Little Syllables: The Blog
Review - It’s Not A Cult by Lauren Danhof
I received a review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
I requested Lauren Danhof’s new book It’s Not a Cult because I think cults and high-demand religions are very interesting. I went into this book not exactly sure what to expect.
It tells the story of Glinda Glass, a single, late 20’s woman who is down on her luck, living at home with her mother and younger sister. She is estranged from her twin sister for reasons that become clear as the novel progresses. Glinda’s mother is a member of a cult, though of course, everyone insists it’s not a cult.
This book is split between present-day narration and Glinda’s memories as she works to try and free her mother from this organization and figure out her own life.
The Glass family has a lot going on—Dorothy and her partner have severed most contact and moved to Oklahoma to look for Bigfoot; North is just trying to finish high school and get away from her family, Glinda is working at a dunk tank at a Renaissance fair (but keeping it from her family), and their mom is heavily involved in her church and its leader Arlon.
The one thing all these people have in common (besides being family) is their incredible inability to communicate clearly with each other.
I enjoyed the characters and felt that Danhof did a great job building believable characters with fairly believable problems. But the communication breakdowns between characters was sometimes maddening. I kept feeling that much of the conflict in the book could have been solved with a good conversation.
I also liked the premise of this book. It does a good job showing the ability that a particularly charismatic (and narcissistic) person can have to persuade normal people to believe things that at first seemed unbelievable. It shows the power of a cult leader, and how hard it can be to break away. And for most of the novel, this is done somewhat lightheartedly, but everything comes to a head near the end, and we see the true evil behind Arlon’s machinations.
My overall impression of this book is that it was entertaining, though frustrating at times. It highlights important things about high-control religions and family communication. It could be triggering for people who have suffered physical and emotional abuse.
Review - Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
It had been a while since I’d read a good science fiction survival story, so I was excited to get a review copy of Daniel Kraus’s new book Whalefall. This book is reminiscent of The Martian in that it’s about a man on his own in a fight for his life. But it’s so much more than that, too. It is also a look at a young man’s fraught relationship with his recently deceased father and the process of grieving.
Jay was raised on the water. His father Mitt taught him about the ocean and scuba diving. The two had a very rocky relationship, culminating with Jay leaving home to live with a friend in his teens. Now Mitt is gone, and Jay is grappling with the loss and his family’s feeling that he abandoned his father at the end of his life. So Jay sets out to redeem himself—by scuba diving in Monterey Bay to search for Mitt’s remains.
As Jay confronts the ocean, the dive, and the search for his father’s remains, his thoughts return to memories of times he had with his father.
But the already dangerous dive takes a turn when Jay gets caught up in a confrontation between a giant squid and a sperm whale. In the aftermath, Jay is caught in the squid tentacles and dragged into the whale’s mouth.
The rest of the story follows Jay as he tries to find a way out of the whale, all while he grapples with losing his father and comes to terms with their relationship. It’s raw and visceral (sometimes literally) as he does whatever he can to escape the whale before his air runs out.
I love how, even though this seems like a completely implausible situation, the author makes it feel very real. And while creating this narrative filled with rich detail about the ocean, scuba diving, and the sperm whale, Kraus also manages to create complex characters and intricate relationships within Jay’s family.
I highly recommend this book! I read it in two days, and I was engrossed from beginning to end. Whalefall is out now!
Review - The Cypress Maze by Fiona Valpy
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
The Cypress Maze is a wonderful book for fans of the genre. It is structured similarly to Valpy's other books with a modern POV and a historical POV. We begin with Tess, who is grieving her recently deceased husband and needs to get away from her everyday life. She heads to Italy to stay with her grandmother’s friend Beatrice. The two bond as Beatrice shares her story with Tess.
One thing I especially liked about this book is its different take on WWII fiction. The historical narrative follows Beatrice when she was a young woman who was stranded in Italy when war broke out. She was forced into hiding and protected by a sympathetic couple in a rural villa.
The politics and fighting of the war are not front-and-center here.
As Beatrice relates her story to Tess, we see the courage of good men and women during the worst times of their lives, we see the redeeming power of love, and the resilience of the human spirit.
The historical portion of the book was my favorite.
In the modern day, we follow Tess as she settled at the villa, helps Beatrice, and gets to know the villa’s new owner Marco. Although Tess is the protagonist of the story, I felt she was a rather passive character who spends much of her time observing others.
I appreciated the parallels between Beatrice's love story and Tess's--both of which ended in tragedy and loss. Having Tess hear Beatrice's history and the story of her love and grief helped Tess heal from her own grief. I love that Valpy highlighted this important component of grieving and healing.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I felt I couldn't give it five stars because I really didn't care for Marco and didn't feel his character was developed quite deeply enough to make his character arc feel substantial and sustainable.
The Cypress Maze is available now!
Review - The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
I loved Steven Rowley’s The Guncle so much that as soon as I saw an opportunity to get an advance copy of The Celebrants, I jumped on it! This book did not disappoint.
The Celebrants is a character-driven story of five friends and their lifelong quest to be there for each other. After the death of their friend Alec, just before graduating from Berkeley, the group makes a pact to give each member a “funeral” while they’re still living, so they will know how loved they are and nothing will be left unsaid.
The others in the group—Naomi, Marielle, Craig, Jordan, and Jordy—go their separate ways, but return to each other whenever one of them needs it. We see each friend as they face life’s challenges over the years, and we see what drives them to invoke the pact and reunite with their friends.
This book spans decades in the lives of these characters, but it focuses mainly on husbands Jordan and Jordy (known collectively as “the Jordans”).
This time, it’s Jordan who has invoked the pact, and the group gathers once again to celebrate one of their own, to confront their grief, and to support each other.
I loved this book for its intimate portrayal of the human experience. These five friends go through the same losses and grief that we all do. They fall in love. They fall out of love. They make mistakes and they suffer the consequences. They feel betrayal, anger, frustration, sadness, hopelessness, and hope. This book is about the type of family that a person can choose to create for themselves. And it shows us that there is no one right way to live.
Sensitive readers should know that this book contains adult language, references to drug and alcohol abuse, incarceration, suicide and death, and sexual content.
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley comes out on May 30, 2023. I heartily recommend it!
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 - If We’re Being Honest by Cat Shook
I received a free copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
If We’re Being Honest is a week in the life of the large Williams family. It begins with Gerry’s funeral and a shocking revelation that his best friend reveals during the eulogy. What follows is a week with this family sorting through their feelings about Gerry, about each other, and about the future.
I Loved
I loved this book’s premise. I felt like the secrets and unspoken things were front and center for the Williams family. I also loved the title. This book is about secrets coming to light, and they’re revealed one at a time as the book progresses. This is a very ambitious book that tries to give each family member a voice, but that is where it may not be super successful.
Shook’s characters are diverse, but I felt there was not enough focus, so opportunities were missed to give a few characters a deeper look. I would have loved to see more from Ellen’s perspective as I felt she was one of the most interesting characters in the book, though she’s also very quiet and closed-off.
I Didn’t Love
My biggest problem with this book is that so many problems could have been solved with open communication. But perhaps that is the point. This bothered me the most in the Alice/Peter relationship. Yes, they’re in a complicated situation, but I felt too much time was spent on them when their problems could have easily been resolved in a single short conversation. The same is true of Jennifer and JJ.
Ultimately, I liked how this book shows the complexity of keeping secrets within family relationships, but also still being a good person. I think it’s worth a read.
Read It
If We’re Being Honest came out today!
Review - A Likely Story by Leigh Abramson
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
A Likely Story is an interesting look at the inner lives of a successful literary novelist, Ward Manning, and his family. Ward portrays himself as a self-made success. He is driven solely by his ego throughout the entire story. His wife Claire is like his brain trust—she is the driving force that got Ward’s career started, and her sacrifices are what have allowed him to maintain his ridiculously large ego throughout his adult life. Their daughter Isabelle worships Ward but loves Claire. She wants nothing more than to write and be successful in the eyes of her father.
This book is told from many different perspectives. Throughout the book, we see the POV of Claire, Ward, Isabelle, Brian (Isabelle’s unlikely best friend), and we get snippets of a book manuscript. There are several timelines at play as well. I felt this head-hopping and time-hopping was a little convoluted and distracting. Each chapter begins with the POV character’s name and the year, but I found myself taking a few paragraphs to reorient with each change.
I would consider Isabelle the protagonist of this book, though she is not a terribly sympathetic character. She is the only character in the book who completes a convincing character arc, though I found myself questioning her motives all the way through to the end. Isabelle was raised an only child, a rich kid with a famous father and a philanthropist mother. She seems incapable of maintaining any relationships except for with her doting best friend Brian.
Isabelle’s father, Ward, is so egotistical he feels like a caricature at times. He doesn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities.
Isabelle’s mother, Claire, was probably my favorite character in this book. She is smart, generous, insightful, and caring…yet somehow ends up in a lifelong relationship with Ward. I found it hard to understand her motivation for beginning a relationship with him and then maintaining it.
And then we have Brian, Isabelle’s best friend. Their relationship didn’t make any sense to me. It’s almost like she became his friend so she could keep him like a pet, and he worshipped her. When he decides to cut off contact with Isabelle, I thought, “finally!” But by the end, he’s back.
Overall, I thought the premise of this book was very interesting. I think it would benefit from greater focus (limiting how many points of view we see). I also think the relationships within the novel could be more believable.
A Likely Story by Leigh Abramson is available now.
Review - The Witch of Tin Mountain
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Set in Arkansas and spanning a century, The Witch of Tin Mountain is historical fiction with a paranormal twist. The story follows generations of women from a single family—women with powers that many others do not understand. The dual timelines follow Dierdre (in the late 1800s) and Gracie (in the 1930s) as they navigate the emergence of their powers and grow from teenagers into adults.
Each of their lives are upended with the arrival of a mysterious preacher who causes a stir in the town of Tin Mountain. While these preachers perform miracles within the community, they are not what they seem.
Gentry haunts Dierdre, even as she flees Tin Mountain to escape him. He ultimately lures her into a trap, and she makes a deal she will later regret. Bellflower has come to Tin Mountain to collect on Dierdre’s debt. Gracie is forced to rely on herself and her ancestors as she works to thwart Bellflower’s designs.
This book is a tangle of love and loss, power and sacrifice.
Ultimately, I felt this book is about the power of women. I thought the author did a great job with characterization and the overarching storyline. Things get a bit muddy because the stories of the various characters have so many similarities—at times the coincidences felt too contrived.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, and I think fans of the genre will enjoy it as well. Sensitive readers should know there are references to witchcraft, sexual assault, murder, suicide, and abortion in this novel.
The Witch of Tin Mountain came out yesterday, February 1!
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.
To read more reviews and see book recommendations, use the post tags below!
Review - Landslide by Susan Conley
I received a free review copy from the publisher (Knopf). All opinions are my own.
Susan Conley’s Landslide is a story of a family and their struggles to weather the aftermath of trauma. The narrator is Jill, wife to Kit and mother to “the wolves”—teenagers Charlie and Sam. Kit is a fisherman in Maine who is seriously injured while away on a fishing trip. While he is hospitalized in Canada, Jill tries to navigate life with her boys.
Charlie is the responsible and mature one, often acting like a parent to Sam, who is only a year younger, but seems much younger. Sam is the troubled one, still reeling from a tragedy years earlier that left him unmoored and unstable.
This is a story of trauma and recovery, of strength and vulnerability, and of a family working to navigate these things under difficult circumstances. And this is a story about mental health and how past traumas have a way of resurfacing throughout our lives.
I enjoyed this book’s complex relationships. It feels real—raw and frustrating as Jill deals with Sam’s moods, Kit’s absence, and Charlie’s growing independence.
Jill struggles to know where she’s needed, and if she’s needed.
The setting is a big part of the story; the rough seas, the dreary rain, and the cramped houses all reflecting the turmoil of the family.
Though these struggles and turmoil are not all resolved by the end of the book, it ends on a hopeful note. We can see glimpses of a better future for this family, and those glimpses are what make this book great. Just like life, this story is not tied up into a neat little package. We don’t know if Jill and her family will live happily ever after, but we can see it’s possible.
Landslide was originally published in 2021, and the paperback was released in September 2022. It’s available now!
To read more reviews and see book recommendations, use the post tags below!