01 Dear Emmie Blue
This is a lovely light summer read so far.
Sometimes I find that I have to suspend my disbelief about human behavior in order to delve into a light fiction book. But somehow, letting go of expectations about realistic cause and effect in order to buy into a romantic setup (see What You Wish For) is far more difficult for me than suspending my disbelief to buy into the outlandish or supernatural aspects of a romantic (see Soulless and My Lady Jane) or otherwise oddball book.
So far, Lia Louis's Dear Emmie Blue doesn't require the reader to do much, if any, LA-LA-LA-ing and taking deep breaths while outrageous events are taking place. Characters are appealingly faulted, and sometimes selfish and foolish. Unlikely bonds are forged and reforged. There's a love triangle that I adore, and the setup of how the best friends met (Emmie released a balloon with a message when she was young, and Lucas, who shares the same birthday, just happened to find it across the ocean) is cute as a framework, although its significance pales compared to the real meat of the story.
Emmie is figuring out if she deserves happiness, and a couple of cutie-pies, a long-lost family member, and some friends who are like family may just help her do it. (Click here for my full review of Dear Emmie Blue.)
02 Network Effect: A Murderbot Novel
Boy oh boy, this fifth book in the series is so very good so far. Funny and poignant and odd and wonderful. SecUnit is obsessed with keeping his people safe (and has a new favorite show)!
If you're in for another installment of Murderbot (here are my glowing reviews of the first three installments and here is my gushing take on the fourth), this one is living up to all of my glorious Murderbot expectations so far.
These are short books with a fantastically unique point of view, and they're perfect escapism. I lurv them, and this one is really, really good so far.
03 The House in the Cerulean Sea
I like to listen to fantasy books for young readers, and so far Klune's book and the narrator for the audiobook (I really need to stop saying "books on tape," which is not a thing anymore, self) are solid, entertaining efforts.
Extremely Upper Management sends lonely, steady, pushed-around Linus, a case worker for magical children in orphanages, to a mysterious, small-scale home for children that seems like it's at the end of the earth.
Linus is expected to report back with details about what Arthur Parnassus, the mysterious master on site, is really up to with his unusual charges. But stolid Linus may be pushed past the limits of his beloved rules and regulations, because he's juuuuust found out that the children are not only magical, but dangerous: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist.
What about this book am I not expecting to love? Nothing, that's what.
What are you reading now?
These three books are a pretty weird combination for concurrent reads, so I couldn't resist a post. I have high hopes that they'll keep up their respective excellent starts, and I'll report back with full reviews.