“The Librarianist” by Patrick deWitt

 I quite enjoyed this novel, and found it quite riveting in parts. I must admit, though, that the chapters with the thespian women were a bit too artificially whimsical, and that I was slightly irritated by the chronology. 

The book starts in the present. Bob, the retired, book loving librarian protagonist led a lost, somewhat comatose woman back to a seniors home, where he started volunteering. He found out that she was the wife who had abandoned him for his best friend, and with that big revelation, the book suddenly started going backwards to Bob’s childhood and marriage, ignoring the present day implications of the big revelation.

I’ve just realized an additional layer of depth in the book. Bob’s addled ex wife Connie helped him a lot by causing him to discover the seniors’ home, where Bob made friends and built a nice life for himself. He eventually met up with Connie’s son, and was able to tell him about his father, who had been killed in a hit and run soon after marrying Connie. 

This book has left me with a nice feeling of completion.

“In the Woods” by Tana French

 The author has a great gift for meaningful dialog and complex psychology. As a result, I enjoyed this book despite the fact that the traumatized protagonist/detective turned out to be a great jerk after he slept with his partner/friend, we never found out what happened to his friends in the woods decades earlier, and the psychopathic girl who arranged for her sister’s murder got off scott free. 

The book is brimming with intelligence, but is also frustrating, for the reasons above. Apparently the later books in the series are each about different characters and have better endings, but I have no interest in finding out. The Irish setting was interesting to me, of course.

“The Deepest Map” by Laura Trethewey

 I enjoyed this very informative book about exploring and mapping the ocean depths. It opened my eyes to a number of issues including the ecological dangers of deep sea mining and the submerged archaeological information of human habitats. I studied Marine Biology many decades ago, and I find that my interest in the ocean still persists.

“The Mystery of the Yellow Room” by Gaston Leroux (Otto Penzler)

 I was not much impressed by this locked room mystery by the author of “Phantom of the Opera”. It was overly complicated and overly pedantic. It was also a bit overwrought, but that was likely due to the 1907 publication date. 

"The Future" by Catherine Leroux

This book's defender on Canada Reads must have done an amazing job for it to win, because for the most part it is simply boring and sometimes unintelligible, with a touch of magic realism just for fun. I expected an alternate history of Detroit to be more interesting, and definitely less concerned with the life of a drug addict, or the lives of neglected children living in a ravine.

“The Girl Who Drank the Moon” by Kelly Barnhill

 I did not overly enjoy this Newberry Award winning book. Usually I like Young Adult novels, but I think the premise for this one was a bit too ephemeral, and the character development a bit too thin, to grab my attention. It also felt quite derivative and long. 

The basic summary is that a region called The Protectorate was very sad because every year they gave up a baby to whom they thought was an evil witch in the forest, not knowing that the truly evil, sorrow eating witch, lived in a tower in town, She trained girls to be warriors and was the source of the sorrowful lies. Luna, the heroine, was a sacrificial baby. She was saved by the forest witch, who accidentally enmagicked her with moonlight, and there was a creature who lived in the bog who was some sort of Creator, as in God, and there was a cute little dragon who thought he was big. I’m sure if I bothered analyzing the book, it has a number of beautiful themes.

“Carrie” by Stephen King

 It was an enjoyable enough read even though I knew the basic story. I skipped over some of the ugly bullying sections.