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
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Wednesday, March 30, 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
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
Tuesday, March 29, 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.
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.
Monday, March 28, 2016
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
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
Saturday, March 26, 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):
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:
Plan to read (in something resembling this order):
All I Am(podcast)Because of Miss Bridgerton (pre-order)And Be a Villain (Nero Wolfe)Her Every Wish (to buy - whoops)A Gentleman's Position (pre-order)Tigana (GGK)- Capturing the Silken Thief (on kindle)
Trouble in Triplicate (NW)- Console Wars (ok)
The Ringed Castle (Dunnett re-read)In the Best Families (NW)- Danubia (giant non-fiction book on my bookshelf taking up space)
Veronica Mars: Mr. Kiss and Tell (ok)- Curtains for Three (NW)
- Beguiled (ok)
- Murder by the Book (NW)
- The Girl Next Door (ok)
- Prisoner's Base (NW)
- The Other Side of Midnight (podcast)
- Triple Jeopardy (NW)
- The Hanging Tree: A Rivers of London Novel (pre-order -- best guess??)
- Courtiers (non-fiction paperback)
- The Corrupt Comte (ok)
- The Golden Spiders (NW)
- Checkmate (Dunnett re-read)
- The Black Mountain (NW)
- The Bohemian and the Banker (ok)
- Three Men Out (NW)
- Scrap Metal (ok)
- Vermeer's Hat (ok non-fiction)
- Before Midnight (nw)
- Under Heaven (GGK)
- Might As Well Be Dead (NW)
- The Slipstream Con (ok)
- The Closer You Get (ok)
- Three Witnesses (NW)
- Spice and Smoke (ok)
- Heat Trap: The Plumber's Mate (ok)
- If Death Ever Slept (NW)
- Driving Her Crazy (ok)
- The Scandalous Lady W (paperback non-fiction)
- Three for the Chair (NW)
- Dirty Thoughts (ok)
- And Four to Go (NW)
- River of Stars (GGK)
- Champagne for One (NW)
- The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets (ok)
- Plot it Yourself (NW)
- Trade Me (WHY HAVEN'T I READ THIS YET)
- Three at Wolfe's Door (NW)
- Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years (non-fiction ok)
- Too Many Clients (NW)
Thursday, March 24, 2016
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.)
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
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
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
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