September 2020 books

A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the third book I've read this year that I wish had leaned into its potential as a psychological thriller. I kept waiting for this totally boring protagonist to find out that all the fancy drinks these London hotshots were serving her would, like, turn her into a goblin. Or maybe that they were only befriending her so that they could harvest her organs. But instead, all these, ahem, TWENTYSOMETHINGS are just besotted with this completely ordinary 17-year-old country girl. And even cringier is that she writes stories and the Twentysomethings FIND the stories and...love them. I thought maybe the love for her stories was feigned so that they could win her over in order to steal her identity at some point, but no. There's this character Bernie who I honest-to-goodness thought might be a vampire, or a grave-robber, or SOMETHING...nope. He's just a slightly creepier twentysomething than the rest.

Here's the twist ending of this review, though: it almost completely won me over in the last two chapters. At that point, I suddenly remembered I Capture the Castle and Daddy-Long-Legs and realized ooooooohhhhhhh there were never any body-snatchers, it was wholesome all along! And I wasn't sad I had read it.

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Hostage Three by Nick Lake
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Second reading September 2020:
I was nervous about reading this again but it totally held up!

First reading December 2013:
Ostensibly, this is a book about a spoiled teenage girl falling in love with the Somali pirate who hijacks the yacht she is sailing around the world in. Total eye-roll, right? Just taking the "good girl fancies pirate-archetype character" plot in a very literal, lame, completely unbelievable direction, right?

Wrong. This book really affected me, against my expectations, almost against my will. Every time I thought this book was going to go "there" - "there" being different places at different parts of the book - it stopped just short. In the end, I am left with the same kind of feelings I had when I finished The Book Thief. I'm not ready to say that this book is as good as that one, but there is certainly more to it than meets the eye. (And I mean that very literally since I happen to think this book deserves a better cover.)

I can't guarantee you'll like this book as much as I did. But even if you don't, the the worst that will have happened is that you read a really haunting, beautifully written book.

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The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast by Michael Scott Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a certain feel to a certain kind of captivity (or isolation) narrative and this one definitely has it - this sense that this person has spent a lot of time alone with their thoughts, and has perhaps written portions, or even the majority, of the book you're reading in their head during the worst stretches of confinement. It's the kind of book where the author seeks to understand his captors, then judges them harshly, then comes around to accepting them as individuals, and then writes them all off as hopeless criminals. And then does it all over again.

I was skeptical about how interesting this book could possibly be, having been recently burned by Prisoner, and seeing that it's really just the one guy and seemingly interchangeable captors. But Moore has none of Azarian's pettiness and Azarian has none of Moore's curiosity, and Moore's captors turn out to not be so interchangeable. Plus, he spends a decent chunk of time with a multinational band of hostages aboard a captured fishing boat and they are an extremely colorful cast of characters. If it weren't for the miserable circumstances, the opportunity for him to spend time with people like Rolly seems almost enviable.

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My Calamity Jane by Cynthia Hand
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I guess My Lady Jane is going to remain my favorite of the series - I just didn't care for My Plain Jane or this one very much! I think the authors are very big-hearted and that led to them having a LOT of characters run around in My Calamity Jane because they wanted everyone to have someone to identify with, or they wanted really broad representation. I am sorry, but of the main good guys, there should really have only been Jane and Frank and Wild Bill. When you add in Winnie AND Annie AND Many Horses, it's just too much. I know this means that an LGBT side plot would be jettisoned, but then maybe make Frank into Francine?

Just like its predecessors, it was always witty and clever but it was way too long and had too many people running around in it.

That said, I will TOTALLY read their Mary series!!!

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The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the Olympic 100m Final by Richard Moore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was good, but it should have been better. The author takes people at their word too often, and since his access to the principal players was uneven, certain sides come out looking better than others when they probably shouldn't. The beginning of the book (including early-80s rumors about Lewis' sexuality) and the end (the showdown in Seoul) were the best parts.

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