Month: July 2016

A story revolving around an unhealthy friendship. The chapters alternate between Heather’s perspective as a teenager and Edie’s perspective as an adult. A traumatic event destroyed their friendship, but seventeen years later Heather reinserts herself into Edie’s life.

“I’ll look after you. Don’t worry. I’ll always look after you.”

After (33 years old): Edie is shocked when Heather shows up at her door. The past trauma they shared comes rushing back to her. What could Heather possibly want after what happened between them? She quickly dismisses Heather, but Heather arrived in London at a vulnerable time in Edie’s life. After Edie gives birth, she is hit hard by postpartum depression, which is further compounded by resurfacing memories. Heather seizes this opportunity to worm her way back into Edie’s life and take control.

Before (16 years old): Heather zeroes in on Edie the moment she sees her. Heather has always been an outsider, even in her own family. She is different from her classmates and is constantly bullied. When she sees the beautiful new girl registering for school, she sees the chance to finally have a friend. Soon after their friendship develops, Edie becomes infatuated with an older boy, Connor. Heather is jealous when she sees her one chance at friendship begin to drift away. She sees it as her duty to protect Edie from Connor.

“You don’t know, do you, when you’re a kid, how hard it is being a grown-up? All you want is to be a grown-up too. I thought I’d be so much better at it than [my mom] was, and now that I am one, I realize how stupid that was.”

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Heather’s creepy obsessiveness is the star of the Before chapters. Heather has strict parents who resent her for something that happened to her younger sister. They expect her to study hard and go to medical school. Heather’s dedication to her schoolwork is pushed aside when Edie, a rebel and talented artist, becomes her main priority. Heather latches on to Edie at the first sign of affection and Edie relishes in the feeling of being idolized. Both girls showed a lot of promise in high school and I was desperate to know what happened to lead them to their sad present-day circumstances.

He never speaks about her, but you can somehow see the memory of her there still, in his eyes and his smile, the way they do remain a part of us, those people who have hurt us very deeply or whom we have hurt, never letting us go, not entirely.

I appreciated the evenness of the story. Forced romances are my least favorite part of suspense novels, but the potential for romance in this book was gradual and made sense. There were no moments that felt completely out of left field. The characters weren’t overly memorable (especially the after version of Edie) and it was sometimes too easy to put down, but it did make me feel something. It was really sad in a way that I didn’t expect! This story is s a good reminder that situations and relationships are sometimes more complex than they first appear. Recommended for those looking for a good book to read on a rainy day.

A quiet, character-driven, post-apocalyptic novel filled with gorgeous nature descriptions. An astronaut in space and an astronomer in Antarctica search the airwaves in hopes of connecting with another living soul, despite evidence that everyone on Earth is gone. It’s being compared to Station Eleven (the covers are even similar), but it won’t be a slam dunk for everyone who loved that book. As predicted in my review of The Sunlight Pilgrims, I’m now going to rave about things that I previously ranted about!

Even the fleeting things were worth their weight in sadness. Even a few words could mean something.

Something catastrophic is happening on Earth and the inhabitants of Antarctica are being evacuated in order to reunite with their families. Seventy-eight-year-old Augustine (Augie) has no one to return home to and decides to stay. A couple of days after the evacuation, Augie discovers an eight-year-old girl named Iris, who was somehow left behind. When he tries to contact someone via radio communications, there is only silence. He was hoping to live out the rest of his lonely, miserable existence quietly and alone, but he’s now responsible for someone else’s survival.

Sully is an astronaut returning back to Earth as part of a two-year mission to Jupiter. After a year of constant contact, the ship has lost communication with Mission Control in Houston. It was assumed to be a temporary glitch, but as time passes it points to something more ominous. The crew of Aether was looking forward to returning home, but now they are uncertain of what they will find when they get there.

“We study the universe in order to know; yet in the end the only thing we truly know is that all things end–all but death and time. It’s difficult to be reminded of that but it’s harder to forget.”

The opening epigraph and the name of Sully’s mom both point to the title being a reference to Jean Rhys’s 1939 novel of the same name, which “deals with a woman’s feelings of vulnerability, depression, loneliness and desperation during the years between the two World Wars.” Likewise, Dalton’s novel deals with similar themes at the end of the world. The title for Rhys’s novel was derived from this beautiful Emily Dickinson poem (analysis at link):

Good morning, Midnight!
I’m coming home,
Day got tired of me –
How could I of him?

Sunshine was a sweet place,
I liked to stay –
But Morn didn’t want me – now –
So good night, Day!

After I finished the first two chapters of Good Morning, Midnight, I had two major questions:
• What catastrophe befell Earth?
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I shouldn’t have been so focused on the answers to those questions. The catastrophe is vaguely addressed at the end, but we are as clueless as our characters. Iris is important, but mostly in terms of Augie’s development. This book is about Augie and Sully taking stock of their lives, coming to terms with their choices, learning to cope, and figuring out what really matters. I don’t want to make it sound like nothing happens! Both characters occasionally encounter the dangers inherent in their inhospitable environments, but those aren’t the most interesting or important parts. 

[Augie] had never been interested in television or novels. He wanted to learn from life, from observation. And he did: he learned that love was concealed by a swirling vortex of unpleasant emotions, the invisible, unreachable center of a black hole. It was irrational and unpredictable. He wanted no part of it, and his experiments only confirmed again and again, how distasteful it all was.

The chapters alternate between Augie in Antarctica and Sully in outer space. Both Sully and Augie “[crave] connection without understanding how to obtain it.” They both direct their attention to the cosmos when life gets messy. Their psychological journeys mirror each other, as they both scan the airwaves hoping to find signs of life. Augie’s chapters are the most introspective. Iris rarely speaks and their sweet relationship develops through the way they care for one another. He never pushes her for answers and she gives him something to hold on to. He seemed resigned to his past choices, but his connection to Iris makes him reflect on his life in a different way. The setting was wonderfully drawn. I have been attracted to books with freezing climates lately and Dalton did a beautiful job describing the beauty of Antarctica and its wildlife through the seasons, while also clearly illustrating the harsh unpredictability of the environment.

[Sully] would trade them all, every byte of data they’d collected, every single thing they’d learned, for just one voice coming into her receiver. Just one. This wasn’t wistful bargaining, or hyperbole, just a fact. She had boarded Aether believing that nothing could be more important than the Jovian probes, and now–everything was more important. The whole purpose of their mission seemed insignificant, pointless. Day by day, there was nothing except the digital binary of mechanical wanderers and the cosmic rays from the stars and their planets.

I loved the space chapters! When the crew looks out the ship’s window, I felt small against the enormity of the universe. Dalton gave me a sense of the overwhelming feeling of looking out into infinity. There are six crew members with very different personalities on Aether, so there is more dialogue in Sully’s chapters. We only meet the crew members through Sully interactions with them, but I came to care for each of the unique crew members (even rough-around-the-edges Ivanov!). The silence from Earth has a devastating emotional impact on Aether’s crew and they each have their own way of coping with the uncertainty. If you were annoyed by Mark Watney’s enduring positivity throughout The Martian, you should know that is not the case here! As the ship gets closer to Earth, the silence gets increasingly eerie and it leads to some haunting scenes. Like Augie, Sully has many demons to wrestle and the potential end of civilization has set the stage for her to reflect on her life and the things that are important to her. When she joined the mission, she left behind a seven-year-old daughter who she never emotionally bonded with. She always felt like there was something missing inside of her and she questions the choices she made throughout her life.

“I’m still here because I have nowhere else to go,” he said. “I’ve had a long time to come to terms with that. Understand, I am in pieces just like you, but I keep them separate. …Do you know what I do? I brush my teeth and think only of brushing my teeth. I replace the air filter and think only of replacing the air filter. I start a conversation with one of the others when I feel lonely, and it helps both of us. This moment, Sully this is where we must live. We can’t help anyone on Earth by thinking about them.”

A five-star rating doesn’t necessarily mean perfect for me. The foreshadowing before a pivotal space event was laid on too thick and the scene it led up to felt melodramatic. The story revolves around a huge coincidence, but I quickly accepted that as a framework to explore the themes. I guessed the major revelations in the first chapter, which reduced the *gasp* factor. It really didn’t need to shock or surprise me though. It was a thoughtful book that hit me hard on an emotional level. It was a book I took in slowly rather than devouring.  Every single one of the characters resonated with me, even the minor ones. It had many insightful things to say about coping and forgiving oneself. It helped me think of an Augie in my own life in a more empathetic way. What greater gift can a book give?

Augustine looked at the terns preparing for the arrival of their chicks and marveled at their tenacity–hatching new life at the end of the world. One of the terns swiveled its head to stare at Augustine with one eye. What do you now that I don’t? Augustine asked it. But the tern only ruffled its feathers and hopped away.

Since the Sully’s and Augie’s personal journeys were complete, I was satisfied with the ending. Part of me wants a sequel, but I’m just as happy imagining the possible outcomes for myself. I’m always captivated by books where people try to find a way to reconnect with the communities they have been separated from. (The Martian and Room were also 5-Star reads for me.) Would the things that seem important today still feel as important if it was all over tomorrow? “What endures at the end of the world? How do we make sense of our lives?” I’m not sure I would’ve made time for this book if I hadn’t won it in a giveaway, but I’m glad it found its way to me.

 

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(All the talk of radio communications in an apocalyptic setting made me want to revisit All the Light We Cannot See!)

 

“You can tell a lot about a man by what he does with a snake.”

Fielding Bliss looks back on the life-altering summer of 1984, when his father invited the devil to their hometown of Breathed, Ohio. The invitation is accepted by Sal, a thirteen-year-old black boy who claims to be the devil. After his arrival, an overbearing heat descends upon Breathed and tragic events begin to occur with frequency. The townspeople fixate on Sal and view him with suspicion. Is Sal actually the devil or just a runaway? Elohim, a neighbor who is friendly with Fielding, immediately dislikes Sal and seizes on the opportunity to focus the town’s rage against him. While the community’s lashes out at Sal, trouble is also brewing inside the Bliss home.

“No one wants to say one word and then realize it means so many more.”

I practically ran to Netgalley the moment I read the summary! The Summer That Melted Everything is such a unique book. The synopsis above barely scratches the surface of what this book is about. It has a whimsical, magical feel, but it’s also very dark. Atmospherically, it reminds me of Big Fish (movie), Beasts of Southern Wild (movie) and The New and Improved Romie Futch. Romie Futch is described as a “Southern Gothic tall tale”; I’m not sure if Ohio counts as the South, but I think that label fits this book too! The writing is impressive. It addresses heavy themes such as racism, homophobia, AIDS hysteria, and domestic violence, but it never felt heavy-handed. Each chapter begins with an epigraph from Paradise Lost by John Milton, which helps sets the mood. Every word and name feels intentionally chosen and the story is well-constructed. The story is told by 84-year-old Fielding Bliss, primarily in flashbacks. He is consumed by guilt and regret, so we know this story probably doesn’t have a happy ending. How did the caring thirteen-year-old we meet in the flashbacks turn into this self-destructive old man? He was so close with his family during the summer of 1984, so why does it seem that he lost all contact with them?

Cowardice is always too late to the fact that bravery has the better chance. Our better chance could’ve been understanding. It could’ve been soaring from that which has too long been believed to be a sin. And yet it’s far too easy to be the coward when it requires nothing more than a lie.

The book is filled with peculiar and interesting characters. Fielding’s father Autopsy Bliss reminded me of Atticus Finch (TKAM). He’s a fair-minded man who welcomes Sal into his home with open arms, despite the growing concerns of the community. Stella Bliss, Fielding’s mother, won’t step out of the house out of fear of the rain. Instead of leaving the house to travel, she decorates each room of her house as a different country. Fielding idolizes his older brother Grand, a high school baseball player whose reputation fits his name. Fedelia Bliss, their aunt, wears ribbons in her hair as a reminder of each of her husband’s betrayals. Sal quickly bonds with the Bliss family and becomes especially close with Fielding. He’s thirteen, but he speaks in parables. He seems much wiser than his years, but he’s also seen more than any child should have to. These are just the people inside the Bliss household. There are so many more memorable major and minor characters.

“What these poor souls were desperate for was a light. But the thing about light is it all looks the same when you’re in the dark, so you can’t tell if what powers that light is good or if it is bad, because the light blinds you to the source of its power. All you know is that it saves you from the darkness … They reached for that brightness, and while the light distracted them, while it comforted them in its false rescue, the dark power behind it did its work, and before any of them knew it, they were not being saved by the light, they were being changed by it.”

This book illustrates mob mentality. A charismatic leader whips people into a frenzy and the townspeople easily rationalize their atrocious behavior. There are hints of the terrible events to come, but it begins with disturbing rhetoric. Over the summer, the situation slowly escalates to horrifying proportions. When the people of Breathed find a “monster” to pin blame on, they become blind to their own monstrous behavior. Many of the strange events attributed to Sal were actually caused by the townspeople. “Sometimes the things we believe we hear are really just our own shifting needs.” The “devils” in Breathed aren’t the ones who you would expect. They are neighbors and friends. There were no visual markers or previous indications of the evil they were capable of. I recently read an interview with a man talking about his professional colleagues. I can’t remember the exact quote or numbers, but it was something like ≈10% were consistently bad, ≈10% were consistently good, and the behavior of the other ≈80% depended on who they worked with that day. Many of the citizens of Breathed reminded me of that 80%. This book makes it clear how easy it is to be led astray by blind certainty or a trusted individual.  Even the character with the purest heart had moments where they were certain and proven wrong after it was too late.

“When glass is whole, it’s good. When it’s broken, it’s bad. It’s swept up. It’s thrown away. Sometimes thrown away too soon. Think of a window, Sal said. Imagine a violence breaking that window. All those shards of broken glass fall to the floor. The violence is inside the house now, wrestling you. It could kill you, so you grab one of the shards and stab. The violence dies and you are saved. Saved by the broken glass. Isn’t that a funny thing? To be saved by the bad. Sometimes, not sweeping that bad up and throwing it away will save you in the end. It just might. So to defend the devil means defending the good of the bad. That’s what I was doing, Fielding. Hoping that all those folks are just shards of broken glass and one day in the future, they’ll save someone by being just that.”

The events at the end were so horrifying that it did make it difficult for me to put on my grey-tinted glasses. However, when I go back to “You can tell a lot about a man by what he does with a snake” and the context, I understand why the story went the direction it did. I also have a personal issue where stories with allegorical characters make me hyper-aware that I’m in the middle of a story, so I am not 100% invested in the character’s fates. Even though I didn’t feel as ripped apart by tragedy as I probably should have, I did feel deeply for these characters. It felt like a gut punch when Fielding uttered the one word to his brother that changed their relationship forever. When the Bliss family hit their lowest point, my heart broke. Sal’s stories are so beautifully told that they bring tears to my eyes. (Without giving anything away, the stories about the fall and the rope really stick out in my mind.)

“Isn’t it time we put the shovels down instead of digging more holes? The more holes we dig … the less solid ground any of us will have to stand on.”

I would love to  go on and on about my favorite parts, but it’s best to experience it for yourself! This book’s message will always be relevant. Part of what makes it terrifying is that the events are so recognizable. It’s been hard for me to watch the news lately without thinking about Sal and Breathed, Ohio.  There is so much in this book that it is impossible to unpack it all in just one read. The first read is really good, but it will definitely reward a reread. The Summer That Melted Everything is a deeply-affecting book that will provoke much discussion. Highly recommended!
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Quotes I was reminded of while reading:
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice 
Bruce Wayne: We’re criminals, Alfred. We’ve always been criminals. Nothing’s changed.
Alfred: Oh, yes it has, sir. Everything’s changed. Men fall from the sky, the gods hurl thunderbolts, innocents die. That’s how it starts, sir. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men… cruel.

Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice by Adam Benforado 
Doubt isn’t the enemy of blind justice–blind certainty is.

3.5 Stars. Three people living their day-to-day lives in a time of great upheaval. 5-star character/setting & beautiful writing, but I was at a 2-star level of engagement. It was slow moving and not much happened. That isn’t always a deal-breaker for me, but I just didn’t click with this book.

All the villagers look worried and that is the worst thing. Before it was just poverty, pestilence, terrorists, pedophiles, drugs, eating disorders, online grooming, meteors skimming a bit too close for comfort. Now every single person in this hall looks like they are terrified they’re all about to become frozen corpses. For the first time since the news broke, Stella gets this stabbing feeling in her heart that must be some new kind of fear. [Stella]

It’s November 2020 and a terrible cold is descending upon the globe, the worst winter on record. Dylan MacRae is grieving the recent loss of his mother and grandmother, as well as his home and livelihood. On the way to burying his mother’s and grandmother’s ashes, he stops in a caravan park where his mother frequently stayed. The caravan is next-door to Constance and her twelve-year-old daughter Stella. Dylan is instantly attracted to Constance and he becomes close friends with her daughter. Spending time with is neighbors makes him realize that he has spent his life existing rather than living. While going through his mother’s belongings, he learns a devastating secret that connects him to Constance and Stella in unexpected ways.

Something in him comes from this rock, these mountains, this landscape, something older than time and generational — all those links to people who survived this place and thrived and lived, all those suicidal monks and one lone sunlight pilgrim, butt-naked and tough as hell. [Dylan]

I’ve been reading so many cold weather books lately! The entire story takes place during the winter of 2020-2021. It’s divided into four parts and the temperature plummets to dangerous levels as the months pass. The characters live in a caravan park in the Scottish village of Clachan Falls. I enjoyed the unique little village and its eccentric inhabitants. It was like a bleak Stars Hollow! The writing is poetic and there’s is an urgent, exuberant quality to it that made me feel wonderment for nature. There are no quotation marks; the dialogue is differentiated with dashes. I didn’t have trouble following the conversations like I have with some novels with unique punctuation usage (See: All Things Cease to Appear). The story alternates between the perspectives of Dylan and Stella. Constance is also a central character, but we only view her through the eyes of Dylan and Stella. 

All their robot children like their knobs and buttons shiny and silver and none of them understand what a real robot has to withstand, if they are to have so much rust but still be able to run as fast as the others on sports day or sing as loud at Christmas. The carols! ‘Little Donkey’, the verse about Mary carrying the heavy load, it always makes her cry. [Stella]

I had to force myself through Dylan’s chapters, but I did love his relationship with Stella. Stella is my favorite part book and I was most engaged during her coming-of-age sections. She is mature, self-assured, and has a great sense of humor. She came out as transgender thirteen months before the book starts. Her father refuses to acknowledge her transition and she is bullied by the kids at school. She also worries about her mother and thinks Constance deserves much better than the men she chooses.

There are interesting parallels drawn with the intensifying weather and Stella’s rapidly changing situation. While the climate is going through an intense change and a glacier creeps its way to the shores of her community, Stella’s starts going through puberty. She wants to take hormone pills, but dangerous weather and the attitudes of others are a huge roadblock. There are also tie-ins with the past coming to roost in the present: the light from stars, a glacier from a million years ago bringing a winter (“If the world has fifteen million years of frozen geology there and it can enter the present and melt and bring forth another Ice Age…”), and Constance’s conversation with Stella about embryos following a female blueprint for the first ten weeks.

Stella is like the wind outside and Constance is the fire. The wind is gentle, blowing lightly to brighten the flames, to stop the fire going out. [Dylan]

Constance is a survivalist. I admired her resourcefulness and determination.“Luck and tenacity are her only employer.” She is Stella’s biggest advocate and her biggest fear is not being able to protect Stella in a cruel and unforgiving world. Constance has two lovers and the community judges her for it, though her lovers escape the same judgment. Constance knows what she wants. She doesn’t hide who she is and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

Stella tugs the wolf-head until the ears sit perfectly; two long furry arms snake down on either side of her braids and the fur is white, like the wolf walked right out of the snow — like winter herself created it from particles of ice and dust and sent it out to find a mortal girl who isn’t afraid of the big bad wolf, who knows how to use an axe and stir her own porridge, who knows that worth isn’t something you let another person set for you, it is something you set for yourself. [Stella]

Now for what I didn’t like! The story moved at a glacial pace and I wasn’t engaged in the story as a whole. I don’t always dislike slow-moving. character-driven books. A few things happened here:
(1) While I understand the comparisons to Station Eleven, those comparisons also had me expecting a little more plot.
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(3) I kept feeling teased with action (using the word ‘action’ lightly here). Anytime something interesting happened or I felt the tension build, the scene would cut and we would move forward in time. The parts I was most interested in happened offstage. It drew attention to how little was actually happening outside of the character’s thoughts and I lost patience. The characters do experience growth, but it was so gradual that it felt like nothing was happening.

Despite my reservations about the rest of the book. I thought the ending was appropriate. It’s possible I assumed too much about what happened. It was very abrupt. I would have LOVED an epilogue that mirrored the beautifully-written prologue!

All those little lies, left unsaid, in families; all the things that then become unsayable.
The selfish dead fuck off and leave us with half-truths and questions and random relations and bankruptcy and debt and bad hearts and questionable genetics and stupid habits and DNA codes for diseases and they never mention all the things that are coming — like a fight at a wedding, it just breaks out one day. [Dylan]

In conclusion: I was disinterested for the most part, but I loved Stella and the setting enough to keep reading. I think the same part of me that had difficulty appreciating Fates & Furies (especially Lotto’s section) had difficulty getting into The Sunlight Pilgrims. It was one of those “It’s not you, it’s me!” books. It’s receiving very high ratings from many respected reviewers. If you are looking for a quiet literary book with interesting characters and an immersive setting, this book may be for you. Here is a list of books I thought of while reading:

• Becoming Nicole: True story about a transgender girl and her family. Stella’s experience mirrors Nicole’s in many ways.
• The Dog Stars: Surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, grief, coping, global catastrophe not the main point.
• The Quality of Silence: Set in the modern world and plot-driven, but interesting mother/daughter relationship and Arctic setting. 10-year-old deaf girl experiences bullying because of her differences.
• Good Morning, Midnight : I’m about 75% through this one right now. It shares many qualities with The Sunlight Pilgrims: Quiet, character-driven novel, post-apocalyptic, surviving in freezing temperatures (Antarctica), the global catastrophe takes a backseat to internal struggles, etc. Oddly enough, the things I didn’t like in The Sunlight Pilgrims, I am loving in this Good Morning, Midnight!

Stella holds the clear tusk out in front of her — puts it up to her head as if she is the unicorn — she spins around, holding the icicle out in front of her as a spear- – jabbing it into air to show the spirit plane that she is her mother’s daughter — that the child of a wolf may not feel like she has fangs until she finds herself facing the moon, but they are still there the whole time regardless.

 

A solid thriller with a REALLY unreliable narrator. The central character’s internal conflict and descent into madness is the main point of interest.

“A book must be an axe for the frozen sea within us.” – Franz Kafka

Bestselling author Linda Conrads hasn’t left her home for over a decade, since around the time she found her younger sister Anna stabbed to death. She insists she saw the murderer’s face at the scene of the crime, but there was no convincing physical evidence and Anna’s case was never solved. While watching television one evening, she sees the murderer’s face delivering the news. Once she recovers from the shock, she concocts a plan to trap the journalist. She will lure him to her home by writing a book detailing the murder and invite him to her home for an exclusive and rare interview, an opportunity no journalist would pass up. But is this man really Anna’s murderer or is he an innocent man who has got caught up in one of Linda’s “stories”? Has Linda created her own reality because she can’t deal with what actually happened?

Am I mad?
No, I’m not mad.
How can you tell you’re not mad?
You just can.
How can you tell if you are mad? You just can.
But if you really are mad—how can you know? How can you know anything with absolute certainty
I listen to the voices arguing in my head, and I no longer know which of them is the rational one.

The story is told in first-person present, from Linda’s perspective. She is such an unreliable narrator that I started losing my own grasp of reality! Linda is an eccentric recluse, who seems both deluded and paranoid. She has completely withdrawn from society since her sister’s untimely death. Writing and not leaving her house are her primary coping mechanisms: “Making up stories where nobody had to die. Living in a world in which there was no danger.” Chapters of Linda’s novel Blood Sisters are interspersed between the present-day chapters. It gives us context and insight into her mind that Linda is unable to give us outside of her writing. There is a clear differentiation between Linda’s speaking/thinking voice and writing voice. The excerpts were a nice break from being inside her head, which because of the nature of her character could be exhausting and repetitive.

People think it’s hard not to leave your house for over a decade. They think it’s easy to go out. And they’re right; it is easy to go out. But it’s also easy not to go out. A few days soon become a few weeks; a few weeks become months and years. That sounds like an immensely long time. But it’s only ever one more day strung on to those that have gone before.

It took me some time to get into the story, because it reminded me so much of Disclaimer. Disclaimer’s Stephen and The Trap’s Linda have so much in common personality-wise! However, I was hooked once she started preparing for the interview. The middle third was my favorite part of the book, because the interview is so tense. The strangeness of the situation and Linda’s unhinged state of mind made my heart pound! She perceives things in such strange way. It reveals how tenuous her grasp on reality is…or does it? 😉 I loved the journalist’s pointed literary criticism and Linda’s scrambling to come up with a defense, especially since the reader (and possibly the journalist) know the book is essentially non-fiction.
Polymyalgia rheumatica is a category which depicts symptoms for example rigidity and cheap cialis from canada pain. If the girl doesn’t tell you she has a boyfriend at the very start of the conversation, don’t believe her either. cialis online mastercard A research has found that healthy foods such as fish, salad, olive oil and that odd glass of wine have the ability to clean out blood vessels especially the narrower ones in the male organ and stretch it in the genital purchased that buy generic cialis areas. Numerous physicians are now recommending cialis shop HIFU to their prostate cancer patients due to the limited number of television stations to watch, but you could get full erection only after de-stressing of your body and lead to an even worse condition.

A trap for a murderer. With her as bait. Perfect, provided you weren’t overly attached to life. Sophie realized that she was thinking in the terms of a TV crime drama, with the murderer, the victim, the pesky eyewitness, the nice police officer. Somehow it was easier that way: to view the affair not as a genuine tragedy, not as a real part of her life, but as just another case.

The one thing that drove me crazy was those cliffhanger chapters. I’m always iffy on those anyway, but the placement of a whole chapter in between the cliffhanger and the cliffhanger resolution made them extra irritating. Paraphrased example:
End of Chapter 18: I did this.
*Chapter of Linda’s Novel*
Beginning of Chapter 19: Wait, no I didn’t. I actually did this!

Life is often so much less spectacular than fiction.

The Trap is about the stories people create to protect themselves and to survive in the aftermath of tragedy. Linda is not the only character in this book guilty of that! If you enjoy unreliable narrators, or if you enjoyed the atmosphere of Disclaimer or A Small Indiscretion, you’ll be interested in this book. The Trap is a fun way to spend the evening!

“Then why are we prolonging the agony and the yearning?” Jonas gave a slight smile. His dimple appeared. “Because we need the agony and the yearning. Because that’s what makes us feel alive,” he said.

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(P.S. Strange coincidence: This is the second book I’ve read this month where a woman travels the world via the rooms in her house. The Summer That Melted Everything is the other one. Completely different genre, but highly recommended!

Unsettling sci-fi thriller.

No one tells you it’s all about to change, to be taken away. There’s no proximity alert, no indication that you’re standing on the precipice. And maybe that’s what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you’re least expecting. No time to flinch or brace.

Jason Dessen is a professor/atomic physicist with a comfortable family life. He adores his wife and fourteen-year-old son, though he sometimes wonders how different his life would’ve been if Daniela hadn’t gotten pregnant. While walking back home one night, Jason is abducted and drugged. He wakes up in a strange place surrounded by unfamiliar people who claim to know him and have been anticipating his return. Is he stuck in a dream or was his family life the dream? Jason attempts to figure out who these people are and what they want from him, as he desperately tries to fight his way back to a family that he’s not even sure still exists.

What if all the pieces of belief and memory that comprise who I am—my profession, Daniela, my son—are nothing but a tragic misfiring in that gray matter between my ears? Will I keep fighting to be the man I think I am? Or will I disown him and everything he loves, and step into the skin of the person this world would like for me to be?
And if I have lost my mind, what then?
What if everything I know is wrong?

This is a book where it’s impossible to discuss too much of the plot without spoiling the whole thing, so I’m going to write about all the other aspects.  Blake Crouch is a novelist and a screenwriter. The story is fast-paced and the action plays out cinematically. A large percentage of the paragraphs are only one sentence, which makes it hard not think, “I’ll go to sleep after one more sentence!” I value my sleep, but during the last half I stayed up past midnight and then woke up at 4am to finish it! First-person present perspective was the perfect choice for this story. The odds Jason faces seem insurmountable and I wasn’t sure how the story was going to turn out. Even if I were to assume a happy ending, I had no clue how he was going to get there!

Experimental physics—hell, all of science—is about solving problems. However, you can’t solve them all at once. There’s always a larger, overarching question—the big target. But if you obsess on the sheer enormity of it, you lose focus.
The viagra uk sales desire for lovemaking is determined by biological as well as popular branded medicines. A weight loss pill which is designed to losing weight along with making healthy dietary changes is Dream Body brand slimming capsule. click here to find out more cialis on line Chocolates are found to be rich in protein. cialis viagra generico But now all the clouds of disbelief have gone away. online levitra The key is to start small. Focus on solving problems you can answer. Build some dry ground to stand on. And after you’ve put in the work, and if you’re lucky, the mystery of the overarching question becomes knowable. Like stepping slowly back from a photomontage to witness the ultimate image revealing itself.

Books of this nature are always going to be “mind-fuckingly weird,” but the author does a great job of explaining what’s going on in a clear and concise way. It did make my head hurt a little, mostly because the whole premise is unnerving, but I was able to grasp the concepts enough to enjoy the story. It isn’t overly sciencey. It’s mostly about relationships, choices, and identity. The heart of the story is the love Jason has for his family.

Am I still the same man at the most fundamental level? And what is that level? If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?

My favorite parts involved the doors and I could have spent all day in that section! I also liked seeing how Jason worked his way through his problems. Jason is a likable everyman and I was rooting for him to find his way back to his family. My only complaint is that I would have liked to get to know his son Charlie more. Jason’s devotion to his wife was refreshing, but his son felt like an afterthought.

What a miracle it is to have people to come home to every day. To be loved. To be expected. I thought I appreciated every moment, but sitting here in the cold, I know I took it all for granted. And how could I not? Until everything topples, we have no idea what we actually have, how precariously and perfectly it all hangs together.

What makes us who we are? If you had the opportunity to go back and make different choices, would you? It will hard to take anything in my life for granted after reading Dark Matter! It’s a book that I would recommend for reluctant readers, as well as those looking for a fun and exciting book that’s a little bit challenging. Even though I’ve already read this, I’m going to get the audiobook so my husband to listen to it. I know he’ll love it! We watch a lot of movies in this genre and I still enjoyed it. I think it will appeal to readers of Ready Player One, The Martian, and The Library at Mount Char. Some of the more trippy parts reminded me of Maybe in Another Life, The Adjustment Bureau (movie), and Interstellar (movie), but it’s also very different!

There’s something horribly lonely about a place that’s almost home.

It didn’t stir any strong emotions in me, but it was an extremely quick read.

A part-time employee at a video shop receives an invoice for 5,700,000 kronor (≃671,635 US Dollars) from World Resources Distribution. Surely it must be a mistake, so he calls the company to inquire about the absurd bill. WRD informs him that it is the debt he owes based on his ‘Experienced Happiness’ score (E.H.). Every attempt he makes to lower the score just makes the situation worse! There is nothing special about his life; he works a low-paying job, doesn’t have many possessions, has a very small social circle, and spends most of his time at home. How did such an unambitious person with an ordinary life get such a large bill? How is he going to get out of this situation that he can’t afford?

Life was just so good, somehow. It was perfectly natural that it should be expensive.

It was a very easy read! There are few words per page and it’s filled with dialogue. It’s a little over 200 pages and took me about 2 hours to read. (The audiobook is 3 hours and 28 minutes.) It felt like a magazine article converted into a fictional story. I think I would have enjoyed it more as a short story or if the story and characters were more fleshed out. Not everything about the premise and the agency made sense to me, so it required some suspension of disbelief. I did enjoy the over-the-phone relationship that develops between the unnamed protagonist and a representative for WRD, as well as the details about the interior workings of the bureaucratic agency.
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“Think about it like this: when you go to the cinema— one day you might see a comedy, the next a tear-jerker. The experience isn’t any the less valid as a result. It all gives E. H. points, you see. You know as well as I do that pain isn’t a universally negative emotion, don’t you?” I said nothing. “We wouldn’t want to eat nothing but sweet things . . . just as little as we’d want to avoid all adversity. In fact, there has to be a degree of adversity for us to appreciate our blessings.”

The Invoice is 100% about the message. It explores that nature of happiness and the life-enriching value of enjoying the little things and going with the flow. Happiness doesn’t always come from the places one would think and it’s impossible to make comparisons based on outward appearances. A successful life comes in many forms.

The writing style and the emphasis on message reminded me of Hector and the Search For Happiness. It’s charming and the end was very sweet, but it didn’t do much for me on an emotional level. I bounced between 2 and 3 stars, but in the end I felt it was just okay. It would work really well as a light-hearted read between emotionally difficult books or while traveling.