The Sparrow

The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell (Ballantine Books 1996)

First line: “It was predictable, in hindsight.”

My favorite read of February was a book I’ve had on my Kindle for a long time. But loooong before that, I remember seeing it on the bookshelf at my grandma’s house. She was an avid book club member in her slightly younger days — a reason, I’m sure, that she’s still whip-smart in her mid-90s — and this was one of her book club’s picks back more closely to its publication. At that point, both timelines in this dual-timeline sci-fi tale were well in the future. Today, only one of them is.

In (Russell’s) 2019, a scientist in Puerto Rico picks up evidence of an extraterrestrial race, and not just of their existence, but of their singing. Unconvinced he could be right, he gathers his friends, including Jesuit Priest, Emilio Sandoz, to verify his findings. Knowing that this information will soon send missions to space, Sandoz gathers a team of his closest people and a few other Jesuits to field their own mission to meet more of God’s children.

In 2060, Emilio Sandoz returns to Earth as the sole surviving member of his group, after being rescued by the first UN mission to Rakhat, despite their reports that he had descended into all sorts of depravity. While being treated for his numerous injuries, he is forced to recount exactly what when so wrong on Rakhat.

This book is perhaps everything I could want in a sci-fi novel. I loved the dual timeline nature of it, which built so much suspense and tension, while also allowing for moments of joy and humor in what might have otherwise been an entirely bleak story. It was also fascinating to see what Russell thought 2019 might look like, now that we are 5 years past that. The eight members of Sandoz’s team, as well as the other Jesuits he interacts with upon his return, all felt like full, relatable, people I would like to know. This is a “first contact” novel, which is a sub-genre of science fiction I didn’t realize worked so well for me. There was so much anthropological and linguistic interest as the humans met the species of Rakhat that I found fascinating. And then we have matters of faith, and subject area that regularly draws my interest in fiction, questioning issues of morality, God’s plan, and good versus evil.

My only complaint was how quickly the reader discovers the truth of what went down on Rakhat after 400+ pages of lead up, but I think that was a very conscious decision on the author’s part and I can understand it, even while I didn’t love it.

Gosh, this book is so full of heart and things to consider and I loved it immensely. I only wish I had a book club like my grandma’s to read it with.

Review: A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, by Tia Williams (Grand Central Publishing 2024)

First line: “Leap years are strange.”

I knew I wanted to read this before I even read a synopsis. Seven Days in June was my favorite book of 2021, so it didn’t matter what this next book was about. I would read it.

As it turns out, Love Song is a departure from Seven Days, and unlike Seven Days, which had me hooked within the first paragraph (can we all please take a moment to remember how epic that first paragraph was?), it took me a little while to get into it.

At the beginning of this story, we find Ricki, baby of the family by many years, sitting down with the Wildes for their weekly dinner. Richard Wilde, Sr., is the founder of a very successful funeral home conglomerate, and each of Ricki’s older sisters have their own booming franchise. But Ricki is floundering, serving as a receptionist at one of her father’s businesses, and dreaming of a day when she can open the business of her heart — an exotic floral shop. A chance meeting with a nonagenarian who has a flat for rent in Harlem, sends Ricki into her destiny, a road that will eventually lead her to a man named Ezra. A man who has been searching for her for decades, but only during Februarys of leap years.

I had a hard time at first because the Wildes are all wickedly horrible. But once Ricki gets to Harlem, the story picks up considerably and I was all in. Ricki as a character is full of life and spunk and heart, and she sees that reflected in the people who become her family in Harlem: Tuesday, a former child actor who becomes her bff, Ms. Della who becomes her grandmother, and Ezra, who becomes the love of her life. As with Seven Days, there are some tough topics covered here, with mental health, grief, guilt, and racism being at the forefront. But most of this story is just deliciously fun. We have Harlem Renaissance pianists and gorgeous, aromatic florals just spilling from the page, and I ate it all up.

The romance in this story is built on tropes I usually don’t go for — fated lovers, insta-love — but the magical realism elements made it work for me. Plus, Ricki and Ezra are just such likeable characters that it didn’t seem to matter. I have never read a story based around the strangeness of Leap Years (like, how did she even plan for the publication of this book so perfectly?), but I was so delighted to be reading it during one.

Happy Leap Day, everyone!

Review: Shark Heart

Shark Heart: A Love Story, by Emily Habeck (Marysue Rucci Books 2023)

First line: “In the early days after I left New York, I would ruminate, doubt all my choices. But when I met you, I began to thank my failure. Maybe failing was a kind of miracle. Maybe everything happened just right.”

After not putting this in my BOTM box in August, I was feeling major FOMO, and so when Crystal @readingthroughbookclub announced it as September’s pick, I went for it, and I am so glad I did!

Despite this one being all over the internet the last couple months, so many readers are advocating for going into this one blind, and I have to say, I wish I hadn’t actually read the synopsis beforehand too, so I’m not going to share it here. Know that this is the story of a marriage, a story of mothers and daughters, and a story of terminal illness — with a hefty dose of wtf did I just read? But what I will talk about is my reading experience. As I mentioned in my recent review of Calling for a Blanket Dance, I am a sucker for an interesting format. Shark Heart comes through in spades in that respect. In addition to the micro chapters that most of the book is comprised of, many sections are written as play scripts, as Lewis is a theater teacher at the high school where he works. There are also occasionally lists that read almost like poetry — and in fact, much of Habeck’s prose reads like poetry. Her writing is incredibly lyrical throughout, without being pretentious or stuffy. The shortness of the chapters kept the pages moving, which, honestly thank goodness, because a lot of the content is extremely heavy.

Though I had a few qualms with it, I tore through this one and loved my time among the gorgeous language. Well worth the handful of days it took to read, and I loved getting to chat about it last night with my booksta pals!

Review: Out of the Easy

Out of the Easy, by Ruta Sepetys; narrated by Lauren Fortgang (Penguin Audio 2013)

First line: “My mother’s a prostitute.”

This book was probably one of the first ARCs I ever owned, snagged from an ARC giveaway during library school. As you can see, it’s been sitting on my shelf for more than a decade, and here when I finally read it, I listened to the audiobook instead. Oh, well!

Set in 1950s New Orleans, this story follows Josie, 18 year old daughter of a sex worker who, more than anything, wants to get out of the Big Easy. Since she was 12, Josie’s been living alone in an apartment above the bookstore where she works, where the bookstore owner and Josie’s mother’s madam, Willie, can look out for her. When she meets a girl visiting from New England, Josie sees a new future for herself: one at an Ivy League school in the north. But when a recent bookstore customer ends up murdered, and signs point to a connection to her mother, Josie gets wrapped up in a dangerous mystery that might keep her locked in place.

I think this is my favorite Sepetys novel I’ve read thus far. I loved the found family aspects, and all the side characters were excellent. Despite never knowing her father and having a incredibly damaging mother, Josie has a huge network of people looking out for her and caring for her. Fortgang did a wonderful job narrating, covering a huge swath of accents, filling out the characters beautifully. And even though there were several devastating moments in this story that made me audibly gasp, I thought the resolution was perfect.

Review: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna (Berkley 2022)

“The thing is, being a witch is extraordinary… It might seem sometimes that all we are is odd and different, but the truth is we’re amazing. We’re part of the earth below us and the sky above us. Our veins echo the patterns of rivers and roots. There’s sunlight and moonlight in our bones.”

This book was everywhere on the internet during September and October as this year’s “it book” if you are not so much into scary books for the Halloween season, and boy oh boy did the buzz get to me. Diverse characters, found family, librarian romantic lead, for fans of Cerulean Sea, um, where can I sign up? When I saw that my Libby hold was going to take 16 weeks to come in, I knew I’d have to find it some other way, because I was gonna need to read it this season. Enter: Target BOGO sale.

Mika Moon is a witch, which has meant that she’s lived a very lonely life since she’s forbidden from telling anyone that fact. But when she’s contacted by a man who says he’s got three young witches that need a tutor (also forbidden for witches to gather together!), she’s intrigued. What she finds is the warmest, most welcoming home she’s ever known and just about the most delightful group of characters this reader has ever known. But of course, because this existence breaks all the rules, there’s no way it can last, Mika assumes. Or can it?

There’s truly not a single character I didn’t love among these pages, and reading them feels like the coziest hug. The girls are unique and charming, their caretakers overflowing with love and affection for their charges, and our main character is so good at communicating what’s she’s thinking and feeling. The story is a bit simplistic, which is why I didn’t rate this one higher, but it’s just so fun to read. And here’s what’s even better — you don’t have to wait till next Fall to read this one! Although it was spouted as the book to read during spooky season, it actually culminates on the day after Christmas! Now is the perfect time to read it! So do not delay!

Review: Lessons in Chemistry

Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday 2022)

First line: “Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbelt-less cars without giving it a second though; back before anyone knew there’d even be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when the big wars were over and the secret wars had just begun and people were starting to think fresh and believe everything was possible, the thirty-year-old mother of Madeline Zott rose before dawn every morning and felt certain of just one thing: her life was over.”

This book seems to be everywhere right now, and in my opinion, it’s for good reason. Lessons in Chemistry, and its heroine Elizabeth Zott, is one of the freshest and most unique novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s delightfully humorous, while still addressing real, meaningful, and often upsetting, issues in a substantial way, and Garmus’s pacing kept me flipping the pages till the end.

Set in the 1950s and 60s, chemist Elizabeth Zott is a bit ahead of her time. Fiercely independent, she’s determined to make a name for herself in the science research world, despite encountering endless misogyny, sexism, and assault along the way. She certainly never expects to fall in love with the standoffish, Nobel Prize nominated, top-notch scientist in her company, Calvin Evans, but when the two physically collide outside the office, they are both surprised to wind up finding their soulmate. Elizabeth’s life is not short on tragedy, however, and soon she is forced into a field that upon first glance seems radically different than her previous one: that of daytime television cooking shows.

While the premise of this novel is fun and original in itself, what really drew me in to the story was the utterly delightful and strange cast of characters, so many of whom were impossible not to fall in love with and root for until the end. Elizabeth (and Calvin, as it happens) has never known a loving family, and in these side characters, she builds (whether she tries to or not) a wonderfully support network, and you guys know I love a found family story. I found the storytelling to be completely charming and compulsively readable, and I will be thinking about these characters for a very long time.

Review: The Bridge Home

The Bridge Home, by Padma Venkatraman (narrated by the author) (Listening Library 2019)

First line: “Talking to you was always easy, Rukku. But writing’s hard.”

My first choice for #MiddleGradeMarch was a book I’ve been meaning to get to for years. The Bridge Home was all over the place back in 2019 when it was released, earning all sorts of starred reviews from major review sources and the coveted Walter Dean Myers Award, which recognizes children’s literature written by diverse authors that celebrate and discuss diversity in a meaningful way. (Past winners have included favorites such as Firekeeper’s Daughter, A Long Way Down, Punching the Air, and The Poet X.)

The Bridge Home follows sisters Viji and Rukku who have recently run away from an abusive father and have decided to try to make it on their own on the streets of Chennai in India. Although Viji is technically the younger sister, Rukku has a developmental disability that has always made Viji feel responsible to watching out for her. While Viji knows that staying at home was no longer a viable option, she finds out that the streets are more dangerous and frightening than she was expecting. But soon the sisters meet two other young outcasts, Muthi and Arul, and the four become a tighter-knit family than any of them have experienced in the past.

I found this to be a beautiful story of found family and survival. In a story that could have been a “depressing” book, and one that definitely had its heartbreaking moments, I didn’t feel that way reading it, and think that Muthi’s humor and Viji’s determination keep it from veering in that direction. I was also glad that this book didn’t succumb to the “all adults are terrible” trope so often seen in children’s literature. While there were certainly some villains here, there were also good and compassionate adults that helped these kids survive when they might otherwise have not. The author narrates this audiobook (which isn’t always a good thing where fiction is concerned), and she did an excellent job bringing her characters and situations to life.

A solid addition to the middle grade canon, and one that will be eye-opening to many young readers.

Review: Migrations

Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy (Flatiron Books 2020)

First line: “The animals are dying. Soon we will be alone here.”

Since I have yet to finish a book in March (it’s fiiiiine, I’ve had other things occupying my free time lately, and I’m not only talking about season 2 of Love is Blind), today I decided to throw it back to our January snowstorm when I took this photo and February when I finished this book.

Migrations was the second novel of McConaghy’s that I’ve read in recently months, the first being her latest Once There Were Wolves, and I can definitely see the parallels between these stories: the impact of the human-created climate crisis on other living beings, an independent, determined, complicated woman leading the story, the details of said protagonist’s dark past slowly revealed through flashbacks… The reading experience of both books felt very similar to me. Which is not to say that’s a negative – on the contrary, I love these aspects of her storytelling.

In Migrations, set at an undetermined (but relatively close) point in our future, most of the world’s animal species have died off. Franny Stone is committed to tracking the last migration of a group of Arctic terns, the animal with the farthest migration pattern of any animal, and has convinced one of the last fishing boat crews to take her along with them, as she promises the terns will lead them to fish. But Franny’s not telling the whole truth, and it’s possible members of the crew aren’t either. The story was a haunting and devastating look at the path our future could take if the climate crisis isn’t critically addressed soon. However, the book, like Once There Were Wolves, concluded with a surprisingly hopeful ending that brought tears to my eyes — a feat for any book! While I think I liked Wolves just slightly more (this one felt a little too bleak, despite being way less graphically violent), that might just be a fact of it being my first experience with this writer. I find her storytelling so incredibly compelling and gripping, and I will gladly read whatever she publishes next.

Review: The Marrow Thieves

The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline (Dancing Cat Books 2017)

First line: “Mitch was smiling so big his back teeth shone in the soft light of the solar-powered lamp we’d scavenged from someone’s shed.”

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, I had a couple of books by indigenous authors on my stack last month, The Marrow Thieves being one of them. I went into this one mostly blind, knowing only that it was a YA dystopian novel in which most people in the world had stopped dreaming, except for the indigenous populations in North America, and the government found they could use their bone marrow to somehow extract the ability to dream. The science of the premise was unclear, and I have to say, it didn’t clear up a whole lot within the novel itself, but honestly, when does the science have to make sense for white supremacy to do whatever it wants to do?

On its surface, The Marrow Thieves is another excellent addition to the YA dystopian cannon, with a wild near future setting, a group of kids running for survival, and a big bad government hunting them down. It fits in easily with the Divergents and Hunger Gameses and all the rest that teens (and the rest of us) gobbled down in the past decade. But what I found so compelling about this novel was its storytelling — both the author’s and the characters’ storytelling. The reader learns the backgrounds of each of the characters in this hodge-podge found family of wanderers through the stories they share with each other, and they’re layered together to build a bigger picture that eventually reveals its connections. Often these stories are heartbreaking, devastating even, and that pain is shared among the members of the group. In a culture that so values oral wisdom sharing, we also see the consequences of losing language, as happened — and is still happening — all too often both here in the U.S. and in Canada, as a result of cultural genocide.

This novel was darker and more intense than I was expecting, but also more tender. It’s about persecution and the reckless murder of a culture, but also about the survival of one.

Review: Early Morning Riser

Early Morning Riser, by Katherine Heiny; narrated by Kate Rudd (Random House Audio 2021)

First line: “Jane met Duncan less than a month after she moved to Boyne City.”

What a strange little book.

Early Morning Riser tells the story of Jane, second grade teacher, and her life among the residents of Boyne City. Spread out over almost two decades starting in 2002, we see as Jane first takes up with older guy Duncan, who has seemingly slept with most of the women in Boyne City and many in the greater Michigan area. But Jane’s smitten, and she doesn’t care — that much — as women flirt or glare from every corner, and even as they have dinner with Duncan’s ex-wife, Aggie. There’s not much else to tell without spoiling the mild reveals along the way, but I have to say, I don’t remember the last book I read that felt so authentically weird to the realities of life and all the characters you interact with on a daily basis. It felt so genuine to the experience of living in community with other people, in a way that many novels/movies/shows don’t. Whereas lots of media idealizes the friend group, EMR shows that sometimes people in your crew drive you absolutely crazy, but you’ll still drive them to the hospital in a blizzard if they needed you to.

I thought Heiny did an excellent job of structuring the story too. It’s split into seven sections, each section spread several years apart, and for me, the moments of transition were executed beautifully. Something major happens at the end of the section in most cases, and then you are taken years into the future to slowly piece together the ramifications of that moment. It’s such a clever writing choice.

I liked this book a lot, but felt left wanting more. Whenever I rate an audiobook lower than I expect, I wonder if I’d have liked it better on paper, and I do wonder that here. I’ve seen reviewers saying they flew through this in a weekend, and I think that might have been the way to consume it, rather than spread out over a couple weeks on audio. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable and quirky experience.