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Book Logging (Paper, ebook)
Albert, Melissa. The Hazel Wood - I'm not actually sure that I liked this book. I was interested in the worldbuilding and wanted to know what would happen, but I also felt like this was an episode as opposed to a full story. I think that part of it is that the POV character had no control over big portions of her own story. That lack of control was the point, the pivot for everything else. I just didn't enjoy it. The magical other world is one that has people trapped in stories of the sort that end with everyone dead in horrible ways. There is a sequel; I'm not sure whether or not I will read it.
Andrews, Ilona. Sweep with Me - I read this as an ebook and am not actually sure how long it was, but I think it's novella length. It's also not the first book in the series it belongs to, and I haven't read any of the others. I enjoyed this one and didn't feel particularly lost. The main character maintains a magical/SF Inn that connects to other worlds and has Rules and some form of intelligence/awareness. She and her husband have to protect their guests, including from themselves and each other, while maintaining the outward appearance of a normal US B&B/hotel so that none of their neighbors notice anything weird.
Andrews, Ilona. Clean Sweep; Sweep in Peace; One Fell Sweep; Sweep of the Blade - I read these in order after I read the novella above, so I had some idea of how pieces of the story would fit together. I went through these four pretty rapidly and was sorry not to have immediate access to more. There are some gaps in the worldbuilding, but none of them were the sort of thing that I couldn't step over. I liked the characters and the narrative voice enough to be happy to go along with the story without pausing.
Andrews, Ilona. Alphas: Origins - I have mixed feelings about this book. The worldbuilding has a lot of 'wait, what?!' details, and there are a lot of redshirts. I also wasn't keen on the introductory scenes. The heroine is driving a car full of 6 year olds coming back from a school trip when she stumbles into violence, superpowers, and slavery. Her daughter ends up with her, and she's told that the other kids were mindwiped and sent back to the normal world. That... It left me kind of wanting the series to end with the annihilation of the kidnappers and their enemies both. I think this one is only novella length, and some of the problems may come down to that. Having the daughter there gives the heroine a strong motive to cooperate with her captors in ways that readers might not accept under other circumstances. It's just that threat to and harm to children are one of my big DNWs. I just kind of want to know how the author will resolve the vast chasms in the worldbuilding.
Bouchet, Amanda. Nightchaser - This is a science fiction romance and likely the first book in a series as it ends without real resolution to any of the non-romance plot elements. It was published after the trilogy below, and I'd be surprised if it didn't have a similar general structure. The heroine leads a small crew of thieves who steal supplies for an extremely large orphanage. Shortly before the book began, they stole a research lab that they hoped would have vaccines for the illness currently sweeping through the orphanage. This results in an extremely large bounty on the heroine's head. The hero is an occasional bounty hunter who runs a repair shop (I have no idea how the logistics of that work). He dithers about turning her in but hesitates because he likes her and because she's just so hot. I found that part unsatisfactory because I didn't really feel that it was anything but an artificial stumbling block. I still enjoyed the book, just not as much as I might have.
Bouchet, Amanda. A Promise of Fire; Breath of Fire; Heart on Fire - I enjoyed this series quite a bit. I was dubious early on because the hero kidnapped the heroine for reasons I could understand but in a way that caused her enough upset that I didn't really think I was going to buy into the romance. (She understood his reasons as valid; she just also saw all of the ways that this was going to destroy the life she wanted.) This is a fantasy setting with gods and magic and some weird power dynamics in the ruling families. Those families use Greek letters to indicate succession order with the current ruler as Alpha. They all murder whoever's between them and the Alpha title. The hero and his family want to change that system and replace it with something healthier. The story is reasonably complete in this trilogy, but there are a couple of characters who leave the narrative in ways that I think are hooks for potential other stories.
Carter, Ally. Heist Society - This was fairly lightweight. It's about a bunch of teenagers pulling a heist. I enjoyed it, but I also kind of thought that it would work better as a movie than as a book. There was a point when the narrator turned off most of her interiority in order to hide something from the audience. It didn't work at all well; I felt it like a speedbump. I accepted it because of the genre, but there are better ways to make the shell game work.
Danker, Sean. Free Space - This is the sequel to Admiral which I listened to as an audiobook. I think it's more of the same thing and likely to appeal to people who really enjoyed that. It's very sci fi pulpy. I just found myself thinking that I didn't care about the rollercoaster of successive new life or death challenges. I finished anyway because there was no thought required of me. I just feel like I could have spent my time better, especially given that the ending was a complete cliffhanger with nothing resolved. That left me cranky.
Deland, Margaret Wade Campbell. An Old Chester Secret - This is a Project Gutenberg book. It's fairly short and told in omniscient third. I finished it and felt unsatisfied as it was more interested in a didactic Christian message than in story. Because of that, it spent a lot of time on characters who were being terrible and focusing on why they were and why they should have been stronger. A rich girl has a baby born too soon after the wedding and asks a neighbor to pretend that she adopted it from somewhere very, very far away. The girl's father pushes for it, too. The child's father-- the girl's fiance-- disagrees but is overridden. The couple never have more children, and they obsess about the shame if they reveal the secret and the great void in their lives if they never do. The child's grandfather also has issues with that. The child's adoptive mother spends years terrified that they're going to take her boy away from her but still loving him and caring for him and trying to raise him right. She never gets much focus because she's been doing the Christian thing from the beginning. The end of the book had the boy's mother confess all to him and try to persuade him to join his father's law firm; the boy, now a college graduate, refuses and walks away. Then the kindly and very elderly minister points out that his biological mother has just experienced spiritual growth by admitting the truth and that, if the son walks away, she'll lose it. So the son goes back, and the book ends there. The push-pull throughout the book is that the biological relatives could legally take the boy back if they admit the relationship in court. Otherwise, there's no legal way to force his foster mother to relinquish him.
Gray, Joslyn. Elsie Marley, Honey - This is a project Gutenberg book. Two 16 year old girls meet on the train from California to New York. Both are named Elsie. Both have last names starting with M. Both are traveling to go and live with relatives who don't know what they look like. Each of them finds the other's guardians a more enticing prospect for the future than their own, so one of the girls suggest an identity swap. The book is cute and sweet. I could buy that the girls wouldn't think through all of the potential repercussions or any of the ethical/moral concerns. I also liked the relatives, generally. I wasn't entirely onboard with the way one of the aunts was portrayed; she's never quite said to be a drug addict, but it's pretty clearly what's going on. The narrative isn't cruel to her, and she's required for most of the complications that one of the Elsies has to manage in order to grow up and become responsible by taking charge of her uncle's household. I think that part of it was the author not wanting any villains at all.
Gunter, Jennifer. The Vagina Bible - I wasn't sure if I should count this as completely read or not as I skimmed some chapters and skipped a few others. This is non-fiction written by a gynecologist. The information is broad but not necessarily all that deep. The author admits that there's a lot that we don't really know yet because the topics haven't been given real research attention. She's got some strong opinions about how education for gynecologists could be improved.
Kingfisher, T. Paladin's Grace - I think I'm going to have to buy this one. I keep wanting to go back to read certain bits, and I no longer have access because it was an Overdrive ebook. I liked both halves of the romantic pairing and thought that they reacted in ways that fit with their backstories. I liked the politics, and I really liked the Bishop of the Rat God and the general ethos of that order. The book has a lot of dangling threads that I hope will be picked up in future books.
Lord, Karen. Unraveling - This is in the same world as Redemption in Indigo. The blurb emphasizes that it's a standalone, but I think that it's richer for having read the other book. Also, while this one can stand on its own, it has character overlap. The blurb also emphasizes the mystery elements over the magical ones which I think is a mistake. The book doesn't play fair as a mystery and is much more about the numinous. It's satisfying in that regard. Recommended.
Moriarty, Jaclyn. The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone - When word comes that Bronte's parents have been killed by pirates, she discovers that the terms of their will require her to make a very precisely timed journey to visit her numerous aunts and to deliver small presents to each. There's a magic in the will that means that, if Bronte doesn't carry through, her home town will be destroyed. The adventures are mostly gentle, but there are hints of bigger, darker things all the way through until Bronte and her friends and her cousins have to mount a rescue against a would-be Dark Lord. I had a lot of fun with this one. I think it's also the only thing on this list that I read on paper.
Nylund, Eric. The Resisters, book 1 - This is a middle grade book. The main character finds out that almost all of the adults in the world are being mind-controlled by an alien group mind, that children are absorbed into that entity when they hit puberty. The only free adults live in a secret, shielded enclave and can't venture out, not even for a second, because they'd be absorbed. The story ticks along reasonably quickly but without a lot of depth. The library has more books in the series but only in paper. The kids use mecha that look like insects and are alive and somewhat aware. This may be a deal breaker for some readers.
Older, Daniel Jose. Ghost Girl in the Corner - This is a novella set in the Shadowshaper universe. It focuses on Tee and Izzy and probably won't make a lot of sense without the context of the first book. The story's got some dangling threads that felt like they could go somewhere but that were clearly not an immediate concern.
Pape, Cindy Spencer. Kilts & Kraken; Moonlight & Mechanicals; Photographs & Phantoms; Steam & Sorcery - Steampunk urban fantasy romances. There's overlap in the characters. I felt that the sex scenes were a distraction, but I was looking for adventurous plot. Other readers may feel that the plots are a distraction from the romance or that the mix is right.
Polk, C.L. Stormsong - I thought that the political maneuverings here worked fairly well and that the romance worked rather less well. In terms of the romance, I felt that I was told a lot of things about why the two characters might be interested in each other without getting much on page interaction that supported it. I think, for that to work, the book would have needed to be longer. There were too many balls in the air for the length of the book, and the romance suffered for it. I liked both ladies. I also liked several other characters. There were a lot of hints at worldbuilding that might explain some of the oddities of the setting, but I still spent a fair amount of time tilting my head and saying, "Wait. Run that by me again." If you liked Witchmark, this is a good follow up to that, and you'll probably like it. I don't recommend starting with this one because most of the problems only make sense with the context that Witchmark slowly built.
Raybourn, Deanna. A Curious Beginning; A Perilous Undertaking; A Treacherous Curse; A Dangerous Collaboration - I think this mystery series will appeal to some fans of the Amelia Peabody series. The protagonist, Veronica Speedwell is a Victorian era lepidopterist who travels extensively, pre-series, and who has a colorful history. The first book starts with her attending the funeral of one of the aunts who raised her. That's followed by kidnapping attempts and murders and a lot of confusion. None of the books make Veronica look like a fool or make it seem like she's failing to notice and/or understand most of what's happening. The later books have maintained that (so far), and I found her a charming narrator.
Thirteen Doctors 13 Stories - This anthology had one story for Doctors 1-13 (none for the War Doctor). The stories were a mixed bag. None were truly terrible, but I liked some better than others. Some were better about giving the specific Doctor an individual voice.
Started but not finished:
Cherry, Alison. The Classy Crooks Club - I didn't like the protagonist much. This is a kids' book, and I found myself out of sympathy with pretty much everybody in the first fifty pages, so I stopped reading.
Danker, Sean. The Glory of the Empress - Too damned many characters on top of my usual complaints about Danker's writing. Also, although the previous book in the series ended in a cliffhanger, this is about something else entirely. It's backstory for characters introduced in the second book.
de Lint, Charles. The Cats of Tanglewood Forest - I got about 20% of the way through this and was hoping that the main character would die and put me out of my misery. At that point, I figured that giving up was a better option. I have really enjoyed de Lint's books in the past, but it's been a long time since I last tried one. This book has many color illustrations that didn't work for me because the color palette was such that I kept just seeing blobby smears. I don't know if that was because I was reading the ebook on my laptop or if I'd find them as difficult on paper.
Farrey, Brian. The Vengekeep Prophecies - The protagonist's family consists entirely of thieves and con artists. At the beginning of the book, they get in over their heads by accidentally magically committing themselves to protect a town against a year of horrific disasters. The protagonist and his friend escape the town to search for a way to break the spell. I may go back and try this one again, but I also may not. I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the protagonist, his family, his friend, anyone at all actually.
Older, Daniel Jose. Dactyl Hill Squad - I hope to go back and finish reading this later, but I hit a point fairly early of just wanting to grab the protagonist and her friends in order to tuck them somewhere safe. It's a risk when I read kids' books because I sometimes respond to the characters the way a responsible adult would. The story is set in an alternate history in which dinosaurs still exist and are beasts of burden but also in which the US Civil War happens with the same issues as in our history. The protagonist is a black orphan in New York City during the war. She's worried about her brother who's off fighting. Her orphanage gets raided by slavers and the custodian is lynched. She and a handful of other kids escape are taken in by a community of black adults. Of course, all of her focus is on leaving to find her brother. It's a middle grade book, so I assume she'll come through okay, but I really wanted her to talk to some of the adults because she clearly doesn't know all of the dangers out there. I started this one several months back and thought I'd have checked out the ebook again by now and maybe edged forward another 50 pages or so, but I think it will be a while yet. I hope that kids who will enjoy the book and who'll see themselves in it are reading it.
Sim, Tara. Timekeeper - I bounced on this one because, while the worldbuilding looked like it might be fascinating, I was pretty sure that the worldbuilding was entirely in the service of a romance that kind of screamed 'BAD idea!' at me. Probably, what I really wanted was for the protagonist to be two or three decades older.
Starmer, Aaron. The Only Ones - This book frustrated me. I got about halfway through before I admitted that I seriously didn't care why almost everyone on Earth had suddenly vanished and that I thought that all of the survivors were unpleasant to spend time with. The survivors in the book are all tweens and teens (I expect there were survivors elsewhere in the world; this is just the kids who were able to find each other) who don't particularly like each other. I didn't feel like any of them changed between the beginning and when I stopped.
Andrews, Ilona. Sweep with Me - I read this as an ebook and am not actually sure how long it was, but I think it's novella length. It's also not the first book in the series it belongs to, and I haven't read any of the others. I enjoyed this one and didn't feel particularly lost. The main character maintains a magical/SF Inn that connects to other worlds and has Rules and some form of intelligence/awareness. She and her husband have to protect their guests, including from themselves and each other, while maintaining the outward appearance of a normal US B&B/hotel so that none of their neighbors notice anything weird.
Andrews, Ilona. Clean Sweep; Sweep in Peace; One Fell Sweep; Sweep of the Blade - I read these in order after I read the novella above, so I had some idea of how pieces of the story would fit together. I went through these four pretty rapidly and was sorry not to have immediate access to more. There are some gaps in the worldbuilding, but none of them were the sort of thing that I couldn't step over. I liked the characters and the narrative voice enough to be happy to go along with the story without pausing.
Andrews, Ilona. Alphas: Origins - I have mixed feelings about this book. The worldbuilding has a lot of 'wait, what?!' details, and there are a lot of redshirts. I also wasn't keen on the introductory scenes. The heroine is driving a car full of 6 year olds coming back from a school trip when she stumbles into violence, superpowers, and slavery. Her daughter ends up with her, and she's told that the other kids were mindwiped and sent back to the normal world. That... It left me kind of wanting the series to end with the annihilation of the kidnappers and their enemies both. I think this one is only novella length, and some of the problems may come down to that. Having the daughter there gives the heroine a strong motive to cooperate with her captors in ways that readers might not accept under other circumstances. It's just that threat to and harm to children are one of my big DNWs. I just kind of want to know how the author will resolve the vast chasms in the worldbuilding.
Bouchet, Amanda. Nightchaser - This is a science fiction romance and likely the first book in a series as it ends without real resolution to any of the non-romance plot elements. It was published after the trilogy below, and I'd be surprised if it didn't have a similar general structure. The heroine leads a small crew of thieves who steal supplies for an extremely large orphanage. Shortly before the book began, they stole a research lab that they hoped would have vaccines for the illness currently sweeping through the orphanage. This results in an extremely large bounty on the heroine's head. The hero is an occasional bounty hunter who runs a repair shop (I have no idea how the logistics of that work). He dithers about turning her in but hesitates because he likes her and because she's just so hot. I found that part unsatisfactory because I didn't really feel that it was anything but an artificial stumbling block. I still enjoyed the book, just not as much as I might have.
Bouchet, Amanda. A Promise of Fire; Breath of Fire; Heart on Fire - I enjoyed this series quite a bit. I was dubious early on because the hero kidnapped the heroine for reasons I could understand but in a way that caused her enough upset that I didn't really think I was going to buy into the romance. (She understood his reasons as valid; she just also saw all of the ways that this was going to destroy the life she wanted.) This is a fantasy setting with gods and magic and some weird power dynamics in the ruling families. Those families use Greek letters to indicate succession order with the current ruler as Alpha. They all murder whoever's between them and the Alpha title. The hero and his family want to change that system and replace it with something healthier. The story is reasonably complete in this trilogy, but there are a couple of characters who leave the narrative in ways that I think are hooks for potential other stories.
Carter, Ally. Heist Society - This was fairly lightweight. It's about a bunch of teenagers pulling a heist. I enjoyed it, but I also kind of thought that it would work better as a movie than as a book. There was a point when the narrator turned off most of her interiority in order to hide something from the audience. It didn't work at all well; I felt it like a speedbump. I accepted it because of the genre, but there are better ways to make the shell game work.
Danker, Sean. Free Space - This is the sequel to Admiral which I listened to as an audiobook. I think it's more of the same thing and likely to appeal to people who really enjoyed that. It's very sci fi pulpy. I just found myself thinking that I didn't care about the rollercoaster of successive new life or death challenges. I finished anyway because there was no thought required of me. I just feel like I could have spent my time better, especially given that the ending was a complete cliffhanger with nothing resolved. That left me cranky.
Deland, Margaret Wade Campbell. An Old Chester Secret - This is a Project Gutenberg book. It's fairly short and told in omniscient third. I finished it and felt unsatisfied as it was more interested in a didactic Christian message than in story. Because of that, it spent a lot of time on characters who were being terrible and focusing on why they were and why they should have been stronger. A rich girl has a baby born too soon after the wedding and asks a neighbor to pretend that she adopted it from somewhere very, very far away. The girl's father pushes for it, too. The child's father-- the girl's fiance-- disagrees but is overridden. The couple never have more children, and they obsess about the shame if they reveal the secret and the great void in their lives if they never do. The child's grandfather also has issues with that. The child's adoptive mother spends years terrified that they're going to take her boy away from her but still loving him and caring for him and trying to raise him right. She never gets much focus because she's been doing the Christian thing from the beginning. The end of the book had the boy's mother confess all to him and try to persuade him to join his father's law firm; the boy, now a college graduate, refuses and walks away. Then the kindly and very elderly minister points out that his biological mother has just experienced spiritual growth by admitting the truth and that, if the son walks away, she'll lose it. So the son goes back, and the book ends there. The push-pull throughout the book is that the biological relatives could legally take the boy back if they admit the relationship in court. Otherwise, there's no legal way to force his foster mother to relinquish him.
Gray, Joslyn. Elsie Marley, Honey - This is a project Gutenberg book. Two 16 year old girls meet on the train from California to New York. Both are named Elsie. Both have last names starting with M. Both are traveling to go and live with relatives who don't know what they look like. Each of them finds the other's guardians a more enticing prospect for the future than their own, so one of the girls suggest an identity swap. The book is cute and sweet. I could buy that the girls wouldn't think through all of the potential repercussions or any of the ethical/moral concerns. I also liked the relatives, generally. I wasn't entirely onboard with the way one of the aunts was portrayed; she's never quite said to be a drug addict, but it's pretty clearly what's going on. The narrative isn't cruel to her, and she's required for most of the complications that one of the Elsies has to manage in order to grow up and become responsible by taking charge of her uncle's household. I think that part of it was the author not wanting any villains at all.
Gunter, Jennifer. The Vagina Bible - I wasn't sure if I should count this as completely read or not as I skimmed some chapters and skipped a few others. This is non-fiction written by a gynecologist. The information is broad but not necessarily all that deep. The author admits that there's a lot that we don't really know yet because the topics haven't been given real research attention. She's got some strong opinions about how education for gynecologists could be improved.
Kingfisher, T. Paladin's Grace - I think I'm going to have to buy this one. I keep wanting to go back to read certain bits, and I no longer have access because it was an Overdrive ebook. I liked both halves of the romantic pairing and thought that they reacted in ways that fit with their backstories. I liked the politics, and I really liked the Bishop of the Rat God and the general ethos of that order. The book has a lot of dangling threads that I hope will be picked up in future books.
Lord, Karen. Unraveling - This is in the same world as Redemption in Indigo. The blurb emphasizes that it's a standalone, but I think that it's richer for having read the other book. Also, while this one can stand on its own, it has character overlap. The blurb also emphasizes the mystery elements over the magical ones which I think is a mistake. The book doesn't play fair as a mystery and is much more about the numinous. It's satisfying in that regard. Recommended.
Moriarty, Jaclyn. The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone - When word comes that Bronte's parents have been killed by pirates, she discovers that the terms of their will require her to make a very precisely timed journey to visit her numerous aunts and to deliver small presents to each. There's a magic in the will that means that, if Bronte doesn't carry through, her home town will be destroyed. The adventures are mostly gentle, but there are hints of bigger, darker things all the way through until Bronte and her friends and her cousins have to mount a rescue against a would-be Dark Lord. I had a lot of fun with this one. I think it's also the only thing on this list that I read on paper.
Nylund, Eric. The Resisters, book 1 - This is a middle grade book. The main character finds out that almost all of the adults in the world are being mind-controlled by an alien group mind, that children are absorbed into that entity when they hit puberty. The only free adults live in a secret, shielded enclave and can't venture out, not even for a second, because they'd be absorbed. The story ticks along reasonably quickly but without a lot of depth. The library has more books in the series but only in paper. The kids use mecha that look like insects and are alive and somewhat aware. This may be a deal breaker for some readers.
Older, Daniel Jose. Ghost Girl in the Corner - This is a novella set in the Shadowshaper universe. It focuses on Tee and Izzy and probably won't make a lot of sense without the context of the first book. The story's got some dangling threads that felt like they could go somewhere but that were clearly not an immediate concern.
Pape, Cindy Spencer. Kilts & Kraken; Moonlight & Mechanicals; Photographs & Phantoms; Steam & Sorcery - Steampunk urban fantasy romances. There's overlap in the characters. I felt that the sex scenes were a distraction, but I was looking for adventurous plot. Other readers may feel that the plots are a distraction from the romance or that the mix is right.
Polk, C.L. Stormsong - I thought that the political maneuverings here worked fairly well and that the romance worked rather less well. In terms of the romance, I felt that I was told a lot of things about why the two characters might be interested in each other without getting much on page interaction that supported it. I think, for that to work, the book would have needed to be longer. There were too many balls in the air for the length of the book, and the romance suffered for it. I liked both ladies. I also liked several other characters. There were a lot of hints at worldbuilding that might explain some of the oddities of the setting, but I still spent a fair amount of time tilting my head and saying, "Wait. Run that by me again." If you liked Witchmark, this is a good follow up to that, and you'll probably like it. I don't recommend starting with this one because most of the problems only make sense with the context that Witchmark slowly built.
Raybourn, Deanna. A Curious Beginning; A Perilous Undertaking; A Treacherous Curse; A Dangerous Collaboration - I think this mystery series will appeal to some fans of the Amelia Peabody series. The protagonist, Veronica Speedwell is a Victorian era lepidopterist who travels extensively, pre-series, and who has a colorful history. The first book starts with her attending the funeral of one of the aunts who raised her. That's followed by kidnapping attempts and murders and a lot of confusion. None of the books make Veronica look like a fool or make it seem like she's failing to notice and/or understand most of what's happening. The later books have maintained that (so far), and I found her a charming narrator.
Thirteen Doctors 13 Stories - This anthology had one story for Doctors 1-13 (none for the War Doctor). The stories were a mixed bag. None were truly terrible, but I liked some better than others. Some were better about giving the specific Doctor an individual voice.
Started but not finished:
Cherry, Alison. The Classy Crooks Club - I didn't like the protagonist much. This is a kids' book, and I found myself out of sympathy with pretty much everybody in the first fifty pages, so I stopped reading.
Danker, Sean. The Glory of the Empress - Too damned many characters on top of my usual complaints about Danker's writing. Also, although the previous book in the series ended in a cliffhanger, this is about something else entirely. It's backstory for characters introduced in the second book.
de Lint, Charles. The Cats of Tanglewood Forest - I got about 20% of the way through this and was hoping that the main character would die and put me out of my misery. At that point, I figured that giving up was a better option. I have really enjoyed de Lint's books in the past, but it's been a long time since I last tried one. This book has many color illustrations that didn't work for me because the color palette was such that I kept just seeing blobby smears. I don't know if that was because I was reading the ebook on my laptop or if I'd find them as difficult on paper.
Farrey, Brian. The Vengekeep Prophecies - The protagonist's family consists entirely of thieves and con artists. At the beginning of the book, they get in over their heads by accidentally magically committing themselves to protect a town against a year of horrific disasters. The protagonist and his friend escape the town to search for a way to break the spell. I may go back and try this one again, but I also may not. I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the protagonist, his family, his friend, anyone at all actually.
Older, Daniel Jose. Dactyl Hill Squad - I hope to go back and finish reading this later, but I hit a point fairly early of just wanting to grab the protagonist and her friends in order to tuck them somewhere safe. It's a risk when I read kids' books because I sometimes respond to the characters the way a responsible adult would. The story is set in an alternate history in which dinosaurs still exist and are beasts of burden but also in which the US Civil War happens with the same issues as in our history. The protagonist is a black orphan in New York City during the war. She's worried about her brother who's off fighting. Her orphanage gets raided by slavers and the custodian is lynched. She and a handful of other kids escape are taken in by a community of black adults. Of course, all of her focus is on leaving to find her brother. It's a middle grade book, so I assume she'll come through okay, but I really wanted her to talk to some of the adults because she clearly doesn't know all of the dangers out there. I started this one several months back and thought I'd have checked out the ebook again by now and maybe edged forward another 50 pages or so, but I think it will be a while yet. I hope that kids who will enjoy the book and who'll see themselves in it are reading it.
Sim, Tara. Timekeeper - I bounced on this one because, while the worldbuilding looked like it might be fascinating, I was pretty sure that the worldbuilding was entirely in the service of a romance that kind of screamed 'BAD idea!' at me. Probably, what I really wanted was for the protagonist to be two or three decades older.
Starmer, Aaron. The Only Ones - This book frustrated me. I got about halfway through before I admitted that I seriously didn't care why almost everyone on Earth had suddenly vanished and that I thought that all of the survivors were unpleasant to spend time with. The survivors in the book are all tweens and teens (I expect there were survivors elsewhere in the world; this is just the kids who were able to find each other) who don't particularly like each other. I didn't feel like any of them changed between the beginning and when I stopped.