Review 424: Family of Origin

Family of Origin by C.J. Hauser
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

There are some good parts in this book, but it gets muddied (extremely) by some oddities and weirdness. There is a lot of angst, anger, and plain misunderstandings, which drove me nuts reading it.

Oh, and the lack of quotations marks does not help. Just adds confusion.

A very general over: brother and sister travel to this island upon their father's death to gather his things. Not brother and sister, but half (same father).

No, not half, as sister is by different father.

sorry, that may be spoilers, but no need to read the book actually. It's a pass.

Review 423: Sleep Donation

Sleep Donation by Karen Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Trish Edgewater works at the Slumber Corps, a non-profit agency that helps those infected. Her sister Dori died from insomnia, stayed awake too long. It has become an epidemic. Dori was one of the first dozen or so documented deaths. Using her sister’s story Trish is one of the top recruiters, always able to get new donors that give their dreams. Then comes the unexpected Baby A whose dreams are so pure they help reverse the illness with the highest percentage of the afflicted. Are they using her dreams too much? Her father thinks so.

Then comes the nightmare from Donor Y that causes some to electively not sleep. Is the nightmare so bad you would die to stay awake to avoid it? Apparently, that is what’s happening.

Within this crisis moment, Trish something out that would taint the purity of their non-profit organization. Trish isn’t sure if she should tell someone. If she does, another crisis will develop, less donors and even fewer sick people will be helped, meaning more people will die. It is a dilemma.

There’s a slight aspect of horror in this book, but it’s always at the edge, beyond what’s on the page. The book I read contained pen and ink drawings in black and white which accented the story line.

This was a quick read, being a novella helped, but the story was quick as well. What a horrible world it would be if people couldn’t sleep, then died from it. Yes, it is a bit of a horror story.

Review 422: Small Days and Nights

Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book, but the main character, Grace, I could not connect with. Grace claimed it was hard to grasp her history and that's how the whole book felt, particularly about the main character. Grace is in her 30s, her marriage is failing in America, when her mother dies in India. Grace herself is half-Italian, half-Indian. Upon her mother's death Grace finds out she has a sister that has Down's Syndrome and has been raised in a care home.

Grace inherits not only a fairly large sum of money to live without working, but also a house along the beach near a small village. Here Grace brings her sister to live and care for her. But the monotony of the daily activities and the remoteness is too much so about once a month she goes into the city to visit friends for the weekend.

The book attempts to be about her parents, and her marriage but it seems to fall flat so often.

Review 421: Feed

Feed by M.T. Anderson
My rating: 3.25 of 5 stars


A dystopian world of a possible future, where the internet is embedded into people's brains, the younger the better. The feed provides direct communication chats, news, and even better shopping ideas, sales and more! The feed even runs while they sleep. Of course it's all run by corporations, which have taken over the schools(trademarked!) as well. Sounds horrid!

The main characters are teenagers, and their slang is oriented to computers, and at first is very jarring, hard to follow. But after a while, either it makes sense or it settled down, but I could get what they were saying. Oh, but their English skills have degenerated so much!

Titus and his friends go to the moon for Easter break, and he meets a girl Violet who becomes his girlfriend. That night almost everyone in their group gets hacked and their feed is offline for a few days while the doctors and technicians make sure everything is okay.

I was hoping this would lead to them liking it being off, but the book didn’t go that way. Instead it went a different direction, which was perhaps more realistic.

Violet’s father is a professor and studies languages not used anymore, home-school’s Violet. She sees things in a vastly different way than Titus, and opens his eyes to something else that may be going on in the world than their antics and shopping. He doesn’t seem to want to learn about that stuff, like many teenagers.

In the background we see the world, nature is nothing but artificial. There’s even housing pods with their own sun, let alone how tall these housing units go, one would expect that’s to accommodate the exploding population.

This is a dark book, sad, and grim look at a future. Yet there is humor in what these teenagers do and how they talk.

Review 420: It All Comes Down to This

It All Comes Down to This by Therese Anne Fowler
My rating: 2.75 of 5 stars

A summer light read, a beach read as they say. Three sisters are coping with their mother's recent death. One of the shockers was in the will that said they must sell the Maine vacation home, oh and another secret she withheld all these years.

But mother soon took a back seat to all the other drama going on in these three women's lives. They were never very close being born four-five years apart, but they do seem to be connecting in this book, through their shared experience. The eldest Beck is very hurt by her mother's ask to sell the house she wanted to use as a writer's retreat. To get away from her editor husband, who may just be gay. The middle girl Claire is a recent divorced woman, a pediatric cardiac doctor with way too much on her plate, plus the pinning for her sister's husband.

Then there's Sophie, the youngest who is faking it until she makes it but is drowning in debt to live the best instagram life for all those followers. Being in her late thirties she's starting to wonder if it's time to settle down, actually find the right man to stay with.

Oh, there's much more, but the best character really was C.J. who just got out of jail for three years of attempted patricide. He seemed to have taken those years to improve himself, be a better person and it shows when he encounters a young boy and his grandma living in the house his buddy said he could stay in for a while.

There were small holes here an there, which I overlooked but the ending I found too preachy. Sure the message was a good one, aren't they all, but it just rubbed me the wrong way.

Review 419: The God of the Hive

The God of the Hive by Laurie R. King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nicely concluded from book 9 in the series, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.

I may add more thoughts soon.

Previously Read Laurie R. King books:

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes Series:

Book 9: The Language of Bees (3.5 stars) - July.2023

Book 8: Locked Rooms (3 stars) - November.2009

Book 7: The Game (4 stars) - March.2017

Book 6:  Justice Hall (4 stars) - August.2012

Book 5: O Jerusalem (3 stars) - January.2012

Book 4: The Moor (5 stars) - August.2011

Book 3: A Letter of Mary (4 stars) - January.2012

Book 2: A Monstrous Regiment of Women (4 stars) - August.2011

Book 1: The Beekeeper's Apprentice (5 stars) - June.2009

Review 418: Scottish Journey

Scottish Journey by Edwin Muir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While this is a travel journey around Scotland, it is much more. The book was written in 1935, about six months after the two-week journey described in the book. Being nearly 90 years ago now, one may look at this book as a historical look at Scotland rather than a travel book. And it is still more than that.

The frame of the book is Edwin Muir driving around the country for two weeks in an older car, and since these are early automobile days, of course it gave him trouble along the way. Instead of our typical travel descriptions, while sometimes is there, particularly when he reached the Highlands, he writes about the character of the people.

Such as in Edinburgh the people want to look at each other so take to walking about, although depending on class only walk in certain areas, “they turn back when they reach this invisible barrier”. The prostitutes are the only ones crossing these “barriers” with any ease and regularity.

In Glasgow Muir describes the slums and how industrialism has ruined the town and the countryside since many people moved for the jobs which now are nonexistent. There was a depression going on, shipbuilding he says is past its peak, unless another war breaks out (which it does, but he doesn’t know that).

Muir has lengthy passages of a political nature on several occasions. There’s quite a bit about Scottish people starving and suffering on unemployment. Every now and then he addresses the question of Independence and has some concluding thoughts in the last part of the book, which basically comes down to the question of economics.

Overall Muir provides a bleak look at Scotland, and perhaps it was at that time. I expect most of the world looked bleak as well. Although, certainly London, or England overall, was doing much better in comparison.

I found it curious that in the chapter titled Conclusion he states that one cannot know Scotland, even saying about his travels, “I could not find anything which I could call Scotland”. Muir himself is Scottish, first living in the Orkney Islands, then in Glasgow and elsewhere, although at that time was living in England. Curious.