Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang

Okay, I always say I don't judge a book by its cover, but it has become abundantly clear to me that this is a lie. I will comment on a great cover (and here and here) and bad ones. I will puzzle over cartoony covers with matter that is anything but cartoony. I will be irate if the cover spoils the book. Part of it is that I try not to know very much about a book going into it and sometimes the only thing I know is what is on the cover. 

So if you saw the cover for Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang and all you know about it is that it has something to do with influencer culture, what would you think this was about? And, further, what genre would you say it was about?

Well, this book is a thriller? Horror? I don't know.

Julie Chan and her sister Chloe were separated when they were small children when their parents died. Julie was raised by a neglectful aunt and Chloe was raised by a wealthy white couple. Julie is now struggling to make ends meet as a cashier and Chloe is an influencer and they're mostly estranged. One day Julie gets a mysterious call from her sister and when she goes to check on Chloe, Chloe is dead. So, as you do, Julie TAKES OVER CHLOE'S IDENTITY AND LIFE.

Look, don't go digging into whether or not this is a realistic situation. It is not. But I put on my suspension of disbelief persona and kept reading. (No, I did not. I talked nonstop to my husband about how stupid this was.)

Okay, well, Chloe was part of a pack of influencer people and they all go on an island vacation together with Julie pretending to be Chloe and SHIT GETS WEIRD. I'm not going to say what happens on this island, but I didn't expect these events based on the cover or the rest of the book. It's like the book took a TURN at 70%. You've been warned.

Once again, I can't figure out how to link to direct Goodreads reviews, but Yun wrote this:

and basically Yun is right. I'm old, I don't understand influencer culture, and the satire is lost on me. What is Zhang trying to say here? That influencers are bad for society? Echoes of what true beliefs are? Evil? Is she trying to say something about class divisions? That even wealthy people can be as unhappy as the rest of us plebes? That there's nothing authentic in the world anymore, particularly online? I DON'T KNOW. The messages were too mixed and I'm too old to understand anything about the chronically online. (Unless we're talking about chronically online bloggers, which...huh. Anyone here want to go on an island vacation with me where WEIRD SHIT will happen?)

I think if I had cared more about any of these characters, maybe it wouldn't matter that I don't truly understand the real message. But since each of the influencer characters, including Julie and Chloe, are written as villainous, I just couldn't really feel anything about this book except revulsion and a tiny bit of joy at the unexpected batshit nature of it all.

Eh.

Maybe I'm just not the right generation or right audience. 

2.5/5 stars 

Lines of note:

...was working my usual morning shift, ringing up bananas (4011) and a bag of chia seeds for a platinum-haired lady with a shrieking baby clawing at her breast. (location 68)

Have you ever worked as a grocery store cashier? When I worked at Meijer, a large regional supercenter in the Midwest, the lady who trained me told me that the code for bananas was the first code you learned and the last one you forgot. And she was right. I don't know any of the other produce codes, but bananas are 4011. 

An old woman wearing a thick brown trench coat walks her Pomeranian across the street. The dog has little neon-green boots. (location 1656)

Aw. Little booted puppy. 

And it’s not like I’m the worst. Out of the major influencers, I’m at the bottom of the food chain. Imagine what the people in the double or triple millions are doing. At least I’m not running crypto-scams or filming dead bodies in suicide forests or dancing for TikTok in front of Auschwitz. (location 2013)

The bar is so low, isn't it? 

Things I looked up:

gacha machine (location 2014) - (or gashapon machine) is a Japanese capsule toy vending machine. Users insert coins or tokens, turn a mechanical crank, and receive a random toy packed inside a plastic capsule. - Look. We just called these gumball machines. 

new chara on Genshin (location 2064) - Genshin Impact is an open-world adventure RPG. New characters on Genshin. Boy, do I feel dumb for having to think this through a lot. 

Title spotting:

Julie Chan is dead. Julie Chan is dead. Julie Chan is dead. See? Nothing. In a way, Julie Chan is dead. (location 959)

Hat mentions (why hats?):

blankets and wool hats (location 1755)

Shirts, dresses, jeans, sunglasses, hats. (location 2012)

beach chair, sun hat, and flip-flops (location 2015)

Someone sends a cowboy hat. (location 3551)

 wearing the hat (location 3551)

Tinfoil hats aren’t part of my brand, but they’ve become my loudest supporters regardless. (location 4267)

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Do you want to read a book about influencer culture? Do you wish you'd never heard the world influencer? 

Between Two Fires by Christopher Beuhlman

Someone talked about Between Two Fires on Books Unbound and I got the audiobook, which is narrated by Steve West. 

Hm. Let's talk about this book and work out my feelings on the fly, shall we?

It's 1348. Lucifer and other fallen angels (?) have declared war on Heaven by starting the Black Death on Earth? There are going to be a lot of question marks in this recap. Thomas is an excommunicated knight who stumbles upon a priest and a girl named Delphine who can see angels, dream in premonitions, and whose body is occasionally overtaken by God(?). 

Sometimes I read a book and it makes me think that maybe I'm not a good reader. Maybe I don't truly understand things. This was one of those books. 

Look, this is a genre mashup. I guess I was under the impression it was historical fiction, but it really turned out to be a supernatural/horror/historical fiction combo. I was utterly befuddled by the fallen angel framing because it was whiplash to go from those scenes to ones with Thomas and Delphine trying to find something to eat and stumbling upon dead bodies in barns. 

At about two-thirds of the way through, I literally gave up trying to figure out what was going on and just rolled with it. Oh, there's a demon inhabiting the pope? Sure. There's a demon in the clouds? Fine. Delphine is really Jesus? FINE, IT IS SO. 

I mean. Whatever. Creepy book. Lots of straw hats. 2.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

Hucksters of every stripe had tried to profit from the disease, especially in the early days, before they too sickened or grew afraid. (Chapter 18)

I immediately thought of the people hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. 

Thing I looked up:

...Nearly 200 girls in Picardy to be deflowered by the troubadour [there's a name here, but I am not great with French] who was keeping count, if not naming names, in his verses (Chapter 29)

I can't figure out who this is. If I had a paper copy, I could look at the name. Alas, I have only the audio. 

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

straw hat(s) (Chapter 1 x2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 11, Chapter 14, Chapter 16, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 43)

fanning himself with his hat (Chapter 3)

his hat blew off him (Chapter 5)

refined hat (Chapter 9)

hat in his hands (Chapter 9, Chapter 10)

sweating in a hat made from no less than three foxes (Chapter 11)

grumbled from his hat (Chapter 16)

peeked from under the hat (Chapter 16)

replaced the hat (Chapter 16)

took the spoon of ram's horn from his hat (Chapter 20)

mermaid's ribs for a hat (Chapter 22)

wide red hats (Chapter 30)

take his hat (Chapter 30)

not until the hat's off (Chapter 30)

cardinal's hat (Chapter 36)

get your hat (Chapter 37)

cows and mantles and hats of many colors (Chapter 38)

yellow hats (Chapter 38)

removed the hats (Chapter 38)

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Does this sound like something you'd want to read? I'm pretty sure I'm not the audience for this one!

Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone

Anyone paying close attention here (lolz) might notice there hasn't been a book review in a long time. That is because I am in a book rut. I was reading meh books and feeling bad about it. You know how you're in a book rut and you start to question your identity as a reader? Is this just me? I don't know. Anyway, Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone was available as an audiobook immediately and Stephany and Kim had written about it gushingly, so I threw my actual TBR to the wind and dove in. 

Lenny is struggling. Her best friend died and her grief is overwhelming everything. She's not going home to the apartment she shared with her friend, she's avoiding her parents, and she's only taking short-term babysitting gigs. One of those short-terms gigs is watching Ainsley when her single mother Reese is working out of town. The only problem is that Ainsley's Uncle Miles is always around. He's grumpy, he's mean, and he's not helping Lenny (or Ainsley, for that matter). Well, he's not helping until he realizes that she's in a state of distress and then he has this crazy idea to make her come back to life.

This novel is crazy. It's grumpy/sunshine and friends to lovers romance, but it's also a novel about grief. In my head, I'm over here saying that Lenny should not get involved romantically until she sorts herself out, but I think these two kids are going to make it. I thought this book was so delicately written and plotted and I loved every second of it. I loved the secondary characters from Lenny's parents to the little girl Ainsley (and you know I normally think precocious kids are NOT good) to the doorman of the building. I loved the scenes on the Staten Island ferry. I loved feeling all the feelings. 

Also? You guys. I am Lenny and my husband is Miles. It's just how it is. 5/5 stars

Lines of note: 

What am I supposed to do? Wear a sign? Not strung out, just having a debilitating mental health crisis while navigating the most excruciating chapter of my life. (Chapter Two)

I mean, maybe a sign would be good?

Producing a book from nowhere, he reclines and is immediately the picture of someone who can entertain themself with nothing but their own intellect. It's irritating in an attractive way. (Chapter Twenty-Two)

YES!! Sometimes I just want him to pay attention to me, but he'd rather entertain himself. It's quite attractive, but I still want attention. 

I throw my arms out to the sides. "Let's be oil paintings, you beautiful bitch!"
He lowers his book and eyes me over top of it. "It must be truly exhausting to live in your brain." 
"You have no idea." (Chapter Twenty-Two)

Actual conversation we have in our house about once a week!

"I felt joy...real joy, and I didn't know I was capable of that feeling anymore, but there it was." (Chapter Twenty-Eight)

I hope someday I feel the lightness and happiness I once felt. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

"I want one of those little Jackie O hats where the lace comes down over your eyes." (Two Best Friends Sit Facing One Another On a Twin Bed)

...opted for a top hat and a waistcoat...(Chapter Three)

"Are you fantasizing about the one in the hat or the one in the glasses?" (Chapter Six)

...Glasses was going to propose to me on a Jumbotron. I decline, most likely, and Hat doesn't believe in marriage, but would eventually agree to a courthouse ceremony after he accidentally read a page from my dairy and realized how important it was to me. (Chapter Six)

She's got a big fleece hat on and an Aladdin blanket over her lap. (Part Three: Forever After: I Am Laughing With My Hands Over My Face)

And it will look cute under a winter hat. (Chapter Thirty-One)

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If you're in a reading rut, what do you read to get you out of it? 

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

First book review of 2026! Let's do this thing!

I read The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo because my husband read a description of it and insisted I would love it.

The first thing we do is meet Snow. 

I exist as either a small canid with thick fur, pointed ears, and neat black feet, or a young woman. Neither are safe forms in a world built by men. (page 2)

FOX PEOPLE!!

We learn that Snow is hunting for the man who paid the man who killed her child for her fur. She takes on the role of a caretaker to an elderly lady as part of her investigation. Meanwhile, in another city, we meet Bao, a man who can tell when people are lying because their words cause buzzing in his lips. He's investigating the death of a courtesan found frozen in the doorway of a restaurant. Then the plotlines slowly converge. We travel from China to Japan (time on a boat pleases me!), meet more foxes, and learn secrets. 

The book started slowly and it took me a hundred pages or so to really get into, but then I spent most of a Saturday curled up on the couch reading it and ignoring my to-do list and the dog nosing me for a walk. I wanted Bao to have a happy ending and I wanted to know all of Snow's secrets. 

There are some big problems. Consider the line where Snow describes herself. There is SO MUCH EXPOSITION in the fox scenes. Snow just can't but tell us everything we need to know instead of letting it come to us naturally in the world. There are also pretty graphic depictions of violence against women which I wasn't prepared for based on the tone of the rest of the novel, but it wasn't unrealistic. I don't know. There's just a part of me that wishes not every book had "normal men" threatening/enacting sexual violence. It gets exhausting. 

It was kind of exciting to read such a genre mashup, though. I put it down as fantasy on my spreadsheet, but it's a mystery novel with some historical fiction elements, too. That's fun. I like that Choo is taking risks and that a publisher took a chance on a book that isn't easily categorized. 

The ending was exciting and the book picked up the pace towards the end. Are you interested in Chinese folklore? The relationship between China and Japan in the early twentieth century? Fox people? Give it a try. 4/5 stars

Lines of note:

Revenge is a terrible dish to consume. It eats one from the inside out, no matter what the say about it being best served cold. As the Chinese saying goes, "When a gentleman takes his vengeance, ten years is not too late." But you and I know that chilled food inevitably leads to an upset stomach. (page 117)

Hope, of course, is the most painful thing in the universe. Clinging to a thin strand is the most agonizing way to live. (page 170-171)

Things I looked up:

drowning of the child emperor Antoku at the Battle of Dan-no-Ura (page 129)

Antoku - Emperor Antoku (1178 – 1185) was the 81st emperor of Japan. His reign spanned the years from 1180 through 1185. His death marked the end of the Heian period and the beginning of the Kamakura period

Battle of Dan-no-Ura  - During Antoku's reign, the Imperial House of Japan was involved in a bitter struggle between warring clans. Minamoto no Yoritomo with his cousin Minamoto no Yoshinaka, led a force from the Minamoto clan against the Taira, who controlled the emperor. During the climactic sea Battle of Dan-no-Ura in April 1185, Antoku's grandmother Taira no Tokiko took him and plunged with him into the water in the Shimonoseki Straits, drowning the child emperor rather than allowing him to be captured by the opposing forces.

Hat mentions (why hats?):

..wearing a straw coat worn by peasants to keep off the rain and a bamboo hat. (page 68)

She indicated a hat hanging on a peg in the hallway. (page 207)

The Manchu bannermen on the train wear hats trimmed with otter fur and thick quilted jackets. (page 216)

The police arrived wearing smart uniforms and uncomfortable-looking hats. (page 257)

*****************

Does your spouse ever recommend books for you? Do you wish you could shapechange into a particular animal?

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

I have no idea how I started reading An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't know when I downloaded the audiobook read by Grover Gardner that it was more than 38 hours long. But, hey, if you're trying to read big books, I guess 38 hours is what you get. 

This book is insane. It's as if the author had no idea what genre he wanted to write in, so he wrote in all of them.

Clyde Griffiths grows up poor in Kansas City as the son of religious fanatics. He takes a job as a bellboy at a fancy hotel and is introduced to girls, drinking, and gambling. After a terrible accident in which a young girl dies, Clyde runs away to Chicago. While working as a bellhop there, he meets his father's brother who is a wealthy owner of a factory in Lycurgus, New York. His uncle offers him a job and Clyde is off to Lycurgus.

Clyde is not supposed to date any young women at the factory, but he gets involved with a woman named Roberta anyway. He also starts seeing a wealthy socialite named Sondra. Roberta gets pregnant, Clyde plots her murder so he can live a foot loose and fancy free life with Sondra and when Roberta drowns, Clyde is arrested and tried for her murder. 

YOU GUYS. What is this? Is it a coming-of-age novel? A murder mystery?  A romance novel with a love triangle? A character study of man going insane? Is it a legal thriller? 

I don't know what it is because I just referred to it as the toxic masculinity book that criticizes capitalism. I didn't love this book, but I was riveted by what would happen in the next chapter. What else could Dreiser possibly find to write about. 

Apparently this book was based on true events. According to Wikipedia:

Dreiser based the book on a notorious criminal case. On July 11, 1906, resort owners found an overturned boat and the body of Grace Brown at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. Chester Gillette was put on trial, and convicted of killing Brown, though he claimed that her death was a suicide. Gillette was executed by electric chair on March 30, 1908. The murder trial drew international attention when Brown's love letters to Gillette were read in court. Dreiser saved newspaper clippings about the case for several years before writing his novel, during which he studied the case closely. He based Clyde Griffiths on Chester Gillette, deliberately giving him the same initials.

I don't know. I don't think I'd recommend it, to be honest. 3/5 stars

*****************

While I listened to the audiobook, the page numbers will be from this version on the Internet Archive. 

Lines of note:

And immediately after breakfast joining a long procession that day after day at this hour made for the mills across the river. For just outside her own door she invariably met with a company of factory girls and women, boys and men, of the same relative ages, to say nothing of many old and weary-looking women who looked more like wraiths than human beings, who had issued from the various streets and houses of this vicinity.  (page 258)

Pre-COVID cities were like this, right? Just long lines of people heading it to work. I liked the imagery. 

But if she questioned him in regard to these things now, would he not get angry and lie to her still more? For after all she could not help thinking that apart from his love for her she had no real claim on him. But she could not possibly imagine that he could change so quickly. (page 389)

Oh, so much symbolism in this passage! Also, isn't it interesting how quickly you can change from love to hate (or disinterest in this case). 

Things I looked up:

orchestrelle (multiple times on pages 292 and 293) -  A type of mechanical organ, specifically a player organ, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed to imitate the sound of an orchestra through the use of paper music rolls and a system of reeds and bellows

tergiversation (page 480) - the act of evading a clear or direct answer or position, often through ambiguity or deception

Hat mentions (why hats?): I counted 137 hats in this book! Hats were a main plot point. That's 50 more hats than in Gone With the Wind. I'll only give you multiples. 

felt hat (page 15, 87, 201, 298, 597, 871)

hat and coat (page 220, 232, 266, 523, 538, 586, 588 x 2, 589)

small brown hat (page 265, 510)

the same little round brown hat (page 277)

coat and hat (page 281, 538 x 2)

To match this pleasing little costume, she planned to add a chic little gray silk hat — poke-shaped, with pink or scarlet cherries nestled up under the trim, together with a neat little blue serge traveling suit, which, with brown shoes and a brown hat, would make her as smart as any bride. (page 468)

straw hat (page 475, 498, 511, 512 x 2, 515, 519 x 2, 533, 538 x 2, 539, 544, 545, 550, 552, 575, 588, 589 x 2, 590, 614 x 4, 615 x 6, 618, 630 x 2, 666, 697, 705, 706, 754, 778)

two hats (page 630 x 2, 633, 635, 645, 651, 652, 656, 666, 695, 746)

*****************

Have you ever read An American Tragedy? Watched the movie A Place in the Sun starring starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters that is based on it? 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley was my book club's pick. I missed book club, unfortunately, because I really wanted to talk about it because I enjoyed it so very much. 

Our unnamed main character is a biracial woman, the daughter of a Cambodian refugee and a white man. She's having an unremarkable career in job translating in the Ministry of Defense when she's hired as a "bridge" to a time-traveling naval officer, Commander Graham Gore, who was pulled from a mission in the Arctic in 1847. What follows is a romance? A time travel escapade? A critique of modern life as seen through the lens of our ancestors? A workplace drama? Hmmm....it's a genre mishmash!

The first half of the book was hilarious. I laughed so much at our snarky main character and Gore's observations about modern life. I laughed at how the author decided that she would have people time travel and then just hole up in flats in London doing nothing. And then the action started towards the end of the book and it took a serious tone that was unexpected, but not unwelcomed. 

I don't know if I've sold you on this book, but I loved it a lot. 5/5 stars

Lines of note:

I slid quietly to the floor and leaned my head against the wall. I wasn't going to see a Ministry therapist. I knew I should, and I knew I wouldn't. (page 119)

I feel like this was a sign from the universe that I should talk to someone, but I know I'm not going to.

"He is a pizzle-headed doorknob," said Margaret. (page 122)

Pizzle-headed!! Lovely. Let's bring back old-time insults.

It was a moment among moments, but everyone was held in it, captured in a small and easy joy. I return again and again to this memory. It's proof, you see. Not everything I did was wrong. (page 186)

I have had this thought a lot in recent weeks. My life is what it is because of a series of choice, but surely I haven't done everything wrong.

I thought I might have the energy to perform every action required to make a cup of tea, but I was surprised to remember how many there were: kettle boiling, mug fetching, milk sniffing, tea bag choosing, teaspoon handling. (page 195)

Sometimes I wonder how I even make it to work, let alone actually do work. 

But the stars aren't eternal. Most were already dead, and I was looking at ghosts. At some point in our planet's future, the skyscape will change. There might not be people left by then...These stars were a temporary, beautiful gift of our era - the era that we all shared, a human era. I'd die one day, just like everyone else, so I had better try to live. (page 329)

I thought this was beautiful. The universe is fleeting.

Things I looked up (in which you learn that I know nothing about Cambodian life or culture):

Éclat (page 8) - Ostentatious display : publicity; dazzling; brilliance

Polonaise (page 13) -  a slow dance of Polish origin in triple time, consisting chiefly of an intricate march or procession

Voight - Kampff (page 54) - was a fictional test used by the LAPD's Blade Runners to assist in determining whether or not an individual was a replicant - a fictional interpretation of the Turing test

gelid (page 103, and then again and again) - icy; extremely cold

rhotacism (page 124) -  a speech disorder characterized by difficulty articulating the "r" sound, also known as r-deletion, r-substitution, or lallation

borbor (page 149) - Cambodian rice soup or porridge

doolally (page 168) - temporarily deranged or feebleminded

stupa (page 177) - a dome-shaped structure erected as a Buddhist shrine

Gary Glitter (page 177) - Paul Francis Gadd (born 8 May 1944), better known by his stage name Gary Glitter, is an English former singer who achieved fame and success during the 1970s and 1980s. His career ended after he was convicted of downloading child pornography in 1999. He was also convicted of child sexual abuse in 2006 and a series of sexual offences (including attempted rape) in 2015.

Angkor Wat (page 177) - a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in Cambodia

Tuol Sleng (page 177) - The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, or simply Tuol Sleng, is a museum chronicling the Cambodian genocide. Located in Phnom Penh, the site is a former secondary school which was used as Security Prison 21 by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 until its fall in 1979.

Saloth Sor (page 177) - YOU GUYS. This is Pol Pot's real name. Why didn't I know this? Honestly. What sort of education do I have?

The Marne (page 200)  - A river in France; the site of a 1914 battle of World War I

Kindertransport (page 207) - an organized rescue effort of children from Nazi-controlled territory that took place in 1938–1939 during the nine months prior to the outbreak of World War II. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools, and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. [The line in the book is "We frame the Kindertransport as an act of heroism, a coherent example of Britain's intrinsic charity and anti-fascism. It's not all untrue - those orphans were grateful, often, thrived, sometimes." It's critical, though, of the refusal to take these children's parents.]

Deleuze (page 215) - Gilles Louis René Deleuze was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art.

Rupert Brooke (page 328) - an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier"

Siegfried Sassoon (page 328) - was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War.

Hat mentions (why hats?):

"You could make a lovely hat." (page 57)

"Did the fashionable still wear hats?" (page 64)

***************

How do you feel about time travel books? 

Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash

Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash is the tale of Lacey Bond. When she was a teen, her parents were accused of sexually molesting children at their daycare and from there, her life spirals out of her control. Satanic Panic plus murder plus international fugitive plus love story?  I don't truly know how to describe this book except to say that I could not put it down. 

Is this book over the top crazy? Is each plot point even more bizarre than the next? Maaaybe. But did I sort of see how all of it could potentially happen, so I just went with it. Sure, sure I did. I found it funny, lyrical, and really had a hard time putting it down to go do adulting. Who wants to go to work when there is a book to be read?!

There are also a lot of really hard themes in here - sexual exploitation of minors, psychologists implanting false memories, lesbian and trans rights, the Quebec independence movement are just the tip of the iceberg - so if that's not your thing, let it be known that this book might not be for you. There's also a fair amount of drinking alcohol and a small bit of drug use on page, so that's something you should know, too. 

4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

During her portion of the sex talk, she listed all the mammalian species known to engage in homosexual behavior: lions, giraffes, elephants, hyenas, bonobos, polecats, wild marmots. I came away from the conversation understanding that while I was just as normal as a wild marmot, I shouldn't talk about it at school because other people wouldn't see it that way. (page 20)

We were steps away from becoming one of those couples who avoid speaking to each other because every single subject is so loaded that even the most basic conversation can result in catastrophe. They never get divorced, those couples. They just gradually lower their standards for an acceptable level of human connection until one of the dies. (page 263)

In terms of genre, I'd always put my life in the bleak drama category, but it occurred to me now that it quite possibly belonged in romance. We were a love story, Gwen and me, the kind that earned free bottles of champagne at cheesy restaurants and powered a weary world's tenderly (desperately) held belief in soul mates. Weren't we sipping one of the rarest French wines in existence? It didn't get more romantic than this. (page 275)

People I looked up:

Pamela Ann Smart (page 68) - An American woman who was found guilty of being an accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to murder, and witness tampering in the death of her husband, Greggory Smart, in 1990. Her accomplice included her underage "boyfriend." 

Caroline Cossey (page 299) - a British model and actress who often worked under the name Tula, which she also used for two memoirs. She appeared in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only as an extra. Following her appearance in the film, she was outed as transgender by British tabloid News of the World. In 1991, she became the first trans woman to pose for Playboy.

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

A small hubbub was brewing at the refreshments table, which held the snacks, the bowl of pink punch, and a stack of untouched party hats Melissa's parents didn't seem to realize were were too old for. (page 20)

"The second you need anything, you let me know, and I'll take my lawyer hat off and put my mom hat on." (page 43)

I didn't see Mrs. Grange's "mom hat" again. (page 45)

...Éclair wore a witch's hat while the cow flew over the moon... (page 59)

 

He tipped an imaginary hat, turned on his heel, and clomped down the steps. (page 103)

Gwen took off her fuzzy hat, then put it back on. (page 252)

My mother shook the snow from her wool hat, then put it back on. (page 348)

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson

Jenny recently raved about Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson and who am I to ignore a science-fiction recommendation? 

Lydia works as a translator for the Logi cultural attaché to Earth. The act of translating, which is done through means of telepathic conversation, makes Lydia feel drunk after hours and hours and hours and one night she finds herself reacting badly to a man who is pestering her and her boss, Fitz, gets her out of trouble. But when Lydia wakes up the next morning to a dead Fitz, she soon realizes she's the main suspect in his murder. What we have here is a sci fi/mystery/sort of thriller mashup. 

The writing! I admire how Robson created a world with telepathic aliens without talking about it endlessly. I admire how Robson let you know that something terrible has happened on Earth without spending hours in a museum talking about that history. I admire how effortless the scene setting seemed. And I admired the world, too. It seems like an interesting world, if one I wouldn't want to live in.

The book is also quite funny, I think. Some of the observations about human behavior (as if an alien race were making them) were hilarious. 

I didn't 100% follow the mystery plot, but I don't think I needed to. It was just a fun romp. I recommend it if you like this sort of thing.

4/5 stars

Line of note:

She's always wondered why games set in realistic locations are so popular when you can play games that let you be a Valkyrie and slay dragons, or an interdimensional wizard rewriting reality itself. But maybe people don't want fantasy, they want to feel they're in control, that they're playing by rules they understand and that it's possible to win. (page 191)

THIS!!! I don't want to play realistic looking military games. THAT COULD BE REAL LIFE. But I do want to pretend to be a bard who is singing for his supper and potentially kills orcs. 

Thing I looked up:

contengine (page 58) - I don't know what this word means and google keeps sending me to contingency. Maybe it's a made up word for this particular world?

Context: It's nice to know some of the spinners and contengines who generate this stuff are aware of who she is - although when she clicks through to the "tributes" she finds none of it is accurate and none of her "colleagues and friends" are real people, just stock images with generic quotes attached. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

And hats, they all wear hats: Fitz has a wool cap that matches his coat. (page 7)

...his reflection is wearing a beautifully cut three-piece suit and a hat. (page 117)

He wears a thick robe that looks like a dressing gown and a shapeless hat that resembles a shower cap. (page 243)

Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall, Illustrated by Hugo Martinez

On a recent Pop Culture Happy Hour, PCHH guest Joelle Monique recommended Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and illustrated Hugo Martinez on one of their regular What's Making Me Happy segments. 

I tend to shy away from books about slavery because I feel like the tendency is to get a bit inured to the pain in each of the stories, as they all sort of blend into one.  So I pick and choose carefully what to read and I was so impressed when I was reading and came across this that echoed those feelings so carefully.

Chapter 7, page 15

This book is a mishmash of genres because on one hand, it's the tale of women's participation in slave revolts, an untapped story.  On the other hand, it's also the story of the author's work process and research methods, so Hall herself is a character in the story. It's filled with beautiful illustrations from Martinez, including this amazing two-page spread of past and current New York City separated by water.  

Chapter 2, pages 10-11

There's just so much in this book. From stories of women who are tried for their role in slave revolts, but there's no documentation of what happened to them to stories of how enslaved women were placed on the deck with no irons (!) which is why slave revolts happened more frequently on ships with larger percentages of women to stories of how Hall herself was repeatedly kicked out of locations while trying to do research.

Things of Note:

Barracoon - The name for the cage/barracks that held enslaved people as they waited for transportation across the Atlantic. 

John Locke - Influential philosopher, whose thoughts were integral to the development of the philosophy that underpins the U.S. Constitution. Investor in one of the British Empire's largest organizations that profited because of slavery, the Royal Africa Company. Hall writes "a luminary of the Enlightenment and perhaps the central theorist of American democracy" (Chapter 7, page 9). This sparked a debate in my house as my husband, he who holds a doctorate in political theory, strongly suggests that this does not give enough credit to "Hume, Montesquieu, and the rest." I am not enough of an expert to say one way or another, but it was fun to rile up my husband.

Brookes diagram - This is a relatively famous diagram of a ship called the Brookes that illustrates how the enslaved folks were allocated space onboard.  I had seen this diagram before, but was unaware that it was based on a real ship and that it had a name. 

By Plymouth Chapter of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade 

I think this book is beautifully done. It's just over two hundred pages long (the book doesn't have page numbers, which is why I've cited by chapter and page number), but because there are entire pages of illustrations, it's not a huge time intensive commitment. It's heavy subject matter, but it's also readable and fascinating. 

5/5 stars. Highly recommend for everyone.

Math Girls by Hiroshi Yuki, Translated by Tony Gonzalez

 

Math Girls by Hiroshi Yuki is a strange combination of teen romance and math textbook.  Our unnamed narrator is a shy young boy who spends most of his free time doing math problems in the library. He meets Miruka as she starts spitting sequences at him and they have a rousing conversation of noticing patterns.  Tetra comes across his radar as she comes up to him to beg help with understanding mathematics. In between this lackluster love triangle, our narrator and his two would be admirers solve math problems ranging from simple algebra problems to concepts that went way over my head.

It's a weird, weird book. The romance is barely passable as such. The math is so varying in difficulty that it's hard to know exactly who the audience is for it. I think it could be useful in teaching about math - there are excellent scenes showing collaboration among the three main characters in solving problems - but the question of what level of teaching someone would be doing is still always there.  It's too high level for high school, but maybe college students who enjoy a stretch?  I do like the message that math is not about just solving equations and memorizing formulas, but that math is about deriving patterns and hidden messages in a playful way.  It's just...it's a strange format, you.

It gets glowing reviews on Goodreads, so I do think there's an audience who is interested in this type of book and would love it. If you're a STEM-orientated person, this might be a great fit for you. Even if some of the mathematical concepts go over your head, the sheer enthusiasm of the three leads will definitely resonate with you. If you're a person who just enjoys reading about other people's enjoyment about a topic, deep rabbit holes on obscure topics, and panegyric's on Leonhard Euler, this might also be for you.

I did enjoy it. I don't think I'll be hunting down copies of the rest of the books in this series, including Math Girls Talk about Trigonometry and Math Girls 2: Fermat's Last Theorem, but I love that these books exist.  

Lines of note:

"Through equations, I can share the experience of mathematicians from ages past." (page 1)

"Language is extremely important in mathematics. Math uses language in a very precise way to make sure there's no confusion." (page 18)

"'...If you shout a 0, it becomes a 1.  See?'" I wrote in the notebook:

                            0!

(page 189)

The above is an absolutely nerdy math joke and if you don't get it, don't worry about it. I chuckled.  

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Part grief memoir, part how to train a goshawk guide, and part literary reflection, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald is a hard to pin down book. Macdonald's father dies and she gets what I took to referring to as her "impulse pet," a goshawk named Mabel. As she chronicles her own experiences with Mabel, she references T. H. White's own chronicle of his experience as a newbie falconer in The Goshawk.

Look, I'm American and don't really have a history with the tradition of falconry. Frankly, after reading this book, I think it's a bit cruel. The whole idea of taking a creature that it wild and forcing it to bend to your will is hard for me to swallow. I've written here about how I feel conflicted about whether or not I'm doing a disservice to my house cat (animals that domesticated themselves!) by preventing her from living her fullest life in the wild, so I'm guessing you can only imagine how conflicted I am by the idea of taking a creature that is in no way tame or domesticated. I don't understand and I often thought the entire process was unnecessary and I'm not sure what either party got out of it. 

But the writing in the book was delicious. 

"I once asked my friends if they'd ever held things that gave them a spooky sense of history. Ancient pots with three thousand-year-old thumbprints in the clay, said one. Antique keys, another. Clay pipes. Dancing shoes form WWII. Roman coins I found in a field. Old bus tickets in second-hand books.  Everyone agreed that what these small things did was strangely intimate; they gave them the sense, as they picked them up and turned them in their fingers, of another person, an unknown person a long time ago, who had held that object in their hands." (page 116)

Take a minute and sit with that. What do you own that makes you think these things?  I live in a 100-year-old house and I often think about the other people who have lived here.  What did they love? What made them happy? How often did they crank up the music and dance? What made them cry?  I'm not going to find Roman coins in a field (oh, Europe), but sometimes when we're cleaning things out we get just a hint of the history and it makes it all so real.

She also talks about how when she gets dressed in "real" clothes, slaps on some makeup, and gets ready to go to the outside world, she feels like she's putting on a disguise (page 179 - 180).  I think of it as putting on my armor, ready for battle against the tide of expectations from outside the home. But thinking of it as a disguise also makes sense. I'm disguising who I really am in order to become acceptable for others who don't really want to accept the unvarnished reality of me.

So basically what I'm saying is that I have mixed feelings on this book. It's definitely worth a read, but the diversions about White weren't particularly interesting to me and I kept getting riled up about how much I thought falconry was just not morally okay.  I thought it was an honest reflection on grief, which I kind of need right now, so that was lovely. I just don't know. I don't think I'll ever read it again and I don't want people to NOT read it, but I also don't think I can wholeheartedly endorse it. I think, if someone I know suffers a loss, I might suggest this.  Or I might just send them a giftcard to Starbucks.