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 Isabel and her sister Ruth have been slaves their entire lives. On the eve of the American Revolution, their owner dies and sets them free in her will. But because of the turmoil, no one bothers to find the lawyer or read the will, so Isabel and Ruth are inherited and sold to a cruel Tory family who lives in New York. There Isabel tries her hardest to free herself and her sister just as her country tries to free itself from British rule. After all, if a country can be free, why can’t two little girls?
Slavery during the American Revolution isn’t something we always think about. There is so much going on in the period that I think we tend to get excited about Americans winning our independence from Britain and completely ignore the fact that we chose to keep thousands of people enslaved at the same time simply because of the color of their skin. Laurie Halse Anderson rightly points out how utterly wrong this was by writing this compelling tale of two sisters who are legally free but trapped because white people simply don’t care and don’t want to bother finding out the truth.
Anderson is a master at creating characters’ voices and I just adored Isabel’s, who is the narrator of this story. I felt for her the whole way through the book and I really, really wanted her to win freedom for herself and her sister. Her every failure broke my heart, especially when it wasn’t her fault. She’s just a child and that really becomes clear – it’s horrible how she’s treated. Somehow, though, this book is more readable than many books about slavery. Even though Isabel suffers, she doesn’t get beaten down. She has a fantastic spirit and I think it enlivens the whole book because hope remains in the darkest times for her.
It also speaks to Anderson’s talent that she took an era in which I have relatively little interest, for whatever reason, and make it the background for an utterly compelling book. I had never known that the British promised freedom to the slaves to get them on their side, for example. I’ve only ever read one book set in New York City at this time, The Tory Widow by Christine Blevins, and I was intrigued by the parallels and differences told by each author.
I thought Chains was a fantastic work of YA historical fiction. It’s compelling, readable, and haunting. I can’t wait for the sequel, Forge, and just wish it was out now!
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Adeline’s mother died when she was a baby. As the fifth child, with three brothers and a sister, she was always going to be teased, but when she was a year old her father remarried a woman who had it out for her predecessor’s children. Adeline’s stepmother was half French, automatically placing her above the rest of her Chinese family. While Adeline and her four older siblings wore old clothes, ate cheap food, and weren’t allowed to see any of their friends outside of school, her stepmother’s children were pampered and treated with endless luxuries. They walked to school while their younger siblings were given money for the tram or driven to the most exclusive schools available. Adeline yearned to escape and distinguished herself at school, but her life often seemed like the worst misery possible.
This memoir was absolutely heartbreaking. I just could not believe anyone could treat a little girl so badly. It’s obvious that Adeline (her Chinese name is Jun-ling) is a clever child with a huge heart. She loves her grandparents and her aunt, the only people who treat her well, with an earnest devotion that I wished she could have applied to her parents. Instead, her stepmother convinces her father that his older children deserve nothing but the worst – subsistence food, hideous clothes, unflattering but cheap haircuts. They are mocked in school and at home alike.
I was amazed that Adeline could retain her sense of self despite all of the abuse. She has no self-esteem, but she is a good person and as such she makes friends. Eventually, people flock to her, leading to one of the saddest scenes in the book. It wouldn’t have been so bad even if the siblings that shared a mother with her had compassion, but they are either innately cruel, venting their unhappiness on their little sister, or seek her stepmother’s approval and then continue to mock her.
Adeline’s story is intertwined with the history and culture of China. It’s often obvious that this is a middle grade book and that the history is slightly simplified for the child’s mind, but it lends flavor to the story and Adeline’s surroundings. The book would really be perfect for a middle grade reader eager to learn more about the wider world – I know I learned virtually nothing of twentieth century China in school. There is a follow-up for young adult readers which I have already requested from the library and am very eager to read.
Chinese Cinderella was a fast, simple but absolutely heartbreaking read. It’s a memoir that will have you cheering for Adeline and hoping that she finally earns happiness in the end.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Hilary, now an old man, takes the time to reflect on one year of his life in a boarding school – the year he found love. He was a troubled child who often resisted authority, longing to be something he was not, and as a result had ended up unpopular and unsuccessful in different schools already. On a run with his entire school, he discovered a boy who lived by himself on the coast of East Anglia, where the water is slowly creeping up on the land. Hilary immediately did his best to cultivate a friendship with the boy, Finn, finding himself compelled to spend more and more time in Finn’s tiny cottage, totally unaware of the effects his friendship would have.
I am not honestly sure where to begin this review. I’ve let this book percolate in my head slightly too long, I think, for my thoughts to be coherent to anyone but me. I can say what I loved most about this book was the perfect way it captured teenage awkwardness. Meg Rosoff’s writing perfectly encapsulated everything Hilary was feeling – I could almost have been him. The fact that the book was narrated by Hilary’s older self remembering makes it all too poignant. I’m far from old, but my teenage years have already begun to take on a similar gloss, a comparison between what I thought I knew was true then and what I know to be true now. I’m sure it will only become stronger as the years march on.
There is an air of mystery surrounding the entire book. The narrator’s name is scarcely mentioned – it took a lot of searching before I found out what it actually was in order to write this review. And Finn, too, is a mystery – a character who barely speaks yet embodies virtually everything to Hilary. Hilary’s unsure whether he’s in love with Finn – and resisting his newfound homosexuality – or simply wants to be Finn, which he’s clearly more comfortable with and makes efforts to actually do. Rosoff never explicity spells this out, though, but merely gets it across with Hilary’s actions and thoughts.
I loved the book’s focus on history, too, Hilary’s awareness of the continuity of life. Things change constantly and his ruminations on history only remind us that what he’s going through will be over, too. The coast will continue to vanish and the remains of Roman forts will soon be taken away by the ocean.
There’s a twist at the end of the book which turned it all upside down, but I thought it just fit. I knew something was going to happen and I’d considered the idea at the start, but when it happened I was still surprised. I don’t want to give it away because the book’s pull won’t be nearly as powerful if you know the ending – there’s a constant, looming sense of almost dread throughout most of the book, a focus on the frailty of our lives. Ties in well with the history, doesn’t it?
Anyway, I’m not actually sure I preferred What I Was to How I Live Now, but it was certainly thoughtful and addictive. Rosoff’s writing is beautiful and perfectly emulates the teenage mind – I can’t wait to read more of her work.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
I fully intended to write full reviews for these books, but time has gone away from me! I thought mini-reviews would be easier and then I’d have less chance of forgetting what I actually read.
 Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher
In this memoir, Carrie Fisher takes the opportunity to humorously reflect on what she remembers of her life since she got electroshock therapy. The famous actress talks about such topics as her parents’ many marriages and her movie experiences with pictures to illustrate her life.
I mostly chose this book because I’ve always been a huge Star Wars fan. I knew Carrie Fisher has had quite a challenging life, so I thought it would make for interesting reading besides the Star Wars memories. Unfortunately I was disappointed on both fronts. She mentions very little about Star Wars and she treats her whole life as a joke. I could definitely tell the book was first a stand-up routine, but it wasn’t really funny in writing. A couple of jokes caught me, but for the most part I could tell it was meant to be funny but wasn’t working.
On the bright side, the book was short and it took me less than two hours to read, making it a good Read-a-Thon choice from a totals perspective!
 On the Edge, Ilona Andrews
Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, between the magic world (The Weird) and the nonmagic world (The Broken). Edgers can easily travel between the worlds – Rose works in the Broken – but don’t feel at home in either. Because Rose’s magic is far stronger than it should be, she’s been pursued as a marriage prospect for years. All she wants is to stay home and take care of her little brothers. The world’s not going to leave her alone, though, because one day Declan Camarine, a noble from the Weird, walks straight into her life and refuses to leave. When strange things start attacking people in the Edge, Rose has to get past her dislike of Declan and work with him to save her home.
Ilona Andrews, really the pseudonym of a husband and wife pair of writers, continues to put out awesome books. This one is definitely not an exception. It’s more romantic than the Kate Daniels series (not like I mind!) and is quite self-contained, so I’m not sure whether not it will be developed into a series. I really liked the two boys, Georgie and Jack, and the different ways they, Rose, and Declan all had magic. If there is another book in the series, I hope we can spend more time in the Weird!
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed one of these books and purchased the other.
 Etienne Lantier is unemployed and desperate. Economic conditions are bad and no one wants to take on new workers. As he wanders, he finally comes across a coal mine where he is hired on. If possible, though, working down the mine is even more difficult than starving to death and Etienne has a hard time adjusting. Whole families work in the mine – elderly people who can still manage it, mothers, fathers, small children – and people are injured and sicken under Etienne’s very eyes. When the managers attempt to lower wages, Etienne’s vast amount of reading kicks in and he riles the rest of the workers to protest their poor conditions and lack of adequate pay.
Germinal is very much a political book and that’s not really what I’d expected of it – probably because I’d only read The Ladies’ Paradise and I wasn’t quite prepared for a book so unrelentingly dreary. I know some books like that can be great but this one dragged on for five hundred and thirty-two long pages.
I found the writing to be strikingly evocative of the mine and I’m sure the fact that I felt so very sorry for these people made the book that much harder to read for me. The darkness was pervasive and it just got worse. Even when the people began to strike, they also began to starve and made almost no progress in their strike. It was hard to bear, especially when they were contrasted with the wealthier mine owners. One of the managers even envies the poor people their freedom as compared to his restricted aristocratic lifestyle – I don’t think he quite understood the situation.
I was amazed throughout at the violence of all the characters, which I think prevented me from getting attached to any of them. All the men beat their wives and sometimes their children as well. Everyone is valued only for the wages they can bring in; small children who are not yet old enough to work are almost nothing but a burden. There are some glimpses of maternal love through La Maheude, the main motherly character in the book, but she still often feels anger towards her children for eating and not earning.
The book is very political and much of the workers’ revolution felt like a cry out for socialism. Etienne has read all the big names and attempts to get all the workers to join an organization. I thought in this respect it was an interesting picture of its time; I have a hard time imagining any workers to ask for socialism these days even though the wage gap is still very much in evidence. But somehow Zola creates a bit of sympathy for the managers as well, so the true solution is unclear (as history proved anyway).
In the end, my feelings toward Germinal are mixed. There’s no way to deny that it took me a week to read and at times I avoided it because I didn’t want to deal with the miners’ lives any longer. But as a political novel, as a picture of its time, it’s invaluable and it left me with a lot to think about. It’s not cheerful in any sense but it’s surprisingly easy to read with lovely prose that’s truly evocative of the imagery within – whether underground or above. It’s a piece of literature that I think has held quite a bit of value, and for those reasons it’s worth reading even if it does go slowly.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Dongliang’s father used to be the son of a martyr, until the fish-shaped birthmark on his bottom was called into question. An investigation into the martyr’s descendants was instituted, but the family’s position was already too compromised and Secretary Ku lost his party membership. Now they live on a boat and Dongliang worries that his father is going to turn into a fish – but he can’t resist chasing after young Huixian, a beautiful little girl who is immediately accepted by the river people. To satisfy his obsession, Dongliang will have to challenge everything he knows, and make a difficult choice.
This book didn’t really work so well for me. It had an element of magical realism, which only sometimes works, and I found the whole thing kind of absurd. I think that was the point, but I still wasn’t a huge fan. I also didn’t really like Dongliang, which was a huge problem since the novel is mainly from his point of view. I could understand his frustration with his father, but I really disliked the way he chased after Huixian. I felt sorry for her more than sympathy for him, even though she was a bit strange. Actually I didn’t really relate to any of the characters, and I didn’t care what happened to them. I just felt disconnected from the story the whole time.
I know this review is quite subjective, and many of my issues with it might not bother someone else. Overall, though, I don’t think I could recommend The Boat to Redemption.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Dressed in his best clothes, unemployed Dan Dong heads to an exclusive hotel to apply for a bellman’s job. Instead, he is mistaken for a journalist, and falls into the world of exclusive banquets, where there is a presentation, delicious rare food, and a check for 200 yuan each time. Dan gets business cards made up and decides that banqueting is his new job. He is still a good-hearted man, however, and can’t help being swept up in the stories that desperate people tell him in order to make their lives better. As he uncovers corruption after corruption, Dan’s lies become strangely close to the truth.
There are so many facets of this book that it’s going to be hard to include them all in my review! I picked it up on the shelf because of a whim – I’ve been trying to read more multicultural fiction and the Chinese characters on the spine called to me. I was rewarded for my impulse by a really thoughtful book on corruption in modern China and the difference between truth and lies, and how they can mesh. Dan is unusually sensitive to food, so he struggles to quash his natural impulse to go to the banquets, always telling himself that a few more months will buy his wife a condo, a car, and so on, even though neither of them ever get any of these things.
Instead, he gets guilt trips from a variety of people when they find out he’s a journalist, and this is where the corruption comes in. Dan finds out about these things and he wants to do something about them, but he isn’t a good enough writer. He never got past middle school. But, eventually, his honest longing leads to him giving it a try, and that’s when we learn that the papers are corrupt, too. So, is he a freelance journalist, or is he still a banquet bug? Or is he both? It’s intriguing and the book doesn’t give the answers, doesn’t even have a solid conclusion, but instead makes us think about what happened to Dan. The book also demonstrates how the workers – supposedly the lifeblood of communist China – are in the worst possible situation, forced to break the law to get any money because they can’t afford a lawyer or a lawsuit.
Of course, it’s enjoyable, too. The author’s first language is Chinese – she left China for the US in adulthood – but she has a wonderful prose style and I would never have known that this was her first book in English. I was really interested in Dan’s character. He’s so often crippled by guilt because he gets mired in a web of lies, but he’s not as weak as he first appears, and deceit is not actually in his nature. It’s a neat trick to pull off. The secondary characters liven up the story, with various prostitutes, journalists, and rich people making Dan’s life interesting and dangerous. In contrast to Dan’s experience of “modern” life, his wife Little Plum is almost a caricature of the ideal Chinese peasant, as she does little but sit at home, do minor jobs, and cook for Dan, often representing his good side and his wisdom. The nature of Chinese society is depressing here, what with all the censorship and lies, but it seems as though Yan is trying to provide hope through Dan, who sees the injustices and wishes to correct them instead of perpetuating them.
The Uninvited was a fortuitous find for me and I’m very glad I read it. I’m really looking forward to reading more by Geling Yan.
I am an Amazon Associate. This title is known as The Banquet Bug in the US. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Summary from the back cover:
In a wonderful world shaped by beauty and poetry, ancient traditions and popular intrigue, a young woman at the centre of the eleventh-century Japanese imperial court observes the exotic world around her. Murasaki sees everything, the Emperor and Empress, aristocrats and concubines, warriors and servants, her own family. She records a remarkable place of political and sexual plotting, male power and female manipulation, as she writes the Tale of Genji, the masterpiece of Japanese literature.
For whatever reason, The Tale of Murasaki and I didn’t really get along very well. I had it out from the library for several months and it never really managed to capture my attention in the first few pages, so I always put it aside in favor of something else. When I realized I was going to move and change libraries, I knew it was time to read it or I was probably never going to. Unfortunately it never really improved on the first few pages. I found myself very detached from the narrator, Murasaki, and it irked me that the description (as you see) promised court life when that only comprised the last third of the book. For the most part Murasaki was a passive character, feverishly writing Genji stories but not too in control of her own destiny. I was interested in all the details, but I just felt like I could never really get into the story and appreciate it properly.
I also think it would have been helpful had I read The Tale of Genji beforehand, because apparently the author parallels their stories, and some other contemporary Japanese literature, in interesting ways. Unfortunately, since I am vastly inexperienced with Japanese lit, this didn’t work out so well for me, and I was sorry I tried it without reading Genji first. That still sounds interesting, so I suspect I will give it a shot soon.
Lastly, I can’t really discount the fact that I read this at a somewhat stressful time when most books seemed to be leaving me dissatisfied, so if the premise remains interesting to you, it may still be worth reading. It certainly gets across the feel of medieval Japan, it’s just a shame that I was never really interested in the story or the characters.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Welcome to my stop for the Classics Circuit Georgette Heyer tour! As a modern classic, this fit perfectly in with Classics Month, and it was also an absolute delight to read.
 Celebrated dandy Sir Richard Wyndham is desperate to avoid marriage to a famed iceberg of a woman, who refuses to even consider love as a possibility between them. On the eve of presenting his suite to her father, he of course gets ridiculously drunk. On his stumble home, a young woman falls from a window, straight into his arms. She is trying to escape her own arranged marriage and is determined to get to her country house, where she can instead marry a friend. Richard decides to accompany her, and so begins a tale of hilarious adventure and, in the end, love.
Heyer’s Regency romances are among the most pleasurable books to read. Even when fraught with danger, theft, and compromise, like this one should be, they are still funny and sweet. This couple has a real adventure and it’s obvious that they adore each other as well as the unusual circumstances. As is fairly typical, neither of them realize that they’re in love until the end, but their relationship still manages to grow without them realizing it. And the character interactions really do sparkle. Heyer’s prose is obviously smart and witty and this book will have you smiling as you read it.
I also love that Heyer includes little historical details which more modern romance authors don’t always use to such magnificent effect, like quizzing-glasses and snuffboxes. And I’d never heard of a dandy referred to as a Corinthian before. I’d never heard the terminology anywhere else, but then I don’t generally spend too much time on this particular period in history. Even so, Heyer’s sense of the period is magnificent, and it’s easy to imagine yourself right there with the characters when reading one of her books. I was cheering for this couple from almost the moment they met, and it was utter delight to spend an evening with these people.
As far as Heyer’s Regency romances go, The Corinthian is definitely a good choice. It’s not particularly long, but it’s full of charm and wit, and is well worth a read.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 This is book 9 in the Sookie Stackhouse series (and thus completes the challenge for me. Yay!). For the first book in the series, see my review of Dead Until Dark.
The weres are finally coming out to the world, and Sookie stands by as her friend and boss Sam changes in front of all the bar patrons where Sookie works. Not everything about the reveal goes well; Sam’s stepfather shoots his mother when she tells him that she’s a were, for example. But even worse happens when Crystal, Sookie’s brother’s cheating pregnant wife, turns up crucified in the bar’s parking lot, with parts of her in panther form. Sookie wants to exonerate Jason, but she has other problems, namely that she’s caught in the middle of a fairy war, and half of them want to kill her.
As with all the books in the series, I enjoyed this book. I finally found it in the library (these books are very popular and they only have one copy) and dove right in, finishing it the same day. I do think it was better than book 8, which seemed sort of random. This one is put together more coherently and all the plot elements are, amazingly, related. Things change a lot in Sookie’s world, too. The outing of the weres is not particularly smooth, and the fairy war is difficult for Sookie to deal with given that no one believes in their existence except for supes.
For perhaps the first time the simple writing grated on me; even though I enjoyed the book, I wondered how often I really needed to hear about Sookie slicking up her ponytail or putting on her barmaid outfit or putting her purse in the spare drawer in Sam’s office. I think this is because I’d just finished the fantastic Kate Daniels series, which doesn’t really have any of that going on. And I noticed that even though violence happens, it’s hardly described, and doesn’t necessarily give off the same horrific feel. I think that’s why these are comfortable rather than scary given the subjects dealt with, and even though a lot of bad things happen, I wasn’t really that worried about the characters, though perhaps I should have been. I was also really disappointed that the tantalizing ending in book 8 just wasn’t at all expanded upon, and it’s like the author just dropped that plotline except for a short mention. And I was glad that Eric and Sookie seem to be having a relationship, but then Eric went and shared a whole lot of information about his past in the bar, which struck me as odd, and also that Sookie doesn’t even care that he’s now controlling her life. She’s more obsessed with the blood bond than trying to figure out why she likes him suddenly, and I was a little tired of hearing about that, too. Have to say I may have even liked Vampire Bill better in this book! He was given a lot of great lines and I think he’s gone very far in trying to prove himself.
In short, I can’t say Dead and Gone was the best installment in the series. I have to wonder if it’s ever going to end, because it certainly doesn’t seem to be heading for an ending, and ten books is a lot for a series. I will continue reading it through the library, though, and I look forward to the release of book 10 this year.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
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