I was entirely unprepared for this book. As a general rule, I love starting a new story with no idea what it is going to be about, but I was entirely unprepared to be in a mellow space only to start this book about a natural disaster occurring in a city I know well. It isn't post-apocalyptic.  It is the actual apocalypse--the moment when the world changes and the entire story takes place in that day, with flashbacks that fill in the backstory, but without a future whatsoever set out for the reader.  This is made even more vivid since the first person narrator is 9 months pregnant as the story unfolds.  It is entirely horrifying. The descriptions of Portland and the damage to infrastructure and neighborhoods and stores that I know well was scary. Overall, the writing was so good, really sucking me into the story, getting my heartrate up and making me invested in the story and characters. But, ultimately, while it is the kind of book that I have thought and talked about a lot since finishing it, I was just so unsatisfied with the story ending without resolution. We don't know anything about the future, about the world beyond the disaster, or any of the characters we met and learned about and got attached to along the way. I mean, this might be what happens in a future world like this, but in a story, I want more.

​Not recommended.

I went into this book not knowing anything about it, not even the genre, and I am actually really glad that happened because it meant that I was dropped into a story without understanding the context in which it was told, which I think made it substantially more interesting.  

Fundamentally, though, his is a survival in the woods story about our relationship with nature and living off the land in tune with the animals who live beside us. There is a lot of hunting and fishing and dealing with the bodies of dead animals, which I always dislike. I almost lost my mind reading Moby Dick in high school. But the way this was written was softer and you could feel the characters' reverence for the world and this made it tolerant for me.

It is a short book, making for a quick read with writing that is quite lovely.

Stop here, if you don't want spoilers. I thought that I Who Have Never Known Men was such a unique post-apocalyptic story. This book, written 2 years later, reminded me so much of that book.  Different setting and backstory, but similar in the way that both tell the story of the last human, alone amidst the ruins of a civilization.  Here, though, the story is softer as the last human lives out her life in the company of a bear and a puma.  

Ultimately, I am going to give it a soft recommend.

A intergenerational tale of trauma and resilience, this is a book that I probably should have liked a lot more than I did.  From the healing midwife to the witch trial to the women who raised children alone without men to the women who helped women end unwanted pregnancies to institutionalization of spirited women, the story took every trope from this genre and spun it out as far as it could go and beyond.  I felt like I have just read so many variations of this same story and that this one didn't really have anything new to offer. I know it was written to try to get me to feel the empowerment of survival, but I just didn't feel that. I mostly felt the tedium, the exhaustion of intimate violence, handed down generation after generation against women who did not fit the feminine expectations.  I think the book tried to do too much and as such there wasn't enough character development.  I might have liked it better if it slowed down, maybe covering one generation per book and made it an extended series where each lifetime and personality was explored more in depth and with more detail. There was so much here, I sometimes lost track of the characters only to go back and realize that the person I couldn't remember was newly introduced without any clear indication that was happening.
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​Not recommended.

particular the way that wealth leads to the abuse and trafficking of vulnerable women. 

​Recommend.

 YA romance at its absolute best, I can image that I would have loved this book even more if I was a foodie, too.  As it was, it was just a lovely, light read about two young gay guys in, the unlikeliest of romance novel settings, St. Louis.  An oenophile and a epicure from different backgrounds, questioning their life choices and their ties to family, while falling for each other.  For lack of a better term, the book is like the chef's kiss of summer beach reading.

Reading this on the heels of The True True Story of Raja The Gullible, I think I appreciated the sweetness of this book even more. The Iranian experience of Queerness in the 1960-80's in Iran as opposed to the Iranian-American experience of Queerness in the 2020's is jarring and reminded me just how much progress has been made and how much of it we have still been able to hold on to.

​Recommend.

Now, this is a well crafted novel.  The plot, the characters, the writing...it has it all.  Breadcrumbs laid out at the beginning are revisited at the end, characters grow and change and remain flawed, and things happen in unpredictable, but plausible ways.  The side quests, the small moments of interactions between characters, and the way it all comes back together in soft, satisfying ending just really struck a chord with me.  

I love a story about friendship and this is a great story about complex friendships. Childhoods steeped in pain, each for a different reason, lived side-by-side in the same town, isolated from each other and yet right there together.  I found it so powerful.  

​Recommend.

This tale builds an alternate reality that defies all rules of physics and common sense, setting a scene in which a parallel world exists of creatures who collect regretted decisions, turn them into birds and cage them. In that world, destiny is tattooed on a baby at birth and there is not free will or choice. It is fueled by the collection of regretted choices that people in this world don't want to or can't bear. They give away the memory of the choice in exchange for freedom from the weight of that choice.

Against this odd backdrop. the adventure is when the worlds collide and the characters explore what a life in which you did or didn't have choice would be like.  The fantasy of the story is quite odd as they jump through puddles that connect space and time, fly on origami cranes, and encounter zombie babies.  

I mostly did not find the fantasy world enthralling enough to overcome the too-obvious symbolism in the book and I didn't find the philosophical reflections about choice and destiny to be enough to overcome the lackluster worldbuilding.  For sure, there were lovely moments and some of the interpersonal relationship development was well done.  I can see how folks find this "enchanting," as the book cover suggests. I was just never really captivated by it.

​Not recommended.

This is an odd, odd story. I just do not know what to make of it.  It is built like a post-apocalyptic narrative, but it isn't exactly that since civilization wasn't really destroyed in the way that one normally expects from that kind of world building.  Instead of the world being destroyed by technology, there is a vaguely referenced allusion to an uprising of robots who turn on the humans who created them and then [instead either non-existent or forgettable details] happens that causes robots and humans to live without contact with the other for many years.  This is the story of the robot who is sent to check in on the humans and the human the robot encounters.  What ensues is a philosophical reflection between the two of them about the meaning of life, the role of work in ones life, and the value of the  intimacy of friendship in a world that allows for complete solitude. It had the feel of two college freshman who have just taken Intro to Philosophy and are thinking through the classic philosophical reflections for the first time and are Very Into It. I didn't not like it. It was gentle and sweet, especially since it was set in a world that had this massive conflict and was entirely reshaped by that. Sometimes the optimism felt forced, or desperate even, like those first attempts to rebuild the world from the "I think therefore I am" premise.

​Overall, I think I put it in not not recommended.

It would be hard for this book to contain a more stereotypical gay uncle character who ends up the primary caregiver for children without significantly altering his lifestyle  It might have been over-the-top in places, but it was so celebratory of the Guncle's relationship with the children, the way he stepped in to care for them in his own unique, non-traditional way while they were all three grieving the loss of the children's mother that it feels ridiculous to criticize the use of the trope.  I found once I let myself let go of rolling my eyes at the things like wearing the kaftan, having cocktails in the afternoon, the throuple next door, and so on and let myself just enjoy the story of a quirky relative who steps in to care for children in need, I did in fact just enjoy it.  Set against the background of traumatic grief over the death of loved ones, it really is just a sweet story of an unusual family doing what needs to be done to meet the needs of kids. Despite the background, it is mostly funny and light.

​Recommend.

This is a strange novel that is hard to classify.  It follows Raja and his mother for 50+ years following the many changes in Lebanon starting in the 1960's. Through times of prosperity and joy to war and devastation, Raja's life as a gay man is filled with times of love and light and some times of darkness and hatred, including extended scenes of sexual abuse. I really don't know what to make of the book overall.  Parts of it gave me a glimpse into a life and a time and a community I hadn't ever read about before, which I always really love in a book.  Part of it was bleak and full of family dysfunction.  The community bullying and othering reminds us how universal those themes are, across time and place and culture.  The sexual abuse was complicated, but explored consent in the context of captivity in a unique way.  The theme of things not always being as they seem from the outside is also well explored here in ways that I haven't developed well in other contexts. Huge bonus points for an ending in which a survivor just embraces his anger, refuses to feel guilty or not forgiving their abuser, and finding their own path of survival that doesn't take anyone else's opinion into account.

It isn't an easy or fast read and it is the opposite of light.  Even when it is openly funny, I find that humor to be harsh.  All of this leads me to a not not recommended, although I know I will be recommending it for some people.

​Not not recommended.