Book Review: Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler

Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler
YA contemporary
Wednesday Books
June 13, 2023

A queer Sliding Doors rom-com in which a girl must choose between summer in NYC with her dad (and the girl she's always wanted) or LA with her estranged mom (and the guy she never saw coming).

Confession: I usually hate Sliding Doors-type stories. Something about them, or choose your own adventure, or even anything with mirror universe doubles, makes me extremely anxious. I only read this one because I've loved all Dahlia Adler's other books. And I'm extremely glad I did, because this was great and I actually enjoyed it so much! I don't want to spoil anything, but I think it's helped by the fact that the double timelines and how they wind up are not actually stressful here at all. It's not that the characters don't deal with anything difficult, they do, but, as as it says in the marketing copy, there's more than one path to happily ever ever.

I wound up almost equally invested in both timelines, which was a nice surprise, and in a large part due to the great cast of supporting characters in both, including love interests, friends, and parents. The main character is bi and there's lots of different LGBTQIAP+ rep in her friend groups, and we also get to see the role her Judaism plays in her life - and a ton of delicious-sounding Shabbat dinners, among other mouth-watering food descriptions. Seriously, I wanted both a playlist and a cookbook to go along with this book.

This is a perfect summer read for anyone, but especially for teens (or adults!) who need some reassurance about the fact that their future doesn't necessarily hinge on every small decision and that there are multiple paths in life that can be valid and rewarding and great.

Author's Site | Amazon | Bookshop

I received a review copy from NetGalley, and Dahlia is a friend, but I would never tell you I liked something if I didn't.

Book Review: Diamond Ring by KD Casey

Diamond Ring by KD Casey
Adult LGBTQIA+ contemporary sports romance
Harlequin Carina
April 11, 2023

Jake Fischer has been here before: pitching for the Oakland Elephants, hiding his worries behind a smile, hoping to win it all. Ten years ago, it didn’t turn out the way he wanted. Nothing in his life did. But now he’s back—and so is the one teammate tied inexorably to his past.

It doesn’t matter how many times catcher Alex Angelides replays that moment during the Fall Classic over in his mind, the outcome never changes. He’s not sure what happened to make that pitch glance off his glove, or what happened with his relationship with Jake—and he’s not going to be the one to ask.

A whole lot may have changed in the last decade, but some things have stayed the same. Jake and Alex still can’t stay out of each other's faces on the field, or out of each other's beds off of it. They’ve got a second chance to win it all…but only if they realize what they lost.

Anyone who has listened to me talk about books at all in the last year has probably heard about how much I've been loving KD Casey's queer Jewish baseball romances, and I'm going to be super honest here: I had a mental block trying to write this review for weeks because I just loved this one so much that I'm getting intimidated trying to put it into words. It's somehow the softest and saddest and hottest book of the series, which is really quite a feat to pull off.

Casey has done some different configurations of players in their books, and while they've all been good, this pitcher/catcher pairing was my favorite because of that unique dynamic and closeness they have in the game and the way it transfers - or doesn't - to their personal lives. Jake and Alex are thrown together as rookies, build up a closeness that is then interrupted, and then wind up on the same team again years later. This time jump was really interesting because several aspects of both of their lives and careers wound up going in a different way than you'd expect, but in a way that really worked and took into account the effects that luck in both health and contracts have on players' lives. The golden boy rookie is not necessarily going to have the perfect career.

My favorite kinds of romances are the ones about people learning to take care of themselves and each other, and Casey does this so well. The main characters are both just really good people who make plenty of mistakes but are trying their best, and really learn and grow a lot over the course of the book. I jokingly call these books Sad Soft Baseball Boyfriends, but I love seeing the space given to both the sadness and the softness, especially in a genre like m/m sports romance where sometimes things can feel a bit macho. And while I think this is the spiciest of the series, as I mentioned above, I was also really impressed with the way the sexual dynamic felt so organic to the characters.

A particular strength of this book is its exploration of mental health and how it affects relationships, and Casey does a great job of avoiding all the pitfalls so many books fall into in this area. Again, I don't want to go into too many details that might spoil you, but the portrayal of Jake's anxiety was extremely relatable (including a coping technique I use that I'd never actually heard anyone mention before!), and I love love love the way Alex approached it. Without saying too much, I think I can say that it wasn't a "love magically fixes everything" situation like too many books do, but also wasn't presented as a Relationship Obstacle in and of itself.

Friends to lovers and second chance romance are two of my favorite tropes, and obviously this book is a perfect illustration of both of those, but there's another specific trope I LOVE that this book does EXTREMELY well, and I cannot think of any way to say more that wouldn't mess with the COMPLETE GLEE that I hope you have when you get to that point in your reading, so I guess I will just stay maddeningly cryptic about that. Also stay tuned for a TRULY AMAZING scene set at an important New York landmark.

This is the third in Casey's series for Carina, and while it stands perfectly fine alone - and is the best of the three, I think - they're all extremely good and I definitely recommend starting at the beginning with Unwritten Rules, because a lot of the stuff going on in this one with secondary characters will mean so much more to you if you know their history. I'm not sure if this will be the last in the series, but the ending feels incredibly well-earned, and fans of the previous books will be happy to see the updates on everyone's lives. This was truly one of the most satisfying reading experiences I've had in a long time.

Author's Site | Amazon

Note: I received a review copy from NetGalley and am friendly with the author, but I'd never tell you I liked a book if I didn't.

Book Review: The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal
Adult science fiction/mystery
Tor Books
October 11, 2022

Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling—and keep the real killer from striking again.

The Spare Man has a great, simple hook - it's The Thin Man in space! And if that one-liner grabs you, then yes, it's as delightful as it sounds, go get it right now. However, if you haven't read or seen The Thin Man, don't worry - like the best retellings, there are some fun references here for fans of the original, but it also stands fully on its own. (And yes, Nick and Nora fans, there's a dog. Her name is Gimlet. She's great.

I love traditional mysteries, but I've also been increasingly appreciating books that blend mysteries with other genres, and an interplanetary spaceship, once you start thinking about it, is a perfect mystery setting. Talk about a locked room. Kowal does a great job of really integrating the mystery with the science fiction elements - the setting isn't window dressing, but intrinsic to the way the mystery unfolds, and the different genre aspects feel very balanced. And the sci-fi worldbuilding is fascinating and intricate without ever feeling like a data dump; this is definitely helped by the humor and the way Kowal's style keeps things moving at a bright, sparkling pace.

The main couple is M/F and never mentions who else they might or might not be attracted to, so I hesitate to call the book queer, but it definitely feels queer, and it's a thoroughly queernorm world, where everyone mentions their pronouns as a matter of course, relationships and families come in all sorts of configurations, and characters' hobbies, styles of dress, etc. have nothing to do with their genders. In this way it was extremely refreshing. There's also lots of ethnic and racial diversity, and explorations of the effects that disability and trauma have had on the characters' lives.

I highly recommend this one and definitely hope there are more Tesla Crane mysteries in our future. Bonus: There are fun cocktail recipes at the beginning of each chapter!

Author's Site | Amazon | Bookshop

TV Review: Cardinal

Canadian mystery show Cardinal premiered on CTV back in January, but before its U.S. premiere on Hulu earlier this month, it had a screening at the Austin TV Festival, and that was a GREAT idea. Because it was the perfect way to get the word out to the audience for this kind of quiet, slow murder show - like me. I wasn't at the event, but before it had even concluded multiple people had sent me messages saying that I would LOVE THIS SHOW.

And I did! As everyone had promised, it had lots of murder and lots of snow, which are two of my favorite things. More specifically: it's about police detective John Cardinal, pulled back into a case when a body is found that turns out to be that of a girl whose disappearance he previously investigated (but didn't solve, obviously), and his new partner Lise Delorme, who is secretly investigating him while they're both investigating what turns out to be a string of murders. The plot is satisfyingly twisty but not too labored; everything comes together nicely and the crimes are very creepy.

One of my favorite things about this show was that, while both lead detectives were a bit troubled and had stuff going on their personal lives, both Cardinal and Delorme were pretty grounded, pragmatic detectives who acted professionally. In a lot of mystery shows, a practical lady detective has to deal with a male partner who's a charismatic maverick rulebreaker, and much as I love some of these shows individually (Broadchurch is back tonight! yay!), I'm getting very sick of that trope. So I really enjoyed the way Cardinal and Delorme were both flawed and a bit messy but things weren't set up so the boring serious one had to clean up after the flashy one.

Cardinal is also just a joy to watch because it's well-made: the writing and acting are solid and the show is gorgeously shot. The snowy landscapes are starkly beautiful without being romanticized, and episode five has a particularly memorable well-executed tracking shot. The world of the show feels very real and textured. Also, as I said: Lots of snow. Perfect to binge on a hot summer weekend. All six hours of season one of Cardinal are now streaming on Hulu, and a new season is on the way.

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Book Review: Prince Charles: The Passions & Paradoxes of an Improbable Life

First of all: obviously, a biography will generally only be interesting if the reader is interested in the subject. I know a lot of people are opposed to the modern monarchy or just find royal stuff boring, and that's fine but clearly if you feel that way this is not the book for you! So I'm not going to be trying to litigate any of those questions here. The useful question, I think, is whether, if you are interested in Prince Charles, this is a book you will enjoy. And I think it is!

This biography is very, very detailed, with a ton of information about pretty much every aspect of Charles' life. I'm reasonably well-informed about the royal family, but even so there was so much here I didn't know. Lots about architecture. And sustainable gardening. Charles cares a lot about his pet causes, which is great, but my eyes started to glaze over a TAD during some of that. There was also a lot about royal logistics, which I sincerely find completely fascinating, but again - not exactly a breezy read.

Of course, in among all those details, there's plenty of juicy stuff about Charles' life, including his relationships with Diana and Camilla, his kids, his parents, everyone else. This is not an authorized biography, but Smith clearly had a lot of access and cooperation from people in Charles' life, and she's clearly sympathetic to him. But it's interesting to read while keeping her sources very much in mind - this is what his friends say about xyz, this is what his staff says, etc. There were a lot of details about his relationships that I hadn't read before, and it seems clearer than ever that his marriage to Diana was a complete disaster from the day one - and ever before that - and that they could never have been happy together. It's terribly sad, these two incompatible people who were incapable of giving each other what they needed, and I'm happy that Charles has found happiness with Camilla now.

Camilla sounds pretty awesome here, actually, and given Diana's popularity and Camilla's unpopularity, it was striking to note how Camilla seems much better suited for her public role than Diana ever was. I hadn't realized that during her marriage Diana refused to get involved in causes and resisted public appearances, and only became an advocate later, while Camilla seems to be genuinely comfortable with traveling around promoting good causes and admiring people's prize turnips and such. (In fact, Camilla and Kate seem more naturally suited to this royal role than any of the men, which I suppose makes sense given that they were the ones who had some choice about whether to take it up.) Also, a friend of Camilla's describes her sitting room as "crammed with books and knitting," so obviously we should hang out.

I know the traditions of the monarchy often seem archaic, but one thing this book really brought home was how much thought and effort current members of the royal family, especially the Queen and Prince Charles, have been putting into modernizing it - both politically and economically, as far as revising the way the finances work and coming up with new income streams, as well as culturally, using social media. (At one point they also quoted Prince Harry as basically saying "OMG you guys, JUST TEXT LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE," which was hilarious.)

One thing this book could have really used were some genealogical tables. I mean, I love those in general, but especially in a book like this with so many generations of intermarried families - it would have been useful to easily trace how people were related. (Not the royals - I know who they are - but all the other miscellaneous aristocrats and distant relatives who keep popping up.)

Also! If you're kind of interested but not enough to read 500 pages about architecture and logistics, I'd recommend just reading the highlights from Go Fug Yourself. Their summary is delightful.

And the one thing you really REALLY need to know is that apparently Prince Charles and Mark Rylance correspond about crop circles. Yes, really.

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Fandom Tea: Game of Thrones Sampler (Part II)

As I mentioned in the previous post in this series, Adagio sent me some free fandom-themed tea to review. You can read post one, which includes some general thoughts on the packaging, etc., right here.

One of the items I picked was this Game of Thrones sampler. I liked the art and the flavors sounded interesting - lots of spice. The six tins came together in a cardboard box that was also decorated with the art for each flavor along with a general banner, as you can see here with my House Stark mug:

I really like the way the art incorporates the description of each flavor - not all of the fans who make the blends choose to do that, but it's helpful not to have to go look up what's in what. As you can see, I opened these all up and sniffed them; they were all pleasant and all spicy, as the descriptions suggest. I took the picture with the tins partially open so you can see how each tea looks different, which is good - who wants a sampler that's all similar? - and I was surprised by how different the different teas tasted. I'd been worried that they'd all just taste like spice, but they were quite distinct. The way the flavors and art adhere cohesively to thematic elements would make this sampler a nice gift for the Game of Thrones fan in your life who already has all the standard merch.

And now some specific thoughts on two houses and one dragon:

Stark Winterbrew - I love how smoky the scent of this one is, but unfortunately I didn't taste the smoke very much. It is dark and strong, as Stark winter tea should be. It could use some more spice, though - the flavor was a bit flatter than the others.

Lannister Royal Tea - This one gets extra points for the pun, obviously. It's very smooth - the almond helps there - and the spice is more of an undercurrent, as seems appropriate for a refined court tea. (Murdery and incestuous, I guess, but refined.)

Rhaegal's Fire - This is a green tea, but honestly just read as "pleasantly spicy" to me. As a dragon tea should be! The green-ness does make it a bit lighter, which is nice, and as I'm not a huge green tea fan in general I was just as happy that that taste was not dominant.

Next time: Detective teas!

April Book Review: Trials of the Earth

Trials of the Earth is the memoir of Mary Mann Hamilton, a pioneer in Mississippi (and Missouri and Arkansas) in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She wrote it as an elderly woman in the 1930s and a friend helped edit it and submitted it to a writing contest, but it was only widely published in 2016, and it's a fascinating historical document about a time and place that I didn't know much about. (I feel like, as far as European settlers in North America go, we hear a lot about early colonists and then about the Oregon Trail, but I'd honestly never given a lot of thought to who settled Mississippi or when.) In some ways, the book reads like an adult Little House - Hamilton and her family move around a lot and are often among the first white settlers in an area, and they rarely stay anywhere for long, with the family following the patriarch, though in Hamilton's case the constant moving is more due to economic necessity than wanderlust.

And, as in Little House, there are all sorts of terrible things happening all the time. Hamilton survives constant natural disasters, repeated financial ruin, the deaths of her parents and some of her siblings and four of her children and eventually her husband. Her perseverance in the face of all this is truly astonishing and admirable; there are all these times where she's basically left alone in the wilderness for months with a couple of toddlers, or at best dozens of men relying on her to cook for them all. And she just does it. Every time it seems like her family might be stable for a while, something goes wrong; I spent so much of the book wanting her to just catch a break, and she pretty much never does.

It's frustratingly obvious to the modern reader that Hamilton was the only reason her family made it through, that as much as she deferred to and obeyed her husband he was almost completely ill-equipped for any kind of productive ongoing work situation. (His past is a big mystery, never solved, and that's a little frustrating for the reader but unavoidable given that he never told his wife his real name. [!!!] I'd have assumed his hints at growing up in the British aristocracy were just fake if it weren't for how useless he is; he was obviously not brought up to have to do any hands-on work.) Hamilton married him at 18 when her mother and eldest brother died, because he agreed to provide for her younger siblings as well, and she spent most of her life trying to decide if she actually loved her husband as she bore him nine children and followed him from failure to failure and kept the family afloat through her own constant work and ingenuity.

Hamilton was not a professional writer, and that's clear from the book, but I'm glad they left it in her authentic voice, and the matter-of-fact, unromantic way that she describes what she and her family endured makes the story all the more powerful. On the other hand, I did sometimes wish for more annotations making clear exactly where and when events were taking place, and sometimes the historical context - what else was going on in the region and the country that affected the conditions in which the Hamilton family found themselves.

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Let's try Adagio fandom tea! (Part I)

Adagio Teas has made a name for themselves in fan-created fandom teas - there are hundreds of fandoms, including TV shows, book series, movies, bands, even politicians. Adagio sent me a voucher so I could pick out some fandom teas and review them for you! I got small sizes of a whole bunch of different things to try, so my reviews will be split between a few posts over the next few weeks. But first, let's talk a little more about the concept, packaging, and other generalities.

Look, here's my box from Adagio!

As you can see, I opted for mostly little tins, so I could try as many teas as possible. (The teas also come in 3oz pouches and 5oz tins.) They came in boxes that hold six tins, with one tin and samples in packets loose. The scent when I opened the box was very strong and I worried a bit about all the teas kinda tasting alike since they'd been packed together that way, but that hasn't been an issue so far. Everything was covered in a fine coating of tea dust, though, so for that as well as the scent reason I wished the tins had been individually shrink-wrapped, though that might have been prohibitively expensive.

The tins and their art are decent quality - the art is provided by the fans who make the blends, and it varies wildly; I was careful to pick only teas with art I liked. (This meant ruling out some fandoms I'd otherwise like, but I figured the art is a big part of the point here, and I didn't want to think "ugh, that's ugly" every time I looked at the tins.) I figure I'll keep my favorites of the tins to use for bobby pins, knitting notions, paper clips, etc. These tins are COMPLETELY packed full of tea, and while I appreciate that they don't want to skimp, it makes them a bit hard to open without spilling. But after the first cup it should be easier.

My big struggle with anything like this is always that I want to pick by character/theme regardless of whether I'd actually like the flavor. And I'm a bit picky about tea - most of the fandom teas were some variety of flavored black tea and that's not my favorite. (I like plain black, or herbal with various flavors, but not... together? I don't know.) So while I was picking out teas I had to keep having very stern discussions with myself regarding ordering things I'd at least have a chance of liking.

One example of this was with the Women of Victorian Literature series. (As an aside: Some of these writers were not in fact Victorian. WORDS HAVE MEANINGS.) I liked the concept and design of the tins, but the flavor that sounded best to me was peach, and that corresponded to Kate Chopin. CONFESSION: I've never read Kate Chopin. (Maybe a story or two in college?) But... no time like the present, right?

This series is a blend of almond and vanilla oolong, with a different fruit flavor for each writer (some corresponding to where the writer lived, like cranberry for Alcott), and as I mentioned, Chopin was peach. This was an enjoyable tea - the peach flavor was present but not overpowering, and it tasted very natural. I didn't really taste the vanilla or almond in a distinct way, but I think they blend decently to make the flavor more complex. This might be good iced for your summer reading/sipping pleasure. And now I have an excuse to finally read The Awakening.

Next time... Game of Thrones tea!

If you'd like to try any of these teas, let me know and I'll send you a $5 voucher! Disclaimer: Adagio gave me free tea with the understanding that I would post about it; all opinions are my own.

March Book Review: The Wages of Sin

(First - yes, Kaite Welsh and I have very similar names! We became friends on Twitter partially because of that - mutual friends thought it was funny - but so far as we know we are not related. Alas.)

I'm a big fan of historical mysteries, so I know there are a ton of good series out there, and it can get overwhelming. But I'm here to tell you that you should absolutely try Kaite Welsh's debut The Wages of Sin, the first in her series about medical student turned detective Sarah Gilchrist. There are a lot of "spunky Victorian lady detective" series, but the fact that this one is set in Scotland rather than England and that Sarah is among the first class of medical students at her university to include women sets this series apart.

One of my pet peeves with historical mysteries - and historical fiction in general - is when characters have completely modern worldviews, and especially when earlier feminist characters think just like contemporary feminists. Welsh does a great job of avoiding that trap here. Sarah's views are very progressive for her time, but this reads as organic to the character, her background and experiences and interests. For all her advanced views, Sarah is very much shaped by her time and culture, so she doesn't seem to be dropped into the story from the present day.

The mystery Sarah investigates arises naturally from her medical studies (and from her volunteer work at a clinic), which helps the narrative work, but it is also completely intertwined with important economic inequality and social justice issues of the time (and of... now), which adds heft to the novel. The reader learns what's really going on in various parts of Scottish society as Sarah herself does, which helps avoid preachiness, and the mystery plot is well-paced and complex enough to be satisfying without being unnecessarily ornate.

Sarah Gilchrist is a delightful, complex protagonist surrounded by interesting supporting characters, and I'm definitely looking forward to following them through more books. But I'm looking forward even more to returning to the fascinating world of late Victorian Edinburgh and seeing how the series develops through this time of social change.

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January Book Review: History Is All You Left Me

I really liked Adam Silvera's first novel, More Happy Than Not, so I was excited to read History Is All You Left Me as soon as it came out this month, and if anything, I liked it more. It's again a young adult novel but without the sci-fi element of the first; it's the story of a teen boy looking back at his first relationship and subsequent actions after his ex-boyfriend dies in an accident after their breakup.

Except that description makes the book sound boring, and it isn't, at all. It's very emotionally affecting - I highly recommend it, but make sure you read it at a time when you're ready to deal with lots of feelings - but what really got me was the technical excellence of the writing. This isn't a mystery, but main character Griffin is hiding lots of things from the people around him and refusing to think about them himself, and Silvera does a brilliant job of constructing the narrative so that the reader finds out what's going on gradually, as Griffin makes himself confront it and tell others. At one point I thought I knew where things were going, and they sort of went there, but then wound up somewhere completely different but completely perfect; nothing is more satisfying than a plot development that makes me say "WHAT?" but then immediately "Oh, of course."

It's not all about the construction, though - the characters also feel extremely real, from their hobbies and their friendships and relationships to the handling of Griffin's OCD. Silvera does a great job of treating their feelings as real love without implying a permanence that often seems age-inappropriate in YA novels. There were many basically decent-but-not-perfect parents (and a great little sister) who were truly involved in their children's lives and in the plot, which I'd love to see in more YA novels - teens don't live in a vacuum.

And, of course, there were the aforementioned feelings - it's impressive when a novel manages to be heartbreaking and life-affirming at the same time, while not feeling emotionally manipulative. You don't want to miss this one.

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Book Review: The Lost Tudor Princess

The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas by Alison Weir
Ballantine Books, 2016
576 p.

First of all: I really, really enjoyed learning more about Lady Margaret Douglas. Henry VIII's wives and daughters get lots of attention, as does Mary, Queen of Scots, but other women of the Tudor period tend to get short shrift, even though many of them paid large roles in the political and dynastic maneuverings of the time. Margaret Douglas was Henry VIII's niece and Mary, Queen of Scots's mother-in-law; what I hadn't really realized before reading this book was that she was long seen by various factions as a potential heir to the throne. And, of course, she's the one whose descendents have sat on the throne ever since, not Henry VIII's. The book provided an interesting look at the political situation in Scotland, England, and to some extent Europe from a different angle than the usual focus on Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

And Margaret herself was fascinating - politically ambitious, endlessly plotting, never quite able to overcome her tendency to act impetuously rather than think about the likely ramifications from her more powerful relatives. (She wound up in the Tower a lot.) She was the dominant partner in her marriage at a time when women weren't supposed to do that, and her devotion to her husband and children - and the way they became the focus of her ambitions - provides an interesting contrast with the Virgin Queen.

Unfortunately, the book had a few big flaws that make me hesitate to fully recommend it. One of the issues I had with this book is one I've had with several of Weir's biographies of figures about whom there is less in the historical record: The narrative frequently got bogged down by shopping lists or lists of clothing or fabrics or other historical goods. I understand that in some cases these records are all we have to reveal what was going on at a specific point in someone's life; these lists are interesting from a historical perspective, of course, and I'd be all for them being included in notes or an appendix. But rather than synthesizing the useful conclusions - that a list of extravagant Christmas gifts, say, suggested that Margaret was currently in Henry VIII's favor - Weir lists out all the details, which slows down the reader and suggests Weir's just trying to pad out the length.

My main problem with the book, though, revolved around how Weir presented her sources and the information they gave. Again, especially for female historical figures, real information is sometimes scarce and sources must be considered that are not airtight - and certainly virtually no sources are unbiased. But there's a way to write a biography using these questionable sources in a responsible way, and Weir doesn't quite do it here. There's a lot of information from writings by Margaret's enemies, and Weir's pretty good at pointing out that the people writing these things had an agenda. But Weir also uses poems about and attributed to her subject to make factual statements about Margaret's actions and beliefs and feelings, and she never really examines the way poetry is really never meant to be taken as documentary evidence - or even the more interesting question of why Margaret and her allies would want her to be portrayed in certain ways at certain times. Weir also sometimes falls into the trap of asserting how people "must have felt" without providing support - a pet peeve of mine in history writing - and I have trouble taking seriously a book that casually asserts that a baby must have been born on a certain date because he "couldn't have" been conceived before his parents' wedding.

Lady Margaret Douglas, like so many often overlooked women in history, deserves a thoughtful, scholarly biography - but this wasn't quite it.

Book Review: Girl in the Shadows

Moira wants to be a famous magician, like her father, but girls are supposed to be the magicians' assistants. So she . . . runs off and joins the circus. Literally. Girl in the Shadows is the second book in Gwenda Bond's Cirque American series, after Girl on a Wire, and normally I'd be wary of reviewing a later book in a series, but in this case it's not a direct sequel and, really, you should read both.

Because the primary things I like about both books are the same: They're about young women making a place for themselves in families and a community that is both close-knit and (mostly) loving and mired in traditional gender roles that these girls want to break out of. And the main characters become exceptional in their fields because of their talent but more importantly because of their hard work and determination.

I should add a caveat here: I don't particularly like circus stuff, and I actively dislike clowns. (Please don't make a future book be about a clown girl, Gwenda.) But I'm fascinated by stories that are set in specific communities with their own customs and unconventional ways of life, whether they're religious cults, boarding schools, or, here, a traveling circus. Bond makes this world come to life and feel rich and deep, and I loved inhabiting it while I read the book.

I've barely mentioned the actual plot here, and while it's true that I love these books mostly for the main characters and setting, the plot is nothing to scoff at - there's mystery and magic and romance, all intertwined, with a deep cast of multidimensional characters. The specific mystery of this book is solved in a satisfying way, but things are definitely set up for the future books that I very much hope will follow.

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2016 Books: Brooklyn

(Note: My 2016 Books page has been updated, and I'll be filling in with quick posts on the titles that didn't get full reviews in the next few weeks. Enjoy!)

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Scribner, 2009
262 p.

Brooklyn, about a young woman who moves from Ireland to New York in the early 1950s and is torn between people and cultures and loves, is lovely and haunting. I read it around the same time as I saw the movie, and I loved both in different ways. But in both cases, I thought the best part was the vivid worldbuilding in both 1950s Ireland and Brooklyn itself. I'm not an expert so can't speak to the accuracy, but the attention to detail made it feel very real, and in general, I love when every choice in a book or movie seems deliberate.

This was the first Toibin I've read (other than some short pieces in the New Yorker), and I took a little while to warm up to the writing style here, but wound up mostly loving the book by the end. It's very interesting how the movie stuck so closely with the plot but had an almost completely different tone; the book is much more ambiguous and unsettling - less of a romance, less traditionally satisfying. But that all made it more interesting for me.

See everything I've read in 2016!

Book Review: The Summer Before the War

The Summer Before the War, the second novel by Helen Simonson (who wrote Major Pettigrew's Last Stand), places itself at the end of the idyllic (for some) Edwardian age, when the world is clearly starting to change - and then changes a lot in a hurry with the start of the First World War. The main character, a young woman named Beatrice, moves to a small coastal town to teach Latin in the aftermath of her father's death, and there begins to sort out her place in the world and to put together a new family from the people she finds around her, especially an older woman named Agatha who supported her controversial appointment and Agatha's husband and nephews. It's sort of Downton Abbey meets Home Fires, using the war as a way to map the changes in society, though (unlike Home Fires) the narrative actually moves to the front at one point rather than remaining among those left at home.

I especially liked the way the novel dealt with the changing world in which the characters found themselves and their reactions to that, from the scandal of hiring a female Latin teacher to a subplot about Belgian refugees that feels very relevant right now. Most of the characters realize that the traditional class system is breaking down, and they're threatened or empowered by this; Beatrice and Hugh both believe that educating working class children is important, but the amount of progress they can really make there is limited by the conventional views of others in the community. The same could be said for Beatrice's feminist leanings, and I actually liked those limits - I get frustrated when a character in a historical novel seems to have thoroughly modern beliefs and to act outside of the bounds of her society, and Simonson did a good job of balancing her more progressive and more traditional characters here.

I went into The Summer Before the War primed to really love a book - the last few things I'd read had ranged from frustratingly mediocre to really not good - and it didn't let me down. I loved Beatrice's personal journey as well as that of her found family, and her restrained but powerful romance with Agatha's nephew Hugh. And the tone of the novel was pitch perfect: quiet and genuinely moving without being melodramatic or treacly, smart and funny while never losing sight of its grave concerns. Because this is a war book, and not everyone Beatrice loves will make it out of the trenches. Prepare yourself for some tears. In a good way.

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Book Review: Girls on Fire

Robin Wasserman, author of some of my young adult favorites including The Book of Blood and Shadow and The Waking Dark, released her first adult novel this week, and while her previous books were very good, Girls on Fire is breathtakingly great. I just opened my copy to find a quote from the first pages for you and can barely bear to pick one.

Impossible not to see them, not to remember what it was like, when it was like that. To sit there, shivering, as the sun dips toward the horizon and the wind blows cold over the waves, as the sky blazes red and darkness gathers around the girls, neither of them knowing how little time they have left before the fire goes out.

Remember how good it felt to burn.

As that quote suggests, the main characters here, as in Wasserman's YA novels, are teenagers for the bulk of the narrative, but in this case the narrator - and reader - is looking back at these experiences from an adult perspective. And from the lyrical first chapter with the all-important "there's always one in charge" on, Wasserman writes some of the most realistic descriptions of all the flavors of intense, complicated dynamics between adolescent girls I've ever read. Friendships, relationships, frenemy-ships, jealousy, love, hatred, rivalry - it's all here, and it feels like this book is telling all of our old secrets, and then taking them to a new level with gigantic stakes.

Most of the novel is set in the early nineties; the characters are a few years older than me, but close enough in age that their world and cultural touchpoints felt both comfortingly and scarily familiar. Who among us wasn't wearing flannel and doing pagan rituals in the woods? (I'm not, however, as familiar with the music - mostly Kurt Cobain - that plays a large part in the story; I should see if Wasserman has put together a playlist.) Wasserman perfectly captures the changes taking place both in her characters' small community and the culture at large; this intense specificity of setting plays very well against the universality of her characters' emotions and the teen girl experience she describes.

There's a central mystery here, too, the death of a classmate before the action starts, along with a palpable feeling from the beginning that the characters - and reader - are hurtling toward another terrible event. There are twists and terrible secrets gradually unraveled, but unlike in many high-profile psychological thrillers like Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, the twists didn't annoy me because they felt vital to the story and to the characters themselves, rather than reading as a careful puzzle constructed to convince the reader of the author's intellectual dominance. (Which is not to say that Wasserman is not smarter than all of us. I know her - full disclosure - and she is.)

But for me, the mystery, as compelling as it was, was both secondary to and made frightening by Wasserman's perfect portrayal of the power of teen girl friendship. Because what's so fascinating and wonderful and terrifying here is not that the things that are done by and done to these girls are foreign and unique, but that it's all too easy to imagine that with a few different casual decisions and chances of fate, any of us could have wound up exactly where they do.

TV Recommendation: Rebellion

A quick, somewhat belated note: RTE One drama Rebellion has been airing on Sundance TV this week in the U.S., and if you're interested in history it's definitely worth a look. I've only seen the first two of five hours so far, so I can't promise it resolves satisfactorily, but I'm riveted so far.

Rebellion is about a group of people from various social strata and walks of life who get caught up in the Easter Rising and outbreak of hostilities between the Irish republicans and the British in 1916. The main characters are (so far as I can tell) fictional, with historical figures like Patrick Pearse popping up regularly. The young female characters at the center of the show are particularly fascinating, and demonstrate a lot about how the rebellion intersected with challenges to traditional gender roles. I also like how firmly the show places the events in the context of World War I and the anxieties that came with it. And, of course, this has the usual strengths of a big-budget historical show, with gorgeous costumes, elaborate sets, and lots of family and romantic drama happening among the events of war.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Sundance has reruns on the schedule right now, but! My cable provider, at least, is putting the show on demand for anyone who has Sundance as part of their channel lineup, so check there.

Book Review: Tell the Wind and Fire

Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan
Clarion Books, 2016

Sarah Rees Brennan is one of my favorite authors, and I also love Dickens in general and A Tale of Two Cities in particular, so when I heard that she was doing a modern Tale of Two Cities with magic, I was thrilled. And Tell the Wind and Fire did not disappoint. It's a thoughtful page-turner, full of Rees Brennan's trademark humor and meditations on family and friendship and revolution and love and choice.

Tell the Wind and Fire is about a city divided between Light and Dark magic, and a girl caught in the middle when the people of the Dark start to fight back against the dominance of the Light and their terrible treatment at the hands of the powerful. "Like Mockingjay but good" is kind of a flip description - and I wouldn't call Mockingjay bad, exactly - but there's truth to it: Tell the Wind and Fire's Lucie is, like Katniss, made into the symbol of a revolution mostly by happenstance and others' actions, but Lucie comes across as much more thoughtful about her situation, and she is legitimately torn and ends up making her own decisions about her future, which makes the novel as a whole much more complex and compelling. And like many Rees Brennan heroines, Lucie is practical in a way I really enjoy - no unthinking "all that matters is love" here.

I like my magic systems to have clearly defined rules, to work in a way that makes it clear that the author knows exactly what's going on even if the reader doesn't have (or need) every detail, and this book certainly fulfills that. And even better, the magic is thoroughly integrated into a political system and a society and culture. Rees Brennan's world-building is great, and really helps this novel feel like its own unique thing even while cleverly using the Tale of Two Cities framework. The world of this novel feels so real that I found myself wanting to read a "nonfiction" history of it, and the political conflicts felt extremely relevant to our world today.

The central love triangle was actually one of the least compelling things for me here - which, not coincidentally, is how I feel about Tale of Two Cities as well. Of course, whether this is problematic depends on your own reading priorities. I didn't really care whether the love triangle grabbed me either way, but I did want to feel Lucie's feelings for boyfriend Ethan slightly more, especially since his doppelganger Carwyn had the "mysterious bad boy" advantage. That said, Ethan was way more interesting than he could have been, and I totally mean that as a compliment - his Dickensian analog Charles Darnay barely made any impression on me at all.

Speaking of Dickens: adaptations always bring up the question of whether the reader must be familiar with the source material to understand and enjoy the new work, and here I'd say absolutely not. Dickens fans will appreciate Rees Brennan's clever use of characters and themes, and there are certainly some fun references, but I'd wholeheartedly recommend Tell the Wind and Fire to any reader looking for complex, funny, heartbreaking fantasy with strong characters and thought-provoking themes. (But then you should go read A Tale of Two Cities too, because it's great, I promise.)

Book Review: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
Philomel Books, 2016
391 p.

Salt to the Sea, set in 1945, is the story of four teenagers from different backgrounds swept up in the chaos as refugees stream through Prussia trying to escape a Soviet advance - and head straight for the Wilhelm Gustloff, soon to be the site of one of the greatest maritime disasters in history. There's a love story, several stories of survival in horrible circumstances, some wonderful friendships and found families - and a suggested solution to one of a famous mystery of art history, for good measure. Ruta Sepetys has written two previous young adult historical novels - I'd recommend Between Shades of Gray, especially - but I think this is her strongest one yet: thoughtful and action-packed, haunting and tragic and life-affirming.

As you'd expect from that description, there's a lot of intense stuff going on in this novel, and Sepetys pulls it off. It's very, very powerful. (I should probably mention that, since this is about war, there are discussions and depictions of all the violence and horrors that involves, including rape.) I don't cry over books particularly frequently, but this one had me struggling not to openly weep on a plane in front of dozens of strangers. It sounds terrible and calculating to say this, but in fiction about something terrible - like a war or a shipwreck, actually - there's a fine line to walk: You make your readers care about your characters who will be involved in this tragedy, and most writers are loathe to then kill all these characters off. How many get another ending, and how realistic and how happy can that ending be? While there were a few plot points toward the end that struck me as a little too tidy, I thought overall Sepetys did a fine job of dealing with this.

Going in, I was a little worried about the perspective switches - point of view rotates between four characters, often switching after just a page or two - but the voices were distinct enough that it wasn't a problem, and I wound up really liking the way the voices wove together, both in showing these events from different perspectives and in building up an increasingly thick layer of dread as disaster came closer. I had my favorite characters, of course, but I never found myself hurrying through a chapter trying to get back to a character I cared about, as I sometimes do with multiple POVs (*cough* George R.R. Martin *cough*), and even when I was slightly less into a particular story at a particular time, I appreciated the way the points of view created such a full, multi-faceted world for the novel.

Salt to the Sea can definitely stand on its own, but at the same time, I'm the kind of reader who always wants more historical context. I'm reasonably well-versed in the basics of World War II, but don't know a lot about this specific time and place, and often wished I could look up exactly what was going on as the characters were mentioning various things. (I probably would have except, as I mentioned, I read this on a plane, so was dealing with the text pretty much in isolation. Which was probably both good and bad for my experience of the book, in various ways!) The book did have a map, which was helpful, but I wanted more.

That's a small quibble, though. Salt to the Sea is beautifully written, tragic without being tragedy porn, illuminating one specific, important moment in history while meditating on universal questions of patriotism and family and love and survival. Bring your tissues and be prepared to keep thinking about this book long after you finish reading.

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Morning Coffee (9/23/15)

New show reviews! I liked Life in Pieces. I did not like Scream Queens.

Sad news: Yogi Berra has died.

Huh. Serial's next season will be about Bowe Bergdahl.

There was clearly no GOOD way the Baby Doe case could end, but this story is just terrible.

Okay, some GOOD news: Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing a Black Panther comic!!

Alyssa Rosenberg's piece about world-building in Minority Report and The Man in the High Castle is fascinating. (My Minority Report review is going up today, so I'll link it for you tomorrow.)

At New York Private Schools, Challenging White Privilege From the Inside

"Happy Birthday" is now in the public domain and xkcd is on it.

Speaking of comics, I love Defunct's take on the Emmys.

Heh. The Onion: Pope Francis Reverses Position On Capitalism After Seeing Wide Variety Of American Oreos

Miserable Tambourine Players in Western Art History

Morning Coffee (9/19/14)

Happy Friday!

(Non-happy interlude - here's my review of new show The Mysteries of Laura. It's a terrible show.)

Scotland voted no, so the scotch industry is happy.

For some reason I'd never taken the weekly Slate news quiz before today, but it's fun! I recommend it!

Speaking of Slate, the CultureFest is doing a live show in Boston.

Connie Britton and Kirsten Gillibrand were roommates during a study abroad program and everything is amazing.

Heeeee: 18 New New York Times Bestseller Lists That Will Change The Way You Think About Bestseller Lists

Oh my God: Thin Mints & Samoas Are Now Drinkable

Dirtbag Teddy Roosevelt

Heh: Ranking the Cast of 'This Is Where I Leave You' by Emmys, Jewishness, and Every Other Important Metric

I think some of these Gilmore Girls facts are pretty well known, but it's still a fun list.