I’m sharing an AS Level (sixth form) literature class this year, and the other teacher wanted to use Jane Eyre as the core prose text. (This whole teaching professionally thing is also why I haven’t reviewed much lately! Working on it!) So I’m re-reading this after several years—and it has been several years too many! My opinion of Jane Eyre has improved—and it was pretty high to begin with. While I’m not quite ready to award it full marks, Charlotte Brontë continues to amaze and entertain with this story of a young woman struggling to do what she thinks is right.

In my previous review, Cecily asked me if I thought this is a love story. I gave a conditional yes, reflecting upon how uncomfortable Rochester’s capricious and controlling personality made me. This was a significant source of discomfort during my re-read: I was not enjoying the forceful personalities of either Rochester or St John. I was not very enthusiastic about Jane ending up for life with Mr Rochester, considering not only how he treated his original wife (no matter how far gone she was) but how he treated Jane during their engagement. He seemed to be into her for him, rather than for her, and her needs and opinions were irrelevant compared to the opinions he had on her behalf.

Does it matter that Rochester mellows out after going blind? Does he get redeemed enough to deserve Jane? She seems to want to be with him regardless, and of course, this is her story, and it’s her choice. Thanks to the convenient inheritance that Brontë drops on her, she’s set for life and has no need to marry. Indeed, maybe that’s why Brontë chose to give Jane the inheritance—to remove any doubt in the reader’s mind that Jane’s reasons for marrying Rochester were anything other than love. (That being said, Jane’s strong sense of duty and loyalty might be motivating factors as well—she may feel compelled to care for Rochester because of their past association and the fact he has so few people left to care for him.)

It seems like Brontë has as much to say about duty as she does love. After all, that’s what motivates Rochester to care for his wife for all these years. That’s what causes Jane to leave Thornfield, and ultimately it’s probably why she returns. Brontë portrays Jane as someone who escapes the unfortunate circumstances of her birth through that heady combination of luck and determination. She makes the best of her time at Lowood. She finds a good position, and when she decides to leave, she strikes out with nowhere to go and no money to her name. Jane has balls.

Jane Eyre is very much a novel of serendipity and circumstance. It is almost classical in some ways, with Rochester’s eventual semi-tragic fate wrapped in a happy ending for the both of them. But as the title implies, it’s actually just the coming-of-age story of a young woman who finds what she sees as love even though she is not conventionally attractive. Jane has her flaws—she is awfully proud of her integrity, and is quick to judge the less constant nature of others—but I can’t help but like her, just as I like the book in which she stars.

Going to keep this review short because (a) I’m ridiculously behind on writing reviews and (2) I feel like I’ve said almost everything I can about this series in my reviews of the first book and the second book. The Ascendant Stars concludes the Humanity’s Fire trilogy (I know there’s a fourth book, but it appears to be a standalone), but if you’ve made it this far, then you know pretty much what to expect.

As with The Orphaned Worlds, this book includes a synopsis of the previous books at the beginning. I found this extremely helpful. Michael Cobley’s space opera series spans so many worlds, has a cast of so many characters, that I had no hope of remembering everything. The style of narration is somewhat pompous and melodramatic, reminding me of the narrator of the Robotech anime, which I’m currently rewatching after discovering it on Netflix. And that fits with the scope of this series, which leans heavily on the opera side of space opera.

If you have made it this far through the series, then you’re going to like The Ascendant Stars as well. The trilogy is essentially one, long book broken up into three volumes: the continuity is very tight, and there is no real difference between a break between the books and a break between chapters within one book. All the characters from the previous books are back, ready to take on the Legion of Avatars, the Godhead, the Hegemony, etc. As the various players converge upon Darien’s space and the Forerunner warpwell activates to spew forth the Legion of Avatars, everyone prepares to pitch in however they can.

By the same token, however, this book doesn’t do much that is new or different from the other books. I’m kind of over this series. They are fun adventures, but like I said in a previous review, Cobley doesn’t do anything new with this genre. He has remixed a lot of old tropes, and it’s quite well done, but it doesn’t stimulate me the way something like Linesman has. I read this book because I had a copy lying around and kind of wanted to find out how the story ends (even if I could guess at the broad strokes).

Part of me wishes Cobley slowed down enough to ponder the philosophical implications of so much of the technology here. Mind uploading, copying, etc., is commonplace—what does that mean for identity and continuity of consciousness? He comes close with regards to Catriona, who spends most of this story as a disembodied consciousness within Segrana. She exists as a kind of interface between Segrana and the Zyradin, and she ruminates on what she is now that she no longer has a body. In contrast, though, Julia turns into a “fractalized sentience” but is otherwise no worse for wear, apparently. (I will not spoil the ultimate fates of either of these characters, though.)

I appreciate the vast scope of this story. This really is space opera done right, at least in the sense of grandeur that Cobley’s storytelling evokes. It’s a double-edged sword, because this many characters and plots means it is difficult to spend enough time with everyone. And perhaps I just wasn’t in quite the right mood when reading this, maybe I actually hankered for a more character-driven novel. Whatever the reason, I wouldn’t say that The Ascendant Stars excited me as much as it could have—but if you want a vast, plot-driven, star-system–spanning story, then you could do worse than tackling this series.

My reviews of the Humanity’s Fire series:
← The Orphaned Worlds

It was OK, I guess? I expected more fire, given the title. Burn Baby Burn is more of a slow simmer, though, without much payoff. I sped through it in an afternoon, and while it was not a bad book with which to pass the time sitting outside, it also wasn’t too remarkable.

There were a few places that Meg Medina made me angry—in a good way. It’s 1977. Nora Lopez is 17, and when she should be thinking about life after high school, she is instead forced to hold her family together. Her mother is on the brink of losing her job at a packaging tape factory; she also can’t control Nora’s younger brother, Hector. He’s getting involved with the criminal element, doing and even dealing drugs. Nora’s mother turns to Nora—the good daughter, the obedient daughter, the daughter who speaks English—both to “support” Hector and intercede on the family’s behalf with the various English-speaking authorities. Nora is tired, understandably, of all this weight on her shoulders; she really just wants to save up her money so she can find a place of her own, and maybe date the hot new guy her boss hired to stock shelves and clean.

Medina’s portrayal of Nora’s family, and in particular Nora’s relationship with her mother, angered me. I was just so uncomfortable with the way her mother inveigled her into doing things her mother should be doing. As someone who was lucky enough to grow up with supportive, progressive parents, I haven’t lived Nora’s experience—but Medina’s portrayal seems to capture, as far as I can tell from my perspective, how a teenage girl might react in this situation. Nora loves her family and wants to support them, but she also has her own dreams and goals. The tension between these states is almost viscerally painful here, particularly as we approach the climax and the questions of arson, looting, and rioting come to the forefront.

Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm also stems from having watched The Get Down, which just seems to show 1977 New York City to a much better degree. Medina tries to capture the spirit of the year (which, at only 27 years old, I never witnessed myself). But we never really see that much beyond the narrow slice of people Nora interacts with. And most of the characters beyond Nora herself seem very flat, undergoing little in the way of character development throughout the book.

The ending is also particularly unsatisfying. After a dramatic, almost violent confrontation that threatens to blow apart Nora’s family, Medina wraps everything up and puts a bow on it. While there are no promises, the resolution is unusually simple considering the complexity of Nora’s situation. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not looking for a sad ending here, because we need stories about teenagers in poverty and teenagers of colour who get happy endings. It’s just discordant, given what happens to Nora, that everything comes together so neatly for her.

The romance in Burn Baby Burn is … OK, I guess? It has some subtlety to it; I appreciate how Medina has Nora articulate her sexual desire but remain wary of fooling around with Pablo until she gets to know him better, thanks to her past experiences. I like that both of them make mistakes and assumptions. They act like two teenagers trying to figure one another out, or at least this is what I would think it’s like. Yet, as with other aspects of the story, nothing about the romance really stands out.

Burn Baby Burn tries to be a character-driven novel for a YA audience. It succeeds, in the sense that it meets this definition. But aside from my reaction to Nora’s relationship with her mother, I didn’t get riled up or passionate about this story. It didn’t stir my emotions or speak to me. While I can’t claim it will be like this for everyone—maybe you’ll love it—my experience was decidedly lukewarm. It’s well-written, but it’s just not very memorable.

Treasure & Treason is the first major book in the Raine Benares series that isn’t from Raine’s point of view. Instead, Tamnais Nathrach, her formerly-dark-mage goblin ally, is the protagonist. Tam is organizing an expedition to the continent of Aquas. He hopes to beat the Khrynsani, who are working with Sarad Nukpana’s mother and evil alien invaders, to finding the Heart of Nidaar. It’s another magic rock, this one with Earth Magic instead of Soul Magic, and letting the Khrynsani control it would be bad news. Before the expedition can set out, however, Tam has to gather his crew. Treasure and Treason is more like that first part of Ocean’s Eleven where we meet all the various members of the sprawling ensemble cast. Unlike that movie, however, this book isn’t so much a heist as a quest—albeit a quest interrupted.

After my somewhat lukewarm attitude towards Wedding Bells, Magic Spells, I was very much looking forward to a book from Tam’s perspective. I hoped it would bring a freshness to the series. Shearin delivers in this respect. Tam’s voice is much huskier, more set and determined than Raine’s. Whereas Raine has a playfulness to her, which comes out even in the darkest moments, there is an edge of desperation to Tam that is no doubt a result of his days as a dark mage, steeped in the blackest of magic. Tam has seen some shit, and even if he is back on the wagon now, Shearin is careful to show us close he comes to falling off.

Treasure & Treason also showcases much more of goblin culture, albeit from Tam’s limited perspective. Characters who played minor roles in previous stories, such as Imala, or Tam’s own son, Talon, return for larger parts here. Shearin has more time to show off the structure of goblin society and explain why paranoia and intrigue are such essential parts of their lives. We really get the sense that not only are goblins used to shenanigans regarding the monarchy and, shall we say, “forced successions”, but it’s almost as if they enjoy it. Or, as Sarad puts it:

You will find that your beloved goblin people bore easily. There is no challenge in peace, no us versus them, no hunting your enemies in the dark of night. Quite frankly, you’ve taken away our collective reason to live.

Literally chills ran down my spine as I read this. Shearin’s prose is often more functional than it is beautiful, but this passage shines. Sarad’s pronouncement is chilling but reads as very true: the goblins like unrest because it is challenging. He has tapped into a question that affects us all: without adversity, what is the point of living?

Not that I’m on the soul-stealing, body-snatching, dream-invading evil goblin sorcerer’s side. Nuh-uh.

Anyway, I quite liked the story here. The first part drags on a little, in my opinion, with more exposition than I would like, before we finally get to some serious action. My favourite action scene, though, has to be when Tam gets to ride a dragon and take out another ship in the process. It’s tightly written, exquisitely paced, and extremely dramatic. I appreciate how Shearin has her characters make a plan, then when the plan inevitably turns into ashes, they improvise splendidly.

Alas, this really feels like the first half of a story instead of the full story. It takes so long to get going on this adventure that we end with a cliffhanger just as the real fun is beginning—this is more the prelude to the expedition than the expedition proper. I gather the sequel will pick up pretty much where this book leaves off. This might be a valid strategy, but I would have preferred one, longer but singular book instead of splitting the story across two books like this.

Treasure & Treason makes me think we’re in Stargate SG-1 seasons 9 and 10 territory here. The main story arc over, the cast is remixed and new problems found to extend the life of the series. That isn’t a bad thing, mind you—I liked much of seasons 9 and 10! But there’s a marked difference between the stories of the first 8 seasons and the last two, and the same can be said here. I will keep reading Shearin’s stories in this universe, because they are good, but I’m wondering if the coherence of the first Raine arc is just so strong it will overshadow everything else.

My reviews of the Raine Benares series:
← Wedding Bells, Magic Spells

I imagine being a detective is difficult enough without specializing in the supernatural. It probably helps that in Justin Gustainis’ alternative world, the existence of supernatural beings from vampires to ghouls to witches has been public knowledge since after World War II. So at least you don’t run into the common problem of everyone thinking you’re crazy. Still, solving mysteries is difficult enough when you don’t have to worry about failure meaning the end of the world as we know it.

Hard Spell takes the path less travelled in urban fantasy and lets the supernatural out of the closet. In fact, Gustainis rewrites the twentieth century to include them, and this was a source of fascination and frustration to me. Fascination, because it means Gustainis—and therefore the reader—can have fun with the laws, precedents, and policies put in place to deal with supernatural threats and crimes. Frustration, because I can’t help but think that if we lived in a world where the supernatural had been more apparent since World War II, then it would somehow be even more different than the one Gustainis portrays. Markowski essentially lives in “Scranton, with monsters”. In alternative history, changing one thing should ripple forward in a wave, not a straight line. The world shouldn’t be “the same, with monsters”. It largely is though.

This one complain aside, Hard Spell is the fairly standard urban fantasy/mystery story. Instead of a hardboiled private investigator, the main character is a Scranton PD detective by the name of Stan Markowski. I really like Gustainis’ portrayal of Markowski and his colleagues. The first-person narration has that somewhat weary, wise-cracking tone one might expect from a detective novel, but Gustainis never overdoes it. Markowski has his biases and his problems, but he genuinely cares about people—even the supernatural ones—and he’s definitely a good cop. Most of the other cops Markowski works with are the same way. This is not a book full of stereotypes of the lazy cop, the racist cop, etc. Every character has their flaws—I found Markowski’s chauvinistic attitude difficult at times—but few of them are bad people. In fact, I would argue that Markowski is remarkably well-adjusted considering how much he has experienced.

A vampire-wizard wants to make himself invincible and able to walk in sunlight. To do this, he needs to sacrifice five vampires to a Sumerian god. The last of those vampires? Stan’s daughter. So aside from, you know, preventing the world from ending, Stan has a very personal stake in this conflict. So does his sometime-ally, Vollman, the local Big Vampire on Campus. Whereas Christine is the victim, her captor and would-be killer is Vollman’s own son. After centuries of trying to reconcile with his estranged offspring, Vollman has finally come to terms with the fact that his son has to die to save the world.

These parallel progeny-related plot points are cool, but not as cool as Stan’s vampire ally. Gustainis walks the middle ground between the happy-shiny vegetarian vampires of that other vampire novel and the dark and brooding, terrifying vampires of Buffy and Stoker and Rice. In general, I lean towards the latter when it comes to fulfilling my government-mandated quota of vampire fiction—but it’s good to know that some authors can do benign vampires well. Granted, Vollman isn’t necessarily a happy-go-lucky “I love humans” kind of guy—but he doesn’t have the same sinister, “I will turn on you at any moment” vibe that a lot of reluctant vampire–human team-ups do in other books. He is a potential antagonist but not necessarily a villain, and I like that.

These shades of grey pervade the mythology of Hard Spell. In addition to vampires that aren’t straight-up evil, Gustainis populates this world with black, grey, and white magic. Witchfinders don’t care about the difference, but the law does. Although magic and witchcraft is only a small part of this book, I enjoyed seeing the various gradations at work, from the grey necromancy that Rachel does at Stan’s request to the out-and-out black magic wielded by Sligo in his quest for apotheosis. In the end, Gustainis avoids the trap of making magic the solution to everything—though I do take issue with how some things are resolved.

Consider Karl’s fate: his injury is near-mortal, and will likely be fatal because the emergency response time at an abandoned pumping station in the middle of nowhere is terrible. Meanwhile, Christine is has only just survived her near-sacrifice at Sligo’s hands, but his use of silver prevents her from healing herself unless she feeds. So Stan, too weak to do much himself, gives Christine permission to feed on Karl and make him into a vampire. He gets not to die (well, he undies, I guess), and she lives (well, unlives). Sounds like a fair deal, right?

Judging from the voiceover-style epilogue we get, Karl doesn’t seem to mind this transition from life to unlife. So I suppose I’m getting outraged over nothing, but … I hate that Stan did that without even asking Karl. He already did it once, with Christine, and now Karl? This could become habit-forming, dude. It’s great that it turned out to be everything Karl had hoped for, but to do it without even asking for his go-ahead seems callous. One would think the Supernatural Crimes division would have some kind of vampiric-transformation clause in their contract, like an organ donor card—initial here if you’re OK with becoming the undead in the event you’re mortally wounded in the line of duty.

Similarly, I’m kind of disappointed that Kulick surrenders Rachel’s body in such a straightforward way. Rachel herself seemed convinced Kulick had a more sinister ulterior motive, but when Stan has no choice but to summon him, Kulick quickly fulfils his end of the deal with no compunctions. What’s up with that? In the best urban fantasy novels, nothing goes right for the protagonist. Here, he has a wizard/vampire and a wizard’s ghost going to bat for him. That’s called stacking the deck, Gustainis, and you’re supposed to do it for the bad guys. It’s no fun if the protagonist wins because he brings superior firepower. Stan didn’t even have much of a plan!

So I’m of two minds about this book. On one hand, it is an exciting adventure in the tradition of urban fantasy mysteries. On the other hand, the story, and in particular its resolution, lacks a certain complexity and sense of challenge that I need in my fiction. I wouldn’t call Hard Spell a great book, but it seems like the beginning of something good—something that could, hopefully, aspire to greatness. Until then … I mean, it has vampires and witches and hardboiled cops saving the world. That has to count for something.

My reviews of the Occult Crimes Unit Investigation series:
Evil Dark →

Welcome back to the alternative Scranton, where the supernatural is out in the open, and Stan Markowski and his partner, the undead Karl Renfer, have to investigate supernatural crimes. Evil Dark is the second entry in Justin Gustainis’ Occult Investigations series. Stan, Karl, Christine, et al continue to process the aftermath of the first book. Then two FBI agents rock up to town, looking for some help tracking down the creators of supernatural snuff films. Stan and Karl investigate, only to find themselves on the trail of a conspiracy to incite the race war to end … well … everything.

The spoiler alert is purely about the last three pages of this book, and not so much actual details of the plot, for what it’s worth.

Too long a time has elapsed since I read Hard Spell. I had completely forgotten Stan and the other characters and anything that occurred in the first book. Fortunately, Evil Dark leaves enough breadcrumbs to let you get a morsel-sized idea of what happened. But this book is mostly self-contained. Stan has to deal with the fallout from the first book, but the mysteries are new.

Both mysteries (which, surprise surprise, turn out to be related) are interesting. Gustainis is good at describing police procedure without going into so much detail that it becomes tedious. I like that Stan is not a “shoot first, ask questions later” cop; not only does he try to do things by the book, but he goes out of his way to be courtesy both to his colleagues and to people who are in distress. The scene in which Stan talks an ogre into surrendering himself instead of shooting the ogre outright reminded me of how, in our world, cops are very quick to shoot first, particularly if the person they are confronting is Black and/or mentally ill. In Stan’s world, supernatural creatures are not de facto bad people. Some supes just want to get by. Others are criminals—just like some humans are criminals.

If you like urban fantasy mysteries, then, or like police crime novels and don’t mind a little supernatural layered on top, then Evil Dark will appeal. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “hard-boiled” or noir. But Gustainis has a lot of success translating the police procedural into an urban fantasy novel format. I can’t say I was ever bored while reading; seldom was I happy to put it down when the real world beckoned.

But what the fuck was up with those last three pages??

Look, the elephant in this book, for me, is the creepy male gaze forced down our throats by Stan-the-narrator-man. I noticed it in Hard Spell, going by my review, and it’s back and then some here. Stan can’t help but comment on the attractiveness of any female characters (who are not related to him) and whether or not he’s interested in sleeping with them. For some characters, like Lacey Brennan, this comes up repeatedly. There’s a scene where she starts stripping to her non-sexy underwear to interrogate a prisoner by sexually exciting him. Gustainis tries to play Stan as a “nice guy” by having him leave the room before Lacey gets totally naked, but it’s … just unnecessary. And while there is nothing wrong with a straight male character remarking on when he finds a woman attractive, the frequency and way in which Stan does it becomes uncomfortable, particularly given that he is the narrator. And I can’t help but wonder who Gustainis assumes his target audience is—is this just the #everydaysexism of the “wink, wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?” Because I really don’t.

I was going to mention the male gaze in any event in this review, but I was mostly going to downplay it and brush it off. Because I did enjoy this book! I want to recommend it. I want to critique it, but I want to recommend it too.

Then that little epilogue happened, and now I can’t do that.

So the story is over. The bad guys are caught (or at least discovered). We can all go home. And then in the last scene, Stan wakes up in bed next to Lacey Brennan, who is described as such:

her blonde hair disarrayed in what my partner Karl, who is known to be crude, would call a "freshly fucked look"

And then we learn that he didn’t just get it on with Lacey, no, it’s actually a threesome with the lady FBI agent who was hot for him earlier in the novel (emphasis original):

I closed my eyes, but when I opened them, Lacey was still there. "You, me, and Thorwald… celebrating? Together?"

Lacey nodded. "I don't normally do things like that, but it was a special occasion. And, besides – you know what they say."

"Uh, no, Lace – what do they say?"

"That every straight woman is just two drinks away from bisexuality. And I know I had more than two."

"OK, now I'm positive I'm dreaming," I said. "But the only complaint I have is, sooner or later, I'm gonna wake up."

I felt weight shift on the mattress to my right. The sheet moved a bit, and then Linda Thorwald was looking down at me from the other side. Her hair was pretty mussy, too.

To be clear, Stan is not dreaming. Even if he were dreaming this would be an odd and uncomfortable way to end the novel. As it is, this is just strange straight dude fantasy wish fulfillment: “awww yeah Stan saved the day and now he gets to trophy fuck the two hot, competent lady law enforcement agents written expressly for this purpose”.

It’s superfluous and, the way it’s written, gross. It’s hard enough ignoring Stan’s chauvinism for the majority of the novel, but then these last three pages are like Gustainis running up to you and slapping you with a fish of fuckery.


(Kate Stark ftw!)

I wish I could say “read Evil Dark because it’s a good urban fantasy mystery novel.” Alas, all I can say is that you shouldn’t read Evil Dark because it’s a good urban fantasy mystery novel utterly ruined by patriarchy. Which is why we can’t have nice things.

My reviews of the Occult Investigations series:
← Hard Spell

I went into The Tenant of Wildfell Hall conjecturing that Anne Brontë would prove to be the underrated sister, and my conjecture was right. Although I love and appreciate Jane Eyre, and I can see why others love and appreciate Wuthering Heights, where is the love for Anne? Charlotte and Emily get to become household names, more or less, their most famous works easily recognizable even by people who will never read them. But mention Agnes Grey or The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and you’ll often get a blank stare. It’s not fair, because this book is pure gold right here. Indeed, I’ll venture that it’s raunchier than Jane Eyre and takes even more risks than Wuthering Heights; I thoroughly disagree with Margaret Smith’s claim in the introduction that Anne lacks “mastery” of the novel form. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has not quite claimed my adoration in the way many of Hardy or Eliot’s works have, but it still has its own magic.

Let’s start with discussing the narration, because it’s something that jumped out at me almost immediately. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an interesting example of the Victorian novel. Like many of its brethren, it is epistolary in nature. However, the initial narrator is not the eponymous tenant, as I expected it would be. Instead, the framing narrative is a series of letters written by Gilbert Markham to his friend, J. Halford. Only after eavesdropping of Shakespearean dimensions does Gilbert confront Helen and obtain the journals in her own hand, which he subsequently transcribes (without a photocopier, yikes) for Halford’s private amusement (great guy, this Gilbert). Thus the middle half of the novel transpires from Helen’s perspective, and is, in essence, a flashback that explains and justifies her presence at Wildfell Hall. After her journal concludes, the novel returns to Gilbert’s perspective, where he reacts to what he has learned and tries his best to make amends.

This split narration allows Brontë to showcase her ability to write with both male and female voices. She aptly portrays a young country squire whose chief concerns are managing his family’s property, socializing, and keeping one eye open for marriageable young ladies in his social circle. Gilbert is kind but not particularly deep; he is mostly a foil to the scurrilous Arthur Huntingdon. Whatever his character, though, he is most striking because Brontë captures a young man’s voice so well. You see him confess his attractions to Eliza Millward, to Helen, even as he muses on how inappropriate these might be. Brontë depicts his insensitivity to (or insensibility of) Helen’s awkward social status as the reclusive tenant of Wildfell Hall. Gilbert understand propriety but sometimes allows his passion and youth to override his sensibilities.

When we switch to Helen’s voice, we see propriety reinforced by a bulwark of staunch, salvationist Christian belief. Helen is quite moral, a characteristic both demonstrated by her actions and remarked upon by numerous characters, who frequently liken her to an angelic being. It seems important to Brontë that we perceive Helen as faultless, at least in the case of her marriage. Helen perseveres in her marriage to Huntingdon even when it becomes almost unbearable; she acknowledges she misjudged his initial character, but she sees it as her duty to stay entwined with him. She only leaves him, ultimately, for the sake of her son; ensuring he is raised properly is a higher duty than remaining with her husband.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has me itching to read Middlemarch again, which also features marriages that turn out unhappily. This is a recurring motif in many a classic Victorian novel, particularly those by women—probably because, with divorce requiring an Act of Parliament, marriage was quite a shackling state for both parties, but men were allowed to be much looser in their behaviour and dalliances than women could, if they wanted their reputations to remain intact. Brontë certainly remarks on this double standard, though she doesn’t go so far as to criticize it in the way that Eliot does. Multiple men offer Helen an opportunity to do as Huntingdon does; she rebukes each offer with harsh criticism. Brontë would prefer neither partner to be unfaithful. Both Alice Lowborough and Arthur Huntingdon are punished for the infidelity with death; the former dies “in penury” and alone while the latter has at least his faithful wife by his side. Only characters who take steps to reform, like Lord Lowborough or Ralph Hattersley, are allowed to live and prosper. This, along with Helen’s constant and consistent upbraiding of all the men she meets, from Hargrave to Huntingdon to Gilbert, creates a strong current of Christian morality throughout the book. Therefore, Brontë is reflecting on the tragedy of women essentially being forced into unhappy and unfaithful marriages, but she is also promulgating a moral duty, on the part of both men and women, to behave better to each other and make these relationships work.

I love the gradual way in which Brontë shows Helen’s marriage deteriorating. First we have the actual courting, of course, with various and sundry characters opining one way or the other on the sense of marrying Huntingdon. In this society, this is perhaps the most important decision a woman will make. Across many such Georgian and Victorian novels, we often see that marrying for love does not, in fact, work out very well. The characters whose voices we initially ignore for their focus on status, or wealth, or simple propriety, turn out to be prescient in their assessment of the quality of a romantic match. Yet Helen succumbs, the marriage goes ahead, and then it starts to unravel.

The warning signs, the rumblings, oh, the portents! He rushes her through their Continental honeymoon, because he had seen all the sights before! He abandons her frequently for months at a time to gamble and carouse in London. He is slow to love or appreciate their child, because young Arthur diverts Helen’s attentions from him. Yet Brontë true masterstrokes come in his transformation from rogue to outright villain. He is openly unfaithful, encourages his child to drink and swear, etc. These scenes are mild by our standards, but they are outright scandalous by Victorian standards, to the point where reviewers remarked that the book might not be suitable for ladies’ eyes, such distress it might cause! In other words, Brontë pulls no punches in her portrayal of an emotionally abusive relationship. It is both disconcerting and delightful, in a literary sense, to see this happen before our eyes.

This is where I disagree with the estimable introduction writer, Margaret Smith. She claims that Brontë shows us Helen through Gilbert’s eyes, but not vice versa. Moreover, we might “forget” Gilbert altogether in the middle of the novel because we don’t see him reacting as he reads and transcribes Helen’s journal. I’d argue, however, that we don’t need to see Gilbert through Helen’s eyes. This isn’t a flaw in Brontë’s writing but a reasonable decision. We know what Helen thinks of Gilbert through her conduct around him, through the fact that she gives him these journals in the first place. Similarly, we don’t need to remember Gilbert in the middle part of the novel. His reaction at the end is sufficient.

I concur with Smith that the ending is somewhat more sanguine than one might expect given the tragic body of this story. It all shakes out a little too well, a little too conveniently. Far be it from me to want a tragic ending (though, I do like some of Hardy’s more tragic tales…). Nevertheless, after attempting to depict what she views as an unacknowledged reality within her society, Brontë opts for some marital hyperbole. I don’t see this as diminishing the power of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but the last few chapters are probably the least interesting parts of the book. This is a shame, because there is interesting commentary to be had on Gilbert and his understanding of his social status vis-à-vis Helen, whose situation changes dramatically in the last few chapters. It’s all just so rushed, though.

There is a temptation—I certainly succumbed to it, at times—for modern readers to view books like this through a haughty lens. We snicker, or react with condescending horror, at the constraints that women faced in this society. For women in Helen, Millicent, Esther’s positions, marriage was often the only respectable escape, and marriage was, if not forced on one, at least foisted upon one like an unlooked-for extra helping of gruel. Brontë depicts this admirably, and we are entertained and a little shocked. But I have to ask—is it really all that better these days?

I mean, yes, women have the appearance of more liberty in our society now. But we still see women marrying men because they view it as an “out” from their present situation. We see women staying with men who are abusive, or at the very least unhealthy for them, for a panoply of reasons, ranging from children to, as Helen does, wanting to care for the partner who has let them down so completely. In many situations, women who leave their husbands still face censure; women who are unfaithful face a double standard compared to men who sleep around … the way we talk about sex and romance and relationships has definitely changed since Anne Brontë’s time, but the morality and mores seem quite similar. Judgment is swift for women who do not toe the line.

So that’s what The Tenant of Wildfell Hall left me thinking about, not the society Brontë depicts for us in the book, but the one we currently inhabit. Feminism has made great strides, but we have much further to go before Helen’s situation seems almost too alien to fathom. Until then, this book still has incredible relevance to readers of today; it is also brilliantly, compassionately, empathetically written. Anne Brontë has as much skill, if not more, than her two sisters, and a truly just society would put all three Brontës into the literary spotlight. They are sublime, and this book is sublime, and I highly recommend it.

Buckle up and make sure you’re wearing your g-suit, because this is one of those rare books that live up to all the hype. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth comes with ridiculously high expectations: it has a bunch of awards, and everyone gives it such glowing reviews. So, naturally, I tempered my excitement. As anyone who has read my reviews knows, I love space and science fiction. I welcomed the opportunity to read a book written by someone who has actually been to space. But I was not prepared for how inspirational and genuine Chris Hadfield’s storytelling would be.

I could quote a lot of this book in an effort to try to convince you it’s worth reading. I have underlined, annotated, and emphasized so many passages. Here’s one from the introduction:

Throughout all this I never felt that I’d be a failure in life if I didn’t get to space. Since the odds of becoming an astronaut were nonexistent, I knew it would be pretty silly to hang my sense of self-worth on it. My attitude was more, “It’s probably not going to happen, but I should do things that keep me moving in the right direction, just in case—and I should be sure those things interest me, so that whatever happens, I’m happy.”

Plenty of people dream of becoming astronauts. When Hadfield’s dream began at 9 years old, he also recognized that it was a long-shot. Canada didn’t yet have a space agency, and when it did, the selection process for astronauts was ridiculously competitive and often required a lot of luck. Then again, so much of life is like that. Hadfield’s philosophy, as articulated above, is level-headed and applicable to pretty much any aspirations: if you predicate all your self-worth on a mere possibility of the future; if you define success only by a single, perhaps unattainable goal, then you will spend a lot of your life unfulfilled and unhappy.

I suppose, in retrospect, the book’s title should have forewarned me; nevertheless, I didn’t anticipate how much of Hadfield’s thinking is relevant to our everyday life. Much of what he espouses fits with philosophies of mindfulness and self-compassion, which are increasingly popular these days and are things I am striving for within my life.

As a teacher, I keep coming back to how much of what Hadfield says applies to education too. He notes that the life of an astronaut is a life of constant learning, both in the traditional form of classrooms and tests as well as on-the-job experiences. There is no such thing as “knowing all there is to know” when you’re an astronaut; you’re constantly learning new things, training on new systems, and re-training on the old ones. The same goes for teaching, and indeed, I suspect it’s true for most careers. And Hadfield emphasizes that the process of learning is a communal effort:

The debrief is a cultural staple at NASA, which makes this place a nightmare for people who aren’t fond of meetings. During a sim, the flight director or lead astronaut makes notes on major events, and afterward, kicks off the debrief by reviewing the highlights: what went well, what new things were learned, what was already known but needs to be re-emphasized. Then it’s a free-for-all. Everyone else dives right in, system by system, to dissect what went wrong or was handled poorly. All the people who are involved in the sim have a chance to comment on how things looked from their consoles…. It’s not a public flog: the goal is to build up collective wisdom.

I love this idea of debriefing and want to use it in the classroom. I’ve recently gone gradeless, attempting instead to re-focus students’ attention on what really matters: the actual learning, the use of feedback and self-assessment to monitor and improve learning, and community in the classroom. Debriefs, or guided discussions, are nothing new to a classroom, of course, but Hadfield articulates the process here clearly and empathetically. Throughout the book, he points out that it’s possible to be helpful and to provide constructive criticism without tearing people down.

Hadfield writes with humility despite being one of the few humans who have visited space. He chronicles the majesty and wonder of space flight with all the zeal one might expect of an astronaut. Reading his description of the nail-biting, g-force–inducing ascents and descents, with the miracle of life in microgravity in between, truly rekindles all the passion and enjoyment for stories of space travel that I have felt ever since I started watching Star Trek in my childhood. Hadfield also explains, in sometimes too-great detail, the mundane aspects of life in space, such as how he pees into a cup (for science) when weightless…. Suffice it to say, I don’t want to be an astronaut. And as much as we romanticize the career, it’s clear that the life of an astronaut is more waiting to be in space than actually being in space, and that life in space is not all it’s cracked up to be.

The last few chapters of the book are as heartbreaking as they are honest and amazing. Hadfield recounts his third and last mission to space, sharing the feelings of the final re-entry and his subsequent retirement from the CSA. It’s bittersweet, and Hadfield doesn’t mince words as he shares some of his melancholy moments—but overall, the tone is one of enduring appreciation and pride. He has so much enthusiasm for his ongoing goals to educate and inspire passion for human space flight. We get a little blasé about pictures from space these days, I feel, just because the Internet makes it easy to disseminate them so quickly. Seeing the Earth from space in person must be such a different, jaw-dropping experience, though. Even having read his description of it, I cannot imagine what it must be like to gaze at the Earth from the Cupola of the ISS, knowing it’s the very last time you will ever see the planet in this way in person.

Hadfield closes by reminding us to find satisfaction in the small things in life:

If I’d defined success very narrowly, limiting it to peak, high-visibility experiences, I would have felt very unsuccessful and unhappy during those years. Life is just a lot better if you feel you’re having 10 wins a day rather than a win every 10 years or so.

And just like that, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth is a welcome tonic to the voices that encourage us to measure success in the currency of celebrity or wealth or visibility. We define what success means to us. I have no reservations recommending this book: it’s a great, interesting, uplifting read.

I read We Are the Ants in a single day, because despite its prodigious size and the demands on my time, I really enjoyed its narrative. Shaun David Hutchinson’s writing style is slick and very readable. There’s a lot in this novel I enjoyed, and only a little bit I didn’t like. But in order to really dig into that, I have to spoil some of the ending for you. You have been warned.

Trigger warnings in this book for suicide and suicide ideation, bullying, and abuse.

Henry Denton is in high school. Henry Denton is abducted irregularly by aliens he calls the “sluggers”, for their slug-like appearance, who eventually reveal to him that he can avert the catastrophic end of all human life on Earth simply by pushing a button. He has 144 days to make up his mind. Much of his experience thus far has him leaning on the “don’t press” side of the equation. This is the story of those 144 days, the boy he meets who might change Henry’s mind, and the bullying and trauma that might not.

I’m going to start with the ending, because hey, if I’m flagging this review for spoilers, I might as well go big or go home. I love the ending. I think it’s a perfect ending for this book.

My number 1 fear all throughout reading We Are the Ants was that Hutchinson’s ending would disappoint. I just wasn’t sure how he could satisfy me either way: obviously Henry had to push the button, right? Or if he didn’t, well then, what an unsatisfactory and nihilistic book this would be. In retrospect, the postmodernist twist of not letting Henry make the choice, of making Henry and the reader doubt whether the sluggers even existed, of never reaching Day Zero and never revealing, therefore, whether or not the world actually ends … I mean, sure, maybe it was obvious to everyone else who reads this. But it sneaked up on me, and it just works so well with the rest of the book.

The last act of the book feels so careful to me. It’s as if Hutchinson wants to give Henry a happy ending but doesn’t want to obviate the pain and suffering of the first two acts; he doesn’t want to oversimplify or just give younger readers the tired truism that “it gets better”. So what we see instead are a series of overlapping vignettes that each contain a mixture of hope and discord. Zooey’s miscarriage, for instance, is so shattering. Yet we see her and Charlie and the rest of the family start off on the path moving forward. Nana’s gradual but inexorable succumbing to Alzheimer’s is heartbreaking, yet we see her family rally in an attempt to provide her with as much dignity as she can snatch in the years she has left. The scene in her room in the nursing home, with all the photos and journal entries, is so kind and amazing that I teared up. Henry’s mom finally takes the step of quitting her waitress job and finally taking a job as a chef—and it won’t magically fix their family overnight, but it’s a step in the right direction.

This is the message of We Are the Ants, and it’s a good one: life is a mixture of good things and bad things and in-between things. Anyone who tells you that you can achieve a life of only good things is lying. But we can work, with each other, to try to make the good outweigh the bad.

I’m not as certain how I feel about the beginning of the novel. I don’t really like Henry’s voice at the beginning. But I’m not a gay teenage boy in South Florida, either, so part of that might just be how I relate (or don’t relate) to him as a character. I have a very upbeat, mellow, and optimistic outlook on the world, so it’s hard for me to get into Henry’s head-space. Similarly, I don’t have enough experience to judge whether Hutchinson’s depiction of people trying to move on from a close friend’s suicide is done well or not. I like the gradual and non-linear way in which Henry and Audrey rekindle their friendship. I like the gradual and non-linear way in which Henry and Diego start a relationship, how neither is really sure if it’s friendship or romance or whatever.

Indeed, We Are the Ants is probably most notable because it excels at embracing the messiness of life. In refusing to simplify his narrative for the sake of YA or the sake of a happy ending, Hutchinson’s writing achieves a strength and nobility that is moving and highly effective. I don’t quite love it, but I still recommend it. I think there are teens out there who could find solace and rescue in this book; and there are also adults out there for whom this book might reveal or remind of a world they have since left behind.

Infernal Devices is the story of George, an unremarkable man with no major talents who has inherited his father’s watchmaker shop. Various zany characters show up and drag him into an intricate conspiracy reminiscent of H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, and mostly, in my mind, Jules Verne. K.W. Jeter propels George through increasingly dangerous, nonsensical, over-the-top adventures powered by steampunk, bravado, and sheer imagination. This is an adventure in the classical sense, and as a work of literary fiction it’s quite fascinating. As a story, I’m not sure I’m as enthralled.

Jeter’s style explicitly apes that of late-nineteenth-century narrators. For this reason it reminds me a lot of Wells and Verne, more so Verne, maybe, for the sheer grandiosity of imagination here. We have long-lost civilizations of merpeople, vibration engines that can destroy the Earth, holy armies ready to defend England against the scourge of fish-people, and so on. The technology is just beyond the reach of what you’d expect for the time period, much like we would see in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but Jeter, like Verne, is careful to offer up pseudo-scientifical explanations for these devices.

As a literature lover, I’m intrigued by the narration and writing style. George is verbose and writes with the same kind of florid hyperbole one might encounter in Dracula or The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s very different from contemporary storytelling techniques, and it wears on one. I can’t say that I like it, and it’s one thing to wade through it because that was how people wrote “back in the day” and another thing to have to do it because of a conscious stylistic choice by a modern-day writer…. Additionally, Jeter also portrays George as an infuriatingly passive narrator: he is always reacting to what is around him rather than taking action; he just lets the story happen to him. That being said, I’m not sure how much I can criticize Jeter here, because this is exactly what he’s doing: he’s not attempting to emulate this style out of a misguided sense that it will sound better, but rather, he’s trying to emulate the entire experience of a nineteenth-century science-fiction novel, strange narrative and all.

Moreover, George is just such an unlikable person. I wanted him to get run over by a cab after about the first chapter, and my opinion only worsened as the story developed. He is a complaining, judgmental narcissist. This is totally intentional, again, but I still don’t necessarily enjoy watching him, if only because he seems like he’s supposed to be a sympathetic (if unlikable) protagonist.

That’s why I called Infernal Devices an interesting piece of literary fiction. It doesn’t strike me as steampunk and science fiction except only incidentally. In this way, Jeter is playing a kind of game of meta-genre, wherein Infernal Devices doesn’t so much transcend genre as use genre as a tool for storytelling. That’s an interesting and worthwhile goal.

But that doesn’t make me like it any better.

Experiments are all well and good, but at the end of the day, I like story. You might love Infernal Devices just as a story if Verne and Wells, et al, float your boat. For me, though, it’s underdeveloped and underwhelming, and Jeter’s writing doesn’t help. It’s just not my cup of tea.

Oh, and really, what is it with the male protagonists having to have sex with a woman as a necessary part of the plot? No thank you.