Review: "Patricia Gets Ready (for a Date with the Man That Used to Hit Her)" by Martha Watson Allpress

Patricia Gets Ready (for a Date with the Man That Used to Hit Her) by Martha Watson Allpress
Published May 2022 via Nick Hern Books
★★★★

What the title says: Patricia used to be in a relationship with a man who hit her. She managed to cut ties and get back on her feet...but now he's in town again, and he wants to get dinner, and when all is said and done she still doesn't know how to say no to him.

This is a one-woman play, which I (as a non-actor) imagine makes for a more difficult performing experience (nobody to play off of, nobody to save you if you fumble for a line) but which in this case makes a lot of sense. As the audience, we don't have to worry about Patricia's ex showing up and us seeing violence—but we can understand from Patricia's retellings and the occasional conversation she has with somebody who isn't (to us) there just how bad things were for her, and just how much it has impacted her personally.

I might or might not want to see this performed (it seems, frankly, kind of stressful), but I bet it's powerful, and I bet it resonates with far too many audience members.

Review: "Accidental Shepherd" by Liese Greensfelder

Accidental Shepherd by Liese Greensfelder
Published February 2025 via University of Minnesota Press
★★★★

Not so long ago, I would have had a good laugh on learning that people of a mountainous country five thousand miles from my home had invented a word for "stuck on a mountain ledge." If I'd been told that I would soon be scrabbling up a boulder-strewn peak in that very country to rescue animals in just such a predicament, I'd have shaken my head in disbelief, for I knew almost nothing about Norway and I'd never touched a sheep in my life. (loc. 60*)

In 1972, without experience determined to make a living out of working with small farms in developing countries, Greensfelder arrived in Norway to spend a few months gaining that initial experience. She expected to do a fair amount of scutwork, but the farm was small (run by a single farmer), so she figured she'd get to do a wider variety of tasks than if she worked on a large, commercial property.

She wasn't wrong: The day she arrived, she learned that the farmer had suffered a serious stroke and would be in hospital for at least a month. There were animals to care for and weeding to be done—and nobody else to take responsibility. Could she run the farm until his health improved?

Greensfelder didn't have a farming background. She didn't speak Norwegian—let alone the rural dialect spoken in Øystese. But she did speak Danish, thanks to a high-school year spent abroad, and neither she nor the neighbors wanted to see the farm fail. And so she agreed to stay on for a month, which became three months, which became a year, and learn on the fly, under the patient tutelage of the local community.

Deeper down, I realized that at Hovland I was a blank slate, judged by the work I was doing and my interactions with neighbors over these past few weeks. No one could fault me for whatever errors I'd committed in the past. Instead, my neighbors were supporting, helping, and instructing me, because no one wanted Johannes's farm—or the new girl who was running it—to fail. (loc. 998)

I tempered my expectations for Accidental Shepherd, simply because it can be hard to write about an experience that happened decades ago—too often writers end up with a list of things that happened rather than a fleshed-out set of scenes and themes. But this was an unexpected gem: Greensfelder remembers her experience vividly, and it ends up being so complete a story. Maybe if she'd known when she arrived what she was in for, she would have turned and run (but then—maybe not), but my gosh, how much she was able to learn and accomplish in a year.

The heroes of the story are the neighbors, who wanted to see Greensfelder succeed: in the early days, they came by daily to set Greensfelder up for the day's work and to help her complete the tasks she could not yet do on her own; as time went on and Greensfelder both held her own and became better able to communicate in their Norwegian dialect, they folded her into their community. While I imagine that some of the rough edges of the story have been smoothed by time, her appreciation and the mutual respect she developed with the locals sings through loud and clear.

I'll be looking for copies for my mother and my aunt when this is published. Recommended for memoir lovers and people curious about odd adventures and people who dream of running away to Norway and people who like armchair-farming.

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

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

Review: "What a Young Wife Ought to Know" by Hannah Moscovitch

What a Young Wife Ought to Know by Hannah Moscovitch
Published September 2019 via Playwrights Canada Press
★★★★

Ottawa in the 1920s: Sophie is happy enough with her lot as wife and mother, even if money is tight and parenting is tiring. But the doctor has told her that it's not safe for her to have more children—and with Sophie's sister dead young, Sophie is inclined to take such warnings seriously. But there's no legal, or socially acceptable, solution for this other than to not go to bed with her husband in the first place.

It's a depressing piece but frankly really timely. Jonny loves Sophie and wants her to be safe and healthy—but he also wants a big family, and he also wants sex, and he also wants basic human touch. As does Sophie (well, maybe not the big family, not on a laborer's wages). And there's just never going to be a good answer.

This is probably a super interesting play to stage—you could do it with a very minimal set, but it could also be fully immersive. No real surprises (in fact, there's one thing that Sophie intentionally makes clear to the audience early on that could have been used as a shock piece but wasn't, which I appreciate), just a direct story about the consequences of limited health care—and, specifically, reproductive care—availability.

Review: "Born Naughty" by Jin Wang

Born Naughty by Jin Wang with Tony Johnston, illustrated by Anisi Baigude
Published May 2024 via Anne Schwartz Books
★★★

I'm forever curious about places I haven't been, so I was eager to pick up this memoir of growing up in inner Mongolia (an autonomous region of China).

With the title being what it is, I admit that I was sort of hoping for a modern-day My Naughty Little Sister—a little scamp constantly in low-key trouble. That isn't the case here; Wang describes occasional disobedience, sure, but really just normal curious-kid things. What's more striking to me is how much I am reminded of the Little House books, both in style of telling and in some of the challenges Wang and her family faced in their tiny, remote village. Getting water was a constant chore; the popcorn man or the photographer coming to the village was a great source of excitement; clothing was precious and difficult to replace. More than a century and half a world apart, and yet.

Born Naughty is marketed for "young middle grade readers", and I'd suggest heeding that "young" designation; Wang is about 8 throughout the book, and I'd guess the reading level to be closer to elementary school than middle school. Would be great to see this expanded into a series, as I expect she has quite a lot more stories saved up, and they probably got even more complicated when she and her family eventually left their village.

Review: "London Call-Out" by Alex Rudd

London Call-Out by Alex Rudd
Published February 2020 via Lume Books
★★

Perfectly serviceable—if a bit short—three-star set of stories about working as an out-of-hours GP. Knocked it down a star for the xenophobic soliloquies about how foreign doctors don't speak good enough English and thus shouldn't be allowed to work in the UK.

As with any genre or subgenre, I find British medical memoirs to be hit or miss, but this particular subgenre seems to carry an unusually high proportion of low- or high-key xenophobes. Perhaps it's not surprising, because some of the authors Rudd cites as inspirations for his own work are among the more problematic of the doctor-writers I've read, but disappointing at best.

Review: "It's a Love/Skate Relationship" by Carli J. Corson

It's a Love/Skate Relationship by Carli J. Corson
Published January 2025 via HarperTeen
★★★★

The dream: to dominate on the ice. And as a rising ice hockey star, Charlie has every reason to think that she'll be able to do just that. The wrench: an accidental off-ice brawl scuppers her plans for the season, her chance to be seen by scouts, and her practice time. The solution: stay on the ice by standing in as an elite pairs skater's partner for a few months. And the second wrench: they can't stand each other.

I have a thing for ice skating books (also gymnastics—see Sports for Which I Do Not Have the Coordination, and also Sports for Which I Do Not Have the Pain Tolerance), which made this feel like an obvious pick. Charlie's first love is hockey, but she's willing and able to transfer some of that passion to pairs skating, because at the end of the day she loves being on the ice.

The characters are a lot of fun here. Charlie's a teenager, and she acts like it; she has her moments of maturity, but also her moments of, you know, sticking her tongue out and gloating, or making rash choices. It's on the tip of my tongue to explain to Dad what I learned in bio the other day—how my brain's frontal lobe isn't fully developed, which is why teenagers make risky decisions. But he won't really accept that as reasoning, so I hang my head instead. (loc. 2772*) There's an element of The Outsiders at times (though Charlie would belong to the Socs, not the Greasers), and of Ice Angel (sort of), but there's also a lot of playfulness.

What I'm less certain about is the realism factor. When Charlie picks up pairs skating, it's without any experience in figure skating, but she leaps in at a very high level and exceeds expectations almost immediately. She works hard, but I have to conclude that she has some sort of preternatural ability if she's able to jump in like this. I enjoyed the book enough that I was generally rooting for Charlie to do unnaturally well anyway, but I think I would have found it more realistic if she had had some level of background in figure skating (say, as a kid before her parents/father wised up and put her in hockey instead?) and/or if she'd been called on to train for regionals rather than sectionals (to say nothing of later competitions in the book).

3.5 stars; lots of fun; don't assume from this that you'll soon be seeing your favorite ice hockey stars on the Olympic ice without their teams and their pucks and their padding.

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

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

Review: Short story: "The Conjurer's Wife" by Sarah Penner

The Conjurer's Wife by Sarah Penner
Published January 2025 via Amazon Original Stories

Olivia knows her role—she is to back up her husband, a conjuror garnering fame and accolades, serving as his assistant onstage and perhaps offstage. Nobody has ever asked if she tires of this role...but, well, she does. And when she pushes the boundaries, she discovers a secret that could upend everything...

This was a fun, quick read. I don't read all that much historical fiction, but I loved the surprises here; maybe in a longer work I would have guessed some of the secrets underpinning the plot, but in so short a story things moved too quickly for that. I haven't read any of Penner's books, but looking at them now I wonder whether this is connected to The Amalfi Curse, which—if this is anything to go on—I would probably enjoy, because this short story would be a banger of a novel.

"The Conjurer's Wife" leaves Olivia at something of a crossroads, and while she manages tremendous growth in a short stretch of time, I'm definitely curious about what could have come out of a longer work.

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

Review: "No Scrap Left Behind" by Teralyn Pilgrim

No Scrap Left Behind by Teralyn Pilgrim
Published September 2024 via Health Communications Inc
★

The premise: distraught by the thought of starving children in Africa, Pilgrim decided to do something about it: she'd go zero (food) waste for a year as part of a commitment to learning about food waste and insecurity.

I suspected going in that this wouldn't be one of my top books of 2024. It's basically stunt journalism, and stunt journalism is hard to do well; still, it's something I enjoy reading (even if the project isn't practical, there can be some interesting takeaways), so, you know. Why not. There are in fact some interesting things to learn here, and this might be a better fit for you than it was for me—but my gosh was it not a fit for me. I'll limit this to three things: structure, starving children in Africa, and worldview bubble. Oh, and a side of slut-shaming, but we'll come back to that later.

Structure:
While I was reading, I highlighted this line, 27% of the way into the book: We're done with the rules and statistics. It's time to change your life. (76) Oh good, I thought: The soapbox is over, and we can get on to the story. But...honestly, the book stays at least 75% soapbox throughout. Having soapboxes is fine and all, of course, but I'd much rather read a book that is at least 75% story. And that's not this one.

It also surprised me a bit how limited the discussion of "waste" was—Pilgrim was on a quest to eliminate food waste in her household, sure, not to eliminate all waste. But when she says that Now when I buy a large packet of chicken breasts, I wrap each breast in plastic wrap before putting them in a bag in the freezer so I can easily use one at a time (134), or when she endorses shipping certain types of food waste to a company to turn into chicken feed (237), I start to wonder whether this sort of activism creates more waste than it prevents. Maybe it's just the memory of reading Year of No Garbage, but I have to wonder which ends up being worse for the earth and for the people living on said earth: tossing some food scraps, wrapping individual pieces of food in single-use plastic that cannot be recycled, or the carbon emissions associated with shipping food scraps across the country? I don't have an answer for that, and certainly I don't expect Pilgrim to have gone zero food waste and zero plastic and to have a personal net-zero carbon footprint and whatever dozens of things I'm not thinking of...but it would have been worth some discussion about how much more complicated it is than "no more food waste".

Starving children in Africa:
Let me start this off with a few quotes.

Not too long ago, I didn't think twice about throwing away food. I didn't think twice about throwing away food. Granted, I would frown on people who tossed food that was perfectly good. There are starving children in Africa, after all. (5)

I read once that most American families throw away enough food to feed an additional family member. This altered my attitude about food. Whenever I dumped out container after container of leftovers, I imagined the ghost of a fifth member of our family. He was a hungry African child like you see in the news, and he would be watching me. Frowning at me. (6)

I'm citing a lot of American stats just because I am an American, so that makes it easy for me. That doesn't mean my country is the only one at fault. Italy's food waste can feed all the starving population in Ethiopia. France's food waste can feed the entire population of the Congo. (14)

My parents taught me that picky eating is a sign of weakness. If I ever were to date a guy and found out he was a picky eater, that would have been a deal-breaker. No joke. Also, I'm constantly preoccupied with world hunger, so reminding my family there are starving children in Africa is a frequent occurrence. (118)

This obsession with starving children in Africa feels...incredible white-gazey, I guess. Yes: there are starving children in Africa. And in Europe. And in North America...but considering that Pilgrim acknowledges more than once (with quite a naïve sense of surprise, but we'll come back to that too) that there are is also hunger in the US, and that Saving my own food is not going to help a single hungry child. Not in the Middle East, not in Africa, and not here in the States (146), it's odd to have this hyperfocus on this abstraction of a starving African child. Like—why imagine that the extra person in your household is a "hungry African child like you see in the news" (6)? Why not imagine an LDS kid (another thing to come back to!) from your own community? I'd say it reeks of white saviourism, except for the part where there's no effort to make a difference in the parts of the world she's busy guilt-tripping herself and her children and the reader over.

This overlaps a lot with the worldview bubble of the book:
I knew there were a lot of hungry people in America, but one in eight? It was difficult to wrap my head around this. Once I heard how bad hunger was in America, I looked at people suspiciously, wondering which of the eight customers I met at the grocery store was going hungry and how many of my friends were keeping secrets about their finances. Then I realized (duh), I didn't go to neighborhoods where impoverished people live. I had a middle-class life with my middle-class family and all my middle-class friends, completely isolated from food-insecure families. It's easy to think everyone lives the way we do, isn't it? (20)

That quote is (according to my Kindle, which to be fair is not known for its accuracy) from page 20 of the book, and that's probably when I should have stopped reading—it's definitely where I started getting a sinking feeling about what my eventual rating of the book might be. Obviously growing up in a middle-class bubble is not something one should be faulted for, but it sounds like there are still quite a few layers obscuring her view out of that bubble. (Writes Pilgrim: I grew up hearing the line, "Being middle class is harder than being poor because lower-income families have everything provided for them." Hungry Americans flew in the face of everything I had been taught. (222)—and again, it's not her fault that she was fed that horseshit! I'm glad she's learned some things! But oof. It's right up there with her classification of the entirety of China as a land of sweatshops and worker abuse (220).) I mean...I know more than a few people who would not be mistaken for anything other than middle-class and who have also faced food insecurity. Some of Pilgrim's middle-class compatriots have probably wondered at times how they would put food on the table, and her initial questioning of whether she might know people who were currently struggling was probably closer to the truth than "Then I realized (duh), I didn't go to neighborhoods where impoverished people live."

For most of my life, I wondered why hungry people didn't just buy groceries with a credit card. The obvious answer is that if a person can't afford groceries one month, it's unlikely that they'll be able to afford both groceries and a credit card payment the next. Never in my wildest dreams did it occur to me that not everyone can have a credit card. (233)

What's so odd to me about the worldview bubble Pilgrim displays throughout the book is that, some years before taking on this food-waste project, she was tapped to lead the food pantry at her church, which suggests that she had a significant chance to learn something about food insecurity in her community:

Our welfare system is different from other church programs. Unlike the food pantry close to my house, the LDS Church is more interested in long-term fixes. The bishop assesses the member's needs and helps him or her get as much assistance from the government as possible. If more help is needed, the Relief Society president steps in. She visits the home, assesses the need, helps the member plan a menu for the next two weeks, and places a food order. (225)

Now, as far as I can tell, what she's saying here is "Our church isn't like other churches! Their food pantries are short-term fixes! We have long-term fixes—oh, and also a food pantry because sometimes immediate help is needed after all but we're different, okay??" Pilgrim is LDS, and while that's her business, I don't love the way her religion is talked about in the book; I'd have been fine with it if she'd said up front "oh hey, I'm LDS", but instead it felt like she was trying to sneak it in. Here's the first mention:

I was at a loss of what to do with the pizza until I decided to give it to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missionaries. The LDS missionaries are hardworking twenty-year-olds with a small food budget, and they appreciate everything I give them. (106)

I don't know. It just rang weird to me, I guess? I think even if this had been phrased as "I decided to give it to the missionaries at my church", it wouldn't have felt so off, but because it's another hundred pages or so before Pilgrim acknowledges that she is LDS, it felt as though I was being sneak-preached to without my consent.

But back to Pilgrim's assignment at the not-a-food-pantry:

I had a little trick for figuring out who needed help and who didn't. Our church offers employment assistance, free self-reliance classes, and discounted education. If I referred an able-bodied member to the employment office and found out they didn't go, they likely weren't going to get assistance from me. (232)

...so if you have an invisible disability or don't have reliable childcare or don't have reliable transportation or anything along those lines, too bad if you're hungry, I guess; the middle-class woman who "(duh)[...] didn't go to neighborhoods where impoverished people live" has decided that you aren't worthy of help.

A side of slut-shaming:
Even with all of the above, this might've squeaked out a second star from me, but then the author went off to Ireland to criticize some poor woman who was just trying to put food on the table, literally and figuratively.

One night, we went to an Irish pub for dinner. Our waitress was ditzy, busty, and believed shirt buttons were optional. [...] Judging from the way she was spilling out of her bra, I'm guessing they did not hire her for her waitressing skills. (201)

I give up. I mean, I finished the book, but it really, really was not the book for me, and nor was I its audience. Do not recommend.

Review: "The Broposal" by Sonora Reyes

The Broposal by Sonora Reyes
Published January 2025 via Forever
★★★

Kenny and Han have been besties forever—they grew up together, and they live together, and they're happy with the status quo. (Well. Mostly. Han doesn't get on very well with Kenny's girlfriend.) The one big difference in their circumstances: Kenny is a US citizen, and Han, though the US is the only home he knows, is undocumented. And when Kenny's relationship goes down the tubes, he figures the best best-friend thing he can do is to propose to Han instead—a few years of fake romance and Han will finally have the paperwork he needs to stay in the US legally. But of course, things rarely go to plan...

I didn't realize going in just how strong an Evil Ex plotline there would be. Kenny comes into the book in a long-term relationship, one that the people around him don't love but that he can't see an alternative to. And...ye gods, Jackie is awful. She's physically and emotionally abusive; she's racist, homophobic, jealous, greedy; she cheats on Kenny; she actively works to isolate Kenny from his friends; she does things that I unfortunately don't have spoiler tags for here; she levels some major threats against Han and continues to use those threats to manipulate Kenny throughout the book. I think the only positive thing we ever get about her is that she works at a domestic violence shelter, but considering that she both looks down on people who don't do such important work and is abusive herself (she doesn't believe that there's such a thing as woman-on-man abuse, natch), that isn't giving us much. (Oh, and I guess the sex is good, but since Jackie and Kenny—ooh, in an alternate universe their ship name would be Jackie Kennedy—aren't end-game, we don't see anything of that.)

Evil Villains Who Are Evil are boring. They have no complexity, and they're only ever in the plot to be evil. And the thing is: Jackie didn't have to be evil. She could be a liberal, supportive ally who gets on with Kenny's friends and donates to trans rights organizations and...like...doesn't get drunk when she shouldn't...and even one of the threats she makes against Han, perhaps made in a hotheaded moment, should be enough to make Kenny rethink his relationship. I mean—credit to Kenny—it is, but that should be enough to make it clear that Jackie is Not The One. She didn't need to be all the other things as well, and honestly I think there's enough racism and underlying threats from other characters (e.g., Daniel) to provide tension and stress. Toning Jackie way down (and perhaps cutting a few of the side plots; there were a lot) would have gone a long way for me.

So I don't know. I love seeing friendship stories; I don't think these two really have any romantic or sexual chemistry, but they seem to think they do, so that's nice for them, bro. (Also, to be fair: I'm more of an f/f reader than an m/m reader; people more invested in m/m spice might think differently than I do.) More than that, Han's situation—undocumented and with very few good options—is so underrepresented. I've known a handful of people in various circumstances who have had to think about whether getting married to get a green card is a viable option, and nobody has ever wanted to do it because it's so messy. Han and Kenny are lucky in that they are already friends and committed to being there for each other regardless of the shape of their relationship; Han never needs to worry about Kenny's ulterior motives. I think I'll be an outlier here in struggling so much with the conflict (read: Jackie), so still a good quick read if you like your villains so slimy they leave tracks (I don't) and social issues in your romances (I do).

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

Review: "Good Girl" by Aria Aber

Good Girl by Aria Aber
Published January 2025 via Hogarth
★★★

For years, Nila has been telling those who ask that her family is Greek—or Italian, or French; it doesn't really matter as long as she doesn't tell the truth. Born and raised in Berlin, she's used to the daily grind of urban poverty, used to racist micro- and macroaggressions, used to seeing her uncles driving taxis throughout the city, and used to their disappointment when they see her out and about and being something other than a rule-abiding daughter.

What did I feel when i saw her in the afternoon light setting over the gray cityscape? Love, yes, love. And then, sure as a clock: I felt shame. (loc. 2902*)

By the time Good Girl opens, Nila has given up on being that good girl; she's drifting through university and working under the table to get around the income limitations imposed by her father's benefits, but mostly she's spending her time in a drug-fuelled haze in various clubs. And so she meets Marlowe, a washed-up writer whose thrall extends far beyond his talent.

I'm eternally curious about books set in contemporary Germany (it's so much easier, at least in English, to find books set during WWII), and this fits the bill handily. I don't know how much, if any, reflects Aber's own experience growing up in Germany, but this is a Berlin of artists living in Altbau buildings, and clubs where anything goes, and kebab shops and graffiti and politicians looking the other way when violence hits immigrant communities.

Nila is a tricky one. So much of the book is her seeing the thing that she should do, or at least the thing that might hurt less, and then turning the other way. So much of the book is another club and another way to get high; so much of the book is leaning into those things and people that hurt and hurt and hurt some more. There was a point, midway through, where I thought something would change and she would be able to move on, but instead it is back to drugs and clubs and bruises.

There is a substantial reader population for whom this will work very, very well—the grittiness and the grime and Nila's general lost-ness for much of the book. I found it to be relatively slow going, though, partly I think because of the intentional repetitiveness to the club scenes (the club-scene scenes, if you will). I was ready for a catalyst well before Nila was. The writing is there, though, so even if the plot wasn't entirely for me, I'd read more from Aber in the future.

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

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

Sample-chapter showdown: Young adult fantasy

Beasts of War by Ayana Gray (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers)
The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers)
Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt and Co.)

It's time for a sample-chapter showdown! These samplers are all from YA fantasy novels.

In another time and another place, things are coming to a head: in Beasts of War, Akande is resorting to desperate tactics to earn the money he needs for marriage—with devastating results, as the sort of power he has is not the sort of power he can control. Meanwhile, Koffi is learning something about her own power that she's not sure she likes...and she may have to learn to use it sooner rather than later.

These samples chapters are for the final installment in the Beasts of Prey trilogy. It's obvious that the characters—Koffi in particular—have some serious history behind them, and though at least from the initial chapters it's easy to follow the events as though this were a standalone, it's also clear that this is best served as a book read after the other two books in the trilogy. There's rich worldbuilding here, and magic and power and the sound of battle on the horizon. This has all the promise of a trilogy conclusion that won't disappoint.

A new life in New Orleans takes a sinister turn in The Beautiful. Celine has only recently landed in the city, tasked with working at a convent until she can find a husband—and determined not to let slip the secret of why she had to flee Paris. But there's a darkness in the city, and if there's anything Celine is drawn to, it's the dark...

These sample chapters flew by. There's an extent to which this feels like Another Sexy Vampire Story, but I love the details of late-1800s New Orleans and the twist of Celine landing in a convent. There's a hint that all might not be quite as it seems at the convent, which pleases me, as it means that there may be more details of partial convent life forthcoming. Celine isn't one to shrink back into the shadows—she's one to dive headfirst into those shadows, fists at the ready. A book for readers who want a far deeper, bloodier part of the night than twilight. I could probably do without the shades of romance that are visible even early on (though I'm very curious about the convent-sanctioned husband-hunting), but this feels promisingly dramatic.

As Children of Anguish and Anarchy opens, Zélie is trapped—locked in a cell in a ship's brig. She does not have access to her magic, she's been separated from her loved ones, and there is little reason to think that she can escape. But escape she must—and not only for her own well-being.

This is book three in the Orisha series, and it starts with a bang. You'll definitely be better off reading the first two books before diving into this one, as the book jumps right in without filling in the backstory, but I love that the world is based on West Africa (very underrepresented in fantasy) and clearly does some wrestling with race and class and, if I'm not reading too much into this, colonialism. Looks like a promising conclusion for readers of the series, and a promising series for those looking for a bit of action and adventure.

The verdict: I've never been a huge fantasy reader, so it's nice to be able to dip my toes in without diving in deep. The setting of Children of Anguish and Anarchy interests me most, but as a teen, I'd have been most likely to pick up The Beautiful. And perhaps my reading tastes haven't changed so much after all...

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

Review: "The Lost House" by Melissa Larsen

The Lost House by Melissa Larsen
Published January 2025 via Minotaur Books
★★★

Agnes has grown up knowing that her family is Icelandic—and knowing that her father and grandfather left after a terrible tragedy for which her grandfather was blamed. They've never been willing to talk about it, never been back. But now an investigative podcast has pulled Agnes to Iceland to learn more—the podcast, and Agnes's own, smaller-scale tragedy, which she is fighting to recover from.

In an Icelandic winter, nothing is what she knows and nothing is quite what she expects: the cold permeates everything and everywhere; some of the locals view her as a reincarnation of her murdered grandmother, while others view her as a the granddaughter of a murderer (and thus suspicious herself); her father's childhood home is in falling-down shambles; she herself can't quite decide what to believe about her grandfather...and a local girl has gone missing, and the race is on to find her.

I read this for the setting, mostly: give me murder mysteries in far-off places I'd love to visit, and give me female writers and female main characters and a combination of a cold (in every sense of the word) case and a current case, and yes please. (I don't want to die in the woods in sparsely populated lands. I don't want almost anyone to die in the woods in sparsely populated lands! ...but I'd like a lot of fiction about just that, thanks.) And I'm here for just how much of a role cold plays here. I don't always love Agnes: she is deeply, deeply self-centered at times, pushing her own trauma on people who have other reasons to be traumatized and are not necessarily in a place to hear and empathize with a stranger's story. I'd also have loved to see a bit more explanation of the way people treat her in Iceland—some see her as something of a reincarnation of her grandmother, while others associate her only with her grandfather, and how they view her makes a pretty wild difference in how they treat and speak to her. The coincidence of a young woman going missing around the time that Agnes arrives feels a little played up; there's really no reason for anyone to think that there's any connection to Agnes, so though of course it complicates her time there, the connections feel a bit contrived.

Still, a nice wintery read. One to read from the comfort of one's heated home in the dead of the dark and the dark of the winter night...

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

Review: "The Favorites" by Layne Fargo

The Favorites by Layne Fargo
Published January 2024 via Random House
★★★★

Everyone thinks Heath Rocha was my first love. He wasn't. My first love was figure skating. (loc. 301*)

For Katarina, ice dancing was a lifeline—it's an escape from her dilapidated family home and from her brother's abuse. It's the possibility of a dream. For Heath, Katarina was a lifeline—the only person who believes in her. But it could never be quite that simple, and for everything that went right...well, there's a reason there's a documentary being made about them. And there's a reason or two Katarina is not participating.

I tend to forget the entire description of a book between deciding to read it and actually picking it up, so in this case all I remembered was that it was about ice skating—but almost as soon as I started reading, it became obvious (I mean, the names alone, but also) that this was a Wuthering Heights retelling, so I put my reading on pause for a minute to go do a reread. The Favorites is heavily inspired by Wuthering Heights, but it's not a straight retelling; in my experience, retellings are at their best when they don't try to hew too closely to the original, and this is no exception. The themes are still there, but expect a lot fewer women dying in or around childbirth and (mercifully) a lot fewer suicide threats. Also, there are distinct shades of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan rivalry—again, this is not at all a retelling of that piece of history, but there's at least one direct reference to them, and it's hard not to see certain parallels. (Everyone loves a good underdog/golden girl story.)

When I was strong and self-assured, people recoiled from me. They told me I was too competitive, too ambitious, too much. But when I was brought low, bruised and bleeding, a princess in need of a rescue instead of a conquering queen, they loved me. (loc. 3665)

The structure is one of my favorite things about the book: script-style dialogue from the documentary, then Katarina's telling of the events as they happened—the side that the documentarians don't, can't know—and so on and so forth.

ELLIS DEAN: Oh, the rivalry was delicious. I even made T-shirts: Team Katarina or Team Bella. The Bella ones sold the most, but I think some Twilight fans might've skewed the results. (loc. 4484)

It keeps the story happening more or less chronologically, brings in a bit of time-and-place feel, gives us a small window into what happened with some of the characters...but keeps the big reveals where they belong. (And my gosh, this is not a story short on drama: certain events about halfway through could have been the climax of the entire book, and instead they're just a teaser of sorts for what comes later.) And I love that Katarina knows that love was not enough for her, and for different reasons it would never be enough for Heath:

Heath had a bottomless pit inside him too, but it had nothing to do with ambition. No matter how much love I gave him, it would never be enough. He wanted to be everything to me, the way I was everything to him.

And I would always want more. (loc. 1810)

In some ways their relationship is a pretty major departure from the inspiration; Katarina Shaw might put skating first, but she does put Heath Rocha second most of the time; Cathy Shaw, meanwhile, puts herself first and Heathcliff a distant ways down the list. Neither of these outcomes, of course, satisfies anyone involved—but my gosh it makes for something compulsively readable. The Favorites is not a short book, and nor is it a particularly fast read, but it's pretty well gripping. Recommended for readers who enjoy skating competitions as either competitors or spectators, for those who enjoy Brontë retellings (and general grimness), and of anyone who likes a bit of messy every now and then.

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

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

Review: "My Salty Mary" by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

My Salty Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows
Published August 2024 via HarperTeen
★★★★

I don't have all that much to say about this book beyond that neither the Lady Janies series nor the the Mary series has yet to disappoint me. Snarky and tongue-in-cheek and everything that a modern pirate story needs. I'll just leave you with some choice quotes:

The town wasn’t much to look at, just the several simple shacks and salt-sprayed storefronts where charlatans sold seashells by the seashore. (Your narrators offer our sincerest apologies to our audiobook narrator.) (48)

---

Mary jogged ahead to the small shack where they lived when they were ashore. “We’re here!” She unlocked the door and stepped inside, then crossed to the window and drew back the curtains. A beam of light shot through, hit their rickety old table, and the table fell over. “Home sweet home,” she said.

Tobias glanced at Mary.

She sighed and nodded. Yes, her look said, a new table. Soon. (51)

---

A ring. A beautiful golden ring with a large dark emerald in the center, framed by a group of small diamonds. He didn’t know her ring size (because ring sizes hadn’t been invented yet) but he hoped it would fit her. (63)

Review: "Anorexia Comics" by Yuko Nakamura

Anorexia Comics by Yuko Nakamura
Published 2022
★★

A quick, illustrated story about the author's experience with an eating disorder. My favorite part is when she draws herself as a curved line—sort of an elongated S—as it feels evocative without leaning towards "thinspiration". Unfortunately that's not a consistent choice, and the book is heavy on numbers and other details (and drawings) that I would not recommend for anyone struggling with an eating disorder. I'm not sure how much language is a factor in the story (the book is a translation, and I'm guessing from the author's name that it was originally written in Japanese), but it's very, very simplistic. I applaud the author for turning her story into something creative, but I wouldn't recommend this.

Review: "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
First published 1847; Amazon Classics edition published July 2017
★★★

How is this remembered as a a great romance? Or as a romance at all? How?

I read this years and years ago, I think when I was still a teenager, and didn't remember it particularly fondly (Jane Eyre endures as my favorite novel, but I should note that I love Jane Eyre for Jane and Jane alone; Rochester is and always has been trash), but I picked it up again recently because I started reading The Favorites and it became immediately clear that I'd need either a reread or a better memory to get the full context. So into Wuthering Heights I dove, and...lawdy. If this isn't a picture of generational trauma, I don't know what is. Well, generational trauma and also violence against women and also a pretty damning portrait of what women's health looks like when reproductive health care is not available.

According to the Amazon Classics version I read, "the story features beloved characters Heathcliff and Catherine, who are—next to Romeo and Juliet—perhaps the most famous doomed lovers in all of English literature" (138*). And it's not that whoever wrote this is wrong, exactly. But my god, why are these characters beloved? They're awful, the lot of them. Here's Heathcliff, threatening both murder and suicide if he doesn't get his way:

"I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I mediated this plan—just to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time!" (39)

And here's Cathy, wishing a particularly spiteful death upon her husband:

"If I were only sure it would kill him," she interrupted, "I'd kill myself directly! These three awful nights I've never closed my lids—and oh, I've been tormented! I've been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everyone hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me." (49)

Then there's Isabella (Cathy's sister-in-law, who is either tricked or forced into marriage with Heathcliff, and who is one of the few characters who is not unremittingly and constantly horrible), hinting in a letter at just what marriage to Heathcliff is like:

The second question I have great interest in; it is this—Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married: that is, when you call to see me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon. (55)

Poor Isabella—Heathcliff has no use for her beyond hurting other people, and the first thing that happens when she gets to his home is that everyone is unwelcoming and her brother-in-law of a sort (Cathy's brother, Heathcliff's foster brother) tells her to keep the door locked at night to keep him from coming in to murder her husband. (Wikipedia says that she leaves because she is "bitter over Heathcliff's devotion to a dead woman", but what the what? Isabella flees because her husband is violent, manipulative, and abusive, and because she can't imagine surviving at Wuthering Heights.)

Isabella, again describing Heathcliff:

He told me of Catherine's illness, and accused my brother of causing it promising that I should be Edgar's proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him. (59)

And this continues and continues, flowing down to the next generation, in which Cathy's daughter (also Cathy) is kidnapped and forced to marry Heathcliff's son as part of Heathcliff's continued rampage against everyone associated with Cathy. Here's Cathy 2.0's husband, proving that although he's treated as a milquetoast weakling, he's not exactly a kind milquetoast weakling:

"I can't stay with her," he answered crossly. "I'll not stay by myself. She cries to I can't bear it. And she won't give over, though I say I'll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he left the room, moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed for vexation that I couldn't sleep." (113)

And Heathcliff blaming the victim:

Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine [2.0], said, with assumed calmness—"You must learn to avoid putting me in a passion, or I shall really murder you some time!" (131)

Again, this is so clearly a portrait of generational trauma. There is nothing that would induce me to strike up an aquaintance with Heathcliff, yet it's also evident that he has been mistreated for years: dragged from everything he knows to live in remote isolation with the Earnshaws, some of whom are happy to have him there and some of whom treat him with scorn (and some of whom—ahem, Cathy—do both); relegated to the lowest of servants once his master-slash-foster-father (who apparently did not see fit to provide long-term security for him?) dies; never introduced to people who might, like...treat him like a human being and teach him through example what it means to be a decent human being. Cathy, and later Cathy 2.0, is one part spoiled and one part neglected and allowed to run wild without any suggestion that it might be healthy for her to meet people outside their isolated corner of Yorkshire; Cathy's scorn of Heathcliff, which fuels some of his rage, is learned rather than innate, and Cathy 2.0's scorn of one of her cousin Hareton (whom Heathcliff has deliberately raised to be beaten down, uneducated, and violent) is similarly built upon her upbringing.

The Amazon Classics version I read says in the About the Author section that "Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, alternately appalling and beguiling readers—some of whom even questioned the author's sanity" (138). But between this and Rochester in Jane Eyre, I'm not questioning anyone's sanity—I'm wondering just what the Brontë sisters' lives were like, that Rochester was written to be a hero and Heathcliff has some sort of redemption arc. I see that Heathcliff is thought to be based on Branwell, the lone Brontë brother, and they must also have seen so many women die in or around childbirth (just as Charlotte Brontë died of complications from pregnancy, and multiple women in Wuthering Heights die quite young). This all ends up being so terribly, terribly dark, both for reasons intended and for surrounding context.


*Page number are absurd and probably have no relation to page numbers in a physical copy, but this is what my Kindle is telling me.