A Midsummer Equation (by Keigo Higashino)

I do love Higashino, but this was my least favorite Higashino so far, mostly because of the solution to the murder, so I can't really say much without spoilers.  But it didn't quite work for me, even though I enjoyed the setting and the characters a lot.  If the murderer had been an adjacent person instead of the actual person, it would have worked much better.  And (spoiler) if the ending didn't hinge on me sympathizing with a murderer who didn't seem to have a good reason for murdering (end spoiler)

Any rate, this was for the RHC category of genre book in translation and you know I was going to use Japanese mystery for that! This brings me to 7 books read for the Read Harder Challenge, which puts me on better track than I was last year.  Woo! Something is going not horribly this year! 

We'll Prescribe You Another Cat (by Syou Ishida)

A sequel to the delightful We'll Prescribe You a Cat - the book is a little slighter and shorter, the lore is a little more confusing, the characters are a little less satisfying.  But still a cozy read and if you are a cat lover, I recommend you read them both! 

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels (by Janice Hallett)

I enjoy Hallett's epistolary style, but this one wasn't quite as fun as the last one, about a pub trivia group. This one is about a cult and is very complicated, with lots of players to keep straight and some twists that would land better if I remembered who half these people were.

There's also one development at the end that I didn't care for but no spoilers.  This was a fast-paced vacation read, but the only book I finished on a very short jaunt to Vegas.  I probably will continue to be a Hallett completionist though, and check out Twyford Code next. 

The Stars, Too Fondly (by Emily Hamilton)

Read for the category "a book set in space" and I think I would have DNF'd it otherwise. An easy read - it reads like YA, which is a problem since allegedly the characters are all postdocs - but right from the get-go, it's ridiculous.

A group of four friends (which conveniently includes an Asian man, a nonbinary person, and a Black trans woman - very YA-coded) accidentally steal a spaceship that blasts them into another solar system. This ship w" as supposed to go into space years before and "something went wrong" with the "dark matter engine and the entire crew disappeared, and then everyone on earth decided to just leave the ship lying around and not investigate it at all.  Definitely how science and humanity works! 

Then our lead character falls in lesbian love with the AI avatar of the captain, they watch a lot of 90s movies (very YA coded), and work to try and get back to earth, in implausible fashion. Sacrifices are made that have no real stakes attached to them. None of this is grounded in anything, or feels real whatsoever. It's just a light, breezy, very young adult read.