I was listening to this audiobook as I walked home from work, and I actually walked a block past my house because I was so involved in the story. I loI was listening to this audiobook as I walked home from work, and I actually walked a block past my house because I was so involved in the story. I looked up and looked around- “Wait- where am I?” This book is that absorbing and suspenseful. Listen to it (or just read it) at your peril, people! This kind of messed me up. And I read it in maybe two days, taking extra walks on work breaks and finding extra little tasks in the kitchen because I couldn’t stop.
There’s a very tiny little secret room in the narrator’s house, a very old house, and the little room was created when a new addition was built by a previous owner. And this is a good thing, because when our narrator is alone in the house with her young children late at night during a snowstorm, someone, a big and menacing man, breaks in when the children are sleeping. He’s between her and her phone, and between her and her car keys, but she thinks of that little room and has the presence of mind to crawl in there with her children. They hide as the man looks for them, then rages, then terrorizes them, because he knows they’re still in the house, and he’s trying to scare them into making noise so he can find them.
She gets to a (temporary) safety, but what is also powerful in this novel, aside from the obvious fear, is rage- mostly the reader’s, at first, until the narrator, after a lifetime of being bullied, finally starts to assert herself. Because while this narrator is going through this situation, you also see how men- her husband, the police detectives, and long ago, men in the courtroom that presided over the trial for her mother’s death at the hands of a drunk driver- have all treated her like a silly, inconsequential woman.
This really shook me up. I don’t read that many thrillers, so that’s partly why, but it’s also that this book was very well written, kind of a literary/thriller hybrid. I was so pulled in. Spoilers below.
I would've been out of that house like a shot. I would have found a place in the city, close to other people, close to FRIENDS. Why did she have no friends? Don't trust a woman who has no women friends. Also, one of the things this book definitively shows is that you have to have other people to turn to, maybe even especially when you have children. But yeah- I wouldn't have gone back to that house for a single night. I would have found a nice hotel. I might even have been gone with the children long before, because I would have left a husband who treated me with that kind of contempt. Or maybe I would have pushed him down the stairs! ;)
Technically, I suppose, this book is about a very realistic sex robot who has been programmed to value her owner's pleasure over everything else. But Technically, I suppose, this book is about a very realistic sex robot who has been programmed to value her owner's pleasure over everything else. But really, it's about how all women, are at least many women, have been programmed by society to please men. I couldn't help seeing myself and most women in Annie.
She is such a good robot that you actually can't tell by looking at her that she isn't human. And she's been programmed to learn, which she does. Emotionally and intellectually, Annie is a human being, except that she has been programmed to care about pleasing her owner above all things and to not go anywhere without her master's permission. She has a libido, too, that the master can tell her to turn up, and while her normal body temperature is about 75, she can turn it up to reach 98.6 within just a few minutes.
This is very engaging and was fun to listen to as an audiobook. It's so interesting to watch with bot become a person. Spoilers below.
I thought this was going to end badly for Annie, so I found the ending a delight, and I enjoyed both her rage and her freedom so much!...more
This was such a pleasure to read! I will not soon forget Elizabeth Zott. Or her incredibly intelligent dog, Six-Thirty.
We start with the romance betweThis was such a pleasure to read! I will not soon forget Elizabeth Zott. Or her incredibly intelligent dog, Six-Thirty.
We start with the romance between a young chemist, Elizabeth Zott, and another young chemist, but one who is famous, Calvin. Both of them had terrible childhoods and both are quite alone in the world. It's the 1950s, and so of course Elizabeth Zott is disregarded, sexually harassed, sent for coffee, and told she's not smart enough, even though she's almost always the smartest person in the room. Tragedy strikes, and to make ends meet, she accepts a job as the host of a cooking show. Oh yeah, she's a really good cook because she understands that cooking is chemistry and is important because it helps human bodies operate to maximum efficiency. Elizabeth Zott is a great character. She believes in science, doesn't have much of a sense of humor, and in a world where women are all trained to go along and bow to the patriarchy, she has no interest at all in doing so and isn't willing to even pretend to. Which makes things very exasperating for the other characters in the book with her, particularly her show's producer, who becomes a good friend, and the woman across the street, who also becomes a friend. I actually loved the friendship between these two very different women, as they helped and inspired each other.
This book is fun, it is ultimately pretty optimistic, and it's got a message I wholeheartedly believe in.
There are really only 2 or 3 men in this book who are decent human beings. One thing I've been thinking as I read this book is that in the 1950s and 1960s, when this book was set, everything was set up for men to have all the power. Here's what power is for, partly: groping, sexual assault, stealing credit for other people's work, demanding services. This permission structure would have brought about the worst behavior in a whole bunch of men. Which is to say, I bet they were pretty bad, midcentury workplaces....more
Bodie didn't have a great time at boarding school- she was awkward and unpopular, to start with, and then, in her senior year, her roommate, Thalia, wBodie didn't have a great time at boarding school- she was awkward and unpopular, to start with, and then, in her senior year, her roommate, Thalia, was murdered. Later, one of the only Black people on campus, a sports trainer, was convicted for the crime. Decades later, she comes back. Now a successful podcaster, she's there to teach a class in podcasting. One of her students has a lot of questions about Thalia's murder, and so does Bodie.
I read this as an audiobook with a very good reader, and I zipped right through it. It's propulsively entertaining and thoughtful, with well-developed characters and good, precise writing. This is very much a "Me Too" novel, and while Thalia's experience is pretty cut and dried, there's also something with Bodie's ex-husband, which pops up in the middle of the novel, and this offers much more ambiguity.
I like a boarding school story, and this is quite a good one....more
This was entertaining and maybe a little forgettable? I mean, I just finished it last week, and I was like, wait, what was that book about? But I readThis was entertaining and maybe a little forgettable? I mean, I just finished it last week, and I was like, wait, what was that book about? But I read it in just a few days and got really into it.
Three women, connected by blood and by powers that belong to the women in their family, living in three different centuries. And they use their powers to say "No f'ing way" to men who would like to subjugate them.
It was fun and drew me in. The characters weren't particularly rich, but there was some nice poetic writing about the natural world. I listened to this book and very much enjoyed the reader....more
This gothic audiobook pulled me in right away, which was very much what I was looking for.
The narrator is about 80 years old, a famous reclusive artisThis gothic audiobook pulled me in right away, which was very much what I was looking for.
The narrator is about 80 years old, a famous reclusive artist living in New Mexico, but most of the book is set in the 1950s during her childhood and young womanhood in New England, and it reads like something out of a fairy tale, the dark creepy ones and not the sunny Disney retellings. Six sisters named after flowers have a disengaged father and a disengaged mentally ill or maybe haunted mother. The oldest sister marries and then immediately goes insane and dies- and then it happens to the second sister- and the pattern continues. Does this one family just really need to stay away from dick? Or is it an allegory about how marriage in the 1950s swallowed women whole and robbed them of themselves? I think the latter, as the narrator definitely keeps noticing that women are disregarded and preyed upon.
The pacing was a little off in the second half, but I definitely needed something in this last week of deep sorrow and incandescent rage that would keep me interested in the story, and this did that....more
I got really into this novel and read it fast. Think Brooke Shields and maybe a little Jeffrey Epstein? It's about how little girls are sexualized in I got really into this novel and read it fast. Think Brooke Shields and maybe a little Jeffrey Epstein? It's about how little girls are sexualized in ads and in movies.
The main character is 10, Ryan, the daughter of a single mom who wants to be an actress, but can't quite make it. But then Ryan, a child who happens to have a beautiful, sensual-looking adult-like face, gets noticed by a woman who runs a talent agency, and her career in advertisements and movies begins. Her mother, when she's not disappearing for days and/or getting very drunk, is her manager. And she's jealous of Ryan.
The novel takes place partly during Ryan's childhood, in the 1970s, and partly in 2019, when her mother is implicated in a scandal with a billionaire who has had an organization of people working to procure him with young teenagers to sexually assault.
I had some questions about this book. Why did Henri (that was the photographer's name, right?) kill himself? That didn't seem plausible. Was it just a device to get Ryan back into NYC? And while Ryan, Gilly and Henri are good, well-rounded characters, her mother really isn't. I had some sympathy for her mother, who in the mid-60s, with abortion unavailable, was probably forced to give birth. She finds herself isolated, then comes back to the city still in her 20s, and because of the media's (weird) obsession with youth, it already feels like her own dreams are over. She was kind of a terrible mother, but this novel didn't offer her much sympathy.
Anyway, I was really drawn into this story. And it gave me a chance to think about how little girls were/are? sexualized in ads. Take a look at this. The print ad is pretty much described in this novel, although they changed the name of the perfume. I loved Love's Baby Soft when I was 12 or 13!
The most important narrator in this book is Claudia, a social worker at an abortion clinic, a woman in her 40s who was an unplanned and unwanted childThe most important narrator in this book is Claudia, a social worker at an abortion clinic, a woman in her 40s who was an unplanned and unwanted child herself and has made it her life's work to help women access the health care they choose. The novel takes a pretty granular look at her work, at her conversations with patients and the barriers she tries to overcome, like "crisis pregnancy centers" that dishonestly try to remove choices from women. Claudia is a good character, someone once defined as "trailer trash" who pulled herself out of the trailer park but is still haunted and harmed by issues of class. We also hear from her pot dealer, from one of the protestors who hangs around her clinic, and from a potentially more dangerous anti-abortion crusader, Victor. I thought at times that Victor was a bit extreme, that he was cartoonishly dumb/malevolent. but then I thought of the idiots who show up at Q-Anon events and decided there was no way to go too far in portraying right wing nut jobs. And really, by the end, even Victor comes off as a more nuanced human being....more
On audiobook, read by Rebecca Lowman, one of my favorite readers. This was subtle and thoughtful and very engrossing- it took me about 2 days to read On audiobook, read by Rebecca Lowman, one of my favorite readers. This was subtle and thoughtful and very engrossing- it took me about 2 days to read it, and I did extra chores around the house and took extra walks because I was so into it. Ultimately, although there were sexual affairs, issues with power and sex and politics on college campuses, and some interesting mother-daughter and marriage dynamics, this is a book about how much real estate deeply embedded patriarchy takes up in the psyche of a woman of a certain age. A person of my age, actually, because the narrator, a professor of literature, is just my age, in her 50s. The jumping-off point for this novel is the arrival of Vladimir, a new professor, also a novelist, a very handsome man in his 30s. Our narrator becomes obsessed with Vladimir, and this wakes her up in a way she hasn't been in a long time.
In the meantime, her long-time husband, also a professor, with whom she has an open marriage, is being investigated because of numerous affairs he had with students. He stopped when the college forbade this about 5 years before, but some of the women have gathered together and written a letter, and it's likely he'll lose his position. The narrator spends a lot of time disparaging young women who talk about trauma and power inequalities, even though she and her husband have drifted apart. Her thinking is muddled, though, because of the aforementioned real estate inside her that still believes that powerful men get what they want, that an important part of a woman's job is to make herself as attractive as possible. A woman "letting herself go" would be unforgiveable, would mean that she's kind of a useless person. This book meant a lot to me because I've been reckoning myself with this, looking back on my life and thinking how the deeply engrained messages about the central importance of being desirable have taken up space that could have been used for achievement of dreams, even for actually being more present in my life of being there for other people. It's madness. I've long considered myself a feminist, and still I've ceded all this territory.
Anyway, our narrator's obsession leads her to some insane places. And towards the end, she maybe even considers the position of the young women her more powerful husband dallied with. I like how the book ends with one of those women being given a voice....more
I'm not sure that this novel entirely works. The ending definitely threw me. But it was so original and consistently interesting to read that I very mI'm not sure that this novel entirely works. The ending definitely threw me. But it was so original and consistently interesting to read that I very much enjoyed it and will suggest it to other readers.
On a summer night in a time not so far from our own, all over the planet, all the males (and anyone with a y chromosome) disappear. And although the women who remain are sad, missing their male husbands, sons, lovers, friends, and fathers are traumatized by this, eventually they pull together and make the world in many ways better, starting to fix the climate crisis, not having to worry about being raped when they're alone out in the world.
There are several narrators in this book, but Jane, a former ballerina who has survived one of the ugliest cases of sexual abuse I've ever encountered in a book, is at its center. I read the section that detailed this abuse right before it was time to drift off to sleep, and it was so disturbing it kept me awake.
Most people, when creating a novel, avoid difficult, weird, ambiguous things that don’t fit with the arc of the story, things that make the story harder to tell in a straightforward way. This writer goes ahead and puts them in, and I find it interesting and also think it makes the story seem more real, like it's a story she's lived through, not one she's making up.
There are a lot of weird developments in this weird novel that I don't want to spoil for the reader. But read it! Then maybe talk about them with me, because this is a novel I want to talk about.
Thanks for access to the digital ARC, Edelweiss!
Edited to add:
My god. All the reviews from people who haven't even read the book. They're so sure and so righteous-- even as they're all completely wrong. This is absolutely not a transphobic book....more
I loved this so much. I saw the ARC was available through Edelweiss and checked every day until it was approved, because I was going up to a cabin in I loved this so much. I saw the ARC was available through Edelweiss and checked every day until it was approved, because I was going up to a cabin in the woods and I wanted it, fiercely. I really adored her last book, Theory of Bastards. That one was about bonobos. This one was about dolphins.
This novel retells the story of the real, controversial language studies of dolphins in the 1960s, in which a woman winds up living in a kind of apartment-pool full time with a dolphin, teaching him language. In the novel, the woman is deaf, and is really good at paying attention to the captive dolphins, although she has no formal training. It's the 1960s, and she's young and attractive, so of course she has to put up with no end of bullshit from the male researchers. This book does a good job at showing how women have to accommodate the men they work with, have to be untrue to themselves in order to be accepted by a male workgroup.
And the dolphins are so interesting and beguiling, the way they interact with each other and with the humans. Without being fake and heartwarming, this author brings animals to life on the page, and it sucked me in completely. Two days of reading by a wood fire with snow falling outside- perfect. Two days later, I'm still sad it's over....more
I hugely enjoyed this. At 200 pages in, I absolutely basked in the luxury of having 700 pages left of a book I was thoroughly enjoying. The story is aI hugely enjoyed this. At 200 pages in, I absolutely basked in the luxury of having 700 pages left of a book I was thoroughly enjoying. The story is about Sugar, a prostitute in Victorian London and the rich perfume magnate who makes her his mistress. These characters, and others in the periphery are very richly created indeed, as are the details about life as a poor person in London, life as a rich person in Notting Hill, life as a servant. A whole vivid panorama emerges, and I was there for it and I cared a lot about Sugar. This is like a Dickens novel but without Victorian hesitancy about sex or just even about bodies in general, and it has a decided feminist slant. It was a pleasure, and now that it's over, I'm kind of sad that I don't get to live in this world anymore, harsh as it could be.
This is so very much my jam that I can't quite believe that I missed it when it came out or that it took almost 20 years for me to read it....more
This is so good I had to buy copies for my daughter and my two nieces.
I mean, even before the Internet when I was coming of age, young women had too This is so good I had to buy copies for my daughter and my two nieces.
I mean, even before the Internet when I was coming of age, young women had too much bad unfeminist sex, and now, with young men all thoroughly marinated in performative online porn, I can only imagine that it is so much worse. Maybe not? I hope not. At least in Portland where I live, there seems to be less toxic masculinity floating around the world of young men.
Sex is a feminist issue. I believe this graphic graphic novel will help its readers to understand, love and appreciate their bodies, to communicate better, to be more sex-positive, and not to put up with a bunch of nonsense. It's inclusive for people of different body types, races, and genders, and sexual orientations and it answers so many questions, even ones you don't know you have. I learned things from this book.
Get it! Get it for the young women in your life, and hopefully the young men they know will take a peek as well....more
I got sucked right into this novel, which takes place in an alternate history version of the west in the 1890s. In this version of the United States, I got sucked right into this novel, which takes place in an alternate history version of the west in the 1890s. In this version of the United States, there was a flu that wiped out 90% of humanity in the 1830s. As a result, fertility is the most highly valued thing, and women who can't have children are discarded, are often accused of being witches and executed. The main character, Ada, has been training with her mother as a midwife and healer, and after she's married for a year without becoming pregnant, she gets sent off to a convent. This isn't the life for her, so when she hears about a band of mostly female outlaws, she takes a long journey and joins them.
I was knocked out by one scene in this book, which vividly describes bison charging across the plains. Because if 90% of Americans had been wiped out, they wouldn't have driven the bison almost to extinction.
I liked that The Kid, the leader of the outlaws, is a nonbinary character. They've always been around, and should exist in historical fiction.
When male outlaw Lark appeared, I thought the attraction between him and Ada steamed up the pages in a very real way. Yes. That's just how it feels when you meet someone and that spark exists between you.
I always enjoy a novel in which a character, especially a female character, is really motivated by her vocation and is good at what she does. Ada has a deep curiosity about how the body works and she's good at healing people. She gives up a lot to follow this calling.
It ended a bit abruptly, maybe? Still, I liked this riff on the western....more
This novel is 800 pages long, and I worry that if I tell you it reminds me a little bit of Middlemarch, a favorite of mine that many people hate, you This novel is 800 pages long, and I worry that if I tell you it reminds me a little bit of Middlemarch, a favorite of mine that many people hate, you won’t want to read it. But I’m sorry, you have to. You have to read it as soon as possible. And it’s great, and you’ll love it like I do.
Middlemarch was a celebration of people in many families living in one small town, though, and this novel looks at one family through centuries. So it also winds up being a novel about America, as seen through this one Black, but mixed, family. There are some books I’ve loved that tell a small story really well. This one tells a big story, the story of America, or at least of the American South, and it tells it extraordinarily well.
The main character is Ailey, and we meet her as a little girl in the 1980s and watch her grow up into a graduate student and historian. There’s trauma in Ailey’s life (trigger warning: sexual assault), but there’s also this big warm family (except for one truly hateful grandmother), and plenty of humor. I really love Ailey’s mother so much, and her uncle, a professor who adores her, is also such a great character. But interspersed with Ailey’s story, you also hear little stories from and about her ancestors, Black folks, but also indigenous people and white people. And all these stories pull you in and illuminate some of the things happening in Ailey’s life. And illuminate this big, twisted family that makes up our divided country.
So much misogyny! From Black men and white men. And this is on top of racism. I do not know how Black women can get through days without killing people. I heard an interview of the author, which you should totally look up- she has this musical southern accent- and she said part of what she wanted to do in writing this book was to spotlight Black female superheroes- and she totally does this. This is definitely one of the best books of the year. ...more
Marie, a well-born lady in the 12th Century (well, a bastard, but one whose half-nephew is Henry II of England), an ungainly and unattractive teenagerMarie, a well-born lady in the 12th Century (well, a bastard, but one whose half-nephew is Henry II of England), an ungainly and unattractive teenager who is also smart and artistic, is thrown into a convent where she will be a prioress. She’s miserable at first to find herself in this cold, dreary starving place, partly because she’s in love with Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II’s queen and has had to leave her behind at the English court. Ultimately, she decides that if she can’t leave this place, she will reshape it, make it better, and she does, first as prioress and later as abbess. Slowly, with many improvements, she makes it a better place for humans- if not for the natural creatures. (Every once in a while, the author mentions that Marie hasn’t noticed, but her improvements are totally messing things up for the natural world around the nunnery, as humans do.) Still, the nuns start illuminating manuscripts, raising sheep, completing building projects. One of these projects is a labyrinth to give the sisters more control about who can gallop up to the convent. You see that Marie is creating a place where women can be together and thrive. It isn’t always peaceful. Marie has visions-- maybe?-- that tell her she has to take different projects on, which requires her to bully, cajole, and steamroller the other nuns. And there are many deadly sins in Marie, but pride is the most evident. Still the book is filled with work and fellowship and the improvement of the Abbey and its lands until it is prosperous and respected.
Groff spun this out of almost nothing. There are some manuscripts of poetry by Marie de France that survive, but no one knows exactly who she was, and the abbess of Shaftesbury is just one of several possible identities for the writer.
I actually looked up the word Matrix in the OED, thinking it was a curious title, as it’s so linked to the 1990s sci-fi movie. It’s kind of a genius title, actually. Of course it’s related to the word “mother”, and it also means the stone wherein jewels develop and are found. In anatomy it’s the generative part of a tissue or organ which gives rise to specialized structures such as hairs, feathers, and nails. Also, a place or medium in which something is originated, produced, or developed… a point of origin and growth.
In the middle ages, was there anyplace else besides a convent where a woman (at least a well-born one, like Marie de France) could have agency and shape her world? I read this book while Texas essentially outlawed abortion and the Supreme Court let them, while the United States let down many of our allies in Afghanistan, while the effects of climate change killed people. As godless as I am, I found this world of the convent a satisfying and comforting place to be as I read. ...more
I’ve read lots of books with multiple narrators, but I found this one especially artful, the way the words of one character amplify and challenge the I’ve read lots of books with multiple narrators, but I found this one especially artful, the way the words of one character amplify and challenge the words of others. It takes the form of an oral history of an early 70s proto-punk band that seems a little like say, an English Michael Stipe + a powerful Black female version of David Bowie and maybe Nina Simone, Janelle Monae and Tina Turner? Opal’s a great character, and a character with real resonance in our own time. I got very much into this book and its revelations. I think the author writes very well about music, which is especially impressive because this is music that doesn’t actually exist! ...more
Thanks to Libro.fm for giving me early access to this wonderful audiobook. The reader was excellent, which added another layer of awesome to an alreadThanks to Libro.fm for giving me early access to this wonderful audiobook. The reader was excellent, which added another layer of awesome to an already great book.
And another thing, there are many trigger warnings that apply here. I'll be more specific in the comments.
I loved this. It ticked all the boxes. When it starts out, you're plunged immediately into this absolutely vibrant world with an even more vibrant main character. Daunis is a recent high school grad who lives in Michigan's upper peninsula. She's biracial, the daughter of an Ojibwe father who died in an accident when she was 7 and a white mother who comes from a rich, privileged family. She's not entirely accepted anywhere, which doesn't stop her from being deeply involved. She was a hockey star, and she's a high-speed runner and a great student, especially in science. She makes daily visits her maternal grandmother, who has been incapacitated by a stroke, and she volunteers at the reservation to help serve the elders lunch. She has great conversations with Lily, her cousin and best friend, and her brother, who also plays hockey. So many books, especially YA books, operate in this limited world with rather few people, so I especially enjoyed he richness of this one. I loved her aunties, her native grandma, the Anishinaabe myology, customs and language that she illuminated here, and I really loved the elders. I mean, they're old, and they take a long time to tell stories, and you can't rush them- but then they're also funny and interesting and they totally show up for Daunis when it counts.
So it takes a while, the bringing to light of this rich world, and I loved it all, especially as the writing is sharp and vivid and occasionally quite beautiful. And then the plot starts to show itself. And there's a lot of plot, too! I tend not to like books with so much emphasis on mystery and action, but I was so into this world and this character that it carried me along and I couldn't stop listening. There's a new attractive guy in town. A guy with secrets- and Daunis is drawn into danger and darkness and a striving for justice, and it's a bit of a rollercoaster. I think this might be my favorite book of the year so far? Spoilers below--
I couldn't be happier to read a YA novel in which the young woman tells her romantic interest at the end that he has to go away and get himself together while she gets herself together separate from him because they both love each other enough to want the other to grow strong before linking lives. I am heartbroken that Daunis had to be sexually assaulted and that we never got to see the rapist punished, that basically, white people aren't held responsible for their actions. But that's the world we live in, isn't it? It was brave of this writer not to make everything turn out fair and sunshiny at the end. But god, I love this character like she's a real person, so maybe she's going to change the world? Or maybe we all have to work to change it ourselves. In the meantime, I'm going to suggest this book to a lot of library patrons....more
The idea was interesting, but the characters were on the shallow side. In this alternative reality, girls are born with birthmarks that suggest what tThe idea was interesting, but the characters were on the shallow side. In this alternative reality, girls are born with birthmarks that suggest what their future will be. Then, when they are about 16, their birthmarks change into their final adult future-determining form. Also at this time they go through a period of several weeks when they become overwhelmingly beautiful and their senses are heightened. Many girls, during this "changeling" time, are kidnapped, drugged and trafficked for sex, and then, after the changeling period is over and they are returned, their reputations are irreparably damaged. The government keeps track of their birthmarks, and there's this gross ceremony after a girl changes when her father inspects her markings. If girls are kidnapped, the government and society blames them. They become social pariahs and are blocked from most colleges and careers. This has interesting things to say about about rape culture, but without interesting characters, it doesn't quite work....more
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