Rated Sunset and Jericho 10/10
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Rated Somewhere in France 6/10
If the relationship had occurred differently and if the pacing were tightened, I think I would have liked this book quite a bit. I’ve been reading and watching a lot of WWI and WWII content set in England lately, and I am interested for reasons I don’t yet fully know. Robson has a great love for historical subject matter, and it shows. Her insights into period details are very, very good, and the descriptions of the hospital and the war feel true, even coming from semi-naive Lilly. There’s an excellent book floating around in here, but as it stands, Somewhere in France is merely adequate.<br><br>(My full review appears at <a href="http://persephonemagazine.com/2014/02/book-review-somewhere-in-france-by-jennifer-robson/">Persephone Magazine</a>.)
Wants to read How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back
Rated The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine 8/10
This was a pretty good follow up to the first one. It is short and it's mostly plot, with some kind of twist coming almost every chapter. Definitely more idea based than character based, although there are a few different viewpoint characters. I'm not sure if there needs to be a third one.
This was really great. Smart, interesting, accessible, but not dumbed-down. Definitely recommend.
Rated Silver Lining / UNIT: The Coup [Promo] 6/10
More of a 3.5, but I'm rounding down. The UNIT story is more of a jumping off point for further UNIT stories and isn't overly captivating on its own. The Bernice Summerfield story, on the other hand, does well with the short format and has a lot of humor as well.
Rated Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI 8/10
I learned about this book because of the Lily Gladstone movie from a few years ago. Usually when a movie or show is based on a book, I try to read the book first. I can imagine how this book could be made into a dramatic movie, but hopefully sticks close to the book. I was glad to zip along through it because it was written in a very approachable way, not dry at all unlike many non-fiction books written about historic events/tragedies against Brown people.<br/><br/>When the who and how came about, I didn't quite realize it, though, because it was rather abrupt without a lot of flourish. Not to mention, there were still (I forget how many but maybe) 100 pages left! I was increasingly annoyed at the penultimate chapter because it spent so much time on the FBI agent who closed the case, Tom White. It got a little excessive, in my opinion.<br/><br/>The final chapter, though, was both great and terrible. It covered a lot of details outside of the main ones White had closed. It was all so infuriating in the mindblowing racism and genocidal behavior that I was glad it was all put into one chapter at the end. If it had been added throughout the book, I would've had to keep putting it down from blinding anger. Many many MANY more people should've ended up in prison than the one who did. What an embarrassing lack of justice.<br/><br/>I look forward to one day catching the movie and comparing it to the historical facts.
Rated Spread Me 8/10
Pretty weird and well written. It's short which works well for the story as it didn't need to be longer. I feel like some people might like this a lot more than I did.
Rated The Doorman: A Novel 8/10
This is a lot of fun, has interesting details about the fancy building that the 'main' (there is another couple of viewpoints too, but kind of one main one) viewpoint character works at as a doorman. Characters are well developed and the plot is interesting and has a surprising ending. I read another book by this author in July and it was pretty good too.
Rated The Son 8/10
Some dark Scandinavian crime, mostly a revenge story -- some gruesome murders but also some heroism on the part of some of the characters, some twists and turns and I think a bit of a tie-in to one of the author's previous books.
Rated Trail of Lightning 10/10
This was a lot of fun. I was late to reading it because it looked a little bit like a somewhat formulaic YA book with the prickly heroine, but it has enough to distance itself from most of the similar books and I liked the combination of future post-apocalypse with indigenous mythology.
Rated Hamnet 6/10
I got on a very long wait list for this book after I kept hearing an Oscar-nominated film was based on it. I'm into some historical fiction and I thought it would be an interesting POV from Shakespeare's wife for a change, even though maybe/probably most of it was fiction hung up on a handful of facts.<br/><br/>A relatively slim novel, it took me a while to get through it still. I have to say that I was disappointed. I kept waiting for maybe a little more colorful writing? Maybe more characterization? I can't quite pinpoint my issue, but I didn't feel I got a whole lot out of it.<br/><br/>I like reading books on which a film is based first, so I'm going to try that at some point, but I'm not racing to find it soon.<br/><br/>YMMV on how wrapped up you get in it as I've read in other reviews.
Rated Lock In 6/10
I'm not sure why I put off reading this book for so long. Somehow the name wasn't attracting me to it. The premise is an interesting mix of mystery and, I'm not sure what it would be called, maybe cyberpunk? That doesn't seem quite right. Futuristic tech misused, at least.<br/><br/>It's a what-if in more than one way. What would happen if terminally-online people were that way not by choice? One character is extreme in that they were never corporeal to begin with in their memory. Humans, of course, find new and innovative ways of hurting and killing each other with people living this way, as always due to (corporate) greed.<br/><br/>It just occurred to me that main character Chris Shane faintly reminds me of Asimov's Daneel Olivaw. Thinking about it further, I suppose the FBI vet he's partnered with, Leslie Vann, perfectly fits as his Elijah Baley. Huh. Except this "Baley" definitely swears! There's also an interesting if maybe a little too peripheral inclusion of an Indigenous Nation and I wonder how they'd feel about it considering how problematic it is for settlers to often commit crimes on their lands while too often not having the ability to deal with it themselves.<br/><br/>At least there's a happy ending involving them and the people locked in. I would be interested in another mystery with Chris or maybe a collection of short stories? Recommended for a nice easy scifi read, light on the sci.