When I hibernate, I read.
I'm also still trying to have Reading Retreats every four weeks, where I'm tackling the pile of books here, but I have to admit something about those:
Free (or really cheap) ebooks seem to be cheap for a reason.
I've found some really great books that way, but for a while there, I seem to have been downloading anything with a decent-sounding synopsis without bothering to read the "look inside" bit first, which resulted in a pretty long string of things that weren't my cup of tea.
(That said, I also bought and downloaded, or just bought, in paper form a whole lot of books that should never have come home with me. Call it an overexuberance of delight in having so much entertainment so readily available.)
ANYWAY, that said:
I've uncovered some kind of fun stuff in my reading-for-volume weeks that I haven't updated or shared about here yet. So here are a few that I really liked:
Driving Sideways
Jess Riley
A young woman who's just received an organ transplant decides that the best way to celebrate life is by taking an epic road trip -- partially to find her mother, partially to go find the family of her organ donor, partially just to do something crazy for once. Things go sideways from the first rest stop, and what follows is the epic story of an epic trip.
Startup
Doree Shafrir
If you've ever worked in tech, known someone who works in tech, or silently watched the tech world with a fair bit of fascination -- this book will feel kind of eerily close to startup culture for you. It's funny, well-written, and engaging, right up to the very end. (The ending is a little abrupt, but given how good the rest of it is, I'd still give it 4.5 stars.) Most of the male characters will make you want to stab them in the face eventually, but the female friendships/relationships are worth the whole story.
The Mermaid's Sister
Carrie Anne Noble
I went through this spate of downloading a whole bunch of fiction kindle unlimited books with an audiobook included. This is one of the ones that I listened to, and it was really fabulous. It's a fairy tale, but not tedious or one of those rewritten ones that's become almost omnipresent lately. It's original, fun, and totally readable. Told from the perspective of the sister of a girl who's turning into a mermaid in front of her very eyes (inexorably slowly, though), the race to uncover how to save the sister is told alongside her own story. Definitely one of my favorites so far this year.
I also signed up for the Book of the Month mailings for the next three months.
I used to be wary of those things where you didn't have much control over what arrived, but after two shipments (of which Startup was the first), I've been impressed by what they've picked. And now that I'm down to almost only kindle editions in my library (I've only got a few fiction books left in my physical stacks, thanks to the legendary simplicity kick I've been on...), it's kind of nice to read page after page of fiction on paper once in a while.
It feels a little decadent even. I like that. :)
What are you reading? Suggestions?
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