It's always an interesting exercise, as a reader, to approach a book with a simple question: who was this written for?
I find this especially useful wIt's always an interesting exercise, as a reader, to approach a book with a simple question: who was this written for?
I find this especially useful when evaluating popular fiction that I know I, personally, would not enjoy. (A coworker keeps pressuring me to read that shitty fantasy A Fire Of Stars and Roses and Courts of Thorns or whatever, I can't be bothered to look it up, and I refuse) It can be liberating to acknowledge that no, this thing isn't bad, it's just not my taste and therefore I don't need any other justification besides "I didn't like it."
That being said, I can't imagine what kind of person could possibly find World Travel: An Irreverent Guide to their taste.
The concept of this book is a good one: Anthony Bourdain, along with author Laurie Woolever (his former assistant and frequent professional collaborator) wanted to write "an atlas of the world as seen through his eyes...the places, people, food, sights, markets, hotels, and more that had stuck with him, without aid of notes or videos, throughout nearly twenty years of traveling the world in the service of making television."
Bourdain and Woolever had exactly one meeting in 2018 to brainstorm what this book would look like, and there was never a second meeting because only a few weeks later, Bourdain was dead by suicide.
So, a warning to prospective readers: there is not a single new sentence written by Bourdain in this book. Woolever had the difficult task of trying to make Bourdain's vision for the book a reality, and her solution was to pull quotes from Bourdain's past projects and stick them in the book as needed. Every Bourdain quote that was taken from another source is printed in blue, and there's a whole lot of blue in this book.
Okay, so it's not a new view into Bourdain (even the guest essays, by various chefs and other famous people in Bourdain's orbit, spend most of the time talking about whatever city they've been asked to write about instead of focusing on the voice that is conspicuously absent from this book), so how does it function as a travel guide?
Not well, I'll tell you that. The book is divided into countries, with some larger nations like Canada and China getting divided into sections focusing on a couple of major cities, but otherwise an entire country gets just four or five pages' worth of hotel and restaurant recommendations. Someone involved in the planning process for this book also made the baffling decision to spend significant page space describing the major airports of each featured country - including how to get to the city center (spoiler alert, the answer will be "you can take public transportation or a taxi" every single time), and, for some reason, which airlines stop there (Who was this written for?) This was especially frustrating considering how few pages each country gets, and I wish they'd at least made the airport sections a little briefer so Woolever could feature at least a few more local restaurants. The hotel sections usually tell us where Bourdain liked to stay, and we learn that he preferred luxury accommodations like the Four Seasons. Which, fine - he's a TV star, after all, and god knows the man deserved a nice mattress, but it's not much help for the average traveler who might want to stay somewhere that's locally-owned, or at least more affordable. (Also, why do we need to know this? Do people really think they can saunter up to the concierge at the Ritz Carlton in Toronto, brandish a copy of this book, and demand to stay in the Anthony Bourdain suite?)
Sure, you can find good restaurant recommendations for your next international trip, but there are plenty of sources for that. You're better off skipping this and just watching old episodes of No Reservations - at least there, Anthony Bourdain's distinctive voice and perspective comes straight from the source, and not second hand.
Or better yet, seek out Laurie Woolever's recently-published memoir, Care and Feeding: A Memoir, which I haven't gotten my hands on yet but apparently does feature plenty of Bourdain, and sounds like it does a much better job of delivering what I wanted from this book....more
He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way.
And he distrusted the kind"Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues.
He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way.
And he distrusted the kind of person who'd take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, 'Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,' and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man's boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he'd been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen and in fact got sea-sick on wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!"...more
It's hard to explain to people who have never seen them in person that the Great Lakes are not just lakes. They are, technically speaking, inland seasIt's hard to explain to people who have never seen them in person that the Great Lakes are not just lakes. They are, technically speaking, inland seas and are only classified as lakes because they have fresh water, and they're bigger than some European countries.
They will also fuck you up, as anyone who has heard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald can attest, and the bottom of every one of the five Great Lakes is a literal graveyard of shipwrecks. Dwight Boyer's book takes us through just a handful of them (most having sunk between the late 1800's and the 1930's, when it became mandatory for all shipping vessels to have radio equipment on board).
Fair warning for anyone intrigued by the title: no, this is not an anthology of ship-related ghost stories of the Great Lakes area, nor is it a chronicle of eyewitness accounts of supernatural sightings. This is a very straightforward history of famous shipwrecks, giving us the principle characters involved, the circumstances that led to the sinkings, and the aftermath. It gets pretty repetitive pretty quickly, because almost all of the stories can be boiled down to, "The ship left the port during bad weather conditions, it never showed up at the dock when it was supposed to, and we have no idea where it sank." And although Boyer will occasionally mention that residents will report hearing a distress horn years after the sinking, or see strange lights, this is definitely not a book of ghost stories. If anything, this is a fun guide to all the little islands that are scattered around the Great Lakes, most of which have turned into cute tourist towns.
But I have to admit that even though this wasn't what I was expecting, I couldn't help being totally charmed by this book, because the writing is fun and engaging, and you just don't get history books written like this anymore:
From the chapter titled Don't Change Her Name...!:
"In 1924 she appeared to be just what the Dunbar & Sullivan Dredging Company of Detroit was looking for in the way of another craft to tow and service their rather considerable fleet of dipper, hydraulic, and clamshell boats and associated gear. They bought her and immediately changed her name to Sachem, a title signifying the mightiest of Indian chiefs. Someone with a delightful sense of humor, probably an Irishman, is responsible for naming the assorted craft belonging to the Dunbar & Sullivan organization. They have some conventional names, too, but imagine tugs named Sachem, Shaughraun, Shaun Rhue, Spalpeen, Paddy Miles, and Nanny Goat. Fancy such names for dredges, big ones, too, as Omadhoun, Old Hickory, Tipperary Boy, Pocantico, Handy Andy, and a drill boat named Earthquake. Glorious!"...more
When Ruth Reichl relocated from Los Angeles to become The New York Times' new restaurant critic, she realized very quickly that the New York dining scWhen Ruth Reichl relocated from Los Angeles to become The New York Times' new restaurant critic, she realized very quickly that the New York dining scene was a completely different animal. Every high-end restaurant in the city had trained their staff to recognize Reichl at first sight, to ensure that she was guaranteed to have the best service and give a good review, and this meant that Reichl had to get creative.
It was more than just throwing on a wig and some fake glasses. Reichl worked with an acting coach to create fully-formed characters who would function as her disguises when she went out to eat. Each of these personas came with full backstories and unique personalities, and Reichl found that not only did her disguise affect how she was treated by restaurant staff, it also affected her own experience, because she was dining out in character.
The main draw of this memoir is, of course, the infamous "dual review" that Riechl wrote of Le Cirque, describing her experiences as Ruth Riechl, famous restaurant critic, and an anonymous nobody:
"Dinner as the Unknown Diner 'Do you have a reservation?' This is said so challengingly I instantly feel as if I am an intruder who has wandered into the wrong restaurant. But I nod meekly and give my guest's name. And I am sent to wait in the bar. And there we sit for half an hour, two women drinking glasses of expensive water. Finally we are led to a table in the smoking section, where we had specifically requested not to be seated. Asked if there is, perhaps, another table, the captain merely gestures at the occupied tables and produces a little shrug. There is no need to ask for a wine list; there it is, perched right next to me on the banquette where the waitress shoves the menus. Every few minutes another waiter comes to fling his used menus in my direction. ... Dinner as a Most Favored Patron 'The King of Spain is waiting in the bar, but your table is ready,' says Mr. Maccioni, sweeping us majestically past the waiting masses."
The book also has a handful of recipes, and I can't speak for all of them, but I will tell you that when I finished reading this, I had make the Last-Minute Chocolate Cake recipe pretty much immediately, and it was incredible. Definitely save that one. ...more
By now, I've learned that Terry Pratchett writes an installment of the Witches series when he feels like doing his own spoof of a classic story. Wyrd By now, I've learned that Terry Pratchett writes an installment of the Witches series when he feels like doing his own spoof of a classic story. Wyrd Sisters was Macbeth, Witches Abroad was Cinderella, Lords and Ladies was A Midsummer Night's Dream, and now it's time to hear what Sir Terry thinks of The Phantom of the Opera. He, uh, has notes.
Now that Magrat Garlick is off being a queen (literally, but I guess figuratively as well), Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax find themselves in a coven with only two witches, and anyone can tell you that that's not really a coven at all. But luckily, they have a potential candidate in Agnes Nitt, the local village girl who's shown signs of witch potential. Unluckily, Agnes has moved to the big city of Ankh-Morpork to chase her dream of becoming an opera star. And of course, the opera house has a ghost.
I'll be honest that the only reason this didn't totally blow me away (and why I strongly considered bumping the rating down to three stars) is because it felt like the book was building to something much bigger than what the ending delivered. I wanted more of a bang, but overall this book was so much fun. Terry Pratchett has some opinions about opera as an art form, and you know what you're getting into right at the dedication:
"My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here."
Plus, this is our introduction to Agnes Nitt, and I can't wait for the next book when she's hopefully an official third member of the coven, because you can't not love her:
"She'd woken up one morning with the horrible realization that she'd been saddled with a lovely personality. It was as simple as that. Oh, and very good hair. It wasn't so much the personality, it was the 'but' that people always added when they talked about it. But she's got such a lovely personality, they said. It was the lack of choice that rankled. N one had asked her, before she was born, whether she wanted a lovely personality or whether she'd prefer, say a miserable personality but a body that could take size nine in dresses. Instead, people would take pains to tell her that beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair of kidneys. She could feel a future trying to land on her. She'd caught herself saying 'poot!' and 'dang!' when she wanted to swear, and using pink writing paper. She'd got a reputation for being calm and capable in a crisis. Next thing she knew she'd be making shortbread and apple pies as good as her mother's, and then there'd be no hope for her."...more
So here's the thing about the romance trope of "guy annoys girl on purpose because he thinks she's cute when she's angry":
First, I hate it. I haaaaateSo here's the thing about the romance trope of "guy annoys girl on purpose because he thinks she's cute when she's angry":
First, I hate it. I haaaaate it. It's condescending as shit and is rooted in the idea that other people's emotions aren't real, so that makes it totally fine to upset someone on purpose because you think it's funny. Also it's always the guy doing it to the girl and is never the other way around, and you know that Julia "let's just do a beat-for-beat retelling of Cinderella and call it a day" Quinn certainly won't do anything inventive with the trope.
But it's also an extremely tricky thing to pull off, because it requires the man to act like a total dick and the woman to be consistently beaten down by his "flirty" teasing and insults. The author has to work very hard to make the final act turnaround work.
And that's the thing that kills An Offer From a Gentleman dead in the water: this dynamic of "guy is mean to girl because he can't admit he likes her" does not work in a Regency setting. At least if you have a bickering couple in modern day, you're comforted by the fact that if the girl really doesn't like the guy, she can tell him to fuck off, and walk away. Sophie Beckett, the heroine of this extremely frustrating and unromantic horror story, can do neither. Add that to the fact that Benedict's favorite way to needle Sophie is to remind her that she has no power and he can do whatever he wants, and the result is a love story where I was actively rooting for the heroine to murder the hero in his sleep.
I mean, Jesus. At least with Anthony and Kate, their constant bickering worked because even if Kate wasn't as rich as Anthony, they were more or less social equals and had a level playing field. The Benedict/Sophie dynamic is just sad, because you're just reading about this woman getting constantly belittled and insulted, and the only way out is to marry the guy. Sure, Benedict doesn't rape her, and his narration is constantly insisting that "well, if she rejects me and means it of course I'll stop" but then literally a sentence later he's like, "She'll sleep with me eventually, I just have to wear her down."
Not great, Julia!
(I do love how Benedict is so delusional he just takes it for granted that becoming his mistress is the best thing that could possibly happen to Sophie. Provide references or shut the fuck up, bro. Also it's worth pointing out that in this era, being a rich guy's mistress was one step up from indentured servitude anyway, and GOD how I wish Sophie had pointed this out to him.)
(view spoiler)[Also, I do not believe for one second that the other Bridgertons (and society at large) would be so chill about this pairing. Violet Bridgerton, a woman whose defining character trait is wanting her children to have good (ie, profitable) marriages, does not mind that her son is marrying a bastard servant girl because, well, as long as he's happy! We'll just invent some relatives for her and hope nobody looks into it!
Excuse me? There are FIVE MORE kids who'll eventually need to get married, you're telling me that Violet isn't even a little bit worried about how this will affect their chances? For Christ' sake, the entire series is framed around a GOSSIP COLUMNIST whose WHOLE THING is uncovering characters' dirty secrets, are you seriously telling me that Lady Whistledown never finds out Sophie's real backstory?
(No, of course not, because Lady Whisteldown is [redacted], so she can't ever do anything mean to the perfect Bridgertons)
And remember, at this point in the series Anthony is recently married and doesn't have kids, which means if he gets run over by a carriage the entire family fortune goes to Benedict. Is Julia Quinn seriously going to tell us that Anthony (Anthony!) is cool with the second son marrying a servant?! There's even an epilogue where Sophie is thinking about her kids and their future marriage prospects, and she's like, well, it'll be fine because by then everyone will have forgotten the rumors. Sure, Jan. (hide spoiler)]
An Offer From a Gentleman proves that Julia Quinn is the laziest kind of historical fiction writer, one who picks and chooses which rules from the era she wants to follow when it suits her story. She clearly chose the Regency era because she liked the idea of writing romances where unmarried couples could barely touch each other in public, but as soon as she runs into ugly realities of the time period, like the total lack of human rights for servants or the unbreakable rules of social hierarchies, she half-asses an explanation for why her characters can ignore them because to acknowledge the reality of how much the Regency era sucked for 95% of the population isn't sexy.
There's definitely a bittersweet feeling going into Swan Song, aka Elin Hilderbrand's last, no fooling, serioOh, Elin. I wish I knew how to quit you.
There's definitely a bittersweet feeling going into Swan Song, aka Elin Hilderbrand's last, no fooling, seriously guys she's really done, Nantucket novel. There's a sense of relief, because now I can move on and hopefully find a new comfort series that doesn't frustrate me quite as much. But there's also a feeling of genuine loss, because as much as I harp on these novels and even though they could be better in so many ways, I'm going to miss these books. Is Hilderbrand going for the low-hanging fruit by writing novels set on the wealthy, idyllic island of Nantucket and saturating her stories with beach houses, decadent meals, and nice white people who are complicated only in the sense that they love adultery? Sure. But the fact is that these books are a goddamn balm for the soul, true beach reads in every sense of the word, and I'm really going to miss spending time in Hilderbrand's world, where it's golden hour all the time.
Swan Song centers on Ed Kapenash, Nantucket chief of police and arguably the beating heart at the center of this series. The book begins at Ed's retirement party, when he receives an emergency call: a summer home on the island has been destroyed by a fire and the owners, who were hosting a party on their yacht at the time, report that one of their employees is missing from the boat. We then go into Hilderbrand's favorite storytelling device, the good ol' flashback chapters interspersed with minute-to-minute updates on the night of the disaster.
Ed's adult daughter Kacey is on the island after fleeing a messy relationship back in California, and on the ferry over, she meets new arrival Coco, who has come to Nantucket to work as a personal concierge for a wealthy couple. The Richardsons are also new to the island and immediately cause a stir by hosting wild parties in their 22-million-dollar beach house, and the flashback chapters take us back to when Coco met the couple, and lead us to the fateful night when she disappears from the yacht.
Like classic Hilderbrand, it's an inconsistent novel, full of half-baked characters and a "mystery" that will offer no twists or interesting diversions from tradition. Hilderbrand will once again demonstrate that what she needs most to improve as an author is a one-year social media diet (do the kids really use the phrase "sneaky link"? Seriously?) but at the same time, she needs someone in her life with better music taste because even though she has her finger on the pulse in terms of slang and pop culture, the music references in this book are curiously outdated - Coco is set up as this cool, alternative girl who is not the typical Nantucket person, but we learn that one of her favorite bands is The Killers, and at another point she jams out to a Twenty-One Pilots song that's at least ten years old.
This book also features another Hilderbrand standby: the romantic affair featuring two people who don't even seem to like each other all that much, never mind have such crackling chemistry that they would risk it all for the chance to be together. I think we're supposed to understand why Kacey is so torn about the ex-girlfriend she's fleeing (pause for kudos to Hilderbrand, who manages to feature lesbians and a nonbinary character in this one), but the problem is that we as the readers only ever see the girlfriend being shitty and manipulative, so I wasn't rooting for her and Kacey for even a second. Coco also has a fling with a coworker, and of course the Richardsons have a weird rule about their staff not being allowed to date each other. This rule is only in place to give the romance a little spice, but I also didn't care about whether or not Coco was fucking this guy because he...kind of sucks?
There's a moment where we get a glimpse of the other story this book could have told, where we see Hilderbrand applying what you could almost call a critical lens to the perfect beautiful beach community she's spent over a dozen books idolizing. When Coco first arrives on the island, her employers haven't gotten to their house yet and have told Coco that she'll need to figure out her own accommodations for the first couple of nights. No problem, Coco thinks, she can just find a cheap hotel or at the very least, camp somewhere. And then once she arrives, Coco finds out that there is no such thing as bargain accommodations on Nantucket Island. There are no motels, the one hostel is no longer in business, and the average cost of a hotel room in the summer is over a thousand dollars a night. Coco's thought upon realizing this - Where do the poor people stay? - is such a beautiful little lightning bolt of introspection from the author, but it's similarly gone as soon as it appears, and any additional attempts to shed light on the huge disparity between the rich residents of Nantucket and the people who work for them are half-hearted at best, because Hilderbrand doesn't want to kill the vibes.
(We're also reminded in this book that one of the supporting characters was running a prostitution ring a few years ago, but he went to prison for it and now he's out so everything's cool! Don't be so negative, he's a good guy who made a mistake! And certainly nothing like that has ever happened since then!)
I just wanted more from this. If this is really Hilderbrand's final bow, I wanted it to feel more like a culmination, a last farewell from all the characters we've met in previous books. Certain former protagonists do make brief appearances, and there are references to events from earlier stories (no word, however, on whether or not The Hotel Nantucket has become a magnet for paranormal investigators) but that happens in every other Hilderbrand novel. Similarly, I wanted the climax of this story, when we learn exactly what happened on the yacht the night of the fire, to feel like Hilderbrand had spent the entire book carefully setting up a dozen intricate little pieces that would all come together beautifully.
I'm not going to spoil it, but I'll just say that it fell flat for me.
If you've read any other Hilderbrand novel and liked it, you'll probably at least enjoy your time with this one. What Hilderbrand does, she does very well, but by now I've learned not to expect anything more from her....more
I mean, is it any surprise that this ended up getting shelved as "the movie is better"? Much like Jaws, even though the book is the source material, iI mean, is it any surprise that this ended up getting shelved as "the movie is better"? Much like Jaws, even though the book is the source material, it's competing against one of the best blockbusters ever made. There's no way Michael Crichton could have made his book include a John Williams soundtrack, so it was an unfair contest right from the beginning.
(Seriously. Take three minutes out of your day to )
Pretty much every adaptation choice the movie made was the correct one - specifically the characterization of the kids. Book Lex is six years old and one of the most singularly obnoxious characters ever committed to paper - pre-disaster, she's obsessed with baseball and approaches every adult she meets by asking if they want to "play a little pickle"; post-dino disaster, she seems unaware of how much danger they're in, constantly talking and whining and demanding she get a turn with the night vision goggles as she and her brother are being actively hunted by raptors.
Also, obviously it was the correct choice to make Movie Lex the computer person, and have Tim just be obsessed with dinosaurs. Book Tim gets to be good at computers and dinosaur knowledge, and you can make the argument that he's actually the protagonist of the book.
(I'm happy to report that Dr. Ellie Satler barely changed for the movie - the book version of her is still kicking ass and saving dinosaurs from poisonous plants, all while running around in sensible shorts that even the eleven year old boy can appreciate. Ellie's the best.)
Still, this is a solid adventure story, and it moves along at a fast clip except for when Crichton feels the need to include full diagrams of whatever a character is seeing on a computer screen in the story, which never fails to bring the pace to a grinding halt.
Also, there's a weird...almost anti-science vibe to the story? Malcom's infamous rant from the movie about how Hammond "took what others did before you and took the next step" is straight from the book, and it's no less irritating and wrong here. Looking at what people before you have done and taking the next step is how science works. He seems to be suggesting that if you want to be an astronomer, for example, you should start by designing and building your own telescope because otherwise it's cheating.
and it's incredibly frustrating to read Crichton's rants about how science used to be noble but now it's all about money, and he seems to be suggesting that humankind has advanced far enough and we should just stop? Particularly annoying is that when a character is making the argument about how scientists used to be good and noble and only care about discovery, like two sentences later they bring up Watson and Crick as examples of this.
This was the point when my head exploded, because it's now common knowledge that Watson and Crick's famous discovery of DNA structure was straight-up stolen from Rosalind Franklin's research. I get that this wasn't widely known back when Crichton wrote the book, but it just proves that his entire thesis is wrong and science has, in fact, always had its fair share of capitalists and fame seeker, and arguing against progress because it scares you is not a good position to take.
The dinosaurs are pretty fucking cool, though. ...more
Five years ago, Kit and Theo booked a dream European vacation, but had an explosive fight on the flight there and broke up in Heathrow airport. Now, wFive years ago, Kit and Theo booked a dream European vacation, but had an explosive fight on the flight there and broke up in Heathrow airport. Now, with the trip voucher about the expire, Theo decides to not let it go to waste and decides to go on the tour alone. Unfortunately, Kit has had the exact same idea and now the two exes are trapped together on a fabulous food tour of France, Spain, and Italy. Will they stay bitter exes, or reconcile?
I mean. Do you really have to guess?
This book came recommended to me by a friend who's a huge Casey McQuiston fan, and even though their books aren't totally my jam, I see the appeal. McQuiston has written a decadent bonbon of a novel, where literally everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, and if you're in the mood for an escapist fantasy that's equal parts delicious food descriptions and steamy sex scenes, McQuiston's got you covered.
But I have to admit, after a while reading this book started to feel kind of like that scene in Hook where the Lost Boys are just eating giant bowls of frosting for dinner. After the fourth or fifth time these two met another European local who just could not be more delighted to meet a couple of Americans, I realized that this book does not take place in the real world, but rather a queer utopia where everyone is beautiful, pansexual, and 100% DTF at all times. This book definitely takes place in the same universe where the president of the United States is a female Democrat from Texas whose son is dating the Prince of Wales, so at least McQuiston is consistent with their settings.
And I'm not saying that I wanted to see our protagonists get hate-crimed on their sexy European tour or anything like that, Jesus, but there's got to be a middle ground between that and what's going on in this book. Could we, just once, meet a character who doesn't want to fuck Kit and Theo for whatever reason? Any character who isn't Kit or Theo has one purpose in this book, and that's to play a part in their grand romance. We get introduced to some other people on the tour, and McQuiston attempts to give them subplots and personalities, but they felt less like fully realized people and more like actors in a play - you get the sense that when they're not interacting directly with Kit or Theo, they're sitting quietly offstage, waiting for their next cue.
Also, McQuiston is, as the kids say, too online, and their writing is absolutely infested with Tumblr-speak. Kit throws out "a secret third thing" in his own inner monologue, and he and Theo have a conversation about Keanu Reeves that I swear is taken word-for-word from an actual Tumblr post. It's grating and exhausting, and the way most of the dialogue seemed cribbed from something McQuiston saw online makes it seem like the characters don't have any original thoughts of their own.
I will also admit that, thanks to a decade in the service industry, I have no tolerance for the romantic fantasy of "ooh, we should open a restaurant together!" Absolutely not. If shows like Kitchen Nightmares and Bar Rescue have taught us one thing, it's that opening a restaurant with your significant other is a one-way ticket to both bankruptcy and divorce, every time.
I'm harping on little stuff, but the truth is that overall, this is a delightful little escape from the real world, full of beautiful people, decadent food, exotic locations, and graphic sex scenes (this book seeks to answer the question "what if Under the Tuscan Sun had fisting?" and boy does it). I also should admit here that I identified so strongly with Theo, which I guess means I should go to therapy. ...more
As the description and opening chapter of this book tells us, Lisa Marie Presley was only one month into working on her memoir when she died suddenly,As the description and opening chapter of this book tells us, Lisa Marie Presley was only one month into working on her memoir when she died suddenly, the result of a lifetime struggle with addiction and substance abuse. Her daughter, Riley Keough, was left to cobble the recordings and snippets into a book, supplementing it with sections that provide her own memories of growing up in the shadow of Elvis Presley's legacy. So while Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ lists Lisa Marie as the only author, we actually split page space between her and Keough. It's incredibly brief - the book clocks in at less than 300 pages, and uses the publisher's trick of wide margins and large fonts to make it seem more substantial than it is. I blew through it in about three days.
People seeking out this book for a memoir focused on Elvis will be disappointed. He died when Lisa Marie was nine, and Riley Keough obviously never met him, so aside from some early appearances when Presley is sharing stories from her childhood, the king himself is not here. Not that there aren't some good tidbits - the little we get from Lisa Marie about what it was like growing up at Graceland are fascinating, and made me wish we'd gotten more of it - but this memoir is about Riley Keough first, Lisa Marie second, and Elvis last.
And considering the family we're focusing on, of course it's not going to be sunshine and smiles. Lisa Marie Presley battled addiction for her entire life, and Riley Keough approaches this memoir from the perspective of a woman who is still reeling from the loss of her mother, and the realization that they never got enough time together.
So even though there's a famous figure at the center of it, this memoir is actually incredibly relatable, because millions of other families have gone through exactly what gets described here: addiction, death of a parent, suicide, and how to pick up the pieces in the wake of unimaginable tragedy. You're not going to get a lot of inside information about growing up with a famous parent, but what From Here to the Great Unknown ends up providing is something much more universal.
"If I look back at everything, my whole life, I can just lose it. Try, fail, try, fail, good, bad, fail. I get really overwhelmed and start crying, looking at how fucked up my life has been. Sometimes it feels like there's nothing left, no purpose. Like there's nothing I want to accomplish anymore. No goal, no anything. Zero. ...But then I can look at it another day and think, Okay, wait, there was that part that wasn't so bad. There was some good over there, and there was some fun over there. I try to pepper it with, 'It's not all just shit. I met this person, that part happened. That was good.' Some of it was good." ...more
I know the Rincewind books aren't every Discworld fan's favorite (he has the unfortunate distinction of carrying the first installment, The Color of MI know the Rincewind books aren't every Discworld fan's favorite (he has the unfortunate distinction of carrying the first installment, The Color of Magic, which every hardcore fan loves to adamantly warn new readers away from), but I love this little guy. As far as the Rincewind adventures go, this is one is super fun and functions almost like a direct sequel to The Light Fantastic, so yes you do have to read that one before you try this.
The story kicks off with Rincewind once again unwilling finding himself in Situations he wants absolutely no part of. In this case, it's the Agatean Empire, and the Situation is a brewing revolution against the emperor.
Fair warning: Pratchett has based his setting on Imperial China (or sometimes Imperial Japan, if he thinks it'll be funnier) and overall it...has not aged well. This is a solid Rincewind adventure, with some great callbacks to the very first Discworld book, and I enjoyed myself the entire time I was reading it, don't get me wrong. But there are definitely some jokes that didn't land, and I was disappointed that Pratchett went that direction because he's usually so good at zigging where other fantasy authors zag, and it was a bummer to see him lean fully into lazy stereotypes and not do anything new with them....more
"I am eighteen and still recovering from seeing Sixteen Candles and finding out that dads can say sorry to their daughters."
For the most part, the wri"I am eighteen and still recovering from seeing Sixteen Candles and finding out that dads can say sorry to their daughters."
For the most part, the writing in this memoir - chronicling Moon Unit Zappa's chaotic and, let's be real, emotionally abusive upbringing - is effective but nothing special, but then every once in a while she hits us with an absolute haymaker of a line like the one above, and these bits are what really make the book worth it.
Moon Unit Zappa was in the public eye literally from the moment she was born, thanks to her parents Frank and Gail Zappa naming her "Moon Unit." If there's one thing I've learned from the musician memoirs I've read (and I really need to create a separate shelf for them on here, because they're starting to pile up) it's that having a famous artist for a father fucking blows. Frank Zappa was a legend in the 1970's rock scene, but he was also basically one step up from a deadbeat dad. For the majority of Moon's childhood and adolescence, Frank Zappa is either away on tour (he, of course, has long-term mistresses who he never bothers to hide from his wife, Gail) or working in his basement studio, coming out only occasionally to interact with his family. Moon, as the oldest daughter of an absentee father and a scatterbrained mother, has to assume responsibility for her siblings at an early age, and takes on too much as she tries to help her mother while she struggles under the increasing pressure of running the Frank Zappa machine.
The picture she paints of Growing Up Zappa is less of an idyllic bohemian rock n' roll childhood, and more of a chaotic mess of stress, anger, and emotional abuse:
"It's 1982. Frank is away again, I'm fourteen, and my heart is a closed fist. The house feels as isolated as Alcatraz. Maybe that's because Gail has installed cameras, an alarm system, and actual salvaged jail bars for our front gate. In spite of the fact that we now have trip wire beams and cameras to see whoever wants to be buzzed in, there is no safety, rest, or refuge for me at home or in the outer world, except for the occasional feral fun with my inmate siblings or a jailbreak sleepover.
Gail and Frank have started a new record label and mail-order company called Barking Pumpkin Records, so she's busier, more stressed out, and angrier than ever. I hate that our house is a place of business as well as a house. The workday never ends and the barrage of work clutter is mixed with the clutter of daily life, and all of it is littered on every table, chair, stool, desk, staircase, and sofa. Everywhere you look is a teetering pile of something with a logo, potential album artwork, previous releases, vinyl, cassettes, videos, boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, stickers, T-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, postcards, fan mail, inquiries, and legal letters, next to dirty dishes, cat food, coffee cups, ashtrays, open containers of food, spices, oil, cooking utensils, laundry, toys, books, and homework. All of it is tangled, claustrophobic, and all-consuming."
I realize I'm making this book sound more depressing than it actually is. It's fun, I swear! Just the fact that Moon Unit Zappa was the child of a rock superstar growing up in Los Angeles in the 70's and 80's means that she was living in the absolute epicenter of pop culture during that time. She recorded her dad's song Valley Girl and defined a cultural archetype of the era! She dated movie stars and had her own TV show when she was a teenager!
But this is first and foremost a memoir written by a woman who has only recently realized how terrible her upbringing really was. Gail Zappa was, to put it nicely, a real piece of work, and you can see how Moon has only just started unpacking her grief for her own childhood. There are plenty of fun behind-the-scenes rock stories to keep you entertained here, but make no mistake, this one definitely isn't a light read. ...more
As much as I want to keep reading these as soon as new sequels are released, I think I need to take a break from The Thursday Murder Club and wait untAs much as I want to keep reading these as soon as new sequels are released, I think I need to take a break from The Thursday Murder Club and wait until a few more books have come out so I don't have such a long wait between installments. Because Richard Osman loves nothing more than subverting hardcore detective novel fans' expectations, these books have to be read sequentially, and unlike traditional detective series you can't just pick a random mystery to start with and dip in and out of the series. The events of the previous book's mystery, going all the way back to the first book, directly influence what happens in all the sequels, and you can't drop in without having the necessary backstory. And unfortunately, going so long between books means a lot of the details are starting to get lost for me. I'm definitely going to have to re-read this series from Book One eventually, but it's a credit to Osman's skill and the sheer delight that is the cold-case solving club of Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim (plus a few new helpers who are de facto members of the gang now) means that I'm genuinely looking forward to this.
The Last Devil to Die features one of my favorite detective novel tropes - the shady antiques dealer - so I was onboard basically from page one. Osman's preference for Elizabeth shows once again, as this is yet another Elizabeth-heavy story. I'm still at the point where I will happily take any information I can get about this character, so I ultimately didn't mind that she was taking center stage once again, but I have to admit that I'm starting to feel a little sorry for the other three members of the club and how they never really get to shine as brightly as Elizabeth does. I mean I get it - she's stiff competition when it comes to cool backstories. But I hope Osman lets the others get their time in the spotlight soon....more
A rock-solid installment in the ongoing Aubrey/Maturin adventures! All the classics are here, including Jack/Stephen banter, some spy antics, potentiaA rock-solid installment in the ongoing Aubrey/Maturin adventures! All the classics are here, including Jack/Stephen banter, some spy antics, potential mutinies, Aubrey being a retired fuckboy, naval battles (that are of course all created pretty much verbatim from official historical accounts) and of course, one of my favorite quotes from the entire series so far:
"Jack loved [Stephen], and had not the least objection to granting him all the erudition in the world, while remaining inwardly convinced that in all practical matters other than physic and surgery Stephen should never be allowed out alone."...more
I read the first book in the Alex Stern series, Ninth House so long ago that I had completely forgotten to be on the lookout for the sequel. So it wasI read the first book in the Alex Stern series, Ninth House so long ago that I had completely forgotten to be on the lookout for the sequel. So it was a delight to see it pop up under New Releases when I was searching for ebooks to rent from the library - I got it and immediately dove in.
I then realized by around the third chapter that I had forgotten a huge chunk of the plot from Ninth House, so the sequel got shelved while I checked out the first book from the library and re-read it. Then it was Take Two.
Overall, this is a really satisfying sequel! I don't feel like it's a spoiler to let people know that yes, we do get a satisfying conclusion to the "Darlington got sucked into hell" plotline from the first book - Bardugo is so relentlessly cruel to her protagonist (in a good way!) that part of me was worried she was going to keep Darlington in a limbo state just to keep torturing Alex. (Seriously, can this girl please have one good day? It got to the point where I was comforted even by the brief scenes where she gets to sit down and actually eat a meal.) This book also has Bardugo expanding on the lore she established in the first book, and moving the scope of the story beyond the Yale campus. And this, unfortunately, is to the story's detriment.
Something started bugging me about the whole Darlington plot all the way back in Book One, and the sequel, which establishes that Darlington is not only stuck in hell but is also a demon now, really crystallized what the problem is.
It's so simple and so obvious that I can't believe none of Bardugo's editors pointed this out to her: the characters constantly repeating that Darlington's a demon doesn't land, because we haven't seen any other demons in this story before. As the readers, we have absolutely no frame of reference for what it means to be a demon in Alex Stern's universe, and therefore we have no idea what the stakes of Darlington's current state really are. Having Alex & Co face off against a different demon in the first book would have gone a long way in making readers better understand what was at stake when Darlington got dragged into hell. Forgive me for referencing Supernatural in 2025, but at least that show understood that the viewers need to see demons doing demon stuff for a few episodes before one of the main characters gets turned into one.
Bardugo also introduces some new supernatural creatures, including a vampire. Alex Stern learns that vampires exist in this universe at the same time I as the reader did, and once again, I have no frame of reference for what that means for this story! And, thanks to the vampire being a C-plot in the story while Alex is more occupied with how to get into hell, we have an extremely frustrating sequence of events where Alex meets a vampire and then doesn't tell anyone about it for days. It started to feel like Bardugo was either making stuff up as she went along with no plan, or that she has an expansive cast of supernatural creatures on deck in her brain and no idea how to introduce them organically into the story, and neither of those theories bode well for Book Three.
She also seems to have gotten bored of the secret societies angle, which is weird, because that was kind of the entire selling point of the series? Ninth House had Alex overseeing multiple rituals and interacting with the societies on a regular basis; in Hell Bent, they're a barely-mentioned presence. It seems like the whole "secrete societies at Yale practice occult magic" was actually just the jumping-off point for the story Bardugo actually wanted to write, which seems to be a knockoff of the show Angel? And I'm not knocking Angel, that show was great, but Bardugo, bless her, is no Marti Noxon.
Also the very end of the book (I'm going to try to keep this spoiler-free, I swear) introduces what I can only describe as a wacky sidekick for Alex Stern's growing gang of supernatural investigators, and the whole thing felt so tonally off from the rest of the book that it almost threw me out of the story. The Alex Stern series is many things but funny is absolutely not one of them, so introducing a character who seems intended to function as comic relief was a weird choice, to say the least. I won't even be able to enjoy this character in the sequel, because the whole time I'll be waiting for Bardugo to pull the rug out from under me and reveal that nope, this isn't a fun new friend, this is another reminder from the universe that good things don't happen to Alex Stern!
Overall, a solid sequel that resolves most of the hanging threads left over from the first book while setting up new adventures for the sequel, but Bardugo is starting to lose control of the story and while I'm still going to read Book Three, I don't have a lot of faith in her ability to bring this all together at the end....more
I'm always so behind when it comes to keeping up with new releases, so many thanks to whichever one of my followers was reading this a few weeks ago, I'm always so behind when it comes to keeping up with new releases, so many thanks to whichever one of my followers was reading this a few weeks ago, because it popped up in my feed and I would never have been aware of it otherwise.
The Haunting of Hill House has a permanent spot on my list of Top Five Favorite Books, so the fact that A Haunting on the Hill isn't just a sequel to Shirley Jackson's masterpiece, but is a sequel that's been officially authorized by her estate, means this moved to the top of my to-read pile immediately.
The plot loosely follows the setup of the original, where a small group of very different people are all brought to Hill House with a specific purpose. Our protagonist is Holly, who rents Hill House with the idea of using it as a retreat to finish work on her latest play. She's accompanied by her girlfriend (who is also writing the music for the show) and two actors who have been cast in the play. Naturally, everyone is bringing their own baggage and issues with them, and Hill House is exactly the wrong place for that.
As a standalone haunted house story, this is a spectacular novel. The setpieces and imagery that Hand conjures are geniunely creepy and done so, so well. Make no mistake - this book is scary. (True story: one night I was reading this and heard a weird noise in the other room, so I got up and checked all the closets and under the bed)
But A Haunting on the Hill suffers from the inevitable comparisons to its predecessor, and ultimately, it can't measure up. The true masterstroke of The Haunting of Hill House is the way Jackson builds the tension slowly, starting out small with little things that could have a rational explanation, until you're so deep into it you don't realize how you got there. Meanwhile, in Hand's novel, Holly is on her way to view Hill House for the first time (she hasn't even gotten to the house yet!) when she sees a huge hare that smiles at her with human teeth. Bone-chilling and creepy? Yes. Subtle? No.
Credit where credit is due - Hand makes the wise decision not to rehash what happened at Hill House in the original, only having characters occasionally mention something. Hand invents a more recent tragedy about a family who stayed in Hill House in the 1980's, and most of the haunting seems to center around them. Hand also delves into the nursery at Hill House and the idea that it's the nexus of the haunting, which the original novel touched on but never explored in detail. (Hand doesn't either, but it was nice to see her hit the same beats as Jackson).
I really wonder if the ideal reader for this would be someone who's never read The Haunting of Hill House. Comparing it to the original is what killed this book for me, but on the other hand, someone reading Hand's novel who's never read Jackson's book will definitely feel like they're not getting the whole story.
Four stars as its own haunted house story, two stars as a worthy successor to The Haunting of Hill House....more
TBH I should have abandoned this the second time (yes, it happens twice) a character in this Regency-era story uses the phrase "cut to the chase." TBH I should have abandoned this the second time (yes, it happens twice) a character in this Regency-era story uses the phrase "cut to the chase." ...more
This is one of those books where the story of how I got it is better than the book itself. I bought this book in Door County, Wisconsin - specificallyThis is one of those books where the story of how I got it is better than the book itself. I bought this book in Door County, Wisconsin - specifically, Fair Isle Books on Washington Island, which is a central setting in this mystery. The shop is lovely, the island is lovely (if you're ever there, make sure you go to Nelsen's Hall and do a shot of bitters), and it's genuinely disappointing that I didn't enjoy this as much as I wanted to.
The setup is great for a mystery series debut, because Annelise Ryan doesn't mess with tradition and gives us the usual cozy mystery setup of a single woman with a dark past who owns a quirky small business. Morgan Carter has taken over the ownership of her family's occult bookstore in a small beach town in Wisconsin following the gruesome (and as yet unsolved) murder of her parents. She is also a cryptozoologist, and the fact that spellcheck doesn't recognize that as a word tells you how seriously you should take that as a profession. The book kicks off with what can either be viewed as an homage or a straight rip-off of Jaws, when a kayaker turns up dead with mysterious bite marks on his body and Morgan is called in to give her professional opinion. And cue the uneasy partnership with the local cop/obvious future love interest, and we're off to the races.
I think the main issue was that, despite Annelise Ryan's best efforts, I never for one second got even close to believing that there really is a Nessie-esque creature stalking the waters of Lake Michigan and killing kayakers. Ryan obviously has a science background, or at least did plenty of research, but no matter how many paragraphs are devoted to Morgan explaining how a giant amphibious creature could definitely, possibly be out there, I never bought into it. (Seriously, though, the best Morgan can do is "there are underwater cave systems where the creature could be hiding. Caves, Morgan? Caves?! How does this thing fit? What is it eating?)
At one point, as she's walking the reader through one of her theories, Morgan admits that "it's nearly impossible to prove that something doesn't exist", which is the whole foundation on which the scam of crpyozoology rests. Part of me wonders if the book would have been more fun if Ryan had leaned into this angle, and made Morgan less of a scientist with some slightly out-there theories, and more of a total crackpot. Like, imagine a female version of Doc Brown running around Wisconsin trying to prove the existence of an American Nessie and solve a murder - that's a fun time! But Ryan's attempt to legitimize cryptozoology as a profession sucks all the wackiness out and leaves us with a standard cozy mystery that just happens to involve lots of conversations about lake monsters.
(Do I even have time to devote to the cop love interest? I must, because I hate this trope so goddamn much and mystery authors simply will not stop using it, so I have to keep complaining about it in every review. Here's what I'll say in this guy's favor: at least he sits down with Morgan at one point and tells her in plain English that he has feelings for her and wants to pursue them, which is more than most of the assholes in these mysteries can manage. I guess if you're going to make your love interest a puppet of the fascist American police state, you can at least make him an emotionally intelligent puppet.)
The other nail in the coffin for me was the way the mystery is structured - the plot is an episode of Scooby-Doo, full stop. (view spoiler)[Seriously. Pretty much as soon as they introduced the idea that there was a monster attacking people in the lake, I thought, "oh, someone is running around in a monster suit to keep people away from a specific area while they hunt for treasure" and I was exactly right. Well, except for the monster suit. It's a submarine, which was also obvious as soon as Morgan first sees the creature and notes its "glowing yellow eyes." Cue me screaming THEY'RE LIGHTS, MORGAN. YOU ARE A SCIENTIST. (hide spoiler)]
It's a fun, low-stakes mystery with a decently competent heroine at the helm, and even though I didn't vibe with the attempts to convince me Nessie is real, I liked how methodical and driven Morgan is in her attempts to prove it's existence and also solve the case. I won't be moving forward with this series (but then again, I think Book 2 is about Bigfoot, which should be fucking hilarious) but ultimately I'm not mad that I bought this. ...more
There's a certain subgenre of history books that you can classify as Well Actually books - they involve an author taking a super fun, romanticized subThere's a certain subgenre of history books that you can classify as Well Actually books - they involve an author taking a super fun, romanticized subject and going, "well actually, the truth is much more depressing and much less fun." It's a blast and a half.
Cordingly is attempting to provide a general history of piracy, with chapters organized by different aspects of pirate life, rather than devoting each chapter to a different historical figure. The underlying goal of this book is to look at the realities of pirate life and try to figure out why they've endured as these romantic antihero figures of pop cultures, when actually the reality was much different.
With the book flitting from one subject to another and never spending a significant amount of time on one thing, readers will walk away from this book with a surface-level knowledge of a lot of different aspects of pirate life, but very little in-dept knowledge. If anything, I would say this is a good book to read if you're wondering what to read next - find out which historical figures featured here interested you the most, and then go find a different book about that specific person.
(For me, it was definitely Anne Bonny. What do you mean, she didn't get executed after her trial because she was pregnant but after that we have no idea what happened to her? How do we not know what happened?! If you know a good Anne Bonny source please let me know - what's written in Under the Black Flag CANNOT be the full story.)
This is a good introductory book for someone who wants a nice broad overview of the facts and fiction surrounding piracy, but it's very broad and remains a superficial history at best. ...more
The Queen of the Damned picks up right where The Vampire Lestat left off, with Lestat's concert getting crashed by Akasha, one of the two original vamThe Queen of the Damned picks up right where The Vampire Lestat left off, with Lestat's concert getting crashed by Akasha, one of the two original vampires (and she's not alone). The narrative goes deeper into Akasha's lore, and also introduces us to the Talamasca through one of its members. And best of all, we get the conclusion to the vampire origin story that was started in The Vampire Lestat and go alllllll the way back to the beginning to find out how vampires came into existence. And perhaps best of all, we get to revisit our pal Daniel Molloy from Interview with the Vampire and learn what he's been up to since his "novel" was published. He's, uh...been better.
The book only lost its momentum at the very end, when Akasha reveals her entire Evil Plot, because it's, in a word, stupid. To Anne Rice's credit, other characters point out how laughable bad her ideas are, and I'm pretty sure that the plan is supposed to be bonkers because Akasha has been in an atrophied state for centuries and her brain is toast. But it was still annoying having to read her I'm-going-to-take-over-the-world-and-here's-how monologues. Frankly I think she didn't even have a ton of faith in what she was saying.
(God, I cannot WAIT for the AMC show to tackle all the story lines in this book. It's going to get WEIRD and I need them to announce the Akasha casting yesterday)
Based on some other reviews I've read of the Vampire Chronicles series, the quality starts to dip after the third book, but honestly I think I'm going to continue with the series and see how far it takes me because I'm having so much fun....more
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