June July Book Roundup

[unicornduke]

Weird two months for me reading wise. Leaned heavily on reread audiobooks to help with mood and read a lot of fanfic. I'm on register and listening to the next Murderbot book right now while I spindle spin.

 Read

• The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older - it is fascinating how Older captures the vibe of Sherlock Holmes and Doyle's writing style in a completely different setting and world. It's so cool. Another good mystery, great narrator. Library audiobook
• The Language of Liars by SL Huang - hard scifi, extremely cool alien stuff, really really cool plot, deeply unsettling. library ebook
• Machine by Elizabeth Bear - I will read anything she writes. This was hard scifi, amazing characters and extremely cool plot and ideas. library ebook
• In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune - solid book, I liked how if you know pinoccio, you can see the similarities but the plot and stories go a bit differently. Not necessarily a happy ending book, not sad. Mixed. Enjoyable overall. library audiobook

Reread

• Like Real People Do by EL Massey - it's just nice to read a romance where everyone is trying their best. library audiobook
• Like You've Nothing to Prove by EL Massey - second in the series. library audiobook
• All Hail the Underdogs by EL Massey - third in the series. library audiobook
• All Systems Red by Martha Wells - It's just good. library audiobook
• Artificial Condition by Martha Wells - library audiobook
• Free From Falling by EL Massey - the audiobook isn't out yet :( library ebook
• Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells - library audiobook

DNF

• Black Trans Feminism by Marquis Bey - I suspect this is a book better read with the ability to take notes, not an audiobook, will try again another time. library audiobook
• The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel - good book on fabric production for someone who doesn't know a ton about the various steps or are just getting into it. I wasn't learning anything new and it was mostly making me want to do more crafting which I didn't have time for. I'd recommend it to most people though. library audiobook
• Gravity Lost by LM Sagas - I enjoyed the first one but this one upped the smarm level and it irritated me too much. library audiobook
• Shots on Net by JJ Mulder - listen, you can't just say the trope in the book. You can't! It's not good writing! library audiobook
• The Thousand Names by Django Wexler - I gotta say, Wexler has range. this is so wildly different than all the other books of theirs I've read. The first half of the book is intense 1800s style warfare writing and it's good and compelling to read about how hellish it is and how everyone is trying to survive it. I usually finish a book once I read past the first half but once the characters left the battle and the colonizers won, they became much less interesting and also the romance started to annoy me. I probably should have finished it but I'm feeling very meh on it, so maybe someday I'll come back to it. I also know there's more in the series after and I'm not sure I'm that interested. library ebook

Good Fanfic in the last few months - I've been digging very heavily into Heated Rivalry despite still not seeing the show but at this point, who really needs to. Debating on reading the books because I heard from my friend B that they are only okay. Might give them a try,  I dunno

• A Well Organized Life by 409_conflict - I adored the characterization in this story. 
• It starts in an elevator by Sporkess - great series canon divergence where Iiya and Yuna get stuck in an elevator together
• something you can fix by some1_around - series. I kept away from this fic for a long while because I couldn't handle the outing plot. But holy shit it is so good and really well done. 

Comments

[rmc28]

I like the Rachel Reid books, they are good enough that I've reread them more than once, which puts them well above the majority of hockey romances (m/m, m/f & f/f) I've read. The show is a great adaptation of the first two books and I'm looking forward to season two, and also to the third book, which Reid is currently writing.

[unicornduke]

I'll have to give them a whirl then!