Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones

By Dolly Parton,Holly George-Warren, Rebecca Seaver

This is a beautiful book of Dolly Parton's outfits (lovingly collected and photographed) from the 60's to now, with profiles of her designers, brief talk of her movies, and commentary by Dolly and her co-authors on her amazing wardrobe. Everything is beautiful and I loved it and what else is there to say?

Five stars for epic fashion. 

Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

By Charles Duhigg.

I read this because I'm doing "Twelve Angry Jurors" and this book definitely covers how you change an entire jury's mind a la that play. It also discusses how people who can be gentle, honest, and reveal things about themselves can really do well at things like recruiting CIA spies. Adapting to someone else's conversational style is also a great move. Really, you just want to match the other's mindset. 

This book deserves a better review than I feel like I am up to writing about it? I thought it was good and comprehensive, I just don't seem to have the energy to write down all the details. But it's great on its subject matter and I think I'm a supercommunicator, hopefully?

Four stars. 

The Brothers Hawthorne

By Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

Previous book here.

I feel like I'm getting tired of this series? (Looking at the last book review, I clearly pooped out on writing it.) Honestly, it might be just me, but this book felt looooooooong and I kept reading it off and on when I had a lot of time to kill (in between scenes at the theater, and finally finished it while waiting on the union Zoom call from hell, and I was just relieved. I'm conflicted between feeling really tired of some aspects of the series and at the same time, still finding the characters delightful? I dunno, man. This is is a "maybe it's just me" sort of review today.

Avery is a side character in this one, as the book veers back and forth between the adventures of Grayson and most of his other siblings, and Jameson and Avery getting involved in a gambling adventure with his dad's side relatives. (Honestly, I missed Avery as a lead here, especially since these are in third person and I'm usually not as into third person narration.) 

• Jameson is hit up by his bio-dad, Ian, to join some secret exclusive gambling club that Ian has been thrown out of to win back a family property. I dunno how much family loyalty Jameson has to this guy, if any--Ian is charming but flaky and un-trustworthy--but you know Jameson is all "secret society? gambling? HELL YES," and despite being um, teenagers, he and Avery get in and end up playing yet more games, creating strategy, dealing with people you may or may not be able to trust, etc. I like Jameson a lot and I think he and Xander are the most fun of the brothers, but I wasn't as into this plot. I know the author writes teens in improbable situations a whole lot and the Hawthorne boys have been raised for this kind of thing and money gets you everywhere, but it seriously felt like we had teens doing James Bond casino scenes here and I just wanted to roll my eyes at this.  I'm not entirely sure if I get the entire plot of this, though I did enjoy that Jameson's uncles turn out to be better dudes and I enjoyed Zella, who helps them out. Then the surprise revelation out of nowhere was all, huh?! Where'd this come from? 
• The plot I liked better was Grayson's. Grayson's biodad was awful, rejected him the one time they met, and oh yeah, has been.... well, people think biodad has run off, and we'll leave it at that. Grayson knows the truth, though. And when he finds out that one of his twin sisters on his dad's side has gotten herself into a bit of legal trouble trying to find dad, Grayson steps in, being all authoritative/mysterious/weird, trying to throw Gigi off the track and befriend her while making sure she can't find out the truth at once. Gigi's twin Savannah is basically a female version of Grayson except also a jock, and she already knows who Grayson is (I note it's funny when Grayson has to give his name which is their last name) and is cold as ice. Their mother, Acacia, is quite nice to everyone. The Grayson family is why I liked this plot, especially Gigi. Gigi is utterly charming and super fun and sends incessant cat pictures and bounces off walls and is exactly the lively sort of person we need in this world. Love her. Nash and Xander join in on this plot after awhile, which is also great fun.

Overall, this is a three star review for me. Some things were fun and great, other things seem to have palled on me. When I read "oh, there's going to be another book," I just felt tired. I may be getting off the train after this one. 

George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved The Monarchy

By Sally Bedell Smith.

The author certainly argues her point well on the title, I'll say. This covers the abdication of Edward VIII and how he was just really awful and everyone knew it. It's not as detailed in the terribleness as Traitor King, (thank god, I don't think I can take any more of that), but yeah, dude was shady and nobody liked him anyway, good riddance. The dude couldn't be arsed to go see his potentially dying father--Tommy Lascelles goes from finding Edward dreamy to finding him INSUFFERABLE and it's kind of funny--and Tommy snaps that if the king dying means nothing to him, it means a great deal to everyone else. Edward's response was to bang another married lady. When you find two guys saying the best thing that could happen to Edward would be for him to break his neck, HOO BOY.  (P.S. Tommy Lascelles was bi and banged a few royal biographers! Influencing the writing much?) I liked how someone saw the state crown falling apart and off the coffin when his father died. Foreshadowing! 

So up comes Bertie/the future George VI, raised to be timid, not great at military school, has a stutter, but he's nice. A lot of the first third of the book is the intriguing romance between him and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who either wasn't into him at first, and/or had other love interests (one of which the royals actually got shipped off to America!), and even though Elizabeth called him her dearest(?) friend, she really, really, really, really went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth on marrying him--I note he had to propose three times before she finally gave in. I'm not sure (nor is anyone else but Elizabeth, I suppose) if her misgivings were about Bertie himself or marrying into the royal family, and even in that time period the latter was probably cause for concern. But aren't we all glad she did. 

After that, things were happy maritally and with their two daughters. The book also covers Bertie's speech therapy with Lionel Logue, so you get insight into that. Most of the book after that covers their work during World War II, living where they're getting bombed, trying to buck up the populace, etc., which is pretty heroic. (Meanwhile, Edward is being Edward and nobody wants him.) The final fourth of the book or so is Bertie's decline and death and Elizabeth's romance with Phillip. I found it all pretty comprehensive and positive.  So, four stars, I suppose. 

The Love Scribe

By Amy Meyerson.

I love the concept behind this, and I really got into it at least through the middle, but I gotta warn you that it goes into Magical Realism territory, which is not my favorite thing ever and tends to confuse me, especially at the end. There's gonna be a lot of spoiler cut chattery here. 

Alice is a cater waiter who has a tendency to quit things and relationships and has never gotten over the death of her father when she was a teenager. Words can't express how avoidant she is on the relationship front. Which makes it weird when one day she starts getting mental images and writing stories about them, which cause the reader of the story to get into a relationship with pretty much the next person they meet! Obviously this is a super valid business idea and people are clamoring for her to write them a story that leads them to find love. Hell, I was all, SIGN ME UP upon reading this, along with "I gotta talk to my therapist." 

However, the plot goes beyond that idea when Alice is hit up by a mysterious lady in the woods, Madeline, who wants Alice to do.... something... before she dies. That something is fairly unclear, though Madeline seems haunted by the fact that she and her beloved got off on dramatic behaviors and "testing" love and then he died in a car accident. Does Madeline want to fall in love again one more time? She says she wants "forgiveness," but what does that entail? Alice is pretty stumped as to what to write, and starts snooping around Madeline's house even though Madeline doesn't want her to, and she finds.... well, that'll have to go below the spoiler space, I fear. I will leave it in this area as "I wasn't expecting it to go THERE" and Alice ends up investigating what happened to other people's relationships and wondering if the same issues will happen with the people she's writing for. It turns out that things can go wrong in various ways, and yet sometimes a relationship has to go wrong for things to go right, and both ladies aren't sure what to make of that.

Alice also decides to get her stories printed into little books, and she develops the hots for Duncan, a recently divorced printer who seems like he'd be as avoidant as she is. I sadly wasn't all that sold on this relationship, as it got a little weird here and there, especially on their one date where he didn't behave so well and I was kind of icked out at The Tacky, even if he tries to explain it. Alice does tend to get into A Huff periodically in ways that made me a bit eye-roll-y and while her wishy-washiness is certainly part of the plot, sometimes you just wanted to mutter, "give it a rest already." 

Overall, I like the concept, and people supporting Alice in what she's doing (even as Madeline is trying to do otherwise) is sweet, and I still want someone to love scribe me even if it might not end so well. On the other hand, the Magical Realism ending without any particular explanation that I could comprehend annoyed me, and for a romance, Alice and Duncan weren't all that romantic to me compared to the snippets of other romances throughout the book. I dunno, man. 3.5 stars, I think? 

And now, to the spoiler space discussion.

Fortune and Fate

By Sharon Shinn.

Previous book here.

This one takes place two years after the end of the last book and features Wen, a Rider introduced in the last book as (a) being around when the king died, and (b) leaving royal service after that. Since then, she's been bumming around the country, trying to pull Batman/Superman-ish moves and coming in to save people who need it, while also secretly having a death wish and hoping someone else takes her out. She also won't let herself hang around anyone for long, as how dare she make friends or anything like that.

The book starts out with Wen rescuing teenage heiress Karryn Fortunalt, the daughter of one of the bad guys in the series, from being raped into marriage. Soon after that, she ends up rescuing two kids, one of whom is a reader. She ends up taking a job with Karryn's uncle/guardian, Jasper, after she points out that they really need better security around the family estate, Fortune. Obviously who else can do that? 

This is another slow-starting plot, in which we slowly watch Wen build a team of reliable soldiers, keep an eye on shit, and so far things mostly go smoothly. Though a few more attempts on Karryn's life, a suspicious hottie hanging around, and some weirdness going down around Karryn's best girlfriend reasonably make Wen suspect someone wants to take Karryn out.

At the same time, most of the regular gang--the original solid six, let's say--accompany "I'm not the king" Cammon on a tour of the country, in which Cammon hits it off with pretty much everyone he meets and has telepathic chats with his awesome wife, who's doing very well at the job apparently. We also find out that Sabina and Nate got married and are trying to deal with the bratty Gisseltess kids, and there's brigands wandering about, and Senneth is rebuilding herself after the last battle, and Justin had a kid. So, that's all very pleasant. 

The best things in this book are (a) Karryn maturing thanks to Wen's guidance and support, and (b) Wen's budding romance with Jasper, a friendly nerdy academic who's all brain to Wen's brawn, but it works romantically and he doesn't give a shit about their respective statuses. He's adorable and sweet, and also has a great moment when he's figuring out how to deal with the dad of the guy who kidnapped Karryn. That was a great build romance, so good job there. I also was interested in the development of Ryne, a fellow who seems like a charming drunk shiftless bastard type that Wen suspects right off the bat--and he's also half-Lirren so you can't check him with a reader in the usual way. But he turns out to be a better dude than you'd think as time goes on, and even Wen supports the dude in the end, go figure. I also liked how the mystery finally shook out and how it was resolved.

I've read things online saying (a) this was supposed to be an offshoot of the original series and setting up a new series and then it didn't take off, and (b) this is the weakest of the books. Obviously given my rating of previous books in the series and this one, I disagree. It could have used more excitement, but I enjoyed it, I enjoyed hanging out with these people even if there could have been some more escalating kidnapping drama to keep it lovely, Wen's recovery is great, the romance is very sweet, it's all to the good. Four stars from me. 

Reader and Raelyx

By Sharon Shinn.

Previous book here.

This is the best of the series. Loved it. Though what is with the cover? Is Cammon some kind of flying circus performer with a sword now? Just saying.

Anyway, this one's great. It features the budding romance between Cammon, a magically powerful but super common orphan, and Princess Amalie, who he hit it off with a few years ago and finally gets to spend more time with. Cammon is tasked with listening in on/vetting the conversations between Amalie and potential suitors, a task that's not so fun when you've got a crush on her yourself. Added difficulty bonuses include the castle's surly steward and Amalie's Very Protective Bodyguard/stepmother Queen Valri insisting on being around as much as possible and trying to keep Cammon in his place...while Amalie is pretty insistent that they renew their friendship and that Cammon feel comfortable with having an equal relationship with her. She gets a bit hurt here and there when he is forced to restrain his seeing her--which can be a bit much at times, but I also get that she's been sheltered as hell and really needs social time. Anyway, I enjoyed their relationship, and Cammon perhaps being a bit unusual as to how he behaves (example: being asked to explain how sex works!) really works for them both.

In the continuing news of Senneth, she and the rest of the gang are still trying to prevent a war, recruiting Lirrenfolk men and going to a mystic-majority town of Carrebos to recruit people. Carrebos is super cool, btw--imagine going somewhere where your waiter's levitating your plates? Sweet. Senneth and company also run into various people they've rescued during the course of the series, who are generally doing pretty well. (Sosie being involved with Darryn is a particular surprise.) 

Then two thirds of the way through the book, war breaks out on the day of Will and Casserah's wedding (Skip To The End!), and finally Shit Starts Happening Here. I'm happy that the series, which has been great and pleasant in letting me hang out with people I like, finally got more action going on in it. I'll get into more things below the spoiler cut, but bad guys gotta be taken care of, and that happens, and happy endings happen for all. It's a nice resolution. 

Amalie is the best character in this series, I must say. Obviously Senneth is the author's favorite as she continues to get narrative past her original book, but Amalie is plucky as shit despite her sheltered upbringing. We find out the whole "how did Valri marry into the family and become Amalie's bodyguard" story, and while you're probably reasonably sure both of them are mystics, there's a little extra...flair... to what Amalie does that made for an interesting twist that I enjoyed. See spoiler cut for more. I also love how Amalie has straight up made loving friends with the raelynx (who seriously deserves a name, why does it not have one?!) and it also becomes her bodyguard, which she--or the raelynx itself--deploys on people who deserve it. Amalie is the Raelynx Queen and I love that. She's great. I also like her theory that everyone in Gillengaria has some kind of magic, even if it's not quite mystic-level, and this book notes that the marlords/ladies seem to have a magical connection to their lands in particular.

On the weird side, there's one mentioned of poor Romar almost remembering how he felt about Kirra like ten times at one dinner, and Kirra's still hecka bothered by the whole thing. Me: TEN TIMES?!? I...really am not sold on Kirra and Donnal being the one true pairing for both if Kirra and Romar still feel like that, even with a memory wipe on his part. I still find that whole situation a giant "not great, Bob!" but, well, there's a pregnancy, so.....yeah. I'd also like to note that while I like King Baryn, he's never around much, and does he do anything, really? I'm truly not sure, since you'd think if he has say, personal connections to mystics, he might want to do something about stopping all the mystic murders? As one of the reviews I mentioned in the last book points out, they don't really seem to have any kind of police force/authorities going on anywhere and if someone gets in trouble or is persecuted, they'd better hope a friendly stranger passes by (foreshadowing for the next book, I note). Maybe there wouldn't be so much unrest in the kingdom if Baryn took more actions? 

Anyway, I'll talk some more below the spoiler cut.

I'd like to mention one genuinely funny line in this one. There's not a lot of humor in this series, but I really enjoyed this bit:

"Why are they always about women, those bawdy songs?" Senneth asked. "Why aren't these awful little melodies about men?"
"Wait. Give me a minute," Kirra said. "I knew five men from Forten City / Three were dumb and one was pretty / One said, "Girl, won't you give me a lick? / I've sprinkled saltwater on-"

BWAHAHAHA. I also liked at one point when Kirra is in animal form and play-attacking Cammon and Senneth was yelling, "BITE HIM!" Some more humor in this series would have been great. 

Anyway, four stars, lovely resolution to the whole thing. I did get the fifth book (same world, different people) so we'll see how that goes. 

 

 

Dark Moon Defender

By Sharon Shinn.

Previous book here.

I admit I wasn't looking forward to this one because it featured Justin, surliest of the group, and him being (somewhat, as it turns out) alone, out spying in enemy territory again. (Must all these books do nothing but spy? Shake some action, people.)  But this book turned out to be very enjoyable. Justin's a much more pleasant, kind, friendly and even flirty fellow in this book and I was really pleased with that. And his friends popped in enough times to keep things lively and give good backup. (Though as a follow-up to the last book, there's still next to nothing about Kirra and Donnal as a couple other than "welp, I guess they're together." Feh.) 

Ellynor is a Lirrens girl who's been stuck in the Pale Mother convent when her shitty cousin Rosurie got herself into some inappropriate man trouble and it was deemed that Rosurie better not be left there alone. (Rosurie is an obsessive loose cannon personality who listens to no one, and only gets worse as the story goes on. Hate her.) Ellynor worships the Dark Mother, as Lirrenfolk do, but she's fine with also worshipping another deity. She's also been pretty sheltered her whole life and really has no idea that being able to conceal oneself in the dark, or see well in the dark, or heal people by praying, are unusual things. And that moonstone she wears at the convent is a little hot,  but isn't that how they work? (Apparently for her it's not that painful, even though it's mentioned it left a scar later. Did she not notice?) Ellynor's a nice girl but has no idea, given her mountain upbringing, that she's a mystic and in the worst place you can have powers in. I do think that's established enough in the book that it didn't rile me much that she had no idea what was going on or that anything she did was unusual. I did enjoy the friendship she established with a lady she healed, despite the dangers of it. 

Justin ends up rescuing Ellynor when she runs into a bad part of town--heck, she doesn't even know there CAN be bad parts of town--and they hit it off right away and have a good time and fall into near insta-love, despite Justin usually not being that into women and Ellynor knowing darned well she can't get involved with a non-Lirrens guy. But it's so adorable and charming you don't even care? There's an actual interesting and viable romance here! I enjoyed them and it worked and it had great development.  Justin's found family come to visit off and on and Senneth figures out where Ellynor's from, but decides that should be left to Ellynor to tell Justin herself...I dunno on this choice, but I guess I can sort of see the logic. That said, there is a bit of "spit it out, girl" that happens in one's brain, Eventually Ellynor discovers something everyone else knows, that Coralinda likes to have mystics burned, and she needs to get the hell out. 

I will note that the previous books have taken pains to set up that if a Lirrens girl wants to marry an outsider, the boyfriend has to straight up kill one of her relatives in combat. We know Justin can take anyone, and Ellynor doesn't want her brother or whoever else to die. But this whole setup is pretty well bypassed once we find out that Senneth and a few other Lirrens ladies (including a previously established mysterious character) have had the option to declare themselves independent, and then they can just do what they want! Easy peasy! Justin can even hang with the relatives now! So on the one hand, great! On the other hand, uh...why did we bother with this setup, then? And if Senneth knew that declaring independence was an option, she never mentioned it earlier? Hmmmm. I do agree with some of the critiques here and here, but I'll leave you to read those rather than recap them myself. Those writers make good points about plot plausibility, big time, which I didn't think of while reading but now are all, "yeah, that doesn't seem right...." 

Overall, I did enjoy it enough to give it four stars, though. The issues I had probably should have knocked it down a half star or so, but I was so pleased overall at liking this one the best that I'm rolling with it. 

One funny quote moment, on how to propose Lirren-style (i.e. casually in conversation): "I talk about chicken dung and entrails. Somehow that doesn't sound like the perfect moment to me." 

The Thirteenth House

By Sharon Shinn.

Previous book here.

I liked this one better for action, but there's also some mixed baggery again.

This is Kirra's book, and she starts it out on a rescue mission to save Ronar, the new regent*, who spends the book getting kidnapped and targeted for death a lot. Ronar is generally A Good Dude, and hot, and decent, if a bit hotheaded in thinking he can and should just ride around and do his thing despite all of the targeting. Kirra's shapechanging works excellently for saving his bacon. Ronar and Kirra also pretty instantly fall in love, as both of them are the most interesting person that the other one has ever met. I thought the "romance" between Senneth and Tayse was pretty weak, but this one is done in great, loving, secretly passionate detail, and I wanted to root for it and kind of did...except for the part where Ronar is married, because he was feeling The Pressure To Settle Down and Produce An Heir and clearly Settled for a nice lady, and Kirra never turned up at any parties. (More of that in the spoiler cut.) This makes it hard to root for the romance, and Kirra's Rider friends straight up tell her to her face that this is a bad idea. And Donnal, Kirra's pretty much literal "faithful dog," who has sworn he'll never leave her, leaves her over this. I'll talk more about this in the spoiler cut, but I really wondered why this doomed love affair got so much affection and lavish buildup if it's not supposed to work out?

• note: unclear as to why there's a regent when the king is still alive and compos mentis, I guess he's lined up just in case.

In other news, Kirra gets disinherited by her father in the politest manner ever once her tamer half-sister Casserah turns 21. It's meant with no offense, as Kirra loves to roam around and Casserah is an unsocial homebody, and even Kirra doesn't mind this too much and gets the logic behind it. (Also, she and Casserah are very close, despite their personality differences.) Her dad wants Casserah to tour the countryside and meet people after this, but Casserah doesn't wanna, so dad suggests that Kirra do it disguised as Casserah. So Kirra-as-Casserah joins a traveling party with Ronar, Princess Amelia, Queen Valri, clearly in Bodyguard Mode Big Time, Justin and Cammon. This turns into Spy Mission Part 2, as the group continues to try to figure out who's loyal/disloyal to the king, and they encounter the creepy Gisseltess siblings and their creepy magic-negating magic. I note that Princess Amelie is apparently beyond fear (except for finding Donnal in dog mode in her room) and is bluntly rude and sassy to the Gisseltesses, which I enjoyed no end. Valri continues to be as mysterious as ever, and people can't peg whatever the royals' powers might be.

I enjoyed the side plot of Kirra trying to figure out how to cure a magic disease that originates outside of Gillengaria--she's unable to cure it permanently herself, but when she finds out there's a cure for it for animals, she realizes that if she tries shape-changing someone else for the duration of how long it takes to do the cure, she could save lives. I loved this plotline, actually. 

Overall the book was very good, albeit it still felt kind of long, but it did have more plot to it this time. I'm going to give it three stars for being interesting, BUT the romance issues in it were so off and the author's choices of what to develop fully vs. not didn't really work for me. 

I'm also going to add a quote I bookmarked and forgot to put in here, from Justin on the six of them but specifically referring to Cammon: "He'll fall in love where it's most extreme, and where his chances of success are least assured....When he does, I'm telling you, it will make the rest of us look like we weren't even trying."