🚚🎥🤳👩‍🍼Suspenseful Mystery, 💔Ficiton, and🐌🛸 More Sci-FI!🤖🦾👽

 

Twisty, slightly unbelievable, 

    Holly Jackson is brilliant at plotting. She creates snaky, torturous storylines that keep me guessing. In The Reappearance of Rachel Price, the high school senior, Bel, agrees to contribute to a documentary about her missing mother, who has been gone for sixteen years. Her dad was put on trial for her murder, but was acquitted; however, her small town never trusted him. All Bel had was her dad, then her mother returned. Jackson twists and twists the story. It was like watching a corkscrew disappear into a cork, tensely waiting for it all to pop open. 

Here is a review of Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2024/11/murder-trouble-drug-trouble-and-more.html

🚚🎥🤳👩‍🍼

    Good Material by Dolly Alderton begins tediously and remains so for most of the book. A thirty-five-year-old comic, Andy, suffers a break-up with his long-term girlfriend, Jen. It devastates him, partly because he didn't see it coming. Most of the book is written from his first-person perspective, detailing his life after Jen, as he tries to piece together what happened and how to move forward without her. There is much humor in his actions, ruminations, and how his friends seek to help him. I thought about not finishing it, but several reviews said the best part of the book was the very end, so I stuck with it. I didn't find that it redeemed the previous slow pace. Overall, not a book I would recommend.

💔😭📦

    The Expert System's Champion by Adrian Tchaikovsky continues a previous novella, The Expert System's Brother. Tchaikovsky takes science fiction, an already imaginative genre, and reaches into both realistic and unforeseen places. He considers not only the flying car, but also the traffic jam. How do you survive on a plant that is poisonous to your biology? How would that impact future generations? Tchaikovsky asks and answers creative, thoughtful questions. 

Here is a link to the growing list of Adrian Tchaikovsky books I've reviewed: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Adrian

🐌🐝🌳

    I am rereading Martha Wells' series,  The Robot Diaries, starting with All Systems Red. I have been watching Apple TV's adaptation, and it's not bad, but it doesn't square exactly with the book. I understand that books and TV shows are different forms of storytelling, with TV and films being visual. Therefore, a book adaptation will always look different from the story I've built in my head. I sometimes feel like I'm being gaslit when new plot points surface, and I think: I don't remember that. Truthfully, half the time I don't remember! 

Previous reviews of The Murderbot Diaries:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=All+Systems+Red

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=murderbot

🤖🦾👽🛸

🧬🧝‍♀️ Science/Fantasy💐👒Recovery and🎄Christmas Mystery/Rom-Com--A Week of Mash-Ups!

 

    This week, I continue my obsession with Adrian Tchaikovsky, reading his novella Elder Race. It is told from two different points of view: Lynesse and Elder Nyr. Earth sends a group of humans to terraform a planet, making it suitable and familiar for habitation. A group of colonists and a scientific outpost remain behind, tasked with observing the events and reporting back to Earth. Lynesse is the distant descendant of those colonists and Nyr, a second-class anthropologist who occasionally emerges from stasis to check on what is happening. This brief novella explores the idea that science can appear magical to the uninitiated. So, is this book of fantasy or science fiction? This is a fascinating story, with terrific characters.

🔭🧬🧫🧝‍♀️😈

    Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman is a tragedy-to-triumph story. Young CeeCee's mother is mentally ill and not the fun, adorable kind. As her mother falls further into her delusions, CeeCee's traveling salesman father, unable to cope, leaves CeeCee to take care of her mother. Trapped CeeCee does all she can for herself and her mother, but bad things happen. CeeCee goes live with her mother's long-lost aunt in Savannah, Georgia. CeeCee moved from Ohio to life in the south in 1967. Her heart and mind have been battered and bruised, and she needs love and healing. The theme of this book is transformation from despair to hope with the help of her new neighbors and friends. 

    I love a happy ending, but this one was almost too happy, which is barely a complaint. I found the book compassionate about mental illness and the plight of those who live with it.

🌹🪻💐👒🌻👗

    I would put The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter in the mystery/rom-com category. It was an exciting romp, featuring many mystery tropes, including a locked-room mystery, an old English country mansion, and the usual suspects: greedy relatives, Christmas time, and tragic backstories. On the Rom-Com side, we have a feisty friends-to-lovers storyline. I love a good mash-up! The book was fast-paced and stocked with interesting characters. I didn't guess the killer, but worked out other red herrings. 

I have previously read another Ally Carter book called The Blonde Identity. Also, super fun. Here is the link to that review:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Ally+Carter

❤️‍🔥🔎🎄🔍❤️‍🔥

📚🦁 A Good Mix of Thinky-Thinky and Entertaining

 

    I enjoy reading award-winning books for several reasons. One is so I appear bright. Another is to understand what sets this book apart from all the others. Orbital by Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize. It was shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin Prize and nominated for Best Science Fiction on GoodReads.  I had expectations. I think what made Orbital stand out was that it didn't have a dynamic science fiction plot. It recounts a day on the International Space Station, gazing down at Earth and pondering life. The writing is excellent. Harvey had eloquent descriptions of the land masses slipping by. The deep thoughts revolved around climate change, our place in the universe, and what motivates someone to pursue being an astronaut, but I didn't love it. I guess I'm still a philistine when it comes to reading.

🌏🧑‍🚀🌍🧑‍🚀🌎

    Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe was sold as a fun romp. A nineteen-year-old woman becomes pregnant by her married English teacher and decides to keep the baby against everyone's advice. As the daughter of a single mother herself, she has limited support and few options. She loses her waitress job, and her roommates move out. Desperate to support herself, she starts an OnlyFans profile. Thorpe uses the storyline to hilariously explore conundrums, such as why acting is acceptable in movies but not in professional wrestling, and what distinguishes someone as white trash from someone more palatable. The book stressed me out because it's hard to watch a single mom make poor choices that have harsh consequences. But Margo is plucky and loves her son and family; you must root for her. 

👶🏻🤼💻💉

    How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley was so fun. A "mature" and somewhat reclusive woman decides she needs to make friends. First, she gets a wipe board to make a list.

😍

I was immediately hooked. This book belongs in the same subgenre as The Thursday Murder Club. It has quirky characters who need a shake-up in their lives. Things go wrong, things go right, and sometimes, things go really wrong. People help one another, and lives are changed for the better. There are smart dogs, grumpy senior citizens, teen dads, and menopausal housewives.  It has a formula, much like a romance novel, that's predictable and comforting, with whimsical side trails. This is a book that you know will have a happy ending, but it is delightful to see how they get there.

🐶👶🏻🪈💎 

    I have been reading through a compendium of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis before bed. It was not my first trip through Narnia, and it felt like visiting friends. When I first read the Chronicles, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first book in the series because it was the first one written. Now, The Magician's Nephew is first because it is the first chronologically. My favorite scene remains the same, where Eustace, who had become a dragon, once again became Eustace the boy. The final book, The Last Battle, does not hold up well, but it does a grand job of finishing the series. Overall, the books and the writing are worth five stars. 

🦁🏰🌊✨

    I'm enjoying reading books by Phaedra Patrick (what a fun name!). The Mess Lives of Book People seemed like a title designed to capture me. A woman in her 40s, Liv Green, is a cleaner. One of her clients is her favorite author, Essie Starling. When Essie dies, she leaves Liv with a life-changing bequest that will challenge her self-concept and shake up her life. I found the book to be a stretch in the realm of possibility, but entirely entertaining.

📚💻❤️‍🩹🪆

🕷️🕸️🧙‍♂️🔮🏰 More Sci-Fi with Lite Horror Fantasy and a Feel-Good Read

 

    I have read several books by Neal Stephenson, who excels at both science and historical fiction. I especially liked Cryptonomicon and Anathem. His latest book. Polostan is a historical fiction set mainly in the 1930s. It follows an unusual woman who was born in America to an American mother, moved to Russia with her father as a child in time for the revolution, then returned to the Midwest for her teenage years. She leads a complicated, fascinating life and is present at key historical events, like the Chicago World's Fair. Halfway through, I discovered that this would be a series, and I worried the ending of Polostan would be a disaster of unknowing, but Stephenson did well. I am excited to read the next book when it comes out in September.

🐎🪆🎡🎟️🩻

    After a steady diet of mindblowing sci-fi, I needed a palate cleanser. I chose The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, by Phaedra Patrick, because a review said it was like A Man Called Ove, and it involves an older man who has lost his wife and is unsure how to continue living. The adventures that Arthur Pepper pursues are more hilarious but also uplifting. It is just on the edge of believable. A lot depends on how eccentric you believe the British to be.

🐯🐅🚇👴🏻

     I am enjoying reading Adrian Tchaikovsky at present. Spiderlight, I assumed, would be more of his Children of Time series. It was not. It was about a group of misfits on a quest to defeat the dark forces of their world that could only be accomplished through killing the Dark Lord. They needed the fang of a spider queen and her map to the Dark Lord. One spider is appointed to accompany them in an uneasy alliance. It changes all of them, and they learn astonishing things about good versus evil. Tchaikovsky. This book was entertaining and also thinky-thinky.

🕷️🕸️🧙‍♂️🔮🏰

    I like a weird book with an unusual narrator. Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell is just that kind of book. The protagonist is, perhaps, a slime mold that can take in parts from humans, trees, deer, chain mail, anything, and create an externally believable human. The village it borders sees it as a monstrous worm threatening their safety. Though a monster, she desires connection and understanding, causing story tension and a propelling narrative. It reminded me somewhat of Frankenstein in its setting and sensibility. Some themes include: Who is the real monster? Parent/Child relationships are complicated.

🪼🏰❤️💀