How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler was recommended because I've read some LITRPG (Literary Role Playing Game) and liked it. This was a similar plot type of a human gamer, Davi, who has been caught in a fantasy game for about a thousand years. On this restart, instead of trying to lead the good guys to victory, she chooses to try and become the Dark Lord because that's who has won every time so far. Here is a motto I occasionally tell myself when making decisions, especially about a reoccurring issue: If you want something different, try something different. I liked the setup and the feisty lead character. The further I went, the less I liked it. The main character thinks about sex frequently--the reader is party to her thoughts-- and it took away from the story for me. What was the author's point? The story or the sex? My conclusion is the sex. I found the story anemic.
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It has been a while since I've read a memoir. I listen to Kara Swisher's podcast, Pivot, and she frequently refers to Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. Tech business is something I know little about, so I was lost at times by the events and people she mentions. Swisher is a feisty person reporting on Tech personalities and the businesses they've started from its earliest days. I learned things.
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The Restaurant of Lost Recipes in The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood. I read the first of the series and enjoyed it. There is a thread of magical realism that runs throughout the book. A remembered meal can restore the heart. There are compelling reasons customers come to the detectives to have them recreate meals from the past. Kashiwai describes his food so well that I come away hungry. I looked up unfamiliar dishes to see what was in them and what they looked like. Each chapter contains an entire story, making the book easy to pick up and put down. There are more in the series awaiting translation. Hurray!
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I was not a fan of Call Me Home: A Memoir by Alexancra Auder. Auder was raised by her mother in New York's Chelsea Hotel, famous for its bohemian guests and residents. Recounting her childhood is intercut with her current life as a mother. The mother/daughter relationship is a strong theme. Viva Supreme was a Warhol model. As a mother, she vacillated between permissive and despotic. Auder relates her story with painful honesty. She recounts her struggles as a mother to a teenage daughter while still managing her mother's wild mood swings. I wanted a tidier story that showed triumph in the face of tragedy. Auder is wise to show the messiness of relationships.
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Matt Dinniman is the author of the Dungeon Crawler Carl(DCC) series, which I have enjoyed, so I'm reading his backlist. Dominion of Blades predates DCC. It contains seeds of ideas that have fuller expression in the DCC. The characters aren't as flamboyant as those he later creates, but he still has a group of unlikely heroes who fight for one another. If you want more Matt Dinniman, this is almost OK.
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