Review: "White Eagles" by Elizabeth Wein

White Eagles by Elizabeth Wein
Published 2019 via Barrington Stoke
★★★

In White Eagles, Wein turns her love of flying and stellar research skills to 1939 Poland, where war is on the doorstep. Kristina and her twin are both pilots, but it's Kristina who ends up flying across Europe with a stowaway in tow, trying to stay one step ahead of...well, just about everyone around them.

White Eagles is a hi-lo book—complex themes but simple language, suitable for teenagers who struggle with reading but want something up to their emotional level. I've read a handful of hi-lo books but only recently realized that Wein has written a few. I'm rating this largely in comparison to her other books, but even limited to a hundred or so pages and simpler language, she tells a killer story. I love, too, that she's doing something new here: I think she could have gotten away with pulling side characters from her other books and writing short novels about them, or even streamlining and simplifying some of her earlier books, but instead White Eagles is a whole new setting and grim set of truths. I moved on from this to Firebird, and I just have to hope that Wein will eventually let fly with a longer book set in Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union. In the meantime, these have been an unexpected pleasure to find.

Sample-Chapter Showdown: National Geographic

 

Great Outdoors U.S.A. (National Geographic)
Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted by Gordon Ramsay (National Geographic)

It's time for a sample-chapter showdown!

These two books, both published by National Geographic, have two other things in common: far-flung places and beautiful photos. Each sample contains one chapter (one on Arizona, the other on Morocco)...so it's on those chapters that I'm forming my impressions.

One part armchair travel and two parts fuel for getting out of that armchair and going somewhere, Great Outdoors U.S.A. provides 1,000+ suggestions for ways and places to get outdoors.

With 14 pages of adventures for each state—Arizona, included in this sample, offers details on 10 adventures and quicker mentions of a further 10—there are enough options here to inspire years of travel throughout the US, whether you're interested in hiking or biking or rafting or birding or something else entirely. I don't have enough information to say how many of the suggestions will be friendly to those with accessibility concerns, but in general you'd be hard pressed to not find an adventure that speaks to you.

 
True to National Geographic's reputation, the photos here are gorgeous. If National Geographic magazines have served as inspiration for you before, or if you've ever (ahem) saved a folder of National Geographic pictures to use as desktop backgrounds, you're likely to enjoy paging through this for the photos alone.

Travel meets food (meets celebrity chef): Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted takes the reader to 21 different locations for some vicarious travel and some less-vicarious meals. This sample chapter drops you in "the Mountains of Morocco" for a few pages of history and travelogue before finishing with three recipes—in this case, a beef dish, a carrot dish, and a sort of mushroom pizza.

This is not a part of Morocco that comes quickly to mind—I've never been to North Africa, and I automatically think desert, not mountains, so it's always nice to be reminded of the complexities of far-off places. (For some reason I'm also fascinated by a description Ramsey gives of camel meat—I'm vegetarian, so it's not information applicable to my own life, but it sort of makes me hope that someone somewhere has written, or will write, a book of recipes from scattered places using ingredients that you *can't* source easily in the West. Spiced carrots are grand, and that one's a recipe I can even make(!), but it doesn't pique my imagination like camel meat does.)

Other places the book draws from include Tasmania, Norway, and Croatia, and the Michigan UP. Although I'm not a foodie, I'd be very curious to see a recipe list—I have so little context for what foods might come out of those places. This will definitely be an interesting set of recipes for anyone who likes to dig into new foods when they travel.

The verdict: If I'd made a guess before reading, I would have said that I was more likely to skim the entirety of Great Outdoors U.S.A., because if I could spend all my time having outdoors adventures (or—all my non-reading time—with maybe some overlap), I would, but...Uncharted feels more useful to my day-to-day life, and I'm curious enough about what recipes come out of Croatia and the UP that I might have to dig deeper when the full book is published.

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

Review: "Foster" by Claire Keegan

 

Foster by Claire Keegan
First published 2010
★★★★

Eastern Ireland: A girl is taken by her father to spend some time in another household. Her parents don't explain this, but they don't have to: there's another baby on the way, and there simply isn't enough money to look after all the children currently in the house. One fewer mouth to feed, if only for a while, will make a difference.

This slim little novella takes place in 1981—clear only through context clues—but serves as a reminder of just how far things have come in forty years. Our narrator's chief concerns about the situation when she is fostered out are whether there will be a bathroom or an outhouse and how much work she will be expected to do. She is well prepared and willing to work (and well prepared to use an outhouse), but today...the questions would be different. And: she wishes her father would stay long enough to say a proper goodbye, part of her wishes he wouldn't leave her at all, and part of her is curious about this new and easier life. The water is cool and clean as anything I have ever tasted: it tastes of my father leaving, of him never having been there, of having nothing after he was gone. (12)

Our narrator is young—how young is not said, but I'd guess early elementary school—and this is an easier life, a far more comfortable life, than she has known before. But the idyll cannot last, and as the novella progresses it becomes clear that there are things that she doesn't know about "the woman" and Kinsella, or why they have so readily taken her in. And: the adults know it too, that this idyll is not forever.

And so the days pass. I keep waiting for something to happen, for the ease I feel to end—to wake in a wet bed, to make some blunder, some big gaffe, to break something—but each day follows much like the one before. (19)

I'm reminded of Awake and Dreaming—a novel for younger readers than Foster, yes, but with a similar sense of conflicted narrators who know enough to see what they're missing and also to know that some situations are too good to be true, and eventually one must wake up.

Review: "Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute" by Talia Hibbert

 

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert
Published January 2023 via Joy Revolution
★★★★

Best friends turned enemies find themselves in the same prestigious program...and enemies become lovers.

Now, I read this because I will scramble to read camping-in-the-woods books—I want more of them! In particular, more relatively light fiction involving hiking and camping and blisters and the smell of pine trees and so on and so forth. But the characters here utterly charmed me, far more than the camping-in-the-woods part. They're messy and complicated and sometimes stuck in their heads, but in a very real way. Bradley's OCD is also nice to see—it's something that informs who he is and what he does but isn't the beginning or the end of the story; how Celine rolls with it also speaks to their long friendship.

The program I'm a bit less sure about. It's presented as a super competitive, super prestigious program for the best of the best, with a crazy high dropout rate...but as far as I can tell, all they really have to do is work together to wander around in the woods. And while both cooperation and outdoor skills can be a challenge, I'm not entirely sure what makes the program (not the perks of the program, but the program itself) such a big deal...or why all the leaders seem to have so much disdain for the teenagers. The whole thing is a cool opportunity, but what do they really learn from it? And where are the teens who are genuinely happy to be out in the wilderness? (And should I even be calling it wilderness, if it's the UK?)

It's a testament to the writing of the characters that I was basically unbothered by my questions about the woods until the very end. I think it might be time to go locate some more books by this author.

Review: "Stateless" by Elizabeth Wein

 

Stateless by Elizabeth Wein
Published March 2023 via Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
★★★★

Good grief but Wein writes a gripping book. Stateless is set in Europe, on the eve of World War II; war is not—quite—yet a whisper of word in Stella's consciousness. Raised in the shadow of loss, what she really loves is flying, and now she has the chance of a lifetime: a friendly competition, in the name of promoting peace, between a dozen young pilots. They'll race in stages across Europe, culminating in a life-changing prize for one of them and good press for all the countries involved.

That's all good and well...until Stella witnesses one pilot force another out of the sky, and suddenly a friendly race becomes something else entirely.

This is the first of Wein's books that I've read that focuses more on mystery than on war—war is a huge factor in this one (see: eve of WWII; also the Spanish Civil War as a significant factor in some characters' stories), but it's not the primary story. Stella has a limited number of suspects, which rapidly narrows (the villain becomes clear midway through the book, and the focus shifts from whodunnit to survival and outwitting), and, as with so many of Wein's books, there's a wonderful emphasis on friendship and working together.

I'm fascinated by the inclusion of Nansen passports, which I'd never heard of before. They sent me on a bit of a Wikipedia rabbit hole—they're a former solution to a problem that still exists today. I won't go into too much detail for what they mean for this particular bit (although I will say that passports, in general, matter in Stateless), but I love getting those little details—learning something else about a particular point in history.

Time to do a reread of some of Wein's books, I think—I can very nearly quote from Code Name Verity and The Pearl Thief, but it's been long enough since I read Black Dove, White Raven that it'll practically be a brand-new Wein book full of surprises.

Review: "The Box Must Be Empty" by Marilyn Kriete

 

The Box Must Be Empty by Marilyn Kriete
Published April 2023 via Lucid House
★★★★

3.5 stars. Kriete's life was full and fulfilling: she and her husband were respected leaders in their church, the ICOC, and had spent decades living in one far-flung city after another, planting churches and building them up, then moving to another place and doing it all again. But a seemingly innocuous trigger shook loose Kriete's long-buried grief over losing her first fiancé to cancer, and in turn that grief set in motion changes in her marriage and relationship with her church.

The Box Must Be Empty is Kriete's second memoir, written long after the events described within—long enough that it's clear that she's had the time and willingness to do all the hard work of taking apart and putting back together again all the pieces of what happened. And that's fortunate, because it's a complicated, messy story: delayed/complicated grief, childhood trauma, a church community that at times was Kriete's lifeblood and at times toxic—not, generally, intentionally, but because (as I read it) the church leadership was unwilling to see the trees for the forest. (Or maybe, if I extend that metaphor: they were only willing to provide care for one particular type of tree, and anything that did not comply and grow the right kind of leaves and respond to the type of fertilizer the church spread was wrong and needed to shape up.) There's also what sounds like some truly appalling therapy, and, late in the book, Kriete ruminates on the possibility of the ICOC falling on the "cult" end of the religious spectrum.

And yes: at times it felt like too much. But the further I got into the book, the more I saw how all the threads pulled together—the way in which church was home and heart but also the source of significant stress (brought home when, for example, Kriete mentions her daughter starting in her eighth school...as of second grade); the way in which each move brought joy but also new grief. As far as writing a grief memoir goes, I don't think it would have been possible for this book to take religion out of the equation. The limited reading I did on the ICOC while (and after) reading this book makes me think that, however good the intentions of some, there is still more trauma that will come to light (and also that, even without "possible cult" status, their stances are far, far too conservative and narrow for me and their church services might make me break out in hives, but...that's neither here nor there, I guess).

So it's a lot. At times I wished I'd read Kriete's first book, Paradise Road, before picking this up—for a fuller picture, mostly—though it's not strictly necessary, and I'm glad she split the story across multiple books. I'm reminded a little of Evelyn Kohl LaTorre's books (her second one in particular), and this will resonate best with readers who don't mind a complicated memoir spread out over the course of several years; there is nothing in here that could be wrapped up easily.

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

Review: "The Secret Sister" by Liz Trenow

 

The Secret Sister by Liz Trenow
Published April 2023 via Bookouture
★★★

With the war still raging, everyone must do their part—but for Lizzie, that's more complicated than for most. Her twin brother Edward, traumatized from his experiences with the "Dunkirk little ships" when he was little more than a child, flees, and there's a small window in which Lizzie can make a choice. Ed's posting is not to the military but to the mines: if she takes his place, can she save him from the consequences?

I picked this up because I've never heard of the "Bevin Boys," young men who were conscripted not to do battle but to work in the mines. It's a fascinating history, though: the British government, realizing that they'd conscripted too many miners and were running low on the coal needed to power ships, trains, and electrical supplies, put out a call for volunteers. The response fell far short of what was needed, though, and so the government started taking a full tenth(!) of new conscripts and sending them to the mines.

So it's that position that Lizzie finds herself in: deep in a mine rather than, say, on the battlefields of France. As a Bevin Boy, she's treated with suspicion and derision—anyone without a uniform is suspected of being a deserter or a "conchie," a conscientious objector. For Lizzie, of course, it's a bit more complicated than usual (imagine trying to wash the filth of the mines off while preserving your secret identity when the showers are communal!), but there are some things in here that I never would have thought about: that it took decades for the government to acknowledge the efforts put in by the Bevin Boys; that their required service lasted years longer than the war; that the horses used in older mines were kept underground for almost all of their working lives, allowed up to the surface for "holidays" only rarely (in this book, once a year). It's never an easy job, but it's worth it to Lizzie to know that she's doing her part in more ways than one.

Three things I would have liked to see: First, I'd have loved to see more from the supporting characters in this book. Lizzie makes two friends, and we hear a bit about them, but we get virtually nothing about the other Bevin Boy trainees, and nothing about the long-term miners Lizzie ends up working with. How many of her trainee cohort are glad to be in the mines rather than in battle, and how many of them would have preferred the armed forces, and where do they come from, and how is their experience in the mines? And what are the stories of the long-term miners? Are they following family tradition, do they resent the Bevin Boys for their equal pay and educational opportunities, what are their different styles of work? We don't really know, but I'd have gladly read an extra fifty pages if it meant those experiences were worked in. Second, I'd love to know if there would have been consequences for Lizzie, as by that point in the war women were receiving call-up notices as well (for different roles than men got, generally), and, well. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that it's not possible for Lizzie to be in two places at once. And third...again, trying to avoid spoilers, but in the epilogue Lizzie thinks something to the effect that the men who served longer than she did had a much greater right to be acknowledged than she did. But that saddens me, because (aside from the fact that Lizzie puts herself in a dangerous position voluntarily, to help both country and family, and experiences trauma as a result!) it wasn't just the Bevin Boys whose contributions went unrecognized—many women who did critical and perilously dangerous work as spies, for example, remained unrecognized for their work because...they were women, I guess, and if it was women's work then it couldn't possibly have been important.

For all that, I'm grateful to learn a bit about a part of history I didn't know about—and The Secret Sister made for an easy springboard into that.

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

Review: "This Time It's Real" by Ann Liang

 

This Time It's Real by Ann Liang
Published February 2023 via Scholastic
★★★

If I'm remembering correctly, both of Liang's books to date can be summed up thusly:

• Girl feels lonely and isolated.
• Girl enlists the hottest and most eligible boy in school to help her with shenanigans that will benefit her a lot and him a little.
• Girl proceeds to spend the rest of the boy treating boy like a total inconvenience.
• Boy is instantly smitten because she's Not Like Other Girls and doesn't swoon and giggle every time he's in the vicinity.
• Minor complications with the shenanigans ensue.
• Girl admits that she does want Boy after all.
• Anything unethical Girl might have done is swept under the rug, and Girl and Boy have a happily-ever-after.

Let's be clear: this is not unlike a lot of YA fiction. It will work for a lot of readers. Books that could be two hundred pages shorter if the characters just had an honest conversation, though, have never been a good fit for me. I read this for the Beijing setting (I want more YA in non-Western settings! Or even just YA set in countries where English is not the default!), but there wasn't really enough by way of setting detail to keep me engaged or distracted from the stomp-and-glare-style romance.

A note on the Craneswift internship: It sounds wildly exploitative and unethical. The messaging Eliza gets from them is "If you don't bare your soul on our website every week, and also do any press we want about your relationship, you're worthless to us. What, you want to write about something else? Sure, you can try—but your first draft better be perfect. We don't work with our interns or have teachable moments. We just threaten to throw you out like the scum you are."

2.5 stars.

Review: "The Absent Moon" by Luiz Schwarcz

 

The Absent Moon by Luiz Schwarcz
English translation published February 2023 via Penguin
★★★

A treatise on depression, told within the twin contexts of Schwarcz's family history and his previous writings.

I read this largely for the family history. Schwarcz's father, André, escaped imprisonment in Bergen-Belsen because his own father, Láios, pushed him to escape—but that escape was the last time he saw Láios, who ultimately did not survive the Holocaust. That experience shaped André's life, and in turn Schwarcz's.

The second context for this memoir is those earlier works—as Schwarcz takes the reader though his story, he often pauses to explain what story or book (published or unpublished) he wrote at a particular point in time, and where in his family story the inspiration came from. Without having read any of those earlier works, the impression I get is one of someone haunted by family history and trying to make sense of it, but I think it might have been beneficial to read some of his fiction before reading The Absent Moon.

I'm reminded somewhat of One Friday in April, and also of An Exclusive Love, albeit for different reasons. Better for fans of the former, I think. I'm glad to have gotten my hands on this but not sorry that it's a relatively short book.

Review: "Green for Danger" by Christianna Brand

Green for Danger by Christianna Brand
First published 1944
★★★★

A man dies on the operating table. At first it seems like a simple matter of chance, but as Inspector Cockrill digs in—and as someone else is found dead in rather more violent fashion—it becomes clear that a murderer is on the loose, and the pool of suspects is very small indeed.

First published in 1944, this is being brought back to life in a new edition, and it is a delight. I'd never heard of Brand before picking this up, but if Green for Danger is anything to go by, she was a force to be reckoned with. This is on the relatively lighter side of things—bodies do start piling up, yes, but the characters/suspects don't ever devolve into paranoia and anger, and there's a great deal of wit and humor to go around. I'm not all that interested in the inspector (he does tend to think himself quite superior), but the story focuses so closely on the rest of the cast that it actually took me a while to realize that this is one in a series featuring Cockrill.

It's helpful to go in aware that this was written some eighty years ago and is feeling its age—the publisher has included a note about problematic language and so on, but generally speaking there's also just a whole lot here that wouldn't pass muster if first published in 2023. But if you know that going in, and especially if (*cough*) you're already fond of the occasional piece of 40s or 50s genre fiction, it's a quick, atmospheric read that will keep you guessing about the details until the very end. I may need to see what other of Brand's books can be hunted down.

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