Thursday, December 27, 2018

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+.

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

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.

Sunday, December 23, 2018

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.

Saturday, December 22, 2018

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.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

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.


Tuesday, December 18, 2018

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-.

Monday, December 17, 2018

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.

Sunday, December 16, 2018

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-.

Friday, December 14, 2018

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

Monday, December 10, 2018

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-.

Saturday, December 08, 2018

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.

Wednesday, December 05, 2018

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-.

Monday, December 03, 2018

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+.