Books Pooks Read in January 2019
Geekerella by Ashley Poston
“I suck at being social. I think one thing and my mouth says something completely different, like I’m possessed. By a whole lot of stupid.”
“It’s also awkward to be so short you can see all the way up into someone’s cerebral cortex, but welcome to my life.”
“We might all be different – we may ship different things or be in different fandoms – but if I learned anything from twenty-three days in a too-blue uniform playing a character I thought I could never be, it’s that when we become those characters, pieces of ourselves light up like glow sticks in the night. They shine. We shine. Together. And even when some of us fall to different universes, those lights never go out.”
Caraval by Stephanie Garber
“She imagined loving him would feel like falling in love with darkness, frightening and consuming yet utterly beautiful when the stars came out.”
“Hope is a powerful thing. Some say it’s a different breed of magic altogether. Elusive, difficult to hold on to. But not much is needed.”
“The future knows what things we desire, unless there is something greater in our path that chases us away.”
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
“Words can lie. See beyond them.”
“Flame and shadow. One cannot exist without the other.”
“Many things led to this day, for all of us. A forgotten son, a vengeful mother, a brother with a long shadow, a strange mutation. Together, they’ve written a tragedy.”
“Anyone can betray anyone.”
A Danger to Herself And Others by Alyssa SheinmelPublisher’s blurb: “Hannah knows there’s been a mistake, She doesn’t need to be institutionalized. What happened to her roommate at that summer program was an accident. As soon as the doctor and judge figure out that she isn’t a danger to herself or others, she can go home to start her senior year. Those college applications aren’t going to write themselves. Until then, she’s determined to win over the staff and earn some privileges so she doesn’t lose her mind to boredom.Then Lucy arrives. Lucy has her own baggage, and she’s the perfect project to keep Hannah’s focus off all she is missing at home.”
The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project by Lenore Appelhans
Publisher’s blurb: “Riley lives in TropeTown, where everyone plays stock roles in novels. Riley, a Manic Pixie Dream Boy, is sent to group therapy after going off-script. Riley knows that breaking the rules again could get him terminated, yet he feels there must be more to life than recycling the same clichés for readers’ entertainment. Then he meets Zelda, a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Geek Chic subtype), and falls head over heels in love. Zelda’s in therapy too, along with several other Manic Pixies. But TropeTown has a dark secret, and if Riley and his fellow Manic Pixies don’t get to the bottom of it, they may all be terminated.”
Kat and Meg Conquer the World by Anna Priemaza
Publisher’s blurb: “Kat and Meg couldn’t be more different. Kat’s anxiety makes it hard for her to talk to people. Meg hates being alone, but her ADHD keeps pushing people away. But when the two girls are thrown together for a year-long science project, they discover they do have one thing in common: They’re both obsessed with the same online gaming star and his hilarious videos.
It might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship—if they don’t kill each other first.”
Autoboyography by Christina Lauren
“Love fails for a million reasons – distance, infidelity, pride, religion, money, illness. Why is this story any more worthy?
It felt like it was. It felt important. Living in this town is suffocating in so many ways.
But if a tree falls in the woods, maybe it makes no sound.
And if a boy falls for the bishop’s closeted son, maybe it makes no story.”
“He’s not recruiting me to the oiled-up Gay Bliss Club of Northern Utah, but to the LDS Church.”
“Maybe I’m crying because I’m terrified that he’s come here to do more damage, to reactivate what I feel only to let me down easy again, missionary style.”
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White
“I, however, was perfectly aware of my beauty. I considered it a skill, alongside speaking French, English, Italian and German. It was a language of its own, in a way. One that translated well in different circumstances.”
“While I saw the destruction of the tree as nature’s beauty, Victor saw power—power to light up the night and banish darkness, power to end a centuries-old life in a single strike—that he cannot control or access. And nothing bothers Victor more than something he cannot control.”
“The trap was set and I was both bait and poison.”
“Mary Shelley changed the whole world.”
Lies Sleeping, Peter Grant #7 by Ben Aaronovitch
Quotes from Rivers of London/Midnight Riot, Peter Grant #1
“He was about one eighty in height, that’s six foot in old money, and dressed in a beautifully tailored suit that emphasized the width of his shoulders and a trim waist. I thought early forties with long, finely boned features and brown hair cut into an old-fashioned side parting. It was hard to tell in the sodium light but I thought his eyes were gray. He carried a silver-topped cane and I knew without looking that his shoes were handmade. All he needed was a slightly ethnic younger boyfriend and I’d have had to call the cliché police.
When he strolled over to talk to me, I thought he might be looking for that slightly ethnic boyfriend after all.”
“He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet. “Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale,” he said and showed me his warrant card.
“Constable Peter Grant,” I said.
“Out of Charing Cross nick?”
“Yes, sir.”
He gave me a strange smile. “Carry on, Constable,” he said and went strolling back up James Street.
So there I was, having just told a senior Detective Chief Inspector that I was hunting ghosts, which, if he believed me, meant he thought I was bonkers or, if he didn’t believe me, meant he thought I was cruising and looking to perpetrate an obscene act contrary to public order.”
“Welcome to the Folly,” he said. “Official home of English magic since 1775.”
“And your patron saint is Sir Isaac Newton?” I asked.
Nightingale grinned. “He was our founder and the first man to systemize the practice of magic.”
“I was taught that he invented modern science,” I said.
“He did both,” said Nightingale. “That’s the nature of genius.”
“You put a spell on the dog,” I said as we left the house.
“Just a small one,” said Nightingale.
“So magic is real,” I said. “Which makes you a…what?”
“A wizard.”
“Like Harry Potter?”
Nightingale sighed. “No,” he said. “Not like Harry Potter.”
“In what way?”
“I’m not a fictional character,” said Nightingale.”
“If you overdo it, there are consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?”
“Strokes, brain hemorrhages, aneurysms…”
“How do you know when you have overdone it?”
“When you have a stroke, brain hemorrhage or an aneurysm.”
“Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic.”
Wow–that’s a lot of reading. I didn’t read much in January. Still recovering from December, I guess.
It’s mostly a lot of listening when I’m doing other things! Since reading requires sitting down and doing nothing else, I don’t do a lot any more. But the netgalley ARCs require it. [I sometimes let my Kindle read those to me, too.]
I’m not into audiobooks or even letting kindle read to me. I think I’m too easily distracted.
I love being read to. But I don’t necessarily retain a lot. I enjoy the process, though.