Bookish Thoughts

I miss the years of the Obama administration. It's not that Obama was a perfect president, but he was a great one. He was thoughtful and deliberate and really cared about people. He did what he could to make life better for all Americans. And if he didn't always succeed, he spoke more to the complex nature of the problems, his own limited time, and the nature of the obstacles he was facing than his motives or character. Reading Michelle Obama's memoir was an excellent way to revisit those years and remember what hope and change feel like. To take a step back and recognize all the seeds they planted that will hopefully reap positive benefits in the years to come. Change is slow, but it's constant. This book was delightful, and it really left me in awe of Michelle Obama. She goes to great lengths to emphasize that she's just another person. That she faces a lot of the same struggles as everyone else. But she also had a lot of advantages, from a family that never f...

The second book in the Binti  trilogy asks whether you can ever go home again. In the first book, Binti defied her family to run away from home and attend a galactic university. Now that she's been studying there for a year, she decides that it's time to return home to make amends with her family and participate in a coming-of-age ritual. Of course, nothing goes according to plan. Binti: Home  was nearly twice as long as the first book (at a whopping 160 pages), and I was right that the extra length made it easier for me to get past the style and sink into the story. Which was great, because there was a lot of interesting stuff going on here. Binti has to navigate her own goals and desires and balance them against those of her family and society. She learns that she's going to have to make certain sacrifices to pursue the life she wants, and she grieves their loss. Hand in hand with this is an exploration of the tension between tradition and progress. Binti learns more ...

I didn't end up finishing this book. I don't actually do that all that often. I vet books pretty thoroughly before they make it on to my to-read list. And I read enough that I have a good sense of what I will and won't enjoy. Even when I find myself in the midst of a book I don't particularly like, I'll often just push through. But I'm trying to get more comfortable with just walking away from books. This is partly because my to-read list is currently a bit overwhelming, and partly because my reading time is soon to be seriously constricted. So even though I was more than halfway through this book, and I probably could have finished it in another day, I grabbed a different book when I left the house this morning. Why spend my commute being bored, annoyed, and confused if I don't have to? My biggest problem with Labyrinth Lost  was the protagonist. Alex is surrounded by a warm, loving, supportive family. She has uncontrollable powers that scare her, but her...

Binti  felt like a story that Octavia Butler might have written. Which is high praise for Nnendi Okorafor who writes just as widely and deeply as Butler did, exploring themes of of power and communication and always centering her books on black protagonists, which causes her themes to resonate on multiple levels. As with Butler's work, I struggled a bit with Okorafor's style in this story. It's straight-forward and stark, whereas I prefer my prose to be at least a little bit purple. The lack of embellishing language makes it harder for me to get invested in the tale. And while I can usually find my feet near the beginning of a 300 page novel, it was a bit harder with a 90 page novella. I felt like I was still acclimating to this world when the story ended. That said, the story itself was interesting and challenging. Binti is on her way to a galactic university when her ship is attacked by an alien species that's at war with another faction of humans - a faction Bint...

Rainbow Rowell is so good at writing these incredibly sweet, compulsively readable stories. Fangirl  was longer than most of her other books, but it wasn't long enough. I absolutely didn't want this to end, and part of me wants to follow Cath and Wren (and Levi and Reagan) all the way through college and beyond. The book follows Cath at her first year at college. Her twin sister, Wren, has decided that she wants to strike out on her own, leaving Cath with a stranger for a roommate and feeling adrift. She does fine in her classes. But instead of seeking out new friends, she retreats into the internet fandom of Simon Snow (this world's Harry Potter), and the fanfic she's hoping to finish before the last book comes out. I'll admit that I identify a bit more with Wren than Cath in this situation. But having read and written my fair share of fanfiction in high school, this was a fun trip down memory lane. It made me nostalgic for all the good parts of college. I love...

Romance novels are all about emotional catharsis. The better the book, the more wrung out and satisfied I feel at the end of it. So when I come across one where I just cry straight through the last five chapters, well, that's the dream. Eleven Scandals to Start... is about Juliana, the Italian half-sister of the St. John brothers who found love in the first two books in this series. I loved Juliana from the first moment. She's feisty and brave. And even though she's unsure about what she wants and what her place in society is, she doesn't let that stop her from defending herself. Her hero is Simon, also known as the Duke of Disdain. He cares for nothing but his reputation, and Juliana confounds him. But Simon won me over, over the course of this book, in the most delightful way. Interacting with Juliana teaches him that love and family are more important that reputation and tradition. And that a life without fun isn't worth much, even if you have the respect of ...

I was on the fence about this book when I heard about it. Everyone seemed to like it a lot. And even though it sounded cool on paper, nothing about it really grabbed me. Then Tor.com offered it as their free download last month and I needed a digital book to get me through a few slow work days, so I read it. I'm still on the fence about it. It took me a really long time to get invested in the characters or story. For a long time the book felt unfocused and scattershot, sending tendrils down a bunch of different paths. There was a doctor in hiding from his family until he accidentally runs into his sister at a hospital fundraiser. There was a murder mystery and some suspicious-acting colleagues. There was the mystery of the book that the victim was working on when he died. There was a mystery epidemic spreading through the hospital, resulting in more murders. There was a stalker and a potential love interest. All this in a world where magic and faeries are real, and I had to learn...

At this point it's probably time to admit that I'm a Terry Pratchett completionist. He might not ever be releasing any new work, but there are still a handful of books that I haven't gotten around to yet. It'll be a while before I don't have any new Pratchett to read. And considering that I'm in the midst of an epic and constant Discworld  re-read, I may not ever be done reading him entirely. I'll just keep picking up his books and discovering new things in them and laughing at old jokes and wrapping them around me like a favorite sweater. The point is that this collection of short stories is really only for people who want more Terry Pratchett no matter what. It's not for casual fans. Pratchett isn't great at short stories (he admits as much in the intro for one of them). And most of these were written before he started writing novels. It's rough and unformed, but you can see the writer he eventually became. That said, there are a couple of ...

The Lathe of Heaven  is considered by many to be LeGuin's best work. Though, to be fair, a lot of her books are considered her best by a lot of people. She's written so much good stuff that there just isn't a consensus on what her best work is. But that does make me eager to keep seeking out her books. This one was almost more of a parable than a proper story. George Orr has dreams that can change the world, though he can't control them. He dreams something and it comes into being. He wants to be rid of this power. But his doctor sees the potential and, using hypnosis to shape Orr's dreams, he starts to exploit him. Doctor Haber isn't really an evil man. He's ambitious, but he really does try to improve the world for everyone. He focuses on lessening the effects of climate change and overpopulation, of ending war and racism and poverty. The problem is that these problems are so big and interconnected that "solving" one always has unintended con...

This book was bracing. Eleanor Oliphant is isolated. She works in the same office she's worked at ever since she finished college, managing accounts. It's not particularly exciting, nor does it pay all that well. But Eleanor is suited to it and doesn't seem to want for much. She's not looking for more, at any rate. Every day at lunch she eats the same thing while doing a crossword puzzle. After work she goes home and eats the same dinner. On Friday she treats herself to a pizza. Then she starts drinking vodka and doesn't stop until the weekend is over. She claims that she's fine. This is exactly how my depression manifests, and seeing it in print was both comforting and hard to read. Especially since I was somewhat recently in danger of falling back under. But I have something Eleanor doesn't have at the beginning of the book: a support system. I have people who notice when I'm starting to slip, people I listen to. And I now have a wealth of healthy ...

Thud!  isn't my favorite Discworld book. I'm not even sure if it would crack the top ten. But it is Pratchett at the top of his game, firing on all cylinders and weaving together a bunch of threads to create a dense, elaborate story that's so much more than the sum of it's parts. This book focuses on the contentious relationship between Dwarves and Trolls. As the anniversary of a famous battle between the two nears, tensions are running high throughout the city. Then a dwarf is murdered, the dwarves immediately blame a troll, and it's up to Vimes to get to the truth and keep war from breaking out in the streets of Ankh-Morpork. Pratchett dives into the interplay between history and myth, and the way they can inform actions in the present. He examines stereotypes and grudges and shows how they can take over and become larger than life. But this book is really about change. The way some people are so resistant to it that they'll do anything, and the small ways...

This whole trilogy was just amazing. A lot of that is thanks to Lila, one of the best characters I've encountered in years. Bu Schwab really does an amazing job of balancing character and plot and exposition. Of building up to exciting events and paying off her foreshadowing. Of teasing out all the different relationships between her characters. Of not letting anything be easy. The second book ended on a terrible cliffhanger, and this one wastes no time jumping right back into the action. Schwab expands her points of view to include nearly every character with a stake in the outcome, allowing for all sorts of tension to build up just in the first hundred pages. And beyond that, the book keeps the excitement up. Old enemies have to find ways to work together. People form new alliances and friendships and fall in love and get way too wrapped up in duty. Schwab really has a gift for giving each of her characters a unique motivation and setting them up to bounce off each other and ...