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 - 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 Way of the Fearless Writer by Beth Kempton
I received an advanced copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Beth Kempton’s The Way of the Fearless Writer weaves together her knowledge of Japanese language and culture with the process of writing. She offers a mindful approach to writing that is based on Buddhism.
This book was inspiring.
I have been an aspiring writer all my life, but I am often held back by fear of what others will think of me and my writing. So I don’t share. This is exactly the problem that Kempton addresses in this book. She offers guidance for a fearful writer to embrace the process of creativity and to know when it’s time to share the writing.
I found this book and its author to be insightful, wise, and realistic. She provides writing prompts throughout and I found myself highlighting prompts that I wanted to come back to. This would be an excellent book to read slowly and work through the exercises as they are introduced. But it is also an excellent book to read straight through.
I especially appreciated how the author shares her own creative process. I think that writers often don’t know what the initial process looks like for others. Classes and workshops teach the end of the process, the refining, the editing, and the polishing. But Kempton spends a good portion of this book discussing how to get started, how to piece together a larger work, and how to be patient as the ideas form.
I heartily recommend this book for any writer, but especially for a writer looking to be more mindful and less fearful.
The Way of the Fearless Writer is now available.
Review - The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
I enjoy reading books about family dynamics and characters coming to terms with their true selves, so the description of this book drew me in. It tells the story of the Hanrahan family—patriarch Ray, making his artistic comeback with an exhibition; matriarch Lucia, trying to make sense of her role both within and without her family; shy son Patrick, desperately working to hold himself together and do what is right; daddy’s girl Leah, putting her father and his wishes above everything else; and self-exiled Jess, the one who got away.
Though Ray tries to make everything about him (with Leah’s help), this book is really about Lucia. She is a woman who has put her family first, who has suffered tremendously, and who is abused. And she is a woman who struggles to reconcile her desire to stay faithful with her desire to break free.
The characters in this book are a mixed bag. I absolutely hated Ray, and by extension, Leah. The two of them are a toxic pair, propping up Ray’s narcissism. The rest of the family sit uncomfortably under Ray’s thumb.
I felt that the author did a great job showing the effects that this type of family situation can have on different types of children (and adults). Each character has their own issues that they are trying to work through, and it’s made clear that the combination of dominant, blustering Ray, and submissive, indecisive Lucia have perpetuated these issues in their children, to the point of crisis.
The plot of this book is slow-moving. The whole story takes place over a weekend, but at times, it felt like a slog. The reader is let in on each character’s inner life and is led (frustratingly) to dead ends when the characters fail to communicate clearly with each other.
Perhaps that is what the author was trying to do—show the cumulative damage and frustration of these types of personalities and relationships. If that was the goal, it was done well. Nothing in this book made me feel positive about these peoples’ futures.
By the time the book ends, each character is in a deeper mess than where they started, except maybe Lucia and Patrick—who seem to be breaking free, but not necessarily toward better things. So maybe they’re just in a different mess than where they started.
I think this book could be great for a reader who is interesting in negative and problematic family dynamics or the problems facing individuals who try to break free from relationships with narcissists. I also think the book could have accomplished all this in fewer pages, or perhaps at a quicker pace.
The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson is available now in the US!
Review - A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
If you’re a fan of Jane Austen, but also love a good parody, A Most Agreeable Murder may be just the ticket for you. I found this book to be amusing and fun.
This book tells the story of Beatrice Steele, a plucky young woman who secretly loves reading about murder (a completely scandalous secret in Swampshire). Her family attends the Stabmort ball to attempt to woo the rich Mr. Croaksworth and save themselves from destitution. The heir to their estate, Mr. Grub, is also in attendance, attempting to seduce Beatrice. But when Mr. Croaksworth drops dead, Beatrice sets out to find the killer. She soon discovers that most everyone in attendance has secrets they might kill to keep.
Seales has created (sometimes quite obvious) parallels to Austen’s characters and plots—Mr. Grub is clearly a Mr. Collins, but worse. I spotted a Mr. Woodhouse, a Miss Bates, a Captain Wentworth, a Mr. Bennet, and more.
One thing I especially liked about this book was the way it bucks conventions of its time, including a diverse cast of characters, showing the most eligible bachelor to also be the most insufferable bore, and allowing its heroine to pursue her own interests. This book is also great at showing why following rules simply for the sake of tradition isn’t always the best route.
A Most Agreeable Murder is lighthearted and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Some of the comic exaggerations are a bit overwrought, but I felt this was a fairly solid book for readers familiar with the tropes and willing to see them turned on their heads.
Julia Seales’ A Most Agreeable Murder comes out June 27, 2023.
Review - Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding
I received a free galley from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Speak of the Devil is a thriller that hooks you from the very first page. On New Year’s Eve, seven women find themselves in a room with a dead man—or part of him, at least. All of them have a motive for his murder, but each of them denies committing the crime.
This story follows these seven women, as well as the detective in charge of discovering the killer. The reader sees these women in the aftermath of the murder, as well as in flashbacks of their experiences with the victim. We discover motives right along with Nova, the detective, and the case becomes increasingly complex. It becomes clear that Jamie (our murder victim) was abusive throughout his life, so the stories of these women cover decades.
This is a story about a horrible, manipulative man, and the women he betrayed and destroyed. It’s also a story about how society disregards abuse victims and abusers often get more chances than they should.
This book kept me interested until the end, though the solution to the mystery felt rushed at the very end of the book. I liked the characters and thought they were well-written and complex. I also enjoyed how motives were unveiled one by one and flashbacks are interwoven with the days following the murder.
Trigger Warnings:
Sensitive readers should know this book contains sexual content, graphic violence, rape, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, forced outing, homophobia, and suicide.
Review - Everything All At Once by Steph Catudal
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
I specifically sought out an advanced copy of Steph Catudal’s new memoir, Everything All At Once. Ever since I started using iFit on my treadmill, I’ve been a fan of Tommy Rivs, so I began following him on Instagram. Then I started seeing his wife’s writing when he’d share it, so I started following her as well. Now, she’s written a book about her life and her experience through her husband’s cancer diagnosis and treatment.
This book is heavy, but it is very well written. Catudal’s writing is beautiful and lyrical and honest and very emotional. She tells of her father’s terminal cancer diagnosis and his death when she was still very young. She details how that trauma, combined with her religious upbringing, led her into a pretty intense rebellion. I liked reading Steph’s descriptions of what it was like to deconstruct from her religious (Mormon) upbringing because I could connect with that on a personal level.
Steph intertwines this history with the more recent past, detailing Rivs’s diagnosis and hospitalization in 2020. This intertwining of timelines works very well in this book, and eventually the timelines meet as we near the present. These dual timelines also help the reader see Steph’s arc from rebellious and headstrong teenager to loving and devoted wife and mother. And where the story of her past involves her loss of faith, the story of the more recent past involves her rebuilding of a new kind of faith.
One unusual thing about this book is its structure. While Rivs was in the hospital, Steph took to social media to share her thoughts. The final portion of this book is made up of those social media posts, most of which has been described earlier in the book. I thought this was an interesting choice to place these together at the end instead of interspersed throughout the narrative. But I still think it works.
I’ll admit, I was emotionally invested in this story before I even got my hands on a copy. I had already heard the story from Rivs on iFit, but it was incredible to read Steph’s perspective as well. I read it in a single day, and I cried. I highly recommend it for those who enjoy memoir and who are not averse to reading about intense medical treatment and the emotional impact on the patient’s family.
Sensitive readers should be aware that this book contains adult language, drug and alcohol use, sex, and terminal illness and hospitalization. It’s heavy, but in my opinion, it’s worth it.
Review - Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Women We Buried, Women We Burned is a new memoir by Rachel Louise Snyder, detailing her troubled childhood and how she eventually became an international journalist and advocate for victims of domestic violence.
The memoir begins with the untimely death of Rachel’s mother and the aftermath of that enormous loss. I loved how well she described what that loss was like from a child’s perspective, realizing now all that she didn’t understand then. Her father became entrenched in an evangelical church and remarried, blending families. These events began a tumultuous cycle of domestic violence within the family, which culminated when Rachel and her siblings were kicked out of their home as teenagers.
Rachel holds little back as she describes her own culpability in the events of her teenage years. She was a rebellious child who refused to be controlled. She fell into self-destructive patterns and was expelled from her high school.
Over the years that followed, Rachel eventually found her feet. She discovered her love of writing and her love of travel. As she learned more about the world and its people, she began to better understand herself and her own family.
This book is about strong women and the things that get in their way. It’s about disease and grief and death. It’s about faith and knowledge. It’s about messy family relationships and self-discovery.
If you liked Tara Westover’s Educated, you would probably like this book as well. Sensitive readers should know this book contains adult language, sexual content, child abuse, and drug use.
Women We Buried, Women We Burned releases today (May 11, 2023).
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!