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Hi all, late check in this week due to migraine brain.

Today is lovely out though, I didn’t feel up to a run but I took a nice long walk. even ended up shedding my winter coat and walking in a sweatshirt!

Don’t forget, questions are up for The Thursday Murder Club over in the book club folder.

THis week I finished:

The Atlas Six- this was pretty good, I’ll probably get the next. I was worried it wouldn’t live to hype, it was on ever single post for the booktok prompt over on popsugar, but the synopsis looked interesting so I figured I’d try. Felt kind of like the Scholomance books, but a bit more exclusive seeing as there’s only 6. But it’s got that sort of dark academia magic school with violence.

Concrete Rose - I picked this up on a kindle sale, I’d really liked The Hate You Give. I liked this too, but it stressed me out a bit to read. I knew things would be ok because I read the prequel, but there were still a lot of “oh no Mav, don’t do it!� Moments. Also had a bit of a “ahhh nooo I’m getting older� moment as I don’t think I realized in The Hate You Give how young Mav had both Seven and Starr. I was expecting the book to be set in the 70s or 80s, not 99. I was in high school myself in 99! I never had kids, so I forget that it’s entirely possible for people my age to have teenagers. Even without being teen parents, if I’d had a kid in my early 20s they would still be teens now. (Most my friend group either didn’t have kids, or only just now started having kids in their 30s so that never really sunk in before).

The Worst Best Man - randomly picked this up from the library, it looked cute. Romances aren’t my absolute favorite genre, but I like them for just wanting a nice happy ending and low stakes drama. I liked that most the conflict in this was people struggling with their own selves and ideas of what they want in life and in a partner, not due to not communicating. They actually talked a lot, and were very open. It was them each having to wrestle with the baggage of the past and their lives and expectations etc.

Currently reading:

On a comics binge, currently catching up on the Buffy comics.

QOTW:
Is there a particular author that you would like to hang out with? Why?

I feel like Seanan McGuire would be cool to hang out with. I’ve seen a lot of her twitter feeds, even though I don’t really do twitter myself. She seems funny. She also loves cats, and writes stuff I love, so seems like someone I would get along with!

It's nice here, too, and I guess my most recent read is The Gruffalo at the StoryWalk in the park. In non-picture-books, though...

A Will To Kill - This is your standard "snowed in at an English country house" book, except that the house is in the mountains of southern India, and the isolating force of nature is a landslide. It was entertaining, but I wasn't amazed by the writing, and the solution to the mystery had rather a lot going on that the reader really wouldn't have been able to put together.

Friendshipping: The Art of Finding Friends, Being Friends, and Keeping Friends - This was a very earnest, sweet, funny book, but I don't really feel like I learned anything from it. I think we all already know to try meeting people by joining interest groups or volunteering, and that we should figure out whether someone wants our advice or just needs to vent, and that we should set appropriate boundaries for ourselves; the problem is that this stuff can be *hard*. Maybe this would be good for a very new adult, and they do have some scripts that one could refer to if there were a friendship issue happening *right now*, but largely the issue is that there are so many individual circumstances that can make it hard to know what to do, or to do that thing.

QOTW: I think I could probably spend an entertaining hour at least with Ursula Vernon. If nothing else, she lives in the same state and likes gardening, so we could talk about plants. I don't know that we'd be long-term buds.

Bunch of things for me this week. The first was The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst, which was a kid book I did not care for. World and characters were good. But without being too spoilery, this book would be good to demonstrate what gaslighting is to a kid, and I was frustrated with the other characters for letting it happen.
Read the #2 in Heroine Complex for a palette cleanser, and continue to enjoy the series. Next was Poison Study which I liked but not continuing with series; a tad too much torture for my comfort level. And finally, Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection, which I'm using for my longest title in book nerds because I can't imagine reading anything with a longer title than that. Enjoyed them and a quick read.
For QOTW, I have been able to see several of my favorite authors at events (Gail Carriger, John Scalzi, Charlaine Harris) and asked each a question so I sortof had a short chat with each even though we didn't hang out. But all of them seemed like they would be fun to have dinner with sometime.

since the last check-in, i finished The King of Koraha (Maria Snyder), Deck the Hallways (Kate Carlisle), and The Wake (Neil Gaiman)

I'm currently reading Endless Nights, there's 7 chapters, one about each of the Endless.

QotW: Maria Snyder. i think we could definitely plot something ;)

This past week I finished The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear. This was a great book and I plan to suggest it for the next poll because it just felt so important. Parts made me angry, sad, feeling lucky to be alive now instead of then, amazed by her strength and perseverance, inspired. Everyone should know of Elizabeth Packard and all that she did.

I also finished Murderbot Diaries #3, Rogue Protocol. I also had #4 from the library, Exit Strategy that I'm almost done with. This has been a very enjoyable series of novellas.

I am listening to Matrix. I am about halfway through it. I'm feeling kind of meh on it. Strangely, I am not even halfway through it and the main character went from 17 to almost 50 years old. It definitely goes from skipping a lot of time and then slows to specific events. I'll finish but I'm not yet wowed by it.

QOTW: I'm not sure. John Scalzi is a latest favorite. I like his character building and his books a lot. I'd probably really pick one or two of my "celebrity crushes" who happen to have published books that are related to their main careers. That would be Neil deGrasse Tyson or Alton Brown. They're both authors of books, but writing books isn't their primary job.

I'm just coming off a four-day weekend, which was so nice, and it's snowing here today, so I get to stay inside and warm.

Finished since last check-in:
Hollywood Heroine - I read this for the Popsugar prompt, a book whose title begins with the last letter of your previous read. It is another solid entry in this series, but not a good entry point, as it builds on the previous 4 books.

Clap When You Land- I read this for the Popsugar onomatopoeia prompt, for the word "clap". I loved this book. Acevedo has cemented her place on my must-read list. I am not usually much of a poetry reader, but something about her novels in verse suck me in completely. This was such a moving, powerful story.

Manga: Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight, Vol. 12 and Magus of the Library, Vol. 5

Currently reading:
Bluebird - I'm reading this for the Popsugar Sapphic book prompt. So far, this is a fun sci-fi adventure. The tagline is "lesbian gunslinger fights spies in space." Definitely a popcorn book.

QOTW:
There's actual a few authors local to me who seem like they'd be a lot of fun to spend an afternoon with sometime: Seanan McGuire, Margaret Owen, and Lish McBride. I've seen them at author events and/or conventions and they all seem like fun people to hang out with.

Hey everyone - just got back from a vacation in Arizona that ended up lasting four days longer than expected. We were supposed to fly back to Boston on Friday, flight got cancelled by the big storm and we couldn't rebook until today. Didn't love having to miss two days of school (either for me or my kids), but four extra days with family someplace warm wasn't a bad thing either!

While away I read -
Sundiver - first of the Uplift series, reading with another group. I've read the series before, but it's been a very long time. I remember this first one being my least favorite and my current self agrees with my 12 years ago self that it's a bit dated and confusing. Love the whole idea of the Uplift universe, though, so I'm excited to read the rest again.

The Last Time We Say Goodbye - excellent contemporary YA fiction (CW - suicide) that moves beyond the cliches of the genre.

Inversions - I disliked the first of Iain Banks' Culture series (Consider Phlebas), but had been told that it's very different than the rest of the books. They're not really a series, more a set of stories that take place in the same universe. I quite liked this one, which is the 6th book, although I missed some of the references having not read books 2 - 5. Spouse explained them to me afterwards, he's helpful like that :)

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence - one of those books that has been sitting on my kindle for ages and I just never got around to reading. Gave me a lot to think about (thankfully, nothing that I've personally experienced).

QOTW: Hard one. Agree that Seanan McGuire seems like she would be super fun to hang out with. I feel like Gail Carriger would be a riot, too. Also, I just want to hang on Neil Gaiman's every word.