At this point in my mid-winter doldrums, it was definitely time for something fluffy. If you like Victorian mysteries with a little bit of romance, you can’t do better than Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey series. Each of these books is better than the next, and it’s fluff I don’t feel too guilty about reading…
Category: Part of a Series
Mini-Review: Lirael by Garth Nix
It’s the first month of the year and already I’m struggling to keep up with my reviews — so you can expect a whole slew of “mini-reviews” coming at you. Although I did just finish One Day by David Nicholls and looking forward to writing my review of that one. I’m so grateful to those…
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the movie, too
Last month I accidentally watched most of the movie The Wizard of Oz twice. I say accidentally because when it comes on TV it’s apparently impossible for me to turn it off. Now this is a movie I know backwards and forwards – when I was a child I remember it coming on every year…
Review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
In The Year of the Flood, Atwood does something unusual: she writes a book that’s set in the same time and place as her previous book, Oryx and Crake, but from the perspectives of different characters (see my review here). In an interview on Amazon, she says that one reason for this was to address…
Review: Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin
I think if this book hadn’t received a good review I wouldn’t have bought it. Maupin’s recent books haven’t done much for me, and Mouse, Brian, Anna, and even Mary Ann are like old friends. Better to reread the old books again and again than change them with a not-so-good update. Happily, I think Maupin…
Review: Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
In my last post, I recommended a book called Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld. Westerfeld is one of my favorite YA writers. He’s written the Uglies and Midnighters series, and this latest series is set in 1914 in a steampunk version of World War I. Behemoth is book 2 of this series. In Leviathan, the first…
Review: Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews
I decided to give up on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It just didn’t do it for me — I didn’t like the way it was written and didn’t find either main character compelling. There must be a reason everyone in the world is reading this book — unless we are all just lemmings,…
Old memories, new challenges, and a mini-review
This weekend I traveled to sunny California for my husband’s 20th high school reunion. I haven’t gone to my own reunions, so this was a strange experience. Even without knowing anyone, I couldn’t help but flash back to my own not-so-pleasant high school experiences – it’s hard not to when surrounded by 80s photos, 80s…
Review: Ship Breaker by Paulo Bacigalupi
Ship Breaker is the first young adult novel written by Paulo Bacigalupi, a new but critically acclaimed science fiction writer who recently won a Nebula award for The Windup Girl. This is no light read in terms of poverty, abuse, violence, and environmental conditions – but at the same time a fun, action-filled read set…
Review: Where Serpents Sleep by C.S. Harris
This is the fourth book in a historical mystery series about Sebastian St. Cyr, a troubled nobleman in Regency England (he is probably troubled in part because he has such a romance-novelish name). The historical mystery is a genre I really like and one you don’t hear much about. Two of my favorite series are…
Review: Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik
Spoiler Alert: Don’t read this review if you haven’t read books 1-5 in the series. If you like fantasy and historical fiction, and haven’t read this series, I highly recommend you pick up book 1, His Majesty’s Dragon. I had been looking forward to this book for a while, and I was disappointed. Novik’s Temeraire…
Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin
I described The Passage to my sister as “a long slog” and she thought that was exactly the right word. This book was billed as THE book to read this summer; it was hyped in the New York Times, NPR, Good Morning America. I really wanted to like this book — nothing like a little…
The Book Stop 