The Music Shop - Rachel Joyce

One day this past fall, I got stuck in a Youtube spiral.  You know, you start watching one video--in my case, one of Lea Salonga performing "Own my Own" from Les Miserables--and soon you're going through one related video after another.  I ended up, somehow, in chain of flash mob videos, including one of a performance of the "Hallelujah Chorus" in a food court.  I'm not sure what kind of Youtube spirtal Rachel Joyce got stuck in, but it must have been a similar one, because I feel pretty confident that this book is one of those "What led to this moment?" ponderings.

Set mostly in the late 1980s, the main character in this story is Frank, the owner of a music shop in England that only sells vinyl in a time when CDs are becoming all the rage.  When a young woman faints outside his shop one night, Frank finds himself seemingly tied to her as she comes back again and again, and finally asks him to teach her about music the way he sees it--in a way that was influenced by his eccentric and neglectful mother--though Frank knows there can't be any romance, because Ilse has a fiance.  Filled with quirky characters such as Kit the accident-prone assistant manager, the man who only likes Chopin, the ex-priest Father Anthony who owns a religious souvenir shop, and Maud the grumpy tattoo artist who is secretly in love with Frank, this is also the story of a crumbling but loving community that makes up the nook of Unity Street.  The chapters each focus around a song or cluster of songs, with Frank giving new insight into people on how to live and feel through the music that he finds for them.  But for Ilse, even with her lessons, he hears only silence.

This is a cute story.  Frank's devotion to vinyl isn't blind, he has reasons for it, and hey, vinyl is even making a comeback in our current days, when most of our music is purchased and consumed through our computers and phones!  (This is touched on later in the book, as well.)  I did feel like the "Hidden Track" segment at the end was unnecessary, but maybe that's why it's labeled as a hidden track instead of an epilogue--it's not necessary to listen to it/read it, but you can if you want to.  Though the "sides" of the story, which make up the parts, gave me a very strange mental picture.  Rather than having just two "sides," like a record, there are three or four--which would make a very oddly-shaped record indeed.

The discussions of music that both Frank and his mother, Peg, lead throughout the book are by far some of its strongest points.  They make you think of music in new ways--about the sounds that underlay the main melody, about the way the instruments are used, about the silence that precedes and follows and sometimes pauses a song.  The atmosphere of Unity Street is intriguing--the struggling community being menaced by Big Development, and not really being able to keep going despite their willpower to do so.  The close-knit connections of the people here provide the heart for the story, even when things seem to be going badly.  But some of it is definitely overblown.  Kit's clumsiness, for example, is never ending and completely exasperating, and while it leads to a catalyst for the story, I found myself rolling my eyes in exasperation at him rather than laughing for his antics after just a few chapters.  And the climax of the book, while lovely, definitely stretched the bounds of suspension of disbelief.  Additionally, Frank and Ilse's love (because yes, of course there is love even though Frank is convinced it can't be) is of the instant variety, which means that the back-and-forth between them for most of the book feels excessively dramatic.

Overall, a cute book, but one I'm not sure I would reach for again.  After all, if I want to get the feeling of that climactic scene, I can just head over to Youtube.

3 stars out of 5.

Reading Challenge Updates

One month into 2018 and I'm done with the first four titles of my reading challenge; I want to space these at about four per month, which gives me a little "squish" room on months where I'll be tackling longer titles, such as Drums of Autumn.  I think I've run out of books that I already own for these categories, or at least that come to mind, so I'm going to have to start branching out to find titles to fill the categories currently lacking them.


Completed
-True crime.  For this, I settled on Lost Girls by Robert Kolker.  This focuses on the victims of a string of yet-unsolved murders on Long Island.  While there isn't a satisfying conclusion because the crimes aren't solved, and that also means that some of the investigation is still under wraps, I appreciated the focus on the victims rather than potential suspects (for the most part) and also how Kolker turned the focus onto women who work in the sex industry, and how the justice system fails them.  Not a happy read but a good one.

-The next book in a series you started.  Cobweb Empire by Vera Nazarian is the sequel to Cobweb Bride, which I read a few years ago.  It's a second book, which meant that not a lot happened because of a severe case of Second Book Syndrome.  The geography of this world continued confuse me and there are way too many characters running around doing nothing of much importance.  I'll probably finish the series, but the first book was definitely stronger that this one was.

-A book with characters who are twins.  I love books about books, and that is what Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale is.  The story twining throughout the present-day tale is a mystery that, while puzzling, is possible to unravel, and there's also a timeless sort of quality to the book that I really appreciated.  The story is slow, but so many things are brewing at the same time in the background narrative that it didn't really feel slow--and that ending!  Oh, the ambiguity.  Very  nice.

-A past Goodreads Choice Awards Winner.  Into the Water is Paula Hawkins' second book, following The Girl on the Train.  It's very different from TGOTT.  It has a wonderful atmosphere and a sort of dreamy, floaty, and yet sinister mystery, but I didn't find the book to be as strong overall.  There were way too many characters running around, making it hard to develop any of them or even keep them all straight at some points, and the characters spent the whole time running around trying to figure out what was told to them early on, which was immensely frustrating.  Thumbs up for atmosphere, but meh overall.



Still to Come
-A book made into a movie you've already seen.  Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

-A book involving a heist.  The Palace Job, Patrick Weekes

-Nordic noir.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steig Larsson

-A novel based on a real person.  Circling the Sun, Paula McLain

-A book set in a country that fascinates you.  Sky Burial, Xinran--this is one that I'll be reading for a book club and so will need to obtain somehow.

-A book with a time of day in the title.  Light in the Gloaming, J. B. Simmons

-A book about a villain or antihero.

-A book about death or grief.

-A book by a female author who uses a male pseudonym.  I want to use the new Robert Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling) book for this but it doesn't have a release date, so if it doesn't work out I'll use a work by one of the Bronte sisters, who used male pseudonyms.

-A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist.  Wanted, a Gentleman, K. J. Charles--this one isn't actually one I own or is lined up for a book club, but it was reportedly one of the best romance novels of the year and historical romances with LGBTQ+ bends are fairly rare, so I'm going to go for it.

-A book that is also a stage play or musical.  Anna and the King of Siam, Margaret London

-A book by an author of a different ethnicity than you.  The Bollywood Bride, Sonali Dev

-A book about feminism.

-A book about mental illness.  The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

-A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift.  Clockwork Prince, Cassandra Clare

-A book by two authors.  Burn for Me, Ilona Andrews--this is a pen name used by a writing team of Ilona and Andrew Gordon, who are married and write books together!  #relationshipgoals

-A book about for involving a sport.  Riding Lessons, Sara Gruen

-A book by a local author.

-A book with your favorite color in the title.  Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote--yes, Tiffany blue is my favorite color.  It's just such a gorgeous shade of blue-green that no other color quite captures.

-A book with alliteration in the title.  Salt & Storm, Kendall Kulper

-A book about time travel.  Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon

-A book with a weather element in the title.  Tempests and Slaughter, Tamora Pierce

-A book set at sea.  The Unimaginable, Dina Silver

-A book with an animal in the title.  Big Fish, Daniel Wallace

-A book set on a different planet.  The Sparrow, Mary Dorica Russell--this is the sci-fi book for discussion this year in the Deliberate Reader book club that I'll need to get.

-A book with song lyrics in the title.  Catch Me If You Can, Rank W. Abagnale--this is like a million songs, apparently, though I'm not familiar with any of them.

-A book about or set on Halloween.

-A book mentioned in another book.

-A book from a celebrity book club.

-A childhood classic you've never read.  The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett--I don't own this one but I don't have a lot of "childhood classics" lying about, so I'll have to get one no matter what.

-A book that's published in 2018.  A Reaper at the Gates, Sabaa Tahir

-A book set in the decade you were born.

-A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn't get to.  Arcana Rising, Kresley Cole

-A book with an ugly cover.  Brave New World, Aldous Huxley--I know there are tons of editions of this book, but mine has these weird blood cell-like things on the cover and it is weird and gross.

-A book that involves a bookstore or library.  Smoke and Iron, Rachel Caine

-Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 Popsugar Reading Challenges.  Beauty, Robin McKinley, from the 2016 category "A book based on a fairy tale."

-A bestseller from the year you graduated high school.  Silver Borne, Patricia Briggs--I don't own this one, but I've been reading the entire series through the library so continuing just makes sense!

-A cyberpunk book.

-A book that was being read by a stranger in a public place.

-A book tied to your ancestry.  In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson--I'm half German so I picked a book that takes place in Germany, since I don't think there's anything both more specific and particularly interesting in my ancestry that there'd be a good book about.

-A book with a fruit or vegetable in the title.  The Garlic Ballads, Mo Yan--yes, garlic is a vegetable!  It is actually a type of onion.  #themoreyouknow

-An allegory.  Watership Down, Richard Adams--another book club title.

-A book by an author with the same first or last name as you.

-A microhistory.  The Radium Girls, Kate Moore

-A book about a problem facing society today.  Sex Object, Jessica Valenti

-A book recommended by someone else taking the Popsugar Reading Challenge.

The Burning Sky - Sherry Thomas (Elemental Trilogy #1)

Whaaaaat a great book!  I'm not sure the last time I read a fantasy that was quite so awesome.  This was very exciting to find--Nenia over at Readasaurus Reviews gave it a good review, which is pretty rare for a book of this variety, and since it was already on my to-read list I jumped at the opportunity to read it!

This is a fantasy set in an alternative universe in Victorian times.  There are all the normal countries we're familiar with--part of the book takes place in England and particularly at Eton--and also mage countries, which are nominally independent but all appear to be under the oppressive rule of Atlantis.  In one of the mage realms, Iolanthe Seabourne is a teenaged elemental mage who wants to go to a university.  But when she calls down a bolt of lightning to fix a ruined batch of light elixir, which her guardian ruined on purpose to keep her away from an event that might draw Atlantis' attention to her (Atlantis having a propensity to kidnap strong elemental mages, who are never seen again) she accidentally draws the wrath of Atlantis and also the attention of Prince Titus, Master of the Domain.  A flurry of escapes is then executed and ultimately ends up with Iolanthe disguised as a boy at Eton in Titus' company, and sworn to help Titus bring down Atlantis' despotic rule, the Bane.

Sherry Thomas hails from a historical romance background, and this book consequently has a lovely romance between Titus and Iolanthe, though it doesn't take over the story by any means.  Instead, it plays nicely with the other story elements--two types of magic (elemental and "subtle," which is more like Harry Potter-style charms and spells), an enchanted book with a world inside, an evil global superpower, mythological creatures, and a few tantalizing family ties that I'm excited to see truly revealed in future books.  The writing is good; it has that "right proper" feel to it that goes with English boarding school stories, and of course the magical elements added in are great.  Thomas' background as a romance writer means that, while there is instant attraction between Iolanthe and Titus, their relationship doesn't immediately ring false and instead grows and changes with them--though I'm eager to see what Iolanthe's reaction to the revelation of Sleeping Beauty will be...  Hm.

The one thing that I didn't like here was that the pace was rushed.  A lot happens in this book, considering that it's only the first one in the series.  But from the very beginning, Iolanthe and Titus rush from place to place and crisis to crisis with hardly a chance to breathe in between--though Iolanthe does manage to squeeze in some cricket while she's disguised as a boy.  The Crucible is by far one of the coolest things here, but even then it's hied and hoed across, with few bits lingering to explore the potential of a book that contains worlds.

However, despite some of the uneven pacing, I really enjoyed this; I pretty much devoured it in one sitting, and I can't wait to read the next two volumes.

4.5 stars out of 5.

Bone Crossed - Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson #4)

The fourth book in the Mercy Thompson series, this one picks up right where the third, Iron Kissed, left off--with Mercy going to accept her position as Adam's mate.  Adam puts a stop to any sexual advances right away, which is good, given how IK wrapped up, and says that she needs to work through some of her trauma before they can become physically involved.  Of course she does this over the course of the one week that this book takes place and they're in bed with each other soon enough (not very many steamy scenes, though, unfortunately; nothing that can compare to Kate and Curran's hookup in the Kate Daniels books, that's for sure) but at least it got off on the right foot?

Anyway, the action here focuses around the consequences of Mercy killing a couple of vampires two books back, despite the wishes of the head of the vampire seethe.  When a pair of crossed bones appears on the door of Mercy's garage, indicating that she is persona non grata with the vampires and is able to be attacked by anything that thinks it can take her, it seemed like this book was going to ramp up dramatically.  Especially when her vampire friend shows up mostly-dead (as dead as a vampire can be) in her living room, her mother appears all primed to be a target, and one of her college acquaintances shows up at her door in a strange state hoping that Mercy can help her with a ghost. 

Unfortunately, I feel the promise fell flat.  Much of the book is taken up with politicking with the vampires in the Tri-Cities and a lurking menace of another vampire up north.  Ultimately, it's that vampire who ends up being the crux of the actual action in the book, revealing some new powers for Mercy and causing some drama, but nothing that has to do with real consequences of her actions.  Instead, everything in the Tri-Cities ends up going about in a hunky-dory manner, which was kind of disappointing given how built-up the drama of the vampire killing and its pending consequences were.  It seems like Mercy got let off lightly--which seems like a strange thing to say, given what happened to her in the last book, but that was completely unrelated to what was brewing with the vampires (who were suspiciously absent in the previous book) and it having pretty much an absence of consequences in the end, other than an exchange of "I don't like you"s with Marsilia, meant that this one felt a bit flat.

Was it nice to see Mercy finally acknowledge her feelings for Adam?  Yes, of course.  And I did like how Briggs showed Mercy wanting to move forward, but in many ways being hampered by her recent trauma.  But while Mercy spent three prior books deciding how she felt about Adam and what to do about him, here she just rushes ahead, and it feels like the pace of their relationship went from one extreme to the other within the span of less than week.  Such a swing didn't seem to fit the book or the series.  Mercy obviously needed recovery time and Briggs wanted time to give it to her, but there was no reason that the follow up with the vampires couldn't have been put off for one more book when they could have been given the drama it truly deserved.  Then this one could have focused more on the Blackwood subplot and maybe been used to make Mercy's proper transition into her role as Adam's mate feel more natural.

I'm not giving up on this series--I at least have to read Silver Borne for a challenge--but this one was something of a disappointment, not living up the previous volumes or the drama that was promised for this particular plot.

2 stars out of 5.

The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

One of my resolutions for the new year is actually to read less books than I did last year.  What?  I mean, in books, it's always a constant climb to the top, right?  Well, not exactly.  I read 232 books last year.  That's a lot of books.  Reading that many books takes a lot of time.  This year, while I'm still going to read a lot, I also want to spend more time focusing on my health and not making reading into a chore.  I still want to enjoy it!  That said, I still have a few reading challenges going on, and even if I cut thirty-two books out of my reading, I'd still hit two hundred, which is a pretty respectable year.  I'm trying to get more challenge books out of the way earlier this year since I have a pretty solid plan for many of categories, and The Thirteenth Tale is a book for one of those categories, namely a book with characters who are twins.

The story here is fairly simple.  Margaret Lea, our narrator and heroine, works in a small bookshop that her father owns and occasionally writes biographical snippets.  When she's contacted by the revered author Vida Winters (revered by apparently everyone but Margaret, who only reads works by authors who already dead) to write Winters' biography, she's initially reluctant, but eventually agrees on the condition that Winters, who has a long history of making up stories about herself, tell the truth.  What slowly unfolds is the story of a deeply dysfunctional family.  A pair of twins who were probably born of incest and are left to grow up mostly feral and the attempts to put them aright, leading up to the time that a fire destroyed Winters' life--as she says, she has only been biding her time ever since it.  There's a mystery lurking here, and I think it's one that the discerning reader can probably figure out.  I nailed all of it down by the end, and was pretty proud of myself for it, too.

This was an interesting book.  While the writing isn't fast-paced, there is plenty going on.  Much of it is happening in the wings, behind the scenes, and have to be teased out.  Margaret does much of this for us, over time, but it can be done before she comes to her realizations, which is a good intellectual exercise.  Her view about books is kind of stuck up--she says that she just prefers old books, but it's definitely implied throughout her attitudes and actions throughout the book that she feels like people who read modern or popular fiction somehow aren't "real readers" as much as she is.  But the book has much of the slow and almost Gothic feel that the books Margaret reveres have.  Her favorite is Jane Eyre, something she appears to share with Winters, and Setterfield herself much like it quite a lot because its influences on this book are obvious; Margaret herself points them out at several times.

I was somewhat perplexed by the subplot of Margaret feeling so lost and adrift in her own life.  I'm not a twin, so maybe it's not something that I can understand, but she feels like she's going to die because her twin died when they were both infants.  It's pretty clear what happened from the beginning, though Margaret dances around spelling it out for much of the book--and her connection to Winters ultimately felt off because, as things are not what they appear, but how they really are means that what seemed like connection isn't.  It's hard to say it better than that without revealing the twists, which I don't want to do, but that was how it came across to me.

Overall, I liked this.  It's very atmospheric and finding a truly modern Gothic seems like a rare experience, and of course I love books about books.  But some of its notes rang a little false and it also falls victim to the Gothic trope of wallowing in melodrama--but being a more recent work, it doesn't carry it off as well as its century-and-a-half-old counterparts.

3.5 stars out of 5.

Cobweb Empire - Vera Nazarian (Cobweb Bride #2)

Several years ago, I read the first book in this trilogy, Cobweb Bride.  The story revolved around several fictional European kingdoms and a world where death suddenly stopped occurring, with horrible consequences--and Death himself will not set the world aright until he is brought his "Cobweb Bride."  Persephone "Percy" Ayren sets out in hopes of either being the Cobweb Bride or finding her so that she can help her grandmother, who is trapped on the verge of death but is unable to die.  With many adventures and various kingdoms in political upheaval along the way, Percy finally finds her way to Death's keep and learns that she is not the Cobweb Bride--but Death makes her his Champion and sends her out to find the Bride in the world beyond.

This book picks up shortly after the end of the first, with Percy and her traveling companions, including the Black Knight, aka Beltain of Chidair, who Percy inadvertently kidnapped when she whopped him over the head with a skillet when he and his men tried to stop her from reaching Death's Keep.  But now they're traveling in easy companionship, more or less, and dropping off the other girls that Percy fell in with along the way.  Upon arrival at Percy's hometown, they find out what her being Death's Champion really means--it means that she is the only one who is able to put the dead truly to rest when death itself seems to have stopped.  With that newfound knowledge, Percy continues south, in search of the Cobweb Bride.  Meanwhile, we encounter the mysterious Sovereign of the Domain, the lands south of the Realm, which is actually composed of a bunch of realms, I guess?  The political entanglements and geography here are kind of confusing.  But in any case, this Sovereign is up to no good, and is clearly planning on starting a war and it seems might be immortal.  Whaaaat?  And then there's a few other minor story lines floating about as well, dealing with imprisoned nobles and spies and so on.  And numerous little scenes that don't have anything to do with the central characters or plot but seem to serve only to illustrate things that we've already learned about in the main narrative.

This is the second book in a trilogy, which means that it is The Walking Book.  This is the volume of a trilogy in which the main characters mostly spend a lot of time walking from place to place, in pursuit of a plot that won't really pick up until the third book.  And indeed, Percy and Beltain do a lot of walking--and more precisely, a lot of riding while avoiding looking at each other.  The Sovereign spends a lot of time listening to reports and scheming.  The imprisoned nobles spend a lot of time pining for freedom and then a bit more interesting time escaping, though it doesn't really get them anywhere in the end.  But ultimately, the growing attraction between Percy and Beltain, while painfully awkward and stilted, was the most interesting part of this book, and it's not really a riveting romance and is resolved quite quickly with brash declarations of "I love you!" after a flurry of kisses.  Meh.

Additionally, this book has some editing problems.  There are words that are misspelled, missing, or very occasionally misused.  And then there are the commas--something that Nazarian doesn't seem to know how to use, being as they're sprinkled about.  The commas and the ellipses!  It briefly occurred to me to count the number of times Nazarian ended a sentence with an ellipsis, but I quickly found that the endeavor would be futile, because there are just so many of them; and this is coming from someone who really likes the ellipsis as a punctuation mark.

Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed with this.  I might continue on with the third book, but at this point I'm unsure.  The plot seems to be getting far-fetched instead of fantastical, and the constant sidetracking from the main plot to talk about this vanished field or that island got old quickly.  And logic seems to be going missing along with proper pacing; why would an immortal being have a death shadow, after all, if immortals can (obviously) never die?  Hm...  We'll see.

2.5 stars out of 5.

Iron Kissed - Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson #3)

I'm finally getting back to this series after a hiatus--I have the fifth book slated for a reading challenge category this year, which obviously means that I need to read the third and fourth books first.

Iron Kissed picks up in the wake of Blood Bound, with Mercy basically terrified that the vampire queen is going to figure out that she killed not only the demon vampire of the last book, but the vampire who created it as well.  She's also found herself at a crossroads where she absolutely has to decide what's going to be done about her two romantic interests, Samuel and Adam--which was excellent, because I don't think that I could bear that being dragged out for another book.  This book's central plot gets going when Zee the metal faerie recruits Mercy to help track down someone who's been murdering faeries.  She does, and Zee and another leader of the faerie community go to confront the murderer...only to find him also murdered, and Zee suddenly on the hook for it.  So Mercy, of course, sets out to clear Zee's name, and gets herself into a world of trouble.

I am so, so happy that Briggs finally wrapped up the love triangle here, though I'm not sure that I totally bought into how she wrote Samuel out of the picture love-interest-wise.  Don't worry, guys, Sam isn't written out of the picture; he's still alive, guys!  But Mercy puts off dialing Adam into her decision, though, until it's pretty much too late and some very, very bad things happen to her--things that are totally not her fault, and which Adam realizes are not her fault, but still, not the best time to dive into a new relationship, you know what I mean?

This book is markedly darker than the preceding two, particularly near the end.  It seems like the next one might be pretty dark, too, but if you're here for the pluck heroine who sticks her nose into other people's business, solves the crime, and gets off without any lasting consequences--well, that's not happens here.  Mercy has met her match in more than one way, and she's having to accept help and ultimately come to the conclusion that yes, she has been making some stupid decisions and maybe needs to re-evaluate.  Again, what happens to her is not her fault.  But Mercy does some pretty stupid things in general and really needs to come to a reckoning with that, and it seems like that's coming about here.  I'm hoping it will stick, but we will see.  But again, let me emphasize: this book is much darker.  The climax of the book was hard to read and could definitely be triggering for some, though Briggs does try to keep it from being explicit and in a sort of hazy cloud.  Still, it's very clear what occurs (rape, guys, it's rape) and though Mercy is a fighter, part of what happens to her messes with her way of thinking and is even more problematic for her than the actual rape is.

This was an excellent book; there are some hints at who is responsible, because Briggs doesn't really write in supercilious characters, but it's not screaming obvious.  Yes, the romantic resolution is, in many ways, too easy.  But I don't think that Briggs could have dragged it out longer without losing some people, and having more drama involved with it on top of everything else here would have been too much.  So maybe it's what had to be done?  I don't know...not totally sold, but I'm willing to let it go.

Anyway, I'm still greatly looking forward to reading the next book in this series, seeing how Mercy and Adam tread in their new relationship, and so on--especially as it seems like Mercy's vampire reckoning is finally about to come.

4 stars out of 5.

Baking Cakes in Kigali - Gaile Parkin

Baking Cakes in Kigali has been on my to-read list for a while, and as I have a friend who recently traveled to Rwanda and was in Kigali for New Years', the book popped back to the front of my mind and it seemed like a good time to read it!

Set in Kigali in 2000, the story is a slow, character-driven one about a neighborhood that centers around a single apartment complex and particularly one woman who lives there, Angel.  Angel is a native Tanzanian who lives in Kigali with her husband, who is doing consulting work for a technical institute, and their five grandchildren, who they care for in the wake of the deaths of both of their children.  Angel interacts with other people who live in the complex as well as others they are connected to, and others still who come to order cakes from her.  Her cake making business is the heart of the book, bringing her into the lives of many other people and revealing their secrets to her, as she promises confidentiality as part of being a "professional somebody."  There characters include Odile, a nurse who survived the Rwandan genocide; Jenna, the wife of a CIA agent who she doesn't know is a CIA agent, and who is also cheating on her; Sophie and Catherine, a pair of American volunteers helping with the reconstruction of Rwanda in the wake of the genocide; Vincenzo, Amina, and Safiya, a Muslim family Angel is close to; and Leocadie, a young woman who runs a small shop down the street.

This is a book that touches on a multitude of tough subjects while still remaining a wholesome story.  There are so many tough subjects--AIDS, genocide, suicide, rape, genital mutilation, kidnap and child soldiers, to name just a few--that I kept expecting disaster to pop up around every corner, but it (thankfully) never did.  Really, the story touches on those things, but it's about Angel acting as a sort of mother to the entire neighborhood, handing out wisdom over cake and milky cardamom tea.  Love, loss, and schemes are all poured out and over, and Angel, despite having had difficult times of her own, remains a calm force throughout, and even leverages her insight for others to help herself come to terms with the death of her daughter.

I liked the writing here.  At some times I did find it a bit stiff and formal--however, I had to keep in mind that, while this book was written in English, most of the dialogue is actually delivered in Swahili that Parkin represents as English on the page.  Some other reviews indicate that Angel's version of Kigali seems a bit too bright and sunny for taking place after the genocide--however, the genocide occurred in 1994, and the book takes place in 2000.  There are ongoing trials and attempts at reconciliation--two of the characters that Angel meets have come from South Africa, where they worked on the truth and reconciliation process following the breakdown of apartheid, in order to assist--but six years can change a heck of a lot.  And I think Parkin did a good job showing that, while some people seem happy and functional, they can still be deeply scarred and haunted below the surface.  And it's also important to remember that, while the genocide was clearly a huge part of recent Rwandan history, it's not all that Rwanda is--and that, I think, is what Parkin was really aiming for, and I think she accomplished it.

The structure of the book revolves a series of events, all things which people would order a cake for, which allows Angel to really become involved.  Again, this is a character driven book, which means that there's not a strong central plot and the story instead revolves slowly around the people on the page rather than a driving event or crisis.  The structure works well for this type of narrative, but it's definitely not something that everyone enjoys.  Considering this was a first novel, I think it was done extremely well; characters can be hard to balance without plot points driving them along, but Parkin did so with aplomb, and this was overall a joy to read.

4 stars out of 5.

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden (The Winternight Trilogy #1)

The Bear and the Nightingale is what I wanted from a Russian-themed fantasy and what I didn't really get from the Grisha trilogy.  Yes, Grisha was meant to be bigger and flier, and it was that--but it lacked warmth and depth and heart, and TBATN has that in spades.

The main character here is Vasilisa, though she doesn't really come into her own until the second half of the book, being too young to do much for the first half.  The first half instead follows her family and other characters as they come together in Vasilisa's small town on her father's lands.  Among these are Konstantin, a priest who paints icons and wants to save souls at any cost, and Anna, the daughter of the Grand Prince who becomes Vasilisa's stepmother following the death of Vasilisa's birth mother.  Also coming the village is a strange pendant given to Vasilisa's father by a man no one else remembers, who seems almost inhuman--the pendant being meant for Vasilisa herself, though her nanny keeps it from her for years.

Vasilisa is the daughter of a witch, or so it's said, and she can see the household and forest spirit s that populate her father's lands.  But with the arrival of the priest and the fear he puts into the villagers, the spirits begin to weaken and a menace in the forest becomes stronger and stronger.  Fear, fire, and famine threaten the village, and while Vasilisa does what she can to keep the friendly spirits strong and the evil at bay.  But she is just one person, and the duel between the menace in the woods and the strange blue-eyed man who wants Vasilisa becomes ever more fraught with peril.

This starts out as a very low fantasy and slowly escalates into the higher realms as it progresses--more magic, more spirits, more supernatural conflict.  Vasilisa does not go along slinging spells or enchantments; the magic she possesses is more of a "seeing and understanding" type aided by the stories that her nanny told her when she was younger.  Consequently, the magic is very atmospheric and has a mystical and yet cozy feel to it, with the dark lurking beyond at the same time.  The setting is a period when Russia was ruled by the Tartars (aka the group composed of Mongul and Turkish elements that came together under Genghis Khan) and kind of lends itself to a fairy tale setting.  The writing itself is very good; I think Arden balanced the characters and plot elements well.  That said, the first half of the book is very slow.  It takes a long time for things to get set up and going, and I kept telling myself it would but at times I felt like despairing that anything would ever happen.  This book also isn't a romance, and I felt like that was an element I was looking for to some degree in the later parts of the book, as it would not have been appropriate in the earlier parts; there wasn't much room left for it, but man, Morozoko is awesome.  Maybe something for future books???

Overall, this was a fabulous read to start the new year with.  I'm greatly looking forward to reading the second volume, which was released in December, but I think I'll hold off on it so that I can space it between this one and the third book's release, which is dated for August.

4 stars out of 5.

Happily Ever Ninja - Penny Reid (Knitting in the City #5)

This is the worst romance book I'v read in quite some time, and that pains me because I typically really, really like Penny Reid.  She's written some of my favorite contemporary romances.  This one?  No.  Not so much.

The fifth book in the Knitting in the City series, this focuses on Fiona, the only member of the knitting group who was married before the series began.  Her husband, an ex-Marine, is a consultant of some type in the oil business, working to try to make oil drilling more environmentally friendly and ethical (or something--it's kind of vague).  Fiona is an ex-CIA agent (you can kind of intuit this from former books in the series) turned stay-at-home mom and part-time consultant.  Their relationship is under some strain because of Greg's long absences from home for work, but they're trucking along, as they have been doing for fourteen years...until Greg gets kidnapped, and Fiona goes to save him.

First let's talk about this hare-brained plot.  This is nothing like the other books.  Reid mentions that, other than Neanderthal Seeks Human, this was the book she was most looking forward to in the series.  It's basically a spy novel, though, and it does't fit in with the rest of the books at all.  There is no character or emotional depth here.  There is a novella about Fiona and Greg's origin story floating about somewhere, but that does not excuse shoddy plotting and characterization in the main book.  We know that Greg was a Marine and something happened to his parents; but what?  We know that Fiona was apparently a child gymnast and spent six to eight hours a day training, but beyond Greg throwing that out in an argument, there's nothing else about it or how it might have formed her as a character and influenced her decisions.  And, by the way, you can want your kids to have a normal childhood even if you weren't a child gymnast, so it wasn't even a good point for the argument.  Fiona's rescue mission was the most half-thought-out thing I've ever seen, and Greg's improvisations on it were even worse.

But the real problem with this book is Greg.  Greg is the worst romantic hero ever.  You know who I didn't say that about?  Gray Eagle, the "hero" of Savage Ecstasy, which was terrible.  Greg is worse.  Why?  Because Gray Eagle isn't supposed to be a good guy, and Greg is.  Let me discuss some of why Greg is terrible with you.  Ultimately, what much of it boils down to is that while he purports to love Fiona, he does not trust or respect her, which are, you know, kind of important factors of love.  The examples of this are numerous and infuriating, such as...

-Greg's job takes him away from home for long periods of time; okay, that happens.  However, while he's gone, he expects Fiona to live and parent by ridiculous decrees that he leaves behind, such as their five-year-old daughter is not allowed to have a princess costume, or their son can't play soccer unless their daughter does too, and their daughter doesn't want to play soccer.  Greg pushes this as not molding their children to gender norms, but it doesn't work, because the daughter has lots of other interests that are not typically keyed to women, she just doesn't want to play soccer and she happens to like princesses.  When it comes out that Fiona is letting her children have a bit of freedom--the daughter gets her costume, the son gets to play soccer--Greg pretty much flips and blames Fiona for making decisions without him.

-On the note of making decisions without him: Greg and Fiona do talk while he's gone, via Skype.  However, Greg doesn't seem to want to be involved with making decisions, he just wants Fiona to follow his rules while he's gone and have phone sex with him.  The book opens with Fiona trying to talk to Greg about their retirement, which he argues about why they basically shouldn't have a retirement investment because all corporations are evil, and then says he'll sign the papers if she has Skype sex with him, shows him her boobs, sends him dirty pictures, etc.  He never does sign the papers, and his demands for sexual favors in return for acting like a Goddamn adult are ridiculous in the extreme.

-Even when Fiona basically single-handedly saves him from Nigerian kidnappers using her elite CIA training, he does not trust her planning or skills enough to get them out of Nigeria.  Instead, he chooses to drug her against her will and haul her off into an even bigger mess of his own creation, which involves him getting re-kidnapped and almost killed in a gunfight and Fiona almost being arrested for treason.

-He has no respect for the work Fiona does or the hard decisions she has to make as a functionally single parent; he comes home, trashes the apartment, gets upset at Fiona for having a male neighbor/friend, and then mocks her when she expresses her anger and frustration at his behavior, before saying he loves her and leaving, as if saying that you love someone fixes everything you've done to hurt them.

-He was furious at her for keeping her CIA status from him earlier in their relationship and made her promise not to do anything dangerous beyond her abilities, but he doesn't have the respect for courtesy to act the same in his own career.  Per a promise he made, he never brings up the CIA thing in arguments, at least vocally--however, he makes his resentment known, even a decade and a half later, through his actions towards her.

-He makes rape jokes that he actually thinks are funny.

Fiona eventually addresses Greg's behavior, demanding that he value and respect her.  And poof!  He suddenly does!  But I don't for one secton believe that, if he clearly has not valued or respected her for the first fourteen years of their marriage (and eighteen or nineteen years of their total relationship; I forget the exact number), that he is about to start now, harrowing near-death experiences or no.  Yes, marriages have problems; but this is beyond reasonable.  Greg seems to have really loved Fiona when they were younger, and I don't blame her for marrying him.  However, I do blame her for not divorcing him in a hot second by the end of this book, and I have to wonder where her spine has been for the past fourteen years if she's supposedly such a kick-ass person.

There are other problems with this book, too; Marie is apparently suddenly a lawyer though she never went to law school because she decided to take the bar exam one day, when this isn't actually possible--you can take the bar without going to law school, but you have to spend an extended period studying under an attorney or judge to do so.  This might be addressed in the next book, Dating-ish, which focuses on Marie as the main character, but is an illustrated point that while Reid seems to have done some research on Nigeria for this book, she skimped in other areas.  It's also not as well-edited, with misspelled, misused, misplaced, or just plain missing words in several places.  It kind of feels like Reid was so eager to write Fiona's book that she just did it and never looked back to see if it was actually any good.

Let me wrap it up this way: if Happily Ever Ninja was the first Penny Reid book I read, I would never read another.  That is not the case, however.  I've read many of Reid's other books and like them quite a bit, so I will read more...but knowing that this is what Reid sees as one of her favorite stories and implied favorite heroes has made me lose quite a bit of respect for her as an author.

1 star out of 5.

Long May She Reign - Rhiannon Thomas

An intriguing cover and a promising premise--about a young woman who is twenty-third in line for the throne and only wants to become a scientist, but finds herself queen when most of the nobility is poisoned and everyone in the succession before her abruptly dies--this has been on my radar for quite a while.  Of course, it's also been on quite a few other people's radar, since I was number eighty-something on the hold list at the library and it took quite a while for me to actually get the book to read it.

 I will say that I expected this to be a sci-fi book, maybe a space opera with a monarchy in place, something like Empress of a Thousand Skies.  Nope.  This is a fantasy world, one in which all innovations were supposedly left behind by a race called the Forgotten and one in which apparently Freya, our heroine, is the only person in the entire kingdom with the intelligence and desire to do something related to science.  Literally.  The hopes of the kingdom rest on her not because she's queen, but because she's apparently the only person who can figure out a test to detect arsenic and the only person who actually wants to figure out who killed the vast majority of the court.  Of course she has some communists (ish) to win over to her side as well as higher-born political enemies and the public at large.  And a love interest in the form of the illegitimate son of the king, who might want the throne for himself!  Gasp!

This was fairly well-written for what it was.  Despite the thin plot and overall a lack of action--Freya spends most of the book looking for a way to detect arsenic/figure out who poisoned the court and waffling about her duties as queen and letting other style her appearance for her--it was a fun teenage court drama.  Having a heroine interested in STEM is always a good thing, even if her being the only person is somewhat suspicious; an easy way to make her the best, perhaps?  Because of course if a girl is ever going to be good at something in a book/movie/show, she has to be the best or it doesn't count.  See: Celaena Sardothien, Alanna the Lioness, etc.  I did like how Thomas handled the romance; things go south (of course), and at the end it's not all happily ever after.  Freya admits things are on shaky ground and it will take work to repair the relationship, whether it ultimately ends in romance or just friendship.  This was a nice change from the "we are teenagers but must be in love forever" vibe that most young adult books put out.

Additionally, the book was a bit surface-level but Freya wasn't stupid.  Of course, you might say.  She's a scientist, after all.  But you'd be surprised.  What I mainly mean is that I didn't want to slap Freya upside the head.  She can sometimes get wrapped up in her own thoughts, but for the most part, she thought things through and acted accordingly, based on the information she had available to her.  I approve!  Additionally, it seems like Thomas neatly wrapped this up in one book and won't be drawing it out for a whole series.  Young adult stand-alones are so rare in the fantasy genre that I feel like I have to give this book a point just for that.

One thing that I do feel like I have to mention was the world building.  There was some stuff that seemed really intriguing here, but then it was never expounded upon.  Why is Epria so isolated from "the continent"?  What the heck is up with the Forgotten?  It seems to be implied that they're not real, but where did all of this other stuff come from?  Because this isn't a series, these seem like aspects that will never be explored fully, and consequently there are holes left in the fabric of the world.

Still, overall an enjoyable book.  Not an extraordinary one, but a solid young adult fantasy that can stand on its own and with a heroine better than most.

3.5 stars out of 5.

Perennials - Mandy Berman

I never went to sleepaway camp as a kid or teen.  I went to week-long day camp a few summers as a Girl Scout, and I think there were a few weekend-long overnight excursions, but nothing long-term.  It was just something that never came up and something, reflecting back, that my family probably couldn't have afforded even if it had come up.  So to me, summer camp has all the sheen of media, and typically in the horror movie sense.  You know, campers missing in the woods, something in the lake that's killing people...that kind of stuff.

Perennials both is and isn't like that.  Ostensibly about two young women, Fiona and Rachel, who attended a camp as children, as they return for one final summer as camp counselors and learn about growing up in the face of a tragedy.  Well, there is a tragedy indeed--more than one.  And while there are no serial killers lurking in the woods and no monsters cruising the lake, this book sometimes struck me as a horror story of another kind entirely, because what is up at this camp is very, very wrong.  Counselors are sleeping together--as teenagers do--and the camp director even gets involved.  Someone witnesses a rape--a very obvious one, in which the victim is seen saying she wants to go to bed, and is blatantly pulled into the woods and raped despite her protests--and the victim is punished for it along with the perpetrator.  Ill fates await not one but two campers over the course of the same summer. 

The lens Berman chose for this was interesting.  The story is told in third-person through a variety of perspectives; Rachel and Fiona each have a couple of chapters, but most of the book has the viewpoints of a variety of other characters.  The camp director, the two girls' mothers, Fiona's little sister, other counselors, campers, etc. all get to chime in with things happening over the course of the summer.  My favorite was probably Sheera, and I would have liked to see more of her; she was so different from the other characters, which was no doubt the point, and I felt a little robbed when she exited the stage relatively early in the book.  Seeing things through both Rachel and Fiona's perspectives was interesting, though--from Fiona's perspective we can see that she thinks Rachel doesn't really care about her except to serve as the "responsible" one, but from Rachel's we get another view: that she really does love Fiona, she just wishes she would come out of her shell and not need constant reassurance that she's liked.

The title here was especially poignant; while marigolds, the plant the camp is named after, are annual flowers, Fiona and Rachel themselves are perennials, coming back year after year and seeming to pick up right where they left off.  The difference is this final summer, when things seem to change so drastically in such a short period of time.  Both of their lives are ultimately turned upside down and the two are pushed apart by the events of the summer--however, the book ends on a positive note, with the potential for them to recover and grow closer together as a result, if they want to.

On the downside, the multiplicity of viewpoints leads to a lot of info-dumping.  Because there are so many characters and Berman wants to give you the full story about what brought each of them to Camp Marigold, there's a lot of "This happened to this person, which made them feel this way, which led to this."  There are a few great flashback scenes that did far more to contribute to character building than the straight-up info dumping, which showed some of what Berman could do, but the book's short length limited them by necessity and so we were left with long periods of info separating out bits of character interaction and forward movement.

Ultimately, I liked this.  However, I think it's much darker than Berman intended it to be.  Obviously there are some tragic events here, but there's another layer of darkness underlying it all that I'm not sure was deliberate.  And if it was--well, this was marketed in entirely the wrong way.  But for a character-driven book, I thought this was very good.

4 stars out of 5.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for winning a Goodreads giveaway.

The Wilderness of Ruin - Roseanne Montillo

I adore true crime books.  I adore things about serial killers, who are obviously terrible but are also fascinating.  I've watched Criminal Minds through like six times.  So when The Wilderness of Ruin popped up in the libraray's true crime category, I was intrigued.  Why?  Because, according to the cover, this book is supposed to be "A tale of madness, Boston's greatest fire, and the hunt for America's youngest serial killer."  In reality, it is none of those things.  In fact, it is three separate things: an account of the evolution and of the so-called "youngest serial killer," Jesse Pomeroy (who wasn't really a serial killer, though he undoubtedly would have become one--he killed two people, and technically you need to kill three people over a span of more than a month to be considered a serial killer), a short telling of a huge fire that swept through Boston, and a mini-biography of Herman Melville. 

This book was pretty awful.  Why?  There is absolutely nothing in these three narratives to tie them together.  Montillo tries for a "well, the fire happened while Jesse lived in Boston, and Melville probably read articles about Jesse and was interested in mental illness!" as an explanation for why these three things comprise the book, but it's a very weak explanation and doesn't work at all in context.  The fire takes about two chapters and is never mentioned again.  There is no "hunt" for Jesse Pomeroy; because he'd assaulted younger children before, the police knew exactly where to look when they found a body that matched his MO and had him arrested in pretty short order.  I kept expecting a jail break or something that would lead to an actual hunt, but that never happened.  And the Herman Melville thing was just...weird.  I have no idea why a biography of Herman Melville occupied approximately a third of this book.  In addition to these three main threads, other random topics are delved into with an amount of detail that wasn't appropriate for what was going on in the larger narrative, such as the production of dime novels or penny dreadfuls.  Montillo seems to want to tackle the ethics of Jesse's sentencing--both the death sentence and his commuted life in solitary confinement sentence--but doesn't really do so well; perhaps she was afraid of getting too political?

The writing itself wasn't bad, but the content was scattered and the structure did not hold together.  This seemed like it was going to be fascinating, but really was just disappointing.  Talk about a premise that did not deliver.

1.5 stars out of 5.

Ordinary Grace - William Kent Krueger

This was the November book for the Deliberate Reader online book club, but despite putting a hold on it well in advance (in September!) I didn't get it until mid-December, so I kind of missed out on the discussion.  Still, I wanted to read it so I was read up for the year.

This is a sort of mystery, but it's not a pavement-pounding one or one where people are getting shot or anything like that.  Instead, the main character is a twelve-year-old boy whose town is plagued by a series of deaths, some of which may or may not be murder, over the course of one summer.  Starting with the suspicious but possibly accidental death of a boy who was hit by a train, the deaths affect main character Frank and his town in different ways.  Because his father is a local minister and his father's friend works to dig graves in the town, Frank has a front-row seat to the various deaths and becomes ever-more entwined in them, particularly when one hits close to home.

This is a pretty simple mystery, and despite a few red herrings the author placed I had it figured out pretty early on.  There were a few aspects that I hadn't guessed, but none of them actually affected the outcome at all.  However, this only pertains to one death--despite Frank building up the summer of five deaths, only one of them is really relevant to the story, and another is connected but not part of the mystery.  The others were very tangential, one of them being mentioned in about one sentence at the end of the book, as if the author had forgotten he needed to include another death to get his five until that point, and then threw it in just to be done with it.

I did quite like the writing here, however; the atmosphere of a small town in the sixties is really nailed down, and all of the characters felt fleshed-out, developed, and relevant to the plot in their own ways.  Not all of them were likable, but all of them felt as if they belonged and were serving their own purposes, and had lives beyond just serving the plot, which is definitely not always the case in mysteries.  However, because this book was also a "portrait of a town" book in addition to a mystery, having all of the characters fit so well was very important to the book working as a whole.  The one thing I didn't always like was the pacing; while at some times I was intrigued and pulled along by the pace of events, at other times the flow seemed to slow to a crawl, making chunks of the book seem like they were never going to end.  Still, I liked it overall, and as it picked up speed towards the end it made quite a good airplane read.  It finishes up with a sort of "where are they now" epilogue, though, which I really hate as a literary device; the epilogue could have been structured differently or, honestly, left off entirely, and the ending probably would have been more solid.

3.5 stars out of 5.

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud - Anne Helen Petersen

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud is either a book that you will find extremely vapid--it focuses on celebrities, because they are easy examples that Petersen can draw upon to illustrate her points--or that will enrage you because parts of it are just too true.  It's divided into ten chapters, each one focusing on something that women are declared "too" by modern society.  Most of these are listed right on the cover: too gross, too shrill, too fat, too slutty, too loud, too pregnant, too old, too strong, too queer, too old, too naked.  Is the word "too" starting to look weird to anyone else?  Each chapter exams one (or, in one case, two) women in the public eye who embodies the theme of that chapter, though Petersen notes in her introduction that every woman in the book really falls into more than one category, some of which aren't examined in depth; for example, Serena Williams is too strong, but she's also too loud and too black.

I'm not deeply familiar with a lot of the women that Petersen talks about here.  I'm not really dialed into pop culture very much, so while I know who Niki Minaj, Madonna, and Lena Dunham are, I don't know a lot about them, and there were others that I'd never even heard of.  But I do think Petersen did a good job of giving some background information on each and building out her case, including what seems like a lot of research for each chapter.  I was actually pretty impressed by that aspect; I listened to this as an audiobook, and I found myself thinking pretty frequently as she quoted old articles, pieces of interviews she conducted, and different bits of research, "Wow, a lot more work went into this than I thought."  Because Petersen writes for Buzzfeed, I guess I was expecting something a little more Buzzfeed-like--you know, very shallow and surface-level.  I was pleasantly surprised at how deep this actually went.  Petersen lays out all kinds of stuff that woman are penalized for by society for no good reason.  Like aging.  You know, that thing that all people do.  But while older men are allowed to be "Sexiest Man Alive," an older woman would never be given an equivalent title.  Women are only allowed to be pregnant in public if they revel in their pregnancy and play out their roles without mentioning any of the absolutely awful stuff that comes with pregnancy.  If they assert themselves about how they are treated or their opinions, they are too loud or too shrill, things that are used to tear women down when there's no logical argument against them.  The double standards that women face in society are numerous and immense, and it is infuriating.

Petersen makes good points here, but ultimately it was nothing that was new to me.  There were a few nod-worthy moments of, "Oh, I hadn't thought of it exactly in that light," but I think Petersen is preaching to the choir here.  The people who are going to read this book are the people who don't need to be told these things; we already know about them, acknowledge them as the problem they are, address them with others, and try to correct them.  Society at large is not going to read this book.  Society at large does not care.  That is how we got to where we are today, and why it is such a long, slow slog to make any progress at all in fixing things.  Additionally, because these women typically fit into more than one category that Petersen has to touch on, almost every chapter felt like it was rehashing another one to some degree.  I would have also liked to see a few more women who weren't pop culture icons--two members of the Kardashian family (Kim and Caitlyn Jenner), stars of women-oriented shows, etc.  I understand Petersen's point that celebrities are easy to distill down into the categories she wanted to use, but would have liked to see some sort of point of how these things affect all women, not just ones whose very existence revolves around their presence in the public eye.


Overall, a good one, and an important one, but one that feels somewhat like it was shouting into the void and missing a large point of the population both in focus and audience.

3 stars out of 5.

2018 Popsugar Reading Challenge

It's the new year, and that means a new reading challenge.  I've quite liked Popsugar's in the past for having a broad variety of categories, and ones that mostly change from year to year, so I'm going with that one again.  Here's the category list and some preliminary thoughts on titles.  One thing I'm doing this year is trying to fulfill most of the categories with books that I already own; and, if I don't own a title for a category, trying to fill it with a book that I'd be purchasing anyway for book clubs or because it's a title I was already planning on buying when it came out in 2018.  And if I really can't do it that way, I'm hoping to fill in the gaps from the library!

-A book made into a movie you've already seen.  Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

-True crime.  Lost Girls, Robert Kolker

-The next book in a series you started.  Cobweb Empire, Vera Nazarian

-A book involving a heist.  The Palace Job, Patrick Weekes

-Nordic noir.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steig Larsson

-A novel based on a real person.  Circling the Sun, Paula McLain

-A book set in a country that fascinates you.  Sky Burial, Xinran--this is one that I'll be reading for a book club and so will need to obtain somehow.

-A book with a time of day in the title.  Light in the Gloaming, J. B. Simmons

-A book about a villain or antihero.

-A book about death or grief.

-A book by a female author who uses a male pseudonym.  I want to use the new Robert Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling) book for this but it doesn't have a release date, so if it doesn't work out I'll use a work by one of the Bronte sisters, who used male pseudonyms.

-A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist.  Wanted, a Gentleman, K. J. Charles--this one isn't actually one I own or is lined up for a book club, but it was reportedly one of the best romance novels of the year and historical romances with LGBTQ+ bends are fairly rare, so I'm going to go for it.

-A book that is also a stage play or musical.  Anna and the King of Siam, Margaret London

-A book by an author of a different ethnicity than you.  The Bollywood Bride, Sonali Dev

-A book about feminism.

-A book about mental illness.  The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

-A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift.  Clockwork Prince, Cassandra Clare

-A book by two authors.  Burn for Me, Ilona Andrews--this is a pen name used by a writing team of Ilona and Andrew Gordon, who are married and write books together!  #relationshipgoals

-A book about for involving a sport.  Riding Lessons, Sara Gruen

-A book by a local author.

-A book with your favorite color in the title.  Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote--yes, Tiffany blue is my favorite color.  It's just such a gorgeous shade of blue-green that no other color quite captures.

-A book with alliteration in the title.  Salt & Storm, Kendall Kulper

-A book about time travel.  Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon

-A book with a weather element in the title.  Tempests and Slaughter, Tamora Pierce

-A book set at sea.  The Unimaginable, Dina Silver

-A book with an animal in the title.  Big Fish, Daniel Wallace

-A book set on a different planet.  The Sparrow, Mary Dorica Russell--this is the sci-fi book for discussion this year in the Deliberate Reader book club that I'll need to get.

-A book with song lyrics in the title.  Catch Me If You Can, Rank W. Abagnale--this is like a million songs, apparently, though I'm not familiar with any of them.

-A book about or set on Halloween.

-A book with characters who are twins.  The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

-A book mentioned in another book.

-A book from a celebrity book club.

-A childhood classic you've never read.  -The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett--I don't own this one but I don't have a lot of "childhood classics" lying about, so I'll have to get one no matter what.

-A book that's published in 2018.  A Reaper at the Gates, Sabaa Tahir

-A past Goodreads Choice Awards Winner.  Into the Water, Paula Hawkins

-A book set in the decade you were born.

-A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn't get to.  Arcana Rising, Kresley Cole

-A book with an ugly cover.  Brave New World, Aldous Huxley--I know there are tons of editions of this book, but mine has these weird blood cell-like things on the cover and it is weird and gross.

-A book that involves a bookstore or library.  Smoke and Iron, Rachel Caine

-Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 Popsugar Reading Challenges.  Beauty, Robin McKinley, from the 2016 category "A book based on a fairy tale."

-A bestseller from the year you graduated high school.  Silver Borne, Patricia Briggs--I don't own this one, but I've been reading the entire series through the library so continuing just makes sense!

-A cyberpunk book.

-A book that was being read by a stranger in a public place.

-A book tied to your ancestry.  In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson--I'm half German so I picked a book that takes place in Germany, since I don't think there's anything both more specific and particularly interesting in my ancestry that there'd be a good book about.

-A book with a fruit or vegetable in the title.  The Garlic Ballads, Mo Yan--yes, garlic is a vegetable!  It is actually a type of onion.  #themoreyouknow

-An allegory.  Watership Down, Richard Adams--another book club title.

-A book by an author with the same first or last name as you.

-A microhistory.  The Radium Girls, Kate Moore

-A book about a problem facing society today.  Sex Object, Jessica Valenti

-A book recommended by someone else taking the Popsugar Reading Challenge.

I have to comb through my library in search of books for some of these other categories, but I'm confident I can fulfill most of them; I might also inadvertently end up with books that fill some of them throughout the year through places such as Book of the Month.  I'm optimistic that this year I won't have to go searching for titles for many categories like I sometimes have in the past!

The Gifts of Imperfection - Brene Brown

This is the selection for the Deliberate Reader Book Club on Facebook for 2018, with the focus on an easy-to-discuss nonfiction.  I've actually read one of Brown's books before (Daring Greatly) and so knew what to expect upon opening this one, which predates DG.  I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that it was short, since I was rushing to finish other books before the end of 2017 before I picked this one up.

Brown has spent her career researching shame, and has encountered a phenomenon of people she calls "the Wholehearted" in the process.  Basically, this book is kind of a self-help book on how to let go and relax into living what is, ultimately, a more fulfilling life.  It is not a checklist; anyone looking for one here will be disappointed.  Instead, she goes into the things that she's found common in people who are Wholehearted, and things that get in the way.  She punctuates the book with stories from her life and her research that illustrate her points.

Self-help books are very much not my genre of choice.  However, this wasn't an awful read.  While there are some things that Brown promotes that I don't really buy into (she talks about spirituality and says that it's not about religion, but she certainly deals with it like it is) but there are some good things to keep in mind, such as the importance of taking time to step back, play, rest, and not embracing a culture of scarcity--you know, never having enough time, sleep, beauty, etc.  Instead, try more to embrace what you have, and you'll be happier for it.  Brown herself admits to not liking everything she found in her research; our culture tells us that exhaustion is a sign of hard work and therefore being exhausted is a good thing.  However, it's not good for us as people.  Much of what Brown puts forward here is at odds with American culture and seems like it might be better in line with other places in the world--though of course, nowhere will hit everything she wants.  But beyond all, what's she's emphasizing, sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly, is creating and enforcing boundaries.  Letting people push us is how we end up unhappy so much of the time, so being able and willing to put up boundaries, and then stick to them, is vital to overall happiness.

This is a pretty readable book and Brown is an enjoyable author; she writes like it's an easy conversation, which was nice.  However, if you've read any of her other works, you'll probably find this more repetitive.  Daring Greatly focuses on parenting and leading, but she talks about all of the stuff from this book in one way or another, so if you're reading more than one of her books, be aware that you're going to re-tread some ground.  I think this one is probably more outright useful than DG because the things here can be applied to any point of life whereas DG is more focused on parenting and leading, things that I am not particularly interested in; of course, that might be just me.  Still, a good read for this time of year, with things to keep in mind for the year ahead.

3.5 stars out of 5.

10 Favorite Books of 2017

I read a lot of books this year--231 to be exact.  Not all of them were hits.  In fact, most of them probably weren't hits.  I can like a book well enough, but that doesn't mean it's memorable or something that I would necessarily recommend.  But some...some I absolutely adore, and I wanted to just point those out in one place!  Note: These are not all books that were published in 2017, but rather ones that I read in 2017.  Regardless, they were still excellent.  Additionally, they weren't all necessarily 5-star reads but rather 4- and 5-star ones that I think have different varieties of merit going for them.

Girls in the Moon is the story of a family of women, a mother and two daughters, as the daughters reunite over a summer in New York City and their mother's story travels back through the past.  It's a love note to music and to poetry, and of families coming apart and coming together.  It is nostalgic and optimistic and just overall absolutely lovely.  The relationships between all of the characters rang true and the diverging story lines--Phoebe's moving forward in time while her mother Meg's moves backwards--lent the story a little something that helped to build up the atmosphere.  It just had a wonderful feel to it, plus that cover design is absolutely gorgeous, don't you think?  Genres: contemporary, young adult/new adult, coming of age

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was possibly the best book I read this year.  While part of it is set in current-day New York City, most of the book is of a more historical bend, taking place over the span of the titular Evelyn Hugo's time as a starlet and then more matured actress in old-time Hollywood.  It touches on so many important themes and resonated on so many levels.  The writing was poignant, the characters real and necessary all in their own ways.  Divided into sections based on each of Evelyn's seven marriages, the book dives into the question of who the great love of Evelyn's life was, the reasons people can and cannot be together, how people change, and how you can pick your family after all.  Beautiful.  This didn't win a Goodreads Choice Award and it's a crying shame.  Genres: historical fiction, contemporary fiction

A book that I liked quite a bit more than I expected this year was The Selkie Bride.  It's romance and paranormal fantasy, yes, but in a setting and narrative style that feels like a Gothic romance rather than a contemporary paranormal or shapeshifter romance.  While I didn't rate this as high as the other Gothic romance I read this year, The Shivering Sands, I feel like it's different enough from most Gothics to rate mentioning on this list.  Like most Gothic romances I've encountered, the actual romance isn't super prevalent.  It's there, certainly, but the focus is much more on simmering atmosphere and the lurking threat in a town that is very probably cursed.  It didn't feel like anything else I read this year, which I really liked.  Genres: romance, Gothic, historical fiction, paranormal fantasy

Managed has to be my pick for a straight-up romance this year.  It's the second in a series but you could definitely read it on its own.  Chemistry sizzles between the manager of a band and the band's social media/image consultant, who get friendly on a flight before they know who each other are and are never really able to disengage after that.  The build and the burn are slow and sometimes excruciating, but in a way that's just so tantalizing you can't help but keep reading.  The first book in the series, Idol, is also good, but the romance plays out much faster than in Managed, and I think the slower build was a big strength in this volume.  I can't wait to see how the rest of this series plays out, because the characters are all so great and I want to see them all paired off!  Genres: contemporary romance, drama

If Girls in the Moon was my favorite contemporary young adult novel for the year, Passenger was no doubt my favorite young adult fantasy novel.  Spanning not only places but times, the story of a young performer swept away on a time-traveling adventure linked to a tangle of family ties has the magic that I first discovered in Bracken's debut novel, Brightly Woven.  While I didn't fact-check my way through the book, the different times and places rang with their own sense of authenticity and atmosphere and featured as characters in their own right.  Also, this has an interracial romance, which is something that's pretty rare in young adult fiction and worthy of note in and of itself.  It abides by an internal logic and the characters acted as reasonable people when their hidden motives came out into the open.  The sequel was also quite good, but I think Passenger was the stronger of the two.  Genres: young adult, fantasy, historical fiction, time travel

I'm somewhat surprising myself with my thriller selection here, which has to be Fierce Kingdom.  I honestly didn't think I was going to like this that much, because the main character spends time toting around her toddler son, and I really tend to dislike books that deal heavily with children.  However, what makes this book so strong is its setup.  If you read at a decent pace, you can probably read this book in the same span of time that it takes place, which means that you can feel the tension on a completely different scale from most books.  It's kind of like the 24 of books--though instead of the characters trying to stop terrorists and save the country (or something along those lines), they are simply trying to survive in the face of a much smaller but no more visceral tragedy: a mass shooting at the city zoo.  Genres: suspense, thriller, contemporary fiction

My favorite history focus for the year was no doubt Killers of the Flower Moon, a riveting nonfiction account of the Osage Native Americans and the killer(s) that stalked them, carrying out a series of murders in an attempt to make a grab for the oil shares that the Osage controlled.  Additionally, Grann covers the bumbling attempts of the early FBI to solve to the murders.  Grann himself puts together the facts and follows the strings further than the FBI ever seems to have done, eventually laying out a picture that is truly horrifying in its scope.  Greed is a character here just as much as the real people populating the page, and Grann does a wonderful job laying out the narrative, building the case, and doing it all in a fashion that is eminently readable.  Genres: nonfiction, history, mystery, true crime

Sourdough gets my vote for fantasy of the year.  I had a lot of tough decisions here; I read several fantasy books I absolutely loved this year.  Ultimately, though, I'm going with Sourdough because, while the fantasy aspect isn't as pronounced as in some others I adored (Uprooted, The City of Brass) it hit on another note that I really wanted to include: food.  This is a magical realism story about how food can liberate people, and how easy it is to get in over one's head.  With the same quirkiness that Sloan brought to Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Sourdough uses humor and technology and a sense of place to build up a story that's all heart.  Be prepared to want to devour copious amounts of bread as you read this.  Genres: fantasy, magical realism, urban fantasy

I wanted to include a book that hit on important current events in this list, and I was torn between Missoula, my ultimate selection, and Exit West.  Exit West deals with the refugee crisis in a sort of magical-realism way.  But ultimately, it was Missoula that resonated with me more, especially in the wake of the results of the 2016 election (you know, how a man who brags about sexually assaulting women can somehow become the President of the United States) and the revelations that have come out at pretty much every level of society about sexual assault and rape this year.  Of course, this information probably doesn't come as a surprise to many women.  The slut-shaming, victim blaming, and utter disregard for justice displayed in Missoula are rampant in society, and Krakauer's work is well-researched and well-written.  This should be mandatory reading for all college students as well as for anyone who says that rape isn't a problem, that it's all women crying wolf, etc.  Genres: nonfiction, current events, true crime

Finally, I wanted to include a post-apocalyptic book for the year.  I was torn between Good Morning, Midnight and The Handmaid's Tale.  I'm ultimately picking Good Morning, Midnight for this category, though, because while I think The Handmaid's Tale is vitally important, it's gotten a lot of press this year--understandably so, given its simmering relevance as well as its adaptation into a series by Hulu--and I wanted to end my list on a more positive note.  Much like Station Eleven, Good Morning, Midnight has a surprisingly optimistic look at the end of the world and what comes after, and is a story of human resilience and hope rather than one of grit and doom.  The imagery is wonderful and the two stories contained here, slowly coming closer and closer together, have a duality that resonates more together than on their own.  The parts are greater than the whole, and while the end wasn't a huge surprise, it was beautiful and poignant and the book stuck with me long after reading it.