The Plaid Pladd

Since I feel bad for making fun of the ugly covers, here are all the best book covers from the year! A lot of them are graphic novels this time around, and a bunch showed up on my The Good list(*)!

This cover really captures the dichotomy in the book between prim Victorian sensibilities and invasive gennome-mapping technology.

*I really like the art style, which I guess is how most graphic novels end up on here.

*This is my aesthetic, basically.

*Of course gorgeous graphic novels have gorgeous covers.

When a woman writes an AU crossover fic, it’s trashy, but when a dude does it, it’s Serious Literature(TM). Read the rest of this entry »

Time to make fun of all the ugly book covers I read this year! A bunch of these already showed up on The Bad list(^), but one is from The Good(*)! You can’t judge a book by its cover, I guess. But I will still judge these covers themselves hardcore. Here they are in the order I read them:

Grizzly bear shapeshifter romance novel!!

This romance novel is about A MOOSE SHAPESHIFTER!!! Dreams come true

Polar bear shapeshifters seem kind of whatever after the moose one, right? Don’t worry, next up:

CARIBOU SHAPESHIFTER CHRISTMAS ROMANCE NOVEL!

^A satellite image of the setting? Try harder, Brendan. Read the rest of this entry »

This year I only rated 13 books 1 star! The worst book I read this year, by a wide margin, was:

This series has so many problems I started a separate blog to discuss them all in detail.

The other terrible books I read mostly fell into these categories:

Bad Romance Novels
You kind of expect these to be terrible, right?

This book was basically Frozen 2: Your Brother Is Mad You Have Weather Powers And All He Can Do Is Talk to Birds

This plot-hole ridden ride is about a dragon vampire, as you do.

This time traveling romance is somehow even dumber than the cover makes it seem. And yet I still read the sequel:

Another time traveling idiot finds love instead of being burned as a witch or immediately getting typhoid.

This book was not reflective of my time in Humble, Texas. No one went to Sonic? No one spent forever in traffic? At one point, a character falls asleep outside and doesn’t wake up covered in mosquito bites and sun burn? Okay

This book is about two supernatural shapeshifting fire fighters, a dragon and a phoenix, finding love.

Other Books That Did What They Set Out To Do
It’s really my own fault for reading these

This is about zombies attacking my hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida. I was hoping it would be hilariously bad, but it was just normal bad. I wrote that on my GoodReads review too, and the author liked it. So maybe he agrees.

Cozy mysteries are just not for me, gang. I just can’t suspend my disbelief enough. Plus, this one was about a library, so there were a lot of setting details to gripe about.

This one REALLY pissed me off because I ordered it thinking it was a coloring book. I was so disappointed to just get a shitty cozy mystery about a coloring book designer instead.

This one was actually pretty hilarious.

True Disappointments

I wanted to like this mystery because of its place in early feminist history, but, like a lot of early feminism, it is hella racist. Plus the mystery story was very boring.

This book is a YA romance about star crossed lovers: a human boy and THE DAUGHTER OF SATAN. That has so much potential, but inconsistent world-building just made it frustrating.

Previously: 2018: The Good
Next: 2018: The Ugly

I read 177 books this year, and 31 of them I marked 5 stars! My top pick for 2018 is:

Frances Hardinge is one of my favorite authors, so it’s no surprise that this book was amazing. It’s set in an underground city where talented craftsmen can make wine that erases memories and perfume that makes you trust the wearer even while they’re stabbing you. There’s Medici-style politics, class warfare, and a heroine who isn’t taking any shit. I love it.

The rest:
Nonfiction

This narrowly avoided being my top pick for the year! It was so good! A history of the 14th century that reads as easily as a novel.

This book was a great nostalgia trip, and also hilarious.

I’ve read a lot of history of language books, but I still learned somethings from this one about where how the “rules” for our language developed.

This autobiography was written around 974 in feudal Japan, and the author is so extra I LOVE HER. Most written communication happens through poetry, and girl attaches a mean poem to A DEAD FLOWER to send to her neglectful lover. Plus once she moves without telling him.

I feel like I highlighted this entire book.

This book was a really interesting look at what we know and don’t know about the earliest people to live in the Americas. The author travels to different archaeological sites and talks about how the land would have looked different back then.

This book was depressing as fuck, but important and well-researched.

This horse is more badass than most humans.

Fiction

I finally read this, the last Discworld book, this year after rereading the entire series. I was scared it wouldn’t be a fitting end to my favorite series, because Raising Steam really kind of sucked? But, no, it was perfect.

This book was like the lovechild of Isabel Allende and Umberto Eco, and I am here for that.

A teen ghost fighting agency!!!

Hard to read, but amazing.

Another third wave girl power book which I really wish had been around when I was in high school.

Epistolary novels are my jam

A CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL! RUN! DON’T FUCKING WALK!

This book was about Haiti, and is the first Allende novel I’ve read that I think rivals House of the Spirits.

A collection of Terry Pratchett short fiction I read for the first time during my giant Discworld reread.

I had to read a book over 1000 pages, and I’m really glad I picked this one. It reminded me of Edward Rutherford, but on a much smaller scale.

Graphic Novels and Comics

The sequel to The Nameless City, about the friendship between a street urchin girl and a boy from the ruling caste foiling an assassination attempt, politics get even more murky here. The art style is beautiful too!

I’m slowly building up my Kate Beaton collection.

This was a pretty funny D&D parody universe.

A retelling of the Pied Piper folk tale, following a deaf girl who lives in the town and is therefore the only one immune to the piper’s powers. The art style is beautiful.

A super-villain and his shapeshifting sidekick!

Fairy tale characters trying to make it in the modern world

Delilah Dirk is my idol

Delilah Dirk gets revenge and tea continues to be a plot point

Delilah Dirk goes full Indiana Jones

Hockey! Romance! Baking!

Other

Beautifully done, another Discworld reread addition

A poetry collection that pulls no punches. “Burn anyone who tries to burn you”

Next: 2018: The Bad
Previously: 2017: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (and the Pretty)