Rated Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil 10/10
book
Wants to read A Lonesome Place for Murder: An Ethan Brand Mystery
Rated The Son 8/10
Some dark Scandinavian crime, mostly a revenge story -- some gruesome murders but also some heroism on the part of some of the characters, some twists and turns and I think a bit of a tie-in to one of the author's previous books.
Rated Trail of Lightning 10/10
This was a lot of fun. I was late to reading it because it looked a little bit like a somewhat formulaic YA book with the prickly heroine, but it has enough to distance itself from most of the similar books and I liked the combination of future post-apocalypse with indigenous mythology.
Rated Hamnet 6/10
I got on a very long wait list for this book after I kept hearing an Oscar-nominated film was based on it. I'm into some historical fiction and I thought it would be an interesting POV from Shakespeare's wife for a change, even though maybe/probably most of it was fiction hung up on a handful of facts.<br/><br/>A relatively slim novel, it took me a while to get through it still. I have to say that I was disappointed. I kept waiting for maybe a little more colorful writing? Maybe more characterization? I can't quite pinpoint my issue, but I didn't feel I got a whole lot out of it.<br/><br/>I like reading books on which a film is based first, so I'm going to try that at some point, but I'm not racing to find it soon.<br/><br/>YMMV on how wrapped up you get in it as I've read in other reviews.
Rated Lock In 6/10
I'm not sure why I put off reading this book for so long. Somehow the name wasn't attracting me to it. The premise is an interesting mix of mystery and, I'm not sure what it would be called, maybe cyberpunk? That doesn't seem quite right. Futuristic tech misused, at least.<br/><br/>It's a what-if in more than one way. What would happen if terminally-online people were that way not by choice? One character is extreme in that they were never corporeal to begin with in their memory. Humans, of course, find new and innovative ways of hurting and killing each other with people living this way, as always due to (corporate) greed.<br/><br/>It just occurred to me that main character Chris Shane faintly reminds me of Asimov's Daneel Olivaw. Thinking about it further, I suppose the FBI vet he's partnered with, Leslie Vann, perfectly fits as his Elijah Baley. Huh. Except this "Baley" definitely swears! There's also an interesting if maybe a little too peripheral inclusion of an Indigenous Nation and I wonder how they'd feel about it considering how problematic it is for settlers to often commit crimes on their lands while too often not having the ability to deal with it themselves.<br/><br/>At least there's a happy ending involving them and the people locked in. I would be interested in another mystery with Chris or maybe a collection of short stories? Recommended for a nice easy scifi read, light on the sci.
Rated Simon's Cat Vs. the World! 10/10
Both very funny and full of detail.<br><br>Full review to come.
Reading Daisy Darker
Rated Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues 8/10
For a relatively slim book, this really packs in a lot of information. Between my biology background and always having had an interest in anthropology, archaeology, and history, this book was right in my wheelhouse. There's a lot I learned about times I generally knew about, but this book covers specifics. I think most know that in the past before the understanding of germ theory a lot of cultures were less than sanitary, but the added points of interest were always the connections made to how massive amounts of disease and death created "opportunities" for turning points in history. That's what kept me turning the pages even as my eyes wanted to shut because it was my bedtime. I recommend this book if you're into the above mentioned subjects for a thought provoking read.
Reading Demon Copperhead
Rated Yesteryear 8/10
It seems this book touched a nerve for quite a few Goodreads reviewers! Yes, it's satire, but a lot of it is an exaggeration of the truth. Many many MANY women go through the cognitive dissonance of living squished into boxes they wouldn't otherwise live in.<br/><br/>Imagine if this woman hadn't been raised to believe she had to spend her adulthood as a breathing human incubator! If she had felt the freedom to have the one Maeve - or none at all! The merging of the 2 storylines met in the obvious and only way they could have.<br/><br/>It got a little bit dark at the end, but the way many people are socialized to live against their inherent nature often do end up in dark places. I think it also ended making a very valid point, too, which I'm not sure if I've seen mentioned enough. The people who are most hurt by this oppression of women are all the children they have. Some escape to live freer lives, but sadly many grow up to perpetuate the oppression and self-hatred.<br/><br/>Knowing that this story was somehow involved with Anne Hathaway before reading the book didn't take away from it. In fact, having watched enough of her work, I often easily pictured her as the main character. I look forward to seeing how they manage to put it together on screen.
Rated While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence 8/10
I picked this up as a choice by a local book club. It's great to read a book that I'd otherwise not have gone to and picked on my own. I was about 2/3 of the way through it when I decided to glance at some Goodreads reviews and, as often happens, I somewhat regretted that. Negative comments that came up were criticisms of what the reader viewed as tone. Being someone sensitive to and often a target of "the tone police" that always automatically gets my dander up. The "tone" readers picked up on was what I would describe as thinking the writing lacked emotion and elaboration of the writer's personal feelings.<br/><br/>I disagree to an extent. In fact, in the back quarter? or so of the book she clearly explains that she had trouble with that very thing. A struggle between meanderings about her personal thoughts and memories. Maybe a lot of that was lost in the edit, but I can understand an editor wanting to "trim the fat" and build something coherent out of writing like that. I'd think it was emotion that would lead to that type of writing. The other thing Kissinger mentions is that she's spent a lifetime making sense of the mental illnesses in her family through her career, through journalism, and trying to make a difference with it. Classic journalism was very much "just the facts" and I can see that that's how she ended up shaping this story.<br/><br/>There is so much detail. How else is some sort of cohesion going to happen with so many things happening that were explanations of what went on in her family? I appreciated all of the stories about her parents and her siblings. I don't think she was cold about it, but I would think certainly after some 50? 60? years of it, it can be exhausting and at a certain point it would be repetitive. If you can't imagine and have some empathy for the writer losing 2 siblings and dealing with several other close family members all struggling with their mental health without being told over and over her feelings, I don't know what to say.<br/><br/>I definitely also appreciated that in telling their stories and in pointing out this fact, it was clear how much has changed in her lifetime with regards to mental health. Social attitudes and therefore medical treatment has changed so much in the last 50 years. There's still much that needs to change and improve, but sticking relatives in the attic/basement or some horror-show asylum pretending it's not happening are (hopefully) in the past and talking about struggles without fear or shame are huge strides forward.
Rated Snowpiercer, Vol. 2: The Explorers 6/10
Rated Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell 9/10
<div>I really loved this. If you know how personal being a great fan of music can be, and perhaps in a larger sense, how love has a way of shifting and changing over decades, then you will find reflections that feel very familiar here. <br><br>I'm also quite jealous that Lisicky and his partner got to go to the Joni Jam at the Gorge, but I did enjoy hearing about his experience of being there.</div>
Rated Murder Takes a Vacation 6/10
I picked up this book for a local mysterious book club. I like the occasional easy read. I will state at the top I agree with the criticism a few other reviews have had. It was painful to read past the first several chapters where Mrs. Blossom is so unbelievably naive. All of the things that happen before she finally gets on the cruise are enough to tear out your hair if you're anywhere near average cautious about your surroundings and strangers with whom you interact. At home or abroad.<br/><br/>That said, I also rationalized it enough to get past it by being aware that the average senior citizen is incredibly gullible with regards to scams and unable to differentiate many things from reality. So many people have to be constantly on top of their older relatives to make sure they don't hand over money to random thieves and grifters. Don't get me started on the amount of A.I. slop they propagate all over social media.<br/><br/>Once past the set up, I was better able to tolerate the naivete of Mrs. Blossom. Of course, the other thing quite a few reviews get quite huffy to angry about is the constant awareness of her size. To which I say, you've just told me that you neither are nor in the past been a larger woman, especially a woman who was born before women could open bank accounts. Girls and women aren't any less brainwashed to constantly be aware of and value themselves based on their youth and appearance, but it was a whole other ballgame if you couldn't have much real independence without a man. So while I don't like Mrs. Blossom's constant low self-esteem internal dialogue, I think I can understand it.<br/><br/>All of those big topics aside, I felt the plot itself was rather slow-paced and took a backseat a lot to the relationships Mrs. Blossom had with her friend and new acquaintances. I like mystery books for the hints and twists dropped along the way and I didn't think there was as much of that as I personally like. Clarity doesn't really happen until the last 3 chapters, 1 of which happens a couple of months after the wrap-up. I felt like the explanation was rushed and I was left a little confused on who was who doing what and why, but maybe that's just me. I did like the more detective-y Mrs. Blossom in those chapters and wish there had been more of that character in the rest of the book than the mooning over whether or not men were interested in her and worrying about how others perceived her size like a 14 year old.<br/><br/>I appreciated the writer acknowledging at the end in the "Author's Note" that she was/is working on changing some ageist and sizeist writing for which she's received criticism in the past. All the above in mind, a reader who grew up in the 1950/1960s (or raised by someone who was) might relate better or have more patience with and enjoy this book more.
Rated El viento conoce mi nombre 8/10
I picked up this book to read as a choice for a local library book club. I'd read a few months ago another Allende novel, "Violeta," and enjoyed it very much. Since I'm fairly fluent in Spanish I chose to read the original Spanish version rather than the English translation. A couple of times I made a comparison and found the English transation pretty faithful.<br/><br/>While reading this novel, I noted a few Goodreads reviews were a little down on this book and I have suspicions as to why, but I don't agree. I enjoyed the story and appreciated the converging stories comparing two different instances of refugees from human horrors of which one is a very common go-to for the Western world, the Holocaust. I find it telling when someone refuses to make that connection, that they're one and the same, and refusing to lend the same humanity and empathy to Latin American refugees.<br/><br/>About the only thing I would say I would make a minor criticism is the length it took to converge the 2 stories. It wasn't until approximately 3/4 of the way through that how they related was explained. Maybe it might've occurred to someone else and I usually consider myself fairly quick in those types of instances, but it didn't with this story. Regardless, the story is fairly true to real life in the horrible aspects and it would serve many people to read this book and fix their hearts to make that same connection themselves.