Category: Book Reviews (Page 1 of 41)

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson | Book Review

April 28, 2025 / monique.trottier

Case Histories is the first Jackson Brodie novel by Kate Atkinson, author of Shrines of Gaiety, Transcription, and Life After Life. She’s a marvellous writer but I have only read some standalone titles, not any of her series. In Case Histories, we are introduced to Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, who is following three 30-year-old cold cases, each unconnected but set in Cambridge.

In the first case, we read of a little girl Olivia who disappears in the night. In the second, a young office worker Laura falls victim to a maniac’s knife attack. And in the third, a new mother Michelle is overcome by anger and postpartum depression and brutally kills her husband with an axe.

Jackson attempts to unravel these unusual cases but as he pulls one thread, he realizes there is a great web at work. Olivia grew up in a house that shares a back lane with a current client, Binky Rain. Olivia and her sisters thought of Binky Rain as the witch. Are her missing cats linked to missing girls? Laura’s father Theo was the intended target of the attack, or was he? When Theo ends up having an asthma attack in a park, it is Olivia’s sisters who save him and call for the ambulance. In the same hospital, but in the ICU department, works Michelle’s younger sister Shirley, who has also come to Jackson for help. It’s an strange set of cases, not linked in the past, but with connections in the present.

The Man Who Saw in Seconds by Alexander Boldizar | Book Review

April 6, 2025 / Monique

The Man Who Saw in Seconds is an absolute thrill ride. The first hundred pages read like the single, continuous long shot opening of a Jason Bourne film. The novel is also packed with physics, philosophy, and intel on military and police procedures.

If you liked “The Queen’s Gambit,” this novel has a bit of chess in it and a lot of human dynamics, mastermind thinking, and an anti-hero prodigy. If you liked, the British science fiction mystery thriller miniseries “Bodies,” featuring detectives from different eras investigating the same murder, then you’ll appreciate that time is not absolute. Our main character Preble Jefferson, can see 5 seconds into the future. To paraphrase Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, the past, present, and future is a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Preble finds himself in a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare when his snarky comments to New York police officer in a subway car has him running through a hail of bullets to escape custody. Things escalate from there (truly possible). Preble, with the help of his paranoid, anarchist, Hungarian friend (and lawyer) named Fish, turns himself into police, which makes matters worse (truly possible).

Political thriller, spy novel, science fiction time travel, philosophy of time, police satire, revolutionary drama—this book is exciting.

The Adversary by Michael Crummey | Book Review

March 31, 2025 / Monique

Michael Crummey is shortlisted for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award and this submissions is a stellar read. The Adversary has hints of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell (The Wolf Hall trilogy) in the character of Mr Clinch (also known as The Beadle). The Beadle’s formidable opponent is the Widow Caines and his charge, boss, and godson Abe Strapp is a thorn in the side of all concerned.

The Beadle effectively runs the show in his isolated corner of Newfoundland’s northern coast (Mockbeggar). He is second in command to Cornelius Strapp and after Cornelius’ death, then to his son Abe Strapp). The Beadle is a meddler and plots Abe’s marriage to a young woman who stands to inherit one of Mockbeggar’s largest mercantile firm. It’s a marriage to bring together two of the shore’s largest mercantile firms vs. one of love. And the wedding is sabotaged by the Widow Caines who is equally conniving (and the owner of Mockbeggar’s next largest firm). The Widow Caines is also the sister of Abe Strapp. What follows is a story of lies and betrayal, petty grievances, community gossip, and all the animosity, vendettas and violence you can imagine in a mid-18th century Newfoundland outport.

If you enjoy Michael Crummey novels, then The Adversary has the dark, quirky setting and superbly crafted characters you have grown to love from Crummey. I was a huge fan of River Thieves and The Wreckage. The Adversary picks up from some of the characters in The Innocents, and it’s a top-notch read.

James by Percival Everett | Book Review

March 18, 2025 / Monique

James by Percival Everett is a rewriting of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this time told from Jim’s point of view. The story follows the same general path as Twain’s book. But the central figure is Huck’s enslaved companion, Jim. The novel offers an unsettling reflection on race, freedom, and identity, while still paying homage to Twain’s classic work.

As the story unfolds, we learn that Jim has a wife and child. He is intelligent and perceptive, but also deeply aware of the dangerous absurdities of the world around him. Jim is not just intelligent, he is literate and secretly teaches his friends philosophy and grammar, as well as the accepted (by whites) slave speech.

When Jim learns he is about to be sold and separated from his family, he goes on the run. Jim is hoping to free himself and his family but a slave on the run does not have a lot of options. He has to work within the system in order to get out of it, but systemic racism has a way of being … systemic.

Travelling the Mississippi River with Huck brings its own challenges. The dynamics between the duo are heartily explored. Huck looks up to Jim. But he also knows he has to pretend to own Jim. Likewise Jim wants to protect Huck but not the world Huck represents. The depth of the dilemma is often encapsulated in Jim’s hallucinatory conversations with Voltaire and John Locke where Jim argues against oppression and slavery.

Everett’s writing is subversive and funny. Jim is not a caricature as he is in Twain’s novel, but instead is a blend of satire and social critique wrapped up in a man who has to act without dignity to get through the day safely.

The story is full of moral complexities. It’s a journey to the heart of darkness.

James is a great read with a notable nod to its predecessor. If you enjoy reimagined classics then this is for you. Or if you enjoyed Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, then give this a read.

Breath by James Nestor | Book Review

March 16, 2025 / Monique

Breath follows James Nestor’s journey to understand his own obstructed airways and how it is that humans evolved from having perfect breathing and straight teeth to being chronic mouth breathers with crooked teeth and sufferers of snoring, sleep apnea, asthma and other illnesses. The answer I took away was that soft foods (cooked and processed) had a negative impact on chewing and jaw development, which affected the shape of our palette and airways. Stress, along with these evolutionary changes, affects our ability to have deep nasal breaths, and we have developed patterns that have us involuntarily holding our breath or breathing too fast or too often.

Nestor outlines the connection between breathing and health as he takes readers on his own journey of breath research.

My two takeaways: 1) chew more and more often, 2) breathe 5 1/2 seconds in and then 5 1/2 seconds out as an optimal breathing pattern.

And apparently, the left nostril is your parasympathetic nervous system and the right is the sympathetic nervous system. You can mindfully trigger fight-or-flight as a way to warm up your body (plug the left and breath through the right). Or you can mindfully trigger a calm state by using the left only.

James Nestor has a number of resources on his website and youtube.

If you liked Outlive or Good Energy, this is another great addition to that library of health titles worth reading.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

March 15, 2025 / Monique

This is a crazy book about a time when the Brits have discovered time travel and they are testing out whether they can bring people from the past into the present. They choose people who they know died in their original timeline so that if time travel does not work or they get sick from it and die then they would have died anyway. It’s a way, I suppose, to not alter history.

There are several civil servants who are assigned to be a “bridge” for the “expats”. Their job is to live with the expats and help them integrate into modern society. Imagine that. If you are Commander Graham Gore (1847), Royal navy commander, and part of the Franklin expedition that disappeared, what do you think about finding yourself in modern-day London? Well that’s exactly what happens. His bridge, our narrator, is an expat from Cambodia and falls in love with Gore. The story line is charming and funny, as Gore is shocked to be living with an unmarried woman, but towards the end things become very complicated. Gore becomes unsure of his purpose in the experiment and who to trust.

Gore’s expats are Captain Arthur Reginald-Smyth (1916), extracted from the Battle of the Somme, WWI, gay or bisexual (modern London is welcoming and he is good friends with Gore); Margaret Kemble (1665), extracted from the Great Plague of London (friends with Gore and Arthur); Lieutenant Thomas Cardingham (1645), Battle of Naseby (suspicious, untrustworthy); and Anne Spencer (1793), woman extracted from the French Revolution (she is not picked up by scanners and is deemed a problem).

The Ministry of Time is a great lark but also clearly about how perspective changes meaning. How do those from the past view the present? How do the modern characters view the lives and values of the expats? How do the expats look back on their lives and actions with a lens of today’s values? How does the Ministry view the expats? Their bridges? How is the Ministry viewed by both. Overall it’s an unforgettable tale with a bunch of hidden lessons.

If you liked The House in the Cerulean Sea then give this a read. It has the same bonkers look at bureaucracy and odd-ball characters.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt | Book Review

March 3, 2025 / Monique

Remarkably Bright Creatures is the story of the remarkably bright Pacific octopus, Marcellus, who lives at the Sowell Bay aquarium. Marcellus is counting down his days. He was a rescue, brought to the aquarium as a young octopus, and he’s on his last legs. Marcellus has charmed Tova, the aquarium’s night-shift cleaner, who is remarkably clean. She discovers Marcellus on the run from his tank (he’s quite the escape artist) and keeps his secret. But Marcellus has other secrets. For example, when he comes across Tova’s lost house key on the aquarium floor, he recognizes that it is a key he has seen before–at the bottom of the ocean near the pier, which is also where Tova’s son Erik disappeared years ago. Marcellus has clues and he’s dedicated to revealing them to Tova. The third main character in the story is Cam, who is in Sowell Bay looking for his estranged father. Cam is remarkably bright but makes remarkably stupid, short-sighted choices. In his case, it’s Tova who has clues to how he can get his life on the right track.

Remarkably Bright Creatures is a novel about charming creatures, some with 2 legs, some with 8. Each of them is dealing with loneliness and looking for a sense of family and connection in different ways. This is a quiet, gentle read with a few mysterious plot twists.

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins | Book Review

February 18, 2025 / Monique

Gregor the Overlander was originally published in 2003 and it was completely off my radar until my son’s grade 6 class started reading it in school. This is an epic fantasy series. Suzanne Collins’ writing is as strong as it is in Hunger Games, which was published in 2008, but the story is for a slightly younger audience

I’d say Gregor is for age 9-12 and it is scarier than Dragon Masters but not as scary or mature as Harry Potter or as terrifying as Hunger Games. Gregor the Overlander is on par with Impossible Creatures but more sophisticated in the layers of storytelling.

Gregor is caring for his younger sister when they fall through a grate in their apartment’s laundry room. Gregor and “Boots,” his sister, land in the Underland, where big cockroaches rescue them by taking them to Regalia. Regalia is inhabited by humans with translucent skin and violet eyes. They are warriors who fly around on bats and they are on the verge of war with the rats. Giant, talking rats. Gregor soon learns of a prophecy that foretells of a warrior who will save Regalia, and in the riddle of the prophecy he believes that joining the adventure might lead him to his father, who mysteriously disappeared and may be employed/enslaved by the rats.

This is a fast-paced novel with excellent drama, villains who are friends, and twists of fortune. I enjoyed it so much that I also read the next book in the series, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane.

If you like world-building fantasy that is full of adventure then read this endearing story of struggle and bravery.

Deadly Game by Michael Caine | Book Review

February 11, 2025 / Monique

Deadly Game by Michael Caine (yes, the actor) is actually pretty good. Remember when Tom Hanks published his first novel? Well, this is kind of the same deal in that the guy writing is more familiar with being on screen. Both novels read like movie scripts in some ways. But again, both are pretty good, probably the name recognition helps too.

Caine’s novel is basically a cop drama with international intrigue around lost nuclear weapons. DCI Harry Taylor is the gritty copper who breaks the rules but is well loved. His team is always assigned the get-shit-done jobs, with a healthy dose of keep-quiet-about-it demands from the top. In this case, a box of uranium unceremoniously appears in an East London dump site. There’s a violent raid and the uranium disappears. DCI Taylor has a few suspects, each wild characters, and the trail takes him from London to the Barbados and back.

Some of the language feels dated. Some of DCI Taylor’s actions are dated. But overall it’s a compelling thriller. If you like Slow Horses the Shetland tv series, or police detective stories with some global issue/international intrigue, then set the bar lower but give this a go.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney | Book Review

February 3, 2025 / Monique

On the surface, Intermezzo is about two grieving brothers who are both struggling with their relationships. Peter is a 30-ish human rights lawyer in Dublin who presents as a successful human with strong inter-personal skills but who privately is sleeping with a 20-ish Only Fans star and pining over his college girlfriend who broke up with him after she suffered a life-altering accident. Peter needs to move on but is full of himself. Ivan is a 22-year-old competitive chess player, who according to Peter is awkward and talks in robotic monosyllables. Ivan is the most likeable loner imaginable, so likeable that he romantically charms the 30-ish host of a weekend chess tournament. Ivan needs to grow up a little and understand how his reactions can affect others.

On a deeper level, Intermezzo is an existential view of the healing and breaking points of life. The book incorporates quotes from Ludwig Wittgenstien’s Philosophical Investigations, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, several poems including TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” Susan Sontag’s essay “Against Interpretation”, and James Joyce’s Ulysses, among others. The book is dark and moody, a bit academic, and awkwardly initiate, sometimes in a funny way. I thought it was a good read.

If you like Larry’s Party by Carol Shields or Less by Andrew Sean Greer then you’ll enjoy the struggles of Peter and Ivan. Intermezzo is a rumination on the human heart; it’s about retracing your steps, and looking for fulfillment.