Review: "The Pairing" by Casey McQuiston

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
Published August 2024 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★★

Here is my favorite thing about McQuiston's books: they're all wildly different. Now, I love me a good series or book where I know exactly what to expect from the author—but I love even more going into a book and having no idea what it will look like except that it will be good.

Secondary to that, here is my favorite thing about The Pairing: McQuiston can make even a package tour of Europe sound appealing. Folks, I am my mother's daughter; usually I think the only vacation less appealing than a package tour with a bunch of strangers is a cruise. (So, a package tour, in a germ vessel, with a bunch of strangers...whom you can't escape.) McQuiston presents something a bit more interesting.

In The Pairing, Theo and Kit were inseparable...until it all fell apart. In the years since, they've built lives and careers independent of the other, and things are fine. They're fine. There's just the small matter of the trip they'd booked together, and postponed, and the voucher Theo has to use before the deadline. Just the small matter of Theo arriving at the tour bus and finding none other than Kit, who has cashed in his last-chance voucher too.

What follows is a romp through Europe complete with a whole lot of local food, complex wine descriptions,* and no-holds-barred sex. Well—some holds barred. Let's just say that Theo and Kit find other people easier to fall into bed with. There's quite a lot of sex throughout, but much of it is with other people, and (perhaps because a lot of readers are very vocal about disliking even consensual sex that is not between the two main characters? Though who knows) most of that sex stays off the page...but I think if you read this on the subway you will have some very invested seatmates peering over your shoulder in no time. In any case, I love that this manages to feel so fresh even while playing on 'done' themes, I love Theo all the time, I love Kit most of the time, and I'd happily read a book about any number of the side characters...but I expect McQuiston has something else, and less expected, in mind for the next book. Hopefully that comes soon, whatever it is.

*I admit that my palate is severely unrefined, and reading Theo describe the particular undertones of a given wine made me want to revive the game where my partner and I drink our cheap grocery-store wine with dinner and attribute the snobbiest, most outrageous notes possible to it.

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

Review: "Keisha the Fairy Snow Queen" by Teresa Reed

Keisha the Fairy Snow Queen by Teresa Reed
Published 1998
★★★

I know I read a bunch of books in this series as a kid, but I no longer remember which ones—so I'm just rereading a few where the covers seem familiar. The contents of Keisha, the Fairy Snow Queen are in some ways familiar...but only because of Frozen! Here, Keisha is troubled over what to do when she catches another student cheating on a test. She takes to the magic attic and lands in a world with a problem—the magic crystal that powers the kingdom (or something like that) has been stolen, and the kingdom is freezing over as a result. Frozen was based on a Hans Christian Anderson story, so it wouldn't be unreasonable if the inspiration was the same here—he's not exactly obscure!

It's interesting to see that these books aren't all tied to real life—I don't know what the 'fairy' in the title has to do with it, but this one's definitely a story that relies on magic. It's also heavily moral-of-the-story-y, what with the whole plotline about cheating and right and wrong (which carries through in the snow-queen plot too), which I guess is about in line with the age range this series targeted. Will have to see whether other books in the series are quite so moralistic as well.

Review: "The Scenic Route" by Katie Ruggle

The Scenic Route by Katie Ruggle
Published July 2024 via Sourcebooks Casablanca
★★★★

Felicity's a bounty hunter, and she always gets her man. Bennett's a PI, and, well, he likes to get his man too. There's just one problem: at the moment, they're both after Felicity's mother.

I picked this up based on 1) the energy in Fish Out of Water, the other of Ruggle's books I've read, and 2) the promise of more into-the-woods plotline. On the latter point, the book disappoints (lots of small town but precious little into-the-woods—the cover's not particularly representative), but the energy is still there.

Honestly, this is the sort of book that should make me grumpy for its lack of realism. Felicity and her sisters are part of a bounty-hunting crew, supposedly reserved and basically friendless—but Felicity is also ready to trust Bennett more or less right off the bat, and tell just about everyone she meets that she's a bounty hunter, and I...can't imagine that this is really the best way to go about getting your mark and also not get killed? It should make me very annoyed. It does—a little. But I also flew through the book with surprisingly few qualms. I think I just like that Felicity and Bennett are on pretty equal footing, all things considered, and Felicity in particular is confident in her skills and happy with who she is; although they're both guarded to a certain degree, neither of them needs the other to tell them that they're good at their job or that they're lovable.

I'm not going to go out of my way to read the rest of the connected books, but...I might check to see whether Ruggle has any other into-the-woods books. Just in case. And I'm making another mental note to reread Fish Out of Water one of these days.

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

Review: "Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow" by Damilare Kuku

Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow by Damilare Kuku
Published July 2024 via HarperVia
★★★★

Temi is young and smart and determined: she will live with a flat bumbum no more. Now that she's saved up some naira, it's time to fix that bumbum and find herself a man. When she tells her family, she sets off an uproar—and we gradually see how the experience of each woman in her family, her sister and mother and aunts, has influenced the way they think about bodies and bodily autonomy and relationships and independence.

How do you inform your family members that you intend to surgically enlarge your buttocks without receiving a barrage of curses? How do you slip it into a conversation with Màámi that you intend to relocate to Lagos to meet the man who will love you senseless? How do you tell your older sister, who, until a week ago, you hadn't seen in five years, that you are hoping to stay in her Lagos apartment while you recover from surgery, maybe even stay a few more months? How? (loc. 100*)

The title is killer. It's worth noting that the content is far more serious than the cover necessarily conveys—abuse and sexism and grief float through the pages, permeating every character's story. There's a lot of sex and a fair amount of violence and a lot of choices that someone even half a step removed from the story would advise against. Many characters get their say, from Temi and her sister Ládùn to the lawyer who really shouldn't be allowed to have opinions about women.

What sells me on the book is that it's not really about Temi and her body image—or it is, but it's only about that within the context of much wider societal forces. She's been told again and again and again that her body isn't up to snuff, isn't desirable, and she's internalized that to the extent that she can't imagine any kind of success if she doesn't change her body first. At the same time, though, the women around her have all been judged for their bodies, and found wanting or acceptable, and because their experiences are different from Temi's the conversations keep glancing off each other. I love seeing a book that discusses body image (and the societal influences) within a non-Western context in which the ideal is not, well, Temi's shape.

3.5 stars; I'd like to see what stories—and what titles—Kuku comes up with next.

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

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

Review: "That Prince Is Mine" by Jayci Lee

That Prince Is Mine by Jayci Lee
Published July 2024 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★

In the kitchen, Emma is a queen—she teaches Korean royal court cuisine, and she has every reason to believe that her business will continue to grow. She doesn't have much dating experience, but she's clear in her expectations: her godmother will arrange a match for her, and she'll end up with a husband who is perfectly suited to her. Someone compatible. Not, say, a prince from a small European country who is from a different culture and class and shares almost none of her experiences...

I am a sucker for a royal romance, which is what led me to this book. That Prince Is Mine has the added benefit of some cultural diversity that I don't often see in romance novels—I've read books in which the heroine is a cook and the hero a prince, but never one delving into the intricacies of Korean cuisine. (The ARC I had didn't have a final cover, and by the time I picked up the book I'd already forgotten the plot details, so I was a bit disappointed to find that the prince in question is Generic European—one of these days perhaps we'll get a Generic Asian prince!)

The book leans rather fluffier than I expected, a bit like an extended Harlequin or perhaps a soap opera. Partly because so many of the side characters have romantic plots, the plot pretty much all moves quickly to romance, leaving little room for anything else. I'd have loved to see a bit more from the characters, especially things that aren't so hormone-driven. It's the end of the book before we learn that Sophie (Michel's bodyguard and childhood friend) used to paint, for example, and I can't help but think that if she'd not had a romance plot, we could have seen more of her personality (followed by a separate book about her, if the author were so inclined).

Generally speaking, this is not one to pick up if you're looking for more depth in a romance novel, but it would be a good read for those looking for a bit of instant-princess fluff (bonus points if you salivate over Korean food!).

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

Review: "For All Time" by Caroline B. Cooney

For All Time by Caroline B. Cooney
Published 2001
★★★★

And we've reached book 4, in which Annie tries to fall back a century to find Strat again...but instead finds herself falling far, far father back. Back to ancient Egypt, where she doesn't speak the language or understand the culture and where the locals are not always convinced that she is human. Where tomb robbing is called tomb robbing rather than archeological expeditions...and she finds herself in a tomb at risk of being robbed.

I remember, vaguely, finding this one in the bookstore (Borders, probably?) when I was 13. This was back before it was easy to find information about upcoming books on the Internet, so when a new book from one of your favorite series spontaneously showed up at the bookstore, it felt like an unexpected Christmas. I bought this in hardcover, and I adored it. Cooney is working with a number of storylines here, which overlap in various ways: there's Annie, of course, landing in ancient Egypt; there's Katie, who is living and working at a hospital for people with Hansen's disease (at the time called leprosy); there's Camilla, a young Polish-American woman struggling to support her family after the death of her father; and there's Renifer, an Egyptian girl whose expectations of life are about to be upended by revelations about her father and her fiancé. Plus, of course, smaller story strands about Strat and so on (but we don't care that much about Strat).

Now...per usual, Annie's story is the least interesting of the bunch. She doesn't do much here: she romanticizes life in the late 1800s and early 1900s; she mopes about hoping to run away from her life for the sake of romance; she flails and stumbles and sweats when she lands in Egypt. On the other hand, I kind of love this for her; I love that we see Annie thinking she's managing and then Renifer and her cohort looking at her and going 'uh, nope'. (Annie also somehow forgets certain things: "Tell me everything," said Annie. Tell me about your life, and Devonny, and Harriett and Katie and what happened and where everybody is and all that."* Umm, Annie...? Harriett is dead. And you were there when it happened. Is your little romance really so important that you've forgotten all that?

I still love the book: I like Camilla and would read something longer about her; seeing Renifer grow is also pretty fascinating. But rereading this series as an adult, it's also clearer to me where the books fail readers; as noted about the previous books, the level of fatphobia is...it's high. I won't quote it, but there are multiple detailed descriptions of how grotesque Hiram Stratton is in his fatness. Although it's a relatively small proportion of the book—and it's in line with how fiction was talking about fatness in the 90s/early 2000s—it's troublesome enough that I'd be reluctant to recommend the series to a lot of YA readers now.

*Library ebook does not have useful page numbers, alas

Review: "Prisoner of Time" by Caroline B. Cooney

Prisoner of Time by Caroline B. Cooney
Published 1998
★★★★

Book 3, in which for the first time Annie doesn't fall back in time...Devonny goes forward. She's desperate to escape a marriage she doesn't want to a man she doesn't like—let alone love—but the 1990s are not what she expects: "I'd stay in one of your guest rooms," pleaded Devonny. "One of your extra maids could wait on me. You wouldn't even have to seat me at your dining table. The footman could serve me in my room."*

...or maybe the real world is just not Devonny expects, as a girl who has grown up in immense privilege and never stepped outside it.

My favourite thing about the book remains the way that Devonny, even as a heroine, remains...well, a product of her upbringing:

"Perfect," enthused Mrs. Lockwood. "Now, I take the seven-oh-two train, so I will set the alarm for five-thirty."

In the morning? Yes, servants and cooks and tenders of heating systems got up at such an hour, but people didn't! "That will be fine," said Devonny, uttering one of her hugest lies.*

Neither the book nor the series even tries to get into things like racism, which is probably just as well (I cannot imagine that Devonny would come off well), but I appreciate that there are realistic limits to just how far Devonny can grow in a short period of time.

As I noted with book 2, the obsession with Thin and disgust for fatness is strong here. I'll spare you the examples, but there's a fair amount of lingering on tiny waists (for good characters) and reminders of how gross fatness is (for bad characters). This is not a problem that ended in the 90s (1890s or 1990s), but I don't love how glaring it is to my 2020s eye.

Despite that, I've been trying to decide which of the books of the series is my favourite, and I'm just coming up...stumped. Might not recommend them today, but the nostalgia factor is strong.

*I'd include page numbers, but they're useless in the library ebook I read.

Review: "Out of Time" by Caroline B. Cooney

Out of Time by Caroline B. Cooney
Published 1996
★★★★

In Both Sides of Time, Annie was flung a hundred years into the past, landing in 1895, where she fell in love...but eventually had to go back to her own time. In Out of Time, she tries to get Time to send her back—but she what she finds is not what she expects. Strat has been committed to an asylum, Harriett is away at a sanitarium trying to recover from tuberculosis, and the scheming Walker Walkey has his eye on the Stratton money.

I love how distinct each book in this series is. Annie is (usually) the vehicle through whom we get the story, but it's not all one plot run together—the story is distinct each time. Annie is kind of beside the point here, which is just as well because she's by and large the least interesting female character of the book. Or maybe of the series...

Two things to note: first, I'm low-key fascinated by how much Cooney makes a point to remind the reader that although Strat might be a hero of the series and Devonny a heroine, they are very much products of their time and class. Take this from Devonny:

Annie said anxiously, "What if he has some household servant arrested for it? What if he suspects"—Annie tried not to look at Schmidt—"one of your maids or something?

"These things happen," said Devonny, who, indeed, was very like her father.*

Or there's Strat:

Annie was still doubtful. "I think it would be better if—"

Strat kissed her. It was not affection. It was a kiss to close her lips. "I know best, Anna Sophia. Don't worry your little head anymore. You have done very well to get so far, and I'll handle it from now on."

She had the brief thought that being a gentleman in Strat's Time was also being a very pushy chauvinist, but she set the thought aside, as many a woman had done, and let him handle it as he saw fit.*

What I love about this is that it adds a layer of complexity to these characters. We're supposed to cheer for them, and I do—but they feel true to their time and class in a way that they wouldn't if, say, Devonny was all up in arms about the rights of servants. She has a lot to learn, and...she'll get to some of it, but definitely not all.

And second, on this reread, I cottoned on to just how much the series worships the land of Thin and treats fatness with disgust. It gets even more marked in book 3 of the series, but, gosh. It's here too. I still flipping love the series (I don't know what my star rating would be if I were reading it for the first time, but I can't separate my current read from my experience of reading the series as a kid), but on those grounds alone I'd probably be cautious about when and to whom I recommended the books.

*I'd include page numbers, but they're useless in the library ebook I read.

Review: "Both Sides of Time" by Caroline B. Cooney

Both Sides of Time by Caroline B. Cooney
Published 1995
★★★★

This series, my gosh. I had the whole quartet as a kid (bought the fourth book in hardcover and everything), and I just loved it. Both Sides of Time sees Annie Lockwood, a very average teenager in 1995, accidentally fall through time and land in 1895...where she becomes embroiled in high society life and scandal and romance and about as much as can be packed into a 200-page book.

YA was a different beast when I was a teenager. Among other things, I think the characters tended to be more realistic and less...aspirational? In some respects, anyway. I noticed this with the Face on the Milk Carton series, also by Cooney, that I just reread. Today's 15-year-olds of YA novels are ambitious; they want to be reporters or writers or doctors, or they want to challenge the status quo at their high school, or they want to get the lead in the school musical and have it catapult them to Broadway. (I'm generalizing wildly, of course, but...let's go with it for the moment.) Annie does not want this: Annie wants a Great Romance. Eventually, sure, she'll want more than that—but right now she wants chivalry and glamour; she's well aware that her boyfriend Sean is not her Great Romance, but he'll do for now, and maybe she'll be able to get some romance from him this summer, and that'll be enough. She wants to change him (never going to work, Annie), but not because she's madly in love with him despite his flaws—more that she hopes that maybe there's potential in there somewhere. I'm here for it.

I was going to say that it's a breath of fresh air compared to contemporary YA, where characters tend to be convinced that their teenage lover is their soulmate and they're meant to be, but Annie does have to go and ruin it by falling in instalove with Strat, the rich young heir of 1895. But even then...it's fascinating to see how many things just don't entirely click between them. Annie thinks she's pulling off being an 1890s character, and then we pop into someone else's point of view and see just how much they're noticing that she wouldn't even consider. And although she's head over heels for Strat in 1895, he'd have an awfully hard time if he landed in 1995, because his entire upbringing has taught him that girls can't do that. (Doesn't really matter what 'that' is. Girls can't.) I'll get into a bit more about the other characters in later books, but right now I'm just happy that this book holds up...on both sides of time.

Review (Deutsch/English): "So, wie du bist" / "Just as You Are" by Camille Kellogg

So, wie du bist von Camille Kellogg, übersetzt von Sophia Lindsey
Herausgegeben von HarperCollins, November 2023
★★★★

Pride and Prejudice...wenn Elizabeth Bennet eine Lesbe in New York City war. Es hat so lang gedauert, bis ich dieses Buch gelesen habe, aber das war komplett meine eigene Schuld; ich lese nicht genug auf Deutsch und war ein bisschen nervös. Am Ende habe ich entschieden, das Buch auf beide Englisch und Deutsch (ein Kapitel in einer Sprache, danach das gleiche Kapitel in der anderen Sprache) zu lesen—und mein Gott. Das war die beste Entscheidung, die ich dieses Monat gemacht habe. Ich will über das Buch schreiben, na klar, aber meistens will ich über die Übersetzung, und Übersetzung im Allgemeinen, schreiben.

Das Buch: was freut mich ist, dass Kellogg ist mit Pride and Prejudice ganz flexibel. Ich habe viele, viele P&P Varianten gelesen, und es ist mir klar, dass, für eine Variante am besten zu funktionieren, muss es ein bisschen...lose...mit den Detailen sein. Hier, wenn etwas aus dem Original geht nicht, geht es dann nicht: raus gehts! Hier ist Mary nur die Finanzchefin, die keine Rolle spielt; wir haben fast einen Mr. Collins, aber nicht wirklich. (Und die Charaktere sind natürlich fast alle queer.) Das Buch ist folglich interessanter; die Themen bleiben zeitnah, und man weist nicht genau, was mit einem Charakter passieren wird. Mittlerweile ist Liz ein bisschen...chaotisch? Oder vielleicht nur unordentlich (wie übersetzt man "messy"?)—im Original ist Lizzy nicht immer perfekt, aber sie ist selbstbewusst; sie weißt, wer sie ist. In So, wie du bist, Liz weißt das genau nicht—sie hat viel zu lernen.

Aber die Übersetzung: mein Deutsch ist nicht flüssig, aber es ist gut genug, dass die Übersetzungsoptionen sind mir sehr interessant. Ich habe zu viele Sätze hervorgehoben, um hier zu nutzen, aber ein paar Beispiele:

"Which means this is no longer a goodbye party. It's a Get Shitfaced Celebration." // »Und das heißt, dass aus der Abschlussparty eine Abschussparty wird!«

Und—was denkst du? Besser, das gleich, oder...? Ich mag das Wortspiel; mein Partner (nach ich erklärt habe) denkt, dass der Ton fehlt.

Oder hier, wieder auf Englisch: "Oh my gosh, hi!" Jane's voice had taken on a curious Valley Girl–style inflection. "It's so great to see you." // »Oh mein Gott, hi!« Janes Stimme klang auf einmal wie eine seltsame Mischung aus Helium und High Society.

Manche Dinge können nicht übersetzt werden, oder?

It was official. Jane Wilson and Bailey Cox had U-Hauled hard. // Es war offiziell: Das mit Jane Wilson und Bailey Cox war was Ernstes. Die Umzugskisten waren quasi schon gepackt.

Nee. Manche Dinge können nicht übersetzt werden. (Ich hatte eine Mittagsessengespräch mit Kolleg*innen und müsste dieses U-Haul-Witz erklären—die meisten von meinen Kolleg*innen sind weder amerikanisch noch queer. Es ist nicht die Schuld des Buches!)

Ich muss sagen: ich kritisiere hier nichts—es hat mich nur so viele Freude gebracht, diese Unterschieden zu finden. Ich soll so viele übergesetzte Bücher so lesen—Deutsch mit Englisch—es war für mein Deutsch fantastisch und für mein Gehirn ein wunderbares Spiel.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley. German quotes are from an ARC and may not be final. Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, und alle Fehler sind meine eigenen.

Just as You Are by Camille Kellogg
Published April 2023 via The Dial Press
★★★★

It's Pride and Prejudice...but in New York, with a queer cast of characters working at a struggling, and also queer, magazine. I meant to read this only in German, but it took me so long to get going that I resorted to my backup plan: switch back and forth between German and English, and miss less. Just as You Are may have made that my favorite way to read; it was satisfying when I realized that I could actually get through most of the German without missing too much, but it was flipping brilliant fun to see how certain things were translated...and what just doesn't translate. (Spoiler alert: There are at least three U-Haul jokes in the English version...none of which can be easily übersetzt.)

But I digress. I talked more about the translation choices in my German review, but hey! I also read the book in English. I've read piles of Pride and Prejudice retellings and adaptations, and I'm on the record repeatedly as preferring the ones that don't get too precious about the original plot. It's hard to stay true to every single plot point from P&P while also having the plot make sense in the modern world; Jane getting sick and staying at Netherfield is a great example of this, as in the modern world it just...doesn't generally make sense for someone to fall so ill at someone else's house across town that they'd just stay there for weeks on end. Kellogg smartly took plot points like this and noped them right out the window; other plot points have been moved around a bit to make more sense within this contemporary gay New York context. (Also, Liz Baker spends infinitely more time on the New York subway than Lizzy Bennet does.)

I'm not entirely convinced by the conflict and subsequent resolution that crops up toward the end. I could see it coming (but the hints were planted carefully enough that I could hope they were red herrings and that what came to pass...wouldn't), but considering that the characters seem likely to feel the reverberations for some time, it didn't really feel like there was enough time for them to fully resolve...how do I put this without spoilers...the public fallout. But: I love that Liz is kind of a mess in this book. She's good at her job but doesn't want her job to be her forever job; she loves her friends but isn't always there for them in the ways that she should be; she has an idea of who she is but doesn't have the confidence to own it. It also means that while, in the original, Darcy had to do some work on himself before Lizzy could see a future with him, here both Liz and Daria have to take a close look at themselves and think about how to grow into the people they want to be.

I was going to stick to the English here, but can I just throw in one fun translation...? Here's one of Jane's hobbies: TWOCs and Ewoks, her Star Wars–themed D&D group for trans women of color who were also giant dorks. And in German: Trans* Frauen, die Han schauen, ihrer Dungeons-and-Dragons-Gruppe mit Star Wars-Motto für trans* Frauen of Color, die außerdem unfassbare Nerds waren.

I really have to do more parallel reading. Recommend the book; highly recommend the parallel reading experience.

German translation was thanks to the publisher via NetGalley; English original was powered by the magic of my local library.

Review: "Sorry for the Inconvenience" by Farah Naz Rishi

Sorry for the Inconvenience by Farah Naz Rishi
Published July 2024 via Mindy's Book Studio
★★★★

It's a YA novel come to life, sort of: in Sorry for the Inconvenience, Rishi weaves a story of cultural expectations, family dysfunction, and grief...with an unexpected love story underpinning it all.

I'm not usually one much for trigger warnings, but if you like to know what you're in for here I do recommend checking out those warnings ahead of time. The cheerful cover belies the more harrowing parts of the story here (though kudos to the cover designer for the dogwood flowers); without going into too much detail here, there are layers and layers of loss. But also: throughout the story, the thread of Stephen, Rishi's best friend from college, who proves a steadying force again and again throughout the book...and who, when things were extra tough, offered Rishi yet another measure of security: a marriage of convenience, one that could stay a platonic partnership between friends—for as long as Rishi wanted.

I waffled a bit on my rating. There were some quite odd proofreading misses that took me out of the book; this would usually be normal (and not worth mentioning) for an ARC, but in this case the ARC was offered after the publication date, and I'd expect published books to have been through proofreading. But the story and its telling are gripping, and the way Rishi's background as a YA fiction writer comes through here is pretty fascinating. This isn't written for a YA audience, but if someone described the events of this book—with a few tweaks—and said that they were going to write a YA novel about those events, I'd say "Yup, that tracks." (Here I should maybe note that YA done right can tackle some wickedly heavy subjects.) It certainly doesn't make the harder material of the book easier to read, let alone live through, but it does make for a fast-paced, complex read with (what do you know) as classic a hero as one could hope for in a contemporary YA book. And as it happens, Rishi fictionalized at least part of her story with Stephen for a novel, and now I'm desperately curious to see how that version of the story goes.

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

Review: "Not Another Love Song" by Julie Soto

Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto
Published July 2024 via Forever
★★★

Xander's been told since the time he could hold a bow that he was destined for greatness—and he's delivered. Gwen is just happy to be making a living doing something she loves. And then they realize that together they make sweet, sweet music...

Okay, I'll be honest: I picked this up because I wanted to make music puns. Don't get me wrong, I'm as happy as the next person to read a romance between a violinist and a cellist—but mostly I wanted to make music puns. Bad ones. Consider this your warning.

Gwen is sweet, if often naïve: She's worked hard to earn her seventh-chair position, and while she's aware that it's unusual for someone to leap from seventh chair to first chair—and to suddenly be in a leadership position and a spotlight—at least four people (Xander, Mabel, and the two people who choose to hire her) have to spell out that she's being used before it clicks for her...several months later. Also, while she might be one of the orchestra's high notes, it's interesting that she's at her best when playing unprepared and often without the correct sheet music—a position that she finds herself in almost exclusively outside the confines of the pops orchestra so determined to promote (and use) her.

Xander I had a harder time with. He comes in with an ego, dancing to the beat of his own metronome, and it never fully clicks for him that being a prodigy, a virtuoso, is not enough to make one a good person. He complains that Nathan and Ava have been stringing him along, but it never occurs to him that he's consistently been the discordant note in their pops orchestra—that maybe if he put in the barest effort (or gave the pops orchestra the barest amount of respect), they'd be singing a different tune. Given that he's the hero of the romance, it worries me that I don't think there's a commitment in the book that he sees as unbreakable. Whether he's playing with his band or with the orchestra, he's perfectly happy to cast off his responsibilities with no notice as soon as something better comes along.

Where that leaves us, then, is with a romance that doesn't sit quite right with me. It's hot, sure; readers who like some spice will get a kick out of this. But Xander assumes things in his professional life and he assumes them in his personal life, and I'm not sure there's ever really a moment where he stops to think about whether Gwen is okay with him making choices for her—about her music (pushing her to think outside the Bach?), about the public or private status of their relationship, about their sax life. There's a lot of assumed consent throughout, and although Gwen is okay with Xander's poor conduct (and starts taking cues from him to cast off her own commitments), it's not a duet I'd buy a season ticket to.

There's an author's note at the beginning saying that this is Reylo fanfiction (I had to look this up; something to do with Star Wars), and I'd sort of forgotten about that until I got to the later parts of the book with Thorne & Roses (where there's A Major sense of fanfiction that can B flat if you've forgotten you're getting fanfiction...? I might need to workshop that one). I don't mind a solid nod to fanfiction (see Rainbow Rowell's Simon Snow series), but in this case I think I'd have preferred something that didn't have the wish-fulfillment aspects of fanfiction, because Gwen and Xander should have plenty to deal with on their own. I'm likely to be an outlier here, but I wouldn't have minded a coda in which we learn that Gwen has decided to more actively conduct her own life and strike out on her own as a solo act.

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

Review: "Dashed" by Amanda Quain

Dashed by Amanda Quain
Published July 2024 via Wednesday Books
★★★★

Between Quain and J.C. Peterson, it feels like I'll have my Austen-inspired book needs taken care of for a while. Dashed takes on Sense and Sensibility, focused on Margaret—the youngest of the three sisters, rather neglected in the original book.

3.5 stars, and my favorite of Quain's books to date. I admit to some bias here—I fell madly in love with Beatrice, and thus Emma Thompson, in Much Ado About Nothing when I was about eight, and extended that love happily to Elinor in Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. (I'm not sure I'd seen a Disney film at that age, but my parents could sometimes be convinced to rent a Shakespeare or Ye Olde British Book adaptation and haul the elderly television out of their bedroom closet.) I've read the book—I'm not a total heathen—but Emma Thompson is forever cemented in my head as Elinor, and anything that manages to be more or less in line with her portrayal is bound to hit the spot.

So Dashed: in which Margaret is relieved to have some breathing room from Marianne for the summer, which she'll be spending on board a cruise ship with Elinor and Elinor's husband Edward...but then Marianne shows up, and those hopes and plans are, ah, dashed.

I won't go too much into the plot here, although I will say that this does not make me regret never having been on a cruise ship. I do wish that Margaret's reluctance to get into a relationship were a little more original (I've seen it many times in YA and romance books...but never in real life), but I appreciate that this is an original spin on a side character rather than a retelling. It gives Quain a lot more room to play with both characters and plot, while also...this:

"Edward accidentally stayed up all night reading the guidebook," Elinor said, as Edward accepted coffee and grinned sheepishly. They were, I realized with some horror, wearing matching button-down shirts, each emblazoned with leaping dolphins on a light blue background. With Elinor's tight bun and bright red hair, she looked like Ms. Frizzle had gone back to school to become a nautical librarian; Edward just looked like he'd wandered into the bargain bin at a Jimmy Buffett concert. (loc. 860*)

Not taking itself too seriously, then, which bodes well if Quain tackles Emma next...

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

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

Review (Deutsch): "Aufbruch nach Deseo" von Markus Heitz

Aufbruch nach Deseo (Die Traumgänger) von Markus Heitz
Herausgegeben von Gulliver von Beltz & Gelberg, Juni 2024
★★★

Finns Leben ist jetzt ein bisschen langweilig—nach einen Unfall musst er einen Rollstuhl nutzen. Aber er hat ein Geheimnis: Nachts kann er durch Traumwelten reisen, und alles so er will ändern. Er ist die einige Person, die dass machen kann....oder so denkt er. Dann Sanja, ein Mädchen, das viel mehr als Finn über Traumreisen weiß, findet ihn...

Aufbruch nach Deseo ist für Leute, die nicht so flüssiges Deutsch lesen—und deswegen perfekt für mich. Finn had viele Abenteuer als er träumt, und die Geschichte geht schnell und nützt Wörter und Sätze, die nicht so kompliziert sind. Es macht natürlich spaß, die Vorstellung zu nützen, und zu fragen: was würdest du machen, wenn du alles in deinen Träumen ändern könntest?

Ich bin mir nicht sicher, wie ich über Finns Rollstuhl fühlen sollte. Ich bin immer begeistert, Leute mit Behinderungen in Romane zu sehen—es gibt nicht genug davon, und Kinder sollten die Chance haben, sich in Geschichten zu finden. Aber Finn hat nur eine Verletzung; er findet den Rollstuhl schmählich, aber er muss ihn nur für eine kurze Zeit nutzen...und nie in den Träumen. Wäre es besser, ob Finn durch seine Abenteuer seinen Rollstuhl nützen müsste? Ob der Rollstuhl etwas, der ein Nachteil aber auch eine Vorteil sein konnte? Vielleicht. Vielleicht ist das etwas für ein späteres Buch in der Serie—Träume, in den Finn nicht entschieden kann, ob er einen Rollstuhl braucht oder nicht.

Es war in jedem Fall ein unterhaltsames Buch—perfekt für unsichere(?) Leser:innen (und für, ahem, unsicher-auf-Deutsch Leser:innen).

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
Miefig: Musty
Geisterbahn: Ghost train
Umriss: Outline
Schlummer: Slumber
Es gab nichts, was es nicht gab: There was nothing that didn't exist
Doof: Dumb
Pracht: Splendor
Dromedare: Dromedary
Aufsässig: Rebellious
Krücken: Crutches
Gruselburg: Spooky (haunted) castle
Geborgt: Borrowed
Tüftler: Tinkerer
Kopfsteinpflaster: Cobblestones
Sumpf: Swamp
Trichter: Funnel
Dreist: Bold
Man schiebt es mir in die Schuhe: They blame it on me
Schlossknacker: Lockpicker
Reißzähne: Fangs

Review: "She Left" by Stacie Grey

She Left by Stacie Grey
Published May 2024 via Poisoned Pen Press
★★★

Twenty years ago, Amy Brewer walked out of a party early—and survived. Her friends were not so lucky. Now she's been invited to a weekend retreat to discuss the case...but the mix of guests is much odder than she would have expected, and it's almost immediately clear that somebody is hiding something. That not everyone will walk out of this house alive, either.

I have a thing for final girl mysteries—though I still haven't figured out quite why—as well as a thing for mysteries that take place in rambling old houses. This one has some heavy shades of And Then There Were None, though if that was an inspiration I'm happy to note that there are some significant differences that keep the story feeling fresh. (And the way communication and access to the outside world are cut off—always a challenge in contemporary books, given the prevalence of cell phones!—is innovative and honestly kind of entertaining.)

There are a number of questions left unanswered (I'll keep it vague to avoid spoilers): we eventually find out who sent the package to the prison, of course, but what compelled Sean to use the contents? How would the orchestrator even know about Jonathan? There's at least one person who is far more likely to have information than to be a suspect—would the orchestrator really not try to reach out first? And what is Therese hiding, when we're told that She hadn't told them everything, but what she had told them was the truth? (137)

For some reason I'd thought that the events of the book would take place in the same place as the massacre. It's sort of too bad for spook factor that it doesn't, but it does make more sense for the plot of the book. Overall, a solid addition to the And Then There Were No Final Girls subgenre.

Review: "Between These Bones" by Freya Sharp

Between These Bones by Freya Sharp
Published June 2024 via Harbor Lane Books
★★★

Sometimes I pick books for their covers. I'm shallow; it's a character flaw.*

Between These Bones is a collection of short poetry focused on relationships and trauma. I wasn't sure quite what form of poetry to expect when I picked it up, but to me it's best described as Instagram poetry—I'm not sure if Sharp is on IG, but the poems here are short and pithy, with a few longer poems worked throughout. Let's talk about form, and let's talk about content.

Form: The poems that work best for me here are the mid-length ones, more than three or four lines but under a page. I struggle—and this is not specific to Sharp's poetry—with poems that are just a few lines, because often they feel to me as though the writer has found a metaphor or image they want to share but not gone any further with it. (There are some exceptions; one poem in here reminds me of that brilliant Atwood poem about hooks and eyes: you still linger / in my mouth / like the aftertaste / of burnt toast (loc. 259)) The longer poems have a bit more room to get creative.

Content: The material here gets very dark very quickly, and it stays dark for most of the book. Eventually there's a shift to more positive things, but that's mostly about a new and happy relationship—which is fine, and will sit well with people who like a bit of romance; I guess I just prefer a bit more of the princess saving herself.

Overall, Instagram poetry is never really going to be my thing—I like to work a bit harder for the meaning in poetry—but one for readers who are looking for more along the lines of Rupi Kaur and so on.

*One of many

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

Review: "Kommix" by Charles Burns

Kommix by Charles Burns
Published July 2024 via Fantragraphics
★★★

Burns is a comics artist with an extensive backlist, a distinct style (my partner, who is also a comics artist, catching a glimpse of this book my shoulder: "Is that by Charles Burns? Is Fantagraphics the publisher? That looks like something they would do")—and a love of comics from the 50s and 60s. Here, he's created a collection of comic book covers, inspired by that era, for comics that never existed.

For the most part the covers fall under two categories: otherworldly (think tentacles, think fleshy pink blobs, think apocalyptic landscapes) and contemporary—though a contemporary world of fifty years ago, and with an emphasis on the ways in which the Western world is not a safe place for women. Some of the inspiration is clear, such as one character who repeats across a number of covers and would fit into Tintin's world without a blink. Several images—though one in particular—could be pulled from a vintage Archie, and I imagine that those better versed in comics of the era would be able to easily identify other sources of inspiration.

The ARC I read was all but textless, and in my ideal world the final version would have at least an introduction or some analysis at the end or something—not sure whether that's a possibility. In particular, I'd love a discussion of how much these covers are, or aren't, subverting expectation. I'm not an expert in comics (of the 50s and 60s, or at all), and I wasn't enthusiastic about how many of these images show half-naked women and promises of sexual violence; I'd have loved to see something talking about how these differ from older comics (other than perhaps making some of it more overt) and how much can be expected.

I wouldn't necessarily want to read most of the comics imagined behind these covers, but if you're a fan of Burns' style, you'll likely want to hang some of these on your wall.

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