Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I feel like Weir writes solely to explain physics, math, and biology, which I'm not mad about. If I could always get difficult (for me) subjects explained to me in cute, slightly tense, interesting stories, I might have been much better at them. Weirs books also tend to help me believe the premise that no matter what circumstances happen on earth, smart people will come up with a solution. And Grace does seem to think his way out of every hiccup. Weir also sneaks in some questions about who should make decisions--how far should authority go? (is the end of the world reason enough for a dictator? does it necessitate it?). what does sacrifice and bravery look like? how do we impose our own biases on cultures we don't understand? If you go on this ride, you will believe that good will triumph, problems can be solved, and if you know enough math you can save the world.

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Believe it or not, light has momentum.  It exerts a force.  If you were out in space and you turned on a flashlight, you'd get a teeny, tiny amount of thrust from it. 

A Sorceress Comes to Call

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 and maybe a little more, because one of the protagonists is an older lady that gets to find love, and I liked that angle. I liked all of the magic and the fact that the plot twists enough to keep it interesting. Its dark for a coming of age novel, but it's lightened by several humorous scenes. Questions of free will, strength, love and bravery are raised and the answers vary with the character. The underlying issue is what is holding you back? And what would you do move forward?

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The Last Mrs. Parrish

 

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF. I did read over half of this and then it wasn't worth it anymore. I didn't mind the unlikeable narrator or her schemes and I could tell what one of the twists was right away (and I wasn't wrong) but then when the perspective changes to the first Mrs. Parrish, some of the scenes were so totally degrading and humiliating that I couldn't finish. In what I took to be as a light bit of summer revenge reading turned too dark, and I thought the depth of many scenes were totally unnecessary. Wasn't worth finishing.

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Go

 

Go by Kazuki Kaneshiro
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At the time of this review, the GR average for Go was 3.63 stars which is probably where I'd put it. Such an interesting point of view: a Korean in Japan, otherwise known as Zainichi. Sugihara has been bullied in school because of his heritage and has become a proficient fighter as a result. Slightly hot-headed, he grapples with the idea of nationality vs. heritage--where should his loyalties lie? If you speak the language, eat the food, agree with the politics, are you not a member of the nation? But if your history also includes a race that has been discriminated against do you owe that history and culture a certain amount of loyalty? What if it keeps you from loving someone? Or keeps them from loving you? Sugihara struggles with these questions of identity while navigating school, family, friends, and first love. While extremely intriguing, the writing was a little stilted, which could be part of the frustrations of translation--I have found many Japanese-translated books have a similar style-- so I question whether my opinion is criticism of the writing ,my ignorance of Japanese expression, or just one of those things lost in translation.

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I was just living with the circumstances that I happened to be born into.

Island Beneath the Sea

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Relating the history of Haiti and highlighting the relationship between Haiti and Louisiana, Allende does a superb job of creating a myriad of characters that represent several perspectives. While she doesn't shy away from the cruelty of slavery, she also shines a light on the spirit of the revolutionary slaves as well as showing the precariousness of the mulatto population. Allende is always best when she when she adds some magical realism and the Haiti religion of voodoo creates a world where mysticism is married to science and is even sought out by some of the white doctors. I felt like I learned a lot about history and geography (even if some subsequent research called into question some of Allende's facts such as the Cordon Bleu balls). This is how I learn history best: by giving me some characters whose fate I care about and help me understand the implications of political and economic policy on the specific people.

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Music is a wind that blows away the years.

In spite of subtleties of color, the mulattoes were united by their shared apsiration to pass for whites and their visceral scorn for Negroes.

doesn't mean anything for me to be free and everyone else slaves

to heal her, as the doctor himself admitted, but to ease her existence.

knowledge comes from Papa Bondye and it belongs to everyone, and if not shared it is lost.

He had heard the Negroes have more capacity for suffering: the proof was that no white could bear what the blacks endured

There is no worse suffering than to love with fear, said Tante Rose

She walked with determination, not thinking about how far she had to go but how far she had come.

[Louisiana] Sold like cattle! Humiliation and fury replaced the festive spirit of the previous day.

The Year of Magical Thinking

 

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is often referred to as the seminal work about grief. It is very honest. And I am in the enviable position of not having lost a very close person (yet). I appreciated her emotions and the fact that having to deal with a sudden loss of a loved one while taking care of another loved in precarious health must have been traumatizing. I just found more inspiration personally in C.S. Lewis, Madeline L'Engle, and Julian Barnes.

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In the midst of life we are in death

that the death, even if sudden or accidental, "gives advance warning of its arrival."

Were faith and grief the same thing?

Grief was passive.  Grief happened.  Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention.

yet having seen the picture in no way deflected, when it came, the swift empty loss of the actual event.  It was still black and white.  Each of them had been in the last instant alive, and then dead.

Marriage is not only time: it is also, paradoxically, the denial of time.

when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves.  As we were.  As we are no longer.  As we will one day not be at all. 

Bear

Bear by Julia Phillips
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This tale teeters on the edge of fairy tale. Two sisters living with their dying mom encounter a bear that upends their world. One sister finds herself inexplicably drawn to the bear while the other sees the danger it represents and will do anything she can to stop her sister from befriending it further. It's an intimate look at sisterhood and I loved that aspect. It's also an examination of how systems (medical, police, etc.) often contribute rather than relieve many of the problems its designed to alleviate. Economic disparity, tourism, COVID, and climate change are also discussed. Obviously the bear can stand in for several other issues and that's what creates the fairy-tale-like feeling, making it a magical, but thought-provoking book.

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When she and Elena moved off-island, they would enjoy, she imagined, mentioning to people the beautiful place in which they'd grown up.

Somewhere, somehow, in the space left unexplored by bureaucrats and biologists, there existed possiblities. There might be magic to be found. 

For a moment, in the woods, there was nothing, and then--there it was again.  Its body appeared and vanished.  It was walking the fine line between their human existence and monstrosity.  She didn't know how quickly it could move.

Real care was something else entirely.  A more rare beast.  It was growing up alongside each other, watching one another.  It was the ability to hear what wasn't said.