#8 [2024/CBR16] Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

I'd seen Yellowface (2023) by R.F. Kuang on various lists at the end of the year, which encouraged me to pick it up. I really didn't know what to expect, but I was still surprised. I've read a number of books where plots are stolen or authors pretend to be something they're not, and this one felt nothing like them. In fact, it felt more like a horror story than a literary story. 

June Hayward is an aspiring author. She has published one book that did not gain any traction and now feels like she's barely treading water in the literary world. A classmate of hers, Athena Liu, has had a very different trajectory--she's a critical darling and bestseller. June is jealous of Athena's achievements and in her low moments thinks that Athena's ethnicity has aided her success.

Although June and Athena are not friends, they are both pretty solitary and occasionally spend time together. One night, June is over at Athena's apartment when Athena chokes on some food and suffocates to death in front of June. It is grisly, and June does what she can to save her, including calling 911. But when she leaves, June takes the only copy of Athena's just-finished manuscript with her. Athena had told her that no one else had even seen it.

June takes the manuscript without much thought or any kind of plan. First she just wants to read it. But June loves it and decides to work on it herself, eventually presenting it to her publisher as her own. The story is about Chinese soldiers in England during one of the World Wars. They faced hardship, death, and racism, and it sounded like a very interesting story. June had to make up how she--as a white woman with no previous interests in the subject--suddenly dug deep into this topic. Her publishing team embraced the whole thing. Eventually, they encouraged June to publish under the name Juniper Song (her middle name) in order to be ethnically ambiguous.

I cannot even imagine stealing a manuscript from a dead woman and trying to pass it off as my own. The shame I would feel--as well as the fear of being caught--would be overwhelming. What follows for June is a number of incredibly awkward, painful, and uncomfortable situations. First, June inserts a "white savior" scene into the book without even understanding how she's impacting the story. When Athena's mother ends up with Athena's notebooks (that contain Athena's notes and drafts of her story), June convinces Athena's mother to keep them hidden. And finally, rumblings start on the Internet that she is not the true author of her book. With that, an "Athena Liu" on Twitter begins to harass her.

At one point in the story June describes a harrowing date rape that she endured in college. She'd told Athena everything about it, and Athena was an amazing friend--consoling her and getting her help. But a month later, Athena published a short story in the school's magazine that was a thinly veiled retelling of June's date rape. When June confronted Athena about it, she didn't respond. Athena seemed to wring stories from those around her for most of her writing, and June used this to justify to herself her own stealing of Athena's work.

This book was very memorable and thought provoking, but also consistently disturbing. I was horrified by what June had done and couldn't imagine that she would get away with it. But reading the book through her perspective, I was also dreading her getting caught. It really does feel like a horror story.

#7 [2024/CBR16] The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

I've read Nothing to See Hear by Kevin Wilson, and really liked the creativity and tone of the novel. So, when my book club chose The Family Fang (2011) by Wilson, I was excited for more of the same. Although this book was still unique and creative, I did not like it as much as Nothing to See Hear. We did have a good discussion at my book club, and I learned a bit about some of the history of performance art. However, I never felt as connected or sympathetic to the characters in this novel.

Annie and Buster Fang had an unusual upbringing--to say the least. Raised by their artist parents, Caleb and Camille, they were brought into their parents disruptive and odd "performance art" as children. Now as adults, Annie is an actress and Buster is a journalist. All they want is to stay away from their parents and whatever they're concocting.

Yet through some bad luck and bad choices, Annie and Buster find themselves back at their parents' home. The book alternates between their childhood and the present, showing how the children's mental and physical wellbeing were put on hold for the sake of their "art." It was interesting to see where the father's idea of good art stemmed from, and how he influenced his wife. We spent some time at book club figuring out who to blame the most.

When their parents disappear under suspicious circumstances, Annie and Buster are convinced it's just another one of their parents' elaborate schemes. But the police are pretty sure they've succumbed to foul play. If anyone knows how to bring their parents out of hiding, it's the children who've been an intimate part of their "shows" for decades. But even Annie and Buster are wondering if their parents are really gone.

I think this book makes some interesting points about art and dysfunctional families. Unfortunately, the people never felt real enough or likeable enough to really bring me into the story (even though I sometimes felt sorry for the children). Everything was so odd and wacky that it never really felt like a real family or people I could relate to. 

#6 [2024/CBR16] Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry

Some of my favorite audiobooks are memoirs that are read by the author, so I tend to look for memoirs when I need a new audiobook for my commute. I had heard of Matthew Perry's book: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (2022), but hadn't gotten around to it. Then Matthew Perry died on October 28, 2023 with Ketamine in his system. Although I never followed his life very closely, I was a fan of Friends when I was younger, and I felt I owed it to him to hear his story. 

I knew Matthew Perry was on Friends, and I knew that he'd had a drug addiction. (I actually thought that he'd gotten over the addiction and that's why he'd gained weight at some point during the run of Friends). When Perry's book came out, I heard about the light controversy of him being mean to Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves was not mentioned in my audiobook, but I went back to Google to find out what Perry had written. It was stupid, it was mean, and it was not funny. I'm pretty sure Keanu Reeves has had to live with some tragic early deaths of his loved ones, and I can't imagine him attacking anyone like that. I'm glad Perry took that out.

Anyway, I learned a lot about Matthew Perry in this book. I had no idea how long and difficult his struggle with addiction was or what an incredible toll it took on his body, health, and life. The rehab stints and relapses were so frequent that it was hard to keep track of them while listening to the book. However, in an interview in 2022, Perry "estimated that he had spent $9 million on his addiction, including 14 stomach surgeries, 15 stays in rehab, therapy twice a week for 30 years and 6,000 AA meetings."

I also didn't know anything about Perry's childhood and family. There is plenty of potential trauma to mine for what might have contributed to his life suffering from addiction. His father walked out on them when he was very young. Eventually, Perry would fly alone on a plane from Canada to California to go visit him. When he was a baby, his doctor told his parents to give him benzos to help him sleep. I also didn't know that Justin Perry's mother was the press secretary for Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister and Justin Trudeau's father.

Matthew Perry had all the money and resources in the world to fight his disease but could never beat it. It left me with something of a hopeless feeling. I also wondered while reading the book if Perry had already gone back to using at some point, but he still had to finish the book with a satisfying ending. He mentioned that he thought fame and fortune was the answer to happiness that everyone wants, and it wasn't until he had it that he realized it didn't help. I disagree with him there. I have zero interest in fame and quite like my anonymity. Would I take more money if it was being handed out? Gladly. But I know it's not my path to happiness.

Perry often talked about how he was lonely and alone. It sounded like he understood his problems and what was causing him to push people away. Yet he still constantly sabotaged his relationships. I guess when you can't take care of yourself, you have a hard time taking care of other people's feelings as well. In the end, I learned a lot about how much Perry went through as he dealt with addictions throughout his life. It was eye opening.

#5 [2024/CBR16] The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of writing partners and best friends, Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. I didn't know this book was by a writing team until after I finished, but it sounds like a fun idea. And then you get to do press with your best friend, which would be way more fun than traveling around the country by yourself. Anyway, they wrote The True Love Experiment (2023), a contemporary romance novel about a reality television dating show. Now, my husband and I have been a little bit obsessed/frustrated with Love is Blind, so we are very up-to-date on reality dating shows. I thought it would be fun to read about one where love really wins out in the end. 

Fizzy Chen is a romance author who played the role of best friend in The Soulmate Equation (which I haven't read yet, but looks interesting). And now she has her own story. Fizzy is 37 years old and a successful romance author, but she's found herself in a slump. She has extreme writer's block, and hasn't had sex in over a year (which is very unusual for her). 

But then Connor Prince decides that Fizzy should headline his new reality dating show. Fizzy finds Connor intriguing, and decides that the dating show might be a fun idea. Fizzy and eight men will use a new DNA dating match app that Fizzy's best friend developed (and is the subject of Lauren's previous book). Fizzy will go on dates with them, and the audience will vote out two men each week. In the end, the audience will choose a winner. Then the DNA dating app info will be revealed, and everyone can see whether the audience did as well or better than the DNA dating app.

The main problem is that Fizzy is more attracted to Connor than any of her potential suitors on the show. She tries to squash her feelings because she doesn't want to ruin the show and/or get Connor in trouble. But both of them are having a hard time staying away from each other.

On the whole, this was a fun novel. I liked the two main characters, and I felt some emotions as I read. Although there were times, when I felt the authors were reaching a little for plot purposes, I enjoyed this one. I have so many other books to read, but I might go back and read the earlier novel as well.

#4 [2024/CBR16] The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell

I generally avoid books on climate change because they scare the shit out of me. There's nothing like reading for hours about how we're mindlessly ruining our only planet to bring out maximum anxiety and helplessness. I'm always left with a deep urge to do something, and feeling that it's all out of my hands anyway. But I also don't like to be ignorant, so when I saw The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet (2023) by Jeff Goodell on NPR's "Books we Love" list, I figured it was time for me to face the mess we've made of this planet.

I listened to this on Audiobook, and I found it both interesting and informative. It wasn't exactly what I expected. There was plenty of information on climate change, how much we need to change our habits, and how late we are to the game in terms of actually making a difference. However, it did not go too much detail on fossil fuels, how much we are burning, and how badly we need to stop; that's more of a given. Instead, there are a lot of in-depth stories of people suffering from the heat we already have, and even personal stories of the author's travel near the Arctic. 

The book begins with the tragic deaths of a couple, their toddler, and their dog from heat exposure while on a hike in California. I remembered reading about this in the news because it was initially a mystery as to what killed them. Goodell goes into great detail of the family's plans for the day and what happened to them. And even though these deaths may or may not have been specifically caused by climate change, it does viscerally show how quickly heat can turn a fun, active day into an unexpected disaster. The author even details how he overheated while hiking in South America. It came on so fast, and he didn't realize how serious it was until it was over. It's a scary and dangerous thing.

In a long section on air conditioning, Goodell delves into the history of air conditioning, where it began, how it spread, and how it changed building styles. As we deal with higher and higher temperatures, more air conditioning just compounds the greenhouse gas problem as we burn more fuels to stay cooler. And because many buildings today were made for air conditioning, they are especially bad about using shade and breezes to naturally cool down.

Air conditioning is a nice segue into the problem with cities. Cities get significantly hotter than surrounding rural areas because of all the asphalt and lack of trees. Goodell discusses the heat wave in France that killed thousands of people. Paris was a city that was built in cooler temperatures, and the zinc, uninsulated roofs, make the upper apartments near death traps during heat waves. But all cities will have to deal with the heat. More trees, painting roofs and streets white, and other solutions have started being implemented in some cities, but you need money and political capital for that kind of thing.

One interesting discussion was about a woman who has created a model that can take natural disasters that occur now, and see if they were more likely to have occurred because of climate change. It is a way to more clearly see the effects of climate change and possibly even point a finger at those who are responsible.

This book mentions again and again how it is the poor who will suffer the most from climate change. The ones with means will be able to move, will be able to cool themselves, and be able to afford the higher cost of food and other essentials. The Heat Will Kill You First has accepted that we are now dealing with climate change, and is now focused on living with it.

So, did this book scare the shit out of me? Yes. But it was interspersed with a lot of detail and stories that occasionally took me out of "panic" mode. The author himself ends the book on a relatively positive note--saying that he has been inspired by all the smart, talented people working on this problem.

#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.