
What I’m listening to now: The Hollow Boy by Jonathan Stroud

This is so good. I can’t put it down.
This is the second knitting book club pick. A few folks have already finished it, so I’ve heard a little bit about it. Im very excited to start it. I am still working on the same pair of socks.
This one leaves off where the first one stops. We meet Joy turned Sydney on a beach in Mexico. Her days are pretty much still the same until Mulberry turns up and offers her and Blue, her dog, a job. She accepts and starts some training. From here, she finds herself in another mystery.
This one was fine, I guess. Sydney has a bit of a temper and she’s not great at planning, so this novel is pretty predictable. There were elements of this story that felt… too easy and stereotypical? There are elements of the Mexican plot that felt a little like they’d come from a fever dream of someone who has never been to Mexico and only read negative headlines. There were no twists in this one that I didn’t see coming. The ending was fine, but meh. I will be listening to the third book, but we’ll see when I get to it.
The tiktok that introduced me to these books promised me a main character who was smart, capable, and interesting. And so far I’m sold. The book opens with Joy Humboldt, barista, at work until a run in with a customer leads her to becoming Joy Humboldt, ex-barista. From here, she gets a new job as a dog-walker and is dropped into a murder investigation when one of her clients turns up dead. She does a little poking around on the side and ends up in the middle of a messy plot that is way above her pay grade. I liked Joy, I liked the mystery. There was at least one twist I didn’t see coming. I definitely will be starting the next of the three novels!
I joined a knitting group last summer and many of us like to listen to audio books while we knit, so now we’re also a book club! Our first book is Julie Clark’s The Last Flight. And my knit right now is a pair of socks.
My friend Maureen sent me a tiktok from the author and I knew immediately that I wanted to check these out!
What is there to say about this that hasn’t already been said? It was SO GOOD. I tore through it. The Iron Widow herself was wonderful. Her rage felt so real. Her love interests were both really compelling and I enjoyed getting to know them as she did. The gigantic qi-run killing machines were everything I wanted them to be. And the ending! I look forward to the next installment in this series!
This memoir is about a time in Alan Cumming’s life when he was learning about his mother’s father for an ancestry tv show and reckoning with his own father and abuse he suffered as a child. In the tale, he is confronted with the possibility that he may not be the son of the man who had raised him. It is upsetting. And it is also very, very touching and a little bit heartwarming and funny. The audio book is read by Cumming, which is excellent. The book is structured in sections and it goes from “Then” stories when he is talking about his childhood and early adulthood and “Now” sections, where he is talking about the present and preparing for the ancestry TV show. I liked the going back and forth. This was a thoughtful and poignant read and I am so glad I finally got to it.
Our mom picked this up at half price books on actual CD to listen to in the car!