#ReadMyOwnDamnBooks : September Edition

This was a weird reading month. Usually I race through RIP reads in September and October but it just didn't happen this month. I got stuck in a ridiculously long audiobook for weeks (The Golem and the Jinni, which is only followable at 1x) until one that I had been waiting FOREVER for was finally available and then I switched over to that (The Raven King, which I'm probably going to finish today because HOLY CRAP). I took a long time with The Book of Speculation because I got annoyed with characters and situations. I also ended up with almost a week of no reading as husband and I reroofed our garden shed. It was a lot of physical labor and I was exhausted every night ... which ties in with the last reason I read less this month. Hubby and I have been binge watching Gilmore Girls (we're in season 5, right after that stupid vow renewal ceremony ... argh!!!!). We watch so late most nights that I tend to only read in bed for about 10 minutes instead of 30+. Still, most of the books that I read this month were ones from my TBR so I should still be good to make my goal of 80 for the year.

September

Beastly Bones - William Ritter (reread)

Ghostly Echoes - William Ritter

The Graveyard Game - Kage Baker

The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary (reread)

The Book of Speculation - Erika Swyler

Curioddity - Paul Jenkins

Monthly Total: 6
Yearly Total: 59

In October, I'm looking forward to reading more RIP books and a few review copies I have around. I'll be writing up guest posts for Tif's #ReadSherlock event (four stories, four shows/movies, all October long!) and Lory's Witch Week (October 31-November 6). I'll be reading Sherlock and Something Wicked This Way Comes for those events too! It's also Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon on October 22. The reader sign-up post is live so head over and get your name on the list!

Also, as if October wasn't busy enough, I'm thinking of setting up a group read/reread of The Night Circus, possibly on Readathon day. Let me know below if you would be interested in joining and when!

Putting on a sweater and grabbing a warm drink,

K

#RIPXI: 5, The Left-Handed Fate

About a year and a half ago, I gushed over what an amazing story Greenglass House was (as did Lory, Ana, and Kim in the comments section). Now that I've read my second Kate Milford book, the newly-released The Left-Handed Fate, I have to do it all over again.

Set in the same slightly-askew Nagspeake-ian universe, this is a nautical adventure full of peril, mystery, magic, and more. The story takes place right at the start of the War of 1812, off the east coast of the United States. The Left-Handed Fate is a British privateering ship, currently assisting young natural philosopher Max Ault to continue the work his father began -- namely, to find the pieces of what might be a weapon to end all wars. With the help of the captain's children, Lucy and Liao, and the rest of the Fates, there is a race over sea and land to solve this mystery and escape the mysterious men in black and the dastardly French.

Now, I keep writing sentences here and then erasing them because they are too bland and formulaic and this book is the exact opposite. It's chock-full of battles and races and puzzles and magic. There are tiny romances and slightly larger betrayals and kids who are learning and growing and figuring out their value systems. There's also enough history to get the reader interested in finding out more. I adored it all. I read so fast that my eyes hurt but I also kept slamming the book shut when the intensity rose to an almost unbearable level. I wished it would never end but also couldn't get to the resolution fast enough to calm my pounding pulse. It was definitely all I look for in an RIP read!

As I near the end of my Top 100 Chapter Books project over at The Estella Society (I'm on book #88/100 right now), I've determined that one of the main qualities of a truly great middle-grade story is that it should be a satisfying read for a wide range of ages, including adults. This book, with its light dusting of mild swears and truly adult dilemmas, was entirely satisfying to me while also being a book that I plan to hand right over to the twelve-year-old boy sitting next to me.

Setting sail for adventure,

K

#RIPXI: 4, The Book of Speculation

I was hoping that The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler would be something special but, sadly, I found that it fell short in the details -- starting with the cover that is so strangely photoshopped. I feel like the impossible stack of books with two that should be different but aren't should have clued me in that this book was going to be slightly off. There are a lot of people who loved it and found it magical. I, however, was too distracted by impossible dates, improbable coincidences, and undefined magic to fall under its spell.

This is a dual narrative book, moving back and forth between the present and the late 1700s. The two are connected by a book, a journal that was kept by Peabody, the owner of a traveling show. The book ends up in the modern-day hands of Simon, an orphan with a home on the northern coast of New York's Long Island, a house that is in imminent danger of falling off a cliff. The house is symbolic of Simon's life as he's about to lose his job and his whole sense of reality. The truths that are held in the book--the facts about people that may be Simon's ancestors--are not easy to deal with but do explain some of the things he knows/fears about his own family.

I really did want to love this story but I found myself getting stressed and/or annoyed far too often. From the spoken and internal dialogues that were written in a confusing way to the impossibility of the timeline based even on generous generational spreads, I had to fight through the rough stuff to see the glimpses of good. I love magical realism but this one had very little rhyme or reason to the magic. Last night was the worst though when I started complaining about plot details to the husband and it perfectly mirrored what was annoying us about the season 4 episodes of Gilmore Girls that we had just watched. It was off-putting and made this original tale seem a bit predictable.

I know I tend to be overly critical of RIP reads. I save some of them for months and months and I can only read so many of them and so I put pressure on the poor books to be stellar. Some will only be perfectly fine, which would be okay at other time of the year. This one was indeed fine -- but not for me, not right now.

Traveling on,

K

#RIPXI: 3, The Graveyard Game

My third RIP read is the fourth novel in Kage Baker's The Company series. The first three books have fairly standard mishaps and perils as the immortal cyborgs that work throughout time for the company called Dr. Zeus (collecting artwork, literature, historical artifacts, animal, and plant species that would otherwise have been lost in time) interact with humans and each other. This book, though, reveals a couple of major conspiracies and also takes us into our future, a time that is not pleasant in many parts of the world. I found it very hard to read right now, as we too have a very uncertain future. Mention of a second U.S. Civil War never seemed like such a threat as it does right now. And targeted pandemics in a time of such open and unrepentant racism seem just as likely. I truly hope that Baker's bleak visions of the future end up to be nothing more than science fiction after all.

If you're interested in starting this series, there's a great recent post by rocalisa that lists all of the books, novellas, and short stories by publication date (and also includes where to find them, which can be tough these days -- many Kage Baker books are out of print). There's also a big reread going on at tor.com and they're only in the middle of the third book so you could easily start and read the posts that are already up!

Hoping for the best,
K

#RIPXI: 2, The Evil Wizard Smallbone

My second read for the RIP XI Challenge was The Evil Wizard Smallbone, a new middle grade fantasy tale from Delia Sherman (out on September 13). It's the story of twelve-year-old Nick, an orphan who lives in an abusive home with his uncle and cousin. He finally runs away in the middle of winter only to collapse on the doorstep of Evil Wizard Books, domain of the Evil Wizard Smallbone. Once Nick is there, he's trapped by the wizard and the wards around the shop and town of Smallbone Cove that keep away the evil French loup-garou, Fidelou -- a wizard-werewolf hybrid. If Nick could only find a way to learn a little magic of his own, he might finally get the safe life he dreams about.

With a setting in rugged, coastal Maine and many unexpected twists and turns and changes of character, this story is quite the adventure. Nick is surly and reckless but also earnest and determined and I very quickly found myself rooting for him. His relatives are truly horrid, almost as bad as either of the wizards, which was reminiscent of Diana Wynne Jones. I greatly enjoyed the magic system in the story, especially the way Sherman dealt with transfiguration. And I'll let you in on a little secret -- the bookshop is magical! By the end, I was reading as quickly as possible, hoping for the best but never quite sure where the tale would go. This tale has as much adventure in it as it does heart.

Searching for the books with magic,
K

#RIPXI: 1, Ghostly Echoes

I have a goal to review each RIP book I read this season the day I finish it (or the next day if it's late) so that I don't end up with a backlog. And yes, I already finished my first book -- Ghostly Echoes by William Ritter, third book in the Jackaby series. I actually reread the second book right before so I was totally in the mood to spend more time with R.F. Jackaby, supernatural detective, and his apprentice, Miss Abigail Rook. I really love this pairing. Jackaby is definitely a Sherlock-like character but he knows his limitations. While he is a Seer and can see things like auras and spiritual residues, he knows that this causes him to overlook the more mundane but just as important details. Abigail is perfect at spotting these things and quickly seeing their value. This book ends right in the middle of the overarching storyline so if you want to wait until the fourth (and final, I believe) book is published, feel free. But if you just can't wait to read about creatures, ghosts, mad scientists, and peril in nineteenth-century New England, by all means, pick up this series ASAP!

I read the first book, Jackaby, for RIP in 2014 --

I loved, loved, loved this book. It has some of everything and it is all brought together in an interesting and fun way. Jackaby is smart and amusing and Abigail is brave and also intelligent. But what I loved most is that they still needed each other. Their world views are very different but they are definitely complementary.

-- and reread Jackaby and read Beastly Bones for RIP last year.

With a smart and secretly caring detective and a strong and capable female assistant, these stories are a pleasure to read. The crimes are bloody and the climaxes are explosive but everything is tempered with a bit of humor and romance, which makes these my ideal RIP books.

This series is definitely one of my favorite new traditions and I know I'll be rereading them over the years.

Straining to see,
K