Bookish Thoughts

This is still one of my favorite books. I still wish I could live inside of it. Re-reading it every year has become a tradition, and there's not that much more to say. If you haven't read it yet, you should.

I have no doubt that this book will resonate strongly for some people. They'll read it and love it and find meaning and connection. But I'm not one of those people. And because of that I couldn't really enjoy this book. This is a quick horror story about a punk anarchist collective that's being tormented by a spirit. A handful of them summoned said spirit to help them maintain their anarchy. It's supposed to kill anyone who wields power over another. But now it's killing the original summoners and the town can't decide whether to stop it or embrace it. The book makes some basic assumptions about anarchy that I can't bring myself to agree with. It's based on a lot of ifs that I don't think hold up well in the real world. So I found the whole premise difficult. Then there's the submersion in the punk subculture. It makes for a nice shorthand for world building, but my lack of familiarity with it just meant that I knew I was missing things. ...

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the theatrical release of Star Wars Episode IV , the editors of this book collected forty short stories, each of which retells a scene from the movie from the point of view of a minor character in that scene. The stormtrooper who stunned Leia, the sand person who attacked Luke, Aunt Beru, etc. I've been wanting to get my hand's on this book since I heard about it. This was a really fun concept, and a lot of the stories were very inventive. It was interesting to consider different points of view, and some of the stories were really out there. Nnendi Okorafor tells her story from the point of view of the trash monster, for example. And being incredibly familiar with the movie only made it that much more fun to see other people's takes on both well-known and unknown characters. But the lack of cohesion was a little frustrating. Especially in the sections that took place in Mos Eisley and Yavin 4. There were so many characters to choose f...

It's been a while since I read or enjoyed The Oatmeal. I stopped finding it amusing fairly early on. But there's no denying that there was a time when it was everywhere. And when I saw this collection of his comics at the library book sale, I threw it in my bag without thinking. This collection is a bit of a throwback, containing a lot of his earlier work. As such, there was a certain nostalgia factor for me. These were comics I remember reading and enjoying back in the day when they all got passed around and linked. So I did enjoy this book. And I'm glad I picked it up for relatively cheap.

This is my second time through Station Eleven.  The first time I read it, I inhaled the entire book in a day. This time I made an effort to stretch it out (by juggling a few other books at the same time) so I could absorb it a little more slowly. This is the sort of book that rewards deeper thought, and it definitely gave me a lot to think about. Station Eleven  is very concerned with home and with interrogating the idea that you can't go home again. It opens with a flu that kills over 99% of the world's population in a few days, leaving the remaining few to find a way to live in a vastly changed world. Small settlements pop up here and there, but the post-apocalypse story focuses on a traveling theater troupe. In a very real sense, these people can't go home again. There's no home to go to, and the main characters have chosen to make their home on the road. Even the pre-apocalypse characters, Arthur and Miranda, have left behind their hometown in favor of making a ...

I've read a lot of contemporary and historical romance, and October seemed like a good month to dive into paranormal romance. Especially since I saw a trio of vampire romance novels at the library book sale. I'm a sucker for vampires, so I was excited to see how they combine with romance. Unfortunately, I wasn't really a fan of this book. With any vampire story you have to accept the author's own particular twist on the lore, and I couldn't quite get there with this book. The romance relied a bit too much on fate and destiny for me to believe that these two people actually loved each other. And it didn't help that she didn't find out he was a vampire until the very end of the book. I want my heroines going in to their vampiric romances with eyes wide open. I ended up way more interested in the side plots than the main romance. Which was a shame because they both ended up fizzling out and not being that interesting in the end. Maybe I'll check out the...

When Gone Girl  came out, there was a ton of buzz around it, most centered on the shocking twist. It was like The Sixth Sense  all over again, with everyone swearing you had to read it but refusing to tell you anything about it. Sometimes stories can rely on these twists to much, making that the only worthwhile thing about them. And they end up falling apart once you know the secret. But Gone Girl  holds up incredibly well. Even knowing what Amy's plotting from the beginning, it remains gripping and thrilling. Gillian Flynn populates the novel with some truly horrible, selfish, twisted people, and it's so much fun to watch them play games with each other and see how Amy comes out on top of everyone. It helps that she's the most ruthless and least moral. She'll literally do whatever it takes to get what she wants, including killing a (mostly) innocent guy. (Seriously, though, Desi was just as bad as the rest of them.) I really enjoyed my re-read of this book. Knowing...