Lord of the Fly Fest (Goldy Moldavsky)

Lord of the Fly Fest
Goldy Moldavsky
Henry Holt and Co.
Fiction, YA Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: The hottest ticket of the millennium is Fly Fest, a star-studded week of models and music and nonstop parties on a private tropical island, where even the cheapest accommodations cost two thousand dollars - almost every penny Rafi Francisco has in savings. Unlike the vast majority of attendees, the hardcore fans and influencers and other internet-famous phonies, Rafi is a serious (if small-time) podcaster, and Fly Fest will be her best (and likely only) chance to corner Aussie pop sensation River Stone and ask him the question no interviewer or police detective has ever apparently dared to ask: did he kill his first girlfriend in the outback? Oh, everyone knows the sob story he tells, how she abandoned him on a camping trip and broke his heart (and inspired the songs on his chart-topping debut album), but Rafi's own investigations are enough to tell her that River's story holds less water than a thimble. If she can get him to confess, she can not only bring a killer to justice, but maybe her podcast will finally break into the big time.
She should've known it would all go wrong.
When the boat arrives at the private island, they're greeted by nothing but a half-built dock. There is no stage. The closest thing to the promised villas is a collection of cheap survival tents. The only food is a crate full of cheese sandwich-shaped items that may or may not actually be edible. There isn't even a single Fly Fest staffer on hand to explain what's going on. The only celebrity who showed up is River Stone himself. And, worse, there's no wifi. Rafi is still determined to get her interview and her confession, but the longer everyone is stranded, the worse the situation becomes... especially when she can't be sure whether or not they're stuck on an island with a serial killer.

REVIEW: As the title implies, this is a satiric homage to William Golding's classic Lord of the Flies, only instead of marooned English schoolboys degenerating into violent anarchy in isolation, it's a group even less prepared to confront a survival situation: a gaggle of internet-addicted wealthy elites who wouldn't know how to recognize unfiltered, hashtag-free reality if it cracked them on the skull like a coconut.
Rafi starts out convinced of her own moral superiority even as she can't help but feel inferior; she sees herself as a serious investigator, not a vapid spewer of meaningless fluff and unattainable beauty standards like most everyone else stranded on the island, and her lack of a six-figure bank account makes her more grounded, yet being surrounded by such impossibly perfect and inexplicably popular people - people who almost seem to be another species altogether, inhabiting a world that only tangentially connects to the planet Earth - can't help but remind her, second by second, how small her voice truly is, how little she even belongs at Fly Fest (the planned mega-festival or the actual fiasco both). The only reason she's initially noticed at all is that she's mistaken for a staffer due to an ill-advised decision to wear festival merchandise to the festival itself; that, and she's so nondescript that nobody else can conceive of any other reason such a drab, ordinary person could possibly be in their presence. Various characters offer fun-house-mirror versions of characters from the Golding classic (I'm sure I would've caught more parallels had I read the book more recently than high school), as most of them stubbornly refuse to believe the reality of the situation (and the fact that they've all been duped and abandoned) and instead - as they do in their normal lives - create an entirely fictitious idea of Fly Fest, trying to replicate their Instagram-worthy personas on a deserted island via increasingly hilarious stunts and extremes. Despite her determination to remain aloof from the madness and pursue her own agenda, Rafi finds herself drug deeper and deeper into the delusions, even as she discovers an unexpected connection with the object of her obsession, the maybe-killer pop star River Stone. When an influencer disappears, River is her immediate prime suspect, but her tendency to latch onto conspiracy theory thinking becomes her own form of the insanity that sweeps the rest of the crowd, for all that she's among the few who fights to remain aware of what's really going on and the trouble they're all in. Along the way, she learns just how much she has in common with the people she swore she'd never have anything in common with... and how dangerous a person can become when their worldview come under threat.
With many snicker-out-loud moments, the story presents some clever commentary on our social media obsessions and cultural tendency to elevate ideas of reality over the actual experience of reality itself, and how none of us are as immune as we like to think we are to the trends and mindsets surrounding us. The ending feels like it loses its chain of thought, though it's not quite the disappointingly (and pointlessly) abrupt ending of the original Lord of the Flies, almost costing it its full fourth star. Lord of the Fly Fest might've done better to break more fully from the source material (and indulge in the darker side it teased but never quite committed to). In the end, I found the story fun enough overall to keep the Good rating intact.

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Holes (Louis Sachar)

Holes
The Holes series, Book 1
Louis Sachar
Yearling
Fiction, MG Adventure/Mystery
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Stanley Yelnats didn't steal the shoes; they literally fell out of the sky in front of him. How was he supposed to know they belonged to a celebrity ball player, and had just been swiped from a homeless shelter where they were supposed to be auctioned for charity? Of course, the judge and prosecutor didn't believe him. Bad luck like this has plagued the Yelnats family for generations, ever since an ancestor stole a pig from the wrong old woman and brought a curse down on the whole line. Given the choice between traditional incarceration or 18 months at Camp Green Lake, he opted for the latter; Stanley always wanted to go to camp, though his parents could never afford it. Unfortunately, what he finds in the deep desert is nothing green, nor a hint of a lake. The warden's idea of reform is setting each boy in her custody to digging a hole every day, five feet wide by five feet deep, under the punishing Texas sun. In addition to the heat, there are rattlesnakes and venomous yellow-spotted lizards - plus no water for countless miles around, should any boy be foolish enough to run away. But there's more going on at Camp Green Lake than meets the eye, and Stanley inadvertently sticks his shovel straight into a century-old mystery.

REVIEW: This modern classic came out well after I passed the target age (and after I left high school), but it had such a devoted following I was always intrigued by it. In the tradition of the best literature for younger readers, Holes doesn't write down to its audience, tackling some thorny issues and meeting young readers where they are, without sugar coating life or the frustrations that come with so often being powerless over one's own life.
Since childhood, Stanley has learned to blame his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" when things go wrong, even though he and his father don't really believe in curses or magic or the peculiar family story passed down through the generation to explain why the Yelnatses so often end up on the wrong side of luck; it's just something to say, a thing to point to when one's best efforts and intentions fail to convince the universe to give them a break... or is it? An air of magic realism hangs over the story, a slightly surreal edge, where one can't completely dismiss the idea of curses or miracles, for all that people are ultimately accountable for their own actions. Curse or not, there's no denying that Stanley's had a run of ill fortune to end up at Camp Green Lake, thrown in with other boys convicted of a variety of crimes. He makes some tentative friendships among his new bunkmates, even as he learns all too quickly about the hierarchies and the flow of power at the camp. He also has to deal with the grown-ups, particularly the casually cruel warden who paints her nails with rattlesnake venom and is as likely to lash out at the adults as the students, backed up by henchmen who may at first seem friendly but ultimately serve one master. During Stanley's monotonous days, the story flashes back to Stanley's ancestor and to the long-lost Texas town of Green Lake - back when there really was a lake - and a tale of bigotry and intolerance that eventually ties into one of the more infamous instances of the Yelnats "curse". It goes without saying that there is an ulterior motive to the unusual punishment doled out at the camp, and even without intending it, Stanley winds up in the thick of it... which puts him on the wrong side of the warden and others. Along the way, he deals with issues of racism and abuse of power and learning to take control of his own seemingly out of control life. It's a solid story with some interesting depth and complexity, well deserving its reputation.

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Once Upon a Marigold (Jean Ferris)

Once Upon a Marigold
The Tales of Marigold series, Book 1
Jean Ferris
Harcourt
Fiction, CH Fantasy/Humor
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Edric the troll never meant to become a father, let alone a father to a human boy. But one day, as he was roaming the woods looking for various odds and ends to add to his collections, he and his two dogs found a child hiding in a berry patch. Young Christian hasn't been abducted or abandoned; he ran away, tired of his parents' endless rules and how they get mad at him for his many messy, often nonfunctional inventions. Furthermore, he steadfastly refuses to go back home - not that he even remembers which way home is anymore, or who his parents are other than "Mother" and "Father". The troll decides to take him back home to his cozy cavern, but just for one night... which becomes two, which becomes ten years. Now a young man, it's time for Christian to set forth and find his way in the world - and he knows just where to go.
For a long time, Christian has been watching the royal family across the river from his woodsy home. He watched as the shrewish queen and doddering but kindly old king married off their beautiful triplet daughters, then turned their attention to the shy, bookish youngest girl... a girl who makes Christian's heart feel strange and fizzy when he looks at her through the troll's spyglass. When he works up the courage to send her a p-mail - via carrier pigeon - he is thrilled when Princess Marigold writes back. Thus begins a friendship that becomes the center of Christian's young world, and the reason that his first destination upon leaving Edric's cave is across the river to the castle itself, to find his first job. Even though he knows, as a commoner, he'll never truly be her peer, he can't wait to meet Marigold in person. But, though Edric taught him well, even instructing him in etiquette and manners, it's been a very long time since Christian lived among people - and he couldn't have picked a worse time to show up at the castle. Queen Olympia is determined to marry off the stubborn princess to get her out of the way for her own impending ascent to the throne. And if Marigold still refuses to marry, well, there are other ways to get rid of pesky heirs...

REVIEW: This story is exactly what it promises to be: a light, humorous, once-upon-a-time fairy tale with all the requisite trappings and a generally goodhearted nature. This isn't the sort of story where one can expect lots of character depth or plot intricacy, but rather one where there are good people worth rooting for, bad people worth hissing at, some setbacks to overcome and lessons to be learned, and no spoiler for guessing things end on an upbeat note (save a little hook for the sequel). Everyone has just enough personal quirks to differentiate them on the page, just enough of a goal and a personality to drive them through their roles in the plot (including the dogs) and add some small wrinkles or complications to the story, though a few of these felt like setups to payoffs that were forgotten or brushed off the page, and a couple developments came across as a little contrived and convenient even for a children's story. (I also felt that, even for a simple fairy tale, Queen Olympia was rather one-note as a villain, and could've used a little more justification/rationalization for the extreme measures she took toward her goals.) Still, this is a generally enjoyable tale, even if it's hardly breaking new ground in the "fractured fairy tale" subgenre.

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Going Bovine (Libba Bray)

Going Bovine
Libba Bray
Ember
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)

DESCRIPTION: Like many teen boys, 16-year-old Cameron Smith just can't seem to figure himself out, let alone his future. Nothing ever seems to matter, like he's a spectator in his own existence. He can't be bothered to engage with his peers, save a small group of potheads who gather in the high school bathroom, and it's been years since he was close to his popular sister, his professor father, or one-time literary scholar mother. But he's just a high school junior; surely he has plenty of time to pull himself together.
Then he sees the strange storm and the fire giants and the crazy-talking punk angel in the torn fishnet stockings, and suffers the first of many seizures, ultimately leading to a diagnosis of Creutzfeldt–Jakob variant BSE, better known to the world as "mad cow disease". Basically, his brain is turning into a useless sponge inside his head. There is no cure, no treatment. Instead of decades or years, Cameron Smith's life can now be measured in months, at most.
As he undergoes experimental treatments in the hospital, the "hallucinations" return - only the angel with the punk clothes and pink wings may be more real than he thought. Dulcie tells him that his disease isn't natural, but a byproduct of a scientist's experiments in traveling across parallel dimensions. Professor X unwittingly opened a wormhole and let unsavory dark matter entities into our defenseless world, and unless Cameron stops them, the world has less time to live than he does. And since the boy's disease is linked to the wormhole, there's a chance that Professor X could even cure him, where modern medical science has thus far failed.
Thus begins a wild, frantic cross-country quest, to a forgotten New Orleans club where lost jazz legends still play, through a cult dedicated to perpetual bliss at all costs, into the mystery of the world's most popular Inuit band that disappeared mid-performance, even to the heart of a modern reality TV empire and beyond, in the company of a hypochondriac dwarf and a garden gnome who may be an cursed Norse god - two weeks in which one dying teenager will finally learn what it means to truly be alive.

REVIEW: Part of the ever-popular subgenre of surreal stories centered around vaguely horny, underachieving stoner guys experiencing grand epiphanies, Going Bovine perpetually teeters on the edge of being truly profound and wonder-inducing, but just kept falling short.
After an opening with some real promise - relating an incident when Cameron was five years old and suffered what could best be described as an existential crisis on the "Small World" ride in Disney World - it kicked off on a bad foot for me by taking far too long to introduce Cameron, a teen so disaffected he even bores and irritates himself. He doesn't connect with anyone or anything; his "favorite" musician is an obscure Portuguese crooner of sad love songs who plays recorder and ukulele, which the boy only really likes because he laughs at the man's musical efforts without even trying to understand the lyrics, let alone the emotions behind them. Why is he that way? Even he doesn't know, though it's established fairly early on that our world pretty much grooms everyone to be as disengaged, as poor at independent thinking, as demanding of instant gratification of every whim, and as intolerant of even momentary unpleasantness (let alone the discomforts that ultimately drive needed change and produce greatness) as possible; his English class's course on Don Quixote has the teacher telling the students not to bother thinking about the book on their own but simply to regurgitate the answers provided in order to pass the standardized test, and all anyone in his school cares about is popularity and the vapid reality shows cooked up by the Young Adult TV channel. Slowly, ponderously, the story trudges through Cameron's unpleasant life through his unpleasant point of view, to the point where I nearly gave up on the audiobook more than once. Only because I had really enjoyed a previous Bray title (and because I was at work and, frankly, too busy/lazy to pick another title) did I keep going. That, and because the wild description promised such potentially great and weird and hilarious and wonderful things that I just had to see where things were going.
Eventually, things manage to kick into gear, when the angel named Dulcie (an unsubtle nod to the Dulcinea who spurred Don Quixote to his delusional and ultimately tragic life as a would-be knight errant) gives him his quest... with the condition that he takes his hospital roommate, classmate Gonzo (a fellow sometimes-pothead with dwarfism, half-crushed under the thumb of an overprotective mother), with him. By following a series of random-but-possibly-not encounters and clues, Cameron and Gonzo strike out on a bold quest to save the world (and possibly Cameron's life), with periodic encounters with increasingly-violent fire giants and visits from Dulcie to keep the dying boy going when he grows discouraged or disillusioned. In the nature of similar tales, the universe seems to go out of its way to provide guides, instructive obstacles, and lessons specifically for our confused but desperate protagonist, along with innumerable Themes and Metaphors and Pounded In So Hard The Nail Emerges From The Far Side Of The Earth Messages about Life, the Universe/Multiverse (quantum physics figure in, as they so often do in metaphysical-leaning tales these days), and all that big stuff. It all builds up to an intense showdown with Cameron's arch-enemy, the Wizard of Reckoning, whose identity is not nearly so mysterious to anyone who has read or watched remotely similar stories, capped by a finale that pulled one of my personal pet-peeve least favorite "twists", which cost it a solid star in the ratings.
At times, the commentary was razor sharp and the episodes darkly humorous, sprinkled with moments peculiarly beautiful and even meaningful, but at least as often as not things felt contrived and heavy-handed. It didn't help that Cameron frequently proved obtuse and bumbling (despite glowing neon signs pointing out the way forward or trying to convey the lesson he was supposed to be learning), and not in an endearing way. Add to that a vague sense that some elements and ideas were set up and never adequately tied in or followed through on, and I wound up disappointed.

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December Site Update and 2024 Reading Year in Review

The month's reviews have been, as usual, archived at the main Brightdreamer Books site. Enjoy, if so inclined.

Another year has apparently ended, so it's time for another Reading Year in Review.

January kicked off with Erin Entrada Kelly's middle-grade tale Hello, Universe, which never quite lived up to its potential. More impressive titles included a sci-fi historical thriller twist on the Cold War space race in Silvain Neuvel's A History of What Comes Next, a fascinating look at one of Earth's most catastrophic events in Riley Black's The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, another enjoyable installment in the Singing Hills Cycle of Asian-flavored fantasy in Nghi Vo's Mammoths at the Gates, and the story of one desperate girl driven to rescue a veritable stranger when nobody else will try in Dusti Bowling's Across the Desert. Other titles generally entertained me on some level, though I was notably disappointed by Amelie Wen Zhao's Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, and Stephen L. Kent's The Clone Assassin suffered mostly for being in the middle of a much longer series which I haven't read. The last book of the month wrapped up "A. Deborah Baker"'s (Seanan McGuire's) delightfully retro Up-and-Under fantasy adventure quartet with Under the Smokestrewn Sky.

I sampled a genre classic to start off February, Jack L. Chalker's sci-fi odyssey Midnight at the Well of Souls, and enjoyed some of the grand ideas and imagery even if it couldn't help showing its age. Another classic title, Cujo by Stephen King, held up better. The final installment of Josiah Bancroft's Books of Babel stumbled at the finish line with The Fall of Babel. I started Derek Landy's clever and adventurous middle-grade/young adult urban fantasy series, Skulduggery Pleasant, and knew right away I'd be following this one to the end. I also continued with Michael J. Sullivan's epic fantasy series, Chronicles of the First Empire, with Age of Swords, which nicely scratched the epic itch I'd been feeling, and began the graphic novel "Season Seven" of the Expanse television series (which also neatly slots into a time gap in between Books 6 and 7 in the written series) with The Expanse: Dragon Tooth, Volume 1 by Andy Diggle, which felt just like returning to a beloved series with pitch-perfect characters and writing. The month ended on a low note, unfortunately, with a self-aware young adult thriller that ultimately failed to thrill: Danielle Valentine's How to Survive Your Murder.

Yet another old-school audiobook started March, Terry Pratchett's The Dragons at Crumbling Castle, which collects several stories from the author's younger years; even as a teenager, there were hints of the heights he would later reach with Discworld and other titles. M. T. Anderson's Whales on Stilts delightfully skewered various genre tropes, kicking off his Pals in Peril series that I hope to follow through to the end (though unfortunately my library doesn't seem to carry e-book or audiobook copies of the last volumes, dang it). Another fun middle-grade title took on junior detective tales, Mac Barnett's The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity, though Kara LaReau's silly adventures of the Bland sisters in The Jolly Regina didn't trigger the giggles as often as I'd hoped. Dimitra Papagianni and Michael A. Morse offered a new look at our extinct cousin species in The Lost Neanderthal, attempting to erase some denigrating myths and misconceptions. I returned to K. Eason's "multiverse" mashup of fantasy and and sci-fi in the Arithmancy and Anarchy milieu as it moved into darker, more adult territory, kicking off with the excellent Nightwatch on the Hinterlands. Other noteworthy titles included the surprisingly intriguing Domesticating Dragons by Dan Koboldt and the mildly disappointing (given all the hype I've heard over the years) A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny.

April showers flooded into a harrowing story of survival on the Amazon River in Holly FitzGerald's Ruthless River and ended in the fascinatingly intricate epic fantasy city of Kithamar in Daniel Abraham's Age of Ash. Between, I explored the psychology of fandom in Tabitha Carvan's This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, ventured through a variety of real-life adventures in Douglas Preston's The Lost Tomb, snickered at the low-brow humor of the classic picture book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Joe Scieszka and the second Pals in Peril installment The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M. T. Anderson, and explored a noir future where the elite literally tower over the populace (yet aren't beyond reach of a murderer) in Nick Harkaway's Titanium Noir. Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children portal fantasy deconstructions returned with an intriguing shop of lost things from countless worlds in Mislaid in Parts Half-Unknown, while the second installment of Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant series, Playing With Fire, maintained the pacing and humor (and flirtation with Lovecraftian-tinged horror) of the first book. Top marks went to the gorgeous multicultural picture book The Truth About Dragons by Julie Leung.

While May didn't have any outright clunkers, it also didn't bring many brilliant standouts. Opening with the often-gruesome modern riff on Jonah in Daniel Kraus's Whalefall, a mixed reading bag awaited me. M. T. Anderson's perpetually-imperiled young "pals" returned in Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware as the month's only sequel, the rest being standalones (save Steve Cole's moderately entertaining and definitely different Z. Rex and another M. T. Anderson title, the less-satiric, somewhat darker fantasy The Game of Sunken Places). Charles Yu took a surreal, scriptlike approach to Asian stereotyping in Interior Chinatown, while Erica Bauermeister tracked the journey of a debut novelist's breakout hit through various readers in No Two Persons. I ended the month with a memoir by a trans actor chronicling their ongoing discovery of their true identity in Elliot Page's Pageboy.

June started with a disappointment, Sara Wolf's far-future tale of fighting mechas and social injustice in Heavenbreaker, but ended on a better note with Katherine Arden's middle-grade horror tale Dark Waters, third in her Small Spaces quartet. The month's clear high spot was Shannon Chakraborty's historical fantasy swashbuckler The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, and Michael J. Sullivan continued to impress with Age of War. After much anticipation, I found myself underwhelmed by Hannah Kaner's Godkiller, and M. T. Anderson's fourth Pals in Peril novel Agent Q, or the Smell of Danger! started feeling a touch stretched but was still mostly fun.

I began July with a decent little tale of a sapient ink blob in Kenneth Oppel's Inkling. The month contained more than one disappointment, though. Helene Tursten's collection of tales about an old serial killer, An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good and Stuart Turton's literary look at the twilight of humanity in The Last Murder at the End of the World failed to quite live up to their respective expectations, and the collaboration between M. T. Anderson and artist Eugene Yelchin, The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, probably should not have been presented as an audiobook given that doing so cut out almost half the book in the form of Yelchin's illustrated chapters. Megan E. O'Keefe's The Blighted Stars took a little too long to gain traction, but was more or less enjoyable, even though I preferred her Protectorate trilogy. The month's high point was T. Kingfisher's superb fantasy novella Nettle and Bone, with Andy Diggle's graphic novel The Expanse: Dragon Tooth, Volume 2 as a close second. Morgan Housel offered some perspective on modern times in Same as Ever, and Scott Westerfield kicked off a science-based middle-grade adventure series with Horizon.

Katherine Arden's Empty Smiles wrapped up the Small Spaces horror quartet and started August off on a good foot, as did the next book, Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Other high points were Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree, The Faceless Ones by Derek Landy, and the epic conclusion to K. Eason's Weep duology in the Arithmancy and Anarchy series, Nightwatch Over Windscar, with a surprise top mark for Kiyash Monsef's story of a girl discovering her link to magical beasts in Once There Was. I continued Michael J. Sullivan's Legends of the First Empire series, clearing the fourth and fifth entries in the six-book sequence (Age of Legend and Age of Death), which made me question whether there were indeed six novels worth of material in the story he was spinning. A couple nonfiction titles made it into the reading queue, both of which turned out to be interesting in their own ways: an examination of the ways the human brain can deceive itself in Oliver Sacks's Hallucinations and the story of an adventurer's disappearance and likely death in the Himalayas in Harley Rustad's Lost in the Valley of Death. A fictionalized middle-grade retelling of a First Nations legend (Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson's Eagle Drums, a historical fiction tale (Paulette Jile's News of the World), and a somewhat disappointing Korean-inspired space adventure (Elaine U. Cho's Ocean's Godori) rounded out the month.

September opened with one of the month's top reads, V. E. Scwab's gothic-tinged horror/fantasy Gallant, and ended with the lighthearted graphic novel CatStronauts: Mission Moon by Drew Brockington. In the middle was the usual mix of good and not-quite-so-good reads and genres. Daniel Abraham continued to expand and explore his fantasy city of Kithamar with Blade of Dream, while Derek Landy seemed to slightly rush a series transition point in the Skulduggery Pleasant series with Dark Days. A historical naval tragedy was examined in David Grann's The Wager, my only nonfiction title of the month. I visited the reign of Cleopatra in the historical mystery Death of an Eye by Dana Stabenow, and mostly enjoyed the end of the world with a romantic island vacation gone horribly wrong in Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer. Jane Yolen's How to Fracture a Fairy Tale collected many of her fairy tale retellings, some familiar and some new to me, with some extra notes and poems. It also marked the end of an era, as I switched site hosts from iPowerWeb to DreamHost. (The former is a fine host, but both too expensive and too robust for my modest needs.)

October appropriately featured more than one thriller and ghost story. It launched with Karen M. McManus's tale of high school social media turned deadly in One of Us Is Lying, a solidly good tale. I was, unfortunately, less enthused by Christina Henry's thriller Good Girls Don't Die, which dropped three women into horrific situations straight out of their favorite fictional genres, and Kelly Armstrong's Hemlock Island, the story of a cursed private home in the Great Lakes. The classics were represented by my first foray into Oscar Wilde's works, the short story collection Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories, which had some inevitable dating but were interesting nevertheless. I ticked two more entries in Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant series off with Mortal Coil and the less impressive novella Apocalypse Kings; Landy wrote the latter standalone well after finishing the main series, and I think it showed that he was out of the groove. For nonfiction, I revisited several terrible days in history with the time traveler's handy guide How to Survive History by Cody Cassidy, explored how humans inevitably project our own mindsets and moralities everywhere (to the detriment of science and conservation) with Lucy Cooke's The Truth About Animals, and took on linguistic elitism with June Casagrande's amusing Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies, which turned out to be the best thing I read that month. It wrapped up with a near-future lunar thriller that was less exciting than I'd hoped, David Pedreira's Gunpowder Moon.

I only managed seven books in November, though they were more or less decent reads. Nino Cipri mashed up parallel dimensions and modern retail in Finna. More genre reads followed, with Charlie Jane Anderson's tale of a planet split by extremes in The City in the Middle of the Night and the story of a math prodigy taking on a psychic supervillain in S. L. Huang's Zero Sum Game, plus the somewhat amusing but ultimately overlong The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland. An older young adult thriller had an inexplicable "update" in Lois Duncan's Down a Dark Hall. The best read of the month was also the most timely (and ultimately depressing) Why Does Everything Have to Be About Race? by Keith Boykin; reading this after America basically opted to hand democracy over to a convicted rapist and traitor and openly anti-democratic authoritarian who ran on a promise to violate the Constitution rather than even attempt addressing the inequities underlying so many things hurting our nation added another sad twist of that knife. The last read of the month was Jaime Greene's look at how scientists and speculative fiction approach the matter of extraterrestrial life in The Possibility of Life.

December did not start with me in a festive spirit, for obvious reasons. I tried regaining some hope with a book on the ins and outs of organizing effective resistance, Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Miriame Kaba, though unfortunately not much of it was applicable to my circumstances. Christina Lynch's Pony Confidential was interesting, somewhat entertaining, and occasionally profound and touching, though it seemed misbilled by its cover and official descriptions. Another popular title, Mike Herron's spy caper Slow Horses, intrigued me but had some stumbling points. I sampled a Japanese cozy fantasy about a cafe where one can time travel in a limited capacity, Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, with tepid results. But the end of the month and the holiday season were significantly overshadowed. My elderly father - the man who helped inspire my love of reading in general and SFF in particular - finally entered home hospice care due to ongoing health issues and worsening dementia. Between the time and physical effort of assisting with his care, the emotional toll, and the stress of dealing with both the impending loss and the uncertainty of the "after", I just plain cannot invest headspace in much reading now. I did manage to finish off the "Season Seven" Expanse graphic novel tie-in with Dragon Tooth: Volume 3 by Andy Diggle, based on the TV series and books created by James S. A. Corey, to wrap up the year, though I admittedly read more for distraction than full immersion.

There were some good bits here and there, if I stand back and squint, but overall, as I look backwards from the end of an exceptionally damp, dark, and dismal December, I'd say 2024 was a terrible year and 2025 is unlikely to be better on any conceivable level. But, hey, at least there's books. For now, at least...