Book Reviews: December 2015 – June 2016

I think you should get cozy, because this post is going to be massive! Get some snacks, and your beverage of choice, then come back to read this post. I haven’t posted about books at all this year (my last book review post was in November), so we have some catching up to do. I hope you get at least one new book idea from this post. Let’s dive in!

I love how Christie plays with the stereotype of the library in mystery novels. In the beginning, the body of a young girl is found in the library and the surprise expressed when this fact is revealed to the owners of the house is quite amusing (basically along the lines of, “But,how did the body end up in my library?”). In fact, Christie pokes fun at various figures throughout the novel, including men who underestimate women like Miss Marple. This was another solid mystery from Agatha Christie and I enjoyed it.

It’d been a while since I read anything by Flynn (I read all of her novels a few years ago), it this was a nice reminder of how much I enjoy her writing. It was so short though! Still, Flynn managed to tell a lot in a few pages, and I found this both entertaining and creepy. I can’t wait for her next full-length novel to come out.

Since I read all three books in this trilogy last month, let’s talk about the series as a whole. It was excellent. I didn’t really have any expectations when I started it, so I was blown away by how much I enjoyed it. First, of all the characters were fantastic. I just want to hug the author for giving us such interesting, well-developed characters. I fell in love with the characters in the first book and became heavily invested in their lives. To see them suffer and grow and fight and survive over the course of the series was really rewarding. Also, the author has created such a fascinating world. I find that I’m more interested in politics when it’s fictional. I was able to follow the relationships between the different kingdoms and enjoyed how each kingdom was distinctly described and was it’s own separate world.

I knew this series is popular and I was on a real YA kick in December, so I decided to pick it up. Also, fairytale retellings are my jam, so I had a feeling I’d get along with this series. About halfway through Cinder, I was enjoying it, but not sure what all the hype was about. Then a lot started to happen in the book and I was finally sucked in. I liked a lot of the twists that Meyer made to the traditional story. Cinder is more of a tomboy in this version and it’s awesome to see the way she develops over the series. In fact, I think she is my favorite character of all of them, possibly because she demonstrates the most growth.

I’ve seen bits and pieces of the movie and then a friend recommended the book to me, so I decided to pick it up. I’m definitely interested in vampire stories so I was curious about this popular series. I didn’t expect it to be so philosophical though. Louis is basically miserable the entire time and grapples with his code of ethics and his purpose in life. Also, the relationship between Louis and Claudia made me uncomfortable, although I suppose it was meant to. They turned down the creepiness in the movie (which I watched in full after finishing the book), although it’s still creepy because now you have a mental image. The idea of a child vampire is both titillating/terrifying. When it describes how Claudia would lure in her victims, I thought “Ackk!” but also, that’s entertaining stuff. I didn’t love this, but it considers some interesting questions and for pop culture reasons, I feel like it’s one of the important vampire books to read.

Ok, people, you were right. This book was amazing; just as good as people say it is.

Everything I Never Told You is a novel about grief, family, and so much more. The Lees are a Chinese-American family living in Ohio in the 1970s. When the eldest daughter and favorite child, Lydia, dies, the delicate family balance is broken and each member of the family must come to terms with their loss. We begin with Lydia’s death, and then shift back and forth in time to before and after the incident.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live abroad and this latest novel from Janice Y. K. Lee gave me a peek into the expat life. The story centers around three women: Mercy, a twenty-something struggling to find her purpose in life, Margaret, a mother of three who has a handsome husband and an envy-inducing life, and Hilary, who is desperate to become a mother herself. Lee weaves these lives together as each woman explores her own identity.

I found the setting and descriptions of expat culture fascinating. Lee focuses on American expats who are stationed in Hong Kong for a year, or three, or ten. The expatriates stay within their own community, and interaction with locals is often characterized by a clash of cultures. Within the expat community, there are different cliques based on wealth, or common interests.

This is a quiet, beautiful written novel. Through her choice of words, Lee is able to convey so much about a character’s personality. Each of the three women is a distinct entity, with their own quirks, insecurities, mannerisms and principles.

The Fishermen is a story about fate and destiny and about the childhood of four brothers living in the small town of Akure, Nigeria. When their father moves to a different city for work, they take advantage of his absence to venture down to the forbidden river and fish. On one of these adventures, they encounter the local madman who tells them a prophecy that will forever change the course of their lives.

This was a reread for me, and as I often find with rereads, I rediscovered how great this book is. I was particularly fascinated by how Dorian’s life is changed and influenced by the development of a friendship with Lord Henry. Was he already on the path of self-destruction when he met Lord Henry, or was he placed there? I think many of Wilde’s comments and observations on beauty, youth, and society, and the entanglement of these three topics, still hold true today. Also, I tabbed so many of Wilde’s aphorisms throughout the book, that I probably should have just started underlining them. I was happy to revisit The Picture of Dorian Gray and check off my classic for the month.

Two people are kidnapped and trapped in an abandoned building. They are left with only a gun and a message from their kidnapper: the only way out is if one of them dies, otherwise, they’ll both starve to death. Eeny Meeny is the first novel in a series featuring Detective Helen Grace. Helen’s objective is to track down this criminal and uncover their motive.

About 30 pages into this book, I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, but I decided to accept that feeling and buckle up for the ride. And what a ride it was! Sudden Death describes a fictional tennis match between the Italian painter, Caravaggio, and the Spanish poet, Francisco Quevedo. Interspersed between the games are snippets from historical texts, emails with his editor, and storylines featuring other prominent historical figures, such as Hernán Cortés and Vasco de Quiroga. Like the tennis ball in the match, the reader bounces around wildly from story to story and the result is disorienting and mind-bending (in a good way!).

First of all, this was a lot of fun and I certainly haven’t read anything like it before. Enrigue loves to play with reality, so that it’s difficult to distinguish between fact, speculation, and pure imagination. The novel is full of violence- beheadings, religious movements, and war. Enrigue breaks up these brutal tales with bits of humor so that one minute you’re wincing at a death and the next you’re chuckling at the ridiculousness of some of the characters (sometimes the wincing and the chuckling is happening at the same time).

Enrigue explores so many themes in Sudden Death, from language, translation, and the power of words, to art and the responsibility of the artist. The chapters are generally short and move quickly, but I found myself constantly pausing to look up a historical figure, or a movement, or one of Caravaggio’s paintings. My history knowledge is rather rusty at the moment, so it would be interesting to reread this at a later point with a better understanding of the historical context.

I was able to attend an event with the author and he said that “the novel is a proposal.” It’s up to the reader to bring their own interpretations to the table. The author was able to say so much in such a short novel. My review is just scratching the surface- I want more people to read this so that we can discuss!

I finally (finally!) read my first Toni Morrison novel and it did not disappoint. The Bluest Eye is the story of Pecola, who wishes desperately for blue eyes, which she equates with beauty, belonging, and all that is good in the world. Pecola does not have a good childhood (her father is a drunk and her mother barely cares for her children) and sadly we witness Pecola’s life devolve from bad to much worse.

It pretty much goes without saying that Morrison’s writing was beautiful, but it was also more accessible than I thought it would be. I was intrigued by the structure as we jumped back in time to understand the history of the characters and how this history leads to the terrible events in Pecola’s life. The story is narrated from the perspective of a young black girl who is friends with Pecola and we never hear from Pecola herself. I understand this was a conscious choice on Morrison’s part, but it still left me wishing to hear Pecola’s perspective at least once.

Morrison explores society’s obsession with beauty, but particularly a certain kind of beauty- standards and ideals that have been perpetuated throughout time. Of course the author writes about race and the divides created between white people and black people and between black people who despise their own blackness and other black people.

The overwhelming feeling when I finished this book was sadness. Pecola is mistreated and downtrodden her entire life and she deserves none of it. I can’t wait to pick up another book by Morrison, although not right away because I’ll need some time to recover from this one.

When Toni Morrison says a book is required reading, you read it. Written as a letter to his son, Coates explores the concept of “race” in America. He discusses his childhood and growing up on the streets, and his period of discovery when he attended Howard, the Mecca.

Coates describes race as an idea constructed by society and how black bodies have been affected by this construct for years. He writes about learning to question everything, rather than accepting ideas or “norms” as they are. He discusses the moment that his son realized the world is not a fair place, and his own realization of the gulf that exists between the world and him.

This was certainly a powerful and thought-provoking read. There were ideas that I’d never considered before and I think it’s difficult not to feel some despair while reading about some of the things that Coates has experienced. There are no quick or easy solutions. Acknowledging and accepting that there are problems is important, as is continuing to seek answers. It is a fairly short book, but if you plan to read it, I’d encourage you to take it slowly to really absorb his words.

The sense of accomplishment that I feel after finishing this book is real, guys. Over the course of two months, I read this as a buddy read with Ameriie. I’d previously read an abridged version and I’ve seen the movie several times, so I had a pretty good idea of the story (or at least I thought I did!).

In terms of language and writing style, I think this classic is very accessible. Normally it takes me some pages to settle into the different style, but I was engaged from the very beginning. It doesn’t hurt that this novel is quite fast-paced (even more so if you’re reading the abridged version, from what I’ve been told).

There’s revenge and romance, duels and disguises; basically everything I could want in one novel. There are so many characters to love in this book and it is truly a great adventure to follow the course of the Count’s life for a period of about 25 years (my math might be off there- feel free to correct me).

Let’s talk about the size of this book. I will admit that seeing a page count of 1462 pages is very daunting, but don’t let it stop you. I read this book in short spurts over a long period of time, until the last 330 pages, which I read in a day. I’m sure that if you set your mind to it, you could easily finish this book in a much shorter time frame than I did. And the story is so worth it! Except for a few chapters here and there, I was intrigued by the plot the entire time.

Long story short, The Count of Monte Cristo was excellent and I’d read it again (although not anytime soon ;)

Before today, I would have called myself a Jane Austen fan, but really I was a Pride and Prejudice fan because that was the only Austen novel I’d read up until this month. I wasn’t sure which Austen to pick up next, but a few people recommended that I turn to Persuasion.

Persuasion was a slow burn for me. Of course, in the beginning, I was comparing it to Pride and Prejudice, which is a book that I fell in love with right away. Persuasion follows Anne Elliot, one of three sisters in a well-respected family in the English countryside. When Anne is a teenager, she falls in love with a sailor named Wentworth, but is persuaded not to marry him due to his lower rank in society.

It wasn’t until I was about 80 pages in that I began to identify with Anne and connect to the story. Anne is often overlooked and taken for granted, but she has a quite strength and grace that is very compelling. I could see some of myself in Anne with her sensitive and analytical nature, and her desire to please others. I also appreciated Anne’s patience in dealing with her family, who all seem like a bunch of nincompoops. I can’t imagine it being easy to put up with them!

Austen’s  writing slowly draws the reader into Anne’s world and even from an early stage, I was rooting for Anne. It doesn’t matter that it was written hundreds of years ago- Austen’s characters and their desires and struggles still feel very relevant today. There was one moment in particular that just filled me with delight, to the point that I actually squealed and gasped when I read it (it’s pretty well known, I’m sure you could guess if you’ve read the book). I can’t wait to watch the adaptations of Persuasion and I’m looking forward to my next Austen.

Oh how I missed you, Claire and Jaime. This second novel in the Outlander series picks up where the first left off, beginning in the modern age and then moving to the past. Claire and Jaime have traveled to a new country and have to find ways to adjust to their new life. There’s court intrigue, political plots, lavish parties, and more. I won’t say more about the plot other than that, since this is the second book in a series.

My first feeling when I started this book was delight at being back in this world. I missed the setting, the characters, and being wrapped up in their lives. I loved the first half of the book and reading descriptions of the new setting. If you’ve read the book, I’ll just say that I’m fascinated by that time and that country, so the first half of the book ticked all of my boxes.

In the second half, the political plot line takes prominence, which I don’t find as interesting as other themes in the novel. For that reason, the second half dragged a bit for me, although I was still interested enough to keep reading. I’m still impressed, however, by how throughly Gabaldon researched the time period and how accurate the setting feels. I mean, I haven’t fact-checked her work, but I think the readers can sense when the author has thoroughly and carefully constructed their world.

Dragonfly in Amber didn’t grab me the same way that Outlander did, with the novelty of discovering a new, rich world filled with compelling characters. Despite that and despite the somewhat uneven reading experience, I enjoyed this second installment and would like to continue the series at some point.

Five years ago, Aubrey Hamilton’s husband vanished into thin air. No one knows what happened to him and for a while, Aubrey was a prime suspect in the case of his disappearance. The book begins in the present, with the State of Tennessee declaring Josh Hamilton legally dead. Although Aubrey hasn’t found the answers or closure that she wanted, she decides to try and move on with her life, until strange events cause her to question everything she thought she knew about her life before.

I’m still a bit mad about this book, which had an ending that left me feeling duped, and not in a good way. I mean, I like a good plot twist as much as the next person, but it has to make sense and fall into place with the rest of the story. I want a plot twist to be exciting because I didn’t see it coming, not because the author pulled it out of a rabbit hole, just for the sake of having a plot twist.

My overall conclusion is that while this was an entertaining read, it wasn’t compelling enough for me to recommend it to others.