Review: "Unburdened Eating" by Jeanne Catanzaro

Unburdened Eating by Jeanne Catanzaro
Published September 2024 via Bridge City Books
★★★

Unburdened Eating explores the use of an Internal Family Systems approach to improve one's relationship with food and body. I picked this up partly because I'd never heard of the approach, which—in very, very simplified form—can be described as engaging in neutral dialogue with one's own conflicting thoughts to bring them closer to harmony.

I'm not really sure who the target audience for this is, as it's not a book aimed at professionals, but I don't think it's meant exactly as a self-help book either—I think it would be quite hard to apply an IFS approach without guidance from a therapist, at least initially and especially if you weren't already conversant in some of the language. (Maybe something for people who are trying IFS in therapy and want to know more?)

This ended up not being a very good fit of a book for me—I think I was just expecting something other than it was, plus I don't have any background with IFS (again, had never heard of it). I appreciate a lot of the things Catanzaro talks about (she touches briefly on things like the ways racism plays into the glorification of Thin, for example, and on her politely anti-diet stance), but this self-help-hybrid isn't really my thing. That said, if you're looking for a new way to approach an uneasy relationship with body image, this book (and IFS more generally) might be interesting to explore.

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

Review: "The Doctor Was a Woman" by Chris Enss

The Doctor Was a Woman by Chris Enss
Published February 2024 via TwoDot
★★★

The Doctor Was a Woman takes us through the stories of a number of women who practiced medicine in the American West before women were widely accepted in medicine. The Wild West was not necessarily more accepting—or would not necessarily have been more accepting, save for that services were so limited that anyone with skills could find their way, even if they were (gasp!) a woman. One thing that strikes me is that many of the women profiled here went into medicine later than we'd expect now; i.e., now it's more common for someone in the US to go straight from college to med school, and I imagine that was also more common for men at the time, but women faced so many more barriers, from lack of family support to med schools refusing to admit women.

As a book it's...okay. It's clear that the author is deeply passionate about the topic, but the writing is pretty flat. I suspect that part of that is just that information about these women and their lives is relatively hard to come by; some of them left writings of their own, but, well, we all know that men get more coverage in the history books than women do. The end of each chapter has a bit of writing from the time, either something that the doctor in question wrote in the course of her career or something that would have been relevant; I admit that I skimmed those parts, as they're probably more compelling to those with a specific interest in archaic medicine.

One thing that gave me a lot of pause: the descriptions all lean neutral-positive, even when the things these doctors were doing were...kind of appalling, by modern standards. Take Bethenia Owens-Adair: She studied such controversial topics as the sterilization of the criminally insane. Bethenia's analysis led her to believe that insanity and criminal actions were hereditary. Her famous work on the subject, entitled "Human Sterilization: Its Social and Legislative Aspects," was published in 1922 and brought her instant recognition in the field. Three years after Bethenia presented her findings, a sterilization statue [sic] was adopted as state law in Oregon (67). So...like...yay, eugenics...? I should be clear that 1) I'm not suggesting anything about the author's views and 2) we can't necessarily hold historical figures to today's standards, but I really, really wished there had been some discussion of, like, the difference between being renowned for something at the time and it being something that should still be celebrated or endorsed or tolerated today.

Two and a half stars; it's a pretty short book, but I'd recommend it mostly for people who have a really specific interest in the history of medicine and/or Wild West history.

Review: "The Last Whaler" by Cynthia Reeves

The Last Whaler by Cynthia Reeves
Published September 2024 via Regal House Publishing
★★★★

It's 1937, and Astrid has made the decision to accompany her husband, Tor, to Svalbard for the whaling season. It's the sort of decision one makes in haste and repents at leisure: one made out of grief; one leading to a reality that neither Astrid nor Tor, who has spent many a season in Svalbard before, is prepared for.

I didn't understand then the nature of grief, that it doesn't fade away but loops endlessly. (loc. 3763*)

I picked this up because I recently read Christiane Ritter's A Woman in the Polar Night—a memoir about a year spend on Svalbard in the early 1930s—and I was enthralled; I wanted to see what a contemporary novelist would do with a similar setting. And Reeves is clearly inspired by Ritter, who is a minor off-page character in The Last Whaler, though Astrid's experience and her takeaways are rather different than Ritter's.

We get two points of view here: Tor, looking back later on the time he and Astrid spent in that harsh landscape—first with other whalers and then starkly alone—and Astrid, telling her story through letters to her son. I didn't love the letters: they didn't feel realistic as letters someone would write to a young child, even under the circumstances in the novel, and I would have preferred either a journal or just Astrid's non-epistolary point of view.

What sold it for me, though, is how much research and context there is here. Occasionally I think Tor leans a bit contemporary in his views than is realistic, but what intrigues me is the way in which, although cut off from the outside world, they are always aware on some level that that outside world continues: the world encroaches, whether they want it to or not. Maybe Astrid would have fared better had she stayed back in the outside world, or maybe the barren landscape isolation simply hastened what was to come. In any case, it's a fascinating story.

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

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

Review: "Then Things Went Dark" by Bea Fitzgerald

Then Things Went Dark by Bea Fitzgerald
Published August 2024 via Sourcebooks Landmark
★★★

Six celebrities (after a fashion) land on an isolated island off the coast of Portugal, cameras following their every move. There's a lot of money on the line—and they all have their reasons, financial and otherwise, to be there.

What they can't predict going in: Not all of them will make it out alive.

What they really should have predicted: Everyone, surviving and not, will be pretty miserable by the end.

We all know the basics of this plot—what is a locked-room reality television show but a chance to watch people being forced into uncomfortable situations while we chomp on our popcorn? As a rule, I don't enjoy most reality TV, but...I enjoy reading about a lot of things that I don't enjoy watching, so here we are.

The book shifts back and forth: the days the cast spends on the island, and the aftermath, as they're being interviewed (repeatedly) by Interpol. Interpol has a tougher job than usual—because the whole world, more or less, has seen this death play out and the events that preceded it, and the whole world (again, more or less) has opinions. At its best, the book makes for incisive commentary on reality television and how society views the participants; there's an epic amount of Schadenfreude in the commentary we see from the show's viewers online, yes, but there's also the way the show itself delights in exploiting every raw nerve and doing its utter best to tear the contestants to the ground. Iconic, that's the stated goal—but iconic for what reasons, and at what cost?

Now...to enjoy this book properly, you have to enjoy reading about unpleasant people being unpleasant. I did not take that into consideration when I picked the book up, and that was definitely to my detriment while reading. (My preference is to be hoping with bated breath that the characters won't die rather than hoping with bated breath that they'll all die, and soon...) This is mitigated somewhat by the social-commentary angle, but even then it's hard to find characters to root for. (About the borderline satirical B plot, between the Interpol agents—the less said, the better.) Now, whether finding a character to root for is the point...well, that's another question entirely.

There's a whodunnit angle here, but I'd say that that's also rather besides the point. I guessed at some, but not all, of the details of how things would turn out, but I think this is better read as something much more meta than a simple 'who is guilty, who is innocent, and who might or might not get away with murder'.

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

Review: "I'll Have What He's Having" by Adib Khorram

I'll Have What He's Having by Adib Khorram
Published August 2024 via Forever
★★★★

Farzan has come adrift—his love life is going nowhere, his work life is directionless, and compared to his highly ambitious siblings he feels like a failure. Taking over his parents' restaurant seems like a possible way forward...but although Farzan knows food, knows cooking, he doesn't know running a business. Enter David: training to be a master sommelier, he's too busy for a relationship; he'll have time for that when he's living it up in a major city somewhere. But when a miscommunication leads them to fall into bed together—and they're still laughing about it when they figure out the truth—it occurs to them that there might be a mutually beneficial path forward.

What decided me on reading this was this line in the description, about their early-book miscommunication: Good news—both think the mix-up is hilarious. It's a small thing, but that line says a lot: that the book isn't going to be one that is all about miscommunications that could be cleared up with one conversation; that they're going to be able to laugh at the little things; that there's going to be chemistry beyond banging. And: win! All of that is true in the book. There's lots of communication, even when Farzan and David don't think things will work for them in the long term, and they just genuinely...like each other.

Farzan's family is Iranian, and that's a big part of the book, which is nice—both Farzan and David are well aware of being POC in a city that doesn't always feel very diverse. Food and wine, more generally, are also big themes—Farzan loves to cook Persian food, and David is steadily (but not drunkenly) ensuring that he can recognize any wine placed in front of him. There's quite a lot of sex, and to be perfectly honest I skimmed a fair amount of it (I'm more for f/f romance than for m/m romance), but if you like the heat turned up high, this is a kitchen you'll want to be in.

I read an ARC, and there were still some consistency details to iron out, but the general vibe needs no edits.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Slow Road North" by Rosie Schaap

The Slow Road North by Rosie Schaap
Published August 2024 via Mariner Books
★★★★

This is the second book I've read recently by a Rosie with an Ireland connection, which feels like a nice coincidence. Very different stories, but with some other odd coincidences: In A Rosie Life in Italy, the author describes leaving Ireland for Italy in part to escape grief...while in The Slow Road North, the author describes leaving New York for Northern Ireland, in part to escape grief.

He was not one of those people who say they are ready for death. Can those people be serious? There were still too many books Frank wanted to read. (loc. 99*)

I say 'escape grief', but that's not right: Schaap moved to a village in Northern Ireland after her husband got ill and died, far too young, and after her mother too died, but she did not move to escape grief—she needed to be able to fully process her grief in a way that she was unable to do in New York, with its fast pace and all its ghosts. New York was home. But sometimes home is not enough. In Glenarm, she sought a new kind of life: a degree in writing, a new community, people who did not shy away from grief or pain but accepted them as part of life. And she learned a great deal: about the Troubles, and the rifts that remained in Glenarm, even if they were quieter than before; it's fascinating to read about her experience being Jewish in a place that was for so long split between Protestant and Catholic, with little thought given to people who might fall outside those categories.

Schaap talks a little about the choice of the title for the book, but it feels right: it's a fairly understated book, with measured peaks and lows rather than crashing ones, despite the grief and loss that underpin the story. Character-driven, if you will; it's well into the book before Schaap gets into her relationship with her mother and who her mother was as a person, and it's a wise choice, because Schaap's mother was clearly nothing if not a complicated person, but that's allowed to come second to love.

When Frank died and my mother was too unwell to come to the funeral, I asked her to promise me that she wouldn't die that year, too. She made me that promise and she kept it. She died one year and thirteen days after Frank. (2414)

(That line low-key devastated me; there was a while when it looked like I'd lose both my parents within a year—I did not; my mother is back to her extremely energetic self—and while it's absolutely a different scenario, I get how terrifying the prospect of losing two loved ones so close together is. I've already moved away from my parents, but I can well imagine picking up my whole life and restarting after so devastating a loss.)

This is one for readers who are in it for character and rumination and the slow road north through grief. It's a lovely take.

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

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

Review: "Return to Midnight" by Emma Dues

Return to Midnight by Emma Dues
Published August 2024 via Thomas & Mercer
★★★

Almost ten years ago, Margot was a senior in college, living her best life in a big old house with all her closest friends. And almost ten years ago, Margot survived a massacre in that house in which almost all of those friends were killed. A suspect was caught and convicted, and Margot has tried to move on…though mostly that means barely sleeping, barely eating, and barely leaving her mother’s house. Now, as part of the process of writing a book about that massacre, she’s returning to the house she lived in in college for the first time since the massacre. And things aren’t all as they seem…

I couldn’t tell you why, but I’m a sucker for final-girl-revisits-the-scene books. In this case, the cover drew me in (though ballet turns out to be a minor part of the book), but I would have been interested based on the description anyway. Massacres and final girls and old Victorian houses? Yes please.

The result is mixed. I finished the book late at night, and the end gave me some heart-pounding moments, which I appreciated. The dance element is also nice, in places: Margot and her friends were mostly dance minors at university, meaning that they had skill and interest but generally weren’t planning to make careers out of dance. As a rule, they’re as interested in partying and drinking and carb-based food as they are in putting in practice and perfecting pirouettes. This isn’t a side of dance that I see reflected often in fiction—I’m much more likely to see books in which the characters are desperate make it into a professional company, when in reality the experience Margot and her friends have is much more common. (And: I don’t know if this was intentional, but…shades of I Know What You Did Last Summer?)

But I don’t love the voice (first person POV doesn’t help, I think), and Margot’s pretty inconsistent: she goes straight from a reclusive, terrified life to staying at the scene of the crime, telling her secrets to what sounds like a tabloid reporter (bad move for a number of reasons, not least that she’s writing a book about it and should think carefully about what she wants other people to be able to publish before she can), and running around town accusing people of stalking and/or murder. I think I’d have found her more believable if she had been able to move on more in the past nine years, or if she were less willing to throw herself back into it. Meanwhile, as we learn more about the side characters, they tend to get less appealing rather than more.

And…I’m not sure how best to say this, but lord have mercy, Margot is dumb as a box of rocks. Absolutely zero sense of self-preservation: in addition to trusting a stranger she knows nothing about (and inviting him over, and falling asleep while he’s there, and giving him free rein in the house), she contaminates evidence, doesn’t think to contact the police about that evidence or about stalking, routinely confronts people she suspects of violence, goes down into the basement without any sort of backup every time she hears a noise there…so many chances for her to end up even more traumatized, to say nothing of very dead.

Finally, this is a book in which a large amount of the plot hinges on Margot not being honest with the reader. There are some major gaps in her knowledge about what happened—we don’t get her memory of the murders until late in the book, but it could have opened the book without significant spoilers—but about other things she is very, very coy with the reader. I understand why it’s done, but it’s not something I much enjoy in thrillers; I like to be on the same page as the narrator (and, you know, to be afraid they’re going to die). For readers who don’t mind this withholding of information, this won’t be a problem, but…mileage may vary.

So—points for premise and the interesting use of ballet, but the characters are hard to connect with and overall it ended being not what I was hoping for from a thriller.

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

Review: "Thin Deep" by Sarah Mackie

Thin Deep by Sarah Mackie
Published August 2024 via Cherish Editions
★★

As a young adult, Mackie fell headlong into an eating disorder. Anorexia became bulimia became a vicious cycle of eating and not eating that would last years. Thin Deep is her story of disorder and finding her way out of it, largely through yoga and variations on CBT.

If I could read only one genre for the rest of my life it might well be memoir (though the idea of giving up lit fic and general nonfiction and so on gives me shivers). Memoir is learning from experiences that are not my own, and also seeing what people with whom I share experiences did differently, and how they chose to frame those experiences. Mackie's story must have been a difficult one to write, and I'm glad she reached a place where she can explore her experience and put words to it.

Generally speaking, this would have benefitted from a few rounds more editing and a good copy editor. Cherish Edition is a self-publisher, and it's not fair to compare a self-published book to something traditionally published (a traditional publisher will often have more resources than an individual author to apply to a book and will definitely have more incentive than a self-publisher to make a book as polished as it can be). I've read some amazing self-published books, but it's worth bearing the context in mind when reading (or deciding whether or not to read) a self-published book. (Note that I received a review copy, so it's possible that updates have since been made; however, the review copy was offered after the publication date, and in that case I generally assume it's the final version.) I didn't mind the typos so much (I kept a personal dairy, loc. 36—actually, didn't Marie Antoinette keep a private dairy so that she could play at working with her hands?), but there are a couple of things that give me pause and would make me reluctant to recommend this to readers who struggle or have struggled with an eating disorder.

Most eating disorder literature has moved away from including specific numbers and details under the understanding that they can be damaging or triggering to some readers. Mackie doesn't note weight, but she walks a (sorry) thin line of how much detail to include, and I think the calorie counts and occasional BMI and exercise details fall solidly in the "could've edited this out" category. Mackie also says some things in the introduction that put me on my guard for pretty much the rest of the book—insinuating that recovery weight gain beyond a certain (thin) point is unhealthy and unattractive. She doesn't return to this in the main portion of the book, and in fact says of yoga that surrounding myself in an environment that didn't judge, that didn't care if my stomach was flat or if my arse was curvy, was so liberating (loc. 1493), but I think I'd been waiting for the other shoe to fall for so much of the book that I was just left thinking that it wouldn't be a good fit for somebody who picked up the book early in recovery, having gained weight—no matter how much or how little—and feeling uncomfortable with it.

Your mileage might vary. Mackie is passionate about yoga, and I appreciate that she is very clear that you don't have to be a toned Instagram guru who can, I don't know, hold bakasana for twenty minutes at a time and then roll into ganda bherundasana before finishing with ten minutes of astavakrasana (I don't do yoga at all and Googled "hardest yoga poses" to find those, so if that sentence doesn't make sense it is squarely on me); that you can get the mental and physical benefits at any level. It's not a book I'm likely to return to, but it might make a good read for those who trust themselves and their trigger limits and are looking to work some yoga and mindfulness into their routine.

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

Review: "Our Daughter, Who Art in America" (Mukana Press)

 

Our Daughter, Who Art in America
Published April 2024 via Mukana Press
★★★

My dear, she hung up the phone before I could ask her what happiness had to do with the marriage. (loc. 87, "Our Daughter, Who Art in America")

A mother struggles against the reality of a lonely life with her daughters both gone. A girl learns that she is more like her mother than she thinks. A child is unprepared for her brother to grow up without her, and for her friendship with the family maid to come to a forced end. A swimmer witnesses a horror from the underworld of South Africa. A college student learns that your own perceived identity does not always match the identity perceived by those around you.

Our Daughter, Who Art in America takes its title from the first of the ten stories in this collection. I am only rarely a short-story reader (I read very quickly and find it frustrating for stories to end just as I feel that I am getting into them!), but I couldn't resist picking up this collection of diverse voices from parts of the continent and beyond (as far as I can tell, from the author bios: Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, the US). Per the editors' note at the beginning, the stories are divided in two, with the lighter stories up front and the darker stories in the second half (to allow for a choose-your-own-adventure style of reading). I have to admit that I struggled to find the distinction; though the characters move through with determination, there is more rawness in these stories than there is joy.

As is inevitably the case with collections, some of these stories resonated with me more than others; I particularly enjoyed "Body Parts," in which the narrator stumbles across an organ-harvesting ring (is it odd to say that I enjoyed that story? It startled me, and of course it was well written) and the understated social dynamics of "The Ripening," in which a girl sees her household fall into upheaval and her brother and the maid, previously her allies, become strangers to her. It's nice to see a mix of settings and contexts, and especially to see some stories from writers I might not have found otherwise. (And for the stories lower on my list: well, that's the good thing about short stories going by so quickly!)

I'm very curious about the selection process for the stories in this book; as other reviewers have noted, it's a pretty slim volume, and—while obviously no one writer is representative of a given country!—it surprised me a bit to see that three of the ten writers are from Kenya. (On the other hand, I guess it's safe to assume that the call for stories was loudest in countries where English is more prominent? So perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised not to see any stories from, e.g., parts of Africa where French/Arabic/etc. are more common.) I hope Mukana Press carries on with this sort of anthology, but I'd also love to see some pieces from farther-flung locales next time.

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

Review: "Prince of the Palisades" by Julian Winters

Prince of the Palisades by Julian Winters
Published August 2024 via Viking Books for Young Readers
★★★

At first glance, Jadon has everything he could ever want—he's second in line to the throne of Îles de la Rêverie, he's out and proud, and he wasn't so much born with a silver spoon in his mouth as born with a platinum spoon in his mouth. At second glance, he's stagnating: sent away to live in LA for a year, feeling misunderstood by his family and perhaps and isolated as a Black boy in the US. He doesn't want to make connections in the US; he wants to go home. But there's a pink-haired boy who intrigues him...

I'm a sucker for royalty fiction—something about the wish fulfillment, I think. It's still rare to find that sort of princess-fantasy* book with characters who are not all white and American, or white and British, or white and Generic European, so I was fecking delighted to see that this one features a prince who is Black and from a (fictional) African country. (This literally doubles the number of Fictional African Royalty books I have on my shelves, which—given the sprawl of my shelves—is appalling.) It's also delightful to see a fictional royal who is out and proud without issue; probably helps that Jadon is the spare rather than the heir, but (as important as coming-out books can be) I am well and truly over books where all the conflict boils down to homophobia.

Jadon's a tough nut to crack, though. At one point he describes himself thusly: "I'm kind. I'm angry. I stand up for what I believe. For the people I love. I'm not perfect, but I'm trying." (loc. 3761**) It's a nice moment, and a nice thing to aspire to—but I don't think it's accurate. I think at this point in the book, Jadon has stood up for what he believes once, or one and a half times (the incident with Barnard half counts, because although Jadon refuses to back down, he didn't know he would be on the record when he ranted in the first place). He's figured out some of what he wants to stand for, but it's deep, deep into the book before he even starts to understand that he has not, historically, been a very good friend. And as sweet as Reiss is (he's a great love interest), part of me thinks that if Jadon doesn't know what it is to have a solid two-way friendship, he's probably not in a place to have a solid two-way romantic relationship, either. He's beginning to grow by the end of the book, but this feels very much like the beginning of his journey.

On the off chance that there is a follow-up book with Jadon's sister Annika, I'd love to see it take place in Îles de la Rêverie—would mean the chance for a lot more world-building, hopefully distinct from the rough (say it with me) princess-fantasy worldbuilding of so many fictional European countries.

*This is a gay YA romance, and while there is a princess in the book and I would very happily read a book from her perspective...this isn't actually a princess-fantasy book. But that's my alternative name for my Goodreads "kings and queens" shelf, so...let's go with it.

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

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

Review: "The End of Tennessee" by Rachel M. Hanson

 

The End of Tennessee by Rachel M. Hanson
Published August 2024 via University of South Carolina Press
★★★★

My mother caught me looking at a photo of her when she was in high school. She had gorgeous thick hair and the most beautiful hands with long fingernails. I was rough, a girl with bitten nails and rashes on my hips from carrying the children she kept having. As I looked at the photo, she pointed out that even after having a child, which she did soon after high school, she was thinner than me. But I wasn't wondering about her looks and why I wasn't delicate; I just wanted to know what it was like to go to school. She wouldn't let me go because she said everything I needed to know was in the home. (loc. 465*)

Hanson's upbringing was not one to envy: she grew up poor in rural Tennessee, uneducated not because the schools were bad but because her mother didn't think she needed to go to school in the first place—Hanson's place was at home. And between abuse and neglect, Hanson was often the best parent her siblings had; between abuse and neglect, there was no respite but to escape for good.

My father tells us he will not abandon his father the way his own father did. Now, as an adult, I know there are different ways of abandonment, different ways of being present and not present. (loc. 1115)

There's a certain flavor to books about rural Appalachia, about the rural South. It is not my world and never has been—I lived in the South, but in the city and outside the mountains; perhaps more to the point, my parents were happy and healthy and stable. I know the humid air of Appalachia and the gory sunsets of the mountains, but I don't know the desperation that Hanson describes.

Hanson does a beautiful job of describing a situation from which there was no good exit: no options that would not either keep her in a situation bordering on unsurvivable or sever her from everything she knew and everyone she loved. It's not an easy story to read, but it's also clear that Hanson has had the time and distance to put measured words and conclusions—as much by way of conclusions as are possible—to the story.

My mother sent that blanket to me a few years after I left home, the one time she actually had my address. In the blanket she had wrapped pictures of my younger siblings, awkwardly posed, dressed in clean clothes, but their hair was uncombed and their feet bare. I imagined those five little faces staring at the camera, their bodies longing to squirm away, annoyed by the forced posing, but curious about the attention our mother gave them in preparing them for their photos. I wondered if she had taken those just to send to me, to remind me of who I abandoned when I ran away from her. I don't need any reminding. Even my dreams are filled with the voices of my little brothers and sister—dreams that are interrupted by memories of the dark, wet mud of southern ground, the patches of drywall inside our farmhouse—dark humidity, a damp stench, a kind of prison from which escape is nearly impossible. (loc. 1588)

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

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

Review: "Windswept" by Patricia Evans

Windswept by Patricia Evans
Published October 2023 via Bold Strokes Books
★★★

Sabine has lived in New Orleans her whole life, and she pretty much expects to die there—with her mother's instability, there's no way she can ever leave. Until, that is, she's given an ultimatum: stay in New Orleans and carry on as she has been...or upend her life, move abroad, and inherit half a million dollars and then some. It doesn't hurt that when she picks the latter option, there are plenty of hot women ready to jump into bed with her...

There's a lot to like here, including the setting and the book's refusal to have the characters fall into a misunderstanding plotline. Also, I was basically sold by the part of the description where Sabine buys an abandoned lighthouse and has to restore it.

But other things...don't make a lot of sense. Let's start with the book description:

When Sabine Rowan moves home to New Orleans after a family tragedy, she escapes into her theater career as she cares for her mother, a pampered former actress with a flair for the dramatic. Thoughts of finding love start to fade until her favorite aunt passes away and leaves Sabine with the equivalent of a ticking time bomb and a nearly impossible choice—to gain her inheritance she must leave New Orleans within three hours and board a flight across the Atlantic.

This is mostly accurate, though it leaves out the part where Sabine's mother has (not a spoiler; it's apparent within the first pages) severe alcoholism and has pressed Sabine into something of a codependent relationship. But then we get to this:

Everyone in the tiny village of Muir Rothesay, in the Highlands of Scotland, turns to Alden Wallace when they need an expert to help restore their historic homes. Still reeling from her latest romantic disaster, Alden barely notices the most recent American tourist to swan into their village. Until she buys an abandoned lighthouse and Alden is the only one who can save the crumbling disaster from disappearing into the sea.

Uh...Alden barely thinks about her ex. She definitely doesn't 'barely notice' Sabine, who also definitely doesn't 'swan'. After a rocky intro, they're into each other almost from the word go. But more to the point: abandoned? The lighthouse isn't abandoned; it's been meticulously restored and is sold fully furnished and ready to go; the most Sabine has to do is learn to light a fire. Where is the renovation romance I was promised? Where are the fanciful lighthouse details and the vicarious move-into-a-characterful-house experience?

Can the windswept shores of Scotland weave enough magic to bring them together?

Ah...yes. It takes about three minutes before they decide they want to be together. The rest of the book is just window dressing.

But I digress. The description probably wasn't written by the author—it may have been written by someone in the marketing department who skimmed the book? I'm not sure. It's inaccurate, but that's an oversight on the part of the publisher, not the author.

Some of the plot things, though...Sabine is sent off to Scotland for a year with no planning, cool. Except: she's going on a US passport, which means that to stay longer than six months she should need a visa, no? I actually really like the 'off you go to another country with no planning' setup, but I don't love the waving away of legal and logistical matters. (She also buys a piece of property with pretty much zero effort or red tape, which seems sus, but what do I know—I'm a millennial; I'll never be able to afford property.) Sabine has a fling with a woman in Edinburgh, but to what end I don't know; it doesn't seem to serve any plot point, and there's nothing to suggest that Sabine had inhibitions that she had to work through. Later, there's a scene full of sexual violence that is barely ever referenced again and makes zero sense in context—in a village of a few hundred people, nobody is worried about a couple of men running around ready to rape a hypothermic woman? (Which brings me to another point: nobody seems worried about the fact that said hypothermic woman would rather resign herself to dying from hypothermia than, like, ask for help.) Alden doesn't recognize them, and nobody makes an effort to pursue them or bring them to justice or...? The sexual violence blasts onto the page and then fades from the book's memory. Similarly, Alden's sorority-girl ex shows up for two scenes to wreak some havoc...but goes out with neither a whimper nor a bang, just a conversation between Alden and Sabine and then the sorority girl is never seen again. For all that I'm glad to (mostly) avoid the 'oh no, what if she's secretly still in love with her ex' plot, I just don't understand what it added here; I'd much rather have seen a deeper dive into Sabine's family revelations.

So I don't know. The writing was good, I liked both the heroines, but the asphalt of this plot is real full of holes. I hope the next book goes through a few more rounds of editing.

Review (Deutsch/Englisch): "You, with a View" von/by Jessica Joyce

You, with a view von Jessica Joyce, gesprochen von Funda Vanroy
Herausgegeben von HarperAudio, December 2023
★★★

Noelle ist jetzt ziellos: ihre Großmutter ist gestorben, sie ist arbeitslos, und sie wohnt wieder mit ihren Eltern. Sogar ihre Kreativität ist weg. Aber dann lernt Noelle etwas über ihre Grossmutter—sie hatte eine grosse Romanze, als sie jung war. Under der Freund...? Der Grossvater von Theo, einem Mann, den Noelle kennt...und beneidet.

"You, with a View" ist für Leser:innen, die ein bisschen...Biss...zwischen Charaktere mögen. Es dauert natürlich Zeit, vor Noelle und Theo verstehen einander; es dauert noch mehr Zeit, vor sie vertrauen einander. Ich fand den Konflikt manchmal ein bisschen zu viel; nach nur ein paar Wochen glaubt Noelle dass Theo alle seine Geheimnisse (ein Thema!) teilen soll, und...Geduld, Noelle! Geduld! Die Romanze war nicht wirklich mein Ding, aber das ist ganz normal; beide Charaktere sind energetisch, und Theo wird für viele Leser:innen einen perfekten Quasi-Grump sein.

Der grösste Teil des Buches passiert als Noelle und Theo und Theos Grossvater machen einen Roadtrip durch den Westen der USA. Die Idee ist wunderbar; diesen Roadtrip wurde ich gern machen (sogar mit einem Haus mit nicht genug Schlafzimmer!) Die Übersetzung hat mir auch sehr gefallen—am besten war die Übersetzung für "MRS degree." Auf Englisch:

"She wanted her to get her MRS degree." Paul eyes us. "Do you know that phrase?"

I nod. "They wanted her to find a husband."

Und auf Deutsch:

"Sie hatte es eber gehabt, wenn sie ihren MRS-Abschluss gemacht hätte." Paul sieht uns kritisch an. "Kennt ihr den Ausdruck überhaupt?"

Ich nicke. "MRS, wie die Abkürzung für Mistress, also Ehefrau. Sie wollte, dass sie einen Ehemann findet." (Kapitel 5)

Mannomann ich liebe Übersetzung. So viele Entscheidungen!

Das Hörbuch ist von Funda Vanroy gesprochen; die Klangqualität ist super und die Stimmen individuell (einfach zu erkennen). Mehr Hörbücher von ihr wurde ich fröhlich probieren.

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.

You, with a View by Jessica Joyce
Published July 2023 via Berkley
★★★

Noelle is having a hard time of it—jobless, grieving, and back to living in her childhood bedroom. It doesn't help that her high school rival, Theo, seems to be thriving. But when she learns that her late grandmother once dated Theo's grandfather, all bets are off—it's time to take a road trip into the past.

I read this in English in tandem with the German audiobook, because I don't like missing nuance and because parallel reading is fun. The romance isn't really for me—I found Noelle's insistence that she and Theo be on the same trust page within weeks of reconnecting to be off-putting at best, and passively grumpy heroes aren't really my thing. (That's okay; they're a thing for lots of readers; you do you.)

The road trip is fun, though—I've never visited most of the areas they go to, and reading about them very much made me want to take my own road trip. My absolute favorite thing, though, was this big about an MRS degree:

"She wanted to her to get her MRS degree." Paul eyes us. "Do you know that phrase?"

I nod. "They wanted her to find a husband." (56)

And in German:

"Sie hatte es eber gehabt, wenn sie ihren MRS-Abschluss gemacht hätte." Paul sieht uns kritisch an. "Kennt ihr den Ausdruck überhaupt?"

Ich nicke. "MRS, wie die Abkürzung für Mistress, also Ehefrau. Sie wollte, dass sie einen Ehemann findet."

For the uninitiated and/or the non-German-speakers, an MRS degree is marriage (or engagement) before college graduation. I don't know if (or how far) the term has made it out of the US, but the translator definitely didn't think it's made it to Germany—not only is "They wanted her to find a husband" translated, but "MRS" is translated to "mistress" and then clarified that in this case "mistress" means "wife". I love the weird issues that come up in translation. Things like that make it worth it to me to read the entire book twice.

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

Review: "Seasick" by Kristin Cast and Pintip Dunn

Seasick by Kristin Cast and Pintip Dunn
Published June 2024 via Delacorte Press
★★

Well, this is my second recent stuck-on-a-boat-and-people-keep-dying book. Or, to be even more accurate about it, a stuck-on-a-boat-with-a-bunch-of-extremely-spoiled-and-unpleasant-rich-people-who-keep-dying book. And I think this is...more than enough for me for a while. I love a locked-door mystery, but I'm on record many times as having poor ability to suspend disbelief, and this book requires far more advanced skills than I have.

In Seasick, a bunch of teenagers are set loose on a yacht with a full staff and some amount of alcohol and almost zero supervision—the yacht staff are not there to supervise, and it's pretty much minutes before they're out for the count anyway. And from there bodies start piling up, in increasingly gruesome fashion (and with a variety that would take some effort from the most hardened of sociopaths, to say nothing of any of the passengers on this yacht).

I think I mostly just read this too close to The Yacht to have all that much energy for it, but I also struggled quite a lot with the motive and the characters. A lot of the characters (not all, because it's YA and thus there is romance) are written to be actively unlikable, which in some circumstances I appreciate but in mysteries/thrillers I don't love—because I like to be scared that characters will die, not relieved when it happens because I no longer have to give them brain space.

It's really hard to discuss motive without spoilers, so spoiler warning for this paragraph: It comes down to money, and the difference between inheriting two billion dollars and one billion dollars. And I'm sorry, but what can you do with two billion dollars that you can't do with one? A billion dollars isn't worth killing for when you will still end up with a billion dollars if you do nothing.

So not a good fit for me, but again, it was always going to be a hard sell for me given the high suspension of disbelief required; it'll be a better fit for readers who don't have that particular character flaw.

Review: Short story: "The Bookstore Wedding" by Alice Hoffman

The Bookstore Wedding by Alice Hoffman
Published August 2024 via Amazon Original Stories

As the story opens, Isabel is planning her wedding yet again—over and over, fate and circumstance have conspired to keep her from marrying Johnny. The town has gotten used to it by now. Isabel wants to get married, she does...but other priorities come first.

This is the first of Alice Hoffman I've read, though of course I've seen her books around for years and years. It's the second in a short story series following Isabel and her family, and I'm curious about the origin of the story, so to speak—whether one of the stories was originally planned to be a novel. There's a bit more backstory in here than I would have expected in something so short, including some details that appear to be covered in the first story of the series.

All in all, it's a pretty quiet story, one for those who like their romance understated and drama viewed from a distance. I would have liked a deeper dive into the characterization and character development, especially since there is that distance with the events of the story (told in pretty broad strokes), but it's sweet.

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

Review: "Cowgirl Megan" by Trisha Magraw

Cowgirl Megan by Trisha Magraw
Published 1998
★★★

I don't plan to reread a whole lot of this series, so I'm picking and choosing. Cowgirl Megan> has, I think, the strongest nostalgia vibes of any of the series for me—not so much the book itself, but that cover. Or, more accurately, that jacket—I remember so vividly how cool I thought a white leather fringed jacket studded with jewels was. Also, now that I think about it, the version of Megan on the cover is pretty much a dead ringer for the American Girl doll I had around the same time.

Unlike the contents of the other books of this series I've dipped into as an adult, this book also rings some other bells. Here, Megan is feeling slighted by her friends—who are, it must be said, astonishingly quick to cut Megan down to size when she displays the barest amount of ambition (more on that in a moment)—when she heads up into the attic to escape reality for a bit. When she slips through the fabric of reality, she finds herself in the Wild West...with a girl whose dream of showing her prowess in the competition ring is being thwarted by circumstances outside her control. It's up to Megan to help her come up with a plan—and in the process learn to speak up for herself.

Because the girls tend to adventure independently in this series, we actually see very little of their friendship—they're eager to ask each other where the mirror in the attic has taken them, and to sit together at lunch, but the books are short and so their time together is limited. But okay: let's trust that they're the best and most supportive of friends (most of the time). The other girls eventually (it's a feel-good children's/early MG book, after all) apologize to Megan and concede that having dreams makes sense. Good for them, and good for Megan for standing up for herself. What does it say about perceptions of female friendship, though, that they are so quick to encourage Megan to make herself smaller? I wonder what a contemporary book would do with this.

Review: "The Cheesemaker's Daughter" by Kristin Vuković

The Cheesemaker's Daughter by Kristin Vuković
Published August 2024 via Regalo Press
★★★

Marina has lived in the United States for half her life, but when her father asks for help—a first—she drops everything to return to Croatia to help her parents save their struggling cheese factory. Croatia is and isn't as she remembers it; it's been years since Marina was home long enough to sink into the rhythms of Croatian island life, and cheesemaking has never been her future. But now she must decide: stay, or go? What parts of her past and present are destined to stay or become her past, and what parts are destined to become her future?

I've read very little about Croatia—very little fiction set in contemporary southeastern (or eastern, or central) Europe, for that matter; that's less by choice and more because I've found it difficult to find the contemporary, non-noir, non-war fiction I'm after. And on that count, The Cheesemaker's Daughter delivers. Marina's life on Pag is quiet, but it's full—family and old friends and ghosts from her past; tradition sitting alongside modern conveniences (and inconveniences). Plot-wise, this is strong work; Croation relationships and work struggles and personal struggles layer on top of each other, and it's not clear until the end how most things will work out—there are many directions the story could take and still feel realistic.

Writing-wise, I think this could have used an intense round of line editing. The word knew appears 99 times in the book and the word felt 180 times, and although obviously not all of those are directly about Marina (the POV character), the majority are, and I don't want to be told what she knows and feels; I want to experience those things with her. It left me a bit disconnected from Marina and thus from the book even as I kept reading to find out how things would go.

It's a fairly quiet book, all things considered—in a good way, but one for those who don't mind books that unfold in their own sweet time. I'd be interested to read more in similar settings.

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

Review: "A Well-Trained Wife" by Tia Levings

A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings
Published August 2024 via St. Martin's Press
★★★★

Levings was still a child when the dominoes began to fall: her family moved from Michigan down south, joined a stricter church, uprooted her expectations of who she should be and what she should want—what she was allowed to want—in life. And so she ended up in a marriage that was abusive from the word go, one in which the only route to a better future she could see was one in which she made herself ever smaller, ever more submissive.

All along, I thought I was protecting the kids. Shielding them from realities behind closed doors. Sacrificing to maintain a two-parent Christian home. Making hard, better choices for their faith, family, and education than I made for myself, trying to safeguard them from pain.

But they saw. That was obvious now. And staying meant raising sons who hit women. Staying meant raising a daughter who stayed with the man who hit her. (loc. 25*)

This was one of my most anticipated books for 2024, and it does not disappoint. Levings was in the Amazon docuseries Shiny Happy People, but her writing has been on my radar for even longer. This is not her processing her childhood and marriage—she's done enough of that that the result here is a clear-eyed, clear-voiced look at not just her toxic marriage but the forces behind it.

Without my parents' help, my next option was church. First Baptist had a reputation of sending the cream of the crop to Liberty, and as a friend of Jerry Falwell, Dr. Vines was well-connected. I scheduled an appointment, confident he'd be proud of my hunger to study the Bible. [...]

I muttered about WOLBI and a partial scholarship, stammering without any of the confidence I'd tried with Dad.

"Well, young lady, we use our precious dollars to assist men called into the ministry. We don't spare that money for girls."

I threw up when I got home. Boys got what they wanted. Girls gave it up for God. (loc. 615)

It's hard for me to sum up just how terrible Leving's marriage ended up being, not least because it's hard to unpick how much of it was the abuse itself and how much of it was the religious culture around them encouraging Levings to take the abuse, take all the blame for everything, submit submit submit and maybe, just maybe, her marriage would get better. (And if it didn't, it would be her fault.)

He wanted me to call him "My lord."

Wear only dresses.

Cover my head with a scarf to show submission and modesty.

And he wanted me to stop showing anyone what I'd written or made, such as a forum post or a scrapbook, unless I'd shown it to him first. (loc. 2011)

It's a lot of story, and quite grim in places—even knowing how things turned out I found the reading stressful at times. That's a good thing, believe it or not (sign of a well-done book), but it's definitely one to pick up with intention. Very glad that Levings is now not just writing her own story but writing her own path forward.

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

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