Off Base (Out of Uniform #1), Annabeth Albert

I really enjoyed this book. Zack is a SEAL from a very religious family who doesn't want anyone to guess that he's gay but does a relatively terrible job of pretending not to be. He ends up with a friend of a friend as a roommate -- Pike, who is out and loud about it. Of course they fall in love and start a clandestine relationship, and of course this hurts Pike's feelings terribly, being treated like a dirty secret. But Zack's struggle feels sympathetic, too; if he comes out he's going to lose his family, and there are guys in his SEAL unit who aren't going to be cool about it. (There are, of course, others who will, and who keep sort of hinting Hey Zack, if there's SOMETHING you want to TELL US it would be FINE, but Zack is shy and keeps missing it.)

The happy ending is very satisfying, and Zack's resolution feels pretty realistic and hopeful. (Pike, who is offered a job as a professor straight out of grad school, feels less so to me, but that's maybe because I have lots of friends who have really struggled finding work in academia.)

The beginning is super abrupt and picks up feeling almost like I had missed something. I know it's a spin off from another book, but I've rarely felt so disoriented at the beginning of a book. Once it flashes forward, though, it settles down.

And I have already pre-ordered the next one in this series, which looks amaaaazing.

Grade: B
#6 in 2017

Wanted, A Gentleman, KJ Charles

I loved this book! It's one of my favorite by Charles ever (although nothing will ever knock Think of England out of the top spot, I don't think). It's a romance between Theo Swann, who is a fairly shady guy who runs a newspaper in historical London where people put ads to find romance (or at least someone), and Martin St. Vincent, a former slave who's been freed and has made good as a gentleman. Or at least as good as he can. A young woman who is a friend of Martin's runs off with a jerk she met through Theo's newspaper, and Martin makes Theo help him get her back.

Both Martin and Theo are deeply sympathetic and interesting characters, both are struggling in different ways, and both make each other better. If I had a complaint it would be that the third act twist is telegraphed really obviously, and I would have liked it one percent better if I had been surprised. But overall the whole book is a delight and it's going on my "reread on a bad day" list.

Grade: A
#5 in 2017

His Bloody Project, Graeme Macrae Burnet

I got 1/3 into it and didn't feel compelled to finish. I'm a history teacher, I spend plenty of time with unreliable narrators and real primary sources, and this didn't feel clever enough or original enough to keep me reading. Maybe there is an amazing twist in the back half, but I don't care enough to find out. The narrator felt like the worst kind of cliche, driven to murder by a mother who died and a sister who was raped, and he's so special and smart even though he didn't go on in school. True crime would have been more interesting, or a narrator I hadn't read about before. DNF

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Natasha Pulley

I liked so much of this book so much. I loved the setting and the writing and Thaniel and Mori, and I loved the vaguely steampunk sci-fi premise (which I won't spoil). Until about 80% in I thought this was going to be one of my favorite books of the year, maybe ever, rivaling my love of Cloud Atlas. (Big portions of this read like a much more accessible Ten Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.) It's wonderful.

But god I hated that the only major female character a) hates other women for not being as smart and scientific as she is and b) mainly exists to try and ruin the men's lives and be wrong about things. It's an old plot trope, the jealous woman trying to destroy the romance, and it really spoiled the book for me. I can't recommend a book where the only woman is a plot device and a monster.

Grade: C
#4 in 2017

The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer, Skip Hollandsworth

This book is fine, but it reads like it wants badly to be The Devil in the White City. It's never gripping enough, the murders are never horrifying enough, and the fact that no one was ever caught or even really suspected leads the author to speculate wildly with no conclusions. The writing is a little bit weak. The sheriff realizes his deputy is "about as deep as one of those tacks on the board," -- no, he didn't. It's not as bad as the thing I hate most in historical non-fiction; made up conversations between characters. But man, it's not great, either. The author wants so badly for this to be fascinating and keeps dragging Jack the Ripper into the story for comparison (he was only a couple of years later) but frankly, I wasn't convinced by the evidence presented that the "Midnight Assassin" killings were all done by the same person, let alone by a serial killer, and certainly not by Jack the Ripper. Just go read The Devil in the White City (and then try to sleep, ever again). Grade: C #3 in 2017

The Summer Palace, C.S. Pacat

This was... not what I was hoping for. The Captive Prince series ends abruptly, with lots of loose ends; I was hoping for a happy, loving coda where they do at least a little bit of explaining how the hell they plan to change the culture of both countries they rule and combine their rule and there is almost none of that. And the dynamic between Damen and Laurent, the very best part of the series (which occasionally makes no sense, but I let it go because Damen! and Laurent!! are in love!!) doesn't feel right. Laurent is too toothless, too sweet and syrupy and tenderly helpless, Damen enjoys Laurent being sweet too much. The whole series is based around the idea that Damen loves Laurent for his sharp angles, his ruthless plotting, his cunning brain. Giving us an epilogue where Laurent is none of those things and Damen thinks it's really sexy is weird for both of them. Gotta be honest -- there's post-series fic I think is much better.

Grade: C
#2 in 2017

The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made, Greg Sestero, Tom Bissell

I read 95 books last year! That's not bad. :D

Super interesting -- this sheds a lot of light on The Room and Tommy Wiseau. There's something slightly weird about the narration, since the author posits himself as Tommy's only real friend, maybe in the whole world, and the proceeds to tell us a) all the terrible things Tommy has said or done and b) all the ways he was dependent on Tommy. It doesn't totally feel like both of those things can be true. Plus the whole thing is slightly odd, because Tommy is an unreliable narrator about everything, so we have layers of unreliable narrators telling us this story. Still, it's funny and oddly touching at the end.

Grade: B

#1 in 2017