This novel is super creepy, pretty gory in spots, and just a lot of fun. It drags a little in the middle, and I'm still not entirely sure I understand how all of the layers fit together, but I enjoyed it all the same. Great on audio, but I could also see it being a really cool movie in the right hands.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. This is a mix of mystery and horror, and it does for me exactly what I love horror to do: show us parts of ourselves we'd rather not face. The novel brings us back to the early months of the pandemic and highlights the ways that covid brought out negative tendencies in United Statesian culture. There's a pretty glaring error relating to propane tanks, but that's the only bit that took me out of the action.

I enjoyed this unsettling book full of people making cringey choices, although I'm not sure I totally understood it. If you're not a fan of ambiguous stories, this might not be your cup of tea.

It's been a stressful but good week.

1) Art show finds.
2 and 3) Silly cats.
4) New patio plants.
5) First concert of the year/last concert of the summer for my tuba-playing kid.
Not pictured: Recorded and submitted 11 auditions.

@DebinHawaii #5JoysFriday

This was a quick read and very odd. The premise isn't the oddest thing; the oddest thing is how the characters jump to bizarre conclusions as though they're not just plausible but the only rational explanation and get essentially no pushback. It feels a little like the author is a kid coming up with weird stories while playing with his action figures. I don't love Uketsu's books, but I'll keep reading them.

This is from an email from author and biomechanist Katy Bowman, and I've verified the print and e-book numbers (https://thetechylife.com/how-much-money-does-amazon-take-from-book-sales/). Still looking for audiobook numbers as the linked article is less detailed on those. I also learned that Amazon controls 80% of book distribution in the US.

If you, like me, are alarmed by this, check out bookshop.org, libro.fm, and kobo.com for alternatives.

Camille giving me a high five because, after getting my elder kid and my spouse to read Playground and discuss it with me and then attending a book club about it, I have a new appreciation for what Powers is doing in this novel. I want to re-read it now that my context has evolved so I can see what else I see in it.

Drowning my jealousy over my spouse's trip to London at the garden center and then audiogardening with the tagged. We rent and only have a few containers on our patio, so audiogardening doesn't take up a lot of time, so I'll have to find something else to distract me soon.

Diplomatic review: This novel wasn't really for me, and I should have known that ahead of time based on my experience with two other Willingham books. I don't find the main character believable, and the twists feel forced and the emotionality overwrought rather than organic. However, it's successful at what novels like this are supposed to do, and the narration is great.

Spoiler rant in comments.

This is an ARC from StoryGraph/Macmillan Audio.

I consumed this one on audiobook so I might be mistaken, but it seems like Tuppence forgets which name she's using more often than I would expect from a former spy. Like so many TV heroines of the 20th century, she seems like the kind of woman who hides her cleverness so as not to threaten the men in her life and ends up acting sillier than makes sense. And she gets coshed on the head almost as often as 1970s TV Wonder Woman got chloroformed.

Update for @RaeLovesToRead :

My spouse thanks you for the restaurant recommendation! (He also got a milkshake.) He promises to bring me next time he travels to London (okay, so *he* didn't promise, but it's happening regardless...I am aching to travel outside of North America, and I keep being thwarted by the calendar and kids who seem to prefer road trips. I'm in the UK via my current/most recent books, but I'm guessing that's not the same).

Although the plot drags a bit and I have a distaste for epistolary fiction, the complex characters, varied settings, and political and historical commentary make this an interesting take on a Dracula story. I'm glad I had the audiobook to read alongside it, though, as I don't have the concentration I once had for such an epic story.

Already making progress on my August #bookspinbingo (a couple on the verge of finishing).

@TheAromaofBooks #bookspin

This week's #5JoysFriday is all about wildlife!

1) Klipspringer and Yellow-Crowned Bishop at the zoo.
2) Lizard on a rock on the hiking trail.
3) Bobcat caught by my backyard cam.
4) Woodpecker (Nuttall's, I think) on my urban hike.
5) Not pictured because I was too slow, ironically: A huge pet tortoise in someone's front yard (must have been three feet long from head to tail).

@DebinHawaii

I'm not sure how summer passed so quickly (and why August isn't "summer" anymore), but I'm ready to read!

#bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

13 finished, including #bookspin (but not #doublespin) and 1 DNF this month. And one bingo! Now on to August...

@TheAromaofBooks #bookspinbingo

This month was a lovely reading month! My book for 07/27-07/31 was actually so-so for me, but since it's the only one I finished that week, it's my favorite. The tagged is my favorite for the month, and I've been talking with excitement about it to anyone who will listen since finishing it.

#WeeklyFavorites @Read4life

We do not care that we bought the shorts we're wearing at a thrift store during Clinton's second term. Some styles are timeless.

We also do not care that we're posting this on Thursday. Time is a construct, and we can't be expected to keep up with what day it is.

#WDNCW @dabbe

While I really liked the "home for wayward girls" premise and the exploration of the many ways girls were (are) manipulated in the name of doing what's considered right, I really don't know if the witchcraft piece is necessary, unless the idea of girls actually having agency without the assistance of magic is just too unbelievable. Which, well, maybe it is. Regardless, I still didn't like the chanting.

I stayed up late to read this one before it was returned on Libby, and it was worth it. Strategically starting it after my elder kid returned from a trip to Portland was also a good idea. The tension is a little much to bear, and living on the West Coast, the premise is a little too real, but I love the complex relationships, the imperfections, the portrayal of grief and disappointment at how our image of life differs from reality. #camplitsy25

#5JoysFriday @DebinHawaii

1) Haircut! (My hair dresser thankfully talked me out of a bob.)
2) Butterflies!
3) Acting like a tourist in my home city!
4) A webinar that helped me get some of my mojo back!
5) Etsy browsing!

Honorable mention: Autocorrect changing "webinar" to " "weiner."

For a novel filled with exasperating characters, this was quite a fun read! While the characters are exasperating, they're also complex and darkly funny, with commentary about wealth---inherited and otherwise---race, antisemitism, and the challenges of being in a family. I love that there's no character in this novel that I can entirely love or entirely despise.

I'm too distracted to concentrate today, but Camille seems to be enjoying the tagged book.

A haiku in honor of a day that I worried would be busy but turned out to be an excellent combination of activities. I did more than these things, but this is what fits in 5-7-5 (and it hits the high points).

Time with family
Solo outdoor exercise
A perfect balance.

#haikuhive #haikuaday @dabbe

Through beautiful, engaging prose and a unique and striking setting, McConaghy tells a story that's both bleak and hopeful. As with her other recent novels, she addresses the reality of climate change while offering a way to keep our hope and humanity in the face of a changing world. I enjoyed this one quite a lot.

Photo: Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA

Audiowalking with the tagged while my younger kid is at tuba lesson. In addition to tons of students and parents at the university for orientation (is it seriously that time already?), I met up with this male monarch enjoying a snack. My external environment was quite different than the one in my ears.

For #TLT #ThreeListThursday, @dabbe requested three favorite movie soundtracks.

The ones I thought of first (minus season 1 of The Umbrella Academy, which isn't really a movie) were:

1) Hedwig and the Angry Inch
2) Sinners
3) O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I love Davies's reflective, introspective writing style and vivid settings. This novel follows the confusion and conflicting motivations of the main characters well. Reading it felt like I was being taken on a journey. I listened to the novel on audio, but based on prior experience, I suspect the effect would have been similar had I read it in print. And bonus: I learned more about the geography of India than I knew before.

We do not care that you think you shouldn't have to wait for us to cross the street. Pedestrians have the right of way even if you drive a Mercedes, Tesla, or any other "premium" vehicle. (We do care, however, if you hit us, and we will swear loudly at you to help prevent that from happening.)

#WDNCW #WeDoNotCareWednesday @dabbe

There are many ways I could read this novel, many clues I could (and did) highlight, many threads to pull. One thing I feel confident about is that it's about the parts that we play in our lives, the way that we sometimes continue to play the part even when it's not working anymore, the way that we get caught in our role and lose sight of who we are, if anyone, apart from it. There are other things here, but this one I'm pretty sure about.

This is a funny and emotional novel with characters whose deft, complex, and compassionate portrayals eclipse the statistical unlikelihood of them all existing at the same time in one small town. The story is certainly a vehicle for showing a variety of lives and perspectives of trans individuals, but it's also an enjoyable and touching story in itself. I didn't read anything about it before I started, so it was a total, delightful surprise.

Opinion question based on a real-life situation: There's a new book club you want to try out, but the book they're reading for the first meeting you can attend is one you disliked. Do you go to the meeting---with people you've never met before---for the book you disliked, or do you wait for next month and hope you like that book better?

Sleepy Silo is an excellent lap cat on this Sunday morning, but his contagious sleepiness isn't helping me lock in and finish this novel finally.

I love the way this novel plays with creator and creation, identity, responsibility to self and others, family (and all the pros and cons and compromises of family connections), perceived and actual ability...so many awesome themes. This novel does just what I want a novel to do: address big T Truth through story. And the last line is the reason I keep coming back to writing even as I worry that I can't/won't ever be able to do it well.

1) Family scavenger hunt in/around Balboa Park.
2) Family trip to Old Town for Venezuelan food and a Whaley House tour (made up for a missed field trip in 4th grade; kind of cheesy/touristy, but glad to have done it).
3) Lots of monarchs!
4) Baby doves fledged!
5) California king snake on spouse's walk home from work!
#5JoysFriday @DebinHawaii

My kids created a song challenge in which they give each other a time signature, a key signature, a duration, and 2 or more virtual instruments, and they each compose a song on their favorite DAW that meets those parameters. The Siren feels like someone gave Katherine St. John this kind of challenge but for novel writing. It feels like there's a laundry list of objects, events, themes, and even characters crammed into the story.

Mourning dove update:

This is a still from our makeshift nestcam. The one on the gate is one of the babies, who flew down to perch and was joined by a parent briefly before parent flew to the nest. Then the other baby flew down to the gate but kept landing on its sibling, so they both flew up to the parent in the nest for second breakfast.

Quite exciting times at our gate! I think this means they're more teens than babies, though.

We do not care that the prevailing philosophy is to bend the truth and make sweeping generalizations about those who disagree with us. We will not participate in the dehumanization of those who believe themselves our opponents, even if they do it to us. In fact, in our focus on maintaining our humanity, we reject the entire "us" vs "them" dichotomy.

(I was going to rant about perimenopause, but I chose a different direction.)

#WDNCW

We first heard "El Pueblo Unido" years ago when we were gifted this Inti-Illimani Historico anthology by some Chilean friends. My teen rediscovered it through friends two weeks ago and has been playing it daily on piano. It feels appropriate and moving at the moment.
https://open.spotify.com/track/5QZDNOt10nKcLvyPbrwYCp?si=Mb1DdPf4QEWzCCr7Kis5lw

#Tuesdaytunes @TieDyeDude

This has been on my TBR for quite a while, and I finally picked it up on the recommendation of my teen. While it drags a bit in the middle, I did enjoy the connections to Chinese and Japanese history as well as the conflict between the desire for power and revenge and maintaining one's humanity (a theme that seems timeless and especially relevant in the US at the moment, especially the warning against dehumanizing one's opponents).

The Anti-Prime Sale from bookshop.org came at the perfect time to order the tagged for my dad's birthday! If you'd like free shipping and to support local bookstores, head over to http://bookshop.org for books, games, stationery...all the good bookstore stuff!

Mourning dove update:
More mature feathers, lots of wing exercises, more time without parents at the nest. They grow up so fast!

In the top picture you can see the plastic bird spikes on top of which the nest is built, which I find quite amusing and kind of inspiring.

My family (spouse, kids, me) have been meeting up every evening for nearly 15 years to each share 1 thing we're grateful for, 1 thing we're sorry about, and 1 thing we intend for the next day. Recently we've added 1 thing we learned that day and an excerpt from the tagged. It's been helping all of us to reflect, like the Stoics, on what is in our control vs what isn't and to try to put our energy into the former.
#mentalhealthmonday @Kerrbearlib

This is a fun departure from Christie's usual formula. The way it's told builds the sense of menace and mystery in a way that doesn't happen with some of the more formulaic novels. I especially enjoyed observing my evolving feelings about Mike Rogers.

Photo: Moon over football fields, Canton, Ohio, 2025.

June's #WeeklyFavorites, at long last. Traveling threw me off, and I didn't finish any books between the 7th and 14th, so here's a cardinal for that spot. I think my favorite of these was the tagged.

@Read4life

Can holder snipping
As I was taught in 4th grade:
Conditioning works.

Every time I try to tell myself I don't have to anymore, I think of sea turtles. For 40 years and counting. Thank you, Weekly Reader.

#haikuaday #haikuhive

At first, this feels like particularly richly written historical fiction about a period I've always had trouble visualizing. Then it turns into something trippy that transcends time and plays with what-ifs in a very fun way. I think there are some lessons here for any would-be "ruler of the world." And now I want to visit Mexico City.

Photo: Statue of a different Castilian soldier (El Cid), San Diego, California.

Bathroom grime abounds.
Wait for someone else to clean.
Then...do it myself.

Story of my life.

#haikuaday #haikuhive

Photo: El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego, California, 2025. Instead of a photo of a bathroom.

I introduced my kids (teen and adult) to Utah Phillips today, this album and Fellow Workers. I forgot how much I love his storytelling. https://open.spotify.com/album/2IqT02ArTZ3Pd3PH9LQ2nU?si=xeNMakznTEuZich4ErldfQ

#4thofJuly #Playlist @dabbe

For the 249th US Independence Day, a quote from Mark Twain's essay, “The Czar's Soliloquy,“ published in The North American Review, March 1905:

“The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.“

For the full essay, which says a lot more: https://archive.org/details/jstor-25105366/page/n1/mode/2up