Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood

  Cocaine Blues is a mystery set in in late 1920s/ early 1930s Australia (so maybe it is a historical mystery). Phryne (pronounced fry-knee) was born poor in Australia. Thanks to the Great War several people in Phryne's extended family die, resulting in Phryne's father elevation to a title and wealth. And just like that, Phryne and her family are removed to London. Now an adult, Phryne has grown bored with flower arranging and whatever else wealthy women do with their time. When family friends ask her to check on their daughter back in Australia, Phryne welcomes the change of scenery.

Within hours of setting foot in Melbourne, Phryne stops a woman from stabbing the man who wronged her. From there Phryne finds herself involved in one mystery after another. She uncovers the identity of an illegal abortionist who has been butchering women, breaks up a cocaine ring, and enjoys the company of handsome Russian dancer. She is intelligent, fearless, and always fabulously dressed. Cocaine Blues is the first in a series with dozens of volumes, which means plenty more adventures for Phryne Fisher, lady detective.

Shiny Broken Pieces by Sona Charaipotra & Dhonielle Clayton

  Shiny Broken Pieces picks up the fall semester after Tiny Pretty Things ended. Gigi is recovering mentally and physically after being pushed in front of a car. Bette has been suspended from school and struggling to clear her name and get back in everybody's good graces. June's difficulties with food have taken full of control of her life. And Cassie is back. It is their final year at ballet boarding school. What amounts to their final exam is also their final chance to prove they deserve a spot in the ballet company. There are only two spots open in the company. Who will it be?

In Tiny Pretty Things readers got the story from the perspectives of three fiercely ambitious girls vying for the best roles while dealing with the ups and downs of life. Sometimes those who didn't get what they wanted when they wanted took out their anger and frustrations on others. There was bullying and nasty pranks, culminating with one ballerina ending the night in a hospital. In Shiny Broken Pieces the ballerinas are dealing with the repercussions of their (and other's) actions. The bullied want revenge. The bullies begin to see how much they hurt others. All of them contemplate how everything that has happened could affect the potential careers they want so desperately and have worked so hard for. Not each realizes it right away, but each is in danger of losing everything. Gigi an Cassie in particular have to figure out which is more important to them - getting revenge or ballet.

I loved this! There's ballet, boarding school, a diverse set of characters, and extremely ambitious young women - this series is basically catnip for me. The authors wrapped up the story well and I get why it is a duology, but oh how I wish there were more books to read!

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

   Cora is a slave on a Georgia cotton plantation. It is as horrible as it sounds, violent and vile in every imaginable way. In addition to the cruelties of slavery, Cora is also an outcast among her fellow slaves. In short, her life is horrible. One day Caesar, one of the newer slaves to the plantation, asks Cora to run away with him. As first she says no. The punishment for a runaway attempt is not only death, but the most painful death the sadistic slave masters can think of. Caesar urges her to reconsider and eventually Cora decides to run.

I had high hopes for this, what with all the awards and nominations for awards this book has received. Unfortunately it didn't quite live up to the hype. For starters there is the idea of the railroad itself. Here the underground railroad isn't just a metaphor, it is an actual train or at least a single train car. Anytime someone mentions this book they mention this so I was really looking forward to seeing how Whitehead was going to flesh this out. Unfortunately there wasn't very much meat on this bone. How the railroad was built, by whom, or how people got involved with it was never explained. So making the underground railroad an actual train instead of it simply being a metaphor didn't really add much to the story.

Cora's journey is epic. In epics I think you either need a really strong main character to connect to, a character whose joy and pain you feel bodily with each word of the story. Or alternatively, the main character can be less important than the journey itself. In this case the character is more of a device used to flesh out the events surrounding the main character. In The Underground Railroad I didn't exactly get one or the other. Cora isn't the strongest of characters. I felt the story in one respect because it is about slavery and that alone elicits strong feelings but Cora herself felt too removed and too distant from the story even though she was its main character. As for her journey, Cora visits different states, each of which is dealing the population of slaves and free Black people differently. Whitehead uses these different states to touch on various actual historical events (Nat Turner rebellion and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, and more) but it didn't quite explore them enough.

I'm not sure if I liked this book or not. There were aspects of it I definitely liked. There were many great ideas but in the end it fell a little flat for me. I am glad I read it, so that's something.