Little Syllables: The Blog
Review - No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Summing It Up
First off—take a gander at that cover art! I’m in love.
Erica Bauermeister’s new book No Two Persons is unlike anything I have ever read before. I was swept up in the story of this book within a book. Instead of a traditional protagonist, this contemporary tale follows a book from person to person as it influences lives, eventually coming back to where it started.
Each chapter is named for one of ten people who encounter the book Theo: The Writer, The Bookseller, The Actor, The Artist, The Caretaker, etc. Each of these people is influenced in some way by this book—whether they read it or not. Some of them are inspired. Some of them are comforted. All of them are affected.
I Loved
I loved this book and the way it shows how literature affects people in different ways. It begs questions like, What does it mean for someone to pass on a book to someone else? What can a work of fiction really tell us about ourselves? How can a reader further inspire a writer?
The characters Bauermeister has created are varied and intricate. The stories of The Teenager and The Caretaker are the two that have stuck with me the most as I’ve considered this book. Not every story is resolved on the pages of the book. We don’t see every step of the book’s journey. We don’t see every connection between characters. But each character’s story adds something to the whole and shows us how our lives are all interconnected in many ways.
I found it interesting that Bauermeister even considered those people who have a book and choose not to read it. It can still affect them. It can still influence them.
Read It
No Two Persons was released today (May 2, 2023)! I highly recommend it.
Review - Maame by Jessica George
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Maame by Jessica George tells the story of Maddie, a mid-20s office worker who has always taken care of others at the expense of herself. She comes from an unconventional family—a mother who was often absent, a father who was often reticent, and a brother who left as soon as he could. Now Maddie is left in the care of her ailing father while her mother spends most of her time in Ghana and her brother works an unpredictable job. Then her mother returns, freeing Maddie to move out and start to live her own life.
Maddie is sheltered and awkward, inexperienced and isolated. And as she determines to try new things, she makes a lot of mistakes. The important thing is that she learns from these mistakes and continues moving forward. When tragedy strikes, Maddie is left to re-evaluate her role in her family and in her own life.
I felt the main theme of this book is the search for identity. I especially appreciated Maddie’s realization that the identity she has been living in may not be what she would have chosen. Maddie has to come to terms with her life as a Black woman, an aspiring professional, a sexual being, a friend, and a daughter. As frustrating and hopeless as her life feels at times, the reader is ultimately left with a sense of hope for Maddie’s future.
Maame is a book that touched me in several ways and helped me see the empowerment that comes from reclaiming the self. I highly recommend this one!
Maame is set for release on January 31, 2023.
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Review - Secret Lives by Mark de Castrique
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Secret Lives by Mark de Castrique is an awesome thriller that kept me guessing until the end. The book is firmly grounded and very believable, with complex characters and an intricate plot.
The thing I liked most about this book was the characters—especially Edith. I love a strong female lead, and Edith was surprising and very human. Edith is an elderly landlady, a former FBI agent, and our clever detective. She carries this story from start to finish.
An unexpected benefit of reading this book was that I learned a fair bit about cryptocurrency. The story follows a group of FBI and Secret Service agents through a murder investigation, which is mixed up with a financial fraud case. Cryptocurrency is a big feature here, including how to exchange it, how to access it, and how to protect it. Whether or not the details provided in the book are accurate (which is beyond me), it felt believable and real to me.
Secret Lives is an awesome thriller that kept me guessing.
Ultimately, I gave this book 5 stars. It is excellently written, the characters are complex, and the mystery is a wild ride.
To keep the mystery going, the author casts suspicion on several different characters. There were several moments in the book when I thought I’d figured it out, but I kept guessing until the climax, when the true villain is unveiled.
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Review - Mother Tongue by Joyce Kornblatt
I received a free advanced copy through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Mother Tongue is the story of Nella. After her mother’s death, she finds a letter of confession telling her that she was kidnapped from the hospital as a baby. The book is Nella’s perspective of working through that traumatic revelation.
Through the course of the story, Nella describes her childhood in Australia, her relationship with the woman she knows as her mother, and her marriage to Alex. We also see Alex’s perspective of his own trauma and Nella’s sister Leah’s perspective of the aftermath of the kidnapping. Finally, we see the perspective of Deborah, Nella’s birth mother.
This book is about mothers and children. It’s about the complex relationships we have with our mothers and the trauma children experience when they are separated from their mothers. This book is also about lost children and the effect that has on their mothers. Are we formed by our DNA or are we formed by the relationships we have? Or perhaps a bit of both?
Mother Tongue had me riveted. The author, Joyce Kornblatt, does an amazing job of weaving an intricate tale of complicated relationships, both lost and found, broken and reforged. The prose is beautiful. The characters are intricate and believable.
I rated this book at 5 stars and I highly recommend it!
Mother Tongue was originally published in 2020. The new edition is set for release September 13, 2022!
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Review - Choose Possibility by Sukhinder Singh Cassidy
Thanks to Mariner Books for the gifted copy!
Choose Possibility: Take Risks and Thrive (Even When You Fail) was a pleasant surprise for me. It’s a book about careers, written by a business leader who has started companies, worked for giants like Google, and has been very successful. I, on the other hand, am someone who discovered her career in her mid 30s and works as a part-time freelancer. I expected this book to be dry, uninspiring, and filled with business jargon. I thought it would have very little to offer me.
I am happy to admit, I was wrong. I loved this book. I found it informative, motivating, and applicable to my life.
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy tells us her story of hard work and success. But mostly, she tells us about the risks she took throughout her professional life to get to where she is. Maybe it’s the “solidly in adulthood existential crisis” phase I am in right now that made this book appeal to me so much. Because even though I am not in a position to be choosing to be a CEO or start my own tech company like the author, I am still in a position to assess risks in my personal and professional life and learn how to take smarter risks.
That is what this book is about. The author gives great advice on how to seek new opportunities, how to keep your options open, and how to accept and learn from failures. And those are things all humans need to do, regardless of their career aspirations.
So while this is a business-oriented book, it is not only applicable to business. I found the author’s style easy to read and her stories accessible and relevant.
Choose Possibility is available now and I highly recommend it.
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Review - Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Anthony Doerr’s new novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, is unlike anything I have read before. This book follows five different characters (Konstance, Zeno, Seymour, Omeir, and Anna), detailing their lives lived in different times and places, eventually weaving them together. Konstance is a girl living aboard a spaceship in the future. Zeno is a retired snowplow driver and amateur translator in Idaho. Seymour is a troubled teenager who wants to save the world. Omeir is a young man with facial deformities conscripted into war. Anna is a book lover stuck in a city under siege. They are all tied together by the story of Cloud Cuckoo Land.
This book takes the reader on an adventure around the globe (and beyond) while also showing the different forms of isolation each of the characters experiences. While reading this book, I felt immersed in each character’s unique situation, feeling their loneliness and despair along with them, but also feeling their hope. These characters are nothing if not resilient.
I loved this book. It blends genres of historical, contemporary, and science fiction. It is magical, epic, and extremely human. But it’s not perfect. In the end, I found myself wanting to know why. I think Doerr was intentional in leaving some questions unanswered. After all, those unanswered questions have left me thinking about this book long after finishing it. And ultimately, this book is about the power of literature to change the world—one person at a time.
Cloud Cuckoo Land is set for release on September 28, 2021.
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Review - The World Played Chess by Robert Dugoni
I received a free reading copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Robert Dugoni’s The World Played Chess is an incredible read. Three storylines intertwine to tell the story of William Goodman and Vincent Bianco, who became friends on a work crew in 1979. William is a Vietnam vet and Vincent is a recent high school graduate. As they work together, William begins to tell Vincent about Vietnam. The other storyline finds Vincent 40 years later, navigating life as his son Beau finishes high school. William sends him his Vietnam journal. The reader gets to experience the journal along with Vincent, while also hearing stories directly from William as he told them in 1979.
As with any book about war, this one is heartbreaking. William’s journal and stories bring so many of his fellow soldiers back to life. This book is the ultimate coming-of-age novel, following William, Vincent, and Beau as they encounter struggles that cause them to grow up quickly.
I loved the interwoven plots in this novel. It is masterfully done. I loved the characters and their development. This book is about growing up, but it’s also about letting go and learning to stand alone. It’s about the relationships that make and break each person.
Overall, I highly recommend this book. Sensitive readers should anticipate the violence found in a war novel, as well as racism, language, and sexual content.
The World Played Chess is set for release on September 14, 2021.
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Review - A Million Things by Emily Spurr
I received a free galley of this book through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Trigger warning: This book deals with mental illness, child neglect, and suicide. It contains some violence and very mild language.
This is the story of 10-year old Rae, her dog Splinter, and her elderly neighbor Lettie. Through a series of upsetting events, they become friends. This is the story of mental illness, tragedy, resilience, and recovery. Those are powerful themes to view through the eyes of a child. I appreciate that Spurr faced these themes head-on. She didn’t just focus on these issues, but also on the stigma surrounding these issues.
I loved this book. I read it in a single day and neglected much else. I loved the narration style, the characterization, and how each character in the story developed. I loved seeing the world through Rae’s eyes. I loved how real and flawed both Rae and Lettie are and how well the author helps the reader see their blind spots. I loved reading an unbelievable story and believing it was possible, even though it’s not a bright story, and I hope it never happens in real life.
I heartily recommend this book!
A Million Things by Emily Spurr will be available on August 24, 2021.
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Review - The People We Keep by Allison Larkin
I received a free advanced copy through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
I was excited to get an advanced copy of The People We Keep after I saw that it was one of the Book of the Month Club selections for July. It tells the story of April, a teenage singer/songwriter, as she leaves home to build her own life. The book follows April over the course of several years as she tries to find somewhere to call home.
I got a slow start on this book. It took me a while to get to know April and to start to care about her problems and her life. But once I did, I couldn’t put the book down. This book is told from April’s perspective as a teenager from a troubled home. She is immature and frustrating. She makes terrible choices and finds herself in impossible situations. Ultimately, the book shows how she grows up, how she learns to love and trust, and how she eventually finds a family of her own.
I loved the character development in this story, not just of April, but of those she encounters. Although this story takes place in many different settings, it’s really about the people and relationships—good and bad. And while some of those relationships didn’t turn out the way I hoped, readers are left with hope for April’s future at the end.
The People We Keep comes out August 3, 2021. Check it out!
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Review - Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar
I received this book from my Scribbler subscription box, which is what first brought it to my attention. I am not compensated in any way for my review and all opinions are my own.
Take What You Can Carry is a book about a time and place that I knew virtually nothing about. It is set in the late 1970s in Los Angeles and Iraq. As I was born in the ‘80s, the basis of my knowledge about the Middle East (and Iraq specifically) come from media coverage of conflicts in the region. This book was eye opening and I felt I learned so much from it.
This book started off on the right foot. I loved the first few lines so much that I wrote them down:
She’d seen it clearly: a woman half-over, half-happy with her life. A focused, single snapshot of her future midmark, that moment the hourglass gets flipped. She’d be forty-five years old and play a. mere footnote in her own life: someone’s secretary, someone’s wife, someone’s mother.
This book tells the story of Olivia, an American secretary who dreams of being a photo journalist. Her boyfriend, Delan, is Kurdish. The story centers around the two of them traveling to visit Delan’s family in Iraq. There, Olivia’s eyes are opened to Delan’s past and her own future.
I loved the character development in this novel, not only in Olivia and Delan, but in more minor characters as well. We see the events of the story from Olivia’s point of view and experience her changes firsthand. It is an emotional journey, filled with love and fear and sadness and hope.
I don’t want to give away anything that happens in this book, other than that the political situation is a huge issue for our characters. Events transpire in Iraq that change Olivia forever, in so many ways. This is a book about love and relationships. It’s about being the Other, in small and large ways.
I absolutely loved this book and wholeheartedly recommend it. I already plan to read it again.