Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

The Stand-In

By Steve Bloom.

Brooks Rattigan is a high school senior living in Pritchard, New Jersey, a backwater dead-end place. His mom ran off ages ago and his father is a post office worker who's fallen very far from the days when he went to Harvard and wrote a book (which Brooks hasn't read). Charlie spends all of his time wasted and dirty, so Brooks is pretty much raising himself at this point. As you can imagine, Brooks wants the hell out of this life, and he will move heaven and earth to get himself into Columbia so that he can. This is something that his best friend, The Murf, doesn't seem to quite understand--Murf sounds like a nice dude, but he's not planning beyond community college and working at the sub shop.

In between working on boosting his verbal score (ironic considering that we're reading a book narrated by this kid and he doesn't really seem to have issues with that at all) and attempting to write an essay that doesn't suck, Brooks ends up stumbling across an untapped market: rich parents who are willing to pay a dude to be their daughter's date to formal events. Hence the book's title. Brooks offers himself up as a date to a classmate's cousin and then the business, as it is, takes off. Brooks is nothing but nice to his dates, and in turn his dates are also (almost) very nice ladies that he seems to enjoy hanging out with. It's consenting one night, no-sex, fun for all that allows Brooks to quit the sub shop, invest in a nice suit, and save up for college.

However, you've gotta have the occasional unpleasant date, and Brooks's is Celia Lieberman (always referred to by him in full, "Celia Lieberman"), who has nerdy parents who want to force her into trying out a non-nerd's social life. Celia is so truly heinous on their first date--screaming at him a lot like she is totally psychotic, and that's even before she gets drunk and vomits everywhere--that I was all, "seriously, this girl?" However, Celia's parents ask Brooks for another date, AND Brooks met a hot girl in Celia's class, Shelby, who seems quite interested in him back despite her lunk boyfriend, so Brooks goes along. On date two, Brooks ends up telling Celia about how he wants to go to Columbia, and she's got an uncle who teaches there, and he's got a daughter he wants to send to winter formal.... anyway, suffice it to say that regardless of payment, Brooks and Celia end up spending more pleasant times together even as both of them are admittedly interested in other people (who coincidentally become more interested once they're taken). 

There's also a makeover scene (Celia as dressed by her mother looks frightful) and since this keeps coming up as a theme in my reading lately for some reason, I really want to point out that Celia wears glasses and Brooks's idea of making her over is to get her a better looking set of frames. That's so excellent, I can't even tell you. Oh yeah, and he talks her into getting a bob haircut. As for the clothes, she hits the vintage stores of NYC and picks out her own wardrobe without taking any assistance from Brooks. I think the author handled that so well. I do have to give the author major points for improving Celia. While I can't say I'm in love with her as a character or that I am thinking she and Brooks are MFEO exactly, the two end up supporting each other very nicely and that is enjoyable. You also get why Celia is acting so nuts (those parents of hers, while well meaning, would get  on anyone's nerves), even if I still think she was spectacularly awful beyond all reason in her first appearance. Likewise, by contrast Shelby looks lovely but turns out to be kinda spoiled and snotty--Brooks hides his Jersey life from her for good reason. 

I'd like to point out that even though The Murf's frequently in the background of this story, I like that his life is quietly about improving--he gets a promotion at work, starts to really clean up the joint, works on dating the girl of his dreams, etc. Good job, Murf. Murf is quite right to get annoyed with Brooks' hellbent college pursuits after a while (especially in one scene, you'll know which one I mean when you read it) and to call him on his shit, leading them to become estranged. I...guess the guys make up at the end, but it seemed a bit out of "oh, so you're making up because it's the end of the year?" or something rather than an organic happening, since the previous scene between the two of them showed Murf quite mad. Should these guys make up? I'm not sure. I suspect they'll end up drifting apart in the future, but...that happens, sadly. Likewise, I don't necessarily think Celia and Brooks will be a forever pairing when they're going across the country from each other, but I think they could make a friendship last at least. 

This book is also good at humbling the hero--by the end of the book Brooks realizes that he needs to rethink his life and his choices and his ego pops, in a good way. 

On the other hand, there's a bit missing--we never do quite find out what the hell happened with Charlie that he devolved into the mess that he currently is (Celia reads his book and mentions something about the hell Charlie went through, but it's never spelled out), but I guess the important part is that he finally got at least motivated enough to start taking action, so there's something. I'm also still wondering why Shelby seemed to have some kind of odd fixation about Celia (regardless of wanting to date the guy Celia is dating), that was never spelled out and didn't seem to make any sense for the character. 

But overall, I liked this book very much, thought the author did a good job, really enjoyed the narration, liked the setup---it's a fun read! Four stars.

An Extraordinary Union

By Alyssa Cole.

Oh, hey, look, there's a black woman on the cover of this book! As it should be! Thank you, publisher, for being totally reasonable about these things!

Anyway....Elle Burns (based off of Mary Bowser!) is a former slave with an eidetic memory who now works as a spy for the Loyal League in 1862. She's undercover as a loaned out slave working for a bunch of pompous asses, pretending to be stupid and mute while she snoops around finding out how the war's going. Her little local network of spies is joined by Malcolm McCall, a Scottish Pinkerton agent who's getting in good with the family Elle works for and flirting with their insufferable brat daughter Susie. Malcolm pretty much falls for Elle at first sight and is even more excited when he gets to know her personality, but obviously Elle has her reservations about getting involved with a white guy charmer who convincingly lies for a living. However, as their jobs heat up, so do they.

As a pairing, these two are lovely. Elle's sassy and feisty and literally well educated, and her memory has both plusses and minuses. She's a sensible lass. Malcolm is a charming romantic, he's not a bigot, he's protective and sweet, and they do live up to that title. (Also, I gotta say I really enjoyed the Civil War subtlety of the occasional penis joke--such as the moment when in mid-makeout something dawns on Elle regarding the ironclad boats and Malcolm is all, "I'm not familiar with that particular euphemism, but I'm not opposed to it.") 

Everyone at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is totally in love with this book and they have more to say about it and better than I'm managing at the moment. Their review is a lot better than I'm managing right now, so go read that and then the other links. 

• Book review
• Interview with the author.
• April book club selection

For those of you wondering, "Uh, how are they managing an interracial romance in 1862?" well.... I think it's resolved as much as one can do in the middle of a war (and the reader at least has the knowledge of a coming better future), with the hopes that they will somehow figure out the public aspects of their relationship however they have to. 

So, four stars. Good job! I love me some Civil War spy romance between smart people. 

 

The Best Of All Possible Worlds

By Karen Lord.

In the far future, humanity has kind of developed into different tribes with emphases on different mental disciplines, especially in the psychic realm. Cygnus Beta is a planet that's been settled by various refugees from all the tribes--Sadiri (kind of like Vulcans--very mentally disciplined and fairly stoic, telepathic), Zhinuvian (very physically attracted, emphasis on body, kind of mesmerizing), Ntshune (great with empathy) and Terrans--well, you know Terrans (though I guess most of them are embargoed back home or something). Some Sadiri have quit practicing the mental disciplines---apparently some of them are known as Ainya and they founded their own planet, but some others, known as the taSadiri, moved to Cygnus. 

Anyway, Sadiri has recently been poison bombed by Ainya, killing off the entire planet's population and only those who were off planet at the time remained--and most of those were men. A delegation of excess males has come to Cygnus Beta in search of well, mates, and they're hoping to find what taSadiri are remaining on this planet especially if possible. 

Our main narrator, Grace Delahua, is a mostly-Ntshune girl, a biotechnician who speaks a lot of languages and has been assigned to work with a Sadiri male named Dllenahkh ("once I substituted a Zulu "dl" and a Scots "ch," I got it"), who she generally gets on with very well. She's asked to join a group of Sadiri on a yearlong tour of Cygnus as they go to the various homestead settlements, do some genetic testing, and see how many possible taSadiri mates they can find.

(Note: for those of you gagging over the heterosexuality of this plot--granted. Though occasionally polyamory/harems come up and one character, LIan, is gender neutral. This is quietly hilarious when one Sadiri is trying to figure out whether or not he can proposition Lian--answer, no.) 

On that tour, Grace makes friends with the Sadiri, gets into an "Everyone Can See It" sort of vibe with Dllenahkh that everyone quietly pokes them about, and runs into the following:

• Grace briefly goes to visit her family and her brother-in-law/ex-fiance is tampering with all of their thoughts in a very creepy manner
• They visit a clan that's decided to model themselves after faeries (I am so not joking)
• Grace and Dllenahkh find a secret clan of very psychically developed people hiding in the woods 
• The group goes to an opera and Grace senses during the show that one guy in the show is not just doing Method acting--he's actually wanting to kill his co-star. After her previous relationship, Grace is a bit gun-shy about getting into another relationship, but this particular incident gets her over it once she realizes that she's not responsible for some other dude's jerk behavior.
• When the group travels to an extremely creepy island, Grace discovers just all kinds of horrible social shit/slavery/spermination going on there and has to figure out how far to go in order to get the law to prosecute them.
• Grace tries some drugs to keep her awake and hoo boy, do they have screwy side effects.
• There's a mindship pilot who tried to go back in time and change things....
• When two of their party get hopelessly trapped, Grace thinks of the aforementioned mindship pilot and has an idea....

There's also discussion of the Caretakers, the mysterious people who supposedly seeded the universe with the tribes and brought all four of them together on Cygnus, and Grace gets to find out a bit more about them.

I'm not sure if anyone's going to understand this plot summary, but that's about it!

I really like Grace as a narrator--she's personable and chatty and cheerful, which is a lot more fun to read than if we were just reading everything from the point of say, Dllanahkh. He gets a brief third person narrative chapter here and there, though. But Grace's narrative makes it fun to read. I'm not sure if I comprehended everything about the worldbuilidng, but I think I got most of it. Grace's relationships with the Sadiri and others are fun, and her relationship with Dllanahkh is a slow burn that resolves well. 

I don't necessarily think this is a book for everyone or that everyone will "get," but I enjoyed it. If this plot rundown intrigues you, then go read it. It you're all "huh?", then don't. I guess. But four stars from me. 

(Though really, cover designers: nobody in this book is white, so why is there a bleached white face on the cover? Oh, right. The usual reasons, probably.)

The Girl With The Make-Believe Husband

By Julia Quinn.

Previous book here. 

I mentioned that the last romance I read was based off She's All That. This one is clearly based off of While You Were Sleeping, but a million times better. The author makes this plot WORK! 

Cecilia Harcourt was in a bad situation. Her father died, her brother went missing, and her creepy cousin Horace was about to force her into marrying him whether she wanted to or not. So she fled England and went across the sea into the heart of the Revolutionary War to see if she could track down her missing brother Thomas. She didn't find him--but she did find her brother's best friend Edward Rokesby, suffering from a head injury. Clearly he needed someone to watch out for him, and they only allowed family members to, so....she said she was his wife.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds. Cecilia was a frequent and funny letter writer and Thomas ended up reading his letters aloud, and Edward started developing a mail crush on Cecilia and sending his own regards and pressed flowers on through Thomas. So things were going quite well there ahead of this story, which is delightful. Gee, if only they could meet, right?

Edward wakes up from his head injury to find that he doesn't remember the last three months of his life--the last thing he remembers is going to Connecticut for some kind of spy mission. So suffice it to say he doesn't remember the time when uh, Thomas fixed them up into a proxy marriage. However, he does remember Cecilia and her letters, she's even cuter in person than in her miniature, and they hit it off in person right away. Does Edward suspect something's weird? Sure, but he's also trying to unravel the disturbing mystery of what happened during the last three months of his life, AND what happened to Thomas.

Cecilia wants to tell Edward, but between reasons of her own safety and discovering that the jerky officer who was blowing her off when she wanted help suddenly actually listens to her once she's Mrs. Rokesby, ends up putting it off. Even though just spending the night in the same room compromises her into an obligatory marriage one way or another, she goes through it...and more, of course. 

Seriously, this plot works so much better in this context, AND she does a great job of building Edward and Cecilia's relationship both before and after meeting. Awesome job, author! Four stars for you! 

I have some thoughts about the ending that I'm going to put below the spoiler cut.

I found some extras.

Lady Claire Is All That

By Maya Rodale.

Sometimes I pick up books off the free table and think, "Why the heck is it a thing now that say, Regency romances have ah...modern-ish titles?" Sure, some titles work better as an adaptation to a past era than others (like the book ahead of this one in the series that I haven't read, Lady Bridget's Diary), but others, sometimes you're all, uh.... For example, the book that comes after this one is "It's Hard Out Here For A Duke." And then there's this one, which made me go "wtf?" and pick it up. So I guess it worked on that score. The author is deliberately writing rom-com plots based on famous plots.

This one is the third of four books of the "Keeping Up With The Cavendishes" series, featuring a quartet of American siblings who discover that the lone brother has inherited an English title and thus they all have to go off to England and learn how to behave properly when none of them are inclined to behave like snobby English people one bit. I have not read the rest of the series yet but it sounds interesting. Anyway, while my impression is that the rest of the family is pretty heedless and hotheaded. But our title character is a math-loving nerd who doesn't really care about her looks, actually needs glasses in order to see, and really, really, really just wants to make an academic career for herself somehow and write papers under her own full name, and a move to England would help that. She wants to meet Lord Ashbrooke (a scientific hero from a previous book of the author's) and talk math and science with him, but too bad he's married already, because it'd sure be nice to have a guy appreciate her for her brains.

Meanwhile, Lord Fox, God's gift to athletic feats and women, gets into a bet with his so-called pal Mowbray, betting their favorite pets against each other, that Fox can make the nerdy Claire into the belle of the ton. Yes, the plot of this book is Regency She's All That, combined with Ada Lovelace and Mr. Impossible. I liked Mr. Impossible better, but this was still pretty fun. 

This book doesn't emphasize the makeover-ness of the plot, and indeed Claire doesn't start cleaning up and taking off her glasses until the end to prove a point. Fox doesn't really try to make her over, but instead decides to get to know Claire, and is actually impressed by her "lady brainbox" and its skills at card playing and her passion for math, even if he hasn't any idea what she's saying. He's more of a cheerfully shallow sort of fellow--hence why I'm reminded of Rupert in Mr. Impossible, but I think Rupert had more hidden brains than he let on, whereas Fox has "hidden shallows" and "no depths, hidden or otherwise....I am what I am and what you see is what you get." However, Fox does think she's cute and he enjoys her passion, and enabling her passion when people try to stop a woman from asking questions.

"I didn't understand a word of your conversation with Ashbrooke, but it was nevertheless clear that you had many smart things to say on the subject of whatever the subject was. I was impressed."

As for Lord Fox, well, he's certainly a hot dish and sympathetic and supportive of Claire. While I did kind of feel sorry for Claire in wanting a guy who she could be brainy with and not getting that (she meets one, but that fellow isn't much competition), this book is firmly on the side of You Must Have Sexual Chemistry, and it certainly does. And Fox is an amiable dude that I liked well enough. I kind of rolled my eyes every time his "Male Pride" was brought up (fairly frequently), but overall this was pretty fun. It also apparently takes place at the same time as the other books in the series, so presumably you can recognize The Time When Bridget Fell Down and The Time When Amelia Ran Off when they come up here.

As a glasses-wearing person, I do admit to being annoyed at the "you're only attractive without your glasses" messages going on here (glasses make you look smart, which makes men feel inadequate, which makes them question the validity of their position of authority, which calls into question the entire social order...also, fashion plates never wear them!). I know, I know, It's What You Do In Makeovers (heck, Searching for Someday actually made the dude take off his glasses!), but man, it gets old. On the other hand, I liked how Fox learned to appreciate her with and without them, and by the time it's time for Claire to publicly pretty up and dumb it down in public, he actually gets sad at this because it's not her. Also, because she's too blind to be able to walk anywhere. 

So overall, I liked it. I'm giving it three and a half stars. 

There is a bonus epilogue to this book on the author's webpage.

How To Fall In Love With Anyone: A Memoir in Essays

By Mandy Len Catron.

A few years ago, the author wrote a Modern Love column for the New York Times that became a big hit,  called "To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This." (Here's a non-NYT link to it.) This was based on a study done by Arthur Aron in the 1960's, which led to one couple in the study falling in love.  Here's what the 36 questions are, if you're curious. 

This book is essentially about how the author got to writing that article. It starts with her realizing around 2010 that just as she and her boyfriend that she'd met in college were now legally a couple in Canada, she just wasn't that into him. She compares the start of their relationship (decidedly iffy, as he seems to have been pining over another when they met) to the romances of her mother and father and grandparents--though in those cases, there was some age-difference circumstances and squickiness. Also, what do you make of a love story when your parents break up? Eventually Mandy broke up with the college guy and went back into the dating pool, eventually met the fellow that she'd answer the questions with, and they eventually committed to each other and are still together now.

"We all have a narrative of ourselves that we offer up to strangers and acquaintances, but Aron's questions make it nearly impossible to rely on that narrative. The accelerated intimacy the questions offered was not the kind I remembered from sleepaway camp, when a friend and I stayed up all night exchanging the stories of of our lives. At thirteen, away from home for the first time, it felt natural to get to know someone quickly. But rarely does adult life present us with such opportunities." 

 The author is one of those people who grows into love, and maybe doesn't quite believe in pat happy endings even though hers sounds like it might be one. She's all about the choice aspects of love--saying that they chose to be, they choose to create that intimacy with each other. 

Note: both the original article and the 36 questions are included at the back of the book, should you want to do it yourself. Good luck with that. Choose who you answer them with wisely. 

I enjoyed reading the book at the time, though I think it wasn't quite what I expected (the stuff with her ex Kevin does seem to take a long time to both enter into and exit). Her journey and the ones that she analyzes were interesting. However, I finished the book most of a week ago and I don't remember so much of the details about it other than I enjoyed it at the time and it gave me a bit to think about. I think I'm just not writing it very well today-- so read this review instead, it's better. 

 I think overall I'm giving it three and a half stars. 

Searching for Someday

By Jennifer Probst.

Sometimes I am all, "why did I take this off the free table?" Okay, so this book isn't as bad as all that, but something's questionable for me.

Kate Seymour and her friends run "Kinnections," a matchmaking agency. Kate has some kind of genetic matchmaking magic run in her family--she can tell matches with a touch--so that's good for business. However, she's a virgin because after 100 dates, she still hasn't found her match yet. 

Slade Mongtomery is an alphole (grumpy/surly version) divorce lawyer who takes much umbrage after his little sister Jane (who's Been Through Some Shit in the past but seems to be over it now, even if Slade's still freaking out) signs up for Kinnections. He goes to the office, bitches and badmouths all over the place, and yet also signs up for the agency to investigate them, plus come up with some match for his bosses so he looks stable, some such archaic shit. Naturally, Slade turns out to be Kate's big ol' psychic bolt of lightning energy dude, even though he acts like an ass, and he's a client, and when asked about his ideal woman it's of course not anything that matches with her. Oh noes, she can't bang him! Except her psychic touch shuts off if she won't, so she has to!

....you get the drift.

Kate seems nice enough, even if her favorite romances are The Black Dagger Brotherhood (seriously, I just can't read a series where someone named Xsadist is someone's soul mate, I cannot). She's good at her job but has awkward moments and a super hippie mom. She also fell in love with and rescued a handicapped pit bull (based on a real life dog, according to the end), which is adorable. And I liked the magic aspect of this, which is why I picked it up. But Slade....I don't care if he's hot, I can't say I liked him too much. I don't like a dude who throws shit fits and demands that he get a date within an hour or else he's going to sue and talks like a caveman with the "claiming" and "mating." I know a lot of women get off on that, but man, I don't and I don't get it. 

There's also the aforementioned "get me a date for my business dinner in an hour or I sue for breach of contract" scene in which Slade has already told everyone his date is an accountant.. Poor Kate has to BS throughout this whole dinner with little to no prep and actually does a good job of making up shit ("so, Kate, who would you recommend for financial investments?" "Uh.....Matchmaking agencies....") and being all, "Hey, this is what you get when you spring shit like this on me," to Slade when he complains. Though much as I enjoyed Slade's uncomfortable, I did have to agree with him about uh, what's going to happen on Monday morning when Kate doesn't know how to get the boss's wife out of her parking ticket? 

I'll be fair: eventually around the point of boning, Slade stops being such an ass. He's quite nice to a client of his who's a stay at home dad (I was expecting a lot not-nicer out of him) and he was quite nice to Robert the dog when Robert was feeling protective, in a cute way. He does get pretty cute with Robert at the end too. But even though Slade eventually improved, I was not really feeling like this dude was her soul mate and made her a better person (though I suppose the reverse is true, he certainly improved upon contact with her) and I didn't feel like there was anything to them besides insta-lust and Glittery Hoo-Ha. And eventual liking of the dog.

So...probably most people reading it will like it, but maybe it wasn't so much for me.

I will mention a few bits in this that are notable:

(a) There is a scene where Slade actually gets a makeover and is told to take his glasses off and stop wearing suits on dates. Hah.

(b) The romantic ending involves...recliners. I'm starting to think these two need to get hobbies that don't involve sitting around watching the boob tube. 

(c) At one point Slade is dealing with a client whose tragic reason for a divorce just made me go "whaaaaaaat?" It boils down to "I'm perfectly happy but I feel guilty that I was a homebody and Charles never got to travel the world and now I'm dying so I"ll just like...separate and tell him that I'm dying after he travels around the world." And Slade doesn't tell her anything like, "Oh, for fuck's sake, lady, he can travel after you're dead, but he'd feel guilty if he missed out on your last few months/years of life," either. You'd think a guy with dead parents might have something like that occur to him and point that out. 

Anyway...I think I'm going to give it three stars. 

I'll Have What She's Having: How Nora Ephron's Three Iconic Films Saved The Romantic Comedy

By Erin Carlson.

This book is a breezy biography of Nora Ephron, combined with her processes of writing/making When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You've Got Mail, with some mentions of her other movies as well and covering up until her death a few years ago, and interviews and articles from those involved in the movies. It's not totally idolizing of Nora and mentions both her good sides and her bad sides and where she could be difficult. It covers the way the movies were put together and the mashes and mishmashes of personalities and the difficulties and the things that flowed together well. You find yourself thinking things like, "I never knew Tom Hanks was so cranky on Sleepless" or that there was such drama with the first kid originally hired to play Jonah. Or that both Billy Crystal and Tracy Reiner were weirded out at having to kiss when she played "Aunt" Emily because she'd known him since childhood. Or Tom Hanks being told he came back too fat after a week of vacation. (You thought that only happened to women....)

Nora herself wouldn't have expected to be known for romantic comedies over her previous acidic writing,, but go figure. 

"Once, after a successful screening of Sleepless, someone walked up to her, asking, "Hey, Nora, how does it feel to be one of the most powerful women in Hollywood?"

"She replied, "I still can't get my sound editor to take out a boat horn."

Also funny: casting Dave Chappelle in You've Got Mail and letting him rewrite the lines from "So you don't feel bad about basically destroying her livelihood, not to mention her legacy, not to mention her raison d'etre?" to "You don't feel bad about basically sending her ass back to the projects, with food stamps? Broke single white lady?" HahahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAH.

If there's anything I don't like about it, I got a bit annoyed at certain modern pop culture references being thrown into the past, like "proto-Taylor Swift," which made me go "bleech" a little.

Anyway, if you like Nora and/or those movies, this is right up your alley. Four stars.

All Our Wrong Todays

By Elan Mastai.

Opening excerpt here, I suggest you read it. 

So, the thing is, I come from the world we were supposed to have.

That means nothing to you, obviously, because you live here, in the crappy world we do have. But it never should've turned out like this. And it's all my fault-well, me and to a lesser extent my father and, yeah, I guess a little bit Penelope.

It's hard to know how to start telling this story. But, okay, you know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Flying cars, robot maids, food pills, teleportation, jet packs, moving sidewalks, ray guns, hover boards, space vacations, and moon bases. All that dazzling, transformative technology our grandparents were certain was right around the corner. The stuff of world's fairs and pulp science-fiction magazines with titles like Fantastic Future Tales and The Amazing World of Tomorrow. Can you picture it?

It's hard to know how to start telling this story. But, okay, you know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Flying cars, robot maids, food pills, teleportation, jet packs, moving sidewalks, ray guns, hover boards, space vacations, and moon bases. All that dazzling, transformative technology our grandparents were certain was right around the corner. The stuff of world's fairs and pulp science-fiction magazines with titles like Fantastic Future Tales and The Amazing World of Tomorrow. Can you picture it?

Well, it happened.

It all happened, more or less exactly as envisioned. I'm not talking about the future. I'm talking about the present. Today, in the year 2016, humanity lives in a techno-utopian paradise of abundance, purpose, and wonder.

Except we don't. Of course we don't. We live in a world where, sure, there are iPhones and 3D printers and, I don't know, drone strikes or whatever. But it hardly looks like The Jetsons. Except it should. And it did. Until it didn't. But it would have, if I hadn't done what I did. Or, no, hold on, what I will have done.

I'm sorry, despite receiving the best education available to a citizen of the World of Tomorrow, the grammar of this situation is a bit complicated.

Tom Barren is from a world where in 1965, a scientific hero named Lionel Goettreider created a way to generate unlimited clean energy by harnessing the power of the earth's rotation. After that happened, technology became a whole lot more sophisticated and awesome. You know that future we always thought we'd have with the flying cars and Jetsons and all that awesome space stuff going on? Goettreider provided that for everyone. By 2016, people had machines that fabricated perfect food, cleaned them, fabricated clothes, teleportation, robot maids, the air was clean, everyone was at peace, everything was awesome.

Until Tom Barren literally ruined it for everyone, that is.

You see, Tom is the quiet loser son of Victor Barren, the genius working on how to time travel. Tom has never lived up to anyone's expectations and only has a job as the understudy to head chrononaut Penelope Wechlser because of his genetics. And thanks to Tom, everything goes horribly, horribly wrong just as they're about to test the time traveling machinery by sending someone back in time so they can witness (intangibly) the turning on of the Goettreider Engine. Tom fucks up every which way accidentally, ends up going in tangilbly and fucks up the entire moment, and--that awesome future never happens. 

Tom wakes up in our crappy reality, in a world still reliant on the old methods of energy, having personally destroyed an entire world's worth of people all by himself. Imagine the guilt.

But in our world, he still exists-- as John Barren, an architect who somehow has been aware all his life of the future world that didn't exist, until Tom took control of their body. John's dad isn't a genius and is actually pretty nice, his mom is still alive and the more prominent one in the family, he has a feisty little sister named Greta and, well, he's not a fuckup here. He even manages to track down an alternate version of Penny Weschler and she believes his story (she always suspected she was meant for better....) and they fall in love. John's life is happier. But does that make it okay to just enjoy life in this crappier reality just because your life is better in this world? Shouldn't Tom be obligated to try to put things back the way they were? But how can he do that anyway when he's not a genius and doesn't have access to a Goettreider Engine or time travel or the brains to create either of those things? 

In the end, after Tom tells his family what's going on, they start trying to track down Goettreider and the Sixteen Witnesses that were there when he originally turned the machine on, which leads to Tom finding out a lot of things and a possible way to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. But is that even doable?

This book is fucking brilliant and I loved it and was hooked on it. I was impressed. I liked the twists, and the philosophical arguments, and the different versions of how things happened. Tom's journey from total loser to something else evolves well, and his new relationships with his family are great, as well as seeing the twists and turns that come from the lives Tom altered. I especially liked Tom's new family and Penny, who I related to all too well if you see the Quote Corner. I liked the resolution. If you like time travel stories, I highly recommend this one. I'm giving it 4.5 stars. 

The only really not-great thing I can say about it is that towards the end (during the "Set Right What Once Went Wrong" section), things get a bit confusing as to what's going on, and it's really more in Tom's head than anything else, and juggling what's going on in Tom's head gets pretty complicated to follow after a while. Also, for plot-related reasons there is one brief but disturbing chapter in which someone briefly borders on sexual assault or at least turns consensual activities into not-so-fun-times for their partners. I don't really have objections to this plot-wise since everyone else is deeply disturbed by it happening and wants to make sure that doesn't ever happen again and figuring out why that slip happened is a plot point, but consider this a trigger warning for some people. At least it's over with soon. 

Chapter notes:

• I do kind of wonder how Tom knew the details about Penelope that he knew in chapter 27. It doesn't sound like he had a way to have found out what shenanigans she was up to of that nature before meeting him and it doesn't sound like she told him either..
• I love that he has two random chapters that recap everything you just read and then later on you find out why that happened (there's a reason). 
• Chapter 56 is nothing but swearing. It's great. 

 Quote Corner (all quotes Tom unless said otherwise):

• "It's amazing how much damage one penis can do."
• "For my father, it was me. I was the fatal flaw."
• "Like, okay, in my world, when you break up with someone, it's considered gracious to offer the person you dumped a lock of hair so that, if they want, they can get a genetically identical surrogate grown for whatever purpose they need to get over you."
• "As with everything in my life, both my lives, all my lives, things go awry when Penelope Weschler is involved."
• "Pretty much everything you said sounds crazy. But you know what's  crazier? I think I might have been waiting my whole life for you to walk in here." -Penny
• "There's no reason to believe you. Except that I've felt, like, forever, that my life isn't what it's supposed to be." -Penny
•  "I've considered many other lives that I could be living instead of this one. I've luxuriated in what seemed at the time to be outrageously improbable possibilities for who I could be instead of who I am. And now you show up, telling me all the dopey, delusional fantasies I harbored as a frustrated adolescent and sheepish adult were, what, unambitious? That the life I'm supposed to lead is so far beyond anything I was even capable of imagining for myself? That I'm a fucking lioness living like a mouse?" -Penny
•  "It feels like I've been rewarded for destroying the world." 
• "I know what every building in this city should look like. What every city on the planet should look like. We're so far away from what we should be."
• "You have a responsibility. You're the only one who can show us what paradise looks like. You can build us a future to live in. And I mean that literally, build it in brick and steel and glass. You may not think you're a genius. You may think you're a fraud, a bandit, a world-killing monster. But you're all we have." -Rebecca
•  "There's work to do here, in this world, the world you live in, not the world you dream of. They don't actually even need you. Not like we do." -Rebecca

Below the cut there shall be a Spoiler Space Quote Corner, because I wanna.

The Brightest Fell

By Seanan McGuire.

Previous book here.

A fun opening excerpt of the book can be found here, it's very quotable.

As per usual these days, the review needs to go below the spoiler cut. The book gets four stars, though.