🕵️‍♂️ Spies and 🚀Rockets!

 Merry Christmas 🎄and

Happy New Year! 🥳

      The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter is a quirky, slap-stick spoof of the spy thriller. A woman wakes up at the foot of the Eiffel Tower with amnesia. Immediately, she has to run for her life from almost everyone. Should she trust the hot spy guy? The proclaimed agent of the CIA? The US embassy? This was a fun, fast-paced read. A great listen while wrapping presents and baking Ginger Snaps!

💄🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♂️⛴️🏦

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei was a cool book. In the not-distant dystopian future, a billionaire sends a crew to space to colonize another planet, Planet X. But even billionaires can't fund long-range space flight alone. Every country contributing can send their representative if they pass the rigorous training. They start at twelve at an elite academy and are all female. The Deep Sky reminded me of The Martian with its details. If The Martian took place on a ship of all women, and one of them is a killer, 

🚀🧑‍🚀🤖

A Week of Winners 🥉🥈🥇

 

  I've had the good fortune to spend the week reading award-winning sci-fi and fantasy. 

    In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune is the 2023 Science Fiction Book winner of the Good Reads Choice awards. As I read, I noticed similarities to Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi--relationships, similar names, real boys--and looked it up to find I was correct. It is Pinocchio turned inside out. Most characters are robots, cyborgs, and synthetics, except for one real boy, Victor Lawson. Klune's story is imaginative, fast-paced, and humorous. Beneath all that is an account of humanity's greed and foolishness, but also their love. It deserves the award because it has layered characters, action, and adventure. 

Spoiler Alert: I didn't love the ending, and I don't think it was because of the other stellar books I also read. Stylistically, I would have preferred something different. I award this book the bronze medal.

🥉    

🤖🌳🐳

Science Fiction book of the year in 1988

Note: This is an old cover. I couldn't find the current one. 

    Connie Willis is my favorite author. Lincoln's Dreams is a mind-bending, suspenseful drama that shows Connie Willis at her best. Multiple plot threads propel the book. Jeff is a researcher for a man who writes Civil War historical fiction. His old roommate Richard, a psychiatrist at a sleep clinic, has a patient, Annie, who has recurring, disturbing dreams about the Civil War. From there, it gets really fascinatingly weird. I read this book about thirty years ago and still remember it. Revisiting it helped me appreciate Willis's talent for juggling many characters and plots while exploring ideas of duty and honor. I award this book the silver medal.

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😴🚙💔

    Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher wasn't on my radar despite its many awards like the Hugo and Nebula. My daughter recommended it to me, and I loved it. Kingfisher takes the ingredients for a typical fantasy novel: a heroine who wants to save someone precious to them but faces impossible odds. First assemble an odd crew of fierce misfits, then adds some incredibly imaginative plot twists, and dash of romance. I award this book the gold medal.

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🧙‍♀️🐶🧚‍♀️🐥🐓🥷

Thoughtful 🤔 Books--History, ⏰ Time Travel, and ❣️Complicated Family Love

 

    This week, I read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. This is a perfect companion book for Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I had an inclination that Hemmingway might be a jerk, and the historical fiction about Hadley Hemmingway, Ernest's first wife, confirmed it. At the end of A Moveable Feast, I wanted to know more about the people Hemmingway mentioned, and The Paris Wife filled those gaps. McLain's Hadley is somewhat shy, compliant, and deeply in love with her husband. Her voice is honest and sincere. I gained insight into the book A Moveable Feast. Hadley is timid and unsure among the fast-living, hard-drinking, intellectual free thinkers. She wants to believe that her marriage with Ernest won't be rocked by his unrestrained energy, desire, and deep wounds. This book didn't make me like Hemmingway any better, but it helped me better understand him. 

📝📚💔👶🏻

    Next Time by Cesca Major did the difficult task of putting a new spin on time travel. It was a Groundhog Day situation where Emma relives the same day repeatedly. Gradually, over-committed Emma realigns her priorities. I liked how cleverly the pieces fit together, and Emma gains wisdom and understanding. It feels somewhat moralistic--if you try harder at home, your family will all be fine-- but good-hearted. 

⏰🐕📚💼

     I finished the week with Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. The story is told from multiple viewpoints. William comes to Chicago to play basketball. He is unsure and easily molded. Julia meets him and decides he's the one who will fulfill her dreams. Julia is the oldest and most driven of four close-knit sisters. They are like the March sisters from Little Women, so tightly woven together that it feels like nothing can drive them apart. There is a lot in this book that connected with me. When I was in middle school, I loved playing basketball; in high school, I had to choose between sports and music, and I chose music. However, I occasionally still have dreams that I'm playing basketball. Those are good dreams. Napolitano represents well how the loss of a sibling can echo through the rest of your life. She illustrates how much power parents have in the developing psyches of their children and what it may take to address those losses. Her writing is profoundly moving but not in a devasting way. I felt encouraged and hopeful.

🎨👶🏻💔🏀

   Last month Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano, and I loved it. Here is the review link: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2023/11/i-find-ann-napolitano-and-now-im-in.html  

Classic Travel🗺️, Romance💖, Murder Mystery 🎄, and Sci-Fi🤖. Win!

 

    A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway is the December choice for my book club. We are reading travel books, and this was on several lists of best travel books. I am struck by the similarities of this book to last month's Travels with Charlie. Two famous authors' final books talking about travel seem ripe for a compare and contrast paper. It practically writes itself. I will refrain. 

    A Moveable Feast doesn't fit neatly in the travel category. I would classify it as a memoir. Hemingway recounts his life in Paris when he was poor and trying to find his way as an author. I encountered somewhat familiar names like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and wished I knew more about who they were and why they were there. Hemingway is a big personality--he doesn't strike me as the quietly observant type but as a Man-of-Action. He recounts adventures with his first wife, Hadley, with tenderness and affection. In his recollections, he glories in being a young, strong, free spirit figuring out his talent. I don't like Hemingway the man much. He has a tone of arrogance that rankles me. He made poor choices and unapologetically hurt others. I'm glad I read it because he's a good writer who worked hard to improve; he knew exciting people and led an intriguing life. 

🇫🇷📝⛷️🗺️

    The View was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements and Oujuli Datta is romance and employs the fake-in-love trope well. Whitman Tagore is a rising movie star blazing a trail as a British Indian Actress. She is trying to break out of the woman of color best friend and nerdy computer whiz parts into a leading role. What would be stumbles for other actors, like an uncensored response to a bad breakup, could be career-ending for her. She hires a bulldog of a publicist who helps her craft a nuanced image designed to appeal to directors and fans alike. Part of that image is a hot playboy love interest like Leo Milanowski. The publicist arranges carefully choreographed "dates" to be "accidentally" photographed. It is a romance and, therefore, has a predictable story path. Still, Clements and Datta make it challenging for this trending couple and keep me guessing whether it is real or Hollywood magic.

🎥🤩

    The word to describe The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett is clever. I enjoyed her previous book, The Twyford Code, which is another innovative book. Here is my review of it:  https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2023/08/i-read-super-serious-book-clever.html. This is a good choice if you like to read Christmas-themed books during the holidays. It is told entirely through emails, texts, and other modern forms of communication, making it an epistolary novel. That is a complex style to pull off; even Jane Austin couldn't do it! I found it quite British, mainly since I listened to the audiobook version. The story revolves around a village theater group doing a traditional holiday pantomime. Petty jealousy over starring roles, a struggle for power, crime, drugs, murder, and Santa work well together.  

🎄🎅🎭💊

    I was so glad to read the latest in The Murderbot Diaries series, System Collapse, by Martha Wells. It is dependable sci-fi with big stakes, selfish bad guys, and a cranky, likable SecUnit hero--a cyborg who was once compelled to serve, but through the power of story, his heart grew three times its size, and he (it?) became free. Internally, it calls itself Murderbot. The plot is propulsive, and the characters are authentic. I have reviewed the series here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Martha+Wells. System Collapse is a good continuation. 

🤖🦾👽🛸