Reviews and Comments

The ending was a bit rushed, and had a bit too much of the "gunfight at the OK corral" feel to it, but I enjoyed the book, and the worldbuilding was excellent.

Finding out that there was a sequel to Wanderers got me really curious; it's an interesting post-apocalypse.

There's no question it's a novel of the period in which it was written; white nationalism, populist insurrections, and anti-maskers figure prominently.

So far I'm about 10% into this one, and my main criticism is that I JUST WANT THE CHARACTERS TO FUCKING TALK TO EACH OTHER.

The ending of this was a fair amount more optimistic than I expected, although there was a twist that -- honestly -- I saw coming, but still really appreciated. There's a sequel, surprisingly, and I'm looking forward to seeing where Wendig takes the story.

I read about 80% of this on a flight back to Seattle from Detroit and ... hoo boy, what a MOOD. It's a pretty grim pandemic book. I like it, I want to see how it ends, but I am not finding joy in reading it, that's for damn sure.

I read this (via Audible) on the drive to Portland yesterday. It's a brief nibble of a story, and does a great job of setting up its premise, hinting at the structure of what is to come, and then ending on a lovely grace note. I really enjoyed it, and I don't really want more; I think it was the perfect amount of that story.

In the end... I still don't like the way Muir writes, and it makes me sad because I like her worldbuilding. I hate that I never know consistently what's happening, because when I do know what's going on I quite enjoy the writing. It gets worse, too, at climactic points in the book, where Muir will sometimes just stop identifying who's talking by the terms used in the rest of the book.

Argh. I want to love these books, and they just do not work for me.

I read this on the plane yesterday, and finished it today at the High Level diner in Edmonton. It was, as I predicted, a delight to read. I love the way T. Kingfisher plays with tropes, while still giving me the satisfaction of the ending I wanted.

I've started this, and I'm working my way through it; these books, although I think I end up enjoying them, are always way more work than I expect, because the way the author hides things from me as a reader just doesn't jive with how I understand stories.

At least two people in my life have started reading and chosen not to finish this book, which won the Nebula award for Best Novel this year (I'm curious about its non-appearance on the Hugo finalist list for Best Novel, and I suppose we'll need to wait for the data to come out to see why.)

That contrast fascinates me, though, because it's rare to see such diametrically opposed views of a book; on the one hand, "Best Novel" and on the other hand mulitple DNFs from people who ordinarily have pretty good taste.

I read this for a book club -- we're reading all the Hugo finalists -- and I'm not sure I would have started it otherwise, but I'm glad I did. It was a small, surprisingly sweet story given the slightly horror-tinged nature of its setting and plot, and I really enjoyed it. The slight displacement of the setting -- moving it into the Yucatán peninsula instead of an island -- made for some very plausible stakes.

Ooooohhh.. this one was shiver-worthy

I liked this one a lot; the twist wasn't that surprising, but I appreciated how the narration played into the overall story. It was also fun to see some other stories make their way into the narrative, even if obliquely.

This series was so damn grim; it felt hopeless and doomed, every step of the way. I'm glad I read it though.

This was a surprisingly touching story about escaping the fairy tale ending and really living happily ever after.

I read this novella as part of a book club oriented around reading all the Hugo finalists for 2023. I have mixed thoughts on it; there were definitely some narrative shortcuts the author took, but by and large I enjoyed it.