July and August 2024 book reviews
I feel like I’m behind at just about everything in my life these days. Sometimes, that sense of overwhelm translates into mad bursts of ‘productivity’. But other times, I just say ‘screw it’ and curl up and with a book.
Reading around the world:
In June, I hit my 2024 goal of reading books set in 20 different countries. In July and August, I sadly did not add to my list of countries, unless you count Liberty Island, Maine, as a country unto itself (which is what the locals in the book think).
Total 2024 count:
New countries this summer: Zero! Though Last Murder at the End of the World may be set somewhere in the Mediterranean outside Greece, which kind of counts.
Repeats: US (coastal Maine, California, Virginia, New Jersey, and North Carolina), UK (London x4), Vietnam, South Korea, Russia, Germany, France
Fictional: Tamsyn Muir’s spooky space-landia and Sharakhai – jewel of the desert
July Reads:
The Women – Kristin Hannah
California debutante Frankie McGrath enlists for Vietnam to follow her brother and make her father proud. In the chaos and mud of an evac hospital, Frankie learns the fine balance of grit and compassion required of combat nurses. Friendships, love, and loss abound. I was already impressed with Hannah’s research and dedication to the female perspective at war, but this novel takes it one step further by spending about half its 500ish pages back in the USA. What follows is a deep dive into PTSD, the changing public sentiment around the war and shocking treatment of veterans, and the flat-out refusal of Americans (even at the VA!) to acknowledge that women did, in fact, serve in Vietnam.
A heavy but hopeful companion to The Things They Carried by Patrick O’Brien (for a male soldier’s perspective of Nam) and The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Ma (for a Vietnamese perspective, from both north and south).
The Last Murder at the End of the World – Stuart Turton
Turton continues to be one of the most inventive mystery authors I’ve read. Set after an environmental collapse, this complex novel follows a group of ‘elders’ guiding a small village that’s all that remains of life on earth.
Murder ensues, memories are wiped, and the villagers must decide what to do before their simple way of life collapses. Rotating perspectives kept me guessing, and Turton once again blends technology and moral questions about what truly constitutes a human in this thoroughly enjoyable mystery.
This is Your Brain on Food – Uma Naidoo
Dr. Naidoo is a leader in the field of nutritional psychiatry (which I didn’t know existed until I read this book). She’s also a professionally trained chef. These worlds combine in this accessible nonfiction account of how food affects brain function. Split in chapters by condition – depression, anxiety, ADHD, OCD, dementia, and more – Naidoo reviews the science on how food contributes to mental illness, and blends this with stories of her clients adjusting their diet as part of treatment plans.
Gideon the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir
A book that defies genre and plot expectations at every turn. My favourite sci-fi (or fantasy???) read so far this year, Gideon the Ninth is often referred to on the internet as ‘lesbian necromancers in space’. Which, yeah, basically sums it up.
Gideon is a cynical jock who loves to sharpen her sword; she’s assigned to guard Harrowhark Nonagesimus (the names in this book are delightfully Romanesque and always a mouthful) as Harrow joins a race to ascend to godhood. They are competing against eight other houses of necromancers and their bodyguards which means that secret pacts and double-crosses run rampant. A strange reading experience: I felt like I had no idea what was going on most of the time, but immensely enjoyed myself. Delightful characters, visceral body horror, and unexpectedly emotional scenes throughout. A one-of-a-kind read that fans of the Murderbot Diaries or The Machineries of Empire will love.
The Last Bookshop in London – Madeline Martin
Wholesome historical fiction inspired by the real-life stories of London bookshops that survive the blitz. Seen through the eyes of Grace Bennet who moves from the country to London in 1939 and becomes a bookshop clerk and Air Raid Warden, supporting Londoners through nightly German bombings. About the power of stories to help us persist through darkness. A quick read, though a bit too tidy in its conclusion when I’m used to Kate Quinn or Tracy Chevelier historical fiction.
The Unmaking of June Farrow – Adrienne Young
Set it North Carolina, this super-hyped novel is steeped in imagery of dappled light through summer trees and small-town markets and gossip. We follow June Farrow as she jaunts through time while resisting the ‘madness’ that has plagued women of her family for generations.
There’s a mystery at the heart of this novel – what happened to June’s mother? Why did June of different timelines make the choices she did? – but the focus was more on the intimate connections between June and her family. Beautifully told, but boring for me, with characters I just didn’t care about. Shades of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, with less of the drama.
Murder at Highgate Cemetery & Murder at Traitor’s Gate – Irina Shapiro
Books 1 and 2 of the Tate and Bell series. Sumptuous Victorian mysteries where an eccentric widowed nurse, Gemma Tate, teams up with a grumpy policer officer, Sebastian Bell, to solve murders on the seedy streets of London. Rich with the trappings of period-drama police procedurals – loveable street urchins, curmudgeonly coroners, and vain chief superintendents. Adding complexity: Gemma is a veteran of the Crimean War, and Seb is trying to kick an opioid addiction – details that humanize them as they come face to face with the worst human nature has to offer. Equal parts fun and disturbing – diverting rainy-day reads.
Everyone Knows But You – Thomas E. Ricks
The story of Ryan Tapia, an FBI-agent drowning in man-pain, fleeing grief and solving murder in rural Maine. Liberty Island is a world unto itself, where anyone from more than 20 miles away is considered an unwelcome interloper. About gruff men doing fishing village things, disaffected teens suffering abuse, and a murder victim that no one misses. A quick, forgettable read.
August reads:
Happiness Falls – Angie Kim
Mia, an analytical, Korean-American twenty-something, documents the week that follows the disappearance of her dad. A book about language and how fluency with it – both understanding a language and the physical ability to speak – is a privilege we often forget to acknowledge.
The only witness to Mia’s father’s disappearance is Eugene, her younger brother who has Angelman’s syndrome and cannot speak, and Mia must choose between helping the police find her father and protecting her brother. Kim captures the complexity of family dynamics while asking deep questions about how we measure happiness, what it means to be mixed race, and the ways we judge each other based on appearance and accent. A complete, thought-provoking book that taught me a lot about Angelman’s syndrome and autism spectrum disorders.
Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro
A quiet, philosophical story about Klara, an Artificial Friend purchased as a companion for Josie, a sickly child with big dreams. Told with same sparse but precise prose Ishiguro is known for, readers follow Klara from the AF store, to Josie’s home, to farm fields, waterfalls, and smog-choked city streets.
Both childlike and wise, Klara is a patient listener not just for Josie but for her friend and fractured family. Not all mysteries are explained in this novel, but they don’t need to be. Raises questions about what it means to love without expectation and about the not-so-firm line between human and machine. Will stick with me a long while, like most of Ishiguro’s books do.
The Diamond Eye – Kate Quinn
Mila Pavlichenko was a total badass. Ukrainian-born, she was a mother, historian, and sniper in the Russian army during WWII. She ran platoon, earned the nickname Lady Death for her Nazi-hunting, and wound up on a Russian delegation to the States advocating for US support in the war.
Quinn does her usual work weaving this real history with a compelling fictional plot – an assassination plot against FDR – bringing Pavlichenko and her platoonmates to life with a fast-paced plot and a love story as tragic as it is beautiful. I enjoy all Quinn’s books, but this one is near the top of my favourites.
The Phoenix Crown – Janie Chang and Kate Quinn
Two historical fiction authors team up to write about 1906 San Francisco, days before the famous earthquake that destroyed most of the city. Gemma is an opera singer who worries she’s missed her chance at stardom. Suling is a seamstress working for a Chinatown laundry in a city where her people are locked out of choice and the objects of scorn. The story brings them together by way of a rich railroad baron, and the result is a whole lot of drama, sex, botany, betrayal, singing, and unlikely partnerships. A quick read that paints across class and race divides and brings this turn of the century California (and Paris) to life.
ADHD 2.0 – Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey
A validating read on how brains with ADHD are wired and how folks with the condition might adapt to honour their unique brains. I’ve read quite a bit on ADHD since getting my diagnosis in the spring, and so far this book seemed the most comprehensive in its scope, perhaps because the authors are both MDs with ADHD themselves.
The authors share the evidence on treatment methods, offer suggestions inspired by patient experiences, and discuss changes in the field over the last decades (the book was published in 2021).
Unsheltered – Barbara Kingsolver
Are you a millennial who works hard, gets promotions, but always ends up cash-strapped? A boomer living on a fixed income in an age of high inflation? A Gen Z wondering what’s the point of anything ‘cuz the planet is on fire? Unsheltered is about you. Kingsolver blends past and present in parallel stories of the inhabitants of Vineland, New Jersey.
I love Kingsolver, but this book was almost depressing in its realism, whether it was the storyline about an educator teaching Darwin in the 1880s and being shut down by science-deniers, or about the contemporary family where adult kids move home, parental pensions are non-existent, and no one can afford a decent place to live. A meandering, sad novel about family and what’s worth living for when you don’t have much.
Twelve Kings – Bradley P. Beaulieu
A fantasy romp through deserts, gladiator pits, market stalls, palaces, and slums. This Arab-world inspired novel follows Ceda, a young pit-fighting, potion-brewing woman, as she plots against the twelve dictatorial kings of Sharakhai. The kings are immortals who bargained with the gods for superhuman powers to rule their city. Epic in scope, with a complex world rich in myth, political alliances, and rebel movements.
Harrow the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir
The sequel to Gideon the Ninth and second of four planned books in the Locked Tomb Anthology. This will make absolutely zero sense if you haven’t read the first one, so go do that 😉
