Nightshade by Susan Wittig Albert

( 96 )  China Bayles #16

I likes that this wrapped up the whole what-really-happened-to-China’s-dad thread. It was a semi-complex story line, and I didn’t mind that it arced over three books, but I was glad to see its conclusion.

I didn’t mind the narrator switch as, for the first time in this series, Albert told the story from someone other than China’s perspective.  What annoyed the hell out of me was the 1st person/3rd person switch between China & McQuaid. It felt heavy and forced, making McQuaid’s segments feel like a bad narrator voice-over to the action.

That and I am annoyed that I can already tell what the next book is about.  When the next one comes out, who wants to bet that China is going to end up raising her orphaned niece and inheriting the money set in trust for the girl because the hints about the health of the current guardian in this volume were pedantically heavy-handed?

I really enjoy this series, and will continue to read them, but this one was definitely not up to the quality standard I’ve come to expect.

X-Men: Messiah Complex by Ed Brubaker, Mike Carey, Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, Peter David (Author), Marc Silvestri (Illustrator), Billy Tan (Illustrator), Chris Bachalo (Illustrator), Humberto Ramos (Illustrator), Scot Eaton (Illustrator)

( 95 )

This bound volume/series illustrates the real reason I don’t read comics as they come down the pipeline: Too hard to follow!  It is a single plotline carried across multiple series–how the heck is anyone but the author supposed to keep track of that?!?! Yep, I’ll wait for the bound volumes.

I enjoyed this series, it offered some thought provoking questions, though the X-men nearly always do that unless its the tv cartoon series… I was less thrilled with the art.  There was gorgeous, amazing, traditional art on some pages, and the bubbly, soft-edged, so-obviously digital crap on others.  Sorry guys, I know illustrators work hard, but I am just not a fan of digital inking.  The work is too smooth, too perfect, too flat.  It loses some soul in the process.

Stalking Death by Kate Flora

( 94 )  A Thea Kozak Mystery

Glad to see this series return, even if the newer titles are getting further and further apart.  It struck home for me a little more this year, the idea of spin behind a tragedy because there was a tragedy at my daughter’s school last year, and the idea of “spin” and “damage control” in the wake of an injury to a child is repugnant to me in a more visceral way now.

Fortunately I love Thea anyway, though it did feel very much like a lot of deep threads were being laid down to be picked up and woven into the next book or two of this series, so I’m hoping it won’t be (another) five year wait for the next one.

Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley

( 93 )

I loved this book.  It was shorter than Thank You for Smoking but, more directly funny.  And took much more direct aim at the government and the bizarre ways that Washington D.C. “works”.

Physik by Angie Sage

( 92 ) Septuimus Heap, book 3

These are billed as YA, and the language is simpler than Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, but the subject matter is a little grim and getting grimmer. Could be just me, but while these have occasional moments of lightness and humor, overall the series is getting darker and I would want J to read these to/with me if she read them at all so we could discuss them along the way.

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

( 91 ) Percy Jackson and the Olympians, book 4

I read recently that Riordan will be ending this series with book five, which makes me sad, but works well in the BIG picture plot arc that runs through the whole series.  I think the build up to the finale has been well-paced (despite the disappointment of book 2 and its cruise ship of doom) and can’t wait to read the final installment.