Book of the Month: March

Comic book Primer is my favorite book for this month.   It is a fun, lighthearted book featuring superheroine Ashley Rayburn. When Ashley is sent to a foster home with parents Kitch and Yuka Nolan, she finally finds a family where she fits in.  Yuka is a geneticist and brings home the bacon. Kitch is an artist and has a 1960s vibe that Ashley is attracted to as she loves art too.  When Yuka brings home and hides a secret weapon that looks like paint canisters, Ashley finds it and thinks it's a birthday gift for her. When she uses the paints, Ashley becomes powerful. She feels like a superheroine and decides she needs a superheroine name.  Primer is chosen because the "paints" are primary colors. Now she can use her skills to prevent accidents and fight evildoers.

Freiheit!

Freiheit! The White Rose graphic novel takes place in Germany during WWII. It is a true story about a group of young German students who questioned the authority of the Nazis and paid for their actions with their lives.  It was published last month.  I received an advanced review copy from the Librarything Early Reviewer's Program. This book is the graphic version of  a book by the same name.

Most of the members of The White Rose were Munich University students. The name of the group was selected by them from the title of a poem by a famous German poet. It was formed in 1942 and was active through 1943.  The group opposed Hitler on ethical and religious grounds.  They tried to get the German people to passively resist the Nazi Party and distributed six leaflets before they were caught.  The initial six members who were arrested were found guilty four days later and immediately guillotined. A copy of the leaflets in both German and English are at the back of the book.

This is a compelling story and I would like to know more about the White Rose movement.  These students were incredibly brave. If I didn't know it was true story I would be tempted to say it is farfetched. Who in their right mind opposed Hitler? You knew you would die if you did so. However, it is nice to be reminded that there have been many people in past centuries who stood up for what they believed in and did not follow the crowd.

The artwork was colored in dark tones to fit the mood of the story. The illustrator did not use the typical comic strip format, which made the graphics meet the seriousness of the topic. The fonts used were typical of the 1930s and 1940s so the reader can tell which era this happened in. 

The word "freiheit" means both liberty and political freedom in German. The White Rose frequently used it in their leaflets. It's perfect for this graphic biography.

5 out of 5 stars.

White Ivy

White Ivy is both a coming-of-age and coming to America story.  When I bought this book I knew it was about a Chinese family from the back cover blurb. The title is typical for a Chinese family saga.  However, I did not expect it to be about race and didn't figure that out until some point after the middle of the story. I was surprised to say the least. 

The story opens with some background information on the Ivy Lin character.  She was born in China and her parents  emigrated to America when she was two, leaving Ivy behind. Ivy was raised by her grandmother Meifeng who taught her to be clever by stealing. Stealing becomes second nature to her.  At the age of 5 her parents, Nan and Shen Lin, send for her and she moves to Boston. Ivy does not know them. They are strangers to her as is her newborn brother Austin. She does not get along with her parents and wishes to be with her grandmother in China.  Meifeng had been affectionate but her parents were distant. Ivy quickly learns English and becomes friends with Roux, a Romanian immigrant, and Gideon, a boy from a patrician New England family whose father is a senator.  However, she continues to steal. 

As Ivy grows she begins to receive party invitations from classmates. One weekend Gideon invites her to an overnight at his home. Ivy knows her mother would not approve and tells her parents she will be staying overnight at a girlfriend's house. The next morning when they find out she is at a boy's house, they go and pick her up, heavily embarrassing Ivy. In a few days her parents pack her up and send her back to China for the summer in order to learn to be Chinese.  Ivy spends the first 2 weeks with a cousin she never met but she loves being with. Sunrin Zhao is Western and loves to shop for expensive designer clothes. Ivy feels like she can be herself with Sunrin.  Ivy then is dropped off with her grandmother in a poor village where Ivy cannot stand to be. Ivy no longer likes living with her grandmother and is excited to travel home at the end of the summer. However, when her plane lands in Boston, her parents tell her that they moved to New Jersey. Ivy has to start over in a new city, losing all of her friends in Boston. 

When I figured out this novel was about race I was disappointed. We hear so much about race relations in the news. It's depressing. I want my reading material to be relaxing, nothing serious. I am looking for escape. While the story was well written this realization affected how I feel about it.  It seems the author is saying that stealing is a Chinese thing to do and winning at all costs is white. Ivy definitely wants to win and be successful in that white, patrician world.  She is what white Americans call a "model minority." I am sure there's much, much more the author intended but this is the main idea I got. 

4 out of 5 stars.

The Lost Ancestor

The Lost Ancestor is the 2nd book in Nathan Dylan Goodwin's geneological crime mysteries but the 5th story.  3 earlier books are novellas. It is a little different from the prior books in the series as the sleuth, Morton Farrier, is trying to find a person who went missing almost one hundred years ago. Morton's new client, Ray Mercer, asked him to investigate the 1911 disappearance of his great aunt, a housemaid working in a large Edwardian country house. Instead of spending his time reviewing microfilm at national and local record offices, Morton uses old photographs and interviews members of the Rothborne family who still live at the estate.

As an amateur geneologist myself, I couldn't help but love this novel. I learned how to use photographs to piece together a family history.  It also shows how someone can disappear off a census and ship passenger lists as well as not have a death certificate.  This information will serve me well in the future.

The story alternates between 1911 and 2014.  The ending nicely ties up all of the loose ends for the characters but there is one surprise for the reader that isn't revealed until the last sentence. The did a great job with this book. I highly recommend it.

5 out of 5 stars.

Primer

Oh my goodness! What a fabulous story.  I read this 130 page comic twice in one day and a third time the next day. I just love it.  The vibrant colored illustrations are what initially attracted me to the book but it has a creative plot that will keep you reading.  

Ashley Rayburn is an upbeat girl with a downbeat past.  Her father is in jail and once used her to help him evade justice. However, someone got killed and he is incarcerated in a federal prison.  In the meantime, Ashley has bounced from foster home to foster home and is a challenge for her social workers.  Her latest set of foster parents are Kitch and Yuka Nolan. Kitch, like Ashley, is an artist and he has a groovy sixties vibe.  Yuka is a geneticist who works for a tech company with a government contract. Yuka's top secret project has her concerned and she brings the project home so that her superiors can't get ahold of it.  It is a set of body paints that when applied to the skin grants the wearer a wide range of special powers.  When Ashley comes home from school, she sees the set of paints and thinks that it is a surprise birthday present for her.  Ashley soon realizes that she has stumbled upon something dangerous but she decides that she can use the paints for good and appoints herself a superhero with a new name, Primer.

I am the type of artist called a colorist.  That means I use an excessive amount of color and do not follow color theory.  Primer had me swooning with its colorful illustrations. It inspired me to get back to work after falling behind for a few days.

The characters all had very different but strong personalities. Ashley is a comedian who can't stop cracking jokes. She always has a positive attitude even though life has dealt her an awful hand. Her friend Luke is also quite positive even though he is an outcast at school. Ashley is an outcast too and that is why she and Luke get along so well. The Nolans are a modern couple.  Kitch is a professional artist and works out of the home. Wife Yuka is the breadwinner. Although Primer is a comic, these characters are fully fleshed out.

I wish that this was the start of a new comic series but I believe that it is a stand-alone novel for young adults.  5 out of 5 stars.

Raven Black

Ann Cleeves's Raven Black is a fantastic story.  Taking place on the main island of the Shetland Islands, it is the first book in her Shetland series.  It has also been produced as a TV drama for BBC1.  There are 5 other books in this series.

It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow.  Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of color on the white ground with ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbor Catherine Ross. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue to peck at the body. The locals on the island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man - loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. However, when Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez insists on opening out the investigation, a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine's neighbors nervously lock their doors, while a killer lives among them them.

The ice cold setting of Shetland is prominent to the story. Not only does the harsh weather hide most of the body, it also impedes the law enforcement investigation. Experts from other islands, as well as Scotland, cannot travel to the crime scene immediately. They must wait for weather conditions to safely allow them to fly in to the island. Thus, Catherine's body lies in the snow for more than a day. However, the snow and ice prohibit her deceased body from decaying. The Shetlands are only accessible via boat or plane.  They lie several hundred miles north of the Scotland coast.  

I really liked the Magnus Tait character.  He was a lonely person who seemed to be afraid of people but I thought he was lovable. Because he is a recluse, Tait was taunted by the children in their community.  The Jimmy Perez character had a good introduction as the protagonist.  However, without the kooky citizens in town this book would not be as great. They are essential for providing contrast to the serious minded Jimmy.  

The element of surprise in each twist and turn of the plot make this novel a thriller. The ending was also a surprise when the killer's identity is revealed. It was not anyone that I suspected.  5 out of 5 stars.

The Lost Daughter

History tells us that every member of the Russian royal family, the Romanovs, were killed in 1918.  When I spotted this book at the library I thought that it might be interesting, but not great given that the premise for the plot was not believable.  However, it is so well written that I enjoyed spending an entire afternoon reading it.  In this novel Grand Duchess Maria, the third child of Tsar Nicholas, survives the assassination and is carried away from the scene by an admiring guard.  Below is the plot summary from the publisher:

1918:  Pretty, vivacious Grand Duchess Maria Romanov, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the fallen Tsar Nicholas II, lives with her family in suffocating isolation, a far cry from their once-glittering royal household.  Her days are a combination of endless boredom and paralyzing fear; her only respite is clandestine flirtations with a few of the guards imprisoning the family - never realizing her innocent actions could mean the difference between life and death.

1973:  When Val Doyle hears her father's end-of-life confession, "I didn't want to kill her," she's stunned.  So, she begins a search for the truth - about his words and her past.  The clues she discovers are baffling - a jewel encrusted box that won't open and a camera with its film intact.  What she finds out pulls Val into one of the world's greatest mysteries - what truly happened to the Grand Duchess Maria?  

The setting of Ipatiev House where the family lived and were murdered, showed alot of insight into the family's final days.  It was fascinating to read the descriptions of the rooms and the layout of the building.  It was a decrepit old building that had a sense of foreboding.  The family must have known they were coming to a bad end.  If they were really waiting for European relatives to save them, they had to be nuts.  Royalty is not sent to a building that is practically falling down to wait for repatriation.  

The daily lives of the residents of Leningrad during the Siege of Lenigrad was shown in all its horror. Most people only had 2 pieces of bread to eat per day at its end.  They were all skeletons at its ending and had endured standing in line here, there and everywhere to find food on a daily basis and that was only after a full work day.  While I have read history books on this issue, it only came to life for me from reading this book.  The shear drudgery of trying to survive was clearly apparent as the characters dealt with the war.  

There are many good reasons to recommend this book.  These are only two of them.  I highly recommend The Lost Daughter.  5 out of 5 stars.

Sarawak Sketchbook

I have been trying to find a copy of this book for a year and finally found one on Ebay.  Although it was shipped to me from Australia, it arrived quicker than mail sent to me from within my own city.  The watercolor sketches of this major city on the island of Borneo were drawn by A. Kasim Abas in 2004. Sarawak is Malaysia's largest state and home to a multitude of ethnic groups with colorful material cultures.  It's unique history as the land of the "white rajahs" means that it architecture is varied in styles. Grand colonial edifices stand next to longhouses and modern buildings.  

The sketchbook is divided into the city's geographic areas and include Kuching, Iban, Miri and the coastal areas.  Abas drew prominent buildings and scenery in pen and ink and then colored them with watercolors.  There are handwritten notes by the artist for each drawing that explains what he has depicted.  I was surprised that almost all of these drawings were done in brown tones.  I expected that Sarawak would be a colorful city like other cities in Malaysia.  Another surprise was that there was only one two-page spread and just a few full page drawings.  Most of the pages inside this book were mini-drawings.  I was expecting the opposite as the other sketchbooks that I have in my collection have large sketches.  

I have 29 sketchbooks by various artists and Sarawak is the last one that I needed to complete my collection.  As I said above, it was difficult to find as the artist is from Malaysia. These watercolorists travel to well known cities and spend time there painting famous buildings and landscaping. The books can serve as travelogues as well as artist books. They are all published on watercolor paper to enhance the artwork.

I was a little disappointed that the drawings were small and brownish but cannot expect the artist to draw something that isn't there.  The architecture of the buildings is quite detailed, which is something I love to see.  Not all of these watercolorists are detail oriented.  Later this year Graham Byfield will publish his Menorca Sketchbook.  I am looking forward to seeing this book, even though his style is loose.

4 out of 5 stars.

Stacking the Shelves #3

 

I am anxiously awaiting the publication of books from 2 of my favorite authors: Cleo Coyle and S. D. Sykes. Coyle's next book, Honey Roasted, won't be published until December so I have a long wait. Sykes, who writes historical mysteries, will publish in August The Good Death.

Honey Roasted is the 19th coffeehouse mystery by husband and wife team Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini. They write under the pen name Cleo Coyle. The series takes place around a fictional coffeehouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The couple also co-author the Haunted Bookshop series, which was originally published under the pen name Alice Kimberly.  I haven't read the Haunted Bookshop series yet but have read every book in the coffeehouse series. This series is probably my favorite series of all time.  Pre-orders for Honey Roasted will begin in a month.  This story opens with Clare Cosi trying to find a romantic, and affordable, destination for her honeymoon. While she searches for a destination, Clare creates a new coffee that will be unveiled at her wedding:  Honey Cinnamon Latte.  An amazing honey was sourced for the drink by her mother-in-law's friend Bea Hastings.  One night, Bea is found dead at the coffeehouse, and this is the mystery to be solved in the novel.  

The Good Death is the 5th Somershill Manor mystery.  These mysteries take place in England in the 1300s, featuring Oswald de Lacy, Lord of Somershill Manor, as the sleuth.  In this installment of the series, Oswald will make a devastating confession to his dying mother concerning the death of a novice monk at Kintham Abbey.  Vowing to find the killer, Oswald's beloved tutor insists that they stay inside due to the approaching plague.  However, Oswald leaves the manor to investigate and finds that there were several women who disappeared.  They were from impoverished families who had no political influence and nobody seemed to care that they were missing. As Oswald closes in on the killer he finds himself in a situation where he either has to kill or be killed. 

So, there are many books to look forward to this year.  These two are just a highlight of things to come.

In a Dark, Dark Wood

Mystery novelist Leonora  Shaw lives a solitary but comfortable life in London.  One day while checking her email she finds an invitation to a hen weekend for Clare Cavendish, a friend from childhood whom she hasn't spoken to or seen for ten years.  After some urging by a mutual friend, Nora reluctantly agrees to go and finds herself at a mysterious house with a group of near-strangers, deep in the forest far from the city.  Quickly, old rivalries and new relationships bubble to the surface and the weekend turns violent, leaving Nora battered and bruised in a hospital bed.  As she struggles to reconstruct the sequence of events that brought her there, secrets emerge about her past and her present that force her to question everything she knows about herself and everyone she has ever loved.

While I was aware of what a hendo, or hen weekend, is before reading the book, it probably would have been helpful to American readers to have this British term defined in the beginning of the story.  You basically know from the start that inviting your fiancé's ex-girlfriend to your hendo will not have a good outcome.  However, the advertisement of this book as a psychological thriller falls short. It just wasn't suspenseful and during the first half of the book there were a few boring sequences.  I was not engaged until the latter third of the plot.  

The assumed wooded setting, taken from the title, is not the true setting.  Most of the events take place in a house owned by a relative of one of the characters.  While the house is located in the woods, all of the action takes place inside.  The plot is revealed through dialogue, both inner and spoken, from the characters.  Speaking of the characters, only one was interesting to me and she was a foil for the main characters.  All in all, this was an OK book, nothing to write home about.

3 out of 5 stars.

Midnight at Malabar House

This is the first book in a new historical crime fiction series that features Persis Wadia as India's first female detective.  It takes place in Bombay during 1949.

The publisher's summary:  

As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, hone to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers.  Six months after joining the force shw remains India's first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift.  And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriott, the country's most sensational case falls into her lap.

As 1950 dawns and India prepares to become the world's largest republic, Persis, accompanied by Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, finds herself investigating a case that is becoming more political by the second. Navigating a country and society in turmoil, Persis, smart, stubborn and untested in the crucible of male hostility that surrounds her, must find a way to solve the murder  - whatever the cost. 

The plot could have been interesting but the book seems to have been written as historical fiction instead of the historical crime mystery as it has been advertised.  There were more details concerning what people wore, where they lived and the history of Partition, than clues in the mystery of who committed the crime.  The pace was excruciatingly slow and I found myself skipping pages without missing anything important. Only the final thirty pages were written crisp as Persis began her big reveal of the killer.

Sadly dull. 2 out of 5 stars.

Women Discoverers

 

This small comic book contains the biographies of 30 female scientists. A few of these biographies are merely written in paragraphs while five are done in 20+ page comic strip panels.  The ladies that are featured in the book are:

• Marie Curie (Poland, France) Physics/Chemistry
• Francoise Barre Sinoussee (France) Biology
• Donna Theo Strickland (Canada) Physics
• Dorothy Vaughn (USA) Mathematics/Computing
• Ada Lovelace (Britain) Mathematics/Computing
• Emilei du Chatelet (France) Mathematics
• Emmy Noether (Germany) Mathematics
• Grace Adele-Williams (Niger) Mathematics
• Hedy Lamaar (Hungary/USA) Engineering
• Katherine Johnson (USA) Mathematics
• Marthe Gaetier (France) Pediatrics
• Maryam Mirzakhani (Iran/USA) Mathematics
• Rosalind Franklin (UK) Physics/Biology
• Sophie Germain (France) Mathematics/Physics
• Irene Joliot-Currie (France) Physics/Chemistry
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell (UK) Astrophysics
• Mae Jemison (USA) Medicine/Space Exploration
• Stephanie Kwolek (USA) Chemistry
• Grace Murray Hopper (USA) Computing
• Xie Ye (China) Chemistry

I found the book informative.  Many of these ladies I had not heard of before. Rosalind Franklin stood out in my mind as there is a medical school in my city that bears her name.  I thought Hedy Lamar was an actress.  While she did begin her career in acting she moved into science during WWII. Also, I was not aware that Marie Curie was born in Poland.  She moved to France to study at the Sorbonne and stayed there both as a teacher and a researcher.  

To say that the book will be inspiring for young girls is a given.  Most of these women grew up in societies that did not allow women to work, let alone get an education and a job.  Their trials when they were young can only give hope to today's young girls, who also have personal or family objections to overcome.

A great read!  5 out of 5 stars.

Royal City

I just finished Royal City Volumes 1 through 3.  The comic was written by Jeff Lemire and published in 2017 and 2018.  The comic is about a troubled family, the Pike family, and the town they live in.  The City of Royal City, a once thriving factory town, is slowly disappearing as residents flee for other neighborhoods where they can find jobs.  The comic is a continuation of Lemire's Essex County comic.  

Patrick Pike, a fading literary star, reluctantly returns to his home town after his father suffers a stroke.  He becomes drawn into the dramas of his two adult siblings, his mother, and his browbeaten father, all of whom are still haunted by the death of the youngest brother Tommy.  This family saga covers a span of thirty years.  

I hated for the story to end.  I loved all of the characters and felt like a was a member of the Pike family too.  It would be awesome of the author picked up this story and continued it.  Although this is a comic, the character development and intensity of each family member's reaction to the death of Tommy at age 14 could easily have been written as a fiction novel.  The looseness of the comic format has not hindered Lemire.  The story has a definite beginning, middle and end.  I also liked that the artwork was done in color.  Black and white comics just don't grab my attention.

5 out of 5 stars.