March

This month I read 1 book and 6 ebooks from the Toronto Public Library, totalling to 7 books.

Before we begin:

Dishonourable Mentions

Gideon the 9th by Tamsyn Muir

Synopsis: Gideon is planning to escape the hellish dungeon where she was raised, but her childhood nemesis won’t let her go without one last service to the Ninth House.

My thoughts: This book pretty famous for being described as “lesbian necromancers in space” online, so I figured I’d give it a shot. But I found it uninteresting and too much of a fantasy for my taste.

You may like this book if: you won’t be disappointed to find out that “lesbian necromancers in space” isn’t really a great description of the book.

Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries, Edited by Otto Penzler

Synopsis: This is a collection of short stories from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, written by classic American mystery writers. They all feature the locked room trope, where a body is discovered in a place where the killer could not have possibly accessed (ie. a room with no windows locked from the inside).

My thoughts: I read the first few short stories and really liked them, but I never finished this book before I had to return it to the library, and didn’t feel compelled to put the book on hold in order to finish it.

You may like this book if: you’re a sucker for mysteries, the Golden Age, and transatlantic accents.

And now for the real reviews:

The Future by Catherine Leroux

Synopsis: Gloria’s daughter Judith died of a drug overdose, and no one has seen her daughters since. So, Gloria packs up her life and moves to Fort Detroit in order to get there. When she arrives, conditions are even worse than she could imagine: Fort Detroit (a francophone city that is a Canadian territory) has been utterly abandoned by all levels of government. The only people she can count on are her neighbors. As Gloria learns to live in Fort Detroit, she slowly discovers the gang of children that have set up their own society on the banks of the Rouge River. Could that be where her grand-daughters are?

My thoughts: This was one of the least enjoyable Canada Reads books, so I was kind of disappointed to hear that it actually won (allegedly, it’s the best book to “carry us forward,” I guess because the last few pages slip in something about the children being our future? I just didn’t really care for this book. The premise (alternate history Detroit that has suffered massive urban decay) was pretty interesting, and I thought Gloria’s interactions with her friends and neighbors trying to make a life for themselves in Fort Detroit. However, I was not at all impressed by the sections that centered on the wild children/ There were way too many children introduced, and they had very few distinguishing characteristics besides their crazy nicknames (Adidas, TickTock, etc), so I was forever mixing up the children with one another. I was disappointed when Gloria’s grand-daughters were revealed at the very end, because they had just been hidden away by the wild children for the whole time. Why did the author choose to spend all her time focusing on children that were not the grand-daughters (who, if you’ll recall, are the entire reason Gloria moved to Fort Detroit at all, and therefore feel like they should have a more central role in the plot). I wish that the story had featured the grand-daughters thriving (or struggling) as part of the wild child society.

Rating: 2/5 Urban Decay bus tours that ran over you’re neighbour’s elderly father without a second thought

The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships

Synopsis: Tonight is the night: it’s the Karaoke Championships for Crow Valley, Alberta. This year, after being ravaged by forest fires and mourning the loss of Dale Jepson (pillar of the community, guard at the local prison, and Karaoke Champion), the winner of the Crow Valley qualifiers will get fast-tracked straight to nationals. Everyone in town wants to win: Brett, who wants to dedicate his song in memory of his best friend Dale; Molly, who wants to dedicate her song to Dale because he stopped to rescue her during the forest fire that ultimately killed him; and many others. This novel follows Brett, Molly, and three other characters [Val, who worked with Dale at the prison and is unhappily married to Brett; Marcel, a convict that escapes from the prison; and Roxanne, guest karaoke judge and Dale’s widow] over one fateful night.

My thoughts: This book was not exceptional, but I thought it was quirky and enjoyable all the same. I appreciated the cancon, and there were several running jokes throughout the book that kept popping up subtly, and I thought those were quite funny. I also appreciated how each of the 5 character perspectives were intertwined with each other to create a full picture of the day (I feel like this is usually reserved for mysteries, since every second has to be accounted for in order to solve the crime). However, a lot of the storylines were dragging and uninteresting, which made the book a bit of a slog to get through.

My rating: 3/5 signs to beware of a bear? porcupine? zombie? it’s really not quite clear

The Words We Keep by Erin Stewart

Synopsis: Lily Larkin is trying her best to keep it together. Ever since she discovered her sister Alice attempting suicide, Lily’s been having panic attacks. She’s unable to focus at school, and she’s about to be kicked off of the track team for poor performance, but she can’t say anything because everyone is supposed to be keeping it together to support Alice in her recovery. It doesn’t help that she’s paired up with Micah for a school poetry project. Micah has a reputation at school for being crazy and manic, but the part that really stresses Lily out is that he spent time at the same treatment home as Alice; Lily cannot let anyone at school find out the truth about Alice. To make matters worse, the group with the best project will be entered into a contest, and the prize is a scholarship big enough that Lily could attend her dream college debt-free. Will Lily be able to move through her anxiety, or will it end up drowning her?

My thoughts: Readers will know that I’m 25, and thus out of my angsty high school era, which is when I would have most enjoyed this book. It isn’t something I would have picked up by myself, but I actually read it for work to see if it would make a good addition to the IBBY Collection for Young People With Disabilities, which collects children’s and YA books that feature disability (including mental illness) representation. I thought it was a fair representation of Lily and Alice’s mental illnesses, although it definitely could have done more. In particular, I wished it spent more time depicting Lily and Alice’s recoveries, and clarified if Lily was or wasn’t suffering from OCD and PTSD, instead of just generalized anxiety.

Rating: 3/5 random acts of guerilla poetry

Everyone on this Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

Synopsis: About a year after the events of his true-crime memoir about finding the Black Tongue serial killer (see my August 2023 round-up), Ernest Cunningham is back. He’s been invited to be a panelist for the Australian Mystery Writers Festival. In celebration of it’s 50th Anniversary, the AMWF will take place this year on the Ghan, a cross-country train trip that traverses Australia from Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south. Other panel guests include Lisa Fulton (who wrote one award-winning novel 20 years ago and is finally publishing a second), S. F. Majors (who writes psychological thrillers), Alan Royce (who writes forensic thrillers), Wolfgang (who writes literary fiction and believes that all other kinds are beneath him), and the guest of honour Henry McTavish (a Scottish author best known for his iconic Detective Moribund series). But when Henry McTavish drops dead during a panel, Ernest will risk life, limb, and his relationship in order to find out who killed his idol.

My thoughts: In both of Benjamin Stevenson’s books that I’ve read, the mysteries themselves were just okay; the real thing that knocks it out of the part is how Ernest cheekily breaks the fourth wall. I liked how Ernest added in a few emails to his publisher discussing the very book that you are reading. In this book, the mystery itself was quite convoluted, and I found it upsetting that Ernest and Juliette almost broke up because he was obsessed with solving it (#JusticeforJuliette). However, the final act of the book was really dramatic, and it was worth it to see the reveal and finally tie up all of the loose ends (and some of those ends were extremely loose!). Also, this is the first book that I’ve read to feature AI-generated fiction as a major plot point, and I think that one was enough. So if all authors could take my advice and not feature or even mention “Chat GTP” in any of their books ever, I’d appreciate it.

Rating: 4/5 men who were awarded the Justice in Fiction Award, Women’s Prize through special exemption.

Precious Cargo: My Year Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077 by Craig Davidson

Synopsis: It’s the summer of 2008, and Craig Davidson needs a job. After struggling as an author, he now needs something (anything) just to make ends meet. So, he signs up to drive a school bus in Calgary. This book is a true account of the year that Craig spent driving the bus, and the 5 passengers that he drove every day.

My thoughts: After reading The Words We Keep through a critical disability lens, I ended up using the same lens for this book, and found it to be a bit lacking. The main problem was that Craig made the book too much about himself, and how he related to and perceived the disabled passengers on his school bus. That feels like a weird complaint for a book that Craig himself wrote about his own personal experiences, and maybe I’m not really justified with that criticism. However, Craig didn’t really discuss any other aspects of his life outside of driving the kids around (especially why he stopped driving the bus and what he moved on to, which really bothered me). It felt like they were just along for the ride (literally), and didn’t seem to have much agency, or even really do much at all. Craig is an author, and he also included some chapters from the novel that was working on at the time, which was an X-men style book about a group of children with super powers. Eventually I could tell that it was obviously based on the children who rode his bus, but I don’t really know why he included it at all. It wasn’t a short story with its own narrative through line, it was literally just a few chapters sprinkled throughout the memoir.

Rating: 2/5 Code Blues (a non-specific serious emergency)

Much Ado About Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin

Synopsis: Nada Syed feels stuck. She’s almost 30 and still living at home. Her work as a software engineer is draining, and her big idea (a muslim-specific search engine called Ask Apa [Ask your Older Sister] that would give tailored advice and search results for young South Asian muslims) is dead in the water. Nada is still bitter that Haneef, son of Sister Rusul (friend to the Syed’s and Nada’s primary investor) launched his own app with the same concept only six months before Ask Apa would have premiered. The absolute last thing she wants to do is attend a Muslim convention, but her best friend Haleema’s new fiance is one of the organizers, and she promised Haleema that they would go together. But the conference goes badly for Nada. She gets into an embarrassing argument with Sister Rusul, and their fight goes viral. Even worse, she finally meets Haleema’s fiance Zayn, and Zayn’s brother Baz. Nada and Baz have a long history, much of it bad. Will Nada ever be able to move forward, or will she stay stuck in the past?

My thoughts: This book is not based on the Shakespeare play. It is supposed to be loosely based on Persuasion by Jane Austen, but I’ve never read or watched it, so I can’t really comment on it as an adaptation. However, I really think that it’s still a good novel by itself, which is the mark of a good adaptation. I really liked how the author flashed back to different points in Baz and Nada’s relationship, and how she slowly uncovered everything that happened over the course of the book. I also liked how the flashbacks included more history about Ask Apa, and how Nada was able to get justice and let go of her resentment. Even the plotline between Haleema and Zayn (while a bit overly dramatic) came to a mature and sensible resolution, which I really appreciated.

Rating: 4/5 dates at EJ Pratt Library on the University of Toronto campus, where I myself studied many times.

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

Synopsis: Ayesha is a teacher in the Golden Crescent, a majority Muslim neighborhood in Toronto. She’s finally started her first ever teaching job since graduating with her degree, but it’s stressful and unfulfilling; in short, nothing like what she expected. What she really wants to be is a poet, but it’s not a career choice that her traditional family would approve of (and it won’t pay back her family’s debts to her uncle Sulaiman, which she’s determined to do). Even worse, she’s single at 27, while her younger cousin and best friend Hafsa is practically drowning in rishtas (arranged marriage proposals). Khalid has been working for a Toronto tech company for years, and he’s never really had any problems (but he hasn’t made any friends either). But he’s about to have a huge problem: the new HR manager, Shelia, hates that Khalid dresses and acts according to very old-fashioned Muslim beliefs (including always wearing a white robe and skullcap, not shaving his beard, and refusing to shake hands with any women who aren’t related to him). She’s determined to get Khalid to quit by sabotaging his projects. Khalid and Ayesha meet while organizing a Muslims in Action conference for the Toronto Muslim Assembly, and sparks fly between them. Organizing a conference is never easy, but the stakes couldn’t be higher: their initial consultant Tarek might be scamming them, and the conference is TMA’s last chance to avoid going bankrupt). Will Khalid and Ayesha be able to save the conference, even when Khalid gets engaged to Hafsa?

My thoughts: This is apparently supposed to be a Muslim retelling of Pride and Prejudice, but readers will know that I’ve never seen the movies or read the book, so this part is totally lost on me. I generally enjoyed it, but I think it’s the weakest of Uzma Jalauddin’s three books (perhaps a sophomore slump?) All of the plotlines relating to Hafsa (the mistaken identity, the alleged kidnapping, etc) were confusing and not entertaining, and I hated how immature she was, and how much she took advantage of Ayesha’s kindness. Overall I didn’t really vibe with this book, but I think that most romance fans probably would like it more than I did.

Rating: 2/5 coffee mugs left on the roof of your car as you drove away in a hurry

i am, your most faithful blogger, elisa