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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
MJ has commented on (5) products
I Like Me Better
by
Robby Weber
MJ
, May 02, 2023
The cast of characters in Weber’s novel is diverse in personality and a variety of them do show growth throughout the novel. The love interest, Chip, was one that I was particularly fond of, if only because he seems to enjoy the same novels I do (Priory of the Orange Tree is on my bookshelf at home). I also really liked Beckett for his work ethic and Meyers for the silly hopeless (or maybe not so Hope-less) romantic he was. Zack, on the other hand, was a character I didn’t particularly care for, if only because I was not a high school athlete, and never particularly cared for them. Although the plot was largely fine, there were several things that I took issue with. First off, I didn’t quite understand how all these high school kids were getting legitimate internships. In my experience, those are hard to come by even for college students. And good internships are essentially impossible to get without prior internship experience. Additionally, it bothered me that two teenagers were able to and got away with sneaking into an animal rehab center after hours. Finally, I struggled with the fact that the repercussions of putting a dead hammerhead shark into another student’s locker only consisted of community service. As many species of hammerhead are endangered, I suspect that the consequences would be significantly more severe. Overall, I found “I Like Me Better” to be a cute high school romance novel.
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Star Splitter
by
Matthew J. Kirby
MJ
, April 29, 2023
Jessica does not want to spend a year of her life on a planet in the middle of nowhere as her parents’ research assistant. But they didn’t give her any say in the matter. To get there, she needs to teleport—a process that involves sending quantum data through space and printing a person’s body at their destination, destroying the reference body in the process. Things don’t quite go as planned, however. Upon her arrival, Jessica finds herself on a crashed lander on the planet instead of in orbit nearby. To make things even weirder, the person she’s greeted by…is herself. I found the premise for this book very novel in how they approached teleportation. Essentially, they create a clone of the person at their destination—which works out fine because the previous version of the person is destroyed in the process of capturing the data that is them. Because of this, Kirby was able to examine what happens when that process is disturbed, and multiple versions of a person are created at different times.When I was done with this book, I was left with the feeling that it didn’t matter. I know that the end was definitely a commentary on the teleportation system, but in the end it made me feel like what I read was kind of a waste of time, especially as I wasn’t terribly enamored with the characters to begin with.Although it had a very promising and unique premise, I disliked Jessica and didn’t really feel like the story mattered to the fictional universe at the end of the book.
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Chaos and Flame
by
Tessa Gratton and Justina Ireland
MJ
, March 28, 2023
Cassian Goldhoard has visions of the future—almost exclusively featuring a girl that he paints with no eyes. As the High Prince Regent of House Dragon, his mercurial moods put him in danger of being proclaimed mad and removed from the throne. His brother, Talon, the War Prince, does everything in his power to protect his brother and his House. Darling Seabreak is an assassin for her adopted House, Kraken. She was adopted by the House Regent after House Dragon murdered her entire House, Sphinx. She spent years living in the sewers, which damaged her eyesight, requiring her to wear special goggles. After Darling is captured by Talon during an attempted rescue of her adopted father, Cassian presents an enigmatic solution for peace between the Houses. Together, Cassian, Talon, and Darling work toward trusting each other and peace for their country. The characters, though immature, were believable and interesting. The immaturity worked, though, because the book is YA fiction. I enjoyed that the ending of the book wasn’t immediately evident to me either, despite Cassian leaving clues as to what he was plotting. The romance between Talon and Darling was enjoyable but it felt a little rushed. But, again, as they were teenagers, I think the immaturity of the romance works. I also think that it is something that will be further developed in book 2. Overall, I’m so happy that I read this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone who loves a good YA fantasy.
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Ring of Solomon
by
Aden Polydoros
MJ
, February 09, 2023
Zach Darlington discovers a strange ring with Jewish markings at a flea market and decides to buy it for his mom’s birthday. Shortly thereafter, he discovers that the ring allows him to talk to animals and that the king of the demons is the ring’s guardian. What follows is a middle-grade adventure to stop the apocalypse, in a similar vein as Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books. There were quite a few things that I really enjoyed about this book. I thought that the characters were interesting and believable as far as a middle grade story goes. Obviously they were immature and not nearly as complex as adult characters but that makes them more relatable to kids. I also really liked the inclusion of Jewish mythology, something I’m not terribly familiar with. The only thing I wish had been done differently about this book was that I wish the plot had been more developed and that the talking to animals plot point didn’t seem like just a side note in the end. I think the book could have easily been 50-100 pages more (it came in at just under 250) and it would have fleshed out the story just a little more while not making it that much longer of a read. Overall, this was a highly enjoyable story and it is something I would definitely encourage my kids to read when they get older.
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The Hermes Protocol
by
Chris M. Arnone
MJ
, January 17, 2023
Although this book was far from perfect, it was definitely an enjoyable read. Elise, Quynn, and Bastion, while somewhat underdeveloped and flat characters, were all very likable and went on an intriguing adventure to retrieve A.I. Bastion’s stollen chip. While the plot was somewhat predictable, the world-building was beautiful. Arnone did a good job of creating an interesting world ruled by corporations that define all aspects of your life, and using corporate espionage—Elise’s job—was a great way to show off different aspects of that world-building. There were, however, a couple things I didn’t like about this book. The characters were a little flat, but that’s pretty standard in plot-driven books like this. My biggest gripe was the sloppy writing in areas. I think that it could have definitely done with a little more polish in terms of word choice and sentence structure in these places. But the laziest part that comes to mind is during a part with an announcer that Arnone described as a boisterous voice. During the scene the voice was eventually referred to as just “boisterous” which made zero sense to me and just struck me as something sloppy a writer might do in a rough draft. Overall, enjoyable and interesting, I just wish it had better editing.
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