I’m still playing around with the format of my reading updates. It’s been too jumbled, so I’m trying something new (which I will likely rework again). The number in front of the book title is what number of read it is for the year for me. So [12] is the twelfth book I’ve read this year.

Damn these glossy covers making these books so hard to photograph! Ha.

[12] The Warehouse by Rob Hart
Science fiction/dsytopian thriller, recommended by Knox on The Popcast

Synopsis: Paxton and Zinnia are new employees at Cloud, a tech giant whose next-day drone delivery services have squashed most of the American economy. Paxton is bitter about his past relationship as a business owner with Cloud, but views working there as the only viable way to make money and move on with his life. Zinnia is there to do corporate espionage then get the hell out, and she struggles to find a way to infiltrate Cloud’s secure systems and find what she needs. Paxton and Zinnia both live at one of the giant MotherCloud live-work facilities.

In this future, there’s been devastating climate change – coastal cities are under water, and the heat and sun is inescapable everywhere. Cities have become ghost towns. Getting hired at Cloud, and a chance to live in a dorm at a MotherCloud facility, with air conditioning, abundant water, and plenty to eat, is highly desirable and competitive. But once Paxton and Zinnia get to MotherCloud, they find out things there aren’t as ideal as they seem from the outside.

Review: Dystopian thriller and sci-fi are two of my favorite genres, so this book was right up my alley! This is one of those books that’s scary because you feel like it could happen. We can probably all think of a delivery service company that would take over all industries, if it could.

I enjoyed reading about how the MotherCloud facility worked. Everyone has a watch band that stores their credits (how they get paid), gives them facility access, and tells them what to do. People wear colored shirts for what industry of work they’re in, and they work every day, and are rated on a tough five-star system – get down to a three stars and you should be worried.

I liked the format of the chapters – back and forth from Paxton and Zinnia’s perspective, and sometimes, a glimpse in to the founder’s perspective as well. The book was imaginative while feeling realistic, and the characters were believable. This was an easy, five-star read! <— I’m sure it helps that I love those two genres!

[13] We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zangan
Literary fiction, recommended on Sarah’s Bookshelves Live

Synopsis: Hannah, Leslie, and Jimmy are graduate students in a class of seventeen at the low-residency (they meet twice a year for ten days) MFA in creative writing program at Fielding campus in Vermont. Simone is a bestselling author who’s one of their professors. We Wish You Luck is the recollection of three of the ten-day stints on campus (one January sandwiched by two Junes), told from the collective perspective of their fourteen classmates, years later. The dusk jacket summary claims it’s a story of love, death, and revenge, between the three students and Simone.

Review: This book is beautifully written, and the characters extremely developed, but that’s mostly what it is – a character study – of all seventeen students, and some of the professors. You are continually reminded that the story is about Hannah, Leslie, and Jimmy, yet you feel like you barely know them – but do know a lot of unnecessary detail about the other students. The action is sparse and the story moves painfully slow (it’s called a “slow burn,” a phrase I didn’t know before I read reviews on this). You don’t find out what happened until page 138 and the “revenge” doesn’t start until the 220s (out of 300ish pages). The ending was satisfying, but it was painful to get there. At first I was interested, then I thought about DNFing it, but kept with it because I wanted to find out what this “revenge” was. I was constantly annoyed that it was a story about those three students but told by none of them, so a lot of it was speculation. Ugh.

There’s a quote in the book about one of the students that perfectly describes this book “… his stories were always bulky with backdrop and props that never went off, too much mood and context and not enough story.” Yep! I do NOT recommend this book. While well written, with a satisfying end, it’s just not worth the time.

Up Next: Thief River Falls by Brian Freeman
Mystery thriller, selected by a coworker for work book club

Ha, so, the current genre at work book club is thriller/crime/similar (like mystery, etc.) and the first book selected was Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King. I was excited to complete one of my 2020 “To Dos” early – to read a Stephen King book – but when I picked it up from the library I knew we had a problem – it’s over 700 pages! I’ve heard his books are long, and oops, I didn’t even think to tell people to check the lengths of the books they’re submitting for book club. So I took a survey to ask if we should select one of the other books submitted, and it was a unanimous YES. So we’re going to read Thief River Falls, which is only 314 pages.