Nik

Diversity, accessibility, inclusivity—giggity! I can't squee enough about this book. It's been a while since a story grabbed me like this, holding on and pulling my focus from other things; all I wanted to do was get back to it and keep reading. And this is the author's first novel? Wow.

The crew of the Wayfarer reminded me a bit of the crew in Farscape: kind of a ragtag bunch who end up as family; it's fun getting to know them individually and as a group. The storytelling is straightforward and compelling. The writing is descriptive enough that I felt like I was reading a film; in fact, I began early on casting actors in the various roles, which isn't something I often do. But I never got mired in the prose.

It was beautiful to read about different species of beings, different cultures, physical attributes, gender identities. I've never seen an author use “xe” and “xyr” before, so that was pretty great. The whole thing just oozes personality and charm and—most of all—love. I would love to see this world and especially these characters come to life on the big screen, and I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

TIL I'm not really interested in roller derby, but Lumberjanes remains as enjoyable as ever.

Well, it's more of a 3.5, but definitely not a 4. It wasn't entirely predictable, so it had that going for it.

My rating system is a little weird. You have to consider it in context. When I rate a film, it's not against every film I've ever seen, it's against similar films I've seen. Within the [a:Chuck Palahniuk 2546 Chuck Palahniuk http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1264506988p2/2546.jpg] context, Snuff is good. I was getting quite tired of reading his work and never really finding anything different. Snuff stands out, y'know? It's not a bad story, all things considered, and it's told differently. It feels less, I dunno, standoffish? distant? maybe.

(4.5 stars.) I read American Gods for the first time years ago and didn't think much of it. I decided to give it another try because everyone I know loves it, and I thought I must be missing something. I don't remember my initial reading, so I don't know what I missed, but it was definitely something; this time around, I found it to be an absorbing tale.