Note: I received this ebook from the publisher, via Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review. These days, I don’t read much high fantasy. It’s not that I’m ashamed of the many hours I spent reading Mercedes Lackey books in middle and high school; it’s just that I rarely, rarely feel like returning to that type of fantasy. But I’ve never been able to quit Lynn Flewelling. I looooved The Bone Doll’s Twin (you can always get me with gender stuff and a healthy dose of creepiness), and I get a kick out of seeing the Seregil and Alec doing…
6 CommentsReading the End Posts
Before I get started with this review, it’s time for PRAISE PLEASE, a segment I do sometimes because I need praise like oxygen. I decided that in 2014, I was going to read 20% non-white authors. I got a slow start because by the time I resolved this, I already had ten reviews scheduled or in need of writing, and they were all of books by white authors. However, in the first third of the year, my books have been 40% by authors of color. Half POC authors would be best, but I am still pretty pleased with myself. (I’ve…
29 CommentsPlease forgive the delay in getting this podcast to you! We had some technical difficulties after recording the podcast, and there was some concern that this podcast was LOST FOREVER. Happily — because we have a special guest star, friend of the podcast Ashley!! — the podcast was able to be recovered, and we present it to you now. Ashley and the Jennys talk about tropes in mystery novels that we hate and love; we review J. Robert Janes’s mystery novel Mirage; and we play a game, composed by Whiskey Jenny, about flowers in book titles. You can listen to…
4 CommentsNote: I received a copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. Scottish werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch is trying to make her life better. She’s taking remedial classes at a nearby college and trying to cut back on the violence she does to others and herself. But her plans for self-improvement are interrupted when the Guild of Werewolf Hunters — abetted in their work by Fire Queen Malveria’s deadly enemy — begins to hunt down and murder the members of the werewolf clans. And the werewolves are all: Well, to start with, I am in favor…
18 CommentsHere is a book about a girl called Veronika who has been kept in ignorance all her life, and when her circumstances change, she is only pretty vaguely enlightened. So are we. I prefer to be more enlightened. Veronika lives on an island with three other girls: Caroline, Isabel, and Eleanor. They are all the same exact girl, except that their hair is different colors. Their parents died in a plane crash. They live with their guardians, Robbert and Irene, who educate them and test them and try to understand them. One day, a girl called May washes up on…
17 CommentsThere was something I was always very good at, however, and that was teaching myself not to be frightened while frightening things are going on. It is difficult to do this, but I had learned. It is simply a matter of putting one’s fear aside, like the vegetable on the plate you don’t want to touch until all of your rice and chicken are gone, and getting frightened later, when one is out of danger. Sometimes I imagine I will be frightened for the rest of my life because of all the fear I put aside during my time in…
24 CommentsWhiskey Jenny and I extend our sincere apologies: Here it is podcast day, and we have no podcast to give you. We are experiencing technical difficulties, and we greatly fear that our most recent podcast was swallowed up by a malfunctioning computer. It was a really good one. Whiskey Jenny made up a game, and we had a special guest star in to talk with us about mysteries. We are pretty sad, but we haven’t given up hope that we’ll recover that podcast and be able to share it with you soon.
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Review: The Body Hunters, Sonia Shah
Somebody recommended The Body Hunters when I reviewed Bad Pharma earlier this year, and I’m pleased that I was able to get and read it so soon! The author, an investigative journalist, here examines the ethics of biomedical research — specifically, of American drug companies outsourcing clinical trials to companies with laxer ethical requirements than the US and large populations of sick patients to run tests on. It’s a fairly widespread practice that only gets wider-spread with each passing year. I am an inveterate note-checker in my nonfiction. I already sort of was to begin with, and then I read…
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