2021 Q2 book list!

Quarter 1 here. 

4/1: Blood Fury by J.R. Ward (library ebook, 2018) - The third in the Black Dagger Legacy series, but it's really Saxton's story.  We all love Saxton and even though there's a diversion with Peyton and Novo, the main action is Ruhn and Saxton. Thumbs up from me.

4/3: The Thief by J.R. Ward (library ebook, 2018) - Ward doesn't give a good goddamn what I think about drug dealers, but I do not care to read about drug dealers.  I also find the whole human with a distinct lifespan getting together with an incredibly long-lived vampire thing to be too big a problem to overcome. I also can't believe that this dumb woman would stay with a guy who failed to tell her he was a vampire for too long. This book. I hated it.

4/4: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder (library, 1994)

4/7: Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness #1) by Tamora Pierce (library, 1983) - Girl pretends to be her twin brother so that she can train to be a knight at the castle. Adventures ensure. Fun!

4/10: Shadows in Death by J.D. Robb (on my Kindle) - I reread it in preparation for the next book in the series to come out. I remembered about 10% of it and there was an absolutely hilarious scene in a plane that I had completely forgotten about. Good stuff.

4/12: One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London (library ebook, 2020)

4/18: Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (library ebook, 2020)

4/22: Layla by Colleen Hoover (library, 2020)

4/22: One Day in December by Josie Silver (library ebook, 2018)

4/25: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (book I own, 1937)

4/29: Pride Mates (Shifters Unbound #1) by Jennifer Ashley (library ebook 2010) - The start of a romance series in which shapeshifters are controlled by humans.  In this book, the cat alpha falls in love with a human. I liked it enough to get the next book in the series from the library.

5/3: Primal Bounds (Shifters Unbound #2) by Jennifer Ashley (library ebook, 2011) - Okayish book. I don't love the introduction of yet another world (fae), but I will probably follow up on this series as I have time.

5/7: The Obsession by Nora Roberts (library ebook, 2016)

5/13: The Overstory by Richard Powers (library, 2019)

5/14: Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (library ebook, 2019)

5/16: The Fated Sky (Lady Astronaut #2) by Mary Robbinette Kowal (library, 2018)

5/18: Darkstalker (Wings of Fire: Legends #1) by Tui T. Sutherland (book lent to me by my nephew, 2016)

5/20: Wild Cat (Shifters Unbound #3) by Jennifer Ashley (library ebook, 2012) - I want to like this series more than I do, but the characters in this book are flat, the whole slavery/shifter parallel too on the nose, and I think I've gone as far as I'm going to go with this.

5/21: Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot Diaries #6) by Martha Wells (library, 2021)

5/21: Don't Doubt (Reed Brothers #20) by Tammy Falkner (Kindle purchase, 2019) - Falkner's Reed Brothers series is wonderful. This book is wonderful. I thought I had downloaded new books on my Kindle the day we had to have work done on our car, but it turns out that I hadn't and I couldn't connect to the wi-fi where I was, so I just reread this little gem while I waited for the car. Just the sweetest series.

5/24: The Relentless Moon (Lady Astronaut #3) by Mary Robbinette Kowal (library, 2020)

5/25: You Belong With Me (With Me in Seattle #14) by Kristen Proby (Kindle purchase, 2020) - Stories about the mafia are not for me. Sorry, Proby, maybe next time.

5/27: Maybe This Time by Kasie West (library ebook, 2019) - YA book about a girl and a guy. I liked the format of this book - the girl is the assistant to a florist and the book is broken up by events that she works - but it was a pretty average, forgettable book.  I think I might have to come to the conclusion that YA is no longer for me.  

5/28: Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis (library ebook, 2003)

5/29: Prisoner of the Night (Black Dagger Brotherhood 16.5) by J.R. Ward (library ebook 2019) - Two random characters unrelated to the rest of the novels in the series.  Count me unimpressed and upset that I waited for months for this hold to come through to the library.  

5/30: Sweet Revenge by Nora Roberts (library ebook, 1997) - I am not ashamed.  I love Nora Roberts and I love this book, even though it's chockfull of Islamophobic stereotypes; a super terrible male lead who engages in spying, non-consensual sexual contact, and incredible emotional manipulation; and a poor little princess and terribly cliché heist plots.  I get it. It's not a great book, maybe not even a good book, but it was a book I definitely enjoyed.

6/2: No Room of Her Own: Women's Stories of Homelessness, Life, Death, and Resistance by Desiree Hellegers (University library, 2011)

6/7: A Warning by Anonymous (library audiobook, 2019) - I thought I was ready to read a story about an insider from the Trump administration. I was wrong.

6/8: The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (library ebook, 2016)

6/11: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (library ebook, 2007) - I understand why people recommended this book to me while also understanding that this book was a terrible fit for me. It seems like everyone has read (and loved!) this book, but the less I say about my disgust for this one, the better.  

6/12: Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Brown (library ebook, 2021)

6/17: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (library ebook, 2011)

6/19: Faithless in Death  (In Death #52) by J.D. Robb (library ebook, 2021) - Very good entry in the In Death series as Dallas and the gang take down a cult of segregationist chauvinists.  

6/22: Year One (Chronicles of the The One #1) by Nora Roberts (library ebook, 2017)

6/26: The Effing List (Masters of the Shadowlands #14) by Cherise Sinclair (Kindle purchase, 2021) - A good, not great, addition to the Masters of the Shadowlands world. I liked the addition of a 50+ main character and it was good to see some of our old favorites. The characters weren't particularly well-developed, though, and there was too much subplot.  Sinclair's writing is heads and tails over the average romance novel, though, so even a "meh" book from her is worth a read. 

6/25: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers #4) by Becky Chambers (library, 2021)

6/26: A Bend in the Stars by Rachel Barenbaum (library, 2019)

6/26: Blackout After Dark (Gansett Island #21) by Marie Force (library ebook, 2021) - On one hand, it's nice to catch up with the folks on the island. On the other hand, there are so many babies and engagements and the one woman who doesn't want to be a mother is portrayed as a villain.  Disappointing. I guess I don't have to read any more of this series.

Total: 38

Did Not Finish

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden (library ebook, 2017) - I tried, I really did. The ebook version I had was formatted strangely and kept jumping around and I didn't know what was happening and I just gave up.

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson (library ebook, 1998) - I also tried really hard with this one. I was about 40% through when I just couldn't take it anymore.  

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (library, 2007) - Nonfiction book about what would happen in the world if humans just disappeared. The premise was interesting, but the actual execution was a bit dull.