Just finished reading Exit Strategy by Jen J. Danna. It's been on my (metaphorical) shelf for a while, I think I found it a few years ago Dollar Tree. Started reading it during a power outage the other day, and got hooked pretty fast.

A lot of books are a bit bulkier, scifi/fantasy books that have a lot of world building and really detailed plotlines. Exit Strategy has a lot "smaller" of a story for a lack of a better term (smaller stakes, humanity isn't at stake or anything, + a smaller cast of characters), and it takes probably a dozen or so pages to introduce the setting and then gets right into the main plot.

It moves quickly, in the ~300 or so pages it has a self contained story that's moves rapidly. There's not a lot of subplots and it doesn't meander too much, so it's a fairly linear story throughout the entire book that doesn't get boring. Characters seem human, not just cardboard cutouts or with crazy inhuman smarts/skills/etc. Definitely worth a read.

#bookstr