Bookish Thoughts

I must have adjusted to Lisa Kleypas' style, because I liked this book a whole lot more than the first one. I don't know that the hero actually had more scenes, but what he had seemed better paced. I actually felt like I got to see his arc rather than assuming that it happened off-page. But the majorty of the book was still devoted to Lillian and her friends. And it's the friendship between the wallflowers that really make these books special. Lillian is a fantastic heroine. She's rash and brash and full of energy. She doesn't like rules that make no sense, though she learns to appreciate that sometimes she doesn't know the reason behind a rule. Sometimes, of course, the rules are simply outdated and she's there to point that out. She's also wonderfully innocent - she has no idea how much she doesn't know - and that leads to some fun scenes as well. There are also a handful of scenes that give us glimpses into the heads of characters other than t...

This was a wonderful, quick read that Tor.com released for International Woman's Day. It's about 30 pages long and contains eleven super short stories. Each author was asked to use the famous admonishment of Elizabeth Warren as a prompt. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless she persisted. I liked some stories more than others. I knew most every author included in the book, and it was fun to get a little tasting menu of their styles. Not to mention that this was a particular balm to the soul, being delivered so soon after Warren dropped out of the presidential race. If you've got half an hour and a desire to try out several SFF authors, you can't go wrong with this small, free book.

What if Game of Thrones was only 120 pages long? That's flip, and LeGuin and Martin are two very different authors, but I can't help but feel like this novella was an influence for GRRM's much longer (and unfinished) series. Planet of Exile takes place on a planet with a much larger orbit than Earth - one Year lasts for sixty Earth-years, meaning that winter lasts for 15 years. We're the aliens on this world, though the human settlement as been there for 600 years (or 10 Years) and is more of a city than a settlement now. As winter begins, several nomadic tribes begin their journey south, raiding as they go. But this year, they're banding together to become a larger threat. The humans and the locals need to figure out how to work together if they're going to survive the sacking and have enough supplies to make it through winter. It's a much more plausible scenario than the hand-wavey magic in A Song of Ice and Fire , and it's still packed with p...

This book was utterly phenomenal. I'll have to read it again to be sure, but it's likely that this will go down as one of my favorite books of all time. It was smart, thought-provoking, and flat-out fun. I want to visit the titular Gameshouse (though maybe not the higher level), and I suspect that it has good re-read value. I won't know for sure about that last point until I actually re-read it, but the stories are interwoven enough that I'm sure I missed more than a few clues my first time through. The Gameshouse is actually a series of three novellas. Each details one specific game, though taken together the scope is breathtaking. The first story, which follows a woman and a game of politics in Venice in the 1700s is definitely the strongest, but the later games (Hide and Seek in Thailand and a game of Chess that uses the whole planet as a board) are a lot of fun, too. Taken all together, it becomes a meditation on humanity. On the games we play with each other at...

This was a book club pick, and it's not exactly something I would have picked out for myself. I tend to do a decent amount of research about books before I commit to them. I want to be reasonably sure that I'll like something. This was written by a neighbor of mine and released by a small, local press, which made for a dearth of reviews and recommendations. I knew virtually nothing about this book going into it. It's billed as fantasy, but I would actually classify it as more of a horror story. Jeanie Maxwell has been possessed by the ghost of someone with unfinished business. She's first made aware of this by a psychic she visits on a lark, though she's understandably skeptical. But as her life starts falling apart, the ghost is able to take over and seek out closure in her former life. Meanwhile, the psychic is dealing with the death of her sister and the demands of her nephew regarding the will. The story was compelling, and I especially liked the description...

Maybe it's because I've spent the last year learning how to sit with uncertainty, but that's the theme of this book that really rose to the forefront for me. It's all about how that fear of uncertainty leads into a fear of change (and ultimately a fear of death), which just leaves you stuck. It's about learning to embrace uncertainty, on both small and large issues, so you can get yourself unstuck. And it's about using the things we can be certain of the help ground us as we walk off into the unknown. Most of the book takes place in a cemetery over the course of one night. Abraham Lincoln's young son has just died and been buried. The other ghosts in the graveyard are urging him to move on, even as they themselves fear to move on. He's reluctant, though, thanks to a visit from his father and the promise of future visits. The telling of the story is interesting, and plays in to the theme of uncertainty, even as it obscures the actual events. The vario...

This is my favorite of the Wayward Children books so far. In general, I prefer the even-numbered ones, which take place in the various worlds rather than the school. They're a little more focused, and there's an air of tragedy that hangs around them that makes them so bittersweet. This one follows Lundy, who died in the first book. Here we go back to her childhood, her encounter with the Goblin Market, and the actions that ultimately cursed her. The Goblin Market is all about rules, which appeals to Lundy (and honestly, to me, too. It's nice to know where you stand). One of those rules is that she has until her 18th birthday to choose to either stay in the Goblin Market or in her old life. Until then, she can travel back and forth as much as she wants. But then she has to choose one life and forsake the other. For a world that prides itself on fairness, this is a supremely unfair condition. Especially because it gets more and more difficult to make as Lundy approaches ...

When you pick up a short story collection, you expect a mixed bag. Whether there are multiple authors or just one, the collection itself usually contains a few stories you love, a few you like, and a few that don't work for you. Disappointment is part of the expectation. But NK Jemisin is working on a different level, because every single story in this collection was excellent. They're all vastly different. Some take place in the past, some in the future. Some are set in this world, some in other worlds. Some lean towards fantasy, some towards science-fiction. But they're all incredible, and they build on each other thematically. The collection starts with "The Ones Who Stay and Fight", Jemisin's explicit reaction to LeGuin's famous parable "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". Knowing this, I re-read LeGuin's story immediately before starting this collection. I'm glad I did, because really the whole collection seems to be a reaction ...

This was an interesting book that makes a very specific and somewhat disheartening argument about human nature, while managing to leave plenty of room for the rich tapestry that is human nature. It occasionally felt more like an argument than a novel, which is one of my favorite things. Reading it gave me a lot to think about and  has, I think, caused a few subtle shifts. The frame story takes place in a future so far-flung, they barely remember the world as it is now. Then it backs up to our near-future and the events that triggered the massive cultural shift. That event is the teenaged girls of the world developing an organ that produces electricity, allowing them to suddenly have the upper hand in most physical altercations. The power spreads out, with all new baby girls being born with it and most older women acquiring it from someone younger. Ultimately it changes everything and nothing. Women gain this physical power and they use it to gain other types of power, to seek v...

Sometimes you find a book at exactly the right time. In the wake of my husband being admitted to the hospital, I reached for a romance novel. I needed something light and cheery to escape in to. This certainly didn't let me down on the fluff or the happy ending. It did hit a lot closer to home than I was expecting it to, though, and I ended up crying a whole lot. In a good, cathartic way. See, the heroine of this one, Sadia, is a single mom. I'm lucky enough not to have her money woes, but I do have her hectic schedule. Her all-consuming worry about her kid, her need to drop everything when her kid is sick and her inability to actually do that, her simple pleasure in just snuggling up with her kid to watch a movie. I plan everything down to the last minute, just like she does. I do my best to snatch time for myself whenever I can, and I've trained myself to recharge off of 10 or 20 minutes of me time, because that's all I can put together. And then one thing goes wr...

This is the book I was reading when my husband was admitted to the hospital a month ago. Which is how I managed to fall so far behind on this blog. (And I was doing well, too!) But I'm catching up now and hoping I remember enough about these books to write coherent things about them. I've been half meaning to read My Brilliant Friend since the HBO series came out. It helped that I saw it at the library book sale shortly thereafter. And I guess I don't entirely know what I expected from it, but it wasn't really what I got. There are some amazing quotes in here. The language is incredible, distilling motives and emotions in that way that the best writers have. I imagine that this is even more true in the original Italian - you always lose a little something in translation. That said, the book also meanders all over the place. I had a hard time keeping the characters straight, even with the handy cheat sheet in the front of the book. The author goes off on tangents ...

This is the third book in the Poldark series, which I'm warming up to. I find myself caring more and more about the characters, wanting things to go well for Demelza and Ross for once, wondering what will happen to Warleggan, hoping that the new mining venture will succeed. But, man, he needs to work on a better naming scheme. Jeremy didn't arrive until the last six pages of the book (though I suppose Demelza's pregnancy was confirmed halfway through). I know some of what's coming in the next few books, and I'm not sure really sure how it will go. I'm bracing myself for a few things and wondering how or if certain characters will be redeemed. But like I said, I care about the characters now. I'm committed, at least for the next book. Maybe Dwight Enys will finally fall in love with a woman he can be with. Mostly, though, I just want good things for Demelza, who really deserves everything Ross can give her and more.