The Rathbones by Janice Clark Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“I had looked into the distance so long that I hadn't seen what was near at hand. If we don't cherish those who stay near, what do we have? Only longing. Longing which we grow to love because it's all we have.”- The Rathbones, Janice Clark

A literary adventure set in New England, Janice Clark's gothic debut chronicles one hundred years of a once prosperous seafaring dynasty.

Moses, the revered patriarch of the Rathbone family, possessed an otherworldly instinct for spotting the whale. But years of bad decisions by the heirs to his fortune have whittled his formerly robust family down to just one surviving member: a young girl, left to live in the broken-down ancestral mansion that at one time had glowed golden with the spoils of the hunt.

Mercy, fifteen years old, is the diminutive scion of the Rathbone clan. Her father, the last in the dynasty of New England whalers, has been lost at sea for seven years-ever since the last sperm whale was seen off the coast of Naiwayonk, Connecticut. Mercy's memories of her father and of the time before he left grow dimmer each day, and she spends most of her time in the attic hideaway of her reclusive Uncle Mordecai, who teaches her the secrets of Greek history and navigation through his collection of moldering books. But when a strange, violent visitor turns up one night on the widow's walk, Mercy and Mordecai are forced to flee the house and set sail on a journey that will bring them deep into the haunted history of the Rathbone family.

Inspired by The Odyssey and infused with beautifully detailed descriptions of the realities of coastal and ship life reminiscent of Moby Dick, Janice Clark's magnificent debut is a spellbinding literary adventure.

This has no bearings in actual history, except the whaling parts. Just getting that out there right now, because if I don't you all are going to think that Connecticut's one weird fucking place. 

I've also had The Rathbones in my possession since last June, I think, and just never got around to it until recently. I wanted a sea story, and this was the closest thing on my shelf to that. I've been having good luck lately with reading the books that have been festering on my shelf, haven't I?

I was originally drawn to the book because, well, it's about whaling in Connecticut and that's where I happen to be from. I was also intrigued by the author growing up in Mystic, the whaling capital of CT- it's got a wonderful museum on the topic if you're in the area. I also recommend stopping at the aquarium and getting Mystic pizza- best pizza in CT, and I'm saying that as someone from New Haven County. There's also the Seaside Sanatorium in Waterford if you like creepy old buildings and don't mind driving 20 minutes away and of course the actual town itself is beautiful.

Wow, didn't mean to turn this into a travel blog. Moving on.

The Rathbones also promised to be creepy and weird and Gothic, and I am all for that. So when I started reading, well, I was a little disappointing. The Gothicness felt a bit forced, and I thought about the writing rule that says not to try and force things like Gothicness as you'll only end up looking pretentious, so please put down Paradise Lost. At the same time, I really liked the vibe Clark was trying to go for, this creepy but also mystical and pretty aura that reminded me of the Monument Valley games, funny enough. 

And I'm also just a sucker for two kinds of stories- sea stories and creepy family stories. And this book has both in spades. I loved the islands they went to and the stories of the Rathbones. Mercy and Mordecai were interesting characters, too, with Mordecai being my favorite since both his character and story intrigued me the most. I also the loved the familial relationship between Mordecai and Mercy.

And the reveals were twisted enough to make me happy, even if they didn't really surprise me. I mean, it is extraordinarily unrealistic, but The Rathbones was easy enough to get sucked in to.

I don't really have much else to say about The Rathbones except I enjoyed it and, if you love both sea and creepy family stories you likely will, too. 

8 out of 10

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Everyone we've lost, we'll find. Or they'll find us.”- A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.

I have been wanting to read A Visit from the Goon Squad for years, and at the same time I've been putting it off. I do this sometimes with books that seem like they'll be five star reads for me because I'm worried that I won't like them as much as I think I will. 

And I didn't have the best first time with Egan's work. I read the unmemorable mess that was Manhattan Beach last October and that caused me to view this novel/short story collection with suspect, and I put off reading it even though I got it almost a month ago.

I shouldn't have. Goddamn, I don't think I've ever gone so completely 180 on a writer before. Because Manhattan Beach got a dishonorable mention on my Worst of 2017 list but there's a good chance A Visit from the Goon Squad might make my Best of 2018 list. Because, while this novel wasn't perfect, I kind of loved reading it and it always stuck in the back of my mind when I wasn't reading it.

I was also impressed by how distinct each chapter/short story was from the other. While I have mentioned before that gimmick-y writers aren't really my favorite thing ever, innovation in the literary world is something I can appreciate and Egan is nothing if not an innovative writer. The closest she came to gimmicks was the PowerPoint section, but even then I kind of liked it.

That being said, the Kitty storyline didn't do anything for me, and I wondered why Egan was so hellbent on including it. I especially wasn't crazy about Stephanie's chapter, she just... I don't know. Annoyed me, I guess. Her brother, Jules, I liked the way his chapter was written but he seemed like a journalist stereotype.

What A Visit from the Goon Squad was missing, in my opinion, was a chapter with Benny's son. It would have been interesting to read about his teenage years, maybe him trying to get closer to his father? Chris felt like someone that Egan wanted to come back to, but ran out of time before she could.

Like most of the books I've been loving lately, A Visit from the Goon Squad is not a novel I will recommend out much. It's a very love or hate book, and those who prefer plot-driven stories to character-based ones will likely get frustrated with trying to follow the many strands of A Visit from the Goon Squad. Still, there's something punk rock about it that makes me love it. Huh. Who would have thought?

9 out of 10 

The Convictions of John Delahunt by Andrew Hughes Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

Beautifully observed, seductive, and laced with dark humor, a gripping historical thriller — set in 1840s Dublin — about a man who betrays his family, his friends, his society and, ultimately, himself.

Dublin, 1841. On a cold December morning, a small boy is enticed away from his mother and his throat savagely cut. This could be just one more small, sad death in a city riven by poverty, inequality and political unrest, but this murder causes a public outcry. For it appears the culprit - a feckless student named John Delahunt - is also an informant in the pay of the authorities at Dublin Castle. And strangely, this young man seems neither to regret what he did, nor fear his punishment. Indeed, as he awaits the hangman in his cell in Kilmainham Gaol, John Delahunt decides to tell his story in this, his final, deeply unsettling statement...

Based on true events that convulsed Victorian Ireland, The Convictions of John Delahunt is the tragic tale of a man who betrays his family, his friends, his society and, ultimately, himself. Set amidst Dublin's taverns, tenements, courtrooms, and alleyways and with a rich, Dickensian cast of characters, this enthralling, at times darkly humorous novel brilliantly evokes a time and a place, and introduces a remarkable new literary voice.

One of the genres I've come around to lately are historical mysteries. Not necessarily those cheesy detective mysteries, but the atmospheric, dark historical thrillers, usually based on a true story, and following condemned men and women. I love reading them in the winter, and two of my favorite books from the last two years have been them- 2016's Burial Rites and last year's Wolf Winter.

I was recommended The Convictions of John Delahunt through Goodreads because I liked Wolf Winter, actually, and liked the summary. I figured I'd be getting a dark, atmospheric novel about Dublin in the 1840s and, of course, the murder of a young child. That's not really want I got. 

When I first started reading, I figured my inability to focus on it would go away soon, as I got more and more into the novel. In fact, I knew it would take me a little time to get acquainted with these books, as my experiences with Wolf Winter and Burial Rites attested to- Wolf Winter's writing style didn't immediately click with me and Burial Rites was just too slow for my tastes at the beginning. But as I got further and further along in The Convictions of John Delahunt, I found myself just taping the screen on my iPad listlessly, uninterested in anything that was going on. Even the sizable body count the characters in this book were racking up made it hard to care, because the writing style and the lack of depth behind the characters made it hard for me to care.

Not only that, there was none of that atmosphere I love in these types of historical mysteries. Hughes didn't take full advantage of the creepiness his chosen setting of Dublin in the 1840s could have provided us. In fact, Dublin felt like another generic Victorian city, like it could have been Edinburgh or London or any of the other major cities in that part of the world. One of the biggest things I look for in any of the books I read, but especially historical fiction, is strength of setting. I like feeling like I'm right there with the protagonists, like I can practically taste the whiskey or smell the smog. The Dublin Murder Squad series isn't a historical fiction series, but one of the biggest draws those books have is their Irishness. I was hoping for something along the same lines as those books in a Victorian-era setting and I was disappointing.

Which is a shame, because The Convictions of John Delahunt is a good story, but Hughes just didn't do a very good job at executing it. I understand that he was trying to go for a Crime and Punishment feel to it, with Delahunt acting as Raskolnikov, and Hughes is trying to show us how poverty drove him to committing the crimes he did. In that case, I wish the book opened up with the murder and followed Delahunt as he covered up the crime, and slowly goes more and more crazy due to hiding it, and also due to the horrific nature of the crime. That is, after all, the main appeal to Crime and Punishment, the psychological aspects. Perhaps if Hughes had amped up the psychological distress he would have created a more engrossing novel.

Andrew Hughes had a great idea with The Convictions of John Delahunt and a lackluster execution. This isn't the worst novel I've read this month, but it is one I was underwhelmed and disinterested by, and I don't really think I'd recommend it out much.

5 out of 10

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“If we were judged by the things we most regret, no human being would be worthy to sweep the floor.”- Thunderhead, Neal Shusterman 

Rowan and Citra take opposite stances on the morality of the Scythedom, putting them at odds, in the second novel of the chilling New York Times bestselling series from Neal Shusterman, author of the Unwind dystology.

Rowan has gone rogue, and has taken it upon himself to put the Scythedom through a trial by fire. Literally. In the year since Winter Conclave, he has gone off-grid, and has been striking out against corrupt scythes—not only in MidMerica, but across the entire continent. He is a dark folk hero now—“Scythe Lucifer”—a vigilante taking down corrupt scythes in flames.

Citra, now a junior scythe under Scythe Curie, sees the corruption and wants to help change it from the inside out, but is thwarted at every turn, and threatened by the “new order” scythes. Realizing she cannot do this alone—or even with the help of Scythe Curie and Faraday, she does the unthinkable, and risks being “deadish” so she can communicate with the Thunderhead—the only being on earth wise enough to solve the dire problems of a perfect world. But will it help solve those problems, or simply watch as perfection goes into decline?

Everyone has their blind-spot writer. You know, the guy (or gal) that you just can't not read or not like no matter what he (or she) puts out? This is usually because one thing that author wrote has had such a huge impact on your life that he is all but untouchable. 

And for me, that man is Neal Shusterman. Because he wrote the Unwind series.

For those who don't know, the Unwind series was my Harry Potter/Mortal Instruments/whatever book series that consumed your life for years at a time. It is the only series I have ever hardcore fangirled over, hardcore shipped, wrote fanfics and drew fanart of. I consider myself to be, for the most part, an impartial bookworm, but because Neal Shusterman's Unwind world had such a big impact on my life, this is not going to be the most impartial review in the world. 

And yet, I had a hard time with the first Scythe. I still really liked it and it did make my 2016 best books of the year list, but we've already established I am not the best judge when it comes to Shusterman's work. But at the same time, I went in with too high expectations and found it difficult to connect with any of the characters and lacking a certain... warmth or humor to it that Shusterman works usually have. Thunderhead is not any different from its predecessor in that aspect. Expect that it's managed to be even more dark and gritty and humorless. 

Now, I don't demand my books to be funny, and especially not dark and violent books. But it's just not typical of a Shusterman work to be so devoid of laughs. Challenger Deep, his serious National Book Award winner got more laughs out of me than this, and that's a deep contemporary about a teenage boy's struggles with schizophrenia. That's not to say Shusterman can't do serious well, he can, he's created some of the most bone-chilling "I have no mouth and I must scream" moments in YA literature, and quite a few are in this book. And yet, that hasn't kept him from putting in comic relief before. I guess what I'm saying is, I want Hayden back.

But Shusterman's characters are still good, which is one of his best assets as a writers. Citra and Rowan are a great couple, and if I was still in the shipping phase of my life you know I'd go for them hard. There's a new character that debuted in this novel, Greyson, whom I also liked. In fact, the three- Citra, Rowan, and Greyson- are forming a very Connor-Risa-Lev team which I liked because, again, I love those characters and seeing another iteration of them makes me smile. Of those, I think Greyson being Lev is the most obvious line one can draw, since the two had similar arcs and a similar theme of a life-changing event causing religious abandonment (metaphorically in Greyson's case) and rebellion only to come back around to it in the end. The difference between them is that Greyson is a consistently tolerable character while Lev had a tendency to get stuck between my teeth. But other than that, Citra and Rowan are consistently good, and my only complaint character-wise is that I had a hard time connecting to anyone that wasn't Citra or Rowan or Greyson.

Which brings me to Shusterman's other biggest asset as a writer- he is a damn good plot-maker. He has a wonderful imagination- with a lot of wonderfully fucked up ideas- and the chops to bring those ideas to life. With the Arc of a Scythe books, he is at the top of his world-building game and it is a joy to read. While it is true that Shusterman's idea of a utopia is, for me, more along the same lines as a dystopia, his worlds are still a lot of fun for me to let my mind wander in. His main talent lies in creating absolutely messed up violent scenes that engross me completely. I also admire his courage in killing off any and all characters at any point in his books, no matter how major or minor they may be, and I think Shusterman's great at inserting subtle musings on human nature and culture, though in this book I admit he's not on his best game. My only complaint plot-wise is the addition of election commentary that was a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes, though I may be hyper-sensitive about shit like that thanks to post-election burnout. Yes, even almost two years after the election I still get flashbacks about the Hillary vs Trump nightmare of 2015-2016.

I mean, Thunderhead didn't completely hold my attention all the way through, but it was still a good book from a guy who basically owns my soul at this point. The Arc of a Scythe isn't a new favorite series of mine, not in the way Unwind was, but it's a solid science-fiction/dystopian series that feels refreshingly new, something that few YA speculative fiction novels can claim. This isn't Neal Shusterman's best series, in my eyes, but it's one that I look forward to seeing the conclusion of and I hope to God it blows me away. I want so badly to love these books more than I do.

8-8.5 out of 10

If you liked this book, then you may also like:

The Unwind series, because of course. If the Arc of a Scythe is Neal Shusterman at his most optimistic, wait 'till you see him at his most pessimistic...

The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Was that the point of suffering: to understand, in some way, what you still had? To clarify it, to rip the stars from the sky and hold them in the hand like diamonds‒to darken all the rest but the most glittering, glad memories? Was that the way to live a sunny life?”- The Unfinished World, Amber Sparks

In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks’s dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In “The Cemetery for Lost Faces,” two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, “The Unfinished World,” unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family. Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving, The Unfinished World and Other Stories heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary.

Keeping up with my theme of short stories, we have The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks. Like I mentioned in my By Light We Knew Our Names review, my favorite vehicle for magical realism is the short story. I find that it's much easier for me to swallow tastes of magic as opposed to whole novels draped in heavy metaphorical meanings that usually come with the territory. 

There is no doubt in my mind that Sparks is wonderful at what she does. Each story is masterfully written, with inventive characters and it was easy for her to lure me into the bite-sized worlds she had created. And unlike the above mentioned Anne Valente, Sparks refreshingly keeps her messages concealed enough from the stories that they don't overwhelm them, with a few exceptions like the first story, the Space Janitor, which is a pretty blunt-faced commentary on the way women are treated. Blessedly, it's a short one. 

My favorite story in the collection was The Cemetery for Lost Faces, because I really liked the characters and the plot and the idea behind it. But that's just me, I like reading about taxidermy, heck, one of the stories I'm fiddling around with has a taxidermist main character. I also liked Thirteen Ways to Destroy a Painting, which was managed to be both funny and touching at the same time. 

One of the problems I found with The Unfinished World, though, is that, while it has only been two days since I've read it, I have a hard time remembering some of the stories. There's a lot in this collection, and a the majority of them work extremely well and I can remember many of their plot lines, but I have a hard time putting title to plot. Just a minor thing. 

My other issue with The Unfinished World is that I was underwhelmed by the titular novella. I really liked the idea behind it and the story of both Set and Inge's family, but it didn't grab me the way her shorter works did. I think Sparks' brevity is her biggest strength and she would do well to stick to writing almost flash fiction length stories. 

Another thing, I often felt a strange detachment towards this collection. I was enjoying it and I wanted to read it, but it didn't connect with me the way I like my books to. Which is a shame, because I think stories in The Unfinished World will stick with me for a long time because they work very well considering my usual taste in short stories. 

This should be one of my favorite short story collections, and because it's such a technical masterpiece. There is no character that does not fit in the context of the story, no word out of place, no plot that is not skillfully plotted out, and I was going to give it a 9 because of Sparks' superb skills. And yet, my lack of connection I felt while reading, even when I knew I should love it, makes me bump to down a half a point. 

8.5-9 out of 10

Beautiful Star & Other Stories by Andrew Swanston Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

History is brought alive by the people it affects, rather than those who created it.

This is a moving and affecting journey through time, bringing a new perspective to the defence of Corfe Castle, the battle of Waterloo, the siege of Toulon and, in the title story, the devastating dangers of the life of the sea in 1875.

January has become the month of short stories for me, and Beautiful Star is one of them. This is another January 2018 want to read novel, and one of the ones I knew very little about prior to reading. 

I admit, I was a tad disappointed when I started reading because I still had The Maze at Windermere stuck in my head. This is more, shall we say simplistically written than the above work. That is not say that this is a poorly written novel, but that the writing style is not what I expected and it took some time to get used to. 

One of the best things about Beautiful Star is that each short story is based on a true, under-known historical event and it's apparent through his writing that Swanston wants to do them justice. Even The Flying Monk is treated with a certain respect as opposed to someone who might in today's society be considered a laughingstock.

My favorite short stories in this collection were Beautiful Star- the titular story-, The Tree, and The Castle. The other stories, like HMS Association and The Button Seller and the Drummer Boy, were good technically but couldn't hold my interest, and A Witch and a Bitch could have been better than it actually was, though it did hold my attention. I also found The Flying Monk to be interesting but not as memorable as my favorites.

Something I noticed about two of my favorite short stories, The Tree and The Castle, is that both of them take place during a time I personally have little interest in and, judging by the lack of historical fiction novels or even historical nonfiction works about it, it would appear that I'm not alone in that opinion. That time period is the English Civil War, which took up most of the 1600s. But I really liked the little boy character in The Tree, and the dame in The Castle is one of history's forgotten bad asses. 

So Beautiful Star & Other Stories is solid collection of historical fiction short stories, one I would definitely recommend to any history lover. My only reservation about recommending it out is that I don't think it would appeal as much to an average reader just looking for a quick read.

8 out of 10

The Maze at Windermere by Gregory Blake Smith Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

A richly layered novel of love, ambition, and duplicity, set against the storied seascape of Newport, Rhode Island

A reckless wager between a tennis pro with a fading career and a drunken party guest--the stakes are an antique motorcycle and an heiress's diamond necklace--launches a narrative odyssey that braids together three centuries of aspiration and adversity. A witty and urbane bachelor of the Gilded Age embarks on a high-risk scheme to marry into a fortune; a young writer soon to make his mark turns himself to his craft with harrowing social consequences; an aristocratic British officer during the American Revolution carries on a courtship that leads to murder; and, in Newport's earliest days, a tragically orphaned Quaker girl imagines a way forward for herself and the slave girl she has inherited.

In The Maze at Windermere Gregory Blake Smith weaves these intersecting worlds into a brilliant tapestry, charting a voyage across the ages into the maze of the human heart.

It was a year ago yesterday that I posted my first review. Huh.

There's nothing more satisfying than having your expectations met (except having them exceeded) and this is one of those times. If you'll recall, last year the majority of the books I actually planned on reading were not good, to say the least, with two even making my worst list. So the fact that the first of my most anticipated 2018 releases was actually very, very good is a huge relief and, closing The Maze at Windermere, I had a really good feeling about this year.

That is not to say The Maze at Windermere is perfect, or that it lived entirely up to my sky-high expectations. I mean, I went into this novel expecting a collection of short stories, and ended up getting a legitimate full length story with 5 separate narratives running at once. Of narratives, I liked 3 of them- 2011, 1869, and 1692- which is better than most stories with as many separate story arcs as this one. The two I didn't like- 1863 and 1778- didn't offend me in any way, I just found them on the boring side. Henry James is one of those Victorian authors I probably should read but I don't, and the one from 1778 just could not hold my interest at all. 

But of the ones that I liked, 2011 had the best story-line. It was interesting, had characters that were fun to follow, and had a lot of diversity, as well as fascinating insight into the world of the obscenely wealthy. 1896 was also good in that respect, and Drexel was an interesting character to follow around. His parts were the most under-baked though, which was sad since the Gilded Age is one of my favorite settings for stories. My liking of 1692 surprised me, since normally I wouldn't go for Puritan-era stories but I just liked Prudence as a character, not to mention that she stood out as the only girl MC. Also, she had the only narrative with an actual end, so I gave her points for that.

But even if I hadn't liked this novel as much as I did, I would still have to give Smith serious props for how talented he is at mimicking writing styles from different times, and each story was different from the other and, to the right person, each had interesting story lines that could hold their own, though I liked how Smith combined them all in the end.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Smith writes next. Both the writing and story building in this novel are distinct and feel unique, and The Maze at Windermere was overall, a fun novel to read for any history lover. It's not perfect, but I highly recommend it.

8.5 out of 10

The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Two ships lie in the harbour ... One of the two ships has just returned from a long voyage, the other is just preparing for a long voyage ... Jubilation and blessings accompany the ship as it sails off – while the arriving ship goes unremarked. But is it not this ship that deserves jubilation?
... The newly arrived ship lies safely in the harbour. But nothing is known of the one setting sail. What will be its fate? Who knows whether it will successfully withstand the storms awaiting it?”- The End of Days, Jenny Erpenbeck

Winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Hans Fallada Prize, The End of Days, by the acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, consists essentially of five “books,” each leading to a different death of the same unnamed female protagonist. How could it all have gone differently?—the narrator asks in the intermezzos. The first chapter begins with the death of a baby in the early twentieth-century Hapsburg Empire. In the next chapter, the same girl grows up in Vienna after World War I, but a pact she makes with a young man leads to a second death. In the next scenario, she survives adolescence and moves to Russia with her husband. Both are dedicated Communists, yet our heroine ends up in a labor camp. But her fate does not end there….

A novel of incredible breadth and amazing concision, The End of Days offers a unique overview of the twentieth century.

The End of Days is a novel I really, really wanted to like. It seemed smart and interesting and history-filled and just right up my alley as a whole, and I was excited to dive in.

The biggest problem The End of Days has is that the main character does not have a name. I do not have a problem with nameless main characters, in fact I usually end up liking stories with that trope, like The Road or most of Truman Capote's short stories. But in those books, it works because of either how few characters there are, or how little importance the narrator is to the story. In The Road, the man and his son are, for the most part, the only characters, so there's no risk of confusing them. In Breakfast at Tiffany's, the narrator is both unimportant to the story and also speaking in the first person, so his name never has any reason to come up. But in this, it is third person, there's a million characters, and many of them are women. For more than three quarters of this novel, I had no idea as to who was talking at any given moment, and the only character I could actually keep straight in my head was Sasha, because he had a name. The third book was what completely lost me; I don't even think the translator had any idea as to what in the hell was going on during that scene.

The writing was also very repetitive and not all that great, and it did have a very distinctive translated feel to it, thought I can't help but feel a little bad for the translator. If some scenes in this novel are half as confusing as they are in German, than she had her work cut out for her. I can tell that Erpenbeck was trying to go for a minimalist, Scandinavian style, as seen in books like Wolf Winter, but it doesn't really work because, again, of the constant and annoying repetition, which ruins actually quite good scenes, like in the first book, after the mother has lost her baby girl, and something along the same lines as this sentence pops up "...back when the girl was still a mother..." This is a poignant remark when it first appears, but it is repeated so many times through the story and is tailored to so many other characters it loses its poignancy and becomes grating instead.

That being said, I do love the idea of this novel. I love the idea of travelling a girl through time, through her many deaths, but the confusingness of the novel makes it hard to follow and even harder to like. And yet, despite my many complaints about the writing, I still want to read Visitation, because I love the idea behind that novel, too. I think I just really, really want to like this author even after this book being a complete miss.

 4.5 out of 10

By Light We Knew Our Names by Anne Valente Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“We met among tall pines, separate blood, divided by arms and hands and hearts and lungs that all held the same wounds...”- By Light We Knew Our Names, Anne Valente

From ghosts to pink dolphins to a fight club of young women who practice beneath the Alaskan aurora borealis, By Light We Knew Our Names examines the beauty and heartbreak of the world we live in. Across thirteen stories, this collection explores the thin border between magic and grief.

My first proper book review of 2018! I haven't really been in the reading mood since, well, the start of the year, but I do have a lot of books that I am collecting to read, including quite a few new releases. 

Anyway, By Light We Knew Our Names is a collection of short stories, which I've been in the mood for lately. I was attracted to it because I loved the cover and I've been in the mood for a little magical realism lately, and I find that collections of short stories are the best if I want my thirst for magical realism sated. While I often find full-length magical realism novels hard to get through- which is why I've avoided books like One Hundred Years of Solitude or Like Water For Chocolate- short stories are an easy to read taste of magic, which is what drew me to this collection.

And it's a good solid collection. I mean, it is definitely a debut collection, with the messages behind each story a bit more sledgehammer in approach than I would have liked them being. The meanings behind each story were fairly obvious, which is nice but it is a little atypical of the genre. To me, the biggest appeal of magical realism is how much the mystical aspects cloak the meaning of the story, forcing the reader to come to his own conclusions about what the author thinks vs what the reader thinks the story means. In this, the meanings were fairly obvious, and all of them had to do with the same two subjects- loss and growing up- played over and over again. 

But Valente is a really talented writer. I especially loved the stories where she wrote in first person plural- Dear Amelia, Until Our Shadows Claim Us, and a bit of Everything That Was Ours. Besides those stories, I also really liked Latchkey, Terrible Angels, Minivan, and If Everything Fell Silent, Even Sirens. But my absolute favorite story in the collection was Not For Ghosts or Daffodils. I just loved the language and the characters in that story. I also need to mention that the last story, Mollusk, Membrane, Human Heart has such a gut wrenching conclusion that it was almost hard for me to read. 

There were a few misses, though. I found the title story, By Light We Knew Our Names, to be the biggest one. It was a cool idea, but wasn't that great in execution, and it was hard for me to like any of the characters. A Very Compassionate Baby was another miss- it made me think of that Edward Gorey short story about the horrible baby, though. Other than that, there were a few stories that didn't really do much for me, like To A Place Where We Take Flight, which I wanted to like more than I did, as well as A Taste of Tea, which had the same problem. 

Like with many short stories, I find that the best part is the title. I adore the titles of these stories, they're like one line poems. My favorites are probably Until Our Shadows Claim Us, Not For Ghosts or Daffodils, and Everything That Was Ours, as well as the title story. 

I do wish that there was a bit more of the arctic feel the cover promised. I love winter-y stories around this time of year (big surprise).

So, in the end this is a fine collection of short stories. I did like more of them than I didn't like, but at the same time the stories aren't as memorable as other short story collections I've read, and the titles of the stories are often better than the actual content. Still, there weren't any stories I hated outright. I'd recommend it.

8 out of 10

If you liked this book, you may also like:

Snow in May by Kseniya Melnik

Most Disappointing & Most Surprising Books of 2017!

This will be the last top whatever list of 2017. I originally wanted to separate these two lists, but I didn't really have enough pleasant surprises to 2017 to warrant that. There are 10 disappointments (and that's me limiting myself) and 6 surprises. I will start with the disappointments.


I had a really disappointing year reading wise, especially with my new releases, which is why a majority of them are on this list. Something you'll notice is that I will include books I gave a kind of high rating to. This is because I can still think it was a solid novel, but not one that lived up to my expectations or clicked with. So here are my most disappointing books of 2017!

10. The Lucky Ones by Anna Godbersen (7.5/10)

My Review

  The Bright Young Things trilogy is my favorite guilty pleasure historical fiction series. The Lucky Ones, however, is a weak finishing novel, which I'm starting to guess is Godbersen's signature move since The Luxe also had an unsatisfactory end. The Lucky Ones just did not end the series in a decent way, and the only character arc I was at all happy with with Letty's, since I was always on Team Grady for her. And I hated Astrid's resolution, but then again Godbersen seems to like to destroy the main couple at the end of the series. I mean, I still will read Godbersen's next series, but her series enders leave much to be desired.

9. Never Missing, Never Found by Amanda Panitch (5.5/10)

My Review

  I have not talked about Never Missing, Never Found since I read it back in February. But it is on this list not because it stuck with me, like gum on the bottom of a new shoe, but because it hasn't. And also because I loved Damage Done, the first book by Amanda Panitch, counting it among my favorite thrillers. I though for sure I would love this one as much as I loved her debut. And yet, I didn't. Never Missing, Never Found has a ton of potential, but it feels like she's trying to write a second Damage Done at points, following the same basic story-line, but the twists don't seem as sharp and the reveal isn't as deliciously twisted as it was in the first book. Never Missing, Never Found knocked Amanda Panitch off my list of thriller writers to watch, and unless she does something dramatically different with her third novel I'll probably just ignore her altogether.

8. The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz (4.5/10)

My Review

  The Midnight Dance seemed like the kind of book I would really like, in a guilty pleasure kind of way, being about a mysterious ballet academy in Italy, of all places. I figured this would be a Black Swan kind of contemporary mystery. Which is why I was surprised that it was a steampunk kind of historical fiction mystery. At first, I was pleasantly surprised, but the book started to get really bad really quickly. It has no basis in actual history, none in science, no world-building whatsoever, and it's not very well written either, and characters were sub-par. This is just not a good novel, which is a shame. It could have been a really fun guilty pleasure Glitter-esque book.

7. Things I'm Seeing Without You by Peter Bognanni (5/10)

My Review

  Damn Peter Bognanni, I was really rooting for you. I really liked his The House of Tomorrow, a fun, punk rock book that felt unique, and I still have never encountered a book quite like it. Things I'm Seeing Without You is a major step-back, in my eyes at least. It could have been written by any of the John Green wannabes out there from David Arnold to Scott Stambach. There is nothing original about this book, and it makes me sad. Bognanni could have been such a force for good in the oft-monotonous world of YA contemporary but I don't really have much faith in him at the moment.

6. John Belushi Is Dead by Kathy Charles (8/10)

My Review

  I thought I would love this novel. It seemed like the kind of book that would be tailor-made for me, a dark novel about dark subject matter with, hopefully, a lot of dark humor, written by an Aussie. But it just wasn't anything special. The humor was mostly cutesy banter I don't care about, Hilda was kind of a rebel without a cause, and the whole novel had a very Wattpad famous vibe. I did give John Belushi Is Dead a fairly high score, but I think I tried to convince myself I liked the book more than I actually did.

5. The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein (6/10)

My Review

  Elizabeth Wein is fine writer, don't get me wrong. She's a great beginning historical fiction writer, and when I heard that she was writing a new book, this one a prequel following Julie from her Code Name Verity companion novel series, I was interested. But The Pearl Thief ended up being my first big disappointment of the year. This is without a doubt an Elizabeth Wein novel, being about a close female friendship, and written in this pseudo-journal way, with  crossed out words and caps-lock (think Meg Rosoff). It's not a writing style that I like, personally, and feels very juvenile. Also, the friendship between Julie and the other girl wasn't as developed as it is in her other books. This just wasn't a book that worked for me, unfortunately. 

4. The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo (5/10)

My Review

  Leigh Bardugo is my favorite fantasy writer. And yet, The Language of Thorns was a complete miss for me. Not one of her fairy-tale retellings stuck with me, and the book wasn't marketed well at all. There was no where in the summary that it was a collection of retellings, frankly if it had I probably wouldn't have gone near it. Retellings normally don't do anything for me- if I want fairy-tales I'd read the original work, not to mention they often feel like cop-outs to me, like an author isn't creative enough to come up with her own stories so she jacks someone else's, but that's beside the point. I was under the assumption that this was an original collection, a creative collection of short stories drawing on the mythos of the Grishaverse. I don't really know why this takes place in the same world as her other books, because it really has no connection to it. The only explanation is that Bardugo realized she could move a lot more copies of The Language of Thorns if she marketed it as a Grishaverse novel. The stories themselves were also repetitive and not really anything unique. Yeah, there was very little about this collection that works for me except for the language and the illustrations, both of which are quite beautiful.

3. The Roses of May by Dot Hutchinson (7/10)

My Review

  I loved the first book in this trilogy. It was basically everything I wanted a mystery to be, dark, twisted, and unique. The Roses of May, on the other hand, felt significantly less, let's say well put together, than The Butterfly Garden. For one, I wish that Dot Hutchinson went for more of a companion series feel. Most police procedurals don't follow set story lines, instead taking it one book (and one case) at a time and only calling back previous novels in passing. I feel The Roses of May would have been much stronger if it went that route. Instead, it tried to be both a sequel to The Butterfly Garden and its own story, which made the book feel very cluttered. I also didn't really like how special the main character was portrayed as being, and wish we got more details about the actual crimes of the serial killer and feels for his victims as opposed to Hutchinson just focusing on the life of the main character, which was boring, to say the least. I will still be continuing on with the trilogy for its final book, but am much less enthusiastic about it, sad, because The Roses of May was my second most anticipated release of 2017.

2. On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (7.5/10)

My Review

  On the Jellicoe Road is the quintessential Aussie YA novel, a beautifully written, summery contemporary with more depth than your average American contemporary. For many, On the Jellicoe Road is what turned them on to Australian books, and its success probably opened the doors so that writers like Cath Crowley or Kirsty Eagar could break in to the American audience. Because I have a long established love for Australian writers to the point where two of my favorite contemporary novelists are Aussies (Markus Zusak and the aforementioned Cath Crowley), I figured I would love this book just as much as I loved I Am the Messenger, and Melina Marchetta would become one of my favorite writers ever. That did not happen. In reality, I found myself underwhelmed by the book. There are parts of this novel that work super well, like Hannah's manuscript, as well as some of the summer-y parts, but, I don't know, it felt disjointed and overall, On the Jellicoe Road and I just did not click. What a shame. This novel had been on my want to read list for years and I have not been this disappointed in a long time.

1. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (6/10)

My Review

  This was by far my most anticipated read of the year. I was so excited for this book, and, as the publication date grew closer and the hype surrounding it grew, I got more and more sure that The Gentleman's Guide would be my new favorite guilty pleasure historical fiction novel. When I actually found the time to read this book, I actually liked it just fine, because it started out kind of well. Lee was trying to write in this pseudo-18th manner, which I was cool with, even if she didn't do it quite as skillfully as, say, Anna Godbersen copying the writing style of the Lost Generation, but it lent a good amount of atmosphere. And then Felicity was introduced and I really liked that she read romance novels and hoped that maybe she a girl who was on the frivolous side and liked clothing and etc, because that character seemed far more interesting than the usual smart, suppressed YA historical fiction cliche that Lee shoved down our throat. I was baffled by everyone loving on Felicity, because I couldn't help but think- really? You guys must never read historical fiction then, 'cause I see characters like her everywhere. But I don't think I'm the target audience here, being someone who actually loves history and never had any patience for that My Lady Jane-esque fantasy infused crap YA writers like to pass off as historical fiction nowadays. This isn't necessarily a bad book, per say, and it does remind me somewhat of my favorite book of the year, but I am extremely, almost bitterly disappointed in this book and will not be continuing on with The Ladies' Guide to Petticoats and Piracy. God, even the name makes me want to gag myself.

And now, for my considerably shorter most surprising list. Some of these books are books I haven't necessarily rated highly, the only criteria to get on this list is that it had to be a book I thought I would hate only to find out that I really liked it.

6. The Five Daughters of the Moon by Leena Likitalo (7/10)

My Review

  The Romanovs are my favorite royal family, and when I encountered a fantasy novel based on the Romanov sisters, I was skeptical, to say the least. I am not a fantasy fan, and this is also not a highly rated novel on Goodreads. It is also translated, and, while I usually have a good luck with translated novels, I find that, writing-wise, they usually have a certain... feel to them, and it often seems obvious that they weren't originally written in English. I figured, well, if fantasy fans aren't into this book, I'm not going to like it, but mind as well give it a chance, right? And I was pleasantly surprised! Sure, there are flaws, like the fact that there is indeed a certain translated quality, or that it does drag on for such a short book, but I really liked the world building and how Likitalo didn't directly rip history off but instead decided to pay more of a homage to Russia in the early 20th century. So, good on you, The Five Daughters of the Moon, for lowering my expectations and surpassing them. I might eventually get around to the second book, but the damn thing's over 400 pages and I can't do that to myself at the moment.

5. Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma (7.5-8/10)

My Review

  I feel like I shouldn't like this novel nearly as much as I ended up liking it, but I just had a complete blast reading Forbidden. It was basically everything one would want in a guilty pleasure romance novel- forbidden love, angst over said forbidden love, and I just had a really fun time reading it. Sure, it's overly dramatic and very, very angsty, and some may be weirded it out by the plot, but it does also have a lot of genuinely good moments in it. I really liked how Suzuma tried her best to avoid complete cliches when creating characters. The scene that best illustrates this is probably when Maya goes on a date with a wealthy, pretty, and popular boy and he's nice, normal, and is actually interested in her. I don't think I've ever seen a character like that in a YA novel. I also completely flew through this book- I think I got through the first 100 pages in like 20 minutes without skimming. Honestly, writing this review makes me want to read it again- it's the perfect guilty pleasure romance.

4. The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller (8.5/10)

My Review

  Like I said above, I have a soft spot for the Romanov girls, and this is a historical fiction novel from their points of view that I have been avoiding for some time, because I figured I wouldn't like it. I thought it would be twee-ish, or rife with cliches from YA historical fiction. But The Lost Crown is a great novel, one that would be perfect for a preteen girl obsessed with Anastasia. The reason it didn't make my best list was because I found it too juvenile-y written, but it is wonderfully factual and written by an author very concerned to do her subject matter justice.

3. Night Film by Marisha Pessl (8/10)

My Review

  Another book I kind of feel ashamed to actually like, since I found it on Booktube and realized that the people who give every damn book they read 5 stars are the ones who love this novel whereas the people whose reviews I actually trust think it's a middling book to not good at all book. There are some exceptions, but for the most part there's a pretty even split. And for the first part, I was sure I'd fall into the second camp. The writing wasn't great (those goddamn italics) and the characters weren't fantastic, but in the middle of the book, well, I couldn't put it down. I just couldn't stop reading. The end knocked the book back down to mediocre, but I gave it a higher score than I think it deserved because, well, I had to give it points for having such a great middle part. But yeah, Night Film isn't a book I'd readily recommend to people, mostly because of how hit or miss it is, but it's much better than I thought it was going to be.

2. Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka (7-7.5/10)

My Review

  Girl in Snow is my favorite 2017 new release, which isn't saying much. I have been consistently underwhelmed by every book I actually planned on reading this year, even outright hating a few. When I put this novel on my preorder list, I was pretty sure that I wouldn't like it, especially since the ARC reviews weren't too hot. And yet, for most of Girl in Snow, I actually really enjoyed it. Admittedly, this isn't a book that would appeal to everyone. It's more of a Twin Peaks than a Law and Order kind of mystery, if that makes sense. Slower, more character-driven and not really in any hurry to solve its own mystery as opposed to book where the mystery takes over. I also found the writing very beautiful. Where this book falls short is the resolution of the mystery, and a lot of the choices Kukafka made towards the end of the book. This isn't a great novel, but it's the best new release I've read all year.

1. Little Monsters by Kara Thomas (8.5/10)

My Review

  Little Monsters is at the top of this list because, if there's ever a book that blew away my expectations, this would be it. I thought I would hate this novel, but instead it ended up in my Honorable Mentions for my Best of 2017 list! It probably would have made the list, too, but, like I said there, even the best YA mystery of the year isn't good enough for me. Anyway, Little Monsters took every annoying YA mystery trope and threw them out the window, which I loved. Admittedly, it's not the most original novel ever, but it is a damn good YA mystery. I should also mention, though, that Kara Thomas' work is kind of hit or miss for me at least. I was underwhelmed by her debut, Darkest Corners, which I read after this, and also didn't really like the short story she wrote in the same universe as Little Monsters, which you can read online. This is a solid little mystery novel, and one that definitely put Kara Thomas on my radar.

So, what are your most disappointing/most surprising books of the year? I'd love to hear about what you think about any of these books/what your choices are.