Have you ever been with someone and you knew it was over? Maybe even worse than that, you both knew it was over? In our current society I am almost certain that this happens all the time. Couples that would otherwise leave each other or divorce are forced to stay together for a multitude of reasons, the least of which being financial, but others probably include comfort or familiarity.

In A Separation, Katie Kitamura uses  wealth to help remove these chains to help us work through the story. These are two people who can afford to leave each other, and based on Christopher’s affairs, they probably should. Our wife never gives us a name (or if we discover it it’s so quick that we miss it) and speaks in first person as she narrates us through her search.

She and her husband live in London, but they have agreed to separate and not let anyone know just yet. When his mother Isabella calls to ask where he is, our narrator is sent on a journey to a small luxury hotel in Greece where he was last known to be, according to his mother. It’s a fire-razed area due to arson committed by local feuding farming families, and if you aren’t careful or even looking for it, you’ll miss all the symbolism up front prior to the discovery of Christopher’s body about halfway through the book. This is not a spoiler, you already know that’s what’s coming.

The first half of this book takes you through her decision and resolve to finally end things, to let go and start anew. The second half shows us what we do when we are forced to let go, the steps necessary for moving on. The entirety is told in a narrative voice that reflects the profession of a translator, which the narrator is in the story, and conveys events as they happened in a prose that is almost completely emotionless. Not to sound like a pretentious asshole, but I kind of liked this because it presented a blank slate onto which I could project my imagined emotions based on the character on display at the time and based on my own experience of being cheated on.

So that’s what you can expect from the book itself, but what do I think personally? The first half of the book was very exciting. Despite the deadpan prose I KNEW the husband was dead and I couldn’t wait to find out how. Seeing her make her way around the rural town in Greece revealed a soap opera-esque setup where his only destiny could have been murder. After we discover his murder, the book becomes very mundane and not until the very end do you get the whole picture of this book’s intention, which I believe to be that even a separation comes with commitments. You can move on from something, but if you don’t do it well you will always be chained to it. It is essential to be decisive, to stand up for yourself and what you want, or you could be a slave to something for the rest of your life.

Full disclosure though, if I got 3,000,000 pounds because my estranged husband died and no one knew we had “separated” I would take the money and use it. I know where my limits are and if the man didn’t want to be legally beholden to me he should have taken the ring off it. JUST SAYIN’.

Read it or not, it’s a meh in my book.

This book is presented from several different points of view throughout, and in several different time periods. It focuses mainly on Dustin and those around him in his youth and in his adulthood. On a Yellowstone trip with his family when he was in his teens his parents and his aunt and uncle were murdered and his adopted older brother Russell was convicted of their murders due to (false?) testimony given by Dustin and his two cousins.

We bounce back and forth between the story leading up to those past murders and present day, where Dustin is a therapist with two sons, one of which (Aaron) is in contact with Russell, who has been exonerated by the Innocence Project after 30 years in jail. Dustin has a client, Aqil, a police officer on leave who has been mandated to receive counseling for something he won’t reveal to Dustin, but instead brings a theory related to college age frat bros who seem to be ULTRA intoxicated and drowning on a regular basis and without reason.

You’ll be asking who really committed the murder of the parents and relatives that night in Dustin’s youth? Is this series of drowning drunk college students really a serial killer? What happened to Aaron’s friend Rabbit? Will Russell seek revenge? All of these questions are steeped in a very regular, normal, slightly disturbing American reality, where families seem to do the best they can. A quote from the book that kept me hanginging on was that poor people pass down damage like rich people pass down inheritance, and I knew that something intense must be coming.

And then it’s possible that you’ll get bored and put the book down. The reason I don’t read a lot of thrillers is because sometimes authors require me to hold out longer than I want to, when I want the reveal right goddamn now thanks I have things to do. I mean, how long should we really put off the climax? (I’m sorry)

So tonight I put it down. When it got to the point where it felt like I was forcing myself to read I said to myself “I’m doing this so I can enjoy reading and if I’m not enjoying it then I need to do as I counsel others to do and put it down.” If you have more reading stamina than I do you might want to pick it up and give it a go when it is released on March 7th. But this book has been abandoned due to reduction of suspense, boredom, and excessive delay of climax.

 

I love my Bitches Gotta Read Facebook group. They are truly my bitches and I love seeing what everyone is reading, what they are enjoying, and what they are throwing across the room. This week there were many different discussions, one of which was about books that you had put off and had finally read and were thankful for it.

I think about books I’ve put off all the time. A few summers ago I finally said “Bitch, you are going to read The Stand” and I did and now people can’t be like YOU HAVEN’T READ THE STAND WHAT? Alas, my “wish it was on my to be read list” is just as crazy as my actual TBR list.

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series

I’ve talked about this before, but when I was younger I managed to make it through the first two books (Gunslinger and Drawing of the Three) but my brain kept telling me to stop because it wasn’t time. So now that the 3 book series is now complete at 7-8 books it’s always in the back of my mind as an achievement I would like to unlock at some point.

Les Miserables et al.

This is my favorite musical. It was one of my must-dos when we went to London along with seeing Stonehenge and not walking so goddamn much. But the book, ugh. IT IS SO BIG. I even downloaded the e-book and that percentage just wouldn’t move. I have a lot of trouble with classic classics, due to both the rich language and the length of most of them. Count of Monte Cristo falls into this category too, and I love a good revenge story. The Jane Austen stuff too, and the Brontes’ work.

A Man Called Ove

I have taken this book out of the library and then returned it. My grandmother sent me a copy for me to have. I have started this book at least 7 times and I have thrown it down in a flurry of tears every time. I am not sure if it’s due to my past experiences losing loved ones or fear of losing more or if I see myself reflected too truthfully in Ove and the kindness the other characters show him cuts too deeply – I cannot read this book right now. I know I need to, I know I will love it and it will stick with me, but it can’t even be on my TBR pile.

The Wheel of Time Series

Oh Robert Jordan, you couldn’t even stay alive long enough to finish writing this series, someone had to finish it for you. I wish I had someone to finish it for me, because OMG. I feel the same way about reading the Game of Thrones series; since the books are truly different from the show I do want to read them, but later. I always get through the first Wheel of Time book, and then I stop. Then like 2 years later I read it again to remember the two million characters I need to keep track of, and then I stop. Maybe the next time I’ll stick with it.

Lord of the Rings Series

Stephen Colbert loves this shit and every time he nerds out about it I want to read the books to have something in common with him. I have to admit that I have never even cracked these books. I have read The Hobbit, but attempting the LOTR trilogy always felt like it would be such a trudge, but its place in the fantasy classics makes it something I should read, so it sits next to other things I should read but just am not ready to yet.

Summer is always the best time for me to knock out some of these series. I also find success by just picking one thing to do and getting it done. I think this summer will be either the Dark Tower or LOTR, but we’ll have to wait and see. What books do you have on the back burner?

Welcome to the next book 1 of a series! I seem to be starting several right now; I’m going to need to step up how I categorize them on this blog so you can track a particular series even if I don’t review one right after the other. The Lunar Chronicles is a welcome addition to my growing series family.

I will start with a small note: I usually have zero patience for adaptations. Writing a story about Cinderella or using Sense and Sensibility really offers you the choice of being truly new and different or just slapping on a coat of paint and calling it “new and edgy” (while the rest of us roll our eyes). To use such a familiar or famous foundation for your plot requires innovation or ingenuity to the point that we know the story we’re being told but it’s different enough that we’re not constantly irritated by the author’s laziness.

Marissa Meyer sets her book in China. This change alone brings a breath of fresh air to the story. We meet Cinder, a cyborg that was adopted by her family in the midst of a war, and the father does pass away like the Cinderella story, but he was not her father. She lives with her stepmother (which is an odd term to use so they intermingle it with legal guardian) and two sisters, the younger of which is actually her friend.

This is also in a future where there has been a 4th World War and a colony has formed on the moon. So there is the Earthen Alliance and the Lunar Kingdom, and the Lunar Kingdom is pressing for marriage to the Emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth or Earth may face war with Luna. People from the moon also possess the ability to alter the biology of others in order to force them to do their bidding. Not quite magic, but close enough and it’s a very real threat to regular humans.

I absolutely adored this book. It did so many things very well and you want to keep reading to find out how things turn out. There is a lot of suspense, and you have to remind yourself “hey dummy, this is just Cinderella, you know how it ends” to calm your heart and continue. This book has everything: a plague, space, love, royalty, underdogs, rebellion, pluck, all set in a world we know and recognize.

This book was published in 2012, and I feel the urge to apologize for taking so long to get around to reading it. Lunar Chronicles, welcome to Angry Angel Books, we’ll be spending some time together. 🙂

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As a quick aside, if you enjoy Angry Angel Books reviews it would do us a world of good if you would be willing to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. I’m also on Instagram but I am the worst at that so you’re just going to be getting pictures of books, puppies, and cats so if that’s your thing you’re more than welcome to it. Please join the Angry community!

I’ve had a few duds recently so I decided to retreat to a genre I know never fails to entertain me: YA Fantasy Series/Trilogy. I’m on book 2 of the Throne of Glass series, but today’s review goes to the first book in the Red Queen series. Mare is our main character in a world where people are divided between Red Blood (Muggles) and Silver Bloods (Grisha). I apologize for the mixed similes there, but they are accurate in terms of abilities. Society is set up like Voldemort probably would have enjoyed. The Reds serve the Silvers in all manner of jobs including military service. The Reds live in squalor while the Silvers rule over them in decadence.

This book also harkens back to one of my first reviews for this blog, Uprooted, where a normal girl doesn’t realize she is special until some accidental circumstances pull it out of her. We discover that Mare is some weird combination of Red and Silver blood, something scholars and Silvers haven’t seen before (or at least won’t admit to have seen before) and we are off on a deceptive scheme plot line where Mare is saved only by virtue of the desire of the people who would destroy her to instead disguise her. I enjoyed learning about all the different types of abilities that are possible in this world, and Mare’s hasn’t been seen for a long time.

It is unfortunate that this also pulls out the popular multi-boy-interest trope (Gale and Peeta, vampire and werewolf, etc) between a boy from her village and a royal prince. Luckily her ties to either of them aren’t too lovey dovey (yet) so even though you can see it coming, it’s bearable. And I mean, what are you gonna do? The chicks dig it. There are also echoes of “people like you” that are seen in Seraphina when the half dragon people are sought out to bring peace. Grisha power from the Grisha Trilogy (#1, #2, and #3). Legilimens from Harry Potter. And Mare’s adoption and forced betrothal feel like what I imagine The Hunger Games would have felt like if champions were forced to live in the Capital and marry someone there. There are a lot of themes in this book that will make you think “wait, I remember something like that in _________.”

The ending is very satisfying. This is the first book I have read in awhile where I have said YES that all makes sense, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next. I strongly recommend this book if you haven’t already begun to read the series. It has parts of every YA recipe you already love, overlaid with a new story and new characters. Enjoy!

I have not watched Stranger Things. The husband watched it and I caught glimpses of it as I moved from room to room doing other stuff. It seemed very normal ’80s type stuff with creepy undertones. What made it seem creepy was that things were juuuuuuuust not quite right.  It’s like how you look at a picture on the wall and you know, you KNOW it’s crooked but it’s SO CLOSE that you try to ignore it because you don’t want to get up, you’re comfy dammit.

This book is like that. I really enjoyed being taken back to the days of ’90s video rental places (RIP Blockbuster). Someone has been recording snippets of very dark home movies on certain tapes and returning them, and other customers are starting to find them and complain. Honestly I’m surprised the characters don’t start sculpting things with mashed potatoes. Our main character is Jeremy, who lost his mom to a terrible car accident when he was a teenager. He lives with his dad and works at the video store. The store owner Sarah Jane gets wrapped up in our endeavor too, and Jeremy’s crush Stephanie joins his team when something doesn’t seem right and requires investigation.

Parallel to the present day story is the story of the Sample family, Dad, Mom, and daughter Lisa, who is our present day creepy lady in an old farmhouse with a dark secret and a very photogenic barn.  Set in the ’70s Mom Sample runs off with a strange, gross, strip mall church congregation and the effects on Lisa may have been…not positive?

Of course we also have a family that discovers the rusting remains of all these events after they decide to buy the very same farmhouse to retire in. They decide to investigate and find that all of our past characters still live nearby.

Over all of it we get the occasional 4th wall thrown in our face because there is a narrator that we forget about until they burst back in, pulling us up into the sky above the action, implying that other timelines went a different way but this one we are observing is the most important or interesting or devastating one.

I expected this to be a kind of alien story. It wasn’t.

I thought it might turn into “The Ring.” It didn’t.

Maybe a horror story where there are crazy murders in remote farmhouse basements? Nope.

Some reviews say it’s a story that drags out the missing mother trope. Well, okay but you have to dig kind of deeply for that. It reads like a thriller, but there are no sociopaths or serial killers to be found. I finished the book today and if I have any feelings about it they center around the idea that it is very difficult to completely escape a small town, and that even when you do part of it stays with you wherever you go, like a key in a junk drawer that no longer has a matching lock.

This is an enjoyable read until you realize that it’s not going anywhere you expect it to, indeed it seems to go nowhere at all. Perhaps something about my experience kept the emotional connection out of my reach. I would encourage you to seek out other reviews on the web about this book. They are mixed, and for good reason. This book is mixed up and perhaps never truly decided what it wanted to be before publication. It’s a shame too, because there are many satisfying ways it could have gone – and it’s the hope that one of those paths would come to fruition that kept me reading.

This weekend I have been taking time to do things I enjoy. The husband and I received our tax return and we’ve gone hunting for a real-life, adult furniture set for the livingroom. I’ve been able to get out of the house, do a little shopping, and the husband almost had to roll me out of the theater after The Lego Batman Movie because I had eaten so much popcorn. Today I’m going out to try a new breakfast place that just opened up, and I’m going to make progress on my two books for this week’s reviews while he goes off to nerd it up with his D&D group.

Speaking of nerding it up, it occurred to me that my tagline requires a bit of nerd rep to get. I’m one of those people that gets irritated with the overuse of ellipses, and so the tagline just seems like another instance where someone doesn’t know how to use punctuation. But something that makes me very angry is the minefield of books that are out there to choose from. How do you choose? Do you judge a book by its cover? Who do you trust? The New York Times? The Guardian? NPR?

In this online world where people might pay for a “review” to be run that is actually an advertisement, where the truth is pushed to the side in favor of “fairness” and “everyone’s opinion matters” here at Angry Angel Books we believe that opinions are like assholes, everybody has them and not all are worthy of consideration.

So again, how do you choose? In a busy world where you might have a little time each day to devote to a book, how can you make sure not to waste your time? It’s just not guaranteed. You must choose, but while a good book will bring you joy and entertainment, a bad book will bring you frustration and lost money.

Whenever I go to a bookstore or try to pick a book to buy online, I feel like I’m in that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade scene where the old knight tells them how the grail works.

So my tagline is there and the ellipsis serves as a genuine pause, paying homage to this scene and the difficulty involved in sifting through all the books out there to find the true treasures. I’m just glad that choosing the wrong one doesn’t skeletonize me. Also, while we’re here: Nazis, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists can go straight to hell.

Enjoy your weekend. I will continue to bring you book reviews so you can choose…wisely. Thanks for reading.