I read a ton over the holidays and didn't keep up with my write-ups, but I want to wrap 2016, so I'm bundling two books to finish out the year.
Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie
As I predicted, I finished up the Imperial Radch trilogy just as 2016 came to a close. I really enjoyed all three books, though I thought the second was slightly weaker than the first and the third. When I wrote up Ancillary Justice, I talked about a couple aspects of it that blew my mind: one was the AI narration and the other was the gender pronouns. By the second book, I was used to the gender pronouns and the narrator was in a new role that resulted in a more straightforward first-person narrative. However, the third book brings back (and even complicates further) a lot of what I found so interesting about AI and what I'll call beinghood from the first book, which I was happy about.
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
I started then abandoned The Talented Mr. Ripley in mid-December, but I went back to finish it on New Year's Eve when I found myself with 10 hours until the new year and not much to do. I was very conflicted about this book. I stopped reading it when I did because, in retrospect, I was having rather a bad day (week?) and the book was getting me down. What I had a hard time grappling with was that much what was bothering me about the book was also a sign of a well-created character. I think it would be hard to read the book and not hope that Ripley gets away with his crimes; as a reader, you become invested in them. But he's also hard to like, and I think that's the point. Anyway, the book was getting me down and it was just so stressful to read, I had to stop. But then it was New Year's Eve around 2pm and I had just finished the thoroughly enjoyable They Came to Baghdad and I thought, maybe I can go back to Ripley and finish it in one sitting to minimize the drawn-out stressfulness and that's what I did. Having finished it, I'm just as conflicted as I was before, but the stress has subsided, so it was probably a good thing.
