{"id":5143,"date":"2016-01-12T08:22:20","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T14:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/?p=5143"},"modified":"2016-01-12T08:22:20","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T14:22:20","slug":"here-are-the-books-i-read-in-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/?p=5143","title":{"rendered":"Here are the books I read in 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s store this here for posterity. I didn&#8217;t do as much reading last year, but hey, I read some real good stuff! If you want to see my short opinions on things, please take a look.<\/p>\n<p><strong>January (1)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World&#8217;s Richest Museum<\/em> by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino <\/ul>\n<p>(Another random thing I grabbed in a sale, I think? The story it tells is just mind-boggling. Everything that happened, so much poor judgement, so much misplaced pride&#8230; it&#8217;s just quite a tale. A fine read if the subject is interesting to you.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>February (3)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Seraphina<\/em> by Rachel Hartman <\/ul>\n<p>(An amazingly true study on otherness of all sorts, perhaps by accident, but very powerful, emotional, and fun. I see so much of the trans experience in Phina. I wonder what you would see. There is no doubt that this book is excellent, though. Please read it.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>The Glass Magician<\/em> by Charlie N. Holmberg<\/ul>\n<p> (The first book was a nice enough romp. This book was the same. Fun, with a cool world. I do worry about the lead&#8217;s thought process sometimes, though. Ceony is interesting, but&#8230; made a few decisions that felt more plot-motivated than her motivated in this one. Well, in my opinion anyway. Oh well. It was fun.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Eight Skilled Gentlemen <\/em>by Barry Hughart <\/ul>\n<p>(Another fun ride. I felt a little less understanding of what was going on than the other two books. But the characters are still a blast. It&#8217;s a really fun book. Read this whole series. Thanks.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>March (3)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>The Dead Key <\/em>by D. M. Pulley<\/ul>\n<p> (Oh my goodness this book was SO FRUSTRATING. So many good ideas done SO BADLY. I constantly wanted to slap one of the two protagonists and the author for squandering cool stuff! I can&#8217;t really recommend it unless you have a lot of forgiveness in your heart.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Prudence<\/em> by Gail Carriger<\/ul>\n<p> (You know already that I loved this, but oh my goodness, already I am in love with many of these new characters just as before. Carriger&#8217;s mastery of characterization is just&#8230; inspiring. It&#8217;s the best. If you haven&#8217;t read everything she&#8217;s ever written, you are doing it wrong.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina<\/em> by Rachel Hartman<\/ul>\n<p> (Sometimes the benefit of finding a wonderful book late is that the sequel comes out a month later. Like Seraphina, this book is fantastic. It&#8217;s a YA book that brings up such concepts as picking your own pronouns like it&#8217;s nothing. The characters are wonderful, the story is sound&#8230; it&#8217;s just&#8230; damn. Read these books, please. Rachel Hartman is easily one of my favorite all time authors at this point.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>April (2)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>The Mermaid&#8217;s Sister<\/em> by Carrie Anne Noble<\/ul>\n<p> (I liked this book. It was small and self-contained and hinted at a wide wide world but was almost completely about character interaction and romance, despite being an adventure of sorts. The resolution of the romance angle was a little abrupt, but telegraphed enough I forgave it.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Bible Adventures<\/em> by Gabe Durham<\/ul>\n<p> (Another Boss Fight book. This is one of the better ones. This blends information and personal reflection way, way, way better than some other books in the series. It&#8217;s really more about Wisdom Tree than just Bible Adventures, but it was a nice enough read.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Months Of No Reading Because I Was Writing, Mostly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>September (2)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>The Master Magician<\/em> by Charlie N. Holmberg<\/ul>\n<p> (It was fun! It&#8217;s fun. The whole series is fun. It&#8217;s not the best? If I wanted to be mean to it, I could. But it&#8217;s cute, the world is very interesting, and despite how she&#8217;s written I like the lead quite a lot. There&#8217;s some cute smooching. It&#8217;s a nice little popcorn series.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Metal Gear Solid<\/em> by Ashly and Anthony Burch<\/ul>\n<p> (A fun, lighthearted discussion of the many flaws and successes of the original game. It really pulls no punches on what was great and what was awful. They do a good job with having two authors by offering different reads on various elements, from a &#8220;as a guy\/girl, this says&#8221; perspective, as well as just different readings. One of the good Boss Fight entries. Give it a read.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>October (2)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Baldur&#8217;s Gate II<\/em> by Matt Bell<\/ul>\n<p> (The author says this book was an attempt to make him less embarrassed about liking DnD. Good for him, I guess, but I wanted a book about Baldur&#8217;s Gate II that actually discussed the game instead of talked about how he writes DnD books? So, you know. I don&#8217;t recommend this one. A unfortunate Boss Fight entry.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>The Chess Queen Enigma: A Stoker and Holmes Novel<\/em> by Colleen Gleason<\/ul>\n<p> (I was pleased that this one didn&#8217;t waste as much time re-setting up everything as the last novel did. These continue to be a lot of fun: not particularly deep or groundbreaking, but completely enjoyable. The whole series so far is for sure a recommended read.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>November (1)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<em>Manners and Mutiny<\/em> by Gail Carriger<\/ul>\n<p> (You know this is good, so just go read it. That being said, I felt some of the romance stuff ended up a LITTLE rushed. I agreed with a lot of it but felt it needed more time to percolate. Another post-school adventure would have let that go long enough! But eh, that&#8217;s a little thing. It&#8217;s all very nice. I very much enjoyed it.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s store this here for posterity. I didn&#8217;t do as much reading last year, but hey, I read some real good stuff! If you want to see my short opinions on things, please take a look. January (1) Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World&#8217;s Richest Museum by Jason Felch and Ralph [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5144,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5143\/revisions\/5144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}