Category: Book reviews

Before I head off to the Shakespeare Association of America meeting, some reviews:

The Magicians Original Graphic Novel: Alice’s Story by Lilah Sturges, Lev Grossman, Pius Bak. 5/5
I really enjoyed this graphic novel, which shows the events of Lev Grossman’s novel The Magicians from the POV of character Alice Quinn. If you’re familiar with the book, you’ll be fascinated by this new take on the story, starting with Alice’s arrival at Brakebills and culminating with the thoughts and experiences of the quasi-Alice she becomes at the end of the novel. The artwork of the graphic novel allows for readers to literally see how other readers imagined that characters and the places and the events of the original, and the book overall is a great addition to any Magicians’ fan’s library.

The Travelers by Regina Porter. 4/5
This is a sprawling mosaic of a book with fascinating and engaging and conflicted and very real characters that spans generations and friendships and family and good days and bad days and dark times and better ones. Although the beginning of the book and its very clinical tone initially turned me off, I’m glad I kept reading. As the stories of the many characters got underway, the writing became more intimate and interesting.

Blossoms in Autumn by Script by Zidrou / Art by Aimée de Jongh. 2/5
A retired moving man in his late 50s and a cheese shop owner in her early 60s embark on a relationship. When the woman, against all odds and apparently having never been told that even older folks should practice safe sex, becomes pregnant, they flee the judgement of the man’s family and go to Corsica, where the book ends before the woman has given birth. The book is meh–not particularly interesting or deep or thoughtful, but not unpleasant to read.

Executive Assistant: Iris Volume 1 by David Wohl, Eduardo Francisco. 1/5
Fan service and exoticism. Drawn well, but reifies the trope of the beautiful and deadly exotic woman who works for a man.

Three Ways to Disappear by Katy Yocom. 5/5
This is a beautiful novel about family and truth and being an outsider. Sarah , a journalist, takes on a job with a tiger conservation NGO in the small village in India where she and her family once lived, while in the US, her sister Quinn deals with a callous husband, a sick child, and the weight of guilt from her childhood in India. The two work to create a new relationship with each other and those around them, all the while threatened by the politics of their presence in India. The plots are compelling and the writing is gorgeous without being overambitious or false.

When We Were Arabs by Massoud Hayoun. 1/5
This was a near-unreadable mess of polemic, history, family history, and memoir. It’s poorly organized and written, jumps around in a scattered and unedited way, and ultimately is a chore to get through. I think the author has a story to tell and a point–or several–to make, but those aren’t served well in the current state this book is in.

The Fragments by Toni Jordan. 4/5
I mostly liked this thriller about about a lost book, its enigmatic author, an older woman who seems to know more than is possible about both, and the young woman who puts all of the pieces together. Caddie Walker, who left academia after a relationship with a predatory professor and now works in a bookshop, is devoted to the work of Inga Karlson, whose first book was an enormously popular and moving bestseller. Karlson’s second book, along with the ms, all of the press plates and any ephemera, went up in a fire that also killed Karlson and her publisher. But when Caddie goes to see the fragments of that second book on display, she encounters a woman who seems to know more about the second book than is possible, and Caddie tracks her down for the full story. While the reveal of this true story is predictable, it’s done well. The fact that Caddie goes to the predatory professor for help, and then seems to set him up to be hoist by his own petard, is a bit annoying and not easy to follow in terms of readers understanding what Caddie is doing; the same goes for her will-they-or-won’t-they relationship with another man burned by the same professor. If the relationships and Caddie’s intentions had been a bit clearer, the end would have been even more delicious.

Swords, Sorcery, & Self-Rescuing Damsels by Lee French. 2/5
There are some okay stories in here, but not enough that I could really recommend the book. Often the “self-rescuing” women and girls aren’t really so much self-rescuing as they are simply engaging in good manners or being friendly to the friendless and so on.

Bethlehem by Karen Kelly. 4/5
An atmospheric gothic read about a wealthy family and its secrets, as teased out by a newcomer to the family and its estate in Bethlehem, PA. It could be dismissed as just another entry into the long line of books about rich white people and secret love affairs and tragically short lives, but it’s beautifully written and the author’s inclusion of class-based conflict makes it seem more real and more compelling than if that aspect hadn’t been present.

The Ethereal Squadron by Shami Stovall. 2/5
I enjoyed a lot of this novel, but it’s overall world-building is very problematic. The plot focuses on Geist, a member of the Ethereal Squadron, a secret group of WWI soldiers with paranormal talents who use those talents to fight for Britain. Geist has several secrets: she’s a woman, and her father and brother–who also have paranormal capabilities–are fighting on the opposite side of the war. Geist and her team discover horrifying information during a raid, and Geist must lead them to stop a German attack sure to decimate Paris and to stop actions that will lead to the death of civilian and military sorcerers alike. The action is fast and the novel moves quickly, including the slow burn romance between Geist and a magic-using German defector who knows her true gender and identity. What bothered me, though, was the author’s construction of how magic works in her world: it only occurs in certain families, and those families deliberately practice eugenic breeding amongst one another, seeking to create more versatile sorcerers through the generations. Few if any of the characters in the books find this as disturbing as I think many readers will. The author could have cast this deliberate breeding in a poor light–as historians have done in recounting the close relative-marriages of European aristocracy–by making it one of the reasons Geist and her father are not on civil terms, but it’s treated as a good thing by everyone. And that’s troubling. Perhaps later installments–if there are any–of the series/setting will show the protagonists moving away from the idea of breeding an uber-race, or perhaps the heroes of this novel will become the villains of one set in WWII.

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman. 3/5
This is a beautifully written novel in which Jewish children survive WWII in France via extraordinary and supernatural means. Ettie, a brilliant young woman, agrees to create a golem to watch over Lea, a child sent by her mother to relatives . Over the course of the novel, Ettie and Lea grow up, forge lifelong relationships with others, and, along with their various love interests and vengeful desires, work towards the end of the war. Ava, the golem, watches over Lea, falls in love with a crane, speaks languages no human knows, and eventually faces Azrael, the Angel of Death, in a lovely but predictable encounter. While the characters never felt very deep to me, the book is mostly a pleasure to read, and Hoffman writes descriptively and fluently.

I do wish, however, that her reference to homeopathic treatment was not a positive one. She suggests that eating homey can save a person from thousands of bee stings. Not only is this not really a homeopathic treatment, but in this time when people are shunning vaccines and dismissing medical science, it’s dangerous to suggest that remedies like this are efficacious.

Starting with the best things I’ve read recently and moving down:

When Brooklyn Was Queer by Hugh Ryan. 5/5
This is an outstanding book about queer Brooklyn, organized by time and including insightful but never pedantic commentary on the area’s development; its famous inhabitants, particularly those who helped make parts of the borough a safe space for queers; the role of the military and industry in Brooklyn’s queer lives, and the contributions queer Brooklynites have made to American and world arts and civil rights. Author Hugh Ryan writes in a clear, accessible, and personal style that is a pleasure to read. I learned a great deal from this book not just on the topic of queer Brooklyn, but also about the fantastic resources Ryan used, the ways in which a book dealing with histories of overlapping place, people, and society can be crafted, I highly recommend this book for school, college, and university libraries in addition to individual readers.

The October Man by Ben Aaronovitch. 5/5
A delicious entry in the Rivers of London series, this novella introduces readers to the German equivalent of Nightingale, Grant, and the Folly denizens. Tobias Winter, one of Germany’s only two practitioners, is paired with Vanessa Sommer to investigate the supernatural death of first one man, and later several, near a vineyard struggling to make a comeback. Readers get to learn about German magic traditions, werewolves, river goddesses of Germany, noble rot, and more. It’s a fantastic treat for fans of this series and can be an introduction to the series for newcomers.

Lust on Trial by Amy Werbel. 4/5
This is a great account of Anthony Comstock’s career, one spent obsessing over and trying to shut down sexual freedoms ranging from masturbation to birth control. Comstock notoriously raided bars, art studios, the mail, and private homes in search of what he considered obscene material, which could be paintings of nudes, sculptures, pornographic photographs, and erotic novels. Werbel examines Comstock’s motivations, his successes, failures, and legacy in America in a highly readable and entertaining manner, including images of many of the items Comstock sought to suppress.

Aristophania, Script by Xavier Dorison / Art by Joël Parnotte. 3/5
I liked this first installment in a French graphic novel series. This volume establishes the setting in 1900 France, and provides us with an origin story for the three protagonists. These are impoverished siblings, Victor, Basile, and Calixte Francoeur, whose father is killed and whose mother has been sent to prison. Enter a mysterious older lady of considerable wealth and power, Aristophania, who takes the children to her estate . After the children witness magic and unexplained events, Aristophania explains that their father was a member of the same magical order as she, and they can choose to join her in it or continue in their mundane lives. I’m a little leery of the rich-person-fixes-it-all trope indicated by this first volume and the somewhat stereotyped and as-yet mostly undeveloped children–the fighter, the scholar, the innocent–but I’d like to read more. The art is gorgeous and evocative.

The Poison Bed by Elizabeth Fremantle. 3/5
A well-constructed novel about the real-life trials of Robert Carr and Frances Howard, figures in the court of James I. Their stories are told here in alternating viewpoints, allowing author Fremantle to create not just one but two unreliable narrators. Details about the trials and the lives of those involved are rich and interesting, but the pace drags a bit. For readers not familiar with the court, Jacobean naming conventions, and other historical matters, the novel may be a bit confusing.

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan. 2/5
An interesting intellectual exercise in questions of IA autonomy, emotion, motivation, alternate history, and self-reflection, but also kind of a drag to read and a bit preachy. In an England where technology is far more advanced than the present, and where Alan Turing lives as a 70-year-old, highly decorated celebrity, AIs in human-like bodies have become available for sale. The novel follows the purchaser of one such AI and in time finds that, predictably, some AIs can become more like humans and some humans more like AIs. I finished it because I usually enjoy McEwan’s work, but this was a chore to read.

Nation of the Beasts by Mariana Palova. 2/5
I understand that this was a huge hit when it was published in Spanish a few years ago. It didn’t really work for me, and I’m not sure how much of that is how the book is constructed and how much might be attributable to translation. Set in New Orleans, the story involves a white teenage orphan whose father abandoned him at a Buddhist monastery in Tibet as a baby. The orphan, Elisse, grows un in India, and then makes his way to America to search for his father. Once in the US, he’s taken in by a Buddhist center in New Orleans, but is quickly pursued by rival forces who are shapeshifters and what the author calls “voodoo” practitioners. Elisse is told that he has shapeshifter-type ancestry, and tries to learn more about this before a loa, or vodun god, comes after him seeking Elisse’s death. Along the way there’s a slow-burn possible-romance building between Elisse and one of his shapeshifting “brothers.” The novel switches POV frequently, and while these different voices make for unique perspectives, it’s not always clear why they’re used or why the author found them necessary. Elisse’s own voice is inconsistent throughout the novel, moving from a formal tone to slang and back again without rhyme or reason. Elisse’s backstory about being a blond American kid turned monk/acolyte doesn’t seem to be very relevant, and his interactions with the Buddhists who take him in don’t seem to matter much either. The use of stereotypical tropes surrounding the treatment of “voodoo” is pretty insensitive, as is the treatment of New Orleans culture. The writing makes it seem as if the author visited NOLA once, during Mardi Gras, did lots of touristy things, and never learned anything else about the city. This is the first in a projected series, so maybe the following books will be better, but I’m not inclined to read them based on this one.

The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse. 1/5
A mystery set in the Catholic-Hugenot wars of the sixteenth century, this novel is unfortunately a total bore. The history is presented pedantically; the main characters are a tired stereotype of lovers from different religions, the kind aunt/nursemaid, and evil priest; the plot is absurd; and it is all overwritten, slow-moving, and long. Mosse’s previous works also generally involve absurd plots and French history, but none have ever seemed as slow or as dull or as full of non-developed characters as this one.

Readymade Bodhisattva by Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park. 1/5
This might be the most tedious collection of short stories I’ve ever encountered. The introduction tells the reader all about what they’re going to read, then the intro to each story does the same. The stories themselves are mostly political comments dressed up as SF, and are dull and badly written (pr perhaps badly translated?). In any case, I can’t recommend any of the stories in this collection, much less the collection as a whole.