Edited 86d ago
book
Rated Survivors: New Dawn 2 10/10
<div>Really good, and made me wish I'd bought the next installment when it was on sale recently. Survivors is definitely among the best non-Doctor Who audio plays that Big Finish produces.</div>
Rated The Boy Who Followed Ripley 8/10
Not as wholly in love as I was with the previous three books, but this is more like a 4.5. Tom Ripley is a fascinating character.
Rated The Circle 10/10
Really *good story, that last update should read.
Rated Stars and Bones 6/10
<div>The writing is better in moments of action than it is with dialogue or conveying emotion, but I was invested in the plot nonetheless. This may not have been amazing, but it did somewhat scratch an Expanse-shaped desire in my reading.</div>
Wants to read The Artist of Disappearance: Three Novelas
Rated Doctor Who: The Blood Cell 6/10
This was better than the previous Twelfth Doctor novel I read in a lot of ways, but it did have a fair amount of weaknesses. I get the impression that the writers of both had only seen snippets of the new Doctor, and because of that, the voice isn't quite right -- Though in this book, it was better.<br><br>Fuller review forthcoming.
Rated Still Life 8/10
<div>I liked this one better than the previous one in the series, though this once again shows some of the research seams — You're going to learn this expository information just like the author! ha .... Oh well.</div>
Rated Survivors: Series Four Box Set 8/10
Rated The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl 8/10
Wants to read Street World: Urban Culture and Art from Five Continents
Rated The Best Small Fictions 2015 8/10
review forthcoming
Rated The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents 8/10
<div>My First Pratchett, believe it or not. My library happened to have the audiobook available and it seemed like a standalone enough story that I could jump into Discworld without too much trouble. This take on the Pied Piper tale is funny, smart, and full of great character names.</div>
Rated The Art Forger 8/10
I picked up this novel on a whim from the new books section at the library, and it was a lovely surprise. Using the real life art heist from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, B.A. Shapiro has created a fictionalized story about a disgraced painter, Claire, who has been asked by a famous gallery owner to copy a Degás — the same Degás stolen from the museum. However, the more time Claire spends with this ill-begotten painting, the more she suspects that it may also be a forgery.<br><br>Because I’m a sucker for heist stories and because I’m quite interested in visual art, I enjoyed unraveling the mystery of what had really happened during the time of the theft and in the 19th century when the painting was originally created. There’s a whole side-plot about why Claire has a poor reputation in the art world that is also quite interesting, and though I could work out some of the twists on my own, the complete ending still held plenty of surprises.<br><br>(This review originally appeared in <a href="http://persephonemagazine.com/2013/08/22/5-book-recommendations-for-your-reading-pleasure/">Persephone Magazine</a>.)
Rated The Collective 4/10
I suppose the argument could be made that <i>The Collective</i> is a story about how we can never completely know another person, and that even our closest friends are capable of surprising us. I just wanted to hear about it from someone else. If we could see the inner workings of Joshua, rather than speculate, and juxtapose those thoughts with his outward behavior, I might have enjoyed the novel more.<br><br>I understand that creative people are often not the most stable — myself being one of them — and while I sympathized with these characters' causes, I just couldn't quite connect with them. I'm certainly not sorry I read it, but especially now going back through it, I wish the story could have been framed in a more effective way. Like Eric, it has potential, but I wanted better.<br><br>(My full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-collective-by-don-lee.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Wants to read The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait
Rated The Beautiful Anthology 8/10
Most everything in the book is quite good. It's wonderful, thought-provoking, and worth passing along to anyone else who might be grappling with their own definition of "beautiful."<br><br>(My full review appears on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-beautiful-anthology-edited-by.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)