AAPI Heritage Month Reading

| Jessica Crawford

It’s AAPI Heritage Month! Here is a stack of books by Asian American and Pacific Islander authors that I’ve greatly enjoyed, plus my current listen on audio (How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, which I am loving) and a book in my TBR I have on deck (A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal).

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is a science fiction epistolary novella featuring time travel and a queer romance, and was published in 2019. It won Hugo, Locus, Nebula, and Goodreads Choice awards. I read and rated it before I began the habit of writing up reviews on every book I read, so I don’t have my personal thoughts on this one, but I remember being pretty blown away by it. Here is the synopsis:

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

Chlorine by Jade Song is a young adult contemporary fiction novel featuring body horror a la mermaid, published in 2023. I did post my thoughts on this book here in this blog before, but here they are again:

A classic trait of girlhood – forever confusing your desires with that of an older man’s.

Wow!

This book is a little bit like if you crossed The Vegetarian with The Art of Starving. It’s Young Adult contemporary fiction (LGBTQIA+) about Ren Yu, who has loved mermaids ever since she was a little girl. She took to the water right away herself and now swims competitively on her school’s cutthroat swim team. As one of the school’s top swimmers, she has a parasitic relationship with her touchy-feely, quick-to-anger coach, Jim. She and her teammates follow very specific dietary protocols that vacillate between pasta parties and restricting to snacking on small portions of protein throughout the day. Her father leaves to return home to China, she suffers a concussion that threatens her athletic career, and her family expects her to get into an Ivy League school.

Amidst all this stress from a human life catering to human sensibilities and values, Ren Yu experiences an epiphany: she’s not actually a human after all, but has always been a mermaid herself. She is not afraid to take matters into her own hands in order to complete the transformation for her to transcend to her true form.

Star athletes had to be delusional enough to think they could withstand physics and gravity enough to fly up onto the first-place podium and shine with the sheer force of athletic ability; there was nothing more bold than a star, after all, visible with the human naked eye despite its death eons ago.

There were only a couple of things I struggled with in this book. One was the author’s descriptions of being a menstruating woman. If someone’s periods were as Ren Yu’s are described, they should definitely tell their healthcare provider (although, over the course of this book, Ren Yu does learn to not trust in the competence of any medical professionals). And the fact that it took two hours for her mother to teach her how to insert a tampon? And the blood smeared all over the bathroom stall walls and her teammates hands? The trauma of an IUD insertion? I don’t know, maybe this author has just had vastly different experiences with these things than I have, but also I think Ren Yu was supposed to have extreme experiences to assist her in coming to the realization that being a mermaid would be vastly superior to being a human woman. One other part that made me want to gag was two characters getting freaky next to the bathroom where the guy just took a dump and now everything smells like his poop and he asks the girl, “Can you guess what I had to eat?” And then they commence to grind on each other and make out (barf!)

But besides those things, I thought this was a great novel about how the mind can attempt to deal with the pressures and traumas of being an adolescent human.

TW: body dysmorphia, sexual assault

Published in 2018, The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan is another young adult contemporary fiction novel dealing with mental health, this time tied to the grieving process. Sadly, my Goodreads review of this one is basically saying that I forgot to write a review while the details were fresh in my mind, but I do remember that I LOVED this book. Here were my thoughts, such as I could recall at the time:

“Oh, I haven’t written a review for this yet? Well for now suffice it to say there are many haunting and lovely things in this story of a girl who loses her mother to depression, goes to Taiwan to meet her grandparents, and undergoes some fantastical experiences while under the influence of grief and insomnia.”

As mentioned above, I have yet to read A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal, but I have it in my physical TBR and plan to read it soon. For now all I can comment on is that gorgeous cover!

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo is historical fantasy based on Chinese folklore that just came out earlier this year. Again, I posed a review of this book on this blog previously, but in case you missed that, here it is:

An emotional and intriguing tale incorporating elements of Chinese folklore, presented as historical fiction with a side of magical realism.

Chapters alternate between two POVs. Snow’s chapters are told in first person past tense (presented as her diary entries), Bao’s in third person present. Both were equally fascinating, although I did at times take issue with being pulled from one storyline at a particularly good part to shift back to the other. But chapters were never super long, so you never have to wait long to switch back.

Snow is a fox, the kind that can take the form of a human. Once she planned on making the thousand-year journey, a morally refining spiritual pilgrimage, with her mate. But after the greed and cruelty of humans shatters their world, she sets out on a mission of vengeance instead.

Meanwhile, Bao is an older gentleman who has had the ability to hear when someone is lying ever since his childhood nanny prayed to a fox spirit for him. Using his talent, he has become a freelance investigator of sorts. When he is tasked with discovering the identity of a woman found frozen to death in an alleyway, he finds himself on a path that seems to be leading him ever-closer to the subject of a lifelong fixation of his: foxes.

I really liked the unique and fully fleshed characters in this book. The mythological elements added a very nice mysterious and enchanting touch (what is just superstition, and what is something more?). But what resonanted the most with me was the story of grief, and the changes people go through as they process it. I love how the Yangsze Choo’s novels always feature this beautiful mix of magical and moving.

This was a great book, but I think The Ghost Bride by this same author is probably my favorite of her works so far.

I am currently listening to How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu on audio. Published in 2022, it’s dystopian science fiction composed of interconnected stories about a near future that is all too believable. I am loving it, even if it is rather depressing so far! But since I haven’t finished it and written up final thoughts yet, I will just share the synopsis here:

Dr. Cliff Miyashiro arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue his recently deceased daughter’s research, only to discover a virus, newly unearthed from melting permafrost. The plague unleashed reshapes life on earth for generations. Yet even while struggling to counter this destructive force, humanity stubbornly persists in myriad moving and ever inventive ways.

Among those adjusting to this new normal are an aspiring comedian, employed by a theme park designed for terminally ill children, who falls in love with a mother trying desperately to keep her son alive; a scientist who, having failed to save his own son from the plague, gets a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops human speech; a man who, after recovering from his own coma, plans a block party for his neighbours who have also woken up to find that they alone have survived their families; and a widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter who must set off on cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, How High We Go in the Dark follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world. This is a story of unshakable hope that crosses literary lines to give us a world rebuilding itself through an endless capacity for love, resilience and reinvention. Wonderful and disquieting, dreamlike and all too possible.

Please feel free to share here some of your favorite AAPI authors and books!

Book Review: KING NYX by Kristen Bakis

| Jessica Crawford

King Nyx by Kristen Bakis is a 320 page hardcover standalone novel published February 27, 2024 by Liveright (W. W. Norton & Company).

Genres: Historical Fiction, Gothic, Mystery

Opening Line:

Last night I dreamed my husband came back.

“This woman cannot think, she feels.” So the novelist Theodore Dreiser once wrote about Anna Fort, wife of the crypto-scientist Charles Fort. It was this line that inspired author Kristen Bakis to write a story of Anna’s own, albeit a fictional one.

I had heard this book was a Gothic tale that was more about vibes than plot, and I supposed that is pretty much the case (there is certainly plot, but I do think I’d say the pacing is on the slower side). But there were a lot of other elements to this story that I was not expecting.

Anna’s husband writes about verified anomalies that science has failed to offer sufficient explanations for, and who then proposes his own rather outlandish theories. A wealthy recluse invites them to stay on his private island estate while Charles finishes writing his book. But all is not well on Prosper Island.

We learn a lot about Anna’s memories from before her marriage, at a time when she herself experienced something unexplainable and wound up having a mental break and spending time in a sanatorium. This history has her questioning when she can and cannot trust herself and her own thoughts and perceptions. She discovers that one can perform any number of mental gymnastics in order to keep one’s view of the world palatable.

Visitors to Prosper Island are made to quarantine in cabins in the woods for two weeks upon arrival, and it is here Anna and her husband meet another couple, a psychologist and his wife with an oddly antagonistic relationship, who are also guests of the eccentric Mr. Arkel. In fact, the story doesn’t actually arrive at the house itself until very near to the end, and then only briefly.

The story also includes: missing girls (pulled from the penal system and put into a school for domestic service), creepy automata (the most horrifying part of this book, IMO!), and a toy bird elevated to the status of deity. Oh, and several pet parakeets. I wasn’t expecting all of these elements, but they still wound up telling a decent Gothic mystery.

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Book Review: THE MORNINGSIDE by Tea Obreht

| Jessica Crawford

The Morningside by Tea Obreht is a 304 page long dystopian literary fiction novel (with the door left open for a hint of magical realism) first published March 19, 2024 by Random House.

“And I realized that I’d brought you into life at a time when everyone else’s debts had come due.”

This book is narrated by Sil, twelve years old for the majority of the story. She lives in a dystopian version of the world where climate change has really done a number on us. Everyone is expected to do their part to try to help the world heal. Eating meat is illegal. What food you do get depends on what ration cards the government has allotted you this week. Sil and her mother, refugees from a war torn country, are able to move to the once illustrious Island City as part of the Repopulation Program. With the changing tides, much of the island that was once inhabited now lies underwater. Sil and her mother move into the building where Aunt Ena serves as superintendent, a tower of apartments called The Morningside.

Sil’s mother and great aunt couldn’t be more different. As for the former,

The pronouncement of intent, the hubris of self-determination–these did not fit her notion of the universe

She teaches her daughter never to tell anyone their country of origin or to speak their mother tongue outside of the home, never to try to plan for the future but only meet challenges and opportunities as they come, and to leave the past in the past.

Ena on the other hand…

This was part of Ena’s magic. Familiarities you had come to take for granted were transformed by the act of her storytelling. Her version of things became the only one. She could change the reality of something you thought you’d known all your life.

With these two models in her life, even though Ena dies not long after their arrival in Island City (leaving the job of superintendent to Sil’s mother), Sil learns to look for signs of “the world beneath the world”.

I quite liked the writing and tone of this book, but I have to say, all of the characters annoyed me at one point or another. Sil would get so upset with Mila when she in fact was the one being unreasonable. I actually quite hated her mother at times. And at the end, you’re not 100% sure what the real story was with the reclusive wealthy artist Bezi Duras, or the daughter of the warlord Rait Belen, but I gather it’s supposed to be kind of left up in the air for the reader to continue thinking about. In fact, Sil even admits that what is true is not necessarily the point, or at least not the whole of it.

It had been wonderful to stand, however briefly, in the lighted rooms of Ena’s heart and know things as she knew them. But she was dead now. And were you really part of something if you were part of it alone?

This story is sort of unsettling and courageous at the same time, and I quite liked it, even if it’s the ideas I enjoyed more than the details. 4 out of 5 stars.

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Book Review: SISTERS OF THE VAST BLACK

| Jessica Crawford

“We’re all just scattered, lonely specks out here, unless we try to be more. We shouldn’t be brutal just because the universe is.”

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather (first in the Our Lady of Endless Worlds duology) is a novella about an order of nuns traveling through outerspace in a “liveship” (a giant slug bred to be able to transport people within inner chambers and survive vacuum) manages to include SO MUCH MORE than you would expect from a story of this length!

We get to know each of the sisters aboard the Our Lady of Impossible Constellations as they perform consecrations, marriages, baptisms, and funeral rites for various colonies and stations scattered among the stars. We learn about the debilitating war that broke out when Earth resisted losing control of its children that left and spread across the universe. The convent is chagrined as Earth attempts to use them in its renewed bid to bring everyone under a centralized system once again.

And yet, she also knew her history. Religion was a useful arm of the state, often enough. What better way to crush resistance than to own the souls of the people? What better way to spread your government than to tie it to the name of God?

When their liveship receives a distress signal from a new colony, the sisters must decide how best to keep their vows: through obedience to the planet-bound Vatican that does not understand the flexibility required to survive in the vastness of space, or by offering aid and comfort to those most desperate for it.

Some of the feel of this story reminded me a bit of the parts that I liked about the cozy nature of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (a book that otherwise didn’t 100% appeal to me as a reader), and parts of it (the parts having to do with the biology of the space-faring slugs as vehicles of transport) were delightfully sciency. But overall, it was the characters confronting issues regarding ethics, morals, and personal fulfillment that drove this intriguing story.

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Book Review: WHALE FALL by Elizabeth O’Connor

| Jessica Crawford

A whale washes ashore on an isolated Welsh island. A couple from Oxford arrive to research an ethnography of the few remaining residents (those who haven’t moved to the mainland yet to find better prospects than continuing to battle the natural world in an attempt to make lives from fishing and catching lobster). Manod, an eighteen year old woman on the island with good English skills, works for the researchers as a translator until they leave.

And that’s it, that’s the story.

This is a very literary novel that is far from plot-driven. Crafted sentences are sometimes incomplete, comprising paragraphs that may or may not have anything to do with the ones preceding or following them. It did successfully have me feeling transported to the island, feeling the sea spray on my skin and smelling the day’s catch. And I liked how the researchers were writing a book about a way of life that only existed in their minds, using their subjects more than studying them (if this were a plot-driven novel, I would insist on seeing them get their comeuppance!)

But the style of the book just didn’t 100% work for me. It didn’t develop any characters enough to allow me to feel invested in them. I have no idea what the purpose of all the whale bits of the story were for (because there was a whole lot about the whale.) Was it metaphor? If so, for what? And why would you NOT want people to come haul away the months-old giant rotting carcass on your beach?

So in all, this was a 3.5 star mixed bag for me. Kind of sadly beautiful, but not super engaging. I usually really enjoy literary novels, but maybe my tastes in reading are changing now that I am consuming way more books than I ever have before?

Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: THE FAMILIAR by Leigh Bardugo

| Jessica Crawford

This gorgeous book, The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo (author of Six of Crows and Ninth House, among others) is a 387 page standalone adult historical fantasy novel set in sixteenth century Spain.

The opening line:

If the bread hadn’t burned, this would be a very different story.

When Luzia’s employers discover that their scullion can work small magics, “miracles”, she finds attention drawn to her from all sorts of corners. She fears catching the notice of the Inquisition for multiple reasons, but the flames of her ambition are stoked by the opportunity to compete for a place in the king’s service. Her patron’s familiar, a man made immortal through an ill-gotten bargain, is tasked with teaching her how best to wield and control her powers.

I very much liked the romance in this book, unexpected at it was to the characters involved–but the story was about so much more than that and the magic. It was about class, political machinations, being a Jew in a land that would never trust you, and more. There is one particular side character whose journey and personal growth was quite lovely. 4.5 stars, rounded up!

All that being said, I feel as though some die-hard fans of Bardugo’s YA books, or maybe even Ninth House and Hell Bent, will be disappointed in this one. It is a “quieter” book– there is some showy stuff, but it’s more about the feels and reflection on some serious topics. Which is typically more my jam.

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Opening Lines and Book Cover Battle, April 2024

| Jessica Crawford

Of the books I read in the month of April, only The Hunter by Tana French appears to have differing cover designs. Both are fine, but the burning tree image on the UK edition takes the dub this time around.

As for the opening lines of the books I read over the last month, have a gander at these:

Her text came in just before midnight.

The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert

There was a dead girl in my aunt’s bakery.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

Though there’s an industry built on telling you otherwise, there are few real joys to middle age.

Calypso by David Sedaris

At dusk sixteen-year-old Margaret Murphy sits down at a narrow rickety desk in room 127 at Little Ida’s Motor Lodge, eleven miles east of Niagara Falls, and begins to write her confession.

Poor Deer by Clare Oshetsky

Anna kicked off the annual Pace family vacation with a lie.

Diavola by Jennifer Thorne

Trey comes over the mountain carrying a broken chair.

The Hunter by Tana French

We must, by law, keep a record of the innocents we kill.

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

“We could just push them out of windows,” says Leonie.

Cut & Thirst by Margaret Atwood

The Bad One‘s opening line itself doesn’t do much for this reader, but is followed immediately by what that text message was, which is more of a hook.

A dead person in an unexpected place is always intriguing, but the first line of A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking also lets you know from the get go that the story will be equally dark, cozy, and amusing – an interesting mix!

The David Sedaris memoir likewise begins in a way that advertises the humorous nature of the book.

The opening of Poor Deer is great, setting the scene and immediately having the reader want to know more about what a sixteen year old could possibly be confessing.

Diavola starts right off divulging that it is a story about a vacation involving toxic family dynamics. The supernatural elements get introduced later, with the setting of Villa Taccola.

The first line of The Hunter, in my opinion, is very lackluster. It does nothing for me other than have me say, “Oh, Trey – I remember that character from The Searcher.”

Scythe pulls readers in from the beginning by getting them to wonder why innocents are being killed in a way that requires a record.

The opening line of Cut & Thirst also broadcasts the comical nature of the story, with someone genuinely suggesting defenestration. Now the reader wants to know who might wind up being pushed out of windows, and why.

Overall, this was a pretty good reading month for me. So far I am having success meeting my 2024 goal of reading books that are a better fit for me so that my average star rating at the end of the year will be higher. Even the books here that I didn’t love received no less than 3 stars from me. Not too shabby!

Opening Lines Q1 2024

| Jessica Crawford
Art by Bookish Birds, on sale display at Golden Bee Bookshop in Liverpool, NY

It has occurred to me that it might be interesting to do a little deep dive on the opening lines of books I read. At the end of the month maybe I’ll publish a post about this for books I read in April, but for now, let’s see about all of the others I have read so far this year. Here we go!

January’s books:

The lightning seeded the fog with a fire that churned like a restless embryo.

The Fall of Babel by Josiah Bancroft

I dream sometimes about a house I’ve never seen.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Since I barely venture outside these days, I spend a lot of time in one of the armchairs, rereading the books.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Each year when Shesheshen hibernated, she dreamed of her childhood nest.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

Alferes Antonio Sonoro was born with gold in his eyes.

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James

I love being asked to join, so much so that I will say yes to an invitation without knowing exactly what I’ve agreed to.

Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford

The body floats downstream.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

Alright, let’s share our notes about these opening lines from the books I read in January!

I greatly enjoyed The Books of Babel, but that first line from the final book is just, like…wut? It must be especially confusing to someone not familiar with the series, as they wouldn’t already be aware of the lightning and the fog to which this line is referring.

As for Starling House, dreaming about a house you’ve never seen catches the reader’s interest right away. What’s the story there? I Who Have Never Known Men‘s opener is less of a hook, but it does make you wonder why there is only a limited number of books if the narrator is rereading “the” books.

When it comes to Someone You Can Build a Nest In, everything about this monster romance is wonderfully unique, and starting off by introducing a main character who hibernates and grew up in a nest is about as intriguing as it comes! This one takes first prize from me for the January books.

The Bullet Swallower‘s first line is okay, but really requires another line or two to explain what exactly it means. The beginning of comedian Maria Bamford’s memoir is both funny and informative about what you can expect the book to be about.

The opening line of The Frozen River, which I admittedly DNFed (although it has gotten a lot of love from many readers), comes across as kind of uninspired to me, but at least the fact that there is a body involved, one floating in a river no less, might hook you.

February’s books:

“Your future contains dry bones.”

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

On the eve of Mad Purdy’s first class at Elmswood Public Library, all the leaves on the trees turned red over night.

The Parliament by Aime Pokwatka

On Sunday, September 11, 2011, three men were murdered in a second-floor apartment on a dead-end street in Waltham, Massachussetts.

The Waltham Murders by Susan Clare Zalkind

Being a serial killer who kills serial killers is a great hobby…

Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver

Perhaps you know this story: Late one evening, a beautiful woman comes knocking on an unsuspecting scholar’s door.

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

So personally I find the opener for How to Solve Your Own Murder to be kind of “meh”, but if you read on you learn that this line was part of a fortune told to a young woman who believed wholeheartedly in her foretold doom. The opening line of The Parliament is just “meh” with no further qualifiers. It gives us a setting, sure, but that’s it.

The Waltham Murders is nonfiction, and the first line is about as attention-grabbing as they come. Butcher & Blackbird starts by letting you know the premise of the book in an amusing way, setting readers up for what to expect. But I think The Fox Wife has the best opening line of any of the novels I read in the month of February.

March’s books:

In an old wardrobe a djinn sits weeping.

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

A poet once wrote that the woods of Gallacia are as deep and dark as God’s sorrow, and while I am usually skeptical of poets, I feel this one may have been onto something.

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

Not a day goes by that post does not bring me at least one letter from a young person (or sometimes one not so young) who wishes to follow in my footsteps and become a dragon naturalist.

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

“Hey, Barbara, you got a hanging man in the Three-Four precinct.”

What the Dead Know by Barbara Butcher

Barry Sutton pulls over into the fire lane at the main entrance of the Poe building, an Art Deco tower glowing white in the illumination of its exterior scones.

Recursion by Blake Crouch

In that time, I was called Brother Kellin of Cambrin, and I was an awful monk.

2024 High Caliber Awards (from the first entry, Mightier than the Pen by Kevin Harris)

The opening line of The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is great: ooh, a djinn! Why is it weeping in a wardrobe?! The one for What Feasts at Night is also wonderful, really setting the tone; it’s also very “voicey” — this one is my favorite of the whole batch for month of March.

The first line of A Natural History of Dragons is pretty “meh”.

What the Dead Know is nonfiction about working as a death investigator in NYC, so I guess it gets straight to the point by opening with a dead body.

The opener for Recursion does absolutely nothing to grab the reader. But then we’re back in pretty great territory with Mightier than the Pen – amusing, plus now I want to hear more about what makes Kellin an awful monk.

What are your thoughts on these opening lines??

Book Review: DIAVOLA by Jennifer Thorne

| Jessica Crawford

Oooh, there was so much to love about this chilling Gothic ghost story set in Italy!

Anna has long been the black sheep of her family and has prepared for the usual complaints and judgment when she joins them for a trip to Italy. They are staying at a picturesque villa that includes a modern addition built onto the original architecture…and a tower they are instructed to never unlock or enter.

Soon, it becomes clear that there is more than irritating relatives threatening what should be a peaceful vacation.

The setting was wonderful and evocative, and Thorne was able to make me feel like a tourist in Italy myself. Bellissimo!

I liked Anna a lot. She was smart, caring and compassionate to those who deserve it, and answers the insults slugged her way with perfect snark. I enjoyed the fraught interpersonal dynamics at first, but eventually they got on my nerves a bit, when everyone started blaming Anna for things it made no sense to blame her for.

The supernatural elements were deliciously creepy. The stressful family gathering introduced a feeling of tension, which only ratcheted up by increments as evidence of a haunting begin with the sounds of disembodied voices and doors slamming shut of their own accord, working up to Anna and her family being in real and imminent danger.

The pacing in different parts of the book seemed a bit unconventional, but it was quite engaging all throughout. And the story wound up going places I could not have imagined. 4.75 stars from me!

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