Book 17: Good to Go by Christie Aschwanden

I have a whole subcategory of books on my to-read list that are books I heard about on the longform podcast and decided I needed to pick up. This one made the list because I loved the author's interview, and the concept of actually analyzing which kinds of physical recovery techniques make a measurable difference and which ones don't really intrigued me. I am not an athlete, but I am a fan of many sports and someone who is becoming more and more aware of how my body is changing as I get older, and so I read it both with the aim of potentially discovering better ways of living and seeing which tried and true methods are at best placebo effects and at worst actively hinder people.

The answer to the first part of that inquiry is basically that getting a sufficient amount of quality sleep is the most important aspect of any kind of physical recovery, and the aspect other methods of recovery are the least good at mimicking or replacing. Our bodies are simultaneously incredibly adaptable--she goes through a whole section demonstrating that basically as long as our bodies get some kind of food within an incredibly wide period of time post-exertion, our bodies will generally extract the fuel it needs from anything--and also incredibly finicky and demanding, and what it really comes down to is that every body is different, and if you truly believe that something you're doing is making a difference, it probably will, because we're creatures of habit and the placebo effect is real. Most of the things we believe (dehydration kills performance, icing and ibuprofen after exertion and/or injury helps, eating protein within an hour of weight training is vital for gaining muscle) are either probably not true and based on studies funded by industries that only publish the studies that benefit them (and are unconfirmed by independent studies), or are the result of confirmation bias/survivorship bias: we look at how the best athletes in the world train, and assume that their performance is due to their training methods, rather than them being exceptionally talented individuals who would succeed no matter what within a fairly broad framework of methods and techniques, so long as they believed their methods helped. But that's not something that can be marketed, so instead we are told (and believe, no matter how much we tell ourselves we're too smart for this) that Michael Jordan is MJ because he drank Gatorade, and not because he's an exceptionally talented individual.

I actually found the fact that there's no magic pill (aside from sleep) to be extremely reassuring and helpful. It turns out I didn't miss out on a secret that would have made me a natural athlete; bodies are simply different, and the best thing that I can do is actually listen to what my body is telling me it wants or needs, and do my best to provide that. Easier said than done, but at least I won't need to start sitting in ice baths.

Grade: A

Book 16: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

So this was a read that was a classic 'man I wish I actually liked this book as much as I wanted to' book. I read it for my sci-fi/fantasy book club, and the premise of it is really interesting: a meteor strikes the earth in the early 1950's, and in addition to causing initial chaos and upheaval and all that, scientists are also able to calculate that within ten or so years the earth will warm to a degree that will not sustain life. So there is a push for the space program to work to set up a colony in space for the survival of the species, and of course any kind of successful long term colony would require that both men and women become astronauts.

Elma York, who was a female pilot during WWII and is married to a scientist in the space program, is a natural candidate for women to be included in this colony. But the entire book after the initial aftermath to the meteor strike is just two steps forward and one step back repeated ad nauseam, as she's confronted over and over again with sexist roadblocks and red tape, and also learns the same valuable life lessons about how no matter how difficult it's been for her, it's even harder for black women, a truth that she never actually seems to remember that she's learned before. A friend of mine mentioned that the bureaucratic nonsense that she deals with felt very true to life in terms of how government works, but something being realistic doesn't necessarily make it a good or compelling narrative, and I just found myself getting so impatient for the actual story to start. And of course it's actually the first book in a series, and so the story in fact barely does start even by the end of the book.

I actually found the first part of the story to be the most interesting, when the world is dealing with the ramifications of a major meteor strike only seven years after the end of WWII. But the book itself is only interested in that major world event to the extent that it's a good catalyst for the space program to be both fast tracked and forced to include women, and the narrative wasn't compelling enough for me to stop myself from pulling on the thread of how else such a major event would have changed everything. This book has been lauded by many and clearly must work for other people in a way it simply didn't for me, but I felt at many points of the story that I would have enjoyed reading the historical and scientific works that the author read as part of her research far more than I did the narrative result.

Grade: C 

Book 15: Any Old Diamonds by KJ Charles

I had a bad couple of days in terms of migraines this past week, when I didn't feel well enough to do anything while medicated but also desperately needed to keep my brain happy and calm and engaged. This book was exactly what I needed, and I was very grateful to it.

This story and setup feature the kind of characters who in my opinion Charles does best: people who are fundamentally good but have a moral ambiguity to them, whether because of their occupation or general motives of behavior. Given that one of the main characters is a jewel thief and the other is the man who hires him to rob his father and stepfather at a celebration of their marriage anniversary, moral ambiguity may seem too positive a view of them. But her scoundrels manage to be both law-breakers and extremely sympathetic.

In this particular situation, Alec Pyne has hired two jewel thieves to steal the most closely guarded necklace in the country outside of the crown jewels--namely, the one his father the Duke of Ilvar is about to give to his wife at their twentieth anniversary party. There is a slow, drawn out reveal of exactly why Alec would want to do this, with him confessing his family's past to Jerry Crozier, one of the thieves, as Jerry instructs him in how to deceive his family to achieve his goal. Naturally, one of the methods of his teaching is in sexual rewards, which is so compellingly written it makes the entire story work, in my opinion.

I truly did not know how they were going to succeed in the robbery, or what Jerry's grand plan or any of that was until it happened. Part of that is due to a sleight of hand in how the tale is written, and what is omitted to the reader; I didn't have a problem with how it was constructed, but I can see why it might not work as well for everyone. I was expecting a twist of some kind, and I was reasonably satisfied with the one we got. And the ending was just about everything I'm ever looking for at the end of a good heist story.

This isn't a direct sequel to any of her other books, but a couple of characters from a previous trilogy make appearances, which I enjoyed more than I expected to. All in all, I really liked both the main couple and the overall setup of this book a lot.

Grade: A 

Book 14: Band Sinister by KJ Charles

What a delightful romp! This is a slightly different flavor of the regency romance novels Charles is so good at: it's a gothic novel which knows that it's a gothic novel, and so it's almost like a backstage story or something of the like. A big house full of scandalous people and the two vulnerable young people who are trapped there for weeks and discover that perhaps their outside perceptions are wrong. But it's not precisely a "everything that's assumed about the villains is actually wrong" story, more of a "look closely and perhaps it's society itself that's villainous" tale.

Our story begins when Amanda Frisby falls from her horse and badly breaks her leg while riding too close to the estate of the treacherous Philip Rookwood. This would be difficult for her and her brother Guy under the best of circumstances, but for reasons both within and without her control, Amanda's reputation is extremely fragile, and Rookwood Hall is about the worst place for her to be unaccompanied. So Guy goes to the house, learns that she cannot be moved for weeks without potentially endangering herself, and has to sit and watch as she nearly dies from fever. On top of all of this, Rookwood has numerous guests staying at his home, including a notorious lord, all of whom Amanda wrote a thinly veiled novel about anonymously. Things get increasingly complicated, especially Guy's emotions when he discovers that not only is Rockwood much less evil than he had always presumed, he's also captivating and not at all a threat to Amanda's virtue, but his own.

This book was just fun, and the romance between Guy and Rockwood is really satisfying. It feels both classic and fresh: Guy is a tentative virgin who's never even been kissed before, and Rockwood does introduce him to all sorts of things, but the dynamic doesn't feel rote or boring, because it's so specific to these two characters. The inevitable third act conflict and drama is a touch by the numbers, if only because the potential solution is fairly evident, but it's still really lovely to see them get there, and to watch Guy and Amanda and Philip all grow and figure out themselves. It was just a good read from start to finish.

Grade: A 

Book 13: Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley

You know those books that have been on your bookshelf (or, in this case, on my e-reader) for so long that you have no idea how or why they got there in the first place? This is one of those books.

It's a short novel set at the turn of the twentieth century, right in the period of The Music Man, and it has a similar sensibility. It's about a woman who manages a farm in New England with her brother, but once he starts writing and publishing books he has less and less time (or interest) in keeping up his half of the bargain of running a farm. So when a traveling salesman comes by with a horse-pulled bookstore (the titular Parnassus) and tells her he's looking to sell the whole business, she buys it with her savings to prevent her brother from doing the same once he returns. And then she goes off and has some adventures, to the consternation of her brother, and the salesman, while not the scam artist I kept expecting him to be, sticks around for a variety of reasons as well.

It is a charming enough read, one I thought (correctly) was written in that era, rather than being a historical novel; it's just a novel. There wasn't a ton of suspense or intrigue, but enough to keep me happily reading it on my commute, which is about all I can ask of that sort of story. I still don't know why or how I obtained that book in the first place, but I don't regret reading it.

Grade: B 

Book 12: The Wicked King by Holly Black

This is the second book in a trilogy that started with The Cruel Prince, which I loved. That book ended with Jude's machinations having succeeded, and she now has some of the power she had worked so hard to obtain, even if it doesn't look exactly the way she would have most liked. But now that she has that, she has to figure out what to do with it, even while being quite limited still as a mortal within Faerie. There are betrayals and mysteries and conflicting loyalties and aims, and on top of all of this, she's still both repelled by and attracted to Cardan, who seems no better now that he at least has the appearance of power that he lacked in the first book. It takes the book a while to really ramp up into the full plot of this book, but once it did I found it extremely compelling and readable and I definitely wanted to know what would happen and how.

I enjoyed The Wicked King quite a bit, and I am very excited for the third book of the trilogy, slated to come out next year. But it is very much the middle book of a trilogy, that spends a ton of time on set up and conflict and lands at the very end on something that feels like it could be a great resolution, except that it's the end of the second book and so you KNOW a rug is about to be pulled out from under you even if you don't know where you'll land as a result. And that rug was pulled, and it's a GREAT rug pull, but I am also desperate for a variety of things to happen which I know can only come to pass in book three of a trilogy. So I'm glad to have read it but also I am now even more impatient for book three to finally come out because MAN. Much like the first book, this is a pretty perfectly plotted middle book of a trilogy, and hits all of the beats you want and expect, but not in ways that make the characters feel predictable or dumb. But it definitely reminded me of why I try not to read series that haven't been completed yet, because I want that resolution now rather than in a year. Oh well! One book I already know I'll be adding to my master list for 2020.

Grade: B 

Book 11: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Listen. Does a story about a being called a murderbot sound like a good time to you? If so, you should read this novella. It is such a charming (and vaguely-Stargate Atlantis-esque) story, with the most delightful POV, and I honestly don't want to write much more about it because part of the fun is discovering who and what this being is, and I don't know. It reads very quickly and DID I MENTION HOW CHARMING because seriously, it is a delight. I am not always the biggest fan of space sci-fi, it's not my standard go-to genre in books, but I just liked this so much. Go read it in an hour and then come back and talk to me.

Grade: A