fiction

May in Review

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I read 15 books last month, which has become about an average number for me since I started listening to audiobooks more. On the other hand, that number includes a few more really short books than normal, so maybe it should have been higher. Going into June, our church’s Vacation Bible School, for which I am director, is in a few weeks. My reading always takes a hit around this time.

Here are the books I read in May:

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson (3 / 5)
Illusion by Frank E. Peretti (5 / 5)
Shepherds & Kings by Christina Minoli (4 / 5)
In This Bright Future by Peter Grainger (4.5 / 5)
The Smartest Kid in the Universe by Chris Grabenstein (4 / 5)
Second Time Around by Nancy Moser (4 / 5)
Santa’s Little Yelpers by David Rosenfelt (5 / 5)
Mandie and the Trunk’s Secret by Lois Gladys Leppard
A Most Peculiar Providence by Angela Elwell Hunt (2.5 / 5)
Toofer & The Giblet by Paulette LeBlanc (4.5 / 5)
The Librarian of Boone’s Hollow by Kim Vogel Sawyer (5 / 5)
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken (4 / 5)
The First Measure by Keith Gregor (2 / 5)
Winter by Marissa Meyer (4 / 5)
Lily Tripp: Diary of an Accidental Time Traveler by Amelia Tait (4 / 5)

This list includes 3 ARC and 4 re-reads. My favorite book from May (that wasn’t a re-read) was In This Bright Future. I started 2 series, continued 3 series, and finished 2 series. My ever-changing short list of to-be-reads, as well as a flag for the book I’m currently reading and an ongoing list of those I’ve read and posted about can be found here.

I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads. Despite my almost too-long TBR list, I’m always looking for more to add. Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites or just recent reads you enjoyed.

Book Review: Winter

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Winter
The Lunar Chronicles #4
by Marissa Meyer
read by Rebecca Soler

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with Cinder.

Winter may be a princess, but she is still very much under the thumb of her stepmother, Queen Levana of Luna. Cinder and her friends from Earth are on a mission to stop Levana from marrying Emperor Kaito of the Eastern Commonwealth and gaining a foothold on Earth. Winter may be able to be of help to them, if only she can keep a handle on her hallucinations.

This book is both Winter’s fairy-tale retelling of Snow White and the conclusion to the story that started all the way back with Cinder. That makes it a sort of culmination of the Cinderella retelling in the first book as well. And because each book introduces a female protagonist and a male romantic counterpart, everything coming together in this book felt a little too repetitive to me. Their overall stories were different, but 4 romances resolving not too far apart was a bit much for me. Though to be fair, a couple of these romances were at least partially resolved before the end of this book, so it could have been worse. And I don’t mean to say that I didn’t enjoy the book. I really liked the way the main plots played out, the threads from previous books that Meyer weaved together in this final installment. After several books talking about the moon colony, getting to go there in this book added a new, exciting dimension. I like that Meyer explored so many different facets of that world.

At times, it seemed as though so many characters/pairs of characters got to be a bit too much for the author, too difficult to make sure they all had their own distinct personalities. For example, when Thorne (my favorite character since book 2) had cause to be concerned for Cress, I wish he had reacted more Thorne-like, as opposed to doing this best impression of Wolf’s broodiness. Thankfully, Thorne was more himself by the end of the book. Most of the time, though, I could see distinct differences in how Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter acted, thought, and talked. Part of that last one might have been due to the audiobook narrator putting on a slightly different voice for some of the characters, but since that’s how I consumed this series, the narration was definitely a plus for me in that area.

Overall, this was a solid YA sci-fi series for me, and I am sure I’ll revisit it again in the future. Fans of futuristic sci-fi and/or fairy tale retellings, maybe around age 15 and up, should definitely consider checking out this series, starting with the first book (you really don’t want to dive in here on the final book).

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Book Review: The Darkest Minds

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The Darkest Minds
Book #1
by Alexandra Bracken

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: YA dystopian

When the small percentage of survivors of a plague that affects children and teens begin to exhibit special powers, they are feared, hunted, and locked up. But some avoid capture or manage to escape the camps. Ruby spent six years in a camp, and when she manages to leave, she has to figure out who on the outside can be trusted. Both adults and other children present unknown risks she might not be prepared to deal with.

The set-up for this book is scary, but it’s all too believable that adults would lock up kids if they turned out to be dangerous. Ruby’s time in the camp is summed up at the beginning and is a sad and poignant backdrop to the rest of the story going forward, exploring the emotional and psychological toll of such treatment on young individuals. I like the dynamic of Liam, Chubs, and Zu and the way they incorporate Ruby into their group, fostering a sense of camaraderie and mutual understanding amid their shared struggles. The romance didn’t really stand out to me, but at least it didn’t make me cringe, serving as a subtle undercurrent rather than the main focus of the narrative. To be honest, I felt like Ruby connected with and had more chemistry with Chubs than Liam. The plot overall is engaging; yes, a lot of the middle involves these four kids driving toward an unlikely dream, but I really don’t remember being bored, as their journey is filled with moments of tension, growth, and unexpected turns.

My biggest issue with the book is that Ruby mostly doesn’t act like someone who was locked up from age 10 to age 16. Her emotional development, her knowledge of the world, social skills, etc. should basically be at a 10-year-old level. This crops up in very minor ways, but not nearly what I think would be realistic. There are times when she answers questions about life or, even more narrowly, her home state of Virginia that would just make me shake my head and think, “There’s no way I would have known that at 10 years old.” I also wish there could have been some adults that weren’t just bad. A kind guard at the camp, a legend about a group that actually is trying to help kids, etc. That part of the set up maybe wasn’t so realistic, but maybe that will be explored more in a future book. Overall, I enjoyed this story a lot, even with those issues. I’ve already recommended it to my 16-year-old daughter and think other fans of YA sci-fi, especially dystopian worlds, should give it a try.

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Book Review: Mandie and the Trunk’s Secret

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Mandie and the Trunk’s Secret
Mandie #5
by Lois Gladys Leppard

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s Christian historical fiction

I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen, and I read some of them to my now-teen daughter when she was younger. Nostalgia definitely affects my reviews for this series, and I’m okay with that. It’s good to at least see some consequences from Mandie’s disobedience in the previous book, though of course the consequence ends up being fun for her and Celia and leads them into another mystery. I appreciate that they are trying to behave better here as well, though she questions whether she should really be meeting with Uncle Ned at night while still doing it anyway. Uncle Ned himself clearly thinks it’s important to adhere to the rules but still visits in secret. Overall, though, this book was better than the previous. While I think these books can still be good for younger people to read, especially if you’re looking for something with Christian content, I strongly recommend discussing what’s good and bad in them with your kid(s) after they read it.

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Book Review: Santa’s Little Yelpers

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Santa’s Little Yelpers
Andy Carpenter #26
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Mystery

When a volunteer at Andy Carpenter’s dog-rescue foundation is accused of murder, the semi-retired defense attorney steps in to help.

Another thoroughly enjoyable installment in my favorite mystery series! I particularly liked that Sam, who is usually tasked with digging up information on the computer, gets to get out into the field and have a bit of an adventure. The mystery is an intriguing one too. It started to remind me of one of the earlier books in the series, Dead Center, with a town that seems to be run by some kind of weird cult, but it goes a completely different direction. And Andy himself is his normal snarky, witty self that I enjoy so much, brought to life expertly by Grover Gardner. If it’s not clear, I recommend this book (especially the audio) for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, as well as the books that precede it in the series.

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Book Review: The First Measure

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The First Measure
by Keith Gregor

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Fantasy

I normally start my reviews with a synopsis of the book, but I’m not even really sure how to do that. A mysterious event in the past caused the world to begin to unravel, have cracks, shift in ways that most people don’t really notice, along with other vague, difficult to define consequences. One group of people have tried to fix things one way and another group try to fix things another way. Enter Eldric, our main character, whose mentor just vanished (or was “unmade”) in a way that causes everyone else to forget the older man even existed. Eldric goes on a journey, in which he meets up with other people who are on their own, equally vague journeys. If my synopsis leaves you wondering what on earth I’m talking about, you might have a vague idea of how most of this book made me feel.

I don’t mean to be harsh, and I dislike writing reviews like this, but I really do not know how so many others seem to see this as a brilliant work of fiction. It felt like complete nonsense to me. I’m not a philosopher or super smart or anything, but this book made me feel like I was wading through the textbook for some kind of advanced subject I have no business reading. I suppose I should have anticipated having trouble with it based on the official synopsis, which was fairly vague and mind-bendy itself, but I still expected a story that I could follow and make some sense of. But there are words and phrases that are never explained (the Sundering, the Name, the Script, the First Measure itself) and many descriptions of psychedelic landscapes and events that I just couldn’t follow.

For the first half of the book or so, I was hanging in there, waiting for things to come together and give some semblance of understanding. My rating of 2 stars, instead of the lowest possible rating of 1, is for that first half, as well as for some of the characters that I felt were well drawn. But even aside from the issues I’ve already stated, the author’s writing style is incredibly repetitive, especially in conversations and descriptions. And often, words were used in ways I’ve never seen/heard them used before; maybe this is intentional, considering the nature of the story, but when I’m reading a fictional story, I like to be able to understand what I’m reading (call me crazy). Because of the difficulty I had with the text, I didn’t know if it was my misunderstanding or a fault in the text when the characters walked away from a landmark on their journey, a couple of days passed, and then they were leaving the same landmark again, as if they’d been snapped back to it. I’d like to say that I get what the author was going for here, but I’m not sure I do. Maybe this means I’m just 100% the wrong audience for it, and that’s probably true, but I don’t know who the right audience might be. All I can say is that if this sounds interesting to you, don’t let me stop you from giving it a try. (I have to say, though, that I really like the image on the cover, and it is really well suited for the story.)

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Book Review: Toofer & The Giblet

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Toofer & The Giblet
by Paulette LeBlanc

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Children’s fiction

Toofer and The Giblet are mice that live in a tree in Nimblewood. The Giblet is adventurous and doesn’t always think things through, while Toofer is more serious and thoughtful. This book is a collection of vignettes of their lives—often trouble The Giblet gets into that Toofer helps him out of and lessons learned along the way. The end of the very first story brought a heart-warming “awww” moment for me and set the stage for the rest of the book. Each story includes an illustration, and the pictures are beautiful additions to the stories.

Not all of the stories are quite as sweet as that first one, and some have little lessons while others just seem like silly fun (like a monkey taking The Giblet on a ride and only being stopped by the offer of peanut butter). Though the chapters are individual stories, they do build on each other in a way that makes the reading all the more enjoyable. I can easily imagine reading 1 chapter at a time at bedtime to/with young children (depending on their reading level) and being able to point back to references to past stories. The overall tale told is one of friendship and adventure that is well-suited to early readers, or even kids younger than that if the book is read to them. There’s also a map of Nimblewood, which I think would add another layer of enjoyment for younger readers.

(Some parents might appreciate knowing that there is a reference to a frog being “hopped up on pond juice,” in case that’s something that would bother them.)

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Book Review: A Most Peculiar Providence

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A Most Peculiar Providence
by Angela Hunt

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Christian fiction

Ever since he was six years old, it’s always been just Josh Donnelly and his mom. Though his mom pushes him to get out into the world more, Josh is resistant, happy with his routines and his quiet life at home. Then his mom has a stroke, and Josh is thrust out into the world. Heather Thomas has had a tumultuous life, and when she ends up in the small town of Peculiar, she can’t help but notice Josh’s kind and gentle nature when she observes him from a distance. So when she’s entrusted with finding a home for the newborn baby of another troubled young woman, she knows Josh is the perfect choice.

I’ve had a difficult time deciding on a rating for this book and even knowing how to start my review. I liked the idea of a book that is clearly an image of God’s hand guiding a situation and working it out for the best. Even though, in a fictional setting like this, it requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, I was happy to see how Hunt decided to play it all out. But it took some turns that required a bit too much suspension of disbelief. One specific event happened that never really was discussed beyond a character asking how it happened, and the response was, “I prayed.” It takes a turn toward faith healing, and since it doesn’t really have any real impact on the story, I don’t understand why it was included.

Most of this might not have been too bad, but I found the plot a bit slow. A lot of time passes in the book, which means the baby ages, and some of the details involving the baby’s development made me stop and question how they made any sense (like a baby giving a smile that, in the narrative, seems to be believe to be intentional) at around 3-5 days old. And the caregivers letting the baby that only days ago took her first steps walk (and then crawl) on a brick walkway?! And then I guess they had to clean up her scraped and bloody knees…

There’s a mystery angle that comes up in the last quarter of the book, mixed in with the climax of the main plot, that is shallow and not difficult to figure out. I wish there had been less time spent on the baby details and more on a build-up to this mystery. Josh is a steady, likeable character who makes some unexpected decisions because “God told me to,” which I wasn’t a fan of. In the end, some past trauma comes to light that I don’t recall having been hinted at throughout the rest of the book at all, and that’s another area I felt could have been built on, if other areas had been diminished. In a way, it felt like this could have been two different books. But as often happens, I’m largely in the minority so far in my rating of this book, so please check out other reviews at the link below if you’re interested in this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hunt Haven Press for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: In This Bright Future

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In This Bright Future
DC Smith #5
by Peter Grainger
read by Gildart Jackson

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Detective procedural, mystery

After knee surgery, DC Smith is prescribed a few weeks of rest. But when his past comes calling, he ends up going to Belfast in Northern Ireland, rather that taking the time to recuperate. There he dredges up his past the decisions he made while undercover for England during the time of “The Troubles.”

This book is quite a departure from the rest of the series, as Smith is in a different environment, not acting as a police officer (for the most part), and working a cold case amongst people with widely varying opinions of him, due to his previous time in Belfast under a different identity. I think it was my favorite in the series so far, even though I felt really lost at the beginning. That’s starting to become normal for me in this series though—I’m confused for a while until I start to understand what is even going on, get used to any newly introduced character names, etc. I think part of it might be the narrator’s accent and part of it might be culture differences, but I’m always glad I stuck with it by the end of the book. There was even one specific moment in the book that I thought I had just missed something and would never quite understand what had happened there, but it came back up near the end and was part of a bittersweet moment.

I don’t really know a lot about the conflict in Northern Ireland, though I know more now than I did. The focus here on the search for people who are still missing is a fascinating angle to the story. Gildart Jackson unsurprisingly does a great job as narrator, bringing DC and all of the other characters to life. I recommend the book for fans of procedural crime dramas, especially with a seasoned detective and set in a small-town area of England, though this one in particular doesn’t have much of that small town. It could probably be read without reading the rest of the series first, since it’s more removed from them, though there are still references to characters and past events that might be lost on someone starting here.

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Book Review: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

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The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
by Kim Michele Richardson

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Historical fiction

In 1936, Cussy Mary Carter works for the Pack Horse Librarian Project in and around Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. Her father insists that she needs to quit her job and get married instead, but Cussy knows that the people of the hills need the books and other printed material that she brings to them.

There was a lot to like about this book, from the history that the author brings to life and the heartfelt moment between Cussy and some of her patrons. I’d never heard of the blue-skinned people, and for good reason, considering how people treat anyone who is different. The hardships faced by this community as the country strives to move out of the Great Depression are well-presented and heartbreaking. The way some of her patrons are as hungry for books, magazines, or newspapers as they are for food made me want to be more careful not to take for granted the overwhelmingly easy access we have to books and information in general these days (and in this part of the world in particular). I was really immersed in the setting throughout the book. There are even some real pictures of pack horse librarians and some of their patrons in the back of the book, which I was fascinated by.

On the other side, there were some things about the book that I didn’t like. I almost put it down in chapter 3 and walked away, when the main character had an abortion in such an offhand way that I wasn’t even sure at first that that was what had just happened. The author treats the murder of an unborn child so flippantly that I was appalled, and to make things worse, it’s barely mentioned again in the rest of the text. From that point, I knew that the author and I have vastly different views of the world, and that does come through at other points in the book as well. Beyond that, I struggled a bit with the narration style. It’s one thing for the dialog here to be full of the local dialect of the time period—that does make sense. But since the book is written in 1st person, but the author understandably didn’t want to have the entire book be written in that dialect, Cussy’s narration is mostly more modern and grammatically correct, but with the word “knowed” thrown in a lot. It was weird and sometimes jarring. Cussy’s arguments with her dad about whether she should be allowed to keep working as a librarian or be forced to get married becomes repetitive and drags on too long. I think that it might have been intended to lead to a nice payoff near the end of the book, but for me, it just added tedium.

I really did appreciate this book for the history it brought to life. Overall, though, I had too many issues. The book has a lot of high ratings, so if you’re interested in the story and aren’t bothered by what I mentioned above, you should certainly consider reading it and maybe even check out other reviews at the link below.

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