No 14: A book set in the decade I was born
This is gonna end in tears / Liza Klaussmann

Ah, the ‘80s. The last analogue decade. The decade during which the Cold War ended, and the AIDS epidemic spread. It was also the decade of shoulder pads, big hair, MTV, and The A-Team. It’s also marked as the birth decade of a certain bookworm.
Not sure how I would find a book fit for this category, I was just randomly browsing the shelves at the library when a blurb caught my eye (I guess we hereby established another functionality of blurbs) which mentioned “pitch-perfect 80s detail” (Anna Hope). Challenge item sorted!
This book is not something I would have gravitated towards under normal circumstances, but, that’s what the reading challenge is all about: broadening your horizons. So, I checked out the book and dove in. And wow, does this book deliver on its period setting. From the descriptions of colours, appliances, cars, music, and fashion: it’s very ‘80s.
The story is set in a small Quaker town called Wonderland, situated on the American east coast, and mainly takes place over the summer of ’84. (There are some flashbacks to earlier in the ‘80s, and a few are set in the sixties.) Aside from a glorious ‘80s vibe there is the intensity of a hot and sticky summer as well.
Miller, Ash and Olly are forty-somethings. Back when they were kids they were best friends, but they’ve since lost that bond and are struggling to keep their lives on track.
Miller (it took me a couple of sentences to realize this is used as a girl’s name) and Ash are unhappily married, with Ash practically moved out of their marital home, and into a pied-a-terre in New York, where he has a girlfriend. They’ve lost touch with Olly, who lives in Hollywood. Olly works at a production company and lost his golden touch, so after careful consideration he decides to kill himself. Except he doesn’t get that far because there’s an earthquake and he instead is crushed by falling debris in his home. When he comes to in the hospital there is a new-found clarity and he remembers a family emergency back home. So, he checks himself out of the hospital and flies east, back to the place he once upon a time couldn’t wait to leave behind.
Ash has come home as well, to play happy families with Miller for the sake of their son Nate, who is celebrating his last summer at home before going off to college in California.
With everybody back together in the small town, tensions are rising with every sentence.
It quickly becomes clear that Miller and Olly first were together. The three of them left Wonderland to make it in Hollywood, where they set up a successful record label. Because Miller felt lost, she left Olly and settled for Ash. Love triangles are a recipe for disaster, and there are a lot of unresolved issues between the three. The title tells you all you need to know about the result.

History is also repeating itself because Ash and Miller’s son, Nate, has a crush on his friend Suki, but he doesn’t know that his best friend Cam is having feelings for her as well.
Then there’s a storyline about a movie company setting up a shoot in Wonderland, Olly’s Hollywood ex, Blue, a world-famous singer who travels to Wonderland as well, and one about Olly’s aunt Tassie. Then there’s stuff happening with Cam and his family, and Suki and her family.
That sounds like a lot, but actually it felt that not much happened in this book. It’s just all the threads slowly coming undone. It wasn’t until the last two chapters that I got really into it, because that’s when decisions and plans were made. The big event in the end came out of left field, which was appropriate for what happened, but it was weird to have the big bang ending be about a side-character and not one of the main characters. There also isn’t time to evaluate the impact of the event in the main characters because the book ends three pages later.

I’m giving this book an okay overall score because of its great setting and descriptions. The story itself is “meh” for me, as this was not up my alley at all.

No. 11: A book with a number in the title
Explosive eighteen / Janet Evanovich

I Love the Stephanie Plum series, so this challenge entry was an easy choice. We’re allowed to have those!
I once stumbled onto this series when I was stuck on a train station: the trains were so majorly delayed that I finished the book I’d brought with me. What was I to do, but step into the bookstore and buy a new one? I picked up Hard Eight because it was the only book within budget that seemed a fun read. Turned out I hit the jackpot with it, and I’ve since dedicated a shelf of my bookcase to this series, collecting them one by one.
The individual titles can all be read as a stand-alone, because every book has a proper introduction of characters. And although the overall development is slow, there is development and change, so it’s even better to read it in order. Which I regularly do, as these books are part of my comfort reads: I’m on my way through the series again, and number eighteen was up next.
The books in the series are all numbered, starting with One for the Money. With the exceptions of parts 27, 28, and 29, which have the number in the subtitle, all others have the number in their title. I recently discovered I’m one behind, with no. 30 (Dirty Thirty) just released, so I’m off to the bookstore as soon as I wrap up this entry.
There are also between-the-numbers books, and two spin-off series: the Lizzie and Diesel books are equally solid fun, but I haven’t read the Recovery Agent yet.

Stephanie Plum is a New Jersey bounty hunter, forced into the job by lack of any other decent skills and appealing options. She works for her cousin Vinnie at Plum Bail Bonds, and the rest of the staff include Connie, who is a very Jersey Italian and related to half of the local mob, and Lula, who was a victim in Stephanie’s first ever case, and has since given up being an “erectile engineer” and is Stephanie’s sidekick, and whenever she feels like it, the office clerk.
Stephanie has two men in her life: Joe, a Jersey detective she’s in an off-and-on again relationship with, and Ranger, a delicious-smelling badass security agent, she’s had a few up-close-and-very-personal encounters with.
All these characters appear in all the books of the series. This also applies to Stephanie’s parents and her grandma Mazur. The books all contain a mystery, and weird criminals that need to be dragged back to jail. There are doors that require getting kicked in, cars that get stolen, flattened, or burnt. Joe’s dog, Bob, makes an appearance. As does Stephanie’s hamster, Rex.
This particular book picks up where no. seventeen left off: Stephanie returns from a trip to Hawaii. As she unpacks her bag, she finds a blank envelope containing a picture in it, and thinking she mistakenly picked it up when she bought magazines at the airport, she throws it in the trash. When there’s a news item about a murder at LA airport, she recognizes the victim as the man that had been sitting next to her. When she’s promptly being chased down by several people who are all after that picture, she realizes that the victim must have slipped that picture into her purse. Two fake FBI agents, two real FBI agents, a woman claiming to be the victim’s fiancée, and a murderer-for-hire, all want the picture.
On top of that, she has her archenemy Joyce Bernhardt squatting in her apartment, she has her car serial-stolen by a wanted criminal, and the search for a grave robber is not going well.
Then there is office drama, with the temporary office (a Winnebago parked in front of the remains of the already burnt-down office) going up in flames, and Lula accidentally drinking a love potion. A tan line on Stephanie’s ring finger causes drama with friends and family alike, everybody assuming there was a wedding, or at least a proposal, in Hawaii, and Stephanie refusing to talk about it. That might sound like a lot, but it’s easy to keep up with, and a fast read.

Stephanie isn’t a skilled bounty hunter, but she’s tenacious and lucky which gets her far. Often not in the most efficient or flattering way, but it’s the end result that counts.
Meanwhile, her relationship with Joe is solid at its core but neither is ready to commit which causes them to have the occasional break-up. Ranger is always available to help her out with replacement cars of mysterious origin. Grandma Mazur will always try to pry open a casket at the funeral home. Vinnie will always be involved in shady business. Eighteen books in, Stephanie still forgets to charge her stun gun, and hides her actual gun at home, safely tucked away in the cookie jar. Stephanie and Lula are still not able to kick in doors.
None of that matters, because this is a screwball detective and mishaps should happen. These books are a breeze and a total treat, and even though I’ve re-read most of them several times, they still make me laugh out loud.

No. 8: A book with bad reviews
Find her / Tessa Bailey

This book was handed to me with the warning: “you’ll regret reading this because it’s time wasted that you’ll never get back”. Spoiler alert: these words were proven right.
I just also checked Goodreads where there are a lot of one-star ratings (2.5 average score), which makes this book a solid for the category.
Although starting off, it has to be said: this might not qualify as a book.
What this is, is a special edition publication to celebrate the Week van het Engelse boek, or English Book Week. Technically, that still makes this a book, of course. But, at 56 pages I struggle to define its category and I don’t want to go so far as to count the words, so I’m taking the lazy way out and say that this is either a novelette or novella.
(The binding has a total of 90 pages, but almost half of that is space for an introduction, and an excerpt from a soon to be available new title.)

56 pages to tell a story is not a lot, and so we jump right in.
The story is about Holly, who lives with older brother Wyatt. Wyatt and Holly both love the music of Citizen, a world-famous cool rock band. In case you’re wondering how famous and cool: they’re hanging-out-with-Mick-Jagger-and-Keith-Richards-level famous and cool. (This gets mentioned quite a bit, so weird.)
When the band comes to town, the siblings make sure to get tickets to see the show. They end up on the front row, and when the band enters the stage and Holly sees the lead singer, Johnny, for the first time, the sight of him (“a god”) practically sets her girl parts on fire. If you as a reader are caught off-guard by that, you’re not alone: Holly is very surprised about it too. It’s even worse for Johnny, who is on stage and spontaneously forgets his lyrics when he catches sight of Holly in the crowd. It’s lust at first sight for these two and it’s uncomfortable to be a witness to it all.
Johnny makes sure that Holly receives a backstage pass and when they meet there, he is instantly jealous of the other men in the entourage watching her. Thus, he takes her into his dressing room and locks the door so they can make out in private. I can’t remember where Holly’s brother was at this point but I can’t imagine him waiting patiently on the other side of the door. Especially because the two of them end up almost sexing up against said door.
This all happened by page 12 and I was snorting at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. The reasons I continued this instead of quitting there and then, was because of the reading challenge, and the fact that I figured: only 44 pages left to go, I can do this.
But it got worse because Johnny finds out that Holly is a virgin. That puts a stop to the proceedings, and Holly rushes out of the dressing room. Johnny quickly realizes she basically is the Holy Grail of women (gorgeous, willing, and untouched), so he rushes after her to prevent her from disappearing forever.
At this point I took a deep breath, told myself to stay strong, and powered through, ever hopeful of things improving. Improving, things did not.
The two of them decide to get to know each other a bit before getting physical again, and within an hour of meeting, Johnny has told her his deepest secrets, from the pressure of fame, to suffering from writer’s block. Not sure why, because Holly only asks Johnny everything any interviewer already would have asked him. She shows him her favourite place in the area, which is an open field with a tree in it. I guess it meant to indicate Holly’s unpretentiousness and wholesomeness.
An hour is all these two need to know they are destined to be together, and they can’t imagine ever being without the other person again. So, they’re giving sexytimes another go. And there’s a lot of it: a disproportionate number of letters in this story is dedicated to sex or the mentioning of body parts.
When they’re not touching or breathing hard, Johnny reminisces about a ranch in Wyoming where the band once shot a music video, that he wants to move to with Holly, because he knows she’ll like it, and it’ll be a wonderful place to grow old together.
Holly’s down-there must be magic because spending the night with her is not only the best physical experience of Johnny’s life, but it also solves his writer’s block as a bonus. In return for all that, he promises to take her along for the remainder of the tour. (Well, demands it: he “needs to keep her”, yikes.)
When he finds her missing in the morning, he figures something terrible must have happened, because there is no way she would have just walked away from him. Johnny does not have any self-esteem issues (he really doesn’t: he sings his own song during sex to relax Holly). So, he drums up the security team, the band manager, and anybody else who’ll want to listen, to yell at them that his girlfriend is missing and they need to start a search party asap. When one of the security guys admits he thought Holly was just one of the many groupies that had tried (and it’s implied: succeeded) to get into Johnny’s room, Johnny punches the man on the nose, pushes him aside, and rushes off to find the woman with the magic vajayjay. Problem here is threefold: he doesn’t know where she lives, what her phone number is, and he’s only wearing sweatpants. Well, that last one would be a problem for anybody, but not for Johnny, who rushes out of the hotel barefooted and bare chested.
The paparazzi waiting outside the hotel have a field day, but he uses them to his advantage, speaking directly into the cameras about his lost girlfriend that he’s trying to track down and can she please stay put until he finds her, because he will find her.
Of course, Holly sees this, and when she hears he’s roaming the street still barefooted and bare chested, she rushes outside and forgives him. They proclaim their love for one another and he carries her off into the sunset. For reals. Fortunately, this is immediately followed by the words The End.

It was all so over the top and strange, and seemed more fan-fiction than romance novel.
I rolled my eyes at it all until I had a headache. I snorted and laughed out loud.
I’m guessing the size of this story was the main cause of the problems, but to be honest, if the story had been longer, I’m not sure the characters would have been able to carry it much better. Holly is a bland good girl: a virgin orphan who works as a waitress but hopes to become a social worker. Also, she seemed incredibly young. Johnny is…borderline red-flag problematic. The way he talks I’m guessing is meant to sound macho and cool, but is rough and dominant, especially compared to Holly’s innocence. He plans their future without asking Holly’s input, claims her as his girlfriend after one night, and is possessive and aggressive.
Technically the story contains a beginning, middle, and ending. There’s even a conflict / misunderstanding and a big gesture, as there usually are in a romance novel. But compressed to a story this size, it leaves out the character building and growth, along with the emotions. What’s left are two horny cardboard figures that we’re to believe end up living happily ever after.

I hadn’t read anything by this author before, but I’ve seen other titles in bookshops and from some surfing on the waves of the interweb I learned that she is pretty popular and people love her work. Therefore, I’m guessing the full-sized books are better, but after this experience I won’t be keen to try that theory any time soon.

No. 2: A memoir
Strong female character / Fern Brady

As a teenager Fern read about autism and it made her realize that she had a lot in common with the description. When she told her doctor, he laughed it off, told her she “just” had OCD and depression instead, and prescribed her medication.
Twenty years, several misdiagnoses and a lot of unnecessary suffering later, she gets diagnosed with autism after all. I felt angry and frustrated on the author’s behalf.

Autism expresses differently in girls and women than it does in boys and men.
One of the incidents described in the book, is when the author expresses her suspicions about being autistic to the psychiatrist she’s seeing, he wrongfully concludes she’s not autistic because she’s making eye-contact and has always had boyfriends, rationalizing that an autistic person would be incapable of that. Fern knows he’s wrong, just as she knows the others were wrong, but because she’s not able to express herself and shuts down when a conversation goes different from what she’s prepared for, she keeps stuck in the loop of misdiagnoses. The inability to communicate what is happening or how she experiences a situation, left me feeling almost claustrophobic at times. Being forced to sit through the wrong diagnosis, spending time at a psychiatric hospital, or finding yourself in a stressful situation only because you didn’t know how to say no, or otherwise express your feelings about it, is nightmare inducing.

I learned about meltdowns and shut downs (not the same), and masking. I also recognized certain traits and for a second thought, maybe I’m a little bit of that as well. But then learned that we’re in fact “not all a little bit on the spectrum”, and that either you are, or you are not. And this is not just the author’s opinion. She’s done her research and there are footnotes with sources listed.
These footnotes, by the way, are the only thing I had a problem with. And not the notes themselves of course, but the layout: the symbols used to indicate the footnotes are light and tiny. Especially when the symbol follows a quotation mark, it’s easy to miss. Then I’d spot the footnote at the bottom of the page, and I’d wonder what it relates to, and had to scan the page back to find spot. It might sound petty, but as I said: the author has done her research and there are footnotes throughout the book, and missing the indications, kept pulling me out of the story. Thankfully the book is so well written, that I kept with it and picked up easily again.
This book is insightful, and I learned a lot. It’s also funny, and dark, and very real. I laughed, and I cried.

Something different than usual: instead of a cover shot, one of the back of the book. It was the summary on the back cover that pulled me into this book and I wanted to share that as well because it is a far better summation than I can ever provide you with:

No. 1: A book based on a historic event
The Night Ship / Jess Kidd

I went from Dublin to Dublin in my reading, and now from magical to (slightly) magical. It’s all connected and we’ll see where it’ll end up. For this book, it’s Beacon Island.

There are two stories here: Mayken’s, which starts in 1628 when she boards the Batavia ship. And Gil’s, which starts in 1989, when he arrives on Beacon Island, a tiny island (you can cross it in twenty minutes on foot) off the west coast of Australia.
Mayken and Gil both lost their mothers due to unconventional / problematic lifestyles.
Mayken and Gil live three hundred years apart, but their stories are mirrored: both live in/on confined spaces, are free spirits, cross dress, run into stories about monsters living in the water, and neither wants to be where they are.

Although it’s probably best known in Australia and the NL, the story of the Batavia has been told in documentaries and books, so I don’t consider it a spoiler when I say that its 1628 maiden voyage didn’t go entirely according to plan. Loaded with riches, and people, the ship was part of a fleet of East India Company ships travelling to what was then Batavia, and is now Indonesia. The sailors were literally sitting on top of chests full of silver coins, and with a skipper and upper-merchant that didn’t get along, tensions started rising all over the ship.
The Batavia’s story is in the book, but told from Mayken’s perspective, which is that of a nine-year old girl. She notices the unrest, the tension, but doesn’t know what it means. Her focus is more on catching the monster said to be living in the hull of the ship.
Gil is also living with tension and unrest caused by frayed relationships between the different families on the island. He also discovers he is causing tension and unrest, just by being different. Both stories build up to explosions of violence.

This book is a historical with gothic elements and hints of otherworldlyness. The build-up is nicely paced: it starts by calmly setting the scenes, the children exploring their new surroundings and getting settled in. Then, as story grows more urgent, the pace picks up, faster, faster.
The story goes from hopeful new starts, to awful realities. The story of the Batavia is clearly well researched, making Mayken’s story a treat. I liked Gil’s story as much though, and was intrigued about the boy who, appropriately, and not coincidentally, gets nicknamed Gilgamesh.
The story being told from the perspectives of children, gives it a slightly eerie sense, and I liked that most about it.

This book comes with plenty of blurbs: four on the front cover, and five on the back. More yet, on the inside. That can be annoying, but in this case, I have to agree with all of them: this book sweeps you off your feet.

No. 6 – A book that was made into a movie

Lessons in chemistry / Bonnie Garmus

Okay, so this book wasn’t made into a movie, but a drama series (streaming on Apple TV in the NL), so I’m taking some flexibility for this entry, but trust me, it’s worth it.
I had my eye on this book for a long time, but because the word chemistry is in the title, and from the description I learned it’s about a scientist, and my brain starts to short-circuit whenever science is involved, I didn’t buy it until I found it with a “second book half-price” sticker on it. Mostly, because this meant I got to buy another book as well, but still.
Picture my surprise when I learned that yes, this book is about chemistry, but it’s about so much more! Because main character Elizabeth Zott is a kick-ass lady, who has the unfortunate timing of being a scientist in 1950’s America. She gets belittled, discriminated, undermined, and harassed, on a daily basis. The fact that she’s smarter than any of the men in her lab, doesn’t help.
The only person who is interested in her intellect, is oblivious to her daily struggles, and women’s struggles in general, and is surprised to learn that women would actually like to study and work in STEM, but are held back by the men that rule the field. Calvin Evans is the male version of Elizabeth, and despite his young age, has been up for a Nobel prize multiple times, and his fame and wunderkind status provides the institute they both work at, with generous funding.
Calvin and Elizabeth are in a relationship that is considered unconventional and strange, and therefore frowned upon: they live together, and despite his proposals, Elizabeth refuses to marry Calvin, not wanting to be forced to quit working, changing her name, and getting stuck in the background, only to be known as the supporter of her husband. Elizabeth doesn’t even consider herself to be modern, to her this is just common sense.
Elizabeth teaches Calvin that anything a man can do, a woman can too, and Calvin uses this theory to teach Elizabeth to row. Calvin considers rowing the ultimate sport, but Elizabeth isn’t an athlete and it isn’t until she applies science to rowing that they stop toppling over.
They find a dog and adopt it, and give it the wonderful name of Six-Thirty, because that was the time they came home with him. Of course, this leads to a running gag of people confusing the name with the time, and subsequent dead-pan responses from Calvin and Elizabeth. But Six-Thirty is as smart as they are, and his observations are a great addition to the story.
When Elizabeth suffers a major loss, she has to pivot to keep afloat. She does what she has to, and if that means going on television and presenting a cooking show, so be it. Elizabeth can cook and bake really well because she applies science to it, as she does to anything in life. She refuses to present a “fun” show though, rationalizing it’s not just demeaning to her, but to the women watching, and makes her director faint when during the first show she invites the audience to come down to the stage and take anything from the carefully designed set they like. Within minutes the set is near-empty and Elizabeth has the clean work surface she asked for.
She uses the scientific names of products, acetic acid instead of vinegar and sodium chloride instead of salt, and to the director’s amazement viewers don’t seem to mind that the cooking show turns into chemistry lessons. The show becomes a success locally first, and soon nationally as well. Elizabeth learns a hard lesson herself, when she discovers that despite everything, her fame is considered different from Calvin’s, and she still cannot get a decent job at any lab.

Belittling, shaming, discriminating, harassing, is still happening today as well of course. In any field, to anybody who is different from the majority. It’s scary and it’s frustrating. This book is about all that, and probably should come with trigger warnings for harassment and assault, because the book contains plenty of incidents, and horrible people that make life ever so complicated and painful.
Elizabeth’s frustration seeps off the pages, and you have to be made of stone not to get frustrated on her behalf. The way she is treated is horrific. The fact that victim blaming happened back then, is ridiculous. The fact that victim blaming is still happening today, is downright shameful.
But this story isn’t just about the injustice Elizabeth encounters, Calvin, and chemistry though. It’s about family, acceptance, support, and mostly, love.
The story has wonderful side characters in neighbour Harriet, Mad, doctor Mason, and director Walter. It’s not only Elizabeth that needs these people in her life, but as a reader, you need them too, in order not to forget that there are generous, caring, and wonderful people in the world.
And don’t think this book is all doom and disaster; it’s clever and funny and a treat to read!

No. 10 – A retelling of a classic

Pandora / Susan Stokes-Chapman

Well, it happened again. First, I wanted more Australian authors and promptly read three in a row. Then, I asked for more not-your-typical animal sidekicks et voila: Pandora delivers me a pet magpie.

I guess I should think of other reading wishes to come true but I don’t want to be too greedy.
And first things first: this retelling of a classic.
I didn’t learn about the Greek classics in school, and only know some of the Greek and Roman mythology from doing crossword puzzles. All I know of Norse mythology, is with thanks to the Marvel movies. A few years ago I decided to dive into the subject, but honestly, the big books were scaring me off. So, I settled for Stephen Fry’s Mythos to cover the basics. It was a fun read and I learned a lot! I’m not sure if that was the book that set off the flow of modern retellings of those classic stories, or if it was just part of the early wave, but since then so many stories based on (mainly) Greek mythology have been published, that I was spoiled for choice for this entry. In the end I settled for Pandora. I’m being honest here and will admit that size of the book was part of its appeal: some of these books are just so big and it was the end of October and with so many items on my reading list still unchecked, I wanted to make as short work of it as possible. This book came in at just shy of 400 pages, so still a decent size.

Main character is Dora. Her full name is Pandora and she was named after the first woman created by the Greek gods. Her mother was Greek and slightly obsessed with the story.
As a child, Dora travelled along with her parents, archeologists, all over southern Europe to dig, and find antiquities, but when she was eight, her parents were killed when a dig site collapsed. She was pulled out of the rubble and shipped back to London with her uncle. At twenty-one she still lives with that uncle, Hezekiah, in the attic above the antique shop he took over from her parents. Lottie is their housekeeper, although she’s mostly Hezekiah’s live-in lover, and both Lottie and Hezekiah have great dislike of Dora. The feeling is completely mutual, and they exist in the same space but that’s about it.
Whenever she has to work in the shop Dora mostly dreams about designing jewelry, sketching her designs in-between tending to the few customers that come in. Hermes is her pet magpie (with an amazing Greek God name), who delivers her the necessary trinkets to use for making mock-up versions of those jewelry designs. Hermes resides either in his cage, or on Dora’s shoulder. The two have an incredible bond, and honestly, it’s changed my opinion of the birds a bit (their caw is just something that’s not my favorite sound in the world).
Dora is aware that Hezekiah is mostly conning his customers by selling forgeries, but doesn’t care enough to stop him or warn the customers. The story takes place in 1799 which means that as a woman without other family, she is completely reliant on him and cannot afford to rock the boat.

Then there’s Edward, who very much needs to rock the boat if he ever wants to get accepted into the Society of Antiquaries. So far, his attempts to get in have not been received well and he’s been told to come with something strong, something truly interesting.
When Dora finds out that Hezekiah is hiding a magnificent vase in the basement and is being incredibly secretive about it or its origins, she sets out to discover if it is another forgery, or the real deal. For this, she needs someone with an expert eye, and she finds her way to Edward. For Edward, this is a win-win: if the vase is real, he’s got an incredible subject to write about. If it’s a fake, his subject will be forgeries, which will still be interesting enough.
Edward has a dark past that results in him suffering from claustrophobia and a fear of the dark, so working in the dark and damp basement of the shop in the middle of the night, is not within his comfort zone. However, he’s aware that they have to sneak around Hezekiah, and this is the only time and place available for research. So, he confronts his fears and gets to it.
Edward’s benefactor and best friend, is Cornelius Ashmole, an idle gentleman and delightful grudge. The first half of the book I kept misreading his name as Asshole which seemed fitting because Cornelius doesn’t hide the fact that he is suspicious about Dora’s motives and does not like that Edward is so committed to the research.
The moment Edward and Dora start to ask around about the vase and its origins, it sets a series of events in motion and I kept wanting to remind them about the story of Pandora’s box, thinking these two should know better. There’s a hint of the mystique surrounding the story, befitting of the myth.
The way the characters and their environment are described, is so vivid and clear, that it all easily comes alive. It also fits especially the two main characters, Dora and Edward, who have observant personalities, and spent most of their lives living in the background.
With books like this, you don’t need a time machine. (Also, it kind of puts you off time travel, because the way the stink is described…oof, I feel I can do without that experience in person.) Every character in this book has motives, reasons for their behavior, even if they’re not immediately clear. The characters also aren’t perfect and have flaws, but they grow and develop, and it makes them all the more real. Nobody is just grumpy, or mean.

This is a Greek myth, wrapped in a Dickensian story. Strange as that might sound, it totally works. I don’t know enough about the Greek myths to know if I missed references, names or the likes, but I was too immersed to care, and even without knowing, this book was a great read.

No. 4 – A book with a city in the title

The Stationary Shop of Tehran / Marjan Kamali

The title of this book makes no false claims: the most important location of this book, is a stationary shop in Tehran, Iran.

The main character of this story is Roya, a senior citizen living in the US. She’s invited to meet an old friend living in a nearby assisted-living facility, and the invitation has her flashing back to their first meeting. This takes place in 1953, Tehran, when she is a seventeen-year old high school student, focused on graduating with high marks so she can pursue a university study. Her father wants the best for his two daughters, starting each morning with a declaration on the importance of education, and how he wishes them to become famous scientists or authors, like Madame Curie and Helen Keller.

On Tuesdays after class, Roya hangs out at the stationary shop across from her school, because not only do they sell pencils and notebooks, but books and poetry bundles as well. This is where Roya meets Bahman, a boy with charisma-a-plenty, who is passionate about politics. Roya learns that the stationary shop is used as a message portal for those involved in politics: people drop off letters, and leave with messages hidden inside books.

In 1953 politics is as hot, and dangerous, a topic as it is now: the country is on the verge of a change and the two sides of the argument are coming to clashes as they grapple for power.

Roya’s parents have modern views which makes it easy for them to connect with Bahman, who quickly becomes her boyfriend, and not much later, fiancé. Bahman’s parents are less progressive and had lined up an arranged marriage for their son, so they do not like Roya, who interrupted their chance to get ahead in society, and blame her for getting Bahman involved in politics. Bahman, however, was already deeply involved in politics before he even met her, and is the one to take Roya to a political rally. She is horrified when she witnesses him getting attacked by police there, and tries to persuade him to stop his involvement.

The attack only makes it clearer to Bahman that he cannot stop though, and so he even increases his involvement.

This story is one of heartbreak: there is a failed elopement, death, a failed suicide, and emotional blackmail. It’s about missed chances, and lost love.

Happy-go-lucky Roya is not, and it all felt very heavy. Of course, I understand that revolution, generations of secrets, and devastating loss, are very heavy topics. The only characters in the story that have a positive and can-do energy, are Roya’s father and sister. And Roya does not understand them, and assumes they don’t understand her either. Her experiences made Roya who she is, but I have a feeling, she’s one of those people who even in the best of circumstances, would just drag down on your energy, and hold onto the negatives.

That’s not how I roll, so I found her a difficult character to connect with.

The story itself was okay (the cooking scenes were amazing and had me drooling), with an interesting setting in Iran first, and following the lives of immigrants settling in the US later. I was even willing to accept the ending, even though the coincidence of it, was on the verge of too much.