Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“I wish that, like you, I could have spent my life transported aloft, as it were, every day, in music.”- Paris in the Present Tense, Mark Helprin

Mark Helprin’s powerful, rapturous new novel is set in a present-day Paris caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories. 

Seventy-four-year-old Jules Lacour—a maître at Paris-Sorbonne, cellist, widower, veteran of the war in Algeria, and child of the Holocaust—must find a balance between his strong obligations to the past and the attractions and beauties of life and love in the present.

In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life—days bright with music, family, rowing on the Seine—Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist a third his age. Against the backdrop of an exquisite and knowing vision of Paris and the way it can uniquely shape a life, he forges a denouement that is staggering in its humanity, elegance, and truth.

In the intoxicating beauty of its prose and emotional amplitude of its storytelling, Mark Helprin’s Paris in the Present Tense is a soaring achievement, a deep, dizzying look at a life through the purifying lenses of art and memory.

Happy New Year's Eve! I hate New Year's. I don't really like things that celebrate the passing of time, which makes this book oddly perfect for the holiday.

Firstly, Paris in the Present Tense is a truly beautiful novel. This is going to be an extremely positive review, which means that I will not have much to say about it because, really, what is there to say about books like this beyond the fact that it is just beautiful? This is a book for someone often overwhelmed by the passage of time, a book for someone who often feels as if they don't belong where they are but can't think of anywhere else they'd rather be. This is a book for the person who constantly sways between his intellectual side and his emotional side. If you are any of those, or all three, this is the book for you.

Jules Lacour is just a wonderful character to follow around, in a book full of wonderful characters to follow around. His sense of humor and boundless love for everything was so wonderfully refreshing given the many, many fashionably cynical characters 2017 has produced. Refreshingly too, the majority of the humor in this novel is not sardonic or offensively funny, but rather lighthearted, with a lot of word-play and absurdist conversations. My favorite comic relief were the two detectives, their back and forth and true affection for each other worked so well.

Even so, there is sadness in the novel, and there is no one I felt worst for then the hapless insurance agent, Arnaud. My heart ached for him, and I was so happy that everything worked out for him and his family because I felt so bad for him and how his hideous coworkers treated him. If anyone deserved a win, it was him.

Helprin's view of Paris also deserves mention. Many novels portray Paris as this Utopian of art, music, and intellectualism. Helprin does not, and it feels so much more realistic. In this book, France's flaws are exposed- the prejudice against Jews, the mutual dislike or distrust felt by many locals and North African immigrants towards each other. France is a beautiful country, but also one deeply flawed- just like every other country.

And so I loved Paris in the Present Tense. It is entirely likely that Paris in the Present Tense will make it pretty high up my favorite books list (which will be up after my wrap-up, I promise). Highly, highly recommended.

9 out of 10

If you liked this book, you may also like:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

The Lightkeeper's Daughters by Jean Pendziwol Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“War and death can silence the strongest of men.”- The Lightkeeper's Daughters, Jean Pendziwol

Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth's eyes have failed. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills the void with music and memories of her family—a past that suddenly becomes all too present when her late father's journals are found amid the ruins of an old shipwreck.

With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service, Elizabeth goes through the diaries, a journey through time that brings the two women closer together. Entry by entry, these unlikely friends are drawn deep into a world far removed from their own—to Porphyry Island on Lake Superior, where Elizabeth’s father manned the lighthouse seventy years before.

As the words on these musty pages come alive, Elizabeth and Morgan begin to realize that their fates are connected to the isolated island in ways they never dreamed. While the discovery of Morgan's connection sheds light onto her own family mysteries, the faded pages of the journals hold more questions than answers for Elizabeth, and threaten the very core of who she is.

This was kind of an impulse purchase, fueled by a Barnes and Noble gift card and an absolutely glowing Goodreads review. Well, I'm happy I didn't actually pay any money for it.

First things first, this book is not well written. It feels like a self-published novel, mostly due to how amateur the language was. Both Morgan and Elizabeth felt like cliches- the rebellious teenager and the wise old woman who sees the good in her, along with their strange connection. I was also annoyed by the extremely amateurish way Pendziwol added suspense to the novel, with every chapter ending with something like "but there was more to come" or something else along the same mystery-baiting lines. The writing isn't straight-up bad or comedy-bad, it's just amateurish and feels more like a first draft than the finished novel.

The characters are stunted by the writing. Morgan and Elizabeth could have been interesting characters, key word could have been, if it wasn't for the flat writing. Although, I'm not entirely sure that the characters biggest problem was the writing. I've seen many variates on both characters, mostly on writing websites like Wattpad. They're very one note, and not realistic at all.

One of the comparisons I saw that worked in this novel's favor was its comparison to a Jodi Picoult novel. I am not a big Picoult fan, but her books are easy to read and also you know what you're getting when you read one of her books. She's not a great technical writer, but she knows how to entertain you. These two do not compare well at all. If Picoult wrote this book, it wouldn't be the best book in the world, but it would be a solid 7 out of 10 or 3 stars. 

The best part of the book is the story, and also the fact that it's about lighthouses. I love lighthouses. But again, the story got bogged down by the writing. The manufactured suspense did not work in the story's favor. That and the fact that all the twists were absolutely inane. 

So basically, skip this one. The writing isn't even worth the price of your library card. I didn't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it at all.

4.5 out of 10

The Night Ocean by Paul la Farge Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“As a Freudian, I'm not supposed to use words like evil; my business is with instinct, memory, and desire. Nevertheless, I've been wondering, lately, whether evil might exist. If it does, I've been thinking, it might be like what Freud called the navel of the dream, the place where all the lines of meaning the analyst has so carefully traced through the patient's life vanish into the unknown. But where the navel of the dream is essentially harmless phenomenon, a point where the dream's meaning is sufficiently understood, and further interpretation would be pointless, evil is a mystery with power. It reaches up into the world and makes everything mysterious.”- The Night Ocean, Paul la Farge

Marina Willett, M.D., has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends--or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears. The police say it's suicide. Marina is a psychiatrist, and she doesn't believe them.

A tour-de-force of storytelling, The Night Ocean follows the lives of some extraordinary people: Lovecraft, the most influential American horror writer of the 20th century, whose stories continue to win new acolytes, even as his racist views provoke new critics; Barlow, a seminal scholar of Mexican culture who killed himself after being blackmailed for his homosexuality (and who collaborated with Lovecraft on the beautiful story The Night Ocean); his student, future Beat writer William S. Burroughs; and L.C. Spinks, a kindly Canadian appliance salesman and science-fiction fan -- the only person who knows the origins of The Erotonomicon, purported to be the intimate diary of Lovecraft himself.

As a heartbroken Marina follows her missing husband's trail in an attempt to learn the truth, the novel moves across the decades and along the length of the continent, from a remote Ontario town, through New York and Florida to Mexico City.

The Night Ocean is about love and deception -- about the way that stories earn our trust, and betray it.

So, one might ask, what's a decidedly non speculative fiction fan doing reading a book about Lovecraft, the most famous speculative fiction writer after Tolkien? I have never read anything by Lovecraft, nor have I ever had any desire to. Back in high school, I was friends with a kid who was also a big reader, but he read exclusively thick, musty-looking mass-market paperbacks by big name fantasy and science fiction writers. He was a big Lovecraft fan, and that's probably why I never bothered with Lovecraft, because as much as I liked the kid, I would never have the stamina to read the books he did. So the answer to the above question is just that I liked Night Film and wanted to read a book similar to it. This book came up and the synopsis intrigued me enough to give it a shot. 

So naturally, I will not speak to the accuracy of anything that goes on in this book, because I wouldn't have any idea what I'm talking about. So I will only be talking about whether or not this is a good book as opposed to whether or not it is a good representation of Lovecraft. Okay? Cool.

This book is written from the perspective of the world's most tolerant wife. It's kind of sweet, actually, just how much Marina cares for and the extent she's willing to go to support her husband, Charlie, even long after most spouses would stop trying. She also never divorces him, though the two do separate. It's kind of admirable actually, and the relationship between Marina and Charlie is really the best part of the book. The rest of the characters? Well, they're interesting at first. And then I just kind of lost interest in them. 

I think part of the problem is that the book loses its way a bit. It was hard to stay invested in a novel that went on long, seemingly random tangents about the lives of Robert Barlow and Spinks. I mean, that also a problem I had with Night Film, but the tangents in Night Film felt more like they were actually related to the central story. Not so much in this story. I found them boring and pointless, basically.

The story behind it is fascinating, and that's what ended up saving The Night Ocean. It isn't a bad book by any means, though, and I think it would make a nice creepy read for the Halloween season. I wouldn't recommend it over Night Film, but if someone really liked that book I'd recommend this one.

7 out of 10

If you liked this book, you may also like:

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Her grandmother had once told her that one could blame ugliness on one's genes and ignorance on one's education, but there was absolutely no excuse whatsoever for being dull.”- The Keeper of Lost Things, Ruth Hogan

A charming, clever, and quietly moving debut novel of of endless possibilities and joyful discoveries that explores the promises we make and break, losing and finding ourselves, the objects that hold magic and meaning for our lives, and the surprising connections that bind us.

Lime green plastic flower-shaped hair bobbles—Found, on the playing field, Derrywood Park, 2nd September.

Bone china cup and saucer-Found, on a bench in Riveria Public Gardens, 31st October.

Anthony Peardew is the keeper of lost things. Forty years ago, he carelessly lost a keepsake from his beloved fiancée, Therese. That very same day, she died unexpectedly. Brokenhearted, Anthony sought consolation in rescuing lost objects—the things others have dropped, misplaced, or accidentally left behind—and writing stories about them. Now, in the twilight of his life, Anthony worries that he has not fully discharged his duty to reconcile all the lost things with their owners. As the end nears, he bequeaths his secret life’s mission to his unsuspecting assistant, Laura, leaving her his house and and all its lost treasures, including an irritable ghost.

Recovering from a bad divorce, Laura, in some ways, is one of Anthony’s lost things. But when the lonely woman moves into his mansion, her life begins to change. She finds a new friend in the neighbor’s quirky daughter, Sunshine, and a welcome distraction in Freddy, the rugged gardener. As the dark cloud engulfing her lifts, Laura, accompanied by her new companions, sets out to realize Anthony’s last wish: reuniting his cherished lost objects with their owners.

Long ago, Eunice found a trinket on the London pavement and kept it through the years. Now, with her own end drawing near, she has lost something precious—a tragic twist of fate that forces her to break a promise she once made.

As the Keeper of Lost Objects, Laura holds the key to Anthony and Eunice’s redemption. But can she unlock the past and make the connections that will lay their spirits to rest?

Full of character, wit, and wisdom, The Keeper of Lost Things is a heartwarming tale that will enchant fans of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Garden Spells, Mrs. Queen Takes the Train,and The Silver Linings Playbook.

This is not the kind of book I'd usually pick up. This is textbook cozy fiction, but you know what, everyone needs a little cozy fiction in their lives and this seemed like right up my alley. I love the idea of, well a keeper of lost things, it just seems like the kind of thing I just want to curl up and read. 

It's definitely not a literary masterpiece, and it would be easy to pick apart everything wrong with it, from the not-so-great characters to the clumsy humor, and yet doing that feels wrong. Because this is not the kind of book that deserves to be picked apart and discussed, this is the kind of book the local white haired church lady book club reads and talks about between sips of lemonade and brags about grandkids. I guess what I'm saying is that reading this book is like going over your grandmother's house for afternoon tea and cookies. 

That being said, the main flaw I'd like to bring out is that it does feel like two different stories. While I liked that the author weaved them together (in a deliciously morbid way, too), I did like the story of Eunice and Bomber much more than I liked Laura's story, and wished the book had focused solely on those two. They were an interesting pair and I especially liked the addition of Bomber's sister Portia, as heavy-handed as she was. I found Laura's story on the boring side, and thought her parts took a while to get to the actual story. 

Ruth Hogan is definitely on her way to becoming the next Fredrik Backman/Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society cozy writer, and I do really like the ideas behind her work. I might even pick The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes up, because I like the idea behind that book even more than I liked this one. This book gets a thumbs up from me. It's not by any means a new favorite, but it's a cute novel.

7 out of 10

If you liked this book, you may also like:

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J Sullivan

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Basically Any Cozy Mystery

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Maybe, generations ago, young people rebelled out of some clear motive, but now, we know we’re rebelling. Between teen movies and sex-ed textbooks we’re so ready for our rebellious phase we can’t help but feel it’s safe, contained. It will turn out all right, despite the risk, snug in the shell of rebellion narrative. Rebellion narrative, does that make sense? It was appropriate to do, so we did it.”- The Basic Eight, Daniel Handler

Flannery Culp wants you to know the whole story of her spectacularly awful senior year. Tyrants, perverts, tragic crushes, gossip, cruel jokes, and the hallucinatory effects of absinthe -- Flannery and the seven other friends in the Basic Eight have suffered through it all. But now, on tabloid television, they're calling Flannery a murderer, which is a total lie. It's true that high school can be so stressful sometimes. And it's true that sometimes a girl just has to kill someone. But Flannery wants you to know that she's not a murderer at all -- she's a murderess.

Hey guys! Hope everyone had a good Christmas! I had a nice holiday and the first of my Christmas book reviews will be up tomorrow. I actually read this before Christmas, but then got too distracted to write a review by, well, wrapping presents, baking cookies, and watching countless Drawfee videos, my new favorite YouTube channel. Anyway, let's get into the review.

I've never been a Daniel Handler or Lemony Snickett fan, surprising since I love morbid shit like the kind of books he writes. There's just something about his writing that's always kind of turned me off. I think part of the problem is that he's a very gimmicky writer- in this case each chapter ending in vocabulary and study questions-, that and his parodies or satires are too obvious to me to be funny. The reason why The Basic Eight didn't work for me is because it was trying so hard to be funny, and it wasn't like Handler was breaking new comedic ground by making fun of Oprah Winfrey or talk show moralists. 

I think also I encountered this book at the wrong time. It's soon to be 20 years old and it feels every year. Oprah's not as big of a presence as she used to be, people don't freak out about drug use in teenagers the way they used to, and now our travelling moralists are more along the same lines as Al Sharpton. It's not yet old enough to become a charming relic of the late 90s, nor does it have a certain timeless quality that makes it transcend its age. 

I want to go back to the unfunniness of it, which is likely The Basic Eight's biggest flaw. This is a failed stand-up comic of a book, with every joke leaving me staring blankly at the screen of my iPad waiting for the punchline. I can see that Handler was going for a Heathers kind of feel to the novel, but the reason why that movie survived through the years is because it focuses on and draws its humor from a topic as timeless as mean girls in high school. If The Basic Eight had taken its cues from that, the book's satirical punches probably would have actually landed.

But take away the comedy and painfully dated drug references and what do you have? At its heart, a basic The Secret History-type storyline, complete with its checklist of characters. Or at least, it would have a character checklist if any of the other characters besides Flannery were fleshed out at all. One thing I noticed about all these The Secret History-type novels is that they miss the main thing that makes The Secret History work so well- its characters, and how well drawn and defined and developed they are. Most authors who try and write books like Tartt's seem to think that the mystery and the setting is why people loved the original, which is why they focus so much on that aspect and seem to regard their characters (besides the narrator) as being interchangeable vehicles meant to add ambiance. Which brings me to another point- these narrators have way too much to do with the plot. In The Secret History, Richard took a backseat to the story, and his character wasn't as important as Henry et al. In this book, Flannery takes the center stage, and by the end I couldn't tell Kate from Jennifer Rose. 

Despite writing all of this, I didn't really hate The Basic Eight. It just wasn't my kind of book, and, to be honest, I wish I had DNFed it instead of forcing myself to get through it. This is the kind of book its easier to understand what it did wrong than what it did right, and the best thing I can say in the book's favor is that it didn't piss me off enough for me to hate it. But if you really wanted to read it, don't let me stop you. I'm sure you'd like it more than I did.

5 out of 10

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arunadhati Roy Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Destroying us. You are constructing us. It’s yourselves that you are destroying.”- The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arunadhati Roy

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness takes us on an intimate journey of many years across the Indian subcontinent - from the cramped neighborhoods of Old Delhi and the roads of the new city to the mountains and valleys of Kashmir and beyond, where war is peace and peace is war. 

It is an aching love story and a decisive remonstration, a story told in a whisper, in a shout, through unsentimental tears and sometimes with a bitter laugh. Each of its characters is indelibly, tenderly rendered. Its heroes are people who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, patched together by acts of love - and by hope. 

The tale begins with Anjum - who used to be Aftab - unrolling a threadbare Persian carpet in a city graveyard she calls home. We encounter the odd, unforgettable Tilo and the men who loved her - including Musa, sweetheart and ex-sweetheart, lover and ex-lover; their fates are as entwined as their arms used to be and always will be. We meet Tilo's landlord, a former suitor, now an intelligence officer posted to Kabul. And then we meet the two Miss Jebeens: the first a child born in Srinagar and buried in its overcrowded Martyrs' Graveyard; the second found at midnight, abandoned on a concrete sidewalk in the heart of New Delhi. 

As this ravishing, deeply humane novel braids these lives together, it reinvents what a novel can do and can be. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness demonstrates on every page the miracle of Arundhati Roy's storytelling gifts.

I never thought I'd actually read this book. I say this because I never had any desire to read The God of Small Things, even though people rant and rave about it and I still see it referenced quite a bit even though it's been 20 years (Christ, didn't think it's been that long) since it came out. But I don't know. There was something about this novel that drew me into it, perhaps it was the cover, perhaps it was the summary, but that compelled me to pick it up.

Honestly, I still have mixed feelings about it. I think I kind of convinced myself I liked it more than I did because the good parts are really good. I loved the first quarter with Anjum and her life, really liked the second part with the intelligence officer as it reminded me of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and then the book took a downhill turn. The third part was just plain confusing, and the fourth part was not nearly strong enough to recover from the confusingness of the third part. 

The main source of my confusion was the whole parts about the Kashmir war. While I did gather that it had something to do with India vs Pakistan and Hindus vs Muslims, Roy did not explain it well at all. It made me wonder what audience she was writing this book for, her fellow Indians (who are already aware of the wars and contention surrounding Kashmir) or the Western audience (who have no knowledge and would require pages upon pages of exposition just to tell what's going on). I think she settled on a compromise that pleased no one, because I still had to look up Kashmir on Wikipedia after reading.

I also cared very little (almost nothing in fact) for Tilo. While I did genuinely like Anjum and the intelligence officer, Tilo had too little personality for me to care about her and her lover. The fact that I only barely understood her parts didn't help much.

I really wish that Roy had just left all the parts about Kashmir for another book, because, honestly, the story she started was fine. I think if it had just been about Anjum and her life I would have loved this book, because I really did love Roy's writing and characters in that first part. It's a bit overwritten, true, but it has the perfect touch of dreaminess to it and- what's more- I understood everything that went on. I especially loved that first chapter, it was the perfect hook to get someone into a story like this. 

While this book isn't nearly as confusing as, say, Manhattan Beach, I still think it could have been so much better than it actually was. There is still plenty of good in the story, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone interested in this type of story. 

7 out of 10

If you liked this book, you may also like:

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

Shot-Blue by Jesse Ruddock Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“It's a kind of death when you don't go home the same.”- Shot-Blue, Jesse Ruddock

Rachel is a young single mother living with her son, Tristan, on a lake that borders the unchannelled north – remote, nearly inhospitable. She does what she has to do to keep them alive. But soon, and unexpectedly, Tristan will have to live alone, his youth unprotected and rough. The wild, open place that is all he knows will be overrun by strangers – strangers inhabiting the lodge that has replaced his home, strangers who make him fight, talk, and even love, when he doesn't want to. Ravenous and unrelenting, Shot-Blue is a book of first love and first loss.

There are three things that matter in books: plot, characters, and writing. These three things aren't weighted equally, however, as some people, myself included, prefer characters over plot, others like the opposite, but the most important thing is the writing. In Shot-Blue, Ruddock decides to cut out the whole plot and characters part almost entirely and focus purely on the writing.

And that is both this book's biggest asset and also its downfall. Because the writing is, without a doubt, beautiful and is really the best part of the novel because Ruddock seems to have little interest in both fleshing out her characters beyond their physical attributes and doing something with the plot. This is not so much an issue in the first part of the story, also known as Book One, but in Book Two, Ruddock's lack of talent in both the plot and character aspect of writing becomes painfully apparent, and that beautiful, dreamlike writing quickly grows tiring. In that, I am reminded of books like The Night Circus, another book that prioritized writing above all and as that book progressed, it quickly became apparent that the writing was all the talent Morgenstern possessed. 

What sets Shot-Blue apart from The Night Circus, though, is the ambition behind this book. It proclaims to be a book about loneliness vs being alone and first loss and love, and it ends up drowning in its own pretension. By making it so ambiguous and so literary, it ends up really being about nothing except how smart Ruddock is for writing this. What she's missing is that there's a fine line between beautiful ambiguity and beautiful nothingness and this book crosses it. 

I see a lot of comparisons to Emma Donoghue's Room, but the book I thought of the most while reading Shot-Blue was actually The Road. Both have a similar premise, except the father in The Road is switched to a mother, but The Road is the far superior novel because it had a concrete plot as well as characters. By the end of the novel, I found myself deeply caring for both the boy and his father, whereas by the end of this book I couldn't bring myself to feel anything for any of the characters, or even seeing the point to most of them. The only non-superfluous characters in this novel were Tristan and Rachel.

I was also confused somewhat as to when the book was supposed to take place. All the characters spoke like they were from a time long ago, had names that were odd and somewhat futuristic-seeming, and every so often they would drop a modern slang word like when Tomasin exclaimed "oh, sick!". That just made the book seem muddy and confused.

So, do I recommend Shot-Blue? To be honest, no I don't. I mean, if you love dreamy literary nonsense, sure, go for it. I don't see Jesse Ruddock really going anyplace far as a writer unless she drops her pretensions, but I'd be curious about the follow up novel. In my opinion, though, this book should have ended at the first part.

5.5 out of 10

If you liked this book, you may also like:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Room by Emma Donoghue

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

Grief Is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter

By Light We Knew Our Names by Anne Valente

Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

If We Were Villains by ML Rio Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Actors are by nature volatile—alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster.”- If We Were Villains, ML Rio

Enter the players. There were seven of us then, seven bright young things with wide precious futures ahead of us. Until that year, we saw no further than the books in front of our faces.

On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it.

Ten years ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extra. But in their fourth and final year, the balance of power begins to shift, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent.

Part coming-of-age story, part confession, If We Were Villains explores the magical and dangerous boundary between art and life. In this tale of loyalty and betrayal, madness and ecstasy, the players must choose what roles to play before the curtain falls.

Last month, I finally read The Secret History after it had been sitting on my shelf since *ahem* July and decided it was one of my favorite books ever. I couldn't get enough of the plot and characters and just everything about it. Happily, since it came out, there have been dozens upon dozens of books trying to duplicate the success of The Secret History, and today's book is one of them.

Reading If We Were Villains is interesting because it takes the plot and characters of The Secret History and sucks all the life out of them. Even if I hadn't recently read The Secret History, I could probably still pick up on the distinct rip-offness of this novel. It just doesn't feel fresh and original. For one, I wasn't nearly as invested in the characters. That's where the huge size of The Secret History works, it gives Tartt room to introduce the characters, have us get to know them before the murder, and then allow her to play around with their psyche after the murder. In this, we barely knew them before the murder, so we don't really have a clear indication as to whether or not how their acting is within the norm for their character.

I also think that there were too many characters to focus on. Sure, Tartt's book also had a lot of main characters, but again Tartt's book was almost 600 pages and that's more than enough room to have a large cast of main characters. In this novel, I couldn't keep any of the characters straight in my head, and constantly confused, say, Alexander and James or forgot that Richard and Wren were cousins. I did, however, find it amusing to pair up each character with their The Secret History counterpart- Oliver is like a less-likable version of Richard, Meredith and Wren both have elements of Camilla in them, Alexander is kind of like Bunny and Charles, James is Francis, and Richard is both Henry and Charles. That leaves Filippa as the only original character and probably the author's favorite given that she gets the most page time out of anyone besides Oliver.

The mystery was also underwhelming. By the third chapter, I guessed who was going to die and who killed him. One of the things that annoyed me about this book was that Rio overdid it on Richard, making him out to be a world class jerk. Compare that to Bunny in The Secret History, who had his faults but you felt bad for him in the end. 

Anyway, I don't really recommend If We Were Villains, unless one is a big Shakespeare or The Secret History fan. If you are, it's worth at least checking this one out.

6 out of 10

If you liked this book, you may also like:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Likeness by Tana French

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

The Basic Eight by David Handler

The Secret Place by Tana French

Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“It’s like I left the original me behind when I came to live with my new Forever Parents. With Brian and Maura Moon. My name is Ginny Moon now but there are still parts of the original me left.”- Ginny Moon, Benjamin Ludwig

Told in an extraordinary and wholly unique voice that will candidly take you into the mind of a curious and deeply human character.

For the first time in her life, Ginny Moon has found her “forever home”—a place where she’ll be safe and protected, with a family that will love and nurture her. It’s exactly the kind of home that all foster kids are hoping for. So why is this 14-year-old so desperate to get kidnapped by her abusive, drug-addict birth mother, Gloria, and return to a grim existence of hiding under the kitchen sink to avoid the authorities and her mother’s violent boyfriends?

While Ginny is pretty much your average teenager—she plays the flute in the school band, has weekly basketball practice and studies Robert Frost poems for English class—she is autistic. And so what’s important to Ginny includes starting every day with exactly nine grapes for breakfast, Michael Jackson, bacon-pineapple pizza and, most of all, getting back to Gloria so she can take care of her baby doll.

Ginny Moon is a compulsively readable and touching novel about being an outsider trying to find a place to belong and making sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up.

This is not a kind of book I would normally pick up, but I wanted something a little more... lighthearted then the books I've been reading lately. The synopsis made it sound like the kind of quirky A Man Called Ove-esque books that deal with heavy topics, yes, but end up completely capturing your heart regardless. Ginny Moon does have that in spades, but it also is a much darker and even frustrating at times book to read. 

The frustratingness doesn't at all come from the writing style, or maybe a little bit. It's very simplistic and is meant to make us feel like we're in Ginny's head. I can't speak to the accuracy of how well Ludwig portrays autism, I don't have autism nor am close to anyone who does, but I also haven't heard anyone offended by the way the book is written. No, instead I found myself getting aggravated by Ginny's actions and the inability of her adoptive parents to understand her. I suppose in that respect it's very realistic and probably many people who adopted special needs children could relate to this, but as a story it gets old very quickly.

But Ginny Moon does have strengths, and the character of Ginny is the strongest. I could tell Ludwig genuinely cares about doing her character justice and showing all aspects of her personality. While she does have an aptitude towards math, she isn't at all an autism stereotype. Instead, she feels like a fully fleshed out character, and as much as she sometimes frustrated me, I couldn't help but like her anyway. 

That being said, I wasn't as crazy about the other characters, who didn't strike me as being as fleshed out as the titular character. However, this might actually work in the book's favor. Ginny has a very surface-level understanding about other people and other situations, and so it makes sense that other characters that aren't her would be viewed in such a superficial light. 

Ginny Moon is a solid book and one I'd definitely recommend to the endearingly quirky reads crowd. It's not perfect, but it's a nice enough read. 

8 out of 10

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A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn Review

By the New York Times bestselling author of Manson, the comprehensive, authoritative, and tragic story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre—the largest murder-suicide in American history.

In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially integrated, and he was a much-lauded leader in the contemporary civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California. He became involved in electoral politics, and soon was a prominent Bay Area leader.

In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing to the fraught decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Guinn provides stunning new details of the events leading to the fatal day in November, 1978 when more than nine hundred people died—including almost three hundred infants and children—after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink.

Guinn examined thousands of pages of FBI files on the case, including material released during the course of his research. He traveled to Jones’s Indiana hometown, where he spoke to people never previously interviewed, and uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors. He even visited the Jonestown site with the same pilot who flew there the day that Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on Jones’s orders. The Road to Jonestownis the definitive book about Jim Jones and the events that led to the tragedy at Jonestown.

This is probably the most hyped up nonfiction book of the year, and I have been wanting to read it since it came out. But every time I went to my library, the damn thing was checked out, until recently. Like most people, I don't really know much about Jonestown apart from the fact that it was a cult and Kool-Aid references (always wondered how that brand got away from that). Well, now I know more than I think I ever needed to about Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple.

I was also super impressed that Jim Jones Jr gave the book a positive review on the back. Blurbs never draw me because I rarely trust them, but Guinn definitely chose the right one to put on the back. 

I always thought it was funny that cults were a big thing in the 1960s, a time widely billed as the age of individuality, and also that those individuals were the ones to fall prey to cults. The Road to Jonestown reminded me of this because the main people Jones targeted weren't uneducated, backwoodsy people (usually the cult member stereotype) but instead urban blacks and college-educated whites who embraced him and the uneducated who viewed him with scorn. The book points us to the idea that he targeted the idealist in them, the people who fervently believe or want to believe in some ideal society. 

The book's biggest strength, though, is that it doesn't try and paint Jim Jones and by extension The Peoples Temple as being all bad, instead, it doesn't hesitate to show that there was a lot of good done by the people of The Peoples Temple. Jones' biggest failure, it would seem, was leaving Indianapolis. He did appear to have a genuine interest in helping raise people up, and he was an effective preacher. He could have become a white, 60s version of someone like Al Sharpton, and if he moved further down south he probably could have been even more successful (of course, this is all provided he got those serious mental problems under control). I mean, sure, maybe he wouldn't have been well liked and most people would still think of him as being a snake oil salesman, but what evangelist preacher isn't even a little bit shady? But once he left for Brazil and then California, everything fell apart for him.

This is an impeccably researched and easy to read nonfiction novel, a perfect one-stop book for those even a little bit interested in Jim Jones. Seriously, forget the Wikipedia page and YouTube documentaries, this book has everything you could ever want to know and much you didn't ever even need to know. Highly recommended.

9 out of 10

The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Petrograd. The sound is bronze, and this is a story of bronze.”- The Revolution of Marina M, Janet Fitch 

St. Petersburg, New Year's Eve, 1916. Marina Makarova is a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. Swept up on these tides, Marina will join the marches for workers' rights, fall in love with a radical young poet, and betray everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn.

As her country goes through almost unimaginable upheaval, Marina's own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion and devastating loss, and the private heroism of an ordinary woman living through extraordinary times. This is the epic, mesmerizing story of one indomitable woman's journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century.

This has been a good year for spectacularly underwhelming historical fiction and The Revolution of Marina M is no exception. 

First, I want to talk about the prose. I'm sure some would love the way this book was written, but I come from the less is more school of thought and, well, Fitch's writing style is not that at all. The word overwrought comes to mind a lot. It's so purple, so simile-stuffed that reading it makes me tired. Sometimes, I just wanted to rip that laptop away from her and do some hard backspacing. Purple is beautiful in small doses, but when your 800 page novel is written like that it's going to feel a lot longer than 800 pages. 

And no where is that purple prose more obvious than in the goddamn sex scenes. My God. Fitch writes sex scenes like something right out of a dime store romance novel.

Also, the main character got on my nerves constantly. As some other reviews pointed out, she has no thoughts or opinions of her own and constantly parrots others. She's always on the side of the morally good and just, and when others aren't as perfect as she is, they immediately get dropped by her. She can't see the forest for the trees. And for God's sake, does Janet Fitch think we care at all about Genya vs Koyla when there's a fucking revolution going on??

The only real way to enjoy The Revolution of Marina M is to only care about the plot and not try and figure out any of the characters. Why are they acting like that? Because the plot demands them to. Why is this happening now? Because the plot demands it. Why is Marina acting like this and this never happened? Because the plot demands it. The best example I can think of is when Varvara shows up drunk and tells Marina's father that she (Marina) helped the Bolsheviks overthrow the Provincial Government, causing Marina to get thrown out of her house. Why Varvara does this is never actually explained, and, bafflingly, Marina is still friends with the bitch. With friends like that...

But then again, Fitch's characters aren't really the best. They're very one-note, and any attempts at devolpment are usually heavy-handed and transparently point to whether or not Fitch wants us to find them sympathetic or not. If she wants us to like them, they become saintly, and if she wants us to dislike them they become a devil. 

I once read a review on Goodreads describing a book as being tragedy porn (I believe it was an Ellen Hopkins novel which, yeah, makes sense) and that phrase is perfect for this book. Marina is this beautiful woman whom everyone falls in love with and whom goes through so many hardships, most of which have some kind of sexual component. She's such a lovely victim one can't help but fall in love with her struggle. And so much of her struggle is unnecessary and takes away from the main Russian Revolution story-line- I mean, what does her kidnapping by the Baron in the middle or the cult at the end have to do with anything? It's just filler to endear us to Marina.

I mean, I did really like the Russian history parts. Those were very well done and well researched and were also engaging. I think the fault, though, entirely rests on the character of Marina, even though she doesn't have enough personality to carry a book. 

Unless you really love books that put their characters through unnecessary hardships, I wouldn't recommend this book. I'm not even sure who this novel is meant to appeal to- this isn't women's historical fiction a la Kristin Hannah, a Russian historical fiction lover would be bored by it. The only people I could see really getting into it would be the Oprah Book Club types who love this kind of Mary-Sue level tragedy. 

4 out of 10

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Sashenka by Simon Sebag Montefiore

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