Category: Fiction Book Reviews

“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

“The Spare Man” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Spare Man” by Mary Robinette Kowal

With all the glittering banter of 1930s noir, this novel takes class, privilege, and identity theft and wraps them inside a murder mystery. Tesla Crane, heiress to the Crane fortune, and Shalmanseer Steward, a retired private detective, are on their honeymoon cruise from Earth to Mars. When Shal is framed for murder, Tesla has to find the murderer before they try to silence her husband.

Review

This book fits another of the prompts for the Disability Readathon I’m participating in for April: “Read a book with a person using a mobility aid on the cover” – the main character, Tesla, is using a cane on the cover.

I’m going to be honest and say I preferred Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series over this book. That said I think it’s mostly because the series is a different genre and style. This book is a murder mystery set in the future (2075), while the Lady Astronaut series is an alternate history series set in the 50s through the 70s and some choices made more sense in that series.

There was stuff I did like about the book – most of the characters are great and I did like the disability representation of the main character and her service dog. Her disabilities come from an accident and she’s still in the adjustment period so she’s still adjusting to her new reality for the most part. The murder mystery and figuring out what actually happened was interesting – sometimes a little confusing but I think it was meant to be because of how it all worked out. I also like how at the end of her books the author always has a section talking about the science of the book and how she figured things out for the plot.

There was one element of the book that stuck out like a sore thumb though and it’s the amount of intelligence based insults. I know those are far too ingrained in our society, and it’s not as though all of the other books I’ve read don’t have them too but they became very noticeable in this book. Part of the reason it was so jarring was that the main character went out of her way to call out gender based insults and failure to use pronouns, but then used intelligence based insults themselves or ignored them from another characters. One of the other characters was constantly insulting a third character with some of those insults. It must be said that at the time of reading I wasn’t in the mood for seeing one -ism called out while another was being ignored or used to fight the first one. Especially when the book had disability representation that was well done.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Spare Man”.

Book Details

A woman and man are standing at a bar on a space ship with stars visible above them dressed in formal attire. The woman is more towards the center of the cover and is wearing a white dress with a blue shawl, and is using a cane. The man is to the right and wearing a suit while leaning on the bar looking at the woman. On the floor to the left of the woman is a small white dog.

Author’s Website
Mary Robinette Kowal
Publisher / Date
Tor Books, October 2022
Genre
Science Fiction
Page Count
384
Completion Date
April 23, 2023

“One for All” Review

Posted on by Jen

“One for All” by Lillie Lainoff

One for All is a gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love.

Review

This was a fun read. The main character has to deal with a lot of BS because of her illness before she ends up in a much better situation. I did kind of feel like things went a little to easily for her with the new group of people but it works. Maybe sometimes you do end up with an entire group of good people without having to do much work. The plot was a little predictable but it was still fun to read.

I especially liked how POTs is worked into the story, which is set in 17th century France, in a way that made sense for the time without seeming unrealistic. There’s a lot to be said about how people who are disabled or chronically ill were treated at the time and now. The author also included brief explanation of POTs and how she worked it into the story at the end of the book.

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

Book Details

Book cover for One For All depicting a young woman with her back against a building with dark brown hair and wearing a red dress with a fencing sword held up in her hand. There are several other swords of the same type pointed at her in a circle around the title of the book in the center of the cover.

Author’s Website
Lillie Lainoff
Publisher / Date
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), March 2022
Genre
Historical Fiction, Young Adult
Page Count
336
Completion
April 7, 2023

“Meru” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Meru” by S.B. Divya

For five centuries, human life has been restricted to Earth, while posthuman descendants called alloys freely explore the galaxy. But when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, two unlikely companions venture forth to test the habitability of this unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations.

Review

I really enjoyed this book – the world building is great and while some terms used were a bit confusing it was mostly explained as you read a long what they were referring too. I really enjoyed all of the characters involved – even one that was kind of frustrating at first. I really enjoyed how disability is used in this book as a benefit – the planet is found is actually more stable to those who have a specific disability. There’s also a lot of learning about different people and coming to understand that sometimes you don’t know everything you think you know.

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

Book Details

Book cover of Meru showing a person standing on a rock outcropping at the bottom of a canyon with walls on either Sid e of them the sky ahead is purple. The book title is arranged vertically down the middle of the book with the author's name at the top.

Author’s Website
S.B. Divya
Publisher / Date
47North, February 2023
Genre
Science Fiction
Page Count
443
Completion Date
March 31, 2023

“Transcendent” Review

Posted on by Jen

Transcendent: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction edited by K.M. Szpara

There are fantastical stories with actual transgender characters, some for whom that is central and others for whom that isn’t. And there are stories without transgender characters, but with metaphors and symbolism in their place, genuine expressions of self through such speculative fiction tropes as shapeshifting and programming. Transgender individuals see themselves in transformative characters, those outsiders, before seeing themselves as human protagonists. Those feelings are still valid. Cisgender people can never quite understand this distancing. But though the stories involve transformation and outsiders, sometimes the change is one of self-realization. This anthology will be a welcome read for those who are ready to transcend gender through the lens of science fiction, fantasy, and other works of imaginative fiction.

Review

I love anthologies! Several awesome stories and new authors to discover every tine – what more can you ask for? Doesn’t matter if I like all of them or not – they’re always interesting to read and explore different stories and ideas. This one was no different. Some stories I didn’t really understand but that’s okay – others probably will get more out of them. I’m still going to check out every author and find out who they are and what else they’ve written because that’s always fun.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for Transcendent.

Book Details

Book cover of Transcendent showing a black person with a head scarf with their back towards the cover with their head turned to the right. They are wearing a colorful out fit and a head scarf with the words of the title in it and the words fantasy and community and many other words

Editor’s Website
K.M. Szpara
Publisher / Date
Lethe Press, September 2016
Genre
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories
Page Count
255
Completion Date
March 26, 2023