Bookish Thoughts

Komarr  is the opposite of a heart-breaking story. It starts by introducing us to Ekaterin, a woman who has been in a loveless and emotional abusive marriage for the past 10 years. She's grown steadily smaller, shrinking in on herself, to accommodate a husband with awful luck and a disease he won't admit to having. Or allow his son to be tested and treated for. Your heart breaks in that first chapter. But then, as Ekaterin slowly comes back to herself, rediscovering her sense of humor, her backbone, and her passion for botany, our heart gets put back together right alongside hers. Miles is in Komarr, a newly minted Imperial Auditor along to observe Professor Vorthys who has been doing this a lot longer and who happens to be Ekaterin's uncle. Miles meets and is instantly besotted by the married (and later widowed) Ekaterin. She in turn gets swept up in the case, the revelations of which first give her the strength she needs to finally leave her husband and then leave her w...

Matriarch  was a Christmas gift from Kevin. Something he picked up dirt cheap at a discount bookstore to put in my stocking. This worked out great with  A Star Shall Fall  a couple of years ago, so it makes sense he'd turn it into an annual tradition. But it took me a while to work up to this book. It's the fourth in a series, and I wasn't about to see out the first three books just to read this one. Especially because at least one of those books is no longer available in print. Which doesn't bode well for the series. So I went in with reservations, fully prepared to abandon the book after the first few chapters. It was definitely confusing at first. I ended up googling the plots of the first three books to catch myself up. I'm still not sure I'm straight on the various alien species, but I sorted it out enough for the story to make sense. And surprisingly enough, it drew me in and held my attention right up to the end. Like any good sci-fi, this story holds...

In  The Reptile Room  we begin to settle into what will be the pattern of the series. The Baudelaire orphans are sent to live with a distant and eccentric relative. Everything is wonderful for a few days. But then Count Olaf finds them, insinuates himself into their life, and kills the new guardian. The orphans find themselves needing to thwart yet another of his plots. This one involves poisonous snakes and a trip to Peru. This series could easily get repetitive, but given that it's written for 10-year-olds, that's probably part of the point. Kids like things to be repeated over and over. I still find comfort in the familiarity of a story where I know what's going to happen in broad strokes. The real pleasure always comes in the details, and the details here are pretty great. Snicket has a better grasp of his language and humor. His wordplay is more specific to the story at hand, and he has fun with some tongue twisters that need to be logicked out. The plot is a bit m...

Like every other book in this series,  Winter's Heart  is incredibly slow to start. But then it starts accelerating, and by the end you don't want to put the book down. It took me the entire bus ride from DC to NYC to read the prologue (which is over 10% of the book), and the ride back to get through Perrin's chapters that are so disconnected and full of moping and miscommunication that I hardly care. There are some characters in that subplot that I care about a lot, but right now it feels stuck. After that, though, we get Elayne and Mat and all sorts of excitement. There's more about the Seanchan, more poilitics and intrigue. Rand finally carries through with his plot to rid saidin of the taint, and another Forsaken goes down in the meantime. Although they are effectively immortal, and now that Lanfear is back I'm sure Osan'gar will pop up again at some point. The thing that I really appreciate about these books is that, while the characters all have their ...

Because what I need in my life right now is yet another series with more than ten books. At least these can all be read in a single sitting. The Bad Beginning  is the first in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. I first read it and the second book years ago when I was baby-sitting for my cousins. But at the time the series wasn't complete and I had no real incentive to track it down and read the whole thing. Then I kept hearing about it. Then Netflix announced their adaptation of it. Then it was my birthday. So I finally bought The Complete Wreck and doubled the length of my reading list in one fell swoop. But it is a very short book. 160 pages, with illustrations and large type on small pages. I read it quickly and found it delightful. Even though these books are about the terrible things that happen to the Baudelaire orphans, beginning with them becoming orphans, Snicket has a sense of humor that elevates the story. It's funny and charming while refusing to...

Before I read this book, I was warned that there was a cannibalism aspect to the murder mystery. Fearing the absolute worst, I braced myself. But it turned out that the cannibalism was mostly metaphorical, part of the book within a book that the murder is based on. So my first thought upon finishing was that it was much milder than I expected. And my second thought was that that was the strangest reaction I've had to a book in a long time. I love JK Rowling's Cormoran Strike series. Only two books in, but he and Robin are fun, smart people to hang out with. I like the way Rowling doles out clues, which leaves me feeling like I'm constantly on the verge of figuring things out. And I certainly could if I paid closer attention or flipped back to re-read passages. But as it stands I haven't been able to solve the mystery before the big reveal in either of her books. Which is a nice change of pace for someone who often sees the ending coming a mile away. If I have a comp...

Code Name Verity  is one of those books that I feel like everyone's been talking about for years. But for all that people were gushing about this book online, I managed to avoid hearing anything specific about it for a while. Then a few keywords entered my subconscious: female fighter pilots, female friendships, spies. I knew I had to read it. It's difficult to talk about this book. It deals with spies during WWII, so right off the bat you've got an unreliable narrator. As the details of her situation become more clear, it also becomes clear that something big is coming. But it's impossible to discern what that something is. Suffice it to say that this book was amazing. It deals first and foremost with female friendship, but it also focuses on women's war effort during WWII. There are female pilots and radio operators, interrogators and spies. It's refreshing to get a book that focuses on this side of the war effort, bringing to light things that have been o...