book review: the book woman of troublesome creek

This book was a roller coaster and not one I loved.

CONTAINS SPOILERS

There were parts of this novel that were sweet, but also some really unpleasant parts (including a sexual assault and a near-sexual assault). Also a disturbing cult and children starving to death in an area that seemed filled with animals and foraging opportunities and not experiencing a drought. I feel like I must have missed why no one was eating?

I thought the topic of Cussy as a blue person was going to be really interesting. However, the story was sick and sad, and the romance itself was a little too contrived for me.

I really questioned the relationships in this story, particularly the main character Cussy’s ongoing relationship with her father after he essentially sex trafficked her. So I don’t know. Plus at the end, you find out that the man she’s in life-long love with has been secretly asking for her hand in marriage and her dad’s been refusing for, literally, zero reason (especially considering the psycho he deliberately married her off to). So I’m gonna go ahead and officially hate her dad, despite the fact that we are clearly supposed to love him and pity him because he’s sick. Nope, bye, dad character.

The handsome-hero-who-loves-the-protag-despite-her-rejection-from-society trope wasn’t what I wanted from this book. I think I didn’t know it was a romance and was expecting more of a story of female empowerment than wedding bells. And for a romance, the HEA was super wimpy because their life is terrible. Ter-ri-ble. So — with historical fiction — I feel like either you gotta go romance and give me an HEA or you gotta go female empowerment and let the dude die so she’s the noble solo hero/cowboy. Otherwise, just write someone’s actual story and tell us the true facts. Since this wasn’t based on anyone’s actual life, all the personal story twists just struck me as inauthentic — of course the doctor is an abusive psycho, of course the preacher is an abusive psycho, too, of course the new husband (who is also the preacher’s brother) is ALSO an abusive psycho, of course the librarian is DEFINITELY a verbally abusive psycho…

Not my favorite. Obviously I’m in the minority because this book has won like a hundred awards. So you’ll probably like it and I’m wrong. :)

book review: a gentleman in moscow

I read A Gentleman in Moscow on family vacation, and my sister finally said, “I guess I’m going to have to read that book since I saw you crying reading it a few minutes ago and now you’re laughing out loud.” Quite an endorsement to have a book provide such a wide range of intense emotions.

I am late to the Amor Towles train, I know, but sometimes there are just too many good books to read them all. Glad this one finally surfaced in my pile! This was one of my top ten of the year for sure.

The book unfolds in a little bit of an achronological way, but in a sneaky way that makes you think, “wait, did I know that already?” It definitely feels like someone is telling you the story and only giving you the details you need at the time you need them.

And indeed, in a few places, such as a few notably long footnotes, the book does specifically tell you that some details are or are not important. I have a lot of respect for that, honestly.

The Count is charming in a Frasier-Crane sort of way: you love him so much, you don’t mind that he’s condescending and arrogant and judgmental every once in a quiet while. You also see how much kindness is inside him across so many situations, both painful ones and good-humored ones.

I loved the introduction of Anna with her dogs rampaging the lobby so much I read it out loud to my kids. They thought it was fantastic! Such a vividly visual scene.

I also realize I have a lot more to learn about Russian history. I had to keep stopping to check and see that I knew what was actually happening so I could follow all the political intrigue appropriately.

Nina’s character was bothering me until I realized that Nina is not actually the child at the center of the novel; rather, she is the setup for the novel’s central relationship.

The Metropol makes for such a massive, sweeping setting because of the years of the story even though it’s just the one location. What creativity! And what a satisfying ending.

book review: piranesi

Piranesi was such an odd book. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as I am all here for weird books… But it was so different than most things I’ve read. I keep starting sentences about this book and not having ways to finish them.

Things I liked:

• A lot of references to Narnia

• Beautiful setting

• Intrigue

• Untrustworthy narrator - think Call me Ishmael

Things I didn’t like:

• Took too long to get started

Things I’m not sure how I felt about them:

• Everything else

Haha.

Seriously, though, I’m not sure if I liked the inconclusive ending. I’m not sure if I liked the style. I’m not sure if I liked the incoherence of the fact delivery. I’m not sure if I liked the sudden appearance of new characters. I’m not sure! And I think that leads me to believe this was something like eating foodie food.

I don’t need to have that again—I’ll just have cheese on my pizza— but I am glad I ate the butternut squash this time.

Piransei for me was the kind of book you chew slowly, and look off a little to the right and then slowly say, “It’s… interesting.”

Very memorable descriptions of flooding water. Beautifully composed, visual scene.

book review: brave new world

You know, this review could start out, “this book’s an oldie but a goodie,” since it’s from 1932. But instead, a more accurate summary would be, “this book’s an oldie but a devastatingly and disturbingly accurate picture of the crappy direction a lot of things in this world are heading.” I guess that doesn’t have the same ring to it, though.

Brave New World has been on my list for a long time. It came up repeatedly in a class I was listening to about the rise of pre-totalitarianism in the modern world, specifically as the example of soft totalitarianism. In other words, the powerful doesn’t have to put their boot to your face to hold you down (hard totalitarianism) if you’re not trying to get up because you’re happy and entertained. So that’s the setup of Brave New World. Basically, what if no one fought back against corruption because they were fat and happy?

I see a lot of that today, honestly. The book has a particularly disturbing view of sex and sexuality that I’m sure was especially shocking in 1932 but now just feels like the entertainment a lot of people slurp up. Gross. Maybe that is the point of reading this kind of book in 2022—seeing how far society has come, or gone.

In contrast to, for example, Fahrenheit 451, this book didn’t have much story. There’s a lot of characters that are more representative of groups than individuals. And there’s certainly no one to root for because all the characters are heinous. You briefly think one character has a chance to be not horrible, but then he is, too. I think you’re supposed to feel like society ruined/corrupted him, but I kind of think he was headed that way already.

This book will mostly fall into the arena of “will bring this up as a past read in conversation if someone acts like I don’t understand the philosophy of the topic” —and other than that, I’ll try not to think about it again.

book review: small as an elephant

Small as an Elephant was a hard read for me. It’s very short because it’s Middle Grade, but it has a lot of emotional depth. I’ve been a foster parent for almost ten years, and this book has a lot of “real” in it. It also has a lot of drama — but that’s ok because it’s the point. Even though Jack’s story is unusual (in that most of the circumstances would be very rate), that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

Short summary: Jack goes camping with his mom and she abandons him, and not for the first time. There’s a lot of implication in the book that Mom has a lot of issues, but they aren’t a huge topic since this is Jack’s story, not hers.

The ending of this book (without too many spoilers) is what sets it apart. There’s a happy, but not an implied happily ever after. This is critical because Jack’s Mom isn’t in a great place. And there’s no single-day-turnaround from someone with issues of this scope. However, there is a great step forward with a support system that leaves the reader with a great deal of hope.

Sometimes with a book on a difficult topic, the best we can hope for is reality with a dash of hope. I’m relieved to read a book that does pretend every kid in a tough situation gets a HEA, but also doesn’t leave us entirely devoid of the possibility that a great future awaits the protag we’ve come to respect.

book review: a woman is no man

I did not know what to expect with this book. I almost quit near the beginning. I just couldn’t handle reading another book right now about a woman in a horrifying abusive marriage — and this book has, like, five of those. Glad I kept going.

The opening chapters about being born mute (unable to speak) were such a good intro to being closed off through a family and community culture that considers you an irrelevant burden. Having no opinion. Being worthy of nothing. Silence and service is the only path forward, and even then, it will be a difficult and painful one.

This book does a great job of setting up potential “saviors” for its characters (who then fail to save) so the women can learn to step up. I was surprised by its perspective on Islam and its honest opinion that its structures and teachings are dangerous to women, not because I hadn’t heard it before, but because it seems like an unpopular opinion to have — and books with politically incorrect opinions are hard to publish. Good for Etaf. And interestingly, women’s coverings are often presented in a positive light. For all the focus that some Americans may put on the female coverings as backwards or sexist, for someone like Isra, constantly enduring sexual abuse, physical violence, threats, an extreme sexist culture, and verbal belittling, wearing some extra fabric is not the biggest concern (and could even provide a feeling of safety).

This book has multiple timelines across generations, and therefore several compelling and surprising reveals. The crown jewel is the last chapter. I was blown away. I guess I should have seen the ending coming, in retrospect, but I simply did not. I LOVED it. I don’t want to give it away, but I definitely didn’t think ending with a death I already knew about (due to the crossing timelines) could be so empowering. FanTASic ending.

Memorably, this book does a great job of refusing bitterness. While allowing for anger, defiance, depression, even — it does not descend to the seething teeth-clenching that makes it hard to love and connect with a character (no matter what abuse they have endured). While being real about the mental health toll of enduring this cultural lifestyle, the book still leaves you with a sense of promise that small changes can and do happen, even at great cost.