I’ve read a lot of downsizing and minimalist guides, and I have to say I’ve enjoyed others more. Magnusson explains how death cleaning, or the process of organizing/downsizing your life while you still have the health to do it so your relatives don’t have to once you’ve passed, is not supposed to be sad. However, I don’t think she quite pulled that off in this book. One of the strong points of this book, though, are the conversation tips for bringing up this kind of discussing with your family, especially if not everyone is on board with the thought of decluttering.

Sigh. I’ve thought a lot about this review since finishing this book a month ago. Carry On was so masterfully done, which meant I had high expectations going in. Unfortunately, despite Rowell’s magical prose that I never tire of, Wayward Son ended up being just ‘meh’ for me. At first, I thought this book was going to be another 5-star read for me - I LOVED the road trip adventure and the humor. But, I ended up struggling to finish reading and there were two things that really irked me:

1. Literally everyone had relationship troubles. Is it too much to ask for to have the “chosen one” couple actually be happy in the sequel, or at least be able to resolve their issues and not drag them throughout the entire book?

2. It ends with a cliffhanger, which made me feel this book was solely written as setup for the third book.

This book is hard to rate, solely because I thought it was going to be so much different than it was. Overall I did enjoy several of the essays and many of the maps were stunning, but I found myself constantly asking the question why?

Of the essays, two really stood out to me: 1) “Mischief Managed” by Miraphora Mina about the Marauder’s Map from the Harry Potter movies and 2) “Uncharted Territory” by Daniel Reeve on the maps for the Lord of the Rings films. But, most of the essays seemed repetitive and even though the book is divided into themed sections, it was hard to differentiate between them. The overwhelming majority of essays seemed to focus on each contributor’s personal discovery of maps (usually in childhood), which made me question why the book was divided into sections to begin with.

With sections such as “Writing Maps” “Creating Maps” and “Reading Maps” I was expecting (and looking forward to) more of a look into the process of creating maps for literature. Many of the contributors were cartographers or authors who had gone through the map-making process for their own books; gaining more of their insight into the process of designing maps would have been extremely interesting.

3.5 stars

I almost feel bad rating this book so low, especially after the colossal amount of research and work the author put into it. Some of the additional materials included in this book are:

- A note on translation and transliteration
- 5 different maps
- A list of the characters in the book (including name, title, and job)
- 2 sections of photos
- A follow-up of characters whose fates were not concluded in the main text
- Authors note on the research
- A glossary
- The different types of radiation units of measurement
- 103 pages of notes
- A 27-page bibliography

However, even with the character list, I found it difficult to keep track of who was who, especially when some were referred to by multiple names. The narrative also bounced around in time, frequently returning to a past event from a different perspective in a following chapter. Because of this style, I would have appreciated a timeline of major events to refer to.

Overall, the attention to detail for the events - and the people involved - are staggering and I applaud Higginbotham’s work.

4.5/5

This was such a delightful book! The epilogue could have been better, but the narration was entertaining and I enjoyed this book from start to finish.