The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert

Title: The Bad Ones

Author: Melissa Albert

Publisher: Flatiron Books 2024

Genre: YA Horror

Pages: 400

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Omniscient Narrator; Library Love

Where I Got It: Library

In the course of a single winter’s night, four people vanish without a trace across a small town.

Nora’s estranged best friend, Becca, is one of the lost. As Nora tries to untangle the truth of Becca’s disappearance, she discovers a darkness in her town’s past, as well as a string of coded messages Becca left for her to unravel. These clues lead Nora to a piece of local lore: a legendary goddess of forgotten origins who played a role in Nora and Becca’s own childhood games. . . .

An arresting, crossover horror fantasy threaded with dark magic, The Bad Ones is a poison-pen love letter to semi-toxic best friendship, the occult power of childhood play and artistic creation, and the razor-thin line between make-believe and belief.

Such a disappointment. I loved Albert’s Hazelwood series and was hoping for more dark fantasy. This one started very very slow and failed to go anywhere for too many pages. Once we finally kick the plot into gear, the horror doesn’t deliver like I had hoped. It’s very lackluster. And don’t get me started on the “romance” sections. I just couldn’t buy those two characters being together and didn’t care what happened to them. Overall, I found myself being extremely bored throughout this book.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Raising Critical Thinkers by Julie Bogart

Title: Raising Critical Thinkers: A Parent’s Guide to Growing Wise Kids in the Digital Age

Author: Julie Bogart

Publisher: TarcherPerigree 2022

Genre: Nonfiction - Education

Pages: 352

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf; Nonfiction Reader

Where I Got It: Bookworm in Omaha NE March 2024

Education is not solely about acquiring information and skills across subject areas, but also about understanding how and why we believe what we do. At a time when online media has created a virtual firehose of information and opinions, parents and teachers worry how students will interpret what they read and see. Amid the noise, it has become increasingly important to examine different perspectives with both curiosity and discernment. But how do parents teach these skills to their children?

Drawing on more than twenty years’ experience homeschooling and developing curricula, Julie Bogart offers practical tools to help children at every stage of development to grow in their ability to explore the world around them, examine how their loyalties and biases affect their beliefs, and generate fresh insight rather than simply recycling what they’ve been taught. Full of accessible stories and activities for children of all ages, Raising Critical Thinkers helps parents to nurture passionate learners with thoughtful minds and empathetic hearts.

For co-op adult book club, we followed up Julie Bogart’s The Brave Learner with her newer book. Overall, I totally see the need for this book and know that many of my fellow co-op parents really benefitted from the information presented. For me, it was a bit like being back in education classes in college. For goodness sakes, Bogart name drops Maria Montessori, John Dewey, and Paolo Freire. Many of the big explanations about critical thinking were a review from my college days. From those, Bogart tries to give some activities and examples, but they were very long and drawn out. I would have liked more practical advice on how to implement critical thinking skills into our education plans. A few of us did meet last weekend to discuss the book. Thankfully the discussion veered more towards practical applications than theory. Worthwhile read, but not going to end up being a favorite.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

Title: Incidents Around the House

Author: Josh Malerman

Publisher: Del Rey 2024

Genre: Horror

Pages: 371

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Library Love

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?” 

When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.

Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel. 

But Other Mommy needs an answer.

An interesting experiment in storytelling that doesn’t quite live up to the hype for me. I have loved many of Malerman’s previous stories and was very excited to get this one from the library. We get an interesting literary perspective by telling the story through Bela’s eyes. Many aspects of this story are hidden as we only get to see and hear what she does. Interesting, but ultimately, I was not very interested in the story being told. Adults liar and obfuscating the truth is nothing new. I could have basically called the “twist” about Bela’s parentage from the beginning. It also made it really hard to root for the adults in the story. In the end, their bad behavior made me very angry for Bela and her decision to try and save them. Not my favorite.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok

Title: The Leftover Woman

Author: Jean Kwok

Publisher: William Morrow 2023

Genre: Mystery?

Pages: 288

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Lifetime - 40s

Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth—another female casualty of China’s controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she’s forced to make increasingly risky decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter.

Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name and the wealth that comes with it, a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. She’s even hired a nanny to help her balance the demands of being a working wife and mother. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca’s job but her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and her role in her own family is called into question.

The Leftover Woman finds these two unforgettable women on a shocking collision course. Twisting and suspenseful and surprisingly poignant, it's a profound exploration of identity and belonging, motherhood and family. It is a story of two women in a divided city—separated by severe economic and cultural differences yet bound by a deep emotional connection to a child.

First off, this book was labeled as a mystery/thriller. I beg to differ. This is a very slow moving literary fiction style story with a dash of mystery. If the reader is at all astute, the “twists” will be seen a mile away. They did not add anything substantial to the story. As to the story itself, it doesn’t really explore any interesting topics that haven’t already been done by other authors. The main female characters are extremely unlikeable as opposed to real, flawed humans. And their entire personalities seem to revolve around simplistic identities even when attempting to explore something deeper. I wanted to really root for these women and understand their choices. Instead, I found myself rolling my eyes at almost every page. And do not get me started on the “romance” between Jasmine and Anthony. When they weren’t pining for each other, the actual conversation read like a 13 year old’s diary. Very disappointing.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg

Title: Glass Town

Author: Isabel Greenberg

Publisher: Abrams ComicArts 2020

Genre: Graphic Novel

Pages: 220

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Library Love

Glass Town is an original graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg that encompasses the eccentric childhoods of the four Brontë children—Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne. The story begins in 1825, with the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth, the eldest siblings. It is in response to this loss that the four remaining Brontë children set pen to paper and created the fictional world that became known as Glass Town. This world and its cast of characters would come to be the Brontës’ escape from the realities of their lives. Within Glass Town the siblings experienced love, friendship, war, triumph, and heartbreak. Through a combination of quotes from the stories originally penned by the Brontës, biographical information about them, and Greenberg’s vivid comic book illustrations, readers will find themselves enraptured by this fascinating imaginary world.

I absolutely loved Greenberg’s other work, The One Hundred Nights of Hero, and was hoping for something similar. This is a reimagining of the make-believe world from the real life Bronte siblings. I am not the biggest fan of the Brontes, but dove into the volume anyway. Enjoyed the pieces focused on Glass Town. I did not enjoy the pieces focused on the real life characters. At times, the storytelling framing got in the way of the good stories. I wanted more Glass Town, less Brontes.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Witch King by Martha Wells

Title: Witch King

Author: Martha Wells

Publisher: Tordotcom 2023

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 415

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: COYER

After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.

But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?

Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.

He’s not going to like the answers.

I finally picked this one up and unfortunately, it was a disappointment. I adore Wells’s Muderbot series and was hoping for more intriguing characters and adventures. This one is very lackluster in comparison. Kai was okay, but I didn’t really get his appeal throughout the book. There’s a lot of telling us that he’s very charming and charismatic, but we just don’t see it. He’s a morose, moping witch king throughout most of this book. The side characters are much more interesting, but we see precious little of some of them. The characters I could deal with. What ended up tanking this one for me was the complicated world building. Wells dumps the read straight in without much explanation. Okay, I can deal with that. But then proceeds to never really explain anything. The most clear explanations we get are when the child Kai rescues asks a direct question. Otherwise, we’re really left in the dark. I had trouble even visualizing a lot of what was going on throughout the chapters. I never really felt like I was immersed in this world. I felt like I was thrown in without a life raft. Not my cup of tea.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Title: Rules of Civility

Author: Amor Towles

Publisher: Viking 2011

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 335

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf; Decades - 1930s

On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

This has been on my shelf for years and yet I kept putting it off. I’ve even read other Towles books before this one. I finally picked it up during my reading retreat and it just didn’t land for me. I was very interested in the time period and entire set up of the book. Unfortunately the best character in this book is the setting. The glimpses we get of NYC in 1937 were dazzling. But there’s where my real enjoyment of this book ended. I couldn’t care about any of the actual characters. I never truly felt like I understood Katey. I really didn’t get her motivations and background. Things that I thought Towles would focus on ended up bing a line here or there. We never really got into the meat of the character. While A Gentleman in Moscow is destined to be one of my favorite books of all time, this one will be quickly forgotten.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon by Matt Dinniman

Title: Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon

Author: Matt Dinniman

Publisher: Dandy House 2019

Genre: Horror LitRPG

Pages: 660

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges:

It had seemed like a dream offer. Paint a mural. $15,000. How could Duke not jump at the chance?

But it came with a catch, as these things often do. He had to first see what his client wanted him to paint.

A private server. A digital playground. An alliance of the world’s most sadistic, most depraved minds. A place to bring their prey, to hone their skills.

Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon. Survival horror. One of the most brutal, most terrifying full-immersion games ever made. A place where fantasy characters such as elves and dwarves clash with technology, where giant monsters roam the hills, entrusted with protecting the gates of heaven from the demons who would tear it all down.

A game where one plays the last of the battlefield surgeons: a healer tasked with keeping the behemoths alive at all costs.

But on this server, they don’t care about the game. That’s not why they’re here. They’ve come because of the game’s most unique feature: Full pain. Realistic anatomy. The ability to bring their victims well beyond the body’s normal breaking point. And most importantly, the ability to bring them back and do it all over again.

Trapped in a bloody, merciless nightmare, Duke only has one goal. To survive. And in order to survive, he must play the game. He must win the game. And to do that, he must become the most cruel, most ruthless monster of them all.

After reading and really enjoying the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, J wanted me to read Dinniman’s earlier stand-alone work. This one wasn’t quite as much of a win or me. The style is very much classic LitRPG. There’s a lot of telling but not showing. The paragraphs are full of long blocks of exposition describing the action, but often it drags down the narration. As to the story itself, this one is very brutal. It is much more horror than the Carl series. The body horror and gore factor is very very high. I would not recommend this one to many people. Only one or two scenes actually made me a little squeamish. But it definitely it full of gore. While I did enjoy this book, Duke is not Carl and there’s definitely many differences between those characters. I learned so much about Carl just from the first book. Duke is much more of a mystery even by the end of the book.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Title: The Ministry of Time

Author: Kaliane Bradley

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 2024

Genre: Speculative Fiction

Pages: 352

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf; 52 Book Club - Buddy Read

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

I grabbed this one from Book of the Month and immediately some of the Nerdy Bookish Friends decided to do a buddy read this past week. Perfect timing! I dove in with a summary that I had heard on a book podcast. And I must say that the the first half of the book did not align with the summary I had heard. (And honestly I was glad of that because I wasn’t a fan of the summary.) For most of the book I was very interested in this time travel mystery. Who exactly are some of the more shadowy characters? What is the ultimate goal of the program? We know that the narrator is not currently in touch with the expats, but what exactly happened there? I had so many questions and really enjoyed the slow pace of the mystery. Unfortunately, the last few chapters took down my rating. The reveals were fast and furious without a lot of explanation. Some of my biggest questions were never answered. It felt like the author was trying to confuse us instead of explaining. And I really disliked the very last two pages. Thankfully we had a great buddy read in the group.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

Title: The City in the Middle of the Night

Author: Charlie Jane Anders

Publisher: Tor Books 2019

Genre: Scifi

Pages: 366

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf; In Case You Missed It - 2019

"If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams... And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives."

January is a dying planet—divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk.

But life inside the cities is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.

Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal.

But fate has other plans—and Sophie's ensuing odyssey and the ragtag family she finds will change the entire world.

This was my choice for our Nerdy Bookish Friends selection. It’s been sitting on my library floor for years now and I thought it would be a good choice for us to discuss. Unfortunately, this one just didn’t completely land for me. I had a big problem getting into this story. It just didn’t hold me very well. I found it difficult to connect to any of the characters. It felt very young adult to me throughout. And Bianca’s obsession with Sophy really annoyed me. At times the story was confusing and hard to follow. I wanted to know more about the crocodiles, but the story just meandered away at times. I’m interested in our discussion on Sunday. I’m hoping that some of my fellow book clubbers have some interesting topics to discuss.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert

Title: The Kraken’s Sacrifice (A Deal with a Demon #2)

Author: Katee Robert

Publisher: Trinkets & Tales 2022

Genre: Romance

Pages: 175

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Begins with a “K”; She Reads Romance - Audiobook

Spice Rating: 6

Catalina only made her deal with the demon because she had nowhere else to go. The world has kicked her every chance it got, so she’s all too happy to leave the realm she knows behind. What’s the worst that could happen?

She doesn’t anticipate being auctioned away to a kraken.

Thane is cold and distant…but he’s not unkind. Isolated as they are, Catalina finds herself seeking his company again and again. And when she finally agrees to uphold her portion of the bargain?

That’s when things get really interesting.

But she only gave the demon seven years, and when the time is up, she’ll have no choice but to leave behind the kraken who’s stolen her heart and return to the world that doesn’t want her.

While I absolutely adore the Dark Olympus series, I find that this series it just not my favorite at all. I was intrigued by the set up and loved meeting Azaziel in The Court of the Vampire Queen. I wanted to see how these broken women found their place and happiness. And while I love the women, I have yet to actually enjoy the male characters. Even with chapters from their points of view, we don’t really get a good connection to them. Thane spent the entire time whining about losing his husband years ago. Dude, please stop. I imagine that I will keep reading the series, but I doubt that it will be a favorite of mine.

A Deal with a Demon

• #1 The Dragon’s Bride

• #2 The Kraken’s Sacrifice

• #3 The Gargoyle’s Captive

• #4 The Succubus’s Prize

• #5 The Demon’s Bargain

Next up on the TBR pile:

Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley

Title: Three Eight One

Author: Aliya Whiteley

Publisher: Solaris 2024

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 269

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Has futuristic technology; Clock

In January 2314, Rowena Savalas – a curator of the vast archive of the twenty-first century’s primitive internet – stumbles upon a story posted in the summer of 2024. She’s quickly drawn into the mystery of the text: Is it autobiography, fantasy or fraud? What’s the significance of the recurring number 381?

In the story, the protagonist Fairly walks the Horned Road – a quest undertaken by youngsters in her village when they come of age. She is followed by the “breathing man,” a looming presence, dogging her heels every step of the way. Everything she was taught about her world is overturned.

Following Fairly’s quest, Rowena comes to question her own choices, and a predictable life of curation becomes one of exploration, adventure and love. As both women’s stories draw to a close, she realises it doesn’t matter whether the story is true or not: as with the quest itself, it’s the journey that matters.

A bit of a random find at the library. Someone had recommended it for people who were interested in strange speculative fiction with a focus on storytelling. Of course I grabbed it off the new release shelf. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to the premise. I was very interested in the story within the story. I wanted to tease out the meaning of Fairly’s story alongside Rowena. As the story starts spiraling, it felt like it just started to get more and more confused instead of revealing. By the end of the book, I didn’t have any revelations or insights into the nature of humans. Not my favorite.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

Title: Everyone Brave is Forgiven

Author: Chris Cleave

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 2016

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 418

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Decades - 1940s; In Case You Missed It - 2016

London, 1939. The day war is declared, Mary North leaves finishing school unfinished, goes straight to the War Office, and signs up. Tom Shaw decides to ignore the war—until he learns his roommate Alistair Heath has unexpectedly enlisted. Then the conflict can no longer be avoided. Young, bright, and brave, Mary is certain she’d be a marvelous spy. When she is—bewilderingly—made a teacher, she finds herself defying prejudice to protect the children her country would rather forget. Tom, meanwhile, finds that he will do anything for Mary.

And when Mary and Alistair meet, it is love, as well as war, that will test them in ways they could not have imagined, entangling three lives in violence and passion, friendship, and deception, inexorably shaping their hopes and dreams. The three are drawn into a tragic love triangle and—as war escalates and bombs begin falling—further into a grim world of survival and desperation.

Set in London during the years of 1939–1942, when citizens had slim hope of survival, much less victory; and on the strategic island of Malta, which was daily devastated by the Axis barrage, Everyone Brave is Forgiven features little-known history and a perfect wartime love story inspired by the real-life love letters between Chris Cleave’s grandparents. This dazzling novel dares us to understand that, against the great theater of world events, it is the intimate losses, the small battles, the daily human triumphs that change us most.

A book club selection this month. I was pulled in by the summary. It’s been awhile since I have read a good World War II novel and I had hoped that this would be it. Unfortunately, this one really missed the mark. As a point of mark, the writing style is just not that good. It’s weird and choppy with terrible dialogue. There’s an attempt at witty dialogue and sentence construction, but it just becomes much too clever and silly at times. Even when he storyline is focused on very serious events and consequences, the writing style continues. And then we turn tot he characters. I could never understand why Mary was so desirable. It was complete milquetoast to me. Tom was even worse. It was the blandest of the bland. At least Alistair had a bit of personality and metal to him. But it wasn’t enough to actually redeem the book for me. Not the book for me.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia

Title: The Murmur of Bees

Author: Sofia Segovia

Publisher: Amazon Crossing 2015

Genre: Historical Fiction; Magical Realism

Pages: 471

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Yellow Spine; COYER

From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else can—visions of all that’s yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous. Followed by his protective swarm of bees and living to deliver his adoptive family from threats—both human and those of nature—Simonopio’s purpose in Linares will, in time, be divined.

Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution and the devastating influenza of 1918, The Murmur of Bees captures both the fate of a country in flux and the destiny of one family that has put their love, faith, and future in the unbelievable.

Our book club pick for March. Somehow I did not realize that I had this sitting on my Kindle app already. And this book did not work for me at all. It started out interesting with the story of this maybe magical boy who is taken in by a family. From there, I thought we would get to read about a magical story of found family and identity. But that’s not where the story went. Instead, we get bogged down in terrible people doing terrible things to those around them. We get an attempt at an examination of the corruption of the Mexican political regimes under Diaz. Unfortunately, none of it really landed for me. And then there were so many sections that I questioned whether or not the writing and story was racist. Ultimately the book became a slog and I dreaded picking it up every day.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Ruthless by Anne Stuart

Title: Ruthless (House of Rohan #1)

Author: Anne Stuart

Publisher: MIRA 2010

Genre: Romance

Pages: 409

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Library Love

Spice Rating: 5

Viscount Rohan is a very bad man. Leader of the notorious Heavenly Host, he steers the dissolute and pleasure-seeking aristocracy in their revels. Content in his wickedness, he knows there is no room for a starchy, brave English spinster in his self-indulgent existence, but his body disagrees.

Elinor Harriman is so intent on protecting her baby sister and their dying mother that she doesn’t realize the danger she’s in. The notorious Viscount Rohan could have no interest in someone like her, thank God, and no idea that she melts with longing every time he touches her. She’s an intelligent, plain woman, and his tempting, his teasing has to be some kind of joke.

But Rohan takes his appetites very seriously, and sensible or not, he wants Elinor Harriman in his bed. There is only one problem with indulging himself–he’s starting to want her in his life as well. And that would destroy everything.

I picked this up because I had the three other books in this series sitting on my Unread Shelf. I dove in not knowing what to expect. I loved the first section of this book. The tension between Francis and Elinor was delightful. I was intrigued by the setup and was hoping for a good payoff. But I ultimately thought the book ended much to abruptly and without the catharsis that I wanted. I didn’t feel like Francis and Elinor ever really connected with each other. There wasn’t enough relationship talk for me. I will still continue on with the series as I own the rest. We’ll see how I feel after the next one about continuing farther.

House of Rohan

• #1 Ruthless

• #2 Reckless

• #3 Breathless

• #4 Shameless

• #5 Heartless

Next up on the TBR pile:

So Not Meant to Be by Meghan Quinn

Title: So Not Meant to Be (Cane Brothers #2)

Author: Meghan Quinn

Publisher: Bloom Books 2022

Genre: Romance

Pages: 480

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Library Love; She Reads Romance - Enemies to Lovers

Spice Meter:  5

Am I friends with JP Cane?
Ha! That's laughable.
Besides the fact that he’s adopted some far-fetched notion from the movie When Harry Met Sally that says men and women can't be friends and work together, it’s safe to say we're not friends. He's annoyingly loud, obnoxiously handsome, and has made an art out of poking all my hot buttons . . . multiple times a day.
So you can imagine how disgruntled I am when I not only have to fly to San Francisco with him for work, but stay in the same penthouse. Yup, we're sharing the same air, twenty-four-seven. We're talking full-fledged working roommates.
The man doesn't know what it means to wear a shirt, thrives off protein bars, and you guessed it, moans loud enough for people to believe he's Meg Ryan in a restaurant.
Spoiler Alert: I WON'T be having what he's having.
Tack on his continuous flirting and his polished good looks, and I'm caught staring down the barrel of a seductive temptation that makes it hard for me to sleep at night.
But guess who can control herself? This girl.
Because if there is one thing I know for certain, it's that JP Cane and I are so not meant to be.

Enemies to lovers is my favorite romance trope, so of course, I picked up this series. I was into the first book and hoped I would love the second. Unfortunately, I really disliked JP and that fact really turned me of to the entire book. We start out strong with a fun slightly antagonistic relationship between Kelsey and JP. We get some good banter and ridiculous situations. But then, JP’s entire demeanor and personality really started to bother me. At a certain point in the book, JP tells the readers that he is completely in love with Kelsey and is going to attempt to get her to see that. But all of his actions are so hot and cold. She does one thing, such as go on a date with another man, and he completely shuts her out. Mind you, she has no idea that JP supposedly loves her. He just completely shuts down and then gets mad at Kelsey when she questions him. His inability to communicate or at least modulate his moods raised some serious red flags for me. I doubt that them declaring their love is going to eliminate his mood swings. Very scary behavior from the male lead. I just couldn’t root for them at all.

Cane Brothers

• #1 A Not So Meet Cute

• #2 So Not Meant to Be

• #3 A Long Time Coming

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland

Title: The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (D.O.D.O. #1)

Author: Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland

Publisher: William Morrow 2017

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 752

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf; 52 Book Club - Chapters have date headings

When Melisande Stokes, an expert in linguistics and languages, accidently meets military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons in a hallway at Harvard University, it is the beginning of a chain of events that will alter their lives and human history itself. The young man from a shadowy government entity approaches Mel, a low-level faculty member, with an incredible offer. The only condition: she must sign a nondisclosure agreement in return for the rather large sum of money.

Tristan needs Mel to translate some very old documents, which, if authentic, are earth-shattering. They prove that magic actually existed and was practiced for centuries. But the arrival of the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment weakened its power and endangered its practitioners. Magic stopped working altogether in 1851, at the time of the Great Exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace—the world’s fair celebrating the rise of industrial technology and commerce. Something about the modern world "jams" the "frequencies" used by magic, and it’s up to Tristan to find out why.

And so the Department of Diachronic Operations—D.O.D.O. —gets cracking on its real mission: to develop a device that can bring magic back, and send Diachronic Operatives back in time to keep it alive . . . and meddle with a little history at the same time. But while Tristan and his expanding operation master the science and build the technology, they overlook the mercurial—and treacherous—nature of the human heart.

I was so incredibly excited about this book that I picked up last year. First off, the dodo bird completely sucked me in. And then the summary really intrigued me. I love a good time travel novel and was hoping this one was it. Unfortunately, this book was way too long full of dry passages that seem to go on forever. Clearly those passages were written by Stephenson. He definitely has a way of stretching out the technical conversations and padding them with initialisms and acronyms. I found my mind wandering throughout many sections of this book. The only thing that kept me going was the overall mystery of how Mel got stuck back in 1851. Seriously, Mel and Tristan saves his novel for me. And now I’m debating about whether I actually want to read the sequel and get the conclusion of the story.

D.O.D.O.

• #1 The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

• #2 Master of the Revels

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Paleontologist by Luke Dumas

Title: The Paleontologist

Author: Luke Dumas

Publisher: Atria Books 2023

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 356

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf Project; 52 Book Club - Grieving Character

Curator of paleontology Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch, and the guilt has haunted Simon ever since. After a recent breakup and the death of the aunt who raised him, Simon feels drawn back to the place where Morgan vanished, in search of the bones they never found.

But from the moment he arrives, things aren’t what he expected. The Hawthorne is a crumbling ruin, still closed amid the ongoing pandemic, and plummeting toward financial catastrophe. Worse, Simon begins seeing and hearing things he can’t explain. Strange animal sounds. Bloody footprints that no living creature could have left. A prehistoric killer looming in the shadows of the museum. Terrified he’s losing his grasp on reality, Simon turns to the handwritten research diaries of his predecessor and uncovers a blood-soaked mystery 150 million years in the making that could be the answer to everything.

A complete impulse buy around Christmastime. I thought it might be a fun thriller with a focus on dinosaurs. And it mostly is. We get a potentially unreliable narrator who decides that his next step in life is to revisit a place that holds the beginning of his trauma. Seems like a bad idea to me, but Simon does it. From there, the paranormal elements start to occur and we are left to piece out the mystery of just what is happening the museum. My biggest complaints are focused on the side characters. The various employees of the museum are pretty terrible. The board members are extra terrible. Every time I picked up the book, I really did it pretty begrudgingly. By the end of the book I really as pretty tired of every one and the story. A bit of a disappointment, but it was fine.

Next up on the TBR pile:

System Collapse by Martha Wells

Title: System Collapse (Murderbot Diaries #7)

Author: Martha Wells

Publisher: Tor.com 2023

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 245

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: COYER

Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.

This definitely should have just been the second half of Network Effect in that it picks up right after that book ends. We finally get to see the end to the story about the alien contamination on the planet. I was intrigued by the back-and-forth between Murderbot’s team and the Barish-Estranza team. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have the snark and fun side commentary that I really enjoy about the Murderbot stories. I just wasn’t as connected to the story as I wanted to be.

Murderbot Diaries:

• #1 All Systems Red

• #2 Artificial Condition

• #3 Rogue Protocol

• #4 Exit Strategy

• #5 Network Effect

• #6 Fugitive Telemetry

• #7 System Collapse

Next up on the TBR pile:

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

Title: Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot Diaries #6)

Author: Martha Wells

Publisher: Tor.com 2021

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 172

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: COYER

No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall.

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!

Apparently I did read this one when it came out, but completely forgot the plot. While it is #6 in the series, chronologically the story belongs between Exit Strategy and Network Effect. We are right back on Preservation Station solving a seemingly impossible murder. Of course Murderbot is stuck in the middle making sure the humans don’t die. This felt like a strange little side adventure and didn’t include much snark from Muderbot. The snark is why I read this series. Oh well.

Murderbot Diaries:

• #1 All Systems Red

• #2 Artificial Condition

• #3 Rogue Protocol

• #4 Exit Strategy

• #5 Network Effect

• #6 Fugitive Telemetry

• #7 System Collapse

Next up on the TBR pile: