Bookish Thoughts

I enjoyed but didn't love The Wedding Date when I read it last year. I didn't feel a pressing need to read the sequels - there were other romances I liked more and my TBR is already way too long. But when a friend bought this for me as a gift, I had no reason not to read it. I went in expecting a fun, quick romance whose characters struggle with racism and sexism and that's exactly what I got. Maddie and Theo were both interesting characters, especially because they managed to bring out both the best and the worst in each other. It was a fun dynamic, especially as they swung from seeing the worst in each other to seeing the best. They have the same problem Lizzie and Darcy had - they're too similar to see each other clearly at first. It's a classic for a reason. My only complaint, and the real reason that I'll never be totally sold on Jasmine Guillory, is that her sex scenes fade to black to quickly. Part of the reason I read romance is for the steamy sex s...

For a few days after I finished this book, I was surprised that I wasn't still reading it. Part of my brain was still living in Cornwall in the 1790s. Which I suppose speaks to how engrossing the book actually was and my desire to find out what happens next to Ross, Demelza, Verity, Elizabeth and all the rest. This isn't my usual fare, but it's definitely growing on me. I appreciated Graham's prose in this book more than the first one, which I think speaks more to my frame of mind than the writing itself. In the last few weeks, I've been feeling my brain turn back on and I'm starting to appreciate more complicated writing again instead of just gorging on lighter, fluffy stuff. This book requires a bit more attention than I was initially expecting, but it rewards it. That said, I still struggled with the crowd scenes - Graham tends to jump around a room and require his reader to follow three or four distinct conversations at once. I'm also having a hard tim...

In the far future (and also the distant past and also right now) two groups are fighting for control. They send operatives back and forth through time to ensure certain outcomes, open up possibilities, make sure something does or does not happen. Two of those operatives (Red and Blue) make contact, begin writing letters, and ultimately fall in love. It's a classic story, made fresh. By fresh, I mean utterly delightful. It's a high concept version of a tale as old as time. The settings are delightfully bizarre, but the emotions are completely recognizable. The language elevates this, making the whole book a wondrous puzzle to be solved. (Shortly after Red referred to Blue as "Da-Ba-Dee" I played the song for my son, and I've been singing it to myself ever since.) It feels like a fun game you're playing with yourself (or the characters/authors are playing with each other) right until the heartbreak shows up and you discover just how invested you are in Red and...

The penultimate book in Scalzi's Old Man's War  series was actually a collection of short stories that built into a novel. The last book is a collection of novellas. It's not quite as successful as the previous book, mostly because there's a little less room for error. I didn't like one of the short stories, but it didn't much affect my liking of the book as a whole, since it was akin to not being fond of a small side plot. But when I didn't like one of the novellas, that was a quarter of the book that felt wasted to me. Which makes it sounds like I liked this book less than I did. And I did ultimately appreciate that novella, but not until the very end. I spent most of it wondering where I recognized the main character from and why she mattered to the overall story, but it all came together in the last few pages. The other three novellas were fantastic and built to a suitably satisfying conclusion. I think there's still a lot of room for Scalzi to r...

This story hurt so good. It put my heart in a vice, and then it just squeezed it tighter and tighter. Towards the end I had a hard time putting it down because I had to get to the end and the promise of relief. And the ending was completely worth it. What really elevates this story, though, is the language. Wilson plays with English in a way I've never experienced before, and it adds a whole extra layer to the story, making the fantasy world feel even more lived in. I'm definitely going to be checking out more work from him in the future.

I enjoyed this series, but it's also been one of diminishing returns. Kwan can't really mess with Nick and Rachel, so they've gotten a bit boring. Astrid has fun drama, but the attempts to keep her likable result in her seeming mostly passive in her own life. And Kitty is just exhausting. I don't even know whether I should be rooting for her or not. Still, this book is filled with ridiculous drama and extravagant parties and luxurious clothes. It's fun to watch these lives, knowing I'll never have them. And by the end of the book I didn't even want them. I guess this series was the perfect length. I got exactly what I wanted out of it. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm ready to move on to something else.

This book was practically perfect in every way. It follows a young girl named January who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, discovers a door to another world. Her guardian denies it's existence and nearly succeeds in making her doubt it, too. But then she finds a book about all those other worlds, which irrevocably alters her life's path. The interleaving of the two books is well done, and they build on each other in incredible ways as January discovers that she's closer to the center of the story than she ever expected to be. This is a book about stories. About the stories we lose ourselves in and the stories we tell to make sense of our past. It's about claiming your spot as protagonist in your own story while recognizing that everyone else is a protagonist, too. The world is full of stories, each story it's own world forever spawning more stories and worlds, contributing to the richness and vastness of life. It's also a book about colonialism, u...