Quick Review: Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Nova a.k.a. Nightmare and Adrian a.k.a. Sketch are two powered people in a world full of prodigies, people with super capabilities. The Renegades are a group of vigilantes that emerged following the breakdown of society who have gone legit. But, of course, villains from the time before still lurk in shadows.

Sketch is a member of the Renegades. He is a true believer in justice and he’s assembled a sweet little crew of equally thoughtful and good crime fighters. He has a very strong moral center but he seems a little naive and unaware of everything going on in his orbit.

Nova has a few reasons to hate the Renegades. They’ve made promises they haven’t kept. She is smart and funny and has very strong beliefs about freedom and self-determination. Although, she may be putting her faith into folks who she shouldn’t. So, what happens when these two collide in this world where there is a lot of unacknowledged grey between the black and white?

I found this audio book entertaining. Sketch and Nova are fun characters and I liked the world building. You can see the inner turmoil and heavier themes of the novel (what is justice? why do we have governments? Who gets to decide how we live?) but there was a lot of set up in this book. There was action and drama, but I feel like the bigger story is being saved for the sequels. The big twist at the end was not really all that twisty and the reveal was a little bit meh. I liked this, don’t get me wrong, and I’ll probably read the next one, but this isn’t likely to make the Year end Top 5. It also ended a bit abruptly for my tastes. Maybe I’ve been watching too many K-dramas and I’ve gotten too used to a final episode that’s just fluff and tying up ends. This book is Rebecca Soler and Dan Bittner; they did an excellent job. So, this one is an okay from me. I’d give it a B. We’ll see how I feel after the next one.

Quick Review: Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade (Read by Isabelle Ruther

Y’all, this story was adorable. April Whittier is a geologist who writes fan fic in her spare time. Her favorite OTP are Aeneas and Lavinia from a series turned television show called Gods of the Gates. Marcus Caster-Rupp plays Aeneas on the television show. He has the reputation of being hard-working, very pretty, but very dumb. So, no one would know he has a secret. He also writes Lavinia-Aeneas fan fiction. April and Marcus meet online and have a wonderful friendship, never knowing who the other person is behind the screen.

Then April posts a picture of herself and Marcus gets tagged by a bunch of asshole fanboys who are making fun of a fat cosplayer. Marcus wants to make it clear that he’s not on their side, so he follows April and then asks her out. Their first date is bland and Marcus is able to get a second date. Then he realizes the woman in front of him is his friend from the fan fiction community. Can he keep that a secret while also trying to woo April? What if she finds out and they break up and she tells the press? That could ruin his career.

This book was fun. It was very touching. It had spicy sex scenes. It had me texting non-sensical things to Beth while I was listening. I really annoyed the character arcs of both April and Marcus. They struggle and grow, both as individuals and together. I really enjoyed this! I can’t wait to dive into the sequel.

Quick Review: The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake

I haven’t been reading as much so it’s a good thing Kate has picked up the slack. I think I mentioned this before during the pandemic but it’s still true. I do most of my reading on my commute. I read at home, yes but not every night. I’ve been working more and more from home and not going into the office as often so I haven’t been commuting So, yeah, it took me a while to read this one. Now that I have finally finished it I don’t know. I’m not sure how I feel about this whole series. The first book was so engrossing and the second was a pretty good sequel but I had trouble with this one. It could have to do with me not reading it consistently as I’m used to. It could be that I realized that most of the characters I kinda stopped caring about or is that I’m not sure what the conclusion of this book ended up being. So, yeah I don’t really have much to say about this book beyond, I finally was able to finish i. Which leaves me kind of sad for a series that I really did like at the beginning.

Quick Review: Yolk by Mary H.k. Choi

Yolk by Mary H.k. Choi

This is the story of Jayne and June Baek. They are two estranged sisters who were once very close. They are completely different people. June, the older sister, has a job in finance and an upscale apartment. Jayne is in school for fashion design and lives in an illegal sublet in Brooklyn. They moved from Seoul to San Antonio, Texas and somehow grew apart. Now they’re in New York City and June startles Jayne with a revelation: she has cancer.

The novel is the story of how these two navigate June’s news and their sisterly conflict. This story was beautiful and it was beautifully written, too. I really enjoyed the dynamic between the two sisters and the slow unfolding of finding out how they first grew apart. The end was very emotional, so keep a box of tissues nearby. But I absolutely loved this and I look forward to reading more things by Mary H.k. Choi.

CW: cancer, possible infertility, disordered eating

Quick Review: Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Nona has only been in her body for six months. Well, it’s not really her body. She lives with her little family, Phyrra, Camilla, and Palamedes and they are trying to help her work out who she actually is. They go to work; she goes to school. A refugee crisis spurned on by decades and decades of war and a solar event make the city they live turbulent and tense. A monstrous blue sphere has appeared in the sky and threatens to kill them all. The story follows Nona and her little family while they solve the mystery of Nona and deal with the ongoing crises around them.

I liked this book, but perhaps not as much as the previous two books. Nona is childlike and sweet and she foreshadows terrible things to come in the next book. I enjoyed the relationships between the main cast of characters and was happy to see returns from previous books in the series. Meh. If this were a standalone, I might not recommend it. But as part of the series, it’s fine. Where the main character of Gideon the Ninth was full of bravado and humor and the main character of Harrow the Ninth was stubborn and (maybe?) insane, Nona is fierce and sweet and that was an interesting departure from previous novels.

This was a fine third installment, but I look forward to the next one.

Quick Review: Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Harrow the Ninth is a sequel and picks up where Gideon the Ninth left off. Harrowhark finds herself a wreck, but in the emperor’s service. She is not well-liked by her colleagues, she has, at best, acquaintance who will keep her around as long as she’s useless, and she lives on a space station that the angry ghost of a planet is heading towards. Her body is also not on-side. How does she survive all this mess?

This was just has fun and engrossing as the prequel. The writing is spectacular and full of little clues to the bigger picture that made it a fun puzzle to work through. These are really enjoyable reads and I can’t wait for the next one.

Quick Review: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

So, Gideon is a trained warrior and orphan in the House of the Ninth on a resurrected planet in a resurrected galaxy and she just wants to get out and join the army. You know, do something with her life instead of finding herself wasting away on a planet full of people who don’t care about her. But then her plan goes to hell and she ends up having to be the swordswoman to her childhood nemesis, the necromancer Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrow, and the heads of all other houses, have been invited by the emperor to undergo trials and join him. If Harrow can beat the trials, she becomes immortal and can join the emperor. Gideon isn’t keen on this, but she’s promised her freedom if she helps.

This book was so freaking enjoyable. I couldn’t put it down. I had so many questions that I had to keep listening in hopes of finding out answers. Gideon is delightful. She’s smart and funny and just a wonderful character. I was so into it.

I’m glad so many people recommended this and I can’t believe I waited so long to pick it up!

Quick Review: Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

Y’all, this book is so cute. I absolutely loved it. Chloe Brown decides she needs to get a life and become the badass adventurous woman she was meant to be. So, she makes a list of things she needs to do in order to achieve this goal. The first thing on the list is move out of the family home and into her own place. Which of course she does and that’s where she meets Redford Morgan, the building manager/artist/beauty/lovely guy. But, Chloe has fibromyalgia and on high pain days, she has a short fuse and, of course, that is always when she runs face first into Red.

Red is an artist and used to be out there, showing his work, and making waves. But he’s been hiding for a bit after a bad breakup back in his hometown working for a friend. He paints at night and he wonders if he’ll ever feel ready to get his work back out into the world.

I loved both the main characters in this. They both had really great individual arcs and their romance was heart warming and also hot. This is a 2 chili pepper book. I bombed my way through this while it snowed outside. The audio book is read by Adjoa Andoh, who really brought the text to life.

So, if you like novels that involve personal growth and heartwarming and a little spicy romance, give this a try.

Review: Starter Villain by John Scalzi

This book was so funny. I listened to the audible ebook narrated by Wil Wheaton and it’s just perfection. Charlie has had a string of bad luck. He was laid off from his journalist job and now working as a substitute teacher. He’s divorced and his father just recently died. He is living in his families home that his siblings want to sell. Things are not great. Then his estranged Uncle died and he’s thrown in the world of villains. He founds out that his Uncle may have had a legit business of owner parking lots but his real business was being a villain and messing up the plans of other villains. Charlie is now a head of his Uncle’s business and with cat spies and talking dolphins. He’s a bit over his head. Even more so when a group of other villains want him to join their group or he’ll lose everything.

This is book is ridiculous in all the best ways. His cats Hera and Persephone are spies that were sent to watch him and can communicate with specialize keyboards. The dolphins that guard his Uncle’s volcano island lair want to unionize. Charlie is funny and grounded. He takes everything with an awe and WTF reaction that is appropriate in situations like this. While everyone underestimates him, he outwits all of them with his knowledge and journalistic experience to dismantle his rivals in one fell swoop. To say this book was enjoyable that I was so sad when it was over and there isn’t a sequel. I forgot what it’s like to read a standalone book. Go read the book or listen to the Audible. You will not be disappointed.

Quick Review: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

I don’t remember adding this to my waiting-list-queue this summer and I didn’t remember what it was about when I checked it out from the library. But, I really enjoyed it so, good job, Past Kate on book selection!

Casey Fletcher is a character actor with two famous parents, a recently deceased husband, and a life made for tabloid fodder. Following an incident where she’s caught toasting the paparazzi with a double manhattan and getting fired from the play she is in, her mother banishes her to the family vacation home on Lake Green in Vermont. This is the worst place for her to be banished to alone as it is where her beloved husband was found dead a little more than a year before. One morning after arriving, she notices something in the lake and realizes she’s seeing someone drown. She rescues former supermodel/current philanthropist Katherine Royce. Katherine and her husband tech bro husband Tom have recently bought the house across the lake. Everything gets weirder and spookier from there.

This novel was part Rear Window, part ghost story, and part murder mystery in the best way. There were mysteries to solve and unexpected twists. This was a really entertaining novel. If you like unreliable narrators, not being sure whose side you should be on, and satisfying twists, I’d say give this a go.