Hmm, a pick, but.…? This is a very enjoyable & well-paced space-adventure with interesting world building & a welcome edge when discussing the horrors of colonialism. But it does feel very by-the-numbers; although that isn‘t a bad thing! As a season long story arc on a sci-fi show, it would be outstanding (in fact, thinking about it, it has big Farscape vibes which is a HUGE compliment from me, honestly). (continued below)

Very enjoyable - extremely readable. Alternative history centered on Marie Antoinette & her sister Charlotte in world/time when magic was very much real. Set in the late 18th century it sweeps you along like a Dumas or a Dickens - tons of characters (many of them real historical figures) along with drama, romance, intrigue & statecraft. We all know the ending for the Queen of France, but it all makes for a riveting journey along the way.

This didn't quite work for me. Memoir of a house renovation along with a social/material history of American domestic architecture & construction. The location is so familiar to me - where I grew up (both Seattle & the Kitsap Peninsula) - but while that should've drawn me in, instead I found it strangely off-putting. I felt like I should've enjoyed it more than I did but it's very low stakes & ultimately not a particularly compelling situation.

While I can't in good conscious recommend this book, because it is 100% pure junk food in novel form, if you are hankering for this particular flavor of trash, you could do worse. In other words, if a season of Real Housewives presented as a decently twisty thriller (with an actual murder) is what you're craving, this might just do the trick!

It's been a long time since I've flat-out ENJOYED a book as much as this one. Jane moves to a small town in Michigan to teach 2nd grade. She quickly falls for Duncan, the genial town himbo, & then, well, not much happens & yet everything happens. It's a novel about life & making a life, & about the families we have & the families we make. It's (really) funny & often touching & beautifully captures the perfect extraordinariness of ordinary life.

Fragmented & enigmatic but cumulative in its critique of capitalism & its propensity to turn human(iod)s into 'resources.' Reads almost like poetry & asks the reader to get comfortable with uncertainty & information gaps. I liked it.

There are plenty of things to love in this space opera/urban fantasy/portrait of an artist genre mashup - & first and foremost is the focus character - the brave & luminous Katrina. It's also a love letter to LA - & specifically to the food & cultures of Asian Americans living in the Southland. But there is just so much stuffed into it that by the (pleasantly unexpected!) end I felt like I was dragging myself across the finish line. A soft pick.

A relaxing end-of-summer book that let me dip my toes into both late 70s and late 90s nostalgia. Doan does a nice job of evoking those certain magical summer days and nights where reality seems both suspended and, at the same time, somehow heightened and enhanced. The playlist at the end was a nice addition as well.

Can this be the start of a new genre? Menopausal righteous rage vigilante thrillers? Because I'M ALL IN. The Change is pulpy, propulsive, tons of fun & sooo satisfying. The reveal/twist was easy to guess, but it really doesn't matter.

I enjoyed all the characters, but Harriet the botanist witch is clearly the standout. She needs her own book series. And this book would make an excellent limited tv series as well. In fact it seems perfect for it.

Burton's book has a lot to recommend it & each of the chapters is uniformly strong. Taken together, her central argument gets a bit repetitive & while I generally agree with it, I do think it lacks nuance in places. That's understandable; it's clearly an adaptation & expansion of her dissertation into a mass market publication, and it mostly works. (continued below)

I am coming at this completely backwards, because while I was peripherally aware of Monae's work, I'm not a big music person & don't tend to keep up w/ new(ish) stuff.*

In any case, I was pretty much blown away with this collection of stories set in her dystopian 'New Dawn' world. Some are better than others, but they all hit hard and left marks on my soul. So now I'm off to listen to Dirty Computer & watch the short films too. What a talent.

Just gorgeous writing - like everyone else, I was absolutely captivated by this beautiful gentle story about how three very ordinary people found and lost and found each other (in a way) again. I'm planning on buying copies as gifts for my MIL and a few of the other literary fiction fans in my life. This one's a keeper.

A road novel set in the near future with a somewhat shambling & surprisingly naive narrator, despite the fact that he has a job as a henchman (or minion?). This is a story that is all about the journey - the underlying mystery doesn't really pay off, but I didn't mind too much - its full small pleasures & surprisingly touching moments. It reminds me a bit of an early William Gibson, crossed with what I would call redneck-noir. I liked it.

SO GOOD. Jess & her parents move back to Malaysia, and it's a lot: being a dutiful daughter, looking for a job, staying in the closet, & now she's being haunted by her grandmother's *extremely* determined ghost. If you are interested in Chinese-SEA ghost lore - or you think you might be (& why wouldn't you be? - it's so cool!) - I urge you to read it. Zen Cho makes her characters come alive in the best way (even when they are already dead).

It's hard to say too much about this novel without spoilers, but time loops are in the description, so I'll say that much. Bertie & Kate are negotiating friendship in a world that is falling apart around them in frighteningly relatable ways. They decide to go on one last vacation while vacations are still a thing that people are able to do. And once in Paris, well, that's when things start to get really weird. Great writing - a pick for me.

I loved this - a classic 1970s ‘road‘ story, but in this version of the 70s humans went to space much earlier, & then kept on going. Oh & then aliens arrived & took out Cleveland (or did they?)

Although Greene looks much too young to have lived in the 70s, he captures its essence perfectly* in this speculative scifi yarn, & his love for classic space adventure is obvious. 8 tracks in space!

*(I was a young child in the 70s but it‘s imprinted!)

This was good but not great. Loved the alternating narrative viewpoints and the twists and turns. Some of the plot machinations are pretty hard to swallow but overall a dark and satisfying tale of revenge. I look forward to watching the inevitable J-drama adaptation when it arrives on our shores via Netflix.

This book is so good & I feel like it isn‘t getting enough attention, at least in the US. Speculative indigenous (and specifically Métis) futurism - the stories are, to a one, incredible. I can‘t choose a favorite. Even better, Vowel provides some short academic commentary at the end of each story, drawing the reader in further & enhancing the experience. This was a library find & I just ordered a physical copy to own & mark up & share.

Billed as a 'modern gothic' - I had my doubts, but it really does have all the tropes of a lush & twisty gothic tale! Rich beautiful doomed siblings, a cruel perverse heir-obsessed father, an outsider bent on revenge, a creepy country manor, & even a (wildly improbable) botanist aunt tending to Rappaccini's garden in Italy.

Sort of Crimson Peak meets Succession with a bit of Eyes Wide Shut thrown in for good measure. Emo & excessive - loved it!

I liked it but I agree with other reviewers - it's too long. It was apparently a novella that was expanded into a novel, but I think it would work better as two shorter novellas. I liked the first half very much, but the second half dragged until coming back around in the end. It is very much a book about the female experience - for better and (more usually) for worse - in contemporary Japan. It left me with a lot to think about.

Just barely a pick. This is a pretty good addition to the Dark Academia genre - genuinely creepy and atmospheric. Having the protagonists be in High School rather than college worked against it, imo (I know, it's YA, but still!) & the last 1/3 dragged up to a somewhat rushed resolution.

I just can't resist Dark Academia - yet my cravings are never satisfied. I may have to venture deeper into horror to find that elusive something I'm looking for.

I mean, it's a Jennifer Weiner novel. It's not going to be a transcendent literary experience, but like a good home-cooked meal (heavy on the delicious delicious carbs) & a mid-priced bottle of red wine, it's going to satisfy!

This one is an odd duck - Weiner takes on Insta & Influencer culture, with some success; her take on a Gen Z narrator is not *quite* as successful but mostly works - Daphne is an appealing MC.

A soft summer pick.

Hypnotic and beautifully written, a surreal fever dream full of disturbing details and repeating, reforming, and recursive scenes and stories. Highly experimental, the best analogy I can give is of taking a strong edible and then going to an independent theater on a hot August day to cool your body in AC while melting your brain with some super weird foreign experimental filmmaking. I‘m excited to experience more of Bae Suah‘s work.

This is a very 'meta' novel. Its not-so-subtle subtext is Mandel working through what it means to be a writer writing during a pandemic, when that same writer is the author of a recent (pre-pandemic), incredibly (and unexpectedly) popular, and now very much beloved, novel about the aftermath of a fictional pandemic.

And you know what? Honestly, I'm here for it (continued below).

If you liked Red Shirts, this is pretty much in the same vein - snappy, sarcastic characters doing their best in weird situations.

Scalzi wrote this fun, short, sci-fi workplace comedy after being blocked for much of 2020 (as he outlines in the author's note) & it is both an acknowledgement of the strangeness & derangement of the pandemic & the election, & a nice bit of competence escapism in the face of those (these?) troubled times.

This was a delight, but also bittersweet, as I know my mom, a great mystery fan (& who reminds me of the lovely Joyce), would've loved it. Before she passed away last month, she, like the club members of the title, turned her considerable charm & intelligence to keeping track of everything & everyone in the assisted living home where she lived after my father died. Like her, this is also charming & intelligent & the start of a great new series.

A YA space adventure by Gail Carriger? Yes Please. This is a lot of fun and just as warm and witty and action-packed as I would expect. Looking forward to future adventures in The Tinkered Stars universe.

I was totally down for this ridiculousness but I just couldn't...

2000 year old conspiracy? YAAAS. Lost gospel of Mary Magdalene? ABSOLUTELY. Cathers persecuted in France? OF COURSE. The holy grail? BRING IT. Templars? Honestly not sure if they show up or not (didn't read that far), but WHY NOT?

Plus a MC named 'Maureen'*?! Chef's kiss!

But this book is TERRIBLE. I mean the writing is truly god-awful (haha), plus Maureen is a TOTAL Mary Sue**.

Wait, this is the end of the series?! NOOOO!!! OK, I understand that Chambers no doubt has other projects & other worlds to create, but I am a little sad there will be no more Wayfarers novels. Each one is like a warm hug from an old friend and this one is no exception. A Closed and Common Orbit remains my favorite, but they are all great, and this one was lovely too, & I'll gladly reread them all whenever I need some comfort & some good vibes.

A pick, but with reservations.

Bunny is hard to love, & by her own admission, even harder to like, particularly in the grip of her (severe) mental illness. Yet she never gives up on herself & never stops trying to find her way back to the world.

The novel (& Bunny's personality) really starts to sing once she has her New Year's Eve breakdown & she is hospitalized. But then the book just sort of... ends. And I get it, but still, it's jarring.

Stories that are sad, beautiful, and suffused with light. Stories that will make you glad to be alive. Happy to discover this author.

I listened to this as an audio book & the narration was fantastic!

Always so satisfying - Aaronovitch keeps the plots fresh & the history lessons engaging while keeping the fans happy. Such a snappy writer, with lots of wit & a great ear & warm heart for his characters. This chapter contains possibly the funniest Monty Python reference I've ever come across (I lol'ed!) & my girl Beverly gets her time in the spotlight - as is only right. LOVE.

Hmm, well. This was very... squelchy. And squicky.

I enjoy experimental fiction, & I enjoy climate fiction, & I get what she's going for here, but it didn't really do it for me. Maybe because biology scifi/body horror stuff is not my cup of tea (tho you DEF shouldn't drink tea made w/ the water in Shivering Heights!).

It wasn't boring though. I'll give it that (& it's pretty short too, so if you think it might be your thing, give it a whirl).

In this reimagining, Marie - royal bastardess - is brilliant, passionate, ambitious & ferociously ugly. Sent by the queen in 1158 to an abbey, Marie carves out an empire of abundance for herself & her fellow nuns - a place to thrive in safety.

Groff achieves something quite amazing here: not one male character is named, appears, or has a line of dialogue through the entire book. This is entirely a world of women & for women. Utterly engrossing.

A clever and eminently readable ‘between the wars‘ mystery set on a 1921 ocean liner voyage across the Atlantic. Really scratches that Agatha Christie itch, if that‘s what you‘re craving.

This is the one! The 'time management' book we all need AND deserve! Get it, read it, and free yourself from the tyranny of 'productivity culture' for good! (or at least make inroads in that direction - it's a process, at least for me)

“The peace of mind on offer here is of a higher order: it lies in the recognition that being unable to escape from the problems of finitude is not, in itself, a problem.“

For a book about booksellers seeking to find and sell a book about sex magic, there is only a very modest amount of sex, and only slightly more magic in this horror(?) thriller(?). Still I enjoyed it - mostly for descriptions of: delicious meals at fancy restaurants, dinner parties in old houses with interesting people, and long walks around glamorous cities - Paris, New Orleans, New York, etc. Now that's my idea of escapist fiction!

I really debated with myself on how to rate this book because I DID enjoy it, but the more I think about it, the more ambivalent I feel about it. The thing is, I wanted to love it but, at the end of the day, I just … didn‘t.

I found Nell as a main character somewhat lackluster & some of the character motivations were confusing, but my complaints are far more nitpicky, so read on in the comments if you wish, but take it with a grain of sand.

So I signed up for the winter games, then promptly disappeared from Litsy for the last 6 months because fate chose to hand me several major life changes - good & really NOT good, quickly, in succession, & I've just been keeping my head above water.

Anyway, Elliot is great at her job & this book slaps (as the kids say). An audiobook for me & I was enthralled all the way through. Space Opera Excellence for sure & looking forward to the sequel!

Here's a sample of my inner voice while reading this: 'wow!amazing!...erm.what?ok...WTF!?...brilliant!...hm where is this going?...W.T.ACTUAL.F just happened!?'

Lee is a beautiful & brutal writer & there is no one better at capturing a certain flavor of 21st century experience. But oh boy, there's A LOT to unpack here. Whiteness, masculinity (& white masculinity), orientalism & particularly Asia as a stage for adventure & 'finding yourself.'

It took a bit to win me over, but the ending was so damn satisfying that I have to stan. This is going to sound like a diss - it is 100% *not*, I assure you - but I think that Reid may the best middlebrow literary fiction author of her generation.

And I'll eat a bug if this isn't adapted to HBO within 2 years. Are you kidding me?! This has White Lotus Big Little Lies energy all over it! It's set in Malibu. In 1983. Don‘t even try to resist.

Egan is a polarizing writer, but I thought this was terrific. I liked it from the start & I liked it all the way through, but the whole time I was semi-consciously measuring it in the back of my mind against 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' (which is one of my favorite books) & it wasn't quite measuring up. But I finished it a couple of days ago & I can't stop thinking about it. It is still not my favorite of hers, but it's pretty damn good.

I absolutely adored everything about this novel & now I desperately want a sequel. It doesn't even have to be a mystery, just Marissa & Amy making their movie & Isaiah & Marissa carefully finding ways to bridge the neurodivergent divide to gently flirt with each other.

It's funny, it's touching, it's biting, & it is on-the-nose about the movies & #metoo in a way that seems like it would be too obvious, but is actually, exactly, perfect.

Expertly written thriller/domestic drama that has a surprising amount of emotional heft. Very creepy and atmospheric as well - great for this time of year. Loved the use of Dee, the nanny, as the first person narrative voice telling the story.

This book is everything that my inner 16yo craves in one place, and fortunately, considerably older me is just satisfied enough to call it a pick. Despite starting off like a cross b/w Gossip Girl and The Magicians, it quickly settles into something considerably more intriguing & thought-provoking. Very angsty, very dark academia by way of K-Drama, by way of well, the Magicians again. Not loving the sorta-cliffhanger ending though.

If you are looking for a good (now) old-fashioned Cold War spy novel in the manner of LaCarre, this book will delight you. For me, reading it was nostalgic & atmospheric, right down to the double & triple crosses & the multiple overlapping spy characters.

But ultimately, it didn't hold my attention, and I think I was expecting something slightly different with the Kit Marlowe angle - my fault for not reading the description carefully enough.

First of all - THIS COVER!!! 😍 Second, this book! Unfortunately it is almost impossible to say anything meaningful about the plot of this novella without spoilers, and spoiling anything about it takes away from the singular pleasure of reading & puzzling through it. I will say that it reminded me of a Ted Chiang story crossed with a pulp paperback from a bygone era. Lots to enjoy here, and both the big reveal and the ending are stunners.

A soft pick. I greatly enjoyed the window into a very specific time & place - Mumbai/Bombay around 1950 when India was still newly independent - & the treasure hunt aspects were also fun. But altogether it sometimes felt a little flat; it‘s hard to put my finger on exactly why. Still, if you enjoy historical mysteries, this is an intriguing world to explore.

A satisfying ending to a fun trilogy. Not to get too meta here, but if this series were a tv show, it is the kind of thing that Murderbot would watch repeatedly as one of its entertainments/distractions. It's pure capital S, capital O, Space Opera and the betrayals & twists just keep coming & coming. Honestly I could have used a bit more science/space battles, and a little less scheming/double-crossing, but overall, I'm very satisfied.

Although I was still enjoying it greatly, up to about halfway through this - the middle book of the trilogy - I was thinking that it was suffering from a serious case of book-two-itis. But then some unexpected plot developments came out of left field, and things suddenly got a whole lot more interesting. Still tons of fun with lots to say - and so much intrigue and so many plots within plots - but definitely don't start with this one.