Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian by Andy Weir

Published: 2014, Crown (Originally 2012)

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

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I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Earth. I’m in a Habitat designed to last 31 days. If the Oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah. I’m screwed.

An unexpectedly powerful dust storm causes the astronauts on NASA’s current Mars mission to abort their mission and head back to Earth. While following his crewmembers to their transport vehicle, Mark Watney comes into contact with flying debris, which causes him to fall back into the storm, his suit to rip, and his vitals to flatline. The rest of the crew assumes he’s dead and leaves for their return journey to Earth.

Their assumption proves to be incorrect, however, as Mark somehow survives. But now he’s stranded on the surface of Mars with no way to contact his crewmates or Earth and a minimal number of supplies. To survive for any amount of time, Mark must combine his knowledge of engineering and botany with more than a little ingenuity.

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Review: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Published: 2011, Plume

Genre: Adult Romance, Realistic Fiction

Source: Purchased

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Money and time, those were the two things that he always heard people complaining about, and he had plenty of both. There wasn’t anything Lincoln wanted that he couldn’t afford...

What more did he want? Love, he could hear Eve saying. Purpose. Love. Purpose. Those are the things you can’t plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don’t happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?

Lincoln, Jennifer, and Beth all work for the Courier newspaper during the end of the twenty-first century in Omaha, Nebraska. Beth and Jennifer are good friends and continue their conversations through their work emails during the day. Neither of them knows Lincoln, but he’s getting to know each of them very well, as his job for IT is essentially reading through all the work emails that get flagged and issuing warnings to the senders.

When Jennifer and Beth’s emails start getting flagged, Lincoln knows that he should send them both warnings, but the messages are so interesting that he doesn’t at first. He loves their friendship with each other, and is starting to fall for Beth himself. But he’s never even met Beth, and certainly can’t introduce himself as the person who looks forward to reading her private messages each day.

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Review: The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

Series: The Queen of the Tearling, #1

Published: 2014, Harper

Genre: Adult Fantasy

Source: Library

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"You're young and reckless, Lady, It's a desirable quality in a warrior, but not in a queen."

Kelsea Raleigh has the dubious honor of being the rightful heir to the Tearling throne, a position that no single person inhabits for long. With the arrival of her nineteenth birthday, Kelsea can finally claim her throne, but she’s also become the most hunted person in all of the Tearling. The men of her mother’s Queen’s Guard - now her Queen’s Guard - have sworn to protect Kelsea and escort her back to the capital city for her coronation, but the road there will be anything but easy.

Even after she’s arrived back in the capital, Kelsea has quite the task ahead of her, learning how to be queen while dealing with her power-hungry uncle, a mistrustful, hope-deprived people, many traitors within her reach, and the mysterious Red Queen of the neighboring country of Mortmesne.

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Review: The Dinner by Herman Koch

The Dinner by Herman Koch (Translated by Sam Garrett)

Published: 2013, Hogarth (Originally 2009)

Genre: Adult Literary Fiction

Source: Library

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Happiness needs nothing but itself; it doesn't have to be validated. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way.

Brothers Paul and Serge have arranged to dine at a fancy restaurant in Amsterdam with their wives Claire and Babette. It’s the sort of restaurant that Paul hates, ridiculously overpriced and full of waitstaff fawning over his brother. But this dinner is more about the conversation than the food, and the conversation is one that neither family can afford to ignore any longer.

The events of The Dinner take place over the course of the single dinner had among the brothers and their wives. But perhaps that’s not entirely correct. The present-day action takes place over the course of a few hours, but much of the novel’s present day gives way to flashbacks that help better explain the characters and their motivations for the dinner meeting. It’s an unconventional authorial choice that Koch made, but for the most part it works well.

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Review: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Published: 2006, Vintage (Originally 2005)

Genre: Adult Literary Fiction, Science Fiction

Source: Library

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It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I’d known, maybe I’d have kept tighter hold of them, and not let unseen tides pull us apart.

Kathy H. is proud to admit that she’s a really good carer. So good, in fact, that she’s been doing the job for over eleven years now, long after her friends and peers have moved on to the next stages of their lives. But being reunited with her childhood friend Ruth has helped Kathy to reminisce about their past, back from when they were classmates at the idyllic and isolated private school, Hailsham, in an alternate 1970s England. There the students were given a solid education and rewarded for their creativity, yet kept separate from the rest of the world.

As Kathy’s memories progress through time and become intertwined with her current relationships with Ruth and their friend Tommy, she slowly reveals the truths about their education, their lives, and their futures.

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Review: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas & Jennifer Graham

The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas & Jennifer Graham

Series: Veronica Mars, #1

Published: 2014, Vintage Books

Genre: Adult Mystery

Source: Library

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I’ll admit I was a bit wary of reading this book. Any book developed from some other media - be it a tv show, a film, a video game - makes me more than a little skeptical. Can it really translate all that well to a written story? Although The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line was entertaining, I do think it faced quite a few pitfalls in the conversion from one media form to another.

The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line takes place shortly after the events of the Veronica Mars film (which I guess means there’s not much of a possibility for another film being made, sadly). Veronica is back in the seedy and corrupt town of Neptune, the one place she planned to leave forever only ten years ago. After solving a mystery surrounding one of her high school classmate’s death and realizing just how bad things are in Neptune, however, she’s decided to forgo practicing law and do what really suits her: being a private investigator.

Near the top of Neptune’s notoriety list, apparently, is spring break season, when teens and college students from all over the country stop by for some serious partying. But while spring break is a boon to local businesses, it is just as likely to become a threat, which is what happens when one college girl is pronounced as missing. While the local sheriff’s department is ostensibly on the case, it is Mars Investigations that has been hired to do the heavy-lifting.

Soon after Veronica begins her investigation, another girl is pronounced missing. And their last whereabouts place them both at parties held by the same house. A house that’s hiding some seriously shady activities.

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Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Published: William Morrow Books, 2013

Genre: Adult Fantasy

Source: Library

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Oh, Neil Gaiman. Every book of yours that I’ve read has further convinced me that your writing style and my reading preferences are just not going to mesh. And so, after reading your most recent release, I am going to respectfully refrain from reading other books of yours in the future. While I admire all you’ve accomplished as a writer, I have to admit that you’re just not the right writer for this reader.

After returning to the area where he grew up to attend a family member’s funeral, an unnamed man cannot resist the draw to drive past his home and visit the house of Lettie Hempstock, the mysterious girl he befriended nearly four decades ago. But Lettie is not at home. An older woman - who the man reasons must be her mother - says that Lettie hasn’t returned. Being in the house and wandering around outside to the pond that Lettie referred to as an ocean allows the man’s long-hidden memories to slowly surface, memories about an opal miner, a sinister housekeeper named Ursula Monkton, and other, stranger beings who wished to cohabit the Earth.

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Review: Unsticky by Sarra Manning

Unsticky by Sarra Manning

Published: 2012, CB Creative Books

Genre: Adult Romance

Source: Purchased

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We're broken. It's like we have all these jagged edges that scare other people off, but when we're with each other, our jagged edges fit together and we're almost whole.

From an outsider’s perspective, it may appear as though Grace Reeves is living the fashionista’s dream. She works for Skirt, a London-based fashion magazine, she breathes fashion, and she wears many of the latest trends.

The problem is that she cannot afford this lifestyle. At all. She lives in an apartment building that should probably be condemned, her credit card debt is so high that she’s afraid of even opening her mail or listening to her voicemail, and as for her glamorous job? She basically does the grunt work.

When super rich art mogul James Vaughn offers her an usual proposition - become his mistress, receiving a generous allowance each month and access to elite events - it doesn’t take Grace too long to accept his offer. And for a while she thoroughly enjoys the perks of being Vaughn’s mistress, even if she isn’t too crazy about Vaughn himself. But Grace soon learns that her new lifestyle doesn’t magically solve all the problems in her life.

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Review: Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach

Fortune’s Pawn by Rachel Bach

Series: Paradox, #1

Published: 2013, Orbit

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

Source: Purchased

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I can’t help it, I’m not a subtle girl. When I see something I like, I go for it, and I liked what I saw very much.


There are those books you read to learn from, to better appreciate stories and language and writing. There are also those you read for entertainment, for the sheer joy of a good story. These two types are not mutually exclusive, and neither is one better than the other. For me, however, Fortune’s Pawn falls squarely into the second camp. The story - and my experience reading it - could best be described as fun. And sometimes that’s more than enough needed to really enjoy a story.

Deviana Morris isn’t just good at her job as a mercenary for the kingdom of Paradox: she’s great. She excelled in military training and rose through the ranks of the Blackbirds, an elite military squadron. After being made into a squad leader, Devi realizes that there is no further way to ascend the ranks and so quits. What she really wants is to be a Devastator, part of the armored unit devoted to protecting the Sainted King of Paradox. Although probably the most dangerous job within the Paradoxian military, Devi also knows it’s where her skills can be best utilized and appreciated. And Devi is nothing if not ambitious.

Devi’s ambition leads her to accept a security job for a trade ship named the Glorious Fool. It’s the type of job that she would have never considered taking if she hadn’t been assured that one year serving under Captain Caldswell was the equivalent of serving another number of years with an organization like the Blackbirds. Trade ship or not, however, the Glorious Fool somehow manages to get in more than its fair share of trouble.

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Review: Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

 
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
Published: 2014, Riverhead Books
Genre: Historical Fiction, Retelling

Source: Won

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We’re friendly toward strangers because of a general belief (I don’t know where it comes from) that we’re born strangers and that the memory of how that feels never really leaves us.

Boy, Snow, Bird is being touted as a historical fiction retelling of “Snow White” set in 1950s America. The fact that it is a retelling is the primary reason I became interested in reading this story. The retelling, however, is more of an afterthought than anything else. Instead, Oyeyemi’s novel focuses on the trials and tribulations that three women face: Boy, her stepdaughter Snow, and her daughter Bird.

Boy Novak’s beauty is widely acknowledged, and she has grown up frequently admiring her reflection in mirrors. But Boy’s life is far from perfect. She has grown up without her mother, and her father makes a living catching rats. He also likes to abuse her in her spare time. So when Boy finds herself with an opportunity to leave her father for good, she takes it and travels up to the small New England town of Flax Hill.

In a small town where everyone seems to know everything about each other, Boy is treated with suspicion and envy. Until, that is, she befriends some of the locals and begins working at a bookstore. Still, it isn’t until Boy begins a serious relationship with Arturo Whitman, local scholar-turned-jeweler, that she finally begins to feel she may have a place in Flax Hill after all.

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