Ivy
I need to read the original Dewey book the next time I need a good cry, cause this one certainly worked.
Delightful fluff. This is one of my favorite of the five hundred kingdoms novels, actually. I enjoy twisting fairy tales around, and this is one where they aggressively play with the fairy tales and The Tradition to make it do what they want.
Murderbot has FRIENDS! After all that fussing and agitation over bots not having friends, how stupid, bots can't have friends, humans are Dumb and Awful and bots can't be trusted...
Poor Murderbot trying so hard not to have All The Feels and yet is still having All The Feels.
This entire series is just the evolution of Murderbot from pretending to care to pretending not to care when, in fact, it cares very much. I think someone needs to give it a kitten and a nice little shack in the woods and come visit once a week to talk about shows.
I remember reading this one probably twenty years ago, and was delighted to discover it on the shelf! I'd misremembered it as being a Mary Downing Hahn novel, as she was the big ghost story writer back then. The ending/comeuppance is pretty satisfying-nothing to write home about, but a solid story.
I suspect this was a hard-hitting, maybe groundbreaking novel years ago. Now, it's old news and vaguely unsatisfying. There's a whole heap of loose ends, and the book itself pretty much just exists as a scaffold around the message the author wants to convey.
Cool, now I'm pissed. If you're using something that came from a person for science stuff-or using a person themselves to freaking experiment on-you explain until they understand, and you get permission to do so. This is like, Ethics 101. And if there's a Major Scientific Breakthrough from what you took from that person, you may not be obligated to compensate them, but frankly you're kind of a monster if you don't. Even the most basic human decency says you let them know, and you don't leave their family to die in poverty while you get awards and grants.
Could Adam Silvera please write a book that doesn't make me cry? That'd be a really nice change. I have read several of his so far and they're all great and they all hurt so much.
Of the Bayern books, this one is the hardest for me to finish reading, even though it's a reread. I enjoy Hale's system of magics, the concept of having the language of an inanimate or natural phenomenon and thus being able to ‘speak' with it. For a whole lot of reasons, though, people speaking feels very personal to me, and Rin's journey always makes me take a deep breath and step back from the story for a bit.
Yay for sad good magic books! Which is...basically every Bayern book. Goose Girl always rips my whole heart into several pieces and then stomps on it a few times. So of course this is a comfort reread, right.
Wow.
I read this while whispering “Oh no” to myself, in horror and fascination, and then at one point I looked at how much I had left and it was 50 pages to go and it became a much louder “OH NO” because how are we going to find out what happens in that little space? But it's a great space feelings book, and one of the best I've read with regards to the dangers and problems of space travel (or of sending young people as astronauts, the way so many books do!).
Comfort reread. Oddly, I love the hell out of this book, but it's also one of the Very Few books where I really like the movie better? And I don't think that's just because I saw the movie first. They're both spectacular in different ways-Stardust the movie feels like the spiritual successor to The Princess Bride, with delightfully strange characters and really fun quotes, and Stardust the book is full on fantasy magic land where the major conflicts just sort of Resolve Themselves by the people involved being smart enough to give up when needed.
The one and only not sad book from the Books of Bayern series. I really love the silly character moments...basically, Razo, I love Razo. The story is charming, and the character development for pretty much everyone is spectacular.
This is so brilliantly researched and written. I cannot fathom the amount of work and energy and time that went into making the book happen. It does kind of break my heart that McNamara didn't live to see the criminal she was hunting be caught and sentenced.
A good read, but to be honest, I was looking for the story of running a trauma cleaning business, not necessarily the history of the woman who runs it. We spend at least every other chapter going through this woman's story, and while it's an incredible life...I don't really care that much. This is more of a biography than about the business she runs, and I feel it's a bit disingenuous to not say that.
Comfort reread. This is one of the very, very rare books with a movie adaptation that I actually like both the book and the movie, despite heavy changes made to the movie. The book is a slower pace, which makes for a great comfort read, and it's got so many sweet little moments.
Hm. Read a book that's uncomfortably prescient and fairly terrifying, given our current situation. Gave me some solid secondhand anxiety, again, reasonable given the world in 2021. I enjoyed it, but was glad to close the book and return to the slightly-less-terrifying real world.
Oh there's a sequel? Well now I gotta read it!
Great character development, terrifying story, and I am very worried about how this is all going to end, because of course there's another book, and of course I'm going to read it.
Mary Higgins Clark continues to be an argument for letting your readers/watchers/consumers of media follow the breadcrumbs deliberately set out for them, rather than changing everything up in the name of surprise. I saw who the bad guy was from less than halfway through, but the journey, watching all the characters figure it out, getting exactly why they did it, that's the fun of it. I don't need a book to blindside me (though Clark does leave some great false trails and I have been tricked before), I just need an engaging story.
The awkward baby gays continue to be awkward and I am delighted, even if I have to close my eyes and cringe every so often. Usually at the fanfic. Klune is very good at making me glad that I am no longer a teenager.
It looks like, from the acknowledgements, there's gonna be one more book in this series, and I need it NOW. So so much happened in this one, and it was fun and good but now I need to know what the heck is going to happen next, because that was a whole lot of plot for one novel.
I bounced around for a solid couple minutes and ran over to the friend also reading this book to squeal “Drag queen superhero!!” in absolute delight when that happened. That may genuinely be my favorite character so far. Precious.
Awwww! I audibly screeched a few times in delight. This was such a fun read and I'm glad I snagged a copy!
I honestly think Weir is the best science fiction writer I have ever encountered. I know next to nothing about actual science, and he gives clear, clever explanations for just about everything happening in his stories, to the point that even I can understand what's going on. Most of the sci-fi I read, I mentally substitute “magic” for any sciencey thing happening. Making an explanation clear, and funny, and engaging? That is a hell of a talent.
I don't like knowing other people hurt but it's nice not feeling alone, and I appreciate the giggles I got reading.
Relatedly, I had someone ask me for a copy of Furiously Happy earlier and they said it had “a kind of demented fox on the cover” and excuse you that is Rory and he is a RACCOON thankyouverymuch and he is excited to see you!
How many hands can I put this in because I want it in all of them. This and Legendborn. This book was such a heartbreak. It's a great work of fiction but there's more real here than not tbh and it's fucking spectacular and it should make you sad. And it should make you really damn angry.
Anders writes such pretty stories. I'm not usually a fan of short stories, I like getting to know the characters and befriend them, but these worked well. I would absolutely read a longer book of most of them, but I'm happy with it as is.