I think I'll start putting ratings, because I've realized I have the lame habit of saying nice things about books I don't like that much and negative things about books I like a lot. Though maybe don't take the ratings too seriously either.

The Enemy (Higson) 3-/5 - Dystopian Zombies. Adults are zombies; the kids must fight against them. Random ( Read more... )

First things first: these guys are pretty awesome. They self-published this anthology because no publisher would take it on. They have a free pdf available at machineofdeath.net (though I bought a copy because I like supporting people who want information to be free). It came out the day Glenn Beck's book did (not on purpose) and pushed his book ( Read more... )

For some reason, I've been trying to catch up all the McKinley I've missed (I think I stopped reading after Deerskin). The latest in this read is Spindle's End, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty that manages to recast it in a way that... doesn't suck for the female characters ( Read more... )

"Rewarding the good," Delia said, "and punishing the wicked."

Dev gave her a dry look. "Would that everything was so binary," he said.This is a Duane-tries-to-channel-Vinge book about a big Google-esque MMORPG company. I always enjoy reading Duane -- I got to her from her Star Trek novels and have been happily reading all the Wizard books since ( Read more... )

I had finally come to see that Coco was an animal, with intrinsically far less potential than Sophia and Lulu. Although it is true that some dogs are on bomb squads or drug-sniffing teams, it is perfectly fine for most dogs not to have a profession or even any special skills.

Naturally, both girls felt the book shortchanged them. "You should ( Read more... )

There was a dead silence. In fact, the silence was so very dead that Abdullah realized that the sixty ears... [mild spoilers redacted]... anyway, that all these ears were at that moment focused entirely upon what he and Flower-in-the-Night were saying ( Read more... )

She took Gabriel’s soft strong hand. “Here they make it too hard for you. I could make it too easy. Neither way is right... Go out in the world,” Snake said. “Take your life in your hands and make it what you want.”

Reread after thinking about the stuff in my last post. This book... is extremely refreshing, feminist-wise. It's a gender-equal ( Read more... )

julianyap has once again declared National Put Quotes in Your Blog Month, so I'm going to put one in every post I make this month.

"Truth is all I have, and truth is never a comfort. But understanding truth, that is what you taught me to do. So here is the truth. What human life is, what it's for, what we do, is create communities. Some of them are good, ( Read more... )

A companion read to In this House of Brede, which I talked a little about here: another book about nuns, this one about a girls' school run by nuns. This book is undeniably well written. After having overindulged in one-note YA, I find it so very refreshing to read a book where the author actually has stylistic control and can pull off various ( Read more... )