Scribd | Review

**Not sponsored by Scribd**

I heard about Scribd about a year ago and decided to take the plunge this summer using a free month trial from the folks over at Book Riot. I am so glad I did because I freaking love Scribd and want to tell everyone I know how great it is.

Pros

• Unlimited books and comics, one audiobook credit per month
• Huge selection of books, but particularly genre fiction and literary fiction
• Many books come to Scribd close to their release date
• Beautiful design and reading experience
• Lots of bang for your buck. Even only reading one novel or one comic trade or one audiobook per month and your subscription has paid for itself
• Great library interface which lets you save books for later and organize them into lists

Cons

• They advertise themselves as monthly but the subscription hit my credit card in one lump sum — not crazy expensive but also not my favorite surprise
• Sneaky space hog. Scribd holds a “recently read” cache on your reading device, which can take up a lot of space if you don’t realize it. It’s really easy to clear, but something that builds up quickly
• The audiobook player can be buggy when listening for really long stretches of time

Overall, I couldn’t be more happy with my Scribd subscription. I’ve been reading way more audiobooks than I ever have before, including one of my now favorite books Beautiful Ruins. I read most of the Ruth Galloway series on Scribd, listened to Girl on the Train right after it came out, and am now reading Locke and Key. There’s a huge and diverse selection of books with a great reading experience. They also have curated lists of editors picks, top books, and new releases.

If you love audiobooks, ebooks, and comics, or even just want to cut down on your book budget a little, this is a great service. I find between it and the library, I can save my money (and space) for physical copies of books that I really love from my local indie.

Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman | Review

Since the paperback recently came out, it seemed appropriate to finally get to my review of Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman. This is a short story collection focusing on the lives of the 13 eponymous women. There is a wide breadth of time and age, with the youngest woman being the toddler Allegra Byron (that  Byron) to painter Romaine Brooks.

I bought this book thinking I would read it slowly, one story at a time. Instead, I read the whole thing in one afternoon. The stories are riveting and haunting, and will leave you scouring Wikipedia to learn more.

Mayhew Bergman varies her form a lot throughout the book. There are a wide variety of narrators, in the first- versus third-person sense but also in relation to the subject. Allegra’s story is told through the eyes of her nurse whose own child died of Typhus, while other stories are told through the eyes of thieves and lovers.

This was one of my favorite books of the summer, if not of the year. I highly recommend reading on the patio with a glass of rosé before the summer ends.

Ruth Galloway | Series Review

I absolutely love the mystery/thriller genre and every summer I can’t get enough of them.  This summer’s addiction has been Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series. Since this is a series review, I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum but there are some spoilers.

Ruth is an archeology professor in Norfolk, England who is asked to consult on a murder investigation by Detective Chief Inspector Nelson. The rest of the series sees her continuing to consult with the local police force, as well as her shenanigans with the cast of characters around her.

This is a really fun series. It is suspenseful with so many twists and turns — very classic mystery. What sets this series apart for me are the characters. Ruth is ambitious, she is fat and doesn’t really care, and she [SPOILERS] becomes a mother who continues to be ambitious and driven.

The cast of characters in this book is great. There’s her friend the Druid, the bumbling policeman Clough and the very capable detective Judy Johnson, her flakey friend Shauna and other assorted background characters. The characters are well-developed as the series goes on, with their own baggage and ambitions.

Ruth Galloway’s stories also have an amazing atmospheric setting. Ruth lives out on the Saltmarsh, a potentially sacred pagan place, but a definitely atmospheric one. It would be easy for that kind of setting to be really cheesy, but Griffiths uses it sparingly and to great effect.

There are currently seven Ruth Galloway novels, with a couple of companions too. I highly recommend if you enjoy good characters, fast plots, and staying up late.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt | Review

Real talk: I did not like this book and this is definitely the most negative review I’ve ever posted. It may be the most negative I ever post. That is how much I hated this book.

For the first third or so, I was intrigued. I thought the main character was a pompous ass, but I enjoy books with unlikable characters and unreliable narrators so it seemed like it was going well. You spend a lot of the beginning on Richard’s life story – parents who hate him, everyone in his school is stupid, he starts college and it’s stupid. He stares longingly at the pamphlet from an extremely expensive, idyllic northeast liberal arts school. Why this Californian is so drawn to the northeast, it is never quite made clear.

He moves to Hampden, his new school, and gets into this very strange major that seems to be classics but is really five rich kids (plus Richard) hero-worshipping this super pretentious old man. The classes are super exclusive, with only five people in the entire major and the professor basically setting the schedule for his student’s four years. Why the university allows this is never quite clear. The kids in his class are so pretentious about ancient Greek (both the language and its ideals) that I assumed the book was set in the early 20th century, until a passing remark about an ATM. I literally had to look up the copyright date to see when this book was supposed to be.

At this point, I was starting to be skeptical of the book but I pushed on. Boarding school novels are fun! Sad rich kids are interesting – look at Catcher in the Rye!

You find out very early in the book that one of the students was killed by the rest, but it takes half of the book to find out why. When you do find out, it is incredibly confusing why Richard would stick around this crazy group of mind-bogglingly privileged assholes. He doesn’t seem to admire them, envy them, or even like them. He basically allows himself to fall into this murder and then he’s stuck with these psychos.

The book really deteriorated from there for me. There’s will-they-won’t-they get caught, more forays to the fancy cottage, occasionally some guilt over the fact that they killed their friend but mostly drinking and knocking on doors at 2 am being dramatic. Good God the amount of late-night door knocking it’s amazing none of the other students murdered these five.

Another issue I had with this book: none of the main characters act like anyone resembling a 1980s college student. Henry is planting flowers in flower beds at his house, using a wheelbarrow. Do you know how many college students have wheelbarrows just lying around so they can plant flower beds? None. They’re always wearing suits for no apparent reason and sitting around drinking scotch in their “rich kid plays poor” apartments, calling each other “Old boy!” like they’re Jay Gatsby.

Even as someone who loves a good anti-hero/unlikable character, I could barely stomach these kids. They weren’t even unlikable in an interesting way, they were just boring. The end came out of no where, either a deux ex machina as an allusion to all the Greek they studied or the author just wanted to end this longass book and put us out of our misery.

I think the book was supposed to be all ~literary~ and dark and twisty, but I just couldn’t get on board. It didn’t seem like we were supposed to dislike these characters, it seemed like we were supposed to dislike the other students. The characterization was so weak that I couldn’t keep Henry and Francis straight for the first two-thirds of the book. It wasn’t until their characters were fleshed out as France = Gay, Henry = Evil that I could actually tell them apart. This book was just a long slog that started out as a compelling narrative.

The Diviners by Libba Bray | Review

The Diviners by Libba Bray was one of those stay-up-all-night reads. It has fleshed-out characters, fascinating plot, and melds supernatural and real history together fantastically. Watch for more of my thoughts, and hopefully I’ll have a review to the sequel in a few weeks.

Staying Up All Night

My winter reading slump can officially be considered over, thanks to The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon and The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway #1) by Elly Griffiths. Both of these books kept me up well past my bedtime.

This book was incredibly creepy and suspenseful. McMahon created an atmosphere where you spend your entire reading experience tensed up, expecting something to jump out of the closet, even though nothing ever does.

The story alternates between three viewpoints: the diary of Sara Harrison Shea living in the late-19th century, Ruthie in the modern day, and Kathleen also in the modern day. Sara grew up hearing about “sleepers” and when her daughter dies, she becomes obsessed with creating one. At first, it is really unclear how these three women are related, but as the book progresses the net slowly closes around them. There are so many twists and turns as the story hurtles toward the end. There were a few twists I saw coming, but the end was really shocking to me. Highly recommend reading, do not recommend reading in bed.

This book is the first in the Ruth Galloway series. Galloway is a professor of paleontology in the UK who the police ask to consult on a missing child’s case. Originally just brought in to identify the bones, she of course becomes ensnared in the mystery. Ruth is a kickass professory who embraces her fat identity and takes no prisoners, while simultaneously not being afraid to cry when the situation gets really f-ing terrifying.

I loved how mythology and anthropology are used in this story. Griffiths really commits to Galloway being a paleontologist by giving her tons of niche knowledge. What I didn’t love was how convenient aspects of the mystery were. There were a lot of connections to Ruth that caused me to struggle with my suspension of disbelief. Overall, though, this book was engrossing and I will definitely be continuing with this series.

Now, continuing with mysteries, I’ve moved onto The Cuckoo’s Calling, J.K. Rowling’s first book under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Empress Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

China is a country that I know embarrassingly little about. Considering I can name all of Henry VIII’s wives and their demises (Catherine – divorced, Anne – beheaded, Jane – childbirth, Anne – annulled, Catherine 2 – beheaded, Catherine 3 – widowed) it’s pretty pathetic how little I know about a major world power.

Enter Jung Chang, author of Empress Cixi. She wrote this lengthy, in-depth look at a woman who was never legally empress in her own right yet affected major change over almost five decades. According to the book and some internet research, Empress Cixi has been maligned by history and Chang sought to change the story. Though at times ruthless and imperfect, Cixi changed the face of China, becoming more open to trading with Western countries and dismantling age-old hierarchies.

I learned so much about China and so much about what I need to learn. I had no idea that China was ruled by the Manchu minority and the ethnic majority were Huns. I didn’t know about the conflicts with Japan, or Japan’s conflicts with Korea. I had heard of the Boxer rebellion but knew little about it. Reading this gave some structure to what types of topics I want to read about next.

This book was really fascinating but also flawed. One glaring flaw was the way that Chang continually made comments conflating western ways with modernity. The tone implied that it was not possible to be modern and also maintain Chinese culture, and that Empress Cixi was on the right path by trying to westernize the country in its cultural traditions. The book was also very long and dragged in places, though that is to be expected of biographies of world leaders.

Using this book as my guide, I have a much better idea of where to go next in my quest to learn about China. Right now, the graphic novels Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang  are on my TBR, in addition to The Opium War by Julia Lovell, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom  by Stephen Platt and People’s Republic of Amnesia by Louisa Lim.

Let me know if there are any books you recommend – I’m eager to learn more!

 

Review: Ready Player One

I have kind of an unpopular opinion: I didn’t like this book. (Spoilers ahead)

The premise of this book was great. It’s kind of post-apocalyptic. Humans have polluted the earth so much that huge regions are wastelands. Everyone moves to cities and live in sort of futuristic shantytowns. They all go into the OASIS, a virtual reality, all day. The creator put in easter eggs,  granting the person who found them his fortune and ownership of the OASIS. Wade is chasing the easter eggs, along with some friends he made along the way.

The book is full of 80s pop culture references,which is a lot of fun and part of why it is so popular. There are video games and movies and books and I’m sure a million things I didn’t even pick up on. The premise of hunting for easter eggs throughout  is cool.

Unfortunately, I just can’t get on board with this one. The references were cool at first. Then came a chapter where Wade has to recreate Ferris Beuller’s Day Off to get an easter egg. The book then goes on to describe the movie in excruciating detail. There were some references that were just for the sake of references. Wade has a replica of the Delorean described in painstaking detail only to never be seen again.

The other problem I have with this book is Wade’s infallibility. Wade is living in a world where everyone and is a hacker and we’re supposed to believe that he is this amazing, ridiculous genius. There’s absolutely no backstory that explains his genius. At first I thought his arrogance was going to result in a comeuppance, but no. Instead, he spends a large chunk of this book hiding from corporate henchmen while selling wares on the black market and becoming world famous. He accomplishes all this without a single misstep. In fact, throughout the entire book, Wade never fails at anything. The one time we do think he fails, when he becomes an indentured servant, it turns out that he orchestrated the whole thing. Everything just works out so nice and neat. It defies belief.

I didn’t hate this book. It was fun, it was witty, it had a good premise. The beginning of the book sucked me in, and was what convinced me not to abandon it. Overall, though, I can’t recommend this book. It was just too neat and tidy.

The Clockwork Scarab (Stoker and Holmes #1) by Colleen Gleason

This was included in my Fall Reading list and I just finished it over the weekend. The premise is that Mina Holmes, niece of Sherlock, and Evaline Stoker, sister of Bram, have been asked by Irene Adler to investigate the mysterious deaths of several young socialites. There is time travel, Egyptian mythology, steampunk, and literary allusions aplenty.

The Clockwork Scarab was a fast-paced, plot driven read. It was perfect for destressing from exams and just escaping for a couple hours into this fun world. Although the plots are not very similar, I kept finding myself comparing this to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Both are steampunk and feature characters from Sherlock Holmes, though that is where the comparison stops. In many ways, this is what I wanted The League to be. The heroines are smart and witty, they get themselves into trouble and work together to get out, and the mystery at the heart of the story is intriguing.

This isn’t to say that I have nothing but praise for this book. While I enjoyed the steampunk world, it didn’t really have an effect on the plot. The book would have been exactly the same without the steampunk elements. There were also some subplots that seemed shoehorned. The time travel and Dylan character made little sense – I actually kept forgetting that he existed. There’s a chance that his character was just an introduction to a plotline that will become more important in the rest of the series, but in this novel I just didn’t get it. There’s also some angst for Mina about her mom which just never quite fit. It also drove me crazy that Mina and Evaline were so antagonistic – they’re both smart and kickass ladies and there’s really no reason for each to assume the other is a jerk (shine theory, people).

Despite my qualms, I really enjoyed this and look forward to picking up the sequel The Spiritglass Charade, which just came out. SInce the first book ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, I’m looking forward to continuing the series!

Saga Trilogy

I’ve been kind of resisting the Saga trilogy for a while. Even though BookTubers and bloggers have been all over it, I was skeptical. I’ve tried comics and graphic novels in the past and just never really connected with them.

A few weeks ago I wandered into Vault of Midnight on a whim and finally cracked. I bought the first, and was soon back in for the second and rounded out the trilogy at my library.

First of all, I’d like to shout out to Vault of Midnight because I am a total comic newb and they were so nice, and the store is just so cool! Upstairs are comics, both single issue and trade, and downstairs they have all kinds of table top games like Settlers of Catan.

But now to Saga. I absolutely loved it, and have now added a few comic series to my to-read list as a result. The story follows a couple from warring civilizations who are on the run after having a baby, Hazel. The story is narrated by an older Hazel. The world building is fantastic. Even with the limited space comics allow for, I have an understanding of the war, the different alien races participating, and what the rules of this universe are. There is a robot aristocracy, “moonies” who can do magic, and a cat that can tell if you’re lying.

The story is exciting and tense and funny. The artwork adds a whole new dimension to the story. I was skeptical of the comic aspect, and ended up really enjoying all the artwork. It is a great intro to the world of comics and one I’m interested in exploring more!