march? maybe?

Ah yes the month of quarantine...you'd think that'd be plenty of time for me to catch up on my reading and not, you know, dick around doing anything as long as it's not productive.

March Book Reviews

We Were Eight Years In Power (Ta-Nehisi Coates)

6/10 I'm giving this book a 6 instead of a 5 for its quality, rather than the actual amount of enjoyment I got out of it. This book is really a great look at African American race relations in America. Nominally, it covers the eight years of the Obama presidency, but it pulls in information about slavery, the Civil War, and many previous government administrations. It's incredibly well researched and informed and that's really my problem with it. Its language is a bit too formal and academic for me to really enjoy reading it. It has makes seem really interesting points! There's a lot of stuff about the subject that I didn't know about! But I just felt like I had to slog through a school reading to get to the part I felt engaged by. My favorite is probably the article from the 8th year, just because it leans more towards biographical and it was much easier to read. Still, this book definitely has worth, but it's really more of a case of pearls before swine in my case.

Run Hide Repeat (Pauline Dakin)

4.5/10 I was wondering whether to give it a three or two stars because objectively speaking it wasn't THAT bad. There were some parts that I might've enjoyed reading! But thinking about it again, I think my overall experience with this book was just 'I didn't like it'. It was filled with so, so, so much pointless bullshit. Every single tedious minutiae even when it had nothing to do with the premise of the book. I was led to believe that the author knew she was on the run, knew that there was something wrong every time they moved houses - but no, she just passed it off as a family quirk until the big 'reveal' way later in her adulthood. Then the rest of the book is her detailing every single one of their moves and houses and sometimes connecting it to the reveal. Also, the post-reveal was such an anti-climax it could only be real life. The way they dealt with it, even the way she tried to reveal the truth in the end, was just so boring? There was no real resolution, no complete, satisfying ending. It was a mish-mash of a biography that was written too realistic about its unrealism too be really engaging. Anyway, I think it just proves that sometimes, life can be stranger than fiction but fiction's a lot more fun to read.

Savage Appetites (Rachel Monroe)

6.5/10 This was a pretty decent read. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't amazing either. The factual parts of it was fun, in an article kind of way. I didn't care much for the author's own experiences, like at all. I feel like maybe it could've been more fun as a bigger collection of stories with less rumination or the same stories but with more insight on the why. Despite it's introduction, I wished for maybe a bit more time spend on why these particular women or rather women in general were attracted to true crime. Still, I liked the stories she choose and the roles in each one that she highlighted. It's a good way to pass the time.

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half full

Alright in direct contrast to last month, this month started off strong and ....uh...let's hope 2020 is NOT like this.

February Book Reviews

Voices from Chernobyl (Svetlana Alexievich)

9/10 I read this because someone said the TV show was really good, and while this was nothing like the TV show, it was still stunning. This is a great personal perspective of a tragedy too often popularized for it. The first chapter hits you with references to Chernobyl dramatized for its radiation, it's popularity as a location for sci-fi or horror movies, and its fame as a ghost town and nature reclamatio - and makes it clear that it isn't about any of these. It reminds you that this was a place, live with real people who truly had no idea what was happening. The horror of radiation was something that only happened in hindsight, overridden by the fear and ignorance of the evacuation itself. Especially as these stories are coming from survivors of a war in recent memory, the comparison between that war (in which you might die, but if you lived then you 'won') and this war (where it's the surviving part that's hard) was striking. I loved that she found anecdotes from people in all aspects of the tragedy, from the people just doing their jobs in clean up, the people who couldn't bear to part from their homes, the people in government, both those who lied and those who couldn't. It's a stark reminder that sometimes history tends to be remembered for the events, but the people themselves are often overlooked. That this book gives voices to them is something to be appreciated.

Vox Machina: Origins (Matthew Colville)

8/10 I'm pleasantly surprised by this comic book 'spin-off' of the first Critical Role campaign! While they're already on campaign 2, with fun new characters, there'll always be a special place in my heart for Vox Machina. The comic focuses on the unseen adventures of VM getting their start, which I think gave it the advantage of not having anything to compare it with (as opposed to the TAZ comic adaptation). I think they captured the characters really well, and I could definitely see events play out as they did in the actual show. (Maybe not too surprisingly considering the actors probably had a hand in it) The character interaction is fun and their progression into a party doesn't feel forced. It might be less enjoyable for a non-fan, but I definitely enjoyed it. Also, Vex was my fav in this one.

Without You, There Is No Us (Suki Kim)

6/10 A journalist pretends to be a missionary pretending to be a teacher in North Korea. It's an interesting look at the world inside North Korea but unfortunately lacking a structure or meaning to it that might've made it even better. The parts that highlighted the atmosphere of country are probably the best parts for me. I don't make it a point to read memoirs about North Korea so there were a few things that stood out to me: feeling physically tired/drained all the time just because of the mental pressure of having to lie and self censor all the time, the monotony of routines there, not being sure whether the people there are lying out of fear or if they genuinely believe everything they're saying - and not knowing which would be worse. As a fake missionary, she also makes an interesting comparison between the God that the missionaries worship and the way North Koreans treat their leader. While these were all interesting anecdotes, I couldn't really get a sense of her purpose, which made lose sight of the book's purpose. There wasn't much development, just a straightforward log of her time there. The book left me feeling like 'what was the point...?' and kind of unsatisfied by the end.

How Carrots Won the Trojan War (Rebecca Rupp)

2/10 UNSUBSCRIBE FROM VEGETABLE FACTS. I'm begging you, please, stop giving me information about vegetables. This was a book club book but you know what, it's fine because I thought the premise was fine! Vegetables and their role in changing history! Maybe it'll have some interesting stories in a Buzzfeed listicle kind of way! It turns out even that kind of low expectancy hope was misplaced. There was no coherent outline save for each chapter being about a different vegetable. It jumps all over the place without any attempt at connecting the paragraphs. There's not even stories, it's literally just random vegetable facts. An example is the chapter that started off with 'how asparagus seduced the French king' and you read it and there's like two sentences about Madame de Pompadour liked to eat asparagus. That's it. Don't read this book.

All Men Are Liars (Alberto Manguel)

3.5/10 You know what, maybe Spanish fiction just isn't for me. I felt the same way as I did reading Shadow of the Wind, just thinking the entire time 'wow I really hate this writing style'. It's so hard cut through the layers to find a semblance of plot. Maybe that's the problem? That I'm looking for plot at all? The concept itself was fine; it sounded really cool. An account of a man's life as told by different people and the different ways people interpret a story and their memories. Doesn't that sound neat? Unfortunately the execution of said concept was excruciating to read through for me. There were so many tangents that I couldn't see the point to, random facts about random things that I didn't care for, and too much sex. And not actual sex, just a lot of talking about sex and describing it but not actually having sex. Like it's done not in a raunchy or erotic kind of way, just in that pretentious literary way where you feel like every character should just be asexual just to get them to stop. The ending was so super unsatisfying and maybe if I really tried I could come up with some thing about how it's a metaphor for life but I'm not an English major, I'm just a casual reader who's gonna swear off Spanish fiction for a while.

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new year new reads

This month started off kind of weak but ended strong! May 2020 be the same!

January Book Reviews

Queen of the Dark Things (C. Robert Cargill)

5.5/10 Sequel to the book I rated a 4.5 last time and after reading this out of morbid curiosity I've decided it improved by one whole point! I'd call it character development but its characters don't do that so...Let me just run down the list: same unlikeable protagonist, there was no foreshadowing in this book's plot in the previous one and it just came out of nowhere, the romance felt forced, there were certain parts of the book talking about women where it was just gross. (Like I have a particular beef with this last point because they have this section where a demon just goes on and on trying to sexually demean the protagonist and his love interest by talking about fucking and it's like? It's so uncalled for. The whole book is basic YA in tone and quality yet they put in adult language when it comes to degrading women? It's mercifully short compared to the rest of the book but like...no one asked for this?? You can write demons being mean in other ways that aren't so incredibly intrusive to the tone of the book??) HOWEVER, there was a plot unlike the last book which made it slightly more engaging to read through. The documentary style folklore interludes don't feel as jarring. The last part was kind of cool to read but with an undertone of YA wish fulfillment cool but it can be ignored. I didn't hate it as much as the last one! That's it.

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race (Reni Eddo-Lodge)

6/10 This book was a bit of a let down for me. It talks about some really relevant and crucial topics, it raises discussion with well sourced evidence both anecdotal and empirical. Unfortunately I just found it really boring to read through. It felt a little too dry and academic for me to really engage with it, with only little bits of the author's own voice punctuating it. It probably didn't help that I didn't really feel like I received a lot of new information? The majority of topics weren't big revelations for me personally but they were important topics and would make great points to make in a discussion about race relations. There was a bit of interesting focus on Britain's black history specifically that made it somewhat interesting for me just as a contrast to the more prominent version over the pond. Overall a quality book that just didn't quite capture me.

Recursion (Blake Crouch)

8.5/10 Amazing concept for a book. I blazed through this in a day. The whole first arc was so much fun to read. The whole False Memory Thing plays with one of my favorite tropes; the Lotus Eater Machine and it brings a vibe that's not unlike a really good Doctor Who episode. Unfortunately the focus shifted rather quickly away from playing with FMS and into the mystery behind its origins. While the rest of that plot was still tense and engaging to read, I found going into the whole memory device and method made it less interesting. A lot of the science and time-space paradox explanations I kind of glossed over but it wasn't anything negative against the book itself. Some things sounded kind of convenient but it might have been the same lack of attention to the book attempting to explain themselves. The most disappointing part, and the part that prevented me from giving it a 5/5, is probably the ending for me. The multiple re-dos got boring and the lack of on-screen (?) development for the romance didn't help. The ultimate solution felt anti-climatic; it sounded too easy and I wish they could've put more emphasis on how difficult it was or to have the characters reach the conclusion by themselves. Still, this book was a wild ride and I really enjoyed going through it.

World in a Grain (Vince Beiser)

8.5/10 This was close to a 9 but I ultimately decided it was probably bit too meandering and long, especially for someone less interested in geography. But I really enjoyed it. I liked that it talked about both human geography and natural geography. It's all well and good reading about the different ways sand can be used but it's nothing without how it's used by the people around the world. I felt like it was just the right amount of depth for me to be engaged without feeling like I'm missing information or that it's too academic. It's an interesting subject for something so close and ever present yet rarely discussed, particularly how many far reaching and varied impacts it has (sand gang wars??? stealing beaches??? illegal sand smuggling????). There was also great focus on non-Western case studies, like in the Middle East and Asia. I also appreciated how it ended on a mixed note, a reference to how similar problems are facing EVERY resource on Earth. It doesn't tell us the solution is as simple as just cutting back on something, but rather we all need to be accountable - whether it be as people or corporations.

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fireworks emoji

It's the end of a decade but only two years of me starting to read again. Still, it's something to celebrate!! I've made it two whole years!!! I probably could've finished more books this month but the holiday season slowed me down. Also I wanted to keep the total amount of books read at a good whole number.

December Book Reviews

If Cats Disappeared from the World (Genki Kawamura)

4.5/10 This was a weird limbo of a book for me. I don't know if its the writing style or the translation that's throwing me off but there's something about the painfully plain and stilted phrases that makes it such a bore to read. The contents don't really help its case either. It feels like it's trying to be an introspective, emotional piece; it is after all, about a man reflecting on his life as it comes to an end. But the protagonist isn't very interesting or likeable. There are some aspects where it seems like he's trying to be "relatable" : he works in an unchanging government job, he has a hard time forming meaningful relationships, he's estranged from his parents etc. But then they add in aspects where it removes him from that audience surrogate role where he has personal and specific issues with his dad or his fervent love of movies. It's a weird balance that neither makes him more sympathetic nor interesting to read about. Even the draw of the book, the titular disappearance of cats, was dealt with in a really disappointing way. Overall, I think it had the potential to be a nice short story that ruminates on all the different components that make up a person's life but the execution unfortunately fell short of the concept.

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories (Agatha Christie)

8/10 Not much to say about this one except I just love Miss Marple. I'm always delighted by her concept: a quaint, Victorian elderly lady who only knows village gossip stories but manages to solve cases no one else can. I love her approach of solving cases by studying the human condition rather through logic puzzles just because methods of committing crimes may change but motives never do. There's a foreword by the author who says Miss Marple is more suited for the short stories (compared to Poirot who 'demands a full length novel') and that's definitely the case. She shines in this format, and Tuesday Club Murders is my favorite example of it.

Horrorstor (Grady Hendrix)

6/10 I really liked the set up of this one. It reminds me of a really good creepypasta/SCP of an endless Ikea that people are trapped in. And the beginning did deliver on those expectations, it had a great atmosphere that also reminded me of House of Leaves, another horror story that's based on a architectural space. There was some fantastic use of the storeroom space and tension that came from the setting. Unfortunately, the 'ghost' or antagonist of the space was revealed really early on and I think that ruined a lot of the mystery for me. I was hoping they'd center the horror more around the space itself but the latter half of the story almost entirely was just based on this ghost of a prison/asylum which number one, is as about as cliched as you can get and number two, could've been set anywhere else. The protagonist and the fellow characters were just okay for me. The whole fake product pages were a nice bonus but I wished it could've transitioned into horror more subtly. A book with a great beginning and an average ending.

The Bride Test (Helen Hoang)

6.5/10 This was a cute book! I enjoyed reading it. It's the typical set up of a Cinderella romance novel, complete with convenient contrivances and unlikely coincidences but cute nonetheless. Bonus points for a POC protagonist and actually giving her problems and points of views that would match her background rather than making her POC for the sake of it. I also enjoyed having a lead on the autism spectrum and I thought it was portrayed rather well. The main thing I didn't really mesh with was that this book was........TOO horny. I know some people prefer more smut in their romance and maybe it's because I don't read too many romance novels myself, but I was thrown off with how much of their relationship was based on physical attraction. The lead literally gets a boner the first time he meets her. I would've liked it if the relationship was developed more, instead I felt like it was really rushed and I couldn't really enjoy the process of them falling for each other over the general smut teasing. Still, despite its problems, I found it a fast, entertaining and easy read.

The Moth Presents: All These Wonders (Catherine Burns)

8.5/10 A really fantastic collection of stories from the podcast based on people from different walks to life talking about a single moment in their life. Although the majority of stories were from authors, comedians or other public speakers, there were a few that were from regular people with regular jobs. And although the majority of the stories were of extraordinary events of everything from the death of a loved one to the first flyby of Pluto, there were also a few that were just a mundane event plucked from the everyday. And while I enjoyed both of types, I do appreciate the little outliers because I felt like it made the concept that much more meaningful. I cried about every other story when reading it, it was so real and emotional. The only reason I was debating between a four and a five star was because it also felt a bit like TEDtalks. It's short and punchy but even as I was tearing up, I also felt on a meta-level it wasn't as impactful as a full story with a connected narrative. Still, it's an incredible, well-written (spoken?) collection and I loved reading it. "I find myself born into this universe. It's a wonderful place. It's a strange place. It's also a scary and sometimes lonely place. And every day in my work, I try to discern through its noisy manifestation, its people, dogs, trees, mountains, stars - everything I love - I try to discern the eternal music of the spheres."

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs (Caitlin Doughty)

6/10 "The flames are the great equalizer." The second book of hers that I've read this year as it turns out. I didn't like this one as much as 'From Here to Eternity' but it wasn't a bad book. It's definitely targeted more for younger readers, which is the main reason why I thought it was just okay. Still, I think it's pretty enjoyable to read and it has some interesting questions and answers. Not much to say actually...it was alright.

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journalism, murder and fantasy oh my !

I didn't feel like I was really rushing to get through a lot of books this month but I did end up with quite a feel. I think November just felt really, really long. Like I'd be looking through the list of books I added and be like 'damn, that was ages ago but it was still this month??' (Side note, I love the book ends feel of having two four star investigative journalism books at the start and end of the month. I should try to do that more.)

November Book Reviews

Bottle of Lies (Katherine Eban)

8/10 This was written almost like a true crime thriller and I think it really helped me get into the story and keep me immersed even through the various legal and medical jargon, not to mention the myriad of names. There were some parts where I felt like it was getting long, but the story and writing style managed to get me back in easily enough. There was a part where they went into the backgrounds of various companies and the timeline jumps around in decades so it was a little distracting. The amount of organizations and peoples is already enough to keep track of without mergers. The author also briefly mentions better generic alternatives so I wanted more elaboration on it but it didn't really go anywhere. Not that I really felt that this book suffered from a lack of information. I also enjoyed that it was very objective. The author didn't try to say the generics were the villains and the FDA were the heroes but instead showed the various shortcomings and accurately presented the pressures of bureaucracy. The ending was kind of a downer, realistic but a downer. It's a testament to how slowly a case study like this can move when the story follows its start in the 1980s and still hasn't reached a real conclusion in 2019. It's pretty incredible to read about something like this, which most people don't really think about too much. It's a great combination of the products of investigative journalism and a firm, engaging writing style. A definite recommended read.

The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited! (Clint McElroy)

6/10 I think part of why I didn't like this book as much as the first one was because of how much I enjoyed this arc in the actual podcast. I was really looking forward to seeing it in comic form, but my expectations were too high I supposed. While it's impossible to include every single joke from the podcast into the comic, I just didn't find it as funny even though I didn't feel that way for the first arc's adaptation. Part of it might have been the feeling of time; listening to the podcast and following them along from the planning to the murder investigation to the final reveal felt like a long process. That process felt super condensed in this one which made it lose some of its tension and stakes in my opinion. There were also some action lines that I found it hard to tell what was going on. Also hard was seeing various hints dropped hinting at further developments but instead of feeling like it's foreshadowing it feels more like I just missed a reference. I'll still be on the lookout for the next volume though, mostly because I didn't enjoy the podcast of that arc as much so who knows, maybe the comic version will change my opinion instead!

Stiletto (Daniel O'Malley)

6/10 I really liked the first book in this series and was a little disappointed when this sequel didn't knock it out of the park in the same way. There were familiar parts that I liked about the book like the humor, the writing style and more of the world building. Unfortunately the characters didn't endear themselves to me in the same way that Myfawny or Thomas did in the first part and while I liked that she still had parts in this one (and we got to see her being the boss she rightfully is), it really took away from the actual protagonists. Not only could we fully focus on fleshing out either of the heroines, we also didn't get to just enjoy Myfawny through the whole thing either. I liked Odette more than Felicity, but neither of them really did much to actually get to the ending. It's especially egregious for Odette because she was so involved but everything was concluded without her volition at all. The side plot about the crystal murder that Myfawny was involved in ALSO wasn't solved by her own active participation. I think this should have been a short story collection set in the same world instead because I really do like reading about the various mini cases and historical tidbits but they're just distracting tangents that put a damper ont he actual plot. Also, of all the complaints the worst one I have is this: I CANNOT believe Odette and Felicity didn't get together. Chopra was there for one chapter and shows up at the end just to be a love interest for Felicity even though Odette was right there!! The enemies to friends to lovers!! The Romeo and Juliet of it all!! They went through so much together and in the end they're just gal pals?? I feel robbed.

Malice (Keigo Higashino)

7.5/10 Not the first murder mystery I've read from this author but the first in his Detective Kaga series. As for how it stacks up...not bad. A pretty solid mystery. I didn't particularly enjoy the first person 'journal entry' style but it did help set up the twist in the story. I loved the unreliable narrator set up, especially how you know it's unreliable but it still manages to trick you. This is especially the case for the first confession because you do feel that it wraps everything up so neatly but you're still aware of the amount of pages left in the book so both you (and the detective) are left with a sense of unease. It's a cool structure of you thinking 'oh it's over BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE alright now it's over BUT WAIT!" There's a lot of clues that you think are red herrings until they're not. Spoiler: HONESTLY THE CAT THING I really did go oh of course the victim was like that because he was so mean to the cat, but then the author straight up points out to reader that that's the trick! Unfortunately, despite how interesting I found the structure of the story, the actual murder and motive are a bit lacking. With the amount of planning the culprit went through, the motive felt like a cop out - although I guess you can't complain it didn't have a theme and stick to it. Detective Kaga's own experiences with bullying was a little too helpfully relevant and I found him not as developed or interesting a character as the detective (particularly compared to Detective Galileo). Still, not a bad read and a murder mystery I could easily recommend.

Stories of Your Life and Others (Ted Chiang)

4/10 Wow I did not like this critically acclaimed short story collection. I had high hopes starting it, not just because of the countless great reviews, but because I actually enjoyed the first story: 'Tower of Babylon'. It was a interesting take on a well-known Biblical story and there were a lot of quotes I liked from it. Most importantly I could read through it and it had a plot, things that I felt were sorely lacking from the rest of the stories. A lot of the stories felt like reading academic essays or debates on the subject of choice and while I'm sure the content has a lot of merit it doesn't mean anything to me if I'm just desperately flipping through the pages hoping it ends soon. 'Hell Is the Absence of God' was nice in that it had some really unique world building and somewhat of a plot, but felt like a theological discussion log instead. 'Story of Your Life' also had...something? But it sure didn't feel like a plot to me. It did feel easier to read, aside from the linguistics essay excerpts. I went to read the summary of the movie it was adapted into and at least that felt like it had a plot. I don't know if it was supposed to be implied or it was there and I just completely missed it but either way, I wouldn't have reached that conclusion myself just by reading the story.

Confessions (Kanae Minato)

6.5/10 The book started out strong for me, maybe because it started like the conclusion of a mystery novel. You had the 'detective' giving their summation, pointing out the culprit and how the crime was done...complete with a mic drop of their own. But then it starts getting complicated as the story continues after that and I felt that a lot of the extra information dragged down the story. On one hand, it serves to add shades of grey to every single character but on the other, it's a bit of cliche to reveal that the culprits suffered from childhood trauma. It was interesting how it made the 'detective', the one who suffered most from the crime, into someone of a mixed morality herself. I think I would've liked the book to end the same way it started, with a little ambiguity. I read the summary for the movie adaptation which did go with an unconfirmed ending and I thought that would've been a lot more interesting. It wasn't a bad book but I felt it might have been better.

Questions I Am Asked About the Holocaust (Hedi Fried)

8/10 A really great, easy to understand but straightforwardly moving book about the personal experiences of a Holocaust survivor. The format of a simple Q&A makes it an easy read and while it could be argued that it's a too simplified view of the events, I think it's a good basis upon which further reading could be built on. The personal point of view also led to some information that I might not have expected. Things like how after the war many survivors kept an overstocked fridge because of hunger they experience in the camps, or how some women chose not to have children out of fear that it would happen again. I also enjoyed the forthright way she spoke with quotes like 'I never met an SS soldier who was kind' and in answer to the question 'What was the best?' she replied 'The best? Could anything have been the best? When I got this question, I was confounded. Nothing was good, but there were moments when we could forget where we were and laugh.' I think one of the most striking anecdotes she had was a time when she and another girl managed to smuggle a leaf and a branch from a tree outside into their rooms. Simple snapshots like these really underlined how cruelly sparse the conditions were, how little sense of life and future there was and how people tried to find hope in even the smallest things.

Dreams and Shadows (Robert Cargill)

4.5/10 This book was 741 pages and for the first 500 of them I literally could not care less about any of the characters. It was a weird mix of excerpts from a folklore specialist that introduces whatever fairy or fair folk shows up in the preceding chapters and said chapters of random fairies doing random things to random people. There are a couple of 'main characters' but for the most part I really couldn't care about what they're all doing. It was on the last 30% of the book where the characters are grown up and living in Austin that it takes on the semblance of an actual plot. I did like reading about Colby as a wizard living life amongst the Other Side though Ewan wasn't all that interesting still. It picked up more in the last 10% with the culmination of all the events but it just went all to pieces when it turned out the ending was just......a waste of time. I'd be hard pressed to call an ending where everyone dies and no one strays from their destiny/nature a tragedy when the book told you it was gonna be that way with no inclinations that there might have been hope for a better ending.

Spin the Dawn (Elizabeth Lim)

4.5/10 Look...I wanted to like this book I really did. I love anything vaguely Asian themed and the whole magic seamtress thing is kinda of neat. But this book was so boring. The prologue was boring, it was Mulan inspired in that the heroine dresses up as a boy to take the place of her father to be the palace tailor but that's where the similarities end. The first part was for me the most interesting, taking on various sewing challenges to prove herself to be the best, a bit of court intrigue, stuff like that. But that part's quickly over and instead the story embarks on a generic fantasy quest to find fantasy materials and they experience fantasy dangers etc, etc. She uses her magic sewing abilities literally once during that whole quest. And it's not even very well explained how her magic scissors even work compared to magic needle or thread or something. The romance was also a bit out of nowhere for me. I don't really know at which point the male lead went from 'curious about this crossdresser' to 'having an all consuming love that he would risk his life for her even though he's an enchanter and they're never supposed to fall in love oOoOoO'. It was cute when they did fall in love but there was no steps there. The ending also felt just kind of underwhelming rather than cliff-hanger like. Basically the whole thing was underwhelming.

The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy (Michael Lewis)

8/10 I think the title could've been better without the subtitle because just the 'Fifth Risk' is such a good starter. I love where it comes from, when a civil servant is asked about five possible risks that an employee in his position has to worry about and after listing things like 'nuclear accident' and 'electrical grid' and 'North Korea' his so-called 'fifth risk' is something much more simple and way more dangerous: project management. 'It's what you fail to imagine that kills you.' This book was a great, easy to read, quick but concise delve into the myriad of bureaucratic jobs that no one really thinks about but are nevertheless indispensable for the maintenance of a functioning society and government. It of course focuses on the Trump presidency's new replacements for former Obama appointed employees, and just how terrifyingly ignorant and mismanaged that process was. Although Trump being associated with those two things is nothing new, it is eye opening to read about all the new ways his government manages to prove it. More importantly though, it highlights the unacknowledged facets of the government and paints a clear picture of what they do and why it's so important. The main downside is that it ended kind of abruptly and that reading pieces like these always makes me disappointed they're all US-centric because I'd love to read similarly well done journalism in my local government.

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zoom zoom

Here's to long commutes on a tour bus without internet!! I read a lot of these books while I was on tour through parts of Eastern Europe. I tried my best to read whatever selection of ebooks my library had available that were set in the countries I visited (mainly Bosnia and Croatia) but...it wasn't exactly a cornucopia of choices. Also because I didn't have a chance to write actual reviews, all of these are going to be shorter by virtue of me trying to remember their contents and piecing together whatever I jotted down on my Notes app.

October Book Reviews

The Tiger's Wife (Tea Obreht)

3/10 What was the point of any of this?? I stumbled my way through this book. It's so aimless, pulled together with random anecdotal stories and folktales. It's a weird mix of fact and fiction which by itself would be fine, but if only there was something resembling a plot to pull it together. Is the titular story of the tiger's wife supposed to represent something? Was the narrator's grandfather supposed to have anything to do with anything?? Because if it was I guess I was just too dumb to get it. I borrowed this book because it was supposedly set in Bosnia and I wanted to see its historical background used more than just vague mentions of a war and a 'City' and nothing else.

The Cellist of Sarajevo (Steven Galloway)

6/10 I really wanted to read books set in Bosnia because the idea of it seemed so incredible to me. The fact that a war happened just 20 something years ago and now you walk through the streets of a modern city with a tour guide talking about moments from the war like it's some ancient historical fact is crazy. This book is supposed to based on a real event featuring a real cellist, so I was hoping for it to be much more grounded and descriptive than it actually was. Instead, each chapter is told from a different point of view character so it ended up being much more introspective and non-linear than I would've liked. Still, it does have moments of events that puts the siege into vivid clarity; reading about places like the 'Sniper Alley' or the number of shells that fell on the city feels unreal until you read about characters experiencing everyday life as a real person would've. On that note though, my least favorite POV character was the sniper, who was supposedly a young female genius marksman. Like you have all these regular people trying to live their lives and suddenly this YA novel protagonist appears. It really takes away from the emotional impact. Overall this book wasn't as emotional as I would've expected or as grounded as I would've liked but for the most part it gave a look into what life might have been like.

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (Julie Dao)

5/10 "She would bloom where she was planted and let her roots close around the throats of her enemies" It's an interesting concept, the whole rise of the evil queen from Snow White told from the villain's point of view AND set in fantasy ancient China. Unfortunately it was less inner palace drama and more dark magic shenanigans than I would've liked. I wanted more of her rising in power as a female politician, consolidating her power in the ruthless harem environment and proving her intelligence in more interactions with the emperor. Instead I felt like it spent too much time in her pre-concubine life and a lot of emphasis on the whole dark magic corrupting her part. Still, while she did get the usual troubled childhood for sympathy points I do like that she knew what she ultimately wanted: the seat of the empress. Again, slightly spoiled by prophecy and magic but whatever. What parts we did get of the things I liked was fine and I felt she was a believable anti-heroine. If the sequel continued with her point of view, even with the dark magic and all, and we were able to see her downfall from her side I might have been interested but alas...

Kingdom of a Blazing Phoenix (Julie Dao)

3/10 Wow they really took everything I liked from the first book and threw it out the window. The sequel is told from the point of view of the 'Snow White' in this story. Rather than court intrigue and the heroine outwitting the evil empress with intelligence, she instead spent like one chapter in court before running off and turning this into a super standard, super boring chase-the-magic-macguffins fantasy adventure story.  I liked what little they had referring to the empress starting out as just a normal girl but I really wish she could've become more of a duo protagonist. There were even references of her resisting the dark magic serpent god! Not only that, I really liked the empress' inital dynamic with the emperor in the first book as a couple who didn't necessarily love each other but respected the others' intelligence and strength. It would've been more interesting if they grew apart because of her inability to have children or her changes due to the magic's influence but no, she apparently just started poisoning him and there was zero time spent on their relationship. Plus, they kept her old childhood love interest after all that jazz in the first book about her sacrificing that love for power. Even worse, even after everything, the heroine isn't even the one to defeat the evil queen!!! What is even the point!!!

The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery (Barbara K. Lipska)

6/10 It's a really neat case study and the title really lays out the premise immediately. It was definitely interesting when she was describing her illness and it really does seem scary when you're reading about it from her point of view because she was so unaware that anything was wrong with her. On top of that, how her family felt that something was wrong but didn't even think it might have been a serious medical issue. It really helps bring attention to mental illnesses as 'invisible' diseases, especially considering how many might go without diagnosis because all the people involved never think of it as a possibility. However, for me the overall tone of the book was a bit too 'memoir-like' with a lot of information on her background and lifestory that I felt slowed the pace a bit. Still the short length prevented it from being too boring to go through and there were some points that stood out. I think it could've been summarized better into an article and it would've made a more engaging read.

Third Girl (Agatha Christie)

5/10 A typical Christie mystery. It had all the usual trappings of a Poirot novel including: his more emotional/human side, his tendency to get mixed up in matchmaking, and him making hidden plots on the side. The eventual reveal was a bit out of the left field and the process that let up to it had just too much speculation (sorry to Poirot but I'll have to agree with local author Ariadne 'detectives think too much' Oliver). Not too memorable but I didn't hate reading it.

This Is What Happy Looks Like (Jennifer E. Smith)

3/10 I just want a cute, fluffy romance story that I don't cringe at is that so hard? Apparently my standards are just too high. The beginning was so fake; I can look past the premise of a superstar accidentally emailing a random girl and falling in love with her through that because let's face it, that kind of dumb set up is what I'm looking for in a short and sweet romance novel. What I couldn't look past were the emails themselves; not only did they read more like texting, it was full of quotes about Charlotte's Web and happiness lists and what fake high schoolers sound like when they're in a Disney original movie. In the end, the whole email plot was pretty much abandoned after a couple of chapters. There was one misunderstanding where her friend meets up with the guy and I thought they were going to run with that but instead they instantly solved it by having the guy think it can't be the right girl because he doesn't instantly feel a connection. Her troubles with her best friend were there just for drama, there wasn't real logic to it. The romance wasn't developed at all, it was more like the story saying they fell in love in about 10 pages with the rest of 400 pages about them dealing with various problems. The only thing I liked was the girl's issues with her estranged dad because it was the only thing that felt realistic and emotionally interesting but in the end they never really expanded on it.

Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (Stephen Brusatte)

6.5/10 With the popularity of this non-fiction book, I really thought it was going to be a lot more readable. Instead it just felt really, really long. Granted, it wasn't as fully academic as it could've been but on the other hand, it also wasn't as accessible as it could've been either. If I tried really hard I supposed it did follow somewhat of a chronological format, but it wasn't very clear and overall felt like it moved from one topic to another with no clear structure. Still, there was a lot interesting and new information about the dinosaurs and progress in various theories such as evolutionary links and the cause of the extinction event. I have a note where the author casually mentioned the evolution of whales from land animals where I just wrote 'WHAT'. I also found it funny how the author kept making fun of the T-Rex's tiny arms whenever he mentions them, including an entire chapter gushing about them as the true kings of North America at the same time throwing shade on their barely functional arms. The upside of an updated book on them also means more expanded looks on feathered dinosaurs and the relation of modern birds to them. I thought one of the best points the book made was that dinosaurs aren't extinct, they're here in a dazzling variety of species walking and flying among us still.

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six going on seven

Read quite a few books this month but...nothing too spectacular unfortunately. Had a lot of 'non fiction books with lots of pictures' going on though.

June Book Reviews

The Rook (Daniel O'Malley)

8.5/10 This book, settings-wise, is kind of similar to "The Atrocity Archives", a book if you recall, is a book I absolutely hated. Both books are about an administrator in a secret organization responsible with dealing with supernatural threats who uncover a deep conspiracy. So while I was intrigued by the premise, I was also a little on guard. Luckily, I need not have worried. This was a great page-turner of a book. Despite the long page count, I went through it in no time at all. I loved reading about the organization, the various paranormal happenings, and getting to the bottom of the mystery. Most of all, I really liked the characters. The protagonist is a woman who wakes up with no memory, with only letters written to her from herself as a guide. As the story went on I found myself actually missing the author of the letters, who effectively 'died' when her memories and personality was erased. I really liked this take on amnesia, as well as the new protagonist finding her new self. Still, there were a couple of parts where I felt the male authorship behind the female protagonist, but it wasn't too bad. A lot of exposition also comes from the letters, which while having a logical reason to do so and is usually interesting to read, is still just straight up infodump. It's literally the blandest way to present information. It's really a test of the story that I still enjoyed reading through everything. A really fun urban fantasy story with a good pace and enjoyable protagonist.

Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery (David Attenborough)

6.5/10 This would make a neat gift for someone who's into natural history but otherwise is a pretty boring book. I didn't feel engaged at all reading about the lives of the several artists/scientists involved, which felt more Wikipedia entry than anything. I was disappointed that the majority of the book wasn't actually written by David Attenborough but instead a separate author for the different people featured. There were notes on the flora and fauna that were the subjects of the many natural history art pieces that were by Attenborough and these were probably my favorite parts. I would've loved so more of these notes, which were really just Fun Facts About Nature but really made me feel like I could hear Attenborough's iconic voiceovers. It also helped to give a little life to the subjects themselves and even a little to the artists that would've otherwise have just been well made but meaningless pictures. The only person I bothered to remember was Maria Merian who in her 50s went off to Surinam with her daughter as her only companion just to look at butterflies. She is the originator of the quote that gave the book its title "many amazing rare things which have never been seen before" and is, surprise surprise, the only female naturalist in the book.

Rejected Princesses: Tales of History's Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics (Jason Porath)

6.5/10 This would make a neat gift for someone who is in the teens and tweens but otherwise is a pretty shallow book. I hope you've noticed the similarities between the start of this review and the one above it. Both books are good books with their merits, but I am not the audience for them. This book is pretty clearly targeted towards younger readers, it has a cartoon-ish art style and a casual, more juvenile style of humor, both of which I didn't really like. To its credit, a good chunk of the book features historical female figures that I haven't heard of previously. I had mixed feelings on including myths and folklore together with actual historical figures but it was nice to read about. The entries I suppose are more introductions than anything so you can do more research on the ones that interest you but unfortunately none of them actually made me interested enough to do so. I would've preferred something closer to Broad Strokes, where the subjects are limited as to expand more on their lives and treated with a more personal passion rather than an overall broader 'feminist' tone. Still the scope of this book and its more progressive view on the more mature and moral ambiguity of some of its subjects make it a pretty good book for readers that aren't me.

 A Gathering of Shadows (V. E. Schawb)

4.5/10 OOF. Alright I didn't like this sequel. The first book was such a solid, well-rounded fantasy and this was? What was even the point of this? I got to about half way through the book and I was like wow this is so slow to get started! Then I got to two-thirds through the book and I'm like is this ever going to get started? Then I got to the final chapter and I'm like okay clearly nothing is ever going to happen. Nothing happened other than introducing one new character and just some introspective character studies. It had some plot with White London that went nowhere for most of the book. I felt like this could've been condensed into a couple of chapters - Lila is good at magic, Alucard is the prince's love interest, Kell wants to be free - a couple of points that could've been communicated through a couple scenes, not an entire book. Plus there was a lot more emphasis on love interests in this book. I liked the hint of something between Lila and Kell in the first book but in this book they don't meet for a good 80% of the book but instead spent it thinking about each other like?? I didn't feel like it was that deep! All the great worldbuilding and magic system from the first one was nothing more than fluff. I'm still gonna read the last book but I fully feel like this one could've been skipped.

West (Edith Pattou)

4.5/10 I didn't like it and I didn't hate it. It lost a lot of its appeal for me after the main draw of the first book - the folktale - was left behind for a more traditional fantasy fare. Unfortunately it was pretty bland. I wish that the male hero could've been a little more prominent? It's a request I almost never make but honestly, not sure what the point of having Charles there when he's almost completely ineffectual. Either have him be a side character like in the first one or have him do a lot more than...just be there. I guess the slight angst from the amnesia is alright...Also even the quest that the female protagonist went on this time was just going around in circles. A lot of anti-climatic fights with the villains happen. They go from one locale to the next with no real suspense or intrigue. Such a entirely forgettable book.

The Umbrella Academy (Gerard Way)

4.5/10 This was....interesting. I guess. Honestly, it's not really for me. It's an interesting world, but because it's so out there, being thrown into it with little exposition didn't really help. It jumped all over the place, the characters were barely developed. I had no time to get attached to anybody before stuff happened to them. The plot moved way too quickly. I don't know if that's just the nature of comic books but the Apocalypse Suite felt like a five volume set compressed into one. There was so much happening. I felt like it had a lot of potential, especially with Vanya. Their powers could've used some more demonstration as well. Maybe that's why the Netflix adaptation was so popular? Because the world and set up intrigued me but the pacing was too fast and some of the art style & details put me off. Worth checking out the show maybe? But didn't really like the comic.

Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures & Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs (Paul Koudounaris)

5/10 Who would've thought that a book talking about ancient catacombs and skeletons covered in jewels would be boring? And yet, here we are. It was so hard trying to read this book. It was dry as the corpses it was talking about. Maybe it's because I'm not religious or Catholic, but the way they wrote about the history of these skeletons was so cut and paste. Or maybe it's because I'm not academic enough? Either way it's not really a book for the casual, barely interested reader. Still, the pictures are neat and the skeletons look cool so...there's that.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale (Jane Yolen)

6/10 I've been disappointed by fairy tale retelling compilations time and time again...but I keep coming back. This one was actually pretty okay as things go. Really 'okay' as it had it's ups and downs. I think I actually liked the more original stories more than the ones that were obvious retellings. The usual suspects like Snow White or Little Mermaid or Cinderella, where you could tell immediately which story it was they were using, I didn't like as much. Without a full book to flesh out the characters in their own way, the changes felt cosmetic and shallow. Even with the changes like giving the heroine more agency, ultimately it was still in black and white morality. Rather the ones where the author used elements from lesser known folklore to create a fairy tale of her own were the best. Because the parody wasn't obvious, the writing style she used really shone through as it sounded like a real folk tale, something that could've come straight out of Grimm's own books. My favorites in this style were 'Great Grandfather Dragon's Tale' and 'Godmother Death'. The tone of the book was also all over the place, all of them of varying quality. Some were retellings, some sounded like traditional folk tales, and other's just felt like a regular short story with fantasy elements. 'Mama Gone' was one that I liked but barely felt 'fairy tale' like. There were quite a few Jewish stories which were interesting by themselves, but didn't feel like fairy tales at all. Truly mixed reviews with this one.

Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo)

8/10 A solid action fantasy that's a fun read as long as you don't think about it too hard. It had some really great set-ups, enjoyable scenes, memorable characters and strong story but the devil was in the details. I really liked the characters, but it felt way too weird that they were seventeen-ish. One moment I'd be thinking 'wow they're really cool' then the next moment they'd do something really awkward and I'd be like 'oh right they're like, 17'.  The cognitive dissonance between the more emotional character moments and the more action/plot focused moments really thew me off. I loved reading the latter more, seeing all their skills in action whereas the romances were awkward enough to remind me that I was reading about teenagers. I actually liked the overall set-up more than the actual heist, although there were some character moments in it that I enjoyed as well. There were also other little details like how I felt some of their motives for joining the heist, especially Kaz's, were a little weak, how easy it was to bypass some of the difficulties at the heist and the limits of Grisha powers. Still, as long as I didn't think too hard, it was a great read with good characters and a decent plot.

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may flowers

This is crazy. I read so many books and only two of them were for my book club. And it was overall a really, really good selection too! About 8 of the 11 (!!) books I read were four and five stars! Incredible!

May Book Reviews

Call Them By Their True Names (Rebecca Solnit)

7.5/10 The second collection of essays by this author that I've read. I liked that it covered a pretty broad range of subjects. The foreword was really good and I was slightly disappointed that the subsequent essays didn't have as much to do with the title idea that names have the power to change how something is viewed drastically. Another low point for this were the essays about Donald Trump. Her writing style changes a lot when on the subject of Trump and I don't really like it. Maybe because it sounds more emotional and personal but I think I much prefer her style in other essays. My favorite essays were the case studies, I feel like it was a lot easier to get into than some of the more scholarly (?) pieces. In particular I really liked 'Death by Gentrification'. I liked the points she made about events having ripple effects as well as the importance of audience. 'Preaching to the Choir' was especially great because as I was reading I was thinking that she makes some great points but only people who already agree with her would read this - then I read 'Preaching to the Choir' which was such a timely response. Overall a very relevant and well-written collection.

The Lost City of Z (David Grann)

6.5/10 "On the margins were sea monsters and dragons. For ages, cartographers had no means of knowing what existed on most of the earth. And more often than not these gaps were filled in with fantastical kingdoms and beasts, as if the make-believe, no matter how terrifying, were less frightening than the truly unknown." I couldn't help but compare this to "Lost City of the Monkey God" because well...just look at the titles. Plus they're both about a modern journalist chasing an old mystery in the Amazon. I have to say though, I did like this one more. This book interwove both the modern journalist's PoV as well as that of a Victoriahn-era explorer, which made it for a more interesting read. Still, there were some parts that I thought were really slow going and superfluous. It didn't have many tangents as the Preston book though which I appreciated. I also enjoyed at the focus given to the indigenous groups living in the Amazon. An interesting look at exploration in the early 1900s, with a well-written portrayal of one of its most prominent figures.

How Long 'till Black Future Month? (N. K. Jemisin)

9/10 Despite the less than stylistic title, I loved this collection of short stories. It's in fact one of the few short story collections where, even though there still were a couple that were just alright for me, I really enjoyed the good majority of the stories. I previously read the Fifth Season by the same author and while I liked it, it wasn't a full 5/5. In these short stories though, every part that I did enjoy about that book and her writing were on full display. The characters, which I didn't feel as attached to in the Fifth Season, were just interesting and fleshed out enough to have an impact in a shorter story. But in particular, the author's worldbuilding, which I loved in the Fifth Season, is even more enhanced by the format. The way she doesn't waste time explaining her world but instead builds it up naturally as you go along is one of the best I've ever seen. While the limited length forces it to be more simpler, it's much easier to grasp and it's a testament to her skill that there's an intriguing setting and concept in all of the stories. Even if a story slightly fell short in one or two aspects, the incredible way she treats world building in each and every one of them is amazing. The many LGBT+ and PoC perspectives are really just the cherry on top. My favorites are: "The City Born Great", "Red Dirt Witch", "The Effluent Engine", "The Narcomancer", "Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows" and "Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters".

The Prince and the Dressmaker (Jen Wang)

8/10 Not much to say about this one honestly, it's just a great graphic novel for young readers. The art style is fluid and easy to follow. The colors are lovely, the characters are realistic. The theme of gender fluidity and coming of age are well represented without being too heavy or complicated. The only complaint would be that I really wish it was longer, if only just so we could get to see more of the author's beautiful dress designs!

Time Travel (James Gleick)

6.5/10 It was really, really hard to give this one a score. The premise seemed interesting enough - a history of time travel as it exists in physics, philosophy and storytelling. What I didn't expect was for the first two categories to outshine the latter. Maybe it was because those parts were so much harder to get through, but it just felt like there was A LOT of physics and math and philosophy. Like, so much philosophy. And they were fairly academic, to the point where I'm sure only someone with a basic foundation in those would actually enjoy reading through those chapters. I am definitely not one of them. I'm an arts kid. Do not make me look at equations. In contrast I felt the most interesting parts, the parts about pop culture specifically, were too brief. There were some works that were given some more attention but most of them leaned towards the historical rather than the present mainstream. The part I was most looking forward to, the Doctor Who references, was little more than one sentence references and a short recap of one episode with little discussion actually about it. But despite my struggle to get through what felt like 2/3rds of the book, I do feel like it has a lot of merit, especially for those who are more academically inclined. It had a lot of great concepts, like the fact that time travel wasn't even a concept until relatively recently because it was only through industrialization that our societies progressed fast enough to see massive changes within a single generation. It has a lot of great quotes, a lot of good things to think about so I think objectively, it's a good book. But, probably not the best one for me.

Truly Devious (Maureen Johnson)

8/10 A pretty solid YA mystery! It did take me a while to actually get invested in the protagonist and her side of the story, but once I did I really enjoyed it. The book is written in two timelines, one mystery from the 1930s and the second in modern day. The protagonist is kind of the typical YA novel lead, she's "quirky" in that she has "strange" interests in true crime and is obsessed with murder mysteries and wants to be Sherlock Holmes. Like alright, literally no one thinks that's weird but in true YA fashion her parents just want a sporty prom princess and she feels isolated until she gets to her new school full of genius weirdos just like her! So yeah for the good first half of the story I was more interested in the 1930s mystery than whatever was going on with her daily school drama. But once the mystery of the present day actually happened, I was a lot more into it. By the end of it, I was even entertained by her love interest side plot! So yeah, it had a rough start but hooked me in the end. The worst part was that it ended on a cliffhanger which solved pretty much neither mystery so...

The Vanishing Stair (Maureen Johnson)

8/10 ...I pretty much immediately picked up the sequel. You can't just end a mystery without revealing anything! Thanks to the first book eventually successfully getting me in, I was really eager to find some resolutions in this one. And at least there was one...for the 1930s mystery. But unfortunately it ended on ANOTHER cliffhanger and it looks like we won't know all the answers until the final book comes out in 2020. While cliffhangers are good for maintaining interest, it made me give up on any type of thinking I was doing in the first book in trying to figure out the mystery. It's too much of a pain to try and track a solution through three books, one of which isn't even out. Still, the mystery kept me interested throughout this one and there's still a bit of will they or won't they for the love interest that I didn't mind. For both books, the LGBT+ and anxiety representation are also part of the perk. I'll definitely be reading the final book once it comes out.

American Kingpin (Nick Bilton)

6/10 A true crime book about 'Dread Pirate Roberts', creator of a site on the Dark Web selling drugs called the Silk Road. I previously heard about it briefly on an NPR podcast but this book really went into details. Like, almost too many details. It wrote more like a character driven story, with POVs from both DPR side and the police side. Overall, it was a pretty interesting story but the writing felt a bit too cliched. There wasn't any really great standout thriller moments and I really didn't like how the author would end like every other chapter with some dramatic cliffhanger. I think I made a similar complaint once about another book but when your chapters keep ending with stuff like 'little did they know...these days would be their LAST' it just takes the tension out of it. I'm also kind of cautious about how they chose to write from the subject's POV when the subject himself never gave an interview or had any input in writing it. Still, the events themselves were engaging enough to read about, even if the writing wasn't the most inspired.

Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng)

7.5/10 I had high expectations for this because I loved 'Little Fires Everywhere' but this one wasn't quite up to par. I did like the themes it was addressing, which were similar to that other book: parental expectations, racial disparities, complicated family life, etc. But this one wasn't quite as grounded, with a nonlinear style of storytelling that, while never confusing, failed to give me the same connection with the characters. It could also be the historical setting, which lent weight to the interracial marriage issues, but obviously didn't have the same gravity to me as issues in the present day. I also felt that the characters were a bit one-note, being defined solely by one aspect that they didn't feel as fleshed out. Despite the short length, a lot of it was really just repeating the same problems over and over. There was also a few major misunderstandings which I understand can be realistic but is still frustrating to read. The old 'you could've just solved this by talking to each other'. Other issues I felt was a bit too easily solved, like the mother realizing her daughter's true motivation just by finding a cookbook? It was all just a bit too removed for me. Still, there were emotional moments and its themes, while a bit heavy-handed, still resonate today.

East (Edith Pattou)

7/10 This was one of the books that I loved when I was younger and although I only had the vaguest memory of it I remembered enough to find it by googling 'a prince who's a bear and a girl washes wax'. It's a re-telling of a Norwegian folktale called 'East of the Sun, West of the Moon' which is already super poetic and I love it. Upon re-reading though...it wasn't as quite good as I hoped it was. For one, it's really, really long. For a YA book, it might not be that bad, but I don't feel like its difficulty is really up to YA levels either. It's in a weird place. The plot and its character are relatively simple and a lot of its length seems to be padding. The parts that were added in to flesh out the re-telling didn't really add anything to change it so I wish they could've trimmed it down and just stuck to a straight re-telling. It's weird because the book does span a few long periods of time but most of it was shortened by saying 'it was hard at first but [the heroine] soon got used to it' or something along those lines. The book was in multiple POVs which could've been interesting but two of them, Father & Neddy's. wasn't really all that necessary. They didn't do much beyond the first part. In comparison, the male lead, the White Bear, didn't even get that much page-time. Still, the fun of the original folktale is one of its strengths and it does a good job in translating that to a modern story, even if there's a bit of padding. The characters are likable, if not terribly distinctive. There a lot of potential here and at least it did make such a lasting impression on me.

Becoming (Michelle Obama)

9.5/10 I've always liked the Obamas, but as a non-American, I never really bothered too much to follow along with the politics and news so I was never a 'fan' of them in the same way I'd be a fan of a movie star or singer. But after reading this amazing biography and immediately searching up interview clips of the Obamas afterwards, I can say that's somewhat changed. I loved this book. Despite the fact that I looked at the 900 ebook page count and kind of balked, and despite the large chunk dedicated to her early life, I never felt bored reading it. She writes her story in a way that's so incredibly human and kind that you can't help but be moved. She's so educated and qualified and dignified in so many ways and writes about her husband in the same light that even as a non-American I feel like they were lucky to have them as the First Family. Her relationship with the people in her life, especially her husband, was so sweet and personal - I could've read a hundred more anecdotes. Even the way she writes about political opponents or the disappointment of the 2016 election, she does it in a way that never feels mean but rather emphatic and hopeful. Honestly, what an icon. It was a pleasure to read, and if I had one complaint, it'd be that I wish the parts about her time as First Lady was even longer. "Life was teaching me that progress and change happen slowly. Not in two years, four years, or even a lifetime. We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see."

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march madness

A month with its highs and lows but overall not a bad month for reading.

March Book Reviews

Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)

6.5/10 Let me start this review off by saying that I don't like thrillers, and I especially don't like domestic thrillers. Unfortunately, Gone Girl didn't really make me change my mind. It's not a bad score compared to what I've given to other thrillers I've read, but it's not a book that I especially liked. I didn't feel very invested in either of the characters. They weren't realistic enough for me to feel empathy or closeness and I found myself not really caring what happens to either one of them. Part of it might be that I already knew the big twist, that Amy is the one framing Nick, but at the same time if I hadn't knew that twist was coming, I wouldn't have read this book either. I'll probably check out the movie, but at the very least, for the book alone I give it a: meh.

Wenjack (Joseph Boyden)

7/10 A short novella heavily centered in Indigenous culture and history. I think this is what I expected Split Tooth to be honestly. It has a story that focused on a watershed event in Indigenous history, the death of Chanie Wenjack. It features spiritual elements taken from Indigenous culture, as chapters told from the POV of animals watching over the boy's journey. But more importantly, it was told in a way that was easy to read and follow along with. I understood what was happening, and for a short story, it did a good job of setting the scene and drawing you in. Short, simple, but full of possible discussions.

Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in That Order) (Bridget Quinn)

9.5/10 When I picked up this book I thought it was another one of those feminist compilation books about women overlooked or forgotten in history. You know the ones, with a Wikipedia entry page and an inspiring quote. They aren't bad, but they don't leave too much of an impression. Instead I found myself constantly emotional while reading through it. Part of it comes from its focus on art history specifically rather than just general 'feminist' icons in history. But the larger credit goes entirely to its author, who loves her subjects and whose love bleeds through on every page. It really works especially since art is so subjective that I might not feel anything about a piece of art but when the author puts herself into her descriptions, and is upfront about it, you can't help but feel moved too. The entries are just short enough not to be boring, and long enough for each subject to come to life in a way that humanizes them, as if the author imagined telling a story about a friend she knows. But what would a feminist piece be without an inspiring quote? And this is mine for this book, talking about the controversy surrounding the 'disappearance of Ana Mendieta': "Where was [she]? She was everywhere, if you knew what to look for." And so is art, so are women making it, and making history: they are everywhere, if you know what to look for. They are all around us.

I've Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter (David Chariandy)

6/10 This book is...not bad. But honestly, it made almost no impression on me. I remember when I read it that I thought it had some good points here and there, but I struggle to recall any specific passage or quote that really got to me. I'm writing this review a few days after I finished the book, and let me tell you, I just don't remember anything other than a vague feeling of 'it's not terrible'. It's not just because it's short but it definitely didn't help that it was. There was some anecdotal parts, but none that stood out vividly in tone or content. It's fine. It's not bad. Maybe it's more relevant to someone who's a father, or someone who's experienced something more similar, but for me, it was a Tuesday.

The Westing Game (Ellen Raskin)

9/10 This was actually a re-read for me. I remember reading this during elementary or middle school and really loving it, but I'm always hesitant to add old books to my "Read" list now because I'm aware that opinions change as we grow up (and leave the target audience age). But I'm glad to say that nothing has changed, and I still really liked this book. The characters are so interesting, and despite having 16 major characters in a short junior level book, all of them have distinct and really memorable personalities. I especially loved the main character, Turtle, who's spunky and smart but also insecure and awkward - a great portrayal of a 13 year old girl. Which is what made the ending and epilogue so lovely to read, to see her naturally coming into her own. The ending is probably my favorite part, for the great resolution to a brainy mystery, and the heartwarming way each of the major characters' story went. All in all, a great book that's perfect for younger children and still enjoyable for older ones.

Magpie Murders (Anthony Horowitz)

6.5/10 This one had a pretty interesting 'book within a book' kind of concept which I always love. Unfortunately I only liked one of those 'books'. Half of it is a Agatha Christie-style, 1920s, classic English village mystery featuring a fictional detective called Atticus Pund. The other half deals with the editor of that mystery, trying to figure out the real life mystery of how its author died. The Atticus Pund mystery I really enjoyed, I felt like the writing style was totally spot on. While it wasn't mind blowing or anything (it's no Orient Express) but I felt like I was enjoying a familiar Golden Age mystery. The modern mystery is what I had most of my issues with. The lead character wasn't very compelling, and her progress towards solving the mystery was so slow and boring to read through. The worst though was the climax of said mystery, when she confronts the culprit. Not only was the motive completely dumb, but what she did while confronting them was even more dumb. I just didn't care for the modern parts, which was regrettably half the book. But I will give it points for having half a solid mystery in it as well as a pretty interesting concept.

Throne of Glass (Sarah J. Maas)

7/10 Alright, time to see what all the fuss is about. I've been hearing about this series of books for ages, and I'm pretty sure it had a fair hand in kickstarting the current YA trend of royal intrigue with a dash of fantasy. And at the end of it...I mean, it's alright. It's a pretty standard YA honestly. It had all the typical tropes played to a T. The protagonist is a strong female character with hints to a mysterious origin that she's unaware of. There are two primary love interests, one is a flirty, charming one and the other is a serious, hidden heart of gold kind. She gets chosen by a supernatural force to stop a mysterious threat. There's a scene where she dresses up really fancy. Like literally, it could not get more standard YA than that. Still, I got what I expected, which isn't a bad thing. None of the characters stood out to me, but I liked them well enough. The love triangle wasn't unbearable. The mystery wasn't super engrossing but it didn't feel like it dragged on either. It's a good book for people who like these books. What can I say?

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lots of love

February is truly a month full of love, surprisingly! After the bleak prospects of January I was all set for another year of 'okay' reads but most of the books I read this month were solid, enjoyable reads! Ironic though, that the only romance book I read had the lowest rating.

February Book Reviews

The Fifth Season (N.K. Jemisin)

8.5/10 I'll be honest, this book took some time to get into for me. The first quarter or so had me struggling just to understand what was going on. Granted, a part of it is attributed to the incredible world building in its setting. It's full of different terms, societies, geography, and of course, powers. The author doesn't take her time trying to explain anything, instead throwing you right in the middle. To make things more complicated, the book tells three different stories in different timelines, and tells it to you in two points of view: third and second person. Interestingly, the lack of a narrative explanation helps make the setting feel more organic and natural. The downside is that it does take most of the story to get used to. I also didn't mind the second person style of narration, I appreciated that it was doing something different. The story itself I also really enjoyed, with its themes on racism and slavery, as well as a diversity in sexuality and race. It had a hint of sci-fi as well which built on a mystery surrounding the history of the land. The main plot focused on telling the story of the female leads, and while I thought it was interesting, I didn't really feel super attached to any of the characters. Still, I did enjoy reading it and discovering the world and seeing what happens next. I liked the characters, even if I wasn't super emotionally invested in them I did want to root for them. Overall a solid, well written fantasy book!

I'll Be Gone in the Dark (Michelle McNamara)

8.5/10 "He loses his power when we know his face." I haven't really read a lot of true crime, so I'm not sure how it stacks up as a representative in that genre. For me, there were some parts of the point that lost me in its detail and disjointed narrative. There were multiple names for the GSK, and the author also sometimes referred to other cases that he wasn't responsible for and I couldn't keep up. It also tended to jump around in time, sometimes going to the author's past, then to the present investigation, then to casework done 30, 40 years ago. Still, the amount of detail in this book really showed just how invested and thorough the author was. The parts where she describes the GSK's crimes were unnervingly gripping in its telling, made especially so because it's a piece of nonfiction. I think a big part of what makes this book is the context of it all. Knowing not only those things could happen, but that they did happen. That they affected real people; the victims, the community, the detectives both professional and amateur. Most of all, what had the biggest impression on me was the letter she wrote to the killer at the very end of the book and knowing that he was finally caught: "Open the door. Show us your face. Walk into the light."

Crazy Rich Asians (Kevin Kwan)

4.5/10 You know how for most movie adaptations people always claim the book is better? Not in this case. The movie did a really great job of having a well rounded story line with a proper (if predictable) arc, whereas the book ends and I'm kind of like 'so basically nothing was solved'. Honestly? It makes sense. Rachel breaks up with Nick because she wants to have a family that loves each other and it's a reasonable expectation! The book wrote about the rich families in so much detail and was so much more exaggerated than the movie that I genuinely don't see how they'll resolve the issue because it just kept reinforcing what a whole different society it was. If it ends up being something like 'oh she was just so nice she changed his entire family's minds rooted in centuries of tradition and social norms' I'm gonna flip. Also another thing the movie did well was make the characters actually likable. There are really problems with all of the characters in this (except maybe Peik Lin), and even Astrid didn't have the same satisfying conclusion. Rachel and Nick's chemistry was basically told instead of shown to us and I really wish male characters like Nick and Charlie would stop thinking about how pretty their love interests are. Like when Astrid and Rachel are crying their POV is always about how they hate to see tears on their faces. I could honestly go on but I really didn't enjoy this book very much. I did enjoy the name dropping of various brands and imagining the lavish lifestyles, but wish I had the visuals to match them up. Overall, a shallow quick read that's okay for passing the time but ultimately left me feeling satisfied.

Men Explain Things to Me (Rebbecca Solnit)

8/10 "What doesn't go back in [Pandora's] jar, or the box, are ideas. And revolutions are, most of all, made up of ideas." Finally, a feminist essay collection that I really enjoyed. It had just the right mix of anecdotal but broad, topical but with examples from history. It also included themes of gender equality and toxic masculinity, as well as LGBTQ+. The only part I didn't like was the chapter on Virginia Woolf. It was a bit too literary and long-winded for me and I struggled keeping my attention while reading through it. I'm always cautious about over-idolizing historical figures and I wasn't very familiar with Woolf either so that part was a bit boring. I also didn't feel like there was a lot of focus on POCs, but I also didn't get a vibe (as I did from "Text Me When You Get Home") that it was overly focused solely on the white female experience. I mostly really enjoyed that it had a right mix of optimism and realism, it felt like the author had a good grasp on today's reality. It's a good, short read that's a helpful overview of feminism today. "Here is that road, maybe a thousand miles long, and the woman walking down it isn't at mile one. I don't know how far she has to go, but I know she's not going backward, despite it all - and she's not walking alone."

Muse of Nightmares (Laini Taylor)

7.5/10 Finally....a sequel to a YA novel that I didn't completely hate. Sure I also didn't like it as much as the first one, but just the fact that I enjoyed it at all is amazing. There's some more worldbuilding in this one and I have mixed feelings on what they introduced.

The whole Kora/Nova thing as well as the multiple dimension reveal was a bit out of the left field for me. I did enjoy reading their parts but for most of the book they seemed to take away from the main action. Also it seemed a bit easy that the major Mesatharim vs the human thing was solved because a third, bigger threat was introduced. Not to mention Sparrow's literal gamebreaking powers of healing. Still, props to its ending because: Kora being the first thing Lazlo saw when the delegation first arrived? Kora's final words to her sister? The crew forming a group and going on adventures across the worlds? ADORABLE. IDK ABOUT LOGIC I'LL STAN THIS FAMILY FOREVER.

The parts I liked least was again, probably Lazlo and Sarai's romance, which is so over the top soulmate-y that I want to roll my eyes. Still, I really enjoyed seeing the development of the rest of the characters and the focus on Sarai. Her role in resolving some of the big conflicts really helped push her character in the forefront. I was disappointed the reaction from Lazlo's friends was so brief, but the interactions between the different groups when they finally meet were great. It just took way too long to get there. Some things I felt like could be taken as a hand-wave or too easy to resolve, but honestly for me I didn't mind at all. I really liked the ending, both the final confrontation and the feel good epilogue. There are definitely shortcomings, but overall I had a surprisingly pleasant reading experience.

A Darker Shade of Magic (V. E. Schwab)

8.5/10 I've heard really great reviews of this one and I'm glad it met most of my expectations. I loved the setting and all the world building that went around it. There were rules that it adhered to and the way it was presented was very natural. The atmospheres of the different Londons were nicely contrasted, and I really liked the history behind it. Everything was simple but effective. As for the characters, it honestly took me until the last arc to really like Kell and Lila's dynamic, but I really liked Kell's relationship with Rhy. Each character themselves wasn't anything super unique or standout, everyone was a pretty standard trope kind of character but it isn't anything against the book. Again, simple but effective. All in all, a super solid fantasy book with an interesting setting, a plot that kept me reading, and characters that are easy to like.

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have an indifferent new year

So, it's not exactly off to a great start. The best book I read was one about funerals so as far as indications on how the new year will go, on a scale of one to ravens cawing under a blood moon, I'd give it a finding the Grim in your tea leaves.

January Book Reviews

Sleeping Beauties (Stephen King, Owen King)

4.5/10 This is the first Stephen King book I read and it's probably an understatement to say it wasn't the best first impression. The premise sounded like it had potential: a mysterious illness turns women into cocoons after falling asleep, if disturbed from their rest they become inhumanly violent and while they rest they are transported to another place. So it sounds good! A disease that affects only women allows a chance to explore important gender issues and societal dynamics! The inhuman violence sounds like a good taste of the horror that King is so well known for! Oooh transported to another place has a hint of sci-fi and mystery as well! Unfortunately not only did I not think any of those were done well, even if they were I think it would've been bogged down by the mind-numbingly boring amount of filler this book has. It was an absolute slog trying to get through this book. First of all, while I'm understanding that King usually focuses his story in small towns in America, the implications of the illness are so large that I feel somehow cheated of a better story by only showing the effects of it in this random US town.

AND imagine my eye roll when it turns out that the mysterious figure responsible for all this somehow decided that this one town is the decider for the fate of women ALL OVER THE WORLD????????????? Can you be more American-centric??

Then, as if to make up for the constricted setting, the book decides to introduce apparently all 100 something people living in the town. People keep getting introduced even halfway through the book and I stopped caring somewhere around the first 30 pages. Then the highlight of the book, the look at gender issues, was so heavy handed that it lost all believable nuance. Like wow, men angry monkey brain, women group motherly brain. Any male characters that aren't total creeps are bland as bread, including the so-called hero we're supposed to be cheering on. Not even the supposed genre tag helped. There was nothing horrific about this book, not the exaggerated violence at least. The most tense I felt the entire time was probably trying to finish it before my library hold was up.

Also hoooly shit the ending was so bad. Like listen, introducing some mysterious godlike entity named Eve as the cause of all this fine. It might have worked better if there was no real reason but I digress. But giving her the oddest mix of motive and powers and personality? One second she's basically god, the next she has rules to her power (Like they get drained or something???) And adding in some weird animal/nature thing like what does that have to do with women?? THEN the ultimate insult having the whole thing be resolved by some bland white psychiatrist convince her to save some other random dude because he's what?? volunteers on the weekend??? is a "good guy"??? I hate this ending so much I can't believe I pushed to finish all 1400 some pages just for this ending.

Fool (Christopher Moore)

4.5/10 So. Apparently this book is supposed to be comedy but I didn't laugh even once while reading it. Like there were some parts I thought was pretty witty? 'There's always a bloody ghost'. I like that kind of self-referencing, fourth wall kind of in-joke. Unfortunately for me, most of this book's humour seemed to be based on just dirty jokes and....that's pretty much it. It won't stop describing people's naked bodies or how clearly ready for sex most of the women are (except for the main love interest because OF COURSE SHE'S GOTTA BE PURE). Like I guess it's supposed to be outrageous, raunchy humour? And I'm just not a fan. But even if I were into sex jokes and making every woman a whore, I don't even like the actual plot. So it drew me in because it was supposed to be a retelling of King Lear from the Fool's perspective. It's a fantastic story and I loved the idea of telling it from the Fool's point of view given that he's one of the very few people who survive the play. But this book made Fool less of a wry, meta commentator and more of a traditional protagonist. He's the one who sets the play's events in motion! He gets with all the women! He's a jester but gets to take down the nobles! It just loses the novelty of the idea that got me interested in the first place.

So not only is the ghost his past lover or whatever, she's also his current love interest's mom?? He's secretly the brother of the king??? He finds some random witches borrowed from Macbeth who give him this drug that makes the evil sisters into him?? He gives the idea for the sisters to turn against the king but it's okay because they were all dicks and bitches anyway??? Cordelia doesn't die instead she becomes queen of France and starts a war against England just so she can come back to him and marry him because she's been in love with this literal clown since she was little?????????????? He becomes king of like four countries or something?????? I hate this.

I will give it this, I like how it combined Shakespeare's iambic meter, ye olde English with modern ways of speech. It was mixed together organically and didn't feel off and I enjoyed the originality of its writing even if I hated its contents.

From Here to Eternity:Traveling the World to Find the Good Death (Caitlin Doughty)

8/10 This was a really interesting book to read! The author, the director of a funeral home, travels around the world as well as within the states to look at different ceremonies for the dead. It was fairly short, so not really comprehensive, but I enjoyed the size of it. It offered a good variety of different cultural practices while still feeling just long enough for it not to get overwhelming. I also liked how the author lent her expertise in standard American funeral processes as a comparison especially since it's not common knowledge. The comparisons included both the technical details (e.g. cremation vs burials) as well as more philosophical questions (i.e. how we treat the dead, the topic of death in different cultures). Not only was this entertainingly informative, but it also gives us food for thought on a topic relevant to us all.

The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror (Mallory Ortberg)

4.5/10 Listen, I'm not being lazy when I keep giving the same score to all these books. I just genuinely don't care for them. This book was promised as a dark re-telling of familiar fairy tales which of course, I'm always interested in. The subtitle being 'Tales of Everyday Horror' was interesting in its use of 'everyday'. But what the book gave me was stories that weren't fantastical enough to be engaging and not everyday enough to be sinister. The endings are often abrupt, leaving me with less a sense of tension than a sense of confusion. There wasn't a purpose, just a meandering sort of mix of whatever the stories are inspired from (which judging from the footnotes, is really just a complicated clutter of everything from the actual fairy tales themselves to Shakespeare and the Bible). The story I liked the most was probably 'The Six Boy-Coffins' and really only because that one was the most faithful, and followed the format of an actual story. I also kind of enjoyed 'Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters'; the idea of a sensible mom in a fairy tale who knows that her son is getting tricked by a mermaid wanting to drown him has some pretty good potential. But of course, that's just potential.You know, sometimes a lot of stories seem to follow a similar structure, like having an introduction, rising and falling action, a climax etc. Don't you feel like there's a reason for that? Trying something new is all well and good but...let's just say Rome wasn't built in a day.
Also the author uses a lot of gendered names with opposite gender pronouns, e.g. Paul is the name of the 'daughter' in a retelling of Cinderella, the youngest daughter in the story of the Frog Prince is referred to as 'he', etc. Honestly, I can't really think of a real reason why this is? If the author was trying to make some kind of commentary on gender roles in folklore, I don't think just changing around the words made any kind of point. The only thing they served to do was to distract me. So really, in summary: this book didn't make me scared, it just made me confused.

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tis the season

I spent the last half of this month, and most of the holidays, sick so...let's just say I didn't get very far with my reading this month. Still, having read only four books means that I highly enjoyed 50% of the books I read!

December Book Reviews

Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls (Elizabeth Renzetti)

5.5/10 A collection of essays on feminism. Actually reading this kind of made me appreciate Women & Power more because honestly? I don't really like it when non-fiction feminist works get too personal. I know it sounds weird, but I'd rather read about a larger, more macro view on things, with data and research instead of personal anecdotes. And even when it is more micro examples, I prefer it to be about other subjects instead of the authors themselves. Still, this book really put the essay in collection of essay because it had a ton of references. I'd say it's a good book for people either wanting to expand more on their feminist bibliography, or someone who's already pretty well-read and can enjoy seeing someone putting it all together.

Circe (Madeline Miller)

9/10 "I cannot bear this world a moment longer." "Then, child, make another." I loved this book, and I loved Circe. The style of writing is absolutely my kind of thing, and mythology is even more my kind of thing. It was really great seeing all these famous figures of mythology and how they tied together. Honestly, it was really kind of amusing seeing just how related everyone is in Greek mythology when I had only heard of them in their separate stories. Unsurprisingly, I loved all the female characters. They were well-written, complex, with each their own stories and motivations. It kind of reflected on the real world, how even with all their powers, much of their world is also determined by men, usually with even more power. But the story goes on to show that women have their ways of living within that world, and outside of it too. I think my only complaints are kind of conflicting. On one hand, there were points where I wished she could show off her power a little more and do more, but on the other, the whole 'witch' thing felt a little like a special protagonist power. I understand why they use this trope but I can't help but see it as a trope. Still, I really enjoyed the story that came from all these different myths and the narratives it took. And above all, I was just deeply absorbed in Circe's life, this goddess witch who was daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, lover, wife and legend. "I will eat these herbs. Then whatever is truly in me, let it be out, at last."

Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship (Kayleen Schaefer)

3/10 This was a whole book of talking a lot but not really saying anything. I thought there was going to be a lot more focus on the title premise, of a society where women have to create their own support networks, where women do this naturally because there are real concerns that a woman might not get home safely. The book barely touched on this. Instead it was more about brunches and Sex and the City. Like it's fine as a short opinion piece or whatever, but an entire book about female friendships as experienced by young, upper middle class, white women?? It's pretty disappointing. In the first place, I was hoping for, again, a lot more empirical writing instead of anecdotes from various people that I could not care less about. This is even worse than "Shrewed" because at least the anecdotes were from prominent people that the journalist author was interviewing. This one was just people the author knew like, privately. The whole 'evolution' is just comparing her friends to her mom's friends. What is the point? This could make it as 280 word post on Tumblr but not as a published book thanks.

Strange the Dreamer (Laini Taylor)

8/10 This was a fairly long book and while the plot moved a bit slowly, I never got bored of it. I really enjoyed the world building in this. The idea of framing the city of Weep as a fantastical legend ironically made it seem more believable. It's easier to accept its strange features when the characters in the story also react in a believable way. Speaking of characters, I really liked the mix of them. I would've liked to see a little more of everyone else on both sides, but the main characters were fairly well developed. I liked Strange and Sarai but I also liked Thyron acting as a foil, though he seemed to be in a weird grey area of being a POV character but only a little bit? My least favourite part is probably the romance. It's just such a typical idea, and I know it had to be rushed and implemented in order to further the plot and eventually the ending/sequel but I felt like the book was just telling me they were madly, deeply in love. Like I get it...they're super into each other...they'd die for each other...they're soulmates...I GET IT. I enjoyed the overall story and mood of the book and I'm kind of interested in the sequel. Not so much for the burning mystery of those missing godchildren, but how the main godspawn and the rest of the outsider party react to Lazlo's new powers. Fingers crossed!

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