Nearly the end of August, and hopefully cooler weather is ahead!  Time for some reading updates.

I finished reading After Anne by Logan Steiner, which I mentioned in my last update.  A novel based on L. M. Montgomery’s life, it was interesting and the people were portrayed very well – but I personally would have made a lot of different choices in what to focus on and how to interpret some of the more ambiguous things in her life.

I enjoyed Indexing Reflections by Seanan McGuire, sequel Indexing.  It was another very good, if dark, urban fantasy based on fairy tales, and I liked how much it delved into the backstories of the characters we met in the previous book.  I’d have enjoyed a touch more romance, but there were still some nice moments.

I enjoyed previous books by Charlie N. Holmberg, so I picked up The Paper Magician.  Very cool magic premise, about magicians who can only work magic through a specific medium – in the case of the main characters, paper.  I enjoyed this but it was structured a little oddly, most of the book given over to the heroine’s trip through another character’s heart (mostly metaphorically, a little bit literally).  It made the heroine a little passive in spots, but I do enjoy explorations of people’s inner lives like this.

I just finished a rather unusual book, Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld, which reimagines the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton if she had never married Bill Clinton.  This picked up speed as it went and ended up being very engaging.  Also very believable – Hillary’s life without Bill, and her political plans, seemed so plausible it was almost hard to remember it didn’t turn out that way.  Our former president whose name I don’t type has a smallish role near the end of the book, and is perfectly written as well, in all his absurdity.  At the risk of spoilers, it was a very satisfying ending!

How has your summer reading been going?