This book is a sequel, and this review may contain spoilers for the first book in the series, Cinder. I was initially surprised to see the direction Meyer chose to go when continuing her series, The Lunar Chronicles, in that she introduced a new protagonist and switched between character POVs, rather than just sticking with Cinder’s. A lot of time, this is a YA contrivance that bothers me somewhat, because it’s frequently a shortcut into another character’s emotions without having to write them descriptively (e.g. […]
Once you gone tech you ain’t never going back
Reading Cinder was a great way to get back on the YA train after my last misadventure. It’s actually well-written in addition to being well paced and having a heroine who doesn’t completely suck (the opposite, in fact — Cinder is a total badass.) The long and short of it is this: set in the future in “New Beijing”, the story is a retelling of Cinderella, except our title character is a cyborg. If that sounds awesome, it’s because it is, but the citizens of […]
Even Mary Roach can make floating turds and liquid food enticing
Did you ever wonder how an astronaut goes to the bathroom in space? Mary Roach will make you question why you’ve never pondered this before. With lines from her book like, “give me a napkin quick, there’s a turd floating in the air,” she’ll also give you the greatest appreciation of gravity you never anticipated… Roach is a master of taking a topic (like cadavers, sex, and in this case, space travel) and deconstructing it, showing its many facets…whether interesting, surprising, or even a bit […]
Sharp, meta, and entertaining
I have to apologize in advance to Redshirts because I have major review fatigue. I was really hoping to do a double cannonball this year, and I can based on my pace, but lawd almighty am I ever running out of different ways to talk about books. And as such, this is going to be such a crappy review. Anyway, Redshirts was great. It hooked me immediately and kept me laughing throughout; I sympathized with the characters and was utterly delighted at each of Scalzi’s uber-winky PLOT […]
Still time to read it before the movie comes out
I can’t believe it has taken me a month to get to writing this review. I was telling everyone about it when I finished it, but just didn’t get it written down. I had managed not to hear much about this book beforehand. I can’t even remember where it was recommended so that I put it on my library hold list…and then waited months for it to come up since it was so popular. I will start with what a lot of other people say […]
Sh*tting in Space: It’s a Problem….
Knowing Mary Roach’s work very well from her amazing first publication, Stiff, (side note, if you haven’t read Stiff, you need to. Now. Immediately! I’ve even put a handy link here! Stiff) I was excited to jump into the world of rockets and space food to find out what gets us out into the deep void, and I was not disappointed! In her usual no-holds-barred style, Roach takes us on a journey through all the nuances (particularly the ones no one wants to talk about) […]