Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

This is a good point.

Ratings systems and their issues.

So, for the record, this is what my star ratings mean:

5 stars = FREAKING EPIC, gigantic story, everything works well, my mind is blown that a human being thought this up.

4 stars = love this book, it's just not as humongous in scope as a 5. But it's totally awesome and everyone should read it, it's a keeper.

3 stars = mixed feelings (this is where the "I think others might like it, it's just not for me" reviews are likely to go). Not that bad, but has some issues, or it's an okay story but nothing really stands out to me as being memorable. It was a pleasant enough read for a few days, but I'll probably just end up giving the book away rather than rereading it again.

2 stars = generally pretty terrible, but not 100% so. There was at least one thing in this book that made it not totally horrible. This book isn't really recommended to all and sundry, but you might get some value out of the one thing if you try.

1 star (rarely seen here): It's a wallbanger. Nothing is redeemable about this book, it's utter crap, and I probably only finished reading it so I could do an awesome bitchrant about it and I can't justify doing that to books I didn't finish.

The More You Know!(TM)

Something Wilder

By Christina Lauren.

Lily Wilder is a country girl who lost her family ranch and now gives dude tours a la City Slickers. Years ago she had a big romance with New Yorker Leo, but he went back home for a family medical issue and never contacted her again, and she's still cheesed off about it. Imagine her feelings when he turns up on one of her dude ranch tours, with a group of mostly-asshole-y dudes he knows. (Leo did not know where they were going, I'll point out.) Things take a drastic turn when one of the party goes rogue asshole, gets himself dead, and it turns out this was all a ruse to look for the supposed lost treasure Lily's dead dad Duke hid somewhere. While looking for the treasure, Lily and Leo get back together, if they survive....

Pretty simple, really. I'm not finding much to say about? Romance was all right, treasure hunting is fun, albeit the shady individuals in the book made it uncomfortable. I liked how Leo is a code/math guy and how that worked. Once we find it out it was more or less a Big Mis as to why Leo disappeared on Lily, there's not a whole lot of conflict on them getting back together. It also seemed really easy-peasy as to how the good characters don't end up oh, possibly prosecuted for accidental murder or anything. Mostly just kind of fun fluff read?

Three stars. It was fine, but not that memorable for me somehow, even if treasure hunts are fun. 

Rocky Start

By Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. 

Rocky Start is a little town in the middle of nowhere that somehow crosses the boundary line of two states (how does this work?!), that has been settled by a lot of ex-spies/spooks/"players"/what have you. Two players, Pike and Oz, bought up a lot of property upon their forced retirement and have provided a quiet, safe place for people like them to settle down in. This all gets thrown asunder when Oz dies unexpectedly and an asshole proclaiming to be his son (Oz had no kids) shows up, along with his shifty double agent mother Serena, and Oz's shitty brother Morgan. Some are looking for Oz's hidden fortune, some are looking for hidden security info.

Oz's employee/roommate/adopted family member Rose Malone and her teen daughter Poppy are unaware of all of this shit until the bad guys start rolling into town and being threatening. Rose is already worrying about losing her job and home, and now this? Fortunately for her, a stranger comes to town and ends up riding to the rescue.

Max Reddy is an ex-player who's walking the Appalachian trail when a work contact of his arranges to send him a new pair of boots...in Rocky Start. Since strangers don't come to town often, this is noticed by people (including former work contacts), and he ends up coming to Rose's rescue. She has the hots for him right off and is basically all, "I am KEEPING YOU" (as is Poppy, for platonic reasons) and has him move in. It's an insta-romance without any particular conflict or drama beyond "will Max ever go back to the Appalachian trail?' Max is pretty stoic/not a lot of personality, but you appreciate how his brain works, and you get Rose's feelings about everything going crazy on her (again) after so long. 

Mostly what interested me was the whole "players in town" situation, as you can't help but be interested when you find out that lady with all the teacups and the llama is a trained killer. As the invaders start going around town harassing people for what they think is theirs, they've got a population of retiree badasses to deal with, and the lead badass is a bit pooped out to say the least. There's a need for Max to step in. There's also Herc, a former boss of several players who seems to have his own agendas going on. 

Overall I enjoyed it, but I'm giving it about 3.5 stars since the romance was kinda insta for me and Max isn't that standout of a personality, even if I appreciate his efforts. But the plot and especially the worldbuilding were interesting. 

Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter

By Zoe Schiffer.

I read through all of the Twitter drama when it was going on and even though I didn’t like Twitter, all of it was addictively terrible, like watching the world’s worst bad tech soap opera. I read Platformer when this was going on, and the author recaps all of the horrible drama moments we all lived through, while also showing behind the scenes thoughts of the poor staff members who were about to go out the door, no matter what they did or how “extremely hardcore” they tried to demonstrate that they were to Elon. 

I liked how the author got various responses from ex-employees and the stories that were told, particularly from the people who really tried to buy into this crap, or thought it wouldn’t affect them, or if they really sucked up they’d be okay. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NO. My favorite “character” was Yao Yue, who had the right attitude about things, got fired anyway. Randall Lin is the interviewee who bought into it all the most (and may somewhat still be in some denial?) and got fired anyway for supposedly ratting on Elon. I also had big sympathy for JP Doherty, who couldn’t quit until the end of the book due to needing health insurance for his disabled children. It was interesting to be able to track the thoughts of people as they were going through the special hell, something the Platformer list didn’t quite cover. 

If you’re into watching something being ruined and trashed and people being abused in every possible work way short of actually being physically beat up, this topic is for you! If you like train wrecks, anyway. The author covers it very well, though all of the behavior in it is pretty sickening (and that’s even beyond the lack of janitorial staff). Hell, he's still doing that shit right now.

Four stars.

The Undermining of Twyla and Frank

By Megan Bannen.

Previous book here. 

Twyla and Frank are 50something neighbors, best friends, and partners in being Tanrian Marshals. The job has been rather quiet lately, until they discover that dragons now exist in Tanria, and Frank accidentally gets imprinted on by a baby dragon he names Mary Georgina. (I note that dragons seem to have been engineered as pets by the Old Gods and are pink, barf/pee/shit glitter, are vegetarian, and are sweet as can be.)  To this end, a dragon expert named Quill, a rich, nice dude, is called in for advice on the situation. Why are dragons out now? They seem to have been woken from hibernation when people were digging around in the mountains, mining--and the situation apparently ties in with an illegal mining operation and the random death of a jerky marshal.

While Hart and Mercy are in this one--they get married!--it focuses on Twyla and Frank. Twyla's marriage was a dreary one in which she was fed up with her husband (Frank's wife left ages ago and that gave him some issues too) and she's not really looking to have feelings for anyone, but is fine at first with the idea of having some FWB with Quill. Quill, however, attaches too fast and Twyla's not feeling it, and Frank seems disturbed.

Most of the book focuses on their budding relationship, as Twyla's kind of in denial about possibly having feelings for Frank, but Frank is also the only one who really turns her on. (Great sex scenes, I gotta say.) The book really reiterates Twyla's age and how she feels unattractive about it, but clearly others don't feel the same. Duckers is also in this book as a third teammate to the pair, rooting them on. (Less fun is Duckers and Zeddie's relationship hitting the skids because Zeddie wants to be close and commit and Duckers is all "breathing space!" Sigh.) I really enjoyed them working it out, and I especially liked the scene with Twyla at Grandmother Wisdom's shrine, which was very sweet. There's a bit of a time skip at the end that threw me (how many years later was that?) but is cute as a button.

As for the ending of the case, HOO BOY is this ludicrous. I'll talk about it below the spoiler cut. It's not bad, per se, and it fits everything in the world and book and ties together, it's just...crazy unlikely? And yet, absolutely works as a twist that simply NOBODY would be expecting. That said, it was so DAAAAAAAMN that it took me out of things and thus must have some spoiler space commentary.

I also give this one four and a half stars. It was a delight (especially baby dragon stuff) and I look forward to the next one. 

Spoiler space

The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch

By Melinda Taub.

I loved this. I think I've pooped out on writing good book reviews and this one deserves better than I'm up to writing, but this is super fun, super fun tone, and the author makes the premise work in between and after the plot of Pride and Prejudice. The concept is that Lydia is a witch, really technically the seventh child, and Kitty is her cat familiar that she's made people think is a girl. She gets trained in witchcraft by her aunt, runs into a demon and makes a bad promise at an early age, and then later gets involved with Wickham, who's now possessed by the demon's son. It should probably be telling that the demon's actually slightly a better dude than Wickham? 

The book slips back and forth (a bit confusingly) between Lydia's current life as a poor wife (or "wife" because I guess it's not legal, or they haven't had marital sex, or something...it's a bit confusing to me on this) who's isolated from her past life, and how she runs into Georgina Darcy, who's been bespelled for her own protection. Lydia helpfully takes the spell off--Georgina's not loving how it makes her feel dumb--and is recruited to help Georgina, whose issues get weirder as time goes on. The other plottline we skip back and forth between is how Lydia got into this situation--she went off to Brighton with her bestie Harriet Forster, who's distinctly resentful at being married off to an old guy. Brighton's got a thriving witch community and Lydia is forced by that demon to go look for a jewel. This forces Lydia to befriend Mary King, an islander heiress of color who comes off as unpleasant and priggish at first, and then ends up having hidden depths. 

I enjoyed this whole plot a lot, as the author really makes it all work. Lydia is kind of shallow and a bit cruel but improves and isn't as much of a jerk as she comes off in the books, and the personality development of her and Mary is great. Even Wickham has his moments. About the only critique I have is that keeping track of the timelines is a bit confusing and I'd rather that have been spelled out better.

Four and a half stars. 

The First Ladies

By Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

This book covers the friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune. The two hit it off right away, and Eleanor is sympathetic to the things that Mary is. Their friendship has rocky moments off and on due to politics, of course--Mary is a dedicated Republican because at the time that's the party that's (slightly) more sympathetic to African-Americans and Eleanor wants to get her husband on board with being better on the topic. Roosevelt alternates between not being supportive and occasionally being supportive, and the way life is going does make things fluctuate here and there. But overall, the friendship is steady and strong, and it works great.

Four stars. 

Here and Now and Then

By Mike Chen.

Kin Stewart works for a time travel agency in the year 2142. After things go wrong, he ends up being stranded in SF in the 1990's, and he starts forgetting things in his previous life (such as oh, his previous life). He settles down as a techie, gets happily married, and has a teenage daughter, Miranda. Then the time travel agency finally finds Kin and forcibly retrieves him back to his time, where he works with his future brother-in-law Marcus and is engaged to Penny.

This is a switch, to say the least. While the book moves super quickly past Kin losing the wife he loved--we're told she died of brain cancer soon after he was taken and in all honesty he doesn't spend much time grieving that(!?), the book focuses on how Kin's daughter starts doing poorly after losing her parents, and how he uses his job to try to email her in the past and be there for her, even though he's Not Allowed. However, Miranda finds his old notebook that he wrote down things about his job in--she thought it was his novel--creates a video game based off of it--and then the time travel agency decides that Miranda needs to be eliminated immediately. Even though Kin's not supposed to time travel again because it might kill him, he's going to risk his life to save her.

This is a well done novel. The one thing I don't think is done well is the handling of Kin's wife--it really gets short shrift and he just doesn't seem that messed up over losing her once he's in the future. Otherwise the focus is on Kin and his daughter, combined with him trying to get back into an emotional relationship with Penny again. Penny is a truly great girl who ends up coping with a very weird situation very well, and she even pitches in on helping Miranda. It was very endearing and I liked that in particular, and I also really liked how the ending resolved. Excellent.

Overall I'm giving it four stars. 

 

This Time Next Year

By Sophie Cousens.

(Note: this book came out in 2020 before you-know-what, so it's an alternate version that didn't suck.) 

Quinn and Minnie were born on the same day, New Year's Eve. Minnie's mother helped Quinn's through their mutual labors, and for her efforts Quinn was born first (Minnie's mom needed that NYE prize money) AND Quinn's mom even stole her baby name! So Minnie (whose last name is Cooper, because nobody thought an alternate name through very well) has grown up thinking she's bad luck. She has terrible birthdays every year and at the start of this book, she ends up locked in a toilet all night and her jackass boyfriend just left without even finding her. 

Minnie's rescued the next morning by Quinn, who she's never met before but she definitely recognizes him. She's cranky about the guy at first, but he's a legitimately nice person, handsome, charming, rich businessman type. Quinn has more going on than you'd think, though--his mother is anxious and depressed and he is basically Laura Linney's character from Love Actually, dropping everything and everyone once his mother calls...again. Quinn learns that his relationships aren't going to last through his mother, he dates women he's not going to really attach to, and he looks like a commitmentphobe when in reality, he's got mama issues.

Minnie's got a charity pie business going on that's not going well, and she's kind of a bit in denial about how she's about to lose her home and business all at once. Which she does. I admit Minnie wasn't coming off so great early on in the book--you're kinda like, girl, wake up--but she does improve, realizes she has to move in with her parents and get a regular job, and start adulting better.

It takes about a year for the two of them to finally get together, and it works. I kinda think it might have been nice to acknowledge more why Quinn was "commitmentphobic," but I did like how the moms reunited and his mom started doing better, so things could actually work out.

Four stars. 

 

 

Unbecoming A Lady: The Forgotten Sluts and Shrews Who Shaped America

By Therese Oneill.

This is a short, fun read, with lots of snark. Example from the first page:

"You've been compiling your near-constant failures as a woman ever since. You know what a woman is supposed to be. She takes up just the right amount of space. Small is best. You need to prove yourself worthy of the molecules you displace, madam."

I related. 

The author's thesis is that "well-behaved women almost exclusively made history. Women from Cleopatra to Ruth Bader Ginsburg found their place in history by doing what was expected and allowed--just doing it extremely well." This book covers the ones who history didn't much care for. 

Right off the bat, the book starts out with Celesta Guyer, a professional performing fat lady who really loved her career and was unashamed...until her fellow fat lady friends started dying and she successfully lost a ton of weight and kept it off. Flabbergasting. There's the Cherry Sisters, who wanted attention, even if it was negative and their acts were terrible. The creator of Lane Bryant is in here.

I enjoyed her writeup of Lillian Gibreth's career and how she had to adapt it once her husband died. Especially noticing that women won't wear ugly shoes, so they were wearing uncomfortable prettier ones and getting tireder. She improved kitchen design and menstruation products. I also cracked up at Aimee Semple McPherson and the lengths she went to to cover up an affair, including having a body double. 

Fun read, four stars. 

Sick Kids In Love

By Hannah Moskowitz.

She's got rheumatoid arthritis. He's got Goucher syndrome. Two kids in love! Who actually relate to the shit the other one is going through!...I mean, simple plot there, but this book is really sweet?

Isabel has sworn off dating, though it's not so much about her illness so much as her mother left the family and she's convinced that all the women in her family are arseholes. She writes a column (of sorts) about interviewing people. She meets and hits it off with Sasha, who is perfect. Sweet, charming, adorable, perfect, the kind of guy some of us will never meet our entire lives. So slipping into dating feels easy, but Isabel's own emotional drama throws a wrench into things for awhile. You want to be all, girl, guys like this are rare, do not turn this one aside! And it all works out.

Four stars, highly recommend for a love story.

Sleep No More/The Innocent Sleep

By Seanan McGuire.

Sleep No More here. The Innocent Sleep here.

Previous book here. 

I read these books month ago. Unfortunately, this was around the time of My Big Ol' Work-Incited Mental Breakdown, and frankly, my brain wasn't up to writing up stuff in detail that I'd normally want to write. I'm trying to do it today since I'm recovered and working (ELSEWHERE!) again and not doing much, but it's been awhile since I read them, and thus they'll be probably more vaguely reviewed than I'd like. But I want them off my to-do list of life, so here we go. I'm writing the reviews together under the circumstances.

These two books take place about four months after the last book and are taking place about the same time, with October narrating Sleep No More and Tybalt narrating The Innocent Sleep. October, for plot-related reasons, isn't privy to everything Tybalt may be, and thus we have companion books. Were they needed, though? In all honesty, I don't know. I tend to think that if you're going to do companion books, they need to fill in enough holes and details and be different enough from the first book for it to work, and in this case, there's just not all that much differentiation in what goes on between the two characters, especially once the four months that Tybalt experienced before October's narration starts are covered and they are both at the same time progression again. I sort of think doing a novella of Tybalt's experiences would have covered it. (I note by comparison that the novella at the end of "Sleep No More" does a good job of covering someone else's different experience/location during that time.) So I was a little less into the second book because it felt like a rehash book. I'd give Sleep No More about four stars and The Innocent Sleep about three for those reasons.

And now, on to the spoiler space and review.

A Fragile Enchantment

By Allison Saft.

Niamb is a divine-blooded (magically talented with a needle and thread) seamstress from a poor nation that's been invited to make the wedding garments for the second son of Avland's wedding to a foreign princess. Prince Kit is absolutely dazzling and a cranky asshole who denigrates Niamb's awesome talents, but she's attracted to him anyway, and the more time she spends with him and his friends and family, the more she finds out he's one of those grumps with a heart of gold, and their sexual chemistry is off the charts.

Niamb pretty much fits in with the royals due to her sweetness and kindness, albeit maybe that's a wee bit too easy? But I really enjoyed it. Other characters are: extremely stressed out and socially obsessed Prince Regent Jack, his nice-but-ignored wife Sofia, haughty but good-hearted Infanta Rosa and her beloved servant Miriam, and Gabriel Sinclair, Jack's bestie who's had his own scandals. These folks befriend Niamb, which she can certainly use and vice versa. 

There's also a lot of rebellion going on--the servants are quitting in droves, and an advocate for the poor is being ignored, and there's also a gossip columnist who's happy to hound Jack incessantly to just meet with the people already. Niamb is hit up by this Lovelace person for assistance, which she doesn't do, but she does find herself wondering what the heck Jack's secret is and why he says he can't help. (I'll note it's...not a shocker, more like "yeah, that happens with royals.) 

The quibbles I have with this one are frankly, just wanting a bit more. What happened with the king (who's completely unable to rule, much to everyone's relief)? What the heck is Niamb's illness that will supposedly kill her? Seriously, we don't really get much of a sense as to what is going on with that and how concerned we should be. Niamb is driven by taking care of her family, but we don't find out much about them and they're back home. I liked her magic, but it could have been more of a plot point. And as for Jack's dilemma, the book leaves that open-ended and we don't really find out what the heck can be done to improve it. I'm not sure if that's sequel bait or if the author just couldn't figure a practical way out of that one. 

But I loved the characters. I felt for Jack and Sofia, liked Rosa and Miriam, and Niamb and Kit are hot, hot, hot. I'm not sure if my book review is even pulling it off, perhaps read this one as well. I think I'm giving it about three and three quarter stars for being a bit underbaked...but otherwise it's very, very good and an enjoyable read.

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherworlds

By Heather Fawcett.

Previous book here.

I'm writing this book a few months(?) after reading it. I'm forcing myself to write reviews for library books because I gotta get them back out of the house, but somehow the ones I own, am I getting to them? Not so much, for no good reason other than my brain is pooping out with all the job hunt stuff going on of late. Anyway, the delay in the review doesn't mean it wasn't good, because it WAS good and I enjoyed it very much! 

Emily and Wendell are still together in their vague approximate way (Wendell keeps proposing, Emily keeps hedging between "I know it's bad idea to wed a fairy" and "but I really do like him"), but Wendell ends up being poisoned/falling ill after birthday celebrations, and also attacks start being launched at him on campus. They deduce that Wendell's evil stepmother is trying to get him killed, and need to take a sudden leave of absence from teaching to track down a doorway to Wendell's home realm. Accompanying them on the journey are two new people:  Emily's niece Ariadne, who is a delightful mini-Emily sort and I'm happy to have her on board. And then there's Dr. Rose, who starts out as a jerky antagonist (accusing Emily of plagiarism! How dare you!), but upon finding out she's telling the truth, decides he's accompanying the rest of them on the trip, like it or not. Dr. Rose manages to mellow out enough to become tolerable, which is a good thing. 

I love Emily's developments in this. Not just in her new relationships with her new teammates, but I enjoyed how she finally let herself love Wendell, and how she intrepidly goes into Faerie with the intent of dealing with the evil stepmother once and for all. And I like what she did there, too. I was very happy with the end of this one, and look forward to future adventures. Four stars.

Aftermarket Afterlife

By Seanan McGuire.

Previous book here. Review below the cut, four stars.

Number One Is Walking: My Life In The Movies and Other Diversions.

By Steve Martin and Harry Bliss.

Previous book here.

This is somewhat more of what you'd expect from Steve Martin, in that it has some funny stories about his movie career. As pointed out in the documentary and previous book, Steve decided to get off the standup train and onto the movie train, and thus he has funnier stories. He's partnered with a cartoonist (and his dog--I think the dog is Harry's? I'm not totally sure?) and the cartoonist does an excellent job of drawing Steve's life and anecdotes. Steve is narrating to Harry and/or his dog, apparently. I really enjoyed his movie writing, as it was more fun and lively and you feel like Steve is actually "there" rather than being distant. 

A third of the way through the book (it has no page numbers?!), Steve admits he lost interest in movies too, does a very short rundown on the activities he's done since then, and then the rest of the book is one-off cartoons, kinda like New Yorker ones. Some hit better than others in the humor department.

Three and a half stars.