Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annelee Newitz

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Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Really enjoyed learning about the birth, growth, death, and development of cities through the four sites highlighted by Newitz in this book. I checked it out of the library, and then purchased a copy, because I knew I’d want to read it again.

Newitz brings the same skills I appreciated in their fiction to this nonfiction book – humanizing a place by telling me about a person who lives there, enriching and contextualizing people by showing what’s unique about where they live. They’ve got a keen eye for the right details, the right anecdotes, to bring it alive and keep it fresh, even when it seems everyone already knows the story, as in the case of Pompeii. I wish I’d known half of what they wrote in this book when I visited those ruins years ago. Now I can’t stop thinking about going back.



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The Changeover by Margaret Mahy

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The Changeover by Margaret Mahy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book haunts me and sticks with me. I first read it when I was about 12 years old – it had a horrible teen supernatural romance cover that I remembered for years afterwards, like I remembered just enough bits of the story to keep turning it over in my mind: the stamp, the horribleness of Carmody Braque, the strangeness of Sorry Carlyle, and Laura’s transformation.

Laura’s transformation looms so large in my mind, I’m always surprised by how little of the book is actually given to it. The bookends of that scene in the bathroom of the Carlyle home stood out to me on the latest re-read, so rich and grounded with place and character details of the home and this family ushering Laura over the thresholds. I’m also struck by the frankness of Mahy’s writing about sex and emerging sexuality, and how it is treated by mothers and daughters as something that is acceptable and necessary to discuss like adults, not a shameful thing to be hidden and avoided. This also struck me on a recent first-time read of Catalogue of the Universe>.

I return to this book every ten years or so for another read through. Just long enough to forget just enough so the story feels fresh but also like an old friend. There are so many things I love in stories that exist in this book – witches, transformations, inexplicable recognition and inexplicable bonds between unlikely partners, sibling relationships, and turning the tables on the villain.

I can’t decide if I’ll start re-reading this more frequently, or if I need to acquire more of Mahy’s novels so I can re-read those as well.



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Division Bells by Iona Datt Sharma

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Division Bells by Iona Datt Sharma

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In addition to sharp and beautiful prose, this reads like all-original-character West Wing fanfic, only British, in a supremely good way. Delightful from beginning to end. Every character was wonderfully recognizable and felt like an old friend, in that fanfic way that’s so very comforting and lovely. The blooming of Jules and Ari’s relationship alongside the unfurling of Ari’s grief and Jules’s confidence is utterly satisfying. Come here for quiet tension and soft landings, not high drama.

I don’t know how Amazon knew to recommend this to me, because it’s not what I usually read, so I can only assume it’s somehow tagged similarly to my latest read, Winter’s Orbit, a scifi political thriller romance stuffed with fanfic trope goodness. Keep up the good algorithms, I guess, with a side of shut up and take my money.



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Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I can’t believe I almost didn’t read this. I nearly missed out on this absolute treasure of a novel. This is my best impulse buy of quarantine, hands down.

Stuffed with fanfic trope goodness, this tight sci-fi political thriller romance gives you every fun and satisfying thing you want from all of those genres, while also tackling some serious issues of marginalization and recovery from intimate-partner abuse with sensitivity and strength. I got exactly what I came to this book for: compelling characters, an exciting story, some depth, some BAMFs, some cinnamon rolls, and a happy ending.

What a balm after the dumpster fire of 2020!



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Codename Villanelle (Killing Eve, #1) by Luke Jennings

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Codename Villanelle by Luke Jennings

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This is a solid book, a fast-paced, no bullshit spy thriller, as promised. But I have ludicrously high standards, and this one is falling short. If I didn’t love the show, I wouldn’t have liked this book at all. The characters are much more fully psychologically realized in the show, and much more complex. The relationships between the characters in the show (Villanelle and Konstantin; Eve and Nico; Eve and Bill; Villanelle and Eve) are much more compelling and act as complicating factors for the plot and the characters’ emotional landscapes. The book is somewhat flat in comparison. The prose wavers around from clumsy (especially some of the dialogue), to clinical (very effective for the genre), to competent, to the occasional artful turn of phrase.

It is nice to read a quick spy thriller. I got this one on sale for a dollar or two on Kindle, but I’m not going to buy any more of these. If I get the urge to read any more of the series while waiting for the next season of the show, I’ll get them from the library.



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