Reading Post 2 - July 2023 - December 2023

[elizalavelle]

July

50. Nothing More to Tell by Karen M. McManus
Rating: 7.5/10
Another fun Y/A read. There are a few references here to shows I love (The Good Place and Veronica Mars) and with the mystery there is a bit of a Veronica Mars vibe. There's a satisfying ending to the whodunit and I felt like the teenaged voices felt authentic. Brynn moved away from her small town private school when her dad got a new job after 8th grade and she hasn't looked back. One of her favourite teachers was killed right before she left and she uses the forced relocation back to her hometown to look into the murder further as the case has left her wondering if there wasn't more to the whole thing. She's more journalist than detective but uses her internship with a murder podcast to further her research. The story was fun and I enjoyed that like Veronica Mars, this character does get in over her head. She does need help from others around her. I enjoyed reading this one a lot.

51. Camp Creepy (Sinister Summer # 3) by Kiersten White
Rating: 8/10
This series remains a delight. I did find this book felt a bit more like filler than I'd expected. It serves to get all of the kids on the same page and get them working together and it works, I just felt like I could see the effort spent on getting that all sorted so the story could go forward. There was also a bit of retreading the same ground in the older sibling not trusting the younger ones that I thought we'd cleared in the last book. I'm also an older reader reading a book for kids so it's likely that age appropriate readers won't see it quite the same way. That said the concept of the camp was great. The use of tie dye in a sinister way was fantastic and the story ends strong with some real character growth.

52. Menacing Manor (Sinister Summer # 4) by Kiersten White
Rating: 8/10
I thought this may have been the last book but I see there's one more coming in January so I'll have to wait to see how everything ends soon. For now I really liked this book. We see all of the kids working together to figure out where their parents have gone. This one has a twist that's not entirely unpredictable (again for an older reader - kids may be seeing this trope for the first time) but was done exactly right and I really liked where the book leaves us. I can't wait to see how it all comes together in the final part.

53. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Rating: 7/10
This was an interesting book and as I didn't know the author's previous or anything about them personally I think I read the book without her history in mind and then afterwards was reading some of the reviews and saw that this book has some self insert in the role of the quickly deceased object of obsession for our main character and that does feel a little bit odd. I do think there are good points here made about racism and the many facets of racism in the publishing industry. There's the expectation that every Asian author be the perfect kind of Asian and not push the boundaries of western dominated thinking while still being just the right kind of "exotic" enough in their writing. I imagine it would be exhausting. There were some good moments of debate around who is allowed to write about what subject matter. That said the main character in this book sucks as does pretty much everyone we meet so it's a book where it's hard to feel sympathy for anyone and by that note it was hard for me to feel connected to the characters. I liked the behind the curtain look into the publishing world and into the world of online marketing that authors have to participate in these days. This wasn't an amazing book by any means but it was one that kept me engaged and ready to see just how far the main character was going to fall.

54. Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery
Rating: 8/10
I have been reading this book for 3 years. It's dryer than I expected and so became something I'd pick up between books, read a bit, and then put it back down. It's not a bad book it just wasn't one that I found myself needing to read all at once. In fact as a biography it fully does the job it should do. I learned a lot about Gorey's life and also came away wanting to read more of his work as while I've read quite a bit he has written and drawn so much that there's much more for me to read. I love that Gorey was a fan of Buffy and XFiles. I suspect early exposure to his work was part of what made me the kind of kid, and then adult, who was so into that kind of fandom. Gorey lived a unique and interesting life and one where he very much did things on his own terms. Glad to have learned more about him.

55. The Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan
Rating: 8/10
This was such a great concept and the imagining of a futuristic dystopic Toronto felt entirely possible. There were some great touches that just made it feel so perfectly like Toronto such as the Shit Car streetcar - I could absolutely see us having something like that. Also the presence of raccoons, that's very Toronto. It felt local enough to feel unnerving when we get to how the city is collapsing while most people aren't noticing a thing. I mean we're doing that now to a degree so I could see it continuing. In this case there's a tangible creature known as The Wet who is infiltrating the city - it was slow at first but we enter the story when The Wet has ramped up and is harder to ignore. The idea of having a blood sacrifice in order to ensure the success of buildings was a good creepy addition and I liked the explanations for how it used to work vs how it was working for the wealthy building families now. This is a book where we get the point of view of several different characters who all come together by the end as things come to a climax. I found it felt a bit messy at the end when all of the stories came together and the action really ramped up so it took me a bit to figure out what was going on. It was a really creepy concept and overall it's well executed.

56. Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch
Rating: 7.5/10
I enjoyed this book but didn't think it really lived up to what it was marketed as. The marketing for this one was: An atmospheric, feminist retelling of the early life of famed villainess Morgan le Fay, set against the colourful chivalric backdrop of Arthurian legend. I am into all of that. This honestly felt like a bit too much YA vs the mythical roots of the story. I liked that there were queer characters and that Morgan was a woman who knew her mind. There are a lot of stories about Morgan Le Fay which could have been used as the source material and this one - putting her into an unhappy marriage - felt like an odd choice for telling a feminist story. That aside, I was happy every time I picked up this book. I like books that play with the Arthurian legends and I like stories about Morgan le Fay so this was fun. It did cut off at a point where I wished there was going to be more story. I've seen a few people say this will be a trilogy and if it is I'd go back to read more.

**The Helpless Doorknob: A Shuffled Story by Edward Gorey
Great fun! I had his tarot deck and this is another similar sort of idea in that it's a set of cards that you arrange to make a story. There isn't a right story. I did of course sit down and made up a story in my head but as soon as I was done I could see a few other ways the events could fit together to make a Gorey kind of tale.

57. How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Rating: 8/10
This one was very scary to start and then the scary turned into something I could manage as we got deep into it. I really liked it. This one is clever because as the reveal comes and we find out what the source of all of the haunting is I was like "well of course!" but until the reveal I hadn't given it a passing thought. I so often can guess how things are going to go early on in stories and I'm impressed that this one was so well hidden in plain sight. I was also impressed with the writing and with the story concept. There's generational family trauma at the core of this book that give it the heart and depth of story and then Hendrix has created a house that's filled with creepy puppets and dolls and that brings a creep factor that just makes your skin crawl.

58. The Cursed Hermit (Hobtown Mystery Stories # 2) by Kris Bertin & Alexander Forbes (Visual Art)
Rating: 8/10
This second graphic novel in the series really tightened up their storytelling in a way that made it more coherent. It was still delightfully weird. It was more that the author and illustrator seemed to be a bit more in their groove with telling a story about this world and these characters. We also really focused in on 2 of the characters so it was a bit easier to follow what they were doing vs having the whole ensemble on the page all of the time. The rest do make appearances but are not as heavily featured. This book also had plot elements I love. Creepy boarding school, conspiracy, telling the patriarchy to go fuck itself etc. The series again is a mixture of a Nancy Drew type of story and something David Lynch would have come up with and it's a great blend of all of those elements. I see that another publisher picked up the series and has hired them for books 3, 4 and 5 but I can't find release dates so I hope those are still happening.

August

59. The Every by Dave Eggers
Rating: 8/10
This is the follow up book to The Circle. It takes place years into the future where The Circle has merged with another company and now is The Every. It controls almost every aspect of life and this book, like the first, feels uncomfortable to read because there are clear moments where we can see that we're on this path. There was a bit about screen addiction in children that I found really impactful - we tell kids that screen time is addictive and should be reduced. But schools keep adding tech, homework is online, assignments are online, they're online during the day, they use apps for quizzes in class, they type all assignments and submit them electronically. So we send such a mixed message to kids and then society blames them for being as addicted as they are. I also kept being horrified in this book as every change that the main character tried to introduce to take down The Every by pushing things too far was turned into a positive for the company. There comes a tipping point where you can't take down something from the inside and instead run the risk of being consumed by it. I saw an interesting review from someone who said they read The Circle as a satire and didn't really like it. Then they read The Every which was published almost a decade later hit them differently as in 2013 it didn't seem possible that we'd have come so far in the wrong direction.

60. Royal City: The Complete Collection by Jeff Lemire
Rating: 8.5/10
This was a fantastic graphic novel. The patriarch of the family has had a stroke and so the 3 adult children and mother come together and we see that every family member, including the comatose father, has been in some way held back by the death of their 4 child Tommy in 1993. They all have a ghost of Tommy haunting them. Some see him as the adult they wish, or fear, he was going to be, some see him in a few different stages of childhood. This is a great book that showcases how a tragedy can hold onto us until we are able to let it go. It shows the complexity of family relationships and some of the struggles of life in a smaller town. This was one that felt meaningful and the idea was so well executed by the creator.

61. Five Survive by Holly Jackson
Rating: 7/10
I did not love this one nearly as much as the Good Girl's Guide to Murder trilogy. It's a fast paced story and I read it in a couple of sittings. Almost the entire book takes place over one night so the action is fast paced and there's a lot of dialogue that moves things along. A group of 6 teenagers/young adults are stranded in the middle of nowhere in a trailer when a sniper takes out their wheels. One of them has a secret and no one is going anywhere until that secret comes out. For what it is the story is decently crafted and written. It just didn't captivate me the way her trilogy did.

62. Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling
Rating: 8/10
Interesting dystopia set in Northern Canada. Climate change has been ravaging the world and humans are looking to move north for survival. Interestingly to me it feels like humanity at large is just as reluctant to make changes to how and where they live as they are in the present day I know. It's clear that going north is the most viable option yet it seems that most are staying south and are set on exploiting the north for resources and information. This story is told by following three stories in the north. We have White Alice, a research station which is being manned by an all female team of scientists. Then we get 2 stories in a settlement camp where there are plans to build a university. We follow Grant, a professor who is trying to escape his family's gilded cage. Lastly we have Rose, who is one of the "Blooms". They're a group of carefully selected women who service the higher ranking men at the settlement. This is a really interesting slice of the future. It has something of the same feeling as Station Eleven did in that it's a dystopia but it's not necessarily following the usual tropes of one.

63. How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur
Rating: 10/10
I have not read a philosophy book since I was in first year of University, and even then I'm pretty sure I skimmed most of the reading. I did adore The Good Place and have been told by people far more knowledgeable in this area than me that the show got a lot of the ethical philosophy correct and was very thoughtful about how it was presented. I genuinely enjoyed this book. Schur knows how to write humour and does a great job at using footnotes to keep things light while also being really informative. It's not super light reading but it also wasn't something I had to really force my way through. I felt like it led me to do some good thinking while also laughing out loud at some parts.

64. Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk
Rating: 6.5/10
Parts of this story were beautiful. All together it got messy. It's written as a sapphic hard boiled noir detective type of story. Down to the detective calling most of the women in her life "dames" and using the usual tropes that you'd see in that genre of detective story. It's historic and weaves in a fantasy world of demons and magic and angels. Except sometimes the action got flowing and then it suddenly sounded quite modern. I don't really love all of the noir language but if you're writing in that style then it's a commitment and I found it distracting to change into and out of that tone multiple times in such a short work of fiction. I loved the relationship and think that was delightful. I think this book did touch on the difficulties of being gay and how quickly your life could be taken from you and had a good dose of tragedy without feeling like they were just killing the gays. I found that some of the story felt quite rushed. It's a novella, and there just wasn't enough room here for the kind of epic story the author was building. Overall it missed the mark for me while still making me interested enough that I'd try something else from this author to see what they might do with more room to tell a story. Although I don't think I'd like to see quite such a historical genre from them that requires a set tone as that just didn't stick here.

65. The Honeys by Ryan La Sala
Rating: 8/10
Far more interesting than expected. This book has some excellent weird elements to it. This is a story about Mars. They're a gender fluid teen from a very well connected political family. Their twin sister was carrying the weight of the family expectations and at the start of the book she comes home from an elite summer camp and tries to slaughter Mars before her own untimely death. Mars decides to return to the camp that they gave up many summers before in order to figure out what happened. That set up feels like a typical thriller but this one gets weird and also beautiful. I really liked Mars and how they talked about their gender and really their relation to the world entirely. I liked the levels of weird that got uncovered here. There were the expected bits of bullying and regular thriller tropes but there's an added level here that made the book something special.

66. Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Rating: 8/10
My rating for this one may be a bit inflated because this is the source material for a classic film that captivated me as a child. It's funny because I mentioned it to my parents and they didn't remember it at all but they would have been the ones to show it to me. I guess it's funny what sticks with you. The idea of Shangri La isn't original to this text but naming it Shangri La was and that's definitely stuck around in our cultural consciousness. This book is dated in a lot of ways but I'd think that for it's time it might have been progressive. Still for current readers there are some slurs and parts that are quite racist so you do need to read it being mindful that this was published in 1933 so the way the western world viewed Asian cultures was very different. The main character is absolutely a Gary Stu in how well he fits into the society he finds himself in but that also played out with him being the person who saw all people just as being people vs having a more racist outlook on the society. I still liked the ideas in this story as an adult the same way that I liked them as a kid. The idea of Shangri La took up residence in my brain when I saw the movie and now reading the book I like how the concept of time and doing things in moderation get fleshed out.

67. Nancy Drew Files # 24 Till Death Do Us Part by Carolyn Keene
Rating: 7/10
Bonus points for fun with this one. I was thinking about some of the books I read as a child and this one popped into my head so I got a copy from the library. I think I loved this book in the third grade and now I see it may have been a foundation for how much drama I love. Nancy is 18 but she manages to get proposed to, has a pilots license, gets a fake job as a hotel chambermaid, had connections with the local paper and the FBI, almost gets assassinated and travels to multiple cities over the course of a few days... she does it all! I had fun revisiting this one. It was pure campy drama beginning to end and leaned into that vibe.

68. Skim by Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki (Illustrator)
Rating: 10/10
Add this graphic novel to the list of "books I should have read ages ago and didn't." The title and cover image never grabbed me but every time I read about the plot I would tell myself I should read this and then didn't but I randomly bought the book this month so it was time to finally read it. Wow! I felt like this one really did a great job at summing up the high school experience in the 90's from the point of view of a slightly overweight girl who feels like an outsider much of the time. Hello it's me. It just felt very real. Kim is also figuring out her sexuality in a time when we often weren't kind about people being gay. Is a wiccan when that meant being an outsider as well and is just finding herself. The art is lovely and helps to tell the story.

September

69. The Mythic Dream edited by Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe
Rating: 7/10
This one had a great variety of stories that revisit and reimagine myths from many different cultures. As with most short story volumes some of these really caught my attention and some absolutely did not.
+ Phantoms of the Midway by Seanan McGuire - I mean Seanan writes fantastic stories. This was atmospheric and lovely.
+ The Justified by Ann Leckie - I really couldn't get into this one at all. It's a futuristic look at ancient Egyptian gods. Great idea, it just didn't hook me.
+ Fisher-Bird by T Kingfisher: This one felt like a blend of a folk tale/fable and the story of Hercules. I found it fun.
+ A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy by Rebecca Roanhorse - Super creepy and captivating. I liked it. The consequence of trying to keep someone alive in memory forever.
+ Bridge of Crows by Neon Yang - A story within a story. Really well told.
+ Labbatu Takes Command of the Flagship "Heaven Dwells Within" by Arkady Martine - Didn't hit for me at all. This was a space opera but maybe for me it needed more length so that I could settle in.
+ Wild to Covet by Sarah Gailey - This one was a great story for me. The loss of self in mythology for the women who bear and raise the heros. I liked this journey of holding onto personhood.
+ ¡Cuidado! ¡Que Viene el Coco! by Carlos Hernandez - This was a lovely sad story about a cuban mythological creature, El Coco, who replaces the heads of children with coconuts. In this story it's taken from being a scary thing to being a method of protection.
+ He Fell Howling by Stephen Graham Jones - I often love the concepts Stephen Graham Jones is working with and don't fall in love with his novels. This being shorter worked better for me. It's really well told and gives us an idea that blends in werewolf lore along with something more ancient.
+ Curses Like Words, Like Feathers, Like Stories by Kat Howard - Not memorable for me I'm afraid. I do recall it being lovely writing, the story just slipped away from me almost immediately.
+ Across the River by Leah Cypress - This one felt like a classic myth all on it's own. I liked the idea of the magical river and how a clever idea was the saviour of the Jewish people rather than a physical fight.
a story about a jewish poet, living in germany, who can see a magical river that most people cannot. then a
+ Sisyphus in Elysium by Jeffrey Ford - This one worked for me perhaps because I just read the How to be Perfect philosophy book and still have the idea in my head that we must think of Sisyphus as being happy, and that thought laid on top of this story worked very well for me.
+ Kali_Na by Indrapramit Das - I liked this one. A cyber world idea of what a god may be like in a digital world. Really neat.
+ Live Stream by Alyssa Wong - Loved this one. It's brutal and dark. It also felt like a perfect reimagining for today's reality. A woman who makes her living as a gamer on Twitch almost gets bullied out of the industry and then finds her power again. Bonus points for the shitty guy being sorry but only being sorry that he is facing consequences. Spot on.
+ Close Enough for Jazz by John Chu - I really liked the base concept but the execution of the story lost a bit of something for me. I think it could have hit harder but it just didn't come together for me.
+ Buried Deep by Naomi Novik - I liked seeing the story of the minotaur through his sister's eyes. I liked the story well enough. It wasn't one of my favourites but it's solid and the writing is great.
+ The Things Eric Eats Before He Eats Himself by Carmen Maria Machado - Meh, this one was quick and vicious. It didn't do much for me.
+ Florilegia; or, Some Lies About Flowers by Amal El-Mohtar - Another bit of great writing but with a story that didn't really hook me. I liked it, didn't love it.

70. Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley, # 1)by Cara Hunter
Rating: 7/10
Too many twists! I did like this read in that I wanted to figure out what was happening. There were just so many twists. I mean how many terrible secrets can one family have? It began to feel Dickensian in the "oh look another tragedy" kind of way. The author set up even more twists than we saw unfold. I certainly was expecting at least one more to come out in the trial. I think what made me feel a little off on this book by the end was that there wasn't a real bit of justice. Yes two not so great parents were being punished but not really for the right things so their comeuppance didn't feel great. On the whole I did want to keep reading because there was so much messy drama. I put the second of these books on hold at the library to give it a go. Thus far I don't really care for the main detective character. He's there, and has his own tragic backstory (because of course he does) but I'm not sure he's got enough depth to pull off a series.

71. Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates
Rating 10/10
The title is definitely meant to grab attention. It's not misleading as to the content of the book but I'd say it's limiting. Bates does a great job at getting into what's changing in society that is making these issues even worse and also how the misogyny harms young boys and men deeply. I think this book is an important one as it helps to explain what's going on to people who may want to get it but who just don't think things can possibly be that bad. I mean someone drove their van down the sidewalk here in Toronto with the express intention of hurting women and it's still not treated as a terrorist action or even a hate crime due to the definitions of both. There's a good case that the ideology that leads to those sorts of extreme violent actions should be taken far more seriously. Additionally we should take the smaller hateful actions that happen along the way far more seriously. No one is helped by "boys will be boys" type of excuses.

72. Rapture in Death (In Death, # 4) by J.D. Robb
Rating: 7/10
In a lot of ways this book felt like it was finding it's feet in the series again since this was originally planned as a trilogy and then got picked up for more books. Some of the character interactions took a step backwards, especially the one with Nadine (news reporter) so I guess we'll have to see that friendship grow again. I enjoyed it well enough. I also found that the entire mystery was so clearly conveyed that there wasn't much of a whodunit to figure out. I still like the world although this one felt like it crossed into being a bit more copaganda than I'd like but that's also me reading it with 2023 eyes, 1996 Elizabeth might have thought differently. Looking forward to reading more of the series still.

* Little People Big Dreams Audrey Hepburn by Mª Isabel Sánchez Vegara and Amaia Arrazola
(Illustrator)
I've picked this one up as a Christmas gift and it's adorable. I'm not sure how well it will land with a little kid vs how much a parent might find it charming.

73. Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir by Maggie Thrash
Rating: 7/10
I liked this one but didn't love it. I think it is an honest recollection and it reads as genuine. For that reason it's also a bit unsatisfying because that's how life usually is. This is an LGBTQ+ coming of age story that takes place at a summer camp where Maggie realized she was into girls after getting the attention of one of her counsellors. The art is simple but does get the emotions across. It wasn't the biggest hit for me but it was still as sweet story.

October

74. Identity by Nora Roberts
Rating: 8/10
This gets the job done. These books have a formula to them and it's a formula that works. The stories she's building around that formula all have unique edges to them. I liked the look into the bartending world and how fiercely independent Morgan is. Roberts has dreamed up yet another horrifying villain whose spiral into the conclusion of the story was great fun to read. There are a couple of moments here where the love interest drifts a bit too far into being controlling for my liking. He remains well balanced by a main character who does hold her own though. As always there are great elements of found family here and just such great examples of supportive female friendship. I do enjoy a good Nora Roberts tale.

75. The Line Between (The Line Between # 1) by Tosca Lee
Rating: 7.5/10
Prions are terrifying. This book came out in 2019 and yet felt quite similar to early Covid19 days as the plague is spreading. Right down to the advice being "wash your hands" for a virus that's not spreading that way. I read through this book quickly because it was really compelling. It did a great job illustrating how fast a pandemic can spread and how much humans will ignore it for as long as possible. The plot also involved a cult as our main character is recently on the outside of the cult and has to navigate a world that isn't familiar to her as it all starts to fall apart. I did find that near the end it felt both a bit muddled and also like far too perfect of a solution. I am interested to see what happens with book 2 though - it's on hold at the library for me.

76. Leave Well Enough Alone by Rosemary Wells
Rating: 6/10
I found out that Rosemary Wells, author of the children's book Peabody, wrote for young adults too. I gave this one a go and... well she found her niche much more in writing for younger kids. This book felt rambly and like a lot was happening but it wasn't getting well explained so it all felt confusing and I really wasn't clear on the ending. I have what I think happened but I'm genuinely not certain. The main character really is the world's worst babysitter and her overactive imagination made it tricky to figure out just what was happening as we saw it all through her eyes. Oh well, gave it a try, I don't think I'll go back for her other YA titles.

77. Road to Riverdale Vol. 1 by Mark Waid, Chip Zdarsky, Adam Hughes, Marguerite Bennett, Fiona Staples (Illustrator)
Rating: 7/10
Cute way to check out the reboots to the world of Riverdale comics before the show came out. These are somewhere between what the show turned out to be and what the world of Archie Comics was when I was a kid. They set up more complex storylines and a bit of a darker world while still poking fun at themselves. The issue where Pops is going to be shut down and they all need to band together to save it and one of the kids points out "this seems to happen a lot" was spot on. You don't get to finish any of the storylines here so this is just a taste of what the comics offer. It could be fun to dive in and read more of them.

78. Severance by Ling Ma
Rating: 8.5/10
Another fantastic dystopian plague book written before the 2020 pandemic. Maybe we should listen more to authors about how these things will progress as I'm reading some really accurate takes. In this book people become "fevered" which is when they get locked into doing something routine over and over and over and not doing anything else until they die. Candace has joined a group of survivors who have a leader who is just a bit off and throughout the book we follow their journey forward while Candace reflects on the days and years before the pandemic and how she got to where she is. This is a good look at humanity and the things that we do and provided an interesting look into one outcome for a city like New York as more and more people become sick or leave.

79. Ghosts Beneath Our Feet by Betty Ren Wright
Rating: 7/10
I found a box set of middle grade ghost stories and I'm absolutely going to be reading them. Betty Ren Wright is likely best known for her book The Dollhouse Murders but wrote several other ghost books for the middle grade audience. I have two more of hers in the boxset and a few others from different authors. This book did start off with some fat shaming of the main character which was definitely on brand for a book from the 1980's. Aside from that this was a cute story. A troubled family moves to a small town to help take care of an elderly friend and along the way they become a stronger family unit, see a ghost, and deal with a more earthly catastrophe in a small mining town. There are fun age appropriate creepy moments and there's actually a lot happening here despite it being such a short book. I enjoyed it.

80. Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
Rating: 6/10
There is an audience out there for this book. I was not it. I loved the concept. A haunted house that haunts people. Two friends who got away and one who is still stuck in the house. All good creepy concepts. One of the characters is trans and this book got into what it is to be trans in the UK and some of the dark undersides of that world online. It just got so visceral with the hate, with the TERFs, with the gore. I generally can read some pretty twisted things and be fine and I was not fine with this book. I finished it because I wanted to know how it would end but I mostly felt dread every time I picked up the book to read more of it. Some passages were really interesting and I liked the history of the House. I think the author is good at what she's doing, what she's doing just isn't the kind of thing I want to read more of.

81. Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom
Rating: 8/10
Great classic witch vibes here. Slewfoot is set in Colonial America and our witch is Abitha who continues to make the best of life no matter the obstacles stacked against her. The ending of this one was delicious. The town wanted a witch, they sure got one in the end. There's some neat mythology here that is built around Samson and the idea of nature spirits and the questioning of religions and how they may work together. Great fun! Glad I saved this one for October.

November

82. When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
Rating: 8.5/10
I really loved this book! Far more than I'd expected. It's an alternate history book that mainly takes place around the 1950's 60's in America. In this history sometimes women transform into dragons, when their lives are too small and they're bigger on the inside, or when their dreams become real enough for them to chase, or when any one of a number of things sets off the change. The world reacts by ignoring this phenomenon, by making it embarrassing and shameful to even mention dragons. The main character Alex grows up in this world and must keep her feet on the ground in order to care for her sister, in order to manager her father who is a complete piece of shit, in order to be smart in a world that wants women to be housewives and very very small. I had a lot of anger while reading this book but also it really does get across the feeling of what dragoning would have been like for the people in this version of the world and that was quite beautiful. There were a few threads left unexplored that I thought could have turned into something but that said, this was such an enjoyable book to read. I'm glad I finally got around to it!

83. The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall
Rating: 5/10
I bought into the social media hype for this book. It's marketed as a Practical Magic meets Gilmore Girls in terms of the themes of the book and that's not really accurate. It aspires to be a cozy romance book yet it felt like it was trying to be too many things all at once. There's a town full of eccentric people a la Gilmore Girls but in a novel it was too many people being thrown at me all at once with no time to get to know them. That type of town takes a series to build. I didn't love the love story aspect either. The guy is such a passive voice in his own life and isn't really honourable at all. The romance tropes used here don't work for me at all. He just sucked. There was an odd faux Christian morality to this book, men who cheat and push boundaries etc. are great, women who are anything less than perfect must be evil sort of vibe. That was a big miss for me and honestly if you read this one and you're about halfway through you think you get why the guy is a bit of a jerk and then it gets a lot worse and he's still supposed to be the goal? Throw the whole man away! Otherwise there were way too many plot lines here and much of the book was telling not showing. So big things would happen and they just came out of nowhere and it felt very disjointed. I liked the food descriptions, I liked some of the magic of the house (but it was not consistent) and I liked the recipes. Otherwise this one was not what it was marketed to be.

84. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Rating: 8.5/10
This book was not like anything I'd read before exactly and just was such a fun experience. We have three very different stories that intersect: a runaway trans woman who is breaking free from her abusive past, a violin teacher known as the Queen of Hell who has made a deal with a demon to deliver 7 souls to them, and a spaceship crew who have taken over a doughnut shop in California as their home base after evacuating from their world. It feels like it's going to be chaotic and yet all of those elements come together and create a wonderful found family story, a story about starting life over in an unfamiliar place and one of acceptance and becoming your true self. It was really a lovely novel. The writing is beautiful and conveys the musical aspects of the story well. Definitely a unique and special book and I'm glad that I read it.

85. Eve (Sorority Trilogy, #1) by Tamara Thorne
Rating: 5/10
I read this book back in 2008 and also didn't really like it then, but it ended on a cliffhanger and that's stuck with me. I remember buying this one at The World's Biggest Bookstore on a whim because it had witches and a sorority. Good elements for a story. Ultimately it's a bit silly on execution and also an uncomfortably horny book. I remembered being a bit scandalized when I read it originally and while I'm less wide eyed about it now I still don't love any of the stuff with the professor as there's an attempt to make him somewhat moral in that he only sleeps with his senior students but it just is creepy. I think he's meant to be a bit of a creep and we also couple that with knowing the seniors he's currently sleeping with aren't exactly who they seem to be but that doesn't excuse how he'd be behaving with other students. Ew. The cliffhanger for this one is quite abrupt and this really isn't mean to be read as a standalone.

86. Merilynn (Sorority Trilogy, #2) by Tamara Thorne
Rating: 5.5/10
There's more clarity to the backstory here which is helpful. The writing isn't great. The story is still horny in a way that just feels like it's there for shock value. I question immortal beings who settle on spending their years with kids. Being eternally in college and having sex with college boys seems very much not like a peak way to spend existence. Still going to read the last one in the series so I can know how this all ends because this book also ends on a cliffhanger that doesn't make the story feel complete at all.

87. Samantha (Sorority Trilogy, #3) by Tamara Thorne
Rating: 5/10
This trilogy isn't really good but I am glad I went back to read it since reading the first one many years back and not knowing how it ended. This one had more humour than the first two as there's a curse which results in a lot of flatulence and hormonal drama. There's an attempt at some clever mythology references, I did appreciate the stone in the sword flip, but most of it just didn't work really well as there wasn't an earlier attempt to build up that background. We all can assume the Fata Morgana society has some link to the Arthurian Tales but there still should have been some work to make that happen. Odd sexual energy to these books that I didn't find to be a lot of fun. It's not really super risqué, it's more that the sex is used as shock value and that just makes it feel awkward for everyone.

88. A Single Light (The Line Between #2) by Tosca Lee
Rating: 8/10
Back to the good stuff! I read the first part of this duology at the beginning of October and was waiting on this library hold to come through. This book is pretty much non stop from the first page. It picks up just after the first book ends and does not let the reader rest until the last page. Near the end I was having a few "how many more things can possibly happen to these characters" thoughts because it got a bit wild but I did enjoy the journey and think the author did a great job at imagining the chaos that would come from a devastating plague and how much most of humanity would not do well. That said there are moments of hope, of genuinely good people, of kindness, and the idea that in the end the people who are doing the best are the ones who are working together and sharing what they have.

December

89. Song of the Sparrow: A Memoir by Tara MacLean
Rating: 8/10
I enjoy Tara MacLean's music and really really liked her work with Shaye so I figured I'd give her book a read. It does have a content warning at the start for sexual assault of minors so you know going in that she's had a rough life. Still this one took me a long time to get through because she's had such a hard life and it was a really dark read that I found took me more time as I couldn't read a lot in one go. The back half of the book is lighter and is full of forgiveness for those who harmed her and that also was a hard read for me because I don't think those people deserved any forgiveness. I guess in those situations one may forgive as another way to protect themself. This is a very raw and honest book and I think took quite a lot of bravery to write it.

90. The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
Rating: 8/10
This was a fun book that came up a few times in the "what was that book" communities recently. I'm here for a book that people remember from their childhoods as something creepy they just can't get out of their heads. This is a horror novel but written for kids so while it was still scary it stays age appropriate to about middle grade I'd think. The main character has run away to a magical house where every season and holiday happens in a day ending with a Christmas with any gift one wishes for every night. What the children in the home don't realize is that while they are there for days, years are passing in the outside world. This one was fun beginning to end and properly creepy.

91. Everyone Here Is Lying by Shari Lapena
Rating: 7.5/10
This was a good whodunit in that you really couldn't tell in advance. The clues are there. When the reveal came I realized when that person had hit my radar as a possibility. Lapena did a great job at creating a street where, as the title says, everyone was lying, so there was a lot of misdirection that all tangled together. I only got put off a bit near the end and I can't say why without spoilers so I'm cutting that bit. The woman who took Avery mentions having an abusive ex and then in her own reminiscing it comes out that she made that up too, hurt herself and blamed the guy in order to ruin his life and I'm just sensitive to plots about that as MRA types take them as gospel and it didn't add to the story. I guess the idea was to not have any moral greyness with her. I think it would have been more compelling if the abuse either was true, or she'd just made that up to excuse the later phone call without adding that she also had framed an ex for abuse when he wanted to break up with her. Ultimately this book is a solid page turner and I liked how the story was built lie upon lie.

92. The Weather Woman by Sally Gardner
Rating: 10/10
I've not read a lot by Sally Gardner but I've liked what I've read from her so far. This was a really good historical novel that had a whole lot going on that was high stakes but somehow it also had that cozy feeling that comes from a book where bad people meet bad ends. Neva is a intellectual girl raised in a time where women were wives and mothers and didn't often get to be much more. Even more than that she's able to predict the weather because she sees the world in an entirely different way. Her family keeps her safe by building a robot that they use to showcase her skills without revealing that it's a person and not clockwork that's behind the predictions. More than that this book becomes an exploration of gender, of sexuality and of the expectations placed on both that so often stifle who we could be.

93. Ghosts Who Went to School by Judith Spearing
Rating: 7/10
Another one from my ghost box set found second hand. This was cute. It sort of read like a sequel but I couldn't see any information about a book that came before it so I'm not sure exactly what happened. Maybe there were more but they didn't get published? I saw another one mentioned on Goodreads but the description looked like it was a sequel to this one. Anyway, this is a kids novel that is exactly as the title says, there are a couple of ghosts who go to school and shenanigans ensue. It's very cute, there's some fun ghost lore here and a story that ensures things are always moving.

94. The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer
Rating: 9/10
This book hits so many nostalgia notes for me as someone who grew up reading books that sound much like the fictional Clock Island series in this book. Now I have a yearning to read a book series that doesn't even exist! There were a couple of flaws for me here. 1. The social worker insisting that one of the reasons Lucy can't be a foster parent is her lack of a car. That's just so American. However, the rest of the argument the social worker makes I agree with and don't like that it's played as being unreasonable. If you can't give a kid a bedroom, have multiple roommate who are college burnouts just to barely manage your bills, and just can't make enough extra money to save up for an apartment let alone any of the expenses that kids have then I would agree you're not ready to foster a kid. Love can only take you so far. Maybe this makes me an old grump. That aside this book just felt cozy and happy and you know how it's going to come out in the end but it's such delightful writing that it doesn't matter that you feel like you already know the story. I loved the riddles and games. Very much a great read to curl up in bed with.

95. Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry
Rating: 8/10
I bought this book for a friend of mine but am reading them before I gift them away. I'd never read any Lynda Barry comics that I'm aware of so this was an introduction into a new world. This book isn't so much a graphic novel/comic but it's how she taught a course for a year at the University of Wisconsin that blended art, writing and science (how the brain works) into one interesting creative course that really seems like it would unlock ones creativity. I really enjoyed seeing how the course was meant to unfold and Barry's notes on what worked and what didn't and also her techniques at getting her students to find their own style and voice. This wasn't a class meant for people who were already artists exactly. Many of her students (if not all) hadn't drawn since they were children. This was more about unlocking that skill again and showing the importance of creativity.

96. One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry
Rating: 8/10
I've found a new graphic novel creator that I enjoy. This book was based around the concept of drawing out your demons. This was an honest and at times very touching look back on things that are demons in our lives, judgemental family, bad boyfriends, embarrassing situations etc. There are some heavy demons in this book and I think it takes a great deal of bravery to put them out there for the world to see.

97. Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
Rating: 8/10
This was was interesting and just pulls you right in. Sylvie is a 17 year old who has been forced to go on holiday with her father (as has her mother) to live for 2 weeks as ancient Britons. Her father is obsessed with history and also an abusive asshole. This story is tense as it build and builds and the lines between the past and present day are blurred.

98. That Scatterbrain Booky (Booky, #1) by Bernice Thurman Hunter
Rating: 10/10
I have a great amount of childhood nostalgia for this book and it held up! This book (and the two that follow it) are set in Toronto in the 1930's. There are photographs and newspaper clippings that illustrate the book. I don't think this is entirely autobiographic as the author is Bernice and the character is Beatrice but it is based on the author's life seemingly pretty closely. This is a charming collection of stories that do show how tough life was during the depression as we go through a year and a bit in Booky's life. This book really brings history to life and I'm sure I must have read this one a bunch of times as every chapter felt familiar to me.

99. With Love from Booky (Booky, #2) by Bernice Thurman Hunter
Rating: 8.5/10
I have no idea why I never read the next two in this trilogy. I guess because I read the first one as a kid and was less interested in what happened as Booky grew up. Although she's not quite a teenager yet in this one and I think kid-me would have still loved it. It's much of the same but does introduce us to seeing what Muskoka was like as well as hearing more about Toronto.

100. As Ever, Booky (Booky, #3) by Bernice Thurman Hunter
Rating: 8.5/10
I do see why I wouldn't have read this as a kid but I'm so glad that I've read it now. Booky is is a proper teenager in this one so there are boys and dating and more about first jobs. We also see the start of the war as this book ends. The final chapter tells us how many of the main people in the story made out and who married who and who didn't make it back from the war. Sobering ending but also good to know who made it through. Really neat to picture what Toronto was like almost a century ago.