Showing posts with label #Magic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Magic. Show all posts

#IMWAYR March 17, 2025

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. I'm also connecting up with the Sunday Salon. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


Hurrah Hurrah! Spring break is here. I have plans for getting a lot accomplished in the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow, right after reading and responding to blog posts, I plan to get my tomato seeds potted! I've already got the dirt and the pots are clean. I also plan to clean out the garden and cut back the raspberry canes. In addition to that I hope to get caught up on my reading with my eyes and finishing up a couple of sewing/quilting projects I've started. I can't help but wonder how successful I will be. Probably not very.

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book

This gorgeous picture book takes readers back in time to Tokyo in the early 1970's. The lyrical prose shows us demae (deliverymen) on bikes carrying towering trays of ceramic bowls filled with soba noodles to different places around the city. 

4 stars

My Sister, Daisy by Adria Karlsson & Linus Curci (Illustrator) September 1, 2021

This book is written from the perspective of a loving older brother.  When his younger brother informs the family she is a girl, he does his best to accept this change in their family. In spite of the many positive things that happen, he still experiences jealousy and anger at the special treatment she receives. 
I suspect this kind of reaction is probably common in any family with a child who, for whatever reason, requires extra parental attention. 
In the author's note in the back matter she explains that this book was written for her older child who went through this experience without the support of a book like this. 

"This beautifully illustrated graphic novel is an exploration of grief, love, and finding magic in the wilderness – and in ourselves."
Poppy and her mother are grieving the loss of grandmother and mother. While her mother remains almost immobilized by grief, Poppy is forced to leave the house to take their dog, Pepper, for walks. On one of these outings, Pepper drags her through a hole in a fence into a forest. In the forest she makes a new friend who helps her discover the healing power of wild spaces. It takes a while, but eventually she persuades her mother to join her. 
I especially appreciate that Poppy starts out completely glued to her phone, but eventually doesn't even bother to bring it with her. (I confess that I bring mine with me on hikes, but only to take photos and identify plants.)
The black and white illustrations in this book are jawdroppingly gorgeous. 
It was my mother who introduced me to the beauty and magical power of wilderness. I wish she was still here so I could share this book with her. 

Kiela and her assistant, Caz, a sentient talking spider plant, are forced to flee the Great Library of Alyssium when revolutionary forces set the building on fire. After escaping with a few crate loads of precious spellbooks, they end up on a remote island where Kiela was born and raised.
In the world of this novel, magic has been hoarded by the elite and the rest of the inhabitants suffer. When she settles into her family home, Kiela discovers this means crop failures, record breaking storms, and a decline in magical species.
With the help of a good looking neighbour and a few spells purloined from the books, she sets up a Jam and Remedy shop. Her new life is suddenly endangered when the person rescued during the last storm claims to be a government inspector searching for illegal magic.
I'm not really a huge romance fan, but this book had enough other stuff going on to delight me.


This book is a cross between hard boiled detective novel and noir thriller. I added it to my reading list because Sam Wiebe is a Canadian author, and his protagonist, Dave Wakeland, is a twenty nine year old former cop turned PI who lives and works in Vancouver BC. It's an intimate reading experience when my home, or even a place I know well, is the setting for the novel I'm into. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. 
In this debut novel, Wakeland takes on the eleven year old case of a missing woman, Chelsea Loam. Chelsea's dying mother wants to know what happened to her adopted daughter.
Here in Canada the issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls is a huge problem. This book is a fictional exploration into the life of one of them. 
Fans of Dashiell Hammett and Ross MacDonald will enjoy it. 
Even though I'm much more of a cosy mystery fan, I liked this so much that I immediately downloaded the next in the series. 

CURRENTLY 

Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test: How Behavior Evolves and Why It Matters by Marlene Zuk August 9, 2022

The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism by Jen Gunter  May 25, 2021 🍁

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew 🍁

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

2025 READING GOALS

#MustRead2025 10/25

NonFiction 11/30 two on the go

Poetry 1/12 

Canadian Authors 21/50 one on the go

Indigenous Authors 6/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 43/200

Posted by 15 comments:
Labels: , , , ,

#IMWAYR March 25th, 2024

 Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.

The grandkids have come and gone. I did nothing for close to 24 hours after they left except relax and finish up some adult books. Then I started cleaning the house and doing laundry. It still isn't under control, but the main part of the house is almost presentable. 

As usual, we read a lot of books together! Today I'm only mentioning those that were new to us. 

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book.

BOARD BOOKS

5 stars

I'm Hungry! by Elise Gravel 🍁 September 12, 2023

I've most likely written about this book before. It's part of Elise Gravel's Funny Little Books series. The patterned language in these books is hilariously brilliant. It's really fun to read aloud. Both of my three year old granddaughters loved this! Ellis carried it around 'reading' it by herself. 

This book is a celebration of community - of coming together and creating beauty with other people. After a cold winter has kept children inside, they emerge into the street. Amanda brings a container of sidewalk chalk with her.  Each child creates something unique to them. In the end they create a collective masterpiece. 


This book is pure joy to read. Both the illustrations and the words are absolutely drop dead gorgeous. 
A mother tells her bicultural son stories of dragons that comprise his different backgrounds. On the one hand are the dangerous Western dragons who hoard gold. On the other are the benevolent Eastern creatures who are related to water and agriculture. 
I read this with my two half Korean granddaughters. This book could have been written for them. I wish we had had time to read it more than once. I might renew it and take it to Vancouver at the end of April when we go for the younger one's birthday. I'm now on the look out for good books about Korean dragons. Do you have recommendations?

NON FICTION PICTURE BOOKS

When just the two girls were with us, we made a trip to the library and returned home with all kinds of titles. I'm not going to write about these books individually. The following dinosaur books were mostly for Ellis, but it turned out that all four of them enjoyed them. 
My grandson actually sat down and read the book about rocks and minerals all by himself. (He did occasionally come and ask me for help with a big word.)


CHAPTER BOOKS


My grandkids and I are thankful to Earl Dizon for introducing us to this series. I started reading it to two granddaughters, and then put it aside since the three year old wasn't really interested. (Alas there are no dinosaurs or monsters.) Her six year old sister took it and finished it on her own. 
It turns out that my grandson, who I gave the first in the series to as a Christmas gift, also loves these books. The glint in his eye when he spied it was a delight to see. 
The Ratsos and their friends clean up an empty lot and set up an arcade in the transformed space. In this book Louie has to overcome his fear of whatever/whoever lives in the adjacent house when they accidentally break a window. Ralphie has his own challenges. After being nice to a bullied girl at school, rumours abound that he likes her. When he finds out who started the rumours, he ends up having to take responsibility for something he did to that person first. In the end, both boys go out of their way to make the other person's life better. 
I really love this series. It's full of humour. The illustrations by Matt Myers are delightful. Mostly though, I love that it is full of heartfelt lessons about how to live a good life. 


I read this one with my granddaughter, Ada. We started the first chapter and then I downloaded Salma the Syrian Chef so she could have some background on Salma's life. 
Salma and her mother have been in Canada for a couple of years without her father. When word arrives that he is finally arriving, Salma is filled with big, complicated emotions. She is happy that he is coming, but worried that he will not like it in Vancouver and will want to return to Damascus without them. Then she will have to experience missing him all over again.
This book packs an emotional wallop. Ada and I had some good conversations about what life is like for her mother who left her home in Korea to marry their dad. 
Finding readable chapter books that deal with complicated issues isn't easy. If I was still working, I would purchase a set of these for literature circles for younger students.
I'm looking forward to reading the next in this series, Salma Writes a Book. Hopefully it will arrive for me to take with me on my visit to see the grandkids at the end of April.

MG FICTION


Grace has magical power and needs to find someone to help her learn to use it. She ran away from the orphanage in search of a witch who is purported to live in the nearby woods. After narrowly escaping being cooked in a witches oven, the two make a deal. If Grace can complete all the spells in the witches grimoire before the cherries blossom in the spring, she will take Grace on as her apprentice. If she can't, the witch will take her magic.
I appreciate that this book is inspired by Anne of Green Gables. Grace has all the heart and energy of Anne. I love that her friendships and the plot follow so delightfully the story line of the original novels.

GRAPHIC NOVELS


When 'The Scientist' discovered that all sadness, anxiety, and anger disappeared when you removed your heart, people rushed to get their hearts removed. Without the distractions of these negative emotions, or even those of love, students are able to focus on their studies and do better in school. It seems immaterial that giving up your heart means that you lose a capacity for empathy and all interest in the arts.
June is one of the few remaining holdouts. She can't bear to lose her passion for art. She still has her heart but is under a lot of pressure from her parents to have it removed. Then she finds an abandoned heart in a bottle outside of the Tabularium, a facility that houses all the removed hearts. Shortly after this June befriends Max. The two of them set out to discover if hearts can be replaced.
June and her sister, Maya, had a close relationship until Maya had her heart removed. After that, June became an outsider at home and school. Her loneliness is so palpable, my heart ached for her. 
I really appreciated that there are all kinds of moral and ethical issues being addressed here. Should we be expected to give up parts of ourselves in order to fit in? What is the role of art in living a full life? I loved Kerilynn Wilson's artwork. 
The only part of this book that didn't really work was the ending. It didn't seem plausible enough. I know this is absurd given the the whole premise of surviving heart removal, but still, it felt too simple for me.

4 stars

Look on the Bright Side by Lily Williams & Karen Schneemann

I loved this duo's Go With the Flow, so when I saw they had another graphic novel with the same characters, I was excited. It didn't let me down. I enjoyed my visit with Brit, Christine, Abby and Sasha. I appreciated that we are shown Brit recovering from endometriosis surgery when the book begins. The school is stocked with tampons and pads as a direct result of the girl's activism in the first book. In this one, the focus is more on their romantic entanglements. Through it all, first and foremost, they remain friends.  

ADULT/YA FICTION

4 stars

A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #18) by Louise Penny & Robert Bathurst (Narrator) November 29, 2022 🍁

All is not well in the small town of Three Pines. A brother and a sister from Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir's past are visiting the village for a graduation celebration. A boarded off room in Myrna's loft reveals strange messages that send the Sûreté du Québec investigators down some very dark alleys into the heart of a psychopathic serial killer who is hunting them. 
I appreciate that this book honours the victims of the École Polytechnique massacre without naming their murderer. I appreciated learning more about how Armand got his start as a policeman. I also appreciated reading more about how Jen-Guy became a member of Armand's team. 

My problem with this book is that it is a thriller, not just a complicated cosy mystery. A couple of times I had to pull my ear buds out and do something else for a while. In the end, I just downloaded the print version of the book and finished it that way.  Even that was so terrifying I mostly skimmed the pages until I got to where the worst of it was over. 

4 stars

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron & Gerard Doyle (Narrator) September 14, 2023

Two years prior to the events in this book, the government of the day created the Monochrome Inquiry, a special task force directed to look for misconduct in MI5. Of course the head of MI5 ensured that nothing important would ever be released. 
Just when it looks like the inquiry has reached the end of its life, a confidential MI5 file is slipped to one of the leaders. This file takes us back in time to 1994 Germany, just after the Berlin wall came down. If you have read the other books in the Slough House series, you can't help but realize that this file tells us the back story of some of its important characters. 
The individual responsible for the release of the files has a very good reason for having them come to light. She's got her eye trained on a former KGB agent now masquerading as a London businessman.  
I am a hardcore fan of these Mick Herron's spy novels. I love his humour and how he incorporates the malfeasance of politicians and other high level public sector employees into each book. Now that I have finished all these (until the next one is published) I might have to give his oxford mysteries a try. 

ADULT/YA NONFICTION


This is book that focuses on the history of Cobalt, a mining town in Northern Ontario, Canada. I agree with Charlotte Gray that, “Cobalt is the best kind of popular history: carefully researched, vigorously narrated, respectful of the period it describes, but also informed by today’s concerns.” 
Often these kinds of historical narratives are told from the perspective of the white miners and settlers. Angus integrates the impact the discovery of silver had on the Indigenous population in the area and describes how these original people ended up displaced and slaughtered. 
I appreciate how thorough this book is. Global patterns in resource management, business and industry policies, union building and busting, government regulation and taxation have their roots in the history of this small community. 
Cobalt is a companion metal to silver - and historically was discarded. With demand for it on the rise globally, Angus ponders if it will be mined in his area again, and if it is, can we do better for workers and the environment? 

CURRENTLY

Bad Cree by Jessica Jones 

Double Eagle: A DreadfulWater Mystery by Thomas King

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Mexikid by Pedro Martín

Doppelganger by Naoimi Klein (for bookclub)

READING GOALS 

#MustRead2024 5/25 one on the go

NonFiction 8/24 

Canadian Authors 12/50 two on the go

Indigenous Authors 4/25 two on the go

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 56/200 
Posted by 6 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

#IMWAYR March 4, 2024

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


It's been a packed couple of weeks. Last Monday I attended a quilting workshop and worked half a day. I ended up working three days last week, but managed to get the flimsy finished. I think I will send it off to be quilted. I worked more on my unicorn paper pieced quilt, and made more shoes for mice. I also spent time learning how I might make cowboy boots.... 

I did not get much reading with my eyes accomplished in the last couple of weeks. 

I asked my partner to take some photographs of the two mice I created specifically for someone. The next thing I knew, we were having a photoshoot. I've posted some of those images onto the above page, Stuffed Mice. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoy making them. I might consider taking orders for them.... 

PREVIOUS POST

MG FICTION


I plan to get a detailed review about these four magical friends published sometime this coming week.

ADULT/YA FICTION


It took me a while to get into this one. It's a ghost story, but it's also about loneliness, friendship, love, grief, and figuring out who you are. 
Winifred Blight and her father live in an apartment above a crematorium in a cemetery. Her Indigenous mother died when she was born, and is buried in the graveyard there. She and her best friend, Jack, grew up playing in and around the gravestones, even trying to photograph ghosts. As they entered their teen years, they remained connected, but he moved on to a wider group of friends. 
When they have a falling out, Winifred ends up being haunted by Phil, a real ghost. 
What I appreciated most about this book (and all of Dimaline's novels) is the richness of her characters. Each has a credible backstory. We are filled with empathy for all of them, especially Phil, who is one of the murdered and missing Indigenous women. 


In some ways I liked this book even more than the first in the series. Emily really comes into her own as a strong, independent, indomitable heroine. I wished there had been more of Wendell Bambleby, but then, he has been poisoned and isn't really up to much of anything. I liked that in the last book, Wendell has to save Emily. This time round, it's Emily who is doing the rescuing. The important thing about their relationship, is that Wendell loves Emily just the way she is, and she, in spite of the dangers inherent in loving one of the fae, returns his regard. 
This series is kind of like brain candy. It's a charming fantasy involving faerie worlds. There is enough adventure, terror, and just the right amount of romance to make for a satisfying read. It's a wonderful break from the complex nonfiction and more intense novels I've been reading. 
I hate that I now have to wait until 2025 for Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales. 

4 stars

Junie by Chelene Knight & Nneka Elliott (Narrator) September 13, 2022  🍁

Hogan’s Alley was a thriving Black and immigrant community located in Vancouver’s East End. Junie is a girl growing up there in the 1930's. It's the story of her relationship with her mother. It's about enduring friendships and coming to terms with one's sexuality.
I confess that I did not finish this book. My failure to finish is all about me, and certainly not about the quality of the writing or the importance of the narrative.
I don't deal well with scary of any kind, especially when it can result in terrible things for a child protagonist. I find that listening to a book is worse than reading with my eyes. When I am reading with my eyes I can skim these sections. It's much more intimate and terrifying when the story feels like it's being streamed into your head through your ears.

ADULT/YA NONFICTION


This a profound book about "how and why the rest of us abide poverty and are complicit in it." While Desmond shows us how so many extremely wealthy people and organizations can get away with not paying their fair share of taxes, he also articulates how and why the rest of us, mostly middle class folk, benefit from keeping the poor in poverty. It's not for the faint of heart. Be prepared to take an honest and clear eyed look at where your money comes from, and where it goes.
This book is primarily about America, and while he mentions some of the positive aspects to the Canadian perspective, (our higher unionization rate has kept salary rates higher for all workers - and we have a single payer medical system) much of this applies equally to us.

5 stars

Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada by Michelle Good & Megan Tooley (Narrator)  🍁

In this collection of essays, Good introduces readers to historical and modern aspects of Indigenous life. She examines racism, broken treaties, cultural pillaging, the disregard for Indigenous lives, and the importance of Indigenous literature. She shows how colonialism underpins modern social systems that continue to have devastating effects for Indigenous people today. 
If readers want to really understand the full history of what it means to be Indigenous here in Canada, I encourage them to read this one and Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation by Andrew Stobo Sniderman & Douglas Sanderson.

5 stars

Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets by Kyo Maclear  🍁

After her father died, a DNA test revealed that Kyo Maclear's father, was not her biological parent. As her world unravelled, she learned that both her parents were keeping all kinds of secrets. 
While this memoir is about the unveiling of those secrets, it's also about being the child of immigrant parents, of being a biracial child and a member of the Japanese diaspora, and about caring for aging parents. It's also about gardening.
I suspect that as we age, we all learn to know our parents in new ways on an ongoing process. This is partly what this book shows, but it specifically addresses the last years when life for them begins to unravel. 
Her attempts to discover more about her biological father are hampered by her mother's reticence to talk about her life, and by her increasing dementia. 
What took me unawares, was is how deeply I connected to Maclear's experiences. There are pieces of it that are windows into a reality I've never encountered. Other parts are mirrors that reminded me of discovering my own parents secrets. I most profoundly related to the reality of looking after a brain addled and aging parent in the last years of her life. 
Did I mention yet how exquisite the writing is? Seriously, huge chunks, if not all of this, are like listening to poetry read out loud. No wonder it won the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction! It's just stunning! 
If you want to know more about this book, you can listen to Shelagh Rogers interview Kyo Maclear here.

CURRENTLY

Sunshine Nails by Mai Nguyen July 4, 2023  🍁
The Faint of Heart by Kerilynn Wilson June 13, 2023

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Besties Work It Out by Kayla Miller
Slough House by Mick Herron

I will deal with the picture books pile this week or else!

FEBRUARY READING UPDATE:

books read: 19
graphic novels: 3
nonfiction: 3
nonfiction picture books: 2
adult/ya novels: 7
MG novels: 0
Chapter books: 1
Picture books: 1
Indigenous Authors: 3
Black Authors: 1
Canadian Authors: 4

READING GOALS 

#MustRead2024 3/25 one on the go

NonFiction 7/24 

Canadian Authors 8/50 one on the go

Indigenous Authors 4/25 

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 36/200 
Posted by 8 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

IMWAYR September 4, 2023

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


I am happy to say that our neck of the woods is almost completely smoke free. A couple of fires are burning to the north but they are mostly contained.

Thank goodness for audio books! It's the time of year for canning and preserving. At the same time as I am slogging away, I am living in alternative realities. As a bonus, the shelves in our cool room are filling up with jars full of glorious colours.

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
 
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book.

MOST RECENT BLOG POST

FREE VERSE FRIDAY #8 SEPTEMBER - AUTUMN


"The queen of chess, Judit Polgár, dazzled the world as a prodigy, winning tournaments, gold medals, and defeating eleven world champions, including Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen. At her peak, Judit was rated the eighth best chess player in the world."
I confess that I wanted to read this book because I adored the TV series, Queen's Gambit. I just had to learn more about a real woman chess grand master. 
Judit Polgár is at least as fascinating (even if the wardrobe isn't as exciting) as her fictional counterpart a couple of decades earlier. 
Judit Polgár was a chess prodigy who at five years old, played against and defeated players older and more experienced than she was. At age nine she was winning international tournaments. 
If you don't have this book in your library, you should purchase it now! I really wish it had been around when my school library hosted the school chess club. 

MIDDLE GRADE GRAPHIC NOVELS


Two children from completely different parts of the planet are dealing with the consequences of climate change. While reading this I couldn't help but make a connection to Two Degrees by Alan Gatz. In that book he focuses on children in North America. Eoin Colfer shows us the reality for Sami, a boy who lives somewhere in the Indian Ocean and depends on fishing to make a living. His other protagonist, Yuki, lives in northern Canada where the polar ice is melting. She is doing her best to protect the polar bears around her community.
What I really liked about this book is that, just like in Alan Gatz's book, it shows the consequences of the climate crisis at a personal level. In this case, the images make it profoundly real.

4 stars

From the Roots Up by Tasha Spillett, Natasha Donovan (Illustrator) & Donovan Yaciuk (Illustrator) 🍁

I could have sworn I wrote a review for this book just after reading it, but if I did, I have no idea where it went.
This continues the story of Dez, and Miikwan, two indigenous friends. Dez' grandmother has died and she is living in a group home. Her social worker is a bit of a nightmare, but the woman at the home seems to be a supportive person who understands that Dez is grieving.
At school the two friends attend an after school group that focuses on indigenous teachings. Linda, the elder who runs the group, doesn't question the gendered protocols she has grown up with. With the help of Miikwan's boyfriend's mother, she starts to change her thinking and comes to accept Dez being two spirit.
I like that both girls are in positive relationships with others, but their friendship is what really matters.
I adore Natasha Donovan's artwork!

ADULT/YA GRAPHIC NOVELS


This graphic novel is spectacular. I went into it expecting something entirely different: something fictional or myth. I was gobsmacked by what I experienced. This book is a time travel. It's a portal that opens a passage into the history of the Haida Gwai, an island of the coast of British Columbia. 
It begins with Indigenous life before contact with Europeans. In spectacular illustrations it reveals the horrors wrought by white colonialists, including the deliberate spreading of small pox. 
At the same time it's the story of Johan Adrian Jacobsen (JAJ), who came to the Haida village of Masset to collect specimens for a German museum.
The artwork is spectacular, a blend of traditional and modern art. It's not organized like an ordinary graphic novel. There is a brilliantly chaotic quality to how it all comes together. I learned at the end of the book that if all the panels are put together it becomes a huge mural that is on display at the Berlin Humboldt Forum. 
The following video, taken during a showing of the mural in East Vancouver, gives you a sense of the piece.


ADULT/YA FICTION


This book was a time warp for me. I remember when the local arts community in Vancouver was devastated by the loss of one creative member after another. My partner, a film maker, was much more aware of the tragedy than I was. As a teacher I was only aware of a couple of people who lost their lives to Aids. The book reminded me of listening to The Dr. Peter Diaries, on CBC radio and singing with the the choir at the Dr Peter's Center.
I was deeply invested in these characters: especially the young man, Yale. I wanted so much for him to be a survivor of the carnage around him. One by one his friends get the disease and die. 
The latter part of the book focuses on Fiona and her estranged daughter. The book begins with the funeral of her brother. It ends with her acknowledging how deeply the epidemic scarred her. 


Lucky St. James, a Métis, lives in Toronto with her Grandmother. Just as the two of them are about to be evicted from their apartment, Lucky gets invited to go for a job interview in Salem. There she is invited to join a coven of witches. She barely gets to know the other members when she is sent off in search for the final member of the group. 
It takes a while before Lucky realizes that Jay Christos, a truly evil witch hunter is chasing after her. 
On the surface this is a simple paranormal thriller. At the same time it's a deeply feminist book about friendship - about the power of women when we come together to support each other. Lucky's grandmother, Stella, is one of my favourite characters in the book. She is one spunky old woman! 
The book highlights the evils of the patriarchal system. Fortunately, Lucky St. James' mother equipped her with all kinds of indigenous magic for how to deal with it and the men who try to run it. 
I am looking forward to the sequel that I'm sure is coming!

5 stars

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus & Miranda Raison (Narrator) March 31 2022

It took me a bit to get into this book, but when it finally grabbed me, I was totally hooked. Part of the reason for this is that someone had compared it to When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill, and thought this was better. I do get the connection between the two novels, but wouldn't say either was better. Both are set primarily in the 1960's and both feature women in STEM. The anger in Lessons in Chemistry is more of a slow burn, while in When Women Were Dragons, it's a screaming rage. To be honest, this was much easier to read because of that.
It's the story of Elizabeth Zott, a scientist, who never manages to finish her degree because of being sexually assaulted. It's about not being able to pursue your career because you are a woman. It's a bit of a love story between two brilliant and odd individuals. When she is no longer able to work at her chosen profession, Elizabeth ends up working as a TV star on a cooking show where she teaches her watchers about chemistry.
I like the relationships between the women here. I like that even the one that starts out antagonistic becomes supportive. I like that there are some sympathetic men, even if they are not really effectual. I like the weird humour in this. I adored Six-Thirty, who might be one of the best dogs in fiction. 

CURRENTLY

We are Still Here by Nahid Shahalimi (Editor)

The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Witch King by Martha Wells

UP NEXT 

I have no idea.

READING GOALS 

#MustReadFiction 16/24 

#MustReadNonFiction 12/20

Canadian Authors 32/75 

Indigenous Authors 15/20 

Big Books Summer 2023 - 15 - one in progress

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 134/200 
Posted by 4 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)