Back in February I wrote about how I'd started a bunch of books, but struggling to finish them...but great news! I've managed to finish a couple of titles recently!
Floating Hotel
First up, I finally finished Floating Hotel, which I'd begun before Christmas. This was a nice - cozy I guess you'd say - novella about the goings-on of the crew and guests of a slightly out of fashion luxury space hotel that flits from planet to planet. The backdrop is a somewhat authoritarian galactic empire, whose politics drove some of the slow-burn plot threads.
And while there are some plot threads running through the book, this is story where you are mainly just here to enjoy hanging out with the characters.
Speaking of, I loved them all; it never quite felt like I had enough time with each of them, but at the same time no one felt like they overstayed their welcome. I read Float Hotel slowly (obviously), not because it wasn't engaging but because it was a chill read. The first half you are simply enjoying hearing about the rather quotidian lives of the characters (who are a found family of misfits who've run away from troubles and theire past lives). It does build up toward a mystery (actually a handful of mysteries) and spy plot and the pace picks up quite a bit in the second half.
If you liked The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, I think you'd enjoy this one.
Anne of Green Gables
I don't think I read Anne of Green Gables as a kid, although being Canadian I absorbed at least the outline of the story via cultural osmosis. And I must have seen the mini-series the CBC produced in the 80s.
But recently I'd seen it mentioned by a few content creators on bluesky and youtube and on a whim I decided to download it from Project Gutenberg.
Guys, this book is SO GOOD! I'm kind of ticked off I didn't read it as a kid because if I had this could have been, like, my fourth or fifth re-read! I'd legit been a little worried before starting it since older prose sometimes takes me more effort to read, but Lucy Maud Montgomery is such a very witty writer and there are some great, funny bits especially early in the book. I ended up reading a bunch of selections aloud to my partner.
LMM describes one character who is shocked by the Cuthberts adopting Anne: "She thought in exclamation marks!", a phrase I've adopted into my own usage.
The plot essentially about an ageing brother and sister who wished to adopt a boy to help with farm work and through a miscommunication instead end up with Anne. Instead of sending her back to the orphanage, they are charmed by Anne (pretty much every character immediately falls for Anne's charms). We follow along with her adventures and mishaps from ages 11 through 16. The story is sweet, optimstic and made me happy in my heart. Anne is big-hearted, in love with the world and while reading it some of those sentiments will inevitably rub off on you.
Can't recommend it enough and begin in the public domain, it and its sequels are easily accessible.
What's next?
I'd intended on knocking off more half-finished books I mentioned in my February post, but I was ambushed by a library hold I placed on Dungeon Crawler Carl becoming available weeks before I expected it. It sounds like I can expect that to be a fast read though.
