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! ;)
Allegra Goodman’s books are all so different! And this is my favorite one yet.
This is based on a true story that took place in the 16th century. The mAllegra Goodman’s books are all so different! And this is my favorite one yet.
This is based on a true story that took place in the 16th century. The main character, Marguerite, initially grows up as an heiress. Her parents died before she could ever have remembered them, but she has a nurse who truly loves her and a houseful of servants in her beautiful home. But here’s the bad news: she has a guardian, a cousin, who apparently controls Marguerite and everything she owns, with no constraints. And he is a man who enjoys power and has no conscience. He’s also a man who has been appointed Lieutenant General of New France, a huge territory in the New World, and he takes her with him on a perilous journey. The most perilous part is how Marguerite’s first crush turns out, and this winds up being a story of survival.
This is well-written, well-researched, and deeply involving. And it’s really a story about how much the patriarchy sucks, which I’m here for. I think it would be a good read-alike for Emma Donoghue’s The Vaster Wilds....more
This was so good. Probably my favorite book of the year so far.
It's set in Alaska. I spent four summers in southeastern Alaska. Not the interior, wherThis was so good. Probably my favorite book of the year so far.
It's set in Alaska. I spent four summers in southeastern Alaska. Not the interior, where this is set, but still, Ivey's descriptions of plants and bears, wilderness and Alaskan local bars- it all made me very nostalgic. Her writing about the natural world is some of the best I've ever read, poetic and specific and visceral. Alaska is gorgeous and dangerous, and that all shows itself in her prose. Another thing about Alaska is that it has this mythic quality. You read and listen to native stories about ravens and eagles and bears, and then you see all these creatures around you, all the time, and the myths and the reality of nature don't feel like they're necessarily very far apart. I love how in Ivey's books, the three of them that I've read so far, the membrane between the mythic and the natural is all too permeable.
Her characters are rich, too. This book is about a young mother, Birdie, and her daughter Emmeline, who is about six. Birdie is a great character, one you see in the world, but don’t find in books very often, because she couldn’t be less writerly. She’s impulsive, endlessly energetic, seeking sensation, in love with the natural world, and not at all interested in translating sensations into words, as I am, or as writers are. She doesn’t think much about consequences, so is maybe not the best mother? But she loves her daughter so much. Emmaleen is a realistic and beautifully created child. I love the sections of the book when she's engaging in imaginative play. It reminded me so much of being that age, with my imagination going wild. The plot gets going as Birdie is becoming attracted to Arthur, a local man who lives out in the wilderness, far from any town. I think she's more interested in living out in the bush than she is in Arthur, a quiet and strange man who has trouble putting his thoughts into words. Another thing about Arthur is that he has a secret, a pretty big secret.
This is the kind of book that makes you sad when you finish it. I have a book hangover now and can't really get into anything else.
Thanks to the publisher for giving me early access to this book in exchange for an honest review....more
I liked this better than the latest Ruth Ware novels!
It takes place on an island, the set of a reality dating show, where the main narrator has been cI liked this better than the latest Ruth Ware novels!
It takes place on an island, the set of a reality dating show, where the main narrator has been cajoled into coming with her wannabe actor boyfriend. Things take a turn when there's a fast change in the weather, and this becomes a real survival story, not a fake survival story. I always very much enjoy the reader who voices Ware's books. I don't want to say too much and spoil it, but it really held my interest. Except... one spoiler below...
I had a little problem with the ending. I feel like the four women could have told the truth about how horrible the villain of the tale was and just said they had sneaked to his villa looking for the insulin, he'd woken up, and they'd had to kill him in self defense. It seemed convoluted to have to create a diary making him look like a saint, not to mention bad for the world....more
This should have been just my thing- Wales, a consideration of class, survival in a place where survival is really hard. And I did read the whole thinThis should have been just my thing- Wales, a consideration of class, survival in a place where survival is really hard. And I did read the whole thing, which is saying something these days, when I quit books after 20 or 30 pages pretty often. But somehow, I never felt all that involved with this book.
Manod is a young woman who lives on a remote and hardscrabble Welsh island in the late 1930s with her fisherman father and her sister, who is about 12. She wants to get away, as many young people on the island have done, but she feels obligated to take care of her sister because their mother is dead. When a couple of researchers show up, saying their project is to document life on the island, and hire Manod as their translator and secretary, they change things for her in unexpected ways.
It was fine? It was a good audiobook production, though, with a good reader and snippets of Welsh songs and stories....more
This was pretty engaging, but while it pulled me right in, I never quite cared about the characters. Lovely writing about food and sex- and I like theThis was pretty engaging, but while it pulled me right in, I never quite cared about the characters. Lovely writing about food and sex- and I like these things- but not much of a sense of place, which really would have helped this book.
The planet Earth is covered in a kind of haze, likely the result of climate change or some other human f*ckery, and a famine falls upon the globe. Mostly people are eating this disgusting grain made out of legumes, nutritious but terrible. A chef in her 20s, living in Europe, takes a mysterious job as a cook up in the mountains of Italy, working for ultra-rich people who still have fresh produce and all the other foods.
If I wasn't interesting in cooking, I probably wouldn't have stuck with this. Oh, the audiobook reader was quite good though. That helped a lot....more
I got about halfway through, and I didn't really like this. I looked forward to it so greedily. Tommy Orange is an amazing writer, and I was regularlyI got about halfway through, and I didn't really like this. I looked forward to it so greedily. Tommy Orange is an amazing writer, and I was regularly absolutely knocked out by great sentences-but I think it was that the characters weren't very rich. Right before I quit, I was reading a chapter about one teenager, immediately followed by a chapter narrated by another teenager, and I could barely distinguish between their voices. It might be me? An awful lot of my reading these days is between 4 and 6 in the morning when I can't sleep, and it's hard to face chapter after chapter about sad, drug-addicted people in the dark of the night-- and different people, too, as the narrative switches every chapter. His last novel, his first, definitely grabbed me-- and this one definitely didn't.
But I still think it could be me. This year, I read books by all of the following authors I'd read before and liked. I finished all of them except The Fraud and Julia, but it was hard, and I was disappointed.
Julia by Sandra Newman Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue The Fraud, by Zadie Smith (!) Let Us Descend, by Jesmyn Ward (!!)
This was fine. The characters were not as rich as I would like them to be, but I do like a story about survival in cold places, and the audiobook readThis was fine. The characters were not as rich as I would like them to be, but I do like a story about survival in cold places, and the audiobook reader was quite good.
Virginia has lived through some hard things, but she likes a new challenge, so she says yes when she is approached by Lady Franklin to lead a search party made up of women. They will head into the Arctic, looking for the ship and the survivors of a very famous (true) expedition led by John Franklin, who was looking for the northwest passage. The voyage doesn't go as planned, and many of the women are lost. One of them has a rich family who wants to make someone pay. The narrative switches back and forth between Virginia's murder trial and the adventures on the ship and on the ice....more
Ruth Ware's books always capture my interest quickly and are enjoyable to listen to- I like the reader who always reads her books, so I always read thRuth Ware's books always capture my interest quickly and are enjoyable to listen to- I like the reader who always reads her books, so I always read them as audiobooks- and this is no exception. The main character is Jack, a woman who works as part of a team with her husband, Gabe, testing corporate security systems. Gabe is a hacker, and does the computer work, while Jack is on-the-ground specialist in breaking and entering. One night she comes home from a job and discovers her husband dead, and quickly realizes she is the main suspect. She runs off, determined to figure out who committed the murder herself. She's a badass, very good at her job and very determined to achieve her goal, so it was fun to watch her overcome obstacles and figure things out.
Spoiler below.
One flaw of this book is that there are so few characters that it's pretty easy to figure out who the guilty party is....more
Inside and outside. I kept thinking about this as I read this novel. Matrix was so much a novel of the inside- about a person who was inside a nunneryInside and outside. I kept thinking about this as I read this novel. Matrix was so much a novel of the inside- about a person who was inside a nunnery, and then so inside she was mostly on the seat of power in the novel. In Groff's Arcadia, the main character is inside- a commune- and then out, having a hard time adjusting to live in the wider world. I read Fates and Furies too long ago to remember if this is a theme in that novel. But the young maidservant at the center of The Vaster Wilds is so, so far outside- and in a way, always has been.
She doesn't even have a name. Her first name was given to her at an orphanage, as a punishment for- perhaps- having a prostitute for a mother. Her second name, given by the careless and vain woman who takes her as a maid at the age of four, who makes her sleep at the bottom of her bed, using the child as a footwarmer, is the name of a recently deceased pet monkey. This poor little girl is living in a very patriarchal society, and she's at the very bottom of the power structure. As she gets older, it's worse- she's raped and no one cares.
But the flashbacks to earlier times don't take up a lot of space in this novel. Most of the book is about the girl's flight from Jamestown, the colonial fort where the person she most loved has recently died, her mistress's mentally disabled daughter, and from events we don't find out about until nearly the end of this book.
Groff is an extraordinary writer, and this book is full of gorgeous writing about the natural world, and a little about mindfulness, too, which allows our fleeing maidservant to drink it all in. This book grabbed me, and right from the beginning, with descriptions of bees and bears and tree trunks, and also with the ways the girl finds to survive, the ways she keeps herself warm, takes care of her hatchet, boots, coverlets. I liked the insights she came up with as she walked- about God, nature, how settlers would wreck this new world. Honestly, I was never bored. And by the end, I was rooting for her so hard. Space down for spoilers....
...and also by the end, I was sad. I wanted her to find the kind Frenchman she dreamed of early in the book and to have a life with people, maybe children. I guess the smallpox and the physical damage she sustained during her journey broke her? As well as memories of what finally led her to leave the fort. The sight of her former mistress's meal right before she left- that might lead a person to seek a life away from other people.
The pandemic very much got into this novel- I saw it in the girl's vision of a world emptied out of people, in her imagining what would have happened if she'd trusted the native people by the waterfall and let them carry her- and her infection- back to the their village....more
This could be slow-going, but was ultimately rewarding. It's a book I'll remember and think about. There's a postcard and a little bit of a mystery abThis could be slow-going, but was ultimately rewarding. It's a book I'll remember and think about. There's a postcard and a little bit of a mystery about who sent it, but really, it's a book about the Holocaust sneaking up on the Jews of Europe, on the toll this trauma took on survivors and subsequent generations, and what it means to be Jewish.
The Rabinovitch family flees Russia, moves around Europe a bit, follows the family patriarch to Palestine, then decides to head back to Europe and settle in Paris. They really, really want to be French, but are never really accepted, and when the Germans occupy France, there are plenty of French people willing to go along with the extermination plan. Only the oldest daughter, Myriam, survives. The first half of the book tells this story.
The rest of the book is about Myriam's daughter and granddaughter trying to figure out the story of this family and figure out Myriam, who desperately missed her lost parents, brother and sister, but was never able to talk about them or about how she survived the war. They reckon with her secrets and with what it means for them to be Jewish....more
I did not know this was based on a true story in England in the 18th century, and I didn't know what that story was, so when there's a murder- very laI did not know this was based on a true story in England in the 18th century, and I didn't know what that story was, so when there's a murder- very late in the book, after I was pretty involved with Mary Saunders, the main character- it blindsided me. I was reading in the kitchen, where my husband was making coffee, and my son was in the next room, and they both checked on me, because I was exclaiming, "Nooooo." "Oh my God." "Argh!" My son thought there must have been a terrible world event that he hadn't heard of yet, and was relieved to find it was "just" a fictional character.
I liked this quite a bit. I've enjoyed Emma Donoghue's two most recent books enough that I decided to explore her backlist. This one is about a very poor but bright London girl with a taste for color and finery, not something you really find much of in her poor slum, or in her school, where children are being raised to be obedient and humble seamstresses or servants. Her mother doesn't show her much kindness- partly because she's working constantly and doesn't have any time for tenderness. Mary is raped at 14, and then kicked out of the house when the rape leaves her pregnant. And she's raped again when she's out in the world and suddenly unsheltered. She's taken in by a kind prostitute, and ultimately decides shat she'd better sell sex rather than having it taken from her all the time.
She winds up having to leave London and seeks out an old friend of her mother's, a dressmaker, for whom she becomes a maid and seamstress. She makes some awful mistakes. She's definitely not a flawless character- but she's just a young teenager who has been abandoned. I like the details of 18th century life, and I was obviously drawn into the characters, because it slayed me when disaster hit....more
I really liked this novella about a mother and son surviving the apocalypse together in the mountains of Wales. When the novel opens, the mother, RoweI really liked this novella about a mother and son surviving the apocalypse together in the mountains of Wales. When the novel opens, the mother, Rowenna, is about 35 and the son, Dylan, is 16, and The End, as they called it, was about 10 years earlier, the result of nuclear bombs, maybe with a side of climate change? The nearby town is emptied out, except for maybe a few dead people left in their beds. Rowenna has a one-year-old, too, although she isn't doing very well. They've learned, these two people, how to survive, and the son, especially, has found his calling as a farmer. There is some sadness and loss, but the two of them love their quiet life, reading books, working so hard to raise food for themselves that they fall into bed at night. This was a short, simple book, but very affecting....more
This moving novel was definitely influenced by Angie Thomas’s books and would be a great read-alike for readers who liked Thomas’s books, for older peThis moving novel was definitely influenced by Angie Thomas’s books and would be a great read-alike for readers who liked Thomas’s books, for older people or people okay with a lot more darkness. And I mean darkness. This retells the story of the massive 2015 scandal in the Oakland Police Department told from the point of view of a teenage prostitute who was trafficked and shared by a whole bunch of members of the department. It’s hard to read.
This very good writer would have been served better by an editor that would have done more editing. There are paragraphs all over the place that should have been cut. The one about the sweet taste of syrup comes to mind, but they’re all over the place. The writing is very good and shows huge promise, but if this was a bit leaner, the story would have been stronger.
But that story. Leila Mottley manages not only to share the story of the main character, a girl with few choices- and a girl who has learned to sacrifice too much of herself for the men in her life- she also tells a story of generational trauma, of how people get stuck like their parents did. I really loved the part with her mother near the end when she realized- without using the phrase- that her mother was also a victim of this generational trauma and the two of them find a way to connect again.
Of course sexual abuse by police officers is rampant. One of the main reason power exists is to give the powerful sexual access to people they otherwise would not have access to. ...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 listened to this as an audiobook. With messages like "The stories that we tell matter" and "Love is the most important thing", this could have been I listened to this as an audiobook. With messages like "The stories that we tell matter" and "Love is the most important thing", this could have been a boring mass of clichés, but it's Kate DiCamillo, so it's big-hearted and charming and not one bit saccharine. A lost girl with a good imagination who has been through something dreadful makes some friends- A goat with the world's hardest head. A monk who gets visions of the future. A boy who is faithful to those he loves. A more than half-mad wanderer in the forest with an interesting and unusual past. Together, they stand up to a king and maybe change the world. I think this would be an excellent read-aloud for little kids....more
Perfect for people who liked that Guernsey Potato Peel Pie book. I liked this more, actually, because of all the cooking, and it was nice as an audiobPerfect for people who liked that Guernsey Potato Peel Pie book. I liked this more, actually, because of all the cooking, and it was nice as an audiobook, a good reader with an enjoyable accent.
There's a cooking contest to see who will be a cohost on a radio show called the Kitchen Front. It's WW2 in Britain, and the Food Ministry is trying to teach Brits to be more resourceful in feeding their families, so the four contestants will cook first a starter, then a main, then a dessert, and they should use foods that will be allowed within their ration allowance and things they grow or forage themselves. There's a mean snotty lady of the manor, an London chef who is unmarried and pregnant, an insanely busy war widow with 3 sons, and a kitchen maid who works in a great house.
This is unrealistic but very enjoyable. Bad characters turn good so quickly! One romantic interest is so spectacularly perfect. But it's fun and warm and optimistic. I very much enjoyed the research this author obviously did into wartime rationing and cooking. Spoilers below.
Lady Gwendoline turns from a monster into a friend so fast! And I very, very much didn't like Zelda's being pressured SO HARD to be a mother....more
Thanks to Libro.fm for giving me free access to thisexcellent audiobook.
This writer has a real talent for writing books that are fun to read (or listeThanks to Libro.fm for giving me free access to thisexcellent audiobook.
This writer has a real talent for writing books that are fun to read (or listen to), books I go through in a day or two, eagerly taking extra walks or tidying things up in my house because I can't stop listening to the audiobook.
This novel tells the story of the family of a singer in the 1950s and '60s - think Frank Sinatra, but better looking, maybe? He left his wife and four kids and pretty much didn't look back, even when they could have used some help. There are flashbacks, but the main part of the story is in the 1980s. The kids are grown up. One of them is a model and another is a famous surfer. Every year they have a blowout party that lots of celebrities show up at. The novel takes place the day and night of the party, and let's just say that this year's party is more legendary than most. I read this in about 2 days. ...more
I've loved the other 3 Sarah Waters books I've read, but this one... I was more than halfway through this very long book, and none of the characters wI've loved the other 3 Sarah Waters books I've read, but this one... I was more than halfway through this very long book, and none of the characters were having a very good time, and I wasn't either, so I decided to quit. After reading as long as I did, I should have known these people and cared about them, and I didn't really. It seems very well researched as to the time and place, and it did make me think about how absolutely awful it would have been to have to keep your relationships secret because violence and death and imprisonment could be the price you paid for loving openly. But other books were beckoning at me, so I left this one behind. Sad, because The Fingersmith, The Little Stranger, and The Paying Guests all MESMERISED me, almost made me call in sick so I could keep reading. Oh well. I eagerly await her next one....more
What a weird, good book. I expected science-fictiony literary fiction, but this doesn't slouch on the science fiction. I usually don't like science fiWhat a weird, good book. I expected science-fictiony literary fiction, but this doesn't slouch on the science fiction. I usually don't like science fiction, but I was so invested in the characters that I stayed with it and really wound up enjoying this.
There are two timelines in this novel. The first follows a Jesuit priest, Emilio, the only survivor of a mission to the first planet where sentient life had been discovered. He's a disaster, physically and mentally, and you know some really bad stuff happened on that planet. He's surrounded by Jesuits who care for him but also need to find out what happened.
The second timeline goes back into the past and follows Emilio and the other characters who wind up going to that planet, how they got to know each other, discovered the life on the planet, put together their mission and made their journey. And once they get to the planet-- it's so interesting to see the world and the people they find there through these characters' eyes. And you're propelled forward to find out what happened, what happened?
I imagine that this very good book would be even more moving and meaningful to someone who actually believes in God and faith. That's not me, but still, I liked this quite a bit. Mary Doria Russell is so good at creating rich characters....more
Loading...
