Kindred

Kindred

By Octavia Butler

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

Woof, this one was heavy.  I had some vague idea that Butler's biggest series was about vampires (unclear how I came by that impression since I literally shelved her books when I was sixteen and worked at a bookstore) and then I kept seeing this one pop up, and thought it might be new, and what actually happened is that this was published in 1970, and is about a time-traveling black woman, and Octavia Butler died in 2006 and her last book was a vampire novel (but couldn't have been the vampire novel I was thinking of), but bears absolutely no resemblance to what I thought she wrote.  Anyway, this is to say that I had some vague impressions about what this was, but I was really not prepared for this to hit this hard.  

I did find myself comparing it to Connie Willis' Doomsday Book, mostly in the sense that an under-prepared young woman finds herself stranded in an unexpectedly dangerous time period, although obviously Kindred's Dana is at more risk than Kevran was - except, of course, of dying from the bubonic plague.  Also, that time period was not specifically dangerous to her, i.e., being a black woman on a plantation was a little more targeted than a white lady traveling through medieval England.  But both books build tension and horror really well, and in Kindred, even though we open with Dana in the hospital with Kevin, and sans arm, I still found myself cheating ahead, trying to make sure that she didn't face too much awfulness.  

So basically, Dana gets called out of time (and place) unexpectedly, discovering that she's being called to the side of Rufus Weylin, a young white boy/man in times of his personal danger.  She's returned to the 1900s when she feels in life-threatening danger herself.  While she may be in the 1800s for hours or months at a time, little time passes back in 1976.  Her trips back occur in quick succession in the 1900s, although years pass between calls in the 1800s.  Her 1976 husband, a white man named Kevin, is pretty fast to accept this once she disappears and reappears in front of him, soaking wet/banged up/etc.  We soon find out that Rufus is Dana's ancestor, and she needs to preserve his life at least long enough for him to continue her family line.  This is complicated, obviously, because she's a black woman and everyone who sees her basically sees "uppity should-be slave".  For all of my lengthy explanation, it's a surprisingly straightforward plot in many ways: the core of the book is the character development and emotional beats.  

Dana does feel some  - affection, at least at first, which then turns into dependence (if only because he is her way out, both to her own life as well as from the worst of slavery in the past) for Rufus.  Her influence on him wanes, as we see him becoming his worst impulses despite an early and positive relationship with Dana.  How much can one fight against a society which says: "You can take" that which you would otherwise not be given?

We also have the interesting side-story of Dana's marriage with Kevin, which takes a (not literal) beating as well.  Although he does accept this is happening, he doesn't understand her position, her feeling of responsibility and care towards Rufus. It becomes somewhat moot, as Kevin gets separated from her and stranded in the past for, oh, you know, like ten or fifteen years, until she can call him back again. I think it was meant to give Kevin the ability to empathize with Dana from having experienced it himself, which feels very intentional - although a white man in the 1970s may have some sympathy for the black experience, it would have been far more unusual for him to be empathetic. Or perhaps that's my own bias towards the past. The Civil Rights movement would have been a recent memory for Kevin and Dana, even if Black Lives Matter would not be born for another fifty years; but Kevin has a benevolent ignorance of Dana's reality.  Although he certainly loves her, and is very worried for her (he comes up with some very practical ideas about how she can protect herself if she gets called back, haha) he has no trauma of his own, before going back. 

In the end, Dana escapes, and Kevin escapes, and we're left with the memories.  The idea of "What do we owe each other?" is one that winds its way through the book, on all sides. It's a somewhat simple book, in idea and execution, but one that has stuck with me for much longer than it took to read.

46 - A Book about Someone Leading a Double-Life

This is How You Lose the Time War

This is How You Lose the Time War

By Amal El-Motar and Max Gladstone

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.

Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right?

Okay, so I kind of hated this book.  Not for any "good" reason - it's not poorly written, or full of plot holes (although how would you even be able to tell) or stupid, or badly characterized or anything simple like that.  It's just way too much High Literature in my Fantasy/Sci Fi. 

You're dropped into a, well, I guess it could be futuristic world, except that all the places the two soldiers visit are clearly historical versions of Earth in some way, and we start with alternating chapters between a person from each faction, called Blue and Red.  

The conversation is initiated in a gloating kind of way, but quickly becomes a real connection between the two and then they turn into, I guess love letters, and then the very last few chapters are basically the two of them trying to evade capture and deprogramming by their respective groups. 

But it never felt to me like we, as readers, were properly introduced or welcomed by the characters. First of all, a bunch of times there's referrals to things that the characters deal with that are just sort of alluded to without ever actually touching on why or how they were important.  Which I guess makes sense for people who are actually writers letters, but for people who are simply fictional characters using letter writing as a way of telling a story, it's annoying and off-putting. It feels like we're watching from a distance rather than being welcomed into this tale.

Plus, they start getting into shenanigans about being together, and it feels like performance art. There's much made there about inscribing stones that are ground up into dirt which is then rubbed onto the side of your car and driven to an junkyard and scrapped for metal which is made into earrings and it just becomes so much dross by the end of it. Maybe it's a complement, but it's like hanging out with a real pair of lovers who are so interested in themselves and their love affair, they can't find anything else to talk about. Eventually, the only people who want to talk to them are each other.

#41 - A Book with a Reflected Image on the Cover or "Mirror" in the Title

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism

By Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar 

From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.

This book somehow manages to be incredibly funny despite just being a horrible, awful, putrid list of racist shit that happened to Lacey (and sometimes Amber, but mostly Lacey).  And recently! It's a bit like The Witches Are Coming (and that other one she did) by Lindy West, but more intentionally funny than angry.  I showed just the first page to some people last week and they cracked up laughing, but in an incredulous way. 

Although both Ruffin and Lamar are technically co-authors, and Lamar has her own voice, Ruffin does all the heavy lifting, taking Lamar's stories and then adding a wink and a nod, like, "Can you believe this shit?!" which are sorely needed to lighten the mood.  Ruffin's career as a comedy writer clearly shows here, giving it a very conversational tone, like you're just gabbing with friends and then they start busting stories out.  (I feel like "conversational tone" gets overused, but it definitely fits here).

It defies belief that these stories happened (a) to one person (b) recently!  I cannot say enough good things about the way that Ruffin presents these stories, which are truly awful.  She manages to tread the fine line of being amusing while also being educational and not making you want to go out and kick the nearest person, which is a FEAT after some of these, I swear.  

I can't recommend this book enough. Go out and read it!

 

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

 When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

by Nghi Vo

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.

 

 How many times have I said I expected and wanted a book to be better? Add this one to the list. I enjoyed the first one, albeit in a quieter way. For all that's it's very short, it felt like it dragged in the middle, while also not much happens. The framing storyteller mode is charming, but then everything is filtered through Rabbit, so we're getting a story of a story, and it doesn't really come together until the end, but it feels like more of a "Ah, okay" than a "Whoa, really?!" moment.  Anyway, I was interested enough to pick up this one, which I hoped would improve on the series. It did not. 

Vo plays around more with the storyteller trope and the unreliable narrator.  Here, both Chih the cleric and the Tiger take turns telling the story, which changes (drastically, in some cases) with the teller.  And that sounds like a great idea, but in practice, it falls very flat for me, mostly because there didn't seem to be much point.  There's a lack of cohesiveness in the way the intertwining parts of the story pull together. For example, what happens in one installment doesn't seem to affect or tie in much with what happens in the other installments.  Basically Chih goes, "This is how I heard this part" and the Tiger goes, "No, it was like this." and after you finish reading both parts you're not left with any kind of sense that maybe the truth was somewhere in the middle, it's like you just read two different stories about different things.  

Now that I've typed it out, I think that was my biggest problem, that lack of feeling like both stories were self-serving but different reflected versions of the truth.  Think of this like a divorced couple (or any couple really) or a lawsuit - both sides have their own versions of arguments and grievances, which present their own protagonist in the best possible light (or the most logical light, etc).  So it's a really interesting idea to create this dueling POV.  But it just wasn't that successful for me.  I didn't finish it and come out with more than the stories themselves, no greater insight for having heard both halves.  Maybe Vo should have tried that old chestnut and added a third storyteller: "His side, her side, and the truth".  

Vo is part of the new wave of sci/fi/fantasy authors who are including more varied representations of gender/sexuality/etc, which seems like it would be a natural fit for a story about a Tiger and her wife, but again, it just didn't seem to have that much to say about it.  I was intrigued enough from the first one (and of course, the length is a bonus - not much time commitment!) to get this one, and I'm still intrigued, but not so anxious for the next one to arrive. We'll wait and see. 

04 - A Book with a Tiger on the Cover or "Tiger" in the Title

Vassa in the Night

Vassa in the Night

By Sarah Porter

 

When Vassa’s stepsister sends her out to buy lightbulbs in the middle of the night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters―and sometimes innocent shoppers as well.

But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and ferocious cunning. With Erg’s help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch’s curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. But Babs won’t be playing fair….

I really wanted to like this one, but almost from the beginning I found myself disenchanted with it.  Part of my problem I think, is that the author assumes more familiarity with the original Russian folk tale than I had.  Even though we had flashbacks to Vassa's mother, father, Babs/Bea's relationship and Picnic and Pangolin, none of them really explained what was going on with the BY franchises, why Babs and Bea weren't friends (or how they'd become friends in the first place, and what kinds of powers each had), or how Vassa fit into the continuation of these events from the past.  Erg, the doll, tied Vassa to the magical world, but also, Erg was where Vassa put her own feelings in when her mother died? So, then, if the Erg feelings are absorbed back into Vassa, does that mean that Vassa is no longer drawn to the magical world? Because that's the reverse of how those things usually work: you have to become a complete person before your magic works correctly is a time-honored trope of the genre.  And for good reason!  It makes sense, unlike this book.

Characters just float in and out of the book, and frequently we'll be in the middle of a scene just to cut away and be abruptly transferred to a "night/dream" sequence and never really resolve or wrap up the first scene.  It was very disjointed, and didn't feel intentional.  If it was intentional, great, I hated it.

I also objected to the dialogue and characterization.  Is this chick fifteen? Why does she sound so stilted when talking to people? Why is she so casual about the decapitated people in the bodega parking lot (why is everyone so casual about the decapitated people in the parking lot)? Apparently magic is acknowledged and recognized in this world, but when obviously bad magic is extending night-time and a local franchise is murdering people, uh, the reaction is to watch more tv? Okay, fine, I guess.  But seriously, everyone's frankly ho-hum attitude is a really weird choice to make for the author.  It's like, how serious is this problem? Clearly no one else cares, so why should we?  Even to the point that teenagers are playing games with the store where the potential risk is getting their head (or other parts) cut off?  Everyone's decisions and thought processes in this book are just...confusing.  In a bad way.  

Dexter and Sinister, the disembodied hands for example.  Are they unwilling agents of Babs Yagg? Cooperative villains? Dexter has a change of heart and decides to help Vassa and get itself killed in the process for.. what reason, exactly? Because Babs is mean to him (again)? Or is it because the plot required it?

And there's a lot of people complaining that Vassa didn't actually do much (or anything) herself to solve the tasks given to her, which is also true.  Vassa's primary purpose was going into the store in the first place, and after that... unclear how she derives any character development since she blacks out a lot and the problem gets solved without her involvement.  And frequently, she creates these problems, by having no damn sense.  She see-saws between unbelievable naivety about her situation and the dangers, and some sort of "inner understanding" of all things.

I think there's the germ of a good book in there, but I was pretty disappointed by this one.

 

Fugitive Telemetry

Fugitive Telemetry

By Martha Wells 

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people―who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!

Aaaaaaaaaaah, I love the Murderbot series!  I didn't really like the novel as much, (thought that it took too long to get started, needed more humor and less world-building) but I find her novellas to be just right - no slow parts, just a depressed, formerly murderous robot, the humans it helps despite their overwhelming feelings, and the other bots that alternatively befriend or try to kill Murderbot (I liken this to the scene in The Princess Diaries (there's a throwback!) where they're talking about two kinds of women in James Bond movies: the sexy blondes who have sex with James Bond and the sexy brunettes who try to kill James Bond).

This one is a bit more self-contained that the previous ones, which build on each other - I guess this is supposed to be set in between two earlier books, so Wells had to be more limited in that respect.  I don't think that's a downside, as I said above, I like the episodic nature of the installments, and honestly I would probably read and thoroughly enjoy four or five more CSI/Murderbot crossover novellas.  

Critiques: not enough references to soap operas; needed more slapstick humor, like the early scene where the detective is questioning Murderbot's timeframe for the death and then the tech comes in with the exact same information and the detective rolls their eyes and the tech is sad no one is excited. I find this book very visually easy to picture in my mind grapes.  

Good parts: Murderbot needs a name-tag! Jollybaby is an absolute unit!  Historical ship lifeboats! Nervous chatty people in interrogation rooms! 

Anyway, two thumbs up, highly recommend, fine holiday fun.

Ten Second Reviews

Storybook Style: America's Whimsical Homes of the Twenties

By Arrol Gellner

Storybook Style, the rambunctious evocation of medieval Europe in American housing, was born in the early 1920s and almost forgotten by the late 1930s. It took its inspiration from the Hollywood sets that enthralled Americans of the period and that still appeal to our jaded modern eye. Half timbered and turreted, pinnacled and portcullised, these houses owed their fanciful bravura to architects and builders with theatrical flair, fine craftsmanship, and humor. In Storybook Style, architectural information enhances the stunning color pictures by Bungalow and Painted Ladies photographer Doug Keister to impart a wealth of information and enjoyment.

So this was a little off the beaten path, in the sense that it's an architectural coffee table book but I checked it out because of an interview with the creator of McMansion Hell, which I enjoy perusing quite a bit.  I'd never heard of Storybook Style, but I was immediately charmed.  

The problem with Storybook Style is that it is both expensive to keep up and not well suited to mass production, so there aren't so many examples and pictures that I would have liked.  Don't get me wrong, there's like, eight chapters, but each of them spends a lot of time on just two or three houses, and in comparison with, for example, bungalow books, which are dense with historical information and pictures, this felt much more minimal.  I do like pictures the most though, since I'm not an architectural student, so I liked that the ratio of pictures to text was so high, I just wanted more and more pictures.  More fantastical creations!

That being said, Storybook houses are pretty great, and we should have more of them.  I think I may be able to convince my husband to convert our front door into a faux-medieval style one, and from then on it's just a slippery slope to mythical creature iron sconces, cobblestone paths and a hedge maze!

The Witch Boy

By Molly Ostertag

In thirteen-year-old Aster's family, all the girls are raised to be witches, while boys grow up to be shapeshifters. Anyone who dares cross those lines is exiled. Unfortunately for Aster, he still hasn't shifted ... and he's still fascinated by witchery, no matter how forbidden it might be. When a mysterious danger threatens the other boys, Aster knows he can help -- as a witch. It will take the encouragement of a new friend, the non-magical and non-conforming Charlie, to convince Aster to try practicing his skills. And it will require even more courage to save his family... and be truly himself.

I don't know why so many of my recent books have witches and wizards in the titles, although I do like a good fantasy!  This one, eh, not worth the time.  It's a graphic novel, and geared towards (I assume) younger readers, like middle-grade, given the style, characters, and plot.  

It felt pretty simplistic to me, that Aster wants to break out of the gender-specific roles he's been assigned, only to discover that he can help, if he uses his "women's" magic, and the bad guy turns out to be (SPOILER!) a similarly situated man who was denied the right to use women's magic and turned to the dark side as a result.  Nothing too ground-breaking, although I guess it's fine to re-hash older tropes in new formats for new readers.

Honestly? Fairly forgettable for me. 

Normal People

Normal People

By Sally Rooney

Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

There was such an emphasis on "good" versus "bad" - whether or not Marianne or Connell were "nice".  I understand some of that, to a degree, since it's something I struggle with as well - do my interactions with this person make me nicer, how can I be nicer to people - but there was such a focus on it, it was hard to tell if it was coming from the author or the characters.   There's a point at the end where Marianne thinks about how Connell's life has been shaped by the first fateful decision to sleep together - where he went to school, how he dates people, his attitude - and marvels at the impact they have had on each other.  That's the beauty of Normal People, to narrow in on that piece of astonishing truth. 

One thing that did drive me crazy though: the book is basically shorter sections, generally taking place weeks or months apart, and switching viewpoints between Marianne and Connell.  We'd end one, and then pick up the next, usually halfway through a scene, and then the narrator would flashback at some point to what happened since the last section.  For example, Marianne and Connell would sleep together, and then the next section be them breaking up, and we'd have to flashback to see what happened in the interim.  It's fine to do it, but it felt way overused and got pretty stale by the end. I'd be like, ho hum, here we go again, waiting to see how things got fucked up this time.    

For all that I've been complaining about these contemporary romances involving people jumping into long term commitment, Normal People sure was the antidote to that! The push and pull of the relationship went on for years.  I think though, it was a good pace - nothing felt out of character or surprising, although, I am going to complain that once again, we miss out of some of the most important character development by skipping through long swathes of time towards the end of the book - in this case, both Connell's anxiety/depression treatment, and Marianne's masochistic sex habits.  The ending is optimistic and hopeful, with Marianne basically telling Connell that they'll come together and you do believe her (at least, I did) but it's built on this idea that both Connell and Marianne have matured and know themselves well enough to avoid their earlier pitfalls, and honestly, I'm not sure that foundation is supported enough since we've effectively glossed over both of their "recoveries".  

It's a nice enough book, not going to become a favorite of mine, but well-written.  Now that some time has passed since I finished it, I think my main feeling of the book looking back is "wistful" although that's not something I necessarily thought of while I was in the midst of reading it.  I ended up taking some time off reading "serious" fiction for awhile after this one, I felt like I just needed more lightweight books to lift my serotonin, although, as always, it's the thought provoking and difficult books that inspire me to read more.  Normal People does a good job of narrowing in on a specific phase of some people's lives - let's call it the "college years" - where each relationship becomes a building block of your adulthood and decisions feel like they echo down the rest of your life, and while all this is going on, you make stupid decisions because communication is a learned skill and most people can't do it very well when they're in their early 20s.  A lot of the first half of the book is like that - hurt feelings and missteps because one of them assumes the other's intent or some such, and that felt realistic for the most part, but I can also see where readers might lose patience with characters whose heads are basically up their own butts pretty often.  Perhaps that's why we feel optimistic at the end of the book even though (as I said above) I don't think Rooney covers enough of the critical turning point for readers to believe in the ability of Connell and Marianne to handle a relationship well: it's because we have been there ourselves, and we have done it successfully. 

In a Holidaze

In a Holidaze

By Christina Lauren

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.

But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.

The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this one, mostly because I wasn't entirely sure if the authors intended us to think that Mae and Andrew were endgame, or if it was supposed to be Mae and Theo.  Look, she made out with Theo in the first chapter, and like, every two or three chapters, someone would say that Theo's been pining after her.  Which, I know, is not an obligation for Mae to end up with him.  But Mae was pining after Andrew, and they ended up together, so what's different? So I spent a lot of time basically waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Without that suspense, I suspect I wouldn't have been so rapt in the book.  It was fine, but had none of the bite that I liked so much from The Unhoneymooners and now I guess I'm just going to chalk that one up as an anomaly, since I haven't really gotten the same enjoyable feel from their others.  

So basically Mae realizes she's in a time loop, decides that it's a sign she's meant to be with Andrew, confesses her feelings to him, they have sex a few times, she tells him she made out with his brother in another time, they fight and make up and everyone forgets (or politely ignores) what a nutcase she was that week when she was insisting she was in a time loop and then six months later she and Andrew get engaged.  I'm like that blinking guy gif.  Whoa, nelly! I mean, maybe you have known each other for the last twenty five years, but I think you could afford to wait more than two months before deciding to get hitched (the proposal took six months, but apparently Andrew asked for permission on their two month anniversary, which isn't eyebrow-raising AT ALL - we don't need to end romances on marriage or babies, it's fine if we take more than a few months to determine if this relationship is going to go the distance).  

I found myself tired of all the traditions - snowman making, tree buying, scavenger hunting, and it wasn't even my twenty-fifth time of doing them.  Maybe it's because I'm not reading this in December, but I was way over the Christmas feeling. 

The Happy Ever After Playlist

The Happy Ever After Playlist

By Abby Jimenez

Two years after losing her fiancé, Sloan Monroe still can't seem to get her life back on track. But one trouble-making pup with a "take me home" look in his eyes is about to change everything. With her new pet by her side, Sloan finally starts to feel more like herself. Then, after weeks of unanswered texts, Tucker's owner reaches out. He's a musician on tour in Australia. And bottom line: He wants Tucker back.

 

Well, Sloan's not about to give up her dog without a fight. But what if this Jason guy really loves Tucker? As their flirty texts turn into long calls, Sloan can't deny a connection. Jason is hot and nice and funny. There's no telling what could happen when they meet in person. The question is: With his music career on the rise, how long will Jason really stick around? And is it possible for Sloan to survive another heartbreak?

 

 I read the first book in this "series", The Friend Zone and really disliked it.  I thought the whole "infertile woman magically makes baby" just completely took the point of that book and wrenched its head off like a daisy.  Up to that point, it was fine, but as of that moment, I basically walked away from it.  To the extent that in this book, haha, I didn't actually remember that these were the same characters here as were in the The Friend Zone, and Sloan's fiance died in that book (in service to the plot device of "life is short, so let's bone").  Which is all to the better, since if I'd known that, I probably wouldn't have picked this one up.

But I did like it!  Well enough, at least.  I found both Sloan and Jason to be kind of unrelatable - Sloan is grief-stricken, yes, but she and Jason both go from 0 to 100 in basically two weeks: from online chatting to deciding to sell your house and travel the road with this guy?  I liked the part where they flirted and texted about the dog, but then as soon as Jason's back on the same continent, they basically ignore the dog and become that couple that drives everyone crazy because they insist on spending every single minute together being self-satisfied with how much in love they are.  That makes it sound like I hated the second part of the book, and I honestly didn't but I also didn't feel that bad when they ran into trouble and Jason decided that he had to sacrifice the relationship so Sloan would take care of herself, and the only way to break up would be by saying he was cheating on her.  That is the sign of people who revel in drama.  It was a little exhausting to read.  And now I'm sort of talking myself out of liking the book! Just break up!  This is not some Bronte novel where the heroine will die of consumption because you left her!  Why the need to salt the earth??

 

All I can say is that Sloan and Jason are characters that you do want nice things for - they both seem decent and hardworking people, who are total a-holes, but by golly, would I be so over them if I was a friend.  I wiped most of Kristen's character out of my mind after The Friend Zone but she's so pushy here, trying to get Sloan to bang her way out of grief that Sloan seems downright levelheaded by comparison.   And this is a person who, as I mentioned before, up and sells her house to tour with a musician after several weeks of dating.  

And not for nothing, but whatever happened to Tucker, the dog? He's basically dropped like a hot potato, and frankly, the explanation for how/why he jumped into Sloan's sun roof ("he's very energetic") was so thin it was transparent.  Justice for Tucker!  

Anyway, obviously this was a vast improvement on The Friend Zone, but still not something I'm planning to return to, nor do I expect to pick up the third, unless, as happened here, I forget about the earlier books and am persuaded by overwhelmingly positive reviews.