Madeline's bookshelf: read en-US Fri, 25 Apr 2025 12:11:35 -0700 60 Madeline's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[World Travel: An Irreverent Guide]]> 50496808 A guide to some of the world’s most fascinating places, as seen and experienced by writer, television host, and relentlessly curious traveler Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from the hidden pockets of his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai to Tanzania’s utter beauty and the stunning desert solitude of Oman’s Empty Quarter—and many places beyond.

In World Travel, a life of experience is collected into an entertaining, practical, fun and frank travel guide that gives readers an introduction to some of his favorite places—in his own words. Featuring essential advice on how to get there, what to eat, where to stay and, in some cases, what to avoid, World Travel provides essential context that will help readers further appreciate the reasons why Bourdain found a place enchanting and memorable.

Supplementing Bourdain’s words are a handful of essays by friends, colleagues, and family that tell even deeper stories about a place, including sardonic accounts of traveling with Bourdain by his brother, Christopher; a guide to Chicago’s best cheap eats by legendary music producer Steve Albini, and more. Additionally, each chapter includes illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook.

For veteran travelers, armchair enthusiasts, and those in between, World Travel offers a chance to experience the world like Anthony Bourdain.]]> 480 Anthony Bourdain 0062802798 Madeline 1
I find this especially useful when evaluating popular fiction that I know I, personally, would not enjoy. (A coworker keeps pressuring me to read that shitty fantasy A Fire Of Stars and Roses and Courts of Thorns or whatever, I can't be bothered to look it up, and I refuse) It can be liberating to acknowledge that no, this thing isn't bad, it's just not my taste and therefore I don't need any other justification besides "I didn't like it."

That being said, I can't imagine what kind of person could possibly find World Travel: An Irreverent Guide to their taste.

The concept of this book is a good one: Anthony Bourdain, along with author Laurie Woolever (his former assistant and frequent professional collaborator) wanted to write "an atlas of the world as seen through his eyes...the places, people, food, sights, markets, hotels, and more that had stuck with him, without aid of notes or videos, throughout nearly twenty years of traveling the world in the service of making television."

Bourdain and Woolever had exactly one meeting in 2018 to brainstorm what this book would look like, and there was never a second meeting because only a few weeks later, Bourdain was dead by suicide.

So, a warning to prospective readers: there is not a single new sentence written by Bourdain in this book. Woolever had the difficult task of trying to make Bourdain's vision for the book a reality, and her solution was to pull quotes from Bourdain's past projects and stick them in the book as needed. Every Bourdain quote that was taken from another source is printed in blue, and there's a whole lot of blue in this book.

Okay, so it's not a new view into Bourdain (even the guest essays, by various chefs and other famous people in Bourdain's orbit, spend most of the time talking about whatever city they've been asked to write about instead of focusing on the voice that is conspicuously absent from this book), so how does it function as a travel guide?

Not well, I'll tell you that. The book is divided into countries, with some larger nations like Canada and China getting divided into sections focusing on a couple of major cities, but otherwise an entire country gets just four or five pages' worth of hotel and restaurant recommendations. Someone involved in the planning process for this book also made the baffling decision to spend significant page space describing the major airports of each featured country - including how to get to the city center (spoiler alert, the answer will be "you can take public transportation or a taxi" every single time), and, for some reason, which airlines stop there (Who was this written for?) This was especially frustrating considering how few pages each country gets, and I wish they'd at least made the airport sections a little briefer so Woolever could feature at least a few more local restaurants. The hotel sections usually tell us where Bourdain liked to stay, and we learn that he preferred luxury accommodations like the Four Seasons. Which, fine - he's a TV star, after all, and god knows the man deserved a nice mattress, but it's not much help for the average traveler who might want to stay somewhere that's locally-owned, or at least more affordable. (Also, why do we need to know this? Do people really think they can saunter up to the concierge at the Ritz Carlton in Toronto, brandish a copy of this book, and demand to stay in the Anthony Bourdain suite?)

Sure, you can find good restaurant recommendations for your next international trip, but there are plenty of sources for that. You're better off skipping this and just watching old episodes of No Reservations - at least there, Anthony Bourdain's distinctive voice and perspective comes straight from the source, and not second hand.

Or better yet, seek out Laurie Woolever's recently-published memoir, Care and Feeding: A Memoir, which I haven't gotten my hands on yet but apparently does feature plenty of Bourdain, and sounds like it does a much better job of delivering what I wanted from this book.]]> 3.66 2021 World Travel: An Irreverent Guide
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves:
review:
It's always an interesting exercise, as a reader, to approach a book with a simple question: who was this written for?

I find this especially useful when evaluating popular fiction that I know I, personally, would not enjoy. (A coworker keeps pressuring me to read that shitty fantasy A Fire Of Stars and Roses and Courts of Thorns or whatever, I can't be bothered to look it up, and I refuse) It can be liberating to acknowledge that no, this thing isn't bad, it's just not my taste and therefore I don't need any other justification besides "I didn't like it."

That being said, I can't imagine what kind of person could possibly find World Travel: An Irreverent Guide to their taste.

The concept of this book is a good one: Anthony Bourdain, along with author Laurie Woolever (his former assistant and frequent professional collaborator) wanted to write "an atlas of the world as seen through his eyes...the places, people, food, sights, markets, hotels, and more that had stuck with him, without aid of notes or videos, throughout nearly twenty years of traveling the world in the service of making television."

Bourdain and Woolever had exactly one meeting in 2018 to brainstorm what this book would look like, and there was never a second meeting because only a few weeks later, Bourdain was dead by suicide.

So, a warning to prospective readers: there is not a single new sentence written by Bourdain in this book. Woolever had the difficult task of trying to make Bourdain's vision for the book a reality, and her solution was to pull quotes from Bourdain's past projects and stick them in the book as needed. Every Bourdain quote that was taken from another source is printed in blue, and there's a whole lot of blue in this book.

Okay, so it's not a new view into Bourdain (even the guest essays, by various chefs and other famous people in Bourdain's orbit, spend most of the time talking about whatever city they've been asked to write about instead of focusing on the voice that is conspicuously absent from this book), so how does it function as a travel guide?

Not well, I'll tell you that. The book is divided into countries, with some larger nations like Canada and China getting divided into sections focusing on a couple of major cities, but otherwise an entire country gets just four or five pages' worth of hotel and restaurant recommendations. Someone involved in the planning process for this book also made the baffling decision to spend significant page space describing the major airports of each featured country - including how to get to the city center (spoiler alert, the answer will be "you can take public transportation or a taxi" every single time), and, for some reason, which airlines stop there (Who was this written for?) This was especially frustrating considering how few pages each country gets, and I wish they'd at least made the airport sections a little briefer so Woolever could feature at least a few more local restaurants. The hotel sections usually tell us where Bourdain liked to stay, and we learn that he preferred luxury accommodations like the Four Seasons. Which, fine - he's a TV star, after all, and god knows the man deserved a nice mattress, but it's not much help for the average traveler who might want to stay somewhere that's locally-owned, or at least more affordable. (Also, why do we need to know this? Do people really think they can saunter up to the concierge at the Ritz Carlton in Toronto, brandish a copy of this book, and demand to stay in the Anthony Bourdain suite?)

Sure, you can find good restaurant recommendations for your next international trip, but there are plenty of sources for that. You're better off skipping this and just watching old episodes of No Reservations - at least there, Anthony Bourdain's distinctive voice and perspective comes straight from the source, and not second hand.

Or better yet, seek out Laurie Woolever's recently-published memoir, Care and Feeding: A Memoir, which I haven't gotten my hands on yet but apparently does feature plenty of Bourdain, and sounds like it does a much better job of delivering what I wanted from this book.
]]> <![CDATA[Feet of Clay (Discworld, #19; City Watch, #3)]]> 34527
But for Commander Vimes, Head of Ankh-Morpork City Watch, that's only the start...

There's treason in the air.
A crime has happened.

He's not only got to find out whodunit, but howdunit too. He's not even sure what they dun. But as soon as he knows what the questions are, he's going to want some answers.]]> 411 Terry Pratchett 0552153257 Madeline 5 fantasy
He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way.

And he distrusted the kind of person who'd take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, 'Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,' and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man's boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he'd been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen and in fact got sea-sick on wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!"]]> 4.31 1996 Feet of Clay (Discworld, #19; City Watch, #3)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: fantasy
review:
"Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues.

He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way.

And he distrusted the kind of person who'd take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, 'Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,' and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man's boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he'd been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen and in fact got sea-sick on wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!"
]]> <![CDATA[Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes]]> 1239350
Foreword
The luck of Mr. Murphy
The Flying Dutchman of Lake Superior
Hard times for the Benjamin Noble
Eight bells for the Clifton
Soft and brown ... with a touch of green ..
A matter of professional pride
... With the best of intentions
A very determined man
Where is the Kamloops ...?
Knives in the lifeboat!
The prophetic passing of Captain Napier
Don't change her name ...!
That damnable nuisance, Mrs. Doupe
... And then there were two
A family affair
"Telegram for Captain Stines"
Our Son ... and E.S.P]]> 294 Dwight Boyer 0912514477 Madeline 3 history-nonfiction lakes. They are, technically speaking, inland seas and are only classified as lakes because they have fresh water, and they're bigger than some European countries.

They will also fuck you up, as anyone who has heard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald can attest, and the bottom of every one of the five Great Lakes is a literal graveyard of shipwrecks. Dwight Boyer's book takes us through just a handful of them (most having sunk between the late 1800's and the 1930's, when it became mandatory for all shipping vessels to have radio equipment on board).

Fair warning for anyone intrigued by the title: no, this is not an anthology of ship-related ghost stories of the Great Lakes area, nor is it a chronicle of eyewitness accounts of supernatural sightings. This is a very straightforward history of famous shipwrecks, giving us the principle characters involved, the circumstances that led to the sinkings, and the aftermath. It gets pretty repetitive pretty quickly, because almost all of the stories can be boiled down to, "The ship left the port during bad weather conditions, it never showed up at the dock when it was supposed to, and we have no idea where it sank." And although Boyer will occasionally mention that residents will report hearing a distress horn years after the sinking, or see strange lights, this is definitely not a book of ghost stories. If anything, this is a fun guide to all the little islands that are scattered around the Great Lakes, most of which have turned into cute tourist towns.

But I have to admit that even though this wasn't what I was expecting, I couldn't help being totally charmed by this book, because the writing is fun and engaging, and you just don't get history books written like this anymore:

From the chapter titled Don't Change Her Name...!:

"In 1924 she appeared to be just what the Dunbar & Sullivan Dredging Company of Detroit was looking for in the way of another craft to tow and service their rather considerable fleet of dipper, hydraulic, and clamshell boats and associated gear. They bought her and immediately changed her name to Sachem, a title signifying the mightiest of Indian chiefs. Someone with a delightful sense of humor, probably an Irishman, is responsible for naming the assorted craft belonging to the Dunbar & Sullivan organization. They have some conventional names, too, but imagine tugs named Sachem, Shaughraun, Shaun Rhue, Spalpeen, Paddy Miles, and Nanny Goat. Fancy such names for dredges, big ones, too, as Omadhoun, Old Hickory, Tipperary Boy, Pocantico, Handy Andy, and a drill boat named Earthquake. Glorious!"]]> 3.72 1968 Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes
author: Dwight Boyer
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1968
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
It's hard to explain to people who have never seen them in person that the Great Lakes are not just lakes. They are, technically speaking, inland seas and are only classified as lakes because they have fresh water, and they're bigger than some European countries.

They will also fuck you up, as anyone who has heard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald can attest, and the bottom of every one of the five Great Lakes is a literal graveyard of shipwrecks. Dwight Boyer's book takes us through just a handful of them (most having sunk between the late 1800's and the 1930's, when it became mandatory for all shipping vessels to have radio equipment on board).

Fair warning for anyone intrigued by the title: no, this is not an anthology of ship-related ghost stories of the Great Lakes area, nor is it a chronicle of eyewitness accounts of supernatural sightings. This is a very straightforward history of famous shipwrecks, giving us the principle characters involved, the circumstances that led to the sinkings, and the aftermath. It gets pretty repetitive pretty quickly, because almost all of the stories can be boiled down to, "The ship left the port during bad weather conditions, it never showed up at the dock when it was supposed to, and we have no idea where it sank." And although Boyer will occasionally mention that residents will report hearing a distress horn years after the sinking, or see strange lights, this is definitely not a book of ghost stories. If anything, this is a fun guide to all the little islands that are scattered around the Great Lakes, most of which have turned into cute tourist towns.

But I have to admit that even though this wasn't what I was expecting, I couldn't help being totally charmed by this book, because the writing is fun and engaging, and you just don't get history books written like this anymore:

From the chapter titled Don't Change Her Name...!:

"In 1924 she appeared to be just what the Dunbar & Sullivan Dredging Company of Detroit was looking for in the way of another craft to tow and service their rather considerable fleet of dipper, hydraulic, and clamshell boats and associated gear. They bought her and immediately changed her name to Sachem, a title signifying the mightiest of Indian chiefs. Someone with a delightful sense of humor, probably an Irishman, is responsible for naming the assorted craft belonging to the Dunbar & Sullivan organization. They have some conventional names, too, but imagine tugs named Sachem, Shaughraun, Shaun Rhue, Spalpeen, Paddy Miles, and Nanny Goat. Fancy such names for dredges, big ones, too, as Omadhoun, Old Hickory, Tipperary Boy, Pocantico, Handy Andy, and a drill boat named Earthquake. Glorious!"
]]> <![CDATA[Interesting Times (Discworld, #17; Rincewind, #5)]]> 884288
The oldest and most inscrutable empire on the Discworld is in turmoil, brought about by the revolutionary treatise "What I did on My Holidays." Workers are uniting, with nothing to lose but their water buffaloes. War (and Clancy) are spreading throughout the ancient cities.

And all that stands in the way of terrible doom for everyone is:

Rincewind the Wizard, who can't even spell the word "wizard"...

Cohen the barbarian hero, five foot tall in his surgical sandals, who has had a lifetime's experience of not dying...

...and a very special butterfly.]]> 368 Terry Pratchett 0061056901 Madeline 3 fantasy Discworld fan's favorite (he has the unfortunate distinction of carrying the first installment, The Color of Magic, which every hardcore fan loves to adamantly warn new readers away from), but I love this little guy. As far as the Rincewind adventures go, this is one is super fun and functions almost like a direct sequel to The Light Fantastic, so yes you do have to read that one before you try this.

The story kicks off with Rincewind once again unwilling finding himself in Situations he wants absolutely no part of. In this case, it's the Agatean Empire, and the Situation is a brewing revolution against the emperor.

Fair warning: Pratchett has based his setting on Imperial China (or sometimes Imperial Japan, if he thinks it'll be funnier) and overall it...has not aged well. This is a solid Rincewind adventure, with some great callbacks to the very first Discworld book, and I enjoyed myself the entire time I was reading it, don't get me wrong. But there are definitely some jokes that didn't land, and I was disappointed that Pratchett went that direction because he's usually so good at zigging where other fantasy authors zag, and it was a bummer to see him lean fully into lazy stereotypes and not do anything new with them.]]> 4.14 1994 Interesting Times (Discworld, #17; Rincewind, #5)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: fantasy
review:
I know the Rincewind books aren't every Discworld fan's favorite (he has the unfortunate distinction of carrying the first installment, The Color of Magic, which every hardcore fan loves to adamantly warn new readers away from), but I love this little guy. As far as the Rincewind adventures go, this is one is super fun and functions almost like a direct sequel to The Light Fantastic, so yes you do have to read that one before you try this.

The story kicks off with Rincewind once again unwilling finding himself in Situations he wants absolutely no part of. In this case, it's the Agatean Empire, and the Situation is a brewing revolution against the emperor.

Fair warning: Pratchett has based his setting on Imperial China (or sometimes Imperial Japan, if he thinks it'll be funnier) and overall it...has not aged well. This is a solid Rincewind adventure, with some great callbacks to the very first Discworld book, and I enjoyed myself the entire time I was reading it, don't get me wrong. But there are definitely some jokes that didn't land, and I was disappointed that Pratchett went that direction because he's usually so good at zigging where other fantasy authors zag, and it was a bummer to see him lean fully into lazy stereotypes and not do anything new with them.
]]> <![CDATA[Maskerade (Discworld, #18; Witches, #5)]]> 78876
... a huge, rambling building, where masked figures and hooded shadows do wicked deeds in the wings...
... where dying the death on stage is a little bit more than just a metaphor...
... where innocent young sopranos are lured to their destiny by an evil mastermind in a hideously deformed evening dress..

Where...

... there's a couple of old ladies in pointy hats eating peanuts in the gods and looking up at the big chandelier and saying things like: "There's an accident waiting to happen if I ever saw one."

Yes... Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, the Discworld's greatest witches, are back for an innocent night out at the opera.

So there's going to be trouble (but nevertheless a good evening's entertainment with murders you can really hum...)]]> 285 Terry Pratchett 0575058080 Madeline 4 fantasy Wyrd Sisters was Macbeth, Witches Abroad was Cinderella, Lords and Ladies was A Midsummer Night's Dream, and now it's time to hear what Sir Terry thinks of The Phantom of the Opera. He, uh, has notes.

Now that Magrat Garlick is off being a queen (literally, but I guess figuratively as well), Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax find themselves in a coven with only two witches, and anyone can tell you that that's not really a coven at all. But luckily, they have a potential candidate in Agnes Nitt, the local village girl who's shown signs of witch potential. Unluckily, Agnes has moved to the big city of Ankh-Morpork to chase her dream of becoming an opera star. And of course, the opera house has a ghost.

I'll be honest that the only reason this didn't totally blow me away (and why I strongly considered bumping the rating down to three stars) is because it felt like the book was building to something much bigger than what the ending delivered. I wanted more of a bang, but overall this book was so much fun. Terry Pratchett has some opinions about opera as an art form, and you know what you're getting into right at the dedication:

"My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here."

Plus, this is our introduction to Agnes Nitt, and I can't wait for the next book when she's hopefully an official third member of the coven, because you can't not love her:

"She'd woken up one morning with the horrible realization that she'd been saddled with a lovely personality. It was as simple as that. Oh, and very good hair.
It wasn't so much the personality, it was the 'but' that people always added when they talked about it. But she's got such a lovely personality, they said. It was the lack of choice that rankled. N one had asked her, before she was born, whether she wanted a lovely personality or whether she'd prefer, say a miserable personality but a body that could take size nine in dresses. Instead, people would take pains to tell her that beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair of kidneys.
She could feel a future trying to land on her.
She'd caught herself saying 'poot!' and 'dang!' when she wanted to swear, and using pink writing paper.
She'd got a reputation for being calm and capable in a crisis.
Next thing she knew she'd be making shortbread and apple pies as good as her mother's, and then there'd be no hope for her."]]> 4.10 1995 Maskerade (Discworld, #18; Witches, #5)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: fantasy
review:
By now, I've learned that Terry Pratchett writes an installment of the Witches series when he feels like doing his own spoof of a classic story. Wyrd Sisters was Macbeth, Witches Abroad was Cinderella, Lords and Ladies was A Midsummer Night's Dream, and now it's time to hear what Sir Terry thinks of The Phantom of the Opera. He, uh, has notes.

Now that Magrat Garlick is off being a queen (literally, but I guess figuratively as well), Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax find themselves in a coven with only two witches, and anyone can tell you that that's not really a coven at all. But luckily, they have a potential candidate in Agnes Nitt, the local village girl who's shown signs of witch potential. Unluckily, Agnes has moved to the big city of Ankh-Morpork to chase her dream of becoming an opera star. And of course, the opera house has a ghost.

I'll be honest that the only reason this didn't totally blow me away (and why I strongly considered bumping the rating down to three stars) is because it felt like the book was building to something much bigger than what the ending delivered. I wanted more of a bang, but overall this book was so much fun. Terry Pratchett has some opinions about opera as an art form, and you know what you're getting into right at the dedication:

"My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here."

Plus, this is our introduction to Agnes Nitt, and I can't wait for the next book when she's hopefully an official third member of the coven, because you can't not love her:

"She'd woken up one morning with the horrible realization that she'd been saddled with a lovely personality. It was as simple as that. Oh, and very good hair.
It wasn't so much the personality, it was the 'but' that people always added when they talked about it. But she's got such a lovely personality, they said. It was the lack of choice that rankled. N one had asked her, before she was born, whether she wanted a lovely personality or whether she'd prefer, say a miserable personality but a body that could take size nine in dresses. Instead, people would take pains to tell her that beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair of kidneys.
She could feel a future trying to land on her.
She'd caught herself saying 'poot!' and 'dang!' when she wanted to swear, and using pink writing paper.
She'd got a reputation for being calm and capable in a crisis.
Next thing she knew she'd be making shortbread and apple pies as good as her mother's, and then there'd be no hope for her."
]]> <![CDATA[Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise]]> 80642 Garlic and Sapphires, Reichl reveals the comic absurdity, artifice, and excellence to be found in the sumptuously appointed stages of the epicurean world and gives us--along with some of her favorite recipes and reviews--her remarkable reflections on how one's outer appearance can influence one's inner character, expectations, and appetites, not to mention the quality of service one receives.]]> 333 Ruth Reichl 0143036610 Madeline 4 memoir The New York Times' new restaurant critic, she realized very quickly that the New York dining scene was a completely different animal. Every high-end restaurant in the city had trained their staff to recognize Reichl at first sight, to ensure that she was guaranteed to have the best service and give a good review, and this meant that Reichl had to get creative.

It was more than just throwing on a wig and some fake glasses. Reichl worked with an acting coach to create fully-formed characters who would function as her disguises when she went out to eat. Each of these personas came with full backstories and unique personalities, and Reichl found that not only did her disguise affect how she was treated by restaurant staff, it also affected her own experience, because she was dining out in character.

The main draw of this memoir is, of course, the infamous "dual review" that Riechl wrote of Le Cirque, describing her experiences as Ruth Riechl, famous restaurant critic, and an anonymous nobody:

"Dinner as the Unknown Diner
'Do you have a reservation?'
This is said so challengingly I instantly feel as if I am an intruder who has wandered into the wrong restaurant. But I nod meekly and give my guest's name. And I am sent to wait in the bar.
And there we sit for half an hour, two women drinking glasses of expensive water. Finally we are led to a table in the smoking section, where we had specifically requested not to be seated. Asked if there is, perhaps, another table, the captain merely gestures at the occupied tables and produces a little shrug.
There is no need to ask for a wine list; there it is, perched right next to me on the banquette where the waitress shoves the menus. Every few minutes another waiter comes to fling his used menus in my direction.
...
Dinner as a Most Favored Patron
'The King of Spain is waiting in the bar, but your table is ready,' says Mr. Maccioni, sweeping us majestically past the waiting masses."

The book also has a handful of recipes, and I can't speak for all of them, but I will tell you that when I finished reading this, I had make the Last-Minute Chocolate Cake recipe pretty much immediately, and it was incredible. Definitely save that one. ]]> 3.93 2005 Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
author: Ruth Reichl
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: memoir
review:
When Ruth Reichl relocated from Los Angeles to become The New York Times' new restaurant critic, she realized very quickly that the New York dining scene was a completely different animal. Every high-end restaurant in the city had trained their staff to recognize Reichl at first sight, to ensure that she was guaranteed to have the best service and give a good review, and this meant that Reichl had to get creative.

It was more than just throwing on a wig and some fake glasses. Reichl worked with an acting coach to create fully-formed characters who would function as her disguises when she went out to eat. Each of these personas came with full backstories and unique personalities, and Reichl found that not only did her disguise affect how she was treated by restaurant staff, it also affected her own experience, because she was dining out in character.

The main draw of this memoir is, of course, the infamous "dual review" that Riechl wrote of Le Cirque, describing her experiences as Ruth Riechl, famous restaurant critic, and an anonymous nobody:

"Dinner as the Unknown Diner
'Do you have a reservation?'
This is said so challengingly I instantly feel as if I am an intruder who has wandered into the wrong restaurant. But I nod meekly and give my guest's name. And I am sent to wait in the bar.
And there we sit for half an hour, two women drinking glasses of expensive water. Finally we are led to a table in the smoking section, where we had specifically requested not to be seated. Asked if there is, perhaps, another table, the captain merely gestures at the occupied tables and produces a little shrug.
There is no need to ask for a wine list; there it is, perched right next to me on the banquette where the waitress shoves the menus. Every few minutes another waiter comes to fling his used menus in my direction.
...
Dinner as a Most Favored Patron
'The King of Spain is waiting in the bar, but your table is ready,' says Mr. Maccioni, sweeping us majestically past the waiting masses."

The book also has a handful of recipes, and I can't speak for all of them, but I will tell you that when I finished reading this, I had make the Last-Minute Chocolate Cake recipe pretty much immediately, and it was incredible. Definitely save that one.
]]> <![CDATA[An Offer From a Gentleman (Bridgertons, #3)]]> 9408584
Sophie Beckett never dreamed she'd be able to sneak into Lady Bridgerton's famed masquerade ball—or that "Prince Charming" would be waiting there for her! Though the daughter of an earl, Sophie has been relegated to the role of servant by her disdainful stepmother. But now, spinning in the strong arms of the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton, she feels like royalty. Alas, she knows all enchantments must end when the clock strikes midnight.

Who was that extraordinary woman? Ever since that magical night, a radiant vision in silver has blinded Benedict to the attractions of any other—except, perhaps this alluring and oddly familiar beauty dressed in housemaid's garb whom he feels compelled to rescue from a most disagreeable situation. He has sworn to find and wed his mystery miss, but this breathtaking maid makes him weak with wanting her. Yet, if he offers his heart, will Benedict sacrifice his only chance for a fairy tale love?

Alternate cover for ISBN 0380815583 / 9780380815586]]> 390 Julia Quinn Madeline 2 no-judgements
First, I hate it. I haaaaate it. It's condescending as shit and is rooted in the idea that other people's emotions aren't real, so that makes it totally fine to upset someone on purpose because you think it's funny. Also it's always the guy doing it to the girl and is never the other way around, and you know that Julia "let's just do a beat-for-beat retelling of Cinderella and call it a day" Quinn certainly won't do anything inventive with the trope.

But it's also an extremely tricky thing to pull off, because it requires the man to act like a total dick and the woman to be consistently beaten down by his "flirty" teasing and insults. The author has to work very hard to make the final act turnaround work.

And that's the thing that kills An Offer From a Gentleman dead in the water: this dynamic of "guy is mean to girl because he can't admit he likes her" does not work in a Regency setting. At least if you have a bickering couple in modern day, you're comforted by the fact that if the girl really doesn't like the guy, she can tell him to fuck off, and walk away. Sophie Beckett, the heroine of this extremely frustrating and unromantic horror story, can do neither. Add that to the fact that Benedict's favorite way to needle Sophie is to remind her that she has no power and he can do whatever he wants, and the result is a love story where I was actively rooting for the heroine to murder the hero in his sleep.

I mean, Jesus. At least with Anthony and Kate, their constant bickering worked because even if Kate wasn't as rich as Anthony, they were more or less social equals and had a level playing field. The Benedict/Sophie dynamic is just sad, because you're just reading about this woman getting constantly belittled and insulted, and the only way out is to marry the guy. Sure, Benedict doesn't rape her, and his narration is constantly insisting that "well, if she rejects me and means it of course I'll stop" but then literally a sentence later he's like, "She'll sleep with me eventually, I just have to wear her down."

Not great, Julia!

(I do love how Benedict is so delusional he just takes it for granted that becoming his mistress is the best thing that could possibly happen to Sophie. Provide references or shut the fuck up, bro. Also it's worth pointing out that in this era, being a rich guy's mistress was one step up from indentured servitude anyway, and GOD how I wish Sophie had pointed this out to him.)

[spoilers removed]

An Offer From a Gentleman proves that Julia Quinn is the laziest kind of historical fiction writer, one who picks and chooses which rules from the era she wants to follow when it suits her story. She clearly chose the Regency era because she liked the idea of writing romances where unmarried couples could barely touch each other in public, but as soon as she runs into ugly realities of the time period, like the total lack of human rights for servants or the unbreakable rules of social hierarchies, she half-asses an explanation for why her characters can ignore them because to acknowledge the reality of how much the Regency era sucked for 95% of the population isn't sexy.

Georgette Heyer is embarrassed for you.]]> 3.89 2001 An Offer From a Gentleman (Bridgertons, #3)
author: Julia Quinn
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: no-judgements
review:
So here's the thing about the romance trope of "guy annoys girl on purpose because he thinks she's cute when she's angry":

First, I hate it. I haaaaate it. It's condescending as shit and is rooted in the idea that other people's emotions aren't real, so that makes it totally fine to upset someone on purpose because you think it's funny. Also it's always the guy doing it to the girl and is never the other way around, and you know that Julia "let's just do a beat-for-beat retelling of Cinderella and call it a day" Quinn certainly won't do anything inventive with the trope.

But it's also an extremely tricky thing to pull off, because it requires the man to act like a total dick and the woman to be consistently beaten down by his "flirty" teasing and insults. The author has to work very hard to make the final act turnaround work.

And that's the thing that kills An Offer From a Gentleman dead in the water: this dynamic of "guy is mean to girl because he can't admit he likes her" does not work in a Regency setting. At least if you have a bickering couple in modern day, you're comforted by the fact that if the girl really doesn't like the guy, she can tell him to fuck off, and walk away. Sophie Beckett, the heroine of this extremely frustrating and unromantic horror story, can do neither. Add that to the fact that Benedict's favorite way to needle Sophie is to remind her that she has no power and he can do whatever he wants, and the result is a love story where I was actively rooting for the heroine to murder the hero in his sleep.

I mean, Jesus. At least with Anthony and Kate, their constant bickering worked because even if Kate wasn't as rich as Anthony, they were more or less social equals and had a level playing field. The Benedict/Sophie dynamic is just sad, because you're just reading about this woman getting constantly belittled and insulted, and the only way out is to marry the guy. Sure, Benedict doesn't rape her, and his narration is constantly insisting that "well, if she rejects me and means it of course I'll stop" but then literally a sentence later he's like, "She'll sleep with me eventually, I just have to wear her down."

Not great, Julia!

(I do love how Benedict is so delusional he just takes it for granted that becoming his mistress is the best thing that could possibly happen to Sophie. Provide references or shut the fuck up, bro. Also it's worth pointing out that in this era, being a rich guy's mistress was one step up from indentured servitude anyway, and GOD how I wish Sophie had pointed this out to him.)

[spoilers removed]

An Offer From a Gentleman proves that Julia Quinn is the laziest kind of historical fiction writer, one who picks and chooses which rules from the era she wants to follow when it suits her story. She clearly chose the Regency era because she liked the idea of writing romances where unmarried couples could barely touch each other in public, but as soon as she runs into ugly realities of the time period, like the total lack of human rights for servants or the unbreakable rules of social hierarchies, she half-asses an explanation for why her characters can ignore them because to acknowledge the reality of how much the Regency era sucked for 95% of the population isn't sexy.

Georgette Heyer is embarrassed for you.
]]> Swan Song (Nantucket, #4) 200484931 In the grand finale of "queen of the beach read" Elin Hilderbrand's beloved Nantucket novels, there's a new couple in town... and they instantly shake things up. Amid the extravagant parties on land and sea, there's trouble on the island, forcing Chief of Police Ed Kapanesh to postpone his retirement and changing the fabric of life on the picturesque island forever...

After thirty-five years serving as the Chief of Police on the island of Nantucket, Ed Kapenash's heart can no longer take the stress. But his plans to retire are thwarted when, with only three days left to serve, he receives a phone call. A 22-million-dollar summer home, recently purchased by the flashy new couple in town, the Richardsons, has burned to the ground. The Richardsons are far from hurt—in fact, they're out on the water, throwing a lavish party on their yacht—but when news of the fire reaches them, they discover that their personal assistant has vanished. The Chief is well-acquainted with the Richardsons, and his daughter is best friends with the now-missing girl, leaving him no choice but to postpone his retirement and take on the double case.

On a small island like Nantucket, the Richardsons shook things up from the second they stepped on to the scene, throwing luxurious parties and doing whatever they could to gain admittance to the coveted lunches at the Field & Oar Club (with increasing desperation). They instantly captured the attention of local real estate agent Fast Eddie, and the town gossip Blond Sharon, both dealing with their own personal dramas. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce, and in order to avoid becoming a cliché, she's enrolled in a creative writing class, putting her natural affinity for scandal towards a more noble purpose. To solve the case of the fire and track down his daughter's best friend, the Chief will have to string together the pieces of the lives of all of these characters and more, rallying his strength for his final act of service to the tight-knit community he knows and loves.

The last of Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Nantucket novels, Swan Song is a propulsive medley of glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, wisdom and heart, featuring the return of some of her most beloved characters, including, most importantly, the beautiful and timeless island of Nantucket itself.]]> 384 Elin Hilderbrand 0316258873 Madeline 3
There's definitely a bittersweet feeling going into Swan Song, aka Elin Hilderbrand's last, no fooling, seriously guys she's really done, Nantucket novel. There's a sense of relief, because now I can move on and hopefully find a new comfort series that doesn't frustrate me quite as much. But there's also a feeling of genuine loss, because as much as I harp on these novels and even though they could be better in so many ways, I'm going to miss these books. Is Hilderbrand going for the low-hanging fruit by writing novels set on the wealthy, idyllic island of Nantucket and saturating her stories with beach houses, decadent meals, and nice white people who are complicated only in the sense that they love adultery? Sure. But the fact is that these books are a goddamn balm for the soul, true beach reads in every sense of the word, and I'm really going to miss spending time in Hilderbrand's world, where it's golden hour all the time.

Swan Song centers on Ed Kapenash, Nantucket chief of police and arguably the beating heart at the center of this series. The book begins at Ed's retirement party, when he receives an emergency call: a summer home on the island has been destroyed by a fire and the owners, who were hosting a party on their yacht at the time, report that one of their employees is missing from the boat. We then go into Hilderbrand's favorite storytelling device, the good ol' flashback chapters interspersed with minute-to-minute updates on the night of the disaster.

Ed's adult daughter Kacey is on the island after fleeing a messy relationship back in California, and on the ferry over, she meets new arrival Coco, who has come to Nantucket to work as a personal concierge for a wealthy couple. The Richardsons are also new to the island and immediately cause a stir by hosting wild parties in their 22-million-dollar beach house, and the flashback chapters take us back to when Coco met the couple, and lead us to the fateful night when she disappears from the yacht.

Like classic Hilderbrand, it's an inconsistent novel, full of half-baked characters and a "mystery" that will offer no twists or interesting diversions from tradition. Hilderbrand will once again demonstrate that what she needs most to improve as an author is a one-year social media diet (do the kids really use the phrase "sneaky link"? Seriously?) but at the same time, she needs someone in her life with better music taste because even though she has her finger on the pulse in terms of slang and pop culture, the music references in this book are curiously outdated - Coco is set up as this cool, alternative girl who is not the typical Nantucket person, but we learn that one of her favorite bands is The Killers, and at another point she jams out to a Twenty-One Pilots song that's at least ten years old.

This book also features another Hilderbrand standby: the romantic affair featuring two people who don't even seem to like each other all that much, never mind have such crackling chemistry that they would risk it all for the chance to be together. I think we're supposed to understand why Kacey is so torn about the ex-girlfriend she's fleeing (pause for kudos to Hilderbrand, who manages to feature lesbians and a nonbinary character in this one), but the problem is that we as the readers only ever see the girlfriend being shitty and manipulative, so I wasn't rooting for her and Kacey for even a second. Coco also has a fling with a coworker, and of course the Richardsons have a weird rule about their staff not being allowed to date each other. This rule is only in place to give the romance a little spice, but I also didn't care about whether or not Coco was fucking this guy because he...kind of sucks?

There's a moment where we get a glimpse of the other story this book could have told, where we see Hilderbrand applying what you could almost call a critical lens to the perfect beautiful beach community she's spent over a dozen books idolizing. When Coco first arrives on the island, her employers haven't gotten to their house yet and have told Coco that she'll need to figure out her own accommodations for the first couple of nights. No problem, Coco thinks, she can just find a cheap hotel or at the very least, camp somewhere. And then once she arrives, Coco finds out that there is no such thing as bargain accommodations on Nantucket Island. There are no motels, the one hostel is no longer in business, and the average cost of a hotel room in the summer is over a thousand dollars a night. Coco's thought upon realizing this - Where do the poor people stay? - is such a beautiful little lightning bolt of introspection from the author, but it's similarly gone as soon as it appears, and any additional attempts to shed light on the huge disparity between the rich residents of Nantucket and the people who work for them are half-hearted at best, because Hilderbrand doesn't want to kill the vibes.

(We're also reminded in this book that one of the supporting characters was running a prostitution ring a few years ago, but he went to prison for it and now he's out so everything's cool! Don't be so negative, he's a good guy who made a mistake! And certainly nothing like that has ever happened since then!)

I just wanted more from this. If this is really Hilderbrand's final bow, I wanted it to feel more like a culmination, a last farewell from all the characters we've met in previous books. Certain former protagonists do make brief appearances, and there are references to events from earlier stories (no word, however, on whether or not The Hotel Nantucket has become a magnet for paranormal investigators) but that happens in every other Hilderbrand novel. Similarly, I wanted the climax of this story, when we learn exactly what happened on the yacht the night of the fire, to feel like Hilderbrand had spent the entire book carefully setting up a dozen intricate little pieces that would all come together beautifully.

I'm not going to spoil it, but I'll just say that it fell flat for me.

If you've read any other Hilderbrand novel and liked it, you'll probably at least enjoy your time with this one. What Hilderbrand does, she does very well, but by now I've learned not to expect anything more from her.]]> 3.98 2024 Swan Song (Nantucket, #4)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
Oh, Elin. I wish I knew how to quit you.

There's definitely a bittersweet feeling going into Swan Song, aka Elin Hilderbrand's last, no fooling, seriously guys she's really done, Nantucket novel. There's a sense of relief, because now I can move on and hopefully find a new comfort series that doesn't frustrate me quite as much. But there's also a feeling of genuine loss, because as much as I harp on these novels and even though they could be better in so many ways, I'm going to miss these books. Is Hilderbrand going for the low-hanging fruit by writing novels set on the wealthy, idyllic island of Nantucket and saturating her stories with beach houses, decadent meals, and nice white people who are complicated only in the sense that they love adultery? Sure. But the fact is that these books are a goddamn balm for the soul, true beach reads in every sense of the word, and I'm really going to miss spending time in Hilderbrand's world, where it's golden hour all the time.

Swan Song centers on Ed Kapenash, Nantucket chief of police and arguably the beating heart at the center of this series. The book begins at Ed's retirement party, when he receives an emergency call: a summer home on the island has been destroyed by a fire and the owners, who were hosting a party on their yacht at the time, report that one of their employees is missing from the boat. We then go into Hilderbrand's favorite storytelling device, the good ol' flashback chapters interspersed with minute-to-minute updates on the night of the disaster.

Ed's adult daughter Kacey is on the island after fleeing a messy relationship back in California, and on the ferry over, she meets new arrival Coco, who has come to Nantucket to work as a personal concierge for a wealthy couple. The Richardsons are also new to the island and immediately cause a stir by hosting wild parties in their 22-million-dollar beach house, and the flashback chapters take us back to when Coco met the couple, and lead us to the fateful night when she disappears from the yacht.

Like classic Hilderbrand, it's an inconsistent novel, full of half-baked characters and a "mystery" that will offer no twists or interesting diversions from tradition. Hilderbrand will once again demonstrate that what she needs most to improve as an author is a one-year social media diet (do the kids really use the phrase "sneaky link"? Seriously?) but at the same time, she needs someone in her life with better music taste because even though she has her finger on the pulse in terms of slang and pop culture, the music references in this book are curiously outdated - Coco is set up as this cool, alternative girl who is not the typical Nantucket person, but we learn that one of her favorite bands is The Killers, and at another point she jams out to a Twenty-One Pilots song that's at least ten years old.

This book also features another Hilderbrand standby: the romantic affair featuring two people who don't even seem to like each other all that much, never mind have such crackling chemistry that they would risk it all for the chance to be together. I think we're supposed to understand why Kacey is so torn about the ex-girlfriend she's fleeing (pause for kudos to Hilderbrand, who manages to feature lesbians and a nonbinary character in this one), but the problem is that we as the readers only ever see the girlfriend being shitty and manipulative, so I wasn't rooting for her and Kacey for even a second. Coco also has a fling with a coworker, and of course the Richardsons have a weird rule about their staff not being allowed to date each other. This rule is only in place to give the romance a little spice, but I also didn't care about whether or not Coco was fucking this guy because he...kind of sucks?

There's a moment where we get a glimpse of the other story this book could have told, where we see Hilderbrand applying what you could almost call a critical lens to the perfect beautiful beach community she's spent over a dozen books idolizing. When Coco first arrives on the island, her employers haven't gotten to their house yet and have told Coco that she'll need to figure out her own accommodations for the first couple of nights. No problem, Coco thinks, she can just find a cheap hotel or at the very least, camp somewhere. And then once she arrives, Coco finds out that there is no such thing as bargain accommodations on Nantucket Island. There are no motels, the one hostel is no longer in business, and the average cost of a hotel room in the summer is over a thousand dollars a night. Coco's thought upon realizing this - Where do the poor people stay? - is such a beautiful little lightning bolt of introspection from the author, but it's similarly gone as soon as it appears, and any additional attempts to shed light on the huge disparity between the rich residents of Nantucket and the people who work for them are half-hearted at best, because Hilderbrand doesn't want to kill the vibes.

(We're also reminded in this book that one of the supporting characters was running a prostitution ring a few years ago, but he went to prison for it and now he's out so everything's cool! Don't be so negative, he's a good guy who made a mistake! And certainly nothing like that has ever happened since then!)

I just wanted more from this. If this is really Hilderbrand's final bow, I wanted it to feel more like a culmination, a last farewell from all the characters we've met in previous books. Certain former protagonists do make brief appearances, and there are references to events from earlier stories (no word, however, on whether or not The Hotel Nantucket has become a magnet for paranormal investigators) but that happens in every other Hilderbrand novel. Similarly, I wanted the climax of this story, when we learn exactly what happened on the yacht the night of the fire, to feel like Hilderbrand had spent the entire book carefully setting up a dozen intricate little pieces that would all come together beautifully.

I'm not going to spoil it, but I'll just say that it fell flat for me.

If you've read any other Hilderbrand novel and liked it, you'll probably at least enjoy your time with this one. What Hilderbrand does, she does very well, but by now I've learned not to expect anything more from her.
]]> <![CDATA[Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1)]]> 40604658
Until something goes wrong. . . .

In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton taps all his mesmerizing talent and scientific brilliance to create his most electrifying technothriller.]]> 450 Michael Crichton 0307763056 Madeline 4 Jaws, even though the book is the source material, it's competing against one of the best blockbusters ever made. There's no way Michael Crichton could have made his book include a John Williams soundtrack, so it was an unfair contest right from the beginning.

(Seriously. Take three minutes out of your day to )

Pretty much every adaptation choice the movie made was the correct one - specifically the characterization of the kids. Book Lex is six years old and one of the most singularly obnoxious characters ever committed to paper - pre-disaster, she's obsessed with baseball and approaches every adult she meets by asking if they want to "play a little pickle"; post-dino disaster, she seems unaware of how much danger they're in, constantly talking and whining and demanding she get a turn with the night vision goggles as she and her brother are being actively hunted by raptors.

Also, obviously it was the correct choice to make Movie Lex the computer person, and have Tim just be obsessed with dinosaurs. Book Tim gets to be good at computers and dinosaur knowledge, and you can make the argument that he's actually the protagonist of the book.

(I'm happy to report that Dr. Ellie Satler barely changed for the movie - the book version of her is still kicking ass and saving dinosaurs from poisonous plants, all while running around in sensible shorts that even the eleven year old boy can appreciate. Ellie's the best.)

Still, this is a solid adventure story, and it moves along at a fast clip except for when Crichton feels the need to include full diagrams of whatever a character is seeing on a computer screen in the story, which never fails to bring the pace to a grinding halt.

Also, there's a weird...almost anti-science vibe to the story? Malcom's infamous rant from the movie about how Hammond "took what others did before you and took the next step" is straight from the book, and it's no less irritating and wrong here. Looking at what people before you have done and taking the next step is how science works. He seems to be suggesting that if you want to be an astronomer, for example, you should start by designing and building your own telescope because otherwise it's cheating.

and it's incredibly frustrating to read Crichton's rants about how science used to be noble but now it's all about money, and he seems to be suggesting that humankind has advanced far enough and we should just stop? Particularly annoying is that when a character is making the argument about how scientists used to be good and noble and only care about discovery, like two sentences later they bring up Watson and Crick as examples of this.

This was the point when my head exploded, because it's now common knowledge that Watson and Crick's famous discovery of DNA structure was straight-up stolen from Rosalind Franklin's research. I get that this wasn't widely known back when Crichton wrote the book, but it just proves that his entire thesis is wrong and science has, in fact, always had its fair share of capitalists and fame seeker, and arguing against progress because it scares you is not a good position to take.

The dinosaurs are pretty fucking cool, though. ]]> 4.38 1990 Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1)
author: Michael Crichton
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: science-fiction, the-movie-is-better
review:
I mean, is it any surprise that this ended up getting shelved as "the movie is better"? Much like Jaws, even though the book is the source material, it's competing against one of the best blockbusters ever made. There's no way Michael Crichton could have made his book include a John Williams soundtrack, so it was an unfair contest right from the beginning.

(Seriously. Take three minutes out of your day to )

Pretty much every adaptation choice the movie made was the correct one - specifically the characterization of the kids. Book Lex is six years old and one of the most singularly obnoxious characters ever committed to paper - pre-disaster, she's obsessed with baseball and approaches every adult she meets by asking if they want to "play a little pickle"; post-dino disaster, she seems unaware of how much danger they're in, constantly talking and whining and demanding she get a turn with the night vision goggles as she and her brother are being actively hunted by raptors.

Also, obviously it was the correct choice to make Movie Lex the computer person, and have Tim just be obsessed with dinosaurs. Book Tim gets to be good at computers and dinosaur knowledge, and you can make the argument that he's actually the protagonist of the book.

(I'm happy to report that Dr. Ellie Satler barely changed for the movie - the book version of her is still kicking ass and saving dinosaurs from poisonous plants, all while running around in sensible shorts that even the eleven year old boy can appreciate. Ellie's the best.)

Still, this is a solid adventure story, and it moves along at a fast clip except for when Crichton feels the need to include full diagrams of whatever a character is seeing on a computer screen in the story, which never fails to bring the pace to a grinding halt.

Also, there's a weird...almost anti-science vibe to the story? Malcom's infamous rant from the movie about how Hammond "took what others did before you and took the next step" is straight from the book, and it's no less irritating and wrong here. Looking at what people before you have done and taking the next step is how science works. He seems to be suggesting that if you want to be an astronomer, for example, you should start by designing and building your own telescope because otherwise it's cheating.

and it's incredibly frustrating to read Crichton's rants about how science used to be noble but now it's all about money, and he seems to be suggesting that humankind has advanced far enough and we should just stop? Particularly annoying is that when a character is making the argument about how scientists used to be good and noble and only care about discovery, like two sentences later they bring up Watson and Crick as examples of this.

This was the point when my head exploded, because it's now common knowledge that Watson and Crick's famous discovery of DNA structure was straight-up stolen from Rosalind Franklin's research. I get that this wasn't widely known back when Crichton wrote the book, but it just proves that his entire thesis is wrong and science has, in fact, always had its fair share of capitalists and fame seeker, and arguing against progress because it scares you is not a good position to take.

The dinosaurs are pretty fucking cool, though.
]]> The Pairing 199440249 definitely not.

Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other's lives once and for all.

Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It's in the past.

All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.

It's not until they board the tour bus that they discover they've both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they're trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It's fine. There's nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?

But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can't have.]]> 432 Casey McQuiston 1250862744 Madeline 3
I mean. Do you really have to guess?

This book came recommended to me by a friend who's a huge Casey McQuiston fan, and even though their books aren't totally my jam, I see the appeal. McQuiston has written a decadent bonbon of a novel, where literally everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, and if you're in the mood for an escapist fantasy that's equal parts delicious food descriptions and steamy sex scenes, McQuiston's got you covered.

But I have to admit, after a while reading this book started to feel kind of like that scene in Hook where the Lost Boys are just eating giant bowls of frosting for dinner. After the fourth or fifth time these two met another European local who just could not be more delighted to meet a couple of Americans, I realized that this book does not take place in the real world, but rather a queer utopia where everyone is beautiful, pansexual, and 100% DTF at all times. This book definitely takes place in the same universe where the president of the United States is a female Democrat from Texas whose son is dating the Prince of Wales, so at least McQuiston is consistent with their settings.

And I'm not saying that I wanted to see our protagonists get hate-crimed on their sexy European tour or anything like that, Jesus, but there's got to be a middle ground between that and what's going on in this book. Could we, just once, meet a character who doesn't want to fuck Kit and Theo for whatever reason? Any character who isn't Kit or Theo has one purpose in this book, and that's to play a part in their grand romance. We get introduced to some other people on the tour, and McQuiston attempts to give them subplots and personalities, but they felt less like fully realized people and more like actors in a play - you get the sense that when they're not interacting directly with Kit or Theo, they're sitting quietly offstage, waiting for their next cue.

Also, McQuiston is, as the kids say, too online, and their writing is absolutely infested with Tumblr-speak. Kit throws out "a secret third thing" in his own inner monologue, and he and Theo have a conversation about Keanu Reeves that I swear is taken word-for-word from an actual Tumblr post. It's grating and exhausting, and the way most of the dialogue seemed cribbed from something McQuiston saw online makes it seem like the characters don't have any original thoughts of their own.

I will also admit that, thanks to a decade in the service industry, I have no tolerance for the romantic fantasy of "ooh, we should open a restaurant together!" Absolutely not. If shows like Kitchen Nightmares and Bar Rescue have taught us one thing, it's that opening a restaurant with your significant other is a one-way ticket to both bankruptcy and divorce, every time.

I'm harping on little stuff, but the truth is that overall, this is a delightful little escape from the real world, full of beautiful people, decadent food, exotic locations, and graphic sex scenes (this book seeks to answer the question "what if Under the Tuscan Sun had fisting?" and boy does it). I also should admit here that I identified so strongly with Theo, which I guess means I should go to therapy. ]]> 3.70 2024 The Pairing
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
Five years ago, Kit and Theo booked a dream European vacation, but had an explosive fight on the flight there and broke up in Heathrow airport. Now, with the trip voucher about the expire, Theo decides to not let it go to waste and decides to go on the tour alone. Unfortunately, Kit has had the exact same idea and now the two exes are trapped together on a fabulous food tour of France, Spain, and Italy. Will they stay bitter exes, or reconcile?

I mean. Do you really have to guess?

This book came recommended to me by a friend who's a huge Casey McQuiston fan, and even though their books aren't totally my jam, I see the appeal. McQuiston has written a decadent bonbon of a novel, where literally everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, and if you're in the mood for an escapist fantasy that's equal parts delicious food descriptions and steamy sex scenes, McQuiston's got you covered.

But I have to admit, after a while reading this book started to feel kind of like that scene in Hook where the Lost Boys are just eating giant bowls of frosting for dinner. After the fourth or fifth time these two met another European local who just could not be more delighted to meet a couple of Americans, I realized that this book does not take place in the real world, but rather a queer utopia where everyone is beautiful, pansexual, and 100% DTF at all times. This book definitely takes place in the same universe where the president of the United States is a female Democrat from Texas whose son is dating the Prince of Wales, so at least McQuiston is consistent with their settings.

And I'm not saying that I wanted to see our protagonists get hate-crimed on their sexy European tour or anything like that, Jesus, but there's got to be a middle ground between that and what's going on in this book. Could we, just once, meet a character who doesn't want to fuck Kit and Theo for whatever reason? Any character who isn't Kit or Theo has one purpose in this book, and that's to play a part in their grand romance. We get introduced to some other people on the tour, and McQuiston attempts to give them subplots and personalities, but they felt less like fully realized people and more like actors in a play - you get the sense that when they're not interacting directly with Kit or Theo, they're sitting quietly offstage, waiting for their next cue.

Also, McQuiston is, as the kids say, too online, and their writing is absolutely infested with Tumblr-speak. Kit throws out "a secret third thing" in his own inner monologue, and he and Theo have a conversation about Keanu Reeves that I swear is taken word-for-word from an actual Tumblr post. It's grating and exhausting, and the way most of the dialogue seemed cribbed from something McQuiston saw online makes it seem like the characters don't have any original thoughts of their own.

I will also admit that, thanks to a decade in the service industry, I have no tolerance for the romantic fantasy of "ooh, we should open a restaurant together!" Absolutely not. If shows like Kitchen Nightmares and Bar Rescue have taught us one thing, it's that opening a restaurant with your significant other is a one-way ticket to both bankruptcy and divorce, every time.

I'm harping on little stuff, but the truth is that overall, this is a delightful little escape from the real world, full of beautiful people, decadent food, exotic locations, and graphic sex scenes (this book seeks to answer the question "what if Under the Tuscan Sun had fisting?" and boy does it). I also should admit here that I identified so strongly with Theo, which I guess means I should go to therapy.
]]> <![CDATA[From Here to the Great Unknown]]> 204905217
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and grieved.

Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.

To make her mother known.

This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other—the last words of the only child of an American icon.]]> 304 Lisa Marie Presley 0593733878 Madeline 3 memoir
People seeking out this book for a memoir focused on Elvis will be disappointed. He died when Lisa Marie was nine, and Riley Keough obviously never met him, so aside from some early appearances when Presley is sharing stories from her childhood, the king himself is not here. Not that there aren't some good tidbits - the little we get from Lisa Marie about what it was like growing up at Graceland are fascinating, and made me wish we'd gotten more of it - but this memoir is about Riley Keough first, Lisa Marie second, and Elvis last.

And considering the family we're focusing on, of course it's not going to be sunshine and smiles. Lisa Marie Presley battled addiction for her entire life, and Riley Keough approaches this memoir from the perspective of a woman who is still reeling from the loss of her mother, and the realization that they never got enough time together.

So even though there's a famous figure at the center of it, this memoir is actually incredibly relatable, because millions of other families have gone through exactly what gets described here: addiction, death of a parent, suicide, and how to pick up the pieces in the wake of unimaginable tragedy. You're not going to get a lot of inside information about growing up with a famous parent, but what From Here to the Great Unknown ends up providing is something much more universal.

"If I look back at everything, my whole life, I can just lose it. Try, fail, try, fail, good, bad, fail. I get really overwhelmed and start crying, looking at how fucked up my life has been. Sometimes it feels like there's nothing left, no purpose. Like there's nothing I want to accomplish anymore. No goal, no anything. Zero.
...But then I can look at it another day and think, Okay, wait, there was that part that wasn't so bad. There was some good over there, and there was some fun over there. I try to pepper it with, 'It's not all just shit. I met this person, that part happened. That was good.'
Some of it was good."
]]> 4.26 2024 From Here to the Great Unknown
author: Lisa Marie Presley
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: memoir
review:
As the description and opening chapter of this book tells us, Lisa Marie Presley was only one month into working on her memoir when she died suddenly, the result of a lifetime struggle with addiction and substance abuse. Her daughter, Riley Keough, was left to cobble the recordings and snippets into a book, supplementing it with sections that provide her own memories of growing up in the shadow of Elvis Presley's legacy. So while Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ lists Lisa Marie as the only author, we actually split page space between her and Keough. It's incredibly brief - the book clocks in at less than 300 pages, and uses the publisher's trick of wide margins and large fonts to make it seem more substantial than it is. I blew through it in about three days.

People seeking out this book for a memoir focused on Elvis will be disappointed. He died when Lisa Marie was nine, and Riley Keough obviously never met him, so aside from some early appearances when Presley is sharing stories from her childhood, the king himself is not here. Not that there aren't some good tidbits - the little we get from Lisa Marie about what it was like growing up at Graceland are fascinating, and made me wish we'd gotten more of it - but this memoir is about Riley Keough first, Lisa Marie second, and Elvis last.

And considering the family we're focusing on, of course it's not going to be sunshine and smiles. Lisa Marie Presley battled addiction for her entire life, and Riley Keough approaches this memoir from the perspective of a woman who is still reeling from the loss of her mother, and the realization that they never got enough time together.

So even though there's a famous figure at the center of it, this memoir is actually incredibly relatable, because millions of other families have gone through exactly what gets described here: addiction, death of a parent, suicide, and how to pick up the pieces in the wake of unimaginable tragedy. You're not going to get a lot of inside information about growing up with a famous parent, but what From Here to the Great Unknown ends up providing is something much more universal.

"If I look back at everything, my whole life, I can just lose it. Try, fail, try, fail, good, bad, fail. I get really overwhelmed and start crying, looking at how fucked up my life has been. Sometimes it feels like there's nothing left, no purpose. Like there's nothing I want to accomplish anymore. No goal, no anything. Zero.
...But then I can look at it another day and think, Okay, wait, there was that part that wasn't so bad. There was some good over there, and there was some fun over there. I try to pepper it with, 'It's not all just shit. I met this person, that part happened. That was good.'
Some of it was good."

]]> Earth to Moon: A Memoir 61980307 The saying goes that "God only gives you what you can handle." Well God didn't grow up in my atheist, Wiccan, fame-laden, oversexed, teetotalling, drug-free, cloistered, chaotic, non-communicative, workaholic, feral-feeling house.'

For Moon Unit, daughter of musician Frank Zappa and his 'manager', Gail, processing a life so unique, so punctuated by the whims of creative urges, the tastes of popular culture and the calculus of celebrity, has at times been eviscerating. But it is her deep sense of humour and unshakeable humility that keeps her - and this memoir - pinned to the ground.

A child-star at age 14 after her accidental international hit single (recorded with her father), 'Valley Girl', turned her into a reluctant celebrity, Moon Unit Zappa's life has been utterly extraordinary from her birth in 1967 into a family that was already blessed/cursed as music royalty thanks to the acknowledged genius of Frank. But what are the consequences of growing up in a family who spend most of their time naked arguing about sexual/extra-marital liaisons and practising white magic in a free-for-all state of nonconformist, virtuoso abandon?

Earth to Moon is a reckoning with self-esteem, the ghosts of the past and a mother and a father who, in the process of leaving their mark upon on the world, scarred their first daughter on home soil. Brutally self-deprecating and funny as hell, it belies a rose-tinted perspective on the 70s and 80s west coast American scene, from within the belly of the beast of the rock and roll world.]]> 351 Moon Unit Zappa 0063113341 Madeline 4 memoir Sixteen Candles and finding out that dads can say sorry to their daughters."

For the most part, the writing in this memoir - chronicling Moon Unit Zappa's chaotic and, let's be real, emotionally abusive upbringing - is effective but nothing special, but then every once in a while she hits us with an absolute haymaker of a line like the one above, and these bits are what really make the book worth it.

Moon Unit Zappa was in the public eye literally from the moment she was born, thanks to her parents Frank and Gail Zappa naming her "Moon Unit." If there's one thing I've learned from the musician memoirs I've read (and I really need to create a separate shelf for them on here, because they're starting to pile up) it's that having a famous artist for a father fucking blows. Frank Zappa was a legend in the 1970's rock scene, but he was also basically one step up from a deadbeat dad. For the majority of Moon's childhood and adolescence, Frank Zappa is either away on tour (he, of course, has long-term mistresses who he never bothers to hide from his wife, Gail) or working in his basement studio, coming out only occasionally to interact with his family. Moon, as the oldest daughter of an absentee father and a scatterbrained mother, has to assume responsibility for her siblings at an early age, and takes on too much as she tries to help her mother while she struggles under the increasing pressure of running the Frank Zappa machine.

The picture she paints of Growing Up Zappa is less of an idyllic bohemian rock n' roll childhood, and more of a chaotic mess of stress, anger, and emotional abuse:

"It's 1982. Frank is away again, I'm fourteen, and my heart is a closed fist. The house feels as isolated as Alcatraz. Maybe that's because Gail has installed cameras, an alarm system, and actual salvaged jail bars for our front gate. In spite of the fact that we now have trip wire beams and cameras to see whoever wants to be buzzed in, there is no safety, rest, or refuge for me at home or in the outer world, except for the occasional feral fun with my inmate siblings or a jailbreak sleepover.

Gail and Frank have started a new record label and mail-order company called Barking Pumpkin Records, so she's busier, more stressed out, and angrier than ever. I hate that our house is a place of business as well as a house. The workday never ends and the barrage of work clutter is mixed with the clutter of daily life, and all of it is littered on every table, chair, stool, desk, staircase, and sofa. Everywhere you look is a teetering pile of something with a logo, potential album artwork, previous releases, vinyl, cassettes, videos, boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, stickers, T-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, postcards, fan mail, inquiries, and legal letters, next to dirty dishes, cat food, coffee cups, ashtrays, open containers of food, spices, oil, cooking utensils, laundry, toys, books, and homework. All of it is tangled, claustrophobic, and all-consuming."

I realize I'm making this book sound more depressing than it actually is. It's fun, I swear! Just the fact that Moon Unit Zappa was the child of a rock superstar growing up in Los Angeles in the 70's and 80's means that she was living in the absolute epicenter of pop culture during that time. She recorded her dad's song Valley Girl and defined a cultural archetype of the era! She dated movie stars and had her own TV show when she was a teenager!

But this is first and foremost a memoir written by a woman who has only recently realized how terrible her upbringing really was. Gail Zappa was, to put it nicely, a real piece of work, and you can see how Moon has only just started unpacking her grief for her own childhood. There are plenty of fun behind-the-scenes rock stories to keep you entertained here, but make no mistake, this one definitely isn't a light read. ]]> 4.17 2024 Earth to Moon: A Memoir
author: Moon Unit Zappa
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: memoir
review:
"I am eighteen and still recovering from seeing Sixteen Candles and finding out that dads can say sorry to their daughters."

For the most part, the writing in this memoir - chronicling Moon Unit Zappa's chaotic and, let's be real, emotionally abusive upbringing - is effective but nothing special, but then every once in a while she hits us with an absolute haymaker of a line like the one above, and these bits are what really make the book worth it.

Moon Unit Zappa was in the public eye literally from the moment she was born, thanks to her parents Frank and Gail Zappa naming her "Moon Unit." If there's one thing I've learned from the musician memoirs I've read (and I really need to create a separate shelf for them on here, because they're starting to pile up) it's that having a famous artist for a father fucking blows. Frank Zappa was a legend in the 1970's rock scene, but he was also basically one step up from a deadbeat dad. For the majority of Moon's childhood and adolescence, Frank Zappa is either away on tour (he, of course, has long-term mistresses who he never bothers to hide from his wife, Gail) or working in his basement studio, coming out only occasionally to interact with his family. Moon, as the oldest daughter of an absentee father and a scatterbrained mother, has to assume responsibility for her siblings at an early age, and takes on too much as she tries to help her mother while she struggles under the increasing pressure of running the Frank Zappa machine.

The picture she paints of Growing Up Zappa is less of an idyllic bohemian rock n' roll childhood, and more of a chaotic mess of stress, anger, and emotional abuse:

"It's 1982. Frank is away again, I'm fourteen, and my heart is a closed fist. The house feels as isolated as Alcatraz. Maybe that's because Gail has installed cameras, an alarm system, and actual salvaged jail bars for our front gate. In spite of the fact that we now have trip wire beams and cameras to see whoever wants to be buzzed in, there is no safety, rest, or refuge for me at home or in the outer world, except for the occasional feral fun with my inmate siblings or a jailbreak sleepover.

Gail and Frank have started a new record label and mail-order company called Barking Pumpkin Records, so she's busier, more stressed out, and angrier than ever. I hate that our house is a place of business as well as a house. The workday never ends and the barrage of work clutter is mixed with the clutter of daily life, and all of it is littered on every table, chair, stool, desk, staircase, and sofa. Everywhere you look is a teetering pile of something with a logo, potential album artwork, previous releases, vinyl, cassettes, videos, boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, stickers, T-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, postcards, fan mail, inquiries, and legal letters, next to dirty dishes, cat food, coffee cups, ashtrays, open containers of food, spices, oil, cooking utensils, laundry, toys, books, and homework. All of it is tangled, claustrophobic, and all-consuming."

I realize I'm making this book sound more depressing than it actually is. It's fun, I swear! Just the fact that Moon Unit Zappa was the child of a rock superstar growing up in Los Angeles in the 70's and 80's means that she was living in the absolute epicenter of pop culture during that time. She recorded her dad's song Valley Girl and defined a cultural archetype of the era! She dated movie stars and had her own TV show when she was a teenager!

But this is first and foremost a memoir written by a woman who has only recently realized how terrible her upbringing really was. Gail Zappa was, to put it nicely, a real piece of work, and you can see how Moon has only just started unpacking her grief for her own childhood. There are plenty of fun behind-the-scenes rock stories to keep you entertained here, but make no mistake, this one definitely isn't a light read.
]]> <![CDATA[The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4)]]> 62226126
An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?]]> 421 Richard Osman 0241512441 Madeline 4 detective-fiction The Thursday Murder Club and wait until a few more books have come out so I don't have such a long wait between installments. Because Richard Osman loves nothing more than subverting hardcore detective novel fans' expectations, these books have to be read sequentially, and unlike traditional detective series you can't just pick a random mystery to start with and dip in and out of the series. The events of the previous book's mystery, going all the way back to the first book, directly influence what happens in all the sequels, and you can't drop in without having the necessary backstory. And unfortunately, going so long between books means a lot of the details are starting to get lost for me. I'm definitely going to have to re-read this series from Book One eventually, but it's a credit to Osman's skill and the sheer delight that is the cold-case solving club of Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim (plus a few new helpers who are de facto members of the gang now) means that I'm genuinely looking forward to this.

The Last Devil to Die features one of my favorite detective novel tropes - the shady antiques dealer - so I was onboard basically from page one. Osman's preference for Elizabeth shows once again, as this is yet another Elizabeth-heavy story. I'm still at the point where I will happily take any information I can get about this character, so I ultimately didn't mind that she was taking center stage once again, but I have to admit that I'm starting to feel a little sorry for the other three members of the club and how they never really get to shine as brightly as Elizabeth does. I mean I get it - she's stiff competition when it comes to cool backstories. But I hope Osman lets the others get their time in the spotlight soon.]]> 4.44 2023 The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4)
author: Richard Osman
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
As much as I want to keep reading these as soon as new sequels are released, I think I need to take a break from The Thursday Murder Club and wait until a few more books have come out so I don't have such a long wait between installments. Because Richard Osman loves nothing more than subverting hardcore detective novel fans' expectations, these books have to be read sequentially, and unlike traditional detective series you can't just pick a random mystery to start with and dip in and out of the series. The events of the previous book's mystery, going all the way back to the first book, directly influence what happens in all the sequels, and you can't drop in without having the necessary backstory. And unfortunately, going so long between books means a lot of the details are starting to get lost for me. I'm definitely going to have to re-read this series from Book One eventually, but it's a credit to Osman's skill and the sheer delight that is the cold-case solving club of Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim (plus a few new helpers who are de facto members of the gang now) means that I'm genuinely looking forward to this.

The Last Devil to Die features one of my favorite detective novel tropes - the shady antiques dealer - so I was onboard basically from page one. Osman's preference for Elizabeth shows once again, as this is yet another Elizabeth-heavy story. I'm still at the point where I will happily take any information I can get about this character, so I ultimately didn't mind that she was taking center stage once again, but I have to admit that I'm starting to feel a little sorry for the other three members of the club and how they never really get to shine as brightly as Elizabeth does. I mean I get it - she's stiff competition when it comes to cool backstories. But I hope Osman lets the others get their time in the spotlight soon.
]]> Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2) 60652997 Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex� Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies� most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.]]> 481 Leigh Bardugo 1250313104 Madeline 3 fantasy Ninth House so long ago that I had completely forgotten to be on the lookout for the sequel. So it was a delight to see it pop up under New Releases when I was searching for ebooks to rent from the library - I got it and immediately dove in.

I then realized by around the third chapter that I had forgotten a huge chunk of the plot from Ninth House, so the sequel got shelved while I checked out the first book from the library and re-read it. Then it was Take Two.

Overall, this is a really satisfying sequel! I don't feel like it's a spoiler to let people know that yes, we do get a satisfying conclusion to the "Darlington got sucked into hell" plotline from the first book - Bardugo is so relentlessly cruel to her protagonist (in a good way!) that part of me was worried she was going to keep Darlington in a limbo state just to keep torturing Alex. (Seriously, can this girl please have one good day? It got to the point where I was comforted even by the brief scenes where she gets to sit down and actually eat a meal.) This book also has Bardugo expanding on the lore she established in the first book, and moving the scope of the story beyond the Yale campus. And this, unfortunately, is to the story's detriment.

Something started bugging me about the whole Darlington plot all the way back in Book One, and the sequel, which establishes that Darlington is not only stuck in hell but is also a demon now, really crystallized what the problem is.

It's so simple and so obvious that I can't believe none of Bardugo's editors pointed this out to her: the characters constantly repeating that Darlington's a demon doesn't land, because we haven't seen any other demons in this story before. As the readers, we have absolutely no frame of reference for what it means to be a demon in Alex Stern's universe, and therefore we have no idea what the stakes of Darlington's current state really are. Having Alex & Co face off against a different demon in the first book would have gone a long way in making readers better understand what was at stake when Darlington got dragged into hell. Forgive me for referencing Supernatural in 2025, but at least that show understood that the viewers need to see demons doing demon stuff for a few episodes before one of the main characters gets turned into one.

Bardugo also introduces some new supernatural creatures, including a vampire. Alex Stern learns that vampires exist in this universe at the same time I as the reader did, and once again, I have no frame of reference for what that means for this story! And, thanks to the vampire being a C-plot in the story while Alex is more occupied with how to get into hell, we have an extremely frustrating sequence of events where Alex meets a vampire and then doesn't tell anyone about it for days. It started to feel like Bardugo was either making stuff up as she went along with no plan, or that she has an expansive cast of supernatural creatures on deck in her brain and no idea how to introduce them organically into the story, and neither of those theories bode well for Book Three.

She also seems to have gotten bored of the secret societies angle, which is weird, because that was kind of the entire selling point of the series? Ninth House had Alex overseeing multiple rituals and interacting with the societies on a regular basis; in Hell Bent, they're a barely-mentioned presence. It seems like the whole "secrete societies at Yale practice occult magic" was actually just the jumping-off point for the story Bardugo actually wanted to write, which seems to be a knockoff of the show Angel? And I'm not knocking Angel, that show was great, but Bardugo, bless her, is no Marti Noxon.

Also the very end of the book (I'm going to try to keep this spoiler-free, I swear) introduces what I can only describe as a wacky sidekick for Alex Stern's growing gang of supernatural investigators, and the whole thing felt so tonally off from the rest of the book that it almost threw me out of the story. The Alex Stern series is many things but funny is absolutely not one of them, so introducing a character who seems intended to function as comic relief was a weird choice, to say the least. I won't even be able to enjoy this character in the sequel, because the whole time I'll be waiting for Bardugo to pull the rug out from under me and reveal that nope, this isn't a fun new friend, this is another reminder from the universe that good things don't happen to Alex Stern!

Overall, a solid sequel that resolves most of the hanging threads left over from the first book while setting up new adventures for the sequel, but Bardugo is starting to lose control of the story and while I'm still going to read Book Three, I don't have a lot of faith in her ability to bring this all together at the end.]]> 4.09 2023 Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: fantasy
review:
I read the first book in the Alex Stern series, Ninth House so long ago that I had completely forgotten to be on the lookout for the sequel. So it was a delight to see it pop up under New Releases when I was searching for ebooks to rent from the library - I got it and immediately dove in.

I then realized by around the third chapter that I had forgotten a huge chunk of the plot from Ninth House, so the sequel got shelved while I checked out the first book from the library and re-read it. Then it was Take Two.

Overall, this is a really satisfying sequel! I don't feel like it's a spoiler to let people know that yes, we do get a satisfying conclusion to the "Darlington got sucked into hell" plotline from the first book - Bardugo is so relentlessly cruel to her protagonist (in a good way!) that part of me was worried she was going to keep Darlington in a limbo state just to keep torturing Alex. (Seriously, can this girl please have one good day? It got to the point where I was comforted even by the brief scenes where she gets to sit down and actually eat a meal.) This book also has Bardugo expanding on the lore she established in the first book, and moving the scope of the story beyond the Yale campus. And this, unfortunately, is to the story's detriment.

Something started bugging me about the whole Darlington plot all the way back in Book One, and the sequel, which establishes that Darlington is not only stuck in hell but is also a demon now, really crystallized what the problem is.

It's so simple and so obvious that I can't believe none of Bardugo's editors pointed this out to her: the characters constantly repeating that Darlington's a demon doesn't land, because we haven't seen any other demons in this story before. As the readers, we have absolutely no frame of reference for what it means to be a demon in Alex Stern's universe, and therefore we have no idea what the stakes of Darlington's current state really are. Having Alex & Co face off against a different demon in the first book would have gone a long way in making readers better understand what was at stake when Darlington got dragged into hell. Forgive me for referencing Supernatural in 2025, but at least that show understood that the viewers need to see demons doing demon stuff for a few episodes before one of the main characters gets turned into one.

Bardugo also introduces some new supernatural creatures, including a vampire. Alex Stern learns that vampires exist in this universe at the same time I as the reader did, and once again, I have no frame of reference for what that means for this story! And, thanks to the vampire being a C-plot in the story while Alex is more occupied with how to get into hell, we have an extremely frustrating sequence of events where Alex meets a vampire and then doesn't tell anyone about it for days. It started to feel like Bardugo was either making stuff up as she went along with no plan, or that she has an expansive cast of supernatural creatures on deck in her brain and no idea how to introduce them organically into the story, and neither of those theories bode well for Book Three.

She also seems to have gotten bored of the secret societies angle, which is weird, because that was kind of the entire selling point of the series? Ninth House had Alex overseeing multiple rituals and interacting with the societies on a regular basis; in Hell Bent, they're a barely-mentioned presence. It seems like the whole "secrete societies at Yale practice occult magic" was actually just the jumping-off point for the story Bardugo actually wanted to write, which seems to be a knockoff of the show Angel? And I'm not knocking Angel, that show was great, but Bardugo, bless her, is no Marti Noxon.

Also the very end of the book (I'm going to try to keep this spoiler-free, I swear) introduces what I can only describe as a wacky sidekick for Alex Stern's growing gang of supernatural investigators, and the whole thing felt so tonally off from the rest of the book that it almost threw me out of the story. The Alex Stern series is many things but funny is absolutely not one of them, so introducing a character who seems intended to function as comic relief was a weird choice, to say the least. I won't even be able to enjoy this character in the sequel, because the whole time I'll be waiting for Bardugo to pull the rug out from under me and reveal that nope, this isn't a fun new friend, this is another reminder from the universe that good things don't happen to Alex Stern!

Overall, a solid sequel that resolves most of the hanging threads left over from the first book while setting up new adventures for the sequel, but Bardugo is starting to lose control of the story and while I'm still going to read Book Three, I don't have a lot of faith in her ability to bring this all together at the end.
]]> <![CDATA[The Mauritius Command (Aubrey & Maturin, #4)]]> 77431 348 Patrick O'Brian 039330762X Madeline 4 historic-fiction
"Jack loved [Stephen], and had not the least objection to granting him all the erudition in the world, while remaining inwardly convinced that in all practical matters other than physic and surgery Stephen should never be allowed out alone."]]> 4.35 1977 The Mauritius Command (Aubrey & Maturin, #4)
author: Patrick O'Brian
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: historic-fiction
review:
A rock-solid installment in the ongoing Aubrey/Maturin adventures! All the classics are here, including Jack/Stephen banter, some spy antics, potential mutinies, Aubrey being a retired fuckboy, naval battles (that are of course all created pretty much verbatim from official historical accounts) and of course, one of my favorite quotes from the entire series so far:

"Jack loved [Stephen], and had not the least objection to granting him all the erudition in the world, while remaining inwardly convinced that in all practical matters other than physic and surgery Stephen should never be allowed out alone."
]]> A Haunting on the Hill 102188677 Ěý
Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play, The Witch of Edmonton, she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on aĚýweekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the ornate, if crumbling, gothic mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie—the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play.
Ěý
Despite her own hesitations, Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, agrees to join Holly in renting the house out for a month, and soon a troupe of actors, each with ghosts of their own, arrive. Yet as they settle in, the house’s peculiarities are made known: strange creatures stalk the grounds, Ěýdisturbing sounds echo throughout the halls, andĚýtime itself seems to shift. ĚýAll too soon, Holly and her friends find themselves at odds not just with one another, butĚýwith the house itself. It seems something has been waiting in Hill House all these years, and itĚýno longer intendsĚýtoĚýwalk alone . . .Ěý
Ěý]]> 326 Elizabeth Hand 0316527327 Madeline 3
The Haunting of Hill House has a permanent spot on my list of Top Five Favorite Books, so the fact that A Haunting on the Hill isn't just a sequel to Shirley Jackson's masterpiece, but is a sequel that's been officially authorized by her estate, means this moved to the top of my to-read pile immediately.

The plot loosely follows the setup of the original, where a small group of very different people are all brought to Hill House with a specific purpose. Our protagonist is Holly, who rents Hill House with the idea of using it as a retreat to finish work on her latest play. She's accompanied by her girlfriend (who is also writing the music for the show) and two actors who have been cast in the play. Naturally, everyone is bringing their own baggage and issues with them, and Hill House is exactly the wrong place for that.

As a standalone haunted house story, this is a spectacular novel. The setpieces and imagery that Hand conjures are geniunely creepy and done so, so well. Make no mistake - this book is scary. (True story: one night I was reading this and heard a weird noise in the other room, so I got up and checked all the closets and under the bed)

But A Haunting on the Hill suffers from the inevitable comparisons to its predecessor, and ultimately, it can't measure up. The true masterstroke of The Haunting of Hill House is the way Jackson builds the tension slowly, starting out small with little things that could have a rational explanation, until you're so deep into it you don't realize how you got there. Meanwhile, in Hand's novel, Holly is on her way to view Hill House for the first time (she hasn't even gotten to the house yet!) when she sees a huge hare that smiles at her with human teeth. Bone-chilling and creepy? Yes. Subtle? No.

Credit where credit is due - Hand makes the wise decision not to rehash what happened at Hill House in the original, only having characters occasionally mention something. Hand invents a more recent tragedy about a family who stayed in Hill House in the 1980's, and most of the haunting seems to center around them. Hand also delves into the nursery at Hill House and the idea that it's the nexus of the haunting, which the original novel touched on but never explored in detail. (Hand doesn't either, but it was nice to see her hit the same beats as Jackson).

I really wonder if the ideal reader for this would be someone who's never read The Haunting of Hill House. Comparing it to the original is what killed this book for me, but on the other hand, someone reading Hand's novel who's never read Jackson's book will definitely feel like they're not getting the whole story.

Four stars as its own haunted house story, two stars as a worthy successor to The Haunting of Hill House.]]> 3.27 2023 A Haunting on the Hill
author: Elizabeth Hand
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:
I'm always so behind when it comes to keeping up with new releases, so many thanks to whichever one of my followers was reading this a few weeks ago, because it popped up in my feed and I would never have been aware of it otherwise.

The Haunting of Hill House has a permanent spot on my list of Top Five Favorite Books, so the fact that A Haunting on the Hill isn't just a sequel to Shirley Jackson's masterpiece, but is a sequel that's been officially authorized by her estate, means this moved to the top of my to-read pile immediately.

The plot loosely follows the setup of the original, where a small group of very different people are all brought to Hill House with a specific purpose. Our protagonist is Holly, who rents Hill House with the idea of using it as a retreat to finish work on her latest play. She's accompanied by her girlfriend (who is also writing the music for the show) and two actors who have been cast in the play. Naturally, everyone is bringing their own baggage and issues with them, and Hill House is exactly the wrong place for that.

As a standalone haunted house story, this is a spectacular novel. The setpieces and imagery that Hand conjures are geniunely creepy and done so, so well. Make no mistake - this book is scary. (True story: one night I was reading this and heard a weird noise in the other room, so I got up and checked all the closets and under the bed)

But A Haunting on the Hill suffers from the inevitable comparisons to its predecessor, and ultimately, it can't measure up. The true masterstroke of The Haunting of Hill House is the way Jackson builds the tension slowly, starting out small with little things that could have a rational explanation, until you're so deep into it you don't realize how you got there. Meanwhile, in Hand's novel, Holly is on her way to view Hill House for the first time (she hasn't even gotten to the house yet!) when she sees a huge hare that smiles at her with human teeth. Bone-chilling and creepy? Yes. Subtle? No.

Credit where credit is due - Hand makes the wise decision not to rehash what happened at Hill House in the original, only having characters occasionally mention something. Hand invents a more recent tragedy about a family who stayed in Hill House in the 1980's, and most of the haunting seems to center around them. Hand also delves into the nursery at Hill House and the idea that it's the nexus of the haunting, which the original novel touched on but never explored in detail. (Hand doesn't either, but it was nice to see her hit the same beats as Jackson).

I really wonder if the ideal reader for this would be someone who's never read The Haunting of Hill House. Comparing it to the original is what killed this book for me, but on the other hand, someone reading Hand's novel who's never read Jackson's book will definitely feel like they're not getting the whole story.

Four stars as its own haunted house story, two stars as a worthy successor to The Haunting of Hill House.
]]> <![CDATA[Murder on Black Swan Lane (Wrexford & Sloane, #1)]]> 33024254
The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind, but boredom and pride lead him to reckless behavior. He does not suffer fools gladly. So when pompous, pious Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns him for debauchery, Wrexford unsheathes his rapier-sharp wit and strikes back. As their war of words escalates, London’s most popular satirical cartoonist, A.J. Quill, skewers them both. But then the clergyman is found slain in a church—his face burned by chemicals, his throat slashed ear to ear—and Wrexford finds himself the chief suspect.]]> 340 Andrea Penrose 1496710770 Madeline 1 ]]> 3.78 2017 Murder on Black Swan Lane (Wrexford & Sloane, #1)
author: Andrea Penrose
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2017
rating: 1
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: detective-fiction, historic-fiction
review:
TBH I should have abandoned this the second time (yes, it happens twice) a character in this Regency-era story uses the phrase "cut to the chase."

]]> <![CDATA[A Death in Door County (Monster Hunter, #1)]]> 60097443 A Wisconsin bookstore owner and cryptozoologist is asked to investigate a series of deaths that just might be proof of a fabled lake monster in this first installment of a new mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Annelise Ryan.

Morgan Carter, owner of the Odds and Ends bookstore in Door County, Wisconsin, has a hobby. When she's not tending the store, she's hunting cryptids--creatures whose existence is rumored, but never proven to be real. It's a hobby that cost her parents their lives, but one she'll never give up on.

So when a number of bodies turn up on the shores of Lake Michigan with injuries that look like bites from a giant unknown animal, police chief Jon Flanders turns to Morgan for help. A skeptic at heart, Morgan can't turn down the opportunity to find proof of an entity whose existence she can't definitively rule out. She and her beloved rescue dog, Newt, journey to the Death's Door strait to hunt for a homicidal monster in the lake--but if they're not careful, they just might be its next victims.]]> 336 Annelise Ryan 0593441575 Madeline 3 detective-fiction in Door County, Wisconsin - specifically, Fair Isle Books on Washington Island, which is a central setting in this mystery. The shop is lovely, the island is lovely (if you're ever there, make sure you go to Nelsen's Hall and do a shot of bitters), and it's genuinely disappointing that I didn't enjoy this as much as I wanted to.

The setup is great for a mystery series debut, because Annelise Ryan doesn't mess with tradition and gives us the usual cozy mystery setup of a single woman with a dark past who owns a quirky small business. Morgan Carter has taken over the ownership of her family's occult bookstore in a small beach town in Wisconsin following the gruesome (and as yet unsolved) murder of her parents. She is also a cryptozoologist, and the fact that spellcheck doesn't recognize that as a word tells you how seriously you should take that as a profession. The book kicks off with what can either be viewed as an homage or a straight rip-off of Jaws, when a kayaker turns up dead with mysterious bite marks on his body and Morgan is called in to give her professional opinion. And cue the uneasy partnership with the local cop/obvious future love interest, and we're off to the races.

I think the main issue was that, despite Annelise Ryan's best efforts, I never for one second got even close to believing that there really is a Nessie-esque creature stalking the waters of Lake Michigan and killing kayakers. Ryan obviously has a science background, or at least did plenty of research, but no matter how many paragraphs are devoted to Morgan explaining how a giant amphibious creature could definitely, possibly be out there, I never bought into it. (Seriously, though, the best Morgan can do is "there are underwater cave systems where the creature could be hiding. Caves, Morgan? Caves?! How does this thing fit? What is it eating?)

At one point, as she's walking the reader through one of her theories, Morgan admits that "it's nearly impossible to prove that something doesn't exist", which is the whole foundation on which the scam of crpyozoology rests. Part of me wonders if the book would have been more fun if Ryan had leaned into this angle, and made Morgan less of a scientist with some slightly out-there theories, and more of a total crackpot. Like, imagine a female version of Doc Brown running around Wisconsin trying to prove the existence of an American Nessie and solve a murder - that's a fun time! But Ryan's attempt to legitimize cryptozoology as a profession sucks all the wackiness out and leaves us with a standard cozy mystery that just happens to involve lots of conversations about lake monsters.

(Do I even have time to devote to the cop love interest? I must, because I hate this trope so goddamn much and mystery authors simply will not stop using it, so I have to keep complaining about it in every review. Here's what I'll say in this guy's favor: at least he sits down with Morgan at one point and tells her in plain English that he has feelings for her and wants to pursue them, which is more than most of the assholes in these mysteries can manage. I guess if you're going to make your love interest a puppet of the fascist American police state, you can at least make him an emotionally intelligent puppet.)

The other nail in the coffin for me was the way the mystery is structured - the plot is an episode of Scooby-Doo, full stop. [spoilers removed]

It's a fun, low-stakes mystery with a decently competent heroine at the helm, and even though I didn't vibe with the attempts to convince me Nessie is real, I liked how methodical and driven Morgan is in her attempts to prove it's existence and also solve the case. I won't be moving forward with this series (but then again, I think Book 2 is about Bigfoot, which should be fucking hilarious) but ultimately I'm not mad that I bought this. ]]> 3.59 2022 A Death in Door County (Monster Hunter, #1)
author: Annelise Ryan
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
This is one of those books where the story of how I got it is better than the book itself. I bought this book in Door County, Wisconsin - specifically, Fair Isle Books on Washington Island, which is a central setting in this mystery. The shop is lovely, the island is lovely (if you're ever there, make sure you go to Nelsen's Hall and do a shot of bitters), and it's genuinely disappointing that I didn't enjoy this as much as I wanted to.

The setup is great for a mystery series debut, because Annelise Ryan doesn't mess with tradition and gives us the usual cozy mystery setup of a single woman with a dark past who owns a quirky small business. Morgan Carter has taken over the ownership of her family's occult bookstore in a small beach town in Wisconsin following the gruesome (and as yet unsolved) murder of her parents. She is also a cryptozoologist, and the fact that spellcheck doesn't recognize that as a word tells you how seriously you should take that as a profession. The book kicks off with what can either be viewed as an homage or a straight rip-off of Jaws, when a kayaker turns up dead with mysterious bite marks on his body and Morgan is called in to give her professional opinion. And cue the uneasy partnership with the local cop/obvious future love interest, and we're off to the races.

I think the main issue was that, despite Annelise Ryan's best efforts, I never for one second got even close to believing that there really is a Nessie-esque creature stalking the waters of Lake Michigan and killing kayakers. Ryan obviously has a science background, or at least did plenty of research, but no matter how many paragraphs are devoted to Morgan explaining how a giant amphibious creature could definitely, possibly be out there, I never bought into it. (Seriously, though, the best Morgan can do is "there are underwater cave systems where the creature could be hiding. Caves, Morgan? Caves?! How does this thing fit? What is it eating?)

At one point, as she's walking the reader through one of her theories, Morgan admits that "it's nearly impossible to prove that something doesn't exist", which is the whole foundation on which the scam of crpyozoology rests. Part of me wonders if the book would have been more fun if Ryan had leaned into this angle, and made Morgan less of a scientist with some slightly out-there theories, and more of a total crackpot. Like, imagine a female version of Doc Brown running around Wisconsin trying to prove the existence of an American Nessie and solve a murder - that's a fun time! But Ryan's attempt to legitimize cryptozoology as a profession sucks all the wackiness out and leaves us with a standard cozy mystery that just happens to involve lots of conversations about lake monsters.

(Do I even have time to devote to the cop love interest? I must, because I hate this trope so goddamn much and mystery authors simply will not stop using it, so I have to keep complaining about it in every review. Here's what I'll say in this guy's favor: at least he sits down with Morgan at one point and tells her in plain English that he has feelings for her and wants to pursue them, which is more than most of the assholes in these mysteries can manage. I guess if you're going to make your love interest a puppet of the fascist American police state, you can at least make him an emotionally intelligent puppet.)

The other nail in the coffin for me was the way the mystery is structured - the plot is an episode of Scooby-Doo, full stop. [spoilers removed]

It's a fun, low-stakes mystery with a decently competent heroine at the helm, and even though I didn't vibe with the attempts to convince me Nessie is real, I liked how methodical and driven Morgan is in her attempts to prove it's existence and also solve the case. I won't be moving forward with this series (but then again, I think Book 2 is about Bigfoot, which should be fucking hilarious) but ultimately I'm not mad that I bought this.
]]> <![CDATA[At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple, #10)]]> 16333
When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she's looking for at Bertram's: traditional décor and impeccable service. But she senses an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric hotel guest makes his way to the airport one day late!

Librarian's note: this entry is for the novel, "At Bertram's Hotel." Collections and other Miss Marple stories are located elsewhere on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ. The series includes 12 novels and 20 short stories. Entries for the short stories can be found by searching Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ for: "a Miss Marple Short Story."]]> 223 Agatha Christie Madeline 4 detective-fiction
As an added bonus, the atmosphere of this mystery is genuinely creepy, because it all centers on a hotel that has stayed exactly the same for decades, and where everything appears to be absolutely perfect - so you know something in the milk ain't clean about that. The characters are fun as well, even though we've seen them in other stories: there's the blustery colonel, the gossipy older lady, the wild younger woman, and the funny clergyman. They have different names this time, but they're basically the same people that usually appear in Miss Marple mysteries. Luckily for us, they're all very enjoyable characters and the repetition of these archetypes didn't take away from what was, ultimately, a fun and interesting little mystery. ]]> 3.72 1965 At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple, #10)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2010/11/01
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
I'm always grateful when I find a Miss Marple book where the title sleuth gets to actually be present for about half the story - this one, in fact, featured Miss Marple more than any of her other mysteries I've read. She still disappears for lengthy amounts of time, but this time it actually feels purposeful. Miss Marple doesn't appear at certain points because the other characters are busy doing important things, things that Miss Marple can't be present for because then the mystery would be over. Unlike some other Marple stories, it never felt like Christie was deliberately keeping her sleuth out of the action.

As an added bonus, the atmosphere of this mystery is genuinely creepy, because it all centers on a hotel that has stayed exactly the same for decades, and where everything appears to be absolutely perfect - so you know something in the milk ain't clean about that. The characters are fun as well, even though we've seen them in other stories: there's the blustery colonel, the gossipy older lady, the wild younger woman, and the funny clergyman. They have different names this time, but they're basically the same people that usually appear in Miss Marple mysteries. Luckily for us, they're all very enjoyable characters and the repetition of these archetypes didn't take away from what was, ultimately, a fun and interesting little mystery.
]]> <![CDATA[Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates]]> 49851 Under the Black Flag also charts the paths of fictional pirates such as Captain Hook and Long John Silver. The definitive resource on the subject, this book is as captivating as it is supremely entertaining.]]> 296 David Cordingly 081297722X Madeline 3 history-nonfiction
Cordingly is attempting to provide a general history of piracy, with chapters organized by different aspects of pirate life, rather than devoting each chapter to a different historical figure. The underlying goal of this book is to look at the realities of pirate life and try to figure out why they've endured as these romantic antihero figures of pop cultures, when actually the reality was much different.

With the book flitting from one subject to another and never spending a significant amount of time on one thing, readers will walk away from this book with a surface-level knowledge of a lot of different aspects of pirate life, but very little in-dept knowledge. If anything, I would say this is a good book to read if you're wondering what to read next - find out which historical figures featured here interested you the most, and then go find a different book about that specific person.

(For me, it was definitely Anne Bonny. What do you mean, she didn't get executed after her trial because she was pregnant but after that we have no idea what happened to her? How do we not know what happened?! If you know a good Anne Bonny source please let me know - what's written in Under the Black Flag CANNOT be the full story.)

This is a good introductory book for someone who wants a nice broad overview of the facts and fiction surrounding piracy, but it's very broad and remains a superficial history at best. ]]> 3.67 1995 Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates
author: David Cordingly
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/09/19
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
There's a certain subgenre of history books that you can classify as Well Actually books - they involve an author taking a super fun, romanticized subject and going, "well actually, the truth is much more depressing and much less fun." It's a blast and a half.

Cordingly is attempting to provide a general history of piracy, with chapters organized by different aspects of pirate life, rather than devoting each chapter to a different historical figure. The underlying goal of this book is to look at the realities of pirate life and try to figure out why they've endured as these romantic antihero figures of pop cultures, when actually the reality was much different.

With the book flitting from one subject to another and never spending a significant amount of time on one thing, readers will walk away from this book with a surface-level knowledge of a lot of different aspects of pirate life, but very little in-dept knowledge. If anything, I would say this is a good book to read if you're wondering what to read next - find out which historical figures featured here interested you the most, and then go find a different book about that specific person.

(For me, it was definitely Anne Bonny. What do you mean, she didn't get executed after her trial because she was pregnant but after that we have no idea what happened to her? How do we not know what happened?! If you know a good Anne Bonny source please let me know - what's written in Under the Black Flag CANNOT be the full story.)

This is a good introductory book for someone who wants a nice broad overview of the facts and fiction surrounding piracy, but it's very broad and remains a superficial history at best.
]]> <![CDATA[The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles, #3)]]> 43758 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

In 1976, a uniquely seductive world of vampires was unveiled in the now-classic Interview with the Vampire . . . in 1985, a wild and voluptous voice spoke to us, telling the story of The Vampire Lestat.ĚýĚýIn The Queen of the Damned, Anne Rice continues her extraordinary "Vampire Chronicles" in a feat of mesmeric storytelling, a chillingly hypnotic entertainment in which the oldest and most powerful forces of the night are unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

Three brilliantly colored narrative threads intertwine as the story unfolds:

- The rock star known as Vampire Lestat, worshipped by millions of spellbound fans, prepares for a concert in San Francisco.ĚýĚýAmong the audience--pilgrims in a blind swoon of adoration--are hundreds of vampires, creatures who see Lestat as a "greedy fiend risking the secret prosperity of all his kind just to be loved and seen by mortals," fiends themselves who hate Lestat's power and who are determined to destroy him . . .

- The sleep of certain men and women--vampires and mortals scattered around the world--is haunted by a vivid, mysterious dream: of twins with fiery red hair and piercing green eyes who suffer an unspeakable tragedy.ĚýĚýIt is a dream that slowly, tauntingly reveals its meaning to the dreamers as they make their way toward each other--some to be destroyed on the journey, some to face an even more terrifying fate at journey's end . . .

- Akasha--Queen of the Damned, mother of all vampires, rises after a 6,000 year sleep and puts into motion a heinous plan to "save" mankind from itself and make "all myths of the world real" by elevating herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of the gods: "I am the fulfillment and I shall from this moment be the cause" . . .

These narrative threads wind sinuously across a vast, richly detailed tapestry of the violent, sensual world of vampirism, taking us back 6,000 years to its beginnings.ĚýĚýAs the stories of the "first brood" of blood drinkers are revealed, we are swept across the ages, from Egypt to South America to the Himalayas to all the shrouded corners of the globe where vampires have left their mark. Vampires are created--mortals succumbing to the sensation of "being emptied, of being devoured, of being nothing." Vampires are destroyed.ĚýĚýDark rituals are performed--the rituals of ancient creatures prowling the modern world.ĚýĚýAnd, finally, we are brought to a moment in the twentieth century when, in an astonishing climax, the fate of the living dead--and perhaps of the living, all the living--will be decided.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 448 Anne Rice 0345419626 Madeline 4 fantasy The Queen of the Damned picks up right where The Vampire Lestat left off, with Lestat's concert getting crashed by Akasha, one of the two original vampires (and she's not alone). The narrative goes deeper into Akasha's lore, and also introduces us to the Talamasca through one of its members. And best of all, we get the conclusion to the vampire origin story that was started in The Vampire Lestat and go alllllll the way back to the beginning to find out how vampires came into existence. And perhaps best of all, we get to revisit our pal Daniel Molloy from Interview with the Vampire and learn what he's been up to since his "novel" was published. He's, uh...been better.

The book only lost its momentum at the very end, when Akasha reveals her entire Evil Plot, because it's, in a word, stupid. To Anne Rice's credit, other characters point out how laughable bad her ideas are, and I'm pretty sure that the plan is supposed to be bonkers because Akasha has been in an atrophied state for centuries and her brain is toast. But it was still annoying having to read her I'm-going-to-take-over-the-world-and-here's-how monologues. Frankly I think she didn't even have a ton of faith in what she was saying.

(God, I cannot WAIT for the AMC show to tackle all the story lines in this book. It's going to get WEIRD and I need them to announce the Akasha casting yesterday)

Based on some other reviews I've read of the Vampire Chronicles series, the quality starts to dip after the third book, but honestly I think I'm going to continue with the series and see how far it takes me because I'm having so much fun.]]> 3.93 1988 The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles, #3)
author: Anne Rice
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/09/19
shelves: fantasy
review:
The Queen of the Damned picks up right where The Vampire Lestat left off, with Lestat's concert getting crashed by Akasha, one of the two original vampires (and she's not alone). The narrative goes deeper into Akasha's lore, and also introduces us to the Talamasca through one of its members. And best of all, we get the conclusion to the vampire origin story that was started in The Vampire Lestat and go alllllll the way back to the beginning to find out how vampires came into existence. And perhaps best of all, we get to revisit our pal Daniel Molloy from Interview with the Vampire and learn what he's been up to since his "novel" was published. He's, uh...been better.

The book only lost its momentum at the very end, when Akasha reveals her entire Evil Plot, because it's, in a word, stupid. To Anne Rice's credit, other characters point out how laughable bad her ideas are, and I'm pretty sure that the plan is supposed to be bonkers because Akasha has been in an atrophied state for centuries and her brain is toast. But it was still annoying having to read her I'm-going-to-take-over-the-world-and-here's-how monologues. Frankly I think she didn't even have a ton of faith in what she was saying.

(God, I cannot WAIT for the AMC show to tackle all the story lines in this book. It's going to get WEIRD and I need them to announce the Akasha casting yesterday)

Based on some other reviews I've read of the Vampire Chronicles series, the quality starts to dip after the third book, but honestly I think I'm going to continue with the series and see how far it takes me because I'm having so much fun.
]]> <![CDATA[Soul Music (Discworld, #16; Death, #3)]]> 34502 288 Terry Pratchett 057506689X Madeline 3 fantasy
He's getting a little loose with this one, in other words, and having fun with some good old Pratchett-style parody. Considering that this is a Death installment, and so far those have proved to be the Discworld books most likely to wreck me, it's kind of a relief that this one is so light. Plus, this functions as a kind-of sequel to Mort, and we get to meet Death's granddaughter! Her name is Susan.

Plus, all the music industry in-jokes are worth the price of admission alone, even if Pratchett's view on rock music does veer pretty hard into Get Off My Lawn territory. How can you say no to a book that features a band called We're Certainly Dwarfs?






(aka They Might Be Giants. Shut up, Pratchett's a genius.)]]> 4.05 1994 Soul Music (Discworld, #16; Death, #3)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: fantasy
review:
This is one of the Discworld installments where you can tell that Sir Terry sat down at his computer and said, "Let's have some fun with it!"

He's getting a little loose with this one, in other words, and having fun with some good old Pratchett-style parody. Considering that this is a Death installment, and so far those have proved to be the Discworld books most likely to wreck me, it's kind of a relief that this one is so light. Plus, this functions as a kind-of sequel to Mort, and we get to meet Death's granddaughter! Her name is Susan.

Plus, all the music industry in-jokes are worth the price of admission alone, even if Pratchett's view on rock music does veer pretty hard into Get Off My Lawn territory. How can you say no to a book that features a band called We're Certainly Dwarfs?






(aka They Might Be Giants. Shut up, Pratchett's a genius.)
]]> The Last Mona Lisa 55819102
Present day: art professor Luke Perrone digs for the truth behind his most famous ancestor: Peruggia. His search attracts an Interpol detective with something to prove and an unfamiliar but curiously helpful woman. Soon, Luke tumbles deep into the world of art and forgery, a land of obsession and danger.

A gripping novel exploring the 1911 theft and the present underbelly of the art world, The Last Mona Lisa is a suspenseful tale, tapping into our universal fascination with da Vinci's enigma, why people are driven to possess certain works of art, and our fascination with the authentic and the fake.]]> 379 Jonathan Santlofer 172824076X Madeline 2 did get recovered, and by the thief turning it in to authorities himself, has raised a million more questions, but at the top of everyone's list is the most simple one: did the thief return the real Mona Lisa, or did he swap it for a fake? Jonathan Santofler tries to give us an answer to this mystery by centering a story about the thief's direct descendant and his search to find the truth about his great-grandfather and the famous painting he stole.

It's such a cool setup, and what wrecks it almost immediately is how easy and obvious the entire investigation is. Our hero is Luke Perrone, whose family changed their last name from Peruggia to avoid association with the infamous Vincent Peruggia, and he's on his way to Italy because someone found his great-grandfather's prison journal, and Luke is going to read it and find out The Truth.

It's really just that simple. One of the most famous criminals of his time kept a prison journal which apparently no one else knew about? And luckily for Luke, the journal goes through the crime step by step, sparing no detail and naming all the names. Luke's "research" into his family history just means going to the research library and reading the journal. Luke, and it cannot be overstated, is dogshit at research. He doesn't look up a single other primary source about the theft, or indeed do any other reading about it at all aside from a handful of newspaper articles. He's Vincent Peruggia's great grandson, yet at no point does it occur to him to call up some family members and ask them for more information about the man. 1911 was not that long ago!

Oh, he also goes to the Louvre to view the Mona Lisa. This is another confounding element of Luke's character, because despite being merely an associate professor of art history, can apparently cold-call the fuckin' Louvre and get immediately connected to their curator of Renaissance art, and then schedule a private viewing of the Mona Lisa without so much as a professional reference.

Say what you will about Dan Brown, at least he took the time to establish that Robert Langdon is a world-famous symbologist. Luke Perrone is just a guy, and the level of access he's granted with no effort whatsoever is astounding and also so, so lazy on Santofler's part.

The whole book is lazy. There's almost no suspense whatsoever, and aside from a feeble bait-and-switch with the villain in the third act, all the characters basically step onstage and tell the reader, "Hello, I'm so-and-so and I'll be playing the villain tonight" or "Hello, I'm the love interest." The love interest is especially frustrating, first because her Secret Motivations are obvious pretty much from the jump, and also she acts like a character in a badly written thriller, always making vague statements about how she couldn't return Luke's calls because she was...away. Doing...something. Something he mustn't ask her about! Also, Luke frankly had a ton more chemistry with [redacted], and if Santofler had any guts he would have given those two a forbidden romance. (I mean, why on earth would you write a scene where Character A finds Character B wounded and takes them back to their apartment to bandage their wounds and NOT give that scene to the female love interest?!)

All in all, an incredibly frustrating dud of an adventure novel. I kept hoping until the very end that there would be some twist to redeem it, that it would turn out that Santofler was playing me like a fiddle the whole time and nothing was ever as obvious as he made it seem.

I don't know, maybe the ending will do it for you. It certainly didn't make it worth it for me.
]]> 3.67 2021 The Last Mona Lisa
author: Jonathan Santlofer
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves:
review:
The 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa is one of the most enduring mysteries in the art world, purely because unlike, say, the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist, this one was solved - a little over two years after disappeared, the painting was returned and the thief went to prison. But the simple fact that the painting did get recovered, and by the thief turning it in to authorities himself, has raised a million more questions, but at the top of everyone's list is the most simple one: did the thief return the real Mona Lisa, or did he swap it for a fake? Jonathan Santofler tries to give us an answer to this mystery by centering a story about the thief's direct descendant and his search to find the truth about his great-grandfather and the famous painting he stole.

It's such a cool setup, and what wrecks it almost immediately is how easy and obvious the entire investigation is. Our hero is Luke Perrone, whose family changed their last name from Peruggia to avoid association with the infamous Vincent Peruggia, and he's on his way to Italy because someone found his great-grandfather's prison journal, and Luke is going to read it and find out The Truth.

It's really just that simple. One of the most famous criminals of his time kept a prison journal which apparently no one else knew about? And luckily for Luke, the journal goes through the crime step by step, sparing no detail and naming all the names. Luke's "research" into his family history just means going to the research library and reading the journal. Luke, and it cannot be overstated, is dogshit at research. He doesn't look up a single other primary source about the theft, or indeed do any other reading about it at all aside from a handful of newspaper articles. He's Vincent Peruggia's great grandson, yet at no point does it occur to him to call up some family members and ask them for more information about the man. 1911 was not that long ago!

Oh, he also goes to the Louvre to view the Mona Lisa. This is another confounding element of Luke's character, because despite being merely an associate professor of art history, can apparently cold-call the fuckin' Louvre and get immediately connected to their curator of Renaissance art, and then schedule a private viewing of the Mona Lisa without so much as a professional reference.

Say what you will about Dan Brown, at least he took the time to establish that Robert Langdon is a world-famous symbologist. Luke Perrone is just a guy, and the level of access he's granted with no effort whatsoever is astounding and also so, so lazy on Santofler's part.

The whole book is lazy. There's almost no suspense whatsoever, and aside from a feeble bait-and-switch with the villain in the third act, all the characters basically step onstage and tell the reader, "Hello, I'm so-and-so and I'll be playing the villain tonight" or "Hello, I'm the love interest." The love interest is especially frustrating, first because her Secret Motivations are obvious pretty much from the jump, and also she acts like a character in a badly written thriller, always making vague statements about how she couldn't return Luke's calls because she was...away. Doing...something. Something he mustn't ask her about! Also, Luke frankly had a ton more chemistry with [redacted], and if Santofler had any guts he would have given those two a forbidden romance. (I mean, why on earth would you write a scene where Character A finds Character B wounded and takes them back to their apartment to bandage their wounds and NOT give that scene to the female love interest?!)

All in all, an incredibly frustrating dud of an adventure novel. I kept hoping until the very end that there would be some twist to redeem it, that it would turn out that Santofler was playing me like a fiddle the whole time and nothing was ever as obvious as he made it seem.

I don't know, maybe the ending will do it for you. It certainly didn't make it worth it for me.

]]> <![CDATA[Men at Arms (Discworld, #15; City Watch, #2)]]> 400354
But what it's got includes Corporal Carrot (technically a dwarf), Lance-constable Cuddy (really a dwarf), Lance constable Detritus (a troll), Lance constable Angua (a woman... most of the time), and Corporal Nobbs (disqualified from the human race for shoving).

And they need all the help they can get. Because they've only got twenty-four hours to clean up the town and this is Ankh-Morpork we're talking about...]]> 377 Terry Pratchett 0061092193 Madeline 5 fantasy Discworld in chronological order is seeing how the world of the Disc slowly moves from a classic pseudo-medieval fantasy setting into its own industrial revolution, and Men at Arms is a major one in terms of upping the stakes: in this one, guns are introduced to the Disc.

It's going to be really interesting to see how this new technology affects the rest of the series, and I'm especially excited to finally get to Monstrous Regiment, which was technically the first Discworld book I tried before realizing that I needed to go back and start with Book 1.

Also, the City Watch books are just so much fun. In additional to Corporal Carrot (we love you, Carrot!) and Captain Vimes (who is trying and failing to retire) we get some fun new additions to the watch, who are trying to recruit more men into their ranks. They get new recruits, all right, but none of them are men. Hijinks ensue.]]> 4.39 1993 Men at Arms (Discworld, #15; City Watch, #2)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: fantasy
review:
This is one of those Gamechanger books within the Discworld series, where Terry Pratchett moves the needle a little bit by introducing a new aspect of the Disc, or a new piece of lore, or in this case, new technology. One of the joys of reading Discworld in chronological order is seeing how the world of the Disc slowly moves from a classic pseudo-medieval fantasy setting into its own industrial revolution, and Men at Arms is a major one in terms of upping the stakes: in this one, guns are introduced to the Disc.

It's going to be really interesting to see how this new technology affects the rest of the series, and I'm especially excited to finally get to Monstrous Regiment, which was technically the first Discworld book I tried before realizing that I needed to go back and start with Book 1.

Also, the City Watch books are just so much fun. In additional to Corporal Carrot (we love you, Carrot!) and Captain Vimes (who is trying and failing to retire) we get some fun new additions to the watch, who are trying to recruit more men into their ranks. They get new recruits, all right, but none of them are men. Hijinks ensue.
]]> <![CDATA[The Perfect Couple (Nantucket, #3)]]> 34840184
But it's going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons after tragedy strikes: a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony-and everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews the bride, the groom, the groom's famous mystery-novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, he discovers that every wedding is a minefield-and no couple is perfect. Featuring beloved characters from The Castaways, Beautiful Day, and A Summer Affair, The Perfect Couple proves once again that Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer beach read.]]> 480 Elin Hilderbrand 0316375241 Madeline 3 detective-fiction
To Hilderbrand's credit, this is a perfectly serviceable mystery setup: on the morning of thee wedding of the Nantucket season, a bridesmaid is found dead in the ocean outside the venue. The bride was the one to find her, and also the best man is missing.

Hilderbrand does a good job of making sure every major character has a *mostly* plausible motive for murder, and everyone's various timelines and alibis on the days leading up to the murder are convoluted enough to keep you interested. But the story suffers from two major flaws:

The first is that in order to make certain twists work, our heroine Celeste has to be staggeringly passive and sheltered, to the point where she often seems less like a modern day woman in her late twenties and more like a teenage girl raised in an 18th-century convent. Run by mice.

She's tough to root for, is what I'm saying, and I know that I was supposed to be cheering her along and hoping she gets the courage to take control of her own life - and I did, to some extent - but mostly I just kept wishing someone would shove her into a puddle.

(Here's where I admit my own bias and confess that Celeste lost me as soon as we get to her meet-cute with the groom, which happens when Celeste - the director of the Brooklyn Zoo, because that makes sense - is giving a tour of the reptile house and taps on the glass of a cobra's enclosure to get it to stand up and flare its hood out. If you've spent more than ten minutes in any decent zoo in the last ten years you know that this is super shitty behavior and a fucking zoo director would know better. Also Celeste uses the term "poisonous snakes." They're not poisonous, Celeste, they're venomous, and you should be fired.)

Hilderbrand is also handicapped by her own format, because the gimmick of the book is that the investigation takes place over a continuous 24-hour period, with breaks in the narrative for flashbacks that show all the events leading to the murder. Cool, but unfortunately real-life murder investigations take months, and Hilderbrand doesn't have that kind of time. No spoilers, but the way the cops absolutely botch the investigation is straight-up embarrassing.

Look, it's fine. The characters are fun and their various motives are appropriately bonkers, and almost nobody behaves like a normal human being. If you're a detective novel fan already, there isn't going to be anything here you haven't seen a dozen times before, but this is a fun, easy-breezy read with lots of great atmosphere and decent plotting. ]]> 3.93 2018 The Perfect Couple (Nantucket, #3)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
I'm shelving this under "detective fiction" because this is, by all definitions, a straightforward murder mystery, and plenty of page space is devoted to the investigation. But those considering this book should bear in mind that this is an Elin Hilderbrand joint first and foremost, which means that our author is going to be much more comfortable in her usual wheelhouse of lavish beach houses, idyllic scenery, mouth-watering meals, and men named Tag.

To Hilderbrand's credit, this is a perfectly serviceable mystery setup: on the morning of thee wedding of the Nantucket season, a bridesmaid is found dead in the ocean outside the venue. The bride was the one to find her, and also the best man is missing.

Hilderbrand does a good job of making sure every major character has a *mostly* plausible motive for murder, and everyone's various timelines and alibis on the days leading up to the murder are convoluted enough to keep you interested. But the story suffers from two major flaws:

The first is that in order to make certain twists work, our heroine Celeste has to be staggeringly passive and sheltered, to the point where she often seems less like a modern day woman in her late twenties and more like a teenage girl raised in an 18th-century convent. Run by mice.

She's tough to root for, is what I'm saying, and I know that I was supposed to be cheering her along and hoping she gets the courage to take control of her own life - and I did, to some extent - but mostly I just kept wishing someone would shove her into a puddle.

(Here's where I admit my own bias and confess that Celeste lost me as soon as we get to her meet-cute with the groom, which happens when Celeste - the director of the Brooklyn Zoo, because that makes sense - is giving a tour of the reptile house and taps on the glass of a cobra's enclosure to get it to stand up and flare its hood out. If you've spent more than ten minutes in any decent zoo in the last ten years you know that this is super shitty behavior and a fucking zoo director would know better. Also Celeste uses the term "poisonous snakes." They're not poisonous, Celeste, they're venomous, and you should be fired.)

Hilderbrand is also handicapped by her own format, because the gimmick of the book is that the investigation takes place over a continuous 24-hour period, with breaks in the narrative for flashbacks that show all the events leading to the murder. Cool, but unfortunately real-life murder investigations take months, and Hilderbrand doesn't have that kind of time. No spoilers, but the way the cops absolutely botch the investigation is straight-up embarrassing.

Look, it's fine. The characters are fun and their various motives are appropriately bonkers, and almost nobody behaves like a normal human being. If you're a detective novel fan already, there isn't going to be anything here you haven't seen a dozen times before, but this is a fun, easy-breezy read with lots of great atmosphere and decent plotting.
]]> <![CDATA[The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)]]> 43814 481 Anne Rice 0345476883 Madeline 4 Interview With the Vampire, I decided to pick up the series again thanks to the AMC adaptation and wanting to get caught up on future plot lines (guys, the show is seriously so good).

The Vampire Lestat picks up in 1984, almost a decade after Louis du Point du Lac's infamous interview and the explosive book that followed. This book is supposed to be Lestat's own memoir, written with the intention of clearing up everything that Louis got wrong.

(Well, not really - the events of Interview With the Vampire are barely touched on, so no, this is not the same story told from a different character's perspective. And honestly, thank god)

Also, in 1984 Lestat is living in disguise as a human, and is the world-famous frontman of a glam-rock band, where he "pretends" to be a vampire as part of his stage persona.

A warning to anyone considering reading this based just on that description alone: this is not a story about Rockstar Lestat. This is Lestat's origin story, going back to 18th century France when he was turned - there's very little of the "modern day" scenes, but ultimately this didn't bother me, because Lestat's story is so good. On top of that, he's also a fantastic narrator, like when he tells the reader that another character could be "gorgeous, if someone stuck her under a waterfall and held her there for half an hour." Another time, another vampire tells Lestat that Satan will strike him down for his heresy, and Lestat replies, "You keep saying that! And it keeps not happening, as we can all see!" Honestly, Whiny Louis could never.

Plus, Lestat's view on modern life are worth the price of admission alone. Do you want to know what Lestat thinks of 1980's pop culture? You're in luck.

"In the amber electric twilight of a vast hotel room, I watched on the screen before me the stunningly crafted film of war called Apocalypse Now. Such a symphony of sound and color it was, and it sang of the age-old battle of the Western world against evil. 'You must make a friend of horror and mortal terror,' says the mad commander in the savage garden of Cambodia, to which the Western man answers as he has always answered: No.

No. Horror and moral terror can never be exonerated. They have no real value. Pure evil has no real place.

And that means, doesn't it, that I have no place.

Except, perhaps, in the art that repudiates evil - the vampire comics, the horror novels, the old gothic tales - or in the roaring chants of the rock stars who dramatize the battles against evil that each mortal fights within himself."

This book also has Lestat, and the reader, starting to learn about the origins of vampires themselves, and as Lestat considers the long history of his own kind, he's also facing down the prospect of living for eternity, and how to survive that. With The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice is expanding on some of the ideas she discussed in Interview With the Vampire, and making her characters really consider what it means to be immortal, and whether or not they have the mental strength to endure it.

"Do devils love each other? Do they walk arm in arm in hell saying, 'Ah, you are my friend, how I love you,' things like that to each other? It was a rather detached and intellectual question I was asking, as I did not believe in hell. But it was a matter of a concept of evil, wasn't it? All creatures in hell are supposed to hate one another, as all the saved hate the damned, without reservation.

I'd know that all my life. It had terrified me as a child, the idea that I might go to heaven and my mother might go to hell and that I should hate her. I couldn't hate her. And what if we were in hell together?

Well, now I know, whether I believed in hell or not, that vampires can love each other, that in being dedicated to evil, one does not cease to love. Or so it seemed for that brief instant. But don't start crying again. I can't abide all this crying."]]> 4.10 1985 The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)
author: Anne Rice
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves:
review:
About a decade after first reading Interview With the Vampire, I decided to pick up the series again thanks to the AMC adaptation and wanting to get caught up on future plot lines (guys, the show is seriously so good).

The Vampire Lestat picks up in 1984, almost a decade after Louis du Point du Lac's infamous interview and the explosive book that followed. This book is supposed to be Lestat's own memoir, written with the intention of clearing up everything that Louis got wrong.

(Well, not really - the events of Interview With the Vampire are barely touched on, so no, this is not the same story told from a different character's perspective. And honestly, thank god)

Also, in 1984 Lestat is living in disguise as a human, and is the world-famous frontman of a glam-rock band, where he "pretends" to be a vampire as part of his stage persona.

A warning to anyone considering reading this based just on that description alone: this is not a story about Rockstar Lestat. This is Lestat's origin story, going back to 18th century France when he was turned - there's very little of the "modern day" scenes, but ultimately this didn't bother me, because Lestat's story is so good. On top of that, he's also a fantastic narrator, like when he tells the reader that another character could be "gorgeous, if someone stuck her under a waterfall and held her there for half an hour." Another time, another vampire tells Lestat that Satan will strike him down for his heresy, and Lestat replies, "You keep saying that! And it keeps not happening, as we can all see!" Honestly, Whiny Louis could never.

Plus, Lestat's view on modern life are worth the price of admission alone. Do you want to know what Lestat thinks of 1980's pop culture? You're in luck.

"In the amber electric twilight of a vast hotel room, I watched on the screen before me the stunningly crafted film of war called Apocalypse Now. Such a symphony of sound and color it was, and it sang of the age-old battle of the Western world against evil. 'You must make a friend of horror and mortal terror,' says the mad commander in the savage garden of Cambodia, to which the Western man answers as he has always answered: No.

No. Horror and moral terror can never be exonerated. They have no real value. Pure evil has no real place.

And that means, doesn't it, that I have no place.

Except, perhaps, in the art that repudiates evil - the vampire comics, the horror novels, the old gothic tales - or in the roaring chants of the rock stars who dramatize the battles against evil that each mortal fights within himself."

This book also has Lestat, and the reader, starting to learn about the origins of vampires themselves, and as Lestat considers the long history of his own kind, he's also facing down the prospect of living for eternity, and how to survive that. With The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice is expanding on some of the ideas she discussed in Interview With the Vampire, and making her characters really consider what it means to be immortal, and whether or not they have the mental strength to endure it.

"Do devils love each other? Do they walk arm in arm in hell saying, 'Ah, you are my friend, how I love you,' things like that to each other? It was a rather detached and intellectual question I was asking, as I did not believe in hell. But it was a matter of a concept of evil, wasn't it? All creatures in hell are supposed to hate one another, as all the saved hate the damned, without reservation.

I'd know that all my life. It had terrified me as a child, the idea that I might go to heaven and my mother might go to hell and that I should hate her. I couldn't hate her. And what if we were in hell together?

Well, now I know, whether I believed in hell or not, that vampires can love each other, that in being dedicated to evil, one does not cease to love. Or so it seemed for that brief instant. But don't start crying again. I can't abide all this crying."
]]> Around the World in 80 Days 10128926 In 1872, Phileas Fogg, an English gentleman, bets 20,000 pounds that he can travel around the world in 80 days.Ěý Set in a time when high-speed travel was only a dream this seems to be a challenge which will stretch Fogg’s ingenuity and optimistic nature.

Fogg and his servant, Passepourtout, leave from London, England and travel across four continents on their trip.ĚýĚý In India, they meet a beautiful princess and save her life.Ěý She joins them on the journey and falls in love with Phileas Fogg.

They are followed around the world by Detective Fix, who has mistaken Fogg for a bank robber.Ěý He causes the group lots of trouble and delays, and finally arrests Fogg on the last day of the journey.

]]> 0 Jules Verne 1612980465 Madeline 1 the-list
There are so many other books I want to be reading, and I don't want to force myself to get through this just because it's on The List. So, my apologizes to Mr. Verne, and we'll try again another day.

Also I couldn't stop picturing Steve Coogan as Phileas Fogg and it sort of ruined things for me, which is hardly Verne's fault. ]]> 3.62 1872 Around the World in 80 Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1872
rating: 1
read at: 2011/06/01
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: the-list
review:
Okay, so technically I've haven't read this one. Not all of it, anyway. To be perfectly honest I got to about the second chapter (I listened to this on audiobook so it's hard to tell - track 9, anyway) and all I could think was, "This is boring. I'm bored now. Still bored."

There are so many other books I want to be reading, and I don't want to force myself to get through this just because it's on The List. So, my apologizes to Mr. Verne, and we'll try again another day.

Also I couldn't stop picturing Steve Coogan as Phileas Fogg and it sort of ruined things for me, which is hardly Verne's fault.
]]> <![CDATA[The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories]]> 99300
Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naĂŻve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.

These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women � and how they might be improved.

Collects:
—The Yellow Wallpaper
—Three Thanksgivings
—The Cottagette
—TłÜ°ů˛Ô±đ»ĺ
—Making a Change
—If I Were a Man
—Mr. Peebles' Heart]]> 129 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0486298574 Madeline 4 assigned-reading, the-list advanced placement, thank you verra much), and we spent an entire class period discussing the ending and what the hell happened. I'm still not really sure - the best explanation I could think of was that the narrator hung herself, but that doesn't seem to really explain everything. Must re-read someday.

Read for: 12th grade AP English]]> 4.05 1892 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 4
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: assigned-reading, the-list
review:
Creepy as hell, but a really, really cool description of madness. I read this for a high school English class (advanced placement, thank you verra much), and we spent an entire class period discussing the ending and what the hell happened. I'm still not really sure - the best explanation I could think of was that the narrator hung herself, but that doesn't seem to really explain everything. Must re-read someday.

Read for: 12th grade AP English
]]> Station Eleven 20170404 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 333 Emily St. John Mandel 0385353308 Madeline 5 all-time-favorites
I still can't believe that I was even in the right headspace to read this, considering that this is a novel about the collapse of society after a flu-like pandemic ravages the United States and wipes out enough of the population that all infrastructure falls apart. Like...I knew going into this that this was not going to be a comfort read, yet it ended up being simultaneously the most devastating and hopeful thing I've ever read.

The book opens the night before the pandemic begins in earnest: during a performance of King Lear, the actor playing Lear has a heart attack and dies on stage. Following his death, the story tracks the actions of the actor's ex-wives, his best friend, the man in the audience who tried to save him, and a little girl in the play. We see how each of these people reacted in the initial days of the pandemic, and then how they're surviving fifteen years later.

The crucial element that keeps this from being a depressing slog is that St. John Mandel doesn't spend a lot of time in the brutal, desperate year right after the pandemic hit. The majority of the action takes place fifteen years later, when things are still desperate and difficult, but overall have mellowed out just enough.

Brutality lurks at the edges of this story, making its presence known and reminding us of the stakes, but it stays outside the main narrative. There are ominous references to "ferals" living outside the established communities that have sprouted in the aftermath of ruined cities, and the adult version of the little girl from Macbeth has killed two people and doesn't remember how she got the huge scar on her face. St. John Mandel trusts her audience enough to know that we'll be able to read between the lines and understand how dangerous this world is, without needing to throw in a rape scene for shock factor.

It's not an accident that our main characters post-apocalypse are members of a traveling theater troupe. In the middle of all the death and devastation and harshness of this new world, there are still people making art, and there are communities, and people protect each other. We keep going. It'll be different, and it'll be harsh, and not everyone will have good intentions. But humanity keeps going, despite everything. ]]> 4.05 2014 Station Eleven
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: all-time-favorites
review:
FUCK.

I still can't believe that I was even in the right headspace to read this, considering that this is a novel about the collapse of society after a flu-like pandemic ravages the United States and wipes out enough of the population that all infrastructure falls apart. Like...I knew going into this that this was not going to be a comfort read, yet it ended up being simultaneously the most devastating and hopeful thing I've ever read.

The book opens the night before the pandemic begins in earnest: during a performance of King Lear, the actor playing Lear has a heart attack and dies on stage. Following his death, the story tracks the actions of the actor's ex-wives, his best friend, the man in the audience who tried to save him, and a little girl in the play. We see how each of these people reacted in the initial days of the pandemic, and then how they're surviving fifteen years later.

The crucial element that keeps this from being a depressing slog is that St. John Mandel doesn't spend a lot of time in the brutal, desperate year right after the pandemic hit. The majority of the action takes place fifteen years later, when things are still desperate and difficult, but overall have mellowed out just enough.

Brutality lurks at the edges of this story, making its presence known and reminding us of the stakes, but it stays outside the main narrative. There are ominous references to "ferals" living outside the established communities that have sprouted in the aftermath of ruined cities, and the adult version of the little girl from Macbeth has killed two people and doesn't remember how she got the huge scar on her face. St. John Mandel trusts her audience enough to know that we'll be able to read between the lines and understand how dangerous this world is, without needing to throw in a rape scene for shock factor.

It's not an accident that our main characters post-apocalypse are members of a traveling theater troupe. In the middle of all the death and devastation and harshness of this new world, there are still people making art, and there are communities, and people protect each other. We keep going. It'll be different, and it'll be harsh, and not everyone will have good intentions. But humanity keeps going, despite everything.
]]> Dune Messiah (Dune #2) 44492285
Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known--and feared--as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremens, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne--and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty...

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 336 Frank Herbert 0593098234 Madeline 4 fantasy saw the cage. He saw it!"

Oh yeah. Book 2 of the Dune series and Frank Herbert is starting to get freaky with it. Strap in.

Dune Messiah picks up fifteen years after the end of the previous book. Paul is the all-powerful emperor, with a literal cult following and unchecked power. As an added bonus, his gift of prescience is now so strong that he knows exactly what his future holds, and because he's unable to change it, goes through the motions of his life like an actor following a script.

So the scope of this novel, which covers topics like destiny and fanaticism and the lie of the Messiah myth, is also a very small-scale human drama: the core of this novel, when you really peel back the layers, is about Paul and Chani and Irulian and Alia. This is a family soap that affects the destiny of a galaxy, and the way Herbert balances the small and large scale dramas is incredible to watch.

Also, it cannot be overstated, this book is so goddamn weird. To give any more details would be giving away spoilers, but rest assured that Frank Herbert is operating on a whole other level. I can't wait to see where he takes things next. ]]> 3.89 1969 Dune Messiah (Dune #2)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: fantasy
review:
"Paul consulted his memory of the vision: in it, he'd left here with the names of the traitors, but never seeing how those names were carried. The dwarf obviously moved under the protection of another oracle. It occurred to Paul then that all creatures must carry some kind of destiny stamped out by purpose of varying strengths, by the fixation of training and disposition. From the moment the Jihad had chosen him, he'd felt hemmed in by the forces of a multitude. Their fixed purpose demanded and controlled his course. Any delusions of Free Will he harbored now must be merely the prisoner rattling his cage. His curse lay in the fact that he saw the cage. He saw it!"

Oh yeah. Book 2 of the Dune series and Frank Herbert is starting to get freaky with it. Strap in.

Dune Messiah picks up fifteen years after the end of the previous book. Paul is the all-powerful emperor, with a literal cult following and unchecked power. As an added bonus, his gift of prescience is now so strong that he knows exactly what his future holds, and because he's unable to change it, goes through the motions of his life like an actor following a script.

So the scope of this novel, which covers topics like destiny and fanaticism and the lie of the Messiah myth, is also a very small-scale human drama: the core of this novel, when you really peel back the layers, is about Paul and Chani and Irulian and Alia. This is a family soap that affects the destiny of a galaxy, and the way Herbert balances the small and large scale dramas is incredible to watch.

Also, it cannot be overstated, this book is so goddamn weird. To give any more details would be giving away spoilers, but rest assured that Frank Herbert is operating on a whole other level. I can't wait to see where he takes things next.
]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Madeline 4 fantasy Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

-from 'Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib' by the Princess Irulan"

Part of me wishes I had read this series before seeing the Villeneuve movies, because I think the way they've adapted this story for film is fascinating and so, so well done, and it would have been cool to watch the movies and have a full appreciation of how they changed the story to fit a movie format. (On the other hand - I went into the first Dune movie knowing almost nothing about the books and I never felt lost for a second, which tells you what a good job they did)

But I can also appreciate that I had a kind of primer before starting this. Paul's prophetic visions also bleed into the narrative style of the book, and you can see Herbert frequently hinting at characters or scenes that will become important much father down the line (for example - one of the early excerpts from an in-world novel is from "St. Alia of the Knife", and we don't learn who that is until much later in the book). This is a story that is just slightly unmoored in its own timeline, and having seen the movie helped keep me grounded in the narrative.

But movie adaptation aside, this is just a rock-solid fantasy epic that is also so, so fucking cool. Herbert does atmosphere like nobody's business, and his characters are so well done that I didn't even realize how much of this story is just different peoples' inner thoughts until another reviewer pointed out.

Also, the writing is...incredible? Frank Herbert has a way of turning a phrase that is just incredible to witness, and I just wish I had marked more passages to quote. I did manage to get this one, from the arena scene with Feyd-Rautha:

"'You!' the man moaned.
Feyd-Rautha drew back to give death its space. The paralyzing drug in the poison had yet to take full effect, but the man's slowness told of its advance.
The slave staggered forward as though drawn by a string - one dragging step at a time. Each step was the only step in his universe. He still clutched his knife, but its point wavered."

Damn. I need to get the next book ASAP. ]]> 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves: fantasy
review:
"Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

-from 'Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib' by the Princess Irulan"

Part of me wishes I had read this series before seeing the Villeneuve movies, because I think the way they've adapted this story for film is fascinating and so, so well done, and it would have been cool to watch the movies and have a full appreciation of how they changed the story to fit a movie format. (On the other hand - I went into the first Dune movie knowing almost nothing about the books and I never felt lost for a second, which tells you what a good job they did)

But I can also appreciate that I had a kind of primer before starting this. Paul's prophetic visions also bleed into the narrative style of the book, and you can see Herbert frequently hinting at characters or scenes that will become important much father down the line (for example - one of the early excerpts from an in-world novel is from "St. Alia of the Knife", and we don't learn who that is until much later in the book). This is a story that is just slightly unmoored in its own timeline, and having seen the movie helped keep me grounded in the narrative.

But movie adaptation aside, this is just a rock-solid fantasy epic that is also so, so fucking cool. Herbert does atmosphere like nobody's business, and his characters are so well done that I didn't even realize how much of this story is just different peoples' inner thoughts until another reviewer pointed out.

Also, the writing is...incredible? Frank Herbert has a way of turning a phrase that is just incredible to witness, and I just wish I had marked more passages to quote. I did manage to get this one, from the arena scene with Feyd-Rautha:

"'You!' the man moaned.
Feyd-Rautha drew back to give death its space. The paralyzing drug in the poison had yet to take full effect, but the man's slowness told of its advance.
The slave staggered forward as though drawn by a string - one dragging step at a time. Each step was the only step in his universe. He still clutched his knife, but its point wavered."

Damn. I need to get the next book ASAP.
]]> <![CDATA[Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine]]> 35248009
The story of Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone's founder, editor, and publisher, and the pioneering era he helped curate, is told here for the first time in glittering, glorious detail. Joe Hagan provides readers with a backstage pass to storied concert venues and rock-star hotel rooms; he tells never before heard stories about the lives of rock stars and their handlers; he details the daring journalism (Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, P.J. O'Rourke) and internecine office politics that accompanied the start-up; he animates the drug and sexual appetites of the era; and he reports on the politics of the last fifty years that were often chronicled in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine.

Supplemented by a cache of extraordinary documents and letters from Wenner's personal archives, Sticky Fingers depicts an ambitious, mercurial, wide-eyed rock and roll fan of who exalts in youth and beauty and learns how to package it, marketing late sixties counterculture as a testament to the power of American youth. The result is a fascinating and complex portrait of man and era, and an irresistible biography of popular culture, celebrity, music, and politics in America.]]> 560 Joe Hagan 034581505X Madeline 4 history-nonfiction Rolling Stone was like holding a piece of hot shrapnel from the cultural explosion of the 1960s while it still glowed with feeling and meaning. An entire identity was coiled inside. Rick Griffin's logo, the promise of never-ending provocation, never-ending progress. The rock-and-roll story lit the way. Don't stop thinking about tomorrow. But those visions had morphed into the Me Decade, and the Me Decade had turned into Me Decades, and finally the falcon could no longer hear the falconer, not even in the pages of Rolling Stone.

Well, it was just a story. A long, fine flash. This one began with John Lennon and ended with Donald Trump."

The best biographies approach their subjects with a clear-eyed and unbiased view, and don't shy away from the more unsavory elements of the people they're covering. Sticky Fingers excels as a rock-and-roll history because it acknowledges that, while Jann Wenner had a unique and brilliant vision for his historic magazine that tapped directly into the feeling of the 1960s, he was a complicated person who ultimately couldn't keep up with the times.

One thing I appreciated the most about this biography is how Hagan never makes any attempt to convince us that Jann Wenner is some kind of brilliant music critic. He is, in fact, the exact opposite of a critic: Jann Wenner is a fanboy and a starfucker, and the creation of Rolling Stone was really just in service of his ultimate goal, which was to become friends with as many celebrities as possible. He wasn't a critic, and he definitely wasn't a writer, but he at least could recognize talent in others, and hired accordingly.

"Wenner reportedly said that he started Rolling Stone to meet John Lennon. But it was just as true that he wanted to be John Lennon - as famous, as important, as talented in his sphere. After all, the best and the brightest of the baby-boom generation (a term not yet in common use in 1967) weren't necessarily going to Harvard or Yale anymore. They were dropping out and inventing a new generational order with the Beatles as their soundtrack. This was Jann Wenner's story line."

It's wild to read this book and realized that the tastemaker of the 7o's was just some guy who wanted to meet famous people. An artist's success back in those days lived or died by what was written about them in Rolling Stone, and Rolling Stone in its heyday was based almost solely on Jann Wenner's personal tastes. And he, uh, had some biases, to say the least. (In fact, I learned about Jann Wenner thanks to a now-infamous interview he gave recently, where he said that the reason Rolling Stone didn't cover more black musicians is because they just weren't as talented. Again, this was the guy who was calling the shots about what people listened to for decades).

"Rolling Stone was corrupt until it wasn't, imperfect until it was. But after 1978, it was never again an experiment in American publishing, a thing that burned strictly to the rhythms of Jann Wenner's fascinations. ...'My god, we could have ruled the world,' said Peter Gambaccini. 'But Jann wasn't into ruling the world; he was into ruling his world.'"

Come for the detailed and fascinating history of music in the 1960's and 70's (including plenty of cameos from rock legends across the decades), stay for the well-researched and ruthless portrayal of a man who almost singularly defined pop culture for decades, and who couldn't maintain his grasp. ]]> 3.72 2017 Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine
author: Joe Hagan
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/06/04
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
"Did Jann Wenner embody the vices or virtues of his generation? Certainly the rock-and-roll hymnbook of the 1960s had promised something else. At one time, holding Rolling Stone was like holding a piece of hot shrapnel from the cultural explosion of the 1960s while it still glowed with feeling and meaning. An entire identity was coiled inside. Rick Griffin's logo, the promise of never-ending provocation, never-ending progress. The rock-and-roll story lit the way. Don't stop thinking about tomorrow. But those visions had morphed into the Me Decade, and the Me Decade had turned into Me Decades, and finally the falcon could no longer hear the falconer, not even in the pages of Rolling Stone.

Well, it was just a story. A long, fine flash. This one began with John Lennon and ended with Donald Trump."

The best biographies approach their subjects with a clear-eyed and unbiased view, and don't shy away from the more unsavory elements of the people they're covering. Sticky Fingers excels as a rock-and-roll history because it acknowledges that, while Jann Wenner had a unique and brilliant vision for his historic magazine that tapped directly into the feeling of the 1960s, he was a complicated person who ultimately couldn't keep up with the times.

One thing I appreciated the most about this biography is how Hagan never makes any attempt to convince us that Jann Wenner is some kind of brilliant music critic. He is, in fact, the exact opposite of a critic: Jann Wenner is a fanboy and a starfucker, and the creation of Rolling Stone was really just in service of his ultimate goal, which was to become friends with as many celebrities as possible. He wasn't a critic, and he definitely wasn't a writer, but he at least could recognize talent in others, and hired accordingly.

"Wenner reportedly said that he started Rolling Stone to meet John Lennon. But it was just as true that he wanted to be John Lennon - as famous, as important, as talented in his sphere. After all, the best and the brightest of the baby-boom generation (a term not yet in common use in 1967) weren't necessarily going to Harvard or Yale anymore. They were dropping out and inventing a new generational order with the Beatles as their soundtrack. This was Jann Wenner's story line."

It's wild to read this book and realized that the tastemaker of the 7o's was just some guy who wanted to meet famous people. An artist's success back in those days lived or died by what was written about them in Rolling Stone, and Rolling Stone in its heyday was based almost solely on Jann Wenner's personal tastes. And he, uh, had some biases, to say the least. (In fact, I learned about Jann Wenner thanks to a now-infamous interview he gave recently, where he said that the reason Rolling Stone didn't cover more black musicians is because they just weren't as talented. Again, this was the guy who was calling the shots about what people listened to for decades).

"Rolling Stone was corrupt until it wasn't, imperfect until it was. But after 1978, it was never again an experiment in American publishing, a thing that burned strictly to the rhythms of Jann Wenner's fascinations. ...'My god, we could have ruled the world,' said Peter Gambaccini. 'But Jann wasn't into ruling the world; he was into ruling his world.'"

Come for the detailed and fascinating history of music in the 1960's and 70's (including plenty of cameos from rock legends across the decades), stay for the well-researched and ruthless portrayal of a man who almost singularly defined pop culture for decades, and who couldn't maintain his grasp.
]]> <![CDATA[This Is How You Lose the Time War]]> 43352954 Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.]]> 209 Amal El-Mohtar Madeline 3 fine, I guess?

This is How You Lose the Time War is less of a novel and more of a series of episodic scenes. Our main characters are Red and Blue, two people (?) on opposite sides of a war where operatives travel back and forth in time, going to different "braids" and making or unmaking events that will effect the war the final battle that's coming. In the midst of all of this, Red and Blue are making their own moves, tracing each other's movements across time and leaving letters for the other to find. And of course, they're also being traced.

The prose is fantastic, although the letters specifically get a little too flowery at times (Blue even catches herself in one of the letters, admitting that her prose is getting too purple so she should end the letter. Baby, it's been purple this whole time!). Red and Blue, despite having almost no concrete character traits or descriptions, manage to seem like fully fleshed out characters, and their voices are distinct enough that the letters don't become monotonous.

I dunno, though. I think ultimately what made this just a three-star for me was how brief it was. I'm not saying I wanted a thousand-page epic, but at about 1/3 of the way into the book I found myself thinking, okay, I get what we're doing here, they're writing letters to each other and falling in love, now something else needs to happen. Something eventually does happen, but then the book is over shortly afterwards.

This is also very clearly a short story that was stretched into a novel via clever formatting - it's double-spaced and has wiiiiiiide margins, like a college essay written at the last minute that needs to hit its page count. The book felt more like a fun writing exercise between two authors. Cool experiment, but ultimately I finished it feeling like there hadn't been enough there. ]]> 3.86 2019 This Is How You Lose the Time War
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/05/28
shelves:
review:
It was fine, I guess?

This is How You Lose the Time War is less of a novel and more of a series of episodic scenes. Our main characters are Red and Blue, two people (?) on opposite sides of a war where operatives travel back and forth in time, going to different "braids" and making or unmaking events that will effect the war the final battle that's coming. In the midst of all of this, Red and Blue are making their own moves, tracing each other's movements across time and leaving letters for the other to find. And of course, they're also being traced.

The prose is fantastic, although the letters specifically get a little too flowery at times (Blue even catches herself in one of the letters, admitting that her prose is getting too purple so she should end the letter. Baby, it's been purple this whole time!). Red and Blue, despite having almost no concrete character traits or descriptions, manage to seem like fully fleshed out characters, and their voices are distinct enough that the letters don't become monotonous.

I dunno, though. I think ultimately what made this just a three-star for me was how brief it was. I'm not saying I wanted a thousand-page epic, but at about 1/3 of the way into the book I found myself thinking, okay, I get what we're doing here, they're writing letters to each other and falling in love, now something else needs to happen. Something eventually does happen, but then the book is over shortly afterwards.

This is also very clearly a short story that was stretched into a novel via clever formatting - it's double-spaced and has wiiiiiiide margins, like a college essay written at the last minute that needs to hit its page count. The book felt more like a fun writing exercise between two authors. Cool experiment, but ultimately I finished it feeling like there hadn't been enough there.
]]> <![CDATA[There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension]]> 181346634
There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it's basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.]]> 334 Hanif Abdurraqib 0593448790 Madeline 4 essays They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us and A Little Devil in America I know basically nothing about basketball, and was worried that this specific book had been written for an audience that didn't include myself.

Obviously, I should never have doubted Abdurraqib's incredible talent and ability to make me cry over things I never would have imagined getting emotional about. I will admit that some knowledge of NBA history definitely helps during certain sections of this book, but rest assured, this is about a lot more than basketball. Among other things, this collection of interconnected essays is a kind of love letter to Abdurraqib's home state of Ohio, and in a larger sense, a gentle rebuttal to the idea that success means leaving the place where you grew up. (Oh, to be a fly on the wall and see what happens every time someone has ever suggested to Hanif Abdurraqib that he should really move to New York or LA).

There are a dozen excerpts that I wanted to quote, but this was the first lengthy passage I marked:

"Three days after Christmas in 2002, a white pair of kicks, clean enough to still be worn, swings from the telephone lines a few blocks outside of Value City Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Jordan 7s. White and blue. The pair that had just dropped two weeks earlier. If one looks long enough, the thin wires blend into the dark sky and the shoes emerge as though they are swinging from nothing, ornaments at the mercy of the clouds. There are a greater number of older white people than usual in this neighborhood today, a cluster of them walking ahead of of me, nervously trying to make sense out of the mythology of the sneakers swinging from phone lines, rattling through rumors they'd heard from their kids or things they'd read on the corners of the still-young internet. Drugs, they decided. People sell drugs here.
...I didn't know the kid who was shot a few blocks south of here on Christmas Eve. I knew he was younger than me, and he could hoop. I'd seen him at the park in my old neighborhood once or twice. Quick first step, never passed but could get to the rim anytime he wanted. The bullet that hit him wasn't meant for him, but the bullet doesn't apologize and isn't especially discerning. The bullet only knows what is in front of it. I don't trust people who don't love a place to understand how that place remembers its dead. The living who throw an item the dead once cherished toward heaven, wrap it around the highest wire. So high that it looks like the shoes are swinging from the sky itself. Like two legs are hanging down from the edge of a cloud."]]> 4.32 2024 There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
author: Hanif Abdurraqib
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/05/24
shelves: essays
review:
I was initially a little hesitant to seek this one out, because despite loving They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us and A Little Devil in America I know basically nothing about basketball, and was worried that this specific book had been written for an audience that didn't include myself.

Obviously, I should never have doubted Abdurraqib's incredible talent and ability to make me cry over things I never would have imagined getting emotional about. I will admit that some knowledge of NBA history definitely helps during certain sections of this book, but rest assured, this is about a lot more than basketball. Among other things, this collection of interconnected essays is a kind of love letter to Abdurraqib's home state of Ohio, and in a larger sense, a gentle rebuttal to the idea that success means leaving the place where you grew up. (Oh, to be a fly on the wall and see what happens every time someone has ever suggested to Hanif Abdurraqib that he should really move to New York or LA).

There are a dozen excerpts that I wanted to quote, but this was the first lengthy passage I marked:

"Three days after Christmas in 2002, a white pair of kicks, clean enough to still be worn, swings from the telephone lines a few blocks outside of Value City Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Jordan 7s. White and blue. The pair that had just dropped two weeks earlier. If one looks long enough, the thin wires blend into the dark sky and the shoes emerge as though they are swinging from nothing, ornaments at the mercy of the clouds. There are a greater number of older white people than usual in this neighborhood today, a cluster of them walking ahead of of me, nervously trying to make sense out of the mythology of the sneakers swinging from phone lines, rattling through rumors they'd heard from their kids or things they'd read on the corners of the still-young internet. Drugs, they decided. People sell drugs here.
...I didn't know the kid who was shot a few blocks south of here on Christmas Eve. I knew he was younger than me, and he could hoop. I'd seen him at the park in my old neighborhood once or twice. Quick first step, never passed but could get to the rim anytime he wanted. The bullet that hit him wasn't meant for him, but the bullet doesn't apologize and isn't especially discerning. The bullet only knows what is in front of it. I don't trust people who don't love a place to understand how that place remembers its dead. The living who throw an item the dead once cherished toward heaven, wrap it around the highest wire. So high that it looks like the shoes are swinging from the sky itself. Like two legs are hanging down from the edge of a cloud."
]]> Heartburn 225343
Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs" is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. "Heartburn" is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.]]> 179 Nora Ephron Madeline 4 So I told her why:
Because if I tell the story, I control the version.
Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.
Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much.
Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it."

I won't shelve this under "memoir" because this is, technically, fiction - but as everyone knows, Heartburn is a very (very) thinly veiled story about Nora Ephron's divorce from journalist Carl Bernstein. I only know the most basic cliff notes of that scandal, and it's been probably fifteen years since I saw When Harry Met Sally (which meant I couldn't identify the lines from this novel that were recycled for the movie script), so I was able to approach this as a novel without getting bogged down in figuring out which character was a stand-in for which real person.

This is a light, brief novel about the end of a marriage, and although the subject is, by nature, extremely tragic (the Ephron stand-in, Rachel, finds out her husband is having an affair when she's seven months pregnant) Ephron's narrative voice and sharp one-liners keep the book from getting too depressing. Plus, Rachel's character is a food writer, which means the novel is sprinkled with recipes that, apparently, will actually work (even though most of them are just brief paragraphs or even a few lines that read like they were dashed off quickly before Ephron could forget them).

It also helps that Rachel as a character is, honestly, kind of a pill - although she is very much the wronged party in the divorce, she's far from perfect, and her very human flaws meant that although I sympathized with her and understood her point of view, I also recognized that nobody in this story is the hero.

Her shitty ex-husband is definitely the villain, though.]]> 3.59 1983 Heartburn
author: Nora Ephron
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/01
date added: 2024/05/12
shelves:
review:
"Vera said: 'Why do you feel you have to turn everything into a story?'
So I told her why:
Because if I tell the story, I control the version.
Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.
Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much.
Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it."

I won't shelve this under "memoir" because this is, technically, fiction - but as everyone knows, Heartburn is a very (very) thinly veiled story about Nora Ephron's divorce from journalist Carl Bernstein. I only know the most basic cliff notes of that scandal, and it's been probably fifteen years since I saw When Harry Met Sally (which meant I couldn't identify the lines from this novel that were recycled for the movie script), so I was able to approach this as a novel without getting bogged down in figuring out which character was a stand-in for which real person.

This is a light, brief novel about the end of a marriage, and although the subject is, by nature, extremely tragic (the Ephron stand-in, Rachel, finds out her husband is having an affair when she's seven months pregnant) Ephron's narrative voice and sharp one-liners keep the book from getting too depressing. Plus, Rachel's character is a food writer, which means the novel is sprinkled with recipes that, apparently, will actually work (even though most of them are just brief paragraphs or even a few lines that read like they were dashed off quickly before Ephron could forget them).

It also helps that Rachel as a character is, honestly, kind of a pill - although she is very much the wronged party in the divorce, she's far from perfect, and her very human flaws meant that although I sympathized with her and understood her point of view, I also recognized that nobody in this story is the hero.

Her shitty ex-husband is definitely the villain, though.
]]> <![CDATA[The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]> 331 David Grann 0385534264 Madeline 4 history-nonfiction Wager. Packed so tightly onboard that they could barely move, they traveled through ice storms and earthquakes. More than fifty men died during the arduous journey, and by the time the few remnants reached Brazil three and a half months later, they had traversed nearly three thousand miles - one of the longest castaway voyages ever recorded. They were hailed for their ingenuity and bravery.
...Six months later, another boat washed ashore, this one landing in a blizzard off the southwestern coast of Chile."

This is one of those stories that has to be read to be believed. In 1740, the ship the Wager left England on a mission to intercept a Spanish treasure galleon. The ship, under the charge of a rookie captain, was trying to make the notoriously dangerous crossing around Cape Horn when it hit a storm and wrecked on a tiny deserted island. Two years later, a group of survivors made it to the coast of Brazil, and they were hailed as heroes who had overcome starvation and miraculously fought their way off the island and back to civilization. But a few months later, another boat of survivors showed up, and their version of events was even wilder: the first group of survivors were mutineers who had rebelled against their captain and deserted their fellow crewmen. The other group responded with their own charges, claiming that the captain's mistakes were the reason the ship wrecked in the first place, and that while stranded on the island, he had murdered a crewman.

This book is, obviously, not for the faint of heart or queasy of stomach. Like all accounts featuring starvation, the descriptions of what the sailors went through as they tried to survive on the island are visceral and vivid and disturbing, and the whole account is so unrelentingly hopeless and sad that it's sometimes overwhelming. There are no heroes in this book - all anyone can do is cling to life by their fingernails, and every single man who made it back civilization had to do horrifying things to make it there.

But what makes this book fascinating is how David Grann is telling us the story of the Wager and using it as an example of the ultimate hubris and stupidity of colonialism. The whole reason the British were sending warships after Spanish galleons was ultimately just a pissing contest between the two nations, and Britain's view of South America as a savage nation just waiting to be liberated from their own barbarism directly contributed to the Wager disaster - one of the most frustrating parts of this story comes when a group of locals show up at the island (sidebar: at this time, there was a Patagonian tribe that lived on canoes, to the extent where they would have shelters and lit fires onboard, and it was so cool) and try to help the survivors. This was a chance for the men to actually get off the island, or at the very least, learn some actual survival skills from people who had been living in these inhospitable conditions for generations. But what happened? Some of the sailors tried to rape the native women, and all the locals were like, lol fuck you guys then, and packed up their canoes and left. The mindset of the British sailors were actually incapable of believing that these "savages" could have anything to teach them, and this arrogance resulted in the preventable deaths of dozens.

I'll admit that I didn't love the ending of the book, because it felt extremely rushed - after chapters and chapters of reading about men sitting around a deserted island trying not to die, once the survivors make it back to England everything starts to move very fast, and you kind of get whiplash from it. Once England realized that there were two groups of survivors with conflicting narratives, the government decided that someone needed to be blamed for the Wager sinking, so they held a trial to determine who was at fault. Gann essentially speed-runs the trial, to the point where he's wrapping it up almost as soon as it starts, and who knows, maybe he was doing us a favor by not spending a lot of time on it, but it felt like he was suddenly in a hurry to be done with the book.]]> 4.14 2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
author: David Grann
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
"They had been shipwrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. Most of the officers and crew had perished, but eighty-one survivors had set out in a makeshift boat lashed together partly from the wreckage of the Wager. Packed so tightly onboard that they could barely move, they traveled through ice storms and earthquakes. More than fifty men died during the arduous journey, and by the time the few remnants reached Brazil three and a half months later, they had traversed nearly three thousand miles - one of the longest castaway voyages ever recorded. They were hailed for their ingenuity and bravery.
...Six months later, another boat washed ashore, this one landing in a blizzard off the southwestern coast of Chile."

This is one of those stories that has to be read to be believed. In 1740, the ship the Wager left England on a mission to intercept a Spanish treasure galleon. The ship, under the charge of a rookie captain, was trying to make the notoriously dangerous crossing around Cape Horn when it hit a storm and wrecked on a tiny deserted island. Two years later, a group of survivors made it to the coast of Brazil, and they were hailed as heroes who had overcome starvation and miraculously fought their way off the island and back to civilization. But a few months later, another boat of survivors showed up, and their version of events was even wilder: the first group of survivors were mutineers who had rebelled against their captain and deserted their fellow crewmen. The other group responded with their own charges, claiming that the captain's mistakes were the reason the ship wrecked in the first place, and that while stranded on the island, he had murdered a crewman.

This book is, obviously, not for the faint of heart or queasy of stomach. Like all accounts featuring starvation, the descriptions of what the sailors went through as they tried to survive on the island are visceral and vivid and disturbing, and the whole account is so unrelentingly hopeless and sad that it's sometimes overwhelming. There are no heroes in this book - all anyone can do is cling to life by their fingernails, and every single man who made it back civilization had to do horrifying things to make it there.

But what makes this book fascinating is how David Grann is telling us the story of the Wager and using it as an example of the ultimate hubris and stupidity of colonialism. The whole reason the British were sending warships after Spanish galleons was ultimately just a pissing contest between the two nations, and Britain's view of South America as a savage nation just waiting to be liberated from their own barbarism directly contributed to the Wager disaster - one of the most frustrating parts of this story comes when a group of locals show up at the island (sidebar: at this time, there was a Patagonian tribe that lived on canoes, to the extent where they would have shelters and lit fires onboard, and it was so cool) and try to help the survivors. This was a chance for the men to actually get off the island, or at the very least, learn some actual survival skills from people who had been living in these inhospitable conditions for generations. But what happened? Some of the sailors tried to rape the native women, and all the locals were like, lol fuck you guys then, and packed up their canoes and left. The mindset of the British sailors were actually incapable of believing that these "savages" could have anything to teach them, and this arrogance resulted in the preventable deaths of dozens.

I'll admit that I didn't love the ending of the book, because it felt extremely rushed - after chapters and chapters of reading about men sitting around a deserted island trying not to die, once the survivors make it back to England everything starts to move very fast, and you kind of get whiplash from it. Once England realized that there were two groups of survivors with conflicting narratives, the government decided that someone needed to be blamed for the Wager sinking, so they held a trial to determine who was at fault. Gann essentially speed-runs the trial, to the point where he's wrapping it up almost as soon as it starts, and who knows, maybe he was doing us a favor by not spending a lot of time on it, but it felt like he was suddenly in a hurry to be done with the book.
]]> The Pit and the Pendulum 206173 22 Edgar Allan Poe 1860920195 Madeline 3 the-list 3.94 1842 The Pit and the Pendulum
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1842
rating: 3
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2024/04/10
shelves: the-list
review:
Pretty cool, but I really don't understand how the managed to make a movie out of it. I'd go to the trouble of finding said movie and watching it to find out, but frankly I can't be bothered. The story is good enough for me.
]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)]]> 61294937 Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend.

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.]]> 483 Shannon Chakraborty Madeline 3 fantasy
Until one day...she's pulled back in for one last job.

This story had such a great setup - badass former pirate has to bring her crew back together for one last job, and goes on an adventure full of sea monsters, magic, backstabbing, and lots of be-gay-do-crimes fun for the whole family.

I loved the pirate angle, I loved the 12th century Middle Eastern setting, I loved the characters (even though Chakraborty does fall a little too frequently into the trap of annoyingly quippy dialogue)...but ultimately, this one never fully got off the ground, and I finished it feeling mostly let down.

The pacing is what really killed this novel for me. The adventure should move smoothly and gradually pick up speed as we get closer to the climax; instead, it lurches unevenly along, often slowing down or jerking to a complete stop just when we want Chakraborty to step on the gas. After the first big villain confrontation, Amina gets separated from her crew (and the plot) and has to spend entire chapters trying to get back to the main story. Without getting too spoiler-y, basically she's trapped on a magic island, and then a character is like, "there's a way you can leave, we just have to talk to the council first!" And all I could think was, no, I don't want to go talk to the council, I want to get back to the story, we are wasting time. It's extra frustrating because the whole Amina-talks-to-the-council nonsense was only so that Chakraborty could clumsily set up the sequels.

It can't be the book it wants to be. The jail break scene isn't clever enough, the battle sequences aren't cool enough, and Amina isn't the badass that Chakraborty tries to make her out to be. Amina is one of the protagonists who is constantly surrounded by characters who keep insisting to the reader that she's such a badass, she's so ruthless, she's so scary...and this absolves the protagonist from actually have to do anything ruthless or scary. There's no way around it: Amina al-Sirafi is nice, despite how hard Chakraborty tries to tell us otherwise, and it takes all the wind out of the book's sails.

This novel could and should have been a standalone, not the first in a sequel. As I said, the justification for next few books in the series is clumsy and is also spelled out so clearly that it made me even less interested in reading them, because Chakraborty basically lays out her plan for the next few books right in front of us, as if that's going to make us care. Also, the title The Last Adventure of Amina al-Sirafi was RIGHT THERE. Come on, Shannon!

Oh, speaking of which...I don't want to get too bogged down in this, but I feel like every review of this book should clarify that "SA Chakraborty" is a white woman. That's the name that Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ attaches to this book, but my edition has "Shannon Chakraborty" on the title page, so going by only your initial and your Middle-Eastern married name to sell your novel about a Middle Eastern protagonist is...a choice, that's all I'm going to say.

Look, like I said, I don't want to get bogged down in the ethics of this move, and I also think it's always dangerous territory when someone starts talking about how "so-and-so isn't allowed to write about this topic", but on the other hand, there's something very Yellowface about being a white woman who writes a book set in the Middle East, with a Middle Eastern protagonist and almost exclusively POC characters, and then publishing that book using a name that will lead readers to believe you are also a POC. Like, it's not deliberately lying, but considering that there's been such a huge push in the past few years to support non-Eurocentric fantasy written by POC, and people may have purchased Amina al-Sirafi thinking they were supporting one of these authors...I dunno. It feels gross. ]]> 4.25 2023 The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)
author: Shannon Chakraborty
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/04/02
shelves: fantasy
review:
Amina al-Sirafi was once one of the most notorious pirates of the 12th century, but is now retired and living in mostly-happy obscurity with her family. *movie trailer voice*

Until one day...she's pulled back in for one last job.

This story had such a great setup - badass former pirate has to bring her crew back together for one last job, and goes on an adventure full of sea monsters, magic, backstabbing, and lots of be-gay-do-crimes fun for the whole family.

I loved the pirate angle, I loved the 12th century Middle Eastern setting, I loved the characters (even though Chakraborty does fall a little too frequently into the trap of annoyingly quippy dialogue)...but ultimately, this one never fully got off the ground, and I finished it feeling mostly let down.

The pacing is what really killed this novel for me. The adventure should move smoothly and gradually pick up speed as we get closer to the climax; instead, it lurches unevenly along, often slowing down or jerking to a complete stop just when we want Chakraborty to step on the gas. After the first big villain confrontation, Amina gets separated from her crew (and the plot) and has to spend entire chapters trying to get back to the main story. Without getting too spoiler-y, basically she's trapped on a magic island, and then a character is like, "there's a way you can leave, we just have to talk to the council first!" And all I could think was, no, I don't want to go talk to the council, I want to get back to the story, we are wasting time. It's extra frustrating because the whole Amina-talks-to-the-council nonsense was only so that Chakraborty could clumsily set up the sequels.

It can't be the book it wants to be. The jail break scene isn't clever enough, the battle sequences aren't cool enough, and Amina isn't the badass that Chakraborty tries to make her out to be. Amina is one of the protagonists who is constantly surrounded by characters who keep insisting to the reader that she's such a badass, she's so ruthless, she's so scary...and this absolves the protagonist from actually have to do anything ruthless or scary. There's no way around it: Amina al-Sirafi is nice, despite how hard Chakraborty tries to tell us otherwise, and it takes all the wind out of the book's sails.

This novel could and should have been a standalone, not the first in a sequel. As I said, the justification for next few books in the series is clumsy and is also spelled out so clearly that it made me even less interested in reading them, because Chakraborty basically lays out her plan for the next few books right in front of us, as if that's going to make us care. Also, the title The Last Adventure of Amina al-Sirafi was RIGHT THERE. Come on, Shannon!

Oh, speaking of which...I don't want to get too bogged down in this, but I feel like every review of this book should clarify that "SA Chakraborty" is a white woman. That's the name that Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ attaches to this book, but my edition has "Shannon Chakraborty" on the title page, so going by only your initial and your Middle-Eastern married name to sell your novel about a Middle Eastern protagonist is...a choice, that's all I'm going to say.

Look, like I said, I don't want to get bogged down in the ethics of this move, and I also think it's always dangerous territory when someone starts talking about how "so-and-so isn't allowed to write about this topic", but on the other hand, there's something very Yellowface about being a white woman who writes a book set in the Middle East, with a Middle Eastern protagonist and almost exclusively POC characters, and then publishing that book using a name that will lead readers to believe you are also a POC. Like, it's not deliberately lying, but considering that there's been such a huge push in the past few years to support non-Eurocentric fantasy written by POC, and people may have purchased Amina al-Sirafi thinking they were supporting one of these authors...I dunno. It feels gross.
]]> Happy Place 61718053
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week� in front of those who know you best?

A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441273 Madeline 2 3.95 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/03/19
shelves:
review:
Around the fourth or fifth time I caught myself thinking, “Harriet, either get back together or cut him out of your life completely, just please pick one so we can move on� I realized that this is perhaps not the book for me.
]]> The It Girl 59345249
Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead.

Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide� including a murder.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One returns with an unputdownable mystery following a woman on the search for answers a decade after her friend’s murder.

]]> 423 Ruth Ware 1982155264 Madeline 2 crap-tastic know I don't like Ruth Ware's thrillers, so why did I read this? Because I needed something to read on the train to work and this was the first thing I saw on the "available now" section of my library's e-book section.

The plot of this book feels like someone got a bot to create a word cloud of the most popular BookTok terms ("dark academia", "true crime", "rich kids", "Oxford", etc) and then tried to make a story around them. Unsurprisingly, this is a poor strategy. ]]> 3.81 2022 The It Girl
author: Ruth Ware
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: crap-tastic
review:
Honestly, this one's on me. I know I don't like Ruth Ware's thrillers, so why did I read this? Because I needed something to read on the train to work and this was the first thing I saw on the "available now" section of my library's e-book section.

The plot of this book feels like someone got a bot to create a word cloud of the most popular BookTok terms ("dark academia", "true crime", "rich kids", "Oxford", etc) and then tried to make a story around them. Unsurprisingly, this is a poor strategy.
]]> How to Sell a Haunted House 59414094 Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.

When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…]]> 419 Grady Hendrix 0593201264 Madeline 3 The Final Girl Support Group) and was mostly underwhelmed by it, but I saw that How to Sell a Haunted House was getting consistently good reviews, so I decided to give Hendrix another shot.

This is a book that makes no pretensions about what it's trying to be. Sure, you could make an argument that it's an exploration of grief and what it's like to lose a parent, and the specific struggle of being an adult grappling with the aftermath of your parents' death and all the complications that come with that; and it's also a good exploration of childhood trauma and the imperfections of memory.

But this is first and foremost, and I cannot stress this enough, a book about an evil puppet.

Hendrix lays the foundation early, when we meet our protagonist Louise on her way home to Charleston after the sudden death of both parents in a car accident. Lest we think that this is just a random tragic accident to get the story moving, Hendrix drops some truly creepy details around their deaths - Louise's parents appeared to have left the house in a hurry, leaving behind her dad's cane. There's a hammer abandoned in the living room, and the attic door is nailed shut. This story is, on surface, about Louise trying to sell her parents' house, but learning quickly that the house doesn't want to be sold.

It's a great premise, and there are so many moments and setpieces in this book that are downright bone-chilling - Hendrix excels at creating a creepy and deeply unsettling atmosphere, and when he gets this haunted house story off the ground, he cranks things to eleven over and over.

But it's also frustratingly uneven: about halfway through the book, Louise leaves Charleston to fly back home to her daughter, and the momentum Hendrix had been slowly building up over the previous pages grinds to a screeching halt. This story has at least three separate climaxes, and it reads less like Hendrix continuously upping the ante on the previous confrontation and more like he couldn't decide which ending he liked best and just decided to use all of them. The novel often reads more like it was originally a screenplay that Hendrix couldn't sell so he decided to turn it into a book, and you can see the stitches on the uneven patch job he did.

It's a fun, scary ride (again: evil puppet) and I would definitely recommend this over The Final Girl Support Group, but How to Sell a Haunted House never manages to fully reach the heights it's striving for. ]]> 3.65 2023 How to Sell a Haunted House
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/01
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves:
review:
I had read one other Grady Hendrix book before this (The Final Girl Support Group) and was mostly underwhelmed by it, but I saw that How to Sell a Haunted House was getting consistently good reviews, so I decided to give Hendrix another shot.

This is a book that makes no pretensions about what it's trying to be. Sure, you could make an argument that it's an exploration of grief and what it's like to lose a parent, and the specific struggle of being an adult grappling with the aftermath of your parents' death and all the complications that come with that; and it's also a good exploration of childhood trauma and the imperfections of memory.

But this is first and foremost, and I cannot stress this enough, a book about an evil puppet.

Hendrix lays the foundation early, when we meet our protagonist Louise on her way home to Charleston after the sudden death of both parents in a car accident. Lest we think that this is just a random tragic accident to get the story moving, Hendrix drops some truly creepy details around their deaths - Louise's parents appeared to have left the house in a hurry, leaving behind her dad's cane. There's a hammer abandoned in the living room, and the attic door is nailed shut. This story is, on surface, about Louise trying to sell her parents' house, but learning quickly that the house doesn't want to be sold.

It's a great premise, and there are so many moments and setpieces in this book that are downright bone-chilling - Hendrix excels at creating a creepy and deeply unsettling atmosphere, and when he gets this haunted house story off the ground, he cranks things to eleven over and over.

But it's also frustratingly uneven: about halfway through the book, Louise leaves Charleston to fly back home to her daughter, and the momentum Hendrix had been slowly building up over the previous pages grinds to a screeching halt. This story has at least three separate climaxes, and it reads less like Hendrix continuously upping the ante on the previous confrontation and more like he couldn't decide which ending he liked best and just decided to use all of them. The novel often reads more like it was originally a screenplay that Hendrix couldn't sell so he decided to turn it into a book, and you can see the stitches on the uneven patch job he did.

It's a fun, scary ride (again: evil puppet) and I would definitely recommend this over The Final Girl Support Group, but How to Sell a Haunted House never manages to fully reach the heights it's striving for.
]]> The Woman in Me 63133205 The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.]]> 288 Britney Spears 1668009048 Madeline 3 memoir short it is. I remember picking it up from the library (after a two-month wait list, thank you very much!) and feeling an immediate sense of deflation when I saw how thin it was. Now, having read the entire thing, I can actually appreciate how brief it is and why it's actually a good thing we didn't get a 500-page brick (we'll get there), but it was still kind of a letdown to dive in knowing that we were here for a good time, not a long time.

This book starts out slow, as Spears takes us through her rocky childhood and early days as a child in show business (I said it in my review of I'm Glad My Mom Died and I'll say it again: all stage parents should be in prison), and this was the point where I started to get frustrated with Spears. I genuinely believe that she didn't use a ghostwriter and this memoir is 100% her words, and I do not mean that as a compliment. Her narrative voice is lifeless and monotone as she describes her ascent to super-stardom, and the first half of this book is a just a dull litany of "and then I got signed to this record label. Then we went to the studio and recorded 'Hit Me Baby One More Time.'" I found myself wishing that Spears had been able to do a better job of making the reader feel like they were experiencing these things alongside her - I was constantly saying to the pages, "But what was that like, Britney? Stop just telling me that stuff happened and describe it!"

This excerpt gives you an idea of the kind of writer Spears is, and I think it perfectly illustrates what I found so frustrating about the memoir:

"To get my confidence back, in September 2002 I went to Milan to visit Donatella Versace. That trip invigorated me - it reminded me that there was still fun to be had in the world. We drank amazing wine and ate amazing food. Donatella was a dynamic host. I was hoping things would turn around a little bit from that point.
She had invited me to Italy to attend one of her runway shows. Donatella dressed me in a beautiful sparkly rainbow dress. I was supposed to sing but I really didn't feel like it, so after I did a little bit of posing, Donatella said we could take it easy. She played my cover of Joan Jett's 'I Love Rock n' Roll,' I said hi to the models, and we were done."

Thrilling.

But then, shortly after this excerpt, Spears meets and marries Kevin Federline, and her life becomes a living hell.

Once Spears is placed under a conservatorship and finds every aspect of her life and her finances controlled by her abusive, alcoholic, absentee father, this memoir turns into a Gothic horror novel. What happened to Britney Spears during the thirteen-year period when she was under her father's control is nothing short of criminal. Her father should be in prison. Kevin Federline should be in hell. (And don't think we forgot about you, Justin - eat shit and die, you sad, pathetic little man)

This was the point in the book that I realized it was actually a blessing that it wasn't longer. The things Britney Spears was forced to endure during her conservatorship - including financial abuse, separation from her children, and being institutionalized against her will - are almost too much for the reader to bear, and it's almost a kindness that Spears doesn't get into all the gory details of her years of abuse. And maybe this also explains why the first half of the memoir is so vague and unsatisfying: Spears only recently regained control of her own life, and is still doing the work of healing from decades of trauma. It's entirely possible that the reason the early years of her career are presented in a kind of fog is because that's actually how Spears remembers them - any emotional insight from this period is lost in a haze of trauma.

By itself, this is not a good memoir, but it's important to view it in the larger context of everything Britney Spears has endured: she's a free woman after over a decade of virtual (and sometimes literal) imprisonment, and the trauma is too recent and too raw for her to be able to give a coherent or satisfying account of her own life. The fact that this memoir was written at all is a miracle in itself. ]]> 3.83 2023 The Woman in Me
author: Britney Spears
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/01
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: memoir
review:
The first disappointment I had with this memoir was how short it is. I remember picking it up from the library (after a two-month wait list, thank you very much!) and feeling an immediate sense of deflation when I saw how thin it was. Now, having read the entire thing, I can actually appreciate how brief it is and why it's actually a good thing we didn't get a 500-page brick (we'll get there), but it was still kind of a letdown to dive in knowing that we were here for a good time, not a long time.

This book starts out slow, as Spears takes us through her rocky childhood and early days as a child in show business (I said it in my review of I'm Glad My Mom Died and I'll say it again: all stage parents should be in prison), and this was the point where I started to get frustrated with Spears. I genuinely believe that she didn't use a ghostwriter and this memoir is 100% her words, and I do not mean that as a compliment. Her narrative voice is lifeless and monotone as she describes her ascent to super-stardom, and the first half of this book is a just a dull litany of "and then I got signed to this record label. Then we went to the studio and recorded 'Hit Me Baby One More Time.'" I found myself wishing that Spears had been able to do a better job of making the reader feel like they were experiencing these things alongside her - I was constantly saying to the pages, "But what was that like, Britney? Stop just telling me that stuff happened and describe it!"

This excerpt gives you an idea of the kind of writer Spears is, and I think it perfectly illustrates what I found so frustrating about the memoir:

"To get my confidence back, in September 2002 I went to Milan to visit Donatella Versace. That trip invigorated me - it reminded me that there was still fun to be had in the world. We drank amazing wine and ate amazing food. Donatella was a dynamic host. I was hoping things would turn around a little bit from that point.
She had invited me to Italy to attend one of her runway shows. Donatella dressed me in a beautiful sparkly rainbow dress. I was supposed to sing but I really didn't feel like it, so after I did a little bit of posing, Donatella said we could take it easy. She played my cover of Joan Jett's 'I Love Rock n' Roll,' I said hi to the models, and we were done."

Thrilling.

But then, shortly after this excerpt, Spears meets and marries Kevin Federline, and her life becomes a living hell.

Once Spears is placed under a conservatorship and finds every aspect of her life and her finances controlled by her abusive, alcoholic, absentee father, this memoir turns into a Gothic horror novel. What happened to Britney Spears during the thirteen-year period when she was under her father's control is nothing short of criminal. Her father should be in prison. Kevin Federline should be in hell. (And don't think we forgot about you, Justin - eat shit and die, you sad, pathetic little man)

This was the point in the book that I realized it was actually a blessing that it wasn't longer. The things Britney Spears was forced to endure during her conservatorship - including financial abuse, separation from her children, and being institutionalized against her will - are almost too much for the reader to bear, and it's almost a kindness that Spears doesn't get into all the gory details of her years of abuse. And maybe this also explains why the first half of the memoir is so vague and unsatisfying: Spears only recently regained control of her own life, and is still doing the work of healing from decades of trauma. It's entirely possible that the reason the early years of her career are presented in a kind of fog is because that's actually how Spears remembers them - any emotional insight from this period is lost in a haze of trauma.

By itself, this is not a good memoir, but it's important to view it in the larger context of everything Britney Spears has endured: she's a free woman after over a decade of virtual (and sometimes literal) imprisonment, and the trauma is too recent and too raw for her to be able to give a coherent or satisfying account of her own life. The fact that this memoir was written at all is a miracle in itself.
]]> Lady Chatterley's Lover 49583709
With her soft brown hair, lithe figure and big, wondering eyes, Constance Chatterley is possessed of a certain vitality. Yet she is deeply unhappy; married to an invalid, she is almost as inwardly paralyzed as her husband Clifford is paralyzed below the waist. It is not until she finds refuge in the arms of Mellors the game-keeper, a solitary man of a class apart, that she feels regenerated. Together they move from an outer world of chaos towards an inner world of fulfillment.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700Ěýtitles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theĚýseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-dateĚýtranslations by award-winning translators.]]> 400 D.H. Lawrence 014303961X Madeline 1 the-list, ugh scandalous) but all the stuff in between is, for the most part, ungodly boring. The book gets points for having some very intellectual discussions of class and the differences between men and women, and Lawrence's characters talk about sex with more honesty than any other book I've ever read, but that's about all it has going for it. I was about fifty pages into the book when I realized that I really didn't like either of the title characters (Lady Chatterley and her Lovah), and it didn't get much better from there. Mellors started to grow on me towards the end, when he discovered sarcasm, but Lady Chatterley (aka Connie) was one of the most boring protagonists ever. She was almost completely personality-deficient, and Lawrence worked hard at the beginning to convince us that she was intelligent, a task at which he fails miserably. Example? At one point in the book, when Connie and Mellors have just finished having hot sex and are in bed together, he starts a rant about the class system. Connie's response? She observes that Mellors' chest hair and pubic hair are different colors.
Fascinating.

Basically, the book can be summed up like this: Blah blah SEX blah blah class blah SEX SEX blah blah class England's economy SEX SEX SEX SCANDAL arguement arguement SCANDAL Vacation time! blah blah blah SEX arguement SCANDAL blah blah the end.]]> 3.48 1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1928
rating: 1
read at: 2009/01/01
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: the-list, ugh
review:
I honestly think that if this book hadn't been banned for obscene content, no one would have ever read it. Yes, there are lots of sex scenes (omg scandalous) but all the stuff in between is, for the most part, ungodly boring. The book gets points for having some very intellectual discussions of class and the differences between men and women, and Lawrence's characters talk about sex with more honesty than any other book I've ever read, but that's about all it has going for it. I was about fifty pages into the book when I realized that I really didn't like either of the title characters (Lady Chatterley and her Lovah), and it didn't get much better from there. Mellors started to grow on me towards the end, when he discovered sarcasm, but Lady Chatterley (aka Connie) was one of the most boring protagonists ever. She was almost completely personality-deficient, and Lawrence worked hard at the beginning to convince us that she was intelligent, a task at which he fails miserably. Example? At one point in the book, when Connie and Mellors have just finished having hot sex and are in bed together, he starts a rant about the class system. Connie's response? She observes that Mellors' chest hair and pubic hair are different colors.
Fascinating.

Basically, the book can be summed up like this: Blah blah SEX blah blah class blah SEX SEX blah blah class England's economy SEX SEX SEX SCANDAL arguement arguement SCANDAL Vacation time! blah blah blah SEX arguement SCANDAL blah blah the end.
]]> <![CDATA[Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship]]> 23164968 A thrilling new adventure of danger and deep-sea diving, historic mystery and suspense, by the author of the New York Times bestseller Shadow Divers

Finding and identifying a pirate ship is the hardest thing to do under the sea. But two men—John Chatterton and John Mattera—are willing to risk everything to find the Golden Fleece, the ship of the infamous pirate Joseph Bannister. At large during the Golden Age of Piracy in the seventeenth century, Bannister’s exploits would have been more notorious than Blackbeard’s, more daring than Kidd’s, but his story, and his ship, have been lost to time. If Chatterton and Mattera succeed, they will make history—it will be just the second time ever that a pirate ship has been discovered and positively identified. Soon, however, they realize that cutting-edge technology and a willingness to lose everything aren’t enough to track down Bannister’s ship. They must travel the globe in search of historic documents and accounts of the great pirate’s exploits, face down dangerous rivals, battle the tides of nations and governments and experts. But it’s only when they learn to think and act like pirates—like Bannister—that they become able to go where no pirate hunters have gone before.

Fast-paced and filled with suspense, fascinating characters, history, and adventure, Pirate Hunters is an unputdownable story that goes deep to discover truths and souls long believed lost.

Advance praise for Pirate Hunters

“A great thriller full of tough guys and long odds . . . and: It’s all true.�—Lee Child

“Action and adventure on land and sea—you can’t ask for more. But Robert Kurson raises the ante in Pirate Hunters with an array of mystery and a fleet of colorful characters spanning four centuries. This is a great summer read!�—Michael Connelly

�Pirate Hunters is a fantastic book, an utterly engrossing and satisfying read. It tells the story of the hunt for the rare wreck of a pirate ship, which had been captained by one of the most remarkable pirates in history. This is a real-life Treasure Island, complete with swashbuckling, half-crazy treasure hunters and vivid Caribbean settings—a story for the ages.�—Douglas Preston

“A terrific read. I was pulled in from page one. Kurson brings us face to face with some of the most swashbuckling pirates ever to sail the Caribbean, even as he takes us underwater on a high-tech quest to discover the relics they left behind.�—Daniel James Brown

“There’s nothing in the world like buried treasure—and people hungry and obsessed enough to risk their lives for it. Pirate Hunters isn’t just a good story—it’s a true one. Searching for the souls of its explorers, it takes you to the far tip of the plank and plunges you deep to the bottom of the ocean.�—Brad Meltzer

�Pirate Hunters is a gripping account of two courageous divers� quest to uncover the shipwrecked vessel of Joseph Bannister, one of history’s most infamous pirates. Robert Kurson will keep you on the edge of your seat in this high-stakes journey around the globe that ultimately teaches these explorers about much more than an old ship.�—Sen. John McCain

“Kurson’s own enthusiasm, combined with his copious research and an eye for detail, makes for one of the most mind-blowing pirate stories of recent memory.��Publishers Weekly ]]> 275 Robert Kurson 1400063361 Madeline 4 history-nonfiction
Pirate Hunters is a nonfiction account of a decades-long search by two treasure hunters, John Chatterton and John Mattera, to find the wreck of the Golden Fleece. The ship belonged to a pirate named Joseph Bannister - although his name isn't common knowledge today, he was one of the most infamous figures of the Golden Age of Piracy, up there with Edward Teach and Henry Morgan.

The biggest hurdle this book has to overcome is the sobering reality that, when you really get down to it, treasure hunting is kind of...boring. Sure, the stories about Bannister are fascinating, and yes, the salvage operation was based in a dangerous part of Central America, but the fact is that the majority of this treasure hunt involved hours of research, and then even longer hours of painstakingly scanning the ocean floor for signs of a sunken ship. This operation took years, even after the men identified an area where they were almost positive the wreck could be found. There are multiple times when the operation drags or sometimes stops completely, and so does the narrative.

And yet, this is still a fascinating and detailed look into the search for, and discovery of, one of two verified sunken pirate ships in the world. Ultimately, it wasn't even really about the treasure (although, of course, there was treasure) - this is about the search for one of the lost legends of piracy, and filling in a piece of history that has been hidden for centuries.

]]> 3.99 2015 Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship
author: Robert Kurson
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/01
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
"Treasure shows you who you really are. It strips away every facade you've constructed, every story you believe about yourself, and reveals the real you. If you are a miserable, lying, greedy, worthless fuck, treasure will tell you that. If you are a good and decent person, treasure will tell you that, too. And you needn't find a single coin to know. It's enough to get close to treasure, to believe it within reach, and you'll have your answer, but once it happens it can't be lied about and it can't be bullshitted away. For that reason, treasure is crisis, because what you get in the end is yourself."

Pirate Hunters is a nonfiction account of a decades-long search by two treasure hunters, John Chatterton and John Mattera, to find the wreck of the Golden Fleece. The ship belonged to a pirate named Joseph Bannister - although his name isn't common knowledge today, he was one of the most infamous figures of the Golden Age of Piracy, up there with Edward Teach and Henry Morgan.

The biggest hurdle this book has to overcome is the sobering reality that, when you really get down to it, treasure hunting is kind of...boring. Sure, the stories about Bannister are fascinating, and yes, the salvage operation was based in a dangerous part of Central America, but the fact is that the majority of this treasure hunt involved hours of research, and then even longer hours of painstakingly scanning the ocean floor for signs of a sunken ship. This operation took years, even after the men identified an area where they were almost positive the wreck could be found. There are multiple times when the operation drags or sometimes stops completely, and so does the narrative.

And yet, this is still a fascinating and detailed look into the search for, and discovery of, one of two verified sunken pirate ships in the world. Ultimately, it wasn't even really about the treasure (although, of course, there was treasure) - this is about the search for one of the lost legends of piracy, and filling in a piece of history that has been hidden for centuries.


]]> <![CDATA[The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil]]> 59089872
“Never again� became Queen Elizabeth II’s mantra shortly after Princess Diana’s tragic death. More specif­ically, there could never be “another Diana”—a mem­ber of the family whose global popularity upstaged, outshone, and posed an existential threat to the Brit­ish monarchy.

Picking up where Tina Brown’s masterful The Diana Chronicles left off, The Palace Papers reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the trau­matic years when Diana’s blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet.

Brown takes readers on a tour de force journey through the scandals, love affairs, power plays, and betrayals that have buffeted the monarchy over the last twenty-five years. We see the Queen’s stoic re­solve after the passing of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother, and Prince Philip, her partner for seven decades, and how she triumphs in her Jubilee years even as family troubles rage around her. Brown explores Prince Charles’s determination to make Camilla Parker Bowles his wife, the tension between William and Harry on “different paths,� the ascend­ance of Kate Middleton, the downfall of Prince An­drew, and Harry and Meghan’s stunning decision to step back as senior royals. Despite the fragile monar­chy’s best efforts, “never again� seems fast approaching.

Tina Brown has been observing and chronicling the British monarchy for three decades, and her sweeping account is full of powerful revelations, newly reported details, and searing insight gleaned from remarkable access to royal insiders. Stylish, witty, and erudite, The Palace Papers will irrevoca­bly change how the world perceives and under­stands the royal family.]]> 571 Tina Brown 0593138090 Madeline 4 The Palace Papers still functions as a great companion book - and almost a preemptive rebuttal - to Spare. Where Spare was an open wound of a memoir,with very little sense of perspective and almost no introspection, Brown's book at least examines the monarchy and its dramas from a healthy distance - not that it doesn't have its own agenda, of course.

Tina Brown is the daughter of a wealthy British movie producer, was married to a member of the aristocracy, and has been in media since her early twenties. She's unapologetically pro-royal and also takes serious umbrage against any suggestion that the incessant paparazzi hounding might be why being a royal in the 21st century is such a miserable experience. (Seriously - she uses the fact that Diana would call in tips to the paps about where she would be at a given time as evidence that her relationship with the press wasn't all negative, and it has apparently not occurred to Brown that cooperating with the tabloids might have been a survival tactic that ultimately backfired horribly on Diana)

But overall, Tina Brown has presented us with a clear-eyed and (mostly) fair assessment of the Windsors as they stand today. The book begins with Diana's death in 1997 and ends with Harry and Meghan officially leaving the royal family in 2021, and explores how there is a direct line between those two events.

She doesn't shy away from the ugliness at the core of this story, whether it's Prince Andrew the pedophile (who was protected by his mother and his royal status, and to this day the closest thing he experienced to a consequence was losing his military titles) or the constant media harassment suffered by anyone who chooses to become romantically involved with a royal. Brown's assessment of Harry and Meghan's romance in particular is so cold-blooded that it becomes almost funny: she presents them as two well-meaning dummies who, by thinking they could leave the royal family and still enjoy the same level of fame and influence, vastly overestimated their own charisma and competence. (Her take on Meghan's complaints about how she was treated once she got engaged to Harry is classic Posh British Monster: "Darling, you thought you could marry a prince and you'd still be allowed to be a person? You're royal now, you don't get to be people! Didn't anyone tell you?"

The fatal flaw of The Palace Papers is that it rests on a thesis that, as far as Tina Brown is concerned, is unquestionably correct: that the British monarchy is Good and Necessary. Brown's whole attitude of "why would you want to change anything, this is the way it's always been done" cannot comprehend the idea of someone looking at the current system and refusing to play along.

Maybe Meghan really was the diva portrayed in Brown's book, who (horror!) actually dared to demand final say in her own wedding, and didn't think it was fair to exchange a relationship with Harry for a lifetime of media harassment (which, Brown briefly acknowledges, was maybe a teensy bit worse than what Kate and Camilla went through thanks to the racism element). So yeah, maybe she wasn't prepared for what a life with Harry would actually mean, and maybe she was naive to think that she could do things differently. Or maybe she was a thirty-five year old woman who had spent the majority of her acting career playing demeaning roles like Hot Waitress or Gameshow Girl and was dismayed to learn that even after she became a goddamn duchess, there were still people telling her "wear this, stand here, follow this script, and SMILE."

(Edith Wharton tried to warn you, Meghan: being a duchess sucks ass)

The book was written, as I said, before Elizabeth II died, and Brown spends her conclusion speculating on the state of the monarchy once Charles finally gets his mitts on that crown, and she genuinely seems to believe that he can turn this ship around. (Oh, see, he's super passionate about environmental conservation, so he's a good egg, really!) What happened to Diana and Meghan (and to a lesser degree, Kate and Camilla) was, as far as Brown is concerned, just unfortunate accidents. Even as she spends hundreds of pages documenting decades of scandals, cruelties, and tragedies, she refuses to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, the monarchy can't be fixed because it's actually working exactly as it was designed.]]> 3.91 2022 The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil
author: Tina Brown
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2024/01/31
shelves:
review:
In many ways, it's a real "ships passing in the night" tragedy that Tina Brown's scandal sheet on the British royal family had the misfortune to be published a couple of years before Harry's own memoir. I wish we could have gotten Brown's take on Harry's book, but The Palace Papers still functions as a great companion book - and almost a preemptive rebuttal - to Spare. Where Spare was an open wound of a memoir,with very little sense of perspective and almost no introspection, Brown's book at least examines the monarchy and its dramas from a healthy distance - not that it doesn't have its own agenda, of course.

Tina Brown is the daughter of a wealthy British movie producer, was married to a member of the aristocracy, and has been in media since her early twenties. She's unapologetically pro-royal and also takes serious umbrage against any suggestion that the incessant paparazzi hounding might be why being a royal in the 21st century is such a miserable experience. (Seriously - she uses the fact that Diana would call in tips to the paps about where she would be at a given time as evidence that her relationship with the press wasn't all negative, and it has apparently not occurred to Brown that cooperating with the tabloids might have been a survival tactic that ultimately backfired horribly on Diana)

But overall, Tina Brown has presented us with a clear-eyed and (mostly) fair assessment of the Windsors as they stand today. The book begins with Diana's death in 1997 and ends with Harry and Meghan officially leaving the royal family in 2021, and explores how there is a direct line between those two events.

She doesn't shy away from the ugliness at the core of this story, whether it's Prince Andrew the pedophile (who was protected by his mother and his royal status, and to this day the closest thing he experienced to a consequence was losing his military titles) or the constant media harassment suffered by anyone who chooses to become romantically involved with a royal. Brown's assessment of Harry and Meghan's romance in particular is so cold-blooded that it becomes almost funny: she presents them as two well-meaning dummies who, by thinking they could leave the royal family and still enjoy the same level of fame and influence, vastly overestimated their own charisma and competence. (Her take on Meghan's complaints about how she was treated once she got engaged to Harry is classic Posh British Monster: "Darling, you thought you could marry a prince and you'd still be allowed to be a person? You're royal now, you don't get to be people! Didn't anyone tell you?"

The fatal flaw of The Palace Papers is that it rests on a thesis that, as far as Tina Brown is concerned, is unquestionably correct: that the British monarchy is Good and Necessary. Brown's whole attitude of "why would you want to change anything, this is the way it's always been done" cannot comprehend the idea of someone looking at the current system and refusing to play along.

Maybe Meghan really was the diva portrayed in Brown's book, who (horror!) actually dared to demand final say in her own wedding, and didn't think it was fair to exchange a relationship with Harry for a lifetime of media harassment (which, Brown briefly acknowledges, was maybe a teensy bit worse than what Kate and Camilla went through thanks to the racism element). So yeah, maybe she wasn't prepared for what a life with Harry would actually mean, and maybe she was naive to think that she could do things differently. Or maybe she was a thirty-five year old woman who had spent the majority of her acting career playing demeaning roles like Hot Waitress or Gameshow Girl and was dismayed to learn that even after she became a goddamn duchess, there were still people telling her "wear this, stand here, follow this script, and SMILE."

(Edith Wharton tried to warn you, Meghan: being a duchess sucks ass)

The book was written, as I said, before Elizabeth II died, and Brown spends her conclusion speculating on the state of the monarchy once Charles finally gets his mitts on that crown, and she genuinely seems to believe that he can turn this ship around. (Oh, see, he's super passionate about environmental conservation, so he's a good egg, really!) What happened to Diana and Meghan (and to a lesser degree, Kate and Camilla) was, as far as Brown is concerned, just unfortunate accidents. Even as she spends hundreds of pages documenting decades of scandals, cruelties, and tragedies, she refuses to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, the monarchy can't be fixed because it's actually working exactly as it was designed.
]]> The Stolen Coast 63249845 Adrift in a sleepy coastal Massachusetts town, a man who ferries fugitives by day gets twisted up in a plot to pilfer diamonds in this Casablanca-infused heist novel.

Jack might be a polished, Harvard-educated lawyer on paper, but everyone in the down-at-the-heels, if picturesque, village of Onset, Massachusetts, knows his real job: moving people on the run from powerful enemies. The family business--co-managed with his father, a retired spy--is smooth sailing, as they fill up Onset's holiday homes during the town's long, drowsy off-season and help clients shed their identities in preparation for fresh starts.

But when Elena, Jack's former flame--a dedicated hustler who's no stranger to the fugitive life--makes an unexpected return to town, her arrival upends Jack's routine existence. Elena, after all, doesn't go anywhere without a scheme in mind, and it isn't long before Jack finds himself enmeshed in her latest project: intercepting millions of dollars' worth of raw diamonds before they're shipped overseas.

Infusing a fast-paced plot with sharp wit and stylish prose, CrimeReads editor-in-chief Dwyer Murphy serves up an irresistible page-turner as full of heart as it is of drama.]]> 288 Dwyer Murphy 059365367X Madeline 5
If you are an enjoyer of trendy thrillers by people like Ruth Ware or Paula Hawkins (I am not, which you can tell by the fact that Ware and Hawkins are the only authors I can pull out as examples), where the whole point of the book more about piling twist on top of twist, often at the expense of the narrative (like I said: not a fan), then The Stolen Coast will not be your jam. But also, this is not one of those insufferably highbrow crime stories that refuses to give the reader a satisfying conclusion because It'S mOrE rEaLiStIc ThIs WaY. The Stolen Coast is concerned with its characters and its setting first and foremost, and even though there are some twists along the way and Murphy definitely leaves some things up to reader interpretation, this is an exciting crime story that leaves you with most of the answers, but just enough lingering questions to give you something to think about.

What made this book a five-star for me was the atmosphere of it all - Dwyer Murphy is doing a very good detective noir homage, where the influences are clear but it's not a full-on parody. Sure, we have modern day characters who speak like nobody you've ever met in your life, but if you can get on board with this dialogue, you're probably going to have a good time:

"Look, I didn't ask to work at a firm with a guy like Paulson. I didn't ask for him to be bent. It turns out, they all are. Maybe I knew it from the beginning. I could smell it on them. All of them. They're bent so far, they're turned around straight again. That's the law. They get their names on libraries when they're done, and in the meantime, they gorge on dinners on somebody else's dime, and when the bill comes due nobody quibbles. Clients pay it happily. Everyone's in on it. What kind of life is that? I'm supposed to just live it for fifty years without any chance of getting caught? I need something more than that. I need skin in the game. I thought you understood all that."

I mean...how is that not fun?!

Like I said earlier, what really sold this book for me is the atmosphere of it all. It's one thing to write a diamond-heist adventure story set in a small vacation town in Cape Cod; but Dwyer Murphy captures something about his setting that's so quietly menacing and rich and mysterious, and I could read about him describing weird tiny East Coast towns forever:

"In West Virginia, there's an area emanating from the Green Bank River and into the hills of the Monongahela National Forest where cell phone service falls away and devices that emit electromagnetic waves are severely restricted to keep from interfering with federally operated astronomical observatories. The telescopes are high up in the hills, out of sight. A lot of odd types move there to escape from modern technology and from other people. There are even churches catering to the influx of digital refugees, as well as the people who have come up with more eccentric theories about what the government is doing behind the fences. The area is thickly wooded. The air breathes so clean and pure you get a vague sense of euphoria while traveling the roads up and down the hills. There are a few inns and hiking lodges. They take walk-ins because the reservation systems are unreliable. The towns and camper parks are filled with people who are on the run from one thing or another. You might think that would make it a target for industrious law enforcement but that would be overestimating law enforcement. The arrest rates were notoriously low. There were always jurisdictional questions between county and federal forces, and mostly the cops just left everybody alone and tried to avoid the lawsuits that would have inevitably followed if they had tried taking their phones, radios, or, God forbid, Taser guns into one of those communities."]]> 2.93 2023 The Stolen Coast
author: Dwyer Murphy
name: Madeline
average rating: 2.93
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/01/23
shelves:
review:
Reviews of this one are pretty split among the Loved It and Hated It camps, which honestly I understand! I think the key to enjoying this book - which clocks in at a mere 279 pages and, if you're anything like me, you'll want to savor over several days instead of ripping straight through - is knowing what you're going to get.

If you are an enjoyer of trendy thrillers by people like Ruth Ware or Paula Hawkins (I am not, which you can tell by the fact that Ware and Hawkins are the only authors I can pull out as examples), where the whole point of the book more about piling twist on top of twist, often at the expense of the narrative (like I said: not a fan), then The Stolen Coast will not be your jam. But also, this is not one of those insufferably highbrow crime stories that refuses to give the reader a satisfying conclusion because It'S mOrE rEaLiStIc ThIs WaY. The Stolen Coast is concerned with its characters and its setting first and foremost, and even though there are some twists along the way and Murphy definitely leaves some things up to reader interpretation, this is an exciting crime story that leaves you with most of the answers, but just enough lingering questions to give you something to think about.

What made this book a five-star for me was the atmosphere of it all - Dwyer Murphy is doing a very good detective noir homage, where the influences are clear but it's not a full-on parody. Sure, we have modern day characters who speak like nobody you've ever met in your life, but if you can get on board with this dialogue, you're probably going to have a good time:

"Look, I didn't ask to work at a firm with a guy like Paulson. I didn't ask for him to be bent. It turns out, they all are. Maybe I knew it from the beginning. I could smell it on them. All of them. They're bent so far, they're turned around straight again. That's the law. They get their names on libraries when they're done, and in the meantime, they gorge on dinners on somebody else's dime, and when the bill comes due nobody quibbles. Clients pay it happily. Everyone's in on it. What kind of life is that? I'm supposed to just live it for fifty years without any chance of getting caught? I need something more than that. I need skin in the game. I thought you understood all that."

I mean...how is that not fun?!

Like I said earlier, what really sold this book for me is the atmosphere of it all. It's one thing to write a diamond-heist adventure story set in a small vacation town in Cape Cod; but Dwyer Murphy captures something about his setting that's so quietly menacing and rich and mysterious, and I could read about him describing weird tiny East Coast towns forever:

"In West Virginia, there's an area emanating from the Green Bank River and into the hills of the Monongahela National Forest where cell phone service falls away and devices that emit electromagnetic waves are severely restricted to keep from interfering with federally operated astronomical observatories. The telescopes are high up in the hills, out of sight. A lot of odd types move there to escape from modern technology and from other people. There are even churches catering to the influx of digital refugees, as well as the people who have come up with more eccentric theories about what the government is doing behind the fences. The area is thickly wooded. The air breathes so clean and pure you get a vague sense of euphoria while traveling the roads up and down the hills. There are a few inns and hiking lodges. They take walk-ins because the reservation systems are unreliable. The towns and camper parks are filled with people who are on the run from one thing or another. You might think that would make it a target for industrious law enforcement but that would be overestimating law enforcement. The arrest rates were notoriously low. There were always jurisdictional questions between county and federal forces, and mostly the cops just left everybody alone and tried to avoid the lawsuits that would have inevitably followed if they had tried taking their phones, radios, or, God forbid, Taser guns into one of those communities."
]]> The Princess Diarist 26025989 The last book from beloved Hollywood icon Carrie Fisher, The Princess Diarist is an intimate, hilarious, and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie.

When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved--plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Before her passing, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon was indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher's intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time--and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into one of Hollywood's most beloved stars.]]> 257 Carrie Fisher 0399173595 Madeline 2 memoir Wishful Drinking or Shockaholic or any of her other nonfiction, you'd be less bothered by how many things The Princess Diarist is not about.

The memoir is advertised as a true, in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to film one of the biggest movie franchises in history. And, sure, Fisher talks about the filming process, but the most detailed section is about her audition process. I wanted a true, detailed account of the filming that went into the technical details and what the work actually involved; instead, Fisher gives us the rundown of how Leia's iconic space buns were chosen and then apparently gets tired of behind-the-scenes stories, because that's pretty much all we get.

She also focuses on her ill-fated affair with Harrison Ford, and manages to give us a ton of details about their doomed romance while also revealing absolutely nothing. (She also, hilariously, seems to genuinely believe that she was the only woman Harrison Ford ever cheated on his wives with. MA'AM.) Mostly this part of the book was funny because, if you knew nothing else about Star Wars except how it's described by Carrie Fisher, you'd be correct in assuming that it was a space adventure centering on the romance between Han Solo and Leia Organa, and no one else. Poor Mark Hamill just kind of hangs around at the fringes of the story, mentioned only in passing and never interacting directly with our storyteller, which I felt does him a major disservice - there were three leads in Star Wars, after all.

If anything, this book shows us Carrie Fisher grappling with what it means to be almost singularly defined by a character she played when she was nineteen, and how she has lived in the shadow of Princess Leia for her entire life. Which, don't get me wrong, is fascinating stuff, but I also felt like it could have been condensed into an essay.

And of course the memoir advertises itself on the fact that it includes real entries from the journals Carrie Fisher wrote when she was filming Star Wars, but again, there's very little discussion of the actual filming process shared with us - her diary entries, which take up the middle section of the book and then never appear again, are mostly focused on her Harrison Ford affair. And I definitely don't blame her - if I was nineteen and sleeping with Harrison Ford at peak handsomeness ("A sculptor would sob openly while carving the scar on his chin," Fisher writes), I would also not shut up about it, ever. But despite Fisher's best efforts, the descriptions of their torrid romance just come off as delusional on her part, and a little sad.

So if anything, this memoir should be considered a supplement to other Fisher nonfiction, and not its own story. It's too brief, and even though Fisher does a lot of soul-baring here, you can't escape the feeling that she's always keeping the reader at arm's length, and won't let us come any closer.

"Anyway, I suppose in part I'm telling you this story now because I want all of you - and I do mean all - to know that I wasn't always a somewhat-overweight woman without an upper lip to her name who can occasionally be found sleeping behind her face and always thinking in her mouth. I was once a relevant piece of ass who barely knew she existed while much of the rest of the moviegoing world saw me romping through the air in a metal bikini, awake as I needed to be in order to slay space slugs, being whoever I needed to be in the face of affective disorders and otherwise.
I can now share this with others because the story is part of history. It's so long ago, it winds up being a real workout for my memory. This is an episode that's only potentially interesting because its players become famous for the roles they were playing when they met."]]> 3.70 2016 The Princess Diarist
author: Carrie Fisher
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves: memoir
review:
I think I probably would have been kinder to this memoir if I had read any of Carrie Fisher's other books before this one - I imagine that if you have the additional Fisher lore provided by books like Wishful Drinking or Shockaholic or any of her other nonfiction, you'd be less bothered by how many things The Princess Diarist is not about.

The memoir is advertised as a true, in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to film one of the biggest movie franchises in history. And, sure, Fisher talks about the filming process, but the most detailed section is about her audition process. I wanted a true, detailed account of the filming that went into the technical details and what the work actually involved; instead, Fisher gives us the rundown of how Leia's iconic space buns were chosen and then apparently gets tired of behind-the-scenes stories, because that's pretty much all we get.

She also focuses on her ill-fated affair with Harrison Ford, and manages to give us a ton of details about their doomed romance while also revealing absolutely nothing. (She also, hilariously, seems to genuinely believe that she was the only woman Harrison Ford ever cheated on his wives with. MA'AM.) Mostly this part of the book was funny because, if you knew nothing else about Star Wars except how it's described by Carrie Fisher, you'd be correct in assuming that it was a space adventure centering on the romance between Han Solo and Leia Organa, and no one else. Poor Mark Hamill just kind of hangs around at the fringes of the story, mentioned only in passing and never interacting directly with our storyteller, which I felt does him a major disservice - there were three leads in Star Wars, after all.

If anything, this book shows us Carrie Fisher grappling with what it means to be almost singularly defined by a character she played when she was nineteen, and how she has lived in the shadow of Princess Leia for her entire life. Which, don't get me wrong, is fascinating stuff, but I also felt like it could have been condensed into an essay.

And of course the memoir advertises itself on the fact that it includes real entries from the journals Carrie Fisher wrote when she was filming Star Wars, but again, there's very little discussion of the actual filming process shared with us - her diary entries, which take up the middle section of the book and then never appear again, are mostly focused on her Harrison Ford affair. And I definitely don't blame her - if I was nineteen and sleeping with Harrison Ford at peak handsomeness ("A sculptor would sob openly while carving the scar on his chin," Fisher writes), I would also not shut up about it, ever. But despite Fisher's best efforts, the descriptions of their torrid romance just come off as delusional on her part, and a little sad.

So if anything, this memoir should be considered a supplement to other Fisher nonfiction, and not its own story. It's too brief, and even though Fisher does a lot of soul-baring here, you can't escape the feeling that she's always keeping the reader at arm's length, and won't let us come any closer.

"Anyway, I suppose in part I'm telling you this story now because I want all of you - and I do mean all - to know that I wasn't always a somewhat-overweight woman without an upper lip to her name who can occasionally be found sleeping behind her face and always thinking in her mouth. I was once a relevant piece of ass who barely knew she existed while much of the rest of the moviegoing world saw me romping through the air in a metal bikini, awake as I needed to be in order to slay space slugs, being whoever I needed to be in the face of affective disorders and otherwise.
I can now share this with others because the story is part of history. It's so long ago, it winds up being a real workout for my memory. This is an episode that's only potentially interesting because its players become famous for the roles they were playing when they met."
]]> Little Weirds 44284906 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

Hello and welcome to my book. Inside you will find:

Ă— The smell of honeysuckle
Ă— Heartbreak
Ă— A French-kissing rabbit
Ă— A haunted house
Ă— Death
Ă— A vagina singing sad old songs
Ă— Young geraniums in an ancient castle
Ă— Birth
Ă— A dog who appears in dreams as a spiritual guide
Ă— Divorce
Ă— Electromagnetic energy fields
Ă— Emotional horniness
Ă— The ghost of a sea captain
Ă— And more

I hope you enjoy these little weirds.

Love,
Jenny Slate]]> 224 Jenny Slate Madeline 4 essays Here it is, a book that represents the wholeness that I built after everything toppled. A book that honors my fragmentation by giving itself to you in pieces. If you want it, you will have to be my partner in giving in to what it is. I had to find my own language and terms."

"I open my mouth and reach an invisible hand down into the deepest part of me. I get into myself even though it is scary. If I deny that the root is in me, I will never change. I know that nobody is immaculate and so I don't shame myself anymore - I just try to weed myself so that I don't wither and weep. I reach down and start to pull the root.
I am pulling and it tortures me, make no mistake. When I yank the vine a bit, when I disturb the root in its little grave inside of me, it shows me all of the memories of all the times that I honored the pod like a drooling fool. Holy moly, this shitty vine grips tight to my soft pink brains and infuses my thinking. It says that I am a hypocrite and it says it in the voice of authority figures, ex-lovers, even my own mother. But I am allowed to rehabilitate and move forward, so I give myself reasonable counsel: 'This is nothing but spooky stuff from a freaked-out root. This is what happens in an exorcism, babe. The bad thing wears the faces and forms of your failures and family and it says you are hurting me.' I keep an eye on my stamina and I pull slowly and consistently.
...Eventually I reach so deep that I rip out the root. I dangle it in front of my face. It is a shrunken, sad root, quite small compared to my heart, dull in color and unable to pump life. I take one last good look at that poison pod and I just go ahead and fling it. I fling that pod back into that gloomy section of outer space that is for bad gods with sickly and sour spirits. I wipe my mouth off and I say out loud, This stupid old root was nothing but a cosmic clog.
I need a helpful myth to show me what came before. I need a new made-up story to deliver me into the real life that I would like to live."

"As the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid that someone else will erase me by denying me love."]]> 3.87 2019 Little Weirds
author: Jenny Slate
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: essays
review:
"This book is a party - not a set of grievances. It's a weird party for a woman who has returned from grief. It's a peppy procession of all my little weirds. Many different scenarios present themselves at a really good party. Somebody kisses somebody. Somebody falls. Cake is eaten. Cake is thrown. The lights go out and somebody screams, 'My jewels!' You meet your husband for the first time. Somebody gets kicked out. There are snowballs and cannonballs. There are fragments that come together as a whole. My book is a thing in motion - just as you would respond to the questions, 'Is there a party going on?' with the answer, 'Yes, it is in progress!'
Here it is, a book that represents the wholeness that I built after everything toppled. A book that honors my fragmentation by giving itself to you in pieces. If you want it, you will have to be my partner in giving in to what it is. I had to find my own language and terms."

"I open my mouth and reach an invisible hand down into the deepest part of me. I get into myself even though it is scary. If I deny that the root is in me, I will never change. I know that nobody is immaculate and so I don't shame myself anymore - I just try to weed myself so that I don't wither and weep. I reach down and start to pull the root.
I am pulling and it tortures me, make no mistake. When I yank the vine a bit, when I disturb the root in its little grave inside of me, it shows me all of the memories of all the times that I honored the pod like a drooling fool. Holy moly, this shitty vine grips tight to my soft pink brains and infuses my thinking. It says that I am a hypocrite and it says it in the voice of authority figures, ex-lovers, even my own mother. But I am allowed to rehabilitate and move forward, so I give myself reasonable counsel: 'This is nothing but spooky stuff from a freaked-out root. This is what happens in an exorcism, babe. The bad thing wears the faces and forms of your failures and family and it says you are hurting me.' I keep an eye on my stamina and I pull slowly and consistently.
...Eventually I reach so deep that I rip out the root. I dangle it in front of my face. It is a shrunken, sad root, quite small compared to my heart, dull in color and unable to pump life. I take one last good look at that poison pod and I just go ahead and fling it. I fling that pod back into that gloomy section of outer space that is for bad gods with sickly and sour spirits. I wipe my mouth off and I say out loud, This stupid old root was nothing but a cosmic clog.
I need a helpful myth to show me what came before. I need a new made-up story to deliver me into the real life that I would like to live."

"As the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid that someone else will erase me by denying me love."
]]> A Backward Glance 5261
With richness and delicacy, it describes the sophisticated New York society in which Wharton spent her youth, and chronicles her travels throughout Europe and her literary success as an adult. Beautifully depicted are her friendships with many of the most celebrated artists and writers of her day, including her close friend Henry James.

In his introduction to this edition, Louis Auchincloss calls the writing in A Backward Glance “as firm and crisp and lucid as in the best of her novels.� It is a memoir that will charm and fascinate all readers of Wharton’s fiction.]]> 385 Edith Wharton 0684847558 Madeline 3 memoir A Backward Glance should know that Edith Wharton is very selective about what she does and does not share with us.

She does not, for example, talk about her writing process, at all. In fact, if it weren't for the occasional mention of something like The House of Mirth getting published, you'd think you were reading the memoir of any random Gilded Age rich lady, instead of one of the most famous authors of her era. Edith Wharton's husband enters the narrative without introduction and then leaves it just as abruptly, and you need to consult outside sources to know that he and Edith got divorced - and also that she was having an affair, which of course she also doesn't talk about in this book.

So it's not a writing memoir, and it's not a fun gossipy inside look into upper-class society. If anything, this is a travelogue, and in that respect, it succeeds very well at what it means to do. If you want to know what it was like to grow up in one of the richest families in Gilded Age America (Wharton's ancestors are the source of the expression "keeping up with the Joneses"), this book will be illuminating for you. You definitely have to be in the right mindset to enjoy it - there's a lot of name-dropping and even more tone-deaf "wow, post-WWI Europe such a bummer, I guess we'll go back to New York and buy a mansion or whatever" entries, but those can be entertaining in their own way.

It definitely wasn't what I expected, but I think you can still enjoy this memoir if you go into it knowing what you're going to get - and what you're not. ]]> 3.81 1934 A Backward Glance
author: Edith Wharton
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1934
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/01
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves: memoir
review:
In many ways, this is a very frustrating memoir. I was lucky to pick up an edition with an introduction that warned me about this in advance, but anyone considering A Backward Glance should know that Edith Wharton is very selective about what she does and does not share with us.

She does not, for example, talk about her writing process, at all. In fact, if it weren't for the occasional mention of something like The House of Mirth getting published, you'd think you were reading the memoir of any random Gilded Age rich lady, instead of one of the most famous authors of her era. Edith Wharton's husband enters the narrative without introduction and then leaves it just as abruptly, and you need to consult outside sources to know that he and Edith got divorced - and also that she was having an affair, which of course she also doesn't talk about in this book.

So it's not a writing memoir, and it's not a fun gossipy inside look into upper-class society. If anything, this is a travelogue, and in that respect, it succeeds very well at what it means to do. If you want to know what it was like to grow up in one of the richest families in Gilded Age America (Wharton's ancestors are the source of the expression "keeping up with the Joneses"), this book will be illuminating for you. You definitely have to be in the right mindset to enjoy it - there's a lot of name-dropping and even more tone-deaf "wow, post-WWI Europe such a bummer, I guess we'll go back to New York and buy a mansion or whatever" entries, but those can be entertaining in their own way.

It definitely wasn't what I expected, but I think you can still enjoy this memoir if you go into it knowing what you're going to get - and what you're not.
]]> <![CDATA[Lords and Ladies (Discworld, #14; Witches, #4)]]> 34529
Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven are up against real elves.

It's Midsummer Night.

No time for dreaming...

With full supporting cast of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris dancers and one orang-utan. And lots of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place.]]> 352 Terry Pratchett 055215315X Madeline 4 fantasy
He seems to love using the witches specifically to mess around in the bard's sandbox, and I'm very here for it - before, he gave us the Discworld spin on Macbeth in Wyrd Sisters, and here he's taking the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream and running with it as only Sir Terry Pratchett can.

This one is notable because it's the first time the "you can read the books in any order" coda of Discworld fans doesn't work - if you're diving into this one as your first foray into the Witches sub-series, you're going to feel a little bit at sea. Terry Pratchett even breaks down and puts an introduction at the beginning of the book - Lords and Ladies picks up almost immediately after Witches Abroad ended, and Pratchett found it necessary to give new readers a quick rundown of what they missed last time.

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are fan favorites for a reason, and this book is even more fun than their previous adventure, because like all the best Discworld books, Pratchett allows it to go dark for a little while before finally turning everything around, and you finish it feeling kind of hollowed out and a little sad still, but in the best way.

Plus, I dare you to say no to an excerpt like this, which is basically Prachett's entire storytelling style (draw the reader in with jokes and incredible world-building and then punch them squarely in the gut) distilled down to three paragraphs:

"It wasn't that Ridcully was stupid. Truly stupid wizards have the life expectancy of a glass hammer. He had quite a powerful intellect, but it was powerful like a locomotive, and ran on rails and was therefore almost impossible to steer.
There are indeed such things as parallel universes, although parallel is hardly the right word - universes swoop and spiral around one another like some mad weaving machine or a squadron of Yossarians with middle-ear trouble.
And they branch. But, and this is important, not all the time. The universe doesn't much care if you tread on a butterfly. There are plenty more butterflies. Gods might note the fall of a sparrow but they don't make any effort to catch them."]]> 4.19 1992 Lords and Ladies (Discworld, #14; Witches, #4)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2024/01/06
shelves: fantasy
review:
God, I love it when Terry Pratchett does a Shakespeare riff.

He seems to love using the witches specifically to mess around in the bard's sandbox, and I'm very here for it - before, he gave us the Discworld spin on Macbeth in Wyrd Sisters, and here he's taking the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream and running with it as only Sir Terry Pratchett can.

This one is notable because it's the first time the "you can read the books in any order" coda of Discworld fans doesn't work - if you're diving into this one as your first foray into the Witches sub-series, you're going to feel a little bit at sea. Terry Pratchett even breaks down and puts an introduction at the beginning of the book - Lords and Ladies picks up almost immediately after Witches Abroad ended, and Pratchett found it necessary to give new readers a quick rundown of what they missed last time.

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are fan favorites for a reason, and this book is even more fun than their previous adventure, because like all the best Discworld books, Pratchett allows it to go dark for a little while before finally turning everything around, and you finish it feeling kind of hollowed out and a little sad still, but in the best way.

Plus, I dare you to say no to an excerpt like this, which is basically Prachett's entire storytelling style (draw the reader in with jokes and incredible world-building and then punch them squarely in the gut) distilled down to three paragraphs:

"It wasn't that Ridcully was stupid. Truly stupid wizards have the life expectancy of a glass hammer. He had quite a powerful intellect, but it was powerful like a locomotive, and ran on rails and was therefore almost impossible to steer.
There are indeed such things as parallel universes, although parallel is hardly the right word - universes swoop and spiral around one another like some mad weaving machine or a squadron of Yossarians with middle-ear trouble.
And they branch. But, and this is important, not all the time. The universe doesn't much care if you tread on a butterfly. There are plenty more butterflies. Gods might note the fall of a sparrow but they don't make any effort to catch them."
]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Madeline 3 The Poppy War, I was hesitant to give her another try, but this book was getting so much buzz - both good and bad - that I decided to dive in.

I'll say this much: in terms of choosing an everyone's-doing-it-all-of-a-sudden thriller genre, I'll always pick a novel that falls under the umbrella of Scandal In The Publishing Industry (a la The Plot or Who Is Maud Dixon) instead of the million Girl on the Train ripoffs that are somehow still floating around. So if you're looking for a good, scandal-filled inside look at the publishing industry, Yellowface will definitely scratch that itch.

But the problems that plague this book are the same ones that bothered me in The Poppy War, although they present differently. Once again, Kuang's pacing is all over the place, and even though the story starts out strong and I was flipping pages as fast as possible, excited to see what fuckery June was about to get up to next, she can't maintain the momentum. A potential antagonist is introduced about halfway through, and then almost immediately taken care of before we can really get invested in the drama, and by the time Kuang tries the same thing later towards the end, it fell flat.

Also, I'm sure somewhere there's an author who's managed to fill their book with fake Twitter threads and made it compelling for the reader, but that author sure as shit isn't RF Kuang. Around the time I was forced to read through a made-up comment thread that lasted pages I was ready to abandon the book, and only kept going because I wanted to see how she was going to finish things. And unfortunately, Kuang can't really stick the landing. Yellowface starts to get super meta around the time June decides, hey, I'm going to write a book about all of this! And then the wheels come off and we roll straight into a ditch.

And that's not just me being mean, either - take this passage where June is struggling with her novel, which reads like a note Kuang wrote to herself in an early draft and forgot to take out:

"But I'm losing track of the narrative. My thoughts spiral out beyond what the pages could contain. This has gone from a dark, literary coming-of-age story to a jumbled, frantic ghost story. My carefully constructed outline falls apart against the story Athena wants to see. I abandon my original plot. I furiously transcribe everything that comes to mind, which oscillates between my truth and the truth.
I've written myself into a corner. The first two-thirds of the book were a breeze to compose, but what do I do with the ending? Where do I leave my protagonist, now that there's a hungry ghost in the mix, and no clear resolution?"

It's a good thriller, but eventually Kuang gets bogged down in the message and loses track of her own story, and never quite regains her footing. Fun ride, though.

]]> 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2024/01/04
shelves:
review:
After reading (and struggling with) RF Kuang's The Poppy War, I was hesitant to give her another try, but this book was getting so much buzz - both good and bad - that I decided to dive in.

I'll say this much: in terms of choosing an everyone's-doing-it-all-of-a-sudden thriller genre, I'll always pick a novel that falls under the umbrella of Scandal In The Publishing Industry (a la The Plot or Who Is Maud Dixon) instead of the million Girl on the Train ripoffs that are somehow still floating around. So if you're looking for a good, scandal-filled inside look at the publishing industry, Yellowface will definitely scratch that itch.

But the problems that plague this book are the same ones that bothered me in The Poppy War, although they present differently. Once again, Kuang's pacing is all over the place, and even though the story starts out strong and I was flipping pages as fast as possible, excited to see what fuckery June was about to get up to next, she can't maintain the momentum. A potential antagonist is introduced about halfway through, and then almost immediately taken care of before we can really get invested in the drama, and by the time Kuang tries the same thing later towards the end, it fell flat.

Also, I'm sure somewhere there's an author who's managed to fill their book with fake Twitter threads and made it compelling for the reader, but that author sure as shit isn't RF Kuang. Around the time I was forced to read through a made-up comment thread that lasted pages I was ready to abandon the book, and only kept going because I wanted to see how she was going to finish things. And unfortunately, Kuang can't really stick the landing. Yellowface starts to get super meta around the time June decides, hey, I'm going to write a book about all of this! And then the wheels come off and we roll straight into a ditch.

And that's not just me being mean, either - take this passage where June is struggling with her novel, which reads like a note Kuang wrote to herself in an early draft and forgot to take out:

"But I'm losing track of the narrative. My thoughts spiral out beyond what the pages could contain. This has gone from a dark, literary coming-of-age story to a jumbled, frantic ghost story. My carefully constructed outline falls apart against the story Athena wants to see. I abandon my original plot. I furiously transcribe everything that comes to mind, which oscillates between my truth and the truth.
I've written myself into a corner. The first two-thirds of the book were a breeze to compose, but what do I do with the ending? Where do I leave my protagonist, now that there's a hungry ghost in the mix, and no clear resolution?"

It's a good thriller, but eventually Kuang gets bogged down in the message and loses track of her own story, and never quite regains her footing. Fun ride, though.


]]> The Left Hand of Darkness 18423 The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.]]> 304 Ursula K. Le Guin Madeline 4 fantasy and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.� “Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.�

I honestly can't believe it took me this long to dive into Ursula K. Le Guin. I have one of her essay collections, but that was as much of her work that I'd read before starting The Left Hand of Darkness.

The novel, considered one of the heavy hitters in science fiction, is written as a report recorded by the intergalactic diplomat Genly Ai, who has been sent to the planet Gethen to persuade its government to join the confederation of planets called the Ekumen. Genly is a stranger in a strange land, to borrow another title from a sci-fi classic, and his mission on Gethen mostly relies on him learning the Gethen culture and customs - most notably, that the residents of Gethen are gender/sex fluid, and can change their sex organs as necessary. Genly forms an uneasy alliance with a local politician named Estraven, and Le Guin focuses her story on their relationship, using it to flesh out the world of Gethen.

Even without any real experience with Le Guin's other writing, this was absolutely nothing like I was expecting. This is one of those books where I never, at any point, had any idea where the story was going to go next, and it works phenomenally well. Sure, there are pitfalls to the storytelling - as many other reviewers have pointed out, Le Guin's portrayal of a genderfluid society is very much mired in the 1960's when it was published (the most important trait of the people of Gethen is that they do not have a fixed sex or gender, yet Genly uses he/him pronouns for almost everyone he meets), but it's not really fair to hold the book to today's standards. Sure, certain aspects of the worldbuilding are clumsy, but they ultimately don't distract from the beauty and the devastation of this story.

Le Guin understands that to make your audience understand a huge topic, you have to go small: in the end, this is the story of a relationship between two people thrown together by extraordinary circumstances. ]]> 4.11 1969 The Left Hand of Darkness
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/01
date added: 2024/01/01
shelves: fantasy
review:
“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.� “Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.�

I honestly can't believe it took me this long to dive into Ursula K. Le Guin. I have one of her essay collections, but that was as much of her work that I'd read before starting The Left Hand of Darkness.

The novel, considered one of the heavy hitters in science fiction, is written as a report recorded by the intergalactic diplomat Genly Ai, who has been sent to the planet Gethen to persuade its government to join the confederation of planets called the Ekumen. Genly is a stranger in a strange land, to borrow another title from a sci-fi classic, and his mission on Gethen mostly relies on him learning the Gethen culture and customs - most notably, that the residents of Gethen are gender/sex fluid, and can change their sex organs as necessary. Genly forms an uneasy alliance with a local politician named Estraven, and Le Guin focuses her story on their relationship, using it to flesh out the world of Gethen.

Even without any real experience with Le Guin's other writing, this was absolutely nothing like I was expecting. This is one of those books where I never, at any point, had any idea where the story was going to go next, and it works phenomenally well. Sure, there are pitfalls to the storytelling - as many other reviewers have pointed out, Le Guin's portrayal of a genderfluid society is very much mired in the 1960's when it was published (the most important trait of the people of Gethen is that they do not have a fixed sex or gender, yet Genly uses he/him pronouns for almost everyone he meets), but it's not really fair to hold the book to today's standards. Sure, certain aspects of the worldbuilding are clumsy, but they ultimately don't distract from the beauty and the devastation of this story.

Le Guin understands that to make your audience understand a huge topic, you have to go small: in the end, this is the story of a relationship between two people thrown together by extraordinary circumstances.
]]> <![CDATA[The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)]]> 58957615
Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot.

While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

From an upmarket spa to a prison cell complete with espresso machine to a luxury penthouse high in the sky, this third adventure of the Thursday Murder Club is full of the cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm that readers have come to expect from Richard Osman's bestselling series.]]> 413 Richard Osman 0241512425 Madeline 4 detective-fiction
While fun and intricately plotted, I have to say first that Osman doesn't manage to hit the heights he achieved last time with The Man Who Died Twice, and also I'll admit that as much as I love learning more about Elizabeth's past, this now makes two books in a row that have leaned heavily on exploring some part of her personal history. It would be nice in future books if Osman remembered that the Thursday Murder Club has four members, and that even though they weren't international spies (that we know of) in their youth, the backstories of Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim are just as rich and deserving of exploration. ]]> 4.32 2022 The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)
author: Richard Osman
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
Another slam-dunk installment of the Thursday Murder Club, this one featuring a cold case centering around the death of a newscaster; plus we get more Elizabeth backstory thanks to the case also involving another one of her former lovers who also happened to be the head of the KGB. Oh Elizabeth, never change.

While fun and intricately plotted, I have to say first that Osman doesn't manage to hit the heights he achieved last time with The Man Who Died Twice, and also I'll admit that as much as I love learning more about Elizabeth's past, this now makes two books in a row that have leaned heavily on exploring some part of her personal history. It would be nice in future books if Osman remembered that the Thursday Murder Club has four members, and that even though they weren't international spies (that we know of) in their youth, the backstories of Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim are just as rich and deserving of exploration.
]]> <![CDATA[Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy]]> 480479
Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos beneath the whitewash in her dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles in the garden, and, in the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets and delightful people. In Under the Tuscan Sun, she brings the lyrical voice of a poet, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer to invite readers to explore the pleasures of Italian life and to feast at her table.]]> 304 Frances Mayes 0767900383 Madeline 3 memoir, the-movie-is-better We are now accustomed to such finds; the land has a long memory here, constantly giving us something from the past and constantly renewing for the future.�

I mean, was there any way this one wasn’t going on my “the movie is better�? shelf?
And that’s not just because Under the Tuscan Sun, the movie, is one of my top-tier comfort watches. (For those that haven’t seen it, Diane Lane impulsively buys an Italian villa after a devastating divorce and renovates it while getting her groove back. There’s gorgeous Italian scenery and food, Sandra Oh plays the best friend, and the movie’s only flaw is that it somehow doesn’t end with Diane Lane realizing she’s a lesbian and marrying the eccentric rich English lady).

The screenwriters looked at this book and understood that the story needed something more, so they added the divorce element � because of course there needs to be a why to the story, and the purchase and renovation of the Italian villa has to have a deeper meaning for the main character.

Under the Tuscan Sun, the book, is about a rich lady who buys an Italian villa and renovates it because, essentially, she can. At its best, this book is a lovely story about the slow but rewarding process of creating a home in a new place, with all the beautiful descriptions of food and scenery that you would expect from a memoir set in the hills of Tuscany. At its worst, reading this is like being trapped in a conversation with the worst person at the cocktail party who won’t stop complaining about how her million-dollar kitchen renovation has been just a nightmare.

Look, if I had the money to buy a vacation home in Italy, I’d do it. I’m not begrudging Frances Mayes for using her money in this way, and to her credit, she manages to stay on the safe side of absolutely insufferable most of the time (the tone when discussing the renovations is usually along the lines of “what were we thinking�, and like I said, I’d absolutely buy a crumbling Italian villa if I had the funds, so I can’t fault the author for doing exactly what I’d do if I was in her shoes).

Still, as I was reading this, I couldn’t stop occasionally having the intrusive thought of, no one is making you do this. The purchase and renovation of the Bramasole villa is a vanity project, full stop, and was not in any way necessary, so any time Mayes starts getting a little too self-pitying about how much work it is, I lost some sympathy for her. Yeah, no shit it’s a lot of work! You bought a dilapidated house in another country and can only work on it during the summers! Of course it’s going to be expensive and hard, but again, you didn’t have to do this! You chose this, Frances!

(Book Frances isn’t even reeling from a recent divorce. Yes, she’s divorced, but when the memoir starts she already has a new husband and they’re very happy. Congrats to the team, I guess. Also there’s no eccentric English lady, just a bunch of smugly intellectual expats)

Another thing that irked me about this memoir: for all the time that Mayes spends telling us about how much money this project is costing her, we never see the apparently exorbitant expenses affecting her lifestyle in any way. Sure, the purchase and renovation was expensive, but there never seems to be a danger of the money running out, which made it harder to take Mayes seriously when she complains about how much they’re spending. It’s entirely possible that Mayes and her husband were forced to live on instant ramen to save money, and got into vicious fights about how much the renovation was costing them, and these parts were cut from the book by an editor who worried that it would ruin the atmosphere of the memoir. But I personally think the book would have benefited from being a little more honest about the whole process, because I got a strong sense that Mayes was looking back on the renovation process with heavily rose-tinted glasses.

But what saves this memoir, and what ultimately makes me willing to recommend this, is that the writing is genuinely lovely. Aside from the beautiful descriptions of food and scenery, Mayes is showing off her background as a food writer, and includes lots of classic Italian recipes that are written so you can actually make them at home. And I really can’t say enough good things about the quality of the prose:

“Bees burrow in the pears. Where they’ve fallen, thrushes feast. Who knows how the wants of our ancestors act out in us? The mellow scents somehow remind me of my mean Grandmother Davis. My father privately called her The Snake. She was blind, with Greek-statue eyes, but I always believed she could see. Her charming husband had lost all of the land she inherited from her parents, who owned a big corner of South Georgia. On Sunday rides, she’d always want Mother to drive her by the property she’d lost. She couldn’t see when we got there but she could smell peanut and cotton crops in the humid air. â€All this,â€� she’d mutter, â€all this.â€� I’d look up from my book. The brown earth on either side of the car spread flat to the horizon. From there, who could believe the world is round? I first thought of her when we had the terraces plowed and the upturned earth was ready for planting. Fertile earth, rich as chocolate cake. Big Mama, I thought, biscuit-face, old snake, just look at this dirt, all this.”]±Ő> 3.77 1996 Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy
author: Frances Mayes
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2023/12/19
shelves: memoir, the-movie-is-better
review:
“Over a decade ago, I bought Bramasole, a gone-to-ruin house in the Tuscan countryside, and began to spend part of each year there. Slowly, the abandoned olive trees have responded to pruning, plowing, and organic fertilizer. Slowly, the house has awakened from its long slumber and seems itself again, festooned with trailing geraniums and filled with the furniture we have brought in piece by piece from antique markets. …We love the land, especially during the olive harvest every fall, which culminates in a trip to the mill to press our year’s supply of pungent green oil. This September, we bought another grove just below us and acquired 250 more of these magical presences, the olive trees. At the corner of the grove, embedded in a stone wall, Ed spotted a slender marble column. We pulled it out of the wall and saw letters engraved. I scrubbed and found incised a memorial to a young soldier who fell in World War I.
We are now accustomed to such finds; the land has a long memory here, constantly giving us something from the past and constantly renewing for the future.�

I mean, was there any way this one wasn’t going on my “the movie is better�? shelf?
And that’s not just because Under the Tuscan Sun, the movie, is one of my top-tier comfort watches. (For those that haven’t seen it, Diane Lane impulsively buys an Italian villa after a devastating divorce and renovates it while getting her groove back. There’s gorgeous Italian scenery and food, Sandra Oh plays the best friend, and the movie’s only flaw is that it somehow doesn’t end with Diane Lane realizing she’s a lesbian and marrying the eccentric rich English lady).

The screenwriters looked at this book and understood that the story needed something more, so they added the divorce element � because of course there needs to be a why to the story, and the purchase and renovation of the Italian villa has to have a deeper meaning for the main character.

Under the Tuscan Sun, the book, is about a rich lady who buys an Italian villa and renovates it because, essentially, she can. At its best, this book is a lovely story about the slow but rewarding process of creating a home in a new place, with all the beautiful descriptions of food and scenery that you would expect from a memoir set in the hills of Tuscany. At its worst, reading this is like being trapped in a conversation with the worst person at the cocktail party who won’t stop complaining about how her million-dollar kitchen renovation has been just a nightmare.

Look, if I had the money to buy a vacation home in Italy, I’d do it. I’m not begrudging Frances Mayes for using her money in this way, and to her credit, she manages to stay on the safe side of absolutely insufferable most of the time (the tone when discussing the renovations is usually along the lines of “what were we thinking�, and like I said, I’d absolutely buy a crumbling Italian villa if I had the funds, so I can’t fault the author for doing exactly what I’d do if I was in her shoes).

Still, as I was reading this, I couldn’t stop occasionally having the intrusive thought of, no one is making you do this. The purchase and renovation of the Bramasole villa is a vanity project, full stop, and was not in any way necessary, so any time Mayes starts getting a little too self-pitying about how much work it is, I lost some sympathy for her. Yeah, no shit it’s a lot of work! You bought a dilapidated house in another country and can only work on it during the summers! Of course it’s going to be expensive and hard, but again, you didn’t have to do this! You chose this, Frances!

(Book Frances isn’t even reeling from a recent divorce. Yes, she’s divorced, but when the memoir starts she already has a new husband and they’re very happy. Congrats to the team, I guess. Also there’s no eccentric English lady, just a bunch of smugly intellectual expats)

Another thing that irked me about this memoir: for all the time that Mayes spends telling us about how much money this project is costing her, we never see the apparently exorbitant expenses affecting her lifestyle in any way. Sure, the purchase and renovation was expensive, but there never seems to be a danger of the money running out, which made it harder to take Mayes seriously when she complains about how much they’re spending. It’s entirely possible that Mayes and her husband were forced to live on instant ramen to save money, and got into vicious fights about how much the renovation was costing them, and these parts were cut from the book by an editor who worried that it would ruin the atmosphere of the memoir. But I personally think the book would have benefited from being a little more honest about the whole process, because I got a strong sense that Mayes was looking back on the renovation process with heavily rose-tinted glasses.

But what saves this memoir, and what ultimately makes me willing to recommend this, is that the writing is genuinely lovely. Aside from the beautiful descriptions of food and scenery, Mayes is showing off her background as a food writer, and includes lots of classic Italian recipes that are written so you can actually make them at home. And I really can’t say enough good things about the quality of the prose:

“Bees burrow in the pears. Where they’ve fallen, thrushes feast. Who knows how the wants of our ancestors act out in us? The mellow scents somehow remind me of my mean Grandmother Davis. My father privately called her The Snake. She was blind, with Greek-statue eyes, but I always believed she could see. Her charming husband had lost all of the land she inherited from her parents, who owned a big corner of South Georgia. On Sunday rides, she’d always want Mother to drive her by the property she’d lost. She couldn’t see when we got there but she could smell peanut and cotton crops in the humid air. â€All this,â€� she’d mutter, â€all this.â€� I’d look up from my book. The brown earth on either side of the car spread flat to the horizon. From there, who could believe the world is round? I first thought of her when we had the terraces plowed and the upturned earth was ready for planting. Fertile earth, rich as chocolate cake. Big Mama, I thought, biscuit-face, old snake, just look at this dirt, all this.â€�
]]> Romeo and Juliet 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]> 281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 Madeline 2 shakespeare 3.74 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 2
read at: 2003/01/01
date added: 2023/12/13
shelves: shakespeare
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)]]> 28187230 341 Ruth Ware 1501132938 Madeline 2 The Girl on the Train for the hundreds of sad knockoffs her book would inspire. But good lord, I wish publishing could move on and stop bringing out a new spin on "the real villain was gaslighting and also patriarchy" every few months.

The Woman in Cabin 10 introduces us to Lauren "Lo" Blacklock, a travel writer who is still reeling from a terrifying home invasion when she's offered the assignment of a lifetime: she and several other journalists have been invited to travel on the maiden voyage of a luxury ship as VIP guests. On her first night on the ship, Lo briefly meets a woman staying in the cabin next to hers, and then in the middle of the night is awoken by what sounds like a person falling overboard. But, after calling security, Lo is startled to learn that not only are all passengers accounted for, but the cabin next to hers is unoccupied. The story follows Lo's increasingly desperate attempts to convince the others that there is a murderer on board.

Is it twisty and exciting? Sure, I guess. But Lo is a baffling and frustrating protagonist who frequently makes the most bizarre choices (Taking a shower with the bathroom lights turned off and the door wide open? Yeah, why not? Seems normal!) and also doesn't seem capable of doing much of anything. On the first meet-and-greet cocktail party of the voyage, Lo (who is here as a journalist on an assignment) is talking to one of her fellow journalists, who mentions that he researched the other guests in advance - and Lo thinks, oh man, I can't believe I didn't think of doing that, too!

Lauren that is literally your entire job? What are we doing here?

In addition to being one of those supremely frustrating mysteries where the villain only gets caught because they keep trying to scare the protagonist away from the case, the pace grinds to an absolute halt towards the end, and there's a huge section that I struggled to get through because it just draaaaaaaaags for what feels like entire chapters.

The final mystery reveal is...mostly satisfying, I guess. The whole scheme was fucking bonkers from beginning to end, but then again, hat kind of thing has become so commonplace in these thrillers that it's almost not worth pointing out.

Also, I'm not going to hide this as a spoiler because I feel like people deserve to know: if you're in the middle of this book and are wondering if the robbery that kicks off the plot will eventually have some significance, don't. In fact, go ahead and forget about the home invasion as soon as it's over, and you'll have a much better time than I did. ]]> 3.73 2016 The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)
author: Ruth Ware
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves:
review:
Listen, we can't blame the author of The Girl on the Train for the hundreds of sad knockoffs her book would inspire. But good lord, I wish publishing could move on and stop bringing out a new spin on "the real villain was gaslighting and also patriarchy" every few months.

The Woman in Cabin 10 introduces us to Lauren "Lo" Blacklock, a travel writer who is still reeling from a terrifying home invasion when she's offered the assignment of a lifetime: she and several other journalists have been invited to travel on the maiden voyage of a luxury ship as VIP guests. On her first night on the ship, Lo briefly meets a woman staying in the cabin next to hers, and then in the middle of the night is awoken by what sounds like a person falling overboard. But, after calling security, Lo is startled to learn that not only are all passengers accounted for, but the cabin next to hers is unoccupied. The story follows Lo's increasingly desperate attempts to convince the others that there is a murderer on board.

Is it twisty and exciting? Sure, I guess. But Lo is a baffling and frustrating protagonist who frequently makes the most bizarre choices (Taking a shower with the bathroom lights turned off and the door wide open? Yeah, why not? Seems normal!) and also doesn't seem capable of doing much of anything. On the first meet-and-greet cocktail party of the voyage, Lo (who is here as a journalist on an assignment) is talking to one of her fellow journalists, who mentions that he researched the other guests in advance - and Lo thinks, oh man, I can't believe I didn't think of doing that, too!

Lauren that is literally your entire job? What are we doing here?

In addition to being one of those supremely frustrating mysteries where the villain only gets caught because they keep trying to scare the protagonist away from the case, the pace grinds to an absolute halt towards the end, and there's a huge section that I struggled to get through because it just draaaaaaaaags for what feels like entire chapters.

The final mystery reveal is...mostly satisfying, I guess. The whole scheme was fucking bonkers from beginning to end, but then again, hat kind of thing has become so commonplace in these thrillers that it's almost not worth pointing out.

Also, I'm not going to hide this as a spoiler because I feel like people deserve to know: if you're in the middle of this book and are wondering if the robbery that kicks off the plot will eventually have some significance, don't. In fact, go ahead and forget about the home invasion as soon as it's over, and you'll have a much better time than I did.
]]> Small Gods (Discworld, #13) 34484
And the Word was: "Hey, you!"

For Brutha the novice is the Chosen One. He wants peace and justice and brotherly love.

He also wants the Inquisition to stop torturing him now, please...]]> 389 Terry Pratchett 0552152978 Madeline 4 fantasy The Color of Magic and the need to start your Discworld journey with that one)

Small Gods is definitely one of the heavy hitters of the Discworld canon and it's easy to see why. I was sold on this one as soon as I realized I was going to get to watch Pratchett gently and expertly taking apart organized religion - and, because he's the best, he does so in way that manages to never be condescending or cruel, and is so, so incredibly smart.

Plus, it's about the adventures of a monk named Brutha and a tortoise, who is also a god. Tell me that's not going to be a good time. ]]> 4.32 1992 Small Gods (Discworld, #13)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves: fantasy
review:
I have a long-term project to work my way through the entire Discworld series (I'm reading them in strictly chronological order; no, I will not be taking feedback on this choice), and having hit the double digits at last, it feels like we're definitely past the early books that Pratchett fans always tell you to avoid. (I will, however, always defend The Color of Magic and the need to start your Discworld journey with that one)

Small Gods is definitely one of the heavy hitters of the Discworld canon and it's easy to see why. I was sold on this one as soon as I realized I was going to get to watch Pratchett gently and expertly taking apart organized religion - and, because he's the best, he does so in way that manages to never be condescending or cruel, and is so, so incredibly smart.

Plus, it's about the adventures of a monk named Brutha and a tortoise, who is also a god. Tell me that's not going to be a good time.
]]> The Woman in the Library 56803179 In every person's story, there is something to hide...

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

Award-winning author Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.]]> 292 Sulari Gentill Madeline 2
Do yourselves a favor and read The Thursday Murder Club instead.]]> 3.46 2022 The Woman in the Library
author: Sulari Gentill
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2023/11/01
date added: 2023/11/04
shelves:
review:
BAFFLED by how many 4 and 5 star reviews this nonsensical, flat, half-baked mystery has racked up.

Do yourselves a favor and read The Thursday Murder Club instead.
]]> The Shipping News 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 Madeline 2 the-list Hive-spangled, gut roaring with gas and cramp, he survived childhood; at the state university, hand clapped over his chin, he camouflaged torment with smiles and silence. Stumbled through his twenties and into his thirties learning to separate his feelings from his life, counting on nothing. He ate prodigiously, liked a ham knuckle, buttered spuds.
His jobs: distributor of vending machines candy, all-night clerk in a convenience store, a third-rate newspaperman. At thirty-six, bereft, brimming with grief and thwarted love, Quoyle steered away to Newfoundland, the rock that had generated his ancestors, a place that he had never been nor thought to go."

Okay. So obviously this was very well-written and sad and beautiful, and it certainly deserved to win the Pulitzer prize. I can at least appreciate that much, and I'll admit that I didn't dislike the book, particularly. I enjoyed reading it, for the most part. But there is only one word that I think can fully describe this book, and that word is BLEAK.

Everything about this book is bleak. The setting is bleak, the people are bleak, their houses and their food is bleak (they eat fried bologna for God's sake), every life and every situation is bleak. Which is fine, if that's your thing. Personally, I don't especially enjoy reading about miserable people being miserable in a miserable place. It's a nice book, I suppose. It's just not something I want to revisit. ]]> 3.88 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 2
read at: 2010/11/01
date added: 2023/10/31
shelves: the-list
review:
"Here is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.
Hive-spangled, gut roaring with gas and cramp, he survived childhood; at the state university, hand clapped over his chin, he camouflaged torment with smiles and silence. Stumbled through his twenties and into his thirties learning to separate his feelings from his life, counting on nothing. He ate prodigiously, liked a ham knuckle, buttered spuds.
His jobs: distributor of vending machines candy, all-night clerk in a convenience store, a third-rate newspaperman. At thirty-six, bereft, brimming with grief and thwarted love, Quoyle steered away to Newfoundland, the rock that had generated his ancestors, a place that he had never been nor thought to go."

Okay. So obviously this was very well-written and sad and beautiful, and it certainly deserved to win the Pulitzer prize. I can at least appreciate that much, and I'll admit that I didn't dislike the book, particularly. I enjoyed reading it, for the most part. But there is only one word that I think can fully describe this book, and that word is BLEAK.

Everything about this book is bleak. The setting is bleak, the people are bleak, their houses and their food is bleak (they eat fried bologna for God's sake), every life and every situation is bleak. Which is fine, if that's your thing. Personally, I don't especially enjoy reading about miserable people being miserable in a miserable place. It's a nice book, I suppose. It's just not something I want to revisit.
]]> Oroonoko: A Play 1037301 143 Thomas Southerne 0803292929 Madeline 1 assigned-reading, ugh
For example, here's how I imagine the planning process went when Southerne decided to adapt Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko for the stage:

SOUTHERNE: Aphra, sweetheart, good news! I decided to make your novel super famous by rewriting it as a play! You're gonna have your name in lights, baby.
BEHN: Great! Although I'm kind already famous in my own right...
SOUTHERNE: Fantastic. Okay, so this story of yours - I love it. African prince loses his only love, gets sold into slavery, finds his wife again and is ready to be happy, but to save his wife and future child he decides to lead a rebellion, which ends in him sacrificing his wife and then dying a hero. Amazing stuff, the audience is gonna eat it up. I just want to make a few teeny changes.
BEHN: Okay...such as?
SOUTHERNE: Well, first, I don't think audiences are gonna be interested in just this story, you know? We gotta have subplots! So in the play there's gonna be these two sisters who are in Surinam to find husbands, right, except one of them is dressed as a man! You heard of Shakespeare?
BEHN: Yes.
SOUTHERNE: Well, he knocked em dead with the crossdressing and we're going to do the same. Anyway, so these two sisters are looking for husbands, and the one dressed as a man marries this rich widow and convinces her to give her all her gold, and then she'll reveal that she's a woman, and marry another guy. Also she marries her sister off to some guy she hates, because ladies need husbands, am I right?
BEHN: I'm sorry, what does this all have to do with Oroonoko?
SOUTHERNE: The sisters meet him once, and then they vouch for him when he gets manipulated into starting the rebellion -
BEHN: Wait, what?
SOUTHERNE: Yeah, we can't have Oroonoko decide to rebel on his own, that's too scary. He has to be convinced to do it by someone else. You saw Othello, right? I'm basically the new Shakespeare, here.
BEHN: Um...
SOUTHERNE: Also, the Imoinda chick - you say in the book that she's really hot, right, so obviously she's going to have to be white in the play.
BEHN: WHAT.
SOUTHERNE: Yeah, I'm changing it so Oroonoko's in love with a white chick who was raised in Africa. Blackface makeup is hella expensive, alright?
BEHN: I guess so.
SOUTHERNE: Also, the ending - grisly, sweetie, very grisly. He gets captured and rips out his guts in defiance? We're a long way from being able to pull off those special effects, honey. So instead, we're gonna have Oroonoko surrender -
BEHN: He surrenders?
SOUTHERNE: And in the end he kills the evil governer, and then himself. And then I'll toss in an epilogue about how his actions can be excused because he's a heathen, and that Christians shouldn't do shit like that.
BEHN: Okay, but what about all the stuff in the book about Oroonoko's past in Africa, and the parts that show what a brave and noble person he is? Where's all the white guilt over being his oppressors?
SOUTHERNE: No time! We have to make room for the cross-dressing sisters! They're going to take up at least half the play. Look, baby, I know what gets butts in the seats, and this is it. Leave it to me, Aphra. You're gonna be famous after this!
BEHN: Sigh. Just give me my check, Southerne.
SOUTHERNE: Also we're casting Megan Fox as Imoinda.
BEHN: *facepalm]]> 2.65 1696 Oroonoko: A Play
author: Thomas Southerne
name: Madeline
average rating: 2.65
book published: 1696
rating: 1
read at: 2011/02/01
date added: 2023/09/20
shelves: assigned-reading, ugh
review:
It's comforting to know that terrible adaptations of novels were happening long before Hollywood even existed. If Thomas Southerne were alive today, I imagine that's exactly where he'd be working, and the conversations he had with his assistant wouldn't be much different.

For example, here's how I imagine the planning process went when Southerne decided to adapt Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko for the stage:

SOUTHERNE: Aphra, sweetheart, good news! I decided to make your novel super famous by rewriting it as a play! You're gonna have your name in lights, baby.
BEHN: Great! Although I'm kind already famous in my own right...
SOUTHERNE: Fantastic. Okay, so this story of yours - I love it. African prince loses his only love, gets sold into slavery, finds his wife again and is ready to be happy, but to save his wife and future child he decides to lead a rebellion, which ends in him sacrificing his wife and then dying a hero. Amazing stuff, the audience is gonna eat it up. I just want to make a few teeny changes.
BEHN: Okay...such as?
SOUTHERNE: Well, first, I don't think audiences are gonna be interested in just this story, you know? We gotta have subplots! So in the play there's gonna be these two sisters who are in Surinam to find husbands, right, except one of them is dressed as a man! You heard of Shakespeare?
BEHN: Yes.
SOUTHERNE: Well, he knocked em dead with the crossdressing and we're going to do the same. Anyway, so these two sisters are looking for husbands, and the one dressed as a man marries this rich widow and convinces her to give her all her gold, and then she'll reveal that she's a woman, and marry another guy. Also she marries her sister off to some guy she hates, because ladies need husbands, am I right?
BEHN: I'm sorry, what does this all have to do with Oroonoko?
SOUTHERNE: The sisters meet him once, and then they vouch for him when he gets manipulated into starting the rebellion -
BEHN: Wait, what?
SOUTHERNE: Yeah, we can't have Oroonoko decide to rebel on his own, that's too scary. He has to be convinced to do it by someone else. You saw Othello, right? I'm basically the new Shakespeare, here.
BEHN: Um...
SOUTHERNE: Also, the Imoinda chick - you say in the book that she's really hot, right, so obviously she's going to have to be white in the play.
BEHN: WHAT.
SOUTHERNE: Yeah, I'm changing it so Oroonoko's in love with a white chick who was raised in Africa. Blackface makeup is hella expensive, alright?
BEHN: I guess so.
SOUTHERNE: Also, the ending - grisly, sweetie, very grisly. He gets captured and rips out his guts in defiance? We're a long way from being able to pull off those special effects, honey. So instead, we're gonna have Oroonoko surrender -
BEHN: He surrenders?
SOUTHERNE: And in the end he kills the evil governer, and then himself. And then I'll toss in an epilogue about how his actions can be excused because he's a heathen, and that Christians shouldn't do shit like that.
BEHN: Okay, but what about all the stuff in the book about Oroonoko's past in Africa, and the parts that show what a brave and noble person he is? Where's all the white guilt over being his oppressors?
SOUTHERNE: No time! We have to make room for the cross-dressing sisters! They're going to take up at least half the play. Look, baby, I know what gets butts in the seats, and this is it. Leave it to me, Aphra. You're gonna be famous after this!
BEHN: Sigh. Just give me my check, Southerne.
SOUTHERNE: Also we're casting Megan Fox as Imoinda.
BEHN: *facepalm
]]> Jaws (Jaws, #1) 126232 368 Peter Benchley Madeline 3 the-movie-is-better obviously this is going on the "the movie is better shelf" - like, that's just a given. Jaws, the movie, is a prime example of the art of adaptation, and shows how changing the medium can make a story better - this story just works better as a summer blockbuster, but I understand how the original version was such a smash hit.

Yes, there's a Mafia subplot in the book (and it ultimately doesn't make a lot of sense), and yes, in the book Matt Hooper is a completely different character who also has a brief affair with Brody's wife (it also ultimately doesn't make a lot of sense). Throwing these elements out for the movie version was a brilliant choice, and I can't imagine anyone arguing successfully for their inclusion (not even Benchley himself, who in the introduction admits that streamlining the story to be just a man vs. nature adventure was the correct move).

But I still enjoyed this book for what it is, which is a fun, thrilling page-turner in all the best ways. Yes, the book version of Matt Hooper is boring and his motivations make very little sense, and yes, Brody sucks so much in the book, and then there's the Mafia and infidelity subplots. But there are some truly great moments in this that you can't get from the movie, most notably when Benchley actually writes from the POV of the shark. And his descriptions of the attacks are visceral and vivid and scary, like the infamous night-swim attack that opens both the book and the movie:

"Now the fish turned again, homing on the stream of blood flushing from the woman's femoral artery, a beacon as clear and true as a lighthouse on a cloudless night. This time the fish attacked from below. It hurtled up under the woman, jaws agape. The great conical head struck her like a locomotive, knocking her up out of the water. The jaws snapped shut around her torso, crushing bones and flesh and organs into a jelly. The fish, with the woman's body in its mouth, smashed down on the water with a thunderous splash, spewing foam and blood and phosphorescence in a gaudy shower."

As an added bonus, the edition I got from the library had bonus material at the end which included a looooong list of potential titles for the book (they eventually landed on "Jaws" purely because it was short) and a list of notes that Peter Benchley sent to the screenwriters during the film production. They are all delightful, but my favorite is probably: "P. 78 - what suddenly changes Brody from a man terrified of water to a man eager to join Quint? I remember discussing this change-of-heart at great length. It seems to have been resolved by ignoring it."

Oh, and also: "P. 5 - the bloody billboard is still there, I see."]]> 3.97 1974 Jaws (Jaws, #1)
author: Peter Benchley
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1974
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/01
date added: 2023/09/12
shelves: the-movie-is-better
review:
Okay, so obviously this is going on the "the movie is better shelf" - like, that's just a given. Jaws, the movie, is a prime example of the art of adaptation, and shows how changing the medium can make a story better - this story just works better as a summer blockbuster, but I understand how the original version was such a smash hit.

Yes, there's a Mafia subplot in the book (and it ultimately doesn't make a lot of sense), and yes, in the book Matt Hooper is a completely different character who also has a brief affair with Brody's wife (it also ultimately doesn't make a lot of sense). Throwing these elements out for the movie version was a brilliant choice, and I can't imagine anyone arguing successfully for their inclusion (not even Benchley himself, who in the introduction admits that streamlining the story to be just a man vs. nature adventure was the correct move).

But I still enjoyed this book for what it is, which is a fun, thrilling page-turner in all the best ways. Yes, the book version of Matt Hooper is boring and his motivations make very little sense, and yes, Brody sucks so much in the book, and then there's the Mafia and infidelity subplots. But there are some truly great moments in this that you can't get from the movie, most notably when Benchley actually writes from the POV of the shark. And his descriptions of the attacks are visceral and vivid and scary, like the infamous night-swim attack that opens both the book and the movie:

"Now the fish turned again, homing on the stream of blood flushing from the woman's femoral artery, a beacon as clear and true as a lighthouse on a cloudless night. This time the fish attacked from below. It hurtled up under the woman, jaws agape. The great conical head struck her like a locomotive, knocking her up out of the water. The jaws snapped shut around her torso, crushing bones and flesh and organs into a jelly. The fish, with the woman's body in its mouth, smashed down on the water with a thunderous splash, spewing foam and blood and phosphorescence in a gaudy shower."

As an added bonus, the edition I got from the library had bonus material at the end which included a looooong list of potential titles for the book (they eventually landed on "Jaws" purely because it was short) and a list of notes that Peter Benchley sent to the screenwriters during the film production. They are all delightful, but my favorite is probably: "P. 78 - what suddenly changes Brody from a man terrified of water to a man eager to join Quint? I remember discussing this change-of-heart at great length. It seems to have been resolved by ignoring it."

Oh, and also: "P. 5 - the bloody billboard is still there, I see."
]]> War and Peace 656
War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.


Tolstoy gave his personal approval to this translation, published here in a new single volume edition, which includes an introduction by Henry Gifford, and Tolstoy's important essay `Some Words about War and Peace'.]]> 1392 Leo Tolstoy 0192833987 Madeline 3 historic-fiction, the-list density of this book meant that a) it took me like five months to finish and b) I would dip in and out of it, alternating a few chapters of this with lighter, fluffier fare to balance it out (there's a cozy mystery series that was a godsend during this time - I absolutely hate it but also I'm on like Book 14?).

All this is to say that I read War and Peace in installments, often returning to the story after days away from it, and so I experienced the story in a constant state of mild amnesia. I'm not saying it's the best way to get through an epic with a huge cast of characters, some of whom are related and some of whom are dating and hell if I could remember which was which sometimes (Natasha and Nikolai are siblings because their names both start with N, you're welcome), but it certainly made this book a fun experience. Basically every time I started a new chapter it was like, "Oh, who's this fella? Andrei? Nice to meet you, Andrei! What are we getting up to today?" Repeat for 1,400 pages.

I'm not recommending my method, to be clear. And I'm not saying that it was the correct way to enjoy this novel. Yet enjoy it I did! I certainly will not be revisiting it any time soon, but it was a fun ride while it lasted, and now I can be one of those people who can say they've read War and Peace, which seems to be the main reason anyone reads this book.

Anyway, please enjoy the one passage I bothered to mark so I could quote it later:

"Pierre told her of his adventures as he had never recounted them before, as he had never recalled them even to himself. He saw now, as it were, a new significance in all he had been through. Now that he was telling it all to Natasha he experienced that rare pleasure men know when women are listening to them - not clever women who when they listen either try to remember what they hear for the sake of enriching their minds and, when the opportunity offers, repeat it, or adapt it to some idea of their own, or who promptly contribute their own clever comments elaborated in their own little mental workshops; but the pleasure real women give who are gifted with the faculty of selecting and absorbing all that is best in what a man shows of himself."

RIP Leo Tolstoy, Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ would have given you a fucking aneurysm. ]]> 4.14 1869 War and Peace
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1869
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/09/12
shelves: historic-fiction, the-list
review:
The sheer density of this book meant that a) it took me like five months to finish and b) I would dip in and out of it, alternating a few chapters of this with lighter, fluffier fare to balance it out (there's a cozy mystery series that was a godsend during this time - I absolutely hate it but also I'm on like Book 14?).

All this is to say that I read War and Peace in installments, often returning to the story after days away from it, and so I experienced the story in a constant state of mild amnesia. I'm not saying it's the best way to get through an epic with a huge cast of characters, some of whom are related and some of whom are dating and hell if I could remember which was which sometimes (Natasha and Nikolai are siblings because their names both start with N, you're welcome), but it certainly made this book a fun experience. Basically every time I started a new chapter it was like, "Oh, who's this fella? Andrei? Nice to meet you, Andrei! What are we getting up to today?" Repeat for 1,400 pages.

I'm not recommending my method, to be clear. And I'm not saying that it was the correct way to enjoy this novel. Yet enjoy it I did! I certainly will not be revisiting it any time soon, but it was a fun ride while it lasted, and now I can be one of those people who can say they've read War and Peace, which seems to be the main reason anyone reads this book.

Anyway, please enjoy the one passage I bothered to mark so I could quote it later:

"Pierre told her of his adventures as he had never recounted them before, as he had never recalled them even to himself. He saw now, as it were, a new significance in all he had been through. Now that he was telling it all to Natasha he experienced that rare pleasure men know when women are listening to them - not clever women who when they listen either try to remember what they hear for the sake of enriching their minds and, when the opportunity offers, repeat it, or adapt it to some idea of their own, or who promptly contribute their own clever comments elaborated in their own little mental workshops; but the pleasure real women give who are gifted with the faculty of selecting and absorbing all that is best in what a man shows of himself."

RIP Leo Tolstoy, Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ would have given you a fucking aneurysm.
]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Madeline 4 fantasy, kids-and-young-adult The House in the Cerulean Sea may be just what you're looking for.

The book takes place in a universe where magical creatures live alongside (well, sort of) ordinary humans, and these creatures have been classified and catalogued by the human government. Our protagonist, Linus Baker, is a government worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth - specifically, he is a case worker for orphaned children with magical abilities. The story starts when Linus is given an unusual assignment: he is being sent to an island orphanage run by the mysterious Arthur Parnassus, who oversees the care of six children. Well, kind of - the residents of the orphanage are a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, a creature that nobody has been able to classify yet (he's kind of a green blob-thing), a werewolf that only turns into a Pomeranian, and the AntiChrist (they all call him Lucy).

This is charming and sweet and adorable from beginning to end, and if you're reading the plot description and thinking, "oh, okay, I get it, this is all a metaphor for queer kids", then you're kind of right - much like in X-Men, TJ Kune is using the concept of children with magical abilities to explore the challenges and prejudices faced by real kids who are labeled as “other", for whatever reason. But rest assured that, aside from the magical-abilities-as-metaphor, this book is also gay as hell in all the best ways.

It's simple and cute, and yes, some of the big twists are pretty obvious, but this is also not a story that relies on the audience being shocked by different revelations. This is an exploration of humanity through the lens of magical beings, and if you're in need of some cozy found-family adventures, this is what you've been looking for.]]> 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/08/13
shelves: fantasy, kids-and-young-adult
review:
If you're looking for a sweet, gentle comfort read that will also give you a glimmer of hope for the future (good morning from the hellscape, fellow US citizens!), The House in the Cerulean Sea may be just what you're looking for.

The book takes place in a universe where magical creatures live alongside (well, sort of) ordinary humans, and these creatures have been classified and catalogued by the human government. Our protagonist, Linus Baker, is a government worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth - specifically, he is a case worker for orphaned children with magical abilities. The story starts when Linus is given an unusual assignment: he is being sent to an island orphanage run by the mysterious Arthur Parnassus, who oversees the care of six children. Well, kind of - the residents of the orphanage are a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, a creature that nobody has been able to classify yet (he's kind of a green blob-thing), a werewolf that only turns into a Pomeranian, and the AntiChrist (they all call him Lucy).

This is charming and sweet and adorable from beginning to end, and if you're reading the plot description and thinking, "oh, okay, I get it, this is all a metaphor for queer kids", then you're kind of right - much like in X-Men, TJ Kune is using the concept of children with magical abilities to explore the challenges and prejudices faced by real kids who are labeled as “other", for whatever reason. But rest assured that, aside from the magical-abilities-as-metaphor, this book is also gay as hell in all the best ways.

It's simple and cute, and yes, some of the big twists are pretty obvious, but this is also not a story that relies on the audience being shocked by different revelations. This is an exploration of humanity through the lens of magical beings, and if you're in need of some cozy found-family adventures, this is what you've been looking for.
]]> Between the Acts 46105 224 Virginia Woolf 015611870X Madeline 4 the-list
That being said, this book is an almost perfect example of what makes Virginia Woolf such a unique writer. Like her more famous Mrs. Dalloway, the action takes place over a short span of time (two days) and is concerned primarily with the actions of one small family, although the narration takes us into other characters' heads occasionally. The main action of the story takes place during the annual village pageant, a history of England. We see the pageant in detail (Woolf even includes stage directions) and, as the title suggests, get to also witness the spectators during the act breaks.

Reading this, I felt like there was something else hiding under the surface of the text - something I wasn't fully able to grasp or understand. There's an undercurrent of longing and sadness and frustration running through all the characters, and I felt like there was a whole other story happening just in the margins and the line breaks. I think I could read this book ten times and still not find everything Woolf wants me to find.

Halfway through writing this review I decided to change my rating from three to four stars, because I started flipping through the book to find passages to quote and kept remembering what is so extraordinary about Virginia Woolf's writing: she had, I believe, an incredible capacity for empathy. Everyone in her stories gets treated, however briefly, like they're the most important character in the story. Every single character in her books, from the educated landowner to the flighty kitchen maid, has a deep inner life and complex thoughts and emotions, and she makes us see this complexity. No one is ordinary in Virginia Woolf's books.

Plus, the writing is, as always, killer. It's not just the people - something as simple as a lily pond suddenly becomes full of deeper meaning and significance when Woolf is describing it:

"There had always been lilies there, self-sown from wind-dropped seed, floating red and white on the green plates of their leaves. Water, for hundreds of years, had silted down into the hollow, and lay there four or five feet deep over a black cushion of mud. Under the thick plate of green water, glazed in their self-centered world, fish swam - gold, splashed with white, streaked with black or silver. Silently they manoeuvred in their water world, poised in the blue patch made by the sky, or shot silently to the edge where the grass, trembling, made a fringe of nodding shadow. On the water-pavement spiders printed their delicate feet. A grain fell and spiralled down; a petal fell, filled and sank. At that the fleet of boat-shaped bodies paused; poised; equipped; mailed; then with a waver of undulation off they flashed.
It was in that deep centre, in that black heart, that the lady had drowned herself. Ten years since the pool had been dredged and a thigh bone recovered. Alas, it was a sheep’s, not a lady’s. And sheep have no ghosts, for sheep have no souls. But the servants insisted, they must have a ghost; the ghost must be a lady’s; who had drowned herself for love. So none of them would walk by the lily pool at night, only now when the sun shone and the gentry still sat at table."]]> 3.64 1941 Between the Acts
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1941
rating: 4
read at: 2014/01/01
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves: the-list
review:
Maybe it's because this is technically unfinished (a forward from Leonard Woolf states that although the draft was completed, Virginia Woolf died before she was able to make final corrections and revisions, so it was sent to the printers as is), but this one didn't strike me quite in the way Woolf's other books have. But that's not to suggest that it isn't good - remember, this is Virginia Woolf, so when I say that it didn't strike me as much as her other ones, I only mean that this book felt like a minor blow to the head, rather than feeling like I was being remade from the inside out.

That being said, this book is an almost perfect example of what makes Virginia Woolf such a unique writer. Like her more famous Mrs. Dalloway, the action takes place over a short span of time (two days) and is concerned primarily with the actions of one small family, although the narration takes us into other characters' heads occasionally. The main action of the story takes place during the annual village pageant, a history of England. We see the pageant in detail (Woolf even includes stage directions) and, as the title suggests, get to also witness the spectators during the act breaks.

Reading this, I felt like there was something else hiding under the surface of the text - something I wasn't fully able to grasp or understand. There's an undercurrent of longing and sadness and frustration running through all the characters, and I felt like there was a whole other story happening just in the margins and the line breaks. I think I could read this book ten times and still not find everything Woolf wants me to find.

Halfway through writing this review I decided to change my rating from three to four stars, because I started flipping through the book to find passages to quote and kept remembering what is so extraordinary about Virginia Woolf's writing: she had, I believe, an incredible capacity for empathy. Everyone in her stories gets treated, however briefly, like they're the most important character in the story. Every single character in her books, from the educated landowner to the flighty kitchen maid, has a deep inner life and complex thoughts and emotions, and she makes us see this complexity. No one is ordinary in Virginia Woolf's books.

Plus, the writing is, as always, killer. It's not just the people - something as simple as a lily pond suddenly becomes full of deeper meaning and significance when Woolf is describing it:

"There had always been lilies there, self-sown from wind-dropped seed, floating red and white on the green plates of their leaves. Water, for hundreds of years, had silted down into the hollow, and lay there four or five feet deep over a black cushion of mud. Under the thick plate of green water, glazed in their self-centered world, fish swam - gold, splashed with white, streaked with black or silver. Silently they manoeuvred in their water world, poised in the blue patch made by the sky, or shot silently to the edge where the grass, trembling, made a fringe of nodding shadow. On the water-pavement spiders printed their delicate feet. A grain fell and spiralled down; a petal fell, filled and sank. At that the fleet of boat-shaped bodies paused; poised; equipped; mailed; then with a waver of undulation off they flashed.
It was in that deep centre, in that black heart, that the lady had drowned herself. Ten years since the pool had been dredged and a thigh bone recovered. Alas, it was a sheep’s, not a lady’s. And sheep have no ghosts, for sheep have no souls. But the servants insisted, they must have a ghost; the ghost must be a lady’s; who had drowned herself for love. So none of them would walk by the lily pool at night, only now when the sun shone and the gentry still sat at table."
]]> Silver Girl 9503336
Desperate and facing homelessness, Meredith receives a call from her old best friend, Constance Flute. Connie's had recent worries of her own, and the two depart for a summer on Nantucket in an attempt to heal. But the island can't offer complete escape, and they're plagued by new and old troubles alike. When Connie's brother Toby - Meredith's high school boyfriend - arrives, Meredith must reconcile the differences between the life she is leading and the life she could have had.

Set against the backdrop of a Nantucket summer, Elin Hilderbrand delivers a suspenseful story of the power of friendship, the pull of love, and the beauty of forgiveness.]]> 416 Elin Hilderbrand 031609966X Madeline 3 Silver Girl was floated to me, hilariously right after I finished Golden Girl.

The setup definitely has little more…well, we won’t say edge, because this is an Elin Hilderbrand novel, but this plot has a little more bite to it than I’m used to seeing in these books about nice people living in nice beach towns, owning cute businesses and being so, so nice.

We meet Meredith Delinn as she is dealing with the fallout from the worst day of her life. Her husband Freddy has just been arrested for running an investment scheme that defrauded thousands of people. Meredith has lost her fancy New York townhouse, her vacation homes, her cars, her belongings, and worst of all, her entire family: in addition to her husband getting sent to prison, her son also worked at the investment firm and, because the feds are still trying to figure out if he was also in on the scam, Meredith is not allowed to have any contact with him. Cut off from her family, abandoned by her friends, and hounded by the press, Meredith does what any of us would do in this situation: call up our former high school bestie who happens to own a fabulous beach house on Nantucket Island and hide out at her place for a few months until the heat dies down.

Meredith’s friend, Constance Flute (when it comes to twee character names, Hilderbrand never disappoints!) is also dealing with her own shit when the fictional version of Mrs. Bernie Madoff calls up and asks to crash. Connie is recent widow who is still learning how to navigate life without her husband, so getting to play hostess to her estranged best friend for a few months is the perfect distraction. And if a handsome local handyman should show up to be her rebound romance, well then! Maybe Meredith’s old high school flame will join the party as well!

It's all pretty standard Hilderbrand fare - beautiful idyllic beach town setting, mouth-watering descriptions of meals, gorgeous homes, and the usual cast of characters who are all beautiful wealthy middle-aged WASPs. (I could honestly write an entire dissertation about Elin Hilderbrand's characters and how they all serve as perfect illustrations of the line from Into The Woods that goes, "Nice is different than good.")

You can see Hilderbrand struggling under the heaviness of her own plot, and often you get the sense that she's bitten off more than she can chew. Occasionally we'll see Meredith grappling internally with the ethical implications of the life she's led - sure, she wasn't directly involved in stealing from people, but she had no problem sitting back and not asking questions as she reaped the benefits of her husband's scams, so how much responsibility does she need to bear? - but these side musings are quickly brushed aside so Hilderbrand can go back to her comfortable wheelhouse of meal descriptions and beach outings.

(Credit where credit is due, however: there's an extended scene written from the POV of a drunk person and it is masterful. Elin Hilderbrand can write, guys)

In another example of Hilderbrand not really being willing to get down in the muck that's at the edges of this story, there's a plot point (minor spoilers ahead) where [spoilers removed]

If you want a cozy beach read with a little real-world intrusion, this one's for you. Just don't expect any of the characters to actually grow or change in any significant way. They're nice at the beginning of the book, and they're nice at the end. Nice. Not good.]]> 3.88 2011 Silver Girl
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/07/23
shelves:
review:
Still in the midst of my Elin Hilderbrand speedrun, I went looking for some recommendations from her fans � Hilderbrand has literally dozens of cozy beach reads under her belt, and I wanted to know what the standouts were. Silver Girl was floated to me, hilariously right after I finished Golden Girl.

The setup definitely has little more…well, we won’t say edge, because this is an Elin Hilderbrand novel, but this plot has a little more bite to it than I’m used to seeing in these books about nice people living in nice beach towns, owning cute businesses and being so, so nice.

We meet Meredith Delinn as she is dealing with the fallout from the worst day of her life. Her husband Freddy has just been arrested for running an investment scheme that defrauded thousands of people. Meredith has lost her fancy New York townhouse, her vacation homes, her cars, her belongings, and worst of all, her entire family: in addition to her husband getting sent to prison, her son also worked at the investment firm and, because the feds are still trying to figure out if he was also in on the scam, Meredith is not allowed to have any contact with him. Cut off from her family, abandoned by her friends, and hounded by the press, Meredith does what any of us would do in this situation: call up our former high school bestie who happens to own a fabulous beach house on Nantucket Island and hide out at her place for a few months until the heat dies down.

Meredith’s friend, Constance Flute (when it comes to twee character names, Hilderbrand never disappoints!) is also dealing with her own shit when the fictional version of Mrs. Bernie Madoff calls up and asks to crash. Connie is recent widow who is still learning how to navigate life without her husband, so getting to play hostess to her estranged best friend for a few months is the perfect distraction. And if a handsome local handyman should show up to be her rebound romance, well then! Maybe Meredith’s old high school flame will join the party as well!

It's all pretty standard Hilderbrand fare - beautiful idyllic beach town setting, mouth-watering descriptions of meals, gorgeous homes, and the usual cast of characters who are all beautiful wealthy middle-aged WASPs. (I could honestly write an entire dissertation about Elin Hilderbrand's characters and how they all serve as perfect illustrations of the line from Into The Woods that goes, "Nice is different than good.")

You can see Hilderbrand struggling under the heaviness of her own plot, and often you get the sense that she's bitten off more than she can chew. Occasionally we'll see Meredith grappling internally with the ethical implications of the life she's led - sure, she wasn't directly involved in stealing from people, but she had no problem sitting back and not asking questions as she reaped the benefits of her husband's scams, so how much responsibility does she need to bear? - but these side musings are quickly brushed aside so Hilderbrand can go back to her comfortable wheelhouse of meal descriptions and beach outings.

(Credit where credit is due, however: there's an extended scene written from the POV of a drunk person and it is masterful. Elin Hilderbrand can write, guys)

In another example of Hilderbrand not really being willing to get down in the muck that's at the edges of this story, there's a plot point (minor spoilers ahead) where [spoilers removed]

If you want a cozy beach read with a little real-world intrusion, this one's for you. Just don't expect any of the characters to actually grow or change in any significant way. They're nice at the beginning of the book, and they're nice at the end. Nice. Not good.
]]> Spare 62296528
For Harry, this is that story at last.

Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness—and, because he blamed the press for his mother’s death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight.

At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn’t find true love.

Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple’s cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . .

For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.]]> 410 Prince Harry 0593593804 Madeline 3 memoir fire title for a royal memoir. In one word, we get the encapsulation of how Harry Windsor, second son of Charles III, has lived his whole life � in every royal family, you want an heir and a spare. The spare only becomes important if you lose the first part of the equation. In other words, Harry has arrived at our doorstep carrying some very heavy luggage, and he is ready to unpack it.

Well, sort of. Readers going into this book expecting a no-holds-barred, dirty-laundry-airing, gossip-filled spite read, will be disappointed. Sure, there are little glimpses of the inside life of the British royal family, and the humanizing details Harry gives us about his family and his childhood can almost make you forget that these people are all inbred sociopaths. (The humanization attempts fall flat just as often as they land successfully, though � at one point Harry tries to insist that his father is “a worker� who has to always stay busy, and it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever read) But ultimately, this isn’t the book that I wanted it to be, and I’ll try to get to the bottom of why that is.

When I was a kid, I was friends with this girl who had an identical twin, and something she told me once has always stuck with me: “People always ask me what it’s like to have a twin, and I don’t know how to answer them, because I’ve never not had a twin.�

Harry cannot write a book about what it’s like to grow up royal, because he’s never not been royal. Like, yeah, he renounced all of it and is ostensibly living as a private citizen, but the split from royal life is so recent, and Harry hasn’t gained the necessary perspective yet. I understand needing to strike while the iron is hot and get a memoir out while everyone is talking about him, but I really hope that Harry comes back and writes another memoir in twenty years or so. He needs a lot more time and real-world experience (and so, so much therapy) before he can really get into things. Right now the wounds are too fresh, and he’s afraid to poke at them too hard.

To get an idea of how far removed from reality our boy still is, take this excerpt early in the book, when Harry is walking us through the night of Diana’s death, when he and William are staying at Balmoral with their father:

“Both Willy and I hurried through our evening baths, jumped into our pajamas, settled eagerly in front of the TV. Footmen arrived, carrying trays covered with plates, each topped with a silver dome. The footmen set the trays upon wooden stands, then joked with us, as they always did, before wishing us bon apetit.

Footmen, bone china � it sounds posh, and I suppose it was, but under those fancy domes was just kiddie stuff. Fish fingers, cottage pies, roast chicken, green peas.�

See what I mean? He’s trying to laugh at the absurdities of his life along with us, but he’s laughing the way you do when you don’t want others to know that you didn’t get the joke. He knows his life isn’t normal, but he’s never lived any other way (and, I would argue, has had no meaningful conversations with a normal person until very recently), so he still can’t identify what’s going to seem weird to the reader. Harry’s like, haha yeah I guess the footmen were a bit much, but we were eating fish fingers, so we were just like normal kids!

Harry. Sweetie. It’s not the food that makes this scene posh, it’s the footmen and the bone china and the fact that you were eating this "kiddie stuff" in a palace on a property the size of a state park.

(Also, did everyone catch how he threw in the detail that the footmen “joked� with him and William, “like they always did�? Haha, yeah, I guess they’re our servants or whatever, but they really liked us! Sure, bud.)

In another example of Harry not understanding why we’ve bought a ticket to this show, he spends the entire middle chunk of the book talking about his military career and…listen. I’m not discounting his service record, or how hard he worked, and I respect how much he’s done to support veterans. But there’s no getting around the fact that this section is too long, and Harry doesn’t have the writing chops to make the descriptions of his time overseas into anything more than a boring slog. It could have been cut in half and we wouldn’t have missed much.

So in one sense, this is a fascinating read because you can see Harry struggling to write it. First in the literal sense that writing the book must have been a struggle (he tells us, with no irony or shame, that he found the opening epithet on “brainyquotes.com�), but also because even though he wants to let us in and tell us everything, he is fighting decades of conditioning to do the exact opposite. The royal family’s party line when dealing with the press is “never explain, never complain�, and you can see that Harry still hasn’t escaped this mindset. He’s trying (in many ways, a more appropriate title for this memoir would be Prince Harry: He Is Trying His Best) but he’s not quite there yet.

The fact is that writing a successful memoir requires deep introspection, and self-awareness is one of the many, many things that Harry was never taught, because it was assumed that such abilities would never be required. He wasn't supposed to think critically about the toxic environment he was raised in and how his own family contributed directly to his mother's death and almost caused his wife to commit suicide (he's so unprepared to examine the dynamics of his family, in fact, that he's still stuck on blaming the press alone - it's sort of like if you came from a family that trained attack dogs and when you got bitten you only blamed the dog).

It's a weirdly fascinating aspect of this book: watching someone who was never taught how to be a human being in the way that everyone else is a human being just sort of...faking his way through it until he figures it out. Harry Windsor is basically a little porcelain doll that was never supposed to be taken out of the china cabinet, but he accidentally got turned into a Real Boy and honestly, I hope he continues to make it everybody's problem. Burn it down, baby. Go after your dad next.

]]> 3.78 2023 Spare
author: Prince Harry
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/01
date added: 2023/07/15
shelves: memoir
review:
Let’s get the main point out of the way first: this is such a fucking fire title for a royal memoir. In one word, we get the encapsulation of how Harry Windsor, second son of Charles III, has lived his whole life � in every royal family, you want an heir and a spare. The spare only becomes important if you lose the first part of the equation. In other words, Harry has arrived at our doorstep carrying some very heavy luggage, and he is ready to unpack it.

Well, sort of. Readers going into this book expecting a no-holds-barred, dirty-laundry-airing, gossip-filled spite read, will be disappointed. Sure, there are little glimpses of the inside life of the British royal family, and the humanizing details Harry gives us about his family and his childhood can almost make you forget that these people are all inbred sociopaths. (The humanization attempts fall flat just as often as they land successfully, though � at one point Harry tries to insist that his father is “a worker� who has to always stay busy, and it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever read) But ultimately, this isn’t the book that I wanted it to be, and I’ll try to get to the bottom of why that is.

When I was a kid, I was friends with this girl who had an identical twin, and something she told me once has always stuck with me: “People always ask me what it’s like to have a twin, and I don’t know how to answer them, because I’ve never not had a twin.�

Harry cannot write a book about what it’s like to grow up royal, because he’s never not been royal. Like, yeah, he renounced all of it and is ostensibly living as a private citizen, but the split from royal life is so recent, and Harry hasn’t gained the necessary perspective yet. I understand needing to strike while the iron is hot and get a memoir out while everyone is talking about him, but I really hope that Harry comes back and writes another memoir in twenty years or so. He needs a lot more time and real-world experience (and so, so much therapy) before he can really get into things. Right now the wounds are too fresh, and he’s afraid to poke at them too hard.

To get an idea of how far removed from reality our boy still is, take this excerpt early in the book, when Harry is walking us through the night of Diana’s death, when he and William are staying at Balmoral with their father:

“Both Willy and I hurried through our evening baths, jumped into our pajamas, settled eagerly in front of the TV. Footmen arrived, carrying trays covered with plates, each topped with a silver dome. The footmen set the trays upon wooden stands, then joked with us, as they always did, before wishing us bon apetit.

Footmen, bone china � it sounds posh, and I suppose it was, but under those fancy domes was just kiddie stuff. Fish fingers, cottage pies, roast chicken, green peas.�

See what I mean? He’s trying to laugh at the absurdities of his life along with us, but he’s laughing the way you do when you don’t want others to know that you didn’t get the joke. He knows his life isn’t normal, but he’s never lived any other way (and, I would argue, has had no meaningful conversations with a normal person until very recently), so he still can’t identify what’s going to seem weird to the reader. Harry’s like, haha yeah I guess the footmen were a bit much, but we were eating fish fingers, so we were just like normal kids!

Harry. Sweetie. It’s not the food that makes this scene posh, it’s the footmen and the bone china and the fact that you were eating this "kiddie stuff" in a palace on a property the size of a state park.

(Also, did everyone catch how he threw in the detail that the footmen “joked� with him and William, “like they always did�? Haha, yeah, I guess they’re our servants or whatever, but they really liked us! Sure, bud.)

In another example of Harry not understanding why we’ve bought a ticket to this show, he spends the entire middle chunk of the book talking about his military career and…listen. I’m not discounting his service record, or how hard he worked, and I respect how much he’s done to support veterans. But there’s no getting around the fact that this section is too long, and Harry doesn’t have the writing chops to make the descriptions of his time overseas into anything more than a boring slog. It could have been cut in half and we wouldn’t have missed much.

So in one sense, this is a fascinating read because you can see Harry struggling to write it. First in the literal sense that writing the book must have been a struggle (he tells us, with no irony or shame, that he found the opening epithet on “brainyquotes.com�), but also because even though he wants to let us in and tell us everything, he is fighting decades of conditioning to do the exact opposite. The royal family’s party line when dealing with the press is “never explain, never complain�, and you can see that Harry still hasn’t escaped this mindset. He’s trying (in many ways, a more appropriate title for this memoir would be Prince Harry: He Is Trying His Best) but he’s not quite there yet.

The fact is that writing a successful memoir requires deep introspection, and self-awareness is one of the many, many things that Harry was never taught, because it was assumed that such abilities would never be required. He wasn't supposed to think critically about the toxic environment he was raised in and how his own family contributed directly to his mother's death and almost caused his wife to commit suicide (he's so unprepared to examine the dynamics of his family, in fact, that he's still stuck on blaming the press alone - it's sort of like if you came from a family that trained attack dogs and when you got bitten you only blamed the dog).

It's a weirdly fascinating aspect of this book: watching someone who was never taught how to be a human being in the way that everyone else is a human being just sort of...faking his way through it until he figures it out. Harry Windsor is basically a little porcelain doll that was never supposed to be taken out of the china cabinet, but he accidentally got turned into a Real Boy and honestly, I hope he continues to make it everybody's problem. Burn it down, baby. Go after your dad next.


]]> Golden Girl 55643278 In this #1 bestselling page-turner a Nantucket novelist has one final summer to protect her secrets while her loved ones on earth learn to live without their golden girl.

On a perfect June day, Vivian Howe, author of thirteenĚýbeach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket. She ascends to the Beyond where she's assigned to a Person named Martha, who allows Vivi to watch what happens below for one last summer. Vivi also is granted three “nudgesâ€� to change the outcome of events on earth, and with her daughter Willa on her third miscarriage, Carson partying until all hours, and Leo currently “off againâ€� with his high-maintenance girlfriend, she’ll have to think carefully where to use them.

From the Beyond, Vivi watches “The Chief� Ed Kapenash investigate her death, but her greatest worry is her final book, which contains a secret from her own youth that could be disastrous for her reputation. But when hidden truths come to light, Vivi’s family will have to sort out their past and present mistakes—with or without a nudge of help from above—while Vivi finally lets them grow without her.

With all of Elin’s trademark beach scenes, mouth-watering meals, and picture-perfect homes, plus a heartfelt message—the people we lose never really leave us�Golden Girl is a beach book unlike any other.]]> 384 Elin Hilderbrand 0316420085 Madeline 2 starts. Because immediately after dying, Vivian goes to heaven (or, at least, a very nice place somewhere in the afterlife), and we're off to the races.

Oh yeah, friends: Elin Hilderbrand has decided to write a book where she speculates about life after death. Strap the fuck in.

The first thing I'll say right off the bat is: if you're a fan of The Good Place, you will not particularly enjoy this book. Elin Hilderbrand is almost impressively uninterested in questions like how the afterlife functions, what kind of person "deserves" a good afterlife, and whether the dead interfering in the affairs of the living is ultimately a good idea. Everything does exactly what it says on the label - an author goes to heaven after dying - and the whole thing is about as deep as a kiddie pool.

It does, however, offer a fascinating glimpse into the author's psyche. Elin Hilderbrand's idea of Heaven is a corporate HR department, where you die and are immediately greeted by a woman with a clipboard (Heaven has clipboards) who walks you through your onboarding process and answers your questions. That is, if you have questions, which Vivi does not.

This was the first clue that this book was not going to be my jam: Vivi isn't even curious about the world she finds herself transported to after death, much less freaked out or even angry that her life was cut short. Golden Girl seems to take place in a universe where the existence of the afterlife is not only a proven fact, but is common knowledge. How else to explain Vivi's total serene acceptance of everything she experiences after dying?

Anyway, Vivi's "Person" (maybe we should have brainstormed that one a little longer, Elin?) is a woman named Martha, who tells Vivi the rules: she will be allowed to watch the lives of her family for three months. During that time, she can use three "nudges" to influence events back on Earth. Once the three months are up, Martha tells Vivi, she will then "join the heavenly choir." (Another example of how badly Elin Hilderbrand wants to avoid theological questions of any kind: Vivi's only response after being told this is, "But I can't sing!" VIVIAN.) Golden Girl covers the period of three months when Vivi is watching over her family and friends, and we see their lives through Vivi's eyes. Oh, and we also have to solve the mystery of who killed Vivi in a hit and run, but it's so obvious that I don't think it's actually supposed to be a mystery at all, and is more like the Columbo style of murder mystery where we're just trying to figure out how the killer gets caught.

Aside from everything else, this book is meta as hell. When Vivi dies, she's about to publish a new novel called Golden Girl, which is about an author...who is writing a book called Golden Girl. It's weird.

A lot of things are frustrating about this book. First, as mentioned, is the author's complete refusal in engage with any of the thorny theological questions her setting introduces (a character offhandedly mentions "the devout Catholic department" of the afterlife at one point, and the questions that that one sentence raises could fill an entire book by itself), but the characters themselves are also incredibly frustrating.

Everyone in this book reminds me of that bit from Into the Woods where the witch sneers, "You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just NICE." Everyone in this book is nice, and that is not a compliment!

I don't know, maybe living in a picturesque beach community does something to people's brains and gives them total serenity, because there is no other way to explain how chill everyone is about stuff that happens in this book. For just one example: Vivi has an ex husband who cheated on her, and is now living with his former mistress. He breaks up with the mistress and then starts dating Vivi's best friend, and Vivi is happy about it. She has been dead for like two months at this point and is actively rooting for her best friend to hook up with her cheating ex! WHO DOES THAT. Another character is having a different affair, and there's never really any consequences for that. And also, once the characters find out who killed Vivi (and has been actively covering up the murder while hanging out with the family like nothing's wrong), they're barely even upset!

Everybody's so nice, and it's infuriating.

And I still can't get over how absolutely fucked Elin Hilderbrand's version of heaven is. After dying, Vivi is confined to a single room with an unlocked door that she's been forbidden to open. She is watched over by a woman who claims to be there to help, but this woman constantly reads Vivi's thoughts and, although she knows the details of her murder, refuses to share them. Vivi is able to watch her loved ones below, but only for a period of three months. She can influence events, but can only do this three times before the ability is taken away. And if her heavenly guide doesn't approve of how she's using this influence, she can make "an executive decision" and prevent her from using one of her nudges.

As another character in a piece of speculative media about the afterlife famously declared: this is the Bad Place.
]]> 4.09 2021 Golden Girl
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2023/06/01
date added: 2023/06/22
shelves:
review:
On a beautiful June morning on the island of Nantucket, bestselling author Vivian Howe is out for her morning run when she is suddenly struck and killed by a car, whose driver flees the scene. And that's how the book starts. Because immediately after dying, Vivian goes to heaven (or, at least, a very nice place somewhere in the afterlife), and we're off to the races.

Oh yeah, friends: Elin Hilderbrand has decided to write a book where she speculates about life after death. Strap the fuck in.

The first thing I'll say right off the bat is: if you're a fan of The Good Place, you will not particularly enjoy this book. Elin Hilderbrand is almost impressively uninterested in questions like how the afterlife functions, what kind of person "deserves" a good afterlife, and whether the dead interfering in the affairs of the living is ultimately a good idea. Everything does exactly what it says on the label - an author goes to heaven after dying - and the whole thing is about as deep as a kiddie pool.

It does, however, offer a fascinating glimpse into the author's psyche. Elin Hilderbrand's idea of Heaven is a corporate HR department, where you die and are immediately greeted by a woman with a clipboard (Heaven has clipboards) who walks you through your onboarding process and answers your questions. That is, if you have questions, which Vivi does not.

This was the first clue that this book was not going to be my jam: Vivi isn't even curious about the world she finds herself transported to after death, much less freaked out or even angry that her life was cut short. Golden Girl seems to take place in a universe where the existence of the afterlife is not only a proven fact, but is common knowledge. How else to explain Vivi's total serene acceptance of everything she experiences after dying?

Anyway, Vivi's "Person" (maybe we should have brainstormed that one a little longer, Elin?) is a woman named Martha, who tells Vivi the rules: she will be allowed to watch the lives of her family for three months. During that time, she can use three "nudges" to influence events back on Earth. Once the three months are up, Martha tells Vivi, she will then "join the heavenly choir." (Another example of how badly Elin Hilderbrand wants to avoid theological questions of any kind: Vivi's only response after being told this is, "But I can't sing!" VIVIAN.) Golden Girl covers the period of three months when Vivi is watching over her family and friends, and we see their lives through Vivi's eyes. Oh, and we also have to solve the mystery of who killed Vivi in a hit and run, but it's so obvious that I don't think it's actually supposed to be a mystery at all, and is more like the Columbo style of murder mystery where we're just trying to figure out how the killer gets caught.

Aside from everything else, this book is meta as hell. When Vivi dies, she's about to publish a new novel called Golden Girl, which is about an author...who is writing a book called Golden Girl. It's weird.

A lot of things are frustrating about this book. First, as mentioned, is the author's complete refusal in engage with any of the thorny theological questions her setting introduces (a character offhandedly mentions "the devout Catholic department" of the afterlife at one point, and the questions that that one sentence raises could fill an entire book by itself), but the characters themselves are also incredibly frustrating.

Everyone in this book reminds me of that bit from Into the Woods where the witch sneers, "You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just NICE." Everyone in this book is nice, and that is not a compliment!

I don't know, maybe living in a picturesque beach community does something to people's brains and gives them total serenity, because there is no other way to explain how chill everyone is about stuff that happens in this book. For just one example: Vivi has an ex husband who cheated on her, and is now living with his former mistress. He breaks up with the mistress and then starts dating Vivi's best friend, and Vivi is happy about it. She has been dead for like two months at this point and is actively rooting for her best friend to hook up with her cheating ex! WHO DOES THAT. Another character is having a different affair, and there's never really any consequences for that. And also, once the characters find out who killed Vivi (and has been actively covering up the murder while hanging out with the family like nothing's wrong), they're barely even upset!

Everybody's so nice, and it's infuriating.

And I still can't get over how absolutely fucked Elin Hilderbrand's version of heaven is. After dying, Vivi is confined to a single room with an unlocked door that she's been forbidden to open. She is watched over by a woman who claims to be there to help, but this woman constantly reads Vivi's thoughts and, although she knows the details of her murder, refuses to share them. Vivi is able to watch her loved ones below, but only for a period of three months. She can influence events, but can only do this three times before the ability is taken away. And if her heavenly guide doesn't approve of how she's using this influence, she can make "an executive decision" and prevent her from using one of her nudges.

As another character in a piece of speculative media about the afterlife famously declared: this is the Bad Place.

]]> <![CDATA[The Widows of Malabar Hill (Perveen Mistry, #1)]]> 35133064
Mistry Law is handling the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen goes through the papers, she notices something strange: all three have signed over their inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forefeit what their husband left them? Perveen is suspicious.

The Farid widows live in purdah: strict seclusion, never leaving the women's quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder. It's her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that nobody is in further danger.]]> 385 Sujata Massey 1616957786 Madeline 3 detective-fiction doesn't involve the plucky lady detective dating a cop, which you'd think wouldn't be a tall order, but man would you be wrong!), but Widows of Malabar Hill was a nice break away from the cozy subgenre and into the historical detective genre.

Detective stories set in the 1920's are a dime a dozen, and what made this one stand out to me was the protagonist - I'm sure there are a thousand historical detective stories about plucky British girls solving mysteries during the Raj, so it was nice to discover a series that focuses on the locals. Our amateur detective is Perveen Mistry, Oxford graduate and the first practicing female lawyer in India, who has just joined her father's law firm. The law firm has just been assigned to handle the will of a wealthy Muslim man who died and left behind three wives, with a male relative designated as their legal representative. Perveen thinks there's something hinky about the terms of the will and how the funds are being distributed among the wives, so she uses her unique position as a woman and a lawyer to visit the women alone and get more information about the will - something the men she works with would never be allowed to do. Soon enough, the guardian is found dead and Perveen has to figure out who did it, or all three widows will be ruined.

This was an interesting, detailed historical mystery - the author does an especially good job of illustrating the wide variety of religious and ethnic groups that could be found in Bombay in 1921, and Perveen's world feels rich and fully fleshed out. The actual mystery, unfortunately, leaves something to be desired. It felt like Perveen spent barely any time investigating, and aside from some interviews, she's not much of a go-getter when it comes to solving a murder. The culprit reveal plays out less like "here is the culmination of all the clues and little revelations the author has slowly planted throughout the book" and more "oh, hey, that's who did it!" There's a lot of time spent exploring Perveen's Tragic Backstory, and I'll give it a pass because it does ultimately play into the main mystery, but to be honest I would have been a lot more interested in hearing more about Perveen's experiences as an Indian woman at a women's college at Oxford in the 1920's (but I acknowledge that this is mainly my Harriet Vane bias talking).

Also the book features the classic "culprit tries to get the detective killed because she's Getting Too Close" sequence, but it falls flat because it feels like it's happening only because the author knows that this is a requirement of the genre, and not because it makes a lot of sense for this particular mystery or the characters she's created.

Still, overall this was a breath of fresh air in a genre that, despite how huge it is, can often feel extremely narrow in scope. Despite this one's shortcomings, I think I'll give Perveen Mistry another shot in the future. ]]> 3.88 2018 The Widows of Malabar Hill (Perveen Mistry, #1)
author: Sujata Massey
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/05/03
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
Lately I've been preoccupied with finding an ideal cozy mystery (that doesn't involve the plucky lady detective dating a cop, which you'd think wouldn't be a tall order, but man would you be wrong!), but Widows of Malabar Hill was a nice break away from the cozy subgenre and into the historical detective genre.

Detective stories set in the 1920's are a dime a dozen, and what made this one stand out to me was the protagonist - I'm sure there are a thousand historical detective stories about plucky British girls solving mysteries during the Raj, so it was nice to discover a series that focuses on the locals. Our amateur detective is Perveen Mistry, Oxford graduate and the first practicing female lawyer in India, who has just joined her father's law firm. The law firm has just been assigned to handle the will of a wealthy Muslim man who died and left behind three wives, with a male relative designated as their legal representative. Perveen thinks there's something hinky about the terms of the will and how the funds are being distributed among the wives, so she uses her unique position as a woman and a lawyer to visit the women alone and get more information about the will - something the men she works with would never be allowed to do. Soon enough, the guardian is found dead and Perveen has to figure out who did it, or all three widows will be ruined.

This was an interesting, detailed historical mystery - the author does an especially good job of illustrating the wide variety of religious and ethnic groups that could be found in Bombay in 1921, and Perveen's world feels rich and fully fleshed out. The actual mystery, unfortunately, leaves something to be desired. It felt like Perveen spent barely any time investigating, and aside from some interviews, she's not much of a go-getter when it comes to solving a murder. The culprit reveal plays out less like "here is the culmination of all the clues and little revelations the author has slowly planted throughout the book" and more "oh, hey, that's who did it!" There's a lot of time spent exploring Perveen's Tragic Backstory, and I'll give it a pass because it does ultimately play into the main mystery, but to be honest I would have been a lot more interested in hearing more about Perveen's experiences as an Indian woman at a women's college at Oxford in the 1920's (but I acknowledge that this is mainly my Harriet Vane bias talking).

Also the book features the classic "culprit tries to get the detective killed because she's Getting Too Close" sequence, but it falls flat because it feels like it's happening only because the author knows that this is a requirement of the genre, and not because it makes a lot of sense for this particular mystery or the characters she's created.

Still, overall this was a breath of fresh air in a genre that, despite how huge it is, can often feel extremely narrow in scope. Despite this one's shortcomings, I think I'll give Perveen Mistry another shot in the future.
]]> <![CDATA[Black Tudors: The Untold Story]]> 33261026 352 Miranda Kaufmann Madeline 4 history-nonfiction
Rather than being a straightforward, linear retelling of a period in history, Miranda Kaufmann approaches her subject by shining a spotlight on a handful of black men and women who lived in Tudor England. As the quoted passage mentions, she doesn't have a lot to go on - for most of the people covered by this book, Kaufmann's starting point was a one-line entry in some parish record book, and she had to dig deep into the archives in an attempt to trace their lives.

Obviously, we aren't able to get full biographies of any of the people Kaufmann's book covers, and fortunately she resists the urge to invent and speculate - the farthest she'll go is making an educated guess about someone's life based on other records from that period, but it's all with the heavy caveat that there is much about these people's lives that we don't know. This is, in some ways, a frustrating history, because we only get glimpses of the people Kaufmann introduces us to, and then it's on to the next chapter. But the little glimpses are fascinating, and a good reminder that history is always being rewritten and rediscovered. ]]> 3.75 2017 Black Tudors: The Untold Story
author: Miranda Kaufmann
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/04/26
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
"The Black Tudors were not only present, but played an active part in some of the best-known stories of the age. ...We have tantalizing glimpses of their lives, granted to us only by the peculiar circumstances that brought them into contact with a law court, an unusually verbose parish clerk or a state official who mentioned them in a letter. Fleshing out these biographies from the meager documentation that remains is not easy, but it is a mission that must be undertaken if we are to reclaim their stories. Those revealed in this book provide so much that challenges the preconceptions we have about the roles of Africans in British history."

Rather than being a straightforward, linear retelling of a period in history, Miranda Kaufmann approaches her subject by shining a spotlight on a handful of black men and women who lived in Tudor England. As the quoted passage mentions, she doesn't have a lot to go on - for most of the people covered by this book, Kaufmann's starting point was a one-line entry in some parish record book, and she had to dig deep into the archives in an attempt to trace their lives.

Obviously, we aren't able to get full biographies of any of the people Kaufmann's book covers, and fortunately she resists the urge to invent and speculate - the farthest she'll go is making an educated guess about someone's life based on other records from that period, but it's all with the heavy caveat that there is much about these people's lives that we don't know. This is, in some ways, a frustrating history, because we only get glimpses of the people Kaufmann introduces us to, and then it's on to the next chapter. But the little glimpses are fascinating, and a good reminder that history is always being rewritten and rediscovered.
]]> The Hotel Nantucket 59227941 Ěý
Filled with the emotional tension and multiple points of view that characterize Elin's books (The Blue Bistro, Golden Girl) as well as an added touch of historical reality, Hotel Nantucket offers something for everyone in this summer drama for the ages.Ěý]]> 416 Elin Hilderbrand 0316258679 Madeline 3 nice in here.

Just the plot description was enough to sell me: Nantucket Island native Lizbet Keaton is fresh off a devastating breakup with her partner of eleven years when she gets an intriguing job offer - billionaire developer Xavier Darling (my god, the names in this book) has completed a total renovation of the defunct Hotel Nantucket, turning it into a luxury destination, and he wants Lizbet for the general manager. In addition to dealing with the headaches and logistical problems that come from staffing and opening a brand-new business, Lizbet has been given an additional challenge: Xavier specifically wants to catch the attention of a famous-but-anonymous hotel reviewer, and he wants Lizbet to ensure that the Hotel Nantucket receives this reviewer's first-ever "five keys" rating.

Also the hotel is haunted by the ghost of a maid who died in a fire in 1922. The ghost gets her own POV chapters.

Honestly, putting aside the main draws of this novel - the frankly decadent descriptions of food, scenery, restaurants, and luxury accommodations - the truest plot description I can give is that The Hotel Nantucket is a breakup revenge story on par with Kill Bill. No, seriously. Sure, you come for the food/luxury porn, but you stay for the saga of a woman who dumps her partner after she finds out he cheated on her, and then said partner begs for her to take him back not once but twice, proposes marriage out of desperation, and also makes sure to mention how super hot she's gotten since the breakup. Lizbet also starts dating a hot chef and there's a whole scene where she and her new slampiece show up at her ex's failing restaurant and just rub it in his face. It's total wish fulfillment, and if that's what your soul needs at this point in time, I have no problem with that!

So that's the good stuff. Unfortunately, I couldn't in good conscience give this more than three stars. Elin Hilderbrand, in possibly an attempt to prove how With The Times she is, has overstuffed the text of this novel with pop culture references, slang, and references to just about every social media platform she can cram in. It's excessive, and also solidifies how trendy her books truly are, rather than being written to stand the test of time. (Honestly Elin - do you think anyone picking up this book ten years from now will have any idea who Rege Jean Page is?)

Hilderbrand writes herself into a corner early on by giving almost all the hotel employees their own little subplots, and because she can't extend herself any further, has to make Lizbet establish that all the employees work six days a week to explain how this luxury hotel can function with a staff of twelve people. She attempts to give us a little drama by teasing the mystery of how the ghost really died, and of course we're supposed to spend the entire book trying to figure out which of the guests is the mystery hotel reviewer, and the solutions to both mysteries are so blatantly obvious that it's almost insulting. (If you're in the middle of the book and thinking, "okay, well it definitely can't be [redacted] because that's too obvious"...uh, maybe don't give Hilderbrand too much credit there)

The entire ghost plotline ultimately made very little sense, especially the mechanics of how the ghost functions - she steals a character's hat and starts wearing it, and I guess the hat disappears as soon as she puts it on, which introduces a TON of questions that Hilderbrand does not care to think about. The ghost is so constantly aware of her surroundings and what's going on in the hotel, and she can (and does) frequently make her presence known in very unambiguous ways - to the point where Lizbet could probably advertise the hotel based on the ghost alone. ("Come to the Hotel Nantucket, where we have irrefutable proof of life after death!)

There's also a weird inconsistency in how the "bad" actions of different characters are treated: one of the employees is working as a cleaner as a kind of self-imposed penance for some Very Bad Thing he did - it's built up so much as this heinous and unforgivable act, and by the time we find out what he actually did, my reaction was more, oh...that's it? It's like Hilderbrand can't or won't come up with something that's legitimately awful, because that would taint the atmosphere she's created. But meanwhile, we find out that another employee has been [spoilers removed]

But here's the truly wild thing: I'm probably going to read another one of these! Yeah, the plots are silly and there are too many characters and the writing is average at best, but the fact remains that reading this book was like sitting in a bubblebath that never gets cold.

Hit me up with your favorite Hilderbrand titles, because mama needs some more fluff!]]> 4.01 2022 The Hotel Nantucket
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves:
review:
I'm dipping my toe into the Elin Hilderbrand pond, and I gotta admit guys: the water is nice in here.

Just the plot description was enough to sell me: Nantucket Island native Lizbet Keaton is fresh off a devastating breakup with her partner of eleven years when she gets an intriguing job offer - billionaire developer Xavier Darling (my god, the names in this book) has completed a total renovation of the defunct Hotel Nantucket, turning it into a luxury destination, and he wants Lizbet for the general manager. In addition to dealing with the headaches and logistical problems that come from staffing and opening a brand-new business, Lizbet has been given an additional challenge: Xavier specifically wants to catch the attention of a famous-but-anonymous hotel reviewer, and he wants Lizbet to ensure that the Hotel Nantucket receives this reviewer's first-ever "five keys" rating.

Also the hotel is haunted by the ghost of a maid who died in a fire in 1922. The ghost gets her own POV chapters.

Honestly, putting aside the main draws of this novel - the frankly decadent descriptions of food, scenery, restaurants, and luxury accommodations - the truest plot description I can give is that The Hotel Nantucket is a breakup revenge story on par with Kill Bill. No, seriously. Sure, you come for the food/luxury porn, but you stay for the saga of a woman who dumps her partner after she finds out he cheated on her, and then said partner begs for her to take him back not once but twice, proposes marriage out of desperation, and also makes sure to mention how super hot she's gotten since the breakup. Lizbet also starts dating a hot chef and there's a whole scene where she and her new slampiece show up at her ex's failing restaurant and just rub it in his face. It's total wish fulfillment, and if that's what your soul needs at this point in time, I have no problem with that!

So that's the good stuff. Unfortunately, I couldn't in good conscience give this more than three stars. Elin Hilderbrand, in possibly an attempt to prove how With The Times she is, has overstuffed the text of this novel with pop culture references, slang, and references to just about every social media platform she can cram in. It's excessive, and also solidifies how trendy her books truly are, rather than being written to stand the test of time. (Honestly Elin - do you think anyone picking up this book ten years from now will have any idea who Rege Jean Page is?)

Hilderbrand writes herself into a corner early on by giving almost all the hotel employees their own little subplots, and because she can't extend herself any further, has to make Lizbet establish that all the employees work six days a week to explain how this luxury hotel can function with a staff of twelve people. She attempts to give us a little drama by teasing the mystery of how the ghost really died, and of course we're supposed to spend the entire book trying to figure out which of the guests is the mystery hotel reviewer, and the solutions to both mysteries are so blatantly obvious that it's almost insulting. (If you're in the middle of the book and thinking, "okay, well it definitely can't be [redacted] because that's too obvious"...uh, maybe don't give Hilderbrand too much credit there)

The entire ghost plotline ultimately made very little sense, especially the mechanics of how the ghost functions - she steals a character's hat and starts wearing it, and I guess the hat disappears as soon as she puts it on, which introduces a TON of questions that Hilderbrand does not care to think about. The ghost is so constantly aware of her surroundings and what's going on in the hotel, and she can (and does) frequently make her presence known in very unambiguous ways - to the point where Lizbet could probably advertise the hotel based on the ghost alone. ("Come to the Hotel Nantucket, where we have irrefutable proof of life after death!)

There's also a weird inconsistency in how the "bad" actions of different characters are treated: one of the employees is working as a cleaner as a kind of self-imposed penance for some Very Bad Thing he did - it's built up so much as this heinous and unforgivable act, and by the time we find out what he actually did, my reaction was more, oh...that's it? It's like Hilderbrand can't or won't come up with something that's legitimately awful, because that would taint the atmosphere she's created. But meanwhile, we find out that another employee has been [spoilers removed]

But here's the truly wild thing: I'm probably going to read another one of these! Yeah, the plots are silly and there are too many characters and the writing is average at best, but the fact remains that reading this book was like sitting in a bubblebath that never gets cold.

Hit me up with your favorite Hilderbrand titles, because mama needs some more fluff!
]]> <![CDATA[Empty Theatre: or, The Lives of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty...]]> 60784784
History knows them as King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Elizabeth of Austria, icons of the late nineteenth century who died young and left behind magnificent portraits and palaces. But to each other they were Ludwig and Sisi, cousins who shared a passion for beauty and a stubborn refusal to submit to the roles imposed upon them.

Ludwig, simultaneously spoiled and punished for his softness and “unmanly� interests, falls hard for the operas of Richard Wagner and neglects his state duties in the pursuit of art. Sisi, married at the age of sixteen to her beloved Franzl, bristles at the restrictions of her elevated position, the value placed on her beauty, and the simultaneous expectation that she ravage her body again and again in childbirth. Both absurdly vain, both traumatized by the demands of their roles, Sisi and Ludwig struggle against the ideals they are expected to embody, and resist through extravagance, petulance, performance, and frivolity.

A tragicomic tour de force, Empty Theatre immerses readers in Ludwig and Sisi’s rarefied, ridiculous, restrictive world―where the aesthetics of excess belie the isolation of its inhabitants. With wit, pathos, and imagination, Jac Jemc takes us on an unforgettable journey through two extraordinary parallel lives and the complex, tenuous friendship that links them.]]> 464 Jac Jemc 0374277923 Madeline 4 historic-fiction To make a connection requires risking rejection. To share a story requires an audience trustworthy enough to receive it. The longer a person remains isolated, the more sensitive they become to potential threats. The longer a story goes untold, the harder it is to tell."]]> 3.89 2023 Empty Theatre: or, The Lives of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty...
author: Jac Jemc
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves: historic-fiction
review:
"What is loneliness? Telling one's story, when no one will listen. Not sharing one's truth out of fear. Letting others dictate one's narrative, none of the versions just right. Attaching oneself to those tales so that one becomes distant even from oneself. Maybe a truly lonely person doesn't even believe they have a story to tell. Loneliness is keenest in the company of others, when comparisons suggest that everyone else is relating to and forming bonds with one another. To lose a friend is to lose an identity - the self defined only by one's relation to that singular person.
To make a connection requires risking rejection. To share a story requires an audience trustworthy enough to receive it. The longer a person remains isolated, the more sensitive they become to potential threats. The longer a story goes untold, the harder it is to tell."
]]> <![CDATA[Witches Abroad (Discworld, #12; Witches, #3)]]> 2442
Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother named Desiderata who had a good heart, a wise head, and poor planning skills—which unfortunately left the Princess Emberella in the care of her other (not quite so good and wise) godmother when DEATH came for Desiderata. So now it's up to Magrat Garlick, Granny Weatherwax, and Nanny Ogg to hop on broomsticks and make for far-distant Genua to ensure the servant girl doesn't marry the Prince.

But the road to Genua is bumpy, and along the way the trio of witches encounters the occasional vampire, werewolf, and falling house (well this is a fairy tale, after all). The trouble really begins once these reluctant foster-godmothers arrive in Genua and must outwit their power-hungry counterpart who'll stop at nothing to achieve a proper "happy ending"—even if it means destroying a kingdom.]]> 374 Terry Pratchett 0061020613 Madeline 5 fantasy They tend to attract one another. Possibly they broadcast inaudible signals indicating that here is someone who could be persuaded to go 'Ooo' at pictures of other people's grandchildren.

*Always in front of you in any queue, for a start."

It's time for more adventures of Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, and Magrat Garlick - our favorite not-coven of witches who are definitely not friends, thank you very much. At the beginning of the story, Magrat has been given a wand, and a mission, by a dying fairy godmother: she has to travel to the distant kingdom of Genua, find the servant girl Emberella, and ensure that she doesn't go to the ball.

This is equal parts road-trip adventure and good-hearted spoof fairy tale tropes (with a bonus extended Lord of the Rings reference that made me laugh way harder than I expected it to), and much like he did in Moving Pictures, Pratchett is using this book to explore the concept of stories, and how and why they matter so much - although his approach is much kinder here than in Moving Pictures. I read somewhere online that Pratchett was inspired to write this book after visiting Disney World and New Orleans, and you can definitely see those influences all over the story.

It's a delightful, hilarious good time with the Disc's best (?) witches, and as an added bonus, is endlessly quotable and features the adventures of a cat named Greebo:

"Cats are like witches. They don't fight to kill, but to win. There is a difference. There's no point in killing an opponent. That way, they won't know they've lost, and to be a real winner you have to have an opponent who is beaten and knows it. There's no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure.
Cats do not, of course, rationalize this far. They just like to send someone limping off minus a tail and a few square inches of fur.
Greebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordsmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordsmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off."]]> 4.24 1991 Witches Abroad (Discworld, #12; Witches, #3)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/01
date added: 2023/03/22
shelves: fantasy
review:
"People like Nanny Ogg turn up everywhere. It's as if there's some special morphic generator dedicated to the production of old women who like a laugh and aren't averse to the odd pint, especially of some drink normally found in very small glasses. You find them all over the place, often in pairs.*
They tend to attract one another. Possibly they broadcast inaudible signals indicating that here is someone who could be persuaded to go 'Ooo' at pictures of other people's grandchildren.

*Always in front of you in any queue, for a start."

It's time for more adventures of Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, and Magrat Garlick - our favorite not-coven of witches who are definitely not friends, thank you very much. At the beginning of the story, Magrat has been given a wand, and a mission, by a dying fairy godmother: she has to travel to the distant kingdom of Genua, find the servant girl Emberella, and ensure that she doesn't go to the ball.

This is equal parts road-trip adventure and good-hearted spoof fairy tale tropes (with a bonus extended Lord of the Rings reference that made me laugh way harder than I expected it to), and much like he did in Moving Pictures, Pratchett is using this book to explore the concept of stories, and how and why they matter so much - although his approach is much kinder here than in Moving Pictures. I read somewhere online that Pratchett was inspired to write this book after visiting Disney World and New Orleans, and you can definitely see those influences all over the story.

It's a delightful, hilarious good time with the Disc's best (?) witches, and as an added bonus, is endlessly quotable and features the adventures of a cat named Greebo:

"Cats are like witches. They don't fight to kill, but to win. There is a difference. There's no point in killing an opponent. That way, they won't know they've lost, and to be a real winner you have to have an opponent who is beaten and knows it. There's no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure.
Cats do not, of course, rationalize this far. They just like to send someone limping off minus a tail and a few square inches of fur.
Greebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordsmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordsmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off."
]]> <![CDATA[Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]> 441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 Madeline 4 history-nonfiction
In my experience, the best kinds of nonfiction history books understand that the best way to cover a huge topic is to go small: start with an interpersonal conflict, and use that as the first skipping stone that leads to the broader subject you're trying to people about. Patrick Radden Keefe understands this, and so his exploration of the Troubles starts with one woman.

Jean McConville was at home one evening in Belfast in 1972, when masked intruders showed up at the door. As her children watched, Jean was marched out of the house and into a waiting van. She was never seen alive again, and it would be decades before her decomposed body was discovered on a nearby beach.

Part of this book is devoted to solving the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, and to understand all of the events that led up to that one night in 1972, Radden Keefe has to pull way, way back and start his story back in the 1960's, when Ireland's independence movement (and the IRA's involvement) was reignited. Jean McConville was one of many casualties of the Troubles, and one of the things Say Nothing sets out to make you understand is how the abduction of a Belfast housewife was the result of decades of interconnected events.

This is not a cheerful history, but it's compelling and thoroughly researched, and like the people who fought in the conflict, the reader will find themselves getting drawn into the quagmire of the Irish independence movement. There are no heroes in this book - even one of our semi-protagonists, a hardcore IRA freedom fighter who joins the movement with the best intentions and pure motivations, finds herself losing sight of who the good guys are, and confronting the idea that she's doing more harm than good with her actions. And then of course there's the family at the center of the book, Jean McConville's ten children who just want to know what happened to their mother.

]]> 4.47 2018 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/01
date added: 2023/03/21
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
It's not easy for a historian attempting to tackle a complicated period of history - there are decades of events to cover, dozens of key players, and hundreds of intricate moving parts that compromise the era you're trying to teach people about. And if the majority of your audience is almost completely unfamiliar with that time period, it's even more daunting.

In my experience, the best kinds of nonfiction history books understand that the best way to cover a huge topic is to go small: start with an interpersonal conflict, and use that as the first skipping stone that leads to the broader subject you're trying to people about. Patrick Radden Keefe understands this, and so his exploration of the Troubles starts with one woman.

Jean McConville was at home one evening in Belfast in 1972, when masked intruders showed up at the door. As her children watched, Jean was marched out of the house and into a waiting van. She was never seen alive again, and it would be decades before her decomposed body was discovered on a nearby beach.

Part of this book is devoted to solving the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, and to understand all of the events that led up to that one night in 1972, Radden Keefe has to pull way, way back and start his story back in the 1960's, when Ireland's independence movement (and the IRA's involvement) was reignited. Jean McConville was one of many casualties of the Troubles, and one of the things Say Nothing sets out to make you understand is how the abduction of a Belfast housewife was the result of decades of interconnected events.

This is not a cheerful history, but it's compelling and thoroughly researched, and like the people who fought in the conflict, the reader will find themselves getting drawn into the quagmire of the Irish independence movement. There are no heroes in this book - even one of our semi-protagonists, a hardcore IRA freedom fighter who joins the movement with the best intentions and pure motivations, finds herself losing sight of who the good guys are, and confronting the idea that she's doing more harm than good with her actions. And then of course there's the family at the center of the book, Jean McConville's ten children who just want to know what happened to their mother.


]]> Hell's Angels 10882
" En France on n'a pas ça et aux Etats-unis, pays pourtant pas avare en déjantés, ils n'en ont qu'un comme lui. Même s'il n'a rien écrit depuis plus de vingt ans, Hunter S. Thompson demeure là-bas une légende. ", Eric Neuhoff, Le Figaro littéraire.]]> 295 Hunter S. Thompson 222109073X Madeline 4 memoir
In 1966, journalist Hunter S. Thompson undertook a months-long project where he sought to infiltrate the Hell's Angels, the already-notorious motorcycle gang, and live among them to learn what was underneath the sensationalized stories about them. He spent several months riding with the Angels and ended up with this book, which gave the American public the first inside look at real-life outlaws.

I had never read any Hunter S. Thompson before this book, and I was mostly surprised and delighted to learn that he's a really compelling writer - the prose is strong and flowing, and there are some flashes of really smart, sharp humor that reminded me of Terry Pratchett, in all the best ways:

"[Dirty Ed] would no more trust a reporter than he would a cop or a judge. To him they are all the same � the running dogs of whatever fiendish conspiracy has plagued him all these years. He knows that somewhere behind that moat, the Main Cop has scrawled his name on a blackboard in the Big Briefing Room � with a notation beside it: 'Get this big boy, give him no peace, he’s incorrigible, like an egg-sucking dog.'"

The best part of Hell's Angels is when we get to see Thompson showing that he's actually a really good journalist, a fact that (for me, at least) definitely tends to get lost in the bigger legend of the gonzo writer best known for stuff like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But Thompson knows his shit, and the most interesting sections come when he's applying his professional scrutiny to various articles about the Hell's Angels, researching the police reports of different incidents and contrasting what actually happened versus how it was reported in the papers. He makes a compelling argument that the media was mainly responsible for perpetuating the myth of the Hell's Angels, and that the group wouldn't have become nearly as famous or notorious without the help of scare-mongering journalists trying to sell more magazines.

Because it's not like the Angels aren't scary - they definitely are, and in many of Thompson's stories about partying with the bikers, he makes it clear how many ways he easily could have died - but at the same time, Thompson is getting underneath all the bullshit and the fear tactics, and showing these guys for who they are. And he's thoroughly unimpressed with what he finds. In a lot of ways, Hunter S. Thompson is the perfect person to write about the Hell's Angels. Like, don't try to tell Thompson about dirtbag junkies, babe: Thompson knows from dirtbag junkies, okay?

"So there is more to their stance than a wistful yearning for acceptance in the world they never made. Their real motivation is an instinctive certainty as to what the score really is. They are out of the ballgame and they know it. Unlike the campus rebels, who with a minimum amount of effort will emerge from their struggle with a validated ticket to status, the outlaw motorcyclist views the future with a baleful eye of a man with no upward mobility at all. In a world increasingly geared to specialists, technicians and fantastically complicated machinery, the Hell’s Angels are obviously losers and it bugs them. But instead of submitting quietly to their collective fate, they have made it the basis of a full-time social vendetta. They don’t expect to win anything, but on the other hand, they have nothing to lose."

Hunter S. Thompson also refuses to fall for the myth of the Angels as some kind of free, rebellious outlaws - he sees through the mythology, and gets to the heart of what they ultimately are: a bunch of fascist losers pretending to be rebels.

"The Angelsâ€� collective viewpoint has always be fascistic. They insist and seem to believe that their swastika fetish is no more than an antisocial joke, a guaranteed gimmick to bug the squares, the taxpayers â€� all those they spitefully refer to as â€citizens.â€� What they really mean is the Middle Class, the Bourgeoisie, the Burghers â€� but the Angels don’t know those terms and they’re suspicious of anyone who tries to explain them. If they wanted to be artful about bugging the squares they would drop the swastika and decorate their bikes with the hammer and sickle."

There were also a few parts, when Thompson is describing the mindset of the Angels, that unfortunately hit a little too close to home for me, a person living in America in 2022 - the Hell's Angels still exist, of course, but the below description was painfully similar to another kind of gang that's recently started to rear its head in the political landscape here, and reading this description, written way back in the early 60's, almost gave me chills:

"One afternoon as I sat in the El Adobe and watched an Angel sell a handful of barbiturate pills to a brace of pimply punks no more than sixteen, I realized that the roots of this act were not in any time-honored American myth but right beneath my feet in a new kind of society that is only beginning to take shape. To see the Hell’s Angels as caretakers of the old â€individualistâ€� tradition â€that made this country greatâ€� is only a painless way to get around seeing them for what they really are â€� not some romantic leftover, but the first wave of a future that nothing in our history has prepared us to cope with. The Angels are prototypes. Their lack of education has not only rendered them completely useless in a highly technical economy, but it has also given them the leisure to cultivate a powerful resentment…and to translate it into a destructive cult which the mass media insists on portraying as a sort of isolated oddity, a temporary phenomenon that will shortly become extinct now that it’s been called to the attention of the police."

Definitely not a connection I expected to make in the middle of a fun biker gang memoir, my god. Apparently I need to go read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas now, because I'm officially a Hunter S. Thompson convert.


]]> 4.00 1966 Hell's Angels
author: Hunter S. Thompson
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at: 2022/10/01
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: memoir
review:
"There is an important difference between the words â€loserâ€� and â€outlaw.â€� One is passive and the other is active, and the main reasons the Angels are such good copy is that they are acting out the day-dreams of millions of losers who don’t wear any defiant insignia and who don’t know how to be outlaws. The streets of every city are thronged with men who would pay all the money they could get their hands on to be transformed â€� even for a day â€� into hairy, hard-fisted brutes who walk over cops, extort free drinks from terrified bartenders and thunder out of town on big motorcycles after raping the banker’s daughter. Even people who think the Angels should all be put to sleep find it easy to identify with them. They command a fascination, however reluctant, that borders on psychic masturbation."

In 1966, journalist Hunter S. Thompson undertook a months-long project where he sought to infiltrate the Hell's Angels, the already-notorious motorcycle gang, and live among them to learn what was underneath the sensationalized stories about them. He spent several months riding with the Angels and ended up with this book, which gave the American public the first inside look at real-life outlaws.

I had never read any Hunter S. Thompson before this book, and I was mostly surprised and delighted to learn that he's a really compelling writer - the prose is strong and flowing, and there are some flashes of really smart, sharp humor that reminded me of Terry Pratchett, in all the best ways:

"[Dirty Ed] would no more trust a reporter than he would a cop or a judge. To him they are all the same � the running dogs of whatever fiendish conspiracy has plagued him all these years. He knows that somewhere behind that moat, the Main Cop has scrawled his name on a blackboard in the Big Briefing Room � with a notation beside it: 'Get this big boy, give him no peace, he’s incorrigible, like an egg-sucking dog.'"

The best part of Hell's Angels is when we get to see Thompson showing that he's actually a really good journalist, a fact that (for me, at least) definitely tends to get lost in the bigger legend of the gonzo writer best known for stuff like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But Thompson knows his shit, and the most interesting sections come when he's applying his professional scrutiny to various articles about the Hell's Angels, researching the police reports of different incidents and contrasting what actually happened versus how it was reported in the papers. He makes a compelling argument that the media was mainly responsible for perpetuating the myth of the Hell's Angels, and that the group wouldn't have become nearly as famous or notorious without the help of scare-mongering journalists trying to sell more magazines.

Because it's not like the Angels aren't scary - they definitely are, and in many of Thompson's stories about partying with the bikers, he makes it clear how many ways he easily could have died - but at the same time, Thompson is getting underneath all the bullshit and the fear tactics, and showing these guys for who they are. And he's thoroughly unimpressed with what he finds. In a lot of ways, Hunter S. Thompson is the perfect person to write about the Hell's Angels. Like, don't try to tell Thompson about dirtbag junkies, babe: Thompson knows from dirtbag junkies, okay?

"So there is more to their stance than a wistful yearning for acceptance in the world they never made. Their real motivation is an instinctive certainty as to what the score really is. They are out of the ballgame and they know it. Unlike the campus rebels, who with a minimum amount of effort will emerge from their struggle with a validated ticket to status, the outlaw motorcyclist views the future with a baleful eye of a man with no upward mobility at all. In a world increasingly geared to specialists, technicians and fantastically complicated machinery, the Hell’s Angels are obviously losers and it bugs them. But instead of submitting quietly to their collective fate, they have made it the basis of a full-time social vendetta. They don’t expect to win anything, but on the other hand, they have nothing to lose."

Hunter S. Thompson also refuses to fall for the myth of the Angels as some kind of free, rebellious outlaws - he sees through the mythology, and gets to the heart of what they ultimately are: a bunch of fascist losers pretending to be rebels.

"The Angelsâ€� collective viewpoint has always be fascistic. They insist and seem to believe that their swastika fetish is no more than an antisocial joke, a guaranteed gimmick to bug the squares, the taxpayers â€� all those they spitefully refer to as â€citizens.â€� What they really mean is the Middle Class, the Bourgeoisie, the Burghers â€� but the Angels don’t know those terms and they’re suspicious of anyone who tries to explain them. If they wanted to be artful about bugging the squares they would drop the swastika and decorate their bikes with the hammer and sickle."

There were also a few parts, when Thompson is describing the mindset of the Angels, that unfortunately hit a little too close to home for me, a person living in America in 2022 - the Hell's Angels still exist, of course, but the below description was painfully similar to another kind of gang that's recently started to rear its head in the political landscape here, and reading this description, written way back in the early 60's, almost gave me chills:

"One afternoon as I sat in the El Adobe and watched an Angel sell a handful of barbiturate pills to a brace of pimply punks no more than sixteen, I realized that the roots of this act were not in any time-honored American myth but right beneath my feet in a new kind of society that is only beginning to take shape. To see the Hell’s Angels as caretakers of the old â€individualistâ€� tradition â€that made this country greatâ€� is only a painless way to get around seeing them for what they really are â€� not some romantic leftover, but the first wave of a future that nothing in our history has prepared us to cope with. The Angels are prototypes. Their lack of education has not only rendered them completely useless in a highly technical economy, but it has also given them the leisure to cultivate a powerful resentment…and to translate it into a destructive cult which the mass media insists on portraying as a sort of isolated oddity, a temporary phenomenon that will shortly become extinct now that it’s been called to the attention of the police."

Definitely not a connection I expected to make in the middle of a fun biker gang memoir, my god. Apparently I need to go read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas now, because I'm officially a Hunter S. Thompson convert.



]]> <![CDATA[Reaper Man (Discworld, #11; Death, #2)]]> 34517
Which leads to the kind of chaos you always get when an important public service is withdrawn.

Meanwhile, on a little farm far, far away, a tall dark stranger is turning out to be really good with a scythe. There's a harvest to be gathered in...]]> 289 Terry Pratchett 0552152951 Madeline 5 fantasy Death subgenre of Discworld, I might have to admit that they're my favorite in the series. I mean, I love the Witches books. Also Rincewind, my first love, never disappoints.

But MAN, the Death books will get you right in the feelings and not apologize for it. Mort was the introduction to Death and how things in his world function; Reaper Man sees Death getting to have a solo adventure that starts when Death's upper management (allow me to explain: read the book) come to him and congratulate him on his retirement. Problem is, Death hadn't actually been planning to retire, and now has to figure out how to...just live in the world? Hilarity ensues, and then some stuff that'll make you put the book down so you can stare at the wall and try to just process your emotions.
]]> 4.28 1991 Reaper Man (Discworld, #11; Death, #2)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/01
date added: 2023/02/21
shelves: fantasy
review:
Having now read two of the Death subgenre of Discworld, I might have to admit that they're my favorite in the series. I mean, I love the Witches books. Also Rincewind, my first love, never disappoints.

But MAN, the Death books will get you right in the feelings and not apologize for it. Mort was the introduction to Death and how things in his world function; Reaper Man sees Death getting to have a solo adventure that starts when Death's upper management (allow me to explain: read the book) come to him and congratulate him on his retirement. Problem is, Death hadn't actually been planning to retire, and now has to figure out how to...just live in the world? Hilarity ensues, and then some stuff that'll make you put the book down so you can stare at the wall and try to just process your emotions.

]]> The Marriage Portrait 60353768 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

The author of award-winning Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de� Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.]]> 355 Maggie O'Farrell Madeline 4 historic-fiction Hamnet), but I had much higher hopes for The Marriage Portrait, and it delivered.

Much like she did in Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell takes a real-life event of the tragic death of a young person and explores what might have been going on around that event, and what might have led up to it. In this case, the real-life event is the untimely death of Lucrezia de Medici, who was married off at age thirteen to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara. When she was fifteen, she died suddenly of what her husband claimed was illness, but it was rumored that he murdered her. Maggie O'Farrell takes us through Lucrezia's childhood and her marriage, alternating background chapters with happening-right-now chapters of the night Lucrezia realizes that her husband is planning to murder her.

The main thing working in this novel's favor is that there's a much more significant historical record about its subject, Lucrezia de Medici, which means that Maggie O'Farrell has plenty of real-life facts and events to work with and cannot simply go HAM making up whatever she wants about a historical figure (so no, nobody's mother is retconned as an actual, can-do-real-magic witch, thank god - sorry, but as soon as you introduce magic into the mix, you can no longer claim that your novel is historic fiction and those are just the rules). Also, Lucrezia is a great protagonist, with an inner strength and proactive personality that keeps this from being a dreary account of an awful historical marriage.

I will admit, however, that things kind of fell apart at the end for me. [spoilers removed]]]> 3.97 2022 The Marriage Portrait
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/02/21
shelves: historic-fiction
review:
I wasn't especially blown away by the other Maggie O'Farrell book I attempted earlier (Hamnet), but I had much higher hopes for The Marriage Portrait, and it delivered.

Much like she did in Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell takes a real-life event of the tragic death of a young person and explores what might have been going on around that event, and what might have led up to it. In this case, the real-life event is the untimely death of Lucrezia de Medici, who was married off at age thirteen to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara. When she was fifteen, she died suddenly of what her husband claimed was illness, but it was rumored that he murdered her. Maggie O'Farrell takes us through Lucrezia's childhood and her marriage, alternating background chapters with happening-right-now chapters of the night Lucrezia realizes that her husband is planning to murder her.

The main thing working in this novel's favor is that there's a much more significant historical record about its subject, Lucrezia de Medici, which means that Maggie O'Farrell has plenty of real-life facts and events to work with and cannot simply go HAM making up whatever she wants about a historical figure (so no, nobody's mother is retconned as an actual, can-do-real-magic witch, thank god - sorry, but as soon as you introduce magic into the mix, you can no longer claim that your novel is historic fiction and those are just the rules). Also, Lucrezia is a great protagonist, with an inner strength and proactive personality that keeps this from being a dreary account of an awful historical marriage.

I will admit, however, that things kind of fell apart at the end for me. [spoilers removed]
]]> Wow, No Thank You.: Essays 49960031
Irby is turning forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and is courted by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife and two step-children in a small white, Republican town in Michigan where she now hosts book clubs. This is the bourgeois life of dreams. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with "skinny, luminous peoples" while being a "cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person," "with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees," and hides Entenmann's cookies under her bed and unopened bills under her pillow.

Into the gross --
Girls gone mild --
Hung up! --
Late-1900s time capsule --
Love and marriage --
Are you familiar with my work? --
Hysterical! --
Lesbian bed death --
Body negativity --
Country crock --
A guide to simple home repairs --
We almost got a fucking dog --
Detachment parenting --
Season 1, episode 1 --
Hollywood summer --
$$$ --
Hello, 911? --
An extremely specific guide to publishing a book]]> 319 Samantha Irby 0525563482 Madeline 4 essays This Is Why I Rarely Go Outside."

]]> 3.81 2020 Wow, No Thank You.: Essays
author: Samantha Irby
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/01/31
shelves: essays
review:
"Hello, 911? I am unwittingly at the mall with my skinny rich friend and she insists that I follow her into Anthropologie, a place I can neither responsibly afford nor comfortably browse because everything is doll-size and expensive, and no one here actually cares about anything I'm doing probably because they can tell by my shoes that I am poor, but I know that if I pull something called a 'cropped draped anorak' (color: warm buttermilk; cost: approximately $1,726) off the fucking rack, everyone is going to immediately stop whatever it is they're doing (ogling overpriced throw blankets knit from angels' delicate wings, or mentally justifying the purchase of yet another set of whimsical teacups) and their heads will swivel in unison to behold whichever form my shame is going to take today: Will my cheeks blush burning scarlet as I attempt to wedge my human-sized arm into the infant-sized sleeve only to have it get irreversibly stuck? Or will I ignore all evidence that nothing here is made for my body and confidently stride to the register carrying a breezy wrap skirt that costs roughly the same as my rent past these chiselled, gawking faces, only to have my credit card be declined in a spectacular display of computer-generated shrieks and ominous beeps?! Find out on next week's episode of the endless drama This Is Why I Rarely Go Outside."


]]> <![CDATA[Riding with Evil: Taking Down the Notorious Pagan Motorcycle Gang]]> 58210352
Longtime ATF agent Ken Croke had earned the right to coast to the end of a storied career, having routinely gone undercover to apprehend white supremacists, gun runners, and gang members. But after a chance encounter with an associate of the Pagan Motorcycle Gang created an opening, he transformed himself into “Slam,� a monstrous, axe-handle wielding enforcer whose duty was to protect the leadership “mother club� at all costs. He befriended the club’s most violent and criminally insane members and lived among them for two years, covertly building a case that would eventually take down the top members of the gang in a massive federal prosecution, even as he risked his marriage, his sanity, and his life. With today’s law enforcement largely moving toward the comparative safety of cyber operations, it became one of the last of its kind, a masterclass in old school tactics that marked Croke as a dying breed of undercover agent and became legendary in law enforcement.

Now for the first time, Croke tells the story of his terrifying undercover life in the Pagans—the unspeakable violence, extremism, drugs, and disgusting rituals. Written with bestselling crime writer Dave Wedge and utilizing the exclusive cooperation of those who lived the case with him, as well as thousands of pages of court files and hours of surveillance tapes and photos, Croke delivers a frightening, nail-biting account of the secretive and brutal biker underworld.]]> 320 Ken Croke 0063092409 Madeline 3 memoir
Riding With Evil is an in-depth account of a two-year-long undercover operation, during which Croke had to throw himself fully into the life of an outlaw biker in order to work his way into the inner circle of the Pagans. During that time he witnessed numerous crimes, narrowly avoiding committing several himself, and may have been an accessory to murder.

Croke starts out by taking us through his credentials and explaining how his experience with biker gangs in Los Angeles made him uniquely equipped for this mission into the world of the Pagans � his former undercover operations into the LA gangs were so successful, in fact, that his old cover story was still intact and he could carry over all that history into the new operation, making the character he had to play all the more convincing. And he needed to be convincing � you don’t get to claim that you’re the only major motorcycle club that’s never had an informant in your ranks without being really fucking thorough when it comes to background checks. Ken Croke didn’t just need a convincing cover story, he had to have a job history, a rental history, relationships with other club members � he really did have to construct an entire fictional life, with the documentation to back it up, in order to even be accepted as a prospect into the club. He even went so far as to bring in a female agent to pose as his “old lady�, and accompany him to club parties and act as a second pair of eyes. (And, frankly, I would have preferred to read this book from her perspective � motorcycle club memoirs written by men are a dime a dozen, but nobody seems to have ever published an account of what these organizations look like from the women’s side. A memoir about a female ATF agent having to pose as disposable arm candy while undercover in a violent biker gang�that would be a fascinating book.)

Once Croke got into the lowest level of the club, it became a matter of working his way up and trying to gain the trust of the higher-ups, with the hopes that he would be able to witness enough illegal activity to bring the entire organization down. Croke’s white whale comes when a patched member tasks him and another prospect with burying a body. The underlying focus of Croke's investigation becomes finding out who was wrapped in that tarp, and trying to pin the murder on someone.

So, first, the good stuff: if you want a true insider’s perspective of what life is like in the inner circle of a biker gang, this is a great resource. Croke provides all of the dirty details and shows us exactly what it takes to live this kind of lifestyle, and thanks to his overall attitude of â€man, these guys suckâ€� his account is never in danger of romanticizing any of the bikers he comes into contact with. He has nothing but contempt for them and the way they live their lives, and it was almost refreshing to read an outlaw biker story that had absolutely no sympathy for said outlaw bikers. Sons of Anarchy and MC romance fans will find nothing here that appeals to them.

There’s plenty of good insider information, but ultimately, the story doesn’t amount to much. Ken Croke successfully infiltrated the Pagans for almost two years, and what does he ultimately have to show for it? A handful of drug and weapons charges, most of which amounted to a maximum of ten years in prison for the members. Croke even admits in his conclusion that anyone he managed to get off the streets would be replaced almost instantly, so what, ultimately, was the effect of this elaborate operation? Even his primary goal � getting the bikers on a murder charge � amounts to [spoilers removed]

No matter how hard he tries to convince the reader that he’s a Hero Cop, selflessly throwing himself into danger for the Greater Good, Croke’s own account is kneecapped by the fact that it doesn’t have a satisfying ending. You read this for an insider’s perspective into a secretive outlaw group, not to see the All American Hero save the day and take down an entire gang all by himself. Because of course it can’t end that way � that’s not realistic, and as Ken Croke himself is fond of reminding the readers at every opportunity, this isn’t a TV show.]]> 4.17 2022 Riding with Evil: Taking Down the Notorious Pagan Motorcycle Gang
author: Ken Croke
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/01
date added: 2023/01/28
shelves: memoir
review:
Like their close counterparts, the more well-known Hells Angels, the Pagans motorcycle club is a national organization that has been accused of being a front for a variety of crimes, from drug dealing to weapons trafficking to kidnapping and murder. Unlike the Hells Angels, however, the Pagans were famous for being the only big-name outlaw biker gang that had never been infiltrated by law enforcement. That is, until Ken Croke.

Riding With Evil is an in-depth account of a two-year-long undercover operation, during which Croke had to throw himself fully into the life of an outlaw biker in order to work his way into the inner circle of the Pagans. During that time he witnessed numerous crimes, narrowly avoiding committing several himself, and may have been an accessory to murder.

Croke starts out by taking us through his credentials and explaining how his experience with biker gangs in Los Angeles made him uniquely equipped for this mission into the world of the Pagans � his former undercover operations into the LA gangs were so successful, in fact, that his old cover story was still intact and he could carry over all that history into the new operation, making the character he had to play all the more convincing. And he needed to be convincing � you don’t get to claim that you’re the only major motorcycle club that’s never had an informant in your ranks without being really fucking thorough when it comes to background checks. Ken Croke didn’t just need a convincing cover story, he had to have a job history, a rental history, relationships with other club members � he really did have to construct an entire fictional life, with the documentation to back it up, in order to even be accepted as a prospect into the club. He even went so far as to bring in a female agent to pose as his “old lady�, and accompany him to club parties and act as a second pair of eyes. (And, frankly, I would have preferred to read this book from her perspective � motorcycle club memoirs written by men are a dime a dozen, but nobody seems to have ever published an account of what these organizations look like from the women’s side. A memoir about a female ATF agent having to pose as disposable arm candy while undercover in a violent biker gang�that would be a fascinating book.)

Once Croke got into the lowest level of the club, it became a matter of working his way up and trying to gain the trust of the higher-ups, with the hopes that he would be able to witness enough illegal activity to bring the entire organization down. Croke’s white whale comes when a patched member tasks him and another prospect with burying a body. The underlying focus of Croke's investigation becomes finding out who was wrapped in that tarp, and trying to pin the murder on someone.

So, first, the good stuff: if you want a true insider’s perspective of what life is like in the inner circle of a biker gang, this is a great resource. Croke provides all of the dirty details and shows us exactly what it takes to live this kind of lifestyle, and thanks to his overall attitude of â€man, these guys suckâ€� his account is never in danger of romanticizing any of the bikers he comes into contact with. He has nothing but contempt for them and the way they live their lives, and it was almost refreshing to read an outlaw biker story that had absolutely no sympathy for said outlaw bikers. Sons of Anarchy and MC romance fans will find nothing here that appeals to them.

There’s plenty of good insider information, but ultimately, the story doesn’t amount to much. Ken Croke successfully infiltrated the Pagans for almost two years, and what does he ultimately have to show for it? A handful of drug and weapons charges, most of which amounted to a maximum of ten years in prison for the members. Croke even admits in his conclusion that anyone he managed to get off the streets would be replaced almost instantly, so what, ultimately, was the effect of this elaborate operation? Even his primary goal � getting the bikers on a murder charge � amounts to [spoilers removed]

No matter how hard he tries to convince the reader that he’s a Hero Cop, selflessly throwing himself into danger for the Greater Good, Croke’s own account is kneecapped by the fact that it doesn’t have a satisfying ending. You read this for an insider’s perspective into a secretive outlaw group, not to see the All American Hero save the day and take down an entire gang all by himself. Because of course it can’t end that way � that’s not realistic, and as Ken Croke himself is fond of reminding the readers at every opportunity, this isn’t a TV show.
]]> Edie: American Girl 14606 Revised, with a new cover

When Edie was first published, it quickly became an international best-seller and then took its place among the classic books about the 1960s. Edie Sedgwick exploded into the public eye like a comet. She seemed to have it all: she was aristocratic and glamorous, vivacious and young, Andy Warhol’s superstar. But within a few years she flared out as quickly as she had appeared, and before she turned twenty-nine she was dead from a drug overdose.

In a dazzling tapestry of voices—family, friends, lovers, rivals—the entire meteoric trajectory of Edie Sedgwick’s life is brilliantly captured. And so is the Pop Art world of the �60s: the sex, drugs, fashion, music—the mad rush for pleasure and fame. All glitter and flash on the outside, it was hollow and desperate within—like Edie herself, and like her mentor, Andy Warhol. Alternately mesmerizing, tragic, and horrifying, this book shattered many myths about the �60s experience in America.
]]> 564 Jean Stein 0802134106 Madeline 4 memoir Edie: American Girl is consistently held up as one of the best oral history-style biographies ever written.

There’s definitely plenty of material. One advantage of centering your story around someone who was an integral part of Andy Warhol’s Factory is that all of these people were obsessed with themselves, so they a) love talking about themselves b) love gossiping about other people and c) recorded just about everything they did anyway. The authors of Edie, in addition to the hours of taped interviews they amassed, are also aided by countless photos and video footage that exists from Edie’s time hanging around Andy Warhol and his crowd. This includes separate taped interviews � it’s truly chilling the first time you turn a page in this book to see a transcript from an interview with Edie Sedgwick herself, recorded while she was filming one of the dozens of movies she did with Andy Warhol during her time at the Factory.

It’s also, understandably, a devastating portrait of a woman who was used and discarded by a man who claimed (at least for a little while) that she was his personal muse. Edie Sedgwick seems to have been set up to fail right from the beginning, being born into a family that was the classic combo of obscenely wealthy and haunted by tragedy. Edie herself struck me as one of those people who is always searching for an identity for herself, and a place where she feels like she belongs, and she’s never able to find it.

Even though the book consists of nothing but snippets of interviews (even a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it paragraph from Warhol himself), with no narrator or omniscient third-person perspective tying everything together, Edie grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. It’s simultaneously a deeply intimate portrait of a troubled women who never found what she was looking for, and also a series of interviews from people realizing that, for all the time they’ve spent talking about Edie Sedgwick, they never really knew her at all.
]]> 4.08 1982 Edie: American Girl
author: Jean Stein
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/01
date added: 2023/01/17
shelves: memoir
review:
I heard about this during one of my dives into 1970’s music memoirs, and the impression I got was that Edie: American Girl is consistently held up as one of the best oral history-style biographies ever written.

There’s definitely plenty of material. One advantage of centering your story around someone who was an integral part of Andy Warhol’s Factory is that all of these people were obsessed with themselves, so they a) love talking about themselves b) love gossiping about other people and c) recorded just about everything they did anyway. The authors of Edie, in addition to the hours of taped interviews they amassed, are also aided by countless photos and video footage that exists from Edie’s time hanging around Andy Warhol and his crowd. This includes separate taped interviews � it’s truly chilling the first time you turn a page in this book to see a transcript from an interview with Edie Sedgwick herself, recorded while she was filming one of the dozens of movies she did with Andy Warhol during her time at the Factory.

It’s also, understandably, a devastating portrait of a woman who was used and discarded by a man who claimed (at least for a little while) that she was his personal muse. Edie Sedgwick seems to have been set up to fail right from the beginning, being born into a family that was the classic combo of obscenely wealthy and haunted by tragedy. Edie herself struck me as one of those people who is always searching for an identity for herself, and a place where she feels like she belongs, and she’s never able to find it.

Even though the book consists of nothing but snippets of interviews (even a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it paragraph from Warhol himself), with no narrator or omniscient third-person perspective tying everything together, Edie grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. It’s simultaneously a deeply intimate portrait of a troubled women who never found what she was looking for, and also a series of interviews from people realizing that, for all the time they’ve spent talking about Edie Sedgwick, they never really knew her at all.

]]> <![CDATA[Moving Pictures (Discworld, #10; Industrial Revolution, #1)]]> 34510
But what is the dark secret of Holy Wood Hill?

As the alien clichés of Tinsel Town pour into the world, it's up to the Disc's first film stars to find out...

THRILL as Victor Tugelbend ("Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little") and Theda Withel ("I come from a little town you've probably never even heard of") battle the forces of evil and cinema advertising...

SCREAM as Gaspode the Wonder Dog nearly saves the day...

EAT POPCORN as you watch the filming of "Blown Away," the oddest Civil War picture ever made...

A Passionate Saga Set Against the background of a World Gone Mad!

This Will Amaze You!

With a Thousand Elephants!

("And afterwards, why not dine at Harga's House of Ribs, for the best in international cuisine; only two minutes from this book...")]]> 396 Terry Pratchett 0552152943 Madeline 3 fantasy Wyrd Sisters, but I liked that one because of Granny Weatherwax and not because it was a spoof of Macbeth, so my point stands).

Moving Pictures is doing important work in terms of worldbuilding and advancing the state of technology on the Disc (this one, as the title suggest, introduces the film industry to the Disc, but because it’s Terry Pratchett, the “camerasâ€� are actually boxes containing tiny demons that paint whatever the actors are doing onto film strips); the problem is that more often than not, it seems a little too satisfied with how clever it’s being. The â€oh ho ho, I’m doing a scathing send-up of Hollywoodâ€� schtick got old very quickly, and Pratchett often veers uncomfortably close to â€movies are inferior entertainment and the people who enjoy them are too stupid to appreciate real artâ€� territory, which is both a god-awful take and also a deeply embarrassing look on Terry Pratchett, who has the skill to make readers root for an anthropomorphic steamer trunk. Too often, the book gets overly self-indulgent with its â€hurr, movies are magic but it’s bad magicâ€� thesis, and even though Pratchett pulls it together in the end (because he always does), it takes us a little too long to get there.]]> 3.97 1990 Moving Pictures (Discworld, #10; Industrial Revolution, #1)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/01
date added: 2023/01/12
shelves: fantasy
review:
The thing that this particular installment of Discworld taught me is that the “parody� novels are probably my least favorite subgenre within the series (the exception being Wyrd Sisters, but I liked that one because of Granny Weatherwax and not because it was a spoof of Macbeth, so my point stands).

Moving Pictures is doing important work in terms of worldbuilding and advancing the state of technology on the Disc (this one, as the title suggest, introduces the film industry to the Disc, but because it’s Terry Pratchett, the “camerasâ€� are actually boxes containing tiny demons that paint whatever the actors are doing onto film strips); the problem is that more often than not, it seems a little too satisfied with how clever it’s being. The â€oh ho ho, I’m doing a scathing send-up of Hollywoodâ€� schtick got old very quickly, and Pratchett often veers uncomfortably close to â€movies are inferior entertainment and the people who enjoy them are too stupid to appreciate real artâ€� territory, which is both a god-awful take and also a deeply embarrassing look on Terry Pratchett, who has the skill to make readers root for an anthropomorphic steamer trunk. Too often, the book gets overly self-indulgent with its â€hurr, movies are magic but it’s bad magicâ€� thesis, and even though Pratchett pulls it together in the end (because he always does), it takes us a little too long to get there.
]]> <![CDATA[Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs, #1)]]> 462033 Years later, in 1929, having apprenticed to the renowned Maurice Blanche, a man revered for his work with Scotland Yard, Maisie sets up her own business. Her first assignment, a seemingly tedious inquiry involving a case of suspected infidelity, takes her not only on the trail of a killer, but back to the war she had tried so hard to forget.]]> 292 Jacqueline Winspear 0142004332 Madeline 2 detective-fiction
Even though most mystery series are specifically written so that a reader can pick up any installment and jump right in without needing a ton of backstory, I always like to start a new detective series with Book One, because it's nice to get the lay of the land and see how the author introduces the recurring characters.

And Maisie Dobbs starts out very nicely, introducing our detective as she's in the early days of establishing herself as a private investigator in post-WWI London (Winspear fills the opening chapters with lots of nice little details, like how Maisie has to walk everywhere because sometimes Tube fare isn't in her budget for that day). The investigation kicks off when a man comes to Maisie's office with a simple assignment: he thinks his wife is having an affair, and he wants to hire Maisie to follow her and find out for sure.

Maisie accepts the job, giving the standard private-eye warning that her client may not like what she finds, and then she gets to work following the wife - and quickly learns that, rather than visiting a lover, the wife is visiting a gravestone once a week. Maisie starts investigating the identity of the buried person, and then Winspear takes a break from the action to bring the reader back to Maisie's childhood, and fill us in on her backstory.

This is the point where the plot comes to a screeching halt, and what might as well be a completely new novel starts. Maisie got a job in service for a rich lady, who happened to be friends with a private investigator, and the rich lady and the investigator encouraged young Maisie's interests in reading and studying, and then Maisie got a scholarship to Oxford but then WWI breaks out and Maisie decides to drop out of college and become a nurse, and...sorry, weren't we supposed to be solving a mystery?

This digression, in which we learn basically Maisie's entire life story, takes up twelve chapters. It's not a flashback, it's half the book! Yes, I fully admit I didn't finish the book, but I refuse to believe that all this information becomes relevant to the eventual solution to the mystery! Around the fifth time Maisie sits down for a cozy tea and chat with her father, I was so bored I'd forgotten what present-day Maisie was supposed to be investigating. The backstory chapters don't even really show Maisie learning how to be a detective - it just amounts to the same boring WWI romance you've read a thousand times: Maisie drops out of college to become a nurse because she feels it's her civic duty, and promptly has a doomed and chaste romance with a hot doctor. SNORE.

By the time Winspear takes us back into the present-day investigation, I no longer cared. This isn't a detective story, this is a boring wartime romance.

The only good news is that I think I'll still try another Maisie Dobbs mystery in the future - since Jacqueline Winspear spent the majority of this book telling us Maisie's entire backstory, that means that she'll have to spend the sequels actually, you know, writing a mystery novel. Can't wait. ]]> 3.90 2003 Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs, #1)
author: Jacqueline Winspear
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at: 2022/12/01
date added: 2022/12/14
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
So, full disclosure: I did not finish this one. I tried, I really did - I checked this out from the library twice, and I got about 3/4 of the way through it on the final try. But the second due date is rapidly approaching, and I officially give up.

Even though most mystery series are specifically written so that a reader can pick up any installment and jump right in without needing a ton of backstory, I always like to start a new detective series with Book One, because it's nice to get the lay of the land and see how the author introduces the recurring characters.

And Maisie Dobbs starts out very nicely, introducing our detective as she's in the early days of establishing herself as a private investigator in post-WWI London (Winspear fills the opening chapters with lots of nice little details, like how Maisie has to walk everywhere because sometimes Tube fare isn't in her budget for that day). The investigation kicks off when a man comes to Maisie's office with a simple assignment: he thinks his wife is having an affair, and he wants to hire Maisie to follow her and find out for sure.

Maisie accepts the job, giving the standard private-eye warning that her client may not like what she finds, and then she gets to work following the wife - and quickly learns that, rather than visiting a lover, the wife is visiting a gravestone once a week. Maisie starts investigating the identity of the buried person, and then Winspear takes a break from the action to bring the reader back to Maisie's childhood, and fill us in on her backstory.

This is the point where the plot comes to a screeching halt, and what might as well be a completely new novel starts. Maisie got a job in service for a rich lady, who happened to be friends with a private investigator, and the rich lady and the investigator encouraged young Maisie's interests in reading and studying, and then Maisie got a scholarship to Oxford but then WWI breaks out and Maisie decides to drop out of college and become a nurse, and...sorry, weren't we supposed to be solving a mystery?

This digression, in which we learn basically Maisie's entire life story, takes up twelve chapters. It's not a flashback, it's half the book! Yes, I fully admit I didn't finish the book, but I refuse to believe that all this information becomes relevant to the eventual solution to the mystery! Around the fifth time Maisie sits down for a cozy tea and chat with her father, I was so bored I'd forgotten what present-day Maisie was supposed to be investigating. The backstory chapters don't even really show Maisie learning how to be a detective - it just amounts to the same boring WWI romance you've read a thousand times: Maisie drops out of college to become a nurse because she feels it's her civic duty, and promptly has a doomed and chaste romance with a hot doctor. SNORE.

By the time Winspear takes us back into the present-day investigation, I no longer cared. This isn't a detective story, this is a boring wartime romance.

The only good news is that I think I'll still try another Maisie Dobbs mystery in the future - since Jacqueline Winspear spent the majority of this book telling us Maisie's entire backstory, that means that she'll have to spend the sequels actually, you know, writing a mystery novel. Can't wait.
]]> Hamnet 43890641 Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.

Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.

A New York Times Notable Book (2020), Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.]]> 372 Maggie O'Farrell 1472223799 Madeline 3 historic-fiction The Marriage Portrait. But, thanks to that book having a sizeable waiting list already, I decided to try Hamnet instead.Ěý

This novel really crystallized an opinion that I didn't even realize I had: I don't really care about William Shakespeare as a person! I don't care if he was secretly multiple people or Christopher Marlowe or the Duke of Buckingham or whatever. I'm never super interested in those "but what about the author behind the famous book?" explorations, because usually the answer is not very interesting or illuminating! And since we know almost nothing about William Shakespeare the person, authors attempting to create fictionalized accounts of his life basically have carte blanche to make up whatever they want.Ěý

Case in point: Hamnet takes the fact that William Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet who died (cause unknown) when he was very young, and then several years later, Shakespeare published a play about a man with a very similar name to his dead son. Maggie O'Farrell takes what very well could be just a weird coincidence and spins it into, "what if William Shakespeare's son Hamnet died of the plague and Shakespeare dealt with that grief by writing a play about a man in his early twenties named Hamlet who gets visited by his father's ghost and told to avenge his murder. Also what if Shakespeare's wife had magic powers."

I mean, sure! To paraphrase Mac on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, that doesn't sound right but I don't know enough about Shakespeare's life to dispute it.Ěý

I dunno guys, this one just didn't hit me in the right way. On the one hand, this is a very beautiful exploration of grief and how families heal (or don't heal, in some cases) from a shared trauma in a time when the entire country is experiencing similar traumas as a result of a plague (HAHAHA GEE WONDER WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE). But I can't get past the Shakespeare of it all, and how O'Farrell is trying (unconvincingly, as far as I'm concerned) to retcon Hamlet as some sort of outlet for Shakespeare's grief about his dead son. I'm sorry, I'm not buying it!Ěý

Still going to try to get my hands on a copy of The Marriage Portrait, though.Ěý

]]> 4.16 2020 Hamnet
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/11/01
date added: 2022/12/12
shelves: historic-fiction
review:
I picked this up because I was actually more interested in Maggie O'Farrell's most recent novel, The Marriage Portrait. But, thanks to that book having a sizeable waiting list already, I decided to try Hamnet instead.Ěý

This novel really crystallized an opinion that I didn't even realize I had: I don't really care about William Shakespeare as a person! I don't care if he was secretly multiple people or Christopher Marlowe or the Duke of Buckingham or whatever. I'm never super interested in those "but what about the author behind the famous book?" explorations, because usually the answer is not very interesting or illuminating! And since we know almost nothing about William Shakespeare the person, authors attempting to create fictionalized accounts of his life basically have carte blanche to make up whatever they want.Ěý

Case in point: Hamnet takes the fact that William Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet who died (cause unknown) when he was very young, and then several years later, Shakespeare published a play about a man with a very similar name to his dead son. Maggie O'Farrell takes what very well could be just a weird coincidence and spins it into, "what if William Shakespeare's son Hamnet died of the plague and Shakespeare dealt with that grief by writing a play about a man in his early twenties named Hamlet who gets visited by his father's ghost and told to avenge his murder. Also what if Shakespeare's wife had magic powers."

I mean, sure! To paraphrase Mac on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, that doesn't sound right but I don't know enough about Shakespeare's life to dispute it.Ěý

I dunno guys, this one just didn't hit me in the right way. On the one hand, this is a very beautiful exploration of grief and how families heal (or don't heal, in some cases) from a shared trauma in a time when the entire country is experiencing similar traumas as a result of a plague (HAHAHA GEE WONDER WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE). But I can't get past the Shakespeare of it all, and how O'Farrell is trying (unconvincingly, as far as I'm concerned) to retcon Hamlet as some sort of outlet for Shakespeare's grief about his dead son. I'm sorry, I'm not buying it!Ěý

Still going to try to get my hands on a copy of The Marriage Portrait, though.Ěý


]]> <![CDATA[Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London, #7)]]> 36534574
Martin Chorley, aka the Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, fraud, and crimes against humanity, has been unmasked and is on the run. Peter Grant, Detective Constable and apprentice wizard, now plays a key role in an unprecedented joint operation to bring Chorley to justice.

But even as the unwieldy might of the Metropolitan Police bears down on its foe, Peter uncovers clues that Chorley, far from being finished, is executing the final stages of a long term plan. A plan that has its roots in London’s two thousand bloody years of history, and could literally bring the city to its knees.

To save his beloved city Peter’s going to need help from his former best friend and colleague–Lesley May–who brutally betrayed him and everything he thought she believed in. And, far worse, he might even have to come to terms with the malevolent supernatural killer and agent of chaos known as Mr Punch . . .]]> 406 Ben Aaronovitch 1473207819 Madeline 4 fantasy
First and foremost, I absolutely loved Lies Sleeping. It was a perfect culmination of everything Aaronovitch has spent the last six books building to, and by the end of it, I was perfectly satisfied with the conclusion to the Faceless Man saga.

Satisfied enough, in fact, that even though I know Peter Grant's adventures continue past this book, I think I'm finished with the Rivers of London series, and I'll try to explain why.

Like I mentioned in one of my reviews for a previous installment, this series consists not only of the adventures of Peter Grant, London cop and apprentice wizard; but there are entire supplementary series where side characters get their own adventures outside Grant's own story. Having not done any of the additional reading, the problem I started to run into somewhere around Book 5 was that the series was starting to strain under the weight of all these extra side quests and bonus material, and I was starting to feel seriously out of the loop as Aaronovitch's characters would reference conversations or entire adventures that I hadn't been present for. As the extra novels continue to grow outside Peter Grant's sphere, I worry that this will only get worse. (and yes, I am aware that I could just get caught up on the extra books, thank you. But there are so many extra books and I don't feel like doing extra homework just so I can understand the references to side quests that ultimately don't have any bearing on the main plot of the book I'm reading.)

And then there's the fact that immediately after I finished Lies Sleeping, I went out and picked up Book 8 (False Value), and then almost immediately abandoned it. No spoilers, but after the events of Book 7, Book 8 finds Peter Grant in very different circumstances than we've gotten used to seeing him in, and the change was too sudden and felt too wrong for me, and I couldn't adjust.

The Rivers of London is a phenomenal series, and I look forward to eventually doing a re-read of Peter Grant's adventures. But the seventh installment is the perfect stopping point if you're feeling series fatigue, and I think this is where I part ways with Peter Grant & Co. But it's been a pleasure. ]]> 4.20 2018 Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London, #7)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/01
date added: 2022/12/07
shelves: fantasy
review:
I'm a little torn about this one, I admit.

First and foremost, I absolutely loved Lies Sleeping. It was a perfect culmination of everything Aaronovitch has spent the last six books building to, and by the end of it, I was perfectly satisfied with the conclusion to the Faceless Man saga.

Satisfied enough, in fact, that even though I know Peter Grant's adventures continue past this book, I think I'm finished with the Rivers of London series, and I'll try to explain why.

Like I mentioned in one of my reviews for a previous installment, this series consists not only of the adventures of Peter Grant, London cop and apprentice wizard; but there are entire supplementary series where side characters get their own adventures outside Grant's own story. Having not done any of the additional reading, the problem I started to run into somewhere around Book 5 was that the series was starting to strain under the weight of all these extra side quests and bonus material, and I was starting to feel seriously out of the loop as Aaronovitch's characters would reference conversations or entire adventures that I hadn't been present for. As the extra novels continue to grow outside Peter Grant's sphere, I worry that this will only get worse. (and yes, I am aware that I could just get caught up on the extra books, thank you. But there are so many extra books and I don't feel like doing extra homework just so I can understand the references to side quests that ultimately don't have any bearing on the main plot of the book I'm reading.)

And then there's the fact that immediately after I finished Lies Sleeping, I went out and picked up Book 8 (False Value), and then almost immediately abandoned it. No spoilers, but after the events of Book 7, Book 8 finds Peter Grant in very different circumstances than we've gotten used to seeing him in, and the change was too sudden and felt too wrong for me, and I couldn't adjust.

The Rivers of London is a phenomenal series, and I look forward to eventually doing a re-read of Peter Grant's adventures. But the seventh installment is the perfect stopping point if you're feeling series fatigue, and I think this is where I part ways with Peter Grant & Co. But it's been a pleasure.
]]> <![CDATA[The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983 - 1992]]> 34506966 Named one of the best books of 2017 by Time, People, Amazon.com, The Guardian, Paste Magazine, The Economist, Entertainment Weekly, & Vogue

Tina Brown kept delicious daily diaries throughout her eight spectacular years as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair. Today they provide an incendiary portrait of the flash and dash and power brokering of the Excessive Eighties in New York and Hollywood.

The Vanity Fair Diaries is the story of an Englishwoman barely out of her twenties who arrives in New York City with a dream. Summoned from London in hopes that she can save Condé Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is immediately plunged into the maelstrom of the competitive New York media world and the backstabbing rivalries at the court of the planet's slickest, most glamour-focused magazine company. She survives the politics, the intrigue, and the attempts to derail her by a simple stratagem: succeeding. In the face of rampant skepticism, she triumphantly reinvents a failing magazine.

Here are the inside stories of Vanity Fair scoops and covers that sold millions—the Reagan kiss, the meltdown of Princess Diana's marriage to Prince Charles, the sensational Annie Leibovitz cover of a gloriously pregnant, naked Demi Moore. In the diary's cinematic pages, the drama, the comedy, and the struggle of running an "it" magazine come to life. Brown's Vanity Fair Diaries is also a woman's journey, of making a home in a new country and of the deep bonds with her husband, their prematurely born son, and their daughter.

Astute, open-hearted, often riotously funny, Tina Brown's The Vanity Fair Diaries is a compulsively fascinating and intimate chronicle of a woman's life in a glittering era.]]> 436 Tina Brown 1627791361 Madeline 4 memoir Vanity Fair from 1983 to 1992). She became the editor when she was in her early twenties - much like Anna Wintour, Tina Brown is the child of celebrities and got her start when someone literally just approached her and offered her an editor position - and one of the biggest joys of the book is how Brown's passion and enthusiasm for her work shines out from the pages. As soon as she's handed the reins of Vanity Fair, she's outlining her plans for changing and improving it, and she single-handedly makes the magazine cool again after it spent decades lagging behind the trends. Tina Brown is also a ruthless boss, quickly and efficiently cleaning house at Vanity Fair by firing anyone who isn't fully on board with her vision for the magazine, and working tirelessly to achieve her goals.

And yes, there is also the gossip. We get an early look at figures like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump (verdict: Tina Brown is not impressed), and tons of celebrity gossip thanks to a section called "One Thousand Nights in a Cocktail Dress", where Brown recounts the endless dinners, benefits, and galas she attended during her tenure. (One of the reasons Brown's memoir is so compelling is the fact that she doesn't drink, which means she can recall all of these endless parties with sober clarity, and therefore give up all the deets.

But for me, the biggest draw of this memoir is that, although we're just reading diary entries over a period of several years, Brown's writing is so evocative and her voice is so clear, that the book reads like a novel.

I mean, try saying no to this passage:

"I was supposed to have dinner with the producer Larry Gordon at Morton’s but I was too stretched to go. Instead I asked if he would come to meet me at the Bel-Air. I got a call from his PR person shortly afterward, asking, â€Mr. Gordon would like to know, is this a power play?â€� Imagine retaining someone to make a call like that? No, it’s not a fucking power play. I just have a migraine and don’t want to slog over to Morton’s. Anyway, he showed up: another wild-man producer in the Joel Silver genre, produces big action movies like Predator and Die Hard. â€Wanna know who has the balls in this town? was his opening riff. Here we go…what is it about this crew? Ovitz asked me that other day, â€Wanna know how big are the balls of Akiko Morita at Sony?â€� NO, ACTUALLY. â€They are YAY big.â€�"]]> 3.64 2017 The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983 - 1992
author: Tina Brown
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/01
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves: memoir
review:
There are many reasons to love Tina Brown's diaries (covering her tenure as the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair from 1983 to 1992). She became the editor when she was in her early twenties - much like Anna Wintour, Tina Brown is the child of celebrities and got her start when someone literally just approached her and offered her an editor position - and one of the biggest joys of the book is how Brown's passion and enthusiasm for her work shines out from the pages. As soon as she's handed the reins of Vanity Fair, she's outlining her plans for changing and improving it, and she single-handedly makes the magazine cool again after it spent decades lagging behind the trends. Tina Brown is also a ruthless boss, quickly and efficiently cleaning house at Vanity Fair by firing anyone who isn't fully on board with her vision for the magazine, and working tirelessly to achieve her goals.

And yes, there is also the gossip. We get an early look at figures like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump (verdict: Tina Brown is not impressed), and tons of celebrity gossip thanks to a section called "One Thousand Nights in a Cocktail Dress", where Brown recounts the endless dinners, benefits, and galas she attended during her tenure. (One of the reasons Brown's memoir is so compelling is the fact that she doesn't drink, which means she can recall all of these endless parties with sober clarity, and therefore give up all the deets.

But for me, the biggest draw of this memoir is that, although we're just reading diary entries over a period of several years, Brown's writing is so evocative and her voice is so clear, that the book reads like a novel.

I mean, try saying no to this passage:

"I was supposed to have dinner with the producer Larry Gordon at Morton’s but I was too stretched to go. Instead I asked if he would come to meet me at the Bel-Air. I got a call from his PR person shortly afterward, asking, â€Mr. Gordon would like to know, is this a power play?â€� Imagine retaining someone to make a call like that? No, it’s not a fucking power play. I just have a migraine and don’t want to slog over to Morton’s. Anyway, he showed up: another wild-man producer in the Joel Silver genre, produces big action movies like Predator and Die Hard. â€Wanna know who has the balls in this town? was his opening riff. Here we go…what is it about this crew? Ovitz asked me that other day, â€Wanna know how big are the balls of Akiko Morita at Sony?â€� NO, ACTUALLY. â€They are YAY big.â€�"
]]> I'm Glad My Mom Died 59364173
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!�), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy Madeline 4 memoir 4.45 2022 I'm Glad My Mom Died
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/10/01
date added: 2022/10/28
shelves: memoir
review:
All stage parents should be in prison.
]]> The Sun Down Motel 45885644
Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn't right at the Sun Down, and before long she's determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden…]]> 327 Simone St. James 0440000173 Madeline 3
In the autumn of 1982, Vivian Delaney disappears. The last time she’s seen is when she arrives at the Sun Down Motel for her shift as the night clerk, and by morning, her car is still in the parking lot, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

Thirty-five years later, Vivian’s niece Carly arrives in the town of Fell, New York, and returns to the Sun Down Motel. Determined to solve the mystery of her aunt’s disappearance and knowing that the motel was the last place she was seen, Carly takes a job as the night clerk, just like her aunt, and settles down to the work of figuring out what happened to her � and several other girls throughout Fell’s history whose murders have never been solved. Little does Carly know, her aunt Vivian was doing the exact same thing before she disappeared: the two of them, working thirty-five years apart, are trying to solve the same mystery.

Simone St. James tells her story through the viewpoints of Vivian and Carly, alternating their chapters as each woman investigates the mystery of what, exactly, is going on at the Sun Down Motel. This stylistic choice works well at some points, not so well at others. St. James doesn’t bother to alter her writing style or even the characterization in the two different viewpoints, so Carly and Vivian come across more like carbon copies of each other instead of long-separated relatives who have a lot in common.

The story is good, creepy fun (who doesn’t love a haunted hotel?) but ultimately this was a misfire for me. The person who is eventually revealed to be the culprit in Carly’s timeline was disappointing � somehow St. James managed to create an antagonist whose motivations make very little sense, yet is somehow still obviously suspicious from the moment they’re introduced to the reader.

Also when we got to the point where [spoilers removed]

A great setup that, ultimately, doesn’t live up to the potential it promised.
]]> 3.99 2020 The Sun Down Motel
author: Simone St. James
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/08/01
date added: 2022/10/25
shelves:
review:
“The ghosts are restless tonight.�

In the autumn of 1982, Vivian Delaney disappears. The last time she’s seen is when she arrives at the Sun Down Motel for her shift as the night clerk, and by morning, her car is still in the parking lot, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

Thirty-five years later, Vivian’s niece Carly arrives in the town of Fell, New York, and returns to the Sun Down Motel. Determined to solve the mystery of her aunt’s disappearance and knowing that the motel was the last place she was seen, Carly takes a job as the night clerk, just like her aunt, and settles down to the work of figuring out what happened to her � and several other girls throughout Fell’s history whose murders have never been solved. Little does Carly know, her aunt Vivian was doing the exact same thing before she disappeared: the two of them, working thirty-five years apart, are trying to solve the same mystery.

Simone St. James tells her story through the viewpoints of Vivian and Carly, alternating their chapters as each woman investigates the mystery of what, exactly, is going on at the Sun Down Motel. This stylistic choice works well at some points, not so well at others. St. James doesn’t bother to alter her writing style or even the characterization in the two different viewpoints, so Carly and Vivian come across more like carbon copies of each other instead of long-separated relatives who have a lot in common.

The story is good, creepy fun (who doesn’t love a haunted hotel?) but ultimately this was a misfire for me. The person who is eventually revealed to be the culprit in Carly’s timeline was disappointing � somehow St. James managed to create an antagonist whose motivations make very little sense, yet is somehow still obviously suspicious from the moment they’re introduced to the reader.

Also when we got to the point where [spoilers removed]

A great setup that, ultimately, doesn’t live up to the potential it promised.

]]> Anna: The Biography 59366098 This definitive biography of Anna Wintour follows the steep climb of an ambitious young woman who would—with singular and legendary focus—become one of the most powerful people in media.

As a child, Anna Wintour was a tomboy with no apparent interest in clothing but, seduced by the miniskirts and bob haircuts of swinging 1960s London, she grew into a fashion-obsessed teenager. Her father, an influential newspaper editor, loomed large in her life, and once he decided she should become editor-in-chief of Vogue, she never looked back.

Impatient to start her career, she left high school and got a job at a trendy boutique in London—an experience that would be the first of many defeats. Undeterred, she found work in the competitive world of magazines, eventually embarking on a journey to New York and a battle to ascend, no matter who or what stood in her way. Once she was crowned editor-in-chief of Vogue—in one of the stormiest transitions in fashion magazine history—she continued the fight to retain her enviable position, ultimately rising to dominate all of Condé Nast.

Based on extensive interviews with Anna Wintour’s closest friends and collaborators, including some of the biggest names in fashion, journalist Amy Odell has crafted the most revealing portrait of Wintour ever published. Weaving Anna’s personal story into a larger narrative about the hierarchical dynamics of the fashion industry and the complex world of Condé Nast, Anna charts the relentless ambition of the woman who would become an icon.]]> 464 Amy Odell 1982122633 Madeline 3
Okay, if we’re being honest, Anna isn’t technically unauthorized in the sense that Wintour like, publicly disavowed the book or forbade anyone in her circle from cooperating with author Amy Odell. Plenty of people close to Wintour, both professionally and personally, were interviewed for this book � so it’s not like we don’t get a close-up view of the Anna Wintour that exists behind the curtain. But on the other hand, when Odell contacted Wintour about potentially being interviewed for the book, Wintour’s response was basically, “Oh, you’re writing a book about me? How wonderful, I can’t wait to read it when you’re finished.� And that was that. So no, Anna Wintour herself does not make an appearance in this biography. But Odell more than makes up the deficit by supplying us with interviews from people who have known Anna at every stage of her career.

And what a career it’s been. Anna Wintour began working in magazines right out of college (her origin story is, frankly, fucking hilarious � Anna Wintour’s father was a famous newspaper editor, and to hear Odell tell it, Anna graduated from college and someone immediately approached her and was like, “You there, twenty-two year old girl with a famous father and no professional experience! Want to be the editor in chief of this magazine?� MUST BE NICE.)

Nepotism aside, Wintour showed a true gift for understanding what would sell, even at an early age. Shortly after Wintour becomes editor-in-chief of Vogue in the early 80’s, she’s sitting next to a man on a plane who, after Wintour tells him where she works, says that he likes Vogue because it’s a classy magazine that never would never put someone like Madonna on the cover. And then Wintour immediately schedules Madonna to be on the next cover, and it’s one of the early best-selling issues.

Anna Wintour was also one of the first to realize in the late 90's that Vogue needed to be brought online, as soon as possible - in 2022, with print media rapidly becoming an endangered species, this particular insight seems downright visionary.

And of course, Amy Odell discusses The Book. Because, like it or not, you cannot write an Anna Wintour biography and not talk about The Book.

Odell does not spend any more time than is necessary discussing the publication and fallout of The Devil Wears Prada. It occupies its own chapter in the biography, but it’s presented as merely another episode in the long career of Anna Wintour. And, amazingly, by the time I got to the end of the section, I actually felt kind of sorry for Wintour. As I’ve said, she’s not directly interviewed for this book, so we don’t get her own take on the novel, but there are enough interviews with her close friends and colleagues for us to understand that she was hurt by it, and the overall reaction from the people who have known her for years was that Lauren Weisberger’s book was an unfair portrayal that had no basis in reality. (And, with the added context about the creation of the novel that this biography provides, you can see exactly how Miranda Priestly came about: Weisberger wrote a novel based on her time at Vogue but it was super boring, because her job at Vogue was super boring, and so someone probably suggested that she beef it up by making her fictional boss into a total monster. And of course, because everyone knew where Weisberger had worked and who her real boss was, they all made the assumption that Miranda Priestly was an accurate stand-in for Anna Wintour when in reality, Wesiberger’s original draft was probably a lot closer to the real Wintour.)

It’s to the book’s detriment (and no fault of Odell's) that the book starts to lag towards the end. The portrait she paints of Wintour in the later years of her tenure at Vogue is that of a formerly sharp editor gradually losing her touch. Odell discusses � without really getting into the nitty-gritty � various scandals at Vogue that happened on her watch. According to Odell, there have been many instances in recent years where various Vogue staffers have had to talk Wintour out of running a feature that would be misguided at best, and flat-out racist at worst. Based on what Odell writes, Anna Wintour seems to have lost that intuition that made her so successful for so long.

This biography is technically unfinished, because of course, Anna Wintour still reigns as editor-in-chief at Vogue and has no plans to pass the baton anytime soon. She also, according to Odell, has no intention of ever writing her memoirs. Anna might be the closest we ever get to a true inside look at a legend.]]> 3.77 2022 Anna: The Biography
author: Amy Odell
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/08/01
date added: 2022/10/17
shelves:
review:
The fastest way to my drama- and high-fashion-loving heart is just three little words: Unauthorized. Wintour. Biography.

Okay, if we’re being honest, Anna isn’t technically unauthorized in the sense that Wintour like, publicly disavowed the book or forbade anyone in her circle from cooperating with author Amy Odell. Plenty of people close to Wintour, both professionally and personally, were interviewed for this book � so it’s not like we don’t get a close-up view of the Anna Wintour that exists behind the curtain. But on the other hand, when Odell contacted Wintour about potentially being interviewed for the book, Wintour’s response was basically, “Oh, you’re writing a book about me? How wonderful, I can’t wait to read it when you’re finished.� And that was that. So no, Anna Wintour herself does not make an appearance in this biography. But Odell more than makes up the deficit by supplying us with interviews from people who have known Anna at every stage of her career.

And what a career it’s been. Anna Wintour began working in magazines right out of college (her origin story is, frankly, fucking hilarious � Anna Wintour’s father was a famous newspaper editor, and to hear Odell tell it, Anna graduated from college and someone immediately approached her and was like, “You there, twenty-two year old girl with a famous father and no professional experience! Want to be the editor in chief of this magazine?� MUST BE NICE.)

Nepotism aside, Wintour showed a true gift for understanding what would sell, even at an early age. Shortly after Wintour becomes editor-in-chief of Vogue in the early 80’s, she’s sitting next to a man on a plane who, after Wintour tells him where she works, says that he likes Vogue because it’s a classy magazine that never would never put someone like Madonna on the cover. And then Wintour immediately schedules Madonna to be on the next cover, and it’s one of the early best-selling issues.

Anna Wintour was also one of the first to realize in the late 90's that Vogue needed to be brought online, as soon as possible - in 2022, with print media rapidly becoming an endangered species, this particular insight seems downright visionary.

And of course, Amy Odell discusses The Book. Because, like it or not, you cannot write an Anna Wintour biography and not talk about The Book.

Odell does not spend any more time than is necessary discussing the publication and fallout of The Devil Wears Prada. It occupies its own chapter in the biography, but it’s presented as merely another episode in the long career of Anna Wintour. And, amazingly, by the time I got to the end of the section, I actually felt kind of sorry for Wintour. As I’ve said, she’s not directly interviewed for this book, so we don’t get her own take on the novel, but there are enough interviews with her close friends and colleagues for us to understand that she was hurt by it, and the overall reaction from the people who have known her for years was that Lauren Weisberger’s book was an unfair portrayal that had no basis in reality. (And, with the added context about the creation of the novel that this biography provides, you can see exactly how Miranda Priestly came about: Weisberger wrote a novel based on her time at Vogue but it was super boring, because her job at Vogue was super boring, and so someone probably suggested that she beef it up by making her fictional boss into a total monster. And of course, because everyone knew where Weisberger had worked and who her real boss was, they all made the assumption that Miranda Priestly was an accurate stand-in for Anna Wintour when in reality, Wesiberger’s original draft was probably a lot closer to the real Wintour.)

It’s to the book’s detriment (and no fault of Odell's) that the book starts to lag towards the end. The portrait she paints of Wintour in the later years of her tenure at Vogue is that of a formerly sharp editor gradually losing her touch. Odell discusses � without really getting into the nitty-gritty � various scandals at Vogue that happened on her watch. According to Odell, there have been many instances in recent years where various Vogue staffers have had to talk Wintour out of running a feature that would be misguided at best, and flat-out racist at worst. Based on what Odell writes, Anna Wintour seems to have lost that intuition that made her so successful for so long.

This biography is technically unfinished, because of course, Anna Wintour still reigns as editor-in-chief at Vogue and has no plans to pass the baton anytime soon. She also, according to Odell, has no intention of ever writing her memoirs. Anna might be the closest we ever get to a true inside look at a legend.
]]> <![CDATA[Dim Sum of All Fears (A Noodle Shop Mystery, #2)]]> 37638040
Lana Lee is a dutiful daughter, waiting tables at her family’s Chinese restaurant even though she’d rather be doing just about anything else. Then, just when she has a chance for a “real� job, her parents take off to Taiwan, leaving Lana in charge. Surprising everyone―including herself―she turns out to be quite capable of running the place. Unfortunately, the newlyweds who just opened the souvenir store next door to Ho-Lee have turned up dead. . .and soon Lana finds herself in the midst of an Asia Village mystery.

Between running the Ho-Lee and trying to figure out whether the rock-solid Detective Adam Trudeau is actually her boyfriend, Lana knows she shouldn’t pry into the case. But the more she learns about the dead husband, his ex-wives, and all the murky details of the couple’s past, the more Lana thinks that this so-called murder/suicide is a straight-up order of murder. . .]]> 291 Vivien Chien 1250129176 Madeline 3 detective-fiction
The setting of these mysteries remains the series' biggest strength: by setting most of the action within an Asian shopping center, Vivien Chien can perfectly replicate the small-town, everyone-knows-everyone's-business atmosphere that's such a foundational part of cozy mysteries - and the fact that said shopping center is located within a large city means that new characters can be introduced and then dismissed from the series as the plot requires.

Case in point: this time, Lana's amateur detective skills are needed when a young couple opens a new souvenir shop near the noodle restaurant that Lana's family owns, and then both husband and wife are swiftly and violently murdered by persons unknown. Catching the culprit will mean ramifications not just for Lana and her family's restaurant, but for the shopping center as a whole.

It's uneven, to say the least. The suspects include two victims' sisters and two ex-wives, and not only was it sometimes difficult to remember who was who, I felt like each pair could have been combined into one person without too much trouble. Lana remains a very inconsistent detective, alternating between flashes of brilliant introspection and being so uncommonly dense I can't believe she manages to tie her shoes in the morning. Also at one point she makes a joke about "millennials and social media" and it's a) hacky and not funny, and b) confusing, because based on Vivien Chien's author photo she is a millennial, so all the moments where Lana acted more like a fussy middle-aged woman seemed like a misguided attempt to appeal to older audiences.

And of course, we must discuss the cop.

(If you're new here: hi, I'm Madeline, and I really fucking hate mysteries where the detective dates a cop! Now that you're caught up, let's press on.)

Lana is dating the cop (Adam something) from the previous book, and their relationship remains as baffling as it is devoid of chemistry. Lana mentions at one point that she and Adam have gone on something like eight dates, but she still isn't sure if he likes her that way. And no wonder she's confused, since the only physical affection Adam shows her is kissing her on the forehead like he's her aunt or something. They had absolutely no spark, and multiple times I had to ask the pages, "Do you two even like each other?"

Also Chien tries to inject some intrigue into Boring Bland Adam by hinting at possible dark secrets in his past - during one dud of a date, Lana tries to ask him about his work as a cop and Adam replies that he's "not ready to share that part of my life." Well, buddy, you'd better hurry up and get ready, because so far your \only two character traits are "patronizing" and "is a cop," so either get interesting or spill your tragic past already.

(In any case, if Lana should be dating anyone, it's Peter, the hot chef at her family's restaurant. That I would like to see.)

In my review of the first Lana Lee mystery, I praised Chien's detective for being good at what she does, and a compelling fictional detective. I still think this series has great potential, but there's a lot of work to be done first. ]]> 3.74 2018 Dim Sum of All Fears (A Noodle Shop Mystery, #2)
author: Vivien Chien
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2022/06/01
date added: 2022/10/05
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
Am I allowed to give a book a higher rating just based on how much I like the title? I don't even like puns all that much but "Dim Sum of All Fears" is fantastic. Unfortunately, the second installment of Lana Lee, part-time noodle shop waitress and part-time detective, isn't nearly as good as I wanted it to be.

The setting of these mysteries remains the series' biggest strength: by setting most of the action within an Asian shopping center, Vivien Chien can perfectly replicate the small-town, everyone-knows-everyone's-business atmosphere that's such a foundational part of cozy mysteries - and the fact that said shopping center is located within a large city means that new characters can be introduced and then dismissed from the series as the plot requires.

Case in point: this time, Lana's amateur detective skills are needed when a young couple opens a new souvenir shop near the noodle restaurant that Lana's family owns, and then both husband and wife are swiftly and violently murdered by persons unknown. Catching the culprit will mean ramifications not just for Lana and her family's restaurant, but for the shopping center as a whole.

It's uneven, to say the least. The suspects include two victims' sisters and two ex-wives, and not only was it sometimes difficult to remember who was who, I felt like each pair could have been combined into one person without too much trouble. Lana remains a very inconsistent detective, alternating between flashes of brilliant introspection and being so uncommonly dense I can't believe she manages to tie her shoes in the morning. Also at one point she makes a joke about "millennials and social media" and it's a) hacky and not funny, and b) confusing, because based on Vivien Chien's author photo she is a millennial, so all the moments where Lana acted more like a fussy middle-aged woman seemed like a misguided attempt to appeal to older audiences.

And of course, we must discuss the cop.

(If you're new here: hi, I'm Madeline, and I really fucking hate mysteries where the detective dates a cop! Now that you're caught up, let's press on.)

Lana is dating the cop (Adam something) from the previous book, and their relationship remains as baffling as it is devoid of chemistry. Lana mentions at one point that she and Adam have gone on something like eight dates, but she still isn't sure if he likes her that way. And no wonder she's confused, since the only physical affection Adam shows her is kissing her on the forehead like he's her aunt or something. They had absolutely no spark, and multiple times I had to ask the pages, "Do you two even like each other?"

Also Chien tries to inject some intrigue into Boring Bland Adam by hinting at possible dark secrets in his past - during one dud of a date, Lana tries to ask him about his work as a cop and Adam replies that he's "not ready to share that part of my life." Well, buddy, you'd better hurry up and get ready, because so far your \only two character traits are "patronizing" and "is a cop," so either get interesting or spill your tragic past already.

(In any case, if Lana should be dating anyone, it's Peter, the hot chef at her family's restaurant. That I would like to see.)

In my review of the first Lana Lee mystery, I praised Chien's detective for being good at what she does, and a compelling fictional detective. I still think this series has great potential, but there's a lot of work to be done first.
]]> <![CDATA[Eric (Discworld, #9; Rincewind, #4)]]> 64218
All he wants is his three wishes granted. Nothing fancy - to be immortal, rule the world, have the most beautiful woman in the world fall madly in love with him, the usual stuff.

But instead of a tractable demon, he calls up Rincewind, probably the most incompetent wizard in the universe, and the extremely intractable and hostile form of travel accessory known as the Luggage.

With them on his side, Eric's in for a ride through space and time that is bound to make him wish (quite fervently) again - this time that he's never been born.]]> 197 Terry Pratchett 0380821214 Madeline 3 fantasy Eric occupies a kind of unhappy position in the Discworld canon. It has the misfortune of coming in right after the phenomenal Guards! Guards! and, clocking in at less than 200 pages, it doesn't really have enough substance to even have a chance at being counted among the heavy hitters of the series. Overall, this book gives off the impression of something that Sir Terry dashed off while he was waiting for the bus.

The biggest selling point to Eric is that, as Discworld novels go, this is one of the easiest to summarize - it's a pretty straightforward Faust parody, when a teenage magician summons a demon that will make all his wishes come true. Unfortunately for him, the perpetually unlucky wizard Rincewind got zapped to a prison dimension at the end of his last book, and the timing works out just right so that instead of a demon, Eric summons Rincewind. Shenanigans ensue.

Like I said, it's short, and there's not much there. But what is there remains a lot of fun, because even when he seems to be kind of phoning it in, Pratchett is still Pratchett.

"...demons belong to the same space-time wossname, more or less, as humans, and have a deep and abiding interest in humanity's day-to-day affairs. Interestingly enough, the gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it's important to shoot missionaries on sight."]]> 3.76 1990 Eric (Discworld, #9; Rincewind, #4)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2022/09/01
date added: 2022/10/04
shelves: fantasy
review:
Eric occupies a kind of unhappy position in the Discworld canon. It has the misfortune of coming in right after the phenomenal Guards! Guards! and, clocking in at less than 200 pages, it doesn't really have enough substance to even have a chance at being counted among the heavy hitters of the series. Overall, this book gives off the impression of something that Sir Terry dashed off while he was waiting for the bus.

The biggest selling point to Eric is that, as Discworld novels go, this is one of the easiest to summarize - it's a pretty straightforward Faust parody, when a teenage magician summons a demon that will make all his wishes come true. Unfortunately for him, the perpetually unlucky wizard Rincewind got zapped to a prison dimension at the end of his last book, and the timing works out just right so that instead of a demon, Eric summons Rincewind. Shenanigans ensue.

Like I said, it's short, and there's not much there. But what is there remains a lot of fun, because even when he seems to be kind of phoning it in, Pratchett is still Pratchett.

"...demons belong to the same space-time wossname, more or less, as humans, and have a deep and abiding interest in humanity's day-to-day affairs. Interestingly enough, the gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it's important to shoot missionaries on sight."
]]> <![CDATA[My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress]]> 43822651 Sex and the City meets Bad Blood and Catch Me If You Can in the astonishing true story of Anna Delvey, a young con artist posing as an heiress in New York City—as told by the former Vanity Fair photo editor and friend of Delvey’s, who was scammed out of more than $62,000 and is featured as a character in the Netflix series Inventing Anna.

Rachel DeLoache Williams’s new friend Anna Delvey, a self-proclaimed German heiress, was worldly and ambitious. She was also generous—picking up the tab for lavish dinners at Le Coucou, infrared sauna sessions at HigherDOSE, drinks at the 11 Howard Library bar, and regular workout sessions with a celebrity personal trainer.

When Anna proposed an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech at the five-star La Mamounia hotel, Rachel jumped at the chance. But when Anna’s credit cards mysteriously stopped working, the dream vacation quickly took a dark turn. Anna asked Rachel to begin fronting costs—first for flights, then meals and shopping, and, finally, for their $7,500-per-night private villa. Before Rachel knew it, more than $62,000 had been charged to her credit cards. Anna swore she would reimburse Rachel the moment they returned to New York.

Back in Manhattan, the repayment never materialized, and a shocking pattern of deception emerged. Rachel learned that Anna had left a trail of deceit—and unpaid bills—wherever she’d been. Mortified, Rachel contacted the district attorney, and in a stunning turn of events, found herself helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists.

With breathless pacing and in-depth reporting from the person who experienced it firsthand, My Friend Anna is an unforgettable true story of “glamour, greed, lust for powerâ€� (The New York Times), and female friendship.]]> 288 Rachel DeLoache Williams Madeline 3 memoir Dear Diary: Heather told me she teaches people â€real life.â€� She said, real life sucks losers dry. You want to fuck with the eagles, you have to learn to fly. I said, so, you teach people how to spread their wings and fly? She said, yes. I said, you’re beautiful.

Heathers, 1988

Rachel DeLoache Williams was never supposed to be famous.

She went to a good school, got a good job in New York, and was on track to be one of the thousands of well-off, well connected people who get into fancy clubs and eat at nice restaurants, but otherwise stay anonymous. But unfortunately for Williams, she happened to cross paths with Anna Sorokin - a woman who was in the middle of a years-long plan to scam her way into the inner circle of New York's wealthy elite by passing herself off as a Russian heiress/socialite named Anna Delvey. Williams was pulled into Delvey's world of luxury and excess, and ultimately was scammed out of over $60,000 by a woman who she thought was her friend, but who'd actually been lying to her about everything from Day One.

After an introduction that basically boils down to Williams telling us that, if anything, she's guilty of being too nice, we're off to the races. And by that, I of course mean we are forced to sit through several chapters about Williams' life pre-Anna. I understand the impulse to give background information (and also establish how nice Williams is), but what Rachel DeLoache Williams cannot understand is that no one is reading this book to learn about her, and her descriptions of how she got her "dream job" (you inventory receipts from photo shoots, ma'am - let's chill out a little, okay?) at Vanity Fair and her advice on how to do well at your first grownup job does not really serve the story in any way. It also doesn't help that Williams' writing often sounds like a college application essay written by an academically accomplished, but not particularly talented, high school senior:

"New York attracts such a wild range of people: artists and bankers, immigrants and transients, old money and new money, people waiting to be discovered and others who never want to be found. Everyone here has a story to tell - some more elaborate than others. But without exception the people have texture, and texture is character, and character is fascinating."

The real meat of this story, and what we're all actually interesting in hearing about, is a fateful trip to Morocco, where Rachel accepts Anna's invitation to accompany her and a few other friends to an exclusive resort - only to reach the end of their trip and learn that Anna has not paid their bill. In a moment of panic and desperation (and subtle manipulation from Anna, who continued to insist that there was a temporary problem with her trust fund and she'd have access to the money again in a couple of days), Williams offered up her own credit card for the hotel to "hold", and then, when she realized that she didn't have enough to cover the exorbitant bill with her own funds, allowed the hotel to have her Vanity Fair corporate card. This would be the beginning of a years-long nightmare where Williams desperately tried to get Anna to pay her back, even as Anna's other scams were collapsing around her.

It's easy to judge Rachel DeLoache Williams and her choices. Every single person believes, in their heart of hearts, that they are too smart to be scammed. So it's easy, reading this book from the comfort of your own home, to roll your eyes at the red flags in Anna's behavior that Williams ignored, and to shout at the pages, "Rachel, do not believe Anna when she says you don't need to book a return flight in advance! Rachel, do not give them your corporate card! Rachel, do not sign that!" But it's easy for us to judge, because we already know how this story ends, and we know what was going on under the surface. Williams was in so deep that she didn't even think Anna was lying to her for the longest time - in fact, when she and some friends eventually confront Anna about the money, they still believe at this point that Anna is simply having issues with her parents, and has been cut off. The idea that everything has been a lie, down to Anna's name, has not even occurred to them - nobody even suggests that she doesn't have the money.

I have a lot of sympathy for Williams, first because she truly went through hell because of Delvey - I cannot imagine being on the hook for $60,000 that someone else owed - and also because Anna Delvey is now out of prison and everyone's kind of...cool with the fact that she stole all this money from people? What's worse, Anna is still stealing from Williams - Rachel DeLoache Williams was in talks with HBO to get her own miniseries telling her side of the story while Anna Delvey was developing her own miniseries with Netflix...and we know who won that. (God, and the Netflix version is not kind to Williams.)

The truth is that we all know someone like Rachel. They're nice, and they believe the best of people - not because they're more kind-hearted or generous of spirit than anyone else, but for the simple reason that nothing very bad has ever happened to them. They have spent their lives being treated reasonably well by most people, and life has overall been very kind to them, so they cannot imagine a scenario where this isn't the case.

At it's best, this book is Williams taking the power back from Anna Delvey and laying out, in exhaustive detail, exactly how far her scams and lies went, and the real human damage they caused.
Rachel DeLoache Williams is not a socialite or a real estate developer or a hedge fund manager with money to spare. She's just an ordinary person who let herself be taken in by a con artist, and it almost destroyed her life, and people will judge her and mock her because they want to believe that it could never happen to them.]]> 3.42 2019 My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress
author: Rachel DeLoache Williams
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2022/07/01
date added: 2022/09/25
shelves: memoir
review:
Dear Diary: Heather told me she teaches people â€real life.â€� She said, real life sucks losers dry. You want to fuck with the eagles, you have to learn to fly. I said, so, you teach people how to spread their wings and fly? She said, yes. I said, you’re beautiful.

Heathers, 1988

Rachel DeLoache Williams was never supposed to be famous.

She went to a good school, got a good job in New York, and was on track to be one of the thousands of well-off, well connected people who get into fancy clubs and eat at nice restaurants, but otherwise stay anonymous. But unfortunately for Williams, she happened to cross paths with Anna Sorokin - a woman who was in the middle of a years-long plan to scam her way into the inner circle of New York's wealthy elite by passing herself off as a Russian heiress/socialite named Anna Delvey. Williams was pulled into Delvey's world of luxury and excess, and ultimately was scammed out of over $60,000 by a woman who she thought was her friend, but who'd actually been lying to her about everything from Day One.

After an introduction that basically boils down to Williams telling us that, if anything, she's guilty of being too nice, we're off to the races. And by that, I of course mean we are forced to sit through several chapters about Williams' life pre-Anna. I understand the impulse to give background information (and also establish how nice Williams is), but what Rachel DeLoache Williams cannot understand is that no one is reading this book to learn about her, and her descriptions of how she got her "dream job" (you inventory receipts from photo shoots, ma'am - let's chill out a little, okay?) at Vanity Fair and her advice on how to do well at your first grownup job does not really serve the story in any way. It also doesn't help that Williams' writing often sounds like a college application essay written by an academically accomplished, but not particularly talented, high school senior:

"New York attracts such a wild range of people: artists and bankers, immigrants and transients, old money and new money, people waiting to be discovered and others who never want to be found. Everyone here has a story to tell - some more elaborate than others. But without exception the people have texture, and texture is character, and character is fascinating."

The real meat of this story, and what we're all actually interesting in hearing about, is a fateful trip to Morocco, where Rachel accepts Anna's invitation to accompany her and a few other friends to an exclusive resort - only to reach the end of their trip and learn that Anna has not paid their bill. In a moment of panic and desperation (and subtle manipulation from Anna, who continued to insist that there was a temporary problem with her trust fund and she'd have access to the money again in a couple of days), Williams offered up her own credit card for the hotel to "hold", and then, when she realized that she didn't have enough to cover the exorbitant bill with her own funds, allowed the hotel to have her Vanity Fair corporate card. This would be the beginning of a years-long nightmare where Williams desperately tried to get Anna to pay her back, even as Anna's other scams were collapsing around her.

It's easy to judge Rachel DeLoache Williams and her choices. Every single person believes, in their heart of hearts, that they are too smart to be scammed. So it's easy, reading this book from the comfort of your own home, to roll your eyes at the red flags in Anna's behavior that Williams ignored, and to shout at the pages, "Rachel, do not believe Anna when she says you don't need to book a return flight in advance! Rachel, do not give them your corporate card! Rachel, do not sign that!" But it's easy for us to judge, because we already know how this story ends, and we know what was going on under the surface. Williams was in so deep that she didn't even think Anna was lying to her for the longest time - in fact, when she and some friends eventually confront Anna about the money, they still believe at this point that Anna is simply having issues with her parents, and has been cut off. The idea that everything has been a lie, down to Anna's name, has not even occurred to them - nobody even suggests that she doesn't have the money.

I have a lot of sympathy for Williams, first because she truly went through hell because of Delvey - I cannot imagine being on the hook for $60,000 that someone else owed - and also because Anna Delvey is now out of prison and everyone's kind of...cool with the fact that she stole all this money from people? What's worse, Anna is still stealing from Williams - Rachel DeLoache Williams was in talks with HBO to get her own miniseries telling her side of the story while Anna Delvey was developing her own miniseries with Netflix...and we know who won that. (God, and the Netflix version is not kind to Williams.)

The truth is that we all know someone like Rachel. They're nice, and they believe the best of people - not because they're more kind-hearted or generous of spirit than anyone else, but for the simple reason that nothing very bad has ever happened to them. They have spent their lives being treated reasonably well by most people, and life has overall been very kind to them, so they cannot imagine a scenario where this isn't the case.

At it's best, this book is Williams taking the power back from Anna Delvey and laying out, in exhaustive detail, exactly how far her scams and lies went, and the real human damage they caused.
Rachel DeLoache Williams is not a socialite or a real estate developer or a hedge fund manager with money to spare. She's just an ordinary person who let herself be taken in by a con artist, and it almost destroyed her life, and people will judge her and mock her because they want to believe that it could never happen to them.
]]> <![CDATA[Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty]]> 56382342
When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,� subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all.

Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other.

Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.]]> 317 Anderson Cooper 0062964615 Madeline 3 history-nonfiction Vanderbilt is less of a straightforward history and more of a series of anecdotes from the family's centuries-long reign in the highest ranks of the 1% - in other words, Anderson Cooper spends the better part of this book taking us through the greatest hits of his family's history.

These run the gamut from interesting if dry, like the death of the patriarch Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt and the ensuing battle over his will; to the genuinely fascinating, like the contentious and complicated relationship between Alva Eskine Smith and her daughter Consuelo Vanderbilt (and honestly I would read an entire separate book about Consuelo's doomed, forced marriage to the Duke of Malborough). And then there's a chapter that does nothing except give us a blow-by-blow description of a yacht race that one of the Vanderbilts competed in, a section so baffling dull and inconsequential that I kept flipping ahead and wondering when Cooper was going to stop talking about sailing. Also there's a chapter about Truman Capote, whose only connection to the Vanderbilt's is his friendship with Anderson Cooper's mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. It's a stretch, to say the least.

Still, I was entertained and was enjoying this inside look into one of America's most famous families (and probably getting the inside scoop on the next three seasons of The Gilded Age), but where the book starts to kind of go off the rails is when it comes time for Cooper to delve into her mother's personal history. On one hand, this is the strongest section of the book, because of his close connection to the subject. But Cooper has chosen, confusingly, to frame his mother's story around a made-for-TV movie about her childhood that aired in the 1970's. I had never even heard of this show, and I'd bet that most people reading this book haven't either, but man are Anderson Cooper and his mom mad about it! As far as they're concerned, the show was watched by everyone and was huge in the popular consciousness (and Gloria Vanderbilt was so furious about the inaccuracies that she broke off her friendship with one of the actors who appeared in the movie). This weird fixation on a stupid TV movie that I don't think anyone outside the family even cared about was distracting and odd, and gave the final chapters of Vanderbilt an unpleasant "so what?" aftertaste.

Interesting and informative, but if anything, you should approach this book as merely an introduction to the Vanderbilt dynasty, and use the bibliography at the end to find better sources. ]]> 3.74 2021 Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
author: Anderson Cooper
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/08/01
date added: 2022/09/25
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
A chronicle of one of the oldest New Money families in American history, Vanderbilt is less of a straightforward history and more of a series of anecdotes from the family's centuries-long reign in the highest ranks of the 1% - in other words, Anderson Cooper spends the better part of this book taking us through the greatest hits of his family's history.

These run the gamut from interesting if dry, like the death of the patriarch Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt and the ensuing battle over his will; to the genuinely fascinating, like the contentious and complicated relationship between Alva Eskine Smith and her daughter Consuelo Vanderbilt (and honestly I would read an entire separate book about Consuelo's doomed, forced marriage to the Duke of Malborough). And then there's a chapter that does nothing except give us a blow-by-blow description of a yacht race that one of the Vanderbilts competed in, a section so baffling dull and inconsequential that I kept flipping ahead and wondering when Cooper was going to stop talking about sailing. Also there's a chapter about Truman Capote, whose only connection to the Vanderbilt's is his friendship with Anderson Cooper's mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. It's a stretch, to say the least.

Still, I was entertained and was enjoying this inside look into one of America's most famous families (and probably getting the inside scoop on the next three seasons of The Gilded Age), but where the book starts to kind of go off the rails is when it comes time for Cooper to delve into her mother's personal history. On one hand, this is the strongest section of the book, because of his close connection to the subject. But Cooper has chosen, confusingly, to frame his mother's story around a made-for-TV movie about her childhood that aired in the 1970's. I had never even heard of this show, and I'd bet that most people reading this book haven't either, but man are Anderson Cooper and his mom mad about it! As far as they're concerned, the show was watched by everyone and was huge in the popular consciousness (and Gloria Vanderbilt was so furious about the inaccuracies that she broke off her friendship with one of the actors who appeared in the movie). This weird fixation on a stupid TV movie that I don't think anyone outside the family even cared about was distracting and odd, and gave the final chapters of Vanderbilt an unpleasant "so what?" aftertaste.

Interesting and informative, but if anything, you should approach this book as merely an introduction to the Vanderbilt dynasty, and use the bibliography at the end to find better sources.
]]> Madam 54860174 A darkly feminist, modern gothic tale pitched against a haunting backdrop, and populated by an electrifying cast of heroines

For 150 years, high above rocky Scottish cliffs, Caldonbrae Hall has sat untouched, a beacon of excellence in an old ancestral castle. A boarding school for girls, it promises that the young women lucky enough to be admitted will emerge “resilient and ready to serve society.�

Into its illustrious midst steps Rose Christie: a 26-year-old Classics teacher, Caldonbrae’s new head of the department, and the first hire for the school in over a decade. At first, Rose is overwhelmed to be invited into this institution, whose prestige is unrivaled. But she quickly discovers that behind the school’s elitist veneer lies an impenetrable, starkly traditional culture that she struggles to reconcile with her modernist beliefs—not to mention her commitment to educating “girls for the future.�

It also doesn’t take long for Rose to suspect that there’s more to the secret circumstances surrounding the abrupt departure of her predecessor—a woman whose ghost lingers everywhere—than anyone is willing to let on. In her search for this mysterious former teacher, Rose instead uncovers the darkness that beats at the heart of Caldonbrae, forcing her to confront the true extent of the school’s nefarious purpose, and her own role in perpetuating it.

A darkly feminist tale pitched against a haunting backdrop, and populated by an electrifying cast of heroines, Madam will keep readers engrossed until the breathtaking conclusion.]]> 352 Phoebe Wynne 1250272041 Madeline 1 ugh
(Although when I decided to read this book, I broke my cardinal rule of "don't read books that claim to be 'for fans of The Secret History' because that is always, always a lie" so who's the real idiot here?)

The true tragedy is that, because this book relies so heavily on The Twist, I can't fully get into all the ways the novel fails on every possible level, because to do so would require spoiling The Twist - yeah, I can write a review and hide it because of spoilers, but come on, nobody reads those if they haven't already read the book and I want to warn as many people as possible. But here's what I can say without giving anything away. It boils down to three main points:

1. I realized pretty early on that this book was Not My Cup of Tea, and the only reason I didn't abandon it halfway through was because I wanted to know what The Twist was. Or, most accurately, I guessed The Twist very early on and wanted to finish the book because I was sure that Wynne had to have something else up her sleeve, and the big reveal had to have more to it than what was blatantly projected from basically the first chapter.

But she didn't. There is no startling last-minute reveal, no clever pulling the rug out from under the reader. The blatantly obvious Sinister Secret going on behind the scenes is all Phoebe Wynne has, so the reveal of the The Twist is less of a shocking reveal and more of a confirmation that I guessed right.

2. In a similar vein, there is no payoff to the fact that the story takes place in the mid-90's. I thought maybe we were going to get to see one of the students as an adult in modern day, or maybe we would get a cool flash-forward to see what the school looks like in 2019, but nope. The only reason the book takes place in the 90's is clearly because Phoebe Wynne couldn't figure out how to make her scenario plausible in a world where cell phones and the internet exist, so she had to set it 30 years in the past. And even then, her scenario is barely plausible but again I frustratingly cannot get into details about why. Rest assured, though, that any horror or dread this book manages to conjure up is instantly undercut by the knowledge that Caldonbrae Hall and its Sinister Secret have a shelf life of about ten more years, and then the whole system is going to collapse on itself because it's not sustainable at all.

3. Obviously this novel is not a worthy successor to The Secret History, but the publishers went a step further in their claims that fans of Donna Tartt's book would also enjoy Madam. Putting aside the surface similarities (this one also involves Classics students, but that's literally it), the fucking themes don't even match up. Madam is a ham-fisted wannabe-feminist statement piece that falls flat on its face, a paper-thin fable straight out of the White Feminism school of "it's only sad when it happens to white girls."

It isn't feminist. It isn't Gothic. It isn't scary. And it's definitely not anything close to The Secret History.]]> 3.20 2021 Madam
author: Phoebe Wynne
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2022/07/01
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: ugh
review:
File under: LOL, you tried.

(Although when I decided to read this book, I broke my cardinal rule of "don't read books that claim to be 'for fans of The Secret History' because that is always, always a lie" so who's the real idiot here?)

The true tragedy is that, because this book relies so heavily on The Twist, I can't fully get into all the ways the novel fails on every possible level, because to do so would require spoiling The Twist - yeah, I can write a review and hide it because of spoilers, but come on, nobody reads those if they haven't already read the book and I want to warn as many people as possible. But here's what I can say without giving anything away. It boils down to three main points:

1. I realized pretty early on that this book was Not My Cup of Tea, and the only reason I didn't abandon it halfway through was because I wanted to know what The Twist was. Or, most accurately, I guessed The Twist very early on and wanted to finish the book because I was sure that Wynne had to have something else up her sleeve, and the big reveal had to have more to it than what was blatantly projected from basically the first chapter.

But she didn't. There is no startling last-minute reveal, no clever pulling the rug out from under the reader. The blatantly obvious Sinister Secret going on behind the scenes is all Phoebe Wynne has, so the reveal of the The Twist is less of a shocking reveal and more of a confirmation that I guessed right.

2. In a similar vein, there is no payoff to the fact that the story takes place in the mid-90's. I thought maybe we were going to get to see one of the students as an adult in modern day, or maybe we would get a cool flash-forward to see what the school looks like in 2019, but nope. The only reason the book takes place in the 90's is clearly because Phoebe Wynne couldn't figure out how to make her scenario plausible in a world where cell phones and the internet exist, so she had to set it 30 years in the past. And even then, her scenario is barely plausible but again I frustratingly cannot get into details about why. Rest assured, though, that any horror or dread this book manages to conjure up is instantly undercut by the knowledge that Caldonbrae Hall and its Sinister Secret have a shelf life of about ten more years, and then the whole system is going to collapse on itself because it's not sustainable at all.

3. Obviously this novel is not a worthy successor to The Secret History, but the publishers went a step further in their claims that fans of Donna Tartt's book would also enjoy Madam. Putting aside the surface similarities (this one also involves Classics students, but that's literally it), the fucking themes don't even match up. Madam is a ham-fisted wannabe-feminist statement piece that falls flat on its face, a paper-thin fable straight out of the White Feminism school of "it's only sad when it happens to white girls."

It isn't feminist. It isn't Gothic. It isn't scary. And it's definitely not anything close to The Secret History.
]]> <![CDATA[My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #1)]]> 55711617
That’s not the only thing that’s getting carved up, though � this, Jade knows, is the start of a slasher. But what kind? Who’s wearing the mask? Jade’s got an encyclopedic recall of every horror movie on the shelf, but� will that help her survive? Can she get a final girl trained enough to stop all this from happening? Does she even want to?

Isn’t a slasher exactly what her hometown deserves?

This new novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones, called “one of our most talented living writers� by Tommy Orange, explores the changing landscape of the West through his distinct voice of sharp humor and prophetic violence.

Go up the mountain to Proofrock. See if you’ve got what it takes � see if your heart, too, might be a chainsaw.]]> 405 Stephen Graham Jones 1982137630 Madeline 2 My Heart is a Chainsaw is Stephen Graham Jones's love letter to horror and slasher movies, told as only he can tell it - and it's also an exploration of obsession and coping mechanisms and how an obsession with other worlds can go so deep that they bleed over into your real life.

Jade Daniels isn't a horror movie buff - she studies horror movies, watches them obsessively, and is comforted by them. So when two tourists are brutally murdered in her small hometown, and a new girl arrives at school, Jade knows exactly what's going on: there is a killer in town, and the Final Girl is here to take him down.

Like a lot of other reviewers, I was mostly let down by this book. The Only Good Indians, Graham Jones's other horror movie homage novel that I've read, was so staggeringly good that when I finished it I had to just sit and stare at the wall for a minute while I tried to process the story. So I had a very high water-mark in mind when I started My Heart is a Chainsaw, and it didn't deliver.

Stephen Graham Jones has definitely done his homework for this book, I'll give him that. In my review of The Final Girls Support Group I criticized it for what I felt was a surface-level knowledge of slasher movies. Jade Daniels, on the other hand, is a true horror movie buff, and Graham Jones's exhaustive knowledge of the genre is on full display in this book - and you can tell he's really enjoying creating a heroine who not only knows all of the slasher movie traps to avoid, but relishes uncovering them even as other characters stubbornly refuse to believe her warnings about what's killing people in the town. And the opening scene, where two hapless tourists are killed by...something is bone-chilling and shows Graham Jones's talent for terrifying setpieces off to full effect.

But ultimately, this book falls flat too many times. It felt very meandering at times, which may be due to the fact that this is the first in a planned "Lake Witch Trilogy", but often I would be reading and wondering how there could still be so many pages left in the book, because it always felt like we were almost at the end. And the way time functions in the story is downright nonsensical, with the time frame of the story often requiring Jade to go to one location, lose track of time, and then realize that she's been there for six hours without noticing. Scenes go from day to night because the time change is required by the plot, not because it makes any sense within the action of the novel. And the ending felt simultaneously like it dragged on for way too long, and was also way too rushed - another weird time-related thing I can't explain about this book.

But even though this was a misfire for me, I think I'm still going to read the second installment when it comes out. The ending of this book is messy, but there's a strong sense that Graham Jones is building to something much bigger than Jade's story. And I'm interested to see where he's going with it.
]]> 3.52 2021 My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #1)
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/06/01
date added: 2022/08/31
shelves:
review:
My Heart is a Chainsaw is Stephen Graham Jones's love letter to horror and slasher movies, told as only he can tell it - and it's also an exploration of obsession and coping mechanisms and how an obsession with other worlds can go so deep that they bleed over into your real life.

Jade Daniels isn't a horror movie buff - she studies horror movies, watches them obsessively, and is comforted by them. So when two tourists are brutally murdered in her small hometown, and a new girl arrives at school, Jade knows exactly what's going on: there is a killer in town, and the Final Girl is here to take him down.

Like a lot of other reviewers, I was mostly let down by this book. The Only Good Indians, Graham Jones's other horror movie homage novel that I've read, was so staggeringly good that when I finished it I had to just sit and stare at the wall for a minute while I tried to process the story. So I had a very high water-mark in mind when I started My Heart is a Chainsaw, and it didn't deliver.

Stephen Graham Jones has definitely done his homework for this book, I'll give him that. In my review of The Final Girls Support Group I criticized it for what I felt was a surface-level knowledge of slasher movies. Jade Daniels, on the other hand, is a true horror movie buff, and Graham Jones's exhaustive knowledge of the genre is on full display in this book - and you can tell he's really enjoying creating a heroine who not only knows all of the slasher movie traps to avoid, but relishes uncovering them even as other characters stubbornly refuse to believe her warnings about what's killing people in the town. And the opening scene, where two hapless tourists are killed by...something is bone-chilling and shows Graham Jones's talent for terrifying setpieces off to full effect.

But ultimately, this book falls flat too many times. It felt very meandering at times, which may be due to the fact that this is the first in a planned "Lake Witch Trilogy", but often I would be reading and wondering how there could still be so many pages left in the book, because it always felt like we were almost at the end. And the way time functions in the story is downright nonsensical, with the time frame of the story often requiring Jade to go to one location, lose track of time, and then realize that she's been there for six hours without noticing. Scenes go from day to night because the time change is required by the plot, not because it makes any sense within the action of the novel. And the ending felt simultaneously like it dragged on for way too long, and was also way too rushed - another weird time-related thing I can't explain about this book.

But even though this was a misfire for me, I think I'm still going to read the second installment when it comes out. The ending of this book is messy, but there's a strong sense that Graham Jones is building to something much bigger than Jade's story. And I'm interested to see where he's going with it.

]]> <![CDATA[Prologue to Murder (Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery, #2)]]> 41053073 Ěý
Gossip columnists love a bold-faced name—but “Miss Newsy� at Greyborne Harbor’s local paper seems to specialize in bald-faced lies. She’s pointed a finger of suspicion at Addie after librarian June Winslow never makes it home from a book club meeting. And when June’s found at the bottom of a steep flight of stairs, Addie’s not only dealing with a busybody, but a dead body.
Ěý
It’s a good thing the guy she’s dating is the police chief. But both the case and her love life get more complicated when a lanky blonde reporter from Los Angeles shows up. She’s trying her hardest to drive a wedge between the couple . . . as if Addie doesn’t have enough problems dealing with angry townspeople. Despite all the rumors, Addie doesn’t know a thing about the murder—but she plans to find out. And the key may lie in a book about pirate legends that June published. Now she just has to hunt down the clues before she becomes a buried treasure herself . . .]]> 336 Lauren Elliott Madeline 2 detective-fiction 4.05 2019 Prologue to Murder (Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery, #2)
author: Lauren Elliott
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2022/08/01
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
Sorry but if you're an author and you think I'm gonna be rooting for a love interest who (twice!) puts his finger on the protagonist's lips and tells her "shush" (TWICE!), then we just have different priorities and it's best if we part ways amicably now and save ourselves the heartache later.
]]> <![CDATA[Murder by the Book (Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery, #1)]]> 38348958 Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library—she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn't expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town . . .

Addie left some painful memories behind in the big city, including the unsolved murder of her fiancé and her father's fatal car accident. After an unexpected inheritance from a great aunt, she's moved to a small New England town founded by her ancestors back in colonial times—and living in spacious Greyborne Manor, on a hilltop overlooking the harbor. Best of all, her aunt also left her countless first editions and other treasures—providing an inventory to start her own store.

But there's trouble from day one, and not just from the grumpy woman who runs the bakery next door. A car nearly runs Addie down. Someone steals a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Then, Addie's friend Serena, who owns a nearby tea shop, is arrested—for killing another local merchant. The police seem pretty sure they've got the story in hand, but Addie's not going to let them close the book on this case without a fight . .]]> 305 Lauren Elliott 1496720229 Madeline 2 detective-fiction
Anyway, Lauren Elliott follows the cozy mystery setup to a T, because if there's one thing I've learned from my foray into this subgenre, it's that its fans demand nothing less than rigorous adherence to tradition (see - authors insisting to pretend that local cops in small-town America are exactly like the polite local constable who popped 'round to the vicarage to have tea with Miss Marple once a week). Our heroine and future amateur detective is Addison "Addie" Greyborne, who - sing along if you know the words - returns to the small town of her youth following a traumatic event, and opens a twee small business. In this case, the traumatic event is the murder of her fiance, and the twee small business is a bookshop. Addie is back in Greyborne Harbor because her distance great-aunt has recently died, leaving Addie her house and a small fortune. When Addie moves in, she finds her aunt's house crammed with an extensive collection of rare books, and since Addie formerly worked as a rare books appraiser, she decides to open her own shop and sell the items from her aunt's collection. Oh, and also some guy gets murdered and Addie decides to investigate

Here's how much Lauren Elliott does not care about her own murder plot: the victim isn't even an established character. The first time we learn this man's name is when the news of his death breaks, so obviously we as the reader don't really give a shit either way - we're only supposed to care if Addie solves the crime because her best friend has been wrongly accused of the murder. Elliott is clearly way more interested in the romance between Addie and the cop investigating the death, so one wonders why she didn't just write a straightforward romance, and then I would have at least known to avoid it, because a plot description would have clued me into what I was looking at.

Listen, I'm trying not to harp on individual authors who make this choice. But Murder by the Book was published in 2018 (for context, the Tamir Rice murder was in 2014), and I think that if you're an author writing a murder mystery set in modern day America, you have a certain degree of responsibility when it comes to portraying the way many people in this country view the cops. Sure, your detective needs an inside source within the local police force so they can learn details about the case, but there are so many other ways to do it besides a romance. It's lazy and bordering on irresponsible.

Or at the very least, can we not make the cop love interest such a fucking dick? The guy in this one is the worst, and if you think I'm being biased (which I am, duh), then please enjoy this excerpt where Cop Love Interest comes to Addie with important news:

"He sauntered past her over to the coffee machine. 'Want one?'

'No, I don't want coffee. I want to know what's got you grinning like the Cheshire cat.'

'Everything in good time.' He dropped a pod into the machine.

She stood back and crossed her arms, tapped her foot, and glared at the back of his head. He was silent as his coffee brewed. She opened her mouth to speak, but shut it when he slowly tore open a sugar packet and poured it into the steaming paper cup. Believing he was done, she opened her mouth again. Without turning around, he raised his finger to silence her and picked up a spoon, methodically stirring his coffee. By this time, her cheeks were burning and beads of sweat were forming inside her collar. When he was finished, he placed the spoon on the counter, took a long sip, stretched out his rigid shoulders, and sighed. Her jaw tensed. She took a step toward him. He spun around, a sly grin across his face, and then he burst out laughing.

'Darn you.' She stamped her foot. 'Stop with the teasing.'

'Ah, but it's so much fun.'

'What has you in such a great mood?'

'Well, partner' - he winked - 'it seems we found enough evidence today to place a reasonable doubt on Serena's charge of second-degree murder.'"

I hate this. I hate it so much.

For context, the "Serena" they're talking about is the one who's been falsely accused of murder. She also happens to be Addie's best friend and the cop's sister. So Elliot has written a scene, which she genuinely believes is cute, where the cop has found evidence absolving his own sister of murder and is about to tell her best friend, but then this fucking guy decides that what he really needs to do first is a hacky, "don't talk to me until I've had my coffee" comedy routine. WHY. HOW COULD ANYONE POSSIBLY FIND THIS CHARMING. The man learned his sense of humor from a thrift store coffee mug and I'm supposed to root for him to make out with the protagonist?!

God, and the actual mystery isn't even that good.


]]> 3.68 2018 Murder by the Book (Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery, #1)
author: Lauren Elliott
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2022/07/01
date added: 2022/08/09
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
I'm going to get this out of the way right off the bat: this is one of those "cozy mysteries" where the amateur detective dates a cop. The romance is garbage, because it's always garbage, and we'll get into specifics later on, but everyone considering reading this should be forewarned about what they're getting into.

Anyway, Lauren Elliott follows the cozy mystery setup to a T, because if there's one thing I've learned from my foray into this subgenre, it's that its fans demand nothing less than rigorous adherence to tradition (see - authors insisting to pretend that local cops in small-town America are exactly like the polite local constable who popped 'round to the vicarage to have tea with Miss Marple once a week). Our heroine and future amateur detective is Addison "Addie" Greyborne, who - sing along if you know the words - returns to the small town of her youth following a traumatic event, and opens a twee small business. In this case, the traumatic event is the murder of her fiance, and the twee small business is a bookshop. Addie is back in Greyborne Harbor because her distance great-aunt has recently died, leaving Addie her house and a small fortune. When Addie moves in, she finds her aunt's house crammed with an extensive collection of rare books, and since Addie formerly worked as a rare books appraiser, she decides to open her own shop and sell the items from her aunt's collection. Oh, and also some guy gets murdered and Addie decides to investigate

Here's how much Lauren Elliott does not care about her own murder plot: the victim isn't even an established character. The first time we learn this man's name is when the news of his death breaks, so obviously we as the reader don't really give a shit either way - we're only supposed to care if Addie solves the crime because her best friend has been wrongly accused of the murder. Elliott is clearly way more interested in the romance between Addie and the cop investigating the death, so one wonders why she didn't just write a straightforward romance, and then I would have at least known to avoid it, because a plot description would have clued me into what I was looking at.

Listen, I'm trying not to harp on individual authors who make this choice. But Murder by the Book was published in 2018 (for context, the Tamir Rice murder was in 2014), and I think that if you're an author writing a murder mystery set in modern day America, you have a certain degree of responsibility when it comes to portraying the way many people in this country view the cops. Sure, your detective needs an inside source within the local police force so they can learn details about the case, but there are so many other ways to do it besides a romance. It's lazy and bordering on irresponsible.

Or at the very least, can we not make the cop love interest such a fucking dick? The guy in this one is the worst, and if you think I'm being biased (which I am, duh), then please enjoy this excerpt where Cop Love Interest comes to Addie with important news:

"He sauntered past her over to the coffee machine. 'Want one?'

'No, I don't want coffee. I want to know what's got you grinning like the Cheshire cat.'

'Everything in good time.' He dropped a pod into the machine.

She stood back and crossed her arms, tapped her foot, and glared at the back of his head. He was silent as his coffee brewed. She opened her mouth to speak, but shut it when he slowly tore open a sugar packet and poured it into the steaming paper cup. Believing he was done, she opened her mouth again. Without turning around, he raised his finger to silence her and picked up a spoon, methodically stirring his coffee. By this time, her cheeks were burning and beads of sweat were forming inside her collar. When he was finished, he placed the spoon on the counter, took a long sip, stretched out his rigid shoulders, and sighed. Her jaw tensed. She took a step toward him. He spun around, a sly grin across his face, and then he burst out laughing.

'Darn you.' She stamped her foot. 'Stop with the teasing.'

'Ah, but it's so much fun.'

'What has you in such a great mood?'

'Well, partner' - he winked - 'it seems we found enough evidence today to place a reasonable doubt on Serena's charge of second-degree murder.'"

I hate this. I hate it so much.

For context, the "Serena" they're talking about is the one who's been falsely accused of murder. She also happens to be Addie's best friend and the cop's sister. So Elliot has written a scene, which she genuinely believes is cute, where the cop has found evidence absolving his own sister of murder and is about to tell her best friend, but then this fucking guy decides that what he really needs to do first is a hacky, "don't talk to me until I've had my coffee" comedy routine. WHY. HOW COULD ANYONE POSSIBLY FIND THIS CHARMING. The man learned his sense of humor from a thrift store coffee mug and I'm supposed to root for him to make out with the protagonist?!

God, and the actual mystery isn't even that good.



]]> <![CDATA[The Lady in Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale of Sex, Scandal, and Divorce]]> 6440930 320 Hallie Rubenhold 0312359942 Madeline 3 history-nonfiction Covent Garden Ladies, her nonfiction account of sex workers in 18th century London that was also the inspiration for the show Harlots. For whatever reason, my library doesn't have a copy in stock, so I've been exploring Rubenhold's other works in the meantime.

Lady in Red takes us through a very specific and very unusual legal case in 18th century England. The whole debacle started one night after a party when Lady Seymour Worsley left a party around 1am with another guest, George Bisset. Another guest offered to walk with them down the road to Seymour's home, and the couple were weirdly insistent that they go alone. In the morning, the reason became clear: Seymour had abandoned her husband and eloped with Bisset, and, after a few weeks of tracking them all over England, the couple was discovered living in a London hotel. Lord Worsley sued for divorce, and Rubenhold explains that at the time, divorce proceedings basically involved the husband trying to recoup the losses from his stolen property, ie his wife.

But in the middle of the trial, things took a turn. Bisset claimed that not only had Seymour's husband known she was having an affair, this wasn't even the first time she'd had a lover. And not only did her husband know, he actually encouraged the affairs. Bisset's evidence hinged on a trip to a public baths that the three took, when Seymour was in the changing rooms and her husband lifted her lover up on his shoulders so he could look at his wife.

After that information came out, the trial became a public spectacle and Seymour's reputation was dragged through the mud as the couple's private life became gossip fodder for everyone in England. Hallie Rubenhold takes us through the trial, the secrets that came to light, and the fallout.

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way: you have to be really interested in this specific period of history to find this book as fascinating as some people will find it. Ultimately, this is the story of the petty, bitter divorce proceedings between two spoiled rich brats (and the trial eventually devolved into Worsley literally assigning a monetary value to his wife so he could recoup his losses). And honestly, most of the wind goes out of the story once the trial ends and Rubenhold is taking us through the rest of these people's miserable lives and explaining why they remained miserable. Worsley sucks pretty much from beginning to end - he started life as the spoiled son of a rich landowner, and he ended it by spending his post-divorce years traveling around the Middle East trying to purchase a slave girl like he's one of the guys on 90 Day Fiance. Seymour's post-divorce years are also frustrating (and I imagine they were frustrating for Rubenhold, too) because she's a lot harder to track. There's a huge chunk of time where Seymour is basically off the map, so Rubenhold has to resort to guesswork to fill in the blanks. She's pretty sure that Seymour was briefly imprisoned during the French Revolution, but again, this is just guesswork.

The research is thorough and well done, but ultimately this is a very close, very detailed look at a small little blip in history. Your personal mileage may vary.
]]> 3.70 2008 The Lady in Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale of Sex, Scandal, and Divorce
author: Hallie Rubenhold
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2022/06/01
date added: 2022/08/09
shelves: history-nonfiction
review:
I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of Hallie Rubenhold's Covent Garden Ladies, her nonfiction account of sex workers in 18th century London that was also the inspiration for the show Harlots. For whatever reason, my library doesn't have a copy in stock, so I've been exploring Rubenhold's other works in the meantime.

Lady in Red takes us through a very specific and very unusual legal case in 18th century England. The whole debacle started one night after a party when Lady Seymour Worsley left a party around 1am with another guest, George Bisset. Another guest offered to walk with them down the road to Seymour's home, and the couple were weirdly insistent that they go alone. In the morning, the reason became clear: Seymour had abandoned her husband and eloped with Bisset, and, after a few weeks of tracking them all over England, the couple was discovered living in a London hotel. Lord Worsley sued for divorce, and Rubenhold explains that at the time, divorce proceedings basically involved the husband trying to recoup the losses from his stolen property, ie his wife.

But in the middle of the trial, things took a turn. Bisset claimed that not only had Seymour's husband known she was having an affair, this wasn't even the first time she'd had a lover. And not only did her husband know, he actually encouraged the affairs. Bisset's evidence hinged on a trip to a public baths that the three took, when Seymour was in the changing rooms and her husband lifted her lover up on his shoulders so he could look at his wife.

After that information came out, the trial became a public spectacle and Seymour's reputation was dragged through the mud as the couple's private life became gossip fodder for everyone in England. Hallie Rubenhold takes us through the trial, the secrets that came to light, and the fallout.

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way: you have to be really interested in this specific period of history to find this book as fascinating as some people will find it. Ultimately, this is the story of the petty, bitter divorce proceedings between two spoiled rich brats (and the trial eventually devolved into Worsley literally assigning a monetary value to his wife so he could recoup his losses). And honestly, most of the wind goes out of the story once the trial ends and Rubenhold is taking us through the rest of these people's miserable lives and explaining why they remained miserable. Worsley sucks pretty much from beginning to end - he started life as the spoiled son of a rich landowner, and he ended it by spending his post-divorce years traveling around the Middle East trying to purchase a slave girl like he's one of the guys on 90 Day Fiance. Seymour's post-divorce years are also frustrating (and I imagine they were frustrating for Rubenhold, too) because she's a lot harder to track. There's a huge chunk of time where Seymour is basically off the map, so Rubenhold has to resort to guesswork to fill in the blanks. She's pretty sure that Seymour was briefly imprisoned during the French Revolution, but again, this is just guesswork.

The research is thorough and well done, but ultimately this is a very close, very detailed look at a small little blip in history. Your personal mileage may vary.

]]> The Flight Attendant 35506211 368 Chris Bohjalian 0385542429 Madeline 2
See, I'm familiar with Chris Bohjalian's work. I read The Night Strangers a few years ago, and hated it (weirdly, The Night Strangers ALSO heavily features overblown ruminations on plane crashes, so I can say this in The Flight Attendant's favor: at least here, Bohjalian's weird obsession is thematically appropriate).

Obviously my main source of interest in this book came because of the TV adaption. Granted, I'm not watching it and am probably not going to start, but I was curious enough about the story to look up the source material. Am I going to pay money for the book? Absolutely not. Will I borrow the e-book from the library and read it on my lunch break? Yeah, sure.

I have to give credit where credit is due: this book has a terrific setup. Flight attendant Cassie Bowden has just spent the night with a man who was a passenger on her New York to Dubai flight. She wakes up in the man's hotel suite, violently hungover and unable to remember everything that happened the night before. And, to make matters worse, the man lying next to her is dead, with his throat slashed. There's a broken vodka bottle on the floor, and Cassie realizes with horror that she might have killed him in the midst of her blackout. In a panic, she cleans up the broken bottle, wipes down anything she might have touched, and flees the hotel.

It's a good setup, and it's immediately ruined by the frankly baffling storytelling choices Bohjalian makes from this point on. He's given us a lot of great questions about the night before to unpack over the course of the novel: what if Cassie really did kill this guy? If not, who did? And why? Why was Cassie left alive?

And then he writes the next chapter, which I shit you not, introduces us to the Russian agent who assassinated the man and didn't kill Cassie because she felt that would make the situation messier than it needed to be. So the central mystery of the book is solved within a few dozen pages of the beginning.

After that, all of the suspense is basically gone, because Bohjalian cleared up the main mystery immediately, and then piles onto that by refusing to answer any of the other pressing questions about that night - questions that I, personally, would have really enjoyed getting clarification on! But no, instead Bohjalian thinks he can create new tension by writing a cat-and-mouse game between Cassie and the Russian agent, who has now been told by her handlers, okay you left a witness alive, obviously you have to kill her.

Unfortunately, in order for Bohjalian to make his book last longer than 100 pages, he has to make the Russian the most incompetent assassin in history. There's a twist at the end, of course, but by the time it rolls around, I was so frustrated by everything that had happened that my reaction to the big reveal was basically, "Oh, okay. Cool, I guess."

Like I said: I knew what I was getting into. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. ]]> 3.53 2018 The Flight Attendant
author: Chris Bohjalian
name: Madeline
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2022/06/01
date added: 2022/07/20
shelves:
review:
I have only myself to blame for this one.

See, I'm familiar with Chris Bohjalian's work. I read The Night Strangers a few years ago, and hated it (weirdly, The Night Strangers ALSO heavily features overblown ruminations on plane crashes, so I can say this in The Flight Attendant's favor: at least here, Bohjalian's weird obsession is thematically appropriate).

Obviously my main source of interest in this book came because of the TV adaption. Granted, I'm not watching it and am probably not going to start, but I was curious enough about the story to look up the source material. Am I going to pay money for the book? Absolutely not. Will I borrow the e-book from the library and read it on my lunch break? Yeah, sure.

I have to give credit where credit is due: this book has a terrific setup. Flight attendant Cassie Bowden has just spent the night with a man who was a passenger on her New York to Dubai flight. She wakes up in the man's hotel suite, violently hungover and unable to remember everything that happened the night before. And, to make matters worse, the man lying next to her is dead, with his throat slashed. There's a broken vodka bottle on the floor, and Cassie realizes with horror that she might have killed him in the midst of her blackout. In a panic, she cleans up the broken bottle, wipes down anything she might have touched, and flees the hotel.

It's a good setup, and it's immediately ruined by the frankly baffling storytelling choices Bohjalian makes from this point on. He's given us a lot of great questions about the night before to unpack over the course of the novel: what if Cassie really did kill this guy? If not, who did? And why? Why was Cassie left alive?

And then he writes the next chapter, which I shit you not, introduces us to the Russian agent who assassinated the man and didn't kill Cassie because she felt that would make the situation messier than it needed to be. So the central mystery of the book is solved within a few dozen pages of the beginning.

After that, all of the suspense is basically gone, because Bohjalian cleared up the main mystery immediately, and then piles onto that by refusing to answer any of the other pressing questions about that night - questions that I, personally, would have really enjoyed getting clarification on! But no, instead Bohjalian thinks he can create new tension by writing a cat-and-mouse game between Cassie and the Russian agent, who has now been told by her handlers, okay you left a witness alive, obviously you have to kill her.

Unfortunately, in order for Bohjalian to make his book last longer than 100 pages, he has to make the Russian the most incompetent assassin in history. There's a twist at the end, of course, but by the time it rolls around, I was so frustrated by everything that had happened that my reaction to the big reveal was basically, "Oh, okay. Cool, I guess."

Like I said: I knew what I was getting into. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
]]> <![CDATA[Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch, #1)]]> 64216 376 Terry Pratchett 0061020648 Madeline 4 fantasy Discworld series, it's always a treat when I get to one of the Big Ones. Equal Rites, which introduced the witches and specifically Granny Weatherwax, was the previous big ticket item in the series so far, but with Guards, Guards! I feel like I finally - eight books into the series - know what the hardcore fans are talking about.

Oh yeah. Sam Vimes has made his entrance, and I am not the same.

The premise for this book is very straightforward, and also very Terry Pratchett - you know the random, nameless guys in armor who are always running around in the background of fantasy adventures, galloping in whenever someone yells "Guards!" and promptly getting their asses kicked by the hero? What if those guys got a book?

We return to our primary setting of Ankh-Morpork after that detour to Djel in Pyramids. There's a group of wizards who have decided to resurrect a dragon, because that's the kind of stupid shit wizards on the Disc love to do, and are going to unleash said dragon on the unsuspecting city. Enter Sam Vimes, commander of the City Watch - an underfunded, ragtag little city police force that is woefully unable to deal with anything even approaching the realm of "giant dragon appearing randomly throughout the city." Fortunately, though, the Watch just got a new recruit. He's a human who was raised by dwarves, he has very strong ideas about the importance of Right and Wrong, he's gonna single-handedly clean up this city, and his name is Carrot.

Also there's a noblewoman named Sybil Ramkin who raises swamp dragons. She's phenomenal.

This book is nonstop fun from start to finish. Aside from being a truly delightful standalone adventure, it's also setting up a lot of the most beloved Discworld characters, like Vimes and Ventinari, and I already can't wait to get to the next City Watch installment.

And this one features the orangutan librarian that we met all the way back in Book One, and any time he shows up you know it's going to be great.]]> 4.33 1989 Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch, #1)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/01
date added: 2022/07/11
shelves: fantasy
review:
In my gradual, strictly chronological exploration of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, it's always a treat when I get to one of the Big Ones. Equal Rites, which introduced the witches and specifically Granny Weatherwax, was the previous big ticket item in the series so far, but with Guards, Guards! I feel like I finally - eight books into the series - know what the hardcore fans are talking about.

Oh yeah. Sam Vimes has made his entrance, and I am not the same.

The premise for this book is very straightforward, and also very Terry Pratchett - you know the random, nameless guys in armor who are always running around in the background of fantasy adventures, galloping in whenever someone yells "Guards!" and promptly getting their asses kicked by the hero? What if those guys got a book?

We return to our primary setting of Ankh-Morpork after that detour to Djel in Pyramids. There's a group of wizards who have decided to resurrect a dragon, because that's the kind of stupid shit wizards on the Disc love to do, and are going to unleash said dragon on the unsuspecting city. Enter Sam Vimes, commander of the City Watch - an underfunded, ragtag little city police force that is woefully unable to deal with anything even approaching the realm of "giant dragon appearing randomly throughout the city." Fortunately, though, the Watch just got a new recruit. He's a human who was raised by dwarves, he has very strong ideas about the importance of Right and Wrong, he's gonna single-handedly clean up this city, and his name is Carrot.

Also there's a noblewoman named Sybil Ramkin who raises swamp dragons. She's phenomenal.

This book is nonstop fun from start to finish. Aside from being a truly delightful standalone adventure, it's also setting up a lot of the most beloved Discworld characters, like Vimes and Ventinari, and I already can't wait to get to the next City Watch installment.

And this one features the orangutan librarian that we met all the way back in Book One, and any time he shows up you know it's going to be great.
]]> Crying in H Mart 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band � and meeting the man who would become her husband � her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Madeline 4 memoir
'It is,' she said. 'You know what I realized? I've just never met someone like you.'

I've just never met someone like you, as if I were a stranger from another town or an eccentric guest accompanying a mutual friend to a dinner party. It was a strange thought to hear from the mouth of a woman who had birthed and raised me, with whom I shared a home for eighteen years, someone who was half me. My mother had struggled to understand me just as I struggled to understand her. Thrown as we were on opposite sides of a fault line - generational, cultural, linguistic - we wandered lost without a reference point, each of us unintelligible to the other's expectations, until these past few years when we had just begun to unlock the mystery, carve the psychic space to accommodate each other, appreciate the differences between us, linger in our refracted commonalities. Then, what would have been the most fruitful years of understanding were cut violently short, and I was left alone to decipher the secrets of inheritance without the key."]]> 4.25 2021 Crying in H Mart
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/01
date added: 2022/07/06
shelves: memoir
review:
"'Isn't it nice how we actually enjoy talking to each other now?' I said to her once on a trip home from college, after the bulk of the damage done in my teenage years had been allayed.

'It is,' she said. 'You know what I realized? I've just never met someone like you.'

I've just never met someone like you, as if I were a stranger from another town or an eccentric guest accompanying a mutual friend to a dinner party. It was a strange thought to hear from the mouth of a woman who had birthed and raised me, with whom I shared a home for eighteen years, someone who was half me. My mother had struggled to understand me just as I struggled to understand her. Thrown as we were on opposite sides of a fault line - generational, cultural, linguistic - we wandered lost without a reference point, each of us unintelligible to the other's expectations, until these past few years when we had just begun to unlock the mystery, carve the psychic space to accommodate each other, appreciate the differences between us, linger in our refracted commonalities. Then, what would have been the most fruitful years of understanding were cut violently short, and I was left alone to decipher the secrets of inheritance without the key."
]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)]]> 55457493
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.

As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?]]> 422 Richard Osman Madeline 4 detective-fiction back, baby, and Richard Osman knows exactly what the people want: more Elizabeth stuff!

Yes, sure, there's plenty of great moments with Rob, Ibrahim, and Joyce; plus our favorite pair of local non-incompetent cops Chris and Donna (very American sidebar: England, what's it like living in a country where cops don't carry guns? I bet it's nice.). But make no mistake: this is first and foremost an Elizabeth story. And if that doesn't appeal to you, I can't imagine what's wrong with you.

The story takes a very familiar Retired Spy route when a blast from Elizabeth's past comes back into her life unexpectedly: none other than one of her fellow spies and former husbands, who is still doing work for the government and might have gotten into a little bit of trouble. In this case, "a little bit of trouble" means stolen diamonds, a finance broker to the mob, and at least one contract killer.

(One of many reasons I love this book: we get a setup where Elizabeth's ex has been accused of stealing a mobster's diamonds, and as soon as they're alone, Elizabeth is like, okay I do have to ask, did you steal the diamonds? And her ex is like, um, obviously I stole them, they were sitting right there, Elizabeth, what was I supposed to do?)

This book is a lot of fun because a) the Thursday Murder Club remains as delightful as ever, and as convincingly competent as ever (and this one, despite its focus on Elizabeth, is almost equally an Ibrahim book) and b) it solidifies what was established in the first book, which is that Richard Osman is cleverer than you.

The true joy of the Thursday Murder Club books is that Osman understands his audience. He knows that you've read Agatha Christie, and Arthur Conan Doyle, and a million other detective fiction giants. He knows that you know the tricks, and what to look for, and what you won't be fooled by. He's counting on it. This is a series for true detective fiction lovers - the people who know the patterns and the archetypes, and can enjoy a novel written by someone who has truly done their homework. And at the end of everything, Richard Osman and the detectives of the Thursday Murder Club can still surprise you. Because they're just that good.
]]> 4.36 2021 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)
author: Richard Osman
name: Madeline
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/01
date added: 2022/07/03
shelves: detective-fiction
review:
The Thursday Murder Club is back, baby, and Richard Osman knows exactly what the people want: more Elizabeth stuff!

Yes, sure, there's plenty of great moments with Rob, Ibrahim, and Joyce; plus our favorite pair of local non-incompetent cops Chris and Donna (very American sidebar: England, what's it like living in a country where cops don't carry guns? I bet it's nice.). But make no mistake: this is first and foremost an Elizabeth story. And if that doesn't appeal to you, I can't imagine what's wrong with you.

The story takes a very familiar Retired Spy route when a blast from Elizabeth's past comes back into her life unexpectedly: none other than one of her fellow spies and former husbands, who is still doing work for the government and might have gotten into a little bit of trouble. In this case, "a little bit of trouble" means stolen diamonds, a finance broker to the mob, and at least one contract killer.

(One of many reasons I love this book: we get a setup where Elizabeth's ex has been accused of stealing a mobster's diamonds, and as soon as they're alone, Elizabeth is like, okay I do have to ask, did you steal the diamonds? And her ex is like, um, obviously I stole them, they were sitting right there, Elizabeth, what was I supposed to do?)

This book is a lot of fun because a) the Thursday Murder Club remains as delightful as ever, and as convincingly competent as ever (and this one, despite its focus on Elizabeth, is almost equally an Ibrahim book) and b) it solidifies what was established in the first book, which is that Richard Osman is cleverer than you.

The true joy of the Thursday Murder Club books is that Osman understands his audience. He knows that you've read Agatha Christie, and Arthur Conan Doyle, and a million other detective fiction giants. He knows that you know the tricks, and what to look for, and what you won't be fooled by. He's counting on it. This is a series for true detective fiction lovers - the people who know the patterns and the archetypes, and can enjoy a novel written by someone who has truly done their homework. And at the end of everything, Richard Osman and the detectives of the Thursday Murder Club can still surprise you. Because they're just that good.

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