Review: "Desperate Steps" by Peter Kick

Desperate Steps by Peter Kick
Published 2015 via Appalachian Mountain Club Books
★★★

They go into the woods, they go into the wild—and if all goes well, they make it out in one piece.

Desperate Steps is about times when things don't go to plan. A slip, a fall, a shift in the weather—some of the people profiled in these chapters make it out okay, but some of them don't. Either way, there are always questions: what could they have done differently? Was someone at fault? What lessons can readers take from this experience in order to increase the chances of all going well?

I love books about wilderness rescue, and just the wilderness in general, so I find this sort of thing straight-up fascinating. Unfortunately, I found this particular book a bit frustrating—in particular, the maps, which should have added substantially to the reading experience, detracted badly. They typically came relatively early on in the chapter—but often contained information about the outcome (body found here, so-and-so rescued there) that hadn't been reached by that point in the chapter. Petty though it feels when real lives were on the line in the events of these stories, if I'm going to be reading about mishaps in the woods, I'd like the suspense to be maintained until the appropriate point in the story. Even more frustrating, though: the maps often had information about different trails than the ones described in the narration. They're interesting maps (often with topographical information), but many of the details included in the maps are completely irrelevant to the stories, and many of the relevant details (trails, turn-offs) are omitted from the maps. The lack of attention to detail in the maps makes me wonder what other details don't line up, which is not a great feeling when reading nonfiction.

Interesting enough look at rescue stories, but not one I'd put high on any priority lists.

Review: "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Beth Nguyen

Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen
Published July 2023 via Scribner
★★★★

3.5 stars, or 4 stars and a caveat, depending on how you want to look at it.

Over the course of my life I have spent less than twenty-four hours with my mother, writes Nguyen. Here is how those hours came to be, and what happened in them (loc. 51*).

Nguyen's upbringing was not motherless—she and her sister had their stepmother, the woman they called Mom. Nor was her childhood terribly different from the lives of her classmates. But her knowledge, growing up, that her experience was outside the norm (refugee, first mother somewhere else, name unfamiliar to most American ears), shaped the way she approached her life, first in youth and then as an adult.

I was ten years old when I learned that my mother had come to the United States as a refugee, too. I was nineteen when I finally met her. (loc. 66)

Part of Owner of a Lonely Heart is, of course, about those few hours with her mother: an hour here, a few hours there, a minute or two squeezed in here. Nguyen circles in on these hours, revisits them, examines them from new angles. (I recommend getting comfortable with some repetition before reading the book, because the story does loop in on itself at times.) She's on a quest for memories, for pieces of her mother's life and of her own—sometimes what was, and sometimes what could have been.

That caveat: I'm intrigued by the questions Nguyen doesn't ask in the book. She openly makes the choice to omit some things from the writing of the book (as a reader I'm disappointed, but as someone who believes staunchly in the right of the memoirist to keep some things private, I applaud the choice), and I wonder whether there are other things she opted out of sharing. She asks her mother Big Questions, but I wonder also about the smaller ones. I guess I'm left with questions about the unasked questions, and about more possible interpretations of her mother's non-answers.

One thing that does very much intrigue me is Nguyen's discussion of her name. She has previously published under her Vietnamese name, Bich Minh Nguyen, and this is her first book under the name Beth Nguyen. I won't get too much into her decision to make the shift (it's not a long section, but it's worth reading in full), but there's some very interesting commentary on who is most likely to criticise the choice (white people with names that are rarely mispronounced in the US) versus who is less likely to criticise. But here is the thing: I am not Beth to make life easier for everyone else; I am Beth to make life easier for me (loc. 1826).

I'm curious now about Nguyen's earlier memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner, and what parts of the picture that might fill in.

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

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

Review: "Excavations" by Kate Myers

Excavations by Kate Myers
Published July 2023 via HarperVia
★★★★

In Greece, an archeological field site is in the process of being explored, not for the first (or, most likely, last) time. This summer, though, five very different women are involved. There's Kara, desperate to prove herself and use her archeological experience as a springboard to a position at Christie's or Sotheby's; Elise, who has more expertise than most of the workers combined but gets only half the credit because she doesn't have the same academic degrees as the men in power; Z, stagnating in work and love and desperate for a reset and a new direction; and Patty, an undergraduate who is onsite to do grunt work and have an adventure, any adventure, that will get her out of the States and out from under her stifling family's home. (That's only four women, you say. True: the last woman's story is hers to tell, and hers alone.)

Read with tongue firmly in cheek, this is witty and incisive. It's a slim little novel, and at times the descriptions read like snarky character studies—these characters, with their quirks and flaws and petty moments, are never held on pedestals, even as they're banding together to turn the dig on its head. They're not always entirely self-aware, but the narration makes up for that. Meanwhile, I don't think I've read a book set at an archeological dig before (wait, does Caroline B. Cooney's For All Time count?), and this strips away any romantic notions I might have had.

I wavered between three and four stars, because if I try to take the book too seriously, the bad guy (I'll not spoil it, though it's obvious early on) is so cartoonishly bad—inflated ego, dishonesty, pith helmet and all—that, well, he can't be taken seriously. And yet...when I remind myself that success tends to blind people to faults, and most of the characters are allowed their cartoonish moments, I find it harder to mind.

For all the broader-picture material about gender and elitism and who writes history, my favorite parts of the book were usually found one or two lines at a time:*

Six years ago, Z was on her hands and knees checking to see if an ancient priest had dropped anything from his toga pocket. Now half a decade, four jobs, and eight boyfriends later, she was on her hands and knees checking to see if, when the priest had dropped anything from his pocket, it bounced. (loc. 1554)

He was a walking reminder of who she used to be and had an annoying suspicion she still was. (loc. 1599)

He really talked like this, and people were really okay with it. (loc. 3108)

It seemed to her that trust was when you decided to care slightly less about something in order to let someone else care about that thing a bit more for you. (loc. 3543)

Z gave her a quizzical thumbs up from the driver's seat, and Elise returned a demoralized one, a lexicon that would have to do for the moment. (loc. 3652)

*I read an advance copy, so quotes and location numbers may not be final.

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

Review: "Have You Seen Her" by Catherine McKenzie

Have You Seen Her by Catherine McKenzie
Published June 2023 via Atria Books
★★★

Cassie needs an escape, and there's no better place for that than the woods. It's to the woods she goes, then, to work in Search and Rescue. But Cassie has secrets—and so do the people around her.

I am always looking for hiking books. SAR books. Stuck-in-the-woods books. For reasons I cannot explain, I both want to spend all my time in the woods, not getting lost or being murdered by axemen, and also read a lot about people...uh...in the woods, sometimes getting lost or being murdered by axemen. Somehow these two desires have managed to coexist (peacefully, without axe-murder!) so far.

You can imagine, then, my pleasure at finding a mystery set almost entirely in a national park, with SAR work and hiking aplenty. (In another life, I want to be a backwoods ranger. In this life, I love reading about it, but there aren't all that many novels that fit the bill.) McKenzie has done her research here, and I love the details about hasty searches and the high proportion of callouts that don't amount to much. Cassie loves the work she's doing, but she's also aware that a lot of what goes wrong in national parks boils down to "people are really, really stupid sometimes".

Have You Seen Her moves quickly—I read the bulk of it on a three-hour flight, and the time (along with pages and plane, I guess) flew. I have mixed feelings about twists in general, and this book has a fairly significant one. On the one hand, I didn't see it coming (hurray); on the other hand, the mysteries that make me happiest are the ones in which things are as they seem, I'm afraid for the character throughout, and the narrator isn't hiding anything big from the reader. I'm afraid that any more I say will veer into spoiler territory, so I'll leave it at that, but this will be a better fit for those who want twisty and turny than for those who want something more straightforward. Still, a solidly satisfying read when I haven't been able to escape into the woods recently.

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

Review: "Landlocked" by Julia McConnell

Landlocked by Julia McConnell
Published July 2023 via Wheelbarrow Books
★★★★

Take us with you say the boots
lined up against the bedroom wall.
Take us through your red dirt path
spring puddles, yellowed grass,
dog shit, it doesn't matter. (46*)

This is a love letter and a breakup letter, both written to Oklahoma. Oklahoma, where the land is harsh and the love is fierce and for McConnell it will always be home—but where, perhaps, she cannot stay and cannot truly return.

I read these poems spread out over a couple of weeks, because, whatever else, they're clearly not here to all be gobbled down in one go. With nods to Elizabeth Bishop, Audre Lord, and other standouts of the genre, it's impossible to read these as anything other than smart, as poems written not just by someone who knows how to wrangle language but someone who has done a great deal of thinking about time and place and news and history, Fernweh and Heimweh and home.

I'm reminded a little of Prairie Silence, though that's likely more context than style. But I love the imagery here, the reverence and irreverence applied to this place I've never been but McConnell feels such close ties to.

If this is the end let them not say
I should have wandered
so far from home
to spend the end like this
untethered in a city searching
for colored lights and a little joy.

If this is the end the pictures came out blurry. (71)

*Quotations are from an ARC and may not be final.

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

Review: "The Rooster House" by Victoria Belim

The Rooster House by Victoria Belim
Edition published June 2023 via Abrams Press
★★★★

I made the final revisions to The Rooster House in August 2022, writes Belim in the opening of the book, and when rereading the manuscript against the backdrop of recent news from Ukraine, I knew that I wouldn't have been able to write this book now. It captures a particular time and place and a certain innocence, because even in 2014 I would not have imagined the events of 2022. (loc. 31*)

Belim was born and raised in Ukraine, shifting easily between city and country, Russian and Ukrainian, as the situation dictated. As a teenager, she and her family moved to the US; as an adult, she made her home in Belgium. Ukraine slipped out of her grasp, a place she meant to return to but usually didn't. And then, with the start of the Donbas war in 2014, return suddenly became paramount: to understand Ukrainian history, her family history, her own history. A monthlong visit became a months-long visit became years of back and forth travel, building (and rebuilding) ties in Ukraine and dusting off her family history before it was lost to time.

They had no jewels passed down from illustrious forebears and no books of family trees. They knew of their distant ancestors only by virtue of their own existence. They left few traces. It was hard to accumulate belongings and uninterrupted history when one lived in a place referred to as 'the bloodlands', 'the borderland', or 'the frontier'. (loc. 347)

But here is history repeating itself: war was knocking on the door again. When Belim and her grandmother visited the small house where Belim's grandmother and great-grandmother lived while her great-grandfather was off at war, they found that the current residents had fled Crimea following Russian occupation. Belim's quest to understand her history came to be defined in part by a hunt for her great-uncle Nicodim, who had disappeared in 1937—gone not only in body but his name erased from family conversation.

There are a lot of names to keep track of in this book—names and places and events—but there's also just a lot of story, and I'm so glad Belim wrote this when she did; certainly she could have written a book later, but I can only begin to imagine how different things in much of Ukraine are now than they were in 2014 or 2019. War changes landscapes and family units and the lenses through which we read things. Belim's grandmother Valentina—with whom she spent much of her time on her trips to Ukraine over these years—is the standout heroine of the book, set in her ways yet with complexities that Belim was able to delve into over time.

Very much recommended to anyone who has been following Russia's invasion and the subsequent war in Ukraine, but it's also just a fascinating family history in its own right.

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

Review: "Lay Your Body Down" by Amy Suiter Clarke

Lay Your Body Down by Amy Suiter Clarke
Published June 2023 via William Morrow
★★★★

Something is rotten in the state of Minnesota. Del thought she'd left her small-town church—and its powerful preacher—behind for good. But when the man she once thought she'd marry is found dead, she's pulled back into it...and only now is she realizing just how deep the rot goes.

I've been reading a lot about conservative religion lately, to the extent that my s.o. heaves a tired sigh when I tell him about a new is-it-a-cult book. He looked mildly interested when I said I was reading a murder mystery—until I asked him to guess its themes. He thought for a second, and then his shoulders drooped and he sighed. "Is there a cult?"

So, uh, yes. That's where I went in. At the core of this story is Eve—Eve, one of Del's best friends when they were younger; Eve, who tempted Lars away from Delilah; Eve, who is partially responsible for the stratospheric rise of the local preacher. She's been writing a blog since her teenage years, one in which she writes passionately about the messages of purity and being a "Noble Wife" that the preacher spouts. The basic message is clear: if you are good and pure and perfect, your (future) husband will cherish you, and God will smile upon you. The messages that go unsaid, though...

Without getting into a lot of detail about the plot (keep the mystery a mystery and all), I'll say that I flew right though this. Clarke does an excellent job of dropping crumbs that you don't fully register until after the fact, and the creepy religion feels more accurate than you might think. If I'd read this five years ago, I might have thought the Noble Wife blog was over the top, but I've done something of a broad swim through the weirdness that is American Christian fundamentalism since then, and...folks? If you think it's unrealistic? There are popular, real-life social media accounts doing just about the exact same thing. (There are some places in which I wondered whether Clarke has been reading the same sources I have.)

I do wish there'd been a little more open discussion of forgiveness, or maybe more to the point forgiving and forgetting, and what that means. With some key exceptions, the vibe of the end of the book suggests that there will be quite a lot of water sent under the bridge, and relationships healed to an extent that I'm not sure is realistic—there's a lot of hurt to go around through the course of the book, and the events that precede it. And...I wonder how many of these relationships can really be built or rebuilt to full strength after all that. That said, Lay Your Body Down exceeded my expectations and hit at that perfect balance of murder mystery and critical look at conservative religion...even if my s.o. would have preferred me to bring more murder and less cult to the dinner table.

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

Review: "The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O'Donoghue

 

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue
Published June 2023 via Knopf
★★★★

If you asked anyone who was in the orbit of the English department at Cork in 2009 what Rachel was up to then, they could tell you—she was having an affair with her professor. Depending on how you look at it, that is or isn't that story, but it's Rachel's to tell...so this is her story.

If I'm honest, I read this for the cover and because, having read Sally Rooney's books, I perk up at the thought of another Irish writer. (I'm bright enough to be aware of this, and to know better, but not so bright that I don't still fall for it every time.) By about the second page I could tell that I'd be reading this for its own merits, because it's stylistically very different—more overtly funny, grittier, less precise.

We've all known a Rachel. She's messy, and aware of it, and has opted to own the messiness and sink into it rather than trying to pull it together. Her decision to nurse a crush on a professor is less because of the professor himself than because it seems like an exciting thing to do, and that's her attitude for much of the book: if something seems of a mood that appeals to Rachel, or seems like it will make her interesting, it's something she'll try on and wear around for a while, even if it doesn't fit. (Cripes, we've all been a Rachel.)

Rachel does have her romance in the book, but the real relationship of the story is her friendship with James, who goes from colleague to flatmate to best friend in very short order. Theirs is the sort of friendship that is only possible at a certain age—unselfconscious about wanting a platonic everything from each other, just about fused at the hip, an all-encompassing flame of a relationship that they know but don't acknowledge can't continue indefinitely without new fuel. The story takes its time, but gradually builds a complicated knot of relationships that swirl around them in Rachel's last months at college...as Rachel slowly, finally, starts to grow into the sort of person she wants to be.

Side note: Only after reading the book did I realize that O'Donoghue hosts the podcast "Sentimental Garbage," which is one of the very, very few podcasts that I have listened to. Small world—but hey, listening to an episode or two will give you a sense of her voice and put it in your head while you read.

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

Review: "The Order of Things" by Kaija Langley

The Order of Things by Kaija Langley
Published June 2023 via Nancy Paulsen Books
★★★★

April has a good life—she and her mother and their neighbours, Zee and Papa Zee, have cobbled together a well-oiled routine that turns friends into family. Zee is a violin star, April is learning the drums, and together they have big dreams. But when things change—and change again—April is at a loss for what to do and how to process it all.

First things first: Don't read the official book description—just don't do it. It covers almost the entire plot and leaves too little unsaid.

There's a lot that I love here, starting with the family structure. April's mother is a single parent, and the two of them are making it work—April's mother works night shifts, meaning that April often sleeps on Papa Zee's couch , and I love that this is just sort of...treated as a matter-of-fact 'we're making it work' thing. There's not a lot of money to go around, but there's enough, and it occurred to me, reading this, that I don't see enough of those stories—the ones floating between 'the power has been cut off again' and 'my family is taking our annual monthlong trip to Greece'. April's mother is also a single parent by choice, again not something that I see a lot of in fiction. There's not a ton of detail about that (probably because of the target age range), but it's something that's nice to see. Also, a small thing, but the characters all wear earplugs when there's going to be loud music (especially drumming)—and that's something I can absolutely get behind! Save your eardrums! The book is written in verse, and it's fine but not standout for me. There are some lovely turns of phrase:

Working night shift
loading trucks means
Mama sleeps most of
the day, works most of
the night, and we live
in the quiet moments
in between. (5)

I start off the way I usually do,
warming up my arms and legs
by hitting my sticks together,
the clack-clack-clack-clack
and boom-boom-boom-boom
from hitting the bass drum pedal
vibrating through my whole body. (66)

On the whole, though, when I read books in verse, I'm usually hoping for a bit more...verse...and fewer full sentences with line breaks. This does better than many, but the verse wasn't bringing as much to the table as I'd hoped. That said, worth the read for the themes of loss and grief. (The metronome—ooh, and A+ for that symbolism, even if it isn't overt—broke my heart a little, because I had a very similar experience with holding on to a gift for a while, waiting to put it in a Christmas stocking, only for...well, different situation but the same outcome, also right before Christmas.) 3.5 stars.

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

Reread: "Dream Horse" by Bonnie Bryant

 

Dream Horse by Bonnie Bryant
First read sometime in the 90s
★★★

I was never much of a horse girl, but I was a book girl. I read myself through huge swathes of the library. Some of those books are more or less imprinted on my memory...and some take longer to recall.

Dream Horse is in the latter category: I remembered, hazily, a scene involving an ill (quite possibly dying) girl who was unable to eat her favourite disgusting ice cream concoctions. That's not a lot to go on, but after years of trying(!), a Goodreads group found it for me.

As it turns out, I had the ice-cream scene partially but not entirely correct:

One of the things about Stevie that seemed an eternal mystery to her friends was what constituted her "favorite" ice cream sundaes. Ghastly was one word her friends sometimes used to describe them. Revolting was another word they'd used from time to time. Inventive was what Stevie called them.

A few minutes later they ordered butter pecan ice cream with licorice bits and caramel sauce to go and pooled every cent they had on them to pay for it.

"Oh, and some chopped peanuts and marshmallow fluff," Lisa added.

Carole winced. That was how she knew they'd gotten a really good combination. If it made her stomach twinge just to hear the ingredients, it was guaranteed to please Stevie. (32)

As it turns out, Stevie isn't dying (not a spoiler—just bad memory!), though her concussive effects are severe enough to induce something of a personality transplant and possibly psychic powers, which does make one wonder just how much the doctors missed. And there are two other plotlines that I remembered clearly. In one, two girls go 'undercover' to help an adult figure out if a horse trader is corrupt:

"Oh, Mommy! Mommy! Look at the horsie!" Lisa said.

"Too young," said Deborah.

"Wow, Mom! Look at all the horses! Lisa tried a second time."

"Much better," said Deborah. She pulled the car to a stop at the barn and opened the door. (47)

In another, the snooty rich girl enters a photo contest and enlists the use of a private plane to get up-close photos of the sky. The second photograph was of sky and clouds. It was pretty, but it didn't seem very special until Lisa realized that it was taken very close to the clouds (95). If you'd asked me before this re-read, I could have told you about those scenes but would have said that they came from completely different books.

None of these is the main plot, though—in the main plot, Stevie is suffering the effects of a concussion; in a secondary plot, a friend goes missing while out on a glider flight. It's all nicely wrapped together...but it is perhaps worth noting that there is some terrible precedent here. If you are lost on a mountain, you are safe for the time being, and there is good reason to think that people will be looking for you soon, do not go wandering away from your position without food or water or survival gear. (If you are out on a small-craft flight, submit a flight plan.) If you are twelve and think you know up what impassable-but-not-actually-impassable trail your missing friend can be found, alert authorities. Do not go mavericking your way up a mountain with a stolen horse.

I'm not sorry that I didn't read more Saddle Club books as a kid (I was more into Marguerite Henry), but it was a ride(!) to revisit this one.

Review: "Flash Point" by Christy Warren

Flash Point by Christy Warren
Published June 2023 via She Writes Press
★★★★

I was nineteen years old, an emergency medical technician, writes Warren, working for a private ambulance company. On any given day for the next twenty-five years of my career as a paramedic and a firefighter, whenever I smelled hot asphalt, my skin sensed that woman's hair on my arm and heard her boy's screams (loc. 60*).

As an EMT, Warren loved her job—but thought she could do more. After training as a paramedic, she still loved her job—and still thought she could do more. And when she shifted to firefighting, Warren excelled, holding her own against the job's exacting standards and against her own even more exacting standards. Lessons learned in childhood proved useful: she could put each trauma she saw and experienced in a box and shut the lid, and she could move on. It worked—until it didn't.

Warren's story is not an easy read. Some of her jobs sound like absolute doozies, and although it's possible that she's pulling punches (and no matter how good or detailed a description, I don't think it's possible for a reader to fully appreciate the impact of seeing and smelling and hearing and touching people burned, people broken), it certainly doesn't feel like it. I've read my fair share of first-responder memoirs, but I can't say that I've ever thought about seeing a woman's burned skin come off on your coat while you carry her to medical help. It's worth going in to the book prepared for grisly scenes, but it's also perhaps worth noting that I don't think it's really possible for the vast majority of first responders experiencing such things to go in prepared—to go in qualified, yes, but all the reading in the world couldn't tell me how I would feel working with trauma every day, or how it would sit in my bones.

I'm reminded, reading Warren's story, of a memoir by a doctor-soldier that I read a few years ago. Of the things he talked about, reluctance to acknowledge and deal with his PTSD stands out in my memory—this conviction that to admit to having PTSD would be to admit to a weakness, even if ignoring trauma meant compounding trauma, not only for himself but for the people around him. Warren's version is much more sympathetic to the people around her, but it is a painful reminder of how we view invisible illness and invisible trauma. If a firefighter thinks she should be "strong enough" to refuse painkillers with a smashed-in leg, you can imagine how hard it must be to address the things less talked about. Here's hoping that stories like Warren's can be impetus for change—not only for more accessible, more openly acknowledged treatment for acute PTSD, but for finding ways to address trauma sooner, so that fewer responders are simply stuffing it in boxes until the boxes can hold no more.

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

*Quotes are taken from a review copy and may not be final.

Review: "Sunburn" by Chloe Michelle Howarth

 

Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth
Published June 2023 via Verve Books
★★★★

In rural Ireland in the early 90s, the seasons are changing. Lucy knows what shape her life is supposed to take—she'll gradually pair up with her best friend, Martin, and they'll be lovers and then spouses and then parents. Probably their lives will be shaped by the rhythms of farming, and the other girls in Lucy's year will also pair up with boys and peel away, and she'll remember Susannah as nothing more than a good friend.

But it's gradually dawning on Lucy that the future she's been promised is not really the one that she wants. The person she's been promised is not the one that she wants.

Sunburn is a slow burn of a book. If this were YA, it would take place over a summer or even a month; instead, here, weeks spin into months spin into years as Lucy waffles and settles and tries to keep everyone happy. It's frustrating at times: she resists having to choose, resists taking a stand, hurts more than one person in the process. But she's young, and she feels that she has little choice, and in the end...none of her choices are all that good. It's much more satisfying and realistic for it, this way that Lucy retreats into her inflamed skin, uses lies like aloe applied thickly, waits for the lies to catch up with her and for the decisions to be made for her but also doesn't quite believe that it'll happen.

One interesting thing is that you can see, around the edges of the story, alternative futures for Lucy, or for Susannah. Martin might get caught up in someone else, or Lucy might make choices that lead her to a boat to England, or she might live alone in Dublin with the chance to figure out who she is by herself, away from Crossmore, in a place where more things seem possible. Lucy doesn't always see these alternative futures as such—she's not really in a place to recognize options beyond the ones she's always known, decisions beyond the obvious ones that she doesn't want to make—but it's something of a reminder of how much can hinge on a seemingly small moment.

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

Review: "The Four Corners of the Heart" by Françoise Sagan

 

The Four Corners of the Heart by Françoise Sagan
Translated by Sophie R. Lewis
Published June 2023 via AmazonCrossing
★★★

When Françoise Sagan died in 2004, she left behind a literary oeuvre to make any writer envious—and with her completed and much loved works, she left also The Four Corners of the Heart, now making its English debut in all its rough glory.

Perhaps best described as a cross between a soap opera and a scathing indictment of the bourgeoisie (and oh, how it delights me to be able to use the phrase "a scathing indictment of the bourgeoisie" with a complete lack of irony), The Four Corners of the Heart follows a patched-together household through a most unusual time in their lives: the prodigal son has just returned from a long stint in hospital that he was not expected to survive; his wife has rejected him; his father is determined that the son get adequate attention from prostitutes if no one else; and the son has transferred his affections to the only person to treat him as a functioning human in the wake of his accident—his wife's mother. Chaos, predictably, ensues.

I read Bonjour Tristesse immediately before The Four Corners of the Heart, because it seemed unfair to know Sagan only by her last, unfinished work rather than by her celebrated first novel. Her microfocus on the follies of a family bring to mind Jane Austen, of all people, although only if Austen had written her books in twentieth-century France and with a great deal more bed-hopping. In Four Corners, we Sagan's voice is clear as a bell: in the character studies, in the sardonic eye cast upon the rambling house (full, naturally, of conflicting styles, uniform only in their poor taste), in the great rise toward the climax—

And yet it is (as advertised) an unfinished novel: not entirely unedited, as the author's son (who now manages her estate) notes in the afterword, but unfinished. It's hard to know how to rate it, because there are so many unknowns left in the book. We'll never know just where Sagan would have gone with this (or how different her own edits might have been), but I hope it's a success—for many reasons, but also because if it's a big enough success then perhaps someday the publisher and estate will collaborate with, say, three contemporary authors and publish an edition of this with three different endings.

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

Review: "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" by Tony Bleetman

 

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? by Tony Bleetman
Published 2019 via Ebury
★★★

A call comes in, and the doctors take to the sky: in relatively recent years, parts of the UK have switched from a strictly paramedicine approach to emergency sites to bringing a doctor along for the ride—because although paramedics can do a huge amount on scene, in some situations a doctor will have training and authorizations that make a difference. Bleetman describes a life as one of those doctors, working a day job at a hospital and volunteering regular shifts at the air base.

I don't have a television, but one thing on YouTube that I quite enjoy is shows about paramedics and other real-life medical rescues—not so much ER or Grey's Anatomy, but the ones where it's real people and real emergencies. There's not really a need to piggy-back on dozens of think pieces about what it says about humanity that we enjoy true crime and medical stories and whatever, but imagine my surprise when I realised that Bleetman's crew was featured in one of these series, and the mental image I'd been running throughout the book was probably actually more accurate than not.

As a book it's mostly...fine. Bleetman may be an excellent doctor, and certainly I would trust these air crews in an emergency, but he does tend to make judgements (and thus jokes) based on things like class and weight and sex (one woman is referred to as The Bitch throughout the book—it's supposed to be affectionate, but even if that's how she experiences it in real life, it doesn't translate in print), which is...not my favorite thing. I'd love to read more along these lines, but I'm going to hope for a female author with a better sense of humor next time.

Review: "Bonjour Tristesse" by Françoise Sagan

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
First published 1954
★★★★

I had this on my to-read list for ages and then removed it because…because I have no taste, apparently. But when I got the opportunity to read The Four Corners of the Heart, I knew I had to read some old-school Sagan first, to know what made her famous before I tried to understand the unfinished pieces she left behind.

Cécile is not a character to be loved, not exactly. She’s smart but unambitious, more interested in gossip and romance than in passing her exams, resentful of anyone who might ask her to want more. Resentful of the idea that there might be more to want in the first place. She’s happy as she is, watching her father fall in and out of love with women who might (and I cringe as I write this) be termed ‘silly young things’; looking ahead to a life in which she finds a man to keep her in the same quiet luxury and indolence that she so enjoys.

I don’t have a great grasp on Sagan, except to say that she must have put a great deal of herself into Cécile—and even as Cécile is scathing, so is Sagan; it’s a biting portrait, and one in which nobody comes off entirely well. And…I’d love to think that I’ll now go out and read piles more of Sagan’s work, except I know myself, and it seems unlikely. But…perhaps I’ll go shelve her next novella, and we’ll see how long it takes me to read (or delete) that one. Because if it’s half as scathingly entertaining as this, it’s worth a read.

Review: "Truly Enough" by J.J. Hale

 

Truly Enough by J.J. Hale
Published June 2023 via Bold Strokes Books
★★★

It's a bread-and-butter classic: friends-to-lovers, fake dating, and a little bit of a firefighter romance thrown into the mix. Can't argue with that! This was sweet and fast—a little too much "telling" in places (they are nothing if not self-aware), but I'll very gladly take self-aware characters over ones who constantly miscommunicate.

Some positives:
- Truly Enough is the second in a series, but it is (...truly...) a standalone, so you're safe jumping in wherever.

- The characters are really good about having honest conversations—there is some level of miscommunication, but it's limited, and there's a much higher level of honesty. And consent! Enthusiastic consent!

- I just read another fake-dating romance in which the characters sort of...forget to have sensible conversations about how the whole thing is going to work, and more to the point how they're going to get away with it ending, so I love that that's something that Robyn and Lexi think about from the beginning...even if they don't always have satisfactory answers.

- Interesting to see possible ADHD as a plot point—again, I just read another f/f romance (...not a fake-dating one this time...) in which that was a factor. I like seeing neurodiversity and varied identities starting to play more of a role in romance, and it looks like there might be another rise in those subplots at the moment.

Some neither-positive-nor-negative-romance-novel-specific questions:
- How often does fake dating happen in real life? Tell me. Have you ever fake-dated someone? Did you fall madly in love with them (or their sibling or best friend or mortal enemy)? How did it turn out? Because this is one of those things, like self-made billionaires, that seem to come up a lot more often in romance novels than in real life.

- How often do people in real life swear off love forever because their parents or grandparents had a great love, and then one person died and the other is sad, and now the younger person is like "I CANNOT BEAR THAT PAIN"? I've seen people swear off romance because they're heartbroken (especially people on dating apps—in particular, men who have been "burned before"), but never because of secondhand grief. Except in romance novels. Again, tell me: have you seen this? I am so curious.

- What is the firefighting equivalent of a lesbian U-Haul joke? There must be something about bringing a fire truck to a second date.

What I wanted more of:
- This one's a short list: firefighting! Fire! This is as conventional as my reading tastes get: when there is a lesbian firefighter in a romance novel, god damn it, I want firefighting. (I don't want to date a firefighter, thanks. I am too anxious a person for that. But in a book? Send the fire hoses in to put out the heat. Wait, no, that metaphor might go in weird directions...) I fully recognize that this is a me problem, and that firefighters do all sorts of things other than fighting fires, and that if every firefighter romance ever had dramatic blazing buildings, they'd all start to run together, and the proportions of fires in romance would start to rival the proportions of self-made billionaires in romance novels. Or...or it would just become climate apocalyptic, which I'm less interested in reading, actually. But as far as the more conventional parts of my reading tastes go, if I'm going to read a book with a (swoon) lesbian firefighter, then I'd like to see turnout gear, a fireman's pole, a ravaged structure or two. Otherwise, the firefighter who cannot risk love because she has seen the pain of love lost...she might as well be an accountant who cannot risk love because her parents' marriage was ruined by her accountant father's lack of work-life balance.

(A short list, I said. Not a short opinion.)

Oh well. Still burns fun and fast. May the flames of firefighter romance never die...

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

Review: "Parallel" by Matthias Lehmann

 

Parallel by Matthias Lehmann, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger
English translation published June 2023 via Oni Press
★★★★

1950s Germany: the war might be over, but for Karl, the struggle is only beginning. He wants love, romance, sex—but despite marriage and children, what he really wants is love, romance, sex with men. And in 1950s Germany, those are not safe desires for a man.

Parallel is told in two timelines, the first of which takes us through the 1950s with Karl as he struggles to stay married—to want to stay married—and to quell the desires he's not allowed to have. Germany is not yet divided by wall and death zone, but it's not a safe place to be different. His life is split in two, one part in which he is a husband and father and reliable worker, and the other part spent sneaking around in the woods, in alleys, searching for a life he can't quite imagine. In the second timeline, Karl is newly retired, still holding on to his secrets, and wondering whether there is still a chance of building a new relationship with his estranged daughter.

The art here is lovely—black and white, strong lines and extensive use of shadow and shade. I could imagine a version of this in color, one with slightly different palettes for the two timelines, but the greyscale works for the story. I'm reminded a little of Fun Home, of Bechdel's father trying to be someone he is not—there is the same sense, here, of "what could have been" in a different time, a different place. (That "what could have been" is doubled down on in some of the ways the two timelines collide, but I'll stay vague there.)

At 450-odd pages, this is something of a tome of a graphic novel, and at times I would have liked to see less of Karl's isolation and the violence and uncertainty he faces and more of the lives around his—Liselotte's, Hella's. But there's also an extent to which that would dilute Karl's story, which is about that isolation. I was particularly interested in the time frames, though: both highlight Germany on the cusp of major change, with the wall going up and, later, the wall soon to come down. Cold War Germany, but a story within that setting that doesn't often get told. Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in graphic novels and queer history.

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

Review: "Going Bicoastal" by Dahlia Adler

 

Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler
Published June 2023 via Wednesday Books
★★★★

It's the summer before senior year, and Natalya has a decision to make: stay in New York with her father throughout the break, or fly out to LA to reconnect with her mother? Follow up on a longstanding crush on a mysterious redhead, or hurdle toward the unknown?

Natalya has to choose—but the reader doesn't.

I would have read this for the cover alone (I'm shallow like that), or the Sliding Doors scenario (weirdly, this is one of my pet tropes), but also, while I haven't made it through Adler's entire backlist (either because I'm lazy or because my TBR list just never ends as it is), I've loved every one of her books that I've read...and observant readers will find calls back to previous books here. In this case, I'm here for the non-issue bisexuality, Natalya's ability to be both low-key awkward and willing to put herself out there, and the way there are some similarities in the ways things pan out—but also some key differences. Also, it's really nice to see a Jewish main character who...I'm not sure how to say this. She adheres to something of a middle ground of Judaism: keeps kosher, but not to the extent that every kitchen has to be kashered; chooses to make Shabbat dinners a priority; has ties within both her Jewish and non-Jewish communities. I note this because I've read a few books where the main character is Hasidic or similar and keeps to very strict religious laws, not always by choice, and plenty of books where the main character is culturally Jewish (had a bat or bar mitzvah, eats Chinese food on Christmas, the end), but very few where Judaism is an active but relatively casual part of the character's life. It's nice to see.

Now, back to things working out differently in each storyline: I love this aspect. I've read too many books where the "different paths" scenario still comes back to "but she ends up with the same guy at the end because it's Meant to Be!!!" and it always drives me up the wall and around the corner. I keep reading books with this trope precisely because I want something more along the lines of Going Bicoastal—where the character is fundamentally the same person regardless of where things go, but where her choices genuinely take her down different paths and with different people. (If anything, I wanted a tiny bit more difference from Natalya's post-summer choices, but you know...quibbles are my character flaw.) I won't spoil the details of Natalya's summer romance(s), but I think...I think she'll be just fine. And now I'm off to figure out how to make the weirdest thing I learned about in the book, which is a limonana—which somehow, despite the name, does not have banana in it.

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

Review: "After the Ashes" by E.V. Nova

After the Ashes by E.V. Nova
Published June 2023 via Harbor Lane Books
★★★

These ashes burn bitter: After the Ashes is a quick collection of poetry focused on the painful end of a relationship.

I'm of two minds about Instagram-ready poetry—on the one hand I appreciate that it's accessible, designed to fit in a wee square and to resonate easily with many. you smoke me out into the open with your pretty words / and promises, / then snuff me out with your lies (loc. 52*), writes Nova. But I also tend to find myself disappointed when poetry doesn't make me work for it. I want richness of metaphor and imagery, for a poem to wrap me around its little finger and then discard me with a flick of its wrist. We get some of that metaphor and imagery here, but it's hard to dig into it and really let it spiral when so many poems are two or four or six lines long.

Stylistically, then, not a great fit for me, but will likely appeal to readers of Rupi Kaur, Claire Ellis, etc.

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

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

Review: "A Train to Moscow" by Elena Gorokhova

A Train to Moscow by Elena Gorokhova
Published March 2022 via Lake Union Publishing
★★★★

Sasha dreams of the stage, of Moscow, of getting out of her small Soviet town. Moscow represents much of what she does not have—money and opportunity and independence. No matter how much her family loves her, they will never understand her drive to leave, to act. They would rather she stayed local, trod a more acceptable path that thousands have trod before.

Sasha lives a life underscored by violence: there are the men in her town who never came back from fighting the Germans, and there are the men who did come back but never truly recovered. There are unexploded shells and other dangers waiting for children playing in the woods. And there is of course the knowledge that the state is watching—it is always watching. The father of one of her friends is one of those who returned, but not happily, and one of the things I'm most fascinated by is his son's reaction to his father's stories of the Soviet camps: "How could I believe him? This was the stuff of Auschwitz, not our own Vorkuta or Magadan" (85). It's not the primary point of the book, but it's what I kept returning to: Over and over again, people believe only the part of the story that aligns with what they already believe to be true.

This is not, as far as I can tell, an autobiographical story, but Gorokhova's website suggests that there are heavily autobiographical elements—her mother was a doctor, her sister was an actress, Gorokhova dreamed of things other than the opportunities she was presented with. I'd quite like to read A Mountain of Crumbs now.

Review: "Moby Dyke" by Krista Burton

Moby Dyke by Krista Burton
Published June 2023 via Simon & Schuster
★★★★

A woman walks into a lesbian bar...and another, and another, until she's made it to all twenty that she can find remaining in the US.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to read this, because although Burton describes lesbian bars as crucial to her experience of queer community as a young and newly out lesbian, that's just...never been my scene. I've been in a very small handful of lesbian bars, and a number of non-queer bars that is large only in proportion to the number of lesbian bars I've been to, and when I was younger my queer community was centered more around, like, book clubs. (This will surprise literally nobody who has ever met me.) But then I realised that Burton was the writer of Effing Dykes back in the day, and holy moly let me at that book. I kept Effing Dykes in my blog feed for years after it went dormant, because you never knew! She could post again! And I didn't want to miss it just because I was fool enough to unsubscribe!

So Moby Dyke does not disappoint, partly because it's both entertaining and thoughtful on its own but also partly because part of me is still stuck ten years ago, double-checking links in vain hope of updates. Burton spent the better part of a year juggling her weekends and PTO in order to traverse the country, visiting dyke bar after dyke bar and asking: why are there so few of them left? How does the community feel in an era when being queer is more accepted, but also in a not-quite-post-pandemic time? And what does it mean, in this day and age, for a bar to be a lesbian bar in the first place?

Burton doesn't play favorites, but I'd be curious to know which bar she most wished were in her neighborhood (and why)—and also whether they started to run together for her by the end. (They did for me, but since I was 90% in it for the conversations and commentary anyway, I can't say that I was bothered. I might have minded more had I been planning to relocate to a specific town in the US based on proximity to a good lesbian bar and was using this book as my sole reference, but that's not me, and...I don't think that's going to be very many people.) I'd also desperately like to know why there were apparently no lesbian bars in Provincetown, because you cannot tell me that P-Town has lost its status as the lesbian San Francisco or I will slowly melt into a puddle of grief.

Please go buy this book so that the publisher will give Burton a contract to write another book. I don't know what it's going to be about, but I want to read it.

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

Review: "The Elissas" by Samantha Leach

The Elissas by Samantha Leach
Published June 2023 via Legacy Lit
★★★★

Elissa, Alyssa, Alissa: One by one they were sent to "therapeutic" boarding schools, where they crossed paths and became friends. One by one they left those programs. And one by one they died.

For as long as I knew Elissa, her life was defined by her desire to burn the brightest. A hunger to experience it all, despite the consequences, that made her destined to burn fast, and then burn out. (loc. 2150*)

In The Elissas, Leach traces what happened to her childhood best friend—Elissa—and then, too, what happened to Alyssa and Alissa. And what's there is disturbing: all the messiness of the troubled teen industry, which seems largely designed to empty wealthy parents' bank accounts and keep teens under as strict a control as possible, with little regard for the consequences.

I've read a lot of troubled teen industry books—a number have come out recently, including Paris Hilton's memoir (that one I have not read, and Leach does not reference it, but she does talk about the recent documentary about Paris Hilton, which to my understanding covers some of the same material). What this reminds me of most, though, is The Forgotten Girls (Monica Potts), which is similarly by a woman who "got out" and is tracing the life of one who didn't. Where The Forgotten Girls is about small-town poverty, though, The Elissas is set against a backdrop of wealth and privilege—the kind that keeps girls in boarding schools rather than jail cells, but not a kind that can save them from addiction and trauma.

Leach was not immune to the things that pulled Elissa under, but while Elissa sunk deeper and deeper, Leach managed to tread water. She doesn't ask as many of the hard questions as Potts does, and the more memoir (vs. researched) sections about her own life don't draw as sharp a contrast or make so strong a point, but it's clear that this book was a labor of love—something to memorialize three girls who would otherwise by forgotten by history.

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

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

Review: "When It All Syncs Up" by Maya Ameyaw

When It All Syncs Up by Maya Ameyaw
Published June 2023 via Annick Press
★★★

Aisha dreams of dancing, but she also knows that the ballet world is stacked against her: in whitewashed Alberta, her skill and talent are never quite enough to compensate for the fact that her teachers see her skin color first, and everything else second. In Toronto, maybe, things can be different—Toronto, where her best friend lives, and where there's a quiet and alluring musician next door, and where Aisha is not the only Black girl around. But while some problems can be outrun, others are shadows nipping at one's heels.

I've been reading a lot about ballet recently—not a new interest, but there's been a fantastic crop of new books—and Aisha underscores some of the things that Alice Robb, Chloe Angyal, Georgina Pazcoguin, and others have written about: the landscape is changing, but not quickly enough; certainly not quickly enough for many of the talented young dancers who are being pushed out today for their skin tone or the length of their neck or the shape of the muscle in their thighs. At one point, watching a professional performance, Aisha notes that "I'm painfully aware there isn't a fully Black female dancer in the entire show" (loc. 2037*), and what goes unsaid is that there are far too many people who wouldn't be aware, or who wouldn't see a problem if they were.

So I'm always delighted to see books that take this and tackle it head-on (readers might also be interested in The Other Side of Perfect by Mariko Turk). I waffled with the rating, though, or rather am still waffling with the rating. Aisha is great as a main character, and the love interest is also solid—some complexity to him, and I do always love a romantic conflict that cannot be solved with a simple conversation or two. But there's so much going on in the book: racism, family trouble, mean girls, romance, a drinking problem, an eating disorder, abuse, anxiety, other family trouble, two types of dance... It's not that all of that can't be going on at once, but I wouldn't have been sorry to see one or two issues dropped in favor of giving more space to the others, and to more general worldbuilding for the Toronto setting.

At the end of the day, I'm mostly just pleased to see the face of YA dance literature changing alongside the dance world. I hope When It All Syncs Up (and its gorgeous cover) will make it to many school library shelves.

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

*I read an ARC, so exact quotes and locations may change.