May 2026

 Hi friends,

Maycember is always a whirlwind with all the activities around the kids getting out of school. We had an art show, a picnic, a snowstorm, and our regularly occurring illnesses to navigate. 

I did get the chance to reread all of Murderbot along with a few other new releases, including Fonda Lee’s new release. I would highly recommend a first read or reread of Murderbot. It was so good. 

Let me know what you think of these books and if you have suggestions for further reading. 

Best,

Tonya 

Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: In this installment, Murderbot sets off on a sidequest to gather evidence to condemn one of the evil corporations that is trying to ruin its life and the lives of its’ people. Along the way, Murderbot encounters a companion (a.k.a. sex) bot that defies its expectations for human-cyborg relations. There’s tons of awesome action, stupid humans who are always awful at their own security, and an emotional gauntlet for Murderbot to navigate. 

Exit Strategy (Murderbot #4) by Martha Wells

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: The first four Murderbot novellas create one long arc that tells the first arc of Murderbot’s decision to live as a free whatever it is! This novella is one long rescue mission to save Murderbot’s favorite human, Dr. Mensah, from an evil corporation. Wells knows that corporations make excellent bad guys in this current day and economy, and their literal mustache-twirling sinister smiles are not the most unbelievable parts of the story. Murderbot has to risk everything to save Dr. Mensah and her crew, who have begun to feel like more than clients. Can Murderbot overcome its extreme social anxiety to save the day and possibly get a life? Never underestimate Murderbot. 

Home: Habitat, Range, NIche, Territory (Murderbot #4.5) by Martha Wells

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This short story is told from Dr. Mensah’s point of view following the events of Exit Strategy. I liked seeing this world from another point-of-view and getting a short peek inside of Mensah’s head. It really helped expand Wells’s world and contextualize the difference between the evil corporations that inhabit most of the universe, and Preservation’s utopia. 

 Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot #6) by Martha Wells

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This is technically the sixth book released in the Murderbot series, but it falls chronologically fifth and follows the events of Exit Strategy. When I first read Murderbot, I read this one after Network Effect and was super confused about why the explosive events at the end of Network Effect weren’t even mentioned in this one. I would recommend reading this one before Network Effect, which made for a better reading experience. In this one, Murderbot becomes a detective and gets to solve a murder mystery as well as the mystery of human prejudice against innocent but deadly former SecUnits who just want to protect the only family it’s ever found. It’s nice to see Murderbot in what’s not a life or death high stakes rescue operation, and to just get to see it interact with some of its favorite people. 

Network Effect (Murderbot #5) by Martha Wells

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This installment is a huge pivot for Murderbot. First of all, it’s the first full length novel, and it’s also the most action packed and even has some horror elements. Murderbot again takes on a big, bad corporation in defense of some naive and innocent settlers, but out maneuvering the corporation this time will take more than just Murderbot’s ability to get shot over and over and keep on coming. It might even require Murderbot to do something more painful: experience emotional vulnerability. This is peak Murderbot, and probably my favorite book in the series. 

System Collapse (Murderbot #7) by Martha Wells

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This novel-length episode picks up following the dramatic end of Network Effect, and we get to see Murderbot deal with its own trauma that came as a result of those events. Since Murderbot isn’t human, there’s no template or proven tools to help it cope, so it’s once again flying by the seat of its pants trying to fix its emotional well-being and save a bunch of security-stupid humans who are way out-matched by an evil corporation. 

Platform Decay (Murderbot #8) by Martha Wells

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This is the new Murderbot book that just came out a few weeks ago. This one follows a familiar infiltrate and rescue plot that we’ve seen before in other Murderbot books. The main difference in this one is that Murderbot has evolved as a being. Murderbot’s internal dialogue is always the best part of these books, and in this one we get to experience Murderbot’s increasingly unhinged “emotion checks,” which it started doing to deal with the trauma from previous adventures. We also get to see Murderbot interact with children, and it is delightful. I’m not sure where Murderbot will go from here, and Wells has announced that there will only be one more installment, so I’m eager to see how she wraps it up. I definitely recommend a first read, and have to say that I enjoyed the series even more on this re-read. 

The Class of ‘74: Congress After Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship by John A. Lawrence

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review:  Lawrence worked on Capital Hill for many years in many different roles, so he had unique access to some of the main players still around from the 1974 freshmen class in the House of Representatives. This class swept into power following Nixon’s impeachment in what would be described today as a blue wave with dozens of freshmen Democrats flipping Republican seats amidst the nation-wide furor over Watergate. This freshmen class has been accredited with implementing many of the changes that have made the House what it is today including deposing several chairmen who had ruled their committees with iron fists for decades and impeded many of the liberal initiatives that the Democrat-led House tried to pass. This class pushed for the house to be democratized and power to be pushed out to newer members and subcommittee leadership. The author makes the case that some of these changes inadvertently contributed to the rise of polarization and dysfunction that dominates the House today. This book was published in 2018, so it doesn’t even include any of the mishaps of the Congresses since then including the lack of a Speaker for months, the longest ever government shutdown, and the Speaker agreeing to a rules package that could allow a vote to be called by a single member on wheterh or not to oust him as speaker. That all seems mad when you read about how the House managed its members back in the 1970s and even into the 1980s. One thing that struck me when I was reading was that the Democrats seemed to take it for granted that they would always retain the House majority. They had for decades at this point in the 20th century. It almost made it seem like they were completely blind-sided by the rise of Regan-era Conservatism in the 1980s.This mindset draws another stark contrast with the House today where the majority seems to flip regularly every 4-6 years or so. This was a good read for those who want to go in the weeds reading about the House’s parliamentary procedures and rule changes and how that contributes to our current day legislative landscape. That being said, since this book tried to capture the breadth of the class of 1974, there was a lot of names. Like too many names to keep track of, and they all kind of blurred together and made the narrative hard to follow. That was my main critique. Still, as someone who has worked briefly on the Hill and continues to work for a legislative agency, I enjoy learning about the history of Congress. 

The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: Lee is responsible for what many in the sci-fi/fantasy community consider the best urban fantasy series of our generation, The Green Bone Saga. I enjoyed that trilogy so much that Lee became a must-read author for me, so I was excited to hear that she was publishing a stand alone scifi novel featuring a menopausal hitman/fixer who is just trying to finish her last job so she can retire and leave the edge life behind. This book was super atmospheric. It’s set on an inhabitable exoplanet that hosts a population of humans trying a centuries-long terraforming quest after being cut off from contact with Earth 500 years before. Capitalism dominates their society even more than it does now with “the company” dictating almost every aspect of the lives of the population. Isako is a top tier contractor, who is hired by company leadership to advise on everything from increasing production, to leading armies in hostile corporate takeovers that involve real fatalities, not just board room ousters. Those who can’t or won’t hold regular employment from the company are ostracized and expected to willingly walk out of the biosphere to perish in the freezing cold and radiation blasted ground that is this branch of humanity’s home. I loved the world-building in this story, and especially how the setting was reflected in the characters’ choices and motivations. I also really liked Isako as our protagonist. I love a bada** female samurai who's known as Quickdraw for her legendary fighting skills. I wasn’t such a huge fan of the second point-of-view character. This was intentional by Lee. He’s not meant to be likable, but he was sympathetic. That’s what Lee excels at: writing characters that even when they make horrible decisions you can still sympathize with them and understand their motivations even if you disagree with the choice. I’ve heard other reviewers say that “no one is the villain of their own story,” and I appreciate that Lee trusts her audience enough to write characters that make controversial decisions and to portray them sympathetically, not just as mustache-twirling evil-doers. She’s not scared of people accusing her of condoning or supporting their decisions and the accompanying potential for getting canceled that always lurks for prominent public figures in our hyper-online day and age. Anyway, I digress. This was a great book, and I kind of wish we had another installment because I’m not sure how I felt about the ending, which is why it got 4 stars instead of 5. I would definitely read more in this world and from Isako’s point of view. 

James by Percival Everett

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review:  I read this book for a book club that I participate in with some ladies from work. One of the reasons that I enjoy book clubs is that I get to read books that I otherwise would not have picked for myself, and this was one of those. I think your reading experience with this book will be heavily influenced on if or when you read Huckleberry Finn. This novel is a spin-off of that story told from the slave Jim’s point of view, and I think that this story was better. Before I get my high school English teacher coming at me, I also have to admit that it has been nearly 2 decades since I read Huckleberry Finn, and my memories of the story were hazy at best, so it might not be a fair comparison. However, this book does what all great retellings should do: it maintains the most important elements of the original while adapting it to the time period that we live in. The pace and structure of this book differ a lot from those I usually read in the scifi/fantasy genre. The whole book feels like a symphony that starts out pretty slow and tame and then builds and crescendos through a series of increasingly disturbing and violent events to a fantastic and dynamic climax. Then the book ends like 5 pages later. No falling action, no time to explore the ramifications of these events on Jim or the other characters. We’re just done. I’m sure that Everett intended for the reader to feel this abruptness and to chafe somewhat at the uncertainty surrounding the fate of our characters, and I think that choice brilliantly tied into the rest of his themes surrounding Jim’s inability to control any aspect of his own fate. Anyway, since this book already won a well-deserved Pultizer, I don’t think that my one paragraph review will add much to the conversation, but there it is. Everett is a genius, and so is Jim/James, who is definitely better-read and educated than I am, or any of his owners. Being able to see some of these characters’ reactions when they discover Jim’s erudition was another remarkable statement from Everett on how prejudice so extremely distorts our view of the people around us. Anyway, I’m again unsure how I felt about the ending, which is where the 4 stars came from, but I do admire Everett for the bold artistic choice and have to admit that any other ending would have felt incongruous with the rest of the story. 

You’ve Been Pooping All Wrong: How to Make Your Bowel Movements A Joy by Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review:  I’ve been on a long fiction streak, so I decided to break things up with some nonfiction, starting with this book by a neurogastroenterologist. For those not familiar with this niche medical subspeciality, that means intestinal doctors that study the connection between the gut and the brain. And what a fascinating connection it is! I had no idea that our guts contain neurons and that there’s a dedicated nerve that connects our brain directly to our guts. So when we’re nervous about something and feel butterflies in our stomach, that is actually a physiological reaction as our intestines respond to our nervous or anxious feelings. I think everyone should read this book. Dr. Pasricha is a great story teller, and I loved her authorial voice that could make discussion of some of the grossest things our bodies do entertaining and enlightening. I have to say that I now have a much better understanding of how my own body works, and that I’m definitely enjoying the pleasure that comes with pooping. Now I just look forward to the day when I only have to think about my own bowel movements, instead of the little people that I’m constantly cleaning up after and asking if their poops were pokey….

April 2026

 Hi friends,

April was a good month for us. Things are getting more frantic at work as we’re working on drafting our report and getting it through our sometimes seemingly endless review and quality assurance processes. I still found time to enjoy some great escapist reads including a few five star books and a re-read of Martha Wells’s Murderbot series. There’s a new book coming out this month, and I wanted to be refreshed. It may look like I read a lot of books this month, but 5 of these books were less than 200 pages, so it’s probably about the same number of pages as a normal month. 

Let me know what you think of these books and if you have suggestions for further reading. 

Best,

Tonya 

The Ice (The Bound and the Broken #3.5) by Ryan Cahill

Rating: 4of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: Cahill calls this a novella, but it’s 203 pages, so it’s a novel. Cahill’s definition of a novella seems to be a story that has only one plotline and point-of-view, regardless of length. That being said, I liked the more focused story that can be told in a book like that. I also love the huge, multi-point-of-view and plotline epics that are 1,000+ pages in the rest of this series. I particularly liked getting more page time with Aeson Virandr, who is as close to a Gandalf that you’ll find in this series. However, I was getting a little desensitized to the non-stop violence against the beasts and fantastical species in the ice world that this story is set on. We get some interesting backstory and world building, but mostly it was a lot of people dying for what turned out to be somewhat needlessly in a short amount of time. I would recommend for fans of the series. Again, there could be more dragons. 

A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe #1) by P. Djeli Clark

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This book is talked about a lot on BookTube, so I gave it a try. It’s a mystery thriller set in an alternate history of Cairo, Egypt in the 1920s. In this universe, a great magician bored a hole through reality and released magical djinn and other creatures into our world. With this newfound power, Cairo and other nations throw off colonial rule decades earlier than in our world and arose as their own global powers. Our lead is a lesbian, Muslim, female agent of the government department in charge of interacting with magical creatures. As a government employee, I love stories about magical bureaucracies. A girl can dream, right? The mystery is pretty solid, and I was super pleased with myself that I definitely called who the bad guy was and saw through the red herring the author set up without much trouble. I would recommend for fans of Robert Jackson Bennet’s Shadow of the Leviathan, which is also a murder mystery set in a magical world.  

A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe #.01) by P. Djeli Clark

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This short story is takes place before A Master of Djinn the novel and tells the story of how our fearlessly competent agent, Fatma, meets her love interest and how they save the world together. I kind of think it would have been better to read this story before the novel, but I enjoyed both either way. I like the world, and I liked the action. Since it was a short story, the mystery and plot were pretty straightforward, but the stakes were still relatively high, and there were great action sequences. 

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy

Rating:  5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: I read this book for the in-real-life book club that I’ve joined, which I’m glad to be a part of because otherwise I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. It’s a pretty short, fast, feel-good story. It features an octogenarian dealing with the losses of her family and self who finds companionship and a reason to live in an unexpected place. Helen Cartwright is her name, and she’s pretty much given up on life at the beginning of the story and is determined to finish her existence utterly alone and hopeless. Of course, plot happens, and we see that even very old people who think that life is done with them can still be surprised at their own depth of feeling and perspective. This book did exactly what it set out to do, and did it well. I was even surprised by one of the reveals at about the 70% point, and really enjoyed seeing what Van Booy did with the found family tropes that are the center of this story. I recommend for anyone looking for a short, delightful, and hopeful read. If you liked A Man Called Ove or Theo of Golden, then you will likely enjoy this one too. 

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This was another book club read, and I think the demographics of my book club might be obvious if you only knew that the books selected for our next two meeting were this and Sipsworth. There are definitely some similar themes and tropes: both feature leads that are in their 80s and have mysterious backstories that are gradually revealed as the story progresses, and both have found family tropes at the center of the plots. In this book, a mysterious old Portuguese man only know as Theo moves into the small Georgian town of Golden and proceeds to buy up the portraits on display in a local coffee shop and bequeath them to their subjects who are all locals. Of course, Theo has his own reasons for his generosity, and those are gradually revealed as we learn more about the town and its residents through his gifts. I was once again pleased that I saw the twist coming and guessed the big reveal at the end. This book was comfortably predictable and also did exactly what it promised to do and did it well. There were a few moments when I felt that Theo and his mysterious generosity were a bit much, but on the whole I think the author did a good job of keeping Theo believable and relatable.

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This book was recommended to me by my brother-in-law, who I share a similar taste in media with. He said that it was the best book he’s read in a while, and I have to concur. This book was so dang good. I don’t usually read thrillers, so this was a bit out of genre for me, but it does have a strong dose of magical realism that is the reason it won the World Fantasy Award when it was released. The story follows a 12 year-old boy, Cory, who has a gift for story-telling through a year in his life in the small town of Zephyr, Alabama in the 1960s. It starts with Cory and his father witnessing a murderer disposing of a body, and while the story meanders through each exquisitely crafted chapter, the murder and the foulness that birthed it are the thread that runs through each episode. The pacing of this book was different than most books I read nowadays. Each chapter felt like a contained short story that was an episode in Cory’s life. Each was superbly built with rising action, a climax, and a hook to keep you reading the next chapter. Some of the funniest and most absurd scenes I have ever read are in this book including an amazing scene with wasps descending upon a Southern Baptist congregation during their Easter sermon, and a crazed monkey appropriately dubbed Lucifer that escapes during a deranged sermon about the evil of the Beach Boys and proceeds to terrorize the town for months. There were scenes where I felt compelled to keep reading as McCammon is a master of building tension. McCammon also touches on a lot of deep themes and all told quite believably through the eyes of a 12 year-old boy. Cory has to deal with racism, school yard bullies, a disappointingly morally bankrupt grandfather, and of course, the murder that continues to torture his father. It was so brilliant. While I was reading it, I was wondering if I have a new favorite author and book. I fully intend to go back and read more of McCammon’s bibliography. Maybe thriller will be my new genre if all his books are as excellent as this one. 

The House in The Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Sea #1) by T.J. Klune

Rating: 2 of 5 stars

Recommendation: maybe for you but not for me

Review: I read this book because my city library hosts an annual read along that is capped by a visit from the author, and I wanted to participate this year. That being said, I don’t think this book was for me. While some of the other books I read this month took well-known and well-worn tropes and executed amazing stories using them, this book took old tropes and didn’t really do anything interesting with them. In this book, a quiet and unassuming government bureaucrat responsible for reporting on orphanages that care for magical children finds a purpose and a family in an unexpected place. I think that the children and found family aspects of this book just didn’t work for me. Each child at the orphanage was cute and endearing, and the budding romance between our lead character and the orphanage’s leader was fine, but that’s just it. It was fine. There was nothing unexpected, and it just felt kind of pat. I don’t know. It just missed the mark for me. 

All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: Murderbot 8 comes out next week, and I decided to reread the series in advance of the new release. I watched the Apple+ series a few months ago, but it had been so long since I’d read the books that I wasn’t sure what all had changed. I’m pleased to say that it was equally as good on a second read, and I would recommend the show too which plays up a lot of the comedy from the books and adds some needed perspective and time spent with the rest of the crew outside Murderbot. I love that each entry is a contained story complete with great development for Murderbot and plenty of action, but they also all tell one interesting story together really well too. The first one is  a great introduction to Murderbot and its crew, and its inner dialogue was even funnier to me this time. 

Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: Murderbot is off on another adventure in the second installment of the series. After finally deciding to care about something beside the next episode of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon following the events in All Systems Red, Murderbot sets off to discover the truth behind its partially redacted memories of the event that led it to dub itself Murderbot. Along the way, Murderbot ends up pretending to be a human (groan) and again picking up humans to be responsible for (double groan). It also meets ART, another AI that can go toe-to-toe with Murderbot in snarky sarcasm. I love both of these characters and really enjoyed seeing them meet again for the first time and start to trust each other. 

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy (Murderbot Diaries #2.5) by Martha Wells 

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: I actually hadn’t read this short story set between the second and third Murderbot stories before, so it was fun to get some new material this reread. This one features ART, the AI transport that teamed up with Murderbot on its last adventure. In this one we get to meet ART’s crew and start to learn about their mysterious mission and why they need such an advanced AI like ART to fulfill it. I really enjoyed seeing more of ART and hearing about how its friendship with Murderbot had changed it after it was reunited with its crew. I’m excited to get more snippets like this and for ART to come back to the Murderbot main story in a future installment. 

March 2026

 Hi friends,

Christ the Lord is risen today! I love Easter. It’s my favorite holiday, and I particularly enjoy getting to celebrate the atonement and resurrection of Christ with my family this year. 

March was a busy and fun month for us. I don’t actually remember being sick at all, so that was a nice change. We spent spring break with my parents in Utah and had a great time seeing family and doing lots of fun activities with Grandma and Grandpa. We also had a great time celebrating Maya’s 7th birthday. She planned an Easter Egg dying and hunt/pajama party for her birthday, and it was a lot of fun despite some brief tears over the number of eggs some did or did not find at the egg hunt. 

I got in a few good reads as well with most of the month spent reading one 1,000+ page epic fantasy book. No regrets. Let me know what you think of these reads and if you have suggestions for further reading. 

Happy Easter!

Tonya 

Brigands and Breadknives (Legends and Lattes #2) by Travis Baldree

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This was technically the third book in Baldree’s Legends and Lattes series, and to be honest, none of them has captured the magic of the first for me. This book focused on a side character introduced in the prequel story. Fern is a ratkin—basically a rodent of unusual size and sapience—who is basically going through a midlife crisis and realizing that her life as a bookseller is no longer fulfilling. She works through her ensuing depression by abandoning all her responsibilities and going adventuring with a legendary bounty hunter elf and the strange goblin that she’s bringing in for the bounty. It was OK. There’s a lot of work given to themes of mental health, trust, friendship, and doing things for our own reasons and not to meet other’s expectations. There was nothing wrong with it. I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t super impressed. I would recommend for fans of the series.

Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of Female Life on the Spectrum by Jennifer O’Toole

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review:  This book was recommended to me as a way to gain insight into the lived experience of a woman with autism and to develop more empathy and sympathy for those living through this challenge. O’Toole went through 30+ years of life before receiving her autism diagnosis. This book is her memoir, and she uses it to explain how her symptoms and experiences were undiagnosed for many years in large part because she was a smart, over achieving, beautiful woman. I highly recommend everyone to read this book. It helped me understand more how the person who recommended it to me experiences and sees the world and be more empathetic and understanding to those around me who do have autism. 

We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: I’ve read a lot of Lepore’s books, and this one is supposed to be a follow-on to her one volume history of the United States These Truths. I loved that book and was eager to get into this one. Lepore takes us all the way back to 1787 to explain the constitution and its amendments. The constitution has only been amended 27 times, 17 if you exclude the first ten in the Bill of Rights. Lepore explores how these amendments often came in phases with several passing right after the Civil War during reconstruction, another few passing in the 1920s, and another few passing in the 1970s. Each amendment was preceded by large changes in the political, economical, and social landscape of the U.S. Lepore takes a long view at why it’s now so hard to amend the constitution and efforts that have been made by both major political parties at various points in time to make it easier to amend. I found it particularly enlightening to learn that there have been several attempts to amend the constitution to get rid of the electoral college. There was a subcommittee on constitutional amendment for a time in the Senate Judiciary Committee that played a large role in the passage of the last amendments in the 1970s, and that subcommittee held multiple hearings, introduced legislation, and promoted amendments at various points to either seriously change how the electoral college works or to get rid of it entirely and use a simple majority election for the president. One person in the book even notes on the Congressional record that a day could come where a president wins the electoral college but not the popular vote. He worried that would cause chaos and doubts about our democracy and elections. Lo and behold…. Anyway, because of our current inability to amend the constitution, the courts have stepped in as the only legitimate way to change it, which was likely an unintended consequence itself for the framers. Lepore also takes us in the way back machine to understand the origins of the “originalism” method of judicial interpretation. She shows how it started as a fringe conservative idea that was eventually adopted by Supreme Court Justice Scalia and is now one of the most accepted methods of judicial interpretation. Because of originalism, all lawmakers and judges must now also be expert historians so they can understand the intent of the writers of the Constitution and its amendments to determine how to apply it to modern cases. This is how you get people trying to research modern gun restrictions based on case law from the 1700s, and I’m just like “Why is this even a thing?” There’s even a quote from Justice Scalia saying disparagingly that such historical research isn’t that hard and that there are rarely discrepancies in historical interpretation among professional historians. I could practically see the looks of dumb foundedness on Lepore’s face. I highly recommend that everyone read this book who is interested in understanding our political landscape. 

Of War and Ruin (The Bound and the Broken #3) by Ryan Cahill

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review: This book is over 1,000 pages, and unlike some other epic fantasy books of that page count, I feel like it earned it. I don’t mind spending time on a long book as long as the payoff is worth it, and it doesn’t feel like a slog. Both of these were definitely true of this book. This is the third installment in Cahill’s modern epic fantasy series where he writes about, “Dragons and sh**.” His words, not mine. And man. Do I really love reading a good story about dragons, less about sh**. Cahill continues to expand his fantasy world—Epheria— as we learn more about all the different peoples and races that inhabit this magical realm. I loved the worldbuilding and the character work. Each of our leads goes through a really interesting and compelling arc. I enjoyed each point-of-view and didn't feel like there was a particularly weak one that I just wanted to skip over. They were all well-paced and kept me engaged for the whole book. I particularly enjoyed seeing Rist evolve. He’s fighting for the sometimes-evil empire and showing that unlike in other popular fantasy franchises (
cough Star Wars cough) there are many shades of grey to every situation and what may seem like a behemoth empire is actually comprised of individuals with varying motivations and morals. There’s also lots of really cool dragon flying, fighting, and training in this book, which I felt was lacking from the first books. I can’t wait to read the fourth installment in this series. I love dragons. 

The Dragonet Prophecy (Wings of Fire #1) by Tui T. Sutherland

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes

Review:  My nine-year old daughter is obsessed with this series. Like, she’s literally listening to one of these books right now and getting annoyed every time I have to interrupt her for mundane tasks like eating and sleeping. I love talking about books with people, and because I have yet to persuade her to read Harry Potter, I decided I should be willing to read what she’s interested in. That being said, I am not the target audience for this book, and it’s been hard for me to figure out how to rate and review it knowing that’s true. It’s definitely middle grade, and I’ve been trying to figure out what about the book makes that so obvious. I think that it is in part the dialogue, which suffers, especially for our villainous characters. It was also really predictable and followed familiar fantasy tropes without anything interesting to set it apart. The biggest problem I had with it though was the casual violence and death that happened throughout the story. Now, I know that’s going to sound ridiculous coming from someone who just read The Bound and the Broken, which has scene upon scene of gory violence, but it just struck weird coming in a children’s book. I understand that one of the themes of this first arc of the series is the dragons learning that they don’t have to be violent and they can live in peace, but goodness, it’s super heavy handed. In any case, I’ll probably read a few more. I’m not sure I’ll get to all 16 before Chloe moves on to her next reading obsession, but I did like talking to her about the book and what we liked and didn’t like about it.