Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

  Ivy didn't get the magic gene. Her twin sister, Tabitha, did. Magic divided Tabitha and Ivy. Tabitha went off to magic school while Ivy lived in the regular world, which unfortunately included watching her mother die slowly and painfully from cancer. As an adult, Ivy makes a living as a private investigator, mostly investigating cheating spouses. Then Ms. Torres, headmistress of a nearby high school for magical teenagers walks into Ivy's office and offers her a job: find out who murdered Sylvia, one of the teacher's at the school.

On Goodreads many have classified this as mystery and fantasy. I agree with the mystery part, but would place it in the category of magical realism rather than fantasy. There is the real world as most of us know it and then there is small group of people called who happen to be able to do magic. Most people don't know magic is real. Mages are not totally separate from the rest of the population. Ivy is chosen for the detective job despite being non-magical because she is one of the few who know magic exists.

The mystery itself is not that mysterious. I guessed the who, why, and how about half way through. Still I enjoyed the journey. There was a lot going on in this book. Ivy's life isn't quite what she wanted to be and this job among new people gives her a chance to try being a new Ivy. It also gives her chance to work on her relationship with her twin. While working on those two things and trying to solve a mystery, she also has to deal with a teenage drama. It's a lot but it all comes together nicely.

I don't know if this is this is a one-off or the start of a series. I hope for the latter. A non-magical female detective solving magical mysteries, I am down for that.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

In 2003 a 19-year-old Stanford dropout named Elizabeth Holmes started a company called Theranos. She claimed she was going to change the world. Gone would be the days of needles and vials of blood being drawn from a person’s arm for Holmes had invented a new technology that allowed for a blood tests to be run on a few drops of blood pricked from a finger. Sounds great, right! Afraid of needles, have collapsing veins – no problem, all it takes is prick of your finger. Even better, this amazing machine would be relatively small and portable so it be used in say in a war zone or your local drug store, or maybe even some day in people’s homes. Not only that, but Holmes’ invention would be able to test for multiple things at once. 

It was truly an amazing idea. The problem was it wasn’t real. The technology never worked in any reliable manner. Nevertheless, over the next dozen years Holmes raised millions of dollars and got well-known business leaders and powerful politicians to back her. John Carreyrou explains how Holmes and Sunny Balwani, got away with this amazing scam for so long. And it was a scam, because again the technology never actually worked the way Holmes claimed. Investors lost their money. One man lost his life. Many people received erroneous test results. John Carreyrou explains it all in this fascinating quick read, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.

The thing that fascinated me the most about this story was how many people thought to be extremely intelligent and discerning were enthralled by Elizabeth Holmes and her claims. No doubt she is smart, and according to many, very charming. The thing that I could never get pass however, is that she is a college dropout with no education or formal training in medicine or engineering. I personally have little understanding of the science involved in testing blood. It is precisely because I know so little about the subject that I would only trust and expect someone selling a medical device to have studied medicine. Yet neither Holmes, nor Balwani, nor the famous people on the company’s board of directors had any medical or other scientific training. Still Holmes was able to convince people to invest in her company and trust her based on a little more than an idea and a promise of a better tomorrow. 

The other part of the story I found interesting was how people reacted when they realizing that Holmes wasn’t living up the claims she made about Theranos, and then how they responded to pressure from Holmes and Balwani and their team of lawyers. We would all like to believe we would have the courage to stand up and call the liars and scammers out. In Bad Blood Carreyrou shows how that is often harder to do than one might think. Employees who left Theranos were bullied. They were followed. They were threatened with lawsuits if they dared tell what they knew. Still several employees resisted. They tried to spread the word about what was really going on at the company. It was not easy but thank goodness for their courage and bravery. And thanks to Carreyrou for his reporting. Without it who knows how long this company would have continued doing what it did.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Bitterblue is a young queen of a nation called Monsea. Prior to her queenship Monsea was ruled by Bitterblue's father, an evil man known as King Leck. In this world of seven kingdoms, of which Monsea is one, some people are born with a grace. A grace is like a special gift or superpower. For instance, there is a character whose grace is the ability to look at a person and know exactly what the person needs to eat at that moment. Some characters are graced with the ability of knowing how to heal. One character, a librarian no less, is graced with the ability to remember everything he reads.

King Leck had a particularly insidious grace. He could speak and people automatically believed what he said and did whatever he told them to do. Leck was also a sadist. He used his power to control minds to not only rule over a kingdom, but to hurt his people. He did things like cut people with knives and then make the healers cure them so he could cut the people again. Leck kidnapped (especially young girls and women) and murdered people. Leck left people with injured bodies and minds that can't quite remember what is real and what isn't, what is a true memory and what is a lie. He left them with guilt over what they had been forced to do and not being able to resists his power. If this also sounds very violent for a book aimed at young adults, well it is. There isn't much violence that happens in the action of the story, but what happened in the past is constantly referenced.

Bitterblue is the third book in a set. The first two books in order of publication were Graceling and Fire. Fire is a companion to Graceling and Bitterblue is the sequal to Graceling. At the end of Graceling King Leck was killed and a 10-year-old Bitterblue became the queen. Now 18, Queen Bitterblue must figure out how to rule her very broken, very hurt kingdom.

The big problem, or set of problems, concerns how to deal with the past. Her advisors have urged a policy of simply moving forward. They want to give blanket pardons to anyone who committed crimes under Leck's rule since most of those crimes were committed while under Leck's mind control. The problem is that many people want to remember. They want to know what happened to their friends and families who disappeared under Leck's rule. They want what was stolen from them to be returned. They want to be whole again and for some that requires knowing and speaking the truth.

I love it when a book makes me think hard about something else entirely. Early on in Bitterblue I found myself thinking of truth and reconciliation commissions in South Africa. Atrocities were committed and there needed to be a way where victims and victimizers (sometimes the same people in Bitterblue) needed to be able to speak the truth. Bitterblue is stuck for much of the book because she doesn't know enough about the past to help people in the present, but eventually she finds a way forward.

It is funny how books end up in one's life sometimes. A friend gave me Graceling to read because we both love romances and Graceling has a beautiful romance in between the fights for survival. That led me to this book that made be think of history and politics. What a reading world! This is why I love books.

A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas

 
Charlotte is living mostly happily in exile form her family after the events from the first book. Her sister Livia is less lucky, still having to trudge through the (mating) season that is part and parcel of being an unmarried young woman in Victorian England. When not working on a way to help Livia and their other sister Bernadette, Charlotte is solving mysteries. After advertising his/her services for cases big and small, a Mrs. Finch shows up asking for Sherlock’s help in finding her first love. Sherlock immediately sees through Mrs. Finch’s ruse and recognizes her as Lady Ingram, the wife of one of Charlotte’s closest friends. Alas, Mrs. Finch/Lady Ingram is not the only one pretending to be someone she is not. 

I must admit to finding the plot slightly confusing. There was a dead body, Moriarty or at least people connected to Moriarty, and people pretending to be someone else. At various points I forgot what mystery Sherlock was trying to solve. Nevertheless, this was a fun and intriguing read. Lady Sherlock is the best Sherlock. In some renditions Sherlock is little more than a stock character with lots of annoying quirks that people put up with because he’s brilliant. Ms. Thomas makes her Holmes feel as if she could be a real person.

One of things I enjoyed most about A Conspiracy in Belgravia (and in the first book in the series, A Study in Scarlet) is how Ms. Thomas infuses the politics of being a woman in Victorian England into the story in a meaningful ways. One of those meaningful ways here takes the form of Inspector Treadles and his wife. Treadles admits that the learning Sherlock’s true gender identity was a shock. He is even more troubled when he realizes that at one time his wife had ambitions other than being a wife. He wonders why she must “desire power and unwomanly accomplishments."

It is such a treat to discover a new series and a new author. I am so glad Sherry Thomas is writing the Lady Sherlock series and that I get to read it.

Fire by Kristin Cashore

   Fire is the second installment in the Graceling trilogy although it doesn't actually have much to do with the first book. It is a prequel of sorts, set in an adjacent world. In this world instead of Gracelings there are monsters. Monsters are beautiful creatures whose beauty mesmerizes humans, making it easier for monsters to devour humans. Fire is the last human monster. She is not only beautiful beyond reason, she possesses the power to read and influence people's minds. Men are particularly susceptible to her, repeatedly professing their love for her upon seeing her. Fire resists using her power after seeing her father who had the same power use it cruelly.

As far as plot and tension go, there is an impending war as two kingdoms begin making moves to overthrow the king. In between battles and war planning there are various semi-romantic plots. I say semi-romantic because many of these plots involve men falling in lust with Fire. Nearly every man she comes in contact with wants to possess, use, or harm Fire. It is distressing and annoying in the worse way.

The only connecting character between this book and the first is Leck, the villain in the first book. We get something of his backstory here but it doesn't matter much in the long run. And more to the point, Leck is not character I wanted to learn more about anyway. The book could have done without his story line. The only useful thing Leck provided was an incomplete explanation of how these two different lands exists - one where Gracelings are a thing and another where monsters are a thing - and how these two lands do not know about the other's existence. I wonder if the next book in the series will bring these two lands together somehow.

I am struggling as to whether or not to recommend this book. On the one hand, if you read Graceling and loved it you might love, or at least like this too. On the other hand, the two stories are really not connected.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

  

Little Fires Everywhere begins with actual fires. Dressed only in her bathrobe, Mrs. Richardson watches her family's home burn to the ground. The description on the flap of the hardcover of Little Fires Everywhere emphasizes the dispute over a custody case. A White couple tries to adopt a Chinese baby over the objections of the baby's biological mother. The case splits the town of Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland where everything is perfectly planned. But really, the custody case  is not the most important part of the story, at least not in my opinion.

Long before the custody case erupts there is Elena and Mia. Elena was born, raised, and always dreamed of raising her own family in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland. It is an affluent community where things are carefully planned. Perhaps it isn't perfect, because no place is, but for Elena it is pretty close. A happily married mother of four, with a big house, and a job as a reporter at the local paper that is rewarding without being too demanding, Elena has worked hard to build the kind of life she wants. She firmly believes in rules and order and her successful life evidences her prudent choices.

For Mia and her daughter Pearl, Shaker Heights is the latest of a long list of cities they have called home. Mia, a photographer, lives for two things: her art and her daughter. She and her daughter move from city to city because different landscapes inspire Mia's art in different ways. If she can, Mia sells her photos through her New York agent. When making art is not profitable enough Mia takes odd jobs to make ends meet, as a waitress or house cleaner usually. Mia could probably make more money if she took portraits or other types of commission, but that's not what matters to her. She makes the art she wants to make, and if she has to scrub a few toilets in order to put food on the table and pay the rent, so be it.

Mia confounds Elena. What Elena doesn't understand, what she finds contemptible is how content Mia is with her life. To Elena Mia's life is one broken rule after another and Elena does not like rule breakers. Unfortunately, for Elena she has a rule breaker of her own living in her own home. Izzy, Elena's youngest daughter is no more a rule follower than Mia. In Mia Izzy finds a kindred spirit. Meanwhile Pearl begins to build friendships with Elena's three other children - Lexis, Trip, and Moody.

I really enjoyed this. Celeste Ng's writing is beautiful. I don't know how to explain it other than to say it flows. She has a way of getting to the root of what makes a person tick and how they work, or don't work, with others and why. I tore through this book. The plot is relatively simple but the characters are deeply drawn. I highly recommend.

January Roundup

At the end of the December I chose my reading challenges for 2019. Many years I plan these challenges and then end up reading up other books. This year I had planned to spend January working specifically on the challenges so at least I would get off to a good start. Things didn't quite go as planned but I did read quite a few books and and most of them were pretty quite good.

Books Finished in January

• Kitchen Confidential 
• Sinner
• A Princess in Theory
• Once Ghosted, Twice Shy
• Ballet: The Definitive Illustrated Story
• Graceling

DNF (Books started but not finished)

• Prep - I've read two other books by Curtis Sittenfeld, but this one I just couldn't get into. Perhaps I will try again someday.

For February I hope to make more headway on my challenges.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

  Graceling is a young adult fantasy with a bit of romance. In the world author Kristin Cashore has created there are seven kingdom with seven kings. Some people in this world are "graced" with a special gift or ability. For instance a person might be a gifted cook or swimmer. Katsa, a young girl from the Middluns kingdom, is graced with fighting skill (or so she has been told).

What a treat this was to read! There were so many things I loved about this book, the first being Katsa. Katsa is a machine. When she fights, nothing seems to be able to stop her, not even an army. But I didn't just like her because she was a physically strong female character. I liked her because she knew who she was and what she wanted. She doesn't want to get married or have children. She doesn't want to be someone's puppet. She wants control over her own life and she fights to make it so. She is strong willed and a sense of right and wrong that she comes to on her own.

I also loved Prince Po, the man who brings changes to Katsa life (but does not change her). Like Katsa, Po is a gifted fighter but he is no match for Katsa. He readily admits this without any ego. I'm still thinking this through but one thought I had while reading this book was that in some ways Katsa and Po have switched the usual gender roles. Katsa is the bold, strong fighter, while Po is the one who is emotionally intelligent, able to sense people thoughts and feelings and acting accordingly.

I also enjoyed the different portrayals of power. There are seven kings but only three really factor into the story. One king is what I think of as the gangster king. For years he compelled Katsa to be his muscle, sending her to maim or kill people who owed him money or who otherwise disobeyed or disrespected him in some way. Then there is the mad king who physically and mentally abuses his people. Finally there is a king who "looked at his people, instead of over their heads." This king might never consider doing any kind of manual labor, but he could have a sincere conversation with a manual laborer about that person's work and his or her dreams and aspirations.

I was visiting a friend and she thrusts this book in my hands, insisting I read it. I'm so glad she did.

A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole

Naledi Smith is a young woman juggling graduate school and multiple jobs in New York City. After being shuffled from home to home as a foster kid Naledi, or Ledi for short, is as used to being self-sufficient and as she is to being disappointed. She doesn't remember much about the parents who died when she was four, and she doesn't care to. Ledi is focused on the future and on becoming an epidemiologist. She certainly doesn't have time for the silly emails she keeps getting from someone pretending to be an African prince.

It is time for Prince Thabiso to start thinking about marriage. As children Ledi and Prince Thabiso were promised to one another, but then Ledi's parents took their young daughter and fled the country. It's been twenty years of so since they've seen each other but Thabiso has never stopped hoping he would see young Ledi again. Finally he finds her in New York. He's all set to reclaim his bride when Ledi mistakes him for Jamal, the new waiter that was supposed to start work at the cafeteria where Ledi works. Thabiso decides to play along for the moment. But then one moment leads to another and soon Ledi and "Jamal" are falling for each other. But of course, such a lie cannot last. How will Ledi react when she discovers Jamal's true identity and her own?

First all, thank you Alyssa Cole for giving me something I didn't even know I needed - a Black princess story. I've grown up reading and watching stories about princes from made-up European countries finding their princesses (who are blond more often than not) among the commoners. It's a classic trope and I love it. For the first time, I got a story about a Black prince from a fictional African country finding his princess. It was amazing and strangely I felt validated even though the story is obviously fictional.

What exactly did I love? First, the characters, especially Naledi. She is a fully fleshed out character who was believable as a real person. I always like when romance heroines have more going on in their lives besides looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend. Naledi has plenty going on. She's a former foster kid with attachment issues. She's a poor graduate student juggling her studies with a lab assistant job and a server job so she can afford to pay rent on her studio apartment. She's a Black woman in science who has to deal with a White male boss who mistakes her for the maid, mansplains scientific concepts to her that she already knows, and who gives her grunt work while giving her male colleague the opportunity to do actual science. She keeps two mice as pets and has best friend named Portia who can be sweet but who can also fail to understand how hard Ledi's life can be at times

While not as captivating as Ledi (but really who could be), I also loved Prince Thabiso. He is the typical prince in a romance story. That is, he has grown up knowing that one day we will responsible for the kingdom. Though he cares about his people and genuinely wants to do the best he can for them, he is also a man who has grown up with people serving his nearly every need. He is not used to be told no or having people truly question him.

The only thing I would have changed about this book, what I wanted more of, was the kingdom of Thesolo. Ledi eventually travels to Thesolo to learn more about the country where she is born. We get glimpses of the culture but not enough. I wanted to know more about the different regions of the country. (There is a mountainous region but what else?) I wanted to know more the religion which seems to be female based. (They pray to a goddess). The country has innovative technology in some parts (heated sidewalks that melt the snow which is then recycled) but in other parts the characters had to travel by donkey. I have so many questions. Most of the story takes place in New York but despite its name, New York isn't new. Tell me more about Thesolo.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if this were turned into a movie? Movie gods, please make this happen ASAP!