The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels

by Anna

By Janice Hallett

I raved about Hallett’s The Appeal earlier this year, but I’m savoring this one even more! The Alperton Angels uses the same epistolary style of collected emails, texts, and memos, but whereas The Appeal was more cozy mystery, this is religious suspense thriller, which is absolutely my bag. The same style that worked so well to bring out the humor in small community theater works equally well at building brewing creeping dread.

The first page sets the premise: you have access to the following collection of documents, do you take them to the police or hide them away forever? And when I first started, I wondered, what on earth would lead me to cover up a brutal murder?! Well, the presence of the antichrist might… (that’s a teaser, not a spoiler). The documents are the collected emails, texts, and transcribed interviews of a true crime author researching her latest project: years ago two teenagers rescued a baby from a doomsday cult that claimed it was the antichrist and planned to kill it to save the world. The cult itself was then found dead by ritual suicide by the cops that responded to the teen’s emergency call. After the first rush of news stories, with some suspicious discrepancies, the story went quiet and the teens and baby seem to have disappeared.

Our central author is approached by her publisher to revisit the story, and to pique the public’s interest, find the baby, who would be turning 18 this year. As she follows the various leads, more and more isn’t adding up, and then a competing author joins the search as well. That’s about as much as I want to say; since the mystery goes in so many different directions, anything else could be mild spoilers. There were so many twists and turns at the end, it was getting a little ridiculous, but I loved every one of them!

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

by Rebecca

The Wild Robot
2016
by Peter Brown

This was clearly written for young readers with simple language, chapters that are only a page or two long, and fun illustrations on most pages. It’s also 300 pages long, covers a lot of ground in those many short chapters, and is lovely to read as an adult, with a heart-felt plot arch. The titular wild robot, Roz, is a general assistant robot made for by and for humans with a learning AI component, who is lost in a shipwreck and wakes up for the first time on an island full of wild animals, and no humans at all. So Roz must learn directly from nature and the wild animals, which whom she learns to speak and live and become wild.

It’s light and fun with the animals all talking in their animal language and having an hour of truce every day between predator and prey to gather and discuss the island news, but it does acknowledge (albeit lightly) that sometimes the predators do kill and eat the prey animals, because that’s the nature of nature. But it’s a lovely feel-good story, with adventures, found family and beautiful wilderness.

The Wild Robot Escapes
2018
by Peter Brown

Although they were published two years apart, the sequel feels like the second half of a duology. This is another 300-pages of many short chapters riddled with illustrations and a simple plot arch that’s also emotionally deep and resonant. It continues directly from the end of the first book, and creates some lovely parallels.

There is a third book, The Wild Robot Protects, that I’ll probably read eventually as well, but I’m guessing it’s more a stand alone story, while these two are definitely paired.

I highly recommend these for any kid who’s just getting into longer full-text books, or for any ESL readers who want something that’s interesting with plot and characters while still needing simply language, or anyone like me who just wants a somewhat relaxing read about sweet characters figuring out how to succeed.

Also, as a little extra, DreamWorks is making this into an animated movie. The trailer looks adorable, and I’m deeply curious as to what they do with the plot arc.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

by Anna

By Shehan Karunatilaka

Work is sending me to Sri Lanka tomorrow, so I scrambled to check out several travel guides from the library. They weren’t really holding my attention, though, so I had the thought to track down a fictional novel by a Sri Lankan author and set there. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority focus on the long and brutal civil war, and that wasn’t what I was looking for in this particular moment.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida has a fascinating premise, and was described as “bawdy, wisecracking” and “comic, macabre, angry and thumpingly alive,” which seemed more like it. However, it was very much also about the civil war, which upon consideration makes a lot of sense: the 26-year war only ended in 2009, recent enough that it would probably be absurd for any novel to not feature it someway or another. (I also think it worked: I have a much better general sense of the recent history and culture, though I had to frequently remind myself that I was reading a critique of the most negative side.)

The novel opens with Maali Almeida, a photojournalist, arriving in the afterlife, which spotty memories of his life and none of his death. The very bureaucratic helper explains to him that he has seven moons before his chance to move to the next stage, whatever that will be, closes. As he travels around Colombo, revisiting old homes, family, and friends, dodging various other ghosts and demons, pieces of his life come back to him, and he scrambles to make meaning of it before he must go on.

Maali not a very likeable man, though neither is anyone else, and the situation in Sri Lanka is impossible. The tone of the book in general reminded me of Catch-22, in that it was actually quite funny when showing truly horrifying circumstances. Upon reading the first chapter, Rebecca said it reminded her a bit of Slumdog Millionaire, and perhaps there is genre of books that reveal the worst of humanity through the darkest of humor. For all that, though, it ended in a surprisingly optimistic view of humanity and life in general, which caught me off guard but that I really appreciated. (As an aside, the beginning of the book caught me off guard with its second-person present tense, which is an usual style that can be difficult to get into, but I adjusted more quickly than I expected and came to really appreciate it.)

The Mysteries

by Anna

By Bill Watterson and John Kascht

I first heard about Bill Watterson’s latest publication from Midnight Pals’ twitter thread, which is funny, a little mean, and pretty accurate. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the extremely slim volume with one sentence and one picture per page still took me by surprise. It’s described as a “fable for grown-ups” and it is a very quick read — my whole family read it in an afternoon.

It is very much a departure from his Calvin & Hobbes work, though some family thought they could recognize trace similarities in the illustrations. I wasn’t previously familiar with John Kascht, apparently a renowned caricaturist, but per the afterward, both art and writing were a collaborative effort. Whatever each of their roles were, it is clear that they are both fairly fed up with the cultural discourse over the last few decades and perhaps humanity itself. Though it is overall a hopeful message, it reminded a number of us of this comic.

It’s a lovely little book that would probably make a nice gift for a fan or completionist; everyone else should also check it out, but perhaps from the library.

Unexpected Night

by Anna

By Elizabeth Daly

This book is a trip — not exactly good by today’s standards, but very entertaining! First published in 1940, Daly is a contemporary of Agatha Christie, though not nearly as prolific or renowned. I was going to give Daly some extra credit for avoiding the n-word where Christy would absolutely have used it, but she follows up later with some blackface and different (less charged?) slurs, so I guess there’s that.*

The narrative structure and characters are certainly dated, but that was part of the charm for me. I was often kept guessing at the twists in plot, more because I don’t understand many of the lifestyles and character tropes of the time (why is everyone going out golfing the day after a suspicious death?!) than any planned surprise reveals, and occasionally I couldn’t understand what the characters were on about, with their contemporary slang. It adds a certain spice to the reading experience!

Unexpected Night introduces Daly’s primary detective, Henry Gamadge, an antique book verifier, who gets dragged into mysteries under the flimsiest of excuses. In this case, he is vacationing at a resort in Maine, coincidentally along with a casual friend of his, who’s family then becomes embroiled in the suspicious death. Like I said, Gamadge doesn’t have much of a connection, and I very much appreciated the variety of characters that were also puzzled at his involvement, including the long suffering sheriff.

Since this is her first published book and the first in the Henry Gamadge series, I’m guessing that some of the rougher narrative and character parts will get smoothed out, and I look forward to continuing the series.

*Well, I started the second novel in the series, Deadly Nightshade, and unfortunately it features depictions of “gypsies” so offensive I had to quit, so I guess that’s that.

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

by Rebecca

The Poppy War
by R. F. Kuang
2018

Some years back, I first heard of this book in a recommendation list that had tagged it as grimdark. That’s not a subgenre I appreciate at all, and so I didn’t read it then. More recently, I ran across a recommendation somewhere else, and it looked interesting so I gave it a shot, and for the most part it slots pretty neatly into a lot of fantasy and YA war books that deal with horrible situations. However, out of 530 pages, there are about 30 at the 400 page mark that are absolutely horrifying and I wish I hadn’t read.

While the book is set in a fantasy world, it’s clearly inspired by China and Japan and the Japanese invasions of China. And those 30 pages are inspired by the Rape of Nanking, aka the Nanking massacre of 1937-1938. If you ever want nightmares, look up that bit of history. As a piece of fiction, it comes across as a series of gratuitously detailed descriptions of physical and sexual abuse on a massive scale; as a reminder of the depths of horror that humans perpetuate upon each other, it made me wonder why I was reading fiction and not somehow doing something to stop any of the current genocides taking place, and how horrible is it that none of them are as horrifying as Nanking was.

But, you know, other than that, the book felt like a combination of The Magicians (which I didn’t care for) and Iron Widow (which I did). The plot focuses on Rin, a young orphan girl being fostered by drug runners who’s determined to get out of an arranged marriage by passing the entrance exam for the premier military academy (which come with an automatic full scholarship) and going on to do great things.

The book is organized into three parts, the first part of which is basically an extremely long training montage. I do love a good training montage, so this isn’t a bad thing from my perspective, although some of it broke my suspension of disbelief. (Forcing yourself to stay awake for days on end to rote memorize texts you don’t understand is unlikely to actually lead to a good test grade.)

The next two parts are the war. And also where the characters get increasingly full of themselves even as they make increasingly questionable decisions. The training montage section dealt with a lot of cool world building and magic theory, but not much about military structure, strategy, tactics, or logistics, all of which they could have been helpful later on.

There is an extremely dramatic conclusion with Rin coming into her power and rather conclusively ending the war, while also setting up for an even more dramatic sequel. However, it also falls a bit flat as it tries rather quickly to address the philosophical question of whether or not atrocities in response to atrocities are ever acceptable.

So over all, this was well written, but I didn’t actually like it, and while I’m curious to know what happens in the next book, I don’t think I’m going to read it.

Ruined by Vaughn, Searle, and Smith

by Rebecca

Ruined
written by Sarah Vaughn
pencils and colors by Sarah Winifred Searle
inks by Niki Smith
2023

This is a regency romance graphic novel and it’s delightful and well-done and extremely fictionalized. It’s not so much set in the British regency era as it is in the universe of the Bridgerton TV show, not explicitly but pretty obviously, as it mostly maintains the fashions of the historical era while ignoring the social and political issues.

In this universe there is no racism or homophobia. Sexism is alive and well in the systemic way that drives so many romance novel plots, especially arranged marriage ones such as this one, but not in the individual way. Systemic classism is also highly present but largely ignored. If this book had been trying to be historical fiction, it would be a failure, but as a romance with aesthetic, it’s a delight.

Our heroine has been compromised! She must marry immediately in order to avoid a terrible scandal! Our hero has inherited an estate that’s in terrible repair and near bankruptcy! He must marry for money! They must give up all hope of a love match and have an arranged marriage!

The story opens at their wedding, and then they proceed to get to know each other and fall in love. There’s also a number of secondary characters with at least two other couples who get together with their own intersecting shenanigans. The book is very cute, beautifully illustrated and everyone makes ridiculous decisions regarding their love lives. It’s also got a couple of explicit sex scenes, which are very much part of the story and character arcs, but were surprising to me since otherwise the story telling feels very general audience and open to all ages.

Demon Daughter by Bujold

by Rebecca

Demon Daughter, a Penric & Desdemona Novella
by Lois McMaster Bujold
2024

Yay! A new Penric & Desdemona story! And I’ve been distracted enough that I had to discover it from an Amazon notice since I follow Bujold. (And it says something that it took three weeks for them to notify me.)

This is a novella that has a plot around a kid lost at sea, but contains some even more interesting explorations about what demons are and what they can do, as well as showing how Penric, Desdemona, and Nikys are evolving their family. It introduced enough interesting lore that it also makes me wonder if there’s a larger work in progress to take advantage of the implications. I live in hope! But if not, this still is a wonderful addition to the series.

Also, a mini-spoiler: I always love it when a saint of the Bastard is a character because they are all hilarious and awesome!

Doppelganger

by Anna

By Naomi Klein

So, I didn’t really know who Naomi Klein was, or Naomi Wolf for that matter, but I’d seen the rhyme going around twitter:

If the Naomi be Klein / You’re doing just fine / If the Naomi be Wolf / Oh, buddy. Ooooof.

and it made me laugh, even without context. And, well, here’s the context and then some! Naomi Klein, I learned, is a renowned author who has previously focused on criticisms of capitalism and government, and who has long been deviled by the inability to distinguish her completely from the “Other Naomi.” Naomi Wolf first became famous as a feminist author in the 90s, a sort of peer of Camille Paglia.*

With the exponential popularity of social media and then the pandemic shutdown, the confusion grew even worse, and Klein became somewhat obsessed with her other, tracking Wolf’s sharp turn into deep right-wing conspiracies and alliances with Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson among others. Klein uses her particular relationship (such as it is) with her doppelganger as an extremely effective jumping off point to comment on a wide variety of societal issues, such as increased isolation coming out of social media, polarization in politics, and the various grifters that take advantage of it all.

Some of the criticisms of the book are that it is too wide ranging, and would be better to have narrowed the focus, but I strongly disagree. One of Klein’s theses is that our social systems are all interconnected, and in order to make change, one must be able to take a wide view of everyone and everything. The disenfranchisement we’re seeing in politics, economy, environment, personal relationships, and on and on, are all tied together, and Klein’s general framework of doppelgangers and mirror worlds is a very effective thread leading the reader through them all.

It’s such a sprawling and deep look at issues I don’t often read about for pleasure, that I was continually caught off guard by how funny Klein is. Just about every passage had me laughing out loud, her accounts of being very occasionally mistaken for Naomi Campbell being a notable example. That said, it does get more serious as it goes, an effective way to lead more casual readers like me into deeper philosophical waters than we are used to.

Speaking of deeper philosophical waters, Klein references several times the docuseries “Exterminate All the Brutes” currently on HBO, which looks at the history of genocide in establishing “civilized” societies. I have currently just watched the first of the four hour-long episodes, since the topic is devastating and takes some time to sit with. The meandering, montage style took me a while to get used to, and the images and topics are definitely a bombardment to the psyche. But it is also increasingly clear that we’ve been taught a very white-washed and sanitized version of history, and it is critically important to try to unlearn that propaganda whenever and wherever we can.

* I have never read Camille Paglia, either, but at least was familiar with her due to a scorching review by Molly Ivins.

The City Beautiful

by Anna

By Aden Polydoros

Published in 2021, Aden Polydoros notes in the afterward, “I wanted to write a book where the Jewish characters weren’t just passive victims, but where they fought back and rose above the people who wished to do them harm.” The political climate today is a little trickier, but it does feel like both Hamas and IDF are doing their best to erase the beauty of Jewish culture each in their own way. Polydoros, however, does a powerful job of capturing the complexity of Jewish immigrant experience, in this case in Chicago in the late 1800s.

The City Beautiful packs in a lot, actually – it is a YA historical fantasy murder mystery, tying together the historical realism of immigrant life in the Chicago tenements with Jewish folklore in an enthralling story. Years after a traumatic Atlantic passage and the death of his father, Alter Rosen is focused on staying out of trouble and earning enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America. The disappearance of young men in his neighborhood is common enough that he doesn’t pay it much heed until his roommate and unrequited crush is found drowned. When preparing the tahara, the ritual purification ceremony for dead, he is taken over by the other boy’s dybbuk, or vengeful spirit, and driven to uncover the murder in order to free himself and lay the spirit to rest.

He is assisted by friends and neighbors who all represent varied facets of Jewish and immigrant experiences, occasionally in conflict with each other. The novel captures how messy and uncontained life is, and by contrast how false and damaging stereotypes and propaganda are, even if they seem more easily digestible on the surface. At a more basic level, it is also an absolutely thrilling mystery and ghost story, and a sweet YA-appropriate romance.