This is one of those times where a book hit me just right, and it was just what I was in the mood for at the time of reading it. I was craving something fluffy and maybe a tad predictable, yet comforting, after reading some downer books about tough subjects. And this perfectly fit the bill. I’m not the target audience for this book, at all, but I still really enjoyed it. (I would have been obsessed if I’d read it when I was a […]
Texas noir. #CBRBingo
Project: Catch Up On Review Backlog commences. No promises on the quality of my next ten or so reviews. I just want to get them done. (This will probably unfortunately result in subpar reviews for books that deserve much better.) Let’s start with a book I finished over a month ago, Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke. First things first, this book was incredibly well done. It’s a crime book set in Texas, featuring a black Texas Ranger as its protagonist. I knew that going in. […]
This is hard to get through, even if you’re normally okay while reading books about rape.
I have never had such a hard time getting through a book that I liked. “Liked” actually feels like the wrong word here. How can I say I liked something that made me angry and frustrated almost 100% of the way through, and which filled me with dread every time I tried to convince myself to pick it back up again? Perhaps “appreciated”? Understand is necessary? See its importance? But not liked. I didn’t expect this reaction, even though rape is a tough subject to […]
I can see why people love this, but I didn’t.
This was really well-written, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. Three stars for now, but probably if I had been in the mood, it would have been four stars, so let’s split the difference. The Poisonwood Bible is an important book, one that is probably good for everyone to read and think about it. The book follows the story of the Price family. The father, Nathan, is a Baptist preacher whose gotten it in to his head to save the souls of the […]
Winter in Russia, and a monster in the dark.
This was not quite what I was expecting. I think I was expecting something more along the lines of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, because people have compared them endlessly, but aside from taking inspiration from Russian folklore, the two books don’t have very much in common. Uprooted is a fairytale, albeit one that is lengthened and deepened. The Bear and the Nightingale is a historical fantasy that is historical fiction first, fantasy second. This book takes place in medieval Russia, then called Rus’. The daughter of […]
“Money pads the edges of things. God help those who have none.”
First, a confession. I can count on my right hand the number of books in my lifetime I haven’t finished. As a rule, I finish all books I start (even if it takes years). You never know when they will turn around on you. This used to be one of the few. I was in my last year of grad school at the time, and only got about 80% of the way through before our class discussion, and just . . . never got around […]