mrissa | Books read, late February

Joan Coggin, The Mystery at Orchard House, Why Did She Die?, and Dancing With Death. So I finished this series all in one gulp, which I wouldn't have done if a friend had not lent me the last two, but...they did, so here we are, no regrets whatsoever. They're very much on the light end of mystery, and Lady Lupin remains funny and generally quite kind. I don't know that they're going to change your life except for giving you some pleasant hours in your life, which...sometimes is the kind of changing your life a person needs right now.

Kate Emery, The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder. This is a YA mystery from an Australian writer, and while I don't know a lot of Australian teens, the voice feels authentic to me. Another on the light end of mystery, successfully so.

Jamie Holmes, The Free and the Dead: The Untold Story of the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel, and America's Forgotten War. I really appreciated having a lot more about this period filled in. I feel like the way that American schools taught the Trail of Tears, at least when I was in school and I strongly suspect now, sort of...had it happen in isolation. Did not encourage people to do the math and realize that the Southern whites who were "defending their way of life" had in many cases had that land and that way of life for less time than I've lived in the house I live in now. The relationships between Black Americans and Native Americans have been complex and interesting, and a book that focuses on some of that also does a better job of decentering whiteness than many histories, so hurray for that.

S.L. Huang, The Language of Liars. Discussed elsewhere.

Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizy, For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran's Woman-Led Uprising. Oof, the timing on this one. Well. It's an earnest account from two writers, one of whom was on the ground for the events described. This is very recent history--2022-24 or thereabouts--so if you don't have any familiarity with Iran outside that period you'll probably want additional reading before or after reading this, but I think after would be fine, I think you could learn about these brave women now and get more of their backstory later with no problem.

Judy I. Lin, Song of the Six Realms. This was secondary world YA fantasy that frankly did not stick with me particularly well. There was a girl musician swept away to a magical realm with peril and stuff, and it was fine, it did just fine at that, but I wasn't really driven to seek out more of the author's work.

C. Thi Nguyen, The Score: How to Stop Playing Someone Else's Game. For my group of friends I am very much toward the "non-game-enthusiast" end of the spectrum, so one of the things that was interesting to me about this book is that he could be very clear about what things appeal to game enthusiasts in ways that I could understand even if I didn't share them. But I think the parallels and cross-connections with games and metrics, and how to keep that from growing toxic, is some really useful stuff, worth thinking about.

Karen Parkman, The Jills. This was a very readable thriller that ended up mildly disappointing to me in the end. The protagonist is a member of the Buffalo Bills American football team's cheerleader group, the Jills (if you're like me you did not know that they had a special name), and another of her cheerleader friends goes missing. She has dealt with missing loved ones before because her sister has struggled with addiction, which makes for compelling backstory in a thriller context. However, I felt like several of the plot twists were not very smart ("what if your stalker actually helps you out and is not the real problem" no stop that), and the ending pulled its punches both on dealing with the toxic aspects of professional football cheerleading that it had started to gesture at and at making the protagonist deal with her personal life choices and history.

Cat Sebastian, After Hours at Dooryard Books. I am a tough sell for romances, and I don't want to say "but this isn't a romance" just because I like it. It is, it is a romance between two men in 1968. It is also an historical novel about grief. It is both, it can be both, and it is very beautifully both. It also involves raising a baby and learning to be a family. It is also about moving forward from things you are not proud of without denying they've happened. I love this book. I am so glad about this book. I picked it up because two different friends said it was just what they needed right now, and it was just what I needed too.