Book Review: Come West and See

Goodread’s Page: Come West and See

Author’s Page: Maxim Loskutoff

Come West and See

I cranked the window up. It was her fault. All of it. The cold, me being here, the entire country breaking apart. The Redoubt, the true west, where all the Indians were dead and we white men had finally gotten around to killing ourselves. -Maxim Loskutoff

Come West and See is a collection of short stories tied together with alternatively strong and vague references to a ideological movement called the Redoubt taking place in Montana that radiates outwards into the surrounding states. The overall separatism “movement” is loosely based on the standoff that took place between the federal government and a citizen’s militia in Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. (Sidenote: I was aware that something took place in Oregon, but heard it mentioned only here and there. You would think that something like that would get a bit more media attention–or, perhaps it did and I just wasn’t paying attention.)

Some stories are directly tied to the movement. Some stories vaguely reference it through a conversation or a character tie. Some stories seem to be wholly removed from it. What does universally seem to tie the stories together are themes: freedom, independence, love, understanding, and the ties that bind together relationships–be that a relationship between two people, a family, a community, or a country.

I came across it while browsing NPR’s book concierge. It fell under the category of “short reads” and, once I saw that striking cover, I just had to get my hands on it.

What It Does Well: 

Some of the stories are just fantastic. My personal favorite was actually the first story (upon which I believe the cover is based), which takes place significantly before any other and seems to address the Redoubt only in that it features a “rugged individualist”. But, my goodness, that story is just so, ridiculously interesting.

Other stories, while interesting and well written, didn’t grab me like the rest. At the same time, none of them were a struggle to get through. Hooray! Each of them had something worthwhile in it. Personally, I found myself fixating a lot on the different manifestations of anger of the many male characters (I believe all but one story is written from the point of view of a man). There was a lot of discussion of anger’s source–helplessness, pride, ideological differences–as well as portrayals of different manners in which anger can be expressed and, most importantly, how blame can be laid upon oneself or others.

Some of the characters pointedly blame women who have left them for all of the problems that they face. Some of the characters feel anger and take it out on those around them. Others drink. Others commit great acts of valor–among them, joining the movement of the Redoubt.

It’s also SHORT. And, to add to that, it’s a collection of SHORT STORIES. Readable in one weekend or even one day, the briskness of each story makes it easy to finish one and read “just the first few lines” of the next only to realize ten minutes later that you just finished another one.

What It Doesn’t Do Well: 

Come West and See kind of toes the line between a short story collection and something else. Yes, there is the “theme” of the Redoubt and separatism that is meant to unite the stories, but it exists in varying degrees in some of the stories with some of them seeming to contain no mention or reference to the Redoubt other than a very vague, throwaway mention by a character.

This could have been the author’s intention–a statement about the the lack of coverage of the event or about the disconnect between different parts of society. While I loved or, at the very least, loved something about each of the stories, I couldn’t get over the disconnect between some of the stories.

Rating: 4/5

Similar Reads: The Revenant by Michael Punke

The Outsider

Goodread’s Page: The Outsider 

Author Page: Stephen King

The Outsider

“Reality is thin ice, but most people skate on it their whole lives and never fall through until the very end. We did fall through, but we helped each other out. We’re still helping each other.”

I was one of those teenagers (and young adults) who, on purpose, never read any Stephen King. I abhorred any “popular” author who was a bestseller or well known, King included.

Then, about a year ago, I read a copy of The Green Mile that my husband had and I really enjoyed it. I put myself on the list for The Outsider on the library purely because of Bookstagram recommendations, and I’m very happy that I did!

Since King is such a prodigious author, the real takeaway I had from the book was this: I would like to read more of his books. I feel like I can’t yet pass judgement on whether ot not teenage me was correct or incorrect for avoiding his books, and I plan on reading more before making a decision.

What It Does Well:

Suspense and mystery.

I got to page 200 of this book and was literally asking: Where is this supposed to go now? That might be because I’ve read very few Stephen King novels so I’m not accustomed to the normal flow of his books, but…hey, it was nice to read.

What It Doesn’t Do Well:

I was a little bit confused about some of the characters. Holly (?), an independent “investigator” who says she specializes in runaway pets and bail skippers, shows up midway through the book. She’s a wonderful character, but she kept making references to cases that she had worked on that were never explained. I get the sense that there might have been a crossover to some of his other books.

Additionally, around the last 100 pages of the book, I started to get a bit restless. There was great action, great mystery leading up to the end of the book, and I think it was just a bit too drawn out for my taste. I felt like I already knew what was going to happen after a certain point and once that point passed I wanted things to wrap up a bit faster.

Rating: 4.5/5 

 

The God of Small Things

Goodread’s Page: The God of Small Things

Author’s Page: Arundhati Roy 

The God of Small Things

“Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms. It rocked him to the rhythm of an ancient, fetal heartbeat. It sent stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory, dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue.”

To begin with, I feel that I must scream to the heavens: I LOVE THIS BOOK! That being said, this book is dense. This book is dark. This book is very, very sad.

The God of Small Things tells the story of Rahel and Estha, two twins who grew up during a time of political upheaval in India. Events transpire and eventually tear the two apart to live their separate lives, but they are brought together again to face the shadows that lurk in a house where so many wonderful and terrible things happened.

The book begins at the end, showcasing the estranged relationship between the twins as adults, and organically inserts small chunks of their lives into the telling. There are constant references to a river and an act, to the death of Sophie-Mol, their cousin, and something about a boat. The narrative style of this book literally spins around, circling one crucial moment that becomes clearer and clearer until finally telling the tale around which all of the separate snapshots seem to swirl.

The God of Small Things reminds me to a great degree of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in addition to a lot of Toni Morrison’s writing. There’s an element of magical realism in the telling of the story. Though the majority of the events are commonplace, because it’s told through the lens of children there’s a vague “gray” area as to what actually happened and what was the embellishment of imagination. There’s wordplay and so much innocence in some of the scenes that the evils that the characters encounter seem so much more evil than ever possible. In addition, the non-linear storytelling of the book and the emphasis on multiple generations of family made me think again and again of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

What It Does Well:

  • Vivid descriptions (Get a load of this: “Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.”)
  • Style
  • Impactful messages

This sort of writing that floats between magical realism and historical fiction always gets me. It’s like poetry, but too plot-driven. It’s like normal fiction, but too untethered.

What It Doesn’t Do Well:

This is the sort of book that you need to be in the right mood to read. It’s heavy and dense in both description and meaning. The mood that you feel influences how you read the book; are you going to skip across those allusions to communism or read into their deeper meaning? Are you going to hold the family tree in your head, referencing each character and plotting each story along it’s lofty branches?

When I first picked up the book, I was not at all in the right mood. I almost returned it to the library without reading past page twenty. Then a snow day hit (hooray!) and I picked it up again on my suddenly-free-evening and was able to get into the story when I was not longer assailed by deadlines and time.

Similar Reads:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Beloved by Toni Morrison

Rating: 5/5

 

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

Goodread’s Page: Quiet

Author’s Page: Susan Cain 

quiet

“The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk.”

 

I’m the biggest introvert in the world—and, as the author would probably say—I’m an introvert that is also shy. Great combination!

I related a lot to the author, which I think is probably important to enjoy a book about personality. The person who wrote it was coming from a point of view that—no matter how edited—still retained a foundation that I found familiar. It’s chock-full of quotes that I want to frame and put on a wall to remind me that being quiet is okay–at times, it can be helpful, even powerful!

“I would guess that I inherited a high-reactive nervous system, but my mother insists I was an easy baby, not the kind of kick and wail over a popped balloon…I feel horribly uncomfortable on my first day in a foreign city, but I love to travel.”

I relate to this so much.

Topics covered:

  • “Cult of Personality” versus the “Cult of Character” – What personality traits do we value and how have they changed over time?
  • Leadership – Are introverts or extroverts better leaders? What combinations of extroverts and introverts work better together and under what circumstances?
  • Groupthink – Do people work better when collaborating or when working independently?
  • Nature versus Nurture – Are extroversion and introversion hereditary? How much do our temperaments influence our personality? How do high-reactive and low-reactive nervous systems influence the development of traits such as introversiĂłn and extroversiĂłn.
  • Low reactivity versus high reactivity – How can reactions in babies predict future personality traits?
  • Risk taking behavior – How is dopamine processed differently in the brains of introverts and extroverts? How does this processing influence risk taking behavior? And what does all of that have to do with Wall Street?
  • Passions of introverts
  • Processing emotions and communication
  • Personality traits – What combinations of personality traits are most common? How do these combinations influence who we get along with and how we interact?
  • Extrovert Ideals and Culture — Is extroversion the ideal around the world?
  • Person-Situation Debate — Are our personality traits fixed or do they shift depending on the situation?
  • Free Trait Theory — Can an introvert pretend to be an extrovert? What is required for an introvert to do so? Answer: passion for a topic or project

What It Does Well:

This book is written to make popular research accessible. It’s a “pop-psychology” book, but it works on two different levels. First, it’s a shortened information guide for the average person interested in personality studies. Second, it’s a “how-to” guide addressing businesspeople, educators, parents, friends, and loved ones about how to navigate relationships when introversion and extroversion are taken into account.

There are a lot of references throughout the book to studies carried out by scientists and psychologists at a lot of prestigious universities around the world, but it wasn’t at all overwhelming. Cain does a wonderful job of organizing each of the different aspects of discussion into sections and chapters. Additionally, each chapter is bookended by anecdotes about real-life people with the nitty-gritty scientific research discussed in the center. Meeting a person at the beginning of each chapter and then having their familiar face greet you at the end after braving the research is very satisfying.

What It Doesn’t Do Well: 

While I was reading, I would occasionally find myself getting up in arms about some comment or another. I wanted to argue! However, usually within a few paragraphs–or even the next sentence–Cain would address the opposing viewpoint and acknowledge the validity in both. I have no idea how she did it at some points, but she balanced information and perspectives brilliantly. (I just need to be more patient and not get up in arms so quickly when I read.)

In other words: I don’t think there was anything that could have been done better.

Who Should Read this Book:

As mentioned for “what it does well”, this book includes sections specifically addressing the business world, the realm of education, and parenting. I would estimate that the earlier sections of the book are dedicated to business, but the middle and (resoundingly) the end often address parents and educators directly.

This book ALSO gives advice for relationships, speaking from the point of view of extroverts and introverts. Very helpful—for social interactions in general, Cain does an awesome job of picking apart how different types of people perceive different situations.

“Relationships make everyone happier, introverts included, but think quality over quantity.”

Really, I guess anybody should read this book since everybody interacts with other people. If they aren’t themselves an introvert they will, at some point, work with or interact with an introvert.

Rating: 5/5

The Enchanted Files: Cursed

Goodread’s Page: The Enchanted Files: Cursed 

Author Page: Bruce Coville

enchanted files cursedWe will maintain order and cleanliness in the households that we inhabit, as is good and right. For are we not brownies?”

Angus is a brownie. Not a small man. Not a gnome. Not an elf–definitely not an elf. As a brownie, it’s his job to commit mischief, tidy the houses of humans, and obey the Code of the Brownies. Angus is also cursed, and this curse is what sends him across the ocean from Scotland to the United States to serve a new human child named Alex.

Only problem is…Alex may be the messiest girl in the world! To make matters worse, when Angus arrives, he sees the curse that binds him to Alex begin to threaten her family. Together, they must find a way to break the old family curse, and maybe clean Alex’s room as well.

What It Does Well:

I really wanted to like this book. The Enchanted Files: Cursed has all of the hallmarks of a good children’s fantasy book:

  • A magical realm that parallels the human realm
  • Scottish folklore (or basis in established folklore)
  • Magical creatures that pass between the worlds

The book even has a unique format: it’s told from a collection of letters, journals, and books (such as an Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures). The author’s note at the end is particularly interesting in that it’s a series of letters between Angus and the author outlining how Angus has found many faults with the book.

The book even includes magical creatures based loosely upon Native American folklore, which is something that I haven’t really seen before.

What It Doesn’t Do Well: 

Even though I really wanted to like this book, I just didn’t. It was a chore to finish reading it and it was tough to keep myself from skimming some of the longer passages from Angus’ journal.

I think that the main issue I had with the book was that I didn’t really care about the curse story arc. SPOILERS The last third or so of the book is based on Angus, Alex, her two siblings, Mrs. Kincaid and her mother (the Sunshine Princess) returning to the Magical Realm to break the curse on Alex’s family. While it was interesting to have it revealed that Mrs. Kincaid’s mother was actually the Sunshine Princess, there is absolutely no suspense or rising action to accompany this climax of the book. Everything seems to be rushed through with cursory description given to their travels and their encounter with the Shadow Queen. If she was the villain, there was no sense of danger (or really of any obstacle at all). I felt like there was more suspense and action when Angus is meeting the cat at the beginning of the book.

Basic summary:

  • Very rushed
  • No suspense or sense of urgency
  • Lack of details

It made sense that there was so little information when I learned that other books in this series are standalone stories. That might have been the issue; there was a story here, but one book wasn’t really enough to do it justice.

Who Should Read This: 

This was on the Minnesota Lovelace nominee list for 2018-2019 in Division I for grades 3-5. I think that is entirely accurate. This book would be entirely suitable for a 3rd or 4th grader with the one caveat being that Angus says “arse” and writes with a Scottish accent that might be hard for some third graders to understand. It’s more of a chapter book, but there’s still plenty of “drawings” that Angus includes in his journal to accompany the telling of the story.

Rating: 3/5

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"We will maintain order and cleanliness in the households that we inhabit, as is good and right. For are we not brownies?" . . Finishing up the Enchanted Files: Cursed by Bruce Coville. I've been trying to read the Lovelace nominees and this one looked cute. It's an "eh" middle grade read in my opinion. It's got all the components of a great book–magic realms, brownies, Scottish fairy tales–but I just can't get into it like I have other books. But I want to finish it so bad just to get it finished! . . #allthebooksjan19 Made me laugh! #janinbooks2019 Feel good book. It's whimsical! It's sweet! #bookstagram #bookstagramfeature #bookstagramphotochallenge #bookish #booknerd #mglit #middlegradefiction #bookflatlay #booksofig #booklove #booklover

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The Perfect Nanny

Goodread’s Page: The Perfect Nanny 

Author’s Page: Leila Slimani

the perfect nanny“No meat remains, no organs, nothing on this skeleton that could rot, and yet it seems to Myriam that it is a putrescent carcass, a vile corpse that is festering and decaying before her eyes, here in the kitchen.”

The Perfect Nanny is two terrifying psychological horror stories rolled into one book. The story of Myriam, mother of two who studied to he a lawyer, is foiled by the story of Louise, her mysteriously perfect nanny. Together, they strike the image of the perfect family until tragedy reveals the cracks that are hidden away.

The book begins by telling the end: the children are murdered. There’s no attempt at suspense (no spoiler!), rather the book revolves around tracking the decline of the relationship between the family and Louise as jealousy, power play, and even class and race begin to divide them.

I know that Myriam’s story isn’t supposed to truly be a horror story, but in a way it is. Myriam is the deathly terrifying tale of a woman who loves her children but also loves her job (and the freedom and recognition that she craves). She’s constantly conflicted between the joy of studying her cases and spending time with her children. She thought she would be happy with two babies, but she was profoundly sad–caged, even–after the birth of her second child.

Louise is a stranger tale. She’s so perfect. So child-like. A doll. But her love for the children and her willingness to sacrifice all for the family is a bit strange, revealing the horror that awaits her at home: loneliness. Even when the story is told from Louise’s point of view, there is a wall between the reader and Louise that doesn’t exist for other characters. There’s a lack of depth, kept at arms length just like Louise keeps other characters away.

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"No meat remains, no organs, nothing on this skeleton that could rot, and yet it seems to Myriam that it is a putrescent carcass, a vile corpse that is festering and decaying before her eyes, here in the kitchen." . . . Oh my goodness, The Perfect Nanny is one of those books that is so perfectly eerie and unsettling. 😥 It makes no attempt to hide the horror that will befall the characters and yet every once in a while a line like the quote above would stil hit me and just make me feel so uncomfortable. It's a simple scene, but so well written. . . . After the birth of her second child, Myriam feels trapped–caged in her life. She was going to he a lawyer, and when she confesses her unhappiness to her husband they agree to hire a nanny so that she can go back to work. Into their life comes Louise. She's so small, so dainty, so doll-like, and so utterly perfect–but there's something a bit strange about her childishness and her willingness to work late, clean everything. Without even realizing it's happened, they become dependant on Louise. They can't live without her. It's just what she wanted. . . . #booksofinstagram #bookblogger #bookflatlay #bookstagramfeature #bookstagramfeature #bookish #booknerd #bookworm #booklover #theperfectnanny

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What it Does Well:

To me, this book was more unsettling than most horror movies I’ve seen lately. I’m a woman in my twenties in an age where motherhood and work are often at odds, and then I find a book about how what seems like the most perfect solution could so terrifyingly fall apart.

The author does a fabulous job of occasionally honing in on a very mundane item (a sunbathing woman, a discarded chicken skeleton) and describes it with such depth and detail that it’s unsettling to the most insane degree. As far as I could tell, she does this equally between Myriam and Louise, which made me consider even more their similarities despite their differences in class and lifestyle.

This book is also surprisingly short (about 240 pages). I read about three-quarters in one afternoon and finished the final quarter the next evening.

What it Doesn’t Do Well:

Overall, I found very few faults in this book. The one fault that I found with the book was that I wasn’t a huge fan of the end. Since the “terrible” event is revealed in the first few pages of the book, it felt like the end fizzled out and left me wondering what happened to Myriam and Louise–then again, that might have been the author’s purpose.

Who Should Read This Book:

While everybody is capable of reading and being entertained by this thought-provoking book, I think that it deals with topics that innately appeal more to a woman than man. That being said, I don’t think a man would have any issues reading it. Part of the unsettling nature of the book is the unique relationship that exists between a mother and another woman hired to care for her children, which is something that a woman is more likely to have experienced.

Similar Reads:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Rating: 5/5

The Immortalists

 

Goodread’s Page: The Immortalists

Author’s Page: Chloe Benjamin

the immortalists“If consciousness survives the death of the body, then everything she’s been told about death isn’t true. And if everything she’s been told about death isn’t true then maybe death is not death at all.”

On one summer day, four siblings—Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon—irreparably change the course of their lives. From the whispers of those around them, they hear of a woman with the power to tell the date of their death. In choosing to seek out the single piece of knowledge, their lives forever are bound by questions. Does knowing the day of their death a sentence or a push to live?

The Immortalists reads in such a way that a movie begins to play in your head. It’s one of those books that plays with time; a single chapter may start with a reference to the present and then a character, triggered by an object or a thought, segue ways into the past and a secondary scene plays out before being pulled back into the present.

Since the book is organized roughly between the four points of view of the children in chronological order (Simon’s story is first, followed by Klara, Daniel, and Varya), it seems only natural that the characters jump between different events and different time periods if only to quickly share their thoughts, but it still seems to be done somehow differently in the book. It isn’t terribly remarkable or revolutionary for a book to tell a story out of chronological order, but it does so in such a way that made the book settle like a continuously fluid “story”. One could dip their fingers into the world of the Immortalist and experience the moment, but whether or not it is being experienced the story continues to play.

While reading, I had the feeling that the fluid nature of time in the book and the continual presence of all the characters despite some of their deaths spoke to the themes of life, remembrance, and immortality so heavily referenced. Simon is constantly plagued by the early predicted date of his death. Karla devotes her life to resurrecting the image of her dead grandmother and the tricks of dead magicians. And Varya, more than any of them, flails against the idea of mortality, dedicating herself to the possibility of achieving immortality through research and willpower. Yet, each of them is already immortal, already a part of the larger web of their relationships in such a way that they will be (and, in some cases, are) remembered long after their death.

What it Did Well:  I’ve got a short attention span—and this book was an awesome read for something like that!

The book itself isn’t very long, but it’s divided into four separate stories, each focusing on one of the different siblings. I loved it. It kept things short and succinct; by the time I felt my interest in one of the siblings starting to wane, their story would draw to a close.

What it Didn’t Do Well: The whole story arc of Daniel didn’t sit super well with me.

Simon’s story was wonderful. A little bit of historical fiction thrown into the whole mix. Karla’s was whimsical and yet so sad. Varya’s story was modern and concerned itself with relevant research about the balance of a long life and life well-lived.

Daniel’s story focused so much more on the fortune-teller.

Even though he outwardly seemed to be the sibling who cared the least about the predicted date of his death, he ended up being the one most consumed by the GENERAL predictions of death in his family and the one who most directly acted upon it. I know that it’s supposed to be a note about his character and his relationship and guilt towards his family, but it was also the most boring to read. There were a lot of individual musings and mental arguments—was it his fault? Did the prophecies cause deaths or did they enable life?

Similar Reads: The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Rating: 5/5

Crenshaw

Goodread’s Page: Crenshaw

Author’s Page: Katherine Applegate

crenshaw

“That was the first time that I realized people don’t always like to hear the truth.”

Crenshaw is about imagination.

On a deeper level, it’s about the gray lines between fact, truth, and lies. If a story isn’t true, does that make it a lie? If something is made up, can it still be worthwhile? What happens if there’s a truth that we can’t admit to ourselves?

Jackson is different from other kids and he’s different from his family. His mother and his father were once musicians and they’ve got a way of always looking on the bright side of things. Sometimes it drives Jackson insane. Sometimes they say that Jackson is too serious, but Jackson is just being realistic: They have money troubles.

As Jackson begins to notice the signs of hard times, he grows angry with his parents for not sharing with him. He also begins to feel fear; he doesn’t want to live in the minivan again. Last time that happened he hated it, but he also had Crenshaw (his imaginary friend) with him. Now Crenshaw is back, and Jackson is worried about what that means. He’s older. He shouldn’t have an imaginary friend anymore, should he?

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"That was the first time I realized people don'r always like to hear the truth." Crenshaw, Katherine Applegate. ————————————— Crenshaw is about the balance between fact, fiction, lies, and the truth. I absolutely loved the character of Crenshaw–even if it seemed like he was barely in the book at all! I was not at all expecting a book titled after the main character's imaginary friend to be so deeply sad and poignant. More than anything, the book is about being truthful to yourself, even when the truth means that you need to ask for help. . . . . . #bookblogger #booklover #bookstagrammer #booksofig #bookstagram #bookish #bibliophile #katherineapplegate #crenshaw #mglit #middlegradefiction

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What It Does Well:

  1. Insanely short chapter—we’re talking two or three pages at times. It’s a fast moving book.
  2. Crenshaw – he’s a great character.
  3. Tackling a heavy topic that is still relevant for children.

This book dealt with a subject that was way deeper and more emotional than I thought would be found in a book whose title is the name of an imaginary friend that’s a giant cat, but that’s part of it’s beauty. It’s a very powerful story wrapped up in a non-assuming package. Jackson’s matter-of-fact manner of describing things makes his reality of food-scarcity and potential homelessness accesible for young readers, and the sacrifices and problems that he deals with are appropriate and realistic for his age. He worries about his parents selling the things that he knows are important to the. He worries about his little sister and how she will feel about everything that is happening. He worries about why Crenshaw has come back and why, even though he wants to get rid of him, Crenshaw claims that he is there to help him.

What it Doesn’t Do Well: This is not a fault of the book, but it’s something that I wish there had been more of. The chapters with Jackson’s friend Marisol were very touching. While Marisol is mentioned frequently throughout the book as one of Jackson’s close friends, there’s actually very few interactions between Jackson and people other than his family. I wish Marisol had been in the book more so that we could have seen more of her and Jackson’s friendship.

Rating: 5/5

The Watchers

Goodreads Page: The Watchers (The Angelus Trilogy, #1)

Author’s Page: Jon Steele 

the watchers

“Such madness in the world then, such madness in the world now. But I’ll never forget after we first arrived in Lausanne, my mother took me to the cathedral to light a candle and I felt all that was good in the world, all that was left of it, was there. It is a very remarkable place, don’t you think?

Winter is coming to Lausanne, and the bad shadows are bringing their evil with them. Three lives are inextricably woven together as they must fight against the fallen angels to save what is left of Paradise.

The Watchers is a weird book of epic scale that starts out astoundingly slow. I’ve abandoned maybe a half dozen books in the past ten years, and I was highly tempted to put this book down when—by page 190 (!) – there really wasn’t anything that had happened other than the introduction and backstory of characters and long descriptions of a cathedral. I mean, the cathedral sounds very pretty and I love Gothic architecture significantly more than the next person, but even I was a bit bored by the chapter in which one of the three protagonists (Harper) uses his fancy technical vocabulary to verbally map out the nave, narthex, chancel, and rose Windows of the Catedral de Lausanne.

The book revolves around three protagonists, two of them being unreliable. Jay Harper, a “detectiveman” is an amnesiac who can’t remember anything about his arrival in Lausanne. Is he a detective? Why would he come recommended to an Olympic doctor investigating a potential doping scandal? The second protagonist Marc Rochat is, as he says, is a bit slow because there was an accident at his birth. He is le geut de Lausanne and works in the belfry of the cathedral. Unlike Harper, Rochat is not plagued by forgetting (though he does claim to be forgetful). Rather, his chapters run at times seamlessly between the present and “beforetimes”as he speaks to long-dead relatives and friends that those in the present cannot see. The third protagonist is Katherine Taylor, a high end call girl who does not impart any new information to the reader other than some smoking and sex scenes. She appears to exist in the story in order to be rescued.

What It Doesn’t Do Well: The main issue I had with the book lay in the unreliability of the narrators–which is something that I normally love. The unreliable narrators in this particular story do not work well in that the very essential information that I felt I needed in order to understand what was happening and understand the logic of the story progression was not provided to me.

For the first two thirds of the book, Rochat doesn’t understand fully what is happening or, if he does, chooses not to think about it because it seems scary. Harper forgets everything. Katherine can’t be bothered. As the story progresses, it’s through Harper that the reader learns things (he is the detective after all), but after his initial important “learning” moment, Harper chooses to not share information under the assumption that Katherine and Rochat “wouldn’t understand in a billion years”. As a result, readers do not receive information.

It’s frustrating because the glacial pace of the book is suddenly amped up nearing the end of the book. Tons of new information is introduced but it is only vaguely explained. What’s a killing knife? It seems to be a normal knife–but wait, is it? Why does it have it’s own name? What’s a time warp? I’m not sure, but it happens. And it seems to be essential to the end of the book.

What It Does Well: Despite the issues with how information was shared with the reader in the form of Harper, I loved Rochat and his descriptions of the events around him. His narration of events was still very spotty, but despite the lack of clarity in his observations they somehow seemed to contain more insight or, at the very least, have an emotional impact that made me feel that something bad was going to happen. Other than that, He’s a lovable little dude who cares for others and takes his job as le geut of Lausanne so very seriously.

Who Should Read This Book:  I would recommend this book to anybody who has a soft spot for religiously-inspired mysteries or thrillers. The plot revolves around the fallen angels in the Book of Enoch, which I’ve found fascinates quite a few more people than I ever thought. That being said, it seems to be at, at it’s heart, a thriller for the great amount of focus placed on “badass” detective Harper.

Rating: 3/5

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

Goodreads Page: The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

Author Page: Stacy McAnulty

“It was a mistake coming to this school. Nana’s mistake. You don’t need to be a genius to calculate that I don’t belong here.”

-Stacy McAnulty, The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

the miscalculations of lightning girl

Lucy Callahan was struck by lightning. She may not remember when it happened, but she lives with the effects of it to this day; she’s an acquired savant with genius-level math skills. She’s been home-schooled ever since, but before she can go to college her Nana has promised her to pass one more challenge. She has to survive 1 year of middle school—1 year of middle school, 1 friend, 1 activity, and 1 book that isn’t about math.

This is a delightful little middle-grade book that combines the archetypal middle school experience with the (often disliked) subject of math. It tells its story well and it does it all while casually mentioning some of the more attractive math concepts that exist.

What It Does Well:

  1. Diversity and Normalizing “Difference”
  2. Current trends
  3. Math

The book goes out of its way to normalize the “unique” characteristics and struggles of each of it’s characters. At the beginning of the story, Lucy is terrified of being singled out for her OCD habits, her germophobia, AND her math abilities—so she hides them. It’s the perfect mix of “Hey, I guess it makes sense that somebody would do something irrational like that in middle school” and “Why would you hide such a wonderful gift?!” In short: good dramatic irony that is accesible to a middle-grade reader and RELATABLE to what children might be currently experiencing.

Over the course of the book, Lucy learns that the things that she views as negative for making her “different” are in fact something entirely new—they are “talents”. As she comes to terms with her own talents, she begins to recognize that those around her have their own talents.

This book also does an incredible job of presenting current trends as they are viewed by late elementary/early middle school readers. There are references to phones, Smartboards, sugar-free foods and strict parental diets, Clorox and internet communities. Unlike what I’ve seen in a lot of middle grade fiction, these references occur naturally instead of jumping off the page at you as an attempt to appear edgey.

Last, but not least, the book uses MATH. It references very “attractive” math concepts like pi and the Fibonacci sequence and even includes reference pages at the back of the book that further explain (in age-appropriate language) what the concepts are. (I also adore the fact that the book features a sequence in which Lucy is only able to solve a problem when she follows her teacher’s advice and shows her work on paper. Great plug for the math-oriented students that might pick up the book because they excel at math.)

What It Doesn’t Do Well: The book seems to be much more girl rather than boy-oriented. I could see a boy reading this book as well, but one of the primary obstacles in the book is the relationship between two girls (to which the main boy character obnoxiously chooses to ignore).

Who Should Read This Book: I would recommend this book to 4th-5th grade students. While the characters are supposed to be in 7th grade, the writing style and relationships that it focuses on strike me as more relevant to children who are not yet in middle school or in the process of transitioning into it.

Rating: 5/5