Book 6: In the Shadow of the Banyan

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

 

I've been looking forward to reading this novel for a while, even if other books kept getting in the way.  I would like to visit Cambodia one day, mostly to visit Angkor Wat, and a friend of mine lives there.  As a result I was very interested to read about this darker period of Cambodian history which I had only a vague inkling of.

 

Ratner is a descendant of one of the Cambodian kings so this novel is very much drawn on her actual experiences when the Revolutionary soldiers took over Cambodia.  However since she was five when they took over in 1975, she chose to fictionalize her experience which would allow her to streamline her story and simplify the large family she had.  Overall, I think the real life story is fascinating, and there are certainly parts of the novel that were riveting, but in the end, I think I was hoping for more from this.

 

Raami, the novel's seven year old narrator, has lived a life of privilege, surrounded by beauty with her mother, poet-prince father and younger sister.  Up to this point, her largest struggle has been childhood polio which left her with a limp and a weak leg.  When the Khmer Rouge take over, her family is forced to evacuate the capital, and relocate.  Her father gives himself up to protect his family, since he is the most recognizable of the family.  Raami, her sister and her mother are separated from the rest of the family and moved in with an older couple in the country, though they are fortunate with this, as Pok and Mae are a couple that desperately wanted children, and are more than happy to treat this broken family as their own.

 

While I hadn't read about Khmer Rouge or the Democratic Kampuchea before, many of the themes were familiar from stories of other Communist revolutions, especially Maoist China.  The difference is that this uprising seemed to run on an extreme scale and a condensed time line, so that within only a short four year period, there appeared to be several different purges that are similar to ones that occurred over a longer period in China.  However, the fact that the Revolutionaries wanted to change farming practices to be more productive without listening to the farmers' advice is reminiscent of the policies leading to the Great Famine in China.   The way more radical members of the party turn on others who were more idealistic and fair rather than cut throat and opportunistic also rings familiar.  It is sad to see history repeat itself in different locations.  Estimates believe that between one and three million people died in this four year regime, equaling about a quarter to a third of the population.

 

The background of the story is heartbreaking, and some of the scenes and experiences of Raami are as well, especially regarding her family.  By the end, she basically retreats into herself to survive.  Yet despite this, I don't feel like this novel or story affected me the way it could have, and I think it may be the writing style.  There are lots of references to poetry given the father's history, but that alone could have certainly enhanced a stark and devastating story.  Instead, there was just something about the novel that felt more cerebral and kept me at a distance rather than truly making me care as much as I should have about the characters.  Perhaps there was too much detail, too much description of some things over others.  I'm not entirely sure, because the scenes that work really work.  Unfortunately, I haven't read any other books, fiction or nonfiction, about Cambodia so I can't compare, but as far as books about oppressive regimes there are better ones out there.  This one isn't completely without merit, but it wouldn't be among the first I'd recommend.

Book 5: Thirteen

Thirteen (Women of the Otherworld, Book 13) by Kelley Armstrong

 

This is the concluding novel of the Women of the Otherworld series, and wraps up the Savannah Levine trilogy that started with Waking the Witch.  Overall, I think it was a very fitting ending, though I don't think Savannah is really one of my favorite narrators.  That honor would be reserved for Elena, Eve and Jaime.  Still, it makes sense that the novel would end with Savannah as she is the middle between the next generation of women and the ones that made up the majority of the series.

 

The world of this series was so large and developed that were was no way Armstrong could have truly wrapped up everything, and she doesn't.  While the main case of this trilogy is concluded, and the characters all face the threat of supernatural exposure, there is so much more left open, basically treating this as yet another novel in the series, with slighlty larger stakes, and a grown up and adult Savannah at the end who has finally realized it is time to move on and become her own person, no longer quite so reliant on others or so self-indulgent.

 

There are still plenty of questions about the future, including Lucas and the Cabal, and just life in general.  I'm sure Armstrong needed a break from the series after ten years, and this works.  It basically shows that all the characters are going to keep fighting the good fight.  While Savannah is the main narrator of this, each previous narrator gets a chapter from her perspective thrown in, which is nice.  I also enjoyed how one previously dead character's fate ends up being different from what had been thought, and would love to see where that ended up!  In fact, I would definitely enjoy it if Armstrong ever returned to this world, maybe fast forwarded ten or fifteen years when the twins are adults.  While not every novel in the series is great, the majority of them are rather entertaining, and I can definitely recommend the series as a whole.  I gave up on Sookie Stackhouse over halfway through, but this one has kept my interest the entire time.

Book 4: Spell Bound

Spell Bound (Women of the Otherworld, Book 12) by Kelley Armstrong

 

Spell Bound takes off immediately where Waking the Witch left off, with Savannah's powers gone.  After regretting how the last case ended, she had made a wish that she would gladly give up her spells if only she could fix some of the problems her investigation caused.  As it turns out, someone took her up on her offer.  Having already finished the concluding trilogy of the series, I will say that this one does kind of fill like a middle book.  Waking the Witch introduces Savannah as a narrator and begins some of the plot lines that will run through the rest of the series, while Thirteen wraps them all up.  Spell Bound, in comparison, definitely feels like it's getting things into place.  Since it is Armstrong, it is a very action packed getting things into place, but the central mystery/story isn't that memorable compared to the other two of the trilogy.

 

Basically, it turns out there is a group of supernaturals that want to expose themselves to humans, and possibly even rule over them.  This impending war has lots of people taking sides - most of the knowledegeable supernaturals, such as the Cabals and the Council know that it is not worth the risks, but some supernaturals that aren't as involved and are more on the outskirts are tired of hiding.  Even the afterworld is seeing chaos, and demons are taking sides - Savannah's demon grandfather and Adam's demon father are on opposite sides of the dispute.  While this supernatural exposure threat is looming, Savannah doesn't have her powers and she has discovered that the witch hunters are not a fairy tale after all, having become the target of one during her last case.  Much of the novel involves these three threads, and how Savannah faces the fact that she has relied overly much on her powers without doing the proper work.  Given the threat, basically all the other characters from previous novels are called in and appear at one point or another, including Savannah's brother Bryce who ends up being a key part of this novel.  Even Eve and Kristof Nast show up through communications with Jaime Vegas.

 

Overall, I think it was a fun ride like most of Armstrong's novels but I also think this one wouldn't have stood as well on its own, without me having the follow up novel on hand.  In general when I read a series, I try to make myself review one before I read the next but since Armstrong switches up the narrators, I haven't followed that rule as closely with her novels.  There was much less danger of the lines blurring as far as what occured in which book given that they all had distinct stories and different main characters.  This is definitely not the case with these last three because they all have the same narrator, there is so much going on, and the last three novels take place over the course of a week or so.

Book 3: Waking the Witch

Waking the Witch (Women of the Otherworld, Book 11) by Kelley Armstrong

 

After being introduced as a 12 year old girl in the second novel of the series, Savannah Levine narrates the 11th book in the series as a 21 year old.  For the most part, this novel falls very much in line with the rest of the series, though there is more focus on Savannah growing up, and less on romantic entanglements.  Savannah is an odd character in ways - she has always been presented as spunky, saracastic, very independent and yet when it came time to leave and go to college, she chose to remain in Portland and work as a receptionist at Lucas and Paige's investigation agency.  Still, she is tired of being the assistant, and with Paige and Lucas on vacation, and Adam out of town, she jumps at the chance to take the lead on a nearby case.

 

Jesse, another supernatural PI, brings her in on the case.  Two women were killed, execution style in the fall, and now six months later, another woman has been found.  There are clues that this may have involved something supernatural or a ritual of some sort.  Savannah quickly discovers the two main suspects of the case but she can't quite see the supernatural angle if it involves them.  She also develops a bit of a connection with the 8 year old daughter of one of the first two murder victims.  A lot of the things in the case just don't quite add up, and two more people end up dead.  As it turns out, there is more going on than Savannah realizes when she picks up the case.  I had my suspicions of a certain character early on, but Armstrong adds in a few twists I wasn't expecting at all.

 

This novel is a bit different from the rest of the series because while it certainly begins and closes the novel's central mystery, it leaves more unfinished threads than previously novels.  Additionally, it is the first one to end on a cliff hanger.  While they have all had somewhat open endings, implying that certain things would happen as a result of the novel's actions, only Savannah's novel ends with some of the plot lines still in the middle or beginning.  I had already been previously warned that the last three novels are a trilogy compared to the rest of the series, so fortunately, I had the next two novels ready to dive into.

Book 2: Bellman and Black

Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield

I'm pretty sure that my reaction upon completing a book isn't supposed to be "so what was the point/ what the fuck did I just read?"  I don't think every book needs to have a deeper message (which this one kind of did, but it was a bit cliche, hence the "what's the point") or even a super exciting plot as long as I feel entertained.  Unfortunately, the novel ran out of steam for me about halfway through, which is really unfortunate because I loved The Thirteenth Tale by the same author.

Even this novel had several things going for it but in the end they didn't come together for me.  Though it was set in the Victorian Age, it felt like a fairy tale, especially in the beginning, and I actually quite liked that.  I liked the hints at a larger picture, since it begins with tracing everything back to the time William killed a rook.  When later in life his friends and family start to die, it is hard not to ask if there is something more behind it all, some meaning.  The writing is beautiful, and the story develops a great atmosphere but halfway through I began to think that the atmosphere was in and of itself the point, and wasn't actually building towards anything.

Goodreads has the title listed as Bellman and Black: A Ghost Story, and while one could argue that the main character is haunted, especially towards the last half of the novel as he occasionally will think he is forgetting something vital and finds his sleep disturbed by vague remembrances, it is not at all a traditional ghost story or anything like that - basically it's misleading to think of it that way.

After the novel introduces William Bellman, the ten year old who kills the rook, it flashes forward to him as a restless and charming seventeen year old.  Though he is the grandson of the mill owner, his father angered his family, and William has certainly not been accepted into it.  However, his uncle Paul has an interest in the boy, and gives him a job at the mill.  From here, the novel chronicles William's hard work and success at the mill as he comes up with innovations, and earns his uncle's respect.  At first the novel gives one the idea that William could easily have been a drifter but with this one opportunity, he becomes a steadfast and stable businessman whom fortune favors.  As time passes, friends and family die, but it is only when the flu sweeps through the village and threatens his family that William questions whether he has earned his good luck.

This is the turning point of the novel as William believes he made a deal, and from here on he tries to remember the terms of that deal as he develops a whole new empire, the store Bellman and Black, named after a man he has seen at all the funerals he has attended, and the man he may have made a deal with.  It is this part of the novel that sets it firmly in the Victorian Era as Setterfield explores the the funeral and mourning traditions of that time period.  Mourning was huge in the Victorian Age, and Queen Victoria herself certainly took part in the extensive (and excessive) rituals developed at that time.  Unfortunately as interesting as the details of the novel were - and I loved the descriptions and all the minor details about the store -, it is at this point that the book lost its footing.  While I was curious if there was something more to Black when he was a funeral guest in Bellman's life, after their interaction in the cemetery, the novel seems to stumble along without its plot.  I stopped caring about William because he stopped caring, becoming so lost in his work that he no longer had the charming personality of the previous parts of the novel.  I know this is part of the message of the novel but I can't say I really cared much more for any of the other characters at this point.

The novel has the occasional few pages between chapters about rooks, and those were poetically written, adding to the potential of the novel and the possible mystery that ended up getting lost.  In fact, those passages and the writing in general were one of the main reasons I debated between whether or not this would rate a 3 or a 2 on Goodreads, but I ended up going towards the 2 because despite the fact that I really liked the last page and other parts of the novel, it didn't work for me as a whole.  Given my love of The Thirteenth Tale, that was very disappointing.

Book 1: Hitler's Furies

Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower

 

The idea behind this book was to explore the role of women in Nazi Germany, and how they participated or collaborated with the regime, only to be mostly ignored in the post war time years, while instead the myth of the German martyr women, victims of rape and air attacks on the home front took hold. While I liked the book and thought Lower made an interesting argument, it felt all too brief, more like this is the beginning of an area of study.  For example, she does not focus on the female camp guards who have already been documented, but instead chooses to look specifically at the women that had were in the know, and some cases had the power and authority to effect things and how they handled themselves.  She looks at the secretaries that signed and typed the orders, the nurses that adminstered the euthanasia, the wives that supported their husbands.

 

Her argument is that more women participated in the killing than previously thought, and most certainly more people knew more about what was going on.  While many of them may not have been in a position to stop things, they could certainly decide how to react, and whether to visit the ghettoes of East Europe or profit from seized and stolen goods.  In fact some women who were outside the system even chose to take actions that would never have been expected of them, such as wives killing Jews alongside their husbands.

 

The biggest problem is that while her stories are compelling, she focuses on such a small group of women.  It certainly makes sense that there were more like them but she still does not entirely have the statistics she needs to prove her argument rather than simply make a case.  There are so many points that are touched on briefly in this book that I wish would have been elaborated on further.  For example, she begins to talk about the teachers sent to the East and how they collaborated and helped a system that allowed the Nazis to kill parents and take children that looked "racially promising."  She touches on the nurses, and how they felt they were doing the humane thing by relieving the suffering of the disabled.  She talks about how the women were raised and came of age in an authoritative community and with Hitler's rise to power.  She also briefly discusses some aspects of society that were particularly interesting from a gender studies perspective: while the Nazis worshipped mothers and talked about how they were the most important people in the Reich (after all, how else would one breed more little Aryans), women also had unprecedented professional opportunities as a result of the regime.  The same regime that encouraged women to return to traditional, conservative values also gave them power.

 

Additionally, when women were actually were charged with crimes, they could use tears and say that it was their husbands' influence to protect themselves for significant punishment.  I think there is certainly more to be explored within this area, but unfortunately this book wasn't as comprehensive as I would have liked, focusing on a rather narrow number of women.  Still, it joins other books that show just how extensive collaboration was, and how much everyone needed to do their assigned parts to make the system work.  Additionally, like Children of the Flames, it demonstrates just how much people got away with and how few were actually held accountable for the mass murders of anyone considered undesirable and attempted genocide of a people.

Book 148: Devil's Brood

Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman

I actually read the first two novels in this trilogy at the beginning of the year, and have had this one since February but have been hesitant to read this for two reason - I just wasn't sure if I was in the mood for this kind of commitment since it is a large book, and I didn't look forward to proceeding to this part of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's marriage.  Their story is just so sad and depressing.  Henry conquered back the crown stolen from his mother, united his lands, married Eleanor, a powerful duchess in her own right, only to have it all crumble.  Henry truly loves his sons and his wife, but he is also unable to share power.  As a result, his family rebels against him as they try to assert their authority.  This would be bad enough in a normal family, but in this case that means wars on the continent.

The other thing is that none of Henry's sons are his equal.  Geoffrey seems to come close in this portrayal, having the intelligence necessary to lead and unite men, while Hal, the heir, is just charming but easily led, and Richard is a brilliant war commander but his other governing choices are problematic.  Henry had a temper, and of course, the death of Becket is part of his legacy as well, but he was also a very intelligent ruler - he was tolerant of the Jews, especially in those days, had common sense, and he implemented such things as juries.  His dispute with Becket was about the unfairness of the Church being the ones to pass judgement on any clerics that had acted illegally - the Church couldn't punish anyone to death so if a priest turned out to be a serial killing rapist, the church could excommunicate him, but not execute him.

Anyway, this novel does a very good job of chronicling the last years of Henry's life, the misunderstandings, mistakes and betrayals.  The trilogy is super detailed and not light reading.  In the first novel, Penman introduced a fictional Welsh uncle for Henry - obviously having a fictional character means she can place them in all kinds of situations and make them witness to more than a normal historical character might have been.  The uncle plays a much reduced role in this novel after being one of the main characters of the first novel.  Henry II has so much going on in these pages that any extra people would simply have made an already full book overstuffed.

Book 147: The Subjection of Women

The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill

I thought I'd read this in college but it turns out I'd only read a chapter of it.  When I chose to focus on The Woman in White and gender, I thought this would be a good reference since Mill published it about ten years after Collins' novel, and both have things to say about women.

Honestly, for something that was written over a hundred years ago, it is rather impressive how much Mill's argument still holds up, and honestly, there are people that could still learn from his words.  He argues for the vote for women and for providing equal opportunities.  He basically compares marriage in its 19th century state to slavery and speaks out against property laws and rights.  He argues against the idea of nature as a determinant in relationships between men and women because there is no way to know what nature looked like and if we go by nature, that would basically give strong men the right to rule over weak men based on might alone.  Basically, he argues that nature is no longer used as a justification for anything unless it involves women.

Mill isn't opposed to marriage, simply in its present state.  He believes that marital friendship is important, and that having men be the masters is bad for both men and women.  Only partnership with an equal can lead to people improving themselves and bettering themselves.

That isn't to say this is perfect, especially from a 21st century perspective.  Mill, for example, believes that most women would choose to be more involved in the home rather than seeking public office but considering that there are still people that believe that today, the rest of his beliefs are very progressive.  Additionally, unlike many of his contemporaries he at least makes the argument that women should be given the opportunity to seek those offices if they want them - after all not all men are cut out for those positions but that doesn't prevent the entire gender from seeking them out. 

I would also say his argument is easy to follow, and it is written a concise and clear manner.  As someone that is occasionally wary of both philosophy and classics, I was pleasantly surprised by how accessible this was.

Book 146: Frostbitten

Frostbitten (Women of the Otherworld, Book 10) by Kelley Armstrong

This novel returns to Elena as a narrator.  Pursuit of a mutt leads her and Clayton to Alaska.  This actually works out for them since former pack members Dennis and Joey Stillwell live in Alaska, and they have had reports of mysterious deaths.  None of these three reasons alone would have been enough to justify a trip to Alaska but in combination, they do make for a worthwhile trip.

It quickly turns out that there is much more going on, involving a gang of criminal werewolves.  While there are a few other things going on as well, such as an odd beast like creature and another strange werewolf, this is actually one of the more straightforward recent plots.  Instead the focus is on Elena as she realizes she has not worked through some of her issues and vulnerabilities.  The relatively simple plot gives Elena a chance to come to terms with her past fears and begin to grasp the idea that Jeremy has chosen her as the next Alpha.

I know the next three books focus on Savannah, and I'm very curious to see what will happen. The last few books have been slowly hinting at changes in the supernatural, and what this may mean.  For example, Elena's children are the first werewolves known born of two werewolves rather than a werewolf and a human; another recent novel involved humans actually making use of magic, and there are also new species showing up - in some cases, these are old species that have remained hidden and in others they are signs of evolution.  I'm definitely excited to see how this all wraps up, even if this means I have to find a new series.

Book 145: The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

 

This was such a fun and clever idea.  I have read various history books about people or events occuring in Medival England, but Mortimer focuses on the people and customs of the time, breaking it down in various categories to help bring the period and people to life.

 

His descriptions provide a helpful context for why people did what they did, and such small details for how long travel would take, thus explaining how fast news could possibly travel.  The parts I enjoyed most were the ones about the customs, medical and hygience practices, and the law.  While I also found the landscape, and how to travel parts informative, they were among my less favorite - for some reason, I can only take so much description before zoning out, and while some of the fact about travel were interesting, once we started discussing models of ships, I was a bit less interested - I wouldn't exactly be that interested in current day models of cars or transportation, either.

 

I think this is a great supplement for people interested in Medieval England - while he alludes to historic event, he tries to focus as much as possible on the customs, traditions and daily life.  As a result, it provides whole different perspective on history.  However, while I guess I am now prepared to go back in time, I can't say I'm ready to give up my medical access or running toilets.  Or potatoes.

 

Book 144: Living with the Dead

Living with the Dead (Women of the Otherworld, Book 9) by Kelley Armstrong

 

The core of this story is very good.  While it doesn't introduce a new group of supernaturals, it does introduce a hidden community of them, namely the kumpania for clairovoyants.  In many ways, this community is rather cult-like but it also claims to have solved the problem of insanity that plagues most clairovoyants living on their own.

 

The main character is Robyn, a human friend of Hope's, who gets caught in the cross hairs of a supernatural issue.  Adele is trying to sell herself to the Nast Cabal and leave behind the kumpania, but thinks that Robyn has some evidence that could get her in trouble.  It quickly turns out that Adele is a psychopath who has no problem manipulating people and leaving a trail of bodies to cover herself.

 

The detective assigned to the case is a necromancer, though a fairly weak one, but he is not actually aware of the supernatural community and has never even heard the term necromancer until this novel.  Given that Robin is a human and has no idea of the supernatural world, and Finn is a supernatural with no knowledge of the supernatural community, the novel is set up for a lot of confusion.  For example, Paige and Karl assume that Finn is on the Cabal's payroll, and everyone else also assumes that the other characters are working for various agents and agencies.  As a result of all this, there is quite some confusion which got a bit tedious.

 

The novel shifts between Adele, Robyn, Finn, and Hope, and like in the last novel, Hope barely has control of her powers.  While her connection to Robyn was incredibly relevant to the novel, the Karl/Hope part was the least favorite part of the story for me.  Oddly enough, none of the narratives are in first person, unlike Armstrong's previous novels.  While I enjoyed this one, I'm looking forward to the next one which is an Elena focused novel because I need a break from Hope.

 

 

 

Book 143: Daughters Who Walk This Path

Daughters Who Walk This Path by Yejide Kilanko

 

While this is mostly the personal story of Morayo, Kilanko also touches on a lot of different cultural and historical aspects of Nigeria.  Morayo is the older of two daughters, and for the most part her family is rather modern - her sister is albino, and her parents recognize that this is the result of a recessive gene and not some superstition.  However, they are also very strict in regards to what is proper, especially regarding their daughters and proper behaviors.

 

Morayo's parents have close ties to their families and as a result, her older cousin Bros T comes to stay with her family when he becomes too much for his mother to handle.  At first, he seems to reform, but eventually he rapes Morayo.

 

Her aunt Morinke is the only one that Morayo feels comfortable talking to, and the novel explores the silence that surrounds rapes, the way that the women often feel like they are on their own, and how they respond as they get older.  Kilanko, however, doesn't believe this has to be the way, and even shows one character who receives a very different reaction than Morayo following her rape.

 

In addition to Morayo's personal story where she struggles with the gender inequalities in her community, the novel addresses some of the political corruption in Kenya, and the difficulty of progress.  She also makes a passing reference to different cultural stereotypes and prejudices since Morayo falls for an Igbo boy.  While I don't know much about Nigerian history, I do know that the Igbo were one of the groups persecuted during the Civil War in Nigeria (read A Half of a Yellow Sun for more information on that time period).

 

I really liked this novel, and the characters that Kilanko created - Aunt Morinke is such a strong and interesting character, and she alone makes this novel worth the read.

Book 142: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

 

This wasn't a quick read by any means.  It was definitely a good book, and Marra did a very good job of humanizing all his characters, providing background to all of them and showing how the war affected people with just little snippets, but it definitely wasn't something that I could just quickly read or get absorbed.  It took me a few chapters to adjust to his style, to get to know the characters and to get invested.  Having said that, it's one of those books that I was glad I read after I completed it, and it definitely pays off, so while there is so much that is dark, there is also hope in the ending.

 

After Dokka is taken, Akhmed finds Havaa in the forest, and decides he must save her life.  Dokka was his best friend and he feels he owes him a debt.  Due to the flow of refugees that has come through the village in previous years, Akhmed knows the name of a surgeon at a hospital over 11 kilometers away, and takes Havaa there for protection.  This surgeon is a Russian in Chechnya, and trained in England but returned to her home because of her sister Natasha.  When Akhmed appears at her hospital, Natasha has disappeared for the second time.

 

Akhmed is medically trained and convinces Sonja to let Havaa stay in return for his services even though he may be the worst doctor in the country (but a tolerable portrait artist).  Though it takes a while to really get going and connect, eventually the cast starts to come together, revealing hidden connections, family secrets and betrayals.  The story flashes back and forth over a ten year period, between the present day of 2004, and as far back as 1994.  With his selection of characters, Marra is able to touch on a large variety of aspects of Chechen history, including relocation and the population of the area with ethnic Russians, the slave and sex trafficking that took advantage of the women of a war torn country, and various other stories and people, small and large.

 

Eventually, everything ties together rather poetically, and I ended up quite liking the novel, but I would say it took me over half the novel to really get into it.  Basically, save this one for when you have the time and concentration and aren't just looking for a quick escape.

Book 141: Tales of the Otherworld

Tales of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong

 

While this collection of stories was also fun, it didn't have the same unifying theme as Men of the Otherworld, and instead gives glimpses into some characters that seem more random as well as the main characters.

 

For example, it kicks off with a story about Aaron, which sheds more light onto how vampires are created (while there is more than one way, it starts out as a genetic mutation for Aaron).  There is also a short story about Logan, Elena's friend from earlier in the series, who also plays a role in one of the longer novellas of this book: the story of how Elena and Clayton met.  While Elena has already implied or revealed much of this, in this novella, the details are revealed, and it alternates between Elena's and Clayton's perspectives.  While readers already know that Clayton bit Elena, in this book, that part is told from Clayton's perspective, and shows exactly what was going on in his mind.

 

There are also a few stories involving Lucas and Paige such as their wedding and another case, but the other highlight of the book is the story about Eve and Kristof, and how they met, developed a relationship and fell in love.  Overall, the book is definitely worth a read but feels more like a collection of stories (which it is) than Men of the Otherworld did.

 

Book 140: Men of the Otherworld

Men of the Otherworld: A Collection of Otherworld Tales by Kelley Armstrong

 

As Armstrong explains in the foreword, she started releasing novellas and short stories related to the Otherworld series on her website every December, and this book is the first to take a selection of those and compile them into one volume.  This focuses exclusively on the men of the Pack, and could really be described as Jeremy's rise to power.  He only narrates the last of the four selections but it is all about him, and it is really perfectly set up.

 

The first story is told from the 3rd person limited, focusing on Malcolm Danvers, Jeremy's father, and Jeremy's conception and birth.  The story reveals that his mother was a supernatural in her own right and she and her family chose Malcolm to strengthen their bloodline though she obviously didn't count on Malcolm tracking her and Jeremy down before she could escape with him.  The next two novellas are told from Clayton's perspective and deal with his turning and Jeremy's "taming" of him as he becomes his guardian and gets him into the Pack.  I love Clayton as a narrator.  He is so matter of fact about so many things.  Clayton's second novella chronicles Jeremy's rising star in the Pack and the eventual stand off between Jeremy and Malcolm for leadership of the Pack.

 

The fourth story is narrated by Jeremy, taking place after he and Jaime have gotten together, and brings the narrative full circle.  After seeing Jeremy's supernatural origins on both sides, and witnessing his rise to power, this final story reveals more about his mother's origins.  While it doesn't answer much of anything and raises more questions, at least it gives Jeremy something to research and I hope to see more about this in the next novels of the series.

 

I really enjoyed this collection, and am glad that she compiled them into a book because I'm not always very good about going out and looking for electronic versions of stories.

Book 139: Personal Demon

Personal Demon (Women of the Otherworld, Book 8) by Kelley Armstrong

 

This one starts out very strong and interesting, but I wasn't enjoying it as much by the end.  Hope Adams, chaos demon, tabloid reporter of the fake supernatural and council member, is recruited by Benito Cortez to pay up on a debt she owes him and infiltrate a gang of supernaturals in Miami.  This gang has been disgruntled with the Cabal, but this is nothing new.  However, Cortez is concerned because they seem to be taking more actions against the Cabal and causing more trouble.  He wants her to pretend to be someone else to get into the group since given the rarity of her specific type of half demon they would surely be glad to have her.

 

I like Hope when she is in investigative reporter mode and she seems generally self reliant on her own in that mode.  Parts of her powers are quite interesting since she can tell when someone has chaotic thoughts, such as when they might be planning to make a violent move against someone, and she can also tell where violence has occurred and what has occured.  Those both seem like good skills to have.  However, she is attracted by the chaos so once she gets to a place that can feed this hunger in her, she basically becomes useless and a liability.  While Jaime might feel like she isn't that helpful and is a damsel in distress, at least she would be able to walk out of a scene.  With Hope that isn't guaranteed.  As a result, I think Hope may be my least favorite narrator.

 

Hope also had been flirting around with Karl, the werewolf, for quite a while but when they finally acted on it, it didn't go well.  He is back in the picture now, and Hope is trying to determine what his intentions are.  While Hope is investigating the gang, she is also in communication with Lucas to ensure his father plays it straight.  Lucas actually narrates a few chapters.

 

Overall, I liked the story that developed, and there were quite a few threads to tie together as no one is ever quite sure who to trust when a Cabal is involved, so I enjoyed the story, I just didn't really enjoy Hope as a narrator.  This is the first novel of the series that had multiple narrators, too (some of the others have had scenes from a different perspective but never to this extent).  I can't believe that I'm already over halfway done with the series.  I'm enjoying them so much, I'm actually kind of sad that I'm coming closer to the end.

Book 138: Time and Again

Time and Again by Jack Finney

 

I'm not entirely sure why but I thought this novel was a bit of a minor classic for time travel novels.  I was expecting something slightly whimsical and fun that would follow around the narrator as he enjoyed 19th century New York City, similar to The Little Book by Selden Edwards.  Instead I got this thing with lots of descriptions and barely any plot.

 

Now, I know I've said this a few times when talking about historical fiction but one challenge that authors face and that the best overcome very well is how to incorporate their research organically without feeling like a data dump or them showing off - just because you learned how to make soap 17th century style doesn't mean I need all the details.  A time travel novel faces this challenge as well, but to a lesser degree.  After all, if the narrator is from the modern day, he is going to notice the differences and remark on them so the author gets to show off his research and knowledge more.  However, that shouldn't happen to the detriment of the plot so when a four hundred page novel feels like two hundred pages of straight up, long and tedious description, something has gone wrong.

 

First off, this novel was first published in 1970, and is set in that time frame so I may have been missing a bit of cultural context, such as disillusionment with the government due to Vietnam as well as just local occurences in Manhattan, so my reaction may be a bit more critical as a result of this.  Anyway, the novel begins in its idea of modern, so late 1960's/1970, when Simon, the narrator, is approached to join a secret government project.  Simon is intrigued and becomes a member of a experiment attempting to test time travel.  Their idea behind time travel is rather simple, and eventually, Simon successfully finds himself in 1882 Manhattan.  It takes over a quarter of the novel to get to the past but at this point the novel wasn't irritating me. I figured it was a slow burn - I wasn't exactly excited to pick it up each evening but I also wasn't put off by it.

 

Now, the reason Simon went back to 1882 is because his girlfriend Kate has a letter that her guardian had kept from his father dated 1882, and the agency was willing to let Simon pursue his whim to find out more about the letter.  So the whole plot of the novel revolves around Simon finding out more about the letter and its sender, Jake, which leads to him staying at the same boarding house and falling for Jake's girlfriend Julia.  Eventually, Simon decides that Jake is evil, and Julia could do better, so he is willing to risk the course of history to prevent a woman from a bad marriage (this all happens within a four or five day period at most).  Yep, that's the plot.  There's also a fire and lots of other stupidity.  And descriptions of store fronts.  And a carriage driver that gives a page and a half speech about the horrible work conditions.  Despite this speech, Simon continues to romanitcize the 19th century.  Seriously, you know how everyone now is obsessed with the "good old days" of the 1950s?  That nostalgia for a time that never happened - well, apparently in the 1960s this nostalgia was for the 1880s.

 

And I think that may be my biggest gripe about the novel - the past and history are interesting, but there is no such thing as the perfect time period.  Look deeper and under the glitz and glamour there will be bad things.  Simon may be disillusioned but escaping to the past isn't the solution.  He has this whole rant about the evils of the 20th century, including World War I, World War II, the atomic bomb, pollution and the killings of civilians in Vietnam and how that shows that humans are just horrible.  While that may be true, I'm not sure how that makes 1882 better - Simon says the evils of the 20th century may have their root in the past but he certainly has rose coloured glasses on.  I'm sure the indigenous populations of Australia and America would have something to say about the concept of genocide as a 20th century invention, and I doubt that the victims of Wounded Knee would think that armies in the 19th century were kinder and gentler towards civilians.  In fact, if I were to blame someone for World War I, I'm pretty sure I'd point to someone alive in 1882 over someone alive in 1970.  But you know, whatever, the past is so much better!  He basically thinks people in the past were more alive and interested in their surroundings.  I had a similar problem with King's 11/22/63 because I thought he talked too much about the good of the past and neglected the evils of it, but King at least seemed to realize the trap he was falling into and tried to compensate.  Finney just dives in head first.  Basically, I don't recommend this one.  At all.

Book 137: The Imperfectionists

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

 

I remember seeing this everywhere a few years back but it never quite caught my interest.  When I saw it again on one of the tables at Barnes and Noble (it may have been the "buy two get one free" display), I recalled that denesteak had liked it (she's the first Cannoballer I had the opportunity to meet!), and picked it up, though it took me a few more months to actually read it.

 

While I don't like short stories, I enjoy the occasional novel that is a series of vignettes and chapters told from the perspectives of related characters.  In this case, each chapter is told from the point of view of a different member of an English language newspaper headquartered in Rome, and each chapter ends with a few pages about the history of the paper itself which had its start in 1950s/1960s.

 

The thing is that while this has its amusing bits, it's a rather poignant and sad story.  Most of the characters are not that happy, or if they are, they become less so over the course of their chapter as they deal with rejections and upsets in their professional and/or personal lives.  Even the creation of the newspaper is sad as it is clearly an act of love on the part of a man that missed the chance to spend his life with the woman he truly loved, instead pursuing the life he should lead in favor of the one he wanted.

 

The characters I enjoyed the most include Arthur Gopal, the obituary writer, son of a famous reporter who is perfectly content with as a mediocre job performer because it gives him time to be with his family; Herman Cohen, the corrections editor, who realizes that he is happy and has lived his life to the fullest; Craig Menzies, news editor, a sweet and kind man who watches his personal life fall apart; Orenella, a loyal reader; and Oliver Ott, the publisher, whose family put him in this position despite knowing he did not have the proper skills, and who avoids everyone except for his bassett hound, his only friend and companion.  There were a few other characters that just made me feel uncomfortable, such as Hardy Benjamin because I wanted so much better for her, and I couldn't help but feel bad for Winston Cheung who gets used and manipulated by a journalist in Cairo.

 

The novel documents the struggles of the newspaper industry in the world of the internet as they face cuts after cuts.  Overall, it's definitely worth the time, and is a very engaging read about people, relationships, settling for less, the decaying newspaper industry and people's problems communicating.

 

Book 136: No Humans Involved

No Humans Involved (Women of the Otherworld, Book 7) by Kelley Armstrong

 

Jaime Vegas finally gets her chance to narrate, and as much as I love Elena, I think Jaime and Eve are definitely up there with her for my favorite narrators in this series.  I like Paige but these others are just more fun - it might just be that I really don't like Lucas and Paige's whole playful reward system of sexual favors for successful spell casting.  I mean I get what she is trying to do, but it makes them seem more immature in at least that respect than the rest of the couples.

 

I think one of the reasons I enjoy Jaime so much is that even though she is supernatural, she is still very relatable because her powers leave her vulnerable compared to the rest of the characters - she doesn't have spells, or super strength; she communes with the dead, and can raise them though she really tries to avoid that as much as possible.  While Jaime is in California for her regular job as a celebrity medium, she stumbles across something that may require her involvement as a necromancer and a council member.

 

Since Armstrong intermixes a few short scenes from the villains' perspective, the reader already knows that the strange phenomena that Jaime is feeling are actually the result of human sacrifice.  However, there is something off about these sacrifices and deaths because the spirits are not interacting with Jaime the way normal ghosts should.  As Jaime tries to solve this case with the help of Jeremy who has come to visit, she must do so surrounded by other celebrity mediums (only she is a true necromancer) without raising any suspicions.  After years on the celebrity circuit, Jaime has a shot at a television show if this current project goes well: she and two other celebrities are living in a house together to contact the spirit of Marilyn Monroe for a TV special.  Jaime soon realizes that the producers are perhaps less interested in the seance part of this as much as pitting the three of them against each other for a celebrity medium version of The Real World.

 

The novel introduces a new character (well, I think she was introduced in a short story, but for the novel readers, she is new), Hope Adams, a tabloid journalist and half chaos demon, and while there are a few short scenes with Paige and Lucas, this is mostly Jaime's novel.  I quite enjoyed the phone conversation with Elena and Clay, and how their two children, born in the last novel, are already developing distinct personalities for the readers based simply on phone conversations and stories from Jeremy and Jaime.  Also, after years of crushing on Jeremy, he appears to finally have caught on to Jaime's interest and is even reciprocating though how he feels about the idea of a relationship and being the Alpha is another issue the two have to address over the progression of the story.

Book 135: Defending Jacob

Defending Jacob by William Landay

 

Andy Barber, the novel's narrator, used to be the assistant district attorney in his community until his fourteen year old son Jacob was implicated in a murder he plans to try.  Given his obvious conflict of interest, Andy is put on sabbatical or suspension as his family must deal with the repercussions.

 

As the novel progresses, Andy's family history comes back to haunt him, even though he has been avoiding his family's past for years.  The parts of the novel that I found most interesting were the ones where Andy explains the legal process and what goes on behind the scenes.  It becomes clear very quickly that simply being suspected or accused of a crime is enough to ruin a family and a life, especially if the family isn't rich to begin with.  The loss of income and job alone have a huge impact on a family's finances and that doesn't even address the costs of a defense laywer, and whatever professional witnesses are used.  Andy also makes the case that the system is less reliable than believed since the officers and lawyers soon focus on one specific scenario and find the witnesses and evidence that back it up.

 

Despite all these failures in the system, I was not at very convinced by Andy's case for his son.  Andy loves his son, unquestioningly, but that also means he isn't the most reliable narrator.  Or actually, it's less a matter of reliability or trustworthiness since he isn't trying to mislead the reader - he is trying to convince himself, or is in true denial about even the possibility of his son's involvement.  He believes he knows who the killer is, and like the legal system he presents to the reader, he will not look at any other evidence.

 

I thought the things that the novel portrayed about the legal system were fascinating, and Landay did a good job of portraying a family on the verge of collapse.  In the end the novel doesn't care about guilt or innocence, and while I certainly have my own beliefs, this book is much more than a whodunit, and much more of an analysis of family and the law.  While the novels are nothing alike, The Dinner also explores the idea of how much a parent should believe in their child or protect the child.  I had a huge issue with the parents in The Dinner because they knew their child was guilty and protected him anyway.  In Andy's mind, that question never enters his mind.  A parent that can believe no wrong of their child is certainly a problem but at least it's not nearly as reprehensible as one who would protect a murderer from all consequences.