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Books read, July
Aug. 28th, 2024 12:59 pmOne of us knows, Alyssa Cole
The decagon house murders, Yukito Ajatsuji
Invisible Emmie, Terri Libenson
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir
Outofshapeworthlessloser, Gracie Gold
Running a love story, Dom Harvey
The duke at hazard, KJ Charles
Dungeon crawler Carl (audio)
The night war, Kimberley Brubaker Bradley
One of Us Knows, Alyssa Coles. Although she’s still doing romances she is also now doing thrillers - this is the first of them I’ve read. Kenetria Nash, who has DID and a life she’s managed to effectively wreck, finds herself taking a job as caretaker to an historic home on an island, a decision made by an alter who is now absent. The house seems to be triggering memories, and then people from Ken’s past show up, bringing new dangers with them. The thing I liked most about this was that it is explicitly set during the pandemic; otherwise it’s a little predictable. Readable, though, and I will look out for her other thrillers.
The Decagon House Murders, Yukito Ayatsuji. A university detective club (all using the names of famous writers) travel to a remote island with a ten-sided house and a bloody past. Overnight, someone puts out nameplates - First Victim, Second Victim, Detective, Murderer, etc - and then the bodies, obligingly, arrive soon after. This does have a good mystery and the one-line reveal is very nice, but balanced against that is a near complete lack of personality in all the characters. It made me think about Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying, which also has a great text-based reveal, but Levin is much stronger in character and tension (which interact anyway in this sort of murder mystery; you want to be worried about who will be killed next rather than being a little unsure who they were). Interestingly one of the indistinguishable two women is called Orczy (the other is Christie) - I hadn’t been aware she’d done detective stories and will have to have a look.
Invisible Emmie, Terri Libenson. Middle school graphic novel. Quiet shy Emmie and outgoing athletic Katie meet up when Emmie accidentally drops an embarrassing note that is found by unsympathetic classmates. There are some nice bits in this but the twist doesn’t really come off and overall it’s just okay.
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir. Ryland Grace wakes up on a spaceship, not knowing why he’s there or what he’s supposed to do; gradually he works it out, makes first contact with an alien race, and saves humanity. This reminded me of being in my teens and reading sf for the cool high concept ideas, when I would probably have enjoyed this more. The main character - a high school science teacher whose brilliant ideas about alien life were rejected by the mainstream science community, who have been forced to come crawling back to him for help - is pretty irritating, and his big character reveal - that he did not volunteer for the mission but was press-ganged into it - does not actually have any effect by the time it arrives. I did like the alien.
Outofshapeworthlessloser, Gracie Gold. Gold won multiple medals and championships as a figure skater, including Olympic bronze; she did this despite (or perhaps because of) severe mental health issues, abusive coaches, and a sport with destructive expectations of perfection and femininity. It’s very strong on mental health and self-knowledge; it is also candid in admitting she doesn’t have the answers, and everything is a work in progress. (TW: Gold is raped by a fellow skater; she is also friends with another skater who is very helpful with her recovery and return to the sport, and then kills himself the day after being suspended by US Figure Skating after multiple accusations of sexual assault, and the book covers her confusion and shock at this double revelation).
Running: a love story , Dom Harvey. Dom is a radio DJ who ran as a kid, then took it up again as an out-of-condition adult and became obsessed with trying to beat the 3 hour mark for the marathon in one of the World Majors. This book finishes with his attempt in Berlin, where he gets a PB but fails to break 3 hours; subsequently he does break that time in Tokyo (there’s a later edition of this book that adds a chapter to include this, which definitely works better as an ending). It is not great writing, is obviously intended for the radio fans market, and it’s not that helpful about running, but it did make me interested in Dom’s mum, a longtime marathon runner (the whole family runs), who fitted her runs in around everybody else when the kids were young, and is still running marathons in her 70s.
The Duke at Hazard, KJ Charles. Unassuming Cassian, the Duke of Severn, loses his heirloom ring to a strange man in a secret liaison; he then takes a bet from his cousin that he couldn’t survive as an ordinary person in the hope of getting it back without anyone finding out (and also in the hope of getting his relatives to actually see him as a person). He meets Daizell, disgraced and excluded from society by his father’s crimes, eking out a living as a cutter out of shadow portraits, and hires him to help, but Daizell doesn’t know who Cass really is… This was perfectly enjoyable but I do prefer my KJ Charleses with a bit more bite to them (also, England appears to be populated by about a dozen people, given how frequently everyone bumps into each other). I did like the bit where Daizell demonstrates to Cass exactly how prone to misinterpretation the description of a coat as “mulberry” is and the card game exposure is great.
The night war, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. I really liked her The War that Saved my Life duology. This is also WWII, where 12 year old Miriam escapes the round-up in Paris that takes her entire Jewish neighbourhood, to end up in a convent school in a small French village near the border with the free French zone. She is desperate to leave, but also determined to find her Paris neighbour’s young child, given to her to protect but taken away by the nuns to give to a local childless family. This story makes the bold and unexpected decision to add the ghost of Catherine de Medici as a major character, who is only visible to Miri (her chosen gardener) and I don’t think it works. I spent the second half of the book getting increasingly irked by this and it was not helped by an epilogue that had a surprising number of people survive.
Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman, audiobook by Jeff Hays. I do not usually listen to audiobook (except with the kids) but I love this series and the audiobooks are meant to be good, so I plunged in. It’s great. Hays somehow manages all the voices (there are various effects, eg on the AI’s voice and when the characters are speaking in chat - Donut always chats in all caps and Jeff conveys this expertly) and the YouTube cold reads I’ve seen of him swapping between characters aare amazing. The slower pace also makes me think about bits of the story a bit more and appreciate the world building. I think there is a full cast version of this out now as well but I’m now in the third audiobook and I feel I am incapable of dealing with new versions of the voices.
The decagon house murders, Yukito Ajatsuji
Invisible Emmie, Terri Libenson
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir
Outofshapeworthlessloser, Gracie Gold
Running a love story, Dom Harvey
The duke at hazard, KJ Charles
Dungeon crawler Carl (audio)
The night war, Kimberley Brubaker Bradley
One of Us Knows, Alyssa Coles. Although she’s still doing romances she is also now doing thrillers - this is the first of them I’ve read. Kenetria Nash, who has DID and a life she’s managed to effectively wreck, finds herself taking a job as caretaker to an historic home on an island, a decision made by an alter who is now absent. The house seems to be triggering memories, and then people from Ken’s past show up, bringing new dangers with them. The thing I liked most about this was that it is explicitly set during the pandemic; otherwise it’s a little predictable. Readable, though, and I will look out for her other thrillers.
The Decagon House Murders, Yukito Ayatsuji. A university detective club (all using the names of famous writers) travel to a remote island with a ten-sided house and a bloody past. Overnight, someone puts out nameplates - First Victim, Second Victim, Detective, Murderer, etc - and then the bodies, obligingly, arrive soon after. This does have a good mystery and the one-line reveal is very nice, but balanced against that is a near complete lack of personality in all the characters. It made me think about Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying, which also has a great text-based reveal, but Levin is much stronger in character and tension (which interact anyway in this sort of murder mystery; you want to be worried about who will be killed next rather than being a little unsure who they were). Interestingly one of the indistinguishable two women is called Orczy (the other is Christie) - I hadn’t been aware she’d done detective stories and will have to have a look.
Invisible Emmie, Terri Libenson. Middle school graphic novel. Quiet shy Emmie and outgoing athletic Katie meet up when Emmie accidentally drops an embarrassing note that is found by unsympathetic classmates. There are some nice bits in this but the twist doesn’t really come off and overall it’s just okay.
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir. Ryland Grace wakes up on a spaceship, not knowing why he’s there or what he’s supposed to do; gradually he works it out, makes first contact with an alien race, and saves humanity. This reminded me of being in my teens and reading sf for the cool high concept ideas, when I would probably have enjoyed this more. The main character - a high school science teacher whose brilliant ideas about alien life were rejected by the mainstream science community, who have been forced to come crawling back to him for help - is pretty irritating, and his big character reveal - that he did not volunteer for the mission but was press-ganged into it - does not actually have any effect by the time it arrives. I did like the alien.
Outofshapeworthlessloser, Gracie Gold. Gold won multiple medals and championships as a figure skater, including Olympic bronze; she did this despite (or perhaps because of) severe mental health issues, abusive coaches, and a sport with destructive expectations of perfection and femininity. It’s very strong on mental health and self-knowledge; it is also candid in admitting she doesn’t have the answers, and everything is a work in progress. (TW: Gold is raped by a fellow skater; she is also friends with another skater who is very helpful with her recovery and return to the sport, and then kills himself the day after being suspended by US Figure Skating after multiple accusations of sexual assault, and the book covers her confusion and shock at this double revelation).
Running: a love story , Dom Harvey. Dom is a radio DJ who ran as a kid, then took it up again as an out-of-condition adult and became obsessed with trying to beat the 3 hour mark for the marathon in one of the World Majors. This book finishes with his attempt in Berlin, where he gets a PB but fails to break 3 hours; subsequently he does break that time in Tokyo (there’s a later edition of this book that adds a chapter to include this, which definitely works better as an ending). It is not great writing, is obviously intended for the radio fans market, and it’s not that helpful about running, but it did make me interested in Dom’s mum, a longtime marathon runner (the whole family runs), who fitted her runs in around everybody else when the kids were young, and is still running marathons in her 70s.
The Duke at Hazard, KJ Charles. Unassuming Cassian, the Duke of Severn, loses his heirloom ring to a strange man in a secret liaison; he then takes a bet from his cousin that he couldn’t survive as an ordinary person in the hope of getting it back without anyone finding out (and also in the hope of getting his relatives to actually see him as a person). He meets Daizell, disgraced and excluded from society by his father’s crimes, eking out a living as a cutter out of shadow portraits, and hires him to help, but Daizell doesn’t know who Cass really is… This was perfectly enjoyable but I do prefer my KJ Charleses with a bit more bite to them (also, England appears to be populated by about a dozen people, given how frequently everyone bumps into each other). I did like the bit where Daizell demonstrates to Cass exactly how prone to misinterpretation the description of a coat as “mulberry” is and the card game exposure is great.
The night war, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. I really liked her The War that Saved my Life duology. This is also WWII, where 12 year old Miriam escapes the round-up in Paris that takes her entire Jewish neighbourhood, to end up in a convent school in a small French village near the border with the free French zone. She is desperate to leave, but also determined to find her Paris neighbour’s young child, given to her to protect but taken away by the nuns to give to a local childless family. This story makes the bold and unexpected decision to add the ghost of Catherine de Medici as a major character, who is only visible to Miri (her chosen gardener) and I don’t think it works. I spent the second half of the book getting increasingly irked by this and it was not helped by an epilogue that had a surprising number of people survive.
Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman, audiobook by Jeff Hays. I do not usually listen to audiobook (except with the kids) but I love this series and the audiobooks are meant to be good, so I plunged in. It’s great. Hays somehow manages all the voices (there are various effects, eg on the AI’s voice and when the characters are speaking in chat - Donut always chats in all caps and Jeff conveys this expertly) and the YouTube cold reads I’ve seen of him swapping between characters aare amazing. The slower pace also makes me think about bits of the story a bit more and appreciate the world building. I think there is a full cast version of this out now as well but I’m now in the third audiobook and I feel I am incapable of dealing with new versions of the voices.
