2018 book 74

Britta Lundin's Ship It
First of all, I am super here for more cute YA books about girls in fandom, and this was mostly a very cute one. It centers on a teen girl who is involved with the fandom of a particular tv show, where she writes fic shipping the two male leads—and then they come to a local con and she asks about the characters' relationships, and one of the actors shoots her down. So the struggling show's PR team rigs a contest to have her accompany them on their convention circuit and hopefully get some good press. Meanwhile, she is super intrigued by a cute girl she met at the con and is trying to figure out what is up there. I liked that the POV is divided between her and the actor—who is frankly more sympathetic some of the time (she is needlessly cruel on occasion, but in an angry teen way). I liked this a lot—very fun story and I wouldn’t object to a follow up. A-.

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

2018 book 73

Anne Tyler's Clock Dance
Tyler's books are generally satisfying to me—and I liked this one even more than her last couple—but describing their plots never makes them sound as good as they are. Is this why more domestic stories are looked down on, because why they’re so magical is just something that has to be experienced? This one centers on a woman at various points in her life, in 1967, 1977, 1997, and primarily in 2017, when a confused phone call finds her caring for a family across the country. Anyway, I thought this was a very well done story, and the description doesn’t get at how large it really is. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in July.

2018 book 72

Becky Albertalli's Leah on the Offbeat
HOW does Becky Albertalli write the CUTEST and best books. Leah was one of my favorite characters from Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, so I was so excited that the sequel book—which finds the kids on the verge of high school graduation, and Leah struggling to come out to her friends as bi—focused on her. This is more delightful nerdery (Leah has a fan art tumblr and is obsessed with Harry Potter and Sailor Moon, and so now you know why she is my fave, she's also a music snob and I love it) with a super charming narrative voice. Anyway, this was great and you should read it. A/A-.

2018 book 71

Kevin Kwan's Rich People Problems
The third book in Kwan's trilogy is more of the super fun, over-the-top same, and I love it. Satisfying resolutions to most of the many story arcs, and I would not complain if Kwan wanted to revisit these characters/this world.

2018 book 70

Kevin Kwan's China Rich Girlfriend
I swear, these books are just ADDICTIVE. Several books I have been eagerly anticipating came out this week, but as soon as I finished rereading Crazy Rich Asians I immediately dove into this one instead. This one is slightly more overwrought/cheesy (more noticeable on a second read) but still VERY entertaining, as Rachel and Nick have more hilarious. high-rolling, high stakes adventures. Team Astrid for life, though.

2018 book 69

Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians
The trailer for the movie was released yesterday, which of course made me want to reread the whole trilogy! I had to fight not to stay up super late last night to read it all in one sitting, because it is that fun and engrossing EVEN THOUGH I HAVE READ IT BEFORE. Kwan has a great sense of plot and timing, he's wickedly funny, and he makes you care about the characters. I can't wait to see them all on the big screen.

2018 book 68

Jessica Day George's The Rose Legacy
A new book by Jessica Day George is always a treat, and this was an especially charming fantasy story, centered on a girl who's been shuffled from relative to relative all her life, and now she's being sent to live with an uncle who lives outside her kingdom, where she learns that much of what she knows is a lie. Also there are some amazing HORSES. Like there is a horse POV character who made me cry more than once. If you want to read an awesome fantasy horse girl book, get this immediately. I have no idea if this is the first in a series or not, but I fervently hope it is. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on May 1st.  

2018 book 67

Margery Sharp's The Nutmeg Tree
My usual review will be prefaced with a bit of a story; bear with me. I recently read this NYT essay about Sharp, and remembered that this book had been on my to-read list at some point, and then a bunch of Sharp's books went on e-book sale and I bought this (and several others). As soon as I started reading, I recognized the humorous scene opening scene and was puzzled—when had I read this and why hadn’t I finished it? And then, this:

So then I remembered why I stopped last time. But that essay was fresh in my mind and I really did want to read something light and a bit silly—which this, a story about a flighty sort of woman whose daughter summons her to help convince her grandmother to let her get married, and hijinks ensue—was. I mean, aside from some weird comments about Armenians, and a rather abrupt ending. How do I grade a book that is charming except for some casual bigotry? B?

2018 book 66

Jacqueline Winspear's To Die But Once
The Maisie Dobbs books are well into WWII now; the mystery plot here involves the murder of a young boy who's part of a team working to fireproof Air Force bases. As usual with these books, the mystery is almost a sidebar to everything going on with the characters—and since they’re at war, there’s a lot going on. I do sometimes wish Winspear would try a bit more subtlety—all her characters are sort of psychic, or laying on dire pronouncements about war—but I still enjoy these books a lot. B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book is available now.

2018 book 65

Sharon Shinn's Unquiet Land
I did wonder who the protagonist of this fourth book in the series would be--there are several more princesses, but none have been featured in the previous books--and it turned out to be the spy from the third book! So I was totally on board. In this one, she returns to her homeland to confront her past--and also start a shop where she can hopefully pick up some intel from foreign visitors and continue her spy work. Parts of this are fairly grim but I liked all the characters and found the romance mostly satisfying. B+.

2018 book 64

Sharon Shinn's Jeweled Fire
The third book in Shinn's Elemental Blessings series finds yet another princess running away to a nearby kingdom, where she's one of several women who may be chosen to marry one of the empress' heirs. There's also a new POV character--a (woman) spy working for the princess' father--AND it turns out to be a mystery story, instead of a more straightforward fantasy/romance (though I DID like the slow-burning romance here very much). It’s also the story of a young woman figuring out what she wants, and making it happen. More stories like that, please. A-.

2018 book 63

Sharon Shinn's Royal Airs
I liked the second book in Shinn's Elemental Blessings series less than the first—it’s a good follow up to that story, and the protagonists (the eldest princess, now running a homeless shelter, and her love interest, a mysterious gambler who rescues one of her sisters) are likable and compelling. BUT I found this book to be a little bit racist. As far as I can tell, all the characters are default white, so it is noticeable when a visiting villainous prince's olive skin and slanted eyes are mentioned MORE THAN ONCE. The romance is also more central in this volume and a lot of the story was more predictable than in the first. But mainly I disliked the racism. B/B+.

2018 book 62

Sharon Shinn's Troubled Waters
I enjoyed that other book I read recently by Shinn, so thought I'd check out one of her more recent series, and I liked this a lot. The worldbuilding here is really cool--every person has an affinity for one of the elements, and there's also a whole thing with blessings that  I thought was really interesting. Our protagonist is a young woman who's been living in exile with her father for a decade, but how he's died, and one of the king's advisers has tracked her down to bring her back to the big city. Political machinations and adventures and whatnot ensue, but it didn't feel formulaic to me. There is also a little bit of romance that I was cheering on. I did sometimes wish the protagonist was more savvy but her actions make sense for her character. Anyway, I am looking forward to the next one in this series. A-.

2018 book 61

Joan Bauer's Hope Was Here
This was a very sweet story, a Newbery Honor book, about a teenage girl, a waitress, who moves with her chef aunt to take over a diner run by a man with leukemia—a man who's decided to run for mayor against the very corrupt incumbent (too real). There is not a lot of meat to the story, but I liked the depiction of unconventional families and appreciated the multi-racial cast. Just a satisfying and heartwarming read. B/B+.

2018 book 60

Rebecca Kauffman's The Gunners
It's funny to see a novel compared to movies like The Big Chill and St Elmo's Fire, but those comparisons are fairly apt here--the story centers on a disparate group of friends, who are reunited for a funeral when one of them commits suicide, with flashbacks to their childhood interspersed throughout. I found this to be immensely readable and really well-written, even if some of the characters were better-developed than others. (The main POV character, gradually losing his sight, was especially effective.) The story touches on family and friendship and love and recovery, and I found it to be really big-hearted and even a little bit surprising. A/A-.

2018 book 59

Judith Flanders' A Howl of Wolves
I like the Sam Clair mysteries—about an editor who keeps getting drawn into these murder investigations—a lot, though this one wasn’t the strongest one for me. The story here centers on a play featuring one of Sam's friends—and her friend's little boy—where someone is MURDERED. I love the characters and the descriptions here, and Flanders is very funny, but the mystery itself left me feeling a little flat (I correctly guessed the killer, perhaps due to an editing error in my ARC [is that ironic?], but found the motive troubling). If this is going to be one of those series that is more interested in the characters and their relationships than in the plotting of a mystery, I’d be fine with that, because that is really where the books shine, for me. B/B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in May.

2018 book 58

Martha Wells' All Systems Red
I’d been meaning to read this for a while, but then it got nominated for a Hugo, which bumped it up the to-read list. This was actually a great time to read it, because three sequels are coming over the next six months. Anyway, it's a great sci fi tale narrated by a self-proclaimed Murderbot, who's hacked its systems so it has more autonomy (and can watch tv shows), and whose current job is as the security unit for a scientific expedition. And then things on said expedition start going wrong. The pacing and characterization here are both great, and I found the plot more satisfying than in a lot of novellas. I liked this a lot and look forward to seeing where the story goes next. A-.

2018 book 57

Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver
My birthday weekend treat to myself was to read my ARC of this book, which isn’t out until July, and honestly I could not have picked a BETTER birthday weekend treat for myself, because this book had just about everything I loved in it! It’s set in the same universe as Novik's Uprooted, I believe, but doesn’t seem to be related to that book otherwise, except that it is also an interesting mishmash of Western and Eastern European folklore (and Jewish!!). The main character is a young Jewish girl, the daughter of a moneylender, but eventually several other POV characters comes into play, particularly the daughter of a local Duke and a young girl who comes to work for the moneylender's daughter. There are so many great women in here, learning accounting, knitting, fighting demons—you know, the usual stuff. Anyway, I don’t want to give much away, but this book was moving and funny and action-packed, and had so much good family and friendship stuff. I just really loved it. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in July.

2018 book 56

Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love
I had intended to wait to reread this until book club was slightly closer on the horizon, but Mitford so perfectly suited my current mood that I just went for it. I love her by turns hilarious and moving semi-autobiographical story even though all the characters are kind of terrible rich eccentrics (and in a couple of cases, blatantly racist). She paints them so vividly though--I particularly relish the wartime scenes with Davey and The Bolter. And the end is a real stunner. I really feel like Mitford is underrated as a novelist.

2018 book 55

Andrea Buchanan's The Beginning of Everything: The Year I Lost My Mind and Found Myself
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am friends with the author and love her dearly. That said, this is still an amazing and engaging memoir about the author's struggle to deal with—and be treated for—a brain leak. It is also about divorce, motherhood, family, medicine, biology, history, chronic illness, memory, and the stories we tell—not to mention, a super incredible woman. I rarely read nonfiction but this had me totally gripped, and not just because it was about someone I know. It's well written, moving, and deeply honest. And some parts are very funny, too. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. A.