Book Review: Four Days of You and Me by Miranda Kenneally

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Title: Four Days of You and Me
Author: Miranda Kenneally
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication date: May 5, 2020
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Young adult fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

A new swoon-worthy romance following a couple’s love story on the same date over four years.

Every May 7, the students at Coffee County High School take a class trip. And every year, Lulu’s relationship with Alex Rouvelis gets a little more complicated. Freshman year, they went from sworn enemies to more than friends after a close encounter in an escape room. It’s been hard for Lulu to quit Alex ever since.

Through breakups, make ups, and dating other people, each year’s class trip brings the pair back together and forces them to confront their undeniable connection. From the science museum to an amusement park, from New York City to London, Lulu learns one thing is for sure: love is the biggest trip of all.

Such a sweet story! It’s been a while since I’ve read any YA, but I’ve always enjoyed Miranda Kenneally’s books, so I knew I had to read her newest.

Lulu and Alex start as rivals freshman year, both running for class president — Lulu on a green platform, and Alex capitalizing on his popularity as a baseball star. When Alex wins, they exist as frenemies for the rest of the school year, until accidentally getting locked into an escape room together on their class trip. As they finally acknowledge their mutual sparks, Lulu and Alex start a relationship that will last throughout their high school years, despite ups and downs and time apart.

As each section of the book focuses on the class trip for that year, we get to see how Alex and Lulu have matured, and how their relationship has matured with them. There are problems along the way, of course. Alex’s devotion to baseball and his commitment to working in his family’s restaurant leaves him unavailable except for late at night, past Lulu’s curfew. They both end up frustrated and unable to see past their own hurt, so a break-up is inevitable.

Still, every year on May 7th, as they set out on another class trip, Alex and Lulu seem to be thrust back into each other’s orbit. They really are great together, and even when trying to make something work with other people, they both realize that what they have is special.

I love how matter-of-fact the author is when it comes to teen relationships. There’s no judgment here, and the characters all enjoy varying degrees of healthy sex lives. Alex and Lulu take their time getting there, but they do enjoy gradually deepening levels of intimacy, and when they finally decide to have sex, it’s with lots of discussion, explicit consent, and pre-purchased condoms.

The supporting cast is quite good too — best friends and cousins and teammates, each with their own lives and quirks. They form a loyal and strong core, and I liked that we get to see Alex and Lulu not just 100% about their relationship, but really engaged with true friendships.

I also appreciated that Lulu and Alex each have their own passions — Lulu as an author/illustrator of graphic novels, Alex with baseball — and that they support each other’s dreams and goals. Neither one would ever suggest that their plans outweigh the other’s. It’s refreshing to see two characters work through their differences without losing sight of how much they care about each other.

Miranda Kenneally writes terrific, strong female characters, and Lulu is no exception. She’s talented and smart, and someone who’d be easy to like in real life. Four Days of You and Me is a quick read, and I really enjoyed this glimpse of high school life and all its drama, humor, and adventure.

Book Review: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

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Title: The Goblin Emperor
Author: Katherine Addison
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: April 1, 2014
Length: 483 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an “accident,” he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.

Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment.

Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody. Amid the swirl of plots to depose him, offers of arranged marriages, and the specter of the unknown conspirators who lurk in the shadows, he must quickly adjust to life as the Goblin Emperor. All the while, he is alone, and trying to find even a single friend… and hoping for the possibility of romance, yet also vigilant against the unseen enemies that threaten him, lest he lose his throne – or his life.

Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor is an exciting fantasy novel, set against the pageantry and color of a fascinating, unique world, is a memorable debut for a great new talent.

I have seen people RAVING about this book for years. And you know what? They’re all 100% right — The Goblin Emperor is amazing!

Maia, at age 18, has spent the last ten years of his life in exile, raised by his cousin, a cruel man who resents Maia and his role as Maia’s guardian. Maia’s mother was the 4th wife of the emperor, but he didn’t care for her and sent her away almost immediately. Maia has met his father exactly once in his life, at his mother’s funeral.

All this changes when a messenger arrives to inform Maia that his father and his brothers have all died in an airship crash. Maia is now the sole surviving descendant of the emperor… making him the new emperor. And he’s totally unprepared.

What follows is a whirlwind for us as readers as well as for Maia, as his life is turned completely upside down. He’s thrust into the role of emperor and introduced to court life, with its power plays, obsequiousness, and scheming. There are a vast number of people he’s expected to know, rituals to follow, and decisions to make.

What’s more, it means that Maia will never know a moment of solitude ever again. He is constantly accompanied by his personal guards, has a household who dress and feed him, and his every moment is scheduled down to the second, it seems. He is dressed in fine garments, adorned with the crown jewels, and put on display for formal events and ceremonies — and he has to get through it all without letting anyone see how scared and unprepared he is.

I loved, loved, loved this book, although at the beginning, I was afraid it was going to break my brain. This is not an easy book.

Author Katherine Addison has pulled off an incredible feat of world-building, creating a language and political system that are intricate and hard to follow, but which make their own sort of sense once you get the rhythm of it all.

Thankfully, there’s a guide to grammar, people, and places at the back of the book — although I admit that when I first saw this, I felt completely overwhelmed.

There are tons of names and families and relationships to keep track of, plus it helps to understand the forms of address:

Of course, I had to go looking for Goblin Emperor fan art, and fell down the rabbit hole for a while. Here are a few that jumped out at me:

https://twitter.com/AceArt3mis/status/1104470827205083137/photo/1
https://www.deviantart.com/shiftingpath/art/Winternight-582912404
Found on multiple Pinterest boards – source not identified

I simply can’t say enough good things about The Goblin Emperor! Be warned — this is not an easy read. Absolute attention is required, or you’re likely to drown in the sea of names and places and titles and concepts that are all completely new. It all makes total sense once you get into it, but at the beginning, I was definitely struggling to stay afloat.

Is The Goblin Emperor worth the effort? Absolutely! It’s a well-crafted high fantasy story, with a world that follows its own internal logic and rules, and a lead character — Maia Drazhar, of the house Drazahada (the ruling house of the Ethuveraz (Elflands)), otherwise known as His Serenity Edrehasivar VII — who is vulnerable, kind, inquisitive, and bold in his own quiet way.

Now that I’ve read this amazing book once, I know I’ll want to read it again. The first read requires a lot of learning, figuring out what this world is about, how the names and titles work, how different people connect. Now that I’ve got it, I’d love to experience it all over again, this time concentrating more on the nuances of the story and the character development. Maybe audiobook for a re-read?

Consider me fully and completely on the Goblin Emperor bandwagon! Now I know why so many people consider it a favorite. If you haven’t had the pleasure yet… well, jump in! It’s glorious.

PS – Added after the fact: I’d love to see a graphic novel adaptation of The Goblin Emperor!

Audiobook Review: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

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Title: Akata Witch
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Narrator: Yetide Badaki
Publisher: Viking
Publication date: April 14, 2011
Print length: 349 pages
Audio length: 8 hours, 49 minutes
Genre: Young adult fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Sunny Nwazue lives in Nigeria, but she was born in New York City. Her features are West African, but she’s albino. She’s a terrific athlete, but can’t go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing—she is a “free agent” with latent magical power. And she has a lot of catching up to do.

Soon she’s part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But just as she’s finding her footing, Sunny and her friends are asked by the magical authorities to help track down a career criminal who knows magic, too. Will their training be enough to help them against a threat whose powers greatly outnumber theirs?

Stories about Chosen Ones seem to be very much on my mind these days, and so I’m glad I finally decided to give Akata Witch a try. Akata Witch is by Nnedi Okorafor, author of the fantastic Binti trilogy. This novel is aimed at younger readers, either advanced middle grade or young adult.

The main character, Sunny, is 12 years old, and her three classmates and best friends are around 13 – 14 years old. (I say around, because no one is actually sure how old Chichi is, and she’s not telling!)

At the start of the story, Sunny considers herself mostly ordinary, except for how much she stands out because of her albino coloring and her American birth and upbringing. She does know that something’s a bit off — one night, she has a vision while staring at a candle, and it scares her deeply and indelibly.

Soon, Sunny becomes closer to her neighbors Chichi and Orlu, along with the new boy Sasha who’s just arrived from Chicago after getting in trouble back home. Sunny is amazed to learn that the other three have magical abilities, and even more amazed to find out that she does as well.

In their parlance, they’re all leopard people — people with magical powers from all over the world, not just Africa. The world of the leopard people is very secretive, and non-magical folks (“lambs”) have no idea that it exists. Sunny is what’s known as a “free agent” — a girl whose parents aren’t leopard people, but who still has a connection to the world of spirits and magic.

Sunny begins learning alongside her friends, from the basic of juju to more advance spells and the nature of the leopard power structure. Meanwhile, a ritual murderer has been preying on Nigerian children, and the leopard community suspects that he may be one of their own.

Akata Witch is a wonderful story, and the audiobook narration is absolutely lovely to listen to. I love how the narrator conveys the spirit of the different characters, and uses Sunny’s American accent as a way to really show how “other” she feels in her daily life in Nigeria.

I was fascinated by the magical systems of Akata Witch, with the different meanings of symbols and secret transportation and hidden villages and libraries, as well as the elders and the large gathering and the special leopard events.

My main quibble with this book comes back to the Chosen Ones trope. Why is it always the untrained, inexperienced children who have to go fight the big bad? This isn’t confined just to this book, of course — I mean, really, wouldn’t Dumbledore have been a better choice to confront Voldemort than a bunch of schoolkids?

Okay, prophecy seems to always end up dictating who is Chosen, but at some point, it seems silly. Sunny has only the bare minimum of training, yet the most advanced magical elders of the community send her and her three friends up against the evil bad guy?

It’s not really a spoiler to say that they survive — there’s no chance that that wouldn’t be the outcome. But is it logical? Not really.

Still, looking beyond my issue with teen Chosen Ones as a whole, I did really love Akata Witch. The characters are wonderful, the setting is so vividly portrayed, and the plot just zips along.

I’m so glad that there’s a sequel, Akata Warrior. I will definitely be listening to this one too!

Shelf Control #213: We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

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Shelves final

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

cropped-flourish-31609_1280-e1421474289435.pngTitle: We Sold Our Souls
Author: Grady Hendrix
Published: 2018
Length: 337 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

In the 1990s, heavy metal band Dürt Würk was poised for breakout success — but then lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom as Koffin, leaving his fellow bandmates to rot in rural Pennsylvania.

Two decades later, former guitarist Kris Pulaski works as the night manager of a Best Western – she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Everything changes when she discovers a shocking secret from her heavy metal past: Turns out that Terry’s meteoric rise to success may have come at the price of Kris’s very soul.

This revelation prompts Kris to hit the road, reunite with the rest of her bandmates, and confront the man who ruined her life. It’s a journey that will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a Satanic rehab center and finally to a Las Vegas music festival that’s darker than any Mordor Tolkien could imagine. A furious power ballad about never giving up, even in the face of overwhelming odds, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul…where only a girl with a guitar can save us all.

How and when I got it:

I bought it as a new release in 2018.

Why I want to read it:

If you happened to stumble across my blog earlier this week, you may have seen my review of Grady Hendrix’s newest book, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I loved it, just like I’ve loved everything I’ve read by this author. And even though I bought a copy of We Sold Our Souls, I just never got around to reading it — maybe the heavy metal theme turned me off a bit, but for whatever reason, it’s still there on my shelf, unread. And that just won’t do.

Grady Hendrix’s book are always unique and strange and thoroughly entertaining. I’ve heard this one is great! Clearly, I have to fill in the gap in my reading by getting to this book ASAP.

What do you think? Would you read this book? 

Please share your thoughts!

__________________________________

Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

  • Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
  • Add your link in the comments!
  • If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
  • Check out other posts, and…

Have fun!

Top 5 Tuesday: Top 5 Popular Books I Haven’t Read Yet

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Once again, I’m joining in with the Top 5 Tuesday meme this week! Top 5 Tuesday is hosted by Bionic Bookworm, who posts the month’s topics at the start of each month. Today’s topic is Top 5 Popular Books I Haven’t Read Yet. And of course, there are WAY more than the five (six) on my list. My TBR list will never be empty! Here are five (six) books that everyone seems to have read — except me.

1) Divergent series by Veronica Roth. Now that I’ve read her newest book (Chosen Ones), I’m wondering if I should finally give these books a try… except (a) I saw the first movie and didn’t care for it much, and (b) I keep hearing how let-down/angry fans were by the 3rd book. So, hard pass? Or not?

2) The Long Way To a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: I’ve had this book on my shelf for ages, and I know people seem to love the trilogy. So this is one I really do mean to get to.

3) Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: I absolutely want to read this book! I’m not sure why I haven’t yet.

 

4) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: I know, I know… I definitely need to read this! But I keep insisting that I’m not going to get involved in yet another unfinished series, and that I won’t start this book until there’s at least a publication date for the 3rd book. Maybe I’m being ridiculous, because everyone tells me I’ll love it!

5) Vicious and A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab: I haven’t actually read any of this author’s books, even though I know people loved them. And based on what I’ve heard, I think I’d love them too.

 

Have you read any of these? Let me know if you think I should READ or SKIP them!

And please share your Top 5 links too!

Book Review: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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Title: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires
Author: Grady Hendrix
Publisher: Quirk
Publication date: April 7, 2020
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the ’90s about a women’s book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia’s life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they’re more likely to discuss the FBI’s recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club’s meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he’s a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she–and her book club–are the only people standing between the monster they’ve invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.

Let me just get this out of the way: I LOVED this book. The setting is perfect, the community and marital dynamics are spot-on, and the creep factor is through the roof. Grady Hendrix does it again!

Here’s the situation: Patricia Campbell lives with her husband and two children in the Old Village, a neighborhood in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina — just across the bridge from Charleston — where everyone knows each other and looks out for one another, where an unknown car is immediately noticed, where no one locks their doors because it’s safe, and anyway, not really in line with standards of Southern hospitality.

[Fun fact: I once lived in Mount Pleasant for a couple of years, a long time ago, so the setting here just thrilled me to bits and pieces.]

The women of Old Village are mothers and housewives, and when Patricia and a few others realize that a “literary” book club isn’t to their taste (i.e., none of them actually read Cry, The Beloved Country and get roundly shamed for it), they form their own club — focused on true crime stories and bestselling thrillers. And they love it. The women bond over Helter Skelter and The Stranger Beside Me, and they also become best of friends.

The community’s placid life is disrupted when Patricia is attacked by her elderly neighbor Ann Savage. It’s brutal and frightening, and results in Patricia’s earlobe being bitten off. Ann dies, but her visiting nephew James Harris decides to stay and settle in the neighborhood — and his appearance starts a chain of strange and eerie events.

Note: The Goodreads blurb (above) describes James Harris as “artistic and sensitive”. He’s not.

Patricia becomes more and more suspicious of James, but he’s quickly insinuated himself into the lives of the families of Old Village, including becoming business partners with most of the husbands, investing with them in a real estate development that promises huge payoffs. And when Patricia tries to sound the alarm after witnessing a horrifying act, her psychiatrist husband treats her like she’s crazy, and then forces her to choose: Either give up this nonsense about James, or give up her marriage and family.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is a horror story, a snapshot of a time and place (1990s upscale South), and a snide commentary on women’s voices and the men who ignore them. The women in this story are all smart, but all subservient to their husbands — all of whom are the providers and the decision-makers. It’s particularly telling that the small, intimate, enjoyable book group gets completely turned upside down once the men decide they need to step in — turning into a gathering of 40+ people, reading Tom Clancy books and completely ignoring the opinions and preferences of the women who actually started it all.

There’s also pretty harsh critique of the insularity of the privileged. So long as the bad things are happening to other people’s children — particularly, to the children of a poor black community — the people of Old Village don’t seem to be too bothered. There’s an “it can’t happen here” attitude that only Patricia seems to have an issue with. For the husbands especially, the deaths and disappearances have nothing to do with their own lives, and in any case, the accusations that Patricia makes sound ridiculous, and perhaps more importantly, could cause problems with their business investment, and well… we can’t have that.

Don’t forget, though, that this is a horror novel, despite the snark and the humor. I like horror, and I don’t have a problem with blood and gore… but that said, there were two scenes in this book that absolutely CREEPED ME THE EFF OUT. I just don’t do well with creepy-crawlies, and these two scenes were intense and GROSS. (Okay, yes, I still loved the book, but HELLO? NIGHTMARE MATERIAL!)

Grady Hendrix does an amazing job of pulling this story together, making the relationships touching and real while also being creepy and scary — and then having the women save the day through their own version of brutal kick-assery. It’s a great read, thoroughly enjoyable… but maybe not for the squeamish.

I have one more of Grady Hendrix’s books on my shelf still to read, but so far, I’ve loved everything of his that I’ve read.

Check out my reviews of his previous books:
Horrorstor
My Best Friend’s Exorcism
Paperbacks from Hell (non-fiction)

The Monday Check-In ~ 4/20/2020

Posted in The Monday Check-In by

cooltext1850356879 My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.

Life.

New week, same as the old week! I worked from home, went for walks on sunny days, and that’s it!

I had a couple of Zoom calls with family and friends — it was nice to use Zoom for fun reasons rather than just for work all day, every day. Looking forward to the day when we can see one another’s faces again in person, not just on screens!

What did I read during the last week?

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth: Awesome! My review is here.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman: Such a terrific audiobook. My review is here.

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi: Book #2 in the Interdependency trilogy — what a great adventure! My review is here.

Pop culture — Outlander, season 5:

Season 5 of Outlander is moving right along. Here’s this week’s newest episode:

Outlander, episode 509, “Monsters and Heroes” — here.

Other TV watching:

I’ve been loving Sex Education on Netflix! I’m almost done with season 2… great to know that there will be another season.

Fresh Catch:

I treated myself to this illustrated edition of Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle. So pretty…

What will I be reading during the coming week?

Currently in my hands:

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix: I’m THIS CLOSE to being done. Loving it! I’ll probably have a review up in the next day or two.

And now I’m trying to decide which ARC to read next — I think it’s narrowed down to one of these two:

So much pink!

Now playing via audiobook:

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor: I’ve had this book for a few years, and finally decided to listen to the audiobook. It’s great! So long as it’s sunny enough to go for a walk, I think I’ll finish tomorrow.

Ongoing reads:

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: My book group is reading two chapters per week, and I’ve fallen so far behind! I did manage to squeeze in one chapter during this past week — only 6 or 7 to go until I’m caught up. I think.

Past Prologue by Diana Gabaldon and Steve Berry: Also in book group, we’re doing a group read of this short story featuring the King of Men (Jamie Fraser).

So many books, so little time…

boy1

Insta-Reaction: Outlander, Season 5, Episode 9

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Season 5 is here! I’ll be writing an “Insta-Reaction” post for each episode soon after viewing, to share some initial thoughts, questions, reactions — you name it.

Warning:

Spoilers

I may be talking about events from this episode, other episodes, and/or the book series… so if you’d rather not know, now’s your chance to walk away!

Outlander, episode 509: “Monsters and Heroes”

The official synopsis (via Starz):

When Jamie is bitten by a venomous snake, Claire fears she may not have the resources to save him. Jamie asks Roger to complete an important task in the event of his death.

My take:

Major plot points:

  • Jamie almost dies. But he doesn’t.
  • Really, that’s the focus of the whole episode.
  • Marsali has a baby girl.
  • Roger and Jamie bond.
  • Claire is amazing.

Insta-reaction:

The menfolk of the Ridge go out on a hunt, then split up into groups to track a herd of buffalo. Roger and Jamie pair up, and Jamie is bitten by a snake. It appears to be venomous, and Jamie becomes ill very quickly. Roger attempts to go for help, but the others are too far away. They have no choice but to make camp for the night and try to return by daylight.

Jamie’s condition worsens, and he believes he’s going to die. He asks Roger for last rites, which Roger says he doesn’t know, and in any case, that Jamie doesn’t need them. He offers Jamie a prayer for the sick, but Jamie scoffs since it’s not in Latin. As long as he keeps his sense of humor, he can’t be too badly off, right? Jamie makes Roger promise two things in case he (Jamie) dies: To kill Stephen Bonnet, and to make sure Claire goes back to her own time, along with Roger, Bree and Jemmy, if possible.

In the morning, Jamie’s condition is bad, but he’s still alive. Roger begins hauling him back to the Ridge, but luckily, Ian and Fergus find them and help get Jamie home.

Jamie’s leg looks bad. His body has fought off the venom, but his wound is infected, and even an application of maggots can’t get rid of all the infection. If only Claire’s syringe hadn’t been broken by that rotten Brown brother last episode!

Claire knows that she may have to amputate the leg to save Jamie’s life, and he tries to force her to promise not to do it. Ian scolds Jamie harshly, asking if Ian Sr or Fergus were any less brave or honorable for having lost limbs to amputation?

Finally, Jamie gives in and gives Claire permission to amputate, but engineer Bree rushes in to save the day. She’s made a syringe from the fang of the snake that bit Jamie, and Claire is able to use this to inject Jamie with penicillin. All is right with the world!

There are some great moments in this episode. Early on, we get a tender moment as Claire gives Marsali a prenatal check-up and Marsali confides how glad she is to have Claire with her, both as a doctor and as a mother. Sweet! Of course, when the time finally comes, Claire has her hands full with Jamie and Marsali goes into fast labor out in the woods with Fergus and their two kids… let’s just assume she made it back home and didn’t deliver right then and there.

We also get an important scene with Claire and Brianna, talking about finding their callings. Claire knows she was always meant to be a doctor, and whether called a healer, a nurse, or even a witch, her life will always have meaning so long as she can continue to practice medicine. Brianna is concerned about both herself and Roger and what they might do with their lives. Claire reassures Brianna that she’s meant to be an engineer, and that it’ll be up to Bree to figure out what that looks like for her in the 18th century.

I loved Roger and Jamie’s time together, each showing their depth of caring and respect in their own way. And in all the drama of the episode, it’s almost easy to forget the opening scene, when Jamie comes to the cabin to fetch Brianna for the hunting trip and basically walks in on Roger and Bree in bed together. Little Jemmy was adorable too.

And not too quibble or be ungrateful for a beautiful episode… but apparently the show has decided that Roger is just perfectly okay and has no lasting damage from the hanging? Alrighty then. I mean, strange choice, but okay.

Claire was simply stellar in this episode. She tends to Jamie as a physician but also as the woman who loves him, and feels the absolute crushing weight of her impending decision. I don’t for a minute believe she’d allow Jamie to die rather than amputate his leg, no matter what she promises him, but she also knows that if she does it without his consent, he may never forgive her. The moment when he appears to be dying and Claire wraps herself around him and begs him to stay with her… oh my. Waterworks.

Insta-reaction wrap-up:

This was such a well-done episode. Maybe I loved it so much because it does what the best Outlander episodes do — show us the hearts of the people involved and the depth of their relationships.

So much of season 5 has focused on externals — the Regulators and the Governor and the battles and militia. Here, in episode 9, we’re tightly focused on the Fraser family and their life at the Ridge, and it’s a beautiful thing.

More of this, please!

And yet… it’s sad to realize that suddenly the season is starting to near the end. Only three more episodes to go!

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Book Review: The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi

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Title: The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency, #2)
Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: October 16, 2018
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Consuming Fire―the sequel to the 2018 Hugo Award Best Novel finalist and 2018 Locus Award-winning The Collapsing Empire―an epic space-opera novel in the bestselling Interdependency series, from New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi

The Interdependency―humanity’s interstellar empire―is on the verge of collapse. The extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible is disappearing, leaving entire systems and human civilizations stranded.

Emperox Grayland II of the Interdependency is ready to take desperate measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But arrayed before her are those who believe the collapse of the Flow is a myth―or at the very least an opportunity to an ascension to power.

While Grayland prepares for disaster, others are preparing for a civil war. A war that will take place in the halls of power, the markets of business and the altars of worship as much as it will between spaceships and battlefields.

The Emperox and her allies are smart and resourceful, as are her enemies. Nothing about this will be easy… and all of humanity will be caught in its consuming fire.

If you like scheming and backstabbing, interplanetary exploration, geeky scientists, and kick-ass women, have I got a book for you!

The Consuming Fire is the second book in John Scalzi’s Interdependency trilogy, and it goes ten thousand miles per minute from start to finish. No middle-book doldrums here!

We pick up where we left off at the end of The Collapsing Empire. The Flow is collapsing, meaning that the shortcuts through space-time that allow interplanetary travel are starting to disappear without warning. Planets find themselves completely cut off from the rest of human settlement, and any ships in transit who are unfortunate enough to be caught in a Flow stream when it collapses don’t simply float off into space — they basically just blink out of existence.

How does the Flow work? It’s like a river, except it’s nothing like a river, as the story’s Flow physicists continually remind other characters. So, for mere humans like us (I’m assuming you and I are in this together), just accept the fact that SCIENCE. We wouldn’t understand.

Meanwhile, the people of the Interdependency are crafty and clever and absolutely not to be trusted. Most would (and maybe already have tried to) sell their own grandmothers for a chance at greater power. The leader of the Interdependency, Emperox Grayland II, is a smart, savvy, deceptively calm leader who refuses to bow to the nasty, murderous families who want to unseat her.

There’s plotting and faked deaths and bank fraud, prison assassination attempts (toothbrush and spoon shivs are involved) and space battles, previously undiscovered civilizations, and lots of random hook-ups. The characters are classic Scalzi, smart and full of smart-ass commentary and loads and loads of fun .

The 3rd book in the trilogy, The Last Emperox, was just released, and I’m eagerly waiting for my copy to arrive.

If you enjoy sci-fi with plenty of action and a great sense of humor, then you should absolutely check out this trilogy.

Book Review: Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth

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Title: Chosen Ones
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: John Joseph Adams
Publication date: April 7, 2020
Length: 432 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Library
Rating:

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

The first novel written for an adult audience by the mega-selling author of the Divergent franchise: five twenty-something heroes famous for saving the world when they were teenagers must face even greater demons—and reconsider what it means to be a hero . . . by destiny or by choice.

A decade ago near Chicago, five teenagers defeated the otherworldly enemy known as the Dark One, whose reign of terror brought widespread destruction and death. The seemingly un-extraordinary teens—Sloane, Matt, Ines, Albie, and Esther—had been brought together by a clandestine government agency because one of them was fated to be the “Chosen One,” prophesized to save the world. With the goal achieved, humankind celebrated the victors and began to mourn their lost loved ones.

Ten years later, though the champions remain celebrities, the world has moved forward and a whole, younger generation doesn’t seem to recall the days of endless fear. But Sloane remembers. It’s impossible for her to forget when the paparazzi haunt her every step just as the Dark One still haunts her dreams. Unlike everyone else, she hasn’t moved on; she’s adrift—no direction, no goals, no purpose. On the eve of the Ten Year Celebration of Peace, a new trauma hits the Chosen: the death of one of their own. And when they gather for the funeral at the enshrined site of their triumph, they discover to their horror that the Dark One’s reign never really ended. 

Fantasy books are filled with Chosen Ones — seemingly ordinary people plucked from obscurity to fulfill some great destiny — oh, say, like saving the world. But after the world is saved, what happens next?

It was a strange thing, to know with certainty that you had peaked.

In Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth, life after saving the world is filled with paparazzi, celebrity appearances, and Instagram fame… or for our main character Sloane, a daily existence avoiding the spotlight whenever possible and struggling with the severe nightmares and PTSD that still plague her.

Sloane is one of the five teens who defeated the Dark One — a mad, magical being who created gruesome havoc through Drains, magical forces that obliterate everything in their path, leaving behind uncountable death and vast swaths of destruction.

Ten years after defeating the Dark One, Sloane is still not at peace, and her co-Chosen are having varied levels of success. Sloane’s boyfriend Matt has always been the Golden Child of the group — the super handsome, super nice, charismatic leader who organized the team and led them through their battles. Then there’s Esther, glorying in her Insta fame while caring for a sick mother, Ines (who, honestly, didn’t get much time in this book and therefore remains mostly a blank for me), and injured, fragile Albie, who shares a bond with Sloane based on the worst day of their lives.

Things go horribly awry for the group after the 10-year-anniversary commemorative service, and suddenly, Sloane, Matt, and Esther find themselves literally in another world, facing a new set of circumstances — and quite possibly, a new manifestation of their nemesis, the Dark One.

Oh, this book is complicated! There are parallel universes and magical artifacts, a whole new (and totally rad) system of magic, strange equipment and sources of power, and even an undead army. On top of that, Sloane, Matt, and Esther are no longer the teen Chosen Ones, unjaded and fresh and ready for a challenge. Instead, they’re adults, world weary and mostly resentful as hell that anyone would try to push them into fighting again. It’s just not fair — they’ve already defeated their Dark One!

I loved the characters and the totally odd world-building, which involves our version of Chicago as well as an alterna-Chicago set in a magical version of Earth. (Like I said, it’s complicated). The magical system is pretty cool, involving sounds and frequencies and funky devices called siphons that focus magical intent and energy.

The author includes nods to all sorts of fantasy fiction tropes. Obviously, the idea of a chosen one, prophecies, teens saving the world, a nameless Dark One… we’ve seen these before in many variations.

There’s also this, about the origin of one of the powerful magical artifacts:

He therefore places his soul inside an object that is nested in other objects; for example, he places it in a needle, then buries the needle in an egg, then hides the egg inside various creatures or, in some stories, a trunk. He is unable to die if the needle that contains his soul is intact.

So… a Horcrux?

I also had to laugh at this line — an homage to Stephen King, perhaps?

So tragic that he was able to bring his recently deceased pet cat back to life only for the act to kill him shortly thereafter.

And again, a reference that reminds me of Diagon Alley and the various establishments there:

Maybe it was like the movie-set feel of the Tankard — all their magic stories were set in old-timey fantasy worlds or eras so ancient the magical acts were associated with old gods and angels and demons, so they reached backward to figure out how to be magical instead of forward.

I raced through this book, completely invested in the characters (well, mostly Sloane, who is prickly and difficult and stubborn, tormented and strong and fierce), and so loving the parallel worlds and the strange magic of the story.

I probably could have done without the romantic element that comes into play toward the end of the book, but fortunately that wasn’t the main focus, so it didn’t become too distracting.

I’m not sure that I completely understood all of the villain’s motives and machinations or that the ending totally made sense to me, but I think reading back through it or at least skimming the last several chapters again will help me puzzle it all out. And that’s okay! I love a story that’s not obvious, and where there’s always something else to discover.

Chosen Ones is the first book in a new series. It has a great ending, and while much seems resolved, I can also see how the story has plenty of room to continue. I’m not usually wild about first books in series, especially when they feel like they leave me hanging. In this case, while I definitely want to know what happens next for these characters — especially given the mind-blowing finale — I also feel like this part of the story wrapped up really well.

I’ve never read anything by this author before (and don’t particularly intend to). The blurbs describe Chosen Ones as the author’s first book for adults. Honestly, it reads mostly like YA, but I suppose it’s considered adult fantasy because of the heroes’ ages (roughly 30). Otherwise, I don’t see much of a difference between the content here and in many of the YA fantasies I’ve read, in terms of so-called age-appropriate subject matter.

In any case… I totally enjoyed Chosen Ones, and can’t wait for the next book! Check it out!