And, now it's time for the 2022 books. As always, these will have the final sentence of the book at the end after my thoughts, with everything but the final word spoilered out.
Once again, I partook in the "Across the Year" challenge from Goodreads. Not going to do that next year, because while the list DOES make me expand my horizons, it also causes a lot of stress, and I just want to steer away from that sort of thing.
1. A book with a main character whose name starts with A, T, or Y
Providence by Max Barry - Humanity is waging a war against an alien species referred to as ‘salamanders’ (the closest animal on earth these creatures resemble). There have been a few losses from their attacks - the salamanders have an attack known as “huking” - where they spit a destructive projectile out of their mouths that act essentially like a mini black hole. But on earth, the company called Surplex (which is essentially Google and the military combined) has created massive ships called the Providence series that will (hopefully) be able to wipe the salamanders out.
The story focuses on the 4 person crew of one of the Providence ships. Talia, Anders, Gilly, and Jackson. Each of these people are broken in their own way - Anders very very very much so. (Although Talia could probably give him a run for his money.) Each chapter is from the perspective of one of these characters, and I enjoyed getting into all of their heads.
Jackson is the captain, and probably the one we get to know least. She’s very much a “company woman”, and wants to follow the rules. However, she is also the only survivor from a previous salamander attack. She knows that a lot of the reason that attack was so brutal was due to a failure in Surplex’s computer system, but at the hearings, this information is buried.
Anders is Weapons. He had a FUCKED UP childhood, and has psychological problems that SHOULD have been caught in the screening process, but weren’t.
Talia is Life. She’s essentially the psychiatrist for the 3 other crewmembers, and also is the social media queen for Surplex. Putting on all these different masks has left her wondering who she really is underneath it all.
Gilly is Engineering. He is there to make sure that the ship’s AI keeps functioning the way it’s supposed to.
As the foursome proceed through their mission of exterminating salamander hives, cracks begin to show. The mantra of trusting the ship’s AI starts to be pushed to the limits when the salamanders start to develop new methods of attacking. The concept of putting faith in algorithms was a timely one, as more and more of our lives are determined by such factors.
This was a lot of fun, even if a lot of the tropes have been done before, I greatly enjoyed the time i spent with all of the crew. The final quarter of the book was maybe a little wobbly, compared to the first 3/4ths, but overall this was a good page turner that I’d recommend. (We won.)
2. A book connected to a book you read in 2021
What I Didn’t See, and Other Stories by Karen Joy Fowler - a collection of short stories written by the author of “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves”, which was one of my favorite reads of last year. While Fowler is a very talented writer, I found myself not really “getting” most of these stories. They’re well written, they just didn’t connect with me. Which makes me feel it’s a ME problem rather than a her problem, if that makes sense. Anyway, on to the stories:
The Pelican Bar - A rebellious teenage girl named Norah is turned over to an absolutely terrifying halfway house on her 15th birthday by her parents. This was bleak, as Norah a) didn’t do anything terrible beforehand, and b) had no power to escape or remove herself from the situation. She eventually learns the rules in order to survive with the other girls there, but, like a prison, it shapes her into someone she definitely wasn’t before. (“Very pretty world,” said Mama Strong.)
Booth’s Ghost - This was focusing on the family members of John Wilkes Booth. Kind of neat take to see the people on the sidelines of those who make/become history. (“Your foot is on native heath.”)
The Last Worders - Twin sisters are on a trip in a foreign country when they get invited to a mysterious cafe to hear poetry. (No one met me at the top.)
The Dark - in 1954, in Yosemite national park, a young family - mom, dad, and three year old son - goes missing. The parents are never found, but the boy is discovered years later, feral, and having lived among the wildlife for half a dozen years. The attempt to bring him back to civilization results in him dying. Or so the narrator - the man who rescued him - was told. Years later, during the Vietnam war, the narrator is saved from a tunnel filled with rats by what he believes is the same boy. The authorities deny it. This gave me major X-Files vibes. (Stop me, Caroline, if you’ve heard this story before.)
Always - A woman who joined a commune (or, okay, it was a cult) that promised its members would all live forever is the last survivor. She reflects on her time with the cult, and on her long life that she’s lived. (Time without end.)
Familiar Birds - Two girls are forced into a friendship because their mothers are friends. (She was afraid they’d fly into the street, get hit by cars.)
Private Grave 9 - a mystery writer doing research for her next murder novel visits an archaeological site, and more or less disrupts the entire team. (I hand over my photograph and watch Patwin tear it up, both of us pretending there is someplace he can put those pieces where they won’t last forever.)
The Marianas Islands - the narrator’s grandmother owned a submarine, and has passed it on to her. (I fell asleep again, and it was a slow, sweet descent.)
Halfway People - A fairy tale about a man who was cursed by a witch. The protagonist of the story falls in love with him, but he doesn’t return her feelings. (How wonderful life is.)
Standing Room Only - Another John Wilkes Booth related tale, this one told thru the perspective of Anna Surratt (daughter of Mary Surratt, who was executed for being a conspirator with Booth). (“As if we came all this way to listen to you.”)
What I Didn’t See - a woman who was part of an expedition in the Congo in the 1920s is the last member of it alive. She recounts her time on the expedition, revealing some rather dark secrets. (I can pretend that I’ll be joining her whenever I wish and just as soon as I please.)
King Rat - as a child, a grown up tells the narrator a version of The Pied Piper that is different than the version most of us have heard. (No child so lost King Rat can’t find him and bring him home.)
3. A book with 22 or more letters in the title
Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin - Gilda is a 27 year old lesbian atheist who suffers from depression, anxiety, mild hypochondria, and also has an (unhealthy?) obsession with death. Like, she thinks about it a LOT. Hers, her family members, random people, stray cats. Anything living, she eventually begins to ponder about the fact that someday, eventually, that person/animal/idea will no longer exist. After she finally decides to get some therapy, she stumbles into a receptionist position at a Catholic church. So, now she feels she has to hide her true identity, while interacting with parishioners and co-workers. This was extremely relatable for ANYONE that has ever had any sort of doubt or anxiety about being an adult, and was funny, too. You wouldn’t think that it would have been, considering the topic, but it was. I mean, it was depressing, too. There were passages that had me thinking, “This book better have the suicide prevention hotline phone number in the back”. (It doesn’t. But I think maybe it SHOULD.) Anyway. I liked this a lot. This was Emily Austin’s first novel, and I look forward to her future stuff. (You’re alive!)
4. A book that fits your favorite prompt that did not make the list
Monolith by Roberto Recchioni (from the prompt “a book that has someone’s back on the cover”) - frankly, I had this graphic novel checked out from the library since November of last year, and searched thru the prompts until I found something that I could make this fit and so that I could just read it and return it (and also check another week off the list). The artwork in this was the only thing really going for it. The premise was decent, but the execution was woefully inadequate. Sandra wants to get away from her overprotective husband, and she wants to take her two year old son, David with her. She takes the Monolith, which is a state of the art futuristic vehicle that is supposed to be very safe and amazing. But, since it can be tracked thru GPS, Sandra’s husband can find them, so she disables it. And then proceeds to get herself locked out of the car, with David still inside. I thought this was going to be more “AI turns on humans” then it ended up being. It was more “woman makes one horrible decision after another”, and just wasn’t as great as I had hoped it would be. I did enjoy the artwork, though. I do have to give them that. But, yeah, this was a quick read that wasn’t anything worth noting. Apparently it was made into a movie as well, which I can only imagine is just as subpar. (You have to save my baby.)
5. A book by an author with two sets of double letters in their name
The Gifted, the Talented, and Me by William Sutcliffe - This YA novel follows the trials and tribulations of Sam, whose family has just moved from Stevenage to London, after the father sells his business and bumps the family up a few notches in their tax bracket. The parents enroll all three children - oldest Ethan, Sam, and seven year old Freya - into a School for the Talented and Gifted, which is far different from the public schools that Sam has been used to. Unfortunately for Sam, he feels that he doesn’t have a natural talent like his siblings. Ethan is a musician, and Freya is a story teller and artist. So Sam has to struggle to fit in and find his niche. This had moments of humor (mostly Freya not understanding the grown up conversations going on around her) but for the most part this was pretty much by the numbers, and had very little surprises or anything going for it. There was a bit where Ethan decided to pretend he was gay (or at least bi) in an attempt to get closer to girls which raised my eyebrows a bit (and apparently ticked off quite a few people based on the goodreads reviews) and I found his parents to be extremely self-absorbed. Come to think of it, a lot of the characters weren’t really anyone you’d want to hang with much. Sam and Freya were decent. And Marina. Everyone else was either shallow as hell or just a dick. Hm.(Neither of us had any idea where we were, and we didn’t even slightly care.)
6. A book with an image of a source of light on the cover
The Lie About the Truck: Survivor, Reality TV, and the Endless Gaze by Sallie Tisdale - Nonfiction book that delved into “reality” television, with a focus on the King - Survivor. It highlights a lot of the flaws of reality tv - how it alters what we think of as reality and how we know it’s fake, but accept it anyway. And the ones playing the game know that we know, and the editors and producers know that we know and that they know and …well, you get it. It also picked at the other flaws of the series - the sexism, the racism, the way it rewards duplicity… Nothing that I hadn't really known before (although there were some things - like the degree that the nondisclosure contracts they sign are enforced and how strict they are. There were probably other things I learned too, but i have forgotten a lot of the book in the ensuing months.) ANYWAY. The show has a huge amount of faults, and PROBABLY isn’t good for anyone to actually watch or enjoy, but… I’m still addicted to it. And I’m sure the author is too. (Good move, Cirie.)
7. A book related to psychology, neuroscience or the mind
The New Science of Narcissism: Understanding One of the Greatest Psychological Challenges of Our Time - and What You Can Do About It by Keith W. Campbell - A deep dive into what narcissism is and how science has changed its understanding of, and dealing with it. Interesting stuff, even if most of it has flown out of my brain a few weeks after having read it.(If we focus on what brings actual value to us and our communities - simply love and meaningful work - and avoid being distracted by uncontrollable fear or greed, we should be okay.)
8. 3 books set on three different continents - Book 1
The Down Days by Ilze Hugo - Set in South Africa, this was about a plague called The Laughter that causes those infected with it to, well, laugh themselves to death. The city goes into lockdown, and masks are mandated and laughing is outlawed. Taxi drivers begin to change their profession to dead-collectors instead, and an underground market for ponytails opens up. There are also ghosts, hyenas, and conspiracy theories all over the place. So, pretty much life as we know it, but just a TINY bit more outlandish. It was a decent read, but I think I’m in a reading lull right now because I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. At some point, even though it was fun and well-written, it just became difficult to work through it. (The world was becoming crazier by the minute, or maybe saner, she wasn’t sure, but there was one thing she did know: she, Tomorrow Persephone Pretorius, was doing fine.)
9. 3 books set on three different continents - Book 2
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak - This YA novel in Australia started decently, settled into mediocrity, and then coasted there till the unnecessarily-meta finale. Ed Kennedy is a 19 year old taxi driver with very little ambition and not a whole lot of prospects. He plays cards with his friends, has an unrequited crush on his friend, Audrey, is berated by his mother for being a slacker. All this changes after he and his mates are caught in the middle of an attempted bank robbery. Ed, unthinking, ends up saving the day and getting the would-be robber arrested. The criminal threatens Ed with his life at the trial, and shortly thereafter, Ed receives the first playing card. The Ace of Clubs shows up in his mailbox with 3 addresses on it. With some intimidation from a few mysterious mafia types, Ed starts to complete these “messages”- he has to go to each address and figure out what the person who lives there needs help with.
As Ed helps people, he, of course, grows as a person too. All well and good, it just was …sort of boring? I thought I had the sender of the cards figured out, but I was wrong, because the book went WAY left field with the solution to that mystery, which was irksome. A large part of why I didn’t give up on the book was because I was trying to figure that out, and to have it be something that there was NO WAY you could guess soured me on the experience even more than I already was. (I am the message.)
10. 3 books set on three different continents - Book 3
The Split by Sharon Bolton - a thriller bookended in Antarctica with a huge middle section taking place in England. Felicity is a young woman working as a glaciologist in Antarctica. She believes she’s safe from her ex-husband, until she receives word that he has tracked her down to this location. She is terrified of him, but Felicity also has a lot of secrets. This was just a standard popcorn thriller, but I hated it. It was boring, for one thing. Well, no, the parts in England were super boring. The beginning section was actually enthralling, but then we flashback to 9 months earlier in order to learn all of Felicity’s past, and my. God. it was all SUPER dull. Her therapist, Joe, should never have been given a license, and Joe’s mother, Delilah, a police officer, isn’t much better at her job, either. I just didn’t care about either of them, and the more they interacted with Felicity, the less I ended up caring about her as well. When we finally get back to Antarctica, it had gotten way too convoluted and boring, and I simply wanted it to end. It really didn’t help matters that the whole premise of the book was that Felicity has DID, and so maaaybe one her alternate personalities is stalking Joe and/or may have murdered a homeless woman. Blah. This was just not a well done book. (‘Well,’ she says, ‘that bitch and I have some talking to do.’)
11. A book from historical fiction genre
The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen - Short YA novel about a young girl who winds up travelling back in time to experience first hand the horrors of the holocaust. I know this is a classic, but it didn’t fully engage me like I thought it would. It was good, but not amazing. YMMV, of course. (Life.)
12. A book related to glass
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel - I enjoyed this a great deal. It flits back and forth over the course of 20-ish years, focusing on Vincent, a young woman who has an obsession with the ocean after her mother disappeared, and is presumed drowned. She’s working as a bartender in a hotel owned by a millionaire, Jonathan Alkaitis, who is a much older man when the two meet. They begin a doomed relationship, and afterword, Vincent remakes herself, while Jonathan has a tragic, but perhaps deserved, end. I just really like the way this author writes. All of the characters feel very flushed out and it just felt… real. (She’s gazing at the ocean, at the waves on the shore, and she looks up in amazement when I say her name.)
13. A book about a woman in STEM
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel - When Rose Franklin was 11, she fell into a hole, discovering a gigantic robotic hand. The government quickly claimed this artifact, and denied the existence of it. Rose, however, grows up to become a physicist and becomes a member of the team that is studying this strange body part. Through transcripts of interviews, journal entries, and the occasional news article, we learn the story of how the team - comprised of Rose, Kara Resnik (a pilot with emotional issues), Ryan Mitchell (another pilot who has an unrequited crush on Kara), and Vincent Couture (a genius level linguist) - begin to locate other robotic body parts and re-assemble them into a very large female form. What is this robot for? Where did it come from? And why does it only react to Kara and Vincent? Some of those are answered, and other questions are raised because this is book 1 of maybe a trilogy? So. That was not great to discover. Also… it just didn’t work for me. The interpersonal drama between the team was boring after a while, and the mystery behind the robot itself wasn’t compelling enough for me to want to seek out any more in the series. (Please come with me, there is much we need to discuss…)
14. A book with fewer than 5000 ratings on Goodreads
Bent Heavens by Daniel Kraus - For a YA book, this was some dark shit, yo. About two and a half years ago, Liv’s father was sick with cancer. He then claimed to have been abducted by aliens, and had a bit of a break with reality - he was found in the middle of the town square, naked and babbling about the experiments they had done on him. He was let go from his teaching job, and became highly paranoid that the aliens were going to return. He set up elaborate traps in the woods and taught Liv and her friend Doug self defense in case the aliens came back. Then, two years ago, he vanished. Since then, Liv and Doug - who is a social outcast at school - have spent each Sunday morning checking on the traps in the woods, and trying to get through her grief (while her mother slips into the grips of alcoholism). Things change drastically when one morning Liv discovers that one of the traps has actually caught …something. The teens decide to try to interrogate the being, in hopes that they can figure out what happened to Liv’s father. Doug goes all Stanford Experiment and begins to truly enjoy torturing the thing. Some of the torture scenes are extremely disturbing - especially considering that it’s unclear WHAT the being knows or understands or thinks or feels. Is the creature part of a group of alien abductors that tortured Liv’s dad? Even if it is, does it know what is happening to it is BECAUSE of that? And even if it does, is the torture of another living thing justified? An interesting examination of Othering sentient beings, and how easy it can be to lose one’s sense of morality. (“Liv.”)
15. A book without a person on the cover
The Kaiju Preservation Society by Michael Sczalinzi - I’ve seen this described elsewhere as Jurassic Park meets Parks and Recreation (Dude. Jurassic Parks and Recreation. HA!!) and, yeah, that's essentially it bottled down. It takes place in 2020, when millennial Jamie Grey gets let go from a food delivery app business by an asshole CEO. But, this turns out to be a blessing, since Jamie gets offered a gig with KPS - an organization that deals with “large animals”. Jamie *thinks* that Greenland is where KPS is settled, but it turns out that that’s just where a portal to an alternate Earth is located. On this parallel world giant creatures evolved and are the dominant species. So, yeah, Godzilla-type monsters are KPS’s bread and butter. The organization’s function is to study and protect the kaiju.
The novel was short and entertaining. People have complained that many of the characters were kinda cardboard and indistinguishable from one another - quirky banter is definitely in a LOT of the dialogue - and I did notice that, but it wasn’t a big enough qualm for me to dislike the book.
It was kind of interesting that Jamie’s gender is never actually revealed, but that even so, like 80% of the reviews I read online default the character as a male. (I personally kept going back and forth on the issue. Upon first meeting Jamie, I felt they ‘read’ as a woman, and about half way through the book as a male, but either way works.) Anyway. Want something light and funny for a day or two? This could work for ya. (I think you’d be perfect for it.)
16. A book related to Earth Day
The Loneliest Polar Bear by Kale Williams - This book followed the life of Nora, a polar bear who was born in captivity, but abandoned after just six days. It alternated chapters between Nora’s struggle and how climate change has affected the environment where polar bears live in the wild. This was well written and informative (and, yes, depressing, as the outlook is not good). I have mixed (mostly negative) feelings towards zoos, but this book gave an interesting look from the zookeepers side. At one point when Nora had to have a surgery, I had a bit of anxiety, as I wasn’t sure whether she’d pull through or not. I don’t know that this book will change any minds or make any difference in policies or really make ANY sort of difference in how things shake out, but it was still a darn good read, and I’m glad I did. (Their promise to her was not that they would always get it right, but that they would try.)
17. A book from NPR's Book Concierge
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears:Stories by Laura van der Berg
Collection of short stories that were pretty good, I think. Most of them had a dark tint to them, which I appreciated. On to the stories!
Last Night – A middle aged woman is reminiscing on her teenage years when she was suicidal and was hospitalized as a result, and her time with some of the other inmates. (Or if I would have abandoned them both to the tracks, those ghosts I killed to survive.)
Slubmerland – An insomniac travels through bad parts of the city at night, taking photographs. This was atmospheric and pretty creepy. (Why do you not hurt?)
Hill of Hell – A middle aged woman’s daughter gets cancer, causing her to reflect on her marriage, her life with her daughter, and how her and her husband raised their child. (Instead we slept the rest of the night in the same cot, our arms wrapped tight and hot around each other, and even today I could not guess at his thoughts.)
Cult of Mary – A woman and her elderly mother take a vacation to Italy. (Near Sansepolcro, I watched my mother’s hand twitch in her lap and I hoped that she was not yet dreaming of death, but of gardeners wrapping strands of their own hair around dirt-clodded roots and fascist sheep and a life carved from a single block of wood and a man struggling to wash the shame from his feet.)
Lizards – Fuck me, this one was dark. A man winds up drugging his wife when a friend of his introduces him to roofies. Took some shots at Kavanaugh, without mentioning him by name. (“How did you get all the way up here?” he asks the lizard, and the whole history of the world answers back.)
The Pitch – A wife’s husband had a *dark* childhood. (And then one day I got a call from a number in New York City – at long last, I was told, I had won my prize.)
Volcano House – A woman is shot by a mass shooter and winds up in a coma as a result. Her sister and her husband begin to fall in love with each other as they watch over her body. (He says, “The sea.”)
Friends – I think this was the shortest story in the batch, and I’m not entirely sure if I interpreted it correctly, but I think it’s about a kidnapper? (Instead it was her mother, saying something about a bell.)
Karolina – The narrator is on a trip to Mexico and runs into her ex-sister-in-law, who winds up revealing some secrets to her about her brother. (After a moment, they pulled shut the curtains and the room went dark, as they retreated deeper into their home, away from the fearsome thing that had emerged unbidden from the night.)
Your Second Wife – For a fee, this woman will pose as your dead wife in order to help you grieve. Seems like an odd concept, but I would be willing to bet that it actually happens out there. Humans are complex, man. Anyway, she ends up getting in over her head on one of these outings. (I agreed to play each and every time because I knew that she would never beat me, not so long as she remained uneducated in the art of being both everywhere and nowhere at all.)
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears – In a sort of blending of the last two tales, this one is about the narrator’s sister going missing while on a vacation in another country, and she winds up inadvertently posing as her. (In the hillsides, the dogs howl.)
18. A book by an Asian or Pacific Islander author
Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa - These super short stories (I think the longest may be fifteen pages, and I finished the entire thing in a day) were all good, with some of them bordering on excellent. And the neat thing was that they were all interconnected. (I didn’t realize that until like the 3rd or 4th story in) They weren’t connected by plots (necessarily) but characters would bleed into other stories, which definitely added to the surrealness of the overall book. Like i said, I read this in about 5 or 6 hours, and my mental state hasn't been super fantastic lately, so… On to the stories, I guess.
Afternoon at the Bakery - The narrator goes into a bakery to pick up some treats for their child. When another customer enters, they start talking, and we find out that the narrator’s child died several years ago after crawling into a refrigerator. Yikes! (I repeated to myself what I would say when she emerged into the fading light of the shop: “Two strawberry shortcakes, please.”)
Fruit Juice - A student asks her teacher to come with her to a lunch with her emotionally (and physically and financially) distant father, a semi-famous politician. The lunch is just as awkward as you’d expect. (“I’m sorry.”)
Old Mrs. J - Mrs. J is a landlord of an apartment with an exquisite garden that begins producing strange looking carrots. This was the first story that had a WHOA line so I suggest not reading it if you want to have the full impact of the story. (The hands were missing from the corpse, and they never turned up, even after the whole garden had been searched.)
The Little Dustman - on the way to his ex-step-mother’s funeral, the narrator reflects on the years she lived with him and his father. (Her hands were as cold as they had been on that snowy day at the zoo.)
Lab Coats - Two employees at a hospital are sorting through dirty lab coats in the morgue and having a conversation. One of them goes on and on about her boyfriend, and how unhappy she is with the relationship. It builds and builds until she casually mentions that she murdered him. It’s unclear how serious she is. (Maybe even warm.)
Sewing for the Heart - a man who makes bags for a living is visited by a woman with a medical condition - her heart is outside her body. She asks him to create a bag for her to hold her heart in. He becomes obsessed with both her and with creating the perfect bag for such an unusual request. This was another “Holy crap, what am I reading!?” story, and easily one of the best ones in the book. (The elevator chimes, the number six lights up, and the door opens.)
Welcome to the Museum of Torture - A woman is interviewed by the police after a murdered body had been discovered in one of the other apartments. She tells her boyfriend about the story when he arrives home from work, and they get into an argument about it, causing him to storm out, and her to go on a walk around the city. She ends up at an old house that is filled with old torture devices. The curator of the museum is an elderly man who is pretty much the definition of creepy (he works at a museum of torture devices, and gleefully recites facts about them). But the woman finds herself intrigued with the devices and how they could be used on her boyfriend. (We’ll be expecting you.)
The Man Who Sold Braces - turns out the curator of the museum is the uncle to the narrator of this story. The narrator reflects on his uncle, and the odd jobs he had over the years, including the selling of braces that were more torture devices than actual medical instruments. (The fur shimmered in the white snow as I knelt to gather up the scattered bits of the tiger.)
The Last Hour of the Bengal Tiger - One of the jobs the man who sold braces had was taking care of a bengal tiger owned by some wealthy women. As it approached the end of its life, he was there to comfort it. (On the way back, the tomatoes were nowhere to be seen.)
Tomatoes and the Full Moon - a man checks into his hotel room, only to find an elderly woman (and her dog) already in there. She accidentally went into the wrong room, apologized and left. Later, he runs into her again, after seeing her providing tomatoes to the hotel staff to use in their food. He strikes up a conversation with her, and discovers that she is a writer who has written a novel titled “Afternoon at the Bakery”. It’s very strongly implied that she is the step-mother from “The Little Dustman”. (Inside was a ream of blank paper.)
Poison Plants - an elderly woman hires a man to read to her. I figured this one would loop back to the first story, and I was right, but it didn’t quite impact me the way I thought it would. (For my dead self.)
Overall, this collection was pretty darn good. I’d recommend it.
19. A book that involves alternate reality, alternate worlds, or alternate history
Elsewhere by Dean Koontz - I know years back I swore off ever reading another Dean Koontz novel. Loophole! I listened to this on audio. I don’t normally listen to audiobooks, so this was an odd experience. Also, it was a Dean Koontz story, so, there was a lot of sighing on my part. There were two people doing the reading of this, a male and a female, and the female reader was …um. I don’t know. I’m not one to judge, I guess, but …just some of her reading choices were unusual, I guess. Or perhaps it was the writing. I just know that I preferred the other narrator, even if his bits of the story weren’t always much better. As to the book itself - it was about a single father, Jeffy Coltrane, and his 12 year old daughter, Amity, finding themselves in possession of a “Key to Everything” - a magical (although not magic, it’s ‘explained’ thru quantum physics) device that looks like a smart phone that allows people to travel to alternate universes. Evil government folks want to retrieve it, and Jeffy and Amity go on the run.
I will admit that BITS of this were actually kind of thrilling and fun. But, it was still Koontz, so there were the typical ‘sexually deviant’ bad guys, the good guys were all noble and perfect, and, yes, there was a golden retriever (right at the very end). And LOL at the universe that was a utopia because Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud never existed. (Here, now, the warm morning and clear sky and the spangled sea and the joyful dog and the wonder of existence made her heart race and her eyes shine as if all the light of the world came from within her.)
20. A fiction or nonfiction book that is set during 1900 -1951
The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve - In Maine in 1947, Grace is a mother of two young children who is in an increasingly unhappy marriage to Carl. After an extremely dry summer, a series of forest fires hit the town (something which actually happened, apparently) causing many people - Grace and her children included - to become homeless. Carl volunteers to fight the fires, but in the chaos ends up missing, leaving Grace alone as well. This book about a young woman trying to make it in a world that has the odds stacked against her was… not superb, but I was invested enough that it was a super quick read. I can’t say I’d recommend this, but it’s not completely awful, either. (But the grip on her wrist is fierce.)
21. A book with one of the Monopoly tokens on the cover
It’s All a Game: The History of Board Games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan by Tristan Donovan - I really like board games, so reading a history of some of the more popular ones was right up my alley. The author writes well enough to keep you interested, and I learned a thing or two. For example, Chess started out as a four player game, and the Game of Life’s “ancestor” used a teetotem instead of dice because of religious beliefs, and Twister very nearly didn’t get put onto market shelves because it was deemed too “risque”. It was interesting seeing how different aspects of culture helped shape both rules and ideas of games. (Whatever we choose and wherever the future takes us, board games will be there, bringing us together and mirroring our choices and our attitudes on paper and cardboard.)
22. A book with a Jewish character or author
Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert - Suzette’s step-brother, Lionel, has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He’s dealing with the fact that his diagnosis is possibly going to be his identity, especially among their friends who, after he was briefly hospitalized, have been treating him differently. Suzette is dealing with her own identity crisis. She’s Black, Jewish (she converted when she was 11) and is coming to terms with her bisexuality. (And her first relationship with a lesbian ended extremely poorly). This was a nice YA novel that showed how complex relationships can be in the 21st century, and how family can love and hurt you. The ending felt a bit rushed, though, and I would have liked some more closure, but I guess that’s life sometimes. (He’s still here.)
23. A book that features loving LGBTQIA+ relationship
Calling Dr. Laura A Graphic Memoir by Nicole J. Georges - Great stuff. It’s a graphic novel with amazing art, and since it’s biographical, the conversations and situations and relationships are all very recognizable and real. Basically, Nicole gets told (by a psychic, no less!) that her father - whom her mother has always told her had passed away when she was two - is actually alive, and she begins to suspect that that has been a secret her mom has been keeping from her. It takes her YEARS to process/work up the nerve to confront her mother about it. Of course, she’s been keeping her sexuality a secret from her mom, too, so, there’s plenty of family drama going on. The book also highlights different stages of Nicole’s life and relationships she’s had with other women, band members, family members, dogs and chickens. Oh, and there’s a bit where she calls the Dr. Laura radio program to get advice, and winds up (naturally!) getting berated instead. Heh. This was just all around a really good read. (Gone but not forgotten)
24. A book related to inclement weather
The Storm of the Century by Stephen King - a screenplay that King wrote for ABC back in 1999. I don’t know if it’s because I had watched the miniseries when it aired or because this was written in screenplay form (rather than as a novel like most King stuff I read) or if the characters are just not that compelling and the plot too thin, but this… wasn’t great. The story is about a small island off the coast of Maine that has about 200 people living on it. A massive storm comes through, isolating them from the rest of the world. At the same time, a stranger named Andre Linoge has arrived on the island, and his first act there is to murder an old woman, and promptly get himself arrested by the hero, Mike Anderson. It eventually becomes evident to the town that Linoge is some sort of supernatural being who is after *something* that the islanders can provide him. Cool enough set up. But, the first two acts feel like spinning wheels. Like this could have been a creepy as hell short story, but dragging it out to 300 pages (or a 6 hour miniseries) seems …excessive. The climax of the story - when we finally find out what it is Linoge wants so he’ll go away - was the best part. Getting there was a bit of a chore, although I suppose it was necessary to lay the groundwork and show just how much the townspeople had been through in the past 24 hours or so. That being said, I don’t think this was his best work. Or, heck, maybe the shine that I had with King has just worn off lately. Seems like I’m not nearly as enthralled with his work as I once was. [shrug] Since this was a screenplay, the actual last words were “Fade to Black” but that’s boring, so I’ll put the last bit of dialogue instead. (MIKE
(voice-over)
In the daylight I know better.)
25. A book less than 220 pages OR more than 440 pages
A Good Man by Ani Katz - Thomas Martin seems like he has it all - beautiful wife, upper-middle class lifestyle, a loving teenage daughter, an upper-management job at an advertising agency. But as he recounts his life, it becomes pretty apparent that Thomas has a dark side. The longer you spend time with Thomas, the more you begin to see the ugly monster he has hiding behind his normal guy mask. Several times I wished we could get another character’s point of view of how things went down, since we’re stuck with Thomas’s unreliable narration, and thought it would be interesting to see how other people interpreted events, but alas. Anyway, this was a pretty good read, although the ending is extremely dark. (It was a mercy that I only had to hit her once.)
26. 2 books with the same word in the title - Book 1
The Meaning of Birds by Jaye Robin Brown - I used a random word generator to pick my word for these two books, and got “birds”. So, here we are.
This YA novel was about Jess, a teenage lesbian who has anger issues. The chapters alternate between “Then” - when she meets her eventual girlfriend, Vivi - and “Now” - set in the days and weeks following Vivi’s sudden unexpected death. Got to say, Jess is an EXTREMELY difficult character to like. But that’s because when we’re first introduced to her, she’s grieving heavily. I get that grief is ugly and unpleasant, and can cause people to be… ugly and unpleasant. And I’m not totally unempathetic, but …we were just kinda thrown into it. *I* didn’t know Vivi and I don’t yet know Jess, so seeing this young girl just wallowing in unhappiness and pushing away her friends and family who are trying to help her was …it just made her not fun to spend time with in the “Now” sections due to that. The “Then” sections weren’t much better, as she had her constant anger flare-ups (although she went through therapy to give her coping skills) and her relationship with Vivi. Vivi was cloying, though, so even though their relationship helped Jess deal with her anger in a more productive manner, it still wasn’t enjoyable on my end.
It wasn’t ALL bad, and eventually I did get to the point where I found Jess tolerable, but this wasn’t anything I’d recommend to anyone, and I highly doubt I’ll seek out anything else by this author. (And if I’m extra lucky, maybe one day, I’ll meet someone who will let me teach them about birds.)
27. 2 books with the same word in the title - Book 2
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders - Patricia is a young girl who is drawn to the world of magic - she is able to communicate with animals, and she has a talent for spells. Laurence is a young boy who is drawn to the world of science - he is able to create sentient AI, and time machines that skip you two seconds into the future. These two are also largely outcasts, socially, but discover their friendship for one another. Unfortunately, it’s predicted that the two of them may end the world as we know it. Or possibly save it. The prediction is a bit unclear. This was a nice mashup of sci-fi and fantasy that had a great deal of humor that I really enjoyed. (Then Laurence took Patricia’s arm and they led each other out into the brand-new city.)
28. A book that won an award from Powell's list of book awards
Hell of a Book by Jason Mott - Alternating chapters between an unnamed author who has an overactive imagination (he sees and hears people that other folks don’t) on a book tour, and a Black pre-teen boy named “Soot” who has the ability to turn invisible. This was, in fact, a hell of a book. It was engaging and funny (at first) and heartbreaking and confused and angry and powerful. But, of course a book that is about being Black in America in the 21st century is going to be all those things, and more. (What else could we do?)
29. A book set on or near a body of water
Harrow Lake by Kit Ellis - This started off mildly interesting, and then took a complete nosedive and by the end was a struggle to get through. Oh, man, it's been several months since I read it, and I'm having a hard time even remembering what it was about. Um... Teenage daughter of a horror movie director goes to live in a small town that he made famous and discovers that something sinister is going on... Vague enough description, because, yeah, this was not all that great. (5 Stars)
30. A book related to mythology
Medusa by Jessie Burton - a young adult re-telling of the Medusa myth (which I am only familiar with from watching Clash of the Titans as a kid). This was a short enjoyable book, and was accompanied by some pretty amazing artwork. (Me.)
31. A book published at least 10 years ago
Dawn by Octavia Butler - I’m about 94% certain that I have already read this, because it felt awfully familiar while I was reading it, but if so, it was at least over 7 years ago, as that was when I started keeping track on goodreads, and even if so, it was still a wonderful book to (re)read. Lilith is one of the last remaining few hundred humans. After World War 3 started, aliens known as the Oankali were able to come in and rescue a handful of us. They put the survivors into a deep sleep, and occasionally wake some up, filling them in on what the situation is. Not all of the people handle the news well. Lilith eventually learns from her alien captors/saviors that they plan on waking up 40 of the other humans and allowing them to return to earth. One of the catches is that they’ve messed with Lilith’s DNA (they cured her of cancer, and they also changed some DNA to allow her to open doorways on their living ship). The Oankali mess with DNA the way that humankind tinkered with technology. The worldbuilding in this novel (it’s a trilogy, and I think that I may have read all 3 of them, but I don’t remember) is fantastic. The Oankali are truly alien. And Lilith, while sometimes a difficult person to like, is incredibly smart and eventually an amazing leader. All in all, really good stuff. (She let Nikanj lead her into the dark forest and to one of the concealed dry exits.)
32. A book where the main character is a female detective/private eye/police officer
A Rip Through Time by Kelly Armstrong - Mallory Atkinson is a Vancouver detective in 2019. She’s gone to Scotland because her grandmother is dying. While out one evening for a jog, she hears a woman screaming in an alley and goes to investigate, only to get attacked by a man who attempts to strangle her with a rope. She passes out during the attack, and wakes up to find that her consciousness has entered the body of Catriona, a 19 year old housemaid in 1869, who was attacked in the same alley. Finding herself in Victorian times, she needs to acclimate herself to the time period, figure out a way to get back to her own time period, and also solve the mystery of who attacked her - or, rather, who attacked Catriona. Mallory is a great character, and I enjoyed watching her learn about Victorian times, and the people she was living with, as well as figuring out things about Catriona - the life she jumped into. This was a lot like an episode of Quantum Leap, but with no holographic Al to assist her in what she’s doing in this new body, or what she needs to do to get back home. One word of warning - not all of the mysteries were solved, and it definitely set this up to become a series with more things to figure out. In fact, when I went to review it on Goodreads, they have it listed as “Rip Through Time #1”. Which is fine, i just wish I had known going in that it wasn’t going to tie everything up. I’m definitely intrigued enough to read the next book, whenever that arrives. (Until then, I have found a place here, one I think I’m going to enjoy very much.)
33. The next book in a series
Gwendy’s Final Task by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar - This wasn’t great. I read the first two in this trilogy, and they were …okay. (I have literally ZERO recollection of book two, and only the vaguest of book 1) But, really, this book works fine as a standalone - if you’ve read book 1, you’re probably fine. What this book ALSO is is a sequel to the Dark Tower series. Consider it book 7.9 or something. Not quite a sequel, but… sort of adjacent to it? I don’t know. Look. I LIKE Stephen King. I think overall his metaverse he’s created is pretty darn cool, and a lot of fun. But… I also LIKE Taco Bell, and if I had to eat Taco Bell for EVERY meal, I’d get pretty sick of it. His connections to the DT universe are… sort of becoming Taco Bell. I seriously don’t need EVERY single combination that someone has to add up to 19. And the throwbacks to Derry and Pennywise …shouldn’t exist anymore, considering how IT ended? *sigh* And, of course, there’s also the fact that King can’t help himself from ragging on Trump. Sure, the dude IS a fucking cancer, but …I don’t know. I just think sometimes getting AWAY from him might do everyone some good. Anyway. This book, follows Gwendy Petersen, the woman who has grown to become a US Senator and has in her possession a very powerful box that can grant wishes (which always come with a price) and can spit out magic chocolates. The person who has given her this box - Richard Farris, who, sadly, is NOT the same individual who uses the initials RF… so, it’s just another cute wink, I guess? - has given her the task of removing the box from the world so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. And when I say ‘remove it from the world’, I’m being literal. Gwendy is supposed to take this to outer space and release it so that it can never again cause a Jonestown massacre or the fucking Covid pandemic. (Yeah. Really.) But, Gwendy is a senator, and has some powerful connections, and manages to get herself a seat on a space shuttle. Only problem is that Gwendy is not as young as she used to be, and is beginning to show signs of early-onset dementia. Uh oh. (Also uh-oh? The fact that she can’t remember things is shoved in our faces every. Fucking. Page. There’s probably some sort of low-hanging joke I could make here, but whatever.) So, yeah. This was… not Uncle Steve’s best work. But, it WAS still Stephen King, so, it somehow managed to still be engrossing enough for me to finish. It just didn’t leave me feeling super satisfied by the time it was done. Sorta like Taco Bell, heh. (Sitting there, staring up at the infinite darkness, he thinks they are easy words to believe.)
34. A book with an academic setting or with a teacher that plays an important role
The Blondes by Emily Shultz - Hazel Hayes is a 20-something college student who has been sleeping with her (married) professor. She finds out that she’s pregnant on the same day that a mysterious new illness hits the world. Women who have blonde hair are randomly becoming homicidally violent. Hazel spends the next seven months attempting to reach Karl, survive the “blonde rabies” outbreaks, and figure out what to do about being pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy. This was written in 2012, and having experienced an *actual* pandemic there were a number of things that were off, but a good number of plot points that, yeah, probably would play out that way. Either way, the writing was, I felt, quite good. (Lie just enough, kiddo.)
35. 2 books related to flora and fauna - Book 1
Trees Volume One: In Shadow by Warren Ellis - Ugh. THESE two topics… I figured the easiest way out would be to find two graphic novels that related to the topic(s). While they did provide quick reads, unfortunately, both books were rather shitty in the entertainment aspect. I liked the concept that this one had - it’s a very unique take on an alien invasion story. The alien life forms that land on earth are just gigantic (like skyscraper sized) tree-like organisms. They appear at various locations around the globe and then… don’t do anything. They just… are there. They’re impervious to weapons (nukes and biochemical attacks are somehow rendered inert by the Trees) and they occasionally dump a sort of toxic material around them, which typically causes people to avoid being near them, but otherwise…they just are there. So life goes on, for the most part. But, turns out they are apparently altering the winds and perhaps also psychologically affecting people near them. There’s a handful of different story lines about different people with different agendas, and it’s all ….MILDLY interesting, but not nearly intriguing enough to continue on with. (Good question.)
36. 2 books related to flora and fauna - Book 2
Aliens Dead Orbit by James Stokoe - Oof. This one just didn’t work for me at ALL. It’s essentially fanfic for Aliens, with some crew finding what appears to be a deserted spacecraft floating out in no-man’s-land. There are, though, three crewmembers in cryogenic slumber. They wake them up, and two of them have alien chestbursters. Then the creatures pick off people one by one, blah blah blah. The problem was that the characters were all boring as shit, and the artwork was just …not my style. It was also partially told non-lineraly, which made following what was going on more confusing then it needed to be, and, I just didn’t care. (04:02:43)
37. A book that uses all five vowels in the title and/or author's name
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel - The latest Emily St. John Mandel novel spans nearly 5 centuries, starting in 1912 and going all the way to 2401 to a colony on the moon. It also stops in the 20th century to visit some characters from The Glass Hotel, which was an unexpected (but pleasant!) surprise. I felt in a lot of ways that this was …not exactly a sequel, perhaps thinking of it as DLC (downloadable content - essentially bonus material for games you’ve already bought) for The Glass Hotel. I’m hoping that Steph is going to read this WITHOUT (or before) having read Glass Hotel, so it will be interesting to see if someone who doesn’t have that book’s influence on them enjoys the book. Obviously you dont NEED to read Glass Hotel to enjoy/read Sea of Tranquility, but I’m wondering what the experience is like to read them in reverse order like (hopefully) Steph will. ANYWAY. The novel was still really good - she hasn’t struck out with any of her works thus far - but also did feel sort of light, in comparison to Glass Hotel and Station Eleven. There was a twist that I should have seen coming, and didn’t because the writing is just so damn lyrical and effortless that I’m happy to just be carried along with it. (I’ve been thinking a great deal about time and motion lately, about being a still point in the ceaseless rush.)
38. A book by a Latin American author
Olga Dies Dreaming by - Olga is a gen x professional wedding planner, who has a habit of fleecing her clients. Her brother, Prieto, is a congressman who, despite his optimism, has found himself trapped in the corruption of politics because certain donors have blackmail material on him. I enjoyed this a great deal. It was very grounded, not my typical sort of book, but I liked it a lot. (Matteo was going to grill.)
39. A book from the TIME list of 100 Best YA Books of All Time
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L.Konigsburg - I needed a short, comfortable read for the end of the year (I didn't read all of these in the order that they're on the list), and this pretty much fit the bill. I remember as a kid when I read it, it made ME want to run away from home (and, yeah, I ultimately did - several times, although sadly, none of my adventures included squatting in a museuem and discovering a lost creation from Michaelangelo). Reading it some 30 years later...I felt horrible for Claudia's and Jamie's parents. (No one has claimed them yet.)
40. A book related to one of the 22 Tarot Major Arcana cards
Joker: Killer Smile by Jeff Lamire - Joker is in Arkham, and his shrink thinks he can get inside his head to determine why he’s the way he is. But, we all know that the Joker is smarter than everyone on the planet and can’t be duped with psychology, and eventually he gets inside the DOCTOR’S head, causing HIM to doubt his sanity. Yawn. I’ve enjoyed other graphic novels from Jeff Lamire, and the artwork on this was …decent. But… yeah. Nothing spectacular here. (Now… where to begin?)
41. A book with a theme of food or drink
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson - A brother and his estranged sister get together after their mother dies from a long battle with cancer. At the reading of her will, they listen to a cassette tape recording that tells her life’s story, revealing that their mom had a LOT that was unknown to them both. This was quite good. (Then Marble, Byron, and Benny take what’s left of their mother’s last black cake, crumble it, and let it fall into the water.)
42. A book with a language or nationality in the title
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019
Hoo, boy. This was, unfortunately, largely a chore and a half to get through. These 20 stories were… mostly not great. Like, I think I actually LIKED maybe 3 or 4? There were a few others that were passable. Overall, not a great selection at all. Anyway, on to the stories. It’s been a while since I finished a lot of them, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to recall a lot of details, but I’ll at least have the final sentence from each one, so yay for that.
Pitcher Plant by Adam-Troy Castro - This was …okay. It was written in that weird experimental style of 2nd person (“You emerge from a hallway…”) that is offputting. It was about a person (“you”) who had broken into a mansion to steal something priceless, but wound up getting trapped inside. By death, maybe? It doesn’t matter, the story wasn’t a great one. (And you might succumb to a despair greater than any ever felt by merely mortal prisoners: because even those have always known that escape, of a kind, was inevitable, and never beneath the star has such a merciful end ever been planned for you.)
What Everyone Knows by Seanan McGuire - This one wasn’t bad. Set in a world where kaiju attacked and were ultimately defeated, this was the story of a young woman discovering an abandoned kaiju nest. It was a bit predictable once the setup was in place, but still not a bad story. (That’s what everyone knows.)
The Storyteller’s Replacement by N.K. Jemisin - the story within the story (about the king who uses dragon blood to produce an heir) was memorable - the outside framing part (with the person telling the dragon story to…someone?) was not as much. [shrug] (Let me under the covers, my sweet, and I’ll tell them to you all night long.)
Poor Unfortunate Fools by Silvia Park - dark tale about mermaids told mostly in the manner of a science journal. Decent. (The manner of death is undetermined.)
Six Hangings in the Land of Unkillable Women by Theodore McCombs - set in the late 1890s, the women in a Western town become invincible, which, obviously, causes great concern for the law enforcement of the town. That premise sounds great, but the story itself just didn’t work for me. (The hood flickered, or fluttered, and she cut a long slit across where Liza’s eyes might or might not still be, and slipped her fingers inside to part the cloth and see what new thing in the world was inside.)
Hard Mary by Sofia Samatar - an android is discovered by a group of religious women (I think they may possibly be Amish?) who adopt her as part of their group. The creators of the robot come looking for her. (I make stories for her, and I give her noble pursuits, because you wouldn’t - would you? - you wouldn’t create a character and make it a machine.)
Variations on a Theme from Turandot by Ada Hoffman - I don’t remember this at all. Something about an opera being performed multiple times? The protagonist might be in a time loop? (They walk out into the night together, into the cold pools of street lamps, into the world.)
Through the Flash by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - THIS was good. And time loops were definitely part of this one. A neighborhood is reliving the final week or so of right before a nuclear bomb went off. Only various members of the neighborhood have “awakened” to their situation. The protagonist, Ama, is one of them, and she has mostly come to peace with it, but she had some dark DARK times before then. Imagine the horrors of knowing that you were stuck in a loop for all of eternity, and doomed to die in a horrific explosion at the end of it. That knowledge might break you, and, oh, it broke Ama all right. (And if you are with your family, or anyone at all, when it comes, you feel silly and scared, but at least not alone.)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Memphis Minnie Sing the Stumps Down Good by LaShawn M. Wanak - set in an alternate 1940s where certain singers have the ability to destroy a weird fungus that can kill people by growing into forms of them. A government agency is created to train and recruit singers to kill the spores. The duo in the title of the story form a sort of buddy-cop story, where they discover that they have the ability to destroy spores, but they also want to keep singing in a club that the government wants to shut down. This was pretty darn good, too. (I got a feelin’ she won’t mind.)
The Kite Maker by Brenda Peynado - your basic “aliens living among us, dealing with prejudice” story that was just a metaphor for immigrants. Not bad, but nothing super great. (They moaned as the hang glider went up, that cathedral shard taking off above us, begging us all to rise.)
The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djeli Clark - George Washington’s teeth influenced his life based on the lives of the previous owners. Semi-amusing concept, but nothing is really done with it. (No such stipulations were made for the Negro teeth still in his possession.)
When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis by Annalee Newitz - nothing to do with Mystery SCience Theater 3000, despite the title. This was set in a near future where the CDC uses robot drones to assess the dangers of pandemics being spread. Funding gets cut, and a robot (named Robot) is essentially left on its own to go around neighborhoods asking how people feel. Eventually, it begins to follow a crow, and the two interact long enough that Robot learns how to communicate with it (as well as other crows). This unlikely duo eventually notice (and, spoilers, prevent) a pandemic in its early stages. This was actually quite charming. (Robot smiled to itself, organized the data, and retrained its model for friendship.)
Dead Lovers on Each Blade, Hung by Usman Malik - this took me AGES to get through. I just could NOT get into this story set in.. Pakistan? Or a fantasy version of it? Maybe? I don’t know. It just didn’t connect with me at ALL. (I’ll whip out my tresses, grin and show: dead lovers on each blade hung.)
STET by Sarah Gailey - kinda gimmicky short story about an article about a self driving car lined with footnotes. The footnotes are the writer of the article and the editor going back and forth, in which the real story plays out. Apparently, the writer’s child was killed due to a self-driving car making a choice between swerving to avoid hitting an endangered hummingbird, and hitting the author’s child. (16. Foote on Autonomous Vehicular Casualties, Human and Animal, 2024-2042.)
What Gentle Women Dare by Kelly Robson - This felt awfully familiar. Like I’d read the story before? Or maybe something else by the author set in this universe? I don’t know, either way, I still didn’t care for it. Set in the 1800s, it was about a group of street walkers who have to attempt to solve a murder, without the help of law enforcement. (“Start with the Wharfinger.” )
Nine Last Days on Planet Earth by Daryl Gregory - In 1975, when LT was just ten years old, a barrage of alien seeds land all over the planet. The story checks in on LT -and the plants that grow as a result of those seeds, and the world at large’s reaction to them - over the course of 60-ish years. Pretty good. (The leaves were about to move.)
Dead Air by Nino Cipri - another gimmicky story, this one told via audio recordings about two women lovers, one of whom has a dark and spooky past. This didn’t work for me, but it was at least very quick to read through. ([Are you sure you want to hear what we have to say?])
Skinned by Lesley Nneka Arimah - set in a world where unmarried women have to be completely nude from puberty onward, the protagonist rebels against these rules. (Finding no entry from her side, she pounded and called out, seeking a welcome.)
Godmeat by Martin Cahill - a salty old chef, and his cranky younger companion go about killing and cooking various gods to serve to a collection of supernatural beings who want to end the universe. Took a while to get into it, but I mostly enjoyed it once it got going. (Spear took him by the elbow, and together they made their way to the water, enjoying in silence eerie momet the world had not yet ended.)
On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog by Adam R. Shannon - the final story in the collection ALSO is written in 2nd person, but it somehow works better than the first story did. This one is about a person who discovers time travel, and uses it in order to have more time with their beloved pet. Aw. (“I’ll never leave you,” you whisper, and you never do.)
43. A book set in a small town or rural area
Zorrie by Laird Hunt - Life story of a young woman growing up starting in the Great Depression, through World War II, and into the late 60s or 70s, all while living in Indiana. The writing was lyrical, and the characters all felt real, but there wasn’t a whole lot of plot to this one. (But mostly she would just lie there, very still, turning it all over in her head.)
44. A book with gothic elements
Mexican Gothic by Sivlia Moreno-Garcia - Very good!! Noemi gets a disturbing letter from her cousin, Catalina, who has been married off to a family who lives in a creepy ass castle in Mexico that has a history. She goes to investigate and make sure her cousin is okay, only to discover things are....well, gothic. Heh. This was a bit like a roller coaster. It s-l-o-w-l-y crept up higher and higher, ratcheting up the tension, and then WHEEEEEE!!! The ending was nonstop freaking craziness. Loved it. (When he looked at her again his face was filled with such an extraordinary gladness, and the third time she kissed him it was for love.)
45. A book related to a game
The Answer is… Reflections on my Life by Alex Trebek - Trebek's autobiography, written very shortly before he passed from cancer. At the beginning, he states that he's not a writer, and that this won't be a "typical" autobiography. Sadly, he's correct. He's NOT much of a writer. While it was fine to get a peek at his life, it was just ...not extremely well-written. I feel sorta hypocritical saying that. I'm certainly not the most eloquent person in the world, either. But...Whatever. (
The weather is beautiful - the sun is shining into a mild, mild looking sky and there's not a cloud in sight.)
46. A book with a non-human as one of the main characters
Fairy Tale by Stephen King - Hm. This one was a bit of a mixed bag. The pacing seemed off in a lot of ways - the first 150 pages or so (it’s about 600, so another doorstopper) were essentially all set-up, and, in a lot of ways, were the best part of the book. In that section, we meet Charlie Reade, a 17 year old football and baseball player who lost his mom when he was just 6. Charlie’s father handled his grief by turning to the bottle, and Charlie manned up to help keep the family afloat. At one point, Charlie prays to god to ask that his dad kick his alcoholism, and shortly thereafter, his dad does wind up going to AA, which does the trick. So, Charlie feels like he owes god. Shortly thereafter, he meets Howard Bowditch, a cranky recluse who resides in the Psycho House at the end of the street, as well as Howard’s dog, Radar. Radar is an elderly German Shepherd, and is very much a Good Girl. (Seriously. If Koontz wrote dogs as well as King does, his including them in all his stories wouldn’t be nearly as annoying.) Anyway, Charlie meets Howard when Howard had fallen off a ladder and broken his hip. He ends up saving the man’s life, and their friendship is, while perhaps somewhat unrealistic, quite compelling.
Howard has a shed in his backyard that he keeps a padlock on, and occasionally strange sounds emit from it. Eventually Charlie finds out that in the shed is a portal to another world. He and Radar make their way into that world, and all sorts of fantasy/fairy tale shenanigans ensue.
As I said, this was a little bit uneven. I liked Charlie, I liked Radar. The world building in the Other was decent, but wasn’t AS compelling as the beginning section. The first 150 pages flew by. The next 200 or so didn’t go AS quickly. The actual climactic ending seemed …somewhat rushed? Like, as I got to the final 150 pages or so, I was like, “How is he going to wrap all of this up?” Overall, this was another King yarn that absolutely had moments, but there were also chunks here and there that didn’t live up to his potential. (And when they are small, and wonder is all they know, I will read them the old stories, the ones that start once upon a time.)
47. A book with handwriting on the cover
The Grip of It by Jac Jemc - Julie and James move into a new house away from the city. Freaky weirdness quickly ensues. This was atmospheric and creepy and kept my interest… until it didn’t anymore. At about the ¾ mark, unfortunately, it just kinda became …not as interesting. The writer is quite good, and the characters all felt real and I liked everything that was going on, but then at some point, it just lost me, and I wanted it to end. Pity, because it was pretty great up until then. (“We haven’t seen a thing.”)
48. A book posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month threads in 2021 or 2022
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - Klara is an AF (Artifical Friend) - basically an android that is designed as a companion for children. She’s solar powered, and spends her days in the storefront observing the customers as well as the people who walk past the display window. Eventually a girl named Josie and her mother wind up purchasing Klara and bringing her to their home. Josie is suffering from an unnamed illness, and may end up dying from it. Klara is to be her friend until that happens (if it does). Josie’s mother ends up telling Klara that she plans on having Klara become Josie as a replacement daughter if that does happen. Klara is fine with that, but thinks that she may be able to save Josie’s life. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. The first third or so was fine, but it just couldn’t sustain my interest through the entire thing. (Then she continued to walk away.)
49. A book connected to the phrase "Here (There) Be Dragons"
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill - so so SO good. Set in a world where women can - and occassionally do - transform into dragons. In the early 1950s, thousands of them did at once. Mothers, wives, sisters, aunts, lovers, friends... all just suddenly had enough of life as a human, and became big-ass dragons. Lots of damage and death resulted. And then society at large ...decided to act as though it had not happened at all. This was an amazing book, and I won't say that I cried at parts of it, but I won't say that I *didn't*, either. Hands down, one of the best books I've read in 2022. (And now I will teach it to you.)
50. A book that involves aging, or a character in their golden years
Don’t Ever Get Old by Daniel Friedman - Baruch “Buck” Schatz is 87 years old. After returning home from World War II, he became a homicide detective in Memphis, where he was essentially Dirty Harry. He’s been retired for 35 years, and now just does old-man stuff - watching Fox News, and attending funerals of old acquaintances. When a war buddy on his death bed confesses to him that a Nazi SS officer they had presumed was killed was actually alive, and had made it out of Germany with millions of dollars in gold, Buck’s initial reaction is to just ignore this information. When other people that have learned about the possible gold come looking, Buck, and his twenty-something grandson, Tequila, get involved in looking for it. Buck is a hard person to like. He’s ornery and politically incorrect, and a proponent of using violence to solve a lot of problems (or, he was back when he was a cop. Now that he’s old and more fragile, he tries to rely more on his smarts, but he does still like carrying his .357 Magnum…) As murders start happening, and the danger of him and Tequila being either killed or blamed for the killings, Buck SLOWLY became a character I liked a little more, but it took a while for me to warm up to him. This was breezy enough to get through, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more books with these characters in them (mysteries typically become “series”, and Goodreads has this listed as “Buck Schatz #1”) but I doubt I’ll be seeking any of them out. Once was enough. (We watched Jennings go balls-deep into the ground, and then everyone dispersed, and the young, pretty blonde helped me out of my wheelchair and back into the car.)
51. A book published in 2022
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy - I feel so badly for Jennette after reading her memoir, but it does seem like she's in a better place now than she was growing up in the shadow of her manipulative as fuck mother. (I know I’m not coming back.)
52. A book with a time-related word in the title
The Future is Yours by Dan Frey - two friends, Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry, create a machine that uses quantum computing that allows them to connect to the internet one year into the future. It, of course, doesn't go well for them. This was told in episolitary manner of emails, texts, tweets, and congressional hearings. Not a bad book, although there were a lot of things to cringe at, and I expect if anyone reads it ten years from now, it will seem horribly dated. Some of the ideas were neat, and it was a very quick read, I'll give it that. (-A from the future)
