Tag: book reviews

Crime Fiction, Fiction, Historical Fiction

Number 4: Title Starting with the Letter “F”

KC

The Family

Naomi Krupitsky

In a reversal of Get Rich or Lie Trying, where I read a book recommended by a YouTube video, The Family is a book that inspired me to watch a YouTube video (although without the explicit call to action, the book just reminded me of the video).

The video in question, of course, is the supremely entertaining Alice Cappelle’s explanation of why fiction is better than self-help.

The Family is better than self-help.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

This is not to say that this historical crime-family fiction novel resembles self-help in any overt way, nor does it try to achieve the same goals as self-help books. And despite the plethora of terrible entries into the genre, I do have an issue with self-help as a style. But The Family is still better.

It’s a book that shares a lot of the same themes that self-help does: self determination, autonomy, the role of our upbringing in who we become, and it does it in a nuanced way. The varying viewpoints and third-person omniscient narration allows Krupitsky to make contrasting arguments within the same story, and allows the reader to come to their own conclusions.

Biography, Nonfiction, Reviews, True Crime

Number 24: Addresses a Specific Topic

KC

Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy

Tom Wicker

I did not know much about this era of American history when I began this book, but now that I’ve finished, I still don’t.

It is not the fault of the author, it is just that the subject is so banal, like evil. I fall asleep even thinking about it.

That’s why he was so successful.

Wait, was he successful?

It seems to me idle to argue that he was not a demagogue. If he enjoyed his success, he was not entirely sanguine about its cost in ruined lives and damaged careers.

That sounds successful to me.

Joseph R. McCarthy was a demagogue, certainly, but… he was also intelligent, energetic, audacious, personally generous… too avidly craving the affirmation of others, too recklessly seeking it in the battle he exalted, McCarthy too carelessly believed that the approval he won justified the means of its achievement… who fought desperately and with uncommon success to achieve the wrong dream.

Indeed.

Adventure, Dystopia, Fantasy, Pulp Fiction, Reviews, Science Fiction

Number 36: Recommended by a Favorite Author

KC

The Heads of Cerberus: The First Alternative Worlds Novel

Francis Stevens

I admit I was not a fan of the last dystopian novel I read. So I went back in time a little to see what I could find. And lo and behold, the pioneer of the time travel genre herself, Francis Stevens!

I love science fiction for its timelessness. Despite, or because, it deals with the future, its tone has not changed much since it began. Sure, we aren’t still debating the morality of the microscope (like Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World), but the tension between skepticism of new technology and embracing it for the creative potential it unlocks is a consistent theme.

Heads of Cerberus was written in 1919, but it still feels current. I think part of the reason for this is because she does not try to imagine the technology that might exist in Philadelphia in 2118, which might read as silly today. Technology is stalled at 1918 levels, and society is the thing that is drastically restructured.

Stylistically, it works. Pulp entertainment at its finest!

Also, I took some liberties with the category. Rather than being recommended by a favorite author, The Heads of Cerberus was actually recommended by the Monster, She Wrote audiobook I was listening to. It has introduced me to some of my new favorites.

Dystopia, Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult

Number 41: Involves a Second Chance

KC

The Program

Suzanne Young

In this book’s defense, it was going to feel dated.

After all, The Program is a dystopian young adult novel set in Oregon with an exciting premise that, predictably, fails to deliver.

To start with the good, the writing is clear, several of the characters are engaging, and the author is particularly good at depicting action. The plot moves along quickly, and I could be curious to see where the series goes.

Okay good parts over, complaining parts ahead.

To begin, wow. Just, wow, were we ever pick-mes back then. This book is that mentality in 405 easy-to-read pages. It is peak Mary Sue, peak not-like-other-girls. It’s hard to be reminded of that cultural moment. And in book form, no less! I was certain one of my complaints was going to be this book’s abject failure to pass the Bechdel test, but the first page proved me wrong.

The air in the room tastes sterile. The lingering scent of bleach is mixing with the fresh white paint on the walls, and I wish my teacher would open the window to let in a breeze. But we’re on the third floor so the pane is sealed shut- just in case anyone gets the urge to jump.

I’m still staring at the paper on my desk when Kendra Phillips turns around in her seat, looking me over with her purple contacts. “You’re not done yet?”

Like most heroines of the era, Sloane is beloved by men, inexplicably liked by women (who are underdeveloped compared to the male characters), and totally incapable of relating to anyone who is not in love with her. It is possible this was relatable to teenagers in the Obama years, but teens today are more sophisticated than that.

Like many premises of the era, The Program is underdeveloped, and insensitive by today’s standards. To state the obvious: depression as a plot device is icky. Mental healthcare in America is a travesty. Conflating suicidal ideation, depression, and self-harm as being one and the same (which this book does frequently) is lazy writing. This may have been okay in 2012, but we can do better now.

Aside from being insensitive, it is underdeveloped. We don’t really understand why suicide has become contagious, why it is an epidemic, or why it seems localized to teenagers. Although this vagueness can work for stories that are more about the character’s journey than the setting itself, this book is very much about the Program as a character, and one girl’s journey not to be changed by it. In a very real sense, the Program functions as the villain, and it is a poorly understood one.

Which is all a bummer. I like dystopian novels. It’s a pity this one was not done well.

I glance past her to make sure Mrs. Portman is distracted at the front of the room, and then I smile. “It’s far too early in the morning to properly pyschoanalyze myself,” I whisper. “I’d almost rather learn about science.”

“Maybe a coffee spiked with QuikDeath would help you focus on the pain.”

Anthology, Financial, Nonfiction

Number 44: An Anthology

KC

Women Talk Money: Breaking the Taboo

Rebecca Walker

This is one of those books that you know from the beginning is going to get you. Anytime you have a group of diverse individuals sharing their honest feelings on one of society’s biggest taboos, at least one of them is going to hit a little too close to home and give you too many feelings. And that certainly happened with Women Talk Money. There were parts that were emotional, parts that were maddening, and a few sections that made me uncomfortably aware of aspects of my privilege I never even considered.

It was motivating, and reminded me that radical honesty about finances is necessary. The only way forward is to lift the veil of shame and secrecy until we understand how to do better.

I will definitely be looking into these writers in the future.

We tell ourselves so many stories about money; that it is the reward for our hard work, that is signals what is valuable, that it cannot buy things that will give our lives meaning, that we will never have equality until women assess their worth in the same ways men do. But none of these stories feel completely true to me.

P.S. I would be remiss not to mention that Rebecca Walker is the daughter of Alice Walker, whose essay is featured as the foreword of this book. While Alice Walker has done admirable work, her anti-Semitic views are, to say the least, problematic, and I cannot blame anyone for passing on anthology for that reason.

This world and these rooms might not have been designed for you, but you have to walk into the room and take the knowledge you need. Walk out with it. Don’t take anything else home.

Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction

Number 3: Title starting with the letter “E”

KC

Eve’s Hollywood

Eve Babitz

Words cannot express how much I love this collection. I read it every year and I always find something new to appreciate about it. Eve Babitz is commonly compared to Joan Didion, but I never understood it. In my opinion she is much more in line with Edith Wharton and Candace Bushnell, women who wrote savagely and frivolously, like pink stilettos, which is my favorite kind of writing. The difference being that they wrote about New York, and she wrote about L.A.

In the Depression, when most of them came here, people with brains went to New York and people with faces came West.

Of all her books, Slow Days Fast Company is probably her best, the most polished and to the point, but I like the messiness of Eve’s Hollywood. It feels like being 22 and sitting by the pool with your best friend over mojitos. Although I am originally from LA county, I did not appreciate the beauty of it while I was growing up, but I did after I read this book. It makes me homesick in the best possible way.

Culturally, L.A. has always been a humid jungle alive with seething L.A. projects that I guess people from other places just can’t see. It takes a certain kind of innocence to like L.A., anyway. It requires a certain plain happiness inside to be happy in L.A., to choose it and be happy here. When people are not happy, they fight against L.A. and say it’s a ‘wasteland’ and other helpful descriptions.

Biography, Nonfiction, True Crime

Number 26: Has an “Author’s Note”

KC

The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York

Alex Palmer

The Santa Claus Man covers the same period of time that Edith Wharton skewered so brilliantly in fiction, but it’s even more disquieting because it was real, and I loved it as much as I love all Gilded Age tales. The New York this book describes is a utopia where children’s letters to Santa are always answered and Boy Scouts keep American manhood alive.

But, of course, this was a fantasy. The American experiment has always had duplicity, even in our most cherished institutions. I won’t look at Christmas the same way after reading this, but I do appreciate it more.

Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Fiction, Young Adult

Number 35: From the Villain’s Perspective

KC

A Villains Collection (Villains #1-3)

By Serena Valentino

I realized about a third of the way into this ebook that what I borrowed was actually the first three books in a series, not a standalone novel featuring my favorite villains. Of course by that point I was emotionally invested, and too lazy to download three separate ebooks, so I powered through, and I am glad I did.

My favorite so far is the third one, Poor Unfortunate Soul, the tale of Ursula from Little Mermaid. This story is the bleakest and most nihilistic of the three, but it also seems to be the point in the trilogy where Serena Valentino found her writing groove. The hopelessness of Ursula’s pain and rage fit the tone of the original Hans Christian Andersen story better than Disney usually allows, and it is the first of the Villains novels that felt like it delivered on its promise.

I cannot wait to read more!

Fiction, gothic romance, Historical Romance, Romance

Number 15: A Five-Syllable Title

KC

My Cousin Rachel

By Daphne du Maurier

When I picked up this novel in the early days of 2020, my impression was “wow, this book seemed right up my alley: gothic romance, brooding heroes, moral ambiguity. What’s not to love?”

Perhaps she was two persons, torn in two, first one having way and then the other.

And love it I did, right up until March of 2020, when I was about a third of the way done. At this point in time, I was working long hours in a cubicle at my corporate job and living in a wonderfully creepy cabin down a dirt road in the country. It was a perfect setting for a slow read full of meditations on good and evil, love and betrayal.

But then the pandemic forced us into our homes for over a year, and I traded the cabin in the country for an apartment in the city, and the idea of life on a manor suddenly seemed too claustrophobic for my tastes.

So I put it down and did not pick it up again until I decided to do this challenge. To give myself a head start on reading two books a week for the next six months, I cheated a little (shhhhh), and decided to go with a book I already started.

Once again, this book did not resonate with me.

My tutor… told us once that truth was something intangible, unseen, which sometimes we stumbled upon and did not recognise…

In all likelihood, it just has not aged well. When My Cousin Rachel was written, people had longer attention spans, and the anti-hero was a less common trope. This book has phenomenal writing, but what made it unique at the time has been done countless times since then. Overall it was a good read, but it felt too familiar to be groundbreaking.