Opinions of a Wolf

An bookstagram shot from while I was reading Moloka’i. For more check out opinionsofawolf.

I read so many books in April (7!) that I had to look back to postulate why. My husband took me on a surprise trip which means I had a bunch of airplane time, so I think that might have been part of it. In the future, when I’m doing these wrap-ups on time, I’ll know exactly why.

Anyway, April was kind of all over the place in terms of genre, as you can see from the title.

I started off the month with Moloka’i by Alan Brennert, a print book that had been languishing on my tbr shelf for a while. It’s about a Hawaiian girl who gets sent to a leper colony in the late 1800s. We follow her life in this prison forced upon her through no fault of her own. Through this book I learned that leprosy is better called Hansen’s Disease and while I knew about the exploitation of Hawaii, it was interesting to see it through this new lens. It also called into question a lot of medical and public health ethics that tend to come up with something like quarantine. A sad but powerful read.
(4 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: paperbackswap)

I next picked up a Harlequin romance mystery that was given to me Wanted Woman by B. J. Daniels. It involves a woman running from false charges on a motorcycle. It was interesting to see the motorcycle bad boy flipped on its head a bit but the book left me feeling kind of meh. I didn’t hate it but I had a hard time even remembering what it was about to write this.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: gift)

Next I picked up another historic fiction (although this time wrapped up with contemporary fiction) — Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. I had a phase when I was a little girl of being very into the concept of the orphan trains. For those who don’t know, orphan children from the east coast were put on trains and sent west with the idea that they’d be more able to find homes among the farmers. While some found homes and true families, others of course were only “adopted” to be cheap farmhands. This book has a modern day teenage girl in the foster system doing community service with an elderly lady who it turns out was on the orphan trains. It shows how orphan and foster children are currently and have been mishandled. I liked the beginning of this one quite a bit but found the ending to be disappointing (“cop-out” is the exact phrase I wrote in my initial thoughts.)
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: paperbackswap)

Next I changed pace and picked up a monster horror — The Colony by A. J. Colucci. In this case the monster is ant colonies that man has tampered with to create a superweapon that of course gets accidentally unleashed on New York City. Mayhem ensues! This is another one that started out good but was ruined by the ending for me.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: library)

I was so excited for the fourth Miriam Black book to come out that I actually pre-ordered the kindle version. Miriam Black is an urban fantasy series by Chuck Wendig whose lead character can see people’s deaths if she touches them and also has an odd relationship with birds (mainly, that she can kind of send her soul out into a flock of them). I used to love this series. Really love. I’m not sure if I’ve changed or the series has changed. I’d have to go back and re-read the previous entries to know for sure, and I’m not much of a re-reader so I doubt that’ll happen. What I do know is I used to find Miriam gritty and real and this time in Thunderbird I found her annoying and immature. I particularly was not fond of her repeated “nic fits,” in which she brushed off responsibility for her behavior. I also didn’t like the big bad this time, finding them to be boring and unlikely foe for Miriam. I also thought the book sometimes came across as preachy. I know an author’s viewpoint will always come into a book but it shouldn’t do so in an out-of-character way, which happens a few times in this book. Even if this wasn’t the case, though, I found this book to be mostly filler getting ready for the next book in the series, and that always annoys me. So I was disappointed but I’m choosing to believe it’s just that I changed and it’s time for the series and me to part ways.
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: purchased)

I next picked up a chick lit, which I reviewed in haiku form here.

I finished up the month with another horror, this one by Richard Matheson. Hell House isn’t what he’s best known for but I was curious about it as a classic of the haunted house genre. This book features investigators going to Belasco House to see once and for all if it’s haunted. I thought it had some frightening moments and enjoyed its stance that it took science and spirituality together to accomplish things but man did it have some stuff that just didn’t age well (and honestly was probably not too great even when it was first published in 1971). For instance, one of the horrors of the house is that a woman’s long-buried same-sex attraction is brought to the surface. This is treated with the same horror as molestation or rape in the book. This is obviously problematic. It also has a Native American character who does not have a well-rounded representation. I’d also give the trigger warning that there are grotesque sex scenes and disfigurings of religious figurines (albeit by evil characters).
(3 out of 5 stars, buy it)
(source: purchased)

My total for the month of April 2017:

• 7 books
  • 7 fiction; 0 nonfiction
  • 4 female authors; 3 male authors
  • 3 ebooks; 3 print books; 1 audiobook

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