#gender envy lesley for real

[7greentears]

I’m normal about them I swear.

[mermaidsirennikita]

May 2018 Book Roundup

I don’t know when I got so into thrillers--but here we are.  Of course, I’m not as into the types of thrillers that are about a cop pursuing a killer.  It’s more the insidious types of domestic thrillers that catch my attention, about idle suburbanites who secretly harbor paranoid minds and little hatreds.  That’s probably why I enjoyed “A Simple Favor” by Darcey Bell and Liv Constantine’s “The Last Mrs. Parrish”, however much they polarized readers.  They both feature horrible women, stupid men, unreliable narrators, and endings that don’t neatly tie up loose ends.  In other words, they’re perfect summer reads.

The Defiant by Lesley Livingston.  3/5.  The second in a series, The Defiant returns to the world of female gladiators and in particular Fallon.  Now triumphant and happy in a ludus run by her sister, Sorcha, Fallon expects to have it easier.  However, her life is upturned when the women of the ludus are accused of rebelling, and Sorcha goes missing.  I rated The Valiant, the first book in this series, four stars so I must have enjoyed it, but I also don’t really remember it, aside from the basic plot and being interested in Sorcha and Fallon’s relationship.  I would still say that the sister relationship is the core focus of the plot, which is different (and distracts from a fairly shallow romance between Fallon and Cai, a Roman soldier; there’s an opportunity for something cooler, but the author bypasses that completely).  But I think I’m over this series; this book drove home that it skews too young for me to enjoy it.  The gladiatrix thing is cool, but there’s so much in this book about how the ludus is home, and like... hasn’t everyone been enslaved by Romans to some degree?  Taken from their homelands?  Forced into a blood sport to be entertainment?  It’s fun, and I won’t say that it isn’t without merits, but this is too shallow for what it takes on.

Fatal Throne by Candace Fleming et. al.  4/5.  A collaborative novel from the perspectives of all six of Henry VIII’s queens--and Henry himself.  What impressed me about this book was how it wasn’t really straightforward.  It seems like it might be at first; Catherine of Aragon’s section kicks it off by detailing the beginning of Catherine’s life in England, up until her marriage is collapsing.  Now, don’t think that this makes it a bad story; I quite liked it.  Catherine of Aragon is, in this version, for once more than a stereotypical zealot queen, though the author does that thing where a character whose native tongue is Spanish constantly throws random Spanish words into English sentences, which doesn’t feel real.  But anyway; many of the other stories are less traditional.  All revolve around the queens’ downfalls or deaths; for example, Anne (or Anna, as she’s called here) of Cleves has a story that really centers around her dying days, and the ghosts of her past.  There’s a weird, haunting creepiness to everything.  Though there are some rather shallow moments--including one bit in the Anne Boleyn story that seemed... pretty off--and there isn’t any reinventing of the wheel, it’s a sad retelling of the wives’ story, where the central villain is undeniably Henry VIII.

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian.  2/5.  Theodosia was a child when she was forced to witness the murder of her mother, the queen of Astrea.  Since then she’s been beaten and terrorized in the submission by the conquering Kaiser, forced to live as Lady Thora, the Ash Princess.  The combination of being forced to commit a terrible act and the reappearance of a childhood friend wakes Thora to the reality of her people’s suffering, and spurs her to action.  She’s given a task: seduce the crown prince, and kill him.  So yeah, pretty typical fantasy stuff, but that doesn’t mean it has to be bad.  What makes it bad is Theo’s flip-flopping as a character and a truly dismal love triangle.  Neither romance feels real, and Theo’s constantly between dithering and acting like... Stormborn-lite.  Oh, yes.  The GoT influence is strong in this one.  I just wish it had been more interesting.

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain.  3/5.  The turbulent romance between Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, writer Martha Gellhorn, is told from Gellhorn’s perspective.  I remember really liking McLain’s version of Hemingway’s first marriage, “The Paris Wife”, but that was so long ago that I can’t remember much of it.  And for that matter, that marriage--which occurred during Hemingway’s years as part of the Lost Generation in Paris--was a very different animal from what he shared with Gellhorn.  You get the expected beats--Gellhorn and Hemingway meeting, her being initially starstruck while harboring her own ambitions, their work during the Spanish Civil War, the affair that led to a marriage, and that marriage’s destruction because Hemingway was incapable of holding a decent relationship and Gellhorn’s fierce independence kept her from being the idealized wife he wanted--but while the writing is pretty... the expectedness keeps the book from being more than exactly what it is.  And though obviously Gellhorn was a good bit younger than Hemingway and obviously her love for him and hero worship of him allowed to overlook shit long enough to up and marry the guy...  I just don’t really buy that Martha Gellhorn would speak and act the way McLain seems to think she did.  She’s so over the top as a young woman in love.  The book is fine, it’s just uninspired.

Trespassing by Brandi Reeds. 4/5.  Veronica is at her wit’s end, caring for a toddler while her husband is often gone for work as a pilot, while at the same time pumping herself full of hormones for her fertility treatments in order to have a second child.  Still traumatized by the miscarriage she suffered recently, she is shocked when her husband, Micah, doesn’t come home--on the same day that their daughter claims that “Daddy went to God Land”.  Swept up in a mess of emotions and falling under suspicion from the police, Veronica flees with her daughter to the Florida Keys, where her husband had a house in her name.  But the island life presents even more questions.  Who are the children in the photos she finds, and why is Micah with them?  This is a solid, engaging thriller that somehow is at its most disturbing when you consider the fact that Veronica’s mind is rattled in part because of what she’s put her body through via fertility treatments.  Veronica is sympathetic, and rather than stupidly accepting things like thriller protagonists often do, she’s paranoid, protective, never quite trusting anyone.  Why should she?  While I won’t say that the reveal in the end is one of the best I’ve read, the story as a whole is very interesting, and I appreciated the fact that Reeds really delved into the mind of a woman with a bit of feminine body horror--like, in a sensitive way.  It’s different.  The book is as much about Veronica’s identity as anything else.

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine.  4/5.  Amber envies the lives of glamorous trophy wives, none of them more than Daphne Parrish.  Daphne has it all: a handsome, doting, extraordinarily wealthy husband, two daughters, and all of the possessions she could desire.  So she begins her plan: befriend Daphne under the guise of a homely, Pollyanna type and steal her life.  But as Amber becomes closer to Daphne, she constantly has to look over her shoulder for ghosts from her past that could disrupt her plan.  Little does she know that the real danger could be closer than she thinks.  This book was kind of disturbing and definitely does not have the type of ending that will leave you.... feeling morally good.  But it’s juicy. It’s Big Little Lies kind of juicy, about vaguely psychotic women with rich and famous lives.  Frankly, I would have appreciated more development of the female characters aside from Amber and Daphne, but the two of them were great as is.  You spend about half the book in Amber’s mind, and she is HEINOUS.  But in an interesting, darkly funny way.  The book isn’t going to be for everyone, but I found it extremely entertaining.

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton.  2/5.  Marisol has never been to Cuba, the homeland her grandmother, Elisa, fled as a young woman.  She returns to scatter Elisa’s ashes after the death of Fidel Castro.  However, she didn’t expect to connect with Luis, a historian and dissenter in the current regime--nor did she expect to discover that her grandmother had an affair with a revolutionary.  This book has a lot to say about Cuban politics; and I value that.  But unfortunately, the political backdrop takes over the story, which is very paint by numbers.  Nothing surprising happens.  The characters are dry.  I wish I loved it, but I just didn’t.

From Twinkle, with Love by Sandhya Menon.  3/5.  Teenage Twinkle is an aspiring filmmaker, out of sorts as her relationship with her best friend Maddie--newly popular while Twinkle remains a bit of nerd--deteriorates.  She’s surprised when Sahil--the shy twin brother of her crush, Neil--asks her to collaborate on him on a gender-flipped version of Dracula, but it isn’t long before she’s starting to look at Sahil in a very different way.  At the same time, however, she’s corresponding via email with her secret admirer, N--who she very much suspects is Neil.  What is Twinkle to do?  I loved Menon’s debut, When Dimple Met Rishi, and I’m still very excited for the spinoff of that book.  It was a perfect little romcom.  This was not.  This book read much younger--and Twinkle and Sahil are a bit younger than Dimple and Rishi were.  But their voices were also VERY immature, and in general it just... missed the mark for me.  I think someone younger would love this book.  It did touch on several really great threads, especially with Twinkle’s family.  But I didn’t feel the same thing I felt with WDMR at all.

Furyborn by Claire Legrand.  4/5.  When her best friend Prince Audric finds his life endangered, Rielle saves him--exposing herself as capable of wielding all seven types of elemental magic.  There are two people foretold to have this gift; one will be a queen who brings light and salvation, while the other holds blood and destruction.  Put to the test in a series of trials, Rielle must prove exactly which one she is.  A thousand years later, bounty hunter Eliana is shocked to find her mother kidnapped, with the only person who can help find her being a rebel leader.  In joining up with him, Eliana defies the empire she’s worked for--and puts herself in terrible danger.  This book is an interesting one; the two narratives you’re following are focused heavily on their respective leads, and neither woman is traditionally “good”.  Eliana has the charm of being a tortured rogue, at least--Rielle is more complex, obsessed with adulation and self-centered to the point of callousness.  But I enjoyed both of them, with Eliana’s story picking up a few points over Rielle’s towards the end... which was a pleasant surprise, as at first I wasn’t sure if Eliana’s side of things would measure up to Rielle’s.  There is a lot amgoing on, so things can get a bit confusing--and this makes the middle drag a bit.  But the ending left me dying for more, with the only other complaint I can make being that Legrand could work on her sex scenes a tad.  But if you’re looking for a female-centered story with a few guys who are all about that undying devotion thing, plus a sexy villain and moral ambiguity, I recommend this one highly.

One Match Fire by Lissa Linden.  2/5.  Twelve years ago, Paul and Amy were camp counselors--and he broke her heart.  Now Amy is back to run the camp after Paul quits, though they don’t realize that they’ll be meeting up again until she’s at his door, physically different but emotionally still affected by what happened between them during their teen years.  Both frustrated and with few other options, they make a deal: until Paul leaves, they’ll have a purely sexual relationship.  But Paul wants to know what really has Amy rattled--and he doesn’t want to leave anymore.  I like romance, I like erotica--I wasn’t sure how to categorize this book, as most of it is graphic sex but I don’t know, the erotica bells weren’t quite ringing for me--but I still need stakes.  They don’t need to be fantasy stakes.  They don’t need to be thriller stakes.  It could be that the family business is about to go under; it could be that the leads are dueling lawyers.  STAKES.  This book has no stakes.  I thought that Paul did something super shitty when these (28 year old) people were kids, but like... it was a bit douchey, but tons of people were dicks to me in high school, I was a dick back, and I don’t remember much of it.  Certainly, I found Amy’s reaction a bit over the top.  At the same time, Paul was--very shortly into this sexual relationship--being like “give yourself to me emotionally Amy” and I was like lmao dude why y’all haven’t spoken there is no reason for you to be so invested in this woman.  He was so pushy, it really irked me.  The sex scenes were okay.  “Will these two people run a camp together” just wasn’t a big enough question to keep me interested.

A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell.  4/5.  Widowed, neurotic mommy blogger Stephanie has found the best friend of her dreams in Emily Nelson, a wealthy publicity exec with a handsome husband and beloved son Nicky, who happens to be the best friend of Stephanie’s son Miles.  So when Emily asks Stephanie for a “simple favor”--to watch Nicky for a few hours after school--Stephanie doesn’t hesitate to do so.  But when Emily doesn’t show to pick Nicky up--when she isn’t even home by the time her husband Sean returns from a business trip--Stephanie goes on red alert.  It isn’t long before the police find Emily’s body; and it also isn’t long before Stephanie begins taking her place.  As Stephanie begins receiving odd messages, the question is impossible to avoid: what really happened to Emily Nelson?  Alternating between Stephanie’s blog posts and the characters’ perspectives, “A Simple Favor” is one of those thrillers that is kind of balls to the wall insane.  You can expect to find that Emily wasn’t all that she appeared to be.  But Stephanie’s secrets are just as great, if not greater.  I’ve seen a common complaint regarding this book regarding the fact that none of the characters are good people.  For me, that just made it more delicious.  Emily is this enigmatic, alluring figure luring over the entire story, and you just can’t shake her appeal.