Of Literary Nature

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Game Changer - extremely mediocre. The two halves of the couple make very awkward conversation over the food service counter a few times and then oops! They're having amazing sex and are deeply in love. What do they see in each other? No idea really, there's not much personality to either besides "hot" and "nice." The best thing I can say is that this didn't outright annoy me and they were kind of cute. Still, it's not something that Check, Please fanfic hasn't done dozens of times and also better. Hopefully the following books are better?

Emily's Quest - forget the friendships and hijinks, Emily's been left all alone by her friends and unromanced by the boy she likes, so now we get to explore all of her other romances, good and bad! That's it, that's the book. Sigh. At least everyone ends up with the right person in the end.

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow - I made the mistake of buying this on audiobook before I read the first book, which I ended up disliking, and have been avoiding this one ever since. I finally cracked down and ended up not hating this too much? I almost *did* like it once a certain character had been removed from the story. So. I'd say this series is a failure for me (as much as I wanted to like it), but I'd still be willing to try Natasha Pulley again.

Wolf Speaker/Emperor Mage/The Realms of the Gods - very good rereading, though Realms is still my least favorite of the bunch.

Fugitive Telemetry - reread. Firmly of the belief that this should be read between Exit Strategy and Network Effect both for chronological reasons and because it serves as a nice bridge/interstitial murder-mystery piece between the two larger story arcs.

Magic for Beginners - short story collection, much more successful for me than The Book of Love (which I dnf'd pretty early). VERY strange, I can't say I liked all of the stories, but they were at least always weird and interesting. The first story about the Faery Handbag was my favorite, and the second very reminded me fondly of the book Vassa in the Night, which is at least more comprehensibly strange and I recommend. Definitely willing to try another of the author's short story collections.

A Ghastly Catastrophe - a new Veronica Speedwell! This time riffing (very openly) on Dracula, it was fun as always, but perhaps a bit convoluted. I will absolutely keep reading these as long as she keeps putting them out - I hope we see more of Lady Julia and her husband in the future, they were delightful but very underused in this one.

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes - meh? Irritated by both the fact that my audiobook switched narrators at this point, and that Doyle decided to try more writing in third person - which isn't bad, btw, but its far too late to be changing things around. Also devastated to discover that The Sussex Vampire has nothing to do with K Addison's "The Surrey Vampire.' She really missed an opportunity there :(

The Sword of Kaigen - been nervous for this one after disliking Blood Over Bright Haven, but I'd already bought the audiobook. I liked this one more, for sure, but it felt a lot messier. I found Misaki's character arc very compelling (and Mamoru - that ending did great things for Misaki, but I'm not sure it was a satisfying arc for his story after all of the time we spent with him?), but the worldbuilding to me felt very disjointed and the larger narrative/plots hinted at beyond the immediate focus of the village were intriguing but unsatisfactorily explored. I think there's a spark of something great here, so I'll probably give the author another chance if something sounds interesting.

The Raven Tower - reread #3, first time in print. I think I like this more as an audiobook, but the great thing about reading this in print is that you have the ability to really stop and think and puzzle over all of the little details. Which god are they actually speaking to? How is this statement both the truth and a lie? Which version of the story is real? I admit that even as a third time reader that the worldbuilding is complicated and it is hard to get into the story, but it's so very worth it.

The Haunted Hotel - have been feeling a little too intimidated to jump back into classics with a full novel, so started with this shorter Wilkie Collins work that Hoopla had on audiobook and sounded like a neat mystery. Alas, the description was *very* misleading and this was mostly ominous vibes with a dash of the supernatural and a woman being driven mad by guilt. Would not recommend.

Clockwork Boys/The Wonder Engine - the completionist in my brain wouldn't let me start the Saint of Steel series without doing the entire World of the White Rat set in the proper order, so I finally cracked and spent some credits for these on audio. 1) no idea why these were split into two books, it really is just one, 2) so I'm very glad that I'd taken the plunge and gotten both of them so I could read them back-to-back, 3) fun!!!! Absolutely definitely the most fun of all the non-reread books I read this month. Extremely delighted to find a second character with magic sneezes and an endless supply of handkerchiefs.

The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel - a solid adaptation! I missed the beauty of Maggie's writing and the charm of Will Patton's audiobook narration, but as an adaptation overall I'd call this pretty good - definitely a more than decent way to speed-run through the plot of the first book. I could quibble with a few of the design choices, but overall the art was beautifully done and I loved to look at it. TRC isn't my favorite of Maggie's series, so I'll be interested to see how I feel about the adaptations of the rest of the series.