Skip to content

Category: 5 Stars

Not a dumb American: Truth commissions edition

Published 5 Nov 2014 by Gin Jenny

Unspeakable Truths is a read for Nonfiction November, hosted by the marvelous Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness), Leslie (Regular Rumination), Katie (Doing Dewey), and Rebecca (I’m Lost in Books). Kim’s the host for this week, so head on over to her blog to see the nonfiction other bloggers have been reading and recommending! Some time ago I got the idea in my head that I wanted to learn more about a fuzzy thing I could not quite define that was related to shifting from a terrible, warry society to a less-terrible not-war society. As with so many things, it was tricky to…

Continue readingNot a dumb American: Truth commissions edition
12 Comments

Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater

Published 20 Oct 2014 by Gin Jenny

Note: I received an electronic copy of Blue Lily Lily Blue from the publisher for review consideration. Second note: Of necessity, I’ll be talking about some of the events of the first two books in this series. If you haven’t read those yet, the short version of this review is that Blue Lily Lily Blue is an excellent third installment in an excellent series. But you probably shouldn’t read on unless you want to be spoiled for the first two. Spoilers for Blue Lily Lily Blue occur only in the bottom, bullet-pointed section, and I’ve marked it that way. ETA…

Continue readingBlue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater
23 Comments

Review: We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory

Published 18 Aug 2014 by Gin Jenny

Note: I received a digital galley of We Are All Completely Fine from the publisher for review consideration. DARYL GREGORY AUTHOR DISCOVERY YEAR CONTINUES. Not only has Daryl Gregory produced another fine piece of science fiction — this one a novella — but I have at last discovered why I love his books so much. It’s cause his wife is a psychologist! (He thanks her in the acknowledgements.) No wonder Gregory wrote about crazy people so brilliantly in Afterparty. No wonder he is always writing about confronting impossible, insane situations with the only available tools (science, therapy) and knowing all…

Continue readingReview: We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory
19 Comments

Review: The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater

Published 28 Jul 2014 by Gin Jenny

Note: There will be some spoilers for The Raven Boys in this post, but I will try to steer clear of spoiling The Dream Thieves. After finishing The Raven Boys, I wanted to go out to the bookstore and buy The Dream Thieves in hardback. But since I almost never buy new hardbacks, and some people didn’t like The Dream Thieves as much, I instead put a sensible hold on the ebook copy at my library. The hold came in (blessedly promptly), and I read twenty pages of it, then the end, and then I went to Barnes & Noble…

Continue readingReview: The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater
22 Comments

Gin Jenny Becomes a Cog in the Maggie Stiefvater Propaganda Machine (a review of The Raven Boys)

Published 14 Jul 2014 by Gin Jenny

One time a while ago, Anastasia tweeted at me “OMG THE QUEEN OF ATTOLIA IS SO GOOD SEND HELP” (The Queen of Attolia is indeed so good you will definitely need help to be sent). While I was reading The Raven Boys, I wanted to take that whole tweet, substitute The Raven Boys for the title, and tweet it approximately every twenty pages. After a rocky start in which I engaged in some cranky grumbling about all the times Ana and Memory and Anastasia and Jill had been simultaneously wrong about a book (NB this has never happened), around page…

Continue readingGin Jenny Becomes a Cog in the Maggie Stiefvater Propaganda Machine (a review of The Raven Boys)
31 Comments

The People in the Trees, Hanya Yanagihara

Published 7 Apr 2014 by Gin Jenny

OH MY GOD Y’ALL, THIS BOOK. Don’t let me get your expectations up so high that you can’t enjoy it but like, OH MY GOD THIS BOOK, there are not an adequate number of words in my brain box to describe my feelings about this book right here. The People in the Trees is startling. Not startling in a plot way, but startling in the way that was like I had never read a book before and was reading my very first one right now. The People in the Trees admittedly hits a lot of sweet spots for me: a…

Continue readingThe People in the Trees, Hanya Yanagihara
41 Comments

Review: James Tiptree Jr, by Julie Phillips

Published 13 Dec 2013 by Gin Jenny

I have discovered that what I like in a biography is lots and lots and lots of quotations. When I was reading Julie Phillips’s excellent biography of Alice Sheldon, I kept reading bits of it out loud to Mumsy, and Mumsy said, “This is an autobiography?” It’s not, but Julie Phillips has brilliantly pulled together a multiplicity of letters, journals, and papers to create a wonderfully vivid picture of Sheldon’s life. To step back slightly: James Tiptree, Jr. was the pseudonym of science fiction writer Alice Sheldon, a woman who wrote fantastically creepy sci-fi stories about sex and death and…

Continue readingReview: James Tiptree Jr, by Julie Phillips
11 Comments

Review: Saga, vols. 1 and 2, Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples

Published 1 Nov 2013 by Gin Jenny

Upon finishing the second volume of Brian K. Vaughn’s most recent series, Saga, I have decided to be excited about Vaughn. This could have happened sooner, except unfortunately Runaways was my introduction to him, and it is not great around race and it put me off him. But having read Y: The Last Man and Saga, I think that Vaughn’s writing is great, and I like that he creates comics with end-dates in mind, so I’ve decided to hop (at last!) on board the Brian K. Vaughn train. My favorite thing about Saga is the relative tininess of its stakes…

Continue readingReview: Saga, vols. 1 and 2, Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples
14 Comments

Review: The Charioteer, Mary Renault (plus, a giveaway)

Published 27 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

Since nobody loves this book (and when I say “nobody loves this book” I want you to understand that I really mean “Mumsy does not love this book and it breaks my heart”), I have decided to try once again to explain what I love so much about it. The Charioteer deals with a conflict of values, my favorite kind of conflict to read about. The three main characters, Laurie and Ralph and Andrew, are gay men living in British army hospitals in the 1940s: Laurie and Ralph because injuries prevent them returning to battle, and Andrew as an orderly…

Continue readingReview: The Charioteer, Mary Renault (plus, a giveaway)
21 Comments

Review: The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault

Published 25 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

Lucky you, bloggy friends! Two guest reviews by Mumsy in such a short time! I was expecting Jenny to start Mary Renault Week by reviewing The Charioteer, a novel that (as Jenny correctly notes) only Jenny loves.  And then I would have started my review by saying that Mary Renault is actually at her best when she is writing about ancient Greece, about which she appears to know Everything. (And because I find it difficult to switch tracks, I have now said just that.) The Mask of Apollo is somewhat different from most of Renault’s novels in that it features…

Continue readingReview: The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
8 Comments