Following a tough couple of reads, I was hopeful that this book was going to be a breath of fresh air.  And it was...until it wasn't.  

First off, this book is funny.  It takes place on a fictionalized version of The Great British Baking Show and it does a great job of developing the characters and their backstories, which are to some extent different than the on-screen stories that are being told about them.  Some of the dialogue is laugh out loud funny where I legitimately giggled while I was reading, which is pretty rare for me.  I loved the main character and her ex-lover now best friend and their witty banter and quirky relationship.  

I also loved the idea of the storyline, in which the child of two career-driver professionals realizes she doesn't want that life for herself and finds a way to navigate comfort with that.

But, and here is where I cannot proceed without spoiler alerts, so SPOILER ALERTS.  

The sexual assault in this book does not feel good or get resolved well at all.  It comes out of no where in the midst of a light, funny book.  It does not shift gears well and from this point in the story forward, all of the progressive, feel good parts of the book fall apart.  Rosaline, the book's namesake, is a really fun protagonist.  A bi-sexual woman who had a brief affair in college which leads to a baby girl and a series of menial jobs and a life of financial instability.  The daughter, now about 8, is nerdy, brilliant, and sassy, made even more so by Rosaline's no holds barred style of parenting, filled with direct information about relationships and sex and lots of swearing.  Rosaline's best friend is an ex-lover with whom she has remained dear friends despite a very tumultuous fling in which feelings were hurt and drama was had.  The ex-lover is her biggest supporter and has a dynamic relationship with the kid that is anything from trite or a trope.  Some of the best moments of the book are between these three characters.  For most of the book, Roseline's comfort with her sex life is impressive and her friend's chastising about not "slut shaming" herself at times is refreshing.  It is against this backdrop that the end of the book is just so disappointing.

At the beginning of the book, Roseline makes the unfortunate decision to hook up with the stable guy from the bake-off show whom she knows her judgmental parents will love.  And they do.  The three of them embark on a painful path of trying to get Rosaline to go back to college and get her life back on track.  The book was doing so well following this arc as Roseline realizes she loves baking and doesn't want to go to school or follow in her parents' footsteps, but the story completely falls apart when she yells at her parents once and then her mother basically completely changes her behavior and attitude and comes to understand and respect her choices.  Like, what?  Sigh.  That was a step too far.  The part where she creates the riff, pulls back from the relationship, and figures a way not to let them continue to shame and belittle her by putting up a healthy boundary was awesome.  The part where it just immediately fixes everything just felt hollow and made it seems like she was pretty dense for not having done that 8 years earlier.

In any event, that plotting problem was nothing compared to the decisions made about the romance arc, which was by far the most disappointing.  After the mediocre boyfriend gets worse and worse, culminating in a scene where he and his ex-girlfriend trap Roseline in his house for a non-consensual threesome that turns into his ex-girlfriend sexually assaulting Roseline, Roseline calls another bake-show contestant, who just so happens to be the hunky electrician her parents hate who came to her rescue when the faulty wiring in her house left her in the dark with a ruined cake in the oven, to come to her rescue and next thing we know the two of them are together and that is the happy ending.  There is just something about the bi-sexual woman getting sexually assaulted by the bi-curious woman being saved by the ultimate cis-het-man trope that did not sit well with me at all. 

END OF SPOILER ALERTS.
It was such a disappointment after such a great start, both in terms of plotting, character development, and laughs.

​Do not recommend.

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I am at a complete loss as to why the universe would have this book and Creation "recommended" for me back-to-back.  They are very similar reads, although set in different time periods and with slightly different writing styles.  The pompous, intellectual superiority of the narrators could not have been more similar, though.  In this book, the overused storyline, wherein the crotchety old, unsympathetic man shows a moment of humanity and then we have to get his entire backstory to explain how is life unfolded in such a way as to explain why he is mean and grumpy, unfolds painfully slowly.  The problem here is that while many things go array in his life--really so many as to make me start to roll my eyes by chapter 25--throughout basically the entire story he always acted superior and above everyone else. Even when he was doing kind, self-sacrificing things, he was still doing them from this place of an intellectual analysis of what it means to do good and be righteous, not beause he actually felt anything like an emotional connection to the other people or the worlds around him.  He really only ever cares for a woman who is lover and for his child.  Every other relationship is held at bay. 

For example, he tried to sacrifice himself several time in order to save or benefit others, but these attempts are in vein.  As a result or this and other overdone plotlines, he ends up witnessing not only the standard "horrors of war" tropes that are a dime a dozen, but also ones that seem deliberately manifested by the author for shock value, such as when he comes into contact with the "giant" who who is into beastiality.  Please don't think that is what turned me off the book, though. I was turned off a good 15 chapters before that happened.

The narrator is a Professor of Aesthetics, as if there could be a more arrogant sounding title.  He prattles on about the beauty of art and the natural world, about the philosophical connection between art and science, and about such things as the "aesthetics of justice."  As he moves through one traumatic, awful event after another, his conviction that he is in some way the most important person in all of the narratives comes across in the way that I think only a Professor of Aesthetics could narrate.  That he was an expert at everything from mountain climbing to art to languages to love started to lose credulity.  His ability to survive physical and psychological ordeals pushed the bounds of willing suspension of disbelief a mile too far.  But even more than this, the part where we spend the better part of 500 pages (of the total 880 pages) believing him to be obsessed with the practical application of the philosophy of ethics to his privileged existence only to have him go off on a side quest to avenge the death of girl he was in love with in a war zone by a guy in the other military made absolutely no sense whatsoever.  And then, to have this venture thwarted by the arrival on scene of the target of his crusade's small child was just too trite.  More eye rolling from me.

If you enjoyed Creation, you will love this book--and the other way around.  If you are me, you will not have enjoyed either. At all.

On a side note, I was hanging out with a friend who has been recommending books to me for many years.  In return, I have recommended for him many books, which he has not only read, but almost universally loved.  I once went so far as to take him to the library to find the book I thought he needed to read right then, at that moment in his life. When the book was not on the shelf, I tracked down the librarian, who found a copy of it on a display of books people should read.  So, I have brought a lot of joy to this friend-reader's literary life.  And what did I find out about the recommendations this friend has been making?  Well, apparently, he was quite bent out of shape that his first few 50-Books-Recommended-By-50-Friends recommendation were trashed on this blog and therefore started recommending spite books for me to read.  Which, in retrospect explains a lot about the books he made me read (and subsequently trash on this blog).  Having had this conversation with him, in the context of having had not one, but two "friends" recommend back-to-back books filled with pretty much everything I hate makes me wonder how many of you are deliberately doing this to me?  Does this explain my high rate of Do Not Recommend?  Have I spent years thinking I am just a hater when actually this has been a deliberate strategy to punish me for some unknown, historical slight?  

Do not recommend.

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This pretentious, intellectually condescending tome was a painful slog of misogyny and racism. The domestic and sexual violence and general disrespect for women and girls was painful.  As historical fiction, I don't doubt that was the reality of how learned men thought about and treated women, but I nevertheless just found the entire experience to be one of misery.  This story about an amateur philosopher and religious scholar turned spy to India and China in about the 4th century BC has hours of haughty, if interesting, discussions about the meaning of life, the problem of evil, and reflections on how, why, and by whom the world was created.  The narrator just happens to make the acquaintance of Socrates, the Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tsu, and others who schools him on these topics.  Perhaps the most interesting of these conversations were about other lesser known religious groups, like Jaimism and Pythagoreanism.  I have little doubt that the historical part of this historical fiction novel must have been extensively researched, but until the very end, the last section when we see some woman characters return and voice opinions, the women in the books are by and large relegated to their roles as concubines, sisters, and wives.  Wives, such as the narrator's 12 year old Indian wife, given to him by her father while he is traveling and spying there, and sisters, such as one of the sister of the prince of Persia (I think I am remembering this correctly, it might have been a daughter), but when he asks which sister, the prince doesn't know which one since he hasn't really met any of them and they are interchangeable since the purpose of marrying is to be married into the family.  The men pontificate and reflect on philosophy, while wars rage, people die, and the women are raped, beaten, sold, and traded.  Definitely not enough here to warrant all of that and make it worth getting through.

Do not recommend.

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I think this book is meant to be a sweet, light read about a couple whose only child dies and who take in the child in their community for a few months while her impoverished and despondent mother births another unwanted child.  However, I was just not impressed with the lack of insight into what it means to care for someone else's child during a time when they cannot.  It is over-romanticized and the entire time, I was certain that the child would be sexually abused by the foster father since there was absolutely no one around who would have been in a position to protect this incredibly vulnerable child.  That this did not happen just made the book even weirder and less in touch with the reality of the lives children in this position actually lead.  The fairytale life the child has during this informal foster care placement was so inconsistent of my experience parenting any child, let alone a vulnerable foster child, that I just could not get into it at all.  On the other hand, some of the writing was quite lovely.

​Do not recommend.

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Extremely well written and presumably well-researched, this imagined narrative of a girl growing up as a slave in the South is depressing AF. She is resilient and resourceful and clever and all the things and I think we are supposed to find the ending in some way inspiring or uplifting, but I just found the whole thing exhausting, intense, and sad. Which, I know is the point. Slavery was all the horrible things and real, actual person, including girls who grow up to be women, experienced it and it is so easy to forget that and to look away from the extreme intergenerational trauma that was experienced. And just so you know, this book is a lot. It is all of the thing, written well. And it is just written so well. And I still cannot recommend it because it is just so much. But, also, I cannot not recommend it.

Not not recommended. Proceed with caution.

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This was a really interesting read. I was pretty skeptical before I started it and even more so when she disclaims at the beginning that she is going to be talking about the topic in the context of her relationship with God in such as way that she means to convey she is Christian and that the book should be taken in that context. This was pretty off-putting to me, since I recommend books like this to many clients and here in Oregon, this type of an introduction immediately eliminates a huge portion of the potential audience. The fact that she did this was so odd because she does not come back to this theme at all until the very end of the book and she could have entirely eliminated it and the book would have been no worse (and probably better) for it.

The book has a lot of things going for it and I particularly like two things. First, it does not conflate what she calls "relationship trauma" with post-traumatic stress disorder. This is a current pet peeve of mine as I see more and more people with a PTSD diagnosis who have had bad things happen to them, like having their spouse serially cheat on them (which is what this book is about), but who have not experienced intimate partner or sexual violence. To me, these are not the same thing and we take away from the experience of survivors of intimate violence when we equate experiences of violence with other types of hard things that people go through. I really liked how this book was able to situate betrayal as something unique and different than violence, not by minimizing it, but also by not equating it. She has a lot to say about what it is like to experience betrayal and I found much of it to be a new take that many people in these situations will find helpful.

The second thing that I really liked about the book is how she situates healing from betrayal in the context of attachment theory and in the context of the data that we have about attachment theory. Since betrayal is a rupture in attachment, healing has to be done in relationship with people as you examine and find new or different attachments. This part of the book I found particularly insightful and contained ideas and information that I will likely convey to clients and friends experiencing and healing from relationship betrayals.

For folks thinking about relationship ruptures and how to help people move beyond those, I think this book has a lot to offer.

​Recommend.

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Super cute and charming, this story is at its core about growing up and living in isolation because you thought there was something wrong with you and you couldn't connect with other people lest they find out just how different and problematic you are and then finding a group of people like you that love you and want you to be your family. It is just heartwarming in all the right ways. I really don't want to say much more about it because it is just so lovely, it needs to be read to be appreciated.

There are lots of characters of color and Queer characters, but it never feels like these are added as side-kicks or for some type of credit towards having diversity in the book. These are well-written characters whose demographics are woven into their stories and into this story as a whole. It couldn’t be told without those pieces. The twist ending is fun, the magic is quirky, and the lovey feelings feel genuine and messy. There isn't a romance and yet the book oozes love in all the best ways.
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Strong recommendation.

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This narrative about a Palestinian refugee turned terrorist was intriguing, if written in a somewhat disjointed fashion.  With flashbacks told from the perspective of her prison cell after capture, the story jumps around so you know the entire time where it is going. I found this distracting, especially since there was an obvious agenda for the book to present a sympathetic understanding her motivations for joining the Palestinian resistance.  I found myself distracted from the story, trying to predict when she would be radicalized.  Since the backstory did not seem to align with what the books hints at that landed her tortured and in an Israeli isolation cell, I found myself trying to put that together.  Maybe it is an accurate reflection of how someone is radicalized by oppression and maybe it isn't, but I found the book overplayed its hand in trying to convince me that it is reasonable to have been radicalized in this fashion, working so hard to get me to like and sympathize with her that I felt somewhat emotionally manipulated. I would have enjoyed the story more if it had backed off trying to fight so hard for the moral high ground.  All of that aside, I did find much of the writing mesmerizing and I most certainly did not want to stop reading.  I thought the story was at its best when describing people and places, with details about life in the Middle East that isn't often narrated in this fashion.  I was fully sucked into the story, even if I was resisting being taken in by it.  

​Recommend.

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There are few things I love more than a story about a complex mother-daughter relationship, given the mother-daughter relationships that I have.  This story of a Cambodian refugee family is just fabulous, made even better by the fact that they immigrate to Corvallis, where I live. The author and I are almost the same age, so it was particularly interesting to hear her tell her story of growing up in the place I now live during a time before I lived here.  She grew up in a small, overwhelmingly white town and I grew up in a large, diverse city,  I loved being able to track my experience against hers and even small stories, like the opening of the first McDonalds' in town and her mother learning to drive in the Wilson school parking lot, felt more meaningful as I knew exactly these places she talked about.  Her stories came alive in this alternative place on the same timeline as my life, as we each navigated different traumas and conflicts in our families.  The richness of this story lies in its complexity, as her mother struggles with her daughter's Queerness, all while opening lying to people about her successes to cover her shame for not being what she wanted her to be.  It is just remarkable insight written remarkably well.  

I don't typically love books read by the author, but this was an exception, as her storytelling voice was clear and just lovely. 

Recommend.

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Warning: The first book will suck you in and then leave you hanging at the end, such that not reading the next three in the series, the prequel, and the parallel book with the backstory for one of the characters feel inevitable. 

Second warning: Despite being drawn in and reading not just the four books released in the series, but the other 2 related books, you will still be left hanging as the fifth book in the series is not slated to be released until January 2025!  You will wonder, is this another Outlander series where I will be living in an alternative world for months on end and left without a conclusion for years at a time?

So, here I am.  This not-so-young adult fiction set in a world of magical fantasy where factions of humans and other creatures, big surprise, do not get along.  What I love about this series is, unlike many fantasy worlds, none of the factions are all good or all bad.  Sort of like real life where every country and culture has some--or a lot--of problematic aspect, but also those same problematic people have some wonderful customs, values, and people.  The story is all about how we collectively villainize people collectively across borders, but also how we oppress people in our communities who do not comply with societal expectations.  Just when I got comfortable hating a particular group, the point of view would shift and it was revealed that all was not what was presented.  There are multiple unreliable narrators here, reminding the reader of the complexity of cross-cultural understanding. 

I loved the character growth and revelations, as the depth of many of the characters and their secrets are slowly divulged.  I also particularly love that even though there are strings of romance that are both sweet and a little titillating, these are not simplistic young adult romances of my youth.  For characters to have multiple love interests, be unclear who they love, what they want, and whether that should even be important in the context of a world at war is so unusual in a novel, let alone one in this genre. 

Be aware, this is a war novel, with a lot of pain and violence.  There is sexual and domestic violence, torture, and brutal combat scenes.  This was sometimes too detailed and went on for too long for my taste, but on the other hand much of it is steeped in the magic of the world and these scenes provide additional information about what is possible in ways that foreshadow other uses of the magic, so I can't say that it is entirely gratuitous.
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Recommend. 

P.S.  I am aware now of the backlash against this book as being written by a white (straight?) author about discrimination since there is a lot of very offensive language and themes that mirrors language used by Nazi and KKK groups.  I have to wonder if folks who had that criticism read the series because one of the things I liked about the book was how it starts each thread of the a person's story with how they were raised, including their xenophobic and patriotic indoctrination, and shows how they do or do not grow over time as they are exposed to various hardships in their life.  Some become entrenched in bigotry, while others resist the extremism and embrace love.  I don't know how you tell this type of story without writing about what that looks like. 

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