A story about family and bravery, even for those of us that regularly feel anxious.

Bix, the older sister to Pella, worries constantly. When earthquakes push them and fellow goblins out of their home, Pella leaves to tell the Earth Queen to stop and give her a piece of Pella’s mind.

I enjoyed it, and I think older elementary school kids may enjoy it more than I did.

I chose to move from Google Cloud to Linode this week. Linode feels better suited to hobbyists than Google Cloud. That may change over time, as Linode was acquired by Akamai, and my understanding is that Akamai is targeting enterprise businesses.

At any rate, getting started on Linode was much easier than Google Cloud – Linode offers getting started guides that are to the point, and helpful, and walks through initial setup of a virtual machine. I also appreciate how easy Linode makes it for me to connect to my virtual machine. Google Cloud offers SSH, but it feels that Cloud IAM configuration gets in the way of letting me just get to work on my VM.

The hardest part of the move was finding a helpful guide for installing all the necessary parts for WordPress. Once I got that figured out, installation is fairly quick. A WordPress database and website backup from my Google Cloud VM and extraction / restore on my Linode VM made the process fairly easy, too.

I intend to post the procedure and command I used here later.

Death and despair is explored through a forth Aran island. People that are lost can find themselves on the island, and understand each other regardless of their individual spoken language.

I thought it was interesting, but meandering. It felt, to me, like Tolmie wasn’t sure where the story was meant to go. Perhaps that was the point?

I enjoyed the humor and that Olive and Adam have good chemistry. The story didn’t seem too heavy-handed to me.

Olive comes across as someone who needs love, but keeps people away, afraid that she will lose them. Understandable since she lost her mom to cancer. Adam has a tough exterior, but seemingly soft interior.

I appreciate that the drama largely didn’t involve the characters acting against one another.

Emba believes that our current norms and discussions about sex and consent aren’t enough, and I can see her point. However, not living in the current dating scene or having any idea how much mentioned in the book is true or not, I feel under-qualified to comment strongly either way.

However, I wonder if her argument is weakened by focusing primarily on hetero-normative couples in US / North American society. I suspect that by not including marginalized voices, and the insight they bring to how and why we talk about consent, Emba misses out on a wealth of discussion missing from hetero-normative discourse.

A fantasy / mystery / romance mash-up with Viv, the Orc proprietor, intent on doing something other than breaking skulls and living up to stereotypes. Tandri, a succubus also attempting to live outside of stereotypes, quickly becomes invaluable to Viv’s plans.

I enjoyed this book for demonstrating that fantasy doesn’t have to be about saving a world, and that romance can take place within fantasy worlds. It’s a nice change for the genre.

I didn’t catch that this is a Beauty and the Beast retelling with Vietnamese themes and a sapphic vibe. Perhaps that’s a bit of brain fog from recovering from an illness, it certainly isn’t the book’s fault.

I enjoyed how rich each line is in the book, it felt well crafted.

I understand who the beast is supposed to be, but after finishing I still wonder if there could be more than one? I suppose it depends on how you approach the piece.

Overall I enjoyed it.

Zeitan is intent on getting revenge on the Chrysalis pilot that killed her sister. After succeeding, her list of people and groups to get revenge on slowly grows.

Zeitan falls in love?… I’m not sure if love is actually present, but as presented on the page, a love triangle forms between her, her pilot, and her friend. That is, she falls for each of them, they fall for each other, and each of them fall for her.

But what gets me is that I’m having a hard time thinking of something I liked. The world is superficial. The characters are flimsy and shallow. There is little substance, little depth to be had.

I didn’t enjoy that the entire premise for Zeitan is that she isn’t like other girls. That’s nearly the full extent of her character. I also didn’t enjoy that the book seems more of a vehicle for the author’s profound thoughts, dropped regularly, on everything from cherishing and inspiring someone, to pregnancy and slavery.

Perhaps most frustrating is that Zhao clearly cares about what they are writing and why, they’re anger is tangible and real. But that anger, that drive doesn’t make the story real

I felt that it over promised and under delivered.

The entry in the Books of the Raksura series follows Moon and his friends from Indigo Cloud as they try to settle in their traditional home. The only problem? The settlement has been ransacked. They soon discover the tree they live in is missing its magical seed, causing the tree to slowly die. If they don’t find the seed, they may not have a home.

In this book, Moon learns why solitaries exist in Raksuran society, and why they’re so reviled. He learns the grotesque depths that some may go to control others. Finally, he learns more of his place in Raksuran society.

A solid book, I recommend it.

Winter is Queen Levana’s stepdaughter who refuses to use her Lunar gift. Loved by Lunars for refusing to use a glamor to hide her scars and for her kindness, she’s a thorn in Queen Levana’s side.

A fast-paced conclusion to The Lunar Chronicles, I enjoyed the numerous close calls and tough situations for the protagonists. I felt Winter was a little underdeveloped, but that’s also hard to do when the other characters have more time to develop prior to this (and they’re still vying for time on the page).

I enjoyed it, and recommend it.