Review: "Strong Female Character" by Fern Brady

Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
Published June 2023 via Harmony
★★★★

You might know Fern Brady as a comedian—I know of her from the show Taskmaster, where contestants complete ridiculous tasks and then have a good laugh about them. But Strong Female Character isn't about comedy; it's about Brady's experience growing up while viewing the world through undiagnosed autism.

It has to be said: celebrity memoirs are almost always at their best when the writer is writing about something other than their work (think Jennette McCurdy, Evanna Lynch, Allison Moorer). But it also has to be said: Brady is funny from start to finish here, despite the often wildly stressful material of the book. She pulls no punches, delivering an incisive criticism of the way society treats those who are "different", and of the limited view of autism held by many medical professionals. (Told by one doctor that she couldn't possibly be autistic because she'd had boyfriends, she notes that the diagnostic criteria for autism are based on eight-year-old boys in Vienna in the 1930s, and that it's not surprising that none of them would have had boyfriends.)

The ending is a bit condensed, I think because there's an extent to which this is all still something she's figuring out—she talks a lot about what she has learned about what autism means for her, and what things contribute to overload, and what things help her reset, but this is very much a book she wouldn't have been able to write—or articulate—even five years ago, and I expect that in a few more years she'll have more insights. That's not a bad thing in this case, and I'm just going to hang out over here hoping that Strong Female Character does well enough that somewhere down the line Brady will write another book, because whether it's a follow-up memoir or something else entirely I expect it'll be fascinating and hilarious.

I don't really listen to audiobooks, but I bet the audio version of this is fantastic. At the very least, if you've seen Brady perform, you'll be able to read this with her in your head throughout. Highly recommend.

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

Review: "The Love Report" by BeKa and Maya

 

The Love Report by BeKa and Maya
Published June 2023 via Hippo Park
★★★

The middle school years are tough, but Lola and Grace are determined to figure it out—starting with what it means to be in love and how their fellow students interpret love. (Hint: their fellow students haven't figured it out yet either.)

The illustrations here are gorgeous, reminiscent of art by Yaoyao Ma Van As. Page after page of detailed illustration in rich colors—the cover is what drew me to the book, and the illustrations throughout are consistently on point. Many of the struggles Lola and Grace face will also feel viscerally accurate to the age group in question, from first love to family problems to figuring out how to navigate friendship when suddenly other things are taking your attention.

The description indicates that this is the beginning of a series, and I'm curious about where things will go from here. Here we have the first two volumes of the story (the first, in which the girls collect their theoretical data; the second, in which things start to fall apart). I was very glad to see friendship—both old friendship and burgeoning friendship—as a strong theme, though I wish we were beyond the point of girls slut-shaming others (in this case because of looks/clothing, though I'd like to see both books and real life move beyond slut-shaming altogether). I'd also really like to see future volumes go beyond romance and get a higher grade on the Bechdel test, because the moments of friendship are the ones that kept me invested in the story.

And a possible spoiler (avert your eyes if you don't want to know!): The cover and description had me convinced that we were in for a romance between our two heroines—but alas, it was not to be. Attention is paid to inclusion (main and background characters of various races, a girl in the background in a hijab, Lola and Grace mentioning, in passing and entirely neutrally, the possibility of other characters being in same-sex relationships), but these volumes at least remain focused on boys liking girls and girls liking boys.

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

Review: "Turning Japanese" by MariNaomi

Turning Japanese (Extended Edition) by MariNaomi
Published June 2023 via Oni
★★★★

It's the 90s, and Mari is up for an adventure—and a challenge. Determination to learn enough Japanese to be able to communicate directly with extended family is the natural impetus for those adventures: a job as a hostess in a Japanese bar and, eventually, an extended trip to Japan to explore and learn and catch up with family.

The art here is black and white, very clean and often spare; it took me a moment to get into it after the explosion of color of the photographs at the beginning of the book. It's the storytelling that sells me, though—the storytelling and the little quips of humor. ("I didn't MEAN to step on its head!" protests child-Mari as the baby sister wails in the background (93).) According to the author's note at the end, this started as a story about an unusual job, and there is indeed plenty about the experience of working as a hostess. I love how matter-of-factly it's approached, neither exoticised nor demonised, just exploring what it was like (good and bad) to work that job for a time, and the other hostesses and customers.

But while the book is more interesting for the hostess job, it's also more interesting for the fact that the hostess job is not what holds it together—what holds the book together is rather this question of language acquisition and, to a lesser extent, identity. Throughout the book, Mari's mother periodically tries and fails to answer the question of why she didn't teach her children Japanese. She never has a satisfactory response, for the reader or for Mari, but gradually some of the complexities of living a multilingual life—and of some surprisingly rebellious choices—start to sink in for Mari. The version I read is an extended edition, with epilogues touching on later years, and although short they're very valuable for a sense of closure.

3.5 stars—3 for the art (well done but not my preferred style) and 4 for the story.

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

Review: "The Twenty" by Marianne Bohr

 

The Twenty by Marianne Bohr
Published June 2023 via She Writes Press
★★★

Across Corsica with a backpack! I'll be honest: I had not heard of the GR20 before picking up this book—I had barely heard of Corsica. But I love a hiking memoir, and I've been meaning to read Bohr's first book for ages, so...off to Corsica.

The Twenty takes Bohr and her husband from their home in the US, on the verge of retirement, across the ocean to the rocky, sunny, sometimes tempestuous landscapes of the GR20. Billed as one of Europe's toughest hiking trails, it's not for the faint of heart. Chains and scrambles and scree; scraped skin and bruises—it sounds like some of the difficulty comes down to your age and starting shape, although deaths are not unheard of, as a number of places present risks for nasty falls, and the weather can be fickle. Bohr and her husband went with a guided group, tucking recent health concerns in their back pockets and hoping that their previous hiking experience and determination would do the job.

Bohr weaves in snippets from her childhood—the oldest of eleven in a determinedly Catholic household, she describes being expected to be a smiling second mother of sorts...with high academic (and domestic) expectations but low athletic expectations. It sounds like those expectations dogged her somewhat for much of the trail: how long does it take to unlearn the lesson that you're one thing and cannot be another?

I'm reminded a little bit, in Bohr's descriptions of her group and the way she and her husband interacted with them, of Gail Storey's I Promise Not to Suffer. I've never really considered doing a group hiking trip (I did end up with something of a group on the Camino, but it was informal, and I started and ended alone), but altogether this sounds like a wonderful—if exhausting—experience. The GR20 probably isn't going to be high on my priority list (I'm more into woods than rocks), but oh my this does make my feet itchy.

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

Review: "True Biz" by Sara Nović

 

True Biz by Sara Nović
Published April 2022 via Random House
★★★

There's a lot to like here: the focus on Deaf culture, the ongoing conflict about cochlear implants, the highlights of things like Black American Sign Language and how it came about—and why Black Deaf culture is in some ways stronger than white Deaf culture.

But the story...it did not suck me in. There's so much important information about the state of Deaf schools, and the risk that they'll be defunded, and so on and so forth. Much of it I was loosely familiar with (no connection to the Deaf world, I just read a lot), but a lot was also new, and I am glad that the book doesn't get tied up with a bow, because realistically the outcome was never going to be great. (Though—and warning for a spoiler!—if it ever comes out that a headmistress let some boys walk away with homemade bombs and a smile and a wink, uh, she's going to have some other things to worry about.) By the end, it felt a bit as though the author had started from a place of here's what hearing people should know about Deaf culture rather than here's a story I want to tell. She tells it well, because there's no denying that Nović can write, but I'm missing the raw power and energy of Girl at War.

Would still recommend this if you're curious about Deaf culture, or if Girl at War looks too violent, but it didn't sing to me in the way I'd hoped.

Review: "Wine" by Meg Bernhard

Wine by Meg Bernhard
Published June 2023 via Bloomsbury Academic
★★★

Here are the factors I consider when I pick a bottle of wine: red or white (or, rarely, rosé), dry or sweet or somewhere in between, price, what the label looks like. (This is a significant advance from what I used to consider, which was limited to price and label.) My s.o. also considers things like we have had and liked this wine before, but to be honest I just cannot be bothered.

In Wine, Bernhard adds another level of consideration, looking at where and how wine is produced—what that tells us about a wine, and what memory means for what we taste in a given glass. From her I learned wines should make you feel something, she writes, —nostalgia or homesickness or delight or passion. Wines that provoked an emotional response made the best sort of conversation. The worst review a wine could receive was silence at the table afterward. (loc. 135*)

Taste and smell are subjective, but Bernhard notes with some wryness that the vocabulary of wine tasting has become rather standardized, not to mention something that people use to classify other people—liking X type of wine suggests someone lowbrow; using Y vocabulary suggests someone educated. One of the reviews Bernhard finds on a wine-rating app describes one wine as having "just a hint of sleet in the finish" (loc. 317), which, excuse me, what? I'd like to know what sensory memory that writer is pulling from—and I'd also like to propose a drinking game whereby participants compete to describe wine in the snootiest terms possible, and the description that is the best combination of accurate and snooty wins.

As the book goes on (as the bottle empties?), Bernhard moves from discussions of class and gender and power to tackle the impact of climate change on wine, from drought leading to richer wine with higher alcohol content, to ruined crops, to wildfires leaving smoke-ravaged wine in their wake. (I didn't know that smoke stays in grapes, generally ruining any resulting wine—some winemakers have tried to take that ruination and run with it, and that's the one thing Bernhard describes that I'd really love to try.)

What we're left with is an uncertain future for wine. Grape growers will continue to grow grapes, and winemakers will continue to make wine, but perhaps in different regions and with different emphases (more rosé?) than before. Perhaps wine will get, as a whole, sweeter. Or smokier. Perhaps our vocabulary for wine will change.

3.5 stars—this is part of Bloomsbury Academic's Object Lessons series, which I've had a fabulous time with since learning about the collection. Individual mileage will vary with individual books, but as a whole I class them as thoroughly enjoyable nerd reading.

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

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

Review: "The Song of Us" by Kate Fussner

The Song of Us by Kate Fussner
Published May 2023 via Katherine Tegan Books
★★★★

What a delight. The Song of Us tells the story of Eden and Olivia through verse, and theirs is a love song for the ages—not only as an Orpheus and Eurydice retelling but as a fiercely compassionate, creative story about two girls finding their footing in the treacherous ground of middle school.

I'm cautious about quoting from ARCs, because things might yet change before the publication date, but Fussner's use of verse here is wonderful. Mostly free verse (I'm not a poet, so don't quote me on that either) with occasional slips into concrete/shape poetry or something more stream-of-consciousness, there are little nuggets hidden throughout to call back to the original myth (Olympus Middle School, a character acting like she's read this story in English class already, an interlude from the Chorus—I laughed out loud at the last one). I occasionally wanted a little more from some of the side characters (Eden's father, for example, remains murky to me by the end), but I think that's the price one pays for a tightly woven story in verse.

Fussner has a teaching background, and she clearly knows her audience—this feels pitch-perfect for the age range (right set of middle-school emotions and petty disagreements) while also being engaging for older readers. Highly recommend if you're looking for a power ballad, a dance song, a theme song of a book.

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

Sample-Chapter Showdown: Romance III

 

Part of Your World by Abby Jiminez (Forever)
Time to Shine by Rachel Reid (Carina Adores)
After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez (Carina Press)

In Part of Your World, Alexis and Daniel shouldn't work—she's a big-city doctor from an ambitious family, and he's content getting by in his struggling small town. But when life and an ill-placed ditch throw them together, they start to question "should."

Sample takeaways: If I'm honest, I picked up this preview because there was a mention of a gourmet grilled-cheese sandwich in the description, and that is not something I can resist. The grilled-cheese sandwich disappoints (it's only mentioned in passing—at least in the preview—and it has tomatoes in it, the horror), but the preview does not, and neither do Alexis and Daniel. The setup here is funny and lively, with the promise of two genuinely good people who have natural chemistry but very different lives and don't see how they can make things fit.

On the surface (of the ice?), Casey and Landon of Time to Shine have one thing in common—hockey. Beyond that, they're as different as peanut butter and coffee (I swear I'm not going to extend this metaphor, but it's relevant to a small joke in the book). Landon is quiet, new, just getting his first chance with the big leagues. Casey is already a star, nothing but a bundle of energy and fire. And when Landon needs a place to stay, Casey is quick to offer up a spare room—because Casey has demons of his own, and they're best quelled by not going home alone to an echoing house. Shenanigans, one can safely assume, ensue.

Sample takeaways: Lovely setup here: very different heroes, and not immediately comfortable together, but both likable—this is less enemies-to-lovers than it is awkward-acquaintances-to-lovers, but that suits my book preferences just fine. From the sample, I foresee clashes on and off the ice, continued awkward communication that makes its way to awkward sexual tension and eventually chemistry on and off the ice, and an eventual thawing...hopefully of only the relationship, not the ice. Hockey's a fast-paced sport, but Time to Shine looks poised to keep up, and it looks like there's lots of room for character development and Figuring Stuff Out. I'm here for it.

In After Hours on Milagro Street, Alex is home—for now—and she has a bone to pick with the world. She and her sisters want to buy their grandmother's bar, mostly to give their grandmother a chance to rest...but for Alex, it couldn't come at a better time. The problem is that suddenly there's a tall, wealthy, white stranger living in a spare room, and suddenly there's a pile of factors that Alex can't predict or control.

Sample takeaways: Here's what I've learned from perusing the early chapters of a couple of Lopez's books: she does not mess around, and she does not believe in starting slow. These early chapters hint that Alex has reason to be angry with the world, and Jeremiah (the stranger) is in her warpath. He is...shall we say...not prepared. I'm not sure what to make of Alex here: angry I'm on board with; confident I'm on board with; warpath I'm on board with. But the first chapters ask us to accept behavior from Alex that I (and presumably others) wouldn't accept from a male hero, to the extent that I came away wishing that instead of Jeremiah saying "yes", he'd said "no, I do not consent, get your hands off me". I've read enough from Lopez to be confident that she delivers, so I'm thinking that Alex does some character growth throughout the book, but I'll have to hope for some really direct conversations as well.

The verdict: I really enjoy reading these previews because they're a low-stakes way to test-drive a book (hopefully not into a ditch, though at least Alexis would relate) and see what might hit the spot in a given mood. I could use a grilled-cheese sandwich right about now...but it's almost summer, so some time on the ice doesn't sound so bad either.

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

Review: "Local" by Jessica Machado

Local by Jessica Machado
Published January 2023 via Little A
★★★

Machado grew up local: born and raised in Hawaii by a mother from the mainland and a Portuguese-Hawaiian father, she was comfortable in her blended identity—not uncommon in Hawaii—but Hawaiian culture was not something that was overtly discussed or taught in schools. The victors write the history books, and in this case, it was likely white male Americans from the contiguous US writing about Hawaiian history.

I read this out of a curiosity about growing up in Hawaii—I know enough to know that it's not all surfing and aloha, that parts of Hawaii are very poor and that the university system is not particularly strong. Machado weaves a lot of history about Hawaii in (mostly things she learned later, learned and learned to appreciate), but this is as much an all-American coming-of-age book about family dysfunction as it is a book about growing up as a child of Hawaii.

Machado's mother fell ill when Machado was still quite young, and so much of the book floats in and out of Machado's mother's space as her mother is and isn't able to care for herself, to get out of bed, to reach her daughter. I admit that I found these sections difficult to read. I don't mean to criticise anyone involved (criticising people's actions is not what reading, or reviewing, memoir is for), but it's so clear that Machado as a writer can see her mother's isolation and sometimes desperation in a way that Machado as a young woman could not. I'm a different person than Machado, and I have a different relationship with my family, and I was considerably older than Machado when I lost a parent. I cannot make a comparison, but on the heels of a year when I thought about very little other than parental illness and loss, this was probably not the right book (or time to read this book) for me.

Review: "Autopsy" by Ryan Blumenthal

 

Autopsy by Ryan Blumenthal
Published August 2020 via Jonathan Ball
★★★

For reasons that I can't quite explain, forensic pathology memoirs and coroners' memoirs and so on are lodged in my brain in the same category as celebrity memoirs: something to cleanse the palate between more difficult reads. (Don't worry, that sounds strange to me too.) Blumenthal's book caught my eye because of the setting: the vast majority of the forensic pathology (etc.) memoirs that I've read have been by people working in American or UK settings, and South Africa presents a very different context: different climate, different politics, different resources. Blumenthal mentions any number of these differences—North America, for example, rarely sees cases in which people are trapped inside a car tire and burned alive, and I can't think of a UK context in which you would say Often, a taxi boss will hire youngsters to kill the competition (112).

Unfortunately there is very little story here. Blumenthal goes in big on anecdotes, summing up what must have been dramatic cases in a few sentences:

In another case involving an elephant, a guide sustained multiple directed blunt force injuries when he was attacked. He survived for a few weeks, but died in hospital. I was consulted forensically about this case. (59)

Of the six honey-bee-related deaths I have come across so far, one case involved a member of the clergy who sustained a single bee sting to his forehead. He died due to coronary artery plaque rupture, which led to a heart attack. Another case involved... (61)

I once had to do an autopsy on a body that had gone through a wood chipper. Needless to say, this kind of case can be very difficult and time-consuming. (145)

Anecdotes are all very good and well, but I strongly would have preferred, say, one in-depth case per chapter, with a few anecdotes sprinkled in for good measure. Instead I'm left with the sense that Blumenthal has seen so many cases throughout his career that he's lost sense of which make for the most compelling stories. (Oh, and I come away with knowledge of the Lindy Effect, which is a concept I'm familiar with but didn't know had a name.)

Just for fun:

The deceased was a known recreational drug user, who had used heroine cut with talcum powder. When he had injected the heroine into a vein... (80)

The magic pill was cocaine or an amphetamine, or maybe even heroine, which is highly addictive. (112)

Ah, yes, the dangers of heroine...