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.
