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Rated American Demon 6/10

Here's another author I used to read who seemed to have quit writing their long-running urban fantasy series and then came back to it after nearly 6 years of hiatus. By the end before that, I was kind of meh on the series, but kept reading it out of habit. I'm a little sketchy on whether or not I read one or two books before that intermission, though. The plots sounded familiar, so I decided to plow ahead and read this new adventure. Although a hefty 501 pages, it's super-light easy reading, but I kept waiting for something more... remarkable to happen, something extra exciting. Unfortunately, that never happened for me. The ending mostly fell flat. I'm just not that invested in these characters and thinking back I can't say I ever really was. I honestly hate-read some parts of previous books just because I spent so much of it rolling my eyes, mainly at the vampire character Ivy. Not quite as strongly tired as I was when reading Laurell K. Hamilton books once upon a time before giving them up, but still. I think getting through this book just proved to me that it's time to quit reading this series too and spend it reading something I appreciate a lot more.

Rated The Perks of Being a Wallflower 6/10

A nice book and a really easy read. At first the diary style was fun, but after a while it got annoying. I started wishing it had just been writen as a standard novel. The writing of the main character was kind of bad at first, too, but then suddenly miraculously improved and for that I was thankful. As for the story itself, I'd initially started getting impatient because it seemed like it was going to be another one of those cliche "coming of age" stories. In a way it was, but I think what really made this book was the way the author approached some serious topics that suddenly come out of the blue.<br/><br/>I actually put the book down for a while because it got depressing and serious really fast at one point. Not to worry, though, because it didn't delve TOO deeply into the situations and it soon picked up again. I suppose that for a YA book that's the way it's supposed to be. It WAS also only 213 pages long, so there was no time to really get into it. But it has some of everything in it: drugs, physical abuse, mental illness, homosexuality, family death, you name it. The guilt the main character carries over his Aunt is sad, but I either missed something or the author really leaves you hanging on the why of what happened with his old friend, Michael. I guess I'll never know? I can't decide if the girl with whom he's in love, Sam, is a MPDG. If she's not, then she really leans towards one.<br/><br/>I think I would've given this more stars if this had been a longer, more in-depth novel than this, but considering it's seemingly for teens, I suppose it does its job. I'm interested how the movie treats this book. I realize it was done by the author himself, which is infinitely rare. There were two things I just can't see making it to the screen. One I won't mention because it would be a book spoiler involving Sam near the end of the book, but the other was one thing I found really exasperating about Charlie: he kept bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. Constantly! Just no, I can't see some studio exec or whoever letting a nearly mentally-handicapped seeming teenaged boy constantly being weepy.

Rated Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder 2/10

I picked up this book in anticipation of checking out a local book club. This is their January read. However, the meet is scheduled for one of the days next week where it's supposed to be extremely cold and also, honestly, I did not enjoy this book.<br/><br/>I can't believe the amount of coffee and pastries these people drank and ate. And the amount of time spent describing and asking about pouring and making coffee and baking. Good grief! I wasn't interested in a cookbook, so I skipped through the many many pages of baking instructions for whatever baked good was just exhaustively discussed in the previous chapter.<br/><br/>Speaking of skipping, I didn't quite skip, but did do a lot of skimming not long after I started the book of alllll that coffee making, drinking, pouring, and baked good describing. It didn't help that after only a few chapters I noticed and then couldn't not notice how stilted everyone spoke. And how... staccato? all the writing was. It reminded me of the lessons drilled into me by English teachers to throw in some variety in your writing with sentence structure and vocabulary to keep your writing interesting.<br/><br/>I even checked the reading level of the book thinking maybe I'd not noticed the book club was for teens or something. Sad and horrifying this is supposed to be adult reading level. It's a slim recipe book with an attempt at a mystery on the side. When it finally got around to that, it was painfully obvious who was the murderer. And who would let them walk like that?? Yikes.<br/><br/>Not recommended above middle schoolers. And probably not even that considering all that recipe padding.

Rated Fire Season 8/10

Now this is more to my liking. The characters I was interested in are back and look like there will be much more in the next book or 2 - Gabriela and Darius. I'm glad there was the wrapping up of Quetzalcōātl and the Santa Ana winds. I noted at the end of the last book that I hoped that wasn't the end of it, but just backburnered, if you will.<br/><br/>The introduction of Letitia and expansion of the "Clean Up Crew" adds another interesting character I want to see more of. A pleasant surprise to continue seeing additions of women who seem multi-dimensional and not just to serve the protagonist ends. Well. Maybe not so much with the ex, Vivian. Their coexistence-with-animosity (or is there?) is getting a bit tired. Hopefully, Vivian literally gets a life apart from Carter.<br/><br/>Finally, it added a bit of additional relevance of what I assume was the inspiration for this book, the LAST time L.A. had historic fires, to once again be going through that at this moment. The author's experience really gave the story that feel of reality, I think.<br/><br/>I look forward to more story involving Darius and hopefully more on Carter's grandfather, his lamia girlfriend, and that fort full of magical goodies.

Rated Fugitive Telemetry 6/10

As I was finishing "Network Effect" which was published right before this one, I learned that this next book was something that happened before it. I'm not sure what caused that, but it was a bit odd especially considering where that book left off. The step backwards chronologically irked me a bit. I might've read it before "Network Effect" if I'd known.<br/><br/>That aside, it was an interesting whodunit. But the main part I liked was the interaction between Murderbot and the local security and other humans from Preservation. It also continues to amuse me from its POV not only as not-human (ew! lol), but also its asides regarding Preservation's humans towards, essentially, quality of life and rights of sentients compared to what it was used to as a former property of Corporate space. Like, get ahold of these guys! They're so quaint/crazy. It says a lot about our capitalist cultures without talking about us, I think.<br/><br/>Ultimately, the solution was fairly obvious of who murdered the human who was people trafficking. The culprit was immediately suspect to me, but it was still alright to go through the motions of the red herrings and for Murderbot to essentially facepalm at not having thought of it sooner. Seriously, Murderbot. :)<br/><br/>I look forward to NOW moving forward in the next novella and see how it moves forward with its "relationship" and its adoption, of sorts!

Wants to read Living in a World That Can't Be Fixed: Reimagining Counterculture Today

Wants to read The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin

Finished reading Rotherweird

Finished reading The Left Hand of Darkness

Finished reading The Appeal

Finished reading The Catcher in the Rye

Wants to read Parable of the Sower

Rated La grande invenzione: Storia del mondo in nove scritture misteriose 6/10

Rated La fisica del diavolo: Maxwell, Schrödinger, Einstein e i paradossi del mondo 6/10

Wants to read Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else

Rated La guerra 8/10

Wants to read The Power of Mindful Learning

Wants to read Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Rated L'ultimo orizzonte: Cosa sappiamo dell'universo 6/10

Wants to read The Fortress of Solitude

Rated Bossypants 8/10

Such a fun book. From the reviews I've read of it and comments I've seen of some of Fey's work and quotes, some people just don't get her dry, sarcastic, caustic humor. I'm not sure what others expected from this. Some sort of tell-all? I think it was written very much in her voice and I found it very hilarious. She also has a lot to say as a liberal, feminist, middle-class woman with which I would of course agree, considering myself those things as well. I remember seeing a comment on the internet that they had expected from her more (any?) views on working as a writer and comedian. I don't know what book they read, but it wasn't this one. The book is riddled with this with stories starting around college and doing improv to the near-present where she agonized over a seond pregnancy because 200+ people depend on her working to pay the bills, a financial concern she fortunately doesn't have anymore. Perhaps because she said all of it in a humorous way? I don't know, but I think that's the best way to cover serious subjects, a spoonful of honey helps the medicine go down.

Wants to read Chevato: The Story of the Apache Warrior Who Captured Herman Lehmann

Rated Lock In 6/10

I'm not sure why I put off reading this book for so long. Somehow the name wasn't attracting me to it. The premise is an interesting mix of mystery and, I'm not sure what it would be called, maybe cyberpunk? That doesn't seem quite right. Futuristic tech misused, at least.<br/><br/>It's a what-if in more than one way. What would happen if terminally-online people were that way not by choice? One character is extreme in that they were never corporeal to begin with in their memory. Humans, of course, find new and innovative ways of hurting and killing each other with people living this way, as always due to (corporate) greed.<br/><br/>It just occurred to me that main character Chris Shane faintly reminds me of Asimov's Daneel Olivaw. Thinking about it further, I suppose the FBI vet he's partnered with, Leslie Vann, perfectly fits as his Elijah Baley. Huh. Except this "Baley" definitely swears! There's also an interesting if maybe a little too peripheral inclusion of an Indigenous Nation and I wonder how they'd feel about it considering how problematic it is for settlers to often commit crimes on their lands while too often not having the ability to deal with it themselves.<br/><br/>At least there's a happy ending involving them and the people locked in. I would be interested in another mystery with Chris or maybe a collection of short stories? Recommended for a nice easy scifi read, light on the sci.

Rated Blood Rites 8/10

In the Dresden continuing saga, after Butcher drops off a lot of the remaining characters with little use in the last book and closed out story arcs then, it was time to take a bit of a new direction. Whereas in the first few books it was a lot of what I think of as kind of "monster of the week" type of stories, as they used to call them in the tv show "Supernatural," finally the stories start to take a much bigger personal turn with this book. Picking up where the first shoe dropped near the end of the last book regarding his personal history, I also loved that there was also more room to expand Murphy's character into the one I love as a more full primary character. I just keep looking forward to her character arc! There's still the dry, ironic self-deprecation of Harry, but it's starting to take the darker battle-hardened edge from here on out. No Butters in this book! and I totally forgot to mention my glee at his introduction in the previous book, but I see he makes a comeback in the next, so I'm looking forward to that. Harry's new household at the end is a great setup for what comes next. Onward!

Wants to read The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite