July 2020 books

The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lots of fun, lots of logistics, lots of intrigue! I think this book could have been a little tighter, but if you really liked The Royal We and don't mind just hanging out with the characters for a few long stretches then it's not a problem.

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Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I was in sixth grade, my friends got caught up in reading a series (?) of books about cheerleaders (?) getting murdered, and maybe also some haunted stuff? This book reminded me of what those books must have been like, but I don't know for sure since I WASN'T ALLOWED TO READ THEM. So this felt like catching up, a little bit, and it was fun!

Edited to add: my friend Liz helped me find the book series from the 90s. It was The First Evil, and the best part is that the main characters in THAT book have the same last name as the teenagers in THIS one, which means this was totally an homage and I understood the reference without realizing it.

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They Went Left by Monica Hesse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I would have liked this book more if it had gone full psychological thriller on me. It came close in parts (there are a few chilling plot twists) but then hesitated and fell a bit flat. I do appreciate this book for choosing the setting and time period it did (displaced persons camp after WW2), but ultimately I wouldn't really recommend it.*

(*especially not for teens, actually! It has some pretty sexy sex in it and also uses the f-bomb several times, in the sexual sense - if you want something similar to this for your teen but without the displaced-persons-camp-sexytimes, try Ruta Sepetys's books.)

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Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really thoughtful and thought-provoking! It was easy to identify with the different characters at different parts of the story. Also, Briar may just be the best-written toddler there is. I love her.

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Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Alexievich's oral histories and this one was so worth reading. It did help that I had recently read Midnight in Chernobyl so I had a clear idea of the basic events (this kind of oral history does not give any kind of timeline or background information). Even so, it was a bit hard to follow at times. I hadn't realized before how much war (memories of WW2 + expectations of some kind of future nuclear war) entered into residents' experiences of the Chernobyl accident, so that took some getting used to.

The stories in this book are hard to read but hard to look away from.

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We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance by David Howarth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Third reading July 2020:
Audiobook this time, in the car on the way to Norway where all the book's action takes place! We even hiked to the cave he hid in above the town of Manndalen.

Second reading January 2020:
The first time I read this book was when we were living in the UAE and the story was all the more incredible due to the foreign landscape it took place in. Skiing as a mode of transportation! Twilight at midnight! Snowstorms in May! Now, reading it in Finland, it is even MORE amazing since I know first-hand the conditions these people had to work in to rescue each other. The ticking time bomb of the spring thaw with its wet and cold and mush is a formidable foe and almost as much of a villain as the Germans are in this book.

Aside from some, um, "quaint" ideas about women and the Sámi people (put on your best 1950s mid-Atlantic accent and imagine you are narrating archival footage of Norwegian women skiing, or Sámi people herding reindeer, and you've just about got it!), this is a truly excellent read. It will fill you up with hope and appreciation for what people will do to save friends and even strangers.

First reading December 2011:
A spare and unemotional read about a British spy's amazing escape from German-occupied Arctic Norway during WWII. Survival stories often focus on the iron will of the individual. This one is different in that it includes the stories of those who risked all to help the spy survive.

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Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 stars. This is the Ronan spinoff book I didn’t know I needed?? Even though I love Ronan?? I really was content to just leave things at The Raven King, but wow did this book end up being a wild and welcome ride. And I gobbled it up.

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The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy by Masha Gessen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This (like Pilgrim's Wilderness) was another book that has long been on my to-read list and when it finally came up I was like, "Masha Gessen wrote a book about the Tsarnaev brothers AND I WASN'T INFORMED?!?!?" And then I tore right through it. It was just as good as I hoped it would be, even if it turned out to not exactly be ABOUT what I thought it would be.

This book truly is about the brothers, not so much the bombing. Gessen handles this family's (and their circle's) complicated immigration story extremely deftly. There are a few times where it could be that Chechen culture was described in too-broad strokes, and a few moments when Gessen should have been a little kinder to their interview subjects (they relate with maybe a tiny bit of glee that a few acquaintances thought the brothers came from Czechia, which, I don't know, seems kind of understandable), but any book written by Masha Gessen also includes Masha Gessen as an occasional supporting character so it's fine. Because the flip side is that Masha Gessen can get a LOT of people to talk to them and as an author, they are so good at putting all the pieces together.

And there are so many pieces here! Gessen even gives considerable attention to the major conspiracy theories attached to this case, which I rolled my eyes at at first but which ended up being actually kind of compelling. And the connections they (and the wider Caucus-US immigrant community) draw between how Russia deals with potential terrorists and how the US deals with them were extremely apt.

This book was published five years ago and I wonder if Gessen would have anything to add to it now. Much is made in the book of the alleged existence of video footage of Jahar placing the backpack at the scene of the bombings, which at the time the book was published had not been released, but has been since. I also wonder what has become of some of the main players, especially some of the satellite members of the Tsarnaev's social circle who, if their own accounts are to be believed, ended up with serious jail time just for being dumb - immigrant - college kids wanting to conceal their pot habits from police.

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Crown of Coral and Pearl by Mara Rutherford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars. This is a "fairy tale (ish) story, re-made, but DARK" that I actually liked! I had issues with the pacing (the book is fully one-third over before the main characters make an extremely obvious choice THAT IS MENTIONED IN THE BLURB) but I liked the characters, world, and story enough to just sit tight for a while.

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Untamed by Glennon Doyle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The only thing I know about Glennon Doyle is this book, so the first half, which is more about her personal life and changes since previous books, didn't resonate with me. But the second half was great! I screenshotted a lot of pages on my Kindle. Mostly it feels like something to think about, chew on for a while, consider, ponder, rather than something that is a final answer in and of itself.

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