I thoroughly enjoy reading Jason Kottke’s monthly media diet posts, so I decided to try something similar with my monthly reading for this year. I thought it would be a good writing challenge and help keep me fresh between longer reviews.
I’m going to start by catching up on the months I missed, so this is the third installment of 2019.
An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender – I read this at the same time I listened to The Bell Jar, and they felt cut from similar thematic cloth, even though this wasn’t nearly as harrowing as The Bell Jar and was also surreal and magically realist instead of a lightly fictionalized memoir. It’s mostly just that both books are about young women struggling with depression and having a hard time dealing with adulthood and modern life. This one had a happy ending if only because the author is still alive. REALLY LIKED IT
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders – Man, this was a tough one for me. I LOVED Anders’ debut, All the Birds in the Sky, and bought this, her follow-up, on that reputation alone. Anders is a master of world building, and that is by far the strongest aspect of this book, but I wasn’t as much a fan of the narrative here. When you boil it down, this book is about toxic relationships, but it’s also about people making stupid, frustrating decisions because they can’t get out of their own heads. For whatever reason, reading this felt like a bit of a slog, and I think it’s because I couldn’t stand the object of the main character’s affection, who was a terrible person that she pined after long past when it was reasonable. I’m still all-in on future Anders books, but this one wasn’t my jam. LIKED IT
Fun & Games by Duane Swierczynski – I read this back in 2011 and loved it, but I never read the rest of the trilogy for whatever reason. I decided it was time to make up for that, so I started by re-reading this book, which I loved just as much the second time around. All three books were quick reads, so it wasn’t hard for me to plow through the series in no time flat. LOVED IT
Damned by Steven Grant – This was another Kindle Unlimited borrow. It’s a crime novel with your standard archetypes – man fallen on hard times, femme fatale, etc., and it was so archetypical that I don’t remember a damn thing about it. I think the art was decent enough, but mostly it was forgettable. DISLIKED IT
Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher – Continuing my slow but steady progress on the Dresden Files books, which are always a good time and always marvelously narrated by James Marsters (except for the one temporarily released with another narrator until the fan outcry). This one introduces Molly Carpenter, Dresden’s apprentice, as a major character. I felt like Butcher engaged in a bit of unnecessary leering in Molly’s first character descriptions, but you could argue that they set up a plot development at the end of the book that defines clear boundaries and a line that Dresden will not cross with his new apprentice. That said, I wonder if he’d make the same creative choice today. REALLY LIKED IT
Hell & Gone by Duane Swierczynski – Finally on to new ground with the Charlie Hardie trilogy. This one wasn’t as slam-bang awesome as the first book, but it had some great characters, cool twists, and a bizarre setting in an underground prison where it isn’t clear who is an inmate and who is a guard. As these books continued, they just got weirder and weirder… REALLY LIKED IT
Point & Shoot by Duane Swierczynski – … which brings me to the last book in the trilogy, which starts with Hardie in space (because how else do you top a mysterious underground prison?) I had mixed feelings about this book. The more this trilogy continued, the more I grew frustrated by Hardie’s passivity and his constant idiotic decisions. I wanted him to take charge and finally do something right for a change, but this book sidelines him for a long time (most of the last third, in fact) and has someone else save the day in his place. This was a disappointing end to the trilogy. Fun & Games is by far the best of the three and I didn’t miss a lot by not reading the rest until now. LIKED IT
Isabellae Volume 3: Daughters of Eriu by Raule – I continue to enjoy this series. This volume had a nicely choreographed fight scene with a golem. REALLY LIKED IT
Fata Morgana by Steven R. Boyett – A WW2 sci-fi adventure slightly too much in love with its own attention to detail, but still a rollicking good time. REALLY LIKED IT