Less Reviewy Than I Intended

I'm so many weeks behind on reviewing that I probably won't be able to catch up. I think September's going to be a crazy one for me: the Friends of the Library is having a big book sale! And I'm on the committee to plan their big event in November! And I'm starting a new job! And leaving my old one that I love but it's time to move on! And my college friends are coming to town! And I have a lot of theater tickets!

It's all going to be fine--great, in fact! Many big and exciting things! But blogging has been falling by the wayside and I think if I do a post a week I'm going to be doing as well as I can hope.

So, because I'm nothing if not an obsessive completist, here's a list of the books I will not be reviewing in the near future.

The Spindlers, by Lauren Oliver.  I read this one out loud to my eight year old and he liked it a lot, but I felt that there wasn't much there.  The main character sets out to save her brother and travels through a magical world, but after setting off, pretty much nothing that happens in the book is something she did.  Even the trouble she gets into is mostly accidental, and the number of random passers-by who save her is kind of exhausting.  I was much more fond of her bewigged talking rat companion.

Dept.H: After the Flood, by Matt and Sharlene Kindt.  A murder mystery on a flooding submersible research station while a virus levels the outside world.  It's like someone wrote the comic from Station Eleven.  I don't love the art--it's a little too hard to parse--but the story is amazing. Warning: cliffhangers!

Envy of Angels, by Matt Wallace.  This is the first novella in the Sin du Jour series, and I desperately hope that I get a chance to review the whole series someday.  This was just great--dark and light and funny and grim and full of monsters and demonic chickens.

Star Scouts, by Mike Lawrence.  Another kids book, this one about a girl who is lonely in her new town till she accidentally gets beamed aboard a spaceship by an overeager scout collecting samples for a merit badge.  She ends up joining the scout troop and having great adventures at a summer camp that's not *exactly* what her dad pictured when he told her to go make friends.

Buy not to worry; there are plenty of upcoming reviews, as well as reading planning posts (my favorite posts!). I have a small backlog of review copies to cover, and I really want to talk about Lindy West's Shrill, though I'm not sure I'll be able to add anything insightful on a book so full of insight.

So, forgive my flurry of absences and batten down the hatches of September.  Because in two weeks, I'm going to work in a library!