I am on the waiting list for American Gods at my library so in the meantime I picked this up.  I wasn’t sure what to expect but this was a fantastical read, along the line of magical realism.  The story begins with a man returning to his childhood home for  a funeral.  He finds himself driving to the home of a childhood friend who has emigrated to Australia, as far as he knows.  Once he arrives at her home and walks along the path to the “ocean”,  his memories return of the events of his childhood, both the fantastical and the horrifying.  ‘

The book explores the major theme of memory and how memory shapes us and impacts our life.  Also, how memories are made and kept.  Other themes include fear, represented by both Ursula and the hunger birds.  Loneliness and isolation shown by the birthday party and the location of the home.  The kittens represent the innocence of childhood and the innocence lost to the narrator through the events of the book.  Wisdom and time are also explored within a supernatural and multi-dimensional context.

Magical realism/fantasy is not my usual genre but I did enjoy this and it has definitely piqued my interest in American Gods.

Cat’s Eye is the story of a painter, Elaine, who is returning to the city of her childhood and adolescence for a retrospective of her work.  The return sparks vivid reminiscences of a past that includes three girls who in turns bullied and befriended Elaine when she was a confused, lonely,  and socially inept 8-year-old.  Cordelia was the ringleader of the bunch.  The story is told in past and present as Elaine relives what happened and what is currently occurring and comes to the realization that the events of her past have left a lasting impact on her as a woman, a mother, a wife, and an artist.

The main theme this book explores is relationships, Elaine’s relationship with her family, with her brother Stephen, with the three girls and with Cordelia in particular, with God, with her artistic mentor, with both of her husbands, and finally with  her daughters.  Elaine is one of the “others”, an outsider.  Her early childhood and her unconventional parents left her uncertain when navigating stereotypical female roles and social cues.  Even into her 50’s, as she looks back on her life, Elaine still is haunted by the events of her childhood.

An excellent read, my favorite Margaret Atwood book so far.

  This was a total impulse read.  I saw it on the shelf at the library next to Kate Atkinson books I was looking at and grabbed it.  I am also a sucker for the dark family secret type plots so this was right up my alley.

Kali, is the mother of young child, whose own mother, Elena, has just died and who suspects her husband is cheating on her with an attractive ex.  Devastated by the betrayal by her husband and the loss of her mother, who she had been distant from her whole life, Kali decides to follow up on some clues from her mother’s house to try to learn about Elena’s life.  Kali flies to Canada on this quest to find out who her mother really was and why she never connected to Kali or Kali’s young son in any meaningful way.

The book has a nicely paced beginning and end, but could have used a touch of editing in the middle to trim it down as it began to drag a little there.  Kali as a character seems fully fleshed out, but a little slow to sense the instability that Susannah is pretty clearly exhibiting.  Susannah and Elena are really interesting characters as told in the current time line, through journal entries and letters, and in memories.  Elena, in particular, with her fatal flaws and the tragic consequences is so well done.  The resolution felt authentic and worked with the characters and the story.

Enjoyable quick read about the secrets family’s keep and the consequences of exposing them to the light.

Harvest Home is an excellent example of folk horror along the lines of The Wicker Man set in America rather than England.  The protagonist, Ned, has taken his family to live in the country where he plans to pursue his new career as a painter.  The family is accepted into the rather insular New England Community, particularly  after an accident in which their daughter is saved by a local healer woman rather than modern medicine.  Ned begins to question whether everything is really as peaceful as the bucolic setting would seem to indicate.

The plot is engaging and well paced. It is easy to feel Ned’s building sense of unease at his family’s new home and neighbors.  Each piece of “evidence” or secret that Ned uncovers adds to the tension and the feelings of dread. The sense of place is well established and add to the build up of tension due to the isolation.  Ned finds the answers he has been seeking and pays a horrible price.

Highly recommended for fans of folk horror!

I have been seeing multiple recommendations on Reddit and other places for Red Rising and decided to try it even though I am not a big Science Fiction reader.  The story’s premise is based around the colonization of Mars and the society established there to achieve this end.  People are divided into groups assigned colors Red, Silver, Gold, etc.  Darrow, the protagonist is a Red, he works underground and at the beginning of the book believes he is working for the future good of his people, so that someday the colony will be established on the surface with terra forming and the like.  He works the dirty, dangerous job of mining to feed himself and his beautiful wife Eo.

It is quickly revealed the whole thing is a scam, the surface has been inhabited for centuries by the higher colors and the lower reds, such as Darrow are basically slaves.  Darrow is selected by a revolutionary group to be  modified via surgeries and chemicals to pass as gold and infiltrate their society via an elite training school.

The plot felt to me like a merging of  Riddick (the mining/underground scenes), Total Recall (bad guys keeping the poor of Mars down), Divergent (groups sorted by narrowly specified categories into duties, tests to belong to a specific group), and Hunger Games (school environment, survival of the fittest).  There was really not anything here that I haven’t seen before and I don’t read much science fiction.

If the character of Darrow was female, he would definitely be a Mary Sue.  He is just the best at everything and given his early life as an uneducated slave raised to work in a mine, it was really unrealistic.  The treatment of women in this book is just abysmal.  Eo is only there to sacrifice herself to move Darrow’s story forward.  She is a prop with no worth at all as a person. Most of the  other females are there to be raped or assaulted without consequence, not really progressive at all.

Perhaps it is just that I am not the target demographic, but I don’t really see this as worthy of all the attention and recommendations that it receives.  It just seems to have taken ideas from popular science fiction movies/books and merged them into something that will be very marketable as a screenplay.

I have had an excellent couple of reading days with these three books.  I enjoyed all three of them!

Long Lankin is a book I found searching for more British Folk Horror.  I am a fan of that small sub-genre of horror and this book was no exception.  The scene is a typical isolated, rather dilapidated, manor house with an unsavoury past.  Two young girls are sent by their father to stay with their aunt, who has secrets and sorrows of her own.  The tension builds as pieces of the family’s and the Long Lankin’s history are revealed.  Creepy and enthralling, I read this through in one sitting.

The Crow Trap is the first book in the Vera Stanhope Series.  I love the TV series based on the books and I can’t really say which is better the books or the show.  They are both excellent.  The Crow Trap begins with a suicide at an isolated farm.  It seems like a case of an overwhelmed carer  who has just snapped.  The book involves a team of scientists doing environmental research on the local area prior to it being quarried.  One of the scientists dies and Vera, along with Joe, are called in to investigate.

This was a great mystery.  It had such a strong sense of place.  The characters were all fully fleshed out.  The scientists and their supervisor were all individuals and not just stereotypes with quite a bit of background given for them.   Vera herself is a unique character in detective fiction. Brash, unfeminine,  seeming at times to lack social skills, appearing messy and disorganized and yet able to connect the dots to solve her cases.  Vera can be a study in contradictions and much of this comes from her upbringing and that is hinted at in this novel.  The mystery itself was well paced, there was an overall sense of tension at points and I found it hard to put the book down.  5 out of 5 stars for me.

The Last Days of Ptolomy Grey follows the last few months in the life of Ptolemy Grey.  When the book opens, he is 91 and suffering dementia to the point he is living in a roach and vermin infested apartment, sleeping under a table, and with the bathroom being broken for years.  The death of his primary carer, Reggie, facilitates a change in his life. Reggie dies in a drive by shooting and at his funeral Ptolemy meets Robyn, a beautiful young woman.

Robyn becomes Ptolemy’s muse and new carer.  He meets a “doctor” who offers him a deal, 3 months of lucidity but then death or  years more of life in the haze of dementia.  Ptolemy decides on lucidity knowing that it is for  a brief period, just enough to allow him to do things he needs to do.

Ptolemy is an enduring character and even as he was dementia addled, a rich and vibrant storyteller.  Ptolemy and his relationship with Robyn are what make this a really good read.