Books we read in 2023

Post by **Mike** » Wed Aug 30, 2023 9:22 pm

The Haunting of Hill House -- Shirley Jackson
Damn! Shirley Jackson can write! It's 1959 and a researcher wants to take a group of people for an extended stay in the reportedly haunted Hill House so they can make naturalistic observations and gather evidence (hopefully) of the paranormal.

For being a 60+ year old horror story, it is still fully engaging. Jackson is a master of creeping tension, and this book is chock full of incredible atmosphere. I was expecting there to be a lot of parts that just drag, because horror tropes that she pioneered would be old hat by now, but that wasn't the case. I loves the exploration of these characters and watching them become more complex as our heroine learns more about them. I enjoyed the contrast of horror and light-heartedness. And I thought I knew how it would end, and I did not. I got to ride that tension right up to the final line. It was good.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Sep 02, 2023 9:40 am

All Boys Aren't Blue -- George M. Johnson
Another one from the banned books lists. This is a coming of age memoir of a queer Black man coming to terms with the various aspects of his identity from kindergarten through college. Friggin fascinating. And the audiobook is read by the author, so while he's not a professional reader, the immediacy of him relating his own lived experience is very powerful.

His stated intent is to provide visibility for the queer Black community and especially to provide a model and information that he wishes had been available to him as a youth. As such he is brutally honest about his own feelings and failings and there are descriptions of both the sexually abusive situations he encountered as well as his first fumbling consensual encounters. And while these are not the primary focus of the book, they are part of his whole picture, and appropriate for the teen audience this is primarily intended for.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Sep 02, 2023 2:14 pm

I am curious to read this - banned everywhere! Makes you wonder what you're missing! I don't want to miss out.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Sep 05, 2023 9:44 pm

A Memory Called Empire -- Arkady Martine

Kyle wrote: ↑Tue Jul 18, 2023 3:20 pm I got this book from my library app because it won a Hugo award and it looked like a meaty space-opera that was the first in a series. Wowza. First- it's not a space opera, but it is sci-fi. Second- this book freaking blew me away. The story involves the new ambassador from a space station serving on the galactic empire home city. The conceit of the book is that the space-stationers have secret technology that allows them to implant the memories of one person into another. They use these "lines" of memory repeatedly to preserve important knowledge from one generation to the next. When the ambassador gets to her new assignment, it immediately dips into heavy political shifting alliances and palace intrigue. And that's what the whole book is about. It's all about politics, diplomacy and duplicity. And it's so good. I don't want to give any more of the plot away- what I've said is in the first chapters. The writing is outstanding. The universe-building is amazing. And the characters are so good. I loved it. I loved everything about it. If you want a western dressed up as sci-fi- this isn't for you. But if you read Dune and loved all the different factions vying to take advantage of each other in pursuit of vainglorious prestige- then this is a must-read. I loved it so much.

I can't argue with anything Kyle said. It's all politics and intrigue and maneuvering, but the voice and viewpoint are firmly rooted in the main character Mahit. Her mind never stops, and she narrates her train of thought non-stop, so that we, the audience, get a full explanation of what every message and action and conversation might mean. And somehow it never becomes tedious. I was fully engaged... totally committed. Loved it.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Sep 09, 2023 5:43 pm

Yellowface -- R. F. Kuang
Rebecca Kuang wrote one of my favorite books of the year so far... Babel. So I was super-excited to pick up her latest. Yellowface is wildly different from Babel, and also extremely good. But it is one that unsettled me at times, and I feel like I can't judge it properly without letting it simmer with me for a while.

June Hayward is an author with one mediocre novel under her belt. She is jealous of her friend Athena Liu who is wildly successful. When Athena dies unexpectedly, June is in possession of the only copy of Athena's latest novel, and we all see where this is going...

The story is told from June's point of view and is a roller coaster, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. It could have been a comedy, and it was almost horror or maybe a thriller, and at one point it was definitely Breaking Bad. And throughout it all, I either couldn't put it down or else I was so uncomfortable that I didn't know if I wanted to continue. So while there were parts I didn't necessarily enjoy, it wasn't because I didn't care, but because it made me feel stuff (mostly anxiety). Uncomfortable but impressive.

But here's the other thing, the book is called Yellowface, and it is very much about cultural appropriation and who's allowed to tell what stories and how, but even more than that, Kuang, as a Chinese author, uses the tale of a white woman's motivations in stealing a novel about Chinese oppression from her dead Chinese friend as an indictment of the modern publishing industry. Of it's handling of women and especially BIPOC women.

It's good.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Sep 15, 2023 9:49 pm

The Goblin Emperor -- Katherine Addison
Read this! It is 400 pages of overblown, high-fantasy court intrigue where everyone has flowery five-syllable names and there's weird made up words for every noble title, every occupation, every item of status, and on and on and on. So much that I couldn't keep track of more than 40% of it, and I wound up having to rely on context in each scene to remember which of the various Osmans this one was or whether this particular suffix indicated male or female or whether this woman should correctly carry Joson or Josoni after her name to indicate the difference between the dead emperor's ex-wife and his widow and what level of respect a speaker's choice of title confers. And on and on and on.

AND I LOVED EVERY MOMENT OF IT!

So well done. It's a Victorian era-ish setting where magic works, and hydrogen filled airships ply the skies.Now enter Maia who is half elf and half goblin and suddenly finds himself emperor of all the Elflands and he is lost and alone, trying to find his way. It's awesome.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Sep 18, 2023 8:47 pm

The Last Girl on Earth -- Alexandra Blogier
I can't even. Seriously. This was so terribly not for me.

The Abdelorans came to an Earth ravaged by climate change and decided that humans were inherently cruel and evil and did not deserve this planet. They released "The Bomb" that eventually killed all of humanity. They then took over and colonized the planet. 17 years later Li is the last human on earth. Smuggled temporarily off planet as a baby, her adoptive Abdeloran parents raised her to blend in with Abdeloran society.

Fortunately, implanting a fake set of gills on her as an infant was all the disguise she needed. Plus intensive training and study her whole life, because humans aren't naturally as smart or strong. And when Abdelorans graduate high school, they are given a grueling weeks long military assessment that determines their position and rank for their mandatory military conscription. Cuz, oh yeah, despite their propaganda, it seems they are quite militaristic and imperial.

There's some dumb stuff in this premise, but there's also some real potential in it too. And the novel is pretty much a straightforward YA romance set against "if I don't score at the top of the exam, I'll never make officer and then my secret will be exposed." It doesn't really explore any of the other themes at all. And I get this was about teenage girl who feels different and isolated struggling to find her own identity , but you can can make more comment on the genocide and imperialism and colonization and toxic masculinity that is so very present here within the framework of a coming of age tale.

And I found many of the characters kind of underdeveloped, but I did like Li's relationship with her sister Zo.

The end of the novel took a sharp left turn that was very jarring, but it feels like it was setting up for a sequel that hasn't yet been written.

Not my bag.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Fri Sep 22, 2023 9:09 am

Amish Country Ransom- Mary Alford. The worst book I've ever finished. Read the summary here:

https://nerdprideradio.com/babble/viewt ... ?f=6&t=774

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Sep 22, 2023 1:16 pm

A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah Mass

I read a lot of books I don't put here, unfortunately, and I almost never get to read fiction. Sometimes I have a window of opportunity for fiction. If you have such a window rarely, do not use it to read this book. This book is kind of like The hunger games meets the vampire books about the sparkly vampires of the Northwest... Edward Cullen. I forget the name of that book series but I believe the author's first name was Stephanie. Maybe I really do have some sort of neurodegenerative disorder. It's where the vampire is all secret and stealthy and he loves the human woman and he sniffs her and her smell is so exciting... sniff sniff sniff. And that description is really making the book better than it was.

Anyway, in this other book about fairies, the human woman/teenager? is hungry and is in training to hunt and fight somewhat like in The hunger games. Then she meets her own brooding, sparkly vampire to save her from the lack of food, except in this case he's a fairy who lives in fairyland. Much like the dumb vampire books, The fairies might be too much for the humans in their full fairy form, kind of like Zeus needing to become a swan before he can mate with a human woman. If you mate with the fairy in the full form then everybody dies or something. Sometimes I feel like I'm chock full of excellent ideas for a romance novel and then I read what the ladies of today are reading as a romance novel and I realize, no. I don't know what gets these ladies off but whatever it is, It's not the sauce that sauces my chicken nuggets. I'm apparently the only one who likes that sauce. I don't know what the hell is wrong with this world. Those are the feelings I had after reading this book.

Post by **Mike** » Sun Sep 24, 2023 8:04 pm

Into the Heartless Wood -- Joanna Ruth Meyer
Simply brilliant. Gothic fantasy fairy tale-esque story in semi-Victorian world where we have trains and magic but no guns. At the edge of the Kingdom is a dark wood ruled by the evil forest witch. No one dares to even come close the wood, because the witch's daughters (think dryad sirens) lure people in and then ruthlessly slaughter anyone they can reach and harvest their souls. And then there is a boy and one of the sirens hesitates and it becomes a tale of what makes monsters, and can a monster ever not be a monster.

And it's beautiful. There's family and there's love and there's betrayal and there's loyalty and did I mention love?

Very high recommend.

Post by **Mike** » Sun Sep 24, 2023 8:18 pm

Nothing to See Here -- Kevin Wilson
Another absolute gem. Lillian and Madison, one poor and the other rich, were unlikely roommates and best friends for a year at an exclusive boarding school. Now 15 years later, Madison is married to a U.S. senator. The senator's ex-wife passed, and he now has custody of his 10 year old twins. Madison calls Lillian to help take care of the children. They need round the clock, discreet care, because when the twins become.upset, they burst into flame and tend to burn down everything around them.

And here's the magic... it's not a superhero story and it's not played for laughs. It is all treated very seriously.

But here's the REAL magic... these characters are all deep and real and well developed. And this is really about parenting and about privilege and about what people do to protect themselves. God, it is SO good. I loved this, and to the author's credit, I was shocked to find out it was written by a man. It was great.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Tue Oct 03, 2023 1:47 pm

The Way of Kings- Brandon Sanderson. You may have thought I stopped reading because I haven't posted a real book here in a while (I'm not counting Amish Country Ransom). Nope. I've just been reading this MASSIVE novel by Brandon Sanderson... AND I LOVE IT SOOOOO MUCH! Let me start by saying how daunting it is to read this. The audio book is about 45 hours long. It's the first in a series (the Stormlight Archives) of four books, with a fifth book coming out next year. Each book is even longer than the one before it. So why take on this Herculean task? A lawyer I work with has been raving about this first book forever. Tells me I would love it. Then Mike wrote a review for a novella that Sanderson cowrote with someone else. So I had a credit on audible and thought, "I'll try it just to see if it's something I like." And for the first ten hours of the book I struggled with it. I loved it, but I kept looking at how much was left and thinking, "Do I really want to listen to another 37 hours of this?" However, I decided that as long as I was really enjoying it, I'd keep with it. By hour 10, I didn't care how long it was because I wanted it to never end. It's like playing Skyrim for 140 hours and doing every non-generative sidequest and then not finishing the dragonborne missions because you don't want the game to end (I really did this). IT'S SO GOOD!

It's set in a fantasy world with medieval technology but there's some elements of magic and supernatural just intertwined into the everyday life and surroundings. I don't want to get into the details because it wouldn't make any sense to you and it would be spoilerish. But it's on a Game of Thrones level and a quasi-familiar feel of low-fantasy setting. But the world is so very deep. So developed. And you know there's so much more that may or may not be revealed, but with another 200 hours of books ahead of me after this, I suspect I'm going to find out. But the characters! You know I love character depths and had paper-thin characters with nonsensical motivations. This book has none of that. Every character... I mean EVERY character... has a deep backstory. And you would think with all this world and character building that it would be boring. Nope! It's keeps you engaged throughout the novel without any parts that felt like they were dragging- I kept waiting to find out what happened next. Technically, Sanderson is a very good writer, but not flowery and without unnecessary descriptions. But his storytelling is so masterful. He subverts expectations and then surpasses them and you really don't know what's going to happen. You stop trying to guess and just go along for the ride. And the writing is cinematic- you can see this powerful scenes as they're being laid bare before you and, on more than one occasion, I got chills just listening to it. I have two hundred other accolades I want to shower on this book, but this review is already too long. As evidence of how much I loved it, I'm going to start the next one immediately after this- and it's 50 hours long! Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Oct 03, 2023 8:05 pm

I will try a Sanderson novel after this year. I want to see what the fuss is about, but it is too big a commitment for my year of 100 books.

Post by **Mike** » Thu Oct 05, 2023 3:34 pm

The Archives of the Forgotten -- A.J. Hackwith
Sequel to Library of the Unwritten. I loved the first book, and I love this one. I will confess though that this one came at a bad time for me. Work's been busy, blah blah blah, and it took me nine days to get through this, because I just couldn't focus. I kept missing stuff and having to roll back. But then, for about the last quarter of the book, I got my shit together and was fully invested. It's a great world with lovely characters, and I'm happy to ride along with whatever they want to do. The middle felt a little tedious, but I really think that was me and not the book. Read the first one, and when you fall in love with it, plan to read this one.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Oct 14, 2023 3:43 pm

The Swimmers -- Julie Otsuka
The swimmers are a group of people whose only common link is that they all regularly use the same underground swimming pool. They are bound together by the rules and by their routines and habits. Until one day when a crack appears...

This short novel is a powerful accounting of one woman's progressive dementia. Much of the book is just a series of staccato lists... lists of rules, lists of people, lists of disruptions, of rumors, of memories. They seem mundane, but all of them build to something and the big picture you take away from the arrange of individual pieces is really effective. Plus there's an evolving point of view that I found striking, as it goes from first person plural to an intimate third person to second person, etc.

This is one that stuck with me and I kept analyzing for days in my head, so finally I also went out to look for other people's takes on it, and I was highly disappointed. Mostly I just found reviews, and they were all remarkably similar. Specifically, virtually all of them mentioned how the book was about "the power of routines". No. That was the main gist of the first 20% of the book, so maybe if you only read Part I, that might be your takeaway. For me, it was a reminder of how much of the Internet is just copy/pasted or lifted and paraphrased from elsewhere.

Okay, but all that aside... good book.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Oct 18, 2023 8:14 am

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl -- Jesse Andrews
The trailer for the 2015 movie of this crossed my path this morning and reminded me that I read this about four books back and never reviewed it...

It was good. The first chapter kinda put me off, and I thought that it was trying way too hard. The protagonist was too clever by half and was trying to come off as a nerd loser who was also part Ferris Beuller. But as it settled in, you realize it's all a projection... a defense mechanism. He's a great unreliable narrator throughout.

Anyway, it's a high school drama about a girl with cancer. Greg and his buddy Earl have been obsessed with making movies together since they were 10. Greg's mom tells him that a girl he went to Hebrew school with (Rachel) has cancer, and she forces him to go spend time with her to "cheer her up". There's your premise. It's not a romance, tragic or otherwise. It's about friendship and death. It's very sweet and entertaining and engaging. I really enjoyed this.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Oct 18, 2023 10:01 am

The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina -- Zoraida Cordova
Imagine if Encanto has been written for an adult audience. And they were from Ecuador. Orquídea Montoya came to Four Rivers almost five decades ago to set down roots and escape her past. Now she claims to be dying and has sent invitations to all her living descendants to come back home and claim their inheritance. And magic is real. Plus a sinister force from Orquídea's past is now stalking the family.

It's multi-generational tale that unfolds its mysteries very non-sequentially. And it's compelling. The fantasy element is well thought out and serves the plot well. The characters are rich and varied, And it's all about family, bruh.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Oct 21, 2023 6:10 pm

Pageboy -- Elliot Page
This was fascinating. Elliot Page reads this memoir of his own journey, coming out first as gay in 2014 and then as trans in 2020. His recognition of both his own oppression as well as his great privilege is really moving. He is as brutally honest as possible about the key events of his life while also protecting the privacy of those who need/wish it.

I've been a fan of his acting for a long time, and the behind the scenes stuff was endlessly fascinating to me, seeing where his head was at and what he was going through (good and bad) that shaped these roles. And as an added bonus, he grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so lots of the scenes with his family took place at or near famous Halifax landmarks that I'm actually familiar with.

I was leery in the first couple chapters, because some anecdotes felt incomplete, but Page actually has several narrative threads to work on, each highlighting a different facet of his story, so each of these picked and chose the events that supported each of threads. So while there was no real linear timeline, the events built on themselves in a way that cut through deeper layers of his experience with each chapter.

Page refers often to reading as an obvious constant and comfort through his life. His love of the literary really shows. He's a good writer and chose to do this entirely without a ghost writer.

High recommend.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 4:09 am

Mike wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 8:34 pm The Long Earth -- Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Absolutely addictive. Couldn't stop listening. It's flawed in a bunch of small ways, but it's such a huge ambitious effort that sucked me in and let me ignore all that.

And this is book one of a series (a series of five so far, I think), and it's almost all world-building. And it's BIG! There are worlds next to our own. Alternate earths that stack next to each other like an infinite deck of cards. And ours is the only one with people (kinda). The people of earth discover this when someone anonymously publishes plans for a cheap, simple device that allows anyone to step between worlds. After that, the whole book lays out the consequences of this. People use it to escape and colonize. There are religious repercussions. There's hate groups. The applications for crime are nearly endless. And on and on and on.

Issues: the main characters need a little more depth (except, surprisingly, the AI character); there were a few times that I questioned the physics of certain alternate worlds (in a story where the physics matter); as they move through worlds, both step-wise through alternate earths as well as geographically around the globe, there were too many times when they stumble into a new world and coincidentally happen to be in the most interesting geographic area. All stuff I was glad to overlook to keep getting this story.

Book 2 is on the wishlist already.

Started listening to it this morning during my 8 mile run. Imagine my surprise when the main character is based in Madison, WI, and they're talking about Allied Drive and Mifflin Street, and UW Madison.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 10:19 pm

Scythe -- Neal Shusterman
My wife has not read this, but asked if I would. She heard good things. The premise is a world where humanity has achieved nearly true immortality. People can be restored from nearly anything, such that bored youth often try "splatting"--that is, "killing" yourself in the most dramatic way possible to see how long it takes the clinic to restore you. All this came about because humanity achieved functionally unlimited computing power creating a sentient AI that now runs everything, except one function. Humanity grows in number at a pace that is slightly more than the AI's ability to improve technology and take care of more and more people. This, we have the Scythes. They each have a quota of people they must kill in order to keep the world's population in check. Our story focuses on a couple of teenagers in this world.

And it rocked. It was engaging, emotional, thrilling. Shusterman knows how to tell a story. For the beginning of the story, I was sure I wouldn't like it. Given all the material in the premise, the world of Scythe looks remarkably like our own. Technology gives us an all-knowing AI, super-capable nanites in everyone, resurrection technology, the ability to synthesize anything we need, and yet, our protagonists come from traditional western style two parent families and attend high schools that look remarkably like our own. There's no actual need for money, but we maintain artificially maintain commerce and wealth disparity for some reason. It just seemed so incongruous with the original premise to not follow the logical consequences of all this tech.

But ultimately, it's a YA novel and I just had to accept the weird aspects of the premise and enjoy the ride. It's like Harry Potter in that regard. If you think to hard, the world will fall apart, and yet the story is really really good.

It's worth reading

Post by **Mike** » Thu Nov 02, 2023 5:38 am

The God of Small Things -- Arundhati Roy
A family drama set in India. Not my cup of tea. It's about seemingly little events and how they can profoundly shape a person and the course of their lives. It was well done, but I just never felt connected to it. I suspect this is one I should have read instead of getting the audiobook. I think it required 100% attention.

Arch-Conspirator -- Veronica Roth
A dystopian future retelling of Antigone. I gave myself a five minute Wikipedia refresher on the original before diving in. I really enjoyed this. Recommend.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Fri Nov 03, 2023 2:48 pm

Words of Radiance- Brandon Sanderson. Book 2 in the Stormlight Archive series! I loved it! I loved it more than the first book! Everything I said about the first book holds true for this one, but more! So instead of restating all that, I'm just going to link to my review for The Way of Kings!

https://nerdprideradio.com/babble/viewt ... 561#p26561

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 03, 2023 5:56 pm

Okay. You win. I'll read Way of Kings right after new years.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Sat Nov 04, 2023 5:32 am

Yeah. When I got done with Book 2, I immediately started book 3.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Nov 04, 2023 8:59 am

I also have to finish The Long Earth series, but I think I'll have to purchase the last two.

Post by **Mike** » Sun Nov 12, 2023 9:16 pm

Certain Dark Things -- Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Fantastic! I had so much fun here. Humans discovered that vampires are real back in 1967, ans there are many varieties that have inspired various vampire legends around the world. Nowadays, laws have forces them out of many countries, but Mexico is one place they can still flourish, and they've taken over the drug cartels.

But it's not just that. It's also street-kid Domingo and how he gets mixed up in all this. It's about a giant, tattooed, glow-in-the-dark German shepherd. There's crooked cops and plenty of gunfire and messy, gory action. It's a thriller, and the setting is rich and gritty, the action is gripping, and it really needs to be a movie. But with a better name.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 17, 2023 8:47 pm

Everything the Darkness Eats -- Eric LaRocca
Nope. You don't get to name your bad guy Crowley, in a horror story about kidnapping God--a premise that is way better than the resulting book. Yeah, the villain is a creepy old man who sells cemetery plots for a living, lives in a creepy old rundown mansion outside of town, has supernatural powers, and is named Heart Crowley. Our hero is named Ghost--his given name, not a nickname--who has an entirely unexplained invisible grief spirit that whispers constantly in his ear. Crowley is gay and dying of AIDS. Ghost is bi. And Malik, a Muslim cop in this small, out of the way town is also gay. Lots of representation going on, and it's only relevant, because every significant character in this book is motivated by some stereotyped two-dimensional trauma. Ghost has a dead wife whose passing still consumes him three years later. Crowley has abandonment issues he blames on his mom and God. Malik and his husband are suffering threats and attacks from homophobic townfolk up to and including the hospitalization of his husband and eventually the graphically described beating and sexual assault of Malik by hired biker thugs, whose leader actually pauses in the middle of all this torture to explain how his own raging homophobia started with a horrible incident with a pedophile when he was young. No need for personalities when people have their grief or fear or blind rage.

And all the metaphors and similes in this book were too exactly on the nose. All of it felt so lowest-common-denominator, as if it's really just intended to be a movie script. Ultimately, I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes through this one. Do not read.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Nov 17, 2023 9:47 pm

That really does sound terrible, yeeeeeesh! I'm reading a book I don't even know the title of - something like a Court of Sound and Fury but I'm pretty sure that's a Faulkner title and not this title. It's about fairies. I'm reading it because someone gave it to me and because I found out it's a banned book and I want to figure out why it's banned. Because it's about fairies. It's related to an earlier book I read and probably posted about somewhere here that has to do with fairies as well. That book has what you would call a sex scene but in this day and age of... Everything, everywhere, all the time, the sex scene is incredibly tame and definitely not worth a book banning. If the book were going to be banned it should be because it's cliched and awful, and sets up a weird situation where a person who has been kidnapped and held captive is also having weird romance with her captor. But they don't want to ban things because they have weird violent overtones. Be violent all you like, the censors are comfortable, but have a mild tame silly sex scene and that's the limit.

Post by **Mike** » Sun Nov 19, 2023 10:05 pm

The Murderbot Diaries: System Collapse -- Martha Wells
Whoooo! Murderbot's back for book 7! It's comfort food.

This one took a bit to settle into for me. It starts immediately after the events of book 5, which means it is most recent in the timeline, because book six backed up to take place between 4 and 5. Plus, after a couple of years away, it took me a bit to sort out which humans were which. I shoulda given myself a quick refresher on the cast.

But once I was caught up, it was good to be back. Where the first books dealt with SecUnit'a crippling social anxiety and trust issues, it looks like now he's facing his PTSD. The action was great as always, I just wish there'd been more personal growth this time. But it feels more like this is the setup for what's to come. I sincerely hope to see more Murderbot.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:48 am

Please Report Your Bug Here -- Josh Riedel
Trippy. Ethan works as one of only three employees at a startup for an app called DateDate. He clicks to find his test account's 'perfect match', and a glitch occurs, and Ethan sees himself as somewhere else for just a few moments. The novel is him trying to chase down the bug--if a bug is, in fact, what it is--as their little startup is acquired by The Corporation.

That's right, I forgot about that. There are a small handful of people and things in the book that are only referred to by labels like that. The founder and chief engineer from DateDate are only referred to as The Founder and The Engineer throughout the book. The corporation that buys them out is The Corporation. But most other things and people have proper names.

The book takes a hard look at corporate culture and what it does to innovation and development. It also returns many times to the false dichotomy modern culture has created that sets the arts as somehow being in opposition to technology. But more than anything, it examines the nature of human connections, and what makes people who they are, how they change over time and the interplay of that change and our relationships.

The book was billed as "an adrenaline rush". It was not that, but it had interesting philosophy, cool sci-fi elements and a solid story. Good read.

Post by **Mike** » Thu Nov 23, 2023 10:30 pm

Road Out of Winter -- Alison Stine
Post apocalyptic road story. This is the second year (third maybe?) without a summer in Ohio Appalachia. Our narrator is a young woman from the backwoods whose folks ran off to California last year, and she's been left to maintain the basement weed farm all on her own (she didn't even bother with the outdoor plants this year, cuz nothing came of all their work last year). But eventually shit gets bad enough that she's ready to strike out for warmer climes and find her mom.

This is a story I've seen plenty of before, but it was incredibly well done. I polished it off in just two days, cuz I couldn't put it down. It's not a cheery story, but if you like this sort of thing, it's well worth your time.

Mando · Post by **Mando** » Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:07 pm

Screwtape Letters audiobook starring Andy Serkis

Post by **Mike** » Sat Dec 02, 2023 2:56 am

The Long Utopia -- Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Book 4 out of 5. As Kyle says, there's some diminishing returns here, but the development of the setting is so compelling. There are flaws, and some logical issues for me, and it's gotten to the point where 80% of the dialogue is just setting exposition that no real people would speak out loud like that, but it is still working for me. I'll check back in again whenever I finish book 5.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Dec 05, 2023 10:19 pm

Crying in H Mart -- Michelle Zauner
Fantastic! Michelle Zauner is a musician and author of mixed American-Korean heritage. This is her memoir of dealing with her mother's death. But far more than that, it is a love letter to Korean food, and it's glorious. Michelle's mother was about my age when cancer took her, and Michelle was my child Aidan's age, which made it more vivid for me. A large part of her mother's love language was food. Zauner just paints this incredible portrait of her troubled relationship with her parents and how she finally came to terms with all of it, and the more I try to describe the arc here, the more words fail me. I was very moved by this account, and walked away from it wishing I liked kimchi, because I was incredibly motivated to start making it at home.

It's really good. Very much worth your time.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Wed Dec 06, 2023 1:29 pm

The thing about reading these Sanderson books is that you don't post up much. I'm 34 hours into the third book (Oathbringer) and I still have 20 hours left. I felt like I was getting a bit of fatigue so i listened to Liz Cheney's new book during a trip yesterday, but now I've only got 20 minutes left on it. And frankly, kind of missed the Sanderson book and wished I hadn't taken a break (nothing against Liz Cheney- her book is pretty great too).

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Fri Dec 08, 2023 9:07 am

Oath and Honor- Liz Cheney. Great read. Warning- Liz Cheney reads it herself which means, because she's not a professional voice actor, it can be a little slow. But I remedied this by speeding it up to 120% speed and it was fine. This book is essentially a plain-english walkthrough of the Select Committee's Report on January 6. She goes through the timeline from the very beginning, through January 6 and then the aftermath and investigation. It is extremely methodical and detailed, but also surprisingly easy to read. Cheney does an excellent job of distilling the facts down to what's important, and not bothering with the static (which there was a ton of in the course of this, if you remember from the news). What's remarkable about it to me is that, even though I knew most everything that the book contains, when you see it laid out in such a plain manner, it is breathtaking how terrible and audacious Trump's plan was to try to usurp the election and maintain his presidency, despite knowing that he lost the election. What's more remarkable is the craven people and politicians who assisted him in trying to do this. There's no doubt in my mind that: (1) Trump knew he lost; (2) he was trying to do everything he could to overturn the results he knew were accurate; and (3) when all else failed, he planned for the January 6 insurgency as a fail-safe plot. The evidence is fairly undisputed that, if he had his way, Trump really was going to lead the insurgents down the street and point them at the capital to storm it. It is really scary. Cheney also does a good job of making it non-partisan. She clearly thinks her party has lost its way (it has) and wants to hold the enablers of Trump accountable. Really well written and a very good read. High recommend.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Dec 08, 2023 11:02 pm

The Midnight Library -- Matt Haig
Nora's life has fallen apart, and she decides to kill herself. In the moment of death, she finds herself in the Midnight Library. The books are all stories of the lives she could have lived if she had made different decisions. Reading a book lets her step into that life. Soon she is on a quest to find her best life, a life she can live forever.

Knowing the structure of such stories, you know approximately where it has to land, but it's the journey that makes it magical. I really loved this. I couldn't put it down.

It made a bunch of "Best Of" lists when it was released, and deservedly so. It's just really well written.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Dec 09, 2023 11:19 pm

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home -- Joseph Fink and Jeremy Cranor
My review mirrors Kyle's from last year. The only difference is that I was already familiar with the Nightvale universe before reading this.

Welcome to Nightvale is a long running podcast about the small desert town of Nightvale, where all sorts of weirdness goes on, from the supernatural to the sci-fi. It's an absurdist horror that is often unsettling and usually funny. The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home is a long running gag/background character who might be a ghost and who once ran for mayor.

So this book should have been a joke. But it so wasn't. There is a modern story where the FOWWSLIYH is up to the sort of absurdist horror activities that one expects from the podcast, but now from her own point of view and with a purpose. But then there the bulk of the novel which is her origin story, starting with her childhood during Napoleon's reign on the coast of France, and building into an epic world-spanning tale of pirate intrigue. And as Kyle said, both tales inform each other and are necessary to the whole. And it's really well crafted, especially for a book that didn't have to be. It coulda been 120 pages of inside references and fan service, and they woulda sold the same number of copies to their very loyal fan base, but they chose to make good.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Dec 13, 2023 9:31 pm

Thistlefoot -- GennaRose Nethercott
Isaac Yaga and his younger sister Bellatine have just received their inheritance from their great great grandmother, Illa. It was shipped over from the old country in a giant-ass crate. And if you've seen the cover of the book, you already know it's Baba Yaga's Hut.

Silly seeming premise, but the book treats it all very seriously. The Yagas have unusual "magical" abilities that can be more curse than boon, and no one knew anything of the walking house that only understands Yiddish until it showed up at their door.

And there's a bad guy seeking to ruin everything. And there's a ragtag group of misfits helping to solve all the mysteries and save the day. Ultimately the whole story ties back to xenophobia and hatred and ethnic cleansing and the pogroms in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution. It's about the power of stories. It is about never forgetting.

And all of that makes it a really good book. One I thoroughly enjoyed. My only complaint was that for a "magical legends are real" type story, I expected it to be more magical. That is, I've read a bunch of gritty fantasy lately, and I expected more of a modern fairy story. But this one is quick to explain everything in a fairly straightforward fashion, making it feel more like a sci-fi tale to me. And none of that is bad or makes it a bad book. It just wasn't lining up with my expectations.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Dec 15, 2023 11:38 pm

Feed -- M.T. Anderson
Don't even look at my review. Just trust me and go read it. The audiobook is only 5 hours long.

Set in an America that is maybe 100 years in the future. From a very young age, almost all people are implanted with technology which allows direct access at all times to the Feed, which is essentially the Internet after a century of steroids. Titus is a high school kid and also our narrator. He and his friends are mostly vapid, trend-obsessed, party animals, and on a day trip to fuck around on the moon, just for something different, Titus meets Violet and it changes his life.

It's technically a YA book, I guess, because the author is billed as a writer of children's books, but it's not written like anything I've seen before. It's like a mashup of The Fault in Our Stars and Idiocracy. It's a commentary on the continuing development of late-stage capitalism in America and a damn good one, but there are also very real characters within. Plus the whole thing is told in Titus's futuristic slang dialect, which somehow really works.

Here's the shocking part to me though: all of the descriptions of the Feed and it's effects as well as the extrapolations of current trends into this dystopian future all rang very true to me. Dude's right on point with it, but then I saw he wrote it all 20 years ago. I am seriously impressed, because I assumed it was a recent release.

Good stuff! Read it!

Post by **Mike** » Sat Dec 16, 2023 9:57 pm

Switch -- A.S. King
Difficult read. The entire earth has slipped into a fold in time, and in June, time just stopped. People still moved and things still happened, but the clocks all stopped, and time wasn't flowing.

Separately, Truda Becker's family is broken and traumatized. No one speaks to anyone else since Mom left, and Dad has become obsessed with modifying their house so that no one can get to the mysterious switch in the hall. No one knows what it does, and it is now surrounded by protective nested layers of boxes.

Everything here is a metaphor for emotion and interpersonal relationships, and at the same time, the metaphors are also physically real. Read by the author herself, the book was compelling, and I finished it off in a single day. I liked it, but I didn't feel the kind of emotional connection I was hoping for. Maybe some of the layers were just a little too opaque for me.

But like I say, a very compelling YA book about trauma and healing.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Dec 18, 2023 10:47 pm

This Time Tomorrow -- Emma Straub
I don't want to give much away. Alice is turning 40, she wakes up as her 16 year old self on her 16th birthday. She has a chance to do some things over, 13 going on 30 style... or maybe Peggy Sue got married. The book is hyper aware of its roots and Alice is well versed on time travel stories as she tries to figure out what's happening to her.

And knowing all the same stories, I thought I knew where this was going. I did not. Lots of elements were extremely familiar, but Straub has a novel approach to the process and the lessons learned. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

After I finished it, the afterword by the author revealed that her father is author Peter Straub. Fascinating.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Dec 20, 2023 5:58 pm

The Long Cosmos -- Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Wow. I really enjoyed this. I mean, I've enjoyed all of them in this 5-book Long Earth series, but it was a series of diminishing returns until this one. I'm assuming it's because all the disparate strands of this overwhelmingly epic setting all came together, and everything gets a satisfying resolution.

Read all my reviews for this series. Read Kyle's. Or just go read the first of the series, The Long Earth. It is five books of stunning world-building, populated by people trained to speak in exposition so you can squeeze in more world-building! Flawed and yet... SO compelling.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Dec 20, 2023 6:01 pm

BOOM!

And that's 100 books in a year! Pressure's off!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Wed Dec 20, 2023 11:59 pm

It is awesome how many good books you read - then I get to mine the recommendations at these gift-giving times.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Thu Dec 21, 2023 9:26 am

Mike wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 6:01 pm BOOM!

And that's 100 books in a year! Pressure's off!

Yes! Now you can get sucked into the world of Sanderson, where you will take two months to finish a book! Ahahahahaha!

I mean, I just finished book three today on my drive in (54 hours) and I'm going to start book 4 (57 hours) on the drive home!

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Thu Dec 21, 2023 9:42 am

Oathbringer- Brandon Sanderson. Read my review for the Way of Kings or the second book in the series. I loved this book for all the same reasons I loved those. The only reason I rank this book below the other two is that, having listened to all three in succession, I got a bit of "Sanderson Fatigue" around hour 40. But that's my choice and my fault. This book is truly as great as the others in the series and I'm going straight into the fourth book tonight. Love it!

Post by **Mike** » Fri Dec 22, 2023 6:08 am

Kyle wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 9:26 am
Mike wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 6:01 pm BOOM!

And that's 100 books in a year! Pressure's off!
Yes! Now you can get sucked into the world of Sanderson, where you will take two months to finish a book! Ahahahahaha!

I mean, I just finished book three today on my drive in (54 hours) and I'm going to start book 4 (57 hours) on the drive home!

I have a book already that I'm working on, and after that Libby just told me it's my turn for A Desolation Called Peace. But after that... I have no more holds, nothing on the shelf... It's Brandon Sanderson time!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Dec 23, 2023 11:42 am

I wish to read this. Currently reading House of the Seven Gables and it's so good. Review later when frame of mind better.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Dec 30, 2023 1:02 pm

Signal Fires -- Dani Shapiro
It is a well written novel about two families that live across the street from each other, and even though they don't interact much, their lives are intertwined through two or three generations. It's a very human drama about the interconnectedness of all things. And it's just not for me. I've read several books of this nature--generational stories that paint a picture with a bunch of semi-related scenes and no traditional western story structure--and even when I recognize that they are masterfully written, they still leave me cold most of the time.

Not a favorite.