Booklogging: Frederica by Georgette Heyer

Whoever told me I'd love Frederica? *waits an ominous pause*

WAS RIGHT. It was so my kind of book - competent heroines who don't need the heroes AT ALL, but the heroes JUST WANT TO HELP.

( spoilers are spinsters at the age of 22 )

Frederica is a book about two families. One wealthy, greedy, and bored of EVERYTHING. This is Alverstoke's family.

The other family is the Merrivales - Frederica's brothers and sisters. They aren't penniless, but their estate has been mortgaged to the hilt and their eldest brother doesn't show a penchant for managing it well. So, their oldest sister, Frederica has taken charge of everything, including her siblings.

The cast is the Marquis of Alverstoke, who would spend the whole book like this if he could get away from the Merrivales long enough.

Frederica who is, as previously noted, competent, awesome, flawed in that occasionally she is SO FED UP with being a middle aged spinster aunt at 24. (or 22, I can't remember.)

Jessamy, the second son who thinks he wants to join the church and so is REALLY SAD whenever anything bad happens, and blames himself. Everyone else is like, "SHUT UP, JESSAMY. It was not your fault!" And then Jessamy makes a sad!Charlie Brown face and declares he's unfit for a life in the church. If Jessamy knew about global warming, he'd think that was his fault, too.

Felix who is obsessed with steam technology and stows away aboard a steam ship and then aboard a hot air balloon and convinces Alverstoke that it's an amazing treat (for Alverstoke) to visit a foundry that uses steam technology.

Charis whose angelic beauty makes Frederica think that all she needs is a season in London to land a good husband.

The whole plot is essentially:

Frederica and Alverstoke have flirty conversations and are interrupted by...

Jessamy!
Jessamy: I have done this TERRIBLE, AWFUL THING. I will pay you back when you tell me how much money it cost you.
Alverstoke: It is not that terrible.
Jessamy: It is the most terrible awful thing that has ever been done. Also, for real. Tell me how much money I owe you.
Alverstoke: It is not that bad. And stop talking about money.

Felix!
Felix: You want to take me to see machines!
Alverstoke: How about my secretary takes you?
Felix: But it is a TREAT. FOR YOU.
Alverstoke: Ugh. Fine.
Felix: =) =) =) <3

Charis!
Charis: I am participating in Romeo and Juliet with a guy who is also my pseudo-cousin, but it is SECRET AND NO ONE KNOWS.
Alverstoke: You are so boring. It's a pity you're so beautiful.
Charis: I am in loooooove. And it is tragggic! Alverstoke is trying to deny our loooooove.
Frederica: Everyone knows, Charis, stfu and marry someone who can support you, not our penniless pseudo-cousin, ok?
Charis: You are trying to deny our looooove. You are evil! No you aren't! But you're trying to break us apart.
Frederica: *facepalm*

If that has not convinced you, then let me remind you WHACKY FAMILY SHENANIGANS. 'nuff said.

Booklogging: The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron

The Spirit Thief is the first of the Eli Monpress series. Eli Monpress is a thief whose goal in life is to have a 1 million bounty on his head. He will rob, kidnap and threaten to get that bounty.

And he's utterly hilarious.

The magic of this world works because spiritualists (wizards) have agreements with different spirits where the spirits do spiritualists' bidding in exchange for some of the wizard's power. Eli Monpress gets spirits to do what he wants by flirting with them until they are giggling and do whatever he wants.

The book starts with Eli kidnapping a king, and then follows Miranda, the cop sent to catch the thief and the king's evil exiled brother. All of the main characters and all the supporting characters are really fun. I want to be Miranda with her fierce sense of moral direction and her training and her loyal spirits. At the same time, Eli and his gang of a master swordsman and a demon are really fun to read. We see them care about each other and respect each other. It's very fun to read them.

The only downside was that parts of it read like an anime. Fight scenes especially had Eli's master swordsman moving epically slow only to meet the incredibly fast enemies. That sort of awkward one character is going slow, but is actually faster than the fast characters only works in anime and magna, I think. In writing it doesn't make any sense.

Similarly, Eli's gang and the villain are all larger than life. Eli is the best theif ever. Josef is the best most amazing warrior ever. Nico is so powerful and frightening that literally every soul in the world would die trying to kill her. The villain is manipulative and evil and yet completely beatable when it comes down to the line.

It's a quick read and a ton of fun. I will definitely be reading the sequels, but I kind of hope that the characters become more... human.

Booklogging: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Zoo City is set in an alternate universe where after a "zoo plague" people who commit murder (or, as is implied, feel the guilt for a murder) are gifted with an animal. That animal gives them special powers.

Zinzi December is gifted with the ability to find lost things. She doesn't find people or weapons at the start of the story. However when a client is killed and she's confronted with the enormity of her debt to the criminal underworld, she takes on a missing persons case.

This is essentially a noir story set in an incredibly rich, detailed and respectful South Africa, told from the perspective of an ex-junkie, ex-reporter, current-spam writer. It's incredible how familiar tropes are new and exciting.

One of my least favorite tropes in noir detective novels is the self-destructive attitudes. They drink, they destroy relationships around them, they're violent and mouth off to police. My favorite part of Zoo City was how self-aware Zinzi is. She spends the whole book carefully aware of herself - as both an ex-junkie and as a human being.

Even when she does bad things (like playing an active part in Nigerian money scams) she's aware of herself and aware that part of her likes it.

I also can't explain how much I love reading a novel where Africa isn't all one huge country, isn't the exotic, isn't a collated amount of facts from Hollywood movies about Africa.

As a side note, the digital version of this book was really well put together. (And I was surprised to find fanfic from her first novel, Moxyland, in the back!)

As an additional side note, I at first classified this as "science fiction" before reading that it was categorized as fantasy.