My last 5 books: Mostly fantastical stuff

1. Fool Moon, by Jim Butcher. So I don't enjoy the werewolf schtick and I don't understand the world's obsession with them. What I did enjoy was how Butcher took every version of the werewolf legend and made them all valid for his own universe. I like that. I also really liked how Murphy held her own even though I wanted to scream at her for being and idiot when she decided to not trust Harry again. And was that a hint towards a juict family mystery on Harry's part? I'm gonna eat that right up. If the previous book did a lot of world building, this book did a lot of relationship building (and thank you to Harry's subconscious for pointing out the absolute obvious chemistry between Harry and Murph). The crime in this book was fairly obvious with Butcher adding in several layers just to make it complicated but it ends up just being convoluted. That said I had a lot of fun reading this book. Butcher's brand of humour is right up my alley and I'm excited to dive deeper into this series. 

2. This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone. Everyone was talking about this book a couple years ago and so I decided to read it. I was so confused when I first started reading it. The narrative just throws you straight into a finished world, no introduction, nothing, but the world-building happens as you go along and by the end you have a pretty solid idea of how it works. It's half-epistulary, half-narrative and it just works. And it's so beautiful! And that final in-your-face is so satisfying! When I first started out I did not expect to come away thinking this was one of the best books I read this year, but damn. It's perfect. Two quotes that really spoke to me: "A desire to be apart, sometimes, to understand who I am without the rest. And what I return to the me-ness that I know as pure, inescapable self... is hunger. Desire. Longing, this longing to possess, to become, to break like a wave on a rock and reform, and break again, and wash away." And also: "But when I think of you, I want to be alone together. I want to strive against and for. I want to live in contact. I want to be a context for you, and you for me." This book is a love story; a tragic, impossible love story in a sci-fi setting in a far-flung future. And it's amazing. 

3. Lethal White, by Robert Galbraith. In acknowledgements at the end the author states that this was a hard book to write, and it’s noticeable throughout. The first hundred pages draaaaaaaag. The prologue picks up exactly where the last book left off and everything seems amazing, but then there is a timeskip in which the two main characters create a divide between themselves by not communicating and while it’s definitely realistic it’s also very hard to read. Strike and Robin get called upon to investigate the source of blackmailing that's targeting a Minister and while it’s interesting and things just entangle themselves more and everything keeps getting more complicated, it doesn’t feel like the plot really starts moving forward until halfway through when the murder happens. The murder is related to the blackmail which is somehow related to the mentally ill person who barged into Strike's office at the very beginning. There are so many plotlines going on at the same time, so many seemingly disparate threads that somehow connect to each other and I love seeing them come together. I have never figured out a Strike novel before the conclusion and that just makes them all wonderfully engaging reads. I just wish it didn’t drag so much for the first third to half. I'm really excited to read more now and I have the next two books on my shelf.

4. Everyone's an alien when you're an alien too, by Jonny Sun. This was a very quick but also very cute and heart-warming read. The books is a cross between a comic and a picture-book, but it has some valuable lessons about belonging, happiness and death. The story is about an alien who's sent to Earth to study humans. As the story goes on the alien meets and befriends everything but humans and learns a lot over the course of just over 100 days. The book is full of intentional spelling mistakes that gives the book character and even for a grammar nerd like myself it’s so well done that I hardly even notice it. My favourite quote from this book is: "Look. Life is bad. Everyone's sad. We're all gonna die. But I already bought this inflatable bouncy castle so are you gonna take your shoes off or what?" I also really liked: "Treat every day on Earth as if it's your last day on Earth because it is, until you spend another day on Earth." This book is a perfect example on how to say a lot with very few words. 

5. Skalpelldansen, av Jenny Milewski. När jag läste Yuko som min första introduktion till Jenny Milewskis skrivande så var jag inte övertygad. Yuko kändes taskigt researchad och som om den red på succén från The Grudge. Men att en svensk ens brydde sig om att skriva om något så väldigt japanskt gav tillräckligt med cred för att jag skulle vilja utforska mera. Skalpelldansen är betydligt mycket bättre. Den var seg i starten, men blev sen svår att lägga ifrån sig. Genom första halvan av boken undrade jag om hon skulle köra på "huvudkaraktär som får liv" eller "extrem-fan som utför alla dåd i författarens böcker". I slutändan gjorde hon inget av det och körde på en vinkel som är så kliché att det inte ens kom för mig att hon skulle välja den. Men hon får det att funka! Riktigt bra dessutom! Jag är imponerad.