Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ Author: Lisa See Genres: Historical Fiction Pub. Date: Jun. 2023
This is my 4th Lisa See book and I really love her as an author. I thought this had a slow start, but picked up a lot in the second half. It had the usual hallmarks of Lisa’s work in that it was really well written and filled with historical details and meaningful female relationships.
So I did like it, but it wasn’t quite as compelling as some of her other work. I felt she should have developed the front end of the book a little bit more because it was both boring, and didn’t have enough meat about Yunxian and Meiling’s relationship. It reminded me a lot of Snow Flower, even though it’s set several hundred years earlier. I found the character arcs and plot points similar, but Lady Tan isn’t set during any particular significant historical events, which is what I thought anchored both Snow Flower and the Island Of Sea Women.
The concept of female doctors for women is really intriguing and (I thought) quite revolutionary for the time period, so I liked that aspect. But a lot of the intrigue is fabricated, which is fine, just a bit less compelling. It took too long for the story to get going with not much happening. I felt like I was reading a history novel for the first half, before we finally got some drama in the second half.
Anyways, it wasn’t my favourite, but I still love Lisa See. I think The Island of Sea Women may be my favourite book she’s written, so if you’re new to her writing, I’d maybe suggest starting with that one! But I also enjoyed both The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan better than this one, so check out my reviews for those too.
Should I give up on Ruth Ware? She writes reliably good 3-star reads, but I can’t remember the last time she wrote something that I truly loved. I feel like maybe it’s time to part ways, but I kind of doubt I will. I’ve said this a million times, but her books are very readable. The only one I really struggled with was “The It Girl“, which I found super boring. You definitely could not say Zero Days was boring. The entire book is a high speed car wreck and it had me in a choke hold for 3 days (despite not loving it).
Zero Days is about a couple, Jack and Gabe, who do penetration testing for companies, which means that Jack attempts to physically break into the building to steal data, while Gabe attempts to hack the company. It’s all done in the name of helping companies to improve their security. Everything is good until Jack arrives home one night to find that Gabe has been killed and the police have their sights set on her as the culprit.
This evolves into an action packed police chase as Jack tries to evade the police long enough to get real answers about Gabe’s death. It’s hard to put down because Jack is constantly on the move, which I thought made it a bit more of a thriller than a mystery. The reason I didn’t like it is because the chase does get repetitive and I don’t think this book actually had a strong enough plot or mystery element to sustain it.
Jack is constantly on the run, which moves the story forward, but it doesn’t actually take her that long to develop a solid hypothesis on what happened to her husband. The problem is, she doesn’t have a shred of proof, so the book is more about her trying to get proof rather than actually solve the mystery. It created a lot of action, but it wasn’t overly compelling. Jack becomes injured early on and it’s hard to suspend disbelief that she’d be able to keep going with no bed, money, or healthcare for so long. There’s only so many ways to describe her pain and it got a bit derivative.
Add that to the fact that Jack is grieving. She has just lost her husband to a very violent death and while Ware does continuously remind us of that, it lacked any depth. I believed that Jack could keep going because she was pretty much running on pure adrenaline and avoidance from her grief, but I felt like it was a missed opportunity to look critically at grief and love. We’re constantly reminded of how much Jack loves Gabe and how shocked she is that he isn’t in her life anymore, but I feel like grief is a lot more nuanced than that I would have loved for Ware to show us.
I didn’t feel much connection to Gabe because we don’t really ever learn anything meaningful about him. Why did he go to prison? How did that impact him? How did Gabe and Jack fall in love? Has his past ever gotten in the way of that love? How did he help Jack heal from her previous abusive relationship and the loss of her parents? I feel like there was so much opportunity for meaningful flashbacks here instead of mindlessly running around avoiding the police (especially since the mystery element was so light). Show me more of their love story – make me fall in love with Jack and Gabe too because then every time the story returns to the present the reader would get this painful reminder that this man is no longer living.
I feel like all the bones were there for a really thoughtful story, but Ware only ever uses any of these elements for shock value. I felt like she was just asking, “how tragic can I make this character?” and I absolutely despise when authors use trauma for drama. Trauma and grief are relatable concepts for a lot of people and I wish authors would commit to the real lasting impact those things have on a character rather than just using it as stock filler to try and manipulate your audience into feeling bad for them.
The only thing I really liked about this book was Hel. I thought she was a great character and I liked that she’s never presented as a suspect. She’s the one reliable person in Jack’s life and I felt like this relationship was included to highlight the real importance of sisterhood rather than to try and confuse or trick the reader. I felt that Hel was a safe space and that she highlights the impact that having a reliable safe space can have on a personal’s mental health. You can’t trust anyone else, but you can trust your sister. I felt more love between these two than I did between Gabe and Jack.
Anyways, it’s a 3-star read from me. There’s no real depth here, but if you want a high paced thriller for a bit of escapism, look no further. The audiobook was pretty well done, but the repetitiveness of the writing definitely shines through in that format.
The Circle is the 3rd book in Katherena Vermette’s loosely related trilogy. I say “loose” because any of her books can be read as a standalone and while they feature many of the same characters, it’s not necessary to have read any of the others (I actually didn’t realize the first 2 were related until The Circle came out). I really loved her first two books, The Break and The Strangers, so I was super enthused about getting another book about these families.
All 3 books have fantastic writing and The Circle was no exception. Vermette is great at capturing both characters and atmosphere. It’s hard for me to remember the first two books now since it was so long ago that I read them – they all focus on generational trauma in metis families. The Break focuses on a violent crime against one family, while The Strangers looks at the family of the girl who committed the crime. The Circle is a marriage of the two books and examines the long term impact and inter-connectness of each of these characters.
I thought the concept of The Circle was fantastic. Let’s look at the cascading impacts of one event on so many people and examine how everyone’s process of healing is different. The Circle centers around this idea that to heal, you bring everyone together and give space for everyone’s pain. Whether or not this idea is valid, I have no idea. I can see how in some ways it could be healing, but I could also see how in other cases it might do more damage than good. Some of these characters are healing, while others are just perpetuating the cycle of violence and trauma.
In any case, this tangible idea of The Circle isn’t really explored in this book, it’s more of an abstract circle. Like I said, I liked the idea and I still think Vermette’s writing and characterization is very strong, but I struggled with the format. She writes every chapter from the perspective of a different character. It’s honestly impressive that each character gets such limited page time and yet she’s still able to get her reader to empathize with most of them. But I felt the scope was just too large for this short book and some perspectives definitely added a lot more to the story than others. There were some storylines that I really wanted to revisit, and others that I didn’t think added much. I would rather see an in-depth look at the main characters from the first two books rather than have the story spread across 20+ narrators.
It’s still a sad and moving story and I did still like it. I just wanted a lot more about Phoenix, Cedar, and Jake. I know that’s not really the point Vermette was trying to make, but it made the book harder to pick up again once you put it down. It didn’t have quite the same draw as her other books because the narrative was split too thin.
That said, I will still be continuing to pick up any of Vermette’s future books because she is a very talented writer!
I honestly don’t know whether I loved this or hated it…
Okay, I definitely didn’t hate it – I thought it was a super quick read and the characters had a lot of chemistry. They’re both a mess and I wanted them to sort out their personal issues, but I understood why they were incapable of doing so. This was truly enemies-to-friends-to-lovers and I loved that about it.
Mostly I just hated Josh. He endeared himself to me after awhile, but my god, this is the most entitled, dumbass, privileged, white man I’ve ever read about! It was a little unbelievable how tone deaf he was considering how progressive Ari was. Both characters are also super depressed and I don’t think the book dealt with their depression in a healthy way. Neither ever seeks professional help, which I thought they both should.
The author is apparently all about portraying “real” relationships that are reflective of the messy and complicated world we live it. But it’s 2023 and I would have loved if she had applied a more critical lens to her characters’ mental health and how they’re going to take care of themselves in the long term. It reminded me a lot of Adelaide, by Genevieve Wheeler, which I read earlier this year, except not as gritty or reflective. This is still a proper romance (which Adelaide definitely isn’t).
Anyways, apparently it’s based on When Harry Met Sally, which I haven’t actually seen, but am definitely going to go and watch now. The reviews mostly say that it’s not actually like the movie, but even from the synopsis, I could see the parallels, so I will have to go watch it and report back!
Is this worth reading? Honestly… maybe? I did read it in a bit of stupor-like fever dream over 3 days and I couldn’t put it down. The dialogue is quite good and like I said, the chemistry is great. It’s not your run-of-the-mill romance novel and I appreciated that the author tried to do something different. I’m just not 100% sure what her themes were and I don’t really think they landed. This is not a fantasy romance that one might dream about, and with a lack of meaningful themes, it leaves me kind of wondering what is the point? At the end of the day, all I can really conclude from this is that there really are no consequences for idiot white men. They can walk all over women of colour, never issue any meaningful apology for their dumb shit, sit at home in their giant apartments doing nothing for an entire year, and then still inherit a well-known restaurant, fail upwards, and get the girl. So inspirational.
So…. I can’t lie, I hated this. I’m literally offended this book made it to the Canada Reads shortlist. Read the other selections over this one.
I don’t give books 1 star unless they’re actually offensive, but this was so disappointing. I read Carley Fortune’s first book, Every Summer After, earlier this year, and despite one key plot point that I hated, I really liked the book. It’s one of the best Friends to Lovers stories I’ve ever read and it would have been a slam dunk but for the big ugly cheating incident.
Meet Me at the Lake sounded a lot like Every Summer After from the beginning: they’re both second chance romance, they’re both set in Ontario lake country, and they both open with a parent death and center on grief. Second chance romance isn’t my favourite trope, but I do like it when it’s believable and done right, like in Every Summer After. So I was happy to pick this up and read another book set in Canada.
In Meet Me at the Lake, our protagonists, Fern and Will, meet for a day in Toronto in their early twenties. Their time together is brief, but they leave a lasting impact on one another’s lives. Fast forward 10 years and Will shows up at Fern’s family resort after the death of her mother and the two have the opportunity to reconnect and heal past hurts.
It was like this book took everything I liked about Every Summer After and threw it away, only focusing on all the parts I disliked. 10 years is simply too long for this kind of second chance romance. I believe it in Every Summer After because Carley Fortune sold me on such a beautiful childhood friendship and bond, but Fern and Will are brief moments in one another’s lives. They don’t really know anything meaningful about one another and it’s insulting to paint them as star crossed lovers who really understand each other after spending less than 24 hours together.
I thought Will was absolutely insufferable, acting like he knew what Fern wants when he only spent a day with her 10 years ago. Why try and sell us on Fern’s desire to build something for herself, only to push her in the complete opposite direction later? I don’t care if he was supporting his sister, he was such a flake to Fern. It wasn’t obvious to me why he showed up at the resort or why he stayed. He flip flopped around so much – one minute he has no interest in Fern, then he desperately wants her, only to turn around again and reject her. He treated her like garbage and then the author has the audacity to make Fern chase after him and try to win him back in the final scenes? NO THANK YOU!
My biggest problem with this book was that it’s incredibly boring. The single day Will and Fern spend together is extremely stretched out considering how little of note actually happens; and the present day storyline focused way too much on the minutiae of the resort to be at all compelling. It took me so long to read the book because I felt like nothing was happening and I was so bored. Will is boring, Fern is boring, I honestly have no idea what these two characters see in each other or why they fell in love. Neither of them is particularly memorable. Maybe that’s why they fall in love – because they both have the personality of a boiled potato – I didn’t believe any part of their love story. There’s a side plot with Fern’s mom and her dad and her mom’s lover, but it added very little to the story and it wasn’t compelling either.
To round off this review, I obviously have to come at Carley Fortune for the cheating trope because she clearly has no idea where the line is! Maybe I’m old fashioned, but the amount of emotional cheating in both of her books is unbelievable. She limits the physical cheating to one key scene, but why are her protagonists always attached to other people when they fall in love? Why do they seem to think it’s fine to emotionally cheat on their partners? I’m mystified. Honestly, I loved Every Summer After so much I think I’d be willing to give Fortune another try? But I seriously hated this so much, I’m not sure if it’s worth it. I do not recommend this. Go read Every Summer After instead.
The Paperback Princess 