Listening Still by Anne Griffin. 1/5
This was pretty bad: an autistic character who is infantilized and pitied, inconsistent character behaviors, unexplained actions and decisions among the characters, a One True Love. It felt like it needed a heavy edit. The ideas is good: a woman who can hear the dead and works in her family mortuary is lied to by her parents and other family members, and has to decide how she wants to use her gift. But none of the characters are very deep or interesting, and the whole One True Love trope is simply awful, especially as it gets combined with Talented/Beautiful Person Dies Young. I can’t recommend this, despite the interesting premise.
Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak. 2/5
Journalist Sophie gets the chance of a career to write a bio of the First Lady, a smarter-than-Melania-but-still-nonetheless-inspired-by-her woman who grew up in the USSR. The president here is clearly inspired by Trump, and the clincher is based on the private discussion Trump had with Putin. The book would have been stronger without Sophie’s wishy-washy husband, who can’t decide whether to be supportive of his wife or leave her for doing her job, and if the First Lady had more of a personality.
Spirits and Smoke by Mary Miley. 2/5
A mystery set in Chicago in the 1920s, complete with the mob, a narrator with a Chicago accent and some rough manners, her mostly-fake medium of a landlady, the Chicago river, heists, and did I mention Capone? Not a terrible plot, but so very very many cliches and a lot of deus ex machina keeping the characters alive. The narrator isn’t particularly compelling, but some of the accurate historical details–the author is a historian by trade–are nice.
The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting. 1/5
This novel was a bit of a slog for me. The plot hinges on family secrets that needn’t have been secrets, wartime loyalties and betrayals, and the narrator’s lack of self. In fact, this book has one of the most unlikeable narrators I’ve ever encountered. He’s even worse that Holden Caulfield. He’s a narcissistic, callous asshole. Other characters are also all pretty awful people as well, and none for any reason that makes sense for the plot. The pace drags and really all I wanted to do was push the protagonist into the sea.
Fencing With the King by Diana Abu-Jaber. 5/5
I really enjoyed this book about the complexities of life in Jordan, homecoming, and family. the characters are beautifully drawn and imbued with reality, and the gentle teasing out of family history is elegant but believable. Through the use of a large cast, the author makes it possible to share information about things like gender, parenting, work, and behavior in ways that aren’t condescending to readers. I’d love to read this with a group of really smart people, or teach it to a class. (Fencers considering reading this: Even most of the fencing terminology is right!)
Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles, trans. Bryan Doerries. 5/5
This contains not just a fine translation of the three Oedipus plays, but an outstanding introduction, in which editor and translator Bryan Doerries discusses his Theater of War Productions company and how putting on these plays among and for communities affected by racial violence, veterans with PTSD, and other groups struggling with trauma can help in the healing process. I was fascinated by this work and the way the company addresses social justice issues, eldercare, homelessness, and other contemporary issues. Highly recommended.
Wild Imperfections by ed. by Natalia Molebatsi. 4/5
The ebook provided by NetGalley contained just a preview and the front and end matter of the book. What I read was powerful and excellent, so I am rating it based on that; I just wish the file had included more.
Primal Animals by Julia Lynn Rubin. 1/5
Primal Animals has all of the elements of a good horror novel: rich kids at an elite camp, secret societies, family legacies, creepy rituals, murder. But it never quite comes together–the timeline is too short, and doesn’t allow characters, discussions, or events to occur at a realistic pace, and the abruptness and unexplained-ness of character actions and changes keeps things from making sense. The queer romance is sweet, but feels almost tacked on, and the multitude of non-sequiturs in camper and adult behavior make for more of a mess than a chilling narrative.
What Is Written on the Tongue by Anne Lazurko. 3/5
Told from two points of view, one addressing the future and one the past, this novel examines the post-WWII Dutch military buildup in Java to prevent the Javanese independence movement. Sam, just released from a Nazi labor camp, is part of a unit tasked with finding and killing insurgents, a mission that quickly devolves into barbarism and unchecked violence. Numerous secrets and histories come to light over the course of the novel, and in the end, the reader is left to consider the ongoing casualties of colonialism worldwide.
The Silent Unseen by Amanda McCrina. 3/5
and the Soviet Union all struggled for land and power, enlisting teens as soldiers and commanders in their campaigns. While this novel is a bit choppy in its overall form, it tells a good story about siblings and their various allies and enemies as they seek safety and to influence the outcome of the political battles in which they are forced to pick sides.
I Hope This Finds You Well by Kate Baer. 5/5
This is a great book of erasure poetry in which the author offers up first a message attacking her, and then her erasure of much of the messages’ language, revealing new texts. This is a good introduction to erasure poetry, which has been on the upswing in recent years and is becoming more noticeable in poetry.. Baer’s erasures are strong and sure, and creative and thoughtful.
Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen. 5/5
Drawing on West African myth and lore, Skin of the Sea is a great middle-grade book about a human girl who has become a mermaid-like water spirit, a Mami Wata, charged with helping the souls of the drowned to their final rest. But when she saves a living boy, things get complicated, and we’re off on a fantastic, high-paced, and thrilling adventure in which readers are introduced to a range of orisas, or gods, their relationships and powers, non-human creatures of all kinds, treachery, and lots of magic. I loved the cooperation of the characters and their understanding of responsibility and compassion. This is a fun book that is full of African representation and that will leaves reader waiting for the next installment of the series.
Cynthia Starts a Band by Olivia Swindler. 4/5
A sweet, short novel about a woman who realizes she’s in an abusive relationship–several of them, in fact–and leaves. That she’s a rock superstar makes her leaving dramatic, but in a nice twist on the celebrity runaway trope, she really does want something different, and makes smart decisions along the way. A great vacation read, and also a good book club read, as there is a lot to discuss about selfhood, trauma, and recovery here.
Subterranea by Chris Fitch. 5/5
Subterranea is a beautiful book with outstanding, tantalizing photos of what lies beneath our feet, and crisp and clear writing about the forming and exploration of these places: caves, sinkholes, tunnels. It’s an ideal book to give as a gift to anyone interested in spelunking, hiking, urban exploration, and similar activities.
The World of Pondside by Mary Helen Stefaniak. 4/5
Full of unexpected twists and unreliable narrators, what seemingly begins as a mystery becomes a complicated morass of confused purposes. The set up: at a nursing facility, computer scientist Robert, dying of ALS, creates an online game that replicates–to tiny detail–places and memories of the other patients, allowing them to spend time with late spouses, far away children, and in places cemented in their memories. But when Robert dies, his friend Foster, a facility employee, is supposed to recover Robert’s laptop and give it to Robert’s mother. But the laptop is missing, and thus begins a wild goose chase for it, various passwords, secret levels of the game, and more. What has the game really been about? Smuggling drugs in from China, where Robert has a connection to a lab making experimental medicines for ALS. There are layers upon layers here, dreams that seem real and memories that are subject to dementia, making for an ultimately less than satisfying conclusion, albeit a noble effort to clean up what had become a big mess in the middle.
Keeping the Home Fires Burning by Phil Carradice. 1/5
I really need to remember to look at the publisher when I request a book, because Pen and Sword History has a bad track record of publishing un-fact-checked opinion pieces masquerading–and not well–as non-fiction. Author Carradice tells us what was good and bad about music and other forms of entertainment used as propaganda in Britain during the Great War, never failing to express elitist attitudes and some good old-fashioned sexism at the same time. There’s no objective analysis or teasing out of meaning or explication, and there’s certainly no expertise on music, theater, film, or print media to be had.
Quiet Night Think by Gillian Sze. 5/5
I can’t wait to introduce my writing students to this book! Gillian Sze offers a gorgeous collection of meditations on writing and the writing life alongside extraordinary poems about parenting, parents, observing, daily life, nature, and more. Drawing on traditional Chinese poetry as well as Western poets like William Carlos Williams, she presents thoughtful, informative, and evocative essays and works to be savored by any practitioner of writing.
The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry. 5/5
In this riveting and heart-wrenching novel about two young women growing up in the Soviet Union, we find every element of the traditional Russian novel turned to new purposes and deftly created amid the turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s. There is a ferocity in Gorcheva-Newberry’s language that drives the book even as it lingers on details and relaxed, timeless moments. For anyone who has read books about the USSR from thrillers or non-fiction, this novel will broaden their concept of this period, and how everyday life was lived.
Spear by Nicola Griffith. 5/5
This is an utterly wonderful book, smart and well-written. I read it in one sitting, beguiled by the story and characters and the very telling of them. My mom, a fan of good Arthurian stories, would have adored this book–I wish she was still here to read it. Griffith brings new elements to the Matter of Britain: disability, obsession, empowered women doing good. There is true collaboration between characters, and the characters are rich and human. The author’s note at the end, recounting Griffith’s research and though processes as she wrote the book, is equally enthralling and a pleasure to read. I cannot wait to discuss this with other people!
The White Girl by Tony Birch. 2/5
In this novel set in Australia, an Aborigine woman seeks to protect her white-passing daughter from the white men of their small village. Ultimately, she takes the girl and runs to a larger city, where by chance she finds refugee with an Aborigine family. I wish this had been better: the subject matter is important and explores a part of Australia that many people don’t know much about. But the characters are mostly flat, and the dialogue is too often unbelievable. There is an abrupt end to the main narrative, with many loose ends, and an awkward epilogue makes the book even more unsatisfying to the reader.
