I only finished one, Ghost Planet. That's the one I was obsessed with and kept going back to so I didn't end up finishing anything else. I will say, while I loved the first half, it really let me down in the second. The heroine started making really stupid choices, and it tried to throw in way too many romance tropes. Plus, for as much as I loved her in the beginning, by the end, she felt like a Mary Sue. Such a letdown after the fabulous beginning.
DID NOT FINISH
Just one here, The Bones of Avalon by Phil Rickman. It's a murder mystery set in 1560, featuring Dr. John Dee, Elizabeth's astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts. That's not me making it up, that's in the blurb. I didn't get far in this. I've decided that books set in and around this era mostly don't work for me even if they get rave reviews. It mostly has to do with authors choosing to try and recreate old English voices. I find it so stiff and unbearable to read, to be honest. Just bores me to tears. So this one was all about me and not about the book itself.
WHAT I'M READING
1. Still reading Dreadnought. Still enjoying it.
2. Still reading Ella Enchanted. I haven't been able to pick it up again in the past week, which I need to correct soon.
3. The Fireman by Joe Hill. This is a dystopian horror novel about a pandemic that makes people spontaneously combust. Now, this has sat at the top of my To Be Read pile for books I'm going to check out of the library and I kept skipping over it because I had zero desire to read about a pandemic. I decided to finally bite the bullet after I got my first shot, and...I still don't know if I'm going to finish this. It's been tough. Too much of the negative attitudes are exactly what we've witnessed in the past year with covid, and I can't necessarily say that I'm enjoying it. I guess we'll see.
4. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. This is a literary fiction novel about two couples who befriend each other, from 1937 when they meet to 1972. It's incredibly gentle and evocative so far, and while it's definitely a character piece rather than plot-driven, I'm really enjoying it. I look forward to seeing how it all unfolds.
