Hi friends! How are we all doing today? This week was a very slow reading week for me, first due to election anxiety and then due to ELECTION JOY! Wow, what a weird and wonderful feeling! So, this newsletter will be short and sweet today due to my unmanageable levels of hopescrolling.

Books marked with a * were gifted to me and books marked with a ^ I was paid to read.

The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi - This the the second book in Scalzi's OLD MAN'S WAR series. While I had a good time with it, it wasn't my favorite of his. You can kind of tell it's a mid-series book. I did enjoy the reversal of the setup from the first book (I won't spoil that here) and how that expanded the worldbuilding and gave us a closer look at the evils of the big bad megacorp/government/military.

The Sovereign by Kiki Taylor^ - An intriguing YA dystopia blending space, science, and surveillance. While I often enjoy books that drop you into the story with no context, this one kind of never filled in the context for a lot of the backstory. We know we're here and what's happening now, but how we got here is more or less a mystery. I did like how the MCs had to grapple with whether they ever had any control over the direction of their lives or not - I'm sure that resonates with young readers.

One Good Thing

Well, it's many good things this week, isn't it! I'll focus on one local to me. Virginia had three questions on the ballot this election - codifying the right to abortion, removing the old ban on same sex marriage, and restoring voting rights for felons who have served their time. All three passed! Local advocacy groups, including Metro DC DSA, have been working hard on this for months, and I'm really proud of this accomplishment.

Anyway, here's Donut keeping his snoot warm.

Donut the orange and white cat curled up in a window with his tail over his nose