The Truth About White Lies – Olivia A. Cole

The truth is that there’s not much to say about this book, just like its synopsis did not have much to say about its content, nothing concrete at least, just information meant to tease you without actually telling you anything solid about what the story is going to be about.

Reminds me of Gossip Girl. Every character is a stereotype—there’s the happy-go-lucky gorgeous girl, the rich bitch, the innocent girl, the playboy, the nerd, etc. But the ways in which these characters interact with one another make them pretty exciting and addictive to read about (and watch). The drama that their dynamics create propels you to turn page after page. And you know, on a conscious level, that everything is simply ridiculous, so you’re able to enjoy it as a guilty pleasure.

But this is no Gossip Girl. I wasn’t able to enjoy this story on that guilty pleasure level that was the only level it could be enjoyed on for me. It’s not particularly well-written or smart, so that intellectual pleasure never arises. The characters are not particularly likeable or easy to connect with, so that emotional dimension is usually pretty flat. There is a very fast death in the story, of a character quite important to our main one, and yet all I could think was, ‘‘oh well.’’

I’ll be frank, this story really does not have much going for itself. Already if I don’t particularly care for your characters, chances are I will lose interest in your book very quickly—and I did. But since the story also had a blurry storyline that had me go like, ‘‘well, where is this all going?’’, I didn’t particularly feel tempted to devour it too deeply.

So, yes, you guessed it. This is a DNF—did not finish. On to the next one!

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review!

Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be – Nichole Perkins

I didn’t use to care much for memoirs or autobiographies. I knew they contained people’s experiences, and I delved into them once in a while, especially the more prominent titles, but inside I was craving fantasy. Fiction. Guilty pleasures. Anything to distract me from—real life. I didn’t want to think more about my own present and future, which is the effect memoirs tend to have on me.

But about two years ago, when COVID first hit, and I was homebound—the library I worked at closed, my university closed and publishing houses’ offices closed so they stopped sending me books to review—well, when that happened, I started to reflect quite a bit on my life. Am I doing what I want to be doing? Am I living how I want to be living? And that’s when I started to develop a thirst for people’s stories, especially women’s stories.

Women’s stories help guide me in my life. I also was very lonely, even with some family around, so reading these books helped alleviate that loneliness, because a good memoir writer will open up to us, will share their lives with us and will give us access to some of their rawest and most intimate thoughts. I have started gaining quite a bit of respect for memoirists, a lot of whom started to feel like friends after reading their books.

I wanted to share this preamble to introduce Nichole Perkins because she has reminded me why I read memoirs in the first place. Nichole’s audacity, fierceness and self-reflection spoke to me. She isn’t afraid to discuss topics that women have been thought to keep quiet about or let the man speak about them, namely sex, power, fantasies and more. She also talks about topics deemed more traditionally feminine, like love, relationships and gender. And she certainly isn’t keeping quiet about the abuse she and her family have experienced.

But as intense as those topics are, and as intense as the atmosphere of this memoir can get, Nichole Perkins knows how to balance things out, by throwing a funny story here and there and by writing on pop culture of the early 2000s and before. She’s the reason why I even got the first four seasons of Cheers, after reading her praise for the show, and particularly for its spin-off, Frasier, both of which I intend to watch diligently and commit to memory.

I don’t think there’s anything Nichole wouldn’t talk about today, especially in the context of raising awareness on different issues or teaching women to take less bullshit from men, less responsibility for their actions, less disrespect, less objectification and much, much less guilt. While I was reading about the men that sexually or emotionally assaulted Nichole, betrayed, stalked or otherwise pushed her boundaries, I inevitably thought back to my own experiences with men and how I really did not have to take as much as I did.  There is such great power in being able to walk away, say no and stick by our own values and boundaries. Reading this memoir simultaneously made me feel proud of Nichole’s awareness regarding her power as a woman, and made me want to dig deeper into my own.

Certainly, the fact that I just got the job I was hoping for and working towards for the past year does help in making me feel like I have great strength and determination in me, as well as belief in myself, much more than I usually feel. You know what they see, surround yourself with the kinds of people you want to be. Well I’d go even as far as to say that we as readers should surround ourselves as much as possible with the kinds of characters whose qualities we want to embody. So go ahead, surround yourself with Nichole Perkins as much as you can, because she will help you dip into that strong, confident woman you may sometimes forget you are.

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review!

The Book of Gothel – Mary McMyne

I usually adore fairytale retellings. I think that there is so much that can be done in that department, a pool of endless creativity, if the author dares enough. And I definitely think Mary McMyne was quite bold to dare tell the story of one very villainous, greedy, selfish woman—Gothel, who kidnaps Rapunzel and keeps her isolates from life – true love, true family, true joy, true magic. The older I grew, the less I bought these one-dimensional characters; the less prone I was to believe that people could really be just one thing, without any redeemable qualities. It’s very, very rare I meet someone who is purely evil, so I was quite excited to see what Mary McMyne had in store regarding Mother Gothel’s past and how she came to become Rapunzel’s kidnapper.

I would say I connected to Haelewise (Mother Gothel) pretty fast. It could be that I was able to quickly relate to someone whose mother was so strong but whose father barely paid attention to her, and when he did, it was usually to demean, dismiss, insult, or otherwise attack Haelewise’s heart and spirit, when all she wanted was to be loved, valued and appreciated. She thought maybe she would find that comfort in her best friend, whom she was in love with and who felt the same way about her, but he couldn’t provide that comfort for very long or in a consistent manner. Haelewise’s story is a sad one, because she is different from other girls her age, not just because of her mother’s tragic death and unique skills, but because of her own rather peculiar abilities that others don’t understand and are afraid of. It’s also a sad tale because there are quite a few people who don’t want her to succeed, to grow into her powers, to be the strong and confident woman that the readers knows she is destined to become.

Though as much as I felt connected to Haelewise, I am not a fan of historical fiction, and there was more of that than magic in this book. There are certainly fantasy elements and some magical scenes, but they are drowned in the large amount of descriptions which are never my favourite parts. For me, the more straight-forward, the better. Or if you’re going to say a lot, at least say something meaningful that adds to the scene rather than something simply to fill up pages, which is how it felt sometimes or how it tends to feel with historical fiction for me most times. As much as I appreciated Haelewise’s openness and having such easy access to her thoughts, at times I felt as though she could have kept some thoughts to herself or focused on the “bigger picture’’ than daydreams, worries or little details.

This book will be worth it to you if, unlike me, you do enjoy historical fiction quite a bit, and you enjoy stories whose strongest element is by far the main character.

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review! On sale July 26th!

Nura and the Immortal Palace – M.T. Khan

This is a middle grade tale that is as smart as it is entertaining. It combines magic and the more grounded theme of education in a way that encourages us to take some of the content quite seriously and ponder its meaning, while also allowing us to be enchanted by the elements that belong more to the fantasy world than our everyday one.

Nura is a determined young lady. While most kids at the mine are mining without really thinking they could ever find the great treasure desired by their master, the ‘‘mica,’’ Nura fully believes that she is capable of such a big endeavour. Unfortunately, her ambition caused quite an accident at the mine, and a few of the kids have gone missing. Though her ambition initially led her to cause damage, this time she is hoping it will help her find the missing kids—and her best friend.

Nura’s journey leads her to enter a treacherous world full of jinn, who do not have her best interest at heart. She quickly stumbles too deep into the world, so deep she might never get out of it again. But Nura has a fire in her that just won’t quit. It was really good to be acquainted with someone so goal-oriented and who tries to use her powerful energy for good actions. I feel like there are two types of fire—the one lit from anger (destructive) and the one lit from a desire to see change come about (productive). Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two or they intertwine, but though Nura makes some mistakes along the way, she learns to direct her energy towards the right things and the right people. It can be hard for her to know who to trust, especially after being betrayed badly, but sometimes you have to have faith.

I really enjoyed my experience reading this book. It is fast-paced, with quite a bit of action, as well as full of memorable characters whose personalities I could get a sense of. My only complaint is regarding the solution that Nura finds to her problem, which felt quite predictable. Otherwise, this is quite a smart tale with impactful scenes that I quite recommend!

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review! On sale July 5th.

Nothing Personal – Nancy Jo Sales

It’s been over a month since my last online date. Nothing bad happened per se, certainly nothing close to what Nancy Jo Sales is describing in this book. I wasn’t pressured or forced into doing anything. I wasn’t manhandled or mansplained to the whole time. I wasn’t even ghosted after. And though it was a slight case of he-didn’t-quite-look-like-his-pictures, I had grown used to that by then. But like Nancy explains, these apps don’t really exist for us to find love—our long term partners, even if 80% of Tinder users claim that that’s what they ultimately want. These apps are designed to be used. They’re designed to be addictive, and they are.

That’s why I needed this book. Though I had never enjoyed the process of meeting a stranger I had been talking to – however decent-looking this person could seem – I just couldn’t stop matching and texting until finally it came time to meet and I’d either push through my discomfort or anxiety in the process or… cancel. These apps really are addictive. And no one was asking me out in person, so it felt hard – almost counterintuitive – to delete my account, since I was looking for love and there were no in person prospects.

This book had the kind of effect on me that I was hoping for, meaning that it helped me stay away from those apps. And like the author says, of course there are exceptions. Not every guy is a sexist player and liar and toxic and problematic – duhhhh – but those are the kinds of men that these apps either appeal to the most or help create. On the other hand, if you are a genuinely good catch, then there is an overwhelming amount of girls or guys who throw themselves at you, and it all feels so mechanical, so dissatisfying, so devoid of magic.

As revealing and valuable as this book is, it is also quite depressing. It’s depressing to read about a culture that focuses on short-term and self-satisfying interactions, rather than long-term, mutually-satisfying and above all meaningful interactions. A hook-up culture that confuses (‘‘so what are we really?’’) and makes it hard for people to really connect. I think the saddest part of all – and certainly something I experienced myself – was the ‘‘who could care less’’ game that the author mentioned, in which neither people involved want to be the one to care the most and so, in the end, no one really does and things fizzle out pretty quickly. From a woman’s point of view, caring about my matches – the ones I talked to the most – was quite instinctual or natural for me, but oftentimes, if I let show that I cared, they would either be freaked out or let me do the whole work of trying to connect. Rarely did it feel equal. Rarely did they reciprocate.

But as sad as this book can get, it cannot and should not be ignored. And as often as it made me feel like maybe romance and love are both dead and I would be better off without men in my life, it has thought me a lot about access control (who I should let get close to me and know me), not feeling so responsible for men’s emotions and reactions and knowing what I want and how I want to be treated and stating both of those things instead of letting the other person decide what they want with me and how they want to treat me.

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review!