Read Strays of Ruined Springs

 A Conspiracy of Truths (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨ I read A Conspiracy of Truths seven months ago, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I ordered it off the internet a couple of weeks ago. You may know that this is something I basically never do, to the point that Chaney promises that she will read any book I buy because it is such a glowing recommendation. Buying this book was a good choice as I expect I will reread this book several more times.  A Conspiracy of Truths is super well-written and just really good all around. Our protagonist, Chant, is a wandering historian and storyteller. He's also a grumpy old man. He is just elite on a lot of levels. He also has an apprentice called Ylfing who is so sweet and wholesome and a perfect person. Chant winds up in an unfamiliar country called Nuryevet where he is arrested and put on trial as a witch, but then he says some sketchy things, and they prosecute him for espionage instead. His trial becomes super high-profile, and some

This Is How You Lose the Time War (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐✨ Red is cyborg who is also a secret agent for an organization called the Agency. Blue is not a cyborg, but she is also a secret agent for an organization called the Garden. Throughout this book, they write letters that are at first gloating about how they are better at their jobs, but eventually, they fall in love. It's very sweet. Then their organizations attempt to ruin everything, although this occurs fairly late in the book. I have complicated feelings on This Is How You Lose the Time War . The title is quite good, although I thought it was going to teach me how to lose a time war, and it didn't. I have other opinions on this book as well. The writing is great. I liked the way the letters were written; I didn't like as much the way the non-letters were written. It was very pretty, but the writing style reminds me a little of Candide  in that you could skip a line and miss an entire plot point. This book took all o

 Elektra (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐✨ This is the second book I have read by Jennifer Saint. My main complaint with her first book ( Ariadne ) is that none of the girlbosses win. I did not have that complaint with Elektra , as every girlboss experiences at least some degree of victory. This is a book about righteously angry women. It was a good time, but there was too much seething. Elektra is exciting and convoluted. I'm going to summarize the myth on which it is based. Spoilers for millennia-old myth ahead. So, the Trojan War, right? The Greek soldiers are about to sail to Troy, but their boats are all reliant on wind, because they're losers. One of their leaders, Agamemnon, kills his daughter Iphigenia as a sacrifice he believes the gods demand. It works, and they all go gallivant around Troy for ten years and beat people up. Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, plots to avenge her daughter and has an affair. They also have another daughter named Electra and a son named Orestes. 

 I'm Thinking of Ending Things (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (prospective readers should be aware that this review contains spoilers) This book was crazy. I started reading it at night, and I didn't want to put it down, but I had to, because I thought it would be a bad idea to finish it in the middle of the night. It was just too creepy. I finished it in the morning, and it was still very spooky, so I think this was a good call. I'm Thinking of Ending Things follows a woman and her boyfriend as they visit the boyfriend's parents, acquire lemonade from Dairy Queen, and get trapped in an abandoned school with some guy that you would not want to be trapped in a school with. There are several interludes between chapters in which random people recount the events of a gruesome murder that has recently occurred in said abandoned school. Except (and this is a major spoiler) those interludes are the only part of the book that actually happened, and the book itself is meant to be writt

 Class Action (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (prospective readers should be aware that this review contains spoilers) THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING. I LOVED IT. IT WAS AS IF IT WAS WRITTEN SPECIFICALLY FOR ME. OR POSSIBLY AS SATIRE OF ME. THIS IS GOING TO BE AN EXTREMELY EXHAUSTIVE AND IN DEPTH REVIEW OF A MIDDLE GRADE NOVEL THAT I HIGHLY DOUBT ANY OF YOU WILL EVER READ. YOU ARE ALL GOING TO WISH YOU HAD NEVER MET ME. The premise of Class Action is epic and god-tier. Our adolescent protagonist, Sam, is not a fan of homework. I can relate to this, and you probably can, too. Although he is ordinarily an upstanding public school student, Sam eventually becomes fed up with homework (same) and exercises his first amendment rights by leading an impromptu anti-homework protest, for which he is suspended. He then learns from his neighbor (a retired lawyer) that he has a right to an education and cannot be suspended without a hearing pursuant to Goss v. Lopez . He starts advocating for himself and his constit

 Killing Commendatore (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (prospective readers of this book should be aware that my review has minor spoilers in it) Killing Commendatore is 681 pages. It is so long that I had forgotten the beginning by the end. It took me about a month to read. That is a long time for me to be reading a book. I put all of that time into reading this book, and I still have no idea what it was about, what the importance of anything was, or what was even the point. I have read several reddit posts discussing this book, and I still don't understand it. I have read a review of Killing Commendatore in the Los Angeles Times, and I still don't understand it. I also don't understand either why strangers on the internet do not want to discuss in public forums what the various symbols in this book—because I know there must be symbols—represent. I would like someone on the internet to comprehensively explain this book to me, and I don't think that's too much to ask for. Thi

 All the Books I Read in June and What I Thought of Them This month, I read eight books, although I only reviewed four of them on my blog because I am experiencing an inability to have substantial opinions of books. These books varied in quality, length, and the degree to which I had an opinion of them. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I read this book, I enjoyed it, and it was a good time. I think it's about death.  The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman  rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is a very poignant book about the Holocaust and trauma. It has mice in it. It is not a book that Tennessee school boards, or really anyone, should be banning. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ My Sister, the Serial Killer is the best example I have read of a very niche genre that I'd like to read more of: crime sisters doing crime. The other entry into this genre is Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi, although that is a ve