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Blurb Book Review: The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover taken from Google.com

I’d seen the miniseries before I read the book so I had some idea of what to expect. Still, I was pleasantly surprised.

The primary character is Harper, a man who’s down on his luck in the early 1930s. He steals a coat with a key in the pocket and is inexplicably drawn to a shuttered, ramshackle house in Chicago. Inside, the house is luxurious, except for the body on the staircase. He can see the beauty because he has the key.

The secondary character is Kirby, a woman who is brutally attacked while walking her dog. Her attacker is Harper, who met her when she was a little girl, then again about two decades later.

An unexpected character is the House. It has a kind of interdimensional travel ability for the person with the key. Harper can think up a time, open the front door, and walk out into that time period. The House also calls to Harper to complete a circle of killings and leave a memento from a different time, and different murder, on the fresh body.

But what happens when the circle is complete? Harper desperately wants to know, he’s driven to completing the killings to ease the House’s invasion of his mind. But Kirby lives through her attempted murder, thus leaving the circle incomplete.

The author did a fabulous job in worldbuilding. Each time period felt wonderfully authentic. Even Harper’s reaction to the future was believable. Also, the author did a great job in completing the narrative circle and tying up loose ends. The body on the staircase is explained, eventually, and the ending brings the reader back to the beginning.

Where the author failed, though, is in solving the murders. The reader knows Harper committed the crimes but Kirby and a detective don’t ever find out what’s going on. Kirby almost does. She has an inkling that seems too farfetched to be real and is almost given the payoff of understanding and knowing how it all ties together, but not quite. So while the main story is tied up, the character’s searching is left open, which was frustrating.

Overall, the book is worth reading even after watching the series.

Blurb Book Review: Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

What happens to the children that come back from fantastical worlds? Well, they go to a special boarding school so they can be re-integrated into society.

Nancy is one such girl. Having recently returned from a Land of the Dead, she has no interest in bright colours, sunshine, or living people. Instead, she’d rather be with the Lord of the Dead again.

Except the doorway closed behind her and disappeared when she returned to this world, stranding her here. She, like all the students, wants to go back.

Just as she’s getting a handle on how the school works and that there are others that have visited different worlds, students start turning up dead and missing body parts. Now Nancy and her new friends must find out who is killing them and why.

This is a novella, only 169 pages long, and packs a wonderful punch about belonging, identity, and found family. A delightful read and an interesting take on doorways to other realms.

Blurb Book Review: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Alicia is an artist married to a photographer. On the surface, they have a great life together. That is, until Alicia is found standing next to her husband, who had been shot five times in the face. She refuses to speak from that point forward and is sent to a psychiatric facility in lieu of jail time.

Theo is a criminal psychotherapist who is overly interested in Alicia’s case. When a position at the facility opens up, Theo jumps on it in hopes of treating Alicia. His treatment is mostly successful. Alicia attacks him at first, but eventually opens up enough to talk. But what comes out of her mouth is lies.

The novel is told in flashbacks through Alicia’s diary and through the eyes of Theo. As a reader, I felt there was something off about Theo’s interest in her and his pushing to treat her. It turns out he’s an unreliable narrator, which the author pulls of brilliantly.

The twist near the end had me gasping out loud. Truly fantastic. I think I should have seen it coming but rather than try to predict what would happen I simply let myself get carried away with the story.

One nitpick is the author’s heavy references to Alcestis, the heroine of a Greek myth. While it’s relevant to the story, I grew weary of the references early on.

Blurb Book Review: The Thick and The Lean by Chana Porter (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Image from Goodreads.com

Beatrice hungers for luxurious foods, but her strict religious sect praises those that go hungry. She’s expected to take pills to suppress her appetite and stabilize her moods but chooses to avoid them. All she wants is to be a chef and prepare delicious meals for those who want to eat solid food, and to do this without shame. In a moment of vulnerability, she shares her desire with her girlfriend, who rips her recipe book and heart to shreds. Beatrice runs away that very night, to a woman who gave her the freedom to copy recipes from books surreptitiously. That woman helps her escape the cult and train to be a chef.

Reiko is from one of the poorest sections of the city, the Bastion. She receives a scholarship to an expensive school, where she can study skills to make her marketable. Her computer engineering skills are particularly good and she decides this will be her career path. Her grades are stellar, but the school pulls her scholarship, leaving her with either a mountain of debt or going home in shame. She chooses to use her skills to skim money from her rich roommate. From there, she steals her way higher and higher up in society.

Both women get their hands on a forbidden book: The Kitchen Girl. This book is the basis for the Flesh Martyr religion and forbidden because the ideas have been bastardized into people starving themselves to be closer to God.

While both women lead remarkably different lives, they cross paths and bond over the book.

The author’s narrative style is sumptuous, describing rich foods and fine clothes in such a way that I could taste and feel them. I loved the author’s first book, The Seep, and am thrilled that this book is equally good, if not better.

The worldbuilding is incredible and beautifully woven into the story. The author takes dieting to an extreme, demonstrates the difference between the wealthiest class and the poorest, and ties everything together with a theme of nourishment, finding oneself, and societal expectations based on class.

I loved this novel so much I’d read it again, just to immerse myself in the world for a while longer.

Blurb Book Review: Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Image from Goodreads.com

This novel is a sequel to Mickey7 and it holds up all right.

Mickey7 is back and this time he has to retrieve a bomb he hid at the end of the last book. The entire colony depends on the energy source inside the bomb to live through another winter, which raises the stakes nicely. Discovering the bomb isn’t in the hiding place also raises the stakes.

A life form native to the planet they’re colonizing has taken apart other colonizers to replicate the vocal construct of humans, which allows Speaker to, well, speak to Mickey7. Speaker knows where the bomb is and can take them there, but wants to form an alliance first because the entities with the bomb are enemies.

The plot is a bit thin and contrived, but the read was entertaining enough to get me through the book. I was annoyed with Mickey7 in several spots because of his dismissive attitude toward Speaker. I mean, here’s this life form who’s taking you on a trek to retrieve your life-killing bomb, but you aren’t going to respect him? Instead you’ll just handwave away his concerns? I suppose, though, that this means the characterization was consistent throughout.

Overall, this is a quick, light read that tied up the loose ends and left enough material for another book in the series.

Nitpick: the author seems to really like the term ‘to bear’ as in ‘bring the weapon to bear’. This was bothersome enough in the first novel and downright annoying in this one. Super nitpick: Speaker uses the term ‘to bear’ even though he’s never heard the term out loud.

Blurb Book Review: Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Image from Goodreads.com

This novel has a high learning curve. There are words for things that don’t exist in our universe and while the definition of most of them can be gleaned from the context, some were harder to understand. Thankfully, the author put a glossary at the back.

The worldbuilding is fantastic. Describing ships that can pass through things, universes contained within bubbles surrounded by rinds, and wonderfully diverse species. The author uses descriptive language throughout that’s both immersive and a bit overwhelming.

The story is relatively simple: Caiden’s world is in ruin. His family cares for livestock, which have all died. The people are rounded up and placed on another planet, one with nophek beasts that attack and kill all the people. Caiden runs and hides in what turns out to be a ship. There, he’s found by a crew that helps him get off the planet and to the Cartographers, which help him see who he really is.

During this, Caiden learns he’s a slave. He decides to kill the slavers as revenge for what happened to his family – his people, really – but he’s only fourteen and nowhere near in control of his emotions. Caiden sets out on a difficult path, learning that he’s more than just a slave, and is put in an acceleration chamber where he ages six years and receives augmented body parts and knowledge.

The story is concise enough, albeit a bit coincidental in parts. The narrative voice is rich and interesting, but a bit overdone in parts. I wouldn’t trim anything down though, this book is meant to be dense and rich.

There’s a sequel, but I’m not sure if I’m interested yet. I liked where this novel ended and see little reason to continue reading anything except for the delight of immersing myself in the world. The story of the next book will likely focus on the relationship Caiden had with Leta, who also survived the norphek planet (I did warn you about spoilers). My problem here is that I’m not invested in their relationship and don’t really care how they’ll play off each other. The author was a bit heavy-handed with mentioning Leta throughout as some kind of touchstone for Caiden and after a short while I was trying not to skim the parts that mention Leta.

Also, I was a bit confused about Leta and Caiden. He’s fourteen and she’s ten, but the author wrote the relationship with romantic underpinnings. He calls her his sister, once he learns the word ‘sister’ and the meaning, but she feels more like a pre-lover, or puppy love, or something. Even then, I didn’t feel a connection to their relationship at all, so I’m not really interested in reading a whole novel of their betrayal to each other, as it’s set up at the end of this book.

If you’re looking for interesting worlds, species, and ships, this is a good read.

Blurb Book Review: Sign Here by Claudia Lux (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Image from Goodreads.com

Peyote Trip makes deals for Hell and has discovered a loophole: if you can make five deals with your own genetic line, you get a second chance at life on Earth. The problem is, you slowly start to forget your life while you’re in Hell.

The novel has three storylines: Peyote’s attempt to get the fifth deal to make a Complete Set, Calamity Ganon’s past and how she’s trying to fight against God’s army, and Mickey Harrison; a teenager who has a brand new very best friend Ruth.

The novel has a lot of potential. It’s darkly funny in spots, the depiction of Hell – with pens that don’t work, constant car alarms going off randomly, and only serving Jägermeister in bars – is amusing and different, and the coming-of-age storyline of Mickey is relatable. But the novel didn’t feel very cohesive.

The story jumped around between the three plotlines in thankfully short chapters and everything tied up neatly in the end, but it felt clumsily executed. Calamity’s character in particular felt disjointed and, quite frankly, unnecessary. If her character was cut right out there would have been more room to explore Peyote’s character and how he’s related to Mickey, rather than rush-explain it at the end.

The narrative voice was interesting though. I did enjoy the flow and descriptive phrases. That’s pretty much what kept me reading. That, and solving the mystery in Mickey’s family of which brother killed a girl seventeen years prior.

Overall, this was an entertaining read, light and funny in places, touching in others. I’d read something else by the author simply for the narrative voice.

Blurb Book Review: The Fields by Erin Young (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Image from Goodreads.com

Corn, politics, and cannibalism: this book has them all.

Bodies are found in a sleepy county, bodies with bites taken out of them. Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations, granddaughter of the previous Sheriff, is tasked with solving the murders. The first body is her childhood friend, Chloe.

Riley wades through her own personal Hell of remembering why she left Black Hawk County while navigating other officers’ resentment for being passed over for promotion as she gathers evidence to solve her old friend’s murder. Along the way, she stumbles on a political coverup right smack dab in the middle of election campaigns.

I never guessed the ending of the book. I thought I had it, I thought I knew where it was going when niacin deficiency was mentioned, but the novel took a turn I didn’t anticipate. Once I finished the novel I could see all the clues, which just made the revelation that much better. The author was skillful in withholding tiny tidbits until the very end without making the story feel full of holes or contrived.

This is the first book in a planned series focusing on Riley. I’d read the next one, mostly to see if the author can pull off another murder mystery with the same flair.

Blurb Book Review: Cold People by Tom Rob Smith (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

This book gripped me and didn’t let go until the end.

Aliens arrive and send a single message: humanity has thirty days to reach Antarctica. Millions of humans make the trip and reach the shores of the inhospitable continent. Those left behind turn to embers.

Now stranded on a sheet of ice, the millions of humans eke out an existence. They form three small towns on a peninsula and the greatest scientific minds go live at McMurdo Station – a place set up in the 1940s.

One of the scientific pursuits is the creation of Cold People, or people who can withstand the tremendous cold. The intention is that these Cold People will help the ordinary-born to live. While Cold People’s existence is presented as helpers or a workforce that can adapt to cold conditions easily, they are, in fact, locked up until humans deem them worthy of integration.

That integration doesn’t go as planned. Cold People aren’t entirely human, their genes are edited to help them with the cold, and their attitude to their captors is rather chilly. They want a life without fragile humans to care for or consider. They want to live fully as themselves: creatures born to exist in the harsh conditions.

The novel speaks of love, mostly one-sided love. A gay man who falls in love with someone but chooses not to act on it, and a mother who loves her ice-adapted child but that love isn’t returned.

The aliens are barely mentioned, except that they herd humans to Antarctica, move some of humanity’s shrines to the icy continent, and don’t allow bombs to detonate during the exodus. Did these aliens love humans as well? Not likely, as they were shunted to Antarctica without explanation or a timeline of when they could return to warmer climates. But some affection for them is evident or they wouldn’t have bothered to herd them or bring them their most prized structures and set them on the ice.

Overall, this was a good read. I was left with a huge question: why did the aliens come and move humans to the most inhospitable place on Earth? What was the purpose of this and is there a timeline? But I see that the novel isn’t about the aliens, it’s about humanity’s love for each other and our incredible ability to persevere.

Blurb Book Review: Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Image from Goodreads.com

Gerald is looking at a spreadsheet when he gets sucked into Slack. It takes a while for him to convince his workplace friend to believe him, then go check on him. Even after Pradeep finds him, the rest of the office doesn’t really believe he’s in there. Instead they think this is just some elaborate overuse of the company’s new work from home policy.

While that’s happening, another coworker complains of constant howling. She goes missing and it’s like she was never there. Only one other person interacts with her so the question becomes, did she really exist?

Okay, this book is delightfully weird. The entire thing is written out as Slack conversations, including emoticons. The plot is simple and the execution interesting. This is a delightfully refreshing read.