May Wrap Up

Illustration by Ana de Lima

 

May was a month with some surprises for me. My principal asked me to apply for an instructional coach position at my school, and after an interview in which many things went wrong, I actually got the job. This would be a promotion for me. I wouldn't have students anymore, I'd be leading teachers and writing curriculum instead. The tough part is that I don't have the education that is technically required for the job. My principal had to get special permission for me to be appointed to the position with the promise that I would complete a master's degree in remedial reading and language arts over the course of the next two years. It's not completely set in stone yet, but it looks like this is really happening. It it all goes to plan, my life would drastically change in the next few months. I would have to start juggling graduate school with performing a completely new job with a lot of responsibilities. The scary thing is that I think I am up for the challenge. I haven't had a lot to work towards lately and I've felt a bit aimless. This would certainly change that and put me on a track to make a lot more money eventually. It could be big for me, if it becomes official. So, needless to say, I've had a lot to think about this May.

Despite all the excitement though, my reading stayed consistent. I continued my 100-pages-a-day streak and finished nine books, totaling 3,588 pages. I enjoyed most things I read, but unlike last month where I found several new favorites, this month had one book that clearly stood out from the rest. Here is everything I read: 

Storm of Echoes by Christelle Dabos (4 stars)

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim (4 stars)

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett (4 stars)

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (3 stars)

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater (3 stars)

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater (3 stars)

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (3 stars)

The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill (5 stars)

The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. by David Levithan (4 stars)

My favorite read of the month was definitely The Ogress and the Orphans, which was an incredibly sweet and goodhearted story. I loved the themes of kindness and neighborliness, and I loved how the magic of reading was a big part of the story. It made my all-time favorites list. 

My least favorite reads of the month were the Raven Cycle books, a young adult urban fantasy series that I just couldn't get into. I read all four books, and had to combine them all into one review because they just flowed together in my head and I couldn't remember enough details to differentiate between them. They were well-written and everything, I just didn't find them all that interesting.

I only hauled one book this month, which is an amazing show of restraint for me. I saw that Kelly Barnhill had an adult book coming out, and I loved The Ogress and the Orphans so much that I had to pick it up.

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill (fantasy, physical book)

I donated quite a few books this month: Miracle Creek, The Grace Year, The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, The Raven King, and The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. A total of seven books left my shelves.

I need to be more strategic about my reading list for June than usual. I would dearly love to continue my 100-pages-a-day reading streak, but I have a lot going on this month. I have a school fieldtrip, my birthday, and a week-long trip home to Florida. I have to pick some books that are easy to read and will be good to travel with. Here's what I'm going to attempt:

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

Violets Are Blue by Barbara Dee

The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by Anne Ursu

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire

This is more books than usual, but the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire are all novellas and should only take one or two days each to read. The rest of the books on there are either on the short side, middle grades, or young adult fiction, which I usually am able to move through quickly. On a positive note, if I finish all the Wayward Children books, I will have officially finished my Finally in 2022 Challenge a full six months early.

I did still work on my physical reading journal this month, but not as much as I would have wanted to again. I'm still working on the timing on that one. I doubt I'm going to improve on this much during June, since I have a lot happening then, but maybe July will be better.

For my non-reading activities, things have been going well. I have just three sections left on the diamond painting that I have been working on for several months now. I was more into my jigsaw puzzles this month, so I slowed down on it. I will finish that in June.

The first puzzle I finished in May was the 1000 piece "Coffee Talk" from Piecework Puzzles. This puzzles was a lot of fun to put together. It had these thick, velvety pieces that I mentioned loving last month, and the image was cute and relatively easy to put together. The only thing that went wrong was the fact that it was missing a piece up in the top left corner. I contacted Piecework about getting a replacement piece, and they said they don't do that. They did, however, send me a whole other puzzle for free, which was amazing customer service. 

My next puzzle was the Jane Austen-themed "Pride and Puzzlement" from Potter Puzzles. This one was 1000 pieces and came together quickly because it had so many distinct sections. The floral border, however, did take a little while.

Next, I completed the 500 piece "Cool as a Cucumber" from Pezel Puzzles, a new company that I am really exited about. Their first collection features all these cute, pun types of images. I couldn't help myself when I saw them and bought the whole launch collection, so I'll be making several more of these in the future. They have the velvety pieces too, and the pieces come in a cloth zippered bag, which I love.   

The last puzzle I finished was a 1000 piece image from Blanc Puzzles. This was relatively easy to put together and the image was striking. The only tough part was the dark sky at the top. There is some color variation up there to help, but when the pieces were separate in the box, they all looked very similar to me. I had to separate by piece type and just guess and check to make it through. It all came together in the end though.

As usual, I watched a whole lot of movies and TV shows throughout the month. We rewatched Clue, which is one of my husband's favorite movies, so that's always a good time. We also saw the new Dr. Strange movie, which was pretty entertaining, and Top Gun Maverick, which was surprisingly good. Of course, before we saw that, my husband made me watch the original Top Gun movie, which I had never seen. I thought it was pretty terrible, so I was shocked by how much I enjoyed the new one. As for series, we finally finished the first season of Yellow Jackets, which I thought was good, but very slow. We also watched Season 43 of Survivor, which I really enjoyed because I loved the winner.

I've been making steady progress on my ukulele too. I learned Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran, Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, and finally mastered a few older songs I've been playing around with for a while - Dream a Little Dream of Me and Ain't Misbehavin'. I've been continuing to work on a bunch of Disney songs too, because I can't help myself. In particular, Cruella DeVil has become a new favorite to play. I'm finally getting to a place where I'm mastering some of the chords I've been struggling with, so I feel like I'm actually making some progress with my playing. I've still got a lot to learn, but I'm getting there.

The other activity that took up some time this month was applying for grad school. I've decided that I'm going to go ahead and get my masters whether this new job works out or not, so I applied to the program at the school where my husband teaches. I had to call around to my past colleges to order transcripts, no small thing due to my intense and nonsensical phone anxiety, and I also had to write an essay. I'm just waiting on transcripts to arrive there now before the process can move forward.

So that's pretty much everything I did in May. My June will be busy, but hopefully fun too. Summer break will finally start and I'll be going home to visit, which should bring some much needed relaxation into my life. All I have to do now is make it to the end of school. The last day here is literally on my birthday, which is terrible, but also a great gift when you think about it. We'll see how it all goes.  

The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. by David Leviathan

 

I first came across The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. by David Levithan on a Barnes and Noble trip a few months ago. I've been on the lookout for good middle grades novels this year, and the summary on the inside flap of this one caught my attention. As my last read was a fairly complex fantasy series, I was in the mood for something shorter and simpler. I decided to give this one a try.

The plot of the story follows a middle school student named Lucas. As the story begins, his older brother Aiden disappears one night from his bedroom. He's left absolutely no trace of where he might be or how he left, and the entire town turns itself inside out searching for him. After six days have passed without a trace of him, he suddenly reappears in his family's attic. He initially tells them that he accidentally traveled to a different world called Aveinieu through the door of an old dresser, but as he sees everyone react to that story with disbelief, he becomes reluctant to talk about it. 

At first, Lucas doesn't believe his brothers story either, but eventually, he comes to think he is telling the truth. He asks him for more details about Aveinieu, and Aiden tells him wonderous things about impossible animals and magical foods. Everything is better there, he says, and in the days after his return, he longs to go back. The rest of the family, the police, and his friends at school, however, continue to regard his story with suspicion and Aiden finds himself under a lot of pressure and ridicule. He is constantly asked to reveal what "really happened." Seeing the tremendous toll this is taking on Aidan and the rest of his family, Lucas starts working on a plan to help everyone move past it.

This is a fairly shot novel, and it was definitely a page-turner. As I started reading, I was very engaged in the plot and interested to find out more about where Aidan had gone. Was the world of Aveinieu actually real, or was he creating a story to cover up a darker truth? I kept reading on, looking for clues and answers. As I continued to move through the story though, the pacing surprised me. I read chapter after chapter of people needling Aidan about his experience and the family struggling to handle it, without getting the kind of twists or information I would expect in this kind of story. It turns out that not very much happens in this book beyond that, and I soon realized that I wasn't reading a mystery that was meant to be "solved." I was reading a story about a family struggling to come to terms with a difficult, unexplainable event. Whether Aidan really went to a different place was not the point at all, and although there are clues sprinkled throughout that suggest that it was all real, the tale Levithan wanted to tell here was one of family, truth, and the relationship between brothers. 

This was not a bad thing by any means, and once I understood that what I was reading was not really going to provide conclusive answers or contain a shocking dark twist, I appreciated what it was. A quiet story about a family going through a really hard time and learning to trust each other. Levithan's writing was simple and poetic, and the text itself was easy to read. The characters were fine and behaved in ways that were mostly realistic (the exception being that Lucas' inner monologues sounded too mature for a middle school kid). I ended up enjoying it quite a bit by the time I finished. I do question, however, if this would actually appeal to real middle grades readers. I can see students like mine reading this and getting mad because "nothing happens." Readers of that age are generally not okay with ambiguity and quiet stories, especially when something like a fantasy land or a horrific crime are hinted at and never expanded upon. It would take a special young reader, or an adult like me, to appreciate that kind of book. In reality, this probably appeals more to middle school teachers than actual middle school students, but it was well-written either way.  

So ultimately, I did enjoy The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. and I'm glad I gave it a try. I do wish that more information about the actual disappearance was explored, but I ended up liking the quiet, thoughtful nature of the story and the relationships between the main characters. I will be donating it to my classroom library, and hopefully putting it in the hands of kids that appreciate themes and emotions over action and suspense.

Challenge Tally

Middle Grade Mission: 17/24

Total Books Read in 2022: 50

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater (Books 1-4)

 

*This review will contain mild spoilers for this series.*

I have spent the past few weeks making my way through The Raven Cycle books by Maggie Stiefvater. This young adult urban fantasy series is very well-loved in the reading community, so I was excited to see what it was all about. As I started reading though, I quickly realized that I wasn't going to be a big fan of these books. They were well-written, but really not my cup of tea. I still wanted to complete them all, for the sake of my Finally in 2022 Challenge, so I decided to power through them all and combine my reviews into one post. 

All four books in the Raven Cycle are set in the small town of Henrietta, Virginia, and follow five main characters over the course of about a year. Four of the characters, Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah, have been friends for years. They attend a prestigious prep school together and spend all of their free time pursuing an unusual quest. They want to discover the tomb of an ancient Welsh king named Owen Glendower. It is rumored that anyone who finds the tomb will be able to wake Glendower and get a wish granted. Gansey has been obsessed with finding him for years and has led his group of friends on all sorts of adventures in pursuit of it. The town of Henrietta is on a ley line that is charged with supernatural energy, so the boys have been focusing their search on exploring the line and looking for places that Glendower could be hidden on it. While they have managed to find some clues here and there, their progress has been limited. Things pick up, however, when they meet the fifth character, a girl named Blue Sargent.

Blue is from a family of psychics. Her mother and aunts are all able to see the future and explore the past through things like tarot cards, scrying, and sometimes just touching different objects. Blue herself, however, has never shown any psychic abilities. Instead, her special power is that she enhances the powers of others through her presence. She's essentially a battery that can charge up other people's abilities when she is nearby, so this makes her helpful to her mother and aunts when they are performing readings for people. The first book begins with her assisting one of her aunts on St. Mark's Eve, a special day where the spirits of everyone in Henrietta who will die in the upcoming year make a trek across the ley line. Blue is surprised on this night to actually see a spirit - usually only those with psychic abilities can actually see them. She sees the spirit of Gansey, whom she has never met in real life, and her aunt tells her that this means she will either fall in love with him or will kill him. She promises herself that she won't do either, but that doesn't stop her from being very intrigued by his spirit.

Eventually, Blue meets Gansey and the rest of the boys and they become fast friends. Her ability to strengthen supernatural powers proves to be useful in their quest to find Glendower, and they suddenly start finding very promising leads. Across the course of all the novels, the group gets closer and closer to their goal and the boys begin to realize that they are more than just amateur archaeologists - they each have some powers of their own that they are just starting to understand. At the same time, other forces that are interested in finding the tomb themselves begin to present deadly opposition. They threaten not only Glendower, but the entire supernatural balance of the ley line. Of course, Blue and Gansey fall for each other too, and Blue must grapple with the secret knowledge that she knows he is destined to die sometime during the year. Together, the group must work together to find Glendower and protect Henrietta from those that would destabilize it, and hopefully find a way to defy fate and save Gansey's life.

 

So, as I started off saying, these books weren't bad, but they definitely weren't for me. I think I just don't like urban fantasy, so I was never that invested in the story. Psychics, hallucinations, and extremely ambiguous supernatural abilities just aren't my preferred tropes, and that's basically what the entire story revolved around. The story was complex and filled with this uncertain, ill-defined magic, and I consistently found myself having trouble remembering details. I would never remember what was going on in between times when I picked up the book too--when I would start a new day of reading, I would always be asking myself, "Okay, where was I? Who is he? What are they doing? Where are they?" Nothing wanted to stick in my head for some reason. I also couldn't really remember which events occurred in which book. Each of the books does have its own story arc, but they didn't feel clearly defined as I was reading. Everything kind of flowed together in my mind. If you asked me to summarize just one of the books by itself right now, I couldn't do it.

There were some little things about the characters that irked me too. The writing was good, but everyone in the story was a little too cool and sarcastic for my taste. They were all spouting off perfectly snarky comebacks and darkly comedic observations all the time. They were teens that talked like jaded, world-weary adults. The relationships between them all were layered, and complex though, so that kind of saved them for me. Stiefvater did a nice job with that aspect - they definitely all felt like unique individuals with their own stories--I just wasn't terribly interested in their stories. There were also some lines in there that haven't aged well and betrayed a rather careless, mean attitude about different kinds of people. Someone is described as having the "hollow eyes of a refugee" for example. That character is later referred to as a "foreign import." This didn't happen a lot, but I noticed it happening from time to time and it annoyed me. It's probably more due to Stiefvater trying to make the characters sound too cool than it is due to any actual racist beliefs, but it was still distasteful.

On a positive note though, the books were definitely a good young adult urban fantasy series, and I could tell that as I was reading even though I personally didn't love them. They were well-written with memorable characters and a very intricate plot. People that are into urban fantasy novels with dark, edgy teens will probably love these, but they weren't for me. I was ultimately glad to have tried the series though, just to know what all the cool kids are talking about.

Challenge Tally

Finally in 2022 - Series Edition: 21/28

Total Books Read in 2022: 49

The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill

 

When I saw that Kelly Barnhill had a new middle grades book out, I couldn't add it to my cart fast enough. I read and loved The Girl Who Drank the Moon a few years ago, and I was excited to see what Barnhill would come up with next. I was hoping for another smart fantasy novel with a lot of heart, and that's exactly what I ended up getting.

The novel is set in a small town named Stone-in-the-Glen. It used to be a lovely town that valued kindness and education, but things changed after a series of mysterious fires destroyed much of its infrastructure. The most devastating loss was their beautiful library, which served as an important community center. Now, people don't trust each other, stay inside their homes, and are generally depressed and unpleasant. A traveling Ogress in search of a home stumbles across this town one day and decides to try and change things. She builds herself a small house on the outskirts and begins leaving little presents outside the villagers doors at night. She hopes her secret gifts will promote positive change, but the people have grown so superstitious and tense that they don't have the desired impact. People still keep to themselves and don't think about their neighbors.

One group that does appreciate the gifts and longs for change, however, are the children that live in the small orphanage in the center of town. There are fifteen of them, and they have formed a tight-knit family. They are struggling to make ends meet after the payments they usually receive from the mayor dry up. The occasional gifts from the ogress have become a lifeline for them, and even with those, they still don't have enough to eat. Fearing for the future of their little group, some of the older children embark on a mission to figure out who their mysterious benefactor is, and in the course of their investigation, they set a chain of events into motion that will uncover some shocking truths about Stone-in-the-Glen and change their way of life forever.

I'm not trying to be dramatic here, but this novel was one of the best middle grades fantasies I have every read. Everything about it was pretty much perfect. The writing was Barnhill's signature mix of dry humor and fairy tale richness and the themes of kindness, caring for your neighbors, and the magic of reading were absolutely lovely to explore. I was delighted with it from beginning to end. It was just so, so beautiful. 

I think its strongest point was the characters. The kindly ogress, battling in her quiet way again the prejudices and unkindness of the townspeople, was inspiring, and her unfailing care and devotion to complete strangers made her extremely lovable (and highly relatable to teachers). The plucky, winsome orphans were also enjoyable to read. Their love of books and their support of each other was just so nice. The whole story was nice, for that matter. This is one of those books that feels really good to read. It gives us a vision of how the world should be, with an extra sprinkling of magic.  

I also loved the focus on helping others and being neighborly throughout the story. The problems that Stone-in-the-Glen have to face are not fair and not anything they asked for. In order to overcome the years of bitterness and suspicion that have built up, they have to open their hearts to each other. The ogress and the orphans help start the healing process, but everyone has to work together to make real changes. I thought this was a great message and a lovely way to structure the story. The villain of the story was pretty good too. He was an exaggeration of a kind of person we have in the real world, but with a magical twist that made him the perfect fit for this fantasy story.

So obviously, I truly loved The Ogress and the Orphans. It was a beacon of loveliness in our increasingly grimy world and it's definitely a new favorite for me. This further cements Kelly Barnhill's place as one of my favorite authors. She recently came out with an adult novel that I just picked up, and I'm very excited to see what that's like too. I'm very glad to have read this and I will definitely be recommending it to pretty much everyone that will listen to me. 

Challenge Tally

Middle Grade Mission: 16/24

Total Books Read in 2022: 45

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

 

I can't remember when I first heard about Grace Year by Kim Liggett. I think I might have heard a review on YouTube. In any case, when I first heard the plot summary for it, I was instantly intrigued. It sounded like Handmaid's Tale for young adults, which should be right up my alley. As usual, I bought a copy but then stuck it on my shelf and ignored it for years. I made it part of my 22 in 2022 Challenge this year so I could finally get around to reading it.

The story is set in a society where women are viewed a wives first and people second. They have no rights and are the property of their husbands; their sole purpose is to produce offspring, preferably sons. The population is very superstitious, believing that young girls are capable of magic that can be used to ensnare men or cause other kinds of trouble. To prevent this, they make all young women that turn sixteen participate in a ritual called  the "grace year." The ritual consists of being sent away to a remote camp in the woods for an entire year. The thought is that when the girls return to the village, they will have burned all their dangerous magic off and be ready for marriage. Many don't return at all, succumbing to the harsh conditions and other dangers in the woods. It is a brutal custom, and the townspeople are forbidden to speak of it in casual conversation. What exactly happens there is shrouded in secrecy, but the women of the village all return haunted from the experience.

As the story begins, a young girl named Tierney is about to embark on her own grace year with a group of other young girls. She is different from most of the other women in the village. She has no desire to be a wife and no interest in a life of homemaking. She prefers to be outside, working with her hands, and enjoys whatever independence she is able to carve out for herself. She also rejects a lot of the town's superstitions and is relentlessly curious about the grace year, but as it's forbidden to speak of it, all she has heard are whispered rumors. She's determined to survive it though, and possibly help support the group through it. 

When she arrives at the camp with the other girls, however, she quickly realizes that surviving the grace year is no simple matter of sharing her wilderness survival skills. Complex social structures emerge almost immediately, and Tierney quickly finds herself on the outside of the group by refusing to believe in the magic they are supposed to possess. To make matters worse, something strange does appear to be going on with the girls; some bizarre and frightening behaviors start to manifest shortly after they arrive, and it's impossible to determine if its a symptom of their trauma or really some kind of supernatural occurrence.  In order to make it back home, Tierney must figure out how to break the girls free from the toxic ideas they've been indoctrinated with since birth and teach them to work together.

I thought this book was pretty good and I enjoyed reading it. Liggett's writing was suitably dark and creepy, matching the subject matter well, and the society she created was downright frightening. As with any dystopian novel, it contained snatches of real world issues driven to their extremes. In Tierney's world, women are placed into arranged marriages by their fathers and judged solely on their obedience and their ability to bear children. I couldn't help but draw some parallels to the current situation with abortion rights being whittled away in the U.S. Could women losing more and more rights over time lead us to a society like this one? It's chilling to think about, and I think it's good for young adult readers to grapple with questions like these. 

The themes in the book centered around human rights, independence, thinking for yourself, and the power of working together, which are all very worthy ideas to explore. The journey of Tierney and the rest of the girls was a sad one, but it was ultimately one of hope. The way Liggett spoke up for women's rights while weaving in these universal ideas that are important for everyone to understand was excellent, and the plot of her story drew much-needed attention to the troubles women have faced throughout history and could face again one day if their rights continue to be eroded away. For those reasons alone, I rated the book at four stars.

It wasn't a perfect read though, and what held it back for me was the ending. I think the story should have been left a bit more ambiguous, with the girls returning from their grace year back to the village to face an uncertain, but different, future. Unfortunately, however, the story continues on for a bit and reveals something that I thought was too convenient and unrealistic. It didn't feel quite right to me after the gritty reality of the rest of the story.

Ending aside though, The Grace Year was an interesting read about an important topic. I think young adult readers will enjoy thinking about the big ideas in its pages and connecting bits and pieces of it with our real world. I'm glad I finally took the time to give it a try.

  

Challenge Tally

22 in 2022: 11/22

Total Books Read in 2022: 44

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

 

I first heard about Miracle Creek through a YouTube review. The reviewer really seemed to like it, so of course, I was interested. Courtroom dramas aren't usually my type of story, but this one sounded really intriguing. I decided to give it a go. I picked it up at Barnes and Noble a while ago, but didn't get around to reading it back then. I made it part of my 22 in 2022 Challenge, and finally started it this week.

The novel centers around the murder trial of a woman named Kitt and a child named Henry, who were both killed while undergoing medical treatment in a hyperbaric chamber. Someone set a fire near the oxygen tanks and caused the chamber to ignite, setting off a deadly explosion. On trial for this crime is Elizabeth Ward, Henry's mother. She was bringing Henry to these treatments to try and improve his autism, and her behavior before and during the fire appears to point to her committing this act of arson to release herself from the struggle of caring for her son. She claims to be innocent, but the circumstances of the crime definitely cast suspicion on her. The prosecution's case isn't as straightforward as it may seem though, and several of the other people that were around during the incident are hiding secrets about what really happened.

The narrative shifts perspective with each chapter, and each person that narrates reveals more information about that night. We hear from Pak Yoo and his wife Young Yoo, who run the hyperbaric treatment facility, Mary, their teenage daughter, Matt, another patient receiving treatment, Teresa, a mother of another young patient, and Elizabeth herself. Throughout their pieces of the story, a larger picture gradually begins to emerge of a group of people dealing with a variety of complex issues including grief, racism, abuse, and loneliness. All of these factors eventually come together to create the explosion, and each person's actions, both intentional and unintentional, have a part to play in the resulting tragedy.  

I really enjoyed this novel and flew through it in just a couple of days. Kim does a nice job of creating a suspenseful and well-paced plot - she gives you information in bits and pieces that make you want to keep on reading to figure everything out. The plot was sufficiently twisty enough to keep me guessing and I liked how all the varying perspectives came together. The story was designed well and it was a solid reading experience. 

I think its best element, though, was the emotional honesty. Kim doesn't shy away from having her characters express ugly thoughts, and that made everything feel more genuine. In particular, the feelings of the parents in this story towards their children were sometimes shocking, but very honest. Providing long term care for children with profound disabilities is an exhausting and frustrating business, and the resentment, loneliness, and depression of the characters in these situations was clearly described. The endless love they felt for their children was there as well, and the difficulty of dealing with all these feelings really humanized the characters. The way the characters grappled with real world issues like autism, child abuse, sexual assault, living as an immigrant, and infertility were portrayed well too. The story felt deeper than a typical courtroom drama story. It was a page-turner full of mini-cliffhangers and surprising twists, but it was about real things as well. It was more complex than I was expecting. I think it would make a great movie or limited series.

I wasn't too sure about a few aspects of the story. The way autism was portrayed left me a little uneasy - a lot of dubious "treatments" for it are discussed, and their inclusion is a necessary part of the story, but some of them appeared to actually be effective, which I wasn't too sure about. It felt weird that some truly kooky stuff was given a feeling of legitimacy. I know that the whole idea of autism being something to "treat" or "cure" is a huge point of contention within that community in the first place, and I found myself wondering what parents of children with autism would think about some of the stuff in this book. To be clear, I don't think that Kim did a poor job of presenting the issue, but something about it felt weird. Maybe that was the point. After all, Elizabeth was shown to be obsessed with trying to "cure" Henry, but this obsession was also shown to be based in her love for him. The push and pull of feelings between her being abusive and her just being a concerned parent was constant and messy to sort through, so maybe leaving the effectiveness of the treatments ambiguous was intentional. It just didn't sit quite right with me. 

The ending of the story fell a tiny bit flat for me too. It relied on people feeling guilty and confessing to various things, which I didn't find to be terribly realistic. I didn't dislike the ending or anything, but I felt like it could have been more exciting. The build up to everything was fantastic, and then the resolution just didn't totally match up. 

Overall though, I really did enjoy Miracle Creek and I'm glad that I put it on my reading list for this year. It was a surprisingly deep read with a lot of complex emotions and issues woven into its plot. I am looking forward to seeing what Angie Kim comes up with in the future.  

Challenge Tally

22 in 2022: 10/22

Total Books Read in 2022: 43

The Storm of Echoes by Christelle Dabos

 

**This review will contain some spoilers for the earlier books in the series**

For the past several weeks I have been making my way through Christelle Dabos' Mirror Visitor Quartet. I was finally up to the last book and I had really been enjoying everything so far, so I decided to charge full steam ahead and finish the series off. I started in on The Storm of Echoes looking for a satisfying conclusion to Ophelia and Thorn's strange and dangerous adventure, or at least a conclusion that I could somewhat understand. The plot of these books had gotten increasingly complex, and I knew that I was in for a wild ride, but I was really hoping that the story would end in a way that made sense to me.

The plot of the novel picks up soon after where the last book left off, with Ophelia and Thorn reunited, passionately in love, and ready to continue their investigations into God and The Other. They don't have any time to waste. Increasingly large chunks of arks have been falling from the sky, and it's clear that their entire world is in danger of collapsing if they don't figure out a way to stop it. Their clues point them towards the observatory of the Deviations, a medical facility shrouded in secrecy that specializes in treated "inverted" people. As Ophelia and Thorn have to keep their relationship hidden to protect their true identities, they infiltrate the observatory from different angles. Thorn enters in as a government inspector, and Ophelia admits herself as a patient.

Once inside, Ophelia is subjected to all sorts of strange and scary medical experiments that push her to her limits and help her recover some memories. The process helps her piece together some important information, and slowly, the mysteries of God, the Other, and the ancestral spirits become more clear. Merely figuring things out isn't enough to stop the imminent destruction of the world though. Ophelia and Thorn must work together to take what they know and use it to turn everything back to the way it should be.

I did enjoy The Storm of Echoes, but it ended up being my least favorite of the series. I still was amazed by the creativity and world building that Dabos included and I continued liking Ophelia and Thorn as characters. Reading this series is such a vivid, rich experience that the sheer amount of imagination employed throughout its pages makes up for a lot. There were definitely some aspects of the story that disappointed me though, the biggest of which was exactly the thing I was worried about - it was very confusing.

The last quarter of the novel contained a lot of information that was meant to answer all the questions the series posed. This information, however, was very difficult to understand. Things became so cerebral, metaphorical, and complex that most of it didn't make sense to me. The way the world in this story operates follows a very complicated system of rules. Mirrors, echoes, reflections, codes, black holes, alternate universes, and magic all interact with each other in ways that are not predictable or logical. At no point throughout the conclusion could I tell what was happening or what might happen next, and not in a good way. I think if I read the series again (and a few more times after that), I could make better sense of it, but I don't like having to do that. I like complexity in a series, but this was a lot, and I think it would have benefited the story as a whole if some of these plot elements were toned down a little.

Aside from the confusion, I was also a bit disappointed with the choice to spend most of the story in the observatory. I would have liked to see some of the characters we got close to in books one and two more. Most of them were there, but only very briefly, and I got the feeling that they were only included at all out of a sense of obligation. Thorn falls in this category as well--he's there, but only in a few chapters, and I wished for more of him. The characterization in this novel has consistently been one of its strongest points, and it felt like a waste to push so many great characters aside. There's also a big twist in the story that comes too late and concerns a minor character that I didn't really care about or remember that well, so it didn't hit as hard as it should have. 

The ending of the story was very bittersweet. It was well written, but I wanted it to be different. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

So while I thought this was still a very good fantasy novel, these issues held it back from being a truly great conclusion to the series. It was definitely memorable in the sense that it was extremely unique and imaginative, but the complexity was too much at the end. I just finished reading it, and if you asked me to explain the plot right now, I couldn't do it clearly. That's not ideal. However, despite these issues, I am still very glad I experienced the whole quartet of novels for the sheer creativity of them alone. I'll definitely be hanging onto these books and possibly revisiting them in the future. There is certainly room for other stories to be told in this universe. I'm curious to see if Dabos will ever bring us back there again.

Challenge Tally

Finally in 2022 - Series Edition: 17/28

Total Books Read in 2022: 42