I Hate Fairyland, Volume 1: Madly Ever After by Skottie Young
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Mother Fluffer."
How could you not love a foul mouthed 37 year old in a child's body terrorizing fairyland in a futile effort to find the key to take her home. This comic is delightfully disturbing and disgusting and perfect for anyone who wants to experience the seedy side of fairy tales. There may be fairy castles, candy everywhere, and cute animals. But there is also Gertrude with an ax, the mouth of a sailor, and sugar and alcohol fueled rage. Great artwork and great story telling. Can't wait to read the next volume.

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Weekly TBR - April 17, 2017

Halfway through April and only a few books away from my 12 book goal for the month. Here are my awesome reads for the week. Some to finish, some to start.

To Finish
Known and Strange by Teju Cole: I started this over the weekend and I am loving his writing. It is a little MFAish, but I've learned about a few writers and artists I've never heard of before. Anything that grows the TBR list is good.

Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams: Terry Tempest Williams is amazing. I don't even like birds, but the way in which she weaves her own story, her mother's story, and the bird refuge around the Great Salt Lake is beautiful.

The Trouble With Poetry by Billie Collins: I love Collins' accesability. Sometimes, I want my poetry to be a bit more rooted to the everyday and this collection is proving to be perfect for that.

Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates: It took me a good chunk of pages to get into this but it seems to be hitting its stride now. I'll reserve judgment for now.

To Begin
A Manual for Cleaning Womem by Lucia Berlin: I'm in a short story mood and I've heard good things.

In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear: I love this series. So excited to see how Winspear navigates WWII.

Inside Out and Back Again - Mini Review

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"White hair on a pink boy.
Honey hair with orange ribbons on see-through skin.
Hair with barrettes in all colors on bronze bread.

I’m the only
Straight Black Hair
On Olive Skin.”

(from Rainbow)

A semi-autobiographical novel in verse, Lai introduces Ha, a young Vietnamese girl forced to leave her home after the fall of South Vietnam. We begin with Ha living in Vietnam and the increasing struggles as the North advances. We journey with Ha as she travels to the United States aboard a ship and settles in Alabama. We witness her struggles to learn English as well as the racism she faces as her family tries to settle into American life. From humorous (Ha’s comparison of English to that of snakes hissing) to devastating (is her father alive or no), Lai presents a beautiful story of a girl coming to terms with her new life in an unfamiliar land and an unfamiliar language. The loneliness that threatens to overwhelm her and her attempts to find her place are felt throughout Lai’s wonderful verses. A great read for middle grade and adults wanting to learn more about the immigrant experience.


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City of Wolves

City of Wolves by Willow Palecek
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

***I received an ARC from Netgalley in return for a fair and honest review***

Alexander Drake is a down on his luck private detective. Drunk and in need of a job, he is hired/forced into accepting a nobleman’s proposition to find the murderer of his father. Although Drake has sworn off working for the nobility (too much trouble despite the money), he’s accepts an offer he really couldn’t refuse anyway. And so we begin on a fast paced journey through the fictional city of Lupenwald--complete with werewolves, shady detectives, and mafia like religious figures.

City of Wolves ticks off all of the typical mystery boxes--private detective down on his luck, wealthy client with family secrets, police angry over amateur interference, and even a Poirot like scene in which everyone gathers in the drawing room and the mystery is solved. However, despite having the pieces to a good mystery romp (I mean who doesn’t like a good gaslamp noir werewolf mystery), the puzzle never quite came together for me. I found the story confusing and shallow.

I understand with only 100 or so pages to play with, there is not enough time to write an epic. The pacing was too quick, too overcrowded. Okay, we’re at a manor house. Oh wait, now we’re doing an autopsy with some detective who seems like he has some connection to Drake in the past, but not really sure. There’s some sort of allusion to a war in the past. Oh and now we’re off again to the city to see a war veteran. Oh wait, some vicar, who is apparently a mob boss shows up. Is Drake working for him now? Is he some sort of future character. Huh? I think the author was trying to show a need for urgency on Drake’s part, but all of his movement back and forth seemed forced and not as dramatic as I believe the author intended. The solution to the mystery was anti-climatic. The big reveal didn’t really feel all that important or big by the end.

City of Wolves has good bones. There are the bones of an interesting world and interesting characters if they are given the chance and page space to come through and truly join the narrative. Drake seems like he will be snarky, hardboiled investigator perfect for gaslamp noir. At the moment, I don’t see myself actively seeking out a second installment, but perhaps that will change with time. ⅖ stars.



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Cinder

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been holding out on reading this for a while. I wasn't sure if I could stomach another cheesy, overly dramatic YA romance. However, I finally decided to give it a go, and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed this clever, well written retelling of the Cinderella story. Cinder as a cyborg, evil mirror-fearing queens living on the moon. Um, yes please. Minimum romance, or at least not bogged down in whine and romance, made this story even more enjoyable. Lihn Cinder is feisty and intelligent, but not in that sarcastic, snarky, I'm going to kick everyone's butt, over the top way that also plagues YA. Speaking of plagues, there's one of those too. The plot twist was fairly predictable and the prince was rather annoying in his I'm going to be serious now, and then switching to immature little boy in the next paragraph. However, I'll give him a pass due to evil queens and all. A 4 out of 5 stars and already on to Scarlet.

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The Emerald Mile

The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s 1983. Lake Powell is full to the brim. The Glen Canyon dam is funneling unprecedented amounts of water through its spillways into the Colorado River creating some of the roughest river conditions seen since before Glen Canyon and Hoover dams were built. Three boatmen decide to use this perfect storm of conditions to race through the Grand Canyon from Lee’s Ferry to the Grand Wash Cliffs in an epic speed run using their years of experience, a little bit of luck, and a wooden dory called the Emerald Mile.

At first glance, even after the first chapter, I thought I was reading a book about an illicit speed run through the Grand Canyon. I imagined three hippies in a wooden rowboat dodging National Park Service helicopters and park rangers in rubber dinghies. What I got was so much better (although the former does sound like an amazing adventure)--a thorough and beautifully written history of the Colorado River with an epic boat race tossed in as an added bonus.

Emerald Mile covers a lot of territory, from John Wesley Powell’s first attempts to navigate the Colorado to the dam building boom in the early twentieth century to the history of river tourism in the Grand Canyon. And yes, a boat race with a larger than life cast of characters. Despite the, at times, overwhelming amount of information packed in, the book flows smoothly from one piece of history to the next. The story never feels bogged down or lost in facts and figures. Fedarko really brings the principal characters to life with compelling backstory.

Fedarko, who is a part time river guide himself, knows his subject and knows his river. His detailed descriptions of the rapids and river within the canyon really give you a sense of what the three boatmen were up against. He even makes the engineering nightmare at Glen Canyon compelling without going over the top with doom and gloom disaster predictions.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Excellent backstory building and a larger than life cast of characters. It is an engaging read that kept me turning the pages to find out what or who I was going to learn about next. I give it 4.5 stars.


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Summer 2016 Book List

I love lists, especially book lists.  I’ve seen so many summer TBRs, so I decided to create my own.  It’s a month late, and I will probably change it as the summer progresses, because serendipity... Here are my 25 books for summer of 2016, starting July 1st (I'm a little late to the party) and ending September 5th.  

Summer Booklist

Imprudence (Audiobook) by Gail Carriger

Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon

Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko

The White Album by Joan Didion

When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

Necronomicon by H.P. Lovecraft (Audiobook)

American Gods by Neil Gaiman (Audiobook)

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (Audiobook)

Dog Run Moon by Callan Wink

The Martian by Andy Weir

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich

Ms. Marvel: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

The Girls by Emma Cline

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Company Town by Madeline Ashby

Romeo and/Or Juliet by Ryan North

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Unfinished World and Other Stories by Amber Sparks

Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

Super Extra Grande by Yoss

Substitutes

Finding Beauty in a Broken World - When Women Were Birds was checked out, so substituting Finding Beauty in a Broken World.  I’m on page 15 and it’s love.  See, already changing my list.