Honestly didn’t have much interest in reading anything else by Dan Wells—not that I consider him a poor writer, but his particular fare holds little interest for me in general. However, the premise of this book is good enough that I decided, since it was on offer as part of a 3 for $10 sale, I’d give it a try. It pretty much met my expectations: Extreme Makeover is a competent, slightly bizarro SF thriller that never really transcends its tropes. Nevertheless, credit to Wells for occasionally attempting to plumb the depths of the human condition, even if he usually bobs right back up to the surface.

Lyle Fontanelle is the chief chemist at NewYew, a cosmetics pharmaceutical company. His latest creation, a burn treatment, turns out to be an anti-aging goldmine. Except that it also transforms people into genetic (and therefore physical) clones of the DNA of the person imprinted on a batch of the lotion. When the supply of this product, ReBirth, makes its way into mainstream society, the world soon begins to crumble. It might be all Lyle’s fault, or the fault of the greedy corporate executives at NewYew, or the fault of lax governmental regulations, or … you know what, maybe humans are just terrible?

First off, I don’t know about the edition you read, but my edition has one of the worst covers I’ve ever seen. Specifically, the front cover is fine. The back cover’s contrast is so awful that I could barely make out the cover copy. Really bad design decision there, and while it has no bearing on the quality of the story within, it almost made me pass up reading this one (3 for $10…).

Each chapter starts with a countdown advising us of the number of days until the world ends. At first I liked the countdown. Then I didn’t like it. Now I just don’t know. It was kind of the reverse of page numbers, I guess? I started getting antsy as we neared the end, because it didn’t actually seem like the end of the world was imminent.

Extreme Makeover suffers from being too tightly constrained to the perspectives of a small number of characters. We seldom get a chance to experience what is happening in the world beyond Lyle’s or Susan’s or a handful of other characters’ experiences. Everything we learn about how other people use ReBirth is related to us secondhand. For a novel that has truly global stakes, that makes it difficult, at least in my opinion, to really understand the stakes.

And Lyle is just … not an interesting person to me. I’ll give Wells some credit for trying to make him a dynamic character. He does get better over the year as he realizes how short-sighted he has been. But the whole “mediocre white man dreams of success while chasing his lab assistant” is an icky origin story for any protagonist. Maybe this is all intentional, all part of the horror of everyone turning into Lyles … but it’s just a little bit sad too.

Beyond its summer blockbuster thriller-esque premise, Extreme Makeover has very little going for it. There are moments when it seems like Wells is about to go some place deeper, whether it’s the fruitless quibbling between UN representatives, or the concentration camp commentary with the Lyles. Yet the novel never really seems willing to go that far, instead shrinking back into its comfortable cocoon of horror-thriller clichés, including the ragtag survivors holing up on an island, so to speak. Throw in the truly bizarre jump-cut ending, and … well … no satisfaction here.

I kind of expected this going in. It was a pleasant enough way to pass the time; if you like SF thrillers more than me then you might like this a lot more. I figured the worst that might happen is I shrug, and I am, but that’s about it.

Well, this is definitely a story. About English. And it is very rude (lots of swearing, archaic and present-day). So in that sense, I suppose Tom Howell delivers exactly what is promised by the title The Rude Story of English.

I really hesitate to call this a work of non-fiction. Oh, there are facts in here. But Howell is very careful to hide them amongst a quite frankly impressive cornucopia of tall tales and speculation, or as he calls it, asterisking. He proposes to explain the evolution of English over the centuries through the perspective of an unusually long-lived protagonist called Hengest, whom Howell co-opts from a quasi-historical Angle believed to have landed on the shores of Britain in AD 449. Hengest consciously and unconsciously influences the development of English from an offshoot of continental Germanic tongues into the imperialistic, colonial juggernaut it became today. As Howell races through the centuries, he concentrates on the rudest, most inappropriate parts of the story.

It’s meant to be funny and entertaining, obviously, and in some ways it is. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I laughed out loud that much. Honestly, “rude” humour has never been my favourite type; it was more so the drier parts of the book that got to me. But if you do like your humour rude and crude, you would probably enjoy this a lot more.

So don’t get the impression that, as I bang on about how this isn’t a very academic book, and it’s really hard sometimes to tell if Howell is being serious or just fabricating yet another tale, that I am condemning The Rude Story of English. I just want my review to make it clear, for anyone thinking of reading this but not sure what they’re getting into, what to expect from this book. You are not getting an academic, heavily-cited work here. That isn’t to say Howell is ignorant or uninteresting or that you will learn nothing of English’s history. Just … take whatever you do learn with a grain of salt. Maybe don’t go around repeating it at parties. (Or maybe do, and that’s why you keep getting invited to parties—I’m not the expert at this.)

I will admit to learning (shock, gasp, horror) some things from this book. For one, Howell does a great job showcasing the difficulty of piecing together the historical record. So much of the early printed English word just doesn’t exist anymore. It’s like a fossil record: sometimes there are missing links, specimens we must infer rather than have direct knowledge of. Howell points out how little we might know of someone, or of their work, and the extent to which historians over the centuries have fabricated or exaggerated the facts to help their theories. This book is a good reminder that “history” is not this single, received story set in stone but is indeed a quixotic, problematic, constantly evolving story incredibly vulnerable to the whims and biases of those who tell it.

Not a fan of the illustrations and diagrams, myself, but if you like that sort of thing you might really enjoy them here too.

The Rude History of English didn’t work great on me, but I can easily see it working great for other people.

I learned about Hope Never Dies from Twitter, and am I ever glad I did. I don’t read a lot of spoofs and parodies, but when I do, I like to read ones like Andrew Shaffer’s. It is delightful.

Joe Biden has been out of office for a while now, and while his former friend Barack is living the high celeb life, old Joe is … well, feeling his age. His life gets shaken up when, one day, an Amtrak conductor Joe knew from his days of riding those rails turns up dead under mysterious circumstances. Barack warns Joe that this conductor might have been targeting Joe for some reason … and slowly, the two of them, plus Barack’s Secret Service bodyguard, are drawn into a criminal conspiracy that stretches as far as the suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware. Along the way, there are car chases, gun fights, and serious bro discussions about friendship.

Buckle up.

Look, Real Talk™ for a moment. Barack Obama was an historic president for his race and other reasons, yes, and like every single President of the United States, he is also hugely problematic. Being a Black Democratic President did not make him immune from controversial decisions, strategies, and executive orders. Remember how Gitmo was going to be closed? How about those drone strikes? So, in endorsing and enjoying this book, I’m not here to lionize Obama’s legacy or endorse the idea that another old white guy should have been the Democratic nominee instead of Hillary Clinton. Hope Never Dies works precisely because it is a parody piece. It imagines a dafter, lighter universe in which Barack and Biden are buddy-buddies, able to engage in this kind of odd-couple road mystery comedy shenanigans.

And, really really, I just really needed this at this moment in history, and I am certain I’m not alone. Full disclosure: I’m not American, I’m Canadian (and white, and a man), so I’m very insulated from a lot of the bizarro universe stuff that’s happening south of my border. To be fair, though, my province (Ontario) just elected Donald Trump Lite (Doug Ford) and his Progressive Conservative government has, in a few weeks, already begun to run rough-shod over anything remotely socialist or progressive within our province.

I’ve really avoided watching darker TV shows lately. I have so many Black Mirror episodes to watch, but I just can’t. I can’t handle that darkness. The best I can do is Good Girls, which is so brilliant; mostly I’ve just watched reruns of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and other extremely humorous, light-hearted shows. I need that in my life.

I need to know that hope never dies.

Shaffer nails Biden’s characterization, or at least, as someone who knows literally nothing about Joe Biden beyond the fact that he was the Vice President of the United States, I think Shaffer nails it. He has clearly done his research. Biden’s voice sounds exactly like one might imagine from an older Democratic politician from Delaware. His similes and metaphors are on point, as is the way he interprets and navigates the world around him. In other words, Shaffer didn’t just take a generic “amateur sleuth” character template and paste Joe Biden’s name and profile features onto it: he took the time to really make this main character feel like a credible simulacrum of the public persona of Joe Biden.

Similarly, I really enjoyed the way Shaffer portrays Obama. Remember that this is all through Faux-Biden’s first-person perspective, and as such is unreliable. Barack comes off as a bit of a know-it-all! He constantly corrects, interjects, and explains at length when no one asked a question. He’s the guy who knows something about everything, and he can’t help but tell you about it.

Honestly, the mystery was the least attractive element. The climax sort of sneaks up on you, and the villain is a bit of a stretch. It makes sense, and I guess in some ways it’s a trope of the genre, but it’s one of those things that I either missed the signposts for, or else the turn-off was buried between two legitimate exits and I never had a chance. But I didn’t come here for the mystery. I came for Barack and Joe’s bromance, and this book delivers.

Hope Never Dies is far from the best spoof I’ve read, but it is good enough. And for its purpose, that is enough. If, like me, you briefly want to live in a universe where Barack Obama and Joe Biden drive a suped-up Escalade and then talk about their feelings, then you should read this book.

Do you ever accidentally inhale a book? Like, you meant to read it with your eyes, but, whoops, suddenly there it is, lodged in your esophagus and now you have to go to the hospital and explain, in various gestures, how you breathed in an entire book? This happens to me more often than I would like to admit. So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo, is just the latest instance. Thankfully, this was an eARC from NetGalley (thanks Perseus Books) and not a physical volume—though I’m certainly going to need to buy one, or maybe two, when it comes out.

This book is the first in what will hopefully be an avalanche of books to plug an embarrassing hole in my ongoing education. I’m trying to ride the intersectionality train, but if I’m doing an honest accounting of things, I have not been doing a great job of reading books by Black women when it comes to issues like feminism and race. It has literally been a whole year since I read Roxane Gay’s amazing short story collection Difficult Women. More recently I did read Between the World and Me, and Coates obviously touches on some of the same issues that Oluo does here. But the two books are very different, both in terms of audience and purpose.

So You Want to Talk About Race is clear and upfront about what it is and what it is trying to do. Oluo is uncompromising (emphasis mine):

So a good question to ask yourself right now is: why are you here? Did you pick up this book with the ultimate goal of getting people to be nicer to each other? Did you pick up this book with the goal of making more friends of different races? Or did you pick up this book with the goal of helping fight a system of oppression that is literally killing people of color? Because if you insist on holding to a definition of racism that reduces itself to “any time somebody is mean to somebody of a different race” then this is not the book to accomplish your goals.

Each chapter title is a question, the chapter being Oluo’s answer: “What if I talk about race wrong?”, “Why am I always being told to check my privilege”, “What is cultural appropriation?”, “What are microaggressions?”, “I just got called racist, what do I do now?”—there seventeen, so I won’t list them all here, but they are, every single one, fantastic. I could go on, chapter-by-chapter, for quite some length about all the wonderful parts of this book. Instead, I’ll highlight some of her explanation of cultural appropriation:

Cultural appropriation is the product of a society that prefers its culture cloaked in whiteness. Cultural appropriation is the product of a society that only respects culture cloaked in whiteness. Without that—if all culture (even the culture that appropriators claim to love and appreciate) were equally desired and respected, then imitations of other cultures would look like just that—imitations. If all cultures were equally respected, then wearing a feathered headdress to Coachella would just seem like the distasteful decision to get trashed in sacred artifacts….

… because we do not live in a society that equally respects all cultures, the people of marginalized cultures are still routinely discriminated against for the same cultural practices that white cultures are adopting and adapting for the benefit of white people.

I’ve had the cultural appropriation conversation with fellow white people before, and I’ve struggled to explain it sufficiently (the best I can do is link to this explainer from Everyday Feminism). Oluo’s chapter has helped me to realize that, often, I make the mistake of letting the conversation fall back into the unproductive territory of discussing specific examples (“well what about X, is X cultural appropriation?”) when (a) I can’t answer that because I’m not a member of that culture and (b) that’s not actually what cultural appropriation is about. Cultural appropriation, as Oluo explains here, is about the wider trends and power imbalances within our society. It’s why, to certain parts of white society, Macklemore is an artist while Tupac was a thug. But my conversations would often divert away from these crucial parts of the discussion, straying towards the more defensive territories (see Chapter 16: “I just got called racist, what do I do now?”).

This book is full of so many useful ideas, tips, and strategies—particularly for white people who want to be allies to racialized people. The aforementioned chapter 16 and chapter 4, which deals with privilege and “checking” it, are both essential reminders, even for someone like myself who has already been engaging with social justice for a while now. I’ve carefully avoided using the word “primer” to describe this book. It’s accurate, but I don’t want to pigeonhole it as some kind of introductory text. Certainly, if you are a newcomer to these issues, this book is accessible. But there is so much here for readers of every level of familiarity with the issues. If you are truly open to learning more about social justice and how to dismantle institutionalized racism, you are going to find useful ideas here, in plain language you’ll understand, and in a tone that helps you hear her frustration but also her intense empathy for humanity, and her hope for a better future (because you don’t write a book like this if you think dismantling racism is a lost cause). Oluo’s writing style never wavers from being confrontational and candid—she is not trying to appease anyone—but it’s also witty and incisive.

A few parts of this book get a little bit into specifics of American anti-Black racism, but by and large, almost all of the topics for discussion are relevant to a wider audience. As Oluo herself points out, Canada has its share of problems with racism. (A lot of it is directed much more vociferously towards Indigenous people—if you want momre information on that, check out Chelsea Vowel’s Indigenous Writes, or Tanya Talaga’s Seven Fallen Feathers, about the intersection of racism and violence in my own city of Thunder Bay. For writing on anti-Black racism in Canada, particularly state-sponsored racism like carding and brutality, I’ll point you towards Desmond Cole.) Moreover, Canada absorbs (whether we like it or not) much of its cultural fare from our neighbours down south, so even if policies like affirmative action or United States Supreme Court decisions don’t quite affect us in the same way, the attitudes seen in media and the language being used still does. I never felt like Oluo was losing me by spending too much time talking about American-specific concerns.

So I can make a few guarantees, here. First, if you read this, you’re going to learn something—hopefully lots of things. Oluo will crystallize notions that might already be forming in your head or introduce you to ideas and show you a new way entirely of looking at things. Second, if you read this, you will come away with a praxis for actually doing the work—it isn’t enough to read books like this and then pat yourself on the back for being “woke”. That’s what the final chapter is all about, and boy, are there ever some practical tips. That’s why I’m going to be buying a copy of this book since I received a review copy for free—because we need to pay Black women when they do the work of educating us.

So You Want to Talk About Race is everything I’d look for in a book on social justice issues. It’s informative, educational, and thought-provoking. It is topical in the post-Trump sense of the word. It hits that sweet spot of being academic and smart but also accessible—this is by far one of my favourite non-fiction books I’ve read all year, and probably the best I’ve received on NetGalley (Beyond Trans and The Radium Girls are close runners-up).

If you are at all interested in social justice, in dismantling racism, in making our world a better place, this is a must-read. Show up. Do the work.

Whoaaaaa, it has been five years since I reread Foundation! I didn’t realize how long it had been. I’ve had Foundation and Empire, and most of the other books, sitting in a pile in my old bedroom for a long time. For some reason, I had it in my head that Second Foundation, the one book I was missing, was the second book in the series (I wonder why); I was waiting and waiting to find a battered, old copy of it at my used bookstore and never did. Eventually I broke down and bought it new, only to discover I could have kept going with the series anyway….

I was 23 when I reread the first book, and now I’m nearly 29! I feel like an entirely different person from 23-year-old Ben, let alone whatever delicate age I was when I first read this book. My key takeaway from this reread? Isaac Asimov is actually a crap writer. Strap in for a fun ride (or, if you are an Asimov diehard fan, maybe just … close this tab), because I am going to pick this thing apart.

Whereas the original book was a collection of short stories that, together, formed a larger plot, Foundation and Empire collects two novellas, “The General” and “The Mule”. Set some time after the first book, these stories tell, respectively, of the Galactic Empire’s last strike against the nascent Foundation, and of the rise of an eponymous mutant whose very existence throws off Hari Seldon’s precious psychohistorical predictions for the Foundation’s ascendance and safeguarding of the galaxy.

I see in my review of the first book I observed that it was mostly dialogue, and maybe that’s why it escaped the criticism I’m going to level here. Asimov’s prose is just bad. Like, someone did not restrain his access to the adverb vault. This is particularly egregious in the way he tags dialog. He has a great aversion to said, and when he must resort to it, he never fails to pair it with an adverb. Here’s a representative sample from a single page:

- Cleon II said peevishly
- Brodrig said patiently
- The Emperor sneered nastily
- said Brodrig smoothly
- Cleon II frowned heavily
- The Emperor laughed shortly

After a while, this started to grate on me. But it’s still possible to overlook it, right? I mean, writing style isn’t everything, as long as there is a good story….

Foundation and Empire isn’t all that impressive, story-wise. In “The General” we’re treated to an ambitious but frustrated eponymous antagonist: he yearns for the days of conquest, and going after the mysterious Foundation seems like the best way to reprise those. The story suffers for lack of a strong protagonist, though; the two characters who come close spend most of their time bickering about whether or not the Foundation will get through this without doing much to actually effect any change themselves. In “The Mule” there is more action and decidedly more setbacks; it is definitely a more interesting story. Yet it suffers from issues of pacing and characterization, with decidedly over the top bureaucrats.

This is by no means an original observation, either, but there is a conspicuous lack of women in this book. The first female character, Bayta, appears halfway through the book (at the beginning of “The Mule”), and Asimov describes her this way:

She wasn’t beautiful on the grand scale to others—he admitted that—even if everybody did look twice. Her hair was dark and glossy, though straight, her mouth a bit wide—but her meticulous, close-textured eyebrows separated a white, unlined forehead from the warmest mahogany eyes ever filled with smiles.

So she’s hot, but not too hot compared to other hot women, but still pretty hot—got it?

Anyway. I would be more charitable here if there were a really compelling story happening beneath these layers of sexism and purple prose. Asimov obviously has some intriguing, big-picture ideas here. But I’ve been reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s novella collection The Found and the Lost concurrently with this (and other) books. And Le Guin does this kind of so-called “soft SF” so much better. Her Hainish works deal with galactic societies over long timescales, yet she digs deeply into individuals’ stories. There is definitely a place for the shallower, flash-and-talk storytelling that Asimov is doing here, and I know it captured a lot of hearts and imaginations when it first came out. But as far as its place in the classic canon goes? Foundation as a series or an idea might deserve it, but Foundation and Empire is not particularly memorable or laudable, in my opinion.

Space … the final frontier. Our mission … to boldly go … and steal aliens’ shit…. Gate Crashers is a fun romp, as you might say. Patrick S. Tomlinson writes characters with a combination of humility and hilarity, people who might seem a little larger than life but still all-too-human. This is the Brooklyn Nine-Nine of space opera comedies.

The human exploration vessel Magellan suspends its thirty light-year voyage when it encounters a mysterious device of alien origin. As its crew tries to unlock its secrets, they remain in instantaneous contact with people back on Earth—people who weren’t even born when they set out. Meanwhile, members of the coalition of alien species who left that device out there have noticed its absence and the human spaceship. And that might not be so good for humanity. But if you were expecting a dramatic, high-stakes thriller, you might need to re-calibrate. There are high stakes here, up to and including the survival of humanity—but there is also a lot of humour.

Tomlinson explicitly acknowledges the influence of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in his acknowledgements, and that’s very clear. I was also reminded a lot of John Scalzi’s writing, where the stakes are quite high, but the interactions among humans and aliens are also a little silly. If you’re a fan of some of Scalzi’s SF, you would probably enjoy the dynamic here in Gate Crashers.

The main plot takes a while to get started, in my opinion. It’s a while before the humans actually get to confront the aliens, and while there are some good moments beforehand as the tension builds, the book gets really good once the humans are in the thick of an intergalactic power gambit. There’s a great mixture of types of people on the human crew. From the over-the-top womanizer with a tactical mind to the female captain with a lot of gumption to the physicist-turned-hyperspace-tech from Luna with no practical experience, there is plenty of disagreement and reluctant compromises. This keeps things interesting even as we learn about the alien species humanity has come into contact/conflict with.

Sometimes Tomlinson’s exposition is too infodumpy for my tastes. In this he emulates Adams quite a bit, but where Adams writes with years of experience parodying bureaucracy in British sketch and television comedy, Tomlinson brings a history of stand-up to the table. This results in a slightly different style and tone, and that is by no means bad, but it doesn’t appeal to me quite as much. Or maybe it’s just that, after years of read and re-reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy so much my Trilogy in Four Parts omnibus’ dog ears have dog ears, nothing is as good as the original flavour. (I wholeheartedly agree with Tomlinson’s dismal opinion of the “sixth” book, may we never speak of it again.)

So I could do less with the descriptions of the Lividites’ emotional shortcomings and pharmacological solutions. Less with the discussions of the AESA administrator’s political misgivings. Still, these digressions aside, Gate Crashers is a remarkably straightforward and enjoyable story. The antagonists have clear motives beyond “humans must die”. The humans have a diverse range of viewpoints, from xenophobia to territorialism to curiosity and a spirit of exploration. The resolution to the plot is a little rushed, but on the whole, it’s an exciting enough book that I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it.

So if you want science fiction that is funny, and original, then you can’t really go wrong with this.

An interesting departure from Miles’ arc in the Vorkosigan universe, Ethan of Athos takes us to the outskirts of Lois McMaster Bujold’s fantastic future vision of a far-flung, loosely-connected group of human societies in space. The eponymous protagonist comes from a planet colonist by an extreme religious group comprising only men; they reproduce through artificial wombs, and Ethan is one of their reproduction specialists. With this set-up, Bujold not only reverses the “planet of a single gender” trope, she also gets to examine attitudes and ideas that are almost definitely not her own in a compassionate way.

Ethan of Athos starts, and nominally ends, on Athos, but the main action takes place on a space station. Ethan must get to the bottom of a missing shipment of new cell lines for Athos’ reproductive centres. Without them, it will become increasingly difficult to create new (male) children. But Ethan has never been off-planet. Thanks to the censorship regime on Athos, he hasn’t even seen a woman before, let alone met one. Now suddenly he is being pursued by Cetagandan special ops folks, and it seems like his only ally is a female mercenary (and agent of one Miles Naismith, eh).

Many science fiction stories that posit a single-gender planet focus on the idea that women might somehow “get rid of” men. In this book, Bujold does the opposite. She creates a society entirely devoid of women; indeed, owing to the planet’s religious views, any depictions of women from offworld are censored. The only interaction Athos has with the rest of human society comes in the form of an annual census ship that brings the occasional (male) immigrants and any deliveries Athos purchased the previous year. On Athos, men work to earn points towards being able to conceive a child at a reproduction centre. If they have a relationship with another man, that person might be the “designated alternate” parent of the child, but these arrangements tend to be flexible. Bujold hasn’t just imagined a world without women; she has constructed this entire alternative society, and it’s really interesting how she portrays Ethan in this fish-out-of-water experience as he leaves Athos behind on his adventure. He begins with a bit of a country bumpkin feel to him, yet as the story levels out, he acquires more savvy and guile.

I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did! I wasn’t at all hooked by the premise. But once the action starts up, and we start exploring the station and dodging Cetagandan shenanigans, it’s very entertaining. As usual, Bujold melds the realism of life in space—resource management is key on a space station, beyond even security—with the fantasy of this imperialist, political thriller backdrop of galactic society: noble houses and assassins-for-hire and genetic mutants. There is a much bigger story happening here, yet Bujold carefully folds it all into Ethan’s personal priority of protecting Athos’ interests. While this naturally circumscribes the extent to which we learn about the Cetagandans’ nefarious plots, it also keeps the overall story quite tightly focused. Absent an entire Vorkosigan saga cinematic universe (which I would welcome wholeheartedly, let me tell you), this book could easily be adapted into a standalone science fiction thriller: it has all the right set-pieces, and honestly, would have been right at home with the slightly hokey yet oh-so-ambitious late 1980s, early 1990s flicks like Total Recall.

If you look specifically for Miles Vorkosigan’s signature wit or Vorkosigan-adjacent shenanigans, this book might disappoint you. If you cast aside those expectations and enter consider this just another excellent science fiction story from a master storyteller in the genre, then Ethan of Athos is enjoyable and well worth your time.

My friend Rebecca gave this to me as a birthday gift last year. This was a really tough week for me, so I finally picked it up off the shelf because I knew she had inscribed it (as I do with my book gifts!), and I wanted to reread the lovely, lengthy message from her and then dive into a YA book. Whether it’s fluffier or heavier, there is something about YA I find very reassuring when I’m down. Something about the way that authors have to consider carefully how they engage with and portray these issues for readers who might be encountering or going through similar issues for the first times in their lives. Young adult fiction isn’t simpler or lighter or less complex than other types of fiction. With the many layers and nuances of It’s Not Like It’s a Secret, Misa Sugiura demonstrates how, if anything, the opposite is often true.

Sana Kiyohara leaves behind her life in Wisconsin for the more cosmopolitan California. For the first time in her life, she is living somewhere with other Asian people of various backgrounds, including people her age to spend time with. She finds herself part of a “group”, making friends she never thought she would have. And from her attraction to her best friend in Wisconsin and now a new friend in California, Sana’s thinking she’s gay. This is all a lot for a teenager to deal with, for sure, but to make matters more complicated, Sana thinks her dad is having an affair—but her mom seems characteristically unconcerned by any hints Sana drops.

I liked It’s Not Like It’s a Secret because it isn’t just about Sana’s particular struggles. Sugiura encompasses a lot of characters’ struggles. In addition to Sana’s experiences, Sugiura explores what life is like for a married immigrant Japanese couple, particularly one who is a stay-at-home mother who has, all her life, built her life around the idea of enduring. Sugiura also explores the variety of ways in which teenagers respond to their parents’ attitudes and methods of upbringing. Finally, with the main climax of the novel is a potent reminder that even when you have the best of intentions, it is still possible (even easy) to cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

Sana’s relationship with her mother fascinates me for several reasons. Obviously, I’ve never been a participant in a mother–daughter relationship, so portrayals of this in fiction and in my friends’ lives help me better understand this unique bond. Sana’s mother obviously wants what’s “best” for Sana, yet her methods for encouraging and instructing her daughter don’t always resonate with Sana’s more American upbringing. While these kinds of intergenerational stories of immigrant families aren’t exactly rare, Sugiura is specifically examining what it’s like for a Japanese woman to raise an American-born daughter, and that’s an experience I haven’t read much about. Sana doesn’t exactly resent her mother’s behaviour at any point; she seems rather mature, actually. It’s more that she just gets frustrated, as a teenager (or, let’s be honest, child of any age) is wont to do when a parent isn’t acting the way they’d like.

Sugiura also deals deftly with race and racism, examining the ways in which non-white people can still engage in racist behaviours and inadvertently normalize or support white supremacy. Sana is Japanese and therefore falls victim to the “model minority Asian” stereotype, which is in stark contrast to Jamie’s Mexican heritage causing teachers and other authority figures to doubt her or even suspect her of criminal activity. It takes a while for Sana to recognize her privilege relative to Jamie’s friend group. There are a couple of fairly unsubtle scenes, and there are also a few scenes that are more subtle and interesting in the way the conversational dynamic turns against Sana, and as the narrator, she privately relates to us that “oh shit!” feeling when she realizes she is in the wrong.

Sugiura recapitulates this when we reach the climax and Sana does some not-so-nice things she later regrets. I really like that Sana is a flawed protagonist who messes up badly. The ending is, as Sugiura lampshades through one of her characters, a little too much like a movie. It isn’t really my jam, but if it’s yours, you’re welcome to it! I prefer, though, the way that Sana has to grow and come to terms with the fact that you can’t hit an undo button on life: your future actions don’t erase your mistakes; they only let you build on top of them. Watching Sana get rebuffed the first few times she tries to make nice is slightly painful and awkward, but it’s also a necessary part of the narrative. And I like that Sugiura resists the temptation to make Sana or Jamie the villain and the other one the wronged party. While that’s definitely a narrative in some real life relationships, often the situation is a lot more complex, and the economy of fiction doesn’t always capture that as well as It’s Not Like It’s a Secret does, both between Sana and Jamie as well as in the situation with Sana’s father.

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret features queer characters and characters of various racial backgrounds—yet this isn’t really a book about coming out (although Sana does) or a “book about race”, if you know what I mean. These are issues among other issues within the story, and I like that, in this way, it rather normalizes these concepts. Coming out stories are important, but so are stories where the protagonist’s queerness is just another part of their adolescence they have to figure out. Similarly, I love books that tackle race and racism head-on—but I also like when they confront it as part of the fabric of the narrative, much like race and racism are an unfortunate thread in the fabric of our society.

In short, this is a book that accomplishes the goals it very clearly sets out to accomplish. It’s not perfect: on an individual, scene-by-scene level the writing doesn’t always work for me. Most of the characters, despite having distinctive personalities, feel like they fall into stock roles quite easily. Nevertheless, these quibbles fade into the background when I consider my overall impression of the story. It’s Not Like It’s a Secret is one of those books that is more than the sum of its parts.

While I was not a fan of the last collection of Massey Lectures that I read, the brilliant thing about this series is that every year is very different. Each year brings a new speaker, a new topic, and an entirely new way of approaching the topic and the format. (I am very excited for this year’s lectures delivered by Tanya Talaga, author of Seven Fallen Feathers). Last year’s lectures by Payam Akhavan work really well as a collection. His writing clear, conscientious, and moving. In Search of A Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey is extremely on point for the world we currently inhabit.

This was probably not the best book to read the week I chose to read it. I’ve been in a little bit of a slump lately, both in reading and in general. At one point while reading this book, a friend messaged me to ask how I was doing, and I had to say, “Um … not well … probably because I’m reading about the Rwandan genocide again.” (I keep reading about the Rwandan genocide, and every time I do, it destroys my heart. More on this later.) Akhavan does not mince words, and he doesn’t sugarcoat the enormity of the crimes against humanity that he recounts, both historical and present-day. This is a book about humans committing atrocities against other humans, about the toll of hatred and bigotry, about the insufficiency of political will to do good. It is provocative and heart-wrenching. And it probably won’t change a damn thing, but I have to give Akhavan kudos for trying.

The first chapter is the most personal one, as Akhavan traces the history of oppression of Bahá’ís in Iran and how his family fled to Canada to avoid persecution. From there, he discusses the establishment of the International Criminal Court as an offshoot of the Nuremberg Trials, which then leads into various genocides, particularly Rwanda’s, and the failure of UN peacekeeping efforts. Much of what Akhavan describes reminds me of what people like General Dallaire and Samantha Powers have said and written about the subject: the people who have been to these places, who have seen this happen, recognize the human suffering; yet the politicians in charge worry more about votes and political will.

And even now, in 2018, Canada continued to ship arms to Saudi Arabia for its war against Yemen.

This is what Akhavan is getting at in In Search of a Better World. His final chapter heats up and becomes the most polemical—up until this point, he stays comfortably in the pre-2001 world of the distance past, and most of his comments are fairly uncontroversial. After he describes his personal connection to the terrorist attacks of September 11, and the way this lead to a paradigm shift in the world, he advances extremely anti-imperialist criticisms of Western (and particularly US) foreign policy. He points out that countries like Afghanistan, Rwanda, Congo, etc., are fucked up precisely because of colonialism and imperialism, and that this is an ongoing phenomenon. He even mentions the ways in which the intergenerational trauma of residential schools is an inexcusable blight on Canada’s human rights record back home.

This last chapter is perhaps the most important—as much as the other chapters are variously enlightening and depressing, this is the one that reminds us that these problems exist now. Just as climate change isn’t some doomsday event that will happen in our future, human rights abuses are not these sad stories from the past. Both phenomena exist, and both are largely the result of more than just individual actors—that is to say, while we can obviously do our part as individuals to help resolve both issues, what we really need is large-scale—like, global—political will. That is very difficult. Akhavan believes it is possible, however.

I’m not sure this book is going to persuade anyone who isn’t already concerned about human rights abuses the world over. That is to say, as the Onion article goes, I’m not sure how to convince you to care about other people. But if you’re already on that same page, this book is going to give you more to think about. Akhavan asks you to really consider what a commitment to defending human rights looks like, not just personally, but at a societal level: how do we need to change the ways in which we operate, the politics of our time, to avoid tragedies happening because it was more economically or politically expedient to do nothing? These are tough questions, made all the more intense by the fact that Akhavan is definitely not an armchair philosopher in this, given his relevant and practical credentials as a human rights lawyer.

In Search of a Better World is a high-level book but it doesn’t demand a high-level understanding of history or politics. It is heartfelt and genuine, yet it is also backed with extensive knowledge, experience, and a recognition that passion alone cannot make change. This is not a “bleeding heart” book, yet it is extremely empathetic and compassionate. I leave it with the sense that Akhavan, for all he has thought and said and done so far, desperately wishes he could do and had done so much more.

The flaw with Jude the Obscure is neither its theme nor its characters. The flaw is with the narrative, which, slowly-paced, is only lengthened by the vacillation of Hardy's characters.

At first, I empathized with young Jude Fawley. An intellectual at heart, even as a child, he dedicates himself to becoming an autodidact and strives to gain admittance to the university. His plans hit a snag when he allows himself to be seduced by the attractive Arabella, who tricks him into marriage by faking a pregnancy. Marital woe ensues, the couple separates, and Jude falls for his cousin, Sue Bridehead. Still, even when it seems like he has everything he wants, Jude fails to be happy, and tragedy dogs him at every step. I don't think it will spoil anything to mention that Jude's fate is the same as most of Hardy's main characters. That man just can't bear to give his stories a happy ending!

Much of Jude's misfortune originates from external stimuli, yet Jude often fails to stand up for his beliefs. This results in most of his marital strife (in both relationships) and his failure to realize his intellectual dream.

The theme of unfulfilled intellectual ardour particularly fascinates me. If I hadn't been born into a situation where I had the opportunity to get an education, get a job, go on to university, would I be like Jude? Despite his most earnest attempts to educate himself, Jude eventually becomes bitter about both universities and the church. Hardy seems to be creating a dichotomy out of society: you can be a happy intellectual or a happy working man, but a working man intellectual can never be satisfied. While I don't think that's as true today as it was in Victorian times, it still contains a nugget of wisdom: too much compromise, too much vacillation, means you can never be happy. This moral bears out in Hardy's other major motif, marriage.

Modern readers must remember that the norms around marriage in Victorian society differed from what we consider normal today. We seldom bat an eye at divorce anymore, whereas it was highly controversial in the Victorian era. Jude the Obscure met with considerable opposition, particularly from the clergy, some of whom publicly burnt copies of the novel.

However, the book itself isn't an attack on the institution of marriage (nor is it a particularly affectionate affirmation). Hardy instead shows us two examples of where a hasty marriage is a mistake and one example of where hesitation--and eventual failure--to marry proves the relationship's downfall. Jude hastily marries Arabella when she claims she's with child, yet it soon becomes clear that their inclinations are incompatible. When Jude succeeds in persuading Sue to live with him "as his wife" but fails in persuading her to marry him, he lays the ground for her eventual abandonment of him in favour of her first husband. Jude continually acts based on what he believes will make him happy; Sue attempts to act based on what she believes is her duty going as far as to impose harsh penance upon herself for perceived wrongs. Neither of them succeeds in achieving happiness or satisfaction.

I was kind of disappointed that Jude ended up with Arabella in the end, although I was not at all surprised. Nor was I surprised when Arabella tricked him into marrying her (again, this time plying him with alcohol instead of sex!) and then she regretted it afterward. Interestingly enough, it's fair to say that Jude and Sue both change over the course of the book, but Arabella does not. She remains transient, always searching for the next man, the next lifestyle. First she marries Jude, then she takes up with a man in Australia, whom she follows back to England and persuades into marriage. Once he dies, she remarries Jude after he separates from Sue. She seldom shows any concern for others beyond how their situation affects hers; even her sadness over her own child's suicide is ... a formality.

I can't help but wonder how much of Arabella's character is of her own choosing and how much was forced upon her by circumstance. At first, I felt some sympathy for her when she and Jude were courting. Jude gradually becomes disillusioned with his first love as she reveals that she is not quite as pure as he might like to think: her long hair is merely an extension, and she once worked as a barmaid in a pub! Indeed, Hardy never comes right out and says that she lied to Jude about being pregnant--her friend Annie, who originally suggested getting pregnant as a means of snaring Jude, plants this suspicion in our minds when she congratulates Arabella on being so cunning. Thus, it's possible to paint Arabella in a more sympathetic light if one chooses to believe she actually thought she was pregnant. I suspect she was just manipulating Jude, however. Her later actions prove she's not beyond manipulating men for her own designs.

The other major female character, Sue, differs greatly from Arabella. This is probably part of her attraction for Jude: her perceived chastity and devotion to the arts and education is an antithesis to Arabella's worldliness and pragmatism. In Sue, Jude looks for an escape from the oppressive realism of his first marriage and his day job as a stonemason. Yet Sue also manipulates Jude, confessing that she would have him love her even though she doesn't (at first) love him. Although this may seem like a rather derogatory portrayal of women at first glance, it's more social commentary than misogyny: Sue, living alone in the city, must get by with whatever advantages she has; her beauty is one of them.

On the level of social commentary, Jude the Obscure focuses a great deal on the notion of upward mobility. Women, of course, have the option of "marrying up" on the basis of their charm; Sue does this to an extent with Phillotson. Men, on the other hand, as exemplified by Jude, are typically stuck in their social position, particularly if they're of the working class. Hardy is very critical of the inflexibility of the English educational system. At the same time, if a man doesn't have a "proper" marriage, it can cost him his job--this happens to Phillotson after he allows Sue to leave him and "live in sin" with Jude. Both sexes are painfully aware of their limited options in terms of moving up in society; Phillotson and Arabella alike are given to "plotting" how they can further advance themselves.

Jude the Obscure is profound in the sense that most of Hardy's work is profound: it's a polemical novel in which the characters are part metaphor and part people. However, as a narrative it falls short of being entertaining. Both its length and its repetitive plot structure are daunting and undermine the book's true strength--its characters. As Hardy's last novel, it's worth examining Jude the Obscure in the context of his oeuvre. I would not recommend it to first-time Thomas Hardy readers though.