Book Review: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
Summary:
Corrie Ten Boom and her family of watchmakers (she was the first licensed woman watchmaker in the Netherlands) are known for their work in the Dutch underground, both hiding Jewish people and doing organizing work for the underground. She and her sister Betsie did this work with their father. She and Betsie were in their 50s during this work. All three of them were ultimately arrested, and Corrie and Betsie were ultimately sent to the infamous Ravensbrück concentration camp. Corrie survived and started a home to help people refind their footing after the War.
Review:
This was one of my favorite books as a little girl. I had a fascination with WWII (still do) and was utterly enamored with Corrie. I distinctly remember that the paperback book I read was borrowed, but am uncertain if I borrowed it from my grandmother or from the church library. In any case, I decided it was high time I re-read this favored book as an adult and see if it withstood my now adult sensibilities. It certainly did.
The Ten Boom’s family commitment to not only do what is right but also to discern what that right thing might be is incredible. Corrie’s ability to be peaceful and not embittered after the War and everything she went through is also amazing. She is honest about who it was more difficult to forgive than others, and how she found the ability to. I believe any reader will be fascinated by the beginning of the book, which details how her family lived as watchmakers in Amsterdam, how they began hiding Jewish people, and how they came to largely run parts of the underground in Amsterdam. The sections about her capture and imprisonment are remarkable for their combination of honesty about the suffering combined with clear forgiveness and lack of bitterness for her captors.
When He [God] tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself. (86% into the digital edition”
Corrie also demonstrates a viewpoint of both the body and soul needing to be cared for in order for the human being to be completely well and whole. She notes both when a German captor is clearly well cared-for but wanting in soul care and when a prisoner is happy in the soul but wretched in the body, noting neither is as God intended.
Corrie’s commitment to peace is also seen following the war when she establishes and runs a home to help all people (no matter which side they were on) find their way again after the war. Truly an inspiration in peace work. It’s also inspiring that she didn’t find this labor until she was in her 50s. An indicator that our calling may not fully come until later in life.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Library
Black Literature on Opinions of a Wolf
I have always been committed to reading from diverse authors. I think it’s important for reading to not only be fun but also to broaden my worldview. Additionally, I like to vote with my dollars (or my advanced copy request at NetGalley or my hold request at the library) to help make it clear that diversity matters.
I have made it clear on Instagram that I support Black Lives Matter, but for those who don’t follow me there, I wanted to also make it clear here. I thought what better way than to provide you with a list of books I’ve previously read and reviewed on this book blog by Black authors to help you support the Blackout Bestseller List movement started by Amistad Books. “Saturday June 13 – Saturday June 20, we encourage you to purchase any two books by Black writers.” (source)
The list will be title, author, genre, who I recommend it to, and buy it link. The title will link to my review. If I’ve only reviewed it in short form on GoodReads, it will link there.
List is presented alphabetically by author last name.
- With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo, contemporary YA, for those who love cooking shows and Latinx culture, buy it
- Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, contemporary (trigger warning for abuse), for those who love a highly literary story, buy it
- Brothers (and Me): A Memoir of Loving and Giving by Donna Britta, memoir, for women with siblings who are men or who are raising sons, buy it
- The Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia Butler (link goes to first book in trilogy), scifi, for those who want a twist on an alien invasion, buy it
- The Earthseed trilogy by Octavia Butler (link goes to first book in trilogy), scifi, for those who want a twist on dystopia, buy it
- Kindred by Octavia Butler, fantasy, for those who want a real and raw time travel story, buy it
- Like One of the Family by Alice Childress, short story collection, for those who want the maid’s perspective on being “like one of the family,” buy it
- Living in, Living Out: African American Domestics in Washington, D.C., 1910-1940 by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, nonfiction history, for those who want an oral history of the great migration, buy it
- Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert, contemporary LGBTQIA YA, for those wanting representation of a blended family facing mental illness, buy it
- Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks, nonfiction educational literature, for those interested in transformative pedagogy, buy it
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, historic fiction, for everyone (this is one of my favorite books) ok a more specific recommendation…..for those looking for a truly tear-jerking story set in Florida, buy it
- The Book of Night Women by Marlon James, historic fiction, for those looking for a heartbreaking historic read set in Jamaica, buy it
- The Untelling by Tayari Jones, contemporary fiction, for those wanting to see what impact a maybe pregnancy has on a relationship, buy it
- Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones, historic fiction, for those looking for a multiple perspective historic fiction set in the mid 20th century centering around kidnappings, buy it
- Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Lamon, memoir (trigger warning for abuse), for those looking to address their weight bias or see a Black perspective on weight bias, buy it
- Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography of a Young Black Girl in the Rural South by Anne Moody, memoir, for those looking for an in-the-moment depiction (this was published in 1968) of Jim Crow from a Black perspective, buy it
- Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely, mystery, for those who love a cozy mystery, buy it
- Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes, mystery combined with magical realism, for those who love a detective story and don’t mind some magic tossed in, buy it
- The Street by Ann Petry, historic fiction, for those who want a family drama or who enjoy settings in the 1940s or Harlem, buy it
- Everlasting: Da Eb’Bulastin by Rasheedah Prioleau, fantasy horror, for those who want to see what might happen with a curse on an island that’s half Gullah and half Indigenous, buy it
- Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown, nonfiction, for those who want to lead and facilitate change, buy it
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker, historic fiction LGBTQIA, for those looking for a moving female/female romance set in the early 20th century in the American South, buy it
- Meridian by Alice Walker, historic fiction, for those who want a story set during the Civil Rights era, buy it
- Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright, urban fantasy, for urban fantasy lovers looking for some fun twists like the addition of Santeria, buy it
Book Review: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Summary:
Alice Walker’s classic about Celie and her life in the deep American South between WWI and WWII. The simplest plot summary is the survivor of both rape by her father and a forced loveless marriage who then finds love with her husband’s mistress, Shug Avery. But it’s so much more than that.
Review:
For Black History Month in February I thought it was high time I got around to reading The Color Purple, which is also hailed by many of my friends and fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community as a classic for us as well. When I saw Audible had the audiobook version read by Alice Walker herself, well, it was a sign, and it was time.
I had always hesitated to read it because the plot summary made me not sure the book would work for me. Rape and incest are plots that I struggle with as is cheating in a marriage. But this book surprised me. It told what needed to be told about Celie’s childhood without dwelling on it too much or in a sensational way. And by the time Celie and Shug were getting together, I was rooting for them. Because how much of a real marriage is it when neither partner wants it?
There are many strengths to The Color Purple, but three things really stood out to me. First, it helped me to see the gray areas of people’s lives and experiences and how not everything is as clearcut as it might at first seem.
Second, the way Celie’s voice in the writing grows and changes as she grows and changes and then how the letters from her sister come in midway making it partially an epistolary novel – it’s incredible.
Finally how it explored the American “justice” system and its real impact on people’s lives and how often responses to crimes are racially motivated. It wasn’t preachy but it was very moving.
The only reason I’m not rating it at 5 stars is because, for me, it was not a life-changing book. I enjoyed it, and I respect it. However, I know for many others it is a life-changing book, and if you have been on the fence about reading it, I encourage you to do so.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Audible
Book Review: The Shape of Night by Tess Gerritsen
First, a note….
I hope all of my readers are as safe and well as possible in these difficult times we are living in. A few people have asked me what I recommend reading to get through things. My advice is what my advice always is – read what most entertains you. Read what distracts you. Feel no guilt for what you enjoy reading. Read whatever it is you most enjoy. I think now more than ever it’s important for all of us to get a respite from the world around us and visit another world, whether that’s fiction or nonfiction, romance or thrills. In the spirit of this, I’m just going to keep reviewing the books I’ve most enjoyed recently.
Summary:
Ava is writing a cookbook of what Maine fisherman communities ate during the 1800s. She’s hit a bit of a writer’s block, so she rents a summer home on the coast of Maine for inspiration – and maybe to run away from the tragedy that is haunting her. But when she arrives at the home in Maine she starts to think it might actually be haunted. She also discovers the previous renter mysteriously disappeared.
Review:
I love house-sitting or house-renting thrillers. There is something decidedly spooky about short-term rentals, and I love how this type of thriller just goes there. It reminded me of the Victoria Holt books I would borrow from my grandmother in middle school only set in modern day Maine.
What I wasn’t expecting from this book or its summary was its deft handling of alcohol addiction. Ava’s alcohol addiction isn’t her entire personality – far from it. She is very well-rounded. We get to know her incredible talent at both cooking and researching then recreating historic recipes. She is intelligent and caring. She loves her sister. But she has definitely made a giant mistake that is haunting her, and I would argue it’s a mistake that was rooted in her alcohol problem although before it became as serious as it is in Maine.
There are no easy answers in this book – not for the “ghost” of Captain Brodie. Not for the disappearances. Not for how small towns handle things. Not for Ava straightening her life back up. The lack of neat ends makes it all feel more real which really works for a book with a creepy ghost.
There were many aspects of this book that kept me staying up too late reading it: the mystery, Ava’s addiction, the ambience, is there really a ghost, what happened in Ava’s past. I also just liked visiting the house and waterfront, which was well described and realistic. It had just the right amount of twists and turns and well-rounded characters.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Library
Book Review: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
First, a note….
If you’ve subscribed to this blog, bless you for still being around. I hadn’t posted since July 2018! I’ve still been actively discussing books but mostly on my Instagram where I’ve been enjoying the bookstagram community. However, I have missed having a more permanent, long-form place to talk about books. I wasn’t enjoying the monthly round-ups I was doing but I also simply cannot devote the time to blog post about every book I read. So I’ve decided to aim for reviewing one book a month – the book I found most meaningful to read in some way in the month prior. Maybe sometimes I’ll review more, maybe less, but no longer take this blog to be a record of every single book I read. Moving right along.
Summary:
You’ve heard of Jack the Ripper – the serial killer who murdered five women in London in 1888. Most people know the name Jack the Ripper but what about the names of his victims? Here, meet the women whose lives were cut short by Jack the Ripper – Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary. Get to know their world, their personal struggles, and come to see them as people rather than simply victims.
Review:
I learned so much reading this book, and none of it was dry. It was entirely fascinating. I liked the structure very much – Rubenhold goes through the intricacies of the lives of each of the women in the order they were murdered. She also doesn’t just stop at the moment they died – she follows through with who identified the body, who grieved for them (and every single one had someone grieving for them).
A large misconception is that all five of the women murdered by Jack the Ripper were homeless prostitutes. Of course even if that were the case it wouldn’t make the murders less tragic. However, it is simply not true of these women. Four of the five were not prostitutes but rather were simply sleeping on the street because they were homeless. The fifth (Mary Jane) was a prostitute but had a home and was murdered in it.
I found it very interesting how different all of their lives began and yet how most of them ended up on the street regardless. In a way this is really the story of how society failed these women long before it failed to find their killer by allowing them to end up living on the streets to begin with.
I personally found Annie’s story to be the most meaningful, but I think everyone will connect with a different woman in a different way. Annie ended up on the street due to a failed battle with alcoholism. She had a loving family, had climbed up to the middle class, and even did a stint in rehab. But she still lost the battle with her addiction.
Interestingly, her sisters chose the sobriety movement and prospered from it. I found this to be a meaningful passage:
The complete rejection of alcohol resonated with those who found themselves balanced precariously on the edge of middle-class life. By eschewing drink, a hardworking man or woman could save money and build a better life for themself and their family. Annie’s sisters not only adhered to this creed but prospered by it financially. (27% location)
Although her sisters were able to give up the drink, Annie was not. Her brother also still drank alcohol at the time of her murder. Even though she was on the street, he would still see her sometimes and imbibe with her. After her murder, he left the UK for Texas and achieved sobriety.
This hit me hard:
What her murderer claimed on that night was simply all that remained of what drink had left behind. (33% location)
To me, Annie’s full life story was sorrowful, although some beauty did come out of it in that her brother’s life was saved by observing her downfall. I still reflect on her story sometimes. I hope through Rubenhold’s work, Annie’s unfortunate downfall will come to affect change in more people than solely Annie’s brother’s.
I’ve spoken at length about the woman’s story I found the most personally moving and meaningful, but there is also a story of an immigrant, a woman scorned by her husband, a prostitute and the man she loved, and a working class woman who worked in a tin factory and ran from an abusive husband. I am sure you will find one that connects with you and that you will find meaningful.
Those who are disturbed by the gruesome will be pleased to note that there are not gruesome details in this book. The focus is on the women’s lives, not their deaths.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Library
May 2018 Book Reviews – Confessions of a Prairie Bitch (#memoir), The Couple Next Door (#thriller), Final Girls (#thriller), The Wife Between Us (#thriller), Maggie for Hire (#fantasy), Never Stop Walking (#memoir), My Best Friend’s Exorcism (#horror), The Marriage Lie (#thriller)
A selection of books on display at De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum. For more shots check out my bookstagram.
So I thought I read a lot in April with 6 but holy cow I read 8 books in May! What even? Honestly I barely remember May. What happened in May? Who knows. I need to do a better job of bullet journaling. I do remember my husband and I did our first motorcycle ride of the season and saw the De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum and I thought that day was hot but oh boy did I not know what was coming. (#bostonheatwave #icouldfeelmyskincooking) I do sense a theme in my May reading which was thrillers and memoirs. I knew I’d read a lot of thrillers because my husband suggested I take a break from thrillers which he only does when I’m suddenly having trouble sleeping from reading thrillers. (This usually happens at about the third thriller in a row and oh look I read three thrillers in a row).
Anyway, this is gonna be a long post, so let’s get down to it.
I started off the month with a book I picked up on BookBub (a service that emails you alerts when books in certain genres you like/by authors you like go on sale). Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Olesen and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Arngrim. Like many girls of the 90s I grew up watching Little House on the Prairie and had always heard Alison was ironically the nicest girl on the set while playing the meanest. I’d also heard she grew up to be an advocate and had overcome some personal difficulties so I was intrigued. This book was the perfect combination of personal story and behind the scenes of Little House. Alison is gut-wrenchingly honest while being incredibly witty. Her advocacy work includes fighting for harsher punishment of proven sexual abusers of children and working to help those with HIV. Be warned she overcame sexual abuse in her household so if that would be upsetting for you, you may want to skip over this one.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon)
Next was The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena a thriller involving the kidnapping of a baby. I read this in audiobook format, and so I had to keep finding excuses to go listen to it. While this kept me motivated to find out what happened, there were things I really didn’t like about it. All of the women were incredibly catty with each other, there was a lot of judgmental tone used for the neighbor next door for how she dresses (it’s fine to be judgey of her for other reasons), and representation of mental illness (particularly dissociation) was near bunny boiling levels of fear-mongering. Even if you are ok with these elements, the ending was over-the-top ridiculous and dissatisfying. I still gave it 3 stars because I was motivated to find out the ending but all of these things really soured it for me, and I doubt I’ll ever read anything else by the author.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Audible)
Next another thriller: Final Girls by Riley Sager. This one imagines a world where over the last few decades three mass murders have occurred with each leaving one sole survivor. The media has dubbed them the final girls. Well now someone seems to be coming after the final girls to finish the job. There’s not too much to say about this one beyond the fact that I liked the concept, there were just the right amount of twists and turns, and I thought it was well-done. I’d say this has a feminist slant, which meant the whodunnit was a bit predictable but how we get to that was still twisty enough I didn’t mind too much. Sager has a new book out this month, and it’s on my tbr.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Audible)
Next another thriller and you guys this one is a rare 5 star read: The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. This one sounds cheesy and (sorry) it has a cheesy cover too. When the book starts out it appears to be about an ex-wife jealous over a new soon-to-be wife but prepare to have your assumptions blown out the window. This reminded me of Big Little Lies only (dare I say it) I liked it better. This book has more than one twist. I thought I had it figured out when the first major twist happens but you guys there are more twists and one had me so shook that I actually gasped out loud on my train. It’s exactly what I want out of relationship-based thrillers. Loved it loved it. Their next co-authored book is out in January, and I am hype.
(5 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Audible)
I picked up a book that had been languishing on my kindle forever – the urban fantasy Maggie for Hire Kate Danley. You could probably write the plot summary if you’ve read an urban fantasy in your day. The main character hunts monsters that make it to our world from the parallel fairy universe etc…. I think this is just proof that books are best read close to when they make it onto your tbr pile. This book would have suited me at a certain time in my life. At this time in my life it did not. I thought it was ok but I thought the main character was annoyingly immature and the plot too predictable. I won’t be continuing on with the series.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon?)
Soon I got the monthly email from Amazon’s First Reads program for Prime members where you can select one book from a list to read for free pre-release. I picked up Never Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World by Christina Rickardsson. This intrigued me because it concerns Christina’s experience as an inter-racial adoptee (from Brazil to Sweden). She was also adopted at an old enough age (7) to remember her life before Sweden, which included living in a forest and then in the favelas (essentially shantytowns or slums). Christina (her Brazilian name is Christiana) does a phenomenal job loving and understanding both of her mothers. Her Brazilian mother with a mental illness and her Swedish mother who does her best to love and understand her in spite of cultural and personality differences. Christina shows a remarkable ability to see the best in people who have good intentions and to make the best of difficult situations. She also shows a passion for helping the children still living in the favelas now. Recommended to anyone with an interest in or considering inter-racial adoption.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon)
Next I picked up a horror My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. Set in the 80s with a Spotify playlist to go with it (I learned I cannot be bothered to go pull this up on my phone while reading) this tells the story of a girl’s best friend getting possessed by a demon and her exorcism of course. As someone who was brought up very religious and saw the actual strongmen of Jesus perform, I loved seeing them in a book (just as cheesy as I remembered) but with the added bonus of one of then actually spotting the demonic possession of the best friend. That said. I felt horribly queer-baited by this book, particularly with how the ending almost goes there but doesn’t quite. Don’t go into this expecting it all to ultimately be about accepting your same-sex attractions. It hints and teases at that a lot but it is not.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon)
Finally I wrapped up the month with another thriller – The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle. A plane crashes and Iris’s husband was on it and she suddenly finds herself a young widow. Only he was supposed to be on a flight to Florida but the flight that went down was on its way to Seattle. This is when the mystery begins. I was so into this book right up until the end (why does this happen so much in thrillers?). The way a certain character was written and described in the end of the book (not earlier or I would have stopped reading entirely) struck me as racist. I just am not down with the only black character of note in the book suddenly being described as hulking and scary with a police situation where the narrative wants the reader to root for the black man to be shot. I just. Am not. (There is one other minor black character and he makes the grieving widow take him out for dinner to give her information, which struck me as sinister as well). I still gave this 2 stars because it was readable and not completely riddled with awfulness but it really left a gross taste in my mouth.
(2 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon)
Well that wraps up my month! My total for May 2018:
- 8 books
- 6 fiction; 2 nonfiction
- 7 female authors; 2 male authors (remember one book had two authors)
- 5 ebooks; 0 print books; 3 audiobooks
April 2018 Book Reviews – Kushiel’s Avatar (#fantasy), Please Forgive Me (#romance), The Song of Hiawatha (#poetry), A River in Darkness (#memoir), The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (#espionage), Pennterra (#scifi)
Reading poolside in Florida. For more shots check out my bookstagram.
Wow what a busy month! After only completing one book in March, in April I finished a walloping six! Let’s get right to it.
I read quite a bit of Kushiel’s Avatar by Jacqueline Carey while on a business trip to Orlando, Florida in April (um, where I got to wrestle an alligator YES THAT HAPPENED). Ahem, anyway, this fantasy chunkster finishes up Phedre’s Trilogy and it was the perfect companion for a business trip since I was definitely not going to find the time to finish it while on the trip so it could keep me company throughout. Anyway, if you’ve heard of the trilogy and have been intrigued by it, suffice to say that I found the conclusion to be an improvement on the second book but didn’t live up to the first. I appreciated the artistry of the ending but I personally wasn’t a fan of how Phedre’s life ended up, which I think soured it a bit for me. But not enough to not put the first book in the next trilogy in this world on my tbr list.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Paperbackswap? Maybe? I bought it somewhere)
Next I picked up Melissa Hill’s romance Please Forgive Me. This piece of modern Irish literature follows our heroine from Ireland to San Francisco where she tries to outrun her problems. I found the Irish interpretation of California (not least of which the idea of how the main character can just show up and work under the table and that’s fine) to be pretty hilarious. Three couples are ultimately presented where someone did something “wrong” but no one seems to think all of the running away is particularly wrong? This was one of those classic there would be no problems if everyone would just act like adults instead of impulsive children types of chick lit books. If you’re ok with that and the idea of an Irish take on California appeals to you, you may have found your next read.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon)
Next something possessed me to finally get around to reading the copy of The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which is I believe out of copyright and has been hanging out on my kindle forever. By “something possessed me” I mean like many other New England children I was forced to memorize (and PERFORM) “Paul Revere’s Ride” (read it in its full glory) and I was curious if the other Longfellow epic poem lives up to Paul Revere. Um. It does not. Here’s the thing. Longfellow’s style works great for a piece about a time very close to his own and his own people in a short form. It does not work great in a full length book based on his interviews with Native Peoples and his attempts at writing down the language. It basically consists of Hiawatha telling the different nations to stop warring and unite or they’d be over-run by white people. It felt a bit…victim blamey to me. Also then in the final chapter missionaries arrive, Hiawatha welcomes them, tells his people they have a very important message and to be nice to them, then sails off in what I think is a metaphor for his death. So Hiawatha is a hero for telling those silly Native nations to unite to fight off white people but also recognizing the salvation message. Okayyyyy. I kept reading it because I thought it must get better. It did not. Stick to Paul Revere’s Ride.
(2 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: no idea anymore)
I received my next read free from Amazon thanks to the Kindle First program, and I feel like I caught it just at its popularity wave – Masaji Ishikawa’s memoir A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea. Masaji Ishikawa is half-Japanese and half-Korean. His Korean father moved the family to North Korea based on promises of a better life when he was 13 years old. Masaji’s life has been incredibly hard – not just in North Korea but also in Japan. When he was a child, he faced racism in Japan because he was half-Korean, and when he escaped back to Japan he faced many difficulties repatriating (for instance, they housed him in a half-house with recovering addicts, while that is a home, you can imagine it would be difficult to repatriate in such a situation). Masaji has lost so much family; it’s overwhelming. I think he’s brave for telling his story, and I encourage anyone interested in helping North Koreans to check out the well-rated charity Liberty in North Korea. While this story is incredibly important, to me personally the pacing was a bit off. Maybe it wasn’t in the original Japanese.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon)
While I was reading these other books, I was also reading my audiobook The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carre. I picked this up because it’s supposed to be a classic involving the Berlin Wall. This is about a British spy and basically the whole book is the question of is he loyal to the West or not? The book begins and ends at the Berlin Wall. I found the beginning very engaging and the end was exciting, but the middle dragged. I’m glad I stuck with it for the end, though. Also there’s a love interest who is a librarian in this, which was exciting for me! Recommended if you like spy novels.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Audible)
I finished out the month with a 1987 female written scifi – Pennterra by Judith Moffet. Basically there’s an alien planet colonized by Quakers (because Earth is dying and spaceships of groups of people who have something in common are leaving Earth looking for places to live). Of course there’s an indigenous people who resemble large insects and communicate both vocally and through emotive telepathy. I’d read this book was an exploration on the power of pacifism for resolving conflict, BUT I didn’t find much pacifist negotiation. They just do what the locals tell them to do and obey the rules put upon them. That’s pacifist, sure, but is that negotiation? I thought the planet being alive in and of itself and resisting invaders was fascinating. I thought seeing how children who arrive on the planet at the age of 7 are different and able to adapt was fascinating. I did not think that human children going through puberty and proceeding to behave like the locals sexually in ways that involved the adult humans who never adapted to the planet themselves to be logical (beyond the gross factor). Basically the locals have sex with everyone who’s hit puberty. The human children who hit puberty do the same with adults who don’t feel the natural inclination to go native and so feel guilty about it. What this ultimately means is the author ends up equating bisexualty and polyamory with incest and bestiality. No scenes are particularly graphic but the idea is that it’s ok for the human kids to do it because that’s how the local planet works. But it’s…..not. And it was very uncomfortable for me to see these things being equated. That said that is a minor plotpoint that I was able to skip over easily enough and I was interested in how the planet was going to defend itself, and I found it hilarious how the planet ultimately defends itself. I just wish the author had had going native in the human adolescents to just be bisexuality and/or polyamory and stopped short of the rest. Because they are still HUMANS even if they’ve had to adapt to the environment.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Paperbackswap)
Phew, what a month! My total for the month of April 2018:
- 6 books
- 5 fiction; 1 nonfiction
- 3 female authors; 3 male authors
- 3 ebooks; 2 print books; 1 audiobook
March 2018 Book Review – Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend (#nonfiction)
For more shots, check out my bookstagram
Hello my lovely readers! Notice how that says book review and not books reviews? Well that’s because I somehow managed to only finish one book in the entire month of March. :-O
I know the reason for this. It’s because my print book I was reading was a real chunkster. So while I read religiously throughout the month, I just didn’t quite finish the print book within the month of March. But I’m actually ok with this book getting to take center stage, because it’s a cool one.
John Henry is an American folk song that I thought was famous until I was reading this book and had to keep explaining it to people. (I couldn’t find the version I grew up listening to on YouTube but here it is on Spotify – John Henry as sung by Wee Sing on the album America). Essentially the lyrics tell the story of John Henry, a black man who worked on the railroad and beat the steam drill at going through a mountain but died doing so. There are many different versions of the lyrics, but this is the closest to the version I grew up listening to. What’s the point of singing this song to and with children? Well, that depends on who you ask and what version you sang. The gospel version focuses on John Henry’s rewards in Heaven. The blues version focuses on the unfairness of the job and the fear (warranted or not) of machines replacing blue collar labor.
(I did find it comforting that the book indicates that this is an extremely popular folk song in the United States – with the librarians at the Library of Congress telling the author it’s the most researched folk song in the US.)
In Steel Drivin Man, Scott Reynolds Nelson seeks to find the origins of this folk tale and see if there was a real man behind it. Fascinatingly, he successfully found who most likely was the real John Henry. Perhaps not surprisingly, John Henry was a free black man who in the immediately post Civil War era (Reconstruction) Virgina was arrested on what may have been fair charges of shoplifting (no one can really say if a crime actually occurred or not) that was then escalated to a higher charge (most likely falsely). In spite of the North attempts at forcing the South to treat black men and women equally to white, some districts in the South pulled off the Jim Crow laws, which led to unequal punishment for equal crimes, which meant John Henry got put away in prison for a very long time for a very small crime. Unfortunately for him, this was about the time that people got it into their heads that they could use prison labor in the form of chain gangs much like they used to use slave labor. John Henry was sent out to work on the railroad and died there, as working on the railroad was essentially a death sentence.
Some prisoners escaped, and some were killed by guards for what the railroad labeled “mutiny,” but the remainder entered tunnels where tiny bits of microscopic rock floated in the air, entered their lungs, and over a period of six months to three years, strangled them. These prisoners died gasping for air. (location 34%)
I for one after reading that passage couldn’t help but think of Eric Garner and was saddened by how little some things have changed.
Many American folk songs, including this one, were actually originally work songs. I learned through this book that rock and roll refers to these work songs, as the two man crew who drilled had one man to shake the stake and another to hit it, which was called rocking and rolling. Songs were sung to a particular beat both to pass the time and to help ensure no one’s fingers got smashed.
The original blues version of John Henry as opposed to praising his work ethic actually was memorializing his strength and the unfair situation. His status as a prisoner wasn’t so much rewritten as not mentioned (because it didn’t matter), and his strength of character was symbolized by being a man of large stature, even though the real John Henry was actually quite short (under 5’4″). The gospel version focuses more on his strong Protestant work ethic and the rewards he’ll see in Heaven.
The author speaks some about the song and the groups that attached themselves to it over time. I found it interesting that Communist groups in America liked it because of its demonstration of an unfair use of labor. Also interesting was that he found that schools in historically black neighborhoods would devote entire music classes to the song and its history. He also traces John Henry in everything from comic books to Disney shows. I admit that I found the beginning of the book about the real John Henry and the early versions of the song to be the most interesting.
I would have given this book 5 stars but the ending let me down, particularly when the author postulates what message John Henry’s bones might tell us, and I thought that message was very far off the mark, speaking about working less when in fact John Henry was mistreated due to racism, not out of any workaholicism of his own!
Overall, though, I’m not sad this was the only book I read in the month of March. I learned so much, and I really did enjoy it.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: Amazon)
My total for the month of March 2018:
- 1 book
- 0 fiction; 1 nonfiction
- 0 female authors; 1 male author
- 1 ebooks; 0 print books; 0 audiobooks
February 2018 Book Reviews – The Lakota Way (#nonfiction), The Empty Room (#alcoholism), Before We Were Yours (#historic), The Gravity Between Us (#newadult), The Nonborn King (#fantasy)
Some breakfast reading at my in-laws’ in Michigan. For more shots check out my bookstagram
Hello my lovely readers! I’m a bit behind in my book reviews (as usual) because life just keeps happening. But I’ve still been finding time to read (obviously). Looking back on it, I’m kind of amazed I got so much reading done in February seeing as I had the flu and also took a trip to Michigan to see my in-laws and had a very busy work month. (When I’m busy at work I often find myself too brain tired to do much reading). But obviously I did get a lot of reading done! Let’s take a look at what I read.
The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living by Joseph M. Marshall III was a gift from my husband when we were first dating. I had been trying to read it mindfully and slowly a chapter at a time but clearly I kept forgetting about it instead. This happens to me when I read digital books sometimes. So I decided this month to just pick it up and finish it off. The author of this nonfiction is a member of the Lakota nation, and here he shares the wisdom of his people for us all to benefit from. I am honored and humbled by the fact that he chooses to do so when so much was wrested away from the Lakota by colonization. Reading this book was like sitting down with a wise older uncle who tells stories that may seem disconnected at first but ultimately all revolve around a theme (like love). The stories are also connected with the history of the Lakota people (before and during colonization). I found the entire collection to be moving, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Native Peoples of the Americas.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: gift)
Next, I tore through my first 5 star read of the year – The Empty Room by Lauren B. Davis. This is a fictional telling of one day in the life of a woman with alcoholism. Davis is in recovery herself, and her first-hand experience is obvious here. I tore through this in just one day. It’s the most realistic depiction of alcoholism in women I’ve seen. Gritty and dark yet compassionate and hopeful.
She was always 5 minutes away from being the person she wanted to be.
(location 14%)Alcohol, the man said, had first given him wings then taken away the sky.
(location 55%)
Just writing about it now makes me want to pick it up and read it again. If you’ve ever struggled with alcohol yourself or struggled to understand someone who does, give this read a chance.
(5 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon)
Throughout the month I was working on my audiobook – Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. I call this a historic fiction but really it’s one of those dual setting books with a narrator both in the present and in the past. If you’ve been on book blogs at all in the past year you’ve heard of it. This book looks at a dark history of adoption in the United States, with children being snatched from their families under the guise of the law in the name of eugenics (in this case, the idea that beautiful children are better raised by the rich). I very much appreciate the importance of this history being presented and how well-researched it is, but I must admit that both of the main characters rubbed me the wrong way, which wasn’t something I was able to get past.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Audible)
Next I picked up The Gravity Between Us by Kristen Zimmer. This book was at the disadvantage of being my first read after having my soul touched by The Empty Room. I often find that after a read that touching I struggle to enjoy my next read, so keep that in mind when considering my thoughts. This new adult romance looks at two best friends who fall in love with each other but struggle to admit it to each other. Complicating factors include they’re both women, in their late teens, and have just moved to LA. Oh and one is a break-out movie star. It’s a great premise but the execution didn’t work for me. Alternating chapters between the two main character’s perspectives took a lot of the tension out and sometimes left me confused about who was feeling what and who was talking. I also felt like both Kendall and Payton really mistreated their friends around them (a straight guy and a bisexual gal who help them keep the relationship under wraps) and while people make mistakes they never really apologize for this or make up for it to them.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: Amazon)
Finally I wrapped up the month by finishing my print read of the month: The Nonborn King by Julian May. This is the last in a fantasy trilogy with four disparate plots that ultimately come together in the end of course. I wasn’t into half of them, so that made it a bit of a slog. I also had read the previous two books in audiobook format with multiple narrators, and I wonder how much of my feeling of this being a slog was that it wasn’t being performed at me. I hadn’t realized how much the performance enhanced the books. I still very much enjoy the world of The Pliocene Exile but the direction it went here was puzzling.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(Source: PaperBackSwap I think?)
It looks like the month started strong then went mediocre. Since I got the flu at the end of the month, I wonder how much of that vibe was just a bad flu mood? Hard to say! Regardless, I know I’ll be readingThe Empty Room again.
My total for the month of February 2018:
- 5 books
- 4 fiction; 1 nonfiction
- 4 female authors; 1 male author
- 3 ebooks; 1 print book; 1 audiobook
January 2018 Reads – #fantasy, #scifi, #nonfiction, #mystery
For more shots check out my bookstagram
Happy New Year everyone! I started my new year off with a reading bang reading a total of 6 books. I can’t say I’m too terribly surprised as the weather has been pretty…gross in New England. I’m not anti going outside in the cold but even I struggle to enjoy it when it’s so cold you’re at risk of frostbite if you’re out for more than 30 minutes. (It’s dangerously easy for me to tip over into that range with my commute using public transit). Anyway, nothing feels cozier than reading inside while it’s awful outside. While I had a range of reads this month, overall I read a lot of fantasy.
I started off the month with Honeyed Words by J. A. Pitts. My husband picked it up for me at a used bookstore in the $1 pile based on the cover and the fact that it was an urban fantasy starring a queer woman. That man knows me. Unfortunately, it turns out it was the second book in the series, and unlike a lot of urban fantasy, not enough was explained for me to be able to follow along very well. Sarah, the main character, is a blacksmith who also has a magical sword and fights dragons who run the world but usually appear as people? It was very confusing but I did enjoy the different (for urban fantasy) main character.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: gift)
Next I read the audiobook version of Connie Willis’s new scifi Crosstalk. This is about a near future with a surgical procedure to let partners feel each other’s feelings but when Briddey has it she finds herself able to hear the thoughts of the company weirdo and nothing from her boyfriend. I loved Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog but I was disappointed in this one. The plot was predictable in most ways. I didn’t actually like either of the main characters. The female main character in particular was disappointing…very little intelligence or self-starting. I did really like the little niece but I felt the adults who were supposed to be the heroes pushed her around far too much and refused to listen to her. Let’s put it this way: if this was my first Connie Willis read, I wouldn’t be seeking out more. So thank goodness I found To Say Nothing of the Dog first, or I’d have missed it.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: Audible)
I picked up a print book next, which I originally acquired from an indie publisher thanks to hearing good things about its YA fantasy with LGBTQ content – Valhalla by Ari Bach. Set in a near future where corporations run everything, a teenage girl finds herself with the opportunity to get vengeance for her parents’ death but only if she legally dies and lives with a group who work to keep the world in order. This was a weird book. I really had trouble getting past the ability to resurrect a person in their entirety so long as you have their brain in-tact, and I also found the politics odd and the plot ridiculous. It was readable and action-packed but I did a lot of eye-rolling. I won’t be continuing with the series.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: PaperBackSwap)
Our trip in December to the Grand Canyon reminded me of a book I’d bought a while ago on the history of the US National Forest Service (not to be confused with the National Park Service) – The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan. I already knew a bit about the history the NPS and NFS thanks to my time in service in Americorps. While I enjoyed everything I learned in the book, it is confusingly organized and repetitive. It needed more editing. For instance, I thought I was reading a book about a fire but a large part of the book was about literally everything about the Forest Service surrounding the fire. While that was informative, it wasn’t what I thought I was getting. Similarly there were passages of the parts of the book about the actual fire that really dragged–how many times do I really need to read about what the burned corpse of a horse looks like? So while I did learn a lot, which I appreciate, I do feel like it could have been better organized and streamlined.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: Amazon)
One of my reading goals is to read two print books a month, so I picked up a second after finishing Valhalla. I have a bookshelf of all my print books and I use random.org to randomly generate a number to select one. So my next read wound up being The Shadow Year by Hannah Richell a British mystery told in dual time-lines, one being modern day with a woman recovering from a horrific miscarriage and the other being in the 80s with five college friends sharing a cottage and trying to go off-grid basically. The women in the modern day dealing with her grief is given this same cottage, and the mystery is how the two timelines will intertwine. While the ending did surprise me, everything leading up to it was boring and predictable and led to me skimming a lot. I’m glad I read to the end because I found the twist interesting but the experience leading up to it wasn’t fun for me per se. I also think that consequences weren’t explored enough.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: PaperBackSwap)
I finished up my month by finally picking up the third book in a series I started ages ago – the Riders of the Apocalypse series by Jackie Morse Kessler. This YA fantasy series explores the four hoursemen of the apocalypse as beings who have to get replaced occasionally by new humans who take on the role and in this series each is being replaced by a teenager. Famine was replaced by a teenager with anorexia in the first book, and War by a teenager who self-injures in the second. The third horseman is Pestilence, and I wondered what mental illness would go with this. I thought maybe Factitious Disorder (previously known as Munchausen Syndrome) but it turns out the main character in Loss is a victim of bullying and a partial caretaker for his grandfather with Alzheimer’s. I wanted to like this so much but I just didn’t. I didn’t identify with the main character at all, and I also felt like the representation of sickness and health was overly simplistic (with a weird huge focus on the bubonic plague). Nothing felt as fully fleshed out as I would have liked it to have been, and I don’t think relating bullying to Pestilence works the way anorexia to Famine or self-injury to War did.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: Amazon)
Hm, turns out in spite of all the reading this was a bit of a mediocre month! Here’s hoping something strikes my fancy more in February.
My total for the month of January 2018:
- 6 books
- 5 fiction; 1 nonfiction
- 4 female authors; 2 male authors
- 3 ebooks; 2 print books; 1 audiobook
My Publications
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This work by Amanda McNeil is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
