Bookish Thoughts

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...

Seanan McGuire initially wrote a bunch of short stories about a ghost. Then she stitched them together into a book. Then she turned it into a series. I originally read this book several years ago, but I finally picked up the sequel (and saw that a third is forthcoming), so I had to go back and re-read this one. Since I first read this story, I've read the main Incryptid series, of which it's an offshoot. That meant that I picked up on a lot more this time through. The world where this takes place is incredibly rich, and I missed a lot of the references when I first encountered them. That contributed to me liking this story even more the second time around. I was also better able to appreciate the structure, since I knew where everything was headed. I didn't expect my re-read of this book to be quite so rewarding, but I'm glad it was. I'm definitely hooked on this series and Rose Marshall now, and I can't wait to see where her story goes. (especially after the ev...

Once upon a time I had a book blog. I updated it consistently for years and years. But then my husband died and I didn't touch it for over four months. I kept reading though, and developed such a backlog that it just got more and more overwhelming.   But this blog remains valuable to me. Writing about books helps lodge them in my memory. And I enjoy being able to go back and see what I thought about a book I read years earlier. Especially if I'm trying to recommend something or considering another book by that author.   Anyway. It's time to work through the backlog. The key to eating an elephant is to just go one bite at a time, after all, right? So, one review at a time and I'll eventually catch up to where I am now. It'll be interesting to see what I remember about these books I read weeks and months ago and should serve as a decent kick in the pants to stay up to date with this thing in the future.   Anyway, That Ain't Witchcraft is the seventh book in a ser...

I'm starting to love Antimony almost as much as I love Verity. The two of them have more in common than they would ever admit, but Antimony isn't quite as experienced as Verity. She's competent, sure, but she's still learning how to gather and rely on her allies. It's fun to watch her put her team together, and become a force to be reckoned with. Of course she still has a lot of growing up to do. She's quick to blame herself and thinks she needs to take sole responsibility for her mistakes. Which has left her pretty isolated. As she starts to build a found family around herself, I'm looking forward to her reconnecting with her family of origin. She just needs to figure out that she doesn't have to take on the world all by herself. I also appreciate Antimony's books for their settings. Magic for Nothing  had me eager to visit the carnival and Tricks for Free  is making me want to visit Disneyland. My kids are still too young to appreciate it, but ...

I've been meaning to read The Changeling  since I first heard about it. And I'm so glad I finally got around to it. I hesitated because the premise seemed genuinely upsetting - a woman kills her baby and then disappears, leaving her husband wondering what the hell happened and trying to track her down in an increasingly magical New York City. Probably not the sort of book you should read when you've just had a kid, or when you're pregnant again. But I clung to the hint in the title and decided to take the plunge. And I'm so glad I did. I've read a lot of books over the years that claim to be similar to American Gods , but this is the one that comes closest to hitting that mark for me. It is very much about America and how the tales we tell shape our lives, how we do and don't repeat the mistakes of our forefathers, how we don't always interrogate our traditions when maybe we should, how this country has been shaped entirely by immigration. Like that bo...

In the sixth Incryptid book, Seanan McGuire finally shines the spotlight on the youngest of the Price children, Antimony. I was half-worried going into this book. I love Verity, and the two sisters are huge rivals with very little in common. But McGuire did an excellent job of making Antimony interesting and sympathetic. And the relationship she has with Verity is fascinating now that there are two sides to it. The bulk of this book also takes place at a carnival, which made me really want to go to one. We took Gavin to a few last summer, and it was a lot of fun taking him on the rides and seeing the sights. We knew we wouldn't be able to take him to any this summer, but reading this book made me really sad to be missing that. I hope we're able to go to a few next summer. The next two books are also from Antimony's point of view, and I'm more excited than ever to get to them. I can't wait to read more of her story and see how she deals with all the fallout from ...

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. ...

The people over at Serial Box are on a mission to bring back serialized fiction. They talk about combining the best aspects of novels and television shows, but this isn't really a new idea. It's just been dressed up a bit for the internet. Stories are broken down into "seasons" and "episodes". Theoretically, each episode should be a self-contained story that takes about 45 minutes to read (just like a TV show!), and the episodes build into an arc that forms a season. (And eventually extends into multiple seasons. Just like TV! Except you're reading, not watching.) The biggest problem with this format is that you can cram a lot more information into a 45-minute television show than you can into an equivalent-length short story. So a lot of the early episodes are made up of broad strokes. It takes a while, longer than normal, to start caring about the characters and what they're doing. But I did eventually start caring. I read the entire first sea...

In the fourth InCryptid book, Alex and Shelby head to Austrailia to deal with a werewolf outbreak. In this world, werewolves are victims of a rabies-like virus. There's no cure, no treatment, and the only way to prevent a full-on outbreak is to kill anyone who's been infected before they have a chance to bite anyone else. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that you can't tell whether someone's been infected until they turn into a wolf. And further complicated by the fact that the virus isn't restricted to humans. Any mammal can contract and spread lycanthropy. The story here was exciting and well-paced. The mystery was intriguing, and expertly constructed. And the stakes felt believably high. It was just hampered by the fact that I don't really like Alex all that much. He's kind of boring and wishy-washy, and not nearly as much fun as his sister. Lucky for me, the next book turns the spotlight back on Verity. And then it's on to the final Pri...

I bought this book on impulse at the library book sale because I recognized the author, who recently released a short story collection with an interesting name ( Six Months, Three Days, Five Others ) that I've been wanting to read. I knew basically nothing going into it except that it was pretty short. I'm not usually one to take a chance like that (my to-read list is long enough that I often obsessively research a book before actually buying it), but it worked out well this time. The book follows two people: a witch named Patricia and a technophile named Laurence. They meet in a horribly rigid private school in eighth grade. They strike up a tenuous friendship because they're both outcast and desperate for companionship. But when an assassin determined to kill them both starts messing with their lives, they end up separated. Years later they reconnect, only to discover that they're now on opposite sides of a war for the future of the planet. All the Birds in the Sk...

The sixth book in The Craft Sequence returns to Kai, adding a nice level of symmetry to the series, even if this book is setting on a new era. We now have two books about Tara in Alt Coloumb, two about Caleb Altemoc and his father in Dresedial Lex, and now two about Kai and Izza and the Blue Lady from Kavekana, though this book doesn't take place in Kavekana. Ruin of Angels  sees Kai and Izza travel to Agdel Lex, a new city that the Iskari imposed on the ruins of Alikand after the God Wars. But Alikand is still there, hidden beneath and behind and around the forced order of Agdel Lex. And beneath both of them is the dead city, where the wars are still going on, frozen in a single moment. This is a book about dualities. About the many faces a single person takes on in different situations. About the many different places a single city can be. About history seen from multiple points of view. It's about a pair of sisters who don't entirely know how to relate to each other...

Well I'm pretty much committed to Seanan McGuire's Incryptid  series at this point. The next two books are already sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. And after that there are only two more that currently exist. (Though I expect there will be at least one more by the time I catch up. McGuire is remarkably good at keeping to her one-book-a-year schedule. Even more impressive that she's maintaining it for at least three series while also writing other stuff. Seriously, she's been publishing books for less than a decade and she's got somewhere in the neighborhood for 50 books and novellas. And then there are the short stories.) To get back to the point, this series is great fun, and I'm enjoying it. Even if I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as the last two. But that really just comes down to the fact that I fell head over heels in love with Verity and I merely like her brother, who narrates this and the next book. (But then it's back to Verity, a...

Reading the first page of this book was live diving into a pile of pillows. This is a cozy little story about a baker who enjoys a simple life with her family in the wake of a supernatural war that decimated the human population. She just wants to make cinnamon rolls and read trashy novels. And then she gets kidnapped by vampires and finds herself in way over her head. I loved it when I read it two years ago, and re-reading it was a bit like coming home. The narrator and main character, Rae "Sunshine" Seddon, babbles. She goes off on tangents and loses herself down rabbit holes. The story gets a bit circuitous, as she occasionally backs up to explain this or that detail. And I could see people getting frustrated with her. But I honestly love it, and I think McKinley pulls off the chatterbox character superbly. It adds a level of cozy intimacy to the book, like you're hanging out with a mug of tea while your best friend tells you about the crazy weekend she just had. P...

The second Incryptid book delivers another exciting adventure. Verity is still torn between her desire to be a professional dancer and her duty to protect the Cryptid population from over-eager monster hunters. But when Dominic tells her that the Covenant's threatened purge of Manhattan is imminent, it's not much of a choice at all. Like Verity's parents, I thought it was obvious from early on that dance was never going to be her future. So while I liked the push and pull of her two lives in the first book, I appreciated that she quickly came to the same conclusion here. When the chips are down, she's going to help her friends, because that's the kind of person she is. Which doesn't mean that she can't or won't grieve that dance career, or that she didn't need her year in NYC to come to that decision. But it was nice to see her life come into focus for her. It was also fun to see a bunch of the cast from the previous book. Though now those friend...

I've dabbled in a lot of Seanan McGuire's work over the years. She's incredibly prolific, and I read and enjoy her blog. I mostly like the books of hers that I've read, though I tend to get a bit nitpicky about them. But I think I've finally found something of hers that I'm going to fall in love with. Discount Armageddon  is the first book in her Incryptid series, which follows a family of cryptozoologists straddling the thin line between protecting humans from cryptids and cryptids from humans. They exist in a grey area in a world that insists these matters are black and white. The first book follows middle daughter, Verity Price, who is spending a year in Manhattan to study the locals and figure out what she actually wants to do with her life. Verity filled a Buffy -shaped hole in my heart that I hadn't even known was there. I didn't realize how much I missed that wit and snark, that endless training that leads to exhilarating fight scenes, that re...

This book may have supplanted Full Fathom Five  as my favorite book of Gladstone's Craft Sequence  (so far). While that one was a little tighter and more focused, this one was just so epic and complicated and perfect. Gladstone has referred to the first five book of the series as functioning somewhat like the first season of a television show. Using that metaphor, this was the perfect finale to a number of arcs, even though it's not the last book chronologically. Four Roads Cross  takes us back to Alt Coulomb, with Tara and Abelard and Shale. A big part of the reason I loved this book is that Cat and Raz are back, and they might be my favorite minor characters in the entire series. It also draws on every other book, tying off loose threads that I barely realized were hanging and deftly introducing a bunch of new characters. With this book I feel like I finally have a handle on how this world works and how magic works in it. Gladstone has created a staggeringly complic...

I didn't like this book as much as Three Parts Dead . I don't know how much of that is sophomore slump and how much of it was just Gladstone changing things up a bit. Ultimately I did enjoy this book and found it just as interesting and thought-provoking as the first one. But it took me a lot longer to get there. At least part of that is because Caleb is a difficult protagonist. And he's the only point of view we get in this book, aside from a few brief interludes. So we have a much narrower scope and a lot of time spent with a character that I took a long time to warm up to. I suppose it's no surprise that I wasn't as immediately or intensely excited about this book. The thing about Caleb is that he's content. And that's just not that interesting. He likes his work. He likes his life. He's not hugely passionate about anything, but neither is he deeply dissatisfied. His biggest problem is his relationship with his father, who was a priest of the fall...

Every now and then I come across a book that feels like it was written just for me: Sunshine , Among Others , Mr. Fox . I love these books deeply, but I have a hard time recommending them to people. They're so specific to my interests and so dear to my heart that I worry what will happen if my friends don't end up loving them like I do. Three Parts Dead  is another book that feels like it was written just for me. But this one feels like it was written for all my friends, too. Instead of holding this one close to my heart, I'm shoving it at all of my friends. Upon finishing it, I immediately gushed about it on a friend's Facebook page. I told another friend she had to read it immediately. I'm considering slipping it into my husband's suitcase for his upcoming business trip. I want to talk about this book (this series). I want to get excited and point things out to my friends and see all the things I missed. This isn't a book that spoke directly to my soul...

Last year I was hearing a ton about Daniel Jose Older. Both this book and Half-Resurrection Blues  had just come out and they were receiving great reviews. I was excited to read both of them, but I got my hands on Half-Resurrection Blues  first. Sadly, that book was a bit of a let down. It wasn't horrible, just not as good as I'd been expecting. It wasn't enough to dampen my excitement for Shadowshaper , though. In fact, it may have been a good thing that Half-Resurrection Blues  lowered my expectations a bit. Or maybe it didn't need to. But at any rate, I loved this book. It was an excellent, magical, coming-of-age tale about a young girl in Brooklyn. Sierra has a family history of magic, but it's been hidden from her. And now that magic is dying, and it looks like it's going to be up to her to save it before her heritage dies out completely. It's a nice metaphor for the children of immigrants, struggling to find a way to honor their family history and ...

This is a sweet little ghost story about the things you can't outrun, the things you can't leave behind, the things that refuse to let you go. It follows Rose, who was killed on prom night and now spends her time hitchhiking across the country. Sometimes she accompanies people to their death, sometimes she's able to save them, sometimes she's just along for the ride for a time. It's an urban legend you've probably heard of, and it's a lot of fun to see it from the other perspective. In the beginning, the story jumps back and forth through time a lot. But as it approaches the present, it becomes more linear. Which makes a lot of sense, as this is when Rose, who is telling her own story, starts to gain a sense of purpose and to care about how events follow one after another. Early on, she's just going through the motions and it hardly matters if it's the 1960s or the 1990s. But as she grows, that timeline does start mattering. It's a lot of fun t...