Four Stars

Best for: People looking for a bit of mystery set in an interesting place.

In a nutshell: Someone has been murdered, and the police and a highly motivated journalist are both on the story.

Why I chose it: I loved the first one in this series.

Review:
Ari Thor is a police officer living in a small town in far nothern Iceland. After someone is found murdered in a nearby town, he and his boss are called in to assist, as the victim lived nearby. As news comes out, journalist Isrun leaves Reykjavik to travel north and follow the story. She claims to have a tip, but she made it up, not knowing she might not be that far from the truth.

As in the first book, there are a lot of stories going on that may or may not be related. The story is also disturbing, and while I’m not going to get into details, the book should definitely have a trigger warner for references to sexual assault.

One thing this second book has convinced me of is that the main character Ari Thor is boring and an ass. He showed a bit of this in the first book when he just up and decided to move away without talking it over with his partner. In this one, he displays his jealousy and toxic masculinity more, and it did not amuse me. Basically, he’s an asshole. I can’t entirely tell, but I think the author wants us to like Ari Thor, and that’s fine. I don’t. But he features in only maybe 20% of the book, so it’s not a big deal. He’s more like the excuse for the story to exist as opposed to the main focus of it.

It’s entirely possible I’ve read this out of order, but I don’t think so. If you check Amazon, it calls this book three, but on the author’s website, I followed the Iceland release order, and it seems to flow directly from the previous book. I offer this up as a warning in case you choose to get into this series (Dark Iceland)

Four Stars

Best for: Those looking for some tips to help them focus their time.

In a nutshell: Two former Google folks offer their tips for making time for what matters (I mean, it’s right there in the title, and I couldn’t figure out a better way to say it).

Worth quoting:
“Trying to cram in just one more thing is like driving a car that is running out of gas: No matter how long you keep your foot on the accelerator, if the tank is empty, you aren’t going anywhere. You to stop and refuel.”

Why I chose it:
Assuming all the paperwork and such goes through, I should be starting a new job next month. For the past year I’ve been working from home, and only part time, so I’ve been able to do things like chores and exploring my new city on my own schedule. And before that, I didn’t work on Fridays for years. But my new job has a regular work week, so I’m going to have to work harder to be more intentional about how I spend my time.

Review:
The main premise of the book is this: we should pick a highlight for our day (work or personal life) that takes about 60-90 minutes; create an environment to have laser focus; make some changes to increase energy, and then reflect on the actions we’ve taken and if they’ve helped us focus on our highlight.

The book itself is well-designed. It’s a bit hefty, but it has illustrations and summarizes the four areas well. After presenting the basics behind each thesis, the authors offer tips on how to implement it. The suggestion isn’t that the reader incorporate all the suggestions, but that we try them out and reflect to see which work to help us make time for what we want to do with our days.

Some suggestions are ones I’ve heard before — deleting apps from phones that suck time but don’t add a lot to life, exercising a bit each — but the framework is different, and I like it. I’m going to try it out.

That said, a couple of reservations: this was created by two dudes. One does have children, but I would be interested in how this works for people who are primary caregivers of their children and don’t work outside the home. They do reference how some of this might be challenging to people who have newborns or other people they care for, but I could imaging being a bit skeptical. Additionally, for people who have very little control over their work schedule, some of the tips might be hard to implement, but I think it’s worth having a go.

Four Stars

The Lost City of San Juan Parangaricutiro

Best for: People who enjoy books on world curiosities that don’t focus on making fun of or judging individuals. People who like books with three-four page chunks that can be read at once.

In a nutshell: The authors provide quick backgrounds on 51 places spread (very inequitably) across six continents, divided into categories of Dream Creations, Deserted Destinations, Architectural Oddities, Floating Worlds, Otherworldly Spaces, and Subterranean Realms.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it: I’m always looking for places to add to my list of things I want to see in person. Plus, I like to learn about ostensibly weird shit.

Review:

When I was a teenager, my family took a trip to the pacific northwest, and went on the Underground Tour in Seattle. For those not familiar, part of the city closest to the water was raised at least a full story after a fire destroyed a bunch of buildings, putting shops and residences that were once at street-level down a dozen feet. The tour takes people through reconstructed older facades, and points out that the purple glass we walk over at street level was a way to allow light down to the still-functioning buildings below. I was fascinated.

A decade ago my sister and I visited Berlin and went on a tour of underground bunkers. I believe I found this one because, again, I like history but also unexpected and potentially weird things.

Neither of those items are listed in this book, but they aren’t that far off. The book includes some fantastical places (Hearst Castle), some disturbing ones — especially if you don’t like dolls — (Isla de las Muñecas), some truly bizarre ones (Darvata), and some sad ones (Oradur-sur-Glane). I’d only heard of maybe three of the places discussed in the book, and I want to go visit at least a few of them.

The book was generally good, but I have a couple of complaints keeping it from hitting five stars. The first is the distribution of sites. It felt a bit lazy to have so many concentrated in North America and Europe. There were also many in Asia, but only one in Africa, two in South America, and two in Oceania (and the one in Africa is mostly a criticism of art, which felt a bit off). The other is if you’re going to make a book focused on fascinating places, your pictures NEED TO BE IN FULL COLOR. I know it’s way expensive. But black and white photos do not in any way capture the vast majority of these locations. I finally had to just look up each place on my phone as I read a chapter. That seems unnecessary. Even with those two complaints, however, I would still recommend this book.

(I couldn’t help but think about the town of Paradise, California, as I read this book. Many, though not all, are abandoned spaces; some are that was as the result of some natural or unnatural disaster. And I wonder: in fifty years, will parts of the now-destroyed city in Northern California be added to this book? Or will they be featured in a different book, one focused on how cities can rebuild?)

Three Stars

Best for: People still looking for answers to how we got here (i.e. got Trump) and some thoughts on ways to move forward.

In a nutshell: Trump’s election shouldn’t have been a surprise, and it doesn’t need to be the end of the world.

Worth quoting:
“If the goal is to move from a society based on endless taking and depletion to one based on caretaking and renewal, then all of our relationships have to be grounded in those same principles of reciprocity and care.”

Why I chose it: I keep looking for books to help me figure out a good way forward, and Junebug’s review suggested it’d be a good one. And it was, mostly.

Review:
I feel like there are two books here: a history book and a how-to book. And while the tag lines and blurbs are promoting the latter, the vast majority of it feels like the former to me. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I just feel like lately I’m reading a whole lot of build up and not a lot of “now do this.” It’s especially frustrating when some of the things she warns us about not only happened but were way worse. I spent a fair amount of time in the first chunk saying “Oh honey, past you was a bit off, and not in a positive direction.”

That’s not to say there aren’t things in here that I learned. There’s a lot about US and world history I know nothing about, and haven’t sat with to connect all the dots, and to that end I think Ms. Klein does a mostly good job. However, at times it felt like a book that was trying to fit as much relevant information as possible without the best through-line. It could have benefited from some stronger editing and perhaps reorganization, though I appreciate she was trying to get this book out quickly as the Trump administration continued rolling over human and civil rights ad the environment.

The very last bit of the book focuses on options for going forward, but even there it feels a little … insufficient. She talks about the Leap Manifesto she was a part of putting together in Canada, but there isn’t a lot of how to try to reproduce that in the US or even within a state in the US.

I think I just want to know what to do. Does that make sense? And that’s a lot to put onto any author — or anyone, really — but at this point I’m tired of the history, at least the parts I’ve lived through. And that’s why for me this book is only three stars.

Four Stars

Best for: Anyone interested in a beautifully written memoir that explores adoption, transracial adoption, race, and family.

In a nutshell: Author Nicole Chung was born to Korean parents in the US and adopted by a white couple. In this book, she explores what it meant to be one of the only Asian people around growing up, as well as how she connected with some of her birth family.

Worth quoting:
“People were not so simple; people could be and think and want many different things at once.”

Why I chose it:
I’ve seen so many people online raving about it.

Review:
This is a lovely book. When thinking about words that could describe it, I could also have gone with powerful, honest, or insightful. But I chose lovely because the writing is just that, as is the way the author handles complex and complicated issues.

Nicole Chung was born two months premature to parents who had moved to the US from Korea just five years prior to her birth. They already had one child together; they chose to place Ms. Chung up for adoption, but not through what we would probably think of as regular channels (i.e., an agency). Instead, someone working in the hospital knows the couple who would become Ms. Chung’s adoptive parents and alerts them to this possibility.

Ms. Chung is raised in the pacific northwest, in a part of Oregon with very few other Asian individuals. Her parents are always open about the fact of her adoption, but they don’t take steps to help Ms. Chung learn about her Korean heritage, and she doesn’t not pursue it independently much until she reaches college. Once she is married, she decides to see if she can get in touch with her birth family, motivated further when she learns that she may have a sister.

This book explores one story, and it is not claiming to be universal, but still, the issues it addresses can apply to so many of us, I think. There are obviously some specifics (e.g. the reality of transracial adoption) that may only be directly relatable to similarly situated individuals, but the overall concepts of belonging and family, about other possible life scenarios, about whether a choice was the best one (and if that is even the right question to ask), about how our families influence who we become, and even about nature vs. nurture, they all take up space here. I’ll be thinking about this one long after I pick up my next read.

Five Stars

Best for: Everyone. All of us should read it.

In a nutshell: In the future, firemen don’t put out fires – they set them. Specifically, they set books on fire.

Worth quoting:
“You weren’t hurting anyone, you were hurting only things! And since things really couldn’t be hurt, sine things felt nothing, and things don’t scream or whimper … there was nothing to tease your conscience later.”
“We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal.”

Why I chose it:
I figured I’d take the opportunity to finally read this book. I can’t believe I haven’t read it.

Review:
Oh holy shit. This was written in 1953. SIXTY FIVE YEARS AGO. And yet it is super relevant today. Damn, that’s depressing.

This is an extremely quick read. I started it yesterday and ended it yesterday. It takes place over just about a week (or less) in time at some point, in some place, in the US. People don’t read anymore because they aren’t allowed to. Books are banned, and firemen (I’d normally say firefighter because gender neutral, but that literally doesn’t work here) respond to people tattling on their neighbors who are suspected to have books. Because books aren’t necessary — the stories and ideas in them conflict with each other, and that can lead to harm, so it’s better to just watch stories with no plot that take up the entire living room, work a few hours pushing buttons or making widgets, and fall asleep with earbuds in playing pleasing music.

As someone who loves books, this was hard to read. But beyond that, the idea of government telling us that we aren’t allowed to read anything, a government that seems only interested in pleasure, but superficial pleasure. And look, I loves me some superficial pleasure. But for me, that’s not the only purpose in life. And in this version of the US, that’s the only goal. That’s all people look for.

I think what hit me the hardest was the discussion about how people slowly stopped registering for liberal arts courses (drama was the main example) until such colleges simply shut down, and people were only taught to push buttons and manufacture things. I see in that a bit of the push to move EVERYONE to STEM education. I 100% want people who haven’t felt supported in pursuing a STEM education and career to have access to it, and I don’t think we’re there yet. At the same, I see people slamming liberal arts degrees — things like philosophy, sociology, women’s studies, literature — as useless. You should get a degree in engineering, not history! And I think that is such a dangerous way of looking at things. There’s value in it all, and there’s definitely value in the ability to think critically. One can obviously learn to think critically without being a philosophy major (or going to college at all), but books and other ways to access discussion and knowledge are necessary.

The ending feels a little abrupt, but that’s okay. I’d recommend this to everyone, if only as a reminder of where things could go, and the dangers that accompany that.

Five Stars

Best for: Anyone who listens to long-form storytelling podcasts; anyone who appreciates good storytelling; anyone who can stomach a book with some really disturbing parts.

In a nutshell: Nineteen-year-old Sadie has gone missing, and its possible that it has something to do with the recent death of her 13-year-old sister. Her surrogate grandmother contacts an NPR-type radio station to see if one of their journalists can help find Sadie. (Ignore the tag-line on the cover though — it doesn’t do the plot justice.)

Worth quoting:
“I always forget fear is a conquerable thing but I learn it over and over again and that, I guess, is better than never learning it.”

Why I chose it:
I was at the independent bookshop in the town I grew up in and asked if they had Rebecca Traister’s new book Good and Mad. They didn’t, but the bookseller did say that if I’m interested in female rage, she had a suggestion for me. She wasn’t wrong.

Review:
This book is fantastic, but right up front I need to say that it deals with a REAL dark topic. Sadie is looking for Keith, who was her mother’s boyfriend for a while when she was 11 or 12. Very quickly we learn that Keith has done something to earn Sadie’s wrath, and frankly, it’s really not good. And this is a YA book. Jesus.

The story unfolds in a couple of ways: through a season one Serial-style podcast exploring Sadie’s disappearance, and through point of view chapters Sadie. They alternate, with the slowly catching up to Sadie’s story. So we’ll often get the podcast exploring things that we already know a little of, which makes it that much more compelling. Like, I know what’s already happened. You’ve got to work harder at figuring it out, West McCray (the podcast creator)!

The podcast sections are brilliant. The first episode starts with the fact that there is a theme song for it. That alone was just an excellent touch. And by the fourth episode, the first line is always “The Girls is brought to you by Macmillan Publishers.” Like, of course it eventually has a sponsor. It has to make money somehow. But seeing it written out (as opposed to, say, skipping through that week’s Hello Fresh or Casper Mattress ad read) illuminates how absurd it is. The story of the murder of one sister and the disappearance of another has a sponsor. Yikes.

Plus they way the podcast episodes are written – I could hear them. Of course, I first thought the host was a woman, so I was literally hearing Sarah Koenig as I read it, and had to adjust later on. (What? West is a gender-neutral name.) Then there are the descriptions of different conversations, like the host on the phone with his producer, or interviewing someone in person, or doing their voice-over in studio. I listen to many podcasts (The Dream is my current favorite).

By interspersing the podcast episodes with perspective chapters from Sadie, seeing what she’s going through, her trauma, her pain, her determination, it’s a reminder that these podcasts are about real people. Sometimes they’re historical, with the individuals long-dead. But so many of them are about real people, with family and lives. I keep referencing Serial, but I think this is a bit different from that, because, for all they may have tried, that was more about the accused murderer than the victim, and I don’t think Hae Min Lee’s family was happy about it, whereas in this book, Sadie’s family is explicitly asking for help.

Sadie is an interesting character. She’s from a dying town, and spends her whole life until the story picks up living in a trailer. She cares for her sister after their mother — who has a substance use disorder — leaves them. She doesn’t see much a future for herself, and is fueled mostly by her sister’s murder. It’s heartbreaking, the moments when you see that Sadie could have had a different life. Not dramatically different, but there are so many what-ifs: What if her mother had stayed? What if her mother hadn’t favored her younger sister? What if her sister hadn’t been murdered?

There are a lot of cliffhangers – nearly every Sadie chapter ends with an “oh shit,” then the next chapter is a podcast episode. It makes it so hard to stop reading; I was up until about 11 reading it last night, and just finished it this evening. The end had be processing a whole shitload of emotions.

I don’t read much YA unless it’s so popular that it’s about to / has already become a movie (So, basically The Hunger Games, The Hate U Give, The Fault in Our Stars). I’m just not in the know, and so usually I need someone to make a recommendation. This book is also a YA murder mystery, so yeah, not really one that would normally be on my list.

But damn, I’m thankful to the bookseller who recommended it. Female rage indeed.

Four Stars

Best for: People who like personal essays and also Ms. Robinson’s style of humor (e.g., loads of hashtags)

In a nutshell: In the follow-up to her first collection of essays, Ms. Robinson shares more of the serious aspects of her personal life (including her financial challenges, her experience with interracial relationships, and the failures of feminism) while also telling hilarious stories about meeting Oprah and Bono (not at the same time, but could you even imagine?).

Worth quoting:
“I am also a ludicrous trash fire like the kind you see on Naked and Afraid when people sign up to be in the wilderness when they’re barely capable of troubleshooting Mozilla Firefox, let alone making an actual fire from scratch.”

Why I chose it:
I enjoyed Ms. Robinson’s first book, and this one looked pretty great.

Review:
I have to admit that I don’t listen to 2 Dope Queens anymore. It sort of fell out of rotation for me, mostly because some of the stand-up acts were just not my thing, and it’s hard to figure out how to fast-forward the right amount on a podcast. But that doesn’t mean I stopped enjoying Jessica Williams or Phoebe Robinson. So when I saw Ms. Robinson had a follow-up book out, I knew I wanted to read it.

I laughed a lot while reading this book. Not on every page, but definitely each essay — including the more serious ones — offered something to crack up about. I think her style may not be for everyone, as she tends to employ a lot of ridiculous abbreviations and beyond long hashtags, but for me, it works.

While the book focuses on some things that are indeed trash, I also really enjoyed the sections where Ms. Robinson focuses on what’s gone well in her life. It doesn’t feel like bragging; it’s just more fun to read about the good things. I’m genuinely happy for her.

That said, the serious chapters are well done. The essay on feminism is a great look at the ways women of color often don’t feel supported by white women, and her vulnerability when discussing her financial troubles is relatable to the point that I think it could genuinely help some similarly situated folks.

If you like Ms. Robinson, I think you’ll enjoy this book.

Two Stars

Best for: People interested in some fun home and beauty tips (but only if you skip the section related to health and food, because it is awful). If you’re really interested in a fun minimalism book, just get the Marie Kondo one.

In a nutshell: French author has ideas on how to live a minimalistic life, mostly borrowed from her view of Japanese culture.

Worth quoting:
“Life is far more enjoyable when we cultivate the habit of losing ourselves in our own thoughts: this is a precious gift that brings great happiness.”

Why I chose it:
I love shit like this (usually). I like organizational tips.

Review:
This book is equal parts useful and dangerous. On the one hand, Loreau offers some great points about being present in the moment, about minimizing our possessions, and about the need to focus on one thing at a time. Given the fact that I’m currently writing this review while listening to a podcast and eating breakfast, I can obviously use some help on the latter at least. If that were the entirety of the book, then this would probably be a three-star book for me.

But it’s not. Loreau also jumps into the discussion of physical and mental health, and hoo boy, does she get it super wrong. I mean yes, of course, less sugar is probably a good thing (for most, but not all, people), but her obsession with getting the reader to want to be slim (skinny) is just bizarre. There’s a whole section of affirmations focused on this idea, as though one cannot be fat and happy or “overweight” and healthy. It’s insulting. And if someone had a history of body image issues or disordered eating, it could be triggering.

And then there’s her flippant ideas about mental health and human relationships. She literally says that we should “swap our therapy sessions for a case of champagne.” The fuck? She also thinks we should never be critical of others or complain. Her solution is we should write a lot (good!) but never share our writing. Yes, I’ve seen and understand the thinking of, if you’re upset with someone, writing them a letter to get it all out and then burning the letter. But this feels different. I think that if Loreau were in charge of the world, there would be no negative or critical analysis of anything.

So, this book failed as a Brain Candy read because it wasn’t just fun and fluffy. But I chose it for that, so I’m stuck with it.

Two Stars

Best for: People who like fantasy. So, apparently, not me.

In a nutshell: It’s billed as the back story of the wicked witch of the west. Instead it’s a convoluted mess of a book that I could not follow.

Worth quoting:
“Galinda didn’t often stop to consider whether she believed in what she said or not; the whole point of conversation was flow.”
“I don’t dress for your approval, boys.”

Why I chose it: I initially tried to read the Audrey Hepburn book Alabama Pink reviewed, but after about 80 pages it still felt like homework. I thought this would be a fun read.

(Narrator: It was not.)

Review:
I think this solidifies my thought that Alabama Pink and I would not have belonged to the same book club. I absolutely hated the Cannon Book Club pick by Craig Ferguson (seriously, it’s so bad), and of the remaining dozen books to review for this square, none really caught my eye. I tried the Audrey Hepburn biography and it was as dry as a desert and just as monotonous. I realized that Wicked was an option, and given how popular the musical is, I assumed this would be a fun, interesting read.

Sadly, I assumed incorrectly.

I think part of this is because I just don’t enjoy fantasy that much. I don’t like having to learn a new vocabulary, or new worlds. Having to memorize the geopolitical landscape of a fictional world just isn’t generally my favorite thing to do. So clearly this isn’t the book for me.

I also think that it isn’t particularly strongly written. I mean, I’m sure my opinion is wrong, and someone out there could explain to me how it is factually a masterful book, but clearly I missed something. In fact, when I finished, I went back to read the Wikipedia entry about the book, and holy shit. Plotlines were discussed that I didn’t even recognize.

Books shouldn’t feel like chores. At least, I don’t think they should. And I don’t mean they shouldn’t be challenging, or tough, or interesting. I’ve read many books that are slow reads, that I need to concentrate on deeply, and that have many layers to explore. But those books don’t feel like things I’m trying to get through so I can get to something better. Sadly, this one did.