Canada Books

Yep, another vacation! This time, to Eastern Canada, to visit Prince Edward Island and Lunenberg. Here are the four books I finished on the trip:

We’ll Prescribe You a Cat (by Syou Ishida) 

Read Harder Challenge category: a “cozy” book by a BIPOC author. This is about a mysterious clinic where people go to get prescribed a cat - that somehow ends up solving their problems.  Originally a bestseller in Japan, it is absolutely cozy and charming. The sequel is already on my holds list!

Nobody in Particular (by Sophie Gonzales)

A queer YA romance about a commoner going to boarding school school and meeting a princess in Genovia Henland (I never managed to get used to the name "Henland" which just sounded like "Chickenville" to me.)  Definitely frothy and fluffy, with good chemistry between the leads and an overall cute vibe. 

Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings (by Mary Henley Rubio)

I had to get this one on the trip, where I was learning so much about Montgomery's life. I knew she experienced depression and died by suicide but had no idea about 90% of her life story.  (Personally, I blame her son Chester, sex pest and thief, for much of her misery.) This was a long book but I couldn't put it down, and highly recommend it for fans of the author.

The Glass Girl (by Kathleen Glasgow) 

Another YA, very different from the other one, as it is about a 15-year-old dealing with alcohol addiction and some fairly fucked up family dynamics.  She hits rock bottom and goes to rehab, experiencing the peaks and valleys of recovery. The author is clearly writing from experience, and this is unflinching about alcoholism.  The main character is one you can't help but root for with your whole soul.  Really impactful read and very well done.  

Silent Parade (by Keigo Higashino)

I should have a tag just for Japanese mysteries at this point, but here we are again. Part of the "Detective Galileo" series that includes The Devotion of Suspect X. 

As usual, kept me turning the pages - and I wondered how Higashino was going to twist the ending, considering that a lot of things are known at the outset.  Is this a whodunit or a howcatchem? I thought to myself more than once. 

I wouldn't go to this as my first Higashino - I think Malice is my favorite so far - but it's another compelling, complex, satisfying mystery.

Shubeik Lubeik (by Deena Mohamed)

Read for the RHC category "a comic in translation." This was originally written in Arabic and is presented back to front, right to left. It was nominated for a Hugo, among other awards, and takes place in Egypt, in a world where wishes are real and can be bought and sold.

The book follows three "first-class" wishes and the stories of who uses each one.  A woman who has lost her husband, a college student (majoring in wishes) who is dealing with depression, and the man who sells wishes and, for religious purposes, doesn't believe in using them. 

Fascinating glimpse into a culture I know very little about and a unique premise. I didn't think the stories were all super successful - the second one, about Nour, resonated with me the most. I hoped the final story would end a bit more satisfyingly, but maybe the point is - life is life, and there is no perfect way to use a wish.   

Seattle Books

I visited Seattle for work last week and finished four books, pretty much all on airplanes, as is my wont.  Two for the ToB, one for the RHC, one for fun. Here they are:

The Extinction of Irena Rey (by Jennifer Croft) 

Read for the Tournament of Books, and probably my favorite so far apart from James in this somewhat underwhelming year so far.  It's got a sprinkling of Pale Fire (footnotes of an unreliable narrator who is allegedly translating a book written in Polish by a Spanish translator into English...) and Annihilation (gathering of semi-strangers in an uncanny landscape). This novel is about a group of translators who get together, kind of cult-like, to translate the magnum opus of a Polish author, who disappears, and things get weirder from there. It's one of those gems that the ToB helps me discover and it was a surreal read.

The (Big) Year That Flew By: Twelve Months, Six Continents, and the Ultimate Birding Record (by Arjan Dwarshuis)

Read for the RHC category of "a nonfiction book about nature or the environment." This is a Dutch birder who broke the global Big Year record and raised money for the Preventing Extinctions Program. His memoir is equally about birding and observations on conservation efforts (and the impact of climate change and deforestation) that he sees along the way.  I would have liked it to be more linear - he does a lot of flashbacks to his childhood that interrupt the narrative - but enjoyed it overall.

Colored Television (by Danzy Senna)

About a biracial author living in Los Angeles who gets drawn into the television industry.  I loved this until the halfway mark where the main character started making inexplicable decisions and I started getting annoyed because this is not how Hollywood works! I liked the unpredictability of the ending and my annoyance had ebbed by the end. Well written overall and would definitely read more by Senna.

The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy (by Elizabeth Kendall and Molly Kendall)

Whenever I drive by Lake Sammamish I think about Ted Bundy. I dipped back into The Stranger Beside Me and then followed some breadcrumbs to this memoir, which I didn't know had been rereleased and updated in 2020.  Kendall was Ted Bundy's girlfriend for many years and ended up going to the police no less than three times when she started to suspect his involvement in the murders.  Molly was her young daughter, to whom Bundy was a father figure. She first wrote the memoir at a time when she still talks about how part of her will always love him; she's traumatized and still healing.  The memoir is kept intact with a new afterword that talks about how she feels now, decades later. There's also a chapter from Molly that is unforgettably chilling and satisfyingly full of rage. Worth reading for true crime fans! 

Alaska Books

I spent a week in a cabin in Alaska; due to weather and flight delays, I also spent a whole lot of time holed up in the cabin and in airports and on planes. As a result, I finished a whopping nine books, so this might be a long post! This covers many of my favorite genres: litfic, young adult, speculative fiction, and Japanese mystery.

Asking for a Friend (by Kara H. L. Chen)

Cute YA about Taiwanese-American kids with complicated families who enter a business competition. In fact, the first of two books on this list about second-generation Asian kids! I enjoyed the depiction of Taiwanese culture and as a second-generation kid of immigrants (though not Asian immigrants) a lot of relatability in this one. Cute but not amazing.

Inspector Imanishi Investigates (by Seicho Matsumoto) 

I believe this was a new author for me that I got from a recommendation on Reddit.  Slow-paced, lots of minutia which I normally love, but but not enough balance in the other direction, and not enough excitement in the mystery. It's like "here is every detail about a very slow paced investigation, and the killer is the exact person you most medium suspect, and you'll discover that very slowly." Not a must.

True Love and Other Impossible Odds (by Christina Li) 

This was the one that made me cry.  It has lot in common with the first book on this list, as it also deals with the pressure of being the child of Asian immigrants. Bu it's a little more mature (the characters are college freshman), the romance is a Sapphic one (always a plus), and in general it was more affecting (I cried). Of all the YA books (or early adult in this case) on this list, this was by far my favorite.

James (by Percival Everett) 

I've been meaning to read this one since the summer, as it was selected for Camp ToB and is by one of my favorite authors. It's a high concept novel (a loose retelling of Huck Finn from Jim's perspective) and it's by Percival Everett, so of course it's a masterpiece. This will definitely make my end of year best books list and probably be in the 2025 tournament.  It's wonderful.

In the Orbit of You (by Ashley Schumacher) 

Another YA, with good chemistry and a nicely complex love story but an unsatisfying ending that didn't quite ring true. As an aside, I knew the Goodreads crowd would dislike this one because they get very mad when anyone is emotionally (or god forbid physically) cheating in a YA novel, but I cannot be the only teenager with the messiest love life. (A sample of my high school days: I cheated on my first boyfriend by kissing a hot guitar player at a party, he responded by bringing me flowers and forgiving me, which didn't make sense until I catfished him for fun only to discover he'd been having sex with his male best friend for years. We stayed together until I successfully convinced him he was gay. We've been best friends for over 30 years. That's high school for you!)  

Margo Has Money Troubles (by Rufi Thorpe)

I decided based on reading her ToB judgment last year that I had to read something by Rufi Thorpe and indeed, this novel is exactly as smart, fresh, quirky and funny as I expected. 

The Half-Life of Love (by Brianna Bourne) 

This was both speculative fiction and YA; the concept is that you get a twinge when your life is halfway over.  A lot of suspension of disbelief was required because they are scientifically investigating it as if it's some chemical thing but also apparently you're immortal before this happens? Like, what happens if you blow your brains out with a pistol? But it's a love story between a researcher who lost her baby sister and a teenage boy who's about to die.  I didn't love how the ending played out (not in terms of what happens, but in terms of how Finch doesn't get agency over his planned death) but it was an interesting high concept, and I liked September as a character and just generally pondering how we live our lives and what's important. Also I was on a bucket list trip (to see the Northern Lights) so led to some interesting contemplation about the purposes of a bucket list and why this trip was important to me.

True Letters from a Fictional Life (by Kenneth Logan)

I wasn't sure if the characters fell flat for me because I was tired from travel at this point, but my thoughts were echoed on Goodreads and the more I thought about it, the more flat it fell. It's about a sporty kid who's figuring out he's gay but I had a lot of problems with it: there's a lot of homophobic and transphobic stuff that is never challenged or addressed. It doesn't feel like in 21st century Vermont of all places there would be this many people using the f-slur, punching gay kids, assuming gay people are pedophiles, or panicking about gay people getting AIDS. Like the widespread regressive attitudes don't ring true. The romance is absolutely tepid. And I couldn't really visualize any of the characters so they all fell flat. A big miss for me.

Salvation of a Saint (by by Keigo Higashino) 

Last but not least, from the author of The Devotion of Suspect X, another Howdunit.  There was one part of the Howdunit that I figured out very early on; the other part was ingenious and I didn't. I loved the character of the female junior detective.  I loved the entire plotline and the unraveling of the mystery. Goes into my top tier of Japanese mysteries for sure, and a great note to end my vacation reading marathon on!

Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World (by Pénélope Bagieu)

For the RHC category "a comic that has been banned."  I'm so glad I got this on paper because the illustrations are absolutely stunning. This is an anthology of stories about brazen women around the world, from little known figures (like the woman who saved the Montuak lighthouse) to world-famous figures like Josephine Baker.

I'm guessing it's banned because it features at least one transgender woman and mentions sexual assault, murder, and other difficult topics in some of the (true) stories of these women's lives. But it's wonderful. Bagieu includes a list of more Brazen women at the end and it just made me long for another volume of this amazing book!

Get it for the Brazen women (and girls; my 12-year-old loved it) in your life.

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (by Soji Shimada)

The Japanese murder mystery kick continues! This one is formatted as two friends talking about, and then trying to solve, a notorious series of murders 40 years previously. A lot of the book is just the dialogue between these characters, a detective and a Watson-style sidekick. But the structure was fun and I particularly enjoyed parts where the author challenges the reader to solve the murder, insisting all the clues are there, and even gives a list of questions to which you can guess the answers.

I guessed nothing right but enjoyed the twist and the resolution. I felt it could have had more emotional impact but I enjoyed the reveal of the killer very much and it was a page-turner as I raced to find out whodunnit!

The Decagon House Murders (by Yukito Ayatsuji)

I've been recommending this to all the mystery fans I know, especially Agatha Christie fans! It's yet another Japanese locked room murder, which echoes and pays homage to And Then There Were None. It's perfect for fans of that novel. 

Anything else I want to say could maybe be spoilery so I won't.  But I love a mystery novel with a solid reveal at the end and this one definitely delivers.  (I'm still not over one I read recently where the solution was so convoluted that it required a complete stranger to coincidentally show up in the neighborhood and drop dead in a convenient location at the right time.) 

My Brother's Husband (by Gengoroh Tagame)

And the category is, "Read a graphic novel/comic/manga if you haven’t before; or read one that is a different genre than you normally read." I have read plenty of graphic novels, but never a manga, so that is what I decided to tackle this time - the two volumes of My Brother's Husband.  And as with most graphic novels, I opted to read this one on paper.  It was enough of an adjustment figuring out how you're supposed to read it (from back to front and left to right - I looked at guides online) to try and do that digitally.

This is the story of a Japanese father whose twin brother moved to Canada and married a man. His brother dies before the story begins, and his widower visits Japan to connect with his husband's brother and niece.  The brother has to confront the subtle nature of homophobia in Japan as well as his own behavior towards his brother when he was alive. 

The characters are wonderful, the art is beautiful, the story is realistic and moving. Kana, the little girl of the family, is so delightful and charming. I'm so glad I read this and highly recommend.

& This Is How to Stay Alive (by Shingai Njeri Kagunda)

This won Best Novella in 2022 in the Ignyte awards, and thus qualifies for the category "read any book from the Ignyte awards shortlist/longlist/winner list."

It is a novella about a woman in Nairobi whose brother dies by suicide, and her efforts to travel back in time and save him. I think I made a mistake in not reading this all in one shot, since I didn't appreciate it nearly as much as others did. I was left feeling confused and wishing for more. Part of it may have been the novella format but most of it I think it was me failing as a reader. 

If I get a chance before the end of the year, I may try and read it again.

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!

Breasts and Eggs (Mieko Kawakami)

This is "a non-European novel in translation" for the Read Harder Challenge and also a selection from this year's Tournament of Books. On top of all that, I loved it! It's like the litfic trifecta.

This book is described as a "psychological novel" concerned with the bodies of women. It focuses on everything from breast augmentation to fertility, from asexuality to the creative process. I loved the style, the characters, and the Tokyo setting, which reminded me of what it felt like to visit there. 

I really like the description of "psychological novel" and I think that's a style I really enjoy. There's something reminiscent of The Wings of the Dove or My Year of Rest and Relaxation or The Remains of the Day. This very interior, meditative approach that is still so compelling. Luster was like that too, except less successful overall. But the interiority is something I enjoyed there too.

This is one of those finds that would have passed me by without the Tournament of Books, and one reason I love participating every year.  Not perfect, but my favorite read of the year so far!

Book Wrapup: L.A.

I took a bit of an unexpected trip to Los Angeles last week because my father had to have triple heart bypass surgery. My reading was a bit desultory, as in times of great worry I could focus mostly on random online games and not literature. But I did finish a few books during the trip. And, best of all, dad is on the mend and doing well!

The Parking Lot Attendant (by Nafkote Tamirat)

My notes say: Kind of enjoyable, but ultimately annoying and not grounded in reality. Maybe I'm missing The Metaphor or maybe don't have the patience for it right now. Another ToB disappointment. WHERE ARE THE GOOD BOOKS? 

I would characterize this as an okay read, though I didn't fully buy the characters, and didn't enjoy the ending. Also aych and I just chatted about the Tournament and I now think my main issue this year is that the library wait list is the longest for the top seeds with the most buzz, particularly There There and Washington Black. I should get The Mars Room and Warlight fairly soon. I may end up -- gasp -- actually purchasing a book because I am currently either 99th or 694th on the There There waitlist depending on which library you ask. 

True Porn Clerk Stories (by Ali Davis)

This came up in a thread on Ask Metafilter, I believe. This was a 2002-era online journal that I remembered highly enjoying at the time, and enjoyed revisiting as a time capsule of the video store and VHS porn era at the turn of the century.  It looks like Ali Davis has more recently become a playwright, and I hope to see more of her in the future. (Also this was self-published, so it ticks off a box in the Read Harder Challenge as well. Kismet!)

Born A Crime (by Trevor Noah)

The drive to and from Los Angeles was a good twelve hours, and the Extra Hot Great podcast can only get you so far! Friends had recommended this on audiobook, plus the South Africa aspect would give me and my mom something to chat about during our time together, since she grew up in South Africa (obviously, in a white township).  Well-structured, well-told, and gave me an appreciation of Trevor Noah that I hadn't previously had.