2018 book 193

Natalie Parker's Seafire
Y'all know I am here for books about GIRL PIRATES. And this book is about a ship with an all-girl crew--a crew bent on REVENGE against the nefarious criminal who controls the seas and who killed their families and friends. I liked that the focus was primarily on the girls and their various relationships, but could have done without the little heterosexual romance there was. Lots of girls to root for and good action scenes, too. Based on the somewhat unsatisfying ending, I’m guessing this is the first in a series, and I liked this enough to read the inevitable sequel(s). B+.

2018 book 192

Mette Ivie Harrison's Not of This Fold
The latest Linda Wallheim mystery—about a fairly progressive Mormon woman in Utah—is pretty entertaining, though as usual I am more interested in the character, her family, and her experiences with the Church than in the actual mystery. The mystery here involves the murder of a woman from the Hispanic branch of their local Mormon church, but that part of the story mainly involves the protagonist and her friend being bumbling white women; there isn’t much for a reader to solve. Again, I like the protagonist a lot and enjoy the series, the mystery elements in this one are just kind of weak. B/B+.

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

2018 book 191

Mary Adkins' When You Read This
This is being compared to books by Rainbow Rowell and Maria Semple, so I was eager to read it. I will say that I found it enjoyable, but it didn’t really reach the emotional depth of either of those authors, for me. It's all told in emails and texts, which can only go so far. The story is set into motion by the death of a young woman, who it turns out was blogging her cancer experience, and has asked her boss/friend at a PR firm to try and get it published—which means he has to get permission from her prickly sister. Some parts of this were too neat, and at first the obnoxious intern character was TOO obnoxious for me, but I really came around to his story by the end. I did appreciate seeing the two main characters working on their grief, but just wished for something slightly meatier. B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in February.
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2018 book 190

Jaclyn Moriarty’s A Tangle of Gold
I love this trilogy so much. I love how Moriarty brings it all around again, and how the world is saved by a couple of teen girls—one dreamy and romantic, one hardheaded and practical—and also a cool teen boy (and assorted other teens, to be honest). This book is funny and bittersweet and just gorgeous.

2018 book 189

Jaclyn Moriarty's The Cracks in the Kingdom
What a great second volume in a trilogy this is! Often the second book is used to just move pieces around for the epic finale, but this one answers some mysteries, introduces more, deepens the characters and their relationships, and is all-around awesome. Like I don’t want to even type words about it, just have this review be a bunch of incoherent gleeful noises.

2018 book 188

Jaclyn Moriarty's A Corner of White
Rereading some favorites to close out the year! I love the Colors of Madeline trilogy—in this first one, a crack between world allows a teen girl in Cambridge to correspond with a teen boy in a different world (though she believes he is a nerd writing a fantasy story for much of the book). There are great friendships here, and great moms, and mysteries are solved, and optics are discussed at length. I love the writing here; no one can bring me into a world like Moriarty.

2018 book 187

Mary Stewart's Airs Above the Ground
This classic mystery centers on a young woman whose husband has cancelled their vacation because he has to go to Sweden for business--except then he turns up in a newsreel featuring Austria, with a pretty young woman at his side. So she heads off to Europe to track him down--with a teenage boy, a family friend, in tow. Soon enough everyone is involved in a CAPER--a caper involving famous horses! Sure, why not. This book was a lot of fun, even if the dated-ness made me cringe a couple times (ie one racial slur, some terrible descriptions of a little person in a circus, weird attitudes about women, etc). I am surprised this was never made into a movie, as it seems like it would have been a fun one, like one of those 60s live action Disney movies (though perhaps slightly more menacing). Anyway, good fun. A-.

2018 book 186

Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers
The hazard of putting out your favorite books of the year list before the year actually ends--you might finally get around to reading one of the well-reviewed books and get completely wrapped up in it and regret not including it. I hadn't read this earlier in the year because I had read one of Makkai's previous books and thought it was just okay, and assumed this one would be just okay as well. But damn if it isn't a tour de force. It alternates from the mid 80s, telling the story of a group of gay men in Chicago and the devastation of the AIDS crisis, to 2015, when one of the characters from the 80s section is in Paris, looking for her missing daughter. That sentence maybe makes it seem like a smaller story than it is, when really it is engrossing and amazing and as you start to see where the stories are leading you are just trying not to start sobbing. Ugh, this was so good. A.

2018 book 185

Alexandra Rowland's A Conspiracy of Truths
This novel centers on an aging man, a storyteller who travels the world, who's been arrested for witchcraft, and now must navigate the politics of the country and its five rulers using all the skills and stories at his disposal. This was a little bit slow but satisfying anyway; I liked the narrative voice a lot and especially enjoyed the protagonist's relationship with his apprentice. A-.

FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2018!

All right, I think we have finally reached the point in the year where I admit to myself that I am not going to read any more of the big books of the year, and will stop checking them out of the library and then ignoring them. As always, this is a list of my FAVORITE books that were released, and not the "best" ones per se. Alphabetically by author!

--Rumaan Alam's That Kind of Mother
--Sara Gran's The Infinite Blacktop
--Rachel Hartman's Tess of the Road
--Chelsey Johnson's Stray City
--Tayari Jones' An American Marriage
--Ling Ma's Severance
--Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers [LATE ADDITION TO LIST!]
--Jaclyn Moriarty's The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone and The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars
--Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver
--Robin Stevens' Death in the Spotlight
--Scarlett Thomas' The Chosen Ones

2018 book 184

Taylor Jenkins Reid's The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Christina recommended this to me, and I’m glad she did, because it was a really fun read. It centers on a young journalist who is tapped by a famous actress to write her biography, and flips back and forth from the actress' life story to the journalist's experiences. I found this to be very entertaining and appreciated the queerness (which makes the story a bit more interesting). A/A-.

2018 book 183

Sophie Mackintosh's The Water Cure
Whoof. This is one of those well written and compelling, but brutal and upsetting, sorts of stories. It centers on three young woman, sisters, who have been raised in isolation by their parents after some sort of societal collapse. And then men come to their island. I read this with a sense of dread the entire time; in fact, I read it in one sitting because when I put it down, I worried about what terrible things might happen. I had a hard time with this, but also it was excellent? B+?

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 8th.

2018 book 182

Jennifer Mathieu's Moxie
This book centers on a teen girl who is fed up with the sexist jerks at her school, and inspired by her mom's Riot Grrl past, starts a ZINE. (This made me feel very old. Why are my teen years retro??) Anyway, this was very awesome and girl power-y and had some great female friendships. I could have done without the romance, which mainly exists to add a sappy touch (and to argue with the “not all men” viewpoint), but on the whole I found this fist-pumpingly good. A/A-.

2018 book 181

Claire LeGrand's Sawkill Girls
This is being billed as horror, but I am a giant wuss and didn't find it especially scary--mildly creepy and kinda atmospheric, I guess? It's set on a small island, a place where girls mysteriously vanish. And a couple of girls are determined to get to the bottom of it—though as the reader quickly finds out, things aren’t so simple. Content warning for terrible men, murder, violence, etc. But on the plus side, cute queer teens/awesome girls! I would say the end is farfetched but I am not sure you can point out farfetched things in a novel with teleportation. B/B+.

2018 book 180

Alice Oseman's Radio Silence
I am perpetually grateful to friends who recommend good books to me, especially ones I would not have discovered on my own. I actually like the little description blurb here so will copy and paste for your viewing pleasure:

“Frances Janvier spends most of her time studying. 

Everyone knows Aled Last as that quiet boy who gets straight As. 

You probably think that they are going to fall in love or something. Since he is a boy and she is a girl.

They don’t. They make a podcast.”

I liked this A LOT, it touches on fandom and friendship and families (good and bad), on fitting into society's boxes, on love and creativity. Just an unexpectedly moving story. A/A-.

2018 book 179

T. Kingfisher's Swordheart
The latest from Kingfisher (pen name of Ursula Vernon) is set in the same universe as her Clockwork Boys series, but works fine as a standalone. It has all the things I always love in her works--adventures, adorable and awkward romance, and most of all, hilarity. This one centers on a 36 year old widow who has inherited some money, and now her relatives are scheming against her. When she draws a sword for reasons, a magical soldier guy appears, now her sworn protector! Obviously murder, mayhem, and religious sects ensue. And it's awesome! This is the first in a trilogy and I CANNOT WAIT to read the other two, please release them IMMEDIATELY, thanks. A.

2018 book 178

Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn
It’s the fiftieth anniversary of this book this year, so I have been reading the occasional thinkpiece, which of course made me want to reread the book! It’s funny that it’s fifty years old, because it feel fresh every time I read it. Is that because the movie and book were the formative media of my childhood (and still my best beloved) or because the writing is just that good? I mean, it IS that good! Funny, bittersweet, unusual, and full of heart.

2018 book 177

Chelsey Johnson's Stray City
I think I say this every month, but the best thing about book club is forcing my friends to read my favorite books and discuss them with me! And this will one hundred percent be on my list of favorite books of 2018. It’s a beautifully written story about queer communities, identity, love, family, and music, not to mention Portland in the 1990s. I love everything about this. A.

2018 book 176

Barbara Hambly's Dragonsbane
Here is an interesting thing about this book—the official description makes it seem like the story of a young man who seeks out a famous slayer of dragons, and goes off with him and a witch woman on a journey back to his homeland—BUT the main character is actually the witch! This was written in 1985 (and so has some 1985ness going on) but a lot of the themes are still relevant today—stories vs history, women being torn between families and their own desires/careers/magical powers, how easy it is to stoke up bigotry, etc. Really compelling, even if the writing style is a bit slow. I got a bit of a Last Unicorn vibe (maybe bc I have been reading articles about the 50th anniversary of that book), though this story is crueler and more violent. I loved that witch though. What a great character. A-.

2018 book 175

Courtney Summers' Sadie
Summers' latest novel centers on a nineteen year old girl whose little sister was murdered, and the killer was never caught--but the titular Sadie is convinced she knows who it was and sets out to get revenge. Meanwhile, a podcast is narrating the story of the girl's death and Sadie's subsequent disappearance. Sometimes framing like that can feel gimmicky, but it worked for me here. I will say this is a grim, dark, and tense story, though a very compelling one. But very grim and dark. A-.


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Content warning for child abuse.

2018 book 174

Stephanie Burgis' The Girl With The Dragon Heart
The sequel to Burgis' The Dragon With The Chocolate Heart is cute, but not quite as good as its predecessor.  In this one, the fairy royals come for a visit and the crown princess enlists the best friend of the girl from the first book to act as a spy. She isn’t very . . . measured in her approach and I found it mildly frustrating. Just didn’t hit the heights of the first in the series, for me. B.

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

2018 book 173

Agatha Christie’s At Bertram's Hotel
This is a later (the Beatles are mentioned) and somewhat lesser Miss Marple story. For one thing, she’s not in it enough; the central figure is the Chief Inspector, and she helps a little. For another, the mystery itself is kind of all over the place and not too hard to figure out. Still entertaining enough, but not one of her stronger works.

2018 book 172

Tansy Rayner Roberts' The Shattered City
The second book in the Creature Court series is more of the same, but it feels duller and more repetitive here. I thought about just stopping several times while reading, but I didn’t have anything else I wanted to read, so slogged along with a sigh. I mean, it's interesting enough, I just think it could have used a tighter edit. I am not sure if I’ll read the third. B.

2018 book 171

Jaclyn Moriarty's The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars
I swear, there is no author who writes such consistently charming books as Jaclyn Moriarty. This is a follow-up to Bronte Mettlestone, set fifteen years earlier (but featuring several familiar characters). It's the same sort of hilarious, sweet, and action packed story, narrated in turns by a boy from the local orphanage and a girl from the local ritzy boarding school, who . . . Well, that would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say there are adventures and magic afoot. Great and delightful stuff. A.

2018 book 170

Tansy Rayner Roberts' Power and Majesty
I no longer remember why I backed this author's Kickstarter that gave me the Creature Court trilogy (of which this is the first) and a new novella in the series. Anyway, it's nice to have a big hunk of a story to read, though this does lean into the dark fantasy stuff (lots of violence, erotic blood-sucking, chaos and mayhem, etc. A content warning for rape and associated trauma, not to mention abuse and torture, seems appropriate here too). In this world, cities are protected by magical people who can transform into animals, and they're all decadent hedonists with weird power struggles. A young seamstress had this power but it was stolen from her; now, years later, the thief has died and her powers have been restored, and she (and her friends) are thrust into this shadowy world. I liked the human characters in this a lot; the magical people were mildly annoying in that melodramatic way. If this was slightly less grim, I’d love it, but instead I just liked it a lot and am looking forward to the next one. B+.

2018 book 169

Makiia Lucier's Isle of Blood and Stone
This is a sort of fantasy-mystery hybrid and I LOVED IT! So eighteen years ago, the two little princes were kidnapped, along with the king's mapmaker, and everyone else at their picnic was slaughtered. A man from a neighboring kingdom confessed, saying their king was behind the kidnappomg, but everyone taken drowned in a shipwreck, leading to war and chaos. But now two maps have been discovered that indicate the mapmaker did not die that day, and his now-grown son and the king's (lady) spy cousin must figure out what the heck happened, who was behind the terrible event--and are the princes still alive? The villain is not too hard to puzzle out, but I found the story very satisfying anyway, and the characters were all extremely well drawn. I can’t wait for the follow up! A/A-.

2018 book 168

Eugenia Kim's The Kinship of Secrets
This book is a sequel to Kim’s The Calligrapher's Daughter, which I read like eight years ago and in fact have no memory of reading, so it works fine as a stand-alone. It takes place from the 1950s to the 1970s and centers on two sisters—one, the elder, who was brought to America with her parents in the late 40s, and the other, who was left behind with family but then is stuck there through the war years and beyond. Sections of this are told in letters and diaries, but they appear seemingly at random, and it’s a little bit of a jarring shift in the narrative each time. I also thought the back half felt a little bit rushed. Still, an engaging and interesting read. I liked the relationship between the sisters a lot. B/B+.

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

2018 book 167

Jaclyn Moriarty's The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone
I am rereading this delightful book because the second in the series is on its way to me! It's about a ten year old girl whose parents, who have been away her whole life adventuring, have been killed by pirates, and their will forces her to go on a series of adventures (to deliver gifts to her many aunts). This book has it all--eccentric and adorable relatives, water sprites, magic, helpful librarians, dragons, and a bunch of bad-ass ladies (and children). I can’t wait to see what the second book brings!

2018 book 166

Marian Keyes' The Break
I am still digging the Marian Keyes vibe. In this one, the protagonist's husband announces he needs a six-month break from their marriage to travel in Asia and find himself. But of course, that means she's in a break too. As always, I loved Keyes' characters and their complicated families, and I enjoyed reading this very much, though I did find the ending to be mildly unsatisfying. B+.

2018 book 165

Laura Weymouth's The Light Between Worlds
Weymouth's debut novel is working in the aftermath of a portal fantasy; sixteen year old Evelyn and her two older siblings spent years in another world, escaping from a London bombing in WWII, but were eventually sent home. Five years have passed and her older brother and sister are making the best of things, but Evelyn is determined to return. (I feel like Seanan McGuire has been doing things in this realm as well, kids traumatized after returning from a magical land, but I've only read the first of those and didn't love it.) Anyway, the first half of the book is from Evelyn's perspective and the second is from her sister's, and I thought both were very well-done. I have not yet decided how I feel about the ending, but on the whole this was a really good read. A-.

2018 book 164

Nicole Chung's All You Can Ever Know
I feel like I have been waiting foreverrrrrrr to read this, but it was undoubtedly worth the wait! Chung's memoir is beautifully written, intensely personal, and extremely compelling, discussing her childhood as a Korean-American adopted by a white family (in a very white area of Oregon), and then her journey to find her birth family as she was on the verge of having her first child. A quick and moving read. A/A-.

2018 book 163

Marian Keyes' The Woman Who Stole My Life

I was in the mood to read something . . . I don’t even know what, but this satisfied! I liked the other Keyes books I had read, she is sort of on the meatier side of the women's fiction beat. This one, which bounces around time-wise, centers on a woman who wrote a book, had a major health crisis, has various family and romantic issues, and is now flailing a bit. I loved the narrative voice, loved the characters, and even if it was a tad silly, found it very enjoyable. I need to read more of Keyes' work. A-.

2018 book 162

Kij Johnson's The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe
Ooh, this was so up my alley. It centers on a woman, a professor at a prestigious women's college, who sets off to find one of her star student, who has eloped with someone from our world, and he plans to bring her there from their world—the world of dreams. Plus she is accompanied on her journey by a little black cat! This did get a teensy big draggy toward the end (but then picks back up), and I guess there were Lovecraft references I was missing, but I enjoyed this a lot and would read more set in this world. A-.

2018 book 161

Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister, The Serial Killer
Well, this was an exceedingly entertaining novel! If the title didn’t clue you in, the story here centers on a young woman, a nurse in Nigeria, whose beautiful younger sister is, yes, a serial killer, who has killed several of her boyfriends. And now a doctor at the hospital—the very one our protagonist has a crush on—wants to date her! This is a quick read and a lot of fun (aside from, you know, the murdering. And also some mentions of domestic violence), really strong writing and characterization here. Gonna be a big fall hit for sure. A/A-.

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

2018 book 160

Louise Candlish's Our House
This novel centers on a fortysomething mother of two who returns home from a trip to a family moving into her house . . . which has apparently been sold. And now she's telling the story on a podcast. This is interspersed with her husband's POV, ostensibly in a word doc, along with some brief scenes from their actual lives. The problem is that both the word doc and the podcast read like . . . a novel, and not like a word doc an actual human would write, or like a podcast (I did like the little fake tweets about the podcast though). As is par for the course for this sort of book, there were plenty of twists and turns, some guessable, some infuriating. Candlish does kind of nail the ending, but on the whole this was a little bit slow and EXTRA implausible. B.

2018 book 159

Jen Doll's Unclaimed Baggage
This was a fairly cute YA book about three teens who becomes friends while working at a store in Alabama that sells unclaimed baggage from airports. I liked the friendship between the two girls a lot, and found the boy's struggle with alcoholism to be compelling, but the romance didn’t feel organic, and some of this veered a little bit into after school special territory. Enjoyable read though. B+.

2018 book 158

Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced
This Miss Marple mystery rules because the police straight up recruit her to help solve the case (and she and the inspector share the denouement scene!). And the case is a doozy, as it involves a newspaper advertisement listing a time and place where a murder will be committed. And of course all the small town neighbors are like, we better check this out. And things spiral from there. Satisfying plotting, even if one reveal in particular is easy to guess, and I love when Miss Marple gets her due. There is a slight whiff of post-war anti-Semitism/xenophobia that I could have done without, but what can you do, rich British post-war people could be assholes. A-/B+.

2018 book 157

Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger
This is a satisfying mystery from a MYSTERY point of view, but not very satisfying as a Miss Marple story, because she’s barely in it and we don’t really get to see her at work! Anyway, in this one a young man and his sister take a house in the country so he can recover from an injury, and find themselves in the midst of a scandal involving nasty anonymous letters. The narrative voice here is enjoyable enough, if mildly sexist/patronizing (and I could do without the word “Jewess” in my novels, thanks), and even remembering some of the details, I was still surprised by several of the twists. But it needed more Miss Marple! A-/B+.

2018 book 156

Agatha Christie's The Body in the Library
When a hurricane keeps you at home instead of on a vacation, Miss Marple is some small consolation. In this one, a body is discovered in a library even though no one in the house knows her, but luckily the wife is a friend of Miss Marple's and immediately calls her in to solve the case! (In the most recent tv series, this character is played by Patsy from AbFab and she is amazing.) And frankly, the police defer to Miss Marple too, and it is hilarious and great. Great plotting. I love an old lady who knows what's up.

2018 book 155

Rena Rossner's The Sisters of the Winter Wood
If there is one thing I am HERE FOR, it is explicitly Jewish fantasy novels, though this particular one did not work for me. It's the story of a pair of sisters, told in alternating viewpoints (one speaks poem-style and I was not into it). Their parents have to leave town for family reasons, but before they leave, their mother reveals some family secrets. And then weird things start happening in the woods, and something is stirring up anti-Semitic feelings in the town. Unfortunately, this is one of those stories where I found the characters/narrative voices to be kind of frustrating(ly stupid) and repetitive, and I became impatient for things to wrap up. especially when the villains become even more sinister (and evil to Jewish ppl). Just unpleasant stuff. B-.

2018 book 154

Robin Stevens' Death in the Spotlight 
YAYYYY it’s a new Wells and Wong mystery!! Just what I needed at this precise moment in time. In this seventh outing, the girls are spending some time in London with Uncle Felix and his new wife, who decide to get the girls bit parts in a local production of Romeo and Juliet to keep them out of trouble. But then the leading lady starts receiving threatening notes, and the Detective Society is on the case! With the help of some old friends, of course. There is a hilarious bout of the flu here, as well as a revelation about Daisy that I was pleased by, to say the least (I might have started crying, but things are a bit emotional these days). And of course very solid mystery plotting, as always. Anyway, I am grateful to Robin Stevens for these books and recommend them to everyone. A.

2018 book 153

Helene Tursten's An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good
Translated from the Swedish, this is a darkly hilarious set of stories about elderly Maud, who just wants peace and quiet—and will straight up commit murder to get it. And who would suspect a poor old lady?? I enjoyed this very much, and now want to check out Tursten's other works (though I doubt they involve murderous old ladies). A- but only because I wanted MORE.

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

2018 book 152

Laini Taylor's Muse of Nightmares
Here is the second book in Taylor's Strange the Dreamer series! I went in remembering absolutely nothing about its predecessor, and Taylor kind of throws the reader right into the midst of things--but some new characters provide some interesting exposition and things kind of fill in as you go. Taylor does a great job with plotting here--characters are redeemed, new relationships are formed, unexpected stuff happens, the overwrought romance isn't too annoying, etc. I really liked the way this wrapped up, too, and hope Taylor has more stories planned for this universe. A-.

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Content warning for mentions of rape.

2018 book 151

Robin Stevens' A Spoonful of Murder
In book six of the Wells and Wong series, the girls find themselves on Hazel's home turf--Hong Kong--and of course are soon enmeshed in a murder and kidnapping case! It's nice to see Hazel taking the lead for once and Daisy being a supportive friend (more or less). I do have some mixed feelings about how the mystery of this one resolves, but of course can't be any more specific because of SPOILERS. Still a great entry in the series.

2018 book 150

Robin Stevens' Mistletoe and Murder
In the fifth Wells and Wong mystery, the girls are visiting Cambridge at Christmas—and trying to prove their Detective Society is better than that of a pair of BOY detectives. But when there is a MURDER, will they all have to team up to solve the case??? As usual, the plotting is spot on, and Daisy and Hazel and their friendship are all adorable and wonderful. LOVE IT.

2018 book 149

Robin Stevens' Jolly Foul Play
If having a series of middle grade mysteries be my comfort reading is wrong, I don’t want to be right! In this fourth volume, the girls' school is torn apart when their cruel Head Girl is murdered—and the suspects are the prefects. Plus, Daisy and Hazel's friendship is at risk! How can they solve the case when they aren’t speaking to one another?? Such good character work and plotting here, as usual.

2018 book 148

Robin Stevens' First Class Murder
The third Wells and Won mystery is a loving homage to Murder on the Orient Express, as Daisy and Hazel are on said train with Hazel's father on a tour of Europe when a murder takes place! He's forbidden them from detective work, but with a bunch of VERY amateur detectives on board, how can they resist doing it right? Another funny and very clever mystery with characters that keep being awesome.

2018 book 147

Robin Stevens' Arsenic for Tea
The second book in Stevens' delightful historical mystery series finds schoolgirls Hazel and Daisy at Daisy's estate to celebrate her birthday—but one of the houseguests is behaving very suspiciously. And then there is a MURDER! And most of the suspects are Daisy's relatives! Anyway, another satisfying, funny, and well plotted mystery with a great friendship at its center. I love these books.

2018 book 146

Robin Stevens' Murder Most Unladylike 
The latest book in this series comes out soon, so I decided to reread them all! Anyway itmis getting near to SPOOKY MYSTERY SEASON and this series is a fun version of same. This first one introduces us to our Detective Society, Daisy Wells and narrator Hazel Wong, students at an elite British boarding school in the 1930s, and what happens when Hazel stumbles onto the body of their science teacher. I Love these characters and Stevens does a great job showing Hazel dealing with clueless racists. It’s also a solid and well plotted mystery. YAY BOOKS.

2018 book 145

Kitty Zeldis' Not Our Kind
It's the late 1940s, and a young Jewish woman is on her way to a job interview at a school--for a job she really needs--when she's involved in a car accident. The society woman in the other car feels bad about it, and invites her home for lunch, and decides to hire the young woman to tutor her daughter, who is recovering from polio.  I appreciated (and was of course infuriated by) the depiction of sort of high-class anti-Semitism (as the title suggests) and liked the characterization here. Sometimes the dialogue felt a little wooden, especially toward the end, but this was in general a satisfying read. B+.

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Content warning for a scene of attempted rape.

2018 book 144

Tasha Suri's Empire of Sand
So this is an interesting and engaging fantasy novel sort of inspired by the Mughal Empire of India, centered on a woman who is half magic on her mom's side (I really don’t feel like explaining the world building and magical system here, so just go with it), and what happens when the creepy religious leader of their empire finds out about her. I liked the central relationship here a lot, as well as all the relationships between various women characters, but be warned that the middle section of this is somewhat grim. This wraps up on a satisfying way, but is apparently the first in a series, and I am curious as to where it will go next. A-.

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

2018 book 143

Mary H.K. Choi's Emergency Contact
Rereading this for book club, and it is just as cute and charming and captivating as last time I read it! I mean, not to make it sound TOO fluffy, bc the characters have legit issues. It centers on a college freshman at UT Austin who wants to be a sci fi writer, and the coffee shop dude/wannabe filmmaker she starts texting after helping him with an emergency. It’s just really great and honest about relationships and friendships and mental health issues. I can’t wait to read whatever Choi writes next.

2018 book 142

Robert Galbraith's Lethal White
Insert usual spiel here about the author being JK Rowling. Anyway, all I remembered from the previous book in this series is how furious the very end made me. This one picks up right where that one left off, which is fine, but the character drama seems like it’s taking precedence over the whole mystery part of the story—and the mystery has a bit of a slow start in general. Plus having to read about the crappy relationship is just infuriating. “Leave him, girl! You’d be better off alone! You don’t have to leave a guy for another guy, you can just LEAVE! DON'T STAY WITH SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T SUPPORT YOU!!!” was my internal monologue on at least twelve different scenes. (I read a lot of this book on Yom Kippur, when admittedly I am extra cranky. But my point stands.) Anyway, eventually the mystery gets going, with blackmail, politics, and a possible cold case all in the mix, and the back half moves more quickly. I liked how this one wrapped up, even if one character does do something implausibly stupid. I don’t know enough about British politics and classism to say if that aspect was accurate or not, but I enjoyed this. A-.

2018 book 141

Natasha Solomons' The House of Gold
Solomons' latest novel is another engrossing historical story, this time centering on an influential European-Jewish family of bakers (loosely inspired by the Rothschilds), primarily through the lens of one of the Austrian daughters, who is being married off to one of her unknown British cousins. The story begins in 1911 and draws to a close toward the end of WWI, which was a bit disappointing as this was billed as a “sweeping family saga,” in which case I wanted more than seven years of story. I did find the story of her marriage (and garden) compelling, as well as her relationships with her brother and mother, but I just wanted a little bit more here. Maybe because I enjoyed reading this so much and wanted the story to keep going? Or maybe because some parts, particularly the subplot with the orphaned Jewish boy, don't come to any conclusion. Either way, the end was a trifle unsatisfying to me. Still, another solid one from Solomons—I enjoy her books a lot. A-.

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

2018 book 140

Kirsten Miller's Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City
I think being holed up at home during a hurricane is the perfect time to reread a great adventure story about a band of girls with unusual talents exploring the underground tunnels of NYC—and maybe solving some mysteries along the way. This is the first of a series of three books, though I always hope Miller will find time for a couple more (she is currently busy co-writing a bunch of books with actor Jason Segal). A/A-.

2018 book 139

Vic James' Bright Ruin
The final book in James' Dark Gifts trilogy—set in an alternate version of England ruled by elite people with magical powers—is more of the fun same. James brings all the various threads together here—politics, revolution, historical research, family drama, etc—and it all works out in a more or less satisfying way. I was delighted by one romance here, felt some characters were underserved, but in general liked this a lot. If you want a slightly dark but enthralling series (with a little bit of humor), this is definitely one to check out. A-.

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

2018 book 138

Kate Milford's Bluecrowne
I think, with this latest book, Milford has managed to smush together something from all of her previous books! It centers on the first residents of Greenglass House, and is billed as a Greenglass House story, but the characters are from her book The Left Handed Fate, among others. Well done, Ms Milford. Anyway, 12 year old Lucy finds herself off a ship for the first time in her life and settling into Greenglass House with her stepmother and little brother—at least until some mysterious men come for him and his talents. Lots of adventure, time travel, family, fireworks, and magic, though this felt a little darker than some of its predecessors. A-.

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

2018 book 137

Kendare Blake's Two Dark Reigns
The latest in Blake's Three Dark Crowns series, the third of I believe a planned four, is more of the same--magic and politics and friends and romance and sisters and rivals and cliffhangers galore. I do feel like the rebellion aspects needed a bit more buildup, and this one's ending isn’t as HOLY WHAT as the previous two, but I definitely still want to see how this all comes together. B+.

2018 book 136

D.E. Stevenson's Anna and Her Daughters
Stevenson wrote pleasant British books where everything works out in the end, and sometimes that’s what I’m in the mood for! This one is narrated by the youngest of the titular daughters, and details what happens after her father dies and it turns out they have very little money—so the family decamps from London to their mother's small hometown in Scotland. The youngest had hopes of attending Oxford, but ends up working as an assistant to a local writer, while her older sisters fall for the same guy (who, of course, she also likes). I did wonder how this would work out in the end, but it mostly did (with perhaps a little bit of moralizing). I especially liked the relationship between the mother and the narrator. Side note, some scenes are set in Africa and the characters express racist/colonial views. So not my favorite of Stevenson's works, but entertaining enough. B.

2018 book 135

Lauren Oliver's Broken Things
Ok, I loved this book, except for one minor thing that made me FURIOUS, which I will get to in a moment. Now here is the usual stuff: I think Oliver is a great author and this has been getting a ton of really interesting buzz, so I was super looking forward to it. And it is soooo up my alley—it’s about two middle school girls who were accused of the murder of their best friend, because it was done in a ritualistic manner that was straight out of the fan fic they wrote for an obscure portal fantasy novel. But there was really no evidence against them, so now it’s five years later and they’re total outcasts in their town, and one of them thinks she’s found a clue to the real murderer. So they get together with a motley assortment of friends and love interests to see if they can figure this thing out. And it is GREAT.

Now here is what made me mad—one of said friends is a teen plus size Instagram model, which is awesome. But Oliver says she is 5'4' and 180 pounds, which is . . . not that large? And both she and her best friend talk about how fat she is, in a negative way, not in a reclaiming the word way. Like, maybe the numbers didn’t need to be specific here? Don’t girls have enough issues without seeing a fairly normal number and then characters saying the girl is FAT, has pre-diabetes, etc.? So judgy!!

Anyway, that was a minor thing, and I really liked the rest of this. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on October 2nd.
Content warning for graphic violence to an animal.

2018 book 134

Ashley Weaver's An Act of Villainy
The latest Amory Ames mystery finds Amory and her husband investigating a series of threatening letters directed at the star of a new play—who happens to be having an affair with her director. I like these characters a lot, but this mystery didn’t work for me. It’s one of those where they all just have a lot of conversations until the solution is revealed. I did guess one major portion of it, but then the end strained credulity so much that I probably would have thrown the book across the room had I not been reading on my Kindle. I will probably give this series another chance but this one did not work for me. B/B-.

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

2018 book 133

Claire Legrand's Furyborn
Hey, it's the start of another fantasy trilogy about queens with magical powers etc etc. This is a pretty good entry in the genre, focusing on a young woman who is revealed to be the prophesied Sun Queen, and has to prove herself through seven trials, and then another young woman a thousand years later who knows the legend of the Sun Queen but has her own stuff to deal with, namely being a morally ambiguous assassin who is also one of those stubbornly stupid YA characters. I got a pretty strong Queen of the Tearling vibe, which is generally a good thing. Parts of this were easy to predict and some of the romances were underbaked, and I’ll give a general warning that some of this is grim, but I'm interested enough to read the next in this series. B/B+.

2018 book 132

Melina Marchetta's Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil
It's been long enough since I read this that the details were pretty murky, which meant it was the perfect time for a reread! This is sort of a mystery but more of a story about families, loss, justice, and love. It centers on a disgraced London police officer whose teen daughter's school trip is interrupted by a bomb--a bomb that may be related to a bombing from years ago. And so some higher ups ask him to do some informal investigating, to find some missing kids and figure out what the heck is going on. There are so many great moments here and I love all of the teens, especially the surly ones. Marchetta does write the best teenagers. Anyway, this book makes me sob buckets and I love it.

2018 book 131

K.E. Ormsbee's The House in Poplar Wood
The plot of this one is a little weird to explain so bear with me: there are two boys, twin brothers, and their father works for Death and their mother for Memory, and each has one son as an assistant, and because of an Agreement the two sides can never meet, living in a house divided in two. Until a local girl decides she needs their help to solve a MURDER (this isn't really a mystery, though) and the three of them determine to change their town, and their fates. Really good stuff! I could have done without the minor romance subplot but enjoyed all the family stuff a lot. A-.

2018 book 130

Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver
I loved this so much when I first read it that I made book club read it as soon as possible just so I could reread it. And even having read it before, it's still the sort of story that just hooks you and you sink right into it. I like that Novik centered this in a (more or less) specific place and time in history, unlike the vague Eastern European forest of Uprooted, because making it explicitly about Jews in Lithuania in the pre-war years adds a large chunk of verisimilitude. Anyway, the story itself is a sort of take on Rumplestiltskin, focusing on the Jewish daughter of a moneylender who says she can turn silver into gold . . . and then the local gold-stealing fairies come for her. There are several other POV characters, primarily women struggling to make the best of their limited options, but also a couple of interesting males, who help round out the story. Anyway, I love this, it makes me cry, it’s awesome, great ladies, etc etc, A.

2018 book 129

Rebecca Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning 
I feel like I have been waiting to read this book FOREVERRRRRR, especially as Roanhorse's short story "Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience TM" was sweeping up all the speculative fiction awards this season. I kind of worried that I had expectations that were too high going into this, but it lived up to them and then some. It's a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy type deal (or whatever the Western non-actually-urban version is), steeped in Native American folklore. It centers on a young woman with mysterious powers who is a monster-hunter--because while most of the world has collapsed, the gods and monsters of Navajo culture have risen. Parts of this are pretty dark and violent, which is not usually my thing, but I found the protagonist and the other characters tamd their journeys to be interesting enough to keep going. This is the first in a series and I look forward to seeing what happens next. A-.

2018 book 128

Rosie Walsh's Ghosted
Based on the reviews, I wasn't sure going into this whether it was a women's fiction sort of thing, or a thriller. It centers on a thirtysomething woman who has a whirlwind romance with a man over the course of a week, but she KNOWS it was something real, and when he doesn't get in touch after a quick vacation, she KNOWS something is very wrong. Anyway, not to give much away, but it does turn out to be a women's fiction sort of story, the kind that I find overly ridiculous. It lags in the middle but once the reveals start coming it does pick up a bit. Still, fairly ridiculous. B.

2018 book 127

Seanan McGuire's Night and Silence
For a while there, I had grown disenchanted with this series, which kept throwing curveballs instead of coming to any sort of conclusion. But now I am just leaning into it, which is good, because this twelfth volume of the Toby Daye series has curveballs galore (it also has way too many characters, so the plot occasionally screeches to a halt so there can be exposition about something that happened several books ago). Anyway, in this one, Toby's daughter has been kidnapped . . . again. And the usual band of misfits is on the case! As ever, the sea witch remains my favorite character, but the whole team is great (I at first typed “a lot of fun” but several of them are dealing with PTSD at this point so maybe not). B+.

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

2018 book 126

Vanessa Hua's A River of Stars
Well, this was pretty GREAT. It's centered on a young Chinese woman, pregnant, whose married boyfriend sends her to the US to have their baby--and then she decides to find a new life for herself. I did have to keep putting this down because I was dreading all the bad things that COULD happen, but things progressed in a way I didn’t expect. I did find the very end a bit disappointing, but this is still a really engaging story about immigration and motherhood. B+.


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

2018 book 125

Gail Carriger's Competence
After my last couple of reads, I was in the mood for something on the fluffier side, which this decidedly is. It's part of the Custard Protocol series, but instead of focusing on the girl from the first two, it centers more on her best friend Primrose, who I found much much more interesting (and adorable). Or maybe I was just more invested in the romantic plot here, seeing as it involves a WERELIONESS!!! Get it, girl! (Which applies to both of them, really.) Prim's twin brother gets more to do here and is more interesting as well, and I enjoyed the friendships between the three of them. This one was also funnier than its predecessors, particularly every scene that involves a fez. Anyway, I liked this a lot, it was very cute and fun, check it out if you like adventures on floating dirigibles and vampires and lady romances and found families. A/A-.

2018 book 124

Tana French's The Witch Elm
This is French's first stand-alone (outside her Dublin Murder Squad series) and it feels . . . unexpected. It’s the story of a man in his late 20s, a happy go lucky guy with a good job and a great girlfriend. Everything goes his way. Until a burglary in his apartment leaves him with a traumatic brain injury and other assorted issues, and he goes to live with his uncle who's dying of cancer, and a skull turns up in the garden. French builds up to all that, though. I will say that I did find the narrative voice very compelling, and the mystery was interesting enough, but a very ugly scene at the end felt out of place to me and kind of turned me off. I understand WHY it’s included, I suppose, but it didn’t work for me. It just left me feeling a bit disconcerted. I guess this is more of a psychological portrait than a straight mystery, and it is well written, but I don’t think I’ll be revisiting it. B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in October.
Content warning for threats of sexual violence and a lot of other violence.

2018 book 123

Joanna Cannon's Three Things About Elsie 
I actually finished this last night on the plane, but still haven’t decided how I feel about it. It’s centered on an 80-something woman in an assisted living facility in England, who has fallen and is waiting to be rescued, and in the meantime is narrating her recent adventures—starting with the arrival of a new resident, who she’s convinced is someone who supposedly died in the 50s, using a false name for nefarious purposes. This is an interesting portrayal of dementia, and the parts from the POVs of two of the facility's staff round out the picture. And I like the little connections Cannon makes throughout the story. But I just found the ending to be a bit muddled, despite having guessed one aspect of it on page three. Not to say I wasn’t crying about it on an airplane (apologies to the teen girl next to me), and I didn’t need the story wrapped up in a bow, but I’m not sure it actually made sense. Still, pretty entertaining and touching stuff. B+.

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

2018 book 122

Martha Wells' Exit Strategy
In the fourth (and final?) Murderbot novella, Murderbot has to go on a RESCUE MISSION!!!! Ugh, I love this series, Murderbot is such a great character and Wells does such a good job with the action and plotting. If you are someone who is maybe not into hard sci fi but like the Becky Chambers books, this is definitely a series to look into. I can’t wait to see what Wells does next. A/A-.

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

2018 book 121

Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera's What If It's Us
Aaaaaaahhh this was SO CUTE. It’s about two teen boys who meet-cute at a post office in NYC, with each author handling one boy's POV. Obviously I was all in on Albertalli's excitable musical theater nerd, but Silvera's more insecure and quiet guy (secretly writing an epic fantasy novel starring himself) won me over big-time too.  I am often not into YA romances because they are predictable and overwrought, but this avoids a lot of those traps, and even if it didn’t, the world needs more YA romances with queer kids. Race and class issues come up as well, and I also appreciated the way the authors depicted the characters' friendships. Super cute all around. A/A-.

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

2018 book 120

Sara Gran's The Infinite Blacktop
A big YAY for a new book in Gran's Claire DeWitt series, about a troubled woman who is the world's best detective, with some eccentric methodology. (That makes this series sound quirky, but really it is dark and weird and wonderful.) In this one, someone is trying to kill Claire, and she has to figure out who, and why. This is interspersed with flashbacks to earlier in her career, when she is working on a cold case involving a dead artist, as well as flashbacks to her childhood as part of a group of Girl Detectives. I really hope Gran is planning more in this series, because I find it completely captivating. A.

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

2018 book 119

Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic
The library finally added a ton of new e-books this week, but this book (and its new prequel) both became available from my holds as well, and I was in the mood for a story about witchy sisters. I was sure I had read this years ago, but can find no evidence that is true, and I'm not sure I've seen all of the movie either. Anyway, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting; I liked that most of it focused on the family relationships, but found the romances to be a little much. I wanted more witchiness though! Accept your destiny as witches! B.

2018 book 118

Busy Philipps' This Will Only Hurt a Little
I have read a lot of memoir/essay books by funny ladies, and often they do have very funny parts, but others fall flat on the page (I imagine the audiobooks are better). This one, however, was GREAT. I am a long-time fan of Philipps (and have been rewatching Cougar Town lately to boot) and her narrative voice here comes across as a very honest conversation (and is also very funny). It gets super real at times—I cried at least twice when she was talking about her very relatable and awful teen years. And all her showbiz stories are great and hilarious. Unsurprisingly, James Franco IS an asshole, and Michelle Williams is a sweetheart. I still have never seen Dawson's Creek but I loved hearing her talk about North Carolina! AND did you know she co-wrote Blades of Glory? Anyway. All those stories were great, but her writing style draws you in so much that you are viscerally angry when she is angry, and devastated when things don’t work out for her, and cheering when they do, even the smaller things. It’s really well done and I can’t wait to see her upcoming talk show. A/A-.

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

2018 book 117

Thea Lim's An Ocean of Minutes
This was an extremely interesting and well-written book, but also it was a major bummer in a lot of ways. It centers on a young woman in 1981 who time travels to the future to save her boyfriend from a flu pandemic (too complicated to explain in a brief review), and he promises to find her when she arrives in 1993. Except she instead arrives in 1998, where she is basically an indentured servant to the corporation that sent her there. (If I didn’t already think capitalism was a corrupt system, this book would have convinced me very quickly.) This is all interspersed with flashbacks to her relationship. I wish there had been more to the ending sections—I think there was a bit more story there to tell—but I found the ruminations on the past to be effective.  Still, like I said, a lot,of this was a big ol' bummer, don’t buy the hype that this is the new Time Traveler's Wife (that book is a bummer in an entirely different way). Content warning for attempted rape. B/B+.

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

2018 book 116

Emma Straub's Modern Lovers
It is always a joy to reread something for book club and have it still be totally great and engrossing, and this one was. I think Straub is an underrated author because her books are marketed kind of as beach reads, but her stories and characters are a lot less flimsy than that label implies. This novel centers on two families in Brooklyn and their interpersonal crises—teens and adults alike. There is also a lot of talk of the food scene, the music scene, movies, yoga, families, love, etc etc. I just loke this book a lot and think everyone should read it.

2018 book 115

Becky Chambers' Record of a Spaceborn Few
YAY, new Becky Chambers is here! The third book in her Wayfarers series focuses on a disparate cast of characters, all part of the Fleet that left Earth whenever it left Earth, who still live in their human enclave. They include Tessa, a working mom and sister of the captain from the first book; Isabel, an aging archivist (with a sassy wife! and an alien visitor!); Kip, a restless teenage boy; Sawyer, a frustratingly stupid twenty year old; and Eyas, a young woman who is the scifi equivalent of a funeral director. There are also dispatches from the aforementioned alien visitor. I had trouble keeping everything straight at first, but eventually I got into the swing of things, and really enjoyed this. It’s maybe not as cohesive a story as the first two—the characters do intersect here and there, but the overarching plot is more about family and home in a vaguer way. But like I said, I liked this a lot and definitely recommend it. A-.

2018 book 114

Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw
It's been long enough since I last read this that I didn't remember any of the details, which meant it was time for a reread. This is sort of your Victorian-esque story--inheritances, family squabbles, romance, lawsuits, lack of options for women, parsons, manners, etc--except all the characters are dragons! It’s all very entertaining, often very funny, and occasionally very sad. I like all the relationships between the siblings, though, and there are some good partnerships to root for. A-.

2018 book 113

Peng Shepherd's The Book of M
Well, here is a great concept AND gripping writing all in one. In this post-apocalyptic story, some sort of phenomenon is spreading across the world where people first lose their shadows, then their memories--and their confusion warps the world around them. The story focuses on a few characters--a man and his wife, holed up in a resort outside DC--and her shadow has just vanished. There's also a young Iranian woman in Boston, an Olympic-hopeful archer; and a man whose amnesia, caused by a car accident, pre-dates the current crisis. Parts of this are very tense and parts are very sad, but I was totally engrossed the entire time. A/A-.

2018 book 112

Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics
This is one of those books I’ve seen recommended many times over the years, but for some reason had never read (even though I like the series Stevermer co-wrote with Patricia Wrede a lot). It was pretty good! It’s about a girl, technically the duchess of her home nation, but her uncle has been ruling in her place, and now he’s forcing her to go to a far-off magical boarding school (I will say the world building here is a bit odd—it’s like Europe exists, and Shakespeare and Marx, but there are some extra countries in there somewhere? It was distracting). Anyway, there is some good friendship stuff here, and some of the political and magical shenanigans were interesting, but I did think this dragged a bit, and I had mixed feelings about how things wrapped up. Solid book but I don’t know if I’ll revisit or read the sequel. B/B+.

2018 book 111

Victoria Goddard's Whiskeyjack
The third Greenwing and Dart book wraps up a lot of the ongoing storylines (but I feel,there is still more story to tell, and I’ll read it if the author writes more), with some great friendship stuff, great family stuff, magic, scholars, codes, poems, etc. I found these books to be really fun and pleasant reading, so if you are looking for something gentle, but not boring, give these a shot. A/A-.

2018 book 110

Carrie Vaughn's The Wild Dead
The second book in Vaughn's Bannerless series, about a woman who deals with crimes and disputes in a post-apocalyptic society, is maybe not quite as good as its predecessor, but is still very entertaining. In this one, she’s training a new young partner, and they’re sent to deal with a disputed over a rickety old house—when a body washes up on the shore and suddenly it’s a murder investigation. The mystery is pretty easy to figure out, but I like the characters and world building here so much that I didn’t even mind. More post-apocalyptic mysteries, please! A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on July 17th.

2018 book 109

Victoria Goddard's Bee Sting Cake
The second book in Goddard's Greenwing and Dart series is more of the delightful same, as our protagonist has a visit from a university pal, gets involved in figuring out more of the town's magical mysteries, AND has dealings with a dragon and its riddle. There is some good action here, but mostly this is a funny and gentle series, and I like it very much. A/A-.

2018 book 108

Jasmine Guillory's The Proposal
Omg, how does Jasmine Guillory write the cutest, sweetest, most heartfelt, and funniest books! In this one, a woman is at the Dodgers game with her boyfriend—who proposes via Jumbotron. But they’ve only been dating a few months, it’s not serious, and he doesn’t even spell her name right! So of course she says no. Luckily doctor Carlos (a character from Guillory's previous book) is at the game with his sister and they pull off a rescue. And one thing leads to another and it is all super cute. I hope the author writes books about every single character in all of these books, because they are all so likable and fun. A/A-.

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

2018 book 107

Kate Atkinson's Transcription
A new Kate Atkinson novel is always a treat, and this one was no exception. It isn’t my favorite of her novels, but Life After Life is one of my top five books, so that bar is way too high, and anyway this is still very good. It centers on Juliet Armstrong, working for MI5 during WWII—as a transcriptionist, among other things. And then in the 1950s, she’s working on children’s programming for the BBC. This is definitely an engaging read—I basically read it in one go—though I may need to reread it to parse it all out. Also, I was kind of more interested in the parts that are alluded to that we never see (Italy!), which was mildly disappointing. A/A-.

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

2018 book 106

Ling Ma's Severance
Oh man, I would have devoured this in one sitting had my schedule allowed. If there is any justice in this world, this book will be as successful and acclaimed as Station Eleven. Anyway, it's set in 2011, after a weird fever has turned most of the world's population into mindless automatons. Our protagonist is Candace Chen, formerly employed at a book production company as the person in charge of Bibles (and secretly the one person blogging photos from NYC after things went haywire), who now finds herself part of a motley band of survivors. This is interspersed with flashbacks to her former life, and to her childhood. It manages not to be too grim, considering the subject matter. I REALLY liked this. Just gripping. A.

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

2018 book 105

Victoria Goddard's Stargazy Pie
The first book in Goddard's Greenwing and Dart series sets up her world pretty nicely--fantasy land, different countries, magic, manners, aristocrats, traitors, colleges, etc--as our scandal-dogged protagonist returns from a failed stint at school and an unhappy romance to his small hometown to work at the local bookstore (where his boss is a very awesome middle aged woman). But there are mysteries afoot! Parts of this were a bit slow but on the whole it was very enjoyable. B+.

2018 book 104

Martha Wells' Rogue Protocol
Murderbot number three, baby! Yessss! In this one, Murderbot sneaks aboard a shuttle to get information for its human friends, and makes a new robot friend (inadvertently and crankily, of course). I cannot wait to see how this series wraps up. A.

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

2018 book 103

R.O. Kwon's The Incendiaries
This is one of THE summer buzz books, plus the author wears some incredibly bad-ass eye makeup, so I was looking forward to reading it. But it left me a little cold. The description makes it sound like an exciting read, but it’s much more interior—about a sad sack college student obsessed with a girl who gets involved with a Christian cult. They spend a lot of time discussing wanting a relationship with Christ/God, which is not super compelling for me (I’m Jewish), and they are both incredibly unhappy people, which makes it a kind of depressing read. The writing is great but I was relieved when this was over. Content warning for rape. B.

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

2018 book 102

Karen Healey and Robyn Fleming's The Spymaster's Apprentice
The second book in the Hidden Histories series (after The Empress of Timbra, which I liked very much) picks up a few years after the first one, and I can't say much about the plot because it's all spoilers for its predecessor. But it's still engaging, well-paced, with interesting and sympathetic characters and a lot of moral ambiguity. My only complaint is that I want more!  A/A-.

2018 book 101

Claire Kann's Let's Talk About Love
Well, this was totally adorable. It centers on college sophomore Alice, a black biromantic asexual pop culture nerd (she loves writing critical analyses of tv shows), whose girlfriend has just broken up with her because she's ace. And now a suuuuper cute guy comes to work with her at the library and sends her into a tizzy. What will happen! There is also some good stuff dealing with friendship and family issues. Very likable story. A-.

2018 book 100

Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place 6: The Long-Lost Home
I admit that I was a bit grumpy for a large part of this book, because I wanted my long-awaited ANSWERS and instead Wood spends more than half the book dealing with the cliffhanger from book 5. This was all objectively very entertaining, and when I reread it, I will inevitably like it much more, but I was impatient this go-round! But once things start to come together, I was on the edge of my seat, and was definitely satisfied with how things wrapped up (especially regarding squirrels). Very funny and adorable. A-.

2018 book 99

Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place 5: The Unmapped Sea
In the fifth Incorrigibles book, the family takes a trip to Brighton . . . in January. The usual adventures arise, this time involving a group of dramatic Russians, a mysterious museum, ancient mariners, and so on. Plus a little romance, a large curse, and secrets revealed! I can’t wait to see how this series wraps up.

2018 book 98

Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place 4: The Interrupted Tale
In the fourth Incorrigible Children book, Penelope and the children are invited to a special event at her alma mater—but things are very changed. Plus there are pirates, villains, speeches, and lots of cheerful and efficient teachers on hand. (I love the women in these books.) More clues to the many mysteries are revealed and it is all as hilarious as ever.

2018 book 97

Maryrose Wood's The Mysterious Children of Ashton Place 3: The Unseen Guest
In the third Incorrigible Children book, visitors come to Ashton Place, revealing more mysteries--and also leading to a trek into the woods to find a runaway ostrich, among other adventures. Plus we learn all about acronyms and synonyms! What more could you ask for from a book?

2018 book 96

Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place 2: The Hidden Gallery
The second book in this series finds Penelope and her charges in London, using an unusual guidebook, making new friends, uncovering new mysteries, seeing the sights, and eating the occasional fiddlehead fern. These books are hilarious (do children get the humor, or do they just enjoy the adventures of children who were raised by wolves?) and sweet.

2018 book 95

Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling
The sixth, and I believe final, book in this series comes out next week, so of course I have to reread all the others to get ready! This first one does a great job of setting up the story—a smart and plucky young girl with a mysterious past who has been trained up at a school for Poor and Bright Females to be a governess is hired to care for three children who were apparently raised by wolves. I love the narrative voice in these books—they are really funny—and I love the characters. Just a really fun series.

2018 book 94

Sarah Rees Brennan's In Other Lands
I just read this a few months ago, but I wanted the details to be fresh since we're reading it for book club this month! (We're actually still a week or so out, but I am getting so many texts and emails about it that I need to be able to respond accurately.) Anyway, I remembered that it was funny, but not that it was cackling-out-loud funny, as cranky asshole protagonist Elliot, a bisexual Jewish nerd, ends up in a militaristic fantasy land (full of matriarchal elven warrior maidens, harpies, mermaids, etc) and turns things on their head. I love it. POOR LUKE, though, haha. I mean, also, poor Elliot, I relate to him strongly in many ways. A great read.

2018 book 93

Sarah Beth Durst's The Queen of Sorrow
Durst's books are sometimes hit or miss for me, and the final book in her Queens of Renthia series was more on the miss side. I won't say too much about the plot so as not to spoil the first two, but in this one, a queen's children are kidnapped, spirits are running amok, political plots abound, and it's all fairly overwrought. I am definitely more interested in the spirits than in any of the queens or their past or current paramours at this point, so a lot of this dragged for me. I did like that an elderly women ambassador was one of the POV characters this go-round, and that there was a hint of a cute teen girl romance. Very anti-climactic and disappointing ending though. B.

2018 book 92

Lisa Halliday's Asymmetry
My library hold copy of this novel came in the day before Philip Roth died, which may seem irrelevant, except that the first part of this book is apparently loosely based on an affair the author had with Roth when she was in her 20s*. So I felt a little weird about reading it--plus I am generally uninterested in books about old writers sleeping with much younger women--though it is rare to have the story be from the woman's perspective, I guess. Just when this is starting to drag (they are watching a lot of endless baseball games), a different story entirely comes into play--the story of a young Iraqi-American being detained at Heathrow. I found a lot of this to be very profound but did wish it was a little bit less obtuse. B+.

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*Side note, I got a little jolt when it was revealed the Roth character was from SQUIRREL HILL!

2018 book 91

Rachel Hawkins' Royals
Hawkins' latest had the perfect release date, as everyone in America is super excited that one of our own is marrying a prince. This book is fairly silly, focusing on the Floridian teen sister of a young American woman who's engaged to a Scottish prince, but it's also a lot of fun as the teen gets caught up in adventures with the prince's rowdy younger brother and his pack of trouble makers—and of course finds romance. I think this is the first in a series, and I will definitely be checking out the next. A-/B+.

2018 book 90

Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock
With a new miniseries version of this having just premiered, I've read a lot of thinkpieces about this novel, which made me want to read the actual thing. I am kind of surprised I've never read this before! I knew the basics going in, but was still surprised at some of the turns this story took. Excellent writing and atmosphere, but I don’t think I’ll reread this anytime soon. Some of it was fairly upsetting. A-.

2018 book 89

Scarlett Thomas' The Chosen Ones
The second book in Thomas' Worldquake series is an excellent follow up, featuring more magical adventures, mysterious new allies, sinister new enemies, new worlds to explore and new personality aspects to uncover. There are also a lot of helpful animal friends, which I am one hundred percent here for. I still love the world building here, and the focus on the magical nature of books. This one picks up some plot threads from the first book but leaves a few big mysteries hanging for the next volume—which I wish I could preorder now. Or really, read now. I love this series. A.

2018 book 88

Alyssa Cole's A Princess in Theory
I’ve been meaning to read this for ages and wanted something on the lighter side today, and though the premise may sound a bit silly, it’s all grounded in reality and in very real, relatable characters. It starts with a young black woman in New York who’s in grad school for epidemiology (and struggling to balance school and some part time jobs), who starts receiving spammish emails about how she’s betrothed to the prince of an African nation. But of course, the emails are real, and since the prince is coming to New York for business (with his amazing intrepid lesbian assistant), he decides to track her down. This book is totally charming and engrossing and I loved it. There is a slight mystery element that was very easy to figure out, but it wasn’t too annoying, and everything else was great. Can’t wait for the next one. A/A-.

2018 book 87

Hannah Pittard's Visible Empire
I think Pittard's latest is not my FAVORITE of her novels, but it is still a very GOOD one. Apparently inspired by true events, it’s set in Atlanta 1962, where a large chunk of the city's rich philanthropist types have all just died in a plane crash on their way home from a group trip to Paris. The novel does a great job of evoking that sort of thick southern summer, and does a good job with racial tensions of the time. There are several POV characters, and some were more compelling than others (I loved the dialogue between the mayor and his wife; I did not care about the newspaperman whose mistress died, but thought his wife was very interesting; more could have been done with a young black man, etc). I did like how most of the story threads came together, this just didn’t entirely grab me. B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on June 5th.

2018 book 86

Scarlett Thomas' Dragon's Green
I have ten new releases checked out from the library right now, but of course I am instead rereading this AWESOME book, since the second in the series comes out on Tuesday! Scarlett Thomas is an author I love, and she translates all her favorite themes into a middle grade story with great aplomb. Do you love stories about MAGICAL FRIENDS and MAGICAL BOOKS and adventures all told with a fair amount of humor? If not, I am sad for you, and if yes, you should read this book right away.

2018 book 85

Louise Erdrich's The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
Rereading this for book club and finished it just in time! I had a request this month for a fantasy book AND a non-fantasy book, so I thought Erdrich's combination of literary writing, fascinating characters, discussions of pagan religions and Catholicism, and a touch of magical realism might satisfy all comers. Not to mention a priest who is secretly a woman! Man, Erdrich is so good.

2018 book 84

Nisha Sharma's My So-Called Bollywood Life
Look, this is a fairly typical contemporary YA romance--cute characters, somewhat contrived issues, inevitability, occasionally awkward writing--with Indian main characters and a lot of Bollywood references (the protagonist loves Bollywood films and has a movie review blog, and wants to go to film school), plus a whole fortune-telling prophecy aspect. The love interest was perhaps a bit too perfect (but very likable), and I loved the protagonist's family (particularly her grandmother), but I kept wishing the story would just hurry up and get on with it. B.

2018 book 83

Laurie J. Marks' Water Logic
The third book in Marks' Elemental Logic series continues the trend of being great and engrossing, if also occasionally weird and confusing (although the ending here made all the previous stuff work really well). Now we just have to wait for the conclusion. A/A-.

2018 book 82

Laurie J. Marks' Earth Logic
It is such a joy to just be completely wrapped up in a story and its world, even if you're not sure how things are going to turn out and things are sad along the way. The second book in this series is just as engaging and interesting as the first, if slightly weirder and occasionally more confusing. But I love this world and these characters and the sense of kindness and generosity and optimism in it all. Great stuff. A/A-.

2018 book 81

Laurie J. Marks' Fire Logic
This has been on my to-read list for a long time, but based on the description, I assumed it was the usual formulaic YA magic sort of story--when it is nothing of the sort. For one thing, most of the characters are super gay, which is unremarkable in this world, and for another, it's all just really smart and slyly funny. It's got the usual magic users and war and politics stuff in the mix, but the plot never goes where you think it will. I loved how found families were portrayed, and how they all work on healing themselves and each other. This book was a little bit weird and a lot awesome, and I can't wait to read the next in the series. A.

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Content warning for brief references to rape.

2018 book 80

AJ Pearce's Dear Mrs Bird
This story--about a young woman living in London during WWII, who wants to be a Lady War Correspondent but accidentally takes a job at a women's magazine working for the brusque advice columnist, and starts secretly answering readers' letters—was delightful and heartbreaking in equal measure. I liked that there was plenty of war torn London, and a little bit of wartime romance, but that the main deal was the relationship between the protagonist and her best friend. Lady friends forever! Anyway, I liked this a lot. A-.

2018 book 79

Rumaan Alam's That Kind of Mother
This is the kind of book where, the whole time you're reading, a voice in the back of your head is going "wooooow" for the writing, but also is terrified for the characters because everything feels so precarious. The story centers on Rebecca, a new mother in the 1980s, a white woman, who lures a kind and experienced La Leche consultant, Priscilla, away from the hospital to be her new nanny. And later on, Priscilla becomes pregnant--and dies in childbirth--and Rebecca adopts the baby--who is black. Alam touches on privilege (Rebecca is both white and wealthy, a poet), race and class issues, motherhood, and so many other important things, but never in a didactic way. The story is sometimes slow moving but not in a frustrating way--it feels lived in. It's also a trenchant look at our current political climate and maybe a blistering indictment of well-meaning white liberalism? There are a lot of layers to tease out here but this work is a tour de force. A slow burning scorcher of a novel. A.

2018 book 78

E.K. Johnston's Star Wars: Ahsoka
I’ve been binging Star Wars: Rebels this weekend, and I was vaguely familiar with Ashoka from the Internet, but was curious enough about her backstory that I wanted to read this novel about her adventures between the Clone Wars and her joining the rebellion (plus. Johnston is an excellent author). I imagine if you have actually watched the Clone Wars cartoon, there is not a ton of new info here, but I found it to be an enjoyable Star Wars story with a badass heroine (plus yay for girls crushing on girls and sisters sticking up for each other). A-.

2018 book 77

Martha Wells' Artificial Condition 
Yayyyyyyy more Murderbot stories! This second volume picks up pretty much where the first left off, with the rogue Murderbot on a mission to find out about its past—with the help of a talented (and nebbishy) spaceship (I am so into spaceship AI characters, please recommend some more to me). As with the first one, the writing and pacing here are on point—I often wish novellas felt more robust but this is a perfectly entertaining and discrete story. Can’t wait for the next one. A/A-.

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

2018 book 76

R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War
This is the first of a new trilogy that is getting a ton of buzz--it's a really well-written fantasy story set in a world much like early 20th Century China. It centers on Rin, a war orphan, who works herself to the bone to make her way to an elite school, where she will learn to be a military leader--and learn from a mysterious, eccentric shaman that some folklore is real. And then she must decide whether to heed her teacher, or do anything to get power for her country. Parts of this were a bit slow, and the war scenes were just awful and brutal to read (trigger warnings for descriptions of rape and torture). It also ends in a fairly grim place. I am curious to see where the story goes, though, so will probably read the next volume when it’s released. B+.

2018 book 75

Michelle Markowitz and Caroline Moss' Hey Ladies!
When I first read the Hey Ladies columns in The Toast, I thought they were hilariously over the top—but subsequent life experience has shown me that it’s actually a spot on parody (ok, maybe it actually is sliiiightly over the top). This book is I think all new content, chronicling a year in the lives of our eight Hey Ladies via their group email chains and texts. I basically cackled the entire time I was reading this. I will say that the way it is formatted means it’s probably better to grab this in print or read it on something like an iPad, just as an FYI. Super hilarious all around. A/A-.

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-.