Luminous Beings (Arnold)

Luminous Beings, by David Arnold, illustrated by José Pimienta (2024)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was another graphic novel that I picked up at random at the library based on the cover. At this point, I'm looking for interesting panels that I can incorporate into a class slide presentation or worksheet or just something that I could recommend to the students.

This book isn't one of those things. I could use it as an example of poor dialogue placement, but I already have several of those. What I mean by this is that the tails of some word balloons go behind other word balloons to the point that you aren't sure who is speaking.

Other than that, I have no complaints about the layout, which seems to be standard with many graphic novels.

The book is about a "faux-pocalypse". They don't call it that. I just did. It looked like it was going to be about more than it actually was.

The story takes place over the course on one night. There are pink streaks coming out of the sky. Everyone is wearing hazmat suits, or "hazzies". The hoods have face masks that can be opened to use an inhaler (one character has for no stated reason, and it never comes into play) or to take a drink or just about any reason outside. Also, one guy (not shown) urinated behind a dumpster outside a club.

The only thing that this apocalypse seemed to do was turn all the squirrel into zombies with glowing red eyes that attack humans -- except that none are ever struck. The squirrels are always batted down and crushed behind someone's heel.

Of the four main characters, two are budding filmmakers, making a documentary about the squirrels, the end of the world, and a missing friend who went to live off the grid (and claim a reward for finding him). One of them has a secret -- she's decided to move away to go to Brooklyn College to study film-making. (Side note: I am a BC alumni, and I know that BC has one of the two best Film Departments in the city. The other is at NYU, which is about 10-20 times more expensive. One had Robert Redford as an advisor; the other had Paul Newman.)

The other two boys are friends and one of them secretly has a promise ring that he has to work up the nerve to give. As far as B stories go, it's pretty pedestrian. There are no complications, tension, drama in this.

The four follow a few clues and find the guy, who already knew the world wasn't actually ending but wanted to disassociate from the world anyway, and they make it back home by morning.

The artwork is pretty cool, primarily with pinks and purples for the night sky.

One scene that stands out was when two of them are in the club -- the boy who's 18 and the girl who's underage because the club lets in underage girls. The other two boys are outside (by the aforementioned dumpster). The couples are mixed, so everyone is free to spill what's on their mind. And here's were it goes wrong. The writer tries to do a movie trick of intercutting the two scenes and mixing the dialogue. This sometimes works in movies, because the jump cuts are obvious. It's less obvious here with the dark, near empty backgrounds with the "camera" close-up on whichever teen is speaking. It jumps from inside to outside back inside again to give the impression that the outside teen is responding to the inside teen's dialgoue. It doesn't work.

Luminous Beings was an okay read, and not something that I'll recommend. I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it -- maybe it'll mean more to them.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

The Parable of the Sower (1993)

Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. Butler (1993)

[AUDIO ONLY]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a random audiobook suggestion from Libby. I've heard of this book, and of Octavia E. Butler, but hadn't read it. For some reason, I thought this book was older. Then again, I find it hard to believe that 1993 was over 30 years ago.

The book is narrated by Lynne Thigpen. Normally, I don't pay attention to this, but I saw the name and remembered her from TV. She did a great job.

The timing of listening to this book was ironically amusing (it's not supposed to be). The setting is a dystopian California in 2026 where the poor huddle together behind walls for protection against the really poor who will rob, steal, burn, and kill to get want they need and take what they want. (They commit more unspeakable crimes to women as well.) Cops and firemen are next to useless, or worse. Criminals rarely get caught, and innocent people get punished.

In this instance, the country has been ravaged by climate change, wealth inequality, and social collapse. Climate change was a little ahead of its time in the early 90s, but it was typical scifi cannon fodder to set up a novel.

Jobs are hard to come by, particularly ones that pay cash. It's hard to imagine that there are still stores, and that those stores can be supplied, but they have security. Some jobs are basically indentured servants (paid in room and board, so you can never leave). And some pay in "company scrip" which can only be spent at the company store, and worthless elsewhere. The allusions to slavery are noted.

Lauren Olamina starts off as a 15-year-old. (She'll age at least three years over the course of the book.) She's also an empath. She has a condition, as others will have in the book, that she can feel other people's pain to the point where it can be debilitating. If she were to punch someone, she would feel it. This becomes problematic later on when she needs to shoot someone. She hides this condition.

The first part of the book sets up Lauren's home and family life and how bad it is. At the same time, she narrates her discovery of a new religion. She was baptised a Baptist, but she doesn't identify with that God. She writes poetry about her philosophy, which she calls Earthseed, and she refers to her writings as The Book of the Living (as opposed to the Books of the Dead).

People live together for safety. People who live alone are more likely to be robbed and killed (and raped). When a fire starts at one house, the community comes out to help, which leaves houses empty for thieves. Lauren wants to leave, and she has a to go bag. Her father says that to go bags are a bag idea because it puts everything valuable in one place for a thief to steal quickly.

The book switches gear when the really poor, the homeless, attack and burn down the entire community. It's their way of sticking it to the rich. No one here is rich, but some are richer than others.

Lauren escapes with her bag and then returns the next day along with the looters to get more of her stuff. She can't find the rest of her family, who she hopes escapes but comes to belive they're all dead.

The rest of the book concerns escaping and traveling north, trying to find someplace safe. The roads are dangerous and so are the towns. Getting into Oregon will be difficult and getting into Canada would be nearly impossible. Lauren and others that can be trusted try to form a larger group for safety as they travel north.

I enjoyed listening to this. I don't know if I would've stuck with it were I reading it.

I might listen to the sequel at some point.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Remote, Volume 02

Remote, Volume 02, by Seimaru Amagi and illustrated by Tetsuya Koshiba (2005)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I couldn't find the correct cover online, so I posted the one above from an eBay auction. It looked better than the photo I took.

I believe I found this book in a Little Free Library although I suppose it could've come from Philcom. I saw it was volume 2, but I figured there would be a recap to bring me up to speed. Not really, just a description of the two main characters.

As with all graphic novels I find (and the ones that are donated), I flip though them before I put them into my library. Like Crazy Food Truck, this one had nudity in the first few pages as the young woman from the cover steps out of the shower. Unlike CFT, she's only naked this one time. Unlike CFT, this manga gets its kick with unnecessary, gratuitous upskirt shots. This is a specific camera angle used multiple times, instead of just showing the woman in her underwear or a skimpy bathing suit. If anyone wants to discuss my concerns offline sometime, come find me, possibly at the next convention. (Also, to highlight the fact that she's wired, there is only panel where her clothing is transparent but her body and underwear are not grayed out.)

The crux of the matter: this book is not going into the rotation in my classroom. It's going back into a Little Free Library in my neighborhood -- and not the one in front of the K-5 school!

Kurumi Ayaki is a police officer who is assigned to an elite unit in charge of solving crimes that have been classified as unsolvable. She does the legwork for Kōzaburō Himuro, a recluse, a "guy in the chair", who lives in the basement of his manor and doesn't come out. He's a genius with a tragic, traumatic past.

There are 9 or 10 chapters (I forget) in this book. The first few are dedicated to the crime from the first book, which gets solved here. This segues into a second crime involving students from a local high school. Ayaki goes to investigate -- to ask questions while her boss feeds her questions. While she's there, the school is threatened will bombs in the building, so Ayaki goes under cover as a new student, which catches the interest of a number of possible suspects. (The calls are coming from inside the school.)

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

The Case of the Culvert Puppies (Olis)

The Case of the Grounded Ferry
by Thomas Olis (2026)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

When I won "The Case of The Grounded Ferry" a few months ago, the book wasn't ready. The author, Tom Olis, emailed me his first two books in the series to read in the meantime. I actually wasn't planning on doing that. And after reading book three, I wasn't in a hurry to read book one. However, ...

Sometimes the stars align. I'm in between book club books at the moment. I hadn't started another Library Thing book yet. And my reading goal "scavenger hunt" type list includes two entries for two books written by the same author. I had other prospects lined up, but this one was right in front of me.

The first book, The Case of the Culvert Puppies, reads better than the third. Partially, this is because the characters are introduced better here, and partially because Olis doesn't do a good job (or any job?) reintroducing them to new readers in book three. I never got a feel for them. Once again, however, almost everyone is on a first-name basis, which gets confusing, and I forget which parent goes with which child.

Speaking of adults, they play significant roles in this book. It's not all kids saving the day. In fact, they acknowledge that there are parts of the investigation that are grown-up business.

There's a Russian plot to sow discord in the area that involves stealing a dog, which escapes long enough to give birth to puppies in an illegal culvert on a property that's illegally being developed. Then a flash drive is found that has a bunch of files in it. The police and feds step in after this.

It wasn't bad. I liked it better than book three. The back of the book lists five mysteries, but the third one just came out. I hope the author makes corrections to his writing before publishing those next two.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

The Greatest Pub in the Multiverse (Steuernagel)

The Greatest Pub in the Multiverse
Herman Steuernagel (2025)

[AUDIOBOOK]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I listened to this book in March, I believe, but apparently, I forgot to review it. I don't even have a draft file.

This is a sequel to The Bartender Between Worlds and is more of what I expected (or wanted?) in the first book. And in many ways, this is better than the first book.

The book opens with James, a computer game designer, going home from the US to the UK because his father died. His latest endeavor fell through, so he has some time. His father and late mother owned an old pub, which has been left to James. Due to the terms of the will, he can't sell it for at least a year. He and his sister give it a go.

While searching in the storeroom, they discover a portal to another world, which has been closed off for 20 years. And not just anywhere in that world, but to a pub called the Pints and Portals. Something about the key that James had opened the P∧P to other realms as well.

It's here that we run into Moira again, and she still have the demon box. They get things going. Moira has a problem that James resembles her James, who now hates her and would hunt her down for being magical. At the same time, she's falling for this James and worried about his reaction were he to find out her past of hunting down magical creatures.

I wish I wrote more of this down while it was fresh in my mind. I enjoyed the book, but it got a little confusing with the different POV chapters (this doesn't usually bother me) and sometimes I'd forget which bar that they were in. I did think it was a great way to expand the universe of the first book, which you don't actually need to read to read this own (but it will have spoilers for book 1, naturally)

If the library ever got the ebooks, I might reread these.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

The Man from the Great North (Pratt)

The Man from the Great North
Written by Hugo Pratt (1980) -- (2017, in English)

One Man, One Adventure

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I've been showing some videos in class about the History of Graphic Novels in the 20th century (and their precursors). Wil Eisner's A Contract With God gets a lot of credit at being the first graphic novel, or at least the first to use that term, or the first to popularize that term. It can be argued (and is argued) that none of that is true. Maybe the popularized part.

One video spoke of Italian artist Hugo Pratt and his early work. It then went on to talk about The Man from the Great North. It looked interesting, so I requested it from the library, and it was almost immediately available.

This edition, translated into English, has an important Foreward, which I read both before and after reading the comic. Some of what I read the first time didn't click as much as it did the second time.

Jesuit Joe is a French Metis Indian in Canada in the early 20th century. He's a killer, to be sure, but appears to be a "righteous" one, with his own code of ethics. He finds a Mountie's uniform in a cabin and puts it on. He likes the color. After that, he gets mistaken for a Mountie, despite his obvious heritage. He has answers for any questions about it. The actual Sgt. Fox will come after him, and Joe ends up saving the man's life a couple of times.

The story ends ambiguously in the middle of the book, but then continues. Pratt returned to the book after several years and wrote more of the adventure. It's included here. Also included are storyboards created for a movie about Jesuit Joe, because he was asked to expand certain parts. They look odd because of the rough nature of the story boards compared to the regular artwork.

Not included here is any sort of final ending. Did Pratt not have time? Did he lose interest? Pratt did, years later, write a novelized version of the book, and yet didn't expand upon the ending in any way. (I know this because the foreword says so.)

This was an entertaining book with a focus on the artwork, some of which is violent/grotesque. There isn't a lot of dialogue, so there's not a lot to read, but there's a lot to take in.

I'll have to see what else by Pratt I can find.

I enjoyed this book.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

The Case of the Grounded Ferry (Olis)

The Case of the Grounded Ferry
by Thomas Olis (2026)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This book was a free Advanced Reader Copy from Library Thing. I'm encouraged (but not required) to leave reviews in exchange for the free books.

I'm reviewing it late because I recieved it late. In fact, the author sent me the first two books to read while I was waiting. I did not read those. I don't remember if I realized that this was the third book in a series of mysteries. I did NOT know that the first book was only released a year ago.

Disclosure: I released five books within an 18-month timespan, but those were all about 40 pages long and most of the material had been written long before. Pumping out three 200-page books this quickly is a lot of work. I did notice quite a few typos, but this is an ARC not a final copy, so I can't ding the author for that unless it's particularly grievous.

I left the following review on the Library Thing website:

The Case of the Grounded Ferry (by Thomas Olis) starts off great with two friends on the beach when a ferry loses control and runs aground. The girls recognize someone on the ferry, who then tries to hide, and someone jumps off the ship and runs off the beach.

The girls, their friends, and their families get caught up in a bigger puzzle figuring out how all the pieces fit together while watching out for strangers out to do them harm.

Unfortunately for me, the mystery didn't really pull me in, and the ending felt a bit cut off. I never really got the feel for most of the characters. There were a lot of them, but other than a name (usually just a first name, even with the parents), there wasn't much to distinguish them.

---

I will say that the names bothered me. Everyone was a first name, except for the occasional "Mon" or "Dad". The adults are also referred to by their first names, and there are a lot of them, too. Keeping them straight and whose parents were whose might've worked better with a few last names, instead of "Mr. Jenny's Father". (Seriously.) In fact, Paul (or it might've been Pete) tells Terrence to call him anything but "sir", so he calls him by whatever name someone else called him by. The last name Stourhm, or something like that, appeared a few times in the last part of the book (once where Jenny gets called her full name by her father).

The only two kids I could keep straight were Terrence, the boy with red hair who was in the middle of everything, and Emmett, Jenny's younger brother who gets kidnapped at one point. The rest of them? I couldn't picture them at all -- maybe whatever teens and preteens I saw on some show on TV at some point. Imagine young actresses playing the parts.

The people (adults and children) behave irrationally. The police don't seem to have too much of a problem with this. (They also don't seem to use last names of the people they're talking to.) And the more I think about it, the less sense the book makes to me.

**** SPOILERS ***

And in the end, it just ends. They follow Terrence who's being kidnapped. Luckily, one of the dads works for the FBI (or was it the CIA?) and has a badge. They rescue Terrence before he's pulled onto a ship that flies a flag other than the US. The cops will not interfere, even if there might be other kids on that boat. (This make sense, but ...) And that's basically it. Sometimes, that happens.

And that's the way the story ends. Sometimes that happens. Kids get shanghaied and disappear. That happens. Less than a happy ending, and less than a satisfying one.

(End Spoilers

Oddly enough, I have nothing electronic to read at the moment. I'm waiting for books to become available, and I'm not ready to start another one of these weird sci-fi books I won. Dumb as it sounds, since Olis sent me three books, and since there's an entry on my "Reading Goals" for two book by the same author, I'll at least read the first one to see if the series got off to a decent start at least.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Lucky Penny (Hirsh / Ota)

Lucky Penny
Written by Ananth Hirsh
Illustrated by Yuko Ota (2016)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This book had an interesting cover, and it looked like a standalone story. However, given the way it's told in parts, it wouldn't surprise me if this was published in parts and then collected, nor would it surprise me if there are more books after this one.

Penny's luck is bad. She loses her job and her roommate in the same day. Her friend, Helen (the roommate), is moving away. When they go to clean out her storage locker, Penny gets the idea to rent it out and live in there. (Most of the obvious problems with living in such a space aren't addressed.) Helen also sets her up in with a job in her parents' laundromat.

Her first problem, when she arrives, is that the laundromat appears to be run by Helen's 12-year-old brother who doesn't seem to like Penny at all. Interestingly, the 12-year-old seems to always be there (maybe it was summer?) and the parents are never around. A lot of responsibility for the kid.

Penny meets her love interest when she agrees to go on a date with the guy at the front desk at the gym next door to the laundromat in exchange for the use of the gym's showers. This is her idea, by the way. The guy is a bit on the shy, timid, meek side.

Her life is chaos, but Penny manages to struggle through until her life and her luck turn around. Silly sometimes, and not entirely satisfying, I didn't hate it. And I'm glad I picked it up.

It was definitely a step up from the previous graphic novel I read.

Note: This was labeled "the Color Edition", so I'm assuming it was first published as black and white. The coloring was well-done, even if nothing in particular stands out in my mind.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles
Malka Older (2024)

[AUDIOBOOK]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This is another audiobook that I should've given another listen to. (I listened to the first two chapters twice.) However, I returned it and moved on to the next book. It was a mystery, and I heard the ending, so I don't know that listening again will matter much.

The book is a sequel to The Mimicking of Known Successes, and like that one starts with missing people who couldn't fallen to their deaths for all anyone knows. But the team of Mossa and Pleiti (the Sapphic Holmes and Watson) are on the case to locate not just one but a bunch of academics who have disappeared.

And to discover why one of them was murdered, and by whom. Probably the one that tried to kill Pleiti as well.

It leads to a discovery that is similar to one that occurred in the first book, but is a bit different.

As with last time, I'm not exactly sure how this ring system works, or how the platforms are arranged on them. I'm assuming that there's a series of concentric equatorial rings that have tracks for a train (or monorails) and that the stations are built along them like little space cities.

The story was enjoyable, and I'll likely request the next book at some point.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

The Pirate Princess (Frigerio)

The Pirate Princess
Written by Luca Frigerio
Illustrated by Lorenza Pigliamosche (2024)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This book had an interesting cover. It wasn't a retelling of a fairy tale, and it wasn't anything Disney-related or related to anything else I was aware of. And it had a promise of adventure on the back cover.

It didn't deliver on any of it.

For one thing, it wasn't a complete story. It was more of an origin story, and she wasn't much of a pirate by the end of this installment.

Second, I have no clue what the hell the artist was thinking ... or not thinking. Half of the time, the characters had no faces -- they were obscured by hats, their heads were lowered, and sometimes their heads (or just their faces) weren't in the frame of the panel. The artwork, which should've sung, was just bad.

Also, it's not like the characters were trying to hide their faces for story reasons. Their faces did get shown sometimes, which only made the other times seem odd.

Also, the fight scenes were blurred action lines, and I often hadn't a clue what had happened until I read the aftermath ... and sometimes I wasn't sure then, either.

The few pages give you an idea of how poor the storytelling will be. Two pirate ships come to battle each other. On one, we have Stephane and Maxime, who we will come to root for (and eventually see Maxime's face), and on the other is the pirate queen who is quick to slice off the head of an advisor who expresses caution or concern. The battle commences with both ships firing cannons and ...

And we turn the page, and it's a few days later, on an island, and no one from the preceding page is there.

Maxime and Stephane eventually show up to rescue Julie from the place where they originally hid her because they fear the pirate queen is coming for her. Julie also makes steampunk explosives, but we don't see too much of this late.

They sail to take her to her father. They get double-crossed by someone who kidnaps them ... and takes them to her father. The Pirate King, like the Pirate Queen, is quick to want Maxime and Stephane killed for their carelessness, despite how skillful and loyal they are.

It goes on from there, and, oh, the Queen is Julie's mother, and the Queen's son whose death the King was responsible for was the King's son and Julie's brother ... and it was all confusing and not a lot of lot piracy.

The adventures will continue, but they won't continue with me.

I was not a fan.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Marvel "Tsum Tsum" Takeover! (Chabot/Baldeón)

Marvel "Tsum Tsum" Takeover!
Written by Jacob Chabot Illustrated by David Baldeón (2017)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Once again, I am always on the lookout for graphic novels that I can use in my classroom for Free Read Friday. I have a "Graphic Novel" class in my high school. I found Marvel "Tsum Tsum" Takeover! in a Little Free Library in my neighborhood (along with a two other Cartoon Network books that I started reading and immediately passed on).

The image above is a photo of the cover that I took with my iPad. I usually take the images from Amazon, but it had a different cover. The only matching images I could find where also photographs, so I took my own.

I must've missed the "Tsum Tsum" Craze of a decade ago. I didn't have kids back then and my nephew would've been too little. (Plus he was into stuffed monkeys and pandas that looked like animals, not sleeping capsules.)

On the Marvel side of things, I got most of the references, and recognized most of the characters, either from sporadic reading, from the movies and TV, or just from online conversation.

The basic storyline is that a crate of alien creatures was on its way to The Collector when it's lost and crashes into a roof in Brooklyn where three kids in a superhero club find it. Inside are little capsule-shaped aliens (maybe the length of a kid's forearm) who seem to like the Avengers and superheros. The kids show them videos on their phones, which includes hearing the original Spider-Man cartoon theme song and "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." The Tsum Tsum take on the characteristics of some of the Avengers, right down to their powers.

As a backdrop to this, Ulton has been spotted in Brooklyn, and Iron Man and other heroes are trying to stop him.

As a complication, there's a mean guy living in the kids' building who is actually a low-level crook who just got out of prison and can't get work -- as a criminal. He captures the Spider-Man alien and shows it super villain videos. The alien splits into four, which become Venom, Green Goblin, Rhino, and Ultron. He then trains them to rob a bank, where they take out Ant-Man before they turn on him.

The Collector shows up. Ultron shows up. The Avengers show up. The kids help save the day but are still grounded.

Basically, a dopey story but still kind of fun. I noticed that the aliens have the red and blue Spidey suit and Don Blake Thor, but the book has the red and black Spider-Man suit (and I'm not entirely sure whose in that suit) and Thor is a woman. (I haven't seen that movie, but I remember the fake outrage about the comics.) Ms. Marvel appears but Captain Marvel does not (except in a variant cover). There is a Captain Marvel alien though.

The book is short -- 120 pages, which is four issues combined -- and the last 20 pages or so are just variant covers by different artists featuring different characters (many of which don't appear in this book).

I hope some of my students enjoy it even if they don't get the references or know who all the characters are.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

The Berry Pickers (Peters)

Nothing to See Here
Amanda Peters (2023)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This book was a Pandemic Book Club aleternate selection. It was my month to select three books, and I immediately put the books, ebooks, and/or audiobooks on hold at the libraries. I started listening to this before the vote started. It recieved no votes. I listened to the audio (Chapter 1 twice), and I think I will read the book when it becomes available, particularly if it isn't until summer. (For this reason, I included the book cover, which I don't usually do for audiobooks.)

This was not a happy book, and it was a long-term story. Early on, we know that this story is being told by the characters when they are older, but it isn't readily obvious how old they are, and that makes it a little depressing.

The story has two narrators: a woman who was adbucted as a child in 1962 and grows up to realize that something isn't right, and the youngest older brother who blames himself for her disappearance. Of the two, the Ruthie/Norma is more compelling. Joe's story seems almost pointless -- his addiction and his running away from his wife (whom he didn't know was pregnant) don't add to Ruthie's story. It's not like he sees her at any point.

Ruthie is a Mi'kmaq girl from Nova Scotia who vanishes from a berry-picking camp in Maine. The story follows the aftermath for her family and the girl who grows up in a different life, haunted by fragmented memories.

There are some inconsistencies in Norma's story. She realizes things are wrong (she's not in old photos she finds before they disappear and her skin color doesn't match her family), and later reveals that she assumes that she was adopted. But there are other times where it seems that she believes that she's her new mother's daughter, particularly after she miscarries.

Side note: the miscarriage in this book carried some weight and had some fallout, so it wasn't as bad I've complained about in other reviews where it seems like a pointless trope used to generate drama or some kind of emotional earthquake.

Also, when Norma mentions she and Aunt Ruthie cleaning out her mother's house, I got the impression (it might've been stated, or I might've assumed it) that her mother had already died. By the way, this was depressing because this memory happens early in the book. Later, Norma lives the truth before her mother's death.

*** Spoilers: ***

Ruthie doesn't learn the truth until she's in her 50s, so despite being loved by her adbuctors and treated as their real daughter, her entire life was stolen from her. Her mother's problems with having children causes Norma to decide after her miscarriage that she doesn't wish to try for more children. This causes her husband to leave her, and she doesn't remarry.

Joe doesn't get to see Norma until he's on his deathbed. Likewise, he's too embarrassed to go back just to meet his own daughter, who is accepting of him, at least. Ruthie/Norma at least gets to meet some of her birth family, but her father and oldest brother have already passed away by this point.

*** END OF Spoilers: ***

Other than it being depressing, I can't find a reason to hate it or not recommend it, if you like depressing stories like this.


If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.