Review 659: Vigil

Vigil by George Saunders
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book reminded me of Saunders surprisingly popular book Lincoln in the Bardo. There are a multitude of voices and most are not of this world, they have passed on.

One reason I liked the earlier book was its novelty, but in a second book with something similar, they style is not new. Yet the story line was more contained and seemed to fit this story somewhat better than the earlier book.

A young woman, Jill Blaine, sits with people as they are dying. She already has passed onto the other side, and once there you can inhabit others. This dying man has several that come to visit him in his last hours, some living and some not.

The story is not all about this man, as Jill has her own journey finding out about her own death and what became of her young husband and the man that killed her. It also poses some philosophical questions about how one acts and effects the world. Also are these actions due one's choice to act or inevitable due to circumstances?

I listened to the audiobook and felt swept along with the story. I’m not so sure I would have liked the book as much if I read this in print. Honestly, the ending was the most interesting part of the book.

Thanks to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. However, I listened to a published audiobook copy of the book.

Review 597: Water Moon

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars




This one was outside of my usual reading genre, but I enjoyed it. The book takes place in another world that mostly only interacts with our world through a pawn shop. The current owner retires and his daughter takes over, however on her first day her dad goes missing. Thus begins the quest, to find her father. Along for the ride is an outsider, one who is from our world.
Very interesting world building here, inventive.

Although this book is a quest theme and fantasy it is also about choice one makes in life. There is this thread running through the entire book about choice and how it changes you, making one decision or another. And sometimes these choices are subtle but lead to a big difference in your life as it goes along. This aspect I enjoyed.

I thought this book was for adults but maybe not, it could be young adult. The writing style makes me think it was more for a younger audience.

Review 591: The Strange Case of Jane O.

The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This is a psychological case of Jane O. The book uses the view point of the psychiatrist, Dr. Henry Bryd, and Jane, as letters to her baby son. Jane has perfect memory, except in a couple of cases and lost time.

Jane goes to Dr. Bryd because she had a day of lost memory, she didn’t know where she was or what happened and this was very unusual for her. The book tries to piece together what's going on as she has more of these "fugue states".

This does become an interesting case.

I had a strong interest in psychology when I was younger, which was why this book appealed to me for reading. It’s interesting how reading tastes or interests change through the years. In any case, this book is set up like a psychological case, which added to the appeal.

Thanks to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. However, I listened to a published audiobook copy of the book.

Review 565: The Wandering Season

The Wandering Season by Aimie K. Runyan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Interesting premise, but the writing lacked polish. There is a bit of magical realism in the book, but despite that there unexplained moments, such as understanding people speaking a different language. If it’s already magical there could have been just a short line explaining this.

The problems, unfortunately, did not end there. Too often, from the character’s POV, the reader is told something that the character would not know. Such as at a bakery in a city unknown to her she finds pastries that were made from recipes handed down through the generations. She does not know this, can only guess, but the wording in the book makes it seem she absolutely knew.

There were many instances where this type of thing occurred, and every time it pulled me out of the story. Also, many of the descriptions were not detailed, instead explained and used general words, such as modern and tasteful, well what exactly is that? It felt clunky and awkward whenever this occurred. Also, there was reliance on too many clichés, and way too many convenient coincidences.

Since this was an advance review copy I was reading, my hope is many of these things were fixed before publication.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thanks to HarperCollins Focus/Harper Muse and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 562: There Are Rivers in the Sky

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
My rating: 4.25 of 5 stars

There are three different story lines in the book. My favorite character is Arthur, named King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums. His name reflects where he was born and grew up, in extreme poverty. Arthur was an unusual boy as he had perfect memory, could even remember his birth, near the River Thames. Arthur’s time line is in the mid-1800s. His chapters are marked as O for oxygen, as the book has water as one of the themes.

The other two main characters are H for hydrogen. There is Zaleekhah, also in London and the most modern timeline in 2018. She is undergoing a change, a recent split with her husband and is a water scientist who just moved onto a houseboat. Then there is Narin, a young girl in Turkey and Iraq in 2014. Narin's story is the most unsettling, as her story is filled with persecution and horrendous treatment by others in her area, particularly ISIS.

All of the characters stories revolve around Mesopotamia, and the epic poem of Gilgamesh. There is only a slight intertwining of the three stories. This was good storytelling and well written. Quite enjoyed this book.

Much of the novel is based in historical fact, which makes it all the more poignant, particularly with the tragedies.

Review 560: Ice

Ice by Anna Kavan
My rating: 2.75 of 5 stars

This is a surreal book with many dream sequences, or hallucinations tossed in that make it hard to know what is real or not. Certainly this was purposeful, but make for uncomfortable reading experience. None of the characters or places are named. The story is about an impending world catastrophe that ices over the planet, meanwhile war is breaking out everywhere.

The narrator is a man who is involved in the war somehow, maybe in intelligence, it isn’t clearly explained. He is haunted by this woman who he almost asked to marry. She is portrayed as childlike, very thin, an albino with silvery white hair, and was raised in such a way that is very docile. He was careful with her, trying to gain her trust, when suddenly this other man married her. Thus the three main characters. This other man is very dominant.

The narrator has these awful dreams about the woman, sometimes they seem to be waking visions of what happened, but he couldn’t actually know this. The narrator often makes statements like “Reality had always been something of an unknown quality to me”, or “it dawned on me that this was reality and the other a dream”. Yet these statements don’t always come with the altered sequence of events.

The narrator can’t stop pursuing her, at times he feels like he is saving her from the other man, or from the imminent emergency. It is cold, snowing artic weather. He travels by boat, plane, or car, whatever means he can get. He ends up in an unnamed town, unnamed country, time and again. He always seems to get arrangements yet it usually isn’t explained how he contacts these people, how he knows to get on this boat at this specific time.

The woman seems to have no say in her life. She is roughly handled by her husband, or this other man, who seems to be her husband, but in different countries. It’s never very clear. He is kept up in a room, not able to leave. Our narrator tries over and over to get to her, to see her, and when he does she wants him to leave her alone. She is often called a girl. It’s uncomfortable to read.

Yet some of this is Kavan blending in her own life into fiction. She had two failed marriages, the men pursued her and she felt she had no say in her life. She travels around during WWII trying to escape the fighting, and this matches the book, although the female is not in control, was Kavan during this time? I don’t know enough about her biography.

The foreword placed this book into the genre of slipstream, not quite science fiction, but blending into other genres. Other authors in this category include J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, and Haruki Murakami to name a few. I think this (new to me) category works well. The book is sometime in an unnamed future, with an ecological world collapse, covering everything with artic snow and ice.

Review 559: The King's Messenger

The King's Messenger by Susanna Kearsley
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This is a somewhat predictable book, taking place in England and Scotland in 1613. The bulk of the story is an adventure taken on behalf of King James. The King's Messenger, Andrew Logan, is tasked to bringing Sir David Murray from Edinburgh, Scotland to the King to answer on charges of the death of Prince Henry. This is quite a long journey in those days. And Logan is not to go alone, but to bring a scribe with him to record all of what Sir David says along the way.

The King assigns the elder Laurence Westaway as the scribe, and his daughter Phoebe insists on going along to take care of her father. Phoebe has known Logan most of her life and very much dislikes him, and has a paramour waiting her return, a nobleman Valentine Fox. In Edinburgh a young stable lad hoping to become a King’s messenger someday as well is added to the party.

The story took the POV of four characters: Andrew, David, Phoebe and Queen Anna. Overall this was written well, an enjoyable read.

The author’s note, or “About the Characters” section at the end the book was quite long and detailed. Likely one of the longest I’ve encountered, but it is well worth reading.

I listened to the book via audio, which had two narrators Angus King and Beth Eyre, who did an excellent job.

Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark, RB Media/Recorded Books and NetGalley for an advance review copy of this book.

Review 402: The Ferryman

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book starts out with Prosperans living a perfect life, once they get old they are sent back to the nursery to be given a new life to live again. The weather is also good. Prosperans don’t have children per se, instead they adopt a child, one that is a teenager back from the nursery. They understand the basics, but have to be taught much more. Prosperans work in creative endeavors, usually, although our main character is a Ferryman. Proctor Bennet helps take the elderly to the ferry which takes them across the water to the nursery.

Yet, all is not well in the island of Prospera. The others on the island, the help is getting unhappy with their lot, as they aren’t like the Prosperans; they have children the regular way and grow old then die. They also have to do all the manual work, and something has to change.

It starts the day the Ferryman is tasked with having an assistant, well more like a mentee, and the person they need to take to the docks is none other than Proctor’s father.

Without getting into too much of the details later in the book, as to spoil anything, I will say this is a bit of a mind-bending novel. There are many turns and adjustments one has to make while reading the book. It is also filled with action, and it becomes a gripping tale.

There were some parts when I felt the book was lagging a bit, and a tiny bit predictable, but then it changed and was not going where one might think. When the book came to the ending, I thought it was extended out much longer than it needed, maybe the last several chapters didn’t need to be there. All in all, a great ride.




Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine and NetGalley for an advanced electronic review copy of this book. However, I listened to the audiobook from my public library. An excellent narration by Scott Brick and Suzanne Elise Freeman.

Review 396: Wild Life

Wild Life by Molly Gloss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Set in the first decade of the 1900s in the rural Pacific Northwest where the primary jobs of men were logging and fishing. Charlotte Bridger Drummond (C.B.D.) is the main character, trying to manage 5 boys and no husband, he either ran off or is dead. Charlotte has the help of Melba to keep the house and manage the children while C.B.D. writes. Her stories and novels bring in income to keep the household going, and presumably Charlotte’s sanity.

The book format is in the way of a diary, although not entirely chronological. Inserted are pieces of stories from C.B.D., snippets of poems or other quotes and the occasional newspaper clipping. These extra bits relate to the journal entry, with the result of it all not being too disruptive. I liked this unusual form for the novel, it provided a closer feel for our heroine that is quite a sharp character. For she does what she wants despite that women don’t or shouldn’t and is a devoted advocate for women being able to do anything a man might.

The action begins when Melba’s granddaughter goes missing in the deep woods, when the father takes the little Harriett with him to the logging camp where he works. Of course, this was a bad decision as logging camps are notoriously dangerous.

Charlotte cannot just stand by and wait for news, as she doesn’t think men will tell the women who wait the truth and full details of what has happened. Rumors are flying around with most saying Harriett was taken by a large hairy beast, what we call bigfoot, or sasquatch, among other names.

I didn’t like this book very much through much of it, Charlotte is a hard person and unlikeable. But it was also the style of writing, although I did like the format. But somewhere near the latter part of the book it changed, and my thoughts softened for the book.

It’s an embarrassment to admit this was given to me over twenty years ago and I finally just now read it. Also, the is the second book I recently read in which this is the case. (Let’s not mention the other gifted books I have lying around unread.) Hard to say how I would have approached this book back when I got it, but happy that I can finally say that yes, I have read it.

Review 393: Hag

Hag by Kathleen Kaufman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book quickly, within 24 hours, although at first I was certain I would not finish, I don't read these types of books. It is somewhat mythological, folklore, with some magic thrown in.

It is a tale of the matriarchal line of women who descended from the Hag (called Cailleach), an ancient witch that lives for seemingly eternity. Living in a rocky cave high on the cliffs that overlook the sea in the Scottish Lowlands. The blood through the daughters gives them powers such as, to call the sea or wind, to see the path of the future. The Hag feels the powers of her daughters, and her many-great-grand-daughters, with inked on their wrist the lines of Ingwaz.

The women are often accused of being witches. Through the years the women are sometimes treated poorly by the villagers living near Glasgow.

We follow Alice Grace Kyles, snippets throughout her life. Even at six she sees her future husband and child. But her small family moves to Colorado Springs, away from the boy.

The book has these two storylines being told, one in italics, the other in modern time. There is a family tree at the back of the book, which helped during the reading. Glad I found that early on, maybe it should have been in the front section.

I found it odd, yet compelling. Good writing.

Review 389: The Empire of Dirt

The Empire of Dirt by Ekin Oklap
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Odd little book.

A young girl in the countryside in Italy turning from a girl to a woman, aged 12 during a momentous summer. There are a few jumps around in time, and it is more than just the summer. Swarms of different types of insects and things infest their house. The girl believes she is responsible.

A few other bits and bobs about this book:

The grandmother is just as important as her mother

The village think they are witches (but really?)

                 her father leaves

(SPOILER: later her mother says it is her fault the infestations, and she made her husband leave, she was pregnant and had an abortion after her left. she lost a baby years prior.)

Review 387: The Winter Sea

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was enjoyable enough book. 

A modern day successful writer, lives where her books take place, and this time in the Scotland Highlands off the east coast, near Slains Castle. 

There is a dual time line, the book being written and the writer's life, and oddly enough the fictional book being written turns out to be exactly as history made it. The writer doesn't know how to explain it, she hears her ancestor's voices. 

The audiobook was nicely done, with the exception of male voices, they all tended to sound very similar.

This book is the first is a series of 3 (as of 2023) and I did read the last one already: The Vanished Days

The series is titles: The Scottish series.

Each book is it's own tale, of sorts. They don't follow one after another, so it doesn't matter if read in order or not, such as I have done.

See: my review of The Vanished Days 

Review 376: Eversion

Eversion by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

The main character is a doctor, an unreliable narrator at that. He keeps waking from up from a dream where he died...or did he really die? The doctor is on a ship, and the crew remains the same each time, but there are changes.

It's an interesting premise. There is also the warning, get out while you can. It all has a sort of Lovecraft type vibe going, something unknown with a slight horror aspect.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was fantastic!

Brief Review: 353 Time Out of Joint

Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Not a very long book. This is about a man who seems to be going insane. But then we find out yes, he is a lunatic. And his perceptions, asking what is real or not....oh so classic Philip K Dick.

Review 345: The Bookseller

The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book had an interesting premise with a fascinating dream life. It was as if Kitty was living a double life, as Kathryn that was a sort of what if scenario. By day Kitty owns a bookstore with her best friend Frida. She never married, which is what women did in the late 50s/early 60s. Now she’s resigned in being a spinster in her early 30s. By night, while dreaming she becomes Katharyn who is married to a wonderful man with piercing blue eyes, and two wonderful children. In a later dream the twins become triplets! And unfortunately, something is wrong with the third one. The more dreaming as Katharyn the more that world doesn’t seem so perfect.

While these seems interesting the story wasn’t written very well. There were all these unnecessary details, bogging the narrative down. I was getting bored reading this book. Not a good sign! But I stuck with it and get engrossed in the story and forgot about how poorly written the book was. Ended up enjoying the book more than would’ve thought, but it’s still not a great book. Mediocre at best.

Review 273: Dare to Know

Dare to Know by James Kennedy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We have the unusual world of salesmen who can calculate using subject math the exact date of your death. This is told in first person, we follow this one guy, a salesperson, who’s better days are way behind him. The book is told mostly of looking back, and details get layered on, so specific moments and events take on more meaning as the book progresses.

It's a spiraling of despair and then into a hallucinogenic tale to where it is unclear what is reality or not. Death is the center of this book as is fairy tales, which leads one to suppose there will be the happily-ever-after, except this is a satire. It’s an odd one to be sure. A bit too magical realism for me, but for the right reader this will be a good book.

Review 235: Pulse

Pulse by Michael Harvey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A few bits aren't connected, but for most you can make the leap. The quantum physics and entanglement made for a little reality bending, perhaps. That aspect drew me in. Quick read.

It is a crime book, murder mystery, thriller type. There are several main characters, a teenager Daniel Fitzsimmons and a cop Barkley, not sure he ever had another name other than “Bark”. Daniel maybe is schizophrenic, or maybe these things happen to him…he can “see” what he shouldn’t be able to, such as what happened with someone that he shouldn’t know. It isn’t labored over, but instead explained when Daniel meets Simon Lane, who is looking for someone to rent a room in his apartment. Although Daniel is only 16, he is an orphan and is sleeping on the floor in his brother’s rented room. Harry Fitzsimons is a star football player, gets great grades and is going to Harvard. Daniel is on a scholarship as well at a Latin prep school. 

Simon tells Daniel about quantum mechanics, how there are links between molecules despite any sort of distance, the are tethered, or as they use the term, entangled. Daniel then believes this entanglement and feels it with his friend, a girl who he “pushes” to kiss him, Grace. When Daniel tells Grace about this she denies she needed any prodding, but also then says how she sees things too, perhaps entangled.  Simon is a bit creepy, overly interested in Daniel, standing in his room at night.

Meanwhile Harry goes out with his roommate and his best friend and ends up dead. They went to Boston’s “Combat Zone” the seedy part of town, under the apparent “Harvard football tradition” post season. 

It’s ends up that the best friend is involved in his murder as well as a friend of the roommate, which also ends up being the dad. And the father was the one who ultimately killed him, being a bit “nutty”. Of course this doesn’t come out until the last few pages or so. Also find out the dad was the one who killed their mom, which was deemed an “accident” when investigated back when it happened. Daniel was 8 and was in the car, the trunk actually, and he surprisingly surprised the crash. Shortly after, on the way to the hospital, Daniel went into a coma for a while. 

While there an orderly or someone in the hospital, not supposed to be in the room, pokes Daniel with long needles. Is he injecting him? Is he just hurting him? What is the guy doing? It isn’t explained, it isn’t really discussed much, but the day Daniel wakes up the guy ends up jumping off the hospital roof and dying. One theory is that Daniel made him do that by willing it with his mind…like mind control.

The book does have some seediness. Daniel and Harry’s mother was a prostitute working in the Combat Zone area. Then Barkley’s partner is a dirty cop with many addictions: coke, alcohol, gambling. He is supposed to be clean, but of course not at all, and once “they” get to you, have their hooks in you, it’s impossible to get away.  There’s something he needs to do, and will earn “forever money” but what exactly is that? Who sets this up? Not really explained. Perhaps they mean it is the kids father? He’s wrapped up in this too…he’s a photographer and “just happened” to take photos of the crime in progress. Well, the guy that it was pinned on didn’t actually kill Harry and the father ended up finishing it. But the dirty copy was involved, and later he killed the suspect. Then later Barkley following leads ends up killing his partner, after he killed Harry’s best friend. He was in the whole thing too, leading Harry out of the car, to be chased down the alley so he could get murdered. 

Why the dad wanted him dead, or the mother well, that is never explained either. Maybe the guy is just nuts. He was going to kill Daniel as well, but someone, Simon comes up and kills him instead.

Although then it turns out that Simon didn’t kill him, just injected him to make him pass out. And the cops don’t have any evidence, nor believe that Simon is real. After his father was killed Simon told Daniel he was him but, in the future, they were the same, and the cops believe that Daniel is just hallucinating and creating these stories as a way of dealing with all the trauma that’s happened to him…being in the car when his mom died, then his brother dying. 

Somewhat odd part of the book, not all explained well, but it was a quick read!

Review 217: Switch

Switch by A.S. King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The book starts out difficult to read. The text is unusual, jarring with the slash marks. The nature of the story is unusual, time has stopped and Tru's house has plywood boxes, covering the switch. Her father built boxes around boxes, hers is box#7 with a Tru sized hole in it, her brother’s #11. It’s odd.
After a little while the story starts to cohere, the flow finds itself, and I sank into the story.

What we have is a misfunctioning family, it’s torn apart. The older sister was a pathological liar, of extreme. Her mother left, the father lost his job. She the sister is now gone, still calls and tells more lies. The house shifts and these aspects in the story feel like metaphors for what is going on with the family, or society. The metaphors are abundant in the book.

One could look at the stopped time as a correlation to the pandemic, or perhaps it is more closely related to the family.

It’s a wild ride of a book, and I have a feeling teen readers will connect with the book. It approaches difficult subjects and deals with them, but not in a straight-forward manner.


Thanks to Dutton Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 195: Being Henry David

Being Henry David by Cal Armistead
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A teen wakes up in New York City and doesn’t know anything about himself, not his name, where he lives, anything. The only thing he has is a few dollars in his pocket and a book, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, so he names himself Hank. The story is about Hank finding himself and coming to terms of who he is once his memory starts returning.

What’s interesting is that the book in his hand provides something for him to seek, he goes to Walden Pond in Concord, MA makes a couple of friends, and manages to find shelter, food and clothing. While on the train there he read all of Walden (really?) and afterwards discovered he could recite passages perfectly. Amazing kid.

If you take out the references to Thoreau, which was more in the beginning of the story anyway, you’re left with the kid with amnesia. It was okay, not spectacular. There’s a bit of a romance and about runaway kids. It felt like the author was hoping to introduce young adults to some of the ideas of Thoreau, and a few other transcendentalists by this approach. Perhaps it works that way, the book would probably work better for a teen than it did for me in any case.

Oh, there were some hallucination scenes where Thoreau himself appeared. That was weird.

The audio narration was done well, no problems there at all.

Review 131: Reincarnation Blues

Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A soul named Milo, has been reborn nearly 10,000 times. Once your soul gets to that many lives it will be annihilated forever, ceased to exist. The goal for a soul is to reach perfection. Once you reach perfection your soul goes to join the oversoul. Milo also has this problem of loving Death, who is also named Suzie. Suzie has decided she no longer wants to be Death. Over the long 8,000 plus years, of Milo being reborn, they grow to be lovers while Milo hangs out in the afterlife, between being dead and being born down below again.

The book highlights some of the lives Milo lived, going forward and back in time, although generally when reborn you do go forward in time, although not always. Just the story didn’t always stay linear in that way.

Something in this tale clicked for me. There is the overall relationship, trying to find a way to have their love, and the universe finds it out of balance. They are rebels, both of them. Plus Milo doesn’t seem to know what exactly he is doing wrong so he cannot reach perfection. Suzie and Milo have a plan, when he finally does reach perfection he will refuse to join the oversoul so they can stay together. In his last five or six lives, he finally does really try hard to get to that perfection.

It is a goofy book, for sure. And it goes to the far future, so there’s weird sci-fi kind of things, but not much.

The more I think about this book, the less I appreciate it. Yes, I did find enjoyment within the pages, but there were some areas that bothered me, and it looks like they are being highlighted when I think of the book. There are some extremes here, where it did not need to go. Why did we have this seemingly okay guy go out and shoot at people on a highway? This is just one example, others are even worse. So there’s that aspect. Major discomfort with aspects in the book, and I think it was there on purpose. It bothers me. Another part that bothers me is why does Milo live all these lives and we mostly get the character as a straight male. Once, very briefly we get a female life, but she dies young. We are told in passing his soul was a female many times, but we don’t see that in the book.

I downgraded my initial rating of stars. And now feel somewhat chagrined I did enjoy the book more than I expected, and particularly now with hindsight. Its now short-lived enjoyment. I think the tone reminded me of a couple of authors I like when I was younger. It's been years since I read those books, and now wonder if some flaws there would stand out. Although, those books were written in an earlier time.


I received a free copy of this book at a library conference. I was not required to write a review, but felt like it and, of course, the above opinions are my own.