I’m still not loving reading. I know I used to. But another year has passed with me being bleh about reading. And now WordPress has updated it’s interface and I don’t feel like dealing with new things since I haven’t posted since November and bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh.
Best of 2018 (4.5 stars or above):
Due to the new blocks system, I’m going to have a few posts for Year End (like the one below), so that I can make sure nothing messes up too badly.
Come see me at Coles Amherst (NS) today from 12:30 to 2:30. I’ll be there signing books, as will other local authors.
As always, smiles are free, so come see me!
Ooh, it made me heart sad, The Exploded View. It’s overwhelmingly beautiful, but absolutely sad (exception of first story about a Nice Guy™, which almost every woman in the world knows means he’s really a creep, although I guess while it fails the beautiful moniker, it’s still sad, since I’m sure if you asked creepy dude, he’d say he’s in love, not creepy at all.) And beautiful is wrong too — it isn’t vistas and sunsets, but beautiful in some other, intangible way that writing sometimes is when it’s describing sadness and potential and how we fail each other. The stories are all loosely tied together via a housing estate in South Africa (and by loose, I mean loose. Sometimes the tie is that the housing estate is off in the distance). And it ends with the looming threat of death, and the stories hang over you like that, days (months — I am so far behind in reviews) later. Death is overhanging me.
The Exploded View by Ivan Vladislavić went on sale March 28, 2017.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
It must be pleasant to have the world be all about you. In two ways, since All Our Wrongs Today, our protagonist Tom lives in a sort of utopia, which he manages, via time travel, to screw up with the result that what we have isn’t a technological utopia, but rather this, here, all around us. Yep, we had a 1960s future paradise, and then blammo! Trump (not explicitly but let’s throw him in there) and jerks and capitalism and poverty and auto-tuned pop songs all the time on the radio just because of Tom. Geez, Tom. What a schlub.
But, don’t fear. Even though our Tom is a schlub, he gets to have sex. Lots of sex. And he has a bunch of ex-girlfriends who he totally isn’t going to mention by name, but then again, here’s a list, and he probably also had sex with them too. Because it’s super super super super super important for this female reader to know that even though Tom is a self-admitted loser, he pulls man, he pulllllllls.
So we have an entertaining, sci-fi romp that I actually enjoyed reading and I’m not talking about the story or the science or the science-fiction, but the fiction that schlubby, self-admitted losers should get to have multiple universes/realities where they get to have sex with hot chicks (also intelligent — we’re made sure to notice that not only are the bone-buddies hot, they’re smart too).
Oh! But Tom having sex is a plot point that starts the whole destruction of the universe fans will tell me.
Yeah, well, I’m sure Elan Mastai could have figured out something else. He developed multiple theories of time travel in All Our Wrongs Today, he’s clever enough not to have major plot points hinging on some guy’s dick.
Good book, ruined for me because I’m not a heterosexual male who is titillated by good guys getting to have lots of sex.
All Our Wrongs Today by Elan Mastai went on sale February 7, 2017.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I need to write a bunch of reviews of other people’s books as well. Tomorrow. Maybe, and always, tomorrow.
I will be at the Dartmouth Book Exchange on October 13 (tomorrow!) from one to four to talk to you all about my middle-grade or adult-who-likes-to-read-middle-grade novel Enid Strange.
Stop by! Buy a book (mine or another one)! Have fun at a bookstore on a Saturday afternoon!
Can I just write sideboob and leave it at that.
Perhaps in an apocalyptic-everything-going-to-shit scenario woman just don’t have time to put on bras? And also have to be drawn at such an angle that we can all see the lack of bra?
Luckily there is still time to get all your clothing perfectly tailored and your hair done.
And either all women in this universe have gotten exact-same-shaped boobs through state-sponsored surgery or there’s a factory somewhere pumping out one-off form fitting tactical gear for each person.
Plus your boobs look amazing, and somehow they also grow bigger, if you look down at them from above.
Sigh.
If you can hold your gag reflex back to get past the extraordinarily sexist drawing of the characters, the story isn’t bad — an ultra-violence, nano-technology, X-men-esque shoot-em-up. But really, if I hadn’t had to review this, I would have tossed this aside around no-bra-levitation-tits on page 18 and called it a day.
Failsafe by F. J. DeSanto went on sale June 26, 2018.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
It’s a listicle of a book: little bits of somewhat scientifically studied wisdom on how to be happier.
Could I tell you any one of the suggestions at this specific point in time after reading it? No.
Was there a detailed bibliography of the studies and articles that Palmer took these happiness tips from at the end? Yes. Does well documenting your sources make me happy? Yes. So one happiness hack at least succeeded, with regards to me.
Happiness Hacks by Alex Palmer went on sale May 15, 2018.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Remember a long time ago when I used to write short stories?
Guess what?
I still do!
L is available today at Space Squid (scroll down about 1/3 of the page).
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