Golem Girl (by Riva Lehrer)

In my last post I referred to an "overly long, overly writery, quite depressing memoir" and this is it! Read for the "book by a disabled author" prompt.  

Many folks in the Goodreads group are choosing books by neurodiverse folks, but I wanted to read something by someone with a physical disability (since I don't really think that neurodiversity = disability). Reva Lehrer, the author, is an artist with spina bifida, and certainly I learned more about the condition and appreciated her unique perspective. I also appreciated her take on the medical memoir - she explicitly says she's not going to go into unnecessary detail about her condition where it isn't relevant to her life story.

Here is more on my criticism: Overly long - especially towards the end, she includes a lot of detail and repetition and there is less of a clear throughline. Overly writery - maybe this is just code for "a lot of words, especially in Yiddish, that I didn't understand." I was grateful for the Kindle translation feature.  Quite depressing - I mean, it's her real life, but damn, this woman has been through a lot and it is a heavy read at times.  But it's also very good! I said that last time too but to reiterate: Riva's voice is unique, her political stances are eye-opening, and her perspective is... ugh I was going to write "inspiring" and that is a terrible choice for a book by a disabled author.  Going to say her perspective is challenging the status quo, in a good way.

I also love the mini-essays on all the included artworks but I'm glad it's presented in epilogue form. Definitely read this one in color so you can fully appreciate the art. 

The It Girl (by Ruth Ware)

I'm in the middle of reading an overly long, overly writery, quite depressing memoir for the Read Harder Challenge - it's good, but I have to do it a few chapters at a time. I took a break to start The It Girl when my library offered me a "skip the line" seven-day loan, and of course, it's Ruth Ware, so once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. I love a good mystery to tear through on a lazy Sunday!

Not to say too much about the whodunit of it all, but I think it's quite a fair play mystery - the clues are definitely there to find.  I saw some complaints that the pacing was a little loose and the middle part was too long, but it was such a page-turner (and a refreshing change from the other book I have going) that it wasn't a problem for me.  

If you like modern thrillers with a bit of an Agatha Christie feel, I definitely recommend it!

A Study in Honor (by Claire O'Dell)

This is a gender-swapped Sherlock Holmes homage, read for the category "a political thriller by a marginalized author (BIPOC, or LGBTQIA+)" in the Read Harder Challenge.

I won't bury the lede: As much as I love Sherlock stories, and love that this one stars two Black women, I had a lot of problems with it.  First of all, we don't even meet Holmes until a third of the way through the book, with the mystery not getting started until well past the halfway mark, this thing is agonizingly slowly paced and then just ends with an abrupt info dump.  This is the first book of a series so I figured it's just a first-book info dump and future books will be structured better. (Based on Goodreads reviews, the pacing of the second one is somehow even worse.)

Second problem: Sara Holmes makes no deductions. Zero. None. No deductions. She sometimes looks people up on some spy device she has and says things about them she's Googled or whatever. HOW IS THIS CHARACTER IN ANY WAY SHERLOCK, THE DEDUCTIONS ARE THE ENTIRE POINT. At one point Janet Watson says "is this another one of your deductions?"  What deductions!  They are completely nonexistent deductions!

More problems: Sara is too ordinary a name for a Sherlock analogue character.  Sara drugging Janet was not charming or cute, although fairly Sherlocky, I will grant you. Sara calling Janet "my love" was weird. Was this suppose to be a romance? As much as I adore a Sapphic romance, it did not work for me. Janet somehow is the first person narrator but is also, separately, keeping a journal that we read excerpts of? The whole thing is her journal. So, what?!

Okay one more thing I found this on Book Riot's rec list for this category  and it wasn't until I got to the end that I realized, even though the two main characters are both Black, the author is white.  She fits the challenge because she is a lesbian author.  But she wrote from the point of view of Janet, a Black character, and Sara is also Black. I leave it to non-white readers to decide how well she pulled it off, and there was enough subtlety there to make me think she was thoughtful about it, but... still kind of didn't sit well with me?

Things I liked: god, this thing was promising. The backdrop is a new American Civil War, basically a very near future alternate history.  Janet is a really good character, her PTSD is handled well, and her device (she has a robotic arm) is incorporated well. There is some fun tech here, like self-destroying paper.  I enjoyed Hudson Realty and the fancy apartment.  I read to the end, really hoping these were first installment kinks that would be worked out in future installments but... maybe not. 

Destination Unknown (by Bill Konigsberg)

I was EAGERLY awaiting this book from the first second I heard about it. I stalked my library until they had it available to recommend (and thus would get me on the waitlist first). It worked! It's the story of two gay boys in 1987, one closeted and one proudly out.

This novel is clearly very personal for the author, who based it on his own life: the Larry Kramer and Marsha P. Johnson cameos really happened to him. He does a great job of  immersing the reader in the 80s in general, too -- remember going to the counter at Tower Records to buy concert tickets? -- though I did notice some anachronisms. (Did white people use the term “allies" to describe themselves back in the day? Were there such things as “Lifetime Movies” in 1987?) 

This is the type of subject matter and story I was sure would have me sobbing by the end -- and I loved what Konigsberg did with the ending and the epilogue -- but ultimately I wasn’t that moved? After thinking about it, I realized I just didn’t connect with the characters enough. I hated CJ’s constant lying and I didn’t like Micah’s general… vibe. And their relationship didn’t work for me either. 

So the tl;dr is this: I loved all the personal stuff Konigsberg took from growing up in the 80s under the specter of AIDS - but it let down my expectations somewhat anyways. YMMV.

Pachinko (by Min Jin Lee)

I read this for the Read Harder Challenge category "the book that’s been on your TBR the longest."  I don't really keep a TBR list so I really wasn't sure how to approach this. But I meant to read Pachinko for the 2018 Tournament of Books and then people have been recommending it. I checked it out of the library in March 2018 and at least seven times after that. So it clearly was a longtime TBR and also one I found it hard to read, so on two levels, this seemed to fit!

I thought the beginning was slow (probably why I kept not finishing it or hooking into it) but indeed, I loved it by the end. It's about Koreans living in Japan, who were born there but still not considered native Japanese. The history of this population and the challenges (and racism) they face were fascinating, and explored through really wonderful characters and evocative descriptions of life in Japan. And I loved the title… to me, it evoked the little balls dropping and how small actions and decisions kept impacting the next generation.

Everyone I know who has read this multi-generational family saga has loved it; I think multi-generational sagas intimidate me somewhat? But I ended up loving it too. And feeling like I accomplished something, after finally getting through it!

This Is Why They Hate Us (by Aaron H. Aceves)

This book has such chaotic bisexual energy and I am here for it.

Enrique is bisexual and in love with his best friend Saleem, who doesn't return his feelings. So he decides to explore his sexuality with other guys (and the help of his best friend Fabiola, also bi) over the summer while Saleem is away.

Fabiola fits this weird theme of "manic pixie sex-obsessed female best friend" that I've seen in more than one book lately and it's a little too much, but sure.  Via the character of Quique, Aaron Aceves explores sexuality, bisexuality, Mexican, Afro-Latina, Palestinian, and Muslim culture, reasons he's preferring guys to girls, mental health, revealing parts of yourself to others, suicidal ideation, therapy, and other heavy and not-so heavy topics. He has a borderline inappropriate relationship with a teacher he seeks out as a mentor - mega-messy, but not necessarily unrealistic. 

My only issue is that the ending felt rushed.  I thought Aceves did such a good job of building sexual tension and reinforcing Quique's love for Saleem, but I didn't understand Saleem's journey at all or how things abruptly resolved.  It might have been another element of the chaos.

One other note is this book is extremely sexuall frank and it's not a young young adult romance by any means. Something to be aware of for sure.