"Sunrise on the Reaping" by Suzanne Collins

Sunrise on the Reaping (Mar. 18, 2025) by Suzanne Collins.

<This is the fifth Hunger Games novel.>

<Chronologically, it occurs 40 years after TBoSaS and 24 years before the THG trilogy.>

The odds will be ever in someone’s favor. But whose? Panem is readying for the Fiftieth Annual Hunger Games. In honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Two girls and two boys. In District 12, Haymitch Abernathy tries not to think too hard about his odds, especially since he has extra tesserae in order to receive extra food rations for his family (mom: Willamae; 10-year-old brother: Sid). His birthday is never one to truly celebrate, landing on reaping day as it does, but he does want to be with Lenore Dove Baird, the girl he loves. Unfortunately, Haymitch’s name is called without being drawn. He’s torn from his family, Lenore, everyone he knows in District 12, and as the Games begin, he knows he’s been set up to fail. His fellow tributes are Louella McCoy (a 12-year-old who’s like a younger sister to him), Maysilee Donner (the snobbiest girl in town) and Wyatt Callow (an oddsmaker and the son of a Booker Boy). Does he want to die? No. Does he expect to die a painful, gruesome death? Yes. So, if he’s going to die no matter what, he wants to die fighting a fight that will reverberate beyond the arena all the way to District 12. If he can, he will drown the arena if the arena and the Career tributes don’t end him first.

            It took me almost a year since its publication to read, but once I dove in, the propulsive storyline propelled me quickly through this YA science fiction dystopia. Because I already “knew” Haymitch from The Hunger Games trilogy, I rooted for his character and so was easily swept up in his story, brutal and broken and gut-wrenching as it is. It’s a formidable edition to the canon, and it’s explosive in its portrayal of an authoritarian government with totalitarian control. There is jet propulsion to this book that is upsetting, agonizing, raw and candid, but it makes it all the more provoking, emotional and exceptional. There is rage. There is compassion. And there is inspiration. Perhaps one day, there will be hope and no sunrise on the reaping.

            Also reviewed by me: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

"Snowglobe 2" by Soyoung Park

Snowglobe 2 (May 6, 2025) by Soyoung Park.

   Joungmin Lee Comfort, translator.

<This is the sequel novel in a duology.>

<Alert: Potential spoilers if one hasn’t read the first book.>

The girl she watched faithfully on TV is interchangeable. Jeon Chobahm knows this, for she’s filled the shoes of Goh Haeri. The director who created the family is imprisoned, but problems are not over for Chobahm and the other Haeri clones (Shin Shinae, Myung Somyung and Bae Serin). Snowglobe is starting to crack under the weight of its exposed lies, but the Yibonn Media Group is even more corrupt. They’ll do anything and eliminate anyone to keep their power and hide the secret of the domed city’s trademark warmth. Chobahm has unwittingly witnessed this dark, devious truth, and now there’s footage of her committing a murder that she definitely didn’t commit. Her other Haeri counterparts are accounted for during that timeframe, and the footage can’t be doctored, so who’s the Haeri who committed the crime? Yi Bonwhe is the one who has the knowledge to help, for he’s none other than the disgraced Yibonn heir. He may not be the ruthless heir his mom and grandmother expect him to be, but he’s been complicit and feels the weight of his family’s awful truths. Things are heating up in this frozen world.

            There is no utopia in this dystopian world. Chobahm and the other inhabitants of Snowglobe are enduring purposeful blackouts (there’s a Disaster Meter), extreme weather (it’s frozen outside the dome) and human-caused environmental disasters of the creative type (e.g. popcorn snow or a blizzard of bubbles), which can still prove deadly. Chobahm is no perfect heroine. She’s strong, intelligent and brave, but she can be rash, falsely believe that only she can solve a problem and put her trust in the wrong person. The writing isn’t heavy, but the story is complex. How does entertainment distort reality when an actor is actually committing murders? How do you expose a group’s lies without getting yourself killed? This duology’s layers make for a memorable saga.

            Book 1: Snowglobe

"Snowglobe" by Soyoung Park

Snowglobe (Feb. 27, 2024) by Soyoung Park.
   Joungmin Lee Comfort, translator.

<This is the first novel in a duology.>

Enter a world of endless winter, where the average temperature is -50˚F. Jeon Chobahm lives in a meager dwelling with her “older” twin brother, Ongi, their mom and their grandma, who’s experiencing more memory loss. The twins and their mom all work at the power plant, which produces electricity for their sector and, primarily, Snowglobe. Snowglobe exists under a vast dome. It’s a place where the temperature is climate-controlled, and most all of the residents are actors, their unscripted-but-edited lives broadcast 24/7 to the frozen wasteland outside of Snowglobe’s protected dome. (The only place where there aren’t cameras is the Yibonn family estate. Young Master Yi Bonwhe is the heir. His personal assistant is Yu Junguhn.) Snowglobe residents have all the luxurious things: fame, fortune, warmth. Chobahm dreams of becoming a director, but so far, she’s only received rejections to her applications. Her favorite Snowglobe show is The Goh Haeri Show, and she looks strikingly like the show’s star and Snowglobe’s most famous resident, Goh Haeri. On the night that Chobahm risks her life to get Jo Miryu to the clinic, she meets Cha Seol. Director Cha is a hugely successful director, the person she most admires “in the entire universe,” and she’s proposed that Chobahm become Haeri. Haeri’s committed suicide, but the show must go on. Chobahm now has a dream life inside Snowglobe, but at what cost to her identity? Because Director Cha tells her she isn’t Chobahm anymore; she’s Haeri.
        The climate-ravaged world sets the stage in this YA dystopia. Snowglobe looks like a dream, but the reality is a lie. What is the truth, even? This novel explores personal identity, surveillance and ethics through a main character lens whose ambitions, anger, questions and compassion read realistically. This page-turner transports readers to a complex world with a dark underbelly and societal inequality. It’s bleak, but not without truth and hope, though it’ll take digging to find. I look forward to the sequel in the Snowglobe duology.

Rutabaga's Reads 2023: Part 8

If you think I regularly read adult fiction since I am an adult, you would be mistaken. It has taken me this long to compile an adult fiction compilation post. Better late than never! For those out there who do read adult fiction on the regular, who are your favorite authors?

The All-American: A Novel (Apr. 4, 2023) by Joe Milan Jr.

<This is a standalone novel.>

Thanks to my childhood friend, Kristi W., for gifting me this novel! It’s written by a Creative Writing colleague of hers. All opinions are expressly my own.

            The paperwork wasn’t filed correctly because the check bounced, so after a fight sends 17-year-old Bucky Yi to the police station, the U.S. government deports him to South Korea. It’s a totally foreign land to him, and he doesn’t speak, read or write the language. He can’t even properly pronounce his own name! (It’s Yi Beyonghak.) All Bucky wants to do is fulfill his all-American goal to get out of rural Washington state and become a college football player. But he doesn’t get scouted, and now he’s stuck in Korea. His raw physical strength gets him a job at an expat bar in Seoul until he gets notices of loans overdue courtesy of the bio father he doesn’t know taking out massive loans in his name and soon enough he’s forced into his mandatory military conscription. There’s more remoteness than his backwoods home, but with extras like an erratic sergeant and North Korean spies (they might be chasing shadows). Bucky has to start from the ground up by learning a new language and figure out how to reformat himself with no guide on how to rewrite the code.

            This unique take on undocumented immigration makes for a strong debut. It’s propulsive and irreverent, bold and dark. It is a story of identity, and Bucky goes through quite the disorienting crisis to find who he is or at least who he can be. There is drama: drama feeding into his desire to return home to Washington, drama when it comes to his sexual desires, drama in his family and drama trying to manage his ego. It’s understandable that Bucky has very strong negative feelings surrounding his deportation when he should’ve, like me, been a naturalized citizen from a very young age. But it’s hard to feel bad for Bucky. He feels powerless to control what is happening, everyone and everything seem to be against him, which is very Kafkaesque, but his ego gets in the way of everything. He so often turns to violence. Mad about this? Fight. Mad about that? Fight. Mad in Korea? Fight. I never connected with Bucky, and he never truly grew as a character in the story. I wanted to be impressed by a young man working without the model minority stereotype to rise above the hand he was dealt. But nope, he remained a jerk throughout the story. Chantal should stay far from him. She has wings to fly, but Bucky’s volatile personality, his quick anger, will box him in.

Murder Your Employer (Feb. 21, 2023) by Rupert Holmes.

<This is the first novel in a series.>

Welcome to The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts. Dean Harbinger Harrow opens with a Foreward and entreats readers not to use this as a guide to the McMasters campus, but “for those engaged in home study.” “There is no more unpredictable force of nature than the sadistic employer.” With that said, the three students featured all look to delete an employer: Cliff Iverson, Gemma Lindley and a Hollywood starlet referred to as Dulcie Mown. Cliff’s perspective features the most with his journal entry chapters. He’s the rare student who has a sponsor, unknown to him. He refers to his sponsor as X. There’s an annual “Track Meet” (“track your quarry, meet your quarry, and delete your quarry,”) that carries grave weight in calculating a student’s average for the term and readiness for one’s thesis. Thesis, in this case, outlines the motivation and justification for deleting someone (deleting, if you haven’t figured it out already, is synonymous with murdering, but murdering is so vulgar, where deleting is classy). A successful deletion equates graduation without any pomp or circumstance, as all who graduate to deletists must never receive the credit they deserve. Those who aren’t successful will themselves wind up deleted. Life isn’t easy, nor is it fair, especially with the likes of Merrill Fiedler, Leonid Kosta and Adele Underton still breathing. Best of luck to those fortunate enough to be admitted. Here, have a sherry. Or maybe not. It’s probably poisoned.

            I thoroughly enjoyed this story! It’s delightfully diabolical and completely compelling in a twisted sort of way. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college is expansive, luxurious and killer. The wordplay is jaunty, the writing witty, and the plot is clearly that certain sadistic employers will hopefully cease existing, but with so many chapters featuring Cliff’s journal entries, it reads conversationally much of the time. Details into the master plans of Cliff, Gemma and Dulcie give delicious insight and enable readers to craft credible and detailed pictures in their imaginations. Holmes creates an entertaining and specifically educational story set on the campus of a clandestine college and back in “civilian life” (a.k.a. “the battlefield”). It is cheeky and cleverly wicked. It’s a literary dark comedy. Anyone looking to be admitted to this covert school where you can ”learn to live each day as if it might be your enemy’s last?”

Poster Girl (Oct. 18, 2022) by Veronica Roth.

<This is a standalone novel.>

From a time well before Sonya Kantor was born, the Sea-Port (Seattle-Portland) megalopolis lived under constant surveillance from the Insight, an ocular implant that tracked every word and action, rewarding or punishing according to a strict, static moral code set forth by the Delegation. Offering a handkerchief to an elder would earn you DesCoin, while whistling would debit two DesCoin. 10 years ago, the Delegation fell, and was replaced by the Triumvirate. The Delegation’s most valuable members were locked away in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city. Where everyone in the Aperture still has the Insight implants, everyone in the outside world does not (supposedly). Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has lived in the Aperture for 10 years. Her parents (August and Julia) and older sister (Susanna) are all dead. Also dead: Aaron Price, once her betrothed. Not dead: Alexander Price, Aaron’s older brother. Alexander comes to her with a deal to earn her freedom. All she has to do is find a missing girl who was “rehomed” (stolen) when the parents had a second child, which was disallowed unless a couple had earned that second child and obtained the proper permit (Exception to Protocol 18A). Her search will bring her in contact with the very leader of the Analog Army, a rogue organization that has gone from threats to planting explosives and murdering others. The path Sonya takes will be dangerous and more illuminating than she could ever have guessed. She’s going to learn that her family’s past has deep, dark secrets. How will this affect her view of the Delegation she grew up under and as the face of it, no less?

            I knew I wasn’t going to purchase this novel of Roth’s, but I happened upon it at my local library and decided to check it out. It’s no secret that Roth has a knack for fascinating world-building, and her plot is intriguing, especially watching as Sonya’s morals shift through the story. Self-awareness comes gradually. Sonya’s lived in a world ruled by technology, which readers may think mirrors our own, but it’s definitely not. You’re not just constantly monitored, you’re potentially, constantly rewarded and punished. Like being graded 24/7/365. It’s alarming only in the sense of how close to reality it could be. The novel is fairly slim, but there’s complexity within. I didn’t love the book, but as someone whose bookshelf once contained plenty of dystopian YA, this dystopian adult novel was interesting. Don’t read this if you’re looking for a happily-ever-after. Do read this if you want a story where privacy’s been, essentially, surrendered (especially for those who still have Insights) and technology has been abused. Do read this if you want to see the revelation of complicity and the terrible outcome that comes of it. The story is cold, but there is fragile humanness beneath the chaos and the guilt.

Rutabaga's Reads 2022: Part 26

Can this be? A third adult fiction compilation post in 2022? If you know me, this is unusual, but it’s thanks to my local library that I’ve stepped out and read more adult fiction novels than I normally do in a year. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had enough novels to create two posts. One of the novels is a library checkout; I purchased the other two.

The Mask Falling (Jan. 26, 2021) by Samantha Shannon.

*This is the fourth novel in a series.*

*Warning: Potential spoilers included for those unfamiliar with the series.*

The Pale Dreamer is dead. That is what the Republic of Scion wants everyone to believe. But dreamwalker Paige Mahoney isn’t dead, having eluded death yet again. She’s been snatched from captivity and consigned to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris with assistance from the mysterious Domino Program (a network of free-world spies). They have plans for her, but she has plans of her own. That’s to be expected from the voyant (clairvoyant) who defeated Jaxon, her previous mime-lord, to become the Underqueen of London’s voyant community. This community is one-turned-rebellion, and she’s re-made herself as the Black Moth. She’s accompanied by Warden (Arcturus Mesarthim), a Rephaim who’s her former enemy-turned-bodyguard. Paige is not accustomed to taking orders, which may contribute to the bold moves she makes as Black Moth (vs. as an agent of the Domino Program). Bold sometimes equates to foolish, and, like any human, she can also jump to conclusions that may have devastating outcomes. Scion is really a puppet of the Rephaim under Nashira Sargas, who plans to force the voyant community to unwillingly serve the Rephaim. Paige and her allies want to undercut Scion, and their adventures will lead them into the catacombs of Paris and the glittering corridors of Versailles. But it isn’t all plans, plotting and undermining, as Paige simultaneously works through the trauma of torture at the hands of the Rephaim and her feelings for Arcturus. Paige may be a dreamwalker, but this world under Scion is a nightmare.

            With traumatic memories, fresh betrayals and a weighted sense of duty, plotting, near-death escapes and gut-clenching action, this fourth in the Bone Season series is a fantasy-slash-dystopian novel that’s also a paranormal-slash-political thriller. It’s a novel with a deeply emotional arc through Paige and contains excellent world-building. It is as epic as its predecessors, and there’s no question that Shannon is an incredible storyteller with a sharp, stunning imagination, but this volume does suffer from middle-book syndrome, in which it doesn’t quite live up to the WOW! factor of the first novel. I also struggled with the length between publication dates. When I finally got around to reading it, I felt like I needed a refresh session of the previous novel, though this feeling went away the further I delved into the story and remembered other bits and pieces. New readers will definitely want to start with Book One. Overall, the inventiveness of the series will be forward momentum to await the next installment. It’s gripping and unnerving, intricate and intrepid.

            Book One: The Bone Season (not reviewed)

            Book Two: The Mime Order (not reviewed)

            Book Three: The Song Rising (not reviewed)

A Mirror Mended (June 14, 2022) by Alix E. Harrow.

*This is the second novella in a series.*

Worry not, Sleeping Beauty, Zinnia Gray is coming to rescue you again. And again. And again. She’s still Dying Girl, that Generalized Roseville Malady (GRM) will snuff her out eventually, but she’ll be the dimension-hopping, damsel-saving warrior that she can be for as long as she can. Still, if some of those princesses would start solving their own narratives without her help, more power to them and less headache for her. She’s at yet another “happily ever after” wedding when she looks into the mirror and someone else is looking back. Eyes brimming with desperate hunger, her lips moving in a plea, Zinnia reaches out to her, is pulled right into another dimension and stares at a face of evil. Truly. She’s staring at Snow White’s Evil Queen (who has no real name until Zinnia starts calling her Eva). It’s the first inter-dimensional travel that hasn’t deposited her into another Sleeping Beauty story. But it turns out that sort of strangeness is occurring with more frequency: a golden egg in the belly of a goose, a talking wolf in the woods, Zinnia’s copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales with its grape juice stain and tatty ribbon that should be at her home in her own dimension, but clearly isn’t. The Evil Queen knows how her story ends and doesn’t want to be resigned to such a fate (understandably so). But can a character plotted for a villainous role become the protagonist of one’s own story? With the curiouser and curiouser things occurring where they shouldn’t, is that a result of Zinnia’s travels messing with the fairy tale multiverse?

            The next installment in the Fractured Fables series continues its female-centric theme:  of female empowerment, autonomy, strength and friendship. Of having one’s own agency. For those who’ve read the first novella, Zinnia oftentimes remains her crass, self-involved, crude self. Her fly-by-her-own-whims, thoughtless nature is ruining her friendship with her best friend, and with story-hopping consequences showing up, she needs to find her way home, probably for good. This novella traverses worlds with darkness and danger, and Harrow isn’t afraid to point out the unattractive. The author clearly knows her fairy tales and, like the first tale, this one contains a plethora of pop culture references, but readers do see growth in Zinnia. The novella presents queer relationships as relationships, and Harrow’s academic background (“I’m sure Charm would explain about the psychic weight of repeated motifs and the narrative resonance between worlds if I asked…”) shines through in her smart writing. She efficiently packs a lot into the slim volume, limited word count be darned, and creates a story that’s lively, yet can be read in a single sitting. It’s a story where a villain has the potential to be the protagonist and where the one the villain saves may save her in return. But I’ll be honest, I didn’t love the tale. I checked it out from the library because it’s short, and I trusted that I could finish the story despite the busyness of the Christmas season.

            Book 1: A Spindle Splintered

The Wish (Sept. 28, 2021) by Nicholas Sparks.

*This is a standalone novel.*

It is 2019, and Margaret (Maggie) Dawes is a renowned travel photographer. She leads a busy life, traveling the world photographing remote locations, running a successful gallery in NYC and maintaining her social media accounts. As the year is closing, she finds herself grounded over the Christmas holiday, having to come to terms with a sobering medical diagnosis that predicts she only has a few months left. Her own family notwithstanding, she’s got a found family in her assistant, Luanne Sommers, Trinity, a famous sculpture artist who showcases pieces in Maggie’s gallery, and Mark Price, her more-recently-hired young assistant (he’s 23). Mark’s been a model assistant; he doesn’t pry into her personal life and hasn’t even watched any of her YouTube videos since he was hired on. But as Mark runs the gallery while Trinity and Luanne are away on their respective vacations, Maggie tells him the story of another time. She reminisces back to 1995, when she made a choice and wound up pregnant. Sent away to an older aunt/former nun in Ocracoke, a remote village on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Maggie is 16 in 1996 when she gives birth to a baby she immediately puts up for adoption. While there, battling loneliness and depression, she grows close to Aunt Linda (her father’s much older sister), whom she didn’t know well, and Bryce Trickett, a rare teenager on the island during the winter season. Bryce is her tutor, the one who introduces her to photography and the boy she ends up loving. But in 2019, Maggie is a 39-year-old woman who’s never married. Has Maggie been that dedicated to her passion all these years, married to her work? Or was there a course change in the intervening years that couldn’t have been predicted?

            I’ll admit that I’ve struggled to read through some of Sparks’ more recent novels, because they either haven’t been engaging to me or I didn’t like one or both lead characters, but the tide turned favorable for this novel. “The Wish” is a tale you know isn’t going to have a happy ending, but the mental toughness and physical vulnerability of a body shutting down gave it so much weight and depth. It’s an emotional novel. Just because it’s a fictional one doesn’t lessen the impact of first love or demean the choices that pave the way or make someone wonder what if? It’s bittersweet, but can also be enchanting, though the winter backdrop and Christmas decorations certainly help with that picture. This is a story of love and loss and being found. It may also be a story that makes readers pause to think of their own mortality and their humanity, too.

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?

"Skyhunter" by Marie Lu

Skyhunter (Sept. 29, 2020) by Marie Lu.

*This is the first book in a duology.*

When Talin Kanami was eight years old, her homeland of Basea was invaded by the Karensa Federation. She and her mother fled north to Mara in terror and in pain. 10 years later, and Talin hasn’t spoken since the night Basea was invaded due to vocal cord scarring and emotional trauma. She uses sign language, knowing the languages of Basea and Mara. Mara is the last free nation (on this side of the sea), and Mara’s legendary Strikers are the only warriors standing between that nation and annihilation by the Karensa Federation, run by the young, sickly, tyrannical Premier, Constantine Tyrus. Talin, against all odds and through all of the bullying, is a Striker (thank you, open-minded Firstblade Aramin Wen Calla). Strikers don’t just battle the enemy soldiers, but, most specifically, they battle Ghosts. Ghosts are formerly human, but become “monstrous war beasts” after dark poison is poured down their throats. They are grotesque. To kill them, “you must bleed a Ghost out, cutting it at its neck, the only place with a vulnerable vein.” If a Ghost bites a human or scratches them with their poisonous fingernails, one must cut that person’s throat before s/he turns. And if it’s one’s own Shield (a.k.a. Striker partner) … uff da. With Redlen (Red) Arabes’ appearance, he may be the miracle weapon Mara so desperately needs. He’s the Skyhunter. Together with her friends and fellow Strikers Adena Min Ghanna and Jeran Min Terra, they plot to destabilize Karensa. They’ve pledged their lives to Mara and to one another. Strikers are “Bringers of Death,” “Assassins of Monsters.” They are Mara’s saviors and they will give their everything.

            Wow. This first novel in a duology from Marie Lu, one of my favorite authors, blew me away. This story isn’t only another science fiction fantasy set in a dystopia (references to the civilization of the “Early Ones” could be construed as Earth as we would know it) with some battle here and there. No. It runs much deeper than that. Not only do characters have varying skin tones, but Lu doesn’t steer away from xenophobia in her story, with Talin taking the brunt of it (the “Basean rat”). The trajectory of the story, from start to finish, is fast-paced and engaging. The world is expansive, darkly exciting, high-action and brutal with a core group featuring a main character and primary supporting characters that aren’t without sympathy. The way Lu writes is as well-balanced as a perfect sword.

"The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" by Suzanne Collins

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (May 19, 2020) by Suzanne Collins.

Before Coriolanus (known affectionately as Coryo by his cousin) Snow was President of Panem, he was once an 18-year-old preparing to mentor his first-ever tribute in the 10^th annual Hunger Games. The mighty house of Snow is no longer since District 13 was obliterated. While Coriolanus, his fashion-adept cousin Tigris and their imposing grandmother, referred to as Grandma’am by her two grandchildren, live in the Snow family’s penthouse, they must strive to maintain appearances. Coriolanus leans mightily on his charisma, hard-won talent and ambition to keep others from knowing their dire straits. He needs one of the university’s prizes in order to attend the university. His academic record is spotless, but Dean Casca Highbottom hates him for reasons not of Coriolanus’ fault, and he winds up with, of all things, the District 12 tribute. And not even the male tribute, but the female tribute. Fortunately for him, Lucy Gray Baird turns out to have “star quality” with her forward fashion at the Reaping, her siren-like singing ability and her shining personality. Tigris and Coriolanus agree that he should treat Lucy Gray as a guest and not a condemned prisoner. And Lucy Gray wants him to believe that she can actually win. The two become close, and though he may love her, he is always Capitol first. His counterpoint is Sejanus Plinth. Sejanus’ family hails from District 2, but because of their relatively new wealth (10 years ago, Strabo Plinth with his District 2 manufacturing business, sided with the president), they live very comfortably in the Capitol that Strabo bought the family’s way into. Sejanus, with his compassion and history in the Districts, doesn’t hold back how he feels about the Hunger Games, no matter how many consider him a rebel sympathizer. The Games are monstrous from the start and the added snake muttations up the monstrosity factor even greater. Creator of those muttations, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, Head Gamemaker, is disturbingly playful because of her twisted, sick Mengelian nature, and is one of Coriolanus’ strongest advocates. Whether or not this is helpful to him, Coriolanus plans to succeed. Because “Snow lands on top.”

This story is a prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy, as this story takes place over 60 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteers as tribute. Knowing Coriolanus as President Snow means I’m never going to warm up to him, not even in a he’s-just-misunderstood sort of way, but Collins does try to humanize him by making him superficially caring and emotionally relatable. She works to make him vulnerable yet confident, and he’s charismatic but with airs. It is complex and chaotic with the world-building, the multitude of characters to root for, abhor or feel conflicted about, the philosophical questions the story can encourage and what it looks like to watch someone become a villain. It’s a challenge to read, and it’s at turns hard to read because of the depths to which characters will go to win, to survive. I don’t think it’s nearly as good as the trilogy, and the book does not need to be 517 pages long, but it remains a book for fans to read. And we should all consider what it means that the most horrible of characters may have once done the right thing. What might we have done in their shoes?