Tag: Fiction

The Summer War by Naomi Novik

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Title: The Summer War
Author: Naomi Novik
Format: eBook
Genre(s): Fantasy, Fairy Tales
Rating: ★★★★★

Novik’s latest novella is a fairy tale about a young witch, Celia, and her family’s connection to the Summer War, a seemingly unending conflict with the immortal summerlings. It is a story of conflict, but more than anything it’s a story about family and how we care for each other.

This story is especially focused on the theme of caring: Who we care for and why, how caring can develop over time, how that care can be one-sided or reciprocal, what happens when caring and principles come into conflict, and how it effects people’s decisions and actions. As you might imagine from the title, it also includes some enjoyable commentary about war (and the different people it benefits and harms) as well as the leaders trying to prolong or end it. It isn’t a perfect story — as with many novellas, it is more of a story about themes than characters, and some of the plot has an unrealistic flavor common to fairy tales — but it’s incredibly enjoyable for what it is.

How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

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Title: How to Kill Your Family
Author: Bella Mackie
Format: Audiobook
Genre(s): Fiction, Dark comedy, Thriller
Rating: ★★★☆☆

This was a book club read — not at all in my usual genres — and I found myself torn between being incredibly entertained and immensely frustrated by it.

I was sucked in by the structure, watching each murder with a sense of satisfaction as an intelligent but damaged woman, Grace, patiently offed each rich, entitled, insulated member of her birth family. I enjoyed the pieces of backstory interspersed throughout, even as it revealed Grace’s seriously unhealthy perspective on interpersonal relationships.

But I got stuck on the twist at the end, which broke the narrative flow and also relied on Grace doing something that felt very out of alignment with her care and meticulous planning earlier in the story. It was a brilliant portrayal of the power of wealth and patriarchy but left me feeling bereft — although I imagine that was intentional, and so I still have a fair amount of respect for Mackie’s storytelling.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

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Title: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Format: ebook
Genre(s): Fiction
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Have you ever read a book that, when you finished it, made you wonder if the author was so brilliant that they made you empathize with the main characters while also deeply disliking them, or if the disliking was unintentional and it wasn’t meant to make you so upset? That’s how I felt about Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — particularly in the way that Sadie and Sam both felt like very plausible characters, but I wanted to throttle them both.

This is a story about friendship and relationships, set in the context of the game industry and all of its horrors, from the competitiveness to the sexism to the commercialization. Sadie and Sam’s friendship (if you believe it is actually friendship) revolves around gaming, but throughout the book they clash over their games and consistently fail to care for and empathize with each other (thus my doubt that the story represents a true friendship). If that were the entirety of the story I’d probably rate it lower, but there’s a chapter about 2/3 of the way in (the NPC chapter) that blew me away, and I was left thinking that perhaps the greatest value in this book is the evolving pain, hollowness, and grief threaded throughout.

Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli

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Title: Someday, Maybe
Author: Onyi Nwabineli
Format: ebook
Genre(s): Fiction
Rating: ★★★★☆

This debut novel is gripping but also really heavy: It is entirely the story of a woman’s grief after her husband’s suicide, following her journey through myriad emotions and thoughts and challenges in the aftermath of his death.

Throughout the book I was immersed in Eve’s emotional state, and I empathized with all of her reactions and the stages (cycles) of grief she experienced. I adored her family and friends, was appalled by her mother-in-law, and grasped at the memories of her husband — each of them felt like real people, full of depth (as Eve observed and I truly believed, “lives are lived outside of mine and people are not mere characters in my story but are stories all their own”). I also appreciated that the focus stayed on Eve and her grief; despite her own consuming drive to understand her husband and his decision, the book never really became about him and his psychology, at least not separate from how Eve was processing it.

When I put down the book I felt like I’d travelled hand-in-hand with Eve, learning and experiencing so many things about her family, her culture, her beauty, and her strength in the face of a devastating loss.

One Moment by Becky Hunter

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Title: One Moment
Author: Becky Hunter
Format: ebook (ARC)
Genre(s): Fiction, Magical realism, Romance
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

This debut novel is a bittersweet story about the value of friendship and the power of individual moments to change our lives, with a key feature: it begins after Scarlett’s death and is told from the perspective of her best friend and roommate Evie — but also by Scarlett herself, narrating as she watches over the aftermath and remembers her past.

The premise of this story is compelling, but I found myself frustrated as (especially during Scarlett’s narration) the message was spelled out repeatedly for me rather than trusting me to figure it out for myself. The dual perspective, although valuable for showing the backstory and full picture, also gave away so much that I never really got to feel surprised; the events played out just as I expected they would.

I wish Hunter had held back a bit more, but I do tend to prefer stories that leave more open to interpretation (and, in that vein, would have loved a more open-ended conclusion). This is a sweet story exploring how sadness and happiness can be intertwined, and if you’re looking for a straightforward celebration of friendship and love, this might be the right book for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Corvus (Altantic Books) for providing an advanced reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. One Moment comes out on March 2, 2023.

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.