BookOwl

  4/5 stars *Spoiler alert!* Sea of Tranquility is one of those books that absolutely breaks your brain, but in the good way, where you come out of it with a different perspective of reality. I read Station Eleven and really enjoyed its TV adaptation, so it was a no-brainer to pick up Sea of Tranquility from the library. While a relatively small volume, the story punches well above its weight. So, it’s no surprise then that this book won in the science fiction category in the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards. “My point is, there’s always something. I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that  now , after all these millennia of false alarms,  now  is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.” Yes, Sea of Tranquility is a time travel adventure w...

  4/5 stars *Spoiler alert!* The Office BFFs was a hilarious and heartfelt memoir by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, who portrayed Pam and Angela, respectively, on the hit show The Office. It is partially an extension of their excellent podcast, Office Ladies , where each episode of the nine-season mockumentary show about a fictional paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania (otherwise known as Dunder Mifflin) is reviewed and analyzed. While their podcast gives me life, I enjoyed the print medium because of all the funny cast photos Fischer and Kinsey include in their narratives. If you listen to the podcast, some of the stories may sound familiar. But again, there’s photos in The Office BFFs that are pure gold. You can’t get pictures in a podcast. “Invest in the people in your lives. Find that friend who makes you feel ten feet tall and bulletproof. Build them up and encourage them. Show up for each other no matter how big or small the occasion. Link arms and walk into any ...

4.5/5 stars *Spoiler alert!* What a cute little STEM romance The Love Hypothesis is! Romance isn’t my normal genre, but I was intrigued by the recommendations I had gotten, and the blurb seemed promising. So, it came home with me from the bookstore. I’m very glad that I got to read it! “ ‘Olive,’ ” Dr. Aslan interrupted her with a stern tone. “ ‘What do I always tell you?’ ” “Um . . . ‘Don’t misplace the multichannel pipette?’ ” “ ‘The other thing.’ ” She sighed. “ ‘Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man.’ ”     Olive is a third-year graduate student at Stanford University studying pancreatic cancer. She’s going to be graduating soon and is looking for a lab to continue her important work of finding early biomarkers of pancreatic cancer in the blood. (Pancreatic cancer took her mother away at a young age, so this is very much personal for her.) She hasn’t had much success on that front. What’s also stressing her out is her best friend Anh and ...

4.5/5 stars *Spoiler alert!* I can already feel the book hangover coming over me. It was worth it though, not just for Storm of Olympus, but for the rest of this Greek mythology-inspired trilogy. Claire M. Andrews clearly did her research and then wove an arguably better yarn than the original stories, one that gives women, often bereft of agency in Greek mythology, their voices. Alongside Daphne, we get to see Helen, Ariadne, Hippolyta, and more as they fight side by side to reclaim Olympus not just for the gods, but the mortals as well. “My gaze snaps up toward her. The goddess lays a cool hand on my shivering back. ‘He’s dead. All the gods are dead.’ Tears flow, burning a path down my cheeks. ‘How can I stop the titans from destroying humanity without them?’ Circe, lips trembling raises her chin. ‘You can save us all.’ I cannot feel hope. Will not. I croak, ‘How?’ She raises a cool, dry hand to my cheek. ‘By becoming the Storm of Olympus.’” I knew it was coming, bu...

4.5/5 stars *Spoiler alert!* After reading Tress of the Emerald Sea , one of the latest novels set in the Cosmere universe, I think that Dr. Ulaam might want to posthumously add Brandon Sanderson’s brain to his collection! I am floored that Sanderson saw an opportunity for a break between his major ongoing series, like “Mistborn” and “The Stormlight Archives” and used his down time to write more books. As always, he writes an engrossing original fantasy, and I didn’t mind that this time it was a standalone novel. In an improved version of The Princess Bride , we see a practical homebody go on a seafaring adventure to save a loved one. Glorf, more popularly known as “Tress” for her hair, lives on the Emerald Sea on a backwater island known as Diggen’s Point and has never thought to leave. That is until her best friend, Charlie, is sent away and taken captive by the fearsome Sorceress. “It might be said that Tress had a way with words. In that her words tended to get in her way...