Business Trip Reading Roundup

I'm putting these books in the "vacation" category because I read them on airplanes and in airports, but really it was a business trip. I had six hours of flight delays and traveled cross-country, though, so I did get quite a bit of reading in.

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters 

I downloaded a lot of samples on my Kindle while waiting to board my flight, and it was this one, recommended seemingly at random by Amazon, that sucked me in right away with the premise and the writing. This is speculative fiction about a roughly present-day America where the Civil War never happened.  Thanks to some constitutional amendments, there is legal slavery in four states known as the "Hard Four." The main narrator is an undercover U.S. Marshal who hunts escaped slaves and sends them back to the Hard Four. The twist? He's black, and grew up as a slave himself.

This book has some great world-building, with the alternate history sprinkled organically throughout the story. The plot itself is exciting and propulsive, with more than one twist to come. The narrator is flawed and interesting. Of course it speaks to current day issues with race and identity, but also is just plain a good read.  I had been assuming it was written by a black author, and then got all the way to the end and realized it was by Ben H. Winters, the (white) author of the Last Policeman series. So the recommendation wasn't random after all! 

Apart from one development towards the end that did not seem plausible, and apart from the slight cognitive dissonance of having a white guy write this, I really enjoyed it.

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari 

This was my obligatory airplane paperback, purchased at good old Hudson News along with my water and gum and what have you.  I flipped through it and it looked very funny and entertaining. Indeed, it is very funny and entertaining! Even though I haven't been in the dating world in well over a decade, it's still fun to read about the Tindering and the texting and everything else the kids are up to these days. It's well-researched (it was co-written by a sociologist) and very often laugh-out-loud funny. It's also not devoid of emotion, as Ansari discusses his own romantic foibles and neuroses along the way. A fast, fun read.

The Likeness by Tana French

The second book in the Dublin Murder Squad series, with mostly positive reviews, but a lot of people have issues with the premise. The premise: a murder victim named Lexie looks exactly like detective Cassie Maddox, who goes undercover and moves in with Lexie's roommates in an attempt to figure out who killed her. Yes, they supposedly look so much alike that she's able to fool Lexie's closest friends into thinking they are the same person. No, they are not long-lost twins. Also, despite the fact that they only lived a short distance apart, nobody ever ran across one and said "holy crap, there's someone who looks exactly like you up the road!"

Okay, maybe I had some issues with the premise. 

The writing is very good, and I was interested in Cassie from the previous book, and I definitely was invested in figuring out the mystery, but I do feel like the premise is too absurd to really make it hang together.