A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I heartily recommend The Cloud Roads by marthawells. I've read both it and the second book in the series.

Great writing, superior world-building and awesome, memorable characters. I loved her culture-building, too, and the fact that her primary characters are non-human.

FUCK the last option, Rachel. Are you trying to weed out your friends list or something?

I loved Bitterblue and the McKay, and I think they'll work well for vacation reading. The Cloud Roads et seq. don't quite live up to their potential, but are engaging with pretty good nonhumans.

(Thanks for sending me to the store for Code Name Verity when you did; I found it used for $9 due to perfect timing and got it on store credit.)

Stalky & Co. is short pieces, and available as etext, so I would personally (amusing though it can be) reserve it for e.g. traveling, buses, trains, and so on. Phone reading kind of thing.

Those are all good-sounding books though. I dunno! I have my own stack of Haikasoru waiting.

A thought about Stalky & Co. flitted across my cortex as I was writing that note, and I did not whang it down with a pin as I ought, and now I do not remember myself what it was. If it comes to me... it was perhaps a related-works comment?

I rather liked the Haikasoru books I've read, including Rocket Girls, All You Need is Kill, and Lord of the Sands of Time. They are fun and fast reads.

I just devoured Rhiannon Held's Silver yesterday. I'm not sure how good it is objectively, but it gave me delirious anthro and biology and psych geek squee all over the place.

It is apparently being marketed as a paranormal romance, and I suppose technically it is. It's pretty technical tho.

I also voted for doing some of the damn homework reading because I know it's likely to be a hideous workload and I cannot in conscience vote for putting it all off... but I also can't remember stuff unless I read fairly large chunks, so take it for what it's worth.

I rather liked the one about my dead best friend and the sweet ninjas musical. Reading it made me happy and it made me cry in a good way.

My 18 year old is fond of Cashore, and would recommend that to you, but I haven't read it.

As for Miss Peregrine, the trouble I have with any book about exceptional children is that the children in question are never as interesting, brilliant and downright odd as the real children I interact with daily.

I have a major (MAJOR) affection for Hilary McKay. I think she hit her stride with Indigo's Star, but it is the second book about the Cassons. She has several (three?) about a quartet of sisters called The Exiles, and another trio about two families side by side in a big house next to the sea. Those ones have ghosts and happenstance and fabulous coincidence and I love them (Dog Friday, The Amber Cat and The Dolphin Sword).

McKay seems to bang out cheerful, slapdash books in ways I've only seen British children's authors do. When I contrast the Cassons with (for instance) the Penderwicks (a Newberry Award winner here) the Penderwicks have no depth, no hazard and no serious issues. And they fail to handle their non-serious issues with anything like grace or humor. The Cassons have family solidarity, humor, affection and some basic strength of character (that is shown not told) that carries them all through in ways that please me immensely.

So. Apparently I feel strongly about this.

Have you read Mira Grant's (aka Seanan McGuire) Feed/Deadline/Blackout trilogy yet? If you haven't yet i'd love to see your reaction to the psychology elements of the second book :)