Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything

Bench Strength: Judging a Century of Tax Avoidance in Canada Book Review

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

Since I’m a chick who reads everything, I have looked at books that are pretty niche. In the past, I’ve reviewed titles that focused on subjects like the Caterham Seven, starting up tech businesses, and Groucho Marx’s solo career. But never have I read something as niche as today’s book Bench Strength: Judging a Century of Tax Avoidance by Kerry Harnish. It’s about the tax avoidance cases the Supreme Court of Canada reviewed within the last 100 years. I admire the research, structure, and how much Harnish tries to make the subject digestible for a wider audience, but I couldn’t get into it.

Bench Strength: Judging a Century of Tax Avoidance covers the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to income tax avoidance cases from 1920 to 2019. Harnish is an expert in tax policy and a former senior official with Finance Canada, and he takes readers on a journey exploring Canada’s national income tax system, through the opinions of the Court’s nine most influential judges in income tax over that period. He also weaves fascinating anecdotes related to many cases and important historical, political, and economic events that influenced the Supreme Court and the judges deciding on the cases. The book reveals that the Supreme Court and its judges denied income tax avoidance in 83% of the disputes decided before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in April 1982. However, since then, the Court and its judges have allowed income tax avoidance in 73% of the disputes. Does a cultural shift emphasizing individual rights over duty, and the enactment of the Charter in 1982, explain this reversal in the Supreme Court’s approach to income tax avoidance in the Charter era? Bench Strength answers those questions while looking at the Supreme Court of Canada’s evolving approach to income tax avoidance.

When I talk about titles that contain very specific subjects, I usually include my point of reference. I do this to show readers where I’m coming from when tackling certain books. In the case of Bench Strength, since the subject matter involves Canadian taxes, I must include my experiences with that, which is nothing. I have no relationship with that because I’m an American. As for taxes, my connection to them only extends to paying them and watching the aptly named Three Stooges short Income Tax Sappy (it’s a good one) to remind myself that I should do my duty as a law-binding citizen every tax season.

In other words, because of my limited experiences with taxes, let alone Canadian tax law, I could not get into Bench Strength. It also didn’t help that the book itself was written in an academic manner. It’s filled with footnotes and analysis of income tax cases that the Supreme Court of Canada decided. As someone who loves to analyze things, I couldn’t understand what was being said half the time. And, what I did comprehend, I couldn’t bring myself to care. Not even the mention of Enron could save this.

Now, I can’t entirely blame Harnish for this. He’s doing his darndest to get his research out there, and it’s clear that he really wants regular people to know how the Supreme Court of Canada has made decisions on tax cases and how that affects them. After all, he is a tax policy expert and a former senior official with Finance Canada. However, Harnish is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to taxes since barely anybody cares about them, and he’s fully aware of this. In fact, there’s even a line in the book that sums up the general feeling regarding the income tax, which reads, “For almost everyone, income tax is a boring fact of life and death, not a career that inspires, challenges and on occasion frustrates” (p. 253).

Harnish had to do a lot to get people invested in taxes, and I don’t think this book enough.

On the other hand, I can’t say that this is a bad book. It’s well written for academia. Harnish uses a lot of sources to back up his arguments and includes a bibliography and index. He even has some graphs that sum up the results of every tax avoidance case the Supreme Court of Canada were involved in, especially if they decided in favor of the Crown or the taxpayer. Additionally, the structure is well made. Harnish uses a chronological order to discuss every tax avoidance case from 1920 to 2019. Within that structure, he splits them up before and after the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedom in 1982. Moreover, he looks at the cases through the eyes of the chief justices in various periods. The best part of the book was reading about the backstories of each chief justice to see how their backgrounds influenced the decisions in some way. Also, I love how Harnish loathes Mackenzie King – the prime minister of Canada from the 1920s to the 1940s, who did more to serve the Crown as opposed to the people. I didn’t know about him until I read this book. Most importantly, I enjoyed how there’s the constant theme of rights versus duty. As Harnish points out, before 1982, many cases were decided in favor of the Crown because it was believed to be a duty for citizens to pay taxes. After that year, the mentality shifted to being more of a right.

One last thing, there was one case that I was intrigued to hear about. That was the Ernest Stickel (1974) case. In it, an American professor named Ernest Stickel moved his family to Edmonton to teach at the University of Alberta. There was a tax benefit for teachers and professors in temporary positions not exceeding two years. Stickel took advantage of that benefit, but he didn’t leave Canada until three years later. The court ruled in his favor since he taught for two years, and he worked non-teaching gigs for another year, and he remained a U.S. citizen during that time. I found the case to be fascinating.

Bench Strength: Judging a Century of Tax Avoidance by Kerry Harnish is a book that’s not for everyone. It’s well researched and structured, but it’s about Canadian tax cases. If one is familiar with Canadian tax laws and cases, they would like it. If not, it will be a slog to get through. It was for me. Regardless, I would still recommend it for tax experts; business, legal, and economic professors; and anyone who wants to learn more about the Canadian income tax. There have been plenty of niche books that I’ve gotten into. This wasn’t for me sadly.

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A Gilded Rosewood Coffin Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given an ARC of this book from Stress Free Book Marketing in exchange for an honest review.

One year ago this month, I reviewed Death in a Gilded Frame by Cecelia Tichi – the sixth title in the Val and Roddy DeVere Gilded Age Series. I enjoyed that book so much that I decided to read the follow-up in the historical-mystery series. This one is called A Gilded Rosewood Coffin. While it doesn’t quite live up to the previous novel, I still had a good time reading it.

A Gilded Rosewood Coffin is the seventh novel in the Val and Roddy DeVere Gilded Age Series. Western silver heiress Val DeVere is enjoying time in Newport in 1899 when she receives a note from her friend Theo urging her to come to New York. While there, Theo confides in Val, begging her to save the life of his cousin Phoebe. He believes that her Irish manservant is plotting her “accidental death” when she goes to the Rocky Mountains – just as he allegedly did when Phoebe’s twin sister Judith was found dead in Boston a year earlier. Determined, Val tries to convince Phoebe to delay her trip, yet the Irish servant reminds her so much of her father, the“Silver King” and an Irish immigrant, whose charm and brogue are unsettlingly familiar. When Phoebe is found dead in her New York apartment, suspicion falls on her servant, appearing to wrap up the case neatly. But, for Val, the truth feels far more elusive. Is she blinded by sentiment, or is there another killer on the loose? Val has to race against time to find the killer, all while risking arrest as an accessory to murder.

With this latest installment, Tichi brings her signature elements for this mystery series. These include the realistically portrayed Gilded Age society, real-life historical figures, and cocktail recipes. High society doesn’t have much of a presence in this one, but they certainly are just as snooty as ever, especially when it comes to prejudice of any one that isn’t like them. Val still struggles to fit in, and when the murder of their friend’s cousin is suspected to be the Irish manservant, she thinks there’s more to the story due to her own Irish heritage. Actual historical people like Alva Belmont, who was present in Death of a Gilded Frame, and Henry Clews – economic advisor to Ulysses S. Grant during his presidency – make appearances in this book. In addition, Roddy is mostly absent in this installment because he’s helping to organize Dewey Day – the real-life event which celebrated Admiral George Dewey’s successes during the Spanish-American War. He still provides level-headed advice to the impulsive Val and makes cocktails. This means readers get some more cocktail recipes for five different drinks. They are the Dewey Cocktail, Futurity, Italian Lemonade, The Wall Street, and The September Surprise. The last one can be created without alcohol. All of these are well researched as expected, for Tichi is a Professor of English and American Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University.

Additionally, the recurring characters reveal more sides of themselves in A Gilded Rosewood Coffin. There’s a backstory of Cassie – Val’s best friend who has the visions. It was sad to read about how members of her family tried to “cure” her of her gift. Nonetheless, it provides more details to who Cassie is and how she is more than a foreshadowing trope in the flesh. Then, there’s Theodore Bulkeley. In the previous book, he’s the herald by informing Roddy and Val about the art forgery. In this one, he’s more active since it involves his living relatives. He also reveals his prejudice against Irish people since he’s certain that his cousin Phoebe’s servant Anson Burke was the one who killed her, and he believes that all Irish people are drunks. Ironically, he’s drunk most of the time. To be fair, Phoebe’s twin died under mysterious circumstances a year prior to this story’s events, so give him a little bit of slack.

One of the best things about this novel is Val’s character development. In A Gilded Rosewood Coffin, she is bolder with her actions. Granted, she still has to be the perfect high-society wife. She follows leads, which gets her into some trouble with the police. As I learned from the last book, Val can be quite hasty, but this time, her decisions are less stupid. I still think about the one thing she did in Death in a Gilded Frame, and I was happy when there were some references to it in this title. Moreover, Val spends some time reconciling her own upbringing and ties to the Emerald Isle. Her father came from Ireland, and despite his success, he faced discrimination because he was Irish. She is shocked when Theo demoralizes that group, for he would have known about Val’s heritage, and they have been friends for a while. In the end, I liked how Val admits how she regretted not giving much thought to the Mexican and Chinese people who faced prejudice while working in her father’s silver mines, thus being a hypocrite in her own way.

Now that I’ve praised historical aspects, what do I think about the mystery? Well, this is the weakest part of the novel. First off, Val and Roddy weren’t as entangled with Theo and his family as they were with the art forgery in the previous title. As a result, I didn’t feel as invested. Second, not much happens throughout, and when something did prior to the third act, I had to re-read certain parts to make sure I knew what occurred. Third, I figured out who the murderer was once they were introduced, especially how they treated others. This person was obviously scheming to the high holy heavens that it didn’t surprise me in the slightest they were revealed as Phoebe’s killer. Regardless, the novel still does some good things with the mystery element. There are plenty of roadblocks and red herrings, which certainly made the plot interesting. Plus, the pacing is brisk, which keeps the momentum going. With those in mind, the mystery still works, but not as well as it was in Death of a Gilded Frame.

A Gilded Rosewood Coffin by Cecelia Tichi is a good installment in Val and Roddy DeVere Gilded Age Series. Even though the mystery didn’t hold up as well as it did in the previous title, other parts worked. The history is researched well, and there are more cocktails to try out. Most importantly, the main characters show more development, especially when it comes to Val and prejudice. While A Gilded Rosewood Coffin is the lesser of the titles I’ve read in that series, I would still recommend it to those who love whodunits, especially ones that are set in the past and contain female detectives, as well as, you guessed it, the Gilded Age! The book will be out on Tuesday, January 28, so make sure you have a Gilded time while reading A Gilded Rosewood Coffin.

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Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a copy of this book by Books Publicity Services in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review talks about mental health and suicide.

I’m not one who gets into politics that much, but it’s amazing to see how many women were running for various political offices, including for President, in 2024. There’s still a long way to go to achieve true and equal representation in that area. Luckily, while the most recent election cycle was going on, I read the book Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation by Mary Chung Hayashi. It provided reasons why women face obstacles while running for political offices and reasonable advice on how to overcome in a highly approachable way.

Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation explores the strides women made in government. This contemporary analysis bridges the gap between past and present, blending Hayashi’s personal journey as an Asian American immigrant and former California State Assemblymember with the inspiring stories of trailblazing women in political leadership. By featuring interviews and insightful discussions, Hayashi brings to life the trials and triumphs of these women, showcasing their invaluable contributions to political landscapes and the transformative power of their perseverance. Her work sheds light on the ongoing struggles for gender-political equality and serves as a call to people to actively participate in shaping our democracy. It’s a tribute to the women’s political journey and a compass guiding us all toward a future of inclusive leadership and a truly representative democracy.

This is the kind of book for women who are looking to get into politics. I’m not one of those women, but I found a lot to love about it.

At under 200 pages, it’s a comprehensible book about how women can get into politics more. Hayashi delivers her messages in a clear and easy manner that doesn’t talk down to its readers. She’s willing to get to the bottom of the issue of why not enough women are in politics even if it can get uncomfortable. Moreover, she interviews several women of various backgrounds, including former and current female politicians, in order to get their stories of struggles and triumphs. In addition, the book is well structured. It’s divided up into three parts: Inspiration, Barriers, and Achieving Gender Parity. Each chapter is no more than 20 pages, so readers could get it done in a week, or two if they want to savor each sentence the author wrote like I did.

Another thing that works about this book is the realistic assessments of why women usually don’t participate in politics and what needs to be done to achieve that. These include motherhood, money, and racial bias. Hayashi argues that one of the chief reasons why this is a problem is because of the “good girl” mentality. She was familiar with it since she grew up in South Korea, where that was a common idea of what women and girls should be. This meant getting married, raising children, keeping thoughts and opinions to themselves, and avoiding conflict (p. 6). In other words, they were meant to be seen and not heard. This frame of mind is present in other cultures, including Western ones. Hayashi managed to distance herself from that way of thinking when she lived in the United States during her adolescent years, saw Connie Chung – the first Asian-American newswomen – on television, and took a Women’s Studies course at California State University (p. 8 and 9). She acknowledges that it’s a hard one for society to move past, and it’s not going to happen overnight.

But what can women do? Although Hayashi is a realist when it comes to the barriers that women face when dealing with politics, she’s optimist when it comes to overcoming them. These include having role models; mentors, both older and peers; and allies. The one piece of advice that sort of surprised me was having male allies. In today’s world, women are infused with the whole idea that they don’t need a man. In Hayashi’s view, they do need male mentorship if they want to succeed in politics. Specifically, she references a study from Messengers Matter: Why Advancing Gender Equity Requires Male Allies, which found that “those men who may not be open to discussing gender equity with women are available to the same message when a man delivers it. In other words, one of the most meaningful actions men can do for gender equity is to confront discrimination and gender bias against women in conversation with other men” (p. 138-139).

This is why Hayashi argues that both men and women need to be in the fight against discrimination.

The biggest strength of this book is Mary herself. Throughout, she shares her story of how she got into politics, the barriers she had to face, and the things that she accomplished while holding various offices. It was incredibly moving to hear how her platform was about mental health since her oldest sister took her life when Mary was young. She wanted to honor her sister by trying to get laws passed that helped others going through mental health issues since her family essentially erased her after she died. Some reviewers wonder why Hayashi didn’t just write a memoir because her story was so powerful. My theory is that some people want to write something more than about their own lives, and this is the case for Hayashi. She clearly wanted to encourage women to run for office, so what better way to do that than to tell them what she and other female politicians went through and impart some advice along the way. In this case, she succeeds.

Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation by Mary Chung Hayashi is a good introduction book for any woman looking to enter politics. Hayashi is good at making arguments in a clear and concise manner that’s easy to digest. Of course, the best thing about it is the author’s story, which will resonate with readers regardless of gender. I know that I already mentioned who I would recommend this to, but I would also encourage men to read it, especially those who are looking to get into the fight against sexism. After all, men and women need to work together to combat discrimination, especially in the world of politics.

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Flat Water Book Review

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

Content warning: this review discusses trauma and shark attacks.

There are plenty of books that feature an “unlikeable” protagonist. They might do stupid things, treat others poorly, or a combination of both. Having this kind of main character is not a bad thing. If done right, they can be compelling to read, especially with understanding why they do the things they do. A case in point is the protagonist from Flat Water by Jeremy Broyles. Monty from this novel is an interesting lead, who is forced to deal with the trauma of witnessing a shark attack on his brother.

Flat Water is about a man who has to confront the complex and painful loss that drove him away from his hometown and now demands his family. Called back to California for his sister’s wedding, Monty Marinnis has to make a road trip from Nebraska to California. This is also a journey through memory, one that’s complicated by the presence of Charlotte, his loving, but increasingly frustrated wife. Monty has concealed from her the horrifying details of his family’s fracture and how he remains haunted by what he saw as a teenager. The Marinnis family lost their eldest son, Max, in a shark attack while Monty watched helplessly. Since that day, he has yearned to answer two questions that persistently on his mind: why do bad things happen to some people but not others and why are they selected to suffer? While in California, Monty will be confronted with hard truths that rise like a shark from the depths. Faced with these realities, he will have to choose between acceptance and self-destruction.

The novel doesn’t have chapters per say. It has sections named after six different kinds of sharks since Monty memorizes facts about that kind of fish to combat his trauma in the short term. They are long, but they have places, in which people put their bookmark in when they’re done reading for the time being. Also, each section begins with Monty remembering before, during, and after the shark attack.

The main focus of this novel is Monty. He may not appeal to every reader because of his actions and how he treats others. He’s deep into his thoughts when he and his wife Charlotte arrive in his hometown of Flat Water. Monty ignores almost everyone around, especially his spouse. She loves him and tries to help him confront his fears of being by the water, but to no avail. To be fair, the trauma of witnessing that shark attack was that great, and he dealt with it by fleeing California to Nebraska. Also, it seemed like their relationship moved pretty fast, so it’s up in the air if Monty truly loves Charlotte. Plus, he does some stupid things like jumping off a pier with a girl that he knew from town. These tested my patience with him.

Despite my grievances with the character, Monty is compelling. The focus of the story is him confronting his trauma, but Broyles gives him a snarky personality that covers up the torment he’s going through. He has some snappy lines. For example, when he loses his chips at a Las Vegas casino, he says, “It could be worse…I could be the victim of a shark attack. But what are the chances of that ever happening, right?” (p. 200).

Luckily, he does have a realization about why it’s hard for him to deal with his brother’s shark attack. Unfortunately, it’s too late because he made some idiotic decisions beforehand.

One would think that he should have gotten counseling, but if he did, we wouldn’t have this story. He deals with it by learning facts about sharks and spewing them when the moment is right. It also seems like his family is more of the confront-the-thing-one-is-afraid-of type. In addition, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan, it’s that people will go to therapy when they are ready. Monty wasn’t.

The one thing that I would complain about is the pacing. I felt that the first and last third of the novel were well paced. But, the second part, in which Monty and Charlotte arrive in California and stay with his mom, was a bit slow. Not much happens during that third outside of Monty slowly confronting why he feels traumatized by the shark attack. The pacing picked up when Max’s friends invited Monty and Charlotte to a party and remained consistent for the rest of the book. The last third was easily the best part of the book.

Flat Water by Jeremy Broyles is a good example of having an “unlikeable” character. Monty makes some dumb choices and may push the people close to him away, yet he’s still an interesting person as he demonstrates how not to deal with a traumatic experience. But then again, do we expect people to have the perfect response when something horrific occurs (*cough The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Ann Nguyen)? I would recommend it to those who have dealt with grief and loss and are in the proper headspace as well as to readers who like reading about flawed characters. There’s nothing wrong with having such a protagonist as long as they are compelling.

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Top 3 Best and Worst Books* of 2024

Hi Everybody!!

Today is the last Monday of the year! You know what that means? It’s the 5th annual year-end countdown of books* I reviewed in 2024!

I can’t believe that I’ve been doing these countdowns for 5 years now. Each year, I find new batches of books* to include on both lists.

*This also includes movies.

Like before, I’ll pick 6 titles for this list – 3 for the best and 3 for the worst! Now, I have only one question for you!

I sure am! Let’s get started with the Best Books of 2024!

This year I read a lot of 5-star books. There were plenty of great titles, and it was easy to choose my top 3 this year because they stood out in very specific ways. Let me show you.

3. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

I’ve read plenty of books that have opening lines that sum up everything that I need to know about them, but they don’t do like the way Celeste Ng does in her 2014 debut novel Everything I Never Told You. “Lydia is dead. But the family doesn’t know it yet” should be considered among the greats because it sets up the tone and the omnipresent third-person narration, which is wonderfully utilized in this story. What also works is the characters. Each person has their own backstory and view on what happened to Lydia, yet they will never know the whole truth. It’s a wonderful exploration on a mixed-race family dealing with tragedy in the 1970s. I hope it gets an adaptation soon.

2. Almost Family by Ann Brancroft

When I found out that Almost Family by Ann Brancroft was about a snarky woman attending a cancer support group, I knew I would like it. After reading it, I immediately wanted to put it on my best list, and I devoured it on my Wisconsin trip back in May. I loved the main character Liz, her sense of humor, and how she uses it as defense mechanism. In addition, Brancroft does a great job with balancing the comedy with sincerity, and not just with the protagonist. Liz’s friends in the support group have their moments to shine. I also enjoyed how vulnerable it got. Since this is a story about coming to terms about life before dying, it makes sense for Brancroft to go to certain places without readers feeling manipulated. It’s all earned through the characters and their journeys. This novel is anybody who loves snarky characters and more.

1. Big Love by Bari Beckett

Another book that wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable was Big Love by Bari Beckett. It explores love, sex, and romance in 40 short stories to help people (single or in relationships) to express their big love. All of them felt genuine, and I appreciate that Beckett included the empty pages, so people could write their own love stories, thus giving the readers agency. I knew each of these titles would be in the top 3 best list for the reasons I mentioned earlier, but it was a bit tricky to get them in what order. What ultimately put Big Love at number one was that it made me cry. I knew that I was going to be emotional since reading certain books makes me do that to some degree, but I didn’t expect it to make me sob. I recognized some of the things that Beckett described as big love, and it hit me hard, for I do some of them with my husband. We have been finding more ways to express big love as a result. I also had the opportunity to interview Bari Beckett this past summer, which you can check out here. Thank you so much for this book, Bari!

Before, we get the worst list, I want to mention that this is similar situation that I encountered in 2021, in which the titles were not bad. They happened to be the weakest of the ones that I looked at this year.

Now that we got that out of the way, it’s now time to get to the Top 3 Worst Books* of 2024!

3. Nightbitch Movie

The film adaption of Nightbitch is not bad. However, when the premise involves something bizarre like a woman turning into a dog, it doesn’t deserve Bob Barker coming in to spade and neuter it for a mainstream audience. It needed to embrace the scenario 100 percent. The movie contains some good elements like the expansion of the core relationships and the acting, especially that of Amy Adams, yet it wasn’t enough. It also didn’t help that it repeatedly beat its message about motherhood over the audience’s heads. Most importantly, it fails to capture the dark, satirical, and horrific spirit of the book of the same name by Rachel Yoder. With all of that being said, I would still recommend it for parents of all kinds and Amy Adams fans. Other than those groups, stick to the novel since that one has a lot more bite.

2. LOY and Beyond by Todd David Gross

LOY and Beyond by Todd David Gross is one that I wanted to like. There were some good things like the environment and the possibly autistic-coded Tremlo and his relationship with his mentor Jormah. However, I couldn’t get into it. I felt like I was dropped into the middle of the world Gross created without warning. Granted, this is the second book in the series with the first being Loy: In the Forest of the Mind. I hope that one day I can give it another chance by reading the first novel and then this one again. For now, LOY and Beyond stays on my worst list for this year.

1. The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson

While I’m willing to give LOY and Beyond another chance, I can’t say the same thing for The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson. Although I enjoyed the emphasis on the ghostwriter aspect, that ended up being its downfall. It spends too much time in the present with the main character Mari and not enough in the past with the Midnight Ramblers (who are essentially the Rolling Stones). As a result, readers don’t get a sense of what made that band famous and thus, they will question why should they care as much as Mari does. Similar books like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six (both by Taylor Jenkins Reid) understand the appeal of their fictional famous characters and hone in on that. I get what Tomlinson, who is a ghostwriter herself, was going for, but the ghostwriting and the band parts should have been more balanced. Oh well, I can’t always get what I want from the books I read and the shows I watch.

And that was the Top 3 Best and Worst Books* of 2024! I hope all of you enjoyed it. I look forward to having plenty of new reviews for 2025! See you next year!

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A Young Soul Maturing during Another Summer in the North Woods on the Big Lake Book Review

Full disclosure: The author of the book that I am about to review is a patron at a library that I work at. All of the opinions stated in this review are solely mine.

Over a year ago, I reviewed The Tale of the Red Fox in the North Woods – Robert C. Jones’s first book written for a younger audience. It seems like Jones got enough positive reviews on it that he decided to create another title with a similar age range in mind. This became A Young Soul Maturing during Another Summer in the North Woods on the Big Lake. It’s a coming-of-age tale that doesn’t always work, but what is effective really is.

A Young Soul Maturing during Another Summer in the North Woods on the Big Lake is about a summer Bobby spends at his aunt and uncle’s resort in the North Woods. Bobby comes back to the North Woods and encounters old and new friends, strange new characters, and his aunt and uncle. Problems arise when unknown individuals disrupt his story. Bobby confronts the issues of trust, bullying, and social/emotional conflicts with them. At his young age, he learns that adults have and keep secrets, and sometimes help can come from the most unexpected places. At the end of visit, he is regarded as more grown up.

Like The Tale of the Red Fox, Jones wanted to target children of a certain age with A Young Soul. This time, it has mixed results. I liked Addendum A, which provides the recipe for Aunty’s Peach Cherry Cobbler with Sweet Biscuit Topping. Aunty makes that in the book, which represents a sense of normalcy in the midst of chaos that Bobby experiences. Even though I wish Jones had included exact measurements, I understand that recipes from an earlier time didn’t do that, so it feels authentic. I still have to make that cobbler at some point. In addition, I love the Postscript, which discusses the presence of migrant workers in Northern Michigan. Bobby befriends a 12-year-old worker named Daniel Ortez. Migrants play a big role in the story because the hospital being built is on land that they’re working on, and they are portrayed realistically. The postscript reminded me of the ones I used to see in American Girl and Dear America series.

On the other hand, I wish there was a set of book club questions that addressed certain plot elements. A lot happens to Bobby in this book like him having funny feelings towards the girl who dives off the local bridge, an intruder coming into the cabin that Aunty and Uncle reside in, and the realization that adults have and keep secrets. Luckily, Jones does include one question, which is “Do you the reader have a secret you should share with a person close to you?”

This is definitely intended for an upper elementary/middle school audience because of the vocabulary and the amounts of violence. I’m not kidding about the latter. People get injured and murdered in gruesome ways throughout the book. There are some mentions of violent acts in The Tale of the Red Fox, but A Young Soul raises the stakes in that regard. Even one of the black-and-white illustrations depicts a man getting shot in the shoulder. Jones mentions that it’s based on a true story, yet I have to wonder if the violence actually happened in the way that it did because it felt so visceral.

Since Jones wanted to educate kids about what it was like decades ago, he had to explain certain things. There are times where it’s well done. For example, Jones defines what a fruit cellar is when Bobby has to go down there to grab items for Aunty. On the other hand, they are sometimes awkwardly inserted. To some readers, they may come off as patronizing. For instance, a person literally describes what a peeping tom is in his journal, and I had to scratch my head over that.

Finally, I have to talk about the story. A Young Soul is more of a coming-of-age tale than The Tale of the Red Fox was. Bobby has a big realization among adults and musters up the courage to do things that earn him respect in the community. It all plays out in a way that readers will know and possibly predict. However, I like the ending, in which Bobby makes an important choice regarding what he learned about adults. The main plot surrounds people getting injured and murdered while a new hospital is being built. Because this is a coming-of-age story, it makes sense to have more mature content. I also want to point out that the perpetrator is wonderfully evil. He explains his entire backstory in a diary that’s featured in one and a half chapters of this book. I loved how far he’s willing to go to achieve what he wants. Because of this villain, it does elevate A Young Soul from being another by-the-numbers coming-of-age story.

A Young Soul Maturing during Another Summer in the North Woods on the Big Lake by Robert C. Jones is another coming-of-age story. However, it tackles a lot of big issues from migrant workers to a sad realization about adults, which were well handled. Does everything work? No, but what does work really does, especially the obviously evil villain. It’s basically everything that one could expect from Jones after reading The Tale of the Red Fox in the North Woods with the stakes raised. I would recommend it for 9-13 year olds, especially if they like coming-of-age stories and truly heinous baddies, and their grandparents who want to relive their younger days and love Jones’s other books. I’m curious to see how Jones continues with the “North Woods” series.

Stay tuned for next week when I reveal my Top 3 Best and Worst Books* of 2024! See you then. In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

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Adapt Me Podcast – Nightbitch Movie

Hi Everybody!

Grab your buttered-up popcorn and some raw meat because returning guest Carl Malek and I start a new subseries “His/Her Reviews” on the Adapt Me Podcast. In our inaugural episode, we discuss the movie adaptation of “Nightbitch” in all of its glory. Check it out at this link.

In the meantime, you can see my review of Nightbitch the movie here.

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Nightbitch Movie Review

Content warning: this review contains spoilers.

After eight months of waiting, I finally had the opportunity to watch Nightbitch starring Amy Adams and directed by Marielle Heller on the big screen last week. Now reader, you’re probably wondering how I feel about this film adaptation of the book of the same name by Rachel Yoder. Well, it was fine. It contained good elements, but on a whole, it could have gone further with its premise.

In my review of Nightbitch the book, I was hesitant to give out many of the plot points due to fear of spoiling them. I don’t have to worry about that now since the movie is not a direct adaptation. Both contain the same plot and major beats, but they contrast quite a lot in some ways. For example, the novel contains a subplot, in which Mother (played by Amy Adams) tries to find Wanda White – the author who wrote the book about the mythological powers of mothers, so she can ask her about motherhood. In the film, Norma the librarian (played by cult actress Jessica Harper) gives the title in question to Mother. Then, the main character tries to talk to Norma for the same reason.

Another major contrast between the book and the movie is how certain relationships were expanded. For starters, Mother barely has a relationship with her mom in the book because of how distant the latter is. In the film, it’s revealed that she is a Mennonite who died long before the events involving Mother. Various flashbacks revealed how much Mother’s mother was loving, but needed some time away. As a child, Mother encountered her mom out in the woods running like a dog. Afterwards, the latter assured the former that she will always come back. The core conflict of both is how Mother wants to find someone who could tell her the secret of being a good and balanced mother, so this certainly brings out more of the dynamics between her and her own mom.

Another example is in the relationship between Mother and her husband (played by Scoot McNairy). In the novel, he is essentially aloof due to his work. This doesn’t make him a bad parent, yet this reasonably frustrates Mother. Once she finally gets to express all of her feelings to him about being a stay-at-home mom, he magically gets it, which I felt was too neat. In the film version, the husband is portrayed more sympathetically, and the relationship is more complicated. They both wonder where the other has been, and during the second half, they separate. This leads to a scene, in which the husband gets to experience what it’s like to raise their toddler son by himself. It’s at the end when Mother is displaying her art exhibition that he realizes what she has gone through. Because of the more time spent with the husband, his discovery and willingness to help her out feels more earned in the movie than in the book.

One final difference is the tone. The book is a horror satire. Lots of gruesome things happen. It put me on edge because I wasn’t sure what was going to occur next. On the other hand, the movie is more like a typical horror comedy. It does well with the latter. I enjoyed watching the scenes, in which Mother tries to raise her son by herself. She obviously feels frustrated, but it still made me laugh because of how relatable it could be. This is especially true with the out-of-control fingerpainting scene. However, the horror was lacking. Since the book leaned into the darker elements of the premise, I wanted the film to do something similar because it was so chaste. I mean, it’s a story about a woman who thinks she’s turning into a dog, but it doesn’t fully commit to that. I get that some of the more ghastly parts of the book wouldn’t fly with a regular audience, so I understand why Heller sanitized it to some degree, particularly the scene involving the family cat (side note: my husband was terrified by that bit, so props to her for still making it scary.) The parts leading up to the canine transformation are handled decently, but when Mother finally changes into that animal, it’s done in a few shots. I would have preferred to spend more time on that like in the way The Wolf Man movies focused on Larry Talbot turning into that monster. It all felt neutered.

Another thing that bothered me about the movie that was actually in the book was its heavy-handed messaging. Both deal with the violent nature of motherhood and how mothers should find ways that naturally let out their rage. These ideas are shoved down audiences’ throats through Amy Adams’s monologues and narration throughout the film. I felt the visuals and the ending communicated that well without any dialogue. But, I bet Heller wanted to reach out to a wide audience, so she had to make the messaging extremely clear for everybody to understand. Yoder did something similar at the end of the novel, which made me roll my eyes as much as I did while watching the adaptation.

Despite my grievances with the movie, there’s one other thing that works, and that’s the acting. The actors in this are good. They play their roles well given the material, but there were clear standouts. The first is Scoot McNairy. As mentioned earlier, his portrayal of the husband is sympathetic. He genuinely doesn’t get what Mother is going through, but this comes out of ignorance. He can come off as a prick at times, but an unintentional one. When the husband finally realizes the suffering that Mother has endured by essentially their son by herself, McNairy conveys this quite naturally and sincerely.

Now of course, I have to talk about the main draw of this movie: six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams. She is great in Nightbitch. Her strengths as an actress are her quiet femininity and how she conveys internal brooding. Both are on display in this flick from the beginning to the very end. I love how Adams paces herself as the rage grows inside of her character. She starts off as being able to mask her true emotions as she talks with other people, but slowly, that mask falls off. It helps that the editing lets audience members know when she’s masking and when she’s not, especially in the beginning. Moreover, Adams is absolutely convincing when she’s turning into a dog. She’s got the paranoia down and fully commits to the canine bits. Will Nightbitch get her 7th Oscar nomination? I’m not entirely sure, considering the mixed-to-positive reviews of the film, but it’s still early in the award season. Anything can happen.

Nightbitch is a neutered version of the book by Rachel Yoder. While it’s good with expanding certain relationships from the novel, and the acting is wonderful, it fails to capture the darker spirit of the source material. One would think that a story about a woman turning into a dog as allegory to the struggles of motherhood would be completely bonkers, but this isn’t. It doesn’t fully commit to the horror and fantastical elements. In spite of these, I would still recommend it to mothers of all kinds since it does communicate the struggles of motherhood well as well as to those who love Amy Adams. Other than those groups, stick to the book.

Before I go, I want to let everyone know that I have recorded the latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast. My husband and I debut a new subseries called His/Her Reviews. In it, we talk about adaptations of books we just watched. And yes, we discussed Nightbitch the movie. Keep an eye out for the link.

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Grimmer Revisionist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Nursery Rhymes Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given an ARC of this book from Stress Free Book Marketing in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this book review mentions drug use and eating disorders.

Like many people, I grew up with fairy tales, fables, and nursery rhymes. I heard these stories so much that I actually want them to be subverted in some ways. Fortunately, I read a book recently that did just that. It’s called Grimmer Revisionist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Nursery Rhymes by Marissa Carter, and it’s a wonderful send up of those tales that’s primarily for adults.

Grimmer Revisionist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Nursery Rhymes is exactly what one would expect while looking at a title like this. It’s the tales that one read as a kid, but with modern twists, witty jokes, and a bit of cheeky irreverence. They may start off sweet, but they’ll get mischievous, take left turns, and transform into a different story. This ain’t your childhood fairy tale collection, and that’s what makes it fun.

This anthology wasn’t kidding when it said that the beloved stories were going to take interesting directions. They veer off in some off-the-wall ways. For example, in Rapunzel, one would think that it would end with Rapunzel and the prince getting married and living happily ever after. In this version, without spoiling too much, I can say that it involves some pretty wacky stuff. I never knew where the stories would go, which made them all the more entertaining.

Also, I enjoyed how the collection addressed society’s tendencies to over analyze the story elements and morals as well as to modernize the tales in ways that don’t always make sense. Each of the stories tackles these in extremely funny ways. For instance, the commentary on the nursery rhyme There’s Once Was An Old Lady in a Shoe involves how the old lady and her children are able to live in a shoe, or if it was a shoe in the first place. Later on, the nursery rhyme Tom the Piper’s Son – one that I’m actually not familiar with – gets political commentary from Mao Tse Tung, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Richard Nixon. The dialogue is straight out of a Monty Python sketch.

This anthology is no doubt influenced by Shrek, yet I noticed some South Park elements in them too. In Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks is said to have watched all the episodes of CSI and have bulimia. I’m convinced that Eric Cartman wrote that one. Also, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Snow White has a cocaine problem, and one of the dwarves is named Horny. It makes me wonder why South Park didn’t do a send-up on famous fairy tales like The Simpsons and Family Guy did, but then again, South Park is not your traditional cartoon for adults.

My favorite stories in the anthology are Chicken Little, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Three Little Pigs. I love how everything in Chicken Little gets over analyzed to the umpteenth degree, which captures the spirit of a tale involving the sky falling. In Snow White, they give the real reason how Snow White got her name, and it made me laugh very hard. Plus, I enjoyed how the evil queen would smash the mirror anytime it revealed that Snow White was still alive. Three Little Pigs had the wolf eating the pigs whose houses he blew down, which makes me wonder why he didn’t do that in previous retellings. Also, the punch line was fabulous.

Does every joke work? No. For example, in Chicken Little, there’s a quip about how Ducky Lucky studied at Donald Duck University, and it shouldn’t be confused for McDonald’s Hamburger University. Those are two very distinct intellectual properties that no average person would ever have a hard time identifying. Regardless, many of the jokes land with flying colors including the ones referenced in the paragraph above.

Grimmer Revisionist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Nursery Rhymes by Marissa Carter is a funny send-up on everyone’s favorite childhood tales. It goes in directions that no one would really expect, and it makes fun of people who over analyze and try to modernize the timeless tales. This isn’t for children as it has some mature content. I would recommend this to adults who have a twisted sense of humor as well as love Shrek; South Park; and above all, fairy tales, fables, and nursery rhymes. Get this book, and one will live in their own version of happily ever after.

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The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support Book Review

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

Even though I’m not in the medical field, I find it fascinating, especially how doctors navigate through it while taking care of their patients. Within the last two years, I’ve read three stories about doctors and their tales regarding their practices. These were Open for Interpretation: A Doctor’s Journey into Astrology by Alicia Blando, MD, Box of Birds: What New Zealand Taught Me about Life and the Practice of Medicine by Stephen Stowers, M.D., and Stress Test by Kay White Drew. Today, I’ll add a new book to that list: The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support by Anthony Sanfilippo, MD. This book addresses the “family doctor crisis” in Canada. Although I’m not Canadian and have no experiences with their medical system, I found this title to be an interesting look at the problem of not having enough doctors practicing family medicine.

The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support confronts the issue of the lack of family doctors. Despite Canada’s pledge to universal healthcare, over 6 million people lack a family doctor. This problem persists in spite of the investments in medical education and institutions. Dr. Sanfilippo addresses how the legacy processes for recruiting, educating, and promoting specialization in medicine have failed to adapt the basic healthcare needs any Canadian should expect. He offers real-life accounts when discussing the impact of outdated selection and training methods on doctor shortages, how the system lacks crucial oversight, and why current approaches fail to produce doctors with diverse skills needed today. In addition, he presents solutions that are more than just band-aids. This book provides a blueprint for transforming the medical system that can truly serve all Canadians.

Despite the fact that I have no experiences with Canadian medicine, it acknowledges problems that I’ve come across in the other medical-related books mentioned earlier. This is especially true with the conflict of profit/paperwork over patient care. Sanfilippo acknowledges that even if a person has a family doctor, they still have trouble finding a meaningful relationship with them, specifically if the physicians spend a good chunk of their time typing out the patients’ problems on a computer and the “one problem per visit” mentality. This shows that the American and Canadian medical systems have similar issues.

It also makes me grateful to have a primary care physician. I’m able to email her when I have questions regarding my health. She’s good at giving medical advice as a doctor should be. At the same time, it’s still an impersonal relationship since she comes and goes. This is the kind of problem Sanfilippo is referring to.

Despite the family doctor shortage, Sanfilippo offers reasonable solutions in the later chapters. These include “developing standards for admission that are relevant to modern medical practice,” designing programs to prepare learners for that kind of career, being realistic of about what it is and what it isn’t, and expanding “the admission process to attract and welcome individuals who have had some personal experience in other fields of health care” (p.130, 132, 135, and 140).

I am absolutely all for these answers, especially the fourth one. There are plenty of people who have plenty of experience working in the medical field, but for reasons like cost, disabilities, and other circumstances, they choose not to go to medical school.

On top of that, Sanfilippo backs up his arguments with footnotes from credible articles and uses regular language to convey what he wants to say. While I had a hard time connecting with the material, he did a good job with communicating his thoughts. After all, he knows what he’s talking about since he is a cardiologist and former Associate Dean of Medical Education at Queen’s University.

The best parts of this book are the stories of real-patients and doctors. They paint realistic and diverse situations that exemplify what Sanfilippo talks about. For example, to illustrate the issue of not enough primary care physicians in Canada, Sanfilippo tells the story of Rachel. She always wanted to be a family doctor, and she proved to be a highly capable and dedicated one. But when she was looking to go on maternity leave, she couldn’t find other physicians to take on her patients. As a result, she left the practice and started working temporarily replacing those on leave or on vacation (p.17-21). These stories serve to describe the depth of the problems faced by the small number of primary care doctors and how the system must change to better address the needs of today’s patients.

The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support by Anthony Sanfilippo, MD is a good book that takes a hard look at the lack of family doctors in Canada. It offers clear-eyed views on how the issue became what it is and reasonable solutions. Also, it cites credible sources as well as uses regular jargon and real-life stories to get various messages across. It’s definitely one of those titles that works the best if the reader is familiar with the Canadian medical system. Even though I’m not, I still found plenty of things to admire about it. The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support will be out Tuesday, December 3, so go grab it wherever you get your books.

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