Vacation Reads

We spent last week traveling to and around Boston for a family vacation. I read seven books on the trip (gotta love airplane reads) and it was a nice mix of stuff. Here are my reviews:

Punch Escrow (by Tal M. Klein)

Fun, hard sci-fi. It doesn't quite stick the landing, but I will definitely read the sequel that Klein sets up in the epilogue. I'm picky about sci-fi but all three of my vacation reads in this genre were good! This one was found via Scalzi.

Half a Life (by Darin Strauss)

Memoir that I read for a new book group I'm in at work. This is the story of a guy who, "half-a-life ago" when he was eighteen, hit a classmate with his car and killed her.  Great hook, but this memoir  feels half-baked. (He doesn't address how the accident impacted his passengers, for example.) He's also way too defensive about his own past emotions and apologizes for them a lot, even though there's no need for him to. I got the feeling he might actually not have enough distance yet. Some really excellent writing, and I thought the ending was powerful, but overall this didn't move me the way it should.

Sugar (by Kimberly Stuart)

Super cute rom-com about a pastry chef who takes a new job and ends up on a restaurant reality show with her ex-boyfriend.  Has a couple of "people don't talk like that" dialogue moments (my pet peeve) but only a couple. Sprinkled throughout are some unfortunate anti-fat moments also. But mostly very charming and light, good vacation read, with a fun plot and a good main character.

Texts from Jane Eyre (by Mallory Ortberg)

I wanted an excuse to buy this, and vacation became my excuse. Mallory Ortberg is hilarious and this little book is a gem.

The Custom of the Country (by Edith Wharton)

I needed a book for the "published between 1900 and 1950" category of the Read Harder Challenge, and somehow I had never read this before. How can that even be considering how much I love The Age of Innocence? This was amazing. I love Wharton's anti-heroine, Undine Spragg. I love the classic Whartonian social machinations. I love the subtle, rich writing. This is spectacular in every way. 

The Three-Body Problem (by Liu Cixin, trans. Ken Liu)

I'm going to swap this out as my "set at least 5000 miles away from your house" pick, because this is set in China and translated from the Chinese, and I think meets the spirit of the challenge better.  I love both the storyline and the style of the translation. Great, Hugo-award-winning sci-fi novel, and the beginning of a trilogy.  Also delves into the Cultural Revolution and that part is interesting as well -- although the virtual reality parts may have been my favorite. Thumbs up!

11/22/63 (by Stephen King)

An excellent pick for the airplane ride home, I have to say, as it is a classic Stephen King doorstoppy page-turner. I was a huge IT fangirl when I was younger, and I loved the Derry side-plot here.  The time travel into the 60s allows King to indulge all his most folksy folksiness (the "Land of Ago" for example) but overall this is a gripping and detailed time-traveling love story. King at the top of his form.