Book #71 of 2019: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land This house cleaner’s personal narrative is a heartbreaking reminder of the precarious nature of life in America’s lower classes. Author Stephanie Land illustrates how a single surprise expense will send her situation spiraling, how her already-low wages …
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Book Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Book #70 of 2019: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (The Illuminae Files #1) This YA sci-fi adventure gets better as it goes along, and I’m inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt that some of the elements I still don’t like are artifacts of the audiobook format. (It’s an epistolary novel …
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Book Review: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin M. Kruse
Book #69 of 2019: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin M. Kruse An interesting and meticulously-researched book from Princeton historian Kevin M. Kruse, examining the rise of America’s religious right over the course of the twentieth century. The basic thesis here is twofold: that only in its relatively recent …
Book Review: The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
Book #68 of 2019: The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie Here is a story I have heard. It’s a loose retelling of Hamlet, from the perspective of a god bound to the area, addressed to the transgender soldier serving the role of Horatio to his deposed prince. It’s a striking use of first- and second-person …
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Book Review: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Book #67 of 2019: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki I like the portions of this novel that are presented as the diary entries of a depressed Japanese girl, but I don’t have much patience for the fictionalized version of author Ruth Ozeki who has supposedly found her writing washed up on …
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Book Review: The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
Book #66 of 2019: The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee (Montague Siblings #2) Another rip-roaring historical comedy about young people who don’t fit neatly into 18th-century European society’s expectations for them. This book is less overtly romantic than the previous novel that centers on bisexual teenager Henry Montague — which fits, …
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Book Review: Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen
Book #65 of 2019: Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen There’s a little bit too much telling over showing in the beginning of this novel about a futuristic time-traveler who creates a new life for himself after getting stranded in 1996. Luckily the plot picks up once the protagonist is belatedly extracted back …
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Book Review: Evermore by Sara Holland
Book #64 of 2019: Evermore by Sara Holland (Everless #2) Another YA fantasy duology with a promising first volume followed by a more conventional and generic sequel. The best thing about the opening Everless novel was its system of time as currency, in which the rich magically extend their existence by literally taxing the life …
Book Review: King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
Book #63 of 2019: King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo (Nikolai Duology #1) After five novels — and some short stories that I haven’t yet read — author Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse setting feels wonderfully lived-in. This latest volume is the start of a new duology in that Russian-flavored fantasy world, but it essentially reads as …
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Book Review: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
Book #62 of 2019: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow If not a Great American Novel, this winner of the 1954 National Book Award for Fiction at least feels like an attempt at a Great American Picaresque, following a charming young Jewish ruffian around Depression-era Chicago and his subsequent wanderings away from responsibility. …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 