Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood

Rating: WORTHY!

I first met Phryne Fisher on Netflix where two seasons can be found as of this writing, both of which I've seen. there will be a third series and perhaps more, since this is a real money-spinner for ABC (that's the Australian ABC, not the US ABC!) and deservedly so. I fell in love with Phryne from the first episode. Essie Davis is magical in the title rôle, and the whole show is smart, fast-paced, daring, socially conscious, and majorly fun. Note that the name is pronounced Fry-Knee - which is why the TV series came to be titled "The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries" - no one wanted to have to teach everyone they spoke to how to pronounce the name!

The problem is that when you're hit like that and become so on-board (with a movie or a show), it's a tough decision as to whether to go to the book, just as it is in moving the other way. Books and movies/shows are very different entities, and the trick when you wish to migrate one to the other is to capture the essence if not the letter. In this case, it worked, because now having read the first in the series of books which kicked-off the shows, I can come down very favorably for both outlets, although be warned, the two are quite different in many respects.

The basic plot is the same. Phryne Fisher is (or rather becomes during this introductory edition) a very feisty, plucky, and successful Lady Detective. She's of independent means, so she never charges for her services, and her cases frequently lean towards supporting the downtrodden. Having successfully and very speedily solved a jewel theft at a soirée she was attending in London, Phryne is asked if she would travel to Australia to uncover who might be poisoning. The TV shows starts with the Honorable Phryne Fisher arriving in Australia and taking up residence in a charming house. The book begins with the jewelery theft and then has Phryne travel to Melbourne, where her roots lie, and where she installs herself at the exclusive Windsor Hotel.

Phryne was originally of exceptionally humble means, and came into money (that story deserves telling, but it hasn't yet been told, to my knowledge), so while she thoroughly appreciates (indeed, luxuriates in) the amenities which money can bring, she has not lost sight of where she came from. Phryne knows Doctor Elizabeth MacMillan, an ex-pat Scot who dresses like a man and is as good as any one of them. She's a physician in a women's hospital and this is how Phryne learns of an abortionist (abortion was sadly illegal back then, even in Australia) known as the Mad Butcher, who like to rape his pregnant victims before he virtually kills them performing his 'surgery'.

Cec and Bert, two Aussie blokes who each have a share in a run-down taxi-cab, find themselves with a girl named Alice, post op and tossed into their cab, bleeding onto the seats. They rush her to the hospital, thereby saving Alice's life - just.

Meanwhile Phryne begins to socialize with a view to becoming intimately acquainted with Lydia Andrews, the poisoning victim. As if these two events are not enough, there's also the King of Snow - the cocaine dealer who has taken up residence in Melbourne with a view to making a killing in an untapped market.

Both the show and the novel have all these ingredients, and the end results are largely the same, but the details are different. In the show, Phryne ends up buying Bert and Cec a new cab to replace their cranky aging vehicle - on the understanding that they'll give her priority when she needs them, but she also, in the show, owns the gorgeous Hispano-Suiza that she drives, rather than just leases it for a week. Dot, her maid in the novel becomes a companion in the TV show.

Detective Inspector Jack Robinson is a much more important figure in the shows than ever he is in this novel, but perhaps, as the series progresses, his prominence will increase. Constable Hugh Collins is a non-entity in the first book, and Dot, his girl-friend, is unacquainted with him. Also Dot isn't the one who pretends she's looking for an abortion. This rôle is taken in the book, by WPC Jones, a female police officer. This is interesting because in the second series TV show Phryne mentions to jack that there are no female officers on force, a rôle which she fulfills independently!

To cut a great story short, I recommend both this and the TV show! My biggest complaint about these books is that you can't find them in the book store! I did find a couple in the local library and I am sure they're available on-line.

Take the Dog Out Numbers by Lynne Dempsey

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Sweetly illustrated by Mandy Newham-Cobb.

I reviewed the original Take the Dog Out (don't you just love that title?!) earlier this month, and now, once again we’re with the TTDO gang and this time we’re counting. All the way to ten. And back again. Are we going to get there? If we do will we safely make it back? Only your child can tell!

This was a fun and energetic romp through the park, starting with a squirrel. I adore squirrels. Even the name is hilarious. Unfortunately, the squirrel is being chased by a cat, which of course is in turn being chased by that boisterous dog. As more and more people become involved, the numbers climb higher and higher so your child can see that by adding one more, we climb to the next number – and conversely, as people (and animals) become distracted, we start discounting from 10 all the way back to zero. No doubt the bird reported all this on twitter….

Once again there are hidden bones – this time not just to be found. You didn’t think it was going to be that easy did you? Nope, this time they need to be counted. Full disclosure: I skipped this portion of the enterprise, not having a young child by my side with whom to count. You might say I just did a bare bones reading….

Once again comes to the aid of our textual understanding with some sharp, fun, and colorful illustrations (the squirrel was a blast) and the multicultural crowd sported huge smiles. Even the butterfly somehow seems to be laughing (or maybe she’s just winging it…).

I thought this was a great idea and well-executed. The numbers are shown as numbers and also as aggregations of people and animals, reinforcing the lesson all the way through. The turn-around is a little more speedy, rather like the down-slope of a roller-coaster with the declining numbers (that squirrel finally found a tree, and you know a wind-blow hat demands to be chased!), taking their toll on the crowd one-by-one until it’s just the cat – and you know they don’t hang around long when there’s nothing going on!

I recommend this if you’re looking for a counting aid for your child. Make it fun and they’ll learn fast and develop a life-long love of the magic that math can do for us. American children always seem to compare so poorly in math and science with children from other nations, that anything we can do to raise the standard is to be welcomed, and this is certainly a good start.

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

Title: Ketchup Clouds
Author: Annabel Pitcher
Publisher: Little Brown
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Here's a part of the completely asinine blurb for this novel:

Secrets, romance, murder and lies: Zoe shares a terrible secret in a letter to a stranger on death row in this second novel from the author of the bestselling debut, My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece.

Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret-a dark and terrible secret that she can't confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal, Stuart Harris, locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe, Stuart is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder.

This blurb is entirely lies! Yeah, I get that that's what blurbs do for a profession, to get you to buy the book, but usually they have some sort of relationship to reality, no matter how tenuous. This one doesn't - not at all! Not even a little bit.

I listened to the audio book version of this novel, and the only thing which got me through the entire book was the charming accent and intonation of the reader, Julie Maisey, which I wanted to listen to even when I didn't want to hear what was written! I'd love to hear her read something else, or see her in a show or movie, but as it was, the boring content of this novel had made me want to ditch it part way through the first disk. I didn't, because I had chance to listen to the second disk on the return drive, and that was more interesting. Had it been a shorter trip, this book would have been DNF'd, but even as it was, I still can't rate it a worthy read.

The asinine premise here is that Zoe, the main character who narrates this via a series of letters she's writing, has murdered someone, and is writing to Stuart Harris, who is on death row in Texas, having been deemed guilty of stabbing his girlfriend to death. We learn nothing about him, and hear none of his replies, if there ever were any, so he's a complete non-entity, and this really exposed this form of novel writing for the pretentious pile of garbage that it is.

It also, of course, begs the huge question as to why the author chose this format in the first place. First person PoV rarely works well. I typically put a book back on the shelf when I learn it's in this format even if the book had, to that point, sounded interesting, but in the case of audio books and ebooks, you can't stand there in the library or the bookstore and flip a few pages to see if you'd like it. Plus, you can't tell a story by writing letters, not even if you're the laziest SoB on the planet. IT. DOESN'T. WORK. The letters are completely unnatural and sound as fake as hell.

The whole business of a fifteen-year-old girl writing to a death row inmate who had stabbed his girlfriend struck me as ridiculous at best, and outright sick at worse, especially when she's signing off the letter with a kiss. Seriously? But then this novel is an exercise in the abuse of women without consequences, so Harris was the out-lier here. Maybe that's why we learn nothing of this guy, and why we don't hear of any response from him. Unless I missed something (I skipped many tracks, so it's possible), we don't even know if Zoe is actually mailing the letters in the first place.

It's so glaringly obvious from the start that Zoe hasn't murdered anyone, so the story's "big reveal" at the end isn't one at all. It's evidently just a gimmick, like the letter-writing, of which the author ought to be ashamed. If Zoe had literally murdered someone, one presumes there would be consequences beyond what we're given here, but there are none. She's not writing her letters from in prison, but from the garage, or garden shed or something. This story would have been far better had she been behind bars and we later learned that the bars were on the window in her room in a psychiatric institute where Zoe was an inmate.

This entire story lacks oomph, is plodding, is entirely unrealistic, and reeks of Le Stupide. Zoe has to be one of the most tedious and boring narrators ever invented, constantly going off on tangents and rarely focusing on the point. No one writes letters like that, not even in real life. It was really frustrating. She's consistently portrayed as a spineless puppet who vacillates between two brothers, which in the end precipitates the unfortunate showdown at the end.

Why she's even remotely interested in the younger of the two, who is not only a moron, but who has sexually abused her by taking a photograph of her exposed breasts without her consent (or at best with her drunken consent, which is the same thing), is a mystery. He circulated the picture to his high-school friends. This doesn't stop Zoe from rewarding his unacceptable behavior by dating him, nor does it prevent her from sexually frustrating him by sending him mixed signals, which also contributes to the finale. Nor does it prevent her from leading-on his older brother. Nor does she deem it necessary to let either brother know that she's playing them both.

Zoe's family life was actually portrayed realistically, and would have made a decent story had it not been larded with the farcical letter writing, and the ludicrous love triangle. Had those been omitted, and just her family story told, it would have made for something potentially worthy. Her youngest sister Dot is hearing-impaired, so that was a plus. We rarely see people with physical or mental handicaps included in stories unless their condition plays a role in the story. It's like they don't exist in the fictional world, but that inclusion, and the family dynamic were not enough to offset the dumb-assery revolving around Zoe, who was teeth-grindingly annoying, so I can not only not recommend this novel, I actively dis-recommend it.

Cleo by Lucy Coats

Title: Cleo (no online outlet found)
Author: Lucy Coats
Publisher: Hachette
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

One huge kudos up front: this book uses paper from responsible sources! You go Hachette/Orchard! Maybe all publishers do this these days, and this one's the only one smart enough to trumpet it? I don't know, but credit where it's due!

The title for chapter one is very dramatic : Death comes to Alexandria - but then a brief description tells us we're in Alexandria, four years earlier - earlier than what? I don't know! There was no prologue, for which I am deeply grateful to the author! She puts it in chapter one, where it belongs, so this book got off to a good start for me, but then it rather went downhill I'm afraid.

Cleo's mother is dying. Cleo's father, one of the Ptolemys, has run away to Rome not long before, taking the entire family with him except for Cleo and her mom. Cleo has never felt so alone and was trying her best not to cry - not to show weakness - as she begged the god Isis to spare her mom. Isis, like every god, has a an un-amusing habit of simply not listening.

So yes, it's the story of Cleopatra, told for a middle grade audience. Cleo starts out at twelve years old, then jumps to sixteen, but the story-telling remained middle-grade, which was one of my problems with it. Cleopatra's name means 'father's glory', but this isn't her real glory or story - which was another of my problems with it. Cleopatra's real story is completely twisted around here, so please don't think you're learning any history. I don't understand why writers do this. If you're going to make up literally everything as was done here, then why use a real historical person? if you're going to write about a real person, why make it so fanciful that it bears no relation to her real life?

To be honest, the story is a complete mess. Cleo did have to flee from Alexandria, but it wasn't like Cinderella fleeing from her two evil stepsisters as is portrayed here. She had actually been ruling - at first along with her father, and then with her brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, to each of which brothers she was married. When she fled, it was not after her mother's death, but after her father's (Ptolemy XII's) death. Her brother was the evil sibling, refusing to share power with his sister. Both Cleo and her younger sister Arsinoë (named after the mother of the first Ptolemy) - a sister Cleo later had assassinated - fled, and it was Arsinoë who went into a temple, not of Isis but of Artemis.

Arsinoë's story would have actually been more interesting. Tryphaena was not an evil stepsister but was actually Cleopatra's mother (as is thought - no one knows for sure), aka Cleopatra V. There was no Bere -nice or -nasty - not as a sister. There was a Cleopatra Berenice III, who was an aunt or possibly Cleo's mom (the Ptolemy family tree was as incestuous as you can get). In real life, Cleo was never the girl portrayed here!

At one point Cleo describes a scorpion as an insect. It’s not. It’s an arachnid, related to spiders. The ancient Egyptians wouldn’t necessarily make this distinction, but I think it’s misleading and unnecessary – and it makes her look dumb. The real Cleopatra made some bad decisions, but she was anything but dumb. At another point, Cleo refers to the Ptolemy side of her ancestry, which is amusing because there was really only a Ptolemy side to her ancestry! Her entire family was descended from two people and the bothers uncles, etc. intermarried repeatedly. As I mentioned, this was one of the most incestuous lineages ever!

So in a novel like this you have to decide how much you want it to represent history and/or how much you're willing to let it be fanciful. For a good story I could accept either route, so for me, it all comes down to how engrossing and intelligent the story ends up being, and there it failed for me because it was way too young for the intended audience, and apart from it not being accurate, it wasn't very engaging. Cleo wasn't likable. She was far too self-obsessed and self-absorbed. She cared nothing for anyone but herself and her slave-girl who was named Charm even though the actual slave who died with Cleo was named Charmion.

The supernatural elements might have made for an interesting story but were skimped on to the point where I wondered why they had even been included. To cut a (too) long story short, I gave up reading this one at about fifty percent in and I can't recommend it based on what I read.

Lesbianism Made Easy by Helen Eisenbach

Title: Lesbianism Made Easy
Author: Helen Eisenbach (no website found)
Publisher: Open Road Integrate Media
Rating: WORTHY!

If Woody Allen had been a lesbian, he might have written something like this. I'm honestly at something of a loss as to how to review this one usefully except to give you a few quotes and to say that I was laughing out loud on pretty much every other screen.

It's a humorous look at lesbianism, no doubt based on the author's own experiences and stories she's heard, and it's funny as hellions. It does flag a bit here and there (and "fag" a bit in parts, too!), but overall it's exxcellent (yes, that's two X-chromosomes thank you!), well-worth reading if you have any interest at all in sexual preferences and in laughing.

Told with tongue firmly in cheek (or somewhere) this exquisite satire introduces you to lesbianism and how to make (or even mate) the most of it - or at least live with it! Author Eisenbach had me at the opening quiz. Here's one of the multiple choice (and I mean really choice) questions:

When in the presence of Scarlett Johansson, I usually feel:

• a. Warm and/ or tingly
• b. Slightly faint
• c. Hungry
• d. All of the above, not to mention whew!
• e. Other

This is a trick question. Answers (a)—(d) prove nothing except that you’re alive. If you chose (e), you’re not fooling anyone. There are no other answers.

The book is full of off-the-wall commentary and observation:

One of the great rewards of lesbianism, among the many too numerous to elaborate upon, is that it is possible to go to bed with someone and feel more beautiful naked than clothed, more desirable than you had any expectation of feeling after being weaned on a diet of American standards in silicone and femininity.

The observations are not confined solely to women. Gay guys come in for a butt-load of ribbing, and to Eisenbach's comedian, heteros get to play the straight man:

Nature has given men erections to make sure they never forget that nothing lasts.

Nothing is excluded from the humor or escapes attention:

The telephone, to get back to where we started, is an instrument that is frequently misused in interpersonal relationships; indeed, it is sometimes the root of intercouple trauma. Remember, if you can, that the phone should be wielded like a vibrator: 1. Gently, paying particular attention to the responses of the phonee, 2. Only when absolutely necessary, so as not to become too dependent on its usage, and 3. Never as a substitute for the real thing face-to-face. Well, almost never.

One sour word on the formatting side: in the Kindle app on my Smart phone, some of the text that was intended to appear in two separate columns wasn't very well separated as you can see from the image below.

I thoroughly recommend this even if you don't have your dreams swimmin' in women.

The Woman in the Movie Star Dress by Praveen Asthana

Title: The Woman in the Movie Star Dress
Author: Praveen Asthana (no website found)
Publisher: Doublewood Press (no website found)
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Errata:
Page 31 “Sachem Littlefeather” should be “Sacheen Littlefeather” née Marie Louise Cruz.
Page 46 “…dishy Kennedy’s…” should be “dishy Kennedys” (it’s a plural, not a possessive).
Page 164 “It’s OK darling” needs speech quotes around it.
Page 174 “…two young women in skirts so short she could tell one was a natural blonde and the other favored dilapidation…” I got a real laugh out of that! I assume the author meant “…two young women in skirts so short she could tell one was a natural blonde and the other favored depilation…”. Of course, I could be wrong and this could actually have been intended as a joke!
Page 179 Genevieve knows who Alla Nazimova is, on page 200, a day later, she does not!

With few exceptions, I normally avoid books which sport a favorable review from Jerk-Us Reviews on the cover. Since those guys rarely negatively review, their "reviews" are completely without value. This one I had requested not knowing Jerkus liked it, and it was just as well, since I liked it too! How weird is that?!

Having favorably reviewed Diana Mclellan’s non-fiction Sappho Goes to Hollywood in December 2014, this seemed like an interesting novel to me. This novelist does almost everything right. The prologue is chapter one, which I read (I wouldn’t have, had it actually been a prologue!), and I learned of Margaret Brooks who buys (from a guy named Mel - I have no idea if that delightful juxtaposition was purposeful not!) a dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in the movie Niagara which I haven’t seen, but which has to have one of the most boring plots imaginable fro what I read here. Margaret wants to be a femme fatale, and she already has a gun. She buys the dress.

Abruptly we’re in chapter two and it’s sixty years later, making the year around 2013 (Niagara came out in 1953), and we meet Genevieve (not her real name!) Nightcloud, who now works in the same store (but now in a different location) that Mel founded all those years ago with a dress he got from Joan Crawford. The author titles the chapters mostly after actors: Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, Natalie Wood, Ava Gardner, and so on and adds a quote supposedly said by the actor.

Genvie grew-up watching old Paramount movies because her dad was one of the janitors at the studio and parked his kids in the screening room watching old movies while he worked. Genvie feels like she’s caught in the middle of too many things to be anything of one thing: she’s halfway between “plain and pretty, white and brown, sassy and shy” and she’s also stuck between being a modern girl and loving those old movies.

One day, right after a new consignment of clothes arrives, which contains that red dress, a woman comes into the store hauling a kid along with her – and she buys the dress. She wants to stand out at an event, she says, because her husband has a wandering eye….

Before the three girls in the store know it, a guy shows up asking about that very consignment, claiming he’s a relative and wants to retrieve a family heirloom, but the fierce Gretchen says all those things were sold, and she refuses to divulge any information about who may have bought what despite a large monetary inducement. Good for her! This doesn’t, however, prevent Genvie from taking a growing interest in that dress, and the woman who wore it: Margaret Brooks.

One serious complaint I would make if I took book blurbs seriously, is how utterly inaccurate this one is! We all know that book blurbs are hardly the most reliable source of information about a given novel, and that the author typically has nothing whatsoever to do with the particular one which their novel is saddle, but that said, the one for this novel is about as misleading as you can get! It begins:

“A young woman comes to Hollywood to escape her past.”

No, she’s already in Hollywood (near enough)! Has been since she was a kid!

“She finds work in a vintage clothing store that sells clothes used in the movies.”

No, her father finds her the job!

“One day she discovers a way to transfer human character through these vintage clothes, and she uses this ability to transform from a lonely, insecure young woman to a glamorous heart-breaker.”

No, she notices her character changing when she inappropriately ‘borrows’ various dresses from the store, and later surmises what is happening and takes advantage of it.

“But she also discovers that with the good comes the bad as character flaws are transferred too. She begins to worry: what if one of the vintage clothes she has sold to some unsuspecting customer had been previously worn by a deeply troubled soul? One day her fears become crystallized—intrigued by a man who comes asking about a beautiful scarlet dress she has recently sold, she looks into its history and discovers a secret that terrifies her.”

No. That latter part all takes place before she starts wondering why her clothes hang her…!
(Get it? Wire clothes hanger? Joan Crawford? Never mind!)

“So begins a quest to find the scarlet dress complicated by a budding romance and the threads of her past, which intervene like trip wires. Emotions run high, and in the background the quickening drumbeat of the race to find the scarlet dress, potent as a loose, loaded weapon.”

This last bit is the only part which is accurate, if a bit melodramatic!

I have to say that despite my liking of this story, I am really not at all fond of the main character. Genvie is way too focused on (you might say obsessed with) getting herself a man – like this will solve all her problems. There is no doubt that having a reliable partner is definitely a boon (yes, I shall have it no other way, I tell you!) to a person; indeed, fans of actuarial charts (if there be such a beast) will say it’s a life-saver, but such a wish should never make itself the be-all and end-all of your life. You’re not going to be of much use to anyone else if you’re not comfortable with yourself. Clearly Genvie doesn’t get this.

She also has no qualms about borrowing expensive outfits from the store without permission and going partying in them. These are not simply expensive dresses. They're used, but they were ‘used’ by movie legends such as Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, and so on. Some of these dresses are pretty much what would be described as priceless (not that I’d hold them in such regard), but to Genvie, they’re simply tools to get what she wants, as is the peyote she stole from her dad, and she has no qualms, no guilt, no nothing about using them to get whatever she wants.

There’s a guy she meets in the story who makes a living out of murder memorabilia – objects and clothes owned by a murder victim or by the perp, especially if it was someone famous, or a famous crime. Genvie is very critical of this guy, yet she’s so very much like him, using what she calls the ‘chi’ of these clothes to get what she wants.

Worse than this is her profligacy when it comes to sex. I didn’t have a problem with her jumping into bed with a variety of partners, especially since (she thinks) it’s the outfits she wears which make her do these things. I did have a serious problem with her complete lack of birth control and disease prevention smarts.

Even if we assume that she’s on the pill or something (and nothing in this book actually even suggests that), while this would more than likely prevent pregnancy, it will do nothing to shield her from any sexual diseases. She’s actually not a very smart woman at all, and more often than not, she comes off as needy, scheming, and frankly, a royal bitch a lot of the time. On top of that she’s rather hypocritical. Not that she doesn’t have enough to contend with – a bitchy boss, a drunk father, and a violent brother.

I wouldn’t like Genvie were she a real person. Indeed, the only character I actually liked in it was Genvie’s colleague in the store: Gretchen. This business with the ‘chi’ and ‘transference’ of a person’s emotions, behaviors, and foibles via their clothing is absurd, of course. In a note at the beginning (which I almost didn't read, not being given to indulging in prefaces, introductions, etc.), the author mentions the Shroud of Turin at the start of the book – as though it’s real. It isn’t. It’s a demonstrated fake.

That said, this idea for the infusion of personality into old clothes makes a really great premise for a story. I had an idea of a somewhat similar nature for a children's story a while ago, although mine was not like this one in any of the details. I very much enjoyed the ambiguity which pervades this story, how some things are left open (is Genvie deluding herself about what's happening to her?), or which begin ambiguously, but later resolve in ways you don't necessarily expect.

So, to cut a long story (review) short, I highly recommend this novel. It’s very entertaining, well written and amusing. It’s also a bit scary, and rather gripping and unnerving even though you feel you know what’s coming (you don't!). The ending for me was a bit of a mess (like it was rushed to meet a deadline or the author wasn't sure how to tie off loose ends), but that said, it ended the right way when all was said and done.

Luna's Red Hat by Emmi Smid

Title: Luna's Red Hat
Author: Emmi Smid
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

The author is a bereavement specialist from the Netherlands. She has written this book to help parents talk to children about suicide, to help children understand what happened and that it's no one's fault, especially not theirs, and that life will have to go on without the loved one because death is final.

It's the beginning of spring, and Luna is in the park with her dad and baby brother for a picnic, but she's not feeling very sunny. There's one person missing: her mom. Mom killed herself (perhaps from post-partum depression) and Luna, who is wearing her mother's hat, is very angry that her own mom should voluntarily choose to leave her like that.

Dad honestly tries to understand exactly what's on Luna's mind. He takes her seriously and listens to what she has to say. He doesn't talk down to her or try to belittle what she says or is feeling. He doesn't get too deep or into too much detail. He lets Luna ventilate all she wants, and he comments where he thinks she needs to hear his voice.

Carefully choosing his words, he explains what happened and that sometimes, in a situation like this, there's nothing anyone can do no matter how much they feel they should have done something or known something.

There's a section in back where Dr Fiddelaers-jaspers discusses bereavement where it affects young children and offers sensible and useful advice about what to do. I sincerely hope no one reading this will ever need a book like this, but if you do, or if someone you know might benefit from it, it's there, and I think it's does a great job. The illustrations are suitably child-like and colorful, and the text is brief and simple - easy to understand, easy to read, easy to share with a child.

The Last Fairytale by Molly Greene

Title: The Last Fairytale
Author: Molly Greene
Publisher: Amazon
Rating: WARTY!

Not to be confused with The Last Fairy Tale by Laura Dawn, or Last Fairy Tales by Edouard Laboulaye, The Last Fairytale: Rise of the Princesses by M'tain A Dubois, this last fairy tale is about Cambria Butler ("Bree"), who is a journalist, after a fashion, and on the night when she's heading out to interview someone, she runs into an old college friend named Gen Delacourt. The way her first name is used here suggests it's the pretentious form of Jen, but it's actually short for Genevieve. Gen has a "1950's physique"?!?!?! I have absolutely no idea what that means. Luckily for Bree, Gen happens to be a lawyer. Luckily, because when Bree arrives for her interview, the man she's supposed to interview in his office is dead, possibly murdered.

A complete jerk of a man (remember that for later) named Taylor Vonnegon (note that this is the kind of novel in which no main character can be cursed with having an ordinary name!), who worked with the deceased, finds her in the office looking at the body and verbally launches into her as though she just murdered him. Bree is treated like dirt by the police - improbably so, in fact, almost like a caricature or a parody. It took a lot to try and convince myself that the detective would be like this when it hadn't even yet been established that there was a murder. I failed. This behavior made no sense whatsoever.

Having Gen's card in her pocket from their earlier meeting allows Bree to call her with her legal predicament, and Gen immediately comes to her rescue. When Bree arrives home at her apartment that same evening, Vonnegon (remember this jerk?) is there waiting for her. He says he wants to apologize! Yep, this guy stalks her and lurks around waiting for her to get home rather than simply calling her, or leaving her alone and simply telling the police he was wrong about her, which would be the decent thing to do if you were actually not a self-important stalker dick.

And this isn't the worst part of this novel! Bree agrees to meet him for lunch the next day in order to get him to speak up for her to the police! Gen has no problem with this and she is Bree's legal counsel! So now he's blackmailing her and she still has no problem with him? He admits he knows she's innocent and he claims he wants to apologize and explain, but he's behaving like a complete dick.

Despite this, weak-kneed, sad-sack Bree caves-in to his blackmail and agrees to meet with him - the guy who could well be the murderer himself! I am not very fond of Bree or her smarts at this point, or of Gen's competence. Gen doesn't, for example, even think for recording the conversation with the man who could be instrumental in exonerating her client.

Had it not been for the goodwill the writer engendered in me by the writing she had displayed in the first few pages, I would have quit reading this then and there. As it was, it went downhill fast, and I couldn't get past chapter ten - about 25%. The author had been on probation from that earlier point onwards, and she violated it too often! I was rather desperately hoping that this would not be yet another novel which shows a woman who, despite being completely snow-plowed by a guy, falls in love with him anyway! This isn't a YA novel, it just plays one between the covers....

At the meeting, Vonnegon explains his behavior, but it doesn't constitute an excuse. It merely proves that he's still a dick. He starts out using his guests' first names, then unaccountably retreats to calling them "Miss...". Meanwhile It's painfully obvious that Bree is in love, or at least in lust with this jerk who treated her like dirt. Now she can see how cultured and wealthy he is, this evidently excuses his dickishness, so it's fine to fall in love with him because he's going to spoil her rotten with his riches, and after all, diamonds are a girls best friend, aren't they? Who needs hearts when you have diamonds with which this guy is going to club his mate, and get her spade, er spayed...? Vomitous maximus.

Bree's biggest problem was not the possibility that she could be arrested as a murder suspect, but that she was desperate for a relationship when she was no-way-in-hell actually ready for one emotionally. She's also too dumb to see that. That's what this story (judged by what I'd read by the time I quit at 25% in) was really all about, deep down. It's yet another story about a female character, written by a female author who is telling us that if you're a woman, you need a man to fix you and then validate you, and the best person to do that is the biggest dickhead of a guy that you can find as long as he's rich and studly-looking. How sad is that?

Bree's utter lack of smarts is repeatedly thrown in our faces. It's the lawyer who has to tell her that there's a story here, which she could write: one about murder and corporate espionage. Bree didn't have what it takes to see that. No wonder she's not a real journalist! We're told that she is a writer who does "Bios, press releases, newsletters, website content, ghost writing, book editor, blogs, social media." She evidently has no work at the moment, so how she manages to live the rather profligate lifestyle she pursues, swanning around doing nothing all day and eating out routinely, I have no idea.

Gen is no better. We're told she is a lawyer who chases straying husbands and finds lost pets. Her partner is a Secret service agent, who I am sure gets paid decently, but who is hardly paid richly, yet these two live in luxury. Gen evidently has no work either since she immediately starts working full time with Bree on this 'case' without blinking an eye, yet she lives like she does and eats out routinely without a hint of financial concerns. In fact, the conspicuous consumerism in this novel was not only beyond the pale, it was about two states over from that. It's sad to read about these people who (according to the author's lack of mention of same) never lift a finger for a good cause or a charity, yet they supposed to be the good guys?

It was depressing to have to read yet another story about a female main character as lame as Bree is: one who you know is never going to grow. Her life is going to stay exactly as it is until a guy fixes it for her. How convenient is it then, that in investigating all this, she will be required to spend copious time with Mr Dick Bucks?! And why is she even "investigating"? Yeah, she's writing a story, but that doesn't mean that she's a police detective for goodness sakes. Her name should have been Brie, she's so cheesy and soft.

The two of them begin their investigation by trying to dig into Vonnegon's past. They visit his neighborhood while he's at work, but apparently they've never heard of GPS, because they're using paper maps.... This is where the story was not only bad, but now began to be as boring as a manicured lawn, and I lost all interest in these characters and this mystery.

There was nothing going on, no real activity, no real investigation. Maybe it picked up after this, but in order to get me to read that far, you would have to get me engaged with these characters and I had no interest in them. I didn't even like them! I can't recommend it and I couldn't waste any more of my time with it when there are so many other novels out there waiting to be read, many of which I know will really move me.

Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James

Title: Beautiful Malice
Author: Rebecca James
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Rating: WARTY!

Read by Justine Eyre, whose voice was way too mature for the story.

In hospital abbreviations, "BM" typically means 'bowel movement' and that's pretty much what this story was. 'BM' can also mean 'bone marrow', but there was nothing as vital as that to be found here.

It was in first person PoV which is typically a disaster to begin with. Why writers blindly cling to this format is as big of a mystery as it is an irritation. Once in a while an author can bring it off, but that's a blessed rarity in my experience.

The audio book reader's voice sounded far too mature to be credible. Yes. I know this is a reminiscence from several years after the fact, when the character is a married-with-child college grad, but the reader sounds more like someone recalling this from a retirement home, which would have been fine had the story called for it, but it was a voice which simply didn't fit here.

The volume on the audio CD was so low that every time I ejected one to replace it, the underlying radio channel blared jarringly if I forgot to turn the volume down beforehand. Why audio book makers do this is a complete mystery, but this is one of many such disks I've suffered.

And why do they feel the need to add music to the CD? Seriously? Was there music in the original book? I doubt it! Did the author compose the music? No! Is the music anything - anything whatsoever - to do with the story? Not remotely. So why? Just tell the friggin' story. That's why we got the audio book. If we want music we'll got to iTunes.... There's no rational explanation for this. The closest I can get is that audio book makers can't get their heads out of their asses and they're stuck in a rut thinking: Ah! CD = music or something must be wrong.

The story is ostensibly about the "friendship" that develops between the main character, Katherine, and Alice, someone whom Katherine would not have imagined would have wanted to befriend her. The conceit is that this friendship is so fascinating, so burdened with secrets and reveals, so full of subversion, that it deserves a novel, but the truth is that this story is one of the most tedious and boring novels I've ever had the misfortune to encounter.

The story is the same old done-to-death 'evil best friend' story. I hoped for something better, but there was nothing new or entertaining here at all. Most of the story was comprised of rambling digressions which had far more to do with conspicuous consumption than ever it did with moving the story forwards.

The narrator has a deep dark secret of which we're reminded with metronomic frequency. This immediately told me it would be a completely mundane trope, and I lost all interest in it. I got through about 30% of the story and couldn't stand it any more. There's nothing to see here - and nothing worth listening to, either.

Footsteps in the Sky by Greg Keyes

Title: Footsteps in the Sky
Author: Greg Keyes
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Errata:
Page 99 "...affect common repairs..." should be "...effect common repairs..."
Page 187 "...these thigh's..." should be "...these thighs..."
Page 226 "...hall Tuchvala..." should be "...haul Tuchvala..."

I typically don't do covers because my blog is about writing and writers rarely have any say in what their covers look like unless they self-publish (which is why those absurdly dramatic gushing "cover reveals" are so pathetic), but I have to remark upon this one to the effect that if you think, from the cover, that the story is about a race of mice, you're completely wrong!

There was a ten-page prologue and then a five page ‘Interim’! I have no idea what that was all about. I don’t do prologues, prefaces, introductions, forewords, or even interims! If the writer doesn’t consider it of sufficient merit to be incorporated into the body of the book, then I’m really not interested in it either.

This is sci-fi set in 2442 (AD!). We meet SandGreyGirl who is, along with assorted cousins, preparing her mother’s body for burial in some sort of ceremony rooted in Native American Hopi tradition. This “Earth” is evidently one of several which Humanity has colonized before moving on to the next, yet despite this technological prowess, there is still death and so there is still superstition in the form of religion, and the Hopi have curiously not changed in several hundred years!

I found that hard to believe. Yes, you can argue that they like to hang on to their traditions, but it’s really sad to portray a people as apparently incapable of, or unwilling to change. Given that their total population has barely changed over the last half millennium, who knows - maybe anything is possible? Frankly, I don't get the point of setting a sci-fi story half a millennium or so into the future and simultaneously hobbling it with beliefs and traditions from the same distance into the past, although Star Trek makes a good living from doing exactly that, so who knows?!

So “Sand” takes her personal speeder out to her mother’s secret place to bury her ‘magic things’ and finds an ebook, evidently left by her mother for Sand to read after she died. The ebook turns out to be useless because by the time Sand reads it she already knows what it reveals, more or less. Meanwhile, out in space, Alvar Washington and some genetically engineered cyborg-style chick named Teng (modeled heavily on Molly Millions from Neuromancer, but Molly could take Teng!) are barreling in from deep space because aliens have been discovered orbiting the very planet upon which the Hopi people are now living. How the spaceships were seen from so far away is a mystery.

This story is blessedly written in third person, for which I sincerely thank the author, but even so, there was a point (page 96) where it degenerated into first person PoV as we shared the thoughts of one of the aliens. This wasn't in a separate chapter, but in-line with the third person text, same font, style, and text size, the only demarcation being a wider gap between lines. I don't know why this was done.

It felt really odd to me, springing out like that when we were already over a third of the way through the novel. It went on for about one page length and then we were back in third person. I decided to skip this and any future such instances (of which there were several). I also skipped a lot of the portions which were devoted to the psychotic high-tech leader, because they were boring. Guess what? I didn't miss a thing!

There is, seemingly, a rule required by the sci-fi genre that everyone always refers to Earth as 'Terra', and its population as 'Terrans'. Frankly I find this laughable because no one uses that term. There is no provenance for it, and no history of it except in sci-fi. How is it possible it would come into use? It's not! Yet here we find it again in this novel.

From a writing perspective, which is what my blog is all about, it bothers me because it trumpets that a given writer (of whatever sci-fi novel it is which we're reading) has given no thought to this, but has just blindly followed trope. To me, that doesn't speak strongly for the rest of the story (even though many such stories are, in the end, good). So while this doesn't kill a novel for me, it certainly doesn't endear me, either. To me, sci-fi is all about the future - about fresh, new, and original, and it saddens me to see so much of it larded with trope and cliché.

I think writers use it to make it sound cool and different (even though everyone uses it, so it isn't different at all), but I also think they use it for a practical purpose: there is no term for the people of Earth as there is for, say the people of Canada: Canadians. What are we to call ourselves? Earthans? Earthites? Earthlings?! No, Terrans sounds better than those even though, realistically, it makes no sense. It sounds far too much like terrapins or terrorists! Don't forget that the Greek word 'teras' (τέρας) means monster, too! The term 'Humans' makes far more sense, and has long been in use. It sounds perfectly fine, and I can't believe that more sci-fi writers don't simply employ that ready-made term.

As I mentioned, one of the issues that bugged me about this particular story was the paradoxical anachronisms. It was like the Hopi moved some four or five hundred years into the future, but simultaneously moved the same distance into the past. Half a millennium ago, the Hopi had certain behaviors and customs and a certain life-style. Today, those things have changed in very many ways. Given that, why would it revert, four hundred years from now, to what it was back in, say, 1515?

What bothers me is not so much that it couldn't possibly happen at all, but that we're offered no explanation for why it evidently did happen in this case, and to me this feels rather insulting towards the people - that they're somehow atavistic and incapable of progress. It's like the entire Hopi culture of the sixteenth century was transplanted to a new planet, the people choosing to live as they had a thousand years before - except, of course, for all the modern conveniences. Except of course, that those modern conveniences are confined solely to technology. The mindset hasn't changed at all. They're not allowed, for example, same-gender marriage. What?

This set-up made no sense to me. It made less sense that there would be only these two cultures - the 'techs' on the coast and the Hopi people inland, in a desert culture reminiscent of that of the sixteenth century (except for the tech) - and there's no-one else on the planet at all? And these two cultures hate and despise one another? Why? We're not given any explanation or rationale.

To be fair, at one point, Sand Girl does say that the reason the Hopi came to this planet was to recreate the life they believed they were meant to live, but this makes even less sense. The Hopi now - today in this world - aren't living the life the Hopi were 500 years ago. Neither is Sand Girl, who is flying around on mini-jet planes, or her people who are using them to spray crops, using some electronic lie-detecting device, and using modern toilets and showers!

So what criteria, exactly, are she and her people employing to define "the way we were meant to live"?! They're certainly following nothing traditional save for superstitious nonsense. It makes no more sense than the Amish communities freezing their lifestyles in the eighteenth century. On top of that I don't see how any rational thinking person would actually want to regress into a such a lifestyle if it also entailed deluding yourself into thinking there are animistic gods, and that there are evil witches abroad.

I'm not saying it's completely impossible. I mean, even today there are various individuals, some communities, and some artisans who follow anachronistic habits in their lives or at least in their art, but it isn't widespread, and it wouldn't be rational (to say nothing of being economically viable) to give over a whole planet to such a group. I mean, why do the Hopi get this rather than the Bedouin, for example? Why the Hopi rather than the Tuareg? Maybe some attempt was made in the prologue and/or interim to explain all this away, but I find it hard to believe that anything could explain a whole planet being given to such a (relatively) small group of people to the exclusion of all others!

The worst part about this is that we're told, in so many words, that even this back-to-the-land-of-our-ancestors kind of culture has its ghetto: the impoverished, the low-lifes, the criminals, and so on. I don't get that at all. For as 'hi-tech' as society in general is in this novel, these people have the bare minimum. They're living off the land, and no one of them has any more than any other, so where does the criminal element come from? What's there to steal? How is there a ghetto? None of this made any sense at all to me.

In the end, which I almost skipped, but skimmed instead, I can't bring myself to recommend this. It rather fizzles out into a largely unresolved mess, and too much of it was predictable. The aliens were unconvincing - supposedly so different from humans, but supposedly so alike. The one representative they sent seemed completely un-alien. The secret spy among the Hopi was telegraphed from way back near the start of the novel. I like my stories to make sense and this one just didn't. I cannot recommend it.

The Hillary Doctrine by Valerie M Hudson and Patricia Leidl

Title: The Hillary Doctrine
Author: Valerie M Hudson and Patricia Leidl
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Professor Valerie M. Hudson holds the George HW Bush Chair at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, and has written several books. Patricia Leidl is a Vancouver-based international communications advisor who has worked with USAID.

I recommend reading his. I’d call for it to be required reading except for the fact that it’s written more as an academic paper than it is for popular reading, and it’s really quite long (430 pages, although that’s reduced to 308 pages when notes, prefaces, forewords, etc (which I didn’t read, as is my ‘doctrine’!) are excluded. Also, it's very densely-packed with information. For me this wasn’t a problem because I enjoyed reading this and educating myself. For others it might feel rather more like cramming for finals than reading for some other purpose!

Let me start with a disturbing revelation: “The United States is also one of only three nations worldwide that has not legislated any paid maternity leave whatsoever, the others being Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.”. I can’t say anything about Swaziland, but I know that Papua New Guinea has a rape problem of terrifying proportions, which I shall get back to later. Note that another perspective substitutes Oman for Swaziland (I don;t know which is right, but it doesn't make it any better for the US! US, Papua New Guinea, Oman are only nations without paid maternity leave - UN. Indeed, the US is hardly family friendly: The U.S. ranks last in every measure when it comes to family policy, in 10 charts

So this is what women in the 'land of opportunity' are up against. As the book blurb says, “Hillary Rodham Clinton is the first Secretary of State to declare the subjugation of women worldwide a serious threat to U.S. national security.” This is what the Hillary Doctrine refers to, and what this book investigates, looking at both the positive and the negative perspectives. How much more of a threat to security is it when those subjugated women are resident in and citizens of the USA itself? The conclusions may well disturb you as they disturbed me. The book references Hillary Clinton's speech at the Fourth World Conference on Women, organized by the United Nations, in 1995 in Beijing. It's well worth the listening, although I felt that the book over-dramatized it somewhat.

This books asks many disturbing questions which need to continue to be asked until we get useful answers. One of them is: “Does the insecurity of women make nations less secure? How has the doctrine changed the foreign policy of the United States and altered its relationship with other countries, such as China and Mexico?” It incorporates views from a wide assortment of people, both favorable and not, and considers studies conducted in nations from Afghanistan to Yemen. It also considers how the US actively undermines its own gender policy with its own agenda policy.

Clinton, the most widely-traveled of all US Secretaries of State, who was a republican before she switched sides many, many years back, has pretty much been a lifelong advocate on women’s issues, and never so strongly as when she became SoS (for women!) for four years under the Obama administration. “I believe that the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st century. We see women and girls across the world who are oppressed and violated and demeaned and degraded and denied so much of what they are entitled to as our fellow human beings.” This is what she told Newsweek magazine.

After Beijing, Alyse Nelson, president of Vital Voices Global Partnership said, “What Mrs. Clinton so clearly realized in Beijing was that she had a voice and she had power, and she could use that voice to help those who had no power.” There are far too many women in this world without power, without equal rights, without food in their bellies, or clothes on their backs (or too many clothes covering them up and hiding them from sight), and without even a basic education in their brains.

Curiously, Clinton herself has had something to say about Papua New Guinea: One of her highest priorities was “…enabling more women to have access to their rights, to take their position in society” and after a short visit there, she announced her intention to have a trusted aid follow up in that nation where almost incredibly, some 55% of women have experienced forced sex.

I highly recommend this book, sad as it made me to read it because of the god-awfully distressing facts that it piled up inescapably.

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg

Title: The Dream Lover
Author: Elizabeth Berg
Publisher: Random House
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Not to be confused with half-a-dozen other novels which use this same title, this is a fictionalized story set in the world of real-life writer Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, more popularly known as George Sand. Starting in January 1831, it features George embarking upon a stagecoach ride to Paris where she will try to interest a publisher in her novel Aimée (a fictional novel as far as I'm aware since Sand never published any work with that title).

This novel has no numbered chapters, just chapter headers. I skipped the prologue as I habitually do (prologues, forewords, introductions, prefaces, etc). If the author doesn't consider it sufficiently worthy for incorporation into the body of the book, I don't consider it worth expending my time upon.

The novel is also first person PoV, a voice which I detest because it's the most selfish voice: all 'me', all the time, and it didn't work here. Few writers can honestly make it work, quite frankly. It all-too-often comes off sounding inauthentic, or really irritating, and I wish writers would avoid it unless they have a really, truly, honestly compelling reason to go there.

Chapter '2' consists of a huge historical info-dump which I skipped since it seemed irrelevant to me, and more like the author was simply showing-off how much research she'd undertaken. Chapter '3' was the same. Finally, in the next chapter (after a bit more flashback) we get back to the current story. Unfortunately in the very next chapter after that, we get another huge flashback to 1805.

It was then that I realized that I was being told two stories, only one of which I had any interest in. The first was of George's childhood, and the second was what was happening now (now being 1831 in the novel). I had whiplash by this point. Can we not tell the current story? If we're obsessed with flashbacks, why not write that story first, then make this the sequel? I rather suspect that the answer to that is. "Because it wouldn't sell". If that's the case, then that alone ought to tell you that it, perhaps like George Sand on occasion, oughtn't to be there between those covers!

So the next chapter went to 1808, and it the chapter after that where we finally got back to 1831, and we learn that George's novel is considered inadequate by an older male writer who tells her to quit with the writing and go make babies instead, but right when I really wanted to see how she reacted to this, we're suddenly back in 1808 in the next chapter. Seriously? I was beginning to detest this switch-back method of story-telling at this point.

I honestly did not care about her childhood. I wanted the 'now' story. If I'd wanted to read of George Sand's childhood, I would have read an autobiography. I thought, hoped, that this story would tell me something inventive, unique, and interesting. It didn't. It was at this point that I looked at the page count and it showed 48 out of 374, and I did not want to read even one more of those remaining 320+ pages. I really didn't.

I could not continue reading this because what I'd read so far had convinced me thoroughly that the real George Sand had to be far more interesting and arresting than was this limp, passive, and rather schizophrenic (am I a child or am I a grown-up acting like a child?) character which was all we had available to us here.

The story was far too dry and passionless, far too info-dumpy and in the end, pointless. There was nothing to draw me in and make me want to read. Unless you're going to use your fiction to take the character in some new direction, why not just write a biography? If you're interested in writing a biography, why the fiction?

I don't know how this writer feels about George Sand and actually, that's the problem in a nutshell. I felt no passion coming through from the author to the character, and if she feels so cold about it, why should I feel differently?

The novel made no sense, and didn't offer me a thing to feed on. George was presented (unintentionally, I hope) as this self-centered, self-obsessed narcissus who basically has no time for anyone but herself (hence her leaving her husband, no doubt). People like to talk about how scandalous George was but she really wasn't that different from a host of other women in that era (Mary Shelley was one, for example). This novel could have made a difference to my feeling that, but it didn't.

Admittedly I didn't read it all, but I was given no incentive to do so, and based on what I read of it, I cannot honestly recommend this.

Fairest: Of Mice and Men by Marc Andreyko

Title: Fairest: Of Mice and Men
Author: Marc Andreyko
Publisher: DC Comics
Rating: WORTHY!

Nicely illustrated by Shawn McManus.

I picked this up in the library because it looked really interesting, and I was not disappointed. Unfortunately, this is book four in a series, which I didn’t realize until after I’d read it. It did give me the distinct impression that it was part of something ongoing, but that said, it was possible to enjoy this without having read the earlier stories – although now I really want to read those earlier ones!

I always appreciate a story with a strong female characters, and this one has them in droves. By strong female character I don’t necessarily mean one who can literally kick ass, although those are fine; I mean characters who are self-motivated, independent, and who don’t wilt away. They don’t need men, but are happy to have them around, and they can take care of business, which is actually what they’re primarily focused upon.

In this aptly-named tale, rodents (which look like rats to me, so I’m going to refer to them as rats!) are human-sized and intent upon assassinating various lead females in the series, but those females are not going down without a fight. In fact, they’re not going down at all, and the fight goes right back to the rats, which are routinely defeated. The big question is where these rats are coming from? Who is behind this bizarre rat infestation?

I don’t know how you feel about rats, but I love them. My wife has kept pairs of pet females rats for some time and I absolutely adore them. They’re lovable and hilarious, and so tame. Once you get them home and acclimatized to you and your smell, they are more than willing to climb all over you, ride around on your shoulder, climb up your pants leg, and eat out of your hand. They love to scamper around on the floor investigating everything, but will come when you call them – usually. But I digress!

One of the most interesting characters for me got short shrift here – it was one of the ‘evil step-sisters’ and she was totally kick-ass. Hopefully I can learn more about her by reading other volumes in this series. In addition to her, there were lots of other interesting characters, including a blue guy from Indian mythology (that’s India, not native American) with whom I wasn’t familiar. We met the three blind mice, and a fairy godmother.

The art work was gorgeous in this volume: colorful, well delineated, evocative, lively, and very functional. It was a real pleasure both to read and to look at. I recommend this.

The Secret Sky by Atia Abawi

Title: The Secret Sky
Author: Atia Abawi
Publisher: Penguin
Rating: WARTY!

I picked this up at the library because it looked like it would be really interesting - and really different. It's set in Afghanistan and is a story of forbidden love between Fatima (of one tribe), and Samiullah (of another tribe) living under a brutal religious regime. The author has actually lived in Afghanistan, so I was hoping for a lot of local color and insights, but in the end all I got was a bog-standard American-style YA novel and I really didn't appreciate that.

We still hear much about Afghanistan - it seems like every alpha male in every TV show, movie, and novel is boringly a special forces soldier who did at least one or two tours in Afghanistan. I know it's awful there, particularly for women, which is why I thought that this story - written by an honorary Afghani woman who has lived in Kabul, would have something new and different to say, but the story was exactly the same as your typical trope story of this nature written by any other author. The big question for me was: why? This could have been so much more.

Rather than being tied to a time and place, It could have been set anywhere at any time (and I don't mean that as a compliment). It could have been written by anyone. Other than a reference here and there to a tandoor (oven), or a payron (smock), or some other such object, or an Afghani phrase dropped here and there, there was no reason for it to be set in Afghanistan. The setting was rendered into a mere gimmick instead of being an integral and enthralling part of the story. Worse than this, the author shows nothing, tells all.

I found it odd that every time mom or dad was referred to in this novel, we got the Afghani term of endearment for it, but when an aunt shows up, she's consistently referred to as 'Aunt'! Weird. Unless, of course, the Afghani word for aunt is aunt, which I somehow doubt. I'm not a fan of novels set in foreign places where the author's sole idea of creating a foreign atmosphere is merely to drop a local language word or phrase into the narrative and immediately afterwards translate it for us. It becomes irritating and metronomic, and it's a constant reminder that we're reading a story by someone who is hoping desperately to convince us that this is really taking place amidst a foreign culture whilst employing the laziest method of doing so.

We get the same fluttering heart (yawn), electric shocks from merely brushing against the object of your desire (yawn, yawn), square jaw (yawn), muscled chest (yawn, yawn) and so on, that we get in a really badly written YA novel from the US. I know that love has common elements no matter in which culture it arises, but can we not think of something new to describe attraction? Can we not get away from tired cliché and trope even in a novel set halfway around the world? Evidently not.

The villain (named Rashid, of course) is a laughable cardboard cut-out, an uncompromising fundamentalist who festers and fumes, and schemes and waits patiently to unleash his wrath, and chews-up the scenery every time we get the story told from his PoV, which was blessedly rare.

Yes, there are three PoVs in what amounts to a sort of warped love triangle. Each chapter is headed with the name of the character so we can't mistake one for another lol! Rashid is far more of a joke than ever he is a threat. Samiullah is such a Mary Sue that this is almost a lesbian affair. Given the upbringing of these three children, it makes no sense that two of them would suddenly abandon all rules and propriety and start meeting secretly. It makes no sense that Samiullah (we're told) loves and respects Fatima, yet puts her very life at risk every day by meeting with her unchaperoned. Yes, it's necessary for this sad effort at writing a "love" story, but please, do the work to make it seem possible that they would behave like this! Don't simply tell us this is the way it is merely because I want to tell a forbidden love story and can't be bothered to work at it.

I was hoping for a lot more, and got a lot less. I couldn't finish this novel, and I cannot recommend it based on what I read. Life is far too short to waste it reading ordinary stories.

The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany by Jim Stevens

Title: The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany
Author: Jim Stevens
Publisher: Amazon
Rating: WARTY!

This is novel two in my blog's Tiffany Day - two novels with the name 'Tiffany' in the title. This is the second one.

I made it about 15% the way through this before I gave up to go look for greener pastures. Life is too short to waste it gamely plowing through a novel that doesn’t entrance you from the off. There was nothing technically wrong in terms of the mechanics of putting words on paper, getting spelling and grammar right, etc, but it takes a lot more than that to make a novel a worthy read.

This is first person PoV, too, which is usually a mistake. Some authors can make it work, but ninety-nine times out of nine point nine, it fails because it's all "Me!" all the time and really, who cares? It’s especially hard to read when the narrator sounds like there's nothing more engrossing going on than reading-off a laundry list - and one that doesn’t even feature underwear to maybe perk it up a bit. It was tedious.

This is your bog-standard private dick novel, too. The author did try to de-cliché it by making the dick be the father of two daughters, but aside from that, he still sat it squarely in trope central. The dick is badly done-to, gets no respect, he's broke, has no love interest, and so on. Trope, meet cliché, cliché meet trope.... The dick is an ex cop who apparently got fired for hitting a superior ( I doubt that one offense, in absence of anything else, would merit a firing. A demotion and a transfer - and therapy - I can see, but summarily fired?

This does, of course, mean that he is actually a major dick. He seems to be clueless, too. He works (evidently part-time) and is really poorly paid for it, yet he's still paying alimony to his wife, with whom his kids normally reside, although he has full access to them, evidently. It’s apparently never crossed his mind to get a second job to buy the things he keeps whining that he doesn’t have.

His case? Try not to laugh, but the spoiled rotten daughter of his wealthy employer believes she was "roofied" at a dance bar one night. This is his 'case'. Seriously? This girl, Tiffany, is even more clueless than the Dick is, and she passed out in this bar. Those are the facts. According to the video surveillance, no one slipped her anything, so we don’t even know if she passed out from low blood sugar or something, or if she was drugged earlier (or very surreptitiously) or gassed, or something. We're told the dick gets a sample of blood, urine, and DNA. Seriously? What’s the DNA going to reveal? That she has a genetic predisposition to be clueless?!

Even if she was drugged, no crime took place (other than the drugging). She wasn't kidnapped or raped or anything. She simply passed out, was carried into the back office, and she woke up some time later and went home. It was essentially just as though she'd passed out drunk. Unless something bad happened in the back office (and there seems to be no suspicion of that in the portion I read), there's effectively no crime here and the girl just needs to find a better class of place to go dancing and never visit this particular dive again. Case solved!

My guess is that she was somehow made to give up some sort of password or pass code while she was woozy in the back-office and this was the crime - or at least the prelude to it: we're told that she has a whole palette of expensive classical artwork in her apartment, so maybe that's the motive. Or maybe she knows crucial things about her dad's business? Not that Private Dick thinks of that. He's obsessed with trying to track down all the people who were around her at the bar instead of focusing on what there might be to be gained from drugging her, and then apparently doing nothing with her.

But I was yawning too much over what I read in the first fifteen percent to want to fall asleep trying to read the last eighty-five percent. I just didn’t care about any of these characters, and especially not the Dick and Tiff.

Bratfest at Tiffany's by Lisi Harrison

Title: Bratfest at Tiffany's
Author: Lisi Harrison
Publisher: Little Brown
Rating: WARTY!

Today's Tiffany day on my blog. I'm reviewing two novels with the name 'Tiffany' in the title. The first of these is named after the 1950s Truman Capote novella titled: Breakfast at Tiffany's This is why I fell in love with the title of this novel even though it's the kind of novel I'd normally avoid like the plague. It was on close-out, so I thought, "What the hell? Let's take it for a spin and see how badly it drives!"

I was rather surprised, then to discover that I didn't immediately hate it, even as I couldn't figure out if this was:

1. A sly parody of Valley-Girl-style, spoiled-rotten clique kids
2. A truly cynical method of defrauding teens of their discretionary-spending allowance
OR
3. A morality tale about the crippling effect of chronic self-absorption.

But then, who reads this stuff, seriously? And why?! You can hardly blame an author if people voluntarily cough-up money to read what she writes. The problem for me was that in the end, the novel didn't do anything for me. It seemed completely content to do nothing more than extol the vacuous lives of thoroughly misguided kids who had no ambition, and who are obsessed with cliques and clothes, and have no mind for anything else. It was truly sad how blind these children were to reality.

There were parts I hated, such as the purposeful misspelling of words ("nawt" for "not" for example) and stretching out the 'a' in any word which begun with it, such as aah-dorable (which it wasn't). The endless repetition of "Ehmagosh" and "Whatevs", and even worse, the designer names which were trotted out (pretty much every other page) in tandem with every single item of clothing that was mentioned. In short it quickly became nauseating and the saddest thing of all was that nothing had changed by the end of the novel. The kids hadn't grown, and they had learned diddly-squat. I cannot recommend this.