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.