Pick-a-Shelf discussion

What did you read of 2020-releases? Has it prompted you to go for author's backlist or checking when the next book is out this year?

The Year the Maps Changed by Danielle Binks
*****FIVE STARS!*****

Wow i just loved this book so much! Written for teenagers, but very suitable for adults too. Particularly for me being a teenager in Melbourne when this book was set, with a clear memory of the events described. It's a story about a girl called Fred, and her newly blended family living on the Mornington Peninsula. It deals with the tumult in her town when in 1999, Australia took in thousands of refugees from Kosovo.

Used for Trim that TBR
I nominate coming of age

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger 3/4/2021
Five stars
Review: This was a fun read. Elatsoe is an Apache young adult in a slightly stranger America. There are ghosts, vampires, bringing the dead back to life, and other magical paranormal skills. Ellie has a ghost dog that protects her. Her cousin is killed in an automobile accident but Elatsoe doesn't think it was an accident and goes about trying to solve it. I hope there are more stories in this world. I am definitely going to check out more books by this author

Used for: book it February
I nominate: Music

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

I loved Ready Player One and was all set to love this book as well. But what was compelling and funny in the first book felt strained and overburdened here. The author used his best 80s/90s references in the first book, so had to reach for more obscure (and, thus, less nostalgia-inducing) references to fill out this story.

Also, the protagonist in the first book is the underdog fighting his way through. Here, having won fame and riches, the protagonist has become immoral, unlikeable, and lazy. Now the gang is back together, but with none of the scrappiness that made them endearing. And the quest requires assembling seven "shards" which was too many to hold this reader's interest. By about the third shard, I'd lost all interest in the quest and was finding it repetitive.

Wil Wheaton's narration, as usual, is excellent. He's on my list of top narrators and he helped make this middling sequel enjoyable.

Used for: Seriously Serial and Book It March
I nominate own voices

Joanna wrote: "Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

I loved Ready Player One and was all set to love this book as well. But what was compelling and funny in the first bo..."

Ouch! I don't think I will read this then, as I loved Ready Player One, too, and I'm really hesitant when it comes to sequels to books I enjoyed. I don't want them to spoil the first book for me.

Marina (Sonnenbarke) wrote: "Ouch! I don't think I will read this then, as I loved Ready Player One, too, and I'm really hesitant when it comes to sequels to books I enjoyed. I don't want them to spoil the first book for me."

I'd skip it. I wanted to like it so much more than I did. If I didn't enjoy Wil Wheaton so much, I might not have finished it.

The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph

A very quick read, and a moving one, despite it's breezy style. The author tries very hard to share his experiences and help give readers a view into the way that racism permeates so many interactions, while also trying to keep an engaging and personal tone. He reflects on incidents from his past, conducts short interviews with activists and friends, and tries to give an introductory overview to readers of the ways that interactions and history are fraught with biases and racist interactions.

There's no deep analysis here and nothing new to readers who have read any of the other books on similar topics. This would be a good book for someone to read as a first introduction to this area or perhaps for a high school student just beginning to think through some of these issues in more detail. I'm not sure if this is marketed as a young adult book, but it kind of felt like it.

I appreciate the effort of the author to put this book into the world and the emotional work necessary to revisit all of these painful memories.

Used for: Book It March
I nominate: fantasia

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
3.5 stars

This novel set in the 60s tells the story of a newly formed London band. I got very involved with the characters and their story. But the book was very long, and it was slow to read. I think there was too much music stuff i didn't care about. I loved the paranormal aspects that crossed-over to his previous books (The Bone Clocks etc), but wanted more depth in that part.

Used for Let's Book It March
I nominate domestic thriller

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald
4 stars

A collection of short essays about connecting with nature. MacDonald writes about every day interactions with animals in a way that is absolutely magical and beautiful. It didn't pack quite the same punch as H is for Hawk, probably just due to the lack of a singular story, but it was still a great read.

I nominate time travel

Meg wrote: "The Year the Maps Changed by Danielle Binks
*****FIVE STARS!*****

Wow i just loved this book so much! Written for teenagers, but very suitable for adults too. Part..."

ooh, so glad you loved this one! Such a good book.

I read Layla by Colleen Hoover [10-march-21] ★★

This book is about Layla and Leeds. It starts good, but then it gets weird. Too weird for my taste. I didn't like the paranormal twist.

I nominate: high-fantasy

I read A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown

Complicated feelings about this one. Malik is definitely the high point. And who can relate to morally grey characters.

The Exiles : A Novel by Christina Baker Kline
****

I really enjoyed reading this book about female convicts in 1840s Tasmania. It was an emotional and engrossing story. I could have rated it 5 stars, but felt that it was a bit simplistic in some ways, even though that didn't take away from my enjoyment at all.

I nominate translated

Meg wrote: "The Exiles : A Novel by Christina Baker Kline
****
I really enjoyed reading this book about female convicts in 1840s Tasmania. It was an emotional and engrossing st..."

I really enjoyed that one and gave it 4+ stars, too.

I read Eight Perfect Murders and gave it 3.5*.

I enjoyed parts of this story, but I also found the outcome to be a bit predictable...which spoiled it for me. So, although I would have liked to give it 4*, I only recorded 3* since GR does not allow partial points.

It is hard to talk about this book without giving away the ending. Suffice it to say that it is about a list of perfect fictional murders that are carried out.

I read this for Book It and monthly shelf.

I nominate Contemporary

I read Black Sun
Rated it 4 stars. After having very low expectations for this, I am stunned at how great it is. So much so that I;m scared the sequel won't live up to my expectations

June wrote: "I read Black Sun
Rated it 4 stars. After having very low expectations for this, I am stunned at how great it is. So much so that I;m scared the sequel won't live up to my expectations"

I have never read another novel by David Guterson because I heard that his second novel wasn't as good as Snow Falling on Cedars. Despite the less than stellar average rating on GR, that is one of my all time favourite novels and beautifully written, IMO.

And yet I read a second novel by James McBride and loved it, so perhaps one of these days I'll read another Guterson.

I read The Midnight Library
4 stars

There's a library between life and death where you can try every life you might have lived. This book was enjoyable and thoughtful. I had heard so much hype about it, it couldn't possibly live up, but I can see why everyone loves it.

Used for let's book it march
I nominate chick lit

Karin wrote: "June wrote: "I read Black Sun
Rated it 4 stars. After having very low expectations for this, I am stunned at how great it is. So much so that I;m scared the sequel won't live up to ..."

Thanks. It is just so often sequels fail to live up to your own elevated expectations. Will try and be hopeful.

I read Lakewood by Megan Giddings

This is a debut horror novel. Not my go to genre but I was intrigued. Unfortunately I was disappointed with the medical experimentation aspect.

This will be my last post for this month.
Used for Let's book it March

I ended up reading two books published in 2020

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

I loved the Agatha Christiesque style of this mystery and the way the author develops the characters and motives.

A Dark and Stormy Knight by Kerrigan Byrne

This is the most recent installment in a fantastic historical romance series. It's a light and easy romp with appealing characters. If anything, I wish it had been longer.

I nominate Dystopia

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Do you like your characters simple? Do you like them to have either stupid motivations or completely non-believable ones? Do you like completely ridiculous romance with no chemistry? If so, this is the book for you.

Collins is a talented writer with interesting things to say about how people respond to pressure. The original Hunger Games trilogy was somewhat lacking on believable world-building, but did such a great job of creating suspense and clever interactions that I was willing to forgive a lot. Even an ultimately grating which-of-these-men-do-I-love-best quandary from the heroine.

Here, some of those same elements resurfaced, but in less entrancing ways. This book tells the prehistory and (maybe) tries to make up for the somewhat unbelievable world-building of the trilogy. But Collins doesn't actually have a better answer to the Districts/Capitol interaction, and her genesis of the Hunger Games isn't any more satisfying in this book than it was in the original stories.

The actual arena had none of the clever obstacles and no inside perspective, so it just felt like a dull rehashing of the story rather than something fresh. Snow wasn't interesting enough as a character to carry this whole book. And we never got to know Lucy Gray as a fully-formed character, so she made little sense. I never believed that she could actually fall in love with Snow in a way that would extend beyond the Games.

All that said, I'll read more of Collins' work.

The narrator for the audiobook was fine, but not memorable.

Used for Let's Book It March and MM'21
I nominate coming of age

Execution in E by Alexia Gordon
2 stars (the other books were all 3 or 4 stars for me, but this was too dark for my tastes--the others were less so).

Until this book, I have liked this series, even though paranormal is not my cup of tea at all. But this book moves from cozy mystery, lighter-but-intelligent fare to rather darker, and dips into the occult beyond what has come up before. Plus, I am just not keen on the way things are going between the ghost and the protagonist--a bit creepy, IMO

I will also nominate Dystopia

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
2 stars (another disappointing sequel).

Audio performance - 5 stars
Story - 2 stars
Average - 2 stars

Once again, Wil Wheaton has improved the story, but not enough to give this more than three stars. Sure, I was warned by GR friends' reviews that this was a disappointing sequel, which is why I waited for the audiobook to show up at my library just to check it out. Now, had I not had low expectations, I would have enjoyed this far less; as it was, there were moments I enjoyed it.

As many have said, there were too many similarities to the first. To top that off, I am really not a fan of some of the newer things in this novel, and will put some of my complaints in a spoiler at the end. Bear in mind that the first book got 4 stars from me on audio.

The words of a fellow reviewer put this better than I will Nicole D. wrote "Top that off with Ernest Cline wanting to address EVERY. CAUSE. HE'S. EVER. HAD. A. THOUGHT. ABOUT." If you check her review to see more, you'll see she wasn't dissing this, but saying how it was overdone. In my words, it was overkill to the point where there were times where I felt like I was in a lecture hall and not listening to a novel--it completely took me out of the novel, although, to be frank, there were a few other times that happened as well.

In the interests of fairness, I would like to point out that most of my GR friends rated this 3 or 4 stars, but I don't think we're being curmudgeons, just disappointed. For the most part, we rated the first book higher.

I nominate historical fiction

For this month I read The Cousins. I give it 5 stars. I've never read this author but really loved their style of writing. I enjoyed the characters (well, except the ones I was meant to despise) and there was one heck of a plot twist that I did not see coming. And I feel like that doesn't happen nearly enough in my life anymore lol. Will definitely be looking up more from this author.

I nominate Fae .

I read Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener ★

My God, this was tedious. I was aware Wiener was no whistleblower, so I wasn't expecting that, but I DID expect she would say something eye-opening, something I didn't know about the tech industry. Nope. Not a single tiny thing. Wiener just kept complaining about how all the people in tech only want to make more money, how what they do isn't for people but just for business, how they all ultimately suck because they are only interested in money. This description fits her, too, not only her colleagues. She does seem to be aware of that, though. Still, she kept describing things which weren't knew to me - companies watching our every move on the internet and basically stealing our data, extreme intertwining of work and personal life, where you basically have no personal life at all if you work in tech, and so on and so forth. I definitely don't recommend this book. On the contrary, I seriously advice against wasting your time reading it.

*

I used it for Let's Book It March.

I nominate page turner (which this book definitely wasn't).

I read Long Bright River. I gave the book 5 stars for not being able to put it down and for the strong character development and quality of writing. I'm not a thriller reader but this was an exception. I will be reading Liz Moore's backlist.

I read Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women by Lee Murray.

5 Stars!!!



An amazing collection of short stories with horror, fantasy and sci-fi elements that all bring us a glimpse into various cultures and struggles of Asian women. Fantastic!

No nomination this time.

Book: The Summer Deal - 03.23 ★★★★
# Tags: tagged 2020 releases 2 times (2020 release = 5)



Review:
I enjoyed this installment of the series but it did feel a little disjointed at times. Both female MCs could be harsh and off-putting, but I think that's what makes them feel real. There was definitely a lot of push pull between them as they tried to forge a relationship. This series is different for this author - a lot more focused on friendship/familial relationships than simply romance, though that's in there. I'm glad there is more of this series to go.

Challenges: March Let's Book It
Nomination: Family

Book: My Favorite Souvenir - 03.30 ★★★★
# Tags: tagged 2020 releases 14 times (2020 release = 7)



Review:
This was mostly a fun light read although there was a little bit of a surprise twist that was a surprise until it was. I saw it before it was revealed on page but I didn't see it from the start, so the author did a good job of not being too obvious. I thought the female MC was a little too nice and it took her too long to realize what she really wanted and to make it happen - I get frustrated when I see characters just let things happen instead of making things happen. But that's partly real life I guess. Anyway, good read overall.

Challenges: n/a
Nomination: Roadtrip or Road Trip

I read two books for the March shelf.

I was already reading Attack Surface by one of my favorite authors, Cory Doctorow, before I realized it qualified. As always, it was an absorbing story whose frightening aspects hit all too close to home, in this case looking at the cost of "security" and how the very technology we count on to protect us can so easily be turned against us. One statement I love is that technology can't save us: we have to use technology to use politics to save us. There are some connections to Doctorow's earlier books in the Little Brother series, but this occurs much later, and I don't think it's necessary to read the others first. I gave it 4 stars.

I also read Dear Justyce, the second book in the Dear Martin series by ya author Nic Stone. I liked it even better than Dear Martin. and gave it 4.5 stars. It's described as "an unflinching look at the flawed practices and ideologies that discriminate against African American boys and minorities in the American justice system," and I think that's a good summary of it. It's an easy read in terms of size, but not so easy in terms of the things it forces the reader to think about.

I read Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon. ★★★★★

This book is set in 1853 on the Oregon Trail. Naomi is a young widow traveling with her family heading west. Of course, they run into many hardships and she meets a half-Pawnee man traveling with the wagon train. It was refreshing to read a historical fiction that was set in this time period. I received this book as one of my free Prime Reading selections.

I nominate dystopia