Review: The Book Witch (by Meg Shaffer)

My Rating: 5 stars

The Book Witch is another fun, charming, delightful read from one of my favorite contemporary fantasy authors, Meg Shaffer.  I read and loved both of Shaffer’s previous books (2023’s The Wishing Game and 2024’s The Lost Story), both of which were so imaginative and brilliantly crafted that, when I heard she would have a new book out, I couldn’t help wondering how she would be able to top those two wonderful works.  Well, top those she did, as this newest work is not only wildly creative, but also simultaneously compelling and whimsical – storytelling at its finest, in my humble opinion. 

The story revolves around a whimsically named protagonist, Rainy March, whose job as a book witch is to defend works of fiction by acting as a “fixer” – with the help of a magical umbrella and an adorable cat named Koshka, she goes on missions to save beloved stories from being negatively altered and disappearing into oblivion. Whether it’s locating and escorting a runaway protagonist back into their story so they can live their “happily ever after” (as she does with Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice), rescuing kidnapped detectives so they can finish solving the cases that are central to an entire mystery series (which she does for the noir Duke of Chicago series) or preventing entire fictional worlds from being burned down by enemy book burners hellbent on destroying stories that don’t conform to their tastes, Rainy is good at her job, partly because of natural talent and partly because she is a strict rule-follower.  That is, until she falls in love with the Duke of Chicago on one of her missions and continues to maintain a relationship with him – a decision that nearly causes her to lose her job as well as her magical powers after she is caught breaking rule number seven, which states that “real people belong in the real world and fictional characters belong in works of fiction.”  But then the beloved grandfather who raised her disappears, along with a precious book that was a gift from her deceased mother, which prompts Rainy to defy all the rules and conjure up the Duke to help her solve the case and find her grandfather before it’s too late.  Together, they jump in and out of famous book worlds such as The Great Gatsby and Alice in Wonderland in a race-against-time adventure that ultimately leads Rainy to uncover secrets that will change her life forever.

Structurally, this book is divided into seven parts, with each part named for a specific literary genre such as romance, mystery, fantasy, etc. – a “genre mashup” of sorts that not only correlates to the story’s actual plot points, but also reflects the book’s own impossibility of categorization into one specific genre (while, strictly speaking, I would classify this book as a fantasy, there are actually elements of multiple genres in here).  In addition to the clever structure, Shaffer’s writing flows so smoothly here that the reading felt effortless, yet also captivating – I definitely could not stop turning the pages.  In terms of plot and characters – well, let’s just say that Shaffer definitely did not disappoint in both areas:  I loved these characters just as much as I loved the characters in her previous books, and the plot went in a direction that I absolutely did not see coming, but in a good way (this is where the “wildly creative” piece comes in – read this book and you will know what I mean). 

I don’t know how Shaffer does it, but now after having read all three of her books, I am in awe of the way she is able to blend reality and fantasy elements so seamlessly into her stories. I’m usually not much of a fantasy reader, but Shaffer’s books are exceptions, as she blurs the line between the realistic and fantastic in such a way that I don’t feel like I’m reading a fantasy.  This brings me to another feature of Shaffer’s books that I absolutely appreciate and love – each of her books addresses contemporary societal issues (in this instance, the recent battles over book banning being the most prominent), but she weaves these into the story so seamlessly that, in most cases, you don’t even realize she’s doing it. 

My impression whenever I read one of Shaffer’s books is that she is a true book lover, as her passion for books and reading definitely shines through with each book.  Both of her previous books were homages to childhood classics (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Chronicles of Narnia, respectively), but this newest book steps it up a notch in that it is an homage to all books – both modern and classic – as well as the act of reading in general and its power to change lives.  Indeed, avid readers and book lovers will appreciate the various references to literary works and characters that Shaffer scatters throughout the story (including an Easter egg reference to her own debut novel, which I enjoyed seeing) -- though with that said, my absolutely favorite book-related reference isn’t to a fictional character, but rather, to one of my real-life book icons, LeVar Burton (and it’s obvious in the two scenes where she has LeVar make “cameo” appearances that Shaffer adores him as much as those of us who grew up watching Reading Rainbow still do).

There are so many great lines in this book (I highlighted so much that I had a hand cramp by the time I finished reading, lol), but one of my favorites is this -- “All stories are love stories when you love stories” – as it sums up the vibe of this book perfectly.  Needless to say, I’m officially a Meg Shaffer fan now and my bookish heart cannot wait to read her next book (that will no doubt be book and/or reading-related).  In the interim though, I definitely recommend all her books and hope more people pick them up, especially fellow book lovers and avid readers who love books about books.

Received ARC from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.

Review: Boring Asian Female (by Canwen Xu)

My Rating: 2.5 stars

I have serious mixed feelings after reading this book. At first, I thought this would be a book right up my alley, with its Chinese American protagonist and spot-on (in the first few chapters at least) depiction of the struggles with identity and belonging that children from immigrant families encounter. Indeed, I found the opening chapters especially resonant, as the protagonist, Elizabeth Zhang, talks about her singular obsession of getting into Harvard Law School and why this is so important to her – a perspective shaped by her experiences growing up amongst two disparate and constantly clashing cultures.  For the first four chapters, I was able to relate to Elizabeth’s struggles and actually felt that we had some things in common, which led me to empathize with her when she finds out about her rejection from the school of her dreams. But then, starting at the end of chapter five, the story starts to spiral downward into extreme dark academia territory and Elizabeth, instead of being a protagonist I could root for, instead becomes a character that I absolutely could not stand.  Actually, to be blunt, I hated Elizabeth with a passion – not only because of her extreme, over-the-top, verging on batsxxt crazy behavior and actions, but mostly because of her constant efforts to justify and rationalize her every horrible thought / action / behavior. 

There are two types of tropes in stories that absolutely frustrate me (and I try to avoid reading as much as possible):  one is “rich people behaving badly (and feeling entitled to it)” and the other is “delusional people acting stupidly (and constantly trying to justify it).”  The protagonist in this story was the perfect manifestation of the second category, which put her in “annoying as hell” territory for me – though to be honest, to say that I could not stand Elizabeth is actually putting it mildly. Starting from chapter 5 on, the entire time I was reading, the main thought running through my mind was that, at the end of this story, Elizabeth better get comeuppance for her bad behavior – in fact, finding out what the consequences would be for her was the only reason why I resisted the urge to DNF this book early on and instead, pushed myself to read through to the end (though yes, I did skim some parts, though mostly because I was starting to get a headache from reading sentence after sentence about Elizabeth’s horrid behavior and warped justifications, to the point that I honestly wanted to jump out the window).  Whether she gets comeuppance or not, of course I’m not going to mention, but I will say this – I hated the ending so much that I lowered my rating by one full star because of it.

With all that said, I am definitely an outlier with this book, as majority of the reviews I’ve seen so far have been fairly positive.  In this light, maybe this is one of those situations where I’m just not the right reader for this book in the sense that I’m probably taking the story too seriously rather than appreciating what the author was likely trying to do (satirical takedown of academia and the Ivy League admissions process, perhaps?).  Speaking of “takedown,” this book actually reminded me of another book written by a Chinese American female author that was also “satirical takedown” but of the publishing industry: R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface, which also featured a much-loathed (and, yes, delusional) protagonist engaging in the most god-awful behavior and justifying it up the wazoo (though by all accounts, that book was much better written, in my humble opinion). 

Given that I had such an unpleasant reading experience with this one, I am going to refrain from giving an opinion in terms of whether to recommend this or not, since each reader’s taste will be different.  I’m personally not a fan of dark academia, which probably played a role in why I couldn’t really stomach this one, but that doesn’t mean others won’t enjoy it.  So I would say before deciding whether to pick this one up, read other reviews to get a more well-rounded picture first.

Received ARC from Berkley via NetGalley.

Review: Calypso (by David Sedaris)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

I’ve been feeling a bit of overwhelm lately looking at my ridiculously long TBR list, which I keep adding books to faster than I am able to read them. This feeling of overwhelm, coupled with the fact that I am running out of space for all the physical books I have in my house, has driven me to make a few much-needed changes to the way I plan my reading. 

First though, let me explain how I got here.  Ever since I discovered Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) around 10 years ago, my reading life changed dramatically in that a huge focus of my reading every year has been on new releases.  Sure, I read backlist books as well, but except for my two years in graduate school (which, given my major in English Literature, required that I read tons of not only backlist but also classics), the majority of my time was spent trying to get through an ARC of a new release before its publication date.  At the same time, I also suffer from a serious case of BOOK FOMO where I will often go on book buying binges and before I know it, I will end up with a stack of books (both new releases and backlist titles) that I have every intention of getting to as soon as possible but inevitably set aside because of some other book I need to read (either for review or book club or both).  The result is that, over the past decade, I’ve accumulated hundreds (okay, it’s probably more like thousands) of books on my TBR (and bookshelves) that I want to read but haven’t found time to get to. 

So going back to the changes I mentioned earlier: in addition to incorporating audiobooks into my reading (which has helped me get through many of the nonfiction backlist titles in my collection), I’ve also been more intentional about requesting fewer ARCs, which gives me room to incorporate more books from my own shelves when planning my list of reads each month. Three months in, I am happy to report that this strategy seems to be working, as my reading log shows that I’ve read 10 backlist and 9 new releases so far this year, which is very close to the one for one ratio that I was hoping to achieve (though this will probably change when all the “big books” come out in the summer and fall, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there – for now, I will take every win I can get, LOL).

Just today, I finished another backlist title – one of David Sedaris’s (many) essay collections, Calypso, which I had gotten as one of the Book of the Month titles back in 2018.  I’ve read individual essays/articles that Sedaris has written over the years in various publications, but this was my first time reading an entire collection of them in book form, which, I have to say, is an entirely different experience from reading them individually.  While I enjoyed this collection quite a bit overall, I didn’t find it as funny as I anticipated it would be, especially given Sedaris’s trademark wry, cynical, and candidly irreverent sense of humor that is usually right up my alley.  I’m thinking this could be because I listened to this one on audio – which of course meant that I was also doing other tasks at the same time – so it’s possible that I may have gotten distracted and missed some of the funnier bits. With that said, one of the particularly enjoyable aspects of the audio version is that a few of the essays were recordings from his live performances, which definitely enhanced the listening experience for those (and not surprisingly, I found those to be the funniest essays in the collection).

I actually have several of Sedaris’s essay collections on my shelf, which I intend to work my way through by interspersing them wherever I can (though I probably will need to do some research first to see whether I should pick up the audio or the print version).  I’m also looking forward to his newest essay collection coming out in May – just in time for summer reading!

Review: Missing Sister (by Joshilyn Jackson)

My Rating: 2.5 stars

I’ve read several of Joshilyn Jackson’s previous novels and liked them all well enough, so I picked up her newest work, Missing Sister, with a certain amount of anticipation, especially after reading the interesting premise and understanding that this would be another novel in the thriller / suspense category, which she has been pretty solid in judging from past books I’ve read.  Indeed, this one started out fine – a bit slow burn, yes, but I was okay with that because I figured Jackson was setting up the backstory and the pace would pick up later once the action started happening (more on this later). Though with that said, I do have to say that, from the start, I honestly did not like the main character Penny Albright – not only did she come across to me as perpetually immature and frustratingly whiny, she was also entirely unconvincing as a police officer.  The entire time I was reading, I couldn’t shake the impression of Penny as a petulant teenager playing make believe cop -- her character is actually in her late twenties, I think, but she talks like a 15 year old (sorry, but it’s hard for me to take a cop seriously who constantly describes another person as sitting “crisscross applesauce”). Of course, it also didn’t help that Penny as a character was written in a way that I typically can’t stand – the “damsel in distress” type who is forever justifying her every thought and action (which, because the story is narrated in first person, felt like she was endlessly debating with herself in her head), constantly berating herself and putting herself down (she actually calls herself “dumb” and “stupid” on multiple occasions), and then backing all that up with one nonsensical decision after another (after another, after another, ad nauseam).  But Penny wasn’t the only annoying character – interestingly enough, every character in the story actually frustrated me in some way, which unfortunately made it difficult for me to stay invested in the story, since being able to connect with at least one of the characters (or, minimally, feeling like I want to root for them) is crucial for me and I didn't find any of that here.

Annoying characters aside, I was hoping the story would at least be enough to make this a worthwhile read for me, but unfortunately, I also had issues there as well.  Technically, the entire story didn’t work for me, but the plot was especially problematic, as it had way too many holes in it, to the point that it became distracting.  Speaking of distractions, I also felt that there was a lot of unnecessary “fluff” that bogged the story down – things such as stretched out descriptions of minute details (there was one scene that literally spent paragraphs describing everything the character sees within the half second it took to turn their head), drawn-out conversations about irrelevant things that seemed to have nothing to do with the story, and weird scenes where characters seem to be hallucinating and blubbering nonsense one minute but then speak coherently and seem completely fine the next minute. Overall, so much of the story didn’t make sense and I found myself having to suspend disbelief for so long that I ended up skimming large chunks of the story because I couldn’t bear the ridiculousness any longer.

With all that said, there were some bright spots, such as the set up in the opening pages, as well as the reveal at the end, which I didn’t figure out – but as a whole, the story was difficult to follow (because the writing was all over the place) and the frustrating aspects outweighed the non-frustrating ones too much for me.

While this book was a definite “miss” for me, it hasn’t put me off from reading Jackson’s other works -- though admittedly, I will probably be more selective in terms of choosing which ones to read (maybe I’ll stick with the historical-themed stories instead of the mystery / thrillers).

Received ARC from William Morrow via NetGalley.

Review: Wait For Me (by Amy Jo Burns)

My Rating: 4 stars

I loved both of the previous 2 novels that Amy Jo Burns had written (2020’s Shiner and 2024’s Mercury), so going into her newest work Wait for Me, I of course had high expectations.  In this regard, Burns definitely delivered, giving us another emotional, immersive story that revolves around two strong yet flawed female protagonists whose struggles with love, loss, loneliness, and heartbreak manifest in their music, which becomes the lifeblood of their existence.  Burns tells the story of these two women – Elle Harlow and Marijohn Shaw – in a unique and interesting way.  Though there are technically two different timelines in the story – Elle’s portion takes place mostly in 1973 while Marijohn’s takes place two decades later in 1991 – Burns does not employ the usual method of alternating between the two timelines in an obvious way; rather, she anchors majority of the story in 1991 and uses the event of a meteor strike to “break open” the past in the sense that it gives us multiple extended flashbacks to Elle’s backstory, but aside from that, the story for the most part is firmly rooted in 1991.  Also, in terms of physical structure, the title of each chapter is either the track number from an album or the name of individual songs that are mentioned throughout the story – not only that, but the content in each chapter actually ties back to the song title that starts the chapter.  I thought this structure was brilliant and it added a layer to the storytelling that I wasn’t quite expecting but worked wonderfully.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one, but didn’t love it as much as I did Burns’s previous two novels.  While the writing was in the same lyrical style and the characters were also brilliantly rendered (as I said in my review of Mercury, Burns has a way of writing her characters with a lot of heart and empathy to the point that you can’t help rooting for them, even when they do frustrating things), I found that this story didn’t resonate with me as much as those previous ones did.  Perhaps this is because I’m not much of a fan of country or folk music and so lack the familiarity with that world (which plays a huge role in the novel) that I think would have made this a much more resonant and poignant read for me otherwise.

This may not have been my favorite Amy Jo Burns novel, but it’s still an excellent read that I highly recommend.  I’m greatly looking forward to what Burns will come out with next!

Received ARC from Celadon Books via NetGalley.