With the way the week has gone my reading has been up and down, an accurate reflection of my life in general this week. I’ve and finished a couple of really great books, hit a pretty terrible slump of a book, and I’ve finished up (as of writing this) a great one. I’ll have more thoughts on these coming of course, but here is a short version wrap up.
I finished East by Edith Pattou, a fairy tale retelling that hit my catnip button of ‘culture dump’. Edith Pattou does a great job of painting the world and its traditions and attributes around the characters. That does mean the characters feel a lot thinner than the world they live in. But that’s my type of read so take from that what you will. Within a day of that I finished The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville, which I talked a bit about in the Goodreads review. I don’t know who I could recommend this too. It’s a very surreal novel, with the root of the story planted in the Surrealist movement triggered by WW1. If you don’t have a basic understanding of the tenants and founding members of the movement you’ll probably spend a good part of the story lost. But if you know about it and enjoy it, you’ll likely enjoy it. It’s short and pointed and the ending took me by surprise. I loved it.
Then I hit what I felt like was a steep hill with Future Perfect: A Skeptic’s Search for an Honest Mystic by Victoria Loustalot. I got the book for free from that Amazon First program where you can get a free book once a month. That meant that I went into the story with low expectations and sadly it swung even lower than those expectations. It was a mess that focused much more on the ME in Memoir and was much less about the ‘search for an honest mystic’. I can tell you more stories about her history than about the mystics she talked about or even the idea of mystics. It was… a slow and painful read.
I did just finish Terminal Alliance by Jim C Hines, and it’s the exact kind of humorous SF that I eat up like candy. I love it and so I’ve ended on a high. I’m also about midway through West with the Night by Beryl Markham which, after a rough start, has become quite lovely.
I plan on picking up Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman and Thisby Thestoop and the Black Mountain by Zac Gorman for the rest of the weekend, something I’m very excited about!
How has the week been for everyone else? Thanks for reading and have a good one.
Sarah Evermotion's Book Thoughts 
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