Reviews of the books I've read

And here we go, the 104th book of the year for me, and likely the last one I will finish this year.

This is book two of the Rosie series, the sequel to The Rosie Project. In this one, we have much of the same humour derived from a person (yes, an autistic person) taking everything said literally. Balance this with always making objective statements, without any social nuances, and you have the humour and charm of the first book.

What you also have, unfortunately, is an ass in the book. I really do not like books where one person is abusing power, which is the premise of much of the plot in this book. I should be less upset by it, given how much the world is about abusing power and not doing the right thing. Less upset, sure, and I also can choose not to seek out that particular style of conflict, given there are plenty others to choose among (Man vs. Fate/God, Man vs Self, Man vs. Society, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Supernatural (-ish), and Man vs. Technology).

It is a quick read.

It's an amusing book, but much less so than the first Rosie book. I would liken the two books to the first and second bites of a treat: the first bite is amazing and delicious, and while the second bite is good, it isn't as amazing as the first bite.

This is book 4 of the Harry Hole series.

Okay, be completely (and by "completely" I mean 100%) unsurprised that the next book I read is a Harry Hole book. It's pretty much all I'm reading these days. So close to 104 books for the year, which would be twice my goal of one book a week. Go me.

This Harry Hole book had the feeling of deja vu. So much so that I had to reread a number of chapters just because I felt I had already read the chapter and wanted to reread it just to confirm that the feeling of "I've totally read this book before" wasn't valid.

In this book, Harry is set up.

Shock.

And likely about time.

By which I mean, the man has totally set himself up to be screwed by jealous and less moral coworkers.

Tom Waaler is a major character in this book, how he is a complete an total asshole and BAD COP (whoops, spoiler alert). Seriously, if you've been reading this series, that Tom is a bad guy isn't a revelation. He plays an important role in the previous two books. And yeah, he's an asshole. Takes advantage of someone else setting up Harry.

I enjoyed the book, again with the caveat "as much as I can enjoy anything with murder in it." Hate people taking advantage of other people, hate the willful destruction of other people, hate the fucking unfairness in this world. Go Harry! it gets better.

Related: OMG writing book reviews when drunk is AWESOME. Sober Kitt, you should try this more often.

Or maybe not.

This is book 3 of the Harry Hole series.

Book ONE HUNDRED for the year! Given my goal was to read 52 books this year, a feat I accomplished in June, I have to say that I have crushed that goal. Harry Hole was a significant part of that crushing: this is the seventh book I've read in the ten books of the Harry Hole series. While I prefer to read series in order, this one happens to be readable in any order, with lots of details filled in by reading earlier books. I kinda like that I didn't read them exactly in order. Even if I didn't really like the first book, I do like the series and the tragic character of Harry Hole.

This book has a different writing structure than most of the other Harry Hole books, in that it tells two stories intertwined, with the merging of the two plot lines at the end with a resolution for both of them. One of them was the story of a soldier from Norway who fought on the Eastern Front during World War 2. On the wrong side. Except there wasn't a correct side in the trenches until after the war and atrocities were revealed, and even then, the bottom of the totem pole does what he was told to do, did what he needed to do to survive.

As with the rest of the Harry Hole books, there is the path Nesbø leads us down, and the actual solution to the mystery, the actual person doing the series of murders of persons who fought on the Eastern Front. A few of the murders didn't quite fit, which of course leads the police down the wrong path, which makes things interesting and confusing.

I'll finish the series, likely this year at this rate. Maybe. Four more books this year and I've doubled my reading goal for the year.

After not finishing a book for three weeks, I'm happy to have finally finished one. Unsurprisingly, it's a fiction book, and doubly unsurprising in the sf/fantasy genre.

Neverwhere is one of the older Neil Gaiman stories, which makes me surprised I haven't read it yet. Though, really, upon thinking about it, not really that surprising. I suspect if I had realized it was the novelization of a BBC television show, I wouldn't have read it in the first place.

Which is good that I didn't know, as I somewhat enjoyed the tale of Richard Mayhew, and the mystery surrounding the appearance of Door on the sidewalk in front of Richard one evening. It's a cute storyline, though, in this case, I think I'm more inclined to recommend watching the series, it's not very long, over reading the book, which is also not very long. Things are lost in translation, with very few times the translated medium being better than the original.

So, yeah, watch the series instead, but read this if you enjoy Gaiman's works and really prefer words over a world pre-imagined for you.

Second to last of the currently published Harry Hole books, which is to say, book nine, and I read this one quickly. Not really sure I intended to read this one as much as I did, I avoided some of the conference this weekend to read it, but read it and read it fast, I did.

The ending, holy crap. Totally had me emotional and upset. I was glad there was another Harry Hole book to immediately begin reading. If I had had to wait a year for it to be published, I'm not sure I would have read the next one (yes, I would have read the next one).

This one has Harry returning from Hong Kong, this time to defend Oleg, Rakel’s son. Again, in Nesbo's style of using pronouns and just enough description to paint a picture in your head, playing with your prejudices and expectations to have you paint the wrong picture, only to have a clearer picture painted later providing a different interpretation, this book has a number of twists and turns and unexpected huh? moments.

Last book, Harry almost died. In that one, it seemed to be a lucky but plausible escape from death. In this one, Harry, surprise, almost dies, but ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh, no, it's not really a plausible escape from death. Just a clever plot twist that, okay, works.

I still very much enjoyed the book. The ending had me overwhelmed. Worth reading.

Okay, really now, this book surprised me completely.

It is the first Harry Hole series. The first Harry Hole I read, turns out, was book five in the series. Which meant, there were four books of character development that I completely missed out on. Which is surprising, given that this book was also in the stack of books from Mom. WHEN AM I GOING TO GET THROUGH THAT STACK? I swear, that woman has defined my reading for this year, and likely next.

So, this book, the first Harry Hole book, actually acknowledges the odd name, though most people in this book pronounce Harry's last name as Holly and Holy.

The book takes place in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, which I found ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL, as I started reading it when I was in Sydney. It made the story more interesting to me in the way the Harry Bosch series was engaging: I knew the area. I knew what the spaces looked like, I walked along the places, watched people in the different locations. I hadn't really realized how much that connection appeals to me.

This story also gives us a large part of Harry's background, which also made the character more interesting to me.

The plot is that Harry flies to Sydney to look into the death of a Norwegian citizen. Amidst a whole bunch of other deaths, a serial killer is discovered in investigation, and boom, now we have a plot. There were a number of Australian cultural references in the book that went along with the museums that Mom and I were visiting as I was reading the book, that made the story have a stronger impact.

I enjoyed the book, and am looking forward to the other Harry Hole books in the stack from Mom, unlike how I was after the previous Hole crime mystery thriller I read.

Recommended.

Okay, really, anything by Lee Child that has Jack Reacher in the book I will most likely read. No, that's not right, I will read. Mom has tired of Reacher, how EVERY book he has a new woman to f---, screw, eh, have sex with, and that's rather tiring. I can't say I blame her for not wanting to read the books, they are very much of the same plot flavor.

I, on the other hand, am still enjoying them. This one, Small Wars, as a short novella (Kindle Single, short story actually), was no exception. I read it on the flight from Sydney back to San Francisco, which was the longest flight I've been on since the flight to Sydney. This, and Make Me, the latest full-length Reacher book, kept me entertained on the way.

This book goes back to Reacher's career beginning, which means, of course, that Joe Reacher is still alive. Having been recently been reading Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series, I pretty much assumed that any action in the book was a misdirect of the actual events. Turns out, nope, what you read is what you get, except the WHY is what is important in this book. We follow along in the plot, and, of course Reacher figures everything, which I really can't understand how amazing he is, given he never makes a mistake.

Best part of the story is that we meet Frances Neagley when she is much younger. Totally great.

I enjoyed this book, but I'm enjoying all the Reacher books, so, yeah, I'll keep reading.

And done. With this book read, I have finished the three book series, The Great Way, by Harry Connolly.

Have no fear in reading these books: the protagonists have a happy ending despite repeated eye rolling certain deaths and stunningly fortunate good luck. Except for the parts of complete unbelievability, because, really, a world of magic with the ability to create matter out of thin air (but really just a transporting of material from one dimension to another) and intelligence without mass, and the ability to transmute living creatures, and conquering alligators or an underwater wooden structure that sinks, isn't totally unbelievable, I enjoyed this book the best of the three.

The cover STILL has a depiction of a white girl representing the black girl who was actually IN the book. Still annoys me.

What also slightly annoyed me was the repeated "and here is where I die" thoughts followed by "oh look I'm still alive and have incredible human endurance and haven't pooped once since the series began" parts. I got over those annoyances.

I really really really like Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces books. I don't know what happened with this series. It was difficult to read. Felt like a different author entirely.

Okay, in for a penny in for a pound with this series. I didn't really like the writing style of the first book, but apparently I became used to it in the second book because it didn't bother me as much as it did in the first book, I'm not sure what it is about this series of books so far, but I am finding them more than a little difficult to finish reading. And somewhat frustrating with the deux ex machina happening.

Phooey, I hate the autocorrect on the ios devices, especially when it corrects two words back after I've confirmed it was correct and moved on.

So, the book. Instead of the kabillion characters, the story lines have reduced to two, Cazia and Tejohn. To my complete and total unsurprise, bad things happened in the journeying, foreign creatures are strangely cool with humans, both others are utterly hostile, our heroes escape time and time again from likely death and absolutely certain disfigurement and captivity yet manage to escape both physically and mentally unharmed. It's kinda painful to read.

I'm doing a poor job of explaining my difficulties with the book.

How about the cover of the book has the main female character on it, AND SHE IS WHITE. She's described as "dark-skinned" in the book. Talk about completely and totally pissing me off at that point. Put a black woman on the cover if the character is a black woman. More power to you, too.

Time passes oddly, things I expect to take days take hours and other things I expect to take hours take weeks, it's weird.

And it was okay. I read quickly. There wasn't any plot repeat that series often have, for which I was thankful. I suspect the three books are just one long book broken into three parts for easier publishing.

I have one more book to read in this series. I'm invested enough to to keep reading. If you like Harry Connolly's work, read the series. If you don't know him as an author, read the Twenty Palaces books instead. Those are fantastic.