Aside from having seen her name on a few titles in Barnes and Noble, I wasn’t familiar with Amy Jo Burns until I was assigned to read Mercury for my book club. The description of the novel immediately put me on defense, but I have suffered through some clunkers for this book club and was ready for whatever it threw at me.
What’s it about?
This is the official/goodreads description, included so I can talk about why I was skeptical:
“A roofing family’s bonds of loyalty are tested when they uncover a long-hidden secret at the heart of their blue-collar town―from Amy Jo Burns, author of the critically acclaimed novel Shiner.
It’s 1990 and seventeen-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone’s table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town is three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun.
The Joseph brothers become Marley’s whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all. As their own mother fades away and their roofing business crumbles under the weight of their unwieldy father’s inflated ego, Marley steps in to shepherd these unruly men. Years later, an eerie discovery in the church attic causes old wounds to resurface and suddenly the family’s survival hangs in the balance. With Marley as their light, the Joseph brothers must decide whether they can save the family they’ve always known―or whether together they can build something stronger in its place.”
How’s the audio?
The audiobook is read by Maria Liatis. She has a very pleasant, straightforward reading style. Compared to some of the other audiobooks I’ve listened to recently, Liatis’ rendition of Mercury is simple and unadorned. She does not do much in terms of distinctive voices or drama, but her voice is clear and nice to listen to. I guess what I’m saying is that I didn’t notice the performance particularly; it was largely invisible.
What’d I think?
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
By the time I finished Mercury, I liked it. I was very skeptical at the beginning. The line about Marley being “adopted mother” to both her husband and an ex-boyfriend rang a warning bell for me. Obviously this book was going to delve into the dynamics of an unhealthy family unit, but I’ve read a couple of books in the last few months (and/or picked for my book club) that have crossed the line for toxic families, and I didn’t want to deal with that again.
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride is the 2023 Barnes and Noble Book of the Year. It was also Amazon’s Book of the Year and won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. Nothing about the cover or premise particularly caught me, but in light of these achievements I felt that I should read it.
What’s it about? (Description from Goodreads)
The new novel from the bestselling, National Book Award-winning, Oprah Book Club-picked, Barack Obama favourite James McBride.
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.
How’s the audio?
I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by Dominic Hoffman. It’s a fairly straightforward narration. This sort of treatment would have been fine for a different book, but I needed something a little more dynamic for this plodding, meandering novel to keep my interest.
I was not excited when I found out that I’d have to read Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur for book club. I didn’t have anything against Brodeur—I’d never read or even heard of her before—and the book itself didn’t particularly strike me one way or the other. There was one very damning piece of evidence that I’d hate the book, though: Miranda Cowley Heller endorsed it.
If I’ve ever hated a novel more than I hated The Paper Palace, which I also read for book club, then I can’t recall it. It made me feel physically ill, and caused me significant mental distress. I was afraid that Little Monsters would similarly disturb me. There are ways to write about abuse that are effective and harrowing without being disgusting and unreadable. Cowley Heller, who inflicted multiple highly descriptive scenes of child sexual assault on me, has not demonstrated an ability to do that. Thankfully, Brodeur is capable of it.
Little Monsters is about family dysfunction and, yes, abuse… but the way it is addressed is far, far better. We see the abuse in the aftermath, in the ways that it has shaped the people affected. We get enough information that we can intuit the general shape of what happened, but there is no voyeurism involved. Even as the novel builds to the revelations, the focus is kept fiercely on the aftermath and the recovery: Ken’s therapy, Abby’s artwork. The reader doesn’t get the details because the reader doesn’t need them… and the characters themselves don’t know all of them.
What’s it about?
Renowned oceanographer Adam Gardner is about to turn seventy, and plans to have a large party populated by family, friends, and old colleagues alike where he can unveil his most recent—and possibly last—great discovery. His two adult children, whom Adam raised alone after the death of his beloved first wife, are each planning an elaborate gift for him. The two siblings—not to mention their gifts— could not be more different. Ken is a wealthy and successful businessman with a perfect family, and Abby is a bohemian artist living off a meager teaching salary and her brother’s goodwill. As Adam’s party approaches, old family secrets make themselves known as Adam, Ken, Abby, and a stranger called Steph move into place for a birthday bash none of them will ever forget.
What trigger warnings should readers be aware of?
This is a difficult question to answer as, technically, the answer is a spoiler. I will say that the material is treated sensitively. It is hinted at throughout the book and confirmed towards the end very clearly, but there are no long descriptions and the focus is put entirely where it belongs: in the ways the participants were affected after the fact.
At long last I have done it. I’ve been hearing about Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus for a very long time. It’s pretty much everywhere. It was a Good Morning America Book Club pick. It was Barnes and Noble’s book of the year from 2022. Pretty much everyone in my book club read it and loved it. My mom’s book club read it, and though she was pretty lukewarm on it, everyone else loved it. Half my coworkers have read it. One couldn’t rave about it enough; others didn’t finish it. I myself noticed a generational gap with the people I spoke to: younger readers (twenties and early thirties) didn’t seem to vibe with it, while older readers (retirement age, mostly) tended to tell me that it was the funniest, best, truest novel they’d read in years. I don’t love historical fiction, and I don’t love science, so I wasn’t exactly raring to read this one, but you can only hear so much about a book before you get curious enough to read it. I requested it from the library, didn’t prioritize picking it up, requested it a second time, and then finally—more than six months after it first got on my radar—sat down to read it.
What’s it about?
Elizabeth Zott is a chemist, but her official career is thrown off the rails both because of everyday sexism and because her famous chemist boyfriend dies in an accident, leaving her unmarried, pregnant, and out of favor at their lab. After a few years of struggle, her daughter’s delicious lunch makes a splash at school, and a classmate’s father—who works in TV—decides to set her up as an onscreen personality hosting a new midday show called Supper at Six. Elizabeth isn’t an obvious choice for TV, but her no-nonsense attitude, chemist’s background, and refusal to talk down to the housewives of America sets her apart and scores her legions of fans.
What’d I think?
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
I neither quit Lessons in Chemistry halfway through nor felt the need to sing its praises once I’d finished. I’m a bit surprised that the novel has reached this level of acclaim, because while I generally enjoyed it—there are a few laughs, and the highlighting of both the women and the sexism in science is laudable—the end result isn’t particularly memorable, and in fact the main things that stand out to me are small and largely negative: minor irritants, my inability to remember retroactively important plot points, and a disconnect with the intended theme and the execution.
There’s a dry humor about this novel that’s not quite my taste. There are moments that I could tell were supposed to be funny but which didn’t hit for me, which is fine. Not all humor is for everyone. It is a smidge frustrating to read something that’s meant to make you laugh, and you can tell it’s supposed to make you laugh, but which you can read entirely straight faced. It reminded me a bit of Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple which similarly got raves about its hilarity but which I found to be utterly forgettable.
It’s hard to know how to review a book which you know isn’t bad but for which you are not the target audience. For that reason I’m going to keep this one uncharacteristically short and hit only on the one element of Lessons in Chemistry which is a legitimate gripe and not merely a matter of taste. I am, after all, outside the demographic of ravers and there are enough of them that there are certainly reviews out there explaining what works about Lessons in Chemistry for the crowd for whom it works.
It’s been a while since I read many books written for young readers. I used to pick them up all the time because I worked as a children’s librarian and wanted to stay in the loop, but I don’t have as much call to keep up anymore. I have a TBR a mile long and young readers aren’t my priority anymore, so it takes a lot to push one to the top of the list. The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln piqued my interest, though. I saw it compared to Trenton Lee Stewart’s The Mysterious Benedict Society, which is a favorite of mine, and a coworker whose taste in books vibes well with mine recommended it. Then it won Barnes and Noble’s Children’s Book Award. Admittedly I”m skeptical of BN’s picks these days, but since the kids’ and YA books tend to be decent, I gave it a try. I’m glad I did.
What’s it about?
Shenanigan Swift lives with her sisters, great aunt, and uncle in a crumbling old house full of hidden passages, dangerous traps, and a long-lost family treasure. Every once in a while the rest of the Swifts—all named with the peculiar method of running a finger through the family Dictionary—descend on the house for a Family reunion to search for the treasure. Shenanigan is determined to be the one to find it, but her treasure-hunting may have to wait when someone tries to murder her Great-Aunt Schadenfreude, the family Matriarch. Shenanigan, along with her favorite sister Phenomena and a new friend/cousin Erf, decides to find the killer.
What’d I think?
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Some young reader fiction is enjoyable for kids to read but painfully juvenile for adults. Some of it is fun for kids but has deeper layers that will engage older readers. Happily, The Swifts is the latter. There’s a time and place for the former, but I’m never there anymore and with my limited time I want to read books that I enjoy, not books that I would enjoy if I were still ten.
The Swifts surprised me in a lot of ways. I expected to like it, but I didn’t expect to love it. The Mysterious Benedict Society is an excellent comp for it, because like that series, The Swifts is full of mysteries and puzzles, has a compelling cast of different-but-compatible young heroes, and has a smart sense of humor. I was sucked very quickly into the novel even before the main story/murder because the characters are so fiercely realized from the first page. It’s impossible not to love Shenanigan right off the bat. She’s clever and mischievous, openhearted and curious. Beth Lincoln did a really interesting thing with the Swifts’ naming system: as soon as you meet each new character, you have a general idea of who they are. Shenanigan, for instance, is a mischief-maker who pulls shenanigans. Her sister Phenomena is remarkable and is associated with science. Gumshoe is a detective. And so on. The names are not the be-all-end-all of anyone’s characterizations. When a character suggests that Shenanigan “can’t help her name,” indicating that the Swift family Dictionary is in some way magical, Phenomena decides to make a scientific study by observing Shenanigan’s activities. What does she do that is in character for her name, and what does she do that is out of character for the name?
This gives the reader a starting point with which to quickly understand the individual Swifts… or not. I’m nearly thirty years old and I didn’t immediately know every word used for a name. There are those like “Shenanigan” or “Atrocious” or “Candour” that are pretty quickly apparent even for a young reader. Then there are those that an adult would likely know but a child reader would either have to look up or wait for the novel to provide context (“Schadenfreude,” “Gumshoe,” “Pique”) and still others that even the average adult wouldn’t have in their immediate vocabulary, or wouldn’t necessarily know how to interpret it as an identity (“Fauna,” “Cantrip,” “Pamplemousse”). This makes it easy to keep the many characters straight but it also leads to some interesting exploration as the characters investigate the power of the names that came from the Dictionary. The names are great as a starting point, but as we read more deeply we see that some of the characters don’t fit their name exactly as first interpreted. The is it magic? element also gives Lincoln lots of space to work and for the readers to wonder. We are at once certain and uncertain about these characters within moments of meeting them. As a fun bonus, I learned some new words with this book, but I barely noticed it because I learned them through meeting a family of lovable weirdos; that’s way more fun than a vocabulary lesson.
Clever children’s mysteries are really the best. The wordplay in The Swifts is fantastic, and the mystery itself is tons of fun as well. I’m usually pretty good at predicting the end of this sort of book, but I fell for several red herrings. I was very, very confident that I’d figured it out right at the beginning and then there was a major plot twist that blew my mind. As Phenomena says, having a hunch is not enough to base a murder accusation on. I love the teamwork between the children as they investigate. The mix between Shenanigan’s headfirst action stance and Phenomena’s methodical scientific method is really fun, and I can’t think of another kids’ book that has a team like this. I love Shenanigan a lot, but Phenomena is by far the better detective, and she’s the one who feels especially fresh and new. The headstrong dive-into-everything heroine is relatively popular (though, for the record, Shenanigan still feels unique), but the scientific egghead isn’t as regularly celebrated (especially the female ones! Phenomena will be amazing for scientific-minded little girls). I love that both kinds of detective work were needed for the murderer to get revealed: both the inclination and ability to run headlong to the rescue when needed and the patience and knowledge to follow the clues to the truth without getting waylaid by mistaken gut feelings. Phenomena without Shenanigan couldn’t have done it any more than Shenanigan without Phenomena could have (and they both needed Erf, who has their own set of necessary information). I just love teamwork. A single detective is fun, but a group of detectives with complementary skills and driving interpersonal dynamics? Wonderful.
Plus, there’s a treasure hunt in addition to the murder mystery. It really doesn’t get much better than that.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff; it promised dark humor in the face of horrific abuse, and that can be a hard line to walk… and one that can go catastrophically wrong very quickly if the balance gets tipped off even for a moment. Still, the premise and cover sounded interesting enough that I was willing to go in with solid expectations even though I’ve gotten a bit skeptical of Barnes and Noble’s book club selections.
Seriously, though. Look at it. That is a fantastic cover. It’s visually striking, its vibe matches that of the novel itself, and it does not closely resemble any other books out there.
What’s it about?
After her drunken, abusive husband disappeared one day, Geeta has been treated with fear and suspicion by the others in her village. Although she had nothing to do with his sudden absence, everyone is convinced that Geeta murdered Ramesh. This reputation makes for a lonely existence, but it isn’t without its advantages: Geeta is now free from physical abuse, able to provide for herself without the money going to illegal alcohol, and people are scared not to buy her products. The problem arises when Farah, a member of Geeta’s local loan group, takes Geeta’s reputation a step farther and asks for Geeta’s assistance in killing her own violent husband.
What’d I think?
I really enjoyed The Bandit Queens. Don’t get me wrong: it is very dark and I suspect it could be quite triggering to some readers as the murder is really the tip of the iceberg. The Bandit Queens engages with alcoholism, sexism, domestic and sexual assault (including, briefly, of children), casteism, colorism, violence, and animal abuse. The humor, in my opinion, is used as a sort of coping mechanism, allowing Geeta—and, through her, Shroff—to address these subjects without being drowned by them. It can be a bit irreverent at times, but not (at least in my opinion) irreverently so. The novel and its tone never undercut the horrors by attempting to make them seem less horrible. Geeta’s humor is, like the career she makes of making widows, a direct if over-the-top response to abuses she suffers. When dealing with content like this, it’s all about the tone and the gravity. The Bandit Queens uses humor, but it never makes light of any of it. That’s the difference between something like The Bandit Queens and something like The Paper Palace(which was also a BN book club pick that engaged with sexual assault and pedophilia) which made me actively sick to my stomach.
The banter between the characters is really fantastic, though. At our book club discussion we had lots of tangents where someone just said “remember when Saloni said such-and-such” or “oh my gosh that scene at the police station!” and we all took a minute to chuckle.
That being said, all potential readers should go into The Bandit Queens with their eyes open. If you are triggered by any of the above subjects, or if you would be upset by dark humor being utilized as a way to process trauma, this may not be a novel you want to engage with. There are lots of books out there, and life is too short to read ones that will distress you!
To be totally honest, the premise of Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain didn’t really catch me. Setting-heavy fiction isn’t something that particularly appeals to me, and the witchy small-town Louisiana setting is a major selling point of this one. Still, I had to read it for work so I did. Considering that the last two books I had to read for work were All of Us Villainsby Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Dark and Shallow Lies had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it did. It’s fine, but it’s nothing to write home about.
What’s it about?
Grey was born in La Cachette, Louisiana, a town full of psychics and secrets, but after her mother’s death she lives with her father and returns to La Cachette only in the summertime. This summer is different, however; her best friend (and “twin flame”) Elora has disappeared and is presumed dead even though no body has been found. Grey, spurred on by what are possibly psychic visions of the night Elora disappeared, becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of Elora’s disappearance… and, with it, the drownings of two other children a decade before.
What’d I think?
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
I liked the setting. As I said above, I don’t personally care all that much about setting. I’m not a visual person and I’ve moved often enough that to me, one place is pretty much like another. Even with that in mind, I can see that Sain did a good job with La Cachette. The town’s closeness and culture absolutely inform the story, and give it a distinct feeling. The mysteries could not occur in the same way anywhere else, because they are tied inextricably to both the magic of the town and the tight-knit, claustrophobic community. The thin lines between truth and fiction further feed the confusion, and Sain’s brief inclusion of Cajun culture and Louisiana dialect are welcome.
I liked the pacing. I expected Dark and Shallow Lies to be a fantasy novel, but it reads like a thriller. I thought the magical powers were going to play a bigger part, and while they’re important they contribute more to the overall vibe than the plot. As Grey investigates Elora’s disappearance, she uncovers secret after unsettling secret, many of which ask her to reevaluate the things she knew best: the intentions of people she loves, the lore of her town, even her relationship with Elora. The story builds bigger with each chapter, and there’s never long between twists, meaning that this is a novel that keeps you reading. I wanted to read through this quickly because book club was looming and I hadn’t even started that book yet, but I was able to make it through this one in a day and a half because it is so fast-moving and exciting.
I didn’t like the obviousness of some of the false leads. This point doesn’t need much farther elaboration, but I’m going to give some anyway. Grey chases down some leads that I could tell immediately were red herrings. I always like when the author lays a track that the reader can follow if they’re paying attention, but this was a little too easy. One of the biggest *gasp here* moments was something I’d predicted in the first few chapters, and I was unshakably onto the most suspicious players long before Grey turned any attention towards them. I narrowly missed predicting the actual murderer, but I’ll get into that in the marked spoiler section.
Because of my book club, once a month I read a book that I almost certainly would not have picked up under any other circumstances. If I’m being totally honest, that book club has given me significantly more clunkers than hits so at this point I go in very pessimistic and walk out very happy as long as I didn’t hate the book. This month the book was Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel and, going in, my feelings were even more mixed than usual. On one hand, Mandel is an extremely well-regarded and popular writer. I’ve heard raves for both her previous novels, The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven, and the latter has even been adapted into a show that has likewise made quite the splash. On the flipside, though, I read the blurb for Sea of Tranquility and yikes. It sounds absolutely horrible: convoluted and pretentious and focused entirely on concept with barely a passing thought for character or plot. This was either going to be very good, I thought, or very bad.
Somehow, I was wrong about that.
What’s it about? (Kind of spoilery, I guess? I’m actually talking about the plot, not just the setup and vibe like all the official summaries do).
Is reality real or is it a simulation? That’s the question that time-traveller Gaspery-Jacques Roberts intends to find out when he investigates several strange instances—scattered through time, of course—of people seemingly transported to an airship terminal to the sounds of a violin playing music that has not yet been written. Under strict instructions not to interfere with their lives, Gaspery investigates an exiled young earl, a moon colonist stranded on Earth during a pandemic, and a woman whose husband ran a devastating Ponzi scheme.
What’d I think?
Sea of Tranquility is well-written and it has enough momentum to keep me reading, but until a compelling last-act twist that makes what came before feel worth it, my overall impression is that I was right in expecting a convoluted, pretentious work focused entirely on concept with barely a passing thought for character or plot. I ultimately gave the book four stars on Goodreads, but that honestly feels overly generous, because while Sea of Tranquility is objectively speaking a well-written and good book, it doesn’t have any of the hallmarks of an I-loved-it-and-will-remember-it-and-recommend-it-widely favorite.
Since I work at Barnes and Noble I try to make a point of reading at least one of their monthly picks. I don’t always do it, but when I do I tend to go for the young adult choice because that’s both my section at work and because it’s what I read by choice. I occasionally go into it reluctantly, like last month when I made a rare foray into horror. This month, though, the book already appealed to me: it’s a fantasy novel full of magic and magic that touts a nonbinary love interest and has some beautiful cover art. I don’t know if All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue would have made it to the top of my TBR if it hadn’t been a monthly pick, but that put it on my radar and I read it very happily.
What’s it about?
Maeve is a bit of a problem child. Her siblings are all major overachievers, and she’s struggling even at the expensive private school her parents sent her to in an attempt to straighten her out. She’s not much better with her social life, having semi-recently thrown over her best friend to try to climb the social ladder. Things change when she finds an old deck of tarot cards while cleaning out the school basement for detention. Maeve has an uncanny ability to memorize and interpret the cards, and her readings become something of a novelty at school until, goaded by her new friends and under pressure to maintain her nebulous new popularity, Maeve does a reading for her ex-best-friend Lily that goes sideways when Maeve draws an unfamiliar card and in the heat of the moment wishes that Lily would disappear.
What’d I think?
I really enjoyed All Our Hidden Gifts. I was first struck by the voice. Maeve is a great protagonist, and by that I mean she’s a little bit terrible but very compelling and somehow, at the end of the day, someone you can root for. When we first meet her she’s in detention for throwing a shoe at a teacher, and she’s hilariously unrepentant. Her voice flows freely, letting the reader easily sympathize with her while being fully aware that this is a girl who makes very questionable decisions. One of my biggest pet peeves with fiction is when writers can’t quite figure out how to keep a character’s POV without buying into all their shortcomings; I want to be able to tell that something is intended as a character flaw, and not something that the author is excusing. O’Donoghue never has to step out of Maeve’s voice to moralize her decisions, but she also never gives the impression that we’re supposed to agree with everything that Maeve does. It’s a hard line to walk, and I really appreciate when it’s done well.
Every month Barnes and Noble picks several books of the month, and I almost always try to read one of them. For April, I read My Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham. It could have gone either way because on one hand it is a LGBTQ+ fantasy novel, which is right in my wheelhouse, and on the other hand it’s a horror novel and historically I haven’t done well with horror.
What’s it about?
After auditioning for a prestigious school, Finch and her parents are driven off the road by an eight-eyed deer and drowned… but Finch survives her death only to discover that a strange ghost is offering magical boons to schoolgirls in exchange for an increased connection to their world. As the ghostly woman gets more demanding and dangerous, Finch and her new friends—including popular dancer Selena and cryptoid enthusiast Simon—must find out what and who she is and how to stop her before bloody history repeats itself.
What’d I think?
I’ve spent my whole life thinking that I’m a horror wimp. Disney villains terrified me far beyond when it is socially acceptable to be terrified of Disney villains, and I had nightmares for months after watching not-that-scary movies like The Prestige and Angels and Demons. When I read Native Son as a senior in high school, I had to leave it on the sofa overnight because I couldn’t sleep with it in my room. So any time I hear that something is scary or actually creepy, I assume that it will be too much for me. I was very concerned when I kept reading reviews of My Dearest Darkest that reiterated how it’s legitimately scary, not just YA scary.
I’m starting to think I may need to reassess my own wimpiness, because with one exception at around page 200, My Dearest Darkest didn’t particularly scare me. It has some gross moments, and the body horror is strong in some points. I wouldn’t necessarily want to read it while I was eating, but it’s also not one that made me lose any sleep or anything like that. Is it not scary or am I just not a wimp anymore? I’m not really sure.
I read an interesting thing from Kayla Cottingham in which she talked about how she used to be a fan of Lovecraftian horror before turning to a slightly different genre, cosmic horror, which makes space for the types of people—women, people of color, queer people, disabled people, etc.—that Lovecraft othered and made monstrous. It was an interesting read.
The best thing I can say for My Dearest Darkest is that it keeps you reading. I did want to know what would happen next. I was fascinated and horrified to find out what Nerosi really wanted from the girls she was dealing with. I supported Finch and Selena’s romance and was eager to see it unfold. So the base story, for the most part, worked.
The best thing about book club is that it forces you to read books you might otherwise have missed. Such was the case with Zakiya Dalila Harris’ debut novel The Other Black Girl, which has been pitched as The Devil Wears Prada meets Get Out. Despite the eye-catching cover and intriguing premise, I was a little wary of this one because of the second comparison. I’ve never seen Get Out—heard good things, though—because I am a total wimp and I don’t go anywhere near horror. I’m scared enough of the world without talented, imaginative writers going out of their way to terrify me. I expected to like The Other Black Girl, but I also expected to be lightly traumatized.
Traumatized might be going a little far, but that’s probably a good way to go in. The Other Black Girl is a really interesting and disturbing insight into the publishing industry, and while I’d probably classify it more as sci-fi than horror, it’s certainly terrifying even when depicting the most mundane aspects of the heroine’s everyday life.
What’s it about?
Nella is an assistant working at a prestigious publishing house. Although she likes her job, it is wearying to be the only Black employee who doesn’t work manual labor and to know that the likelihood for promotion is low. Then Hazel shows up. At first, Nella is excited and relieved to have another Black assistant around… but then Nella gets on the wrong side of her boss and watches as Hazel quickly flies up the corporate ladder. And then there’s the question of the threatening notes that start showing up on Nella’s desk, urging her to leave.
What’d I think?
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Vague but significant spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.
I met Rebecca Roanhorse, Black Sun author, by total coincidence a few weeks ago. She’s semi-local, and she came by Barnes and Noble to sign some of her books. I happened to be the one there to speak with her, which was super cool because I love meeting authors but don’t get to do it very often. She is really nice, and I was upset and embarrassed that I hadn’t read any of her work even though I love fantasy and she’s a well-known, award-nominated writer. I went home and put her on my TBR, and then Barnes and Noble picked Black Sun as its speculative fiction pick for July and I moved it to the top of the list.
What’s it about?
I usually write my own summaries, but Black Sun is a big book with a lot going on, so I’m going to cheat and use Goodreads’ description:
“The first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.
A god will return When the earth and sky converge Under the black sun
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.
Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.”
What’d I think?
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
I’m really glad that Black Sun is as good as it is, because I got the impression Roanhorse stops by our store semi-regularly, and I wanted to be able to report that I’d read and loved her book if I see her again because I promised I was going to (not insincerely; it really did sound like my kind of thing!). Happily, I can be totally truthful if she ever comes by again.
It took me a little to get fully immersed. The first few chapters are quite intense and have more body horror than I’m comfortable with. My tolerance for body horror is very low, so when a book opens with a mother sewing her young son’s eyelids shut, it squicks me and I have to really brace myself before moving forward.
Thankfully, that level of gore is not maintained. It isn’t smooth sailing from there; there’s still a lot of violence, including assassination attempts, mutinies, stabbings, mutilations, and murders but it isn’t as visceral. Roanhorse is an excellent writer, and to my relief she does not linger on descriptions. She reports what happens but doesn’t glorify in the gruesome details any more than necessary. Thinking back, even that opening chapter isn’t specifically gruesome. Just a hint of what’s happening is enough, because what’s happening is pretty darn harsh. It does a good job of setting the stage for the rest of the book. It plunges you into this dark, magical, often violent world without any real preparation and lets you, like the many characters, figure out on the fly what is going on and who is and isn’t trustworthy.
Most reviews of Black Sun focus on the Pre-Columbian-America-inspired setting, so I’m not going to go deeply into that. Yes, it’s cool to have a fantasy world that draws its inspiration from somewhere other than the UK. Yes, I like it a lot. Yes, it gives the novel a unique flavor and immediately distinguishes it from other epic fantasies that otherwise it might have resembled. It’s great, but I don’t really have anything to add so I’m not going to try.
A Blog of Books and Musicals 