ASK Musings

Three Stars

Best for:
Kids who like animal stories but like a little bit of meat in them.

In a nutshell:
The (true-ish) story of how a puppy found its new home.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
I am related to the author!

Review:
As stated above, I am related to the author, so please keep that in mind.

This story is based on the author’s experience of being removed from a flight when trying to transport her newly-adopted puppy home. Its the rare example of a video that went fairly viral where the subject actually comes across positively.

Dr Pritchard decided to use this experience and write this story as a children’s book, with an eye towards making it into a series (I believe the second book is already on its way). The illustrations are great – Sitka Sue is an adorable puppy, and the likeness of her human (my relative) is pretty close to reality.

The story is told from the perspective of the puppy, following her confusion about being taken from her original home, flying somewhere, and then feeling safe and loved. It’s got adversity and talks about the importance of friendship, which is pretty cute too. It is a bit wordier than I’d expect from a kid’s book, but I could see the right kiddo really enjoying it.

Four Stars

Best for:
Fans of cozy mysteries.

In a nutshell:
Laurence and Eva are getting married in Italy. The bride is running late to the ceremony and then we hear a scream. So … what’s happened?

Worth quoting:
N/A (though the writing is good, just nothing stood out to me).

Why I chose it:
Working my way through Hindle’s back catalogue

Review:
Third book of Hindle’s that I’ve read and probably my favorite so far. This book is 360 pages long and the murder in question isn’t revealed until page 150ish. That’s WILD set-up but it works so well.

While we get many different perspective chapters, I’d say the main character of the book is Robyn. Robyn is meeting her boyfriend’s Toby’s family for the first time at this wedding, and it’s a rough go. Toby’s family is super wealthy, and Toby is interested in opening and running a bar, not working for the family business. But his brother (the groom) and his mother are absolutely determined to get Toby in, and they do not like Robyn, as she is ‘just’ a bartender, and they think she’s steering Toby astray (she’s not).

Eva is a rich influencer and a brat, Laurence is a stuck up private school boy (as are most of his friends). But we also have Stephen – a friend who went to school with Laurence but was a scholarship kid, and his wife Abigail.

The wedding is taking place in the height of summer in Italy, and things heat up literally and metaphorically. A magazine is covering the event, so there’s a photographer and Eva’s agent in tow.

The writing in this is great, and I get such a sense of who each of these people are. I made the mistake of having about 150 pages left when I got in bed last night, and had to stay up late to finish it because I couldn’t put it down.

Best for:
Fans of Agatha Christie-style mysteries.

In a nutshell:
Will is hosting a murder mystery party on New Year’s Eve, and a few town folk are attending. In the background looms a fight over the use of a lighthouse that was the scene of a tragedy.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
I thoroughly enjoyed his book Death in the Arctic. And while it didn’t figure into my choice, I saw that the blurb on the front was by Ragnar Jónasson, one of my favorite authors.

Review:
I read this book in one day, and it had me hooked from the start.

Like his previous book that I read, the murder doesn’t happen until maybe 1/4 of the way through the book, and that’s fine. We get back story, but not all of it. History comes out over the course of the night.

The Hamlet Hall is a manor house turned hotel in a very tiny town on the southern coast of England, and the owner Ian is trying to revive it during the off season. At Will’s suggestion, he agrees to host a murder mystery party on New Year’s Eve. Will is a young man who is still dealing with a trauma he experienced as a small child, and he is looking to use the evening to figure some things out.

Meanwhile, the attendees include Gwen and her husband – she wanted to use the lighthouse for a memorial but was outbid by a former townie, who is turning it into a fancy home. Nigel is also there – he took the contract for that work, so most of the town hates him and his wife, And Martha and Edgar are there – they own a shop in town that has been robbed, and they think Nigel’s workers are at fault. There are also three actors to help the show along, including one not from town.

The book takes place basically over the course of one night, which is one of my favorite kinds of stories. I was sort of able to figure out part of what had really happened, but there are enough surprises and twists that it didn’t spoil any thing for me.

Three Stars

Best for:
Those who enjoy very psychologically-focused thrillers.

In a nutshell:
CN: Sexual Assault, Murder

Emma is a psychologist who is sexually assaulted at a conference, but manages to survive, unlike the serial killer’s other victims.

Or did she make it all up?

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
I found Fitzek’s previous work to be interesting and wanted to read more.

Review:
Three stars is probably a bit harsh for this book – more like 3.5 if that were allowed. The book isn’t bad, I just didn’t find it nearly as compelling or interesting as the other one. That said – the book is good, and it kept me guessing.

Emma is a psychologist, married to a police detective. As a child, she had an imaginary ‘friend,’ Arthur, who she was once scared of but eventually came to rely on. After working through her childhood trauma and recognizing Arthur as a art of her imagination, she has moved on. But while at a conference, she is attacked by ‘the Hairdresser’ – a man who assaults his victims, shaves their heads, and then kills them. But she is not killed.

But no one believes her. Yes, her hair has been shaved, but the hotel room she claimed to be in doesn’t exist, and the hotel has no record of her checking in. The room as she described it had art that the hotel doesn’t have, and no hiding places for the perpetrator. Emma is fragile and distraught, and for months can’t leave her home, as the trauma of it all led to he having a miscarriage. Her husband tries to be supportive, but she’s clearly on the edge.

One day, a package is delivered, which sets her down a bizarre road. The book skips backward and and forward, to a time when it appears she is perhaps confessing to her dear friend, an older psychologist. Or is she?

We don’t know until the very end if any of Emma’s experiences are real. But we do learn that at one point she has lied about something important. Is that proof she is lying now? If she is – does she even know she’s lying? Or is she just being expertly gaslit?

Four Stars

Best for:
Fans of the Thursday Murder Club series.

In a nutshell:
Nick has found a bomb under his car. At Joyce’s daughter’s wedding, he talks to Elizabeth to ask for help. The next day, Nick is missing, and his business partner is a possible suspect. In other news, Ron’s daughter has kicked out her abusive husband, who happens to also be a less than model citizen in other ways.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
I have enjoyed all the books in the series so far, and I’m invested in these characters. Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, Donna, Chris.

Review:
Osman is so good and developing characters AND plot. Some books have a great plot but the characters could be literally anyone. And some books have amazing character studies but not much happens. Osman, in my opinion, does a great job with both. Each book we learn more about these people, as their lives change and connections grow even stronger.

In this case, we are with Elizabeth, who lost her beloved Stephen in the previous book. Grief is hard, and she’s not her old self, because she won’t be again. But the case allows her to start to reconnect with one part of her past, and its good to see.

I also like how much time we spend with Ron this book, and of course with Joyce and Ibrahim. Much like the other books, I appreciate that this book primarily focuses on the very rich lives of people who are much older. They get their own internal lives, their own desires. They aren’t relegated to side story lines. I don’t think there’s enough media that explores the lives of older adults, so its great when the ones that do are so fun to read.

(There’s also a cheeky little joke in here that sort of references to film recently made of the original book, which did make me chuckle.)

Four Stars

Best for:
Those interested in learning more about how our language is shaped by – and shapes – society. Everyone who speaks US English.

In a nutshell:
Author Montell explores a variety of aspects of language and how it reinforces and can be used to fight the patriarchy.

Worth quoting:
N/A (but only because it was an audio book and usually I was running while listening so didn’t have a way to note something down)

Why I chose it:
The topic was intriguing to me.

Review:
I wish I’d read a hard copy instead of reading an audio version because I think I would have been underlining a lot and keeping it for future reference. That aid, it was great to listen to the author read her work.

The book explores multiple ways that language reinforces the patriarchy (the English language, specifically). Things like the default for ‘person’ being man, for example. As though men are the standard or the norm, and women are a deviation from that. But also more insidious things, like creating gendered qualifiers for words that theoretically are gender neutral, suggesting again that the default boss is male (hence ‘girl boss’). Or, conversely, some insults again should be gender neutral, but the default for the negatives are female (whore vs manwhore, for example).

Montell argues convincingly that this isn’t just an issue of sticks and stones, its that the words show the values of the speakers overall. She makes the point even clearer in the chapter where she references how some folks complain about how ‘you can’t say anything anymore;’ it’s not that one can’t say things, it’s that what they say and the words they choose reflect their values, and people are allowed to make judgments based on those values.

Each chapter covers a different aspect of language, including language changes from the LGBTQ community, the use of singular they/them, and how women are judged for sounding ‘shrill’ when they speak. This book was written a few years ago, and it’s disappointing to think about how much language and our acceptance of new usages to better reflect reality has been rolled back as more conservatives and more anti-trans folks have gained power.

The section on vulgar language and the slang that exists for penises vs vaginas (spell check wants me to call that vaginae?) was also so interesting. I’ve obviously thought in passing about how gross it is that the worst insults for men are to refer to them by terms associated with female genitalia, but hearing it spelled out here made it even clearer how gross that is.

Best for:
Those with a strong stomach. Probably those who liked reading Silence of the Lambs.

In a nutshell:
Detective Martin lost his wife and young son on a cruise ship a few years ago. He was told it was murder suicide. He gets a call and learns that a child who had gone missing on the same cruise ship under the same circumstance has reappeared, and was holding his child’s teddy bear.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
Wanted another mystery to read while on holiday and this one looked interesting. It definitely was.

Review:
Content note: Torture, pedophilia.

So I didn’t realize that this book would be as dark as it was. So just a fair warning. That said, I found this to be an interesting and captivating read. So much so that I ended up going back to the same bookshop and buying another of his books.

I’m trying to figure out how to review this without spoiling things. Obviously the content note for the book gives away something, so you know it will be a dark read. And it is. There were times I definitely was uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem to be written in a salacious way, if that makes sense.

There are so many twists in this book. There was a point where I even thought the book was over and there was a whole other bit that I’d missed. And there are loads of moment where I thought I had it figured out (and other, more clever readers might have), but then was shown to be completely wrong. The writing is great but vivid.

And the topic is an interesting backdrop, as anyone who has even a passing familiarity with ‘true crime’ will likely be aware of folks who have disappeared from cruise ships, and how challenging it is to get a proper investigation done. I doubt there is anything going on quite like what is described in this book, but who knows.

Five Stars

Best for:
Anyone interested in stopping the desire to be smaller, chasing after diets and such.

In a nutshell:
Registered dietitian nutritionist Spence looks at (and breaks apart) the history of diet culture, and shares her thoughts on ways to have a better relationship with food and your body.

Worth quoting:
“That’s the thing with a diet culture mindset: even though you see how certain aspects are unattainable or unsustainable, the narrative of an ideal body is still perpetuated.”

“In our current #hustleculture, dieting and restricting are correlated with discipline and being as small as you can be, with taking up less space and being obedient. It’s a sign of hard work, of conforming correctly.”

Why I chose it:
I follow Spence on TikTok and love what she shares. I bought this book a couple of years ago when it came out, but finally actually read it and I’m so glad I did.

Review:
What a great book. Probably one of the best I’ve read on diet culture from the perspective of someone trained in nutrition. Her whole approach is basically diets not only don’t work but they aren’t necessary for people to improve their overall health and wellbeing. Moreover, she isn’t just focused on this being an issue for the individual to resolve; she is focused on the bigger picture, including discussion of things like social determinants of health.

The first half of the book looks at diet culture, and how it is perpetuated by the patriarchy. She explores ideas like how ridiculous it is that we all could or should be the same body size, and also has a chapter focused on the elitism of the wellness community. It’s great to read. Infuriating, but great to see it all laid out in one place.

The second half of the book offers suggests for individuals who have spent their life on the diet wheel, or who have gotten off but perhaps are feeling the pull back to it. Her philosophy is not about restriction o removal, but about addition. Getting more sleep. Eating more vegetables. Moving in a way that is for ENJOYMENT, not to ‘earn’ your food. She does talk about intuitive eating, and recognizes it has some positive take-aways, but she takes it a step further and offers her own suggestions she crystallizes into ten principles. The ones that have really stood out to me have been to be really present with my food and actually eating what I want.

It was great to try out on holiday, because I had access to all this amazing Greek food. And I ate it, and I didn’t need to go for a ten mile run to ‘work it off.’ Looking at food as something that is both for fuel but also for joy is something that a lot of fitness and health influencers seem to scoff at, but that’s not the life I want.

I’ll end with one of my favorite take-aways from the book: “The only foods to avoid are those that you’re allergic to, must avoid for medical reasons, or don’t like.”