Books I've Rated 4 / 5

• Just Another Missing Person

  by Gillian McAllister

  Finished 2024-04-06

• Hyperion

  by Dan Simmons

  Finished 2024-01-29

  I really enjoyed this book and then it … ended before it was over. I know there are sequels but it felt like all the POV stories that were told, each of which I really enjoyed and I loved how they were told so differently, were leading to something at the end that the book just doesn’t provide. That’s disappointing. I’ll probably read at least one of the sequels in a while, but like … it seems like at least the first sequel would just have to be a part of this book.

• Infinity Gate

  by M.R. Carey

  Finished 2023-08-06

• Golden Son

  by Pierce Brown

  Finished 2023-06-26

• You Are Not Alone

  by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen

  Finished 2023-05-07

  I enjoyed it but it’s a little unsatisfying once it’s all unfolded. basically: “oh no, they’re gonna frame her—but they failed, the end”

• Still Life

  by Louise Penny

  Finished 2023-04-23

  Honestly I’d rate this book higher if it weren’t for the weird side plot with the junior detective. She seems to be on the spectrum, but she’s played as this weird, angry “kids these days only care about themselves” character that seems to have no purpose and amounts to nothing other than weird, hateful scorn. I’m probably missing some subtext but it felt very out of place.

• New Dark Age Technology and the End of the Future

  by James Bridle

  Finished 2023-04-16

• The Way of Shadows

  by Brent Weeks

  Finished 2023-04-08

  Honestly I tend to enjoy Brent Weeks books and this was no exception but I have to knock it down a little because of several over-the-top “men writing women” bits and some implied or explicit sexual violence that really didn’t need to be there.

• A Gathering of Shadows

  by V.E. Schwab

  Finished 2023-03-08

• The Great Hunt

  by Robert Jordan

  Finished 2023-02-22

• The Maid

  by Nita Prose

  Finished 2022-12-17

• The Hidden Girl and Other Stories

  by Ken Liu

  Finished 2022-11-26

  I really like the science fiction stories and found myself fading out during the fantasy ones. It’s a good read and I’d recommend it but I liked Paper Menagerie better

• On a Quiet Street

  by Seraphina Nova Glass

  Finished 2022-09-28

  Most of my feelings about this one are wrapped up in how it ended. Spoilers are not specific but will tell you what to expect from the ending so read at your own risk. It’s tough to read a lot of this book because it’s a lot of people being relentlessly cruel to each other and a lot of “they don’t know what we know” frustration, but while I spent a portion of the book worrying that this would be one of those “everybody loses” kind of dark reads, it wasn’t, and because the ending was satisfying, I ended up liking the book.

• The Way of Kings

  by Brandon Sanderson

  Finished 2022-09-19

  It takes a long time to get interesting, but I’m interested enough that I’ll pick up the next. It still feels a bit devoid of character, even with some big bombs near the end that seem like they should be shocking. But there’s enough in there to keep me intrigued.

• The Wife

  by Alafair Burke

  Finished 2022-07-07

  I enjoyed the book overall but I do think that the eventual revelation that the women were lying, while maybe necessary to keep the twists coming and reveal the

  _big

  twist (which was an interesting if not entirely unpredictable one), wasn’t really twisty itself and is obviously problematic. I spent a lot of the book wondering if the author would reveal their politics, and while I don’t think the twist is an endorsement, it builds up these women to a real extent, somewhat intelligently presents all the things people tell themselves so as not to believe the victim, while presenting them in a way that seems to indicate it’s not a great thing… and then says “yep that’s right they weren’t a victim” and that sucked