#27 [2025/CBR17] Murder for the Modern Girl by Kendall Kulper

CBR17Bingo: "Borrow" - because I borrowed it from the library.

Murder for the Modern Girl (2022) by Kendall Kulper is another book I picked up after it was recommended to me by someone in my local book club. I thought it was original and unique. It was a quick read and kept my interest. Although there are fantastical elements to a couple of the characters in this book, the story still felt grounded. In fact, the fantastical elements really made the characters more interesting, and they added something to the story.

Ruby is 18 years old. We first see her when she is in disguise in a cheap bar, about to put poison in a man's drink. It is 1928 Chicago, and Ruby has a special talent. She can read minds. She's recently been using this talent to find men who are truly bad, but the system is too broken to find them and throw them in jail. And she kills them. Quite often, Ruby's act will save the life of another woman or women. Ruby justifies her actions because the justice system is a mess and often doesn't protect those in need.

Ruby is a fun character with a very progressive and modern take on life. She is very smart and independent, and she is very close with her father, who works for the city of Chicago. Ruby's father is in the midst of dealing with a couple different groups of gangsters.

Guy is a young man who works in a morgue. He can barely talk to people, he is easily overlooked and discounted. Although Guy spends his nights cleaning the morgue, he is also very smart and intuitive. He sees some of the bodies killed by Ruby and notices a trend. But even more interesting, Guy is in the morgue because he wants to befriend one of the doctors there. Guy is a shapeshifter. He can change his appearance at whim--although it is physically difficult. He is desperate for more information about his condition and hopes the doctor can help him.

Guy and Ruby are thrown together. Because she can see into minds, she can tell who Guy is no matter  what persona he arrives in. They work well together. However, Guy is still looking for the killer--which is Ruby--and that puts a damper on their relationship. Throw in a lot of drama and violence from the fighting gangsters who don't want Ruby's father involved, and there is a lot going on in this book.

Like I wrote above, I did enjoy this book. Ruby is a fun, resourceful character who is loyal to those she loves, and thinks outside the box. The setting was fun, and Guy was a very sympathetic character. It was good seeing them together. My only complaint is that I was a little weirded out by how comfortable Ruby was with killing people. I know they were bad and "deserved" it, but an eighteen-year-old calmly ending life after life after life was disconcerting. She was a serial killer, and never had any qualms. It's easier to overlook multiple murders in a book, but I was imagining this lady out in the world today.

#14 [2024/CBR17] Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

I've already spent a lot of time reading the Empyrean Series by Rebecca Yarros, so I quickly picked up Book 3 of the series when it became available to me. Onyx Storm (2025) continues to follow Violet Sorrengail and her loves and adventures in the Kingdom of Navarre. Violet is still technically a student. She is in her third year in the dragon school that kills at least twice as many people as it graduates. She has been chosen by two very special dragons and is one of the most powerful students there.

Although there have been some interesting and moving scenes in every book of Yarros's Empyrean Series, I am losing interest. The story just goes on for so long, and there are so many details and people, that they're hard to keep straight. 

In this book, the love of Violet's life, Xaden, has turned to the dark side. He was forced to channel the evil power in order to save the city and the school. At this point, he can still control himself, but it is definitely an obstacle in their relationship.

Violet, Xaden, and a small group are sent down South to look for the seventh breed of dragon, which is needed to power their wards and keep them safe back home. Violet is also looking for anything that might cure Xaden before he loses himself.

At the same time, a very powerful, evil, dark wielder named Theophanie keeps showing up because she wants to turn Violet into Venin herself. Theophanie seems to give up and go away at opportune times, but Violet knows she will have to face her one day. At some point, the seventh breed of the dragon comes and helps them power their ward. However, it also convinces Andarna (one of Violet's dragons), that she should break her bond with Violet and go learn from them. Andarna leaves Violet, and it almost kills her. (I did find this to be a very touching scene.)

After dragons are captured and a major battle, Xaden is forced to channel again, and he turns fully Venin. Violet is able to kill Theophanie, but she has lost Xaden and Andarna. When she wakes up, Xaden is nowhere to be found, Violet cannot remember the last couple of hours, and Violet is apparently married to Xaden. This one definitely ended on a cliffhanger.

Onyx Storm is Book 3 of what will apparently be a five book series. Part of me wants to just be done with this series and let the other books lie. However, I am almost positive that Xaden and Violet end up together, and now I'm curious how that will work with Xaden being evil and all. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. With only two more books to go, it just might be worth it.

P.S. I've heard people say this this book was much better than the second book. I'm not sure I agree. I think I liked the first book the best so far.

#12 [2024/CBR16] Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

Iron Flame (2023) by Rebecca Yarros is the second book in the Empyrean Series. I recently read the first book, Fourth Wing, and found it pretty entertaining. It felt like a combination of Fifty Shades of Grey and The Hunger Games--but with dragons. The second book has a similar feel, but was not quite as good as the first. There will probably be spoilers ahead, so take care.

Fourth Wing ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I was eager to start the second book and find out what was going to happen. Violet Sorrengail has just finished her first year at Basgiath War College. She has (accidentally) bonded with two dragons (Tairn and Andarna), and has a complicated but very intense relationship with Xaden, a third year whose dragon is bonded with Violet's dragon. Violet has just discovered that Wyverns and Venin exist and are a very real threat to her country. Finally, the brother she thought was dead was actually still alive and working on behalf of the rebels who have been helping outlying kingdoms fight the Wyvern and Venin.

This was all pretty exciting, but then Violet and the others decided they have to go back to the school--even though someone tried to kill them by sending them on a suicide mission at the end of the first book. Xaden is posted to a far away outpost, but the two have to/get to visit each other at least once every couple of weeks because their dragons are bonded and cannot spend too much time apart. Violet is mad at Xaden for not telling her everything earlier, but she also has to keep secrets at school.

Most of the things in Iron Flame happen at school. We meet some new characters, and there are challenges thrown at Violet and her class. The new general is suspicious of Violet and harasses her often. Her life is often in danger. Then Jack, the evil villain of the first book is brought back to life by a healer--for plot purposes.

The end culminates in a massive fight with the Gryphons and their riders helping the dragons and infantry at Basgiath War College to keep the Wyvern and Venin away. Jack reveals himself as a Venin, and he shuts down the Wards that protect the college that allow the attack. In the end, it is Violet's mother who sacrifices herself to bring the wards back in place.

Although there were some very intense and moving moments in this book, I definitely prefer Fourth Wing. The love triangle in the first book with Violet, Dain, and Xaden was a little bit annoying but an expected trope. However, I was glad when it seemed we'd moved on and Dain was clearly not a romantic interest. Instead, we get Cat, Xaden's ex, who is ready to make Violet's life a living hell. It felt unnecessary and kind of annoying. And the same goes for Violet being mad at Xaden for not telling her everything as soon as he met her. The angst was a little wearying and made the book less fun. My favorite part of the first book was when Violet bonded with her dragons, seeing how that connection worked, and how that changed her life at school and with Xaden. I did not feel the same magic in this book, and there was a little more trudging through the pages.

This book ends on another cliffhanger. Xaden, in a desperate attempt to protect Violet, allowed himself to be turned into a venin. This will definitely impact their relationship, and I'm curious what will happen next. On the whole, this book kept my interest. The first book was better, but I'm still planning on reading the third when it is available.

#3 [2024/CBR16] Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

I was seeing Fourth Wing (2023) by Rebecca Yarros all over the place, including NPR's Best Books List. Fantasy is not a go-to genre for me, but I was starting to get some FOMO and decided I needed to see for myself. Fourth Wing is the first book in a planned series of five. Right now, only the first two books have been published. 

I wasn't sure if I would like it when I started, and there were a couple of scenes in the beginning that had me rolling my eyes. However, it didn't take too long for me to get sucked in. I enjoyed the twists in the narrative, and now I'm excited to read the second book. In some ways, this book reminded me of Divergent because you had the different schools/factions, one of which is exceptionally violent. But it also reminded me of Twilight because there is a (kind of annoying) love triangle and the love interest has a ridiculous number of red flags.

Violet lives in the kingdom of Navarre: a place with dragons, magic, and war. Her mother is a very powerful General and her recently deceased father was a Scribe. Violet wanted to follow her father's footsteps and become a Scribe, but her mother forces her into the school for Riders--riders of dragons. This school is very violent and dangerous. Three quarters of the students die their first year. What makes this even harder for Violet, besides the fact that she's been studying for years to be a scribe, is that she has a connective tissue disorder that makes her more vulnerable to injury.

Violet faces many hurdles in school. She meets Jack her first day; he is a psychopath who tries to kill anyone and anything he meets. (This character was ridiculous, and I don't see why the people in charge would even want him in that school.) And then she meets Xaden. Xaden's father was a rebel who was executed by Violet's mother. Xaden is a very powerful third year who has bonded with a huge dragon, and he certainly has reason to hate her.

Violet becomes friends with Rhiannon, a cool young woman whom she meets the first day. And her childhood friend, Dain, is a second year who does his best to help her out. After not falling on the "parapet", surviving deadly sparring games with other students, and making it through the "gauntlet" (literally the Ninja Warrior course on a cliff), Violet makes it to threshing day to see if she will bond with a dragon.

After a cadet bonds with a dragon, they can continue their training. The cadets are able to channel magic from their dragon and each one has a special power--everyone's is different, and they are wide ranging. I thought the expansion of the world with the introduction of the dragons was a very fun part of the book.

I had a good time with this book, and I'm definitely planning on reading the second one. But this was not great literature. There were some glaring plot holes, and the sex scenes felt very generic. I almost felt like I was reading another book when I got to them. In addition, Xaden is everything you don't want in a love interest, but Violet cannot help her attraction to him. It's not exactly an example of a healthy relationship.

This book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. I was a little frustrated because I was thinking I was finally going to get some answers and then it ended! I'll definitely be reading the second book--after a little break.

#2 [2024/CBR16] The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

I saw The Midnight Library (2020) on a random book list that popped up on my phone. It was a list of ten books that the author wished they could read again for the first time. I liked the idea of this list, and I liked some of the books on it. In addition, the premise of this novel sucked me right in. Somewhere, there is a library of books that holds every possible life you could have lived. I've spent many moments of my life wondering what it would be like if I'd made different choices--and wondering if I made the right choice--so I was very curious about this novel.

The book begins with one of my favorite quotes from The Bell Jar:

        "I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life."   --Sylvia Plath

We meet Nora Seed in the beginning of the book, and things are not going well. She is alone and miserable. Her parents are dead, she hasn't talked to her brother in years, she gets fired from her dead-end job, and then she finds out that her cat has died. Nora does not want to live anymore, so she writes a note and takes a bottle of pills.

When she wakes up, she's in a weird, endless library. The only other person there is her old school librarian. The librarian informs Nora that this is her chance to see all the other lives that she could have lived. At this point, all Nora wants to do is die, but she picks up her Book of Regrets and sees everything she wishes she had done with her life.

Nora's first three or four lives hit her biggest regrets. She wanted to know what would have happened if she hadn't quit swimming, if she hadn't broken off the engagement with her fiancé, if she hadn't quit the band, and if she'd become a glaciologist. And it turned out that even though Nora may have been more "successful" in some of these lives, she wasn't much happier. 

The book continues through countless lives until Nora finds one that feels almost perfect. She learns a lot about herself, what she wants in life, and how she can obtain it:

        "Of course, we can't visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we'd feel in any life is still available. We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don't have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don't have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savor the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays. We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum."

I liked the idea of this book and what it stood for. I feel like it did make me more comfortable with some of my regrets or "what if's" I've had in my life. But I also wasn't enamored with reading about Nora's many lives. Her first couple of lives satisfied my curiosity, and then I got a little bored. In addition, I tend to avoid books that deal with suicide, and I didn't realize that suicide was a major plot point in this novel until I began reading. On the whole, I'm glad I read it, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations.

#12 [2022/CBR14] The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

I cannot remember where I first saw The House in the Cerulean Sea (2021) by TJ Klune, but I may have been looking for available audiobooks at the library. It has primarily positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and I thought it might be a fun listen during my commute. In the end, I thought it was all right. I liked some parts, but on the whole it felt too long and I was not fully invested in the characters.

My favorite part of the book was probably the beginning when we are introduced to Linus Baker. Linus is a 40-year-old, by-the-book office worker. He works for the Department of Magical Youth, writing reports on orphanages that care for children with extraordinary powers. The Department of Magical Youth is a bureaucratic nightmare with characters that reminded me of villains from a Roald Dahl book. Linus takes comfort in the procedures and rules but he is miserable. His home life includes a very unlikeable neighbor and a cat named Calliope.

But one day "extremely upper management" (I did think this was funny) called Linus to come before them. They give him a new assignment: he must travel to a remote orphanage located on an island, stay there for a month, and report back. Linus has never travelled anywhere and never even seen the ocean, but he packs up his cat and gets on a train the next morning.

On the island, he discovers Arthur Parnassus in charge, six remarkable children, and an island caretaker. The children include: Talia, a female gnome who is over two hundred years old but developmentally still only an adolescent; Chauncey, who is of undetermined origin and yearns for nothing but to be a bellhop; Sal, a timid boy who writes beautiful poetry and turns into a dog when scared; and Lucy, short for Lucifer--because he's the antichrist. 

Linus quickly changes from being terrified of the kids and wary of Arthur to getting to know them individually and joining them on adventures. He dutifully sends his weekly updates to the Department of Magical Youth in the nearby town, and he notes the town's striking prejudice against the kids. In this world all magical beings must register, and there are signs everywhere saying "If you see something, say something" urging people to report anything magically suspicious. In addition, Linus and Arthur seem to share a special connection.

I thought there was some fun and sweetness in this story. It was satisfying to see Linus finally happy with himself and living his best life. But I didn't love it. Although some of the kids were fleshed out a little bit, primarily Lucy, Talia, and Sal, I did not feel that about the others. The only thing that makes Chauncey unique is that he looks weird and wants to be a bellhop. He seemed much more like a cartoon than an actual kid. And the world wasn't developed enough for me to feel that there were any real consequences. I couldn't help but compare it to Nothing to See Hear by Kevin Wilson, which I recently read. Nothing to See Hear also had a protagonist with nothing to lose and remarkable children, but I felt so much more connected to the characters, I laughed more, and I was more satisfied at the end. 

#7 [2021/CBR13] A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

I first saw A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet on NPR's Best Books of 2020. It immediately caught my attention, but then I saw it was a finalist for the National Book Award and was one of the New York Times Best Books of the Year. It felt like fate was telling me to read this book. All I knew going into it was that it was some kind of allegory for climate change.

Evie is our narrator. She's probably fifteen or sixteen years old. Her parents have gotten together with a number of other families in a "great house" on a lake for summer vacation. All the kids sleep up in the attic and avoid their parents as much as possible. In fact, their parents are so embarrassing that the kids have started a game where they try to avoid anyone else figuring out who their parents are. Evie has a younger brother, Jack, who she looks out for since her parents aren't paying any attention. I felt an eerie sense of unreality while reading this book. On the one hand, everything that occurs is basically believable, but something also felt off. Why did the parents not care about their children? The disgust the teens felt for their parents felt familiar but also extreme.

The kids head down to the ocean for a camping trip on the beach and meet some incredibly wealthy children staying on a yacht. Shortly after they get back, they are deluged by a terrible storm. A tree falls onto the great house, crashing through the roof and soaking the attic. The parents react by getting high and having an orgy.

Evie's brother, Jack, is a sweet, sensitive kid. One of the parents gave him a children's version of the Bible. He's been reading it and interpreting it on his own. He and his friend, Shel, take it upon themselves to save the animals from the rising floodwater. When one of the older kids tells him that he needs two of every animal, he answers that other people would be saving animals, too.

The kids eventually ditch their useless parents and take off with a groundskeeper, hoping to make it to the safety and comfort of the home of the richest kid in their midst. They are sidetracked by bad roads to a farm where they meet up with four "trail angels" from the Appalachian Trail. A lot more happens to the kids. Their parents get sick, they face some bad guys, and a baby is born. Some of these things seem to come directly from the Bible, but it was hard for me to understand why. A baby is born, tracking the birth of Jesus, but she doesn't have much to do with the rest of the story. Jack decides that his Bible is in code; that God is actually nature, and Jesus is science. And if we believe in Jesus (science), he (it) will save us.

Eventually the kids and parents reunite at the rich kid's house. The kids plan for the worst, dragging their parents along with them. Even though the story of Revelation is not in Jack's Children's Bible, the older kids understand that's where they're heading.

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It's a fast read and kept my interest, but it also just felt weird. There were enough odd things going on that this book did not feel like the real world. And the connection with the Bible--besides Jack's remarkable interpretation--felt somewhat random. Characters weren't acting as I would expect and they appeared and disappeared without warning. However, when I heard about the snow storms and power outages in Texas, the first thing I thought of was this book. I think it's one of those that's going to make more of an impact on me than I initially realized. 

#52 [2020/CBR12] "The Ten Thousand Doors of January" by Alix E. Harrow

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alex E. Harrow was on NPR's Best Books of 2019 List, but despite my avid perusal of that list every year, it didn't catch my attention. I'm not a big fantasy reader, and there are so many books on that list it's inevitable that I'm going to miss out on some. However, my book club chose Ten Thousand Doors to read. Honestly, I was dreading it. One book club friend is a big fantasy reader, and she's made me read so many dreadful (to me) Hugo and Nebula award finalists that I now have immediate, negative connotations with those awards. Fortunately (and surprisingly) I enjoyed reading this one. The story was well written and I liked the characters.

This book begins with alternating chapters of different stories. We first meet January Scaller when she is a young girl. She lives with a wealthy benefactor, Mr. Locke, in his Vermont mansion. Her father is employed by Mr. Locke to travel the world searching for relics and treasures to bring back to Locke Mansion. When she is seven and on a trip with Mr. Locke, January opens a door to another world. She never forgets it, even as Mr. Locke presses her into acting like a responsible young lady.

One day, January discovers a book in a chest in Mr. Locke's house. That book begins with the story of Adelaide Lee Larson. She is a young, wild woman growing up in a run-down house full of aunts after her father walked off and her mother died. One day, Ade meets a boy in the grass behind her house. He has come through a doorway from another world. He is obviously foreign, but he knows English and they connect. They plan to meet again in three days. But when Ade comes back on the third day, the door has been destroyed, and there is no way to find him.

Ade takes off on a journey to discover more doors and find her way to him. The boy, Yule Ian, spends his life studying doors, also looking for a way to find Adelaide again. While we are learning all this, January is growing up. She learns more about her family, her powers, and Mr. Locke, which forces her into action and grow into herself.

This book took a little while to get into as I figured out how the characters fit together and how the world worked. I was also sometimes frustrated by January's actions, which kept getting her in trouble. On the whole, however, I really enjoyed this book. It isn't the type of thing I normally read, but I appreciated its resonance and how it is tied to history. I liked the yearning for more that it instilled in me. This book is chock full of similes and metaphors. It's something that might come across as flowery and overdone, but they were all so perfectly placed that they really added to Harrow's descriptions of her characters and their feelings. I was impressed. Recommended.

"His expression as he surveyed me made me think of old-timey illustrations of God: severely paternal." (17)

"Thus Adelaide Lee was born of poor luck and poverty and raised by ignorance and solitude." (57)

"If behind every good girl lurked a good threat." (119)

"But to Yule both paths were unspeakably bleak. Both of them would necessitate a narrowing of his boundless horizons, an end to his dreaming." (141)

"Yule was stuffed with the kind of unblemished confidence that belongs only to the very young, who have never truly known the bitterness of failure, or felt the years of their lives trickling away from them like water from cupped palms." (146)

"Because the place you are born isn't necessarily the place you belong." (245)

#37 [2020/CBR12] "Opposite of Always" by Justin A. Reynolds

I read Opposite of Always (2019) by Justin A. Reynolds a while ago now. I can't even remember how I first heard about it, but I really enjoyed it. It's a very original, young-adult romance novel. Still somewhat unusual in the teen romance world, it's written by a black man, and the main roles are people of color.

Jack is our protagonist. He's had a deep crush on Jill (yes, Jack and Jill) since he ran into her on their first day of high school. Unfortunately for him, his best friend Franny hooked up with her first, and Franny and Jill make a great pair. The three of them are incredibly close and great friends.

Jack and Jill spend a weekend at the nearby college for an orientation weekend. At a house party on campus, Jack meets Kate on the stairs. Kate already goes to school there. The two immediately hit it off and Jack is enamored. He suddenly feels more for someone than he's felt for Jill all these years. The two share some sweet dialogue and spend the entire night talking. Jack is able to give her his number before he leaves the next morning, and their relationship slowly grows.

But Kate has a medical condition that she doesn't share with Jack, and she dies unexpectedly. Instead of this marking the end of the story, Jack is unexpectedly returned to the point at the house party where he meets Kate. This time he knows what to expect and spends all of his energy trying to save Kate. But it doesn't work, and he ends up back at the house party again. In time loops that are reminiscent of Groundhog Day, Jack tries a number of different strategies to deal with what's going on. First Jack tries various methods to save Kate. When the heartache becomes too much, he tries to avoid meeting Kate at all and finally start something with Jill instead. Another time he ignores his friends and family to focus on Kate. 

Like I said above, I really enjoyed this book. The characters were fun and interesting and I cared about them. The plot felt original, and it was fascinating to see how Jack's different decisions dramatically changed his relationships with his friends and family. My only complaint was that there were sometimes details that didn't quite work. These were small but could be distracting. For example, I couldn't understand how Jack found Kate's dorm room when she lived in a huge building that Jack had never been in before. Despite these nitpicks, I would recommend this one.

#31 [2020/CBR12] "The Water Dancer" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I first found Ta-Nehisi Coates when my friend recommended The Beautiful Struggle to me. I found it very moving and have since read every book Coates has written. I'm also using The Water Dancer for Cannonball Bingo. It is filling the "Repeat" square. I am repeating "Uncannon" since Ta-Nehisi Coates is not an old, white man.

In a story about slavery, Coates uses the words "Tasked" and "Quality" instead of slave and master. Hiram Walker is one of the Tasked. His life is relatively comfortable compared to some of the Tasked because his father is the master of Lockless--the Virginia tobacco plantation where he lives. He is put in charge of taking care of his half-brother, Maynard--a spoiled, stupid man and heir to the plantation. But there are bigger problems. The ground in that entire area has been over-farmed and productivity has decreased significantly. Tasked are being sold West to Natchez, Mississippi, tearing apart families for money as the plantations fall apart.

Hiram's mother was sold when he was a child, and he can't remember anything about her. But he's experienced a couple of strange happenings with a blue light where he ends up in a different place. We see Hiram grow up on the plantation, yearn for escape and experience capture. Hiram eventually manages a kind of freedom but devotes himself to the work of freeing others.

I wasn't sure what to expect with The Water Dancer (2019) since it was Coates's first published book of fiction. I finished it with some mixed feelings. There was some beautiful writing and some really great characters. Coates did an amazing job with the psychological toll of slavery, and it's interesting to see Hiram's changing perspective as he grows older. When he's young, Hiram wants his father's love and attention, but when he grows older he realizes that there really aren't any options for him. Hiram has shut down his feelings so much to survive that he finds it difficult to open up when he finds freedom and true friends. In addition, the dynamics between Hiram, his father, and his half-brother, Maynard were complex, hypocritical, and infuriating.

I also really liked the portrayal of the characters of Thena and Sophia. Their relationships with Hiram felt intense and real, but they also had their own struggles and needs. Finally, there were moments when Coates' quiet depictions showed the inhumanity of slavery in powerful ways that felt original.

On the other hand, I did not enjoy the magical realism elements of this novel. It was hard to get through the first chapter because I could not understand what was happening and it did not feel grounded in reality. For me, the light and conduction did not add anything to the novel. My favorite parts of the novel were the people and their relationships. It also felt random and unnecessary to put Harriet Tubman in the middle of the magical element of this narrative.

***SPOILERS***
In addition, I had a hard time understanding Corrine and her role in this book. The entire section after Hiram is jailed after his escape attempt was confusing. I thought Corrine needed more backstory to be believable as a militant abolitionist. I also had a hard time believing that she could turn her entire plantation into a hidden military post without the slightest rumor. No one in society had happened upon strange happenings at her place? There was no one who let the secret slip? Did she really need to put Hiram through the nightly hunting? She felt like an ominous, shadowy character that doesn't really make sense. I also wondered why Hiram was never blamed for driving the horse and carriage into the river in the first place.
***END SPOILERS***

I really tried to wrap my head around how the magic of conduction in the narrative could make this book more emotional and powerful. The ability to use conduction is somehow tied to water, family connection, and the stories of ancestors. A recurrent theme throughout the book is the constant breakup of families by the Quality--thus taking away the only connection the Tasked has left. So only a couple of people were able to retain the conduction and bring more people to freedom. I'm not sure if this was Coates's intention, but it is a powerful idea. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work for me. Although I was very impressed by many parts of this book, I would have preferred it without the magical realism.

#49 [2019/CBR11] "Circe" by Madeline Miller

Although I'm vaguely aware of the Odyssey from various school projects and references, I have very little knowledge or interest in the Greek gods and Greek myths. So Circe (2018), by Madeline Miller, did not at first grab my attention--even though it was on NPR's Best Books of 2018 list. But then a number of Cannonballers named it their favorite book last year, and I decided I should give it a chance.

Circe is a nymph and a goddess. She is the daughter of Helios, the very powerful Titan Sun God. Apparently, Circe is something of a feminist retelling of the events in The Odyssey. The book begins with an interaction between Circe and Prometheus, right before he is punished by Zeus for bringing fire to mankind. The story follows Circe as she falls in love with a mortal man and discovers a power she didn't know she had. She is then exiled to Aiaia--partly for her sins, but primarily as a convenient scapegoat to placate Zeus.

In exile in Aiaia, Circe discovers her power and takes part in a great many mythical stories that were famous enough for even me to know about. She helps birth the Minotaur and meets such famous figures as Daedalus, Odysseus, Hermes, and Medea. She gives birth to a son, Telegonus, and sacrifices almost everything in order to protect him. In the end, she finally takes control of her life, dealing with a monster she created and setting up her world the way she wants to live.

Despite my general lack of interest in the Greek myths, with such high praise, I was optimistic going into this novel. I'm also a fan of taking a male-dominated story and telling it from a feminine perspective. There was a lot that I liked about this novel. Circe has a very hard, lonely life and I couldn't help feeling for her. Her relationships with her brother, father, and Glaucos were all painful stories of betrayal. I also very much liked the relationship between Circe and Odysseus, and especially how my view of Odysseus changed the more I knew about him. The relationship between Odysseus and his son was especially compelling.

I think most of my problems with the novel stem from the source material. The novel felt very episodic. Circe would meet someone, interact with them, then move on. Then she'd meet someone else, and it would happen again. Being immortal, you could imagine this going on for the rest of her life. With so many famous Greek figures, it's hard to fit them in within a tight story line.

Circe's small interaction with Prometheus felt so important that I kept expecting the story to come back to him somehow. [I can kind of see how this scene foreshadows Circe's love of mortals, but it's hard to understand that meaning until the end.] In addition, when you throw gods and magic in the mix, cause and effect began to feel pretty arbitrary. I think Miller did a good job with imbuing the novel with some feminist meaning that resonates today, but the novel, on the whole, did not feel grounded to me.

I'm guessing that if I were more familiar with the original source, I could appreciate the differences between Circe's story and the original a little more. But I'm not. I liked the book and I'm glad I read it, but it wasn't my favorite this year.

#33 [2019/CBR11] "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik

Many years ago, I stumbled upon a series of books that mixed fantasy with re-imagined history. These were the Temeraire novels by Naomi Novik, and they described what the Napoleonic Wars would have been like if there had been dragons. Temeraire and his pilot create the base for the novels. I did not end up finishing the series, but I found them pretty enjoyable. So when I saw that Novik was getting notice for some new books based on fairy tales, I was intrigued. I picked up Uprooted (2015) with some optimism.

Now, Uprooted has 4.6 stars on Amazon. It won the Nebula Award, was a Hugo Award Finalist, and was one of NPR's best books of the year. It is obvious that plenty of people really enjoyed this book. Unfortunately, I was not one of them. After finally finding a couple of very negative reviews on Goodreads that were similar to my opinion, I've decided that Uprooted is very polarizing.

The book begins with mystery and danger. Every ten years, the dragon chooses one seventeen-year-old girl to go live with him in his tower. She returns after ten years: the town assumes she is "ruined," and she takes off for lands far away. Agnieszka is both relieved and guilty that her best friend Kasia, who is beautiful and good at everything, will surely be chosen. The dragon is actually a man, a wizard named Sarkan. And it is a great surprise when he chooses Agnieszka and tears her away from her family and friends with no warning.

It turns out that Sarkan chose Agnieszka because he could tell that she could do magic. Sarkan begins to try to teach her magic, but it's difficult because she sees magic differently. Sarkan's job is to keep the evil forest at bay with his magic and it's getting more difficult. When Kasia is stolen by the Wood, Agnieszka runs away to try to help her and somehow manages to tear her away from the evil heart tree.

Sarkan and Agnieszka eventually work together to suck out all the corruption from the Wood that found a home in Kasia. Kasia is saved but somehow has become treelike--strong, unwieldy, and unbreakable. This leads to some uncomfortable politics with the King's son who wants to save his mother, war with another kingdom, and some time spent at court.

We eventually find out that the evil of the Wood began with a queen from long ago who was unwillingly buried in the tomb with her dead husband. She originally came from the forest and her anger, resentment, and retribution caused all of the evil and suffering in the Wood.

First, I found the premise of this book intriguing. I wanted to know why a girl was chosen, why she was needed, and what happened in those missing ten years. But I was immediately disappointed. I guess most of the girls were used as basic servants, companionship, and a connection to the valley for some ridiculous magical purpose. Agnieszka was different because she knew magic, and Sarkan tried to teach her magic.

I had three main problems with this book. The first was the relationship between Agnieszka and Sarkan. In the beginning, it felt like an uncomfortable romance, where they kept accidentally finding themselves close to each other or in each other's arms. But it wasn't remotely romantic. Sarkan was a mean bully who did nothing but verbally abuse Agnieszka. He was impersonal, callous, and he never changed. He was also hundreds of years older than Agnieszka. Bella and Edward from Twilight are a shining example of relationships compared to Agnieszka and Sarkan. Sarkan did not have one ounce of compassion in his entire body. I was surprised when they finally came together.

The second problem was probably the world building, but specifically the magic. It didn't make any sense. It felt like Agnieszka could or couldn't do anything she wanted depending on the needs of the narrative. Sometimes she could transport herself to places, sometimes she could talk to Sarkan, sometimes she could create an ox out of dirt to pull their carriage that villagers wouldn't notice was fake. It felt random and not grounded in any kind of framework to make it meaningful.

The third problem for me was that I did not care about the characters. They did not feel real, and I did not care what happened to them. I could not identify at all with Agnieszka. Her actions always felt random. Characters were often rapidly introduced and then killed off, but there was nothing to make me feel connected to them. There were pages and pages of an epic battle where 6,000 men were killed, but they were nameless and faceless so none of them mattered. You would think that the origin story of the Wood would have to be very powerful because it is the source of so much evil and suffering, but I just didn't care about a nameless, woman ghost we'd never even heard of before.

By the end of the book, I'd lost all interest in the characters, and was just reading to finish the novel. This was a big disappointment because it came so highly rated and I liked some of the Temeraire novels.

#18 [2019/CBR11] "The Book of Dust" by Philip Pullman

Many, many years ago, my cousin recommended that I read The Golden Compass (1996) by Philip Pullman. As I began reading, I was skeptical. Every human has a little animal (called a daemon) that follows them around? I thought it was weird and wasn't sure I would get into it. But as I continued reading, I became attached to the characters and immersed in the story. Now that it's been well over a decade since I read The Golden Compass, I can remember very few details of the actual story, but I still clearly remember the emotional gut punch that hit me near the end of the book. I quickly read the next two books in His Dark Materials trilogy and enjoyed all of them.

So, when I saw that Pullman was writing a companion trilogy to His Dark Materials, I knew I would be reading them eventually. I was a little worried because I did not remember any of the details of the previous trilogy, but that didn't matter in the end. The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (2017) begins years before we meet Lyra, the protagonist in The Golden Compass. However, it does take place in the same world. The church is obsessed with power and tyrannically controls information and behavior. The church is often at odds with other intellectuals in their world. Every person has a daemon, an animal that is part of them and represents them. Daemons can change shape when the person is young, but settles into one form when one becomes grown.

Malcolm is an eleven-year-old boy that lives near Oxford. He helps his mother and father run The Trout, an inn near the river. He is hard-working, conscientious, and smart. He spends his free time rowing along the river on his canoe, which he calls La Belle Sauvage. One day he spies a nervous man drop something. Almost immediately after, the man is followed, captured, and dragged off by mysterious and imposing men in suits. Some days later, Malcolm learns that the man was found dead in the river.

The item that the man drops eventually leads Malcolm to Dr. Hannah Relf, a lovely woman, and a scholar with a special talent with the alethiometer--a rare instrument that can obliquely answer questions for those who know how to read it. The two become confidants and friends, and they work together to figure out what's happening. Hannah has already been secretly working for another group that has been organized to defy the church.

In addition, Malcolm does odd jobs for the nuns across the river. He is intrigued when they take in a baby girl named Lyra and begin to care for her. The rumor is that Lyra is Lord Asriel's child. Lord Asriel killed a man and is not allowed near her. Lyra's mother doesn't want her, and the nuns have stepped in. But there's a lot of interest in this small child. The nuns begin bulking up their security, men from the CCD (Consistorial Court of Discipline) barge in and try to take her away, and a scary man with a mangled hyena daemon seems to be after her.

Everything comes to a crisis when the nonstop rain creates a tremendous flood and Gerard Bonneville (the man with the hyena daemon) comes after Lyra. Malcolm, Alice (a sixteen-year-old girl who works at the inn), and Lyra just barely manage to escape in Malcolm's canoe. However, the flooding is so bad, they are carried downriver. Malcolm has the vague notion to bring Lyra to Lord Asriel in London where she will be safe. And so their adventures begin. Chased by Gerard Bonneville and the CCD, Alice and Malcolm try to keep Lyra safe, warm, and fed. They run into old friends, betrayers, witches, gyptians, a fairy, and others.

There were a lot of things I liked about this book. I now love the idea of every person having a daemon. They help express what the characters are feeling, and the connection between the daemon and their human adds an another layer to almost every interaction. I was happy to get back into Pullman's world. I also really liked Malcolm. He was honorable, resourceful, and kind. Alice was also a very interesting, and eventually likable, character. The mystery, danger, characters, and story-building that led up to the flood was all very good. I'm always a fan of adventure and survival stories.

However, I was a little disappointed near the end of the book. Malcolm's and Alice's struggles on the water started to feel a little random and repetitive. Too often, unexplained things were simply happening to them, and the coincidences were a little too much. Since I couldn't understand why these things were happening, I started to lose faith in the world that Pullman had created. So, Malcolm's canoe is dragged into some weird underworld. But if the current was so strong that it pulled them in and there was no escape, why were no other boats sucked down there? If for some reason, Malcolm's canoe was dragged down for a specific purpose, what was that purpose? There were a number of episodes like this, and I began to feel a little frustrated.

***SPOILERS*** In addition, I was disappointed in the ending. I wanted a little more closure. I wanted Malcolm to see his parents again, and I wanted to know more about what was happening with Hannah Relf. Instead, we find out how Lyra ended up in Oxford, which was interesting, but at this point I care more about Malcolm. I'm assuming that Pullman is setting everything up for the next two books, but as a stand-alone novel, I was a little disappointed. ***END SPOILERS***

Although The Book of Dust did not quite live up to my memories of The Golden Compass, I'm glad I read it, and I'm looking forward to Book 2.

#48 [2018/CBR10] "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston

I picked up The Woman Warrior (1976) by Maxine Hong Kingston because it was on my list of 50 Books Every Woman Should Read Before She Turns 40 and it looked relatively short. I thought it would be good to read while on my backpacking trip. Unfortunately, this book was a little hard to follow at times, so reading on my phone, in my tent, wasn't the best option. I also discovered that even when my phone is on airplane mode, it apparently knows when my Kindle books need to be returned to the library. So I lost my copy in the middle of the woods. Fortunately, my actual Kindle is not as smart. Anyway, once I got home, I was eventually able to check out The Woman Warrior again. I started over, and this time I was able to finish it.

The Woman Warrior was interesting in parts, confusing in parts, and deeply disturbing in parts. I generally like to be firmly grounded in details and explanations when I read, so I often found this book challenging because it felt vague. Kingston was born in Stockton California to her parents who had moved to the United States from China. Her book is a mix of stories that her mother told her growing up, with her own experiences.

The book begins with a haunting story of Kingston's aunt, her father's sister. Apparently, when the famine came and all the males sailed away to make money, Kingston's aunt became pregnant--much later than would have been possible if her husband were the father. The town, incensed by this transgression, raids the family home, destroying and taking everything within. In shame and despair, Kingston's aunt kills herself and her baby in the well. Kingston's mother told her this story as a warning to show what happens to women who do not follow the rules, and tells her that no one ever speaks her aunt's name anymore. But Kingston has pity for the poor woman. Her aunt was almost certainly raped by someone she knew, someone she could not say no to, someone who was likely in that mob who attacked her home. It's horrifying to think about.

The second chapter is another story Kingston learned from her parents. This one is about a woman who leaves her family and goes up into the mountains where she is trained as an incredible warrior. She comes back many years later and defends her family from vicious and greedy leaders who have taken over. Kingston wishes she could be this kind of warrior and compares her own life to this wonder woman.

Subsequent chapters describe how Kingston's mother, Brave Orchid studied and became a doctor in China. There is also a chapter when Brave Orchid's sister, Moon Orchid, finally comes to the United States from Hong Kong. Moon Orchid's husband has been supporting her in China but never asked for her to join him. Now he is remarried and has a new family of his own.

My overwhelming emotion while reading this book was feeling disturbed. I was uncomfortable because I couldn't always tell what was true and what wasn't. The incredible misogyny and violence against women throughout the book was also very disturbing. Even the story at the end where Kingston is cruel to a young girl because she reminds her too much of herself was very disturbing. Writing this review, and reminding myself of everything in the book has me disturbed all over again. I think it's good to read things you normally wouldn't and to get out of your comfort zone. However, even with that in mind, I would have a hard time recommending this book.

#28 [2018/CBR10] "The Power" by Naomi Alderman

The Power (2017) by Naomi Alderman is another book recommended by President Obama. Again, I had no idea what it was about going into it, but I'm really glad I read it. Not only does it give me something to talk about with Obama if I ever happen to run into him [very likely], but I thought it was interesting and thought-provoking.

The Power begins five thousand years in the future. Neil Armon just wrote a book and is getting feedback from a fictional Naomi Alderman. They live in a world that is matriarchal and women have the more powerful roles. Neil's draft is an imagining of how women came to be in the superior position. His book begins in our present day, where, around the world, young women are developing a "skein" near their collarbone that allows them the power to electrically shock with their hands. Reactions very drastically between people and countries as men and women confront this new ability. There is fighting between adolescent girls, and there are attacks on men and boys. "Already there are parents telling their boys not to go out alone, not to stray too far." The most violent uprisings occur in Moldova where there is a large amount of sex trafficking of women.

There are five or six characters that tell the story from different perspectives and show what is going on throughout the world. Allie is an American girl who was abused by her foster father. She kills him and goes on to start a new feminist religion based on her powers. Roxy is the daughter of an English mafia head. She is incredibly powerful and eventually travels to the United States and befriends Allie. The two make a very strong partnership.

Margot Cleary is an American politician when the skein is woken in her by her daughter, Jocelyn. "Younger girls awaken it in older women. This is the Devil working in the world, passing from hand to hand as Eve passed the apple to Adam." At first Margot hides her power because it is not acceptable, but as the skein becomes more accepted, Margot becomes Governor and uses her power to help girls control their power as well as make herself more successful.

Tunde is an African journalist who makes his name documenting the emergence of the skein and it's effect on politics and populations throughout the world. He is, probably, the most sympathetic character in the book. He is both hurt and saved by women throughout the book. "At first we did not speak our hurt because it was not manly. Now we do not speak it because we are afraid and ashamed and alone without hope, each of us alone. It is hard to know when the first became the second."

I have a lot of thoughts about this book. First, it was fascinating to explore a world where women had a physical advantage. This is especially true when it came to sex. Women could use their skein to make sex more fun and exciting if used gently, or they could literally torture or kill a man if they chose. Women can also force men to get erections, which can become incredibly painful. The skein suddenly puts men in a position where they have to trust women not to physically hurt them. I imagine this perspective could be eye-opening to many.

Second, this book is not a fairy tale of how great a world we would have if women were in charge. Instead, it says that people will do whatever they can to use their power and to get power. The women in this story are not necessarily evil, but they are shaped by their backgrounds and their needs. When they gain power, they use that power to their own advantage and try to get more. Even if they started out with good intentions, bad results occur. I don't like power and I often did not like these characters. This book quickly became very painful to read.

Finally, Alderman really made me think about nature versus nurture. Would women really turn out to be so power hungry and violent? Personally, I don't think things would turn out just like this, but human nature and power may be more significant than gender differences. I'm glad I read this one and would recommend it.

"You can't be the one that hurts and the one that comforts."

#25 [2018/CBR10] "Exit West" by Mohsin Hamid

I found Exit West by Mohsin Hamid through two different sources. First, it was on President Obama's 2017 recommended reading list. This was already more than enough incentive for me to start reading, but it was also on NPR's Best Books of 2017, which has become one of my favorite sources for finding new books. Before I began reading, I only had the vague notion that this was a story about refugees, which seems especially relevant in today's world. I was expecting a humanizing story of the danger and struggle refugees have as they run from violence and war--looking for a safe place for their family.

Exit West was a humanizing portrait of two refugees, but it was also not at all what I expected. It is one of the few books that I might get much more out of if I read it again. I was very impressed by Hamid's writing. It is very clear, simple, and unemotional--even in the most dramatic of scenes. It made me think about refugees in a different way, and it is definitely worth reading.

I came into this book knowing almost nothing about the plot and with very few expectations. It was a good way to read the book, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone else--so it's best to skip the rest of this review if you're interested in reading the book.

Exit West begins in an unnamed country in a predominantly Muslim country. There is rebellion and violence, but the worst of it has not yet reached the city of our protagonists. Saeed and Nadia are normal college students. They meet in class and quickly fall for each other in a sweet and relatable way. Saeed is the more religious of the two--even though he doesn't wear a full beard and she does wear a robe. But it isn't long before the rebellion makes its way to their home. It was chilling when their mobile phones stop working without warning, and the two are suddenly unable to talk to each other. Beyond losing basic communication, there is suddenly danger everywhere and tragedy strikes them personally, more than once.

As the danger increases, Saeed and Nadia decide that they need to flee the country--leaving everything they know behind. There are rumors that there are doors that open to countries of safety and opportunity. Risking everything, they pay a contact for passage through one of these doors. If the rebels discover Saeed and Nadia are trying to get away, they will be killed. Eventually Saeed and Nadia are led to one of these doors and they find themselves in Mykonos, Greece.

I have to interject here that it took me a little while to understand what was going on with the "doors" in this story. At first, I thought Hamid was being fanciful because he didn't want to describe the travel of Saeed and Nadia. I found it kind of irritating because wouldn't perilous travel be a large part of their story? I didn't realize that Hamid had actually gone off in a completely different direction, and that he was imagining what the world would be like if there were doors that simply opened to other countries--creating porous boundaries between the oppressed and the affluent, the endangered and the privileged.

After some struggle, Nadia befriends a woman in Mykonos who shows her a new door. Saeed and Nadia decide to see what's beyond. They end up in a mansion in London, England, with new refugees showing up every day. As the number of doors increase, the number of refugees increase, and the reaction against them grows. Violence and the threat of violence increases, reaching a crisis point. England eventually grows towards tolerance of this new reality. Some kind of equanimity is found when the country sets up programs that puts refugees to work building housing for themselves on the outskirts of London.

But despite the relative stability, Saeed and Nadia decide to move on when they discover another door. They end up in Marin, California, building a shack of tin on the hillside. The two continue to grow and learn about themselves as the entire world adjusts to a world without basic boundaries.

Saeed and Nadia are believable and understandable characters with considerable depth. I cared about them as they moved throughout the world. In addition, the surprise (to me) twist of the fantastical doors forces the Western reader to consider the plight of refugees in a different way. I'm afraid that I'm having a hard time describing this book, and it is much better than I am making it sound. This review does not do credit to such an interesting and original book.

"We are all migrants through time."

#9 [2018/CBR10] "On the Edge" by Ilona Andrews

I first became a fan of Ilona Andrews (husband and wife writing team) when I happened upon their Hidden Legacy Series through some persuasive Cannonball reviews. I was pleasantly surprised and ready to read some more, which is what led to The Edge series and Book 1: On the Edge (2009). Although this book was not quite as memorable or addictive as I found the Hidden Legacy Series, I could see the beginnings of what makes Andrews' books so entertaining.

Rose Drayton is a young woman, bearing the burden of sole caretaker of her two young brothers. She barely scrapes enough money together as a cleaning woman, and they are always on the edge of not having enough. Rose's world is a magical world, split into sections. There is the Broken, where Rose works and where people with no magical ability live. There is no magic in these spaces. On the other side is the Weird, an entire world based on magic and power. In between these two worlds is the Edge, a small area of small amounts of magic, and knowledge of both the Broken and the Weird.

Rose is defensive and desperately protective of her family. When an aristocratic stranger from the Weird, Declan Camarine, shows up at her home, she threatens him. However, the two of them both have an interest in apprehending another newcomer to the Edge. This one uses the magical energy from people to create nasty, murderous beasts. He is looking to gather power in the Edge where there is less resistance before taking over the Weird.

Rose and Declan's relationship starts out on a bad foot and a misunderstanding, but the more time they spend together, the more they like and trust each other. Declan is a good influence on Rose's brothers, and the two are able to keep each other safe. It should not be a surprise that they end up together.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book. I liked that Rose was independent, with powers of her own, and not wholly dependent on Declan. Rose's younger brothers, one who can bring things back from the dead, and one who can change into a cat were interesting, unique characters. I couldn't always buy into the romance between Declan and Rose, and I think Andrews has since improved in their romance writing, but I'm excited to see where they take it next.

"Go brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on dry clothes, and get the guns. We're going to Wal-Mart."

#1 [2018/CBR10] "Bloodlines" by Richelle Mead

Last year got a little hairy when I had to write almost all my reviews for the year in the last three weeks of December. It wasn't much fun, so I promised myself that this year I would get back on track. Unless I'm traveling, I will not finish my next book until I've reviewed the previous one. That way, I should only ever have one review to catch up on. I hope.

I'm starting this year off with Richelle Mead's Bloodlines (2011). It's the first book in a six book series. Not only that, but there is a related series of six books (The Vampire Academy Series) that I've already read. It's ridiculous how many of these books I've read, and will read. A part of me is disappointed that I even started this next series, but they're like crack. I can't put them down.

Richelle Mead has set up a world very much like ours today except for the vampires. In fact, there are three different types: Strigoi are nasty, immortal killers who drink blood and only come out at night. The Moroi are thin and beautiful; they rule the vampire kingdom. Moroi drink blood from willing humans, but they do not kill. Finally, there are Dhampirs. These are half-Moroi and half-human. They are fast and athletic but do not have other powers. They are often used as bodyguards for the Moroi.

The only humans really aware of what's going on in this world of vampires are known as the Alchemists. Alchemists have long been disgusted by the vampire lifestyle, but they assist in keeping the vampire politics stable and their lives quiet, so the rest of the world doesn't find out about them. Alchemists have no special powers, although they are all given a golden tattoo on their cheek infused with vampire blood. This keeps them healthier and forces them to stay quiet about what they know.

The Vampire Academy series was all about a Dhampir called Rose, her love interest Dmitri, another Dhampir, and her classmate Lissa, a Moroi. An incredible amount of stuff happens in those six books, and at some point the reader is introduced to Sydney, an Alchemist. This next series of books begins right after the end of The Vampire Academy Series, but it's all about Sydney.

Sydney is sent to Palm Springs with Lissa's younger sister, Jill Mastrano. Jill's been attacked because Lissa has become queen, and Jill is integral to Lissa keeping the throne. They are trying to hide her in plain sight in a boarding high school. Sydney is going undercover and will be Jill's roommate in order to keep an eye on her. They are joined by the Dhampir Eddie Castile as a bodyguard, and Adrian, another Moroi. They pretend they're all brothers and sisters for the school.

I had a little trouble getting into this book compared to the Vampire Academy. Rose is a very fun character. She's intuitive and aggressive and often reacts without thinking. I also loved the relationship between Rose and Dmitri (even though I was still a little disturbed at the age difference and student/teacher dynamic). On the other hand, Sydney is bookish and repressed. She has to deal with an overbearing asshole of a father as well as a horrible Alchemist leader in the Palm Springs area, but she just isn't as kick-ass. For the first part of the book, I felt like I was just reading a play by play on high school classes. Why do I care what classes Sydney goes to when she's just going to high school for show?

There were also a number of questions I had as I read things that didn't quite make sense. Why was Sydney drawing so much attention to herself at school? In fact, why would you put a tattoo of a secret society on your cheek? There are so many more discrete places for a tattoo. Why would Sydney be Jill's roommate in the first place? Sydney can't fight, and Eddie is halfway across campus most of the time--not the ideal situation for a bodyguard.

I think this first book was really setting up the rest of the series. There was some life and death excitement at the end, but not too much happened. Sydney uncovers a plot involving vampire blood, and they stop a killer--both of which are unrelated to their original mission of keeping Jill safe. Even though these books are far from perfect, I'm pretty sure I'll finish out this series. I am curious where the next books will go.

#45 [2017/CBR9] "Every Heart a Doorway" by Seanan McGuire

Every Heart a Doorway (2016) by Seanan McGuire was a book I had not heard of and probably wouldn't have chosen to read if left to myself. I would probably call it a young adult coming-of-age novella with fantasy elements. The reason I finally picked this up was because a friend of mine kept doggedly recommending it to our book club, month after month, until I could hardly say no.

Nancy is a brooding teenager, recently brought by her parents to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. It turns out that there are secret portals throughout the world. Sometimes people (primarily children) are able to find these doorways and transport to a different world. But sometimes they come back and cannot cope with trying to be "normal." Their parents have seen their children come back, some of them having been missing for months or years. They don't understand what's happened to them or why their children can't be like they were before. That's where Eleanor West comes in. She is a "world" traveler herself and understands what they're going through. She gives them a safe and understanding place to grieve and adjust.

Nancy has recently returned from some kind of underworld that involves ghosts, death, very little color, and very little movement. We meet her on her first day at Eleanor West's home and follow her journey as she figures out how the school works and meets her fellow world travelers. It seems that there are innumerable worlds, some full of fairies and color while others are more like Nancy's. She meets: Kade, thrown out of his fairy world for being not what they expected; Sumi, her excitable roommate; and Jacqueline and Jill, two twin sisters who had been living in something of a horror novel. When people start being gruesomely murdered, everyone's safety and the possible longevity of the school is compromised.

I wanted to like this book and I was impressed by the beginning. It is very creative and original. I thought it was interesting to imagine that there were worlds out there where people could feel more at home than this world. It was a good metaphor for adolescence, when it is particularly easy to feel isolated and alone. Don't most adolescents feel that they've experienced, or are experiencing, some things that their parents just don't understand? And there are always those that will never quite fit in with this world. I thought this was a book for them.

But the second half of the book left me feeling disconnected. The worlds these kids went to sounded like nightmares. I simply could not relate to their yearning to go back. Sure, the worlds sometimes fit their personalities in broad strokes, but I had no wish to be them or experience those worlds. Who would want to transport themselves into a horror novel? And why would they give up their life and family to do that? I just couldn't understand.

In addition, the murder mystery felt kind of tacked on. I would have been happy to simply learn more about the kids and what their lives were like. We didn't actually get much time with them before people started dying. Most of the kids were simply caricatures and foils antagonizing Nancy and her friends. In the end, it felt like there were a bunch of unnecessary murders by a character I couldn't understand and didn't care much about.

I left this book feeling disappointed and confused. What I thought would be a stirring example of oddball kids finally knowing a place where they truly belonged, turned out to be an unrelatable, fantastical murder mystery. To be fair, my friend loved this book, and I know there are others who appreciate it. If it sounds like something up your alley, please don't let my tepid review stop you.
"You're nobody's rainbow. You're nobody's princess. You're nobody's doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you." (168)

#32 [2017/CBR9] "Wildfire" by Ilona Andrews

As soon as I finished White Hot, Ilona Andrews' second book in their Hidden Legacy Series, I immediately bought the third book, Wildfire (2017), and started to read it. At this point I was hooked and wasn't about to rest until there was nothing else for me to read. To be honest, I read the second and third book so close together that I have a hard time telling them apart. I remember a lot of what happened in both books, just not what happened in each book.

Anyway, the protagonist of The Hidden Legacy series is Nevada Baylor. She lives in Houston, where magic is a common reality, and those with magical powers also control the world. Primes are those with the most magical power. Nevada is a private investigator with the magical talent of knowing when someone is lying. In the first two books, she works with the billionaire Prime known as "Mad" Rogan on a couple of very difficult cases. By the second book, Nevada and Rogan have also come together romantically, an inevitability considering how they got along.

Now in the third book, Nevada is really discovering how powerful she is. In fact, she has realized that she's an unregistered Prime. She doesn't know where it came from, but she has incredibly powerful magic that she's just beginning to learn to control. Rogan understands more than anyone about what it's like to be used for your powers, and he doesn't want Nevada to be made vulnerable because of hers. The mysteries from the first two books come to a point when Rogan's ex-fiance's husband disappears. Later, she and her children are attacked in their home. Rogan takes them under his wing as Nevada and Rogan try to figure out where her husband is.

Nevada and Rogan's relationship is under pressure from a number of sides. First, Rogan's ex-fiance is always in the way and wants to get back with him. I really appreciated that Rogan's love for Nevada is never questioned by the reader or Nevada, despite his exes best attempts. Another pressure comes from society now that Nevada is beginning to be recognized as a truly powerful magician. Primes must marry other Primes, but they must also marry Primes whose magic is compatible with theirs. The goal is to have children as powerful or more powerful than themselves. Nevada and Rogan's power is incompatible, and the question of what that means for them often goes unspoken between them. Despite these problems, their relationship stays strong. The one thing I like most about them is that, as Nevada becomes more powerful, people begin to react to her differently. Rogan understands what it feels to be isolated and feared because of your abilities. It binds them together.

Another aspect of these books that I really liked, but haven't had much time to discuss in my reviews is Nevada's family. They are the motivation for most of her actions, and I thought Andrews did a great job of using these characters to fill out the book and humanize Nevada. As the books progress we learn more about them and their powers, and the idea of them as a house really comes together. I really enjoyed this series, and I feel like there's room for some more books about the Baylor family.