not another one!

The King's Justice by Susan Elia MacNeal
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical mystery
Read 20 in 2020 category: mystery (or history!)
Review: In this 9th installment of the Maggie Hope series, MacNeal's heroine is really struggling.  Poor Maggie has been through the wringer is the first 8 books, and has taken up living on the edge as a way to deal.  She's zipping through town on her motorbike, smoking, trying to get her new boyfriend into bed with her, and defusing bombs left over from the Blitz.  She's convinced herself that this is perfectly acceptable, until another serial killer hits the streets of London.  Despite her best efforts, she can't help but get involved, especially when she figures out that her new comrades in bomb defusing, many of whom are conscientious objectors, may be the killer's targets.

This serial killer seems to have a connection to the killer she thwarted in The Queen's Accomplice (book #6), even as that murderer is counting down the days to his execution.  Much as Maggie might like to be able to put those memories firmly behind her, she must confront him in order to try to apprehend the new murderer, and deal with her conflicting feelings about the death penalty as well.

Like Maggie's other adventures, there are more than a few red herrings thrown across our path, and quite a bit of pedantic dialogue, but overall MacNeal keeps this mystery rolling along nicely.  Maggie might be a little out of control, but readers will empathize with her, and of course root for her to solve the mystery, protect her friends, and even find a little bit of emotional peace.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

doesn't deliver

The Fortress by S.A. Jones
Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)
Genre: speculative fiction
Review: Jonathon is deeply in love with his wife.  Truly, he thinks she's amazing and the best thing that ever happened to him.  But that doesn't stop him from participating in what amounts to a rape culture in his high-powered corporate world.  Did he himself ever actually rape one of the "poodles" (as female junior analysts are called) in his office?  It doesn't seem so, but he certainly engaged in activity where "consent" was not exactly voluntarily given.  And, as is pointed out to him, he doesn't do anything to stop other women from being raped either, even though he's fully aware of what's going on around him.  When his wife finds out, she kicks him out and agrees to take him back only if he does a year as a supplicant at The Fortress, a nation-state ruled by the all-female Vaik.

The Vaik play by their own rules, the most important of which seems to be that the men who live with them can never say no, to any of them, about anything.  Shockingly, Jonathon doesn't find it hard to "submit" to their will when they slip out of their diaphanous gowns, although he does struggle with the rule against asking any questions.  Somehow, the rules, and the hard physical labor are supposed to reform him into being the kind of man who doesn't objectify every woman he sees.  How that's supposed to happen when women are propositioning him regularly is unclear, but the system does make him submissive, even to the point of doing things that violate his own moral code, which may not be exactly what his wife had in mind.

Where this book really fails, though, is in helping the reader understand how these changes happen, or even how they're supposed to happen.  Jonathon moves rocks to learn to control his emotions, yes, and is able to move rocks in his mind to simulate the control even when there are no actual rocks to hand, and he wears a technically advanced piece of clothing that fits him like a glove and, we are told repeatedly, leaves very little to the imagination.  But the remainder of the Vaik's program is left to the reader's imagination.  We are told that it works, not shown how it works, which makes the results not entirely believable.

I wish I could recommend this book.  The premise is really interesting, which is why I read it in the first place.  Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in advance of it's US release in exchange for this review.

she's up to something

Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: psychological suspense
Read 20 in 2020 Challenge Category: book with a color in the title
Review: Patty Watts is being released from jail, having served 5 years for aggravated child abuse.  Based primarily on her daughter's testimony, she was convicted of having poisoned her daughter with Ipecac syrup, causing her to vomit repeatedly.  The resulting malnutrition caused her to exhibit a host of other symptoms, which required lots of attention from the medical community, and lots of support from their neighbors.  And who is there to pick Patty up as she takes her first steps back into freedom?  None other than her daughter, darling Rose Gold (and Rose Gold's 2 month old son).  Why on earth, you ask yourself, would Rose Gold be willing to allow her mother back into her life?

Told in alternating chapters, starting with Patty's release, going back to get Rose Gold's story of her life after her mother's imprisonment, and coming together as we near the dramatic conclusion, this book is in no way straightforward.  It becomes increasingly clear that Rose Gold is playing a deep-fake game with her mother, but it's not until the end, that we find out exactly how deep her game goes.

This book is indeed thrilling, and suspenseful, but I couldn't help but wonder how a girl like Rose Gold, who has been sick and beyond sheltered her entire life, would have the physical strength (she's described as being very small and thin) and mental fortitude to pull off her scheme.  But it's that very question that will keep you reading all the way through!

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

you are there

What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance by Carolyn Forché
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: memoir
Read 20 in 2020 category: memoir/biography
Review: What would you do if a man appeared on your doorstep one day and announced that he was Leonel, the mysterious cousin of a friend of yours who you'd heard so much speculation about?  What if he told you a tale of conquerors and corruption, of resistance and danger?  If you're Carolyn Forché, apparently you agree to join him in El Salvador for a month so that you can educate yourself about the actual situation there, rather than only seeing it only the was the US government wants you to.  And then, many years later, you would write a beautiful book about what you saw.  Forché is a poet, and it shows in every scene.  Even when describing the sight of people using a fetid ditch for a latrine, or the brutal mistreatment of prisoners, her images are exquisite.

Unfortunately, she herself doesn't come across nearly so well.  Not entirely ignorant when she arrives in El Salvador, thanks to Leonel's lessons, she knows she's not there for a vacation, but she's hardly knowledgeable enough or savvy enough to make her own way.  So she sticks pretty close to Leonel, who shows her around the country and introduces her to other members of the movement.  But sometimes Leonel has go do something vague, and he leaves her with someone else, sometimes in a nice house in San Salvador, and sometimes in a hut in the jungle.

It's the vagueness that became a real problem for me.  It's one of my pet peeves when reading if people aren't being straight with a character and that character doesn't demand straight answers and explanations.  And here we have Forché accepting lots of vague answers and allowing herself to be brought into a lot of potentially dangerous situations with little or no information, including meeting with high level Salvadoran government officials who were known to rule through extreme violence.  And this is real life!  I felt that it was very irresponsible of her to not demand more answers and explanations when walking into situations where her life was literally in danger.

For those who are not bothered by such things, this is absolutely one of the best books to read to get a sense of El Salvador in the late 1970s and the US government's role in it.  Forché learns a lot as she spends more time there, and her readers learn along with her.  The effect is that the reader becomes the witness of the book's subtitle, just as Forché and Leonel hoped.

hold on to the land

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: Louise Erdrich wrote this book to honor the work of her grandfather, the titular night watchman of a jewel bearing plant, was also a Chippewa tribal chairman who took the fight against the Indian Termination Policy all the way to Washington DC in 1954.  Thomas, his fictionalized counterpart has a great story to tell.  I only wish Erdrich has let more of his voice through, and not muddied the water with so many ancillary characters.

To be fair, the other characters give a fuller picture of life on the reservation.  Perhaps if this book had been presented as a series of interlinked short stories, with Thomas's story to anchor it at the end, it would have worked better.  Instead, we jump from one person to another, or see the characters interact in stilted, forced tones and situations.  The pieces all add up to a picture of the fragility of life on the reservation, and the danger posed by the Indian Termination Act, but it's a choppy picture, and one that doesn't make for a very satisfying story.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

go with the flow

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: Fans of Mandel's Station Eleven are right to be excited about her latest book, but should be warned that this book is very, very different.  The book opens with a drowning, told in almost movie-like flashes of Vincent's physical and mental experiences as she drowns.  I found myself returning to these first few pages repeatedly throughout the book as more and more of Vincent's life leading up to her drowning is revealed.  So, nominally, this book is an answer to the question of why Vincent was drowning.  Was she pushed (murdered), and if so by whom?  Or did she fall?  And what was she doing there in the first place?

Really, though, this book is about far more than that.  Reading Vincent's story takes us to a remote corner of Canada (home of the eponymous glass hotel), the inside of a Ponzi scheme, and, as a direct consequence, jail.  Each setting, each character is rendered almost like a fine painting, with depths and shadows you don't notice at first glance.

The narrative jumps around a bit, from character to character and back and forth in time, and it's not always clear where or when you are, but it works, if you go with the flow.  Mandel is a powerful and flexible writer, has more than enough ability to pull off a very different kind of book than Station Eleven (although I wouldn't say no to a sequel!).  Station Eleven may have put her firmly on the literary map, but The Glass Hotel makes clear that she is not going to bound by any one genre.  I wonder which one she'll choose next.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

a challenging discussion

Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie
Rated: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Read 20 in 2020 Challenge Category: book by an author from Africa, Asia, and Oceania
Review: I read this book for the library-sponsored book discussion group that I lead, and as I was reading, I was thinking to myself "however am I going to lead a discussion about this book with a group of middle- and upper-middle class white women without all of us choking on our own hypocrisy?"  And I realized that the only possible way was to get that issue out of the way right up front.  So we started out our discussion by owning our own perspectives and acknowledging that each of us came to this book with our own set of assumptions.

I'm pleased to report that my tactic of putting it out there allowed us to have a frank and honest conversation about this book, perhaps one of the best book discussions we've had (YMMV).  And there's a lot to discuss in this book!  Adichie does not pull her punches in describing the thoughts of Ifemelu, her main character, on racism and classism and immigrants and love and going home again.  Ifemelu has a blog on which she explores many of these issues, and her blog posts punctuate the narrative, creating a different way of sharing her insights than the typical internal monologue.  Ifemelu's reflections may provoke you to examine your own beliefs on these topics.  I think she would hope so.