Bookish Thoughts

I can't remember the last time I was this conflicted about a book. I'm currently re-watching the second season of The Witcher. When it first came out, I assumed it was based on Blood of Elves, so I read that book. I then learned it was based on both that book and this book. So I decided to read this book with the rewatch to see what I missed. It started off great. I recognized an early scene in the book from the TV show, and I was so excited to spend more time with those characters. But then the book delved into politics with so many characters I had trouble keeping them straight. It turned into a a bit of a slog - though at least part of that was because my life got so busy I had a hard time finding time to read the book. By the end, I actively disliked the book and was kicking myself for having already bought the next one in the series. I should have waited. Then that night I watched the next episode, and a lot of backstory from the book clicked into place. I'm more excit...

This was a really sweet coming of age tale about finding your way and finding your family. Aprils' mother walked out when she was little and her father wasn't much more present. By the time she's sixteen, April is basically on her own, stuck in a small town where everyone looks down on her and even her father mostly pretends that she doesn't exist. And then she realizes that she can leave, too. So April heads out for life on the road, working odd jobs, writing and singing songs, making friends and fleeing before anyone can get too close. And through it all her music sustains her. My favorite part of this book, hands-down, was the soundtrack. April's love of music, and the way the author uses it to set the scene and drill right into her emotional state was fantastic. I kept having to put the book down so I could bring up songs on youtube and listen to them while I read certain passages. This was just an overall enjoyable book. I had a lot of sympathy for April being ...

My love for this book is in direct opposition to how long it took me to read it. I heard about it years ago, and I knew that I had to read it. Fairy tales and nested tales and Catherynne Valente are three of my favorite things. There was no question that I would love it. But other books always seemed to take precedence. And then the pandemic happened and Valente started reading this book a bit at a time in a nightly video. So I bought it, fully intending to read along with her. Except that in March of 2020, my life was even crazier than most peoples and committing to a 45 minute video every day was out of the question.  And so the book sat on my shelf for nearly two years. I knew I would love it. I also knew I'd want to be able to sink into it. And I could never quite find enough time to devote to it. Finally, at the beginning of this year, I decided to start watching Valente's videos. They were great, filled with behind the scenes info about the book itself. Not to mention the...

This was one of three free novellas provided by Tor.com this month. It was bundled with A Psalm for the Wild Build and Unlocked which highlighted the similarities between the three stories. All of them concern a future where humanity is grappling with mechanical life. In Chambers' story, the robots achieved sentience and abandoned humans to their own devices, only for a human and robot to reconnect centuries later. In Scalzi's story, robots are provided as disability aids. They're fully controlled by humans who can't otherwise participate in society. This story is a bit more classic, with robots serving as a labor force and humanity beginning to grapple with how to extend rights to them. All three books ask what it means to be a person, but this one asks that question the most directly. A robot has been convicted of murder and a new lawyer decides to file an appeal, believing he didn't get a fair trial the first time around. Questions arise about the equality betw...

This is one of my favorite books, so I clearly had to read the graphic novel version. It's a good story to revisit every now and then, and this edition makes that a lot easier. Since so much of the information is conveyed through images, reading it is a lot quicker. Of course, this being an adaptation, a lot of things got left out. I know the story well enough to have recognized all the omissions. The story still works well, but I'll always think the original has more depth.   Overall, it's a good adaptation of a really important novel. And if the new format helps it reach new audiences, that can only be a good thing.

I read Scalzi's Lock In right at the beginning of the pandemic. It posits a future world, about twenty years after a pandemic has come through, killing 1% of the population and leaving another 1% paralyzed. It ended up being a lot lighter than I expected, which was for the best given my whole state of mind at that time. But this companion book takes a closer look at the pandemic itself and the immediate response and aftermath. The crazy part is that it was written in 2014, and still got a bunch of stuff right. It's always so weird when science fiction starts to read more like historical fiction. It becomes a fun exercise in looking at which predictions were correct and which were wrong. Scalzi's pandemic hit the globe much more consistently, having started at an international scientific conference. So the initial impact is a lot bigger. But it still comes in waves, like the real pandemic did. And there's still an incredible rallying of everyone. Another interesting dif...

I'm not entirely sure what I expected from this book, but it's not what I got. I'd only read one other story by Sarah Gailey - a dystopian Western - and this was so far removed from that it left my head spinning. Which doesn't make this bad. If anything it speaks to Gailey's versatility. And I'll have a better sense of what to expect (or not expect) from her future books. This is billed as a murder mystery at a magical school. A sort of fantasy noir, with this emphasis on the noir. So where I was expecting a somewhat light romp, I got a much darker and cynical story about lies and secrets and the limits of family. I did end up liking it, once I realized what I was in for. And I'll probably pick up more of Gailey's work in the future. I'll just need to do a bit more research so I know what I'm in for before starting the next one.

I loved this book, and it's only further fueling my love of Becky Chambers. She's writes these quiet, gentle, speculative stories that deal with heavy philosophical questions. At the heart of this one is the quest for purpose. How do you find it, and do you need to? Is simply living enough? If it is enough, could you call that your purpose?  It's an interesting, circular argument. One that isn't terribly important to me because I know where I stand on it - living my little life in my little corner of the universe is enough for me. I don't need to strive for something more or bigger. But that's not true of the protagonist of this book, who feels woefully unfulfilled and spends most of the book trying to fill a hole in himself with some grand purpose. What I really loved is the mundanity of this hole. Dex cam from a loving family and found a supportive community. They are excellent at their chosen profession and seem to want for nothing. But, somehow, it isn't...

I gotta say, I struggled a lot with this novella. It started and ended very strongly. But the middle was so muddled I had a hard time following what was going on. I think it would have benefited from a longer length, which would have allowed for smoother transitions and some more background information. Then again, the jumpy transitions were kind of the point, as that folded in with the powers of one of the protagonists. I'd probably appreciate this book more if I read it again, though I'm not sure I ever will. I can see that it's important, and I'm trying to figure out whether I'm the intended audience or not. Was this meant to be a teaching book (making me part of the intended audience) or something more internal (and so not necessarily for me). It's probably that it was the latter but sold as the former, which is the root of my unmet expectations. At the least, it has me wanting to learn more about our justice and prison system.

I remember struggling a lot with LeGuin's books when I first began reading her. Every book felt like an argument. I never agreed with her fully, but I had to think hard to refine my own point of view, and I appreciated that. I always came out of her books feeling more sure of  myself for having thought deeper about the issues she presented. This book was different. I'm not sure if it's because my ideals have changed over the past decade or if I know what to expect from LeGuin now or is it's just where she was in her life, but this book was entirely on my wavelength. Like much of her work, it posits anarchy as an alternative to fascism and weaves in a healthy dose of feminism. Whatever it was, I loved this book. It might be my favorite of hers - though I think I also said that about the last LeGuin book. Maybe she's just converting me to her way of thinking.

I read this one for book club, which is another nod to book club pulling me out of my comfort zone. I'm not sure I ever would have picked this one up if not for book club. It follows two woman and the New York Public Library, flipping back and forth between the 1910s and the 1990s. It's about a decades-spanning mystery of missing books. But it's also about the feminist movement and generational trauma and loneliness.  Most interesting to me was the question at the heart of artists choosing to destroy their unpublished works upon death versus historians' desire to preserve them for posterity. It's easy to see how the perspective can shift over generations, as prominent people begin to fade into the past, becoming more symbols or icons than actual people. I do think some of the plots went a bit too far in order to tie the ending up with a neat bow. Henry's story, in particular, took me out of the book a little with how contrived it felt. But overall I enjoyed the ...

I'd been putting off Rhythm of War for a while, because it's such a big, intimidating book. I knew it would take me weeks to read, weeks when I wouldn't be able to read other books. But I'm trying to get away from the mindset that I have to keep reading more and more books. So I decided to finally commit to this one.  Almost as soon as I picked it up, I stopped being intimidated. I fell right into this story, and I remembered how wonderful it can be to spend an extended amount of time in a well-crafted world with interesting characters. The length allows for this story to be both epic and intimate. Huge, world-changing things are happening right alongside more personal struggles, and they all get equal weight in the narrative. I think I felt nearly every emotion over the course of reading this book. Sanderson is really a master of his craft, and I'm so excited to continue to read his work for years to come. The wider Cosmere starts to creep into this book more than ...

Like most of the nation, I heard Amanda Gorman read this poem at Biden's inauguration. I was inspired and moved hopeful for the future. When I saw this book at the used book store, I had to grab it. It's a quick read, but it remains an inspiring and healing one. And I'm glad to have it on my shelf so I can revisit it whenever I feel the need.

I grew up watching Buffy. It premiered when I was in fifth grade. I didn't watch right from the beginning, but I did catch up with reruns that summer so that beginning with season 2, I was a devoted watcher. Every week I tuned in, and the next day at school I'd dissect the episode with my friends. It was there for me through middle school and high school, and it's been there for me ever since, whenever I needed it. I can't tell you how many times I've rewatched the series in it's entirety, or my favorite episodes in particular. I can quote nearly all of it, have come up with head canons to fill in all the plot holes, can determine which season a still is from based on Buffy's hair style, and will still happily spend hours dissecting the minutiae with anyone willing. I learned a lot from Buffy. One of the most important things Buffy taught me is that the world is not simply divided into black and white, good and evil. As the series progresses, Buffy learns th...

Here's the thing. When I was reading Radiance or The Curse of Chalion earlier this month, all I wanted to do was read. I was neglecting other areas of my life so that I could read just one more page. And while I enjoyed Fleishman is in Trouble, I didn't feel that same urgency with it. I wasn't compelled to keep on reading at the expense of the rest of my life. It was enjoyable, but if I wasn't reading this for book club I probably would have abandoned it pretty quickly. Ultimately, I'm glad I stuck with it. Once I got to the last section of the book, where Fleishman's wife finally gets to tell her side of the story, I did become engrossed and ended up staying up way too late to finish the book. But it was a bit of slog to get there. This book tells the story of a divorce, mostly from Toby Fleishman's point of view. He and his ex-wife share custody, but then one day she leaves the kids at his house and disappears. It sets Toby up as the sympathetic party, as ...

 Now this is what I want from a Sanderson story. An interesting and sympathetic protagonist, a bit of a mystery and a problem to solve, a fascinating magical system with new applications around every corner, and hints of a much larger world around the edges of this self-contained story.  Sanderson has taken to writing these novellas between the much larger Stormlight novels, and it's a great way to dip back into the world and get reacquainted with it before committing to one of the massive tomes in the series proper. These stories follow side characters and side quests, making the world feel even more fleshed out and immense. This one in particular follows Rysn, first introduced as a minor character in The Way of Kings as she leads a mission to explore a forgotten island. Rock's daughter, Cord, and Bridge Four alum, Lopen, are included in the mission, and each has their own secondary goal that complicates things. But this isn't about people at odds with each other. It'...

Sometimes you're at a used book sale and you see a different edition of a book you already own. But you love the book so much that you have to buy this new edition. And then you have to read it to justify the purchase. This is probably the best method for revisiting an old favorite. I first read this book nearly a decade ago. I then proceeded to work through everything else Bujold had written in the next few years. She's still writing some - releasing a novella or two a year. But it was so nice to dive into a full-length adventure from her again, and to remember why I fell in love with her writing in the first place. This story focuses on Cazaril. He has just escaped from several years of slavery and is hoping to spend the rest of his life quietly and anonymously with some small, easy employment. But when he is assigned to be the secretary-tutor for the princess, he finds himself thrust into politics. And when he finds himself the chosen vessel of one of the gods, politics and ...

This book was a ton of fun, which is all I want from a romance. The hero and heroine - Jon and Reggie - are well matched. They're both intelligent go-getters who of course have some issues. Meeting each other inspires them to work on their issues. And I actually really appreciated that at the end of the book they worked on their issues independently before reconnecting and committing to each other. It made the happy ending feel more earned and like it would last longer, as opposed to just being a vacation fling that would never survive contact with the real world.

This story was fine. It was quick and entertaining, and it's definitely an interesting concept. I know Sanderson struggled for years to figure out how to tell this story, and I'm honestly not sure he really figured it out. It almost feels like he just wanted to publish this to publish it, and it didn't get the care some of his other work does. It feels incomplete or flat compared to what I expect from him. The part that really confused me was whether this was part of the Cosmere or not. I've seen conflicting information, and I honestly hope it's not part of the Cosmere. The main fantasy planet in this story, Mirandus, is directly connected to Earth. And I just don't want Earth to have anything to do with the Cosmere. It's hard to explain, but I want the Cosmere to be pure second-world fantasy, with no connection to our world at all. This is only the first book in what I believe is a planned trilogy. And there's every possibility that the story will becom...

Becky Chambers has definitely crossed the threshold to new favorite author. I've now read two of her books, and I'm itching to read every single thing she's ever written. This book switches between two timelines. In the present, Pepper is helping an AI, Sidra, nee Lovelace, adjust to living in a human-like body instead of embodying an entire ship. AIs aren't recognized as people with rights, so they have to hide her true nature, and it becomes an interesting journey of discovery as they have to balance Sidra's individual wants and needs with her safety and the safety of her friends.  In the past, Pepper is still a young girl named Jane who was born a clone and lived as a slave until she escaped with the help of an unexpected friend. Jane/Pepper slowly comes to realize just how horrific her childhood was and begins to heal from her trauma. This is really a lovely meditation on what it means to be a person and what it means to be considered illegal. Chambers created a...

 I've come to expect certain things from Alix E Harrow. A deep understanding of tropes and stories. A delight in playing with them. A strong sense of justice and equality. A strong, young woman (or women) fighting for change. Those are all present here. But this being a novella rather than a full novel, they're compressed and occasionally sketched in. I've read her other two books, so I can read between the lines here. But I still found myself wishing for something a little meatier in this Sleeping Beauty modernization. That's really more praise disguised as complaint. I love reading Harrow's work, and I just want more of it. There were some really interesting ideas here - stories being the connection between multiple dimensions, the bones of those stories remaining the same even as the details change, escaping (or not) from your own story. I'm excited that there's a sequel and I'll get to spend a bit more time in this world. Though I also hope that it i...

Sometimes you find yourself so deep into a series, that you just keep reading beyond your enjoyment of it. Because some new twist appears and you have to find out what happens next. Even though you don't really care. I really liked the first Rose Marshall book. It was fun and inventive and told an interesting, ambiguous story. I was lukewarm on the second book. I wouldn't have read or even expected a third book. But then, over in the Incryptid series, which takes place parallel to this series, major changes happened. A big bad was defeated in a way that would have huge repercussions for Rose, and I just had to see that play out. So I guess I got my closure. But having gotten it, I'm not sure I needed it. My problem is with rose herself, who is feeling less like a character and more like a mouthpiece for the author. These books have lost a lot of the ambiguity that made them interesting. People are very definitely either good or bad, and that comes with a whole host of opini...

It's always a little rough when the best thing I can think to say about a book is that it was short. I hear a lot about Elizabeth Strout, and she's got a bunch of award-winning books. But it seems like every time I hear about someone raving about one of her books, it's the third or fourth in a series. Most recently, this happened with Oh, William. My book club nearly decided to read it. My mother-in-law's book club did decide to read it. And she liked it enough to go back and read the first two books. She waxed rhapsodic about this story that changes as the protagonist matures and gains new perspective on her childhood and comes to understand that trauma. And that may all be true. But the first book is (obviously) at the very beginning of that journey, and I had a hard time connecting with it. It was very melancholy, which I found off-putting. It felt like there was a wall between me and Lucy Barton. Every time she approached something interesting, she shied away from ...

 I still love this book. I was a little worried, honestly. It's been a few years since I read it. My life has changed a lot. I think about this book a lot, and I wasn't sure if the version in my mind still resembled the actual book. It was possible that in interpreting and reinterpreting this book over the years, I'd built it up so much in my mind that re-reading it would be an exercise in disappointment. But that didn't happen. I loved this book, and I still love it. Everything I remembered was still there. And there were new things as well. References and details I didn't catch the first time through that just added even more layers. I was also surprised by the subtle ways my perspective changed. I remember not really liking the gothic section the last time I read it. It felt overdone and a little too much. This time I understood it better, and therefore I like it better. But the noir section rubbed me a little wrong. The thing about this book that has me the most...

I first read this book years ago, and I remembered it as a light, feel-good novel. I sold it to my book club as "basically Pixar's Up without the fantastical elements". It's about a curmudgeonly old man who recently lost his wife and sense of purpose. Over the course of the novel he gets pulled into a community, almost against his will, and discovers that life goes on and there's more than one way to be happy. So I was a little surprised by how hard this book hit me this time. I cried. A lot. This book hit differently when you're grieving. All the little things that bring Ove down, all the small lonely moments that I skated right by the first time, loomed a lot larger now.    The book is still uplifting. It ends on a happy note, and Ove is in a much better place. It's a lovely story about neighbors coming together to take care of each other, even when decades of history complicate their relationships. It was just a lot sadder than I remembered. I wonder if...

 I loved reading this book. The prose bordered on poetry, and it flowed so beautifully. The style lent itself really well to expression different idioms and slang and dipping into vernaculars that gave each character her own voice while tying the overall narrative together. I'm a little in awe of it. And of how easy it was to read. Of how much I just wanted to keep reading it. Beyond the style of the book, I loved the structure. The books tells the life stories of twelve different women. They're all different. Different ages, different backgrounds, different beliefs and goals, different struggles and triumphs. But they're also all loosely connected. The connections are obvious in the beginning, but they become more obscure as the book goes on and more characters are introduced. Part of the fun is seeing the ways the stories interact, and what the various women think of each other. Evaristo does such a good job of making these women interesting. Of making them imperfect in d...

I picked this book up for some fun fluff. A supernatural fantasy featuring a vampire and a werewolf (and ultimately a witch, but that's the sequel) was exactly what I needed this past Valentine's Day. I wanted something light and silly, and it is that. There are lots of fun puns and references to other books. When Lydia and Kitty Collins are introduced, you barely even need a character description because you know exactly who they are based on their names alone. The author was clearly influenced by Terry Pratchett. And much like a Pratchett book, all that fun and silliness is hiding a profound rage at the world. The social commentary is pointed, even as this world is, in some ways, safer than our own. Which is all to say that this book had a lot more depth and plot than I was expecting. But that didn't take away from the lighthearted fun, and it actually has me excited for the next installment in the series. I can't wait to see how Ursula, the witch who barely appears i...

 Murderbot might be one of the best fictional characters out there. Its desire to just sit in a closet and watch tv is at constant war with its compulsion to protect all the humans around it, and it makes for a wonderfully grumpy and relatable hero. I was so excited to finally get a full length novel in this series (and was just a little disappointed to learn that the next book - Fugitive Telemetry - is back to novella size). In the fifth book, Murderbot reunite with ART, which is all I've wanted since I finished the second book. The two team up to save a bunch of humans from weird alien remnants. They fight and make up and learn how to have a relationship. Murderbot's actually starting to get pretty good at relationships. Well, halfway decent. This was a really fun book with lots of action and snarky humor. I can't wait to get my hands on the next one. I hope Martha Wells never stops writing this series.

Full disclosure: I went to high school with one of the authors of this novelette. This was an absolutely adorable story about the importance of connection and a nice reminder that life isn't over until it's over. Feral is an old dragon, more or less confined to his cave. He spends all his time reminiscing about the glory days, and complaining about everything around him. When a human girl arrives at his cave in need of rescuing, it jolts him out of his complacency.  There was a lot of fun humor in here, and Feral's journey from curmudgeonly loner to adoring grandfather-figure was fun. There were things I wanted to know more about (like Morsel's history), not because I felt like their lack took away from the story, just because I wanted more. But that's the sign of a perfect morsel - it leaves you wanting more.

The Witch's Heart was an absolutely delightful retelling of Norse mythology. It centers on Angroda, a witch with the gift of prophecy. After fleeing Odin, who will do anything to learn what she can see, she falls in love with Loki and builds a family with him in the woods. But she can't hide forever. As the book marches relentlessly on towards Ragnarok, she does her best to try and save her children from their fate. I loved this re-imagining of the classic myths, and it re-awoke my interest in Norse Mythology in general. I'd never heard of Angroboda before, but I recognized some of the stories about Loki and Thor and Freya. Those stories are usually the main attraction, but here they're side stories - Loki's excuses for not being around more. It also built on Skadi, who I recognized immediate because one of my best friends named her car Skadi in high school. It was so much fun to get caught up in this world. And the best trick that Gornichec pulled was the passage ...

 I've been meaning to read Sarah Gailey every since I heard about their very first novella, River of Teeth. I finally bought Magic for Liars and then Tor.com made Upright Women Wanted one of the free books of the month. I'm so glad I finally read it, because now I'm even more excited for all of Gailey's work. Good thing I've already got one of her books sitting on my shelf. I went into this book assuming it took place in the far past. I have no real justification for that assumption except that this book reads like a western, and westerns are generally a past thing. But this book actually takes place in a dystopian future, where all the trappings of the wild west have come back. The Librarians are slowly revealed as outlaws, hiding in plain sight. And Esther's desire to join up with them gets turned on its head when she finds out the sort of work they really do. I absolutely loved this book, and I wish it had been fleshed out into a full novel if only because ...

  The Dark Interval is a series of letters of condolence that the poet Ranier Maria Rilke wrote to various friends over his life. Each is addressed to someone who has just suffered a loss, whether of a spouse, a parent, a sibling, or a friend. Each attempts to console the survivor while Rilke explains his view of death. I found this collection to be, of all things, affirming. Which was really unexpected. This passage, in particular, really spoke to me: ...you must continue his life inside of yours insofar as it was unfinished; his life has now passed onto yours. You, who truly knew him, can quite truly continue in his spirit and on his path. Make it the task of your mourning to explore what he had expected of you, had hoped for you, had wished to happen to you. If I could just convince you, dear friend, that his influence has not vanished from your existence. When Kevin passed, I set about trying to finish his unfinished business. I moved forward with house projects we'd bee...

Reading a novel by Ursula K LeGuin is rarely as simple as reading a novel. When I first started reading her work, it always felt like an argument. She is someone who has thought deeply about what she believes and her work considers a lot of different points of view. I never agreed with her fully, but she was so knowledgeable and sharp that her writing forced me to become more knowledgeable and sharp. Her work never let me be complacent in my beliefs. I always found myself having to defend my own point of view against the one she presented, because she made me consider things I hadn't before. Reading LeGuin is work, but good work, work worth doing. Her books have always made me a smarter, better person. Always Coming Home is a departure in that it felt like a conversation but not an argument. I'm not sure if that's because I've come around to LeGuin's way of seeing things as I've aged or if it's just that this book is so gentle. It's incredibly radical, ...

I got this book as a free download from Tor.com, which is the only reason I decided to read it. I did enjoy the other Charlie Jane Anders book I read, All the Birds in the Sky . And I guess I was expecting more of the same. But that was a subtle story that took me by surprise. And this....wasn't. It's not that it was bad. I'm just not really the target audience for this book. I'm not much interested in young adult books. But it was free and on my kindle and I figured it'd be a quick read. The fact that it took me over two weeks to read this YA novel with less than 300 pages tells you something about how invested I was in it. It actually started pretty strong, with a fun premise, interesting and sarcastic characters, and a plot that kicked into high gear almost immediately. But then the middle of the book got muddled. Parts of it felt more like an outline than a novel, as the story jumped from scene to scene with very little transition, which kept me off balance and ...

 After taking two weeks to read my first book of 2022, I needed something quick. Romance novels always do a great job of filling that urge. They're easy to read, happy, and usually a perfect little palate cleanser. And this one definitely lived up to all those expectations. But as a romance novel it was sort of middle of the road. I liked Makeda a whole lot more than Beznaria, which probably comes down to Makeda getting the lion's share of the chapters. Her journey was more compelling and satisfying, and I was really rooting for her. Beznaria felt a bit more sketched in to me, and she went through a bit less growth. Not that she didn't change, but I have no real confidence that those changes were permanent. Which is a weird place to be with a romance novel. I also felt like the ending was a bit too abrupt. I could have used another few chapters to tie up some loose ends or an epilogue to assuage my fears that this relationship would never last in the real world. They had a ...

 I've been slowly making my way through Kristen Britain's Green Rider series for the past year. And I mean slowly. After a year, I only just finished the fourth book. When I started, I assumed the series was complete at six books, and that seemed doable. But a seventh book was released this year, and it turns out that the author has no set plan for how long the series will be. That's been fine up to now. Each book has been a distinct story. I find I have little trouble remembering what happened previously when I picked up the next book (Britain's ability to seamlessly integrate the "previously on" into her text is pretty amazing). It's also been easy to remember what happened in each book. But then this one ended in a cliffhanger, and now I'm worried that we're diving into some more classic epic fantasy, where the story drags on and on for countless books until the author abandons it for one reason or another. But I'm only a little worried, be...

This book is exactly what people mean by the phrase "wild romp". It's vaguely historical fiction, veering off into fantasy in a number of ways. It muddies the waters between what probably happened and what might have happened and what absolutely did not happen. But it's entertaining, even when it goes off the rails. The main character, Monty, is a complete disaster. As most eighteen year olds are. He's lived a life mixed with privilege and punishment. On the surface he has everything he wants. But scratch that surface and he can't have anything he actually wants. And he mostly deals with that by trying not to think too hard about what he wants. And drinking way too much. Like I said, he's a disaster. And he spends most of the book as a disaster. But by the end he's starting to figure some things out, starting to realize that he needs to change and how and why he needs to change. I was by turns exasperated and charmed by Monty and his sister, Felicity, ...

Instead of reading The Goldfinch in December like I was supposed to, I found myself revisiting Saga. I read the first nine volumes more or less as they came out over the years, which really spread the story out. While I enjoyed the later volumes, I was occasionally confused by who a character was or why they were doing something. Then the ending of the ninth volume left me hurt and angry and then the whole story went on hiatus for what was supposed to be a year, but which the pandemic dragged out to closer to three years. In those three years, a lot happened. And I came to appreciate the ending. I found myself growing more and more curious about where the story would go next. I wanted to know what would happen to Hazel in the wake of her most recent losses. So I went back and re-read the whole story over the course of about two weeks. The compressed schedule worked really well for this story. Everything flowed much better than the first time through. I was able to hold all the charact...

 There's something freeing about starting out the year with a complete and abject failure. Nowhere to go from here but up. Hopefully. Last year I read every book my book club picked. This was actually the first year I accomplished this feat, despite being the founder and default leader of the book club. But for one reason or another (new babies, my husband's death) I always ended up missing a few meetings. I even missed one meeting in 2021, because my family was under a covid quarantine. But I read every book! It was actually fairly easy. For our first book of 2022, we picked The Goldfinch. It's massive, a real door stopper of a book. But the length didn't frighten me. I routinely read big books (500+ pages) and usually get in at least one 1000+ page book a year. So I dove in with excellent intentions. And then I had a completely novel experience. Any time I was actively reading The Goldfinch I enjoyed it. It was entertaining, if a bit overly descriptive. But then I...