Book 4: Cost of Repairs by A.M. Arthur

I did not enjoy this book.

I thought this book was going to be a fun m/m romance about a cop who had moved to a new town looking for a fresh start falling for a local guy who was a bit down on his luck but working hard to change his life. Instead, it was about unending traumatic backstories and "but wait, there's more!" levels of melodrama. And listen, I am not against soap opera narratives! I don't need my romance novels to be super realistic, plot-wise. But what I do need is to believe the connection between the two leads, and that didn't happened for me in this book. Samuel and Rey have an instant chemistry, or so we're told, but I never really understood why either one of them would be interested in dealing with the other person's baggage, given that they each had a truckload of their own. So this book was not for me, I'm afraid.

Grade: D

Book 3: The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

I loved this book. I was not expecting to; it was a book I read for my book club and I knew nothing about it before I bought it, and I was very grumpy while reading the first 75 pages of it. But then it hit home.

This is a YA novel about four teenagers living in Alaska in the early 1970's. The book shifts POV chapter by chapter, and the first three chapters felt almost unbearably bleak and sad to me. I spent a lot of time in my twenties reading beautifully written books about miserable people living miserable lives, and I don't want to do that anymore. I was very concerned that this would be another one of those kinds of books.

Instead, the book slowly begins to reveal the connections between the four characters, and the entire story braids itself together, with a bit of magical realism to tie off the loose ends. There is still sadness and tragedy, but the hope that is woven through each of their stories feels both necessary and earned, in the end. And the writing is incredibly lovely all the way through; I know very little about Alaska, but the surety of the writing made me trust this depiction implicitly. Also, the title fits the novel perfectly in a way that not many titles do.

I went into this book expecting to slog through it for my book group and instead I ended up crying (from happiness) over the end. Who knew.    

Grade: A

Book 2: The Omega's Pack by Dessa Lux

Note: I know the author of this series socially.

This is the second book in a m/m romance series about werewolves. The first book (The Omega's Bodyguard) tells the story of how the alpha of the titular pack, Rusty, finds and then bonds with his omega mate, Sam, and should definitely be read before reading this one. This book, as you may have guessed from the title, focuses on how Rusty and Sam become a pack with Mike, another alpha, and Nick, a beta. Mike had already become a member of their pack at the end of The Omega's Bodyguard, but Nick is still on his own.

The main plot of The Omega's Pack centers on the new pack essentially staging an intervention for Nick, who suffers from PTSD as a result of injuries he sustained while in the Marines. Basically, the whole werewolf pack structure is a setup for lots of found family and hurt/comfort feelings, all of which I greatly enjoyed. The other thing the werewolf pack structure is a setup for is a whole lot of extremely explicit sex, including threesomes and a full moon orgy.

The first third of the book felt a little unfocused to me, but as soon as Rusty, Sam and Mike head out to help Nick, the entire book clicks into gear. And there's a lovely scene towards the end in which the new pack needs to defend its territory from other werewolves that really establishes the bond that the four of them have with each other, and sets up the next book in the series.

Grade: B

Book 1: Listful Thinking by Paula Rizzo

As is probably obvious from this blog, I am a big fan of lists! So when a friend mentioned this book on twitter about a year ago, I bought it and promptly forgot all about it. /o\ But I'm glad this challenge got me to read it finally!

This book is a bit scattershot, for me. I didn't know before reading it if it was going to be an examination of why people like making lists, or an organizational self-help book on how to write better lists and Live Your Best Life, and the answer is that it's both and neither at the same time. The analysis of why people make lists was fairly shallow, and while I found some of the list making tips helpful, most of them seemed pretty self-evident to me. And as always with list writing advice for the office, it would be nice to be able to only focus on my pre-determined to-do list for a day, but in practice it's never possible (at least not for me). So I spent a bit of time rolling my eyes at that sort of advice.

Having said that, one kind of list that the book did delve into more deeply is the checklist, the sort that surgeons use before each surgery to make sure they have everything ready and pilots use before takeoff. I like the idea of applying those kinds of checklists to recurring work projects I have, because I definitely spend more time than I need to reinventing the wheel whenever I start a new project. As much as I'd love for writing out lists to be something that magically controls the entire world and prevents any outside forces from affecting my ability to cross off everything, I know that's not realistic. But creating lists that free up mental space and make it easier to handle unanticipated additions to my day seems like the best of both worlds, a way to be both productive and flexible when I need to change course. Ideally I'd like my list writing habit to help me keep my life in order so that when I want to be spontaneous everything doesn't fall apart as a result.

The book also made me want to take another look at Evernote, an app I've had forever but haven't used frequently enough to really appreciate, I think. The book suggested a bunch of other apps as well, but nothing that jumped out at me.

Overall, I think this was a book that didn't quite know what it wanted to do, and while there were a couple of good observations and suggestions, I don't know if this is a book that will either fully satisfy the dedicated list maker or make a believer out of a novice.

Grade: C