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Book Review: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
A previously incarcerated Indigenous woman loves her job at an independent bookstore focused on Indigenous literature right up until the store’s most annoying customer dies and begins haunting it.
Summary:
A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store’s most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she simply won’t leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.
Review:
It’s a good thing I didn’t see that this book is magical realism or I wouldn’t have picked it up. You see, I had a serious misunderstanding of what magical realism is and thought I didn’t like it. In fact, I like it very much. I only wish I had first been introduced to it by the excellent explanation from Master Class originally. I’m excited that this book has helped me see past the magical realism label.
The thing that I love structurally about this book is how the title has so many different meanings. There’s the sentence that Tookie serves for her crime. There’s the sentence found within the book that Flora is reading when she dies. And there’s many other sentences throughout the book. I love when one title has many meanings.
The book starts with Tookie thinking back briefly on her incarceration and what landed her there. Part of what made the beginning so readable was how Tookie told this story. It was like speaking with a friend about a piece of their past. Raw and real but quick and to the point. It got me invested in the book right away. Then we jump to Tookie’s present, working in the bookstore, and the haunting, and this is utterly engaging right away as well. Tookie is flawed but so relatable. I think most readers will find her to be this way because she’s such a huge reader herself.
I also found her relatable because she’s in long-term recovery. I like how she sometimes thinks about how she was but it’s not like any single bad day gives her an urge she has to fight. A lot of times in literature and movies only early sobriety is shown, and the fact is, the experience in long-term recovery is different. I was so glad to see that in Tookie, and to see her breaking the multi-generational disease. But I also appreciated the very realistic depiction of her being concerned about talking about the haunting with her husband, Pollux, for fear he would think she had relapsed. I also should mention that both Tookie and her niece are bisexual. Their sexual fluidity is never judged or questioned. It’s just a part of who they are, which I really appreciated.
The book centers around a difficult question that it doesn’t provide answers for. Flora is a “wannabe Indian.” She’s a white woman who claims Indigenous heritage based on one photo she says is of a great-grandparent. The Indigenous community is dubious but doesn’t want to tell her she can’t belong. She spends much of her life working for the betterment of Indigenous people, including even taking in an unhoused teenager and caring for her so much that when she’s grown she refers to her as mother. So everyone has complex feelings about her. There are also some scenes that show white people behaving in offensive ways and smoothly depict how hard it is for Indigenous people to deal with these aggressions on a regular basis. One that really stuck in my mind was the white woman who shows up at the Indigenous bookstore and talks about her grandmother reassembling Indigenous bones she found on her land and winning a blue ribbon for it. She doesn’t understand why this is offensive to the Indigenous people she’s speaking with. To me the examples like this throughout the book demonstrate two types of white people who are hurtful to Indigenous people. The book is never preachy with these scenes. They come across as very realistic depictions of, unfortunately, regular interactions between Indigenous people and white people. If you yourself aren’t sure why these two types of interactions are hurtful, then I think this book would show you.
I wasn’t sure how I would feel reading a fictional book set during the first year of the pandemic. Overall, even though Tookie’s experiences and mine were different from each other (she was much older than me and had an essential worker, public facing job), I still found it realistic and relatable. The book never dwelled too much on any individual aspect of the pandemic but had scenes that were necessary reminders of how things were in the early days, like when Tookie goes to the grocery store to stock up just in case and ends up buying the best she can from what’s left, such as a tube of cookie dough. Similarly, Minneapolis was where George Floyd was killed and followed by the protests that spread throughout the country in 2020, and so this had to be a part of the book. At the start of the book it’s established that Tookie’s husband, Pollux, is who actually arrested her. By the time she was out of prison, he had left the tribal police force. But her household still must deal with the complex situation of having a previously incarcerated person and an ex-cop in the same household during this tumultuous time. There’s also the nice addition of Pollux’s niece, Hetta, living with them and, as a young person, being more involved in the protests. This thoughtful characterization allowed for multiple perspectives on the protests. For example, while there is support, there is also sadness and concern about the small businesses being impacted.
In spite of all that comes in the middle, the last part of the book deals mainly with Tookie’s relationship with Pollux and Tookie dealing with Flora’s ghost. This provides closure even while the reader knows the difficulties didn’t end in November 2020. In many ways I found this to be a story about relationships and reconciliation.
Overall, this is a strong piece of contemporary magical realism. If you’re ready to read a book featuring the pandemic while not being about the pandemic itself, this is a great place to begin.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 387 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
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Book Review: The Thorn Puller by Hiromi Itō
One of Japan’s most prominent women writers writes of a contemporary woman’s life split between caring for her much older British husband in California and her aging parents in Japan and her three daughters in both places.
Summary:
The first novel to appear in English by award-winning author Hiromi Ito explores the absurdities, complexities, and challenges experienced by a woman caring for her two families: her husband and daughters in California and her aging parents in Japan. As the narrator shuttles back and forth between these two starkly different cultures, she creates a powerful and entertaining narrative about what it means to live and die in a globalized society.
Ito has been described as a “shaman of poetry” because of her skill in allowing the voices of others to show through her. Here she enriches her semi-autobiographical novel by channeling myriad voices drawn from Japanese folklore, poetry, literature, and pop culture. The result is a generic chimera—part poetry, part prose, part epic—a unique, transnational, polyvocal mode of storytelling. One throughline is a series of memories associated with the Buddhist bodhisattva Jizo, who helps to remove the “thorns” of human suffering.
Review:
I picked this up from my library’s new books shelf, and for some reason I misunderstood and thought it was creative nonfiction. Since the main character shares the author’s first name, I stayed under this belief for quite some time, right up until the main character does something that shocked me. Then I investigated and realized it’s fiction heavily inspired by the author’s own life. I mention this to say that this reads like very modern creative nonfiction. It’s a mix of poetry, vignettes, and factual asides and doesn’t use quotation marks ever. Each chapter ends with a note of what works inspired that particular chapter. I was honestly impressed at this fictional creative nonfiction.
While each chapter vaguely goes in order of a year or two or Hiromi’s life, each also explores other parts of her life. And some weeks may be dropped in-between. The point isn’t a linear story but rather an exploration of how Hiromi deals with being in the sandwich generation with the added factor of her husband being at least 20 years older than her and so, he is aging more rapidly than she and requires more caregiving than he might otherwise. Hiromi thus deals with universal themes of caring for others while struggling to care for yourself. Of trying to give space to others to make their own decisions about their lives while worrying about them and wanting them to stick around.
Another major theme is Hiromi’s global life. She’s Japanese, living part-time in California, raising three daughters all of whom are American, one of whom is biracial (it’s unclear from the story if the older two daughters are biracial or not), living with a husband who is a British immigrant to the US who is also an older generation than her. There are so many cultural and generational differences for Hiromi to deal with. She struggles with Japanese perceptions of her husband, her husband’s perceptions of Japan, her own daughter’s difficulties to speak Japanese fluently, and more. What I found the most interesting was her husband’s misguided belief that because she was Japanese she wasn’t religious at all, only to become very angry at her when he finds out she took their daughter to visit a shrine. He thinks of this as religious. She thinks of it as simply a way of being. This thus explores the very interesting question of how much, if any, of spirituality is cultural?
Jizo and Jizo’s shrine are interwoven throughout the book. Hiromi feels a particular affinity for Jizo and so we see her memories of the shrine and also see her visiting the shrine in present time. Jizo is a Bodhisattva who is believed to help relieve suffering. Bodhisattva is a term used in two ways. It can mean anyone who is working in this life toward enlightenment. But it also can mean souls that have attained enlightenment but delays going to nirvana to help ease the suffering of others. This book takes up the latter definition, because the main character most strongly identifies with Pure Land Buddhism, which is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism that uses this definition of Bodhisattva. Although I have familiarity with Buddhism (as you can see in one of my short stories), I don’t think you have to in order to appreciate how Jizo is interwoven in the story. Hiromi is dealing with very difficult aspects of life, and when she’s struggling, she leans on a comfort from childhood – Jizo and his shrine. This is a very relatable emotional choice. It’s so relatable, in fact, that one cannot help but empathize with Hiromi when her husband struggles to understand why she feels an attachment to Jizo’s shrine when she’s dealing with her father’s aging and her mother’s slow death from a stroke. (Honestly, her husband is infuriating, even while you can see that he does indeed love Hiromi.)
As you can probably tell, this book does deal with difficult topics. Be aware that Hiromi’s mother’s stroke and its impact on her body is quite central to the story. Her father’s aging is depicted honestly, without any gentling of the more difficult aspects. Hiromi mentions in passing having had multiple miscarriages and abortions in the past. A character has a cancer scare that leads to a rather graphic scene of bleeding. Another character has a heart issue. Eating disorders are mentioned although not depicted graphically. Racism and xenophobia are both depicted on screen. Finally, and what was to me the most shocking, Hiromi engages in a violent act against her husband at one point. I thought all of these were dealt with in an even-handed and fair way except for how Hiromi treats her husband. That I felt was glossed over a bit too easily, especially for a character who believes suffering can come from a human killing spiders. Her lack of guilty feelings felt out of character to me.
Overall, this is an engaging read that merges creative nonfiction and fiction in fascinating ways and provides perspective on Japanese, American, and British cultures. For those less familiar with Japan, the translator offers an introduction to help understand what you might need to in order to enjoy the book fully. I also appreciate the translator’s note at the end that describes the translation process and how the author had some say in it.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 300 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Library
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Book Review: In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae
Summary:
With her career as a Los Angeles event planner imploding after a tabloid blowup, Morgan Ross isn’t headed home for the holidays so much as in strategic retreat. Breathtaking mountain vistas, quirky townsfolk, and charming small businesses aside, her hometown of Fern Falls is built of one heartbreak on top of another . . .
Take her one-time best friend turned crush, Rachel Reed. The memory of their perfect, doomed first kiss is still fresh as new-fallen snow. Way fresher than the freezing mud Morgan ends up sprawled in on her very first day back, only to be hauled out via Rachel’s sexy new lumberjane muscles acquired from running her family tree farm.
When Morgan discovers that the Reeds’ struggling tree farm is the only thing standing between Fern Falls and corporate greed destroying the whole town’s livelihood, she decides she can put heartbreak aside to save the farm by planning her best fundraiser yet. She has all the inspiration for a spectacular event: delicious vanilla lattes, acoustic guitars under majestic pines, a cozy barn surrounded by brilliant stars. But she and Rachel will ABSOLUTELY NOT have a heartwarming holiday happy ending. That would be as unprofessional as it is unlikely. Right?
Review:
This is a thoroughly queer holiday romance for your holiday needs. It has the returning to my small town from the big city to try to save a small business trope. It also has the second chance love trope.
The two main characters in this sapphic romance are BOTH (!) bisexual (and say the word), which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in a romance. There’s a secondary male character who I think is bisexual, although it’s possible he’s gay and has dated women in the past (no one ever says which). There’s another secondary gay character, and a trans woman of color. The owner of the business Morgan works for is a woman of color. A tertiary character is a woman of color married to a Jewish man. Chrismukkah happens briefly. There’s also a pine tree decorated for a mix of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
The sex scenes are steamy and on-screen (all f/f), and there were at least three? Maybe more? I lost count. There’s also one ahem, self-love scene, which I honestly skimmed over because that’s not something I’m personally into reading. I appreciate that it did move the plot forward and wasn’t pointless though. (The character essentially clears her head in this way and then is able to solve a problem she’s been puzzling over).
The one thing I didn’t like was how alcohol is handled in this book. Rachel (the love interest)’s dad has alcoholism. That’s absolutely fine to include. In fact, it’s generally something I’m happy to see. But the representation of this struck false. The main thing that really bothered me is how Rachel interacts with alcohol herself. The book establishes that she’s traumatized by her dad’s alcoholism. It tore the family apart in high school. He’s been in and out of rehab that her and her brother pay for. Her mom left the family after Rachel (the youngest) graduated high school. Rachel routinely drops by her dad’s apartment (that she and her brother pay for) to check for signs of alcohol. YET she STILL drinks regularly. Not occasionally. Regularly. Most people I know who’ve seen this much of the negative impacts of alcohol won’t even allow it in their homes, let alone go out drinking themselves regularly.
Plus, there’s the whole instigation event to Morgan coming back to Fern Falls. (I don’t consider this a spoiler because it happens in chapter one). She gets wasted out at a bar and accidentally kisses the fiancé of someone whose wedding she’s organizing. He’s “in disguise” because he has a hoody on, but we all know she’d have recognized him if she wasn’t drunk. Anyway, everyone knows about this because the news wrote it up. We know Rachel knows about it. She still goes for Morgan. No way. No adult child of an alcoholic would set themselves up like that. I overlooked it because it’s a cheesy romance, but this is not a realistic depiction of an adult child of an alcoholic who’s actively engaged in their recovery. Adult children of alcoholics tend to fall either into the camps of also alcoholics themselves or sober. Rachel falls into neither. I feel weird complaining about realism in a holiday romance novel, but this is real life for a lot of us, and I disliked it being used as a plot device poorly. Alcoholism is serious, and Rachel wouldn’t be casually getting drunk with some love interest who’s only home because she became a hashtag while doing something drunk. In fact, I think this was a missed opportunity for some real bonding. They could have been at a town event and both noticed they were drinking hot chocolate. Rachel reveals the stuff about her dad. Morgan reveals she’s decided to dial it way back with the alcohol after possibly losing her career on that night out. Instant believable bond. But no….they just share spiked drinks.
All of that said, I still gave it four stars because this is a fun holiday romance. It’s not supposed to be that serious! And the bisexual rep is so uncommon and needed. I just wish the alcoholism/adult children of alcoholics rep was just as well done.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 320 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
Summary:
Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.
One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving.
Review:
I have read every single Riley Sager book almost as soon as I could get my hands on them. I find them all enjoyable, although I enjoy some more than others. I particularly appreciate their twists on common horror movie tropes. So I was excited to have a new one available for my summer thriller season.
Unlike the other books, I’m not sure what horror movie trope this is playing with. (Is it playing with one at all?) Nothing stuck out to me, but it’s also not like I’ve watched every single horror movie on the planet. At the beginning of the book, that dialed down my enjoyment a bit, because in general I find Sager’s fictional commentary on these tropes to be snappy and witty. I missed it. What made up for it a bit to me was the setting at a lake in Vermont. I grew up in Vermont, and I really enjoyed the whole a bunch of too wealthy for their own good New Yorkers come to their vacation homes and cause trouble plot while the local Eli sighs heavily and tries to make sure no one drowns in the lake. Again.
That said, the beginning dragged a little bit for me. Setting up Casey’s backstory felt like it could’ve been a bit tighter, partially because it’s not the first alcoholic lonely woman main character in a thriller I’ve read, so I didn’t need it super spelled out. Maybe someone else would. I’m glad I persevered though because WOW did I not see those twists coming. That’s right. I said twists.
I found the ending satisfying. I appreciated how alcoholism was handled, although I will say, I didn’t find its handling particularly mind-blowing or moving. I’d say it was accurate but not earth-moving to me.
I would definitely recommend reading this because I found the twists unique and genuinely surprising and yet I was kicking myself for not figuring it out sooner. I feel like there were enough clues there that I could have figured it out. I just didn’t. And if you know what horror trope this is playing with, let me know in the comments!
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 368 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: library
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Book Review: Getting Clean with Stevie Green by Swan Huntley
Summary:
At thirty-seven, Stevie Green has had it with binge drinking and sleeping with strange men. She’s confused about her sexuality and her purpose in life. When her mother asks her to return to her hometown of La Jolla to help her move into a new house, she’s desperate enough to say yes. The move goes so well that Stevie decides to start her own decluttering business. She stops drinking. She hires her formerly estranged sister, Bonnie, to be her business partner. She rekindles a romance with her high school sweetheart, Brad. Things are better than ever—except for the complicated past that Stevie can’t seem to outrun.
Who was responsible for the high school scandal that caused her life to take a nosedive twenty years earlier? Why is she so secretive about the circumstances of her father’s death? Why are her feelings for her ex-best friend, Chris, so mystifying? If she’s done drinking, then why can’t she seem to declutter the mini wine bottles from her car?
Review:
I smashed the request button on NetGalley when I read this description. A mixture of quit lit (literature about addiction and recovery) and decluttering? Sign me up! And it did not disappoint. In fact, it surprised me with delightful queer content I wasn’t expecting.
It’s important to know that Stevie’s ex-best friend Chris is a woman. Chris also came out in high school as a lesbian around the time of the scandal that so traumatized Stevie. Stevie has also slept with women, although only the men are mentioned in the description. The only hang-ups about Stevie’s sexuality seen in her circle of family, friends, and even lovers, come from Stevie herself. This is a great example of how addiction can freeze someone’s self-awareness and self-acceptance. Stevie began drinking in high school, and it’s a trueism in recovery circles that you freeze at the age of development you were at when you began drinking until you stop. Then you can begin maturing again. So is it a bit frustrating that Stevie is 37 and kind of acting like a teenager? Yes. But is it realistic? Also yes.
When we meet Stevie she is newly sober and running her decluttering business. I loved the depiction of how Type A Stevie is about her days and routines. This is so accurate to early recovery. One of my favorite parts is how she starts every day by standing in a Wonder Woman pose and saying affirmations to herself repeatedly.
How had I become a woman who chanted affirmations to herself while doing this ridiculous pose? Because it was supposed to make me feel better. I would have done anything to feel better.
location 806
Early recovery really is this incredible moment of being willing to do anything to feel better, and this is wonderfully depicted here.
The scenes with Stevie decluttering with her clients also shine. I’m a fan of decluttering YouTube videos and tv shows, and these gave me the same thrill as watching those. I loved seeing the variety of types of clutter the clients had, their personalities, and how Stevie interacted with them. She also quickly ends up working with her sister, Bonnie, who is also going through it after her boyfriend of 15 years left her for a younger woman. Bonnie and Stevie have great sisterly chemistry, and her addition to the business helps keep the pace moving forward.
Ultimately, it’s only when Stevie fully faces both her past and her father’s death that she can really begin to heal and move on. I thought this requirement hit her in the right way and with the right force. The pacing of this book really was quite good. And while there’s always the concern when reading queer lit that there will be a tragic ending, don’t worry, readers, there’s a happy ever after for Stevie. This is truly a lighthearted queer romance that also tackles the serious topic of recovery. It was like eating a salted caramel ice cream – sweet with just the right amount of savory.
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 304 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson
Summary:
17-year-old Enchanted Jones has been making it work at her new highschool in the suburbs where she’s the only Black girl. She has a good reputation on the swim team, and she takes care of her little siblings after school while her mom and dad work to afford their kids’ private schooling and their new house. But what Enchanted really wants to do is sing – an idea her parents aren’t too fond of. When she goes to a reality tv show audition, she meets R&B singer Korey Fields. He takes a shine to her, but that might not be the good thing she thinks it is.
Review:
I read this book in less than 24 hours because I simply could not stop thinking about Enchanted and needed to find out what happened in her world. This book both manages to be about important issues but also doesn’t feel like it’s an “issues” book. It’s Enchanted’s story, and that happens to involve today’s issues because today’s issues are real.
This book is about a lot of things, but many of the things it’s about come right back around to how society treats Black girls. How we treat them like they are grown up, when they are still children. This book beautifully depicts how truly adolescent Enchanted is – something that many of our adolescents are not allowed to be but Black girls especially. Enchanted is interested in boys and has feelings about them but she also loves Disney movie night with her little siblings. She has big dreams of stardom but she also just misses seeing her grandmother and swimming with her in the ocean. She has typical adolescent breakthrough moments of realizing what you saw and thought was beautiful as a child might actually be something else. This book asks us to believe girls, but to believe Black girls especially, because so many others will just look at them and say “oh they knew what they were doing, they were grown.”
The book is also about how wealthy abusers groom girls and take advantage of their wealth and power to separate girls from their families. The abuse depicted in this book is realistic and depicts emotional, sexual, and physical abuse and could be a trigger, so please do note that. That said, the author depicts just enough abuse for us to know what’s going on, but it never feels gratuitous or unnecessary.
While this is YA, it has important content for adults too, especially if you regularly come into contact with adolescents. Highly recommended.
5 out of 5 stars
Length: 384 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
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Book Review: Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok (Audiobook narrated by Angela Lin)
Summary:
Twenty-two-year-old Charlie Wong grew up in New York’s Chinatown, the older daughter of a Beijing ballerina and a noodle maker. Though an ABC (America-born Chinese), Charlie’s entire world has been limited to this small area. Now grown, she lives in the same tiny apartment with her widower father and her eleven-year-old sister, and works—miserably—as a dishwasher.
But when she lands a job as a receptionist at a ballroom dance studio, Charlie gains access to a world she hardly knew existed, and everything she once took to be certain turns upside down. Gradually, at the dance studio, awkward Charlie’s natural talents begin to emerge. With them, her perspective, expectations, and sense of self are transformed—something she must take great pains to hide from her father and his suspicion of all things Western. As Charlie blossoms, though, her sister becomes chronically ill. As Pa insists on treating his ailing child exclusively with Eastern practices to no avail, Charlie is forced to try to reconcile her two selves and her two worlds—Eastern and Western, old world and new—to rescue her little sister without sacrificing her newfound confidence and identity.
Review:
There is so much that is wonderful about this book. The incredibly depicted settings of both Chinatown and ballroom dancing. The finely nuanced and richly complicated relationships. The new adult struggles of finding and being true to yourself while still relating to your family of birth. You don’t have to be first-generation American to relate to Charlie’s struggles to reconcile her childhood world with the world she knows now. In some ways I found this to be a Chinese-American version of Dirty Dancing, and that’s a big complement since Dirty Dancing is one of my favorite movies. I also particularly enjoyed seeing a single father realistically deal with his two daughters. He sometimes does wonderfully and sometimes fails them, and their fights are realistic and full of honesty.
If you’re curious about the audiobook version, Angela Lin does an incredible job. Every single character has their own voice and her accents are full of nothing but realism and respect. It was like a well-produced radio program.The praise this book is getting is well-deserved, and if you want to immerse yourself in Chinatown, dance, and new adult issues, you don’t even need to read my review further. Just go get yourself a copy. But I do need to talk about what didn’t work for me.
*spoilers*
Charlie is dyslexic, and her father never allowed her school to officially diagnose and treat her, which led her to have poor grades and struggle with many typical entry level white collar jobs such as being an administrative assistant. Lisa in contrast is an excellent student who works after school at their uncle’s Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinic. Partway through the book, Lisa starts to have nightmares and wet the bed. She’s also been selected to apply for entry and scholarship to a highly selective private school, though, so Charlie thinks it’s probably related to that. I think the vast majority of readers will be able to quickly figure out that Lisa is being molested at the clinic. There are just way too many hints. Lisa doesn’t want to go to the clinic anymore after being good-natured about it. She starts getting jealous of Charlie whereas before she only wished for good things for her sister. And honestly bed wetting and nightmares are extremely typical symptoms of molestation.
But I don’t dislike this plot because of how obvious it was to me. I also fully acknowledge these terrible things can and do happen in otherwise average families, and I’m not against these stories being told. However, I do think it was a poor fit for the tone otherwise of the book. It felt like the idea was that there wouldn’t be enough conflict between Charlie and her family without this extra problem. Like Charlie wouldn’t have been at all worried about her sister or about leaving her family behind somehow without this other problem. I think that’s underestimating Charlie and underestimating how hard it can be to grow and change and become different from your family of origin. The rest of the book is so full of beauty and energy, whether it’s in Chinatown or in the ballroom dance rooms. Then this plot comes in and it just feels like it doesn’t belong. While I feel incredible empathy for people in Lisa’s situation, I came to resent her presence in the story because she felt kind of like olives being stuffed into a delicious lasagna. It’s not that olives are bad; it’s just that they don’t belong. I think that these were really two separate stories, and they should have been told separately.
*end spoilers*
In spite of these feelings about the dual plots, I still really enjoyed the read and would happily read another book by Kwok in the future. I also think this is a great example of a new adult read that’s mostly about the emotional experiences of your early 20s. Recommended to anyone looking to get immersed in Chinatown and ballroom.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 384 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Audible
Book Review: Run by Kody Keplinger
Summary:
Bo Dickinson is a girl with a wild reputation, a deadbeat dad, and a mama who’s not exactly sober most of the time. Everyone in town knows the Dickinsons are a bad lot, but Bo doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
Agnes Atwood has never gone on a date, never even stayed out past ten, and never broken any of her parents’ overbearing rules. Rules that are meant to protect their legally blind daughter—protect her from what, Agnes isn’t quite sure.
Despite everything, Bo and Agnes become best friends. And it’s the sort of friendship that runs truer and deeper than anything else.
So when Bo shows up in the middle of the night, with police sirens wailing in the distance, desperate to get out of town, Agnes doesn’t hesitate to take off with her. But running away and not getting caught will require stealing a car, tracking down Bo’s dad, staying ahead of the authorities, and—worst of all—confronting some ugly secrets.
Review:
This book would have wound up as a Disappointing Reads Haiku except that I actually didn’t have high expectations for it going in. The description didn’t appeal to me that much, and I had a feeling I might feel lukewarm about it. So why did I read it? I heard one of the two girls was bisexual, and hurting as I am for bisexual literature (it’s hard to find just from book descriptions), I’m willing to give most of it a shot if it sounds even moderately appealing. I do like stories of unlikely friendships and representation of less than ideal parenting situations (the realistic kind, not the fantasy kind of conveniently dead parents). I also liked the representation of not just bisexuality but also someone who is legally blind. I found the writing to be clunky, though, and the ultimate plotline to be a bit puzzling, rather than moving.
Agnes is written better than Bo. The depictions of her over-protective parents, what it is to be legally blind but not 100% blind, how others treat her, particularly in her church as an angel and not as a regular person, these were all great. The author is herself legally blind, and you can really tell. I’ve read many books about blind characters by people who were not themselves blind and the depiction was nowhere near as realistic as in this book. I think it speaks a lot to why own voices literature matters.
This realism doesn’t come through in Bo though. Bo reads like a two-dimensional caricature with the quick correction that oh hey I know I’ll make her bisexual but not a slut and that makes her seem sensitively written. Bo whose family is known in the small town as the trouble-makers, the no-goods. Bo with rumors spread about her and no-good drug-addict mom. Bo who, unlike Agnes, doesn’t speak mainstream English but mostly just in the sense that she says “ain’t” a lot. Bo who’s terrified of foster care so runs when her mom is arrested again. What bothers me the most about Bo (this may be a minor spoiler) is the book seems to think it gives her a happy ending. Like everything is ok now. But it’s clearly not. Speaking as a bisexual woman who had a less than ideal living situation in rural America in her teens, nothing about Bo strikes me as realistic. She reads as fake. She sounds fake. Some of her actions themselves are realistic but there’s no soul behind them. It might not have stuck out so badly if Agnes hadn’t been so well-written or perhaps if I wasn’t able to relate to well to who Bo was supposed to be.
One of the lines that I think demonstrates this problem that I couldn’t stop re-reading is below. It should have made me happy because Bo actually says the word “bisexual.” (Very rare in literature). But I was just irritated at how fake it all sounded.
“So … you’re all right with it, then? Me being … bisexual, I guess? I ain’t never used that word before, but … you’re all right with it?” (loc 2359)
It bothers me on two levels. First, rural people don’t just decorate their sentences with ain’t’s and double negatives. There’s more nuance to the accent than that and also Agnes and her average blue collar parents would have the same accent as Bo (they don’t). Second, I’ve never in my life heard a bisexual person speak about themselves this way, and I certainly never have. The number of times Bo asks Agnes if she’s “ok with it” (this is not the first time) is unrealistic. You know as soon as you come out if someone is “ok with it” or not and you deal and react to that. You don’t just keep wondering. You know. No amount of inexperience coming out would make you not know.
If Bo had been written as powerfully as Agnes, this would be a very different review, but since that’s not the case I have to say my dislike of the representation of Bo paired with my like of the representation of Agnes left this an average read for me, and it certainly won’t be a piece of bi literature I’ll go around recommending.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 288 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Library
Book Review: Made You Up by Francesca Zappia
Summary:
Alex fights a daily battle to figure out the difference between reality and delusion. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8-Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She’s pretty optimistic about her chances until classes begin, and she runs into Miles. Didn’t she imagine him? Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She’s not prepared for normal.
Review:
A YA book featuring a main character with schizophrenia has a lot of potential — both to be great and to go awry. While Alex is always written with empathy, something I appreciated, I ultimately found other elements of the story to be too detracting for me to be able to wholeheartedly recommend it.
Alex, her battle with schizophrenia, and her parents’ attempts yet simulatneous inability to really deal with it fully, are all depicted well in this story. While I think the plot comes dangerously close to making Alex’s parents look like bad guys, ultimately enough other perspectives are shown that it does appear more like a mistake on their part, and a consequence of dealing with such a serious illness and situations for such a long time, rather than something truly mean-spirited or cruel. Alex has enough of a grip on reality to be relatable, while her struggles with aspects of her mental illness are heart-breakingly represented. So why so few stars?
First, while it may be part of her delusions, it’s never made clear if Miles’ grandfather was actually alive during WWII. Alex takes it as fact, and it’s not one that’s ever disputed the way others are. It’s a real stretch for someone Miles’s age to have a grandparent who was alive in WWII as anything other than a baby (and even then, that’s a stretch), particularly since this grandfather is through his maternal line, and women have less of a window in which to have children than men do. It may seem like a small issue, but it’s something that really bugged me. I’m ok with it if it’s ultimately part of one of Alex’s delusions but I do think that should be made clear somewhere in the book.
I also didn’t like the entire plot surrounding Miles’s mother. Essentially, his father falsely convinces the authorities that she’s crazy so that she’ll get locked up in a mental institution and not be able to leave her abusive marriage with her son. The fact that she’s been locked up for years and no one has noticed is just not something I believe could happen in this day and age. The initial mental health screening? Yes. A sane woman remaining in an institution for years against her will? No. It’s clearly established that this is a real thing that happens, not one of Alex’s delusions, and it just had me rolling my eyes.
The ending struck a sour note for me as well. Without giving anything away, Alex is presented as a strong young woman battling an equally strong illness and in the end she kind of just loses her gumption. While I think accepting help is good, the way she accepts it and the way she graduates from it both rubbed me the wrong way. I’m not sure about the message it’s sending to the YA audience.
So while I really appreciate the character of Alex and seeing schizophrenia represented to realistically and while the plot did keep me reading, enough sour notes were hit for me that I ultimately just found it to be an average read.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
3 out of 5 stars
Length: 428 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
Counts For: Mental Illness Advocacy Reading Challenge
Specific Illness –> Schizophrenia
A Trio of Disappointing Reads Reviewed in Haiku
A feature for the disappointing reads: I spent enough time reading them. The reviews shouldn’t waste more time. See all haiku reviews here.
Winter’s Bone
By: Daniel Woodrell
Summary:
The sheriff’s deputy at the front door brings hard news to Ree Dolly. Her father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn’t show up for his next court date. Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive.
Haiku Review:
How could a book with
Meth and gangs and a strong lead
Be very boring?
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Library
Buy It
Little Lady Agency
By: Hester Browne
Summary:
Melissa Romney-Jones can bake a perfect sponge cake, type her little heart out, and plan a party blindfolded. But none of that has helped her get far in life or in love. When she gets fired — again — she decides to market her impeccable social skills to single men. To avoid embarrassing her father, a Member of Parliament, Melissa dons a blond wig and becomes “Honey,” a no-nonsense bombshell who helps clueless bachelors shop, entertain, and navigate social minefields.
Haiku Review:
Everything that makes
Browne’s other books good is just
Missing. Try again.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Library
Buy It
Martian Time-Slip
By: Philip K. Dick
Summary:
On the arid colony of Mars the only thing more precious than water may be a ten-year-old schizophrenic boy named Manfred Steiner. For although the UN has slated “anomalous” children for deportation and destruction, other people–especially Supreme Goodmember Arnie Kott of the Water Worker’s union–suspect that Manfred’s disorder may be a window into the future.
Haiku Review:
Using the n-word
For Martians. Fear of mental
Illness. Doesn’t age well.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Audible
Buy It
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 