Ordinary Monsters by Miro, JM
Bingo Row 1 – Black Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro feels nostalgic. I suspect a lot of that is because the book looks so much like my long gone copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It’s a big black book with the silhouette of a flying bird on the cover. I only noticed it in a bookstore because I thought it was Jonathan Strange. There are a few other similarities I noticed between the two, but it’s been so long since I read the […]
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
Bingo Row 3 – I The first thing I noticed about Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao was that the book was dedicated to Rebecca Schaeffer. That set a strong tone for the book. It indicated that the author felt some strong connection with a long dead actress whose death influenced stalking laws, and it indicated that the topics would be about how society and men treat women and celebrities. It turns out the book was dedicated to a different Rebecca Schaeffer than the one […]
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
CBR Bingo: Play I read a number of Iain M. Bank’s Culture novels about ten years ago and, while I remember enjoying them thoroughly, for whatever reason, I never ended up finishing the series. They’re technically all standalones, but I didn’t want to jump back in halfway through without having a strong recollection of the previous books, so decided to do a re-read. The Player of Games is technically the second book in the series, but from what I remembered (and from some other opinions I’ve […]
One by One by Freida McFadden
“One by One” follows a married mother of two, Claire, going off to the woods with her husband, his best friend from college, that man’s wife, and her best friend Lindsay, and her new boyfriend. Claire is looking forward to this trip because she plans on finally telling her husband that she wants a divorce. When the group of six gets stuck in the woods on their way to the inn they were going to stay at and then one of their members dies, Claire […]
To Clutch a Razor by Veronica Roth
cbr17bingo: family This sequel picks up not long after the first one ends. Dymitr decides to return to Poland with Ala to accomplish a task in exchange for something he needs. While there, this task unexpectedly intersects with a mission Niko is on. Where this book really shines is character development. While I acknowledged that there was limited room for character exploration in the first novella, it was still something I hoped we would get more of in this book, and we did. I now […]
Fruits Basket Collector's Edition, vols. 1-12 by Takaya, Natsuki
Bingo row 4 – family Dostoevsky’s the Idiot is a novel about someone who is so kind and good that everyone assumes he’s an idiot. Prince Lev is a “modern” day Jesus, unappreciated and destroyed by the times. This review isn’t about that book, but I thought about it a lot as I read Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya. (I had previously watched its anime adaptation, so The Idiot connection was brewing and boiling when I started reading. It’s also not a unique comparison.) Tohru […]
