What are you reading in Q4 of 2023?

[Kathi, There’s no such thing as too many books!]

Please post here to tell us about what you’ve been reading in the fourth quarter of the year (October, November, & December).

All genres welcome here!

[Kathi, There’s no such thing as too many books!]

I started October with The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang, 8/10. No one can be trusted, everyone is both telling the truth (as they perceive it) and manipulating that truth to fit their own needs and ambitions. Rin (the MC) seems pretty easy to manipulate, and each time it happens, she’s sure she’s finally doing what she should until it all falls apart again. In the meantime, thousands of people die. The author has a compelling story to tell about Rin, but it gets a bit bogged down and somewhat repetitive. Still, I will be interested to finish the trilogy to see how (if) things get resolved.

Then I read Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence, 9.5/10. My comments are in the folder for our series discussion.

[Michelle]

Read Last Man Out (#5) and the new one in Elliott Kay's excellent Poor Man's War series, No Man's Land
A short story in Eric Van Lustbader's Nicholas Linnear thriller series. I don't think it worked very well.
Right now I'm about a third of the way through both The Imitation of Christ and Rachel Neumeier's SF Crisis
.

[Christina]

I just finished Network Effect (Murderbot series). Lookjng forward to Jim Butcher's new book soon. The Olympian Affair. I also think Iton Flame by Rebecca Yarros is released in November. Sounds like a great excuse to stay home and read

[Kathi, There’s no such thing as too many books!]

I finished October with:
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, 10/10. This story sort of crept up on me, and then I found I couldn’t stop reading. So evocative. Such richly drawn characters; even if they are only in a few scenes, they seem very real to the reader. The author deftly weaves some deeply complex themes into the story and I will be thinking about them for some time.
The Burning God by R.F. Kuang, 7/10. This book is unrelentingly grim, and the satisfying, somewhat surprising, conclusion does not do enough to mitigate the hundreds of pages of largely unlikable, unsympathetic characters who are either unable or unwilling to grow. Maybe I’m missing something (or a lot of things) but I kept finding excuses to not continue reading or just skimming to get through it. I’m glad I read this series but would not consider rereading it and would hesitate to pick up other books by this author.
Paragon Walk by Anne Perry, 8/10. Crimes, secrets, and fashion.

[Kathi, There’s no such thing as too many books!]

1st half of the month:
Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 9.5/10. While the earlier books gave us a wider stage (not just a planet or planetary system, but colony spaceships as well, and human/spider/octopus/Human/AI perspectives and narrative PoVs), this book was somewhat narrower in focus with just Imir and the Skipper (and a short section on Rourke) and the POVs of mainly Liff and Miranda. It felt almost claustrophobic to me. I don’t know which book of the trilogy was my favorite. Together they told a story spanning centuries and worlds, but they still managed to be intimate and personal.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik, 10/10. This is a marvelous story, fairytale-ish but unpredictable, with battles, mystery, magic, friendship, revenge, romance, and plenty of surprises for the reader. The story grabbed me from the start; it felt familiar yet new. The author populated the book with a number of strong, important female characters. Such a lovely ending, different from the standard “happily ever after” and more satisfying.
A Survivor's Lens: A Metastatic Breast Cancer Survivor’s Focus on Faith and God’s Word by Sheila Marie Johnson, 5/10. I know Shelia, the author; she is an amazing advocate & an inspiring woman. Her book, however, is less about her journey with metastatic breast cancer & her advocacy work & more about her faith journey. That’s fine—%that’s the book she meant to write. I just think so many more women could be reached without that being the main focus. Women of a different faith tradition or non-religious women may well find this book a bit preachy.
Resurrection Row by Anne Perry, 8.5/10, A truly original (at least to me) mystery. Interesting, unpredictable sub-plots, too. (A Charlotte & Thomas Pitt mystery)

[Kathi, There’s no such thing as too many books!]

Second half of November:
Chimaera by Ian Irvine, final book in his Well of Echoes series, 8/10. Very detailed, as are the other books in the quartet, but an intricate story with many plot lines and fascinating characters. The conclusion was darker than I had hoped.
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi, 7/10. This was a difficult book for me to read, describing a world, my world and yet so not-my-world, the world of Black America, especially from the early 1990s through the present into the future. There is a speculative/science fiction element, but (to my disappointment), it was not examined or explained, only employed in the story by the two main characters, Ella & Kev (especially Ella). The portrayal of police brutality and systemic racism is searingly powerful. This is an angry story, an uncomfortable story for those of us in the white world; it made me feel, it made me think. Why only 7/10? I wanted more about Ella’s (and Kev’s) Thing—that which makes this story science fiction or speculative fiction. I saw it as a device for the author to find a unique way to show us the backstory and future story of various characters and to explore Ella and Kev’s reactions to their living conditions, but I wanted more about their unusual abilities. And the ending was rather abrupt—are they going to initiate revolution?
Rutland Place by Anne Perry, 8.5/10. This was pretty slow going for a while as the mysteries were laid out, but the second half of the book picked up considerably and the ending was tragic but fit perfectly.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, 10/10. A classic, an award-winner, and for good reason. The human characters are so believable and relatable. The story can be read as a straight adventure, but the insights and truths are deep, thought-provoking, and timeless. I read this to fill a challenge prompt for a Newberry award winner. While this was a reread for me, have never read the rest of the Time Quintet and will likely do that over the next few weeks/months.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, 9/10. A quietly intense book that builds to an explosive climax, with a definite Lovecraftian underpinning.

[Christina]

My reading skips around a lot. I finished The Woman in Me by Britney Spears in basically 2 days. I liked the book. She has had a very tough life, and a lot of the anger and resentment is close to the surface in the book.

I am continuing The Age of Madness trilogy with the book The Trouble with Peace. I'll probably take my time with this one.

I got very bored/annoyed with A Wizard of Earthsea. It was more the writing style than the story that annoyed me, which is why I'm sure I'll finish it some time this week or next.

I'm also reading Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord, and I read a few other easy/light romance reads.

[Kathi, There’s no such thing as too many books!]

December books:
Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett, 7/10. I’m sure I would have appreciated this novella more if I remembered the story of The Tempest by William Shakespeare better than I do, for this book is an imagined “sequel” to that play. Still, I found myself rooting for Miranda and Dorothea, appalled and intrigued by the fate of Beatrice, and humbled by the power of love.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, 10/10. I finished this book on almost the eve of 2024, which is the year in which the book opens. It’s scary to me how true some of it already is, especially the things related to climate change, the devaluing of people’s lives through gun violence, rape, & torture, and the indifference of some law enforcement organizations to lawlessness against the poor. And the rampant racism! It was amazing to me that the compound (walled neighborhood) where Lauren, her family, & the other families lived, which seemed to me to be so precarious and poor, was actually considered well-off by the standards in place during the first part of the book. I found the resilience of Lauren & the others in her band to be inspiring & still believable, injecting hope into their existence with each instance of trust, of sharing, of caring. And I liked the idea of Earthseed, of Change as god, of shaping change as it shapes us. As the reader, I could feel/sense Lauren discovering the truths she incorporated into the Book of the Living; they seemed to grow organically from her reading, experience, reflection, and introspection. I plan to read Butler’s sequel next month.
I Think I'm Falling Apart by Chris Dietzel, 6/10. (view spoiler)[Certainly the mystery in this book is more than just “why did Staci kill herself?”. Like did she even exist outside of Benny’s mind? It’s a bit too coincidental for Benny to date Stacy, Stacee (although their one encounter was not really a date—did that even happen?), and then Staci. The man Benny confronted who supposedly was Staci’s boss genuinely didn’t seem to know who Benny was even talking about. Benny was pretty delusional about his screenplays, too, and the likelihood of them being accepted by a studio or agent or his chances of being a director/producer. Still, there were clothes in the dresser and a car in the garage, so maybe she did exist. But there was no follow-up with him after her apparent suicide. I liked the poem that Staci’s high school friend wrote. Did Benny have a mental illness—schizophrenia maybe? Or was it real that he was traveling in time? And yes, I think he dies by suicide in the end. Another reader/reviewer said there were clues to what was really going on in the book titles that Benny & Staci were reading, but I didn’t go back and check that out. The book wasn’t compelling enough for me to make that effort. (hide spoiler)]
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe  by Thomas Cahill, 6.5/10. “How the Irish Saved Western Civilization” would maybe have been a better title…
The author is first a storyteller and this history book is made more readable by his style. I found some chapters to be a little dry and somewhat irrelevant to the overall thesis, but that changed once the focus zeroed in on Ireland. I think my familiarity with Irish lore and the fact that I’ve visited many of the places in Ireland and Scotland mentioned in the book made Parts III through VII more enjoyable and more pertinent.
Bluegate Fields by Anne Perry, 8.5/10. This was different from the previous Charlotte & Thomas Pitt books in that a case actually went to trial and beyond. In addition, several unsavory aspects of Victorian life were explored. For once, Charlotte and her family were not put in danger, although Thomas did almost lose his job.
The Serpent's Tooth by Diana L. Paxson, 9.5/10. This is a retelling of the story of King Lear and his three daughters, placed in the early Iron Age and focused on the youngest daughter Cridilla (Cordelia). The author skillfully blends elements drawn from mythology and speculation with those rooted in archeological evidence. The result is a tale filled with human emotions and motivations amidst the details of daily life in prehistoric society, yet threaded with the power of gods, goddesses, and recurring universal themes.
A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle, 7.5/10. Certainly imaginative, with strong themes of identity and the harmony of creation.
Death in the Devil's Acre by Anne Perry, 7.5/10. Rather an abrupt ending and not a very full explanation of the crimes, which is typical of the author’s Charlotte & Thomas Pitt books. I read it in one sitting, so it obviously kept my attention.

Currently reading The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi. I will likely finish that before the end of the month, but I’m not sure I’ll get to anything else before 2024 begins.