TWO-CENT TUESDAY

Below are a few (somewhat) brief $.02 opinions about books I've read or listened to recently but don't have the opportunity to review in full. Many of these titles I enjoyed as much or more than those that got the full court press. I hope you'll consider one or two for your own TBR stack if they strike your fancy whether they struck mine or not.

STAY AWAKE, by Megan Goldin

This was such a fun and different read. Liv Reese wakes in the back of a taxi with no idea how she got there. When she's dropped at home, a stranger answers and claims to have never heard of her. Liv is further confused by the bloody knife in her possession and the strange writing on her body. One of the messages says "Stay awake." She's then shocked by a news story about a bloody murder in a condo. The horrifying part? Written across the window in blood, for everyone outside to see, are the words "Stay awake." Liv can't trust anyone so she runs, tries to avoid sleep (every time she wakes she has once again erased her memory of the last two years), and figure out what happened to erase so much of her life. A race against the cops and evil forces ensues that kept me sitting with this book 'til I finished. A fun concept cleverly written, I recommend this one to anyone who wants a few hours of escapism.

WE SPREAD, by Iain Reid

This fantastic cover would have made me pick this up even if Reid hadn't exploded my brain with I'm Thinking of Ending Things a few years back. We Spread gave me similar creepy feelings of horror and the unknown as I read it, but it was also much different. Penny has lived in the same apartment for decades with her unnamed partner, an artist. She herself is a painter, but does not have the confidence to show anyone her work. After her partner dies and she has a fall, Penny's landlord packs her up and takes her to Six Cedars, a unique care facility that has only four rooms and two staff members. The food is good, the views beautiful, the care detailed. But the schedule is strict, the rules plenty, and no one is allowed to go outside. As strange things begin to happen to Penny, she questions how she ended up at Six Cedars and what the intent behind the "care" really is. Reid does spooky ambiguity better than just about anyone and We Spread is full of it. Ultimately, it's either a creepy tale of the horrors of elder care, or a heartrending look into aging and losing what one used to be.

TWO-CENT TUESDAY

Below are a few (somewhat) brief $.02 opinions about books I've read or listened to recently but don't have the opportunity to review in full. Many of these titles I enjoyed as much or more than those that got the full court press. I hope you'll consider one or two for your own TBR stack if they strike your fancy whether they struck mine or not. 

And There He Kept Her, Joshua Moehling

I wish I could remember where I heard about this book, because I would not have chosen it based on cover or title, neither of which I think do it service. Almost to the other side, as much as I like gritty stuff (see Pete Farris's latest, which starts with a great line about a woman being bound in a trunk), the toxic masculinity this title/cover combo bring to mind would have put me off. Which is really a bummer, because this book is fabulous. It's Moehling's debut, which makes it even more impressive. Yes, there is a woman locked up. Yes there are horrible people. But the plot is clean and moves swiftly, no extraneous fluff that got in the way. Best of all, Moehling's characters left me hoping the small historical backstory arc that doesn't get resolved means another installment of Deputy Ben Packard's story. Here, he's returned to the small lake town in Minnesota where he has history and some family. He's running from tragedy and himself (a trope, yes, but it felt authentic here, and I'm not going to give it away because the reveal should be experienced while reading. When two local teens go missing, including Packard's taciturn cousin's daughter, he takes a personal and professional interest. As he and his team investigate, coming into contact with some great (and not so great, and some morphing) colorful locals, time is running out for the woman in the locked room. Who is she and who has her? I highly recommend taking the time to read this one and finding out first hand.

Nightcrawling, Leila Mottley

Another dazzling debut from a 19-year-old who was also the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate and the youngest author to be chosen for Oprah's book club pick. Those who live in or around Oakland as I do will likely remember the horrific Oakland Police Department sexploitation scandal of 2016, and Mottley took inspiration from those events and began writing while she was in high school. Kiara is 17, living in the Regal-Hi apartments (and its pool filled with bags of shit) with her brother Marcus, left to fend for themselves by addiction, death and the prison system. Marcus won't find a job, clinging to his dreams of rap stardom, and Ki and left to pay their increased rent, which is already overdue. Ki's responsibilities get heavier when she begins to care for the 9-year-old boy next door, whose mother is strung out and gone most of the time. A nighttime misunderstanding sucks Ki into a situation she can't seem to get out of--where will the money come from? what will happen to Trevor?--and soon she's selling her soul to keep the balls in the air. Haunting, electric, and a dazzling display of the perils the system and society heap atop the Black community and the resilience and fortitude of Black women. Mottley's writing is searing and authentic, and though my praise certainly isn't needed on top of her many accolades, she's got it.

Directed By James Burrows, James Burrows

I was raised on the genius television of James Burrows. He's been called "the greatest director of comedy in television history" by his creative partners Les and Glen Charles. He's the greatest "by any measurement: number of episodes, number of gigantic hit series, number of awards, and the amount of volume of laughter he's been responsible for." He has directed more than seventy-five pilots that have gone to series and well over a thousand show episodes. GREAT shows. The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Laverne & Shirley, Phyllis, Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Mike & Molly, Will & Grace--shows that belong in the television Hall of Fame. I was so anxious to read his memoir, which he calls "a celebration of the great people [he] worked with and the joy and challenges [we] had together. Burrows begins at the beginning, his childhood as the son of legendary playwright and Broadway director Abe Burrows, his start in the theater, and his foray into his milieu, television comedy. He proceeds chronologically through each show, sharing facts and highlights. Ultimately, while I loved the content, I had some of the same feelings about this memoir as I did about Bob Odenkirk's. The work is so damn good that on the page it suffers a bit. Burrows writing is very matter-of-fact. You know the joy (or hardship) is there, but it doesn't leap off the page and sock you in the guts. Other than one behind-the-scenes story from Cheers, there wasn't much in the way of new or "wow" information. It's a great read from an individual I am SO thankful for, and maybe my expectations were too high. Burrows television is some of the best of my life, and that's a tough bar for anyone, even Burrows himself, to leap. 

THE CHANGE :: Kristen Miller

Kristen Miller's The Change is not a book that would normally be on my radar, but I joined an Instagram buddy read group and this was their selection. I could have skipped it, but it sounded like it could be a bit of fun. I was so wrong - this book was SO MUCH FUCKING FUN! I understand some readers felt it was heavy-handed on the feminist front, but first, why the hell not? We certainly have plenty of heavy-handed books with women as the forever victim. Second, the heavy-handedness is, from my perspective, done intentionally and very well by Miller.

At its base level, The Change is about three women "of a certain age" taking their power back. They discover each other at the right time in their lives where they are ready to take control and take charge. While the plot is serious (young girls have been murdered), large parts of the goings-on are underpinned by fantasy and social commentary. 

Harriett is a former advertising exec who is responsible for her husband's success while he gets the credit. She left the corporate world and is now divorced, tending to her outlandish garden (that breaks every HOA rule to hilarious end) and "helping" people with her plant-based potions. No surprise she's known as a witch. She is the embodiment of a strong woman who does what she wants, takes no prisoners and suffers no fools ("That’s why I choose vengeance. She’s the only mistress I serve.").

Jo used to work in the hospitality industry, but now runs an all-women's gym where she can rage-run to her heart's content. When she gets angry, her power manifests in extreme strength and heaven help those who piss her off. 

Nessa is a former nurse who inherited the family legacy of being able to hear and see the dead. Her gift is what sets off the action, as the women discover a dead body surrounded by more dead young women and are bound and determined to figure out what's going on in their neighborhood. 

The book was not without its flaws, and at one point I thought it was over, but it still had quite a few pages left. Some of the characters' intentions and true colors were telegraphed, but honestly, it just didn't matter. These issues didn't detract enough to keep me from finding this a fantastically enjoyable trip. 

I'm a sucker for good character work and Miller's is stellar. Each of the women is multi-faceted and fascinating in her own right, with backgrounds and issues that kept the narrative fluid and on point rather than dragging it down. I wanted to know more about these women, especially Harriett, who is someone I would want to hang out with any day. 

I'm so glad I was convinced to read The Change and will definitely seek out more work by Miller. It was by turns moving, hilarious, serious, outlandish, educational, motivational, and fun. A definite E-ticket ride. 
  

THE DEVIL HIMSELF :: Peter Farris

It's hard to believe it's been ten years since Peter Farris's fabulous Last Call for the Living. I've been missing Pete's words, but since only the French seem to have common sense when it comes to publishing crime fiction, the U.S. market has had to wait for this barnburner. But holy moly is The Devil Himself worth the wait. How's this for an opener that grabs you by the guts with hot needle-nose pliers:

"The girl in the trunk had been bound."

Short, sweet, and irresistable. To say too much about the plot is a disservice. Though this is straight-forward, hell-bent-on-revenge grit, the beauty is in discovering everything unfold in real time. To figure out who you're rooting for, what layers the characters have that are slowly peeled back. 

I will say that teenaged Maya, she of the trunk, does not go down without a fight. She's found herself in a difficult position that marks her for death, but don't underestimate her based on circumstance. She ends up on the property of Leonard Moye, the town's eccentric kook who doesn't tolerate anyone on his land. To say that Farris takes these two heavily-labeled individuals and turns them into individuals you will never forget is downselling what he's done here. It's simply magnificent.

Set in the deep woods of South Georgia, The Devil Himself is a masterful work of character, set within a dark world filled with many bad actors. As well-paced as it is heart-piercing, it's one I won't soon forget. It's no surprise Farris won several French literary awards with this work, I hope he is similarly recognized here at home.

NOBODY GETS OUT ALIVE :: Leigh Newman

As a proponent of the inverse correlation between the length of a work and its difficulty (poetry to short stories and on up), I have a high appreciation of the short form and try to read it as often and diversely as I can. Leigh Newman's recent collection won me over with the cover, followed by its description as a set of "dazzling, courageous stories about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose but the raw, exhausting legacy of their marriages and families." 

The first story, Howl Palace, was brilliant, and I went hunting for everything else Newman has written before I was half through with it. I was unsurprised to learn it won The Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize, and was a Best American Short Story and Pushcart Prize selection.

Howl opens the night before a sixty-seven-year-old widow's real estate agent holds an open house at her property, which is listed as an "attractively priced teardown." To Dutch, however, "every good thing that had ever happened to me happened in Howl Palace. And every bad thing too. Forty-three years. Five husbands. Two floatplanes. A lifetime. It felt as if I should honor my home, that strangers shouldn't come around poking through the kitchen or kicking the baseboards, seeing only the mold in the hot tub and the gnaw marks on the cabinets from the dogs I'd had over the years, maybe even laughing at the name."

Dutch expounds on her history, with laugh-out-loud diatribes about life, her husbands (re Skip, number 5, "Shipping him off to a facility in Washington near his daughter wasn't exactly something I struggled with"), her dogs, her efforts ("If you are looking for a reason to split five cords of wood by hand each year for forty-odd years, consider my biceps at age sixty-seven"), and her surroundings (consider the oft-mentioned and somewhat secretive "wolf room"). 

Just as she's setting up for the open house cookout, the real love of Dutch's life, Carl ("the beautiful deviling heartbreak of my life"), comes to ask if she will watch his dog while he's away. It's something he knows she doesn't want to do, and "somehow" the dog gets loose, wreaking havoc and sending Dutch's pre-event anxiety through the roof. It also lends to her reminiscing, Carl's imprint on so many parts of her life and the realization of why he has come to that day.

Howl Palace is a bittersweet, raucous revisiting of a life as Dutch prepares to let go of the only thing she has left. Beautifully paced and painting a picture you could look at forever, Newman shows herself a master of her craft. I didn't want it to end.

The remainder of the collection is replete with the same gorgeous phraseology, stories full of intriguing, multi-layered characters in various surroundings. The sense of place is different in each, many evoking what one envisions when they think of the wild, bicep-building life in Alaska  (and yet some feeling they could take place anywhere). Not many stories feature a mastodon tusk as deftly and meaningfully as Newman does. Her writing is unique and clever, she is a wordsmith of the highest order. 

 My only "complaint" is that Howl Palace blew me so high out of the water I kept searching for its equal. An unfair ask, really, and beginning the set with that story is both a blessing and a curse. It's one of the best short stories I've ever read and it will keep me reading Newman's work well into the future. 

CHILD ZERO :: Chris Holm

As a huge fan of Chris Holm's work (go dig on The Killing Kind, I've been waiting with bated breath for Child Zero. On the other hand, I knew a bit about where this book was headed and was...let's say scairt. Holm is a super smartypants (molecular biologist) and I am a middling smartysock. When I got my copy I was elated and also, as I told him, "hoping it wasn't over my head." As usual, he had the best response: "If that's the case then I haven't done my job." I can now attest that Holm did his job to PERFECTION. 

One of the things I adore about Chris's writing is that while story is Job 1, character is Job 1A. Once again, he's nailed both in thrilling fashion. In a not-too-far-ahead future, we have continued to fuck up. Unchecked climate change results in a deadly virus being unleashed from the Siberian permafrost. Also, whoopsy!, it renders antibiotics useless. That hangnail you're nursing? That teeny scratch from your beloved Dashiell? They might now be the death of you.

Child Zero is the thrilling story of people trying to adapt to a horror landscape several years following a bioterror attack. We experience that terror through NYPD Detective Jake Gibson, who lost his wife in the attack and is raising his daughter Zoe alone. As we meet Jake, Zoe has a temperature high enough he is mandated to report it to the Department of Biological Security. But Jake knows what happens when a report is made and he's willing to risk everything to keep Zoe safe.

Jake's problems are multiplied when he's notified of a massacre at Park City, an encampment of refugees stranded when Manhattan was quarantined following the 8/17 bioterror attack. The scene makes it clear the assassins were looking for something or someone and Jake and his kickass partner Amira "Amy" Hassan need to figure it out quickly.  

As the Park City attack began, twelve-year-old Mateo Rivas was awakened by his uncle Gabriel and hurried to a planned escape route. Gabriel ensured Mat held a bound and wrapped package securely and remembered his instructions, then sent the boy out into the world via the sewer system.

 

What Mat possesses and why baddies might want it is at the core of Child Zero, a total barnburner from start to finish. The science is frighteningly on point and plausible, the characters are so well drawn you can't help but want more of them, and the sandbox the science and characters get to play in keeps the reader glued to the page. Holm's world-building is superb and, since the book was serendipitously (?) published during a pandemic, Holm has made it all too easy to imagine this world as our future.

If sciencey stuff makes you think twice, I'm here to tell you it's not an obstacle to your understanding or enjoyment. If science is your bag, there are more than enough juicy tidbits for you. If you are trying to escape pandemic reading, this didn't ring my "pandemic malaise" bell. Although we can all now sadly relate to many of the issues raised by the plot, Child Zero is still escapism at its finest. 

I don't have a ratings system or give stars, so I'm just going to lasso the galaxy and hand it to Child Zero.

THE HAWK'S WAY :: Sy Montgomery

Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus is one of the most magnificent books I've ever read, so it was with great anticipation I cracked the e-cover of her new work: The Hawk's Way: Encounters With Fierce Beauty. Although Montgomery writes about nature and its creatures in a manner that resonates with me, and I admire that she considers multiple facets of her encounters (i.e., man's impact on the natural world), I was not as enamored with this account as her others.

At the outset, it was surprisingly brief, shy of 100 pages including photos. Which is really of no import unless the book doesn't feel complete. It did seem odd in some ways, as Montgomery realizes the time and commitment involved in falconry (a two-year apprenticeship) doesn't fit with her current circumstance, so this brief foray into the mystical ways of the hawk is, well, brief.

I also admit to having some of the same hesitations as Montgomery, a known animal lover. Could she "in good conscience" take a bird from the wild (or support a breeder)? Does she really want to involve herself in a sport that uses "quail launchers" to aide in teaching a youngster to hunt?

Yet learn she does, and though brief, her descriptions of the "sport" and partnership between bird and human are fascinating. This is no normal people/pet relationship. As her mentor tells her, "If you want love out of this, you're too needy. Don't be a falconer." Rather, the falconer is training the bird "to accept you as her servant," and breaking the rules can be a bloody affair. And while you may forge a working association, your bird may never like you. In fact, it may hold a grudge for the rest of its life and will not hesitate to punish you. 

Montgomery is a master at putting words to hard to describe events, emotions and connections. It's what made The Soul of an Octopus so spectacular. Here, she's done that again, on an albeit much smaller scale. And while I cannot get entirely on board with the "sport," reading about the birds themselves is well worth the time. 

WESTERN SKIES :: Darden Smith

With Western Skies, Austin-based singer-songwriter Darden Smith has created a multi-form artistic experience unlike anything I've seen/read/listened to before. Created as a love message to his home state, the idea emerged during several road trips across West Texas, as Smith took polaroid photos to memorialize his trips and composed lyrics behind the wheel. 

The results of those trips and Smith's creative pathways are a beautiful collectible book and a companion album. The book includes Smith's photographs, essays derived from notes scribbled in his notebook on the road, lyrics to the songs on the album, forward by the legendary Rodney Crowell, and a link to download a free copy of all the Western Skies songs.

I found the experience a fantastic way to discover Smith's music. Listening along as I read the lyrics and perused the photos perused was a fantastic way to immerse myself in as broad a way as possible into the mindset and emotions of Smith as they relate to the land he loves and traveled.

 

I highlighted numerous passages and lyrics that I both wanted to remember and thought would be apt to share within a review. Yet when it now comes time to do so, it feels as though sharing only a part of the whole without its related elements does a disservice to what Smith has done. I will say I've now discovered music I would not have without the words, a writer I would not have known or understood as well without his music. And while Smith initially felt old-school polaroid photos wouldn't do the landscape justice, their eerie, ghost-like quality lends a gorgeous ethereal quality that seems to fit just right with the other parts. A rare feat, Western Skies is a gift for the senses. 

PASSERSTHROUGH :: Peter Rock

Not since Iain Reed's I'm Thinking of Ending Things have I finished a book and thought "I have little to no clue what I just read, but I loved every damn minute." Peter Rock's Passersthrough is all kinds of crazypants, and I am far from understanding everything that happened, but in the words of Trip in Meatballs, "It just doesn't matter!"

The basics of what I DO know are this--Helen and her father Benjamin have been estranged for more than two decades, since something mysterious happened when she was eleven and they were camping together in Mt. Rainier National Park. Helen disappeared and wasn't found until a week later and 100 miles from their camp.

After her mother's death, Helen begins reaching out to Benjamin, although tentatively. She gives her father a machine that he can speak into (and vice versa) and his words will be transcribed and sent to her machine. Helen is not yet to the point where she trusts him enough to spend time him or speak directly about what happened. 

Through their communications, we learn snippets of what that camping trip involved, including a blue tarp and a lake they called Sad Clown Lake, a body of water filled with bones that never seems to be in the same place twice. They also had a notebook they left in their tent while they were out, leaving it for "passersthrough" to write in. 

As Helen and Benjamin talk remotely, Benjamin has a semi-catastrophic encounter with a woman and her dog in the market parking lot. Melissa helps Benjamin home and tends to him, but also reads some of the transcriptions on Benjamin's machine. As Melissa and her "brother," who are squatting in a "murder house," try to help Benjamin figure out what happened on that ill-fated camping trip, things start to get really cuckoo. 

To share more would be both too much information and me providing a perception that might not be anywhere near correct. Although the story seemed to remain outside my grasp, it was so beautifully written and intriguing that I didn't want to put it down for a minute. It's haunting, eerie, bizarre, lovely, and tragic. Rock is a beautiful writer (his heartbreaking My Abandonment was a gift of a novel and also made into a fantastic film, Leave No Trace) and even though much of Passersthrough escaped me, I enjoyed the hell out of it and will pick up Rock's next work without hesitation. 
 

THE OTHER DR. GILMER :: Benjamin Gilmer

Holy cats. Benjamin Gilmer may be a doctor, but he could have a second career as a thriller or true crime writer, because The Other Dr. Gilmer is a barnburner. A story that, almost too bizarre to be believed on multiple levels, held me rapt from cover to cover. 

It's best to go in knowing as little as possible, because some of the links and coincidences between the two Drs. Gilmer are best when they are come across in the book and smack the reader upside the head. But a "whet your whistle" synopsis goes something like this:

Dr. Benjamin Gilmer was something of a late bloomer, a medical resident who, unlike his twenty-something classmates, was 39, married with a mortgage, one child and another on the way. He had decided on family medicine as his path and found a calling towards a rural practice. He found that at a tiny six-room clinic in Fletcher, North Carolina. After a three-year hiatus, the clinic was being reopened and desperately needed help.

Dr. Benjamin Gilmer learned that his predecessor, Dr. Vince Gilmer, had quite a story. Gilmer the second opens the book with this passage, hooking me instantly:

On June 28, 2004, in rural Appalachia, a man with my name and my profession strangled his father in the passenger seat of his Toyota Tacoma.

The morning after killing his father, Gilmer the first showed up for work as usual and saw his patients like nothing had happened. 

Benjamin Gilmer was in a tough position, coming in after Vince Gilmer (no relation) and trying to win over the patients that, UNIVERSALLY, loved their prior doctor. An upstanding member of the community, beloved by his patients, a man who, according to all reports, went above and beyond to help people and couldn't even bear to kill the mice behind the clinic. No one ever had a glimmer of what was coming.

But how? And why? Feeling the need to answer those questions, Benjamin Gilmer started investigating. Little did he know that deep dive would require all of his (and others) medical acumen, a legal battle, and end in the most unimaginable way possible.

I can't recommend The Other Dr. Gilmer highly enough. On top of a top-notch true crime mystery unfolding before your eyes, the writing of Dr. Gilmer is fabulous, keeping the story moving at a wonderful pace while keeping the complex facts, medical issues and legal process easily comprehended. This is simply one of the most amazing stories I've ever read. 

EMOTIONAL INHERITANCE :: Galit Atlas, PhD

Every individual and family hold a history of trauma. Those who study the intergenerational transmission of familial trauma investigate how the trauma of those who came before us is passed down like a gene, an "emotional inheritance," leaving its mark on us and future generations. In Emotional Inheritance, Dr. Galit Atlas describes how different traumas are held within families and impact those who are not yet even born, even if those traumas are kept secret. Fascinating, mind-blowing, and difficult to think about. 

Dr. Atlas's belief is that silenced experiences belong to everyone in our family tree and impact our ability to live up to our full potential. "They effect our mental and physical health, create gaps between what we want for ourselves and what we are able to have, and haunt us like ghosts." 

The work is broken into three sections. The first relates to our grandparents and the trauma of past generations. The second involves our parents and how those secrets and traumas are carried on to our generation, and the final section is about you and me, ourselves and how we break the cycle. 

Dr. Atlas writes in a matter-of-fact way that is not dumbed down but quite understandable by a layperson. Some ideas are wilder than others, yet when walked through some of Dr. Atlas's examples, one is left without doubt. For example, evolutionary or epigenetic changes occur when a generation (or individual) is marked by trauma. Take, for instance, the Holocaust. Research has shown that the offspring of Holocaust survivors (similarly to enslaved people, war veterans, etc...) are more likely to present with PTSD following traumatic events.

Perhaps in a "survival of the fittest"/Darwinian way, the biological changes of such trauma might be seen to prepare the children of survivors for environments such as those experienced by their ancestors. However, they also often leave them vulnerable to carrying symptoms of trauma that they didn't experience firsthand. 

By weaving the stories of her patients' narratives in with her own personal stories, Dr. Atlas helps provide a way for us to recognize some of these issues or changes within ourselves. The key is to deal with the disconnect between ideas and feelings, thus knocking down the protective walls that keep us from feeling something devastating. Of course, the walls also keeps the trauma "isolated and unprocessed." An emotional Catch-22, for sure, but one that gives new meaning to the phrase "we are only as sick as our secrets." 

Emotional Inheritance is an utterly engrossing work that will have readers thinking about their own histories, family terminologies and stories, and the trauma that shapes so many of our relationships and paths in life.   

 

SUNDIAL :: Catriona Ward

Holy cats. If you've read Catriona Ward's prior novel, The Last House on Needless Street (which I HIGHLY recommend), you know not to believe a word she writes (in the best way ever). For me, this only amped the tension up to 11 in her latest, Sundial. Although I'm not generally one for genre labels, someone called this psychological horror and I can't really quibble with that. I took a dip into the "horror" genre a couple of years ago and promptly discovered Ward and Stephen Graham Jones, who are now two authors I trust implicitly to give me creeptastic entertainment. 

Rob and her husband Irving have two daughters, Callie and Annie. The issues with this foursome are evident right away. Irving is a serial cheater with anger issues, but he's not even the most troubling aspect--elder Callie is way too into dead things and Rob fears if she doesn't get her away from the family, Annie is going to end up as one of those dead things. Yet Irving has some level of control, forcing Rob to take drastic measures.

Rob absconds with Callie to Sundial, a supremely messed up property she inherited from her parents. Rob believes the only way to deal with the darkness in Callie is to divulge her own (and the property's) dark past, then make the hardest decision of her life.

The POV changes quite a bit throughout and the twists and arcs are many. Though they feel hard to grasp, it's mostly because Ward never lets the reader in on what is real or what any character's true motivation is. Some of the chapters are actual passages from author Rob's series books, which she writes with real names and then changes. They shed murky light on some of Rob's former trauma, yet nothing clear enough to make out.

Rob also revisits the past with Callie, and the prior goings on at Sundial were less than stellar. Fold in Callie's discussions with some kind of mysterious "friend." Is the friend real? Imaginary? Who is the monster? Why is Callie saving bones of the dead and where does she get them? What hold does Irving have over Rob?

Ward is a magical writer, because I was enrapt with what was going on even though I had no idea what was really going on. All you can hope to do is hold onto enough of the pieces to put together the puzzle with as few missing pieces as possible. It was a wild, magical ride that I continued to think about for days after finishing. I found this much more complex than Needless Street and I'm very happy I read that first. It gave me a little insight into Ward's style and thus I wasn't worried about not having a clue. I knew I just had to hold on and she would take me where she wanted me to go. I will gladly get on her E-ticket rides as long as she keeps opening the gates.
 

SOMEDAY THE PLAN OF A TOWN :: Todd Boss

Following the loss of a 20-year marriage and strained relationships with his children, poet Todd Boss sold all he owned and gave up his Minneapolis apartment ("only half-facetiously writing "Trump" on the "Reason for leaving" line of the Lease Cancellation form). In that grief-stricken state, he traveled the world for two years utilizing a series of thirty housesitting gigs. In each location, he wrote. This collection of poems is a result of that trip, reflecting Todd's emotional difficulties permeated with the essence of the different locations he visited. 

This fascinatingly unique premise, along with superb cover art (which I initially thought was shipping containers and which would have been no less attractive) were all I needed to dive into the collection. It began by sucking me in with Boss's notes on his approach to the book, which was an important foundation to understanding his views. 

I was also drawn in by his summary of the saga, as he was "alternately inhabiting thatched-roof farm-houses, hillside estates, urban apartments, and lush gardens in Berlin, Barcelona, Marrakesh, Singapore, Auckland. Housesitting gigs often came complete with pets or livestock for which I was responsible. I tended sheep from a stone cabin in the Pyrenees. I minded two sleepy cats in a Tuscan villa, a coop full of unruly chickens in London, and a playful puppy on the Gold Coast of Australia."

There were some incredibly lovely moments within the collection. I especially loved the titular piece, a lyrical run-on about finding your place in the world, a dream for everyone who just doesn't feel quite right where they lay their head:

Someday the Plan of a Town--right down to its sidetracks and back alleyways--will match--or so goes the dream--with some identical patch of neural network your rogue thoughts roam in--overlay it like those musculoskeletal transparencies with which anatomy textbooks come bound--and you'll be at home in its dogleg jointwork of cobbled kinks--and your body will resound at every fork, tuning-fork-like--and every road you ever rambled will be re-scrambled to appear to have brought you here, where you fit so perfectly... (Tarifa, Andalucia, Spain)

From my perspective, the most engaging pieces described the essence of Boss's particular surroundings, taking the reader along on some portion of his trek. From Workmen Discarding a Parquet Floor, Vienna:

It's a four-handed band performing the complete works of Beethoven using only wooden castanets in incomplete sets. What once a woman danced across. What once in a sash of sun the cat snoozed afternoons upon. Un-glued, un-patterned, going, gone.

And this, from Why Empty Barber Shops Draw Me, I Don't Know:

...we want to talk when we want to talk & we want sometimes instead to sit quietly while someone touches us all about the head with the edges of a scissoring scissor & the neat teeth of a comb. Small comfort, but lucky for us, the wealthy as well as the poor, that there are a few things left in this old world we still need other people for. (Baltimore, Maryland, USA)

There are also moments that are beautifully-worded knife cuts that reflect Boss's current state. From He Divides his Time Between:

I had a married life before, in a subdivision of peace and war. 

In equal thirds my loved ones ate my heart like a festival roast.

Now my father's son is a ghost, a wisp of smoke, a metaphor.

He divides his time between nothing and much and matters and anymore. (Greenville, South Carolina, USA)

Then there were the pieces that came from what felt like a very dark place. I won't say these works ruined the collection for me, but they somehow tinged those lyrics I enjoyed with their perceived venom. For example:

Fairer The claw marks in my neck long faded, the steam of hate evaporated, attempted identity theft subverted, assets, passwords, passport converted, accusations of assault reversed, two years' court fees reimbursed, restraining orders at last elapsed, libelous campaigns collapsed, attempts to turn my friendships rotten and threats of murder and vengeance forgotten, I'm finally ready--whatever comes next--to reengage the fairer sex.

And, in Men, Then, Maybe, as Boss wonders if he couldn't love or touch a man just as generously as he has women:

Men aren't faultless, oh, I know. Now and then a prick, okay, but let's just say the "fairer" blooms I've picked so far, though lovely, are no prick-less clutch. So, men, then. Maybe. Huh. The hot mechanics may yet be a mystery, but at least I know the parts already. (Auckland, New Zealand) 

This last bit, in a vacuum, I actually love. We can all be pricks, and why are love and touch any different depending on the "mechanics?" But when taken on the heels of the Fairer, it felt more vengeful, a little "fuck women"-ish. Which Boss may be entitled to, and the hurt and disappointment are bound to come out in the words of a poet. I'm not sure why these two hit me wrong. They don't strike me as much now as I reread them as they did initially. Perhaps because we know which woman they are directed at they feel viciously one-sided when we don't know the facts. 

Overall I enjoyed this collection, but mostly so when Boss fell into the first two categories. I love a good evisceration poem, poems of honest hurt and devastation. When they delve into real personal intimate lives, I'm more likely to feel the judgment than the camaraderie.

FUNNY FARM :: Laurie Zaleski

Who doesn't love a good animal rescue story. Of course, animal rescue stories come with their share of pain, anguish, and difficult times. I still had no idea the depths of storytelling I was in for when I cracked open Laurie Zaleski's Funny Farm: My Unexpected Life with 600 Rescue Animals. Zaleski didn't start the rescue, but continued it as a labor of love for her indomitable mother, Anne McNulty, who started it accidentally, borne out of kindness and necessity. Anne McNulty may be one of the greatest people I've ever read about and Zaleski did a brilliant job of painting a full-color portrait any mother would be proud of.

Zaleski was born into wealth. Before they were thirty, her parents had three homes with a housekeeper and nanny for the kids. Her father, however, was  domineering, controlling and violent. At twenty-six, Anne McNulty took her three children and ran for their lives. With no child support or alimony, the foursome ended up living in a run-down structure (I can't even call it a house) with no electricity or functioning bathroom. 

What Anne did to create even one loving, united, warm memory of that time is nothing short of amazing. She had multiple low-paying jobs, but her main position was cleaning cages for the local animal control (you see where this is going). Despite scraping the bottom of the barrel for their own existence, Anne McNulty couldn't say no to an animal in need. 

With plenty of them, the "Funny Farm" turned into a free-range free-for-all full of assorted rejects who lived together, often in the house and on the couch. Eventually, the farm opened to the public and donations helped the family and the continued growth of the rescue.

Zaleski, "a tomboy, an ass-kicker, Tarzan and Jane rolled up into one propulsive locomotive of a girl," turned into a force of nature just like her mother. She became a successful designer and founded her own graphic design company, Art-Z Graphics, of which she is also the President and CEO. Her life goal, however, was to fulfill a promise to her mother to buy a real farm where she could retire and rescue animals full-time. Of course, in McNulty fashion, that road wasn't smooth either.

Told in alternating chapters, Zaleski weaves the tale of her family's horrific (and beautiful) past into the present, where, in 2019, the Funny Farm's 600+ denizens welcomed over 100,000 visitors from all over the world. A story of hardscrabble existence, exhausting work, ongoing terror, and the power of family, love, and the healing nature of animals, Funny Farm is a triumph. It made me want to get on the next plane to the remote Jersey Pinelands and wish I could meet and hug Anne McNulty. Laurie Zaleski's writing is smart and engaging, informal and welcoming while flowing with ease. It uplifts and drops the bottom out, over and over, until you are both in love and can't take anymore. Highly recommended. 

COMEDY COMEDY COMEDY DRAMA :: Bob Odenkirk

I've appreciated Bob Odenkirk for decades, particularly his somewhat dry charm and humor. I've also admired him for presenting, from the outside, as a kind, smart, funny family man. But he really earned my high regard when he took the Bryan Cranston path from jokester to dramatic genius: tighty whitey-wearing comedic foil Hal on Malcolm in the Middle to tighty whitey-wearing drug kingpin Walter White in Breaking Bad.  

Although Odenkirk's Saul Goodman was and is something of a comedic foil in Breaking Bad, the part was layered in drama and character, and that has only amplified within the spinoff Better Call Saul, which has provided material for electrifying dramatic performances from the entire cast.

Thus, I did the Kermit-flail when I saw Odenkirk was writing a memoir with the apt title Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama. Whether my expectations were too high or Odenkirk's admittedly stoic, mid-West "critical/skeptical" demeanor didn't translate well to the page, I admit to being somewhat disappointed. I found the tone rather tight and awkward, and at times felt Odenkirk might have been taking a humorous tone that missed the mark. I think his is a tough delivery to translate to the page. 

It also may have something to do with Odenkirk's "intention" to "identify the 'big breaks'" that set him on the right path, but also to both point to the less obvious, smaller breaks as well as his "failures." Thus the book takes on something of a toiling in the trenches mode quite often, with the added stress of Odenkirk and his wife struggling to make ends meet while raising their family. I didn't expect to laugh at every turn, or even most turns, but the writing almost felt entrenched in this painful mindset.

Of course, there are also moments of humor and beauty. Often even sad beauty, such as Odenkirk's experiences with Chris Farley. There is a ton of heart in this book and even Odenkirk paints himself as a steadfast toiler, a man who "tried just as hard at the stuff that didn't work as I did at the stuff that worked." I have high appreciation for Odenkirk as a talented sumbitch who toots the horns of others more than his own. He credits Janeane Garofolo with being the spark of the big bang that reinvented comedy and the hell of bankruptcy with softening him up. Where else do you see an award-winner crediting financial woes for some success?

I came away from Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama with an even higher level of esteem for Odenkirk. And perhaps some of the "fault" of my sense of the tone is mine, and the state of the world, and war. I will definitely revisit it, for the tale of a Hollywood great who cares more about being a nice person than fame is a rarity. Bob Odenkirk is a good man and the world needs more of those.  

TIDES :: Sara Freeman

Mara is understandably devastated when her baby is stillborn. Unable to stay put in her grief, particularly when her brother lives just downstairs with his newborn, she leaves her husband takes off to a small beach town where everyone is a stranger and she can disappear ("She could no longer live in this fixed way: with their joy  so firmly lodged beneath her grief."). 

Drinking more than she eats, sleeping where opportunities arise, Mara is intentionally slipping "into a blind spot." As her money disappears and her phone shuts down, Mara's wandering takes on a small sliver of something resembling stability, if you don't look too closely, when she notices a Help Wanted sign in the window of the town wine shop.

The shop owner, Simon, is suffering his own period of loss and instability, as his wife has taken their daughter and left town. As Simon and Mara are pulled to and fro by their lives and circumstances, any sense of loveliness is overshadowed by the feeling that any crumb of good will be washed away.

Sara Freeman's debut is wonderful in spite of, often because of, the overlying sense of doom. In that way it reminded me of Billy O'Callaghan's My Coney Island Baby, in which two lovers meet for what the reader can tell, and they, over the course of the book discover, will be the last time.

Freeman takes Mara to the depths before lifting her enough to explore her past and what brought her to her current state. The writing is often spare and restrained, more impactful and beautiful for it. Freeman's prose often requires a second or third reading just for the pure enjoyment. She has a lovely way with descriptors:

...eyebrows like tadpoles swimming lazily across her forehead.

Still hot into the evening, when the sun is a red face dipping its chin into the water.

The only visible sign of life: a sliver of moon, butcher's hook looking to grab at tender flesh.

And of course passages that allow the reader to feel the tug of grief or pull of some form of recovery, the ongoing tug of war inside Mara:

She is seventeen or forty-seven or somewhere in between. She is the walking dead: the child inside her floating dangerously near the surface, gasping its final breath.

They remind her of childhood, when the world seemed to dangle from a string and adults moved around with their scissors, cutting on a whim.

At her core, in this moment in time, Mara firmly believes that "to hope is to lose." Although a shell of herself, filled with grief and absent hope or caring what befalls her, Mara also radiates a form of strength. Perhaps simply because she's still moving, making even tenuous connections, after the loss she has suffered. Where the tide will take her or shake into or out of her next is a mystery.

Sometimes she wonders what might have happened if she'd been born less flawed, if she'd turned, on occasion, right instead of left. Maybe then she'd be more like [her brother], not a bay stripped bare by the tides, all the scum and rocks and dented plastic bottles on hideous display.

I adored Freeman's writing and her creation of Mara and can't recommend them highly enough. Plus this cover is simply gorgeous. If I were one to do star ratings, Tides would get all the stars.

TWO-CENT TUESDAY

Below are a few (somewhat) brief $.02 opinions about books I've read or listened to recently but don't have the opportunity to review in full. Many of these titles I enjoyed as much or more than those that got the full court press. I hope you'll consider one or two for your own TBR stack if they strike your fancy whether they struck mine or not. 

The Accomplice, Lisa Lutz

When I see the brilliant Liza Lutz is coming out with a new title, I don't need to know anything about plot before getting myself a copy. I know I'll get three things--smart, funny, and whiskey. The Accomplice is a time-shifting story about two unlikely friends, Luna and Owen, who meet in college when Owen somehow charms his way through Luna's insular caution. Years later, the pair remains best friends, but a death from their college years comes back to haunt them when Owen's wife is found murdered. Why do murders seem to follow these two around? And how well do they really know each other? Lutz's books are always steeped in the character work she does so well, and this look into an intimate, long-shared history, wrapped in multiple mysteries, is another masterful work.

Devil House, John Darnielle

If there's one thing I'm sure of in this life, it's that John Darnielle is something of a mad genius and he's so much smarter than me I can only hope to hang on 'til he's done weaving his magic. Devil House is a crazypants load of fun on multiple levels, some of which escaped me but did nothing to lessen my enjoyment. Author Gage Chandler writes true crime, and while he's had success, he can't turn down the offer to write about a grisly murder scene while living in the Milpitas, Ca., house where the crime took place. While Chandler dives into the story and researches the facts, the POV and timeframe change, revisiting other crimes Chandler wrote about and, well, other spoilery things. While there is a short section in the middle about a medieval king I never quite figured out, the fact of it is fascinating. This book screams for a discussion group, particularly where it comes to the wider themes of true crime writing and the ethics and morality of writing about the lives of real people suffering from tragedy. Layers upon layers make this a puzzle, but a creative and satisfying read no matter how much of the onion you can unwrap. 

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett, Annie Lyons

I'm not sure how this book made it onto my list, and a book about an elderly woman who is done with life and wants to die might not be the most recommended read when your elderly mom is dying, but man did I love this book. Eudora is 85 and tired of life and wants to leave this moronic world on her own terms. She calls a clinic in Switzerland to begin the euthanasia process. Then the whirling, oddly-clothed dervish that is 10-year-old Rose Trewidney moves in next door and won't take Eudora's hints that she wants to be left alone. Soon she, Rose and recently-widowed neighbor Stanley are off on adventures Eudora gets sucked into despite her wishes and best of intentions. As Eudora begins to see the world through Rose's eyes, she revisits the tragedies of her childhood and begins to see her way through the pain. I rarely read books over again (too many new ones!), but this is a book I can see myself reading over and over. If my mom were alive, I would give it to her with the knowledge she would also read it over and over. I hope you will give it a chance and come away with the same love for these characters.

The Storyteller, Dave Grohl

Speaking of love, I don't really listen to Nirvana or Foo Fighters with any regularity, but I adore Dave Grohl with the heat of 1,000,000 suns. I might have even squeed (I am not a squeer) when I saw this book was coming out and crossed my appendages it would be on audio and Dave would read it. Wish granted. And it is glorious. He is, simply, one of the coolest humans on the planet. We don't deserve dogs or Dave Grohl. I saw a funny meme that said, "Everyone should stop comparing Dave Grohl to Jesus. He's great and all that, but he's no Dave Grohl." 

TWO-CENT TUESDAY

Below are a few (somewhat) brief $.02 opinions about books I've read or listened to recently but don't have the opportunity to review in full. Many of these titles I enjoyed as much or more than those that got the full court press. I hope you'll consider one or two for your own TBR stack if they strike your fancy whether they struck mine or not.

1414°, Paul Bradley Carr

I liked this book so much I actually spent an embarrassing amount of time figuring out how to insert the degree character in Blogger. I loved this cover when I first saw it, but since it screamed "TECHNOLOGY" at me I did read a brief synopsis before I jumped. And boy did I jump. Silicon Valley journalist Lou McCarthy has spent her young career exposing sexual predators in the tech world. Following a publishing disaster, she's out on her ass, but her mission lives on. 

As powerful men start to die, Lou finds herself partnered up with other wickedly smart women to figure out what's going on and how to take down the patriarchy. If you're not into techno-thrillers, don't fear 1414. Even I understood the tech and while it is part of the story it's not THE story. This is a daring and fast-paced story full of fantastic characters, written by a man who has spent a good portion of his career covering the dark side of Silicon Valley. My fingers are crossed for a related book focusing on Lou's mom and her protective, gun-toting pal Carol, who helped Lou face off with the social media trolls. Carr's writing is engaging and a lot of fun, which we could all use more of these days.   

Hollywood Eden, Joel Selvin

A look back at the music of Southern California in the Fifties and Sixties and the beginnings of such groups as Jan & Dean and The Beach Boys and single artists Nancy Sinatra and (forewarned) Phil Spector. This was music I listened to as a kid, so I was excited to be transported back to those days. This book is well-written (and well-reviewed) and obviously diligently researched, but for me it suffered a bit for that. Rather than soaked in the feeling of the times, I felt distracted by the minutiae, like how many credits someone was taking in junior college. I started out reading and ended up listening to the audio, but never really connected. 

Then again, the thing I found most interesting was a historical fact I didn't know--That the elder Nancy Sinatra not only had her own abortion during a time she and Frank were separated, but also arranged for "Little" Nancy to have one. I was really surprised and proud of "Big" Nancy for this. Granted, I'm sure being white and rich played into it, but they were also in the public eye, which you would think would play the opposite way. In any event, I was happy to learn this fact and now have a great respect for Nancy Sr. (This is too short a review to wonder why Mrs. Sinatra is "Big" Nancy, while son Frank got to be a Junior, but there you have it.)

We Are Not Like Them, 

Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

Pride (who is Black) and Piazza (who is white) have crammed so many social and racial issues into this book that I'm frankly amazed and impressed it didn't dissolve into something confusing and preachy. 

A hot button premise, they have taken two lifelong best friends, one white, one Black, and thrown them into a horrific situation and let the emotions fly. Jen is white, pregnant with her first baby, and married to a white cop. Riley is a television journalist on the precipice of becoming the first Black anchor in Philadelphia. 

The book opens as a young Black boy is shot by a cop. Jen's husband was involved in the shooting. This side alone could be and has been the premise of a book. But throw in Jen's close-as-sisters relationship with Riley, who is covering the story, and you get real world, friendship, family, career, media, community issues circling the tragedy and changing as things progress. It's a fascinating, sad, emotional, and educational process, and Pride and Piazza handle the whole thing brilliantly. There are no clear-cut issues (other than that Black people, especially Black men, are killed by law enforcement at scary proportions) and thus no right or wrong answers proposed by Pride and Piazza. No answers at all, really. Just people struggling to do the right thing on many fronts in the face of a divisive tragedy. Highly recommended. 

Nanny Needed, Georgina Cross

What made this whackadoodle book extra fun is that I read it with Gretchen Beetner for an ongoing She Said/She Said segment on the great book podcast Writer Types (available at most popular podcast sites), hosted by author Eric Beetner. Each month we would pick from a group of titles Eric had from various publishers and picked one to read and discuss. We both got a huge entertainment jolt from Nanny Needed.

Sarah and her fiance are struggling to make ends meet in New York, particularly when she is saddled with the medical debt she incurred taking care of the aunt who raised her. So when she sees a job posting in the lobby of their building she can't but be intrigued: "Nanny needed. Discretion is of the utmost importance. Special conditions apply." The exclusive address tells Sarah this job may be her way out. Unfortunately, it's also her way into a family that has all kinds of "special" secrets. A fun read that will keep your head spinning. 

POETRY AND VERSE

As I continue to dive into poetry, lead only by an uneducated poetry brain and my well-tuned cover gut, it's amazing how often I hit on work I connect with, in whole or in large part. I say this not because of any lack of "worthwhile" poetry, but the exact opposite problem - we are surrounded by a heavenly wealth of authors of all backgrounds writing fantastic things. 

The problem is, as always, mine. Poetry is the hardest thing for me to read. I would guess it is one of the harder forms to write. So I don't always get the connections or see/understand the symbolism. But I also rarely pick up a collection that doesn't teach me SOMETHING. Maybe if I collect enough golden nuggets my reading ability will be honed. A girl can dream. The three titles in this post ran the gamut in form and substance and also hit the spectrum of how much I could connect.

Me (Moth), Amber McBride

I had not heard of this work when a trusted book friend went nuts over it and highly recommended it to me. It was my first read of 2022 and all I can say is "WOW." Starting the year with your socks blown off is pretty fantastic. 

Two summers ago our car broke in half like a candy bar on the freeway & we all spilled onto the pavement as crumbled as sticky caramel-peanut filling.

Black teenager Moth lost her entire nuclear family in a bad accident. Who is she now, without her family to define her? Where she previously found solace in dance, to do so now feels too joyful and greedy. Moth is struggling with her identity and grief, feeling alone and uprooted. One day she meets a Navajo boy named Sani, from a differently-fractured family but also struggling with depression and uprootedness.

Sani and Moth set out on a road trip out West, technically to his father's home on the reservation, but in reality a zigzagging tour to find themselves and save the other. McBride's verse is gold that shines so brightly you need to sit with eyes shut and reflect on it. She sucks you in and grabs your guts and twists the story into something that both breaks your heart and fixes you. For grades 8 and up, this book is and should be for everyone. I don't do ratings, but this one gets every star in the universe.

I Must Belong Somewhere, 

Dawn Lanuza
   

Every once in a while she is convinced that she doesn't belong here anymore.

Yet she doesn't know where she should be just yet. 

She finds herself where she is because she doesn't know where else to be.

 

These first lines in the second piece very much hit home (or someplace home is waiting) for me. A lovely yet inquiring collection that deals with themes of longing, loneliness, home, exploration, suicide (and living with someone who is suicidal - "I've never read your suicide letters. I've lived with them instead."), surviving v. living, and various other branches that spring from these thoughts. From a few lines to a page, each packs a personal, thoughtful wallop. 

Beautifully done, I highly recommend this collection for anyone who wonders or searches for SOMETHING - love, connection, meaning. The end of the piece quoted above is where I felt the poems connected, even though it's the second in order:

Sometimes, when she's in a new place, wandering and learning its streets, she just hears herself sighing, I must belong somewhere.

She hasn't found it yet, 

but she hasn't given up on the idea of it.

Coffin Honey, Todd Davis

This cover is a work of art and I could not turn away. I also assumed (which is much of the cover gut operation) this collection would be steeped in nature, which it was. It was also a collection that, while quite patently excellent, was over my head a bit. Even when I don't "get" poetry, there are always lines/passages that resonate, oftentimes quite deeply. This bit, for example, about virus-ridden deer victims of the automobile:

The pastor of grief and dreams waves them into the road, a suicidal gospel written on warm macadam.

Davis's nature is not all about beauty, and he writes the brutal side, human and animal, with prose that is lovely but doesn't mask the horror. A hunt, pedophilia, lynching, death, racism, immigration, man's destruction of the natural world--all laid bare without apology for the monsters we can be.

[W]ithout any shame, we construct machines that make a mountain disappear, no regard for the memory or souls of trees.

 

                                                    *  *  *

White men stole black bodies to chain below deck, the only light seeping in where chinking failed. Unlike them, Ursus learned to share the one soul the world gives freely.

If only men could see the beauty without museums, the dismemberment, the displays of paws, claws and eyes outside of sockets, bodies stuffed and set on wired legs, caricatures of the real thing. 

END OF YEAR THRILLS

As we close out 2021 and head into another abyss, for some reason it's beginning to feel as though I'm getting my reading legs back. To that end, I immediately jumped into my backlist to hit a book from Ryan Gattis I have been really excited about, and a couple of raves from the book tribe, one of which panned out greatly, the other simply panned.

The System, Ryan Gattis

Gattis's All Involved was so fantastic I was anxiously awaiting his next work. Which, sadly, had been languishing while I get my brain back, but wow was the wait worth it. Written in the same real-time format as All Involved, The System unsurprisingly delves into our justice and penal systems. When a gang hit goes down, an addict witness, the dropped weapon, a predatory parole officer and the young man who lives with the beautiful woman the officer covets all combine to allow Gattis to display the power (and misuse thereof) and grind of the system. Gattis utilizes his characters to pointedly show what happens when a power vacuum occurs on the outside while the guilty and innocent sit inside, and the system the incarcerated are forced to quickly learn in order to survive and/or thrive.  Tense and fast-paced, Gattis has another winner that educates without preaching. 

I Am Not Who You Think I Am, Eric Rickstad

I have seen Rickstad's name quite a bit and have admittedly whiffed on reading his work, because if this piece is any indication, he's a highly entertaining thriller writer. I listed to this title on audio and my walks got longer and longer because I didn't want to stop listening. The format was also quite clever - someone has written a letter to the Vermont authorities and once they check it out, they release it to their community. The story (through the note) is told by Wayland Maynard who, at 8 years old, saw his father commit suicide. He also found a note in his father's writing which said "I am not who you think I am."

At age 16, Wayland is still troubled by his father's death and comes to believe the man he saw shoot himself that day was not his father. As he investigates, sometimes with the help of friends, Wayland begins to uncover family lore that no one is expecting or prepared for. Rickstad keeps the pace up and surprises coming and while we are all rooting for Wayland, his hands are also not clean by the end of his journey. It's a tense ride with wonderful Gothic undertones. There is certainly an awesome creep factor to the investigation and the history behind it. 

No One Will Miss Her, Kat Rosenfield

I usually don't post mostly-negative reviews, but this one made me mad. The cover caught my eye, and then I was swayed by word-of-mouth raves and a starred trade review. I must have read a different book. The plot was interesting and the writing engaging. My problem is the entire plot hingeing on stupidity. Stupidity to the extent that I couldn't write it off for the sake of story. Using Gorilla gluing to attach body parts to fool the authorities, who were (apparently) too stupid to catch it and also too stupid to do DNA tests at a murder scene. Maybe I'm too much of a stickler, but I couldn't get past it.