Jessica Crawford

Book Review: THE FERRYMAN by Justin Cronin

June 27, 2023June 27, 2023 | Jessica Crawford

From Justin Cronin, author of The Passage trilogy, comes a science fiction standalone, The Ferryman.

The end had been ordained in the beginning, the way the final chord was built into the first measure of a symphony

The people of Prospera aren’t sure what lays beyond the Veil that surrounds their archipelago state, but they know they’re lucky to be where they are. Prosperans live out idyllic lives, retire to the Nursery when their bodies begin to fail them, are overhauled both physically and mentally, then get reiterated into society as blank slates. This isn’t the case for support staff from the Annex, however, who perform menial labor for the Prosperans, while everyone is controlled by a police state. This world is dystopian for just as many as it is a seeming utopia for others. But how were these lines drawn?

I got The Truman Show vibes from the early parts of this book, not in tone, but in knowing that the world is not what it seems. But in this case, the reader is as clueless as to the truth as are all the characters. Most Prosperans are content in their ignorance, living happy life after happy life, though they may lack real love or anything to make it at all meaningful. On the other hand, the people of the Annex have built a religion around the idea of a day of Arrival (who will be arriving where?), and some people, like protagonist Proctor Bennett, want to learn the truth after being plagued by troubling dreams that are echoes of past iterations.

It was what the world taught us to do, but it was no way to live, and now, for the first time, I felt like I was waking up.

Proctor finds himself in league with others who are not satisfied with the status quo. Can they find their way out of what, for all intents and purposes, is the world itself? If so, what will they find outside its limits?

This book features some beautiful writing. I really loved it in the beginning, it fizzled out a bit for me in the middle, but then the final revelations were pretty good. I definitely had some questions, but to list them here would be spoilery. Overall it’s very well done.

TW: death of a child, suicide, adultery

Book Review: SEA CHANGE by Gina Chung

June 23, 2023 | Jessica Crawford

I’m trying my hand at book annotation! Pictured is *Sea Change* by Gina Chung (with a sleeping German shepherd for scale)

Sea Change is literary fiction about Ro, the thirty year old daughter of Korean immigrants. A history of loss has shaped her into a rather dysfunctional adult. Her marine biologist father disappeared on a research trip while she was a teen, she and her BFF are at odds, and her boyfriend left her (and the planet) on a mission to colonize Mars. Now Dolores, the giant Pacific octopus at the aquarium where she is employed, and one of her last remaining links to her father, is being sold. Ro deals with all of her loneliness and fears that anything good is only going to be taken from her by neglecting everything in her life except for her quest to stop feeling anything at all (with the help of a drink or two, or ten).

This is the story of Ro discovering that if she wants to escape the rut she is stuck in, she’ll need to learn to appreciate the things she does have without constantly tiptoeing around the possibility of losing them. I may have teared up during a scene about saying goodbye to the octopus…

Book Review: ZERO DAYS by Ruth Ware

June 20, 2023June 14, 2023 | Jessica Crawford

The comps for this book to The Fugitive crossed with Mr. and Mrs. Smith are spot on.

Jack and Gabe are a married couple of pen testers who work as a team when companies hire them to test their organizations for any weaknesses in security. When Gabe winds up murdered, suspicion automatically falls on his spouse, and Jack finds herself Suspect Number One. While the police are focusing their efforts on her, if Jack wants to figure out who is actually responsible for her husband’s death, she’s going to have to go on the lam and do some investigating of her own. On the run from the police and with few resources at her disposal besides a particular set of skills, Jack must try to uncover what her husband may have gotten mixed up in…and what it might mean for her.

As propulsive as this story was, it is far from Ware’s best work in my opinion (I am still waiting for another The Death of Mrs. Westaway!) The writing here seemed very plain and uninspired, making it a bit boring to work through at times. The dialogue was often overly simplistic, kind of silly, or straight up unbelievable, like when police officers discuss very pertinent details of a case in the corridor just outside the room where they have been questioning a person of interest, where they are easily overheard. Jack is alternately described as making herculean efforts to hold back tears at inopportune times and wondering if there is something wrong with her for not having cried yet–we are told how broken she is by the turn of events, but I never really felt that was the case. And I guessed the baddie the moment they were very first introduced in the story.

Things did pick up in the second half of the book, and it kept me flipping pages like a good thriller should. By then I was engaged by the balanced mix of mystery and tension. Overall I’d say this was a 3 star read for me.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Book Review: REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES by Shelby Van Pelt

June 17, 2023June 17, 2023 | Jessica Crawford

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt is heartwarming literary fiction about the relationships that sustain us throughout the course of life.

POV alternates among three characters:

👵 Tova Sullivan, an elderly widowed Swedish immigrant whose son drowned in the sea under mysterious circumstances when he was 18 years old, and who works cleaning at the Sowell Bay Aquarium because she feels the need to keep busy even if she doesn’t need the money
🤷‍♂️ Cameron Cassmore, a highly intelligent yet deadbeat 30 year old whose search for a means to pull himself up out of the rut of his life leads him to Sowell Bay, Washington

and

🐙Marcellus, a(n even more?) highly intelligent Giant Pacific Octopus who resents being captive at the aquarium and who just can’t even with humans anymore

The relationships that develop among these characters are quite touching. Family and growing old are themes throughout the book.

The parents will grow old atop this mountain of a family they’ve built, and even if parts of it crumble from time to time, there will be enough left to support them.

The characters that comprise the Knit-Wits, the groups of septuagenarians who get together for regularly scheduled lunches, were each so realistic—I could picture people from my real life who matched each of them almost to a T.

Overall this is a sad but ultimately heartwarming tale, and it gets bonus points for naming a secondary octopus Pippa the Grippa!

Book Review: NETTLE & BONE by T. Kingfisher

June 15, 2023June 15, 2023 | Jessica Crawford

Nettle & Bone is fantasy from T. Kingfisher, and it’s lovely! There’s a good deal here that is more original than your standard fantasy fare these days.

Marra wants to protect her sister, even if that means killing a king. She isn’t some chosen one with supercharged powers, just a concerned relative and almost-nun who can embroider a mean stitch. It’s her determination that sees her completing unpleasant and even “impossible” tasks in order to recruit allies that can help her with her Quest.

The resulting fellowship is just plain wonderful: a wicked fairy godmother who enjoys gardening and animal husbandry, and who chooses blessings over curses; a warrior enslaved in the goblin market; a dust-wife who can communicate with the dead and who is accompanied by a hen possessed by a demon; and one Very Good Boy resurrected from bones. They must deal with a sorceress cursed with immortality and a catacomb filled with the royal dead, among other things.

And it’s FUNNY! If you like humorous cozy fantasy that still has high stakes, you should give this book a try.

How far would you be willing to go in the name of protecting your loved ones? And, perhaps more importantly, are you for or against demon chicken?

Book Review: THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SEA by Ray Nayler

June 14, 2023June 14, 2023 | Jessica Crawford

🐙 Come for the octopuses, stay for the story about communion, consciousness, and control!

The Mountain in the Sea is science fiction set in a near future when many industries are fully automated with AI. The Con Dao archipelago of Vietnam is a wildlife sanctuary for many species, including octopuses so intelligent they just might rivals humans. A tech corporation with a vested interest in seeing what can be learned from these animals has sent in researchers and sealed the area off, protecting it by deadly means if necessary.

The characters that this book primarily follows are:

Ha Nguyen, a marine biologist who struggles with the indifference people feel for the things that don’t personally affect them, and who learns the importance of connection, making oneself understood, and striving to understand others even if it doesn’t mean always agreeing with each other.

Rustem, a Tartar hacking genius who may have gotten involved in something bigger than he realized.

Eiko, a young Japanese man enslaved on an automated fishing rig.

Other characters include a badass mercenary security specialist from a nunnery, a scientist seeking mastery of creating consciousness in an attempt to fend off her own loneliness, and an android whose very existence puts them at risk from those who feel threatened by the idea of a nonhuman mind. Some of the verbal exchanges between the android and the security agent were a joy, very funny!

The octopuses feature a lot less in this book than I thought they would – I mean, a good portion of it is ABOUT the octopuses, but they actually only show up in a handful of scenes. It’s more about the people studying them, and how the world both exist in has been shaped by conscious ingenuity and all the good and bad it creates.

Book Review: WITCH KING by Martha Wells

June 12, 2023June 14, 2023 | Jessica Crawford

I was very excited to dive into this new fantasy novel from the creator of Murderbot, Witch King by Martha Wells! It comes complete with map, dramatis personae, and a gorgeous color palette.

Kai is a demon prince of the underearth. The book opens with him coming to, looking down at the corpse of his most recent host body in a glass coffin, and realizing he must have been murdered and then his consciousness trapped by magical means inside the tomb, preventing him from taking up residence another body. Lucky for him, a mage foolish enough to think he could control Kai and bind him as a familiar just unwittingly sprung him from his prison. Now Kai and his ride or die Zeide, who was also imprisoned, are on a mission to discover who betrayed them, and why.

This book presents alternating timelines. After a few chapters detailing this quest, there will be a chapter explaining Kai’s past, beginning more than a mortal lifetime ago: Kai as a young demon new to the mortal world, when a treaty between the underearth and a nomadic grassland peoples had resulted in the bodies of the latter’s dead being honored by hosting a demon, who will then briefly have access to the deceased’s mind and be able to share their final thoughts; Kai as a captive of the Hierarchs, a powerful civilization that came from the south and wiped out all societies in their path; Kai meeting the Witch Zeide, the Imortal Marshall Tahren, and the Prince-heir Bashasa of Benais-arik when the conquered peoples planned to rise up in rebellion against the Hierarchs and in hopes of ushering in a new world order. Along the way the reader is treated to plenty of action, adventure, and found family.

“How did it come to this, Kai? I remember how we started. Now you’re all razor blades and I’m an angry shrew.”

“No…You’re righteously furious. You’ve always had the high ground, Zeide…You’re right about me and the razors, though.” Most of the time he felt like he was made of razors, bleeding from the inside.

“I’ve always loved your razors, Kai. They’ve cut us out of a number of tangles. But it would be good if one day you could stop bleeding.”

There were many lovely characters and sentiments in this story. However, as much as I liked the world, the worldbuilding was rather complex and dense. There were also so many descriptions of what people were wearing, all the time. Descriptions of locations left me feeling a bit lost, as did the particulars of the different magic systems.

I liked Kai, but I’m a sucker for antiheroes and morally gray characters, and while even though Kai possesses (ha, a little demon humor there) some badass abilities, he is 100% teddy bear. Which will probably make him more sympathetic to some readers, just not as spicy. He is amusing at times, though!

“…why shouldn’t I sit next to a demon?” He turned to Kai. “Will I die if I touch you?”

“No,” Kai said, eyeing him. He seemed utterly sincere. “But don’t touch me.”

As much as I thought I was liking the story, I did find I had to keeping talking myself into picking it back up, so clearly I wasn’t 100% engaged. Then the final resolution of the “current day” timeline felt kind of anticlimactic. The things I mention here stopped me from loving this book, but I certainly still appreciated many things about it.

Book Review: LEECH by Hiron Ennes

June 7, 2023June 14, 2023 | Jessica Crawford

Leech by Hiron Ennes is Gothic horror set in a post-apocalyptic future. After climate disaster and the backfiring of man-made technology drove people underground, they finally resurfaced when it was safe(ish) and rebuilt, reclaiming some of the knowledge that was lost through records that were spared.

The main character is actually a gestalt intelligence formed by a parasite that takes control of the human hosts it infects. It hoards the world’s recovered medical knowledge for job security, in order to stay relevant and needed by humanity, and to maintain its evolutionary niche.

While working as a doctor for the draconian baron in the frozen wilds of the North (stalked by beings with unknown origins, but plenty of mythological possible origin stories), they discover a new (probably ancient but newly resurfaced) parasite that threatens everything.

The world-building here is truly impressive!

Of course the baron lives in a crumbling chateau and his family is comprised of a strange cast of characters (and ghosts?). Consent and bodily autonomy are big players in the story that unfolds.

Not for the faint of heart, this tale is creative, creepy, and really quite wonderful! I can’t wait to see what this author does next.

Between this book, Mexican Gothic, and What Moves the Dead, I’ve learned that apparently parasite horror is my jam!