Book 46:
Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
Rough Review:
4 stars!
Book 47:
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Rough Review:
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS ALL THROUGH IT
3 stars. I picked this up for one of the Goodreads challenges from the summer and then ended up not finishing it because I was abducted by America (read travel, moving, and grad school), but sped through it the last 2 days because I’ll be damned if I’m going to break my monthly streak this late in the year. I like the challenges because they encourage me to read things I might have been meaning to for a while, or things I might not have picked up otherwise, and this was one of the latter. I don’t read a lot of horror because my first instinct is usually “how scary can a book actually be?” (even though Cujo and Misery got me well enough) and my second instinct is “is a dog injured here?” and my third instinct is “you can’t jump scare me in a book and that’s the only thing that really gets me in horror movies so what’s the point?” (and if the point is existential despair, I guess I don’t really associate that with the horror genre, but maybe that’s just my lack of knowledge – that movie AI from 2001 traumatized me after I saw it for my birthday that year, but I wouldn’t have called it horror). And I think I should probably go with my instincts in future because horror is not for me. I like getting invested in characters and caring about them, and I feel real pain when they are harmed or devastated or brutalized, so despite The Only Good Indians being well- and effectively written with memorable scenes, metaphors, visuals, allusions, etc, I don’t need , not now, not these days, and probably not ever, despite that amazing closing chapter. As Amy Poehler so helpfully said in Yes Please, “Good for you, not for me.”
Final Review: And now we’ve arrived at books I started after school started, and this bodes very badly for pre-written reviews…
Book 48:
Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach
Rough Review:
4 stars. This was a lot of fun, like all Mary Roach books. I’m still hoping to read one that reaches the highs of Stiff and Gulp, and I think the main reason this one didn’t is just because it still feels like a work in progress. That’s not totally Roach’s fault – the sciences of regenerating, regrowing, revamping, , and replacing human body parts has a long and interesting history but we’re just on the cusp of a revolution that hasn’t quite arrived. I also think that I read Stiff and Gulp when I was much younger and had less of a background in science, so now when I read pop science I want to know so much more. I enjoyed the cheeky pictures that begin each chapter, and thought the transitions between chapters were pretty smooth (although some chapters were way more substantial than others).
Final Review: If this IS cheating, I’ll edit it when the site goes back online but before tomorrow! Please don’t make me start from scratch I have been trying to do this for so long!
Book 49:
The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
Rough Review:
4.5 cozy stars. “The thing that shines through in Osman’s writing, for me, is that he really likes people…” ~ The Guardian.
When I hate people, and myself, and things, and school, and work, and stress, I think maybe I just need an Osman pick me up. Having read a “cozy” mystery that vehemently did not do much for me earlier this year, The Impossible Fortune reminds me that cozy doesn’t need to mean predictable with no stakes, it can also mean trust that wherever the book is headed, things will be okay. Minor spoilers: sometimes a little light crime and murder is excusable in fiction, there will probably be new love interests and a bittersweet but mostly sweet happily ever after.
I think what I like most about this series is the truly exquisite job that Osman has done with the characters. You absolutely know what each of the main four and about six or seven of the secondary ones would do or say in a given situation, and they each have their own special and particular relationships with each of the others. And there’s enough bite and cheekiness and honesty that the whole thing doesn’t feel like saccharine nonsense. And I think that’s because Osman genuinely does like people, the weirdo.
The mystery was pretty good, although there were some red herrings you could count right out because you know it can’t be that bad. I like that Joanna is mellowing a bit. I did think Elizabeth would absolutely have cracked a few of those puzzles, but I can accept “grief” over “lazy writing” THIS ONE TIME. Elizabeth and Joyce continue to be the stars with Ibrahim and Ron merely hanging on to their glory, as it absolutely should be. And I almost wish I had an ebook of this because there were so many nice passages I would have liked to highlight. That’s high praise indeed.
Final Review: Write my life, Richard Osman.
Book 50:
Back Story of North America by David Mitchell
Rough Review:
4 stars.
Final Review: David Mitchell may have given me the best book of the year AND ruined my Cannonball, the bastard.
Book 51:
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
Rough Review:
4 stars and some spoilers!
I liked this quite a bit! What a fun new world with some interesting lore and warm characters. There are zombies in this love story. Penrose Duckers is a delight. Hart is a dog person and so I have to like him, those are the rules. The rest of this review is going to have spoilers because I’m just going to word vomit my reactions and hope I can turn it into a CBR review later (once I’ve read the 52nd!):
Am I just having a broken emote-o-meter moment? Would we spell it metre in Canada?
Anyway, other than that I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading the sequels. I see the next one is about the two Marshals we briefly met in this book, so that’s nice, and the third one is Rosie and Adam so I guess we’ll get to know the other demigod a little better. A good way to soothe the brain after an intense semester.
Final Review: More Megan Bannen! More cool covers! These reminded me of the Saints of Steel covers. Holy shit one more.
Book 52:
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Rough Review:
I watched the movie for this as well, and I found them both aggressively fine. My whimsy is clearly not on the same wavelength as Miyazaki’s or Diana Wynne Jones’ (who seems like she was a very cool person and I wonder if any of her other books would be more my speed). Sophie and Howl weren’t particularly interesting to me (I’d rather have followed the “strong-minded” Lettie), everything felt very surface level and blah – “and then this happened, and then this happened” – and I like my magic systems to have a little more (read: ANY AT ALL) internal logic to them, and, like, any logical character development or growth at all? Sophie went from being a meek, sort of miserable “first born” loser (interesting concept, nothing done with it) to being a cranky, pushy old woman (and if I never read about her “long nose” again it would be too soon – possibly just feeling extra sensitive about antisemitic nose stuff at the moment, sorry book), to…herself again only now she likes Howl. Howl is yet another of those YA heroes people fawn over that has me completely mystified.
https://media1.tenor.com/m/V2f2Mtex0Y…
I was expecting an endearing drama queen, not a rude, vain, boring little shit who…does not change at all, only now he likes Sophie.
If you loved this, I don’t want to poke holes in the magic or tear it down, I just did. not. get this book at all, and I so wanted to. But that’s fine, it happens.
The moving castle itself and Calcifer were fun (this applies to both the book and the movie). And it amuses me that Christian Bale (Welsh) does the English dub of Howl (also Welsh) in the movie, but not using a Welsh accent. Also the cover of the version I read is lovely.
And that’s 52. Can I get them all posted on CBR before the deadline? Almost certainly no, but I’m going to try!
Final Review: HA HA HA WHAT WAS I THINKING WHY DIDN’T I START ON THIS IMMEDIATELY OH RIGHT, SLEEP.
