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Book Review: Tundra 37 by Aubrie Dionne (Series, #2)
Summary:
Gemme is the Matchmaker for her generation on board the Expedition a spaceship that has been headed toward Paradise 18 for hundreds of years and multiple generations in the hopes of saving humanity from extinction due to the failure of Earth. The ship is driven by a pair of seers–twins from Old Earth who have been kept alive an abnormally long amount of time by being hooked up to machines and virtually made part of the ship. The seers make a mistake for the first time in hundreds of years and end up in a meteor shower and having to crash-land on the barely inhabitable ice planet Tundra 37. Gemme finds herself reassigned from Matchmaker to the exploratory team Alpha Blue with the hunky Lieutenant that the computer system matched her with just before blowing off into space during the meteor shower. Can she land the hunk without anyone knowing about the match? And will the colonists manage to survive Tundra 37?
Review:
Although this is the second book in the series, which I didn’t realize at first, it appears that each book follows a different spaceship that left Earth, so I really do not think it’s necessary to read them in order. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, for instance.
It’s been a while since I read a book this bad that came from a publishing house, but it does happen. This is part of why I firmly believe it shouldn’t matter if a work is self-published or indie published or traditionally published. Bad books happen everywhere. Although it definitely is more baffling when something like this slips through a publishing house. (Then again, Twilight happened…..)
There is just so much wrong with this book. The characters struggle in this odd land between one-dimensional and three-dimensional. They’re two-dimensional? The structure itself is odd. We jump around at illogical points between Gemme/Lieutenant, the Seers’ lives on Old Earth, and the little crippled girl on the ship, Vira. I’d just get interested, finally, in one of the plots and then get yanked over to another one, only to have it happen all over again. Actually, the Seers’ lives are interesting and unique. I wish Dionne had simply told their story and ignored the total snoozefest that is the love interest between Gemme and the Lieutenant. These are all moderately minor things though that I could still see another reader enjoying, if it weren’t for the things that make zero fucking sense. There’s so many of them, I’m just gonna go ahead and bullet-point them for ya’ll.
- When the ship first crash-lands, the Seers (telekinetic, all-knowing types) announce that they have enough fuel to keep everyone warm and everything running for three months. Mysteriously, this number changes to three days without any explanation.
- Seriously, how could one person’s entire career be matchmaking one generation that fits on-board a space-ship? Plus, all she does is double-check the matches the computer sets up. This could be done in a day or two. A week at the most.
- NOBODY noticed little Vira’s telekinetic powers before now? Puhleeze.
- Supposedly the Seers’ eggs have been randomly implanted into random women for all the generations on-board the ship in the hopes of getting another Seer. Nobody knows this except the Matchmakers. Fact: The Seers are African-American. Double-fact: It appears almost everyone else on-board the ship is white. And you expect me to believe nobody noticed the random inter-racial babies popping up?! When these people mate for life? Apparently the facts of genetics that are so important to these people are completely unnoticed when it comes to race. HUH
As if these inconsistencies were not enough, there’s also the fact that Dionne simply tries to do too much throughout the book. Among the ideas and storylines going in this rather short book (thank god), we’ve got:
- People reliving their past lives in their dreams.
- Soulmates from past lives finding each other.
- The humans’ attempts to survive on Tundra 37.
- The explanation of how this ship got in the air in the first place.
- One seer’s love story.
- The story of the seers’ relationship with each other on Old Earth.
- How Old Earth went to hell.
- Vira being telekinetic and hiding it.
- An “evil entity” on board the ship.
- The mysterious orb.
- The mysterious beacon.
- The Gemme/Lieutenant/Luna love triangle (wtf is with the love triangles in romance novels?!)
Basically, the problem is, you can either tell the story of the Seers’ lives or the story of the colonist’s lives on Tundra 37. You can’t really do both. It’s confusing and jarring and seriously that orb/beacon thing was totally unnecessary for either one. This is honestly an understandable problem. Authors sometimes get too much going at once. But how it made it through editing and to publication in this format is beyond me. Could it be a typical outerspace, clean romance? (There is no sex). Sure! Is it the way it is now? Hell no! How it is now is a confusing mess that’s simply exhausting to read. Not what your typical romance reader is looking for or, really, any reader for that matter. Definitely give this one a pass.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: NetGalley
Previous Books in Series:
Paradise 21
Book Review: The Broken Sword by Joseph Robert Lewis (Series, #2)
Summary:
The international bunch from the first book is back, this time with their lives intersecting in Espani. Taziri is now flying the Halycon 2, which is an airplane instead of an airship. Major Zidane is working as flight security, and Keenan is her copilot. Qhora and Lorenzo are married and living in Madrid running a fencing school. One day, Taziri’s flight drifts a bit off-course, while bringing passengers from Italia to Mazigh, and they happen to spot a brand-new Espani warship that promptly shoots at them. Forced down over Espani, Taziri takes her passengers to Lorenzo’s home, where they stumble into the middle of his personal quest to find the skyfire stone. A stone that fell from heaven in the frigid northern part of Espani, and that is supposed to emit heat that Lorenzo hopes will save the faith of his fellow Espanis.
Review:
In the first book, Lewis surprised me by writing a steampunk that I actually enjoyed. In this one, he managed to do that with a fantasy. Definitely impressive.
Whereas the first book focused on Taziri and the Mazigh steampunk science, this one focuses in on Espani–a culture that shuns science and instead trusts in faith. This is certainly not a set-up that would lead me to be sympathetic toward Lorenzo at all, and yet. It’s hard to blame someone for having faith in a country where people routinely interact with ghosts and water spirits. Eventually it comes to make sense why the Espani are so steeped in their faith and why it’s important to Lorenzo. It is his culture, after all. His culture, his land, his people. He’s afraid that the steampower and innovations from the southern nations are going to overpower and ruin Espani. It’s a culture clash from history only turned a bit on its head with Europe being the one to cling to the old ways. I think addressing the issue this way makes it more understandable and thought-provoking for the reader.
My complaint in the first book was there was too much exposition and it took too long to get the action going. Not a problem here! The plot jumps right in with both feet and sweeps along at a good, steady pace. The method of switching character perspectives in each chapter also works better in this book than in the first one. Perhaps this is because we know and understand them better, but I also think that the overall plot is just better and more tightly structured this time around.
The settings evoked are again stunning, only this time the direct opposite of Mazigh. The frozen north is something I have an affinity for myself, having grown up near the Canadian border in Vermont, and Lewis demonstrates how weather affects culture quite well.
Not to be outdone, Syfax imitated her [taking a shot of vodka] and almost choked on the burning in his throat, but he held it back and managed a grin. “You drink this for fun?”
“No, I drink it to get drunk, major. When you live in a climate like this, some nights are best spent with your brain on fire, burning your blood from the inside out.” (location 1929)
Can I also say, this book has a very hot, sex-positive, sex scene, and I like it, and can we get more of that please? ;-)
Two things I didn’t like quite so much. First, Taziri’s plot again mostly involves her wanting to get back to her family and missing her daughter. This feels a bit too much like a repeat of the first book. Second, where were all the Espani women? I cannot think of a single significant one encountered in a whole book set there. This made me sad after the large presence of females in the first book. Qhora talks about Espani female gentility and such, but we don’t ever really see it.
Overall, this is a fulfilling follow-up to the first book that does not suffer from the middle book in the trilogy plight that so often occurs to book two. The setting is different, and the action is tighter. I’m excited to read the final book in the trilogy and am certain fans of the first book will not be disappointed by this one.
Oh, and Lewis? Can you please write something set in the New World? I need more giant, purring tigers in my life.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
Previous Books in Series:
The Burning Sky
Book Review: Falling For Me: How I Hung Curtains, Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love by Anna David
Summary:
Anna David is a successful writer in her mid 30s living in NYC when an overwhelming depression hits her. She’s still single. What’s wrong with her? While fighting off tears in the self-help section, she finds a copy of Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown, which was a bestseller in the 1960s. Essentially a guide to being happy single while still keeping an eye open for Mr. Right, Anna instantly connects with Helen Gurley Brown and decides to spend the next year challenging herself and taking advantage of everything being single has to offer.
Review:
It should really need no explaining why I picked this book up. I’ve always been the relationship type (even when I tried not to be), but I also won’t settle for just anybody, and sometimes that combination leads to some ennui. I was hoping I would find a connection to and insight from Anna, and I was certainly right about that.
The very first chapter has Anna breaking down in line for food in her head, basically saying, “I’m going to be alone forever,” and going on from there adding that she’ll be the crazy old maid cat lady and going further and further on into ridiculousness that really doesn’t seem that ridiculous when it’s your brain saying it to yourself. I knew instantly that Anna and I would get along.
As opposed to a lot of other single gal memoirs, the focus is neither just love yourself the way you are nor fake everything to land a man. It’s more like….Do you have any idea how lucky you are to even have this phase in your life? You’re single! You can do anything, go anywhere, decorate however you want, and etc… Anna realizes that she hasn’t been taking full advantage of the things being single affords to her. Things like deciding to house swap and live for a month in Seville (try doing that with a baby) or taking French classes in the evening or spending the day rollerblading and winding up in a park in the sun. So Anna isn’t just trudging along being herself. She’s pushing herself to try new things, go new places, and yes the future Mr. Anna may be there, but even if he’s not, she’s still having a fun time doing it.
The book also addresses another common issue among single women and, well, people in general–grass is always greener syndrome. Anna eventually realizes that she seems to think all of her problems will just disappear if and when she gets married, when that is really not the case at all if you pay an iota of attention to married couples.
One specific line in S&SG that I keep thinking of—“I’ve never met a completely happy single girl or a completely happy married one”—and how it’s helped me to see that I’m somehow convinced that getting to the next stage will make me instantly joyous. (page 36)
The other thing that is sooo relatable that Anna talks about is how it’s so easy to become so desperate for a partner that you start trying to change yourself for him or worry constantly about whether or not you’re good enough for him, when that’s not how dating is supposed to work!
You spend all your time trying to manipulate a guy into wanting you to be his girlfriend when what you should be doing is enjoying yourself and then later figuring out if you even want him as a boyfriend. (page 205)
There are definitely things about Anna that I don’t like or I disagree with (for instance, she eats veal and foie gras, ahem, the book almost got thrown across the room at that point), but even though we’re different, we’re also the same. We’re two single gals who are wondering why everyone else seems to be coupling up but me? What Anna slowly realizes over her year-long experiment is that there is no timeline for love and marriage. It’s not like it’s a game of musical chairs and she’ll be left the only one without one. Maybe her music is just playing at a different speed. I think that’s a really important thing to remember and touching to see someone else struggling with, because it’s far too easy to start pressuring ourselves and the men we date into situations that just aren’t right for either of us. It’ll happen when it happens.
This is a rare instance when I feel the need to sort of reveal the ending. I was worried the book would end with Anna abundantly happy in a relationship, kind of like Eat, Pray, Love, which honestly would only have made me more depressed. Like the book was all about yay singlehood but I still landed a man, right? But no. Who Anna falls in love with is not a man, but herself.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand: I used to not really believe I deserved thick, gorgeous panels for my windows or to pull books from a bookshelf specifically selected for my apartment. It didn’t occur to me that I was worth cooking homemade chicken soup for or dressing in beautiful clothes. I thought I was half a person because I didn’t have a partner but that when I had one, I’d do those things for him. Now I see that I’m entirely whole so that if and when I find him, we can be two whole people together, not the person and a half we would have been. (page 305)
Yes, yes, yes! Finally. A book about being single and loving yourself and taking care of yourself and being a whole person as just you. Sure, the professionals tell us that, but it’s super-nice to get to hear it from a gal who could easily be somebody I have bimonthly cocktails with.
I highly recommend this book to any single ladies in their 20s and up. It’s a nice reminder that we’re not the only ones learning to love ourselves and be patient for the right person.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
Book Review: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (Series, #1) (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
It is the year 2060, and the Jesuit priest Emilio Endoz has been found on the planet Rakhat by the second Earth ship to travel there. Found in a whorehouse and killing a native inhabitant in front the UN members’ eyes, they nonetheless strap him into his original spaceship and send him back to the Jesuits. There he is treated for his horrifying wounds and through a series of flashbacks and current conversations with the various Jesuit committee members assigned to his case, we slowly see how everything that started out so right went so horribly wrong on Rakhat.
Review:
It may have been a while since it made it onto my tbr shelf, but I still have a crystal clear memory of why I acquired this book. I entirely blame Little Red Reviewer, who just so happens to be the only other female scifi fan who book blogs that I’m aware of. (Feel free to enlighten me to more in the comments). Her review that religion is there but in a questioning way that honors the tradition of scifi made me give this book with a Jesuit priest and mission at its core a chance. I’m glad I did.
This is a first contact story that takes the all-too-infrequent route of Earth finding the inhabited planet first and sending a mission to them. There’s so much more than that that makes this book unique, though. The future Earth just barely has the technology to make it to Alpha Centauri, and only the most tech-savvy are aware of it. Thus, we’re not an incredibly advanced civilization making first contact, just one slightly more so than Rakhat. I’d say a fair comparison might be late 19th to early 20th century earth to early to late 21st century Earth. It’s a short span of difference. Additionally, Russell made the intriguing choice of the first contact being run by missionaries, instead of a political unit. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Who tended to be first to the New World? Religious groups. Who can organize themselves quickly and have vast finances? Religious groups. Having first contact be missionaries makes so much sense that I’m shocked I didn’t think of it first.
That said, thankfully this book is not a love letter to organized religion or mission work. It is instead a complex, scientific, and anthropological study of the human condition, the difficulties of vastly different cultures meeting, linguistics, and much more. At its core it is all about why does god (if there is a god) let evil happen, especially to good people who are serving him? These issues are more easily addressed and made further complex by having agnostics, non-practicing Catholics, and a Jewish woman members of the mission team. The non-believers are about at even numbers with the priests. In fact, the deeper into the book I got, the more it tore at my heart-strings. Varying types of questioners are represented, and of course it’s possible to identify with many of them, particularly for a reader who once was religious but is not anymore. There’s the priest who is secretly gay, the Jewish woman who was wounded terribly by war but comes to learn to love again, the Father Superior who thinks he may be seeing the formation of a real live saint, the priest questioning the very existence of god, and the agnostic who wants to have the beautiful aspect of faith that she sees in those around her.
This book reads, it sounds a bit odd to say, almost like an agnostic’s prayer. Of course agnostics don’t pray, but if they did pray, the pain and wondering and intelligence found in this book would all be there.
We are, after all, only very clever tailless primates, doing the best we can, but limited. Perhaps we must all own up to being agnostic, unable to know the unknowable. (page 201)
The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances…is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God. (page 394)
People more into science than the questioning human spirit will find plenty for themselves as well. The science of linguistics is astoundingly well presented. The way the two “sentient” species on Rakhat have evolved is also incredibly well thought-out and realistically drawn. The problems of poverty and war on earth are briefly explored too.
All of these things said, I do feel it took a bit too long to get things set up and moving. Granted, I tend to be a bit of an action-focused reader, so others may not have a problem with that. It was still a draw-back of the book for me though.
I sort of feel like I’m not doing the experience of reading this book justice. Suffice to say if you’ve ever questioned whether or not to have faith and love your big questions to be wrapped in well-thought-out scifi, this is the book for you.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Better World Books
Counts For:
Book Review: Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely (Series, #1) (The Real Help Reading Project)
Summary:
Blanche’s employers failed to pay her on time, and now she has some bad checks. She had no idea that bouncing a few checks would land her with a 30 day jail sentence, though, so when she gets the chance, Blanche goes on the lam. She decides to take a temporary job she had originally decided against as a way to hide out. She’s going to be the help for a family on a week-long vacation in the countryside. Naturally, things can never be simple, and Blanche starts to suspect one of the family members is a murderer.
Review:
It’s hard to believe Amy and I are on our penultimate book for the project, not to mention the final fiction book on the list. And what a book! If I had to pick one of the fiction books we read to hand to fans of The Help to get a much more real representation of black women in domestic service, this is definitely the book I would hand them.
Somehow this tiny mystery novel (called a Kriminalroman in German, which I think sounds much better) manages to cover pretty much every aspect of black female domestic workers’ lives that we’ve discussed throughout the project. Blanche faces: police and criminal justice prejudice, stinginess on the part of wealthy employers, rape at the hands of a white male employer, classism, employers’ racist attempts to control her body, non-traditional family structure, and much much more. Yet facing all of those odds, Blanche remains determined and strong. She is not someone who needs OR wants a white woman (or man) to come along and rescue her. I think Blanche’s personality is best summed-up here:
She always returned to domestic work. For all the chatelaine fantasies of some of the women for whom she worked, she was really her own boss, and her clients knew it. She was the expert. She ordered her employers’ lives, not the other way around. She told them when they had to be out of the way, when she would work, and when she wouldn’t. (page 86)
That’s one of the wonderful things about this book. It turns the whole white woman saving the help thing from The Help on its head. Blanche is the one who saves the white family in this book, and then she refuses to accept help from them in return, beyond clearing up her ridiculously unfair legal troubles. Instead of taking a cushy job with them, she leaves, because she is her own woman.
Now, all of that said, I was personally a bit distracted from the race and class issues in this book due to the presence of the character Mumsfield. Mumsfield is the cousin of the sinister family members, and he has Down’s Syndrome. I don’t think all of my readers know this, but my niece has Down’s, so I certainly am a bit sensitive to the portrayal of it in literature. Knowing and loving a person with Down’s removes a lot of the misperceptions of it that exist in the world. At first, I was concerned that Neely had fallen for these things. Mumsfield at first seems too trusting, too caring, a real simpleton. But by the end of the book, Blanche realizes that she hadn’t really listened to what Mumsfield was actually saying earlier in the week. If she had, she would have realized that while Mumsfield is kind and giving, he’s not stupid. Knowing Mumsfield also helps Blanche see that her experiences as a black woman in America have made her racist against white people, when not all of them are bad. Thus, I am pleased to report that Mumsfield is actually an accurate and positive portrayal of people with Down’s.
Now, I will say, personally I’m not generally into the typical mystery novel. I like to get my genre reading from urban fantasy, pnr, and cozies. I am well aware, though, that a lot of people love this kind of book, and it is definitely well-done. It has all of the well-loved aspects of the genre, plus manages to address race, class, and even Down’s Syndrome. It is absolutely a worthwhile read.
3 out of 5 stars
Length: 215 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Discussion Questions:
- How do you feel about Blanche’s initial jail sentence and her decision to go on the lam?
- Blanche sees Mumsfield as an exception to the rule when it comes to white people, aka it’s unusual for them to be kind. Do you think this is an unfair assessment?
- Blanche assesses her caring for Mumsfield as a symptom of “Darkies Disease” aka when the help start acting like the idealized Mammies. What do you think of this assessment?
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Book Review: Death Island by Joan Conning Afman
Summary:
In future America the prisons are so overcrowded that the government needed to come up with a new idea. So they started sending the worst criminals to a remote island to live out their lives (or deaths). Naturally, this Lord of the Flies style punishment is also a nationally televised weekly reality tv show. When Danny is wrongfully accused of serial killing five women with an axe, including his own wife, this reality tv show becomes his stark….reality.
Review:
At this point, the idea of a reality televised punishment type thing run by the government is relatively passe. A trope of the dystopian scifi genre, even. However, Afman does bring a unique twist to this basic idea that keeps the book fresh and engaging.
For instance, the inhabitants of the island are not forced to pit themselves against each other. They sort of naturally divided up into the Village, the Tribe, and the loners. The Village consists of those men who feel badly about their crimes and are trying to live out their lives with some semblance of normalcy. A lot of them have formed couples and shacked up. The Tribe are basically the psychopathic killers who periodically get drunk on their homemade rum and randomly attack others on the island. The loners are relatively self-explanatory. Having this type of conflict naturally happen instead of forcing it upon the participants is a nice throwback to The Lord of the Flies.
On the other hand, the fact that Danny proclaims his innocence and is innocent makes the plot far less appealing to me. There’s no real moral ambiguity at the center that would drive the reader to question her own belief system or the concept of justice in general. It’s odd to me that Afman chose Danny as the main character when there is a minor character on the island who admittedly committed a crime but perhaps for the right reasons. This is where the meat of a real story would lie. Choosing Danny instead makes it sort of like those tv shows people put on for background noise but don’t pay any real attention to.
Of course, Danny is not the entire plot. We also have the minister’s wife, Charlie, who firmly believes in Danny’s innocence and works toward freeing him. She provides the connection to the real axe murderer and a really odd romance layer to the book. Seeing the program how those in America do is interesting, but wouldn’t it be more interesting to travel around to various viewing parties in the US? Perhaps to those who are blood-thirsty to the casual viewers to family members of those sent to the island, even. Instead, every time Charlie’s plot interrupts Danny’s it’s distracting.
All of those things said, it’s not that the book is badly written. It’s not. It’s just not amazing or even very good. It’s just good. It entertains for a couple of hours and then is easily tossed aside. Perhaps for some people that’s enough. Personally I was hoping for more.
Overall, I recommend this book to those who are a fan of the concept looking for a light, quick read.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: LibraryThing’s EarlyReviewers
Book Review: Brothers (and Me): A Memoir of Loving and Giving by Donna Britt
Summary:
Now in her fifties, Donna Britt, an award-winning and ground-breaking black, female journalist, takes a look back at her life to see what has influenced her the most. She is unsurprised to find that her life has largely been affected by loving and giving to brothers–black men she’s both related to and not. From growing up surrounded by three blood brothers, to loving brothers, to raising them, Britt discusses the universal influence heterosexual women’s love for men has on their lives, as well as the unique aspect of loving a race of men persecuted in the United States and raising her three boys in the face of the odds stacked against them.
Review:
Britt’s career as a writer shows in her memoir. It is the most well put-together memoir I’ve read in quite some time. Each chapter looks at a key event in her life in order of it being lived, but also looks at the impact those events had on her as a person. She does this by starting with a photograph and an anecdote related to the event, then moves on to describing the event in detail. Everything in her life, though, is impacted by her brother, Darrell’s, death at the hands of two policemen in his early 20s. This terribly unjust incident and how it flavors the rest of her life is the simplest and most effective anti police brutality message I’ve ever read. Was her brother threatening the officers? Maybe. But all it would have taken was for those two men to aim to stop rather than to kill to prevent the loss of someone’s loved one. Britt says later in her memoir that she knows that those officers just saw “a crazy black man” and not a person, and it is now her goal to always see the person, not the stereotype.
Britt, like other memoirists I’ve enjoyed, never takes a “poor me” attitude or tone, in spite of the fact that she really could given the loss of her brother, being raped, and a first marriage to a man who soon got lost in cocaine addiction. Not to mention her second husband’s affair. Yet, through all of this, Britt’s resilience is evident. She constantly tries to improve not just the world but herself. Britt has an ability to look at herself without rose-tinted glasses. She knows her own faults, primarily that she’s a perfectionist and expects too much from people. I think that’s what makes her so relatable and sympathetic. She’s an imperfect person struggling in an imperfect world, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t right about the injustices she’s seen throughout her life.
I think any female reader who has a brother can understand the other central question in Britt’s memoir–How exactly did these boys who were our brothers who loved us and pranked us and guarded us with their fists when we were young grow up into these baffling men? Boys are easy to understand. Men, not so much. That’s even the case with Britt’s own brothers, one of whom grew from a rebel into a religious man who changes his name from Steve to Melech and whom she barely speaks to anymore. Why is it when boys become men and we go from girls to women that communication becomes so hard? Hard, but rewarding and not impossible. Sure, no answers are offered, but it’s nice to see this experience through someone else’s eyes.
Beyond social justice and the universal communication difficulties between men and women, Britt’s memoir also clearly demonstrates an issue that is sometimes hard to explain–that of privilege. Those born with privilege sometimes have a hard time understanding what, exactly, it is those without it are speaking about. I sometimes wonder myself if I’d understand privilege if I’d been born a white MAN instead of a white WOMAN. Britt with a gift of subtlety makes this clear. She talks about needing to be extra perfect, extra good in order to combat the stereotype of the useless black children. Of feeling like she’s representing the entire race when she’s the only black student in her graduate class. Of the fact that maybe if her brother had been white and acting crazy the cops might not have shot him. Of being extra concerned when her son shoplifts because he probably wouldn’t get away with just a slap on the wrist if he got caught. Instead of talking loudly about privilege, it’s simply evident throughout her entire life and the lives of those around her. I would hope that anyone reading this would start to see how inequality survives today, even if it’s not as institutionalized as it once was.
Overall, this is a powerful memoir by a humble woman that again demonstrates why it’s important to listen to the life stories of those older than us. There is always something to learn or to relate to from their life journey. I, naturally, don’t always agree with Britt or her choices, but I respect her commitment to living the best life she can.
I recommend this memoir to fans of the genre, especially, but also to those with an interest in racism in 20th century America and relationships between men and women.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: NetGalley
Book Review: Nova by Samuel R. Delany (Bottom of the TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Lorq von Ray is the head of one of the biggest corporations in the galaxy that for years has worked hand-in-hand with the Red corporation, currently headed by incestuous brother/sister partners Prince and Ruby. But now internal fighting between the two has made von Ray determined to find his corporation’s own supply of Illyrion, normally supplied by the Reds. He’s heard rumors you can fly through the center of a nova (an imploding star) and survive and that Illyrion is inside. He gathers an unlikely crew in a race against the clock to gather the fuel.
Review:
I really wish I could remember what made me acquire this book. The cover was nothing special, and the summary on the back said approximately diddly-squat about the actual plot (unlike my own). Supposedly this book took years and tons of research into the Tarot and the Holy Grail, yadda yadda. Fine. All I know is that it was boring as fuck with a plot like it was written by a fifth grader.
One of my updates on GoodReads said, “Reading this book is like going to the dentist,” and I still think that’s the most apt review of it. The plot drags, which is shocking for such a short novel. We learn an astonishing amount of backstory about the Mouse, who is a minor character, but not a ton about Prince and Ruby Red, who are far more essential to the plot. We don’t learn the backstory for the plugs everyone wears until the book is almost over, when plugs are key to the story. A set of black twins work on the ship with one mysteriously albino for no apparent plot reason, and they operate as one person finishing each other’s sentences. Their whole characterization really bumped my racism button. Yes, I know this is an old book, but still. We also have the annoying novelist member of the crew, who is such an obvious Mary Sue it’s painful. And I don’t throw around the term Mary Sue willy-nilly. Come on. The guy is a novelist trying to write a Holy Grail book. *blinks*
The amateurish exposition consists mainly of long speeches by various characters. The plot saving device of a miracle machine that can fix almost all wounds appears part-way through the story. The whole thing would get maybe a C from me in a creative writing class. Maybe.
The only thing that keeps this book from one star is that it does, in fact, have a plot and is readable. Of course, I can’t for the life of me figure out anyone who would want to read this if they knew what they were getting themselves into.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Book Review: The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar (Series, #1) (Graphic Novel)
Summary:
The rabbi’s cat gives us a glimpse inside the home world of an Orthodox Rabbi and his young adult daughter in Algeria in the 1930s. The cat is who we could call the “questioning” member of the family, a fact that isn’t too bothersome until one day he gains the ability to speak.
Review:
I loooove animal perspective books, and the drawing of Zbalya holding the cat on the cover was so adorable that I just had to grab this off the library shelf. I was not disappointed.
Although I think anyone could enjoy this book, it definitely helps to have a bit of an understanding of how Orthodox Judaism works in order to catch some of the inside jokes. The first chapter sucks you right in when the cat eats the “forbidden fruit”–the family’s pet parrot. This renders him with the ability to speak. Since I don’t have the book right in front of me, I can’t quote, but allow me to paraphrase the first conversation the cat has with the rabbi:
Rabbi: You ate the parrot!
Cat: No, I did not.
Rabbi: You are lying!
Cat: I am not lying, I am questioning. Good Jews question.
Rabbi: You are not a Jew.
Cat: Why not? You’re a Jew, and you are my master.
Rabbi: You are not circumcised.
Cat: I’m a cat. Cats can’t be circumcised.
Rabbi: Fine, but you have not been bar mitzvahed.
Cat: I am only 7.
Rabbi: In cat years that is 49.
Cat: Fine, than bar mitzvah me.
The rabbi agrees to start teaching him the Torah, and the questioning and ridiculousness continues. It’s completely hilarious.
The cat is everything you imagine a cat to be–snarky, questioning, judgmental, but ultimately wants nothing more than to be held by Zbalya while she studies or sleeps, which leads directly into the second conflict in chapter two–Zbalya gets married and leaves the cat behind in her father’s household. The final chapter covers a family visit to Paris to meet Zbalya’s husband’s family.
The drawings are rich and quirky. The cat is not a beautiful cat, but he with his big ears and funky body shape matches the tongue in cheek witticisms of the story. Algeria and Paris are exquisitely drawn, albeit from a cat-eye perspective.
It’s obvious that Sfar respects Judaism yet questions some of the rigorous rules of Orthodox Judaism. Among the things the cat questions are Shabbat rules, why he can no longer sleep in his mistress’s room after she is married, why humans are so secretive about sex, why questioning is supposedly welcomed yet it annoys the humans, and why the name of god must not be spoken aloud except in prayer. Even if you’re not religious, the book does make you wonder just what your pets think about your own habits and belief systems when they’re not purring in your lap.
Overall, this was a fun book with a cool perspective on Orthodox Judaism, Algeria, and Paris. Although the last chapter wasn’t as strong as the first two, it was still well-worth the read, and I am eagerly anticipating diving into the next entry.
I recommend this to cat lovers and those with a knowledge of Judaism.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
Book Review: Nano House: Innovations for Small Dwellings by Phyllis Richardson
Summary:
A nano house is a super-small house, generally between 300 and under 1,000 square feet. This book shows off nano houses from all over the world with different goals in mind, from an eco-friendly retreat that blends in with the surroundings to pod buildings that could be assembled into space-saving towers in the city to more traditional house boats. One goal of all the houses remains the same. How little space can one person or family take up to make the smallest impact on the environment?
Review:
I became fascinated with nano houses after stumbling across a few on the internet. One that sticks out in my mind is a couple that built theirs together and had a blog about it. There was another one in Australia that the woman made from plastic bottles and dirt. The whole concept was just so….refreshing. A small space that is uniquely you (or your family) that fits in just right with your surroundings. So when I found out about a book coming out collecting a bunch of these houses together, I put myself on the hold list at the library immediately. I wanted to know more details about building these remarkable little houses and the kind of people who are choosing them. Unfortunately, this book missed the entire soul of the blogs and blurbs I’d found online.
Instead of seeking out individuals and families who designed and built their homes themselves, the houses here were all made by architectural firms or design students. If you’ve ever met that snotty whoever in the bar who just can’t stop talking about his high-class ideas for making the whole world more up to his par, then you know the vibe this book sends off in waves. It’s not enough to make a small, livable house with minor impact, no, they must use this new, experimental flooring or make the house look like a storage shed or design their own perfectly circular furniture or give a speech about the revolutionary concept of having a yard on the roof of your houseboat. Um, newsflash, pretty sure I came up with that idea when I was 5.
Instead of interviewing the people who live in these houses, the author talks about what the houses are like and why they are built. We get to hear nothing about actually *living* in a nano house. Indeed, some of the houses were simply made for design contests or as student projects with no intention of anyone living in them at all, which seems to be the OPPOSITE of environmentally friendly if you ask me.
In fact, the whole book reads like greenwashing. Oh, they say anyone can afford to buy this house or live there, but in fact it’s the “eccentric” wealthy who own these houses as second homes or vacation homes or a place to stick guests so they aren’t in the main house….but it’s environmentally friendly, so it’s all cool. What I wanted to see was game changers. Ordinary people who chose to make their own home their own way. What I got instead was annoying architectural design students and getaways for the wealthy. Plus, there are not nearly enough pictures of the houses to get a good idea of what they are actually like, and any floor plans are printed so small that they are impossible to read.
Overall, this book has a great title, but is a huge disappointment. It reads like a bunch of wealthy people patting each other on the back at a party at the Ritz, missing the entire soul of the environmental movement.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
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