Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.
Think about using it yourselves!
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Ocean's Godori by Elaine U. Cho
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: Ocean Yoon has never felt like much of a Korean, even if she is descended from a long line of haenyeo, Jeju Island's beloved female divers. She's also persona non grata at the Alliance, Korea's solar system-dominating space agency, since a mission went awry and she earned a reputation for being a little too quick with her gun.
When her best friend, Teo, second son of the Anand Tech empire, is framed for murdering his family, Ocean and her misfit crewmates are pushed to the forefront of a high-stakes ideological conflict. But dodging bullets and winning space chases may be the easiest part of what comes next.
A thrilling adventure across the solar that delivers hyperkinetic action sequences and irresistible will-they-won't-they romance alongside its nuanced exploration of colonialism and capitalism, Ocean's Godori ultimately asks: What do we owe our past? How do we navigate our present while honoring the complicated facets of our identity? What can our future hold?
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Well, what can I say. I love Firefly, I love Becky Chambers, I thoroughly liked the Ketty Jay. This story hits all those tales' beats, and does it from a new angle that centers Korean culture. The author, who lives in Seattle, is definitely working inside that frame. The strong anticolonial message is interesting, as the entire idea of human expansion is by definition colonialist....
Is the story anything groundbreaking? No. Do I want to read the next one, assuming there is one? Yes. The fun of being within this group of cooperative misfits led by a Korean lesbian far exceeds the investment in absorbing the different cultural background unfamiliar to most Western readers.
It is, to me, very much an enhancing feature of the read. Get out of your cultural rut within your genre preference.
Zando | Hillman Grad offers you a hardcover for $28.00. An ebook is $14.99, and that is a fine return on your investment.
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The Murderous Misses of Concord: A Concord Mystery by Elizabeth Dunne
Rating: 3.25* of five
The Publisher Says: In Concord, Louisa May Alcott farms pigs after success with Little Women, but as New England’s freezing winter approaches, death isn’t far away. Concord’s Misses, armed with wit and elegance, money, and secrets, are present when Miss Emily Collier dies at her forty-seconnd birthday party. Louisa is embroiled in the intrigue. They will lie to her, set traps and blackmail to avoid justice. And Louisa is now an outsider in what was once her home.
To test her mettle, local Justice of the Peace Captain Briers, a man compromised by lust for one of the Misses, enlists her to bring order to the twisted loyalties, land feuds and secrets fuelling a seditious desire for revenge not seen in Middlesex County since the witch trials.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I have a mystery-loving sister who dislikes the use of historical figures as amateur sleuths. "That's not accurate, doesn't help suspend disbelief" is her reasoning. I think she's correct about this, but don't share her conclusion because it (to me) does add to my appreciation of the book's historical background. Alcott, in this use, does increase my ability to immerse my imagination into the Concord of the era.
The story is fine...nothing new...but cozy mysteries, particularly historical cozy mysteries, don't need to be. I like the genre, I like this execution of the basic plot, it's a good and entertaining read.
There's a Kindle edition for $5.99 (non-affiliate Amazon link) though it's not available on Kindle Unlimited.
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The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle by Steve Hugh Westenra
Rating: 3.25* of five
The Publisher Says: Tyler Kyle doesn’t believe in monsters.
A washed-up thirty-year-old actor and reluctant cryptid investigator, Tyler is used to playing the Scully to his best friend Josh’s Mulder on their stupidly popular YouTube channel. But when Tyler receives previously unseen footage of the B movie bombshell mother who abandoned him eighteen years ago—footage linked to an isolated island in the Canadian wilderness—the mystery is one conspiracy he’s determined to investigate. The fact that following the scent gives Tyler an excuse to run away from the “straight” Josh, whom he drunkenly made out with, is just the cherry on the shit sundae.
But Echo Island isn’t what it seems. Its eerily scenic veneer hides a twisted secret buried in its roots as a gay conversion camp, and as Tyler retraces his mother’s footsteps, he discovers a supernatural connection between the residents and the island—one they seem to think Tyler and his mother share.
Even worse, the footage of Tyler’s mom came from someone on the island–a stalker whose obsessive fascination with both Tyler and Josh is about to make Tyler wish he hadn’t gone this one alone. Puppeteered by his stalker, searching for his mother, and debating whether it’s possible to queerbait yourself, Tyler comes to realize that it doesn’t matter so much whether you believe in monsters, if they believe in you.
THE ERSTWHILE TYLER KYLE is an adult horror comedy for fans of GHOST FILES, BUZZFEED UNSOLVED, and TWIN PEAKS.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Self-published novels tend to share some general categories of flaws: depending on your personality, some (like solecismic grammar) are forgivable, or indeed invisisble; others (wittering on about stuff you've covered and explained and discussed, showing off your research) are just joy-sucking offenses against the Muses. You'll never guess which camp I fall into.
I don't mean to put down this story by saying its comps are exactly and precisely correct, because they are. If it were not for its bloat, this story would be a great addition to Hulu's adaptation slate. It's got a pleasantly funny vibe buried in the wordiness. Very amusing, queer-inclusive, sidewise glance at "reality" media's unrealest stretch of landscape (cryptids) made...real? or just maybe real...?
Consult the content warning list, and decide if you wnat to use the buy links, for this $2.99 ebook.
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An Ocean Without A Shore a novel by Scott Spencer
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says:A wildly entertaining and occasionally heartbreaking story of frustrated longing, and the lengths we will go for those we love—even if they don’t love us in return
An Ocean Without a Shore, from the bestselling, critically acclaimed author of Endless Love and Man in the Woods, is a beautifully rendered exploration of that most timeless of human dilemmas: the one in which your love is left unreturned.
Since their college days, Kip Woods has been infatuated with Thaddeus Kaufman, who, years later, is a married father of two children and desperately trying to revive a failing career. Kip’s devotion to Thaddeus has been life-defining and destiny-altering, but it has been one that Thaddeus has either failed to notice or refused to acknowledge. But over the course of this heated and mesmerizing novel, set against a background of privilege and affluence in Manhattan and the Hudson Valley, Kip will be forced to reckon with the prison of his own making and decide how much he is willing to sacrifice for a love that may never be shared.
Picking up where his most recent novel, River Under the Road, left off, but writing squarely in the vein of Endless Love, his classic novel of passion and obsession, Scott Spencer gives us an intimate, immersive, and unsettling portrait of the devastation we will wreak in the name of love, and the bitterness of a friendship ravaged by fathomless yearning.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I read this not realizing it was a sequel. That could be part of my lack of enthusiasm. The strongest reason I didn't fall all over myself to praise this novel, though, is right here:
I have learned one of the lessons of loneliness, one of its shocking side effects: when you are in a state of longing, desire goes on and on, like an ocean without a shore.
–and–
Here's something else about us torchbearers. We are possessive of the one we love and we are determined to maintain our hold on the idea of them. Our idea of them is really all we have. When you think about someone more or less constantly, you begin to believe—though you would never say so, not even to yourself—that they belong to you.
Beautiful sentences, aren't they? But what a world they paint. That's my issue...I don't want to spend much time in Kip's world because it grates on my nerve to be asked to invest in unrequited longing. It feels to me like the relationship he maintains with savvy, manipulative Thaddeus is a shield he uses against any real intimacy. That isn't my own personal jam of a read.
I expect fans of Andrew Sean Greer and Peter Cameron will disagree with me. Prioritize lovely language and fully limned characters over a story you're rooting for an exact outcome to end? This is your lucky review, here it is! I myownself just wanted it to end and wasn't invested enough to mind about how. To my saddened annoyance.
Ecco Press offers a trade paper edition for $15.99 or an ebook for $9.99. Either seems like a good buy for those intrigued.
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Invisible No More: A Historical Novel by Scott Pitoniak and Rick Burton
Rating: 3 generous stars of five
The Publisher Says: Wilmeth Sidat-Singh is the greatest athlete you've never heard of--and so much more. A rocket-armed passer on the football field, an ankle-breaking playmaker on the basketball court, he was also a scholar, civil rights pioneer, patriot, and one other thing—forgotten.
In this historical novel based on Sidat-Singh's life, sportswriter Breanna Shelton stumbles upon the riveting story of the former Syracuse University star who was forced to hide his identity in order to take the field, leading to climactic moments when race and sports collided. As a young Black woman making her way in a profession not ready to fully accept her, Shelton immerses herself in the research, determined to resurrect an inspirational man who time left behind. Along the way, she finds courage and perseverance to transform herself and her career.
Post-civil rights era society still grapples with dispiriting obstacles that Sidat-Singh faced more than a half century earlier, when he was "passing" to play; serving as a Tuskegee Airman in World War II; and interacting with luminaries such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Grantland Rice, Sam Lacy, and Joe Louis.
This fictionalized account, as timely now as ever, honors an American hero whose life was cut short while serving a country that didn't recognize him as a full-fledged citizen because of the color of his skin. After you read it, Sidat-Singh will be invisible no more.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Well, it's #PrideMonth-adjacent because Wilmeth Sadat-Singh was in the "race" closet that the US of the 1930s enforced. He was Black, not of the less-reviled South Asian ancestry his stepfather's surname allowed him to present to a horrifyingly prejudiced society...a dilemma of passing that queer people face to this day.
The man, and his bitter story, deserve our respect and attention. The recrudescence of the uglier expressions of racism make this tale urgent. This execution of it, to my disappointment, doesn't do the material justice because it feels to me like the research notes were just lightly stitched together. The authors use a framing device of modern discovery of historical materials...a lot like what Elizabeth Kostova did in her bestsellers (that I didn't like much either). Thus, of necessity, the entire momentum resides in the past. The problem I have with that is that it never allows me a place to hook into the action...it's all in records of things done and dusted, and people who are largely just names to my 21st-century eyes.
(non-affiliate Amazon link) It's self-published, so the $9.99 might be more than you want to spend on a Kindlebook. Get a sample, then decide.
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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!
As she says:
People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.
So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.
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Codename Nemo: The Hunt for a Nazi U-Boat and The Elusive Enigma Machine by Charles Lachman PEARL RULED @ 47%
Rating: 3.25* of five
The Publisher Says: The white-knuckled war saga of the US Navy task force who achieved the impossible on June 4, 1944, capturing Nazi submarine U-505, its crew, technology, encryption codes, and an Enigma cipher machine—the first seizure of an enemy ship in battle since the War of 1812 and one that undoubtedly shortened the duration of the war.
On June 4, 1944—two days before D-Day—the course of World War II was forever changed. That day, a US Navy task force achieved the impossible—capturing a German U-Boat, its crew, all its technology, Nazi encryption codes, and an Enigma cipher machine. Led by a nine-man boarding party and the maverick Captain Daniel Gallery, US antisubmarine Task Group 22.3’s capture of U-505 in what was called Operation Nemo was the first seizure of an enemy ship in battle since the War of 1812, one of the greatest achievements of the US Navy, and a victory that shortened the duration of the war.
Charles Lachman’s white-knuckled war saga and thrilling cat-and-mouse game is told through the eyes of the men on both sides of Operation Nemo—German U-Boaters and American heroes like Lieutenant Albert David (“Mustang”), who led the boarding party that took control of U-505 and became the only sailor to be awarded the Medal of Honor in the Battle of the Atlantic; and Chief Motor Machinist Zenon Lukosius (“Zeke”), a Lithuanian immigrant’s son from Chicago who dropped out of high school to enlist in the Navy and whose quick thinking saved the day when he plugged a hole of gushing water that was threatening to sink U-505.
Three thousand American sailors participated in this extraordinary adventure; nine ordinary American men channeling extraordinary skill and bravery finished the job; and then—like everyone involved—breathed not a word of it until after the war was over. Nothing leaked out. In Berlin, the German Kriegsmarine assumed that U-505 had been blown to bits by depth charges, with all hands lost at sea. They were unaware that the U-Boat and its secrets, to be used in cracking Nazi coded messages, were in now American hands. They were also unaware that the 59 German sailors captured on the high seas were imprisoned in a POW camp in Ruston, Louisiana, until their release in 1946 when they were permitted to return home to family and friends who thought they had perished.
Following Operation Nemo step-by-step, author Charles Lachman has crafted a deeply researched, fast-paced World War II narrative for the ages.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Step-by-step indeed. Ploddingly paced, full of the sort of detail and acronym-heavy information that professional historians batten on, and that do less for me than sci-fi infodumping does in the reading pleasure metrics. I had to bail just before the halfway point. It really shouldn't surprise me that I couldn't get deeply immersed in the read because submarine stories have to be very fast-paced for me not to fixate on the claustrophobia of their raison d'etre. Underwater! NO FRESH AIR! Lots of bodies all squished up with no personal space! *shudder*
As I mentioned, that needs a fast narrative pace with plenty of action for me to overcome. I didn't get that here. If you're an Erik Larson fan, that is not this writer's style. He's closer to Russell S. Bonds or Stephen Harrigan: Details accumulate, characters emerge in relief or simply can't be recreated from the source material, but nowhere is your pulse going to pound.
Diversion Books offers hardcovers for $29.99 from 4 June 2024.
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The Behavioral Code: The Hidden Ways the Law Makes Us Better...or Worse by Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine PEARL RULED @ 42%
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: A 2022 PROSE Award finalist in Legal Studies and Criminology
A Behavioral Scientist's Notable Book of 2021
Freakonomics for the law—how applying behavioral science to the law can fundamentally change and explain misbehavior
Why do most Americans wear seatbelts but continue to speed even though speeding fines are higher? Why could park rangers reduce theft by removing "no stealing" signs? Why was a man who stole 3 golf clubs sentenced to 25 years in prison?
Some laws radically change behavior whereas others are consistently ignored and routinely broken. And yet we keep relying on harsh punishment against crime despite its continued failure.
Professors Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine draw on decades of research to uncover the behavioral code: the root causes and hidden forces that drive human behavior and our responses to society's laws. In doing so, they present the first accessible analysis of behavioral jurisprudence, which will fundamentally alter how we understand the connection between law and human behavior.
The Behavioral Code offers a necessary and different approach to battling crime and injustice that is based in understanding the science of human misconduct—rather than relying on our instinctual drive to punish as a way to shape behavior. The book reveals the behavioral code's hidden role through illustrative examples like:
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Why read for pleasure when you can eat your spinach, suffer, and learn? Why indeed...I had to quit reading at 42% because I am utterly outraged and about to pop a vein in my skull.
In the legal and moral landscape where a crooked, lying rapist manipulating the system in advance by appointing political hacks to the courts high and low, and thus possibly evading...AGAIN...consequences for his vile actions, I just could not continue. The prose is redable, the arguments stand up to my poking around for other opinions, but I'm just not in the headspace to read this badly-needed work of popular social science.
Beacon Press hardcovers are $27.95, and I'll urge the purchase on you.
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Hearts Ablaze: Parables for the Queer Soul by Dr. Rolf Nolasco Jr. PEARL RULED @ 31%
Rating: 3* of five
The Publisher Says: Meditations addressing the spiritual needs of queer Christians. A new look at ten selected parables of Jesus, that expands the scope of interpretation of each story to highlight God's extravagant welcome of all people. The perspective in the reflections is deeply personal and written to be used by both individuals and groups. Queer affirming churches, seminaries, and retreat centers will benefit from this resource as they continue to champion the flourishing of their queer siblings in Christ.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I am a Bad Person. I not only don't believe in Jesus as savior, I don't believe in Jesus as human being who was once alive. I don't believe in one—or any—gawd the father-mother-sister-brother. I don't accept the "moral" authority of this dreadful, hate-filled cult of judgmental dupes that calls itself christian.
I have numerous dear friends, and some family members, who do. I am positive that, one day, my shining example of right thinking and proper living will convert them from their benighted superstitions. The comfort of their souls will come from rational scientific answers to their questions, and where there are no answers yet, they will abide in faith that the scientific method will provide an answer or a Reason there can't be one.
That's the kind of world, flipped 180°, that this book inhabits. I ain't the intended audience, but I am always looking for ways to understand what I can't accept. What comfort and acceptance this flavor of christianity offers is unnecessary to me, but could easily save another person's life. I feel strongly that I need to know resources like this exist to proffer if and when they're needed.
There's a Kindle edition for $9.99 (non-affiliate Amazon link), but best of luck finding the publisher's website, or any so-called christian source of books that carries it. Color me surprised. Not.
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