The door-to-door bookstore / Carsten Henn
What it is: a modern fairytale about book lovers
Did I like it: I loved it

Thank you Reader123, for giving me this item for the reading challenge. I love chapter titles in books and I think it’s not available enough. So, I happily spent my time browsing the TBR for titled chapters. And because I couldn’t find any, I moved my task to the bookshop. And that’s how I got to The door-to-door bookstore. Loving the title and description on the back, I crossed my fingers for chapter titles inside. Success! (Not only are there chapter titles in this book, they are in the form of literary references like Great expectations. Bliss!)

This story is about Carl, who is seventy-two and could have been retired but considers it his calling in life to deliver books. He has done this for a local bookshop he has worked at for years. There is a loyal group of customers and after years of delivering their books to them, Carl knows exactly what they like to read. He knows their likes and dislikes where it comes to reading, and picks their books carefully. He has also given his clients literary nicknames which is awesome. There are Mr. Darcy, Effi Briest, Hercules, and Mrs. Longstocking amongst others. (And if that’s not enough, there is also a cat named Dog.)
Carl has a strict routine and route which is how, one day, Schascha gets to meet him. She lives on the town square Carl crosses every evening at exactly the same time, and one evening she goes out to join him. While Carl does his best to scare her off, she delightfully ignores him and simply comes along on his route. Schascha is nine and curious and chatty. Her child-logic and creativity are something that Carl needs some adjusting to, but eventually picks up on.
With Schascha by his side, Carl becomes a bit more free from his strict routine and learns that there is more to life than his own literary bubble. Schascha is quick to point out that Carl gives his customers the books they want, not what they need, which annoys him massively, especially when he later realizes that she is onto something.

Carl is the hero of this story and like true heroes he isn’t without flaws. Every fairy tale needs a baddie and this story is no exception, although the person is granted an option out. The group of support characters assisting Carl on his way to change is just a delight and, of course, as with every fairy tale, there is a morale and happy end.
I loved every page of this book and would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a sweet story and/or something about the power of books.

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau / Kristin Harmel
What it is: a cold case mystery
Did I like it: no mystery here: absolutely

Another shout-out to JJReads for providing me with the second reading challenge item in a row!

I was gifted this book by friend E (thank you, E!) and this made me happy because:
a) It was a birthday gift, given wayyy ahead of my birthday “because presents are best when you don’t expect them” (true!)
b) I got a book for my birthday! (You’d think that happens a lot, but most friends don’t dare to give me books because they think I’ve read them all (they underestimate the number of books being published and overestimate my ability to keep up with that))
Also, the book came with the note that it should fit the no. 23 item of the reading challenge, which it does! The story is half/half set in Europe and North America so that’s a double check for the different continents.

I’ve read books by this author before and enjoyed this one just as much as I did those. The theme was the same: occupied France during World War Two, but the storyline of the jewel thieves was an interesting take, as was the continued mystery in the “now” of 2018 in the Boston area. The only thing I took with a pinch of salt was the incredible coincidence that some of the almost-hundred year old key players were still alive and living in the same area, but I was willing to ignore that part and stay with the rest of the story because the premise was too intriguing.
So, to that story. As the title suggests, it’s about Colette, who is a teenage girl living in Paris when the city falls into German hands. She lives with her younger sister and parents, and her English mother tells the girls stories of their English ancestors, most notoriously: Robin Hood. She also teaches Colette (the younger sister is still too young) everything about stealing and her most important lesson is to only steal from the rich to fund justice as this basically is the family motto. Her father hates every aspect of the thievery and ignores it happening, but Colette and her mother steal jewels from the necks and wrists of Nazis and collaborators to fund a local Resistance chapter. Then one night it all goes wrong, and her mother ends up arrested and her sister is murdered.
None of this is a spoiler because it’s on the back of the book. It’s also not a spoiler to say that Colette survives the war because the book starts with a chapter that features her as an elderly lady living in Boston. For seventy-six years she has been consumed by the mystery of her younger sister’s murder for which she has always felt responsible. This murder mystery is not just a cold case, but an icy one. But then a museum exhibit displays the bracelet that her sister had on her when she went missing. It’s the first clue in seven decades and Colette jumps on it.
The story goes back and forth between the two times and places and as the mystery is slowly revealed, so is Colette’s personal history. It’s nicely done and it was one of those books that was difficult to put down; I read this fast and then regretted reading it so fast. In my world, that makes something a very good read.

If you read and liked other titles by this author, I’m sure you’ll like this as well. If you’d like to discover a new author who writes compelling stories set during World War Two, this book can go on your reading list!

Holy Boy / Lee Heejoo
What it is: stalker central
Did I like it: it was okay

This category was suggested by JJReads: thank you JJReads! And because I love music I had no doubt I would be able to figure something out for this item.
One music genre I know very little about or voluntarily listen to is the K-pop genre, but when I spun the wheel of the virtual radio it landed on Jump by Blackpink. It’s a catchy song and I figured I should make my next book something Korean. The amount of translated Korean books on the market is reaching new heights every week it seems, which meant I was spoiled for choice. So a book about four fans kidnapping a K-pop star? Perfect!*

The book starts with a newspaper article and an interview, which give away some clues about the story that will develop (but which I didn’t remember well until they came into play). Then the first chapter is told from the perspective of a young man lying bandaged in a bed. The women caring for him assure him he’ll get better but he has lost his memory, broken his legs and some ribs and injured his feet. This leaves him confused and only able to stare out of the window and observe the women whenever they come into his room.
From that point on the story focuses on these women and lets you in on how they met and what their personal background stories are. This set-up is solid and really takes you in right away.
Ahnna, Mihee, Nami, and Heeae are four women from different backgrounds and have different ages, but they have one common denominator: their love for singer Yosep. He is their idol and they are his fans. Although they would describe it as devotion, any normal person would label it stalking as they know everything there is to know about their idol and they are convinced that nobody cares as much about him as they do. And so, they decide to kidnap him and take proper care of him.
It is Ahnna who finds the other women and becomes the group leader: the kidnapping is her idea and she provides their hideout location. This hideout is a mansion in the hills in the north of South Korea surrounded by forest. It’s a classic setting because not only is it secluded, but it allows for the house to be filled with scary taxidermy as well. Also, it’s raining non-stop, making it feel more desolate.

While this book must be an absolute nightmare for anyone having a career in the spotlight, there were some things that didn’t really work for me and one of these things was the lack of timing mentioned in the chapters. It was sometimes difficult to tell if I was reading in the now or in the past, especially when storylines started to overlap and more people were introduced. All in all this book was a good-enough for me, with an interesting idea and great setting, but some clunky bits in it.

*Disclaimer: it is never okay to kidnap any kind of popstar

Paper heart / Cecilia Ahern
What is it: a discovery of selfworth
Did I like it: wholeheartedly

Former colleague E2 sent in this category which had me going through the library, shelf by shelf, pulling out books to check the color of the cover. One librarian was slightly alarmed at my quick dismissal of books, judging them on the covers and not even taking the time to check the titles, but once I explained my search she thought about it and agreed that purple was not a color that happens a lot outside of the romance section at the moment. She called in a colleague to brainstorm with us and this lady said “the new Cecilia Ahern has a purple cover but it’s already on loan”. Ahern is an auto-buy for me so I happily skipped to the nearest bookshop and bought myself a copy. Three librarians were involved in getting me to this book, so thank you all, especially E2 for prompting the search in the first place!

Paper heart is the story of Pip. At sixteen she made a misstep that her family still hasn’t forgiven her for; the lasting effect being that her parents still hold this over her head at thirty-two. According to her parents, Pip cannot be trusted, cannot make any decisions, cannot be left alone. This has resulted in Pip being a people-pleaser and not having much of self-worth and confidence, or any independence. Because Pip doesn’t have a license and they live in the middle of nowhere, she depends on her parents to drive her wherever she needs to go. She has no friends, or co-workers she likes, and when she’s home she spends most of her time in her bedroom writing poems that she folds into origami figures. These actually sound amazing and showcase Pip’s artistic side, but it’s just about the only positive thing she has going for her.
There is a quiet defiance to Pip though, and spurred on by new and rekindled friendships alike, this defiance becomes outspoken. The new friendship arrives in the form of Io, a scientist at the observatory, and one of the rekindled friendships is with her ex-boyfriend Jamie. Jamie left town years ago, but comes back because of family issues. Then there is local hotshot Sammy, who becomes interested in Pip. Suddenly, she has three men involved in her personal life and things quickly become complicated.

It’s easy to find yourself stuck in a role or position, especially within a family setting, and it can be difficult to step away from that so I cheered Pip on when she finally began to push back and reclaim her ground. I liked that she got her self-esteem back after so many years of making herself near-invisible, but the change is a full u-turn which seemed a bit much, given the timeframe.
The story has a hint of Romeo and Juliet going, with a touch of Cinderella. There is an otherworldliness nicely woven in too.
I didn’t like Pip enough to really get invested in her as a main character, but the story itself was still so nice that it had me breezing through the pages.

Oona Out of Order / Margarita Montimore
What it is: a perfect vacation read
Did I like it: yes – not really – then yes again

I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I get to enjoy at least one vacation per year, which is a great privilege that I never take for granted. No matter the destination, the duration or the company I travel with, one thing is a solid: I pack a book for my vacation, sometimes multiple ones. And a lot of the time, I hardly read more than a couple of pages because I tend to get distracted by the new environment and/or people I travel with, meaning this category wasn’t the easy fix it might have seemed.
However, I recently went on a vacation that required a four-hour flight and while my travel companion took that time for a decent nap, I got my book out. That’s how I got to a decent start right away and it allowed me to actually finish a book while on vacation and the reason this book is going into the number 24 category, and not number 19 (the author has an alliteration name: must be easier to find another one of those than the miracle of me finishing two books on vacation).
Thank you to GR for providing the item and making me want to read while on vacation!

Oona Out of Order is about Oona. Her story starts on New Year’s Eve 1982, and at midnight she is about to turn 19. It never gets that far because instead, she travels through time and lands herself in the year 2015 and at age 51.
Her confusion at this jump through time mirrored mine, but because this was the first jump the story takes its time to settle on Oona’s feelings at the experience and her new situation. At the same time it leaves a lot of questions, the biggest one being how this happened to her. Oona didn’t seem to be wondering about this, but I was and much to my annoyance the situation was never explained. Oona simply accepted the time travel, but I wasn’t as easily persuaded. Every birthday Oona travels through time, in her own life. She hops from 2015 to 1995 to 2004. The people she meets are sometimes new and sometimes other-aged versions of ones she already met. She travels all directions without any reason or rhythm. The fact that after the second time jump Oona was still not wondering what the heck was going on, had me quite annoyed and the annoyance started to take over the entertainment of the first chapters. And just when I started to get a bit bored with the concept, bam! there was a plot twist that had me I back into the story, and along with Oona I accepted the situation for what it was and decided to just enjoy myself.

I would really like to chat more about the story but I don’t want to give away any spoilers so this’ll have to do.
All in all, this book was a perfect holiday read: it didn’t require me to pay too much attention, and it was entertaining enough. I’m guessing I would have asked more questions at the book under “normal” circumstances but the sound of the waves of the Atlantic Ocean had a calming effect on me and took the edge off my criticism.

Bad feminist : essays / Roxane Gay
What it is: Everything
Did I like it: Yes

This category was suggested by Mtckc9df6533c2 and involved some homework for me in order to find a filler. But, success! Because I found that Roxane Gay gave a TEDtalk based on her book Bad Feminist. That title was enough for me to run to the store to get my hands on a copy.

I have been talking about this book everywhere: in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, during lunch, over drinks, and on my way to the airport.
This book is Everything and I cannot believe it had escaped my attention until now. It was first published in 2014 and although you can tell that from the pop cultural references (sadly there would be space for more recent examples), it is still fresh, and unfortunately very relevant.
The book is about privilege more than it is about feminism, and it covers racism and sexuality as well. So yes, if you are a woman, a person of color, or queer, there will be some or a lot in this book that you can relate to, but the often funny, sometimes painful, anecdotes and examples are there to create privilege awareness more than anything.
And although it’s very American, it still translates well to other western cultures.
The book covers just about every topic, from education, pop culture, rape, to scrabble tournaments. Some essays have anger coming off the pages and others are heartbreaking. The book did what it was made out to do, and made me think and consider my own thoughts and behavior at some points. At others I just laughed because it was so funny or recognizable.

I watched the TED talk first, then read the book. And then re-watched the talk.
If you’re not into the book, at least watch the talk. It’s only 11 minutes-and-a-bit and is a perfect summary of the book.
Thank you to Mtckc9df6533c2 (is it okay if I refer to you as friend M from now on?) for providing me with this category for the reading challenge; I’ve enjoyed it very much!

The librarian of burned books / Brianna Labuskes
What is it: women fighting ignorance
Did I like it: of course I did

Librarians are awesome and as such make awesome characters in stories. And although I’m not-so-slightly biased, it’s also a fact that every genre has books with librarian protagonists. I’m now kind of curious about books with librarians as the baddies; if you know of any, kindly let me know in the comment section.
Something else: starting in the new year, I will no longer be working as a librarian as I’m moving to a new and exciting position outside of the library. I have a feeling there are a lot less books about civil servants in office jobs available, but if the catergory ever pops up in a reading challenge again, we’ll find out about that.

Onto the book!
This story is set at three different places and times and features three different women. Althea, Berlin, 1933. Hannah, Paris, 1936. And Vivian, New York, 1944.
What the women have in common is that they love books deeply, they don’t understand the banning of books, and they refuse to back down from men or general opinion.
Althea is a published author from rural Maine, and she has been invited by the Nazi party’s propaganda machine to come to Berlin on a scholarship. She loves being in the big city and is swept along on the wave of NSDAP events, taken by a handler appointed to her to make sure she doesn’t miss anything.
Hannah is a German Jewish refugee in Paris and has experienced firsthand how damaging the Nazi ideology can be as her brother was arrested in Berlin for his political beliefs. After that, Hannah and her parents fled to Paris for safety. Hannah works in the Library of Banned Books which stands to promote Jewish culture. She also spreads political brochures and uses her Berlin experiences to warn her Parisian friends.
Over in New York, Vivian has lost her soldier husband and is working in the Armed Service Editions; an organization that sends special small edition books to the troops overseas. Vivian is enrolled in a vendetta against a senator who wants to impose a ban on books, which includes a ban on this particular service.
Each of the women has a personal reason to become an activist, and their stories are equally well developed. The women each get the same amount of time on the main stage, resulting in three equal main characters.

I must admit it felt like this was one of many of kind-of-the-same books I had already read: The banned books of Berlin, The librarian spy, The last bookshop in London, The Paris library. Their covers look alike, and their stories have similar topics and set-ups. It got to the point where I thought I had bought a book I had already read because even the synopsis on the back didn’t clear things up enough. I guess we can safely conclude that I’m a sucker for books on librarians and books, especially in a historical setting. What sets this book apart is an lgbtqia+ angle.
I think these books are popping up in big numbers because a) I’m not the only sucker for them and b) book banning has unfortunately become a hot item again and the best example for how bad that situation can get, is the Nazi-example.
All in all, this book was an easy and fast read and I really enjoyed it.

Saltblood / Francesca de Tores
What is it: an adventure like no other
Did I like it: aye!

To be honest, of all the categories left on this year’s reading challenge, this was not the one I saw being filled before the end of the year. But, life is unpredictable and so is my reading. This book was brought to my attention (and borrowed from) friend M and sheesh, was I happy about that.
This book tells the story of Mary Read. History knows her for two things mainly: she was a pirate, and she dressed like a man. I only knew she was a pirate, so I had a lot to learn. The story reads like a classic adventure and halfway through I had to remind myself that Mary was a real person; I completely got swept along with the story.

In the late 17th century, Mary is born as her half-brother dies. This leaves her mother with a problem because along with Mark dies the inheritance money he received. So, Mary is turned into Mark, making it possible to keep collecting money from his grandmother a couple of times a year. Mary learns to walk and talk like a boy and because she can pass, she is sent into service as a footman once she looks old enough. Her mother tells her to keep up appearances, because it is safer to be a boy than it is a girl, and boys earn more than girls. (Depressing how little has changed in 300-odd years.) After a few years, Mary makes her escape from the stifling stillness of the house by way of enlisting in the navy, and while the other boys who are enlisting add years to their age to earn more, she shaves a couple off to explain her smaller figure and higher voice. She finds her calling in the navy, enjoys her time aboard the ships more than anything, even though it is a dangerous place to be found out as a woman. After a couple of years at sea, she moves to the army and is sent to the battlefield. The longer she spends on dry land, the more she misses the sea, and she’s desperate to survive her enlistment so she can return to the water.
When she does have an opportunity to return aboard a ship, she no longer hides herself and presents as a woman. The merchant ship she works on, finally ends up in Nassau, the Bahamas, the pirate capital of the world at the time. Here, she meets Anne Bonny, and is mesmerized by her. Anne at the same time, is intrigued by Mary, who learns she herself is something of a legend, known as the “sailing woman”.
When she has the chance to join a pirate crew, she takes the opportunity with both hands and realizes she never felt so free before. She’s an equal member of the crew and as such gets to earn as much as the men, gets to vote, and is appreciated for her knowledge of sailing and dealing. It takes being a pirate to be considered equal. But piracy isn’t a career that offers longevity and there is a dark cloud hanging over the story.
And wow, what a story. The story is about gender, about survival, about making choices, about discoveries, and about an incredible woman. And the wonderful writing only added to it and left me turning page after page after page. I was so into this book, that I missed my stop on the metro, and I didn’t mind one bit as it gave me extra time to read as I made my way back.
If you want to read an amazing adventure story that features strong main characters, this book needs to be added to your read-list.