Category Archives: reviews

Review: Secrets of the Nile Duology by Isabel Ibañez

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I bought this book at NY Comic-Con this year and it was sold to me as The Mummy meets Death on the Nile. Like most Millennial women, I love the 1999 movie, The Mummy. I haven’t read Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile but I know the jist so I was sold. I can say it is, like both in a way. Our protagonist, Inez Olivera is like Evelyn in that she is smart, quirky, and stubborn. Whit was definitely inspired by Rick, he is charming but a little bit of a scoundrel. When we meet Inez, she is living with her Aunt and Cousins in Argentina. Her parents are in Egypt, where they live half of the year since Inez was a baby. She keeps begging them to take her with them but they never do. Tragedy strikes when she gets word that they both have gone missing and presumed dead. Using her new inheritance, she books a boat ticket and goes straight to Alexandria. From the moment that she arrives, her Uncle tries to get her to go home because he knows it is not safe. Things are not as they seem but she at every corner thwarts him and it is fun. Thanks to a little bit of magic, she helps her Uncle find Cleopatra but at a cost. I don’t want to give too much away but there are some twists and turns. Even though I did kind of suspect one of them, It didn’t bother me because it is such a fun read.

The sequel picks up right where the last one ends and it is quite a cliffhanger. Here we get to know more about Whit and what motivates him. He is the typical scoundrel with a heart of gold. He does bad things but for good reasons and oh boy, does he do a doozy in this one. He is loyal almost to his own detriment as he tries to help Inez figure out the mystery of her parents. There are a few things in this one that didn’t add up to me but I won’t go into it because, you know, spoilers. In the end, my questions didn’t take away from my enjoyment of this book and the series as a whole. I like how the ending, is a little open-ended and the epilogue does suggest that the story might not be over for Olivera-Hayes clan. Though it will probably follow a different character. So yes, for all you 1999 Mummy lovers out there, this series is for you. I can’t recommend it enough.

How are you keeping track of your books? I’m trying out Fable

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A couple of months ago, I discovered Fable. It’s like Goodreads but more reader-friendly. For one, It’s not owned by Amazon. I’ll be honest I don’t know who owns it. I like that I can give half-star ratings because we have all read books that are not a solid three or four stars. It also asks you about the vibe, spiciness, and other things readers want to know. There are great ways to connect with other readers, join book clubs, and get recommendations. You can also keep track of our TV shows in the same manner. The best part was you could transfer all your books and reviews from Goodreads so you do not lose anything. You can also purchase e-books directly from them. They have a pretty decent selection.

I hear that Storygraph is also a good alternative and is owned by a Black Woman. I think I am going to look into that one next. For now, I am going to stay on Fable. If you are looking for an alternative to Goodreads, you can join me on Fable or check out Storygraph and let me know what you think.

Quick Review: House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

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The House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

This is a spooky little modern folk lore tale about Iris and her sister’s Vivi and Grey. When they were little, they went missing on New Year’s Eve for weeks before turning up mysteriously and changed. They all had little scars are their necks, their hair had turned white blonde, and they couldn’t remember what had happened or where they had been. Now, ten years later, Iris must delve into her family’s secrets now that Grey has once again gone missing.

I enjoyed the fairy tale and folk lore elements of this story and the dynamics at play between the sisters. This was a fun, twisty little read that I binged my way through. I really liked the main character, Iris, and the supporting casts of her sisters, Grey and Vivi, and Grey’s boyfriend Tyler were interesting and dimensional. The ending was good enough that I’m not clamoring for a sequel, but there were some threads left open that I wouldn’t mind continuing with these characters. If you like stories that play with folk tale elements and mystery, this is a fun one. Check it out.

Review: Red in Tooth and Claw by Lish McBride

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I do enjoy Lish McBride’s work. She is so creative with her stories and is able to find humor even in a serious story. Faolan Kelly’s Pops has just died. He was her last living relative, and as a 17-year-old girl living as a boy, because the world is kinder to men than women, she doesn’t have a lot of choices. The Mayor of her town is shipping her off to a nearby religious settlement. Faolan knows it’s because he wants her Pops’ land. She has a plan. All she has to do is work hard, not draw attention to herself for a few months, and then when she turns 18 years old, come back and claim her land. The thing is Faolan is not someone who can keep herself out of trouble. From the moment she arrives in the settlement, she knows something is wrong. She is quickly wrapped up in the mystery of the settlement when she starts to notice weird things but also weird sounds. Not going to lie, she spends a fair amount of time injured in this book. She really cannot keep herself safe and it is kind of funny how hard her new friends have to work to do just that. I liked the atmosphere of this book The Western setting invokes a certain image of American life that lends itself to a spooky tale. It is not my favorite Lish McBride but it’s a solid work to her cannon. A good read for anyone looking for a Western mystery with a little bit of supernatural mixed in.

Review: A Fire in the Sky by Sophie Jordan

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Sophie Jordan first wrote about dragons years ago in her Firelight series. It was a kind of a Romeo and Juliet story of a Dragon who falls in a dragon hunter. When I started to read this, I didn’t realize that is a kind of prequel to the Firelight series The similarities are definitely there. Tasmyn is the whipping girl for the princesses of Penterra. She was raised along with the Princesses and treated as one but when they do something wrong, she gets punished. One day the warriors from the Borderlands will protect the kingdom. Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands demands to marry one of the Princesses in trade for continuing to keep them safe. The King tricks Fell into marrying Tasmyn instead, and things don’t start between them. Now Tasmyn is married to a stranger and is heading his home. She has a secret that she has to keep from him and everyone else. How do dragons factor into all of this? Dragons have been gone for over a century of them. Humans hunted them down and then started hunting witches and then turned against each other. Typical right? I like Tasmyn and I like Fell. They make a good couple if you ask me. They are both two young people who have lived hard lives. Tasmyn may have grown up in the palace along with the Royal family but she was always different. She suffered the punishments, actually the whippings when the real Princesses acted up. She didn’t complain because she knew this was her job. Her duty was to keep the princesses safe. Fell in a lot of ways is the same. He may not be the whipping boy but he takes the responsibility of protecting his people very seriously. They are obviously attracted to each other, often drawn to each other but there is so much distrust in each other and themselves for them to bridge that gap. However, I think they found some common ground in the end. Now, I really do need to start doing more research when starting books because I didn’t know this was a series and it while the ending didn’t surprise me, it was intriguing I do look forward to finding out where the story goes next and opening up the world more. I read this book in like days. It was that fast of a read. I hope that future books will be as entertaining.

Review: Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

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What would you do if you were offered a chance to be a character in your favorite book series? What would you do if you were one of the story’s villains? That’s what happened to Rae. Rae is in her early 20s and has been fighting cancer since she was in high school. She and her younger sister have a favorite series, The Time of Iron written by Anonymous. Her sister would come to her hospital room and re-read the books to Rae and they would discuss each scene in character. Rae is very sick and one night, she gets a visit by a stranger who gives Rae an offer. Play a role of one of the characters in the Time of Iron Retrieve a flower before it blooms and she will cured. Fail and she would be forever in a coma. Rae doesn’t believe her but then she finds herself playing Lady Rahela, who is about to be executed in the first book. Rae is not as devoted to the books as her sister but she knows the story and she knows what comes next for her character and the other characters and uses that to her advantage. Leaning into her character’s villainous nature, she sets plans in motion to find the flower. She recruits the other villains of the story and gets to work She convinces the King that she is a prophet, saves the heroine, and befriends the leaders of thieves. This is such a fun book. All the characters fly off the page and you can tell that the author had a blast writing it. It is full of all the fantasy romance tropes that we become accustomed to and use it to tell a compelling story. It definitely plays on the whole, who really is a villain and who is a hero? Who decides? I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy books and is looking for a fun and entertaining read.

Review: Consent by Jill Ciment

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I don’t remember where I heard about this book, but I thought, “Oh, that sounds interesting.” So, I put myself on the waiting list for both the physical copy and the audiobook at the library. The audiobook came available first and I checked it out but I couldn’t make myself start it. It was something that I wanted to read and yet I was having trouble even beginning to read it. There was just something about the subject matter that made me think, “Oh, this is going to be a hard read. I don’t know if I feel like reading something hard right now…” And, I kept coming up with excuses until I had to return the audiobook unread.

Well, when the physical copy became available, I went and got it. The memoir is only 145 pages, so it is a little whisp of a book. That made it seem a little less daunting. (Although the audiobook is only four hours so, I don’t know what my deal was.) And it wasn’t hard to read. The prose was thoughtful and I was pulled into the story. Ciment’s memoir is about her relationship with artist Arnold Mesches and is part a revisiting of a previous memoir Half a Life and in part just a new memoir about a marriage seen from a new perspective. The story starts at the beginning of the relationship when she first started taking art classes from Arnold as a sixteen-year-old and follows through his divorce from his first wife, their marriage, and their life together up to his death at the age of ninety-three.

I think I was expecting something more negative and maybe not so much critical, there is nuance here. And a lot of questions are posed that the text really doesn’t answer. What we see is a relationship, the give and take and the joys and sorrows, just like you would have in any relationship. But there was also an investigation of power and understanding. Ciment tells us about being a teenager or someone in her early twenties and feeling powerful. She talks about when she felt jealous. She talks about when she felt supported or when she had to be supporting. As someone looking at a relationship that is now over, she has the 40,000-foot view, but also the memories of what it was like being inside it. She discusses how things that are obvious in hindsight, like how it feels cliche to think that she was, as a sixteen-year-old looking for a father figure, whom she found in someone her father’s age, but how clicheness of it part of the truth that we shouldn’t look away from just because it feels obvious. Ciment discusses what it is like being the younger woman, even as they age, and what that meant for her, watching her partner fall apart when she is still very much in her prime. I don’t know, I think I was expecting this to be more condemning of the relationship, but it wasn’t and I’m glad it wasn’t. Even though there was a power imbalance and even if, at seventeen, she hadn’t been considering what it would mean to be married to someone so much older than her, she still had agency and she exercised it. Following his divorce from his first wife, her husband had an artistic revival, something that may never have happened to him otherwise. And she went from painting to conceptual art to writing, a path she might not have otherwise taken without his support. This was thoughtful and interesting. And it left me with more questions than answers. I’m writing this review hours after I finished reading the book (so I could reference it before I have to return it to the library), but I have a feeling this is a memoir I am going to consider for quite a while.

Review: Readme.txt by Chelsea Manning

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So, here are things that I knew about Chelsea Manning before reading this book:

  • She is a transwoman who was in the US military during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
  • She leaked some documents
  • She went to prison for leaking some documents

But, I knew there was more to the story than those things so when her memoir came up in my recommendations, I thought it would be a good idea to check it out. Manning narrates the audiobook, and hearing her story in her own voice made it feel very personal. She discusses growing up in Oklahoma, realizing she was trans, and the problems that caused for her at school and at home (although she didn’t come out as trans for a long time.) She talks about being interested in computers and finding a community. She talks about coming out. She talks about being homeless. She talks about struggling with being trans and how the army, with its enforced masculinity, was part of an effort to change something about herself. She also discusses at length her ideals, what brought her to join the military, and what eventually brought her to share classified documents with Wikileaks. The memoir then discusses her time in prison and the military trial that initially gave her a 35-year prison sentence. This was later commuted by President Obama before he left office in 2017.

I liked how Manning’s humanity is always front and center in this memoir. I mean, as a memoir, how else would it be? But still, as someone who doesn’t have a lot of interaction with military personnel, this reminder that they are individuals with their own problems, concerns, and ideas. I also learned a little bit about how intelligence gathering works, which was at times interesting and appalling. Thinking about what kind of information the government can and does track about people, for various reasons is something that I’m going to be considering for a long while.

I think transparency and a knowledgeable public are important for our democracy, and looking around the world today, with the US in the middle of a Presidential election and ongoing conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine (And Sudan and Congo and many other places where my attention hasn’t already been drawn), thinking about what America’s role is on the world stage and how information and the public back home is managed is important. I am glad that I read this, even if it was at times a very difficult read. Her time in prison and the descriptions of solitary confinement were brutal.

So, if you are interested in contemporary American history and would like to hear about it from someone who was involved, this is worth the read. But, go into it knowing that there are descriptions of solitary confinement, homelessness, war crimes, and mentions of suicide.

Review: World War Z by Max Brooks

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Another excellent selection from my public library. This is a re-read for me. I listened to the audio, which I remember being spectacular when it first came out. Then I remembered the movie coming out and hearing disappointing reviews, so I skipped it. The book is written as an oral history about a dozen years after global victory in the great zombie war. All kinds of people are interviewed and they share their stories about the early days and their first encounters, the trajectory of the outbreak, various wilderness situations, management, government, victory, surrender. It’s a really fun piece of zombie fiction.

I picked it up again recently because I ended up watching the film recently. I know it’s a cliche that the book is always better than the movie, but here it’s true. The movie uses some of the book as background for just your bog-standard dude-works-hard-and-finds-the-key-to-save-the-day story. He’s a real hero. Boring. The book, on the other hand, is full of regular people sorting themselves, their families, and their communities out. It’s young adults telling you about their lost childhoods, people who made tough choices and maybe saved some of humanity trying to make sense of it all. It’s people running government agencies that never needed to exist before now. It’s billionaires being monsters. The book really is something; an interesting twist on the zombie apocalypse. The text is a little dated, but reading it post pandemic makes it eerily real in some ways. There’s panic, misinformation, deniers, true believers… it all feels a little familiar. This isn’t my first zombie fiction in an endemic Covid world, so I had some expectation of what would be the most upsetting about it. I thought, perhaps, it would be loads of people getting sick but, no, it turns out watching people disregard and endanger others is what did it for me. Because this is written after the main events being described, you don’t get the immediacy of having to watch a character die because someone else made a terrible choice.

So, if you like oral histories, zombies, and knowing that there’s some kind of happy ending, this is for you.

Review: Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi

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This was such a great trilogy. I am curious to see how it turns into a movie or TV series. I know the rights have been sold and Tomi is involved in the script. Zelie has been through so much and honestly wouldn’t have faulted her for giving up but of course she didn’t. Nor did her brother and friends. At the end of the last book, the Maji were successful in overthrowing the king but then overtaken by the Skulls from across the sea. King Baldyr has been hunting Maji’s because he needs the one to help him achieve Godhood. We all know this is Zelie. She escapes but not before he implants in her gold medallion that changes her powers. She has a vision that she must find the other magical person Baldyr needs. Another woman from a mysterious nation, New Gaia. Mae’e is a great addition to the books. I liked her stoicism and fire. I know that might not make sense but it’s true. It was nice to see an expansion of the world but we did sacrifice what was going on in Orisha since most of the action was happening elsewhere. The other criticism I have that the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I wanted it to be. I feel the epilogue could have given a little bit more. Other then that I found it to be a fun adventure like the other books. Baldyr is a much scarier villain then the previous king was. The stakes were much higher because the threat wasn’t just to the Maji or Orisha but to New Gaia as well. This was a good series and I am looking forward to what Tomi does next.