Category: book recommendations and reviews

Animal Farm Review

I’m four days into my new and improved blogging schedule and I’ve already falling behind, because I was too tired to post last night even though the post was already written. This is why I left my weekends open. In the meantime, I’m pressing on with the review I meant to post today. I’ll post yesterday’s book review over the weekend, and everything will be fine.

Cover of Animal Farm by George OrwellAfter I read Oathbringer, I was looking for some shorter books to read, and one of the booktubers I follow recommended Animal Farm by George Orwell. This booktuber led me to some of my favorites of 2018 and 2019—And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer and Longer and Beartown by George Orwell and The Final Empire and The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson—and I didn’t actually read Animal Farm in high school. So I picked it up.

If you don’t know, Animal Farm is about the animals on a farm in England who rise up and overthrow their human owners and then run the farm themselves as a commune, but pretty soon things start descending into a totalitarian regime.

This is going to be a short review, because I don’t have a ton to say. I did not like this book. It was well-written, and I liked watching the animal’s new society fall into totalitarianism—it felt like a natural, well-done descent. But while I recognize that it was well-written, I didn’t like the writing style. It was far too tell don’t show for my taste, and I felt like I was being handed the story and the message without needing to work for it. It was also very, very obvious that Orwell had an agenda when writing this book. He wanted to tell readers that communism is bad. And personally, whether I agree with the message or not, I don’t like books that are written for the purpose of conveying a message, particularly a political or moral message.

As usual, this is one hundred percent my own opinion, and I’d love to discuss whether you agree or disagree with me. So have you read Animal Farm? What did you think?

Oathbringer Review

Cover of Oathbringer by Brandon SandersonThe first book I read in October was Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. This is the third book in The Stormlight Archive series, which I started last spring. I actually started reading this book in August after the bar, but it was so long and so much was going on in my life that it took me until the beginning of October to finish it.

Again, this is the third book in a series, so I can’t promise there won’t be spoilers for the first two books. If you’re new to The Stormlight Archives series, go check out my review for The Way of Kings, and if you’re not caught up on the series, you can read my reviews for Words of Radiance and the novella that comes between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer, Edgedancer.

Oathbringer starts up directly after the end of Words of Radiance. Again, it follows Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, and everybody else we’ve come to know and love in this world. In as much as you can say that any one of these books has a main character as its focus, Kaladin is the main character of The Way of Kings, Shallan is the main character of Words of Radiance, and Dalinar is the main character of Oathbringer. So we get a lot of his backstory and finally learn what he asked the Nightwatcher to take from him when he visited her. It’s horrifying. In the present, Dalinar is trying to unite the ravaged countries of the world to fight against the voidbringers, who have taken Alethkar and many other countries. It doesn’t go so well. Meanwhile, Kaladin has gone to find his family, and along the way he discovers the former Parshmen turned voidbringers may have some legitimate grievances. Shallan, on the other hand, is really struggling with some serious PTSD that manifests as her trying to be anyone but herself–since she can create illusions, she does this literally.

I really liked this book, but there were a few major things that kept me from loving it as much as I loved The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and Edgedancer. I’m going to start with those, and then I’m going to gush.

This book started slowly. Part of the reason it took me so long to get through. I’d say the first quarter to a third of it dragged much more than the other books. I also felt less attached to Dalinar than I did to Kaladin and Shallan, so I had a hard time with him being the focus. This definitely changed over the course of the book, but it weighed me down in the beginning.

That love triangle that was hinted at in Words of Radiance took shape in this book. As I feared, it was a disappointment, but not for the reasons I thought it would be. I normally hate love triangles because they feel like drama for the sake of drama, and they take up too much time in the plot. This love triangle didn’t feel developed enough to matter. Like I didn’t realize that this was the love triangle until it came to a head in a conversation between Shallan and Adolin at the end of the book. Like Shallan’s only sign of interest in Kaladin was in weird looks. Granted I don’t have a lot of experience in flirting so maybe a lot went over my head. As it was, I just felt like the love triangle was shoved in there for the sake of having a love triangle—it felt neither natural nor necessary—and the resolution was rushed and annoying.

Finally, there were a ton of point of view characters in this book, like a ton more than even the previous books, and at important scenes, like the final battle, it became a bit hectic and hard to follow, especially since a bunch of new characters were introduced during the final battle.

But given the size and complexity of this book, these are really minor complaints. The plot of Oathbringer is brilliant and intricate. There are some amazing battle scenes, and some awesome political intrigue. And oh the character development! Dalinar’s character development is amazing, but there’s also great character development from Shallan, Adolin, Elhokar, Jasnah, Renarin, Kaladin, and even the voidbringers. Like great character development. And as much as I complained about the beginning dragging, this book pulled me in at about the one third mark and I finished in about three days, which is a lot given that the second two thirds was about thirty-five hours long (I was listening to the audiobook).

This book was a wild ride, and I loved almost every minute of it. The parts that I didn’t love were more like mildly annoying than bad. I feel like reading this series has opened whole new horizons of reading for me, because now I’m not nearly as daunted by larger fantasy books as I once was. I am dying for the fourth book to come out. I read that Sanderson is estimating 2020? I’m really hoping that’s right.

In the meantime, what other epic fantasy series should I try? Wheel of Time? Game of Thrones? Something I haven’t heard of? And if you’ve read The Stormlight Archives I’d love to discuss.

September Reading Roundup

This will be a short post. Honestly I feel a bit silly writing it at all, because I only read two books in September, and I just reviewed both of them this week. But for consistency’s sake, here I am.

September was, as I’ve said, a pretty crazy month. I moved down to D.C. at the end of August. I spent the first half of September learning my way around my new neighborhood in Arlington as well as learning the metro system and the route to and from my new workplace. Then I started work at the FCC. That was a whole new kind of exhausting. During law school, I longingly looked forward to the time when I would work a nine-to-five job and have oodles of time in the evenings to do whatever I wanted. This is not how it works. There’s food to be cooked and dishes to be done and vacuuming and general cleanup, and after eight hours of work I’m tired.

I’m really enjoying my work at the FCC. I’m learning a lot—I still don’t feel like I can do anything on my own but I’m understanding what’s going on a little more every day—and I’m exactly where I want to be. But when I get home from work, I’m tired. And on top of that, I spent a lot of time in September finishing revisions for my middle grade fantasy novel. Those are done now, and since then I’ve read four books and I’m onto a fifth. But I only read two books in September.

One was an audiobook, and one was an audiobook for the first half and then Braille for the third quarter and then text-to-speech for the last quarter because I got lazy. Unfortunately, I had mixed feelings about both books. Collage of the covers of the two books I read in September, Abaddon's Gate and Akata Warrior

First, I read Abaddon’s Gate by James S. A. Corey. This was the third book in The Expanse series. After the first book, which was fine, and the second book, which I loved, I found this book to be kind of so-so. I’m not sure if it was because it suffered from being a middle book in the series or if my growing suspicion that this series isn’t for me is correct. I’m going to read the fourth book when I get it out of the library, but if it’s like the third book I might give it up. My full review is right over here.

Second, I read Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okoraforh, the sequel to Akata Witch. I actually started Akata Warrior in August but it took me a long time to get through. There was a lot I liked about this book, particularly Sunny’s relationship with her brother. But it also felt kind of scattered and telly. I admit this might be because of all the times I changed how I was reading it, and I’d definitely be willing to reread this book or read any subsequent books in this world. But on the whole I liked the first book in the series a lot better. And if you’re interested, my full review is here.

And that’s it. I’ve been reading more now that I’m settled into a routine, so expect more reviews soon.

Akata Warrior Review

Cover of Akata Warrior by Needi OkoraforThe second book I read in September was Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor. I read the first book, Akata Witch, last year and then again in May. You can find my full review of Akata Witch over here. As usual with my reviews of sequels, I can’t promise no spoilers for the first book in the series, so that’s the place for you to start.

A couple disclaimers about this review. It took me a long time to read Akata Warrior. Not through any fault of the book. I just had a lot going on. I started it in mid-August, when I finally got the audiobook out of the library. But I didn’t finish it by the time the audiobook expired, and the waiting list was really long, so I picked it up in Braille. But I’m really slow at reading books in Braille these days, because I can’t do it while I’m doing something else, and I tend to just fall asleep when I go to bed at night. So as we got toward the end of September, I just turned on text to speech and had my BrailleNote read the rest of the book to me. The long time reading the book and the three different formats I read it in almost certainly contribute to my feelings about this book.

My second disclaimer is that it took me two readings to really love Akata Witch, and that might be the case for Akata Warrior. I’m still on the library waiting list, and if it comes up again I may reread to just see.

Now that I’ve said all that, let’s dive in.

Akata Warrior starts out about a year after the end of Akata Witch. Sunny, Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha have all grown and learned in their powers both individually and as a team. But the end of the world is looming, and they’re the ones to stop it. Adventures ensue. Sunny gets into trouble defending her brother, jeopardizing not only her life but the whole coven and the mission. Sunny also gets separated from her spirit face and loses her powers. There’s also a giant spider and plenty of adventures   in the spirit world before we even get to the chaos monster.

As you might have gathered from this description, a lot happens in this book. As usual, I really loved all the stuff about the kids learning their powers. I also really loved Sunny’s character growth. We get more about her family in this book—particularly her brothers—and I loved that. Also, her internal growth when she loses her powers is amazing. There’s this scene when she’s playing soccer in a thunderstorm and grieving the loss of her juju, and it’s just amazing and beautiful.

On the other hand, this book felt more scattered to me than the last one. In the first book, I felt like everything the characters learned played a role in the climax. In this book, when we reached the climax, things were happening, and I was like, “Wait, when was that a thing?” And that made a lot of the book, particularly the ending, feel very telly.

Like I said, it’s entirely possible I would feel differently on a reread of this book, and I’m willing to give it that chance. There also seemed to be at least a possibility of more to come after this book, and I’m on board for that.

On the whole, this wasn’t my favorite book in the world. I definitely liked the first book better. But there was a lot of really great stuff in this book, and it was a good follow-up to the first book. I look forward to giving it another try now that my life has calmed down a bit. As always, let me know if you’ve read this series. I don’t know anyone else who has, and I’d be really interested to talk about it with someone.

Abaddon’s Gate Review

Cover of Abaddon's Gate by James S. A. CoreyI didn’t read too much in September. Given that I was unpacking and organizing my new apartment and learning my way around my new neighborhood and also D.C. and then starting a new job and also working on revisions for my book, this isn’t at all surprising. But I finally got my hands on the third book in The Expanse series, Abaddon’s Gate by James S. A. Corey, and now that I have a little more time on my hands, I’m going to give individual book reviews a try again.

As usual, there won’t be any spoilers for this book, but as it is the third book in a series, I can’t promise there won’t be spoilers for the earlier books. I have spoiler-free reviews for Leviathan Wakes and Caliban’s War here and here, so if you haven’t read those that’s probably a better place to start. Otherwise read on at your own risk.

We pick up a bit after the end of Caliban’s War. Holden and co are doing pretty well running their own ship and taking odd jobs to keep the lights on. The protomolecule has been doing pretty well too. It’s left Venus and flown out past Neptune, where it formed a giant ring that appears to be a wormhole to who knows where. Everybody is pretty freaked out by this. Ships from Earth, Mars, and the OPA are all flying out there to study it, but of course they’re war ships and no one can forget Ganymede. And on one of those ships is Clarissa Mao, sister to Julie Mao, the protomolecule’s first victim in the first book, and daughter of big bad Mao who Holden got arrested. Honestly I can’t remember his name. The point is, Clarissa is bent on revenge, and she’s put in place a plan to get Holden out to the ring and then to destroy him. And I don’t want to say more than that because there will be spoilers.

This book came down somewhere in the middle for me. I enjoyed the science, and the politics were kind of fun. But we were missing my favorite characters from Caliban’s War. And the reverend and the security guy whose points of view we had didn’t really interest me. Okay, I liked the security guy. Also, it just took a long time to get going. I was more than halfway through before I really got into it, and then I couldn’t put it down. I will also say that I really loved Clarissa’s arc and hope we see more of her in future books. As with the other books, I found it a little too violent for my tastes (pro tip, this is not a book to read while you’re eating lunch).

On the whole, this was a fine book. I enjoyed it, in the end, but it took a while to get there, and there were enough aspects that weren’t to my taste that meant I ended up kind of disappointed.  I’m starting to think that this series just might not be for me. I’ll probably give the fourth book a shot, and I might try the television show, but we’ll see.

My opinion here is pretty much entirely based on personal taste. This is a really well-written book, the characters are fun and interesting, and I bet the series is going somewhere really cool. If you’ve absolutely loved the first two books, you might really like this one. So definitely don’t let my scattered and meh opinion dissuade you from reading this. And if you’ve already read Abaddon’s Gate, I’d love to know what you think.

August Reading Roundup

So here we are at the end of September. I’ve been working at the FCC for eleven days now, and I’d like to say I get a little less confused every day, but that might be an optimistic assessment. I’ve been told not to worry, because the government is alphabet soup and the satellite division has even more jargon and I’ll catch on. So I’m taking the small victories, like the fact that I haven’t gotten turned around between the front door and my cubicle for a few days now.

Work-life balance is still pretty tricky. I’m having a hard time getting my sleep schedule in order, so I’m really tired, and I feel like there are so many things to do besides work—eat, sleep, exercise, write, hang out with friends, blog—and no time to do any of it. Welcome to adulthood?

I have learned a few important lessons. Lay my clothes out before I go to bed, move my alarm clock across the room, and set a second alarm just in case. You guessed it, I have already managed to sleep through my alarm and wake up an hour late with no idea what to wear to work. On the plus side, I now know exactly how fast I can move and still get to work on time, and I never want to do that again.

It’s the end of September, so I’m taking the time while my chicken and fennel are roasting to talk about the books I read in August.

Collage of the covers of the four books I read in August: To Kill a Mockingbird, Bridge to Terabithia, The Martian, and BeartownI read three books in August. Okay, technically I read four, but the fourth book was Beartown, which is not only a reread but a book that I read six months ago, so I’m not counting it toward my 2019 reading goal. I included it in the picture again because it was so much easier to make a collage of four books than three and I didn’t want to fight the app. Of the three books, one was a classic, one was middle grade fiction, and one was sci fi. Two of the three were rereads.

First, I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I was actually almost finished with this book at the end of July but a week of taking the bar stalled me, so I finished it in August. I first read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school. Who didn’t? To Kill a Mockingbird follows a young girl, Scout; her brother, Jem; and their friend Dill for a few years of their childhood as they grow up in Depression-era Alabama. Scout’s father is a defense attorney charged with defending an African-American man accused of raping a white girl, and we see his trial and its aftermath through Scout’s eyes. I remember thinking that it was just okay. I enjoyed it, but I found it pretty slow for most of the book. I absolutely loved it this time around. I’m older and a much more mature person and reader than I was in high school, so I appreciated the issues and how they’re woven throughout the book much more than I did then. I also just loved the level of detail in this book. Scout’s voice is so rich and vivid, and the world felt so authentic. I also loved all the lawyer jokes and legal references that went right over my head before I was a law student. I’ve heard people complain that this book shouldn’t be held up as the best example of fiction confronting racism in America, and I one hundred percent agree with that, because there are many more modern books, written by people of color, that tackle the issue. However that doesn’t make To Kill a Mockingbird a bad book. If you haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth a read. If you have read it but it’s been a while, it’s worth picking up again.

Next, I read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. Somehow, I never read this growing up. One of my roommates mentioned it while we were studying for the bar, and when she found out I’d never read it, she insisted that I had to. So I got it out of the library. Bridge to Terabithia follows two fifth graders who become unlikely friends in a poor town in Virginia. Together they create the kingdom of Terabithia, where they are kings and queens and have great adventures. It’s such a short book, so I’m not going to say more than that. I enjoyed this book. It made me cry. I particularly liked how Paterson wove the real, everyday troubles of her two protagonists together with the fantastic adventures they had in Terabithia. This book is not a fantasy, but it felt like it could be. It so beautifully captured that time when I was a kid when I invented magical kingdoms in the forest with my friends. Who am I kidding? I still invent magical kingdoms, just in my head now because I live in a city and there is no forest to speak of. And then there was the last third of the book, which was incredibly powerful, and which made me ball my eyes out, but also felt like it came from nowhere, and in retrospect I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Third, I reread The Martian by Andy Weir. When the third manned mission to Mars is aborted because of a dangerous sandstorm, Mark Watney is stranded on Mars. And he has to survive. By himself. On Mars. I first read The Martian the spring before I started law school. I really enjoyed it, but I thought it got too into the weeds with the science, and I found the writing style to be too cinematic for my taste. We were almost never inside a character’s head. Even Mark’s journal entries were more tell than show. While the writing-style still wasn’t my favorite thing in the world on this reread, I definitely liked this book a lot more. Part of that is that I have embraced my geeky science side and in addition to actually working in space law, I now read a lot more science fiction. My science fiction tastes tend toward (1) space, (2) fun, and (3) realistic science. All of which The Martian has. This was yet another book that I enjoyed the first time through and pretty much loved on reread. So if you haven’t read The Martian, I highly recommend you give it a chance.

Finally, I reread Beartown by Fredrik Backman. This wasn’t my original plan, but I gave a copy to my mom for her birthday, and she really loved it and was talking about it to my dad, and he proposed listening to it on the drive down to Virginia when I was moving. I loved Beartown the first time I read it. I loved it even more the second time, because knowing what was coming, I was able to  really dive in and appreciate every moment. Also, it took a second reading for me to realize that this book is set in Sweden. This book was so powerful, and it remained powerful on reread. It’s definitely one of my favorites of 2019. If you haven’t read Beartown, you need to go read it now. If you have read it, it’s honestly worth a second read. And if I haven’t convinced you, I have a full review of the book right over here.

Writing this post has taken me through dinner and my toasted banana, and now it’s time for dishes and bed. I hope to have full reviews up for the other three books I read in August soon, and I’m planning to get back on track with reviews for my September books this week, so stay tuned. And as always, if you’ve read any of these books, I’d love to know what you think.

July Reading Roundup

Hello from northern Virginia. Yes, I have successfully moved and I am writing to you from amid the many piles of boxes filling my new apartment. I am having a lot of fun organizing everything to my satisfaction. I have strong opinions on trash can designs, apparently, and I maybe alphabetized my spices. Shopping for pillows to match my couch and general color scheme is slightly less fun, because I am really bad at telling if something matches or clashes and kept liking things that turned out to be just slightly off. But it’s all coming together, and I’m really excited about it. I’ve also been doing a lot of orientation and mobility, learning my way around my neighborhood, the metro system, and the walk from my metro stop to work. And of course I’m chugging away on revisions to my book. I’m in the home stretch, and I’m happy with what I’ve done. Which probably means it’s terrible.

All in all, life is pretty crazy right now, and honestly, the idea of writing full reviews for all the books I read in July and August and then what I’m reading in September and trying to catch up was starting to stress me out. It got to the point last week when I was considering completely dropping the individual book reviews altogether and going back to just the monthly reading roundup posts. I don’t want to do that, because I’ve been enjoying the individual reviews, so unless you tell me I should do otherwise, I’m planning to continue them. But for the sake of my sanity, I’m going to switch things up a bit.

Today, I’m going to give you a reading roundup for July, and sometime soon I’ll do a reading roundup for August. Then, in the future, between book reviews for the books I’m reading currently, I’ll play some catch-up and write full posts for each of these books. This will allow me to get the full reviews done but also not to stress about catching up. And as soon as I get some of this moving craziness sorted, I plan to figure out a regular schedule for blog posts that I will mostly stick to, so look forward to that.

July was a big month for me. I took the bar. And I moved out of my apartment in Cambridge. Oh wait, that was only one week of July. It feels like that was the whole month because the whole month was building toward that week. But I also went to a friend’s wedding in Rhode Island, finally ditched the walking cane and ankle brace, and read eight books. Almost got to nine but the bar was exhausting so I didn’t read much the last week of July.

Collage of the 8 books I read in July: Presumed Innocent, Stars Above, A Woman of No Importance, The Shifter, Ash Princess, Blue Fire, The English Patient, and Darkfall.So I read eight books in July. One was nonfiction, and definitely a favorite. One was a legal thriller, which is a genre I don’t typically go for and which I actually liked despite being constantly immersed in the law otherwise. One was a short story collection. I reread five books this month—it was, as you recall, the great bar prep rereadathon—but I read three new books, including two books that were the first books in two new series. I also read one book in Braille, which I haven’t done in a long time and which I plan to do more of in the future because I miss it.

My first book of July was Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow. This was the legal thriller. A prosecutor is accused of murdering his coworker, but he’s innocent, and he goes to trial. My friend who recommended this book to me specifically recommended it to me for after the bar, because it gets pretty technical on the legal side of things. I got on the library waiting list, and it came up sooner than I expected, so I jumped on it and read it. And I’m actually glad I read it while studying for the bar. For one thing, I’m not sure I would have wanted to read it after the bar—I was so done with the law by then! For another, this book actually helped me understand criminal procedure and evidence so much better. It tallied with my bar prep course, and gave me some concrete examples to work with in my studying. I will say that I found this book to be oddly paced. Knowing that the premise is that an innocent man is accused of murder, it felt like it took a while to get there. It might not have felt so long had I not known that this was the premise, but it was right on the back cover so there wasn’t much I could do about that. I also felt like the ending of the book was a bit slow. But the middle section was great, and I was on the edge of my seat through all the courtroom stuff.  One other note: This book is pretty sexually graphic, so if you don’t like that, you won’t like this book. On the whole, I enjoyed this book. I’m not sure I would recommend it to someone, and though it is the start of a series, I don’t think I’m going to read the other books, but that’s more because the library doesn’t have the audiobooks and I didn’t enjoy the first one enough to buy the rest. That being said, if you enjoy legal thrillers this might be a great book for you.

Next, I read Stars Above by Marissa Meyer. Stars Above is the short story collection that accompanies the Lunar Chroneacles series. You could probably read this  on its own, but it’s also probably more enjoyable once you’ve read the series. We get stories from Cinder’s, Scarlet’s, Cress’s, Winter’s, Thorne’s, Kai’s, and Wolf’s, as well as some totally original characters in the universe. This book was a lot of fun. I loved getting more of the characters’ back stories, and I loved the last story in the book which takes place after the end of Winter. This was a reread for me, but my opinion hasn’t changed much since I first read it (I may have only read this book once, I’m not sure). I really liked this book, but I will say that since these stories were so heavily tied into the main series, they didn’t feel like complete stories that could stand on their own to me, but I honestly didn’t mind that in this case. That being said, my favorite story in the book is “The Little Android,” a retelling of “The Little Mermaid,” in which Cinder appears briefly in the role of Ursula (don’t freak out, Iko is not the little mermaid). All in all, this is a good book and a fun way to wrap up the Lunar Chronicles series.

After that, I read A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell. I’ve mentioned this already in a few earlier posts, but I absolutely loved this book. It tells the story of Virginia Hall, a female spy with a prosthetic leg who worked for both the British and the Americans, spent almost the whole war in Nazi-occupied France, and practically single-handedly organized the French resistance. This was a fascinating read, and it was also an enjoyable read. The writing is so strong and vivid, I felt like I was in France with Virginia the whole way through the book. This is definitely one of my absolute favorites of 2019 so far, and it’s one I’ve been recommending to everyone I know. If you like World War II books, you need to read this. If you like spies, you need to read this. If you like feminist or disability issues, you need to read this. Whatever you like, you need to read this. So go read it. Go read it now.

My next reread was the Healing Wars series by Janice Hardy. In July I read the whole series—The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall—in quick succession. This is one  of my all-time favorite middle grade fantasy series, and it remained so after this reread. Nya lives in the war-torn and occupied city of Geveg. Her parents are dead, and her younger sister is a taker, which means she can heal injuries by taking pain and transferring it to a special metal called pynvium. Nya can take pain too, but she can’t transfer her pain to pynvium like a normal healer. She can only transfer pain to other people, which no other taker can do. If anyone finds out she can shift pain, she’ll be arrested and sent to the occupying duke either to be experimented on or to be turned into an assassin. But when the takers of Geveg start disappearing, Nya’s sister among them, Nya has to decide how much keeping that secret is really worth. There is so much I love about these books. They’re fun and fast-paced, even as they deal with really heavy subjects—they actually get pretty dark for middle grade, but they always have this light, hopeful tone that I really like. I love that Nya’s sister is actually a strong character in the books, and not just an innocent little sister on a pedestal in need of rescuing—cough Prim from The Hunger Games cough. I have a lot more to say about these books, but I will wait until I write my full reviews. Suffice it to say that this was a great series to reread right before the bar.

I also read Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian. This is the first book in a trilogy, and I am dying to get my hands on the second one. Ten years ago, Theodosia’s kingdom was invaded, and her mother was killed before her eyes. She was six years old, and the invaders spared her and raised as  a prisoner. Whenever one of her people committed a crime, Theodosia was publicly punished as an example. She’s sixteen now, and pretty much broken. And then the king—I forget what his actual title is in this world—forces her to execute a particular rebel, and Theodosia finds a spark of rebellion of her own. I think I read this book in maybe two days. It was so fast, but it was also complicated and there was some great political intrigue, and there were so many feelings. There is actually a love triangle that I can get behind in this one. And without any spoilers, the ending is just what I wanted it to be, and more that I didn’t know I wanted but that is great. I’m really looking forward to reading the next one and to telling you more about it in my full review soon.

Finally, I reread The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient is about four people sheltering in an old villa in Italy at the end of World War II: a thief, a sapper, a nurse, and a patient. It switches back and forth among all their points of view, and time is pretty fluid, as the novel moves back and forth between the characters’ pasts and the present. I first read this back in 2013, as part of my senior honors reading list at Kenyon. I recall really enjoying it when I read it then, but I admit I struggled with it this time around.  I think part of the reason is that this is a slow meandering book, and maybe reading it while I was frantically cramming in some last few days of bar studying and also packing and cleaning up  my apartment just wasn’t a good move. I really wasn’t in the mindset to read a slow, meandering, complicated book. The first time I read it, I also read it in Braille, and this time I listened to the audiobook, and I wonder if that influenced my opinion too. The audiobook was fine, but I think this is a book that is better read slowly and thoughtfully than listened to while running around an apartment wielding a swiffer. Even so, by the end of the book, I was really enjoying it, and I’m really happy with the ending and the book on the whole. I hope to one day go back and reread the book in Braille, because I think I would enjoy that.

And that’s it for what I read in July. I promise I’ll be back as soon as I and start working on full reviews for these books. In the meantime, I’ve made a lot of progress unpacking in the time between I started writing this post and the time that I’m posting it, and I just have one box left to empty. Yay!

June Reading Roundup

Yes, I know it’s mid-August and I’m more than a month behind on these posts. The bar happened, but I’m working on it.

June was a crazy month. It was also kind of an awful month. I was neck deep in bar studying, nine to ten hours a week, seven days a week, and by mid-June I’d been doing that for six weeks and still had six weeks to go. I was exhausted and terrified, and I  didn’t think my brain could possibly hold any more information but there was so much more information that my brain had to hold. And then I was so focused on the law that I lost all of my coordination, fell down the stairs, and sprained my ankle so badly that I actually went to urgent care and was walking with a cane for a month. Two months later my ankle is still kind of swollen and twingy. So yeah, it was a bad month.

So we’re not going to talk any more about what I was up to in June, because those are some deeply unpleasant memories. Except for the books.

Collage of the ten books I read in June: Words of Radiance, The Book Thief, Cinder, Scarlet, The Zookeeper's Wife, Cress, Edgedancer, Fairest, Code Girls, and WinterBut hey! The books!

I read ten books in June, and I really liked most of them. I also really hope I passed the bar otherwise I’m going to feel really bad about those ten books.

Six of the books in June were rereads for me, and four were totally new. Two were nonfiction (both World War II), and two were more novellas than novels. I read one entire series, and I continued on with another series, but three of the books I read were stand-alones. All of these books were audiobooks. I’m working on getting back to reading in Braille I swear.

So let’s dive in.

First, I read Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. This was the second book in his Stormlight Archives series. It was just as massive as the first book, but also just as worth it. I loved how the stories came together, and while the beginning of the book was kind of slow, I pretty much flew through this book in a week. Remember what I said about really hoping I passed the bar? That particularly applies to this book, which took up forty-five plus hours of my life in one week when I should have been studying civ pro or con law or something. My full review for Words of Radiance is right over here. I also read Edgedancer, the novella that comes in between Words of Radiance and the next book, Oathbringer. I absolutely loved Edgedancer, because I absolutely love the main character, Lift, who we meet in Words of Radiance. It may be possible to read Edgedancer without having read the other books in the series too, so if you’re daunted by the size of the other Stormlight books—and I don’t blame you, I was very daunted—Edgedancer is a fun and fast introduction to the world. My full review for Edgedancer is over here.

Next, I reread The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The Book Thief has been one of my all-time favorites since I first read it in 2012. This month I reread it not just because I was in the middle of my great bar prep rereadathon but also because I was leading the discussion for the book club I’m in. I’ve read so much since I first read The Book Thief that I was a bit more picky about it than I have been in the past, but I still love it a lot and still definitely recommend it. This is one of those books that everyone should read. My full review is over here.

I reread the entire Lunar Chronicles series in June. It was so much fun to go adventuring with Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter and the rest of the gang, and it was a wonderful distraction from the bar exam hole I was living in. I also reread Fairest, the prequel novella about the evil Queen Levana, which I liked but also kind of regretted rereading because it’s not a pleasant book to read and right then I needed pleasant books. For a lot more elaboration and a good bit of squealing, go check out my full reviews for Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Fairest, and Winter.

Next, I read The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman. This is a nonfiction book about a woman in Poland who hid Jews in her family’s abandoned zoo while her husband worked in the Polish resistance. My full review is right over here, but the long and short of it is that I was really interested in the story but the book could have been better.

Finally, the other WWII nonfiction book I read in June was Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II by Liza Mundy. This book was just fascinating. I had no idea that women worked as code breakers in World War II, and I loved reading about their contributions and accomplishments. I felt like the book was juggling the stories of too many women, to be honest, but as a chronicle of the role of women code breakers during the war as a whole, it was great. This is definitely one for the favorites list, and if you’re interested in World War II and spies, I definitely recommend. You can check out my full review over here for more details too.

And that’s it for June. We’ll dive into the books I read in July next, and hopefully I can get reasonably caught up on these reviews soon. In the meantime, have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

Winter Review

Hello all, and apologies for not posting in a while. It has been a crazy week. I finally figured out how to write this chapter I’ve been stuck on, and I’ve been making great progress with that. Which is to say yes, the entire chapter is still an infodump but at least I now have something on the page that I can work with to make less infodumpy, and that’s progress. I also took the Massachusetts Law Component of the bar and passed on my first attempt, so yay! Oh, and I’m moving in less than two weeks and I officially hate Ikea, particularly their online ordering system on tax free weekend (spoiler alert, it doesn’t work).

Cover of Winter by Marissa MeyerSo here I am at past 11:00 PM, and it’s almost too late for me to be articulate, but I’m going to chat with you all about Winter, the fourth book of the Lunar Chronicles series, which was the last book I read in June.

I actually fully expected not to finish this book in June (studying for the bar and everything), but I was feeling pretty sick on the last weekend of June, so I gave up on studying and just spent the day in bed listening to Winter. And when you listen to all audiobooks at 1.5 speed as I do, you can make a lot of progress in one day. So I finished Winter in June.

As usual, this review will be spoiler free for Winter, but there will be spoilers for Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress. If you haven’t read any of those books, go check out my spoiler-free reviews: Cinder is here, Scarlet is here, and Cress is here.

Like the first three books of the series, Winter is a retold fairy tale. Winter is Snow White. Princess Winter is Lunar Queen Levana’s stepdaughter, incredibly pretty, and pretty crazy too. She refuses to use her Gift, so she has lunar sickness. Her only friends in the world are the guard Jacen (who teamed up with Cinder and co in Cress and then betrayed them to get back to Luna and Winter), and now maybe Scarlet (though Scarlet is more of a prisoner than a friend). And while Scarlet is stuck in a cage in the royal menagerie, and Winter is playing Levana’s political games and trying to protect Jacen and herself from Levana’s wrath, Cinder, Iko, Thorne, Wolf, Cress, and Kai are plotting a revolution. I don’t want to say much more than that, but as we’ve gotten to know what makes Levana tick and Winter’s story is based on Snow White, you can probably guess where things are headed (hint: Jacen is the huntsman and Cinder and co may be the dwarves.

This book is a ton of fun. It’s fast-paced and action packed from start to finish, and it does a really good job of wrapping up the series. All the characters have such epic moments. I really love watching Scarlet and Winter’s friendship grow over this book, and I love the contrast between how Scarlet treats Winter and how Jacen treats Winter. I also love Winter’s arc and how she goes from crazy but timid to crazy but powerful. And of course Cinder, Cress, Thorne, Kai, Wolf, and Iko are all wonderful as well.

I will say that this book suffers a bit from being the last book in the series and needing to tie everything off. There’s a lot to pack in, and it’s great, but we also have ten point of view characters now, and they’re spread all over the moon at times. It means that Winter’s story is overshadowed by the rest of the plot in a way that Cinder’s Scarlet’s and Cress’s stories were not in the previous books. Winter’s story is great, don’t get me wrong. It just doesn’t have the ability to shine the way the others’ stories did, because there’s so much going on.

Also I just have to say it: I was sad that Thorne gets his sight back. This isn’t a complaint about a disability being magically or scientifically cured as if it didn’t exist or anything. In terms of disability representation and the plot of the book, I have no problems with Thorne getting his sight back. His awesome character development is still there, and yay science and everything, but he was such a great blind character and I was sorry to lose that in this book.

I’ve read a lot of criticisms about the ending of this book, which is also the ending of the series. Without any spoilers, they boil down to a complaint that it’s unrealistic, but honestly I don’t mind it. It’s the ending I wanted, and honestly the ending I would have written if this were my book. Reminder, it’s a retold fairy tale. Actually, four retold fairy tales. A little unrealistic is okay. I also don’t mind the decision Cinder makes in the end, because I think it fits with her character, and it’s not like she’s going to do it all at once or even right away.

I’m not saying this book is perfect, because Cress is perfect and Winter certainly has some flaws. But this is also one of those series that I get really frustrated when people nitpick it because I love it so much and why can’t people just like things anymore?

Anyway, I don’t want to say more about the ending because this is a spoiler-free review. I’m happy to talk more about the ending in the comments if you want, just please remember to tag any spoilers to protect anyone who hasn’t read Winter yet.

The last time I reread this series (during the fall of my first year of law school, I think), I said that this is one of those series where each book is better than the last. I think it still says that on my goodreads reviews for these books. I think I’d amend that opinion now though. The series certainly gets better and better as you read on. I love all the characters, and I love getting new characters with each book. It’s a format I was uncertain about when I started Scarlet, but Marissa Meyer pulls it off really well. I also love how all the books connect, and we see different characters in different roles throughout the series (like how Cress is kind of the fairy godmother in Cinder’s story and Cinder is one of the dwarfs in Winter’s story). I love the world building, particularly the disability representation I talked mostly about in my review of Cress, and in general these books make me so happy.

But I wouldn’t say that each book is better than the last. I think Scarlet suffers from sticking a little too closely to the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, which takes a lot of suspense away for the reader. And I think Winter suffers from being the last book in the series and trying to cram so much into one book. Cress is probably my favorite, followed by Cinder, then Winter, then Scarlet.

But they are all fantastic books, and I love them all. The Lunar Chronicles is one of those series that I reach the end of and just want to turn around and start again at the beginning. It was a really great series to reread while studying for the bar, because it really did take me to a whole new world.

I’m really curious what you think of Winter and the series as a whole, so let’s chat in the comments.

And that’s it for the books I read in June. Woot! I’ll be back tomorrow with a quick reading roundup post, and then it’s on to July.

Code Girls Review

So far I’m keeping up with all the things I need to do in August. I’m moving right along on the packing, the writing, the setting up of moving day and utilities for my new apartment, and the furniture shopping. There’s still a lot to do: I’m pretty much ignoring the Massachusetts section of the bar which I’m supposed to take on my own some time this month (surprise! Another test!), and I have a bunch of people I’d like to see before I move. But in the meantime, we are speeding through the books I read in June. Soon we’ll be into July, which seems a more acceptable level of behind—as long as it’s still August.

Cover of Code Girls by Liza MundyThe second-to-last book I read in June was Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II by Liza Mundy.

Side note: Has anyone else noticed a pattern of subtitles for nonfiction starting with “the untold story of?” I’ve now read three books with subtitles like that this year, and it’s starting to feel redundant.

Anyway, Code Girls tells the story of the hundreds of women recruited during World War II to break codes for the army and navy. They were recruited from all over the country, from colleges and universities, and from jobs as teachers, secretaries, and housewives. The book follows several groups of these women through their training as code breakers and work on the Japanese codes and of course the German Enigma.

This was a great book. I really enjoyed delving deep into the code breaking machine of World War II and the lives of all these women. It was really impressive, particularly because these women never spoke of their experiences, and their stories are just coming out now.

my one complaint about the book is that it followed too many women. While I enjoyed seeing the broader picture and the variety of jobs women had in the code breaking machine for the army and the navy, I couldn’t keep them all straight in my head. this made it hard to become really invested in these women. On the other hand, if you treat the book as more of a history of the code breaking operations of the U.S. during WWII than the stories of these women’s lives and work during the war, it’s less disappointing. Though based on the subtitle, that isn’t what the author intended this book to be.

On the whole, though, I found this book fascinating, and I would definitely recommend for anyone interested in spies or World War II.