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141. A Tangled Web by Mercedes Lackey. Retelling of Persephone, in the Hundred Kingdoms universe. Heavily features characters from an earlier book I hadn't read, but I don't think it made that big a difference. Kind of fun but forgettable.
142. Soul Music by Terry Pratchett. 4. The intro of Susan Sto Helit, granddaughter of Death, and one of my personal favorite Discworld characters. Lots of delightful pop music callbacks, slightly confusing ending.
143. How to Read a Dress: A Guide to Changing Fashion from the 16th to the 20th Century by Lydia Edwards. 4. Fascinating walk through the history of dresses, with big color plates. Really, I wish it had been longer - I would have loved even more in depth info, both on the political currents changing the fashion and on the fashion itself. The back promised to show the difference between cartridge pleats and Recamier ruffles, and while both terms get used, it never actually explains anything. Each dress only gets one photo, when the discussion really needs multiple, and diagrams of the internal architecture. It's not that the info was bad; it was that it was good enough I just wanted more. Oh, also, the copyediting is abysmal.
144. The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War by Caroline Alexander. 5. Is your image of Achilles that of a big baby who sulked in his tent? Thank you, medieval lays and the British public school system's 'dulce et decorum est' crap. Alexander walks through a deep textural analysis of the ancient saga you probably skimmed in high school, including the context that it would have been told it, and it's a fascinating wrestling with what a soldier owes his commander and what the legacy of war should be.
145. Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee. 3.5. Cute YA adventure/romance about a daughter of superheroes with no powers. Several of the big reveals are telegraphed very early on, but it's not a huge problem for the audience to see what the protagonist doesn't. On the other hand, the climax turns into a kid-vs-nature conflict rather than making the actual climax wrestling with the many conflicts already set up. And the resolution of "oh we'll deal with this in the sequel" makes the actual conflicts feel like unresolved afterthoughts.
142. Soul Music by Terry Pratchett. 4. The intro of Susan Sto Helit, granddaughter of Death, and one of my personal favorite Discworld characters. Lots of delightful pop music callbacks, slightly confusing ending.
143. How to Read a Dress: A Guide to Changing Fashion from the 16th to the 20th Century by Lydia Edwards. 4. Fascinating walk through the history of dresses, with big color plates. Really, I wish it had been longer - I would have loved even more in depth info, both on the political currents changing the fashion and on the fashion itself. The back promised to show the difference between cartridge pleats and Recamier ruffles, and while both terms get used, it never actually explains anything. Each dress only gets one photo, when the discussion really needs multiple, and diagrams of the internal architecture. It's not that the info was bad; it was that it was good enough I just wanted more. Oh, also, the copyediting is abysmal.
144. The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War by Caroline Alexander. 5. Is your image of Achilles that of a big baby who sulked in his tent? Thank you, medieval lays and the British public school system's 'dulce et decorum est' crap. Alexander walks through a deep textural analysis of the ancient saga you probably skimmed in high school, including the context that it would have been told it, and it's a fascinating wrestling with what a soldier owes his commander and what the legacy of war should be.
145. Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee. 3.5. Cute YA adventure/romance about a daughter of superheroes with no powers. Several of the big reveals are telegraphed very early on, but it's not a huge problem for the audience to see what the protagonist doesn't. On the other hand, the climax turns into a kid-vs-nature conflict rather than making the actual climax wrestling with the many conflicts already set up. And the resolution of "oh we'll deal with this in the sequel" makes the actual conflicts feel like unresolved afterthoughts.
