Funny Story by Emily Henry

After I finished reading Run by Blake Crouch, I needed a bit of a palette cleanser. That was a dark book, and I needed something lighter to balance it. I am a fan of Emily Henry and hadn’t read her latest yet, so I picked up and read Funny Story.

In it, a thirty-something woman is engaged to the man of her dreams. She has moved into a house he bought for them in his home town and is enjoying being part of his circle. A few months before their wedding, he decides he is in love with his childhood best friend and breaks off the wedding. Desperate for a place to live in a town far from her own friends and family, she moves in with her ex-fiancé’s ex-boyfriend. At first they keep their distance. Then they devise a plan that may unintentionally bring them closer together.

There wasn’t anything terribly new here. As with all romances, we know how this one will end. It isn’t about the ending, though. It’s about the journey. And the journey here is emotional, funny, and enjoyable. As is my experience with Emily Henry, the characters feel true to life and the plot deals with real human problems with a level of complexity that goes deeper than I would expect for a romance. That said, this is a romance novel. It is a quick read and doesn’t get too deep. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but is wasn’t as good as some of her other stuff I’ve read.

My rating: 3.5/5

Run by Blake Crouch

I recently watched on Apple TV+ the new series Dark Matter based on the book of the same name by Blake Crouch. I enjoyed it so much that I went looking to see if he had anything new coming out. I was excited to find on NetGalley, that he has a book coming out in the fall called simply Run. Turns out that this was originally self-published by the author in 2011. It is being published for the first time by Ballantine Books. It’s tentative release date is October 22. I read an advanced reader copy of the ebook provided by NetGalley.

Run is an apocalyptic thriller that takes place in essentially present times. An unexpected and (at first) unexplained pandemic has led many in Jack’s community of Albuquerque, NM to become randomly murderous. TV and radio are down except for the announcement of who those affected will be coming to kill next. When Jack hears his own name on the radio, he swiftly packs his family and camping gear into their SUV and run. The plot follows them as they head north toward Canada, doing their best to avoid those affected in order to stay together and alive.

This is a very dark novel. It is not as well-written as his more recent work, but there are glimpses of what is to come. The challenges and emotions of the family are the strength of this novel. The pace is unrelenting. There are no named chapters and no table of contents. This feels like a purposeful choice to keep you turning the pages. It works. Even the clipped writing, with regular incomplete sentences, feeds the urgency. As I read this book, I was reminded of other apocalyptic novels like The Stand by Stephen King and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Unfortunately, this one does not rise to that level. It is much darker and more grim while not being as well-written. It was an interesting glimpse into Crouch’s early work, but if you are looking for an apocalyptic thriller, I recommend the others I mentioned. If you want to read Blake Crouch, you are better off starting with Dark Matter or Recursion.

My rating: 3/5

Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker

I’ve read a lot of Sarah Pinsker’s fiction. This includes many short stories including “One Man’s Treasure” from last year which was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus awards for best novelette. I also thoroughly enjoyed her two novels, A Song for a New Day and We Are Satellites. Naturally, when I learned that she was soon to publish a new novella, I went looking for it at NetGalley. Many thanks to them for the advance reader copy they provided me in exchange for this unbiased review.

Haunt Sweet Home is the story of a young woman named Mara trying to find her way in the world. Her many attempts to complete college keep flaming out, much to her family’s disappointment. Her cousin is a very successful host of cable TV show that goes by the same name as the title of the book . It follows new home owners as they begin to renovate their homes and discover that they are haunted in some way. When this cousin offers Mara a job as a production assistant on the show she takes it not knowing how it will change her life.

This short book was a mixed bag for me. It is slow to start though entertaining throughout. The meat of the story doesn’t get going until around the mid-point of the story. One result for me was simply wishing that there was more to the story. In some ways, it feels like it ends just as it is getting the most interesting. Also, the main twist in the story has been used many times and was quite easy for me to see coming. But that is redeemed after the reveal as the details are unique and what the entire story is built to explore. Ultimately, this book is about coming of age, growing up, and learning for yourself who you really are. These are some of my favorite books themes. I just wish this novella was as good for me as her novels.

My rating: 3.5/5

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

I never expected to read this book. Sure, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1986, but it’s a western. I’m not a big fan of westerns in TV, movies, or books. I just don’t understand the fascination with a period of time that was so brief and has been overly romanticized. But a member of my book club loves this book. He raved about it many time to our members. So when historical fiction month rolled around in July, our club decided that this is the book that we would read.

The plot centers around two aging former Texas Rangers, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call. They are the owners of a small business selling horses near the Rio Grande in southern Texas along the border with Mexico. When one of their old compatriots from their rangering days returns and tells them of the beauty of Montana and the money to be made by bringing cattle to that area, Call gets it into his head to round some up and head north. Most of the book surrounds their efforts to round up the cattle and their travels driving those cattle north. There are a lot of other side stories that weave in and out of the main narrative.

The writing in this book is flat out incredible. He does this thing where he is describing the action of the story and turns aside to tell the history of a sign, for example, over the next two or three pages. Then he returns naturally to pick up the story from where he diverged. Sounds like it would be boring and tedious but it works incredibly well. I would get sucked into the side story and completely forget the main line until he returned to it. What a storyteller!

The story is largely about relationships, the main one between Gus and Call. There are also a number of mild romantic lines. But mainly it is about relationships in general, among and between all the characters. Another theme that comes up over and over is timing, and it is a little heavy handed. More than once a character points out that if one decision in the past had gone differently, then they wouldn’t be where they were at that time. All the characters feel like real people with strengths and flaws. Some of them are infuriating. Some are lovable. Most are a combination of both, you know, like people.

I found myself coming back to read this book whenever I could. I always wanted to find out what was happening in the lives of these people. One of my biggest disappointments was the ending. It wasn’t bad or particularly unexpected. It just sort of stopped. There was no sense of conclusion. But then, there isn’t an easily defined conclusion to the episodes of our lives, is there?

One final note, if your copy of this book has a preface by the author for some sort of anniversary edition, do not read it before you read the book. It contains spoilers. Mild ones, but spoilers nonetheless. I read the preface before reading the book, as I normally do. I was very unhappy with the editor. I guess because the book was originally published in 1985, they expected that readers who purchased this book would have already read it. A warning for those who haven’t would have been greatly appreciated.

My rating: 4/5

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

I listen to a fair number of podcasts. One of these recently centered around a book I had on my TBR list. The title of that episode was “What Makes a Good Gathering?“. I’ve been thinking recently about how to start a local book club, and I thought the ideas in this book might be helpful, so I finally read it.

It is a guidebook for how to gather people. My first thought when I put this on my list to read was that it was about how to host a cocktail party. And it is. But it is also about so much more. Are you in charge of raising money for a small non-profit? This book is for you. Do you hold or attend meetings at work? This book is for you. Do you occasionally have friends over to your house for dinner? This book is for you. And it isn’t about logistics or etiquette. It is about the planning.

Lot’s of people think that planning stifles spontaneity. The author and I disagree. Plans never come off perfectly, but without a plan things often or usually go sideways or in an entirely unexpected direction. In this guide, the author shows how important it is to decide why you are really gathering, to not be a chill host, to never start with logistics or end with thank yous, and to cause controversy (the good kind). It is a short book filled with practical advice that I can’t wait to use the next time I am tasked with hosting a meeting of any kind.

My rating: 4.5/5

Here by Richard McGuire

I first learned about this book from a movie trailer I randomly came across on YouTube. The director who made Back to the Future, Cast Away, and Forrest Gump is directing the movie Here staring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. To be honest, the movie didn’t look that interesting to me. The fact that it told the story of one corner of a house throughout thousands of years of history just seemed too limiting to make for a very interesting movie. But when I heard that it was based on a graphic novel, I was intrigued. As a book, that concept might work. So I requested it from my library.

The graphic novel focuses on a corner of a living room in a house somewhere in North America, perhaps New England. The panels on each page show things from different times in that same room. Here is a sample of how it looks.

There are very few words on the page. The “reader” is left to contemplate the juxtaposition of the collages on each page. It explores how similar we are across the ages, while at the same time illustrating the enormous change across our planet over the millennia. It’s not a riveting piece of storytelling. But it is a unique experiment in storytelling. It doesn’t take very long to get through and is worth each moment spent in contemplation.

My rating: 4/5

Saga, Vol. 11 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

I learned about the comic/graphic novel series Saga many years ago. Every time a new volume in the series is released, I immediately put it a request for it at my local library. Not too long ago, my request for volume 11 came in. Quick warning, minor spoilers ahead for the action that took place prior to volume 11.

Volume 11 picks up after Marko has been murdered and Alana and Hazel (their daughter) are stranded when their spaceship is destroyed. They continue to be hunted by both sides of a war because Marko and Alana, representing a union of adversaries, and their daughter are perceived as a threat to the ongoing conflict that others are ideologically or financially committed to. This volume continues the stellar artwork and storytelling of the previous volumes.

If you haven’t yet read any of Saga, I highly recommend it. Just be aware that its themes and artwork are very much aimed at adults and therefore definitely not safe for work (NSFW).

My rating: 4/5

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

Earlier this summer, my partner and I took a week-long vacation in northwestern Montana. A big part of the trip was the beauty of Glacier National Park. Learning about the park involved learning about the Native Americans who were there before white people moved in and took over, particular at Two Medicine Lake. The park also butts up against the reservation of the Blackfoot tribe to the east of the park. This reminded me of a book I had queued up to read called 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. I started reading it the night before we left.

Since I was a teenager, I have been fascinated by the history of the Americas before they were invaded and plundered by Europeans. What was here before my ancestors came? How did they live? What could we learn from them? The consensus at that time was that there wasn’t much to learn. They were just small bands of tribes sprinkled throughout the Western Hemisphere living with and respecting the land. The premise and research of this book show something else entirely.

There are two main takeaways for me. The first is that the Americas may not have been quite so sparsely populated as scholars previously thought. In fact, there may have been more Indians in the Americas than in all of Europe. So where were they when the colonists of the Americas started showing up? It is likely that many, if not most, were dead from disease. Smallpox was brought by the first explorers. With no natural immunity to such diseases, as much as 90% of the population may have been killed. By the time colonists arrived, the populations were sparse and no longer able to maintain their previous ways of living.

And that is the second takeaway. The previous understanding of the natives of the Americas is that they were nomads who lived with the land, never changing it, farming very little if at all. New discoveries have changed this thinking. One mind-blowing idea shared is that the Amazon River basin (referred to as Amazonia in the book), was cultivated! No, it wasn’t one big native garden. But rather than simply accepting nature for what it was, they nurtured it to their betterment and the environment’s. Indians often used fire to manage their surroundings. In Amazonia, they burned only to charcoal (not ash) which made the soil more fertile, planting orchards that today we think of as fruitful jungle.

This book is filled with new ways of understanding and thinking about the experience of Native Americans before the Europeans arrived. And this brings a whole new perspective to what happened after the arrival of the first Europeans. We still have much to learn from those who lived here before our ancestors arrived. Hopefully one of those lessons will involve a greater respect for the native people where we live.

My rating: 4/5

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One by Emil Ferris

I am a big Cory Doctorow fan, of both his fiction and his technology and privacy advocacy. I follow and read his blog. On that blog, he will occasionally recommend a book to read. Recently, one of those books as My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two. It is the sequel, naturally, to My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One by Emil Ferris. After reading Doctorow’s glowing review of Book Two, I immediately requested Book One from my library and took it with my on a recent vacation.

The book is a graphic novel about and told by a young girl who wants to be a monster. She is picked on at school and feels like an outsider. Her logic is that if she was undead, she could get back at those who pick on her or her family. One day, a neighbor woman who was always kind to the author is found dead in her bed. She was apparently shot in her living room but found in her bed. And the apartment was locked from the inside. The police call it a suicide and close the case. But the author isn’t so sure and begins to try to figure out what happened.

The art in this book is beautiful. Each “chapter” opens with the cover of an old horror magazine. In fact the whole book has that feel of something dark and ominous that the art communicates masterfully. The murdered woman was a holocaust survivor and much of the book is learning of her experience. Another focal point is the author’s relationship with her brother who is much older that she is. They were close once but he has become more distant recently. The book ends on a cliff hanger that leaves the reader reaching for the sequel. I am so lucky that it is available now from my local library. This book was originally published in 2017 but the sequel didn’t come out until this year. I can’t image having to wait so long to find out what happens next!

My rating: 4/5

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

I am fascinated by storytelling. It is a large part of why I read so much. I also love to learn about the art of storytelling and writing. So much so that I listen to a podcast called Writing Excuses. What is it? In their words, “Writing Excuses is a fast-paced, educational podcast for writers, by writers. Our goal is to help our listeners become better at their craft. Whether they write for fun or for profit, whether they’re new to the domain or old hands, Writing Excuses has something to offer. We love to write, and our listeners do, too.” In their latest season they have been talking about “world building” and using the Hugo-award-winning novel A Memory of Empire by Arkady Martine as their text.

I had thought about reading this book many times but always decided to pass. On the cover is a prominent quote that, in part, refers to it as “space opera“, not one of my favorite types of science fiction. I didn’t really relish reading about war in space. But as I listened to this season of the podcast, I discovered that this novel is less about space war and more about culture, language, diplomacy, colonization, and empire. I became very interested in reading this book and finally picked it up.

The story centers on a young woman named Mahit who grew up on a small space station on the edge of the empire. When suddenly the empire requests a new ambassador from the station, Mahit is sent. She has studied the empire and its language and culture almost her entire life. She is fascinated by it as well as troubled by its power and threat to her home station. When she arrives, she learns that the former ambassador is dead, possibly murdered. With little knowledge of what happened to him and almost no one to help her, she sets out to discover what happened to him and protect and represent her home.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved that it delves into the culture of the empire and how it both fascinates and troubles Mahit. One of the episodes in the podcast is an interview with the author. In it I learned that she combines aspects of the Byzantium and Aztec empires to develop the empire in the book. The world building happens in the context of telling the story so there is little exposition about the empire or the world. It all happens organically in an intriguing story that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and takes you along for the ride with Mahit as she struggles to navigate this new world that she loves and fears and has for so long wanted to be a part of. But as the story unfolds she starts to wonder if that will ever be possible. A unique look as colonization and it effects on the colonizers in the shape of a compelling story that is hard to put down.

My rating: 4.5/5