Bookish Thoughts

I missed Verity. The last two books, narrated by her brother Alex, were fine. But having Verity back in the spotlight was so much fun. She's everything I loved about Buffy but more mature, and her books are an absolute delight to read. This one sees her returning to the world of reality TV to give her dance career once last chance before retiring it forever. But when it turns out that someone (or something) is murdering the eliminated contestants as part of an arcane ritual - and doing a surprisingly good job of covering their tracks - Verity gets sucked right back in to her other life. I think my favorite part of this book was the introduction of Verity's grandmother, Alice, who arrives as backup after the first bodies are found. She's incredibly rash and incredibly experienced and it makes for a really fun combination. There are also hints at all sorts of other adventures that make me want to dive in to the plethora of short stories McGuire has written in this world. ...

Code Girls  is a phenomenally well-researched book about the role women played in code breaking during World War II. The author interviewed everyone she could find, read countless declassified documents and requested that more be declassified, and toured several buildings in and around DC that were used as the various bases of operations. There's no question that she has a really good handle on what was a largely unexplored aspect of American history. Unfortunately, she had a hard time wrangling all of that into a cohesive narrative. I think this book would have benefited greatly from a more aggressive editor. Mundy wants to share everything she learned, and it just doesn't all fit into a ~400 page book. Multiple paragraphs could have been moved to an appendix or the end notes. And while it's great to hear about all the women involved, it became hard to keep track of them all. The narrative as a whole would have been better served by focusing in on just a few women, inste...

This was an unexpected delight. Much like with A Star Shall Fall , I went into this expecting a pleasant fantasy novel. But I was blown away but how much I ended up loving the story. Brennan is great at finding a new take on classic tropes, and now I'm more committed to actually tracking down and reading her Memoirs of Lady Trent  series. But back to Warrior . The book follows two women: a Witch named Miryo and a Hunter named Mirage. The former was raised in a sort of Witch academy, and when she goes to take the initiation test she discovers that she has a doppelganger. As long as the doppelganger lives, she won't be able to control her magic. So Miryo sets out to kill her, strong in her belief that this is just a soulless shell, not a person at all. Unfortunately for Miryo, Mirage is very much a person, and might just be the best Hunter in her generation to boot. Trained as an assassin, a spy, a bodyguard, and a tracker, there's no way Mirage is losing in a fair fight....

This is going to sound bad, but this was an excellent book to help me get through the insomnia caused by my husband's leukemia diagnosis. It was just dry enough, just interesting enough, just enough of a remove from my own life, that a single chapter would help me turn my brain off enough to get some sleep. Which is why it ended up taking over a month to read. (I also picked up The Hypnotist's Love Story  during a round with insomnia and ended up reading until I finished it at 2 in the morning.) Cold Starry Sky  is the memoir of a woman who moved to Fairbanks, Alaska with her husband immediately after WWII. The book follows their first few years: trying to find gold, learning to survive winter, making friends, starting a family, and falling in love with their new home. It was interesting to read about the early frontier town, where the harsh conditions were a great equalizer.

I've definitely read The Odyssey before. It was an assignment in the Classical Mythology class I took in college. But I think I fought my way through it in high school, too. I think it might have been half the reason I signed up for that course. But even in taking that course I had a hard time keeping all the different gods and heroes and stories straight, and over the years it's all become a muddled mess in my brain. I knew the key points: Calypso, Cyclops, the shroud Penelope was pretending to weave. Most of it had fallen out of my memory, though. And then Emily Wilson released a new translation last year that everyone got really excited about. The first translation to English by a woman! A newly readable version! I had to give this epic poem another try. I'm glad I read it. Particularly because I had forgotten over half of what happened. All the exciting bits of Odysseus' journey are confined to about 4 chapters. The remaining 21 chapters are taken up by lots of ...