The Untold Story

The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman, 384 pages

After years of tracking rogue Librarian Alberich, Irene has finally trapped him in a world from which he can't escape. Now she's able to focus on sorting out a peace treaty between the chaotic Fae and the strictly ordered Dragons — or that's what she thinks when she's ordered by the Senior Librarians to kill Alberich. But now he's offering to sign a truce, which certainly means that something strange is afoot. But can she believe him? Or is she better off just killing him and going back to her treaty work?

This is the eighth book in the Invisible Library series, and while Cogman says that it isn't really the end of the story for Irene and her allies, it's a fitting place to set down the story. This series started strong, wavered a bit in the middle (as much as it pains me to say it, the heist book was NOT necessary), and if this is the end, I'd happily say that it's a satisfying and strong ending. I can't wait to see what Cogman writes outside of this series!

Lost in the Moment and Found

Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire, 146 pages

In the eighth Wayward Children book, we get the story of Antsy, a young girl whose home environment has been increasingly uncomfortable since her father died and a new stepfather came into the equation. When Antsy hits her tipping point and the alarm bells start ringing, she runs away from home and ends up in an eclectic store that she soon learns is a nexus of worlds, the place where lost thing go, with Doors leading in and out of strange and sometimes wonderful lands.

We met Antsy in the previous book in the series, Where the Drowned Girls Go, as Cora's roommate, but what's wonderful is that you don't have to have read that one to enjoy this one, or vice versa. (The back-and-forth between the continuing story and books that focus on specific characters is fantastic, and makes it approachable from many angles.) Antsy's story is uncomfortable and scary and unsettling, a story of childhood and innocence lost, and it's delicately and perfectly told.

Babel

 Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History by R. F. Kuang, 544 pages.

Kara reviewed this book in December here, and I'm going to link her review because the premise of this one is a bit complex and I couldn't have done a better job myself. 

This book, despite all of the academia and technical knowledge that went into it, still feels pretty easy to follow, and it's pace is much quicker than what I expected. I do feel the need to mention though that in many ways this feels like two books in one. The novel is divided into five books. The first two cover mostly Robin, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty's lives as a cohort at Babel, Oxford's college of translation, while books four and five deal more directly with colonialism (and three serves as a sort of bridge). I read the first half of this book pretty leisurely, picking it up and putting it down many times over the course of a few weeks, but by the time I reached the end of book three I was seriously hooked. 

This book is an interesting dialogue and well-crafted. I can't quite shake the feeling that I wanted something from it that I didn't get, but I would still call it a very solid book with a lot of interesting things going on inside. 

The Lightning Conductor

 The Lightning Conductor by C.N. Williamson and A.M. Williamson, 344 pages.

This book was published in 1903, and follows young Molly Randolph's adventures touring Europe in the very early days of the automobile. She, her Aunt May, and their "chauffeur" Brown drive through much of France and Italy, taking in historic sites and the countryside. Chauffeur in the least sentence is in scare quotes because Brown is in fact in English lord in disguise, who decided to get himself hired as Molly's chauffeur after being struck by her beauty (a plan that is clearly very thought out and definitely won't lead to any problems later).

I had this epistolary novel sent to my email in real time matching the dates on the letters (which took about three months), and was shocked at how contemporary it felt. Molly's letters in particular were charming, and I found her to be a wonderful character. She had a way of writing that made me actually take an interest in French scenery. The book is part travelogue and part romantic comedy, and both parts work really well together. My only complaint is that the end was very abrupt.

(If you also are interested in receiving public domain epistolary novels in your email this is the free newsletter that I'm subscribed to)

My Latest Grievance

My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman (2006) 242 pages

Frederica Hatch is the only child of two university professors at a small women's college in Massachusetts. The family lives in one of the dormitories; Frederica's parents are houseparents, as well as active union leaders. Dorm life is the only life Frederica has known, other than the times she's at her friends' houses, or her grandmother's house during breaks when the dorms are closed. Frederica, from a young age, has been like a mini-adult; her parents have always been very open with her about life. 

Except for one thing: When she is almost 16, while staying at her grandmother's house, Frederica happens upon a photograph from her father's first wedding. No one had ever mentioned that her uncool father had been married to someone else before, especially not someone like Laura Lee French, who was glamorous and worldly, traits that are very different from her Frederica's mother.

When Laura Lee ends up arriving on campus to serve as a houseparent in another dorm, the small college is upended by her out-sized personality, manner of dressing, and unconventional behavior. Life will never be the same for Frederica, or her parents, for that matter! 

This Is Not the Story You Think It Is...

This Is Not the Story You Think It Is... A Season of Unlikely Happiness by Laura Munson (2010) 343 pages

After Laura Munson's husband tells her that he isn't sure he wants to be married to her anymore, and that he isn't sure that he had ever loved her, she begins her memoir as a way to cope with the uncertainty. They had been together 20 years and had two children, ages 8 and 12. She continues to live on their rural Montana property, with her husband sometimes leaving for days at a time. She tries to make excuses to the children so that they don't feel deserted by their dad. She works hard to apply the philosophy that the end of suffering happens with the end of wanting; that our happiness lies within our own control. For most of us that would be quite quite a challenge, and it is for her, too. 

She writes a compelling story, delving into her youth, her family relationships, her history with her husband, and their current situation. However, like some of the close friends that Laura confided to about the situation, I find myself sometimes wondering why she is trying so hard to be so sympathetic towards her husband, wondering how she can keep up hope that he will work through his crisis and return to stay with her.

This memoir – filled with bits of philosophy and poetry, as well as her thoughts – feels honest, sometimes raw, and was very hard to put down.

Where the Drowned Girls Go

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire, 150 pages

While Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children is a welcoming environment for kids who went through a portal to another world and then returned to our mundane world, something about the place just doesn't seem to be working for Cora, who is haunted by the watery world where she became a mermaid. For that reason, she decides to transfer to the much more rigid and harsh Whitethorn Institute, which aims to disabuse children of the notion that other worlds even exist. However, much like the beds in Goldilocks, Eleanor West's was too soft, Whitethorn is too hard, and Cora is stuck trying to escape Whitethorn and find something that works for her.

I love this series of novellas, and McGuire's limitless imagination for other worlds. I also particularly enjoy the inclusiveness of this series, which features LGBTQ kids and kids with different abilities and body types, and treats them all honestly and with care. These books are well worth a read for fans of portal fantasy.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

 The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo, 119 pgs.

Chih is a cleric from Singing Hills, which seems to be a monastery dedicated to preserving all knowledge. When a number of sites significant to the former empress (the titular Empress of Salt and Fortune) are magically unsealed they decide to make their way to Scarlet Lake, the home where the empress lived in exile for six years before taking the throne. When she arrives she finds that a very old woman is already there, a woman named Rabbit who was the empress' most trusted servant. While Chih catalogs the contents of the house Rabbit tells them stories of the empress while they lived there. Slowly a picture begins to form of the wronged foreign wife who managed to shake the foundations of the nation.

I quite liked this book, and think that people who enjoyed A Psalm for the Wild-Built should definitely give this one a try as well. However, I will say I think that this book would benefit from slightly more pages, as some parts of the story felt more like outlines and hints than a fully satisfying story in it's own right. But, I found the characters intriguing and the story interesting enough that I finished this novella very quickly.

When Sorrows Come

 When Sorrows Come (also "And With Reveling") by Seanan McGuire, 384 pages.

Toby's getting married! Finally! Moreover, Toby is getting married sooner than even she expected, after her friends decided to take her at her word when she said that they should handle the details of the ceremony and just tell her when to show up. It even practically goes to plan, with just one small coup she has to prevent before she can get married (which is honestly probably still less bloodshed than most people were expecting).

This book was really nice because we got to spend a whole lot of time seeing how far Toby has come and how much she's healed. This is book fifteen in the series, and it was genuinely really nice to be able to take some time to appreciate how far she (and everyone else) has come. The plot was good, but ultimately secondary to the characters. I'm finally almost caught up! Hopefully I'll have time to read book sixteen before the new one comes out in the fall. 

Mudbound

 Mudbound by Hillary Jordan (2008) 328 pages

I listened to the audiobook on Hoopla. There were six narrators since chapters of the book switch between the point of view of each of the six main characters. I watched the movie adaptation by Dee Rees back when it was released on Netflix in 2017 and have had the novel on my reading list for awhile. The movie has a strong ensemble cast. There are two sharecropper families in the Mississippi Delta in the years following WWII. The black family, the Jacksons, are one of the tenants, and the white family, the McAllans are the landlord. We get to know husband and wife Hap and Florence Jackson and their grown son Ronsel. We also meet brothers Henry and Jamie McAllan, their father Pappy, and Henry's new wife Laura. In the movie, the friendship that forms between Jamie and Ronsel, who are both just back from serving in the war, stands out as they commiserate over their war experiences and struggle with being back in the Jim Crow south. In the book, Laura is responsible for the largest portion of the narration. Mudbound is the name of the farm, a name given by one of the McAllans' young daughters. It is a name not as grand as Henry would like, but one that Laura who is from the "civilized" city of Memphis feels is a perfect fit. Each character is clearly drawn. The family dynamics of parents and children, older brother and younger brother, and husband and wife are relatable. Pappy is clearly a villain with nearly no redeeming features, but even the "good" white characters show their racism when challenged. There are twists in the drama that I did not remember from the movie as it builds to its conclusion.

A Couple of Blaguards

A Couple of Blaguards by Malachy & Frank McCourt  96 pp. 

This is the script of the two man show performed by the McCourt brothers in the 1980s. It's a collection of conversations and commentaries on their lives growing up in Limerick, Ireland and later living in New York City. There is humor, poignancy, and song. I would've liked to see this play with the brothers performing but you can find performances by others on YouTube.   

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

 

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, 430 pages

I know that Kara has already blogged about this graphic novel, so this is all I'm going to say: It is a fascinating, infuriating, and emotional journey, and everyone should take the time to read and absorb it.

Heartstopper vol. 4

Heartstopper vol. 4 by Alice Oseman, 350 pages

*Spoilers ahead because this is the fourth of a planned five-book series. Just go read the first three, and then this one, so I can talk to you about it.*

In this fourth volume of Heartstopper, Nick and Charlie are together, out to their classmates and friends, and contemplating the big "I love you" declarations. But not everything is sparkly in their world. Charlie's dealing with anorexia (even if Charlie isn't aware of it yet) and Nick still hasn't told his dad that he's bisexual, and both of them are so worried about the other's issues that they're having trouble noticing their own problems.

Throughout this series, Oseman has done an excellent job of navigating tough topics, from figuring out sexual identity to transphobia to bullying and emotional abuse. With this volume, that turns to eating disorders, and the limitations of what teens can do to help their friends. I absolutely love the way that this is handled in a realistic manner (yes, it takes a long time, and no, love does not fix everything), and I will be shoving this series into the hands of as many people as I can.

Dr. No

Dr. No by Percival Everett, 262 pages

Mathematics professor Wala Kitu is the world's foremost expert in nothing. Which makes him the perfect asset for John Milton Bradley Sills, a billionaire who wants to be a Bond villain, by stealing a box of nothing from Fort Knox and using it to make nothing happen to the world. With his trusty one-legged dog Trigo by his side (well, in a Baby Bjorn carrier anyway), Dr. Kitu takes Sills' money and embarks on the plan to steal nothing, slowly realizing along the way that nothing can cause a whole lot of havoc to the world, and he may be the only one who can keep nothing from happening.

If that paragraph confused you, imagine reading 262 pages like that. This wasn't the weirdest book I've read (that would be Tacky Goblin) but it certainly is near the top of the weird list. The overuse of the word "nothing," the globe-trotting plot mixed with page-length mathematical/philosophical paragraphs, Trigo talking to Dr. Kitu in his dreams...the whole thing feels like it was co-written by Joseph Heller and Jean-Paul Sartre. It's too clever by half, and Everett takes plenty of opportunities to give us a wink and let us know that. 

Into the Riverlands

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo, 100 pages

In this third entry of Vo's Singing Hills series, cleric Chih is once again traveling the country, gathering stories and histories, when they witness a bar fight between a burly man and a petite sophisticated woman — surprisingly, the small woman knocks out her much-larger foe and walks away unscathed. Chih is soon invited to travel with the woman and her companion, as well as an older married couple, through the Riverlands, a dangerous region for travelers, full of marauders and bandits.

This whole series is absolutely delightful, and Into the Riverlands is no exception. Chih is an excellent observational avatar for the reader, full of curiosity and wonder, and Chih's talking bird companion, Almost Brilliant, offsets that innocence with plenty of sarcasm. The fantasy elements are light, giving this series a much wider appeal than just fans of speculative fiction.

Full Fathom Five

 Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone, 382 pages.

It's hard to even begin describing the premise of this novel, which takes place in the same world as Three Parts Dead. The priests on the island of Kavekana make idols, because there haven't been gods on the island since theirs sailed away during the god wars. The idols aren't like gods, and they essentially function as safe repositories of faith untouchable by foreign gods or deathless kings (a significant part of this book is about fantasy off-shore banking). They can't think or speak, and they aren't sentient. Which makes it a real problem when some of them seem to be spontaneously doing some of those things. Kai, who builds idols, is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, no matter the consequences. Kai is only one of the protagonists, but it would take even longer to explain the street kid/priestess of dead gods, so I'll leave that element a mystery.

I know that synopsis was a lot, but this book is really good! It's twisty and complex, and I had a hard time putting it down for the whole final third. Although this series is designed to be read in pretty much any order, I still feel like I maybe should have read some of the earlier chronological books first, just to appreciate everything. These books are refreshingly weird, and I'm definitely still excited to read more of them.

Eat The Rich

 Eat the Rich by Sarah Gailey (illus. Pius Bak and Roman Titov), 128 pages.

Joey is nervous about visiting her boyfriend Astor's very rich family in Crestfall Bluffs for the summer. It turns out she was very right to be nervous, but very wrong about why. The wealthy of Crestfall Bluffs are cannibals, and they eat their staff. And if Joey's not "the right kind of girl" they just might eat her too. 

This was a cool premise, but unfortunately the book didn't really work for me. There was to much of the plot that was hard to swallow (pardon the pun), and it didn't feel like this comic had anything really interesting to say. It was also really gross, but that was pretty much expected in a comic about cannibalism.

A Song for the Dark Times

 

A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin  328 pp,

Retired Police Inspector John Rebus just moved into his new apartment but before he can settle in a phone call sends him out trying to find his daughter's missing partner. Soon it turns into a murder investigation when the man's body is found at an abandoned WWII prisoner of war camp in the Scottish wilderness. Rebus butts heads with the local constabulary while doing his own, unofficial investigation. Then  evidence connects this murder to that of a Saudi college student who lived in London with business connections in Scotland. After many twists and turns, and the involvement of a local crime boss and blackmailer, the crimes are solved, both together and separately. The audiobook narrator does a good job but occasionally the Scottish accent is a bit thick and the odd word was lost to a non-native speaker.

Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy

 

Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis (2022) 496 pages

The title sounded fascinating and there is a local St. Louis angle, since Josephine Baker was born here. Before I worked here at the library I attended a virtual author talk organized by one of the area book stores, which further heightened my interest. Mr. Lewis shared that there is a film adaptation in the works with Janelle Monae expressing interest in playing Josephine Baker. I really hope this project is greenlit and completed.

The author explains in his introduction that British espionage files are kept classified with no set time period when they will be released to the public, so there are gaps in the details he can present in the history here. There are two male secret agents who worked with Josephine either from afar or in person, who are described as inspiration for Ian Fleming's James Bond. One of those, Jacques Abtey, a French Resistance agent, had a very close relationship with Josephine. A major source used by Lewis is a memoir written by Abtey, so this spy who used multiple aliases throughout his career sometimes seems to take center stage at the expense of showing Josephine's accomplishments. Josephine spends over a year, in the year before America entered WWII, dealing with abdominal infections in a Casablanca clinic. This period is covered through multiple chapters. Josephine's clinic room becomes a meeting place for the sharing of intelligence between Free French, British, American, and North African Arabic and Berber agents, a place that the Axis agents don't dare attack or bug. Her room becomes the important thing, but she is sick and unable to actively engage in gathering intelligence. This is just to indicate that large portions of the story put her in a passive role. She didn't share details of her war years later in her life, so the author is forced to leave out many specifics. Still there are gems of facts that really capture the imagination. She used her singing and dancing performances as cover for moving intelligence for the Allied powers, or she used a Red Cross nurse position in the Free French military to do the same. She also was a trained pilot and as a superstar was able to move amongst powerful people in Europe and North Africa. She showed a deep conviction for fighting against Nazi hate and American segregation.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, 318 pages

Mika Moon is a witch, and loves her magical abilities. What she doesn't love is the loneliness that comes with being a witch. Because it's common knowledge (among the handful of witches that live across Britain, anyway) that too many witches together for too long makes big magic happen and that almost always draws negative attention from non-witchy people. So when Mika is invited to move into a remote house and be a magical tutor three young witches who are being raised by normal folks, Mika is equal parts wary and intrigued.

This is a magical warm hug, much like T.J. Klune's lovely House in the Cerulean Sea. I love the witches, I love the non-witchy people they live with, and I really love Mika's distinction between "nice" and "kind." This is the very definition of a comfort read.

The Madness of Crowds

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (2021) 432 pages

The novel begins with Chief Inspector Gamache and his officers securing a university venue for a visiting professor's lecture. Scheduled at the last minute, during the winter holidays, expectations were that the event would be sparsely attended, but because the professor, Abigail Robinson, has gone viral for her lectures on the Internet, there is a restless mob trying to squeeze into the building. Dr. Robinson's premise is that euthanasia is the right solution for those whom society can't afford to care for. It looks like half the crowd accept her softly voiced opinion, while half the crowd are outraged. When a gunshot during the lecture almost hits the professor, Gamache is put in the uncomfortable position of having to figure out how a weapon got into the venue when everyone was being checked prior to entry.

A few days later, although the gunman has been caught, someone close to the lecturer is murdered, and it isn't clear whether the murder was a case of mistaken identity or happened as intended.

The novel has a slow start, giving an extended discussion of how the Covid lockdowns affected the people in Three Pines (and elsewhere in Canada), how the vaccine's availability allowed people to joyfully gather again, and finally, description of the intense crowd gathering for this lecture. There is also discussion of the training of police to manage crowds without getting violent themselves. Only once this section is past, and the action gets underway, did I finally relax and know that the Penny I relish is back at the wheel. There are a couple times in this novel when Gamache has a somewhat short fuse, but perhaps that's reasonable, given that he has to protect a professor whose views he finds despicable.

Real Easy

 Real Easy by Marie Rutkoski (2022, 320 pages)

In 1990s small town Illinois, a new dancer joins the tight knit group of a strip club; a group of detectives with secrets investigates a murder and a disappearance; and a woman is held captive without apparent reason.

Swapping between multiple perspectives, you follow along with the mystery surrounding the Lovely Lady strip club: the dancers, the owner, the bouncers, the regulars, the detectives. Themes include small town and sex worker culture, mild queer representation, and suspense -- my only complaint is that two women's stories seem to focus entirely around their kids without being their own person. 

While it has mystery aspects as you try to discover the killer, it reads more like a thriller. Rutkoski describes the mundane with a Ghibli-esque floral style, but with more adult themes. I love the way she led us down the rabbit hole of whodunnit, and the casual queer representation plus acknowledgement of racial divides.

The People We Hate at the Wedding

The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grant Ginder (2017) 324 pages

Paul and Alice are siblings whose older half-sister, Eloise (who lives in England) is going to get married. Dysfunctional relationships abound in this novel, partly because Eloise's father is quite wealthy, and she has had advantages that her half-siblings have not. Additionally, Paul and his mother are estranged because Paul thinks she disrespected his father after his death by removing all signs of his existence. Paul, who's a social worker, is also struggling with his job, working for an unorthodox researcher. Paul's pompous partner, Mark, seems interested in adding a third party to their relationship, which is another stressor for Paul. Alice has her own issues, being in a relationship with her married boss, plus having a lot of emotional baggage from a previous relationship. Their mother, Donna, has her own somewhat bleak world.

By the time we finally meet the bride, we're already at page 164 and worn out from watching the antics of the others, ready for a more stable person! Eloise might be more stable, and perhaps means well, but watch out!

The story is a strange mingling of the comical and the sad. Do the hilarious bits make up for the painful ones? You'll have to be the judge.

Piranesi

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, 245 pages

The person who narrates this book (sometimes called Piranesi by a guy he calls "The Other") lives in a large House of hundreds of rooms, corridors, and courtyards, many of which are filled with statues, birds, water, and even clouds. By his reckoning, he and The Other are the only living people in the labyrinthine House, though there are several Dead that predate his time there. 

Structured as a journal of his days in the House, Piranesi is an atmospheric, haunting tale of a liminal space and a man who has mentally adapted to living there — though whether those adaptations are healthy or sane or pitiable was a key point of discussion for the Orcs & Aliens earlier this week. It wasn't cheerful, and the statues were super creepy, but I loved the small window into this man's world, and I really think that I'll be ruminating on this book for a long time yet.

The Golden Enclaves

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik, 407 pages

Now that she's made it out of the deadly Scholomance school of wizardry (this is NOTHING like Hogwarts, mind you), El is determined to fight off the prophecy that has hounded her for years: that she would become a powerful maleificer (read: dark magic worker) who slaughters thousands. Of course, that plan must be put on hold, as El is the only wizard in the world that has the ability to kill maw mouths, the vicious creatures that are suddenly attacking magical enclaves around the world. Oh, and she has to go back into the Scholomance to kill the maw mouth that ate Orion, her star-crossed love. 

This is the third book in the Scholomance trilogy, and this one was more harder to follow and not as captivating as its predecessors. Perhaps that's because it's the first in the series that doesn't take place in the school (which was a character in itself), or maybe it's because it's been a while since I read the first two books. Whatever the case, it just didn't resonate with me in the way that Novik's other books have. 

Self-Confidence: A Philosophy

Self-Confidence: a Philosophy, by Charles Pepin (2019, 176 pages)

I am a bit of an introvert and side-musician dealing with more anxiety issues as I get older, especially in crowds or playing music, so I was looking for texts that could speak to basic strategies on gaining more self-confidence in those areas. While this book was not as procedural as I imagined it would be, it was actually very aspirational, and reminded me of my time in undergrad reading transcendentalist authors, like Emerson and Thoreau. Much of the book is written in an uplifting, inspirational manner, which I generally sort of despise, but this doesn't feel sappy. The book abounds with analogies and metaphors intended to get the reader to reflect on their own experiences with confidence, while referring to famous quotes throughout the ages. There's a bit of philosophy, a lot of straight talk that is very down to earth and serves as a good reminder to what's important in life. The book first breaks down what confidence is, or rather the concept of confidence--what we tend to think of it. It then begins to investigate how self-confidence works and provides useful examples both historical and modern. It was an interesting concept to think of achieving self-confidence as something you cannot do on your own, paradoxically. According to the author, confidence is derived by others in our life, who help to make us feel confident--people who help us increase our feelings of competence--and then we begin to (or should) move forward in the direction of trusting ourselves, our intuition, of building a natural resistance to fear of the unknown and developing a categorical mistrust of life as a whole. We must become brave and learn to navigate uncertainty, to listen to ourselves and trust our rational minds. That is the only way to true self-confidence. Personally, this is less of a self help book and more of an agnostic, inspirational text, I definitely enjoyed it. It was a fast read and really aims to get you out of your own head. Good for adults and teens. 

Depth of Winter

 Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson  292 pp.

This is the 14th book in the Walt Longmire series. In this episode Walt's daughter Cady has been kidnapped by a drug cartel in Mexico in retribution by cartel leader, Tomas Bedarte. The American authorities are negotiating with the Mexican government for permission to enter the country and find the kidnappers. Walt refuses to wait and proceeds on his own with a few locals to enter the northern desert of Mexico in search of the criminals. Just when Longmire thinks he has succeeded in rescuing Cady and her housekeeper, things go horribly wrong and he finds himself alone in the desert, once again trying to reach his daughter. I have skipped a few books in the series and this one had some surprising revelations I missed by skipping those books. Walt's deputy Vic and Henry Standing Bear were absent from the story and I missed them a lot.

All Good People Here

All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers (2022, 312 pages)

From the creator and host of multiple true crime podcasts, Ashley Flowers, comes her debut novel fit for mystery lovers. It jumps between two times within the same Indiana small town – one, a young girl goes missing and is later found murdered in 1994; and in 2019, another young girl goes missing from the next town over. Learn more about the entwined fates of these two children from the perspectives of multiple characters in both timelines, in particular a character who is present in both timelines. Or is it two? What really happened in 1994? How is what’s happening in 2019 connected? Packed with twists, turns, and connections you can’t guess, every chapter had me at the edge of my seat. By the end, I was dizzy with how many twists happened.

The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder

The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower, 326 pages

This historical true crime book is about the July 1841 murder of Mary Rogers, a well-known "cigar girl" in New York City. There was not yet a unified police force in the city, and so the murder went unsolved. A year later, Edgar Allan Poe decided to use his fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin to solve the mystery through his story, "The Mystery of Marie Roget."

I really enjoyed this book, as it combined a biography of one of my favorite authors and an overview of the murder of Mary Rogers and the subsequent investigations. Stashower also analyzes the aforementioned short story, and how Poe used the newspaper reports of the time to come to his conclusions. There is even some history of the newspapers in New York at this time. If you are an Edgar Allan Poe aficionado, a fan of true crime, or interested in early 1800s New York, this is the book for you! You will definitely learn something new.

Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami 400 pp.

This early, award-winning novel is two parallel stories presented in alternating chapters with none of the characters named. Hard Boiled Wonderland involves Calcutec, a human data processor and encryption system who uses his subconscious as an encryption key.  He works for a secretive scientist in an underground Tokyo. End of the World involves the Narrator who has had his shadow removed thus removing his memory of his former life. He is tasked with reading the dreams housed in the skulls of dead animals with the assistance of the Librarian. Those descriptions don't even begin to cover Murakami's work. The best I can do is say you need to read it because I can't explain it to you.  

Piranesi

 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, 245 pages.

I actually wrote about this book almost exactly a year ago, so feel free to read that review for a comparative look and the complete summary. 

Rereading this book was an entirely different experience from reading it the first time, probably in no small part because I actually knew what was going on for the first half of the book or so. I think, upon a reread, I've come down on the side of liking the book (although my complaints from my first review still stand). There are so many really interesting things going on with perspective, as a concept, that I caught on my second read that I think gave a lot of depth to my overall experience. I'm very excited to talk about this one with Orcs and Aliens tonight, less because it is a very good book than because it is a very interesting one, and I'm very curious to see what other people have to say about it.

Tread of Angels

 Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse, 201 pages.

Kara wrote about this book pretty recently, and I entirely agree with everything she said, which leaves me without much to add. 

This novella does a fantastic job of packing a very vibrant world into a very small number of pages. I think I'll be thinking of this one for a while.

Honey Girl

 Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers, 241 pages

Grace Porter has just spent a decade driving herself to burnout to earn her PhD in astronomy, only to find (disappointingly, but not surprisingly) that the job she was supposed to have guaranteed had little space for all of her as a queer woman of color. So, reeling from the sudden lack of driving force in her life, her and her friends go to Vegas and she gets drunk married to a woman she has just met. Then, months later and still struggling with burnout, her family's expectations, and her own deteriorating mental health, she decides to spend the summer in New York getting to know her new wife, Yuki.

This book was not at all what I expected. I think there's an expectation when I see "romance novel" that I'll be getting into a romantic comedy, which was really furthered by the fact that we started off with the premise of getting drunk married in Vegas. But that's not at all what this was. It was honestly hardly a romance novel, and more a novel about aching loneliness and the crushing weight of both other people's expectations and your own. It's also part of a relatively small genre I'm realizing I enjoy which I've been thinking of as "coming of age novels for adults," which explore the space of aimlessness and emptiness that can happen after graduation (Portrait of a Thief is another good example). This novel is sad and beautiful and entirely unexpected, and I really enjoyed it.

My Perfect Life

 

My Perfect Life by Lynda Barry  128 pp.

This is a collection of strips originally serialized in Ernie Pook's Comeek. Maybonne and her little sister, Marlys navigate middle school in what seems (in my experience) to be the 1970s. It's all there, the dysfunctional family, uncertainty, smoking, cliques, bullies, first kisses (and more), Jesus Freaks, acid, and angst, lots of angst. Nothing is sugar coated and as the girls grow one year older it seems possible they just might be okay.

The God of Small Things

 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, 321 pages.

This novel is very hard to describe. It is about twins Estha and Rahel, and dances between their lives in the present and the week their childhood was destroyed in the state of Kerala in the year 1969. It is a book about love and family, but in ways that are as often painful as beautiful, and it is hard to know what else to say about it without flattening the experience of reading it. 

It was an excellent book, and I definitely think people should experience it. Normally books that feel like they're built around one big event the author refuses to tell us tend to annoy me, because they tend to feel contrived and a little cheap, but this book is definitely an exception for me. I suspect it's because it feels less like the author is concealing from us the big terrible thing that happened and more like Estha and Rahel can't bear to think about it. The novel is graceful and engaging, and the prose is absolutely lovely (the phrase "a viable, dieable age" has been popping into my head at random for days now). I definitely plan on picking up another book by this author at some point.

The Summer Prince

 The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson, 289 pages.

June Costa is a young artist in the high-tech city of Palmares Tres, located in the area that used to be Brazil. The book starts in a Moon Year, which is the year that a young Summer King is elected in the Spring, before being sacrificed in the Winter. June's art quickly entwines her life with the new Summer King, Enki, and she finds herself falling in love despite herself, which sends her into even deeper trouble as Enki uses his position to cause all sorts of it. 

This book has been on my tbr pile the longest, which means I added it to my list when I was about 15 and stayed just interested enough in the concept not to delete it, but I think I may have enjoyed it more if I had read it closer to when I added it. I can see what the story was trying to do; there are a lot of themes of innovation and fear thereof, youth vs age, and the role of art in society. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of things in both the world-building and plot of this book that I just don't buy. For example, it does an absolutely terrible job justifying what the Summer King ritual is supposed to accomplish, which feels like a pretty central oversight. As cool as a South American cyberpunk novel sounds as a concept, this one didn't really work for me.

Kiss Her Once For Me

 Kiss Her Once For Me by Allison Cochrun, 351 pages.

Despite recommending this book to her, Kara got around to writing about this one before me, and she did a great job so I'm going to link her review here instead of summarizing again. 

I liked this book a whole lot! I love "marriage of convenience" as a plot point, and this whole book is very cozy and fun. It also has moments where characters make decisions so bad I had to put down the book and walk away for a minute, which tend to have very predictable results. But! I do really like the characters, and even side characters have the power to carry the book. Also, I didn't know about Ellie's demisexuality going into this book, so it was a real surprise treat to see more identities under the asexual umbrella represented. I would definitely recommend this book as a nice and cozy winter romance.

 

December totals!

Byron: 4 books/747 pages

Jan: 4 books/1345 pages

Kara: 9 books/3363 pages

Karen: 10 books/3157 pages

Regan: 4 books/1211 pages

TOTAL: 31 books/9823 pages

Our combined total for 2022: 338 books & 107,368 pages!

Kiss Her Once for Me

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun, 351 pages

Last Christmas, Ellie was crying on the floor of Powell's Books when she met a woman with whom she immediately fell in love with. Literally — they spent 15 hours together and then they slept together (a HUGE deal for Ellie, who, as a demisexual, normally takes a LONG time to first trust and respect someone before finding them sexually attractive). And then as quick as it started, it ended. Almost a full year later, Ellie is struggling with a dead-end job and a week away from eviction when handsome real estate heir Andrew drunkenly suggests a marriage of convenience: he gets access to a $2 million trust while Ellie gets 10 percent to help get her on her feet. All they have to do is tie the knot, stay married for a bit, and then divorce — oh, and spend a week at Andrew's family's cabin at Christmas. Despite her reservations, Ellie agrees, only to learn that Andrew's sister is the woman from the year before, and what do you know, they still have some SERIOUS feelings for each other.

OK, so it's kind of a convoluted plot, with a whole bunch of tropes shoved in (there's even a "there's only one bed!" situation at one point), and WAY too much Christmas music for my grinchy heart... but it's a sweet and funny book, and an homage to While You Were Sleeping (probably my favorite romantic comedy ever), and I totally loved it. My one complaint is that Ellie's beautifully described web comics appear here as text. I get the complications of having interstitial comics in a romance novel, but man, that would have made this really good book great.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, 401 pages

Sam and Sadie first met at a hospital when they were kids — Sam was a patient, slowly recovering from a crushed foot, while Sadie was dragged along by her mom to visit her sister, who had cancer. But somehow, the two bonded over a shared love of video games, eventually leading them to found Unfair Games with Sam's college roommate, Marx. 

In essence, this book is the story of Sadie and Sam and their complicated relationship with one another, with games, and with themselves. However, that's also a really REALLY misleading description, as it delves into emotional intimacy, the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated field, the changing technologies and trends of video games over the past 30 years, grief, living as a minority in the U.S., and so many other things. And Zevin presents it all with grace and delicacy and a compelling plot full of video games that I, a non-gamer, would totally love to play. I really wish I'd read this one in 2022, as it definitely would have been on my Best of 2022 list. Oh well. I won't let that stop me from suggesting the heck out of this book.

All the Devils Are Here

All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny (2020) 439 pages

In this book in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, Armand and his wife Reine-Marie have gone to Paris to visit with both of their children and their families as they await the birth of their daughter Annie's child. Armand's godfather, Stephen Horowitz, a elderly billionaire, joins them in Paris, too. After a family dinner in a restaurant, as they walk back to where they're staying, Stephen is hit by a van, which zooms away. The family feels sure that the attack was targeted, but the police in Paris are quite skeptical of Armand, who they view as merely a country bumpkin from Canada.

As Armand, his wife, and their son-in-law Jean-Guy (who is now working at an engineering firm in Paris, having left the danger of police work in Montreal) investigate the hit-and-run, while visiting Stephen (who remains hospitalized on life support), the mystery deepens. Stephen's own background seems somewhat questionable. And Armand's strained relationship with his son Daniel is also visited, as is the friendship of Armand with Claude Dussault, the Prefect of the Paris police. In this story, it's imperative to know who's on what side, and that's impossible to know!