Senevilla

I cannot recommend enough. From page one I fell in love.

There was a war, and many of the robots fought and have a sort of ptsd. Soldier bots have their messages erase every 24hrs for security, so when one robot loses his friends in an accident he “records” his chat log and memories like a film so he won't forget a single detail. He carries around this huge file for years. When he tries to remember his friends, that file always comes up first, and he relives that day over and over.

He is so afraid of forgetting the friends he loved. One day he shares the file with someone for the first time, and he finds the memory hurts less. Eventually he moves the file into long term memory, because he knows someone else carries a copy too, so it won't be lost even if something happens to him. It's still there, but when he searches for memories of his friends, now the good memories come up first.

I didn't expect a book called “Automatic Noodle” to be about grief, but here we are.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc copy, all opinions are my own.

The ending was pretty disappointing. The set up and plot were great, but Tatiana just refuses to live because she's so love sick? It would have made more sense if Sorrow really was enchanting her. It's not romantic, it's idiotic. Give girls a better role model of what love looks like.

I love a good cozy mystery and I love NOLA! Aside from the smattering of internalized misogyny (oh 2011, how far we've come) and the conflation of creole and cajun (no, they aren't the same), I really enjoyed this book. The descriptions of food were great, it really made my mouth water.

Not an overt spoiler, but I discuss the ending below.




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I docked two stars because of the ending, no spoilers!! I feel like the line between a good plot twist and the author making it impossible to figure out the mystery is a little thin in this book, leaning towards the latter. I was disappointed in the end not because my theories were wrong, but because I felt like I just didn't have all the cards on the table to begin with.

Absolutely hilarious. The writing style is very much like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but not quite as novel. The world-building is expansive and incredibly original and the plot is well paced and interesting. I expected this to just be a light novel, but it actually has a strong message and covers a number of serious themes all within a glittery-glam package.

4.5 overall, rounded up. This is the assassin nun fantasy Dune could have been (though more fantasy, less sci-fi). Actually complex women who have strengths and flaws and personalities that exist entirely independent of any man. Each woman is not only totally unique in their speech and habits, they're also very very multifaceted, adopting different affectations depending on the circumstances (gasp! Like normal people!). These nuns are badass and they know it. While they could be criticized for being “strong” in almost exclusively traditionally masculine ways, I think they're also flawed enough not to qualify as Mary Sues.

Every once in a while something sounded just a bit too sexual to be appropriate when talking about children, like mentioning one child holding her hand above the breast of another for a beat without really explaining why. They were no more than 10 or 11, and because the book is written by a man, I was a littttle suspicious, but I think (and hope) that I was just too on guard, having read too many shitty books about women by men. Very excited for the next one!!