Good Night, Irene (Book Rant)

I’m going to be honest: I hated Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea. If you want to read a positive or balanced review of it, you’ll have to find that elsewhere. 

What’s it about?

Based on the experiences of the author’s mother’s real service as a ‘Donut Dolly’ during World War II, Good Night, Irene follows two women who leave home to join a little-known unit of the Red Cross. Tasked with raising morale in the troops, Irene and Dorothy drive their clubmobile Rapid City from the front lines to the officers clubs to smile and flirt with the men while serving donuts and coffee. 

Why didn’t I like it?

⭐

Rating: 0.5 out of 5.

Long story short, it’s boring and doesn’t have much of a plot.

I’m not typically a tough reviewer. I’m not stingy with four- and five-star reviews, and I always feel genuinely bad when I give something a low rating, particularly when a lot of people seem to love it. Did I miss something? At least some of my complaints are matters of taste. Historical fiction is absolutely not one of my go-to genres, and I’ve read enough WWII fiction in the last few months that I’m fairly over it. That being said, I do think that most of my critiques are legitimate and that I’m not being overly, overly mean.

Or maybe I am. Very close to the start of the novel, Irene plays a game of Solitaire and there’s some narration about the joker cards. The game of Solitaire does not use jokers. I’m usually the last person on earth to catch that sort of error, and that near immediate mistake didn’t exactly prime me to be optimistic (or charitable).

I don’t want to be unrepentantly negative, so I will say this: Urrea dedicated this novel to his mother Phyllis, who was a real-life Donut Dolly. Phyllis and her real-life clubmobile companions—including Jill, whom Urrea interviewed extensively for this project—make repeated cameos. This is very cute, and in these moments I could feel the love and respect Urrea has for her. 

That doesn’t make up for the book’s many, many other flaws, though. First and foremost, as I said above, is how boring it is. I read this for book club, and while I was the only one who hated the book, I was not the only one who found it painfully slow, particularly at the beginning. Most of the others in the group felt that it picked up about halfway/two-thirds of the way through; for me it absolutely did not, but even so… the halfway point is far, far too late for the book to draw attention. I famously refuse to DNF books, but I was sorely tempted. If I’m falling asleep every few pages, don’t care about there characters, and have found no plot to speak of, what exactly am I reading to the end for? I only finished for book club, but it took me so long to get through it that I truly thought this was going to be literally the first time in my life that I didn’t finish a book club pick. I did, but barely. There is nothing propulsive about Good Night, Irene, no ‘what happens next?’ The few questions I did have never got addressed, and I wasn’t alone in feeling that the book simply lacks plot. It reads more as a collection of disconnected scenes from the war than as a cohesive narrative. 

I truly think that this would have been better if Urrea hadn’t written a novel and had instead helped Jill shape her memories into a collection of essays. True stories, especially if written as a collection of anecdotes, don’t all have to build on each other the same way a novel does. In its current form, Good Night, Irene has a lot of scenes that don’t serve any clear purpose. Why, for instance, do Dorothy and Irene choose to put on cringey fake French accents for an afternoon? Generously I could say they’re trying to break the monotony or that the pressure of the war is breaking them, but I’m not truly convinced there’s evidence in the text to support it. Lots of scenes seem constructed to carry a single joke, most of which weren’t actually funny to me. 

It doesn’t help that I couldn’t care less about either of the women. Some of my book club companions did like them, but for my money they’re both just empty stereotypes. Irene is a girly girl and Dorothy is a tomboy. Irene had a physically abusive fiancé and Dorothy’s brother died in the war, which is what drove them to serve. Beyond that, there’s very little to them. Worse, they very much give off men-writing-women energy. Physical descriptions are squeezed in early, at very weird times, and neither woman is at all bothered by the gross behavior they receive at the hands of the GIs.

Did Urrea not realize that even the most patriotic woman might occasionally, at least once, tire of the pawing and the flirting and the pet names? Every once in a while one of them will say “don’t call me Dolly” but it’s played like an inside joke (and the girls don’t seem to have any problem being called “doll”). 

There are even moments that sound less like they were written by a human man and more like they were written by an alien educated by a man who had never met a woman before: in one scene Irene “sensed their male presence in her general radar way, and turned to admire the abdomen of the tall one” and a few sentences later Dorothy’s boyfriend “trotted to them and crawled in Dorothy’s lap. ‘Hello, hot mama,’ he growled.” I cringed very hard. In fact, I texted my mom in I’m about to quit this book despair.

Luis Alberto Urrea is a bestselling author who has won writing awards! How? He wrote the phrase “She did a minor swoon.” How am I supposed to take any of it seriously?

Even if I hadn’t seen the name on the cover of this book, there is no universe in which I could believe Good Night, Irene was written by a woman. It’s maybe not the overexaggeratedly sexed-up writing that is so maligned online, but there is something distinctly masculine about the lack of understanding about how women occupy the world, not just in the minor moments (Urrea apparently thinks that merely brushing curly hair can make it straight) but in the major ones as well. You’re telling me that Irene was repeatedly beaten by her fiancé and it’s just the inciting incident? After Irene joins the Red Cross her past abuse is never brought up again except in passing to explain why she’s there. Aside from prompting her to leave, being beaten evidently did not change Irene at all. Neither she nor Dorothy ever feels any discomfort about being constantly surrounded by armed men who haven’t seen a woman in weeks or months and who they are being asked to flirt with constantly. I’m sorry, but that would be terrifying. They receive letters that say things like I saw you for one minute six months ago and still fantasize about you or you probably don’t remember me but you gave me a donut once and I’d like to marry you after the war and they’re charmed by it. There’s not even a passing thought about this. Irene and Dorothy walk through the world—and the war—with a confidence that they’ll be untouched that is absolutely incomprehensible.

That goes double for the actual war stuff. The stated purpose of this book is to bring awareness to this under-appreciated and little-known group of war heroes, but in actuality I don’t think the Donut Dollies come across as particularly heroic here. In theory, I understand how their presence would boost morale, but Good Night, Irene makes them come across as frivolous and pampered. We’re told that they go to the front lines, but the one time they actually do experience the horrors of war upfront they’re sent overseas for an all-expenses paid beach vacation (and their boyfriends are free to just drop by). We’re told they’re sent to boost morale for the suffering GIs, but after seeing the GIs being released from a concentration camp, Patton himself apologizes to them and says he never should have sent them to see those men. When their clubmobile is shot, Irene and Dorothy’s instinctive first response is not to be afraid. It’s to be offended. They pretty much feel that they’re invincible, and why not? They’re immediately promoted to officers so that they’re treated more nicely. They apparently have an inexhaustible source of coffee and donuts, and seem to get the red carpet rolled out at every hotel stop. You wouldn’t know there was a such thing as food shortages or rationing to read this book, because the women at least are always being treated to expensive alcohol. 

It just feels disingenuous to say you’re writing about women’s heroism in war and then to actually write about how the women got to go on sexy vacations, get pampered with gifts of chocolate and champagne, and prove their heroism by (spoiler) adopting a baby.

It’s not a sexist book, but it certainly doesn’t feel nearly as empowering as I expected it to, or as I assume Urrea meant it to. And just don’t get me started on the cheesy death fakeouts or the fact that the love interest is unironically called “The Handyman.”

What’s the verdict?

If you liked this book, more power to you. I barely made it through. I literally fell asleep on it more than one time (and not reading late at night; I didn’t do that with this book, because I’d rather just go to sleep intentionally) and truly thought it was going going to break my decade-long no-DNFs streak. Generally speaking, I think books should have plots, and if they don’t they definitely need to have at least one compelling character with some sort of development. Good Night, Irene does not. The best I can say about it is that I now know about the Donut Dollies, which I didn’t before, and Urrea dedicated this to his mother and her WWII heroism and that’s cute. Beyond that… Good Night, Irene is—at least for me—absolutely without anything to recommend it. 

What’s next?

As far as WWII fiction goes, I highly recommend The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Borrows. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr are also good. It’s not fiction, but The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel and Bret Witter may also be a good choice. I haven’t read it, but one of my fellow book clubbers enthusiastically recommended it.

For historical fiction with compelling female characters, try The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, A Clash of Steel by CB Lee, Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian, The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Kindred by Octavia Butler, Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce, or Burn by Patrick Ness. You’ll notice that not all those writers are women. Sure, women have a leg-up writing female characters, but that doesn’t mean no one else can do it well. Luis Alberto Urrea just didn’t with Good Night, Irene. 

And finally a recommendation that has nothing to do specifically with Good Night, Irene but which deserves a shout-out anyway: The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orzcy, published in 1903, is often considered a predecessor to the masked superhero stories we know so well nowadays. It takes place during the Reign of Terror and tells the story of an enigmatic hero smuggling French aristocrats to safety, the agent determined to stop him, and a woman caught in the middle with an impossible choice in front of her. It’s wonderful, and doesn’t get read enough. If schools taught The Scarlet Pimpernel, more kids would grow up loving classic literature.  

Running with Lions (Book Review)

I’ve seen Running with Lions by Julian Winters repeatedly recommended, but outside the sphere of book bloggers it doesn’t seem to be all that popular; it’s been on my TBR for a while, but it is significantly harder to find than Julian Winters’ more recent novels like, say, Right Where I Left You. Between those good reviews and my recently renewed interest in soccer fiction thanks to Ted Lasso, it seemed like the time to finally seek this one out. Thankfully, after months of not having the book, the library came in clutch for me.

What’s it about?

Looking down the barrel at his last year of high school and an unknown future, Sebastian wants to make the most of his last soccer summer camp with his best friends. But Sebastian can’t just calm down and relax: he’s likely to be named team captain for his last season, and both teammates and coaches alike depend on him to keep everyone on their best behavior. That would be a hard enough job even if it weren’t for the reappearance of Sebastian’s ex-best friend Emir, whose standoffish attitude immediately alienates him from the rest of the team and puts Sebastian in a uniquely uncomfortable position as he’s starting to fall in love.

What’d I think?

The Abby Hayes series was one of my favorites, but it got soccer very, very wrong. I wanted to include the offending picture here, but I think my copy is in storage

I was really excited for Running with Lions, but I was ultimately disappointed. Some authors improve massively from book to book, and Julian Winters is one of them. I might have liked Running with Lions more if I’d read it before Right Where I Left You, but I didn’t and as a result it was a major step down. Winters’ writing has matured massively, and the later novel has a much sharper focus. 

I say this a lot about debut novels, and I hate to be a broken record, but this novel is an example of an author with a fantastic idea but whose writing isn’t quite there to support it. In theory, Running with Lions is exactly the sort of book I’d adore. It’s about looking forward to adulthood and being terrified about what you’ll find there. It’s also about friendship and queer safe spaces and battling self hatred and body dysmorphia. I also really loved soccer back in the day. I don’t watch soccer (I hate watching sports) but a lot of my youth was spent on the soccer field. I started playing when I was five years old and played all the way through high school. I was really good as a young kid, and good but not great in high school (it’s always sad when puberty hits and suddenly the people you were running circles around are suddenly all faster than you; I played varsity my senior year, but was decidedly JV before that). My true love is volleyball, but soccer made up most of my youth and was very formative for me; it’s always nice to read fiction that represents it fairly well (I’m still scarred from that Abby Hayes book that claims that soccer goalies dress up in pads and cage-like masks like they do in hockey). Soccer is also why I have to wear a knee brace when the weather changes, but that’s neither here nor there.

It’s the sort of thing that would never, ever happen… but it would be awesome if Julian Winters rewrote Running with Lions with the writing skill he has now, because I really wanted to love it and I didn’t and it is one hundred percent due to the unsteady execution.

If I had to lay all the flaws of this book on one thing, it would be the size of the cast. I get it. A soccer team fields eleven players and has a bunch of subs, so the average team has something like twenty players. It makes sense that Sebastian, as the presumed team captain, knows all of his guys well and has a good relationship with them all. The problem is that there are so many guys to keep track of that they all end up getting boiled down to a single personality trait, maybe two if they’re in Sebastian’s close circle. Then, on top of the team, there are several coaches, Grey, and a few exes. There are just so many people to keep track of, most of whom contribute to the story only in superficial ways. Winters tries very hard to get the readers to care about everyone, but it’s too big a task in this short a book. Better to focus harder on the characters you really need—Sebastian, Emil, Willie, Mason—and let the others—Zack, Gio, Gray—recede to the back. Better to have a few fantastic characters than a ton of bland ones. Also, and this is minor and a little petty… but did we have to know the hair and eye color of every single person who appears in the novel?

A couple of the characters also come across badly for their only one trait. Like, one of the players is distinguishable only because he occasionally says a word in Spanish. 

Things You Save in a Fire (Book Review)

To be totally honest, I pretty much knew I wasn’t going to like Things You Save in a Fire before I started it. But! I met Katherine Center and she was really sweet and excited about her books and I really wanted to support her and read one so I picked the one that sounded the least Texasy and the least romancey and gave it a shot.

What’s it about?

After a PR disaster, firefighter Cassie reluctantly moves in with her estranged mother to lie low and to do her daughterly duty: her mother is having health issues and has requested Cassie’s live-in assistance for a year. Cassie is not pleased with the whole situation. She’s had nothing to do with her mother since Diana abandoned her on Cassie’s sixteenth birthday, and she’s not exactly pleased to start over at a fire station that, she has been warned, may greet her with sexist reluctance despite her decorated career. She prepares herself the best she can, but she was not expecting to immediately fall for the rookie firefighter who starts alongside her.

What’d I think?

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Despite being categorized as fiction, Things You Save in a Fire is just as romancey as I feared, with a host of other problems I didn’t expect. It is a strange combination of compulsively readable and actively frustrating. It’s a decidedly easy read, with snappy pacing and enough going on that it’s easy to sit down and read multiple chapters before getting back up without really meaning to. I picked it up off my TBR specifically because I figured it would take me a while; I had a backlog of reviews I needed to write and I figured that a non-YA romance book would take me at least week and I’d be able to catch up. Not so. I read Things You Save in a Fire in three days, which isn’t exactly lightning quick, but it’s very fast compared to how I usually do when I venture outside my usual (read: favorite) genres.

Romance fans are certain to eat this one up. It had a few too many romance tropes that I’m personally turned off by—specifically the instalove, the ‘I-don’t-believe-in-love-oh-whoops-turns-out-I-do,’ the ‘I-need-a-date-will-you-pretend-to-be-my-girlfriend,’ the ‘I’m-going-to-call-you-a-nickname-instead-of-your-real-name,’ etc.—but I’m not going to bother getting into any of that in my review because they’re standard romance fare. I don’t like them, but that’s an issue I have with romance, not an issue I have with Things You Save in a Fire, and it is certainly not an issue most readers will have here.

There is, however, one major problem with Things You Save in a Fire that I don’t think any honest review can ignore: the misogyny. 

It’s strange to call such a clearly, blatantly, intentionally feminist book misogynistic, but here we are. Cassie is a firefighter, and much of this novel is about her having to prove herself in a career path that is dominated—and gatekeeped—by men. Cassie has to repeatedly prove herself, and she often finds herself going head-to-head with people who are decidedly beneath her but who are considered her close competition because they are men and therefore fit the stereotypical firefighter image better. I was very excited by the premise of Cassie fighting against and ultimately changing those sexist misperceptions, but unfortunately the novel seems to take a very unfortunate point of view: men are intrinsically better than women, and Cassie is the exception that proves the rule.  

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!

Legendborn (Book Review)

Based on everything that I’d heard about it, I was certain I would love Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. It gets near-universal raves, it’s a YA fantasy novel with an interesting and unique magic system, it focuses on a Black heroine and Black narratives, and it has endorsements from some of fantasy’s best writers. I got Legendborn from the library and immediately regretted not grabbing Bloodmarked as well, because I was so certain that I would desperately want to go right from the first to the second. Once I actually read Legendborn, though, I didn’t mind that I’d forgotten the sequel. I truly don’t understand why I didn’t like this novel. On paper, it should have been a home run, but I was never able to emotionally connect and by the end I found I had no interest in continuing with the series.

What’s it about?

While attending a party at her new school, Bree witnesses something she shouldn’t have: a demon feeding off human energies. More damning, she is able resist it when Selwyn, a strange boy with magic powers and inhuman abilities, attempts to wipe her memory of the attack. The incident shakes loose an old, buried memory. The night her mother died, someone like Sel wiped Bree’s memory. Determined to discover the truth of her mother’s death, Bree infiltrates the society of the Legendborn, a group of demon hunters descended from the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table. Dogged by a suspicious Sel and helped by the charming Nick, Bree must compete in a competition to earn her place amongst the Legendborn in order to access the secret knowledge she seeks.

What’s I think?

I didn’t connect with Legendborn, but I don’t want to give the impression that it’s a bad book. It isn’t. It’s just one of those books that, for me, seems to have a better concept than execution. The idea of a magical society based on the Round Table is really interesting, and the concept of descendants inheriting the powers of their legendary ancestors in times of great need has exceptional potential, particularly when combined with the darker elements of that connection.

The dual magic systems is brilliant in theory. The Legendborn are a wealthy society of mostly male, exclusively white (or, at the very least, white passing) people who can track their prestigious lineage back for generations. Although they present themselves as the only ones with a legitimate link to magic, there is another strain of magic-workers. These practitioners are Black women whose magic is more gentle, less violent. For Bree in particular, there is no long unbroken line of ancestors. Unlike Nick or William or any of the other Legendborn, she can’t definitively list her ancestors back to the great-great-great-greats. Her ancestors were slaves, and as such were denied the basic ability to record their people. This is a particularly compelling element to include in fantasy, because so many fantasy stories—including this one—have a Chosen One whose power or importance comes from their parents or grandparents and the raw pain that Bree has unspoken inside her because of this denial is both heartbreaking and fraught with storytelling complexity.

Hell Bent (Mini Book Review)

After more than two years—a hiatus that would be nearly unforgivable if it weren’t for Rule of Wolves and the Shadow and Bone TV adaptation—Leigh Bardugo finally released Hell Bent, the much-anticipated sequel to Ninth House. Ninth House ended with a killer cliffhanger and the promise of a sequel that went in a drastically different direction, and it delivered on that excitement. 

What’s it about?

The main plot is exactly what was advertised at the end of Ninth House: now certain that Darlington is alive, albeit a demon, Alex and Dawes are looking for a way down to hell to save him. Of course, this doesn’t go exactly as planned, and they’re faced with a handful of other unexpected hurdles: in the absence of Dean Sandow, Lethe has new administrative oversight; Eitan makes an unwelcome reappearance; and a few Yale teachers end up dead under strange and possibly magical circumstances.

What’d I think?
Leigh Bardugo is one of my favorite writers, and arguably number one right now. I love Six of Crows so much, and her other books aren’t too shabby either! Even though Hell Bent fits thematically into her oeuvre, it feels a bit like an outlier and I can’t quite put my finger on why. It’s an unusual book. A great one, yes, but unusual.

It may be the higher fantasy. Ninth House is more magical realism than straight fantasy, at least until the end, and even though the Grishaverse has its own magical world, there isn’t any wand waving or mermaids. The magic is very limited in what it can do and who can do it. In the Six of Crows duology in particular the focus is less on the magic than the heist and, like in Ninth House, the magic in many cases only amplifies or expedites things that could have been done without. The jurda parem, for instance, is a magical stimulant; in most cases, tailoring can only accentuate existing features, not create new ones; one character’s magic powers are so subtle they’re mistaken for luck and skill for years. Every once in a while there’s something massive and obviously magical, but for the most part the magic is not the first thing you’d mention if asked to describe the book. Hell Bent still uses the ritualistic magic that was present in Ninth House, but it is more dramatic. Or, at least, it seems that way because Alex uses it for her own aims rather than merely overseeing it. The novel is also populated by creatures that can interact with the real world, unlike the mostly harmless Grays from book one. The Grays aren’t even that harmless anymore now that Alex can possess them (and be possessed by them). But they’re joined by literal demons and even (brief spoiler) some shapeshifters and vampires, which makes this world feel considerably more fantastical.

It is also unusual in that it is a second book of a trilogy that is arguably more plot-based than the one it follows. I love second books. I love that slow-down where all the initial world-building is done and the major plots don’t have to get resolved quite yet so the author can play around, maybe introduce some fun new characters or focus more with the emotional fallout of the first book. It can take a bit more time to get to the point because it already has repeat readers; you’re already invested and if you went to the effort of picking up the second book an extended setup isn’t likely to scare you away. Hell Bent, though, doesn’t do that. Yes, there’s character development (particularly for Turner! I’m glad we got more of that guy), but there’s no breathing room. Alex and Dawes already know what to do and they hit the ground running trying to figure out how. There’s no gap between the last problem and this one. The characters—and the readers—jump right in and there are few breaks in the pacing.

That was true of the last book as well. Alex really has a rough time, going from one bad situation from another, never quite managing to run far enough away from her last difficult decision to get a moment to breathe or heal. In Ninth House, flashbacks slowly peeled back the layers to who Alex is as a person or, at least, who she was and how she ended up at Ground Zero. Hell Bent doesn’t spend as much time looking backwards. When Alex revisits the past, she does so only to head off future danger and as a result Hell Bent pounds forward relentlessly. 

Side note: I have the BN exclusive edition with the red cover because it was easier to get my hands on, but I honestly think I prefer the white one. The rabbit was a good choice for story reasons, but it’s creepy. I prefer the original cover scene, where it’s a bit harder to see. Also, the black and white aesthetic of the books next to each other on the shelf is just more pleasing to me. The bonus content in the exclusive edition, in my opinion, isn’t worth it. Bardugo annotated some of the Lethe excerpts, which is interesting enough but not required reading.

I expected Hell Bent to be more high fantasy than Ninth House, and I was right. I am a smidge sad. What I loved best about Ninth House is that it is about magic, but no more than it is about abuses of power: those twin ideas curl together like the snake on the cover. The magic facilitates the story about abuse and trauma, and some of the most mundane, unmagical moments are the most powerful. Because the magic is buried underground for the most part, it’s easy enough to read Ninth House and feel that it’s plausible that those kinds of rituals are going on amongst the elite. Or, if not the rituals themselves, at least the bloody and brutal under-the-table doings that allow the rich and powerful to stay rich and powerful and to widen the gap between themselves and those who lack money and power. The best—and primary storyline—is the one that is only probably magic. The murder Alex investigates could very well have been the sort of average, everyday tragedy that requires no magic and indeed (spoiler for Ninth House), the motivations for it are rooted in a very pedestrian concern: money.

Hour of the Witch (Mini Book Review)

I was not well acquainted with Chris Bohjalian when his novel Hour of the Witch was announced as the Barnes and Noble book club selection. I knew that he is a reasonably well respected author, but I’d only read one of his books previously (The Double Bind, which is not one you often hear about) and was lukewarm about it. Still, since I don’t usually love the book club picks (The Cold Millions, Good Neighbors, Florence Adler Swims Forever), I was excited for a book that sounded more up my alley. Almost everyone in the book club said to me independently, Audra, this is going to be one you’ll like. They were right, but I think they were thinking more about the book being about witches (I read lots of fantasy, and Ninth House has been by far my favorite book club selection) and less about its focus on systematic sexism and power structures, which—for me—is the real appeal of this one.

What’s it about?

When Mary, a wealthy Puritan woman, petitions to divorce her abusive husband, she becomes an object of curiosity in her patriarchal and strictly religious society. During the divorce trial, Mary is scrutinized and criticized, and as it goes on Mary realizes that her emancipation from her husband may not be the only thing at stake; her independent spirit and quick mind may brand her as a witch in the minds of her neighbors.

What’d I think?

It takes a bit to get into this book. At first, I was a bit thrown by the dialogue, which is intentionally very dated (lots of thous and prithees and the like). I don’t know why I wan’t expecting it, considering when the book is set, but I wasn’t. The first half is quite slow and a bit repetitive. It is written very well, it is clearly meticulously researched, and it does an excellent job of orienting the reader in Bohjalian’s world of saints and sinners, but it does drag a little. There’s enough there to keep you reading, but it doesn’t light that I must tell everyone I know about this book fire. I think the novel would have been better slightly rebalanced, with a bit shaved off the first half and given to the latter half, which moves very quickly, but overall I enjoyed it. I was engaged with this world, and even in the moments when I was at my most frustrated at the slow-moving plot, I was still invested and interested enough to keep reading. I never set the book aside in frustration or complained to friends or family, as I’m wont to do with books that actively irritate me. So I think the pacing is fine, but it might have been better.

Anna K (Book Review)

I don’t know where I first heard about Anna K by Jenny Lee. For whatever reason, though, once I was aware of it, I kept seeing it everywhere. There are lots of very, very positive reviews for it and I was increasingly sure that when I finally read it I would love it. After all, it’s a YA retelling of classic novel and it was reimagined with a Korean-American family at its heart. When I like classic retellings, I LOVE them. I liked Anna Karenina when I read it years ago, and I have been looking to read more books by Asian authors and starring Asian characters, so from the outside Anna K looked like it was going to be a home run.

It wasn’t, unfortunately.

⭐⭐

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

About halfway through Anna K, I—like Levin—understood something. There is absolutely no way to adapt Anna Karenina as a young adult novel. The really successful retellings take the core of the original story and transplant it into a different setting where it can approach the same themes with a fresh spin. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is about marriage. There are three major storylines in it, and marriage is instrumental to them all. Dolly discovers that her husband has cheated on her, and she has to make the decision to stay with him and move past it in order to do what she believes is best for herself and her children. Anna has a passionate affair that dissolves her marriage and ostracizes her from society. And Levin pursues a young woman he wishes to marry. When you take marriage out of the equation, Dolly and Anna’s stories no longer work (Levin’s is still feasible). 21^st century unmarried, childless, teenage Lolly (Anna K’s Dolly) has a lot more options when she discovers her boyfriend’s infidelity than her classic counterpart. As for Anna… teenagers break up all the time, and her choices and affair feel much less significant and far more frivolous when you realize that she had absolutely no reason to stay in a relationship she entered at age fourteen and, at seventeen, is already bored of. It might have been tricky to do a modern adaptation of Anna Karenina considering that society has changed so much—there are still sexist double standards, but a woman who has cheated is no longer such a pariah, and divorce is a far more common and accepted alternative for unhappy couples—but it is certainly doable. But trying to do it with teenagers? Without marriage? That was a fool’s errand.

Still, I’ll say this for Jenny Lee. She gives it her absolute best go. She adds plot elements and updates the material in order to try to get her story to mirror the spirit of the original as closely as possible. Alexander (Anna K’s Karenin) has a car wreck and Anna feels duty-bound to delay their breakup until he is off bed-rest. Towards the end of the novel, Anna hits her rock bottom not merely because of the affair but because someone releases a sex tape without her knowledge or consent. These little touches are needed and show Lee’s cleverness, but ultimately they are a few pieces of masking tape over the gaping holes.

It’s not my rantiest, but it feels slightly more considerate to mark overall negative reviews this way

Unfortunately, the issues with Anna K go beyond the unsustainability of a teenage Anna Karenina. If it were fun to read, all could have been forgiven. If Anna had been a sparkling wit or if Steven (Anna K’s Stiva) had been funny or if Anna and Vronsky’s love story had me swooning, it could have salvaged the whole thing. Sadly, it has no such saving graces. Most of the characters come across as vapid, privileged, irritating children. Anna feels particularly pretentious; she acts like she’s a high class lady of standing but everything she does is uncomfortably frivolous, particularly her love affair. This book is just one boring party scene after another. We’re told repeatedly that Anna and Vronsky have a lot of chemistry when they dance, but you can’t just say they danced and it was hot and have that be it. Lolly’s personality essentially boils down to basic rich white girl who tries too hard. Alexander (Anna K‘s Karenin) is a prick with few, if any, redeeming qualities. Dustin (Anna K’s Levin) is a little bit of a creep; his one dream in life is to go to Prom with a girl from the community’s deeply sexist Hot List, and while supposedly he does legitimately fall in love with Kimmie (Anna K’s Kitty), he does so at first sight and is entirely too preoccupied with the fact that she is quantifiably the third hottest sophomore. I can get behind any story if there’s one character I can glom onto and adore with all my heart. I couldn’t even find one here who didn’t annoy me.

Then there are even smaller irritants, like the fact that I was supposed to take a teenage boy called Alexia “The Count” Vronsky seriously. Lee updated everyone else’s names, but left “Count Vronsky?” WTF. No. Also, why change “Alexei” to “Alexia?” That’s just… weird.

And speaking of Vronsky, I was bewildered that Lee went so far out of her way to say that he doesn’t like horses, doesn’t ride them, hasn’t done for years, has no interest in them, etc. only to have the horse race with Frou-Frou’s death play out exactly as it does in the original novel. Anna K’s Vronsky rides a motorcycle. Why not have him crash in a bike race? Or why not just let him love horses? It would give him and Anna something to bond over, and it would keep the emotion higher in the horse race scene. Also, loving animals is a recurring theme in Anna K, much more so than in Anna Karenina, so it doesn’t make sense to remove Vronsky’s love for the horse.   

Ditto with all the trains. Why keep them in essentially their original form when the rest of the story no longer supports them? There are other dangerous vehicles out there. Trains were cutting age in Anna Karenina (and, obviously, a huge part of that story both thematically and literally), but every time someone takes one in Anna K I got pulled out of the story. Casually taking the train is not a thing people do anymore. Maybe a bullet train in Europe or Asia, but in the States? Why not put everyone on a bus? It’s less romantic and evocative of the original, but it makes more sense. Maybe Lee meant the metro every time she wrote “train,” but I spent the whole book thinking about how the only time I’ve been on a train was as a tourist when the train was the attraction.

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. 

The Five Wounds (Book Review)

Have you ever picked up a book, read the inside cover, and thought I am going to despise every second of this? That was my first impression of The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade. The over-the-top religiousness, the teen pregnancy, the alcoholism… none of the subjects promised inspired even the slightest bit of interest or optimism. It’s almost like Quade was working from a checklist of things that wouldn’t interest me. If I hadn’t had to read this for book club, there is a subzero chance I would have picked it up. I haven’t exactly been overflowing with praise for the last few book club picks, so I was shocked and bewildered when I realized that I actually really liked The Five Wounds.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

What’s it about?

Amadeo—at age thirty-three, the same age Jesus was when he was crucified—has not accomplished much. He can’t hold down a job, he’s an alcoholic, he lives with his mother, and he has such a bad temper that his sister gave him a book about male rage for a Christmas gift. When he is picked to play Jesus in a recreation of the crucifixion, he believes that he is being given a chance at redemption. And the last thing he needs showing up to distract him just before the recreation is Angel, his pregnant teenage daughter, who has decided to move in.

What’d I think?

Mild spoilers.

Even now, after discussing the book for nearly two hours, it’s hard for me to believe that I liked this book as much as I did. I really thought that it was going to be overwrought and sappily religious, that it was going to do that tired the younger generation is too loose thing that often comes up in inter-generational novels aimed towards adults. It’s true that the novel is religious, but not in the saccharine, judgmental way that so many quote-unquote Christian stories are. The Five Wounds takes just about every storyline in the opposite direction than I expected. Amadeo is not a mere vessel for religious fervor/talking-points. Angel, rather than being ridiculed and slut-shamed, is portrayed as brave and capable for the way she adapts to the challenge of teen motherhood.

Possibly my favorite aspect of the book is the way it depicts male rage and challenges double standards. I did not expect this book to be so feminist. And it’s somehow both obviously and subtly done. It’s not in your face. There aren’t #girlboss moments or blatant speeches about the patriarchy, but feminism is baked into the very essence of The Five Wounds. From the beginning of the novel, a sharp contrast is drawn between Amadeo and his daughter. He was a teen father and she is a teen mother, but the similarities stop there. The amount that Amadeo got away with is absurd, but it is even more appalling when seen beside the immense workload that Angel takes on. She is forced to grow up at a young age, and he is allowed to wallow in adolescent immaturity well into his adult years. Throughout the novel, Quade draws attention to the double standards between men and women. Amadeo and his sister, despite having the same parents, had very different experiences growing up. Amadeo skated by on his likability and was coddled; his sister, less charming, was given far less leniency and grew into a hyper-competent, if hypercritical adult. Angel’s mother, too, contrasts Amadeo. At one point, Amadeo* reflects that he is able to get into Angel’s good books more easily. Despite all but abandoning Angel and her mother from Angel’s infancy, Angel turns to him in her hour of need. Amadeo makes one mistake after another, but when Marissa makes one big mistake (admittedly a huge mistake) she immediately sinks below Amadeo in Angel’s esteem.

There’s only one other character who shares the leniency that Amadeo coasts on: Ryan, the father of Angel’s child. He is not a screw-up like Amadeo is. He does what is expected of a teen father, but as The Five Wounds demonstrates: what’s expected of a teen father is essentially nothing. Amadeo is defined by male privilege, unknowingly he basks in it, but it is only with Ryan that Quade states this main point in terms so clear that not even the most clueless reader could miss it:

“Of course he thinks he can just ask for what he wants. He’s a guy, white, the precious only child of a mother focused entirely on him. He’s got a minivan and a college fund. He’s every bit as culpable for Connor’s creation, yet being a parent hasn’t’ cramped his style any. He’s still in school, acing English and kissing up to teachers. He goes to fucking media camp. What even is that? Where he learns to be a newscaster? Angel would like to do that, why not? She think of how in geometry, he always raised his hand, regardless of whether he knew the right answer. At the time, she thought his willingness to be so publicly wrong stemmed from a kind of misplaced, witless courage, and she’d been almost touched, but now she sees it for what it is: pure entitlement. She thinks of her own grandmother, greeting him with such obvious pleasure, praising him for stopping by. Oh, what a good boy! As if, for the simple gesture of not completely ignoring his own infant son, he’s in the running for a Nobel.”

The Five Wounds, p.381

The juxtaposition between this scene of Angel’s well-justified anger with Amadeo’s constant state of simmering rage is masterful, and the journey Quade takes Amadeo on is simply brilliant. Before the events of the novel, Amadeo’s sister gives him a book called Mastering Ares: Breaking Free from the Prison of Male Rage, and if that isn’t a good description of Amadeo’s arc, I don’t know what is. Whatever Amadeo likes to think, he is absolutely controlled by his anger at the beginning, but over the course of the novel, as he takes on responsibilities—arguably traditionally feminine duties—and does some long-overdue growing up, he manages to largely overcome that rage. He grows in empathy and allows that to inform his behavior more than the flashes of anger at perceived slights. And boy if that isn’t a trajectory I’d like to see more often.

Midnight Sun (Mini Book Review)

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer, also known as Twilight Take Three, was a huge deal when it came out nearly a year ago. It was such a huge deal that I preemptively decided to wait until the craze had passed before I even attempted to get it from the library. I think the waiting list was longer than three hundred people at one point. In any case, the call for it has slowed enough that I was finally able to check out a copy and read it for myself.

Twilight from Edward’s point of view is exactly what you’d think it is, but also more of it than you’d expect it to be. I knew that most of the book would be retreads of what I’d already seen in Twilight and Life and Death, but I didn’t realize how lifted it would be. When Stephenie Meyer said it was Twilight from Edward’s POV, she really meant that literally. Every scene from the original novel (or, at least, every one between Edward and Bella… so, most of them) is written out here as well, word-for-word where the dialogue is concerned. Probably to make up for this, Edward has a mental responses to nearly every single line. Sometimes he’s furrowing his brow because he still can’t read Bella’s mind. Sometimes he reiterates how much he wants to eat her. Often he reflects on how much he wants to murder Mike or how every woman in existence is madly in love with him. Occasionally he’ll note that he doesn’t really know why he said what he said, mostly when his remarks are unnecessarily cryptic and bonkers even for him. Honestly, very little of it is anything that couldn’t be easily read between the lines in Twilight. Midnight Sun is nearly 700 pages long, but if you whittled it down to the new scenes or insights it would probably be a hundred pages or less. It’s definitely a fun read. Edward is so cringily melodramatic that I laughed aloud more than once, mostly at lines that I think were meant to be taken seriously. Still, a laugh is a laugh and I did have fun. But did reading it give me any new insights about Twilight? No, not really.

A lot of the book seems to be interested in rehabilitating Edward’s image. Edward is a toxic boyfriend. Everyone knows that. That is not news. Meyer and Midnight Sun really don’t want that to be true, though, so Edward spends a lot of time comparing himself to regular teenage boys and angsting about his choices, probably in an attempt to downplay the fact that he’s more than a hundred years old and likes sneaking into a teenage girl’s room to watch her sleep. That’s creepy, Edward. Sorry. In one scene he oils Bella’s window so it will slide open more quietly. Yikes, man. He tries really hard to justify why he’s watching her sleep by angsting about whether or not he’s any different than a regular Peeping Tom (sorry, Ed, but no, you’re not) and obsessing about how if he doesn’t see Bella with his own two eyes it means that she’s in imminent danger of being murdered by ninjas or eaten by sharks or something. He doesn’t use those examples, obviously, but he keeps going on and on about how Bella is a danger magnet and how everything dangerous will find her and blah blah blah she’s better off if a murderous predator hangs out in her bedroom while she’s unconscious. It would be deeply disturbing if Edward weren’t so absurdly over-the-top dramatic that it’s funny.

Also, for a guy who claims to have put his good old murderin’ days behind him, Edward sure fantasizes about murdering Mike a lot. Midnight Sun casts Mike in an incredibly unflattering light, probably because if he were at all decent some people might prefer him to Edward. I remember I did back in Twilight’s heyday. I mean, he was a normal, inoffensive human boy who liked Bella and had her back in gym class. He was pretty cool. On the Edward-is-Not-as-Bad-as-He-Seems-Tour, though, he’s a creepy, possessive jerk who crudely pictures having sex with just about every girl he walks past. How do you make Edward look less creepy? By making Mike more creepy, I guess. Jasper got creepier in Midnight Sun, too. There’s a scene where he creepily hangs out near Edward and Bella because their love is like a drug to him. Yikes. I still like Jasper. He’s definitely one of the most interesting characters in the series, going from the most evil vampire (he killed so many people, not to mention the Confederate thing) to the most empathetic. I also liked that he tried to eat Bella and on the whole seemed kind of over Edward and Bella’s mushy gushy thing. Sad that’s not the case and that he’s actually as obsessed with them as they are with each other. It was pretty cool to see him fully in action, though, since he’s usually such a side character. His power is way more expansive here than we ever saw it in the original series. I don’t know if that’s because Meyer hadn’t fully figured Jasper out when she first published Twilight and had to retroactively explain why James didn’t freak the heck out when he saw him and century’s worth of vampire battle scars.

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/⭐

We Begin at the End (Book Review)

In preparation for the upcoming Shadow and Bone Netflix series, I reread Leigh Bardugo’s fabulous Grishaverse books from start to finish. Six of Crows is my current #1 favorite book, and it goes without saying that I LOVED that reread. I knew that the first book that I read after finishing it would have a tough shake. Some fictional worlds are too much fun to leave, and Bardugo’s Grishaverse comes with a nasty book hangover. I was going to lightly resent anything I read right after, and unhappily for We Begin at the End, it was next on the docket. Still, I was lightly optimistic. I’d heard good things about this one, and I saw it selling fairly well. “Selling well” isn’t a foolproof measure of quality, but it is often a decent indicator. Right now, some of the top sellers are They Both Die at the End, The Song of Achilles, We Were Liars, and Shadow and Bone. So… people have pretty good taste.

My optimism was short lived. I had to force myself to the end, and I only managed that by flipping to the back and reading the extremely spoilery discussion questions to reassure myself that the book was actually going somewhere. I’m bewildered by the high number of four- and five-star reviews We Begin at the End got on Goodreads, because it was a total swing and miss for me.

⭐

Rating: 1 out of 5.

My overwhelming reaction to We Begin at the End is that the writing is bad. It’s choppy and ugly, and it does nothing to distract from the parts of the plot that doesn’t quite work. Most of the plot fails to stand up to close scrutiny. Better writing might have closed the holes, or attracted my attention enough that I didn’t mind them. Multiple times, I stopped and thought if this story had been written by someone with any writing skill, it might have been good. The narrative tells me one thing but shows me another. It fails to evoke emotion, despite the near-constant stream of tragedies.

Seriously. I spoil most of the major plot points.

One of the most basic rules of writing is to vary sentence length. Too many short sentences in a row and you’ll lose the reader. Or long, I suppose. Short sentences are the culprit here, though. Almost the whole book is written in clipped dialogue. There are lots of info dumps when one character reports his findings to another. Whitaker also seems to have an objection to proper nouns, because he avoids them whenever possible, causing confusion occasionally. He opens scenes with “he” for Walk and “she” for Duchess, which is fine… until he unexpectedly opens a scene with a “she” that is not Duchess. It isn’t bad enough to be confusing, but it is bad enough to be irritating.

I did not connect with or care for any of the characters. The two main characters are both emotionally stunted and unintentionally toxic. Walk is a police chief stuck in the past. He actively blocks any forward progress. His idea of good police work is shielding his friends and family from the law, whether it’s by neglecting to turn them in for arson or by straight up perjuring in court. Duchess is a thirteen-year-old girl who tries to sound tough by cursing awkwardly and unironically saying “I’m an outlaw” whenever she takes a break from escalating already-bad situations or gaslighting her little brother (the number of times she tells him “I’m the only one who can take care of you” or “I’m the only one you can trust…). Whitaker corrects some of this towards the end by acknowledging that his characters aren’t as perfect as he initially tried to present them, but it comes as too little and too late. It also comes across like it’s supposed to be a twist of sorts, but no. You can tell me that someone’s a great guy until you’re blue in the face, but forgive me if I stop believing you when he pulls a gun on someone unprovoked. Yeah, the guy was a dirtbag, but when Walk shoved the gun in his face he was being unhelpful at worst. Rogue cops aren’t the plucky heroes so many content creators think they are, and I thought the collective world was finally catching onto that.

Book Club: Better Luck Next Time (+Mini Review)

It’s always weird to read a book for the first time and then turn around to run a book club on it. You take notes, but because you have no idea where the story is going, the notes you take aren’t always focused on the right things. Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson was not the book I expected. Based on the description and the blurbs, I expected it to be cynical and darkly comedic, a reflection on gender imbalance and divorce that would make the reader laugh and cry with the same wry observations. The real thing is more hopeful. It’s about a few specific divorcees more than it is about divorce in general, and I would be quicker to label it a romance than a comedy. It doesn’t necessarily follow the necessary story blocks for a romance—it lacks the cookie-cutter happily-ever-after that romances must employ—but I certainly didn’t laugh enough to consider Better Luck Next Time primarily by its ability to amuse. It wasn’t not funny, but it wasn’t funny. If that makes sense. Like, I didn’t laugh much, but I also never thought this is trying and failing to be funny.

My overall impression of the novel is that it doesn’t really fit in any category. It’s too cynical to be a great love story, but too neat and romantic to feel like real life. It includes too many difficult subjects to be a fluff piece, but doesn’t reflect deeply enough on them to be traditionally literary. It’s too tragic to be a comedy and too lighthearted to be a tragedy. It sits right there in the middle, and the overall effect is that it is a good read but not quite a great one. I didn’t have any difficulty preparing discussion questions (scattered notes aside), but I can’t see Better Luck Next Time topping critics’ lists of best novels or individual people’s lists of personal favorites. I liked the characters. I wanted things to go well for them and I was interested to know their secrets, but I don’t think they’ll stick with me.

That said, the fact that I liked but did not love this novel makes me think that it’s a particularly good choice for a general book club. Half the point of a book club is to get people to pick up titles they’d otherwise overlook, and for that reason a good pick should appeal to lots of different kinds of readers. While I think that Better Luck Next Time should have backed off its love story to focus even more on the socioeconomic realities of the many divorcees at the ranch, there are likely readers who felt Emily and Ward’s relationship spoke more to them than the reflections on classism and feminism. Better Luck Next Time has the ability to reach a wide swath of readers, and for that reason I’d strongly recommend it to a diverse group to read together, but not necessarily to an individual looking for their next favorite.

B/⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

What’s it about?

In the thirties, Ward was a cowboy at a dude ranch for divorcees; wealthy women would flock to Reno, stay at the ranch long enough to become Reno residents and obtain their divorces, and then return to their lives one husband fewer. As an old man, Ward reflects back on his experiences, specifically the events of one particular summer that brought two particular women into his life: Nina, a carefree young aviator divorcing her third husband and Emily, an heiress who lives for her daughter.     

Please feel free to use these discussion questions for your own book club discussions. Be aware that these questions are full of spoilers, so make sure you’ve finished Better Luck Next Time before diving in.

And Then There Were None: Book to Series Comparison

Recently, I rewatched the excellent BBC adaptation of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. And Then There Were None is one of my two absolute favorite mystery novels (the other is The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, and they’re in a league of their own). I’ve read And Then There Were None multiple times over the years, because it’s so psychologically fascinating that it’s thrilling even if you already know whodunit. The 2015 BBC adaptation is great. It’s very faithful but makes a few minor changes. It’s the only adaptation I’ve seen (not counting the computer game, which I loved), and from what I can tell, it’s the most faithful one. I rewatched the series with my family, and although they’d all seen it before, it had been long enough that they’d forgotten even more than I had, so when I’d tentatively ask wasn’t this bit different in the book? no one could definitively answer me. Which, fair. If you don’t remember the murderer, you’re unlikely to remember whether or not Wargrave had cancer.*

*cancer isn’t specified, but he was dying; the reader doesn’t find out about it until much later than in the series

We finished the series and less than an hour later I’d pulled out my well-worn copy of the novel. As I’ve mentioned here before, I get obsessive. If I enjoy something, instead of moving on like a normal person, I ask how can I extend this for as long as possible? So I reread the book, taking notes of all the differences so that I could write a detailed comparison between the two. This isn’t the first time I’ve done an Agatha Christie book-to-series comparison post, but it is by far the most detailed. Like I said, And Then There Were None is my favorite.

Also, it’s just been way too long since I’ve done a super-nerdy, extremely over-involved post.

What’s it about?

Ten strangers are invited to a mysterious island, but when they arrive, they realize that they were summoned under false pretenses. On the first night, a mysterious voice accuses each of them of murder and in the days that follow they are meticulously killed off one-by-one.

So what changed?

Since this is an in-depth comparison, I’d recommend against reading it unless you’re okay with spoilers or have already either watched the series/read the book. I don’t know if it’s strictly speaking necessary to slap a spoiler warning on a post about a book that was published in 1939, but in case it is, this is that warning. If you don’t know And Then There Were None yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. The miniseries is about three hours long all told, and the book will take you only slightly longer. It’s absolutely worth it.

I figured I’d start with the most minor changes and work my way up to the larger ones (although, as I said, this is a faithful adaptation, so even the largest changes are—in the scheme of things—relatively minor). I’ll also assign points to either the book or the series depending on whether or not I liked the change. I love both versions, so this is just an exercise for my competitive spirit. If I had to guess before starting how it’ll end up, I’ll say that the series will probably get more points early on, and the novel will score more towards the end. The series does great things with the individual characters, but there are a few things about the mystery itself that are stronger in the novel.

The name of the island

The miniseries changes Indian Island to Soldier Island, and ditto for any other instance of “Indians.” The murderous rhyme becomes “The Ten Little Soldier Boys” instead “The Ten Little Indians.” The original title was even worse. The novel is absolutely brilliant, but the racist poem—particularly with the original language—is awful. The change to “soldier boys” doesn’t do anything to alter the best parts of the novel, but it takes out some inexcusable racism. See? Some changes are for the best.

Novel: 0            Series: 1

Lombard’s racism

Yep, another one about racism. This one is more complicated, though. The series softens Lombard in some ways (it hardens him in others, but we’ll get to that later). In the novel, Lombard is vaguely racist. He disparages the Jewish Isaac Morris, and—more damning—is guilty of causing the deaths of twenty-one men, members of an East African tribe. In the novel, Lombard callously implies that killing these East African men is nothing because they are less human than the English, and therefore care less about dying. The series presents it a little differently. Lombard is still unapologetic for the deaths, but it is depicted as him owning up to his crimes. Yeah, he’s a killer, but unlike the other nine he admits that he’s a killer, to himself and to the others. It’s also implied that he would have felt the same about the crime if the men had not been East African. Series Lombard killed people, yes, but he wasn’t racist about it. Interestingly, the series brings in racism in a different way. Although his nationality is not specified in the novel (he’s assumed English), TV’s Lombard is Irish and the others to regard him with added suspicion. He’s not just a murderer who brought a gun to a mysterious island. He’s an Irish murderer in 1939 who brought a gun to a mysterious island. Irish Lombard contributes to the setting and period of the piece, which could otherwise be almost any time or place. He brings a bit of the real world onto the island, demonstrating that no matter how isolated you might be, you can never be entirely cut off from the world at large. On the other hand, Lombard being actively racist makes him considerably worse, like top two bad. Still, since Lombard’s multiple murder is still awful even without it being racially motivated—and because the racism is just present without being much remarked upon—I think I’ll give this one to the series.

Novel: 0            Series: 2

A matter of strength

In the novel, much is made of the fact that Lombard and Blore are the most physically strong. When the group locks things up, they do so in cases with multiple locks, giving one key to Lombard and Blore with the idea that neither of them would be able to take it from the other without causing a ruckus the others would hear. Each time a murder happens, the group discusses who would have had the physical strength to do it, and it is repeatedly reiterated that just because someone (read: a woman) looks weak, they can’t count anyone out because madmen have incredible, unexpected reservoirs of power. In the series, Judge Wargrave says near the beginning that any one of them is capable of the murders and it’s left at that. Book Vera’s story about Cyril (the little boy she killed by sending him into a current he was too weak to swim) is doubted because Cyril was a sickly little boy. In the series Hugo points to Vera’s strength rather than Cyril’s weakness as the suspicious element. I prefer the way the series approaches this one. I’ve never liked the a woman couldn’t have done this; they’re too weak thing that mysteries often have, so it was nice to get it out of the way. Anyone could have done it. They’re all strong enough, and they’re all equally suspicious. Making a mystery more about who is strong enough to do something than about who would have done it is, to me, less interesting.

Novel: 0            Series: 3

Written accounts

In the final few chapters of the novel, the police are fruitlessly trying to figure out what happened on the island. They go over the various clues but are at a loss. Some of their clues come from writings left by the victims. Vera, Miss Brent, and Blore all left written accounts of their time on the island, which give the police some framework. Still, these clues only make things more complicated, as it all seems impossible. The series has no indication of written accounts, and furthermore there is no outside investigation. Once the last character dies, the show ends, and there is nothing afterward. This is a minor thing, but I much prefer the novel version. There’s something especially clever about a crime that remains entirely mysterious despite detailed accounts. Blore was a detective, but his reports still don’t shed any light on the matter. The way this works, alongside Wargrave’s death—we’ll get to that eventually—is just so cool. The way the novel is written, I legitimately thought for a minute that I’d never know who’d done it. I knew it was twisty and clever, but that chapter with the police makes it all the more so. The series version is more cinematic, but less thrilling.

Novel: 1            Series: 3 

Mountain climbing