juushika

( List of book reviews for 2005 )

Year Long Total: 25 books



( List of book reviews for 2006 )

Year Long Total: 64 books



( List of book reviews for 2007 )

Year Long Total: 37 books



( List of book reviews for 2008 )

Year Long Total: 67 books



( List of book reviews for 2009 )

Year Long Total: 50 books



( List of book reviews for 2010 )

Year Long Total: 37 books



( List of book reviews for 2011 )

Year Long Total: 52 books



( List of book reviews for 2012 )

Year Long Total: 32 books



( List of book reviews for 2013 )

Year Long Total: 65 books



( List of book reviews for 2014 )

Year Long Total: 16 books



( List of book reviews for 2015 )

Year Long Total: 61 books



( List of book reviews for 2016 )

Year Long Total: 123 books



( List of book reviews for 2017 )

Year Long Total: 148 books



( List of book reviews for 2018 )

Year Long Total: 145 books



( List of book reviews for 2019 )

Year Long Total: 339 books



( List of book reviews for 2020 )

Year Long Total: 187 books



( List of book reviews for 2021 )

Year Long Total: 157 books



( List of book reviews for 2022 )

Year Long Total: 147 books



( List of book reviews for 2023 )


Year Long Total: 218 books



( List of book reviews for 2024 )

Year Long Total: 149 books



( List of book reviews for 2025 )

Year Long Total: 34 books


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Title: The Complete Brambly Hedge
Author: Jill Barklem
Published: HarperCollins Children, 2011 (1980-1994)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 255
Total Page Count: 534,960
Text Number: 1959-6
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: The lavishly illustrated domestic lives of the mice of Brambly Hedge. With one exception, I've already forgotten every plot; it's mice going through the motions of a conservative ideal of British country living, who cares. The exception is The Secret Staircase, which is The Secret Garden: Indoor Mouse edition, private and mysterious and immensely transporting. But plots be damned; the vibes are off the charts. The art is deliciously detailed, with clutter that overwhelms the border of each image and captivating cutaway interiors that are simultaneously vast and minute. I Spy meets Huygen and Poortvliet's Gnomes. I want to crawl into the pages and live there forever, which is the intent, of course, but succeeds even without the gloss of nostalgia, as I never knew these as a kid.

Title: A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy
Author: Annie G. Rogers
Published: Penguin, 2008 (1996)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 534,505
Text Number: 1957
Read Because: mentioned by chthonic_cassandra, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: While treating a troubled child during her PhD internship, the author becomes mired in memories of her own traumatic childhood. Therapy is a chain of interconnections, patient to therapist to therapist's therapist, and Rogers insists that these relationships must be two-way in order to be effective and sincere, despite that they're intentionally stymied or curtailed in most therapeutic practice. But this is more experiential than didactic: it sits within events as they unfold, proactively interpreting them in a way which is intimate, evocative, and surprisingly concise. I liked this, I found it compelling and nuanced and compassionate; it also gave me uneasy, hopeless feelings about why I don't do therapy—maybe that's inevitable.

Title: Diary of the "Terra Nova" Expedition to the Antarctic, 1910-1912
Author: Edward Adrian Wilson
Published: Humanities Press, 1972
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 280
Total Page Count: 534,000
Text Number: 1955
Read Because: rabbithole; borrowed from OpenLibrary and Interlibrary Loan (I really thought I wouldn't finish it before my ILL arrived, and yet...; still, ILL helps for looking at the pictures)
Review: Unlike Scott's, this diary is edited to include relevant pre-expedition content, which means: Wilson out in the world, being racist. It's a productive reminder of the culture framing these particular men, especially as racism and exploration are entwined; indeed, racism (via a lack of furs and dogs) helped get Wilson dead.

Wilson wrote primarily for family, and that audience feels present and limiting: this is anecdotes and birds, but the anecdotes are active and chock full of social dynamics from Wilson's frustrated and bemused position as science team lead. Insofar as a certain kind of restrained suffering was both holy and masculine, Wilson got top marks; both understated and honest, profoundly self-abnegating, and unexpectedly funny, this more than anything that I've read about the Terra Nova expedition thus far makes me want to reach for a biography, because the man is almost absent his own narrative, which is fascinating and frustrating and insightful.

Title: The Bonshaker (Arcane 1)
Author: Kate Milford
Illustrator: Andrea Offermann (Illustrator)
Published: Clarion Books, 2010
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 533,290
Text Number: 1953
Read Because: reading more of the author/world, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A traveling medicine show comes to town, and our protagonist is must unravel its secrets to protect her home and family. This took me two months, and I would have DNF'd except that I liked Greenglass House (my review) and hold out hope for reading other books in this world. But this didn't do it for me. It's a lot of story, and the scale of town saga and deal with the devil sits uneasy against fairly standard MG characterization/arcs; the fabulist historical fiction with automata/carnival aesthetic touches is very visual, setpiecey and aphantasia-unfriendly. This is a debut, so I expect it to be rough, but I think Arcane as a setting just isn't for me.

Title: Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series I & II Collection
Author: Matthew Mercer Jody Houser, Matthew Colville Illustrator: Olivia Samson, Chris Northrop
Published: Dark Horse Books, 2020 (2019-20)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 532,670
Text Number: 1950-1
Read Because: fan of Critical Role, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Rolling this far back means everyone is less likeable, less capable, less interconnected, which... There are stories to be told, but they lack almost everything I might like about/want from Vox Machina. The exceptions are usually preexisting-to-present-narrative connections (Vex & Vax, Pike & Grog, and honestly I just like seeing Percy because he has such a chunky backstory); but everyone meeting doesn't do a ton for me. And I love C1! I'll pick up the next volume eventually; art is fine, the bind-up itself is gorgeous.

Title: The Worst Journey in the World
Author: Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Published: 1922
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 820
Total Page Count: 532,130
Text Number: 1947-8
Read Because: this fill in threesentenceficathon 2025, ebook via Project Gutenberg
Review:
A (rather complete) telling of the tragic 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedition, compiled from the author's memories and journals as well as the journals of other men present. Rather complete, I say, because this begins with departure; the packing and sea voyage sections could probably be skimmed, but I've been itching to read about the close quarters & logistics of historical sailing so I appreciated them. The slow cascade from petty errors to great tragedy is more profound, more linear, in retrospect and/or knowing the hero worship/criticisms of Scott to which Cherry-Garrard is responding. But as that narrative builds:

Cherry-Garrard is unexpectedly adroit, moving through tone and time, the long slow trudge of sledging and setting up depots to living among fellow explorers to the overwinter journey to obtain emperor penguin eggs which, frankly, is the titular worst. He's funny, morbidly so, both intentionally and in the horror of hindsight; I took multiple pauses to independently research topics like historical British artic exploration gear (particularly clothing and sleeping bags), and, sincerely, this expedition was a hell of their own devising. The following summer's attempt at the pole reiterates some of the slow build of pacing and is a quiet, well-considered horror, a detailed account that avoids pure hero worship but also bitterness, that becomes something like a study of the stiff upper lip: persisting through suffering is not an accomplishment but a good way to elicit more of the same.

This isn't five stars in the sense of perfect; Cherry-Garrard, for all his care, still gives Scott too much credit and is absolutely a product of the echo chamber of his time; and, yes, the text occasionally drags. But in the sense of laughed, cried, would not stop talking about this with anybody in hearing range for a month--I'm obsessed. Exceeds expectation, surprisingly quotable, full of crunchy details but also honest in its character sketches and psychological focus, and, I agree: the worst journey in the world, remarkably evoked.

CW for animal abuse because, while the humans could by and large consent to suffer, the same was not true of the ill-husbanded dogs and horses of the expedition. Absolutely bonkers decision-making and self-justifications where the animals were concerned.

Title: Voice Of The Blood (Voice of Blood Book 1)
Author: Jemiah Jefferson
Published: Leisure Books, 2001
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 521,100
Text Number: 1896
Read Because: personal enjoyment, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: How I became a vampire by falling in love with four disparately sexy guys and having a lot of crazy sex: the novel. I've been an avid reader of idfic since, oh, forever, and never landed such a motherlode in trad publishing. Is it too much of a good thing? Absolutely. This is fanfic rules applied to OCs, ridiculous and masturbatory; it feels like it could have posted on LJ in serial installments. And it's great. The total commitment is eminently satisfying: love, bound up in weird psychic vampire mind control powers, examined in depth from radically different angles via multiple overlapping relationships. File this between Lost Souls and paranormal romance: not as gritty or amoral as Brite, but sharing Brite's aesthetics, plenty thorny as questions of vampire morality/mortality ought to be, and glossed by an indulgence of sex. I plowed through this and will probably try the sequels.

( Wounds (Voice of Blood Book 2) )

( Fiend (Voice of Blood Book 3) )

( A Drop of Scarlet (Voice of the Blood Book 4) )

Title: An Academy for Liars
Author: Alexis Henderson
Published: Ace, 2024
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 455
Total Page Count: 530,835
Text Number: 1944
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist is recruited by a magical school whose students have the ability to persuade people, and perhaps the world itself, to change. I mean this as a neutral statement: this feels like serial numbers filed off fic for The Magicians (TV), feat. OFC/young Dean Fogg: similar premise and tone, the wonder of magic against the grime of new adults and power differentials, with some bonus moth imagery thrown in. The magic system is unique, and I like it; the pacing and character arcs increasingly strained, a racially-aware dark academia premise undermined by the narrative's endless patience for the protagonist, who is simultaneously the most flawed and the most powerful person on campus, an exaggerated combo that can't but feel tropey. None of this is bad, per se (except for the predictable, tonally-discordant climax); it's just kind of silly, wallowy and indulgent and weaker than most of its potential comparisons (Vita Nostra is thornier, Scholomance does tropey better, hell, The Magicians (TV) has better character arcs; it is, though, better than Magicians-the-book.)

(I had a very similar "nice premise, not very skillful execution, strong tropey/ficcy vibes" from Henderson's House of Hunger and, tbh, if I'd checked to see why the author's name was familiar I might not have read this.)

Title: Klara and the Sun
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Published: Alfred A. Knopf, 2021
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 530,030
Text Number: 1942
Read Because: alterhuman book club read, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A solar-powered robot is purchased to be the companion of a sick child. This is sunk deep into Klara's close perspective, limited, often unconvincingly, by her knowledge; shaped by the logic she invents to explain the world. And this is the book's strength. It's an excuse to deliver plot & world piecemeal, to do fun things with visual framing, the encourage the reader's large perspective to echo, uncomfortably, the human cast. But. It also a cloaks a lack of genre-awareness and dearth of research into AI and robots, straining said worldbuilding and plot twist, substituting instead a tiresome sentimentality. I didn't like how Ishiguro handled the speculative/literary crossover in Never Let Me Go, and, unsurprisingly, didn't like it here, either. But it was an interesting book club read, so: not entirely without merit.