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Hello Everyone,

I hope you're all having a good week. It is warming up in New England now. I'm off on a business trip to NYC but adding on a personal weekend with my husband beforehand. He has a milestone birthday while we're there too.

On audiobook, I'm still listening to Replay. I think I'm about 75% done. I am enjoying this book. It has taken some good and surprising turns so far and is engaging. I look forward to seeing how it ends. I may finish it today even since my train ride is longer than the amount of book left.

On my kindle, I DNF'd Rivers Between Us. It just wasn't doing it for me. I did get about 1/3 of the way through. It has high ratings on GR, 4.39. Maybe someday I'll go back and give it another try.

I started reading One Last Risk. This is nearing the end of my free stuff-the-kindle romance novels. I think I only have 2 more after this one. It is okay so far. Good for a weekend away kind of story.

Once I finish replay I have a bunch of Amazon Prime free short stories to listen to from various collections. I will probably listen to those next. Sheri - if you're here, will there be a new book poll and selection soon? That might direct me to what to read next.

QOTW: Opposite of last week's question. What are books everyone seems to hate that you liked/loved?

This one is harder for me. Looking through my GR lists for my star ratings versus the book's rating, one that stands out is Redshirts. I really enjoyed it. I think a more general answer is that there is a lot of complaining about Wil Wheaton as an audiobook narrator and I tend to like how he narrates Scalzi's works.

Happy Friday!

I read a lot this past week, trying to get through all these books from the library!

Finished:
The Marquis Who Mustn't by Courtney Milan - 4 stars - for PopSugar's book by a self-published author. I really loved this. The male lead was fun.

The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo - 4 stars - Robot Librarian's book from your favorite genre written by a BIPOC author. As always, I love this series, and this one did not disappoint.

Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - 4 stars - for PopSugar's book set in a travel destination on your bucket list. I didn't expect to like this series so much. I was lukewarm on this first one, but enjoyed this one a lot more. Definitely will pick up the next book at some point.

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson - 4 stars - Robot Librarian's essay collection. I may not be the target audience, but I so appreciate the importance of Johnson's frank, candid openness. There will be teens out there whose life is changed by this book, and I hope they are able to find it.

Comics/manga:
Cinderella Closet Vol. 1

Currently reading:
The Apothecary Diaries (Light Novel): Volume 1 by Natsu Hyuuga - not currently for a prompt. I loved both the anime and the manga, so decided to start reading the source material. The first season of the anime covers what's in this first light novel, so it's nothing new to me, but Maomao makes everything enjoyable.

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean - not currently for a prompt. Just getting started on this new thriller.

Upcoming/Planned:
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (not currently for a prompt, could work as PopSugar's fiction book by a trans or nonbinary author)

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (Robot Librarian's book about/taking place during a war that is NOT WWI or WWII)

QOTW:
I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

I sorted my "read" shelf by average rating. Mostly what comes up are some books with an average (3-star) rating, where I rated them 4 because they hit me at the right time, but nothing really significant.

Work cut into my reading time this week, and I was going to skim Braiding Sweetgrass for an online book club but ended up just rereading it, so only one very short finish this week.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop - I don't know what the line is between a novella and a short story; this does have chapters, but it's less than half the length of a Murderbot novella. Anyway it's a romance between a human lady who repairs robots and a robot lady who runs a tea shop. It was OK but suffers from the inevitable comparison to Becky Chambers' monk and robot.

QOTW: Sorting by average rating, I was amused that I have some 0-stars, but that's just because things like A Beginner's Guide to Snakes have no ratings (I don't rate stuff myself, but definitely recommend this one if you're in elementary school in the late 80s/early 90s and would like to have a pet snake someday).
Otherwise nothing really jumps out at me except a general trend of liking mystery novels more than the average reader, but we knew that already.

The weather really is lovely today!

Last week I finished off the Shades of Magic trilogy with A Gathering of Shadows and A Conjuring of Light. They were hard to put down! Apparently she's published the first book of a sequel trilogy, and I'm pondering whether I want to start it or wait for the whole trilogy to be finished.

I finished that a few days ago and have been dithering about what book to pick up next (spouse is halfway through the one I really want to read so I have to kill some reading time until he's done with it!).

Jen, I loved The Poppy War and the rest of the trilogy too, but be prepared that it is brutally violent. It's war in all its awfulness, not sanitized at all.

QOTW: I don't know that I can think of any! I took a look at my shelf and also did not have any read books that were rated lower than 3 stars.