Rated Everything is Illuminated 10/10
book
Wants to read State of the Union: A Marriage in Ten Parts
Rated Survivors: Series One Box Set 9/10
<div>Very much enjoyed this. I've never watched the original series, but I watched the remake that came out in the late '00s (I think?) and loved it and hated that it was cancelled on a cliffhanger. So I'm interested to see where this story keeps going.<br><br>Also, apparently I am not one of those people who is averse to pandemic stories during a pandemic, though ours is not quite so apocalyptic.<br><br>... knock wood</div>
Rated System Collapse 10/10
<div>Best one yet.</div>
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 Calculating Stars 4/10
<div>I just did not vibe with this one, though the beginning of the book made me hopeful that this would be an enjoyable exploration of an alternate history space program. In this version of Earth, a meteorite has wiped out much of the east coast in 1952, and Elma, our protagonist, is the one who notices that this will be a slow-moving extinction level event, and since her husband is an engineer in the fledgling space program, she gets an audience with the people who can do something about it. I mean, sure we could also hear about how everyone is getting their food after a long winter and other apocalyptic considerations, but aside from briefly mentioning it in the beginning, she is barely troubled by it.<br><br>Her husband is always perfect to her, always supportive, represses his anger with others through grimaces and tight fists. We hear a lot about it when someone is mean to his wife. Because 1950s misogyny still abounds, but nary a thought like that passes through sweet lil Nathaniel's head. Barf. And I am of course not against sex scenes in books, but these are SO cheesy. PLEASE I do not want to hear rising rocket puns every time you two get a moment alone.<br><br>Everything else is hamfisted 2010s white feminist #Representation. Of course she's friends with a diverse group of pilots who all get such personalities and depths as .... being pilots. From other countries. They pepper in, ah, how you say, phrases from their native language. The French lady's last name is Lebourgeois. The most misogynist astronaut is named, I shit you not, STETSON PARKER. (Apparently we have Brandon Sanderson to blame for that character, according to her acknowledgements, and believe me, I will blame.) Elsa and Nathaniel are Jewish, but their last name is York, for some reason.<br><br>And just when you think, hey maybe we'll hear about some interesting space stuff, a real alternate history besides the stuff in the beginning... No! Not really! We're mostly going to hear about Elsa's struggles with ~aNxIEtY~ because poor genius mathematician and WASP pilot barfs if too many people look at her, see. Reporters are scary and therefore we must spend the majority of the book hearing about her stomach issues anytime someone mentions them.<br><br>And if you know enough about space to know why people need to be quarantined beforehand, then why are you having non-quarantined people interact with astronauts if their mission was only temporarily delayed??<br><br>Just so much bugged me, and I am baffled that it won so many awards in 2018. I will not be reading the next one in the series. Next season of For All Mankind can't come soon enough.</div>
Rated Doctor Who: The Dalek Generation 10/10
I loved this, and what a treat to have new Ninth Doctor content again. The tone of these stories is very much in line with his televised stories, even with them occurring pre-Rose.
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