Air Conditioning is Even Better with A book…

They say, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” I don’t know who they are but they’re wrong. It’s both. Together or separately. Which is why I love air conditioning. And there’s no better way to survive summer than to sit in the air conditioning with a cold brew coffee and a good book.

I have suggestions. The first is anything crafted but La Colombe, which I’d had before but didn’t get hooked on until this past May when I was in Chicago with my sisters for the middle one’s long delayed 40th birthday trip (she turns 42 at the end of this month). As to the later, well… sally forth:

Liar City by Allie Therin (Carina Adores)

In a world where psychics can read anyone with a touch, bodily autonomy is a thing of the past for those who find themselves in sudden possession of an ability they neither ask for nor want. Stepping out of line means a visit from The Dead Man, a near mythical figure who answers to no one and has jurisdiction everywhere, whose reputation for taking care of problem psychics precedes him, and who now has his sights set on Reese, a part-time police consultant, brother of a police detective, and a psychic whose gifts may be on their way to out of control…

I’m a big character person. Don’t get me wrong, plot is important; I’ve DNFed several books in the last month, books that were next in a series I was invested in or first in new series by authors I love, because I hit the 30%, 40%, 50% marks and nothing had actually happened to engage my story brain. But I’m much more likely to spend time with books that have explored the depths of the characters who inhabit them. I want fully fleshed out people with backstories, strengths, weaknesses, quirks, goofy hyperfixations; the works. I can love them, hate them, or flat out want to murder them, but I need to feel some kind of way about the people I’m spending time with instead of hanging out with my kids or doing my own writing, or working on that painting I need to get into the online store before the Good Omens S2 furor dies down.

Therin’s characters are interesting. And they do have all of the qualities mentioned above but the story doesn’t spend a ton of time spelunking the depths of their souls. Information is revealed in conversation or in context, which is great and 100% my preferred method but it’s done succinctly and almost… grudgingly on the part of the person offering information (very in character for all involved) and no one does a ton of introspection or digging.

Under normal circumstances, that would make a book a 3-, maybe 3.5 star in my personal rating system, but let me tell you a thing: Liar City was a 5/5. I read it in one day, in what was basically one sitting, interrupted by things like “making sure my tween and teen got home from camp alive” and “making dinner.” The pacing is that perfect, the world is that fascinating, the plot is absolutely “hold onto your butts,” and the hints of a very strange and wonderful romance exactly enough to make you go, “hmmmmm,” and get on social media immediately after finishing to beg Therin for more.

So, you know. Try new things. There are gems everywhere.

Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh by Rachel Lippincott (Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers)

This is an adorable, sapphic YA Romance. In it, Audrey, a denizen of Pittsburgh (aka: a Yinzer) trying to decide where to steer her life after a breakup, is challenged by a regular at her parents’s convenience store to accept whatever life throws at her, including new love. Sometime else, Lucy, about to be married off to the man of her nightmares, finds an oddly dressed young woman in a field on her father’s property, wielding a strange device and claiming to be from the future.

That girl’s name is Audrey.

How did she get to Regency England? How will she get home? Why is she in Regency England? Why is she disrupting Lucy’s life? And what are these feelings they’re provoking in one another?

Like I said. Adorable. Great story, great character development. Funny as heck. Very much Austen in that it’s a comedy of manners and finds humor in the absolute assery of politeness in both time periods and also, the utter bullshit of patriarchy and paternalism that we just can’t quite seem to shake. Would be very good if it that all.

What makes the book excellent?

This is going to seem like a small thing, but sometimes it’s the small things that are the most important, especially for readers with many, many books in their stacks and a limited amount of time. This is one of mine:

I like time travel stories. The serious ones deal delve into the existential dread of decision making and the question of how much control we have over our own lives, the extent to which others can influence our stories with their decisions, and whether we can ever really have what we want. The less dramatic ones have the potential to be extremely funny, whether it’s probing the fish out of water idea or pointing out humanity’s foibles. No matter which variation an author is working with, however, or which of the shades in between, so many of them make the same mistake: they waste a bunch of words having one character disbelieve that the other character has, in fact, time travelled. Despite evidence, despite any other rational explanation (rationality being relative here), their doubt goes on and on and on and I get bored and I throw the book into my DNF pile.

Lippincott, genius that this local girl is, does not make that mistake. Lucy accepts from the jump that Audrey has come from somewhere and somewhen else because, the evidence is right there: Audrey’s clothes are not only “inappropriate,” they’re made of fabrics with no period or local equivalents. Audrey shows Lucy her cell phone which, while it doesn’t have service, can still display photos and videos. The girls have different accents and different vernaculars. This is Occam’s razor at its most well-honed people and anyone with half a brain is going to say, “Well, it’s weird but it does make sense,” and when the character does that and the story then proceeds with the interesting stuff, readers, at least this reader, stay attentive, engaged, and much more receptive to the rest of what is a wonderful story.

Small details but mighty ones.

Drunk On All Your Strange New Worlds by Eddie Robson (Tordotcom)

This book is a fucking trip and I mean that in the best possible way. The review is going to be kind of scant because I feel as though it’s a disservice to you, as fellow readers, to reveal too much about the world or the plot; Drunk On All Your Strange New Worlds is one of those books that’s a full on experience and you should get to have it the same way I did which is unspoiled.

Brief Synopsis: Humanity has met aliens and really, we don’t deserve to have done (shocker). Their main means of communication is psychic and one has to be specially trained to translate for them because doing so activates the same neurotransmitters/hormones/chemicals as being intoxicated so one has to function professionally while, essentially drunk of her ass. This has the potential to cause a variety of issues from losing one’s balance and falling off a balcony to memory loss and blackouts. Including a blackout during which one’s boss, the cultural attaché to Earth, happens to get murdered.

Cue shenanigans of the highest order.

That… doesn’t even come close to describing this book. Like I said, it’s an experience and one that I highly, highly recommend.

My Dear Agent, Vol. 2 by Ebino Bisque (Tokyo pop Love x Love) (Explicit)

Riichi and Mario are dating and have even “l” worded while still working together as bodyguards for The CEO’s son. But when Riichi finds out Mario is (redacted), things get complicated fast, and go from tangled to worse when Mario is suddenly fired and disappears. There goes Richii’s shot at happiness… Or will he finally realize some things in life are more important than his all-encompassing work?

I love these two dumbasses the way I love Adachi and Kurosawa in Cherry Magic. The nonsense. The absolute fuckery. They are so in love they are running right past each other.

It’s so great.

Tastes Like Shakkar by Nisha Sharma (Avon)

A lot of people think Shakespeare is boring. That’s because Shakespeare wasn’t meant to be read in a classroom and pulled apart word by word, line by line. Shakespeare’s plays are living, breathing entities that demand story tellers and audiences interact with them. They were meant to be variable. Changeable. Adaptable.

Adaptable.

I don’t read a ton of het romance but when Nisha Sharma started her remixed Shakespeare series with Dating Dr. Dil (The Taming of the Shrew) she earned herself a fan for as long as she keeps adding to this roster and my commitment has only been strengthened by this new addition, Tastes Like Shakkar (Much Ado About Nothing). And that’s not only because Much Ado is one of my favorite plays; the snarkiest, funniest, raunchiest of the bunch, by the way, but because Sharma is so very good at taking the original text and doing what Shakespeare always intended: bringing it to the audience that wants it, needs it, and deserves it. Making it into the perfect performance for here, for now, for those who look to her for their snarky, sexy, funny, sometimes raunchy love stories told in a context that is familiar to them (I’m not South Asian; I did grow up in a Conservative Jewish household, however, and there are a lot of parallels vis a vis social, career, and family expectations).

So long live Shakespeare. And long live Sharma’s brilliant reimaginings.

Kaiju No. 8, Vol 7 by Nagoya Matsumoto (Viz)

I swear to all that is holy, if they hurt my manga son, I will go absolutely feral…

The Afterlife of the Party by Darcy Marks (Aladdin Books)

Malachai, Lilith, Crowley, and Alastair are finally off punishment for their little Salem adventure.

And so, of course, here comes trouble yet again.

They’re magnets. It’s not even their fault. Probably. I mean, that’s the thing about Chaos. It isn’t really anyone’s fault. Except the people who might be trying summon it or loose it on all of the hereafters. At a party. The first one angels from Heaven and Hades have both attended in millennia.

But the archangels and the powers are both there. What could possibly happen?

The second book in Marks’s series (the first is Grounded for All Eternity) is absolutely delightful. The story is fun, the kids get to go on another adventure that expands both their world and the world in which the novels are set. There are new characters readers get to bond with in a “real-time” sort of way that I really appreciate and I think kid readers will too, especially middle grade readers who are at the same point in their lives as Malachai et al are, who are stretching their wings (pun intended), especially where identity and individuality are concerned.

As an adult reader, I also love love love that The Afterlife of the Party continues the very difficult job exploring very real teenager stuff without being preachy or slowing down the story. Kids who are at a middle grade reading level are contrary by nature which, as exhausting as it is for parents, is important for their development; if they stayed our agreeable little babies for ever, they’d never become their own people. That said, teaching them what they need to know about life, the universe, and everything at this age? I have 11 and 13 year olds right now and I know they listen more than we think they do, but still… I would rather eat glass than tell my tween, “You know, you had a hard day today, why don’t you go to bed earlier tonight?” and have them respond, “Nah, that’s not it,” one more time, knowing they will have a meltdown at exactly two pm the next afternoon because they are tired, and then doing the same thing again for the next week.

Giving it to them in a story like The Afterlife of the Party though? That’s like putting ground up zucchini in meatloaf. Give them that exciting plot that’s both mystery and adventure! Throw in a little horror (multiple studies have proven it’s good for kids - it helps them feel empowered, builds resilience, and enhances optimistic mindset) and they’ll never realize they also learned that it’s okay to take a shower every day or help with dinner or tell your parents if something weird, like the sky changing color, happens.

I am not ashamed to say I will take all the help I can get.

Also can we have a little commotion for living parents who care very deeply about their children and children who love their parents and while yes, the two groups butt heads, ultimately, the kids know they’re safe and loved in their families and the parents are supportive and loving even if it’s sometimes in the, “I know what’s best for you” kind of way.

And for kids can be adventurous because they know their parents will always back them when it’s important and always come to their rescue when they need it.

I’m off to FlameCon this weekend. I will probably come back with stuff to read. Well, more stuff to read. Reports to follow…