Category: Book review

Seven Exes by Lucy Vine

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Title: Seven Exes
Author: Lucy Vine
Format: ebook (ARC)
Genre(s): Fiction
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

This book’s synopsis set me up for a fun premise: a possible second-chance romance, but with seven exes and not knowing which might be The One for Esther. But although it was interesting to revisit their relationships with a combination of flashbacks and present day reunions, and there was an attempt to balance these stories with her friendships, Esther spent most of the book far too self-centered and insufferable for me to find her or her personal journey relatable.

If we could have seen Esther being really great in some parts of her life — say, rocking it at work and getting on with her coworkers — while struggling with personal relationships, it could have made her more likeable. And if we saw her growing slowly and incrementally improving things as she reconnected with each ex and worked through the conflicts with her friends, maybe I could believe in her growth and great connections at the end. But everything seemed to come together at the eleventh hour, with a romance that didn’t feel supported by enough on the page and a lesson that was both far too on the nose and didn’t feel entirely earned.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing an advanced reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Seven Exes comes out on 25 May 2023.

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

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Title: A Restless Truth
Author: Freya Marske
Format: ebook
Genre(s): Romance, Historical, Fantasy
Rating: ★★★☆☆

This is the sequel to A Marvellous Light, following Maud Blythe as she tries to solve a magical murder mystery while traveling on a ship back to England from New York — it is, as Marske calls it, “a bubbly Wodehousian romp.”

Unfortunately, the first book didn’t set me up for this one to be a romp, and I found myself jarred by the change in tone as well as the lack of intimacy-building between Maud and Violet, a striking actress who Maud recognizes from Robin’s earlier visions about the journey. The romance storyline is mainly about Maud’s self-discovery as she is captivated by Violet, whereas Violet plays the fairly predictable part of the more worldly, guarded flirt, creating a frustratingly insurmountable emotional distance between the two (although that does come across as more realistic in the end than a whirlwind romance). The magic/mystery storyline also fell flat for me, not offering enough new substance about magic and magical society aside from the revelation about Maud, and exasperating me when they make an enormous and completely avoidable blunder as the crisis is coming to a head.

The word that most describes this book for me is claustrophobic: I felt stuck on the ship, wishing for the end of the journey and a change in cast or setting, and ultimately left hoping that the next installment (perhaps following Alan Ross and Lord Hawthorn, who I loved seeing more sides of, although I’d be thrilled to get more of Adelaide Morrissey) will bring a breath of fresh air and some added depth to the series.

The Holiday Trap by Roan Parrish

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Title: The Holiday Trap
Author: Roan Parrish
Format: ebook
Genre(s): Romance
Rating: ★★★☆☆

This is a cute rom-com that’s essentially a queer version of The Holiday: Greta in Maine and Truman in New Orleans are both in need of a change; when a mutual friend encourages them to swap houses around the holidays, they both find an opportunity for love and new adventures.

I finished this book with all the warm fuzzies I’d expect from a romantic comedy, mostly driven by Truman and Ash’s adorable storyline and their respective insecurities and challenges. I felt less connected to Greta and Carys’s story, possibly because the conflict and growth mostly happened on Greta’s end whereas Carys’s growth was part of her backstory rather than on the page. I also found the sheer number of side characters challenging — I was surprised and disappointed that some of them (including characters who had close relationships with the main characters as well as others who felt like fully fleshed-out personalities) appeared only once or twice, but I also can’t imagine weaving them into the story more fully while also juggling both storylines.

If you don’t mind some slightly heavier topics alongside the fluff (heads up that there is family conflict and past cheating), I’d recommend this as a fun escape from real-life stress for a quick weekend or holiday read.

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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Title: A Deadly Education
Author: Naomi Novik
Format: ebook
Genre(s): Fantasy
Rating: ★★★☆☆

While reading this book, I couldn’t stop thinking about the parallels to Cassandra Clare and Holly Black’s Magisterium series:

  • A boarding school where students have to prove themselves capable of great feats of magic to graduate;
  • a main character who wields dark magic and is prophesied to do great evil;
  • the main character’s best friend who is a golden child and viewed as the hero;
  • a developing group of friends/allies so the main character isn’t alone and has some reinforcement around their desire to stay good.

I don’t mean to say that this book felt cribbed; Novik brought a darker, more mature perspective to her story, with a different plot, a more dangerous world, and a clear message about inequality. I appreciated how the main character, Galadriel, had to navigate systemic bias and decide how to interact with students who were unaware of their own privilege. I also enjoyed seeing Galadriel’s friendships develop — and how naturally those friendships arose from her fair and respectful, albeit prickly, interactions with her peers — although I had trouble understanding how Orion had managed to get by so long being so incredibly dumb.

But in the end, whether it was the similarities to other books about coming of age in a magic school or my own fatigue around young adult fiction, I just couldn’t get excited enough about this story to continue the series.

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

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Title: The Stationery Shop
Author: Marjan Kamali
Format: ebook
Genre(s): Historical
Rating: ★★★★☆

This is a beautifully written novel about a woman’s journey from her first love, discovered as a teenager in a stationery shop just before the 1953 coup in Tehran, through her life in the United States — influenced at each stage by the expectations, challenges, and often trauma of those around her.

I’ll admit that if I were judging the plot on its own, this would probably be a three-star book at most: central to the plot are the dubious lack of communication between young Roya and Bahman after the coup and the way their love never wanes or even really changes shape over time. But if you can accept that part of Roya’s story, the rest of the book elegantly portrays how she (and the other people in her life, at various points) faces cultural and familial expectations; immigration, culture shock, and a new language; doubt and roadblocks in her career; and grief and uncertainty. Throughout it all, there are also evocative descriptions of the food that frequently serves to bring people closer together.

I probably enjoyed this book more because of my personal connections to Iran and my love of Persian food, language, and culture, but I think it’s also worth reading for the writing style and exploration of themes like love, alienation, loss, and self-determination.

Magic in Manhattan series by Allie Therin

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Title: Magic in Manhattan series: Spellbound, Starcrossed, and Wonderstruck
Author: Allie Therin
Format: ebook
Genre(s): Fantasy, Romance, Historical
Rating: ★★★★☆

This series took my favorite fiction genres and wrapped them up in a fast-paced, entertaining, touching story with a diverse cast of characters who are dealing with magical conundrums in New York. Although many interesting characters play a role, the books are definitely centered on Rory — a feisty young man who’s scraping by and trying to stay under the radar to hide his magic — and Arthur — a slightly older, rich congressman’s son who is mundane but wrapped up in the magical world — as they try to address the challenges both between them and around them.

There are so many things to enjoy in these books: witty dialogue, but not to the point of being outlandish; some characters who defy categorization as heroes or villains; many instances of people facing and working through issues of class, race, language, nationality, gender, and sexuality; the way prohibition, World War I, and other historical notes play a role in the plot; and a story that blends action and romance. It does have flaws here and there (like some pretty heavy exposition to get some of the backstory in the first book, a bit of a quick transition in the romance, and the use of some very fiendish, one-dimensional villains) but they didn’t get in the way of me gleefully devouring the series. It may not be the most sophisticated story I’ve read this year, but it was great fun!

The Forgotten Promise by Paula Greenlees

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Title: The Forgotten Promise
Author: Paula Greenlees
Format: ebook (ARC)
Genre(s): Historical
Rating: ★★★☆☆

I was very drawn in by the premise of this book: Best friends Ella and Noor make a promise to always be close, but as they grow up they are separated by class and then further by World War II arriving to Malaysia (then British Malaya), as Ella flees with her son to England while her husband puts their daughter into Noor’s care. Sadly, just as Ella and Noor had trouble keeping their promise to each other, I felt that the story had trouble delivering on the promises it made to me.

It felt like almost everyone in the story was, to some extent, just a sketch or a stand-in for anyone who might find themselves in that particular situation, defined primarily by their backgrounds, hobbies, or jobs rather than unique character traits. I was thoroughly captivated by the history, and Greenlees made me care and even do further research about the people and events in Malaysia before, during, and after the war— if you are primarily interested in seeing depictions of what it may have been like for people and especially women at the time, this book really delivers. It also kept me curious about what would happen, but as it wrapped up, I was disappointed by how little Noor appeared on the page and how little I felt about how Ella’s story ended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Cornerstone (Penguin Random House) for providing an advanced reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. The Forgotten Promise comes out on December 29, 2022.

Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall

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Title: Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble
Author: Alexis Hall
Format: ebook
Genre(s): Romance, Comedy
Rating: ★★★★☆

I was lucky enough to nab this book — the second in a series about a fictional baking competition — from the library almost immediately after it came out, and then (as I do with Alexis Hall’s novels) zipped right through it, cackling all the way.

Although ostensibly a rom-com about two of the competitors, Paris and Tariq, a huge part of the story is about Paris’s anxiety and his journey as he recognizes it, accepts it, and learns how to deal with it. So it’s not all fun and baked goods: I felt sucked into Paris’s anxiety and frustrated by the repetitive, negative cycles he went through, especially in moments where he lacked empathy for the people around him and sabotaged his relationships. But that meant his growth also felt fairly realistic, and it was well balanced with genuinely cute moments and lots of laughing about the competition.

If you like Hall’s style of humor, miss the early seasons of GBBO, don’t mind the open-endedness of an HFN ending (which is more about the main character’s ability to be in a relationship than about this particular relationship, per se), and enjoy when your romances come with a strong helping of Serious Issues, you might find this story as lovely as I did.

Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

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Title: Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language
Author: Gretchen McCulloch
Format: Audiobook
Genre(s): Non-fiction
Rating: ★★★☆☆

As someone who loves language and once considered doing research among online communities, I was prepared to thoroughly enjoy this book but perhaps didn’t consider that I might be too familiar with the subject to be its target audience. I’d recommend this book if you’re curious about how the internet is influencing the English language and don’t know much about internet history or linguistics.

It was interesting to hear about things like the origins of acronyms like LOL and how their meaning has evolved over time or comparisons between punctuation online versus on postcards. But I found myself drifting off during the lengthy explanations about different online generations, and I was genuinely shocked when McCulloch mentioned that she had been entirely ignorant of the study of gesture. All in all, it was a fun book but definitely (as McCulloch herself describes it) pop linguistics — something that will leave you with interesting anecdotes about emoji and memes but doesn’t delve much deeper than that.

About the Audiobook

It may seem a bit odd to listen to a book about written language, and I’ll admit that yes, it sort of was. But McCulloch also has a popular podcast, Lingthusiasm, which made me more confident in her narration skills. She definitely didn’t let me down there; she was engaging and she adapted parts of the book for audio. That said, the chapters were a bit long for the audiobook format and I do wish I’d had the book so I could more easily skim the bits I didn’t need to hear about and more clearly remember the interesting parts.

The Upper World by Femi Fadugba

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Title: The Upper World
Author: Femi Fadugba
Format: eBook
Genre(s): Science Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: ★★★☆☆

This is a unique piece of young adult science fiction, melding real physics, time travel, and two main characters from southeast London. It tells the story of Esso, a high school boy who has an accident that gives him a glimpse of a place out of time, and Rhia, a girl who grew up in foster care and is searching for more of her history.

I had a great time learning more about the physics woven into the story and ended up having numerous conversations about the theory of relativity as a result. The point where the physics meets the time travel was (understandably) a bit vague and hand-wavy, and there’s a simplicity to the story that I associate with young adult fiction — neither of which are necessarily a problem, if that’s your cup of tea. The book does a fantastic job jumping between Esso and Rhia’s storylines, building up the conflict and drama to an exciting climax and satisfying conclusion.