Books I've Rated 3.5 / 5

• The Writing Retreat

  by Julia Bartz

  Finished 2025-04-26

• Sunrise on the Reaping

  by Suzanne Collins

  Finished 2025-04-10

• Stay Awake

  by Megan Goldin

  Finished 2025-04-05

• After the Ending

  by Lindsey Fairleigh, Lindsey Pogue

  Finished 2025-02-26

• Iron Gold

  by Pierce Brown

  Finished 2024-08-17

• Age of War

  by Michael J. Sullivan

  Finished 2024-07-19

• The Midnight Feast

  by Lucy Foley

  Finished 2024-06-28

• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

  by Suzanne Collins

  Finished 2024-06-22

  I didn’t hate this. I really loved the way Collins ended the trilogy; it was so interesting and real, in a universe that wasn’t very. So I was curious to see how she’d do Snow. I think the biggest issue I have is the pacing. The heel turn feels sudden and late, even if there are some smart breadcrumbs left along the whole journey. I also expected the heel turn to be in response to something but I think it was sly that it was basically always in him. He was never going to be anything else because of his basic flawed belief system. A lot of “banality of evil” stuff here. So I liked it overall but yeah I think it could’ve been better paced and while I thing Collin’s is smarter than some of her “dystopian YA” peers about the things she writes about, I don’t know that this one will stick with me too long, like the epilogue of the trilogy did.

• The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

  by Stieg Larsson

  Finished 2024-05-24

• Close to Death

  by Anthony Horowitz

  Finished 2024-05-15

• Dark Matter

  by Blake Crouch

  Finished 2024-05-11

• What She Did

  by Carla Kovach

  Finished 2023-11-29

  Totally serviceable genre book. The resolution was pretty obvious from pretty early on, but I didn’t guess everything .

• Zero Days

  by Ruth Ware

  Finished 2023-07-11

  Love Ruth Ware and her storytelling kept me in this till the end but it was disappointing overall—predictable almost from the start.

• Legends & Lattes

  by Travis Baldree

  Finished 2023-03-27

  This came highly recommended from a few people but it didn’t do much for me. It was fine. I listened to it on audiobook and like six of the nine recurring characters are pendry/hendry/tendry or something? Why do that?

• The Future of the Mind The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

  by Michio Kaku

  Finished 2023-03-27

  Some really interesting stuff that, over and over, descends into silliness that is not just goofy in how it relates sci fi to real world tech, but extremely credulous or over-ambitious and not at all wary of the dangers of the things it’s proposing. The actual, scientific, brain stuff is interesting. The “maybe we could recreate The Force from Star Wars” stuff feels amateurish and goofy.