libscote's Reviews (6.4k)

I'm starting to find Schmidt a little...I don't know if formulaic is the right word, but a lot of his books seem to follow similar trajectories and have similar plot beats and types of characters. That doesn't mean that what he does isn't well-written, because it generally is. For me, it's whether it rises above that trope-y feeling. After all, I love romance novels and they also often have similar beats. This one I enjoyed more than "Pay Attention Carter Jones." I liked the way Hercules Beal's life echoed the mythical Hercules, and how he did his various labors. When I read about the neighbors helping each other in Schmidt's stories, I really like it--makes me have faith in humanity again. I think this one is excellent.

This is a fun sports related romance between someone who works for the management of a team and an ex-player, falling in love while coaching a youth soccer team. They both have real issues, and it's a slow burn, but I enjoyed it!

This is a very cute story about a rover on Mars. It also covers the way the rover makes a girl feel as her mother works on the Rover. We hear about the Rover's trip to Mars and its adventures. It's very heartwarming. If you liked "The Wild Robot", I think you will like this one too. 

This book was slow-paced, but worth the read. It weaves together three different stories about one place in Australia. Two are Indigenous people, and one is a missionary who thinks he is there to do good. The three different stories give you a look at Indigenous life in Australia, which has the most endangered Indigenous languages in the world. When you read about what happened, you might think, "that's awful, but it happened over there." I can promise you that just as bad things happened to Indigenous and Black people in America.

Fine, but it ends before the legend really gets going.

This is a great book about being yourself (and also about the history of noodles).

The hacks weren't really what I was looking for but I bet others will find it useful. 

I liked this book for middle grade readers about corporate malfeasance, hidden within a story about vampires in the light. 

This book grows on you slowly. You have to commit to it, and you have to want to see the horrors of slavery during the Revolutionary War period, in a part of the country that we often are not shown slavery (yes there were slaves in New England). For me, it really brought home the hypocrisy of the Founding Fathers in a way that other materials have not. Excellent narration too.

I was a little skeptical about this one based on the cover, but I ended up liking it! It's a book about a society that seems very focused on Callers, a group of people that can make objects appear. The thing is, those objects don't just appear out of nowhere (although the Council would like you to believe that)--they come from the other side of the world. Quintus now is torn between the world he knows and what he has learned--which is right and which will he support?