We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, 308 pages.
Rosemary tells us the tale of her broken family. Her brother Lowell left years ago and something happened to her sister, Fern. Rosemary doesn't tell us what right away, she lets her secrets out gradually. Fern was a chimpanzee raised as Rosemary's sister as part of her father's experiment.
Fowler tells of a time when this was a common sort of experiment with half-a-dozen animal-family experiments going on around the country. Lowell and Rosemary are left broken by the splitting of their family, and they both have to find a way to go on.
An engaging tale of family secrets, good intentions, and tragic results.

The City and the City / China Miéville

The City and the City by China Mieville. 312 p.

It's impossible to talk about what makes this book special without spoilers. The bare-bones outline is: "Inspector Tyador Borlu attempts to solve a woman's murder, but his investigation is complicated by the touchy political situation with a neighboring city. What Tyador discovers will change his life forever." That's all true. But the really cool thing about this book is the setting. Tyador's city, Beszel, and its neighboring city, Ul Qoma, occupy the same space. Some street are only in Beszel, some only in Ul Qoma, but many areas are "crosshatched," where one building may in Beszel but its next-door neighbor is in Ul Qoma. Members of the cities are taught from birth to unsee the other city; if you're in Beszel, you're not allowed to notice the people or buildings in Ul Qoma, even if they're right next to you. If you touch something in the other city without going through the border crossing legally, or even look at someone in the other city, you're considered to be in Breach. "Breach" is also what they call the people who show up to deal with you if you commit a breach--they're the bogeymen, essentially. Since Tyador's murdered woman seemed to be working with rebel groups who want to unify the two cities into one, he has to deal with Beszel politics and Ul Qoman politics and, eventually, Breach itself. It's a great example of an author positing a situation and then working his story around the premise's ramifications. Very impressive.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. 416 pp.

A steampunk novel set in 1880s Seattle, now a shattered city surrounded by a wall keeping the Blight (a toxic gas) and the rotters (zombies created by the Blight) within. A grittier, grimier setting than many steampunk books, which is fine, but I can't put my finger on quite why this book isn't as much fun as I hoped it would be. It's a fascinating setting, though, and I'll certainly read any follow-up volumes.