2021 book 99

 Rachel Aaron’s The Spirit War

All right, now we're talking! The penultimate Eli Monpress book has lots of action, lots of secrets revealed, and lots of awesome moments. I am psyched to see how this series wraps up. A/A-.

2021 book 98

 Rachel Aaron’s The Spirit Eater

This third one feels at points like it’s spinning its wheels a little: Miranda is trying to catch Eli AGAIN, a dude wants to defeat Josef AGAIN, Nico is struggling with demon stuff AGAIN. But it ends up in a pretty interesting place, and I do still like these characters and find their various relationships compelling. B+.

2021 book 97

 Rachel Aaron’s The Spirit Rebellion

Solid second volume in this series; there are more hints at a larger plot playing out, but the book itself is fairly self-contained (a new cruel villain to be defeated etc). And when the titular spirit rebellion happens, I was legit PSYCHED! I like both the main characters and their various sidekicks a lot, and am very invested in everyone befriending all the spirits. Good stuff. A-.

2021 book 96

 Rachel Aaron’s The Spirit Thief

I enjoyed Aaron’s dragon books, so decided to check out her earlier Eli Monpress series, about a thief with magical powers. It’s also about the (woman) wizard trying to catch him and his companions, and the kingdom they mess around in. Lots of cool spirits and interesting world-building; I do think some things could have been fleshed out more (the villains are very over the top/one note) but it was fun enough that I’ll keep reading. A-/B+.

2021 book 95

 Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s A Fistful of Sky

Like the other books I’ve read by this author, this was kind of weird but engrossing and satisfying. This one is about a family with magical powers, but the middle girl never developed any during her teen years, and they suddenly break out when she's twenty—except it’s not a cute power, but a darker one. But Hoffman never goes in the expected direction, so things are way different than that implies. I loved all the family relationships here (though warning that the protagonist is a bit chubby and has a disapproving mother); the sibling interactions are all just really sweet and funny. There's another book about this family, and I’m excited to read more of them. A/A-.

2021 book 94

 Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

Rereading this for book club; it was one of my favorites of 2014 but I haven't revisited it since. General consensus is that this book is "a warm hug," particularly for book nerds such as ourselves. It’s easily the sort of thing you could sink into and read in one sitting, and even if it is more of the usual book club fodder than I usually go for, sometimes it’s nice to read something charming.

2021 book 93

 Becky Chambers' The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

Another satisfying and enjoyable reading experience in the Wayfarers series! I have no idea why this is the last book when they’re all tenuously connected and there’s plenty of space for more stories (heh, space), but Chambers has a new series starting in July and I guess has other stuff going on. Anyway! This story centers on a little travel stop between interspace tunnels, and the three travelers who get stranded when there's an accident nearby (along with the mother and child who run the local rest stop). One of the characters is the love interest of the captain from book one, and it was nice to see her again. All the characters are great, and their conversations and interactions are engaging (if occasionally heavy-handed). Just a pleasant read all around. A-.

2021 book 92

 Becky Chambers' Record of a Spaceborn Few

I was hoping I'd like this a little more the second time around, but at first I had the same issue with it as last time: lots of story threads that never come together and never really go anywhere. The novel looks at several Human characters living on one of their big spaceship communities, and some of these are more compelling than others (I'm partial to the archivist hosting an alien anthropologist, and the woman who serves as a caretaker to the dead is also interesting, but some of the others are more frustrating). Then I realized these threads /do/ come together, just in a more philosophical way, looking at how we form families and communities, and how we can learn from our mistakes. Heady stuff. A-.

2021 book 91

 Becky Chambers' A Closed and Common Orbit

Ahhhh I love this book so much, I can never get enough of stories about AIs who care about people and the people who care about them right back. I’m more interested in the flashback scenes—baby Pepper being raised by and rebuilding a space shuttle—but Sidra trying to adjust to human society is compelling too. 

2021 book 90

 Becky Chamber' A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

There’s a new Wayfarers book out on Tuesday, which is a perfect excuse to reread some Becky Chambers! I find this book satisfying every time, though I think for different reasons. It’s a solid space adventure story, it’s a great found family story, there are some cute romances and interesting societies of various kinds. So many reasons to just keep on turning pages!

2021 book 89

 Elizabeth Moon’s Crown of Renewal

A mostly satisfying wrap up to this series; not exactly what I expected, but that is generally more interesting. As always, I find the religious stuff fascinating, and there was a lot of cool stuff here in that regard. The ending does seem to leave a lot of room for more sequels, though I don’t think any are planned. And despite the author's note at the beginning, I felt this worked just fine without reading the two prequels about the historical figures (and frankly I like the characters trying to interpret old texts and stories and feel that knowing what actually happened is irrelevant). Anyway! A-.

2021 book 88

 Elizabeth Moon’s Limits of Power

Wow, this was satisfying and exciting in a large number of ways, and it’s not even the last volume in the series. I particularly loved the wry humor of the gods talking to people, and everything with Arcolin and the gnomes. And I legit cried in one scene toward the end which I cannot discuss bc spoilers. I can’t wait to get to the final book and see how rising good magic and FRIENDSHIP will defeat EVIL. A.

2021 book 87

 Elizabeth Moon's Echoes of Betrayal

Another fun and epic outing in this series! Plots keep moving forward, but in an interesting way, dragons and gnomes are in the mix, there are some mysteries at hand, etc. I do think the big bad needs to show up as more than mentions soon, and I am pretty curious about what Paks is up to. Lots of good politicking in this one too. Trigger warning for mention of child sexual abuse and miscarriage. A-/B+.

2021 book 86

 Elizabeth Moon’s Kings of the North

Solid second volume, building on the storylines of the first one and bringing the good vs evil battles/learning to be leaders up a notch. I really like these characters and was glad there was a little bit of romance in this one (though in general am definitely here for all the camaraderie and role modeling going on too). A/A-.

2021 book 85

 Elizabeth Moon’s Oath of Fealty

This is the start of another series set in Paks' world, but focused on some of the secondary characters from the previous trilogy (and written like twenty years later), all dealing with taking on the burden of leadership. Of course the new king is one, dealing with human-elven relations, but there's also the cool lady captain, who’s now a Duke, dealing with her evil family, and another captain who is now in charge of the whole military company (there are a few other POV characters as well, but it’s mainly these three). I really find the religion and world-building here interesting, and was invested in all three stories. Content warning for mentions of animal torture and rape (sigh). A-.

2021 book 84

 Elizabeth Moon’s Oath of Gold

The third book in this trilogy immediately made me feel better about how the previous one ended. It starts off strong and continues that way till close to the end, lots of magic and adventures and lost princes and cool ladies. Of course then there is a very lengthy torture scene (with implied rape) which soured me on things. I did like how it wrapped up, but ugh. An interesting side note, pretty sure the protagonist of this series is asexual. A-.

2021 book 83

 Elizabeth Moon's Divided Allegiance

The second volume of the Deeds of Paksenarrion starts off slow, but gradually gets really fun and interesting (and one lingering thing that annoyed me was even addressed!), only to end on a real freaking bummer note. I guess that averages out to a B+? 

__

Content warning for an attempted rape.

2021 book 82

 Elizabeth Moon's Sheepfarmer's Daughter

I really liked that book by Moon, so decided to check out some of her other works, and was delighted to find several SFF series! This one is the start of an interesting epic fantasy sort of series, about a girl who runs away to join the local army (which is co-ed), really a band of mercenaries. GREAT characters and adventures here. I don’t know how a book that is primarily soldiers marching around manages to be so riveting, but it was! Of course, hints that the girl has a larger fate help. A-.

__

Content warning for an attempted rape, handled about as well as can be expected, and one scene where a dude is tortured by the villain. 

2021 book 81

 Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population 

Holy shit, this book was so good, I am literally crying about it. It’s about an old woman who’s lived for forty years as a colonist on a planet, but it’s not working out and the company decides to relocate everyone. And she’s like no, this is my home, I’m staying with my garden and doing what I want! And she DOES! But ... she's not as alone as she thought. This did not really go anywhere I expected, but in such awesome ways. A.

2021 book 80

 Sanjena Sathian's Gold Diggers

So trying to explain this is going to be a lot: this book is about a young Indian-American boy, crushing on/friends with the Indian-American girl who lives catty-corner, when he discovers her mother makes her a magical lemonade infused with stolen golden jewelry, which gives her the ambitions/skills of its owner. So of course he drinks it. Things don’t go as planned, and ten years later he’s a cokehead avoiding working on his dissertation (this section didn’t work as well for me, because I’ve read enough books about messed up/depressed grad students) when the girl comes back into his life. I liked the touches of magical realism, and that the book touches on identity and family in interesting ways. It’s also really funny in parts. I have some thoughts about the whole outsider narrator looking at the central mother-daughter relationship, but haven’t totally decided where I’m landing on that. I might make my book club read this so I can discuss it with someone! (Now that I think of it, this would be a great selection for more literary minded book clubs. Lots of different things to talk about.) A-/B+.

__

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

2021 book 79

 Helen Oyeyemi's Peaces 

I am generally a big fan of Oyeyemi; her previous novel was one of my favorites of 2019. This one didn’t really work for me, though. It centers on a thirty-something gay couple who, along with their pet mongoose, are taking a mysterious trip on a mysterious train. But the whole thing is too surreal for my tastes. I love the fantastic, but surrealism is just not my thing. I did love the narrative voice (and the couple and their relationship), and the end was interesting, I just spent too much of this book feeling frustrated. B/B+.

__

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

2021 book 78

 Martha Wells' Fugitive Telemetry

I admit to being a little disappointed when I started this, because it doesn't take place after the events of the novel, and I really want to see what happens next! This is set earlier in the timeline, and finds Murderbot teaming up with Preservation security to solve a murder. I am here for sci-fi mysteries (and of course for Murderbot) so soon enough any lingering disappointment vanished. Another fun Murderbot story, even if it’s not covering any new ground. A-.

__

A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on April 27th.