What are you reading now?: October 18, 2025.

Currently working on Broken Icarus. The Incandescent and Fiat Fighters will follow.

I'm reading my Early Reviewer, House of Ash and Bone by Joel A. Sutherland. It's pretty spooky so far!

This Is Your Mother: A Memoir
Erika J. Simpson
4/5 stars
Interesting true story about a mother (who grew up with her parents as sharecroppers) and her daughter and the lives they lived together and apart. Non-Fiction/Biography

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V E Schwab
Book on CD performed by Julia Whelan
4****

In 1714, a young woman flees from the planned / arranged marriage and begs the gods to release her. She’d been warned about praying to the gods who answer after dark, but in her panic failed to notice the sun had set. Luc grants her wish – immortality and freedom – but …

What a wonderful, engaging story. I was completely captivated. And while I’ve grown to hate the ubiquitous dual timeline, in this case it was necessary, for how else to tell the story of “invisible” Addie LaRue, and her Faustian bargain? She will remain twenty-three years old in appearance despite living more than three centuries, but no one will remember her. She cannot make a mark in the world, cannot draw a picture or write a word, or even utter her own name. Until ….

I loved how Schwab lets the reader discover Addie’s gifts – her tenacity, resourcefulness, cleverness, cunning, and compassion – over the course of the novel. Addie may not age, and she may not be remembered by those she encounters, but she learns and matures and grows into a formidable adversary to the god of darkness.

And I loved Henry Strauss, though he is more a supporting character than a main one. Still, I love how Henry helped her win one battle against Luc.

The ending is a bit bittersweet, but perfect. And while I hate cliffhangers that force the reader to read a second installment to find out what happens next, the ambiguous ending of this one left me eager for a follow-up!

Julia Whelan does a marvelous job of performing the audiobook. Her voice for Luc was particularly effective.

I am listening to Crazy Rich Asians - it's a lot of fun.

I just finished The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers' fourth and last installment of her excellent Wayfarers series. It was really good.

Next book up is Ruth First's 117 Days, about her time imprisoned in a South African jail for her stance against apartheid and her support of the banned African National Congress.

I've just finished Living by Henry Green, a novel about iron workers in Birmingham, England, in the 1920s, which is also when the book was published (1929). You can find my review on my Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be a satire, Straight White Male, by Scottish author John Niven.

The Dark Library
Mary Anna Evans
4/5 stars
Estella Ecker has returned to her home despite running away from her now dead father years ago. She is here now to look for her missing mother and the secrets in his library. Very interesting! Books Off My Reading List

The new thread is up over here.