Tag: book review

Blurb Book Review: Too Old For This by Samantha Downing (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Lottie has retired from her job and her hobby, when someone shows up at her door threatening to expose her hobby for all to see. The only option, as Lottie sees it, is to come out of retirement and kill the would-be docuseries producer. This murder causes ripples, though, and killing someone in your own home has risks.

Delightfully told, the author builds a relatable character before her murderous tendencies are fully realized by the reader. Lottie is well rounded as a character and her age is a nice barrier to remembering all the details that go along with being a serial killer.

The narrative style is easy to read and engaging, making me want to pick the book up at every opportunity. I was fully invested and wanted to know how Lottie could continue murdering people without getting caught.

There was some hand-waving I had to do, as I don’t think an elderly woman would have the strength to hit someone hard enough to kill them with one blow to the head, nor do I think a body could be effectively burned in a fireplace, even cut into pieces. But I also know that it would be silly to put actual methods of body disposal in a novel for anyone to use as a reference document.

Blurb Book Review: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

A deactivated military robot, Staybehind, comes online to find himself in a restaurant that’s flooding. He reactivates his coworkers, Hands, Sweetie, and Cayenne, and while cleaning up they decide to open the restaurant again. It takes some doing, robots are allowed to earn coin but not have a bank account. Hands learns how to make biang biang noodles and they start serving humans.

This novel is delightfully cozy. In the background, a war has ended recently and California separated from America. Robots, specifically HEEI (human equivalent embodied intelligence), have been freed but have limited rights. They are citizens but cannot vote, can work but must pay off their old contracts, and aren’t allowed to own property.

Staybehind makes it work by “defying categorization, hiding neatly in the fit between what humans could see and what they couldn’t”. They register their business online, work out supply chain, and learn about how to bring business in.

I enjoyed the novel, but did notice it was heavy with LGBTQ+. Not a bad thing, but these are robots and so I didn’t expect to read about affectionate behaviour from them. The one that has top surgery made sense, as did Hands, who didn’t want legs. But relationships that feel like love or infatuation felt a bit out of place.

Blurb Book Review: UnWorld by Jayson Greene (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

In the near future, people could have an upload: a digital entity composed of the same memories as the human tether. These uploads are able to intensify memories, make them more solid should the human choose to revisit them. Some of the uploads request emancipation from their tethers as well.

Anna is grieving the sudden death of her teenage son, Alex, when she releases her upload. Cathy is teaching personhood at a local university and allows this upload to attach to her. Sam was Alex’s friend and saw him die. Aviva is the upload struggling to make sense of the world.

At its core, this novel is about grief with a science fiction environment. There are hints to dystopia – like retirement homes not having any human staff – but the focus is on Anna’s upload and how it evolved to be what it was.

While I enjoyed the book immensely, the narrative style was wonderful and the characters properly rounded out, I was disappointed with the science fiction element. I ended up with more questions than answers like, was Alex’s neurospiciness caused by the upload somehow? Why did Anna allow her upload to develop a relationship with her son? Why didn’t Cathy just get her own upload instead of going to extremes to attract one? It’s possible some of these questions were answered in the novel and I somehow missed them, which is frustrating. Also, why would an upload want emancipation? If the upload is simply an AI, why would it have feelings and desires?

Interesting concept, but the execution could use some work.

Blurb Book Review: The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Gabe is the love of Pippa’s life; he’s charming, successful, and loving but can also be unpredictable and manic. They buy a cottage near The Drop, a cliff face, and Gabe stops several people from jumping off. That is, until one woman takes her own life in front of him. Pippa, watching from the window, misses the event but sees Gabe with his arms out after the woman went over. Suspicions grow when Pippa finds out Gabe knew the woman.

This novel reminds me more of a romance, the way Pippa keeps reminding the reader how much she loves Gabe and how he’s the centre of her life. Pippa rationalizes a lot of Gabe’s behaviour even though his actions are erratic and sometimes extreme. A diagnosis of ADHD seems to fit, but Gabe continues his manic behaviour even while medicated. Later, the true mental illness is revealed.

Pippa’s character arc is a good one. She loves her husband and her children, but has been cleaning up his messes for so long that she’s not really living, just reacting to his behaviour.

Overall the novel was a good depiction of what it’s like to live with someone, and love them, with mental illness.

Blurb Book Review: When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Seven years ago, the Simulators announced that the world was a simulation. To make sure people never forget this fact, there are weekly reminders that appear, in completely different fonts, over people’s heads and the Impossibles; physics-defying anomalies like an upside-down frozen tornado, a tunnel where time passes as normal inside but once you emerge you find only a second has passed, and even a Hollow Flock of fluffy animals with no mouths or eyes.

In this world, a group of people board a tour bus to see some of these Impossibles over the course of a week. Included are an Influencer who’s very pregnant, two nuns and a Rabbi, a cancer survivor and his friend, four octogenarians, an old woman in a wheelchair and her nurse daughter, and a person who spends most of their time reading. After the first stop, a woman joins them, a woman who wants to be reunited with her daughter but knows she’ll die before she gets there. This woman has written code to create a simulation, which the government acquires, and people are out to kill her.

There’s a lot of characters to keep track of, but the author does a good job in making sure the reader doesn’t get too lost. The narrative style is casual, even when infodumping scientific information. While there’s no way I could bend my brain to understand a simulation, I never felt out of the loop.

As the characters go from one Impossible to the next, the Influencer pivots her platform to gain views, the coder frantically tries to figure out how to create a back door into the simulation she created, and the senior nun tries to write a novel about God and simulations.

The novel is told from the Simulators’ pov, which is interesting and not too alien. This pov gives the opportunity to highlight humanity and our quirks in a way that’s amusing and poignant.

There’s a reveal at the end that was beautifully done by the author, but I won’t spoil it here. I will absolutely seek out other work by this author.

Blurb Book Review: Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Vi is out drinking one night when she finds a blob in the alley behind the club. At first this is just a blob, but when she goes to check on it the next day she sees it’s moved to get cover from the rain. Vi scoops the blob up and takes it home where it begins to evolve.

Vi’s life is aimless; she’s had a bad breakup and hasn’t let go even though it’s been eight months, she works at the front desk of a hotel but doesn’t really care about her job or coworkers, she dropped out of college because she was failing, and she lied to her parents about signing up for the Peace Corps.

One thing that stood out for me was how Vi treated the people around her. She often thought she knew what her ex-boyfriend was thinking and feeling (she was routinely wrong) and wants people to behave in a way she prefers. So when she found this blob, later named Bob, I thought this book would take a dark turn, but it didn’t. Instead, Bob continues to evolve into a person, including wanting his own experiences (Vi wanted to keep him in her apartment like a prisoner). Vi sees that controlling him is wrong, yet still does it.

By the end, Vi has had a small character arc where she learns that her life is up to her so she enrols in college again, this time taking courses she likes. She’s had to let Bob go as well, since he decided to be with someone who doesn’t lock him in an apartment.

Overall, the story of Bob is short, but the author dives into backstory quite a lot to show what kind of person Vi is. Yes, she’s Taiwanese / white mix and has had to face microaggressions but otherwise, she comes from a loving family, so her snarkiness feels unfounded.

The novel felt more like the author wanted to give a lot of backstory to a somewhat unlikable character instead of a story about a blob that evolves into a person. Still, well enough written that I read it quickly and found the imagery vivid.

Blurb Book Review: My Murder by Katie Williams (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Lou is a clone, taking the place of her former, murdered, self. Brought back by a government program along with four other women murdered by the same man, she’s trying to adapt to life with no memory of her murder or the days preceding it. While she’s still herself, she’s also not; this body wasn’t the one who bore her baby or that sustained a scar from a childhood accident. A support group with the four other women helps, but also raises questions about her murder, questions that lead her to a shocking conclusion.

The concept of this novel is good; a woman is brought back and feels slightly out of step with the rest of the world. But the execution wasn’t great. I had no real image of the other women, or even Lou, as they weren’t described well. I also found the dialogue to be frustrating and empty, like the author was trying to bulk up the novel and missed the mark. The reveal at the end is interesting, but raises more questions than it answers.

I felt like I had to slog through parts of the novel because the pacing didn’t urge me to turn the page at all. I felt as though I could put the book down and forget to pick it up again.

Blurb Book Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Piranesi lives in a house where the ocean laps at the bottom level and the sky fills the top. An endless labyrinth, the house is filled with statues, birds, and even fish in some water-filled rooms. Piranesi keeps a meticulous journal of the goings-on of the house, including his bi-weekly visits with The Other, a person who named Piranesi but refuses to offer a name of himself, and a mysterious person, named 16, lurking the halls. The Other tells Piranesi that talking to 16 will make him go mad, but curiosity gets the better of Piranesi and while investigating 16, Piranesi unravels the true reason he’s living in the house.

I was engrossed in the novel immediately. Piranesi’s personality shines through the pages; his kindness for the human skeletons in the house and his resourcefulness in finding food, maintaining a clean habitat, and mending fishing nets. The Other has given him gifts of shoes and whatnot, which immediately clued me in that The Other can leave but somehow Piranesi cannot, nor does he want to. He’s confused but is content with his confusion.

That is, until 16 turns out to be a gentle person who has been looking for him. She tells him of his family and friends and how he’s been missing for six years. Piranesi has no memory of any of this, but understands that staying in the house means being alone, and so he leaves with her.

The house is like a dimension that can be accessed if the person chooses to see it. The Other shows Piranesi how to get there but not how to return.

Engaging novel, overall. Definitely different from mass market stuff, definitely one that will stick with me.

Blurb Book Review: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

The narrator was put in a cage along with 39 women. Being a child herself, she shouldn’t have been there but nonetheless was still caged with them. Just as she reaches puberty, a siren goes off and the guards leave abruptly, leaving the keys dangling in the lock. Now freed, the forty women trek outside for the first time in over a decade.

This novel is compelling, written from the point of view of the young girl over the course of her lifetime. She has no memory of life before the cage so she has nothing to compare the world to, but finds some delight in listening to the stories of the women as they walk across the landscape in hopes of finding others like them.

In their travels they find other underground cages filled with 40 people each, always only men or only women. These 40 women eventually settle into a kind of village where they live out their lives, never encountering another living soul. Once the last of them has died, the narrator continues on her own.

I was frustrated with the novel in that while these women find other cages and food stores for those cages, there’s no way the food would be viable after a decade. Sure, the cans would be good, but frozen food does go bad and the mere idea of fresh food after two or three years is just too far-fetched. Also, the reason they were put in cages is never explained, the siren isn’t explained, and while the landscape seems bleak, there are enough trees for wood so it can’t be that bleak.

In addition, when the women exit their prison and go outside, there’s no trace of the guards. No tire tracks, nothing. There’s also no power plant or water plant, even though power is running to every prison and each one also has running water. This was a lot to handwave away for me.

Still, the narrator’s journey is interesting.

Blurb Book Review: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

When I heard that the author wasn’t allowed to promote this novel, I immediately put it on hold at the library.

It’s a tell-all novel about the global rise of Facebook/Meta during the author’s employment there from roughly 2010 to 2017. If the information in the novel is true – and I’m in no position to be able to actually fact-check any of it – then it highlights the despicable nature of Mark Zuckerberg and the repugnance of how Facebook/Meta has used the data available to them.

The author sees how Facebook helped people in Christchurch after a natural disaster,. It connected them and helped families stay in touch and the author sees the potential this platform could have on a global scale. Getting governments on board and Facebook into their countries turns out to be a bit more difficult than she anticipates, and she seriously misjudges Zuckerberg’s intentions.

This novel lays everything bare, but what was particularly disturbing for me was how Facebook was involved in getting Trump elected in 2016. I knew about the misinformation, that became common knowledge, but I didn’t know about the targeted posts to certain Democrats; young women, white liberals who might like Bernie Sanders, and Black voters. These voters got ‘dark posts’: non-public posts only they could see. These posts were invisible to researchers or anyone looking at their feed. The idea, apparently, was to feed these people information that would discourage them from voting for Clinton. And it worked.

In addition, Facebook let China have access to data from America in exchange for having the platform available to China. Facebook also allowed China to spy on their citizens through the app.

What absolutely galls me is how much illegal activity is mentioned in the novel. The author must have kept intricate and copious notes to be able to recall all these details. But will Facebook have any blowback? Will they be held accountable? Probably not. The uber-wealthy operate on a different plane of existence compared to everyone else. Besides, it’s becoming common knowledge that the top billionaires of the world have dismantled the regulatory system so they can operate however they please.

Anyway, the novel is well-written with clear facts and an engaging narrative.