Blurb Book Review: Villain by Natalie Zina Walschots (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Auditor has risen in the ranks since appearing in the first novel, Hench. Instead of a lowly office worker, she now heads an entire department of evildoers and henchpeople. This new position comes with benefits – like knowing Leviathan is alive when the world thinks he’s dead – and problems, like losing friendships and managing staff.

A budding romance grows between Auditor and Leviathan, something merely hinted at in the previous novel. This romance isn’t unexpected but is fraught with trust issues and, for Auditor, walking on eggshells so as not to be the cause of misunderstanding.

Auditor’s friends drop off her radar as well, something she barely notices is happening until the damage is done.

Having said that, the author was true to Auditor’s character. Auditor behaved as an antagonist throughout and while she didn’t love every decision she had to make, she made them the way the reader would expect.

The narrative style is stuffed with information, as if Auditor is telling the story and filling in all the details so the listener/reader has a clear picture of what’s going on. This meant some information was repeated too often for my liking, but at least was presented well.

Two nitpicky things: when Auditor is meeting with Menachem, the latter orders a neon-pink cocktail and a few pages later the liquid is green. A little farther on, ‘too’ is used when ‘to’ should be there. Get on it, editors.

Blurb Book Review: We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

The world is ending. A massive black hole has come into our galaxy and is gobbling everything up. There’s no hope for survival.

A month before the world ends, husbands Rodney and Don decide to go on a road trip. They have something they want to do before the earth cracks and the black hole takes everything.

The road trip is heartbreaking, both in hindsight when the reader knows what the husbands are trying to do and as it’s happening because of some of the people they encounter along the way.

This novella packs a punch. The author does a wonderful job of capturing nostalgia, wistfulness, and profound loss. I was frustrated a bit, wondering what was in the box that they carried so reverently to their final destination, but the story got to it all in good time.

The story is also about love – the good and bad of it – and is a sweet love letter to the elder gay men, who watched their friends die while they got the chance to grow old.

Blurb Book Review: Go Gentle by Maria Semple (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Adora Hazzard studied Stoicism and lends her teachings to a wealthy family; a husband who lost a limb and is partially paralyzed and his twin children. Through this job she meets Digby, falls in love, and is involved in an international art recovery.

I felt misled with the novel. It started with Adora wanting to create a coven of women, all living on the same floor in her swanky building, the Ansonia. This, to me, would have been an excellent book. Women developing a network of pooled income, resource sharing, and companionship as they age.

Instead, the book takes a turn and the Adora of the first third doesn’t seem to be the same Adora as the second third. In the first one, I’d actually questioned whether she was some kind of God or alien (I resolutely didn’t read the dust cover before beginning, instead I like to see where the narrative takes me) who just looks like this woman. But in the second third we get a glimpse of her life thirty years ago with events that led her to study philosophy.

While engaging – the narrative does move things along nicely – I kept wanting to know more about this coven. But it was as if the author just wanted to make Adora look like she wanted a network of women but would abandon the whole thing for a man who made her knees weak.

Not a bad novel, it was entertaining enough, but frustrating because I really would like to read something about women forming a community like a coven.

Blurb Book Review: American Fantasy by Emma Straub (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

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Annie’s sister was supposed to be on the cruise with her, but had to bail at the last moment. The band Boy Talk was headlining the cruise, a band both Annie and her sister fawned over as teens, and Annie was going for her sister more than for herself. She’d long ago discarded the screaming fandom and teen lust of boy bands but was determined to try to enjoy herself while on the cruise.

It doesn’t help that her boss calls her and tells her that the intern, young enough to be Annie’s daughter, is now her boss.

While this is happening, Keith is having a hard time drumming up any enthusiasm for the cruise. As one of the members of Boy Talk, he’d been doing these cruises and one-off concerts for years. The pay was good and it helped him feel like he was supporting his brother, also a member of Boy Talk, and the other members of the band.

Keith’s personal life isn’t rosy, he hates boats, and he just wants his brother’s affection, something that’s perpetually out of reach.

Organizing the band and cruise is Sarah. She’s done several cruises with different bands and knew how to get each member where they needed to be and how to keep them happy while confined to the ship.

The three lives intersect near the end. Keith ends up having a bit of a breakdown, Annie comes to terms with her new work situation and develops a plan, Sarah looks forward to wrapping up the whole experience and moving on.

The novel is written well enough that I was engrossed. It helped that Annie is 50 and at a stage in her life where she can see and appreciate her past and has the opportunity to create a new future for herself. The juxtaposition of having a cruise full of women dressing as they did in their teens, loving a boy band from their teens, and going full-on fanatical when the band is around and Annie struggling to snap out of stasis and move forward was interesting and well executed.

Overall I really enjoyed the novel. It was a nice dive into the mind of a middle-aged woman who is hesitant at first to move on, but gains confidence as she experiences all that the cruise has to offer.

Blurb Book Review: I Love You Don’t Die by Jade Song (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

This novel is about depression, death, suicide, and life. There is a trigger warning right at the beginning of the novel, which was a delightful thing to see. More of that, please.

Vicky is obsessed with death; she works as a copywriter for a death planning company, lives above a funeral home, and collects zhizha whenever she can.

In an effort to live, she scrolls through a dating app and finds a couple that she likes. They hit it off immediately and Vicky now has a co-conspirator in depression; Angela. Vicky can talk about death with someone who also has some firm beliefs about it. Vicky’s best friend, only friend, Jen, is more upbeat but has also suffered with depression.

The novel shows the different kinds of depression; from the depths of chronic depression to the sharpness of acute depression to the dullness of seasonal depression. There’s no shying away from death here, instead it’s a reflection of life in that it shows that all things must come to an end.

While the theme is dark, the characters are very human and compelling. Definitely not a read for everyone, though.

Tiny update

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

I realized it’s been a while since I posted anything – I didn’t drop off the face of the Earth, I just haven’t actually finished a book in a while. I’ve started a few but didn’t finish them, mostly because they took too long to get to the plot, were too hard to read because of the font, or just written in a way that made it hard for me to follow the story.

Nevertheless, I always have a book on the go, so the next one I finish will get a review 🙂

Blurb Book Review: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Absolutely none of the characters in this book are likeable, but they are compelling.

This book of short stories centres around the theme of rejection, but also, I think, what it’s like to be in an echo chamber. The characters are each absorbed by the internet, they’ve become so attached to a tunnel-vision view of their lives that they seem unable to function in the world as a whole.

The stories are cross-referenced with each other, some of them show up as little cameos in the stories of others, which provides a really interesting view on the difference of how a character thinks of themselves compared to what someone else thinks of them.

The author does a magnificent job in characterization. Each character felt so real, I felt like I knew these people – warts and all – intimately. Also, in one story, the author gives a fantastic definition of the difference between shame and embarrassment.

While this collection of stories is a bit depressing, I’d read the author’s work again. This one will stick with me for a while, and make me want to get away from screens.

Blurb Book Review: Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

A ship named Demeter. Passengers include Dracula, a werewolf, a mummy, and Frankenstein. I loved this book from start to finish.

Demeter just wants to do her job; fly back and forth from Earth to Alpha Centauri while keeping the human passengers alive, but her passengers keep dying. Before long, she’s known as a ‘ghost ship’, something she finds insulting.

At first, her medical AI, Steward, tries to convince her that equipment failure is the reason for all the deaths, but soon they both realize there are supernatural beings on board each journey.

This book was absolutely delightful. I didn’t read the back blurb until the end, so every step in the journey was refreshing. The author does a fantastic job in keeping the pov consistent with what I’d expect of AIs with personality. Even the human-presenting characters were well rounded and vivid, mostly seen through Demeter’s pov.

The author wrapped up the story beautifully with no lingering threads to worry about, while also keeping the story concept open to a sequel.

I’d love to see this book developed into a movie or miniseries.

Blurb Book Review: The Compound by Aisling Rawle (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

The Compound is a sprawling house in the middle of the desert, where contestants compete to be the last one living there. Each contestant has a small screen that assigns them Personal Tasks, which offer tailored rewards if the task is completed. There’s also a big screen for Communal Tasks, which everyone on the compound must complete in order for the reward to be granted.

Sometimes the producers make sure the contestants complete the communal tasks by withholding resources.

Lily knows she’s not very smart, but she’s beautiful. She has a dead-end job and lives with her mom, but as much as she wants a better job she knows she doesn’t have the skills or qualifications to get one. Living on her own is something else she’d like, but isn’t motivated to move out, plus, her job doesn’t pay all that much. So getting selected to be a contestant is her dream come true, her way out of her dreary life. She’s watched the show and knows all the ins and outs, all she has to do is be the last one there.

Often, Lily wonders why she’s still there. The Communal Tasks seem more and more like the producers are trying to be rid of her, yet she doesn’t get banished and she manages to out-smart other contestants just enough to remain.

While she’s there, she notices that all her Personal Task rewards are clothes, makeup, hair products, and other items to make her look and feel pretty. She knows this is a reflection of herself; that she has no substance other than being beautiful, but doesn’t have any notion on how, or even if she should, try to correct this.

The story felt like an allegory to our lives right now; we are told to buy things to make us happy but the foundation of things that would make us truly happy (job security, employment in general, a livable wage, food security, healthcare in America) are out of reach for many. Given the opportunity to ask for anything we want, many would choose material items that wouldn’t actually improve our day-to-day living.

The novel is thoughtful and a great in-depth look at a character who has little ambition, knows this, but doesn’t have any help in figuring out how to acquire some.

Blurb Book Review: The Merge by Grace Walker (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

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Amelia is in her early 20s and staunchly anti-Merge until her mother, Laurie, is told that merging would cure her advancing Alzheimer’s. They participate in the Preparation Period of three months, where they undergo rigorous exercises to help with the Merge; where Laurie’s consciousness will join Amelia’s in Amelia’s body. They both question whether this is truly what they want to do, but it’s not until they’re in the Village – a luxurious rehabilitation centre for Merged people – that the questions start really piling up.

The Merge is a process to help those in poverty. Lush accommodations are reserved for those who have Merged, as well as better job offers, higher pay, and even access to post-secondary education. Never mind that the people are in poverty because the government started levying high taxes to everything, including childbirth. These taxes could be so high that Merging was the only option to get out of debt.

The author did quite well with ramping up tension in the novel. The reader finds out early on that Amelia has participated in protests and finds Merging abhorrent, but yet continues to attend the Preparation exercises. Laurie, who was told her husband died in an anti-Merge riot, is also against Merging yet continues to attend the exercises to appease her daughter.

Once they Merge, Amelia has difficulty adapting to the new reality. A Support Worker helps her to see what’s really going on, just as she starts understanding what the Merge is really about.

The plot is well executed, the characters wonderfully believable, and the worldbuilding felt complete enough that I didn’t question why a billionaire would fund something like the Merge.