Reading Roundup: The 27th week of 2025
work stress, anticipating another baby, but a totally awesome 5 star read to share with you this week.
It's been a worrier of a week, with work pulling out the big guns again and deciding 1 of the small team I work in is to be let go. Obviously, I don't want it to be me, with a baby on the way. Hubris is a funny thing, though. Only a few weeks ago we were saying how rough it had been me looking for work with a baby then a toddler, but how that was nothing to me driving a hundred miles a day for an entry level job that, all things considered, paid quite poorly (I earned just over £15,500 those first few years).
Still, if you told the me then that I'd be living where we are now and I'd have the job I do I'd have laughed at you. Add in that we have another kid en-route and I'd suspect you of fictionalising my entire life! here are today's reads. Look out for the 5 star one in particular because it got under my skin.
3 stars to Q-Space, by Greg Cox
Book Description:
" The unpredictable cosmic entity known only as Q has plagued Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise since their very first voyage together. But little is known of Q's mysterious past or that of the unearthly realm from which he hails. Now Picard must learn Q's secrets -- or all of reality may perish! Ever since its discovery, the great galactic barrier has impeded humanity's exploration of the universe beyond the Milky Way. Now a brilliant Federation scientist may have found a way to breach the barrier, and the Enterprise is going to put it to the test. The last thing Picard needs is a return visit from an omnipotent troublemaker so, naturally, Q appears. But Q has more in mind than his usual pranks, and while the Enterprise struggles to defeat a powerful inhuman foe, Captain Picard must embark on a fantastic odyssey into the history of the Q Continuum itself, with the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance."
My Thoughts:
"Though littered with star Trek Easter eggs, sometimes this felt a bit forced. And with the recent announcement of the death of Peter David, who's Q books were truly next level, it's a little bittersweet reading this now. I will carry on with the other 2 in the saga to see where things end and of course heard John and Sir Patrick's voices whilst reading this."
This Book: has 271 pages, a community rating of 3.81 and was first published in 1998.
5 stars to Last Lesson, by James Goodhand
Book Description:
" 'Devastatingly good' - Clare Mackintosh, author of After The End 13 Reasons Why meets The Wasp Factory in an impossible to put down thriller that will take your breath away.Last year, Ollie Morcombe was a star pupil, popular and a gifted musician.Then, after the accident, everything changed. Now he's an outcast, a prime target of the school bullies who have made his life a living hell.Today - the last day of the school year - he's brought those bullies a gift. A homemade pipe bomb.What has driven a model student to plan an unspeakable revenge And with the clock ticking down to home time, what can anybody do to stop him'A powerfully charged study in empathy' - Financial Times 'A sensitive, gripping book about mental health and masculinity' - Samuel Pollen, author of The Year I Didn't Eat."
My Thoughts:
" I've read a lot of good books this year, but this one ... It was visceral, poignant and in spots literally impossible to put down. Before the big climax during that piano lesson, my skin crawled and my mind fizzed and tingled with anticipation in a way a book hasn't done for quite some time. Seeing Ollie so happy and carefree "earning his pipes", as Rothfuss might have put it, held such a potent, hard-hitting contrast with the reality of his later life. TO have so many emotions in such a short space of time is perhaps not good for my blood pressure. This is absolutely a novel I will keep on the shelf, because it is strong. Strong in message, strong in the echoes of the UK secondary school scene, strong in not hiding from the consequences of things, and, should you cast all that aside, strong as a bloody brilliant story." This Book: has 288 pages, a community rating of 3.38 and was first published in 2020.
Things not on Goodreads or reread
Harry Potter's Chocolate Frog Card , by Kgfinkel
A Good Aunt Petunia story where Hermione's a thief, brought up in a disreputable area.