The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (Mini Book Review)

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.

What’d I think?

Yellowface (Book Review)

R.F. Kuang has been on my radar for a while because I’ve heard good things about all her books and they’ve all sounded like something I could love. I’m typically a fantasy reader, so I thought I was going to start with The Poppy War, but then Babel got such great reviews that I thought I’d do that. Then Yellowface came out and I was immediately curious. I’ve always wanted to be a published writer, so a book about the publishing world appealed to me, particularly one from such a well-regarded writer. The story sounded great, it won readers’ choice awards on Goodreads, and my mom’s book club picked it up. I decided the universe was pointing me in that direction.

What’s it about?

June Hayward’s publishing dreams didn’t exactly come true. Her first novel didn’t make much of a splash and she’s pretty sure that her agent and publisher couldn’t care less about her. Her life is certainly nothing like her sort-of friend Athena Liu’s. Athena is everything June wants to be: rich, beautiful, smart, and–most of all—wildly successful. When Athena unexpectedly chokes to death in front of June, June does something unthinkable: she steals the draft of the Athena’s work in progress. Because Athena is famously thin-lipped about any upcoming projects, June is able to pass the novel off as her own. Athena’s novel The Last Front quickly rockets June—now called “Juniper Song,” a rebranding that of course has nothing to do with the fact that June’s new blockbuster is a historical epic about the Chinese Labor Corps and June, a white woman, stole the story from a Chinese-American colleague—to commercial success and literary stardom.

How’s the audio?

Yellowface is a spectacular novel, and the audiobook narrator Helen Laser does an excellent job with it, but I believe that this book would probably be best read in a physical form. There are several sections in which the protagonist gets sucked into an online black hole and reads comments from Facebook and Twitter, and these sections don’t feel like they were meant to be read aloud. I still very much enjoyed the experience, though. 

What’d I think?

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Yellowface is extremely entertaining, brilliantly written, and maddeningly upsetting. Our first person protagonist June is a real piece of work, and unfortunately both she and the world she inhabits are painfully real. June is a white woman with an almost supernatural ability to justify her worst actions. Yellowface is basically a repeated sequence of June doing something unjustifiable and racist and then twisting herself into knots to explain that actually no, she didn’t steal Athena’s manuscript and publish it under her own name with sole credit; actually she’s honoring Athena by making sure her last words are seen. No, she’s not pretending to be Asian; it’s a total coincidence that her new photos look ethically ambiguous and that her new name sounds vaguely Chinese. She’s not racist just because she assumes that Chinatown is dangerous and rundown or because she’s surprised when she meets an Asian person who speaks good English or because she gets an Asian editorial assistant fired for suggesting they hire a Chinese sensitivity reader. As Yellowface progresses, June keeps digging herself deeper and deeper into a grave of her own creation… only to somehow (read: white privilege) stay alive to keep making things worse.

Firekeeper’s Daughter (Book Review)

I’ve had Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley on my TBR since I first saw the cover, which is striking and beautiful and unlike any other cover I’ve seen. Since book covers often follow trends (remember the post-Hunger Games YA landscape when every book had a circle on the cover? Or that truly terrible period of time when covers almost always had character’s torso with the top of their head cut off? Lookin’ at you, City of Bones), seeing something that stands out so drastically—the color! The shapes! The butterfly! The Rubin Face!—is always exciting, particularly when it’s this visually pleasing. I put it on my list and then for some reason it never quite made it to the top even as I kept seeing rave reviews. Still, you can only see a beautiful cover like that so many times before picking it up. 

What’s it about?

Daunis has just graduated high school, but her ambitious college plans have to be deferred after the one-two punch of her uncle’s death—apparently an overdose/relapse—and her grandmother’s stroke. The only thing that takes the sting off the decision is that now she and her best friend Lily can take classes together at the local college… and Daunis gets to help welcome new boy Jamie into the community. But Daunis is warned that bad things come in threes, and it proves true: Lily is shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend right in front of Daunis, and Daunis becomes involved in an FBI investigation into the laced meth that has made its way into Daunis’ neighborhood as well as other native communities. 

How’s the audio?

I listened to the audiobook, which is read by Isabella Star LaBlanc. For the most part, I enjoyed the performance. Unlike a lot of narrators I’ve listened to, LaBlanc doesn’t do a distinct voice for every character. Rather, she has a couple of dialogue voices that she employs for all the characters, one for the men and boys, one for the women and girls, and one for the elders or anyone else making a grand statement. This works fairly well for the most part; LaBlanc flawlessly reads all the various languages included, and her intonation is expressive. I never lost track of the dialogue or the characters. My only complaint is that the voice she often uses for the elder native characters has a strange, slow cadence that struck me as a bit stereotypical.

What’d I think?

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

It’s hard to know how to rate this book. The parts that are good are excellent. The parts that aren’t good don’t make any sense. I love the way Boulley dives into Ojibwe culture and the way that Daunis advocates for victims and her community when those around her want to look only for the worst. That being said… the focus on romance is frustrating, and the dramatic ending only works if you accept that the villain’s motivations and decisions are puzzling at best, at worst nonsensical and calculated for drama. The atmosphere, the cover, and the culture would give Firekeeper’s Daughter four and a half to five stars, but the romance and the conclusion take it down steeply.

First things first: the way that native culture takes center stage is fantastic. In Firekeeper’s Daughter, Boulley faces on the beauty and struggles unique to the Ojibwe community. Daunis is knowledgeable about traditional medicines. She is a Jingle dancer. She comes from a family of Firekeepers, and we see these ceremonies multiple times in the novel. Ojibwe language appears throughout Firekeeper’s Daughter (and, since I listened to the audiobook, I got to hear it spoken, which was extra special). Daunis has nothing but love for her community, and that shines through Firekeeper’s Daughter. I felt I learned a lot with this novel. I love it when fiction shows me people and parts of the world that I don’t know about, and this was unquestionably my favorite part of Boulley’s novel. 

As Good As Dead (Book Review)

When you know why this cover is creepy… yikes, this cover is creepy

I was blown away by Holly Jackson’s teen mystery thriller A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, and I happily—and quickly—consumed the sequel Good Girl, Bad Blood as well. For no reason I can actually explain, it took me a long time to wade through my TBR to get to the third and final novel of the series, As Good As Dead, but I’m here now. 

What’s it about?

After witnessing a violent and morally ambiguous death at the end of her last murder investigation and being asked by a lawyer to publicly walk back her (truthful) accusations about a serial rapist, Pip is suffering from PTSD. She’s trying desperately to keep it together and project an image of someone who is fine and definitely not using burner phones to buy drugs to be able to sleep. Pip needs to find one last case to solve, one final case that’s easily black and white and will put her mind and soul at rest, and before long she’s on the track of an infamous serial killer.

What’d I think?

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

This series has always been darker than the average YA fare, but this one really takes it to the next level. Pip’s stories have never shied away from graphic descriptions or sexual violence or exposing the weaknesses of the legal system, but yikes! The lines between good and bad have always been blurred here; book one’s villain was an otherwise good man who did a couple of horrific things, and Pip herself struggles to sort out the good and bad between the villain and victim in her second story. In the first half of As Good As Dead, it looks like the lines are a bit clearer. There’s a serial killer prowling around Pip, and it is absolutely terrifying. We know and love Pip, and anyone who strangled five young girls is clearly evil. There’s apparently no ambiguity.

The first bit of the book is harrowing. The direct and indirect threats that Pip receives are as scary or scarier than anything I’ve read, certainly in YA and possibly even beyond it. The creeping horror of it sets up Pip’s most dangerous and terrifying whodunit yet. Those chalk drawings…

Except As Good As Dead isn’t exactly a whodunit. It’s a thriller. As Good As Dead initially seems to follow A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and Good Girl, Bad Blood’s lead by presenting a local cold case for Pip to solve, a cold case that hits a little closer to home than she first realized, and which has been fumbled by law enforcement. For the first half of the novel, it looks like As Good As Dead is going to use the same formula that worked so well before. That’s no shade to the formula, by the way. Both of the previous books are exciting, can’t-put-them-down page turners. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was actually my favorite read of 2021. No one would have blamed Holly Jackson for a threepeat. If you’re really, really good at something, why shake it up? Holly Jackson did, though. About halfway through the book, As Good As Dead takes a massive turn and the race to the end is something I never, ever would have expected from this series.

The Bandit Queens (Book Review)

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!

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea (Book Review)

After binging the excellent queer pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death, I actively sought out media that would fill the hole it left. In that search, I repeatedly saw The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall recommended. I’m always in a mood for pirate content, but the nonbinary representation promised in The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea was enough to get it to stand out from the crowd.

What’s it about?

Evelyn is the beautiful, wealthy, highborn daughter of Imperial nobility. Unfortunately, she’s far from a proper lady, and her parents decide that the best thing to do with her is to send her to an arranged marriage across the world at the very edge of the empire’s reach. Little does Evelyn know that the ship she boards is actually crewed by pirates who plan to overtake their passengers and sell them into slavery. Her only hope is Florian, the pirate who was assigned to protect her while onboard and with whom she has fallen in love, but who is hiding more than one secret.

What’d I think?

 I love books and movies and sitcoms about pirates. In fiction, pirates are almost always chaotically fun; they might break the rules, but it’s always the rules everyone wants to break anyway (like women have to be proper or no telling rich people how much they suck). They drink lots of rum and dress immodestly, but when it comes down to it, they’re good people who live rough and care about each other and only kill when strictly necessary. They’ve run away to sea because they have a romantic idea of the sea, or because they’re gay and fleeing homophobic society, or because they just don’t want to have to put up with The Man. This makes for very enjoyable fiction, but it’s not especially true. While it’s true that lots of pirates may have gone to sea to escape the limitations of polite society or because they couldn’t afford to go anywhere else, it’s also true that piracy was savage and violent. Tokuda-Hall does not forget that, and while she does sand down the rough edges a little in order to YA-ify the story, there is a lot of darkness and cruelty in The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea. Florian/Flora, one of our dual protagonists, may have gone in with pirates because he and his hapless brother Alfie would have starved to death if they hadn’t, but one they’re in they’re in. Flora is no innocent. She has killed on her reprehensible captain’s orders, and she has taken part in the enslavement. She doesn’t like it, but before meeting Evelyn she never protested, either, preferring to keep her head down. His position being what it is, Florian has always had to balance his morality with his self-interest. When the two options are starving to death and stealing poor children’s bread and condemning them to starve to death, it’s not much of a decision. Florian is saving money to leave the life, but she is anchored to her brother, whose softness and trauma has turned him into a drunkard with an expensive addiction. Abandon her brother or keep pirating? Flora lives an ugly life with ugly choices, and the novel does not shy away from that ugliness. 

Nor does it shy away from brutality in general. Imperialism is a major part of the novel, and major storylines stem from the cruel ways in which the empire conquered neighboring lands, stripped them of their culture, and then instilled them as lesser colonies to the Emperor. The empire in this novel is loosely inspired not only by England and America, but also by Imperialist Japan. One of the POV characters, Rake, third in importance only behind Flora and Evelyn, is old enough to remember his homeland being ravaged; the resultant grief, anger, and PTSD is his primary motivating force. A relationship to the empire is fundamental to every character in this novel. Because we spend time with the pirates, outcasts and enemies to the emperor, most of the characters have been directly harmed by this imperialism, and Tokuda-Hall leans directly into that.

An Ember in the Ashes (Mini Book Review)

A friend with good taste recommended An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir to me, so I added it to my TBR. I finally got to it, and I very much did like it. I don’t know that it is going to be my newest obsession, but it was certainly an enjoyable read with some very quality worldbuilding.

What’s it about?

When Laia’s brother is imprisoned, she joins a rebel group in exchange for their help in procuring his freedom. Laia is placed in the dangerous Blackgate school as a slave to the dangerously cruel commandant with instructions to accumulate as much intel as she can. Once there, she meeds Elias, who is training to become a “Mask,” a deadly tool for the Marital Empire, but who had planned to defect before being entered in a dangerous series of trials in competition for leadership of the empire. 

What’d I think?

I wrote this review during NaNoWriMo when I had a lot going on and a lot of other reviews to write. I finished the book about two weeks before I got to this review, so I apologize for how short and halfhearted it is. My brain is tired and I forgot to take notes when I finished.

Probably my favorite part of An Ember in the Ashes is the worldbuilding. Tahir does a good job of establishing the universe. Very quickly we are given a good idea of how this society works, how and why the caste system is set up, and why various groups are at odds with each other. The magical mythology weaves in well, and while we aren’t inundated with particulars, there are enough specific details to make it all feel deeply fleshed out. The Masks in particular are very cool even though I sort of wish Elias has been stuck with his. Like, yeah, I know he has to be able to take it off to escape and that it is a physical manifestation of the darkness he’s been forced into… but it’s just so cool as a fantasy element and the idea of Elias having that permanent physical reminder of who he’s been… I don’t know. Letting him pull it off fairly easily feels like a missed opportunity, particularly as the mask is clearly the striking imagery from this series. Maybe the rest of the series goes down that route with Helene, though.

I’m excited for more Helene as the series goes on. She spends a bit too much time here being the best friend with a crush, but the end reveals that she has quite a bit more going on and I’m very interested to see where she goes. From where I’m standing now, she has the most potential of anyone and anything in this series.

Heathers (Musical Review)

I would love it if every musical were professionally recorded and made available to a wide audience. There are too many musicals with scores that I adore but which I’ve never gotten the opportunity to see. Then there’s movie musicals. For every one that’s great (West Side Story, Chicago) there are more that are disappointing or downright terrible (Dear Evan Hansen, Cats). Now, I love movie musicals. Even the ones that are commonly considered mediocre or bad have a special place in my heart, but if you offered me a choice between a movie adaptation or a proshot of the same musical, I’d take the proshot every time. In instances when I’ve seen the stage version of the show and the movie, I prefer the stage version. Movies often cut necessary songs (RIP “Good For You”), cast movie stars who don’t have the necessary vocal power (Jeremy Jordan > Christian Bale, and yes I know the movie came first), reframe the musical numbers so there’s an in-universe explanation for the singing (lookin’ at you, Jersey Boys), remove the impressive dance moments (why, Cats, why?), lack important context (RENT), soften some of the darker themes that don’t play as well in Hollywood (Into the Woods), or just lose some of the magic that can only be created onstage (I loved Fiddler on the Roof both times I saw it live, but am kind of bored by the movie). This brings me to Heathers: the Musical. 

Heathers is a cult classic. It never made it to Broadway, but based on the widespread popularity you’d think it had run there for years. It’s based originally on a dark comedy from the 80s starring Winona Ryder. I’ve never seen the original movie, but it’s impossible to be a musical nerd on the Internet without hearing about this show. I knew it was widely loved, and when I heard a few of the songs out of context (mostly Candy Store and Beautiful, as those are Spotify’s darlings) I got it. The songs are really catchy. Then I read a synopsis of the show and I did not expect that. I was a little disturbed, but whatever. Lots of shows seem really weird when you hear about the plots out without actually seeing them; anything with a weird sense of humor in particular comes across badly. Book of Mormon has become one of my favorite shows, but when I first heard it I was more inclined to be offended than to laugh because I didn’t have the requisite context.  

When I found out that Heathers’ West End production was going to get filmed and released, I was excited. I’m excited for every proshot for obvious reasons, but it wouldn’t have been at the top of my please please someone film this list (I am, however, very excited by the announced Six proshot). Still, it was a foregone conclusion that I would watch it, and as it is Spooky Season it seemed like a good time to check out the famously dark and murderous musical.

What’s it about?

Jagged Little Pill (Book Review/Musical Comparison)

I love getting free books and I’m obsessed with musicals, so when I got the opportunity to get an ARC of Jagged Little Pill, which is written by Eric Smith but based on the Broadway musical by Alanis Morissette, Diablo Cody, and Glen Ballard (which is in turn based on Morissette’s album) there was really no question that I was going to take it and read it. I wasn’t super familiar with the Jagged Little Pill musical, although I had listened to the cast recording and watched all the official and readily available performances, but I didn’t go in totally blind. I knew some of the particulars of a few of the plotlines, although not the main one, and I was quite familiar with the controversy (you can jump to my discussion of that here). In fact, that controversy was a large part of why I wanted to read Jagged Little Pill; I was fascinated what direction the official novelization would take when given the opportunity to address it without having to worry about specific actors or performances.

Since reading the novelization, I have done a deeper dive into the musical itself, reading in-depth synopses and reviews and watching any YouTube videos I could find in the hopes of being able to provide some semblance of a here’s-what-changed element to this review. That being said, I have still not seen the show—and I know that it has gone through some script doctoring since the Tony awards, and I don’t know if the things I’ve read and seen are pre- or post-edits—and would very much appreciate/welcome anyone in the comments to correct, clarify, or add to what I’ve said here about the stage show. 

What’s it about?

In the wake of an out-of-control party, five teenagers face the consequences of what they did and didn’t do that night. Frankie is suffering in the shadow of her perfect older brother Nick, and struggles to understand her place as an adopted Black girl in a white suburban family. Nick is about the break under the pressure of being the one on whom all his family’s hopes and dreams rest. Phoenix’s whole life has been upended in the chase to get his sister the medical care she needs. Jo’s family doesn’t accept her, and Bella needs someone to hear her. 

What’d I think?

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

FYI, spoilers. Also, trigger warnings for sexual assault and rape.

The biggest change the story made when making the jump from stage to page is the focus. The stage show is about the fractured Healy family, with the parents MJ and Steve arguably more central even than Nick. Jo, Bella, and Phoenix are all supporting characters onstage but they are given significantly more time in the novel, likely because the novel is categorized as YA. With that categorization it is logical to give the starring roles to the teen characters and move the adults more to the peripheries. That being said, I don’t think it was the right call.

The stage show is a family drama, and MJ is the heart of that. The show both opens and closes with her, and her struggles tie everyone else’s together. MJ is the one who imposes the pressure on Frankie and Nick to make the Healys look like a perfect family. Her ‘perfect mother’ persona, despite harming her own children, is something Jo and Phoenix envy and, perhaps most crucially, her rape and its aftermath provides a contrast to Bella’s. Although MJ is not necessarily the most active character, her smallest actions arguably have more ripple effect than even the more outrageous decisions by other characters. It is MJ who put the cap of the perfect family on top of them all, and it is MJ who blows it off when she ultimately speaks about her rape and admits her drug addiction.

Blood Scion (Book Review)

Happy publication day, Blood Scion! In exchange for an honest review, I was given a copy of Deborah Falaye’s debut novel Blood Scion in advance of publication by Megan Beattie Communications. Thanks!

What’s it about?

When Sloane turns fifteen, she is drafted into the brutal Lucis army. It is bad enough that she is being torn from her home and her family to fight against her will for a violent regime that has systematically destroyed her people and her culture, but it is significantly more dangerous for Sloane individually: she is a Scion, a descendant of the ancient Orisha gods, and if any of the Lucis learn of the magical fire that flows in her veins she will be killed on sight (as will her family, for harboring her). If Sloane has any hope of survival, she will have to fight and kill, but is it possible for her to hold onto her humanity when those around her would transform her into a monster?

What’d I think?

First things first: Blood Scion is intense. It has a much appreciated (and much needed) trigger warning, and Deborah Falaye has been very upfront on social media that Blood Scion is not for everyone. It’s an excellent book, but check in with yourself before starting it to make sure you’re prepared. While it can and does get dark, YA fantasy traditionally has a line it won’t cross. The world may be ending, but the heroine will fall in love and eventually have her romantic happily-ever-after. There might be the occasional death, even a violent one, but for the most part the true innocents are spared. Rape is threatened but always averted at the last moment. Death has a meaning. Heroes may cause death in a roundabout way, but they’ll never murder someone directly. And so on. There are exceptions, but true darkness is not the norm. Blood Scion, however, is willing to plunge right into that true darkness and stay there.

I was warned that this was going to be harsher than the average fantasy novel, but my expectations kept tripping me up anyway. Several times I was lulled into thinking oh, here we go; here’s where we get into debut author tropey nonsense, but I was wrong every time. I underestimated Falaye. She expertly uses her readers’ knowledge of the genre to lull them into a false sense of security before subverting the tropes we’ve been conditioned to expect. In the first hundred pages, I thought I knew where things were going only to be proven emphatically wrong by a dramatic, violent, permanent death that changes the course of the novel and tells both Sloane and the reader that no one is safe and that this will be a bloody ride.

Anthem (Mini Book Review)

Can someone please check on whomever chooses the book club reads for Barnes and Noble? I hope they’re okay. Because you can only pick so many stories about doom, despair, and sexual abuse before it becomes a disturbing pattern. Noah Hawley’s Anthem is yet another immensely depressing, psychologically scarring book that—while well-written and thoughtful—tricked me into thinking I hate reading. Listen: I like fiction that asks me to reflect on the real world. I like stories to have a point to make or a moral thesis or an interesting observation about humanity. What I don’t like is when a book is so bleak that it reminds me of the worst bits of the real world without anything hopeful or entertaining to offset it. Anthem is, among other things, about a flux of suicides caused by young people losing any remaining hope in the future. It does a terrifyingly good job of illustrating why there isn’t much hope for the future, but is less successful in other areas.

Honestly, I almost wish that Hawley’s writing was worse. When a bad writer asks you to imagine the worst possible future, it’s easy to say that will never happen or humanity is better than that. But Hawley describes a possible post-pandemic and post-Trump future far too well. He makes it far too easy to think this could happen, and almost tips into this will happen. And when the this is an epidemic of suicides and hopelessness and increased political divides, shootings, and bombings and the imminent threat of civil war, it’s more than a little upsetting. It feels too real, and it is not something that I want to be real. It’s a future that I’m already scared enough is coming. I read because I want to get away from the worst of the real world. I enjoy fiction that asks me to wrestle with the flaws of the world; I dislike being made to drown in them. 

And drown I did. There’s nothing like getting suddenly hit with a laundry list of reasons to be pessimistic about the world, prepared by a character who, in the wake of his sister’s suicide, gets put in an institution for the clinically anxious. It’s a depressing world, made more so by feeling so real, and then we’re asked to view it through the eyes of someone even more than usually sensitive to it. 

Still, I was doing okay for the first half of the book. I had to take mental health breaks. I watched some comparatively optimistic TV shows—Grey’s Anatomy, Dickinson—and soldiered on. It’s not an enjoyable book, but it is good. It lost me in the second half, which gets significantly more surreal and drifts in several directions, but overall it is good (and the first part, while irredeemably depressing, is excellently written).

Daughter of the Pirate King (Book Review)

#booktok has some really good picks. They Both Die at the End, We Were Liars, Six of Crows, The Book Thief, The Song of Achilles, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, The House on the Cerulean Sea… I’ve been very impressed by nearly every #booktok title I’ve read, so when I see any picking up steam I add them to my list. Tricia Levenseller has been pretty popular in general lately. A friend recommended The Shadows Between Us, which sells pretty consistently, and Daughter of the Pirate King has been trending. I went with Daughter of the Pirate King because between the Grishaverse’s Nikolai Lantsov and the Darker Shade of Magic trilogy’s Alucard Emery I have been very into fantasy pirates lately.

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

What’s it about?

Alosa is the daughter of the pirate king, and she has gotten herself intentionally kidnapped by the son of powerful pirate lord so that she can steal a valuable map fragment that will lead her father to a hidden island guarded by sirens and home to untold treasures. Alosa is stronger and more skilled than any other pirate, so she is confident in her ability to accomplish her mission quickly and easily. However, there is something—or rather, someone—she did not count on: Riden, the first mate who seems able to see through her deceptions and who she finds unexpectedly charming.

What’d I think?

Spoilers, by the way. For the most part they’re vague or obvious or both, but still. Spoilers.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to think of Daughter of the Pirate King before I began it. On one hand, pirates! The blurb on the cover promised me a female Captain Jack Sparrow, and that struck me as a fun idea. At the same time, though, I was leery of the title. It’s not as common now, but for a while it was a thing to ostensibly name a novel for a female character but in the same breath define said woman by her relationship to a man. There’s something very off-putting to me about those titles. My immediate reaction is to recoil slightly, flinching from what feels like false feminism. Still, I liked the cover design, I’d heard good things about the book and about Levenseller generally, and I was excited by the prospect of female pirates so I figured I’d ignore that gut feeling and press forward.

In retrospect, maybe I should not have ignored that gut feeling and pressed on. I didn’t hate Daughter of the Pirate King or anything, but “feels like false feminism” is as good a phrase as any to describe it. Because here’s the thing: the reader is told over and over and over that Alosa is the best pirate. The strongest, the smartest, the boldest, the baddest. She’s more or less alone on a boat full of enemies and rarely if ever spares a thought for her safety because she knows she can handle whatever comes her way. The only reason she fears an attack is because it might require her to reveal that she has more power than she ostensibly ought to. She is the captain of her own vessel, and she has a crew composed almost entirely of other girls; we’re told that they’re the best crew out there. But Levenseller doesn’t ever deliver on these promises. I mean, I would have loved a novel about a half-siren pirate captain and her all-female crew. But Alosa leaves her crew behind almost immediately and we barely check back in with them. She ends up as a prisoner on another ship—this one made up entirely of men—where she is constantly under threat of sexual assault. And yeah, Alosa brushes this off by reminding the reader that she chose to be captured and is more or less in control. But that doesn’t change the fact that she is locked up, guarded by leering men, and reminded repeatedly that if she doesn’t behave she might get raped.

Alosa is confident that if it ever came to that, she could handle herself. I’m not so sure. She talks a lot, but she’s not nearly as incredible as she thinks she is. Towards the end of the novel, we find out that all her escapes were noted, the secrets she thought she was keeping had long since been clocked, and the dagger she thought she’d kept hidden was in fact left to her. She is taken by surprise one time and is entirely blindsided and becomes essentially helpless. She becomes the damsel in distress that previously—she claims—she had only been playacting. 

Good Neighbors (Book Rant)

I’ve read a lot of good books this year. Almost everything has been a four or five star review. I suppose, though, that all good things must come to an end. A good run ended with Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan. I did not like this book. I raced through it because I could not wait to be done with it.

What’s it about?

When a sinkhole appears in a wealthy suburban town, it reveals a dark underbelly. A young girl disappears into the sinkhole. A father is accused of rape. An angry woman whips her neighbors into a violent mob. Temperatures climb, and a mass exodus leaves only the worst neighbors behind.

What’d I think?

F/⭐

The Cold Millions (Book Review)

I read The Cold Millions in mid-December, which is when I start to start reflect on what I read to make my annual top and bottom tens. Looking back, I read some very good books, but I read a lot of books that weren’t to my taste even a little bit. By virtue of being fresh, anything that I read in the last part of the year is more likely to make the list than something I read way back before the shutdown. That said, I suspect Jess Walter’s novel The Cold Millions would end up on my least favorite list even if I’d read it on January first. Putting book down and saying, “thank goodness I’m done with that,” is not a good sign. Reading a climax in which the two lead characters are both in imminent danger of dying violently and not caring in the least is not a good sign. Deciding to rely on a previously-published list of book club discussions rather than writing my own is not a good sign. I did not like The Cold Millions. I try to find something positive to say about even the books I like the least, but when I’m both bored out of my mind and actively irritated it’s tough to be upbeat.

That said, the rest of my book club really enjoyed the book. They loved Walter’s writing and storytelling, and I wonder if my inability to visualize things damaged my perception of it. The book club ladies enthused about the way Walter writes and how he paints a picture. I’ve always found overly descriptive novels annoying and lacking in impact, so maybe that’s why I had such a negative reaction to The Cold Millions even though so many people love it.

D/⭐

What’s it about? (from Goodreads)

“An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early twentieth-century century America that eerily echoes our own time, The Cold Millions offers a stunning, kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams. Featuring an unforgettable cast of cops and tramps, suffragists and socialists, madams and murderers.”

What’d I think?

Before I started The Cold Millions, I read Goodreads reviews and checked its star rating. I was excited to see the 4+ rating and to read reviews that called Walter the next great American writer. Almost everyone who read it gushed about it and about him. I was bewildered, absolutely bewildered, by my own reaction having read those. My overwhelming feeling is that Jess Walter is not a good enough writer to have tackled a storyline like the one found inside The Cold Millions. An excellent writer can elevate a mediocre storyline, and a mediocre writer can drag down a powerful storyline. The latter is what happened here. There’s an embarrassingly wide chasm between what we’re told and what we see. Until I read the afterward that told me how Walter felt, I couldn’t figure out what stance he meant to take. The pacing is bad. The characters are forgettable. Things that should be difficult come easily, and almost every character beat feels unearned. The basic plot of the novel? It could have been excellent. I suspect that even in the hands of a great writer it wouldn’t have been my taste, but it could have been interesting and compelling. In Walter’s hands, though? I was bored silly. I was irritated by the characters that should have inspired me. I forgot who was who because they failed to make any impression on me. I repeatedly flipped to the end to count how many pages I still had to suffer through.

Girls of Paper and Fire (Book Review)

When I stop to think about it, I actually haven’t read many review of Natasha Ngan’s Girls of Paper and Fire. I saw it on a few vague lists of diverse YA fantasy and since that’s my jam, I added it to my to-read list and then got it at the library because it was more readily available than some of my other choices.

Have you ever unintentionally read two books in close proximity that are bizarrely similar to each other? It happens to me all the time, and I don’t know if that’s just because I get in a certain mood and pick books that I can tell subconsciously are going to satisfy the same want, or if the universe is telling me something. In any case, in the last month or so I have read two different fantasy novels about a young woman who is forced to leave her family to be the companion to the king of a distant kingdom, only to fall in love with another woman. The books even have similar titles. The first was Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst, which is a more romanticized version. The protagonist is sent to marry a largely inoffensive prince, and she falls for a princess. Girls of Paper and Fire has much harsher edges: Lei, the protagonist, is a low-caste human woman who is ripped from her family to be one of eight personal prostitutes—called “Paper Girls”—to a demon king who is a cruel, inhuman rapist. Lei’s love interest is one of the other Paper Girls, and it’s understood absolutely that the consequences of discovery will be violent, disproportionate, and catastrophic.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Of Fire and Stars, and as I read Girls of Paper and Fire, I couldn’t help thinking that this was what Coulthurst meant to write. Girls of Paper and Fire is intense. The stakes feel high, the caste system makes sense, and the characters are well-drawn. We understand why Lei falls for her love interest, and we understand how dangerous the love story is while still understanding why our heroine pursues it. There’s not a minute when the reader isn’t painfully, horrifically aware of the violence inherent to Lei’s situation.