Category: Fiction Book Reviews

“We Don’t Swim Here” Review

Posted on by Jen

“We Don’t Swim Here” by Vincent Tirado

Bronwyn is only supposed to be in rural Hillwoods for a year. Her grandmother is in hospice, and her father needs to get her affairs in order. And they’re all meant to make some final memories together.

Except Bronwyn is miserable. Her grandmother is dying, everyone is standoffish, and she can’t even go swimming. All she hears are warnings about going in the water, despite a gorgeous lake. And a pool at the abandoned rec center. And another in the high school basement.

Anais tries her hardest to protect Bronwyn from the shadows of Hillwoods. She follows her own rituals to avoid any unnecessary attention—and if she can just get Bronwyn to stop asking questions, she can protect her too. The less Bronwyn pays attention to Hillwoods, the less Hillwoods will pay attention to Bronwyn. She doesn’t get that the lore is, well, truth. History. Pain. The living aren’t the only ones who seek retribution when they’re wronged. But when Bronwyn does more exploring than she should, they are both in for danger they couldn’t expect.

Review

This was a really fun read. I was one of those books where once I started I just kept going and finished it all in one go. I loved all of the characters and the central mystery was great. The town was suck in a trap of its own making from the past act and couldn’t see a way out of it because so much had gone into covering up what that act actually had been that only a few left knew the full story. I really enjoyed the resolution of everything though there was on plot point I wish had been explained. I believe I know the answer given what is said throughout the book but it’s never explicitly said nor does anyone in the town seem to realize the truth of that plot point of everything that’s gone on. Though to be fair the main characters are teens and it’s the kind of story where adults don’t entirely know what they should know. It works either way.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “We Don’t Swim Here”.

Book Details

The heads of two young people, both Black, are on the cover facing away from each other. One is clearly visible while the other is almost entirely blurred out. The background of the cover is dark greenish blue water at the top and solid black from the middle down.

Author’s Website
Vincent Tirado
Publisher / Date
Sourcebooks Fire, May 2023
Genre
Mystery, Thriller
Page Count
320
Completion Date
May 20, 2023

“Land of Big Numbers” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Land of Big Numbers” by Te-Ping Chen

Gripping and compassionate, Land of Big Numbers traces the journeys of the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled—messily, violently, but still beautifully—into the present.

Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen’s stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer, the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk, high-reward temptations of China’s volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit, trapped for no reason, on a subway platform for months, waiting for official permission to leave.

With acute social insight, Te-Ping Chen layers years of experience reporting on the ground in China with incantatory prose in this taut, surprising debut, proving herself both a remarkable cultural critic and an astonishingly accomplished new literary voice.

Review

I enjoyed all of the stories in this book one way or another. Some were a little confusing – but I’m pretty sure that was a the point in at least one case. Things were happening for basically no reason at all besides government regulations. Each story was interesting with good characters to learn about. That said to some degree I did feel like there could have been more variety in the stories told or at least more depths to the “why” of things if there was a specific cultural element to everything. Not that things have to be explained to outsiders but I felt like something was missing from some of the stories.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Land of Big Numbers”.

Book Details

Four images in the shape of China are shown on the cover in various colors one half covering the other downwards. The title of the book is over the images.

Author’s Website
Te-Ping Chen
Publisher / Date
Houghton Mifflin, February 2021
Genre
General Fiction, Short Stories
Page Count
256
Completion Date
May 20, 2023

“A Master of Djinn” Review

Posted on by Jen

“A Master of Djinn” by P. Djèlí Clark

Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.

So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world forty years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.

Alongside her Ministry colleagues and a familiar person from her past, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city—or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…

Review

This was such a great read. The characters are fun to read about and the world building was fantastic. I had a lot of fun reading this book. It’s set in 1912 so there’s a bit of history to think about with the time period but it’s also a rather different world because of the changes that have happened. The world building explains enough to keep the story going but doesn’t answer everything. Which I actually appreciated. Since the story is set over 40 years after the changes it would have required a lot of information dumping which the story never did. Some things are explained others are left for the reader to figure out. I really enjoyed how everything worked out and the crisis was solved. If P. Djèlí Clark writes another novel in this series I will definitely read it. There are several short stories also set in the same universe that I’m going to see if I can find and read as well.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “A Master of Djinn”.

Book Details

A person stands at the bottom of a set of stairs in a palace of gold. At the top of the cover are the inner workings of a machine with gears and pipes and other bits of technology.

Author’s Website
P. Djèlí Clark
Publisher / Date
Tordotcom Publishing, May 2021
Genre
Alternate History, Fantasy, Mystery
Page Count
400

Completion Date
May 14, 2023

“Lakelore” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Lakelore” by Anna-Marie McLemore

Everyone who lives near the lake knows the stories about the world underneath it, an ethereal landscape rumored to be half-air, half-water. But Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only ones who’ve been there. Bastián grew up both above the lake and in the otherworldly space beneath it. Lore’s only seen the world under the lake once, but that one encounter changed their life and their fate.

Then the lines between air and water begin to blur. The world under the lake drifts above the surface. If Bastián and Lore don’t want it bringing their secrets to the surface with it, they have to stop it, and to do that, they have to work together. There’s just one problem: Bastián and Lore haven’t spoken in seven years, and working together means trusting each other with the very things they’re trying to hide.

Review

This is a great story with great characters. Bastián and Lore are trans nonbinary, neurodivergent Mexican American teens who find themselves in a very weird situation while figuring themselves out. The world under the lake isn’t explained in much detail but that’s mostly because no one really knows much about it anymore.

Bastián was just able to access it as a child and then Lore ended up being able to access it as well. They don’t know any more about it than we do really. And the land under the lake isn’t really the main point – it’s Bastián and Lore dealing with who they are as they work through some issues. Bastián has ADHD and Lore is dyslexic and the book goes into a lot of detail about how their brains work and what their lives are like because of it.

I really enjoyed reading all of that information and the way the characters interact with each other as they learn about each other. This isn’t a story where Bastián and Lore are the only ones who understand and love them for who they are – Their family and friends see them for who they are and love them deeply. Which is good because “two people against the world” stories are a little frustrating – even when it’s realistic because of the way some families.

This was a good read because of the difference. The land under the lake is what brings Bastián and Lore together and helps them figure some additional things out that they needed to deal with.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Lakelore”.

Book Details

The book cover has two teens who appear to be standing chest deep in a lake one looking away and one facing the viewer. There are mountains and the sun visible behind them. The lake has a variety of colors - blue, green, red, orange, purple in swirls. The teens have brown skin and brown hair and thee are green butterflies on their heads. One is wearing a white shirt and the other a yellow hoodie.

Author’s Website
Anna-Marie McLemore
Publisher / Date
Feiwel & Friends, March 2022
Genre
Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count
304
Completion Date
May 6, 2023

“Elena Knows” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Elena Knows” by Claudia Piñeiro (Translated by Frances Riddle)

After Rita is found dead in the bell tower of the church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.

Review

One more book for the Disability Readathon, which fits the last of the reading prompts – “Read a translation”.

This book is one of those complicated ones because as it turns out the characters aren’t very likable and that’s the point. Both Elena and Rita are rather mean spirited people who judge others and the whole book centers around Elena’s assumptions about her daughter. The book explores mother-daughter relationships, abortion rights, religion and disability – and it’s not nice about any of them. There are several disturbing things that happen in this book that have everything to do with how women’s bodies are treated.

The formatting was a bit difficult as the book is entirely Elena’s thoughts as she goes about her day and flashbacks to past conversations but it’s almost walls of text with the dialogue not evenly spaced out. I’m not sure if that’s a translator choice or the original author.

There’s an afterward at the end of the book that gives a bit more context about the author and the themes of the book. I’m glad that was there to get a deeper understanding of the author and the intent of the book. I’m probably going to check out the author’s other works as a result.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Elena Knows”.

Book Details

The cover is yellow with the profile of a woman in blue looking to the left. There's what looks like a chair over the profile - the seat and back of the chair are in red and then the legs are in blue and end up being part of the profile. The title, author's name and translator's name are the top left corner of the cover.

Publisher / Website / Date
Published in English by Church Press, July 2021
Originally published in 2007 in Argentina
Genre
Mystery
Page Count
158
Completion Date
April 30, 2023

“Otherbound” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Otherbound” by Corinne Duyvis

Amara is never alone. Not when she’s protecting the cursed princess she unwillingly serves. Not when they’re fleeing across dunes and islands and seas to stay alive. Not when she’s punished, ordered around, or neglected. She can’t be alone, because a boy from another world experiences all that alongside her, looking through her eyes.

Nolan longs for a life uninterrupted. Every time he blinks, he’s yanked from his Arizona town into Amara’s mind, a world away, which makes even simple things like hobbies and homework impossible. He’s spent years as a powerless observer of Amara’s life. Amara has no idea … until he learns to control her, and they communicate for the first time.

Amara is terrified. Then, she’s furious. All Amara and Nolan want is to be free of each other. But Nolan’s breakthrough has dangerous consequences. Now, they’ll have to work together to survive — and discover the truth about their connection.

Review

This is the fourth book I’ve read for the Disability Readathon and fits the prompt to read something from my library. I used the Libby App which connects to my local library’s ebook catalog.

Honestly this is another one where I ended up preferring another of the author’s books (“On the Edge of Gone”). That said I did enjoy this book for the most part because I really liked the characters and the way they ended up working together to resolve things. It took a lot of work to resolve the conflict and choices were made they’ll have to live with. Some things did get left unanswered but you kind of see that coming because there’s no way for the characters to really know everything. The disability repression was good too – it’s one where the disabilities are just there and not really the focus of the story which can be a good. Especially when the disabilities are the result of trauma – which in this case they were.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Otherbound”.

Book Details

The title of the book takes up most of the cover and is split into two words Other Bound. Behind the text are the profiles of the two main characters looking away from each other. Nolan is on the left with his eyes close and Amara is on the right with her eyes open. On Nolan's side there's a house on the bottom of the cover and Amara's there's a castle.

Author’s Website
Corinne Duyvis
Publisher / Date
Amulet Books, June 2014
Genre
Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count
416
Completion Date
April 25, 2023