My Special One, Volume 1 (CBR16 #17)

The Read Harder Challenge is living up to its name this year for me… pushing me out of my comfort zones and into areas I have not read in a long time or in the case of My Special One at all. My sister read manga when we were growing up and I just never saw the allure (it probably had a lot to do with my lack of reading comics, something she also did). The task was specifically to read a manga or manhwa so I kept my eyes peeled for reviews that caught my eye and in Cannonball Read’s Romance Comment Diversion GentleRain mentioned that they are really enjoying the romance manga subgenre of a girl meets an idol whose personality is radically different from his public one and that they were reading My Special One. I did a little sleuthing and decided it would be a good place to start for me. 

I like to think I was right and that my less than stellar experience with this was barrier of entry stuff on my end. The bones of the story are good, we are with Sahoko who has decided to never fall in love again after experiencing a terrible rejection, in much the same way teenagers everywhere tend to overreact and have black and white thinking. She has a chance meeting with pop idol Kouta who assumes she’s a fan and when informed of his mistake vows to show her that he’s a person worth liking, and his band is worth appreciating. Sahoko uses every bit of her cynicism to protect herself, but Kouta is a good guy, and she falls for him.  

This is fluff and is meant to be read that way. But… the characterization of Sahoko never sat well with me. I’m not sure if it is the age gap, or her heel-turn, or a translation issue, but I found myself not rooting for the couple to get together the way a romance is supposed to set you up to do. But this is very possibly a me issue and this genre might just not be for me. Not all things can be, after all.  

Love, Lies, & Cherry Pie (CBR16 #16)

I make a habit of reading Jackie Lau books when I can, and being able to read Love, Lies, & Cherry Pie as an ARC was something I just couldn’t pass up, particularly when the logline for the book is a Pride and Prejudice retelling having a good time with some tropes (Lau tends to always have more than one in her work). The tropes in question are fake dating, forced proximity, and enemies to lovers, and I think Lau did a good job with them.  

Our fake daters are Emily Hung and Mark Chan. Emily’s mom has been chatting up Mark non-stop so when they finally meet at Emily’s youngest sister’s wedding she is immediately closed off to him and what he represents to her as the perfect Asian boyfriend and comes away with the impression that he thinks he’s too good for her, since she’s an author who works part time at a coffee shop to make ends meet and he’s an engineer. At their next meet cute – which Emily’s mother tricks her into – Emily suggests they get their parents off their backs by fake dating. As the kids used to say, hijinks ensue.  

Fake dating has its pros and cons, but I really enjoyed Lau’s spin that her leads have to ‘real’ fake date to keep everyone believing that they are dating, and it is this forced proximity that gets Emily to reevaluate her position on just who Mark actually is. The emotional beats of the story lean hard into the characters senses of self-worth and ways in which our assumptions about others are a form of self-sabotage. The first half of the book is told exclusively from Emily’s point of view which worked well (although the end of the first half did drag a bit for me) because in a romance we care about who the characters are and why they (think) they cannot be together, Emily had lots and lots of reasons.  I was excited to get Mark’s POV because as is often the case in my favorite fake dating books, he was the half of the equation who agreed to the shenanigans because he thought there was something there with Emily from the beginning.  

This is a Lau book, so the Toronto and food details are excellent. As was the publishing meta commentary of Emily dealing with industry issues. Lau also name drops my favorite children’s book that I swear no one else has ever read, All-of-a-Kind Family so bonus points there.  

This Book Will Make You Kinder (CBR16 #15)

Embarking on reading This Book Will Make You Kinder I knew extraordinarily little. I could not say I was familiar with its author and illustrator, Henry James Garrett although his visual work is what he is most known for. I had spotted ASKReview’s review (which must be how it ended up on my to read list), but that was pretty much it. But at some point this winter, I plunked it on my library requests list without too much thought other than, I could, in fact, be kinder.  

On the whole I feel pretty good about my kindness level re: humanity. I learned a long time ago that kind is better than nice and have embraced it. (Not directly related, but a few years ago a friend moved from the East Coast to the West Coast of the U.S. and the viral post about East Coast Kind and West Coast Nice often comes to mind and was something we talked about A LOT until she moved to the Chicagoland area.) But I’m a very fallible human and I have a temper. So, a book that unpacks what kindness is, and its relationship to empathy and metaethics from a philosophical point of view sounded good to me since I’m on the lookout for ideas on how to apply more empathy to everyday life 

Overall, did this book do as advertised? Yes, by unflinchingly elucidating the mistakes that can be made that limit our empathy and reminding us that we are responsible for doing our best to make those mistakes less often. It started strong, and then the meat of the first half took some slogging through for yours personally, but it picked back up again. It certainly did not hurt that Garrett’s illustrations are used to great effect throughout to highlight points and give the reader a laugh break. 

Butcher & Blackbird (CBR16 #14)

The first book in the Ruinous Love Trilogy came to my attention thanks to my fellow Cannonballers. I feel like I went from knowing absolutely nothing about this book or its author to being flooded with information about it and somehow still managing to go into the reading experience with extraordinarily little spoiled for me (something I hope to accomplish with my own review). Malin’s review from March was the linchpin as I don’t traditionally go in for dark romance but if Malin gave it her blessing, figured I could handle it. 

The elevator pitch for Butcher & Blackbird can be boiled down to two serial killers of serial killers have a meet cute over a dead body and proceed to form an unlikely friendship of sorts wherein they meet once a year to compete to murder another serial killer, and through that experience fall in love. But that does not capture, at all, the zany romcom qualities of this book. Nor does it capture the long list of trigger warnings on this book (I can hear you thinking that surely mentioning murder and serial killers several times in the description will clue you in. No, it does not, you must read the trigger warnings at the beginning of the book or the author’s website before embarking on this one because its A LOT.)  

A story like this succeeds or fails on its leads and Weaver does an excellent job of crafting two characters that leap off the page and allow you to understand their macabre hobbies. Sloane and Rowan are excellent creations (as are the supporting characters, who will reappear in the next two books in the series). Sloane Sutherland, known as the Orb Weaver to the FBI who cannot track or identify her, or understand the art she leaves behind, is closed off from the world having exactly one friend when we meet her and not in contact with her family. She is also brilliant, and paranoid for good reasons. Rowan is an award-winning chef by day and brutal murderer by night as well as being affable and outgoing and extremely loyal to his brothers. He’s a bit of a flirt and it takes Sloane literal years to understand that he is completely head over heels in love with her, and their competition has always been an excuse to spend time with her, when he knows that if he hadn’t suggested it at their first meeting he would never have seen her again.  

The steamy part of the book picks up about 60% of the way through and goes from zero to one hundred. I thought the balance between the sections, with the more gory, murder bits towards the beginning and end and the more traditional romance plotting in the middle (minus the pining which is all throughout the book) worked well, but I can see readers not vibing with Weaver’s choices (wanting more nitty-gritty of the murder planning or serial killer research, or maybe wanting the feelings of the romance to show up earlier instead of the physical attraction).  

Romancing Mister Bridgerton (CBR16 #13)

This is a re-read for me, put to the front of the line by a weeklong battle with a sinus infection and certain sectors of my social media intake being flooded with Bridgerton season three promos featuring Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton as Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton. As I am not made of stone, I’ve read all 8 main Bridgerton books, watched the first two seasons of the show (a lack of Netflix subscription prevented my viewing of the Queen Charlotte season), and have enjoyed Nicola a ton across several shows. Add to that having fond memories of this book I decided to give it a revisit before the new season finally arrives next month (well, half of it at least).  

Brief review: perfectly pleasant, still nice to see a lead like Penelope who is outside the traditional body types usually found at the center of a romance, particularly in 2002 when this was first published. Also, series readers know Penelope before the beginning of the book so there’s an investment in the characters from go.  

Longer review: my memory of this was more positive than my actual re-read experience. When I first read Romancing Mr. Bridgerton back in 2015 my review was rather skimpy. I talked about the interweaving storylines of Colin and Penelope and the quest to uncover Lady Whistledown, how Colin is battling with lacking a sense of purpose and how being once again in each other’s company regularly sparks in them both feelings they end up facing head on (which… do they? 2024 Katie is less sure than 2015 Katie specifically in that Colin just kind of keeps repeating it without unpacking it??). However, I didn’t mention that it is all a bit uneven and how the ending just sort of arrives without bothering to end the story (and really neither of the two epilogues help that).  But I still love all things Lady Danbury, I enjoyed the way the Lady Whistledown mystery is handled, and Penelope remains a favorite.  

Using and Curating Archaeological Collections (CBR16 #12)

When I have a work question, I often try to find a book for it. At work I was added to a project team for a landscape preservation project which includes some preliminary archaeological field work. My role was to provide additional historical background information for the archeologists and then provide guidance for how we wanted any finds curated for preservation. I felt ready for most of that work, but as we do not have anyone on staff with a background in archaeology, and our archaeological collections need improvements anyway, it was time to get a resource to feel more confident.  

Enter my life Using and Curating Archaeological Collections edited by S. Terry Childs and Mark S. Warner. The book is written from the point of view of archaeologists – specifically those who work in training new archaeologists – on the full life cycle of archaeological collections beyond the fieldwork, which is where people like me come in. The various chapter authors lay out a system in a perfect world in which trained archaeologists are with the collections throughout, but that just is not the case. Because this book was written more for my archaeology brethren there were plenty of sections which applied less to me primarily in the first section Valuing, Benefiting from, and Using Archaeological Collections, but it was a good refresher overall.  

The second section (and third) was where the biggest benefit was for me as it focused on tackling issues which included best practices for collections management planning, curation, determining ownership, preservation, management, orphan collections, and long-term management including possibilities for deaccessioning (basically… all the parts where my job comes in). What I took away from the totality here is that much like how I approach my other collections, these ones need to be holistically dealt with and do what you know how to do and do no harm to the rest. Problem mostly solved. Excellent job, book.  

Perma Red (CBR16 #11)

When I was looking for a historical fiction written by an indigenous author I knew right where to go because back in 2021 the Indigenous Reading Circle was featured in a Reading Women Podcast Reading Challenge, and I’ve been following them on Instagram ever since. This year they are highlighting native women in fiction and Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling, a complicated coming of age set on the Flathead Reservation in the 1940s, was their February selection. 

The story follows Louise White Elk as she approaches adulthood. Louise dreams of the freedom to live life on her own terms and an improved future for her family, especially her sister and the grandmother they live with following the death of their mother. But her life is dominated by the institutions that dictate what she is supposed to be doing at any given time. Louise’s dreams for herself also run against the desires of three men who have their own plans. Louise has been pursued by Baptiste Yellow Knife for years. He is feared by many, and Louise’s grandmother tells her to keep away from him and his family even as Louise feels drawn to him, knowing the dangers. Baptiste’s rival is his cousin, Charlie Kicking Woman who is caught between his duty and his preoccupation with Louise. And then there is Harvey Stoner, the white real estate mogul whose promises come at a cost. Perma Red was originally published in 2002 and won a slew of awards (American Book Award, 2003, Washington State Book Award, 2003, Spur Award for Best Novel of the West, 2003, WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction, 2003) but within a year of its publication the publisher was out of business and the novel was out of print. It was reissued in 2022 by Earling’s new publisher Milkweed, which is the edition I read.  

Earling is doing a lot in this book, and it is easy to see why it won the awards it did, and why it remained so firmly in literary conversation to call for its reissue. Earling, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, has transformed her family history – Louise is based in part on Earling’s aunt – into a narrative which explores all the ways in which a woman, especially a native woman, could be too much, and the dangers that come with being a woman at all, and the variety of perspectives that exist in any given moment. Louise’s adolescence becomes a pattern of flight, always moving away from something and towards something – or someone – else. But the someones are never healthy and that feeds the forward momentum of the story. One of the things that stood out to me about Perma Red is that the chapters shift POV between Charlie in the first person and Louise and Baptiste in the third. Even in this small way Earling reminds us of the agency removed from young, native women.  

Juniper Harvey and the Vanishing Kingdom (CBR16 #10)

As I mentioned in my review of The Carrefour Curse there are two tasks in the 2024 Read Harder Challenge that are specifically about middle grades books. Juniper Harvey and the Vanishing Kingdom is my selection for task 6: read a middle grade book with an LGBTQIA main character. Right off the bat, this is a good book, in fact Nina Varela can write better than most authors I’ve come across in the past year or more. I just wish Middle Grades was an audience demographic that worked for me more reliably as a reader, it is where I most clearly feel the “this book is not written for me” gap between children’s/YA and Adult literature. I think I would LOVE the adult version of this story, and even really enjoy the YA one. But the MG version left me forcing myself to pick it back up, which is why I eventually went ahead and granted myself a DNF for my birthday.  

What we have here is a retelling of the Pygmalion/Galatea myth set in a modern Floridian middle school. From Goodreads: “When Juniper Harvey’s family moves to the middle of nowhere in Florida, her entire life is uprooted. As if that’s not bad enough, she keeps having dreams about an ancient-looking temple, a terrifying attack, and a mysterious girl who turns into an ivory statue. One night after a disastrous school dance, Juniper draws a portrait of the girl from her dreams and thinks,  I wish you were here.  The next morning, she wakes up to find the girl in her room…pointing a sword at her throat! The unexpected visitor reveals herself as Galatea, a princess from a magical other world. One problem—her crown is missing, and she needs it in order to return home. Now, it’s up to Juniper to help find the crown, all while navigating a helpless crush on her new companion. And things go from bad to worse when a sinister force starts chasing after the crown too.” 

While I picked this one up based on its queer representation, it was the anxiety representation that really stood out to me. Both are incredibly well handled but the way Varela crafts Juniper to show her readers ways in which to deal when they are feeling overwhelmed felt truly excellent to me and something I would have loved to have seen more of when I was a much younger reader. So, if fantasy middle grades adventuring sounds like your kind of thing, I really hope you pick this up and have a better time than I did – because I’m like 98% sure I’m the problem in this book relationship. 😊  

The Art and Life of Hilma af Klint (CBR16 #9)

While perusing the Arlington Public Library’s List of Books You May Have Missed Last Year I spotted The Art and Life of Hilma af Klint written by Ylva Hillström and illustrated by Karin Eklund. I vaguely recognized af Klint’s name and popped it onto my list since a YA non-fiction was on my to read and this one struck my fancy, especially once I found out that Hillström is a curator at the Modern Art Museum in Stockholm. Woohoo for museum people writing books outside of the stuffy halls of academia! 

What I neglected to catch on to was that this was for younger readers than I thought. In fact, its Goodreads description opens with the fact that it is, in fact, a picture book. (Look at that, I went from not reviewing any I could remember in over 12 years to two in the same month!) What we get is a biography introducing readers to the life and art of Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), and she’s a bit of a standout character even if she never attained the notice she should have in her own lifetime since she began painting abstract art as early as 1906, before the accepted birth of modern abstract art with artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich.  

The Art and Life of Hilma af Klint aims to tell the whole story of af Klint, from her growing up years, to the loss of her sister and how that opened her up to the spiritual side of the world, to her time at art school and the women who she formed “The Five” based on their theosophy beliefs with and the art she created both before and after she decided to open herself up to what she described as instruction from the spirit world. I thought the work did a nice job of explaining her beliefs and how they impacted her work, but a less good job of explaining her queerness or even really acknowledging it outside of one illustration. But that said, Karin Eklund’s illustrations, as well as the reproductions of af Klint’s works, are great and will really help pull the reader in, as this is a much wordier picture book than Hardly Haunted.  

Hardly Haunted (CBR16 #8)

In January’s Cannonball Read Diversion there was a conversation about genres that you had never read before, and I thought to myself that there had to be at least one or two, but I was a little stumped. I didn’t really think about it again until it came time to review Hardly Haunted by Jessie Sima because without even having to look, I’m pretty sure I’ve never reviewed a picture book (and it’s been A LONG TIME since I read one either).  

Hardly Haunted is about a house that no one is living in, and it suspects that it may be haunted. There’s quite a bit of evidence, so House worries that no one will want to live there and that makes her sad because she really wants a family. So, she tries to suppress her squeaks, creaks, and groans. But… does she really want to? Does she instead want to just… be herself? Maybe she likes being noisy, and the right family for her will too. 

Sima imbues the book with a lighthearted, cartoony style with a delightfully cozy palette of colors that soothe. What we get in Hardly Haunted is a gentle, upbeat vibe. In being told from the point of view of House young readers (and less young readers) are encouraged to strengthen their empathy muscles. Each two page spread focuses on House, and its varying emotions about its circumstances. Its a picture book, so the text is sparse – just a couple sentences per page – and in service of the image, placed around the pages in the place most suited to Sima’s intent.  

I’ve read this one through a couple of times, and I smile every time. And not just because of the cute black cat.