Category Archives: reviews

Review: Readme.txt by Chelsea Manning

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So, here are things that I knew about Chelsea Manning before reading this book:

  • She is a transwoman who was in the US military during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
  • She leaked some documents
  • She went to prison for leaking some documents

But, I knew there was more to the story than those things so when her memoir came up in my recommendations, I thought it would be a good idea to check it out. Manning narrates the audiobook, and hearing her story in her own voice made it feel very personal. She discusses growing up in Oklahoma, realizing she was trans, and the problems that caused for her at school and at home (although she didn’t come out as trans for a long time.) She talks about being interested in computers and finding a community. She talks about coming out. She talks about being homeless. She talks about struggling with being trans and how the army, with its enforced masculinity, was part of an effort to change something about herself. She also discusses at length her ideals, what brought her to join the military, and what eventually brought her to share classified documents with Wikileaks. The memoir then discusses her time in prison and the military trial that initially gave her a 35-year prison sentence. This was later commuted by President Obama before he left office in 2017.

I liked how Manning’s humanity is always front and center in this memoir. I mean, as a memoir, how else would it be? But still, as someone who doesn’t have a lot of interaction with military personnel, this reminder that they are individuals with their own problems, concerns, and ideas. I also learned a little bit about how intelligence gathering works, which was at times interesting and appalling. Thinking about what kind of information the government can and does track about people, for various reasons is something that I’m going to be considering for a long while.

I think transparency and a knowledgeable public are important for our democracy, and looking around the world today, with the US in the middle of a Presidential election and ongoing conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine (And Sudan and Congo and many other places where my attention hasn’t already been drawn), thinking about what America’s role is on the world stage and how information and the public back home is managed is important. I am glad that I read this, even if it was at times a very difficult read. Her time in prison and the descriptions of solitary confinement were brutal.

So, if you are interested in contemporary American history and would like to hear about it from someone who was involved, this is worth the read. But, go into it knowing that there are descriptions of solitary confinement, homelessness, war crimes, and mentions of suicide.

Review: World War Z by Max Brooks

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Another excellent selection from my public library. This is a re-read for me. I listened to the audio, which I remember being spectacular when it first came out. Then I remembered the movie coming out and hearing disappointing reviews, so I skipped it. The book is written as an oral history about a dozen years after global victory in the great zombie war. All kinds of people are interviewed and they share their stories about the early days and their first encounters, the trajectory of the outbreak, various wilderness situations, management, government, victory, surrender. It’s a really fun piece of zombie fiction.

I picked it up again recently because I ended up watching the film recently. I know it’s a cliche that the book is always better than the movie, but here it’s true. The movie uses some of the book as background for just your bog-standard dude-works-hard-and-finds-the-key-to-save-the-day story. He’s a real hero. Boring. The book, on the other hand, is full of regular people sorting themselves, their families, and their communities out. It’s young adults telling you about their lost childhoods, people who made tough choices and maybe saved some of humanity trying to make sense of it all. It’s people running government agencies that never needed to exist before now. It’s billionaires being monsters. The book really is something; an interesting twist on the zombie apocalypse. The text is a little dated, but reading it post pandemic makes it eerily real in some ways. There’s panic, misinformation, deniers, true believers… it all feels a little familiar. This isn’t my first zombie fiction in an endemic Covid world, so I had some expectation of what would be the most upsetting about it. I thought, perhaps, it would be loads of people getting sick but, no, it turns out watching people disregard and endanger others is what did it for me. Because this is written after the main events being described, you don’t get the immediacy of having to watch a character die because someone else made a terrible choice.

So, if you like oral histories, zombies, and knowing that there’s some kind of happy ending, this is for you.

Review: Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi

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This was such a great trilogy. I am curious to see how it turns into a movie or TV series. I know the rights have been sold and Tomi is involved in the script. Zelie has been through so much and honestly wouldn’t have faulted her for giving up but of course she didn’t. Nor did her brother and friends. At the end of the last book, the Maji were successful in overthrowing the king but then overtaken by the Skulls from across the sea. King Baldyr has been hunting Maji’s because he needs the one to help him achieve Godhood. We all know this is Zelie. She escapes but not before he implants in her gold medallion that changes her powers. She has a vision that she must find the other magical person Baldyr needs. Another woman from a mysterious nation, New Gaia. Mae’e is a great addition to the books. I liked her stoicism and fire. I know that might not make sense but it’s true. It was nice to see an expansion of the world but we did sacrifice what was going on in Orisha since most of the action was happening elsewhere. The other criticism I have that the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I wanted it to be. I feel the epilogue could have given a little bit more. Other then that I found it to be a fun adventure like the other books. Baldyr is a much scarier villain then the previous king was. The stakes were much higher because the threat wasn’t just to the Maji or Orisha but to New Gaia as well. This was a good series and I am looking forward to what Tomi does next.

Review: The Damned by Renée Ahdieh

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The Damned is the second book in The Beautiful series and it continues some weeks after the end of the first book, so spoilers for The Beautiful ahead.

Celine finds herself in the hospital, Michael Grimaldi by her side, unable to remember how she came to be in the hospital. All anyone would tell her is that there had been a murderer stalking the streets of New Orleans and he would have taken her life if Michael hadn’t saved her. But, all her memories of the incident and some from the time before are just gone. Her doctor says that it isn’t uncommon for people with head injuries to forget things, and her memory may return in some time. Of course, we know where her memories have gone and have no expectation that she will ever get them back.

Bastien wakes above the restaurant Jacques’, surrounded by the other members of the Court of Lions, a vampire. And he is angry about it. He is made even angrier to find out that Celine has traded her memories and possible future with him to save him. Bastien hears of someone who may be able to unmake him and he becomes obsessed with the possibility of not being a vampire again.

Émilie, still consumed by rage, waits for any sign that she has succeeded in killing her brother and ending Nicodemus’s bloodline. Obviously, that would be delightful, but there is a possibility, she knows, that Nicodemus would have turned his nephew. And if he did, that is also to her advantage because she can use it to stoke the war between the Fallen and the Brotherhood.

So, we have Celine, trying to recall everything she has lost, Bastien struggling to come to grips with his new life, Michael Grimaldi, still in love with Celine and fawning over her in Bastien’s absence, a scheming werewolf still on the prowl, and to that we add newly engaged Pippa, and a whole bunch of scheming fey, just waiting to cause chaos. And chaos there is. This was also a quick read, even at 401 pages. Can Bastien come to accept himself? Can Celine recall her lost past? What other secrets will be exposed? This book was a good time. We learn more about the fey Otherworld in this book and we continue to watch our main characters grow and change. We learn more about the other members of the court, getting some more backstory on Madeleine, Hortense, Jae, Odette, and Arjun.

The end was a bit abrupt, but there are two more books left in the series so I don’t mind a cliffhanger (especially since those books are already out). We do get some resolution, with some storylines tying up so that we can move on. This was a fun read, so I am definitely going to pick up the next one.

I got this one from my local library and that is where I’ll be going for the next one!

Review: The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh

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Celine Rosseau has fled Paris for New Orleans, in hopes of starting a new life. She’s running from a secret that weighs heavy on her. She begins her life in New Orleans at the Ursuline convent with her new friend Pippa, who has also left things in Europe in hopes of finding a new life.

Unlike some of the other girls who came over on the ship with them, Celine and Pippa don’t have what you might call practical skills. They weren’t governesses, so they aren’t meant for the classroom. They can’t cook or garden. Pippa is a painter and Celine was apprenticed at one of the best ateliers in Paris. So, they are relegated to making little baubles and selling them outside the church to raise money for the orphanage. They hear rumors about a violent murder that has taken place in the city. It must have something to do with the court, the gossipers say.

While selling her handstitched handkerchiefs, Celine meets Odette Valmont. One of the upper echelons of society, money is no object for Odette. It is carnival season in New Orleans and she needs something absolutely smashing for the masquerade ball. She asks Celine to design a costume for her. Celine, of course, agrees. She has mad fashion skills and it would raise a lot of money for the orphanage. How could she say no?

Celine meets the most beautiful man she has ever seen, Bastien, on the way to take Odette’s measurements. She finds out Bastien and Odette are both members of this mysterious court. And then, of course, there are more murders. Can Celine solve the murders before she becomes a victim? Is Bastien a jerk in a nice suit, or is there something special underneath his gilded exterior.

This was a fun and fast read. Celine is a great main character. She has good energy. She grows through the story. Bastien is good, too. There’s an excellent cast of character surrounding them. The plot is intriguing and includes a mysterious villain who is planning these murders with an ulterior motive. The villain’s chapters are in first person while Celine and Bastien, who both of chapters from their perspective, are written in third person. It was really interesting to see the narrative arc unfold from Celine and Bastien’s point of view and to then get explanations and little details here and there from the villain in the shadows.

There’s a bit of a twist at the end that sets up the second book in the series. I’ve already picked it up from the library, so you know I enjoyed this one.

So, if you like historical fantasy and/or vampires, smart leading ladies, and you’d like to see an interesting twist on New Orleans vampire lore, I’d say check this one out.

Review: Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (read by Suehyla El-Attar)

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This is a novella, around three hours on audio, so it was an evening read. The story follows a group of friends as they prepare for a wedding. The group used to ghost hunt, so it makes complete sense that two of them, Nadia and Faiz, would want to elope at a haunted house. Their friend Phillip, for whom money is not an option, finds an abandoned Japanese manor that is supposed to be haunted by a bride. The ghost bride’s groom was killed on the way to the wedding, the story says, so she decided to have herself buried (alive? I guess?) at the site of the wedding so she can wait for him to show up. The story goes the others have since joined her in the foundations and walls of the manor. As far as places to get married go, this makes sense to me. If this is what you’re into, why not? Faiz, Phillip, and Nadia are joined by Faiz’s best friend Cat (who has recently been hospitalized for depression), and Lin. There is tension in the friend group that comes out as the story unfolds, petty jealousies and the like. To get the party started, they tell ghost stories as they wander the house, which seems to expand in ways that defy logic. There is possession, loss, mayhem, and sadness. It is horror, after all.

This was a fine novella. It was a quick evening read that didn’t ask too much of me. It didn’t have a ton of gore or surprises, but the atmosphere was right. So, give it a go if that sounds interesting to you. If you want something more detailed, scarier, or innovative, give this one a pass.

Review: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu Read by Luke Daniels

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I am definitely a Fantasy girlie and not so much a Sci-Fi. It’s not that I didn’t like listening to this book but I had trouble getting into it. Since I started listening to it, I started and finished three other books. It started out pretty good with scenes of the cultural revolution and then it moved to the modern day and I stopped kind of paying attention. I noticed that points in the book when characters started talking about different scientific theories, I started to space out and then I had to go back because I had no idea what was going on. I think when I finally started to get into it was more than halfway through when Wang was finally starting to get understand how to the play the game. I’m not sure I will read or listen to the other books but I want to watch the TV show. I’m not sure I’ll be rushing to read another sci-fi book anytime soon either.

Review: His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

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Dragons, but set it in the time of the Napoleonic wars, this was so fun. So, this is the beginning of a series and follows Captain Will Laurence and Temeraire as they prepare to defend England from invading French forces. Temeraire is born in the first part of the book and Laurence is a naval captain and not from England’s air defense, so we’re introduced to the world of fighting with dragons as they are. Temeraire is born from an egg that was captured from a French vessel with very little documentation, so he doesn’t even know what kind of dragon he is. So many different types are explored and explained as part of this search (we also get to meet them when Temeraire and Laurence are training and deployed.)

Temeraire is the best. My friend who recommended this book to me said that he has baby boy energy, and she was right. He’s without ego, curious, hardworking, and caring. I only want what is best for him and I love when that happens with a character. Because we learn about the dragon world as he does, I got caught up in his interest in his kind and the world. When he was angry at something, I was angry at something. When he did well, I was proud of him. This first installment ended with an answer to a question and some implied future danger, so I look forward to reading the next one. It was a lovely read.

So, if you like historical fiction with elements of fantasy, dragons, characters with baby boy energy, or any and all of the above, I really recommend this. It was a fun and touching adventure!

Quick Review: Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

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I do love it when the sequel is just as much fun as it’s predecessor. Evie is really in her power. The shocks of the ending of the last book really has made Evie more of sure of who she is. She really is leaning into her evil side. Which could be good or bad depending on who you asks. Evie and the Villain are in a race with the King to fulfill the prophecy. To do that they must find Evie’s mother. For the Villain’s part, he is all for revenge while keeping his feelings for Evie in check. Not so easy. They ups and downs and humor really make this series. The supporting cast is still amazing. We get to know a little bit more about Becky and a new character point of view and really opens up the world so much more. I had so much fun reading the first two books. I can’t wait to read the next one.

Review: Death’s End by Cixin Liu (Translated by Ken Liu)

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This post contains spoilers for the entire Three-Body Problem series by Cixin Liu: The Three Body-Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End. So, tl;dr, if you like taking a long, dark look into the abyss and/or the human soul plus there are space ships, have at this series. If you like rocket ships and clear heroes and villains, and good triumphing over evil, this isn’t your series.

This book starts, of all places, at the Fall of Constantinople. It tells us the story of a prostitute who is able to assassinate even the most heavily guarded people. The end of her story is tragic, of course, but it serves as a fitting preamble to the rest of the book. The prostitute eventually fails because of a passing 4-D fragment in the solar system. We come back to the idea of multiple dimensions and moving between dimensions many times in this book.

So, like with the Dark Forest where we started back in the Crisis Era with the Wall Facer project, we do same with this book. While the Dark Forest followed Luo Ji as he figured out cosmic sociology and how to destroy other star systems, this book mostly follows Cheng Xin, a crisis-era scientist. She is just a regular person who happens to be a physicist when the Trisolaran plot is discovered. She is recruited by Planetary Intelligence. She puts forward an idea in a meeting that seems far-fetched. One way for us to get intelligence about the Trisolarans is to imbed a human in the Trisolaran fleet. This is exactly what her boss, Thomas Wade formerly of the CIA, wants. That’s not her crazy idea, though. Her crazy idea is to use all the nuclear bombs that we have lying around in precisely timed explosions to push a probe up to 1% of lightspeed. She is about to be laughed out of the room by the other scientists when Wade decides they should go for it. Onward, no matter the cost, as Wade likes to say. This becomes the staircase project and it ends up having profound effects on the fate of the whole solar system.

One of Cheng Xin’s friends from school, Yun Tianmeng has always had a bit of a crush on her and is dying of cancer. He unexpectedly receives a big wad of cash and, since he’s dying, he decides to spend it on an extravagant gift for Cheng Xin. He buys her a star, but he makes sure that she isn’t told who bought it for her. Then, he decides to end his own life. Before he can do that, though, Cheng Xin reappears and persuades him to stay alive long enough to become the spy they send to the Trisolarans.

Then we jump forward era to era to era, meeting characters we’ve met before and we follow a dance the Cheng Xin and Yun Tianmeng have with each other across literal centuries. Because of his gift of the star, Cheng Xin is put into a position again where she has tremendous power over the fate of humanity. This could go better, for her and for humanity. Because of decisions she makes, she is given two more chances to massively affect the fate of humanity. We meet Thomas Wade again as he tries to position himself to be a shot-caller. We meet Luo Ji again. There’s a complexity here that is interesting, and even though I said spoilers, I don’t want to be to spoiler-y. Thomas Wade comes off as a selfish-arrogant asshat, but for the whole of humanity, there is a definite argument to be made that he should be a shot-caller. Luo Ji seems pretty sympathetic to Cheng Xin and how love seems to be the principle that drives her, but he can also be a devastatingly effective critic. This book, like the ones before it, revisits over and over again the themes of humanity and love. What does it mean to be human? What will we do for those we love? What will we do to protect those we love? These are, as it turns out, not always fun and uplifting questions. Cheng Xin, Luo Ji, Yun Tianmeng, and the other characters in the book are repeatedly put into positions where there are no good choices and there is no way to stop the suffering. You just maybe get a little bit of say in the kind of suffering.

Another theme that comes up is arrogance. And how choices made in arrogance can way more destructive than choices made from ignorance or weakness. When we assume we’ve learned all we can learn from something, we might miss a detail that could save our lives. And, if you’re like me, you might end up yelling at an audiobook in your kitchen while you make dinner because someone decides, “We don’t know what that is. It’s probably unimportant.” But it is important. I’m still internally screaming.

These books were good, but they were dark. Like, I need some feel-good sci-fi after this. But I can’t wait for Beth to finish the series so we can talk about it. And I love a book that sticks with you. So, if you’re okay with dark, super-long delves into the heart of humanity on a very long timescale, then I recommend these. If you’re looking for a fun little jaunt into space, give this a pass.