jethrien

I think this may be the last year I rate books publicly, although I may still list them. In the last couple months, this has suddenly become awkward as I interact professionally with too many of these folks, and it's not going to get less awkward any time soon.

1. Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer by Rax King, 5. Memoir
2. The Good-Enough Life by Avram Alpert, 3.5. Self-Help
3. The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, 5. Science Fiction
4. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist—the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England by Daniel Pool, 4. History
5. The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang, 5. Romance
6. Servant of Empire by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, 3.5. Fantasy
7. The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston, 4. Romance
8. A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, 4. Science Fiction
9. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, 4. Fantasy
10. Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman, 3.5. History
11. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, 4. Fantasy
12. Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart, 3. Fantasy
13. One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, 5. Romance
14. On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor, 3.5. Pop Science
15. Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley, 5. Fantasy
16. Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty, 4. Science Fiction
17. What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe, 5. Pop Science
18. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, 5. Science Fiction
19. The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant, 3.5. History
20. Mistress of Empire by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, 3.5. Fantasy
21. Remind Me to Hate You Later by Lizzy Mason, 3.5. General fiction
22. The Company of the Dead by David Kowalski, 3. Science Fiction
23. A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab, 4. Fantasy
24. A Conjuring of LIght by V.E. Schwab, 4. Fantasy
25. The Hydrogen Revolution by Marco Alverà, 3. Pop Science
26. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, 5. Fantasy
27. Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly, 3.5. Romance
28. All the Feels by Olivia Dade, 4. Romance
29. Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murders by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
30. The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older, 4. Science Fiction
31. The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
32. The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
33. The House of Sundering Flames by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
34. Network Effect by Martha Wells, 5. Science Fiction
35. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells, 4.5. Science Fiction
36. Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith, 5. Fantasy
37. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, 4. Fantasy
38. Bishop's Opening by R.S.A. Garcia, 3.5. Science Fiction
39. I Never Liked You Anyway by Jordan Kurella, 4. Fantasy
40. Spear by Nicola Griffith, 4.5. Fantasy
41. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, 5. Memoir
42. Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, 3.5. Writing
43. Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori, 4. Pop Science
44. The Archived by Victoria Schwab, 4. Fantasy
45. The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin, 3.5. Science Fiction
46. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson, 3.5. History
47. The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett, 3.5. Fantasy
48. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, 3. Classic
49. The Unbound by Victoria Schwab, 4. Fantasy
50. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, 2. Classic
52. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, 3. Classic
53. The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough, 4. History
51. Divinity 36 by Gail Carriger, 5. Science Fiction
54. The Sumage Solution by G.L. Carriger, 5. Romance
55. The Omega Objection by G.L. Carriger, 4.5. Romance
56. The Enforcer Enigma by G.L. Carriger, 4.5. Romance
57. The Greeks: A Global History by Roderick Beaton, 5. History
58. Happy Place by Emily Henry, 5. Romance
59. End of Story by Kylie Scott, 3.5. Romance
60. Even Though I Knew The End by C.L. Polk, 5. Fantasy
61. Role Playing by Cathy Yardley, 4. Romance
62. The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner, 4. Fantasy
63. Swordheart by T. Kingfisher, 4.5. Fantasy
64. Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher, 4. Fantasy
65. The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher, 4. Fantasy
66. Midnight Duet by Jen Comfort, 4. Romance
67. Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai, 4. Fantasy
68. Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne, 3. Fantasy
69. How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford, 3.5. Science Fiction
70. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson, 3.5. Self-Help
71. Wolfsong by T.J. Klune, 4. Fantasy
72. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, 5. Literary Fiction
73. The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin, 3.5. Fantasy
74. The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo, 5. Fantasy
75. That Special Something by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese, 4. Romance
76. The Dispatcher: Travel by Bullet by John Scalzi, 4.5. Fantasy
77. Parasite by Mira Grant, 4. Horror
78. Husband Material by Alexis Hall, 4.5. Romance
79. Please Scream Quietly by Julie L. Fennell, 4. Anthropology/Cultural studies
80. Arch of Bone by Jane Yolen, 2.5. Historical fiction
81. The Adventures of Amina Al-Sarafi by Shannon Chakraborty, 5. Fantasy
82. Translation State by Ann Leckie, 4.5. Science Fiction
83. Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey, 3.5. Fantasy
84. Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, 3.5. Fantasy
85. Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey, 4. Fantasy
86. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, 5. General fiction
87. In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune, 3. Science Fiction
88. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey, 3.5. Fantasy
89. The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur, 4. Romance
90. mindfulness guide by J. Mark G. Williams, 3.5. Self-Help
91. Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall, 4. Romance
92. Babel by R.F. Kuang, 5. Fantasy
93. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, 4.5. General fiction
94. Ravensong by T.J. Klune, 3.5. Fantasy
95. Mr Katō Plays Family by Milena Michiko Flašar, 3.5. General fiction
96. A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales, 4. Mystery
97. The Weaver and the Witch Queen by Genevieve Gornichec, 4. Fantasy
98. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, 2. Classic
99. Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change by W. David Marx, 5. Anthropology/Cultural studies
100. And What We Can Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed, 4. Fantasy
101. The English Experience by Julie Schumacher, 4. General fiction
102. Poison or Protect by Gail Carriger, 4. Romance
103. City of Bones by Martha Wells, 4. Fantasy
104. The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grant Ginder, 3.5. General fiction
105. A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark, 4. Fantasy
106. Dome 6 by Gail Carriger, 4. Science Fiction
107. Death is a Lonely Business by Ray Bradbury, 3.5. Mystery
108. Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot, 3. Romance
109. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, 4.5. Fantasy
110. Charlie All Night by Jennifer Crusie, 3. Romance
111. Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising by Timothy Zahn, 4. Science Fiction
112. Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good by Timothy Zahn, 4. Science Fiction
113. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, 3. Fantasy
114. Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong, 3. Fantasy
115. The Marquis Who Mustn't by Courtney Milan, 5. Romance
116. Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale, 4.5. General fiction
117. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, 3. Fantasy
118. Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil by Timothy Zahn, 3.5. Science Fiction
119. Stronger Than a Bronze Dragon by Mary Fan, 3.5. Fantasy
120. Peril at Price Manor by Laura Parnum, 3.5. Children's
121. Do Your Worst by Rosie Danan, 3.5. Romance
122. Murder Most Faire by Teel James Glenn, 2.5. Mystery
123. Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher, 5. Humor
124. Tune In Tomorrow by Randee Dawn, 4. Fantasy
125. Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater, 5. Fantasy
126. Wings of Fire Legends: DragonSlayer by Tui T. Sutherland, 4. Fantasy
127. The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth, 3.5. Fantasy
128. Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire, 4.5. Fantasy
129. Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, 5. Science Fiction
130. The Four ??? Of the Apocalypse by ed. Keith and Wren DeCandido, 3. Fantasy
131. Forget the Funnel by Georgiana Laudi, Claire Suellentrop, 3. Technical/Career
132. The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 5. Fantasy
133. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, 5. Literary Fiction

36. Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith, 5. Fantasy
37. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, 4. Fantasy
38. Bishop's Opening by R.S.A. Garcia, 3.5. Science Fiction
39. I Never Liked You Anyway by Jordan Kurella, 4. Fantasy
40. Spear by Nicola Griffith, 4.5. Fantasy
41. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, 5. Memoir
42. Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, 3.5. Writing
43. Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori, 4. Pop Science
44. The Archived by Victoria Schwab, 4. Fantasy
45. The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin, 3.5. Science Fiction
46. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson, 3.5. History
47. The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett, 3.5. Fantasy
48. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, 3. Classic
49. The Unbound by Victoria Schwab, 4. Fantasy
50. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, 2. Classic
52. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, 3. Classic
53. The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough, 4. History
51. Divinity 36 by Gail Carriger, 5. Science Fiction
54. The Sumage Solution by G.L. Carriger, 5. Romance
55. The Omega Objection by G.L. Carriger, 4.5. Romance
56. The Enforcer Enigma by G.L. Carriger, 4.5. Romance
57. The Greeks: A Global History by Roderick Beaton, 5. History
58. Happy Place by Emily Henry, 5. Romance
59. End of Story by Kylie Scott, 3.5. Romance
60. Even Though I Knew The End by C.L. Polk, 5. Fantasy
61. Role Playing by Cathy Yardley, 4. Romance
62. The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner, 4. Fantasy
63. Swordheart by T. Kingfisher, 4.5. Fantasy
64. Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher, 4. Fantasy
65. The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher, 4. Fantasy
66. Midnight Duet by Jen Comfort, 4. Romance
67. Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai, 4. Fantasy
68. Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne, 3. Fantasy

I've got like four different books currently in progress, so I imagine 2023 will get off to a fast start.

113. Barcelona by Gary McDonogh and Sergi Martinez-Rigol. 3. Competent enough history of the city. They use maps to orient each chapter, which sometimes makes things more clear and sometimes more muddled, but generally a good intro to the region.

114. History of Spain: A Captivating Guide to Spanish History, Starting from Roman Hispania through the Visigoths, the Spanish Empire, the Bourbons, and the War of Spanish Independence to the Present by Captivating History. 2. Ugh, I'd vaguely remembered that I'd read a Captivating History book before, but forgotten that they're basically a random series of Wikipedia articles with terrible pacing. (In my defense, I was reading this on the plane to Spain on a trip I'd planned with a week's notice, and had not done the research I'd usually do.) Like a quarter of the book is the Roman history, with incredibly needlessly detailed descriptions of individual battles of the Punic Wars. Then a mad rush through a lot of the Moorish/Medieval history. Wikipedia is cheaper and probably better organized.

115. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. 4. Low stakes cozy fantasy in which an orc opens a coffee shop. Are you looking for sweeping adventure? Not happening. Are you looking for problem solving around the logistics of baked goods while building found family, with just enough conflict to keep things moving? This cinnamon bun of a book about cinnamon buns is your cup of...coffee.

116. The Bride Test by Helen Hoang. 4. Another charming romance from Hoang that features neurodivergent protagonists respectfully. Khai is an autistic American protagonist whose mom tries to mail order him a bride from Vietnam. Esme's willing to go along for a free get-to-know-you trip to the US so she can track down her father. Despite a million potential landmines, Hoang threads the needle deftly and sweetly.

117. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes. 3.5. I appreciate how the messed up protagonists (he's a major league pitcher whose slump destroyed his career, she was about to leave her golden boy husband the night he died and is having trouble processing being a non-grieving widow) don't actually save each other. They have to save themselves before they can make things work.

118. Jolene by Mercedes Lackey. 3.5. Retelling of the Dolly Parton song as a fantasy Sixteen Tons in which Jolene may be an eldritch abomination? Why not?

119. To the Stars by George Takei. 3.5. Autobiography includes the sad but fascinating details of the actor's childhood in a relocation camp as well as a lot of the behind-the-scenes Star Trek info you'd expect. But it's from 1994, before he was out, so I imagine there's an entire parallel track of info we would get if this was written today that's entirely missing.

120. Closer to Home by Mercedes Lackey. 3. The Herald Spy books have somewhat better pacing than the Collegium Chronicles. If you haven't read Lackey, her earlier stuff is better, but I continue to find these comfort reads. I did appreciate that this had a few wrinkles I didn't predict from the obvious Romeo and Juliet set up.

121. Closer to the Heart by Mercedes Lackey. 3. Somewhat more complicated plotting, although I felt like Amily's roof running lessons were going to go somewhere but never did.

122. Closer to the Chest by Mercedes Lackey. 3. I feel like the titles between this and Closer to the Heart should have been swapped, TBH. Fun for Valdemar stans (which ok, I still am), repetitive for everyone else.

123. John Dies at the End by David Wong. 2.5. I think this one may have just been Not For Me. The combination of absurdist gross out horror sounded like I might enjoy it, but the climactic sequence finally brought home the degree to which body horror and penis jokes were just not landing for me.

124. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. 4.5. Incredibly creepy and effective retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher. Intense body horror done right. (You don't HAVE to read the Poe to appreciate it, but it helps. And the Poe is a novella in public domain, go pull it up on your phone.)

125. Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. 4. This is an odd interstitial book in the Enchanted Forest chronicles, but the blue floating donkey alone is worth the price of admission.

126. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. 5. Budding witch Patricia and shiny new mad scientist Laurence are the kind of friends you get when outcasts are shoved together in elementary school. But their thorny friendship into adulthood threatens to tear apart or repair the universe.

127. Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology ed. by S.B. Divya and Mur Lafferty. 4. A collection of short stories from the podcast, featuring some of the best authors in fantasy and SF at the moment. I enjoyed the vast majority. A warning, though - as much of good SF can and should be, some of these are ANGRY.

128. Afterparty by Daryl Gregory. 5. A scientist who destroyed her life tries to keep the designer drug that makes you think you see God from hitting the market. Incredibly twisty and densely plotted, with some particularly clever tricks.

129. Truth of the Divine by Lindsay Ellis. 3.5. You can think something is very well done and not actually enjoy it very much. This sequel about a semi-disastrous first contact in Bush era America is pretty devastating. The author was in a black place in her life when she wrote it, and it's pretty much Major Depression, The Book.

130. Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise. 4. An adult Wendy tries to recover her daughter when Peter drags her unwilling to Neverland. I love the flashbacks to the asylum Wendy spends her early adulthood in (because where else do you put a girl who insists she went to a magic island in that time period?) as well as Neverland through the eyes of people who are less willing to put themselves under a bratty boy's spell.

131. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher. 5. While the opening promises somewhat more horror than the rest of the book supports, this adult fantasy about a quest to destroy an evil king and save the protagonist's sister includes goblin markets, tentative romance, and a demon chicken. Also, how refreshing is it for the protagonist to be in her 30s and kind of frumpy instead of a dewy-eyed 18 who doesn't know she's beautiful (that's what makes her beautiful)?

132. Mash Up ed. by Gardner Dozois. 4.5. This anthology has each story begin with a famous line from another book. Even the ones I didn't like at first, I liked by the end.

133. The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis. 4. Solid vampire hunter tale set in 1800s Prague. I should have seen the ending coming, but didn't, and was delighted.

134. The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher. 5. For a book with relatively little gore, this is incredibly creepy while also being surprisingly funny. But I think I particularly appreciated how well the author handles the usual questions (why doesn't she call for help? Why doesn't she leave the haunted house?), while keeping her narrator genre-aware in retrospect.

135. The Stars We Steal by Alexa Donne. 3.5. This loose science fiction retelling of Persuasion is fun YA fluff, although I was terribly disappointed the little sister didn't leap and demand to be caught on the spacewalk.

136. The Councillor by E.J. Beaton. 5. Dark and broody political fantasy with some excellent twists, although I'm not sure the addiction thread really pays off in any particular way.

80. Unnatural Creatures ed. by Neil Gaiman. 5. Really excellent anthology of short stories around cryptids of various types.

81. This Way Out by Tufayel Ahmed. 3. A young Bangladeshi man comes out to his family. I kind of hope this is heavily autobiographical - there are a number of plot wanderings that are kind of self-indulgent and unfocused unless they're true. But charming.

82. You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo. 4.5. Madcap adventure when a band of ex-military turned chefs get accidentally kidnapped by space pirates. Part funny, part devastating, may be setting up for a sequel? I kind of hope so.

83. Book Lovers by Emily Henry. 5. Literary agent and editor enemies-to-lovers while trapped in a small town neither of them want to be in. The dialogue is just so sparky.

84. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. 4. The first chapter, about a forensics course for people trying to figure out which species of animal is responsible for various murders, maimings, and property destruction, is hilarious. The rest is still interesting if somewhat less witty.

85. The Roommate by Rosie Danan. 3.5. Prissy trust fund heiress falls for male porn star. Very hot, as is appropriate. But on the other hand, some of the threads of the plot are resolved in a kind of slapdash way I found unsatisfying.

86. Well Met by Jen DeLuca. 3.5. Well darn, now I want to go to the Renn Faire. I didn't love the male lead's being an asshole for most of the first half of the book, and the plot requires him to insert his head in his butt too frequently. But there were enough flashes of good humor to keep me going, and I love the trappings.

87. Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts. 5. Ok, so I have a love/hate relationship with The Three Musketeers - love the swashbuckling plot, hate the unbelievably rampant macho sexism. (I read a lot of old fiction. This one is so bad, guys, even for the time.) Gender flipped version with cleverly done SF trappings? Yes, please.

88. A Scot in the Dark by Sarah MacLean. 4. There are so many ways for the grumpy-guardian, fiery-ward trope to go bad, but this one pulls it off.

89. The Grid: Electrical Infrastructure for a New Era by Gretchen Bakke. 5. Really fascinating exploration/explanation of how our electrical grid is set up and why it needs to change.

90. The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan. 5. Re-read. He's a scandalous geneticist, she's a proper lady...who secretly is the one who did all the research.

91. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. 4.5. World-hopping where that's barely the point - the point is more the story-within-a-story, the bounds of love, and the dismantling of colonialism. And an awesome heroine.

92. Speed & Scale: A Global Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis by John E. Doerr. 5. Is this terrifying? Yes, it should be. Is it kind of weirdly self-congratulatory, and focused on the companies this dude's VC firm funds? Yes, that too. It's also...weirdly hopeful? Like, you know how bad things are. But this actually does lay out an extremely ambitious but actually pretty rational plan, and shows where we're making a lot of progress. Enough progress to get you fired up on the "oh crap we gotta get moving here" level, rather than "we're so screwed there's no point" level.

93. Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire. 4. Cora the ex-mermaid got captured by Lovecraftian elder gods in the last book, so in this one she signs herself up for a significantly shittier school than Eleanor West's to get free. I suspect this isn't the last we'll see of the Whitethorn Institute.

Like, I read these months ago. Chipping away at the pile.

#64. Fool by Christopher Moore. 2. Somewhat clever spin on Lear from the fool's perspective, but humor is undercut by rampant misogyny. Also, the more you think about the "happy" ending, the grosser it is.

#65. Witchmark by C.L. Polk. 4. WWI-esque fantasy world with a crackling mystery.

#66. Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher. 4.5. Another Saint of Steel romance, this one between one of the aforementioned paladins and a geeky, gawky medieval fantasy pathologist. Great little mystery, crackling tension, sweet romance.

#67. Hurts to Love You by Alisha Rai. 4. Not only does the sister from earlier in the series get her confidence back and land her man, the awful father finally gets his comeuppance.

#68. Things Hoped For by Chencia C. Higgens. 3. This is a spin-off novella, and there are some nice little bits to the romance. But overall, the story doesn't really hang together and the plot kind of lacks tension.

#69. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. 3.5. Really charming story about a hopeless geek trying to logic his way into love. On the other hand, he's clearly neurodivergent and I'm not sure I'm convinced the author has fully done his research.

#70. Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray. 4. Solid YA Star Wars tie-in. Look, it's very much what it is - if you're not looking for Jedi written for a YA audience, this isn't for you. If you are - we've got swashbuckling, fantastic world-building, and yet another period in the chronology opened up for exploration. Delightful.

#71. Lying Awake by Mark Salzman. 5. Lovely literary tale of a modern nun who discovers her visions are actually a medical issue.

Ok, that gets me to 71. I'm actually...halfway through 94. oops.

44. The Astronaut and the Star by Jen Comfort. 4. She's a super competitive astronaut, he's a goofy movie star with undiagnosed ADHD. They fight sort-of crime, mostly bad parents and stupid YouTubers. Sweet and charming.

45. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. 5. Somewhere between self-help and philosophy, a musing on what we should actually think about doing for a meaningful life from someone who fully admits he doesn't have neat answers.

46. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. 3.5. I adored this as a kid, and have always had a soft spot for castaway narratives. As an adult, this is a little on the smug side. Usually, the castaway has a good reason they have to do the survivalist thing; in this, the kid runs away and the parents are genially cool with it. Also, it's unbelievable in how easily everything works out for him. But the falcon's cool.

47. Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold. 5. The first of the Penric novels (it took me a little while to find my copy). Painfully innocent nobleman accidentally gets possessed by an incredibly powerful demon, and instead of freaking out or going on a rampage, decides to make friends with her.

48. Naamah's Curse by Jacqueline Carey. 4. There's a lot of rehashing the previous book, but given that I had more than a decade between the first and second books, that's probably a good thing. As is typical of the series at this point, we have a major travelogue with a meandering plot (punctuated by plenty of sexytimes). All of which is genuinely enthralling world-building and pretty great sexytimes.

49. The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook. 3.5. Steampunk swashbuckler with a very convoluted backstory involving the Golden Horde taking over Europe via nanobots and zombies but is mostly about the sexy sexy air pirate-turned Duke. I feel like there were some cool themes that kept getting brought up and then not fully exploited.

50. The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer. 3.5. I feel like Heyer usually gets filed under Regency Romance, but this one is really a Regency mystery in which a minor character eventually ends up with the hero. The romance part is pretty underdeveloped, but the mystery is fun. The snark is top notch.

51. Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer. 2. In which Heyer shows her age unfavorably. Minor bits of ugly racism. But mostly a domineering hero and a completely idiotic damsel in a very old-school romance arc. Tries to do a bunch of misdirection with a mystery, but it's pretty obvious where it's going, and almost everyone needs to be slapped upside the head with a rolled up newspaper. Did Not Age Well.

52. Planesrunner by Ian McDonald. 3. The first couple chapters promise reality hopping, but 9/10 of the book is bogged down on one (admittedly cool) electropunk world. There's some cool stuff here, but the plot of the book are really disconnected from the plot of the trilogy in a way that kind of turned me off.

51. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. 5. A small not-quite-literary, not-quite-romance contemporary fiction about rock and roll and comic books and being a teenager and abusive parents and falling in love. The author's voice is just so compelling, though, I felt like I was half in the characters' heads hours after I finished reading it.

14. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley. 5. Waking up with no memory in a dangerous situation is a running trope, but this one adds superpowers and shadowy government agencies in a particularly delightful way.

15. A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar. 3.5. Dreamy and wandering, this fantasy kind of reminds me of Wild Sargasso Sea in tone and disillusionment.

16. The Afterward by E.K. Johnston. 3.5. I liked the characters, and I really liked the hook of the aftermath of the big fantasy battle against the evil god. But the two plots really had nothing to do with each other, and one resolved so incredibly conveniently for the character that it felt a little cheap.

17. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan. 4.5. Really fascinating historical overview trying to take the Middle East and Central Asia as the center of the story instead of Europe. (I say "trying" because it's still unbalanced - we get a bunch of asides about what's going on in backwater England, with surprisingly little about what's going on in China or Southeast Asia to balance.) Still, it's phenomenally well done and a perspective Western audiences don't usually get exposed to.

18. The Oracle Glass by Judith Merkle Riley. 5. Hidden history in which the fortune-tellers of Louis XIV were real magicians. It's not a spoiler, since his name is in the cast, but the demon who shows up towards the end and is petulantly funny is my favorite.

19. The Silk Road by Captivating History. 2.5. Bought this by mistake when I was trying for Frankopan's book. Reads kind of like a lot of Wikipedia articles strung together. There's some interesting info here, but it's rather slim for the topic, especially given that about half of it is about Ghengis and Kublai Khan. (Poor Timur/Tamerlane and Zheng He each get, like, a paragraph, in comparison.)

107. The Silence of Bones by June Hur. 4. Historical mystery set in 1800s Korea. Most of the noir tropes hit in a very different way (a good way!) with a female protagonist and a wildly different culture from the typical noir setting.

108/109. Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis. 3.5. They're two different books, but really, it's just one split in half. Time traveling historians stuck in WWII is a great hook, and a bunch of this is fantastic. But at the same time, a lot is really repetitive and the number of problems that could be solved by a simple conversation is far, far too high. I realize that the author is going for certain themes in the repetition and the number of near-misses and coincidences has a point...but I can't help but feel like the same effect could have been accomplished with a third less total book.

110. What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon. 3.5. Painful but thoughtful discussion of how Americans view fatness and fat people, and exactly how messed up that all is. I'm not sure how much was entirely new to me, but it was worth challenging some of my own assumptions.

111. Innate Magic by Shannon Fay. 3.5. This is interestingly set in a magic-filled alternate London right after WWII, but somehow feels more like the more typical magic-filled Victorian London. Maybe because of a similar pre-occupation with the peerage and social events that I associate with Regency and Victorian settings (that may well be perfectly suited to the time, I'm afraid I'm hopelessly American). The cloth magic the protagonist openly practices is not well exploited but the innate magic he hides is intriguing.

112. Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart. 2.5. Shteyngart is clever, very clever, but he's so delighted with his own cleverness that the first chapter becomes wearying. This is probably one of the first serious literary books out that wrestles with the events of 2020, mostly through a tiresome author and his eccentric-into-irritating friends. Some of the prose is lovely (but I can't help but find the number of hallucinatory dream sequences at the end exhausting). Many of the characters are finely drawn (but I can't help but wonder if this is a person who actually likes even his own friends).

113. Daughter of the Empire by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts. 5. Ignore the hilariously dated cover art. This is competence porn at its finest, as a younger daughter of a noble house unexpectedly inherits and then goes about overcoming all kinds of difficulties in ridiculously clever ways. From marrying a bitter enemy and cleverly turning things to her own benefit to walking into a house party that's entirely intended as an assassination, Mara is endlessly resourceful. So much fun.

114. The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders. 5. Thoughtful, brilliant, devastating, and hopeful. A city sits on the edge of twilight on a tidally locked planet. Two women who do not fit at all into its draconian social order take to the deadly open road. The imaginative societies and the strange ways they interlock are gorgeous and inventive and true and sad. Honestly, this is what I'd want out of literary fiction - I can see why people are comparing Anders to Le Guin.

84. So Forward by Mina V. Esguerra. 2.5. The Manila setting and the ice hockey trappings are intriguing, and some of the conversations between the romantic leads are great. But the author is frustratingly prone to diffusing all tension and sets up three or four great potential set pieces which she then promptly avoids, the potential lessons for each person aren't learned, and the final conflict is just a random potential argument that has nothing to do with previous themes and is immediately diffused. I don't mind low-conflict, but this one threatens conflict and then side-steps it. It mostly feels avoidant.

85. Putting the Science in Science Fiction ed. by Dan Koboldt. 4. An anthology of essays for writers about topics that are frequently gotten wrong. Mixed authors, so a mixed bag, but most are pretty interesting.

86. Orsinian Tales by Ursula K. Le Guin. 2.5. A collection of Le Guin's non-speculative fiction. (Well, fictional country, but there's no otherworldliness here.) They didn't win me? Very literary, with mostly unlikeable characters brooding a lot.

87. Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher. 5. Delightful if somewhat dark fantasy romance featuring a perfumer and a berserker paladin whose god died and left him broken.

88. Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood. 5. Short story collection full of wicked black humor.

89. The Fall of Carthage by Adrian Goldsworthy. 3. History of the Punic Wars that isn't sure who its audience is. Surely too much of an overview for serious historians of the era, but much seems to be stating his beliefs in long-standing arguments I have never heard of. Ends up comprehensive and clear, but a little like a very long Wikipedia article.

90. Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. 5. Foul-mouthed Gormenghast with actual stakes. I can see how this would be divisive. It's a total mind trip, but after the first book in the series, I was willing to extend Muir the trust. I'm...still not sure how I feel about the ending, but I'm looking forward to the last book!

91. Changes by Mercedes Lackey. 3.5. Third in the Collegium chronicles, does exactly the job it sets out to do.

92. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. 4. Red Riding Hood's story gets twisted in with cybernetic Cinderella from the first book.