One of Us is Lying 1/5 Over all this is an OK mystery. The setup is that five high school students have been given detentions after school because their teacher found cellphones in their bags. When they’re in detention, one of the group, a hated webmaster and content creator of a gossip website that all the other members of the detention have been involved with before and they all have their little secrets to be protected. Well he dies when he drinks a peanut oil […]
Read the Small Print!
Carnivores of Light and Darkness (Journeys of the Catechist – Book 1) by Alan Dean Foster (1998) – I wish I’d noticed the “Book One” subtitle before I started the book. After the great inciting event and subsequent quest, the heroes seemed no closer to achieving their goal at the end than when they began. But it was an exciting journey with interesting characters and an atmosphere of the fantastic which Alan Dean Foster is so good at. Our hero is Etjole, a quiet shepherd […]
Slow to Start, But Picked Up in the Second Half
Coming in at 1001 pages (before the appendix of magic theory and other information, of course), The Way of Kings may well be the longest individual novel that I’ve ever read. But it’s just the first in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series. Which is apparently also tied together with the worlds of Sanderson’s other series (including the Mistborn universe, the first trilogy of which I read earlier this year and loved). And honestly? That’s… a lot. It seems pretty complex and while you don’t necessarily […]
The one with the horror convention.
Most of this book is muchly good, but I do have one substantial complaint. But more on that later. As I re-read this series, I continue to enjoy it much more than I did the first time through. I’m not going to rehash why (combo of knowing all the characters now and where they end up, along with catching things I didn’t the first time through). Just assume the same things I’ve said for books four through seven also apply here. Most of this book […]
So I am waiting for IT to come off Overdrive Holds, so here’s the books I’ve been tiding myself over with
The Lost Symbol – Dan Brown 3/5 Let’s get this out of the way. This is big dumb weird book that is far up its own ass and pompous and pretentious and also big and dumb. Also, I love it. There’s a version of me, you’ve probably met him….for me, he was a senior in college and he carved his entire existence out of resisting mass culture….except you know…the right kind of mass culture….and loved jokes that the Family Guy mad about Dan Brown. But […]
Riordan, I’m probably going to quit you.
There was a distinct moment about a third of the way through this book when I thought, I don’t think I’m going to read any more of Rick Riordan’s books; I don’t think they are for me anymore. After this series is over, I’m out. This was a sad thought to have. For the most part, I have really enjoyed reading Riordan’s demigods and monsters saga(s) since I picked up the first Percy Jackson book in 2009. But I am starting to feel exhausted by them, […]