Category: Fiction

People Person

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Author: Candice Carty-Williams
Genres: Fiction, Mystery
Pub. Date: Sep. 2022

People Person has been on my TBR pretty much since it was announced. I loved Queenie, so I was really excited to read this one, but it’s been getting mixed reviews and I was afraid to pick it up. Eventually the audiobook became available at my library, so I finally read it.

A lot of reviewers are saying not to compare this to Queenie and I definitely agree with that assessment. It’s an entirely different book and if you loved Queenie, it’s best not to equate the two. People Person is about 5 half siblings that are linked by a shared (absent) father, Cyril Pennington, but it primarily focuses on one of the siblings, Dimple.

The siblings are first introduced when Dimple is a teenager and Cyril randomly picks them all up for ice cream. Dimple is caught completely off guard by the existence of these people and resolves to never contact them again. That is until she finds herself in need of help in a very awkward situation. She reaches out for help and suddenly they all find themselves entwined in each other’s lives in both good and bad ways. 

The beginning of this book caught me completely off guard. It’s literary fiction, but it almost reads like a mystery/thriller at the start and it was so unexpected, but in a good way. I thought the premise was entirely batshit crazy, but I couldn’t deny I was intrigued. But after the initial action, the plot settles down and it becomes much more of an examination of characters and relationships. It had a really great premise and I loved that these characters are all flawed, but I wish it had been executed a little differently. 

What I liked is that none of these characters are entirely likeable. I sympathized with Dimple, but overall found her to be incredibly annoying despite being the main character. I say this with the utmost respect though because she is unlikable in an entirely believable way. Nikeesha, Danny, and Prince (sorry if I got any spelling wrong, I did audiobook) grow up poor, while Dimple and Lizzy are afforded more opportunities. Dimple is annoying because despite that fact that she is indeed a victim, it’s hard to view her as such because of her commitment to playing the victim in every possible scenario. She’s a pitiful character and I wanted to shake her and tell her to pull herself together and start making smart and proactive choices about her life.

I really liked the examination of each of the characters as they get to know one another. A lot of them were victims of circumstance and bad decisions, but I felt they were all searching for something and that these new siblings might have the ability to fill that void. They were all complex and each had a unique background and story. They really had no business developing relationships with one another, so it was interesting to see how they were pulled together by this one common thread between them.

That said, there were things I didn’t like about the book. My primary complaint is that I didn’t believe anyone would be willing to take such risks for someone they barely new, half sibling or not. Most of the characters had a weird loyalty to one another that I just didn’t believe would exist. Yes, such a shocking event might serve to develop a strong sense of loyalty, but there’s no reason for it to be there initially. None of them knew Dimple and I struggled to believe their willingness to expose themselves for her. A joint fear of the police didn’t seem like a good enough reason to me.

Honestly, I felt like this book barely even need Kiran. After the initial surprise at the beginning, the book was primarily a character driven novel, which I loved, but I didn’t think it needed such a high stakes plot to grow those relationships. Instead of focusing solely on Dimple, I would have loved to get perspective from each of the 5 siblings; to learn their stories and grow with each of them individually and as a family. But that would be a pretty different stylistic choice, so I’ve been trying to appreciate what the author does with Dimple’s character instead. I did think Dimple experiences some growth, but not necessarily as much as I expected and I wanted to see more from the other siblings too.

So overall not a bad book, but not a favourite either. Though it’s a lot different than Queenie, given the choice between the two, I would definitely recommend Queenie over this one, but I’ll be back for more from Candice Carty-Williams!

The Bandit Queen

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Author: Parini Shroff
Genres: Fiction, Mystery
Pub. Date: Jan. 2023

I don’t know what to make of this book.

I started listening to this as an audiobook a full month ago and it took me a long time to get into the story. It’s really slow at first and I found it to be pretty confusing. I felt like the author didn’t give quite enough context or background for the story and I was left scratching my head about what was happening and who all the characters were. 

Once things get going, I liked it a lot more. The Bandit Queens is named after real life Indian activist, Phoolan Devi. Phoolan was imprisoned for murdering the men who raped her and eventually went on to be a politician and activist once getting out of prison. Phoolan herself doesn’t feature in the story, but she’s a source of inspiration for the poor Indian village women in a microloan group, who dream of lives without their abusive husbands.

Our main protagonist, Geeta, was abandoned by her husband 5 years earlier and since no one knows what happened to him, many of the women assume Geeta killed him. Some of the women want to be rid of their own husbands and approach Geeta as a sort of hired killer to help murder them. It sounds dramatic, but the author infuses a lot of humour into the story, which changes the tone and makes it read more like Finlay Donovan than How to Get Away with Murder.

Once the plot picks up, I was pretty into it. I love how easy it is for the women to kill because everyone constantly underestimates them and no one expects a few poor little village women to actually be murderers. Either because they think women are incapable of killing, or just too stupid to pull it off. The author tackles a lot of heavy social issues, primarily around how women are still viewed as the property of their husbands in India and that domestic abuse is widespread and marital rape not recognized. There’s also a lot about caste politics in here, but it was a little bit over my head and I’ve read some reviews that it wasn’t that well done.

So I was actually pretty impressed with the second half of the novel until the big climactic scene at the end. I thought the juxtaposition of the author’s humour against social injustice was an effective way to make this book more readable. I know some readers prefer for these kinds of topics to be given the gravitas they deserve, but I don’t think the humour takes away from the impact of the domestic violence they experienced, if anything, centering your story around a cadre of murdering housewives only serves to highlight the ridiculousness of such a patriarchal system.

However, in the last 10% I think the author takes it too far. The climax of the novel veered into unbelievability for me and I felt it was sensationalized for the sake of drama. I hate when authors do this, but I do think it’s an easy mistake for a debut author to make. I think she took the outrageousness too far and it detracted from her initial premise. I believed the women as they stumbled along, trying to figure out how to be rid of their husbands, to protect themselves and their children. But they start to become villainous in their plotting and I couldn’t suspend my disbelief in the final confrontation. Plus, the author gets too heavy-handed with her social agenda around caste and I felt she was telling me about equality and representation rather than showing me. I know a lot of her readers won’t be Indian and that this system may not be familiar to us, but trust us to be able to figure out basic inequality.

Overall I thought the book had an excellent premise, but that the author tries to do a bit too much with it. In some ways it sinks under the weight of its aspirations and the author would have done better to focus her ideas. But overall, not bad, not great. solid 3 stars.

Every Summer After

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Carley Fortune
Genres: Fiction, Romance
Pub. Date: May 2022

I was really feeling in the mood for a romance and oh my goodness, I devoured this one. Every Summer After has been making the circuit on social media this year and I was particularly excited about it being a Canadian author and novel. I love Canadian lit, but a lot of it is really heavy and often weird. I found this to be one of the most accessible Canadian contemporaries and I loved the setting in Toronto and rural Ontario. It is surprising how much more realistic and relatable a book can seem just from a familiar setting (even though I’ve never even lived in Ontario).

Every Summer After is a second chance, friends to lovers romance between Persephone (Percy) and Sam, beginning when they meet at age 13. Percy’s parents purchase a lakeside cottage in the sleepy town of Barry’s Bay and she quickly becomes fast friends with her next door neighbour Sam, spending every summer with him until they start university. Because it’s a second chance romance, it’s a dual timeline – split between when Percy and Sam first meet, and their reunion a decade later for Sam’s mom’s funeral. I find dual timeline stories can be very hit or miss, but I thought this one was actually really well done. Both timelines were compelling and I found myself equally invested in both (a rare occurrence). 

Second chance romance isn’t one of my favourite tropes. I always find it a bit unbelievable and sad that 2 people could still be madly in love after 10 years without being able to resolve their differences. I don’t buy into the idea that there’s only one person for someone and while I do believe in soulmates, I think they are made through the shared experience of growing and loving together rather than by fate. Knowing the reason why Sam and Percy’s relationship ends the first time around, I could buy into the premise for this second chance romance. I would definitely need time and space from the other person if this happened in my relationship, though I also think I would never have been able to reconcile.

However, as a friends to lovers romance, I adored this story! Booktok is obsessed with enemies to lovers, and they can be fun, but friends to lovers will always take the number one spot in my heart! Friends to lovers stories are so much more believable to me, both because I value emotional connection with people, and I think it’s so easy to fall in love with someone you already like and who already takes up valuable real estate in your life. 

Percy and Sam’s love story was so beautiful and believable to me. It had a very natural progression, with both of them connecting on so many levels before starting a physical relationship. I found Sam to be somewhat frustrating, though I understood his trepidation in getting too serious, too fast. Likewise, I could understand why Percy was upset with him, though I couldn’t excuse the big ugly thing that happens.

But it’s so easy to fall in love at 13 years old and it does become an all-consuming thing to teenagers. Percy and Sam were both so young and trying to make incredibly grown up decisions that they frankly didn’t have the maturity for, so I could forgive both of them for their mistakes. I still fell in love with them – they are good people, even though they are flawed and make errors in judgement, just like anyone else.

I do want to say that this book had too much cheating and almost-cheating for me to really be able to overlook it. The author tries to explain away some of the cheating (the characters hadn’t made a formal commitment; they just broke up; etc) so I guess it really depends on your own personal definition and code when it comes to cheating. I felt that the way the characters bent the rules in some cases to still be hurtful and unfair and I want to acknowledge that you can emotionally cheat on your partner, which for some people is more hurtful than a classic affair. I personally have zero tolerance for cheating, so it was hard for me to overlook it.

So overall I’m a bit uncomfortable with giving this 4 stars, but I can’t deny I was transfixed by the story. All of these characters felt intensely real to me. I wouldn’t call it a fluffy romance novel because there is a lot of depth here. I haven’t read a lot of other second chance romance novels, but the ones I have read didn’t feature characters with the same kind of history as Sam and Percy, which is why I didn’t really like them. Sam and Percy definitely had a lot of history and I’m glad the author dedicates the time to taking us through that history. The reason for their estrangement is very believable and because they were so young at the time and such good friends before that, I could believe the draw between the two of them to want to reconcile, even 10 years later.

So while I don’t condone everything in this book, I can’t deny I still really liked it! Carley Fortune has another book coming out this year, which I will probably read, but from the synopsis, it’s sounds very similar to this one. It’s another second chance romance, but without the history between the characters that Sam and Percy have, so I’m a bit on the fence about it. Either way, I’m glad I read this one! I might be a teensy bit in love with Sam Florek now…

Brown Girls

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Author: Daphne Palasi Andreades
Genres: Fiction
Pub. Date: Jan. 2022

I have mixed feelings about this one. It’s a short book told in a series of vignettes from the perspective of the chorus “we” of American brown girls. It takes us through the lives of brown girls and the 2nd generation immigrant experience, from childhood to death, so it’s pretty ambitious in scope.

I loved the style of the book. I don’t think I’ve ever read an entire book told from a perspective like this and the short chapters made for an easy reading experience. It’s not quite prose, but the writing is lyrical and I liked that the story wasn’t limited to one perspective or protagonist. Even though the structure is ambitious, I liked that the author takes us through the lives of brown girls over time. I viewed it as a snapshot at the different stages of life and I thought there were some really perceptive ideas here. My favourite chapter by far was “Those who leave and those who stay”, which was a gutting read for someone who chose to leave.

What I was unsure of was whether the author really has the credentials to write from this perspective. It’s a bold claim to try and represent the experience of so many different cultures and countries. I’m sure there are lots of common threads and similarities with the immigrant experience, but despite the “we” of the book, a predominant voice still emerged of a 2nd generation woman who got out of Queen’s by going to good schools and ending up with a white partner. This is definitely a perspective, but I know it’s not the only perspective. I would have liked to see more varied perspectives if you’re going to rely on a chorus narrator to carry your story. It’s ambitious for any single author to carry such lived experience.

To an extent the structure is also a weakness because we only skim the surface of brown girls experiences, so it is somewhat lacking in depth. Personally this didn’t really bother me though because I feel there are lots of other single POV novels out there that get into the nitty gritty. This was a higher level look, just maybe not high enough to represent such a broad spectrum of voices and identities.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Genres: Fiction
Pub. Date: Jul. 2022

First read of 2023! I really dropped the ball on my reviews last year – this year if I miss a book review, I’m just going to try and move on to the next book. If I’m not inspired to write the review, I don’t want the backlog to paralyze me from writing other reviews, which is what happened to me last year. 

I’ve seen a lot of buzz about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I didn’t love The Storied Life of AJ. Fikry as much as everyone else seemed to, and initially I saw some negative reviews for this one, so I was reluctant to pick it up. But the longer it’s been out, the more buzz and good things I’ve seen about it. It won Book of the Year for both the Goodreads Choice Awards (fiction) and Book of the Month, so I decided to finally pick up a copy!

I’m so glad I did, because I really loved it! I can see how it would be a hit or miss book for some people – it’s marketed as being about video games and the advertising is definitely accurate. However, if you’re not a gamer, I don’t think you should be deterred from reading it. I am most definitely not a gamer and knew almost none of the games talked about in the book (pretty much just Super Mario), but I still really enjoyed it. The story centers around video games, but the book is ultimately about love and friendship, something easily relatable to any reader.

The story centers around two kids, Sam and Sadie, and follows them from age ~10-35. They meet at a sick kids hospital in the early 90’s and bond through their shared love of games. Over the years they have many moments of triumph, misunderstanding, and loss. Their lives are tightly knit together and yet they flit in and out of one another’s lives. There’s an atmosphere of regret that runs through the entire novel, which makes for a nostalgic and bittersweet reading experience.

What I liked about these characters is that they are both extremely flawed, and yet still lovable. They make mistakes and poor judgement; they fail to communicate with one another; and they are slow to forgive. They both intensely need one another, and  yet they let so many things come between them throughout the years. The ending is not particularly cathartic, but the reality of their relationship was striking. There’s not one way to be a friend, nor is there one way to love someone. We are all shaped by our experiences and broken in ways that we can’t always express to those we love. I liked that this book explored the space in between friendships and romantic relationships. I really wanted these characters to be together, but the themes made me question why we tend to see the world this way? There are many types of love outside of romantic love and I liked that Zevin explored our more playful nature.

Ultimately this book is about our desire for playmates, both as children and adults. There are many ways this can be represented – in this book it’s through a love of literal games, but when I reflect on my own life, I recognize that I like to play through the medium of outdoor activities. My husband likes these activities to an extent, but I’ve also developed really meaningful relationships with friends who also like to play in the outdoors and they help to satisfy that part of my nature. We build friendships through our shared interests and hobbies and I like the importance placed on these relationships. We’re all just looking to connect with other people. Sam and Sadie understood each other through the art of playing video games. Their assessment that they would make poor romantic partners was likely correct, but it shouldn’t devalue their platonic relationship.

Overall, the characterization is extremely strong and it’s definitely why I loved the book. I felt drawn into Sadie and Sam’s life because they were well developed and fully realized characters. I shared in their joy and sadness – I connected with them. And as Zevin suggests, isn’t that what life is all about anyways?