her time caring what people are thinking of her every minute. It's no surprise to the audience to learn that most of her squad doesn't think about her as much as she believes, and I had a particularly hard time believing that O'Neill was in o...

After I announced my pregnancy at my last book club meeting, one of the members insisted that I had to read this book. Getting good information about pregnancy isn't easy. In a lot of cases, this is because it isn't ethical to run the experiments (you can't deny a woman nutrients or insist she drink or smoke while pregnant). A lot of information is anecdotal and a lot of recommendations are conservative, because most people agree that it's better to be safe than sorry. But this wasn't good enough for Emily Oster (or, honestly, most women). She wanted to understand where the recommendations were coming from, gather as much information as she could, and make informed decisions for herself. Oster is aware that, given the same information, different women will make different decisions. Her goal with the book is to present as much information as she can, so her audience can make their own decisions. That said, every now and then it felt like she was pushing her own age...

This year tor.com has started releasing bundles of short fiction, free to download if you sign up for their newsletter. All the stories in the collection were eventually published on their website, but it was nice to get them bundled together and have access a few days before everyone else. Even if I didn't actually finish the collection until after they were all released. It's nice to be able to download these to my work computer and read a story over the course of a day (my work is such that I often have 15-20 minute chunks of time waiting for data to load or simulations to run, and it's a good time to get some reading in). Some of the stories were better than others, and most were excellent. They all used fantasy elements to tackle common relationships in new ways. A chef is trying to recreate his mother's signature recipe after her death, and it takes an encounter with his abusive sister to help him let go of the past. A man is dealing with the imminent death of h...

The second Shades of Magic book starts off a lot slower than the first one did. It takes it's sweet time getting to the action, choosing instead to spend time with Kell and Lila. They haven't seen each other since the events of the previous book, four months earlier, and they're doing their best not to think of each other. Lila has found a place aboard a pirate ship as thief and is starting to learn more about magic. Kell is trying to win back the trust of the king and queen. This book also spends a lot more time with Rhy, which was a nice surprise. It was fun to get inside his head and get to know him better. And also to get his perspective on Kell. The centerpiece of the book is competition for magicians, which helps keep the peace between the three main empires. It's a lot of fun and seems relatively low stakes, even with Kell and Lila both sneaking their way into the competition. It's a spectacle and a fun way to flesh out the world, while also bringing Kell...

I think some of the shine is wearing off this series. It might just be that it's so spread out. I go so long between volumes that I can barely remember who some of the characters are. That doesn't make it particularly easy to sympathize with them. But also, all this tragedy is getting a bit boring. Sure, they do a decent job of balancing it with hope and alternating happy endings with sad ones. And sure, the series is ultimately about war. But three characters died in this installment, and I barely felt anything. Maybe it would help if I actually went back and read the whole thing from the beginning, like I've been meaning to for a while now. I'm sure some of these hits would land harder if I could remember why I should care. Then again, the comic is now taking an extended hiatus, so who knows when the next volume will be released. By then I'll probably have forgotten it all again. At this point I think I'll wait until the series ends before investing any mo...

It won't be long before I've read everything Sarah MacLean has ever written. All but two of her books are sitting on my shelf waiting for me to get around to them. I've read enough of them now that I'm starting to recognize characters across the different books, which only makes me want to read more. I need to hear the stories of all these amazing women and how they found the loves of their lives. MacLean's second book focuses on Isabel, the destitute daughter of a deceased Earl who's trying her best to keep the estate running until her younger brother comes of age and can take a stab at a fresh start. She's proud and self-sufficient and definitely doesn't need to be rescued. (Except maybe financially.) When she crosses paths with Lord Nicholas, who has recently been named a "Lord to Land" in a popular magazine and is fleeing London until his infamy passes, sparks fly almost immediately. Isabel is an absolute delight, and I loved everything...

My main thought upon finishing this book was that I need to read it again. Which is what happens nearly every time I finish a Cat Valente novel and is the main reason I love her as much as I do. Unlike Radiance  and Palimpsest , the plot of this novel is obvious pretty early on. Aliens have become aware of the existence of humanity, and they're giving us a chance to prove our sentience and join the intergalactic community. There's a musical contest, based heavily on Eurovision (the book was initially conceived as "Eurovision in space"), and all we humans have to do is not come in last. They've gone through our musical archives and put together a list of possible contestants. Most of whom have died. The only one left standing is Decibel Jones, who was an international sensation before one member of his band died, resulting in an estrangement between him and the remaining band member. He's spent the last twenty years trying to recapture the glory of his yout...

Season of Mists  is the fourth volume of ten in the Sandman  series. We're nearly halfway through. And yet, this almost feels like the beginning. Maybe it's because of how much the world deepens here. We finally meet the rest of Dream's family (minus Destruction), and the mythology expands considerably. Maybe it's the huge jump in quality. The previous issues weren't bad, but this one pushes the series from good to great. Or maybe it's just my own nostalgia. This was my favorite story arc for a very long time. Whatever it is, it was a joy to get to this point and fall in love with the series all over again. The first time I read this, the story blew my mind. Lucifer quits! He locks up Hell and leaves! He forfeits his never-ending war with God in favor of sitting on a beach and watching the sunset. It was the first time I encountered God and Lucifer as characters in a story, rather than all-powerful deities. In my mind, it removed a lot of their power. Lucife...

I don't know how old I was the first time I read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry . I'm pretty sure it was a school assignment, but I know I re-read it again and again while I was growing up. I eventually lost my copy somewhere. So when I saw it at the used book sale, I had to buy it, if only to have it on hand for my own kids. But then I had to re-read it, too. This is a powerful book, one that Jaya Sexana calls the perfect counterpoint to To Kill a Mockingbird . It deals with the same issues of race and justice through the eyes of a young girl. But the protagonist of this story, Cassie, is black, and has to face aggressions both macro and micro that Scout only ever heard about (if she was aware of them at all). The book follows Cassie through a year at school as she begins to understand the unjust world that she's growing up in. Cassie's family is better off than most - they own their own land which gives them more security than the sharecroppers. But it also means th...

It's always nice to revisit a book and discover that it's every bit as good as you remember it. Maybe even better. It's been nearly a decade since I first read The Sparrow  and it's sequel, but it's stuck with me over the years. It's dense and powerful and there's a lot to mull over. I've been meaning to revisit it for years, and I finally convinced my book club to read it last month, which gave me the motivation to finally pick it back up. This time, I knew where everything was going from the beginning. And it gave me a deeper appreciation for the structure and pacing and foreshadowing of the book. It really is a masterpiece, using the mystery to drag the reader through the slower beginning and then ramping up at the end. I also enjoyed discussing it with my book club this time. A lot of them are way more familiar with the bible than I am, so they pointed out a lot of references that I missed. It was neat to get a different perspective on the book, ...

This was a really fun book with a take on parallel dimensions that I hadn't quite encountered before. Rather than two or infinite parallel dimensions, there are four. They have a common city, London, in which people with certain magical abilities can travel between the different worlds. Kell is a diplomat based in Red London, the most balanced and prosperous of the worlds. He's also a smuggler, moving contraband between the worlds for a price, a habit that lands him in deep trouble. Kell's interesting, and just young enough that his mistakes are understandable. But the real star of the show is Lila, an orphan turned thief who is sure that she's meant for a bigger, more exciting life. She convinces Kell to smuggle her across the border, and ends up having the adventure of a lifetime. Even with the constant threat of death, it's exactly what she's always wanted. I was surprised by how well the story wrapped up, and even more surprised when Kell and Lila actual...