You know it's a good series when, after you finish the book, you keep wanting to go back and read the next part only to realize that the next part isn't out yet.
It took me a while to get into the book at the beginning - there were many new people and--with my terrible memory for books I have read--I wasn't always sure whether I ought to remember anyone from the Eternal Sky trilogy. But as I got to know the major players and their personalities and get invested in the developing conflicts, I shifted from "I can stop whenever I want" to "ugh, why did you have to take a short nap today of all days, child!"
And I look forward to finding out what happens next because kingdoms are in peril and derring do needs to be done!

Ugh, this book. This was not a "bath" book and I made the mistake of trying to read it in increments while keeping one eye on my kid in the bath. It's not the right book for that, although I am amassing a collection of great things to read in 15-20 minute chunks.
Pym demands the reader's full attention and then asks for a bit more. It's an infuriating book because its deeply frustrated narrator is supported by a narrative that understands that his frustration is hilarious and it's hilarious because if you don't laugh, you're going to scream. Pym asks you to do both and the humor and horror and deep annoyance all boil to the surface only for something new and even more improbably to occur and for the cycle to restart.
You would think that it would be necessary to read Poe's Narrative of the Life of Arthur Gordon Pym to get what Johnson is doing here and, while a familiarity with Poe's work would help, you don't really need it. But if you're going to use any author's work to understand Johnson's, it has to be Sianne Ngai's [b:Ugly Feelings|1142476|Ugly Feelings|Sianne Ngai|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348109217s/1142476.jpg|1294305]. Ngai writes about the non-fulfilling, non-cathartic feelings. The feelings of frustration, annoyance, boredom, animatedness (see Ngai for a full explanation) that don't transmute into anything and just sit with you kinda uncomfortably. Johnson is basically using humor and a sharp sense of parody to engage those ugly feelings, to make them manifest in all sorts of completely preposterous ways. The book's ending perfectly encapsulates this--and makes it clear he's being quite deliberate with the non-catharsis of the story--while still ending in a way that provides a way out. Johnson doesn't take you there, not really, but the way out of the still pretty funny emotional morass that he has crafted is nonetheless offered.
Not that I'm teaching literature these days, but this feels like an excellent candidate for a course on subversive equels. (I'd probably throw in Jane Eyre/Wide Sargasso Sea...I have to think about what else.)

As you can tell by my bookshelves, this book defies categorization. Frankly, it defies the ratings system as well since rating inevitably assumes comparison and a relative score and this is so unlike anything I've ever read.
This, I grant, may speak to a narrowness of reading on my part.
What Twitty has done here is extraordinary; his writing is pitched exquisitely on every topic and his vastness of knowledge is matched only by his capacity to transmit it. This is not a book about which one can complain it is all over the place--it is all over the place, but it's supposed to be. As part of its genre-defying, it rebels against the idea that history and memoir, personal narratives and sweeping pronouncements about the nature of the world belong apart. Twitty weaves them together and not seamlessly because this book is all about seams. The Cooking Gene unpicks the threads that connect disparate history, making that which was woven into the cloth visible again. The term culinary archeology might be more precise. Then again, it's also an archeology of an individual and it is a testament to Twitty's skill that--even though the book is not an easy read and, like most multi course offerings, requires time to digest--one cannot imagine it any other way.

I'm still a bit mad that this book didn't come out last year when it was supposed to, but otherwise I have no complaints at all. Given the way this series has been escalating and with the way the last book ended, I was terrified he was going to pull a GRRM and need another book but, nope, Wexler's sense of what needs to be done in each book and the way the plot ought to chug along does not fail him and it all wraps up just as it should.
This series is SO GOOD YOU GUYS.
It's everything I wanted ASOIAF to be, but better because The Shadow Campaigns really wants you to love each and every one of its characters. While ASOIAF is invested in the question of grey morality and a gritty realism that looks less like the real world and more like a medievalism coated with a heavy coat of noir grime, The Shadow Campaigns asks "How do good and moral people make impossible choices? How can you do good in a world of battle and war?"
This is not a series for people who don't like battles (so many battles!), but if you love the idea of fantasy with strong roots in history...please read this.

I am not a contemporary romance person, but I will make an exception every time for Courtney Milan. I love everything about the Cyclone series. I love the pace at which the romance develops, I love the way that the characters have lives and arcs outside of shacking up, I love that it tells a story that is absolutely about social issues without feeling like an unwieldy soapbox. And I love Milan's snarky voice.

I...okay, the problem with this book is that it’s a prequel and so it has no stakes. And it’s not that prequels can’t have stakes and it’s not that you can’t real LOTR before the Hobbit, but this book is still far too bound up with His Dark Materials for it to be an effective prequel. The story seems to be about what happens to Lyra, but we already KNOW what happens to Lyra so why do I want to read this book? We know ALL the mysteries the characters don’t!
Anyway, Pullman's still a talented stylist, but this book just doesn’t really have a story there...

I’ve really been enjoying the central corps. novels. They’re just good quality space opera with nothing in them that’s overly annoying.
I find the Greg/Elena dynamic interesting since it almost feels like a role reversal in terms of who gets to be beautiful and pining and who gets to storm off and be melodramatic. I’m still not sure how I feel about them as a couple, but I don’t actively hate it.

I still don’t understand why I didn’t like this book. Usually I can point to something—character, plot, world building—but all of those are apparently good. There's no failing. I mean, I was hit worse than usual by the "who are these people I followed in the previous books and what even happened" but that shouldn’t have been enough to explain my utter apathy towards everyone.
Meh. I’m annoyed that I don’t have a good reason for not liking it and also kind of annoyed I forced myself through it.

This book was fascinating. I've reached the point where it is no longer noteworthy to point out things like a non-overdone fantasy society or thoughtful use of real-world analogue in world-building (so hooray!) but The Tiger's Daughter is notable for the sheer number of things it is interested in doing. Like Martha Wells, Rivera isn't exactly interested in drawing attention to what it is she does; she's more concerned with doing it well and telling the story she wants to tell. The fact that she does so in a semi-epistolary format with a romance between two women that is not secondary to the plot, but instead the defining feature of it feels...odd to talk about since the book's own approach is very much "yes, yes, I know, I'm breaking with the norm in the genre, but can we get on with it, I have a narrative to get through!"
I'm pretty sure it works, I definitely want to read more; I'm just struck--on the level of style--how ordinary Rivera makes the extraordinary.

Despite all my research and ongoing interest in new forms of media, I'm actually kinda terrible at reading graphic novels. My brain doesn't like the way they tell stories.
So I am, on the one hand, deeply invested in this story and fully appreciative of the gorgeous art style and amazingly immersive narrative, and on the other hand, still feeling like I'm missing something.
Bah. Humbug.