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Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.
This has been on my TBR forever and it was available on audio, so I decided to finally read it.
The Quotes
“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn’t know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn’t be taught to me at George Washington High School. ”
“Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.”
The Narrator(s)
Read by the author herself. I always love it when the author narrates, because you can hear the inflections and emphasis in the places they meant them. She also sings the verses, and they were beautiful to hear.
My Thoughts
This is one of those books that come highly recommended and that you hear referenced all the time. I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time because of hearing so much about it, but I had no idea what I was in for. I’d expected it to be deep and meaningful just from all the references about it, and having an idea of what life must have been like for a black woman in those days, but I have a long way to go for learning and understanding it.
My Feels
I don’t know how Maya Angelou managed to write about her painful and defining moments in such a beautiful and lyrical way. I have no words to describe the feelings, but there were parts I had to stop and just take time to process. This is such a powerful book.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
A novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal–an experience that shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.’
This is my in-person book club’s May BOTM pick. However, I did borrow it from the library on audio before it was confirmed as the BOTM, just because it was available and I’d been wanting to read it.
The Quotes
“If definitive proof emerges that we’re living in a simulation, the correct response to that news will be So what. A life lived in a simulation is still a life.”
“This is the strange lesson of living in a pandemic: life can be tranquil in the face of death.”
“What you have to understand is that bureaucracy is an organism, and the prime goal of every organism is self-protection. Bureaucracy exists to protect itself.”
“Perhaps we believe on some level that if the world were to end and be remade, if some unthinkable catastrophe were to occur, then perhaps we might be remade too, perhaps into better, more heroic, more honorable people.”
The Narrator(s)
John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, Kirsten Potter. I had a really hard time listening to John Lee’s narration of his part of the book. I don’t know if it was the recording or the accent, or some other factor. I didn’t have the same problem with the other narrators. I could hear them all clearly.
My Thoughts
I didn’t know what to expect going in, especially since when looking at the different parts of the book, they were separated by such huge time gaps. I should’ve realized that it would turn out to be a time travel story. All of the different parts of the book and the different characters’ stories felt like very interesting slice of life stories. I love how they all connected, and I loved how the story was told. It’s not thrilling or exciting in the way most time travel stories usually are, but it was thrilling and exciting in its own way.
My Feels
There was some discussion about how Olive’s story in the book was a self-insert by the author; the questions asked of her as she went on her book tour, the sexism on being a woman writer away from her child while her husband stayed home to “babysit”. In the book it was 2203 when it happened, but it resonates because things are happening in our current times that make me feel like we might be going backwards. It’s scary and maddening.
Other than that, I always enjoy time travel stories and how different ones have different ways to explain the time travel paradox. I like how it was handled here, and I’ll always believe in the possibility of it.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
The New York Times bestselling author of Better and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist
We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third.
In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds.
An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.
A physician friend recommended this book to me more than 10 years ago. It was available on audiobook when I browsed my library’s catalog so I thought I should finally read it since it’s been on my TBR long enough!
The Quotes
“We don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness. There’s something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away not only from saving lives but from making money. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us—those we aspire to be—handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists. Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating.”
“One essential characteristic of modern life is that we all depend on systems—on assemblages of people or technologies or both—and among our most profound difficulties is making them work.”
“There are good checklists and bad, Boorman explained. Bad checklists are vague and imprecise. They are too long; they are hard to use; they are impractical. They are made by desk jockeys with no awareness of the situations in which they are to be deployed. They treat the people using the tools as dumb and try to spell out every single step. They turn people’s brains off rather than turn them on. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything—a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps—the ones that even the highly skilled professionals using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical.
The Narrator(s)
John Bedford Lloyd. It was great! He was clear and precise, and easy to follow.
My Thoughts
I thought it was cool that a whole book was dedicated to the importance of having checklists. For the regular layperson like me, checklists are usually just part of the tools I use for convenience and keeping myself organized, and it has also saved me some stress many times, but in aviation, construction, and medicine, it can be the difference between life and death. I think checklists are worth implementing in any situation you can think of though, and I think the book is definitely worth reading.
My Feels
You’d think that reading about checklists as a subject matter could get boring, but it’s surprisingly fascinating. I loved listening to the studies, the examples, and anecdotes of all the times checklists made a difference. In some of these cases, it feels infuriating to me that people refuse to use checklists just because of ego or hubris. If I could, I’d have a checklist for everything in my life to make things so much easier, but absent of that, I think I’ll just do my best to implement it where I can.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer—the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade—from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.
“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark.”
For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.
Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called “the Golden State Killer.” Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.
At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer.
This has been on my TBR for years but I kept putting it off because my mental health hadn’t been the best for the last few years and the subject matter of this book certainly wouldn’t help. I’ve been feeling much better recently and I thought I should finally get this read.
The Quotes
“I love reading true crime, but I’ve always been aware of the fact that, as a reader, I am actively choosing to be a consumer of someone else’s tragedy. So like any responsible consumer, I try to be careful in the choices I make. I read only the best: writers who are dogged, insightful, and humane.”
“He loses his power when we know his face.”
“What is the lasting damage when you believe the warm spot you were just sleeping in will be your grave?”
“I don’t care if I’m the one who captures him. I just want bracelets on his wrists and a cell door slamming behind him.”
The Narrator(s)
Gabra Zackman, with an introduction by Gillian Flynn, and an afterword by Patton Oswalt. It was very well-done.
My Thoughts
There was so much to process here. I loved how it was written and organized, and I love the biographical nature of the author writing down her thoughts about the case and including personal information and why it’s important to her. I care about the case because she cares about the case, and I think it’s important to have just as much highlight on the people who put the work into solving the case, as it is on the victims and perpetrators. There are so many crimes that go unsolved because sometimes people just don’t care enough, and perhaps it’s not always healthy for any one person to care too much, but I still respect that they do care.
I have seen some discussions online about how the author didn’t contribute to solving the case and didn’t even have the killer in her sights, and while the latter may be true, I don’t agree with the former. The fact that she kept the case active and in the spotlight (with her true crime blog), kept talking to detectives, witnesses, and victims, kept doing research and cross-checking data, kept bouncing ideas off of other people who were also still working on the case, is a huge contribution to making sure someone was taking action to find the killer, and to disregard that is ignorant and disrespectful.
My Feels
It was horrifying to read about all the terrible things the killer did, and to so many victims. It was heartbreaking to read about the victims, the fear, the powerlessness, the devastation of so many families and those left behind. It was infuriating to think of all the close calls where they could’ve caught the killer but didn’t. And it’s so sad to realize that the author didn’t live to see the killer caught and her life’s work achieved. But I am glad that I finally read this book.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
September, 1940. Three women of the Checquy, the secret organization tasked with protecting Britain from supernatural threats, stand in the sky above London and watch German aircraft approach. Forbidden by law to interfere, all they can do is watch as their city is bombed.
Until Pamela, the most sensible of them, suddenly breaks all the rules and brings down a Nazi bomber with her bare hands. The three resolve to tell no one about it, but they soon learn that a crew member is missing from the downed bomber. Charred corpses are discovered in nearby houses and it becomes apparent that the women have unwittingly unleashed a monster.
Through a city torn by the Blitz, the friends must hunt the enemy before he kills again. Their task will take them from the tunnels of the Underground to the halls of power, where they will discover the secrets that a secret organization must keep even from itself.
Today. Lynette Binns, a librarian with a husband and child, is a late recruit to the Checquy, having discovered only as an adult her ability to electrify everyday objects with her touch.
After completing her training, she is assigned to examine a string of brutal murders of London criminals and quickly realizes that all bear the unmistakable hallmark of her own unique power. Unable to provide an alibi and determined to prove her innocence, she flees, leaving behind her family to venture into the London underworld to find answers. But now she is prey, being tracked by her own frighteningly capable comrades.
As Lyn fights off powered thugs and her own vengeful colleagues, she will find that the solution to the murders and to the mystery of her own past lies in the events of World War II, and the covert actions of three young women during the Blitz.
I read the first two books – The Rook and Stiletto – and loved them, and so had to read this one too!
The Quotes
“Over the centuries, many Pawns had fallen prey to the seductive charms of succubi, incubi, and, in several memorable and bewildering instances, incunabula.”
“In their day to day lives apprentices were always under pressure to remain discreet, concealing their true nature from the civilians around them. It was heady to be plunged into a situation where everyone knew the truth of matters and there was no need to hide.”
“Until I was eleven, I lived with a Checquy Pawn and her husband in Oxford,” Pamela told me. “They were lovely—I still write to them. They schooled me and three other girls in the basic skills of reading, writing, firearms, arithmetic, religious education, history, unarmed combat, science, sketching and watercolors, armed combat, and, of course, the core skill of any Checquy operative.” “Which is?” I asked her. “Keeping one’s abilities secret.”
The Narrator
Moira Quirk. Same narrator as the second book, and this time there’s no weird spaces in between chapters so that was great!
My Thoughts
The author tells a great story and I loved this one too, but I have to admit I’m disappointed that it’s not a continuation of the previous books. I feel like I had the wrong idea of the three books out in this series, because I thought they were going to be the same story – the second book didn’t focus on the first book’s main character, but the stories still seemed linked together more than this one did. There were things that happened in the first two books that I was looking forward to getting a resolution on, and obviously didn’t get one from this book.
I still think this story is great in itself, and I’m glad I read it. Pamela, Bridget, and Usha (I’m not sure if I got the spellings right!) took me on a great adventure, and I loved Lynn’s story too. I think I might love Lynn’s story a little more. I love how things tied up at the end, but I feel like there’s more story to be told for these ladies. Which makes things difficult for me because I’m realizing now that the next books (if there are more books to come – that’s not clear at the moment) might not even revisit the same characters.
I’m good with taking a break from this series for now though, and if and when there is a new book, I’ll know better what to expect when going in.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it.
A spirited young Englishwoman, Abitha, arrives at a Puritan colony betrothed to a stranger – only to become quickly widowed when her husband dies under mysterious circumstances. All alone in this pious and patriarchal society, Abitha fights for what little freedom she can grasp onto, while trying to stay true to herself and her past.
Enter Slewfoot, a powerful spirit of antiquity newly woken … and trying to find his own role in the world. Healer or destroyer? Protector or predator? But as the shadows walk and villagers start dying, a new rumor is whispered: Witch.
Both Abitha and Slewfoot must swiftly decide who they are, and what they must do to survive in a world intent on hanging any who meddle in the dark arts.
Complete with 8 pages of Brom’s mesmerizing full-color artwork and chapter illustrations throughout, his latest book is sure to delight.
I read a review that highly recommended this book and I was intrigued!
The Quotes
“You are not made out of needs, you are made out of your dreams and desires.”
“Life is nothing but riddles … we spend our whole lives puzzling them out. Sadly, as soon as we find the answer, the riddle changes. Does it not?”
“As at least cruelty was a thing that could be pointed out, confronted. But this belief, this absolute conviction that this evil they were doing was good, was God’s work—how, she wondered, how could such a dark conviction ever be overcome?”
The Narrator(s)
Barrie Kreinik. The narration was good and clear, I have no complaints!
My Thoughts
While waiting for this book to be available, I managed to read another book by the same author, The Child Thief, and I didn’t like it very much. It put me off the author so much that I second-guessed if I even wanted to read this one. Still, it did come highly recommended and I thought I should at least give it a try. So I did, and I liked it better than The Child Thief but not by much. I think that perhaps this author is just not a right fit for my tastes.
I happened to have both the audiobook and the physical copy at the same time from the library, and mostly listened to the audiobook, but there were illustrations in the physical book that I loved! So essentially, what I loved most about the book is the illustrations of the characters.
My Feels
This book did manage to elicit a lot of feelings from me though! I was infuriated with the injustice, the misogyny, the horrible things done in the name of religion. Ugh!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
1970s Afghanistan: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what would happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to an Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.
It’s the chosen Book of the Month for my in-person book club’s April read.
The Quotes
“For you, a thousand times over”
“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…”
“And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
“There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life… you steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a ather. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness… there is no act more wretched than stealing.”
The Characters
Amir is a very flawed character, but such a complex person as well, and it was very interesting to read the story from his POV. Baba, Hassan, and several other characters including the unlikable ones, are very interesting as well. I feel like the author has an incredible skill for writing complex characters and I really appreciate that.
My Thoughts
This story gave me so much food for thought and so many feelings too. The complexity of relationships, especially the familial ones, societal expectations and the need of the ego to live up to them, the hypocrisy of appearing perfect in public and behaving badly in private. I get the fear of judgment and the shame, I’ve felt it myself many times throughout my life, and I think that’s the beauty of this story. It makes you wonder what you would do if you were in the same position. Amir is flawed, and he has done horrible things, but he was also a literal child neglected by his only parent who he desperately wants to please. And even as you see him grow and become a man, there are so many other instances within this story where you wonder what you would do if you were in that position.
My Feels
There is so much heartache and bittersweetness here. I can feel the nostalgia, and the sense of “missing it but knowing that you can never go back”. I believe there’s a word for it in another language but I don’t remember it. I love how the story came a full circle and I love that my book club chose this book for April!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Not all Great Masters of Wisdom are venerable graybeards. One is as familiar to us as that beloved teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh. From the “how” of Pooh to the Tao of Pooh is a simple, effortless, joyous step…a delicious journey to Pooh Corner illuminated by the timeless teachings of the Taoist immortals.
I’ve always loved Pooh, and I’ve had this book on my TBR for ages. It’s only 3 hours on audiobook, so I thought I might as well get it read!
The Quotes
“Do you really want to be happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you’ve got.”
“The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.”
“There are things about ourselves that we need to get rid of; there are things we need to change. But at the same time, we do not need to be too desperate, too ruthless, too combative. Along the way to usefulness and happiness, many of those things will change themselves, and the others can be worked on as we go. The first thing we need to do is recognize and trust our own Inner Nature, and not lose sight of it.”
“The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.”
The Narrator(s)
Simon Vance. I loved the narration and the voices he made for Pooh and the others!
My Thoughts
I don’t have much to say except, whoa, I did not expect to love this as much as I did! There’s a lot to learn from this little book. There were many things that resonated with me, and I feel like I need to read and reread this every once in a while to remind myself of all the wisdom contained within.
My Feels
I needed to hear a lot of the things said in this book. It made me feel like I am okay, just as I am, and it made me remember the wonderment and innocent happiness I had as a child. I don’t want to be naive or gullible, but I would like to have some of that innocence back.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.
I’ve read this book a dozen times and loved it every time. This time it’s for a readalong with my online book club and I must say, I love the book even more now from this wonderful experience!
The Quotes
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words – Wait and Hope”
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you”
“I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.”
“Passion can blind even those who are ordinarily the most clear-headed.”
The Narrator(s)
John Lee. I was listening to the Blackstone Publishing audiobook. I enjoyed the narration, and it was easy to follow the flow of the story.
My Thoughts
I’ve loved this book a long time, but reading it with my online book club is a whole other experience. I loved reading along and seeing new details I didn’t notice before, and having things pointed out to me by others as well. I loved sharing my thoughts and listening to others’ thoughts and opinions. Even the opposing ones. Especially the opposing ones. We had some heated discussions and I enjoyed them all. I also have a new appreciation for certain scenes I never paid much attention to before.
My thoughts about the book itself – I’ll write an essay one day, but for now, I’ll keep it simple. I love the story and the storytelling. I love that this story doesn’t get old for me no matter how many times I’ve read it (although the first time was the most intense!). I love the characters, the journey, the way you see each and every single one of them change over time. I love the karma, the intricacies, the way things came a full circle. And the fact that it was originally serialized, and that it’s so massive, how incredible this story is and how much skill Dumas had in writing it. I love it and I love it and I love it a thousand times!
My Feels
Have I said I loved it yet?
Seriously though, all the feels! The heartache, the anguish, the pain, the cunning, the fear, the satisfaction, the everything! There was also plenty of humor to go around, if you read between the lines. I love it!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale
January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, she receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. Soon after arriving, she hears whispers about haunted trenches, and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?
November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two men form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.
As shells rain down on Flanders, and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging—or better left behind entirely.
I loved the Winternight series by the author so I was excited when I saw there was a new book coming out. And my online book club was doing a buddy read for it too.
The Quotes
“But she had no armor at all, she realized suddenly, against his precise, undemanding fingers, and the concern in his eyes.”
“The people in the mirror could not disappoint in any way, and he would never fail them, or lose them, or mourn them. It was easier so. He had only to watch and yearn.”
“Winter said there’s ghosts all around you. Faland snorted. When you swim in the ocean there’s water all around you, but no one mentions it.”
The Characters
I loved Laura and her brother Freddie. I loved Pim and Jones too, and I was intrigued by Winter and Faland but I feel like we don’t get to know them well enough. The Parkeys are also interesting characters but I feel like we don’t see enough of them. In general, I loved how distinctive all the characters were, but I also wish we saw more of some of them. Maybe it’s just a testament to how good the story is because I want more of them.
My Thoughts
It’s interesting because this was a buddy read and there were a few differing opinions that made me think about it a little more. A couple of us thought that Winter was not a fleshed out character, but rather a wish-fulfillment character that existed to make things convenient for the other characters. There were also other things that happened in the book that felt very convenient and not realistic at all, although to be fair, there’s a magical, mystical element to the story that allows for a bit of unrealisticism. Others weren’t bothered by these issues and argued for them.
I personally believe that Winter is not developed enough as a character and a lot of the things he did, didn’t make sense to me without more background, and yes, I felt a lot of things that happened were too convenient. However, I can also see the other side of the argument. I’m not attached to the details, I can accept the book as it is, and I did enjoy the story as a whole anyway but I also think it could’ve been better if some of those issues were worked on.
My Feels
It is the story it is, and I enjoyed reading it and experiencing it as a buddy read. There were parts I loved, characters I loved, and I think mostly, I just love the otherworldly, mystical vibes of this book. They are what I appreciate most about Katherine Arden’s writing.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
