Ryan

This was suggested to me on the basis of it winning the Stephen Leacock medal, but having read it I'm not sure why it did? I didn't find any humour in the story here. It's a sad story, and those can of course have a lot of value, but I must have completely disconnected from the type of story that Johnston was trying to tell here.

I've been playing a lot of the Arkham Horror living card game lately, which has been so enjoyable that it encouraged me to go back and re-read some of the source material. Lovecraft does a great job here of creating a fascinating setting and building a world.

This was fairly interesting in a history trivia sort of way - Peal has an engaging style that makes it feel like you're getting a history lesson from someone down at the pub rather than in an academic lecture. The book felt fairly meandering, though - there's no real sense of why these are the Georgians we should want to meet, or how they're connected to each other or to larger historical narratives.

A caveat on the rating for this - you have to be a Star Wars fan, and especially a Clone Wars fan, to appreciate this. If you fit into that category, this is an absolute must-read; Ventress's and Vos's tragic love story is real and believable, and it results in the best "Jedi falling to the dark side" story that we've seen in the Disney canon. This one has action, romance, humour - it's Star Wars storytelling at its peak.

I don't know enough about the Secret Garden to comment on the quality of this as an adaptation of that story, but Dimaline never disappoints her readers. This was an enjoyable story - the characters are rich and complex, and Mary's journey of self-discovery is believable and real.

If you're a real completist of Lovecraftian homages, you'll probably want to read this, but the reader who only dabbles in this topic would probably be better off reading other books in the similar style (including Rawlik's Reanimatrix, which I enjoyed a lot more than this one).

A fun little snippet of a story about ART (who I had completely forgotten is actually named Perihelion) and its crew.

I loved this for most of the way through - Akbar's writing is poetic and existential, reminiscent of Dostoevsky at some points, and Palahniuk at others. You could really feel the depths of Cyrus's suffering and depression.

The twist ending felt like a cheat, and completely out of place for the story that Akbar set up in the first 80% of the story. It really affected my ability to enjoy the whole story.

Pure pulpy goodness, mixing hard-boiled detective storytelling with Lovecraftian horror.

This was theoretically the kind of book that I should have loved, but for whatever reason it just never clicked for me.

This was a really fascinating idea and, as expected, Sawyer not only explores it in interesting ways but also manages to balance it with interesting interpersonal conflict. It's one of those novellas that you really wish was fleshed out into a full novel, though - the ideas present deserve more explanation!

Confession time - I've never read the Count of Monte Cristo, so I can't judge how faithful this sci-fi reimagining of it was. This was an incredibly engaging story about colonialism, spaceships, and self-(re)discovery. And for that I loved it dearly.

This was a delightful, irreverent reimagination of Romeo and Juliet. North's humour reveals a true love of Shakespeare, and the nature of the book encourages you to think about the text in a new way.

This was my book club's pick for March and that's the only reason I finished it. Did not find any of the characters or their circumstances engaging or interesting at all.

This was a really interesting insight into the mind of Canada's newest Prime Minister. Hopefully Mark Carney the politician can live up to the ideals that Mark Carney the man professes to hold.

This was an incredibly powerful read. Trey is an interesting, flawed yet idealistic character, and his coming of age against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis was very moving. Despite being fiction, this feels like a powerful historical document of the zeitgeist of the 1980s. Some of the historical cameos were a little overwrought, but not in a way that took away from the narrative or the themes.

This was a nice fill-in fic to show where Ahsoka was between the end of the Clone Wars cartoon and her reappearance in Rebels. Having listened to the audiobook, hearing Ashley Eckstein narrate the story was really nice as well.

If you're not a dedicated fan of Star Wars in general, and Clone Wars specifically, this probably would not be an enjoyable read. This is meant to be connective tissue, and it does that job well, but someone not already well-versed in the story would find it almost incomprehensible at times.

Some books are interesting because of their plot, engaging characters, or because of unique insight the author has. This is not one of those books. HOWEVER, I would still defend it as an interesting read for the thoughts and conversations it sparks about the value of work and how we define it, what it means for someone to have "value" to society, and the complicated obligations that our relationships with each other create. By doing nothing Morimoto becomes a mirror through which we can study each other.

I've always liked the idea of Red Sonja as this badass warrior lady, but I never really would have considered myself a big fan of her. Reading this has definitely changed that opinion - Simone's exploration of Sonja's background does a great job of grounding her in reality, while also presenting a deeply fantastical story. That combination of sweet and savoury makes for an incredibly engaging story. The audiobook performance by Felicia Day adds a great additional layer to the story as well.

This is a strong, bold, scary look at mental illness, isolation, indigenous culture, and the struggles of motherhood. Objectively, it is a very well written book.

Subjectively, this was not the book for me.

I, too, enjoyed the film BODIES BODIES BODIES. This is just that, but in a library.

There are a lot of interesting plot points here, and a lot to think about. It's a well-written book. I didn't find myself connecting to any of the characters in it, however, and that limited my ability to enjoy it.

I love Terry Pratchett and I love Macbeth, so this was a pretty obvious love for me 🙂

I found this one to be a bit of a mixed bag, but overall it was a fun read. Meddy felt a weak as a protagonist, but the supporting cast was strong and interesting enough that they made up for it. I loved the dark humour and the contrast of the glitz and glamour of the wedding with the murder and its coverup.

I found the ending disappointing - everything felt wrapped up way too easily and quickly, and the lesbian romance reveal felt unearned.

This was an adorable, lighthearted read that had just enough depth and character to it to remain interesting. Great subversion of a lot of fantasy/D&D tropes done in a loving way.