Thought Train to Pusan

I listened to the novel as an audiobook, and while it started out promising I have to admit that as it went on and on and on, I became more and more weary with the whole ordeal. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish it by the end, but I had put so much time in that I had to see how things came together, and what exactly the point of it all would be in the end. And it certainly did come together and have some points to make, but I can’t say that what was presented felt worth it, or that I was inclined to buy it.  T he House of the Spirits spans across multiple generations of the Trueba family in post-colonial Chile (though the country is not specifically named) The main characters are the family patriarch, Esteban, whose family owns a run-down estate and farmland that he wants to return to its former glory, along with his own political ambitions, Clara, Esteban’s wife who is more spiritual in nature and has certain magical abilities of clairvoyance, their daughter, B...

Truth be told, I listened to this audiobook on a whim as it came up in the new book recommendations of my library app. Sounded interesting enough! And overall, it was an easy and engaging enough listen, though I can’t say that it grabbed me much beyond a passing enjoyment. The Lost Apothecary flits between two time periods (and 3 protagonists’ points of view therein). The first setting is 1791 London, where a woman named Nella works in a hidden apothecary for women, helping them with various ailments including those that require the elimination of the men in their lives. One night, a young girl named Eliza walks into the shop on behalf of her employer who seeks to poison her husband. Eliza is a curious young woman whose presence soon becomes entrenched in Nella’s world far more than she wishes, and which alters the course of both their lives within a short period of time.  Alongside this setting is present-day London, where a woman named Catherine is supposed to be on a 10-year an...

I’ve been having a hard time sitting down to write this review because, well, I just don’t know. Listening to this audio book left me feeling like there was so much there, and also not enough. And I am torn, and really am not sure how I feel about it at the end of the day.  Block Seventeen by Kimiko Guthrie is told mainly from the perspective of Akiko (who goes by Jane), a half-Japanese, half-white woman living in San Francisco during the recession. Out of work and sewing dresses from home for a little income, lives with her fiance, Shiro, who works as a TSA agent and wants to expose the racist behaviors of his employers. As Shiro gets further caught up in his conspiracies and plans, Jane tries more and more to keep the peace, all while also desperately trying to get in physical contact with her mother, who seems to have disappeared from the physical realm only to be found online. In a series of escalating events in her apartment, Jane is confronted with a long-buried secret of he...

This novel ended up on my to-read list last year after it was a Cannonball featured review. I can definitely understand why so many have spoken so highly of it, and am sure this won’t be the last we hear of Tommy Orange in the years to come.  While presented as one complete novel of converging stories, There There reads almost like a collection of short stories, with different threads connecting each of the characters: that is, until everything comes to a head at the end of the story. Starting with a historical essay from Orange explaining “brief and jarring vignettes revealing the violence and genocide that Indigenous people have endured, and how it has been sanitized over the centuries,” we are presented with context and generational history of the lives of the characters we are about to meet; although fictional, it draws from reality. The novel then invites the reader to experience little snippets of the lives of 12 different Native Americans living in the Oakland area, and all ...

A big, lavish wedding on a remote island off the Irish coast, featuring an intertwining ensemble cast of characters who may or may not be involved in a murder? Well, that actually all sounds exactly like the kind of thing that my sister would love! And you know what, I quite enjoyed this novel as well. It turned up the drama and uncomfortable situations where you just know something could happen at any turn, and it kept me interested the whole way through. The Guest List opens with a scene of a wedding in full swing on a remote island, during a big wind storm. The lights suddenly go out, a scream is heard, and we are left wondering what happened. Or, more aptly, we wonder what has happened to someone, and who that someone is. Flipping back and forth from the present and the day before, we get to know the people involved in this opulent affair: the bride is a digital magazine publisher, while the groom is an up-and-coming tv star of a survival show (not unlike Bear Grylls), and everyth...

There is a fine line between cute and cringe, but then again, we all participate in cringe in our own ways, in many different flavors. I say this, because as I was reading The Extraordinaries , there were things to love, but also a lot that felt very put-on and almost too much ™. But as someone who is also a little much herself, well, who am I to judge? At the end of the day, what we have here is a cute little story that tries to put a little humanity and reality into the world of superheroes, and the people who see them and idolize them. It does come across almost like a self-insert, superhero fanfic of some kind (and in fact the protagonist engages in fanfic writing themselves, which might be a little clue there), so depending on how you feel about that kind of thing your mileage may vary. I’m sitting at a middle-to-positive. The Extraordinaries takes place in a universe where certain people are born with special abilities, and thereby called Extraordinaries. In Nova City, two such ...

Not really sure what to make of this one! It’s a slow build that’s a bit bizarre, cryptic, and mysterious. I wouldn’t say it was dull (there’s some juicy stuff in there and quite a bit of body horror) but the presentation is almost… blunted? The protagonists’ point of view is a hard one to crack into because of her personality, how she thinks, and how she speaks. Let’s get into it so I can explain. The official synopsis within the jacket of Follow Me to Ground reads:  “Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with...