Despite my reservations about The Maze Runner (namely, poor plotting and lots of really gratuitous VIOLENCE), I decided to keep reading. And then, despite my reservations about The Scorch Trials, I have requested and received The Death Cure from my library. Apparently, my interest is enough to keep me going. So: Thomas and his band of Maze cohorts, including his friend Teresa, are out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak. Without giving too much away, for those of you who […]
This Review Was Written in a Hurry
My TV-show inspired reread of Outlander confirmed few things I thought I remembered about this book. Namely, that I liked it, but also found it almost silly at times. An enjoyable read, but not a great one. The good: inventive take on time-travel. Great female character in Claire. Historical milieus well realized and intriguing. Jamie. The cheerful abandon with which Gabaldon treats genre conventions. Is it science fiction? Is is romance? Is it supernatural romance? Historical fiction? Who knows? Who cares? It’s all that and […]
“Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future.”
Life After Life has been on my radar for over a year. It sounded intriguing – what would happen if you lived your life over and over again, and how would minute changes in your choices and actions affect that life? I was intrigued, but not drawn in. My mom read it with her book club late last year and her reaction to the work was “it was different. Not bad, but definitely different.” With that less than stellar review I pushed it further down […]
Ridiculously fun fairy-tale, murder-mystery spoofing nonsense.
I’m not sure whether it’s the book, or whether I was just in the perfect mood for it, but regardless, the result is the same. The Fourth Bear is my favorite of the seven Jasper Fforde novels I’ve read. The first five Thursday Next Novels are fun but can be a bit overwhelming, and sometimes downright confusing, and the first Nursery Crime book, The Big Over Easy, does a little bit too much work setting up the Nursery Crime world to really enjoy its premise. But […]
A Summer of Exceptional Fantasy – 5 Must Reads
I consider myself more of a Cannonball “book idea getter” and “occasional commenter” than a “book reviewer” but this summer was stuffed with so many excellent fantasy books that I had to make an exception. Words of Radiance Brandon Sanderson (first of his name) came out with book two of The Stormlight Archive this summer. If it’s not clear, you should definitely start with book #1 (The Way of Kings), not because you couldn’t comfortably jump in with book #2, but because you would be […]
Kate Daniels’ world just keeps getting bigger and badder
Okay, so I’ve been reading this “urban fantasy” series the wrong way, I’ll admit. Picking up what’s available, in whatever order I can find them, and then moving on. But it’s not like this series is Game of Thrones or something, with story lines too dense and complicated to follow if you miss one. While it would be nice to read the Magic series from start to finish, I think I’ve managed to fill in the gaps as I read along. The plots are clever, […]