A DNF and a Sample

Kate Khavari, A Botanist’s Guide to Society and Secrets (2024)

Some might consider a bit controversial that I post about DNF books but I am pushing past my doubts here and just want to tell why this book didn’t work for me. It was not clear to me when I chose it on Netgalley that A Botanist’s Guide to Society and Secrets was the third book in a series (maybe I didn’t pay enough attention). I’m very undisciplined when it comes to reading series in order, and that’s normally not an issue, as in many cases, the author has a way to weave the back story into the first chapter and to make it easy for newcomers to catch the train. Here, it doesn’t work. You need to have read the first two books to understand anything about the story. I was lost at sea with lots of characters and previous events that were merely alluded to and it wasn’t fun. If people have started the series from the beginning I assume it might be a lot more fun.

I might have persevered if the mystery of this book was quick to start, but when I decided to DNF, at 23%, it was still a slow build (due to the development of characters I didn’t know) and I could not wait any longer. The last thing that annoyed me was that even though the book is set in the 1920s (and frequently alludes to the long lasting impacts of the Great War, in terms of trauma, shell shock, and changing attitudes of society), Saffron Everleigh and a few other characters behave in an anachronistic manner, which is certainly more a reflection on current female empowerment and consent than what went on at the time. I liked the botanical approach to mystery, but this was definitely not enough.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for review consideration.

Onto other partially read books, of another type: a Kindle’s sample taken from my TBR pile.

I really, really have no idea where I picked up the title What is not Yours is not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi. Goodreads tells me that several book blog friends and real life friends have read it, but who among them convinced me to add it to my TBR back in 2016? Nearly a decade later, am I the same person who thought she could enjoy this book?

This is a short story collection, and I don’t quite know how Kindle samples work, but I think I got a part from the first story of the book: Books and Roses, and I don’t know how much I’m missing till the end of the story. Anyway, I really enjoyed the writing and the tale, but I have no clue what I read. Or maybe, even if I have no clue?

Helen Oyeyemi starts with one character, and then it turns out that it’s only a secondary character in another story, which in turns derails into a totally different story. A bit like Russian nesting dolls (I had a set when I was a kid). And because I only got a sample, maybe I stopped at the medium doll, or maybe I reached the tiny doll, the one who is the most delicate and precious. I really enjoyed the writing, which was smooth and seamless. I liked the female characters and the luscious setting. This way of telling a tale reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which runs from one person to the next. Isn’t that a very positive reference?

At this stage, I’m intrigued and interested to learn more. Unfortunately, neither my local library nor the American bookshop I visited in the weekend had anything by her on shelves, but this book is definitely staying on my TBR.

Audrey Pleynet, Rossignol (2023)

This is my latest foray into science fiction in small quantity. This particular collection in France is for novellas that are supposed to be read in an hour but it took me a while to read that one. At first because I had difficulties with the complex world building, and then once I got used to it I went slow to enjoy it more. Audrey Pleynet was totally unknown to me but I hope she gets translated into English.

Rossignol is set in a remote spaceship on the margins. In this place different species and creatures live together in a sort of social experiment that was born after a war. Technology enables them to live in peace together, but it’s a precarious balance. Species each have their preferences and prejudices but interspecies children are of all kinds. Some, on the other hand, would like to return to racial purity… the clock is ticking.

The story is told by one such interracial creature, with many flashbacks, and I really enjoyed following her coming of age. She is “Majo humania” with some telepathic skills dire to her genetic combination. To her strict (and pure bred) mother’s disappointment she likes to spend time with dubious characters, experiment with drugs, be friend with people from other races. Audrey Pleynet is very evocative with words, images, and 5 senses (or are there more in that space station?) to create creatures without any human reference but that we still can understand or care about. Her message against racism is very powerful and goes beyond the usual human viewpoint.

It’s not an easy read because you need to accept to be overwhelmed by the colorful and ever-changing world of the station, and lose human references. The flashbacks don’t help either. It definitely takes some time, and that’s almost a shame that the book is only a novella. I would probably have loved to stay longer with our heroine.

Elizabeth Strout, The Burgess Boys (2013)

In a weird way, I was familiar of the Burgess Boys without even being aware. I had met them in a book I read last year, Olive Again, where they feature with their wives and their dysfunctional relationship in one of the loosely linked short stories. I had not connected the dots at the time, that Elizabeth Strout was revisiting several characters from her previous books. And I really like this idea, especially for a writer who built an entire world in a fictitious small town in Maine.

This novel takes some time to find a good pace. I struggled at the beginning, but after the halfway mark I could not leave it and wanted to stay with Jim, Bob and sister Susan Burgess. They grew on me, although at the very beginning I didn’t like them at all. Yes, they are difficult to love. They carry the weight of a childhood tragedy. They have grown apart, two of them in New York City, Jim and Bob, and their sister Susan who staid behind in the Maine hometown. Their spouses are not exactly likeable either. Well, it’s all complicated.

And it gets even more complicated when Susan’s son gets in deep trouble for -maybe?- a hate crime. That could also be a stupid mistake from a troubled, depressed boy. Jim is an arrogant, successful lawyer who bullies his little brother and despises Susan and their Maine hometown. Bob is forever in his big brother’s shadow, carrying guilt and complicated feelings. But they still want to help their sister and save their nephew from prison and media attention.

Many parts of the book are slightly uncomfortable, not because they are not good but because Strout wants us to understand dysfunctional situations in their complexity and that’s not easy. My reservation comes from the conflagration of too many topics all at once. The hate crime (apparently drawn from a real life incident in Maine), the immigration, the integration of Somali residents into a small, ageing community… It was probably all too much on top of the family strife. The proof is that it fades in the background in the last quarter of the book and it’s a shame because it could have been another book altogether.

I really liked the character development and subtlety of the sibling and marriage relationships. It made for a very rich book that will probably be worth revisiting in a few years’ time. I can’t wait to read another book by Strout, I love the world she has built!

Margaret Atwood, Old Babes in the Wood (2023)

I started to read this collection around New Year and I finished by the end of January, how come I was sure I had already posted about it? Probably wishful thinking. This collection feels a bit like a late continuation of the semi-autobiographical collection Moral Disorder and Other Stories that I’ve read last year. I enjoyed meeting again with Nell and Tig, even if the tone of the book is a lot sadder. Many stories reflect on ageing, losing spouses and friends, grieving and mortality. But because it’s Margaret Atwood, it doesn’t mean that it makes for a gloomy reading all around!

Some stories feature some dystopian world or SF influence. I had a laugh when in “Impatient Griselda” an alien creature tries to distract imprisoned humans by telling them a story inspired by (mostly misunderstood) human myths. Another story, Freeforall, is more in the vein of The Handmaid Tales, set in a matriarchal dictatorship where arranged marriages are common practice. Another weird story, Metempsychosis, is about a snail getting reincarnated into a woman: it was a tad too hard for me to follow Margaret Atwood’s imagination that far.

Still, I preferred the more realistic stories, especially those around old friendships, like Bad Teeth or A Symposium. Widows and Wooden Box are positively heart-breaking. The writing is always crisp and admirable. I could probably read Margaret Atwood’s shopping lists and enjoy them, so my post doesn’t pretend to be objective. I want to explore whatever else my local library has by her. Any recommendation of lesser-known titles?

Johan Rundberg, The Queen of Thieves (2024)

This book is set in 1880s Sweden and follows 12-year-old Mika as she goes about her chores and minds other kids at the Public orphanage. Her life is difficult, but she grows worried when some kids are starting to behave suspiciously, and then altogether disappear. Something is not right: she suspects they have skipped school and run away to become pickpockets. But as Mika starts to investigate, with a little help from an old friend from the police force, she soon finds herself in deep trouble.

I knew from Netgalley that this is the second installment of a middle-grade historical series, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying it tremendously! For sure I would have liked it even more if I’d read the first one but I could understand most of it. The pace was good and the setting in 19th century Sweden kept me interested all the way. I found Mika very likeable, and also believable, even when the adventures were really stretching credibility. Mika is a mature 12-year-old, no doubt wise beyond her years because of the hardships, and she has a sense of duty and integrity. There’s a very nice balance between being hopeful to improve her life condition and that of her friends and doing the right thing in difficult circumstances.

The book gets a little dark at times and so I would probably recommend it for older middle school kids. There are elements of suspense around Mika’s origin story, and I would love to follow her in the next adventure!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for review consideration.

Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat (2010)

It’s the third book by Ben Macintyre that I read and I can say from the start that it’s the first time I’ve been disappointed. I had probably higher expectations, given that I enjoyed Agent Sonya and The Spy and the Traitor a lot, and that the book was made into a movie… but I considered several times DNFing this book and I was constantly checking my progress (there’s easily 25% in my Kindle edition that is devoted to notes). I didn’t expect that at all!

It’s one of those books where you’re drowned into the minutiae of the research, and in this particular incident of the Second World War, there was no shortage of documents and sources, people were eager to talk. A few years after the war journalists started digging, and to prevent uncontrolled revelations the British MI6 authorized a few key people of the operation to write their version… and even make a movie about it. So much so that I wondered, in the end, why Macintyre wanted to add his own version to it. Probably because it had been forgotten and it had a lot of potential.

And yes, make no mistake, the facts themselves are rather astonishing! The British attempted to trick the German armies in order for them to leave Sicilia with fewer defense before the Americans and English launched their first attack on the continent. The ingenious way they came up with was to use a dead man, disguise him as a military officer and leave the body at sea with “secret” letters in his pockets. It was a huge gamble, because there’s millions of reasons why it could have failed, and yet it succeeded beyond expectations.

With such an implausible yet true story, that’s all the more frustrating that the book wasn’t better than it is. I don’t need to know what jam the guys put on their toast before going to a meeting. It makes me want to write this in all caps!! And yes, at some point the book reached that level of detail. I wish an editor would have stopped Macintyre and told him to take a break. And perhaps, just perhaps, that’s what happened in his subsequent books, because this one was published 8 and 10 years before the two books I enjoyed so much. That, or else his writing and method just got better. You got to give the man credit. He’s a great researcher, and he knows how to fish fascinating stories on the spying world.

Valérie Igounet, Ils sont partout (2022)

The main character Rose works as a journalist in a women’s magazine in Paris. Her brother is quietly absorbing conspiracy theories from the internet until one day, he just leaves home and disappears. Rose tries to find him: helped by a seasoned journalist expert in extremist and radically conservative groups (what French people call the “far-right”), she discovers a myriad of groups that recruit people like her brother, turning earnest people into potentially dangerous people. At first she has downplayed those theories as benign and stupid, but she soon learns that she should take them seriously, as should we.

The graphic novel is quite short and I felt it presents a lot, probably too much. From QAnon to moon landing theories, from Anti-Semitism to vaccines, from flat earth to 9/11… The writer doesn’t attempt to debunk all these theories but to show that those groups are loosely connected and that one belief soon gives way to another, until the person is almost (?) brainwashed into a cult, or into possibly violent actions. Because of the short format, the ending feels rushed and overly optimistic. Based on a tiny factual detail that he knows “for sure”, Rose’s brother suddenly realizes that the doctrine of the guys he blindly followed isn’t based on anything real. As much as we don’t get to understand exactly how a person would progressively accept “alternative facts” like flat earth, I’m not convinced that these beliefs could collapse like a house of cards.

I believe it’s a great idea to present a work of journalism on a topic like conspiracy theorists in a graphic format. The written form can be too dry and also lets you conveniently forget that conspiracy theorists are coming and going in all walks of life. This graphic novel is a thinly veiled work of fiction, but the major French conspiracy theorists show up without even a change of name. I didn’t really like the drawing but it was still a very interesting and quick read, I hope that it will appeal to young people!

Puloma Ghosh, Mouth: Stories (2024)

I like short stories and I’m always enthusiastic about reading new collections, but I find that I’m not as enthusiastic to review them! (I have finished 3 of them and posted about none so far). Of course, a collection means that I’ve liked some stories more than others, and sometimes stories in the collection are so different that it’s tough to say anything about all of them except something bland and vague.

I didn’t know Puloma Ghosh at all before picking this book on Netgalley, I was just intrigued by the cover art. This “strategy” has sometimes backfired for me in the past, but this time it didn’t. Intriguing might be the right word for the whole collection, because each of the stories was unexpected and strange in some wayd.

Sometimes it’s an alternative world or a dystopia, sometimes it goes into horror territory. It’s often dark, almost always weird. It reminded me of Kelly Link’s stories, but I must confess it’s been a while since I read Link. Ghosh is a young Indian-born American woman, and some stories allude to immigrant experience or travel back to India, but it’s not the main point of these stories.

I enjoyed Leaving things most, as it starts in a town that inhabitants are slowly deserting because of a dark menace around wolves. It’s maybe a werewolf story, but it would be too easy to classify it only like that. Another story I loved is Lemon Boy, a boy that the narrator meets at a party and who tells her about strange holes where people disappear. The Fig Tree is a slightly more traditional haunting story of a young girl who recently lost her mother and is traveling to her native country with her father. The first story of the collection, Desiccation, took me a while to get into, because at first you’d think it’s a realist story of an immigrant girl who is supposed to befriend the only other immigrant girl in town, except that the second girl is… let’s just say uncanny to not spoil anything? and the town they live in is in a world without any adult men.

All stories are very atmospheric, but sometimes I found that what was supposed to happen was a bit too vague for me. It’s been a while I was looking for the right reference that this collection reminded me of, and I finally got it: 2 years ago I read Life Ceremony, a collection of weird short stories by Sayaka Murata. Although Murata’s stories are precise in a very Japanese way, they both share something of surreal mixed with horror. I’m glad I discovered Ghosh and would gladly read other stories by her.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for review consideration.

C. Blain, J.M. Jancovici, World Without End (2021)

I normally read graphic books in one day, but this one took me more than 2 weeks… It is huge (large format, hardcover and 200 pages)… but it is also challenging… and depressing. But a very necessary read for those interested in climate change and the impact on our lives. My best friend recommended it to me back in December, and I was not expecting to learn that much, given that we are both interested in the topic already through various means.

I like the art of Christophe Blain, who published several non-fiction (or slightly fictitious) graphic books about serious topics and places you can’t easily access: he’s well-known for Quai d’Orsay, (Weapons of Mass Diplomacy, in the English version) a thinly veiled account of the French foreign office under dashing minister Dominique de Villepin. I have also read a book, part comic, part cookbook, about famous chef Alain Passard who focuses on excellent locally-grown veggies.

This time, Christophe Blain teams up with Jean-Marc Jancovici, a famous (here) French climate and energy expert. The result is this huge book, part story of the world from the beginning to the end (with a detour on quantum physics) part manifesto on what needs to change to adapt to climate change. This was the best selling book in France for the year 2022, and I’m rather impressed by my country people for that particular choice!

This is not an easy book at all. First, it’s quite depressing. Second, it’s quite detailed, at times I felt overwhelmed by the accumulation of facts and of bad news (not a good combination). Third, it is quite polemic in what solution it advocates, because Jancovici is very clearly in favor of nuclear energy. (I’m aware there are a lot of quite, but it’s a book of superlatives)

Jancovici says that nuclear energy has been demonized and that it is nowhere as dangerous as we are told. He also explains that we have an idealized view on renewable energy (solar or wind) and that they won’t be able to replace fuel-based energy. The problem is that I’m not enough of an expert to decide, and most of the readers are the same. I find it refreshing and eye-opening to hear information that is not widely publicized, and that we can have a debate. It shows that the awareness is there already, and that’s good news.

Beyond the polemic on nuclear energy, it would be great if readers would focus on another key message which is to be frugal and moderate. Jancovici says that he sometimes treats himself to a good beef dish (blanquette de veau in French), but that’s a rare treat, and not something he indulges every day. Unfortunately it’s an inner discipline that is hard to foster and sustain. I’m sad that this past of the book might be lost in the noise, and that moderation by choice will be replaced by moderation by obligation.

Mariah Fredericks, A Death of No Importance (2018)

I got this mystery as a Christmas present and started it almost right away. The setting is New York in 1910 and the blurb conjures the vibe of “Upstairs, Downstairs” or “Downton Abbey”. A lady’s maid working for a wealthy family that recently arrived in New York and isn’t well considered by the “old money” socialites? This reminds me of the Julian Fellowes series The Gilded Age (although set in 1880s). All this to say, the mystery should have been just right my alley. Alas! My experience was okay but not great.

I was not entirely convinced by this mystery. As it is often the case in the first novel of a series, it tries to cram way too many topics (including social and political commentary) in one single book that it ends up being overly complicated and long. Despite being choke-full of details, it gave a weird impression of not being firmly set in a particular time of history, except for the very last bit where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is mentioned. I think it’s because the main character feels slightly anachronistic in her behavior and reactions. Overall, I had difficulty believing in the whole story. The lady’s maid has lot of time on her hands to investigate and the addition of a flirting Irish journalist and a very helpful Jewish pharmacist doing some kind of CSI… Mmh, that was really stretching it.

Lastly, my pet peeve… and yes, very shallow I confess: art cover that doesn’t match the book. The French edition of this mystery shows a woman wearing a crinoline skirt and what looks like a bonnet… nowhere near 1910 to me. Crinolines would be 1860s fashion, and if you wonder what a domestic would wear in the 1910s, this page has a lot of scanned newspaper ads from this era. I’m sorry, I’m a stickler to period-appropriate fashion and that irks me to find a mistake that 2 minutes on Pinterest would have corrected. Ugh… Also, the title in French is actually opposite from the English title, which may actually be misleading as to the writer’s intention. Yes, at this stage you may accuse me of being ungenerous and petty!

I’m forever favoring historical mysteries that are impeccable in their historical research. I can’t find just right now a series set in the 1910s that I would be satisfied with (I tried Chatgpt, but nothing came up either, which made me feel vindicated for some reason), but for the Victorian era I could point to Anne Perry for example. Do you know a well-researched mystery set in the 1910s?