Because of Miss Bridgerton, Julia Quinn

A prequel! I love a prequel! (Although I'm sitting here trying to puzzle out how the Bridgertons in the later books are related to these Bridgertons. The... son? must be the dad? who dies? That makes me sad.)

This book is CHARMING. I think with Bridgerton books I am either entirely charmed or annoyed almost beyond words, but this is a super cute and deeply adorable story. Two families live next door to each other: the kids have known each other since they were little kids, and while most of them ran wild, the oldest boy, George, has always been just a little bit less wild and crazy. So naturally the crazy, confident, loud girl next door, Billie Bridgerton, has always thought he was a boring stick in the mud. And naturally he has always thought she was ridiculous and annoying and too loud.

You will be VERY SURPRISED TO HEAR that once they are thrown together by circumstance, it turns out that he thinks she is smart and lovely, and she thinks he is handsome and funny. Once he realizes he has feelings there are some hilarious scenes of him secretly planning to murder every other man who looks at her -- and then realizing wait, no, he can't do that. BUT HE'D LIKE TO.

This is so sweet, and I read the whole thing in about a day. I just loved it. I will say, Billie feels like a very, very young 23 in this book. Lots of foot-stomping and arguing and eye rolling. It would have made more sense to me if she were 18, but it didn't throw me out of the book or anything.

Grade: a warm and cozy B

#30 in 2016

All I Am, Nicole Helm

This book is LOVELY. Everything about it appealed to me - I love a contemporary romance, I love a girl who's a mess, I love a guy who's got a beard (and dogs) (and is a mess), I love a secret virgin story. I am not so keen on small-town stories, because I am from a very small town, but this one felt awfully real, mostly because Cara is trapped in a small group of friends who are kind of horrible in ways she doesn't want to acknowledge until Wes makes her.

I think I've said about nine different things are my favorite trope already, but ONE of my favorites is definitely "two screwed-up people make each other better," which is the plot of this book. Cara is the family screw up, who has no confidence in herself and runs from relationships and big opportunities. Wes has anxiety issues, and is back from Afghanistan, where he was injured. He thinks of himself as a total screw up and an idiot, and he lives in a cabin by himself, where he tries to avoid people. But you know how it goes in these books; Cara breezes into his life and turns it upside down. He tries to make her believe that she's actually great and needs to stop doubting herself; she tries to make him believe that he isn't irreparably broken. They really like each other, but they're both very bad at relationships, in ways that felt very real.

I guess if I had to have a complaint, I'd say they break up and get back together maybe one too many times in the book for my taste. It feels like it ends, and then goes on, and then ends again. But I like them both so much, and I was really rooting for them. I'm adding the other books in this series to my to-read list.

(I'll throw up a link here when we discuss this book on Romancing the Tomes.)

Grade: A
#29 in 2016

secret reread: part 4 of The Game of Kings

This section has everything: a high-stakes card game, a trial, a duel, a chase, noble self-sacrifice, sarcasm, amazing ladies saving the day (Agnes, Christian AND Sybilla all get to be phenomenal in this section, and shout-out to Kate for also being awesome), brothers being brothers, and A HUG. THERE IS A HUG.

These books are either your jam or they aren't, but god, I love them. I laughed out loud at the following bit. Here's the set up: Francis is an outlaw, and for the first 2/3rds of the book his brother Richard has been chasing him. Francis is a sarcastic monster, and my favorite. Francis doesn't want Richard to catch him, because Richard is so mad that he'll murder Francis and end up hanging himself. ...plus Francis doesn't want to get murdered, I suppose. 

Anyway, due to circumstances entirely beyond Francis's control, Richard DOES find him, and BURSTS INTO THE ROOM very dramatically, and Francis sighs and says:

"I know. Aha, oho, and every other bloody ejaculation. Let's take it as read. You're delirious at the idea of manhandling me and can't wait to start. I in turn may say I find your arrival offensive and your presence blasphemous, thus concluding the exchange of civilities and letting us get out of here. If there's anything novel or extra you want to add, you can think of it on the way home."

IT'S SO FUNNY. And then they fight to the death (kind of). 

After GGK I needed a little breather in a similar genre, so I reread this, and even though I know how it ends I was still super tense and worried through the last bit, and then got all teary at the end. I love this book.

The Last Light of the Sun, Guy Gavriel Kay

Oh boy! This is part of my "please read my favorite book exchange" with N at bb&b -- I'm reading a bunch of Kays and she's reading the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. I have an advantage, though; I already know I like Kay a lot. I have vivid childhood memories of reading Sailing to Sarantium and The Lions of Al-Rassan (which made me cryyyyyyyyyyy, oh man, inevitable noble self-sacrifice is my favorite).

This book is... kind of hard to describe? It's more of a book ABOUT stories than a story, and it feels like it's taking place almost between stories. Half the characters are fathers who've already lived and survived their own adventures; the other half of the characters are young men and women who are just going out into the world to start making their names and futures. This book is very much about the passing of the torch from one generation to the other, but it ended just about the point where the story I really really wanted to read was starting.

It's haunting and lovely and slightly hard to describe because Kay doesn't write history, he writes alternate history, even though all the characters are really clear people. (Carloman, for example, is a not-very-subtle Charlemagne.) I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who people were and substituting Kay's made-up places and names for the real ones in my head. At the end, Kay thanks all the people who helped him with research on early England and Vikings, and... if you're going to do that, I'm not sure why you wouldn't just write about the real places. You could easily add fairies to a story about Aeldred (clearly Alfred the Great). And since I'm just going to read Anglycn as "Anglican" (as in Anglo-saxons) why not just write it? I don't know. It felt like I spent energy connecting those dots that I could have spent enjoying the book instead.

Anyway, it's about a not-Viking who has to make his own life since his father was exiled; it's about a not-Welsh prince who has to decide what to do with his grief and rage after he loses someone he loves; it's about the first King of not-England who successfully held off the Vikings. It has a couple of characters dealing with grief that felt incredibly real to me, and their anger at religion when it doesn't have answers to questions. There are some DELIGHTFUL women, although I wish they'd had more to do.

The book ends with something sad, and then something truly, truly delightful, and I wish this book were the prequel to the next book about Alun and Kendra and their whole generation. The book stops several times to tell us that stories turn on tiny changes, and fate is determined by tiny moments in time and coincidences. It's a really lovely read, but it's more of a meditation on what makes stories than it actually IS a story, if you see what I mean.

Grade: A

#28 in 2016

the plan for the next 50 books

For my own peace of mind, this is an approximation of my reading plan for... the rest of the year? The next two years? God knows there are enough books on here to keep me busy.

The plan is to a) clear out my kindle of some of the purchased-but-unread books, b) work my way through the rest of the Nero Wolfe books, c) get some of my non-fiction books read, d) read through a whole bunch of Guy Gavriel Kay (I'm reading these and N over at BooksBoozeandBrunch is reading the Dunnetts and we are only allowed to yell WHERE ARE YOU, HOW MUCH HAVE YOU READ???? a couple of times a day at each other) and E) read some as yet unchosen books for the romance novel discussion podcast. So really, this is more like the plan for the next 60 books, I just haven't plugged them all in yet. Plus there are a couple of books I've pre-ordered on Amazon that will need to be added in here and there (including my sister's book, Bound by Blood and Sand, please go preorder it now, it's SUPER great).

And, of course, I will end up buying more books as people recommend them or they go on sale, because I am a compulsive book-buyer, and getting my kindle to-read below 50 is probably a pipe dream. But I do love to have a plan!

Currently reading: The Last Light of the Sun, GGK

Plan to read (in something resembling this order):

1. All I Am (podcast)
2. Because of Miss Bridgerton (pre-order)
3. And Be a Villain (Nero Wolfe)
4. Her Every Wish (to buy - whoops)
5. A Gentleman's Position (pre-order)
6. Tigana (GGK)
7. Capturing the Silken Thief (on kindle)
8. Trouble in Triplicate (NW)
9. Console Wars (ok)
10. The Ringed Castle (Dunnett re-read)
11. In the Best Families (NW)
12. Danubia (giant non-fiction book on my bookshelf taking up space)
13. Veronica Mars: Mr. Kiss and Tell (ok)
14. Curtains for Three (NW)
15. Beguiled (ok)
16. Murder by the Book (NW)
17. The Girl Next Door (ok)
18. Prisoner's Base (NW)
19. The Other Side of Midnight (podcast)
20. Triple Jeopardy (NW)
21. The Hanging Tree: A Rivers of London Novel (pre-order -- best guess??)
22. Courtiers (non-fiction paperback)
23. The Corrupt Comte (ok)
24. The Golden Spiders (NW)
25. Checkmate (Dunnett re-read)
26. The Black Mountain (NW)
27. The Bohemian and the Banker (ok)
28. Three Men Out (NW)
29. Scrap Metal (ok)
30. Vermeer's Hat (ok non-fiction)
31. Before Midnight (nw)
32. Under Heaven (GGK)
33. Might As Well Be Dead (NW)
34. The Slipstream Con (ok)
35. The Closer You Get (ok)
36. Three Witnesses (NW)
37. Spice and Smoke (ok)
38. Heat Trap: The Plumber's Mate (ok)
39. If Death Ever Slept (NW)
40. Driving Her Crazy (ok)
41. The Scandalous Lady W (paperback non-fiction)
42. Three for the Chair (NW)
43. Dirty Thoughts (ok)
44. And Four to Go (NW)
45. River of Stars (GGK)
46. Champagne for One (NW)
47. The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets (ok)
48. Plot it Yourself (NW)
49. Trade Me (WHY HAVEN'T I READ THIS YET)
50. Three at Wolfe's Door (NW)
51. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years (non-fiction ok)
52. Too Many Clients (NW)

Romancing the Tomes episode 3: Dynama

Hey, would you like to hear me and two brilliant book bloggers discuss romance novels? Here's episode Three of Romancing the Tomes, where we discuss Dynama, which I reviewed previously. (Spoiler, we liked it a lot.)

Too Many Women, Rex Stout

At some point while reading this book I started reading the women's dialogue out loud, trying to do the right kind of "sassy, snappy 40's broad" voice you hear in screwball comedies of the era. Not the Marilyn Monroe breathy baby voice, more like the voice Mary Wickes is doing in White Christmas (she's the housekeeper). Eventually I realized I wanted to sound like Rosalind Russell, but I'll never be as good at any of those voices as Paget Brewster is when she's Sadie Doyle in the Thrilling Adventure Hour.

Anyway. Wolfe gets hired to figure out if someone was murdered or just hit by a car by accident, and solving the crime involves Archie going undercover in a business and dating as many women as possible. He also wins a fist-fight at one point, which was when I said out loud to my Kindle, "Boy, Archie Goodwin really is Rex Stout's Mary Sue, isn't he?" But it's cool, I'm in; I'd let him take me to a restaurant and grill me for info on whether or not I'd murdered anyone.

Loved the villain reveal in this one, loved the twist at the end. What a satisfying comfortable read.

Grade: B

#27 in 2016

The Rook, Daniel O'Malley

Listen, if I never read another "There is a secret government agency that handles all the supernatural beasties in the world" book it will be fine with me. As a genre, I have had more than enough of it. And while it is occasionally brilliant -- Ben Aaronovitch's books are fantastic, and I love them -- it's usually not worth slogging through another one that makes me wish I were watching Men In Black or reading KJ Charles.

With that out of the way, I enjoyed this book. It's got a nice plot twist. Our heroine's mind has been erased and she starts out the book in a rainstorm, surrounded by the dead bodies of all the men who just tried to kill her. Then she has to go back to her job at the top secret government agency that handles magical whoosits, pretend she knows what's going on, and figure out who's trying to kill her.

I think the book was meant to be funny? I'm not 100% sure, though. In her former life Myfanwy Thomas was shy and scared and meek; since she's had her memory erased she has no fucks left and tells everyone where they can stick it. There's a certain type of "I've had such a long day, you wouldn't believe," narration, where I get that it's supposed to be funny, but there weren't actually... any... jokes? Like, her name, Myfanwy. (We are told early on: rhymes with Tiffany). Clearly supposed to be, if not laugh-out-loud funny, then quirky. I think the book was looking for that very-hard-to-hit line between spooky/creepy and quirky/funny. David Wong's John Dies at the End does a great job of nailing that. This book was just... I mean, it was a fun read. I read the whole thing in a weekend, which required some real dedication. I liked reading it. I enjoyed reading it. It never made me laugh, and it never got atmospheric enough to creep me out.

Put it this way: I haven't pre-ordered the second book in the series. I might totally read it, though. I just don't feel any pressing need to jump into the next one, or a burning anger that it isn't out yet. Meanwhile I've had the next Aaronovitch pre-ordered since last summer, and they keep changing the release date, and it's agony. Gimme that book! (If you haven't read that series, pick up Midnight Riot, the first one, and set aside a couple of weeks to read all of them. What a delight.)

Grade: B

#26 in 2016

The Sport of Baronets, Theresa Romain

The reason I have a private book reviewing blog (and by private I mean not linked from the twitter where I talk about romance) is because when a book rubs me the wrong way I want to complain about it, and it's super weird to do that somewhere the author might notice. This, for example, seems to be a fairly popular novella by a well-liked author, but I have a list of complaints.

• It's a novella, so we never really get a chance to know the hero or heroine except when they say stuff like, "oh, I NEVER do this kind of thing!" So he's never flirted with a lady before, claims he gets all awkward and weird, but is just fine with her (and sure does know how to get her off with just his mouth and hands under her dress later). And she's always wanted to be freeeeee, although... why didn't she get a season? Why is she so put upon by her father who relies so heavily on her? I feel like I don't know, because we only ever saw them doing things they claimed never to have done.
• The book opens by mentioning the decades-old rivalry between their two families. They can never trust each other! They hate the very sight of each other! Her father tried to kill his mother! Everyone in London knows they are mortal enemies!!!!! But then later on it turns out not that much really happened, no one's really sure why they hate each other, and the whole thing turns into kind of a shrug. 
• This is one of those Regency romances where everyone is a modern person who just happens to be playing olde tyme dress up. She's totally cool with sneaking off to have sex with him, with no particular worry about the consequences or the scandal. He's an awkward dude (...maybe a virgin? He says he's never flirted successful with a lady, but no one clarified this for me) who knows just how to go to town on a lady with oral the first time they're together. She's all about being free, and living her own life, and seeing the world, and also horse racing, and being forthright, and having sex. I don't mind a liberated heroine in a Regency, in fact, I love it, but she has to feel like she could actually have been alive at the time the book takes place.

I don't know. Your mileage may vary, depending on how much those particular things bother you. I really liked the hero and heroine, and I suspect I might have loved this book if it were a full-length novella that got into the family backstory, and gave either of them a friend or companion to talk to and demonstrate what their normal behavior was supposed to be like. I totally bought their romance and liked them together. I just couldn't deal with a bunch of the details and background stuff, because it felt so unreal.

Also: horses smell terrible. That's cool, if you love horses, and love hanging out in stables, but the smell of a stable seems like a strange turn-on, especially when you specifically mention manure. Ick.

Grade: C

#25 in 2016

The Second Confession, Rex Stout

I'm reading through the entire Nero Wolfe series for a bunch of reasons. First, because I love them and Archie makes me laugh, especially when he's in a snit. Second, because I haven't been sleeping well lately, and a book where I don't know what happens keeps me awake, but these books have a very specific rhythm and don't. That's not a knock on these books, I swear. Sometimes when I can't sleep I listen to my favorite podcast over and over. Only favorites will do.

Another reason these books are so much fun to read is because Archie and Wolfe are always having adventures appropriate to the years they were written. A few books ago Archie had a bad feeling about that Hitler fellow, and then he joined the Army, and now he's back to civilian life and worried about Communists. (Published in 1949.)

This is also one of the books where there was an attempt to give Nero Wolfe a Moriarty and... eh. Wolfe's impassioned speech about the only! man! he! fears!! was a little tonally odd and failed to make me feel like the stakes were any higher here than in any other book. Especially because after that scene someone is killed, and it goes back to being exactly the same kind of plot as any other Wolfe book. Archie is sassy to the police and hits on a pretty girl who calls him a louse at one point. The couple of plot twists are great. It always cracks me up when there's a moment that Wolfe gets grumpy and sends Archie to his room and won't tell him what's going on with solving the mystery. I know it's to keep the readers in suspense, because in-world it barely makes sense. It's always sort of implied that Wolfe thinks Archie would tell someone or ruin catching the murderer somehow, but also Archie is the person Wolfe relies on most completely. But it does always make Archie sulky, which I always love.

(Full disclosure, the new way the kindle front page looks threw me off and I skipped two books and jumped up to this one. There is one plot point it affects, but I think it's a silly one, so I'm not letting it bother me.)

Grade: B

#22 in 2016

The Superheroes Union: Dynama (The Superheroes Union #1), Ruth Diaz

I read this because it's the next book we're discussing on the romance novel podcast I'm a part of, and I'm really glad my friend suggested it. This is a novella, and it's a delight.

I am the one remaining American who doesn't like superheroes (it feels like sometimes), and "if we fail it'll be the end of the world/the city will be destroyed/aliens will invade" isn't very compelling stakes for me. This is a superhero story, but the stakes are very personal. The bad guy who has escaped from Supervillain jail is one of our heroine's ex-husband, and he's not trying to destroy the world, he just wants custody of his kids. I loved that, more than being a story about superheroes smashing stuff up, it's a story about a mother at the end of her rope, and her kids, and the hot babysitter she hires who ends up fulfilling both the kids' and her emotional needs. What a cute, satisfying story.

Grade: B

#23 in 2016

The Silent Speaker, Rex Stout

I read Nero Wolfe books between other books; they are a palate cleanser for my brain. I liked this one a lot, because Archie is in a rotten mood for most of it (there's a pretty girl who's smart and who he actually likes). When Archie's in a bad mood he's unbearably sarcastic and obnoxious, which I love. The scene in this one where he talks a woman into going on a date with him by insisting he's not to be trusted and she'd be an idiot to go with him is classic. There is a twist after the twist, as well, which is always fun in these books.

As a kid I thought Inspector Cramer was a bad guy and dreaded him showing up. As an adult I am awfully fond of him, and clearly so are Wolfe and Archie, although they hate to say so. It's nice that my critical reading skills have improved since I was reading these by the armful in the Large Print section of the library.

Grade: B

#24 in 2016

Top Five: Romances

So I've been going through all these old reviews and I had some waves of nostalgia over books I'd read and loved, and I started thinking... what are my top five romances of all time? The five books that have stuck with me the best, the five books that I'd reread any time, the top five books that still make me feel all warm and melty inside?

Then I agonized for a long, long, long, longlonglong time. This was HARD. And I definitely cheated -- this is more like top seven. In no particular order:

Think of England, KJ Charles

This is the gold standard for my love of pairings where one person is a cat and one is a dog. ...not in a furry way, although if that's your thing, cool. Curtis is ex-army, and he's bold and strong and brave and forthright and says what he means. Daniel is a spy, and a poet, who happens to be both Jewish and gay in a world that doesn't want him to be either. He's self-contained and totally guarded and uses biting humor to keep people as far away as possible. The pairing is perfect, because they're so good for each other. Curtis needs Daniel to figure things out for him, and Daniel needs Curtis to believe in him and have his back. Curtis starts off really not liking Daniel at all, and his revelation that he loves him is perfect. Once Curtis changes his mind, he's in 100%. Maybe even better for me, though, is that Daniel doesn't expect or demand Curtis love him, and when he realizes that Curtis is serious he just can't believe it. If I could wipe my memory Eternal Sunshine style and reread any romance, I'd want to reread this one.

Like No Other Lover, Julie Anne Long

My very very favorite of Julie Anne Long's books, and maybe my very favorite Regency "she needs to find a husband for money problems, quick" book ever. Most of these books feature a woman who is at the end of her rope, but she's innocent and lovely and means well, and the man she loves just happens to be the answer to her prayers. Not Cynthia. Life handed her lemons and Cynthia is going to make her own damn lemonade no matter what. She meets Miles, who makes her feel butterflies, but he's on to her scheme almost immediately, so she gets him to help her try and catch a husband instead. Miles is also great: he just wants to be a scientist and sail around the world doing research. He teams up with Cynthia and realizes that not only is she beautiful, but she's smart, too. Sure, she has an agenda, but she has a reason for it, and oh if only Miles could disappoint his beastly father and marry someone like Cynthia, if only... This book made me happy all over, and every time I think about it I'm happy again.

Mr. Impossible (or maybe Lord of Scoundrels), Loretta Chase

A long time ago I thought I wasn't going to read romance novels, and when I did read them I was always like, "but this isn't a TRASHY romance, this is a STRANGELY GREAT romance novel." Eventually I gave myself over to it and stopped apologizing for what I was enjoying. A big part of that was Loretta Chase. Her books are so witty, her heroines are so smart and feisty and delightful, and her heroes are funny and kind and when they are big alpha males they are also secret dolls inside. I honestly would recommend ALL of her books, and narrowing it down to just one favorite was impossible, so I'm cheating. Mister Impossible is a goddamn delight from start to finish; it's The Mummy as a romance novel. Rupert is a big, impulsive, tempermental dude who has found himself in jail in Egypt. Daphne is a widow who is an Egyptologist and needs a guide to help her find her brother. The book is a laugh-riot and oh, so satisfying when they get together. (Lord of Scoundrels is about a big angry scary dude, and the sassy widow who is zero percent afraid of him, and then he turns out to be a sweetheart. ...and I also want to throw in a word for Lord Perfect. I love all these books so much.)

The Suffragette Scandal, Courtney Milan

How could I possibly love this book more??? It's not set in a made-up fairy tale version of the Regency, the heroine is a suffragette who runs a women's newspaper. Edward is a rogue and a forger who tries to blackmail her, almost immediately realizes she's better and smarter than he is, and promptly throws in with her instead, because he knows she's the best one. And there is lovely family stuff, and some background lesbians, and I just couldn't have been happier. I love every book in this series -- hang on, I love every book by Courtney Milan -- but a sassy, brilliant, feminist lady who still feels like she fits perfectly into the time period, and a rogue with a heart of gold who would do anything for her? Oh man. Oh mannnnnnnn.


These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer

Heyer invented the Regency romance genre. I couldn't decide between this one and the Grand Sophy, but nearly every Heyer could be here instead. Charming shenanigans, grand romance, feisty heroines, brooding men, wacky families, life and death situations, daring escapes... These books invented everything and they are so satisfying. These Old Shades features a Duke who is proud of being known as satan (or nearly) and a plucky young orphan who dresses up like a boy and works for him, and how she uses her charm and brilliance to change his life. The Grand Sophy is all about how the family is unhappy until Sophy sweeps in, fixes everyone's problems, and makes everyone fall in love with the right person. They are both absolutely beautiful, so satisfying to read, and will always make me happy on a sad day.

Let me know your top five, so I can find more awesome books, please!

Nothing Like Paris, Amy Jo Cousins

I really like the tropes and character types here, so I'm not TOTALLY sure why this book didn't quite land the way I wanted it to. Normally if a book isn't getting me what I wish it were, I have a list of complaints, but everything here was fine. Jack was a screw up with a bad temper, which is something I like. Miguel had a big adorable family, and was the sensible one who's a little afraid to dream. They undeniably learn a lot about each other and end up making each other better people.

I don't know, man. I got to the end and thought, "Yeah. That should have made me feel a lot of feelings," but it mostly didn't. It was really enjoyable, it just didn't itch whatever scratch I was hoping it would. My fault, not the book's.

Grade: I don't actually know what I didn't love about it, so B

#21 in 2016

Us, Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

!!!!!!

This is a sequel to Him, a book I love in spite of it being a) about hockey players b) written in the present tense d) written in the first person and c) switching POV every chapter or so. Those three things should have knocked it off my to-read but someone gifted it to me, and I was on vacation with no internet, so I read it, and I loved it. And now the sequel is out, and it is EVEN! BETTER!

I mean, it seems like it was designed just for me. First, it's about two guys trying to figure out how to be in love and live their lives and communicate about stuff like money and job stress. I will read that story every time -- I always wish romance novels would go on a few months after the happily ever after. And THEN there are major plots about the stress of coming out, about a famous person dating a not-famous person, AND someone gets terribly sick and needs to go to the hospital and be looked after. This book was coming after every trope I, personally, love.

Other things I love: Jaime's family, Wes's team, Jaime's hockey players, Jaime's repeated reminders to everyone that he's bisexual, not gay. And the sex is hot. Just a delight from start to finish -- I was supposed to go shopping and instead I sat in a Chipotle for an hour and finished the book.

Grade: A

#20 in 2016

Dukes Prefer Blondes, Loretta Chase

Loretta Chase is my favorite romance author, and this book is a good example of why. It's the fourth in the dressmaker series, and while I liked those I loved this one. The beginning made me raise my eyebrows and wonder where the whole thing was going, but once the story starts, it's amazing. Why? Because the hero and heroine compliment each other so well.

She's a lady who feels incredibly weighed down by the restrictions and expectations on her shoulders. He's a barrister who represents, for example, children who died in a workhouse. She's determined to do something for the children she sponsors, and he's determined to keep her out of trouble. But then they both realize they'll do better if they work together, and once he realizes how smart she is -- but is never really allowed to show -- and she realizes how kind he is, and they fall in love.... oh man.... swoon city.

Partnership is probably my number one romance novel bulletproof kink.

Grade: A

#1 read in 2016

Some Buried Caesar, Rex Stout

I almost guessed the answer to the mystery in this one before the end! And I never do that!

This is a book where Wolfe actually leaves his brownstone in Manhattan (which he does a lot more than I remember him doing as a kid), and where Archie meets Lily Rowan, my favorite of his on-again off-again flings. I liked this one a lot.

Grade: B

#2 in 2016

Act Like It, Lucy Parker

This book is GREAT. It's about actors in plays on London's West End, who are forced to pretend to date for whatever reason. (There's a reason. But does it really matter?) He's a real jerk with no regard for other people, so of course over the course of pretending to date him she learns that he's got a sad past and he's actually a good guy, he just doesn't really get human interaction.

I liked them, I liked the romance, and I stayed up waaaaay too late to read the whole thing in one day. What a delightful book.

Grade: A

#3 in 2016

Over My Dead Body, Rex Stout

Oh no, wait; this was the Nero Wolfe book where someone's pretending to be someone else and then at the end -- well, it doesn't really matter, the mystery was kind of a flop for me. I do like getting some insight into Wolfe's life in Montenegro -- when I was a kid I thought that was a made up place, I remember distinctly -- but this book was just muddled.

Grade: C

#4 in 2016

Burn For Me, Ilona Andrews

I was pretty in on this book -- I like the narrator, I like her family, I like that she's a private detective. I like the magic she can do, and I like the way magic works in this world.

The hero of this romance, though... Let me backpedal. Hero is a little bit of a stretch. He's charismatic and powerful, but I am never a fan of those romances where she's just a normal lady and he's the most powerful vampire in history/the most rich and powerful and commanding duke of all time/whatever. The way the trope usually plays out is that he's unconquerable and no one on this earth can stop him from doing what he wants -- until he meets the one lady in the world who isn't afraid of him, and who brings his humanity back. As a trope it's... eh. Not my thing.

And this hero isn't JUST the world's most powerful magic user, he also likes to use it to kill people. When given a choice, he specifically says yes, his favorite thing was when he got to use his powers in a war to destroy the other side. I didn't find that especially sexy.

Oh, and THEN he uses his magic to sexually harass, if not downright assault, the heroine.

I might have let all that go, because it's the first in an ongoing series (or will be) and I was definitely thinking, "Yes! I'll pick up the rest of these!" and then the ending happened. Mild spoilers:

She breaks up with him for a list of very logical reasons, like being a sociopath, and not respecting her boundaries, and murdering people. He's pretty grumpy because he expects her to fall in love with him. He storms off, and then her grandmother, who I loved until this scene, snarks, "I'll go buy the wedding dress."

Ma'am, your granddaughter just told you he makes her feel unsafe and violated. It's not the time for a cute quip about the wedding. I just. Ick. I don't like "everyone knows you're in love when you think he's an asshole" because I don't generally like books about assholes. But that weird tonal deafness in the last scene really made me wonder if I'd misjudged the whole rest of the book.

I'd read the rest of the series when it comes out, but only if someone gives grandma a talking-to.

Grade: C

#5 in 2016

Captive Prince, vol. 1- 3, C.S. Pacat

When migrating over all my old livejournal reviews I found my rec for this when it was a work in progress being posted in parts over on lj, in 2010. Six years later, it's FINALLY finished. I reread the first two books and then immediately read the third one, because these are the kind of books you read all of in a weekend without stopping for air.

It's a delightful story about my favorite character types; Laurent is cold and mean and secretly damaged and alone in the world, Damen is sweet and emotional and will destroy things to protect Laurent. Once they're friends, of course; they start out as enemies, then become grudging allies, and by the third book they are so delightfully in love that I could read just those parts over and over and be a really happy person. I'm just going to shout, cousin Charls! and if you've read the book you know why we're all so happy about it.

A couple of caveats -- the third book doesn't make a ton of sense if you think about it too carefully, and I've had a lot of really fun conversations about how to fix the pacing and a couple of plot holes. The author borrows heavily from both Dunnett and Guy Gavriel Kay in terms of characters and also plots, and it did occasionally make me go, "Oh, come on, this is fan fiction." Which isn't necessarily a complaint; Lymond could certainly use a nice boyfriend who will kill people for him (Jerrott). Oh, and the ending is a little abrupt, but apparently there will some follow-up stories or something.

If this is your kind of thing, it will be VERY much your kind of thing. It was certainly mine.

Grade: A

#6-8 in 2016

Where There's a Will, Rex Stout

In the midst of this Nero Wolfe reread I do remember this one -- in that I remember getting to the end and going, "Wait, what? Who was -- Wait, what was the point of -- I mean. Okay. Sure." Overly convoluted for my taste, which for a mystery that's more or less a 30s noir, has to be pretty convoluted. Too many characters pretending to be other characters.

Grade: C

#9 in 2016

Rag and Bone, KJ Charles

KJ Charles wrote my absolute favorite romance I read in 2015, Think of England, so the bar is set PRETTY high for the rest of her books. This one is faaaaaaantastic. It's set in her ongoing world of magic, and in fact takes place kind of in the background of one of the Charm of Magpie books. Or one of the spinoffs. I forget, now.) Anyway, Crispin is an adorable human disaster of a magic user who has accidentally been trained to be a warlock, and Ned is a very sensible waste-man who loves him. Crispin is always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he always does what he has to in order to stop evil magic doers and save lives, but generally this results in him getting in to trouble with SOMEONE. And he and Ned have a fight, and then an evil magic user kidnaps Ned, and Crispin has to try and rescue him in spite of, again, being kind of a disaster.

It's a pairing type I love; give me an adorable try-hard for whom nothing goes right, and a sensible guy who is just like, "... I love you, but MAN, you make stuff difficult for yourself." I loved this book, and I loved the end, and I will read every book about the forever.

Grade: A

#10 in 2016

Listen to the Moon, Rose Lerner

I liked this book a lot, mostly. I loved reading a historical book about servants instead of a nice girl who falls in love with a duke. I loved reading a book where they get married right away and then have to deal with their relationship as married people. All great, all very compelling.

I wish he'd been... a little nicer? He tried, certainly, and by the end he's loosened up. And that was his ongoing issue; his father's perfectionism had bene passed down to him, and he had trouble making friends or forgiving people little mistakes. I get that. But it made him a little bit mean to his wife, and while it's all wrapped up nicely by the end with a happily ever after, there were moments that felt downright bleak. Loved the realism of that, but it's not exactly what I want from my escapist literature.

Grade: B

#11 in 2016

Black Orchids, Rex Stout

Part of my ongoing reread of all the Nero Wolfe books. They're delightful and fun, but repetitive enough that I can read them before bed and fall asleep without worrying all night. Anyway, I read it a month ago now, and I remember that I liked it, but almost no specifics of the plot. Which is maybe what happens when you read ten of these in a row.

Grade: B

#12 in 2016

The Disorderly Knights, Dorothy Dunnett

Part of an ongoing reread of the series, which is my favorite.

THIS BOOK IS SO GREAT. It starts off with Francis-and-Richard shenanigans, and then you get a lot of people trying to beat up or murder Francis, and you get Jerrott, finally, and um.... spoiler spoiler spoiler SPOILER spoiler SPOILER SPOILER!!!!!!!!! I will never forget how it felt to read this the first time, and getting to the end of the book, and going, "Oh holy shit, no. NO. OH MY GOD!!!!" when the reveal came through.

Note: Francis does a thing in here that seems unforgivable, but turns out just to be kind of shitty. I'm not delighted by it, but A) it's the 16th century, and B) it was written in the 1960s. Anyway, he pays for it, more or less.

Jerrott couldn't be more in love with Francis, or angrier about it, and I'm still delighted.

Grade: A

#13 in 2016

Forbidden, Beverly Jenkins

:( I wanted to like it. I liked the heroine. I liked the hero. But the writing style was jerky and awkward and I just wanted to shout NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT at the book about a thousand times. What a great premise for a book that I should have enjoyed tremendously, and never did.

Grade: D

#14 in 2016

Rosemary and Rue (October Daye #1), Seanan McGuire

I wanted so much to love this and it just didn't work for me at all. The prologue was great -- I love a lady private detective -- and I'm in on magical realism and ongoing series.

But I was bored. Every chapter seems to open with our heroine finding another aspect of faerie that she used to know, and giving pages and pages of exposition about this fairie court or that type of monster, or this kind of selkie, or that magical area in San Francisco. She needs to solve a mystery, so she goes from person to person, and she's obviously introducing everyone and everything that will come into play later in the series. But... I just didn't care, after a while. I wanted things to happen, instead of learning about another evil fairie court. Also, because it's noir(ish), everything goes wrong for our heroine. She's lost her family, she's lost her power, she's lost her friends, she's lost her job. It was just a slog, reading her miserable internal dialogue about how sad she was.

Oh, well. It was worth a shot.

Grade: C

#15 in 2016

Almost a Scandal, Elizabeth Essex

I LOVED THIS BOOK. Our heroine is from a family of sailors, and when her brother fails to go to sea she dresses up like him and goes in his place. Then she falls for a sailor, who -- get this -- also loves her! (He figures out almost immediately who she is, so there isn't too much Mulan to it.) What's GREAT is that she is the BEST and BRAVEST and SMARTEST sailor! She's so competent she keeps getting promoted, and everyone basically agrees she's amazing, except the villain, who she first confronts, and then ends up helping, because she is wonnnnnnnnderful. I loved her, I loved the romance, I loved how serious and competent everyone was.

Grade: A

#16 in 2016

A Breath of Scandal, Elizabeth Essex

This book was an absolute delight, with a couple of caveats. First, the good: I loved the hero. It's rare to find one with no dark secrets or lurking man pain. He's a sailor and he's lost his job since the defeat of Napoleon, and he's kind of bummed, but eh. It'll work out somehow. And I loved the heroine. She's feisty and competent. And they LIKE each other. Sure, their loins throb for each other, but they also just LIKE each other a lot. He calls her Preston, which I think is adorable.

On to the caveats: the bad guy (and the heroine's mom) are really bad. Like, super over the top ridiculously bad, with no redeeming qualities. That's fine, I don't need nuance in my villains, but there was nuance in the last Essex book I read, so I was startled. Second, there's a scene at the end where the heroine does something that's honestly just dumb. I rolled my eyes and briefly put the book down. Third, it ends kind of abruptly.

But overall, this whole series is a definite thumbs-up DO recommend.

Grade: B

#17 in 2016

Not Quite Dead Enough, Rex Stout

For whatever reason I set myself a goal of rereading ALL the Nero Wolfe books, in order. As a kid I read them haphazardly by whichever I could grab from the library. They make a little more sense this way.

This book is two novellas, both of which involve Archie Goodwin being a major in the Army. SWOON. Archie is already dreamy in that he is a noir detective who's always busy being a pain in the ass, but Archie in a WWII uniform is almost too much. In the first story here he has to persuade Nero Wolfe to give up his dream of also joining the army, which Archie does by framing himself for a murder and then basically daring Wolfe to help him out. I laughed out loud on the subway. I love you, Archie, you tremendous pain in the ass.

I always picture Lily Rowan as Lauren Bacall, and I'm always delighted when she shows up.

Grade: A

#18 in 2016

Pawn in Frankincense, Dorothy Dunnett

Part of an ongoing reread of my favorite series in the world, Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles.

Still brilliant, still heartbreaking, still the perfect denoument to the two part story of how Francis Crawford takes on a brilliant, truly evil villain. In order not to spoil all the phenomenal twists, I can't say much except: the end is still so tense I had to read it secretly at work all day, I cried at the end even though this time I knew what was coming, and this is the book where Philippa overtakes Francis as my favorite character. That scene at the end with them, man... Oh boy. Ohhhhh boy.

Grade: A

#19 in 2016

Old book reviews

Everything before this post are books I read before 2016; I'm going to go ahead and use goodreads to see which books I remember enough about reading in the last couple of years to review.

And then if you scroll far enough back are also I have all the book reviews I used to write on livejournal (can you imagine how old these are -- livejournal!).

The Legend of Lyon Redmond, Julie Anne Long

The last Pennyroyal Green book! The second book in this series, Like No Other Lover, is in my top five all-time romances; it was so incredibly satisfying and amazing that I downloaded the whole rest of the series that was available on my kindle immediately. God, I still remember the names of the main characters -- Cynthia and Miles -- and sometimes I don't remember characters' names while I'm reading the book.

The whole series is about two rival families, and how they fight and various members of each family find true love. But all the way through we know the oldest son of one family was madly in love with the beautiful daughter of the other family, and she's sort of sadly decided to never love anyone again since he vanished. He, meanwhile, has become a pirate who frees slaves on slave ships. She's finally found someone she likes enough to marry (and I liked him a lot, too, so when she inevitably leaves him at the altar I was bummed). Obviously Lyon can't let anyone else marry his One True Love, so he kidnaps her, kinda, and they go have sex, and then he sends her home to "make her own decision," or something, and blah blah "why didn't you come with me years ago?"

I think the book suffers from being the 11th in a series that has been building to this book for soooo looooong that it had to feel epic and beautiful instead of just being a good romance. Lots of flashbacks and lots of tragic pining, but at some point I just wasn't that excited about it anymore. And then the end has the weirdest flashforward to their descendants in modern day, which I get was about how everyone lived happily ever after and had the greatest lives ever, but really just made me think, "Oh no, all these characters are dead."

Grade: C (I love the series but on my rereads I'm gonna skip this one.)

Wedlock The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore, Wendy Moore

This is a weird one -- I loved this book, and also didn't finish it. The history is SO fascinating and juicy, and the plot has such twists and turns that I was on the edge of my seat. But there's a point about halfway through where the bad guy is winning, and some of the spousal abuse that happens is so incredibly terrible, and also historically accurate, that I just didn't want to pick it up again. Reading it felt like punishing myself. And it's history, so it really happened to someone, and it just made me sad.

Grade: DNF

2015

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits

Half sci-fi, half parody, this book is sort of a tumblr post come to life. The bad guy is a Men's Right's Activist, more or less, and the heroine is just a normal lady trying to get by in a world determined to murder her. It's ridiculous and funny, and then also occasionally scary and upsetting. Action-adventure-sci-fi-dystopia-parody-horror-noir isn't a genre, right? It should be.

Grade: I don't know, the highest B possible?

2015

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

This book is amazing. It made Julius Caesar (and the rulers who followed him, although only the ones in his direct line) absolute accessible and understandable. It made the history funny and fascinating and easily digested. It was the kind of book where you go to a party and you suddenly find yourself asking people if they want to hear an interesting fact about Augustus Caesar! (They probably don't.)

Grade: A

2015

The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh, KJ Charles

My capslock were stuck on and I accidentally wrote THE RUIN OF GABRIEL ASHLEIGH which, honestly, is how I feel about this book. THE RUIN OF GABRIEL ASHLEIGH!!!!!!

This is a short story about a pretty young disaster who lost a bet with a seethingly angry smarty pants who has always resented him (and... maybe wanted to do stuff with him). It is hot as hell, and it is an absolute delight. I know it's a lead in to the other stories in this series, (the society of gentlemen books), and I love when Ash pops up in those books, but I would seriously read ten thousand more pages of these two.

Grade: A

2015

A Minor Inconvenience, Sarah Granger

I looooooved this book. I read it about six months ago, and that's literally what I remember -- how much I loved it, how tense the ending made me, how excited I was at the end. Love! Angst! Spying! Betrayal! Being reunited!!

Grade: A

2015

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, Leah Remini

Here is a fun fact about me: I am a little obsessed with reading books about Scientology and escapes from Scientology. I've read Going Clear. I've read Beyond Belief. I've read everything. So I had this pre-ordered, obviously, and it was SO interesting!

Remini's story is different than most Scientology stories; her mother rescued her daughters from the SeaOrg and moved them to California. Remini's successes meant she got treated distinctly differently from the non-famous or non-successful Scientologists. (For a particularly harrowing version of this story, read Beyond Belief, about Jenna Miscavige.) The details are amazing, and Remini is so funny. It's a fun read, and a fast one.

I do wonder... All through the book Remini insists strongly that she has always been a little dubious about Scientology and never really bought in or believed in all of it. I wonder how much of that is true and how much is looking back on something that's hurt and betrayed you, and convincing yourself that you always knew better, and were too smart to buy in.

Grade: B

2015

Provoked, Joanna Chambers

Everyone told me to read this because it was amazing! So I did, and... I was bored. /o\ I didn't think one of the heroes was particularly likable, either. So I very cautiously told the people who'd recommended it that, and they said, "Oh, but in book two it gets amazing!!"

I... hate it when I have to wait for book 2 for things to get amazing. Amaze me in book 1, please. My attention span is so short.

Grade: C

2015

Once Upon a Marquess, Courtney Milan

Courtney Milan is my jam; she does things with romance novels that I've never seen before. She brings in mental and physical disabilities, racial diversity, stories that make perfect sense in the time period but are still filled with ass-kicking women. I'm super excited for her to start a new series, because I loved her last one.

This book was awesome, although... I don't know, a little dark? She's lost her family money and is trying to raise all her younger siblings on a shoestring budget from the work she does. He's always loved her, but he's also the guy who is responsible for her father's conviction, so she can't stand him. He also has some kind of unspecified disordered thinking, which he doesn't want anyone to know about. He counts to calm himself down, he needs things ordered just-so.

It's a lovely story, but a couple of things didn't quite work for me. They have some witty banter that didn't feel witty, it felt oddly forced. Every time it popped up again I rolled my eyes just a little. And there's a bit at the end, which is obviously setting up the next book, but it made me so saaaaaad. It hit a very personal fear of mine and I found myself flipping pages unhappily, because I didn't want it to get worse, and then it did.

I love CM because she makes her books feel realistic and grounded in reality, even when they are fluffy romance. But this one had just a tiny bit too much "the real world sucks, even if you're in love" for it to be pure escapism for me.

Grade: B

2015

Lord Dashwood Missed Out, Tessa Dare

I wanted to really really really like this and I only sort of liked it. The premise is great: it's a Regency where she was always pining for the hot guy next door, and he was never interested, so she wrote a book about how great it is to be alone and how he totally missed out on someone as great as she is. She's become the toast of the town, and he's embarrassed (she used a name that's NEARLY but not quite his, and no one is fooled). That sounds great! He can apologize and realize what he missed, she can feel vindicated, they can get together finally as equals.

...that isn't what happens. He's kind of a jerk about it, and for no reason that ever made any sense to me, she still wants him, especially when he's kind of a jerk about it. At the end I still felt like he owed her an apology.

Oh, and there's a lot of dumb stuff here. This is the kind of romance where they're so intent on boning, despite claiming to hate each other, that they get locked outside of a cabin in the snow, naked. If that sounds like something you could read, and nod, and say, "Sure, that happens all the time," then this might be your book.

Grade: C

2015

A Seditious Affair, KJ Charles

Oh my goddddddd, this book opens in media res, by which I mean in the middle of a sex scene, by which I mean in the middle of a dude boning another dude in a way that IS consensual but is set up to seem like maybe it's not, and... Oh man, I was on the subway and I had to close my kindle and not look at anyone else until I got home.

I really like both of the characters this book is about, I love the series, I love how Charles uses real history like the Six Acts to place the romance in a real situation with real stakes and real consequences. I genuinely wasn't sure how this story could possibly have a happy ending, but it does, even if it means a lot of compromises and an ending that isn't over-the-top happily-ever-after. If historical m/m s&m themed romance sounds like your thing, you'll LOVE this. I can't wait for the third book in this series.

Grade: A

2015

Sweet Disorder, Rose Lerner

I liked it, but man, there was a lot of discussion of politics between the Whigs and the Tories, and I spent most of it worried that the nice candy man would be left alone.

Hang on, let me start again.

She's a widow and both political parties in her small town want her to get remarried so her husband can vote for them. Her heart and her family always supported one party, but the other party has found her a husband who she likes better. The party she likes found her a nice man who makes sweets, but she doesn't like sweets. (Personal note: I eat jelly beans for dinner like, three days a week. This was not a plot point I could sympathize with it.) Then the better husband candidate turns out to be kind of a jerk, and there's a thing going on with the heroine's sister that I don't want to spoil. I haven't even mentioned the hero -- his brother is running for office, and he was injured in the war, and he likes the widow, but he's rich and she's not, and I liked them, but oh man, I wanted them to get together on page 30 instead of at the very end. At some point near the end I was shouting Get on with it!!! at the book.

I was, seriously, very concerned that the nice man with the sweets shop who was just trying to get by was going to end up screwed over. That's mostly what I remember.

Grade: B

2015

Falling Stars, Loretta Chase

I'm making noises only dogs can hear.

This is the loveliest regency. They were in love a long time ago, but she was unwilling to run away with him, so he left, and she got married, but now she's widowed with kids and he's back. I thought it was going to turn out that they'd had a Big Misunderstanding, but no; they just both made choices. Anyway, he meets her and falls in love with her kids, and it's just the LOVELIEST. It made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. I love it I love it I love it.

Grade: A

2015

The Rubber Band, Rex Stout

This one is about a girl coming to Wolfe with a story about a deal to split some stolen gold a long time ago in the old west, which sounds super ridiculously cliche, but I'm willing to believe that it was invented by this story, or at least it was still fresh when this book was originally written. Anyway. I love Archie.

Grade: B

2015

General catch up

As a kid I read so voraciously that I blasted through hundreds of books a year (mostly sci fi and fantasy from my dad's collection, but other stuff too). I was always the girl sitting out of recess reading a book, in case my super nerdiness wasn't clear. Anyway I fell out of the habit of reading because I read so much on the internet and I'm so busy, but then this fall I bought myself a new Kindle (with a light!) and I read 21 books between October, when I got it, and the end of the year.

In vague order of reading:

• Scandal Wears Satin, Loretta Chase
• Them, John Ronson
• A Night Like This, Julia Quinn
• Cloud Atlas, David MItchell
• The Ugly Duchess, Eloisa James
• Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
• Snuff, Terrry Pratchett
• This Book Is Full of Spiders (seriously, dude, don't touch it), David Wong
• The Men Who Stare At Goats, Jon Ronson
• Lost At Sea, Jon Ronson
• The Signal and the Noise -- Why so many predictions fail but some don't, Nate Silver
• Seduced by a Pirate, Eloisa James
• The Duke is Mine, Eloisa James
• Fingersmith, Sarah Waters,
• Argo -- How the CIA and Hollywood pulled of the most audacious rescue in the world, Antonio Mendez
• Death from the Skies! the science behind the end of the world, Philip Plait
• The Poisoner's Handbook -- Murder and the birth of forensic medicine in the jazz age, Deborah Blum
• The Psychopath Test, Jon Ronson
• Unspoken, Sarah Rees Brennan
• Venus in Blue Jeans, Meg Benjamin
• A Night like This, Julia Quinn

It would take too long to write much about them but the kindle is great for romance novels (which I love, clearly) and also big fat books I otherwise wouldn't be able to lug around on the subway (Tolstoy). It was also great for all my overnight bus trips home and flights wherever. Nate Silver's book was great and really made me think about stuff like weather predictions. I probably read too many Jon Ronson books but mostly I'm sad there aren't more. Cloud Atlas made me cryyyyyyyyy and Fingersmith was amazing. 

I am always looking for book recommendations if people read something amazing this year! I think this is a pretty good idea of the stuff I enjoy. Romances, science books, non-fiction of just about any stripe, and apparently lesbian YA romances. 

Originally posted 2013

In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, by Tom Holland

That's a very flashy name for a book that's basically just about the historicity of the Koran. I have read a bunch of books about how the New Testament was assembled and picked over by early Christian church; this book is a very interesting look at early sources about Mohammed and how he fit into the landscape of the late antiquity Middle East, and how/when the Koran was put together. I enjoy the way Tom Holland writes; all his stuff is good.

Grade: B

Originally posted 2012

Reamde, Neal Stephenson

Just finished Neal Stephenson's Reamde. (It's slated to come out 9/20.) Like, I just finished it about 3 minutes ago and I just read 981 pages in four days so I'm trying to clear my head.

I will try to summarize the plot, because the back of the book doesn't really do much besides say, "High stakes technological thriller!!" which is SORT OF true. It's about Richard Forthrast, who runs an online computer game that competes with World of Warcraft. It's about some Chinese hacker kids who invent a virus to steal money from people in the game. (I wish it had been more about them, actually.) It's about Richard's niece, Zula, whose boyfriend makes a terrible deal with some mobsters. And it's about a bunch of international terrorists whose secret hideout in China just happens to be in the same run-down building as the hackers. 

It's super typical Stephenson; there's computer stuff, there's shooting, there's traveling the world, there's about 500 pages of climax where I had to keep putting the book down or I would forget to breathe. (I had to flip to the last page to make sure my favorite character survived, and she did.) But then it's NOT typical Stephenson, at the same time; there are no 25 page digressions on obscure mathematical concepts or long flashbacks to how Newton invented the calculus. And weirdly, I found myself really missing those. This is like a Bourne movie or a Bond movie; it's all action and adventure and shooting. It's almost like he decided to redo Snow Crash for the 2010s but it's got even less "here is how technology works" than Snow Crash. 

As an interesting note: this is the first Stephenson I can think of that has lots of important female narrators. Eliza was important in the Baroque Cycle but not as important as Jack. America Shaftoe was more of an idea than a character in Cryptonomicon. Same with Y.T. in Snow Crash. Reamde features three different female protagonists, all of whom have tremendous agency, smarts, and personality. AND not a single one of whom is white. Stephenson still can't write a convincing romantic relationship but this was a huge improvement, women-wise.

This is going to sound weird, but instead of 981 pages of excellent action-adventure I wish it had been 1,000 pages and included more weird technological digressions. I read Stephenson and I feel smarter afterwards, usually. Anathem is magical just because it spends so much time being about higher math concepts. I love the dense and weird history in Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle. This is JUST an action-adventure story. 

Anyway, if you enjoy Stephenson this is great. And if you've never read his stuff this is probably his most approachable book in a long time -- the page count sounds intimidating but it reads really, really quickly and I found myself staying up until 1 or 2 to get to the next section.

Grade: A

originally posted 2011

Hero, Michael Korda

This is a great, great biography of Lawrence of Arabia. I not only got to know Lawrence but also a lot of the root causes of conflicts in the Middle East at the moment, since he helped create the map (and he wanted it to look very different than it does). The book dips heavily into psychology -- did Lawrence never date because he was gay or because he was afraid of his mother? -- which bugged me a little bit, but mostly Korda uses those passages to refute other biographers who claim really stupid things about Lawrence. Korda, on the other hand, is so desperately in love with Lawrence that it made me laugh out loud every now and then. (And there should be a warning for the rape and later kinky sex chapters, but I guess we don't warn for real life.)

Grade: B

Originally posted in 2011

Moonstruck Madness, Laurie McBain

Lord is this a dumb romance novel. Sabrina is the granddaughter of a Scottish lord and then he gets killed by the English and she and her little brother and older sister (who has the Sight) have to go live in a house in England but they're neglected by their father so Sabrina becomes a highwayman. Sure, why not? And then she robs this big angry dude named Lucien (of course that's his name) and he vows to figure out who she really is. Many spoilers follow. 

So he sets a trap and she gets caught and he realizes she's a chick and nurses her back to health with lots of sex, but then he offers to make her his mistress because he doesn't know she's the daughter of a Marquis, so she runs away and then they meet up later and he thinks she's whoring around with everyone AND MEANWHILE his grandmother will only let him inherit if he get married but he has two evil cousins plotting his death who murder the fiancee he didn't like anyway. Meanwhile Sabrina's dad finds out she's hot and tries to sell her off to this creepy old man and Lucien decides to ruin her whore-y good time and makes out with her to ruin that deal and she's like, "THANKS A LOT, NOW WE'RE ALL GOING TO STARVE IN THE STREETS," so he decides to marry her himself but she can't have that so she runs away to go be a robber again. And he follows her and I forget why but at some point here his cousins attack and also she gets amnesia. AMNESIA. Obviously she forgets that she hated him so he marries her and they have like, 6 idyllic months together before she remembers and hates him and has his baby and then they get madder and madder at each other because they both think the other one is whoring around and it's like the worst version of Gone with the Wind ever, and then her little brother finds out there's treasure in Scotland so the two of them ride off and her husband follows and one page from the end they finally realize they love each other. (I didn't even mention the sister's ridiculous subplot with her visions.) Lord this was silly, but as airplane reading it wasn't bad, even if it was weird to have to switch my book to airplane-safe mode.

Grade: C

Originally posted 2011

In the Bleak Midwinter, Julia Spencer-Fleming

This book was slightly weird to read because it takes place not very far from where I grew up. I know what a kill is and I knew most of the places they visited. I also recognized the rural poverty the book talks about, which was uncomfortable. This is a murder mystery and the beginning of a romance between the local sheriff and the new (woman) priest in a small town in upstate New York. There was one chapter I had to skim through because after ten different warnings that her car was unprepared for winter in the Adirondacks Clare still drove off to help someone in a snow storm and it was so obvious that it was going wrong that I couldn't bear to read it. But it turned out not to be quite as dumb as I was fearing. On the other hand I had a lot of trouble with the burgeoning romance because the sheriff is married, and I know it goes on slowly through lots of other books, but I'm not sure there's a way to resolve that without making me mad at one character or the other.

Grade: B

Originally posted 2011

Anathem, Neal Stephenson

I don't know where to begin. This is a fascinating, weird, amazing book that throws together a billion different ideas from Plato's ideal forms to Schrodinger's Cat and Occam's Razor and the way light particles can be everywhere at once until they are observed. It takes place on a distant planet where society has split into seculars and those who live in cloisters and study math and science. It's full of made up words but they're all so close to understandable that it's not hard to follow, although if you haven't studied physics or philosophy I imagine it's confusing. Stephenson builds worlds like no one's business, and the first half the book is mostly just that. It was so interesting and well-done that I would happily have read history books just about the Third Sack and the Harbingers and the Terrible Events. The second half of the book is about what happens when thing start to happen in the secular world. There's some action adventure and some hard scifi at the end. Now and then Stephenson gets so caught up describing things and how they work that I skimmed but in general it was so damn fascinating that I blasted through 800 pages in about four days. (It helps that I've been too sick to leave the house since Friday.) I think I like the Baroque Cycle better, but it's been so long I might have to re-read that and check to be sure.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2011

How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe, Charles Yu

I read this whole weird, baffling, lovely book in one day and I'm still sorting it out in my head. Our narrator is a time machine repair man in a science fictional universe that's only 93% actually built, so there are areas and characters that aren't entirely fleshed out. Time travel depends mostly on changing your tenses (this is science FICTION, after all) but really the book is about a guy who misses his father. Time travel, he explains eventually, is the idea that right now you're experiencing the present and remembering the past. All you have to do is experience the past while remembering the present and voila. The narrator tells us that most people rent a recreational time travel device to go visit the worst day of their lives and then break the machine because they can't fix that experience, but of course he's trying to use his to find his father. 

I was expecting a much twistier twist ending, but instead the book is mostly a meditation on regret and how much you can accidentally hurt your family without ever really understanding them. And at the same time it's full of sci-fi jokes, particularly about Star Wars. It's not really a book about time travel, it's more a philosophy thesis written as a novel. I think I loved it, but I'd have to re-read it to be sure.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2010

Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett

Still working my way (deliberately slowly) through the Tiffany Aching books. I really like her, and I really dislike Annagramma. Reading the first couple I suspect that if I lived in Discworld I'd be a witch, but I bet most people who read these books feel that way, too. I thought the Wintersmith was pretty sweet, and just happened to be reading this book as a blizzard hit, so Tiffany can feel free to come take care of that any time she'd like. I love the Feegles although I don't quite understand the bit with the cheese, and while I quite like Roland I have never 100% bought any "romance" Pratchett's written. (And Tiffany shouldn't need saving, she's awesome.)

The scenes with Granny Weatherwax and the kitten, by the way, were clearly written while spying on my dad, who has, in fact, named a kitten, "Hey you!" 

Grade: B

Originally posted 2010

The Reformed Vampire Support Group, Catherine Jinks

I'm making my way through the ALA's list of top 10 YA novels, (except I keep skipping ones that are written in the present tense or about teenage suicide). This one was great. Set in Australia it's kind of an anti-Twilight story; vampires are listless, tired, often sick, and can't do anything fun like go out or meet people. Nina, our heroine, has published a couple of books about a kick-ass vampire out of sheer boredom because her real life as a vampire is so miserable. She is stuck with the same group of vampires bitching about their lives every Tuesday night and has been for 30 years. The only people she gets to talk to are the local priest who runs the support group, and her mom. Then someone kills a member of their group, and Nina is forced to try and be the brave, smart, daring vampire she's only ever written about. 

There is a very sweet little romance, some moral debate over when (or if) it's ever okay to kill anyone, some terrible bad guys, and a lot of super annoying background vampires (and other things, too) that I had a little bit of trouble telling apart because I read it so fast. But if I were a teenager THIS would be a vampire story I'd actually enjoy and identify with, and I am totally going to read the sequel when it comes out; The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group.

Grade: B

Originally posted 2010

Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

This is a book about a deeply unhappy family, how they came to be unhappy, and how their unhappiness makes them treat each other. It has a sort of happy ending, although I would have liked one more wrap-up section with Joey, because teenage marriages based on cheating and misery don't usually go well. The narrative voice is really interesting and I liked the way the beginning of the book basically tells you everything that's going to happen because I'm the type to get confused during a sprawling three generation book. Selfish people make me really unhappy, so there were a bunch of passages about family interaction that made me wince and almost walk away.

Every time anyone used the word "freedom," whether they were talking about cheating on each other, dying, saving the South American birds, or the invasion of Iraq, I was I kept wanting to underline things, as if some English professor was going to jump out from behind a bush and demand I write a 20 page essay on the way "Freedom" affected each member of the Berglund family and whether Franzen is ultimately arguing that freedom is good or bad for them. (...bad? I think?) I came away with the same feeling I had in college lit seminars; I know I understood the book as a story about Patty and Walter's marriage. I am not sure I understood all the themes and meanings and I am going to have to ask some of my smarter friends to explain what I missed.

Grade: C

Originally posted 2010

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson

This book suffered for not being what I wanted it to be; a nice seaside romance between two mismatched characters filled with witty British people. Sorry, book. Instead the Major is stuffy and full of himself, and his family are AWFUL; so horrible that i couldn't understand why he hadn't just walked out on them years ago, particularly his son. Anyway, the Major falls in love with the widow Mrs. Ali, who runs the local shop, and her family is awful too; they give away her books and hide her letters. Meanwhile all the people in town make snide remarks about her having to use the servants entrance and other hideously classist stuff which is probably realistic but not at all what I want in a novel about falling in love. I spent the whole thing angry and at the end I wanted Mrs. Ali to set her entire family on fire instead of inviting them to the wedding. Bah.

Grade: D

Originally posted 2010

John Dies at the End, David Wong

Comedy horror is REALLY hard to pull off. The first third of this book is more horror, and I was totally creeped out; then the horror part settles down and it's kind of funny, mostly when John (the narrator's unreliable best friend) is around. After a while the unspeakable horrors just get kind of dumb, and I felt like the ending wasn't nearly big enough, but damn if I didn't just check to make sure no one was inside the TV watching me with their hands pressed against the other side of the screen just now. Ack. Apparently there will be sequels? Apparently I will read them.

Grade: B

Originally posted 2010

The Grand Sophy, Georgette Heyer

Everyone told me this was the best Heyer, and they were totally right. This is the platonic ideal of Regency romance. Sophy is somehow the greatest manic pixie dream girl ever and yet totally wonderful and lovable and perfection. She swoops in, is hilarious, fixes everyone up into the right couples, steals horses, shoots people, and is never obnoxious or eye-rolling. She also never has to be humiliated For Her Own Good, which I find often in books about super competent women. The side characters are hilarious, the couples are all good for each other, the plot ends with a giant operatic "I love it when a plan comes together" scene when everyone converges on the same place, and the hero is both brooding and stern AND hilarious and wonderful, and he is never taken in by Sophy's plans. This is just great. I would like to read this book a thousand times.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2010

Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld

Cool! Alternate WWI where the British splice together animals to make flying whale airships and the Germans build giant walking robots to fight them. Sheltered-little-prince learns to be a regular boy isn't my favorite trope but I liked the way our two main characters decided to be friends instead of fighting, and I appreciated that the whole "THERE ARE TERRIBLE SECRETS WE CAN'T EVER TELL YOU BECAUSE THEY ARE ABOUT YOU" thing was basically explained and went away. I also wish there had been more background characters to flesh out the world. There was a LOT about the technology and not much about the other people, and I'm more about characters than world building. I loved the lady scientist, though. Grumpy lady scientists rule.

Grade: B

Originally posted in 2010