“Parenthood is beautiful, but hard, too. It’s tough to exist in the world when there is someone going about their business who you would die for.” (Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister)
I wasn’t going to bother with Gillian McAllister anymore because there was just no way that she could top Wrong Place, Wrong Time. With its unique narrative (told backwards), I felt she had just stumbled onto something great. Just Another Missing Person proves me wrong. Every bit as fast paced, trickily told, and twisty, this book will please any family thriller lover.
Though I had just spent a whole book being shocked, I was additionally shocked by the acknowledgements: Gillian McAllister wrote this book when she was pregnant with her first child! She published it at 37 weeks, which is something that deserves praise and accolades all by itself. The truly shocking part is that her works perfectly showcase both the love of a parent for a child and the difficulty of parenting. Before I read the acknowledgements, I knew, knew, that McAllister was a mother with a teenage or adult child. It was incontrovertible. And yet, I was wrong again. So this is me: just incredibly wrong about Gillian McAllister on all fronts. How wonderful.
“But Harrowhark—Harrow, who was two hundred dead children; Harrow, who loved something that had not been alive for ten thousand years—Harrowhark Nonagesimus had always so badly wanted to live. She had cost too much to die.” (Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir)
I was shocked by the beginning of Harrow. I expected what the publishing industry has taught me to expect of a middle book: a hasty wrap up of the book one cliffhanger followed by a set up for book three. I did not expect every other chapter to be written in second person. I did not expect the book to make me question my memory, since what I thought I had read in the first book seems never to have happened in the second. I also did not expect Muir to tease me with the barest breadcrumbs of a plot for fully two thirds of the work. I’ve rarely read a book that demands such patience from the reader (WOT comes to mind), nor such a stomach for gore, since there’s very little that happens for the first 70% besides walking corpses, rivers of blood, and grisly necromantic murder scenes.
And yet, just as with WOT (or any other teasing author, really), the payoff is huge if you can wade through the mire of carnage and body parts. (SPOILER ALERT) Namely, we get Gideon back. She re-enters the scene like a floodlight, bringing the first laughs of the book as well as the only plot movement. It’s such a relief to read her again, to know that there was a method to the madness of the first two thirds, that we forgive Muir everything. Every boring and minute description of anatomy. Every time she made us question our own sanity and memory. Everything.
The reading experience here is unusual; the reader feels like a puppet, suspended and put into animation on Muir’s whim. But I am interested. How will she finish the tale? Will she go back to a more straightforward type of storytelling, as in book one, or will there be more teasing and tricks? I’m game to read book three, but I think I may need a few months to gear up for it.
“Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.” (Awe by Dacher Ketlner)
“But a radical new body of evidence shows that people are at their best—physically harder, mentally tougher, and spiritually sounder—after experiencing the same discomforts our early ancestors were exposed to every day. Scientists are finding that certain discomforts protect us from physical and psychological problems like obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, depression, and anxiety, and even more fundamental issues like feeling a lack of meaning and purpose.” (The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter)
I read these two not just back-to-back, but rather – because of the short loan terms at my library – interchanging with one another, almost as if they were the same book. And what a happy pair they were. Keltner, author of Awe, says that awe differs from beauty in that it is uncomfortable and vast, which is exactly what Easter, of the Comfort Crisis, claims we need more of as well. It was like reading one science-based book about awe and one narrative nonfiction, practical guide, to awe. I didn’t plan it that way, but that’s how the hold list sometimes works out.
In The Comfort Crisis, Easter describes how all discomfort has been perfectly engineered out of our lives and why that might be a bad thing. Alternating between describing month long hunt in Alaska and chapters on topics like nutrition, exercise, and the benefits of nature, Easter paints a convincing picture of how introducing a little discomfort might help us be happier and healthier. Likewise, Keltner describes how confronting vast and uncomfortable subjects – like art, death, or nature, can help us increase our experience of awe, which has multiple mental health benefits.
While neither of these books completely bowled me over or changed my life – they were both interesting reads, especially interwoven. Oftentimes when I read nonfiction (especially Brene Brown, etc), I feel that I’m reading about an entirely new concept that I never would’ve arrived at on my own. However, with awe and discomfort, I felt more of an intuitive knowledge; like I had always known these things, just hadn’t had the names for them.
“I’m sick and tired of people using girl as an insult.”
“It is on Avallen, and females are not allowed beyond the lobby of the archives.” “Yeah, our periods would probably get all over the books.”
“I should write that on my business card: Bryce Quinlan: Better than expected.” (House of Flame and Shadows, by Sarah Maas)
I was a bit wary of reading this book. The first was so phenomenal, and the second such a muddle, that I worried the third book might be a flop. I’m happy to say that all of my worrying was for nothing. The third book is so fantastic that it is, hands down, even better than the first. There’s no slow scenes, no moment where Maas drops the ball, no point where she could’ve brought more excitement or drama. It even makes me want to return to herThorns and Rosesseries, because any author who can bring it for a conclusion like this must have done it before. If it were a longer series, I’d compare it to the complete wonder and devastation of the last book of HP or WOT.
In fantasy, it’s pretty common for a male character to be a cunning strategist. Less common (I can’t think of many other examples, even WOT’s Egwene was harsh and serious) is a female strategist who is also casual, vulnerable, and cuttingly sarcastic. Oftentimes, women fantasy leads are still very reactive (think fourth wing, etc). Bryce, however, is a wonder. She’s always three steps ahead of everyone else (including the reader), while examining her nails, flipping her hair, wearing t-shirts, leggings, and her feelings on her sleeves. Even while loving everything about this conclusion, my only wish would be that the series could be longer so we would get to spend more time with her.
This is whole trilogy is great recommend for adult fans of The Fourth Wing – more mature, with more complex world building, but with the same fast pace and intimately known characters, and, of course, just as spicy.
“The problem is not the packing, I admit; I simply dislike travelling. Why people wish to wander to and fro when they could simply remain at home is something I will never understand. Everything is the way I like it here.” (Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett)
I’ve been waiting for book two of Emily Wilde for almost a year and I was not disappointed. Like with many second books in series, this highlighted Fawcett’s strengths – character, atmosphere, plot – and weaknesses: romance. Though I love a good romance, I don’t find that balance to be off-putting at all. Fawcett sets up the expectation that the romance will be subverted by good sense, the sex will be off page, and the grand gestures of love will be as undramatic as possible – so the reader gets what they sign up for. Fortunately, I’ve had Amelia Peabody this year to function as an Emily Wilde-like stand in, satisfying all my cravings for sardonic, logical, unreliable narrator main characters.
Fortunately, this is set up as a long series instead of a trilogy. I have to say, sometimes the trilogies seem like a trap. The first book is almost always the best, followed by a ubiquitous middle muddle, and then by the obligatory epic conclusion. The formula gets old. Long series, however, have a more episodic nature. Each book has their smaller plot arcs and the author doesn’t feel the need to ruin the gentle pace by a big, over-blown ending. That’s nice. If Fawcett follows in Peter’s footsteps (whether Fawcett compares herself to Peters is unknown) and publishes 20 books in this series – I will be there, happily reading each one.
Here, Fawcett brings all that was loved from the first book into the second. We get an Alpine village instead of a Norwegian one, two new secondary characters instead of vividly described villagers, a journey into Irish instead of winter fairie, another fairie ally (a vulpine one instead of a brownie). The clear substitutions don’t feel boring, but comforting. Fawcett’s formula is a good one, and I look forward to reading as many iterations of it as she cares to write. We come to this book for Emily’s strong, logical thinking, bravery and distinct voice – and we’ll leave satisfied no matter which beautifully articulated atmosphere Fawcett chooses to describe to us.
Here are the main questions about Dungeon Crawler Carl 6: when does book seven come out?! Why weren’t they all published before I started reading? Why did I start such a hilarious, suspenseful series before it was adequately concluded? And: how am I possibly going to wait x months for the next book? Calculated in terms of laughs per page, there is no substitution for Dungeon Crawler Carl. I have never, ever laughed this much at a book before. My husband claims that I’ve graduated from laughing to cackling and my son’s impression of me reading a book is this maniacal, booming, barking laugh that I only hope is wildly inaccurate.
Sure, the beginning of Lessons in Chemistryand Romantic Comedywere funny – but they were so short: only a few hours of laughter, total. This series is thousands of pages long, and the laughs never stop. For the first time in my life (ok, that’s not true, considering the number of HP shirts I own), I am seriously considering getting some DCC merch (especially the Goddammit Donut tshirts).
In spite of how much I love it, I’m having a hard time figuring out who to recommend this series to. It seems most of my bookish friends are, well… a little too sensitive for DCC. I can’t go shouting from the rooftops about DCC because the laughs per minute are only rivaled by other calculations, such as the f-bombs per minute, gory deaths per minute, or foot fetish references per minute. For these reasons, DCC is not universally recommendable – but there’s nothing wrong with that. I’d rather read a book perfect for one kind of reader than a book that is readable by all, but beloved by no one. So, if you aren’t squeamish, try Dungeon Crawler Carl (but save yourself the absolute misery of having to wait for book 7 and start it in a few years).
“Always be quiet when a heart is breaking.” (The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer)
I was of two minds when I first started this book: I felt insatiably curious about the premise (famous author of children’s books invites readers to compete for a prize) and also felt a few, soft, warning bells toll during the intro. I’m a sucker for anything that smacks of a darker rewrite of childhood favorites (ATYD, Every Heart a Doorway), but the hastily revealed tragic backstories of the main characters pulled on my heartstrings in that bestseller way I dislike so much. I almost put the book down, but the female lead was so likeable and I was so curious about the children’s book premise that I just kept reading.
It turns out that my concept of ‘dark’ is vastly different from V. E. Schwab’s, who blurbed The Wishing Game. Let’s make a darkness scale. If ‘dark’ is GOT and maybe books 8 and 9 of WOT, and sickly sweet is a gooey picture book like ‘I’ll love you forever’ – The Wishing Game doesn’t even make it half way to dark. It doesn’t even pass Roald Dahl level dark. Besides the glossed over backstories including drug addiction, neglect, and cancer, and some quickly resolved tension about who won the game, this book was about as dark as my six year old can handle. I was disappointed, to say the least, and felt mildly disgusted by all the sweetness. This was just not the book for me and I wish I had listened to the small voice in my head telling me so. I hereby vow to stop being sucked into fun sounding premises!
The Wishing Game ends up not being so much a children’s book matured and darkened for adult reader, but rather a children’s book featuring adults.
After having this blog for fourteen years, I’ve wanted to change its name many times. For a while, I thought that bookshark would be more appropriate, pointing towards the idea of reading nonstop like how a shark swims even while sleeping. Recently, I’ve been thinking of Thank You, Books, or something along those lines, because mostly what I feel about reading is grateful. Grateful to be a reader, to be inundated with so many wonderful thoughts and perspectives. Grateful for finding the romance genre, and independently published books, and women writing fantasy and romantasy. Grateful to bookriot for their delightful booklists and everyone else who has recommended me a brilliant read. So, given that I’m way too fond of consistency to change the booklion’s name, I’ll just say it here: thank you, books. Thank you all for coming into my life this year.
So, without further ado, here are the mostly meaningless, yet still fun, Booklion Birthday Awards:
“Fred!” the nurse said, though they had never met. “How are we today?” Reading the nurse’s name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, “Bernard! We’re mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?”
“There’s a belief that to take care of someone else, or to let someone else take care of you-that both are inherently unfeminist. I don’t agree. There’s no shame in devoting yourself to another person, as long as he devotes himself to you in return.” (Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld)
Most modern retellings of P&P I’ve read have been so loosely based on the original that the resemblance is almost non-existent. It usually seems more of a marketing scheme than a true homage. Eligible, on the other hand, is Pride and Prejudice, just written in modern-day Cincinnati. The character names are the same and their personalities have been thoughtfully transposed to a new time and country without missing a note. Mrs. Bennnet, in modern day America, is a compulsive shopper and budding hoarder, Mr. Bennet is a man who does little except squander his inheritance and make wry remarks, Kitty and Lydia are obsessive cross-fitters, and Bingly is a Harvard-grad ER doctor who starred on a reality TV Show. Of course, of course, of course. Each character description is like a puzzle piece settling into place – of course he/she would be like that, that just fits. It is so incredibly satisfying to see P&P revived and in the hands of a truly capable writer.
There is a thrill that comes from realizing that you have something intimately in common with a main character of a book. In this case, Liz is my exact same age – 38. It makes me wonder if my recent antipathy towards YA lit and almost all YA fantasy is more a feeling of being left behind, left out. Yes, reading can help you explore all perspectives and genders and sexualities and ages and etc, etc, etc, but I’m getting to the age where fewer and fewer books are written about my experiences and it’s a mildly lonesome feeling. Lizzy Bennet is just as captivating a character at 38 as she was at “not one and twenty”.
Though I loved this book from top to bottom, and, in fact, have found it hard to get into any other book since reading it, like Catherine de Bourgh, “I must have my say”. It’s impossible not to nitpick a P&P translation like this, even though the whole was nothing but lovely. In my opinion, Sittenfeld didn’t quite do Mr. Bennet justice. In the original, he was aloof with the family but his private conversations with Elizabeth showed his vulnerability and curious mind. The way Sittenfeld had it, however, he bordered on incompetent and treated everyone with equal contempt. Additionally, I like the timeline and symmetry of P&P so much more – a full year for feelings and romance and tension to develop. Here, on a shorter timescale, Liz’s reversal of feelings wasn’t quite as believable. (Spoiler) Also, the scandal being about a trans person dates the book a bit – it wouldn’t be nearly as scandalous now as it may have been in 2016. However, I loved that Mary (a completely neglected character in P&P) got the last say in the epilogue -delightful.
Between this and Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld has completely converted me. What else has she written? How soon can I get my hands on it? (Also, when you read this, do not neglect the acknowledgements and essay in the back – they are essential reading on friendships).
“The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you.” (Stiff by Mary Roach)
One of my favorite things to do is to go to one of those over-the-top kid focused places (which all parents are forced to do at least occasionally by the horror of birthday parties and holidays) and be listening to something really out of sync, like radical feminist literature, steamy m/m romance, etc. Stiff fits the bill admirably with its gruesome talk of cadavers getting shot, exploded, dissected, and just generally decomposing. It’s just wonderful to know that, even though I might be forced to be at a chuck-e-cheese or trampoline place or an over-crowded Easter egg hunt by the fact of having children in modern society – that my mind can still be free to listen to whatever the hell I want to listen to.
Like On Being Mortal, Stiff helps the reader think about what happens after death. Instead of dealing with the psychology of mortality, however, Mary Roach tackles the physical aspect. What happens when you ‘donate your body to science’? What actually happens to decomposing bodies, embalmed bodies, or composted ones? Let me just say this: though I did not come away from the book with a distinct love of wondering about cadavers, I did come away with a distinct love of Mary Roach. Anyone who can maintain that kind of humor with this kind of topic is my kind of person. I loved the contrast of tone and subject.
This book was published so long ago that I wonder what has happened since, in the world of cadavers? Is human composting a widespread thing now? Do medical schools still use human cadavers for anatomy class? Will I ever care enough to google it, if I can’t read the words in Mary Roach’s characteristic voice?
Book Lion 