The Door is Open

Leave a comment

Edited by Hena Khan
First sentence: “I pick up the queen and twirl her between my forefinger and thumb.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some talk of domestic abuse and racism. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

In this series of interconnected short stories, we get a portrait of the Maple Grove community center and some of the people who use it. There are chess tournaments and spelling bees, basketball games and cooking classes, and celebrations, including festivals and banquets. It is very much the heart of the city, especially the Desi community, and when it is proposed to be knocked down instead of renovated, the community – especially the kids who find value in having it be a community meeting spot.

I liked this collection a lot. I liked getting the perspectives of a number of children; it helped emphasize just how diverse the Desi community is. I liked the role the center played in the lives of all the kids; in Wichita, the budget for the Parks & Rec department and the community centers have been slashed, so we don’t have anything like that here. But, I respect it, and am glad that the authors of these stories portrayed the community center as a vibrant and vital part of the community. I liked how all the stories connected; characters and situations in one would appear in another.

It’s a solid short story collection.

Blood Over Bright Haven

Leave a comment

by M. L. Wang
First sentence: “Thomil had taken the long way back from scouting.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is violence and swearing, including several instances of the f-bomb. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

I suppose it’s best to start with the world: Tiran is a city in surrounded by a protective barrier to keep the wasteland and the Blight out. It operates by magic – though there are guns and cars and factories that run on magic – and the practitioners of such are mages. It’s a very patriarchal society: men can learn and practice magic; women are deemed unsuitable, useful only for keeping house and bearing children. There are people outside the protective barrier: the Kwan, some of whom braved the blight and made it through the barrier to become lower-class citizens in Tiran, doing all the hard, manual labor. Sciona is a woman in this world who is determined, at all costs, to become a highmage. And when she succeeds, she is faced with sexism by her all-male colleagues, who give her a Kwan janitor, Thomil, to be her lab assistant. That singular act, done in malice, changes Everything, forever.

I was told months ago by co-workers that I needed to read this one. I put it off and put it off, especially since someone told me that it was going to wreck me. But, honestly, I shouldn’t have waited. If I had read this one last year, it would have easily been in my top 3. It’s just that good. The magic and world-building is some that I haven’t seen done like this in a long time, if ever. Wang knows how to give us characters that we care about without being saccharine about it. And at its heart there is a complex and challenging moral question: what is Good and what is Evil. It’s a criticism of patriarchy and white supremacy and capitalism, wrapped up in a fantasy novel. It’s brilliant, it’s ruthless, it’s devastating, and I couldn’t put it down.

It’s one that will stay with me for a long, long time.

Audiobook: Onyx Storm

Leave a comment

by Rebecca Yarros
Read by Rebecca Soler, Teddy Hamilton, Justis Bolding & Jasmin Walker
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Others in the series: Fourth Wing, Iron Flame
Content: It’s super sweary, super violent, and lots of on-screen sexytimes. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Spoilers for the first two books, obviously.

It’s picking up again, where Iron Flame left off – there’s venin (I think that’s how you spell it), Xaden’s turning into one (though he’s trying hard to stop it), the king won’t let refugees in, and they need to find Andara’s (is that spelled right?) dragon family.

And we’re going to spend 500+ (23 hours!) pages doing this.

I started out liking this one – Solner is still delightfully unhinged, I thought the travels around the islands were interesting, and it was nice to have Violet back being a smart badass again. But, as the book went on I lost patience with it. It dragged in the middle. I wanted to punch Xaden in the face on a number of occasions. I hated the “I wanted you but I don’t trust myself” parts and the miscommunication. The last one was a lot, but this was even MORE. And by the end, I was just not interested. (Speaking of the end: I hated it. So much.)

And, after three 500 page books in a five-book series that could have been a solid trilogy, I think I’m done. I have zero interest in where the story is going, in Violet and Xaden’s future, or in all the many plot strings Yarros left undone.

(If I consider reading the fourth when it comes out, remind me that I’m probably going to be annoyed and frustrated with it and that it’s probably not going to be worth my time.)

A Song for You and I

Leave a comment

by K. O’Neill
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: March 4, 2025
Content: There’s a storm that is pretty scary. Otherwise, it’s tame. It will be in the Middle Grade Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

Rose is a Novice ranger, and it’s their last post before the Name Carving. Rose gets an easy one: mostly just tend to the field where the shepherd Leone plays and the sheep wander. When a storm comes, and Leone is stranded in the field without much protection, Rose rushes to the rescue, at the expense of their pegasus. As a result, they’re grounded while their pegasus heals, and they accompany Leone as protection while delivering wool.

Not much happens in this slight graphic novel – except Rose realizes that they don’t want to be called Rose anymore, and they develop a respect not only for being a ranger, but for the slow, meditative times. Things don’t always have to be action-fast-dangerous to be important and worthwhile. And that’s the most important thing in this slim book: you can find out who you are not through daring deeds and accomplishing something great, but by being quiet and listening to yourself.

Which is, perhaps, the most important thing of all.

Monthly Round-Up: January 2025

Leave a comment

In which January was so long that I forgot today was the last day of it, and that I have a blog, and that I usually put up a Monthly Round-Up. *sigh* at least January is over.

I read more than this, but most of it was for Cybils, and the reviews for the ones I haven’t read will show up here next month.

I think this was my favorite this month, though it feels like a year since I listened to it:

The Honey Witch (audiobook)

Here are the ones I did write about:

Adult fiction

Back After This
The Broposal (audiobook)
Black Woods, Blue Sky

Non-Fiction

A Cook’s Tour

What was your favorite this month?

Black Woods Blue Sky

Leave a comment

by Eowyn Ivey
First sentence: “Birdie knew her mistake as soon as she cracked open her eyes.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: February 4, 2025
Content: There is animal-based violence, swearing (including multiple f-bombs) and death. It will be in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

Birdie is a 26-year-old single mother in a remote Alaskan town, and is trying to get her life together. She’s got a job at the local lodge, and while it kinda-sorta pays the bills, it does mean she has to leave 6-year-old Emaleen on her own or with Birdie’s grandmother much too often. But then Arthur wanders down from his cabin on the other side of the North Fork River, and Birdie takes a liking to him. Sure, he’s odd: he doesn’t eat much or talk much, but he lives a wild and free life in nature, something that Birdie craves. So, she arranges for her and Emmaleen to go with Arthur (against the advice of other townsfolk, including Arthur’s dad) out to his cabin. Where everything is perfect, until it isn’t.

Ivey’s writing is so spare and so beautiful that you don’t really notice the impending doom, though the clues are there. And while this wasn’t a book to tug at my heartstrings, I did find it hard to put down. I kept wanting to know what would happen next. And Emaleen becomes more central to the story as it goes on, which I thought was a fascinating way to tie everything together. It’s a love letter to the Alaskan wilderness, to the harsh unforgiving beauty and wildness of nature and the epic scale you can find both beauty and horror there. The people who live and thrive in Alaska are a unique sort, and Ivey pays testament to that spirit.

It’s a remarkable book, and one where the characters and the haunting beauty of it all will stay with me for a while.

A Cook’s Tour

Leave a comment

by Anthony Bourdain
First sentence: “Dear Nancy, I’m about as far away from you as I’ve ever been – a hotel (the hotel, actually) in Pailin, a miserable one-horse dunghole in northwest Cambodia, home to those not-so-adorable scamps, the Khmer Rouge.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s a lot of swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Cooking Reference section of the bookstore (which is where we put all foody books like this.)

C went on an Anthony Bourdain kick last year, reading a number of his books (and we eventually watched the documentary about him as well), and this is the one she ended up talking about the most. It’s his eating tour – a narrative of the year he spent filming for a Food Network show he did – going to places like France, Portugal, Russia, Japan, Vietnam, and Cambodia in search of the “perfect” meal.

My thoughts? Well, this man would eat literally anything. You put it in front of him, told him it was edible, he would eat it. Which is simultaneously terrifying and impressive. (Seriously: some of the stuff he ate is not for the weak to read about!) He does, however, know how to write about food. It comes off the page, and much of it sounds like it’d be amazing to try. His description of the 20-course meal at The French Laundry in Napa Valley, California, had me looking up to see if I could afford the place. (Spoiler: I can’t.) I really liked his descriptions of the food markets in Vietnam, the weirdness of Tokyo, and the whole experience he had in Portugal where they slaughtered the fatted pig for him.

However, Bourdain was an ass, and maybe he mellowed in his later years, but in this one, he’s still very much an ass. He’s a snob, he knows he’s a snob, he doesn’t care that he’s a snob, because you know what? He’s right. If something is bad, he will let you know. If he doesn’t like someone, he will let you know. He has this sense that he’s working class (sure, he was a chef, but working class? No one in working class summers in France!) and he doesn’t like it if you don’t respect that, or if you think you’re like him and you’re not. He still has a lot of anger (not as much as Kitchen Confidential, but still) about the world in this one, and it comes across loud and clear on the page. I think that’s part of what took me so long to read this book (it took 2 weeks for a 274-page book): I just didn’t want to spend the time with him. Or at least not long amounts of time. He’s abrasive and unapologetic about it.

Still, the man knew how to write about food. And that’s worth something.

Audio Book: The Broposal

Leave a comment

by Sonora Reyes
Read by André Santana & Alejandro Antonio Ruiz
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is domestic abuse, swearing (including multiple f-bombs), threats of ICE reads, talk of drug abuse, and on-page sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Alejandro – Han for short – and Kenny have been best friends since second grade. Han’s an undocumented immigrant, and Kenny has been in a long-term on-and-off again relationship. When Kenny breaks up with his girlfriend (she was making him choose between her and Han) and then witnesses some of the discrimination and uncertainty that Han goes through as an undocumented person, he gets this idea: why don’t he and Han get married? It’ll help Han get his green card and head toward citizenship, and no one ever needs to know it’s fake, right?

Except, as they get more into it, they discover that they have deeper feelings than “just” best friends. But a conniving boss and a desperate ex-girlfriend threaten to throw a huge wrench in their plan. Will they be able to get to their wedding day with their relationship still intact?

I liked this one a lot. I liked how Reyes tackled tough subjects like abuse and discrimination against undocumented people. I liked the support of both Han’s and Kenny’s families. I liked that these men were 23 and still trying to figure everything out. I really liked the narrators; they probably made the book for me. It was sweet and charming, hitting the tropes without being overly fluffy, which I also appreciated.

Definitely a good one to pick up.

Audiobok: The Honey Witch

Leave a comment

by Sydney J. Sheilds
Read by Mia Hutchinson Shaw
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, including a couple f-bombs, and some attempts at on-page sex (long story). It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Marigold Claude has never fit in in her early 19th-century upper class home. She doesn’t really have talents, she has no interest in marrying, and after a botched relationship with George, she’s convinced she’s never even going to fall in love. She’s convinced she has no purpose. That is, until her grandmother comes and tells her that she’s actually a Honey Witch and she’s destined to take over the isle of Innisfree. Once there, she re-meets her childhood friend, August, and his best friend, Lottie, whom she’s attracted to. Except there’s a problem: as the Honey Witch of Innisfree, she’s been cursed to never fall in love.

That’s basically a plot – I told someone earlier that it’s a sapphic love story where they’re battling against an evil witch (which they do, but not until the last 5 chapters of the book). There is no historical accuracy – if it’s not the magic that gives it away, no one seems to have any issue with queer romance and there’s even queer marriage. Go figure. That said, I really enjoyed this one. I think a lot of it was the narrator. Shaw was fantastic. I adored her accents, and she kept me interested and engaged the whole way through. I did feel that the end dragged out a bit, but other than that, it was good fun.

Back After This

Leave a comment

by Linda Holmes
First sentence: “The trick was not to be noisy.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: Feb 25, 2025
Review copy sent by the publisher and given to me by a coworker who knows I like Linda Holmes’s books.
Content: There is some swearing, including a couple f-bombs, and some off-screen, mostly fade-to-black sex. It will be in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Cecily is a podcast producer and mostly likes her job. She’s not really valued at the company she works for – her ex took the only successful show she ever worked on and that was four years ago and she’s stuck doing mostly the jobs no one wants to do. That is, until the bosses decide to create a dating podcast, the premise is that the dating influencer Eliza will set Cecily up with her perfect mate using Logic and Data and not her gut. Cecily has no interest in a relationship, but she agrees to the premise, if only to protect her job and that of some of her co-workers.

The problem comes when Cecily accidentally meets a guy – Will – who is nothing like the men that Cecily wants her to date. And even though she’s trying to give the podcast her all, she keeps bumping into Will, and they seem to have that undeniable Chemistry. But, will she give in to her heart? Or what Eliza and the demands of the podcast?

In many ways, this is a lot like Is She Really Going Out With Him? – similar enough to be notable. But, even though it’s similar, it’s not the same. I liked Holmes’ take on podcasts (she should know, being on the long-running NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour) and it was interesting to see the work that goes into producing a successful podcast. I did like the logic vs. heart aspect of the story (spoiler, though not really: heart wins out) and Cecily’s journey to figure out what she wants in a relationship and how to get it. I liked the banter between Cecily and Will and the way that their relationship developed. Holmes is good with chemistry, though I think she’s just good at writing normal people well. I liked that Cecily would do anything for her sister or her friends, and the female bonds in the story.

In short, it was a good all-around, charming book.