Oh, this begins as a beautiful story: poetic and full of the innocence and the wonders of children, allowing us to see the world as adults through the eyes of a child, and then it clashes with the realities of a politicised world, human trauma, and the unavoidable politics of our age.

I don’t mind the political leaning of the novel, in fact, it’s more my flavour, but I had to continually remind myself that this was fiction, because the prose was deeply philosophical and in places, its mimicry of reality felt somewhat irresponsible.

There were several highly relatable moments, especially that of ‘discussing bottomless catastrophe with a nine year old’. I was reminded of my niece, devoted to saving turtles and obsessed with the health of our oceans, who at nine years old would watch a documentary before she’d watch a cartoon, and this is the generation we’re raising and influencing (for the good of their future) against a backdrop of blinkered politicians.

These are children growing up in a world of people obsessed with consumerism and waging wars and content to destroy the environment. The atheist faith present in the main characters of the novel delivered only an abysmal bubble of hopeless hope. The father was continually confounded (bewildered) by the boundless inexplicable love humans in relationship share for one another, and admirably convicted by a collective conscience that the religious right don’t (seem to) possess.

This started well and beautiful, real, and tragically human, and for 50% I was absorbed and enthralled. It went a bit sci-fi in the middle, delved oddly into the cyber world of social media for a few chapters, dabbled with unwanted fame, but at 75% the whole story dissolved like two day old wet paper…and ended as a tragically confused science fiction novel that believed itself to be real, wrapping a vulnerable child in a father’s reckless penchant to ‘let things happen’ without planning or strategy or responsibility, more intent to connect with extraterrestrial lifeforms than to properly care for the medical-emotional needs of his own vulnerable son—even though it seems that is precisely what his intent was in searching for other-life—and it was the father’s ‘system’ of beliefs that lead to their ultimate demise.

It's worth reading, despite following a disappointingly delusional trajectory. A 5-star launch that peters out to a 3-star finish... 

I just finished. I need a moment to ponder, to weep, to reminisce…good literature does that to me…

A legacy of love and friendship; a tribute to life’s journeys, and all the complications of love and dedication and commitment involved in undertaking joint projects, involved in messy relationships, of sharing a lifelong passion. Naked and raw and pure. I loved this story. A perfect blending of simplicity and complexity, profound and innocent and full of the commonplace things of the everyday, and the shocking things we encounter that mar and make us along the way.

The timing of the simultaneous storylines, weaving between past and present, is exquisite; the deepest secrets seep through when least expected, and the tragedies and traumas overlap and pile up as time thrusts these marvellous characters into the trials of adulthood.

Where this went by the climax was unexpected and soul-piercing. I had to pause and …

This novel will go on my list of bests without hesitation. This is a novel relevant to every generation in our current culture, an eye on the hidden secrets masked by our small successes, an ear to the unspoken truths we’ve hushed, wrought with the ugliness and selfishness that surrounds and permeates us, and complete with the beauty we become as we are purified by the fires of life’s unfair trials, leading us to perspective, giving us hope for maturity and reason and love.

There are a slew of intoxicating quotes I have kept to think on, but here is my favourite:

‘The alternative to appropriation is a world in which artists only reference their own cultures….the alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people with only white European references in it, swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European, a world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own; I hate that world, don’t you? I’m terrified of that world. And I don’t want to live in that world, and as a mixed race person, I literally don’t exist in that world…´

I suppose at this point I just have to admit that TJR’s storytelling  is not my favourite flavour. This is yet ANOTHER story about a self-centred main character, though this time the narcissism is masked beneath borderline socially-acceptable athletic ambition. However, the journey to becoming an ‘almost kind’ human being was worth enduring two-thirds of the ‘this-then-that’ sports report slash novel. If you have the time. Always great writing from Jenkins Reid, rarely a story that appeals to my preferences.

I’m not big on biographies, but still, I’d much rather have read a biography on Serena or Venus, Sharapova, Billie Jean King, or even the younger Naomi Osaka or Bianca Andreescu…This novel was like imitation meat to the real thing.

The main character is an angry whiner. She has her reasons, of course, and they are legitimate to an extent, but she is wretched to everyone—including her father. She is a self-aggrandising bully, though she tries to hide her bullying mannerisms behind a ‘drive to win’ at her sport—as if that’s honourable. Her attitude is highlighted as unsavoury throughout the novel—but that point is harped on ad nauseam and the horse is flayed bloody by the halfway mark. Jeesh. We get it: she’s an arsehole. But nobody wants to read 200 pages of someone being a jerk to everyone and justifying their crap behaviour. Do they? (Well, I’m wrong, cos apparently people love this stuff and it’s only me who doesn’t…)

Oh, here’s a positive point—I liked this quote: ‘honour is just ego’ wrapped in a social context.

Carrie is self-critical, self-absorbed, stubborn, and a perfectionist who is terrified of failure—which is another way of saying she thinks she’s better than everyone. That sort of pride is unattractive and off-putting… but there was going to be a lesson here somewhere near the end; you could smell it like B.O. in an ice hockey locker room.

I guess there’s a section of the population that might be able to relate to someone like Carrie Soto... As usual with TJR’s novels, I feel like I’m the wrong target age, wrong socio-economic bracket, wrong political leaning for her writing, and I certainly read much (tomes of pages) outside my own ‘cultural box’ (define that, if you can) and I appreciate mountains of stuff I shouldn’t be able to relate to, but I consistently have a difficult time stomaching the unrelenting justification of egotistical behaviour in a main character who won’t forgive, won’t say sorry, and revels in her own ego unable to see beyond the walls of her own world.

Current social issues are dropped in throughout to meet the industry requirements, but they seem passing or forced, and mostly insignificant. A mere nod to some real life struggles.

A third of the novel, in scattered bits, is play-by-play description of select parts of a tennis match narrated by Carrie, as she gloats at the little wins and is a terribly sore loser at the losses.

In some places, this feels like a dig, a not-so-subtle mockery of a certain tennis player’s incredible life (dad-coach, interpersonal conflicts, no-surrender attitude—magnified 10-fold and exaggerated to hyperbolic extremes) minus the quality education, elegance and dignity and international diplomacy displayed by that unnamed real-live player the fictional Soto sometimes mirrors.

I suppose some of this is about sports psychology. I suppose some of it is meant to be a subtle analysis of parental pressure, and holding onto things that are long past, and not being able to accept failure…It was mildly enlightening in the father-daughter relationship parts, and I might watch a film of it—oh but wait! No. I’ve already seen King Richard, from which this seems ripped and doctored…

I admit, Javier Soto is the best part. It’s almost redeeming when Carrie shows love for her father, but for the most part, she is a stubborn child who shuns the life lessons he offers and laughs in the face of his learned wisdom, preferring her own narrow knowledge.

Eventually, the novel took a turn for the better: Carrie gained a modicum of depth, developed a touch of real character, and despite a life of being an awful person to everyone around her, she finally made 3 friends at 37 years old. Well done.

The best parts:

It worked its way up from the 2 stars it was aggravating out of me until 75% of the way in, to 3 stars at its butt-end. Sorry TJR-lovers, I’m not a fan, and as this is my fourth (fifth?) trip down a Jenkins Reid trail, and as she certainly stirs subject matter for discussion groups, I believe I have to admit that her upper-crust settings and ego-hungry characters, her choice of particular voice, and the manner in which she executes her fictional plots, are not ever going to appeal to my tastes—eclectic as they are. No doubt, she is a fantastic writer with skills that draw you in, I just thoroughly dislike her stories, her settings, and her characters.

Social justice and human rights are at the core of this 90s cross-culture thriller that binds a Chinese inspector and an American lawyer in a web of lies and misinformation that stack layer upon layer to hide the truth about child labour and inhumane conditions in the American factories operating on Chinese soil. 

The characters are a mesh of peasants and Red Royalty, privileged city dwellers, hardworking simple farmers, the internationally educated, the indignant, and the benign, peppered with unethical journalism that justifies itself by standing upon pop-righteousness as the voice of amnesty and humanity—and the mystery remains about who is doing the murdering and why… 

Political and social issues are raised surrounding the westernisation of China, and the people are divided in their sentiments. The uprising that rails against an oppressive patriarchal legacy bathed in both communism and capitalism, and yet influenced to change by neither, is slowly gathering, despite the opposition. The novel weaves a plot of deception around very real issues that plague both Chinese and American history and current culture, issues that still have relevance these 20+ years beyond the writing of this story. And no one comes out innocent in the exposé.

Looking forward to reading the third instalment in this series.

As it’s YA, I allow for some juvenile writing—but this novel isn’t as full of it as some. It weaves a complex enough tale to raise curiosity and pique interest, dropping hints and laying clues and setting traps and trails that twist the mind in circles and braids until the big reveal at the finish. 

Well, it was a bit obvious with all the diversions and the planted innocents; the author sets up enough red herrings to distract us from seeing clearly amid the fog.

The main character is a teenager and the author does well to speak genuinely through the teenage experience, an intelligent, nerdy and reserved teenager, but authentic.

The ending was slightly disappointing. I could see where it was going, but I was still holding out hope that my suspicions would be thwarted.

I’ll read the rest of this series. Definitely holds your attention and moves along at a good pace.

An ancient mythological tale brought to life on an historical South Asian landscape, in the dialogue and intonation of modern American speech (especially as read by a young American on the audiobook), with the mystical flavour and pace typical to Asian mythology.

I wasn’t absorbed until twenty percent in—but then I couldn’t put it down. For most people, that’s too long of an introductory blurb, too long to get into the meat of the story, and yet I’d encourage anyone hovering at the beginning to press on—this novel unearths mythological gems buried beneath centuries of retelling the tale of Rami & Sita. This isn’t so much their story as the story of how we get to that story. And after years of hearing of Rami & Sita, it was good not to have them at the forefront but to hear of their mothers and fathers as young royalty.

Kaikeyi is a strong woman among men, bound to her patriarchal circumstances, and she delivers a heart-wrenching tale wrought partly by her own well-intended manipulations and entwined inextricably to the men she manoeuvres in her world like pieces on a chess board.

A weak start that blossoms into a complex and beautiful tale, with a show of delicate writing throughout, and a beautiful finish, despite the ugliness of circumstantial details.

The start felt a tad forced… too many puns and too little quality in the poetry; cheap thrills delivered in the cheap talk of sex-crazed, sex-starved (though seemingly well-educated) men who dream of the most unrealistic relationships and perpetrate wisdom from where the sun don’t shine, as if they’re pros on women, and other deep philosophical crap.

The women, on the other hand, are the sharp-tongued witty shrews Shakespeare is so fond of, with the Lady Rosalind shining most. At the end, they fall easily and without much persuasion into the so-called love offered, despite a momentary slight and misunderstanding, but I suppose when 40 was the average life-span, who had time to bother with sagacity and stability? At least the women are able to hold the men off in good sense for a time…

The rhyme scheme would have been a challenge to maintain throughout, and that for sure is a giant feat. The banter is fun, the budding of better banter yet to blossom in later comedies.

This was an early work of ole Bill’s. I think he was dodging getting the bubonic and might not have had much social interaction in the days leading up to this one. Thank goodness he refined his pen to paper in the subsequent years. There are some funny bits here, but it’s not overly smart or subtle, and the proclamations of love are like the infatuations prevalent in the lusty little lascivious novels of 2022…

Fortunately, one can always count on great narrators/actors to deliver in these Blackstone audio Arc Shakespeare productions.

This is such a 90s thriller novel giving cross-cultural vibes with settings in both China and America. The plot is full of red; red herrings; red politics; and red princes and princesses.

A fast pace with thrills, murder, mystery, mayhem, and secreted romances that race to the explosive climax and finish on a raised eyebrow.

This story works in its setting and era. Read it that way to get the full experience.

Love See’s work, but this is outside the genre she usually excels in—and it was still super.

Note for the audio: I am so glad that we’ve weaned musical accompaniments out of audiobooks since we moved to digital. I mean, sure that worked fantastic when it was on a cassette in my car or Walkman, but it’s a bit comical at 3x speed… 🤪

Since they declared it a ‘murder-suicide’ in the days following the discovery of their bodies, I didn’t believe it. Did anyone? This journalistic work does a lot to uncover the possible alternative considerations. Written with drama and pace, bouncing back and forth between the Sherman’s history, personal relationships, and professional lives, and the ‘real-time’ investigation, the book allows insight to emerge as the investigators unveil the reality of what happened to this iconic Toronto couple. 

They were normal, frugal, both heavily influence by their shared childhood experiences, and forever changed by the devastating repercussions of what their parents’ generation suffered. 

So, the question remains: who killed Barry and Honey Sherman? Because it was certainly not a ‘murder-suicide’ as first played off by the media—that just doesn’t make sense. But the list of suspects—compiled of both individuals and institutions—is long and complicated, and was likely someone close to the couple. But maybe the police couldn’t make an arrest because the perpetrator(s) had fled the country.

There are too many unanswered questions that remain, though Donovan does a superb job of raising all the buried information and filling in details where the media had previously left gaps.

Overall, the investigation that Donovan outlines in his work here is far more than anyone has yet offered to the public around this case. It is a worthwhile read for the curious Torontonians (and others) who were never satisfied with the way this case seemed razed and buried with the multimillion dollar home in which the Sherman’s bodies were discovered.

After the Race, James Joyce—this one could have stayed hidden in his practice file and none of us would have been worse off for it—is that sacrilege? It seems a page taken from a larger story, and all the plot and characterisation necessary to create interest is missing.

A Transgression, Anton Chekhov: Comes off as a bit psychotic, though it’s meant to be a moral lesson, and a sharp one at that.

Three Questions, Leo Tolstoy: three questions posed to the hermit/ wise man; this is like a parable and very well done, this was the best. The most important time is NOW. The most important thing you can do is be kind to others. 

The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin: atmospheric, a touch of feminist essence, full of characterisation and emotion and coming-of-independence, despite its brevity; and then it tumbles into an unexpected ending…

The Child’s Story, by Charles Dickens: a journey through the ages of the author as one accompanying him along the way; has the spirit of A Christmas Story; full of the stuff of life as it passes by and time slips away, and at last stage the joy circles back around.

The Open Window, by Saki: HILARIOUS. A beautiful spot of trickery. A delightful punchline to this collection.

This taste of narrators was an easy listen; I’ll be looking for other audiobooks by each.