Michelle

I just love this series.

I cried – I hope F. Scott is happy. As far as I can tell, not having seen the Brad Pitt vehicle, this is not at all like the movie. I found it quite poignant.

I liked this book so much I'm giving it 5 stars, but that's not the same as saying it's flawless. I was touched by the characters and events, but at the same time a couple characters we're supposed to like had some dialogue I found racist or ableist. One character was supposed to be a mean old lady, but we find out there is more to her – but she is not a protagonist. The other character was not the main character, but next to it, and meant to be liked. I think some of the tone is based on the original publication date being 1988, and we're moving so fast as a culture that most books more than a handful of years old have moments that are discordant. One of the main theme of the story was about the power of kindness and connection, and a rejection of racism.

Ultimately, I'm very glad I read this book, and reminding myself that if I stopped reading older books that would be my loss, and I can only work to put it all in perspective. Characters can be flawed and still be worth knowing.

StN is a long, atmospheric historical fiction, mystery, novel. So many of the details that initially seem just part of that atmosphere contribute to the conclusion. You are never going to know what all matters or what detail will become significant.

Not recommended for people who want a fast pace or constant action. This story takes its time, lingers on details, contains long conversations.

Matthew and the magistrate, who is a father figure to Matthew, travel to the settlement of Fount Royal, the brain child of a man named Bidwell. The town is faltering due to the belief that one of the residents is a witch. Hence, the need for a magistrate.

Although McCammon writes horror, there is no real belief created in the reader that Rachel is a witch, nor is there meant to be. This detail works more on the level of hysteria, human bias and stupidity, and circumstantial evidence. To some extent, this is funny. To paraphrase any number of exchanges.

“So, magistrate, when will we get to burn the witch?”

“The accused needs to be tried.”

“Right, sure. We have to try her before we burn her – we believe in the law – but when do you think we can get to the burning part?”

And, unsurprisingly, anything that seems like evidence against her being a witch is written off as the devil being cunning.

But the book is about more than that. It's about Matthew coming of age and separating from his father figure as he definitively becomes a man in his own right. It's also about appearances being deceiving. Beyond an innocent woman being accused of doing the naughtiness with Satan, we have Matthew step into at least 3 homes that are not what they appear from the outside. We have multiple characters who are not what they seem. We have assumptions that prove to be false.

We also have this little ear worm:

Come out, come out, my dames and dandies. Come out, come out, and taste my candies.

I'm giving StN 5 stars because, after reading 800+ pages, I found myself not wanting to leave. A sense of melancholia set in at the last 10% because I knew the story was wrapping up, and I knew there would be some sadness both in the story and in me as a reader.

Genuinely creepy and quite readable, but also a bit derivative, and doesn't hold up to too much contemplation. (Contemplation makes it all so much sillier and absurd.) Also, the premise isn't fully explored. Weird vibe toward women. 

A happily childless man goes on a chocolate run in order to have a lazy, happy day on the couch with his equally-happy-to-be-childless girlfriend. He sees a harried woman with a screaming child. He makes himself known. Soon the woman is dead, and he's somehow the child's dad. 

The set-up is good, and it flows in the way horror stories tend to do – with an inevitable March toward “How am I doing? Not great!”

Sour Candy starts out very stylistically (Stephen) Kingesque. The main character even drops a “tough titty said the kitty” reference, which – trust – is a phrase King has used a lot. Where it bothered me is that this guy survives a car crash, the premise of the story lands on him, he does the rote denial very briefly, and then he becomes strangely omniscient in the midst of chaos. Like, he grasps too much, too fast, about a child who has said maybe 1 sentence to him, or 2. Essentially: If I do this, he'd do that, or make this character do this thing. 

Then, the story becomes more Lovecraftian in terms of an alternative world, a lot of red in an alien landscape, tentacles. 

The middle of the story is largely about the main character's testing the boundaries and paying the price, but the day-to-day is sketchy. Other than he is only allowed to eat hallucinatory (or revelatory) sour candy, which is wrecking him. In a novella, something has to give, but what gave was making this all as harrowing as it could be. 

His time with the boy – Adam – is glossed over. He takes him to normal places you take a child and sometimes the child screeches in these situations. That's clever for reasons I'm assuming most people get – kids are like that, and if you're the caregiver, you are now very much in the spotlight. 

It feels like there's more there, though. The people struggling to maintain their sanity as the children screams a store down still ultimately love that child. We know Adam is good at his masquerade and it feels like our main character being lured into caring would have fleshed out the story. His fighting the pull. When he was the other end of this, a witness to this child terrorizing his “mom,” he had sympathy, but he was also annoyed, judgemental. Now, it's his turn, and I'm not sure the story went there. 

There's another author I was reminded of. Richard Laymon. His books were written with very much the male gaze. This book wasn't fully like tat, but the women were written about in a (lightly) objectifying way in contrast to men.  “Attractive, probably used to be attractive, attractive-but-severe.” 

His girlfriend is all lingerie, sex, and innuendo. I get we're in a novella, and that this probably does read as paradise that is about to be lost through the lens of a straight man when he only has limited space to convey it.  But you lose something, too, in not making their relationship more, in not making her more. You lose something for at least some of your women readers. It's the difference between the main character losing a playmate and losing a soulmate. 

A couple of exchanges in the book also felt like they were mocking “wokeness.” The benefit of the doubt says it was just this guy digging himself deeper to the authorities, looking like a jerk to them by saying the wrong thing, but I don't know. 

There's a thing that happens at the end that tends to paint this child as karmic, a punishment, as opposed to completely random, which makes me wonder what's our guy's crime when the next guy is a cop who clearly abuses his daughter and has rage issues. Or maybe in fleshing out that one character it created an unintentional correlation and it all IS random. 

Now that I'm thinking about it, I wish the main character were either more admirable or more villainous. A scenario where he was more sexist and more contemptuous of “PC run amuck and parents who let their kids run wild” might have hit. A version where he was a better guy and fully in love with his girlfriend would have hit in a different way. 

I really enjoyed reading it. The only thing that bugged me as I read was his omniscience and the male gaze thing, and this wasn't bothering me too much. It's only upon ruminating on it in my sleep – I do that – and typing this out that it ages a little more poorly. It's still a pretty good tale, but I'd also not think about it too hard. 

Ambivalent. Torn in multiple directions. Liked a great deal of the story very much, irritated by a few cliches. Will definitely read more, because I like this world, but hoping October gets a little more savvy. She is strong in so many ways, but she also screws up more than her share. What I mean is that characters should make mistakes. Some mistakes makes the story better, the stakes higher, the resolution better, but it seemed like October had just a steady stream of screw-ups that friends, allies, and a little bit of luck stop from being fatal. But maybe that's intentional, and the series is about her growth, and I want to find out and see that. I also want to see how she gets revenge on the people who harmed her in the prologue, and see what happens in regard to her daughter, and her ex. I am trying to purchase less books in 2017, and so I will probably read another Seanan McGuire book – [b:Indexing 17907054 Indexing (Indexing #1) Seanan McGuire https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1369528556s/17907054.jpg 25089153] – before I return to this series, and that might be a good thing.Learned about the author through mentions in a book called [b:The Geek Feminist Revolution 26114477 The Geek Feminist Revolution Kameron Hurley https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442933437s/26114477.jpg 46812613] She was – and this is so unfair – targeted for stating her fears about potentially BEING targeted by ... well, read the book.

Ultimately, I was entertained and engaged, but found the sexism reprehensible and short-sighted. I had to do 4 stars out of admiration for the concept and execution, which I couldn't deny, but I'll be damned if I give it 5 stars.

2 female characters, one is the love interest and the other is believed to be a male until almost the end, and then the main character still sees her that way and uses male pronouns anyhow. We are told that few girls/women are gamers in the future, just as we're falsely told few are gamers now, and so Wade falls for Artemis since she is a real girl and a real gamer, and her prowess is on display. If her prowess had not been on display, I am sure he would have tested her to prove she was real, harkening back to, oh, today, when all females around geek culture are assumed to be attention seekers rather than fans.

Wade asks her (paraphrasing) if she is a real girl, making clear trans girls don't/won't count. I mean, the future is painted as a hellscape, but this is presented as a reasonable, normal, funny?, thing to ask.

On a discussion board talking about Matt Lauer, I wrote:

Straight white guys have empathy for other straight white guys, which is how they can argue a guy shouldn???t lose everything for an assault/assaults that only lasted for a short time. They can relate to this other man more than the woman he???d assaulted because they???ve rarely to never been asked to imagine being anything else other than a cis white man. In their minds, they???re always the dude over the unconscious woman. Never, ever the woman, or the trans person, or the PoC just wanting to make it home.

As if this isn???t advantage enough, everyone who isn???t a cis white man has also spent a lifetime being asked to relate to the cis white guy through books, movies, etc. It becomes second nature for ???the other??? to do this in a culture that limits portrayals of someone who better represents you.

token gay representation/minor surprise.

Receive free copy through Amazon Vine. It was aight. For a YA set at a prep school, followed the P&P plot fairly closely. Pretty innocent/nothing graphic – some underage drinking presented as a bad thing, implication that character's passed out state could make her vulnerable.

Good book for fans of the author, detailing her journey to be able to access her emotions in real life after suppressing them as a child. Isn't for non-fans as I don't think it rises to the level needed for them to enjoy it.

Contains violence against an animal.

I liked this book just fine, but I should have loved it. I guess I didn't vibe with the writing. This is satirical, but I think I might have needed that amped up a notch. 

I've read reviews that say there's only one (intentionally) likeable character, but I suppose I didn't feel that way. These characters are flawed and disingenuous, but I didn't really dislike them, other than Jeremy, AKA The Catch. I think these are women we're supposed to write off as vapid, but they're also all women with plans and agency. 

The contestants seem pretty “redeemable,” if redemption is needed – but without spoiling, we all know there's no time for all that. Still, in a book where the tone and length prohibits too much depth and growth, there are moments that still hint at more nuance and complexity.  

The flaws are very human flaws exacerbated by the reality show environment and reality show culture, and by a society that rewards certain behaviors. 

There's a love story woven through out this that we know ends in loss, and that's extremely poignant. This operates on it's own level outside of the satire. Whatever other antics, the author takes seriously the concept of sapphic women having place to belong.

I watch reality shows, but more Housewives than dating competitions, but I'm still familiar with the culture, and the way shows are discussed. It's shocking how well Samantha Allen channels those discussions, the usual suspects, the low-key combativeness and air of superiority. Unnerving. 

Our story becomes very gory toward the end, but due to the tone it's more of a detached grossness. Viscera without being visceral. The tone kept the scary at a distance, too, but that's okay. I don't presume to know what scares other people, but I think I can confidently say not too many people will be checking the locks and trembling under their covers/.

I think “Patricia” might grow on me more over time, since I dreamed about it, and that usually denotes staying power. 

I read this because I knew the dog lived. I've tried to focus on horror, because this is October, but the canine and feline death rate was through the roof.

Having decided to read this, though, I had a good time. Open and Shut was a quick read, and the main character was witty.

Needed more dog. ;)

I do have an audiobook in the series that I'll be enjoying at some point.

Started this months ago, took a break because – intense – and finished the other day. Used the Kindle immersion reading, and listened to the audio book while reading. Yeah, I'm that big of a geek. Kate Mulgrew did an amazing job narrating.

Not messing with this woman. Cleared my stars ‘cause I am not adding to her average.

I liked the movie, but I liked this more. Michael Cera's take on Nick was different from the Nick in the book, and the story here was much more interesting, with the exception of the sub-plot in the movie involving Norah's trashy friend's adventures.

The chapters alternated POVs between the two titular characters and I thought it worked very well. It was easy to root for the two of them to get together.

My Wife's Story is a very old-fashioned story, suitable for a more sophisticated time. I could see this story in a magazine in the fifties or sixties, when the art of short story writing was kept in higher regard, and when a story could be told simply, but have this wonderful subtext. I could also see this, with minimal tweaking, as an Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

MWS is very much about the nature of relationships. I could say the nature of marriage, but I'd say there is some spill over into friendship and familial bonds. The story that delights us, draws us closer to someone, perhaps even makes us fall in love, becomes the thing that later on makes us grit our teeth. The words are too familiar, the teller holds no more secrets or surprises.

The wife at first glance might seem unsympathetic as we consider the people we know who bore us with a repetitive tale, but I believe this author wants you, us, to think about this more. To think about a woman who had the most interesting thing that will ever happen to her be ever increasingly a long time ago, and who just wants to feel special again. She's not the little girl on the ship, saving the day, and she's no longer the much-loved bride of an adoring groom either. She has the story, that's all, and her husband has no tolerance at all for the story, not an understanding of her need to tell it.

In the words of Springsteen:

Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight
and I'm going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing, mister, but
boring stories of glory days

T. Kingfisher is always good. This is marketed as a kids book, and it very well might be if you know your kid. At least one “swear,” and grown tough me found one scene scary. But I think books for children should acknowledge primal fears, which we all feel. 

Minor Mage is a coming of age story where adults expect a child to fix their problems. It's about mob mentality. It's about this child learning to process all of this and figure out who he wants to be, what kind of adult he wants to become. 

I want more books with snarky armadillos. 

I can't deny the book keeps you guessing, and that there are twists upon twists. An interesting read if you're not someone that needs a neat bow and actual closure. :)

Okay, maybe almost 4 stars? I laughed out loud at several points. My only issue, really, is that as much as I knew the book was meant to be humorous, I wish there'd been a more serious tone a smidge more often. I really wanted to know her thoughts and feelings. But I bought her next book, so that tells you I got something out of it. ‘

I'm also socially awkward and prone to panic attacks, and so I know the pain of saying something that everyone in earshot finds odd. Also, she would save her daughter from a dog attack, and I – there's a story – know for a fact I would save my DOG from a dog attack.

So, yeah.

Full, weird, disclosure. Much of this is set in the town where I live, and my business name is mentioned in passing. I don't believe I know the author, and am in no way beholden to her to review positively.

I enjoyed this. I enjoyed reading about places where I've been, and I enjoyed the story. I enjoyed a mention of the big 2.5 billion year old rock my dogs pee on – THEY don't care and are not impressed.

The story, largely about parental loss, moved me, and the main twist surprised me – even though I'm not sure it should have. I would definitely read more by this author.

Murderinos will probably enjoy.

Some errors like “sick” in place of “sic.”

After a bumpy start, at some point, I really got into these books. I accept October for who she is ... a bad detective with a big heart, and an inability to see the sexy cat man wants her.

Late Eclipses started Toby down a new path in terms of learning about her identity, and she has some new roads open to her, and I want to see what happens.

This is my favorite book by the author. I cried like a crazy person.

Jennifer Weiner did a terrific job of making both sisters likable and sympathetic while also making it understandable why they'd drive each other nuts.

???They are beyond me.
These humans.
With their brief lives and their tiny dreams and their hopes that seem as fragile as glass.
Until you see them by starlight, that is.???

Wow, wow, wow!

Let me get my issue out of the way. Several characters, particularly early on, had the same glib, sarcastic voice, and it became annoying. Not because they weren't funny – very funny – but they were the same.

Apparently there is never not a good time to do a “I'm nailing your sister” joke.

I also have to warn that the style of the book is entirely reports, records, surveillance tapes, and similar, and they're formatted accordingly. Reading on a Kindle was a bit challenging, and I spent a lot of time with my nose almost touching the screen to make out some pages. But it felt worth it, somehow, to see all the creative uses and to marvel at how well the authors did this.

Now the good stuff:

The book was always entertaining, and when it really got going – the second half! – the story was exciting, suspenseful, and surprising. “You've got to be kidding me,” I muttered more than once. “This book!”

Kady was complex. Not unafraid, but willing to do whatever needed doing anyhow. Ezra was sweet, but the lead sister-nailing jokester, so that good old. But on so many occasions I found myself caring about the lives of minor characters because the authors did their work well.

Perhaps the best character was Aiden, the ship AI. Crazy, but strangely noble, and poetic, and compelling. Not evil so much as damaged. Reminded me sometimes of Morpheus in the Sandman graphic novels.

Highly recommended!

I received an ARC of this title through Netgalley. The thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Godly Heathens is the first book in a series, possibly a duology, about gods cut off from their home world, and in a cycle of reincarnation that keeps drawing together – largely to try to kill one another, using a magical knife. 

The main character is Gem, a nonbinary Seminole teen. (To give you an idea of the vibe, one of the chapters is There are no Cis Gods.) When we meet them, they're on the brink of discovery/remembering their divine identity. Those gory, but often erotic, dreams? Memories. They reunite with Willa Mae/Rory, with whom they've shared many lifetimes. 

We're told early on that the gods, even if they don't always consciously pursue one another, tend to end up in each other's lives, and so many of the people in Gem's life are, well, not people. Or not just people. 

Among the gods we meet is Poppy, who is a death job with a quirky fashion sense. Has that been done before? Yes. Do I still love it? Also, yes. Every lifetime she's a little more like an animated corpse, for reasons. 

Gem is a character dealing with a lot even without the whole god thing. They're battling mental illness, like their father, as well as a sex addiction. They were also preyed on by at least one adult. They want to be wanted/worshiped at all times. They're a teen, with all the hormonal stuff, and having a parent to appease. 

This is a YA title, and there's part of me that would have liked to see it as an adult title simply for the increased freedom and maturity. These characters are both formidable gods, and teens, which certainly can work but it makes them feel occasionally leashed. 

It reminds me of the scene in Buffy where Anya says, “For a thousand years I wielded the power of the wish. I brought ruin on the heads of unfaithful men. I offered destruction and chaos for the pleasure of lower beings. I was feared and worshiped across the mortal globe, and now I'm stuck at Sunnydale High! A mortal! A child! And I'm flunking math!” 

None of this is to say the book is tame. There's a lot of blood and gore. Murder and torture. Gem is promiscuous, and while not everything there is spelled out, we're talking at least PG 13. If it were an adult title, it might have been more explicit, but still these topics are mature and the author doesn't pull too many punches. TWs/CWs galore. 

These gods, even the ones we root for, have their villainous moments, and Gem in the events leading up to their arrival on earth was one of the most villainous of all. The gods connive, they plot, morality wars with expediency. I found myself initially less then thrilled at the (inevitable) revelation of a certain character, but Edgmon managed to win me over. All the gods have a point, even as they're trying to kill our main character. And Gem has a point in wanting to neutralize them. 

This is very compelling read, though. While I can nitpick some of the logic, or why characters didn't always due the logical thing, I was SO INVESTED! This book ends at a pivotal moment, and I need to find out how it shakes out. There's a god that allegedly is out of play, but are they really? 

I'm going to be recommending this title a lot! 

Also, for those of you like me who want to know if the dog lives: Yes, this time around, but it's an old dog. For all I know, the dog is a secret god, though. All bets are off.

“All I ever wanted was to be perfect. That sounds like a pretty big ask, but ???perfect??? means bland, inoffensive, likeable. I wanted other things too. I did want to stand out, be smart, be nice, but I tried so hard for those things that it wasn???t really like I was asking anyone for them. Really what I wanted was to be something more than the sum of my male and female parts.”

I appreciated this was a new story for me – a story featuring an intersex character. However, my frustrations significantly marred the experience.

Before I get to my gripes: As is almost always the case, I'm glad I read this book. It furthered my understanding of being intersex and expanded upon knowledge I'd gained reading about trans issues. A lot of kids are born outside of the perceived norm, with ambiguous or otherwise “unusual” genitalia, and yet most people are so ignorant of this. If we all knew more, it might change the conversation when we talk about what makes someone male or female. God or nature doesn't always fashion a baby to be one or the other, body development and brain development are separate, and so how can a bar stool philosopher opine that the matter is clear cut?

Anyhow...

Max is intersex. He is both male and female. I use the male pronouns because he and everyone else does. He is sexually assaulted early on, with the rapist using his female anatomy. The book is about the emotional and physical repercussions of this, as well as what it does to Max's perception of himself and his family.

The book employs multiple POVs, most felt unneeded. Also, since I felt such antipathy for Max's mother, even with her mental processes, I'd say her POV was unwanted, and really lowered my enjoyment. I believe the author, admirably, wanted Karen – the mother – to be sympathetic, but I just could not arrive at a place where she didn't make me grit my teeth.

One of the POVs is the doctor Max meets when he goes to get help after the assault. Being England, Max's clinic trip had a lot less red tape than had the book been set in America. All the medical aspects throughout the book followed suit. The problem with the doctor is she seemed to exist to explain the intersex aspect and to brush right up against betraying confidentiality when the failings, sometimes passivity, of the characters left the story at a crossroads. The doctor never felt natural.

Another POV was a potential love interest. No real complaints there, except the general sense that most of the voices were similar.

Yet another POV was Max's younger brother, Daniel. This kid was something else, mostly in a good way. While he would be trying to live with, he was also bright and funny in a book that needed a little humor now and again.

???Poltergeists are real,??? he mumbles from behind my hand. ???No they???re not.??? I frown at him. ???And neither???s Santa.??? ???Ouch,??? he says, and half-laughs, even though this is totally inappropriate because it???s disrespectful to the memory of Santa, who was real when we believed in him.

Ultimately, I spent the whole novel frustrated because the parents could see their kid was in distress and did nothing concrete to alleviate it. Their POVs were filled with thoughts of love, about how you'd do anything for your kid, but no one worked to build rapport, create a situation conducive to Max laying down some of his burden. When Max does make the first tentative steps to reach out, the mother instantly burns any bridge to communication, making wildly ignorant assumptions, and further traumatizing a child in pain. Any question she asks is then in the context of shame, judgement, and antagonism.

Max is established early on as a sweet and accommodating kid. Eventually, some of this is attributed to seeing from an early age the consequences of stressing out his mother. Which means he is prone to masking his pain, keeping secret his plight. And so with neither parent seeking to do more than handle the practical stuff, leaving the emotional and psychological dimension largely unquestioned, I pretty much just wanted to scream. Again, the doctor had to just about betray confidentiality to get Karen to give a second thought to her assumptions. And Karen is allegedly a successful attorney.

So, this is how I ended up at 3 stars and wanting to yell at some fictional characters.