Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything

Almost Family Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Books Forward in exchange for an honest review.

I love snarky characters. I enjoy how they are honest with the situations around them, come up with witty one-liners, and demonstrate vulnerability throughout the book. They are truly my favorite type of person to read about. When I heard that a new novel called Almost Family by Ann Bancroft (not the Oscar-winning actress and Mel Brooks’s deceased wife) involved a sarcastic and cancer-stricken woman attending a support group, I knew I had to read it. And reader, I’m glad I did, for it was funny, heartfelt, and vulnerable.

Almost Family is about a woman dying from cancer who finds an unexpected family and discovers things about herself. Liz Millanova has stage four cancer, a daughter who won’t speak to her, and obsessive memories over a relationship that tore her marriage apart. She vows to never attend a support group while she’s alive. However, since she’s dying, she might as well give it a go. Mercy’s Thriving Survivors holds its meeting in the least depressing place possible: a Nordstrom’s employee training lounge. It’s here where Liz hits it off with two other patients, Rhonda – a devout, nice woman – and Dave – a gay Vietnam veteran. Together, Liz, Rhonda, and Dave ditch the group and form their own called The Oakland Mets. Their goal is to live life as much as possible. In all of this, Liz learns to open up and get close. They want to have a good time, but what they end up doing is helping one another come to terms with dying and resolving the unfinished business in their lives.

First and foremost, I want to talk about the cover. It looks like the perfect picture, but up close, it’s not. I love how the frame is actually the wires that connect to an IV bag and the bag itself decorated with pill bottles and a martini. It accurately sets up Liz’s world and how it’s dominated by her cancer and the hospital.

Also, it’s genuinely hilarious. The humor mainly comes from Liz’s observations. For instance, in the Prologue, she gives the reasons why she couldn’t think of anything worse than joining a support group in the past. Specifically, she says, “Two hours in a circle of folding chairs, trapped with all that angst. The on and on and on of it all. Bad parents. Drunken husbands. Jobs not only shitty but so low paid you can’t even afford your own shrink, so there you all are in a group session, talking about your shitty jobs.” (p. 1).

It sets up the tone of the novel as well as Liz’s character well. This monologue feels like it could’ve come from a Lily Tomlin standup routine. If Almost Family ever gets adapted into a movie, I would love to see her play Liz.

In lesser hands, Liz’s caustic lines could have been one note, but Brancroft smartly develops that character. The novel slowly reveals that Liz uses humor and self deprecation as a defense mechanism because she has a hard time opening up and saying what she truly feels. This makes her a truly dynamic person.

Moreover, Bancroft also balances humor with sincerity, and this is not just with Liz. Her Oakland Mets pals Rhonda and Dave have plenty of moments, in which they reveal their backstories and their frustrations with their cancers and their lives overall. They could’ve been one-note characters, but I’m glad that the author developed them as much as she did with Liz because I was emotionally invested in all three and their stories. I wonder if Bancroft will write books about Rhonda and Dave since they were so compelling.

Finally, I enjoyed how vulnerable it can be. At first, Liz distracts herself from her cancer diagnosis with snarky remarks and keeping busy. Over the course of the novel, she realizes why she does this. She has difficulty confronting problems head on, and her inability especially rings true when she tries to muster up the courage to tell her daughter about the cancer. This leads to a lot of misunderstandings between the two, and it doesn’t help that they had some to begin with.

Almost Family by Ann Bancroft is a wonderful novel about a cancer-stricken woman learning to open up and come to terms with life. As I mentioned earlier, I love sarcastic characters, and Liz is no different. The humor comes naturally and is balanced with earnest and vulnerability. Bancroft develops the people in the Oakland Mets thoroughly as well. I would recommend this to readers who love to read about snarky characters, people dealing with cancer, coming to terms with death in a light way, family issues, and people learning to stand up for themselves. Almost Family is out now, so go grab it wherever you get your books.

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A Song of Silence Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review discusses rape, murder, and suicide.

I’ve read and watched plenty of Holocaust stories, both fiction and nonfiction. After a while, I noticed patterns among them. They involve protagonists witnessing or experiencing atrocities committed by the Nazis, a love story, and interactions with a sadistic Nazi official. Today’s subject: A Song of Silence by Steve N. Lee doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to this type of tale, yet it remains a powerful story about a man running an orphanage during a horrific episode in world history.

Inspired by a true story, A Song of Silence is about a man trying to protect the orphaned kids during the Second World War. When the Nazis invade a sleepy Polish town, Mirek Kozlowski vows to keep everyone in the orphanage safe no matter the costs. Despite his struggles and sacrifices, the war drags him and the children deeper into the nightmare. With 89 children to look after, Mirek must do whatever he can to shield them even if it means doing something criminal, distasteful, or perilous. To make things worse, a cruel SS officer arrives to bring unspeakable atrocities to the town, but he also brings hope for Mirek to save all of those he cares if only he has the courage to grasp it.

The Holocaust is undeniably one of the most destructive events in world history, and Lee holds nothing back while depicting the atrocities the Nazis committed during that time. There are scenes in which Mirek sees Nazis attack, rape, and/or kill various townspeople. This is nothing new because books like Maus and movies like Schindler’s List have similar ones. At the same time, these are absolutely necessary to include since they establish what Mirek is up against and how he’s personally affected by them. There’s a horrific scene, in which he finds out that one of the older orphans, Lena, an outspoken girl who was taken away by the Nazis, is at a brothel. When he tries to save her, he discovers that he’s too late, for she hangs herself in the room. It was absolutely devastating.

A handful of Holocaust-media also have a love story. I get why they are included to offset the tragedy even if it’s just for a little bit. Schindler’s List and The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen contained these scenes, and A Song of Silence is no different. The shy Ania arrives at the orphanage as a helper, and Mirek is instantly smitten with her. Over time, he helps her to read and to ride a horse. She grows more confident during the course of the novel. By the end, she transforms from a sheltered individual to a world-trotting one. Mirek wants to love her, but he lost a wife during the flu pandemic years prior, and he struggles to open his heart again. This romance works well since they make a nice couple, and it’s incorporated into the increasingly dire situation they find themselves in. At one point, a member of the Resistance comes up with a plan to smuggle the kids out of Poland. It involves Mirek and Ania leaving together with four of the children. Mirek is divided between saving all the children and his love for her.

And of course, a good chunk of Holocaust stories include a vicious SS officer. A good example of this is Amon Goeth (excellently played by Ralph Fiennes) in Schindler’s List. The main character has several interactions with this villainous person, which tests their skills and values. A Song of Silence has one named Hauptsturmführer Krueger. On several occasions, Krueger persuades Mirek to join the Nazi party to make his and the children’s lives easier under the Third Reich. At one point, Krueger finds out that Mirek is an accomplished author, so he sends him a manuscript of a story he wrote to review and make edits. Mirek at first is not so keen on it, but he ends up reading it anyway and likes it. However, what’s horrifying is that Mirek realizes that Krueger is capable of empathy based on how he writes and that he still chooses to lower rations and order executions of civilians for a variety of crimes like hiding Jewish people and spraying a Resistance slogan on the side of a building. Even Goeth wasn’t given this level of development in Schindler’s List.

Even with all the familiar tropes present in A Song of Silence, I was still invested in the story through its characters. Mirek is an idealist man to a fault. He spent part of his life running an orphanage and making sure the children have a childhood. Although people like his elderly assistant Hanka and Borys the Resistance member tell him that he should leave Poland for his safety, Mirek yearns to stay behind to protect the children.

Apparently, Mirek himself is based on an actual person, who was in a similar situation during World War II. Lee took some liberties when making this story since the real-life character Janusz Korczak was in his sixties and Jewish. Mirek is 37 and an “a-religious” Polish person. At first, I thought it was a bit disingenuous to take away the Jewish voice. But, I realized that Jewish people weren’t the only ones killed during the Holocaust. Plenty of Polish people regardless of religion died because they appeared more Slavic than Nordic. In an interview Lee gives at the end of the book, he states, “When so many millions suffered such unspeakable horrors, I didn’t want to focus on one ethnicity/religion at the expense of another, to make one life seem more important than another life, so…I decided to make my hero a-religious and to have him fight for both Jewish and non-Jewish children.”

This comes through in the novel as he treats all them Jewish and non-Jewish equally and how he protects them at the end. I won’t spoil what happens, but it’s emotionally devastating, yet poignant with Mirek showing his love for children while they sing kid-friendly songs.

A Song of Silence by Steve N. Lee contains the usual tropes found in Holocaust-based stories, but the way they are utilized is well done. It doesn’t sugarcoat the actions the Nazis take against the residents. The love story between Mirek and Ania may feel out of place at first, but it makes more sense as they get deeper into the Nazi-induced nightmare. Also, Krueger is far worse than Goeth simply because he’s capable of empathy, yet he chooses not to use it. Above all, Mirek is the kind of character that people can easily root for because of his willingness to do everything to protect the children at the orphanage. I won’t forget that ending anytime soon. I would recommend this novel for readers who love Holocaust-based stories and tales involving orphans. A Song of Silence is out now, so go grab it wherever you get your books.

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Everything I Never Told You Book Review

Before I began reviewing books, one of the best titles I read was Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Since 2017, I’ve been wanting to read more of her novels. I finally did with her 2014 debut Everything I Never Told You. Today, I’m going to tell you everything about why I love that book.

Everything I Never Told You is about a Chinese American family reeling in the aftermath of their much-adored daughter’s death. In 1970s small-town Ohio, Marilyn and James Lee are determined that their favorite child Lydia will fulfill the dreams that they were never able to pursue. But, when she is found lying in a local lake, the balance that kept the family together is destroyed. This tumbles them into chaos as they reflect on their lives and how they tried to understand one another as husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, and fathers and sons.

The opening line, “Lydia is dead. But the family doesn’t know it yet” is one of the most iconic in modern books. It not only sets up the beginning scene, in which the family goes on their day while wondering what happened to Lydia, but also the tone. The book is told through the omnipresent third person point-of-view. It details every action and emotion each character goes through as if this narrator knows everything. Some readers might get annoyed with everytime that the novel mentions something like, “But they don’t know this” or “They will never know.”

However, this is the point. Parents James and Marilyn, brother Nathan, and sister Hannah all have their views on what led up to Lydia’s death, but they will never know the whole truth. Through the third perspective, readers are able to get to know the characters objectively. It’s honestly one of the best uses of the third person narrator I’ve read in a long time.

Another strong element is the characters themselves. Since this is a character study through and through, each one is given plenty of depth, which allows readers to determine how they feel about them. Marilyn is the white mom, who at one point in her life wanted to become a doctor. However, she was in high school and college in the 1950s – a period that wasn’t kind to ambitious women like her. This is cut short when she falls in love with her professor and gets pregnant while in college. She feels so stifled by her duty as a housewife that in 1966, she leaves the family to finish her degree, but she comes back eventually. She then puts all of her energy in making sure that Lydia’s “dreams” of being a doctor are fulfilled. James is the Chinese-American dad. While he went to a prestigious school growing up, he felt shame while the white kids in his classes gawked at him. All he wanted to do was blend in, and he got that chance when he found a student who didn’t look at him weirdly while teaching his course on the American West.

Then, there are the siblings Nathan and Hannah. Nathan is the eldest child, who was a swimmer and wants to become an astronaut. After Marilyn comes back home, he is often neglected by his parents to care more for Lydia. It was heartbreaking when his requests for a hard-boiled egg went unheard. He thinks that Lydia’s boyfriend Jack had something to do with her death mainly because he destains him for being mean to him at the local swimming pool when they were younger. Hannah is the youngest daughter, who was born after Marilyn’s return. She’s often ignored by the other characters non-deliberately, and she takes it in stride by hiding in nooks and crannies. She is the most objective character in the story as she notices things that the other characters don’t, yet it doesn’t mean she knows everything. In the end, James plays with Hannah in a way that he did with Lydia, thus acknowledging more of her presence and finding a way to move on.

And of course, I can’t forget Lydia. She feels too much pressure from both of her parents to not only succeed, but also to be liked. This is hard for her since she and Nathan are the only non-white kids at their high school. Nonetheless, she obeys since she made a deal when her mom was gone that if she came back, she would do everything that she would tell her to do. One will have to read the novel to find out what led to her death.

Now, I bet there are people reading this and wondering how I feel about Everything I Never Told You in comparison to Ng’s magnum opus Little Fires Everywhere. Well, even though I enjoyed both, I actually like the former more than the latter. It’s clear that a lot of elements from Everything I Never Told You made their way to its successor like the omnipresent third narrator, small towns in Ohio, what it means to be Asian in a close-knit community, mothers who expect too much from their daughters, and children who know more than they let on. Both titles are exquisite in their own rights with their intriguing characters and memorable opening scenes, but I prefer Everything I Never Told You because the people in it have more depth, and also, Elena the mom got more on my nerves as Little Fires Everywhere progressed.

Cassandra Campbell narrates the audiobook, and she is no stranger to this website. She has recorded several ones for books like Where the Crawdads Sing and Lilac Girls and is undeniably the most well-known narrator in this field. She does a good job with voicing the characters with subtle touches like James with a stoic tone; Marilyn determined; Nathan sulky; Hannah naive, but not stupid; and Lydia lonesome. However, there was one thing I pondered. Considering that the book deals with race, specifically the Asian-American experience, one would think that the people making this audiobook would have thought about getting a narrator who is of that ethnicity. This is not a knock against Campbell, a white woman. She does a good job with capturing the humanity of each character without leaning into stereotypes. It makes me wonder if the audiobook would’ve been improved if they had gone with an Asian-descended narrator since it was written by Celeste Ng, whose parents were from Hong Kong. Again, Campbell does a good performance.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng is a powerful look at a mixed-race family dealing with the death of their favorite daughter. Each of the characters have plenty of depth that leaves it up to the readers to decide how they truly feel about them. In addition, I can’t imagine this story without its omnipresent third person narrator. I definitely recommend it to all readers, especially to those who love family dramas and stories about marginalized people. The novel is beautifully written, and I will remember many things from this like its opening line and scene for the rest of my life.

Before I go, I want to let everyone know that I recorded the latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast recently. Returning guest Cheyne Nomura and I talk about how we would adapt this book into a limited series. It’s up right now, so go check it out!

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Reparenting Myself: A Memoir to My Daughters on Growing Up, Getting it Wrong, and Giving My Best Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Some books come along at a time when I need them the most. Today’s subject Reparenting Myself: A Memoir to My Daughters on Growing Up, Getting it Wrong, and Giving My Best by Anony Mom, MD (yep, that’s the pseudonym) was one such title. Mother’s Day is coming up, and I’ve been reflecting on my relationship with my own mom. As a daughter, the memoir gave me plenty to chew on while being funny and sincere.

Reparenting Myself: A Memoir to My Daughters on Growing Up, Getting it Wrong, and Giving My Best is a collection of journal entries illuminating the joy, uncertainty, and complexities of modern motherhood. Anony Mom dissects her flaws and strengths, the challenges of raising good humans, the importance of authenticity and self love, and the healing nature of parenting through cautionary tales and unexpected inspirations. Above all, this memoir is a love letter to her two daughters, an apology for any parenting mistakes, and a declaration of hope for their futures.

While imparting advice to one’s child is usually treated in a serious manner, Anony Mom brings humor to these journal entries through self depreciation. Throughout the memoir, she acknowledges her faults like people pleasing (she herself identifies as a “recovering people pleaser”), stubborn, and overexplaining. She desperately tries to not do the last part while giving advice to her 6- and 8-year-old daughters in a 249-page book. Luckily, she always has a clear point of why she says something in the first place.

Even though she can crack jokes every now and then, Anony Mom is always sincere. She recalls being a child of divorced parents, which resulted in her need to please others to make it easier for them. People often thought that she was a happy person, which led to her getting validation from the outside instead of the inside. Sadly, it stunted her development of recognizing other emotions besides happiness and anger. In addition, she speaks about her estrangement with her older sister with pure honesty. She believes that this too seemed from the divorce, in which their mother treated her sister as more of a friend than a daughter while she was received as “protected baby” of the family (p. 14). At the same time, Anony Mom admits that she wants to have a closer relationship with her sister, but she recognizes that she needs to keep her distance if her sister doesn’t respond to her texts. This is one thing that she wants her daughters to have: a closer sibling bond than she ever did with hers.

Even though I’m not a parent, Anony Mom still gave me a lot to appreciate, especially with Mother’s Day coming up. For instance, she admits that while her mother wasn’t perfect, she recognizes that her parents gave her everything to love and nurture her. She wanted to do the same thing for her three kids as a married full-time doctor, but she eventually realized that she couldn’t do that. As a result, she decided to go part-time. Moreover, she wholeheartedly believes in karma, which she defines as “finding peace in the belief that justice will prevail and that the arch of the universe is towards fairness” (p. 229).

She recounts that when she was younger, if people wronged her in some way, she felt the need to get even with them. Eventually, she realized that they weren’t after her and that she can only control her actions. That’s why she loves the concept of karma as well as the awesome song by Taylor Swift (side note: part of me wants to know how she feels about The Tortured Poets Department album).

Finally, she gives some wonderful advice to her daughters (another side note: she has a son, but she has some specific tips for him for another day). I won’t list all of them here (one will have to read the memoir to find that out), yet I’ll give part of her mantra for living life. These include being kind, a team player, joyful, ethical, and resilient. My favorite one is being yourself, which she defines as “know who you are; believe in yourself; love yourself and other[s] unconditionally.” (p. 241).

I love how that actually defines what it means to be yourself.

Reparenting Myself: A Memoir to My Daughters on Growing Up, Getting it Wrong, and Giving My Best by Anony Mom, MD is a great memoir about a mother imparting advice for her daughters. The author is clearly aware of her strengths and weaknesses and is genuinely interested in ensuring that her children, especially her daughters, lead the best lives they can possibly have. And, she does this while being humorous and honest. It’s highly entertaining and impactful. While it’s not for everybody, I would definitely recommend it to mothers and daughters over the age of 13 (Anony Mom discusses sex at one point). The memoir is out now, so if you’re in the mood to read Mother’s Day-related stories this year, make sure to pick this one up.

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Sunny Side Up Book Review

Children’s books can easily be dismissed as being simple and easy to read. It’s as if adult readers think that every one of them is about lollipops and rainbows (and throw in some aliens, dinosaurs, and horses for good measure). However, not every juvenile title is intended to be that way. Some deal with heavy handed subjects in ways that kids can relate to, don’t feel condescending, and acknowledge their negative emotions. A great example of this is Sunny Side Up by siblings Jennifer L. and Matthew Holm – a lighthearted graphic novel about a girl trying to figure out why she was sent to live with her grandfather for a period of time.

Sunny Side Up revolves around Sunny Lewin (pun slightly intended), and it’s the first book in the “Sunny” series. She has been packed off to Florida to live with her grandpa for the rest of the summer. She thinks it’s going to be great since after all, it has Disney World. Instead, it’s full of old people. Luckily, she meets Buzz – a Cuban-American kid her age who loves comics. Soon, they have adventures of their own like finding missing cats and neighbors. But there’s one question that remains: why is Sunny down here in the first place? That answer lies in a family secret.

On the surface, this graphic novel is about a girl residing in the last place she wants to be. A good chunk of juvenile books deal with this topic, but this one stands out in a variety of ways. For one thing, the graphic novel takes place in 1976 – the year of the bicentennial celebrations in the United States. One can say that this is an allegory to Sunny’s independence with this solo trip even if she doesn’t feel all that. Another thing is the characters’ appreciation for comics. Through Buzz, Sunny gets in a lot of them, especially the superhero ones. When she and Gramps meet his family, Buzz’s dad – a Cuban immigrant – reveals that comics helped him to learn English. These kinds of reading materials have gotten a lot of flack over the years for a variety of reasons, so it’s good to hear stories of why people are drawn to them.

Now of course, I have to mention the main reason why Sunny Side Up is unique. Throughout the book, Sunny remembers what led up to her going to Florida, as to ponder why she’s there in the first place. Through these flashbacks, readers get to know Dale – her older brother – as he spirals out of control due to substance abuse. He is depicted with brown, gray, and dusty green colors and usually up to no good. At one point, he shows up drunk at a Fourth of July event and punches Sunny in the shoulder in a non-sibling way.

She thinks that what happened to Dale was her fault, and all she wants is her family to tell her the truth about what’s going on and her brother to be himself again. Speaking of secrets, although Gramps has quit smoking, Sunny quickly finds cigarette packs in his villa at the retirement facility. She reasonably gets angry at him for it. It’s through the confrontation with Gramps about his smoking that he reveals why she’s in Florida to begin with. The latter point with Dale is illustrated when he teaches Sunny how to drive in a parking lot even though she’s only 10. This comes in handy when she and Buzz are looking for Gramps’s dementia-laden neighbor, and she drives a golf cart onto the street to find her.

The graphic novel succeeds in dealing with the topic of substance abuse through the eyes of someone who’s indirectly affected by it. Sunny tries to figure out why while trying to keep Dale’s problems a secret from their parents. In addition, Sunny’s feelings of being responsible for his addiction is believable. Kids who deal with abuse in some form go through these emotions as a way of coping, especially if they are not being told the whole truth. The book doesn’t dive deep into Dale’s addiction, but that’s not the point. The main gist is to tell the story of a person who knew someone with an addiction. In addition, the book starts off lighthearted and goofy, but it gets into the darker stuff as it progresses. This is a good way of getting into a serious topic. It’s like slowly swimming from the shallow end to the deep one. Moreover, it helps that the happy tone is maintained through the novel even if it has dark humor even now and then. For example, when Sunny tries to play “Marco Polo” in the pool at the retirement facility, an elderly man retorts that Marco died of a heart attack.

Also, it turns out that the Holms siblings actually knew a family member who dealt with addiction. In the afterword, they strongly advise kids to talk to someone about it in order to share their feelings.

Since this is a graphic novel, I have to talk about the illustrations. There’s a nice use of color. It relies mainly on light pinks, blues, and yellows. This is true with Sunny herself as she’s often wearing a pink shirt and blue shorts as well as sporting short blonde hair. As mentioned earlier, Dale is often depicted with hues like browns, greens, blacks, and grays to hint at the heavier elements of the book. As for the main location at the retirement facility, it’s depicted with often muted oranges, browns, and tans with some blues and greens sprinkled in there. This shows how boring the place is for Sunny.

Overall, Sunny Side Up by Jennifer and Matthew Holm is a great story about a girl trying to uncover a family secret while getting used to living with her grandfather for the time being. It balances the soft and heavy elements effortlessly, while still being entertaining. I would recommend it for kids who love graphic novels and fish-out-of-water stories as well as for those who know people dealing with substance abuse. This book can also be a first step in talking about how kids are affected by drugs and alcohol.

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The Riders Book Review

There are some books that I’ve read in which I had a feeling of where it was going, but then, it went in a different direction. Today’s subject, the 1994 novel The Riders by Tim Winton, did just that. At first, I thought it was going to be Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? with less geography and more drama. However, the book turned out to be an intriguing character study of a man descending into madness and commentary on if people truly know the ones they love even if it can be frustrating at times.

The Riders is about a father and a daughter’s journey searching for a mother. After traveling throughout Europe for two years, Fred Scully and his wife Jennifer end up in Ireland, and on a whim, they purchase an old cottage, which stands in the shadow of a castle. Scully spends weeks renovating the place, while Jennifer goes back to Australia to liquidate their assets. When he arrives at the Shannon Airport to pick up her and their seven-year-old daughter Billie, only the girl gets off the plane. There is no explanation as to why Jennifer vanished. Soon, Scully’s life falls to pieces as he and Billie look for her throughout Europe.

Part of what made me truly understand the novel is that it utilizes the Norse myth of the Wild Hunt. For those who don’t know, the Wild Hunt is a legend about a ghostly leader and their group of hunters flying through the cold, windy, and stormy night during the winter solstice. Anyone who passed them by was said to have been carried away and dropped off at a location miles away. The Riders uses this myth as a reminder of Scully and his family’s wandering spirit as well as to foreshadow his doom. A group of riders and their horses first show up in the beginning when Scully is preparing the cottage for Jennifer and Billie’s arrival. Then, they come back when he and Billie watch some Romani boys ride their stallions from the train while they’re going to France. Finally, they see the riders once more when they finally arrive back in Ireland.

In addition, the characters are fascinating. Scully is an Australian man who loves his wife so much that he follows her to the ends of the earth for her. But once Jennifer doesn’t show up at the airport, he stops at nothing to find her. During that search, he looks back at their relationship, specifically the good times in Athens, the fights in Paris, and how he sacrificed everything so she could be a painter. He realizes that he may not have known her at all even though they were married for seven years. Scully represents the type of person who puts all of their identity into their partner.

Billie is Scully and Jennifer’s daughter. At first, readers are told that she is a tough cookie who got into fights with classmates at the schools she was at and doesn’t follow the rules. When she gets off the plane, she refuses to speak. Scully wants to know why Billie came alone, but he respects that she is too traumatized to say anything. Eventually, she regains her voice, yet she never reveals what happened to her mom. Instead, she assists her dad as much as she can even if it means committing some crimes like stealing money. I found it interesting that she saw him as Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo because of how helpless he becomes during the course of the book.

Throughout, I wanted to know at least something about Jennifer. All we really get from Scully is that she’s got great legs and came from a well-to-do family. I’m not asking the book to spell out the reason why Jennifer didn’t come to Ireland, but I wanted more clues as to what she was feeling. The book could’ve done that and have Scully not realizing it until the very last minute. It wouldn’t have ruined the novel’s integrity.

As for pacing, it starts off slow with Scully working on the cottage in Ireland and the book taking its time to establish the main characters. This sluggishness didn’t bother me since the novel did a good job with keeping my interest, especially with the recurring telegram from Jennifer telling Scully when she and Billie will arrive. It also helps that a postman named Pete was a good supporting character to Scully. In fact, Pete is genuinely invested in Scully’s life in Ireland since he has an alcoholic brother who’s going through a downward spiral. It’s such a wonderful foreshadowing of the main character’s fate. It takes about 90 pages for the main event at the airport to occur. Afterwards, the pacing picks up pretty quickly.

For most readers, much of the book’s enjoyment depends on how much they can tolerate Scully and his actions. He makes some incredibly stupid choices while on the journey. For starters, Billie gets bitten by a dog while they’re in Athens. Instead of visiting a doctor, Scully tries to heal the wound himself. Then, after he and Billie visit his friend Alex while they’re in Athens, the latter is found dead. Police reasonably want to ask Scully some questions about it. He, who had nothing to do with Alex’s death, responds to this in the most logical way possible: by leaving the country. At the same time, these actions ring true for a man whose life is falling apart. He’s not going to think straight while panicking about finding his loved one.

The Riders by Tim Winton defied my expectations on what it was going to be in a good way. The use of the Wild Hunt myth helps it to stand out from other stories about missing persons and the looming sense of doom. Also, most of the characters are three dimensional and have clear reasons as to why they do what they do. I recommend this novel to those who love missing people stories, books set in Europe, and most importantly, can withstand a certain amount of stupidity that comes from Scully’s actions.

Before I go, the latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast is up now. Guest Alex Aaron and I discuss how we would adapt this book. The link will be here.

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The Personal Librarian Book Review

I love historical fiction. Specifically, I enjoy learning about real life people and events from those books, so I can do more research about them. I also love libraries (and I’m not just saying that because I work in one). These two aspects found their way together in a historical fiction novel called The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict (the pen name of Heather Terrell) and Victoria Christopher Murray. I didn’t know anything about Belle da Costa Greene prior, but once I read it, the book made me want to learn more about her because it contained three-dimensional characters and realistic world building.

The Personal Librarian explores the little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene – J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian – who became one of the most powerful women of New York despite keeping a dangerous secret that would prevent her dreams from coming true. In her twenties, Belle is hired by the legendary J.P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. She becomes a staple in New York society and one of the most powerful people in the book and art world, known for her taste and negotiating skills as she helps to build a world-class collection. However, she has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. Her darker complexion is not because of her Portuguese grandmother, but it’s because she’s Belle Marion Greener, daughter of Richard Greener – the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. This tells the story of a woman known for her style, taste, and wit and the lengths to which she must go —for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.

Before I get started, I want to give credit to Benedict. She recognized that as a white woman, her perspectives on the black experience in the United States is limited. As a result, she reached out to Victoria Christopher Murray – a black woman – because the former liked the latter’s work. It was also good to hear that they became friends while writing the novel, and I’m glad that they have collaborated on more than one novel together (my review of their latest title The First Ladies will be up in the near future)!

I really like the supporting cast. Each one of them carries a specific motivation and their own secrets. For example, Belle’s mother Geneiveve encourages her family to pass as white to ensure their survival in a society that discriminates against black people wholeheartedly. However, this decision also led to the separation between her and Richard. Throughout the novel, Belle struggles with her identity as she wants to be herself, yet society won’t allow it. She and Geneiveve fight over this, yet it’s revealed that at one point, the latter thought, like Richard, that black people could live as equals to white people during the Reconstruction period.

Another character who holds secrets is Anne Morgan – J.P. Morgan’s youngest daughter. Anne spends the majority of the book barely acknowledging Belle’s presence in her father’s professional life. However, she doesn’t want to thwart Belle. She simply desires recognition of her work by her father despite being a lesbian who’s in a Boston marriage with another woman.

The obvious main strength of the novel is Belle herself. She’s a savvy librarian and art collector, and I enjoy the sections where she displays her style and wit. At the same time, Murray and Benedict are not afraid to show Belle’s vulnerability, especially when she gets close to Bernard Berenson – one of Morgan’s rival art collectors. When she becomes pregnant, readers understand her concerns, even if Bernard doesn’t. Moreover, they display her frustrations in life realistically. This is especially true with how Belle’s money supports not only her family, but also her sibling’s families too. She knows that she has the best opportunities for a successful life, yet she seeks gratitude from them, especially when they try to split the salary that Belle just received. The authors blend these aspects together seamlessly. In addition, the fact that Belle da Costa Greene was a real person adds more to the story.

My only complaint is that the plot of The Personal Librarian feels too similar to that of Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict. I haven’t read the latter, but I couldn’t help but notice that their blurbs are almost identical. Both stories deal with women from a lower class who end up working for rich men. They display their business instincts so effectively that their bosses began to rely on them and even grow closer to them. However, they have to keep their guard up because of secrets that they harbor. For Belle, it’s that she’s a light-skinned black woman, and for Clara Kelley from Carnegie’s Maid, she’s a poor farmer’s daughter who assumes the identity of an Irish maid after the latter woman has vanished. It’s almost like Benedict has the same Mad Libs sheet, and she only changed the nouns. At the same time, I’m not going to jump into any more conclusions until I read it. What do you think of this?

The audiobook is narrated by Robin Miles. While Miles has acted on and off Broadway and in TV shows like Law and Order, she’s best known as an audiobook narrator. She has received accolades for titles like Just As I Am by Cecily Tyson and Michelle Burford, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents and The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, and Charlotte’s Web. Miles has also recorded audiobooks for The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate, and Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly.

Miles provides the main character with the needed elegance, wit, and vulnerability to make the character believable. She also distinguishes other characters well. While her male characters tend to have a similar Mid-Atlantic accent (unless they are explicitly from another country besides the United States), she sprinkles some vocal differences in them. For example, Morgan himself has a stern tone, and Mr. Berenson displays a kinder one.

All in all, The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray is a really good historical fiction novel about a librarian who shook New York in the early 20th century despite the secrets she keeps. Readers will clearly understand each of the character’s motivations, especially Belle’s, even if they don’t personally agree with them. I also like the theme of how every one of them harbors their own secrets and how it flows quite naturally throughout the book. I would recommend it to those who enjoy reading about librarians and libraries, passing, and life in the early 20th century. Now, I must do some more research on Belle da Costa Greene, like reading the book An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege.

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Interview with Joan Cohen

Hello Everyone,

We have something special for you all on Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything today. We have Joan Cohen on today. She is the author of the new book The Deepfake and had a career in sales and marketing at technology companies. You can see my interview with her down below.

Emily: Many books about AI have been mainly nonfiction or speculative fiction. What was the catalyst for writing this book and making it a purely fictional story?

Joan: I’m a novelist. My objective in writing The Deepfake wasn’t to write a story about AI so much as to show that AI is here and a part of our lives. It’s a part of my characters’ lives in ways they don’t expect. To write non-fiction about AI, requires the writer to have considerable technical expertise and be targeting a reader who expects to learn. As for speculative fiction, I have never written it, but no matter how futuristic it is, I think the writer faces the same challenge as any fiction writer faces to create characters and a story that engage the reader.

Emily: You address the ethical, legal, religious, philosophical, political, and cultural issues regarding AI. What made you want to highlight all of these instead of just one or two?

Joan: In my reading, I’ve found articles that address some of the areas you’ve asked about, but it was never my intention in The Deepfake to seek answers to all the questions AI raises. Instead I wanted my characters to wake up to the complexity of those questions. Perhaps my reader will wonder how a self-driving car is making decisions when there are no good alternatives in an impending accident. Do we care that the day is coming when human creativity in art and literature will be surpassed by AI?

Emily: People often tend to think of AI in a negative light. You chose to show how AI can be helpful in solving problems that were previously unsolvable. What makes it beneficial in those situations?

Joan: AI is improving productivity and the accuracy of predictions in many fields including banking, finance and education. The benefits in medicine are already impressive. AI can detect and diagnose disease. It can also help provide superior medical care by freeing doctors from tedious tasks like note-taking during visits so they can spend more time with patients.

Emily: At the same time, many of the characters are fully aware of the dangers like AI-created disinformation. Can you explain more of those dangers? How can we identify them?

Joan: AI-created disinformation worries me the most at this point in time. Anyone who reads a newspaper or watches the news will hear about messages and posts on the internet that show a person, perhaps a political leader or celebrity, saying and doing things they never said or did. Your favorite politician can be portrayed as a degenerate. Revenge porn is an online weapon that victimizes ordinary citizens. Foreign adversaries plant fake stories intended to sway opinions. The government wants to find a way to “watermark” fake images, but hackers will surely find a way around that.

Emily: How is AI already a part of our lives?

Joan: When we use Siri or Alexa, we’re using AI. Our GPSs use AI. The military uses it in drones. There are already refrigerators that will tell you about the expiration dates of food you’re storing or suggest recipes (although not in my kitchen!).

Emily: What compels people to please others? How does that affect women more than men? How can this hold them back professionally?

Joan: Pleasing people is part of our culture. It largely represents a lack of self-confidence. Women in the past occupied largely domestic roles or worked in the helping professions, where people-pleasing was expected. Those expectations can affect pay disparity between men and women, because women don’t always speak up and ask for raises. They’ve typically been the ones interrupting a career to care for a child or an elderly person. Sometimes pay disparity reflects plain old sex discrimination. For younger women, some of this has changed, yet the self-help books on people-pleasing keep coming out.

Emily: A sexual assault occurs in the book, and I admire how you protray it in a such a thoughtful and sensitive manner, especially the consequences that follow. Why was it important to show it in that way?

Joan: The sexual assault is complicated because the protagonist sees it as part of her pattern of people-pleasing, although she’s smart enough to know she shouldn’t feel guilty about being assaulted.

Emily: How do you think AI is going to affect people in the future?

Joan: I can’t predict how AI will affect people in the future because I think it will be in every way imaginable plus ways we can’t imagine. I’m concerned that some people are dismissing it out of hand believing they don’t need to worry about it yet. It’s easy to educate yourself. Just go to Google, which by the way, uses AI algorithms.

Emily: I run the “Adapt Me Podcast,” where a guest and I talk about books that have never been adapted and how we would go about it. Who would you cast as the main characters in a possible adaptation?

Joan: I’d cast Amanda Seyfried as Sylvie and Zac Efron as Rip.

Emily: What are some projects that you are working on now?

Joan: Right now I’m working on a new novel. It’s different from the work I’ve done before and has a lot more politics in it.

Emily: Where can people find you?

Joan: I’m on Facebook as Joan Cohen Author, and my website is joancohenauthor.com.

The Deepfake by Joan Cohen is out now. You can get it wherever you get your books.

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The Deepfake Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Books Forward in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review discusses sexual assault.

No one can escape artificial intelligence (AI). It has started to affect how we create and perceive content. Many books about AI are usually either nonfiction or speculative fiction because it’s still new. People want to understand and connect with it, but they don’t really know how. But, what if someone wrote a fictional story involving AI? After all, fiction helps readers connect with topics on an emotional level. Author Joan Cohen does just that with her new book The Deepfake.

The Deepfake is about a woman caught in between illegal activities conducted at her workplace. Sylvie thinks of herself as a team player at her AI company. However, when she discovers some shady business dealings, she’s torn on what to do. She confides in Rip, her personal trainer who’s not only appalled by the choices she faces, but also by her advocacy of AI. He believes that it’s dangerous. Despite their different viewpoints and the spurs they throw at each other, they’re drawn to one another. In addition, Sylvie’s life is made more difficult by the constant summons to her mother and stepfather’s Miami estate. Illness, death, a disputed will, and an old flame swirl into a disaster that follows Sylvie back to Boston, which threatens to harm her and the people she cares about.

I’m going to be very honest. I’m not a fan of AI. I get that it allows people to be more creative with their content in a quicker amount of time as well as aid them in times of need. For example, Vasya Baev’s illustrations in Lily’s Wondrous World: A Day in the Park by Marc Polett had some help from AI, and it looks good. It’s that I’ve seen way too many instances of bad AI art and people taking advantage of it. To this day, I can’t look at digital art without checking to see if the person in it has 6 fingers or not nor a news story that has AI assistance.

I carried this opinion while reading The Deepfake, yet I still maintained an open mind about AI. Sylvie, our main character, is a cheerleader for the technology, but she doesn’t know what it’s fully capable of. She hears different opinions of it from people like Warren – the IT guy – and Rip – her personal trainer whose father was a rabbi. The latter expresses concern about AI because he feels that it could take over the world like a fictional robot. Rip serves as the mouthpiece for many of the negative effects of AI, but readers understand where he’s coming from since he has his own relationship with the company Sylvie works for. Luckily, the book does show that AI can be good. Towards the end, after an incident that lands Sylvie in the hospital and months of recuperating, she conducts research on how AI could be useful while understanding its ethics. This could’ve been incorporated more into the story, but I appreciate how Cohen chose to display both the pros and cons of utilizing AI.

I also liked Sylvie very much. There were times where I wanted to yell at her to live her own life, yet I would’ve done similar things in her situation because I’m like her to a degree. She’s very witty, especially when she’s sparring with Rip about her life and AI. In addition, I know all too well about Sylvie’s dilemma of trying to please everyone. She got into a technology company to prove to her ex-husband that she can stand on her own. At that organization, she tries to help both sides with finding information regarding illegal activity involving a new AI software. This exhausts her to the point that she has to set boundaries with certain co-workers. Unfortunately, one of them creates the titular item utilizing her likeness and voice approving of the product. Although she is forced out of the company under unfortunate circumstances, I’m glad that in the end, she’s able to forge her own destiny.

What also puts Sylvie’s stress on a high level is her stepbrother Carlos. This entire subplot was the most gripping, especially how it played into the whole story. She had a fling with Carlos in the past, but when she and her friend Eileen fly to Miami to visit her mom and stepdad, he rapes her. This is not the first time that I read a book involving the protagonist getting sexually assaulted by their stepbrother, yet this was well handled. Cohen portrays this assault and the consequences thoughtfully and with great sensitivity. At first, Sylvie blames herself for it because she and Eileen were tipsy and out at various night clubs with him and her other and nicer stepbrother Miguel. I would’ve yelled at her for that, but other characters like Eileen, Miguel, and stepfather Luis made her see the light. Luis even recalls how Carlos got a girl pregnant when he was a teenager in Cuba. All of this has ramifications as he stalks her in Boston and snakes his way into the AI industry. While people speculate that his mother preferred Miguel when they were children, it’s clear that Cohen wanted to show how far sexual predators are willing to go to get what they want. This is even to the point that Carlos does the following: run over Rip’s dog at the park, stab Sylvie in the back while at her home in Boston, and attempt to murder Miguel at his wedding to Eileen in Miami.

The Deepfake by Joan Cohen is a fascinating look at how AI affects one worker and her family. It taught me that AI can be used for both good and for evil. Moreover, it shows the importance of knowing exactly what AI and other new technology are capable of and not being a blind follower. Above all, it has an interesting main character, whose overall dilemma is about drawing the line between pleasing others and making their own choices. It helps that her family could easily be in a soap opera. I would recommend this book to those who want to know more about AI and who love stories about people discovering themselves. The book is out now, so go check it out wherever you get your novels.

Before I go, I want to let you know that I had the opportunity to interview Joan Cohen for the website. The transcript has been posted here.

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The Poisonwood Bible Book Review

Content warning: this review contains a major spoiler alert.

Since I started this website, many people have recommended various books that I should read. The one that got the most recommendations from those I’ve known was none other than the 1998 novel The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Now that I’ve finally read it, I can say that it’s a great book that explores five different perspectives on pivotal events in the history of the Congo.

The Poisonwood Bible is about Orleanna Price and her four daughters, who witness significant parts of Congolese history as part of a missionary trip. Orleanna’s husband Nathan Price is a fiercely devoted evangelical Baptist who takes his family to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry everything with them that they think they need from their home in Georgia, yet they soon find that all of it is transformed on African soil. They soon witness the most dramatic political chronicles in the 20th century: the Congo’s fight for independence, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to replace him, and the progress of a world economic order that robs the African nation of its independence. Against this backdrop, Orleanna recounts her husband’s actions in the Western assault on Africa. Additionally, her four daughters Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May tell their tales and how they are forever changed by the land of Ham.

The writing is top notch. I love how the book sets the stage of what’s going to occur just in the prologue with the opening line, “Imagine a ruin so strange it must have never happened.”

That’s a line I’m going to remember for a long time.

Because the book deals with religion, each section is named after a book from the Bible like how Book One is called, but what else, “Genesis.” It’s a great way to get people into the religious theme and how each character feels about Christianity and its role in colonization. The writing also allows for each of the main characters to express their thoughts while keeping the narrative going.

It’s rare for a book to have 5 narrators, and it’s even more scarce that it’s executed so well. Each person has a clear and different viewpoint that I was able to clearly identify who was talking even if I didn’t look at the chapter title. For example, the four daughters have clear definite personalities. Rachel is the vapid, self-centered, and malapropist eldest. Leah is the idealistic tomboy who idolizes her father to a point. Adah – Leah’s twin – walks crookedly due to half of her brain not being developed, but she loves wordplay, especially palindromes, and observing others. Ruth May is the courageous and youngest one. And of course, the most fascinating character is the mother Orleanna. Orleanna is the typical 1950s minister’s wife with her softness, quietness, and femininity. At the same time, she’s constantly brooding on the decisions that led her to meet Nathan, marry him, and allow him to take the family to the Belgian Congo. She eventually cracks and leaves him after something significant happens to one of the daughters.

Some of the criticism of this book is regarding the depiction of Nathan, especially how it’s anti-Western and anti-Christian. It’s true that he comes off as a stereotype of the fire and brimstone evangelical baptist. At the same time, he’s meant to represent the kind of people that came to Africa and wanted to help without understanding the culture nor the language. He also has more of a backstory than the abusive dad from The Great Alone did.

Prior to reading The Poisonwood Bible, I knew little about the colonization of the Congo and less so about its independence. For example, I didn’t know about the democratic election of Patrice Lumumba as prime minister in 1960, his murder a year later, and how the CIA replaced him with a leader who was “willing to work” with American interests. Kingsolver packs in so much about this part of history in a way that allows the story to move along. Considering that she lived in the Congo when she was a child after that country gained its independence, she’s very knowledgeable and respectful of multiple perspectives. Anatole – a teacher in the village of Kilanga where the Prices resided in and later Leah’s husband – tells Leah that many children died in the area, so why should a white child dying be any different after Ruth May passes away after a snake bite. Reading so much about the Belgian colonization of Congo and the latter’s independence makes me want to learn more, so I will have to look at King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild at some point.

The only aspect that I have to complain about is the ending. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. I like how it explores what Rachel, Leah, and Adah do after their time in the Congo. Rachel becomes a hotel owner in South Africa, while Leah marries Anatole and becomes a political activist, and Adah studies medicine and biology back in the states. However, it felt tacked on. The book spends a good chunk of the time gradually unfolding how the Price women feel about their new surroundings and about the events that occur following the Congo’s independence. After they leave, it jumps decades only to tell us what each is doing. It could’ve ended after Book Five titled “Exodus.”

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is an excellent historical fiction novel about one family’s experiences with the colonization and independence of the Congo. The writing is excellent as it goes in depth about the history while exploring each of the main character’s thoughts and maintaining a steady pace throughout. Speaking of the characters, Orleanna and the daughters are so well developed that I wanted to know more about them, even the shallow Rachel. I would recommend this book to all readers, particularly to those who want to know about the history of the Congo and love stories about religion and missionary work.

In the meantime, you can listen to the latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast. Guest and host of the Women in Session podcast Amy Thomasson and I discuss how to adapt this book into a HBO limited tv series and why we don’t know more about colonization of the Congo. Check out at this link.

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