#6 [2026/CBR18] Mate by Ali Hazelwood

Shortly after I finished Bride by Ali Hazelwood, the second book in this world: Mate (2025), became available. So, I quickly read that one as well. In many ways, Mate is very similar to Bride in that it is a love story involving weres, humans, and vampyres.

We meet Serena at the end of Bride. She is best friends with Bride's protagonist, and she'd been kidnapped because she was half-were and half human--something heretofore unheard of in this world. At the very end of Bride, Koen Alexander, the Alpha wolf of the Northwest pack runs into Serena, and it is immediately clear that she is his mate.

We discover Serena at the beginning of Mate as she runs for her life from a vampyre. It turns out that Serena had been feeling very ill, and after talking to some Were doctors, she thought she was dying. Instead of telling anyone (like her best friend), Serena decides her best course of action is to hide up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and suffer through the night sweats on her own. Koen shows up just in the nick of time to save her, and he takes her back to his home. 

But now that Serena is back among the living with Koen, it is harder for her to hide her symptoms. The two primary things keeping Serena and Koen apart are Serena's belief that she's dying and the pack law that the Alpha remain celibate. Koen cannot be with Serena, even though they are mates. And if he steps down as Alpha, there will be a power vacuum that may destroy the pack.

I enjoyed Bride much more than Mate for a number of reasons. First, Koen acted disinterested in Serena for a big portion of the book. It didn't feel very romantic to me. Second, I couldn't understand why Serena was so secretive about her sickness. She didn't want her friend to worry about her, but her friend is going to suffer a lot more if Serena showed up dead with no warning.

I was pretty certain early on that Serena was in heat (or something like that). Although it's pretty funny that all the male doctors had no idea what was going on, how did everyone around her not understand what was happening? Once it was figured out, Koen seemed to know all about it and exactly what to do. Also, how often does this happen? Is Serena effectively incapacitated for months at a time every year? Twice a year?

I was also frustrated with the, "Koen can't have a romantic partner storyline". We already know this isn't necessary because the Alpha in Bride has a mate with no issues. And people can be used as bait whether you're officially sleeping with them or not. It felt like an artificial block in order to keep the story going.

This was still a quick read, and generally kept my attention. However, I preferred Bride, and I do hope that Hazelwood takes a break from paranormal and goes back to my favorite type of her books.

#5 [2026/CBR18] A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

I saw A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping (2025) by Sangu Mandanna on NPR's Favorite Books List. Books with witches and whatnot are not usually my thing, but I've found some good books on NPR and I didn't want to be too close-minded. So, I got the audiobook from my library for a low commitment read while commuting.

If I had to describe this book in four words, I would say it is quiet, sweet, uplifting, and funny. At the beginning of the book, Sera Swan is a teenager with a promising amount of magical powers. She helps her great-aunt Jasmine run an enchanted Inn in Lancashire. But when Jasmine dies unexpectedly out in the garden, Sera desperately resurrects her with a forbidden spell--accidentally bringing back the skeletal remains of a long-dead rooster at the same time.

The resurrection spell Sera used sapped her of most of her magical powers. To make matters worse, Sera was kicked out of the witch's guild for breaking their magic rules. Fast-forward fifteen years, and Sera is now thirty years old. She and her aunt are struggling to keep the Inn from falling apart with the little dribble of magic Sera has left. She is desperate to find a way to get her magic back, but she can get no help from the Guild.

The Inn and its inhabitants gave me a strong Gilmore Girls vibe. The Inn is full of quirky characters who have found a home and support each other. These include a young man who dresses as a knight and Sera's young cousin--whose parents don't have much interest in him. In addition to the undead rooster, there is a sly fox--an old witch who was turned into a fox when one of her spells backfired.  Sera has an old spell that protects the Inn from people with bad intentions, but lets those in need come straight to her.

One day, Luke Larsen and his young sister, Posy, show up at the Inn. Posy has proven a challenge to their parents because she is both magical and autistic. She doesn't care to hide her magic, and her parents have sloughed her off onto Luke. Luke is a magical witch and historian, and he has some of the knowledge Sera needs to get her magic back. Luke is also good looking and so relieved to find a place that values Posy for who she is.

The antagonist in this book is a power-hungry older witch (wizard?) who has great influence in the Guild. He is the one who was behind Sera getting kicked out of the Guild, and he truly becomes evil as the story continues. He also comes from an old, established witch family and is very snobby about Sera's Indian heritage and her lack of connections.

Sera and Luke begin a quiet romance as they help each other. The book ends with the strong message that being yourself and caring about the people you love is more important than anything else. I found this book sweet and memorable. My only complaint, if any, was that I listened to this book on Audiobook, and I found it easy for my attention to drift off as I listened. However, on the whole, I enjoyed this book, and I loved what it stood for.

#4 [2026/CBR18] Bride by Ali Hazelwood

I realize that Ali Hazelwood does not write perfect books, but I find them highly entertaining and I usually go out of my way to read them. However, I've never had much interest in paranormal romance novels with vampires, werewolves, and the like. So, when I first heard that Hazelwood was branching out of her normal STEM romance novels, I figured I would skip them. But then I ran out of things to read, and I decided they were worth a try after all.

I started with Bride (2024) by Hazelwood because that's the one that became available at my library first. Fortunately, it also turned out to be the first book in this world, and I accidentally read them in the right order.

Misery Lark is a vampyre and a crack computer programmer who is living incognito in the human world. She had a pretty rough childhood. When she was only 10 years old, her father sent her off to be used as collateral to keep the peace between humans and vampyres. Having grown up with humans, and used by her father, she doesn't feel much connection to vampyres.

The one person Misery cares about more than anyone is her best friend, a human woman named Sabrina. Sabrina was thrown in with Misery when they were young girls--as someone who could ease her loneliness and perhaps help her behave. The two became incredibly close, but a couple weeks ago, Sabrina went missing without a word. Misery is desperate to find her friend, when she finds a scribbled note in Sabrina's place that says: "L. Moreland". It just so happens that her father asks Misery to marry Lowe Moreland, the Alpha of the nearby Were clan, as part of a peace deal. He obviously cares nothing for his daughter's happiness or safety, and only cares what he can get from her. But Misery thinks the L. Moreland must relate to Lowe, and he must have something to do with Sabrina's disappearance. She agrees to marry him in a desperate attempt to find her friend.

Weres and vampyres are lifelong enemies, and Misery doesn't have an easy time of it in the beginning. Fortunately, she's used to insults and being a loner, and Lowe is fair--even if he avoids her like the plague. As her time continues there, Misery makes herself useful, and she and Lowe start working together. Misery also grows closer with Lowe's young, half-sister, Ana.

There's a lot going on in this book. First, Misery and Lowe are falling for each other. Sabrina needs to be found. Killers are coming after both Misery and little Ana. And there is a lot of politics between vampyes, weres, and humans.

I know I am not big on fantastical creatures, but on the whole I liked this book. Did I sometimes wish we could just have normal people? Yes. But it wasn't too distracting. And humans don't have "mates" like Weres, which certainly helps push the romance forward. There was good chemistry between Lowe and Misery; I liked them together. However, my favorite part of the book was the humor, including Misery's sarcastic sense of humor. I found myself laughing a lot.

Was this a gateway book into more paranormal romance for me? Probably not, but it was a fun diversion.

#2 [2026/CBR18] The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

My book club led me to yet another book I had not heard of and wouldn't have chosen on my own. Our latest pick was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020) by V.E. Schwab. It is long and a little slow in places (a couple of women from my book club gave up on it), but it was also well written and very original. We had a lot of good discussions about the characters and the world of the novel.

Adeline (Addie) LaRue is in her early 20's and lives with her parents in a small town in 1714 France. She loves drawing, and yearns to see and experience more of the world. But when a marriage is arranged for her with an older widow with young kids, she despairs that all chance for a life of adventure is gone. She makes a bargain with one of the "gods of the night" to get her out of her circumstances.

Addie did not really understand what she was getting herself into when she bargained with the god/demon she ends up calling Luc. Suddenly she finds that no one, including her own parents, know her. And any people she runs into forget her as soon as she is out of their sight. This bargain frees Addie from her marriage. Also, when she is hurt or injured, she quickly heals, and she can't die. However, the bargain is truly a curse and makes Addie miserable. In a matter of seconds, she loses her family and her town. Addie heads to the closest larger city and then on to Paris. But she is walking the streets alone. She cannot have any kind of relationship nor any kind of safety or stability. Her suffering is immense. Once a year, the demon/god Luc comes to visit her. He is waiting for her to give up so he can take her soul, but Addie is nothing if not stubborn.

The book jumps back and forth between 1714 when her bargain begins and 2014 when Addie is in New York City and runs into a man named Henry working at a used bookstore. When Addie comes back the next day, Henry remembers her. He is the first person to remember her in three hundred years.

***SPOILERS*** Addie has to tell Henry what's happening to her. But Henry understands. He tells Addie that he made a bargain with the devil as well. Despondent over his recent breakup and severe lack of connection with his family, Henry is ready to kill himself when Luc shows up. Luc gives Henry one year with everyone around him seeing what they want most in Henry. Suddenly, Henry is surrounded by more attention than he can handle. And he realizes that people fawning over him for the wrong reasons is not the panacea he thought it would be.

Addie and Henry make a wonderful, if odd, couple for many months. But Addie doesn't know that Henry's time is limited. When she finds out, she makes a bargain with Luc for Henry's life. She gives herself to Luc "for as long as he wants her." In some ways, this felt right, because after three hundred years, Addie is something more than human at this point, and Addie and Luc had grown closer after all that time. But the twist is that Addie is intent on making Luc miserable and letting her go. She is using Luc's own tricks against him. ***END SPOILERS***

Like I mentioned before, this book was slow in places. I kept getting frustrated and bored whenever Luc came back to Addie, and they would have the exact same argument once again. However, once I finished it, I realized the slow points in the novel were setting up plot points for later. This book is not at the top of my list, but I'm glad I read it. There was lots to talk and think about, and we had a good group club discussion. 

#35 [2025/CBR17] The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley

CBR17Bingo: "Arts" because this book has a heavy emphasis on sculpture and painting.

I am usually very good about writing my reviews in the order that I read the books, but Seven Sisters (2015) by Lucinda Riley somehow slipped through the cracks. Maybe I just didn't want to think about this book anymore. Seven Sisters is the first book in a series of eight, and it was chosen recently for my book club. I dutifully downloaded the audiobook and began listening to the over eighteen hours of narrative.

This book is an odd mix of family drama, history, and a little bit of Greek myth thrown in. It is about the year 2000, and six sisters all come home for the unexpected death of their adopted father, Pa Salt. These six sisters were all adopted at different times and in different places around the world. They grew up in a castle called Atlantis on the shores of Lake Geneva. Their primary characteristic seems to be their extraordinary beauty, although they are all wildly successful at whatever they've chosen to do. One is an actress, one is a model, another races boats, etc. 

Each book in the series apparently focuses on one of the sisters. Because The Seven Sisters is the first book, it focuses on the oldest sister. Her name is Maia, and she has always been more reserved and bookish. She is beautiful, of course, but she is also a language expert and spends her time translating books. Maia is also somewhat of a hermit and is the only sister still living at home. When her father dies, he leaves each daughter a clue to her heritage. Maia's clue points towards Rio de Janeiro, and she decides to travel there.

Once in Rio, Maia meets up with one of the authors she works with, and he is very helpful in showing her around. Maia is able to meet up with a woman she suspects might be her grandmother, but the older woman is very sick and doesn't want to talk to Maia. In secret, the grandmother's maid gives Maia a bundle of letters. Thus, just when I finally thought the book was finally getting somewhere, it switches focus to a new set of characters.

Sidenote: Some of my favorite books have been epistolary novels. When done well, it is a different way of telling a story, and I love it. However, when done badly, it drives me crazy. Don't stick a letter into a novel, and then have the "letter" have the exact same feeling as the rest of the novel. No one writes letters like that!

The sudden switch of focus is to Maia's suspected great grandmother Izabela Bonifacio, back in the 1920's. Izabela's father is "new" money and desperate for more power and prestige. He is excited to marry Izabela to whatever old money suitor will give him the most, and Gustavo fits the bill. Izabela is very independent, but also obedient. She is able to convince Gustavo to convince her father to go on a months-long trip to Paris with her friend's family before they get married.

Izabela's friend's father is traveling to Paris to meet with the renowned sculptor, Paul Landowski, to discuss building the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. Izabela meets Laurent Brouilly, an assistant to Paul, and the two fall in love, but Izabela is too responsible and she leaves him in Paris to return home and marry. Unfortunately for Izabela, Gustavo turns from an awkward but sympathetic young man to a drunk rapist, and her life is miserable. When Laurent accompanies the parts of the Christ the Redeemer statute to Rio, he meets up with Izabela and they begin an affair.

I really did not like this book. In the beginning I kept waiting for it to get better, and then I only finished it because it was a book club book and I wanted to complain about it thoroughly. All of the characters felt like caricatures who only did things to serve the plot of the book. Gustavo literally turned into a different character when it was convenient for the plot of the book--he had to be bad enough that it was understandable our heroine would cheat on him. But then he switched right back once Izabela needed to come back to him. None of them felt real, and I didn't care about them. The book also went on forever with so much lost opportunity. There could have been real, interesting conflict between Izabela and her father, her husband, and her lover. But she couldn't be anything other than beautiful and obedient. She never made any decisions for herself, and then she was conveniently killed off at the end. The whole book had a very old-fashioned view of women that felt confining to me.

Surprisingly, to me, some of my book club enjoyed this book and have gone on to read the rest of the series. I don't understand it, and there's no way I'm spending more time on this series. The best thing about this book was the locations. I would love to travel to Rio, Paris, and Switzerland, and it was fun imagining myself there.

#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."