2024 book 204

 Seanan McGuire's Beneath the Sugar Sky

I can already tell I’m gonna tear through these, both because they’re short and because they’re fun. This one involves the daughter of a character who died in book one, demanding they save her mother or else she’ll vanish bc the timelines are messed up. There's also a new student who’s a mermaid! (This was my only issue with the book—the character is fat and keeps dwelling on people being assholes to her about it, and worrying about other people being assholes other about it, and I wished there was a little less of that.) Very fun adventures otherwise. A-/B+.

2024 book 203

 Seanan McGuire's Down Among the Sticks and Bones

We got the basics of Jack and Jill's story in the first book, but here is the whole thing, beautifully told. I do hope we revisit these characters in another book, because I’m so curious about what happens next. A/A-.

2024 book 202

 Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway

Sometimes I like to sink into a big series while I’m on vacation, and this seemed like it might hit the spot. I have actually read this first one before, but I thought it was supposed to be a mystery and didn’t think it totally worked as one. Of course, this is actually a whole series about children who have been to magical worlds and come back and have to deal with all that, which is more interesting. I definitely liked it way more with that in mind. A-.

2024 book 201

 Kelly Murashige's The Lost Souls of Benzaiten

This is about a depressed teen girl who makes a wish at a Japanese shrine (her wish is to be a robot vacuum cleaner lol) and the goddess appears and is like “I’ll help you find the joy in life in the next five weeks!” I will say this wasn’t always predictable, but the second half kind of loses the thread for a while and the ending is maybe too neat. Also, I’m in my mid-40s and not the target audience for a YA book, so YMMV. B/B+.

2024 book 200

 Natalie Sue's I Hope This Finds You Well

I think I was hoping this would be reminiscent of Rainbow Rowell's Attachments, since it’s about a women who accidentally gains access to all her company's emails/messages, but that is a pretty high bar, I guess. This was fine. The woman is a depressed, bitter, traumatized mess, and parts of this were weirdly tense, even as she starts to fall for the HR guy who’s supposed to be monitoring her. I liked the bits involving her family, and there are some very funny bits when she finds out she’s a coworker's fake fiancée. Normally I like books about people getting their shit together, but this just didn’t totally work for me for some reason. B/B+.

2024 book 199

 T. Kingfisher's A House With Good Bones

I am historically a T. Kingfisher superfan, but there's a few of hers I haven't read because I am a wuss! This was a kindle daily deal recently though, and then I had it on my kindle, and so I was like, let's try it. And it starts off with so much trademark offbeat Kingfisher humor, as an archaeologist/entomologist goes to stay with her mom....but something isn't right. It’s not too hard to figure out what’s going on, and it does end up being creepy! But it felt a little rushed, I actually think this would have benefited from being a little longer and creepier (on the other hand, I don’t know how much more creepiness I could take). Cool characters and images for sure. B+.

Favorite books of 2024!

It's about that time again--here are my ten favorite books of 2024, alphabetical by author, links go to my reviews:

Tana French's The Hunter

Micaiah Johnson's Those Beyond the Wall

T. Kingfisher's A Sorceress Comes to Call

Kelly Link's The Book of Love

Rachel Neumeier's Rihasi

Aimee Pokwatka's The Parliament

Lev AC Rosen's Rough Pages

Rainbow Rowell's Slow Dance

Margaret Tabor's Unity Penfold

Rufi Thorpe's Margo's Got Money Troubles

2024 book 198

 Freya Sampson's Nosy Neighbors

I thought this was going to be a cute British mystery based on the description, but it’s really more of a women's fiction book featuring the POVs of two women who live in the same building--a cranky 70-something and a pink-haired twenty-something who have to come to terms with past trauma. And also their landlord is trying to tear their building down. I was into it at first but it gets really repetitive in the second half with the women alternating between liking each other and saying hurtful things to each other, and then it just jumps to the ending, which is tidy and mildly cheesy. B.

2024 book 197

Kate Fagan's The Three Lives of Cate Kay

Yall, this was really good! I had to force myself to put it down and go to bed last night! The eponymous Cate Kay is the VERY reclusive author of a trilogy of bestselling books--which led to a trilogy of blockbuster movies, etc. But only like two people know her real identity. And this book is the memoir telling her whole life story, including chapters from childhood friends, colleagues, ex-girlfriends (this book is very queer), and more. The description says this is a thriller but it totally isn't— it's a really engaging, occasionally messy, and sweet novel. I could quibble and say some of it is too neat or some characters could be more fleshed out, but I don’t want to quibble! I loved this! Apparently the author is best known as a sportswriter, but I hope she keeps putting out fiction. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 7th.

2024 books 194, 195, 196

 Rainbow Rowell's Carry On

Rainbow Rowell's Wayward Son

Rainbow Rowell's Any Way the Wind Blows

I reread the Simon Snow series (including the story in the Scattered Showers collection) while traveling this weekend; things have been stressful lately and that calls for rereading a favorite series I know will be satisfying, full of magic and action and (queer) romance. So good.

2024 book 193

 Celia Lake's Complementary

This author writes romances set in a fantasy version of England in the early 1900s, and this one involved ladies so I figured I’d try it. It was a very sweet romance but the plot just like stopped existing after a while (initially it involves the ladies going to investigate magical weirdness at an artists' colony). Like I get that is is a novella and a romance but you gotta have more than “we'll do this thing to solve the problem” and then the next chapter is several weeks later after things presumably got solved. Or at least I like a tiny bit of actual plot in my romances. But still, very pleasant characters and the romance is cute. B/B+.

2024 book 192

 John Wiswell's Someone You Can Build a Nest In

I've seen this recommended so many times, and I was intrigued.... I saw it described as like "cozy horror" and while there are some funny moments and some sweet moments, this is actually pretty dark.The narrator is a sort of shapeshifting blob creature, who can disguise herself as a human using parts of the people she eats. But then she starts to FALL for a woman who helps her, and has to rethink a lot of stuff! The dark stuff mainly involves the love interest's background, as opposed to monster murder shenanigans (though there is also a fair bit of that). It gets a little slow in the second half but I loved how things wrapped up. A-.

2024 book 191

 Charlotte Vassell's The In Crowd

I’ve seen this mystery recommended a few times recently—it’s actually the second in the series, but the first didn’t really grab me, so I just went for this one instead (there are a lot of references to the first book but I felt like I got the gist of it). Anyway, this involves a London detective working on two cold cases involving rich British people—there’s also a lot of shady political shenanigans going on. I enjoyed this but there were a few too many coincidences for my taste. I did like the detective and was rooting for him/his romance/his colleague pals. I’d read another involving him. B+.

2024 book 190

 Beth Brower's The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: vol. 8

Still enjoying this series when a new one pops up—I always like an epistolary novel (this one is a diary). Some funny parts, some tense parts, some secrets of the past revealed, and as always I love the camaraderie between this motley crew of friends. Just a nice chill read. A-.

2024 book 189

 Jill Bearup's Just Stab Me Now

This was the perfect cute palate cleanser for my brain! It involves a writer working on a fantasy romance novel, except her heroine isn’t particularly interested in being part of an enemies-to-lover romance and keeps doing her own thing. Totally engaging narrative voice and very amusing meta plot. I even liked the romance(s)! Really fun read. A-.

2024 book 188

 Christopher Bollen's Havoc

This popped up on a couple of year-end lists and the description seemed interesting—it’s about an elderly woman living in a hotel in Luxor, who has a history of meddling in people's lives and is on the run from something that led to murder. And then she meets her match when a little boy comes to the hotel with his mother. But like, this was exceedingly unpleasant, and not in a fun or even an interesting way. I can’t list all the things that bothered me bc of spoilers, but yikes. I realized halfway through that I wasn’t going to end up liking this, but the sunk cost fallacy got me. I am gonna have to read something really cute to get this one out of my head. B-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.

2024 book 187

 Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing Of The Dog

I’m blogging on my phone because Lexie is laying on me, so excuse the lack of usual formatting! I do love this book; it just have been such tonal whiplash for fans of Doomsday Book to go from something so beautiful and heartbreaking to something much more light and humorous. But I am the target audience for this-/a cat lover who also loves classic mystery novels. 😹😹

2024 book 186

 Connie Willis' Doomsday Book

I decided to reread all the Oxford Time Travel books together in publication order, without realizing there's a new one that's supposed to come out in June (!!!!!), so not great timing, but on the other hand, it's always great timing to reread great books. This one is less stressful on a reread, even with dire time travel errors, the Black Death, and a future pandemic--though it is even more heartbreaking. GREAT characters and world. I cried three times.