Bookish Thoughts

Sometimes you're at a used book sale and you see a different edition of a book you already own. But you love the book so much that you have to buy this new edition. And then you have to read it to justify the purchase. This is probably the best method for revisiting an old favorite. I first read this book nearly a decade ago. I then proceeded to work through everything else Bujold had written in the next few years. She's still writing some - releasing a novella or two a year. But it was so nice to dive into a full-length adventure from her again, and to remember why I fell in love with her writing in the first place. This story focuses on Cazaril. He has just escaped from several years of slavery and is hoping to spend the rest of his life quietly and anonymously with some small, easy employment. But when he is assigned to be the secretary-tutor for the princess, he finds himself thrust into politics. And when he finds himself the chosen vessel of one of the gods, politics and ...

This book was a ton of fun, which is all I want from a romance. The hero and heroine - Jon and Reggie - are well matched. They're both intelligent go-getters who of course have some issues. Meeting each other inspires them to work on their issues. And I actually really appreciated that at the end of the book they worked on their issues independently before reconnecting and committing to each other. It made the happy ending feel more earned and like it would last longer, as opposed to just being a vacation fling that would never survive contact with the real world.

This story was fine. It was quick and entertaining, and it's definitely an interesting concept. I know Sanderson struggled for years to figure out how to tell this story, and I'm honestly not sure he really figured it out. It almost feels like he just wanted to publish this to publish it, and it didn't get the care some of his other work does. It feels incomplete or flat compared to what I expect from him. The part that really confused me was whether this was part of the Cosmere or not. I've seen conflicting information, and I honestly hope it's not part of the Cosmere. The main fantasy planet in this story, Mirandus, is directly connected to Earth. And I just don't want Earth to have anything to do with the Cosmere. It's hard to explain, but I want the Cosmere to be pure second-world fantasy, with no connection to our world at all. This is only the first book in what I believe is a planned trilogy. And there's every possibility that the story will becom...

Becky Chambers has definitely crossed the threshold to new favorite author. I've now read two of her books, and I'm itching to read every single thing she's ever written. This book switches between two timelines. In the present, Pepper is helping an AI, Sidra, nee Lovelace, adjust to living in a human-like body instead of embodying an entire ship. AIs aren't recognized as people with rights, so they have to hide her true nature, and it becomes an interesting journey of discovery as they have to balance Sidra's individual wants and needs with her safety and the safety of her friends.  In the past, Pepper is still a young girl named Jane who was born a clone and lived as a slave until she escaped with the help of an unexpected friend. Jane/Pepper slowly comes to realize just how horrific her childhood was and begins to heal from her trauma. This is really a lovely meditation on what it means to be a person and what it means to be considered illegal. Chambers created a...

 I've come to expect certain things from Alix E Harrow. A deep understanding of tropes and stories. A delight in playing with them. A strong sense of justice and equality. A strong, young woman (or women) fighting for change. Those are all present here. But this being a novella rather than a full novel, they're compressed and occasionally sketched in. I've read her other two books, so I can read between the lines here. But I still found myself wishing for something a little meatier in this Sleeping Beauty modernization. That's really more praise disguised as complaint. I love reading Harrow's work, and I just want more of it. There were some really interesting ideas here - stories being the connection between multiple dimensions, the bones of those stories remaining the same even as the details change, escaping (or not) from your own story. I'm excited that there's a sequel and I'll get to spend a bit more time in this world. Though I also hope that it i...

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...

It's always a little rough when the best thing I can think to say about a book is that it was short. I hear a lot about Elizabeth Strout, and she's got a bunch of award-winning books. But it seems like every time I hear about someone raving about one of her books, it's the third or fourth in a series. Most recently, this happened with Oh, William. My book club nearly decided to read it. My mother-in-law's book club did decide to read it. And she liked it enough to go back and read the first two books. She waxed rhapsodic about this story that changes as the protagonist matures and gains new perspective on her childhood and comes to understand that trauma. And that may all be true. But the first book is (obviously) at the very beginning of that journey, and I had a hard time connecting with it. It was very melancholy, which I found off-putting. It felt like there was a wall between me and Lucy Barton. Every time she approached something interesting, she shied away from ...