Bookish Thoughts

As I've begun to embrace my love of horror over the past several years, I've come to understand the key to horror stories. They're not about being scared, not really. They're about catharsis. They're about facing your fear or dealing with your trauma or even just acknowledging that sometimes life is terrible. And if you can say that and share it, it gets a little better. So it makes sense, in a weird, twisted, horror-novel-logic sort of way, that Jack and Jill would escape from their stifling household and too-strict, largely absent parents and find comfort and solace in the trappings of a classic horror story. Jack as the apprentice to a mad scientist, Jill as the protege to the vampire lord. Really, though, this story is pretty light on the horror. It's got the shape of a horror story, with the details fading into the background. In the foreground we have a story about family and sisterhood, about disappointment and loyalty. It's an excellent prequel t...

I'm two for two in books being a lot more intense than I was expecting. Not that I was expecting this book, a series of interconnected short stories about several Native Americans attending a Powwow in Oakland, to be lighthearted or anything like that. The subject material meant that it was definitely going to be heavy. But it was so much heavier than I was expecting. Almost every character is dealing with alcoholism, or at least with an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Some of them are alcoholics themselves, either resigned to an early death by liver failure or attempting to get sober for the umpteenth time. Others are dealing with family members who are absent or violent due to alcohol, and they're mostly trying and failing to break those patterns in their own lives. There's a wide array of characters, but this constant struggle is a theme in all of their lives. It also quickly becomes apparent that the event at the powwow that will tie everyone together is an arm...

Going in to The Poppy War , I really thought I knew what I was getting in to. Everyone's been gushing about this book since it came out. And with the recent release of the sequel, that gushing has only increased. It seemed like a standard high fantasy adventure, albeit with the background based in Chinese history rather than European history. I figured I'd get a fun story and learn a bit about another culture thanks to osmosis. The first third of the book played right in to these expectations. It felt startlingly similar to the University sections of The Name of the Wind . Rin is a poor war orphan whose only chance of escaping marriage to a much-older man is to ace a nation-wide test that would win her admission and a scholarship to a prestigious school where she could train to be a general. She nearly kills herself studying for this exam for two years, but it pays off when she scores high enough to escape her provincial life. And when she discovers that her classmates are ne...

It's such a treat to be this close to reading all of an author's work and still be finding new favorites. One Good Earl Deserves a Lover  is definitely my favorite of MacLean's work. It has the adorably geeky and naive Phillipa, who is sure that she can conquer all her fears with knowledge. It has the incredibly repressed Cross who's so haunted by his past that he's denying himself every possible bit of pleasure. It has fun side plots and a wealth of interesting secondary characters. All that and a heist to boot. It's almost like this book was written just for me. Actually, this book put me in mind of a historical version of The Kiss Quotient . It's never stated or even hinted that Pippa might be on the spectrum, but that also was really a concept in the 1800s. She is described as strange. She hopes for nothing more than a kind husband who will let her go her own way. She's hungry for knowledge and follows her own pursuits without ever really caring ho...

This isn't the first of John Scalzi's books I've ever read. But Redshirts  is a bit of a one-off. It's not connected to any of his other series, and it's not really considered indicative of the rest of his body of work. By going back to the beginning, I feel like I'm finally going to see what the hype is all about. Old Man's War  is a lot of fun. It's a classic science-fiction setup, with a never-ending war between humanity and a series of alien species. The twist being that all the soldiers are septegenarians. You can enlist in the army on your seventy-fifth birthday in exchange for a new, younger body, a chance to see the universe, and a possibility of settling on one of the new colonies, assuming you survive your ten years of military service. The book follows John Perry. He and his wife had intended to sign up together, but she died a few years prior. So, with nothing really to live for and not knowing what to expect, he  joins the military by hi...

Lois McMaster Bujold remains an auto-buy and auto-read for me. It doesn't matter what she writes or when, as soon as I hear about it I buy it. And then I read it as soon as I can. It probably helps that her "retirement project" has her releasing e-novellas for less than $5 each. They're the perfect impulse buys. That said, I think Bujold's best work may be behind her. Her Penric and Desdemona series is a light-hearted fun, and I always enjoy the adventures these two go on. But they don't quite have the depth of some of the mid-late Vorkosigan books (particularly Memory ). Not that there's anything wrong with that. A quick, light adventure can be exactly what I want to read. It helps that everyone is competent and well-intentioned and everything always works out for the best in the end. I think Bujold is becoming more of an idealist in her old age. Or at least she's writing books that embrace an idealism, perhaps as a response to what's going on...

When I gave birth to my son, I packed a book in my hospital bag. It was more out of habit than anything else, though I was optimistic that I'd have some time to read in the hospital. That didn't end up happening, and it took me nearly six weeks to finish reading that book after Gavin was born. Despite this historical precedent, I once again packed a book in my hospital bag when I went to give birth to the twins. I can't just not have a book with me. And whether it was because this book was shorter or because it was one that I'd already read a few years previously, I actually read the whole thing before I was discharged from the hospital. I'm really glad I decided to re-read this book. I caught a lot of things I'd missed on my first read-through, and those details led to a richer experience. It made me appreciate the ending more, too. My first time through I felt like it left something to be desired, but this time it seemed like a perfect fit. McGuire has als...

I'm starting the last of Sarah MacLean's finished series, which is really impressive considering I only started reading her books a year or so ago. I can't remember the last time I tore through an author's entire backlog so quickly. But I'm getting ahead of myself - there are still a few of her books left that I haven't read. I don't expect that to be the case for long, though. This series focuses on the four co-owners of a gaming hell. Each has fled society for a different reason, each believes he is beyond redemption. Each will fall in love and be proven wrong. First up is Bourne, who lost his entire estate in a card game ten years prior. Since then he's focused only on regaining his land and getting revenge against the man who took it from him. When the land is attached to the dowry of his childhood friend, he coerces her into marriage. But he gets a lot more than he bargained for. Penelope has been out in society for nearly a decade by the time s...

The cover of this book shows a creature that's half woman, half octopus and has an unsettling number of teeth in a slightly too large mouth. My son was obsessed with it, and kept stealing the book while I was reading it or requesting to see the monster book. At one point he attempted to use it to threaten his dad into giving him a cookie. It was a pretty great use of the book. The stories within the book are classic children's stories with a twist. Ortberg has an uncanny ability to hone in on the most horrifying aspect of any given children's story and expand on it. Without changing much at all, he can take a story from comforting to terrifying and leave you questioning everything. As with any short story collection, I was more drawn to some stories than others. But everything in here really forces you to contend with the default point of view. What do we mean when we talk about daughters or love or abuse or redemption? Where is the line between good and evil and how do...

I wasn't as immediately engrossed by Spinning Silver  as I was by Uprooted . It starts a little slower, and it took me a while to really get into the book. But by the time I was halfway through I was completely engrossed and couldn't wait to see how it all came together in the end. Novik switches the narrative between six characters, though three have them have significantly more chapters than the other three. And it takes a while for all the different points of view to show up. Still, she does an impressive job of giving everyone a distinct voice. I was never confused about whose head I was in, even without obvious clues like chapter titles. This is probably the most subtly impressive part of the entire book. And the three main women are all fascinating. Miryem is ruthless, first in her pursuit of money for her family and then in trying to escape from her captor-husband. Wanda is brilliant and strong and I only want good things for her. But my favorite character by far was...

This is my second Agatha Christie book, and I definitely understand why she was such a popular author. She was really a master of her craft, and surprisingly prolific to boot. And Then There Were None  was expertly constructed and very thrilling. I actually have to pat myself on the back for guessing the murderer correctly fairly early on. But then I fell for a masterful red herring, so by the end of the book I was doubting myself. Right up until all was revealed and I was kicking myself for falling for it. Still, Christie always manages to zig where I expect her to zag and ends up thoroughly surprising me with the end of the book. While I'm not as big a fan of mysteries as I am other genres, Christie's books are so short and exciting that I may have to seek out more of them. At the very least I should read a Miss Marple book.