Rutabaga's Reads 2022: Part 10

Hello, first adult fiction compilation of 2022. While I branch into adult fiction a very slim margin more than nonfiction, it remains a book group that I don’t often read. Update: My reading from this genre has improved somewhat since working in a library.

The Archive of the Forgotten (Oct. 6, 2020) by A.J. Hackwith.

*This is the middle novel in a trilogy.*

While Hell’s Library of the Unwritten has been saved from total devastation, the loss of books still number in the hundreds. When the remnants of those destroyed books manifest a pool of ink in the Arcane Wing, Claire and Brevity make their own decisions on how to deal with the ink. Their relationship is currently rocky. Claire is no longer Brevity’s boss, now that Brevity is the Librarian and Claire the Arcanist. Tensions rise when Claire’s actions in the damsel suite come across as an attack (her relationship with the Unwritten Wing’s books was fraught at best) and, essentially, get her kicked out of the place she used to be Librarian. Meanwhile, Brevity has accepted assistance from the Muses Corps, especially since the representative present is Probity, once a young muse that Brevity took under her hypothetical wing. Probity says Brev is the rightful Librarian, but with the choices she makes with Probity’s ulterior encouragement, rightful is a shaky adjective. There are also their companions Hero, who’s made from a book, and Ramiel (Rami), a fallen angel. Hero is acting as the Apprentice Librarian, while Rami assists in the Arcane Wing since he couldn’t return to his Watcher duties in Heaven. Together, Hero and Rami embark on their own quest, visiting other realms to search out clues to the mythical origins of the unwritten books. They must discover what lies at the heart of each story or the ink will “bury her under its own existence.”

            I maintain that I still want to visit Hell’s Library; location is inconsequential, for, if I could visit this one, I’d also be able to visit the library at Valhalla or the Unsaid Wing in Elysium. As with the first story, I was swept up in the story from the first page. It is a fantasy adventure novel imbued with powerful storytelling, thanks to the friction of two of the main characters, the author’s brilliant world-building and exquisite plotting across library wings and realms. Hackwith’s imagination is dazzlingly creative and undeniably phenomenal. She really gets to the soul of what it is to tell an intricate story!

            Book One in the Hell’s Library trilogy: The Library of the Unwritten

The Return (Sept. 29, 2020) by Nicholas Sparks.

*This is a standalone novel.*

Returning to New Bern, North Carolina, wasn’t expected, but it comes at an in-between time for Trevor Benson. A Johns Hopkins-trained orthopedic surgeon, he was on active duty in Kandahar when a mortar explosion sent him back to the States with devastating injuries, and the Navy let him go for disability reasons. Because of the injuries he sustained, returning to work as a surgeon is out of the question, so he’s soon to start a five-year psychiatry residency back at Johns Hopkins. He’s in New Bern, because his maternal grandfather, Carl Haverson, unexpectedly passed away, and he’s staying at his grandpa’s place. It needs fixing up, though he doesn’t think he’ll sell it, but he does want to make sure all is well with the bees and honey production. He meets Natalie Masterson, a local deputy sheriff, and is immediately taken in by her physical attractiveness. While his attraction to her is immediate, hers may be reciprocated, but at a distance, though Trevor does not understand why. He knows he’s fallen in love with her and would re-consider his new residency to stay in New Bern permanently, if it weren’t for whatever is causing Natalie’s hesitancy to move the relationship forward. Further complicating his stay is Callie, a teenage girl who lives in the trailer park down the road from him. She’s sullen and mistrustful and says she’s 19 years old when she doesn’t look older than 16. He mostly leaves her alone until a medical crisis prompts him to figure out Callie’s true past. Her life may depend on it. Trevor will struggle to understand what holds Natalie back, to discover Callie’s history and to piece together his grandfather’s last words to him. Some of it he can hash out with his therapist, Dr. Eric Bowen, but he’ll have to figure out plenty himself. Like what it is to love and understand how complicated it can be. And what it is to forgive oneself despite tragedy. And even, what it is to return to a place so that you can move forward.

            For fans of Nicholas Sparks, this novel is signature. It’s a love story featuring a charming town with beautiful sunsets, trips on a very unique boat, busy bees and even a farmers’ market. Multiple characters, not only Trevor, wrestle with personal demons, and so it’s a drama as well as a romance. It has secrets and a puzzle to piece together that will help another cog in the story, making it part mystery. It should make for an ideal beach read as well as a winter story and for many, it probably is, but for me, the story fell flat because of Trevor. I was impressed with Sparks’ inclusion of Trevor’s struggle with PTSD and the use of CBT and DBT (both are types of behavioral therapies) to help control/manage his symptoms associated with PTSD. Where the story fell flat for me was his instantaneous attraction to Natalie. I’m not saying that it’s weird for someone to look at someone and right away find that person attractive, but the way he fixates on her – wants her to text back right away or go out to eat with him that same week, want to run his fingers through her hair and sleep with her – is creepy. Is this fixation exacerbated by his continued struggle with PTSD? I don’t know. But it didn’t warm my heart; it creeped me out.

The School for Good Mothers (Jan. 4, 2022) by Jessamine Chan.

*This is a standalone novel.*

On Frida Liu’s one very bad day, “she needed to get out of the house of her mind, trapped in the house of her body, trapped in the house where Harriet sat in her ExerSaucer with a dish of animal crackers.” That one very bad day may cost Frida her parental rights. This will be determined by spending a year in a secret pilot program where bad mothers (bad fathers are at a different site) will participate at an institution that will measure their successes and failures. Is her motherese convincing? Did she give the correct hug, the one for soothing fear versus the one for allaying aggression? Is she displaying enough empathy or is her anger showing? The scans will show, the cameras will tell. This includes the video capture within Emmanuelle, her toddler doll. She will learn as Frida teaches her, though the dolls can also be programmed in various ways for training. They require maintenance, and they do not have to tuck them into bed each night. The dolls are stored in the equipment room. Frida yearns to have her daughter returned to her, and it’s her love for Harriet that carries her through the year. “I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good.”

            Marketed as an adult, dystopian fiction novel, the story is all the more disturbing because it seems so close to present-day. Social media like Instagram and Twitter still exist and entities such as Child Protective Services are active, excessively active. I am as awed by this novel as I am disturbed. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. The story is explosive and astonishing, frustrating and heartbreaking, punishing and infuriating. It’s remarkable. Chan’s plot is complicated, emotive and deep; Frida is tender yet angry, intricate as most humans are. Chan’s tale is imaginative, but it’s her potential real-world flourishes that chill a reader: stereotypes about mothers, stereotypes about parents of color, dealing with the state. The level of mass surveillance, the data and technology are also at an all-time creepy level. This novel is daring and complex, perfect for book club discussions.

            I want to add that I had wondered if I’d connect with this story, as I do not have human children. Chan’s writing is brilliant, and I had no trouble finding empathy. I am; however, immensely interested in discussing this story with others who have human children. How are our perspectives different? How might they be similar?