Bookish Thoughts

I must have adjusted to Lisa Kleypas' style, because I liked this book a whole lot more than the first one. I don't know that the hero actually had more scenes, but what he had seemed better paced. I actually felt like I got to see his arc rather than assuming that it happened off-page. But the majorty of the book was still devoted to Lillian and her friends. And it's the friendship between the wallflowers that really make these books special. Lillian is a fantastic heroine. She's rash and brash and full of energy. She doesn't like rules that make no sense, though she learns to appreciate that sometimes she doesn't know the reason behind a rule. Sometimes, of course, the rules are simply outdated and she's there to point that out. She's also wonderfully innocent - she has no idea how much she doesn't know - and that leads to some fun scenes as well. There are also a handful of scenes that give us glimpses into the heads of characters other than t...

This was a wonderful, quick read that Tor.com released for International Woman's Day. It's about 30 pages long and contains eleven super short stories. Each author was asked to use the famous admonishment of Elizabeth Warren as a prompt. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless she persisted. I liked some stories more than others. I knew most every author included in the book, and it was fun to get a little tasting menu of their styles. Not to mention that this was a particular balm to the soul, being delivered so soon after Warren dropped out of the presidential race. If you've got half an hour and a desire to try out several SFF authors, you can't go wrong with this small, free book.

What if Game of Thrones was only 120 pages long? That's flip, and LeGuin and Martin are two very different authors, but I can't help but feel like this novella was an influence for GRRM's much longer (and unfinished) series. Planet of Exile takes place on a planet with a much larger orbit than Earth - one Year lasts for sixty Earth-years, meaning that winter lasts for 15 years. We're the aliens on this world, though the human settlement as been there for 600 years (or 10 Years) and is more of a city than a settlement now. As winter begins, several nomadic tribes begin their journey south, raiding as they go. But this year, they're banding together to become a larger threat. The humans and the locals need to figure out how to work together if they're going to survive the sacking and have enough supplies to make it through winter. It's a much more plausible scenario than the hand-wavey magic in A Song of Ice and Fire , and it's still packed with p...

This book was utterly phenomenal. I'll have to read it again to be sure, but it's likely that this will go down as one of my favorite books of all time. It was smart, thought-provoking, and flat-out fun. I want to visit the titular Gameshouse (though maybe not the higher level), and I suspect that it has good re-read value. I won't know for sure about that last point until I actually re-read it, but the stories are interwoven enough that I'm sure I missed more than a few clues my first time through. The Gameshouse is actually a series of three novellas. Each details one specific game, though taken together the scope is breathtaking. The first story, which follows a woman and a game of politics in Venice in the 1700s is definitely the strongest, but the later games (Hide and Seek in Thailand and a game of Chess that uses the whole planet as a board) are a lot of fun, too. Taken all together, it becomes a meditation on humanity. On the games we play with each other at...

This was a book club pick, and it's not exactly something I would have picked out for myself. I tend to do a decent amount of research about books before I commit to them. I want to be reasonably sure that I'll like something. This was written by a neighbor of mine and released by a small, local press, which made for a dearth of reviews and recommendations. I knew virtually nothing about this book going into it. It's billed as fantasy, but I would actually classify it as more of a horror story. Jeanie Maxwell has been possessed by the ghost of someone with unfinished business. She's first made aware of this by a psychic she visits on a lark, though she's understandably skeptical. But as her life starts falling apart, the ghost is able to take over and seek out closure in her former life. Meanwhile, the psychic is dealing with the death of her sister and the demands of her nephew regarding the will. The story was compelling, and I especially liked the description...

Maybe it's because I've spent the last year learning how to sit with uncertainty, but that's the theme of this book that really rose to the forefront for me. It's all about how that fear of uncertainty leads into a fear of change (and ultimately a fear of death), which just leaves you stuck. It's about learning to embrace uncertainty, on both small and large issues, so you can get yourself unstuck. And it's about using the things we can be certain of the help ground us as we walk off into the unknown. Most of the book takes place in a cemetery over the course of one night. Abraham Lincoln's young son has just died and been buried. The other ghosts in the graveyard are urging him to move on, even as they themselves fear to move on. He's reluctant, though, thanks to a visit from his father and the promise of future visits. The telling of the story is interesting, and plays in to the theme of uncertainty, even as it obscures the actual events. The vario...

This is my favorite of the Wayward Children books so far. In general, I prefer the even-numbered ones, which take place in the various worlds rather than the school. They're a little more focused, and there's an air of tragedy that hangs around them that makes them so bittersweet. This one follows Lundy, who died in the first book. Here we go back to her childhood, her encounter with the Goblin Market, and the actions that ultimately cursed her. The Goblin Market is all about rules, which appeals to Lundy (and honestly, to me, too. It's nice to know where you stand). One of those rules is that she has until her 18th birthday to choose to either stay in the Goblin Market or in her old life. Until then, she can travel back and forth as much as she wants. But then she has to choose one life and forsake the other. For a world that prides itself on fairness, this is a supremely unfair condition. Especially because it gets more and more difficult to make as Lundy approaches ...