I kind of want this dress on the cover of the book! When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton was another recommendation from a friend. It was written by an author whose family escaped Cuba and it was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick, so I had high hopes!
The book focuses on Beatriz Perez, an adult daughter in a family that escaped Cuba during the rise of Castro. Though they'd been very wealthy in Cuba, and continued to travel in the upper echelon of social circles in Florida, they were in financial trouble. However, Beatriz's goals are not to marry rich like her sisters, no, she wants revenge on Castro for the murder of her brother. When she meets a handsome up-and-coming politician, she wonders if revenge is the right route. However, when she is approached by the CIA about going undercover to take down Castro, she's tempted to go on the war path. This book has such an interesting premise. A woman cold war era spy, a little romance, I was sold. I didn't know much about Cuban history aside from the very big picture events, so it was interesting to see it from a Cuban/Cuban-American perspective and learn more. However, Beatriz kept making decisions that drove me insane. There was not enough spy craft, and when that plot line wrapped up, I was livid. She didn't have enough agency for me. Her male romantic lead was also so forgettable that I can't remember his name, nor find his name easily in reviews or even the blub on Amazon. He's off-brand JFK from Florida, basically. To me, he wasn't worth her time. This book is for you if you want to learn about the Cuban revolution (but not in a dates and names and places kind of way), if you want a romance with a touch of spying, or if you enjoyed Chanel Cleeton's other books, which have crossover characters with this one. It's not for you if you're looking for a spy thriller, if you're looking for a book about being in the Cuban revolution (that's all in the past in this book), or if you're looking for a more traditional romance plot. Have you read When We Left Cuba? What about Chanel Cleeton's other books? Are there other cold war spy novels about women you recommend? Let's discuss in the comments!
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Another gorgeous cover! The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams is a historical novel recommended to me by a friend. It's about a woman and her contributions to the Oxford English Dictionary in the late 1800s - early 1900s. Being an etymology nerd, and knowing it had a feminist bent, I was excited to dive in.
The novel focuses on Esme, daughter of one of the men tasked with collecting and organizing words for the dictionary. After her mother died, she spent most of her time with her father in a place called the Scriptorium, where the words were sorted and compiled. Esme found a slip of paper on the floor with a word and realized it had been lost and decided to keep it. As she grew older, she learned that some words weren't lost by mistake, but left out on purpose--often words related to the poor and especially women. She must decide what to do about it, continue to help a dictionary that loses words on purpose or save those words left behind. This book had a lot of interesting elements. I'd never thought about what it took to make the first dictionary or the thought process behind words to include or exclude. I thought Esme lived during an interesting time in England, which included the movement for women's suffrage and WWI. Something frustrating about the book was that Esme took a long time to start on her character arc, so the beginning felt too slow for me. However, a lot of what was happening around Esme was interesting enough that I kept going. Overall this book was an interesting read. This book is for you if you like Victorian-era historical fiction, etymology, and early 20th century feminism. It's not for you if you are looking for a super active character, if you're looking for a romance, of if you're not in the headspace to read about pregnancy/adoption. Have you read the Dictionary of Lost Words? What other historical novels have you enjoyed? Let's discuss in the comments! A retro cover of I, Robot depicting a scene from one of the stories within. Isaac Asimov is a famous mid-twentieth-century scifi writer of both novels and short stories. Aside from I, Robot, his most famous work is the Foundation series (which won the one-time Best All Time Series Hugo Award in 1966, kind of a big deal). He won many awards, and now some awards, magazines, and even robots are named for him. Most of his work includes robotics, and his three laws of robotics have been at the very least considered if not adapted by many who include robots in their own writing. If you're writing robots, cyborgs, or even AI in your scifi, you need to read iRobot. Plus, it's got some thriller and horror elements, and robots fit the Halloween vibe, right? So it's the perfect time to read it.
1) Just like Frankenstein, don't be afraid of a unique structure I, Robot, as it sits on a shelf today, is not how the contents were first presented. Now, it's a series of stories with an external story woven through that connected them all. Initially, these stories were published solo from 1940-1950. If all of the stories had been presented in chronological order with no external structure to guide me, I would have thought this was very choppy and didn't flow. The structure being handed to me up front made it easier to understand these were short stories stacked on each other in a trench coat. It may be a challenge to put together, but a unique structure could be just what your complex novel needs. 2) Play with your worldbuilding Each of the short stories delved into a different aspect of how the laws of robotics worked, or could inadvertently fail, and also included what was going on socially with how the world viewed robots. It was a really cool way to see how this world functioned and it was fun guessing at how the three laws of robotics would get messed up in each tale. If your story world has set laws (socially or physically), see how those laws interact, if they can fail, or if they can bend. Maybe your characters don't even understand the laws fully, so what they consider a rule is actually much more complex. Feel free to play and even write short stories about your world to get to know it more deeply. 3) Anticipate future social norms One thing I appreciated about I, Robot was that the main character, the robopsychologist being interviewed in the external structural storyline, was a woman. This was put together in 1950, and that character appears in the short stories too, so she wasn't just slapped in there for fun. While she was the only woman prominently featured as a scientist, she was so necessary. If I'd read this book and it had been all men in science despite the mid-to-late 2000s setting, I wouldn't have enjoyed it. If your writing is set in the future, think about how it will read in the future. Will that joke you made still be funny, or could it be harmful? (The gauge here is to "punch up, not down" i.e. make fun of the powerful not the people with equal or less power than you. Satire about the president: will probably age well; joke about the poor: no.) Will your inclusion of different genders (and think full spectrum here) be appreciated? Probably! So don't be afraid to think of the future socially just as much as technologically. (Though Asimov wrote a woman in STEM as a prominent character, note there were plenty of people reporting his sexual harassment of women during his lifetime. So, write as he wrote, but don't do as he did.) Those were my big writing takeaways from Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. If you're looking for the plot from 2004's I, Robot with Will Smith, you may end up disappointed. However, just think of that movie as another short story that would fit right in to the collection. It didn't surprise me that the Hollywood version was so different from the book, the same was true for Frankenstein! Have you read I, Robot or other Asimov novels and short stories? Have you learned any good writing lessons from him? Let's discuss in the comments! Wilbur loved to rub his face on this one, so I think he enjoyed it too. Photo by Kate Ota 2023 I know it’s hard to believe, but until recently I hadn’t read anything by Sarah J Maas, the bestselling author of the Throne of Glass series, the Crescent City series, and the NSFW fae series A Court of Thorns and Roses. This author first made a splash when I was trying to survive grad school and keeping up with reading trends fell off my radar. However, one of my close friends and fellow book lovers recently told me I’d love Throne of Glass, so trusting her judgement, I bought it.
What is Throne of Glass anyway? Isn’t SJM the fairy lady? Fairies feature in the distant past in Throne of Glass (book 1 out of 8 in the series). It focuses on (human) assassin Celaena, who is brought out of a labor camp prison to compete against a ton of other killers (not all assassins specifically) to become the King’s Champion. Win, and she gets a four-year contract and then freedom. Lose and she’s back at the labor camp where she’ll definitely die. Along the way she meets and has sizzling chemistry with the crown prince and the captain of the guard. However, as the competition progresses, dark secrets come to light. Does it live up to the hype? I picked it up on vacation (I’d been searching every indie bookstore at home and had never spotted it) and devoured it. It was exactly my jam: strong female protagonist, a little magic, some chemistry to keep things interesting, twists, and language that was invisible. I know some people read for deep turns of phrase to savor, but I want the words to fade away so I can watch the movie in my head. After a bad day at work, the day before I finished this book, I went to Barnes and Noble and bought the rest of the series at once. So, yeah, you could say I liked it. Things I didn’t like were few and far between. I mean, in any competition book, you pretty much know who’s going to win, right? So there wasn’t much tension there for me, but the other twists introduced along the way really helped. The other downside is I have no idea how to pronounce the name Chaol. Is it Cole? Kay-ole? Kale? Ch-ole? I’m going with Cole in my head. I read this on paperback, but if you read it on an e-reader, be advised the map is very detailed and you may not be able to read it. (However, you won’t really need it.) In conclusion, yes. It lives up to the hype. I’m already 200 pages into Crown of Midnight (book 2) and loving it! However, I’m going to try to read other books between entries in this series to better keep up with my goal of having 50% or more of the authors I read be from different backgrounds from mine. You’ll enjoy Throne of Glass if you like deadly competitions, magical secondary worlds, and badass female protagonists. It’s not for you if you’re looking for literary style fiction, high spice level romance, or a real-world setting. I liked reading such a popular book and deciding if it was actually that good, so I may do more posts about popular books and decide if they’re worth all the hype. Have you read Throne of Glass? What about other books by SJM? Do her other series live up to the hype? What hyped up book should I do next in this series of blog posts? Let’s discuss in the comments! The Amazon cover for the book features the green classic monster, not as described in the book. Fall is spooky season and one of the main Halloween monsters is of course Frankenstein's monster, sometimes called Adam. Since it is a foundational text to scifi--the very first scifi, in fact--I decided to read the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Rather than review it, I decided to write about what I learned about writing irom this classic novel (or really a novella, it was about 110 pages).
1) Don't be afraid of a unique story structure Frankenstein is actually a letter written by a sea captain to his sister about meeting Dr. Frankenstein and that man's story. So the meat of the book is "story within a story" since you know in the end things will circle back to that boat captain. At one point, the story becomes the monster's story being told to Dr. Frankenstein being told to the captain. Like Russian nesting dolls. However, this complicated structure was made very clear and even acted as foreshadowing of excitement when the start of Dr. Frankenstein's tale got a little dry. 2) Don't overdo the backstory While it may have been the style of the time, modern readers now don't need Dr. Frankenstein's life story to begin with his parents meeting. When I saw that was how the story began, I was dreading the rest. It didn't get interesting until Dr. Frankenstein left for college. So while it's good to read classics, keep in mind how very different the market is today, and don't accidentally pick up on very out of date style choices. 3) Build sympathy by showing what your characters wants most We were all a little afraid of Frankenstein's monster after his first kill, naturally, because he's not on the page much to defend himself. However, he makes it clear exactly what he wants: a lover. He is so intensely lonely and in need of contact that after he explains it, you can't avoid sympathy. There is even some sympathy for Dr. Frankenstein when he just wants to protect others. Get your readers to choose sides by showing a deep want and explaining why--and why they can't have it (yet). 4) Keep up with the latest innovations Mary Shelley was inspired by Galvanism and advances with electricity. If she'd only stayed aware of what was going on in the literary world, she wouldn't have run into the concepts that allowed her to conceive of Frankenstein. When looking for inspiration, look at innovations in fields that excite you: space, medicine, engineering, environmental science, oceanography, etc. Even keeping up with new historical finds in archaeology or anthropology, if you're more of a history/fantasy writer. You never know when you'll run into something that will inspire, so get out of your typical bubble. Those are my big takeaways from Frankenstein for writers. I will admit I was very surprised that a lot of classic Frankenstein tropes weren't in the original book--no castle, no Igor, no villagers with pitchforks and torches. He literally made his monster in his dorm room. (Try explaining that mess to your R.A.) I think he was even described as yellow, not green. So the Hollywood-ization of Frankenstein has clearly overshadowed the original for my entire experience. Kind of wild! Have you read Frankenstein? What were your writing (or reading) takeaways? What are some of your spooky season favorites? Let's discuss in the comments! I decided to read Starlet by Sophie Lark because I loved Lark's Anastasia, which I read earlier this year. I chose the stand alone Starlet, a historical mystery.
Starlet focuses on Alice, the sister of a 1940's Hollywood star named Clara Bloom. When Clara is murdered on set, look-alike Alice sets up to finish Clara's final movie while also investigating the cast and crew to find the killer. She teams up with Jack, a local police detective, and together they dive into the mysteries of old Hollywood and uncover far more than just a murderer. I liked plenty about this book. Lark's writing style is pretty invisible to me, allowing me to devour the book in about four sittings. I liked Alice and her motives and the details about how Hollywood operated. I liked the mystery too, with various twists and turns making it all the more interesting. However, I was very disappointed in the reveal of the killer. No spoilers about why, it just felt sad. I also felt like the ending after the reveal came out of nowhere. The romance between Alice and Jack wasn't as fleshed out as I wanted, and some of the characters needed a little more fleshing out. This book is for you if you like old Hollywood affairs like in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, if you want a classic-feeling mystery, or if you want a quick/easy read. This book isn't for you if you want romance at the forefront, if you want a feeling of justified vindication at the reveal of the killer, or if you're looking for factual old Hollywood events. Have you read Starlet? Have you enjoyed Sophie Lark's other books? Let's discuss in the comments! This cover does so much to tell you about this story, and it's gorgeous. 10/10 The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older is a scifi mystery novella. Older has an earlier award winning series of novels, the Centenal Cycle Trilogy, as well as other short works. The Mimicking of Known Successes has gotten a lot of buzz, including most anticipated book lists, so I figured it was worth looking into.
On mid-far future Jupiter, platforms serve as "land" since the planet is a gas giant, and the platforms are all connected by trains. When a man goes missing at the end of a train line, investigator Mossa is tasked with finding out what happened. She turns to her college ex, Pleiti, who studies ancient earth ecosystems in the hope of developing one to help repopulate the earth, when the time comes. The missing man is an unpopular colleague of Pleiti, so she helps Mossa navigate the university's politics in the search. However, as they keep digging, the find far more than they bargained for. In the mystery, and in their relationship. This novella was packed full of worldbuilding, though it never felt like too much and was always relevant to the investigation. Though there wasn't much time for deep dives into the characters, I still got a good sense of who they were and their history. Mossa was Holmes-y, making connections quickly but lacking in social awareness, though not as rude as Holmes is often portrayed. I found the concept of Pleiti's job interesting and the mystery also kept my attention. I do have one big quarrel, which is that I found the solution to the mystery unsatisfying. I won't spoil it here, but part of a good mystery to me is feeling satisfied at the end that the entire explanation makes sense and was right in front of you if you'd just been as clever as the detective. I didn't get that. This book is for you if you were ever a Holmes/Watson shipper, if you're looking for genre blending between mystery and sci-fi, and if you're looking for a sapphic subplot. It's not for you if you want a novel-length read, if you need to be able to solve the mystery about the same time the detective does to be satisfied, or if you're looking for a more real-world mystery. Have you read The Mimicking of Known Successes? What did you think of that ending? Let's discuss in the comments! The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz (they/them) is a far-future sci-fi focused on the people making a distant planet more earthlike over a long period of time. It came across my radar when I was searching for Newitz's older book, Autonomous, but the library had this one instead. Newitz has three novels, several short stories, and non-fiction books and articles, many with a climate or cli-fi theme. They have been nominated for and/or won several prestigious awards.
The book focuses on members of the ERT, a cross between park rangers, scientists, and colonists who are in charge of the terraforming process. There are essentially three novellas in the book. In the first, Destry, a member of the ERT, accidentally discovers a hidden city on the planet and must find balance between her corporate overlords and the people who should be extinct. In the second, Sulfur deals with the fallout of Destry's choices while also planning public transit. In the third, a sentient train must help with a disaster that shapes the planet's destiny. This book had a lot of ideas in it, to say the least. It certainly didn't have any slow pacing, which kept me from being bored. I liked that the environmental group had so much power and the science was well written. On the other hand, this book's pacing was killer. I felt like I barely got to know characters before their time was up, and there were so many names I got lost often. There was also a huge helping of weird, with things like talking, flying moose and a train falling in love with a cat. It got to be a too much for me. Overall, this book is for you if you want three related novellas, if you like weird sci-fi/talking animals, and if you are looking for far-future cli-fi. It's not for you if you want a single novel with the same characters throughout, if you do not like talking animals, or if you don't want sex scenes. Have you read The Terraformers? What about Newitz's other novels? Let's discuss in the comments! The cover of Love, Theoretically Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood is a STEM romcom, which is Hazelwood's signature subgenre. It's been heavily advertised to me because I read two of her other books (The Love Hypothesis and Love on the Brain.) Her other book is a trio of novellas collectively titled Loathe to Love You and she has a YA coming out later this year called Check & Mate.
Love, Theoretically focuses on recent PhD grad Elsie's hunt for a job in academia as a theoretical physics professor. She has three adjunct positions and no health insurance, and with her glitchy insulin pod, time is of the essence to find stability. Let's not forget her side hustle as a girlfriend-for-hire (not for sex.) She's invited to interview at MIT but upon arrival learns the tricky politics involved in filling the position. One of the interviewers is Jack, an infamous theoretical physics critic who Elsie has hated for about a decade. Will they be able to get over their rivalry in order to get together or at least get Elsie the job? Find out. I enjoyed the way Hazelwood calls out the bullshit in academia (as she does in every book) this time focusing on the way department politics can cost applicants time and money, the horrible adjunct system (why yes, I was also an adjunct and no, I didn't get health insurance either), and the way that PhD advisors have way too much power over their students' lives. I liked Elsie's growth as a character--in fact, if you're a writer struggling with writing character arcs, Elsie is a super easy study because you can see her flaw from miles away and it's easy to keep an eye on how that flaw changes with the story beats. Alas, I didn't enjoy the book as much as I wanted to. I think Jack was too much like Adam and Levi (the male leads from the other two novels by Hazelwood) and he felt very flat. The dynamic of the couple was also too similar--giant quiet man, farther in his career and considered more successful than the female MC, is accused of hating the female MC so she hates him and is also small and quirky. After the second or third chapter I correctly predicted every "twist" in the book because it was so similar to the others. This book is for you if you loved The Love Hypothesis/Love on the Brain/Loathe to Love You and want more of the same, if you want an MC who is in physics or has diabetes, or if you want an academic-HEA (happily ever after) for an adjunct. It's not for you if you don't enjoy enemies/rivals-to-lovers, if you didn't enjoy Hazelwood's other books or want something new, or if you are not in the mental space to read about someone's academic job hunt. Have you read Love, Theoretically or any of Ali Hazelwood's other books? What do you think? Which STEM career do you hope her next MC has? Let's discuss in the comments! The cover is so interesting to me, with the expression on her face and the northern lights in the background. Camp Zero is Michelle Min Sterling's debut novel. It's a near-future cli-fi (science fiction with emphasis on climate change) with three main POVs. It's been out since the end of March, and already I've gotten so many emails from Amazon advertising it with other books.
Arguably the main POV of Camp Zero is Rose, a biracial (white/Korean) sex worker with a secret agenda who arrives at a worksite in northern Canada where a famous architect is building a new city. The second POV is Grant, an English professor/heir to billions who wants to escape his family's influence. He comes to the worksite thinking he'll be an English prof at the new college there, only to realize it's not built yet, so he tutors the construction workers. The third POV is a collective (we/us) perspective about an all-female scientific crew (includes LGBTQIA+ characters) at an even farther north research station. They've signed on for two years of isolation to study the climate, but they get a lot more than they bargained for and band ever closer together to survive. This book was different from what I've been reading, which kept me interested. The cli-fi aspect was fresh, since a lot of cli-fi focuses on the more southern parts of the world, but this focused on what would happen in Canada. Some really cool concepts like the Floating City were done well, with not just the rich and wealthy in mind, but with a clear demonstration/criticism of how anyone but the top 1% would be treated in this scenario. I'm not a huge fan of sex worker characters, since in books they're almost always sexually assaulted (or an attempt is made) and that's not a scenario I enjoy reading. This book was not an exception to that. I also struggled with the collective POV, even though the idea of their predicament and the types of characters were my favorites (shout out to badass lady scientists.) I think the collective POV kept me from connecting as well with these characters, so they always felt at arm's length (aka a very distant POV.) I also didn't find the ending very satisfying. This book is for you if you are looking for cli-fi, want a biracial (white/Korean) POV, want a sex worker character who chose and feels empowered (in most scenarios) by her job, or are interested in trying a collective POV. This book is not for you if you are looking for deep POVs or are not in the mental space to read about sexual assault, the death of a partner, or a sex worker (regardless of if she chose it.) Have you read Camp Zero? How did you feel about the collective POV? What did you think about the ending? Let's discuss in the comments! |
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