I'm sorry, Hugo Awards, but you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

How is it possible that a book from the series titled "Lady Astronaut Universe" could be so woefully lacking in anything exciting, I'm still kind of in shock. I was expecting female astronauts kicking ass left and right, interspersed with scenes of thrilling action in space and agonizing decisions for survival. But no, alas, that was not what I got at all.

There's nothing wrong with the premise. The Calculating Stars creates an alternative history in which a meteor is about to hit the earth in 1952, leading to what will eventually become an extinction level event. In light of this, earth must fast track its efforts to colonize space. And so steps in this group of amazing women astronauts ready to save the world. Sounds awesome, right? Well, it turns out to be terribly disappointing.

First, I just couldn't connect with Elma. She wants to become an astronaut at a time when women aren't really considered for more than housewife duty, which I'm so on board with. But the part that lost me was that instead of being written as a strong character, she's timid and dithering, constantly hiding behind her husband and letting him take care of things for her.

She is scared of everything—people she doesn't know, her boss, reporters, talking to the media, having her pictures taken, the list goes on and on—and has panic attacks constantly in the form of vomiting. She doesn't think she has a problem and refuses to see a doctor, instead reciting the number pi or the Fibonacci sequence every time to try to get over it. Yep, that's the sound of my eyeballs bruising from all that rolling around.

The majority of this story is mundane as all heck, driven by stilted writing and dull dialogue between uninteresting characters. Hardly anything happens, certainly nothing I would qualify as worthwhile action. There's also a few awkward sex scenes with truly cringeworthy nerdy dialogue and random religious tidbits sprinkled throughout, neither of which added anything to the story (or lack thereof).

All in all, the premise was good, I'll give you that, but that's about the only positive thing I can say for this book. Clearly, the much touted space race was meant only to serve as an illustrious backdrop (and Hugo Award bait) for a story mostly about gender/religious/racial discrimination and mental health. And it wasn't even a good one at that.

Talk about a bait and switch. You could've named this "Lady Meek Mouse Housewife Universe" and had pretty much the same story.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

I've been waiting for Lethal White since I finished the last Cormoran Strike book almost three years ago, and I'm happy to report the wait was worth it. The characters of Cormoran and Robin, and their partnership and interactions with each other are among my favorite parts of the series, and this book continues to deliver.

Another thing I really enjoy is Rowling's writing style. Something about it draws me in every time. Her narrative and descriptions are clear and vivid, making it easy for me to understand and follow. Even though this book is quite long and can be trimmed down, it didn't feel long while I was immersed in the story, if that makes sense. It felt like the plot constantly moved forward and that momentum swept me along.

For a murder mystery, the mystery itself is intriguing and entertaining, though I would say the reveal in the end is the weakest part of the book. It didn't come across as a Eureka moment, partly because the plot was so complex that the explanation was hard to grasp at first. I didn't even realize that I was reading the big reveal until a few pages in. The reveal was structured such that it didn't explain everything in a logical order, instead explaining little pieces of it disjointedly one by one, making it hard to understand as a whole. It also didn't explain how Strike and Robin came to their conclusion, just that they thought of it and it made sense.

Still, this is one of the most enjoyable mysteries I've read recently. I'm already looking forward to the next book, and I hope Rowling doesn't make us wait three years again.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

This Could Change Everything is so sweet and uplifting, with a delightful cast of characters all looking for their happily ever after. As their paths weave and cross, they experience surprises, heart breaks, and finally love. The setting of this story, which takes place during Christmas and winter, feels so warm and cozy. Even though these types of books are always a little cheesy, I found this story to be fresh and lovely without being saccharine or overly dramatic.

This is the second book I've read by Jill Mansell, and she seems to have a real knack for writing books that make me feel so happy after reading them. I can't wait to read more books by her.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

A Touch of Gold takes the King Midas mythology and tells a tale from his daughter Kora's perspective. She was accidentally touched by her father and turned to gold briefly when she was a child, and still bears the scars of that. When a hero is needed to save the king and the kingdom, she draws on her courage and sense of adventure to come to their aid.

While the story itself is likable enough, I found the characters to be rather dull, the dialog to be really simplistic and cheesy, and the villain to be over-the-top. Taken together with the romance, in which Kora seems to fall for whichever guy gives her any attention, the story comes across as very young and immature.

Maybe I would have liked this book more in my youth, but as an adult, it just didn't really grab my attention.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

Silence of the Grave is a police procedural in which a skeleton is uncovered and the detectives go about solving the mystery of who it is and how it got there. I found the police procedural part of this book to be quite enjoyable, with lots of twists and turns until it's all cleared up at the very end. Unfortunately, that was only about a third of the book.

Another third of the book is a detailed look at domestic violence within a family, which was really hard to read. Considering how graphic it was and how much of the book that took up, I feel like it should have come with a warning so that I was better prepared. Or the author could have shortened this story line so that it was more of a summary rather than a plot line.

The last third of the book is the drama between Erlendur the detective and his family. It was boring and irrelevant. Every time the book started picking up the pace with the mystery, we switch to a few pages of Erlendur sitting at his daughter's bedside in the hospital talking about his regrets. 

In the end, I wish there were more of the police procedural since that was the best part and what was advertised, and less of the other stuff.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

While there were bits and pieces of Daring to Drive that were interesting, and Al-Sharif is certainly to be commended for her courage and passion to bring about positive changes for women in Saudi Arabia, overall this book just didn't grab my attention. (And I feel so bad for saying so!)

One reason is that the first half of the book, other than the initial few pages about her arrest, was really slow. She details growing up in Saudi Arabia, and while those are glimpses of her life there, I didn't feel like I learned anything new. She also spent a lot of pages talking about the radical brand of Islamic religion popular there, and how she felt affinity for that in her youth. Not only was it frustrating to read, but my eyes glazed over from all the religious information.

This book also suffers a lot from telling instead of showing, like "Here's something that happened to me, and then here's something else that happened to me". At times, it feels like the author is trying to include every single incidence of her life instead of choosing those that help her narrative. Or that she's trying to pad enough words in to make a book. When you put so much stuff in, a lot of it isn't really relevant and can be cut out to help with the pacing. And there isn't enough attention devoted to the core bits.

Perhaps this is a case of it's me and not the book. So many others have really loved this book, and while I didn't get much out of it, it still shines a light on a worthy topic.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

The Underground Railroad was both more and less than what I expected going in, having heard the numerous awards it had won and the rave reviews it had gotten. The biggest thing I got out of the book is its unflinching portrayal of how dehumanizing life was for a slave, and how terrible life continued to be for slaves on the run. They never fully become free from their masters, continuing to live a life of fear and hiding, carrying the burden of being a slave and the guilt of the horrible fates that befall those who aid them.

But I wouldn't say this story totally worked. In fact, it almost seems as if Whitehead had picked out topics and written passages he wanted to include in the book first, and then built his story around it. As a result, there are a lot of times when it seems like the story takes an awkward lurch and starts in on a random tangent, like the grave diggers and its blurbs about native Americans.

I agree with a lot of reviewers out there that the physical underground railroad was a logistical impossibility. How could you run a train underground and have no one above the ground hear it? How could you keep it a secret when the discovery of one sections leads you to the whole thing? What I don't get is that having it be a physical railroad didn't add anything to the story. Whitehead could easily have told the same story with Cora just being smuggled around above ground.

Whitehead also doesn't have the clearest writing style. His narration is often non-linear so that things happen out of order, like he'll explain much later something that he referenced earlier. This was especially hard in the beginning, when he would mention people or place names without explaining who or what they are, and then get around to clarifying a few pages later. I constantly had to go back to reread parts with the new understanding in mind.

Yet, even with all the negatives, there was enough positives in this book to make it a worthwhile read. It tells a necessary tale, one filled with sorrow and anguish, the consequences of which remain to this day. And though Whitehead took lots of narrative liberties, the spirit and facts of the slave experience remain, and they're an imperative piece to understanding our nation's history and where we are today.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars