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64. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. 3. Revisiting this as an adult. Plus points for engrossing descriptions of stuff like how to build a cabin, dig a well, make a rocking chair. I loved this stuff as a kid, it's still cool. Minus points for Pa being an autocratic asshole with his head up his butt (let's drag tiny children through incredibly dangerous situations because the woods are "too crowded" and not give your wife any say at all in her own life!) and general horrifying racism (you're stealing their land and you're all butt-hurt that the indigenous folk dare get too close to your cabin?) Even for the time, these were not great people.
65. Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art by Lewis Hyde. 4. This is more than just a gathering of trickster myths from across the continents - it's a deep dive into the psychology of why we need them and how they play out in art and history, with more than a smattering of the author's own reminiscing. Difficult to classify, but deeply interesting.
66. Westside by W.M. Akers. 4.5. Weird fantasy set in a Prohibition New York where half the city has been taken over by the shadows and one young private detective finds herself trying to avoid solving her father's murder. Vivid, compelling, and original.
67. Hyberbole and a Half by Allie Brosch. 5. Re-read. Still a little horrifying, still hilarious.
68. Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosch. 5. Re-read. Still both sad and horrifying, still hilarious.
69. Brother's Ruin by Emma Newman. 3. Swift little steampunk coming of age. Has some charming bits, but suffers from being completely predictable. By the third chapter, I knew exactly what was going to happen and I'm pretty sure I've figured out all the big plot twists for the rest of the series from here.
70.The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. Brilliant spin on the time travel novel, in which a secret society endlessly repeats their own lives. Get yourself into a sticky situation? Suicide's an easy way out, but that means you're doomed to another tedious fifteen years or so of childhood before you can manage anything interesting again. Want to pass a message on to the future or the past? Find someone whose life overlaps with yours but is either born significantly before or after you. And then someone starts making sure the repeaters are never born...
71. The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas. 3.5. The first half of this is an absolute delight, a sparky battle of wits and wills between a a bachelor who's convinced everyone he's the Perfect Gentleman and a debutante who plays a perfect demure ingenue. They recognize each other's lies, and things sizzle. But he's got his head a little too far up his ass in the back half, and the climax doesn't totally make up for his idiocy. It kind of peters out. Which is how actual conflicts in real life do end, as people kind of forgive each other and move on, but it makes for a less exciting final chapter or two.
72. The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez. 3. Another sparky, snarky romance, this one a contemporary. Begins delightfully. Really fun characters. But veers into the Cool Girl trope seriously a good 7 years after Gillian Flynn demolished it so effectively, keeps moving through the characters refusing to have a five minute conversation a quarter novel length more than excusable, and includes an infertility plot that the author makes sure to note she modeled after the real life of a friend of hers, which is necessary because it would probably make anyone struggling with infertility throw the book at the wall.
73. The Doctor's Discretion by E.E. Ottoman. 4. You'd think a m/m romance about two doctors in 1830s New York - one cis and Black, one white, trans, and disabled - trying to spring another trans guy from the hospital before he gets put on display like a circus animal might be preachy. But this one is actually very sweet, while dealing with the many, many obstacles this relationship faces even before the citywide manhunt starts.
65. Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art by Lewis Hyde. 4. This is more than just a gathering of trickster myths from across the continents - it's a deep dive into the psychology of why we need them and how they play out in art and history, with more than a smattering of the author's own reminiscing. Difficult to classify, but deeply interesting.
66. Westside by W.M. Akers. 4.5. Weird fantasy set in a Prohibition New York where half the city has been taken over by the shadows and one young private detective finds herself trying to avoid solving her father's murder. Vivid, compelling, and original.
67. Hyberbole and a Half by Allie Brosch. 5. Re-read. Still a little horrifying, still hilarious.
68. Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosch. 5. Re-read. Still both sad and horrifying, still hilarious.
69. Brother's Ruin by Emma Newman. 3. Swift little steampunk coming of age. Has some charming bits, but suffers from being completely predictable. By the third chapter, I knew exactly what was going to happen and I'm pretty sure I've figured out all the big plot twists for the rest of the series from here.
70.The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. Brilliant spin on the time travel novel, in which a secret society endlessly repeats their own lives. Get yourself into a sticky situation? Suicide's an easy way out, but that means you're doomed to another tedious fifteen years or so of childhood before you can manage anything interesting again. Want to pass a message on to the future or the past? Find someone whose life overlaps with yours but is either born significantly before or after you. And then someone starts making sure the repeaters are never born...
71. The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas. 3.5. The first half of this is an absolute delight, a sparky battle of wits and wills between a a bachelor who's convinced everyone he's the Perfect Gentleman and a debutante who plays a perfect demure ingenue. They recognize each other's lies, and things sizzle. But he's got his head a little too far up his ass in the back half, and the climax doesn't totally make up for his idiocy. It kind of peters out. Which is how actual conflicts in real life do end, as people kind of forgive each other and move on, but it makes for a less exciting final chapter or two.
72. The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez. 3. Another sparky, snarky romance, this one a contemporary. Begins delightfully. Really fun characters. But veers into the Cool Girl trope seriously a good 7 years after Gillian Flynn demolished it so effectively, keeps moving through the characters refusing to have a five minute conversation a quarter novel length more than excusable, and includes an infertility plot that the author makes sure to note she modeled after the real life of a friend of hers, which is necessary because it would probably make anyone struggling with infertility throw the book at the wall.
73. The Doctor's Discretion by E.E. Ottoman. 4. You'd think a m/m romance about two doctors in 1830s New York - one cis and Black, one white, trans, and disabled - trying to spring another trans guy from the hospital before he gets put on display like a circus animal might be preachy. But this one is actually very sweet, while dealing with the many, many obstacles this relationship faces even before the citywide manhunt starts.
