Category Archives: books/book review

Etiquette and Espionage

Book Review of Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger

I borrowed an audio copy of Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carrier, from my local library.


Description from Goodreads:

It’s one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It’s quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners–and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, young ladies learn to finish…everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage–in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year’s education.


Review:

Carriger just never fails to amuse me. This is a more MG/YA delivery than the Parasol Protectorate series, which is one of my favorites. But I still laughed out loud more than once and loved seeing early appearances of some later familiar characters. In the end, I passed it to my daughter, sure she’ll love it too.

Quirk does a marvelous job with the narrations.

Ready Player One

Book Review of Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

I borrowed an audio copy of Ernest Cline‘s Ready Player One from my local library.

Description:
In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade’s devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world’s digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator’s obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. When Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade’s going to survive, he’ll have to win—and confront the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

Review (spoiler):
For those raised in the late 80s to early 90s this this was a sentimental cheese-fest of the best kind. But that’s really what carries the book. I enjoyed revisiting the geekery of my youth, but found the story pretty flat. It was quite predictable, the descriptions of the above mentioned geekery got tedious, it’s too dependent on coincidence and happenstance, and ultimately the ending of beat the baddy, get the prize and claim the girl was pat and unoriginal.

All in all, I wouldn’t call it bad. I actually enjoyed it as a bit of fluff. But I wasn’t super impressed either.

Thematically Will Wheaton was the perfect narrator for this book. He’s even mentioned in it. (How odd must that have been for him to read?) He did a fine job, but I wouldn’t say he was super engaging with it.

Mating the Huntress

Book Review of Mating the Huntress, by Talia Hibbert

I heard so many good things about Talia Hibbert‘s Mating the Huntress that I bought a copy, even though M/F paranormal erotica almost always does me wrong. (Spoiler, this one didn’t.)

Description from Goodreads:
Chastity Adofo knows a monster when she sees one. As soon as Luke Anthony wanders into her family’s coffee shop, she recognises the evil lurking beneath his charming smile and fantastic arse. The handsome werewolf is determined to have her—but she’s determined to cut out his heart.

Little does she know, Luke’s plans for her are far more pleasurable than murder. And when the full moon rises, all bets are off…

Review*:
Cute, fluffy, and funny
High on consent and female autonomy
Adorable-sexy is a thing and Luke is it

Depth is skipped to make it a novella and you feel it
Fairly low on the sizzle scale for an erotica (but not enough plot for a romance)


*My laptop battery died before I had a chance to review this book and it was several days before I remembered to come back and do it. So, we get a bullet-pointed version instead. It happens.