#28 [2025/CBR17] Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

CBR17 Bingo: "White" - for the white writing on the cover

When I finish an audiobook now, I usually go straight to my library catalog to find my next one. I've gotten into the habit of searching for audiobooks that are available now--sorting by popularity. I still have to sift through some series and genre books, but it usually points me in the right direction. And that is how I found Wrong Place Wrong Time (2022) by Gillian McAllister. I was hoping this novel would keep my interest, but I didn't really know what to expect. And honestly, my expectations were not very high. Fortunately, this novel had interesting characters, a gripping mystery, and an original way of playing with time travel within the novel. I ended up getting more out of it than I expected.

The book begins with Jen waiting for her 18-year-old-son, Todd, to come home on Halloween. She watches him come towards the house, and is then horrified when she sees her son turn and stab another man to death. She watches her son get arrested, and she and her husband go to the police station, but they are turned away without even being able to see him.

The next morning Jen wakes up with her life in tatters. But instead of continuing to live in the nightmare her life had turned into, she has woken up and it is the day before Halloween. Her son has not killed anyone, and she now has a chance to figure out what happened and possibly prevent it.

It turns out that Jen's traveling backwards through time is not entirely linear. Eventually, she does not go back one day at a time, but can leap back weeks, months, or even years. She hypothesizes that she goes back to any time that is important for her understanding of what her son did. Because Jen is always traveling backwards, her actions don't have any long-term consequences. Whatever she did that day, will be erased when she wakes up the next morning. It definitely changes your perspective. But it comes with its challenges as well. She can't accomplish anything that takes more than a day. A person can't send her a report "tomorrow" because Jen is not getting to tomorrow. In addition, if Jen is able to convince someone what's happening to her, she has to go and do it all again the next day when she goes backwards in time again.

Wrong Place Wrong Time certainly explores the question of how much we really know about the people we love. Sure, Todd had been acting more distant these past couple of months, but Jen just chalked that up to normal teenage angst. It was only with hindsight that she could see what she had been missing. The same thing happened with her husband. Jen thought she knew everything about him, but it turns out that she had been missing a lot.

In the end, I was impressed with Wrong Place Wrong Time. I thought it was a good story, originally told, The time travel aspects, and the careful reveal of what was going on was well done. I liked the characters, and felt like they had real, earned emotion. This one was a bit of a happy surprise, but it probably helped that I came in with no expectations.

#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.

#26 [2025/CBR17] Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

CBR17Bingo: "Work" - Because Only Fans is definitely work

I had never heard of Margo's Got Money Troubles (2024) by Rufi Thorpe when my book club picked it as our next read. I was only told that the main character does OnlyFans, so I was intrigued, but I wasn't really sure what to expect. I ended up listening to this one on Audiobook. 

I really enjoyed this novel. Margo is a very likeable protagonist. She is smart, resourceful, and works hard to protect those she loves. I almost immediately got personally interested in her life and deeply invested in the outcome. 

Margo had something of a challenging childhood. Her father, Jinx, was a professional wrestler who cheated on his wife with Margo's mom. Jinx never left his wife and rarely saw Margo as she grew up. Margo's mother was there for her, but her priorities are considerably out of whack. At the beginning of the book, Margo is going to Junior College when her English professor initiates an affair with her. Margo doesn't particularly like the professor, but she appreciates the attention. When she accidentally gets pregnant, the professor tells her to abort it, but Margo has other ideas--mostly naive and idealistic ones.

After the baby is born, Margo is overwhelmed. Her roommates cannot stand the noise of a crying, newborn infant. Her work fires her because it's impossible for her to find childcare. Margo has no income, her mother is no help, and she is desperate. I thought this part of the book was very well done. Thorpe does a fantastic job in making the reader understand how few options Margo has. I honestly cannot understand how families manage this whole baby thing, but a single woman with a wage position and no family help? It seems impossible.

In her desperation Margo sets up an OnlyFans account. At about the same time, Margo's father, Jinx, shows up at her door, needing a place to stay. Jinx is trying to get sober after being addicted to opioids from all of his wrestling injuries. Fortunately, he is a natural caretaker, and he is great with the baby. Margo uses lessons learned from her father's wrestling career in making herself more marketable on OnlyFans. 

Things seem to be finally improving, and it is so fun to see this little family coming together when it is suddenly all threatened. The baby's father finally shows an interest in his offspring and files for full custody, saying that Margo is an unfit mother. About the same time, a complaint is made to social services, and a social worker stops by, threatening to take Margo's baby into foster care. After seeing how much Margo loves her kid, and how much she did to build a stable life for him, I genuinely felt terrified for her.

Fortunately, everything turns out all right. In fact, the most unrealistic part of this book is probably how well everything turns out in the end. But by then, I liked the characters so much, I was happy to see it. Thorpe does a good job in pointing out some of the hypocrisy of the characters getting in the way of Margo, her child, and her living situation. One moment that had me yelling at my car stereo system was when the professor said Margo couldn't be a suitable mother because she's too young--a "baby--a baby!" She wasn't a baby when you slept with her, Creep! Highly recommended.

#25 [2025/CBR17] Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

CBR17Bingo - "Recommended" because this book was recommended to my by my friend.

Most of my book club is composed of a bunch of lawyers. However, there is one, lonely electrical engineer among us who is constantly recommending science-fiction novels that are met with a varying amount of acceptance. She has recommended a number of Hugo-award-winning novels to me that I have intensely disliked, so I don't completely trust her judgment. So, when she loaned me another science-fiction book to read and said she didn't care when she got it back, I put it on my shelf for a number of years and forgot about it.

Then came the day when I needed a book to read, and my library books were all on hold. In my desperation, I turned to the rejects on my bookshelf. And there it was, Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) by Ted Chiang. This book contains eight short stories. Chiang seems to be a very well-respected writer of science-fiction. On the whole, these stories were unique and interesting, although some of them were a more painful plod than others. I tended to lose interest in the stories that focused more on religion, but that's just my preference. 

Below is a short blurb about each story in the order they appeared. The starred stories were my favorite.

"Tower of Babylon" - This story explains the building of the Tower of Babylon. Just bringing bricks up to the highest level takes months. People live up there, while they work, growing plants where they can. The sun is especially intense near the top. When they reach the top, they bring a team to drill through to heaven. They are flooded with water and end up back on the ground. It turns out Heaven and Earth were much closer than they had thought. It's like a cylinder with drawings imprinted on it rolled onto the Earth. They might appear far apart if you only look at the impressions from the cylinder on the ground. But they're right next to each other on the actual cylinder. 

*"Understand" - The main character is a subject of an experimental drug that helps him recover from a coma after a near-drowning incident. His brain had been pretty much destroyed, but the drug makes him smarter than he was before. And he keeps taking it, and then he goes rogue and steals another dose. He's smarter than ever, and then he runs into Reynolds, someone else from the program. Their brains are beyond powerful, but they have different ideals and eventually seek to destroy each other. Interesting.

"Division by Zero" - Carl and Renee are an older couple. Renee is a mathematical genius and she discovers a theorem that disproves the very building blocks of Math that are the cornerstone of Renee's entire life. It ruins math for her completely. Her husband realizes that he doesn't love Renee anymore, and it's a similar realization for him. I thought this one was okay, but it wasn't my favorite.

*"Story of Your Life" - I did not know that this eponymous story was the basis for the movie, Arrival. I have not seen Arrival, but I did think this story was good. There is a linguist, and she is brought in by the army to try to communicate with aliens who have appeared in locations around the Earth. In the process, she learns a new language and a new way to think, which allows her to know what is going to happen in the future. ***SPOILER*** She learns that she will have a daughter who will die young, and she has to decide if she wants to have her daughter knowing what's going to happen. This was one of my favorite stories. The details of learning to communicate with the aliens as well as the emotional punch of her discovery was very well done.

"Seventy-Two Letters" - You can create a kind of living automaton with certain combinations of letters. One scientist wanted to create beings that were able to create others. This was seen as a huge threat to the people who already created the automatons. This story was not my favorite. It felt very long and religious-y

"The Evolution of Human Science" - This entire short story is written as an article in Nature magazine. Apparently there are metahumans (something like AI, I think). These metahumans make all the advancements in the world while humans are left just trying to understand it. I found this one short and interesting. I liked that it was written as a magazine article, and it may hit a little too close to home.

"Hell is the Absence of God" - This story also felt very long and religious-y. We are in a world where angels come to Earth, sometimes (accidentally?) bringing death and destruction with them. Surviving these experiences means something and some people chase this experience trying to change their lives. Not my favorite.

*"Liking What You See: A Documentary" - This was one of my favorite stories. The story is written from a bunch of different perspectives. Science has come up with a thing where you can alter your brain so that you are not aware of beauty. It affects the way you see faces, and makes everyone look kind of bland. In this context a college is trying to decide whether they should require and/or encourage everyone on campus to undergo the procedure. This issue is pretty controversial, and the story consists of the many different opinions and perspectives on the matter. There are students who grew up with it, who both like it and dislike it. There are people who want looks to not matter so much. There are the advertisers who desperately need people to see beauty in order to sell their products, and many more. 

This story probably gave me the most to think about. First, this wouldn't realistically work unless it affected our views of bodies as well. Of course beautiful faces are important, but people definitely look at the whole body when determining beauty and attraction. Second, it's fascinating to imagine a world where people were not treated differently based on their looks. Finally, it was both interesting and realistic to see how the competing interests handled this proposal at the college. Inevitably money got involved and people were paid to endorse certain points of view. I think this was my favorite story, and I'm glad the book ended with this one.

#24 [2025/CBR 17TH] James by Percival Everett

CBR17Bingo - "Black" for the black cover

James (2024) by Percival Everett has been everywhere. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and I'd seen reviews and mentions of it all over the place. Barack Obama recommended it as well. So, it was only a matter of time before I got around to reading it. As most people know by now, James is a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain from the point of view of Jim. I'm pretty sure I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn many, many years ago, but I barely remember it. Thus, reading James felt like reading a new story. It would definitely be interesting to compare the two novels, but I do not have the memory for it.

Jim is a slave, surviving as best he can, when he hears that he is going to be separated from his wife and daughter and sold away from them in New Orleans. In desperation, he takes off to Jackson Island to hide and buy himself some time. He comes across Huck Finn, who faked his own death and is hiding on the island in order to get away from his violent father.

Huck Finn and James end up traveling down the river together, both of them fleeing from something. They try to avoid everyone as they survive storms, slavers, Huck's father, and others. For a time, James and Huck Finn are separated, and James is on his own. James meets some other Black people who are passing as white, he is re-sold as a slave, and is able to escape once again.

What really stuck out for me with this book was how high the stakes were for James. Everything was life or death, and everyone they ran into could put him in grave danger. It was very suspenseful reading. It also showed the desperation and brutality of slavery, and how hopeless it could be. ***SPOILERS*** In the end, we discover that James is actually Huck Finn's real father. I'm pretty sure this didn't happen in the original book, but it's both fascinating and believable in this version. 

Another theme of this book is that James has distinctly different ways of talking when he's around other slaves and/or Black people and when he's around white people. He slips occasionally with Huck Finn, who notices immediately, but it's usually a defensive mechanism to make white people feel at ease and less threatened. I am sure that this happened often within the context of slavery (and continues to happen today), although it's unlikely that it happened in exactly the way that Everett wrote it in this book. I'm not sure how James would learn to speak like a northern, educated liberal when he's a slave in the South, but James did have to hide his intelligence, understanding, and learning in order to protect himself. And he taught other slaves to protect themselves in a similar manner.

I thought this book was very well written and interesting to read. It would probably be even more interesting to compare this book with The Adventures of Huck Finn, but I think I will wait and maybe reread that one at another time. Recommended.

#23 [2025/CBR17] Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto

CBR17Bingo - "N" for "Not Another Love Song"

I found Not Another Love Song (2024) by Julie Soto through my book club. We didn't actually choose this one for book club, but another book clubber highly recommended it. This piqued my curiosity, and I was able to get it almost immediately on Audiobook. This is a young-adult romance, which I generally enjoyed. Although it wasn't my favorite, the emphasis on music throughout the story made it feel unique.

Gwen Jackson is a child prodigy and self-taught violinist. She has a job at the Manhattan Pops Orchestra, which she really enjoys. Her mentor, Mable, a woman at her music store who introduced her to the violin, wishes that Gwen had set her sights higher--going to Juilliard instead of settling for a middling professional orchestra.

Xander is a "rockstar" cellist, who is part of a rock band with classical instruments called Thorn and Roses. He is the object of many adoring fans. Gwen and Xander first meet when Gwen is playing a gig at a wedding with her roommate. After a miscommunication, she is required to play the cello in front of Xander, who just happens to be in the bridal party. Her musical ability as well as her ability to transpose her violin music to cello music captures Xander's attention.

Xander also just happens to have joined the Manhattan Pops orchestra even though he doesn't seem to like it or fit in at all. But that just means more opportunities for Xander and Gwen to run into each other. Eventually, they try playing together and, not unexpectedly, make beautiful music together. With all that mutual attraction, spending all that time together, and bonding over music, they inevitably end up together. 

This book also has a lot of drama. The orchestra is losing money, so they move Gwen to first chair--partly to advertise their hotshot, youngest first-chair ever. They also use Xander and Gwen's relationship to promote their orchestra. In addition, Xander is the previous first chair's son, and he is very bitter at not being made first chair himself. In any case, there is a lot of strain on their relationship. 

I played the clarinet in various school bands from sixth grade through college. And I really enjoyed creating music with a large group of people. Even though I did not have the talent nor dedication to pursue it professionally, I did love it. So, this book was partly fun for me because I could vicariously live the dream of the professional musician. I really enjoyed Gwen's job, and how the music was important to the plot. This helped elevate a book where Gwen and Xander's relationship might have been more frustrating without the music. Xander was often silent and uncommunicative and could come across as immature and annoying. Also, most of their problems simply stemmed from the fact that, although they were having a lot of sex, Gwen and Xander barely talked about anything important. But the music made it better.

#22 [2025/CBR17] Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

CBRBingo17: "I" for "Intermezzo"

President Obama recommended Normal People by Sally Rooney back in 2019, and I was very impressed by the writing. I was already interested in reading Intermezzo, (2024) Rooney's latest novel. But when Obama recommended Intermezzo as well, it only became a matter of time. I have to admit that the synopsis did not draw me in, and I was a little concerned that Intermezzo would not hold up to Normal People. 

In a nutshell: there are two Irish brothers, separated by ten years in age, and even more in temperament and lifestyle. Peter Koubek is a Dublin lawyer in his 30's. He has all the trappings of success, but his life is falling apart. He cannot handle being alone with himself, and is constantly self medicating with drugs. He is still in love with his old girlfriend, but he's acting like a sugar daddy to a young woman who does something resembling OnlyFans to support herself. Ivan is a 22-year-old chess prodigy. He's always been odd and socially awkward, and most of his family have never been supportive. Since his father's illness, Ivan has lost his edge at chess.

The brothers have a very complicated relationship. Peter looks down on Ivan almost as some kind of freak. He does not give him the benefit of the doubt or appreciate his good qualities. Ivan can sense this, and although he craves Peter's approval, he is very sensitive of his criticism. 

When I first started reading this book, I thought I might have a hard time finishing it. When the book is from the perspective of Peter, the writing matches his disjointed and drugged up mind. The sentences are incomplete and jagged with quick impressions of what's happening instead of clear explanations. I could not have read this book if the entire thing was written in this way. Fortunately, these chapters only get us in his head space, and the majority of the book is written in a more familiar, Rooney style.

I really started getting into the book through the character of the younger brother, Ivan. Our first glimpse of him is from Peter's perspective, and Peter's viewpoint is so derisive that I thought Ivan must have some major problems. But once we get to know Ivan, it's clear that he's a genuine, caring, and honest person who just doesn't always understand social cues and norms. When Ivan goes to a chess exhibition and meets Margaret, a woman about his brother's age, they hit it off in such a natural and sweet way that I couldn't help but hope for them. 

Like Normal People, Intermezzo is a book that delves into the heart of relationships and how they can change over the years. It was very interesting to see the dynamic between Ivan and Peter, how they sometimes tried to connect and failed, and how their father's death affected their relationship. In addition, we get a glimpse into their childhood, and see how that affected them as well. Both brothers also had realistic, complex relationships with the women in their lives.

Recommended. (I'm with Obama on this one).