Michelle

I will sing for people who might not sing for me.I will sing for people who are not my family.I will sing honor songs for the unfamilar and new.I will visit a different church and pray in a different pew.I will silently sit and carefully listen to new storiesAbout other people???s tragedies and glories.I will not assume my pain and joy are better.I will not claim my people invented gravity or weather.And, oh, I know I will still feel my rage and rage and rageBut I won???t act like I???m the only person onstage.I am one more citizen marching against hatred.Alone, we are defenseless. Collected, we are sacred.We will march by the millions. We will tremble and grieve.We will praise and weep and laugh. We will believe.We will be courageous with our love. We will risk dangerAs we sing and sing and sing to welcome strangers.~Sherman Alexie This novel deals with (among other things I'm sure I've missed): slavery, sweatshops, the role of religion in bigotry or acceptance, racial purity as largely mythical. Sex trafficking. How even people who think their not bigoted sometimes find out underlying prejudices when the issues involve their own family. How people tend to believe stereotypes even while knowing people who don???t fit those stereotypes. Homosexuality and well-meaning, but harmful, encouragement to stay in the close. Cultural and race differences in romantic relationships. Misogyny and misandry. The Black Witch begins with a sheltered girl from a privileged family venturing out to university. She is capable of kindness, but her ignorance of the broader world allows her to believe lies – lies about other races, likes about other cultures, lies about other religions, lies of homosexuality, lies about wars her family was instrumental in bringing about. When she begins at school she is feared and hated, and she allows her initial run ins with other students to change her prejudices through ignorance to morph into anger, allowing herself to double down on what she has been taught. Her aunt is punishing her for not becoming engaged to a young man from a promising family, so she makes sure Elloren is housed with 2 Icarals – the most vilified group of all. And this is her aunt's big mistake. While she gets off to a rocky start with her roommates, and the people in the kitchen where she works treat her poorly out of understandable distrust – for one thing, she is identical in looks to her grandmother, a woman who had no problem with genocide – she begins to see over time that she has been mislead or not told about so much. My grandmother stands, larger than life, my identical features finely wrought by a master???s chisel, every fold of her billowing robes perfectly rendered, so lifelike it seems as if I could reach up and move the fabric. Her left arm is raised in a graceful arc above her head, her wand arm pointing straight down at an Icaral that lies prostrate at her feet, his face a contorted mask of agony.By the end of this book, this passage when remembered, packs a punch, and seem as the propaganda it is. Want to go to war? Proclaim the other side dangerous, and inferior, until any atrocity against them is seen as justified. Elloren isn't allowed to keep the luxury of seeing a portrayal of an Icaral “in agony” and not see her roommates, not remember what she has learned about her grandmother. ???Elloren,??? he says, his expression conflicted. ???Your grandmother wanted to kill everyone who wasn???t Gardnerian.??? ???Because they wanted to attack us,??? I say, my voice tight and strained. My parents fought with her. They died fighting for her. Fighting for all of my people. They were heroes. Professor Kristian tightens his lips as if holding back a counter-argument. After a short pause he speaks again. ???An Icaral rose up during your grandmother???s push east. He killed her and died doing it. The Icaral was a Keltic healer who gave his life to save Keltania, a society that still harbored lingering prejudice against his kind.??? He sets down his tea. ???So, here we are.???Over the course of the novel, many of her blinders are removed, some of t hem by proximity to diversity, some by soul searching, some by people bluntly telling her the hard truths she'd been able to deny or not think about. ???Your clothes, Elloren Gardner,??? he begins, ???were most likely made by Urisk women on the Fae Islands. Some of these workers may have been children, but all were most certainly paid barely enough to survive and are laboring in conditions akin to out-and-out-slavery. They have no freedom of movement, no means of leaving the Islands for a better life, as they are heavily guarded. They can get off the Islands via pirates who will smuggle them out for a steep price, often delivering them to a worse master who will forever hold deportment or time in prison over their heads. Or they can get off the island by becoming indentured servants to the Gardnerians, which is, again, little more than glorified slavery with the threat of deportment always hanging over them. So, Elloren Gardner, if you are asking me whether your dress is made not of the finest silk, but of the oppression and misery of countless others, the answer would be a firm yes.??? I swallow hard. He certainly doesn???t mince words. His blunt manner of speaking makes me uncomfortable, and I have to remind myself that I haven???t come here looking for more dancing around the truth. ???Thank you for being honest with me,??? I tell him, feeling ashamed, thinking of little Fern and her fear of returning to the Fae Islands. The hard edge of his expression softens a little. His brow knits together, his eyes full of questions. ???You???re welcome.???At the end of this installment of the story she stands next to a diverse group of people from different races, cultures, religions, and abilities in becoming part of the resistance as a dictator set on ethnic cleansing rises to power. A coalition. Ignoring the breathless pull I feel toward him, I look at him levelly. ???I want to help you free your dragon,??? I say, steel in my voice. ???There may come a time when flight is needed.??? Yvan???s eyes fly open with surprise, but he quickly gathers himself. ???Elloren, my dragon can???t be freed.??? ???Maybe not by you alone, but we have a large group...??? He coughs out a dismissive laugh. ???Of inexperienced, naive youths.??? ???Of people with a large variety of gifts and skills.???While most of the story is told from Elloren's POV, there are so many wonderful characters to meet. I ended up caring about pretty much everyone who wasn't a villain. I probably like a hand full of them more than Elloren. Diana is lupine, a wold shape shifter, who is loyal and fierce in that loyalty. She doesn't understand why her tendency to be nude is seen as immoral. Lupines mate for life, and to her immortality is “mating” with someone you don't care about. And she really doesn't understand the arranged marriages Gardnerians take for granted. ???But what if you don???t love the person? What if you don???t care for their scent???? Diana seems greatly upset by the prospect of such a thing. ???Do you still have to mate with them????Ariel, one of the Icarals, treats Elloren very poorly in the beginning, and vice versa. Eventually Elloren goes to someone to help get revenge on Ariel ... and that person goes way too far. Ariel for good reason chooses not to forgive, but we understand her history, her pain, and the danger she is in under the new regime, and I found myself cheering her on against our protagonist. ???I???ll be able to speak with the dragon,??? Ariel gloats at me, ???and I???ll be able to direct her as to which of your limbs she should tear off first. But you won???t know what I???m telling her. It will have to be a surprise.???But by then the reader could assume there was only about a 27% chance she would really do this.Honestly, there's a ton of stuff that happens, lots of subjects to explore, and I could go on typing for another 2 hours in order to really express everything. I found the story interesting, and moving, and very intelligent in dealing with the overt and subtle causes and expressions of bigotry.If you can only read one book about bigotry – and why in the hell would you only read one? – that book should be ... [b:The Hate U Give 32075671 The Hate U Give Angie Thomas https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1476284759s/32075671.jpg 49638190], by Angie Thomas, because that book is probably the best novel of 2017, and I'm hoping only grows in stature, it's OwnVoice, meaning a novel where the author and the main character or a key character share identification with an underrepresented or under-heard group, and it's about one of the most pertinent issues facing the United States, in particular, right now. This is the book you absolutely need to read if you have an interest in, or questions about, the BLM movement. Spend some time in the real world, with a terrific author, hearing from marginalized voices, about what real people are experiencing. But The Black Witch is a hell of a read too. Just, you know, The Hate U Give First, and again after. :) And if you can only do one – again, why? – The Hate U Give!!! Final thoughts? Some of the transitions in The Black Witch are awkward. I would love to see more of the other POVs in the next book. But I am looking forward to the next installment.

 I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley. These are my honest thoughts. 

You know the Robert Frost poem that ends “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”? The meaning of the poem is less blaze your own path and more that we justify our choices as the right ones, having no idea what the other path would have revealed. 

Going Bicoastal is very low stakes and feel good. Neither decisions – summer in New York or summer in L.A. – are bad decisions, just different ones. In some ways, but not all, she ends up coming to the same conclusions about her life. While readers might have their preferences as to love interest or location, neither is presented as a bad fate, making this an excellent choice for readers who get the new trend of warm, cozy only set in a YA contemporary romance. 

Confession: When we talk about reading diversely some people will always say, horrifyingly, that they can't relate to people who they deem different from them. I don't usually have this issue, but I do struggle with extroverts! (LOL, not so bad, right?)

Natalya is definitely an extrovert. While having shy moments, it's clear that no matter where she goes she'll make friends. Often rich friends. Whether going to see a band, or being fed at dinner parties featuring a roster of chefs, she will WILLINGLY spend a lot of time with people. I'm triple her age (I need a moment to sit with that) and I have no idea who people meet people, strike up a bond, and effortlessly become friends. Trying might kill me. 

She does like to read, though, which my introverted soul does fully comprehend. 

Natalya is Jewish, and the book – in both realities – makes clear what this means to her, that she values and thinks about traditions without being shackled to them. We read about Shabbat dinner a lot and how it varies by your families community and country of origin. I am always hyped about food descriptions, of which there are plenty. 

Food is about communion, not in the Christian sense, and this very much came into play in Going Bicoastal. When you break bread with someone, especially if you personally baked the bread, you allow them into your circle, you find out more about them, you share bits of who you are right back in time to who you were. This is very apparent in the L.A. time line.

The New York time line is more about how music connects us, which is just as vital, although I ended up feeling like I knew the N.Y. love interest – Ellie – less. Maybe because I never felt her vulnerability as much as I did the L.A. love interest, Adam. 

I'd expected more of the book to be about Natalya hashing out her issues with her mom, especially in the L.A. reality, and that didn't materialize. There just seems to be a vibe that Natalya is old enough to not dwell on the past, and mature enough to move on. Her mother, and this surprised me, didn't seem to in any substantial way change her life at the presence of her daughter. I felt this to be a missed opportunity, but the overall readership might not be invested in that so much as the romance elements and Natalya figuring out what she wants for her life. 

I had a nice time with this story, and the sense that Natalya is destined to be okay no matter what. 

T. Kingfisher is one of my favorite authors and I'm always looking for the latest or have a few things from her backlist. What Feasts at Night is a quite good follow up to What Moves the Dead, which is a retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. 

In “Feasts” Alex Easton returns home to Gallacia to find the family's hunting lodge in disrepair and the caretaker no more. The feel is very true to older horror tales, like Dracula, where the “peasants” know the score and the score is Restless Spirits and folk magic/remedies and generally not monkeying around with things best left unmonkeyed around with. This is the book for when you want to crawl into bed at the end of the day and feel safe and warm while things are not all right on the page. 

If I could ask the author anything, it would be why the animal skeletons? I'm not just talking about this book, but a very recurring element of Kingfisher's stories. Often the bones are, um, alive? The author clearly loves animals and so pets have a great chance in these books, but sometimes the pet is a bone dog. You understand. 

In this case, it's not a dog, and the instance is really disturbing, although for you pet people, I'll say it's okay. 

This series will always have a place on my shelves because this style of story takes me make to teen me. A story for the thick anthologies of old horror I used to borrow from the library. In the case of What Moves the Dead, my not insignificant fascination with Poe. 

Final Girls is not a bad book, it just didn't engross me the way it needed to for me to consider it a success. I figured out or suspected what was supposed to be the biggest twist really early on. Well, a couple of the twists. The main character was one of those people who, for much of the book, couldn't do the smart thing to save her ass. The ending ultimately carried some satisfaction.

Marmee tells Jo she has a temper too, but she???s learned to hide it. Her husband trained her to suppress her anger by putting his finger to his lips every time she flared up. One day, she hopes to control her temper so much that she won???t even feel it. Jo ends this heart-to-heart hoping she too can learn ???the sweetness of self-denial and self-control???; I end it thinking if I ever marry a man who stops me expressing myself, I???ll be out the door.

I'm mellowing in my old age. I had a tough time giving this an honest 3 stars. Time was, I was merciless in my opinion under the belief that readers needed honest reviews. Now I own a restaurant, and the occasional negative review stings.

If I AM being honest, this was 2 and 3/4s. I liked reading another opinion of some of my favorite books, and I now have a list of mentioned books I wouldn't mind reading at some point, and I appreciated the author's open heartedness ... but I had a tough time making it through. I rarely became completely engaged.

Although there were moments when I wished I could talk about books with the author.

I honestly don't know what the issue was – maybe dwelling on certain books too much, maybe I was jarred by the autobiographical moments when I wanted to read about book heroines?

I don't know.

I honestly don't know what happened. I was pretty meh over the first book, and then I just kept reading them, and now this is my favorite series. :)

(Originally published at Red Adept Reviews)

Overall: 4 1/2 Stars

Plot/Storyline: 4 1/2 Stars

This was an easy book to enjoy, with a few caveats. On the positive side, the story was funny, clever, and irreverent. I'd compare it a little to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens. Perhaps Christopher Moore in terms of humor as social commentary and a vehicle to skewer sacred cows. Still, I can't say the book quite matches either of these comparisons, as Mr. Hendricks seems to take it a step or two beyond.

The author seems to be willing to offend, oh, everyone if the result is a brilliant line. Nuns, hipsters, conspiracy theorists, media personalities, celebrities, charitable institutions, are just some of the targets. I don't know what Quizno's Sandwich Shop did to him or his people, but it can't have been good.

I will mention the two issues I had with the book. One was that, in the midst of this legitimately funny and clever book, on multiple occasions, really bad things happen to kids. No one is going to confuse me with the teacher from Romper Room, but even I have to say this was a buzz kill. Well, at least one of the kids, to paraphrase Monty Python, got better. Still, I really would have loved this to be toned down as it will probably be off-putting to some readers, even thick-skinned ones, and the funny gets lost.

The other issue was Satan gets sued and shows up at the trial. Much of the book is absurd, delightfully absurd, kiss reality bye-bye, and yet this was a bridge too far. Nancy Grace - yes, she's a character, and those scenes are admittedly brilliant if you've ever watched her for even five minutes - just accepts this, as does Oprah, as does the judge and the jury, and presumably most people. I enjoyed the trial, as I liked most aspects, but throw me some explanation, even an absurd one. In a book that acknowledges atheists, how? I also acknowledge there are going to be some readers who are going to be able to just go with it and are giving me the old side-eye for this paragraph.

What I'm left with though is the simple fact that I couldn't stop laughing. Every issue I had with plot and characterization is no match for how much fun I had. This is clearly not the book for everyone though.

Characters: 4 1/2 Stars

Satan, it turns out, is the beleaguered manager of hell, and he gets a lot less respect than one might expect. He can't seem to get the demons to do his will, the circles of hell aint what they used to be, and the flames need repair. Funny stuff. Later on, as he explains the whole Fallen Angel thing to a corpse, we sorta get a hint of the whole powerful, majestic, bad-ass version, which may or may not make an appearance toward the end. I liked that too, but consistent characterization, not so much. I supposed a millennia or several dealing with this stuff might break your spirit - and I think that's meant to be the point. Still, I have to say that sticking to some core traits might have been nice.

Satan's assistant was Nero. Yeah, THAT Nero. He also served as Satan's attorney and his credentials involved multiple seasons of Law and Order and some Grisham novels. I understand this based on my credentials as talent scout based on watching American Idol.

Then, we have a nun who means well, but you don't want her to pray for you. A former wrestler who is now a judge. St. Jude. Michael. All your more famous angels and demons. Charo. While Dante never appears, his spirit is definitely felt.

All the characters with any significant “screen time” have clever, zippy dialogue. I'd give you a favorite line or two, but there are too many great ones!

Writing Style: 5 Stars

While I don't agree with all of his choices, I can't deny this was pretty masterful in nearly every way. Great lines, funny and cogent rants - the author is way cooler than I will ever be. He should totally quit his day job, unless his day job is writing, because that would be the opposite of the point I'm trying to make. I'll read this author again!

(What to do with the Amazon stars when you've rated something a 4.5? Since it's my birthday today, I'm feeling generous and rounding up.)

************

From the author, Grady Hendrix:

1. How did you come up with the idea for the story?

I've had some lousy jobs before - telemarketing cheap jewelry, selling cleaning chemicals to industrial kitchens, going through the garbage of hotels to estimate how many recyclables they were throwing away - and I think that's something everyone has in common. We all spend so much time working in jobs we don't love that it sometimes feels like our lives are going to disappear in an endless round of reports, and quarterly evaluations and bathroom breaks. Then I realized: how much worse must this be if your office is actually in Hell? And how much worse must it be if you're Satan and there will be no promotions, no retirement and no way to transfer to another company? And whenever things are really bad, that's also, simultaneously, when things are really funny.

While reading, I noticed that you went some places a lot of authors wouldn't go. Did you consider pulling your punches? Or did you and was this the, scary to contemplate, tame version?

I think with comedy that second-guessing yourself is the kiss of death. That's how you wind up with “Home Improvement.” And I also think that the beauty of ebook self-publishing is that people can stop worrying about what the neighbors think of them and just let it all hang out: the good, the bad and the ugly. I'm currently co-writing a YA series for Little, Brown called The Magnolia League, so SATAN LOVES YOU is like being on vacation where I don't have to worry about what
my agent, my editor and the marketing department are going to think about what I write. There's nothing at stake here except my self-respect, and I once worked as a street performer so I don't have much self-respect anyways. That said, I did take out a long section about being trapped in an infinite Chuck E. Cheese's. Life's bad enough without having to contemplate things like that. It was just too depressing.

Favorite movie or book featuring Satan, other than your own?

I'm a big fan of the Satan you find in Jack Chick's religious tracts. The one who wears a little red suit and spends all his time trying to think up ways to screw people over the second they make the slightest misstep, and then greets them in Hell with a hearty “Haw, haw!”

What's your favorite circle of hell and why?

Personally, I love the first circle because it's just so blatantly unfair. It's reserved for dead people who aren't getting into Heaven because they never got baptized. It's not a bad place, really, but it's just sort of like Discount Heaven, like a nice hotel that has scratchy towels, no channels on TV, and cheap shampoo that never suds up. I imagine it's absolutely crammed with Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and pretty much everyone that a 14th Century Italian would think is going to burn in Hell eternally. Which means that it's probably party central and has really great restaurants.

If Satan Loves You becomes a movie, who would you like to play the title character?

I like that Gollum guy they got for Lord of the Rings. He had really good timing.

6. Anything else you want to say?

Just that I firmly believe in giving people what they pay for. SATAN LOVES YOU is 99 cents, and I truly believe that it's worth every penny.

Nice general overview of issues, past, present, and ongoing facing indigenous communities, as well as an education on culture or cultures. There were a couple lines that felt ageist or fatphobic. 

Kindred is a very thought-provoking read. Dana is a modern black woman (well, a woman of the 1970s) in a marriage with a white man. She finds herself sent to the 1800s South on multiple occasions – sometimes with her husband – and the common theme is the same boy (and, eventually, man) is in danger and needs saving.

She quickly determines the person she is saving is her great, great grandfather. She is surprised, because she doesn't know the Rufus in the family Bible is white.

Being a black woman in the antebellum South, she is treated like a slave, and for all intents and purposes, becomes a slave, with all the danger and abuse inherent to the institution. Her husband when he is with her tries to protect her, of course, but cannot experience what she is experiencing. She is automatically treated as lesser because of skin color, he is automatically treated as better, and even to the extent he wants to help her he is up against systemic racism.

Dana believes that if she can survive long enough, and help Rufus survive long enough to sire her next ancestor, that she will no longer be needed – that her freedom will be obtained by returning to modern times. She has to explore that she will allow, what she will do, what she will encourage others to do, and how she will change as a result of her captivity.

Her relationship with Rufus is complex, at least on her side. He is her kin(dred), but he is also someone who benefits from slavery, who thinks of black people as inferior, and who becomes a slave owner. She meets him as a little boy, and likes him while seeing he's troubled, and can't help but wonder if her influence will change him for the better. Will knowing her – an educated black woman who saves his life again and again – improve the lives of the black people he owns by making him question his beliefs? Will it even persuade him to free his slaves? Or will the system win out, corrupting Rufus beyond redemption? And at what point does the bad in a person outweigh the good?

I believe the reader will not find Dana a perfect person, and I don't believe she was meant to be. She was thrust into a world where she had to make difficult decisions, and decisions only become difficult when they're based on complex situations and when no answer is completely without drawbacks. I imagine most people will struggle with what she asks of another character. She asks her great great grandmother to willingly submit to repeated rapes. She feels that submitting is better than fighting, and inevitably losing the fight. There's certainly a pragmatism at work since these rapes are what will lead to her ancestor being born, and this is a battle this woman is unlikely to win. Dana might not be wrong, but it just doesn't feel like her decision to make, even knowing what she does. How a woman handles a situation like that, even if she wants to fight it to the death, is her decision. But... Impossible situation. But the interesting result of this is the reader sees Dana, while talking quite frankly to Rufus, and caring about the slaves, over time and without realizing it slipping into choosing her own path of least resistance. I've read the author did want people to think about how history has judged the enslaved men and women who took a path of pleasing the enslavers in order to improve their lives to the extent they could.

Since I finished this a day or two ago, Kindred has been in my thoughts quite a bit. I found myself saddened that I would never meet Octavia Butler outside of her books. I feel I lost something in not discovering her earlier.

I just commented somewhere or another that I'v never had a book crush – I don't “fall for” characters in books. I certainly would not fall for The Dragon in Uprooted – what a sour, stern character. But I believed that he was a good match for Agnieszka though, and vice versa.

But would it have killed someone to ever tell Agnieszka “good job?” :)

I liked Agnieszka a lot. I found her the type of strong female character I like to read. I think her magic came to easily and she always had the right spell too readily, but I kept turning the pages. Her evolution, and the choices she made at the end, really satisfied me and took the book to a whole new level for me.

The woods has villain – before my find out the origin of the threat – was pretty inspired. We know the woods are scary in fairy tales, but this took it to a whole new level of malevolence.

When I first got my Kindle, about 8 years ago, Sherman Alexie was quoted in an interview as saying the sight of a woman with a Kindle on a plane made him want to hit her. So, he has always irritated me a bit because of it – who objects to someone reading their work because of format? – but upon reading [b:The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian 693208 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327908992s/693208.jpg 829330] I had to admit he's talented. Flight has done nothing to dispel my opinion of his talent. His characters are real smart mouths – that's the g-rated version – so I also see how the brain that creates them could also come up with some real gems in interview. But if Flight taught me anything, it's to let some grudges go. Of note though is that I read one of his books on my Kindle, and one was an audiobook. Okay, let ... it ... go. I listened to the audiobook version of Flight, and cannot say enough good things about the narrator, Adam Beach. I actually can't separate in this case the book from the narrator who so wonderfully brought Zits to life and ably shows his evolution and healing as he lives stories of betrayal and genocide. Flight is a short novel, but packs a lot of power. If you can do the audiobook version, I highly recommend you do.

I'm a sucker for books about loneliness and immortality. 

This is my series. I read the first book, and was “meh,” but at some point I got drawn in. I took as long as I could catching up because I, er, never wanted to BE caught up, and always wanted books to look forward to ... now I have to wait until September for the next book.

Okay, second book in the series, and I still think October is kinda not great at her job. She still stumbled a crazy amount of times. This book had fewer people needing to save her bacon, so that's an improvement. A couple plot twists seemed pretty darned obvious to me, with one of them straight out of Buffy. :)

Spike: Ben, Glory. He's a doctor, she's the Beast. Two entirely separate entities sharing one body. It's like a bloody sitcom.

But just like the last time, I want to read on, and that means there's a lot of good here. And I love the image of all the cats gathering together at the end to see justice done.

This is a reread from when I was a kid. I got so much more from the story this time – it's the difference between being closer to Danny's age or close to Jack and Wendy's ages.

Going to say better than the movie, because this focused on Jack's struggle, as if it actually is a struggle, as opposed to Nicholson being off-his-rocker from page 1. Wendy is a much stronger character. You get why a child would initially fear his parents divorcing more than he would the scary hotel. So many great moments that didn't make the movie, and made the reader care. And a different ending.

This wasn't a home run for me. I didn't mind reading the story, but I wasn't deeply engaged in the story either. I found it implausible that the main character, Gabe, would have a radio show with a cult following based on the music played and his DJ patter. There'd be no particular reason his show would stand out, and yet the reader is to believe that a group would form motivated enough to perform task Gabe asks of them.

I would have loved to believe this aspect, but it would have needed to be based on less generic song choices and Gabe being more engaging.

???Welcome, welcome, to Beautiful Music for Ugly Children right here on community radio, 90.3, KZUK. I???m Gabe, your host, and tonight is a tribute show???to radio. You heard me right???radio, in all its craziness. Where would I be without radio? Nowhere. To start us off, let???s hear one of the masters himself, Elvis Costello, along with the Attractions, with ???Radio, Radio.???

He gives me one more pat. ???It???s not so unusual to be a triangle these days. Look at Chaz Bono. He was even on Dancing with the Stars.??? John shakes his head. ???Hope he doesn???t do to his face what his mother???s done to hers.???

In spite of the shakes, I laugh. ???Cher is gross.???

I grab a copy of The Marvelous Sonny and Cher. ???This, on the other hand, could be used as a Frisbee, a dinner plate, or a dog poop scoop.???

I enjoyed this book and the characters quite a lot. I do feel like I have to mention that the last portion of the book had a lot of animal suffering/animal experimentation on display. I don't fault the author for this, and I see the purpose, but I would have skipped this book had I known this is where we were headed.

Other thoughts:

I really think the book is not as clear cut as the description made it seem, or as clear cut as I've seen in other reviews. I think an argument could be made for the characters working to fulfill the dates of death they'd been given.

Simon's fate seemed a matter of luck, choice, and belief. His dying on the "right" date persuaded Karla, who believed anyhow, and then she took her death date in her own hands. Daniel didn't know for sure Simon's date came true, but I think he still believed, and after Karla was left with guilt, survivor's guilt, and anger. If Simon has survived his date, his siblings would have probably done the same. They were dominoes

I think the details of Simon's story were somewhat worthy of an eye roll. Once he moved where he did, when he did, it was hard to miss where the author was headed. I don't think she was being intentionally homophobic, but considering how these men were treated at the time like they were getting what they deserved... And then to have a character who an argument could be made pursued AIDS, well, I don't know. I have to say that it lacked imagination.

I very much appreciated the idea, in Daniel, that we stack up our regrets concerning family as time goes on, and then realize the weight of it all. We think we have time to fix everything, some day, and that almost always is false.

I very much hate that my heart is still breaking for that poor little starved, neglected monkey. And for Varya as well, but I went in expecting that.

I seriously am amazed how many critical reviews act like the book is a smut-fest. Yes, the beginning of the book focuses on Varya having hit puberty, and mentions pubic hair, but I don't think it was pointless, as people allege. Chloe Benjamin is asking the reader to remember their own confusion and awkwardness, not to mentally ogle a child. Simon's scenes reflected his mindset, his experiences living in a place where he could be as free as any heterosexual person in any other major city, and eventually the scenes spoke of sadness. But I think of all of this as a really small part of the book.

Also, swear words are ... words. You're reading a book. An author should have access to all the words he or she feels are needed. A “naughty” word will not make you crumple, and I don't understand adults acting like they've been sprayed with acid. Find it off putting, sure, but becoming a 19th century school marm?

Willowdean isn't perfect. She is human. Her self-confidence in her body can be shattered by a boy's hands roaming toward a roll of fat. Because her own body positivity is on shaky ground, in the beginning especially she judges others based on how they look. These are thoughts, maybe a comment made to a friend.

I've seen some criticism for this in reviews, and while I appreciate the point, I think those reviewers are missing the point, and looking for a saccharine character, which changes the whole book. She is a girl who is learning and struggling some. She is deeply worried her newly sexually experienced, traditionally pretty, friend is leaving her in the dust. She spouts messages of loving her body, but doesn't know why the cute guy likes her. She has lost an overweight family member too early to a heart attack. Her mother is obsessed with and runs the local beauty pageant.

When she does have uncharitable thoughts, she regrets them. Because she wants to be happy in her own body, and knows that no one has the right to judge others based on looks. She knows that from the beginning, and then she goes on – albeit accidentally – to better know some of these girls.

That's the best hope for all of us, isn't it? Because anyone who claims they never mentally judge anyone about their looks is a liar. You stop yourself, you reprimand yourself, and over time you are less likely to even entertain the thoughts. But we've all soaked in a culture of looks mattering particularly if you're a woman, seeing false examples of perfection everywhere, thinking we're in competition with other women for all the good things.

And Willowdean would be the first one to say that has to stop. And by the end, she would be the first one to say it and mean it whole-heartedly.

I listened to the audiobook borrowed from the library using overdrive. The narrator was good. Lots of Texas accents, which sorta fascinated me.

Interesting memoir. I forgot or didn't know that Selma Blair grew up in Southfield, MI, which is close to where I grew up. The author focuses more on her personal life than her career, with center stage featuring her relationship with her mother. 

The author adores her mother, but she seems to have been quite terrifying and soul crushing. It's an interesting – understandable – tone. Wanting to please someone you probably will never please, and knowing this person also shaped you in some ways you absolutely wouldn't change. 

Selma talks at length about her struggles with alcohol, her relationships, her pets, her son, and her friends. There's always the specter of MS. The acknowledgements include some epic name drops, and the acknowledgements go on for a while. 

Other people have mentioned that Selma during emotional moments sounds like she's crying, and it's hard to tell if she's being vulnerable and letting her emotions flow, or performing to move the reader. That question, more than than habit, is distracting. 

 I received an ARC of Wild Things through Netgalley. My thoughts are my own. 

Wild Things is a romance featuring enemies to lovers as found family with a large splash of humor. There's also a fixer-upper house in the country and 4 chickens. This was a feel good novel from start to finish, even the sad moments felt good, knowing it would all work out. 

I think a lot of books, a lot of romances, try for the vibes that this author manages so successfully. I found the story funny, and touching, and I'm a sucker for old houses, the country, close friends groups, and possibly chickens. 

The leads, El and Ray have great chemistry as friends and (sapphic) lovers. I really wanted to spend time with them, and see them become a couple, because they felt so right together. The other 2 home owners, Will and Jamie, were great too, with Jamie being particularly funny. He loves his chickens!

When I reach for a romance novel, this is exactly what I want to pick up, and the type of book to make me feel optimistic when the world seems so exhausting and cynical. 

(An easy 4 and 1/2 stars.) 

Pretty enjoyable, but my enjoyment snuck up on me as I began to care about the main characters, Yale and Celine. The mystery was the better side of average. I'd be interested in other books in the series. 

This is the story of Emira and Alix. Emira is a 25-year-old black woman figuring out the path she wants to pursue in life. Alix is a white woman in her early thirties, well-to-do, mother of two, and adrift in her own way. Emira babysits Alix's daughters, and is particularly smitten with the older the the two, a toddler named Briar.

Alix, at first glance is a kind, somewhat progressive woman, but she has brings her issues to her relationship with Emira. Alix takes pride in having multiple PoC at the dinner table, because of what it says about her. She becomes obsessed with and dotes on Emira for much the same reason. She is kinda like a lot of white liberal women, and this story explores how insidious this all is, and how people pass these behaviors down to their children even without being aware of it – because these women also write their own narratives and buy into their own manufactured version.

I find it interesting, and valid, how Emira was not a “go-getter,” taking life in stride and avoiding confrontations. I think it's a less explored POV. She doesn't know what she wants to do, but she knows that no one else should decide for her either.

Because Emira is so low key, events that in another novel would be bigger explosions tend to operate more subtly. She sees and does what she needs to see and do in her own time, and at her own pace.

I appreciated very much the last scene that makes clear a dynamic that was hiding in plain site in terms of Emira, Briar, and Alix. Alix, for all her pretense of enlightenment, is not that far from a plantation owner's wife, absolving guilt and responsibility by treating “the help” very well, and wondering why she isn't better appreciated.

This is a reread of one of my favorite books of all time. 

Review to come later.

I've always had a bit of a thing for Dracula, and by extension Vlad Tepes, but I think this story was made more powerful by the change of making Vlad the Impaler a woman, with all the additional trauma, struggles, complications, and twists that come with that choice.

Lada is presented as complicated, brutal, emotionally closed off, vindictive, and just as dangerous as any man. Good for her. ;)

In all seriousness, I love that she is presented in all her complex glory, a character capable of making heartrendingly bad decisions, one who makes a conscious decision not to love so much that she has too much to lose, thus insuring she won't ever hold on to anything that really matters.