Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane
I could not do it you guys. I could not give this book more than a star rating. The more I thought about, the more issues I had besides this not being a romance book though it is promoted as one. The main character Harriet had too much stuff that just didn’t work for me. And I loathed the fact that there is a very real topic in this one (gaslighting/coercive control). And the larger issue was that the whole thing with Cal was too […]
The Devil is a Part-Timer vols 16-18 by Satoshi Wagahara, Akio Hiiragi
Bingo 9: Heart In a lot of ways, The Devil is a Part-Timer is a kind of generic comedy in which a fantasy hero, her arch-nemesis the king of demons, and a few allies end up transported in our world, and have to deal both with everyday things like groceries, jobs, transportation, as well as trying to figure out what to do about their conflict, started when Satan demon king invaded and destroyed the hero’s home. There’s a begrudging enemies to something else going on, […]
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
CBR14 BINGO: Adapt, because it was adapted into the wonderful 1993 film of the same name “I’m telling you, sir, you’ll be sorry if you don’t take a walk up there. And you never know. A couple more years and it might be too late.” This advice from a stranger on a country road to the novel’s protagonist is meant to encourage the traveler to walk up a hill and enjoy a beautiful view, but it may as well be an observation about the protagonist’s […]
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
CBR 14 BINGO: Rec’d. MsWas recommended this one to me, and I will be recommending it to others. I also saw this recommended on NPR’s list of best sci-fi and fantasy books of the last decade. In 1912 Cairo, collector of antiquities, lover of the exotic, and all around British-colonial caricature Lord Worthington meets with his Brotherhood of al-Jahiz, a group whose noble purpose is to “recover the most sacred wisdom of the ancients, to create a greater tomorrow.” Worthington’s group has taken to collecting […]
How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton
How Proust Can Change Your Life is Alain de Botton’s often tongue-in-cheek ‘lifestyle guide’ based on lessons from the life of canonical author Marcel Proust, the author of In Search of Lost Time. Although Proust is a canonical author, I have not yet had the pleasure of reading him, nor was I very familiar with his life and background. De Bouton’s guide is interesting- and somewhat heartening- in illustrating how this great author had an inglorious start, wasn’t very good at getting or keeping a […]
Slewfoot by Brom
In 17th century England, Abitha’s father sells her off to pay his debts; the end result is that she is shipped off to the American colonies to become the bride of Edward, a man she has never met. Edward turns out to be kind and generous, if meek in the face of his boorish cheat of an older brother, Wallace. The Puritan community that Abitha and Edward live in expects women to be consistently timid and obedient, never heard and seen only in the pursuits […]
