The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

This book is up there with Ready Player One and Lock In in terms of future and technology themes. It's also similar to Mission Impossible and X-Men, among others.

Basically, Myfanwy (rhymes with Tiffany), wakes up with no memory. Oh, and there's dead people all around. But she finds clues to her situation in notes left by...herself? Or whoever was in her body before her? Still not clear on that. Myfanwy learns right away she can take the equivalent of the blue pill or the red pill, and, well, you can guess which she chooses.

Turns out she works at a place similar to MI6 but with X-Men employees, or maybe even Miss Peregrine's recruits. Kinda like how the Ministry of Magic and the British Parliament work side by side, but not openly.

You may be wondering by now if there is a single original thought in this book. I'm not trying to denigrate this story by any means. It was interesting and entertaining for sure. O'Malley has a lot of great tongue in cheek moments and he doesn't take his story too seriously. I found the levity refreshing.

Basically, a solid recommend, and there's a sequel coming out that I'll probably check out at some point.

Wreckage by Emily Bleeker

I went into this book thinking it was going to be a lifetime movie throwaway. While Lifetime would probably salivate over this one, I was pleasantly surprised by the story as a whole.

It's a castaway story with a little before, but mostly during and aftermath kind of stuff. We follow two individuals who have endured a harrowing plane crash and Gilligan's Island scenario, and switch between their now and events on the island.

Bleeker did a great job of writing...life. She didn't allow her characters to take the easy way out of things and I believed the emotions and reactions of her characters. What's even more is how she handled their lives afterward. She writes about their struggles and how they deal (or not deal) with them.

But her ending, it was satisfying. I was just touched by the story and was invested in it the entire time. There really isn't much more to say about it. A great book.

The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld

I'm not sure what this book was about, but I'm sure it's something important. This book reminded me of something I might read in high school or college with a lot of themes and symbolism that were totally over my head. But if I learned anything, it's to recognize when I'm reading a book that has themes and symbols (read: every book, I guess).

The Enchanted is about death row inmates as they wait for their date to arrive. Some welcome it, some fight it, some don't care one way or the other. We also meet a lot of prison employees, a chaplain, and a woman who works for defense attorneys in a last ditch effort to find some redeeming value in her clients. 

What is over my head about this book is the way it's written. We have a narrator who is one of the inmates, but I'm not really sure if he narrates the entire story. Otherwise it's written in that third-person omniscient voice that I've always found hard to relate with. So it took me awhile to get into the book, but once I got used to the writing and got to know the players, I really enjoyed it. In fact, when it ended, I just thought it was a beautiful piece. 

If there is one theme I can identify, it's death (obviously). But Denfeld tackles it from a lot of different perspectives. He also writes about loneliness. What I like is that, while it's probably really easy to go cliche with the setting of the prison, I didn't feel that was an issue.

Then there's the horses...and the little men. Okay, this I didn't get. Our inmate narrator will talk about the men and horses underground and things like that. I don't know, maybe mental illness is another theme? I'm sure those descriptions are rife with symbolism, but my little brain wasn't able to completely understand all of that. 

But I think that's something else I liked about the book. It had a little bit of lightness and fantasy to add to the otherwise dark and heavy overtone of the book. And who doesn't like a little bit left to the imagination? 

So a good read that I think will affect people in different ways, But definitely a lot there to digest.  

The Good Neighbor by A. J. Banner

I think I read this one while I was on maternity leave and in a post-partum fog. I say that only to warn you that yeah, this review will kinda suck. Not only is it a year-ish overdue, but I probably wasn't in my right mind as I read it, delirious from trying to keep a three year old and newborn from killing themselves or each other.

Speaking of killing people, this story begins with a deadly fire in Sarah's neighbor's house. She is able to rescue her neighbor's daughter, but the parents don't survive. Sarah ends up trying to rebuild her life with her husband (they ended up moving, but I can't remember why). And in dealing with her own insecurities and problems, she also has her neighbor's daughter occasionally in her care, and another teenage neighbor who has issues of her own. But their stories are all intertwined somehow, (I'm assuming, since I can't remember).

I went on Goodreads to read reviews to jog my memory and all I got were a bunch of "not really a psychological thriller" or "glad it was free" or this review by Becky, which is awesome, unlike her assessment of the book.

In a nutshell, not the greatest, but I don't think I hated it as much as everyone else. It was what I needed at the time, a brainless read. Of course, there are probably a lot of those out there that might not make you as angry at the end as this one did (at least according to the reviews I read, 'cause again, I don't remember). If this review is any indication at all, maybe you should just skip the book and read Becky's review of it, which I guarantee is more entertaining.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne, J.K. Rowling, and John Tiffany

This is a tough one...I loved the Harry Potter books but this isn't technically an 8th book, because we all know Rowling said she was done with the books. So she came up with a new story for a theater production and the screenplay was printed in book format.

So first, let's sort out who actually wrote what. From what I can surmise, the story is a collaborative work by Rowling, Thorne, and Tiffany. But the screenplay itself was written by Jack Thorne.

So what to do. It's not technically a novel, is it? And because it's not, my expectations are slightly different, perhaps even lower. So where to start? Maybe at the beginning.

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number 4, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. Okay, maybe we'll fast forward a bit and start at the beginning of this tale, as much as I'd like to recap all the books. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child takes place about 20 years after book 7 ends. Harry is married to Ginny and together they have 3 kids. The story focuses on Harry's middle child, Albus Severus, who is having trouble adjusting to wizarding life at Hogwarts. Of course, we learn of larger issues in the wizarding world as well. For after what seemed to be a fairly peaceful time in the wizarding world, signs of change are on the horizon. The story evolves into a complex tapestry, weaving this way and that, and even turning back on itself. This is because The Cursed Child involves time travel, which isn't my favorite story-telling device. But I was able to overlook that.

The good? Rowling was involved in writing the story. And she is great at good versus evil. The tale is strong, dark, and continues the themes of her previous books. You get Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, and a lot of other characters we know and love (although some just have quick cameos). She is even able to bring back some beloved characters that have not made it (at least in the world of the living) to this point, and she is able to do it organically and in a way that makes sense to the story.

The bad? It's a screenplay, so you lose a lot of the narrative and background you get with a novel. This is a huge pitfall, perhaps bordering on the ugly. Transitions that are better made in theater with music and lighting changes are not fully realized by reading the script alone. So going from scene to scene is a bit of a bumpy road. I also feel the story depends almost to a fault on the fact that you are familiar with the Potter books, While this is a bit of a given, even with the books, Rowling is able to remind us gently of certain things, either with a memory, a conversation, or a description. But with The Cursed Child, there are time and format limitations that result in certain things, like Albus' first few years at Hogwarts, for instance, being handled like a Fantasyland ride. (If you're not familiar with this story-telling device courtesy of Disneyland, it goes something like this: Snow White's Scary Adventures - quaint cottage. Snow White. Dwarves! Spooky woods. Pretty witch. A mine! Ugly witch. Scary woods. Witch at door. Dwarves!..and witch on mountain. Happy music. The end).

If you approach the Cursed Child as a Harry Potter book 8, you'll be disappointed. It will remind you of how wonderful Rowling's books were to read and made you wonder how much more information we could have obtained if this were a fully realized novel. If you approach it for what it is, a special peek into the theater production, you'll find that the show will be amazing with a lot of special effects and a fun story. I'd really only recommend the screenplay to people who don't expect to see the play but want to know the next canonical story in the Potterverse. For everyone else, I'd suggest seeing the play instead.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Here's a bit of 80's pop culture/classic gamer porn for those of you who are into that kind of thing. It's a bit over the top complicated but fun nonetheless.

The year is 2044 and the internet has evolved into the OASIS. This is basically where everyone goes when they go online, and depending on your gear, you'll wear wear haptic gloves, a head visor, and maybe even a haptic suit. While the OASIS was originally created as a gaming environment, it evolved into meeting places (or planets) for any interest you may have. Kids can even attend school on the OASIS from the comfort (or discomfort as it may be) of their homes (for reasons not really explored, the world sucks and people live in mobile homes stacked dozens high in basically lawless societies). 

The story is told from the perspective of Wade Watts, a high schooler who pretty much lives in the OASIS and goes by the name Parzival. When the creator of the OASIS, (who was born in the 1970's) dies, he leaves his vast fortune to whoever can discover an easter egg he has left behind. Egg hunters, or gunters as they became known, begin their quest, but after years of searching, no one is able to unlock the first of three gates that lead to the egg. Until Parzival makes a breakthrough. 

The creator of the OASIS, James Halliday, was a big 80's fan and so his clues reference pop culture from the 80's. Gunters research Halliday and the 80's, creating grail diaries and training to find the egg, which includes watching movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail enough times to quote every line from memory, or playing classic games like Adventure so many times it can be beat on one life. The actual tasks that must be performed to obtain keys to gates and clear the gates is a bit convoluted, but the story is entertaining. 

Interestingly, the basic premise of this book is similar to the book I read just before it, Lock In, by John Scalzi, an author who is referenced in Ready Player One. And like Lock In, I found the premise intriguing. Whether you care about videogames or the 80's as much as Wade doesn't matter. You'll become entrentched in the story and world Cline has created.

Also interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the 2016 version of the book is published with fan fiction written by Andy Weir (of The Martian fame). The short story is a prequel and now considered a legitimate part of Ready Player One. You can read it here.

Also also interestingly, (and again according to Wikipedia), Cline himself included an easter egg in the book, the winner being awarded a Deloreon in 2012. That's pretty cool and I think my rating for this book just jumped a bit higher.

Lock In by John Scalzi

What's the best thing that can come from a debilitating illness that renders your body useless? The internet, of course, and a bit of sci-fi neural networking voo-dooery.

Which brings us to our story and a future where people are "locked" in by Haden's syndrome. While most people affected by this illness just experience flu-like symptoms, a small percentage of those afflicted suffer complete physical, but not mental, paralysis. Technology has allowed these individuals, known as "Hadens", to live productive lives via brain downloads (or something like that). But not only can Hadens access the internet, they can download into mechanical avatars, known as "threeps" that allow them to operate in the real world, interacting with people and even holding jobs. Some Hadens don't choose to live in mechanical bodies, but rather live virtual lives only (my brain kind of exploded trying to imagine that).

This is the reality and backdrop of Scalzi's murder mystery. I can't really recall the details of the mystery part of the novel, but that's not what I found intriguing.  The logistics of downloading into threep, then deciding you need to interview someone in another state and downloading into a different threep within minutes, all while your body lay motionless in a room somewhere was fascinating. Life in a threep also gives rise to certain possibilities, like not feeling pain if you so choose, or being virtually indestructible (depending on your threep's capabilities). And this is the just tip of the iceberg.

Scalzi's writing made it easy for me to buy into his premise and, while I wasn't really interested in the murder mystery part of the story, the reality in which everyone operated was fascinating to experience.

I could go on, but I'll just say I enjoyed this book and found the premise new (I'll admit, I don't read a lot of sci-fi). It was entertaining and just realistic enough that I could envision a world in the not-so-far future similar to Scalzi's.