Book Review: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Knopf
Publication date: July 5, 2022
Print length: 416 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends–often in love, but never lovers–come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is the kind of immersive, powerful read that only comes along once in a great while. I found it moving and profound, and even several days after finishing the book, I’m still caught up in thoughts about its themes and images.

Pretty surprising for a book ostensibly about the world of video games, right?

Sam and Sadie first meet as young teens; Sadie stumbles across Sam in a pediatric hospital where he’s a patient and her sister is undergoing cancer treatment. Sadie doesn’t know anything about Sam other than that he’s dealing with a serious injury to his foot — but she doesn’t need to know much more. He’s playing Mario Kart, and she joins in… and instantly, they find a shared language and joy, as well as an escape from their real lives, by gaming together.

From there, they spend 609 hours together (if you read the book, you’ll find out why this matters), but a secret drives them apart, until they meet once again as college students on a cold day in Boston. Their love of gaming hasn’t changed, and they immediately rekindle their mind-meld connection and begin collaborating on a game. Along with Sam’s roommate Marx, a protective loving boy who decides it’s his mission to look after Sam, they embark on a path that will lead them to huge success and fame.

The book follows Sam and Sadie’s rise to gaming stardom while tracing the impact on their friendship. Their connection goes beyond business partnership or being friends — it’s deep and powerful, and yes, it’s love, but it’s not a romantic connection. They are so deeply entwined that any perceived betrayal or slight is felt all the way to the bone. Sam and Sadie are inextricably connected, but they go through periods of intense conflict and estrangement as well.

Over the course of the years covered by Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, we learn about their backstories, their families, their traumas, and of course, their brilliance. There’s so much to absorb here about culture, wellness and disability, reality and virtual worlds, intelligence and academia, and more. Sadie, Sam, and Marx are unforgettable characters, beautifully described and developed. We know these people and what makes them tick; we understand their joys and their pain, and when bad things happen, it hurts deeply.

The writing is beautiful, often funny, often pensive, filled with oddball characters in a world that many of us (anyone not involved in gaming and coding) may find alien. We’re given entrance into this world through these characters’ experiences, and it’s fascinating.

Maybe it was the willingness to play that hinted at a tender, eternally newborn part in all humans. Maybe it was the willingness to play that kept one from despair.

One element I loved is how the characters’ worldview is coded to the world of games, so that how they view real life is often described in gaming language (and vice versa). For example, a character involved with someone who’s married reflects:

A wife had been mentioned, as had a son. They didn’t have names, and so they weren’t characters to her, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

The virtual vs real world comparisons continue throughout the book, and I found these fascinating:

How do you preserve the impossible to preserve? Or, in other words, how do you stop time and death? […] What, after all, is a video game’s subtextual preoccupation if not the erasure of mortality?

“I’m going to play until the end of this life.”
“That’s a good philosophy.”

He was tired of having to move so carefully, of having to be so careful. He wanted to be able to skip, for God’s sake. He wanted to be Ichigo. He wanted to surf, and ski, and parasail, and fly, and scale mountains and buildings. He wanted to die a million deaths like Ichigo, and no matter what damage was inflicted on his body during the day, he’d wake up tomorrow, new and whole. He wanted Ichigo’s life, a lifetime of endless, immaculate tomorrows, free of mistakes and evidence of having lived.

… [H]e could remember thinking that the best thing about games is that they could be fairer than life.

“I thought you were worried I was going to die,” Sam said.
“No. You’ll never die. And if you ever died, I’d just start the game again,” Sadie said.

As it turned out, in the late fall of 2001, Mapleworld [an online virtual world/game] was exactly what people craved. A virtual world that was better governed, kinder, and more understandable than their own

You are a gaming person, which is to say you are the kind of person who believes that “game over” is a construction. The game is only over if you stop playing. There is always one more life.

“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”

On a more granular level, I was delighted by how many words in this book were new to me! Sometimes, it can be annoying to have to check definitions, but somehow here, I found it eye-opening and challenging, especially in the context of this particular book’s setting and characters. The unfamiliar words tended to be gaming/coding terms that the characters use to express themselves in daily life — it made me feel like I’d entered into their world and been handed yet another insight into how their minds work. (For examples of new-to-me words and their definitions, see below**).

To make a game is to imagine the person playing it.

I wouldn’t have thought I’d love a book that’s ostensibly about video games, or that I’d consider it one of the best books of the year. In fact, I had to give myself a little push to pick up Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and get started. Thankfully, I’ve read and loved Gabrielle Zevin’s books before this one and trusted that she’d write something I’d want to read!

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is moving and gorgeous, truly a unique reading experience. The author’s creativity and sensitivity shines through on every page. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time to come.

**A quick, incomplete guide to words I found fascinating in T&T&T:

ligneous: made, consisting of, or resembling wood; woody
collogue: talk confidentially or conspiratorially
mesomorphic: having a compact and muscular body build
kenophobia: an intense fear of empty spaces or voids
viridescent: greenish or becoming green
ludic: showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness
deictic: of, relating to, or denoting a word or expression whose meaning is dependent on the context in which it is used, e.g. here, you, me, that one there, next Tuesday
jejune: naïve, simplistic, and superficial
anfractuous: sinuous or circuitous
echt: authentic and typical

14Jul2022

Book Review: The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Bodyguard
Author: Katherine Center
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: July 19, 2022
Print length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

She’s got his back.
Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindgerten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka “bodyguard”), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.
He’s got her heart.
Jack Stapleton’s a household name—captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, famous for, among other things, rising out of the waves in all manner of clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity. But a few years back, in the wake of a family tragedy, he dropped from the public eye and went off the grid.
They’ve got a secret.
When Jack’s mom gets sick, he comes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah—against her will and her better judgment—finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover. Even though her ex, like a jerk, says no one will believe it.
What could possibly go wrong???
Hannah hardly believes it, herself. But the more time she spends with Jack, the more real it all starts to seem. And there lies the heartbreak. Because it’s easy for Hannah to protect Jack. But protecting her own, long-neglected heart? That’s the hardest thing she’s ever done.

Katherine Center excels at creating fascinating women as lead characters and placing then in challenging, unusual situations. In The Bodyguard, there’s quite a bit of humor, and yet the heart and emotions of her previous books still shine through.

As the book starts, main character Hannah has just been dumped by her boyfriend, who also happens to be a coworker. Awkward! He’s a total jerk, says terrible things to her, has cheated on her with her best friend… and yet she still needs to see both of them at the office on a daily basis. All Hannah wants is to escape, and begs her boss to send her off on a new assignment, preferably one somewhere on the other side of the world.

But Hannah is a depressed, emotional wreck, and her boss has other plans for her. She’ll stay in Houston working on their new high-profile client’s protection assignment, and if it goes well, she’ll be up for a promotion to head the agency’s new London office.

The assignment is movie star Jack Stapleton, who’s coming home to Texas to be with his mother while she undergoes cancer treatment. Jack has been living off the grid for the last couple of years after a scandal, but he still pops up in the tabloids whenever the paparazzi can track him down and catch shots of him with his latest Hollywood-appropriate girlfriend. But now, Jack is leaving his North Dakota retreat to be with his family, and it’s the agency’s job to keep the crazy stalkers at bay, or preferably, in the dark.

Jack most emphatically does not want a bodyguard, but the studios insist, so he adds his own stipulation: Hannah can protect him, but only by posing as his girlfriend at his parent’s ranch. They simply do not need the stress of knowing he’s in danger, not while they should be focused on his mother’s health.

What follows is equal parts silly and serious. Hannah is small but powerful. She may be able to kill someone with a ballpoint pen, but if she has to fight or injure someone, she’s already failed. Her job is to protect and keep safe, and never let her “principal” anywhere near being in danger. She’s used to being in the background, a serious presence in a pantsuit and an earpiece, not there to be noticed. But to meet Jack’s requirements, she finds herself in a “girlfriend” outfit, sundress and sandals, engaging with his family, holding hands, and even sleeping in the same room as Jack (although, per her insistence, on the floor rather than in his bed).

As the story unfolds, we learn about both Hannah and Jack’s past traumas, which influence so much of who they are now. Hannah’s history with her mother was painful, full of neglect and danger, seeing her mother descend into alcoholism and endure a series of abusive relationships. Jack is haunted by the car accident that killed his younger brother and has driven a wedge between him and his older brother. There’s a secret there, but Jack refuses to discuss it, instead reliving it through regular nightmares. As Hannah spends time with Jack, she sees beyond the Hollywood surface to the vulnerable person underneath, and becomes determined to help him.

The Bodyguard has plenty of light moments too — silly encounters on the ranch, moments of joy and laughter as Jack relaxes around Hannah and gets Hannah to unwind a bit too — as well as scenes of family connection, simple pleasures, and true warmth and emotional reality. At the same time, Hannah second-guesses her growing chemistry with Jack. After all, he’s an actor, and she’s seen him on screen many, many times — she’s knows he’s good at his job. So when he seems to care for her, is it real, or is he just acting?

I really enjoyed Hannah as a character, and loved that this petite woman is a strong, dangerous, accomplished defender who can hold her own, and then some. Her outer toughness and professionalism hides her inner vulnerabilities, but she’s awesome at her job and her abilities are absolutely never in doubt. Seeing her fall for her principal and sort out who Jack is and whether he’s being truthful with her is fascinating, and I loved seeing their relationship blossom.

There are some familiar and well-loved tropes here — fake dating, Hollywood star falling for a regular person, love on a ranch, just one bed, etc. The author does a terrific job of incorporating these elements while also keeping them fresh and new.

One of my very favorite things about The Bodyguard was the laughter. Despite the many scenes and discussions focusing on the character’s painful pasts, they also laugh together — a lot. And when Jack laughs, it’s a full-bodied, all-out experience that strips away all his outer polish and shows his inner good nature, and it’s just so much fun.

A dangerous scenario toward the end of the book brings the story back into a more serious focus and gives Hannah a chance to shine — I was on the edge of my seat! But beyond this situation, the book’s focus is on the relationships — romance, friendship, family — what they mean to the characters, and how Jack and Hannah are changed by them.

The Bodyguard is a refreshing, engaging, light-hearted but also emotional summer read. Don’t miss it!

8Jul2022

Book Review: Mr. Malcolm’s List by Suzanne Allain

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Mr. Malcolm’s List
Author: Suzanne Allain
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: June 21, 2022 (reissue — originally published 2009)
Print length: 256 pages
Genre: Regency romance
Source: Purchased
Rating:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an arrogant bachelor insistent on a wife who meets the strictest of requirements–deserves his comeuppance.
The Honourable Mr. Jeremy Malcolm is searching for a wife, but not just any wife. As the target of matchmaking mothers and desperate debutantes, he’s determined to avoid the fortune hunters and find a near-perfect woman, one who will meet the qualifications on his well-crafted list. But after years of searching, he’s beginning to despair of ever finding this paragon. Until Selina Dalton arrives in town.
Selina, a vicar’s daughter of limited means and a stranger to high society, is thrilled when her friend Julia Thistlewaite invites her to London, until she learns it’s all part of a plot to exact revenge on Mr. Malcolm. Selina is reluctant to participate in Julia’s scheme, especially after meeting the irresistible Mr. Malcolm, who appears to be very different from the arrogant scoundrel of Julia’s description.
But when Mr. Malcolm begins judging Selina against his unattainable standards, Selina decides that she has some qualifications of her own. And if he is to meet them he must reveal the real man behind…Mr. Malcolm’s List.

I feel like I’ve been bombarded by promos for the movie Mr. Malcolm’s List — and before deciding if I wanted to see it, I decided to give the book a try.

In this Regency romance, Mr. Malcolm is a prime catch, but catching him seems unachievable. He has a list, you see, of what he wants in a wife, and one deficiency in a prospective bride is enough to have her dropped from consideration. When one young woman, Julia, takes offense at being jilted for seemingly inconsequential reasons, she decides to take revenge.

Her great plan? Invite a school friend to London, have her captivate Mr. Malcolm, make him fall madly in love with her, and then, when he finally proposes, have his beloved inform him that he does not meet the qualifications of her list. What could possibly go wrong?

Julia’s pawn in this scheme is Selena, a vicar’s daughter who has spent the past three years in service as a companion to an elderly woman. As this woman has recently died, Selena is at loose ends, and is delighted to receive Julia’s invitation to stay with her… until she arrives and learns about Julia’s scheme. Selena is horrified, but also has nowhere else to go. Reluctantly, she agrees to play along, at least for a little while.

When she meets Mr. Malcolm, things become infinitely more complicated, because he’s the most beautiful man she’s ever seen and they seem to connect instantaneously. As they begin to develop feelings, Selena yearns to be free of Julia’s plans, but more and more obstacles crop up to keep her from being honest with Mr. Malcolm. When he does finally learn the truth, it may be too late to salvage the romance that’s sparking between them.

Mr. Malcolm’s List is a quick, light read. I was entertained, but not enthralled. Perhaps I’ve just read too many Regency-set books, but there doesn’t feel that there’s much all that new or different here. Selena is the intelligent, lovely, good heroine; Mr. Malcolm is the dashing ladies’-man with a heart of gold, who just needs the right woman to reform him.

There are house parties and balls and horse-back riding, as well as scandalous moments and worries about reputations and vulgar relations. There’s talk of the season and matches and titles, and impending spinsterhood is always a concern. All pretty much staples of this type of romance, and all present and accounted for.

The story did hold my interest enough for me to want to see it through and find out how it all turns out. The pacing is a little odd at times — moments that seem like they’ll be big overaching secrets looming in the background get resolved or revealed within a paragraph. Julia’s schemes are all very obvious, and the secondary love story lacks any sort of believability or chemistry.

Still, I finished, and did find some scenes and characters amusing. As for the movie… well, it looks like the plot is fairly faithful to the book — but based on the trailer, it also appears that the movie is trying to jump on the Bridgerton bandwagon. Bridgerton‘s diverse casting was new and refreshing and innovative in so many ways. Based solely on the trailer, it would appear that the Mr. Malcolm’s List movie is trying to ride the waves of Bridgerton‘s success by copying their approach to shaking up a Regency setting through diverse casting — and while I’m absolutely in favor of diverse casting, it just seems a little… too duplicative?

Check out the movie trailer:

What do you think? Would you go see Mr. Malcolm’s List? Or does this seem too much like a Bridgerton wannabe?

7Jul2022

Book Review: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: What Moves the Dead
Author: T. Kingfisher
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Publication date: July 12, 2022
Print length: 176 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones comes a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic “The Fall of the House of Usher.”
When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.
Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

I’m convinced that the coming apocalypse will be the work of killer fungi. There are certainly enough works of horror fiction to back me up! What Moves the Dead further cements my belief that fungi are the creepiest life form there is. Prove me wrong!

What Moves the Dead is a twisted retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. As in the original, the main character is summoned to a dark, disturbing, decrepit mansion located on the shores of a dark, scary tarn (lake), where a childhood friend cares for his dying sister and seeks companionship and support in their looming disaster.

In What Moves the Dead, Poe’s unnamed narrator is replaced by Lieutenant Alex Easton, a retired “sworn” soldier from the country of Gallacia, who once served as Roderick Usher’s officer during wartime, and who even earlier was close friends with Madeline Usher. Alex is shocked and horrified at the sight of the siblings, who appear gaunt, withered, and years older than their actual age. Madeline truly does seem to be on the verge of death, and Roderick appears unwell himself. The entire house and surrounding countryside (and that darned tarn) seem menacing, perhaps even poisonous.

Alex arrives at the house to find an American doctor already in residence, whose brashness eventually gives way to common cause. Dr. Denton doesn’t quite know what’s ailing Madeline either, but she does appear to be on the point of death.

Alex also meets Eugenia Potter, an Englishwoman whose chief passion in life is mycology (and who fumes against the stupid men-only rule of the English scientific societies of the time). Alex, Denton, and Potter all share the belief that something is wrong, not just with the Ushers but with the natural world too. What’s up with all the strangely-behaving hares in the area?

This short work is delightfully, deliciously creepy! The house is moldy, there are awful looking mushrooms all over the grounds, and the lake is stagnant and gross and seems too terrible to want to be anywhere near. I’ve read enough creepy fungi horror stories to have a pretty good sense of where the story would end up, but it was so much fun getting there, and the author still managed to surprise me time after time with all the crazy, strange, awful details.

Beyond the horror plotline, other delights await. Alex’s background in Gallacia is too good to reveal in a review, but trust me when I say that the explanations of how the Gallacian language adapts gender and pronoun formations based not just on biology but also on station in life, age, and other factors is absolutely wonderful and so fascinating. I’d read a whole book just about that!

Miss Potter is a secondary character, but she’s lots of fun, as is the reveal of who her one of her family members is. (I’m not telling!)

When I requested a review copy of What Moves the Dead, it was based on (a) how much I’ve loved everything else I’ve read by this amazing author and (b) the gorgeously creepy cover (*shudder*). I hadn’t realized at the time that this book would be a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher — I actually didn’t know that until I started What Moves the Dead and happened to finally read the Goodreads blurb.

At that point, I took a small detour to read Poe’s story, which isn’t very long (the edition I read was 36 pages). I’m glad I did. It gave me great context for What Moves the Dead, and made it really fun to compare and contrast the two versions of the story, especially the character portrayals, the explanations, and the outcomes.

Note: The Fall of the House of Usher is easy to find online at no cost! Here’s one resource, and there are free versions available for Kindle too.

What Moves the Dead is an excellent read, perhaps not for the squeamish — but if you enjoy creepy, understated horror, definitely check it out!

4Jul2022

Book Review: Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Drunk on All Your Strange New Words
Author: Eddie Robson
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: June 28, 2022
Print length: 228 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Lydia works as translator for the Logi cultural attaché to Earth. They work well together, even if the act of translating his thoughts into English makes her somewhat wobbly on her feet. She’s not the agency’s best translator, but what else is she going to do? She has no qualifications, and no discernible talent in any other field.

So when tragedy strikes, and Lydia finds herself at the center of an intergalactic incident, her future employment prospects look dire–that is, if she can keep herself out of jail!

But Lydia soon discovers that help can appear from the most unexpected source…

Eddie Robson’s previous novel, Hearts of Oak, was a 5-star read for me, so it’s not too surprising that this new book also gets ALL the stars!

In Drunk on All Your Strange New Words, the action takes place in a version of New York at some point in the future, where rising sea levels have devastated most coastal areas, New York exists as a tourist mecca behind sea barriers, and an alien race known as the Logi have established embassies and commerce with the population of Earth.

Main character Lydia works as a translator. The Logi speak mind to mind, and only those with an aptitude for telepathic communication can work in the field. Lydia is highly trained and very good at what she does, and she enjoys her time with “Fitz”, the human name the Logi cultural ambassador goes by. The only downside is that the work of mind-to-mind communication has a chemical side effect equivalent to intoxication, so the longer work hours or more complicated exchanges Lydia carries out, the drunker she becomes.

Can we just pause here to admire what an amazing set-up for the story this is? I’ve never come across anything like it, and I was immediately fascinated by the entire premise.

That’s just the beginning, though. The morning after a particularly challenging night of translation work, Lydia finds Fitz murdered in his study inside the Logi cultural residence. The doors were all locked for the night, only Lydia and Fitz were inside, and Lydia was so drunk from translating that she doesn’t remember anything at all past the middle of the evening. She’s clearly the prime suspect, and to make matters worse, she can’t even say with certainty that she didn’t do it.

The investigation into the murder is incredibly engrossing, with Lydia, the police, and other Logi diplomats carrying out their own inquiries. Lydia checks out clues and seemingly random connections, all of which seem to point to a larger conspiracy… or does it? It’s complicated, to say the least.

Drunk includes deft, intricate plotting, great character profiles, clever dialogue, and a fabulous new version of our world to think about. Grim and dark in many ways, it also includes a renewed interest in hard-copy books, so that’s something to look forward to if this future comes to pass! The author includes technology and slang that are different from our own, but not so impenetrable that it’s hard to follow. The writing is very accessible, and there’s an underlying sense of lightness and humor, even in dark moments, that make this a very enjoyable read.

Bottom line? I loved this book, and couldn’t put it down. Don’t miss it!

1Jul2022

Book Review: In the Quick by Kate Hope Day

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: In the Quick
Author: Kate Hope Day
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: March 2, 2021
Print length: 251 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

June is a brilliant but difficult girl with a gift for mechanical invention who leaves home to begin grueling astronaut training at the National Space Program. Younger by two years than her classmates at Peter Reed, the school on campus named for her uncle, she flourishes in her classes but struggles to make friends and find true intellectual peers. Six years later, she has gained a coveted post as an engineer on a space station—and a hard-won sense of belonging—but is haunted by the mystery of Inquiry, a revolutionary spacecraft powered by her beloved late uncle’s fuel cells. The spacecraft went missing when June was twelve years old, and while the rest of the world seems to have forgotten the crew, June alone has evidence that makes her believe they are still alive.
She seeks out James, her uncle’s former protégé, also brilliant, also difficult, who has been trying to discover why Inquiry’s fuel cells failed. James and June forge an intense intellectual bond that becomes an electric attraction. But the relationship that develops between them as they work to solve the fuel cell’s fatal flaw threatens to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to create—and any chance of bringing the Inquiry crew home alive.
A propulsive narrative of one woman’s persistence and journey to self-discovery, In the Quick is an exploration of the strengths and limits of human ability in the face of hardship, and the costs of human ingenuity.

I’m not going to lie — I book this book on a whim based solely and completely on the fact that the pink astronaut cover grabbed my attention in a bookstore and wouldn’t let me walk away!

Much to my surprise, while In the Quick is a science fiction book about a young engineering prodigy whose obsessive need to understand the why of things leads her into a fiercely competitive astronaut program and ultimately, into interplanetary exploration… it’s also a retelling of Jane Eyre. How wild is that?

In In the Quick, June’s beloved uncle, a renowned pioneer in spaceship engineering, dies when June is twelve. He raised her to think, to question, to seek answers, and she delighted in hovering in the background while his students worked with him on challenging prototypes and design projects. But after his death, June is lost in her aunt’s house, unloved and misunderstood — and when the spaceship Inquiry goes dark after a fuel cell failure, June’s worldview is thrown into chaos.

The fuel cells were her uncle’s greatest achievement. What could have gone wrong, and why? Even past the point when the world seems to have concluded that the Inquiry and its crew are lost, June is compelled to seek answers. She soon enrolls at the National Space Program school, determined to forge a path for herself that takes her into space and gives her the knowledge to understand and unravel the mysteries of the failed fuel cells.

June’s journey ultimately takes her to a moon called the Pink Planet, where swirling silt creates a permanently pink atmosphere, and where exposure to the silt results in a hallucinogenic, numbed state. The Pink Planet is an outpost developed as a jumping off point for the vast voyages intended for the Inquiry and its sister ship, but once the Inquiry mission failed, the Pink Planet stations were left in a state of minimal use and shocking disrepair. Once on the Pink Planet, June reconnects with her uncle’s former student James, who is similarly obsessed with June’s uncle’s work. Together, they begin an intense creative phase to finally solve the puzzle of the fuel cells… and to figure out if there truly is any hope still of finding the Inquiry after all this time.

In the Quick is a fairly short book, and it’s a quick read. It’s oddly compelling — the forays into engineering and design are kept to lightly descriptive passages, so the science is never overwhelming for those of us without advanced degrees. The story of June’s growth and education is interesting, although she’s a somewhat hard character to love. We don’t get very deep into her inner life, apart from her never-satisfied quest for knowledge. We know she experiences loss and loneliness, but the friendships she forms along her journey always feel secondary to her scientific obsession.

It’s entertaining to see the Jane Eyre storylines woven into In the Quick. We’re not beaten over the head with them — if someone reading In the Quick hasn’t read Jane Eyre, they’re not going to feel lost or confused in any way. Instead, there are some basic patterns and motifs built into the story (I had to giggle over the opening scene of June reading a book while hidden away in a window seat), and it’s surprising to see how well it all works in a novel of space exploration and interplanetary travel!

I did find the overall plot to have a somewhat flat effect by the end. There are pieces that are never fully explained — in fact, given how central the Pink Planet is to the story, I don’t believe we’re ever told where it is. We know that it’s a moon, despite being named the Pink Planet, but a moon of what?

The book ends, in my opinion, on a very abrupt note, and left me feeling frustrated. Without saying exactly what the ending is, I’ll just say that I wanted more explained about what had transpired over the years since the Inquiry was lost. June’s obsession with the Inquiry leads to her conviction that the crew was still out there somewhere, alive but unable to power their ship or communicate — but if that’s true, how did they survive all these years? The lack of an explanation felt very unsatifsying to me.

If I had to categorize this book, I’d describe it as “literary science fiction”. It’s an interesting, ambitious novel, with themes of classic literature woven into a space story. Overall, I enjoyed reading In the Quick, but for me, I prefer my sci-fi with a lot clearer grounding in the science of it all. I want to understand the details and marvel at how a work of fiction can make it all seem possible. In the Quick is more about the moods and passions and human drives involved, and while it was a good read, it wasn’t 100% my style of science fiction.

Still, I’m glad I gave in to the impulse to grab a copy! In a year where much of my reading is planned well in advance, it was a treat to read on a whim and experience something unexpected. Jane Eyre in space? Well, that was definitely a new, unexpected twist for me, and I’m happy that I gave it a chance.

30Jun2022

Book Review: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Book Lovers
Author: Emily Henry
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: May 3, 2022
Print length: 377 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased

One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming….
Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.

I’ll keep this brief — at this point, when I see a cute contemporary romance cover and discover the book is by Emily Henry, it’s going to be a must-read for me. Book Lovers caught my eye immediately (I mean, the title alone! who can resist?), and it was a perfect pick for reading during a vacation week.

In Book Lovers, main character Nora is a hard-edged, polished, driven literary agent who is unrelenting when it comes to making deals for her clients. Her nickname is the Shark — but don’t call her that to her face. While she represents highly successful authors, including those who write heart-warming love stories about small-town romances, she knows absolutely where she fits in the trope: She’s the one left behind.

You know how it goes: A big city character heads to a small town for some vague business purpose, falls unexpectedly in love with the local farmer/baker/craftsperson, and gives up city life for a life full of purpose, love, and baked goods in the country — breaking up with their former city boyfriend/girlfriend along the way. And that city boyfriend/girlfriend who gets dumped is Nora. It’s happened to her again and again, and she’s over it.

But Nora also has a soft spot for her younger (and very pregnant) sister, so she reluctantly agrees to a three-week sisters’ trip to a small town in North Carolina, where her sister Libby is determined to milk the experience for every romance-worthy trope possible. What they do not expect is for (a) Nora’s New York business nemesis Charlie to also show up in the same town and (b) for all the sparks that fly between Nora and Charlie.

The plot has much more depth than you might expect. Emily Henry excels at creating funny, quirky, unusual characters, then giving them rich backstories that humanize them and expose the pains and sorrows behind their facades. The same is true here, and it makes Nora much more likable than she initially comes across, so much so that I became very invested in her happiness and well-being.

I liked Nora and Charlie together as a couple — their banter is adorable! And while it takes them a while to get past the outer animosity to their inner deep connection, it’s totally worth the journey. The sisters’ relationship is just as important as the romantic relationship, and I really appreciated how lovingly their connection is portrayed.

The writing is light and fast-paced, but there’s plenty of emotion to unpack too. I truly enjoyed Book Lovers — although I’m a little mad that the author managed to burst the bubble of all my small town romance fantasies! The book trope talk is so much fun, there are plenty of references to real books (which made me really happy), and I love that the author includes “Nora and Libby’s Ultimate Reading List” at the back of the book!

Book Lovers is a perfect choice for a summer beach book! Don’t miss it.

25Jun2022

Book Review: Book of Night by Holly Black

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Book of Night
Author: Holly Black
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: May 3, 2022
Print length: 320 pages
Genre: Urban fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.
Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.
Holly Black makes her adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies.

I’m going to keep this brief and to the point: Holly Black’s YA faerie-world trilogy The Folk of the Air is one of my favorite fantasy trilogies. I love the characters, the setting, the writing, the plot. So as you can imagine, I was thrilled to hear that this author would be releasing her first adult book this year.

Sadly, it didn’t quite work out for me — although some elements are very good.

In the world of Book of Night, shadow magic has become a fashion trend and a sought-after talent, but there’s a much darker side too. Yes, it’s fun to have your shadow altered to reflect your real self — but shadows have a tendency to get out of control or to become dangerous, especially when fed blood and strengthened with a person’s life force. And then there’s the whole seedy world of stolen shadows, as well as the black market in books of magic — each gloamist (people who work with shadows) wants the best secrets, and they’re fiercely competitive and protective when it comes to books that might reveal even more essential secrets of shadow manipulation.

Main character Charlie Hall is a highly skilled con-woman and thief who left behind her life of crime after a particularly nasty incident endangered not only her own life but that of her sister as well. Still, she can’t ever seem to completely walk away. There are those who know of her skills and want her on their side, and Charlie can’t avoid her old life forever.

The world of Book of Night is dark and grim. Everything is seedy and run-down, with dark bars and pawnshops and danger lurking down every alley. Shadow magic itself seems terrifying, with skilled gloamists being able to “puppet” people via shadows or even choke them to death by sending their shadows down their throats.

There’s a lot that’s fascinating about this world, but at the same time, I found myself utterly confused at times. There are some key people and positions whose roles aren’t fully explained. An entire ruling body is introduced in about a paragraph, and how they work and who they are remains murky at best. The magical system isn’t well enough explained — I found myself confused by the rules, the power structure, and the purpose of some of the magical items introduced throughout the story.

Charlie as a character is fun to ride along with. She’s absolutely a criminal and a bad-ass, but we get chapters from her past that show us how she became what she is. Criminal with a heart of gold, I guess — she’s fiercely loyal to those she loves and wants to keep them safe, but just can’t get away from her past life or find a way to stay on the straight and narrow.

I won’t go too far into further details. For some reason, this book took me a lot longer to read than I expected — maybe because of other factors in my life, but also because I never got to a place where I absolutely couldn’t put the book down. As a result, I never felt truly immersed.

I will say that the ending has some pretty unexpected and cool twists, which raised my overall impression of the book by a lot. Again, no details — you definitely don’t want spoilers! But the final chapters offer a great payoff and some really good surprises (although the pieces of the world that seemed unclear to me remain unclear all the way to the end — there are some things that I just don’t get).

The ending of the book leaves a lot of questions hanging about what’s next for Charlie, so it certainly seems like there will be a sequel. And despite my issues with the world-building, I’m intrigued enough by how the story ended that I’ll want to read that sequel, whenever it shows up!

17Jun2022

Book Review: Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Written in the Stars
Author: Alexandria Bellefleur
Narrator: Lauren Sweet
Publisher: Avon
Publication date: November 10, 2020
Print length: 384 pages
Audio length: 11 hours, 11 minute
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Purchased
Rating:

With nods to Bridget Jones and Pride and Prejudice, a charming #ownvoices queer rom-com debut about a free-spirited social media astrologer who agrees to fake a relationship with an uptight actuary until New Year’s Eve—with results not even the stars could predict!
After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Love—and the inevitable heartbreak—is the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest set up was a success. Darcy doesn’t expect her lie to bite her in the ass.
Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account, Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy… a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, who is way too analytical, punctual, and skeptical for someone as free-spirited as Elle. When Darcy’s brother—and Elle’s new business partner—expresses how happy he is that they hit it off, Elle is baffled. Was Darcy on the same date? Because… awkward.
When Darcy begs Elle to play along, she agrees to pretend they’re dating to save face. But with a few conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her own overbearing family over the holidays and their arrangement expires on New Year’s Eve. The last thing they expect is to develop real feelings during a fake relationship.
But maybe opposites can attract when true love is written in the stars?

The synopsis really says it all — Written in the Stars is a fake-dating, opposites-attract romance with a guaranteed HEA, but with a few bumps along the road.

Darcy is a (gorgeous) tightly-wound actuary who likes her world orderly, clean, and easily analyzed and compartmentalized; Elle is a (super-adorable) astrologist who likes gel pens, glitter, marching to her own drummer, and a certain amount of chaos. They have nothing in common — yet somehow, their fake-dating arrangement starts to feel more and more real as they have fun together, learn to see beneath their surfaces, and (obviously) recognize that they have a major spark going on.

The comparisons to Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones are mostly unnecessary. Yes, the Darcy character comes across as judgy and off-putting, but that’s just a piece of the puzzle in this relationship, and the P&P trappings (sisters named Jane and Lydia, for example) are just minor details that don’t particularly matter.

Elle and Darcy have a lovely chemistry, each forcing the other to rethink basic assumptions and stretch a bit in their worldview — although honestly, most of the changing seems to happen on Darcy’s end. They’ve each been hurt in different ways in the past, through family dynamics or disastrous relationships, and they bring their baggage with them. As their fake relationship deepens into something more, they’re forced to open up and be honest about their dreams and their fears — but of course, as happens in pretty much all romance fiction, there’s a major falling out before they can get to a happy ending.

I enjoyed Written in the Stars, but not without some quibbles. The writing is spirited and light, and I liked getting chapters from both Darcy and Elle’s perspectives. But, certain wording choices started getting on my nerves, possibly more noticeable because I listened to the audiobook and repetitions really jumped out at me — for example, I lost count of how many times it’s mentioned that a particular character licked her lips. (It was a lot.)

All romance novels have the inevitable obstacle right before the happy ending, but the big drama here had to to with an overheard conversation and misinterpretation, and the way the scene was constructed left me feeling that the characters were behaving unreasonably and with a lack of maturity. Yes, their fall-out was over some big issues that they needed to address and resolve in order to move forward, but an actual conversation would have been a much healthier approach.

Side note: Some day, I’d like to read a romance where the main characters have a misunderstanding and then TALK ABOUT IT LIKE ADULTS, rather than having to go through a break-up, pints of ice cream, ugly crying, and then a BIG GESTURE in order to get to a good place. Anyway…

In terms of sexual content, there aren’t a huge number of sex scenes, but the ones that do exist are on the graphic end of the scale. (See my thoughts on a ratings scale for sex scenes in books, here). We are up close and personal with the characters through every moment of their encounters. Not my personal taste in fiction, but could appeal to those who generally enjoy these scenes on the explicit side.

Overall, Written In the Stars is a sweet story with lots of cute and funny moments. The audiobook is well done, with the narrator infusing humor and personality into the dialogue (and doing a great job with how she reads the many texts between characters — a very fun aspect of the story).

There are two more books that follow Written In the Stars, one focusing on Darcy’s brother, the other on Elle’s best friend and roommate. I don’t feel a need to continue at this point, but I may keep them in mind for when I want a light diversion at some point down the road.

10Jun2022

Book Review: The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
Author: Jennifer Ryan
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date: May 31, 2022
Print length: 432 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Three plucky women lift the spirits of home-front brides in wartime Britain, where clothes rationing leaves little opportunity for pomp or celebration–even at weddings–in this heartwarming novel based on true events, from the bestselling author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir.
After renowned fashion designer Cressida Westcott loses both her home and her design house in the London Blitz, she has nowhere to go but the family manor house she fled decades ago. Praying that her niece and nephew will be more hospitable than her brother had been, she arrives with nothing but the clothes she stands in, at a loss as to how to rebuild her business while staying in a quaint country village.
Her niece, Violet Westcott, is thrilled that her famous aunt is coming to stay–the village has been interminably dull with all the men off fighting. But just as Cressida arrives, so does Violet’s conscription letter. It couldn’t have come at a worse time; how will she ever find a suitably aristocratic husband if she has to spend her days wearing a frumpy uniform and doing war work?
Meanwhile, the local vicar’s daughter, Grace Carlisle, is trying in vain to repair her mother’s gown, her only chance of a white wedding. When Cressida Westcott appears at the local Sewing Circle meeting, Grace asks for her help–but Cressida has much more to teach the ladies than just simple sewing skills.
Before long, Cressida’s spirit and ambition galvanizes the village group into action, and they find themselves mending wedding dresses not only for local brides, but for brides across the country. And as the women dedicate themselves to helping others celebrate love, they might even manage to find it for themselves.

The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle is now the 4th book I’ve read by Jennifer Ryan, and like her earlier books, it presents a warm-hearted look at the homefront challenges and triumphs of women during wartime.

The year is 1942, London is being terrorized by air raids, and in the countryside, families are making do with less and less. Even clothing is rationed — materials are prioritized for the benefit of the war effort, so the local sewing circles are forced to become skilled at repairing and reworking the clothing that they do have.

In the village of Aldhurst, the vicar’s 24-year-old daughter is soon to be married. Grace and her widowed father find her mother’s wedding dress stored away, but the years have not been kind to the once-beautiful gown. Grace is looking forward to her marriage to a young curate, although she’s mostly motivated by duty and a need to be useful to the parish rather than by sentiments of true love.

But when Cressida, a famous designer whose home and business are both destroyed in a night-time bombing raid, returns to her family’s manor in Aldhurst, life in the village starts to change. Cressida lends her skills to the local sewing circle, encourages Grace to think bigger and explore her own talents, and even manages to get her niece Violet to see that there’s more to life than being the pretty little wife of an aristocrat.

As the women spend time together, they become tightly bonded, and manage to find creative inspiration in their sewing projects, eventually coming up with the idea of organizing what’s essentially a wedding dress lending library. Soon, women from all across Britain are donating their wedding dresses, and eager brides are now able to have the beautiful weddings they’ve dreamed of, rather than getting married in uniforms or practical clothing.

The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle focuses on friendship and finding purpose. The women at the heart of the book all, in their own ways, reevaluate the assumptions they’ve made about their lives and find different, more meaningful paths for themselves. Through Cressida’s example, they learn to think differently, challenge expectations, and pursue careers and lives that are more fulfilling than what they’d thought they should want or expect.

I enjoyed getting to know the main characters and seeing each of them blossom in different ways. Each has a love story as well, none of which run particularly smoothly — but never fear, there are plenty of happy endings to go around.

As in her other books, Jennifer Ryan uses village life and characters to portray the effects of war on ordinary people. Her characters aren’t out risking their lives on battlefields or engaging in high-stakes espionage; these are the everyday women and men who must do the best they can in the face of shortages and hardships, holding on to their homes, their friends, and their communities the best they can. The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle is a portrait of a generous community, whose individuals come together to not just make do, but make better.

This is a gentle read, with drama on the more intimate and personal side. While the opening scenes of Cressida’s experiences in the air raid are very frightening and dramatic, and while there’s another incident later on of an air raid on a neighboring village that’s also quite scary and intense, the rest of the book is quieter and more restrained. The focus is on day to day life and the people of the village — the war is the constant backdrop, but it’s filtered through the experiences of the women and families on the homefront.

I enjoyed The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle very much. In fact, my only slight complaint is that it seems to echo the author’s other books in certain ways, so that the overall story feels less fresh this time around. In three of the four books of hers that I’ve now read, the main story is about plucky women in a small town who come together to make it through the war years — in one book, it’s about a choir, in another, a cooking competition, and here, a sewing group. The plots arcs and characters here feel familiar, not because we’ve seen them before, but because the overall tone is so similar to those of her previous novels.

That said, I did think it was an engaging, often moving read, and I enjoyed seeing the characters grow and change over the course of the story. Jennifer Ryan has a gift for bringing out the beauty in simple lives, and I always enjoy her light touch when it comes to dialogue and banter.

If you enjoy historical fiction, especially historical fiction focused on women’s lives, don’t miss The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle!