This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

Oh. My. Goodness. I started reading this book as a library book, got about 50 pages in, realized it was gorgeous and perfect and was going to be a favorite that I want on my shelves, and promptly bought it. I finished reading my very own copy. It ended just as wonderfully as it started.

Cantoras tells the story of five women living under an authoritarian military regime in 1970-80s Uruguay: Romina, Flaca, Anita "La Venus," Paz, and Malena. These five “cantoras,” as they refer to themselves and other women who love women, manage to find each other in the midst of fear and oppression in the capital city of Montevideo. They manage to carve out a small, shared, safe space on the isolated coastal town Cabo Polonio. Over the twenty years of this novel, they each return to Cabo Polonio, all together, alone and in smaller groups – their refuge, a place where they can be their authentic selves. And as readers, we follow their journeys together and separately through the years as they navigate life and work to survive their traumas and challenges.

I cannot tell you how beautiful this story was. I actually don’t know if I have the words to do it justice. The writing, from start to finish, was breathtaking, sumptuous, stunning. At only about 10 pages in I wrote “holy shit, this writing is writing to savor” in my notes and it remains perhaps the truest note I’ve ever taken while reading. And in fact, reading this took me much longer than a book this length normally would, but it was completely purposeful. I think the last book I read this slowly, in order to really appreciate every lush sentence, was Circe (Madeleine Miller), and it was another favorite of mine. Anyways, I think you get the idea. Basically, the writing is spectacular.

And it’s not just the writing that makes this book amazing. This is historical fiction about a time and place that I have never read about before (that I can remember) and know very little about: Uruguay during its late 20th century dictatorship. I love the way reading opens my eyes, teaches me…and like all similar situations (at least for me), I spend quite a bit of time after finishing researching more, in a nonfiction lens, about Uruguay during this time. It’s so sad that this kind of recent history is so overlooked and underknown, especially here in the US, as we exist in fairly close proximity to South America. And really, looking at the recent history of much of South America, there must be so many stories like the ones written here, as this was a turbulent time for the area, as far as governance and the state violence against the people. Really all I knew about before this book was Argentina and the Desaparecidos (which happened in the same time frame, so why are they the only country I know about?). Regardless, this was such an educational read on that front. Not only factually/informationally, but in feeling as well. De Robertis does a phenomenal job (and we’re back to her writing again, people!) conveying the minute-to-minute terror and tension and overall crushing anxiety and futility that people lived with on a daily basis during this time. Every page held such contradictions – with our five women doing everything they can to live fully and authentically and fight the system, yet simultaneously worried about backlash (being “found out,” disappearing, reprisals against their family and loved ones) and the general ever-present threat of “The Process” at every moment. It’s heartbreaking and hopeful in equal measure, and portrayed to perfection.

But it’s more than that too. In addition to the incredible writing and historical environment/setting, there are also the five cantoras themselves. De Robertis tells their individual backgrounds along with their current lives and relationships in a juxtaposition that is paced and delivered on point. Each of the five, although they take very different paths through life, make very different choices that lead them (at times) far from the others, are told with equal detail and “screen-time” to create fully dimensional and compelling characters. Also, each of them provides a chance for the reader to see a different aspect of the oppression and suspicion LGBTQ+ women faced during this time period under both the regime and the general patriarchy. With Romina, we get to see the affects, both first had and of a family member, of being imprisoned by The Process. (As a side note here, the exploration of Romina’s PTSD and her guilt about it, in proportion to other’s suffering, was affecting and hard to read, but so important.) With “La Venus,” we see the struggle to fit society’s standards in combination with how to compromise personal feelings that are at odds (loving women versus wanting to be a mother). With Flaca (and to some extent with Romina), we see a strong personality, willing to live her life for herself, and yet also shouldering all the fear and responsibility for those she loves who might suffer as a result. With Paz, we see a young girl who has always “known” what she was, and just wants a place to fit in and be that person, making her own way in the world and trying to be successful and seen in that. (Side note here, the exploration of how Paz “finds out” about herself, and her own pride in that experience versus the groups’ reaction to how wrong/how taken advantage of she was, was poignant and complex.) And last, with Malena we see the toll that silence takes – the trauma she suffered at the hands of so many people and the regime/society’s realities that make it impossible to speak about it – it’s the slowest story to unfold, and perhaps one of the saddest, as far as how far being a silenced victim pushed her. And all together, the way they are both there for each other and, at times, let each other down in pursuit of saving themselves, is one of the most moving and intricate portraits of a group of people that I’ve ever read.

In the afterward, the De Robertis writes the following: “In telling these stories that are largely absent from formal histories or from the great noise of mainstream culture, I never forget that there are thousands if not millions of people whose names we may never learn, whose names are lost in time, who made our contemporary lives possible through acts of extraordinary courage. Their stories have all too often gone unrecorded, but I am here today, and able to speak, because of them.” I cannot think of any more accurate or heartfelt praise to give this book than to say that in these pages, at least for me, De Robertis gave voice to some of those absent stories/persons. This novel was an exquisite tribute to the pain and struggle and love and hope of the many lives the five women in this story represent. I absolutely loved this novel and will be recommending it to literally everyone!

And now, please enjoy this ridiculous number of quotes/passages that I marked while reading and cannot not share with you all:

“The first time – which would become legend among them – they entered in darkness. Night enfolded the sand dunes. Stars clamored around a meager slice of moon.” (These opening lines though.)

“Perhaps, she thought, this is all that life can give us, all it can give me, the most voluptuous gift it will ever offer. A day. A day in which the boundaries of you can expand to fit the sky, to fit the sky inside yourself, and no city streets no kidnap fears no familial duties can hem you in, shrink you down, curl you tight inside. She was walking over grass, toward a sloping path. She was draped in sunlight. She was free, breathing, stripped of pretense, untethered from the lies of everyday survival. She was walking with a friend and her lover. Their lust crackled in the air, made it shimmer, and even though it wasn’t hers, it flushed her with a kind of happiness. They too were untethered. They too were real. How long had she had it in her, this hunger to expand, this need for space? This need to breathe all the way to the bottom of her lungs.”

“Aching flames unleashed, spilled out into another body. The vigor of desire. The heave and stab of it. Like eating the ocean and still wanting more. Dissolving into ash, and then, when your body returns, when the room returns, she is still there, woman, girl, gazing at you with animal eyes. All of it shrouded in a shawl of quiet. They were perfect together, or, mor accurately, together they shaped perfection out of nothing and cradled it in their arms.”

“What if so much living made you dangerous?”

“Happiness. Wholeness. A secret way to be a woman. A way that blasted things apart, that melted the map of reality. Two women in love.”

“Scared to leave. Scared to stay. She hovered in the space between fears.”

“Maybe crazy and impossible are two different things.”

“…both of them could fill you up with beautiful, get you drunk on it, unhinge you from the ugliness that pervaded the world and lift you out of it to soaring heights where you forgot that you were in fact still mortal in a broken world.”

“The essence of dictatorship, she thought. On the bus, on the street, at home, no matter where you are or how ordinary you seem, you’re in a cage.”

“She sat down at the center of the floor. Took a breath. The scent of mold of comfort. Anything can be a comfort if it smells like home.”

“There were things about her they’d never full see. That’s how it was. How the world was. Even when loved, you were never fully seen.”

“It seemed, at times, that this was the only way the world would be remade as the heroes had dreamed: one woman holds another woman, and she in turn lifts the world.”

“Why did life put so much inside a woman and then keep her confined to smallness?”

“Safe is never given. Safe is what you make with your own hands.”

“…the path into the forbidden was in fact wide open right in front of you and [that] stepping onto it could be a kind of rightness, a vitality more powerful than fear.”

“Suffering has no measure. There are no scales to weigh it. There is only sorrow after sorrow.”

“She should have known better. Than to think. That she could not be. What she was.”

“She was high on a jagged outcropping, and waves crashed roughly below. They seemed otherworldly in the moonlight, rising ferociously, over and over, colliding against the rocks. Without shame. Without tiring. Without cease. Water could break and split from itself and in moments return to wholeness. Or rip away and never return.”

“Artists don’t give up on trying to render things just because rendering them is impossible.”

“The world family coiled between and around them like some translucent dragon, a glowing magical creature of their own making.”

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

As you know, if you’ve been following my blog for awhile, that I first got into audiobooks through listening to celebrity memoirs/comedian essay collections because they tend to be fun and easy to follow and are usually read by the authors. And since I recognize their voices, it’s like they’re there in the car with me while I’m driving! Even though I’ve expanded into other genres in audiobooks, I love to revisit this introductory one, as it still tends to be the most entertaining. After loving some of Ali Wong’s other media, like her role on Big Mouth and her full length movie Always Be My Maybe (both on Netflix), I knew this was a memoir/collection I was going to want to read.

Wong’s essays in this short collection are written as letters to her two young daughters. And the cover topics like meeting her husband/their father, her years as a wild child growing up in San Francisco, her experiences getting into comedy, traveling/study abroad, Asian food and culture, reminiscences on living in NYC, insights into pregnancy/childbirth/parenting and just general tips and recommendations for living life to the fullest and in the best way you can.

This was such an incredibly fun and entertaining collection. I enjoyed the entire experience of reading it so much, from the funny parts to the more serious parts. I liked hearing about Wong’s background and family – she did a great job recognizing and explaining many of the stereotypes about Asians, while simultaneously showing how absurdly up-side-down her family threw those expectations. And though this is a humorous collection, so it may be a bit exaggerated/facetious, it was uplifting how in-stride (ish) all those foiled expectations seemed to be taken by her family. Similarly, seeing how things were different for her, growing up in an area with many Asians immigrants/Asian Americans, and things she notices later in life in Asians who grew up not surrounded by their own cultures was really fascinating. Basically, all her insights into Asian culture and food were some of my favorite parts (and made me very hungry). So, so interesting. I also liked listening to her early experiences in comedy. If I’ve noticed anything reading celebrity memoirs, it’s this: no route to fame is ever the same. And Wong did a great job telling her unique path while also using those sections to really give some great advice to her daughters, and the readers, about the importance of failures. I loved how positive she was about her failures and how they’re necessary to really grow/hone her craft. Side note here, I snorted *hard* during one of these sections when she talked about how a white comedian one told her she was so lucky to be a female and a minority in comedy – her response to this was the perfect amount of fed-up and disbelief, in true, perfect comedic form. One of the best, most poignant moments of the collection. (Side note here: the other most poignant, and most serious, moment was when Wong talked about her miscarriage. And I want to just take a moment to say thanks to her for sharing that most difficult time, bringing light to that common and very under-recognized trauma, and just generally being awesome and brave about that part of her life.)

Reading about her personal journeys was also engaging. Focusing on her own time spent in travel and study-abroad, she highlighted really smoothly the combination of the ridiculous things students get up to on those trips (for entertainment value) and a more serious reflection on how much it meant to her to meet her mother’s family in Vietnam and generally learn more about the culture she came from. Learning how she met her husband, their dating life and how they balance their current life as parents great. I really appreciate seeing how many challenges for working parents are the same no matter what the job is, while also getting some insight into the challenges unique to famous parents. On this point, I have to say that I truly loved the Epilogue, a letter written and read by Wong’s husband. His clear pride in her work, how he handles being the subject of many of her jokes, the way he has stepped up for the family and beautifully discarded typical gender roles to do so was sweet and inspiring and exact the cheery on top of this ice cream of a book that I wanted.

One final note… If you have experience Wong’s comedy style elsewhere, you may already be aware of this. But for anyone new to her – this collection, like her stand-up, is dirty, crude and profane. It’s not high-brow, intelligent comedy. But it’s a fantastic version of what it is – completely unfiltered. There’s no holding back on anything, from her bodily experiences postpartum to the weird things about women’s bodies (her openness here is refreshing, let me tell you) to stories of some of her own very awkward sexual/intimate experiences to innumerable mentions of eating ass. It starts strong, on that front, and never lets up. But Wong owns the lack of inhibition as her life and comedic style and I love that. Just be prepared.

This was a very funny, pretty vulgar, yet strangely uplifting/heartwarming set of letters from Wong to her daughters. It’s chock full of legitimate advice, presented with obscene humor (and maybe a little TMI about their mother; tbh, I’m not sure I want to know that much about my own mother, haha) and a genuine sense of love/caring behind the words. In general, this was a great one – I definitely recommend it!

“The answers to making it, to me, are a lot more universal than anyone's race or gender, and center on having a tolerance for delayed gratification, a passion for the craft, and a willingness to fail.”

“A reporter once asked me why I think progressive men who earn significantly less than their breadwinning wives still won't quit their jobs to take care of their children. Why do they still hold on to their careers, even if taking care of the children would make more financial sense because the cost of childcare is higher than their net salary?
I think I know the answer to that now, and it sucks. Women are not expected to live a life for themselves. When women dedicate their lives to children, it is deemed a worthy and respectable choice. When women dedicate themselves to a passion outside of the family that doesn't involve worshipping their husbands or thanking care of their kids, they're seen as selfish, cold, or unfit mothers. But when a man spends hours grueling over a craft, profession, or project, he's admired and seen as a genius. And when a man finds a woman who worships him, who dedicates her life to serving him, he's lucky. But when a man dedicates himself to taking care of his children it's seen as a last resort. That it must be because he ran out of other options. That it's plan Z. That it's an indicator of his inability to provide for his family. Basically, that he's a fucking loser. I think it's one of the most important falsehoods we need to shatter when talking about women's rights.”

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

I picked this book up to fulfill prompt #6 (Nonfiction by a Woman Historian) on The Reading Women Challenge 2020. I have always been fascinated by ancient Egypt and I have read a ton of historical fiction about these great Queens, including a fantastic one about Nefertiti by Michelle Moran and a 1000+ page one about Cleopatra by Margaret George (which I read in high school, for fun – I was that cool). But despite my fascination, I have never actually picked up anything nonfiction about these women and their role in the ancient world. Now seemed like the perfect opportunity to address that.

This book explores the reigns of six queens of Egypt, over an almost 3000-year period of history, looking at how each woman was able to reach a position of such great power as the head of such a dominant and successful country as Egypt. The six queens are each given a chapter to themselves, where Cooney explains the cultural, political, financial and familial landscapes that allowed for each of their rises to power, as well as the individual decisions and skillsets of the women themselves, that allowed them each to take advantage of the position(s) in which they were placed.

Towards the end of the book, Cooney writes a little summary of how Cleopatra, the last of these six, was able to use the foundations of those women before her to *almost* create something that surpassed them all. It’s long, but it’s a beautiful synopsis of the primary contributions/methods of each queen and I wanted to recreate is here for reference: “Cleopatra built upon what all other Egyptian queens had already achieved: Merneith’s ability to establish her son in royal power; Neferusobek’s survival as the last ruler standing in her dynasty; Hatshepsut’s climb to the pinnacle of political power using the males around her as stepping stones; Nefertiti’s transformation of herself as she aged, not to mention her salvaging the nation from the political mess left by the men around her; and Tawosret’s scrappy potential to act as an aggressive, even masculine, political operator. Cleopatra stood on all these women’s shoulder’s and almost transcended them all.” Basically, I loved the way the Cooney gave enough historical and political context for each queen to give the reader a sense of the environment and situation, without it ever getting dry or overdone (always a worry I have with nonfiction). It’s fantastic, the way she quickly summarizes for the reader the minimal (and ever-growing as time passes) physical evidence that exists from during each woman’s lifetime/reign, and interprets clearly and concisely what that probably meant as far as her accomplishments and the feelings of the people towards her. She often, which I appreciated, let the reader know when what she’s saying is conjecture vs extrapolation vs hard fact and, and was clear when there were parts of the story that we, unfortunately, would never know (or should be careful of interpreting incorrectly). There is, I’m sure, bias from Cooney, as the interpreter of the artifacts, etc. but all historians have that – the personal bias in unavoidable, especially in cases like these where there is so little hard evidence/primary documentation to go on – and I’m glad that at least this one has a feminine bent.

In addition to the basic (but so interesting) presentation of each queen’s life/times/accomplishments, Cooney offered some truly intriguing and intellectual insight into what it was about ancient Egyptian society/tradition that allowed for female leaders, in a time period where it was more or less unheard of. Of note, it’s done based on broad gender stereotyping and generalizations on a more-or-less binary level, without taking into account any kind of gender spectrum or non-binary perspective. She does acknowledge this in her closing chapter/epilogue, but I do want to just make that clear to any potential readers. However, I think it’s an important lens (though by no means the only lens), in the way she’s presenting this book, because she takes those gender generalizations and extrapolates them into our present-day political climate. There are some incredibly astute observations she makes about the general aversion to women in positions of political power in our current day, perspectives like the over-emotionality and indecisive nature of women, that are used to argue against us being fit for those types of jobs. These are, obviously, huge stereotypes, and yet are so often used as legitimately reasoning and arguments. So, in this book, she takes those “female weaknesses” and throws them on their heads, illustrating how those exact traits are many of the ones that the women of these pages had that made them the best person for the job of queen at the time that they were called to it. There is nothing inherent to those traits that make them bad for leadership, it’s just a societal and patriarchal structuring that makes it seem so…and at times, being less aggressive and more willing to pause to consider alternative options, typically “feminine” traits, are exactly what is needed in a leader. This extends not just to personality traits, but also physical look, as Cooney explains with examples of how, over the years, these Egyptian queens were more and more able to rule with their own faces/bodies in the forefront, their femininity obvious and laudable, as opposed to having to create a more “masculine” persona. However, it’s also a fairly even-keeled (at least it seemed that way) look at ancient Egypt, praising the way they used women to full potential, yet also criticizing (or at least being aware of) the limitations of that use insofar as it upheld the authoritarian and patriarchal government structures. Anyways, I’ll stop there, because this is getting long and, if you’re interested, you should go read the book because Cooney words it all much better than myself anyways.

*Note: I know many readers criticized the gender stereotypes Cooney impresses upon these rulers and uses to interpret them, and they are not flawless, but I am choosing the give the benefit of the doubt, in context. Her connections to present-day leaders and opinions about the incompetency of women to lead are still very much real and widespread. A number of her explanations really felt recognizable to me, and drawing attention to that, the way she explained it, did hit home for me. It’s not perfect and it’s not universal, and it shouldn’t be taken or presented as such, but I do feel that it is one very legitimate perspective.

The bottom line is that this was both an historically informative nonfiction, as well as a really thought-provoking comparative look at women in power over time (obviously, specifically looking at the ancient Egyptian world and today’s world). The writing and tone were academic, yet completely accessible, and Cooney’s narration of the audiobook was super clear. In fact, I’m glad I listened to the audiobook version, because hearing her pronounce all the names and locations correctly was very helpful (I definitely would not have gotten them all right if left to my own devices). Overall, I’m really glad I was pushed to pick them up by my reading challenge.

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

I am not sure how it ended this book ended up on my TBR, as (to be honest) thrillers aren’t really a genre I read a lot of. However it got there, I was even more inclined to pick it up after seeing that Obama had put it on his list of favorite 2019 reads. I hosted my in-person book club meeting in January and this was one of the three recommendations I made for the group to choose from for next month’s read and it won be a landslide, so here we are.

It's the middle of the Cold Wat era and Marie Mitchell is a young, black, female working as an intelligence officer for the mostly white all-boys club that is the FBI. She’s frustrated with the limitations on her position and work and is therefore primed to take an assignment with a shady taskforce that is working to bring down Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary and Communist-leaning charismatic new leader of Burkina Faso. This story, spanning distances from New York to Martinique to Burkino Faso, explores Marie’s youth and her reasons for joining the FBI in the first place, her year getting close to Sankara and her ideological changes during that time, as well as the far-reaching consequences of that assignment 5 years into the future.

This was such an interesting read for me, as it explores a time period, topic and setting(s) of which I had little previous experience or knowledge. An historical fiction that feels weird to qualify as such, since the 1980s weren’t really that long ago and I know so many people who actually lived those years. However, I wasn’t alive then, so I guess that’s what it is for me. Anyways, as I mentioned in my little introductory paragraph, I am not usually drawn to thrillers (spy or otherwise), as a genre. But with Obama’s recommendation and my book club support, I picked this one up. And really, I think the fact that it’s marketed as a thriller is a bit of a mis-representation. There are aspects of that – Marie works for the FBI to infiltrate a foreign government (definitely “spy” type stuff) – and yet the story itself doesn’t read with that type of flow or pacing. By that I mean, there was never a time when I was on the edge of my seat while reading (though there was a point at the end where things got a little creepy and my heartrate did spike a little).

The story is told by Marie in what is essentially a “in case something happens to me, here’s your past/where you come from” letter to her young sons. It was used well as a device here, because it allowed the story to be told by jumping around in time, as Marie reflects on her relationship with her sister, her childhood, what her motivations for joining the FBI and taking this assignment were, the details of the assignment itself (getting to know Sankara and, of course, what went wrong), as well as the present day situation that has caused her to feel as if she needs to write this letter in the first place. I liked the way all these timelines were woven and told together, because it kept things moving more than I think they would have been otherwise. But it also meant that the story was more of a personal reflection, a character study, and individual story, than anything else. Plus, it takes away any concern for Marie in the past, knowing that she survives to write in the present. But it was smoothly executed and I appreciated how much deeper into Marie’s life the method allowed up to get. This was particularly beneficial, and in my opinion is likely what helped the book get onto Obama’s “favorites” list, as far as what we get to see of Marie’s impressions and interpretations of how she was treated (as a black, female FBI agent), why she was offered this special assignment, her experiences growing up that made her choose this path, as well as insight into how this all likely played into her decisions and loyalties at the end. It’s a commentary on and exploration of the time period – racially and ideologically – in addition to and possibly even more than a spy thriller. And naturally, as all good historical fiction will do, it prompted me to look up more info about the real time period and characters that were included and, as I’ve said many times before, I love that educational aspect of reading.

There were a couple things about this novel that didn’t work for me though. To be honest, I felt like Marie’s internal thoughts and dialogues, the ones that provide the insight mentioned above, were a bit too obvious at times. I’m not sure what it was, perhaps just the way they were worded, but I can’t say that I was overly impressed with the presentation/writing of it. Relatedly, as far as the writing, I thought the characters other than Marie were all sort of flat, as far as personality/characterization. A lot of it was a result of telling, instead of showing, their descriptions. But even Sankara…we kept hearing about his charisma, but I never really felt it. Similarly, many of the side characters like Marie’s “handlers” Ross and Slater, her ex-boyfriend/best friend Robbie, most of Sankara’s staff people; I actually kind of kept forgetting who was who and had to look back for reference for their names, as they were just so non-descript. And I want to mention one more time, as a caution, that this was a fairly slowly paced novel, especially for one that purports to be a spy thriller. I don’t think that actually affected my personal enjoyment of it, but I wasn’t to make sure that it’s said clearly again, in case that might be a deal-breaker for anyone.

Overall, I liked this book. It was fairly entertaining, opened my eyes to some new historical times/places and was told from a unique point of view that I appreciated for many reasons of fresh-ness and diversity. Although the writing itself was a bit clumsy, and left something to be desired, I did enjoy my time with the story.

“It’s not romantic to be so loyal that you compromise your sense of yourself.”

“While her gift for secrecy put distance between us, it also taught me the value of intelligence: I learned that a secret is power, that power in application is force, that force is strength, and strength advantage.”

“It’s only a fool who doesn’t learn from the experience of others.”

“That is what a woman’s strength looks like when it’s palatable: like she is containing herself.”

“…the most revolutionary work I could do. Raising you to be better than me, in hope that you will make the world better. That you will remake it in your image – into a place that deserves you.”

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

“Water is the most versatile of all elements. It isn’t afraid to burn in fire or fade into the sky, it doesn’t hesitate to shatter against sharp rocks in rainfall or drown into the dark shroud of earth. It exists beyond all beginnings and ends.”

Let me take a quick moment to thank my long-distance book club for this read right quick. As our theme for this month’s book club, we chose something related to endangered species/Ocean Month/general environmental things. It’s a broad, vague category. Haha. But actually one of the prompts for The Reading Women Challenge was a book About the Environment (prompt #3). The group was awesome in accommodating that into our book suggestions – looking specifically for books that fit that theme that were written by women. And I have to say I had both never heard of this book before it was recommended and would never have gone looking for it or picked it up without both this group of ladies and/or this challenge. I’m grateful to both for the push.

In the far North of what used to be the Scandinavian peninsula, but is now ruled by powers out of China, lives 17-year-old Noria Kaitio. Global warming and wars over water have changed the political and environmental geography of her world away from anything that is recognizable today. And in this dystopia/post-apocalyptic, Noria is learning the secrets, traditions and responsibilities of a tea master (including the care and maintenance of a secret fresh water spring), from her father. As water becomes ever scarcer, and more and more poor village-members are punished excessively for “water crimes,” Noria and her friend Sonja discover some information that changes what they think they know (what they were told) about the water crisis. But the danger in their knowledge of the tea masters’ secret spring and the friends’ plans to search for further information on other water sources compromises their safety too much…and they both face difficult decisions and tragedy.

Whereas many post-apocalyptic novels, even other gorgeously lyrical ones like Station Eleven, start with a bit of a bang or major drama, we enter this dystopian (frighteningly realistic) future in a much quieter slide. When we meet Noria, the present-day life that we know is already generations into the past, and the characters have all settled into the new reality of the inevitability of water restrictions and rations and government/military control of the essential resource. The plot unfolds with deliberate pacing, every moment and observation meaningful in a softly fulfilling way, in the same manner that the steps of the tea ceremony are each meditative and significant. And though there is a clear build, a sharp twist and a deep blow to the reader, as we get to the climax of the story, it is delivered in such a thoughtful way that the poignancy comes through without the need for a clash of epic proportions or of dramatic language. However, I do have to note that the epilogue did give me an unexpected surge of emotion – it was a completely unexpected pivot (Noria’s voice and concerns had completely pulled me in with their tangibility and authenticity that I had no room in my head for an alternative option) and I loved it. It was sudden, but comfortably so (I don’t know how else to describe it) and it fit the rest of the novel perfectly. I also was a really big fan of the feeling it left me with – the reality of the challenges left to face, with no ready or true solution – and yet without the overwhelming sense of hopelessness that type of ending seems like it would cause. It’s very delicately successful.

I already have sort of alluded to this, but I want to go ahead and say it clearly, just to be sure the message comes across: the writing was lovely. It was smooth and expressive, full of wonderful (if slightly repetitive) imagery and even better comparative and discerning observations about the state of water, its ubiquitous and pervasive presence in our lives, and, therefore, the pivotal role it plays in our existence and the disaster we’ll face when it is no longer so readily available.

And the last thing I want to mention is the lens through which the story is told. Although Noria holds a position of privilege within her small town (village, really), she is still an incredibly minor and everyday sort of heroine, in the face of what the world is experiencing. She’s not in a city, not well-known, not a traditional “savior,” not a “chosen one” or any other dystopian MC trope. And yet, despite that, or perhaps because of it, her story is still incredibly compelling. It is so easy to imagine oneself in her shoes, trying to survive the best one can in the tragic circumstances in which one finds oneself, with only minimal access to a greater knowledge or resource that might help one succeed at that survival. Along with that, Noria’s story-arc, the way her narration ends in a state of not-knowing anything for sure, but making the best (in this case, defined as most aligned with her moral compass) decisions she could, is frighteningly recognizable. It makes the epilogue that much more impactful and wrenching, and yet is still satisfying on many levels because of the realistic way that it plays out. This “unimportant,” normal person, perspective makes this novel feel urgent and powerful in a very unique way.

All in all, I really enjoyed this novel. Although it was a very slow-paced story, I liked how that fit “right” the writing style and aura of the book. I am incredibly impressed with the author’s bilingual writing capability (I can barely write that beautifully in my first language) and loved the cautionary message about the future we might face if we aren’t careful with and respectful of our natural resources. This was a great book choice, in my opinion, for a book challenge prompt honoring our natural environment and one I would definitely recommend to other post-apocalyptic slow-burn (or slow-erosion…LOL water puns) book lovers.

“Silence is not empty or immaterial, and it is not needed to chain tame things. If often guards powers strong enough to shatter everything.”

“In those days a silence wavered between my parents, dense with stirring, well-hidden fear and nameless, unspoken things. It was like a calm surface of water, extreme and unnatural: a single word dropped on it, a single shifting stone at the bottom would change it, create a circle and yet another circle, until the reflection was warped, unrecognizable with the force of the movement.”

“Dust will gather around the legs of the shelves and spiders will weave their webs in the corners, and mute book pages will grow yellow between the covers. The glass of the windows slips downwards like slow rain, even if we don’t see it, and the landscape outside is different every day: the light falls from another angle, the wind tugs at the threes slower or faster, the greenness of the leaves draws away and one ant more or less walks on the trunk. Even if we don’t see it right away, it is all happening; and if we look away long enough, we will no longer recognize the room and the landscape, when we eventually look at them again.”

“We are children of water, and water is death’s close companion. The two cannot be separated from us, for we are made of the versatility of water and the closeness of death. They go together always, in the world and in us, and the time will come when our water runs dry.”

“There is no power that lasts, Noria. Even mountains will eventually be worn down by wind and rain.”

“Secrets gnaw at the bonds between people. Sometimes we believe they can also build them: if we let another person into the silent space a secret has made within us, we are no longer alone there.”

“The distance from dreams to words is long, and so is the way from words to deeds.”

“History has no beginning and no end, there are just events that people give the shape of stories in order to understand them better…And in order to tell a story one must chose what not to tell.”

“People will hold on to what they’re used to, for as long as they can. It’s the only way to survive.”

“When life is chained within narrow limits, the slightest illusion of freedom is valuable.”

“And yet I was holding it in my hands: not the whole truth, because the whole truth never survives, but something that was not entirely lost.”

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

This National Book Award Finalist is one that’s been on my TBR since I read the synopsis…and, honestly, since I realized that I was well on my way to reading all the NBA finalists for 2019. That’s not usually a goal that I have, but since I’m close to it, I kind of want to go for it and see if I agree with the winner after I finish them all. So far, I’ve read and reviewed Trust Exercise, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, and Sabrina & Corina. After Disappearing Earth, the only one left is The Other Americans (which is also on the longlist for the Aspen Prize for Literature, which is fast becoming my favorite award and I want to read all those finalists when they’re announced as well). Anyways, the point is, I was on the library waitlist for this one for a few weeks and jumped in as soon as my hold was ready for pickup!

The novel opens with the kidnapping of two young sisters on a summer morning on the remote Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka. Each successive chapter is told in a successive month, and follows a character that lives in the area who is somehow involved in the search for the girls or is otherwise affected by the kidnapping, in myriad ways, both major and minor.

This is such a fascinating novel, as it reads more like a series of vignettes that anything else, yet by the end, the threads that connect each of the perspectives and experiences, however small they may be, are elucidated with the finest detail. I have read other books that are structured in a similar manner, but this was by far the deftest execution of the style I have ever experienced. Phillips’ handle on the even the smallest elements is spectacular – the way it is all woven together so that even the characters’ sections that are the most removed from the central “mystery” of the plot, the missing sisters, are incredibly compelling is so impressive. And beyond how engaging each vignette is (separately and as part of the whole), the writing itself is something special. I was emotionally invested from the very beginning, with even the short first chapter from the sister’s perspective getting me deep in the feels (like, super deep – it was so tense and unsettling, setting the mood for the novel early). And even though we really only “meet” each character once from their own perspective, and some not even that much, there was just so much life in each of them. The crisp purposefulness of the words really belies the searing profundity of humanity that is delved into with each vignette.

Beyond the writing and the style, there are so many other things about the atmosphere of this novel that were just stunning, so I’m going to go ahead and mash all my thoughts about that into this one paragraph, even if they don’t really flow/go together super well. #sorrynotsorry First, the way Phillips captures the suffocating feeling of mundane everyday life, the yearning for something more/greater, with the simultaneous daily inertia, the feeling of lack of options to make any tangible changes, that keeps you in place is just…wow. I felt that feeling on a visceral level. The way that such a small, insular community, the land/nature of the peninsula, the intense nationalism and classism of the people (and consequently, the commentary on whose lives matter “more” in juxtaposition of the general bureaucratic dismissal of almost everyone) was portrayed was both perfectly specificity to Kamchatka and recognizable on a universal level. The overall vibe of loss and sorrow and guilt is overwhelming throughout the novel, in the best way, from so many different perspectives, depending on the way the character in question is related to the disappearance. Relatedly, the open-endedness throughout the novel about the fate of the girls, the slowly creeping resignation that they are dead/lost forever, is wrenchingly evocative in its hopelessness. And yet, in context, that’s exactly the feeling I wanted while reading this, and I sank into it. And last, that ending, THAT ENDING. I had settled into what I thought was coming, was ready and anticipating it, and would have been happy with that. But then everything was flipped up-side-down, head-over-heels, in a surprise twist that was powerfully creepy and incredibly haunting. It was such a twist for me, emotionally, that I reread the last chapter like three times, so make sure I had it right. The unexpectedness of it shattered me, left me with that nauseous feeling after getting punched in the gut. So awful, yet so good!

I hope you can tell by now how much I liked this book. It’s my favorite of the 2019 NBA finalists so far (and Sabrina & Corina was one of my Top Ten Books from last year). The connection of these vignettes through plot, theme, and metaphor, the way they all converged towards the end, the small details that I partially picked up along the way but had to go back and look for again once I finished, the precise and melancholy mood/writing, the humanity of it all… I just have to sit back, heave a great big sigh, and slow clap for Phillips. I cannot believe this is a debut novel and I’m now
over here eagerly awaiting what she does next!

“How good Olya would feel to keep this secret. How safe it felt inside herself.”

“Her body flowed into the next step, the next, as easily as a river following its course. She was dancing well. She knew it. She moved as if these steps didn’t want a partner – as if she were fine on her own.”

“The sameness of each day, each year, acted like the endless reopening of a cut, scarring those summers into her memory.”

“Everyone looked better at a distance. Everyone sounded sweetest when you did not have to hear them talk too long. […] Loving someone close-up – that was difficult.”

“It hurts too much to break your own heart out of stupidity, to leave a door unlocked or a child untended and return to discover that whatever you value most has disappeared. No. You want to be intentional about the destruction. Be a witness. You want to watch how your life will shatter.”

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

I have had this one on my TBR as a contemporary romance to pick up next time I’m in the mood for one (I love sprinkling these in for fun between heavier reads). And then I moved it up the list a bit because I won the Kindle version in a Goodreads giveaway. Woot!

Rhiannon owns her own company, a dating app that works similar to Tinder (as a real world reference), that uses a “swipe” technique, but allows a little more control to the female involved in the swiping transaction (similar to Bumble). She’s strong and in charge, but some past relationships have left her with a lot of trust issues and a major wall around her own heart. Samson is an ex-football player, dealing with some of his own issues with long-term relationships and family. He and Rhiannon have a great single night together after swiping right on each other, but then Samson’s personal life pulls him away. When they meet again months later, Samson now working on a campaign for a rival dating-based company, work-life throws them together over and over again. Will they be able to overcome their separate baggage and realize they are actually made for each other?

This was a really fun contemporary romance with a lot of unique features that made it particularly relevant in the current-day landscape. First, and obviously, is the way that dating apps and websites play a major role both in Rhi and Samson meeting, as well as in a more general way throughout the plot. For all that these apps are ubiquitous in real-life dating these days, I cannot say I’ve ever seen them in a romance novel before. And I liked that. Nothing makes characters more understandable than when they have to deal with such recognizable issues as ghosting, dick pics and more. In addition, Rhi’s past relationship issues, which she alludes to from the start of the book, but slowly get more and more revealed as time goes by are a pretty solid literary example of the current #metoo movement (with many elements that recall such famous cases as the Weinstein one…so beware before going in if emotional abuse and fear in a relationship are triggers for you in any way). And it’s developed well, with the whole story coming clearer as the novel goes, in a way that felt realistic and not forced. And I liked the way Rhi’s outlook on what happened changes as she realizes that perhaps she isn’t alone, and that while she’ll have naysayers, with every passing day, there are more and more people willing to believe the victims. It closely mirrors the way our own country has developed the past few years and while what happened is horrible, there’s also a sliver of hope in the change that was good to see. And finally, Samson’s side-plot situation, dealing with the long-term challenges of repeated head injuries suffered by many football players, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTI), was also very timely. This is an issue that the NFL has long pushed aside, but with more and more players coming forward about their struggles, as well as increased research on the dangerous side-effects of these repeated traumas, it’s a topic that’s really come into the spotlight over the past few years. Overall, like I said, this was well-written as far as significant recent events in real life, and I enjoyed that aspect.

Looking at the romance part more closely, since that plot is, at base, what the rest of this novel was built around…I liked that a lot too. It felt like a really natural flow, within the context. Rhi and Samson both clearly felt a pull towards each other, one that neither fully recognized nor knew how to follow through on. But it kept them coming back to each other. But with that, it was still a well-paced coming together. There were plot devices to push them apart (of course, because that’s how romance novels work), but those were all believable within the story. And the length of time it took for them to figure out their respective sh*t and decide to take this chance on each other in a mutually agreeable time/way fell out nicely. As a side note to this, I loved how powerful a women Rhi was, and how not only was that something Samson understood and supported, it was part of what attracted him to Rhi in the first place – that extra piece is a level that is not always attained by romance novels. And though she loved being (literally) held tight by him, she would have remained just as strong without him. They read like a real partnership to me, each filling in other’s holes in what felt like a healthy way, without compromise (just mutual effort), and I appreciated that.

Last point, since this was a romance novel, I want to comment on the steaminess. For me, this was a mid-level steaminess romance. There were a few good sex scenes, but nothing crazy spectacular. To start they were primarily flashbacks to their one-night situation, before the book started. And the language used was very typical sex language, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there are some traditional words, like shaft, that I personally struggle to take seriously in context. Just a heads up if that’s something you feel too.

Overall, I liked this one! The elements of real current-day life were great, and interwoven smoothly with the more conventional romance parts of the plot development. Rhi and Samson’s relationship developed in a realistic way, that felt healthy to me, and I always value that. And really, I was just entertained while reading this, which is exactly what I look for when I’m picking up a contemporary romance.

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

Just about two years ago I read Solomon’s debut novel, An Unkindness of Ghosts, and was so impressed with the world-building, the diversity of the characters, the writing…it was a fantastic debut. And it was before I really had any idea about Afrofuturism as a genre, so it felt truly groundbreaking to me. I am glad to say, as far as my own reading diversity, that I’ve learned more about and experimented with other Afrofuturism novels since then (Binti being another favorite). But long story short, I knew that I’d be keeping an eye out for future works by Solomon, since they were my first foray into the genre and I couldn’t wait to see what they did next. As soon as I saw this novella, and read its blurb, I knew I was going to love it. And as icing on the cake, it fits The Reading Women Challenge 2020 Prompt #7: Afrofuturism or Africanfuturism.

Yetu is wajinru, a people descended from pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave traders. Living an idyllic, utopian life protected by the sea, the wajinru have for centuries guarded the knowledge of their traumatic past in a way that protects the majority: by appointing a Historian, one who holds all the memories of their History with the exception of the yearly Remembrance ceremony, where all wajinru come together for a few days to share this knowledge. But the price of their “freedom” from this knowledge the rest of the year is the mental health and life of the Historian. And Yetu, the currently appointed one, knows that she cannot last much longer in this role. The pain of holding the knowledge alone is too much for her. She must decide whether to allow herself the peace of mind that was stolen from her or sacrifice herself for the whole of her people. But in her journey to answer that question, she and the wajinru realize that there may be another path, one in which they can all reclaim their past and own who they are.

For such a slim little book, this novella holds multitudes. Before I get into the deeper things (ummm, pun intended?) I want to mention a few things. One is the writing. It’s a very different style of book from Solomon’s first, but I have to say I thought the polish on the writing definitely makes it clear that it’s not their first. There were some plot points and descriptions that left me a little lost in Unkindness (though I got through it fine with a little willing suspension of disbelief), and while this didn’t have quite the same scope, so it may be an apples and oranges comparison, I didn’t have that issue here. Everything, from the plot to the character development to the mechanisms of memory passing and communication, felt polished and smooth. The writing itself had a flow and rhythm that fit the philosophical nature of the topics it covered, complemented with a sparse-ness and to the point delivery that fit the harsh realities of those same topics. Also, I want to point out the idea of this novella – the general concept of pregnant slave women who were thrown overboard into the sea whose children were born from their wombs and into an ocean that welcomed them and showed them how to breath underwater, whose creatures both killed and protected them, and where there discarded lives created a home and community where they were safe and sheltered – it’s incredible. And I read the afterward, I know that it was a combination of efforts, a idea that began before Solomon came to it and will continue to grow after this novella, but I am a book person, a reading person, and this is the format where the idea was most likely to sink its claws into me. And oh my goodness, sink them it did. I just cannot get over it – how beautiful and hopeful it is, despite the horror and tragedy from which it was born. As I said, incredible.

And now, my attempt to address and review the focal topic of this little book: the potent cumulative, intergenerational effects of trauma. The philosophical explorations of the original wajinru and their decision to protect the whole from the trauma of the past by assigning the responsibility of remembering it to a single entity in juxtaposition with Yetu’s personal journey to find out who she is for herself, separate from the memories of the past, are extraordinary. There is equal time given to the benefits and potential pitfalls of all sides of remembering history: from the way the pain of remembering everything can overwhelm you (as Yetu feels) to the equally painful reality of losing all of the past, having no knowledge of where you came from (as Oori, the confidant Yetu meets while struggling with escaping her role/people or swimming back to it, feels). There is pain in remembering, but there is also power. There are terrible memories, visceral in their horror, but there is also hope and goodness. Both are important perspectives, and the all or nothing options forced upon Yetu and Oori at both extremes are heart-breaking. And then Solomon brings it all together in the end with a gorgeous message about the importance of community in History and Remembrance, of sharing the burden (because our past is part of who we are, and should be honored, but also does not have to fully define us), and of the possibility for collective healing and a more balanced future.

If there was ever a doubt that fairy tales or fantasy are a useful and beneficial way to address complicated and abstract reality-based topics in truly beneficial ways, The Deep, is here to disabuse you of said doubt. This is a such a striking novella in so many ways, from the creativity of its story to the intensity and cutting commentary of its message. Its short length belies the strength in its pages. There is no way my words could do justice to what Solomon has crafted. If there is open communication and real healing to be found in words, Solomon is well along the path to finding it, to making it. Magnificent.

“One can only go for so long without asking, who am I? Where do I come from? What does all this mean?”

“She didn’t mean to be so cruel, but what else was she to do with all the violence inside of her?”

“Forgetting was not the same as healing.”

“Remember how deep we go.”

“Without your history, you are empty.”

“‘What is belonging?’ we ask. She says, ‘Where loneliness ends.’”

“We have absorbed many lifetimes of pain, but it is no matter compared to the good.”

“But connection came with responsibility. Duty choked independence and freedom.”

“If the past is full of bad things, if a people is defined by the terror done to them, its good for it to go, don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t it hurt not to know who you are?”

“‘But your whole history. Your ancestry. That’s who you are.’ […] ‘No. I am who I am now. Before, I was no one. When you’re everyone in the past, and when you’re for everyone in the present, you’re no one. Nobody. You don’t exist.”

“…if freedom only brought loneliness, emptiness, what was that point? Nothingness was a fate worse than pain. […] At least with pain there was life, a chance at change and redemption.”

“Our shard fury makes us stronger. We continue to rise.”

“Who each of them was mattered as much as who all of them were together.”

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

In my goal of working to read more diversely, I’m attempting to also diversify my diversity… That sounds confusing, but basically, I’m just trying to cast my reading net ever wider. So when I read about this 2019 winner of the International Man Booker, the first novel translated from Arabic to win this prize, in addition to being the first novel by an Omani woman translated to English, I added it to my TBR immediately. I don’t think I have ever read anything written by someone from Oman, nor even set there, so I was excited for this. Plus, conveniently for me this year, it also fits prompt #13 of The Reading Women Challenge 2020, a book by an Arab woman.

This novel more or less centers around three sisters, Mayya, Asma and Khowla who are living in contemporary Oman. Throughout the course of the novel, we see each of the sisters marry, and the way their lives unfold around that moment, both back into the past and far into the future.

This was such a fascinating read. The writing itself was beautiful, with a sort of poetry to the prose, so I would like to recognize both al-Harthi for her original words and Booth for maintaining such loveliness in her translation. And while the writing was wonderful, the heart of this novel was way these characters lives provided such profound cultural and familial insight. Mayya, Asma and Khowla enter their individual marriages with as much individual difference as any sisters would, and through the eyes of their singular experiences, the reader is then able to experience day-to-day nuance of family and culture that opens our eyes to a world that is both foreign and recognizable. The stylistic set-up of the novel contributes to this educational reading experience as well. The chapters are incredibly short, and each are written from a different perspective, most in the voice of an omniscient narrator (with the exception of chapters throughout that are told in Mayya’s husband’s voice), who presents to the reader the many stories that have gotten these people to their lives today. These perspectives jump around in voice and time period, back far into the past to give the reader a picture of how these sisters, their husbands, their families, came to be, and forwards into the future, to the lives and paths their children follow. This myriad variety of voices and timeline allows for a complex tapestry of relationships and interactions to be developed, in a surprisingly weighty, reflective and truly human way, considering how little of each individual point of view we actually get (because this book would have been a thousand page brick if each of these POVs were given any more page time).

But even more that the depiction of the characters that we get from this range of voices if the cultural awareness the style provides. al-Harthi follows Oman itself through its turbulent recent history, it’s evolution from a traditional and slave-owning society to the complexities of the current day and the cultural fallout from the many changes, both internally and from external influences, that the country and its people have experienced. From perspectives of both mistreated and a favored (as a mistress) slaves, of the old money rich and the new-trade-rich families, of conventional and more “liberated” versions of womanhood (and the consequences of that), of modern science/medicine and traditional beliefs/practices, of developing new roles and ways of living in the world as modernization (in all its positive and negative glory) steamrolls the world, and so many more, I feel like I really learned so much about Oman. Yes, it is a subjective and singular interpretation, but past the bare facts of currents events (which I did some further research into, of course, while reading), this is the kind of book that makes a country, the people of that country, more fully understand. And that it was great literature does. Truly this was a cultural exploration, representation, elucidation, such as I have rarely read before.

Potentially the one criticism I have I that there were just so many characters, and so many points of view, and so much jumping through time, that I sort of got a little lost in the way each person was related to each other person and the specifics of how each thread intertwined over the years. To be fair and open on this front, I did listen to the audiobook and did not have a print copy on hand to reference, so I couldn’t easily go back for clarifications, which likely didn’t help. But still, it was a kink in my reading experience that I wanted to mention. (To note here: the sheer number of characters and interactions is why I am choosing to review this novel in a general sense, not really mentioning or calling out an stories/characters specifically, because otherwise I’d end up down a rabbit hole that would make this review as long as the book itself…just trust me when I say their stories are all worth it and important in creative the overall picture of a people that al-Harthi is painting and, if you want those specifics, its definitely worth just reading the novel yourself). However, I also found that once I stopped worrying about forgetting certain connections and just let myself sink into each short chapter, absorbing the information/story at face value, I found that not remembering each specific relationship in detail really didn’t interfere much with my overall experience of the book.

As I said, the real gem of this novel was the cultural insight, which I was completely immersed and educated in, regardless of particulars. Every society is complex, and the many angles from which al-Harthi examines Oman’s contemporary reality provides a nicely comprehensive vision of this particular one.

This review originally appeared on the book review blog: Just One More Pa(i)ge.

So many, many, many reasons to read this book. First, Bardugo is one of my favorite authors, so of course I was going to check out her debut foray into adult fantasy. Second, basically there is not a single bad review to be found anywhere for this book. Third, just look at it. Fourth, and maybe most important, but really, all the reasons are legit, read that description: magic university societies?! Yes, please! I usually read more than one book at a time, but the moment I picked this one up, it was a sprint to the finish, with no time or interest in anything else.

Alex Stern has a proverbially checkered past (drug-dealing, multiple unsolved homicide survivor), but after being offered a spot at Yale in return for services only she can provide, she’s hoping to turn things around. What is it, you may ask, that only Alex, a young girl with minimal academic qualifications, can offer Yale? Well, Alex can see ghosts. That’s right. And that’s of ¬great value to the major secret magic societies that thrive in New Haven. But the trade-off, of course, is never as straightforward as it seems. And soon Alex finds herself fighting, mostly on her own, against some over-powerful people who’ve never heard the word no and are taking advantage of their magics, without a mentor (because, naturally, he’s been transported into another dimension).

This novel is literally everything that it promises to be with a premise like that. And let me just start by saying how much I love this premise. I mean, magic and university life have always been a great mix for fantasy-lovers, but this one takes it to another level. This is going to sound a little…unreasonable…but let me just say that the best part of this fantasy is how true it rings. There are so many rumors about secret societies at ivy league/old universities, ones that produce myriad influencers/one-percenters…how much of a leap is it, really, to add in the hypothesis that these societies have managed to harness magic and that explains some of their many successes? Honestly, not that farfetched at all. All the jealously guarded secrets would be just as jealously guarded in that case, if not more so. Anyways, either you’re with me on that or not, but on a personal level, I love how much this fantasy was based in and carried out in such a “real” life way. It’s exactly the kind of thing that magic-lovers want to be true more that anything else (trust me, I’m one of them) and it’s handled in a way that makes it legitimately seem possible. So awesome!

As far as the plot itself, it played out a bit like a regular mystery/thriller would. It’s got the gothic feels you’d expect from a “secret magic society on an ivy league campus” story, especially one that centers in major part around ghosts and our MC’s ability to see and converse with them. And that ambience was so well-developed and portrayed. But even more than that, the entire murder-mystery aspect, as well as deciphering what happened to Alex’s mentor Darlington, was just fun to read. Don’t get me wrong, I love an epic fantasy saga as much as the next person (and Bardugo’s other books, everything in the Grishaverse, provide that in spades), but this is a kind of magical old-school whodunit that was just entertaining from start to finish – I was invested in everything as it unfolded and struggled to put the book down, but at the same time never felt overly emotionally stressed by the reading experience. Escapism at its finest!

In addition, I lived Alex as our heroine. She was a fantastically written “normal” person thrust into a leading role. And it was done well so that it never leaned over into the “savior” side of things. She had a knack for survival and a special skill that helped her [barely] survive, but she would have lost the game (and her life) much earlier without all the help of her incredibly (much more so than herself) competent peers. Plus, the focus on her own “wants,” – to be as successful as possible with this second chance she was gifted, as well as to experience a more typical college life, stayed constant throughout and I appreciated that as well. Plus, Bardugo wrote Alex, a person thrust into a “typical” college life, and seeing that type of life through “fresh” eyes, if you will, so well – it is always great to get a different perspective on things because it highlights both the greatness and ridiculousness of situations that are sometimes so familiar that we can no longer see them objectively, for what they really are. Plus, it allowed for some really authentically poignant, introspective and critical moments.

The “world-building” – in quotations because New Haven, CT and Yale are both real in this world, so I refer mainly to the magical societies and Alex’s role in “keeping them in line” – was just so cool. There were so many little details that I loved reading and honestly, I think I’d be into reading through the entire Lethe handbook, not just the pull-quotes we were given sprinkled throughout. That might make me the biggest nerd ever, but I’m ok with that. As a random side-note, I also love the names of some of out major characters, like Alex being short for Galaxy and Darlington being a combination of Daniel Arlington – super creative.

Last, I will say, as a minor critique that there was a part of the ending/final “antagonist” reveal that left me a little wanting. Our primary “bad guy” was basically the person I suspected from the beginning, because it was the role most likely to be bad. And though there were many red herrings along the way, many of which also ended up involved somehow in the end (not surprising that the cover-ups ran deep, in societies/circles with benefactors whose pockets are as deep as these), the big one wasn’t as much of a surprise as I was hoping. However, there was a secondary paranormal “big bad” that sort of came out of nowhere, in a fascinating way, that definitely made up for it (at least for me). And maybe that was the point all along… Anyways, just beware of that a little and temper expectations about a big reveal; instead focus on enjoying the reading experience in general.

This adult debut from a favorite author of mine definitely lived up to my expectations and, though it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, it absolutely left me satisfied and gratified. I know I’ve used this word a couple times already, but I just can’t find a better one, so…I really had fun reading this book, genuine fun. I highly recommend it, agree with all the other readers who have loved it, and can’t wait to see what the next part of Alex’s secret, magical, ghost-seeing, hell-traveling, ivy league story entails.

“If you were going to hell together, murder seemed like a good place to start.”

“We all have spaces we keep blank.”

“You lost the language of ordinary life. And then, without meaning to, you crossed into a country from which you couldn’t return. You lived in a state where the ground always seemed to be slipping from beneath your feet, with no way back to someplace solid.”

“That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you’d been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for.”

“…he could never shake the thought that he was seeing only one world when there might be many, that there were lost places, maybe even lost people who might come to life for him if he just squinted hard enough or found the right magic words. Books, with their promises of enchanted doorways and secret places, only made it worse.” (It’s like Bardugo is in my head here!)

“Whether you made a deal with the living or the dead, best not to come up short.”

“Magic had almost killed him, but in the end it had saved him. Just like in stories.”

“There were always excuses for why girls died.”

“…she was homesick for something, maybe for someone, she’d never been.”

“Maybe good things were the same as bad things. Sometimes you just had to let them happen.”