I realize that rating for legibility is a very strange approach, though this bumped up from a two to a three because it was readable.
And because all the bits that made my skin crawl were things I had already known about Freud's theories, particularly of infant sexuality and development. It's just strange to read the original and remember that people did, in fact, think like this.
The rest of the work, the things I had not encountered elsewhere, actually made me appreciate the man more.

Really enjoyable story. I admit, one of my favorite genres is what I think of as YA dystopia, which is almost always better than the adult dystopia. The Giver by Lois Lowry was one of my favorite rereads as a kid and Matched is a worthy successor to that tradition.
Condie creates a great world, well realized, one that seems both a step and a chasm away from our own. Cassia is an excellent narrator and, seeing the world through her eyes, Condie emphasizes both the horrors of the story and how easy it is to miss them.
Not to mention, the love-match part of the story is so incredibly compelling. Now I just have to wait for the next two books in the trilogy to come out. Sigh.

A nice ending to an incredibly creative trilogy. Wrede's world-building truly shone in this book and I almost wish it came with a guide to all the things she invented to make the world feel real, but didn't have space for in the story.
It's quite different than her earlier works, but Wrede's eye for character is still sharp and, as I said, genius world-building.

My one complaint is that the third book in this series will not be out until next year. Wrede's evocation of AU America in the 1860s is brilliant and wonderful and populated with a great cast of characters.
There's a reason I will read everything this woman writes - she does it all with such talent and flair and a sense of what makes a compelling character that I can't resist it.

Lauren Willig, as I may have already mentioned, is an absolutely delightful author. Her regency spy-romances are top-notch, well-written and brilliantly funny.
There has been much debate in my family about whether she is a romance novelist or a romance satirist. Her books may be affectionate parodies of Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel, but her keen nose for what makes a great romance suggests that she knows full well what a happy ending reads like and has far more affection than parody in her veins.
Which is nice, because having an author who laughs along with you is the very best sort of author.
This book, in particular, was wonderful. The two main characters were a ton of fun and Willig treads the line between historical accuracy and post-modern humor with a niceness most others could barely aspire to.
Also, and this is a big deal for me, her characters are distinct. They have personalities that differentiate them and those personalities have depth. My hat goes off to Willig for another great addition to her series.

Not exactly a light read, though lighter than the book I'd read before, this book shines because of just how (obnoxiously) witty the main character and his family is. This is a story of the comedic drama that comes from being a family, the story of things that hurt so much that all you can do is laugh. It's a story without full resolution, but a better story for that.
The main character's voice is wonderful; the whole weird and angry and funny Foxman family (who, of course, reminds me of my own) are just as nice. It's a book that reminds me of the movie Little Miss Sunshine; a book about people who are just people and all the agony and wonder that entails.

In general, there is much to complain about in the Harry Potter saga, but the beauty of the story (and a testament to Rowling's skills as a writer) is that I come up with all the complaints afterwards. While reading the book, I find myself almost unable to pull away and pick it apart.
I enjoyed the experience of reading this book and felt that, even though it did not need to be quite as long as it was, it was a good end to the series that swept the world by storm.
There is no excuse, however, for the epilogue.

More like a loosely connected novel than a short story collection, First Fall does a good job of filling in the blanks that remained at the end of Dragonsdawn. Rading them back to back was one of the smarter things I've done. Anyway, what McCaffrey chose to write about was deeply satisfying - the founding of the Holds and Weyrs in particular were something I was curious about. Overall, a nice addition to the series and the intricacies of the universe she created.