Good Week for Trilogies!

 

    Here is my review of the first book in the trilogy, A City of Brass.

 https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2023/04/i-start-another-good-trilogy-mistake.html

    The middle is the most challenging book to pull off in a trilogy. The author has to move the plot forward, solve enough of the conflict to feel satisfying, but keep enough mystery to bring people back for the final book. The characters created in the first book must retain their essence, but also evolve. The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty is fairly successful. My biggest disappointment is how it ends on a cliffhanger, and I still have ten weeks until the final book is available to borrow! But at least it's out there, and I may get it sooner. 

🤞

    Chakraborty made the bold choice to move five years into the future, and I liked it. The characters had gained experience and skills. It made sense. Chakraborty uses Middle Eastern folktales and myths as the scaffolding for her tale. This gives her book a blended feel of mystique and reality. The engine driving the plot is a love triangle between Nahri, Prince Ali, and a Djinn named Dara. Chakraborty continues the tension skillfully, and even though the book is long--532 pages--it goes quickly. 

🐫🧞‍♀️🏝️🧞🐪

Here are my reviews of the first two The Cursebreakers series books:

A Curse So Dark and Lonely beauty-and-beast-retold-and-ancient.html

 A Heart So Fierce and Broken  lots-of-villainy-villains.html

    The second hardest book of a trilogy is the final one. I have invested hours, literally, into the characters and story, and I want a rewarding ending! A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer mostly delivers. I perused some reviews, and not everyone agrees with me. Kemmerer is excellent at plotting and unanticipated twists. She explores the psychology behind her main characters, Rhen, Harper, Grey, and Lia Mara deeply, but doesn't sacrifice action. Harper questions staying with a man who can have a friend whipped for information. Rhen feels like a poster child for the aphorism, hurt people, hurt people. Lia Mara wants to not be like her mother, but doesn't know how to be strong and kind. Grey lacks flaws other than he needs to trust himself. I wonder if Kemmerer has a therapist in her life that she bounces ideas off of. It makes sense that Harper is examining things through the lens of 21st-century sensibilities, but the others have grown up with different influences. I like that the ending wasn't everything solved, and they all lived happily ever after. It felt genuine to the characters.

👸👑🪄👑🤴

Not Sure How to Classify this Book: Not Biography, Not Theology, but Contains Both

 

    I don't think of myself as a fangirl for anyone in pop culture, but when I play the icebreaker game, what three people living or dead, would like to have dinner with, I always choose Tim Keller (Malcolm Gladwell and Ruth Bader Ginsberg). He is a former minister of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, author of many books, and an Evangelical icon. I have a bachelor's degree in Bible. I didn't learn Greek or Hebrew; I focused on theology--the study of God and beliefs. At the bachelor's level, the goal is to systematically study significant doctrines (Christology, the Bible, Trinity, etc.) and how they came to be codified historically. The goals are exposure, research, clarification, and communication. My theological education has taught me that there's a lot I don't know. So many have thought and written about theology for centuries. Deciding what voices to invest time and effort into can be difficult. I appreciate Tim Keller's thoughtfulness, kindness, and ability to make esoteric topics approachable. I have read many of his books --I highly recommend The Reason for God--and listened to his sermons. 

    In conversations about spiritual things, I often start, "Well, Tim Keller says . . ." 

    So much so that one of my daughters replies, "All hail, Pope Keller!"

    Having consumed much theology through the lens of Tim Keller, I was eager to read Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen. I enjoyed a peek under the hood of his life and who influenced his beliefs. Things I learned: he is super intelligent and well-read, his wife, Kathy, is wicked smart and fierce, he favors Puritan writers, he is widely read concerning culture, and he respects others' beliefs and treats them--people and their beliefs--with honor, he has a heart for helping others understand culture and Christianity. Hansen also lightly traces a history of Evangelicalism. The book is well-organized and engaging. I listened to the audio version read by the author, and that format would have benefitted from a more experienced narrator. 

    I don't know if this book would appeal to anyone unfamiliar with Tim Keller, but I found it worthwhile--instructive, inspiring, and encouraging.

📚⛪💡⛪📚

Romance, Mystery, and, Perhaps, the Best Book of the Year

 

    Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld is a sparkly, clever, funny book. It subverts the idea of the average guy ending up with a hot woman (think Colin Jost/Scarlett Johansson) by introducing the average woman/hot guy twist. The protagonist writes for a weekly live comedy show, not Saturday Night Live, modeled after SNL. Even though, like most romance novels, there is a predictable ending, the interest is in how the author gets from meet-cute to happy-ending. Sittenfeld does it well. 

❤️💖💞📺💞💖❤️

    Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear is my book club's choice for May. I appreciate many things: a strong female protagonist, a historical setting, a hint of romance, and an award winner; however, I found it tedious. As I've analyzed why, I think the characters are too black and white. Maise is a brilliant female from the working class. She works as a maid and is discovered reading in the library late one night. This leads to her receiving a private education and going to Oxford. World War I intervenes, and she becomes a nurse at the front. All these events contribute to her becoming a psychiatrist and private investigator. It is the first book in a series, so there is a lot of backstory to upload. In the book, Maisie's history feels more interesting than the mystery she is hired to solve. 

🔎🔍

,

I know Dani Shapiro from her memoir, Inheritance, about discovering through genetic tests that her father was not her birth father. Signal Fires is the first of her fiction that I've read. It was one of the best books I've read this year. It is a tender, insightful story of neighbors in Avalon, New York. The central family is Ben, a surgeon, and his wife, Mimi. One hot summer night, their two teenagers and a friend make a poor choice. It changes them forever. It moves them apart and binds them together. I'm not describing this book well, but it knocked my socks off, made me weep, and left me hopeful. 

🌳✨🌌✨🌳

I Start Another Good Trilogy--Mistake

    Of the many personalities that inhabit my brain, today I'm angry at the one that started me reading this captivating fantasy, The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. I've had this best-selling book reserved for a while, but I was intimidated by its length: 532 pages or 20 hours on audio. Finally, I succumbed, and I'm glad I did. A scrappy woman, Nahri, from the streets of Cairo, navigates a complex, hostile world. However, she's more than what she seems. Using her previously unknown magical ability, she accidentally summons a fierce Djinn, who takes her to a magical city of brass where she is hailed as a fabled healer. I'm hooked! About two-thirds of the way through the story, I wondered how Chakraborty could resolve all the story threads in the time she had left? The intricate plot is told from various points of view, each voicing its own problems and insights. Answer: she can't; it's part of a trilogy. I put the second book on hold, and it might become available in the next six to ten weeks.

 

    I need a break from trilogies or switch to only reading uninteresting ones, making me not want to continue. Hmmm.

🐊🧞‍♂️🧞🧞‍♀️🏝️

 

    I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy kept popping up in my recommendations. The title is provocative, but it didn't look like a trilogy, so I read it. It is a memoir by a child actor about her toxic, narcissistic mom. If you are triggered by abuse, this book is not for you. McCurdy showed that personal growth is not linear and takes time and support, especially in her struggle with eating disorders. McCurdy writes believably in the voice of her younger self. Depictions of her insights, moments where she sees things realistically, are earned and moving. McCurdy shares explicitly about her life. I could have been satisfied with fewer descriptions of destructive sex. However, McCurdy's memoir was ultimately hopeful. I wish better things for her. 

                                                                    👩‍👧👩☠️🤮

                                                

    I read Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson in a day. One reason it's short, under two hundred pages; another reason is it's so stinking good, and lastly, it's about being a teen in the 1970s. I was a teen in the 70s, and the music she references, and the emotions it stirred felt familiar. In the present day, August returns to Brooklyn for her father's funeral and accidentally sees a former teenage friend on the subway. She's pulled back into her life growing up in Brooklyn with her four girlfriends. It was rough with White Flight, prostitutes, drug users, and poverty. There are many adjectives to describe Another Brooklyn: complex, dense, poetic, and tragic. August is fighting grief and loss with denial. She is caught between being sexually exploited and also having sexual desire. There is a lot packed into this verbally economical, powerful book.

                                                                            🗽🚇❤️‍🔥

Revisiting The Paris Apartment

 

    This is a strange reading week because I only read one book, and it was a reread. I'm not big on rereading: too many books, too little time! 

    I read The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley last summer and liked it so much that I included it in my book club's Year of Mystery. Last month we read Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. An interview with Foley said that reading Christie influenced her mystery writing. lucy-foley I can see similarities: artful red herrings, multiple suspects, and a locked room, or this case apartment building. Foley keeps the situation tense, and even though I'd already read the book before, I didn't remember exactly how it all turned out. It was a good read a second time as well. Foley has a vibe of nothing is as it seems: the good guys are the bad guys, the loser barmaid is a fierce defender of the weak, and a fancy apartment doesn't mean a good life. It kept me guessing, even the second time. 

Most of what I think about Paris is from romantic movies about falling in love in a Paris springtime. This is the upside-down Paris. I don't think the Eiffel Tower is ever mentioned. 

Here is a link to my previous review:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2022/06/mystery-firefighters-and-time-travel.html

🔎🕵️🔍

Lots of Villainy Villains

 

    Babel: An Acrcan History by R. F. Kuang is a robust and powerful story of an orphan rescued from poverty in China. Robin is privileged to be brought up in London and has the unprecedented opportunity to attend Babel College in Oxford. Babel is a historical fantasy novel. This book interacts with many big ideas: translation, empire, colonialism, student revolt, assimilation, and alienation. The main character Robin Swift speaks Chinese and English fluently. His guardian formed Robin to discover word pairs between the languages that will generate magic when etched on a silver bar. Kuang has deep knowledge of multiple languages and Chinese/British history. She is sharp in her assessments of the motives of why Empires conquer and how they exploit those under their "protection." Robin's father uses him villainously by refusing to acknowledge his son, cruelly exploiting him, while demanding his fealty. Robin is a living metaphor for British/Chinese relations. He is continually told how grateful he should be for the favor that allowed him to live in England while, at the same time facing abuse and discrimination from those very people. Where does Robin's heart lie? With England or with China? Which side deserves his loyalty? This reminds me a bit of the Galatic Empire series by Isaac Asimov, proving again my theory that science fiction can be a tool to consider hard facts. 

    When I say this book is educational, please don't think dry or dull. It is full of tension and conflict. Kuang fearlessly raises the stakes repeatedly, but she also invests the reader in the characters. I wanted to understand the different forces at work and know Robin's "right" choice. It made for an excellent, but painful read because the oppressors don't always lose, and the underdog isn't always triumphant. 

    Babel might become a literary classic taught in Modern English classes if it isn't already.

    Here is an excellent review: babel-by-rf-kuang-review-an-ingenious-fantasy-about-empire

☕️🫖⾈🚢🜛

     

    Last week I read the first in the Cursebreakers series, A Heart So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer. Link here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2023/03/beauty-and-beast-retold-and-ancient.html

This week I read #2, A Heart So Fierce and Broken. Kemmerer did an excellent job with the middle book of the trilogy. It takes a skilled writer to have the second book be satisfying and also set up the final book well. 

    The angriest I've ever been at the middle of a trilogy was Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (the second Star Wars to be released). The movie left too many things unresolved, and it would be years before the final film dropped. It was 1981, and I was on a date with my college boyfriend. I yelled out my betrayal of a gratifying ending in the movie theater's parking lot. I'm not sure what my boyfriend remembers of that night, but we did get married. So, that story ended well.

😍

    A Heart So Fierce and Broken pivots from Prince Rhen and Harper to his faithful guardsman, Grey. Grey carries the burden of a terrible secret that ruptures his relationship with Prince Rhen. He flees with a small company seeking safety. Among his companions is a rejected princess, Lia Mara, of a rival kingdom ruled by Queen Karis Luran, who we met in book #1. Kemmerer imagines a land ruled by females, instead of males. It is a good twist. Succession is appointed by the queen instead of inherited. Like the first book, it has good characters, and even though it's fantasy, they feel authentic, except for the female villains. The queen, Karis Luran, and Lilith the Enchantress are both abominable evil--viciously enjoying hurting and killing others. I could see one villain like that, but two? And both females? 

    I look forward to book three and wonder how Kemmerer will land this story. Is she a happy-ever-after writer? I hope so!

🦹‍♀️ 👹😈

Beauty and the Beast Retold and Ancient Roman Crime Fiction

  I'm excited to read A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer because I like a retelling of fairy tales, and she lives close to me. A friend of mine goes to the same gym as Brigid as is her friend. It's like we're athletic best friends. 😉

Also exciting is this is a terrific adaption of Beauty and the Beast. There is a time travel element. A girl from now is inadvertently captured and taken to a magical land called Emberfall with a castle and a handsome, arrogant prince with a dark secret. Kemmerer writes lots of action and twists, but also explores themes like disabilities, true love, and doing good: harmful or helpful. Her characters are vivid and believable. A downside of the book is that it is part of a trilogy, Cursebreaker, so only some things are resolved. Fortunately, all three books are out. I only have to wait for my library holds to arrive. Why does the third trilogy book always become available before the second? Not fair. 

🧌🐉🤴👑

 

  Lindsey Davis is one of my favorite mystery writers. Her stories take place in Ancient Rome. She has about twenty novels with informer (think private detective) Didius Falco and a newer series where Falco's adopted daughter, Flavia Albia, has become an informer herself after her dad retires. Davis has won scads of awards for her historical mysteries, which are amazingly fun to read. After many, many years of reading them, I sometimes get lost in the reoccurring characters, but she has a list at the start of each book with brief descriptions. The Third Nero is book #5 in the Flavia Albia series. I have always been satisfied by a Linsey Davis book. She's humorous and engaging, with lots of red herrings and goofy characters. Davis knows her craft and makes Roman history come alive. If you're ever in a place where you need to lay around and read all day, she's a good choice.

🏛️🏺🗡️

Seeking Human Connection 🫶 ❣️

 

    Wired for Love: A Neuroscientist's Journey Through Romance, Loss, and the Essence of Human Connection was a strange blend of neuroscience, self-help, and memoir. I heard it recommended on a favorite podcast--Marriage Therapy Radio--and picked it up. The author, Stephanie Cacioppo studied romantic connection and what happens to and in the brain when we are in love. Mirror neurons are important.

    The book is engaging and readable, but also challenging. Cacioppo's own love story feels unexplored. She doesn't include conflicts or problems, and says several times that everyone envied her and husband's relationship. She may be correct, but I'm sceptical. 

I'm glad to have read the book and I am challenged to love well and seek connection. I like that she gives practical steps of care. I give it four hearts out of five.

❤️🧠❤️🧠❤️🧠❤️

Here is a video of Stephanie Cacioppo discussing her work: watch

Here is a quote from the book summarizing her recommendations:

“G-R-A-C-E, GRACE, is an acronym for how an individual can take care of their social b"dy, even during periods of isolation, when the love network is powered down and we are particularly susceptible to the dangers of loneliness. GRACE stands for gratitude, reciprocity, altruism, choice, and enjoyment.” 
― Stephanie Cacioppo, Wired for Love: A Neuroscientist's Journey Through Romance, L"ss, and the Essence of Human Connection

  Undefended Love by Jett Psaris, PH.D. and Marlena S. Lyons, PH.D. was recommended to me by a therapist. We had often talked about how do people effect change within themselves and as a couple. This book fits well with Brené Brown's advocacy of embracing vulnerability. It draws from actual couple interactions. This makes change feel possible. I read this book over several months a bit at a time. It gives much information, examples, and exercise. I think it will have a lasting impact on how I interact with others and the story I tell myself about relationships. 

    The book has a Bhuddist view of the world that I don't share, but it contained well thought out, helpful information. It is hard to find, but worth reading.

🥰🤓

    After reading two books on connecting, I would like to feel I've solved THAT problem, but because I'm ever changing and so are the people I love, I constantly need to update my skills. My internal relationship GPS will never coo, "You have arrived." I find it helpful to keep trying to love better and with more understanding because people, especially Dear Husband, are worth the effort and struggle. We fight on!

🧜‍♀️❣️ 🐢

A Mystery Week! Win!

 

    Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke is the recently released sequel to Bluebird, Bluebird. It is excellent. The situation is critical. A child is missing. This child is the son of an inmate from the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT). The ABT leader begs Darren to find his son, Levi. In the last six months, Darren Matthews has worked to get his life under control--marriage counseling, avoiding alcohol, working a desk--and life is going better, but then (surprise!) events take a turn for the worst. Locke knows how to create a flawed character that I root for and groan in pain when Darren mudslides down into a slough of poor choices. He is not only fighting himself, but also others who want to exploit him. Texas history creates a dilemma for a small Texas town where former Confederates and former slaves live side by side and where Levi is missing.

    As a mystery, this book, and series, is dark, complex, and brooding. It reminds me of the gritty, can't-catch-a-break detectives of the 40s, but with more depth. 

    How many books does Locke have planned? I don't know how much more Darren and I can take!

🏠🏚️🏠🏚️🏠

    I am rereading Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie for Book Club. So shout out to the Bookies! Agatha Christie wrote sixty-six crime novels plus several romance books under a pseudynm, and the longest ever running play, Mousetrap. This book was originally published in 1934, so Christie books have staying power. 

    I've been researching to sound smart at book club. Can you tell?

    Christie is a genius at crime novels and this is probably the best of the best. I have read it several times, but I'm never bored. It has great characters, if a little stereo-typed in their European nationalities. A fast-paced plot that utilizes its train setting excellently.

    Before we were married, my future husband and I watched the 1974 movie. I had already seen it and been blown away by the ending. I wasn't even close to solving it and wanted to test my future spouse's intelligence. My husband-to-be figured it out! Keeper.

🚂🔎

Moms and Food

 

    I am late to the party with Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal. This book is stellar. It is the fictional story of famous chef Eva Thorvald. Each chapter is narrated by a different person, and each chapter circles a food, specifically a midwestern food like Lutefisk and Venison. Everyone's story contains tragedies and triumphs. Stradal captures the voice of the different narrators by revealing a sliver of their life as it intersects with Eva's. She does narrate one chapter but is seen through others' eyes. It made me curious to know more about her. There is a strong theme of the relationship between mothers and children shown from different angles, giving the book gravitas in the face of foodie culture. 

🌽🌶️👩‍🍳

Teenagers in Love ❤️💔❣️

 

Spoilers Ahead!

    Of the Simon Snow series by Rainbow Rowell, Anyway the Wind Blows felt the weakest. The two romantic leads are together and working out their relationship without having good tools or models. This is a common theme throughout the series. How do I vampire? How do I adult? How do I be gay? I like how Rowell wrestles with these issues all through the series. As Simon and Baz's relationship levels up, their issue is intimacy expressed through the sexual piece of their relationship. It didn't feel credible. These two isolated, damaged young men who lost their mothers at a young age need more than good sex to heal emotionally and mentally. For a modern novel aimed at young adults, I think it needed more emphasis on self-acceptance, not as a homosexual or vampire or non-magical, but as authentic, worthy of honor and love as a person, not a category. 

🧛🏻‍♂️🧛🏻‍♂️👹🐉🐉

    I was on a plane this week trying to sleep, and that's why I was listening to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Not because it's boring, but because it is so familiar and comforting. The main characters grow up and take responsibility for their actions. Hubba, hubba! Austen has a plot line with insurmountable roadblocks: the guy who is interested in me is secretly engaged, we have no income, and people are silly and selfish. Her storyline isn't Save the Universe, but in Elinor and Marianne (teenagers!), who, even though they're treated less than honorablily by their male love interests, respond with resilience and tenacity. It feels genuine. The snarky observations by Elinor crack me up. A remark over a hundred years old that makes me snort is a witty remark. Elinor is a sharp observer of life around her and navigates adversity in drawing rooms and ballrooms with aplomb. I get caught up in the story and wonder will Marianee grow up? Will Elinor rise above the pettiness of her brother and sister-in-law? I'm captivated till the end once again.

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹