38. What Moves the Dead

By T. Kingfisher (176 ebook)

What a creepy read! It's about a soldier who is called to visit some friends in distress and arrives at the moldering estate where unsettling things are afoot. I was lamenting that I didn't set aside anything scary to read for Halloween this year. At the same time I read this and yikes! Really good. T. Kingfisher is terrific. This was inspired by Fall of the House of Usher. I have not seen the TV series but have it on my radar and now that I've finished the book, I will prioritize. I put the Poe story on my nightstand so I can re-visit that. The author also cites Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia and I thought for sure I had it on my ereader but, alas, I do not. It's on the list for next time I buy books.

37. The Interestings

By Meg Wolitzer (560 pp, ebook)

Meg Wolitzer has been on my radar for decades. I don't know how many times I've picked up one of her books and then set it back down. I finally bought this one and loved it. I can't wait to check out more of her books. This is the story of a group of friends that starts in the 70s when they are all at summer camp together. The story follows them into their 50s with success and setbacks and lives that didn't come out as expected. Terrific writing. Great characters. I really enjoyed the book although I found the ending a wee bit unsatifsying. I say this more as a reader who likes when everything works out perfectly than as a flaw in the book.

36. The Blade Itself (First Law #1)

By Joe Abercrombie (560 pp, ebook)

This is a fantasy series set in a primitive-ish Europe? It's the story of a bunch of very different characters who cross paths by the end. There are battles and more set to come, crooked politicians, some slight magic elements that add mystery. I just read my first Joe Abercrombie earlier this year and now I have at least 6 of his books sitting around here. Terrific characters. Very dark and brutal but also funny. Inquistitor Glotka is one of my most favorite characters I've come across in a long time.

35. Dust and 3 short stories (Silo Book #3)

By Hugh Howey (539 pp, ebook)

I wanted to wrap up this series so I plowed through this last book. I felt the longer the story went on, the harder it got to suspend my disbelief. So many of the characters acted ridiculously. In this last one, the secrecy of the Silo world is undone and there is lots of violence and miraculously, equipment that's been sitting around for 500 years still works. This is one post-apocalyptic story convention that always gets me, how technological devices still work hundreds of years later. Have you ever found an iPod that's been in a drawer for 10 years and tried to make it work? There are three short stories set in this same world and I would avoid them. The characters make the most bizarre choices, it's not worth it.

34. Shift (Silo Book 2)

By Hugh Howey (578 pp, ebook)

This is the second in a series that is also a series on Apple. I am writing this months after I finished the book so I can't remember the exact events of this one. The books are set in a post-apocalyptic world where what is left of mankind live in underground silos but they each think they are the only silo and know nothing of the history of the world. I think this is the one that switches between what happened leading up to the apocalypse and how the carefully guarded secrets of the silo world are falling apart. It's fun to read but it felt really long and there were times that the story developments were so preposterous, it was hard to stick with it.

33. The Phantom Tollbooth

By Norton Juster (272 pp ebook)

This was on sale so I grabbed to see how it holds up. A bored kid named Milo finds a tollbooth in his room and sets out on a portal adventure. It holds up magnificently. I loved this book as a young reader. I read the book over and over and looked at those Jules Feiffer drawings. I loved it now. All the puns and word play.

32. Special Topics in Calamity Physics

By Marisha Pessl (540 pp)

I don't know what to tell you about this book. It's about a young woman in high school who lives with her dad who is complicated and possibly up to something. She becomes part of a group of friends that are under the spell of a secretive instructor and they get into all kinds of situations. At times, I enjoyed the writer's writing style. But for huge passages, it was too much. Here's a random paragraph:

He was looking at me intently with his I’m-Thumbing-a-Lift-Here look, which soon slipped into his Please-Pull-a-Ripcord face, and then, If-You-Would-Be-So-Kind-as-to-Administer-a-Rabbit-Punch. Normally, he reserved those faces for instances when a June Bug with some sort of physical deformity was actively pursuing him, like a faulty sense of direction (extreme nearsightedness) or an erratic wing (facial tic).

There were times when this would go on for pages and I would just slide my eyes over the words. There were other parts that were hard to put down. I liked the main character but her story was unsatisfying for me.

31. Now is Not the Time to Panic

By Kevin Wilson (256 pp ebook)

This is about a couple of teenagers who get into trouble making art and the fallout twenty years later. I loved it. I thought the author perfectly captured that mindset of a 16 year old girl and I loved the idea of young people being creative and making stuff.

30. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

By Taylor Jenkins Reid (385 pp)

This is a fictional history of an old Hollywood movie star who has lots of dramatic secrets told to an unknown journalist who gets her lucky break writing Evelyn's story. It was fun to read but got a little melodramatic for me and I thought the characterization was a bit thin. The 1.5 million 5 star reviews on Goodreads disagree with me.

29. Crosstalk

By Connie Willis (512 pp, ebook)

I can't tell you how much it pains me to pan a Connie Willis book. I loved the Blackout/All Clear duology and I re-read The Doomsday Book during the pandemic. I loved To Say Nothing of the Dog and I enjoyed reading Passage, even if I had problems with it. I found this one a slog. It's about a young woman who works in technology. Her partner convinces her to get a medical treatment that will make them more emotionally connected and instead it makes her telepathic. With everyone. There were too many missed calls and misheard communications and the main character's family barging in with goofy problems. It wasn't that funny or romantic. But it had moments. I think it would have worked as a 300 page story.

28. The Ferryman

By Justin Cronin (560 pp, ebook)

I LOVED the Passage books. If I didn't have 300 books in my to read pile I might read them again. This one is about a utopian island where when a person's well-being breaksdown they go across the water to be remade. The Ferryman is the guy that guides them on this journey. But there is a lot going on in this world and it starts to unravel. I enjoyed reading it but didn't love it like the Passage books.

27. Slow Horses

By Mick Herron (366 pp)

I read about this writer in the New Yorker last year and started the TV series and got this book. It's another crime book with MI5 spies that made mistakes and have been sent down to Slough House where they have nothing important to do. A young man is kidnapped and the kidnappers announce they will execute him live on the Internet. It's hard to summarize in a few sentences because there are all kinds of twists and surprises. I really enjoyed it -- great characters! I love the TV series. Gary Oldman is incredible. My only issue is I had a little bit of character fatigue. It takes a lot of characters for stories like this and if I can't pick up the book for a couple days I have trouble keeping track.