Teija
As much as my cat allergy means this particular Lumberjanes adventure would have me sneezing and crying the whole time, it nevertheless was yet another adventure I would have happily joined! Love the Lumberjanes being welcoming to everyone who wishes to join, too.
This is a completely riveting book about a part of WWII history that, for a long time, went undiscussed. Liza Mundy does a fantastic job in conveying the skill and the integrity in the women who held these extremely important jobs. She also does a great job in showing us the lives of these women before, during, and after the war, and how policies of the time robbed them of the recognition they deserved–and often, kept them from pursuing careers using the skills they developed in the war.
Liza Mundy also managed to do something really impressive, in that she had me on the edge of my seat, absolutely riveted, at events that I know extremely well. I am a WWII historian, so the “how this happened” stuff is old hat to me. Yet by shedding light on the behind-the-scenes efforts that went on to break ciphers and codes that were integral to the war, she has added an entirely new perspective on the war effort during events like D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. It's thoroughly fascinating material.
Oof, the stakes, they were SO DAMN HIGH. And this book definitely changes the dynamics of Fae as far as October is concerned. So many things in this got visceral reactions from me and genuinely had me on edge. Great installment in a great series.
I listened to this in audiobook format which was a great choice, as all the readers are Irish, and I'm really fond of audiobooks read by people who have lovely accents. Each POV got its own narrator, which also distinguished when the POV changed each time.
The story is overall one of those that relied intensely on withholding major plot items deliberately to create suspense. The story begins at the end, and slowly over the course of the novel, the pieces fall into place and you learn what actually happened and why. I do wonder how interesting this story would have been had it been told in order – surely beginning with Alice's attack and unraveling why it happened was a better choice than ending a novel with it. So for the choices the author made, the out-of-order nature of the story was probably necessary for it to work overall.
This book also suffers a little bit from unlikeable characters – there are two that I was genuinely fond of, and neither of them had a particularly good story arc for themselves, but were rather side characters that were unfortunately caught in the web of Oliver's story.
Overall I think I enjoyed it as much for the narrators on the audiobook as I did for the story itself, which was perfectly fine as suspense thrillers go, but not overwhelmingly good or unpredictable. I did find that I figured out some of the “twists” before they came, but it was overall still enjoyable. I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone, though.
This book has a heaping dose of unapologetic lady rage in it but it's also poorly paced and on a few occasions the author is unnecessarily vague for reasons that don't seem to pay off. I found the ending a little disappointing, but the unapologetic lady rage saved it from being a total loss.
It was a really quick read, I'll give it that.
This is a compelling memoir from a young woman who suffered incredible trauma and tragedy, and who then learned to navigate America as a young black woman. A truly unique set of experiences that sheds light on the realities of life in Africa, the truth of immigration to the US, the experience of growing up black-but-not-American-black in New York, and the stress of coping with PTSD and depression as a result of trauma in college. She sheds light on cultural differences and common misconceptions she ran into during her young life. Truly a captivating read.
This was a perfectly lovely little story, but when it ended I honestly felt like this was just Act One. I thought Gailey did a great job introducing this AU America and the characters in the story. One of them is without gender and Gailey committed to the singular “they,” so that representation was really lovely to see. I really wanted more, in the end, so this ultimately wound up feeling a little unsatisfying as a completed story, but I really love the world Gailey built and the people she filled it with. Looking forward to further stories from here.
This was a quick listen. I got the audiobook for free for Indie Bookstore Day. The lessons are all pretty basic but the stories Adm. McRaven uses to explain the bits of advice he is giving are all interesting and give you insight into how he became the decorated officer that he became. His life has included incredible hardship and incredible privilege and you can see that his training and upbringing gave him an incredibly strong foundation. Well worth the short time it took to take it in.
This third installment in the Great Library series really upped the ante in every possible way. I was riveted from beginning to end, and on top of a heaping dose of raised stakes, the author also spent a good amount of time ensuring that by the time you get to the cliffhanger at the end, you're invested in every last member of this group of people, even the ones who have up to this point been harder to nail down or really resonate with. In prior installments I hadn't cared as much about Dario or Thomas as the other characters around them did, but at this point I would shield every last one of them from Greek Fire myself.
Also, that cliffhanger was one hell of a doozy. I found myself scrambling to get the next installment immediately, there was no way I could sit there and let it hang like that. I can't wait to continue.
There was a little bit of superfluous side drama that was honestly unnecessary and dragged one section out a little, and I wasn't impressed by the resolution. The author didn't honestly seed that well enough that it didn't feel like a random decision she made at the end and not the goal all along. But overall this made a long drive go by faster, and sometimes that's all I can ask for.
Selkies and werewolves and interdimensional portals and pirate ships! What more could I ask for?
This picked up right where book 1 left off and hit the ground running. The characters got so much more complex and delicious in this installment of the series, and the events of this book are exciting and intriguing. I can't wait to see where this goes.
I don't know exactly what I was expecting when I started this book, but I got a whole lot more than I could have bargained for. Trevor Noah's book is at once educational, insightful, heartfelt, and hilarious. He is a master at starting with a funny personal anecdote and using it to tell you about important realities of life during and after apartheid in South Africa and the hard realities of being poor and black. But at its core, this book is a love letter to his mother. She is a headstrong, independent, and fiercely devoted mother, and the foundation of this book is the love that Trevor feels for her. It shows in every page.
Do yourself a favor and listen to this in audiobook format. Trevor reads it himself, and as he is a South African polyglot, it adds a lot of depth to the text. He peppers the book with phrases in Zulu, Xossa, and Afrikaans. It's worth the listen.
Aiden Graves takes a good 1/4 of this book to even start opening up, but when he finally does... hot damn. What a lead. I love the marriage of convenience setup here because there's no way these two characters would ever have spent the time together to actually seed true romance without it. But when it finally worked out, it was fantastic. I really liked Vanessa, but Aiden was the true star of the thing. His arc from surly scowling grunting man to an actual viable boyfriend/husband was really well done.
A little slow to get going but high quality nonetheless. Looking forward to continuing in this series!
I'm a bit of an Easy Company junkie, and I've come to take quite a liking to the stories of Bill Guarnere in particular (the man has a way with words!) so a whole book by him and Heffron and I was more than excited to pick it up. There's a lot of new material in this book, from their own experience – stuff that didn't make it into Band of Brothers, or Beyond Band of Brothers, or any of the other collections that have come out about the Easy men – and once again it was a pleasure to be able to read it and hear about their experiences in WWII. These are incredible men, simply incredible.
Look. It's a great deal of fun and Willy Wonka is hilarious, but a big whack of nothing happens in this book. They go up into space, do one thing, then come back down and proceed to first sincerely screw up and then, with complicated science fiction frippery, undo the screw up, the end.
They return to essentially where they start and I'm not entirely sure anyone learns a damn thing from any of it?
My kid loved it though, so here we are.
This one's main plot wasn't as thrilling as the ones prior, but there's still really good character stuff in it.
Also McGuire nearly gave me a heart attack in this one.
I finished this almost two weeks ago and I'm still thinking about it so that's good. It also hurt my feelings.
I want to return to this series and finish it because I am SO intrigued by the politics and the worldbuilding and the characters but I'm taking a break because of said hurt feelings hahaha. It's great writing and plotting. I just have an ache.
It took me a REALLY long time to get into this book–it definitely starts very slowly, and I almost put it down. But right about when I was ready to do that, things finally started moving along, and I really got into the story by the end. I think it's an okay beginning to a series that shows a lot of thoughtful worldbuilding and a sincere attempt at creating a fantasy world that isn't just reliant on the usual tropes. I'm interested in seeing where this goes.
Wow. Just wow. This is the best of this series thus far. I'm honestly at a loss for words, I can't truly describe how much I loved this one. Suffice to say that in a series that has hit a lot of “yes” buttons for me, this one equipped a heavy mallet to smash on that “yes” button extra hard. I absolutely love to see a protagonist who is overweight and whose ONLY issues with being overweight are based in the fact that it makes other people treat her like crap. She isn't self-loathing, she isn't portrayed as having something wrong with her for being overweight, she just IS overweight, and it's just a part of who she is. It's not a flaw. It's not a weakness. Seanan McGuire is very quickly becoming an Author Who Can Do No Wrong in my eyes. It is so clear that she is an empathetic, thoughtful person, and it really shows in her writing that she has a beautiful heart.