May 2021 Spring Reading

 

Hi friends,

We had a pretty great May, but we’ve felt like we brought the rain with us from Maryland to Colorado. Since we moved here in January, the Denver area has had about the same amount of moisture that we receive over the course of the whole year!

In any case, I read several excellent books including some romance, high fantasy, and nonfiction.

Let me know your thoughts on any of these books, and if you have suggestions for further reading.

Tonya

The Hod King (Books of Babel #3) by Josiah Bancroft

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes! Better than the first!

Review: These books keep getting better as they go, unlike some series – I’m thinking of you Red Rising. This is the third installment in the Books of Babel, and it does a great job building on the world Bancroft has created and developing the characters we have come to love. The scope expands even more, and some mysteries that have been hanging on for two books are finally revealed. Finally! This is another one of those books where the characters are put in really difficult situations where I honestly don’t know what they should do or who’s right, which makes for an interesting and exciting read. The book built to a cliff-hanger climax and completely set-up the final installment in the series, which I will definitely read when it comes out in November.

 

 

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: not really

Review: I haven’t watched the Netflix series based on this book, and after reading it, I don’t think I will. Quinn does a great job writing a page-turning romance, but there were several elements that I didn’t like. I understand that the Duke was working through all of his childhood issues with his dad, but I felt that the whole premise behind the tension in the Duke and Daphne’s relationship was kind of dumb and contrived. In the end, the Duke obviously comes to the same conclusion, but it was kind of an annoying plot point upon which to base all the romantic tension in the story. However, I can’t lie that I didn’t enjoy the clever writing and vivid characterizations that brought the story to life. Despite this, I doubt that I’ll read the other 8 books in the series.

 

 

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes!

Review: This book came highly recommended, and it is a good book to read to understand racism in the U.S., and how historic racist policies continue to play out in present-day inequalities. However, I was expecting more analysis comparing racism in the U.S. to caste systems in India and Jews in Nazi Germany. That’s the premise of the book after all, but I found that the majority of the book focused on the history of American racism, which I’ve already read about in several other books recently, and just anecdotally touched on how it compared to the untouchables in India and Jews in Nazi Germany. I wanted more in-depth analysis, comparison, and conclusions, but I was kind of disappointed. Still, I would recommend it to help educate yourself. As Wilkerson says, “Looking beneath the history of one’s country is like learning that alcoholism or depression runs in one’s family or that suicide has occurred more often than might be usual…. You don’t ball up in a corner with guilt or shame at these discoveries. You don’t, if you are wise, forbid any mention of them. In fact, you do the opposite. You educate yourself. You talk to people who have been through it and to specialists who have researched it. You learn the consequences and obstacles, the options and treatment…Then you take precautions to protect yourself and succeeding generations and work to ensure that these things, whatever they are, don’t happen again.”

 

 

The Dragon Reborn (Wheel of Time #3) by Robert Jordan

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes!

Review: This is the third installment in the Wheel of Time series, and it’s another series where I think they keep getting better and better. I liked how this book focused more on the secondary heroes, besides Rand. To be honest, if I had to read another book mostly form Rand’s point-of-view, I probably would have stopped. The other characters – Perrin, Mat, Egwene, and Nynaeve – are I think much more interesting than Rand, and I loved reading the story from their view point. I think it played out kind of conveniently in the end with all the different characters being brought together at the same time and place for the climax, but it was a really engaging and exciting sequence, so that was nice at least. I loved exploring more of the world that Jordan created, and the different cultures and characters that he’s created are really the best part of the series so far. Will definitely keep reading.

 

 

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

Rating:  4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: if you like romance novels

Review: This is another romance novel, and a new one from one of my favorite authors. Henry always writes relatable and engaging characters, and the travel aspect that she wove into this plot made the story even more enjoyable as we progressed along the well-established friends-to-couple trope. Like many other romance novels, I thought the romantic tension in this one was a bit contrived. In this one, the main characters have been best friends for 10 years, but are convinced that they are too different to make a romantic relationship work because they want different things. This premise seemed really silly considering it was super obvious that they wanted to be with each other, but whatever. Some people aren’t very self-aware maybe? Our female lead also fell into the well-worn plotline of not recognizing that her best friend had feelings for her despite the many amazing and thoughtful things that he did for her! I guess that sometimes we have to sacrifice logical self-awareness for romantic tension. Oh well. It was a delightful and fun read.

 

 

Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days that Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes! If you’re interested at all in rockets and space!

Review: I read a lot of Berger’s work on the Ars Technica news website because he reports on a lot of the NASA programs that I review for work. I always enjoy his well-written and insightful articles, so I was definitely interested when I heard that he’d written a book about everyone’s favorite aerospace industry disruptor, SpaceX, and its eccentric billionaire owner, Elon Musk. This book focuses on the early years of SpaceX when they developed a rocket in record time and with an astoundingly small team. Berger got amazing access to SpaceX employees past and present to tell this compelling tale, and the book reads like a novel It would definitely make a good movie – documentary or dramatization. To me, the story showed in part the enormous amount of luck that contributed to the company’s success. Don’t get me wrong, they definitely worked for it as well, but in the end, it seems like they were lucky to get their rocket to orbit on a fourth attempt after three previous failures, and lucky that they were awarded the International Space Station (ISS) commercial cargo resupply contract before successfully putting a rocket in orbit. It seems that luck – and skill and perseverance—has held and born more fruit. Another thing that stood out to me, though, was how few of the original team is still at SpaceX. It seems that they kind of burn-out their employees. They demand insanely long days and a work-pace that many employees found unsustainable and left so that they could have lives outside of building amazing rockets. I don’t know…maybe to do great things, like expand humanity to Mars, total and complete commitment is required. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I prefer my lifestyle that allows me to work and be with my family. I probably won’t disrupt any industries or pioneer the expansion of the species, but I’m content with the balance I have so far. In any case, SpaceX seems like an amazing place to work for people who are passionate about space exploration and willing to sacrifice a lot to get there, but I don’t think it would work for me.

 

 

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: Yes! An amazing take on martial fantasy genre

Review: This book  came heavily recommended from the book tubers that I follow, and I think it definitely lived up to the hype. It’s a single-volume epic fantasy story that focuses on two main point-of-view characters including the somewhat-typical lead teenage male martial arts protegee called Mamoru, but the second point-of-view character is unique: his 40 year-old mother called Misaki. The plot follows a unique pacing with the climatic action scene coming in the middle of the book and the remainder of the book focusing more on the fall-out and trauma from the action and the relationships between the main characters. So that was really cool. I also loved that one of the main characters was a mom with four young children, which was incredibly unusual for a fantasy hero, and a character whose motivation I could strongly relate to. Misaki has put aside her younger warrior days fighting crime to assume the role of obedient and traditional wife and mother, but finds the will to fight when needed to protect her family. Wang does an excellent job with the action and fighting sequences, but the characters and plot are equally well-developed, and the story takes an unusual turn which actually made me cry, and I can’t even remember the last time I cried when reading a book. Definitely recommend for anyone looking for a new and unique fantasy read that’s all told in one book.

Mommy Corner

We visited the Denver Children's Museum this month. It's the best children's museum we've been to, and we had a lot of fun.

Chloe on a zipline at the children's museum.

We also went to the Butterfly Pavilion and Chloe held a tarantula. She was so brave! She said that it was tickly and soft. 

We enjoyed a hike with my in-laws at the famous Flatirons in Boulder. It was a beautiful day and a great hike.

We brought the baby backpack for Maya, but she insisted on walking the whole way. She did such a good job.