Ballad for Sophie

Ballad for Sophie

By Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia

1933. In the small French village of Cressy-la-Valoise, a local piano contest brings together two brilliant young players: Julien Dubois, the privileged heir of a wealthy family, and François Samson, the janitor's son. One wins, one loses, and both are changed forever.

1997. In a huge mansion stained with cigarette smoke and memories, a bitter old man is shaken by the unexpected visit of an interviewer. Somewhere between reality and fantasy, Julien composes, like in a musical score, a complex and moving story about the cost of success, rivalry, redemption, and flying pianos.

When all is said and done, did anyone ever truly win? And is there any music left to play?

Had absolutely no idea this was a graphic novel when I chose it, but no regrets. It's a strikingly beautiful take of a talented pianist being interviewed as he slowly dies from cancer, and tells the story of his youth and rise to fame, including his competition with a supernaturally talented - but less fortunate - boy against whom the pianist is always measuring himself. 

The drawings are piquant and add the right touch of sharpness to a narrative which is frequently tragic although ultimately hopeful. It's extremely emotionally satisfying, as we get to review Julien's own past and actions through the interviewer's kinder, more distant lens. At one point, Julien refers to himself as the villain of his own story, but it's not nearly so straightforward as all that. The authors have done an incredible job making him multifaceted - both victim and perpetrator, winner and loser. The destruction of his childhood by forces beyond his control sets the stage for his unhappy life of fame.  Although playing is the only thing which seems to give his life purpose, it is only when he has irrevocably severed that link that we see Julien at peace.

Although Julien is obsessed with François as a literal rival, in the end, Julien's deeper struggles are against his own idealized vision of himself, and all the ways he sees his own failures and lapses. In all the book, there is never a point at which François speaks with Julien, and so we are left wondering what, in fact, François ever thought of Julien to begin with.  Would he have blamed Julien for the early derailment of his dreams? Did he know of all the ways that Julien's life intersected with his own? Is there a world in which they could have been friends? I know how I would answer those questions, but perhaps that says more about me than François.

In any case where an audio experience is described through a written medium, there's going to be some loss of translation. It's a testament to the authors here that a story ostensibly about music can be conveyed so well through the pages of Ballad for Sophie. In fact, one of the authors is a musician and composed music for the book, which though unnecessary, is a  There's no false notes (pun not intended). As I sit and recall the novel for this review, I find its impression is only improved in my memory.  I would recommend this book to any reader who appreciates art, in all its forms. 

31: A Book Where Music Plays An Integral Part Of The Storyline

Assistant to the Villain

Assistant to the Villain

By Hannah Nicole Maehrer

ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem, terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer—naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain—and his entire nefarious empire—out.

Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work…and ensure he makes them pay.

After all, a good job is hard to find.

Well, we have an early contender for least favorite read of the challenge! And what a surprise dark horse, although in theory, at least, I get to choose all of these books according to my tastes so none of them should be awful (Ernest Hemingway and 'less than three stars on goodreads' notwithstanding). But I had this one on my possible reading list even before the challenge came out, so it should have at least been palatable.  

But I was only 3% of the way in before I realized I didn't like it, and 7% when I first contemplated not even finishing it. And if not for the challenge, I definitely would have abandoned it without a second thought. But instead I struggled through it - it has the benefit of being fairly insubstantial - and finished it as fast as I could.  

Ostensibly it's some sort of arch Office meets twisted fantasy story mashup, but it's mostly an excuse for the author to attempt to be funny via anachronisms, i.e. the villain has a department of interns and a woman who runs HR, and a everyone drinks "cauldron brew" aka coffee. The thinly veiled references to modern office bureaucracy didn't amuse me though, all it did was heighten the bizarre mental gymnastics you have to do in order to accept that our heroine isn't a massive idiot. 

So the Villain is, obviously, going to be totally misunderstood and actually not a bad guy, right? I mean, a love story between psychopaths is clearly not what the author's intending here. But immediately after the prologue in which Evie gets the job offer, she finds three severed heads - actual human heads - on her desk, and she mentions a "test" when the Villain left a whole ass dead person in her desk to see how she'd react. And she's like, "It's FINE! I'm sure those people deserved it!" Like, what?? That's not fine in the context either of a fantasy world or an office job! Here's a quote that I think is meant to come across as flirty? Sexy? I have no words:

 

'I would, you know. Torture someone,' she clarified, an alarming sincerity on her face. 'If I knew it would help you-- if it was someone hurting you...I'd do it and I'd probably enjoy it just a little.' With that, she spun on her heel, her sunny dress offsetting the weight of her words.

Girl, get your head on straight. 

If you want to read a book in which the villain is actually a misunderstood hero who doesn't just murder people and leave parts around for their ostensible secretaries to find (which, let's be clear, is upsetting and gross behavior) then read Nimona instead. That's a great take on the villain/hero idea. Or if you want to read about someone who works for a villain and actually becomes villainous themself, try Hench. That's an interesting take on what being evil means. Assistant to the Villain is neither of these. In fact, it is merely a mess.  

Lest we ever get the wrong idea about the Villain, it's made clear that he's incredibly HOT and SEXY and Evie would do him in a minute. So it's okay that she also thinks he kills people for fun. Because all can be forgiven if you're hot and wear v-necks, apparently. And look, Evie can boink who she wants. But it's all treated like just another ho-hum meet cute, and it just makes you doubt her mental acuity. It's not like she's like, oh, I'm sure he's innocent! Instead her biggest hangup is that she thinks he doesn't like her that way. Which clearly he does, because he even thinks her dumb comments about finding the mole are super insightful. Here, I highlighted it because it was so obnoxiously pandering, this is after they're talking about why he doesn't just torture all his employees to find the mole:

'And you know if the traitor finds out you're looking for them, they'll inform the person they're answering to. You want to take them by surprise, too.'

He couldn't catch the drop of his jaw in time. 'You - Yes, that's exactly it.'

This is a jaw-dropping revelation? Genius. No one else could have come up with some primo A to B reasoning like that. Which, again, just makes it irritating that we're supposed to pretend she's smart, but she can't even figure out that this guy likes her. The everybody-knows-we-like-each-other-except-us! trope is so middle school.

So this guy, (who again, is both supposedly a villain and also her boss) thinks the sun shines out of her ass and they run around trying to find out who the spy is on the inside ruining the Villain's plans. Except of course, it's Evie herself, accidentally using some sort of magical ink which writes everything down in duplicate, and feeding stuff to her father who secretly IS some kind of psycho, since he fakes a whole life-threatening illness, lets his daughter think they're destitute in order to keep up the facade, and then tries to sell her to the blacksmith so she stops bugging him at home. He also plants a bomb like fifteen feet from her desk, and somehow (this may have been explained, but let's be honest, I was not giving this my full attention) lets a poison-spitting monster out to terrorize a house party. 

 

Oh, and about that the aforementioned house party: Evie gets an invitation, meets up with her coworkers who all agree that it's a trap, they GO ANYWAY, Evie talks them out of letting the Villain know they've all been suckered into this stupid trap, then when Evie realizes that as a result of this decision, the Villain has to talk briefly with his father, she RUNS AWAY because THAT is worthy of the dramatic flounce, apparently. And when the Villain catches up to her instead of talking about plans to address the obvious TRAP, they... have a slow dance. Until the poison-spitting monster shows up, of course. At every possible point, our two main characters choose the option which makes the least rational sense. 

Whatever, they deserve each other. Let's cross this one of the list and thank our lucky stars we don't have to read any more about them.

****

These didn't really fit into my review, but here are some more passages I highlighted in anger:

Granted, she didn't want to become evil, but when you spend most of your life trying to see the sun, you begin to wish for rain.

What the fuck does this mean? 

 

This is when she thinks she's dying:

 A different face flashed in her mind - her boss, The Villain. Evie couldn't believe she was leaving him when he needed her most. Who would make him begrudgingly smile now?

Evie is a clown, so I guess it's fitting that her last thoughts are about making people smile. 

This is when she and the Villain head back to her house, and by the way, this is like, months after she started working for him:

The yellow tulips lining the front walk looked odd from her current position: being in a carriage...belonging to a glorified murderer.

First of all, I think we can drop the "glorified". He a for real murderer. Second, why is this suddenly weird? Did it take being in a carriage to realize you had flowers at your house?

26: A Book Where An Adult Character Changes Careers

Let It All Burn

 Let It All Burn 

By  Denise Grover Swank

Darcie Weatherby of Perry's Fall, Ohio has a preteen, sixteen-year-old twins, a wayward grandmother, a nightmare boss, a manipulative ex-husband, and hot flashes that start fires like the one that burned her boss's house down. Unless she figures out a way to get things under control, there's a chance she'll spontaneously combust at the Founder's Day Masquerade Ball.

I don't know what the heck THAT was. It started out normal enough, a woman having hot flashes accidentally starts fires, okay, okay, okay, some magical realism, sure, gotcha, and then at the like, 90% mark, we take an abrupt right turn into millennials-long guardianship over a Greek goddess who gets reincarnated every fifty years (and a somehow completely unrelated side plot about diamond smuggling). What the fuck?

The basic idea is fine, but Swank can't stop adding weirder and weirder parts that don't add anything and don't make sense, like the FBI agent who first meets Darcie while he's investigating this diamond thing, but then becomes intensely interested in her to the point of following her around and demanding answers like a crazed stalker.  And she doesn't have any answers! 

Or the part where Darcie's cousin Ella is an investigative reporter and we think there's going to be some big reveal about the Mayor or that Ella is going to find out what's going on with Darcie's firepowers but instead of any of that panning out, instead at the grand gala there's a lengthy digression about Ella acting drunk because of an allergic reaction, and she winds up spending the fateful event on a cot. 

The ending and explanation come out of nowhere and the book wraps up with all kinds of loose ends flapping in the breeze, like how Darcie will incorporate a fourth child in to her family (and what her current kids will think of that) whether it's noted that Tammy just up and disappeared, like, just... anything! Any of it! Even the parts that are explained are explained in a really baffling way. What is this stupid bargain Persephone made, and why does it reset every fifty years? Why does it make the gods mad? What happens when it ends? Why, why why?? It was like Swank couldn't figure out how to wrap it up so just added in some god stuff. It would have been better if Darcie was just becoming a fire demon, like her friend suggested.

However, prior to that point, it was a decent read. Darcie's nicely fleshed out, her friends and kids are fun and there's space there for an interesting story about her growing into herself in this new phase of her life. But we... got something else instead, so I'm just going to slowly back away. 

09: A Book That Features A Character Going Through Menopause

You Are Here

You Are Here 

By David Nicholls

Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.

This was a charming palate cleanser after a couple of not great books, if by charming, you mean, "one of those books which talks about why marriages fail for the most depressing of reasons and it makes you worry about the state of your own union." Not that it did that... much, but reading about second chance romance always makes me feel like there's a target on my back: do the reasons the heroine's first relationship failed sound eerily similar to my life? Is my marriage happier - all the time or on average at least - than that of our hero and his first love?

I don't think I ever had that problem as a younger person, when a poor fit just meant you hadn't met the right person yet, but it bothers me now to read about marriages when both people intend and want the best, and love each other, and then gradually fall out of love. It's a scary presentiment of one potential future which terrifies in its banality and familiarity. 'It could happen to you!' goes the jingle about winning the lottery, but in an awful way, not at all desirable.

Luckily we spend more time developing Marnie and Michael's relationship than dwelling on mistakes of the past. Nicholls does a wonderful job writing conversations which feel realistic, especially for people just beginning to know each other, and possibly to feel more for each other: jokey, arch, tentative, short, building on the bases that the other lays out. Although we take their viewpoints in turn, and (which is often the case) the views are not so distinctive that you would immediately know who is narrating - again, something that only became more important to me when I saw how perfectly it could be executed in The Feast of the Goat - there's an apt comfort in the similarities, that they are compatible in their minds and feelings. You have to believe in their chemistry in order for the book to work, and you do.

It's also nice to read about a relationship which seems reasonable in its pacing: insta-love and immediate sexual attraction, as amusing as it is to picture on the page, seems shallow and fake compared to the slow unfolding of a person that happens more often in life. Ten days of constant company and you could start thinking about being in love. 

This is a romance, but it's written by a man and contains no actual sex, so it gets shelved in fiction and is taken seriously. But the heart of the story, in fact, the only part of the story, is the gradual opening up these two lonely people do so they can fall in love with each other. The ending tries too hard to distance itself from that premise: we leave off on the lovers tentatively planning to reunite, optimistic but early days yet. Just lean into it! Let's skip another year into the future and have them moved in together with a miracle baby on the way! You made us like these people, now let's see them get the happy ending they're longing for! 

Aside from anything else, I predict an increase in through hikes in the few years. I happen to like the idea of walking endlessly just to look at nature (whilst still enjoying a real bath and bed every night) but even those naturally opposed to the idea will find some inspiration here, I think. Nicholls manages to make even rainy misery sound like an adventure, and I suppose, with the right person, it is. Which is the whole point. 

42: A Book That Starts With The Letter Y

Lady Eve's Last Con

Lady Eve's Last Con

By Rebecca Fraimow

Ruth Johnson and her sister Jules have been small-time hustlers on the interstellar cruise lines for years. But then Jules fell in love with one of their targets, Esteban Mendez-Yuki, sole heir to the family insurance fortune. Esteban seemed to love her too, until she told him who she really was, at which point he fled without a word.

Now Ruth is set on disguised as provincial debutante Evelyn Ojukwu and set for the swanky satellite New Monte, she’s going to make Esteban fall in love with her, then break his heart and take half his fortune. At least, that's the plan. But Ruth hadn't accounted for his younger sister, Sol, a brilliant mind in a dashing suit... and much harder to fool.

Sol is hot on Ruth's tail, and as the two women learn each other’s tricks, Ruth must decide between going after the money and going after her heart.

Well, I had high hopes for this one: a madcap story in space about a con artist looking for revenge? Sign me up! But as other reviews state, the problem is that for a screwball comedy to work, you've got to be rushed along at a pace too fast to look around you. The minute the train slows down you're dead in the water, so to speak. And if you couldn't tell already, this story got slooooooow.

It's probably about a hundred pages longer than it needs to be. Every time we get some action, we spend another ten pages of Ruthi's internal monologue about the setting, or going over details about the back and forth machinations with Sol, or the local gang,  that just bog things down. 

I'm not dinging Fraimow (much) - this kind of storytelling is hard. But you've got to be much more streamlined about it than she is here. Connie Willis is the epitome of space screwball comedy and even she gets it wrong sometimes (let's not speak of her most recent effort, The Road to Roswell). But there needs to be a zingy tension that pulls the reader through it all, and instead, I found myself putting this down multiple times, having to force myself to finish it. 

It doesn't help that we spend more time with just Sol and Ruthi than we do in groups, and that they show their hands to each other in the first third of the book. Part of what's needed is more undercurrents, like conversations where Sol and Ruthi are trying to catch each other out but can't reveal their own cards in front of other people. Instead, after a big confrontation on the beach satellite, we... um, wander around the lower decks talking about frozen ducks and Sol's poor half-siblings, on a weird pseudo date.  

I think part of the problem is that it feels like Fraimow is setting this up for more installments. The classic version requires all storylines to be wrapped up tightly, preferably with all couples reunited, all bad guys punished, and all ventures successful. We don't get that. Instead Jules is in limbo, four months pregnant and refusing to marry Esteban. We don't see the result of the ruse on Alfonso at all and presumably the gang will be after them again in subsequent books. And there's no real resolution about the frickin kosher ducks, which is the whole device on which the plot spins: what the golden girl did to get herself in so deep with the mob that she's tempted to wipe her memory and it's wrapped up off-screen.

So instead of that feeling you get when you press the button on a tape measure and it all comes whizzing back into your hand and closing with a satisfying catch, it's like we threw a yoyo out and now it's just on the ground flaccid and we gotta spool it back up ourselves.

There's a lot of promise here, a lot of good things, like the characters and the setting, and the pitter patter and well, everything else is fine. It's just the pace, the tempo, but for something like this, that's everything.

 

 03: A Book About Space Tourism

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

By F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Set in during the Roaring Twenties, this masterful story by F. Scott Fitzgerald is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a young man who moves to Long Island and attempts to learn the bond business in New York City after the war. There, he co-mingles on Long Island with his affluent and wealthy socialite cousin Daisy Buchanan, her brute of a husband Tom, and friend Jordan Baker.

Nick's new residence sits across the bay from Daisy and Tom's house, and right next to a mysterious mansion. He begins to hear rumors of an infamous man named Gatsby who resides there. Eventually, when Gatsby learns of Nick's ties to Daisy, he extends Nick an invitation to one of his lavish parties. Gatsby's plan to court Daisy, in an attempt to revive a previous love affair, eventually bubbles to the surface and tragedy ensues.

Brief aside: Do you know how hard it is to find a reasonable description of a so-called "classic" book? Everyone just describes the accolades rather than the plot. c.f. "Amidst extravagant parties and societal excess, Fitzgerald weaves a narrative of love, betrayal, and the dark undercurrents of the Jazz Age. Through vivid prose and complex characters, the novel explores themes of disillusionment, class divide, and the relentless pursuit of an idealized past. With its timeless exploration of human desires and the consequences of unchecked ambition, ""The Great Gatsby"" remains a literary masterpiece that resonates across generations." blah blah blah.

 

As a counterpoint though, my library had this to say about the book's description, transcribed in its entirety: 

 

"Nick Carraway meets Jay Gatsby, a young millionaire with shady business connections and who is love with Daisy Buchanan, Nick's cousin." 

 

I love that this basically says: "We all know you're going to read this book regardless of what it's about, let's not pretend we have to intrigue you with jacket copy."

***

Ah, one of those classics that was written by men about the American Dream in which everything is a symbol and life is meaningless! Women are unfathomable, men are noble, or brutes, or dogs, and we all learn a Very Important Lesson, like an afternoon tv special. 

I liked the first chapter, but as we get introduced to all the characters, none of them, or it, appealed, so that by the end, Daisy's decision to stay with Tom was as boring to me as what color dress she planned to wear, and Jay's death didn't feel tragic so much as exhausting.  

As Nick, the narrator says, they're all terrible people, and not even in interesting ways. They're terrible in terribly boring ways. I can understand why the book was a failure when it came out, and why it became popular by soldiers in WWII: it appeals to a man's sense of thinking they're deeper and more philosophical than they are. It's easy enough for most people to read and understand while giving the impression of importance and intelligence when you tell people you've read it.

It's short enough to get through quickly, a mark in its favor. I was struck by how literate it was. Just the style and vocabulary that would have commonplace in the 1920s feels ornate and antiquated now, even though it would be hard to point to any one sentence and say it couldn't have been written today. It does make you feel that people, on the whole, are becoming much stupider.

 

There's a musing cadence to the story which infuriated me. Not only the dreaded navel-gazing but the absolute mush of a main character. There's absolutely no point to Nick at all, may as well have had an omniscient narrator. For all he complains about the wealthy, careless folks he meets here, he has absolutely no curiosity about any of the non-white or non-wealthy characters.

I suppose I'm glad to have read it, as now I never will have to again.  

April 9, 2025 

edited to add:

 

Since, apparently, it is also the 100th anniversary of its publication (which I was not aware of when I chose to read it, but how serendipitous!) there's a few articles being published about it. I appreciate the other perspectives and thoughts as well.  I found the theory, newly re-circulating, that Gatsby can be read as a black man passing as white to be intriguing, adding another layer of interest and subtext to the primary story. I also saw a lot of people comparing it to The White Lotus, as today's version of the rich and careless American.  I found that interesting, since I've enjoyed The White Lotus but my watch experience bears out the same lack of patience I had for the characters in The Great Gatsby: without fail, I will watch the first several episodes with interest, then find myself getting bored halfway through the season. I hate not to know what happens though, so I'll read spoilers and become interested enough to go back and watch the last episodes for the relevant story-lines and fast-forward through everything else. So at least I'm consistent.

39: A Classic You've Never Read

Double Header: Duck Duck Taco Truck & Mabuhay!

Duck Duck Taco Truck 

By Laura Levoie and Teresa Martinez

"Duck. Duck. Taco truck. Working hard to make a buck."

Two food trucks staffed by sworn enemies: ducks vs. geese. Before you can say "curly fries", these two rivals are in an epic food truck face-off. "Battle on! At dawn, we ride!"

But soon, Goose becomes overwhelmed by hangry crowds. He sure could use some extra wings to help out! Will these foes find a solution and become feathered friends?

This clever, high-energy, taco tale, packed with bright art featuring kids' favorite foods, shows young readers how cooperation and teamwork can overcome conflict. It's a superbly silly summer story, the perfect pick for taco and truck fans.

Mabuhay!

By Zachary Sterling

Can two kids save the world and work their family food truck?

First-generation Filipino siblings JJ and Althea struggle to belong at school. JJ wants to fit in with the crowd, while Althea wants to be accepted as she is. To make matters worse, they have to help their parents run the family food truck by dressing up as a dancing pig and passing out samples. Ugh! And their mom is always pointing out lessons from Filipino folklore -- annoying tales they've heard again and again. But when witches, ogres, and other creatures from those same stories threaten their family, JJ and Althea realize that the folklore may be more real that they'd suspected. Can they embrace who they really are and save their family?

It seemed a little skimpy to use one illustrated kid's book as a prompt, so instead I used two! Duck Duck Taco Truck is a picture book for the 2-4 crowd, which is who I read it to. It wasn't an instant hit there, but I enjoyed it at least.

For me, the key to enjoying reading kids books for toddlers is that they need to be at least a little bit smart. Good rhythm is important (one of my recent favorites to read is The Seven Silly Eaters), although rhyming isn't essential (we also enjoy a good Marianne Dubuc story), decent illustration and compelling story. It doesn't have to be complicated, and in fact that sometimes hurts the experience. Very little actually happens in the evergreen Blueberries for Sal, but what does happen is beautiful.

All that is to say, the unexpected resolution of Duck Duck Taco Truck charmed me. I thought for sure it would be a great battle in which the taco ducks emerge victorious over goose, but this was better, a little bit kinder, even if I think the revised food combos sounded grosser than the original offerings. It's not a perennial classic, but I won't mind reading it a few more times.

Mabuhay! is a graphic novel for older kids, maybe the 8-10 year olds. It's a good little book, even if (like Duck Duck Taco Truck) it doesn't meet the high standard of similar books (here I'm thinking of Vera Brosgol's oeuvre).

There's good elements in it, characters, setting and illustrations, but I do think the shift to a supernatural battle would have been better served if it had been a longer book. The coming of age story alone would be fine in something this size, but once the paranormal element was brought in, it felt like we just got sidelined character development in order to rush through the plot. The revelations the kids have in the third act feel less important in light of the battle for light over darkness. 

That's probably why all my favorite parts are in the first half: Tito Arvin is great whenever he appears, the video game all-nighter with JJ, Althea, and Victor is hilariously accurate, and the side stories about Juan Tamad and Pinya are fun digressions. But having Juan be the one to tell JJ that being yourself is best feels like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Like it was shoehorned in because someone needed to do it and otherwise there was no point to Juan. There also didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the magical powers that JJ and Althea developed: why did the unathletic kid get martial arts weapons?

Of course, the book doesn't stint on the most important part (especially a book about food trucks): descriptions of food, including a recipe for chicken adobo in the back. That would have been real cause for complaint. Mabuhay!

 

29: A Book About A Food Truck

Mistress of Rome

Mistress of Rome
By Kate Quinn

Thea, a captive from Judaea, is a clever and determined survivor hiding behind a slave’s docile mask. Purchased as a toy for the spoiled heiress Lepida Pollia, Thea evades her mistress’s spite and hones a secret passion for music. But when Thea wins the love of Rome’s newest and most savage gladiator and dares to dream of a better life, the jealous Lepida tears the lovers apart and casts Thea out.

Rome offers many ways for the resourceful to survive, and Thea remakes herself as a singer for the Eternal ’City’s glittering aristocrats. As she struggles for success and independence, her nightingale voice attracts a dangerous new admirer: the Emperor himself. But the passions of an all-powerful man come with a heavy price, and Thea finds herself fighting for both her soul and her destiny.

Many have tried to destroy the Emperor: a vengeful gladiator, an upright senator, a tormented soldier, a Vestal Virgin. But in the end, the life of Rome’s most powerful man lies in the hands of one woman: the Emperor’s mistress.

Ah, Mistress of Rome: A Series of Unfortunate Events.  It sounds weird coming from someone who just read The Feast of the Goat, but long stretches of Mistress of Rome feel like torture porn. Or tragedy porn or whatever the name is for it when the characters go through one miserable obstacle only to find themselves in front of another, higher, one. Over and over and over.

Part of that comes from two of the worst villains to grace the pages of historical fiction : Lepida Pollida, spoiled senator's daughter who is sex and power mad, and who kicks off her career by separating our lovers and selling Thea to a dockhouse brothel and then later upping the ante by seducing her husband's son and being mean to her epileptic daughter, and Domitian, the emperor, who is introduced as a potential rescuer of Thea only to turn out to be a torturer and abuser of women and slaves, including his own niece, Julia. Domitian, obviously, was a real person, and I sure hope he was as bad as all that because otherwise Quinn has sadly maligned his character here.

Quinn's writing, is, as usual, exemplary, breathless and urgent as she takes us back thousands of years to the Roman Empire. Having just read her most recently based, Briar Club, you can tell that Quinn revels in the historical details available from whatever period she's writing in. Here, being so much more in the distant past, she's not able to bring as much of that in, but there's still a wealth of ground to cover, as the book takes us from 82 ad to 96 ad.

The early sections skip great chunks of years at a time, and those are some of the harder ones to get through- our heroes just keep getting kicked when they're down, and much of the activity is just place setting for the final confrontations that take place in 95-96. By the time our heroes emerge triumphant over the villains, I was mostly just tired and wanted it over with.

Quinn's talent shines when you consider that the whole book hinges on the relationship of a couple who have a few months together fourteen years before most of the action takes place - and the couple is separated most of that time.  We have to both believe in the relationship and care about it, and Quinn manages to do that, for me at least, although Vix, the erstwhile scamp born to Thea, mostly bugs instead of endears. He becomes a primary character later in the series, which doesn't tempt me to read them.

There's a supernatural thread running through the book as well: a soothsayer who is eerily accurate, some characters who escape certain death because of the implied favor of the gods, the mysterious healing powers of gladiator blood. It lets us suspend disbelief on some of the more unlikely plot points Quinn inserts (a gladiator who only loses ONCE in eight years?? somehow everyone keeps winding up at the same places together??).

It's odd to me, that although this and The Feast of the Goat both concern fictionalized re-tellings of famously assassinated dictators (and include invented women characters who were abused by them) they feel very different. Quinn's books are comfortable reads because although some characters do get sacrificed (I won't forget you, Hercules!) she tends to leave readers on a optimistic note: Domitian's death ushered - in real life - almost ninety years of Roman prosperity.  Our core couple, reunited at last, retires to the country. Marcus, the poor beleaguered husband, gets a new wife who likes him. Whereas in The Feast of the Goat, the assassination brings not relief but torture. Thirty years on, citizens have forgotten the horrors of the regime, and reminisce for better days. Quinn doesn't trade in that kind of punchline. But the cynic in me sometimes wishes she would.

06: A Book That Fills Your Favorite Prompt From The 2015 PS Reading Challenge [13: Set In Another Country]

Broken (in the best possible way)

Broken (in the best possible way)

By Jenny Lawson

As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, Jenny brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way.

With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why Jenny can never go back to the post office, Broken leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way. And of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor―the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball―is present throughout.

Reading Broken is like looking through glasses with the wrong prescription: at first it's funny to see how weird everything looks, but after a while it just gives you a headache.  Lawson is funny in smaller doses (hence the success of her blog, and why so many of the chapters are written like blog entries) but the constant digressions and look-at-the-outrageous-hijinks-I-just-manage-to-fall-into-because-I-have-funny-anxiety-like-Larry-David style forced humor is wearying. 

Luckily, or unluckily, as it happens, the anecdotal stories are interspersed with chapters on various medical maladies Lawson suffers from, which are interesting, at least, even if the diatribe on her insurance problems goes on for way too long. And obviously, you could argue that the length of the diatribe is the result of her insurers actions, not hers, but still, there's a point at which this is basically masturbation, not art. 

I sound grumpy and it's probably harsher than necessary, but although I've found Lawson occasionally amusing in the past, it does feel like her tragicomic theatrics are worn out in this book. Maybe I'm just older and more risible. Maybe I'm expecting everyone to have aged just like me, into a sedate curmudgeonly attitude that doesn't find the mere idea of little plastic penises hilarious.

If you read and like her blog, I assume you will like this book. For better and for worse, it's all just more of the same.

 

34: A Book Written By An Author Who Is Neurodivergent

The Briar Club

The Briar Club

By Kate Quinn

Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

I've had this on my hold list for probably seven or eight months at least, patiently waiting my turn. At this point, Kate Quinn is now one of those authors of whom each new release will be guaranteed a spot on my reading agenda.  Although the blurb didn't exactly grab me - a far cry from her books on WWII spies, codebreakers, and other assorted heroines - it still ended up carrying her trademark: secrets, women, and yes, ultimately, spies.  

It's also stuffed full with a panoply of 50s historical references and side plots. There's almost too much going on, between the birth control pill, gangsters, segregation, the Korean War, modern art, the All American Women's Baseball League, gay rights, and the ever looming spectre of McCarthyism. Not to mention the recipes, for everything from swedish meatballs to honey cake. Quinn does post a lengthy author's note at the end describing some of the real stories behind her fictional ones. The breadth of the historical detail is astonishing at times - there's a scene involving a real dessert called Candle Salad that makes you wonder how Quinn managed to find such an offbeat but perfectly apropos recipe. The only one I wasn't at least a little familiar with was the invasion of Texas, Operation Longhorn, which is both so insane that it's hard to believe it's just a historical footnote now as well as perfectly believable given how nuts everyone else was.

The book is a little bit chunkier than her others: the framing structure involves a murder (or, at least, a dead body) and the police investigation of a Washington D.C. boarding house full of women. Most of it though, is lengthy chapters chronologically preceding and leading up to the murder, each focusing on the key characters and tenants of the house in turn: Pete, the landlord's son, Nora, the secretary and gangster's moll, Bea, the baseball player, Fliss, the English nurse drowning in motherhood, Reka, the former artist who narrowly escaped Germany only to find the American Dream not all it was promised, Claire, the gay pinup girl, and Grace, whose entrance starts the book, and who flits in and out of the others lives in a cross between a fairy godmother and puppet master.

There's certainly some things which, if you're familiar enough with the period (or, ahem, some relevant popular entertainment about the period) come as not-very-surprising surprises and the book itself feels much slower paced than her others, which is to be expected since it takes place over four and a half years. I assume Quinn kept the timeline that way for both historical accuracy as well as to give the relationships time to feel genuine growth, but it does make some things feel like they're being artificially set back, in order to have all the players at the table for the denouement (i.e. Nora reuniting with her boyfriend and Sid's planned escape both get delayed YEARS so they're all at the fatal dinner, plot wise). Those issues aside though, the book doesn't feel very slow, since each chapter concerns a mini crisis of sorts for its respective narrator. It would almost fit the series of interconnected stories prompt. I couldn't not use The Briar Club here though - the blurb literally mentions the unlikely friendships!

It also managed to make me feel somewhat optimistic about how things have trended in the US lately: if we can manage to get through all the shit the 50s pulled, perhaps there's hope for us as well. Overall, it was an enjoyable, if not necessarily demanding, read. I will continue to put my reading trust in Quinn. In fact, I have my eye on one of her older books to fill another prompt.

 

28: A Book That Features An Unlikely Friendship