The Paper Wasp by Lauren Acampora
Grove/Atlantic: 6/11/19
eBook review copy; 240 pages
ISBN-13:
9780802129413
The Paper Wasp by Lauren Acampora is a highly recommended, dark, twisted tale of a friendship between two women.
Abby Graven is stuck at her parent's house in Michigan working as a
cashier in a supermarket. She obsessively creates detailed drawings of
visions from her dreams that are often premonitory, and she follows the
films of director, Auguste Perren. She also obsessively follows the
acting career of her former best friend, Elise
Van Dijk. When Abby and Elise reconnect at their ten-year high school
reunion, a drunken Elise gives Abby her private number. Later Abby shows
up in Hollywood and calls Elise. This results in a renewal of their
friendship as Elise confesses she has no real friends and she invites
Abby to stay with her. Abby becomes a pillar of support, a confidante,
and a personal assistant to Elise.
Abby watches as Elise drinks too much, dates an arrogant,
narcissistic man, and doubts her abilities while resenting the other
egotistical actresses around her, but she also claims to be an artist,
which embitters Abby. This novel shows the weird, dark side of Los
Angeles and Hollywood. It also brings Abby closer to her idle, Auguste Perren, and his
Rhizome retreat/compound, which teaches actors to use their dreams.
Elise attends as if it is nothing, but Abby has obsessed with being
there for years and religiously follows and practices Perren's
dream-imaging techniques. At the same time Abby is still having her dream/visions and drawing them.
As would be expected, this reconnection is not going to result in anything good. Told in the second person, this
is a disquieting, twisted, ominous novel that is the story of an uneven
friendship, obsessions, a confession of hidden secrets, and a dairy of
stealthy plans. Even when you know it is going to take a foreboding
turn, it still will hold your attention, and the turn it does take is
simultaneously unexpected and obvious.
The writing is excellent, even while it is taking bizarre turns, and
you will find yourself compulsively reading just one more chapter. The
ending is frightening and ominous, but Abby can explain and justify
every turn she takes, as if it were all predetermined - which it has
been through her dream visions. If it sounds like this is a rather odd
visionary tale, it is. It is akin to a diary written to your obsessions.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Grove/Atlantic.
Above the Ether by Eric Barnes
Arcade Publishing: 6/11/19
eBook review copy; 240 pages
ISBN-13:
9781628729986
Above the Ether by Eric Barnes is a highly recommended prequel to his climate change science fiction novel The City Where We Once Lived.
The stories of six sets of vastly different characters are told in
short vignettes set in the climate changed world Barnes first created in
The City Where We Once Lived. The weather patterns are
unpredictable and violent, while the ground is poisoned, and the
government is unable to provide any assistance. This novel covers the
changes before, that led to the world he created. None of his characters
are given names, rather they are named by a description. We follow the
stories of: a father and his two children fleeing a tsunami in the Gulf;
an investor making money betting on disasters; a couple punishing
themselves over their sons addictions, while wildfires rage around them;
a doctor and his wife living in a refugee camp for immigrants; a young
man with a violent past and present is working at a carnival; and the
manager of a fast food chain in a city of fierce winds. The different
characters and their stories converge on the city which is half
abandoned and the setting for The City Where We Once Lived.
The writing and the stories are presented in a dream-like, fragmented
manner in a harsh apocalyptic setting. This is one of those novels that
you will either commit to finishing or you will set it aside. While the
characters are going through turmoil and unbelievable hardships, Barnes
seems to purposefully keep his characters set apart, at a distance from
the readers, as if they are just another small group of diverse people
suffering. The writing simply tells their story while holding the reader
at a distance - until the end. It is left up to the reader to decide if
they will care or not - or if they feel this reality he has created
will mirror our own world. It is definitely bleak and almost hopeless,
as there is a glimmer of people coming together and helping each other
at the end.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Arcade Publishing.
Kathleen Hale Is a Crazy Stalker by Kathleen Hale
Grove/Atlantic: 6/4/19
eBook review copy; 176 pages
ISBN-13:
9780802129093
Kathleen Hale Is a Crazy Stalker by Kathleen Hale is a highly
recommended collection of six previously published essays that have been
revised since their original publication. This is a collection
described as portraying both predator and prey. In these autobiographical essays, Kathleen Hale openly and candidly
discusses her mental health and presents/confesses clearly and
consistently several difficult incidents in her life. She never tries to
present herself as above the fray or better than others.
Contents include:
Catfish: An essay rehashing the 2014 catfishing by a G.R. YA reviewer
and Hale's response, which was to catfish and stalk the reviewer. (More
on this later.)
Prey: Hale recounts her sexual assault as a first year college student and the two trials in which she testified against her
attacker. This is the strongest essay in the collection.
I Hunted Feral Hogs as a Favor to the World: Hale and a friend take a trip to hunt feral hogs in
Florida. Although, perhaps the weakest essay in the collection, it does capture the crazy stalker theme.
Cricket: This is a description of a trip to Atlantic City to watch the
Miss America pageant, as well as describe the audiences reaction to it.
Snowflake: Hale is allowed to visit, after extensive preparation,
a community of people suffering from "environmental illness" which is located in Snowflake, Arizona.
First I Got Pregnant. Then I Decided to Kill
the Mountain Lion.: A pregnant Hale becomes obsessed with a mountain lion living in nearby
Hollywood’s Griffith Park and is sure she needs to track it down and kill it before her child is born.
Okay, now to address the elephant in the room. While I obviously
don't condone her stalking a reviewer, reviewers have to realize authors
can look into their profiles and perhaps expand their research to find
out more about their negative and positive reviewers. We also need to
admit that "gangs" of negative reviewers can also happen when someone
doesn't agree with a differing opinion, and then tells all their friends
about their outrage. In 2007 I blogged a negative review. Comments from
my readers were in agreement and one respectfully disagreed. Life went
on until 2011 when someone online stumbled across the review and
proceeded to immediately and repeatedly attacked me and called in their
online friends to do the same. I pulled the post down. The stalkerish
behavior and trolling can go both ways. (This is an unbiased review of the book. I did not followed the previous "Hale-no" controversy.)
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Grove/Atlantic.
Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson
HarperCollins:
6/4/19
eBook review copy; 896 pages
ISBN-13: 9780062458711
Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson is a
highly recommended science fiction/fantasy thriller. This is a brilliantly
unique novel with great characters and world building established in a cautionary premise.
Richard “Dodge” Forthrast is a multibillionaire from a game company
he founded. Now he can enjoy his life, especially spending time with his
niece Zula and her daughter Sophia. When something goes wrong during a
routine medical procedure, Dodge is pronounce brain dead and put on life
support. This is when his family discovers that the will he made many
years earlier called for his body to be frozen and stored at a cryonics
company. The company is now owned by tech entrepreneur
Elmo Shepherd. Legally bound to follow the directive, Dodge's friend Corvallis Kawasaki, who is also the executor of his
will, acquiesces. Dodge's brain is scanned and its data
structures uploaded and stored in the cloud, until it can
eventually be revived.
Years later Dodge's grandniece, Sophia, is able to download Dodge's
brain into a digital world. Now Dodge (Egdod) is a god in a bitworld he
creates, and other downloaded brains find a place in it. At this point
the story alternates between what is going on in Bitworld and the real
world, or Meatspace. Societal structures and power are explored in both
worlds. Bitworld resembles a fantasy world, with footholds in ancient
mythology and religion, and provides a sort of life after death for those scanned and downloaded into the digital world.
Fall, or Dodge in Hell is absolutely a grand
epic drama, featuring both an entertaining narrative and compelling
reading. It explores
the interfacing of human imagination and artificial intelligence and
begs the question whether technological breakthroughs are helping or
harming humanity. This continues the story in Reamde, with
recurring characters from that novel, but is a standalone novel. The
writing is consummate Stephenson, so it is a detailed, complex story
presented in a massive novel. But the whole story is here, so there is
no waiting for a part two.
This is a well-written imaginative novel that explores life and
eternity, and combines technology, and spirituality in one literary saga
of science fiction and fantasy. The characters in both worlds are well
developed and well imagined. The time line is approximately a human life
span in Meatspace, but eons in Bitworld. I normally don't read much
fantasy, so when the narrative mainly followed Bitworld, it lost a bit
of the fascination for me. 4.5 rounded down
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
Temper by Layne Fargo
Gallery/Scout Press: 7/2/19
eBook review copy; 352 pages
ISBN-13:
9781982106720
Temper by Layne Fargo is a recommended dark psychological thriller set amidst the theater scene.
Chicago actress Kira Rascher has landed a great role in a new play, Temper.
The drawback is that the play is being put on at the Indifferent Honest
Theater Company and this means she will be working with the toxic
director and actor Malcolm Mercer. Joanna Cuyler is the partner and
roommate of Malcolm. She knows Malcolm's problems, but she also does not
like Kira and sees her as a threat. Kira knows the stories and has been
warned about Malcolm, but she is sure she can handle him.
This is a dark story with the narrative alternating between Joanna's
and Kira's point-of-view. The alternating narrative helps escalate the
tension, documenting the chain of turbulent events that builds up to an
inevitable ending. The writing is meritable in this debut thriller and
Fargo creates a toxic world for all of her characters. The ending is
predestined and unavoidable, which makes the ending predictable, but not
shocking or surprising, especially after pages of knowing the inner
thoughts of Joanna and Kira.
None of the characters are likeable or trustworthy at all. Both Kira
and Joanna are suffering from the repercussions of Malcolm's
manipulation and abuse. As the stakes increase, the chapters get
shorter, helping to make the pace quicken and the tension rise even
faster. The setting is the indie theater scene and these people are
basically foreign to my life, which made it easier for me to keep
saying, "Leave this behind. Why are you tolerating this?" as I was
reading. Finishing does require you to not question why these women
would tolerate any of the abuse.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Gallery/Scout Press.
Trace: who killed Maria James? by Rachael Brown
Scribe Publications PTY Ltd: 7/30/18
Ebook review copy; 304 pages
ISBN-13:
9781925693218
Trace: who killed Maria James? by Rachael Brown is the highly recommended investigation of a cold case that was featured on the ABC podcast Trace.
This is the compilation of investigative journalist Rachel Brown's
sixteen month investigation about a cold case for the Trace ABC podcast.
In 1980 single mother Maria James was brutally stabbed to death in the
back/living area of her Melbourne
bookshop. The killer was never found, leaving her two sons, Mark and
Adam, who were 13 and 11 when their mother was murdered, living in a holding pattern with no closure. This is the unsolved case that has always bothered veteran
detective Ron Iddles.
Once Brown heard about this case, she asked permission to start
looking into it. When she began reviewing the case, she found evidence
and leads that were overlooked, information that was never brought to
light before, a mistake in the forensic evidence, and suspects that were
never seriously considered. Her investigation is heart-breaking and
reveals cover-ups and mistakes. It also clearly documents abuse by
Catholic priests that was covered up or ignored by the church and
evidence may indicate collusion between the church and officials.
I have not listened to the pod casts, but this book clearly presents
the case and early information, and then follows Browns examination and
exploration of the original cold case before disclosing the new
information she finds as she undertakes a review of the evidence. Over
the intervening years, there is some new information and evidence that
has come to light, as well as officials that are less likely to ignore
the evidence that a priest was abusing children and may have been
involved. Although the investigation does not lead to a resolution, the
Victoria Police have reopened an official investigation of this cold case.
This is a well presented, well written, informative review of the original case and Brown's investigation into the cold case.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Scribe Publications PTY Ltd.
Whatever It Takes by Jessica Pack
Kensington: 5/28/19
eBook review copy; 256 pages
ISBN-13:
9781496718174
Whatever It Takes by Jessica Pack is a recommended story about relationships, a health crisis, lies, and seeking answers.
Sienna
Chadwick, 25, is estranged from her husband, Tyson, and living on the
family ranch with her father, Mark, when she finds a lump in her breast
and is facing a cancer diagnosis. She refuses to tell anyone about it.
She does question her father about her mother's cancer. Sienna has
always been told that her mother died from breast cancer when she was a
toddler. Her father, Mark, however, is evasive about the details of her
mother's death and Sienna is wondering why there are all these gaps in
her knowledge of her mom. She doesn't want to push her father, who is
recovering from his prostate cancer, but clearly there should be more
information about her. All she has is the stories her dad tells and the
letters that were supposedly written by her mother for Mark to give to
their daughter on certain big moments and times of Sienna's life. Tyson,
who is living in London, learns about her cancer and returns to Wyoming
to help.
The story is mostly through Sienna's voice, with a few chapters from Mark, her father, and her grandmother's point-of-view. Some of the letters that are supposed to be from Sienna's mother are interspersed between chapters. Whatever It Takes
is an okay way to pass some time but is nothing special. The problem is
it is poorly plotted/imagined. The narrative starts out with an
immature young woman facing a health crisis via denial until she is forced to deal with it.
She refuses to do the mature thing and tell people about it. Hiding it
seems nonsensical and, quite frankly, a bit ridiculous. Sienna
is not a very appealing young woman and the constant introspection
included after or before all the dialogue, does not make her any more
appealing. Then
the whole story morphs into a mystery about who was Sienna's mother.
I'm sure the breast cancer was a way to have Sienna ask about her
mother's cancer in the plot, but to be realistic, she could/should have
asked about it anyway for a family medical history.
I'm recommending the novel because once it commits to being a mystery, it is more interesting. The twisty ending helped.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Kensington.
