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#33. Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor. 4. Very much a middle book - explores the ideas of Binti but ends unsatisfactorily if you don't continue on to the third.
#34. Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor. 4. Shocking developments when Binti's alien friends, her people, and her idiot government collide. I was really pissed in the middle, but impressed by how things were wrapped up.
#35. Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughn. 4. Super old school style fantasy romance, with much of what that implies. But the warlord has the expected heart of gold, and the set up turns out to be sufficiently feminist as to not be jarring. If you like your heroes all alpha and broody but want them to actually still respect their captive princess' autonomy.
#36. Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan. 3.5. Still ridonkulous, still compulsively readable even while you're pissed at the characters and maybe even the author. Wealth-porn soap opera, but I still needed to know what happened to Astrid.
#37. F#ck Content Marketing: Focus on Content Experience to Drive Demand, Revenue & Relationships by Randy Frisch. 3.5. Some good insights. Mostly made me frustrated that while I agree with his premise, we can't actually ever manage the logistics at our organization.
#38. A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole. 4.5. Basically, if not-quite-as-high-tech Wakandan prince picked a grad student as his bride. Delightful romance. Ridiculous, but delightful. And if white girls can secretly be princesses from Genovia and Aldovia or whatever, why shouldn't black girls get their own fake utopian countries to be princess of?
#39. A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole. 3.5. Not quite as strong as the previous book (although stands alone). Portia is fun and her reluctant duke is also entertaining, but a bunch of the major concerns of the first half involving her family and his desire to support the neighborhood mostly get swept away to deal with the asshole previous duke. Which is fun and all, but the problems are still there.
#40. Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O'Brien. 3. So-dumb-it's-fun bathroom reader of retellings of world mythology and religions. Even-handedly dismissive of everyone. Mildly entertaining but forgettable, an excellent thing for reading on your phone in the grocery store line.
#41. Smoke and Summons by Charlie N. Holmburg. 4. Inventive first in a fantasy trilogy, featuring a non-medieval (kinda Industrial Revolution) setting and very cool magic system involving summoning demons into people's bodies.
#42. The 5th Gender by G.L. Carriger. 5. Very explicit, very hot thing that's not sure if it's a romance or a mystery. Tone is very comic romance, but most of the tension is a creative mystery involving some very interesting aliens. Adorable.
#43. An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole. 4. Civil-war era spy romance between a brilliant free black woman posing as a slave and a cocky white Union spy. Works well.
#44. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire. 3.5. Backstory for Jack and Jill - generally entertaining and well done, but unsatisfying without having read Every Heart a Doorway and unnecessary if you have. A good read but more for the completist.
#45. No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts. 4. This is meant to be Great Gatsby for black people, right? You can't have a man come back and build a giant house to impress his childhood sweetheart who married someone else and name him Jay otherwise, right? But it's for a very different world and things go very different places. Beautifully drawn characters, bittersweet ending.
#46. Mothers & Other Monsters by Maureen F. McHugh. 4. Lovely short story collection of spec fic, mostly examining our relationships with family through technology.
#47. Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton. 4. Coffee table book collection of the Tumblr. Gorgeous snapshots of the weirdness of humanity.
#48. The Fifth Doll by Charlie N. Holmburg. 4. What starts as a simple fantasy in a Russian-inflected village becomes a bit more of a mindfuck than anticipated when a village girl realizes that their town merchant has matryoshka dolls of all the villagers, and starts opening them.
#49. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. 5. Needed to reread. Foster home for everyone who's ever been dumped out of a Narnia-like world is still chilling and charming.
#50. Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water by Vylar Kaftan. 3.5. What starts as a prisoner on an abandoned alien mining world turns quite a bit weirder. A little more psychedelic than I'd bargained for, although props to the twist.
#51. Paradox Bound by Peter Clines. 4. Time travel romp that genuinely revels in the paradox and uses it for its own ends. Quite a lot of fun literal search for the American Dream.
#52. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. 5. Short and deliciously twisty, and darkly funny, this Nigerian thriller features a down-to-earth nurse trying to rein in her gorgeous psychopath of a sister before her sister murders the doctor she's got a crush on. I genuinely didn't know how this would go until the end, but would have been dismayingly delighted by pretty much any ending.
#53. The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein. 5. A wandering scholar in a medieval type society stumbles on a secret wizards are hiding. Big twist that the reader will figure out long before, but watching the brilliant Rowan puzzle things out is a delight. (Not so delightful - a torture scene I found unnecessary. Fair warning.)
#54. The Outskirter's Secret by Rosemary Kirstein. 4. Rowan heads to the edge of the world. Again, you'll figure out some things before she does, but watching her work them out is fun.
#55. The Lost Steersman by Rosemary Kirstein. 3.5. I don't want to say this stumbles a little, because this is clearly where the author wants to go. Rowan learns some startling stuff about the demons who haunt the land. I really liked the people bits. When she gets to the land of the demons, I'm not sure I'm thrilled where things inevitably have to go from here.
#56. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. 4. I haven't been counting all the books ARR and I read together, but now we're getting into chapter books, so I suppose I will. ARR didn't want to read this...until I got three pages in and then he was hooked. Compulsively readable.
#57. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. 3.5. The ending is kind of...random? But quite delightful and sure to hook even a wiggly child.
#58. Thor's Wedding Day by Bruce Coville. 3. Not as big a hit. Also, a little more sexist than necessary from the myth? Pretty faithful to the original mythology, though!
...I'm caught up! Huzzah! For a day or two.
#34. Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor. 4. Shocking developments when Binti's alien friends, her people, and her idiot government collide. I was really pissed in the middle, but impressed by how things were wrapped up.
#35. Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughn. 4. Super old school style fantasy romance, with much of what that implies. But the warlord has the expected heart of gold, and the set up turns out to be sufficiently feminist as to not be jarring. If you like your heroes all alpha and broody but want them to actually still respect their captive princess' autonomy.
#36. Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan. 3.5. Still ridonkulous, still compulsively readable even while you're pissed at the characters and maybe even the author. Wealth-porn soap opera, but I still needed to know what happened to Astrid.
#37. F#ck Content Marketing: Focus on Content Experience to Drive Demand, Revenue & Relationships by Randy Frisch. 3.5. Some good insights. Mostly made me frustrated that while I agree with his premise, we can't actually ever manage the logistics at our organization.
#38. A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole. 4.5. Basically, if not-quite-as-high-tech Wakandan prince picked a grad student as his bride. Delightful romance. Ridiculous, but delightful. And if white girls can secretly be princesses from Genovia and Aldovia or whatever, why shouldn't black girls get their own fake utopian countries to be princess of?
#39. A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole. 3.5. Not quite as strong as the previous book (although stands alone). Portia is fun and her reluctant duke is also entertaining, but a bunch of the major concerns of the first half involving her family and his desire to support the neighborhood mostly get swept away to deal with the asshole previous duke. Which is fun and all, but the problems are still there.
#40. Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O'Brien. 3. So-dumb-it's-fun bathroom reader of retellings of world mythology and religions. Even-handedly dismissive of everyone. Mildly entertaining but forgettable, an excellent thing for reading on your phone in the grocery store line.
#41. Smoke and Summons by Charlie N. Holmburg. 4. Inventive first in a fantasy trilogy, featuring a non-medieval (kinda Industrial Revolution) setting and very cool magic system involving summoning demons into people's bodies.
#42. The 5th Gender by G.L. Carriger. 5. Very explicit, very hot thing that's not sure if it's a romance or a mystery. Tone is very comic romance, but most of the tension is a creative mystery involving some very interesting aliens. Adorable.
#43. An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole. 4. Civil-war era spy romance between a brilliant free black woman posing as a slave and a cocky white Union spy. Works well.
#44. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire. 3.5. Backstory for Jack and Jill - generally entertaining and well done, but unsatisfying without having read Every Heart a Doorway and unnecessary if you have. A good read but more for the completist.
#45. No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts. 4. This is meant to be Great Gatsby for black people, right? You can't have a man come back and build a giant house to impress his childhood sweetheart who married someone else and name him Jay otherwise, right? But it's for a very different world and things go very different places. Beautifully drawn characters, bittersweet ending.
#46. Mothers & Other Monsters by Maureen F. McHugh. 4. Lovely short story collection of spec fic, mostly examining our relationships with family through technology.
#47. Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton. 4. Coffee table book collection of the Tumblr. Gorgeous snapshots of the weirdness of humanity.
#48. The Fifth Doll by Charlie N. Holmburg. 4. What starts as a simple fantasy in a Russian-inflected village becomes a bit more of a mindfuck than anticipated when a village girl realizes that their town merchant has matryoshka dolls of all the villagers, and starts opening them.
#49. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. 5. Needed to reread. Foster home for everyone who's ever been dumped out of a Narnia-like world is still chilling and charming.
#50. Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water by Vylar Kaftan. 3.5. What starts as a prisoner on an abandoned alien mining world turns quite a bit weirder. A little more psychedelic than I'd bargained for, although props to the twist.
#51. Paradox Bound by Peter Clines. 4. Time travel romp that genuinely revels in the paradox and uses it for its own ends. Quite a lot of fun literal search for the American Dream.
#52. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. 5. Short and deliciously twisty, and darkly funny, this Nigerian thriller features a down-to-earth nurse trying to rein in her gorgeous psychopath of a sister before her sister murders the doctor she's got a crush on. I genuinely didn't know how this would go until the end, but would have been dismayingly delighted by pretty much any ending.
#53. The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein. 5. A wandering scholar in a medieval type society stumbles on a secret wizards are hiding. Big twist that the reader will figure out long before, but watching the brilliant Rowan puzzle things out is a delight. (Not so delightful - a torture scene I found unnecessary. Fair warning.)
#54. The Outskirter's Secret by Rosemary Kirstein. 4. Rowan heads to the edge of the world. Again, you'll figure out some things before she does, but watching her work them out is fun.
#55. The Lost Steersman by Rosemary Kirstein. 3.5. I don't want to say this stumbles a little, because this is clearly where the author wants to go. Rowan learns some startling stuff about the demons who haunt the land. I really liked the people bits. When she gets to the land of the demons, I'm not sure I'm thrilled where things inevitably have to go from here.
#56. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. 4. I haven't been counting all the books ARR and I read together, but now we're getting into chapter books, so I suppose I will. ARR didn't want to read this...until I got three pages in and then he was hooked. Compulsively readable.
#57. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. 3.5. The ending is kind of...random? But quite delightful and sure to hook even a wiggly child.
#58. Thor's Wedding Day by Bruce Coville. 3. Not as big a hit. Also, a little more sexist than necessary from the myth? Pretty faithful to the original mythology, though!
...I'm caught up! Huzzah! For a day or two.
