May

This month I read: 4 books from the Kingston Frontenac Public Library, and 3 books and 1 ebook from the Toronto Public Library, totaling to 8 books.

Tons of spoilers, read at your own risk!

Before we begin...

Honourable Mentions:

Over 120 Crochet Flowers and Blocks: Fabulous Motifs and Flowers

Synopsis: This book has crochet patterns for 60 different flowers and leaves, as well as 60 granny squares, triangles, and hexagons. In addition to written patterns, it also has visual diagram patterns. It also explains how to do all of the required stitches in the back of the book, and has acronym definitions on the side flaps.

My thoughts: I crocheted about 6 different flowers using a 5.0 mm crochet hook and acrylic yarn, and they all turned out really great. I like how the visual patterns meant I didn't really have to count my stitches; instead, I could just track what stitch I was on by moving a counter on the diagram. I didn't try any of the blocks, but might try some leaves now that I found my green yarn.

You may like this book if: A friend recently taught you how to crochet, and now you're obsessed.

The Tower of Nero by Rick Riordan

Synopsis: As a punishment for accepting bribes (in the form of flattery) during the war against Gaia (it’s such a long story that it would fill 5 books), the Greek god Zeus is punishing his son Apollo by transforming him into a mortal teenager named Lester Papadopoulos. As the former god of prophecies, Lester has had to travel all across the United States to free his oracles and defeat Caligula and Commodus, two of the three members of Triumvirate Holdings, an evil, eternal corporation that financed Kronos and Gaia’s villanous armies (another long story that would fill 4 more books) Now, Apollo must defeat the last emperor, Nero, before he destroys New York City. At the same time, he must also fight Python, a giant snake that has occupied the main Oracle at Delphi, and if left unchecked, will eventually control the future itself.

My thoughts: This is the final book of the Trials of Apollo series. I initially read the first four books in the summer of 2020, but the Tower of Nero hadn’t yet been released (oh how time passes). I luckily found a copy in the library, so I just re-read the summaries of the first four books to get back up to speed. I appreciate that Rick was trying to broaden the universe and incorporate new characters, but it’s definitely my least favourite series within the Percy Jackson universe. However, a lot of that is due to two major factors: firstly, I'm not super fond of Lester as a protagonist, and I wasn't particularly attached to any of the new side characters he introduced (I would have preferred to read more about any member of the Argo 7, or any number of smaller campers), and I think that's Ricks fault; secondly, he went out of his way to portray a world that was a big grittier (not all relationships work out, not all promises can be kept, not all people will survive), and I definitely appreciated that, so Rick can take the W. It's similar to when Percy and Annabeth fell into Tartarus, and Percy had to reckon with all of the harm he's caused in the past; it's not as nice, but you are stronger for it. If you are feeling nostalgic and can't get your hands on The Sun and the Star (the new gay book about Nico and Will), this series might make a good stopgap.

Rating: 3/5 arrows made of wood from a sacred grove that talks in Shakespearean-style English, which is pretty cringe ngl

Great or Nothing by Joy McCullough, Caroline Tung Richmond, Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spotswood

Synopsis: This is a re-telling of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. The original book takes place during the American Civil War, but this version is set during World War II, and takes place roughly half-way through the main story (Beth had died, but Amy and Meg have not yet married). Marmee is heavily involved in war committees around the neighbourhood, leaving Meg to hold down the homefront as she teaches at her old school. Jo has become a female factory worker in Boston. Amy told her family she was studying art in Montreal, but in reality she stole someone’s identity to join the Red Cross, and is currently working as a donut girl in London, England, where she finds Laurie, who has joined the Air Force. Beth, who died before this book begins, watches her sisters as a ghost.

My thoughts: Having four different authors each write a sister’s POV was a great idea for a collaborative book, so I’ll rank each section from worst to best.
Beth: In order to differentiate Beth’s perspective from her living sisters, all of her sections are poems instead of prose. They are interspersed between each section, and are haunting observations of her sister’s lives. This section is ranked last just because of how much I ugly-cried while reading her poems; it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.
Amy: I read Little Women a long time ago, and Amy was easily my least favourite sister. She was always vain, annoying, and selfish. In this version, I was not terribly impressed with her, although it was marginally better. I always thought that Amy and Laurie getting together was completely out of left field (it should have been Jo or no one), but in this re-telling, I actually understood how and why they got together.
Meg: Meg’s section was pretty good. It probably had the most call-backs to original side characters because she was still in their home-town and worked at her old school. Her story mostly focuses on how lonely she feels at home since all her sisters have left and her beau John Brooke is away at war. Interestingly, it also reference the Coconut Grove Fire, which I recently learned about on a history podcast.
Jo: Jo’s section was definitely the best. The author made the choice to have Jo be a queer woman exploring her first sapphic relationship, which was definitely a great choice. I also just gravitated most towards her storylines, which involved investigative journalism and Rosie-the-Riveter-style factory work.

Rating: 3/5 trays of donuts that you dropped all over a bunch of injured soldiers who only wanted a cup of hot coffee and a smile from a pretty girl

Talking to my Daughter About the Economy – Or, How Capitalism Works and How it Fails by Yanis Varoufakis

Synopsis: Yanis Varoufakis is the former Finance Minister for Greece. In this book, he discusses economics and capitalism at a surface level through simple, accessible speech. The book is structure as though he was talking to his daughter Xenia, and includes lots of personal anecdotes, but no statistics, complex concepts, or complicated terminology. The author uses the ideas of exchange value and experiential value as foundational concepts, and describes the history of capitalism, from the beginning of civilization, to the industrial revolution, to the present, without ever actually referencing capitalism (a purposeful choice on his part). He cautions young people that they cannot afford to leave economics to the economists, because they largely don’t know what they are doing.

My thoughts: In this printhouse, there are a lot of armchair economists and communists, but readers will know that I am not one of them. Nevertheless, I did enjoy this book; it was pretty entry level and easy to follow. Unfortunately, it mostly went in one ear and out the other. If you actually know stuff about economics, you probably won’t like this book as much, because there are a lot of simplifications (and general principles) to criticize. I found it pretty good, but at the same time I don't plan to read more about capitalism any time soon (readers will know that I prefer to get it straight from the source at theory nights).

Rating: 3/5 banks that are just making up their own money in order to lend it to you predatorily

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

Synopsis: Nellie Murdoch and her husband Richard live in a charming house in the suburbs of New York City. It’s the 1950s, and Nellie is a doting housewife, while Richard manages his chewing gum factory. On the surface, everything seems idyllic. Seventy years later, Alice and her husband Nate buy that same house. Alice is a city girl through and through, and this move to the suburbs is a complete 180 from her high-powered job in publishing. However, she was recently fired, and is now stuck at home playing housewife. She discovers some of Nellie’s old letters and magazines in the basement, and quickly becomes immersed in her 1950s lifestyle and recipes. As Alice learns more about Nellie’s life and marriage, her own marriage becomes strained (although most of that is Nate’s fault). What was Nellie really up to? And how will Alice cope with her own life?

My thoughts: I definitely liked this more than The Life Lucy Knew (another book by Karma Brown that I reviewed in March), but I only rated that 2/5, so it’s not much of a compliment. I thought that Nellie’s chapters were way more interesting than Alice’s, even though she was only gardening, cooking, and generally living in the 1950s. Alice’s and Nate’s plotline didn’t really interest me that much, especially because Alice kept making bad decisions. Why didn’t she tell Nate that she got fired from her job, instead of saying she quit to write a book? Why didn’t she tell Nate that she didn’t want to have kids right away? Most of all, why did she marry Nate when they’ve only been together for about a year? And why the heck didn’t she refuse to move to the suburbs, away from her life and all of her support systems? Nellie’s husband Richard was an abusive asshole, but I disliked Nate almost as much. I also struggled to write the plot synopsis for this book without framing Nellie as having a sinister secret (which she kind of did, but she was totally in the right, so I can’t blaspheme my girl like that).

Rating: 3/5 jars of the Murdoch family herb mix, a secret recipe passed down from mother to daughter that is to-die for

Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola

Synopsis: Kikiola (Kiki) Banjo is a British-Nigerian college student who just started her second year at Whitewell College in Southern England. She hosts a campus radio show called Brown Sugar where she gives relationship advice targeted to Whitewell's Black student body (aka Blackwell). Even though Kiki is hyperaware of all the cliques, social groups, and goings-on within Blackwell, she’s somewhat of an outsider: she’s perpetually single, and her only friend is also Brown Sugar’s producer. Mainly, Kiki just wants to keep her head down, finish her degree in politics, media, and culture, and snag a coveted internship in New York City. But to get the internship, she’ll have to work together with another student in order to grow her radio even further. And that student just so happens to be Malakai Korede, aka the Wasteman of Whitewell (Kiki sensed a disturbance in the Force within Blackwell, and put Malakai on blast during an episode of Brown Sugar). In order to save Malakai’s reputation and boost Brown Sugar, Kiki comes up with an elaborate fake dating scheme. Will they be able to put aside their differences (and their electric chemistry) to work together?

My thoughts: I am definitely not a fan of the fake dating trope, and my mind hasn’t really changed after reading this book. I thought that the reason for Kiki and Malakai’s fake relationship was pretty contrived, but the rest of the book was fantastic. It was a really interesting look into what Kiki’s life was like as a Nigerian living in the UK, especially because she and the rest of Blackwell really viewed themselves as African/Caribbean instead of African-British or African-American, which is what I am usually exposed to. Kiki also had an interesting backstory that explained her character motivations. I was really worried that Malakai and Kiki breaking up would be the main third-act conflict, and while it did happen, it was more of a byproduct of the actual third-act conflict, which was a fight against an actual villain, not just a miscommunication. The book also focused a lot on female friendships, instead of revolving around boys, which was very girlboss of the author.

Rating: 4/5 spiced plantain waffles with honey that taste best at 1 am

The Plotters by Un-Su Kim

Synopsis: Reseng never had a real family. He was found in a garbage can as a baby and lived at a Korean orphanage until he was four. Then he was adopted by Old Racoon (who is a man, not a racoon in any way), and taken to live in the Library. The Library does have a lot of books, and does employ a librarian, but it’s really a home base for Old Racoon’s network of professional assassins. These assassins, including an adult Reseng, get their assignments from the Plotters, a secret group of people that meticulously plan every assassination down to the letter. But Reseng is tired of the Plotters controlling his every move; will he be able to fight back and hunt the hunters?

My thoughts: I wasn’t sure that I was going to like this book, so I just started with the first chapter. It was pretty okay, so I continued on the assumption that it would get better. Unfortunately, it did not. Maybe it’s better in the original Korean (readers will know that I can't speak Korean) but it really did not grab me at all. Even though I basically never read books with pictures or illustrations, this book felt overwhelmingly gray in a way that regular books usually don’t. The whole tone was very dreary, maybe because Reseng hardly ever expressed emotions, and was a very gray and dreary person himself.

Rating: 2/5 Hot Takes, which are a Korean version of a Snicker’s bar

Fire on the Levee: The Murder of Henry Glover and the Search for Justice after Hurricane Katrina by Jared Fishman with Joseph Hooper

Synopsis: In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was in complete chaos. In contrast to other neighborhoods, Algiers was relatively untouched by floodwaters, but it was rampant with looters and supplies were running out. Anyone with any sense was preparing to leave, including a Black father named Henry Glover. Unfortunately, he never got the chance. He was unjustly shot by a police officer for trying to collect his cousins’ suitcases. A Good Samaritan helped Glover into his car and drove him to a local school, where the NOPD had set up a temporary HQ. Instead of receiving medical treatment, Henry died in the back of a stranger’s car, as his friends and the Good Samaritan were beaten by police. Henry’s body, and the Good Samaritan’s car were both taken by police, and eventually burned on the river bank. All of this is true, and this book describes Assistant Attorney General Jared Fishman’s attempt to uncover the truth and prosecute the offenders.

My thoughts: This was an incredibly sobering and depressing, yet very compelling read. Even though Fishman was not a journalist, I would consider this a work of investigative journalism, because he and his partner (a Black female FBI agent) did a mountain of investigative work in order to figure out what actually happened to Henry Glover. Before their involvement, Henry was considered missing or dead, because no one knew what had happened to his body (and those that did weren’t telling).

Rating: 3/5 guys who like guns so much that they joined the police department, because that’s a completely logical and admirable thing to do

The How and the Why by Cynthia Hand

Synopsis: 18 years ago, a pregnant 16-year-old attends a school for pregnant high schoolers in Idaho. Even though she plans to give the baby up for adoption, she is encouraged to write letters to her future baby, and after some reluctance, she ends up writing at least 10. In the present day, Cassandra McMurtrey has just turned 18. She’s in her senior year, and is trying to survive the rigors of high school, college applications, and a theater production of Into the Woods. And, oh yeah, her mother is dying of heart failure. At the request of her mom, Cass starts looking into her birth mother, a teen mom who gave her up for adoption 18 years ago.

My thoughts: Once again, I found the past timeline to be way more compelling than the present timeline, because I couldn’t connect much with Cass, and was way more interested in the letters from a nameless, pregnant teenager. In the middle of the book, Cass had a falling out with her best friend Nyla, by claiming that Nyla (who is Black) only won a scholarship because she was the token POC. She also outright dismissed Nyla’s trauma of losing her birth family due to war in Liberia simply because she was adopted by a rich (white) family. Nyla forgave her almost immediately. and it feels like the author only wrote Nyla as Black so that Cass being racist could be a second act conflict that gets immediately solved, redeeming Cass without having to change her character in any significant way, and that left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Rating: 2/5 hideously embarrassing conversations where you discuss your desire to have s*x with your best friend on your front porch, not knowing that your entire group of friends and family can hear you (because they’re hiding inside your house to throw you a surprise party)

And finally,

The Bonus Bracelets of the Month

will be available on the cafe

i am, your most faithful blogger, elisa