Review: "The Happy Couple" by Naoise Dolan

 

The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan
Edition published November 2023 via Ecco
★★★★

It's inevitable, their marriage: Celine and Luke have dated and moved in together, they've gotten engaged (maybe more accidentally than intentionally, but who's counting), and they're counting down to the wedding.

Except...

Celine has some doubts. Celine's sister Phoebe has some doubts. Luke's friend Archie has some doubts. And Luke has some doubts.

I read Dolan's Exciting Times for the Sally Rooney comp, but with The Happy Couple I had a better idea of what I was getting into. The Happy Couple is heavily character-driven, and these are—unsurprisingly—not characters prone to drama...or at least, they're not prone to outward drama. They're prone to understatement and a stiff upper lip.

The more marginalised an artist's identity, muses Luke, the more we assume they're trying to teach their audience a lesson (loc. 1999*). Celine's directness and missing of social clues—things that Celine knows very clearly about herself—made me wonder, initially, how much of Celine was built on Dolan's own experience (Celine is not labeled as such, but Dolan has talked publicly about being autistic, and some of Celine's traits are consistent with my understanding of autism). But then: this is fiction, not memoir, and would I be wondering the same thing had I not read Dolan's Goodreads bio?

Many of the characters here occupy a grey space between likeable and unlikeable. Likeable, until the POV character shifts over to make room for someone else, and we see them through the next person's eyes. Or sometimes likeable, until they turn with steely-eyed clarity to assess themselves. It's hard to be sure who or what to root for at times (Phoebe, certainly). But if you don't mind that grey area, or a close focus on the character, it's really satisfying to read a book in which the characters understand themselves well enough, but the people around them even better.

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

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

Review: "Forgotten Trail" by Claire Kells

 

Forgotten Trail by Claire Kells
Published November 2023 via Crooked Lane Books
★★★

It's a new case for Harland and Hux—this time they're heading into Pinnacles National Park to investigate a definitely dead hotel guest and a possibly missing woman.

I'm loving this series—you can't go wrong with an excuse to send your lead characters out into the wild in every single book. I'd never even heard of Pinnacles National Park, but I'm fascinated by the idea of a (fictional) hike-in hotel. That's one way to cut yourself off from the outside world for a few days...

Forgotten Trail feels more balanced to me than An Unforgiving Place (book two in the series) did in terms of consistency of backstory—in book one, the heroine had chronic pain that was manageable but a major factor throughout the book; in book two, it barely existed; in book three, it's something that she still has to be mindful of but is manageable. I'm also delighted to see that we have only a slooooow progression of romance (why delighted, you ask? One, because I'm in it for the mysteries and the national parks rather than for the romance; two, because slooooow romance means hopefully many books in the series)—and that the hints that Harland will eventually make it to Australia in the series are getting stronger.

The mystery gets a little convoluted at times (I'm still confused by the shoe), but it was nice to see a cold case worked in—as soon as Harland mentioned working on some cold cases, I perked up. I'm not sure why—I think there's something satisfying in the chance to firmly close a box that has long been hanging open. I read an ARC and am hoping that the book will go through a last read for consistency and loose ends before the publication date, but I'm looking forward to reading more in the series.

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

Review: "Thicker Than Water" by Kerry Washington

Thicker Than Water by Kerry Washington
Published September 2023 via Little, Brown Spark
★★★

Picked this up because Washington was a guest on a podcast that I sometimes listen to, and at the beginning of the podcast they said, more or less, 'We'll be talking about the family secret discussed in Washington's new book, but without identifying that secret', and I figured I might as well read the book first. (Note: I'll stay vague about the family secret here, but it's all over recent articles about the book, so you can either Google for details or steer clear if you'd rather learn it from the book.)

There's a fair amount of family story here, but the main story is less about family and more about Washington's trajectory as an actress. That's fine, of course, but it's generally not what interests me in a memoir; my favorite actor-memoirs are usually the ones that keep the thing they're famous for on the periphery and instead delve into things happening behind the scenes. And that's not to say that those things aren't here—Washington talks about family strife, and struggling with an eating disorder, and childhood abuse, and it's clear that she's being very intentional with her word choices and interpretations. But...there's a reason that the family secret nearly bookends the rest of the story with a teaser and a reveal: it provides the hook, but there simply isn't enough material there to carry through the entire rest of the book. I can see why it would have been complicated for the family, but at the same time, many things that people treated with great secrecy in the 70s are markedly more common now, and this feels like one of them—something that if a friend told me was in their family story, I'd go 'Oh, okay,' and not give it any more thought than they felt necessary.

Recommend this one for fans of Kerry Washington, but as someone who has never owned a television and is very happy to have seen Barbie this year because it means that I don't have to watch another movie for at least another two years, this wasn't really for me.

Review: "You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight" by Kalynn Bayron

You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron
Published June 2023 via Bloomsbury
★★★

Note: Some spoilers below

A lot of things I loved about this: summer job working as a final girl—until somebody actually starts a bloodbath on the premises? Sign me up. (Umm, for the book, not the experience.) Characters who are queer and POC and snarky? Double sign me up. I don't know what happened to make me this way, but I love a good murder-murder-in-the-woods story, as long as it stays on paper.

So a lot of this is a win for me. However—and spoilers start here—horror that suddenly turns supernatural almost always takes me out of the story. I suppose I must be something of a skeptic, because even if a book has had me gripped for the last two hundred pages, as soon as a cult or an evil spirit—evil owl?—or whatever pops up, I lose interest. Like, it's a great magic trick! Brings my heartbeat back to normal in an instant! But although it might work for many readers, it's never going to get me in the way that something with zero paranormal elements, in which the baddies could exist in my real life will.

A worthy summer-camp-horror read, but not a favorite for me.

Review: "The Race to Be Myself" by Caster Semenya

The Race to Be Myself by Caster Semenya
Published October 2023 via W.W. Norton & Company
★★★★

As a child, Semenya dreamed of flying high—literally. Growing up in a rural South African village, money and opportunities were both scarce, but she dreamed of someday being successful enough to fly in an airplane. She knew that sports were her ticket to that success—and as a teen and young adult, she proved over and over and over again that, on the track, she didn't need wings to fly.

But then came the questions, and the accusations, and the news articles: was Semenya secretly a man? And then the invasive questioning, and the invasive tests, and private medical results shared around the world.

I was only eighteen years old and had been subjected to invasive and humiliating gender confirmation tests without my consent just prior to the race. What followed was a media firestorm that continues to this day. (loc. 46*)

Semenya's story is the third memoir about being intersex—not a term that she uses, but I'll come back to that in a moment—I've read this year, but it's unique in its context. The other memoirs I've read by people who are intersex have been set in a white, western context; unlike Semenya, their physical differences were noted (and acted upon, for better or for worse and with or without their knowledge) early on. They did not have autonomy over their bodies either, but they had the privilege of being, you know, white and western. Semenya writes (reasonably!) only from her own point of view, but I would have loved more research, more numbers, more history. She cites other cases like hers that she knows of in the running world, but this feels like a subject that is just ripe for a (thoughtful, careful) investigative journalist to dive into.

I am not interested in who wins or loses races. I am interested in the wild discrepancy between 1) a man who has a much higher lung capacity than your average swimmer, and is celebrated for it, and 2) a girl who learns well into her running career that she has a condition that might help her succeed at running, and is forced to take medication or have surgery to make her less successful. I am interested in the damage done in places with more "advanced" medical care, where intersex children are operated on as infants, and the damage done in places where intersex status is less likely to be discovered and adults are told, or forced, to change something fundamental about themselves in order to be accepted. I am interested in what it means for a competition field to be "equal" when, even if all competitors have (e.g.) the same amounts of testosterone and estrogen, some have grown up with the best coaching and equipment and physical therapy money can buy, and others have run barefoot into their teenage years because athletic shoes are an unimaginable luxury. I am interested in Semenya's story and the ones beyond it that she touches on, and I hope a researcher-writer will take those stories and (forgive me) run with them.

Back to the use of the word "intersex": I'm using it because it's a broadly accepted term and, frankly, one that I understand better than "androgen insensitivity syndrome". But Semenya's voice is strong here, and she prefers an even simpler term: woman. Though I find her rationale (which sometimes boils down to "I sit down to pee") a bit reductive at times, she's applying that logic only to herself—not limiting other people's gender to their external genitals, any more than she wants to be limited by her chromosomes—and I love how strong and stubborn and confident her voice is in this book. I went back and forth on my rating, because the story and the voice are stronger than the writing itself, but...this is a story that deserves to be told the way Semenya chooses to tell it.

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

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

Review: "People to Follow" by Olivia Worley

People to Follow by Olivia Worley
Published October 2023 via Wednesday Books
★★★

It's a picture-perfect retreat built for influencers—three weeks away from the world, without phones or social media or follows or likes. But there's a catch: the ten influencers will be filmed 24/7 for a reality show.

And then there's another catch: Everyone has a secret to hide, and somebody is determined to expose all their secrets to the world...and when bodies start piling up, it's clear that the remaining influencers are at risk of far more than being cancelled.

I'm starting to think that I'll have to set a Goodreads shelf for #influencerlife or something—it is a such a specific/weird subgenre, but for the time being at least I'm completely here for it. (Is it weird that I'm even more here for it that authors keep writing #influencerlife books in which influencers get murdered? I don't want that in real life—if it needs to be said—but I'm never going to say no to more fiction with camp and murder and over-the-top-ness.) People to Follow has some heavy Agatha Christie vibes (and I'm here for that too), but set at a modern, sub-drenched retreat and, you know, with cameras everywhere. Plenty of red herrings to keep a reader busy.

There are ten influencers on the island, a few of whom serve as narrators throughout the book. I have some mixed feelings about that (all you have to do is scan the chapter headings to see who survives until at least late in the book, and I did have to keep checking the chapter headings to see whose POV I was in), but I also enjoy the sense of not being able to fully trust any of the narrators in addition to wondering, you know, whodunnit. Very enjoyable quick read (I blasted through this on a very long bus ride), and very much a read for fans of Live Your Best Lie, Killer Content, et cetera.

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

Review: "Motherland" by Paula Ramón

Motherland by Paula Ramón
Translated by Julia Sanches and Jennifer Shyue
Published October 2023 via Amazon Crossing
★★★★

By the time I turned twelve, I had lived through as many coups as presidential elections. (loc. 60*)

Venezuela was a home Ramón never wanted to leave. It was her mother's motherland, and her own; it was also her father's refuge after WWII and the Spanish Civil War. And when Ramón was a child, it was still a land of promise and wealth. But over time, through incredible amounts of political mismanagement, that promise turned to dust, and opportunities—and bare necessities—became scarcer and scarcer. Ramón left, more by chance than by choice, but not before living through the beginning of her country's spiral downwards.

To this day, I still have trouble figuring out what was normal and what wasn't. Venezuela was falling to pieces by the minute, but I had no points of reference. I had learned how to be a journalist in Venezuela during the revolution. (loc. 1271)

Motherland tells of Venezuela's fall from stability through the lens of Ramón's family, who in turn went from relative comfort and stability to struggling to find jobs and food and medicine. I read this in large part because, every time I've seen Venezuela in the news in recent years, it's been bad news, and...I wanted to understand better. Like Ramón's mother—who went from being able to buy a house with her pension to being unable to afford dinner on the same amount of money—I struggle to grasp the realities of the hyperinflation that Venezuela experienced; like Ramón, I understand that there's a point at which none of that matters because the thing that matters is your parent's wellbeing.

I'd stopped doing the math. I didn't know what was cheap or expensive anymore. I just wanted one thing, for my mother to have food in the fridge and staples in the pantry. Though it may seem boring to talk only about groceries, that's the situation we were in. (loc. 2148)

I'm reminded a little of The Last Resort by Douglas Rogers, who grew up in Zimbabwe and later chronicled the political and economic turmoil that beset the country. There's both more and less of a political narrative here—at some point, I think, the politics of it all just stop mattering, because what matters is that houses are no longer safe without multiple security doors, and medication has to be shipped into the country hidden in hollowed-out books, and only the elite can afford to buy food—or can find food to buy in the first place. The story gets a little bit repetitive, not through any fault of the author but because it's hard to find new ways to describe a situation that keeps getting worse in the same ways. It also provides so much fascinating context and history, though, and (how to put this?) while I'd rather the book not be necessary, I'm delighted to see a personal take on the matter.

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

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

Review: "Wet Paint" by Chloë Ashby

Wet Paint by Chloë Ashby
Published April 2022 via Orion Publishing Group
★★★★

In London, Eve is floundering: working jobs that make her miserable, paying part of her rent by doing all the cleaning in the flat, using a painting as her weekly therapy appointment, and compulsively stealing from the people around her who seem more put-together than she feels. So when her latest job falls flat and she stumbles across an opportunity to work as a life model, she takes it—it can't be more chaotic than the rest of her life, surely? But new experiences can't stop her from spiralling down, down.

This fits into a subgenre of litfic that can perhaps be described as Woman Displaying Less and Less Executive Function as the Book Goes On (there must be a catchier way to phrase that, surely). It's a whole thing, but I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit at the moment—we'll see how long that phase lasts—and Wet Paint fit the bill quite nicely. Because Eve is...well, she's not functioning too well. Grieving and lonely and dissatisfied with her lot in life but also not sure what she really wants, or how to get it. I read the later parts of the book in pretty small chunks, because by then Eve is not just spiralling downward but spending part of her time caring for a young child, and it was not hard to imagine all sorts of ways in which that could go terribly wrong. But...I love that I could be invested in Eve's life, and invested in the life of the friend she's stealing small things from, (and less invested in the lives of her erstwhile flatmates, from whom she also steals small things,) and both want her to find fulfillment or confidence or adventure or something as a life model and want her to get out, get out as soon as she can. A satisfying read.

Sample-Chapter Showdown: Young Adult

Painted Devils by Margaret Owen (Macmillan Children's)
Ledge by Stacey McEwan (Angry Robot)
With a Little Luck by Marissa Meyer (Feiwel & Friends)

It's time for a sample-chapter showdown! These samplers are all from YA, and each with some sort of magical or dystopian twist—some more than others.

Painted Devils:
Let me state one thing up front: I wasn't trying to start a cult. (loc. 108*)

Vanja may not have been trying to start a cult, but let's just say that things have not gone entirely to plan...and Vanja is clearly not one to live a straightforward life.

Now, this is a sample for the second book in a series, and I have not read the first—but if even the sample is this wildly entertaining (and tongue in cheek), that might have to change. I'm here for a character who is not, you know, sweet and innocent and pure as driven snow; it's clear even from these few chapters that Vanja has been through it, and is still going through it, and damn if she's not going to scrap and scramble to come out on top. I suspect that this series would make for fab reading for anyone who liked the His Fair Assassin books. Hold on to your hats...and your rubies...because it's clearly going to be a wild ride.

Ledge:
Princess Academy meets The Lottery meets...oh, I'm going to have to think about that one. A more adult-oriented fantasy/dystopian book than Princess Academy, in any case!

These sample chapters introduce us to the world of the Ledge, where a tiny civilisation perches on a cliffside, constantly battling the elements—and at risk of sliding into a crevasse—and a general lack of food, lack of trees, lack of resources. They're supported by the winged Glacians, which make regular supply drops...but never enough, and the Glacians' support comes at a cost: twice yearly sacrifices, villagers swept off by the Glacians to an unknown fate.

This (and the rest of the series—the second book came out in September) will likely appeal to those who grew up with YA dystopia and are ready for something similar but smuttier, or for those who like fast-paced action in their fantasy worlds. I always appreciate sample chapters for giving me a sense of what to expect from a book, and this is no exception—an introduction to Dawsyn, to her world...and the knowledge that things are about to change for her, and quickly. For the most part I've gone in a different direction since moving on from the dystopian YA I once read a lot of (blame The Hunger Games, probably), but had the wind shifted perhaps I would have ended up on a Ledge more often.

With a Little Luck:
I've got a decent imagination, which is almost as good as epic quests and true love. Imagination surpasses real life...what? Ninety percent of the time? Tell me I'm wrong. You're the one with your nose in a book right now, so I know you agree with me, at least on some level. (loc. 42*)

Jude has things pretty good: close friends, a family he likes (most of the time), a satisfying hobby. If he doesn't have a love life right now, well, that's okay. But then Jude finds a spectacular gaming die, and things get...weird. Good weird. Lucky weird.

In some ways, reading this preview was the best of both worlds—enough time to see a likeable character have some good things happen to him, but not so far into the book that that started to get complicated, or for things to go awry and unlucky. It begs some questions about what you would do with a run of good luck—do you try to target that luck? How random is it, really? And just how long can that run of good luck last?

The sample I read contains the first six chapters, which is ample space to get a sense of these characters. Tons of energy to go around, and generally good vibes (I love that even the character who's being set up to be the wrong love interest—i.e., not the right one after all—is also being set up to be a generally good person, regardless of romantic fit), and an entertaining concept. It should be a lot of fun to see where things go from here.

The Verdict: These are pretty wildly different books—one fantasy, one dystopia, one contemporary with a fantastical twist. It's hard to compare...but if I could only read one, I'd go for Painted Devils (well, and its predecessor), because the first chapters set the scene for something wildly snarky and fun.

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing these previews through NetGalley. *Quotes may not be final.

Review: "Shut Away" by Catherine McKercher

Shut Away by Catherine McKercher
Published 2019 via Goose Lane Editions
★★★★

After our parents took Billy to Smiths Falls, writes McKercher, my brother never came home again. Never. (90)

When McKercher's brother Billy was born in the 1950s, the plan for children with disabilities was simple: send them away. Billy had Down syndrome, and so Billy was sent away—against McKercher's mother's wishes and best judgement, but in line with what society believed about disabilities at the time.

Because Billy was, from the time he was sent away, in the periphery of McKercher's life—by chance and by institutional design—this is not really a book about Billy. He is the glue that holds the book together, but it is impossible for McKercher to know the exact shape of his life: instead she has hundreds upon hundreds of pages of maddening, incomplete documents and forms about him; she has what she knows and does not know about her parents' perspective; she has the history of the institution Billy was sent to and others like it. Returning again and again to Billy's experience—the parts of it she can know, and the parts she cannot—McKercher does a brilliantly researched job of illustrating the complicated, shut-away life of institutions.

Attitudes were changing even as Billy was sent away, and if he'd been born even ten years later chances are that there would have been more voices saying 'Raise him at home.' It's important to note that this is not a book about blame—in sending Billy to an institution, McKercher's parents were doing what just about everyone around them, to say nothing of the medical establishment more broadly, said was best for him and for the family. McKercher is very clear about that, just as she is clear that Billy almost certainly would have been better off had he been allowed to remain home. Institutions like Smiths Falls might have been founded with good intentions—and many of the workers may have been wonderful—but problems plagued them from the beginning: overcrowding, understaffing, lack of personalized treatment, infectious diseases that were so endemic in the institutions that in some cases they didn't bother to take basic precautions to prevent their spread. Neglect and abuse, though those certainly weren't named in Billy's file, were almost certainly de rigeur, though to what extent is unclear.

In writing Shut Away, McKercher asks readers to look at the reality of 'out of sight, out of mind'. Also worth looking at We Used to Dance and Hazard for stories of families making decisions in similar contexts, but with very different details.

Review: "The Number 12 Looks Just Like You" by Emily Perkovich

The Number 12 Looks Just Like You by Emily Perkovich
Published October 2023 via Finishing Line Press
★★★

I am the space that I fill, and it has always been too much, though I am still somehow never quite enough. ("Whelm", loc. 140)

Perkovich's poetry chapbook explores themes of body image and eating disorders, starving and purging and shame. Some poems are more concrete than others and some more experimental, and this is very much a collection for readers who want to work for their bread poems. For once my favorite piece is the shortest, "How to Become a Micro Poem"—it's one of the most straightforward but even so the title alone could be enough fodder for an essay. See also: the title, and the tattooed Barbie on the cover; take a picture-perfect, coiffed Barbie, perhaps, and then peel off her dress and her armor and see what is hidden underneath.

Chapbooks are by definition short—The Number 12 Looks Just Like You clocks in at fifteen poems, most of which are about a page long. I admit to struggling somewhat with chapbooks (a personal problem, and one not specific to this particular book) because of their length; it's harder to build up a narrative arc when your total word count is measured in the hundreds rather than the thousands or the tens of thousands. I'd be curious to see where this would go if expanded to a point when the body is a riot, when it's past the cycles of emptiness and haunting, when the vacant map begins to be filled in.

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

Review: "Girl in the Tunnel" by Maureen Sullivan

Girl in the Tunnel by Maureen Sullivan
Published April 2023 via Merrion Press
★★★

Sullivan grew up poor in Ireland when growing up poor in Ireland meant owning only one or two outfits, sleeping piled up with your siblings in one bed because the house was too cold to do otherwise, and going without food because there wasn't enough to go around. Her father died young, and her mother remarried—and the only person whom the marriage benefitted was the new husband.

At twelve, Sullivan finally told a teacher how bad things were at home. The teacher sought help for her in the form of a convent boarding school—and instead Sullivan was sent to the Magdalene Laundries. Kept separate from the other children her age, she was put to work doing laundry, day in and day out, as penance for having been abused.

I told on him, didn't I? That was the crime. That's what happened. I told the Church that my stepfather was molesting and raping me, and beating me and my brothers.

So they punished me for it. (7)

It was a life of misery and of drudgery—not allowed to continue her education, not allowed to be friendly with the other inmates, not allowed to speak to the children who were at the convent boarding school. Sullivan was perhaps the youngest inmate of the Magdalene Laundries (at least within the time frame when she was held there), and it was years and years before she understood why the powers that be had deemed it appropriate to put her there in the first place.

Day in, day out those nuns, those women and others like them, watched me at twelve, thirteen, fourteen and on until I was nearly an adult, work to the bone. They watched me, but not only that, they made it as hard for me as they could. They made me do hard time, hard penance, for a crime a man had committed against me. Something I had no control over. If I had taken a knife and gutted Marty Murphy like I had often dreamed about, at least prison would have let me go to school. (114)

The descriptions of the nuns are perhaps telling. Obviously I do not sympathise for a second with the choice to effect such terrible and ongoing punishment on an abused child, but Sullivan also makes a point about the nuns having in many ways dreadful lives of their own—more comfortable than the life they afforded Sullivan in the Laundries, certainly, but not happy ones. Not happy creatures. Sullivan does not sympathise, exactly (how could she, when neither did they?), but it's a fascinating perspective.

I'm reminded, a little, of more and more horror stories coming out about residential schools in Canada—these are stories that need to be told while those who lived the stories are still around to tell them.

Review: "We Used to Dance" by Debbie Chein Morris

We Used to Dance" by Debbie Chein Morris
Published October 2023 via She Writes Press
★★★

We used to dance, my sister and I. There we'd go, swirling around the room, both of us laughing with glee. Of course, we were younger then; she, more relaxed and I, more able to hold her in my arms. Oh, how we dipped and glided, so comfortable was she in my arms. Those were happy days when we used to dance. (loc. 34*)

Debbie and Judy were identical twins, the babies of the family, in some ways the best of friends, but Judy's cerebral palsy kept her between wheelchair and bed while Debbie grew up and moved away. Unusually for the time, their parents kept Judy at home—knowing that they would be able to provide a love and care that an institution could not—but as their mother aged and it became harder and harder to care for Judy at home, Judy's doctor gave them an ultimatum: it was time for Judy to go into a nursing home.

We Used to Dance is Morris's story of that transition, one neither she nor her mother nor Judy wanted. Morris is clear-eyed in her assessment of the situation: yes, Judy's care at home was no longer the same quality it had been when their father was alive or their mother younger—but she had the benefit of living with a family who loved her whole-heartedly and unconditionally, and from the beginning of the book Morris is asking hard questions about the point at which the importance of happiness supersedes that of longevity. Morris's conclusions won't be for everyone, but it's clear that she and her mother—and, though they were less involved in Judy's care, the rest of the family—wanted what was best for Judy, as did Judy's doctors. It's a terribly hard place when "best" is subjective, and the person cannot be a full participant in that conversation.

Morris doesn't include concrete recommendations for other caregivers (though the final copy might be different), but if you take away one thing from the book I hope it will be this: I didn't want to rock the boat. What I didn't realize then was that it was my right to rock the boat if I felt things weren't up to par. I forgot that we are the voices for those who cannot speak for themselves. (loc. 746)

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

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

Review: "With Love, from Cold World" by Alicia Thompson

With Love, from Cold World by Alicia Thompson
Published August 2023 via Berkley
★★★

Welcome to Cold World, where the AC is always on at full blast, the snow is just barely hanging on, and it might take a minor miracle to keep the books balanced...and for Asa and Lauren to find their way to each other.

It's a cute book. I love the setting—a past-its-prime cold-themed tourist attraction in Florida—and some of the deeper themes the book explores. The romance is also fun and sweet, though I'm pretty tired of...well, the super slimy version of Karl from <i>Love Actually</i>, inserted as conflict. Slimy villains/romantic competitors (of a sort) are super common in romance, of course, but...I suppose the way I see it is that if there's going to be a love triangle, I'd rather the options be 'good vs. excellent' or 'excellent vs. excellent' rather than 'total dirtbag vs. better than a total dirtbag'.

I wouldn't be surprised if this were the start to a series, as a number of the side characters (Asa's roommates in particular) seem to be being primed for their own dramas. Not sure I'd read further if that's the case (just because it's not a genre that I read a ton of), but I'd be curious to know who might be next up with a book.

Children's books: History: "Mother to Elephants", "Piece by Piece", and "Ruth First Never Backed Down"

Mother to Elephants by R.G. de Rouen, illustrated by Kateryna Rohotova
Piece by Piece by Lupe Ruiz-Flores, illustrated by Anna López Real (Millbrook Press)
Ruth First Never Backed Down by Danielle Joseph, illustrated by Gabhor Utomo (Kar-Ben Publishing)

Into the world of children's books—and around the world with some history!

Dame Daphne Sheldrick's true love was animals—raised on a farm in Kenya, both wild and domesticated animals were part of her daily life. As an adult, she married a park warden...and once she learned to care for orphaned elephants, the course of her life was truly set.

Mother to Elephants takes young readers through some of Daphne's life in Kenya and some of the lessons she learned. This picture book is easily digestible for young kids, and I love the further info at the end. I do wish there'd been a line or two about Kenya gaining independence, though space is limited, so I understand why the author chose to focus elsewhere. The illustrations are simple and sweet, and the playfulness of young elephants really comes through.

Sheldrick wrote several books herself, and Love, Life, and Elephants has been on my radar for a while. I'd suggest pairing Love, Life, and Elephants as a gift for a book-happy parent with Mother to Elephants as a gift for their child. Everybody learns something!

Piece by Piece tells the story of Ernestine Guerrero, a Mexican-American girl living through the Great Depression—and what a cool piece of history this book offers. Her family weathered the Depression with the support of government food aid, and she wanted to send the president something in return—and what she settled on was a veritable masterpiece of skill, ingenuity, and perseverance.

I'd never heard of Guerrero or her clock (can't even find a Wikipedia article on either of them!), but this is a story worth telling, and I'm glad that kids who read this book can now grow up knowing it—and seeing the clock, if they're ever in Hyde Park. The book doesn't belabor the point, but I also appreciate the subtle acknowledgement (in an era when people are afraid of anything that might look like socialism) of how much government assistance can help when times are rough, and how much good it can do. As the book notes, not much is known of Guerrero's later life, but I hope she found a way to keep her creativity and skill alive.

Ruth First Never Backed Down tells the story of (you guessed it) Ruth First, a South African woman who fought to end apartheid.

Written for young readers, this picture book covers First's life from a young age—learning from her parents about structural and systematic racism in South Africa—on through her years as a student, activist, and exilee. Her family was from Latvia and had escaped persecution as Jews in Europe, so perhaps they saw the injustice more clearly than others were willing to. I was not familiar with Ruth First prior to reading this—she was murdered well before I was born, and all told I have not read that much about South Africa under apartheid—but it's a valuable read. It's probably one where it's useful for adults to have some additional information on hand, as it's likely to raise questions, but the story successfully walks a fine line between 1) being direct about the realities of both apartheid and opposing apartheid and 2) keeping things at a level that young readers can grasp. I'll have to look for First's account of being detained by the South African government, because it sounds like she was, well, not one to back down.

The illustrations are lovely, and I particularly appreciate the understated way in which First's age progresses throughout.

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing review copies through NetGalley.

Review: "Little Steps" by Katharine Wealthall

Little Steps by Katharine Wealthall
Published 2005
★★★

Interesting in the way this feels ahead of its time for the mid-2000s—Wealthall takes pains to note, for example, that weight is not the only indicator of an active eating disorder, and that someone can look 'healthy' but be terribly ill. Considering that this is something that many professionals still struggle to grasp, props to Wealthall for putting it so concisely into words some twenty years ago.

I had expected this to be a memoir, though, and it's not really. Wealthall tells her own story in brief, then uses others' stories throughout the rest of the book to illustrate experiences that differ from her own. Obviously that's fine (and good on her for seeking out people who knew things that she didn't), but the book ends up feeling less like, well, story, and more like a more educational material. Also fine...just not something I'm likely to return to.

Review: "January" by Sara Gallardo

January by Sara Gallardo
Translated by Frances Riddle and Maureen Shaughnessy
English translation published October 2023 via Archipelago
★★★★★

In rural Argentina in the 1950s, Nefer is pregnant. Her body has not yet given away her secret, but it has betrayed her all the same; to Nefer, her body and the boy she yearns after and the man whose child she carries have all betrayed her.

What is a day? What is the world when everything inside you shudders? (loc. 89)

First published in 1958, this is a novella far ahead of its time. Exploring themes of rape, abortion, class, and powerlessness—to name just a few—every sentence packs a punch. I don't want to say too much about the plot (it did not go where I expected it to, but the end makes far more sense than anything I predicted), but the character work here is masterful. Gallardo is so deep in Nefer's mind and soul here as Nefer worries and daydreams and tries to imagine a way out of her predicament, as she milks the cows and goes to her yearly confession—more on that in a moment—and wrestles with the fact that there is nobody who can offer the support and compassion she needs, and chances of a good outcome are slim.

Nefer tightens her grip on the damp reins and runs her tongue over her lips. Then she extinguishes her soul and continues along the road, which curves before reaching the house. (loc. 277)

The yearly confession is not the main point of the book, but it sticks with me. This is rural Argentina more than half a century ago, remember; it's a small community where everybody knows everybody else's business—not a large enough community to have a priest of their own. Theirs is a travelling priest, then, not always the same one from year to year, catching up on confessions and baptisms and the formalities of marriage, a powerful figure but not one with a real connection to the community. I'm fascinated by the practical nature of the way marriages that might have been in effect for most of a year are "certified"—made right in the eyes of the Catholic church, I suppose—practical, and yet it's so clearly understood in the community that this lack of formality is acceptable for only so long. Stepping outside the accepted order of things is only acceptable in certain circumstances, and can only be forgiven in certain ways.

Most of Gallardo's work has not, as far as I can tell, been translated into English, but I hope more follows. If this had been written in 2023, I think I'd call it a high four stars, but given the context of time and place I'm bumping it up to five.

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

Children's books: Monsters on Mill Street by Sarah Sparks, illustrated by Sypha Vendez

The Monsters on Mill Street Series by Sarah Sparks, illustrated by Sypha Vendez
Published October 2023 via ViaNova Productions
The Bounciest Monster on Mill Street
The Angriest Monster on Mill Street
The Messiest Monster on Mill Street

Into the world of children's books—this time, with monsters!

The Monsters on Mill Street series introduces (you guessed it) a set of monsters living on Mill Street—each with a little something to learn in order to make life a bit easier for themselves and those around them. The series is consistently lively, with colorful illustrations and an entertaining vibe while also teaching young kids a little bit about regulating their emotions.

In The Bounciest Monster on Mill Street, we're introduced to Becks—a lively yellow bundle of fur, but also a bundle of energy. She just can't sit still, and the story sees her bounding and bouncing and boinging away. What's a monster to do with all that energy?

This book gives kids a chance to get the giggles as Becks bounces and causes minor chaos in the process—but it also offers some a simple way to redirect some of that energy so that the chaos is lessened and the crash isn't quite so hard. I love the playful, colorful illustrations here (Becks looks, fangs and all, completely cuddlable...if she slows down long enough to be held!). The ending did feel a little abrupt, but I hope future books in the series will see the different monsters interacting.

In The Angriest Monster on Mill Street, we meet Albie—a tiny blue monster whose rage makes him roar. But while letting out all that rage feels good in the moment, it's not so great for the people around him!

As one of the Monsters on Mill Street series, this validates young children's feelings while also demonstrating ways to express those feelings a bit more productively (or at least less destructively!). The illustrations are colorful and clean, and the whole thing is super playful—I love all the little details, like a skull shape as a door knocker. I can easily imagine stuffed toys being made to represent these monsters, too.

In The Messiest Monster on Mill Street, Max is too busy having fun to worry about a little mess...until that little mess becomes a big mess that threatens to swallow him whole!

I have to be honest here...of the Mill Street monsters, Max is the one I'd least like to cuddle. Too much dirt, and too many smells! Max's redemption arc is focused on cleaning up his room and taking better care of the space around him, but slight tweaks could also turn this into a story for kids who dislike bathtime. But as ever, the illustrations are wonderful fun (for some reason I particularly like the way Max's nose is drawn), and the book reinforces lessons for kids about tidying as they go so as not to have to deal with a huge mess later.

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

Review: "Lay Them to Rest" by Laurah Norton

Lay Them to Rest by Laurah Norton
Published October 2023 via Hachette
★★★★

At the risk of sounding like an absolute twenty-first-century cliché...it all started with a podcast. (loc. 68*)

Norton got involved in true crime by accident: a writer and professor by training and trade, she started a podcast as preparation for a course she was teaching...and it took on a life of its own. Into the world of true crime and cold cases Norton went. In Lay Them to Rest, she describes an effort between various true-crime nonprofessionals, police, and scientists to uncover the identity of "Ina Jane Doe", a woman whose partial remains were found in 1993 in Illinois and had never been identified.

This is not an episode of Bones. Not unless Dr. Temperance Brennan is willing to spend an entire episode taking tiny measurements in a quiet lab, with the cliffhanger coming just before she begins to fill out her paperwork. (loc. 1440)

We're used to 45-minute episodes wrapping things up easily—those hours and hours of measurements and tests and applying precisely sized eraser bits to skulls summed up in a montage—but this was a case that would take months and years. The advent of genealogical DNA research has made it possible to solve cases that might previously have been unsolvable, but it's not as easy as chucking all the unsolved cases into a database and letting the computer do its thing. Remains need to have usable DNA, and to have enough of it in good shape for the right kinds of tests, and for enough relatives of sufficient closeness to have put their own DNA into the right databases. And it takes money—money that most departments can't afford to spend on decades-old cold cases.

There are so many ways to tell [her story], and all of them are important. But each way paints a very different picture and leads down a different road. (loc. 4581)

I'd actually heard of Ina Jane Doe before (on a true crime YouTube channel), so I was somewhat familiar with the case. (The YouTube channel, perhaps predictably, gave the case a pretty cursory overview.) What is most fascinating to me here are the forensic sketches and reconstructions—if the book sounds interesting to you, hold off on Googling until you've read it—which are part science and part art and the sort of thing that...that can help or hinder a case, let's say. But Norton gives some really helpful context and perspective on those reconstructions, and I'm left wondering where the future of such forensic sketches might go.

This is one for true-crime aficionados, but it also reminds me a lot of Andrea Lankford's Trail of the Lost—while Lay Them to Rest is about non-professionals helping to solve a Jane Doe case, Trail of the Lost is about non-professionals trying to solve several known missing-persons cases. In both cases, slow—agonizingly so for the families—but sustained efforts to put the pieces together, to answer some of the many questions that remain.

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

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

Review: "Mudflowers" by Aley Waterman

Mudflowers by Aley Waterman
Published October 2023 via Rare Machines
★★★

Sophie is not quite at sea in Toronto, making mosaics to pay the rent and falling in and out of bed with her childhood best friend. When Maggie enters the picture, the landscape changes—Maggie is the flame to Sophie's moth. But they're all in their twenties, and stability is a fleeting thing.

Mudflowers follows Sophie through this year or so of attempted growth and change—she's grieving the loss of her mother, figuring out what she wants and doesn't want in a relationship, thinks (this is going to sound like criticism but she's in her twenties, it's just statement of fact) that she's terribly self-aware but is...sometimes self-aware.

I've been reading more lit fic this year, and this falls squarely in that category—a story narrowed in on a relatively ordinary life rather than big events; narration without a lot of drama even as things don't go quite to plan; more thought than action. Sophie would benefit from broadening her social circle, maybe making some more decisions (and mistakes) without considering the opinions of the people she's so deeply entangled with, and maybe examining her own life a little bit less and the world around her a little bit more. Not to be too broad about it, but there are heavy themes of love, loss, and mothers woven throughout the book, all of them with somewhat messy connections and endings (again: not criticism; this time it's not because Sophie's in her twenties but because it's lit fic). This is probably best read relatively slowly rather than all in one go, but even taking my time I lost some steam near the end.

An aside: Sophie's commentary about losing a parent at the beginning of the book is sufficiently on-point that I thought I might have trouble finishing the book, but she ends up focusing more on romantic drama. "Love triangle" is probably too tidy a term for what goes down throughout the book—and for what's to come after the book is over—but much of it will be relatable to those who have had entanglements made up of blurred line after blurred line.

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

Review: "Sí, Se Puede" by Julio Anta and Yasmin Florez Montanez

 

Sí, Se Puede by Julio Anta, illustrated by Yasmin Florez Montanez
Published October 2023 via Ten Speed Press
★★★

Earlier this year, I read Good Girls Don't Make History, a graphic history of the women's suffrage movement, so a look at another underrepresented part of American history seemed like a natural next step. Sí, Se Puede highlights the contributions of Latinos (the book briefly discusses the use of words like Latine and Latinx but defaults to Latino) in the US, ranging from soldiers in the Civil War to scientists to actors and singers. Some of the names you're sure to recognize, but others—unless you are particularly well versed in Latino-US history—will likely be new to you.

I'm particularly interested in the discussion of Sylvia Mendez, who was at the centre of a court case about segregation that predated Brown v. Board of Education by a decade but did not (to the best of my admittedly patchy memory) make it into my history textbooks. It feels particularly illustrative of how limited the view of history is in textbooks—the story in US textbooks is so often told from a white perspective, and with only a limited nod to minority experiences. I can imagine this book being a valuable classroom resource.

The book is structured as a walk through an immersive museum exhibit. From a storytelling perspective, I would have liked to get to know the museum visitors (and guide) we follow—they're introduced at the beginning, but beyond that introduction we only get the barest of glimpses of the life of the oldest woman, Yolanda, and a suggestion that a man in his 40s hasn't heard of feminism (...slightly concerning). The illustrations get their point across but are rather flat, and this is probably best read for history rather than a particular interest in graphic novels. (It is worth noting that I read an ARC six months before the publication date, so it is possible that the illustrations are not final.) There's some good food for thought, though, in discussions of how language, and the language used to convey identity, has changed, of the "myth of the monolith," and more.

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

Review (Deutsch): "Schule der Meisterdiebe" von J.J. Arcanjo

Schule der Meisterdiebe von J.J. Arcano, übersetzt von Maren Illinger
Herausgegeben von Schneiderbuch, September 2023
★★★

Das Leben ist für Gabriel nicht einfach: er wohnt mit seiner Oma, die er sehr liebt, aber sie haben kaum genug Geld und kaum genug Essen. Um seiner Oma zu helfen stiehlt Gabriel—nicht viel, aber ein bisschen hier, ein bisschen da. Und dann kommt der Tag, an dem Gabriel erwischt wird...

Schule der Meisterdiebe ist eine klassische Geschichte von Internat, Mut, und Freundschaft—mit dem Twist, dass alle Schüler:innen Gauner sind. Das Buch ist für jüngere Teenager geschrieben, also gibt es wieder einen Twist: die Gauner stehlen nur für gute Grunde. (Moderne Robin Hoods...) Obwohl alle Student:innen Gauner sind—oder Gauner werden willen—die Schurken sind die, die...nicht "ehrliche(?) Diebe" sind. "Wir tun Unrecht," sagt der Lehrer Caspian Crook, "um die Welt wieder in Ordnung zu bringen." (loc. 533)

Das Buch—und die meisten Figuren—ist ganz süß und lebhaft. Und die Wortspiele! Kriminastikzentrum, die Brüder Crim...ich liebe es.

Wenn English seine erste Sprache war und Schwachsinn seine zweite, dann war Lügen definitiv seine dritte. Und er sprach sie fließend. (loc. 373)

Ich fand das Unterschied zwischen Meriten und Legaten ganz komisch—ein Punkt von der Geschichte, aber immer noch traurig, wenn nicht nur die Schüler:innen sondern auch die Lehrer:innen einen Unterschied sehen, machen, verstärken. Und...obwohl Gabriel nur mit ein richtiges Können (Diebstahl) zur Schule kommt, ist er sofort ein von der Beste. Die Leser:innen können für ihn jubeln, aber...wie viele Bücher können wir in dieser Reihe erwarten? Für mich wäre es besser, ob Gabriels Fähigkeit durch die Reihe sich verbessert. (Sich verbessert würde? Oder was? Vielleicht kenn mein Deutsch sich durch die Reihe verbessern...)

Ein ganz spannendes Buch, und ich würde gern weiterlesen—auf Englisch oder auf Deutsch.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley. Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, und alle Fehler sind meine eigenen.

Wörter:
jucken: To itch
frösteln: To shiver
Kaff: Dump/hole (as a location)
Kieselstein: Pebble
Strickjacke: Cardigan. (Definitely thought for a second that this was "straightjacket"...)
Durchfahrtsort: The sticks (as a place)
im Handumdrehen: In no time
Zickzack: Zigzag
Anschuldigung: Accusation (opposite of Entschuldigung)
Schlabberhose: Loosely fitting pants
Segen: Blessing
quälend: Tortuous
tollpatschig: Clumsy
Blubbern: Bubbling
Fingerfertigkeit: Dexterity. Finger-readiness!
Königsdisziplin: Supreme discipline
Quasselstrippe: Chatterbox
Quaddel: Hives/welts
Etwas wie seine Westentasche kennen: To know something like the back of one's hand...or one's vest pocket
spindeldürren: Spindly
kniffliges: Tricky
jämmerlichen: Miserable

Short story: Review: "A Night at the Tropicana" by Chanel Cleeton

A Night at the Tropicana by Chanel Cleeton
Published October 2023 via Amazon Original Stories

One night in Havana...

In "A Night at the Tropicana", Cleeton takes us through two nights, thirty years apart: 1939 in Havana, when Natalie dances the night away, experiences her first real swell of romance, but returns to Florida knowing that she has to prioritize her desires; and 1969 in Miami, when she and her coworkers are trying to recapture a bit of that Cuban nightclub magic.

I haven't read any of Cleeton's full-length works, but I see that she's written a fair amount about Cuban and Cuban American characters, enough so that I skimmed through her backlist to see whether "A Night at the Tropicana" might serve as a sort of backstory or bonus material for one of her full-length works. (Doesn't seem to be the case, but you never know!) In any case, on its own it's a sweet and quiet story: turmoil in Cuba is in the background, but never at the forefront of Natalie's life; instead the focus is on love found, love lost, and what comes later.

There's limited action here, and the length feels right—any longer and it would drag. As it is, it feels a bit simple, but it's a sweet couple of moments in time.

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

Review: "Girl Perfect" by Jennifer Strickland

Girl Perfect by Jennifer Strickland
Published via Charisma Media
★★

Well, it's safe to say that I'm not the target audience for this. Girl Perfect is, on the face of it, Strickland's memoir of working as a (successful) model, and how unhappy she was doing so (not to mention how damaging the industry can be). At its core, though, the goal of the book is to convince readers that they'll never be satisfied until they've turned to Jesus. I knew this from the description, but it's still...more testimony than I have any real interest in, I guess. Will work better for readers who are more into 'how I hit rock bottom and found Jesus' stories.

A side note: It's interesting to me that the photo insert is exclusively modelling photos—I'm not sure what to make of that. That is, it's fairly standard fare for a memoir about modelling (or otherwise about being in show business, fashion, etc.), but it's curious that, in a book that describes the modelling industry as uniformly miserable and unhealthy, every single picture is a pretty/glamorous/dramatic/whatever shot from her portfolio, without so much as a note in the captions to remind readers that she was not enjoying the life. Not sure what might feel like a better fit to me, but as it is there's something of a disconnect.

Review: "The Head That Wears the Crown" by Mariah Stewart

The Head That Wears the Crown by Mariah Stewart
Published October 2023 via Montlake
★★

It's as classic a trope as ever there was: an American everywoman, in this case a single mother of two teenagers, discovers that she's not quite everywoman after all—she's the heir to the throne of a tiny European nation...and they want her to take on the crown more or less right now.

I have read more than my fair share of these books—enough to seriously consider renaming my Goodreads "kings and queens" shelf "princess fantasies". (So far, I have resisted. Valiantly.) I know what to expect, and I know that the point of these books generally is the fantasy, and just about everything else comes second. But oh gosh, although I kept my expectations modest here, they just...weren't met.

It's two things, I think. First: worldbuilding. (This to me is the great tragedy of it all—and the common weak spot in princess-fantasy books—but I suspect most readers will struggle more with the next point. We'll come back to that.) I should note, here, that I have historically been Very Bad at suspending disbelief (there's a reason I don't read more speculative fiction), and that if I'd put any work at all into changing that, this might have been less of a concern for me. It might be less of a concern for other readers. With that in mind...

I was really pleased to read, early on in the book, that St. Gilbert is meant to be a former Soviet Union (satellite?) country. Why? Because that's relatively uncommon in these princess-fantasy books; normally the books are all about that French-English-Italian aesthetic, and I really wanted to see how it would treat a country with a more Eastern European background. I hoped too soon: St. Gilbert is located between Switzerland and Italy, roughly (if I had to guess) between Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. Why does this matter? Because...neither of these countries touches a single Soviet country. It doesn't make any sense for St. Gilbert to be located there. It doesn't make sense that St. Gilbert—a former Soviet country with almost no international ties, located between countries that speak French and Italian and German—would use English as its national language. It doesn't make sense that they would be convinced that there's absolutely nothing in this spectacular mountainous region that would draw tourists, leaving the country deeply impoverished. It doesn't make sense that the country doesn't seem to have a single Soviet-style building. (My mother pointed out that maybe Annaliese just doesn't notice, but I think it's more that Annaliese doesn't realise that there's a particular style of build specific to the era/regime, and that she doesn't realise it because the author doesn't take it into consideration. Even if St. Gilbert didn't sustain damage during WWII—look up Soviet architecture in Hungary and you'll see what sorts of construction they should have had.)

And that's just...how so much of the book goes. This "poor" country has a Swiss bank account that nobody but the heir (that's Annaliese!) can touch, and the council running the country has never tried to get the money out (or reach out to Annaliese, or her mother or grandmother, to get their help to do so)—even though this one bank account can basically make the country wealthy overnight. There is so little tourism in the country that there is not a single hotel or BnB, and I literally cannot think of a country where that would make sense. Tuvalu—least visited country in the world, according to the Internet—has hotels. Afghanistan has hotels. North Korea has hotels. St. Gilbert does not. Annaliese discovers a staple product that is basically magical and decides to use it to revitalise the economy, carefully controlling its distribution so that outsiders can't buy it outright—and even if I can believe that nobody in the world has noticed this magical project before, I don't understand how she's going to 1) revitalise tourism, 2) use the promise of this product to do so, but then 3) keep it out of the shops while 4) still allowing locals access to this very, very staple product. St. Gilbert can't sell their cheeses abroad because they're made from unpasteurized milk, but a quick Google is enough to tell me that all they'd need to do is age their cheeses for 60 days to sell them in the US...and there's nothing stopping them from selling cheese in the EU. Annaliese is variously called "Your Highness", "Your Grace", "my lady", "madam", and "Your Majesty". I'm not sure which is correct per their protocol, but what I am sure of is that they have a protocol, and they aren't following it.

And second, plot. This is all but a conflict-free book. The first half of the book involves Annaliese arriving in St. Gilbert and being pampered. A castle, a staff, the most delicious food she's ever tasted, room after room of heirlooms that have been tucked away just waiting for her return—she makes some hmmm sounds about updates, sure (one of her first suggestions is that the country will need more parking lots), but very little happens. Around two-thirds of the way in, we get the first conflict: Annaliese goes up against the council that has ruled the country for decades and has no particular reason to want to dilute their power. But she comes prepared: she whips out her proverbial flyswatter, tells them to "Yo. Slow your roll" (loc. 3666*), and has the entire council eating out of her hand in the span of a single meeting.

Around three quarters of the way in, we get to the real conflict: There is somebody in St. Gilbert who does not think an untried American should be on the throne. This is, again, a pretty classic conflict point—and the thing is, he's not wrong. Annaliese claims dedication to St. Gilbert, but whether or not she even has citizenship is questionable (truly—she and her sisters wonder at some point), and she says that she wouldn't become monarch if she had to give up her US citizenship, and...guys? I also would not want a monarch whose perspective is "okay, I guess I'm responsible for this country now, but my other country is always going to come first". It's a miracle that there is only one person in an entire country of some 600,000 people who is unhappy with the new status quo.

In short: This might make a good read for someone who wants, basically, stress-free wish fulfillment and not much by way of heft. I can see this, and perhaps its possible successors, marketed in that way—books where plot and character development and so on are beside the point, and the reader is just in it to imagine that they're a princess, or that they've inherited a tropical island, or that...uh...they're hired at the best library in the world and told that the job is theirs to shape. This is written as a standalone, but there are hints that there may be more books to come—Annaliese's sisters are both making moon eyes at specific men within a few minutes of meeting them (oh—technically this is a romance novel; Annaliese has her tall-dark-handsome guard who isn't really characterized beyond "dedicated" and "gallant", which I guess allows the reader to insert whatever characteristics they prefer—but it's a very, very small part of the book), and at the end Annaliese is wondering how to solve the next problem. I'm not sure whether hypothetical further books would follow her sisters or continue to follow Annaliese as her childhood dreams are fulfilled, but if any future books follow her sisters, I wouldn't be surprised to see extended descriptions of high-end cooking equipment and baked goods (Roe) or room after luxuriously refinished room (Ceil). But...get yourself some industrial-strength locks for whatever case you pack your disbelief away into.

And a side note... Absolute best misspelling I've seen in ages, and at least 50% of the book was worth reading for this alone: milk toasty (loc. 3923) instead of milquetoast. I really hope the proofreader has a strong grasp of tenses but misses milk toasty.

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

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

Review: "On Human Slaughter" by Elizabeth Bruenig

 

On Human Slaughter by Elizabeth Bruenig
Published October 2023 via Atlantic Editions
★★★★

The death penalty has been carried out in the US for as long as the US has been around—just over half the states still allow it, and some of those states are doing their damndest to carry it out. But state-sanctioned killing has gotten more difficult to, uh, execute successfully—companies that produce the drugs that are used in lethal injection are loathe to sell them for those purposes, other methods (firing squad, electric chair) have fallen out of favor, largely due to the optics, and...well. Even when the state has lethal drugs on hand, as Bruenig chronicles, things do not always go to plan.

Bruenig is a journalist who has written extensively about the death penalty, and On Human Slaughter is a compilation of articles she wrote on the topic in 2022. As you can guess from the title, she does not pretend neutrality—she's clear in her stance that, separate from whether the death penalty is humane (I'm going to go with no), the way in which it is carried out in the US is often, in direct defiance of the 8th Amendment, inhumane: workers fumbling for hours to insert needles into veins; workers performing cutdowns, probably without anaesthetic, when that fails; prisoners convulsing as drugs flow into their bodies; shrouds of secrecy and lack of accountability because nobody in the system wants to admit that what they consider "standard procedure" is either not standard at all or, if it is standard procedure, making a mockery of basic ethics and humanity. And then there are the things less talked about: that the family of the accused is often treated as guilty by association; that when somebody is put to death, chances are that other innocent people are losing a father or brother or son (it's almost always men on death row) as well; that many of the people sentenced to death have backgrounds that indicate that they never really had a chance in life to begin with.

I'll note that I prefer that Bruenig is clear in her stance—while I'm willing to read a well-researched, well-thought-out take in favor of the death penalty (if someone can explain how the death penalty in the US can ever be ethical when it is so unevenly applied across race and class, I'll read it, but I'm not going to hold my breath), the last book I read on the death penalty was not nearly as impartial as the author seemed to think, and I'd rather know where the author is coming in. I don't think her writing will change any fervently pro-death-penalty minds, but if it's something you've never really thought about, it's likely to be an eye-opening read.

There is a caveat, though: On Human Slaughter is outdated even before its publication date. The articles are, as far as I can tell, presented exactly as they were published in the first place, with no updates of language or information. Sometimes this is little things ("Last year", "Last Thursday", "In April of this year"), but sometimes it's bigger things: The trial [Glossip v. Gross] wrapped up earlier this month; a decision is expected as soon as mid-May, and the defense attorneys are hopeful (loc. 284); When, as I expect, the jury in Florida decides to put Cruz to death (loc. 371)...these are two of several instances where we're left hanging because something that has since been decided had not been decided at the time of writing. In the latter case, Bruenig comes back to it in a later article, but in the former, that's the end of Glossip and the constitutionality of midazolam. I can (and did) look up the results of these things, and I got over the cognitive disconnect eventually (call me slow, but it took a while); still, I found myself wishing that slight revisions had been made (e.g., instead of "Last year", we might have "In 2021"; "In April of this year" could be "In April of 2022") and/or that bracketed notes or endnotes had been included in chapters where there have been updates since the writing. I'd also hope (not sure how realistic this is) for a foreword and/or afterword from the author—something that speaks more generally of this, outside the time-sensitive context of these articles.

Overall, not a read for the faint of heart (and time sensitivity is frustrating), but I'm very glad we have writers as incisive as Bruenig willing to tackle the subject in so much depth.

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

Review: "How to Say Babylon" by Safiya Sinclair

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
Published October 2023 via 37 Ink
★★★★★

The countryside had always belonged to my father. Cloistered amidst towering blue mahoes and primeval ferns, this is where he was born. Where he first communed with Jah, roaring back at the thunder. Where he first called himself Rasta. Where I would watch the men in my family grow mighty while the women shrunk. Where tonight, after years of diminishment under his shadow, I refused to shrink anymore. At nineteen years old, all my fear had finally given way to fire. (loc. 80*)

Growing up in a strict Rastafari household in Jamaica, Sinclair learned above all to guard herself against the dangers of Babylon: against imperialism, Christianity, atheism, white people, impurity. Her parents loved her and her siblings fiercely, fought for them to get the best education possible, but at the same time, her father's adherence to religion, and his dissatisfaction with his circumstances, got more and more stifling. He would do anything to protect his daughters from Babylon—even if that meant destroying them in the process.

Years later, while retracing the history of my family's journey into Rastafari, I would eventually come to understand that my mother felt called because she wanted to nurture, and my father felt called because he wanted to burn. (loc. 352)

This is such a complicated, heart-wrenching story, and it is absolutely beautifully written. I didn't know, going in, that Sinclair is a celebrated poet, but I guessed that she was a poet within a few pages of the book. One of the things I love about poetry (or, poetry done right) is that it calls for such precision of language, and when a poet can translate that skill into prose—not an easy job—it can be phenomenal. Part of Sinclair's story is about learning to hone her skills as a poet, but even when she's writing about writing (a memoir topic I approach with extreme caution), she's writing as well about survival. Because her father could hold her back from the gates of Babylon, but he could not make her desire the restricted life of subservient daughter, subservient wife, voiceless poet.

I'm not sure where Sinclair is going as a writer from here, but wherever it is, I'll follow.

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

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