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.

book review: dark matter

LOVED THIS BOOK. Read it in a single day, which I don’t often do. One of the jacket reviews said something about “this is the book for which the world thriller was invented,” and I have to agree. Edge of the seat! And almost nothing too science-jargony that can make time travel style books inaccessible.

I say time travel style, because there’s no time travel. It’s multiple universes. But I’m not confident that’s an actual sub-genre since I think Blake Crouch mostly invented it.

The fact that the book spends a significant amount of time contemplating the morality of decisions across multiple universes was very compelling, and it makes you love Jason (the protag) for his heart. He is in a terrible place, and you feel for him. You root for him. You want him to win. But then you see glimpses into these other realities and recognize that those are all Jasons, too—Jasons you don’t love, feel for, or root for… and you realize this is more complicated that you thought.

My only (tiny) complaint is that the endless hallway being the way your brain would sort of entrances to multiple universes in a visual way that you could navigate could have been more creative. That feels really expected, I mean, don’t we all even have that dream? And it’s in the Matrix… anyway, small compliant.

There were a few places that the author switched voice to give us Daniela’s (Jason’s wife) perspective, but it wasn’t jarring or disjointed. In fact, the whole book has such a seamless feel even though it’s likely one of the crazier journeys I’ve ever read.

This book was high speed and high emotion. At the end of the day, it was a genuine guy who was really in love with his wife. And I’m never going to not love a book that tells me that story really well. And bonus that this book also included a magic cube and a brain serum and quantum superposition because I’m a geek for that.

book review: project hail mary

Do I despise Andy Weir? Yes I do. I hate him. How can his books BE THIS GOOD? What kind of inhuman storytelling ability does this guy possess? I really didn’t think The Martian could be topped. But this one JUST (just) edges it out. Because of Rocky. Rocky the alien is the best. He’s better than Wilson the volleyball, even.

I have it on good authority that I didn’t get the best experience with the book because I didn’t listen to the audiobook which supposedly has amazing audio effects for Rocky’s voice. So give that a shot if you’re into audiobooks.

This story unfolding from total amnesia, and the reader learning along with Ryland leads to so many fantastic reveals. Delight upon delight, and I’ve seen and read enough sci-fi to be delighted when he follows the right tropes just far enough and then throws in something totally new and unexpected.

The ending of this book…. I cannot possibly hint without spoiling, but this was probably one of the more satisfying endings I’ve ever enjoyed in a book. Fan.tas.tic.

Ryland’s voice is the same as Mark Watney, but it’s a hilarious voice, so I’m not complaining. I just think Weir lives via his characters in a unique way. The thought processes of their decision-making sequences make their mistakes so so so much more gratifying.

No one makes me laugh like Andy Weir. I honestly can’t read the books with other people in the room because they get mad at me for all my cackling and giggling.

tiling your bathroom floor

The walls are up! The walls are done! The walls are amazing! And now, thanks to the weird order our shipments came in due to the supply chain disruptions, we have all the floor tiles. We selected heavily textured white 4 x 4 squares that came in 9-square sheets. You’d think this would have made them easier to lay, but truth be told, they weren’t perfect from the manufacturer and we needed to use a ton of tile spacers to get them to lay right. Some of the pre-arranged seams weren’t even (annoying).

The important thing with tile is the dry run. You have to use the thinset in somewhat large sections, so you have to get a lot of tile cut and fit in (perfectly) and then pick it all up using a weird and confusing labelling system. Or at least, that’s how we did it! In our case, the pattern had repeats, so it was key for us to get the direction of even the square pieces correct so that there was no side-by-sides that matched. (Well, there is one, but Hubs has sworn me to never ever mention it again.)

So, working in pieces, we got the floor measured, cut, test fit, packed up, and installed — all except the closet. It was getting late! We let it dry overnight and came back to finish and grout the next day. You can see the lines where some is grouted and some is not while we were working, but since we bought colored grout rather than dying it ourselves, it is an exact match even though it wasn’t done at the same time.

We had to trim carefully along the edge under the door because we wanted a seamless transition to the hardwood. Really pleased with how it turned out!

As I’ve said before, grouting is mostly a matter of working it into all the cracks with a sponge, then wiping it off. Here’s where the textured tile really killed us…. we couldn’t just wipe it off as we were normally used to doing. It was a LOT of elbow grease to get all the grout out of the grooves in the tiles. I do think it’s work it for the final, luscious finish!

book review: where the crawdads sing

This is another in the “Goodbye Earl” series of books that are popular now whose primary message is it a man sexually assaults you, you can murder him. At least the Dixie Chicks made it clear that the wife tried to take the correct course of action through the legal system with no luck? In this book, it was just somehow assumed that no one would have wanted to help the victim. Feels like a lack of effort.

The most disappointing thing in this book was that until the VERY end, it was unclear whether or not Kya (the protag) actually committed the murder of her rapist. Why oh why could the author have not awesomely left it open? Leave us wondering? Leave us curious if it was a fall? By telling us clearly, there’s no empowerment — there’s a discoloration of the rest of the character’s life. So now is she a sociopath who lives with the fact that she murdered someone, or is the rest of her life centered on her guilt as a murderer? Come on. Either’s just a let down. It is not a pro-woman message to make a victim into a murderer. The eye-for-an-eye thing is not empowering. It’s barbaric. I’m just sick of books with this message.

I’m also sick of books that think love is some kind of chess match where you have to try and outsmart each other, and I do not enjoy someone who tries to build tension through creepy touching as children are growing into teens from a very brother/sister style relationship. Meh.

I sound really negative. This was a beautiful, winsome book. Kya’s journey was lovely. I loved the way the author made an obvious path for her to find great success and even financial security in a world Kya otherwise rejected. I just don’t honestly understand why that couldn’t have been the story. Why did the story have to be a sexual assault from a former intimate partner and a subsequent murder? Obviously, I understand that does happen in the real world, and it’s a very authentic part of some people’s stories.

I just wondered in this case why Kya’s journey couldn’t have been about Kya. The author let the other characters be the central force in the story. I wanted Kya to be Kya’s story.