Book Reviews May 2019

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.  This is the first in a three-volume science fiction series, and I immediately understood while reading it why it has won so many awards.  It is told from the point of view of a ship, which sounds quite odd, but makes sense in the context of the book.  The narrator is actually part of the consciousness of a ship, and is on the lam after realizing and witnessing some damaging information about the leader/s of her world.  The writing is excellent:  Leckie immediately draws you into the world (galaxy really), having you make sense of things by the narrator’s account of the past and present.  It is hard to explain, but I very much recommend.

Strangers Tend To Tell Me Things by Amy Dickinson.  This is a memoir about returning to live full-time in a rural town in New York state by Amy Dickinson, who is the Amy of the advice column, “Ask Amy”, and a regular participant on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.  She left the town when she went away to college, and then lived in Chicago and DC, but as the single mother of a daughter would return to her hometown in the summers.  When her daughter is grown, she returns in part to help take care of her ailing mother.  The book is about her past and her life growing up in the town, but also about finding a second chance at love there and marrying a high school friend.  She’s an entertaining writer, and I enjoyed the book, although I didn’t particularly find her to be a kindred spirit.  I’m still laughing at a line she wrote about going on a blind date with a (rather mean) guy who had very tiny hands, and all she could think of was those hands washing an apricot in a stream.  Ha!

Something In The Water by Catherine Steadman.  This was a fun British thriller written by an actress who had a role in one of the seasons of Downton Abbey.  It’s a fast and hard to put down read, although once you are finished, I’ll admit, not everything quite adds up.  However, it begins wonderfully and the suspense is high.  Basically Erin and Mark are on their honeymoon in Bora Bora when they find a bag in the ocean filled with money and diamonds and a gun.  At first their intent is to do the right thing, but down on their financial luck, they consider keeping their find and start to plan how they could get away with it.  The criminal owners of the bag are soon on their trail.  It is fun!

Late In The Day by Tessa Hadley.  This is a rather melancholy novel about what happens to two intertwined London couples and their families when one spouse dies.  Zachary was the glue that held them all together, so when Christine, Lydia, and Alex are left behind, there is a certain amount of unraveling.  Christine is the main character, an artist who worked closely with Zachary and his art gallery.  She and Alex invite Lydia to live with them while she is grieving.  There are stories of the past woven into the present, and you hear about how the four met and what has happened in their lives over the past twenty years.  It was a nice, calm, read, but my problem with it is that I basically disliked all four main characters, plus their two daughters.  All bothered me for different reasons.