Books of 2025: January Wrap-Up.
I read a lot this month! Finally got around to the novella kick I had been hoping to do after NaNo (thanks, Tor!), PLUS the weather was fabulous for reading through some Snowy Winter Books, and I managed to daisy-chain between them really well!
Photos and/or reviews liked below:
TIME'S AGENT - ★★★ I had outrageously high hopes for this one (Pocket Worlds?! dimensional fuckery?! scientist MCs?!? queer?!), and unfortunately it turned out to be Just Okay for me. Very much a grief-centered book, very much a corporate hellscape future (I suppose it does have some Murderbot overlap, in that regard). How time worked in the Pocket Worlds was wild and cool, but I found the grief-strained relationship between the MC and her wife exasperating--maybe it'll hit right for allos, but it was not my cup of tea.
WELCOME TO THE GODDAMN ICE CUBE - ★★★½ I don't usually peruse non-fiction, but I'm doing a subscription box of nature writing this year, and they sent me this! Interesting cultural window to far-north Norway, very winter-approved, and pleasantly surprisingly queer. Glad I read it! (CW for much sexual assault/abuse, though, broadcasted clearly in the first couple pages.)
CAMP ZERO - ★★★½ This near future cli-fi was comped to Station Eleven (which I loved) and The Power (which I have not read), and takes place in far north Canada where something sus is going on at a building project. I was really enjoying it up until the last hundred pages or so, when things suddenly felt very rushed and thrown together--I might've given it 4 stars if she stuck the landing. Another good winter read!
BLACKFISH CITY - ★★★½ I can't decide if this is 3.5 or 4 stars, but since I didn't slam the 4-star button on Goodreads, I'm going to leave it as 3.5. I really liked this one, though! Love a good futuristic floating city in the Arctic. The worldbuilding was very cool, and the polar bear was appropriately terrifying. Had a lot of POVs and jumped kind of rapidly between them, which I didn't have a ton of bandwidth for this month. Overall had a good time! Might reread when the time is right.
LOST ARK DREAMING - ★★★★ I thought this one was also about a floating city based on (not looking closely enough at) the cover art, but it turns out those are Super High Rise Skyscrapers where the first few floors are underwater. More climate fiction, but this one takes place off the coast of Nigeria, and the comp to Rivers Solomon's THE DEEP is absolutely loadbearing (affectionate). Enjoyed this one a lot, too, to the tune of Some Of The Interspersed Poetry Made Me Feel Shrimp Emotions, And I Busted Out A Sticky-Tab To Flag A Few Lines.
THE DEAD CAT TAIL ASSASSINS - ★★★½ This was a lot more fun than I anticipated! I've really enjoyed all of Clark's novella-length work, and this one was funny and surprisingly weird and perfectly fucked up and unfortunately I cannot state specifics without being spoilery. Definitely worth picking up, if you like assassins and mind-bendy plot twists.
ADRIFT IN CURRENTS CLEAN AND CLEAR - ★★★½ One of my favorite January Traditions is reading the latest installment of Wayward Children. I really enjoyed the waterworld in this one, and All Things Russian are my jam! I should go back and reread Sugar Sky, though.
OVERGROWTH - ★★★★½ I received an ARC, and it was SO GOOD HOLY SHIT!!! I actually wrote a Thoughtful Review about it. Out May 6, 2025! Great things to look forward to!!
THE LANGUAGE OF THE NIGHT - 94*/259 pages read; will report back. Really enjoying this so far! It's very thoroughly introduced, and I appreciate the thematic organization over chronological. (*asterisk: By the page numbers, I'm up to 94, but there are definitely xl pages of General Introduction before the book itself starts--I am not exaggerating about Thoroughly Introduced haha.)
Under the Cut: A Note About ~*★Stars★*~
