Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Nine: Lagoon

One of my friends recommended Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor to me, and I'm so glad she did, because I doubt I would have found it otherwise, but I really enjoyed it!  Lagoon definitely falls under speculative fiction, probably sci-fi, which is a genre I'd love to read more of but somehow don't end up reading much of....  Anyway, Lagoon explores what might happen if aliens were to visit Lagos, Nigeria.  With most of the books I read being set in America, Europe, or a fantasy world, it was great to get the chance to (fictionally) travel to Nigeria, and it reminded me that I should seek out more diversity in my reading not just in terms of genre but also in terms of setting.  Lagoon is fast-paced and full of action, and the narration switches frequently between a handful of characters, some of whom speak using Nigerian slang, which is a bit of a challenge but I found it fun and not too hard to follow (there's a glossary if you get really stuck, but usually context makes the meaning clear).  I enjoyed the abundance of narrators and the constantly evolving action, but it may be a bit hectic for readers who like a slower pace (for readers who are really patient and like the slowest pace, see any of my posts on Connie Willis, one of my all-time favorite authors whom I'm always recommending and whom some people love and who others find far too slow or verbose).  But I digress!  If you're into edge-of-your-seat alien adventures, politics, friendship, family life, and giant sea monsters, definitely give Lagoon a try!

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Eight: Orphan Train

So about a year ago, a coworker recommended Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train to me, and for some reason the time just didn't feel right to read it, though it looked good.  Then my mother read the book and recommended it to me, so I decided I should finally check it out, and lo and behold, the recommenders were right: it was an enjoyable read!  The story is split between narrators (a teenage Penobscot Indian girl in foster care; a wealthy elderly widow) and settings (contemporary Maine; 1930s Minnesota), and while it's not super hard to figure out how the two stories are intertwined, each story is interesting enough in its own right to keep the momentum of the novel as a whole.  Also, the historical part of the story deals with so-called orphan trains (hence the title), which are a part of American history I knew nothing about, and now at least I know a little about the former practice of sending orphans from urban slums out to the Midwest in the hopes of adoption.  In addition to the interesting settings, Kline's characters are finely drawn, and the narrators in particular elicited my empathy and drew me into their stories.  For readers who enjoy historical and contemporary fiction as well as stories that foster an emotional connection to the characters, I'd definitely suggest reading Orphan Train.

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Seven: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

This giant book by Emily Croy Barker caught my eye on the library's shelves partly because it's so huge (upward of 500 pages), and partly because of its long title, and partly because the dust jacket is so pretty.  Nora, a struggling grad student who's just been dumped by her longtime boyfriend, accidentally wanders into another, magical world--but this world turns out to be not quite the fantasy it at first seems and in fact is quite dangerous.  Unable to return home, Nora struggles to find her footing in this mysterious new world, and I at least was enthralled by her adventures here.  Full of great world-building, intricate plots and subplots, and plenty of emotional intrigue and complicated relationships, I could hardly put this story down!

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Six: Every Heart a Doorway

So I read this quick little book by Seanan McGuire on the recommendation of two of my coworkers at the library, and I'm so glad I decided to read it.  Ever wondered what life was like for Alice or the Pevensies or anyone else who gets through to a magical world and then has to return home?  Every Heart a Doorway explores what might happen to teens who've had adventures in other worlds and then end up back in the real world.  In this case, they end up at a boarding school run by a mysterious and sympathetic old lady who simultaneously tries to help them move on and find the doorways back to their other world.  When our heroine arrives at school, she's not sure what to expect, and when students at the school start being murdered, she's the number one suspect.  A strange mix of boarding school story, fantasy, and murder mystery, this interesting little book captured me from page with its excellent writing.  If you're willing to suspend your disbelief for a while, give Every Heart a Doorway a try.

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Five: Lucky Us

So after a crazy spring, I'm finally coming into some free time again and will be updating my blog again, regularly, I hope!  First up: Lucky Us, by Amy Bloom.  This is one of many books my grandmother gave me that I'm finally getting around to reading, so it's not something I would have picked out on my own, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  Lucky Us follows half sisters Iris and Eva and their haphazard family of misfits from Ohio to Hollywood to New York City in the late 1930s and into the 1940s. While Iris is the aspiring actress and Eva seems to be the sidekick wandering aimlessly through Iris's life, Eva is really the heart of this story, even as some chapters consist not of Eva's first person narration but of letters from Iris or other characters.  This story has a sort of emotionally detached feeling that doesn't usually appeal to me, but for some reason the dispassionate distance between me and the characters really worked with this story, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Four: Bellwether

So with Bellwether, I've concluded my unofficial Connie Willis month, although she's written many other delightful novels that I haven't read or reread in the past month.  Bellwether is the first book by Willis I'd ever read, and partly for that reason it holds a very fond place in my heart.  But I also love it because it's a little nugget of joy.  By far shorter than any of her time travel novels, Bellwether tells the tale of two corporate scientists who end up working together and discover a lot more than they'd bargained for.  Written after Doomsday Book but before the other time travel stories, many of the same themes run through this novel--especially regarding the effects of actions in chaotic systems--but Bellwether also has a healthy dose of gentle fun-poking at modern life as it urges thinking for oneself (a theme I can definitely get behind).  If you like happy, light-hearted, slightly snarky stories, I'd highly recommend Bellwether.

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Three: Blackout and All Clear

As in past years, I'm discussing Connie Willis's monumental two-part story in one post because Blackout and All Clear really can't be read separately: it's one story that's been published in two (very long) parts.  This concludes her novel-length repertoire of time travel stories, and what a conclusion!  I first discovered these books in February of 2014, reread them last February, and now returned to them for the third time in as many years, and they're so wonderfully detailed and layered and complex that there's something new to notice with each rereading.  Without giving too much away, these books focus on three of Mr. Dunworthy's history students who are each studying a different aspect of England's involvement in WWII.  As one might expect from Connie Willis, their stories converge in interesting and unexpected ways, playing out over the course of years.  Reading these final time travel novels on the heels of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, one can see that certain themes and concerns travel through these works (and also through Willis's other works, most of which I'm not rereading at the moment), especially the effects of actions in complex or chaotic systems (a concern central to perhaps my favorite novel by Willis, Bellwether, which I'll be reading next).  With so much happening throughout the book's several stories, which are not always told in chronological order (always pay attention to the date given at the beginning of the chapter!), these works are not for the faint of heart, to be sure, totaling in at over a thousand pages, but if you like intricate, carefully crafted, well researched storytelling, it's hard to beat Blackout and All Clear.