2024 book 96

 Leah Hager Cohen's To & Fro

This is one of those books where you can read one half of it, or flip it over and the other half of the story is on the other half of the book (this is one thing ebooks don’t do well, and the last chapter has the stories come together in a cool formatting thing, which doesn’t translate to the ebook at all, and I wonder how the audiobook would handle it). Anyway, I started with “To,” which involves a young girl traveling on a journey accompanied by a tiny kitten, and it STRESSED ME OUT. So I switched over to “Fro,” which involves a young girl in our world, and loved it. And then I had more context and went back to “To” (important note: THE KITTEN IS OKAY). Really interesting book, sad but hopeful. A-.

2024 book 95

 Moniquill Blackgoose's To Shape A Dragon's Breath

Rereading this for book club and I think I liked it even more the second time. There are still some bits that I think could have been pared down/more subtle, but I was way less distracted this time trying to translate all the words/places. I was like it’s just a fantasy novel, it’s fine, go with the flow! I mean, also I knew that I loved the characters and was way more focused on them. Anyway, this is the story of an indigenous girl in a version of North America that was colonized more by Vikings/Northern Europeans, and what happens when she bonds with a baby dragon and has to go to a dragon-training school run by white people (because her people have lost their dragon raising lore). A lot of people are super racist to her but she also makes some cool friends and continues to buck the system! With a baby dragon! So good and I hope the next book is announced soon.

2024 book 94

 Lois McMaster Bujold's Falling Free

This is kind of a stand-alone set in the Vorkosigon universe, set a few hundred years earlier, so I skipped it when I was reading that series. But I was in the mood for some classic sci-fi, so here we are! I will say this felt VERY cliched, but I'm not sure if that's because I've read a lot of books that were influenced by it, or that it's just super cliched (the human savior of the childlike slaves and the romance especially). I also found all the technical talk to be pretty slow. It ended up being enjoyable enough, I do enjoy Bujold's characters. B.

2024 book 93

 Rufi Thorpe's Margo's Got Money Troubles

Y’all, I have really liked all of Rufi Thorpe's previous books, so I had high expectations, and this WAY exceeded them. It’s SO GOOD. It’s about a nineteen year old girl in junior college who gets pregnant after a brief affair with one of her professors, and decides to keep the baby, assuming things will work out. But then she loses her waitressing job bc she has no childcare, and her roommates move out because they don’t want to live with a baby. And that’s when her former pro wrestler dad shows up and moves in, and she decides to try and make money on OnlyFans. And also, the whole thing alternates between first and third person, so you’re aware that this character is writing a novel of her life. Even when I was worried for the characters, I was totally engrossed, this absolutely hooked me from page one and was beautiful and moving and weird and bittersweet. Definitely going to be on my favorites of the year list. A. 

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

2024 book 92

 Sharon Shinn's Echo in Amethyst

Now this was interesting--the main character of this one is an echo who has become sentient (there were some hints in the first book that some echos had some awareness, but I don't think to this extent). It's also interesting because it actually starts before the events of the first book and kind of plays through all those from another perspective. But I didn’t really enjoy the romance—it’s not as well-developed as the ones in the other books. And the political stuff and the end were both somewhat unsatisfying. This one was more romance focused than plot focused, and I think that balance was better in the first two. B.

2024 book 91

 Sharon Shinn's Echo in Emerald

I liked this better than the first one—the plot is a lot stronger, I think. The protagonist here is a young woman, the illegitimate daughter of a noble, who has learned to disguise her echoes and make her own way in the world. And then she’s drawn into helping solve a murder and an assassination attempt (and obviously falls for the noble leading the investigation, who is a perfectly nice love interest, if not super compelling). The mystery helps carry things along and there are some interesting twists along the way. Looks like things are heading toward some serious political intrigue for book three! A-.

2024 book 90

 Sharon Shinn's Echoes in Onyx

I've been having a hard time getting into books lately, but luckily I had this unread Sharon Shinn trilogy saved for a rainy day (or a reading rut), since I always enjoy her writing and world-building. This is set in in a fantasy world where nobles sometimes have mysterious copies of themselves, and the main character is a young woman who becomes the lady's maid for a noblewoman with three such echoes. I thought this would be a fairly typical court politics story but soon enough there are clumsy attempts to cover up a murder AND secret lesbians. And of course the protagonist's love interest is investigating the murder. I actually really liked how this wrapped up, even though I was uncertain of that along the way. B+.

2024 book 89

 Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower

Yes, I have like a billion unread books on my kindle, but I wanted to reread this book! I didn’t really remember anything about it, except that it’s narrated by a god, telling its story to the local heir's aide (and narrating the humans dealing with Hamlet-esque political machinations). I love stories about gods and court politics! This one is particularly riveting, I love the narrative voice. My only complaint is that the end is somewhat abrupt/anti-climactic. Still, I love it, and I hope Leckie does more fantasy someday.

2024 book 88

 Coco Mellors' Blue Sisters

I do like books about sisters, and this one was great! It deals with how three very different women are floundering a year after the death of their fourth sister (how she died is revealed partway through and I don’t want to give any spoilers, but I did have a lot of thoughts about it as someone with endometriosis). All three are really compelling, and I was worried this was losing steam toward the end but I ended up really liking it. Definitely one for the book club list. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September (but it's already out in the UK so I got confused and read it early, oops!).

2024 book 87

 Park Seolyeon's A Magical Girl Retires

Ok, this was really fun! It starts with a young woman planning to commit suicide bc of credit card debt, when she’s stopped and told she’s a magical girl! And not just any magical girl—the Magical Girl of Time, who has to help save the world… from climate change. Great characters and fun action here, I just wish this had been a little longer to kind of build up the second half more. But I liked this a lot. A-.

2024 book 86

 James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Falls

A weird and interesting conclusion to a weird and interesting series. Great characters as always, the plot was sometimes exhausting (which was the case for several of the books). I did appreciate how there was a sort of throughline for the whole series. But I’m ready for something lighter! A-/B+.

2024 book 85

 James S.A. Corey's Tiamat's Wrath

Ok, we're on book 8 of 9 and this was SO GOOD, WHOA, I’m not even going to try to do a plot summary because SO MUCH happens and it’s all really interesting and sad and cool! These characters are so good and I’m so intrigued to see how this series wraps up.