Books of 2020- Installment #15

71. The Summer of Kim Novak by Hakan Nesser and translated by Sashia Vogel

I had heard this was an amazing story and while I can't remember what they said, it intrigued me and I put it on hold at the library. This book is a bit old (aka pre-#metoo movement) and written by an older-than-me man, which quite frankly is not what I'm super interested in reading anymore. Still, I read it, and it was fine if a little misogynistic... until it wasn't. There was this moment in the book when I went, "Oh, this isn't what I thought it was." And that's cool! The misogyny is still there (and I'm absolutely sure the author would bristle at that description so take that with a grain of salt) and certain elements that I found a bit ho-hum remained but it was definitely interesting and I was surprised by a difference between Swedish law and American law, namely that they have a statute of limitations on murder! Blew my mind!

72. Storm Front by Jim Butcher and read by James Marsters 

So I read Peace Talks earlier this year and that gave me a hankering for more Harry Dresden, so back to the beginning but this time with the dulcet voice of James Marsters whispering in my ear! I can't say Storm Front is my all time favorite Harry book, but I feel like that's awesome because it means the series has only gotten better and better!!!

73. Crudrat by Gail Carriger and read by Jay Daniel Sawyer and a full cast

I love The 5th Gender and when I stumbled on this audiobook set in the same universe, I had to check it out. It's only available as an audio and the cast is great. Did I like it like I did The 5th Gender? No, they are doing radically different things and are not meant to be like each other. For one this is geared towards a multi-generational audience and that is not true for The 5th Gender!! And it's telling the story of the poor and not the rich. That made it quite interesting if not what I was looking for.

74. Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline and read by Michelle St. John

OMG! Wonderful!! Love this world- maybe not the danger of the rougarou but the characters and their lives and loves. And I don't think I can overstate how awesome it was listening to Michelle St. John narrate this book!! Awesome!! I 100% want to dive into more Cherie Dimaline books because oh, boy! Awesome!!! A woman, Joan, fell in love with an incredible man, Victor, and something disrupts their lives, sending Joan on a journey to get her love and life back. Loved it!!

75. The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Lady Astronaut series continues! I love this alternative history series. Yeah, sure it's apocalyptic but the problem-solving in it is so delightful!! Love it and love the combating of the misogyny and racism in this book. Add in that she wrote this before our year of the plague and she has a polio outbreak- wow! Fascinating! And you know one of the things I have found so challenging about our plague is that it seems like no one (in the general public) understands viruses and no one with the understanding is getting a good platform to explain them to people. This outbreak was a reinforcement of that for me. viruses don't leave your body and how they impact one person is NOT how they impact everyone! What a virus does to your body in week one isn't the same was what it does to your body later on. Acting like a fever is all you have to worry about is ridiculous!!!

I've read 75 books and 58 were by woman, 14 were by men, 2 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 8 1/2 were translations. My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #14

66. Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

This book was very melancholy and took awhile for me to get into. Hello, Pandemic! I would say it was interesting look into the psyche of a pregnant high schooler- well, the summer after high school.

67. More than Maybe by Erin Hahn

This was right up my alley! A fun high school romance with lots of great music thrown in! 

68. Again, Again by E. Lockhart

This high school romance (what's up with three in a row?!?!?!?! That doesn't sound like me at all!!!) was billed as a multiverse romance and I guess so. But it didn't work for me. At all. There were things I found interesting but overall, it felt more like the author's rough drafts to me. Like she couldn't quite bear to let those options go even though they weren't what she ultimately settled on for her characters. That said though I looooooooooooooooved the art discussions throughout the book and that was fantastic. Sign me up for more that that!

69. Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

The book was on my TBR since I learned of it right before its release and for various reasons I didn't get it until now. It was so weird and relatable all at the same time. The narrator's voice feels so real that I feel like the author had this experience and just wrote it down as a fiction because that's the only way people would buy it. Otherwise they would say, "Dude! What were you smoking?" And I am sure that's ass-backwards but my point is it was vivid!!!! I felt like I was there in that modular home watching it unfold in front of me, the smell of the cigarettes wafting around me. The jingle of the fancy dancer echoing in my brain!! Wow!

70. Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

This is a continuation of the Greenhollow Series. Silver in the Wood was amazing and I was so excited to read this. I had deleted the ending in my mind and so was a little surprised by what was happening at the beginning of this story. It's a funny experience when you realize you altered a book to be more of what you wanted! 

I've read 70 books and 55 were by woman, 12 were by men, 2 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 7 1/2 were translations. My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.