"Kushiel's Dart"

Kushiel's Dart (Jacqueline Carey)

A big fantasy novel about a courtesan who's tossed into a high-stakes world of political intrigue in late medieval fantasy Europe. For the first 300 pages or so this was really hard to put down; Carey's great at world-building and weaving exposition, and the world she's made is pretty interesting. Unfortunately the book eventually slows down and starts dragging, hamstrung by two issues, one big and one small. The big one is that it's simply too, well, big - the paperback comes in at a hair over 900 pages, and it's not hard to suggest some useless parts that could be cut (my recommendation would be the entire Master of the Straits storyline, which not only adds almost nothing to the story, but feels very out of place having a super-powerful wizard in a very low-magic setting). The second issue is that the characters are not always fleshed out as much as one would hope; our heroine and the main cast mostly come off pretty well, but the head antagonist is barely more than a sketch.
All in all, I guess this is a good beach book, but it's hard to really recommend seeking it out unless you pass it on the shelf at the library.

Grade: B

"Vengeful Spirit"

Vengeful Spirit (Graham McNeill)

I'm scared to start a Graham NcNeill book now; when he's good he's great, and when he's bad, he's infuriating. I'll cut to the chase here: Good McNeill showed up for this book, and the biggest flaw has nothing to do with his writing; it's the fact that we're deep in the Hersey now, but the story's possibilities are still limited by knowing the ending. The reader knows there's no way that Horus is going to die during the course of this book, neither is the titular Vengeful Spirit going to be destroyed.

That being said, McNeill mostly works around this by drawing on the now well established setting of the Horus Hersey (over 30 novels!) - to the point where even giving a basic sketch of the book's story risks running into spoiler territory, as a pivotal character thought dead returns in first few pages. The tradeoff here is that McNeill is able to sidestep the majority of the predetermined ending problem, but in turn the book is almost totally inaccessible if you haven't been reading the Heresy up to this point.
In short, if you've read enough of the series that you'll catch the book's references, it's an easy recommend; otherwise, take a pass.

Grade: B

"Elizabeth"

Elizabeth: England's Slandered Queen (Arlene Okerlund)

I didn't really enjoy this book; mostly it made me want to re-read Allison Weir's the Wars of the Roses, a historical event that takes up about half of this book, and quite honestly the more interesting half. The parts that are actually about Elizabeth are ultimately doomed by the author stopping quite frequently to defend Elizabeth's reputation; While these parts do sound convincing to me, I had barely heard of Elizabeth before reading this book, and the author introducing arguments against Elizabeth to then refute them started turning into a real drag. I appriciate the author's attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of "England's Slandered Queen", but I'm afraid it doesn't make for terribly interesting reading, and I'd probably recommend steering clear of this one.

Grade: C

"City of Ambition"

City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York (Mason B. Williams)

I feel bad giving this book a negative review, but I found that my attention kept drifting while reading it. It's a little difficulty for me to put why that was into words, but it seems to boil down to the book's main theme getting quite muddled. The opening material, sketches of FDR and La Guardia, is pretty interesting, and I enjoyed the book during this part, but when the author starts running through a detailed history of the politics of New York state in the interwar years, it's just not very gripping. I would suggest the author either needs to take a higher level overview of this material or dive in even deeper and really fill out the history; as it is, the level of detail has the reader see a lot of characters come and go without making much of an impact, and it turns into kind of a muddle. It also stirs the dreaded "Why am I reading this" feeling - I can't help but feel that a lot of the pages in the book could be condensed down to "La Guardia was in the political wilderness for a few years" without following the fruitless narrative thread about what the ultimately meaningless mayors and governors of New York were doing at the time.
For all that, though, I don't think this is really a bad book - it's just one I didn't personally enjoy. It's a bit tough to recommend; if your local library has it, I'd try the first hundred pages (I made it to 125).

Grade: :/

"Glass House 51"

Glass House 51 (John Hampel)

I don't really know what to make of this book; it kind of reads like a boring fever dream, if such a thing is even possible. I'll freely admit I didn't make it very far, giving up after the author introduced 15 characters in 10 pages over the span of a confusing, painful exposition dump about a company called AlphaBanc that's getting ready to become the world's most powerful E-bank, but this serial killer nerd called the Gnome and I'm sorry, I seem to have slam-dunked this book into the donation pile and picked up something else to read. Might be worth seeking out if you want to read something bonkers, but not for me, I'm afraid.

Grade: D-

"Japan 1941"

Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy (Eri Hotta)

I got this book for Christmas, and it was a nice surprise; in my continued quest to read all about the less reported on facts of history, this book fills in a sizable gap. My schooling covered the leadup to WW2 in the Pacific in a super quick sketch (Oil embargo > Pearl Harbor > Midway > A-bomb > Pokemon), and this book is a interesting if depressing look at the Japanese decision making that lead to Pearl Harbor.
I learned a lot from this book - surprisingly, Tojo comes out looking okay, possibly better than Prince Konoe, the previous prime minister, who is painted as weak willed and paralyzed by tough choices. (The villain of the piece is foreign minister Matsuoka, architect of the Tripartite Pact that made Japan one of the Axis powers.)  Just about the only two figures who escape unscathed are Yamamoto (the unwilling planner of the Pearl Harbor attack) and the Emperor Hirohoto himself, who was anti-war but so powerless that about the most he could do is ask skeptical questions and recite a anti-war poem.
All in all, this isn't the kind of blockbuster you need to run out and pick up immediately, but I'd recommend it (doubly so if someone else buys it for you, I suppose).

Grade: B

"Marie Antoinette"

Marie Antoinette: The Journey (Antonia Fraser)

Until recently I haven't been a big biography fan; I guess I read some bad ones and was scared off by the boring parts of life even the most interesting among us have. Lately, though, I've come to enjoy them quite a bit, and this one among a few in particular. Fraser's biography (like any good one I suppose) is more than just a history of its subject; it's also a history of the times they lived through, and Fraser brings them to life in sometimes stomach-churning intimacy. (Want to read all about Marie Antoinette and her sister's periods? Here you go!!!!)
Perhaps surprisingly, Marie Antoinette herself comes off as probably the most likable person in the book; I'll admit that by page 100, I was actively rooting for most of the French court to get guillotined. (The nadir for this probably comes on page 102 where ambassadors are giving diamond necklaces to the palace's pets.) That being said, the second half of the book is just as grim as you're probably expecting, and I identified with MA enough that I was uncomfortable reading about life kicking her around. I'd recommend this book heartily, just be prepared for a good cry near the end.

(Bonus out of context quote: "The spanking pace caused much merriment among the waiting crowds of his erstwhile subjects.")

Grade: A-