To Read Pile

I haven't been reading many books lately - fanfic, yes, comics, yes, news articles/essays/blog posts, yes, but the only books I've gotten through this year are Hiromi Goto's Half World and a couple about art.

I'm still buying books, though, and the 'To Read' pile next to my bed has become unwieldy. This is tragic on a number of levels, so I've made a plan. 1) I cannot buy a new book until I've read three unread ones and 2) I will post reviews of the books I read here, to keep track. My plans are prone to failure, but I like reading and I like talking about books, so.

The list:

Changes by Jim Butcher
Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier *
Charitable Getting by Sam Starbuck
Boneshaker by Charlie Priest
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Cold Magic by Kate Elliott
Rocket Girls by Hosuke Nojiri
Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles
Titan by John Varley
Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik
A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin
The Court of Air by Stephen Hunt
A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park *
Prince of Fire and Ashes by Katya Reimann *
100 Selected Poems by ee cummings
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen E McHugh
Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock
The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austin

...yikes. And that's after setting aside the books I was going to reread.

I'm starting with Magic or Madness, since it's short and on loan from sitara (that's what the * mean). Larbalestier's been hit or miss for me - I liked Liar and was 'eh' about How to Ditch Your Fairy - so we'll see how this goes.

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier

Magic or Madness
Justine Larbalestier
2006, 271 pages

Note: I read this in three hours while high on NyQuil (I still am, if we're honest), forgive me if the review's a little choppy.

I liked this a lot better than some of the other YA Urban Fantasy I've read - there's no info dump, information about the world is given organically throughout the story. Two of the three PoV characters are girls and PoC (and it passes the Bechdel test, hurray!). The magic has very real consequences. There isn't a vampire/werewolf/fairy in sight (not that I dislike those things, but it's refreshing).

I love that the main character, Reason, loves maths and food. I love that she's...mmm, uninformed? about a lot of stuff but not naive or stupid. I love that Tom, our boy character, loves fashion and making clothes and is straight (or interested in girls, at least). I've never seen a modern, straight-identifying boy character allowed that before. I love Jay-Tee and how kind she is, despite everything, but I wish we knew more about her. I love boiling hot Sydney and frozen New York.

I do not love the book's depiction of mental illness. ( Slight spoilers. )

I'm not fond of the 'adults can't be trusted' trope either, being mostly one myself these days. It's YA, though, so pretty par for the course.

This is the first book in a trilogy and I'm more than interested enough to track down the next one. After I work through my pile.