I Didn’t Skip Last Week…

… I just didn’t have anything to report. No one needs another review of Heaven Official’s Blessing Vol. 4 (yes, it is a kissing book and if you don’t get that reference, no, you can’t sit with me and my gay immortals) and I can’t remember what I listened to but it was also wayback catalog.

This week, however, we were back to our usual shenanigans so buckle up. As much as one might have to do that to read book reviews.

Mythic Plants: Potions and Poisons From the Gardens of the Gods by Ellen Zachos (Workman)

I hate gardening. I do, however, love plants. You can’t spend eight years as a toxicology nurse and not be fascinated by these absolutely gorgeous creations of nature and genetics, some of which can kill you, some of which have bits that can kill you, some of which have bits you can eat but other bits that can kill you, still more that you can eat cooked but will kill you if ingested raw, some that will kill you but not animals, some that animals can eat but will kill you, and more that are there just to look pretty and feed bees.

I am also an avowed mythology girly (inclusive) with avowed mythology girly (again, inclusive children), one of whom loves the Greek tales so much that when their grandmother and maternal aunt let them choose the destination for a recent vacation, they chose to climb the hill to Delphi (“I didn’t realize it was that big, Mama”), truck out to Dodona, and walk around the Parthenon.

As you can imagine, this beautifully illustrated book focused on the Greek mythological origins of plants has been very popular in our house.

While I’ve seen many of these stories before, I haven’t seen them gathered in one place as the focus of a singular volume and I think compiling them into a sort of encyclopedia organized by use (culinary, intoxicant, medicinal, poison, etc) is a fantastic way to not only teach the myths but to help readers learn more about botany and physiology, why ancient people believed what they did, and the history and development of medicine. Very fun and very informative which is really a perfect combination in a book like this one.

That said, and Zachos is very clear about this as well, please don’t create your own herbal regimen after reading. Ye olde Greeks were right about a few things and extremely wrong about others. And some of the things they were right about needed modern science to titrate them before we got a reliable result (aka: the right amount of atropine will save your life, the wrong amount will kill you so much faster). Please, please, talk to your doctor before you start taking any supplements or put anything in your body.

Natural doesn’t necessarily mean safe, as the chapters on poisons and dosages demonstrate admirably.

Mythic Plants: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9781523524396

The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley (Ace, 7/8)

Apparently, The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy has its origins in Dramonie fanfic and I’m going to be real honest here: if I had known that, I probably wouldn’t have taken the ARC because these days, I stay away from anything that-particular-wizard-tinged. I didn’t know, however, and I’m glad, in this particular case, that I didn’t because this particular book is ridiculously delightful and I had a wonderful time reading it. Knightley is both a better writer and a better storytelling than she-who-shall not be named.

And, despite knowing now, I will surely ready the second book of the duology when it comes out because in a very dire world, The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy was a bright and hilarious spot that had me laughing out loud and sending screen shorts of passages to my reader and author friends and I don’t send just anything to either of those groups.

The thing I was most impressed with what the fact that Knightley was working with a trope that’s been used countless times and that rather than flipping it or breaking it down and reassembling the pieces in a different shape or blowing it up, she essentially followed it to the letter and still managed to create something that kept me glued to the story and drawn to the characters. That by fully embracing the possibilities of all that enemies-to-lovers has to offer, she was able to create a story with believable stakes and relationship with enough sparks, stumbles, genuine dislike, and human decency (even if it was, occasionally, against Osric or Aurienne’s will) that it grows organically between two actual people rather than springing from the void between two boring stand-ins.

Definite yes on this one if you’re into fantasy or romance, or both together. Or if you’re in the mood to be extremely entertained by a book. Hoping we don’t have to wait too long for Book Two.

The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593819456

Matchmaking for Psychopaths by by Tasha Coryell (Berkley, 7/15)

I don’t usually do plot summaries, but I feel like I need to with Matchmaking for Psychopaths, both because there are some content warnings and so that my review makes sense.

The premise is this: Lexie is a matchmaker. She was hired to work with a very select group of individuals. Those individuals have had difficulty finding significant others by more traditional means. They’re not sure why. Lexie does, however: they’re all psychopaths. And she would know; she’s been stuck with a few in the past. When she has trouble maintaining a professional distance with some of her clients and body parts start showing up at her front door, it seems as though the past might be repeating itself. Or is there something even more sinister afoot?

I loved this book. It’s almost psychological horror (I don’t want to go into the almost, since it would be a spoiler but bear with me) and, also, absolutely hilarious; comedy-horror is hard, quite possibly the hardest genre cross-over to write, and Coryell manages to pull it off while writing a cast of horrible people living selfish, little lives that you can’t help gobbling up like an insatiable voyeur. It builds and builds and builds to a climax that is utterly insane and yet so perfect you can’t imagine it going any other way and then, right when you think it’s over, it hits you with one last gasp, exactly the way Lexie’s favorite reality shows do (of course. Of course it does. What other possible way could it end end?)

That said: Matchmaking for Psychopaths is also very disturbing. Because it’s about the things some people (all people?) would do without rules and laws. If we were allowed to be petty and mean without the fear of consequences. If we could act on our worst impulses and get away with it. A lot of those things are troubling. Some are horrible. Some go beyond that.

You might be wondering, “Shiri, how can this book possibly be funny?” It’s all in how the story is written and your sense of humor. I have been a psych nurse, a corrections nurse, and a toxicology nurse. I also did my preceptorship in an ICU. These are types of nursing that require you to wear a certain kind of armor on the outside if you’re going to maintain compassion and kindness on the inside. That armor is impregnated with an extremely dark sense of humor. I also have anxiety, depression, and some other stuff. Laughing at myself, stuff that’s happened, the huge way I sometimes react to tiny things and the non-reaction I sometimes have to huge things… that’s my life-preserver. It is also sometimes very dark.

That doesn’t mean I think the horrible things in and of themselves are funny. I don’t. I think they’re awful and terrible. One of them almost made me throw up and I’ve seen a lot of insides. It does mean I can see humor in what happens around them; in the random, left field thoughts people have in response to them; and the bizarre ways someone might react after the fact. In what a character might latch on to in a time of crisis. A terrible decision she might make because of something that happened in her past. An inappropriate joke she might tell that no one else thinks is funny but that she finds hilarious. Brains are weird.

So, with that caveat. If you’re a little twisted and a little dark, do recommend. If that isn’t your jam, try The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy instead.

Matchmaking for Psycopaths: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593640302

I also listened to Don’t Let the Forest In (https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9781250895660) by CG Drews which is definitely psychological horror. There are also monsters. Maybe. This one is listed as a YA but I would urge adults to screen it because it’s really, really extremely disturbing and while I’m not an advocate of telling my kids they can’t read certain books, I would want to prep them for this one since it deals with self-harm, severe mental illness, suicidal ideation, potential sibling death, psychosis, bullying by peers and teachers, parental death, murder, drug use, alcohol use, implied sexual assault, and probably a couple things I’ve forgotten. Should kids know about these things? Yes, absolutely. But they should also be prepared to encounter them all at once and have an established relationship with a trusted adult they can talk to if they have questions, concerns, or are uncomfortable. They also need to know that DNFing, for a while or forever, is okay.

Currently working on The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai, which is out at the end of July.