Review: "Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute" by Talia Hibbert

 

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert
Published January 2023 via Joy Revolution
★★★★

Best friends turned enemies find themselves in the same prestigious program...and enemies become lovers.

Now, I read this because I will scramble to read camping-in-the-woods books—I want more of them! In particular, more relatively light fiction involving hiking and camping and blisters and the smell of pine trees and so on and so forth. But the characters here utterly charmed me, far more than the camping-in-the-woods part. They're messy and complicated and sometimes stuck in their heads, but in a very real way. Bradley's OCD is also nice to see—it's something that informs who he is and what he does but isn't the beginning or the end of the story; how Celine rolls with it also speaks to their long friendship.

The program I'm a bit less sure about. It's presented as a super competitive, super prestigious program for the best of the best, with a crazy high dropout rate...but as far as I can tell, all they really have to do is work together to wander around in the woods. And while both cooperation and outdoor skills can be a challenge, I'm not entirely sure what makes the program (not the perks of the program, but the program itself) such a big deal...or why all the leaders seem to have so much disdain for the teenagers. The whole thing is a cool opportunity, but what do they really learn from it? And where are the teens who are genuinely happy to be out in the wilderness? (And should I even be calling it wilderness, if it's the UK?)

It's a testament to the writing of the characters that I was basically unbothered by my questions about the woods until the very end. I think it might be time to go locate some more books by this author.

Review: "Stateless" by Elizabeth Wein

 

Stateless by Elizabeth Wein
Published March 2023 via Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
★★★★

Good grief but Wein writes a gripping book. Stateless is set in Europe, on the eve of World War II; war is not—quite—yet a whisper of word in Stella's consciousness. Raised in the shadow of loss, what she really loves is flying, and now she has the chance of a lifetime: a friendly competition, in the name of promoting peace, between a dozen young pilots. They'll race in stages across Europe, culminating in a life-changing prize for one of them and good press for all the countries involved.

That's all good and well...until Stella witnesses one pilot force another out of the sky, and suddenly a friendly race becomes something else entirely.

This is the first of Wein's books that I've read that focuses more on mystery than on war—war is a huge factor in this one (see: eve of WWII; also the Spanish Civil War as a significant factor in some characters' stories), but it's not the primary story. Stella has a limited number of suspects, which rapidly narrows (the villain becomes clear midway through the book, and the focus shifts from whodunnit to survival and outwitting), and, as with so many of Wein's books, there's a wonderful emphasis on friendship and working together.

I'm fascinated by the inclusion of Nansen passports, which I'd never heard of before. They sent me on a bit of a Wikipedia rabbit hole—they're a former solution to a problem that still exists today. I won't go into too much detail for what they mean for this particular bit (although I will say that passports, in general, matter in Stateless), but I love getting those little details—learning something else about a particular point in history.

Time to do a reread of some of Wein's books, I think—I can very nearly quote from Code Name Verity and The Pearl Thief, but it's been long enough since I read Black Dove, White Raven that it'll practically be a brand-new Wein book full of surprises.

Review: "The Box Must Be Empty" by Marilyn Kriete

 

The Box Must Be Empty by Marilyn Kriete
Published April 2023 via Lucid House
★★★★

3.5 stars. Kriete's life was full and fulfilling: she and her husband were respected leaders in their church, the ICOC, and had spent decades living in one far-flung city after another, planting churches and building them up, then moving to another place and doing it all again. But a seemingly innocuous trigger shook loose Kriete's long-buried grief over losing her first fiancé to cancer, and in turn that grief set in motion changes in her marriage and relationship with her church.

The Box Must Be Empty is Kriete's second memoir, written long after the events described within—long enough that it's clear that she's had the time and willingness to do all the hard work of taking apart and putting back together again all the pieces of what happened. And that's fortunate, because it's a complicated, messy story: delayed/complicated grief, childhood trauma, a church community that at times was Kriete's lifeblood and at times toxic—not, generally, intentionally, but because (as I read it) the church leadership was unwilling to see the trees for the forest. (Or maybe, if I extend that metaphor: they were only willing to provide care for one particular type of tree, and anything that did not comply and grow the right kind of leaves and respond to the type of fertilizer the church spread was wrong and needed to shape up.) There's also what sounds like some truly appalling therapy, and, late in the book, Kriete ruminates on the possibility of the ICOC falling on the "cult" end of the religious spectrum.

And yes: at times it felt like too much. But the further I got into the book, the more I saw how all the threads pulled together—the way in which church was home and heart but also the source of significant stress (brought home when, for example, Kriete mentions her daughter starting in her eighth school...as of second grade); the way in which each move brought joy but also new grief. As far as writing a grief memoir goes, I don't think it would have been possible for this book to take religion out of the equation. The limited reading I did on the ICOC while (and after) reading this book makes me think that, however good the intentions of some, there is still more trauma that will come to light (and also that, even without "possible cult" status, their stances are far, far too conservative and narrow for me and their church services might make me break out in hives, but...that's neither here nor there, I guess).

So it's a lot. At times I wished I'd read Kriete's first book, Paradise Road, before picking this up—for a fuller picture, mostly—though it's not strictly necessary, and I'm glad she split the story across multiple books. I'm reminded a little of Evelyn Kohl LaTorre's books (her second one in particular), and this will resonate best with readers who don't mind a complicated memoir spread out over the course of several years; there is nothing in here that could be wrapped up easily.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Secret Sister" by Liz Trenow

 

The Secret Sister by Liz Trenow
Published April 2023 via Bookouture
★★★

With the war still raging, everyone must do their part—but for Lizzie, that's more complicated than for most. Her twin brother Edward, traumatized from his experiences with the "Dunkirk little ships" when he was little more than a child, flees, and there's a small window in which Lizzie can make a choice. Ed's posting is not to the military but to the mines: if she takes his place, can she save him from the consequences?

I picked this up because I've never heard of the "Bevin Boys," young men who were conscripted not to do battle but to work in the mines. It's a fascinating history, though: the British government, realizing that they'd conscripted too many miners and were running low on the coal needed to power ships, trains, and electrical supplies, put out a call for volunteers. The response fell far short of what was needed, though, and so the government started taking a full tenth(!) of new conscripts and sending them to the mines.

So it's that position that Lizzie finds herself in: deep in a mine rather than, say, on the battlefields of France. As a Bevin Boy, she's treated with suspicion and derision—anyone without a uniform is suspected of being a deserter or a "conchie," a conscientious objector. For Lizzie, of course, it's a bit more complicated than usual (imagine trying to wash the filth of the mines off while preserving your secret identity when the showers are communal!), but there are some things in here that I never would have thought about: that it took decades for the government to acknowledge the efforts put in by the Bevin Boys; that their required service lasted years longer than the war; that the horses used in older mines were kept underground for almost all of their working lives, allowed up to the surface for "holidays" only rarely (in this book, once a year). It's never an easy job, but it's worth it to Lizzie to know that she's doing her part in more ways than one.

Three things I would have liked to see: First, I'd have loved to see more from the supporting characters in this book. Lizzie makes two friends, and we hear a bit about them, but we get virtually nothing about the other Bevin Boy trainees, and nothing about the long-term miners Lizzie ends up working with. How many of her trainee cohort are glad to be in the mines rather than in battle, and how many of them would have preferred the armed forces, and where do they come from, and how is their experience in the mines? And what are the stories of the long-term miners? Are they following family tradition, do they resent the Bevin Boys for their equal pay and educational opportunities, what are their different styles of work? We don't really know, but I'd have gladly read an extra fifty pages if it meant those experiences were worked in. Second, I'd love to know if there would have been consequences for Lizzie, as by that point in the war women were receiving call-up notices as well (for different roles than men got, generally), and, well. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that it's not possible for Lizzie to be in two places at once. And third...again, trying to avoid spoilers, but in the epilogue Lizzie thinks something to the effect that the men who served longer than she did had a much greater right to be acknowledged than she did. But that saddens me, because (aside from the fact that Lizzie puts herself in a dangerous position voluntarily, to help both country and family, and experiences trauma as a result!) it wasn't just the Bevin Boys whose contributions went unrecognized—many women who did critical and perilously dangerous work as spies, for example, remained unrecognized for their work because...they were women, I guess, and if it was women's work then it couldn't possibly have been important.

For all that, I'm grateful to learn a bit about a part of history I didn't know about—and The Secret Sister made for an easy springboard into that.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "This Time It's Real" by Ann Liang

 

This Time It's Real by Ann Liang
Published February 2023 via Scholastic
★★★

If I'm remembering correctly, both of Liang's books to date can be summed up thusly:

• Girl feels lonely and isolated.
• Girl enlists the hottest and most eligible boy in school to help her with shenanigans that will benefit her a lot and him a little.
• Girl proceeds to spend the rest of the boy treating boy like a total inconvenience.
• Boy is instantly smitten because she's Not Like Other Girls and doesn't swoon and giggle every time he's in the vicinity.
• Minor complications with the shenanigans ensue.
• Girl admits that she does want Boy after all.
• Anything unethical Girl might have done is swept under the rug, and Girl and Boy have a happily-ever-after.

Let's be clear: this is not unlike a lot of YA fiction. It will work for a lot of readers. Books that could be two hundred pages shorter if the characters just had an honest conversation, though, have never been a good fit for me. I read this for the Beijing setting (I want more YA in non-Western settings! Or even just YA set in countries where English is not the default!), but there wasn't really enough by way of setting detail to keep me engaged or distracted from the stomp-and-glare-style romance.

A note on the Craneswift internship: It sounds wildly exploitative and unethical. The messaging Eliza gets from them is "If you don't bare your soul on our website every week, and also do any press we want about your relationship, you're worthless to us. What, you want to write about something else? Sure, you can try—but your first draft better be perfect. We don't work with our interns or have teachable moments. We just threaten to throw you out like the scum you are."

2.5 stars.

Review: "The Absent Moon" by Luiz Schwarcz

 

The Absent Moon by Luiz Schwarcz
English translation published February 2023 via Penguin
★★★

A treatise on depression, told within the twin contexts of Schwarcz's family history and his previous writings.

I read this largely for the family history. Schwarcz's father, André, escaped imprisonment in Bergen-Belsen because his own father, Láios, pushed him to escape—but that escape was the last time he saw Láios, who ultimately did not survive the Holocaust. That experience shaped André's life, and in turn Schwarcz's.

The second context for this memoir is those earlier works—as Schwarcz takes the reader though his story, he often pauses to explain what story or book (published or unpublished) he wrote at a particular point in time, and where in his family story the inspiration came from. Without having read any of those earlier works, the impression I get is one of someone haunted by family history and trying to make sense of it, but I think it might have been beneficial to read some of his fiction before reading The Absent Moon.

I'm reminded somewhat of One Friday in April, and also of An Exclusive Love, albeit for different reasons. Better for fans of the former, I think. I'm glad to have gotten my hands on this but not sorry that it's a relatively short book.

Review: "Green for Danger" by Christianna Brand

Green for Danger by Christianna Brand
First published 1944
★★★★

A man dies on the operating table. At first it seems like a simple matter of chance, but as Inspector Cockrill digs in—and as someone else is found dead in rather more violent fashion—it becomes clear that a murderer is on the loose, and the pool of suspects is very small indeed.

First published in 1944, this is being brought back to life in a new edition, and it is a delight. I'd never heard of Brand before picking this up, but if Green for Danger is anything to go by, she was a force to be reckoned with. This is on the relatively lighter side of things—bodies do start piling up, yes, but the characters/suspects don't ever devolve into paranoia and anger, and there's a great deal of wit and humor to go around. I'm not all that interested in the inspector (he does tend to think himself quite superior), but the story focuses so closely on the rest of the cast that it actually took me a while to realize that this is one in a series featuring Cockrill.

It's helpful to go in aware that this was written some eighty years ago and is feeling its age—the publisher has included a note about problematic language and so on, but generally speaking there's also just a whole lot here that wouldn't pass muster if first published in 2023. But if you know that going in, and especially if (*cough*) you're already fond of the occasional piece of 40s or 50s genre fiction, it's a quick, atmospheric read that will keep you guessing about the details until the very end. I may need to see what other of Brand's books can be hunted down.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Wet Hot Allosaurus Summer" by Lola Faust

 

Wet Hot Allosaurus Summer by Lola Faust
First published 2020
★★★★ (also one star, five stars, and everything in between)

Y'all...here is the list of suggested trigger warnings that Faust's sensitivity readers came up with:

Dinosaurs, sex, dinosaur sex, ornithoscelidaphobia, fisting, vore, gore, pain, blood, sadism, masochism, captivity, camping, cults, candy, insects, arm trauma, shoulder trauma, amputation, interspecies sex, menstruation, brains, carnivorism, sexism, misogyny, speciesism, classism, ableism, abusive parent, abusive coworker, infidelity, pornography, fire, water, forests, farms (working and dormant), unorthodox use of personal lubricant, implicit and explicit threat of sexual assault, inaccurate dinosaur anatomy (for the sake of the story), accurate dinosaur anatomy (for the sake of accuracy), feathers, Canada, South Dakota, Wal-Mart, cornfields, cow-tipping, barns, pickup trucks, threat of police violence, guns, gunshot wounds, immigration paperwork, portable toilets, decapitation, taffy-pulling, animal slaughter, religion, PTSD, venture capital, vegetables (loc. 9)

You might or might not regret Googling "vore slang." Go on, I dare you.

This is the third(!) of Faust's books that I've read, and upon reflection I was eased in very, very gently with Dino Stud. One of the first things that happens in Wet Hot Allosaurus Summer involves an injury that leaves the heroine's arm spurting blood and dangling uselessly. Time to seek medical attention, right? Or pass out from blood loss and pain? Nope! Time to have racy, blood-pumping sex with a dinosaur! (I'd like to suggest "inaccurate medical information" and "lack of medical care" as additions to the list of trigger warnings.) Don't worry, though. If you're thinking "gee, of course all I'd want while bleeding out is a good dino bang, that's not weird at all" – it only gets stranger. And stickier. And a lot of other things.

I don't really know how to rate this. I preferred it to Triceratops and Bottoms for the simple reason that I prefer novels and novellas to short stories, but while Dino Stud was basically exactly what I was expecting (god, how innocent and uninitiated I was), and Triceratops and Bottoms was off the rails but entertainingly so, this is about ten thousand times more horrifying, and I guess by now I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Or both. Five stars: yes. One star: yes. Read at your own risk.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Liberty" by Raives and Warnauts

Liberty by Raives and Warnauts, translated by Jesse Aufiery
English edition published March 2023 via Europe Editions
★★★★

First there is Tshilanda, growing up privileged in Kinshasa in the 70s. At fifteen, almost sixteen, her body has developed in ways that make men take notice—and mostly she doesn't mind, because she's young and sheltered and doesn't quite know who she can trust. But innocence gives way to the rest of the world, and then there's New York, and Liberty.

Liberty spans decades, slipping between perspectives and chasing a dream (after a fashion) from Zaire (now the DRC) to New York City. Mostly it's Tshilanda's story, as she navigates a fall from everything she's known to the harsh streets of 1970s New York, but equally important are the stories of Liberty and the men in their lives, especially Mike and Édouard. The book doesn't pass the Bechdel test, but the art is so beautiful and the multigenerational story so compelling that I didn't notice until after the fact.

The art: rich and vibrant, with deep colors, sharp, precise lines, and something akin to watercolor to fill it all in. Most of the places I bookmarked were panels that I want to use in my futile quest to learn to draw. The lines of the body, and the postures, and the facial expressions—and the shading! If ever I magically figure out how to draw a face that looks like a face and not an abomination, I will move on to shading and use this as a reference. The chapter breaks and the end of the book also feature more sketch-like work, and in places it's just as evocative as the more refined art.

One thing worth a mention for readers: you'll have to pay some attention, at times, to work out who is speaking when. It's a little frustrating in places—there's not always a clear POV transition, and the dialogue boxes are often unclear—but the payoff is worth it.

Thanks to the authors and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "British Columbiana" by Josie Teed

 

British Columbiana by Josie Teed
Published March/April 2023 via Dundurn Press
★★★

When I was a kid, my family took a train across the US every other summer, then drove up into British Columbia to spend a week or two in my grandparents' mountain village. There were a lot of wonderful summer traditions, but one thing we always looked forward to was seeing the Follies in an old gold rush town. Singing and dancing and colorful costumes and drama! So much drama. I suspect that if I watched the Follies now I'd be let down, but as a kid all I could see was glamor.

Barkerville, where Teed temporarily transplanted herself for an internship in an historic gold-rush town, is much farther north and far more remote than my grandparents' village—I joke that their village is in the middle of nowhere, and I'm not actually wrong, but it's at least on a highway that connects to other villages and, eventually, towns. It has a population of almost 2,000. The "big city" up the road has a population of almost 8,000. Barkerville, by contrast...let's just say that Barkerville's "big city," Wells, has a population well south of 300. When Teed was in Barkerville, "interpreters" roamed the streets, dressed as characters from the gold-rush era, but any glamor was undercut by daily life in town but out of character.

I was interested in this out of curiosity about the town (that Follies nostalgia, plus I'm still waiting for someone to write a book about Cerro Gordo). On that level I'd really have loved more information—how many buildings are in Barkerville, and what are their histories? What stories have been passed down year after year? What would it have been like to be a woman in this remote mining town in the 1800s? And in the present day, how many interpreters roam the streets? How does the still-functioning gold mine(!) fit into the local landscape, and what could the present-day miners (especially the ones who also work in the historic town) say about the difference between mining then and mining now?

A lot of Teed's story is more personal, about self-discovery and, well, figuring shit out. A would-be coming-of-age story, as Teed suggests: "I'm so happy that you're here," I said, and I really meant it. I thought we were like two characters at the beginning of an exciting, coming-of-age novel (loc. 1993). I think the ideal reader is probably somewhere in their twenties, but a lot of this will resonate with anyone who's older now but has been an uncertain, insecure twenty-something (no insult—I count myself in there!).

This is Teed's first book, and I'm curious about what conclusions she might have drawn had she written it a few more years from now. In some places her observations are so very on point, about the space around her but especially about how she reacts to the space around her. In other places I could have used more telling alongside the showing—it felt like the moments she describes were on the edge of adding up to something but hadn't quite gotten there.

I've never lived in a town quite as small as Wells, nor as remote, but one of my takeaways from British Columbiana is that perhaps the thing that can make or break long-term living in a town like this is knowing who you are. I could imagine working in Barkerville for a season (honestly, it sounds like quite an adventure), but living there for a long stretch sounds much harder without a good sense of yourself and why this place is right for you.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Wild Rescues" by Kevin Grange

 

Wild Rescues by Kevin Grange
Published April 2021 via Chicago Review Press
★★★

Wild Rescues follows up on Grange's Lights and Sirens to tell the story of what happened after Grange qualified as a paramedic. He'd had one image in mind of what his life as a paramedic would look like—but reality called for something else, and Grange found himself working with the National Park Service rather than in a big city as he'd originally planned.

Memoirs about working in the wild have always appealed to me, I think because it's the sort of work that sounds like a dream to me, and medical memoirs also appeal for their...for their pop science feel, I guess. I like learning weird things, and Wild Rescues has weird situations aplenty. To be clear: it's not all, or even mostly, rambling through the backwoods. Grange talks about work in busy, busy tourist destinations, where sometimes caring for an injured patient did require a complicated extraction from deep in the woods, but sometimes caring for patients meant preventing injuries by telling people (again, and again, and again) not to pet the bison.

Two things that didn't appeal so much: first, I don't think the romance does all that much to pull the story along. In the spirit of avoiding spoilers, I won't go into details, but it ended up feeling a little...generic? Which is fine, and bread-and-butter romances have their place, but in a book that's otherwise about very non-generic experiences, it wasn't so interesting. And second, ending on a "hoo-rah USA" note felt like a needle-scratch moment. There's some history throughout the book, and it would have felt more natural to have the book end on something about the importance of the national parks (and, more generally, of preserving nature).

Still, there are plenty of anecdotes and oddities of working in a national park to go around, and it's an engrossing read if, like me, you're interested in that sort of thing. I'll always go for books that tell tales of rescue and adventure out in the wild.

Review: "Pregnancy Test" by Karin Weingarten

 

Pregnancy Test by Karin Weingarten
Published March 2023 via Bloomsbury Academic
★★★★

A quiz: All of the following methods have, at various points in history, been put forth as accurate pregnancy tests. Which has been scientifically tested and proven to have merit?

A) A woman urinating on bags of barley, wheat, and beans to see if they sprouted (variations between 1350 BCE Egypt and 900s CE Arabic texts)

B) Pouring milk into a glass of a woman's urine and seeing if the milk floated (1200s Germany)

C) Placing an iron needle in a cup of urine and looking for the development of black spots (1500s Switzerland)

D) Mixing urine with wine and seeing if it looked as though beans had stewed in it (1600s Netherlands)

E) Injecting a Japanese Bitterling fish with urine and seeing if the fish released eggs (1930s)

See the end of this review for the answer.

I subjected several friends, and also my mother and siblings, to this quiz while reading the book, each time with the caveat that no, it doesn't have any bearing on my life just now. The time it took me to read this book easily more than doubles the amount of time that I have spent thinking about pregnancy tests over my lifetime (I've never seen one out of the packaging), but it was fascinating: part of a series of short books, Object Lessons, Pregnancy Test takes you through the scientific and social history of—surprise—the pregnancy test. "While the twenty-first-century home pregnancy test has become a familiar object," writes Weingarten, "it started out as an idea about reproductive autonomy and privacy, and its implications have had a greater impact on our reproductive lives than anyone could have imagined" (loc. 129).

At 160-odd pages, it's perhaps easiest to approach this as a series of long-form essays about history and social context and autonomy. Think doctors being the ones to decide whether women should be allowed to have a pregnancy test (after all, if she knows she's pregnant, she might choose an abortion); think scientists objecting to at-home tests because women couldn't be "trusted" to manage mixing a few chemicals together; think a rabbit or mouse being dissected for every laboratory pregnancy test done. I'm sorry (or—not), I'm a nerd, but this is utterly fascinating.

Much of this sounds like things of the past, but as Weingarten discusses, there are current—and pressing—implications of women being able, or not, to learn about the occupancy of their uteruses on their own terms. Again, this is a slim little book, but it's the sort of thing that should catapult you into even more reading.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley. Quotes are from a review copy and may not be final.

Quiz answer: A 1963 study showed that "a pregnant woman's urine could encourage the germination of both barley and wheat" (loc. 568). Whether or not the other methods have been tested, though, is unclear, and definitely merits scientific investigation, please.

Reread: "The Princess Diaries" by Meg Cabot

 

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
First read sometime around 2001
★★★

I first read The Princess Diaries when I was about thirteen, and it's a bit hard to separate out nostalgia from the rest of it when returning to these as an adult. (I still know Mia's full name, apparently—party trick?)

There's a lot in here that wouldn't fly today—jokes about sexual harassment, characters based entirely on racial stereotype, Mia repeatedly suggesting that because New York is in the US, foreigners should get with the program and spell their names differently / wear clothing differently / etc., jokes about eating disorders, bodyguards sitting around a school comparing firepower, Lilly crying 'racism' and trying to get the owners of a small Asian deli cancelled (to use 2023 parlance) because Asian customers sometimes get a five-cent discount. I didn't notice any of this as a thirteen-year-old, and it's a bit eye-opening to be reminded that it was always there. (Also kind of eye-opening, in a different way: dial-up! And pagers! Do the youth of today even know what those things are?)

Despite everything, I basically swallowed these books whole as a teenager. And they did occasionally teach me things: when I was fourteen or so, the (young, hot) French teacher was joking around with one of the boys in the class, and she called him a poulet. 'Wait, what does that mean?' he asked, flipping through his book.

Poulet is French for 'chicken'. It's also slang. 'She called you a hooker,' I said calmly. The class erupted, and our teacher stared at me, aghast—she certainly hadn't expected anyone to understand.

While I'm sure there was no seedy intent, a teacher calling a student a hooker—in any language—also wouldn't go over so well today. But I learned that slang from The Princess Diaries...and I think the French teacher might also have learned something that day.

Review: "Live Your Best Lie" by Jessie Weaver

Live Your Best Lie by Jessie Weaver
Published January 2023 via Disney Books
★★★

There are two sides to every story, but the loudest voice, not the truest one, gets heard. Summer is pretty freaking loud. (222)

On paper, Summer has it all: a wealthy and well-connected family, loyal friends, and a wildly successful job as a social media influencer. Still a teenager, she has a book scheduled for release and plans to spring into bigger and better things.

But when Summer is found murdered at her own Halloween party, and the other teenagers in her circle are the top suspects, the cracks start to show. All of them have secrets—and the more they, and the police, dig in, the clearer it becomes that Summer knew those secrets...and she was prepared to set it all on fire and let everyone burn in her wake.

Definitely a fun romp of a YA mystery—I read it for the influencer drama (not my world, but for the time being, I love it in fiction), and it reminds me a bit of Killer Content, for obvious reasons. The mystery itself isn't anything particularly new or exciting, though (hurrah) I didn't guess the end until it was right on top of me, but the book is doing one thing that I almost never see: there are two side characters in the book who have disabilities (spina bifida and epilepsy), and that's just...part of their story. One of those things comes into play a bit in the backstory, but mostly it's just hello here are these characters this is one thing that informs who they are but here are a bunch of other things that inform who they are too. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is—YA is getting better about diversity when it comes to race and sexuality and, sometimes, body size, but casual acknowledgement of disability? Rarer than a still-bleeding steak. Very glad to see any small progress there.

Review: "Hypericon" by Manuele Fior

Hypericon by Manuele Fior, translated by Matt Madden
English translation published February 2023 via Europe Comics
★★★

In 1922, Egyptologist Howard Carter (white and British, of course) is on the brink of the discovery of a lifetime—Tutankhamen's intact tomb. In 2001, Teresa is fresh off the plane in Berlin, ready to start what is, for her, the opportunity of a lifetime—an assistantship working on an exhibition of the treasures in that tomb.

In Berlin, Teresa quickly develops a double life: in one life, she is a high-achieving, motivated professional, the consummate employee. In her other life, she is living in a squat with Ruben, a man about whom she knows little other than that his life is something of an antithesis to the ordered routine she's always followed. This is a Berlin that doesn't fully exist anymore—where the squatters haven't been evicted, and you can tell the former East and West Berlin by the smell of coal, and war-torn (and Soviet) buildings are still being torn down and rebuilt. Teresa mostly slots right in, falling into this odd relationship that she tells us is unusual for her (and then setting about trying to make Ruben change into something more appropriate).

I read this for the setting and the cover, mostly. As it turns out, the art style doesn't really match the cover—the cover is far more detailed, realistic, and painting-like than most of the rest of the book. In places, especially in the wider shots of scenes set in Egypt, the art is like fresh watercolors; elsewhere, it tends to be a bit simpler. (I would have liked to know Teresa's age, because going by appearance she could be anywhere between 20 and 45.) I love the color palette, though, and especially the scenes featuring graffiti.

Parts of this, then, I really liked, like the view of punk Berlin and the look at the excavation (in particular, I loved the way the tomb map repeats throughout the story, getting more detailed as the excavation team learns more). But I don't really understand Teresa and Ruben, both of whom do get something akin to personality grafts near the end of the book, and whose relationship seems largely based on (quite explicit) sex. There's not enough of a plot outside their relationship to feel much in the way of stakes otherwise, which puts a lot of pressure on a relationship that I don't fully understand. And while I'm sure there's significance to Teresa finally overcoming her chronic insomnia just in time for (trying to avoid spoilers here) the big crisis at the end of the book, I'm not sure what that significance is, so the crisis ended up feeling a bit...arbitrary, or voyeuristic, or something. I'm glad I read this, but I'm not sure what to take away from it.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "A Year at the Château" by Dick and Angel Strawbridge

 

A Year at the Château by Dick and Angel Strawbridge
Published March 2023 via Mobius
★★★★

If you've ever dreamed about buying a rambling old castle, here you go—vicarious kicks! When the Strawbridges started looking for a place in France, they initially had their eyes set on a standard house...but when they realized that they could rehabilitate something much grander, they switched tracks and eventually ended up buying the Château de la Motte-Husson, a dilapidated 47-room castle that hadn't been lived in for some 40 years.

This is more or less what I was hoping for when I read Downton Shabby, I think—a light read that is chock full of personality and, you know, castle. The Strawbridges documented their chateau journey for television, and even without having seen the series it's clear to me that they must have made good television. The whole book feels upbeat and vibrant, with a fairly hefty dose of whimsy.

A Year at the Château covers just that—the first year of ownership and renovations and, finally, their first event. I'm hoping that Living the Château Dream will also be more widely published so that I can read about the adventures and renovations that followed...because I don't want to renovate a castle of my own (let alone do TV shows to make it possible—no shade, and I'm delighted that other people are doing it, but being on television is not any version of my dream job!), but I do want to read about the adventure that is other people renovating a castle. Also, foodies take note: there are plenty of recipes to spur your imagination. I'm low-key the opposite of a foodie, but even I flagged a recipe or two to test out this summer.

My wish list is short: pictures! floor plan! The end. I read an ARC, so I'm optimistic that there will be many pictures in the final version. I'm always so curious about floor plans with this sort of thing, too, because they let me better imagine how spaces might have been used back when the building was built...or now that it's been repurposed. Or, in twenty or thirty years, maybe one of the Strawbridges' kids will write a book about what it was like growing up in a castle in the 21st century...

Thanks to the authors and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Walking with Gorillas" by Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka

Walking with Gorillas" by Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka
Published March 2023 via Arcade
★★★

Kalema-Zikusoka can best be described as a trailblazer: born and raised in Uganda, she knew relatively early that she wanted to work with animals...but in taking a job as a wildlife veterinarian, she more or less created that role in Uganda—as a Black, African woman in a field historically dominated by white (often Western) men. She notes late in the book that media sometimes refer to her as the "first female wildlife veterinarian in Uganda" (loc. 3890*), and while this is technically true, it implies that a man or men had come before her—when in fact it's a path that she started blazing alone in the 90s.

In <i>Walking with Gorillas</i>, Kalema-Zikusoka describes a career spent working with, and advocating for, animals, but a much more complicated career path than you might think. She grew up with a fair amount of privilege, educated in Kenya and the UK, but also in the shadow of tragedy—her parents were politically involved, and her father was murdered when Kalema-Zikusoka was a toddler. And her own work was, at times, uncharted territory. Her conservation work with primates meant learning what the surrounding communities needed and how they viewed the gorillas living near them, and then working with those communities to find ways for human and animal to coexist sustainably. To that end, the book ends up focusing much less on direct work with animals and much more on what amounts to politics and diplomacy and the struggles of small businesses: raising funds, and convincing different groups to work together, and setting up programs to improve both human and animal health, and developing a coffee brand to both raise funds and support local coffee farmers, and working on family planning strategies, and on and on it goes. (And jeepers creepers: the amount of racism and sexism involved must have been staggering; Kalema-Zikusoka treats instances of those relatively matter-of-factly and never dwells on it, but it's...it's there.)

A lot of it is fascinating work (I'm not actually much of an animal person, but for whatever reason I love reading about veterinary work, and also work out in the wild—any wild), though it helps to go into it knowing how much of it is about...the work around the work, I guess. This is not a memoir of a singular experience, or of a year or two of working with animals; it's about decades of learning and advocacy and inspiring change. It's a futile wish, but I did find myself wishing that Kalema-Zikusoka had written a book much much earlier, and then perhaps another and another over the span of however many years, to allow more space for full scenes and direct work with animals.

One thing that's really interesting to note is the circular, or at least constantly shifting, face of conservation: Kalema-Zikusoka notes towards the end that before tourism, threats to gorillas came from local communities who resented conservation efforts because they impacted locals' ability to source wood, etc.; with the advent of tourism, those threats subsided but new threats came in the shape of disease transmission and retaliatory killings when habituated animals get too comfortable in the human sphere (and, e.g., eat crops). Definitely a job that will never truly be done.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read an ARC, so quotes may not be final.

Sample-Chapter Showdown: Romance

 

The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett (Carina Adores)
Out of the Blue by Alison Bliss (Forever)
A Rulebook for Restless Rogues by Jess Everlee (Carina Adores)

It's time for a sample-chapter showdown!

I took myself on a tour of three romance book previews—and just to entertain myself, I picked one each of f/f, m/f, and m/m romance. I read a lot more of the former two categories than m/m, but I'm always game for whatever book will entertain me for a while. (I would frame this as a three-books-enter-one-book-leaves sort of thing...but let's be realistic: I don't have a lot of bookish self-control and might end up reading all three.) So here we have three different subgenres—contemporary f/f and m/f, and historical m/m—from three different authors. Now, off to the races...

In The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett, restaurant owner Amy faces off against her head chef, Sophie, as they try to take the restaurant from barely afloat to thriving. The catch: the quickest way to do this seems to be to go on a cooking show...hosted by Sophie's ex. The other catch: Sophie and Amy each have a thing for each other, but neither of them is ready to admit it.

Sample takeaways: The first few chapters of The Romance Recipe do a bang-up job of both setting the scene and getting me invested in the characters. I've had this on my radar for a while (lesbian romance, plus reality-TV cooking show), but the opening is doing some things that I don't often see in romance novels: first, one of the ways we're introduced to Amy is seeing her own up to a judgement error and correct it. This both sets up a push-pull with Amy (she's self-aware but also has a hard time trusting other people's judgement) and is something that a lot of books would make a major, drawn-out conflict of the book...so the fact that it's treated as a no-brainer here is kind of great. And second, Amy and Sophie know each other from the beginning—not well, but I love that they have an established relationship as opposed to a traditional "Here is character A, here is character B, oh! They meet! How cute!" I'm also very interested to note that, as of the first five chapters, the ex is just an ex rather than an evil/homophobic ex...and I have my fingers crossed that he stays that way.

In Out of the Blue by Alison Bliss, Preslee is a woman on a mission—she's just been told that she needs to change her lifestyle to keep her pre-diabetic status from becoming full diabetes. Her first foray into a gym is not, shall we say, auspicious...but the owner catches her eye, and she catches his eye. With the gym struggling, Adam realizes that the prudent thing to do might be to stop focusing only on gym rats and power lifters and start targeting people who have historically been less comfortable (and been made less comfortable) in the gym. And if that means that he and Preslee have to spend more time together...

Sample takeaways: Out of the Blue feels about as classic as they come, from the insta-attraction to clumsiness as a fatal flaw to the dynamic between Preslee and Adam. It gets off to a quick start, and I'm glad to see that in this book about a plus-sized heroine starting on a fitness journey, the author is clear from the beginning that the focus is meant to be on health rather than on size. (I hope that holds true throughout the book, but I see no reason that it shouldn't.) Adam's bet also feels classically romance novel, though on the more cringe-worthy side of romance, and...well, I'd like to see him learn the error of his ways.

In A Rulebook for Restless Rogues by Jess Everlee, Noah and David have been best friends—and sometimes more—for fifteen years. David runs a thriving underground gay bar, and Noah is on his way to becoming a sought-after tailor. But in late-nineteenth-century London, running a gay bar carries significant risks...and when David's livelihood and possibly more are threatened, David and Noah have to decide what's next for them.

Sample takeaways: Here we have two likeable heroes in a society that is not fully ready for them. The stakes are clear (including livelihood, possible prison time, and worse—society was not exactly leaping to defend queer relationships in the late 1800s), and I always love a romance where the greater conflict is something external rather than the protagonists being nitwits about their own feelings. Also really nice to see that these particular heroes are both friends to begin with and have some history that keeps them from being totally blind to their shared attraction. This is definitely shaping up to be a lively read.

The verdict: I'm most likely to read The Romance Recipe, just because I love me an f/f romance (and a cooking-show romance, for reasons that even I don't fully understand) and I'm intrigued by the off-piste approach that this one takes. Out of the Blue feels the quickest and most bread-and-butter-style romance, something to consider when brain-tired or on an overnight train ride or coming out of reading something heavy. It's the most likely to frustrate me, but also the most likely to deliver exactly what I'm expecting, which will render me unable to complain too too much. If I'm in the mood for quick wit and subversion, A Rulebook for Restless Rogues feels promising...now if only it were an f/f book!

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing these free previews through NetGalley.

Review: "The Quarantine Princess Diaries" by Meg Cabot

 

The Quarantine Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
Published March 2023 via Avon
★★★

Back when I was in college—I think I've told this story on Goodreads before, but it bears repeating—a new Princess Diaries book came out. I bought it, obviously, and during a slow moment in my geology lab, I slipped it out and started reading it, furtively, under the table. Not furtively enough: "What are you reading?" asked one of my tablemates. And so I had to sheepishly drag out The Princess Diaries, Book Whichever while the table burst into (friendly) laughter. "I thought it would be Jane Austen or something!" the tablemate said.

How far we've come: I'm in my 30s now and can't be bothered to be sheepish about whatever I choose to read (and anyway...e-readers for the win). But some things haven't changed, and I knew the second I saw this book that I'd be reading it as soon as humanly possible. How could I not? One must keep up with the world news, after all, and that includes the goings-on in Genovia.

In The Quarantine Princess Diaries, Mia has settled into her role as Princess of Genovia, and everything is just ducky, from parenting her twins through their terrible twos to implementing a composting program in Genovia.

There's just one problem.

It's early 2020...and we all know what that means.

Now, Mia has grown a bit since the last book: she no longer compulsively checks the tabloids to see how she's faring in the tabloid sphere; she's relatively chill about the way she's raising her children; she understands that as a teenager she was "completely mentally unhinged" (loc. 153*). The last bit alone is a rather miraculous bit of self-awareness.

As the pandemic slides on, though, and Mia is separated from Michael (by which I mean: he is quarantining down the hall, and she sees him from the balcony at least three times a day), wine o'clock gets earlier and earlier and Mia faces pushback against border closures and mask mandates...mostly from directly within her own family.

This is a predictably fast read and also a predictably exhausting one. Grandmère is in her finest of fine forms (though, truly, I've never loved her more than when she quotes Jane Eyre), and between her and Mia's father and Mia herself, it seems a minor miracle that Genovia has yet to slide into anarchy. (This is, remember, a country with no income tax, minimal business taxes, and not a single bookstore(!), but lots of beaches and bars and yachts. I'm not sure how any public services are paid for.) Mia seems to think that as a princess—the princess—the most valuable thing she can do with her time is volunteer at a nonprofit to help the poor (please note that in Royal Wedding she claimed that poverty and unemployment were at zero percent, so either Mia is delusional or things have gotten worse since she's been in charge. Either seems possible. Although, again, a zero-percent unemployment rate isn't actually a good thing, because it indicates stagnation) rather than, say, working on policies that will help lift the poor out of poverty and/or make sure they have necessary services in the meantime—

I'll stop. (I'm worse than Mia sometimes.) I won't even go on a rant about how Michael somehow, despite having no experience with vaccines, manages to produce one that is 99.9% effective(!) and Mia doesn't so much as consider making the details available to other countries, or her claim that the police in Genovia are universally beloved. I won't.

Will I now go back and reread all of the Princess Diaries books? Well. About that I make no promises...either way. I cannot in good conscience give this anything higher than three stars, because (I say cheerfully) Mia remains completely exhausting, and kind of an idiot, but you can bet your last dollar that if there is another of these in a few years it will be going on my to-read shelf just as fast as I can update that shelf. And I'd still put it in my bag and take it to geology lab, if push came to shove.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read a review copy, so quotes may not be final.

Review: "Once Upon a Time in Uppsala" by Shirin Amani Azari

Once Upon a Time in Uppsala by Shirin Amani Azari
Published February 2023 via the Book Guild
★★★

Winter, 1985: Shirin Azari and her mother and brother are new to Uppsala, Sweden, where they have fled to escape the war in Iran. Everything is different: the cold outside makes it impossible to keep plans; people stand far apart when they talk; nobody makes eye contact; music is listened to as a matter of enjoyment rather than subversion; people sunbathe naked in the park in summer. At twelve, Azari knows that the only way to handle this is to hold on to the knowledge that they will be going home. Any day now. Just as soon as the war is over.

Once Upon a Time in Uppsala takes the reader through Azari's first year in Sweden—learning the language, standing up to playground bullies, adjusting to Swedish culture but also to the understanding that home as she knew it is not really there anymore. It's a gradual shift but a natural one, aided by her new best friend Turkan (recently arrived from Turkey) and by her burgeoning confidence in Swedish.

Interspersed throughout the story are folk tales, some from Iran and some from Sweden and some of unknown origin. As with any folk tales, some have clear morals (for the most part not directly connected to Azari's family) while others seem like pleasant tales to tell a child; worked into this memoir, they're lovely and help to keep Iran alive in the story even as Azari becomes more comfortable in Sweden. It occurred to me, reading this, that most of the folk tales I know either come from Western countries or have been Westernized, and I'd love to see more of these Persian folk tales collected in a volume.

This makes for a quick read and gives a solid sense of what it was to be an immigrant/refugee child in Sweden in the 80s. I imagine that a lot of it still holds true today—easier communication with people back home, thanks to the Internet, but the same struggles to fit in and yearnings for home. This would be a valuable read both for young refugees in foreign lands and for their local peers.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "What We See" edited by Daniella Zalcman and Sara Ickow

What We See edited by Daniella Zalcman and Sara Ickow
Published March 2023 via White Lion Publishing
★★★★

"For as long as photojournalism has existed as a discipline," writes Daniella Zalcman in the introduction, one "built around broadening perspectives – the industry has been dominated by white Western men" (6). What We See is a response to that, a collection of moments big and small captured by women and nonbinary photographers. Broken into four sections—Identity, Place, Conflict, and Reclamation—the book contains some images you might recognize, that went viral or won major awards, and others that are quieter but ask you to lean in, to look closer.

There are some true gems in here. I particularly loved Xyza Cruz Bacani's "Family Bonding" (18); Gillian Laub's "Grandma's Kitchen" (23); Ana Maria Arévalo Gosen's "Días Eternos" (24); Rena Effendi's "Day of the dead celebration" (78); JEB's "Three in a Tub" (106); Tracy Barbutes' "Smoldering" (116); Koral Carballo's "Yoel's Wishes" (186); Charlotte Schmitz's "La Puente" (190); and Mariceu Erthal García's "Waves of the Sea" (192), but there are many many more images that I'd love to hang prints of, or just to read longer articles on their background and symbolism and broader context. (I am also, predictably, drawn to portraits and candid moments—but happily for me, there are many of both throughout the book.)

Each photograph is accompanied by approximately 200 words of text from the photographer—in some cases context for the image, in some cases background on the broader project that the image is part of, in some cases discussions of themes of the sort that you might read in a gallery pamphlet. The words are a bit hit or miss for me (I prefer context and am not fond of abstract gallery descriptions), but it does feel like just the right amount of text to tell you more while keeping the focus on the photographs. I'm going to have to go back through the book more than once, I think, to examine the photographs more closely and to look up some of the photographers.

This is the first book from Women Photograph, and I'm very curious about what themes they might pick for future books—"not cis men" is a huge departure from the voices that are so often the loudest, but it's also very very broad.

Thanks to the curators and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Sorry, Bro" by Taleen Voskuni

Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni
Published January 2023 via Berkley
★★★

When Nar's boyfriend proposes, the answer should be easy. Instead she more or less faints and runs away—a surefire sign that something is not going quite to plan. And while he's willing to wait (and to try to make a German American out of her?), Nar is finally willing to accept her mother's pleas to explore her Armenian heritage...and perhaps meet some nice Armenian men along the way. Emphasis on men. No women. Definitely not.

This is somewhere between three and four stars for me, and I suspect that the cover is pushing it up. I like the romantic interest and I like the emphasis on cultural heritage—I picked this up in large part because I don't think I've read any other novels dealing with Armenian-American identity—and I like that Nar lives at home as an adult and is perfectly happy doing so. But...I don't know if I really see the connection between Nar and Erebuni, beyond of course hormones, and I'd have loved to know a bit more about Erebuni's background and why she is so invested in her heritage—it flavors just about everything she does, and as the book goes on it becomes clear that all things Armenian will soon flavor Nar's life as well. And...that's both a selling point for me (learning things about other cultures, yay) and something that feels as though the entire goal of the book is to remind people that there is more to Armenia than genocide. So...hit, miss, and quite a bit in between.

Review: "God Themselves" by Jae Nichelle

 

God Themselves by Jae Nichelle
Published March 2023 via Andrews McMeel Publishing
★★★

if you still tweet / which is praying since you still / say something & no one / listens (11*)

3.5 stars. Nichelle's collection makes for a fascinating muddle of wordplay and structural play, recurring themes and prayers typed out using predictive text. It's clear that she is a lover—a connoisseur—of words, and I pulled out line after line to think about later.

some people need the cover of dark / to be themselves & that explains / why you only text when my dinner / is tupperwared, cold / & my bonnet's on. I know what you seek— (65)

a good listener is just a bad conversationalist. so my / arguments with god are one-sided long paragraphs to / which I see read at [day/ time]. (102)

Poetry remains a somewhat elusive language for me—I can hear the beauty in its rhythms, but it's hard for me to follow it past a certain tipping point; at the same time, I value having to work to understand it, and this is doing that for me in spades. So not every poem resonates (which is fine and expected and frankly preferable), but if I save every line here that does resonate, or raise questions (again: prayers typed out using predictive text), it'll be a long time before I run out of food for thought.

I have been so tenderly held / Tomorrow, will you remind me? I have been so / tenderly held (115)

*I read a review copy, so quotes and page numbers might not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Léo in Little Pieces" by Mayana Itoïz

 

Léo in Little Pieces by Mayana Itoïz
English edition published January 2023 via Europe Editions
★★★★

Southern France, 1941: Léo is in love. Sneaking off to make out in the fields, and stealing a few minutes behind a secluded outbuilding, and making excuses to be in town—because the trouble is that while being in love is sanctioned, being a French girl in love with a German soldier is not.

Léo in Little Pieces is Itoïz's beautifully illustrated telling of her grandmother's story, told in some of the little pieces that her grandmother told her. (There's a second meaning to the title, but it would be a bit of a spoiler.) Most of the story takes place in the 1940s—Léo against the Nazi invasion of her home yet head over heels for a certain Nazi soldier—but there are snippets from later in Léo's life, as the war recedes into the past and her life becomes steadier, and as her granddaughter (Itoïz) starts to get curious about her grandmother's past.

There's a wonderful complexity here—Itoïz leaves a lot unsaid about Felix, perhaps because there is much that Itoïz does not say but also perhaps because there are many questions that her grandmother could not have answered. That is: Felix is neither portrayed as a hard-line Nazi nor as a sympathizer of the Resistance; the reality was probably somewhere in between, which is an uncomfortable grey area that isn't often enough talked about. Meanwhile, Léo is firm in what she believes but...maybe best described as "young." Confident and headstrong and perhaps with a bit of a sense of invincibility. No excuses here, just one woman's story. (It's worth looking up more info on "horizontal collaboration"—it's touched on here, but other articles and books give far more information and context.)

Altogether a really lovely, if (at times, and for obvious reasons) sad, read.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Blue Sky" by Galsan Tschinag

 

The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag
Translated by Katharina Rout
English translation published 2006 via Milkweed Editions
★★★

The Blue Sky is the first in a trilogy of autobiographical novels describing life in a Mongolia on the cusp of change. Dshurukuwaa is a young nomadic boy, content with his lot: parents and siblings; a beloved adopted grandmother; flocks of animals to tend to and love. His plans are both grand (e.g., to own a thousand sheep; to have a big yurt of his own and care for his parents) and limited: he cannot really imagine a world outside the mountains and his family. But the world is changing, and with it Mongolia, and when Dshurukuwaa's siblings are sent off to school, change sweeps in more quickly than he can process it.

This is in some ways a quick novel and in other ways quite a slow one. Length prevents any sort of dragging out, but for all that a lot happens (a death that Dshurukuwaa is too young to fully understand; his siblings leaving; a harsh winter that threatens the family's livelihood and indeed lives; an accidental poisoning), I found the book to be primarily atmospheric. I've read a small handful of books set in Mongolia, but to the best of my memory I don't think I've ever read a novel set in Mongolia that is also written by someone from Mongolia. I strongly recommend reading the (short) accompanying texts by Tschinag and Rout (the translator) as well—they give some insights into what must be something of an extraordinary life.

(I realized upon starting this that I could have looked for the original German, but it wasn't long before I decided I was well and truly better off with English—so much specific vocabulary!)