The Agency: A Spy in the House

The Agency: A Spy in the House is the first in a series of YA novels by Y.S. Lee. Young Mary Quinn is rescued from the gallows by an unusual school for young women in Victorian England. The school educates girls in desperate situations, and Mary finds herself with the opportunity to become a spy in the guise of a domestic servant.

Mary is an appealing heroine, although she does make some decisions that really boggle the mind. Lee does a nice job of describing a realistic Victorian London that many of off us have probably romanticized and introduces some history I was previously unaware of. I was both educated and entertained by the novel and will certainly read the second book in the series.

Emma: A Modern Retelling

Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith is just that—a version of Jane Austen’s Emma taking place in the modern day. McCall Smith adds a few modern “twists” that purists might find distressing or at least distracting, but he mostly stays on Austen’s plotline. McCall Smith has an easy style of writing that is comfortable and entertaining. His Emma, though, lacks the genuineness of the original and the attractiveness of Paltrow’s Emma and Silverstone’s Cher. His Emma seems to be less clueless, if you will, and more malicious, which takes away from her appeal. However, he does try to redeem her in an ending that feels rushed. Casual Emma fans will enjoy the retelling, but fanatics should probably stay away.

The Breakdown

In B.A. Paris’s The Breakdown, Cass sees a car broken down on the side of the road during a storm. After hesitating to help, and ultimately deciding not to, Cass is shocked when she learns the fate of the stranded driver. This shock, combined with a family history of early-onset dementia, leads to Cass’s own mental breakdown.

The premise sounds intriguing, but I found the first 250 pages to be extremely tedious. Paris recounts incident after incident of Cass’s mental demise. Ok, I get it, now move on. The final 100 pages finally pick up, but I’m not sure they made up for the slog of the first two-thirds of the book. This was my first Paris novel--and likely my last.

The Lying Game

Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game unites four friends seventeen years after their expulsion from boarding school. What brings them back together? A tragic secret on the brink of being revealed. The story is told from the perspective of Isa, on maternity leave after giving birth to her daughter. The big problem with The Lying Game was it was rather boring. Isa was boring. Her worries and concerns felt boring and redundant. The secret, at many junctures, was boring. The reasons the girls were expelled from school and their treatment from the local population seemed artificial and emphasized victim shaming and blaming. Although the book picks up in the last 100 pages, I was disappointed and rather bored for the first 250. If you have read other Ruth Ware, pick this one up. If not, skip it.

The Child

A baby’s body is found on a construction site. Fiona Barton’s The Child follows several characters as they react to this discovery, including a newspaper reporter and the mother of a missing child.

More than anything, I read The Child because I needed something to read. I didn’t love Barton’s The Widow, but I clearly enjoyed it enough to read the author again. I was pleasantly surprised by The Child. I guessed the ending early on, but even that did not diminish my enjoyment. It was a fast and engaging story—a good pick for a summer read.

Jane Steele

Lindsay Faye’s Jane Steele is an interesting play on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Jane Steele is fan of Jane Eyre, and her life in Victorian England often parallels that of the other fictitious Jane. Their paths differ, though, from the beginning of the book when Jane Steele confesses to the reader that she is a serial killer. Despite this confession, Jane is generally a sympathetic main character and the situations she finds herself in, including her romance, are interesting and unique. I wouldn’t consider Jane Steele must-read fiction, but it certainly does the job of entertaining a reader on a summer afternoon.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Sherman Alexie's collection of short stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven deserves a lot more intellectual effort than I was willing or able to give it. The stories follow different residents of the Spokane Indian Reservation. Each story has a unique focus and voice, and I felt like each invited discussion appropriate for one of my graduate-level literature courses. The book does not shy away from topics such as racism, alcoholism, and mysticism. This collection takes work to read, understand, and appreciate, and I wish I were still that kind of reader.

Into the Water

The first few chapters of Paula Hawkins' Into the Water reminded me of Hawkins' The Girl on the Train and similar books in the genre. Someone was dead, but I didn't understand who, why, or how. I felt deliberately disorientated, confused, and frustrated over how obfuscated the writing was. Fortunately, that feeling did not last long, and Hawkins let me in on enough secrets of the river that had taken more than one life to keep me satisfied. For this reason, I ended up enjoying the novel much more than The Girl on the Train. Into the Water was engaging, interesting, and a page turner from start to finish.

Death of a Ghost

Death of a Ghost is the 32nd installment of M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series. Ghost finds our Scottish hero once again dealing with murder, slightly inept underlings, completely inept supervisors, and botched relationships. Hamish, though, seems to handle everything with amazing dexterity, managing to solve murders without losing his cozy position to promotion. I have felt frustrated the last several books with Hamish’s stagnation and lack of growth as a character. However, Ghost gave me a glimmer of hope that these books might finally be moving out of the mire. For Hamish fans, let’s believe that is the case.

Blackmoore

Kate wants to flee to India, away from her scandalous family in Regency England. The only way she can get that freedom is to accept—and reject—three marriage proposals.

The only likable character in Julianne Donaldson’s Blackmoore is Henry, owner of the titular estate. Henry’s mother and sister are atrocious. Kate’s mother and sister are atrocious. And Kate, herself, is rather atrocious. I had little care or concern for her destiny and thought nothing recommended her to the story’s hero. I am a sucker for a good romance, but this book wasn’t romantic at all. Instead, it was an almost painful read due to the characters’ unattractive personalities.

Last Train to Istanbul

Selva, the daughter of a former Ottoman pasha, defies her family to marry Rafael, the son of a well-known Jewish doctor. They relocate in France but find their lives in peril as Hitler invades the country.

 Ayşe Kulin’s Last Train to Istanbul was an interesting read due to the history it presents. I have never before seen WWII through the lens of the Turkish government and people. I feel like I need to do further research on the topic, but if the history presented in this book is true, the government and its representatives have much to be lauded for in terms of their conduct during the war. Again, though, I need to do my research.

Overall, I was invested in the book and the characters, but it was at least 100 pages too long and could have benefited from more focus. I read the book in translation, so it is somewhat difficult to judge the writing, but the story tended to meander, introducing too many characters and seemingly forgetting most of them by the end. If nothing else, though, this book inspired me to read the history of Turkey during WWII.

In a Dark, Dark Wood

In a Dark, Dark Wood could have been titled Mayhem at the Hen Party. As an American, I'm more accustomed to the idea of a bachelorette party, but the concept is familiar. Nora, a mystery writer and recluse, has been invited to her childhood friend's hen party and reluctantly agrees. The weekend forces Nora to face a past she's both avoided and dwelled on for the last ten years, with predictably disturbing results.

I enjoyed Wood more than Ware's more recent novel, The Woman in Cabin 10. Perhaps I was more prepared for Ware's unnecessarily opaque writing. I enjoy mystery and surprise but find deliberate and inexplicable withholding of information to be a cheap writing device. That said, I was more quickly invested in Nora and the secrets of her past and more willing to forgive Ware for hiding Nora's story. The ending was predictable but satisfying. I am ready, though, to read a mystery that relies on mystery instead of just hiding information.

Bad Blood

The Naturals series is seriously disturbing. In Bad Blood, Cassie and the other young, "natural" profilers are on the trail of the cult of serial killers from previous books. Though not overly descriptive, the book is graphic and upsetting. As Ally Carter said, it's like "Criminal Minds for the YA world." I don't know how comfortable I'd be with my young adults watching Criminal Minds or reading Bad Blood, but I certainly enjoyed the thriller.

The Selection

I read Kiera Cass’s The Selection at the recommendation of my 16-year-old niece. The Selection is a Bachelor-type process that the Prince of ‎Illéa goes through to find his new bride. America Singer has been selected and decides to participate in order to raise herself and her family from ‎Illéa’s strong caste system. Though her heart is elsewhere, America learns to like Prince Maxon.

The Selection is truly a Hunger Games meets The Bachelor hybrid. It is typical of dystopian novels, but America lacks the character to truly make me care. She is unaccountably emotional and rude to Prince Maxon at times, but inexplicably he finds her unstable personality charming.

The Selection is also the first of a trilogy and Cass leaves her readers hanging. I appreciate series where each book could stand alone, and The Selection does not. Rather than invest in the last two novels, though, I just read a summary online and am glad I didn’t waste my time on the other two books.

The Chemist

Curiosity, and a good review from USA Today, prompted me to read Stephenie Meyer's The Chemist. “Alex,” aka “The Chemist,” is a former government employee that is on the run after her superiors decided she knew too much. Action, adventure, and romance ensue as she tries to survive.

Despite Meyer citing the Bourne books as inspiration, the book falls into the thriller/romance genre. Nothing about the content stood out as especially superior or inferior to similar books by Iris Johansen, Karen Robards, or Sandra Brown. What did stand out was the length. At 518 pages, it was at least 200 pages longer than it needed to be. A good editor could have easily resolved the problem. Like in her Twilight novels, Meyer also relies on unrealistic romantic relationships that perpetuate the myth of love at first sight. Overall, though, The Chemist is an easy, brainless read that is sufficiently entertaining.

The Woman in Cabin 10

Lo is a travel writer on the maiden voyage of a luxury cruiser. She is struggling with her own demons when she’s convinced a crime has been committed on board.

I struggled to get into Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10. As seems to be the trend in popular fiction, the main character isn’t exactly likable, perpetuates stereotypes about women, and makes cringe-worthy choices. However, after about 200 pages, I was hooked and needed to see what happened. This book should please fans of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl.

Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel: A Graphic Novel

As a fan of both graphic and post-Soviet novels, I eagerly dove into Anya Ulinich’s Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel. Lena immigrated to the United States from Russia as a young woman. She is now a mom and author—and new to the online dating world. I appreciated the frankness of the Ulinich’s depiction of Lena’s struggles as a mother, writer, woman, and immigrant (this is definitely a graphic novel for adults). Her experiences resonated with me and gave me an interesting perspective on the expectations we place on ourselves.

Happy Birthday, Turk!

I found Jakob Arjouni’s Happy Birthday, Turk! while googling about the television series Cenk Batu: Undercover Agent. Cenk Batu is a German of Turkish ancestry, and my google search introduced me to a world of Turkish-German television series, movies, and books. Happy Birthday, Turk! was highly recommended on several sites, so I quickly ordered an English translation through my library’s interlibrary loan program.

Turk! was a fast read. Kemal Kayankaya is rough-living private investigator that is hired to investigate the murder of a Turkish migrant. I am not sure if it was the translation, but the reading, though fast, was not smooth. I never felt invested in Kayankaya and wasn’t sure how such a lazy, angry, drunken young man was able to solve this crime.

This book was valuable to me, though, as a perspective on the Turkish experience in Germany. Though Kayankaya has no ties to Turkey, he suffers from the same discrimination as other Turks in Germany. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the racism and prejudice the Turks experienced in this book, but I was.

A Year Without Mom

A Year Without Mom is a touching graphic novel about 12-year-old Dasha, whose mother has gone to study in the United States. As a mother it is hard to imagine the separation between parent and child, but I also understand Dasha’s mother’s desire to improve their situation—something that Dasha cannot understand. I’d be interested to hear the perspective of a child reading this book.

The Fixer

Tess Kendrick has to leave her life on the ranch with her ailing grandfather to live with her older sister, a high-power “fixer” in Washington, D.C. Tess gets caught up in intrigue when the grandfather of a new classmate mysteriously dies.

This was a fast-paced, interesting YA novel. It was an easy read, and the relationships between Tess, her sister, and her sister’s associates was engaging. Definitely a good beach read.