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 In July 1914, Vivian Rose Spencer is a twenty-two year old young woman who has finally been given permission to go on her first archaeological expedition. In the shadow of coming war, she falls in love and is forced back to England, where her life seems on hold until she’s not sure how it can continue. At the same time, Qayyum Gul is fighting in the war, losing an eye at Ypres. He and Vivian meet once, unaware how their lives will change around each other, until fifteen years later their fates are united again in the search for a historic artifact and a second fight for independence.
This review has been difficult to start writing. I didn’t feel the way I expected to after reading this book. Burnt Shadows was powerful. It left an impression on me and it took a long time to get out of my head. I mean, I read it nearly five years ago and I still have feelings about it. By contrast, I finished A God in Every Stone towards the end of July and I’m struggling to recall any feelings I had towards it besides indifference.
I think part of the reason I didn’t appreciate it so much was because I didn’t get on very well with the main character. Viv irritated me. Unfortunately I think I am one of those readers who generally has to at least sympathize a little bit with the main characters in a book to actually enjoy the book itself; this isn’t always the case, but I couldn’t really recover from a decision she makes towards the beginning of the book. The very beginning of the book seemed like it would be perfect for me – an archaeological expedition, a burgeoning love story, and the shifting uncertainty caused by the approach of war. Because Viv’s expedition is comprised of her and Turks and Germans, I initially thought this would be a book which demonstrated how people are just people, no matter what country they come from.
It kind of is, but doesn’t really get there. The characters in the book are certainly people with all the flaws inherent in that and I spent most of the end of the book worrying about the fate of one particular character, but I suppose in the end it just didn’t connect with me. Which is a shame, because a lot of people seem to think highly of it. Shamsie is a beautiful, skilled writer with a real talent for getting into her character’s minds and evoking atmosphere. It makes me feel as though I missed something, but for me it did fall short. As you can probably tell, it’s difficult to articulate just why, and I don’t think I’ve succeeded in this review.
I would still look forward to Kamila Shamsie’s next book with eagerness, but I would recommend Burnt Shadows before A God in Every Stone.
All external links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
 Arturo Rivera, his wife Alma, and their daughter Maribel arrive in the United States with close to nothing. Unlike many immigrants, who come to the United States out of poverty and desperation, the Riveras have arrived in the hopes of getting Maribel into a special school for children with brain damage. Beautiful sixteen-year-old Maribel hasn’t been the same since a terrible accident and Arturo and Alma would do anything to help her recover. They find themselves in an apartment building full of other immigrants. Entwined with the Riveras story is that of the Toro family, whose son Mayor falls in love with Maribel on first sight and only loves her more when he gets to know her better, and snapshots from the lives of other immigrants from all over Central and South America.
I really loved The World in Half, the first novel I read by Cristina Henríquez, so when I was offered The Book of Unknown Americans for review consideration, I immediately accepted. Although I’ve forgotten the details, I still remember how beautiful that book was and how much of an effect it had on me. This book was different, but again had an impact and slightly shifted my worldview.
One of the things that stands out most, again, is Henríquez’s beautiful, clear writing. The very first scenes of the novel, when the Riveras are arriving into their new apartment for the first time, are surprisingly moving. We learn the details of their lives – the cracked windows, the cupboards with bedsheets tacked on instead of doors, the mattress a discarded relic they found on the way – and even when the story gains more heft, we know that this is in the background, not only for the Riveras but for the other tenants in the building.
Their story is interspersed with those of the other people in the apartment building. They all have different reasons for arriving in the United States, some legal, some illegal, and this is what the book is trying to convey. There are so many of these people, all Americans, who are unknown, who don’t count as much because they have slightly darker skin, who slip beneath the radar. Like immigrants in what seems the world over, especially those who aren’t white, they suffer simply for being slightly different and are held accountable for all manner of ills. I found this passage really powerful:
I mean, does anyone ever talk about why people are crossing? I can promise you it’s not with some grand ambition to come here and ruin everything for the gringo chingaos. People are desperate, man. We’re talking about people who can’t even get a toilet that works, and the government is so corrupt that when they have money, instead of sharing it, instead of using it in ways that would help their own citizens, they hold on to it and encourage people to go north instead. What choice do people have in the face of that? Like they really want to be tied to the underside of a car or stuffed into a trunk like a rug or walking in nothing but some sorry-ass sandals through the burning sand for days, a bottle of hot water in their hands? (p.241)
I didn’t get tired of these parts of the book, even though I liked the main story too. All of them were different and had stories worth hearing. Although they were brief, and for the most part had settled in that apartment building and left the more difficult parts of their immigration behind, I personally found them really moving and a perspective I hadn’t encountered often enough.
Very highly recommended and I will continue to keep my eyes open for Henríquez’s next book!
All external links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review consideration.
 Time // Sunday afternoon, 14:25
Place // At home in an apparently severe rainstorm – flood warnings in full effect
Eating // Roast chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner later on, yum
Drinking // Tea
Reading // I’m getting slowly into graphic novels. Here’s my nice and tiny TBR which consists of just three volumes:
That’s the second volume of The Sandman and first each of Fables and Saga. This week I read the first Sandman, Preludes and Nocturnes, and was sufficiently excited by it to immediately buy the second one.
I have held off on the graphic novel front for a long time. The main reason is because they’re expensive and I wasn’t sure such a lengthy investment would pay off in the end. I’d rather get them from the library if possible. But my main central library is now closed until the autumn and doesn’t have any of the series that blogger friends like (see, the above ones I chose). Secondly, I finally finished reading Bone, which was a series I did get out of the library until we capitulated recently and bought the whole thing. After reading that, and remembering some of the amazing graphic novels I’d read a few years ago like Maus and Persepolis, I decided to give the longer series a try.
In regular book format, I’ve just finished A Darkling Sea by James Cambias and Skin Game by Jim Butcher. I’m almost guaranteed not to review the latter, so I will just say that I still really love the Dresden Files and I was so pleased with the outcome of this one. I want to review A Darkling Sea.
I’m currently reading Song of the Vikings by Nancy Marie Brown. It’s so cool how much of our stories still contain references to Viking legends and sagas. Fascinating.
Watching // I finished Veronica Mars! I haven’t really known what to do with myself since. I loved it; I am simultaneously glad I didn’t get into it until the movie wrapped everything up and disappointed that I couldn’t have been part of the huge fannish excitement surrounding its release.
Next I plan to finish Call the Midwife and then we’re going to start a completely new series. I hope it will be Orphan Black which has just appeared on Netflix. A couple of friends and I have almost finished watching the latest series of Game of Thrones.
Cooking // Have I made anything exciting in the last few weeks? I don’t think I have. We’re still on low maintenance mode here. I’m hoping the stress will die down in September, but we’ll see.
Learning // Not started Italian yet. I have continued crocheting, though. I made this little cutie recently:
At least, I think he’s cute!
Gaming // Still no gaming, although after reading the first Sandman I’m thinking about trying Arkham Asylum.
Loving/Hating // Loving my city, as usual, where you can walk along to a vegetarian cafe and a gaming shop and encounter this in the masonry of York Minster:
Mostly hating how stressful my life feels right now.
Anticipating // Seeing Robin Hobb tomorrow at my Waterstones! I feel like I need to reread all the Farseer books before I get to Fool’s Assassin because it’s been so many years, but it’s not every day you get to meet one of your favorite authors.
Credit goes to Kim for the Currently format!
July! It started out really well. The first weekend in particular was great, seeing a good friend and watching the Tour de France go by just two minutes away from my house. We decided on and booked our holiday for the year, which I always find particularly exciting. I love planning our trips and knowing that I’m going to see a bit more of the world soon. We had a two week stretch of amazing weather, too, so although it rained on the weekend in between, it actually felt like summer.
Then the second half of the month crashed and burned, with another family member in the hospital and an inordinate amount of stress for other reasons. At the moment it seems every time I think a break is coming, something else happens.
In other positive news, though, I’ve gotten up the courage to start driving to work half of the time, which is a big step for me, and I’ve started to feel more like doing healthy things like cooking and exercising. We’re missing the 10k we had planned to run tomorrow, but I think my shin splints have finally healed now that I’ve given them weeks of no pressure. I’m hoping that by the time I write August’s wrap-up, I will have started moving again without any pain.
As always, anyway, books keep me company. I finished eleven books this month. They are:
- Bone by Jeff Smith
- Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire
- Honor’s Knight by Rachel Bach
- Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z. Martin
- Heart of Venom by Jennifer Estep
- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
- The Devil’s Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square by James Straub
- Hild by Nicola Griffith
- A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Fury of the Demon by Diana Rowland
Favorites of the Month
 
Obviously, I loved Fangirl, because I even managed to write a post about it without having any reason besides the fact that I loved it. But Americanah was pretty amazing too. Both of them got five stars from me although for different reasons. Just behind is Honor’s Knight by Rachel Bach, which was a fantastic follow-up to Fortune’s Pawn.
Only three books are left in my summer reading stack. I’m hoping to read them before summer is over! How has your summer been so far?
Somewhat unsurprisingly, my list for today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is dominated by romance authors and authors who write long-standing series. I love a good series.
- 25 by Nora Roberts – I really enjoy some of Nora’s books, to be perfectly honest, and she is SO prolific that it’s hard to escape owning massive numbers of her books!
- 24 by Catherine Coulter – I haven’t read any of Coulter’s books in years but I was a big fan of them when I was younger, especially because she wrote medieval romances.
- 24 by Julia Quinn – I still love Julia Quinn. Her books are so light and funny, they’re absolutely perfect for a day that’s been a bit of a downer (or honestly a couple of hours any time).
- 22 by Stephen King – I’ve been reading books by Stephen King for years. What’s more shameful is how many of these I now haven’t read – I think I’ve purchased but not read at least his last 3 releases.
- 21 by Bernard Cornwell – And I haven’t even read the Sharpe series, although I do own two of them!
- 21 by Stephanie Laurens – Another remnant of my romance-buying youth; I recently picked up three of her more recent ones but haven’t read any of them yet.
- 17 by Jim Butcher – All the Dresden Files plus some Codex Alera!
- 15 by Robin Hobb – I adore Robin Hobb’s books (obviously). This is going to be 16 soon and I get to meet her at the beginning of August!
- 15 by Seanan McGuire – This includes the books she’s written under Mira Grant – a total auto-buy author for me and I’m really looking forward to this hitting 16 when the next October Daye book comes out.
- 14 by Eloisa James – Another of my favorite romance authors, Eloisa James consistently writes smart, funny, powerful books. Auto-buy.
Which authors dominate your library?
 Cassidy Kincaide is the owner of Trifles & Folly, a gift shop full of magical antiques and rare items. Some of them are inert, some give off happy feelings, and others have negative memories. A few of the items are even haunted. Most of those – and anything too negative – is not available for the public to buy, but Cassidy hears that a local B&B has started having hauntings after buying a few of her items. Plus, she’s just found a pair of opera glasses that was inert and has now turned dangerous. Cassidy’s ability to read items means that she’s really the only one who can find out what’s turning once-neutral antiques into malicious haunting presences.
I’d never read anything by Gail Z. Martin before; I’m always interested in trying a new author and particularly a new urban fantasy series, so I was happy to get this particular book offered for review. While I wouldn’t put it up there with some of my favorite urban fantasy series, it was a solid offering.
In concept similar to The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff, which I didn’t end up writing about, in actual fact Deadly Curiosities is significantly different in story. I was really intrigued by the idea of magical items that could more or less take on a life of their own. They don’t change reality so much as actually haunt people and cause them to feel certain things. Cassidy’s special magical talent enables her to tap into those histories and find out what actually happened; witnessing what’s making those objects have the effect they do. She can tap into any item, so those with a positive or protective influence can also be used as weapons against ghosts or other hauntings. It’s an intriguing idea and worked well within the context of the story, allowing us to skip around in history without losing the main narrative.
Some of the events that happened were downright scary, too; I think the one that would have terrified me most is a ghost haunting the B&B owner, only for her to be protected by another ghost. Not sure I could have lived through that myself!
The book does suffer a little bit from being the first in a series; it always takes time to set up a world and characters and sometimes I felt that the ones here were a little bit shallow or simple. The author doesn’t really do info-dumping, but at times the plot takes a twist or turn to describe some other aspect of the world, rather than getting straight to the conclusion. I am sure these problems will be solved in coming books, especially as the author is given an opportunity to sink into the world a little bit more. I’m particularly interested in learning more about Sorren, the vampire with whom Cassidy works; there was just enough detail to make me interested in learning more.
Overall, I didn’t fall in love with Deadly Curiosities, but I liked it, and I’m certainly intrigued enough to have a look around for other books by Gail Z. Martin.
I received this book for free for review consideration. All external book links are affiliate links.
 Seventh century Britain is a harsh world, comprised of petty kings and their domains, haunted by the frequent spectre of war. Little Hild is born into this world as the daughter of a prince, her mother prophesying before her birth that she will be the light of the world. But Hild’s father dies when she is only a child, throwing her world into uncertainty. Her mother, and then she, schemes to keep their rightful place, and Hild becomes a seer for her uncle, King of Northumbria. Not only does she have to handle difficult and uneasy politics, but she also has to deal with the regular struggles of any young girl growing into a woman.
The author for this book has done a lot of research into the period and it shows. She freely admits that she’s completely made up the vast majority of Hild’s story – it is fiction, after all – but the surroundings and the life that Hild lives are entirely possible for a girl in seventh century Britain. She is the seer of just one petty king in a Britain full of them. They each hold one piece of what is now a whole, but that is not treated as a foregone conclusion in the slightest. I liked reading about some of the smaller kingdoms, including Alt Clud, which was actually in Vanished Kingdoms, a book I found incredibly interesting nearly a year ago, about kingdoms and provinces in Europe that have since been forgotten.
As for Hild, all this means is that she has to keep Edwin’s favor but at the same time weigh what might happen if one of the other kings surge in power and she’s no stranger to battle. Because she is a seer, and not just the king’s niece, she has to endure a huge amount of danger and uncertainty.
At the same time, though, Hild is very clearly a teenage girl, and even though the world she lives in doesn’t at all resemble our own, she’s easy to relate to. This book really spans her childhood, from when she can’t even speak to the moment when she becomes a woman and in charge of her own destiny – at least, as much as she possibly could be. She grows and we understand where she’s come from and where she thinks she’s going, even when she’s not sure.
This book’s storyline spans the conversion of Christianity, which I found fascinating. The bishop, Paulinus, is a missionary and it’s his job to convert Hild’s people. The king in Kent is of course the first to be converted and then Christianity spreads across the island. The book thus has to deal with the reconciliation of pagan beliefs with Christianity; how to get these people to decide to be baptised and then how to compromise in order to keep them Christian. Hild doesn’t stop being the king’s seer even when she has to be baptised. She remarks with surprise at the time that she hasn’t burned and she’s still herself and her visions are given just as much credence as they were before. She still fits, even though the world around her is changing and adapting.
I read Hild slowly – it’s not a fast read – but it’s a book worth spending time with. Hild’s world is very unlike our own and it takes some getting used to, but the reward is an intricate, cleverly written story and a worthy heroine as its star. Recommended, especially for those who already enjoy historical fiction.
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
Time // Sunday evening, 16:12
Place // My desk – haven’t actually written a post on the laptop in ages.
Eating // Leftover pasta and homemade sauce for dinner a bit later on
Drinking // A glass of water
Reading // Today I finished Hild by Nicola Griffith, which I should be reviewing this week. It’s coming out this week and is definitely a read for the historical fiction lovers amongst us. One of the blurbs compared it to Game of Thrones, too, which I can totally see in some of the scheming and politics within the book. Great stuff.
Yesterday I finished The Devil’s Playground by James Traub, which was a relatively brief history of Times Square over the course of the twentieth century. I’m always interested in the history of places I’ve been and I knew Times Square had changed a ton even in my parents’ lifetimes, from a relatively seedy and unsafe part of New York City to the insanely crowded tourist and big brand hub that it is today. The book did a good job of exploring that change, although I got a bit bogged down by the large amount of it that had to do with corporations. The author did interview and get in touch with people on the street, but it’s kind of depressing how much everything is controlled by humongous companies now.
Finally, today I’m going to start A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie and I’m reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in ebook form. To say that I’m looking forward to both of them would be an understatement.
Watching // I’m nearly finished with season 3 of Veronica Mars and I’ve already pre-emptively bought the movie for when I finish. We spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks watching the World Cup and it’s been nice to return to watching a show with a plot again. I’m also kind of glad I haven’t raced through this season as much as I have the first two. It’s not as addictive and it means I can stay in the world a little bit longer. Still very slowly watching Game of Thrones with a couple of friends.
Cooking // I’ve been falling down at cooking again lately, especially this last month. I’ve gotten a couple of vegetarian cookbooks and the second Hairy Biker diet cookbook, so I clearly want to get back into it, but haven’t had the energy.
Learning // We’ve decided that we’re going to Italy for our holiday this year, so I’m probably going to start learning a little bit of Italian, just to help us cope. I’ve not really started yet, though. I did get back into driving and spent the last week driving to work on the motorway for the first time, so I am tempted to count that as learning.
Gaming // I’ve played a little bit of Crusader Kings II recently but it has been a while since I got properly into a game. I have been reading less because of driving to work instead of taking the train, so now I consistently feel like free time has to be reading time.
Loving/Hating // Loving the fact that it’s been warm! We’ve had some amazing weather recently. Hating that it mostly happens on weekdays when I’m at work, but I will take what I can get.
Anticipating // Keith finishing his university course after something like 7 years doing it part-time alongside his full-time job. I can gleefully say only two months to go, although he will worry more about finishing everything in two months. After that, actually doing things together again!
Credit goes to Kim for the Currently format!
Cather Avery would have been perfectly content to stay at home with her dad and twin sister, Wren, and write fanfiction about Simon Snow for the foreseeable future. If she has to go to college, which of course she does, she’d at least have preferred to live with her sister, as she has for the first eighteen years of her life. But instead, both twins go to college, and Wren chooses to live with someone else – leaving Cath to stand on her own two feet for the first time in her life. Cath can’t deal with her roommate or her roommate’s adorable boyfriend, Levi; she can’t seem to find enough time to write the fanfiction that she loves so much and she’s afraid to leave it behind to write fiction separate from that world; she can’t stop worrying about her dad, coping alone in the world without his two daughters for the first time. Can she find a place for herself in the world outside the bubble she’s created for herself?
Rainbow Rowell’s books make me want to write about them immediately. I loved Eleanor and Park late last year (how has it been that long?) and it was only a matter of time before I found myself starting Fangirl. Of course, I am a “fangirl” myself, which explains part of the attraction. I spent most of my teenage years hanging out on Final Fantasy forums and have tried my hand at writing fanfiction more than once. I have had plenty of friends who have done the exact same thing. Like Cath, too, I’m shy and socially inept (at least in my own head). Starting college with literally no one I knew anywhere was hard and scary, and while I didn’t hide in my room like Cath, I certainly wanted to until I found my eventual, amazing friends who made that time incredible.
What I’m trying to say with the above paragraph is that I massively related to this book, to Cath, and I felt like I could get more inside her head than with most other fictional characters. I normally don’t like books that are too close to my own possible life experience, but I related and I wanted better for her. And I loved Levi, the boy who gives smiles away like it doesn’t cost him anything. I loved them together, I loved that everything was behind closed doors but so, so charged with tension. Rowell is absolutely brilliant at this – who can forget how emotional she makes hand-holding in Eleanor and Park – and she puts her talents to good use in this book, too.
On top of the wonderful relationship she’s got starting with Levi, Cath relates to everyone and cares so much. Her conversations with Reagan had me laughing, frequently, and her constant care for and worry about her father and sister make her a good person. It doesn’t matter what else is happening at any given moment, if someone she loves needs her, Cath will go there and be with them. Everyone has lessons to learn in this book, but Cath doesn’t need to learn how to love. She’s so good at loving that it’s no wonder she worries people will take advantage of her, and she’s damaged from having that love essentially spurned. But even though she categorizes herself as broken, she’s not. She just needs to learn how to be whole again and this book is her wobbling and then learning to do just that.
I could quote so many passages that I loved, but instead I’ll link to this goodreads page. Every quote on there is golden. So often there would be a passage and I would think yes that it’s impossible to summarize all of them. I’d have to quote the entire book.
I read this book in the space of a single evening, forgoing sleep in favor of getting to the end; although there is no real suspense here, it’s hard to tear yourself away from a page that is so full of beautiful words and emotions and living. Rainbow Rowell is brilliant. I’m glad I already bought all of her books, because I’m certainly going to be reading all of them.
 When she was a little girl, Rosemary was a chatterbox, happy to talk anyone’s ear off. Her mother told her to choose one of the two things she had to say; when that wasn’t enough, it became one in three. But by the time Rosemary is a college student, she hardly ever speaks, and she’s moved halfway across the country to avoid the gaps in her life. Her brother and her sister have been missing from her life for years and, even though she loved both of them, she’s been spending most of that time misunderstanding why they are gone. Eventually Rosemary can’t deny her past, but in order to unravel it, she begins in the middle with this book, where her father always told her to start stories, when telling the beginning would take too long.
I went into this book knowing almost nothing about it. I have probably mentioned it before, but this is the way that I enjoy books the most, because I don’t have any preconceived notions about what’s in them and I can come to the story in the way I imagine the author intended. That is almost certainly the case for this book, which is why I’ve tried very hard not to give anything away. The bit I’m keen to avoid talking about happens around page 70, so it isn’t as though it takes long – I just think it’s worth not knowing, avoiding preconceptions, before you realize what’s happened.
One of my favorite things in a book is an unreliable narrator, I think mainly because we’re all unreliable narrators of our own lives. Rosemary spends quite a bit of time in the book going back to the beginning, to her very early childhood, and often has to confront whether what she remembers is fact or fiction. Does she remember something or does she now only remember being told the story? How much do the facts of her life, as she sees them, line up with what her parents and siblings remember and experienced? I love books that start out in the middle and only gradually reveal what actually happened and what it meant. This is definitely one of those.
There’s also identity and how our family shapes it, by action, inaction, or by simple absence. Rosemary’s adult life is in many ways dictated by what her parents chose to do when she was a child, factors that she simply can’t escape, and maybe shouldn’t, no matter how far from them she tries to go. Though she’s writing this novel as an adult, it actually documents more the process of her coming to terms with this and understanding their actions as well as her own.
And, although all of this sounds very serious, and most of the book is serious and sad, there’s also a light touch. Some of it is genuinely funny, almost to relieve the tension of everything else. Fowler maintains a delicate balance between a book that is extremely thoughtful and thought-provoking and one that is a pleasure to read.
The book is about so much more as well, but as I said above, I don’t really want to give it away. I just really want other people to read it so I can talk about it more. So I hope that, despite the “mystery”, others will feel the same way, and perhaps be inspired to pick We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves up. I would certainly recommend it.
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
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