At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream, Wade Rouse

Inspired mostly by the Thoreau passages his grandma used to read him, a gay man leaves the city for almost-the-boonies. There he discovers that the simple life is just too fucking simple for him.

This book is pretty funny. It is kind of hard for me to identify with Rouse, though. I have these problems with any author who is so determined about being girly.

Heaven is High, Kate Wilhelm

This Barbara Holloway novel seems to be set right after Death Qualified, which was the first one in the series. So the chronology kinda threw me a bit. Also, there is one scene that seems really similar to a Wilhelm story I read a few years ago.

However, I'm pretty sure there is no law against plagiarizing yourself--and this is a very compelling novel anyway.

Barbara agrees to help a couple. The woman is a refugee from a man in Haiti who kept the woman's mother prisoner until she died. The woman is mute. She escaped with help from her husband, an ex-pro football player. Suddenly, immigration has found out the woman is in the US illegally and she is in danger of being deported. Both the woman and her husband say she will die before she goes back to Haiti.

Trying to find the woman's only living relatives, Barbara travels to Belize--and finds a situation so complicated, Barbara is soon in danger too.

White Time, Margo Lanagan

The stories in this collection aren't quite as good as the ones in Black Juice, but they are still really compelling and disturbing.

I am going to read everything this woman ever writes.

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins

Katniss has been rescued from the Hunger Games, but Peeta has been left behind. Even after she physically recovers, Katniss doesn't really want to be the face of the revolution everyone wants her to be. But then the Capitol breaks out the biggest weapon in their arsenal--Peeta. And Katniss suddenly has a cause again.

I won't say this is the best-written series I've ever read, but it does get across the cost of any war, no matter how just.

It also has a knack for making me cry. Dammit.

The Descent, Jeff Long

Apparently the movie of the same name was based on this novel--which is weird, because the movie is way more scary and disturbing. The novel reads more like a pointless sequel to the movie.

Okay, so there are these monstrous albino creatures living underground. And the creatures eat or enslave human beings. And at first humans are at a disadvantage. But then the creatures start disappearing. A power-mad politician/industrialist sends an expedition to explore the new territory underground.

This novel has a few very scary scenes, but they happen mainly at the beginning of the book. After that it is pretty much like any other thriller.