I cannot review the Little House books without talking about this: these books are racist. I hope that teachers or parents who are introducing these books to children for the first time are having serious discussions with these kids about racism and colonialism, and how these attitudes influenced westward expansion. As I was rereading these books (which, by the way, I loved as a kid and reread many times), I couldn’t stop thinking about the word “pioneer,” which in this case is just a euphemism […]
Precocity, Poison, and Pie
I think every review of the Flavia de Luce books contains the word “precocious” in it somewhere. Flavia is no ordinary 11-year-old. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is the first book in this mystery series, and introduces chemistry whiz, poison-obsessed Flavia, her widowed father, her two sisters, their retainer Dogger, and their housekeeper Mrs. Mullett. The de Luces own a slightly dilapidated country home in 1950s England. At the start of the novel, Flavia overhears her father arguing with a strange man, […]
When the Reckoning Arrives (or Not)
When I read a book for CBR, I like to wait a few days to review it so I can gather my thoughts and decide what I want the focus of my review to be. In the case of A Secret History of Witches, this was a mistake. I mostly spent those few days remembering everything I didn’t like about it. A Secret History of Witches is the story of five generations of a family of witches. Story, actually, is a bit strong, as very […]
Riches and Wonders
What a strange little book. The Beautiful Ones is the story of three people: Antonina “Nina” Beaulieu, her cousin Valerie, and the telekinetic performer Hector Auvray. Hector and Valerie have a tragic romantic history, and when their paths cross again during Nina’s first Grand Season in the big city, she is drawn, unwittingly, into a romantic triangle with the two of them. At its heart, The Beautiful Ones is pretty standard romance. It has some noteworthy trappings, however. It appears to take place during La Belle Epoque, […]
Nothing Harder to Go Through with Than a Vanishing Act
I’m of two minds on Underground Airlines. On the one hand, judging it strictly on its own merits, it’s an thought-provoking and interesting book. The basic premise is that the Civil War never happened, and slavery was never abolished. It still exists in the United States in four southern states (the “Hard Four”). The story centers around Victor, an escaped slave who was caught by the government and now works for them as a sort of bounty hunter, tracking down other escaped slaves. In Underground […]
Kill Your Darlings
Deborah Harkness knows a lot about a lot of things. Her depth and breadth of knowledge on things ranging from wine to Elizabethan England to brewing tea is certainly impressive, but the amount of detail crammed into these books sure does make for some slow going. The All Souls Trilogy is about a world in which witches, vampires, and daemons (in this case, daemons are humans who are more than us regular folk–musical prodigies, artistic savants, financial wizards, scientific geniuses–or sometimes drug addicts or mentally […]
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