Book 11: The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang

A bookclub book! Specifically a novella, and it's the sort of space scifi mystery type story that I'm so glad is the length that it is. This is both because it involves lots of different species and translation and beings moving through space in ways that my brain simply will not picture while I'm reading, and so there was a lot of me just letting certain descriptive elements wash over me rather than stressing about it all. And I'm glad I did, because boy does it eventually pack a real emotional punch. 

The very short narrative logline for this story is that there's this alien Ro who's a linguist, and his species has the ability to jump into a different species and observe their language and report back. He's kind of an anthropologist, and they're trying to figure out how to help this other species, and so he jumps and learns much more than he was expecting to, in a variety of ways. I don't actually want to say much more because, well, that's the story, but in many way it's more of a morality play than a full story, which made it an ideal bookclub book to discuss and the read itself went by fast enough and gave me a lot to think about. Not my favorite kind of book but very compelling! 

Grade: B

Book 9: The Starseekers by Nicole Glover

Well, sometimes you read a book for book club and every single person shows up and says that didn't work for me!!! and it's a good time. This book is kind of like Hidden Figures but it's also a murder mystery and magic and also Indiana Jones and also allegedly a romance? And if you think that sounds like too many genres it sure is; there are seven different plots and not a lick of narrative urgency in any of them, unfortunately. The best I can say for it is that it was nice to read a contemporary piece of speculative fiction that wasn't a dystopia but also boy I wanted this to be better. 

Grade: C

Reread: The Summer War by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

A reread for my book club! Honestly I loved it even more on reread. I thought the agony of the neverending nature of the conflict came through even more this time around, and boy I just really want the resolution to work for everyone!! Just a beautifully constructed story. 

Grade: A

Book 8: Benefit by Siobhan Phillips

A book that made me realize how much a story set in the 2000s really is a period piece now. Which is fine! It's nice to know that I'm not alone in looking back at the decade of my twenties and reflecting on how it has shaped, oh, all of current American society. This one is also about the false promise of academia, which is a topic many many books out there tackle at the moment for obvious reasons, and about what it means to be a part of the elite culture and what it's built on. The chapters on the history and present day realities of sugar production really took my breath away, and the specific depiction of the main character's lesbian friend Greta and her marriage and child-rearing felt almost unbearably recognizable. It's extremely first novel-y, in that you can feel how many of the chapters could have been short stories, and they're explicitly playing with form and structure and tone so you're always aware of the shift, but I don't mean that in a pejorative way, especially because it fits the themes of the novel so well. I haven't been reading a ton of literary fiction these days, but this is one of the good ones. 

Grade: B

Book 7: The Shots You Take by Rachel Reid

Another vacation book! This one is a perfect post-retirement hockey romance by the author of the Game Changers series, but it's a standalone in a separate universe. Adam and Riley were a d-man pairing and best friends and roommates who were also more than all that, until Adam freaked out and married a woman and broke Riley's heart. So Riley requested a trade and then retired early from hockey, and they didn't see each other for over a decade until Riley's dad died and Adam showed up at the funeral in Riley's tiny Nova Scotian seaside village, where Riley spent five summers when they were young players together. 

I really enjoyed both the second chance romance and the fantasy of owning a small house right on the water with a garden and having a wonderful queer friends group. The conflict of when they were players together made perfect sense, and if some of the resolution felt a bit too easy, especially coming so fast after Riley losing his beloved father, the characterization and chemistry is strong enough for me to buy it. A lovely read on a rainy weekend away. 

Grade: A

Book 6: Fall Into You by Dylan Morrison

Time for some vacation reads at a house in the woods! The first one is this extremely classic gay romance about a guy named Will who fled his parents' farm when he was 18 and never looked back, until his father died and left him a farm. When he returns, he meets Casey, who had been taking care of the apple farm for the final 6 years of Will's dad's life, and sparks fly! Is selling the farm to the real estate developer the right move? Was Will ever really happy living in the big city? I bet you know the answers to those questions, and as always, the fun is in the telling of it. I would have liked a bit more development of the romance between Will and Casey, but overall I really liked this story of someone finding the right version of home for them. 

Grade: B

Book 5: Sheep Calm and Merry On by Ashlyn Kane

This is a perfectly adequate Christmas romance novella in which two retired hockey players end up in a bit of a Canadian shack situation and realize that maybe they're meant to be together! It's cute but doesn't do anything more than what's on the tin, and even at a novella length still had to invent a reason for a second location/is he going to call me bit of drama. It's fine!

Grade: B