Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa , Polly Barton (Translator)

 genre: fiction

Hunchback is a provocative novella living in a disabled body and finding ways to create the kind of life that feels meaningful.  Did the ways that Shaka, our protagoist, found to make life meaningful make sense to me?  Not particularly. It's a very sexually explicit book while at the same time, it did make me look inward and ask myself why shouldn't folks born with a congenital muscle disorder be able to live a sexual life if they choose?  Something this book did definitely do is make me think about was the limits that everyone else wants to put on people dealing with significant physical/medical issues as well as how much time and effort one must spend keeping ones body alive when this is your reality.  Ventilators and suctioning and positioning - Shaka shares the minutiae of what is required to keep her twisted body alive and functioning.  The translation is very antiseptic, in some ways, within the language there is little to no emotionality that might make me more sympathetic to Shaka.  But I am not sorry I stepped into her shoes for a couple of hours and imagined what it might be like to be her.

The Midnight Train by Matt Haig (audiobook)

genre: fiction

Wilbur is an old man.  He knows that being able to grow old means he's lucky, but when he passes away, he suddenly is on a train that is taking him back through his life. Starting from the beginning, Wilbur sees it all - all the pivotal points that loom large, the grand love and the ache of loss.  Of course, this means he also sees where he wished he'd done things differently.  In a VERY Christmas-Carol like way, Wilbur has a chance to realize how he could've done things differently - but what good can that do now that he's dead?

The format worked for me.  I thought the train device was interesting and the story definitely moved along fast enough.  It didn't pack as much of an emotional punch as The Midnight Library but it DID make me think and assess my OWN choices.  I know it was TRYING to get me to do that, but I let myself be taught.  I let the pedantic nature of the book sink in a bit.  I know it might not work for other readers but I don't think the author is wrong with the point of this book: to be PRESENT.  To honestly turn NOW into what matters instead of what's COMING.  I'm on this journey myself anyway, in general, and so I appreciated this nudge.  3.5 stars.  OH and the narrator's Northern England accent is delightful.

Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indriðason , Bernard Scudder (Translator) (audiobook)

genre: mystery

This is a dark mystery, let's just say that to start with. The discovery of the body at the beginning is deeply disturbing and it there is never any light at the end of the tunnel we begin in.  The story fluctuates back and forth in time as in present day, the Reykjavik police force is trying to determine the identify of the body that is found and in the past storyline, we are learning about a deeply disturbing marriage full of psychological and physical abuse.  There is also a few subplots the follow the lives of two of the detectives and guess what, there is nothing good or happy anywhere.  Not really at all.  But, I knew when I chose to read one of the popular Icelandic novels I read about in a DIFFERENT book that it wouldn't be sunshines and rainbows.  So I don't blame it for being the Nordic Noir that it is.  It kept me interested and there are definitely some twists here.  My three stars is because the side plots just never developed into anything.  I feel like there was a lot of unnecessary stuff in here that was just sort of filler to maybe have plot for a next book in a series?  I just felt like it could have been shorter and still packed a punch.  VERY glad I did the audiobook even though it took me until I was about 3/4 through to even have a couple of the character's names straight.  

Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary fiction

Cherry's alone.  She's not happy about her marriage to Tom failing and it wasn't her choice to be left behind but she's trying to make the best of it.  She's got work.  She's got her giant dog.  And she's got her boisterous sisters.  But what if that isn't enough?  Not only that, her ex-husband is a cartoonist on the verge of being crazy famous, which makes living in her community really challenging sometimes. 

Something important to Cherry about Cherry is that she is fat.  This is the word she uses to describe herself.  And being fat means that you're looking at the world and those who navigate it with a different perspective.   Relationships and attraction, she knows that the way her body looks can impact that but Cherry is also an extremely capable, confidant, boundary-setting woman.  She won't settle but she also loves to be loved like the rest of us.  Is there another guy who could love her the way that Tom did?  

The narrator of this audiobook is SO good.  I just need to say that.  At about the one hour mark  I thought - how can this story last so so many more hours?  But then things got more and more complicated and I was so glad it was long because sometimes love stories are not easy and clear cut.  Sometimes they are messy and require a lot of negotiating with ourselves as well as whoever our partner might be.  Warning: there is a lot more explicit sex in this book than in others by this author but it gets four big stars from me.

What Boys Learn by Andromeda Romano-Lax (audiobook)

genre: contemporary thriller

You'd think that Abby's training as a therapist and counselor would prepare her for when a student winds up dead at the fancy private school where she works.  But nothing can really prepare you for that - especially when your son who GOES to that school might know something.   How do you help figure out what went wrong without incriminating your own child - and how can one ever even believe such a thing?  This is a twisty novel that looks at how some men and boys view women and the ways that can manifest itself in behavior.  It's also about what's inside us and how we can heal from past trauma - or let it turn us into monsters.

This fairly long audiobook did go by quickly.  Sometimes Abby drove me crazy with her choices and there are some plotholes that stuck out but it definitely kept my attention.  It's upsetting, obviously, but I actually feel like the ending was redemptive in an important way.  I didn't guess everything until later in the story and even then I hadn't guessed all of it, which I super appreciate.  I feel like it deserves three stars for how often I wanted to listen and because the narrators really did quite good.  My only gripe is that sometimes the ends of their words were so soft you couldn't hear well what they were saying, but that was only occasionally.

Land by Maggie O'Farrell (audiobook)

genre: historical fiction

Tomás is wandering the wilds of Ireland with a purpose: he is working on a great project to map the whole of Ireland. Of course that means he's working for the Red Coats, who treat him and his son, Liam, like garbage. But Tomás knows what he's doing and, in a way, sees it as his duty to record what's left after the Great Hunger has ravaged his beloved homeland.  But the land can change a man - a copse of trees or a deep, clear well can trigger something deep inside and change them forever.  It can unearth the kind of ghosts that might haunt you, without you ever having seen a thing.

This is not a paranormal story, not in any real way.  The ghosts that haunt its pages aren't really the undead but the incorporeal manifestation of the Irish experience.  But the past itself, the pain and the suffering and how it has put things in motion, that's what's weaving in and out of this beautifully written tale.  It is a story of siblings and the parents, of a remote house out on a peninsula and how the land and the people change each other.  It's about decisions that can't be unmade and how our choices don't just impact ourselves but also those we care about.  It's about the brave decision to pivot when things no longer feel right and the courage to do what must be done even when it feels like it might break us.  And knowing when it's time for each.

This is a evocative and atmospheric book.  More than once I felt actual physical feelings for these characters and what they went through.   I never ended up crying so much as just ACHING for how little of life we can control sometimes.  It is a bit slow going, that's the only thing I would complain about, and even that's no reason not to pick up this book.  

The audiobook narrator is brillant, both his female and male voices were so lilting, it truly helped me get into the narrative.

Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself by David Archuleta (audiobook)

 genre: memoir

I was never obsessed with David Archuleta.  I obviously knew of him and, as an active Mormon at the time, felt excited about a fellow church member being so much in the public eye.  His music was great but I didn't think about him much until he came out.  I remember THIS being shocking, especially because of how close I knew he was to those in the leadership of the Church.  I wondered how it would work out for him.

And now I know.  And it is a hard story to read.   I enjoyed learning about his start in performing and his professional journey was such an interesting one.  What most sticks out to me, though, is how David's relationships with his family were so traumatic and complicated.  I had no idea.  But even more than that is his suppression of his homosexuality to appease his family, yes, but even more, to appease a God that he believed could absolutely never love or accept him as a gay man. 

It is heartbreaking to experience his struggle with him.  My heart ached for his view of the world - one that I shared myself for more than forty years - a view that said that there is only one kind of way to be a person that could ever be with God again.  His faith deconstruction brought up a lot of my own painful feelings from this same process and he articulate so well how truly agonizing it is.

My only compliant about this book is that the writing is sometimes rather juvenile.  No shade on David - this is a super important book - but sometimes it feels like a truly complex memoir and other times he goes into a kind of colloquial mode full of swears and sexual language that feels like it was thrown in there to show that he's a tough guy now.  I think it was the flip flop between the two that just felt performative.   

That being said though, HIS STORY IS IMPORTANT.  The leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints could genuinely benefit from listening to former members like David whose heartbreaking experiences need to change the way that lgbtq+ folks are treated across the church.

Also, the song at the end of the audiobook is touched a really raw place for me.  Absolutely beautiful.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (audiobook)

genre: fiction

Natalie Heller Mills wasn't always an influencer.  She was once just a person like you and me, going to college, trying to find her place.  What made her notable, though, is that Natalie's kind of Christianity meant that finding her place meant a fervent desire for  a "traditional" household with a man at the head and dozens of children and a woman with no desires of her own.  The problem is that Natalie DOES have desires, even if she only ever keeps them in her head.  And while the "outside" Natalie is striving toward being a perfect Tradwife, "inside" Natalie is a disaster of want and expectations.  The internet is the perfect platform for a person like Natalie.  Except, one day, she wakes up, and she is no longer in a world with the internet.  She is, somehow, truly living on a homestead in the past, complete with a fireplace for an oven and no food except what they make or grow for themselves.  How in the world could it have come to this?

This book is kind of a fever dream, I'm not gonna lie.  Natalie is essentially the WORST.  Little to no redeeming qualities in this lady.  But also, I kinda get where she's coming from.  And WOW do I get her road to being an influencer and what I enjoyed most about this book is its scathing look at the idea of Internet Influencer and its impact on our society and on the influencers themselves.  Sometimes listening to this book was DEEPLY uncomfortable.  Like watching a train wreck while sitting on the tracks.  I had to actually even stop listening once to take a break.  But I'm not sorry I powered through because even though the last 25% of this book is kind of insane, I was definitely intrigued, if not completely entertained.  And you know why I can give this book four stars instead of saying "I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough?"  Because I have read books about and watched the documentary about Ruby Franke.  What Natalie chooses in this book has been chosen by actual real people and lives ARE destroyed.

content warning: it's crude with lots of swears and if you are a super traditional Christian, it's going to push uncomfortable buttons

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas , Robin Buss (Translator) (audiobook)

genre: fiction

One does not make the decision to read this book lightly. This massive doorstop of a novel looks overwhelming and, having been written in the 1840, one has to wonder if there is any way to translate the original 19th century French to modern English in such a way that one would honestly want to power through over 1300 pages.

Turns out, this book is a classic for a reason. I DID want to power through. I made the important pivot to listen to an audiobook version instead of holding it in my hands. I knew I would have more time to listen than to sit and read and I was worried about my attention waning. This was the perfect choice for me. Even listening at 1.7x it was over 44 hours. You do have to know all this in your head before you start.

We don't know the Count at the beginning because, in fact, the Count doesn't actually exist. Who DOES exist is the earnest and very-much-in-love Edmond Dantès. This young man is an excellent sailor, a trustred friend, and when we meet him, he is returning home from a voyage overseas. He is eager to reunite with his love, Mercédès, who is anxiously awaiting his return. At this time, France is in political turmoil as Napoleon is plotting to return to power and men must choose where their loyalties lie. And thus the Count's origin story begins when he is caught up in a plot laid by three jealous and power-hunger men who ensure that Dantès ends up in a prison cell for actual years. And while our young hero is in jail, his pain and grief and rage turn into a resolute desire for revenge that will not stop. When miraculous circumstances lead to Dantès transforming into the man named the Count of Monte Cristo, that optimistic and innocent young man dies and the man that is left behind sees himself as the hand of God, destined to mete out punishments and enact the justice that he feels fits the crimes committed against him.

Because it was originally a serial, the chapters are good bite-sizes and it's super readable. In between all the plot and machinations of the Count, there are some really big and deep ideas here about justice and forgiveness and what is worth living for. Evil is so blatantly evil and it feels like everywhere you look, characters are weak and focused on the all the wrong things. There are certainly a lot of plot threads that have NOT aged well, especially those concerning slavery and opioid drug use, which caught me off guard. But when you let your brain acknowledge when this was written and then just lean into the time period, there is so much going on here that it's honestly sometimes hard to keep straight. You'll have CHAPTERS AND CHAPTERS of what must surely be a completely unrelated plotline and then somehow BAM. There's the hand of the Count AGAIN. As much as I'd occasionally get bored during these interludes, I did always enjoy when things tied back in again.

By the end? While there are so many literal villains, I also found that I cared about so many of these characters. The young woman who just wants to be with who she chooses, the grandpa who wants to use his voice to help the ones he loves most, the young man who has never forgotten the stranger who helped his family. I wanted to know how their stories ended! The last couple dozen chapters are like a giant showcase showdown of WHAT IN THE WORLD?? as all of the Count's plans come to fruition - and not always in the ways he'd anticipated. I appreciated HIS growth as a character as well, learning how to be not just a friend but someone who can truly let get of his deep and heavy pain.

It's a wild ride. If you like stories with disguises, untold wealth, hidden caves and mysterious poisons, secret plots, public revelations of one's darkest secrets and the kind of love that can stand the test of time, then hear me out. Read this book.

A Far-Flung Life by M.L. Stedman (audiobook)

genre: historical fiction

Life on a station in western Australia is mostly a very solitary existence. At a time when sheep are your livelihood and school is conducted over the wave radio, Warren, Rosie and Matt have each other for company. As they grow, there is boarding school and of course there are the helping hands around the property but mostly there is home, Meredith Downs station. When tragedy strikes their family like lightening, everything that matters collapses into the most essential and even that feels broken. Inside this black hole, choices are both made and not made and the consequences could be the final breath to make everything fall down permanently.

OH THIS BOOK. It was so hard to listen to sometimes I almost had to stop. It was that painful and uncomfortable. But I am so genuinely glad I stuck with it because there is also so much humanity. There is a reality here that I couldn’t look away from and the journey from beginning to end left me exhausted but also fulfilled. People are horrible and people are so beautiful. Humans commit horrible wrongs and humans survive horrible wrongs that they’ve done or had done to them and humans sometimes don’t know how to survive well and humans sometimes make things right in the best ways they can.

It will make you sick and make you cry and stitch you back up. This book is not for everyone. But I’m glad I pushed through my discomfort because although I’d wondered if the author could salvage any good from all the sadness, she absolutely did.

This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary mystery

Joy and Benny have got a good thing going with their podcast This Story Might Save Your Life.  It's a huge hit and their following has gotten huge, so much so that it's gotten a little overwhelming for Joy, who lives with severe narcolepsy.  When Joy and her husband Xander aren't home one morning when Benny comes over to record, it feels like it must just be a miscommunication until it is clear that they are truly missing. Benny is soon desperate to find out what happened to his best friend and her husband.

This one snagged me from the first chapter. There are a few little tropes in here but for the most part I just had no clue what was going to happen next, in the best way.  I am SO glad I did the audio, the podcast episodes were a fun narrative device.  The writing never dragged and it felt just tight enough.  I appreciated reading about a character with narcolepsy and thinking about how that would impact one's life on a moment to moment basis.  This never felt like a thriller but it was a solid mystery for me and kept me invested from beginning to end.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (audiobook)

 genre: science fiction

When Earth needs to save itself from the aliens that have already nearly destroyed it, it looks to the children to find a new commander.  The child they think can complete the task?  Ender Wiggins.  Precious Ender who is capable of so much and whose training will run the razor's edge of breaking him.

I read this book LONG ago, as a teen and LOVED it.  So many good twists and you get SO invested in Ender and what is being required of him.  This time, on a long road trip, I listened to a full cast audio version with my two 13 year old sons.  I had hoped they'd like it as much as I did and they LOVED it as well.  They were surprised by the good twists and reveals, they cared about Ender and his friends, and I loved that at the heart of this story is the decisions we make: who do we want to be?  How do we want to show up in the world and how do we want to handle what is asked of us?  Motivation and Intent plus Behavior - all of these things make up our character and it's so clear what Ender is made of, despite what he has to DO.

Excellent production.  I love that I get to give it five stars again 30 years later.

An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer (audiobook)

 genre: historical fiction

This is the 11th book I have read by Georgette Heyer. I have often ADORED her main characters and found myself laughing out loud at the delightful circumstances they find themselves in.

This was not one of those books.

The "heroine" never really comes off with main character energy. It took me chapters to figure out who she was and still by the end she was surprisingly flat. But there is a main "family" that we get to know and what this book did do for me is make alive the vibe of ex-pat Brussels as it is on the brink of the Battle of Waterloo. Since I recently read an actual history book about this period, I know how accurate this book actually is and how many real-life people are within its pages. When we are just dealing with the social situations and the interplay between people, this book is just as good as any Heyer but THE BATTLE.

Oh it was so long.

I cannot express how elaborate the description of the battle is.

I don't know what Heyer was thinking.

Because I cannot imagine that anyone who is reading this type of book wants PAGES AND PAGES AND MORE PAGES OF INTRICATELY DETAILED BATTLE MANEUVERS.

So.   

I hate giving 2 stars to a Georgette Heyer, because she has made me laugh until I actually cried before.

But this was too much, even for me.

Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books by Hwang Bo-Reum , Shanna Tan (Translator) (audiobook)

 genre: non-fiction

This book is exactly what it professes to be in the title.  It's a cozy love letter to books and reading, 53 short vignettes about a way that books can be a part of your life.  As a fellow avid reader, I can't say I learned anything here that I haven't already done/am doing/have thought of, but it genuinely is just a nice way to think about my favorite hobby for a while.  I also loved that she speaks a different native language than me and so has grown up with a whole different canon of literature - along with many titles I am familiar with.  Most of all, this just reminded me with how happy I am that books are where my heart landed when I was a little girl myself and that they still give me as much pleasure now as they did then.

Eradication: A Fable by Jonathan Miles (audiobook)

genre: fiction

This short novel is subtitled "a fable." Now that I am finished reading it, I've dug a little bit into the actual definition of a fable and I am intrigued by this label. There are no anthropomorphized animals in this book but there is definitely a moral and it's one I am still pondering.

We first meet our main character, Adi, while he's on a boat heading out to a remote island. He's been charged with a specific task: save the island's wildlife by eradicating it of the creature that's destroying it. Adi finds that this is a task much easier considered than actually performed. The goats that he's meant to disappear off the island are *also* wildlife and unfortunately, Adi can't just turn off his brain to do the thing. What we end up reading is the circular thoughts of a man who has experienced great tragedy and yet somehow can't stop wanting to live and let live. What deserves to die or go extinct and what deserves to be saved? And are humans even the right creatures to make that choice? It's a gritty and sometimes upsetting story (most especially if you are a serious animal lover) but I don't think it's going to leave me any time soon.

The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillian (audiobook)

genre: thriller

Dr. Anya Brown has just done the impossible: she's managed to translate the elusive Folio 9 and this achievement has set her up to get a job wherever she could want in academia.  With her love of languages and exceptional memory, she is great at making connections other folks cannot see.  Elsewhere, the body found on a remote Scottish beach will start a cascade of circumstances that won't affect just Anya but might somehow lead to an even deeper mystery.

Okay, do LOVE dark academia and I also do LOVE stories about ancient things, a la Indiana Jones or the Da Vinci Code, so keep that in mind.  If you do NOT like those types of stories, this book will not be for you.  If you DO like stories where you never know who is on your side or not as you race to put pieces of a puzzle together, then this might be worth trying.  I liked that it completely centers capable and intelligent women, and overarching crux of the plot is women finding ways to create the kind of world they want, even if it does sometimes require you to suspend your disbelief a little more than you'd want.  This is not a short book and I listened to the whole thing over a weekend, I was that engaged it in.

The Professor by Charlotte Brontë (audiobook)

genre: classic fiction

Our Professor, William, does not start off in his profession.  In fact, in a Dickensonian way, he has to pull himself up by his bootstraps with hardly a friend in the world to care for him.  His loveless youth, however, does spur him to invest in himself and with determination he finds his way to Brussels.  In this fashionable city he chooses his path and tries to create a life for himself with good work and, hopefully, with someone by his side to join him.

The Professsor is Charlotte's first book, published after her death.  I am a devotee of Jane Eyre but this came no where near to that work of art.  There are so many caricatured and rather horrible people and the last half an hour of the book could literally just not exist and the story wouldn't have changed.   There is a LOT of French here, which I can handle, but there is no translation, which I can imagine would be irritating.  And YET.  You can still see her genius in there.  The romance, although dripping with Patriarchal drivel sometimes, also was also sometimes exactly what you'd want.  A few quotes that I had to listen to twice, they felt that lovely:

"I supposed the sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are felt but once.  Treasure them, memory.  Seal them in urns and keep them in safe niches."

When I looked at her, it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew had consulted jealousy as an advisor and employed treachery as an instrument.  

I loved her as she stood there, penniless and parentless.  For a sensualist charmless, for me a treasure -- my best object of sympathy on earth.

That is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless of your hot-house grapes.

So, not a complete wash but not great.

The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave (audiobook)

genre: thriller

In this follow up to The Last Thing He Told Me, we start of knowing a few things.  Owen is still gone.  It's been over five years and now Hannah and Bailey have set up a new life together.  Bailey's grandpa is even a part of it and despite missing Owen like crazy, life isn't completely bad.  What Hannah knows, though, is that this kind of peace can never last, not when you're caught up in a web like they are.  So when she gets the slightest hint that things are getting shifty, all bets are off. And the only two things that keep her going are #1 keeping Bailey safe and #2, the possibility that Owen could be a part of their lives again.

This was a quick and interesting listen.  I was all in from the start and the multiple points of view helped move things along - maybe it helps that I did really enjoy the first book.  I  I like when people aren't just straight up good or bad, it makes my brain buzz with trying to figure out if I can root for them or not.  I DO know that I like Hannah as a character, I like her desperate love as a step-mamma for Bailey and the twists in this short book were just good enough.  

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary romance/time slip

Clementine is a career-focused publicist, good at her job and proud of how far she's come.  Even with all the pleasure she's finding at work, though, a gaping loss is leaving her at odds with everything she's always loved.  Here is where the time slip part of the book comes in: the apartment that her aunt left to her in her will is actually a finicky portal in time that takes certain residents back in time seven years.  And seven years ago, in Clementine's apartment, is a young and ambitious cook who wants to be a chef - and soon seven years seems like hardly anything at all and also everything, at the same time.

This is a fast paced romance with a dreamy love interest and a deeply grieving main character.  Her grief is a big part of this story and how Clementine shows up in the world and in her relationships.  I have to be honest, this book's writing is super repetitive.  I heard certain phrases SO many times that I just really wanted the author to stretch.  I just could NOT suspend my disbelief enough, for some reason. I think because my brain just had so many questions about how the time slip could work and I couldn't sort them out.  So for a fun story to pass the time, it really did that.  My weekend chores flew by as I listened.  But as a written work, it didn't live up for me as much as other books in the genre.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (audiobook)

 genre: epistolary fiction

When we meet Sybil Van Antwerp, she has already lived most of her life.  She has retired from her work in the law, her children are grown and she takes pleasure in all the ways one can entertain one's self.  What makes Sybil's life unique, though, is that for hours each week, Sybil dedicates herself to her correspondence.  With a piece of stationary and a pen, her life is expounded and explored and, like other epistolary novels, we as the readers are left to piece together what is said and unsaid as we read both what Sybil puts out into the world and what comes back to her.  And the task is such an engaging one.

I know I'm the last person ever to listen to this book and yes, you all were right, the audio is absolutely the way to go.  The voice of each of our letter writers and recipients and how these people interact with the indomitable Ms. Van Antwerp make the book move along quickly.  Keeping everyone straight does take a little brainpower but soon I felt like these were familiar old friends.  As much as Sybil can be a tricky person, as the book goes on we can understand why and my heart filled with so much compassion for her and for the people that she loves and that love her back.  I just kept FEELING so much as the years of letters went by: grief, hope, more grief, joy.  I think what I also really loved about this book is that it reminds me that life can constantly be full of surprises - new people and new experiences - and that it is never to late to find peace.