Review: Burst by Mary Otis

Mothers and daughters, perhaps one of the most written about relationships in literature. Is it because the relationships between mothers and daughters can be so fraught, so difficult, so complex? Or is it because it can be so wonderful, so loving, so close? Maybe it's because it can be (and often is) all of those things. And maybe it's because it is so easy to see a daughter becoming her mother, whether intentionally or not. Mary Otis' novel, Burst, is a study in a close and complicated mother daughter relationship, a love story and a mirror, a desire to be different, and all that that entails.

Charlotte and Viva are mother and daughter, best friends, and co-conspirators against the world. Charlotte is a single mother who is troubled and peripatetic (Viva's description on her college applications). She lives on a whim, pulling Viva with her on her adventures as she struggles with an alcohol addiction that leaves her unable to provide for Viva without help from random old friends and her strict older sister, but never from Viva's absent father. Money is always an issue and Charlotte bargains for survival with things she shouldn't. Viva grows up delighted to be her mother's co-pilot in life but learning things from Charlotte that she shouldn't, especially the way that alcohol eases many things. When, as a child, Viva discovers a true talent for dance, there's a chance that she can escape her upbringing until an accident makes clear just how fragile her own life is.

Starting in the 1970s and running through the 1990s, Charlotte and Viva's relationship grows and changes after disappointments and with a more grown-up understanding. The reader watches with sadness as Viva comes to recognize her mother's demons, and to acknowledge that she cannot banish them. That she falls prey to the same demons and darkness feels inevitable even as the reader hopes that she can conquer hers. The time periods of the novel are beautifully drawn with the nostalgia of the time wrapped in the melancholy of the story. The plot moves between Viva and Charlotte (including Charlotte's past as an aspiring artist before Viva) allowing each character's feelings and motivations to be fully explored beyond their relationship to each other. This is a novel about disappointment and love and all the layers of a life shared closely. It was hard to read about all of the poor choices both Charlotte and then Viva make, afraid to hope for resilience. And yet the reader cannot help feeling sorry for the things that derail these women, to want a better outcome than we expect, and for there to be understanding, self-love, and forgiveness in the end.

Review Mercury by Amy Jo Burns

Who doesn't love a good dysfunctional family novel? In her novel, Mercury, Amy Jo Burns has created a quietly satisfying novel peopled with characters you could see sitting around your own table, some you like and some you don't but all of whom share a long and complicated history with you.

When seventeen year old Marley West moves into small town Mercury, PA, she is quickly claimed by Baylor Joseph, the oldest of the three Joseph boys and a local high school football star. Dating Bay gets her invited to dinner with the rest of the Josephs, parents Mick and Elise, and Bay's younger brothers Waylon and Shay. She is witness to the complex family dynamic as an outsider, and eventually a participant as well as a member of the family herself, as Waylon's wife. In fact, she becomes a lynch pin in the family, even as resentments simmer and tensions rise. When a body is unexpectedly uncovered in the attic of the local church thanks to a leaking roof, a roof that Joseph and Sons Roofing fixed years ago, old secrets and hurts will come to light, changing the truth of the past.

This is a novel chock full of private family drama, the weight of expectations, and complicated family relationships. Burns draws realistic characters, some of whom are not entirely sympathetic or likeable. The secrets they carry shape their characters, form the love/hate relationships they feel toward one another, and make the family how and what they are. Although the novel is told in third person, Marley is really the main character, the one who both forces change and acknowledges tradition as she comes into her own. This is a powerful, character driven story of growth, belonging, motherhood, and the traumas that form us.

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to review.

Review: Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Robots are having a moment, especially with the rapidly evolving AI tech happening right now. What is our world going to look like with this amazing and potentially troubling technology in ten years, twenty, more? Well, Annie Bot by Sierra Greer dows not answer this question, nor does it really even try, despite being poised to do so.

Doug has designed and paid for his "Cuddle Bunny" robot, Annie. She is modeled after his ex-wife, just whiter and bustier (and ostensibly more compliant). Her purpose is to please her master in all ways. She is to satisfy him sexually, keep his house, and follow his orders. In order for her to intuit his desires, she is programmed to be autodidactic, learning his reactions, needs, and wants. This keeps her in a pereptual state of varying anxiety as she strives to be exactly what he wants at all times. As she learns for his pleasure, she does start to acquire her own human-like desire to act for herself, which is in direct contravention of Doug's desires. Obviously this removes the novel from the realm of AI and robotics to the thornier issues of female automony and self-determination. Unfortunately neither issue is really handled in depth here.

The world of the novel is essentially our world so there's no impact of sentient robots other than as sexual toys. Annie herself is so human-like as to be pretty indistinguishable from an abused wife to a controlling husband. Yes, she does need to be plugged into an outlet to recharge and her back unzips for maintenance but that's it. This, coupled with her somehow legitimate emotional range and increasing ability to think for herself (despite programming tweaks), makes her a superficial symbol of a world that does not value women for more than sex and housework. Owner Doug is controlling, abusive, and nasty while Annie is naive and sympathetic. Doug's punishments for Annie are devious and horrible but serve the plot. What doesn't serve the plot are the inconsistencies in what Annie can and cannot do based on a free will that only appears periodically. There were many uncomfortable sex scenes dominating the first half of the book, which did cement the misogny here but really didn't continue to add to the story beyond that. And the second half's about face into therapy and a carefully controlled freedom for Annie feels incongruous given what went before. Even if Greer didn't want to fully examine robots and AI's impact on society, she had the germ of a great novel investigating the objectification of women, desire, unequal power dynamics, freedom, and identity; too bad she didn't flesh it out. In the end, I was grateful the novel was short because it dragged much more than it should have given the topics at hand.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

Libby Lost and Found by
Stephanie Booth.
The book is being released by Sourcebooks Landmark on October 15, 2024.

The book's jacket copy says: Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love. It's about the stories we tell ourselves and the chapters of our lives we regret. Most importantly, it's about the endings we write for ourselves.

Meet Libby Weeks, author of the mega-best-selling fantasy series, The Falling Children--written as "F.T. Goldhero" to maintain her privacy. When the last manuscript is already months overdue to her publisher and rabid fans around the world are growing impatient, Libby is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. Already suffering from crippling anxiety, Libby's symptoms quickly accelerate. After she forgets her dog at the park one day--then almost discloses her identity to the journalist who finds him--Libby has to admit it: she needs help finishing the last book.

Desperately, she turns to eleven-year-old superfan Peanut Bixton, who knows the books even better than she does but harbors her own dark secrets. Tensions mount as Libby's dementia deepens--until both Peanut and Libby swirl into an inevitable but bone-shocking conclusion.

Review: The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring

Every person you meet is living a life that is simultaneously public and private. We see the surface of people but can't see into their hearts and minds unless they let us in. This is true in big cities and small towns alike. People are people everywhere. Shannon Bowring shows us this in her devastating, heartbreaking, and yet somehow hopeful, debut novel The Road to Dalton.

Set in 1990 small town Dalton, Maine, this is the story of a handful of people in the town whose lives are intertwined in so many ways and whose actions, big and small, impact each other and the town as a whole. There's Richard, the town's dependable only doctor who has never loved his job but who holds so many of the town's secrets, Trudy, his wife, the town librarian who is best friends and more (a fact conveniently ignored by Richard) with Bev. Bev is married to Bill, who might or might not know about Bev and Trudy. They have one son, Nate, who is married to his high school sweetheart Bridget, who is suffering quietly from severe post-partum depression after giving birth to their daughter earlier than expected. There's Rose, a waitress at the local diner, who is being abused by the deadbeat father of her two boys, and there's Greg, a young teenager who is confused by his feelings about himself and his closest friends. These struggling people are all a part of the tapestry of the town; some are fraying and ome are pulled too tightly but all are important to the overall story.

Although there is a major event that effects all of the characters lives, this is a character study with an ensemble cast. Even before the major event, so many of the characters stand at a crossroads in their lives, facing huge decisions and changes that will change everything for them. Each of them are shaped by very personnal and interior secrets they all keep to themselves quietly. Bowring writes her characters skillfully, showing the push and pull of community, empathizing with the heavy and hard things that they are facing: post partum depression, suicidal ideation, domestic abuse, marital problems, job/life dissatisfaction/apathy, homophobia, and more. So many of these characters cannot live their lives openly, with joy and fulfillment and yet there is still hopefulness in the end, quite a feat for any writer but certainly one for a debut author. Readers who like quiet, complex novels and don't mind slower pacing will find much to enjoy here.

Review: I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

Although dystopian novels arent usually something I seek out, author Leif Enger writes so beautifully that I was eager to see how he handled such a topic. His newest novel, I Cheerfully Refuse, is not just a dystopian novel but an odyssey for our time.

In a world ruled by the wealthiest, subject to devastating weather events, and populated by small outposts of people living hard scrabble lives, Rainy (short for Ranier), a musician and odd jobber, and his beloved wife Lark, a bookseller, live mostly contented lives. They are good, resourceful people, liked by their community, and still capable of occasional dreams. When Lark brings home a refugee named Kellan who is being pursued by dark forces, Rainy looks the other way, especially since Kellan gives Lark a copy of I Cheerfully Refuse, the sole and rare novel she has yet to read by an author named Molly Thorn, who has played a large part in Rainy and Lark's life. But Kellan's presence and then absence brings Rainy into the crosshairs of those in charge of this terrible, not too future world, forcing him to flee on a small sailboat named Flower, into the uncertain, warming waters of Lake Superior searching for Lark.

As Rainy sails around, he encounters the remnants of civilization with people who are desperate, evil, rebellious, con artists, beaten down, and occasionally good and kind. He also rescues a young girl named Sol along his way and the two of them form an awkward sort of partnership as time goes on. They are battered by catastrophic weather events, faced with direct evidence of the great inequality of their society, and presented with true evil on their long and meandering odyssey.

Enger does a masterful job protraying the menace of a society that is crumbling, one that is governed by the amoral and the uncaring, that sees its people as dispensable and disposable. His characters are complete and worthy guides to his story. The setting of the novel, on the shores and waters of Lake Superior, is absolutely integral to the novel. And Enger has found an effective and disturbing way to highlight the impact of climate change on the world of the novel (and our own if we don't change course quickly!): Lake Superior, which famously does not give up her dead, is in fact, giving them up in this novel as the drowned of past decades and centuries bob to the surface in a regular, macabre display. It's not a comfortable story but it's not as bleak as it can sometimes seem either. Enger's writing is beautiful, easing the reader through the story, towards an earned and yet unknowable end. The novel is both grim and hopeful, centering oppression and the destruction of our planet and our society, but also celebrating love and chosen family. The novel can be a tad confusing at times but then the possible end of times would be, wouldn't it?

Review: This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour

Dystopian fantasy/sci fi is not my general reading preference but Mateo Askaripour's novel This Great Hemisphere sounded interesting. At least it did until I discovered that it felt like nothing so much as a mix of The Hunger Games and our own current racist world.

Opening in 2028 with a young black woman who faces terrible racism before she gives birth to the world's first invisible baby, the novel then moves 500 years into the future where society is bifurcated between the Dominant Population (DPs) and the second class Invisibles. Institutionally, the entire Northwestern Hemisphere (ostensibly including the former US) discriminates against the Invisibles, shunting them off to live away from the DPs, employing them in low level and menial tasks, providing them with addictive and life and energy restricting fast foods, rounding them up for tracking annually, etc.

Sweetmint, a young Invisible woman who goes by Candace in the greater DP world, is determined to rise beyond expectations and use her incredible intellect not only to help herself, but help the people she loves and lives with. She has, against all odds, earned an internship with the hemisphere's great inventor, giving her a glimpse into a world she's only dreamed of. But when the Chief Executive of the Northwestern Hemisphere is assassinated and the murder is pinned on Sweetmint's older brother Shanu, who has been missing and presumed dead for the past three years, she sets out on a quest to find him before the police and politicians do, jeopardizing everything she's earned so far. At the very least, she must find Shanu before one politician in particular, bloodthirsty and ruthless, does. Her search ultimately makes her question the truth as she knows it and question the people she thought she knew.

The world building here is rather uneven. There are pieces that are incredibly detailed, like the rumoyas (scents) that the Invisibles use to recognize each other, the elaborate ways instituted so that DPs can "see" Invisibles, and the mandated annual registration. There are other pieces that are vague or incomplete, like the reader is missing steps in a formula. On the whole though, the world of the novel is not appreciably different than our own. The parallels are obvious and unsubtle. Sweetmint's discovery of a resistance movement is a bit haphazard and comes out of nowhere, and the ending to the novel is incredibly rushed. The novel feels like it's trying to be a future novel but instead it comes across, in most ways, as one firmly grounded in our own present. There are aspects that could have been interesting if they had been more developed but over all, it was disappointing, derivative, and obvious. Hunger Games fans looking for a read-a-like might enjoy this but I didn't.

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book for review.