altlovesbooks

"I reckon you had a decent life and died a decent death. Ain't that enough?"

A pleasant, but not all that memorable, book about three people who find themselves in the care of Hirasaka, the man who flashes your life before your eyes when you die. Told in three separate stories, Hirasaka tends to an elderly preschool teacher, a Yakuza member, and an abused girl, when they find themselves there on death's doorstep. Two of the three stories begins with a photograph that doesn't quite develop of one of their cherished memories. Hirasaka offers to take them back in time to the period of the memory so they can retake their photograph exactly as they remember it, and we learn the backstory behind each of their memories. The final story framework is a bit different, but ultimately still follows the 'go back in time, get some backstory, take a photo' structure.

It was a decent book, but like I said, not all that memorable. The third story is definitely the most emotional, but I actually enjoyed the second story with the Yakuza member a bit more. Something about Waniguchi's interactions with Mouse and Kosaki really made the story for me, and I kind of liked how pragmatic Waniguchi was about his life in retrospect.

I do wish we learned more about Hiraska himself though, as it felt like some things were set up to make you wonder about him in the beginning, but were dropped by the end. There's no real ending to this book per se; he wraps up the third person's arc, we get a brief scene involving Yama, the guy who brings Hirasaka the information about the people/jobs, and that's the end. I kind of felt like more needed to be said, but I guess the author disagreed.

It's a decent book, but I'm not sure much will stick with me.

When you have 50 essays on a wide variety of food-related topics in a book less than 300 pages, you get a lot of breadth but not a lot of depth. At roughly 5 pages a topic, be prepared for the interesting bits you dig out of here to be glossed over and forgotten about. There's a lot of interesting food trivia here, but in digestible factoid form. The essays start in prehistory and work their way forwards in time which was nice, but aside from that have little to do with one another, lending the whole book kind of a fragmented feel. I found a few chapters interesting, but because I couldn't tell you what they are now that I've finished the book, I can say that the whole experience was a little forgettable.

Also, the author has a clear idea of what she thinks food consumption looks like in an ideal world, so you'll see a lot of that as well. I have zero problems with veganism even if I'm not part of that group, but I got a bit bored of seeing it come up so often.

An acceptable book with interesting factoids, but also not interesting enough to really stick with me.

Better than the other book by McFadden I read, Never Lie, but still not a super great book. I think I'm just hard to please when it comes to mysterious thrillers.

We have two points of time represented in this book. Present day Sydney who broke up with her ex- and has been trying to put herself out there on a dating app and be not single because her biological clock is ticking, her mom is harping at her, and god she doesn't want to be old and single is the main focus. The story opens with her matching with Kevin, a creep who misrepresented himself on the app and keeps insinuating himself into Sydney's life, despite being kneed in the manlybits and not taking a hint from there. She has two friends, Bonnie whose scrunchies are part of her identity and nobody else on the planet wears scrunchies except Bonnie, and Gretchen who has an art exhibit at a museum and is dating the weird handyman in Sydney's apartment.

We also have past Tom in high school, who has a weird bug-obsessed friend named....something (I can't recall his real name, was it ever mentioned?), but everyone calls him Slug because he eats bugs. Tom has a crush on classmate Daisy, has an alcoholic and abusive father, and a weak mother who puts up with it all. He's also strangely obsessed with and gets excited by blood. We get chapters about Tom navigating his crush on Daisy, them becoming something adjacent to boyfriend/girlfriend in a clean hand holding sort of way, and Slug being awkward, while drama at school about a missing classmate escalates and makes Tom a person of interest.

Honestly I was way more invested in Tom's past chapters than I was in Sydney's chapters. I thought Sydney was an idiot who managed to surround herself with people waving all manner of red flags for a multitude of reasons. The degree she blinds herself to what's going on around her for the sake of sex with a Hot Guy is mind-boggling, actually, and the mental gymnastics she goes through to rationalize things after the fact is rather amazing. I realize most of what's going on around Sydney is the author's love of misdirection, but I feel like the main character should at least be mildly concerned about any number of things she doesn't seem to care about. It's wild.

Also, as a person who proudly wears scrunchies in the Year of Our Lord 2025, I'm rather offended at Sydney getting so hung up on the concept of people wearing scrunchies in today times. Everytime she came across one in the story, only Bonnie could have worn it, because Bonnie was the only person who would ever wear a scrunchie. It's inconceivable anyone else would, really. They're so dated. Jeez.

I thought the twist was unexpected though, even if the ending to it all was hard to believe. And it did keep me reading, so it's an entertaining read, if you can get past the main character being so dense.

I sort of expected more from a mystery thriller set in old 1920s Hollywood. Maybe that was a me and my expectations problem?

Mary Rourke is someone movie studios call on when they need something fixed or resolved quietly that might have a PR impact. She's called to the home of Norma Carlton, a household name in silent films, because she was found dead. She's also working on a film Hollywood can't stop talking about, The Devil's Playground, an open secret everyone knows about but nobody wants anything to do with because of a curse. She sets about investigating this woman's murder to see if there's something larger at play than what it appears on the surface, and finds out there's an entire dark underside to Hollywood she wasn't prepared for.

There's also a second viewpoint mentioned in the summary of this book, but only appears in the very beginning and at the very end, to introduce the reader to the idea of The Devil's Playground being this lost film nobody has a copy of and to bring the whole thing to a close. I don't really consider this book a dual viewpoint story, as the vast majority is from Mary Rourke's viewpoint, with some interspersed historical chapters involving some essential backstory.

Right off the bat I want to say that I thought the writing was excellent. I love my descriptive scenes, and this book really nails the feel of 1920s prohibition Hollywood. Full points for that. I also like Mary Rourke's character, and thought she was a great person to share this story with. She seems smart, no-nonsense, and able to handle all the alpha personalities around her fairly well. It's also clear that the author did their homework on 1920s Hollywood, as there's a lot of details included within the story that sometimes was distracting.

Unfortunately, I thought the overall mystery was kind of lackluster and overdeveloped for the eventual payoff. I didn't really see the ending coming, and felt like a lot of what happened before wasn't all that relevant in hindsight. This overdevelopment also led to so many characters to keep up with, all with delightfully generic Hollywood names, that I had a hard time remembering who was who until well into a conversation.

It was just an okay book in the end, but ultimately not very memorable.

DNF @ 41%

I'm no stranger to Japanese fiction or their slice of life-style books, but I never really got into this one. There's plenty here about pianos and piano tuning that I wasn't aware of which was interesting, but I never really got into the main character's mental hurdles behind becoming a respected piano tuner, which was the bulk of the book up until this point. There definitely seems to be people who really enjoyed this book, and I wish I could stick it through to the end to see why, but having to force myself to read even a few pages was my cue to move on.

Three witch sisters run a tea shop specializing in reading tea leaves. They grew up together and are very close, and all live together in a house that just wants the best for its inhabitants. Unfortunately this closeness starts to chafe, as they're given a seemingly impossible task to complete by the council of witches, or else their shop will be taken away. Suddenly a very close bond between the three of them starts to unravel, as each gets tempted away from working together by the promise of something more than reading fortunes.

This was a perfectly acceptable book, but not deep in any way. It's definitely a cozy read, doesn't require a lot of the reader to keep going, and doesn't overstay its welcome. I thought maybe the plot point revolving around uncovering the witchs' tasks was resolved a bit too quickly/easily relative to how important it was made to seem. It almost felt like the book went in just a few too many directions all at once, between (mild plot spoilers here) the witchs' tasks, the curse, and the three sisters' secrets they were keeping from each other. I was puzzled at points in the book at which was the 'main' threat and what was just plot filler.

But it was a cute book, if nothing else. Cozy and quick, I guess is what I can sum it up as.

Okay, going into this, you have to realize that this is very much a Japanese book about a guy who does nothing. That literally means that not a whole lot happens in this book, but it's still quite charming. Our Rental Person is an unassuming guy who found himself unsuited for Japanese corporate life, and wondered if 'doing nothing' could have some sort of social significance. Thus, he rents himself out to people who need someone along who does.....nothing. All he asks is for his travel and expenses to be covered, and you have yourself someone who will listen to your problems without comment, who will attend events and do nothing in the audience, who will eat with you at a restaurant without comment, any number of things.

Whether or not you agree with him and his thinking here aside, I actually enjoyed this book. Rental Person seems to be quite conscientious about having as little impact as possible in other people's lives, and yet still manages to be of service. It's kind of a meandering book, where requests quoted from Twitter are posted alongside his social media commentary tweet about the job, and then the author comments on his particular thoughts about the job. There's not a lot of deep insight here, and especially his thoughts on doing literally nothing are reiterated a ton, but as a surface level story about the myriad strange requests someone gets to do nothing, I thought it succeeded well.

Just a short, sweet book about doing nothing.

I spent the entire book rooting for the Glimmer, if that tells you anything.

These are all deeply unpleasant people thrown together for a dinner event Britta, social media influencer and overuser of hashtags, is putting on to curry favor with some brand she wants to partner with. But her marriage is failing, her kids are more props to her than people, and her friends just don't understand how important this dinner is to her. Liz is also there, shepherding her own failing marriage for not caring about social standing like her husband does, who goes batshit crazy once the Glimmer hits and everyone is stuck in Britta's basement. Every chapter of hers is about how she misses her kids and has no faith in either them or their babysitter to do anything right, and even sets a fire in the basement as a last resort to try and get emergency services to come during a lockdown. Padma is there too, but exists more as a plot device about needing to pump, giving Liz an excuse to rob Britta's house under the guise of looking for a pump, and mastitis. Mabel rounds out the cast of women here, but all the book cares about her is that her husband cheats on her repeatedly and she takes it. There's guys there too, but the book doesn't really care about them beyond being drama fountains.

You never find out what the Glimmer actually was (alien? plague? pathogen?), so all you're really here for is to follow the drama this group of rich people contrive for themselves. The book also moves at a breakneck pace, never really allowing a reader to orient themselves in a scene before blowing onto the next drama plot point. I rolled my eyes more than a few times at how contrived some of the scenes were. Spoilers here: Liz is conveniently a writer for a dystopian TV show and has a bunker and months of supplies in her basement. Britta's husband has a car that has a bio filter, armored like a tank, and allows anyone driving it to instantly become a stunt driver without training. Britta's house has everything from breast pumps to a massive basement so there's never really any threat to our characters, but no antibiotics for Padma because we need her to be sick. There's more examples, but you get the idea.

A quick read, but a disappointing one.

"Everyone thinks they know what's best for the moons. Schoolkids, senators, farmers, factory workers. But so many of them disagree in their answer to one question: Who's human to you?"

Ver and Aryl work in the same science lab, when their mentor, Cal, is mysteriously killed in a variation on a locked-room mystery. The two girls are framed, when neither of them are the ones who did it. Despite being from very different backgrounds and not really knowing the other all that well, the two band together to clear their names, but end up becoming closer as well, as they navigate Ver's wasting disease she was attempting to cure, and Aryl's dream of being a dancer.

It wasn't a bad book, but I felt like it was lacking something to make me feel more for the characters. Ver's chapters, in particular, are written in a certain style to drive home that she's from a different background with different views. I like the science-y factoids/ruminations her chapters open with, but the rest of her chapters were very clinical, like how someone deep in the science world would think. Aryl, in contrast, is very flip, unpredictable, and kind of a party girl in the beginning, despite having lofty goals for herself.

I feel like the relationship that develops between these two needed more time to cook for it to feel authentic. As it is, beyond a few throwaway lines about being impressed by the other, noticing the other being a bit attractive, and silently respecting the other's intelligence, nothing is really expanded on until a switch flips and they're overtly in love with each other. It all felt very instalove-y, which was a bit grating.

Finally, while I liked the undertones about social divides and living with disability in the beginning, it felt increasingly heavy-handed as the book went on. The author has talent in painting the world this book exists in and the society issues it has, but what started subtle and left to the reader to infer ended as a blunt hammer to the head by the end, and I kind of didn't like that.

Still, it was a bit cute, and I did really like the world as depicted by the author.

"I wonder if it matters whose side anyone is on."

I'll just say up front that the 'dystopia' and 'science fiction' tags on this book are misleading. The situation they find themselves in is dystopian for sure, but it's hardly even part of the story for most of the book. The bulk of this book is taken up by exploring the backstories of two guys, Jess and Storey, who were out hunting in Maine when they discover burned downs, blown bridges, and a general information blackout happened while they were disconnected. They wander around Maine a bit, find a very young girl they feel compelled to keep safe, and us as the reader experience a lot of Jess's flashbacks to when him and Storey were teens.

That's basically the book. You do find out what's going on in Maine sort of second-hand, but it's not really fleshed out in any meaningful way other than to provide a reason for these two guys to be out in the woods disconnected for so long. You do, however, get way too much information about Jess's teenage years, (flashback/backstory spoilers here) where Storey's mom evidently seduces Jess when he was 17, and has sex with him at least twice. Jess never told Storey, but evidently Storey knew all along because his mom shacked up with lots of guys. It's actually pretty predatory and gross. The ending also is really abrupt. We could have used at least another chapter or so to find out (ending spoilers) if our guys actually make it out, if they end up telling the girl what happened to her dad and the whole story, anything about the secession, really.

But the environmental detail and writing were all pretty great. I'll probably check out other books by this author, just this one left me wanting quite a bit more.

What a wasted premise. This really felt more like a general fiction/coming of age drama wrapped up in a vaguely sci-fi trenchcoat. I was hoping for something more mysterious and crazy, what with the depiction of the different timeline valleys as they are, but we get none of that. Meh.

A large chunk of this book is spent in Odile's school years, where she's struggling to make friends and figure out where she fits into the larger society. Her mom is pushing her to do one thing, apply for the Conseil apprenticeship where she'd be responsible for vetting requests from residents to visit the other valleys in other timelines for closure reasons, but she's not entirely sure she wants to do that. Her friend Edme, too, wants to become a violinist, but his parents want him to do something more practical. There's some relational development, and just as things start to build up between Edme and Odile, a tragic accident takes his life. His death affects Odile and their other friends greatly, and the rest of the book is about the drastically different path her life takes.

I thought the time travel premise was interesting, but underused in the book. Most of what happens here, save the last 10-20% or so, could have happened in basically any other coming of age drama with some aspects changed. There's no mystery here, there's no intrigue, there's no thriller really, just a friend group coming to terms with the death of one of their own. Once I realized that none of this different valley stuff was going to be explored in any meaningful way, I kind of got bored with the book.

I also thought that Odile as a character was flat and boring. I can't tell if that's by intent (there's hints dropped that she's neurodivergent in some way, but it's never expressly stated) or by poor writing, but she really felt removed and distant from everything that was happening, even stuff happening directly to her. But it made even the emotional parts of the book land kind of flat, because I honestly didn't know if Odile even cared.

I kind of also didn't like the way the ending was handled. (Ending spoilers here) When Odile is meeting with Evrette at the very end of the book, I hated how the threat of unmaking yourself/others was handwaved away as just not mattering sometimes, and that they simplify things to encourage people to comply. It effectively removed any consequences of Odile's actions in saving Edme.

Finally, I listened to the audiobook, but from reading the reviews here, it sounds like the author didn't use any sort of dialogue punctuation, which I absolutely hate. Had I not listened to the book, where it's clear who's speaking when, I would definitely have put this down.

Just a mediocre book. I wasn't on board with the relational drama, and wanted more of the sci-fi, I think.

"If you look at one leaf

You only see that.

If you don't look at any of them

the whole tree appears."

An interesting collection of short stories related to samurai and Bushido that I've had on my to-read list the longest (so far). Some were fun and funny, others were serious, but all of them had some sort of hidden meaning or lesson to learn. I think my favorite of the collection was 'Hideyoshi's Eighth Thought', if only because I could sympathize with the official who kept getting new orders from his lord just as he was about to act on them. Sometimes management do be like that.

Instead of being Yet Another Mythology Retelling where an author picks apart Greek mythology with a female protagonist, we get something a bit more inspired from a reputable author. The result is kind of a fairytale-esque story written using figures from Mayan mythology in a 1920s Mexico historical setting. It sounds like a mishmash of concepts, but I thought it worked well together.

Casiopea works as a servant in her grandfather's house, a glorified floor scrubber and errand runner for the household in a small town in Mexico. But when she accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of Death, she's given the opportunity to finally see the larger world and all the things she's only dreamed of. But it's a dangerous journey she's about to go on with many opposing forces trying to keep the two of them from reaching its end.

I thought it was a really sweet story. There's a bit of romance here between Casiopea and Hun-Kame, but done in a hesitant way since the two of them realize that their situation isn't permanent. I liked that we get to see a lot of personal growth in both Casiopea and Hun-Kame from the journey as well, and some introspection about how the journey changes a person. The setting in Mexico is beautiful, and I loved the descriptions of the different cities they visit along the way, with the author taking care to make them feel distinctive.

I will say that, because of the way the story is intended, the ending is a bit predictable. Ending spoilers here: it never really feels like Casiopea is in danger from anything she's asked to do, despite the warnings she's given, and it does take you a bit out of the story when you realize the thickness of her plot armor. But if you enjoy a journey more than the ending, there's a lot here to like.

Naila attends a magic school for mages without magic. That is, she has the aptitude for it, but for whatever reason, she can't perform any of the same magical benchmarks as her fellow classmates. She's been at this magical school for some time now and has already resigned herself to washing out and all of the baggage that entails, when one of the most powerful wizards in the city takes her under his wing. He's determined to figure out what to do about her problem, and why her magic is different than everyone else's.

We also have Entonin, a priest from a neighboring kingdom with a poor view of mages, arrives in the city with his bodyguard Karameth. Entonin is here ostensibly for negotiations and to try and smooth over feelings on both sides, but is actually there as a spy for a secret organization.

Alongside all of this is Oriven, leader of the city, casually standing up a magic army, seizing control of the food supply, and pitting mage against non-mage citizens. We don't see too much of him directly in this book, but his magical fingers are busily sowing unrest with an eye toward seeing non-mages removed from the city.

I feel like some of the reviews here are too harsh. I will say, the onboarding in this book is difficult to get through. A lot of terms, places, and concepts are thrown at you from the very beginning, and I found myself consulting the glossary in the back fairly often until things started to stick. There's a lot of information dumps early on, paving the way for the rest of the book. I feel like things start smoothing out after the first quarter or so of the book. I also feel like the bad guy of this particular book, Oriven, didn't get nearly enough direct viewpoints. He shows up in two chapters for maybe two pages apiece, and his existence in the rest of the book is other members of the government talking about what new laws he's enacted or what new controversial thing he's done. He's more of a force in this book than he is an actual antagonist.

But I thought the good parts of the book were enough to really make me enjoy this by the end. I thought the writing was descriptive and really pulled me into the city alongside Naila. I thought the political story being told was intriguing, and the last quarter of the book or so really had me on edge. I thought Naila was a really great female lead, and she had one particularly stand-out scene near the end that I loved. The side characters were also all interesting in their own right, which was also nice. I could go for an Entonin/Karameth novella/series, honestly.

All that to say, if you can get through the information flung at you in the beginning, you're rewarded with a pretty interesting political story, a strong female lead I can get behind, and a fantastic ending that leaves me waiting impatiently for the second book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

A mermaid, estranged from her husband's court (having killed/eaten them all, I presume), is accompanied by a plague doctor who finds her in the aftermath on a journey to escape. On their way they come upon a village consisting entirely of almost feral children—and three surgeons whom the children call saints. The children claim the saints can bring them back to life better than before, but the surgeons are nigh immortal and children brought back are sometimes missing organs. It doesn’t take long for this duo to catch onto the reason behind the immortality, and it’s the plague doctor who wants to save the children whether or not they want to be saved. Unfortunately, good intentions lead to sad conclusions.

Or, at least, that’s what I’m assuming the plot was. Honestly, it felt like the author sorted a thesaurus by least commonly used words and wrote a book using only those. This prose is so purple, it’s almost black. There’s a creepy folklore story buried in here, but not being able to follow along fully with what was going on from scene to scene sometimes really took me out of it. I wish I could rate this book higher, but not being able to fully follow a story makes it difficult for me to recommend it to other people.

Also, there’s lots of visceral detail here. So if excessively detailed surgical scenes, cracked ribcages, eating of eyeballs, descriptions of entrails, and much, much more is not your cup of tea, pass on this.

So the Condor goes missing on Regis III, and our titular ship, the Invincible is tasked with finding out what happened. They land, locate the craft, and find all sorts of unexplainable and mysterious remains. It appears the crew succumbed to some sort of madness, leading them all to die of hunger or exposure, despite there being ample food, water, and shelter available. The environment on land is devoid of life, while the seas show marine creatures with a curious magnetic field sensitivity. There's a strange black cloud that blocks all form of communication, and a strange rain of molten metal. All signs point to something not right on the planet, but nobody's sure quite what that something is immediately. The captain decides to stick around, and his navigator (and our viewpoint) Rohan is tasked with investigating things.

It's an old book, but the story and writing still hold up. The author does an excellent job with characterizing the book's main players, and I was really intrigued with the mystery that the author sets up here on this desert planet. The captain and Rohan butt heads (in a professional way) frequently, as the captain is more of a traditionalist manifest destiny type and Rohan is more practical. The setting and feelings of the crewmates are also done well, leaving me well invested in the outcome of the ship.

I did feel like it lingered a bit too long in the last half of the book on matters of philosophy and characterizing what constitutes life, but it's something that I feel is somewhat common in sci-fi books of this era. Once the author pulls the curtain back a bit behind what's really going on on Regis III, I wanted more movement and resolution, and less musings on various aspects of technology and biology, and feeling beat over the head with the idea that sometimes doing nothing at all is the better route to take.

Still, really enjoyable read. Highly recommend to classic sci-fi fans.

"Drinks. Jokes. Laughter. At the end. I promise."

I'm not going to bother with a full review here, because how do you review the 5th book of a series that encompasses as much as this one does? All I'll say is that if you've read this far, this book is a worthy pause. I hope Brandon Sanderson did a few victory laps after finishing this one, because he deserved it.

I'll just go ahead and say up front that I didn't think this book was as strong as the others. I didn't feel all that connected with any of the humans our SecUnit was protecting this time around, because the story doesn't really set any of that up in the same way as the other two. We just kind of...end up with them along for the ride when Murderbot was there for other reasons entirely. The framework story also felt not as strong, and a bit fragmented and confusing in places.

I do like the slow transition the author is building from how Murderbot was in the first book (standoffish, aloof, more than a little terrified, wanting nothing to do with any human for any reason) to how it is now (mildly aggrieved, reluctantly protective, a bit curious). There's definitely a lot of character development packed into these small stories.

I read the first book in this series earlier this year and really liked it, in the face of unfavorable reviews. I liked the sci-fi detective noir setting, and felt like people went into it expecting something different than what they got. It had flaws, but I really enjoyed the stream of consciousness writing style associated with our detective's thought processes, as well as the cyberpunk-esque setting he was in.

This book felt just a bit less entertaining, if only because it feels less a detective noir and more a cyberpunk thriller, which is fine I suppose, but not what I enjoyed from the first one. That's not to say this was a bad book -- I did give it four stars after all -- just that my reasons for liking the first one and this second one are different.

We're eight years off of the first book, and our still-unnamed protagonist is raising his kid after being relieved from duty while his wife retains her job on the police force. (story spoilers here) Unfortunately, Ascalon is back and still wants to get one over on her mom Akira Kimura and show how much better she is at everything, so her neural implant burrows into his kid's eye socket while she's swimming and takes her over. What follows is a lot of our protagonist thinking he's finally breaking the hold Akira and Ascalon have over him, but really he's following the path they meticulously lay out for him to the letter. Our protagonist does a lot of thinking in this one about whether he has free will, or whether he's just a puppet for either of them--or both.

There's lots of action in this one. Almost wall-to-wall action, actually. We go to space, we go underwater, we go to the old United States where people live without IEs and technology, giving the author plenty of time to flesh out this dystopian-esque cyberpunk world he's created. But you don't get much time to catch your breath or enjoy the scenery, because our protagonist is never in any of these places for very long before the next story beat yanks him away. The pace really is pretty frenetic, so if fast paced thrillers are your thing you'll probably enjoy this second book better than the first.

I thought it was just a little bit too fast for my taste, but I still did greatly enjoy the book (and that ending!). I'll be moving onto book three in 2025 sometime.

I read Shaun Bythell's The Diary of a Bookseller last year, and found a lot to identify with, being that I work with books as well (as a lender in a library, not a seller). I found his irreverent humor at the crazy situations he ended up in personally identifiable, in that I also have to keep a straight face and a smile whilst fielding personally (or listening to my staff field) questions of all stripes from patrons. One can be ready and willing to help in any manner while also internally wondering how we got to this point, I think.

I found more of that irreverent humor here in this book as well, which follows Oliver as an apprentice bookseller at Sotheran's in London from his first steps into the store, through his career there, and his evolution out the other side at his realization that at some point he was no longer an apprentice. Throughout his time at Sotheran's, he tells us (with some exaggeration rooted in truth) about the bookish atmosphere that at any moment might turn on its inhabitants and cave in on itself, the people who come through their doors looking to buy or looking to look or looking to sing a song or looking to....smell, I guess, the myriad ways people try and get booksellers to buy their moldy books found in a basement/shed/attic somewhere, and many other amusing topics besides. I think my favorite topic was the recurrence of the cryptids throughout the book, leaving me with more questions than answers (as I'm sure the author thinks the same thing).

All in all a fun, short book to keep me just barely on track of my Goodreads goal for the year. I really do love reading these books about people in the book trade.

I'm starting to really like these ship-in-a-bottle mysteries that Turton pops out. I really enjoyed The Devil and the Dark Water (aside from some thematic quibbles near the end of the book), and this was (kind of) more of the same, just with an island instead of a ship. Island-in-a-bottle just doesn't sound as good though.

We have a small colony of people, marooned on an island and unable to leave due to a mysterious fog that's swept the world and killed everyone else on it. This island was the last refuge for scientists, who constructed a barrier that managed to keep the fog at bay and the people safe, but the lab that housed most of their technology and kept most of the people asleep in suspended animation had to be sealed up. Time passed. Survivors rebuilt their society as best they could. The three surviving scientists, enhanced to live long lives, shepherd their small colony of 122 villagers through their lives and their little society coexists together in a fragile balance of just enough villagers for just enough food. There's enough little oddities told about this village to keep you reading and make you wonder at what's actually beneath this little idyllic existence -- and then one of the scientists, beloved and revered, turns up dead. Suddenly there's a clock ticking where the murder must be solved before everyone is killed.

I really mostly enjoyed this book! There's enough strange things going on that's hinted at or glossed over by the POV characters as being something that just is to keep me wondering what actually was going on here. In fact, if the whole book was told with this as the framework, I'd probably be looking at a 5-star review here. My hangup is when things turn into murder investigation mode, because everything starts feeling a bit disconnected and frantic. The "detective" (in quotes, because she's not actually a detective with training) seems like she bounces from random location to random location in rapid succession with no real idea what she's doing. (ending spoilers here) Despite this, she manages to stumble on enough of the clues to lead her to a conclusion that was far-fetched at best. I certainly had a hard time following her train of thought, despite already arriving at the 'these people aren't people' conclusion before we got there. It feels like a book that begs for a re-read to really understand the ending.

Still, really interesting thoughts here, spun in a way that kept me reading to see how things wound up. I can't say I necessarily agree with the motive and the ending, but the journey was fun enough for me.

This book follows Lin Chong, a once-arms instructor for the Emperor, who gets branded a criminal based solely on the untrue word of a government official. She falls in with a group of bandits who have a code of justice to protect those less fortunate, and though they do many good deeds, they're all still criminals, traitors, and cutthroats, so Lin Chong struggles daily with reconciling her old life with her new one. This book also (in the middle stretch, at least) follows Lin Chong's friend li Junyi, who gets voluntold by the Empire to work on harnessing a weapon--manufactured Gods' Teeth. Chapters are dedicated to her viewpoint as she works through creating a small team to meet the demands, researching and testing the weapon, and finding out her best friend is working for the other side.

I very badly wanted to like this book, especially since it starts out really strong in my opinion, but the middle chunk of the book felt too oddly paced, and focused too much on Ii Junyi. The ending was strong, but I mentally struggled to keep my attention in the middle stretch of the book. I also feel like the cast of characters was entirely too large, and while Lu Da's character was necessary to be Lin Chong's other half (so to speak), I personally didn't really care for her personality.

The writing was really strong though, I just had a hard time with the actual story being told.

Like a gritty post-apocalyptic jaunt through a lawless West, but your main character is a Buddhist monk who avoids hurting/killing people, when people want to kill him. Will is a courier for a potential cure for a plague that ravaged the world, but the man trying to stop him is actually the least of his worries. The remains of society, the lawlessness, the unchecked wilderness is doing a pretty good job of it on its own. Will reflects on this a lot during his journey, and his additional traveling companions, a cat named Cass, a raven named Peau, provide him with additional food for thought and perspectives throughout.

I appreciated the extensive inclusion of Buddhism/Buddhist principles throughout the book, as this is more meant to be an introspective journey than it is a gritty wall-to-wall dystopian adventure. I really felt a part of the world the author was crafting here, and I think I enjoyed the quiet moments of the journey and his interactions/troubleshooting along the way, more than the scenes involving actual action. I like how the author handles Cass and Peau's "talking", equal parts magical realism and plain understanding of animal vocalizations. I like the story told here as well, with the backstory of the Mayhems sprinkled in alongside the journey to get the cure to California.

I'm not quite as in love with how the book ends up though, which prevented me from giving it the 5 stars I was riding on the rest of the book. (ending spoilers here)I'm not sure I love the idea of Eva not being dead, or the way she was woken up. I know I praised the inclusion of the elements of Buddhism above, but her being conveniently able to keep herself asleep for 14 years using some hard-to-achieve Buddhist principle while not really being a practicing Buddhist herself seemed a bit hard to swallow.

But the rest of the book? Fantastic. Enjoyed every minute of it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Today the sun has set on airships and ... it is feared that it has set forever."

Buddy Levy's arctic expedition books continue to not disappoint. I've read both Labyrinth of Ice and Empire of Ice and Stone, and rated both of those an enthusiastic 5 stars. This one, with its inclusion of the history of airship travel and the arctic, was no different, to no surprise of mine. There's just something incredibly compelling about these explorers who endure so much in the name of planting a flag.

This book's three parts tell the reader about a different airship attempt in each part. We first are introduced to Walter Wellman and the Chicago Record-Herald Polar Expedition, whose struggles to get airborne set the stage for what comes after. The second part brings in Roald Amundsen (a familiar name for anyone who's read about polar expeditions in the past) and his journey on the Norge, where both him and Umberto Nobile become rivals and enemies at the conclusion. Finally, part three involves the Italia, Nobile's attempt to cross the north pole, funded by Italy and Mussolini, that ends rather poorly. It turns out quite a lot can go wrong with giant bags of gas in a cold environment.

As usual, each part is well researched and well written, with footnotes included, as well as an extensive bibilography at the end. I evidently really need to read Amundsen's biography The Last Viking, because his inclusion (history spoilers(?) here) and conclusion was a huge surprise for me. I wasn't a huge fan of Nobile as a historical figure, but I sort of felt bad for the guy on his return.

Just a fun, informative, tense book all around. The only reason it took me so long to make it through this one is because life happened and I didn't get much time to read until now. I binged the last 50% in two days, it was that good.

This was delightful from beginning to end. I know there's lots of comments here about slow starts, but I appreciate that the author was able to cram in so much of Ester's backstory and motivation into so few pages without me losing interest and without it feeling exposition-y. We learn a lot about rocs, about the kingdom, about the main players, about the rookery, and about Ester herself in the beginning, and I think all of that is needed to appreciate the payoff in the second half.

I would definitely read a full-size story about Ester and Zahra, but I also think this was exactly as many pages as it needed to be to tell her story. I think my only complaint (and it's very minor) was the inclusion of (story spoilers here) Nasmin and the prince and the brief love triangle drama we had. It didn't really bring much to the story, and aside from Nasmin's roc being the catalyst of Darius' maiming later on, Nasmin herself and the prince as well was pretty much out of the story after that. It didn't fit in well with the rest of the book.

Still, a really great story. I picked it up to try and get my Goodreads goal back on track, and wasn't expecting it to be this great.