I tried, but I‘m finding this book impenetrable. A Goodreads reviewer saying it has no plot or even characters helped me decide to throw in the towel.

You‘ve Changed is an essay collection by a woman from Myanmar noodling on race, family, language, and more. It‘s completely delightful, balancing a typically lighthearted tone with meaty topics. Pyae comes across as thoughtful and authentic, and the editing is deft, as I feel she really shines through. Loved it.

Emma‘s mother had a sudden breakdown at age 40 that has strongly affected Emma‘s life, leading her to worry about the same thing happening to her. Forty is approaching, and her insomnia is tying her in knots, especially when frightening things start to occur. I felt the tension was built well and I guessed whodunit but still enjoyed the ride, but I have a couple quibbles. A low pick for me.

I‘m not sure what to say about this one because I‘m not sure what it‘s trying to say. Is it that online spaces are often performative and shallow because people already are that way? Or that these aspects of online life can bleed over into reality and make us be this way? I don‘t know. Plus, it ends bizarrely and abruptly. It just didn‘t quite come together for me.

What a fun book! Claudia starts working for a company that verifies the information provided by people in online dating profiles. A client who wants to verify more than one person disappears and a new mystery is afoot. I really liked this! I almost skipped out on it and I‘m so glad I gave it a try. It manages to be lighthearted and whimsical in places while also being meaty.

Lindsay meets up with an old friend and their conversation makes her start thinking of a mutual friend‘s death 10 years ago. What really happened? She becomes obsessed with trying to find out. Overall this was enjoyable, but carried on a little long. I didn‘t guess the ending, which I like. I do think her two newer ones are better, which means great things for the future!

My librarian let me take a peek at this, and it could be a good resource for folks doing #ReadingAfrica2022 and other world reading challenges. Not every country is represented, but for those that are, 5 books set there are listed! Alas, another patron has it on hold so I couldn‘t check it out, but I wanted to get the word out!

The director of a rare book collection at a Canadian University has a major stroke shortly after an extremely rare book was acquired. And now no one can find it. This excellent premise and setting are squandered by bad writing (constant repetition, lots of sentence fragments), gross juvenile humor, and a major undervaluing of the female characters. Very disappointing.

I managed to get a couple hundred pages in, but I‘m all done. There are two many characters and too much going on, making me struggle to stay with what‘s happening. When I got to the point that I stopped caring, I decided to pull the plug.

When I first heard about this book and knew it was set at a school, I said no thanks. But then I heard the author on a podcast and I‘m so glad I changed my mind. We follow three main characters, each of whom reflects a different position in deaf society. Plus, Nović weaves in lessons about ASL, deaf history and more. This is absolutely fantastic and print rather than audio is the way to go on this one.

I think I‘ve read everything Marian Keyes has published and I usually love her, but for me this one wasn‘t up to par. The second half is great and what I‘ve come to expect from her, but the first half isn‘t so good. I felt like she picked a single plot point and kept cycling around it in a way that frankly almost made me bail.

The title explains this book of vignettes, as we see a neighborhood through the eyes of a girl. There‘s whimsy and some magical realism here, but in the end it was a bit ho-hum for me.

We so often hear awful things about Africa. But what about the good? The innovation driven by need. The strong family structures. The embrace of cellular technology to improve lives. Olopade looks at all these things and more in this positive look at Africa. I enjoyed the read and learned a ton (plus that cover! 😍). Could be used for many countries, but I choose #Cameroon.

#ReadingAfrica2022

Today is one of the worst days of my life. I have lost my love, my sweet girl, my Greta. I brought her and her brother home when they were just about to turn 2. I lost him a few years back, and now her today after 11 amazing years. I‘ll miss so much about her, including posting her dog yoga in the background of my photos here. I‘ll love you forever, baby girl. 💔

This is a 1959 map of Africa based on ethnicity and language. Wow! This really puts things in an interesting perspective.

Edit: 73% of African households don‘t speak the official language of their country!

So Much Blue is a character study of a man that paints a picture of him for the reader by following him across 3 points in his life: in 1979 when he is helping a friend, 20 years later when he has an affair, and 10 years after that during a family crisis. It is a quiet book that is beautifully rendered, weaving the three times together.

I did something with this book that I‘ve never done before—when I got to the end, I restarted and listened again. I love how it all came together and wanted to dive back in with the knowledge of what was to come and see what else I could pick up along the way. I think Mandel is a superb writer, and she certainly doesn‘t disappoint here!

Here‘s my living bingo card for May #bookspinbingo! We Need New Names is my #bookspin, which is great since it‘s a #ReadingAfrica2022 book, and my #doublespin is The Bookshop of Yesterdays, which I‘ve been meaning to read forever!

This book was a disappointment. It has a fun premise, but the author makes it feel derivative rather than believable, then drags out the second half for no apparent reason. There are moments of brilliance here, and I feel like this could have been a really good book if the editor had pushed the author more. This felt like a early draft.

Here‘s my latest update for #ReadingAfrica2022! In April, I read books for Libya 🇱🇾 Mali 🇲🇱 Uganda 🇺🇬 Kenya 🇰🇪 Burundi 🇧🇮. I think I‘m on track for the challenge, but there still lots to go. Africa is huge!

😂

Here‘s my final #bookspinbingo card for April! Four bingos plus several more almost-bingos! A great month! Hopefully I can carry this kind of reading into May.

Gaby is a relatively carefree boy in #Burundi, but then the country descends into war. He initially remains a bit sheltered from it until the Rwandan genocide begins (his mother is from there) and killing creeps into both his family and home city. I‘m not big on stories of children, so I didn‘t love the first half, but it‘s needed to juxtapose the brutality to come.

#ReadingAfrica2022

While I‘m not sure how I missed this one when it was published nearly 5 years ago, I‘m sure glad to have read it now. A proudly feminist western with great representation (Black, Asian, LGBTQ), great characters, and a great story! I loved it!

Here‘s my stacks for #bookspinbingo for May! I can‘t wait to see how the card comes together!

In this fantastic, sly debut, Ingrid Yang is in the 8th year of her PhD, struggling to get her dissertation written and is so disengaged from it. But then she learns something unknown about her topic, which could be explosive at her college if it comes out. This is a great look at how people are seen in and see the world and what‘s ok for some people but not others. It builds beautifully, and I can‘t believe this was her first book! I loved it.

Jacob and Isaac are an estranged father and son and Jacob has always been a hard man. But now he is dying, and wants to reach out to Isaac to try to make a connection, so this is told as a long letter to Isaac. I found this a tough read, as there are some seriously deplorable things about Jacob, but it‘s quite good.

Hepworth has definitely become an auto-read author for me. Here, she sets up a family situation that seems quite solid but then slowly starts to reveal that maybe things aren‘t how they look. Really deft writing along the lines of Liane Moriarty. Great read!

I‘m sure this will be an #unpopularopinion, but I thought the first half of this book was an overwrought, melodramatic mess and I nearly bailed on it. The second half is terrific, which makes the first half that much more disappointing. Also, the single past timeline is poorly worked in and only seems present to reveal a detail about one of the main characters. This one really felt like it needed to be reworked to me.

Book-related PSA! Apparently the dye used to make books like the ones pictured green contains arsenic. While I found this interesting, I also wanted to shout out to any collectors of older books (I‘m thinking of @LeahBergen , but I know there are others), so you can check your shelves.

https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/science/article/these...

The Icepick Surgeon is an interesting look at the ways in which science has been used for nefarious purposes or gone off the ethical rails. Overall, I enjoyed this, though I would have liked a little more of each story and the author is a tad too willing to promote himself (he references his podcast way too many times).

The Last Hunger Season follows a group of smallholder farmers as they learn new farming techniques in the hopes of going from near starvation to actually generating an income and being able to regularly send their kids to school. While it reads at times as a bit too much of a sales pitch for one organization (which is doing great work), I definitely feel I got a good feel for these people‘s lives. Frankly, I‘m humbled.

#ReadingAfrica2022 #Kenya

I‘ve read and enjoyed a couple Sepetys books before, so I had high hopes for this one, but it was a disappointment. It seeks to show the reality of life in Romania under Ceausescu, but does too much listing out things by a character rather than showing it happening, to the point that it felt like a textbook in places. The second half is much better, but wasn‘t enough to salvage the book for me.

I love this series! In this installment, someone has put a hit out on Steven a Finlay is going to try to prevent it from happening, if only for her kids. These books have so much going for them: good mystery plots, awesome characters, and great humor. If you love mysteries with good wit, definitely read these books!

Given this book‘s subtitle, I was a little concerned it would be an alarmist, conspiracy theory laden screed. Happily, it‘s not! It looks at the development of sophisticated surveillance technology that is able to cover a whole city in detail and allows users to work backward from an event to see what happened before. It goes through how this technology could be beneficial and problematic. A balanced, fascinating read.

I have such mixed feelings about this one. It tells Kirabo‘s story of searching for the mother she‘s never known while deepening her understanding of her other family ties. It is fundamentally about family, but there‘s very little plot in it and I found it hard to get into. It does have great characters and a gorgeous cover. A soft pick for me.

#ReadingAfrica2022 #Uganda

Grace‘s Korean mother was brought by her white American father into small town, rural Washington. Here, Grace tells her mother‘s and her own story, showing how deeply isolation and displacement can wound and how food can be a lifeline to home. She tackles some really tough material here, but this is a beautiful book.

2021 NBA finalist, nonfiction

Other than possessing a fabulous cover, this book of stories is doing nothing for me. I really don‘t know what the National Book Award committee (translated lit) saw in it to put it on the long list. Bailing at the halfway mark.

This book looks closely at a family of two Chinese immigrant parents and their 3 adult Chinese-American sons as they gather at the family restaurant for Christmas. We start to see the cracks in the family and the complexity of the relationships as events unfold. I just loved this! I really look forward to reading more from this author.

In South to America, Perry explores how the southeast US serves as a foundation for the country through history and now. She physically travels to various places in the south to illustrate her thesis and includes some of her own experiences as well. I love the authenticity of the audiobook—she reads it herself and when she mentions certain things, her usually minimal accent gets much stronger.

I think this book is going to spell trouble for me. The very first entry and I‘m already trying to figure out when to book my stay! 🤤

This seemed like a fun, funny idea: ask a bunch of women writers to write on the topic of having a dick for a day. Just over a third through, I‘m finding a few creative responses, but otherwise all are about sex, peeing while standing, or feeling what it‘s like to have automatic respect based on gender. And sadly, there‘s a lot of internalized misogyny here and a seeming desire for toxic masculinity.

Are horoscopes actually predictive? How much does a person‘s beliefs play into how their life plays out? Are their components to certain jokes that make them funnier than others? Quirkology explores these types of questions by trying to study them scientifically. I really enjoyed this. My favorite bit was learning that some places where people get an unsettled feeling and think there are ghosts actually have subaudible sounds present. Cool!

While I liked this latest Rockton mystery, especially the fact that it focused more on the town itself than the immediately prior books, I feel there was too much vagueness in how the mystery portion ended. There‘s also big changes happening in Rockton, foreshadowed in book 6, that show up here and make me suspect this is the end of the series. I hope not, but I‘ve really enjoyed all the books, so I hope lots of people read them.

We are taught the history of the Civil War in school in a particular way, one of white men fighting white men, and that leaves a lot out. Here, Willis compiles photos of black soldiers and writings, be they letters, journal entries, and more, about black people involved in the Civil War (including women). I can see why this was long listed for the NBA. It‘s a worthy, vital piece of our history.

When I heard the description of this, it made me want to skip it, but I‘m glad I didn‘t. While it tells the story of a man who is a serial killer, that plot is simply used as a frame to study several female characters in his orbit, and the story is really theirs. I really enjoyed meeting these women and will be looking for other reads from Kukafka.

Fred is a black man wrongly accused of murdering the neighbors of his employers and abused by police to try to obtain a confession. He manages to escape their custody and ends up in the sewers, where he suddenly has a window into some otherwise inaccessible spaces in a somewhat fantastical way. There is one choice he makes that I don‘t understand, but overall this is really well done and was a very engaging read.

After being unexpectedly charmed by What If It‘s Us, since romance is not my bag, I was excited for this follow up. The story isn‘t nearly as good, though I did enjoy revisiting these characters, and the audio narrators are the same as book 1, which I loved.

Alt-America looks at how extremist right wing viewpoints rose in prominence over the years, eventually leading to Trump. It‘s well done and I learned a lot, though some of this I already knew. I did have to take frequent breaks from this, as some of the people profiled have worldviews so different from mine that they seem frightening and delusional to me (I‘m sure the feeling is mutual, though I‘m not militant and these folks are).

I was halfway through this one when I realized I‘d been not terribly impressed by her previous book. Turns out that one was much better than this one. This book takes the good premise of a creepy scavenger hunt and makes it super dull. I will be actively avoiding this author in the future.