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rainbowbrarian's Reviews (1.85k)
Big Thank You to @booksirens for giving me a free review copy of Frost Bite by Angela Sylvaine!
When I read the description that said “set in the 90s” and “an army of infected prairie dogs” I was hooked. That sounded fantastic, plus aliens. Gimmie.
And it did not disappoint! Realene is overwhelmed by her life. Just as she was hoping to escape small town life to go to med school her mom slips into dementia and needs to be cared for. Oh yeah, and a meteor crashes into a field behind her house and unleashes a zombie plague that is being spread through infected prairie dogs. Not helping matters is the local mega church which has decided that this is the sign of the end times and keeps trying to murder anyone trying to stop the zombies.
Together with the help of her childhood best friend Nate, Raelene is determined to face her problems head on and save the day since no one else is doing anything about it.
I loved the fact that this took place in winter in North Dakota and they didn’t forget how COLD it would be and how hard it would be to have car chases on icy roads! Setting was very well done. Big love for the fact that Raelene ate all the 90s snack foods, and the music on the radio was all from my high school years. Did I mention there was a Blockbusters video rental shop?
Pick this one up for a fun zombie movie style horror lite story. There is an epic chase scene involving a snow plow. Loved it.
TW: zombie animal death, human death, death of parents, religious fundamentalism and cults, kidnapping.
When I read the description that said “set in the 90s” and “an army of infected prairie dogs” I was hooked. That sounded fantastic, plus aliens. Gimmie.
And it did not disappoint! Realene is overwhelmed by her life. Just as she was hoping to escape small town life to go to med school her mom slips into dementia and needs to be cared for. Oh yeah, and a meteor crashes into a field behind her house and unleashes a zombie plague that is being spread through infected prairie dogs. Not helping matters is the local mega church which has decided that this is the sign of the end times and keeps trying to murder anyone trying to stop the zombies.
Together with the help of her childhood best friend Nate, Raelene is determined to face her problems head on and save the day since no one else is doing anything about it.
I loved the fact that this took place in winter in North Dakota and they didn’t forget how COLD it would be and how hard it would be to have car chases on icy roads! Setting was very well done. Big love for the fact that Raelene ate all the 90s snack foods, and the music on the radio was all from my high school years. Did I mention there was a Blockbusters video rental shop?
Pick this one up for a fun zombie movie style horror lite story. There is an epic chase scene involving a snow plow. Loved it.
TW: zombie animal death, human death, death of parents, religious fundamentalism and cults, kidnapping.
Loved this book. Had some great project ideas and great technique tutorials. This will make good programming for the library.
Into the Riverlands is the third book of the Singing Hills Cycle and it was a great addition. I loved getting to walk alongside Cleric Chih again as they travel the world collecting stories for the Singing Hills Monastery. The story opens when Chih meets a pair of young women traveling together who run into trouble with a thug in a waystation tea house. Chih tries to defend them only to find out that they don’t need help at all. A Kung Fu adept, Wei Jintai, is more than capable of handling herself.
They join two other travelers and find themselves in the middle of an adventure with people who might just be more than they seem to be.
This was such a cool exploration of legendary heroes living in plain sight and about deciding who we want to be known as. I just love this series. The fourth one has just come out and I’m second on the hold list for it. If you haven’t tried this series you don’t know what you’re missing. They’re bite size novellas and they’re awesome. Start with The Empress of Salt and Fortune.
They join two other travelers and find themselves in the middle of an adventure with people who might just be more than they seem to be.
This was such a cool exploration of legendary heroes living in plain sight and about deciding who we want to be known as. I just love this series. The fourth one has just come out and I’m second on the hold list for it. If you haven’t tried this series you don’t know what you’re missing. They’re bite size novellas and they’re awesome. Start with The Empress of Salt and Fortune.
Can you still have a teenage rebellion phase if you’re an embodied AI that your mothers constructed from scratch? Turns out you can. Meet Scorn, who is continually dissapointing zeir divorced moms while trying to pursue a story about corruption and violence against AIs on the moon.
Scorn awakens after zeir chassis was destroyed when the spaceship ze were taking was destroyed in transit. Ze have lost some time from their memories because, like humans, backing up as often as you should is a hassle. Scorn pursues the story through their tiny spider chassis and eventually through a very worn out second hand chassis ze end up kind of stuck with because they stubbornly refuse to rely on zeir mothers to bail zem out.
The story is told in present tense, which made it a little bit hard to follow for me at first. I haven’t read many stories yet that use neo pronouns so I struggled really hard to keep up with them. It was worth the work through because along the way we meet Scorn’s sibling and we meet other AI and it’s a very interesting world that Ogden has built.
Scorn awakens after zeir chassis was destroyed when the spaceship ze were taking was destroyed in transit. Ze have lost some time from their memories because, like humans, backing up as often as you should is a hassle. Scorn pursues the story through their tiny spider chassis and eventually through a very worn out second hand chassis ze end up kind of stuck with because they stubbornly refuse to rely on zeir mothers to bail zem out.
The story is told in present tense, which made it a little bit hard to follow for me at first. I haven’t read many stories yet that use neo pronouns so I struggled really hard to keep up with them. It was worth the work through because along the way we meet Scorn’s sibling and we meet other AI and it’s a very interesting world that Ogden has built.
This was a pick for the Dover Public Library’s Reading Rainbow Queer Book Club in September. I was pretty excited because it’s billed as queer MacBeth retelling set at a gothic boarding school. Book group gave it kind of mixed reviews and I sort of agree.
It was really cool to see a Shakespeare retelling full of queer teenagers. A creepy boarding school is a great setting, and I love a scary movie that starts with an ill advised Ouija board is fun.
I think that the fact that I know MacBeth pretty well hurt my enjoyment of the book. I couldn’t stop focusing on trying to figure out who was who in the cast and comparing it to the original play.
I did have a moment where I had to put the book down because things got too real after Delilah fell out of the window. (Minor spoiler but it’s very near the start of the book, and, you know, MacBeth, Delilah = Duncan). I think Robin had a good idea, but she fell kind of short by trying to stick REALLY close to the MacBeth plotline. And she probably should have left the whole ghosts of enslaved people plotline out of it. That wasn’t well done. :/
The thing that bummed me out the most was the fact that Maria was controlled by ghosts way too much. The horror of MacBeth is that, yes, he is influenced by ghosts, but he CHOSES to do terrible things. Maria didn’t have enough agency.
It was really cool to see a Shakespeare retelling full of queer teenagers. A creepy boarding school is a great setting, and I love a scary movie that starts with an ill advised Ouija board is fun.
I think that the fact that I know MacBeth pretty well hurt my enjoyment of the book. I couldn’t stop focusing on trying to figure out who was who in the cast and comparing it to the original play.
I did have a moment where I had to put the book down because things got too real after Delilah fell out of the window. (Minor spoiler but it’s very near the start of the book, and, you know, MacBeth, Delilah = Duncan). I think Robin had a good idea, but she fell kind of short by trying to stick REALLY close to the MacBeth plotline. And she probably should have left the whole ghosts of enslaved people plotline out of it. That wasn’t well done. :/
The thing that bummed me out the most was the fact that Maria was controlled by ghosts way too much. The horror of MacBeth is that, yes, he is influenced by ghosts, but he CHOSES to do terrible things. Maria didn’t have enough agency.
This novella is set over a Christmas season in the Spring Household. It’s a series of vignettes from each of the Spring siblings perspectives. Charlie’s mum continues to be frustratingly hard headed and we see Charlie struggling with a very strongly food related holiday.
It was great to get to see things from Tori’s POV as she struggled with her parents being twits and trying to shoulder the heavy responsibility of looking out for Charlie even when it becomes overwhelming for her too.
The addition of Oliver’s little section was pretty cute as well.
If you like Heartstoper you definitely want to check this short volume out as well. There’s some cute art too.
It was great to get to see things from Tori’s POV as she struggled with her parents being twits and trying to shoulder the heavy responsibility of looking out for Charlie even when it becomes overwhelming for her too.
The addition of Oliver’s little section was pretty cute as well.
If you like Heartstoper you definitely want to check this short volume out as well. There’s some cute art too.
This. Was. So. GOOD.
I just finished it and kind of just want to keyboard smash about it XD ASDFGOODBOOK.
I had Murderbot on my brain when I picked it up because Martha Wells. This isn't Murderbot, this is its own fantastic separate thing. Kai is a demon prince who awakens after being imprisoned in a watery tomb for a year. When I read the book description and saw demon I imagined a Judeo Christian type evil creature, but this isn't that kind of demon. In this universe, demons are creatures who once lived in the Underearth and have come to the mortal world when they are invited into human hosts who have recently passed away.
Martha did an amazing job of creating a character who is immortal and dazzlingly powerful but also vulnerable and very human at the same time. Not all writers can do that, and I LOVE it when it's done well.
I just finished it and kind of just want to keyboard smash about it XD ASDFGOODBOOK.
I had Murderbot on my brain when I picked it up because Martha Wells. This isn't Murderbot, this is its own fantastic separate thing. Kai is a demon prince who awakens after being imprisoned in a watery tomb for a year. When I read the book description and saw demon I imagined a Judeo Christian type evil creature, but this isn't that kind of demon. In this universe, demons are creatures who once lived in the Underearth and have come to the mortal world when they are invited into human hosts who have recently passed away.
Martha did an amazing job of creating a character who is immortal and dazzlingly powerful but also vulnerable and very human at the same time. Not all writers can do that, and I LOVE it when it's done well.
