Series Review: "Foreigner" by C.J. Cherryh

Humans and atevi are incompatible: That is the message everyone learned from the War of the Landing, when human refugees from the spaceship Phoenix tried to settle on atevi lands. For peace to exist on the planet, the two races must be strictly segregated.

Bren Cameron is the paidhi, the sole translator between the atevi mainland and the surviving human contingent on the island of Mospheira. It is an unglamorous and steady job: signing off on cargo shipments, perhaps writing a dictionary entry or two. But when the long-lost Phoenix returns after two centuries of silence, the fragile peace maintained by Bren's predecessors is shattered.

Half of the human population sees this as their chance to return to power. More than half of the atevi see it as evidence of a centuries-long human plot to betray and exterminate the atevi. Suddenly Bren, the maker of dictionaries, must stand in the gap between the species--and negotiate with powers who consider assassination a perfectly acceptable legal recourse.

***

Foreigner (series) by C.J. Cherryh (1994 & onward)

3 to 4 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 4/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 3/5
Resolution of Conflict: 4/5
Emotional Engagement: 4/5
Mental Engagement: 5/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass (in later books)
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: description of torture (first book)

Overall Response: It's not for everyone, but if it's for you, it's SO FOR YOU.

***

More Thoughts: Dear reader, this once, I'll have to spoil plot developments in order to give this series my recommendation. C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner books are so dear to my heart--and so familiar--that I forgot how unsteady it is at the start. I recommended it to certain of you without preface, and was disappointed when the series didn't arrest you as it did me. I wondered how other readers could not have delighted in gauging alliances based on number theory, or in lethal applications of the word "finesse."

Then I reread it myself, and remembered that the first book is a bit... impenetrable.

Review: "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn

Police reporter Camille Preaker would rather die than return to her troubled mother's house. But a string of murders in little Wind Gap has caught the attention of the struggling Chicago paper where she works. Her boss is convinced this will be the big break Camille--and his paper--needs. Against her better judgment, she follows the story home to a house that hasn't been on speaking terms with the truth for a long, long time.

Everyone says that Wind Gap is a tranquil, pleasant place. Camille, with scars on her arms and a dead sister of her own in the ground, remembers differently. Likewise, everyone says that the two missing children were innocent angels taken before their time. The ugly truth will shatter the polite, agreed-upon fictions of the town--if Camille doesn't self-destruct before putting the words on paper.

***

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006)

5 out of 5 stars

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: murder, drug use, child sexual abuse, self-harm, suicide, medical abuse, graphic imagery

Overall Response: I wonder if Gillian Flynn stole Jodi Picoult's ability to write an ending, because Flynn's are good enough for two novelists.

***

More Thoughts: Blockbuster hit Gone Girl isn't author Gillian Flynn's only triumph. Sharp Objects, her 2006 debut, is a masterpiece all its own. Forgive me if I refer back to the former frequently as I review the latter.

Review: "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making" by Catherynne M. Valente

Like so many bored and lonely children before her, September doesn't take a backward glance when offered an escape from her humdrum world into Fairyland. She takes the Green Wind's hand and steps into a brilliant and unpredictable place, where cities are fashioned out of cloth and the sea pounds a constant circuit around beaches strewn with gold.

But Fairyland needs September even more than she needs it. Good Queen Mallow, she who stitched Pandemonium together with her needle, has been replaced by a vicious Marquess. Chains of iron and bureaucracy weigh down what once was magical. Everyone September meets asks her to set things right... even the terrible Marquess herself.

***

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (2011)

5 out of 5 stars

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 4/5
Mental Engagement: 3/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: character deaths, some unsettling imagery, reference to child abuse

Overall Response: distressed whale noises

***

More Thoughts: Now that is how you catch a reader's attention. The title simultaneously demands explanation and promises an original, character-driven plotline.

Review: "If I Fall, If I Die" by Michael Christie

Diane Cardiel used to be an acclaimed filmmaker, but now she is a hermit, imprisoned in her own house by her severe anxiety. Her young son Will sees himself as her protector, the one who makes the phone calls and answers the door for the grocery deliveryman. But even Will won't set foot outside. The world has myriad ways to destroy a small, fragile human body, as Diane well knows.

When Will not only steps outside, but returns unharmed, his small world is shattered.

As Will strains against the leash of his mother's neuroses, Diane's fear worsens. The industrial squalor of Thunder Bay has already stolen the rest of her family. And Will's ravenous, unsuspicious curiosity about the world beyond the walls of their house is leading him into danger.

***

If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie (2015)

3 out of 5 stars

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 3/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 2/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 3/5
Resolution of Conflict: 2/5
Emotional Engagement: 4/5
Mental Engagement: 2/5
Memorability: 3/5
Bechdel Test: fail
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: anti-Native racism, gang violence, sexual language

Overall Response: Forget Will's generic coming-of-age, tell me more about Diane!

***

More Thoughts: I have rarely seen mainstream popular literature deal in any depth with mental illness, especially not something so unglamorous as anxiety. If I Fall, If I Die, Michael Christie's novel about a mother and child and the long-reaching effects of the disorder, is both vivid and humane in its portrayal. 

And the plot itself is almost memorable!

Review: "House of Echoes" by Brendan Duffy

Turning The Crofts into a bed-and-breakfast is supposed to be a break for the Tierneys. Ben plans to work on his new novel in the rural stillness, while Caroline buries her struggles with bipolar disorder in renovating the historic estate and developing her culinary repertoire. Their older son, Charlie, spends hours roaming the woods of upstate New York, where there are no urban bullies to torment him.

But the promise of a new start eludes them at every turn. So does the hope of peace. 

The Crofts has too many dead animals to be explained away by coyote activity, and the village of Swannhaven has an unreal number of disasters in its few centuries of history. While Ben abandons his book in favor of a new project--researching Swannhaven--Caroline's paranoia convinces her that her own husband is a stranger. And Charlie claims he isn't alone when he plays in the woods all day. 

*** 

5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Never Look a Gift Book in the Mouth

A few times a month, on my friend Amanda's urging, I enter the Goodreads Giveaways in hopes of winning a copy of some new or soon-to-be-released book. Dear reader, if you're on Goodreads and you've never poked around the Giveaways section, you should definitely try it out! Who knows what fun new novel (or book of poetry, or cookbook, or self-help manual) will end up in your mailbox. Very often, you will be one of the first readers and reviewers of that book. It gives you book-hipsters something to brag about, and more importantly, your early reviews let other readers to know what to expect.

Yesterday I started reading my ARC of Brendan Duffy's House of Echoes, slated to be released in April of this year. The book has been delightful so far, with top-notch prose, a cast of genuine characters both fresh and familiar, and a certain sensory clarity that is rarely found in a first novel. I'm enjoying it greatly. 

But I have the growing sense that I have made a terrible mistake.

Now, remember what I've said before about how I take books on faith when they are recommended to me. I tend not to read synopses or back cover blurbs until after the book is finished. I like letting the book speak for itself, without having my own expectations color it. (This is no doubt hypocritical of me, given that I begin every review with a summary of the book in question.)

I read a brief synopsis of House of Echoes back when I entered the giveaway, a month or two ago. By the time it arrived in my grubby little hands, I no longer remembered it. (I'd entered a lot of giveaways that month.) I plunged into the book in open-minded innocence.

Too late, the suspicion has dawned on me: I believe this is going to be a horror story. It's certainly sidling that direction, one faint minor key at a time.

This is all to say that I may never sleep again, dear readers. If I survive, I'll know to double-check the backs of books before letting them suck me in. But if I have to die of fright in the next few days, at least it's at the hands of a book so skillfully composed. House of Echoes will get a postmortem five stars from me.

(Full review to follow... hopefully!)