Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Dystopia Mini-Haul
So because of the rainy, gloomy Oregon weather (which I LOVE btw) I have been lured in to my local B&N store by their amazing cafe. Guys, they have the BEST soup and hot sandwiches and of course Starbucks! I promise this is not a promotional post, I just freaking love B&N Cafe. I used to work for this same store 4 or 5 years back and I love going in and seeing some familiar faces, getting a yummy coffee, and perusing the shelves. But anyways, since I have found myself there 2 or 3 times in the past couple weeks (and probably going again today tbh) and have found some gems that I am super excited for, I thought I would share a mini-haul with you guys!
I have 3 novels and graphic novel to share with you so let's jump right in!
First up: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. This one has come highly recommended by a few of my coworkers and I've been meaning to pick it up for a while. I spotted it on the page-turners table on my way up to the cafe and swiped it right up. It's about a college physics professor names Jason who finds himself in an alternate world/reality where things are just a little different than the world he has lived his entire life in. His wife is not his wife, his son was never born, and he is no longer just a professor but a celebrated genius. He finds himself there when he wakes up after being hit in the head by a stranger in a hazmat suit who asks him a mysterious question: "Are you happy with your life?". Coming off of reading All Our Wrong Todays, this story seems kind of in that same vein of our main character being trapped in an alternate reality and trying to figure out how to get back to the old one, or even if they want to go back to the old one and how the heck did they get to this one?? It's described as a page-turning thriller and it's written by the author of the Wayward Pines trilogy.
Next is The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chanbers. I actually picked this one up because one of my favorite booktubers, Harriet Rosie , raves about it all the time (seriously check out her youtube channel. Love her!). This is a space opera that follows a crew of a spaceship who's job it is to punch wormholes in the through space. So essentially they have to travel extremely long distance to open an end to the wormhole at each end. It's about their adventures in space and mostly the relationships and stories of the members of the crew. They range in race, age and gender and they all have different stories to tell. I have heard this one compared to Firefly and have been told if you like Firefly, you will like this. Should be a fun sci-fi space adventure.
The Last Novel I picked up is Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King. I'm a huge Stephen King fan and couldn't resist picking up this one. It takes place in the near future and asks: what would happen if women were removed from the world of men? All of the women of the world go in to a comatose state and are wrapped in sort of cocoon. If the bodies of the women are moved or disturbed in any way they go in to a feral manic state and try to kill anybody surrounding them. Our main character is Evie who is the only woman immune to this curse and we follow her story as she adapts and tries to find her place in this world. This book is huge! Just over 700 pages. So I won't be posting a review on this bad boy for quite a while. It will probably be one of those titles I take my time with and read while I'm reading other books or graphic novels.
Lastly I have Y: The Last Man by Brian K Vaughan. This one I borrowed from a friend after a bunch of members of my comic book club highly recommended it. Plus I love pretty much ever Brian K. Vaughan graphic novel I've read so I knew I had to give it a try. It's funny how this happened, but this book has basically the opposite plot of Sleeping Beauties. One day out of nowhere every male mammal in the world (yes, including humans) dies a bloody death all at one time. One man, Yorick, and his pet gibbon who is also a male seem to have survived and are immune to whatever wiped out the entire male population. This is a cross country adventure, mystery, and love story all rolled in to one as we follow Yorick who wants to go to Australia to find his fiancé but who feels a sense of duty to a geneticist as she tries to discover what happened to the men of the world (she herself believes that her achievements in human cloning are possibly to blame). If the plot of Sleeping Beauties sounds intriguing to you, but you aren't really down for a 700 page tome, give this one a shot! I'm about half way through it as I'm writing this post and it is so great.
If you have picked up or read any of these let me know! What did you think? No spoilers of course! And look out for reviews of Y: The Last Man and Dark Matter very soon.
**I also received Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for my birthday! Check out my blog post where I share with you my favorite illustrations from the book.
