Review of DAUGHTERS OF THE SUN AND MOON by Lisa See (New Release)

3.5 Stars 

Lisa See’s latest historical fiction begins in 1870 and is set primarily in Los Angeles which at the time had a population of about 5,000 of which 179 were Chinese.

The novel focuses on three Chinese women. Two of them arrive on the same ship. Dove is an innocent 17-year-old with bound feet. Her marriage, as second wife, has been arranged to an older merchant. Petal is 18 years old. Her parents sell her to help their impoverished situation; her fate is to be a hundred men’s wife, a woman always holding up her legs. She must work in a brothel for a minimum of four years. Once in L.A. the two meet Moon, a 26-year-old woman who is married to a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. She is educated and fluent in English; her sorrows are that she walks with a limp because of a failed foot binding and that she has not succeeding in getting pregnant. The three women all face challenges and heartbreak but endure and find comfort in friendship.

As always in See’s novels, there is a great deal of historical information. The reader is made aware of the strong anti-Chinese sentiment at the time. They are considered heathens who live in dirty conditions, bring filth and disease, covet white women, and take jobs from whites. This racism culminates in the Night of Horrors on Oct. 24, 1871, a massacre targeting Chinese immigrants.

What is also interesting is the opinions of the Chinese of Whites. Petal, for instance, refers to them as white ghosts with hair “in the demon colors of yellow, brown, and red . . . [with men having] bushy hair growing out of their faces. Disgusting.” Dove thinks of Whites as barbarians: “The way they eat with knives and forks, letting them clank against each other when even the poorest of our countrymen eat quietly with chopsticks.” The message is that people tend to look askance at what is different.

The three women have distinct personalities which are clearly differentiated though they share traits of bravery, resilience, and determination. The three realize that they have no value: one women states, “’Just as in China, we are the property of men. We can be bought. We can be sold. We can be traded. We can be discarded when we lose our beauty or our abilities to earn a dollar.’” Petal feels the same: “Property. Not a girl. Not a woman. Not even a human. We were property” and wonders “Will I ever have control over my own life?” The Chinese community is dominated by two rival tongs constantly jockeying for power and the women are often pawns: two women are kidnapped, one repeatedly. Though victims of both racism and sexism, the three fight to have their value recognized and succeed in going from “having little choice, little power, and little opportunity” to unearthing “bravery, endurance, and the ability to eat bitterness.”

Each chapter focuses on one of the women. Petal is a first-person narrator who describes events as they happen to her. Dove’s sections are narrated in third-person. Moon is also a first-person narrator, but speaks from the perspective of an old woman living in 1926 and looking back at meeting Dove and Petal and the events before and after the Night of Horrors. Moon offers the most interesting viewpoint because she reflects on what happened but I found her foreshadowing to be heavy-handed: “I didn’t press her either. A regrettable mistake on my part . . . ” and “much would happen between that first shooting and then . . . ”

This book suffers from a slow pace, dialogue that feels stiff and unnatural because it contains too much information, and too many male characters who are flat and lack distinctiveness. It excels in elucidating a history about which many people will have little knowledge. Considering anti-immigration views being expressed these days, the novel is timely.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of LAND by Maggie O'Farrell (New Release)

 4 Stars

O’Farrell’s latest novel is historical fiction and a family drama with a touch of magic realism.

It opens in IreLAND in 1865, about ten years after The Great Hunger. Tomás and his 10-year-old son Liam are working for the Ordnance Survey project to map the entire country. Tomás is determined that his maps will be a record of the The Great Famine, but he is sent off course by an encounter with magical waters in an unsettling copse on a western peninsula. Tomás emerges changed and his life and that of his family is never the same. The novel follows the lives of Tomás, his wife, and their four children: Enda, Liam, Rose, and Eugene.

Though most of the novel focuses on life post-famine, there are flashbacks to the potato famine. Both Tomás and his wife suffer devastating loss during the famine. There are also flashbacks to the past on the peninsula, millennia earlier, where we meet a girl named Brith and then the reader is given a brief history of the changes on the land until Tomás arrives with his family.

This is a multiple-perspective narrative. The perspective of each family member is presented at different times, even one in utero “the size of a pear,” but the novel also includes that of others: Bran, the family’s Irish wolfhound; Father Joseph, the local priest; Brith, a child living in an Iron Age ringfort; and even a skylark.

As always in O’Farrell’s novels, the characterization is outstanding. For instance, the four children emerge as distinct personalities. Enda is the restless one; music becomes her outlet. Liam, scarred by what happened to his father at the magical spring, turns to religion. For Rose, family is of tantamount importance. Eugene cannot speak but communes with the land.

And that land is very much a character. Land shapes people’s lives. Though it remains “indifferent to the bloody and fearsome shifts going on around it,” it remembers. Tomás tells the priest, “’the land was inhabited long before you and your kind ever arrived . . . You will never understand how the land remembers, how deep the roots grow, how fast the stream.’” Humans inhabit land for only a short time, but the land is permanent; it is not static because it changes as people shape it, but it remains even when humans leave it or die: “After these people will come someone else, and then someone else, and on and on it will go until the end of the world.” Eugene sees no delineation between past and present: “He lives much as his ancient forebears did: on and by the land, watching the weather, feeling one season blur into the next.” And the land remains part of the people who lived on it: Tomás desperately wants to find the valley where he lived as a child, “to find where he is from, to walk the soil where he began,” and Enda is on another continent yet “The music she plays is the land: it summons it; it conjures it here, to this street corner.”

Of course people try to shape the land too. They build on it and fence it in. They use its turf for heat. Tomás realizes that mapping the land makes it easier for people to exploit it. Tomás tells his son, “’To map is to assume power.’” He argues that “maps are acts of colonisation, enemy tools that must be destroyed.” Though he needs to make maps to provide for his family, he sees himself “as the lapdog of the redcoats, taking their money, helping them to tighten their hold on the land.” What Tomás wants to do is create “a map of how this land really is, of how it has always been, of what lies beneath whatever order or disorder others might impose upon it.”

Besides The Great Hunger and its enduring trauma on people and the land, the novel also examines colonization and the influence of the Catholic Church. Elements of folklore also make an appearance. For instance, there’s a spring that is said “to bestow what is needed, not necessarily what is wanted, which is not always the same thing.” Magic realism is not something I enjoy, but it’s handled with a light touch so the narrative never feels overwhelmed by it.

My husband and I spent almost a month touring Ireland in 2024 so this novel really resonated with me. We saw the Famine Memorial in Dublin and the memorial in the Doolough valley and they haunt me still, as will the scene the child Tomás witnessed with the earl’s pigs. The symbolism is perfect! We visited ring forts and I bought earrings “decorated with interlocking swirls.” And we heard tales of the fairy folk who inhabit underground mounds and serve as guardians of nature and ancient sites, tales I remembered as I read about Brith’s father’s people disappearing into the ground.

This is another Maggie O’Farrell masterpiece. It is emotional and thought-provoking, has memorable characters, a strong sense of place, and thematic depth, and is written in beautiful prose.

See my reviews of other Maggie O’Farrell novels:

After You’d Gone - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/08/review-of-after-youd-gone-by-maggie.html

The Marriage Portrait - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2022/11/review-of-marriage-portrait-by-maggie.html

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2019/08/review-of-vanishing-act-of-esme-lennox.html

Instructions for a Heatwave - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/11/review-of-instructions-for-heatwave-by.html

The Hand that First Held Mine - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/12/review-of-hand-that-first-held-mine-by.html

Hamnet and Judith - https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-of-hamnet-and-judith-by-maggie.html

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of HUNGER AND THIRST by Claire Fuller (New Release)

 3 Stars

I’ve read four of Claire Fuller’s novels so was interested in her latest offering. Unfortunately, this psychological horror was not for me.

There’s a dual timeline: 1987 and 2023. In 1987, 16-year-old Ursula Major, after years in the care system, has a job at a local art school and a bed in a halfway house. She meets Sue who is two years older and the two quickly become friends. Eventually Sue insists Ursula move into a squat, the Underwood, with Sue’s friend Vince. The house has a tragic past and then another tragedy occurs which alters Ursula’s life forever.

Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a successful but reclusive sculptor living under the pseudonym Uschi. A true-crime documentarian finds her and asks her to speak about what happened at the Underwood so long ago. Ursula had hoped to escape the past but that is not to be.

The first half of the book focuses on Ursula’s friendship with Sue. It is not the healthiest of relationships. Ursula is lonely and vulnerable and hungry for love, friendship, and family that have been missing from her life. Sue is erratic, controlling, and selfish; she thirsts for a different life, that of a director of horror films. Ursula is warned about Sue: Vince tells Ursula, “’what Sue wants, Sue gets’” and Sue’s brother even says, “’She changes her mind a lot, Ursula, and she’s done this before, you know. Had other friends she’s let down. . . . you need to work out what you want to do with your own life. Don’t do what Sue is doing.’” Ursula herself realizes that Sue cannot be trusted to keep secrets. Desperate to have a friend, however, Ursula cannot resist Sue who gives her not just friendship but a connection to a family as well.

One of my problems with the book is that I didn’t really like any of the characters. Neither are they memorable. Terry and Vince are just obnoxious. Sue is manipulative, though she is not as extreme as suggested by the publisher’s note which describes her as a wild-child with extreme behaviour and demands. Ursula is the most sympathetic. A damaged child, traumatized by her mother’s fate and her unstable life in foster homes, her neediness overwhelms her. The problem is that it’s difficult to know what to believe because as a narrator, she’s not totally reliable.

I had issues with some of the events. A social worker lets a 16-year-old girl live in a halfway house with recovering alcoholics, ex-junkies, and men recently released from prison? Then, when she learns that Ursula has moved into a squat, the social worker doesn’t really do anything to help? I understand that the child protection system may be overburdened, but there seems to be no attempt to remove Ursula from dangerous environments? Then when Ursula contacts the police about events at the Underwood, no one believes her and the police don’t do a proper investigation? Vince finds Ursula even though she hasn’t really moved in to her new home? And there’s the reference to Ursula suffering from hirsutism; this hairiness befits the linguistic root of her name, but its significance is unclear.

Readers must be willing to accept a lot of ambiguity. What exactly happens at Underwood? Should we believe Ursula’s version or does she suffer a psychotic episode as a result of the trauma in her past or because of substance use? Is she imagining things, influenced by the horror films she repeatedly watches? Is she blaming herself unfairly because of what happened to Sadie? Do not expect clear answers.

Others may enjoy this book, but the haunted house trope has never appealed to me and neither has the concept of possession. Like Raymond, I believe in science and proof, so I’m obviously not the intended audience for this novel. I recommend the book to readers who like the horror genre and are comfortable with a lack of clarity and a lot of uncertainty.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THIS IS GOING TO HURT: SECRET DIARIES OF A YOUNG DOCTOR by Adam Kay

 3 Stars

This book is an account of the life of a young doctor working for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It is structured as a series of diary entries between August 3, 2004, and December 5, 2010. He recorded things that happened to him; some were hilarious and some were heartbreaking.

The book reveals the reality of the NHS. What is exposed is an underfunded health care system with a management that does not make decisions in the best interests of medical staff or patients. The author claims doctors are underpaid and overworked. He describes working while exhausted and worrying about providing competent care without making errors which could result in life-threatening consequences. He bemoans “hospitals’ willful ineptitude when it comes to caring for their own staff.”

The personal toll of working in healthcare is highlighted. The author’s relationship with his partner suffers because of the long hours he works; even friendships are impacted when people outside the medical field do not understand the grueling working hours. He also mentions the high percentage of doctors who have experienced mental health issues and the high suicide rates because of the demands of their profession: “being given huge responsibility, minimal supervision, and absolutely no pastoral support.”

One thing that surprised me is the medical career path in the UK. Students choose medicine at 16, long before they understand what the profession entails. This is certainly different than in Canada where students must complete an undergraduate degree before applying to a medical school. This Canadian (and American) approach is the one the author approves: “getting a medical degree is a decision you should make in your early twenties, not as a teenager.” The amount of support junior doctors receive in hospital settings varies; the author describes a hospital where the approach was “see one, do one, teach one” as if watching a procedure automatically qualified someone to perform that procedure.

There are many anecdotes, but I didn’t really find them that surprising or original. One of my friends is an emergency physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, the largest trauma centre in Canada, so I’ve heard some of these types of stories before. I also worked in a hospital for four summers when I was in university so I have tales of my own.

Some of the anecdotes are amusing, but after a while they feel formulaic and repetitive. There is always a punch line at the end. Early on I felt that these would work better as part of a stand-up comedy routine. Sometimes Kay just makes cheap shots at a patient’s intelligence, weight, or sexual activity. And there is a preponderance of jokes about bodily fluids and random foreign objects in body cavities.

I admit to not really liking the author. I understand that humour is a coping mechanism but it sometimes feels exploitative. He uses patients to gain a laugh, and some of his comments are inappropriate and/or insensitive. There’s a condescending tone in his dismissal of colleagues, suggesting some needed prescriptions for common sense and giving examples of incompetence. He makes comments about old people: “a bunch of grannies with pelvic floors like quicksand and their uteri stalagtiting into their thermals.” Some of his comments border on cruelty: he wants a father to stop talking during a delivery but suggesting that he might deliver a blue baby is over the top. Out of spite, he reveals the gender of an unborn child. He is especially judgmental about religion: he repeats how Jehovah Witnesses are stupid and jokes about asking a Muslim man for a BLT and a bottle of vodka. The author does show compassion in some situations, but they are undermined by his ridicule of others. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable having him as a doctor.

The book is good in spotlighting the sacrifices made by medical professionals whom we forget are human beings, not infallible superheroes. Learning about some of their moral and ethical dilemmas might change public perception. I just got the impression that the author didn’t think much of the people who came to him for care, though perhaps my dislike of humour that belittles others is colouring my impression.

Review of LIBRARY OF BROTHEL by Anakana Schofield (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

Let me begin by stating that I have read two of Schofield’s previous novels (Martin John and Bina) and both of them left me highly impressed with the author’s bravery and creativity. Her latest, Library of Brothel, often left me more confused than enlightened.

The setting is a crumbling building housing a worker’s co-operative, “the only remaining analog, offline operation in Vancouver.” The Library of Brothel consists of a variety of rooms with workers who are tasked with helping people recover from the internet and “reacquainting the human with the human.” The rooms focus on exploring a specific theme but, more importantly, provide clients with “the opportunity to converse and practise interacting with another human.”

There is little in terms of a traditional plot. The workers do have conflicts with each other, but their major concern is the possibility that the library may close. Fewer clients are using their services. Developers are buying up properties all around and there is fear that their building will be next to be demolished and replaced. Workers are already struggling because of the high cost of housing; many need multiple jobs to survive.

Except for a few characters like Scrabble Woman and Security, there is little differentiation. The narrator, one of the workers presumably, states, “We are a conglomerate of eccentrics” who like “wholesome weirdness.” Characters have no names other than the themes of the rooms. And to call the themes esoteric seems almost an understatement! Some examples are History of Outrageous Political Excuses in the Last Century; Evolution and Influence of Irish Butter; History of Early Urologic Inventions: Forgotten Poets Called John; Decoding Ancient Computers and Bonding with the Antikythera Mechanism; Bayesian Analysis of Phylogenetic Trees; and Great Moments in Belly Dancing.

One theme is the value of human connection. The narrator argues that “We are necessary because humans no longer look at each other. They are ghosting in stasis. On the phones.” There is repeated reference to an “epidemic of avoidance” and the crisis of “the human retreat from the human.” The library serves to address “the great reluctance of humans to be in a room with their eyes open (and not staring at a phone) and to tolerate the prospect of each other socially, romantically, or even generally. We need to convey an urgent requirement to return to interaction or risk social extinction.” The workers want “to keep all our clients sustained intellectually while we attempt, unofficially, to reintroduce them to the concept of each other.”

There are wonderful touches of humour. There are the themes of the various rooms like Influence of the Outdoor Ukulele on Yukon Carpenters circa 1896. The library’s has no WiFi: “We remain aged cheddar to the slippy-slappy slice.” There are comments like “It’s hard to absolutely vaccinate against assholes.” And there’s the totally ridiculous: who could be shaking a fridge so violently that a jar stowed on its side would spill its contents?

And there is social commentary. The narrator comments that in Vancouver “we erase the past swifter than we can construct the present”; it’s the “microfibre cloth swipe of capital.” It’s impossible not to think of current events with statements like “Diversion is a ruse Noble Leader and other global dictators have often used” and workers being warned “not to use the word ‘socialist’ because these days it can get you deported to places you’ve never been.” The razing of neighbourhoods is bemoaned so an “established community of low-income renters and new immigrants” has made way for houses for “financially rising or arisen folks with pre-approved mortgages and an abundance of pedigree dogs and electric blinds.” People are less likely to see “volleyball playing Tamils” but more likely to see new stock in the grocery store: “adding words like organic and no cholesterol to products that had never held any cholesterol, such as a bottle of water.”

The book is written in an absurdist style. It focuses on characters trapped in absurd situations, rejects a realistic, traditional plot, and uses dark humor. This style is not my favourite so I found the book a challenging read. I know I missed much of its message. At the beginning, the reader is told that one of the library’s rules is not to anticipate anything “except intellectual stimulation” and in many ways the book does feel like an intellectual exercise, much like analyzing “The Waste Land” or “Jabberwocky.” I’m certain that if I had the time to re-read the book, I’d appreciate it more.

I recommend Library of Brothel to readers who enjoy unconventional books and love to analyze but are also able to embrace uncertainty.

See my reviews of other Anakana Schofield books.

Martin John: https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2016/07/review-of-martin-john-by-anakana.html

Bina: https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2019/05/review-of-bina-by-anakana-schofield-new.html

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THE CASE STUDY by Nicole Lundrigan (New Release)

 4 Stars

A couple of years ago I read A Man Downstairs, a psychological thriller by this Canadian author, and I really enjoyed it. When I noticed she had a new book scheduled for release, I was anxious to read it. It too proved to be an enjoyable read.

Mia, many years ago, read a magazine article about a murderous teenage girl suffering with Cotard’s Syndrome, a rare neuropsychiatric condition in which the affected person holds the delusional belief that s/he is deceased or does not exist. Fascinated, Mia sought out Ian Morrison, the psychiatrist who treated her, and ended up marrying him. Twenty years later, when Ian announces that his famous case study will be republished and he will be reconnecting with his former patient, Mia gains access to the therapy sessions and obsessively pores over them.

Lainey is that patient. When Ian reaches out, she decides to tell him the truth of what happened in her past which resulted in her diagnosis and her being confined for years to a psychiatric facility. She becomes fixated on Ian’s personal life. She takes an especial interest in learning what she can about his wife Mia and daughter Elise and tries to insert herself into their lives.

The book is a fast-paced read. The perspectives of the two women are provided, Mia’s in third person and Lainey’s in first-person. I suspected early on that neither is totally reliable because both have hidden agendas and are capable of deception. In fact, none of the main characters is totally trustworthy: besides Mia and Lainey, Mia’s husband, mother and daughter keep secrets.

For me, Ian is the most dislikeable character. He is not really trying to help Lainey; he wants her case to revitalize his career. He has a sense of superiority and he manipulates Mia. What is learned about his relationship with Faye, his mother-in-law, I found difficult to believe, though it certainly adds to my negative impression of him.

Like A Man Downstairs, this novel examines parent-child relationships. We learn about Lainey’s relationships with her mother and the uncle who adopted her and that of Mia’s with Faye. Then there’s Mia’s relationship with Elise.

There are several twists and turns which surprised me, but looking back, I found they explained actions which had bothered me. For instance, why is Mia so obsessed with Lainey’s case? Why does Lainey react as she does when she first sees Elise? What is not clear is clarified by those twists and turns.

I will recommend this as a perfect summer read. It grabs attention from the beginning and keeps the reader entertained throughout.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of COUNTY ROAD SIX by Kevin Hardcastle (New Release)

 2.5 Stars

This book was not for me. I found it a tedious read and I kept checking to see how many more pages there were left until the end.

After the death of Arthur O’Hare by suicide, his three daughters (Beth, Mara, and Emma) reunite at the family farm. The three women soon learn that they have not just inherited the farm but a long-buried secret that has them fighting to retain ownership of the farmhouse and land. They face terror and violence and must take extreme measures to protect themselves.

Though set in Simcoe County, Ontario, near the shores of Georgian Bay, in many ways the book reminded me of a Cormac McCarthy novel. There are scenes of intense violence described in graphic detail. This is not the type of book I enjoy so I guess I’m not the intended audience.

Pacing is a real problem. The novel opens very slowly; almost nothing happens for pages and pages. There is often little dialogue and actions are described in tedious detail. For instance, “Mara put a hand to her mouth and muttered into it and then she flicked the switch again and the room went dark. She drew the door shut and pulled until it reluctantly latched. Mara fetched her bottle from the kitchen and went into the living room and sat the end of the couch near to her father’s old armchair. Long haul from the bottle before she set it by. The woman lifted her phone and looked to the messages pending but she did not open them.” There are irrelevant details: do we really need to know the history of the local Legion Hall? What’s the fixation with cardinal directions? West is mentioned a dozen times and north is mentioned twice that! Then, in the latter part of the book, there are chapters that have action, but again individual movements are described in such detail that tension is lost. With its detailing of all movements, the book sometimes reads almost like a screenplay. The book is totally lacking taut prose.

Then there’s the strange phrasing of some sentences: “They were stood some twenty yards away from the target” and “Mara was stood there long after” and “Emma was stood in the lamplight” and “a broom that was stood against the side of the house.” Perhaps this odd passive voice construction is an example of local colour, but it’s not used in speech so it is just awkward.

In contrast to the heavy physical descriptions, there is a lot of vagueness in terms of plot. What exactly did Arthur do to earn his fearful reputation in the community? And about his past, the reader can only guess at his activities. What exactly was the cause of the rift between Arthur and his first wife’s family? Arthur Cass is Arthur O’Hare? Why did Arthur abandon Tynan? The reader eventually learns that Beth and Mara’s mother was First Nations, so the girls were discriminated against when they were young. But the discrimination faced by them and their mother’s cousin Marie is only alluded to, not really shown.

The book is marketed as a “propulsive, powerful, and thrilling novel” but I did not find this to be the case. It is overly long and written in a style that lessens tension and increases tedium.

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.