Read
-
Recursion
Finished
As with most of Crouch’s books that I’ve read: fun, worth reading, nothing particularly mind-blowing. A quick, entertaining experiment with an interesting semi-scientific concept. This felt like the book The Third Rule of Time Travel wanted to be.
I guess I wish the ending hadn’t elided the actual, final resolution of the issue the book is built around trying to solve. And I think skipping to “we had a romance in another timeline” so that now there’s a romance felt kind of cheap; I never really bought into that relationship. -
The Hunting Wives
Finished
Of all the thrillers driven by “protagonist makes terrible decisions,” this is one of the worst offenders. I just don’t think enough was done to sell the motivation for this woman to put herself in such terrible situations, consistently. I get the suburban ennui, but it really only achieved lip service and we just dive right into “why, why, why are you doing this?” But ok, plenty of thrillers have bad decision-makers; this one also doesn’t resolve well.
The whole mystery surrounding Margo’s motivations is cast aside when she just … ends up dead. And then the villain does the classic Bond villain monologue to wrap it all up. -
Age of Legend The First Empire. Roman
Finished
Most of these epic fantasy series start to lose me as they get this deep into the series, because the stakes get too broad, and even focusing on the characters, I just lose the sense of who’s who (and, to be fair, I definitely mix up names in this one, which is probably made worse by listening to the audiobook) and so I can’t identify with the stakes, the storylines, etc. But I really enjoyed this one. The stakes are large but the focus of the story still remains on characters that I connect to and root for.
-
The Tenant
Finished
Not terribly written, but the structure, the eventual resolution of the mystery, were all underwhelming. Another mystery where I spent much of the book generally enjoying it yet as it wrapped up it kind of felt like a waste. The clues and red herrings put out there were not well-used and certain Chekhov’s guns never went off; which I suppose is fine, and maybe even good in a literary novel, but in a mystery, when you reflect on your experience, those things just feel cheap and meaningless.
-
The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association
Finished
Really enjoyed this. It’s cozy, but it’s a bit deeper than I might expect from something cozy. As a parent of a toddler just starting in childcare, I found that this resonated surprisingly deeply and the fantasy elements easily mapped, without being heavy handed, to real parenting concerns.
-
All That We See or Seem
Finished
I really enjoyed this book, but I liked the first half a lot more than the second. There is a major, and kind of disorienting, pivot at that point and it goes from having a clear arc to a kind of listlessness with the kind of aftermath of the first half of the book.
I was certain Piers and Elli were both alive, in part because of how quickly their death came and went; I was half-right, but the way that was revealed felt like an afterthought instead of what I assumed would bring the book around to a satisfying conclusion. Liu is a very intelligent writer who writes compelling characters and creates an interesting image of the near future. One thing I kept thinking about was how some of the tech he introduced read, to me, as his bets on what current early-stage tech survives and thrives. And it’s not necessarily what I’d have guessed. I think the major suspension of disbelief for me was in the idea of a personal AI that didn’t live in or process via the cloud. We have a lot of leaps before something like what we’re seeing now is available in a form that is both fast and local.
It also seemed rosier about the future of AI—even with the many dystopian angles—than I might have expected.
-
Bonfire
Finished
A pretty well-constructed thriller. Lots of tropes, and I had a few major points figured out long before they were revealed, but not everything, so when it all came together it was still a satisfying conclusion—satisfying in terms of a thriller’s construction, of course, not in terms of the kind of dark content.
As an aside, the protagonist felt very much like a character who might be played by the author, to me. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all; just interesting.
-
The Atlas Paradox The Atlas Book 2
Finished
I enjoyed returning to these characters but the plot lacked a strong arc. I think this is often a problem with middle books in a series. I think it also got a little fractured in the last third, and didn’t cleanly handle the way in which the characters appear to be kind of pairing up. It felt like some of their conversations were almost déjà vu—entendu, I guess.
-
Everyone Here Is Lying
Finished
-
The Incandescent
Finished
I really enjoyed this one. I’m completely aware that I’m a sucker for school books, especially “magic school”, but the magic in this one was really interesting, the atmosphere was great, and the romance was charming.
-
The Lies You Wrote
Finished
This was a very satisfying thriller/mystery. I liked the linguistic angle and for the most part I think it was convincing – I’m not a linguist but I do think there are times when one reads a book and the writer’s actual lack of expertise is apparent, and I don’t think that was the case here. The payoff, the resolution, was certainly spectacular, but it didn’t feel unearned or out of left field. I really enjoyed it, start to finish.
-
The Third Rule of Time Travel
Finished
Coming up with an engaging premise is only part of writing a book, and while it’s not easy, it’s certainly the easiest part. I thought this book was pretty interesting and asked a lot of interesting questions right up until it became clear that it would hand-wave them all away in the resolution. By that point, a lot of the flaws of the book – the constant, clichéd “in English, please?” between scientists; the cartoonish villain; the less-educated style of speech of a supposedly brilliant protagonist (plausible, sure, but just one more thing) – went from things I’d forgive for an interesting premise to signs that it was never going to wrap up the way I’d hoped. Disappointing, in the end.
-
The Last One at the Wedding
Finished
This was an interesting kind of thriller but the pacing kind of lost me – it’s kind of over with 20% of the book to go. Sure, not completely, but the writing’s on the wall and there’s really no more tricks up its sleeve.
-
Katabasis
Finished
-
The Tainted Cup
Finished
This book just won the Hugo, so I had to know what the buzz was about. The premise definitely seemed interesting, but as the book got going I wasn’t convinced of its hype-worthiness. In the end, though, yes, absolutely loved this book. It builds on a whole bunch of comfortable formulas and tropes to create something new, entertaining, and really satisfying in the end. I’m not always looking for a message in the books I read, although it can be hard not to notice the harmful ones (think: copaganda, or the myriad thrillers that hinge on a woman lying about abuse or assault) – but this book has some really interesting things to say about government and power, without hammering you over the head with it (ok, there’s a small amount of hammering at the end). You don’t have to get those themes to enjoy the book, but I definitely felt a deeper appreciation for the book as those themes (and themes of neurodivergence) revealed themselves. Highly recommend this novel and I’ve already picked up the next in the series.