Rated Detransition, Baby 8/10
<div>Though sometimes the dialogue came off a bit more like a monologue than a conversation, the book is a good one. More messy, complicated queer stories that aren't necessarily tragedies, please. I can understand why some maybe did not enjoy the ending, but life doesn't have tidy resolutions, so for me, it worked.</div>
Wants to read Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist
Rated Gasoline Heart 10/10
A very real, short book of poetry celebrating the messy, the loud, the queer, the black, the up and down mechanics of survival. Enjoyed this and regret taking too long to read it.
Rated Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules 6/10
Rated Swamplandia! 10/10
I can't believe it took me 10 years to read this. I'm so glad I finally did. What an interesting, innovative book.
Rated Everything Beautiful Began After 10/10
Let me be clear from the start: Simon Van Booy has written an extraordinary novel. Everything Beautiful Began After is both a stolen kiss and the aching memory of the best stolen kisses. It is about adoration, grief and – my number one literary wheelhouse – the chronically lonely. If there is one book published this year that you read, let it be this. <br><br>(My full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2011/08/everything-beautiful-began-after-by.html">Glorified Love Letters.</a>)
Rated Doctor Who: Battlefield 8/10
A really solid Doctor Who tale made imaginatively better because I know my gal Jean Marsh plays Morgaine in the televised version. I read this aloud to my 9 year old son, a few pages at a time most nights, and we both enjoyed it.
Rated Losing Clementine 8/10
What a nice surprise this book is. When I began reading it, I wasn't so sure about it. The narrator, Clementine Pritchard, seemed to speak as though she were trying to show off how clever she is, and at times, it comes off a bit strained. However, that strained cleverness does have an underlying point — Clementine is very, very sad and tired of life, and making jokes keeps her functional. She's decided to spend a month getting her affairs in order, and then she's going to kill herself. Each chapter is titled with how many days she has left to go. Eventually, I settled into her voice and her situation, and the interesting thing about the book is that I found myself not necessarily rooting for her life one way or the other. When it comes to a subject as touchy as suicide, that's an interesting mental space in which to be.<br><br>(My full review appears on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2013/02/losing-clementine-by-ashley-ream.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated Fathermucker 8/10
Fathermucker is a quick-but-satisfying read, and certainly one with which less-uptight parents will identify. The question of "Is Stacy having an affair?" propels us to the very end, and it goes for self-deprecation over melodramatics. Olear makes us consider the definitions of honesty and identity within our day-to-day life, and I am officially a fan.
Rated UNIT: Brave New World 1: Seabird One 6/10
<div>Just ok. If it were very on sale, I would be interested in the next installment to see if it finds its legs, but I am not in a hurry.</div>
Rated Piranesi 10/10
<div>I knew almost nothing about this book, other than "People say it's good," and it is! And I suggest going in with very little knowledge. Let the House reveal itself to you. Beautiful, amazing work.</div>
Rated The Complete Johnny Nemo 6/10
Not really for me, but there were a few funny bits, especially the bizarro Bing Crosby story.
Rated Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes 10/10
I confess a weakness for the most brilliant person in the room. People who are great at what they do, whatever their “thing” may be, are my favorites. Excellence is dead sexy, especially when it comes to intelligence and the desire to improve. For this reason, I'm interested in the character of Sherlock Holmes.<br><br>Oh, sure, he's maddening to deal with — abrupt, insensitive, and distant at times — but the skill with which he gathers and assesses information is why his character has endured since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created him in 1887. In <i>Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes</i>, Maria Konnikova examines what goes into Holmes' process, the way he can block out all other distractions in order to solve his cases, and how ordinary people can use these skills in their everyday life.<br><br>(Read the rest of my review at <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2013/12/mastermind-how-to-think-like-sherlock.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated Gallifrey: Lies 8/10
I enjoyed this very much and was glad to hear the first Romana in the Doctor Who world again. <spoiler>Getting an answer as to why Romana regenerated seemingly on a whim that first time, was good to hear. After long last!</spoiler>
Wants to read Breeze Felt at Moonrise
Rated Torchwood: Goodbye Piccadilly 10/10
<div>A fun one.</div>
Rated Threads of Empire: A History of the World in Twelve Carpets 7/10
<div>Rugs and textiles in general are not my usual field of interest, but I AM interested in dissecting periods of history through a less typical lens, so this was an interesting read, even though sometimes I glazed over a bit. Admittedly, I read a Netgalley ARC of this that did not yet have the photos included, so I was probably not fully grasping the details. Armstrong does an adequate job pointing out how colonization and weaving have been interlinked, while also pointing out that certain types of rugs' popularity are often dictated by those colonial forces in ways that we might not realize. I definitely learned some things about a part of the world I'm less familiar with.</div>
Rated Stop Me If You've Heard This One 8/10
<div>Really liked this. Cherry is an endearing mess, and the story about figuring out who you are and what you want is a good one. </div>
Rated Lanark 8/10
<div> is one of the wildest, most ambitious books I've ever read. Sort of set in Glasgow, also set in the Glasgow-like city of Unthank, the story is so many things at once. It's a disillusioned youth losing grip on his sense of reality, it's a surreal Vonnegutian descent into bureaucratic hell, it's an allegory for the slum tenements destruction in '70s, but also the oncoming storm of the corporate '80s.The references and acknowledgements sections are handled in perhaps the most inventive way I've ever seen. Not everything holds up since its publishing in 1981, but I hope more dedicated people than me have written papers on this weird, perpetually interesting book.</div>