It was a decent reading month, though with only a few stand-outs. Here's what I read this past month.
The Guncle by Steven Rowley: This was fine if a bit predictable. I finally started to get invested in the story about halfway through, primarily because Patrick stopped being quite so self-absorbed, but I still didn't love it.
Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie: I hadn't heard of Parker Pyne before embarking on reading all of Christie's works, and with good reason — these stories aren't her finest work. A few of them had clever twists that I enjoyed, but mostly they dealt in tropes, and the titular character's solutions were generally reached less by deduction than by stereotype and prejudice.
The Bad Guys in Intergalactic Gas by Aaron Blabey: This one was fairly entertaining and had fewer of the annoying tropes from the previous two books. I liked how Mr. Wolf and Mr. Piranha were willing to sacrifice themselves and then got a chance to be heroes at long last after all.
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc: I appreciated everything Leduc shared in this book about her personal experience as a someone with cerebral palsy, as well as the broader disability justice content. Unfortunately, she chose to narrowly focus the book's primary theme around fairy tales, and that aspect could have been covered in an article but was incredibly repetitive in book form.
Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz: I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the first one but it was still engaging and well plotted. I think another one in this format would stretch credulity, but I'd probably read it anyway!
Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place by Jackson Bird: This was an incredibly accessible and readable memoir about Bird's experience growing up and coming out as a trans man. I think he does an excellent job of telling his story in a way that is both educational to cis people and validating for other trans people.
The Bad Guys in Alien vs Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey: This was one of the better ones in the series so far. High stakes, silly jokes, a twisty-turny plot. My 8-year-old was willingly reading entire chapters at a time on their own.
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: An American Marriage, How to Read Now, 50 Women Every Christian Should Know, and Wayside School Is Falling Down
Five years ago I was reading: The End of Your Life Book Club and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Ten years ago I was reading: The Age of Innocence and The Unbearable Lightness of Being
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