Read
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Carpathians
Finished
This book purports to be about first contact, but mostly deals with a hyper-capitalist future and how humankind might react to the possibility of first contact. It may be a minor spoiler, but “contact” barely occurs in this book. I did think it was interesting, and for a while I thought the cynical angle of such a hyper-capitalist future added something interesting to the story, but at the end it became clear that that was the story and I was left unsatisfied. If Dixon intends to write a sequel, it would make sense, but I don’t see any indication of that at this point. Which leaves a big chunk of the focus of the book more-or-less unresolved.
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When I Was You
Finished
Honestly a lot of fun. Lots of twists. Does well to play with the tropes of the genre and then subvert expectations. Also once or twice when I expected a twist and it went straight, in a pleasantly surprising way.
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The Great Transition A Novel
Finished
I highly, highly recommend this book. Something about the title, presentation, subject matter made me expect it to be a bit less accessible than it was – and I think for some, its “accessibility” will be a knock. It reads like genre fiction, IMO, not literary fiction, but I think that’s a point in its favor – stuff like this doesn’t have to be dense or intimidating. It’s really really smart and comes at the subject matter from what was, in my eyes, a unique way that is both hopeful and not, and I think its main characters represent the kind of “two wolves” inside many of us in the modern world: the impulse to fight tooth and nail and the impulse to try to make a life and carve out some joy are both valid. Loved this book.
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Rabbits A Novel
Finished
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She Didn't See It Coming
Finished
I enjoyed most of this book but the resolution was pretty deeply unsatisfying and left a lot of loose ends—any thriller/mystery that’s any good will employ red herrings, but most of the red herrings at play here seem very forced in retrospect. Beyond that, the over-explanation at the end was at a certain point kind of silly. I’m all for making it clear what happened but it was made clear a few times over and then the characters internal-monologued their justifications on top of that.
I’m trying not to just give everything a 3 simply because I still mostly enjoyed it. So, this gets 2.5.
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The Spear Cuts Through Water
Finished
Another book that gets the “I’m clearly too dumb to fully appreciate this” bump. It took me a long time to get through, even on audio. I set it aside a lot. The writing is very poetic and often abstract, and it jumps between times, places, and perspectives regularly. On audio, at least, some of these jumps are very disorienting and hard to follow. I think it’s a very artful book, but I can’t say I enjoyed it.
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The Vacancy in Room 10
Finished
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When Women Were Dragons
Finished
The novel has a fascinating premise and it’s very well-written but I feel like for a book dedicated to Christine Blaisey Ford, choosing to set this in the fifties really hamstrings the message. I know there are people who yearn for those days, but those people aren’t reading this book. The misery of a much more overt and unashamed patriarchy (which has not gone away, but has found ways to rebrand into something more subtle and insidious) in the fifties is, it seems to me, pretty widely acknowledged. So much of the book hinges on that premise and I think it undercuts any timeliness, for me.
This is by no means a bad book. It’s a good book—by some more artistic measure, it’s certainly better than the rating I’ve given. But for me, a personal rating also accounts for impact and while I can see it hit a lot of people the right way, and I’m happy about that, it fell short for me.
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The Perfect Divorce
Finished
I had kind of forgotten how the first one resolved so it took me a bit to catch up to events. Fun thriller. The twists and turns were fun, kept me guessing, and didn’t usually feel cheap once revealed.
I hope—expect?—there will be a third book that wraps up Sarah’s arc. If I’m supposed to be satisfied that she just keeps getting away with it… I’m not. It’s not that her adversaries are good, but she’s, you know, also not good. -
The First Sister
Finished
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Cleat Cute
Finished
Pretty far outside my wheelhouse and the “spicy” scenes were prolonged and graphic, which I don’t judge it’s simply not what I read books for, but the relationship was absolutely charming and as a soccer fan I had a lot of fun with the setting—it’s also clear the author is immersed in the woso world for a bunch of reasons, and that added to the authenticity. Very fun read.
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The Woman in Suite 11
Finished
My recollection is that I liked but didn’t love The Woman in Cabin 10, although I don’t remember specifically why. This one, I loved. Even when I thought I’d figured it out, or even when I kind of did have it figured out, I didn’t. Fun, twisty, engaging. Ware is such a great thriller writer.
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The Most
Finished
Boy, people like to make fun of fantasy books for their emphasis on world-building but that’s basically all that happened here. A simple scenario plays out with endless flashbacks explaining the life stories of everyone involved. Very literary, and certainly not bad but it’s funny to think about how this world-building is received in comparison to that of genre novels.
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A Fate Inked in Blood
Finished
I didn’t realize what I’d gotten myself into when I started this book, but honestly I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the “spicy” parts, which I don’t tend to read books for, flowed perfectly well from the non-spicy parts (unlike Iron Flame), and I found the plot engaging, the world interesting, the romance (again, not really my primary motivator to read a book) compelling-enough. The writing is fine, not excellent – a few phrases stick out and start to get annoying, but it’s ok. I’ll pick up the second at some point.
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The Other Mrs
Finished
I was pretty sure I had this figured out from very early on and while I wasn’t wrong I didn’t have the whole thing, so what I had sussed out was joined by things I hadn’t or things that took me much longer in a pretty satisfying way.