Author: kristen

book review

The Leavers

kristenLeave a comment

Red book cover with a blurred man's face in the background. The text reads The Leavers A Novel by Lisa Ko

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

Genre: contemporary fiction/ literary 

I read it as a(n): hardback

Length: 335 pp

Her Grace’s rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Peilan “Polly” Guo arrives in NYC at the age of 19, pregnant and in debt up to her eyeballs to a loan shark. She left her small village in China to come to America for a better life as so many people have before her. She has her son, Deming, and works at various jobs to support him, living first in what is basically a flophouse with a dozen other women and then with her boyfriend, Leon; his sister, Vivian; and Vivian’s son, Michael. One day, Polly goes to work and doesn’t come home. Eventually, Deming is given into the foster system and adopted by the Wilkersons, a white couple living in rural upstate New York, who promptly rename him Daniel. Over the years, Deming/Daniel struggles to fit in anywhere and is haunted by the thought that his mother abandoned him.

There’s a lot we can say about this book. It is hard to organize my thoughts about it concisely so I probably won’t try too hard. But first, I thought it was just an ok novel. The book was technically well written, Ko did everything right in crafting the tale she had to tell. I just didn’t like it as well as I wanted to. It wasn’t a bad book at all, and I did like a lot about it. But I didn’t love it, and that was disappointing. 

It addresses the obvious themes of immigration and belonging, playing with the concept of home in some interesting ways. Deming, though American by birth, spent his first several years in China being cared for by Peilin’s father. He didn’t remember America before that so he felt at home in China. He felt somewhat at home in NYC with his mother once he got to know her again, but mostly that was because of their close bond. Home is where your mama is, after all. But he felt out of place in society at large, and far more so once the Wilkersons adopted him. Peilin, too, never quite fit in, partly because her English wasn’t very good and she had difficulty communicating, and partly because she didn’t fit the mold of the stereotypical Chinese woman. She’s loud and brash and fiery, and a lot of people don’t know what to do with all that. 

Peilin’s story was sad and, I suspect, mirrors the stories of thousands of immigrants. People talk about coming to America to make a better life for themselves. The American Dream, as it were. And yes, I would rather live here than in China or many other places. But I think emphasis needs to be placed upon dream in that phrase because the American Dream is really more of a pipedream than anything resembling reality. It isn’t real. Peilan wanted adventure and excitement in her life, not tedium and sameness. She went from a small village to a larger city, working in what sounded like a sweatshop and living in a dormitory of other women, on to NYC, where she also seemed to have worked in a sweatshop and piled in with a shitload of other women in a small apartment, all while owning tens of thousands of dollars to a loan shark who said he could get her legal immigration status. Really nothing changed for her, and I think I could argue that it in fact got worse for her in America. She was still working shit jobs day in and day out like she was in China. Only in America, she was also under a crushing debt while working insane hours for slave wages and hardly got to see her own child. And she was in a society that viewed her with suspicion or disdain and who didn’t speak her language. That sounds more like a nightmare to me, not a dream. 

Lisa Ko made Deming see music in color, which I thought was different. I think that condition is synesthesia, where you use one sense but process it through another. He hears music but sees colors in varying intensities, depending on what kind of music he’s listening to. It didn’t seem to be a huge component of the story, but I wonder if it was supposed to be part of the reason why Deming wasn’t a good student ever. Even before Peilan disappeared and he was happy, Deming was struggling in school and either the school lacked the resources to help him or lacked the desire to help him. Either way, I thought it was an interesting addition to the story.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I hated the Wilkersons. I thought they were just gross. I felt deeply that they adopted Deming so they could say they adopted a non-white, underprivileged person and saved him from whatever horrible life they imagined he had before they managed to save him. They acted like they were fucking White Saviors. If I met people like them in real life, I would expect that they would say things to goad others into congratulating them on how accepting they are, how good they are to have adopted a kid who was older and a person of color to boot. Living in a rural area as they did, it was like they were putting Deming on display like an object, and he was certain to be noticed since he was one of only two people of color in the area that I noticed (his friend Roland, who was half Hispanic, was the second POC in town). Anyway, the Wilkersons take Deming and shove him into a fancy school and, when he’s college age, expect him to study what they want and go into the career they think he ought to. There is a heavy overtone of “you owe us” in their actions, a sense of obligation like Deming is indebted to them for adopting him and giving him what they consider to be a better life. I don’t feel like they actually loved him, just that they wanted to raise him up, as it were, and then make him follow in their footsteps even though he doesn’t want to, simply because he owes them.

I primarily blame the Wilkersons for Deming’s terrible choices. He is a gambling addict, which I know is a disease. He can’t help it. But the gambling, the drinking, the crappy grades, and the general failure to launch, I place that largely on the Wilkersons. There is no indication that they got Deming into therapy (if he did, then I’ve already completely forgotten that part!). Seems to me that if you adopt an older child who was abandoned and who has very recent memories of his mother you would want to get him into therapy for that. Childhood abandonment will fuck you up. It might make you feel you are not worthy of love which might manifest in, I don’t know, poor school performance or addiction. But they just dragged him to church with them right off the bat, like that’s going to help anyone, and then bemoaned their lot in their academic life. That was another thing – the Wilkersons are both professors at the local university and their whole relationship seems based on research and publishing and being very stereotypical elitist shits deep in some weird academia wankfest. It’s no wonder so many people hate liberal elites. If they were all like the Wilkersons, I’d hate liberal elites, too.

Anyway, I did like the book in general. There were a lot of great parts and vivid scenes. I got a glimpse of some elements of Chinese culture and the immigration experience, which was horrifying. No one should have to go through all that. I think it is an important book and feel that a lot of people need to read it. I just didn’t love it, and actively hated several characters.

book review · sci-fi

We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

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Book cover with a blue outer space background, asteroids, and two spaceships. The text reads We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor

Genre: sci-fi

I read it as a(n): audiobook

Narrator: Ray Porter

Length: 07:57:00

Her Grace’s rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Bob Johansson signs papers that ensure he will be cryogenically frozen and then brought back to life after his death, once the technology allows such things. The day after he signs the papers, he gets creamed by a bus. When he wakes up about 150 years in the future, he is his old self only his mind has been incorporated into a ship. His mission is to go into space and look for habitable planets for humans to colonize, making copies of himself along the way for various projects. Along the way, Bob and his various copies (all with different names chosen because otherwise that would be madness) find planets, discover sentient life, entire new ecospheres, and generally try to recreate the United Federation of Planets. 

I thought this was an ok story. It was fun and in parts funny (though maybe that was more due to Porter’s narration than anything else), but overall I didn’t really see what all the hype was about. Sentient ships are nothing new, nor is colonizing planets, first contact, or just about anything else in this. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it and it was fun overall. Just not anything really to write home about. 

By far the best part about it, for me, was the continuance of Star Trek into the future. Bob, as a 21st century nerd, was reared on Star Trek, Star Wars, BSG, SG1, and a million other sci-fi shows and books. I loved the multitude of homages to all the sci-fi nerddom culture. 

Porter’s performance was, as always, superb. He has excellent comic timing and tone. 

I don’t know if it was a function of listening to this rather than eyeball reading it, but I had a really hard time keeping the Bobs separate. I know they’re all copies of the original Bob but they weren’t sufficiently different for me to tell them apart. I couldn’t keep track of who was at Delta Eridani with the Deltans or who was headed back to Sol to see what shape the Earth and humans were in – was it Riker!Bob or Bob!Bob or Milo!Bob or a different Bob? They were supposed to have different missions and thoughts but I felt that they were not actually different enough to tell them apart. Maybe it would have been easier if I had eyeball read it. 

Also, there were, like, two women in the entire book for just a couple pages each, and zero diversity. Apparently everyone in the future is white? It’s just a white gut cloning himself over and over, which I’m sure is a fantasy of many of them, especially boring rich dudes *coughelonmuskcough* but for the rest of us, it’s not something we really want to read about. Honestly, authors. At this point, you should know better. That changed my rating from a 3-star ehhh to a 2-star cringe.

As it is, while I liked this story all right, I didn’t like it enough to get the next two installations in the trilogy. I felt this one had sufficient closure at the end to forego the rest of them. If my public library had them, I would consider reading them and finishing out the series, but they don’t have ANY of Taylor’s books, so I’ll just consider this a one and done series.

book review · fantasy

These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends

kristen1 Comment

Book cover with roses twined around a sword and a golden Asian dragon. Text reads These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Genre: fantasy

I read it as a(n): hardback

Length: 449 pp

Her Grace’s rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Romeo and Juliet, but in 1920s Shanghai. With monsters! How can this be a bad thing? I’ll answer my own question: It can’t be a bad thing at all! 

The first book of this duology opens in September 1926. A monster has awoken in Shanghai, though no one knows it yet. Instead, the city is embroiled in the perpetual feud between the two ruling gangs: the Scarlet Gang, led by Lord Cai and his heir, Juliette; and the White Flowers, led by Lord Montagov and his heir, Roma. Juliette has recently returned to Shanghai after several years in America, where she had been sent for her own safety in the wake of a violent attack at the heart of Scarlet territory. No one knows that she and Roma have a past relationship and if it ever became known, it would bring even more violence into the feud. 

Shortly after her return, citizens of Shanghai begin to go insane and literally tear their own throats out with their own hands. Eventually, the people learn that the madness is spread by a monster living in the river that infects people through insects. As the madness spreads, the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers warily put aside their feud and allow Roma and Juliette to work together to find a cure for the madness and kill the monster at the root of it all.

I loved this story so much. It had a cast of characters that was diverse with complicated personalities. Shanghai was very much a character in itself, vibrantly depicted and with moods of its own. The feud between the gangs is heavily influenced by politics and history, one being between Nationalists and Communists, and the other through a long history of colonization and exploitation. 

I enjoyed all the interactions between the characters. They reflect in various ways the complex histories they all share with each other, whether that history is romantic, friendly, familial, or violent. They were believable people who were all torn by duty, loyalty, and morality. 

Book cover with flames and golden dragon twined around a wreath of burnt roses and a metal lighter in the middle. Text reads Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong

Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong

Genre: fantasy

I read it as a(n): hardback

Length: 494 pp

Her Grace’s rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Our Violent Ends picks up right after the events of These Violent Delights. Juliette and Roma are at each other’s throats, partly from pent up desire and mostly because Juliette made a lethal decision to sacrifice her relationship with Roma to protect him from their families’ blood feud. She is now occupied with trying to prevent her cousin Tyler from taking over as Lord Cai’s heir to the Scarlet Gang. 

Roma returns her ruthlessness with interest, working hard to ensure that it is his own White Flowers who emerge from the feud on top. However, they once again are thrown into each other’s path as a blackmailer and a new set of monsters emerge to terrorize Shanghai, citizens and gangsters alike. Balancing the line between love and hate, war and peace, is always fun to read. 

As with the first book, Our Violent Ends features the same rich and complex characters, dynamic writing style, and a good blend of history, fantasy, and politics. 

And that ending – way, WAYYYY better than the original it is based on!

book review · sci-fi

A Rover’s Story

kristen1 Comment

A Rover’s Story by Jasmine Warga

Genre: sci-fi

I read it as a(n): hardback

Length: 294 pp

Her Grace’s rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This story is about a Mars rover called Resilience, which is based on real Mars rovers. He wakes up in a lab one day and learns that he is being built to go explore Mars, which is exciting to him because he was programmed a little too well and he’s developed human emotions. He develops attachments to his primary programmers, Raina and Xander, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, though they don’t know it since he can’t actually speak to them. Res is utterly determined not to disappoint them in any way and to do everything he can to live up to his name. 

I can’t remember where I first even heard about this book but as soon as I did, I put in a request for it from my library. I knew I had to read it. I went into it expecting something similar to Wall-E or Short Circuit. I didn’t know that I would be absolutely enthralled and shattered by a fictional Mars rover. This book made me cry more than once. 

Throughout, Res discovers new emotions and works through how they apply to his current situation. His friend and secondary rover, Journey, is deeply disturbed by his emotions, as is Guardian, the sentinel satellite (I guess?) in orbit around Mars. But Res persists in his exploration both of Mars and of his own inner world. I loved his thoughts about meaning in life, about death, about the importance of names. I loved his determination to live up to his own name. 

The majority of the story is from Res’s POV but interspersed throughout we also get to see journal entries from Sophie, Raina’s daughter. Sophie is about 8 years old at the beginning of the book and her chapters contribute valuable insight into the ways the rover mission is seen by the population in general as well as how it impacts her own family life. She is a little girl who misses her mom because she’s so often at work instead of, say, at Sophie’s ball games. In the same way it was fun to see Res evolve as a being, it was nice to see Sophie grow and change over the years as well. 

I loved this book so much that, if I get any gift cards for Amazon at Yule, I will be breaking my self-imposed moratorium on book buying and will get a copy of my own. This is a book I would read over, especially if I find I need a dopamine boost. 

Favorite lines/scenes:

  • “Where did you learn the term beeps and boops?”

Journey is quiet for a moment. It is not like her to be quiet. She is a fast processor. Her answers normally come at rapid speed.

“Journey?” I say.

“I created it.”

“You created it?”

“It is my phrase.”

“Oh,” I say.

“Do you think that is unscientific?”

“No,” I say without pause. “I think it is extraordinary” (24).

  • I want so badly to say, I’m going to try to be worth it (33).
  • There is clapping. Lots of it. Clapping is something I have observed that hazmats like to do. It is one of their ways to celebrate. They seem fascinated and delighted that their hands can make so much noise (79).
  • Avoid dust and see stars (124).
  • I experience the human emotion of hope. It is a sticky and strange feeling. It is a beautiful one (180).
  • I hear Xander’s words in my head. Telling me the meaning of my name. Resilience.

I must earn my name.

I must earn it over and over again (195).

  • It means something to have a name. To matter enough for someone to give you one (250).
book review · historical fiction

Dark Stars

kristenLeave a comment

Dark Stars by CS Quinn

Genre: historical mystery

I read it as a(n): audiobook

Narrator: Steve West

Length: 12:23:00

Her Grace’s rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Set a few weeks after the events of Fire Catcher, this third installation in The Thief Taker series centers around a killer who is leaving mutilated corpses to wash up around the port town of Deptford. The bodies are all marked with astrological signs that indicate a catastrophe will soon descend upon England. Charlie Tuesday teams up with Lily Bosworth to find the person responsible for the murders. In the process, he discovers that he is connected to the killer in ways beyond their shared astrological fate.

OK. So I didn’t care much for this book. I felt that the characters were surprisingly one-dimensional, especially considering that it was the 3rd book in the series. The good guys were very good, the bad guys were very bad. There were a couple others who were a little more shades of grey, but they were secondary characters that didn’t really add anything super important to the plot.

Speaking of adding to the plot – I’m sorry, but everything involving the court was basically irrelevant. What information we did learn from court could easily have been included elsewhere instead, like a rumor or intercepted letter. The side plot with the king’s mistresses and court politics was just kind of boring and didn’t, in my opinion, add anything vital to the overall story. I do not care at all about his primary mistress, Lady Castlemaine, nor the innocent young girl he fixates on later. The entire book could have been written without them in it at all, and if the rest of the court intrigue stuff had to be included, then probably 75% of it could be cut and still have retained what relevance was necessary. 

SPOILERS BELOW!

Continue reading “Dark Stars” →
Books about early humans
book review

Books about early humans

kristenLeave a comment

Early human history has always been a source of fascination to me. Who wouldn’t be curious about the origins of humanity and our evolution? It’s one of the grandest questions of the thinking mind, wondering about our long journey along the road of evolution and wanting to understand more about our distant ancestors. While I make no comparisons to myself and great thinkers, I’ve always tried to follow along with various bits of anthropology and the science of human evolution. I want to be as scientifically literate as a layman can be. I have a long way to go, but it’s an interesting journey, if nothing else. 

Then I saw this article and was utterly enthralled. I have never been a person to feel threatened by the idea that Neanderthals could teach things to Homo sapiens, or that the two likely interbred, or that they were here first. I like the idea that Neanderthals and H.sapiens could have lived side by side and maybe taught each other things. But the fact that these paintings predate ones done by H.sapiens is awesome. I love the possibility that maybe – just maybe – H.sapiens learned to symbolically and creatively express ourselves because we were taught to do so by our Neanderthal cousins. I don’t know that that could ever be proved – at least not without a lot more cave paintings – but it is a really interesting thought that we learned art from Neanderthals. Maybe someone will write a book about it.

Related to this article, of course, is the fact that the first discovery of an Australopithecus afarensis skeleton happened on this day in 1974. Happy 48th birthday, Lucy, plus or minus 3.2 million years!

So, because it’s what I do, I gathered a list of books, both nonfiction and fiction, about early humans. What others would you add to the list?

  • From Lucy to Language by Donald C. Johanson and Blake Edgar
  • Sapiens by Noah Yuval Harari
  • The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
  • Lone Survivors by Chris Stringer
  • The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron
  • How to Think Like a Neanderthal by Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge
  • The First Human by Ann Gibbons
  • The Fossil Chronicles by Dean Falk
  • Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson
  • Seven Skeletons by Lydia Pine
  • The World Before Us by Tom Higham
book review

The Uncommon Reader

kristen1 Comment

An Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Genre: literary fiction

I read it as a(n): audiobook

Narrator: Alan Bennett

Length: 2:41:00

Her Grace’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

This was a totally delightful little diversion. The Queen has discovered a love of reading and it’s affecting her ability to do – or rather, her interest in doing – her royal duties. Her family, government officials, and courtiers are Not Amused by her newfound obsession, either.

Mostly I thought this was a witty little story with several places that made me laugh out loud. I admit I know little of Queen Elizabeth’s personal life so I have no idea if she was never a reader until later in her life or not. I do know she basically had to ask to be educated because she wasn’t supposed to be the monarch and then, well. Whoops. So maybe she wasn’t much of a reader. What was funny though was that all her snobby officials and courtiers didn’t have a clue what she was talking about when making references to some very famous authors and their books. So they came across as boneheads, which I am sure was Bennett’s intention. 

I did think it was kind of sad too that no one other than Norman, the former kitchen boy, was at all supportive of her reading. They all treated her like either a dumb old woman in need of humoring or someone who shouldn’t have any personal interests and just do boring duties 100% of the time. I don’t care who you are, everyone ought to have interests outside of work and support of friends or family. 

There is a lot of social commentary in this small book, from class and social rank to the obligations a ruler owes to their country to the many virtues of literature. Lots to think about. My book club picked this as our next read and I’m glad. I imagine it will generate some great discussion.

book review · sci-fi

Project Hail Mary

kristen1 Comment

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Genre: sci-fi

I read it as a(n): audiobook

Narrator: Ray Porter

Length: 16:10:00

Her Grace’s rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Ryland Grace is an astrobiologist who wrote a paper that speculated that life didn’t necessarily need water to evolve. People laughed at him so he left academia and went to teach middle school science. A friend from his academia days remained in touch and eventually she told him that there is a line of particles beaming from the sun to Venus. It has the unfortunate effect of dimming the sun, which will decrease in luminescence by about 20% in a matter of a couple decades. That would effectively mean the end of humanity. Eventually it is discovered that the particles are actually life forms. Unfortunately for Grace, they’re still made out of water. They get named Astrophage.

Fortunately, a top scientist remembered Grace’s paper and was in a position to recruit him to her project to save the Earth. By recruit, I mean conscript and by project, I mean desperate, seat of your pants, last-ditch attempt to save the world. Hence, Project Hail Mary. Grace and 2 other crewmates get launched out of the solar system to try to discover why Tau Ceti, the star at the hub of the Astrophage lines isn’t getting dimmer, and in that discovery, to find a way to save Earth. Except Grace is the only one of his crew to survive the years-long trip via medically-induced coma. So now the fate of the entire planet rests solely on his shoulders. Good thing he meets a really cool friend to help him out. 

I really fucking loved this book! I’ve heard some describe it as The Martian on a spaceship but I didn’t think so at all. It was fun and anxiety-inducing but in different ways from The Martian. I really, REALLY loved Rocky. He is my favorite character entirely. 

I loved the interactions between Rocky and Grace, even though I thought they learned each other’s language awfully fast. Though I suppose when you’re in dire straits, you can do a lot of things you didn’t expect. The humor was exactly right and exactly what I expect from Weir. The action was fast and exciting, the plot was engaging. There were a couple times I cried. 

SPOILER NEXT!! I think literally the only thing I didn’t love about this book was that it wasn’t clear to me if Ryland sent all his info about the Erideans back to Earth along with the data on the astrophage and taumoeba. Maybe I missed it somehow but if he did not send that, then I think it was a missed opportunity. If he did, then it is totally an opening to a follow-up book from Weir about how humans and Erideans become interstellar friends. 

Favorite lines:

  • “So…when you say ‘a certain amount of authority’…” 

“I have all of the authority.” (39)

  • I gasped. “Wait a minute! Am I a guinea pig? I’m a guinea pig!”

“No, it’s not like that,” she said.

I stared at her.

She stared at me.

I stared at her. 

“Okay, it’s exactly like that,” she said. (58)

  • I check the corresponding star in my catalog: It’s called 40 Eridani. But I bet the crew of the Blip-A call it home (149).
  • “And just like that another climate denier is born. See how easy it is? All I have to do is tell you something you don’t want to hear” (234).
  • We have an unspoken agreement that cultural things just have to be accepted. It ends any minor dispute (279).
  • “Sample device radio signal strong,” Rocky says. “Getting closer. Be ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“Be very ready.”

“I am very ready. Be calm.”

“Am calm. You be calm.” (317)

  • “Usually you not stupid. Why stupid, question?” (347)
  • “We’re as smart as evolution made us. So we’re the minimum intelligence needed to ensure we can dominate our planets” (349).
  • “Rocky, you can make screws, right?”

“Yes. Easy. Why, question?”

“I dropped one.”

“Hold screws better.”

“How?”

“Use hand.”

“My hand’s busy with the wrench.”

“Use second hand.”

“My other hand’s on the hull to keep me steady.”

“Use third han…hmm. Get beetles. I make new screws.”

  • “Good. Proud. I am scary space monster. You are leaky space blob.” He points to the breeder tanks. “Check tanks!” (421).
  • “Erid will live! Earth will live! Everyone live!” He curls the claws of one hand into a ball and presses it against the xenonite. “Fist me!” 

I push my knuckles against the xenonite. “It’s ‘fist-bump,’ but yeah” (422).

book review

Bewilderment

kristen1 Comment

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Genre: sci-fi? Maybe political fiction? Maybe dystopian?

I read it as a(n): hardback

Length: 278 pp

Her Grace’s rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Theo Byrne is a struggling single father. His son, Robin, has behavioural issues and seems to be on the spectrum. They are both grieving the loss of Robin’s mother, Alyssa, who died in a car accident a few years previously. Theo is an astrobiologist and uses computer programs to theorise about the climates of other planets. The information is then used to try to help correct Earth’s own climate crisis, which is worsening rapidly thanks to a belligerently anti-science government and a rise in religious fundamentalism.

If it sounds familiar, it should. This book was clearly written in response to the four horrendous years of the Trump administration, their ignorant and anti-scientific approach to as many things as possible, the sharp rise in Christian nationalism (AKA, Nazism), and the global climate crisis speeding up. 

This book made me mad and it made me scared. I was already mad and scared enough as it was, so this was not, perhaps, the best thing for me to read when I am already stressed out and anxious. I do think this should be on the curriculum for all contemporary literature classes, and it could probably find a place in at least the recommended reading of environmental science and behavioural science programs. 

The plot itself is fine. It was really sort of a modern take on Flowers for Algernon, so in that, it was pretty predictable. I felt bad for Theo because he had such a hard time finding help for Robin. I 100% disagreed with his surprisingly anti-medicine attitude, though. He didn’t want to give Robin vaccines because of the miniscule amount of mercury in some of them. I think there is more mercury in the fish we eat than what’s in vaccines. There was also a line in there about how no doctor can diagnose his son better than he can. Well, yes. Yes, they can. A parent is obviously more familiar with the kinds of emotional and behavioural outbursts a kid has, but unless they are also a doctor with a specialty in XYZ issues, then no, they can’t diagnose their own kids just as well as a doctor can. It’s why we have doctors in the first place. So that part really turned me off.

Overall, I liked it but the more I think about it, the more I realise that is all. I liked it, I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to. 

Favourite lines:

  • I wanted to tell the man that everyone alive on this little fluke planet was on the spectrum. That’s what a spectrum is. I wanted to tell the man that life itself is a spectrum disorder, where each of us vibrated at some unique frequency in the continuous rainbow (5). 
  • I’d visit Enceladus and Europa and Proxima Centauri b, at least via spectroscopy. I’d learn how to read the histories and biographies of their atmospheres. And I’d comb through those distant oceans of air for the slightest signs of anything breathing (48). 
  • …God isn’t something you can prove or disprove. But from what I can see, we don’t need any bigger miracle than evolution (59). 
  • The library was the best dungeon crawl imaginable: free loot for the finding, combined with the joy of leveling up (76).
  • Had mass extinction ever once felt real? (81).
  • In such steadiness, there was no great call to assist or improvise or second-guess or model much of anything.
  • He thought about that. Trouble is what creates intelligence?
    • I said yes. Crisis and change and upheaval.
    • His voice turned sad and wondrous. Then we’ll never find anyone smarter than us (114).
  • You know how when you talk to someone stupid and it makes you stupid, too? (116).
  • Have you ever considered what is going on inside a leaf? I mean, really thought about it? It’s a total mind-fuck (185).
  • Almost nobody knows this, but plants do pretty much all the work. Everybody else is just a parasite (215).
  • I knew then why these men wanted to kill this project. The cost overruns were just an excuse. The country’s ruling party would have opposed the Seeker even if it were free. Finding other Earths was a globalist plot deserving the Tower of Babel treatment. If we academic elites found that life arose all over, it wouldn’t say much for humanity’s Special Relationship with God (218).
bookish things · lists

The Best Lines from the Practical Magic books – and some recipes!

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Happy Halloween, everyone! It has long been my practice to watch the 1998 film version of Practical Magic. If I am going to reread any of the books, I also tend to do so in October. It just makes sense! 

This time, I thought I would make a post of my personal favorite lines from all four of the Practical Magic book series. I think they are either touching, make me think, are funny, or are wise. 

What lines would you add?

Practical Magic

  • Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you’re headed in the exact right direction.
  • The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep.
  • Trouble is just like love, after all; it comes in unannounced and takes over before you’ve had a chance to reconsider, or even to think.
  • There’s a little witch in all of us.
  • If a woman is in trouble, she should always wear blue for protection.
  • His grandfather used to say that holding tears back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you’re left with a stub of a neck and nothing more. … Crying in a woman’s kitchen doesn’t embarrass him; he’s seen his grandfather’s eyes fill with tears nearly every time he looked at a beautiful horse or a woman with dark hair.
  • Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies, for instance, and women who’ve been in love with the wrong man too often.
  • Although she’d never believe it, those lines in Gillian’s face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she’s gone through and what she’s survived and who exactly she is, deep inside.
  • At twilight they will always think of those women who would do anything for love. And in spite of everything, they will discover that this, above all others, is their favorite time of day. It’s the hour when they remember everything the aunts taught them. It’s the hour they’re most grateful for.
  • Always throw spoiled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plants roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

Magic Lessons:

  • This was true magic, the making and unmaking of the world with paper and ink. 
  • But it was a woman’s personal book that was most important; here she would record the correct recipes for all manner of enchantments. … literary magic, the writing of charms and amulets and incantations, for there read no magic as covered or as effective as that which used words.
  • Even when you kept your eyes wide open, the world would surprise you.
  • What is a daughter but good fortune, as complicated as she might be.
  • There are no spells for many of the sorrows in this world, and death is one of them.
  • A woman alone who could read and write was suspect. Words were magic. Books were not to be trusted. What men could not understand, they wished to burn.
  • “Never be without thread,” she told the girl. “What is broken can also be mended.”
  • Tell a witch to go, and she’ll plant her feet on the ground and stay exactly where she is. 
  • Tell a witch to bind a wild creature and she will do the opposite.
  • What was a witch if not a woman with wisdom and talent?
  • If they called her beautiful, it was a mark against them, for what a person was could not be seen with the naked eye.
  • These are the lessons to be learned. Drink chamomile tea to calm the spirit. Feed a cold and starve a fever. Read as many books as you can. Always choose courage. Never watch another woman burn. Know that love is the only answer. 

The Rules of Magic:

  • “Anything whole can be broken,” Isabelle told her. “And anything broken can be put back together again. That is the meaning of Abracadabra. I create what I speak.” 
  • “Do you have business at the cemetery, Miss Owens?” the driver asked in a nervous tone.  
    • “We all will have business there sooner or later,” she answered brightly.
  • Three hundred years ago people believed in the devil. They believed if an incident could not be explained, then the cause was said to be a witch. Women who did as they pleased, women with property, women who had enemies, women who took lovers, women who knew about the mysteries of childbirth, all were suspect…
  • …witches were difficult to control, for they had minds of their own and didn’t hold to keeping to the law.
  • The world will do enough to us, we don’t have to do it to ourselves.
  • She had wanted to be a bird, but now she knew…that even birds are chained to earth by their needs and desires.
  • …when you truly love someone and they love you in return, you ruin your lives together. That is not a curse, it’s what life is, my girl. We all come to ruin, we turn to dust, but whom we love is the thing that lasts.
  • I just do the best I can to face what life brings. That’s the secret, you know. That’s the way you change your fate.
  • …he kissed her and told her he didn’t care if they were witches or warlocks or zombies or Republicans.
  • “But trying is a start. What is your story?”
    • “My life.”
    • “Ah.”
    • “If you write it all down, it doesn’t hurt as much.”
  • But rules were never the point. It was finding out who you were.
  • Always leave out seed for the birds when the first snow falls. Wash your hair with rosemary. Drink lavender tea when you cannot sleep. Know that the only remedy for love is to love more.

The Book of Magic:

  • Some stories begin at the beginning and others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in a library.
  • But stories change, depending on who tells them, and stories are nothing if you don’t have someone to tell them to.
  • “If you can’t eat chocolate cake for breakfast, what’s the point of being alive?” Franny said.
  • There are some things you have only once in a lifetime, and then only if you’re lucky.
  • When Kylie and Antonia were growing up, their mother had told them if they were ever lost it was always best to find their way to a library.
  • “There are no witches,” Antonia said. “Only people who want to burn them.”
  • “Do you think I’m a fool”
    • “No, I think you’re a witch.”
    • “Then you’re not so stupid after all.”
  • “If it isn’t written down, it will likely be forgotten,” Isabelle had told her. That was why women had been illiterate for so long; reading and writing gave power, and power was what had been so often denied to women.
  • A woman with knowledge, one who could read and write, and who spoke her own mind had always been considered dangerous.
  • If a woman doesn’t write her own history, there are very few who will.
  • It never hurt to have some assistance from a sister, and this was a simple spell that had been used by women since the beginning of time, with words that resembled the wild clacking of birds when they were spoken aloud.
  • What a life she had, most of it unexpected. She would not have it any other way, not even the losses. This life was hers and hers alone.
  • Her love was the fiercest part about her. 
  • The Book of the Raven was meant to go to the next woman who needed it. It might sit on the shelf for another three hundred years or it might be discovered the very next day, either way it would continue to live, for people often find the books they need.
  • Once, a long time ago, before we knew who we were, we thought we wanted to be like everyone else. How lucky to be exactly who we were. 
  • Women here in Massachusetts had been drowned and beaten and hanged, especially if they were found to have access to books other than the Bible…
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Fans of this book series also know that there are many references made in them to the Owens’ women’s black soap, Chocolate Tipsy Cake, and a variety of teas. These are the ones I found, along with a couple possible recipes. I use Adagio Tea for a lot of my tea-making supplies. I will do the same when I make these tea blends. If I can’t find an item on Adagio, I’m sure a local farmer’s market or bulk foods store will have the rest. 

Teas and Other Foodstuffs:

  • Courage Tea: currants, vanilla, green tea, thyme. Steep it for a long time.
  • Fever Tea: cinnamon, bayberry, ginger, thyme, marjoram
  • Frustration Tea: chamomile, hyssop, raspberry leaf, rosemary
  • Clairvoyant Tea: mugwort, thyme, yarrow, rosemary
  • Travel Well Tea: orange peel, black tea, mint, rosemary
  • Chocolate Tipsy Cake. I found this recipe on The Hungry Bookworm and it seems the most accurate and tipsy-making cake of the sort, so I am going to refer to it when I make my own: Chocolate Tipsy Cake by The Hungry Bookworm. 
  • Practical Magic Black Soap. Similarly, I found a recipe for the Owens Women’s Black Soap on Under a Tin Roof. This sounds lovely, though there are a few changes I will make to my own batches, different oils, loads more lavender since it is supposed to be lavender scented, but overall I think this one is the most legit recipe I’ve found for the black soap yet! To do it further justice, according to Aunt Isabelle, “The best soap is made in March in the dark of the moon.”