This or That Reading Challenge discussion

This: Read a book from your local library.
That: Read a recently purchased or gifted book.

For this month I chose This: Read a book from your local library, for which I read The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz. The premise is very clever and unfortunately very timely: in a world where time travel is possible, there's a battle going on between men going back in time and making edits in timelines that further restrict women's rights, and women who are fighting by making edits to restore their rights. This book had a great balance between the scifi aspects of time travel, and the very real fight for gender equality. Some of the men's words and actions were scarily real, and it gave an extra dose of gravitas to what was going on. The various time periods and real-world events were well researched and depicted. Really loved this one. 5 stars.

For this month I chose That: Read a recently purchased or gifted book, for which I read Strange Beasts, one of my Christmas gifts. On the whole it was a little fanfictiony at times with its main characters, Samantha Harker, daughter of the couple that fought Dracula, and Dr. Helena Moriarty but it was a fun romp through the streets of Paris chasing werewolves.