Salisbury.Fake book review

Books of 2024

I figured why not start with a bang and go into the books I either liked the most or had a lot of thoughts about in 2024. My grand total of books read was 93. I did not, in fact, finish reading The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan like I promised my brother I would, but we’ll get into that later. The books I’ve chosen for this list are the ones that stuck with me throughout the whole year. Most of these I read months ago, and some I finished far earlier in the year, and they still stick with me.

1. Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
I feel like I need to say that if you are not the kind of person who reads heavy topics, this is not the book for you. A lot of the reviews I read of this said that it was disgusting and horrific and I feel like they missed the point of it. This book is not one to enjoy, necessarily. It’s one to make you think way too deeply about the state of humanity. It is a plunge into how people treat others, and that is such a superficial approach to it. It’s societally accepted cannibalism. There are humans bred specifically to become meat for other humans to consume. There are laws in place to “protect” the meat, and there are other things surrounding the “rights” of the ones being used to feed the masses. It’s told from the perspective of a production plant manager (I don’t remember his title officially) who’s dealing with his father going through Alzheimer’s, and a host of other issues both personal and professional. I will say that by the end of this book, I felt like I’d participated, and if you’ve read it, you know what I’m saying because the ending just left me bereft for a few days. I immediately recommended it to some of my friends. It is a purposeful calling out of people who mistreat others and also a scathing commentary on how society is structured. I gave this book 9/10 stars.

2. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
This book is on the list because it disappointed me and I’m still thinking about the ways it did and how it could have been better. I’ve not read any of Dick’s work before, so this was my introduction, and I was left wanting. He presented this incredible “what-if” scenario and then left it to the imagination for most of the events happening. So much of it occurred “off-screen” and I found that incredibly lackluster for such a stunning approach to alternate history. Especially since it’s for WWII, which has been a topic of debate ever since people realized they could theorize about the “what-ifs” of history. I started reading it because I watched the first episode of the show of the same name, and this is one of the few times I’ve uttered “the visual media is better than the book.” It gives substance to the ideas Dick presents in his book. It shows us the battles, the intrigue that’s hinted at within the subtleties of the writing. I’m glad I read it so I could see what it was, and I’m glad I watched the show (haven’t finished that yet) to expand on what the book could have been. I gave this 5/10 stars.

3. Everwild by Neal Shusterman
The second book of the Skinjacker trilogy by Shusterman made this list because it was the one that stuck with me the most. I think one of my favorite things about Shusterman’s storytelling is he invents new ways to approach death, which is such a difficult topic for anyone to discuss, but especially young adults. I do think sometimes the romances are a little unfinished and rushed into, but if that’s the only critique I have of his writing, I’d say that’s all right. I don’t know if it’s my appreciation for his writing that makes his books appear on my “that’s my favorite” lists, but there is something about his approach to illuminating the dark places of sadness that keeps me personally afloat when I could very easily sink. The trilogy as a whole is a stunning tale of lost children, and some of the ways they “go into the beyond” left me nearly weeping. This story is one I will think on, much like I think about his Arc of the Scythe series. I gave this book an 8/10 stars.

4. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Ohhhh, this one broke my heart. This is the journalistic telling of Christopher Johnson McCandless, the young man who went into the Alaskan wilderness with nothing but a ten-pound bag of rice and serious hopes and dreams, and ended up losing his life due to some unconfirmed circumstances. He wasn’t murdered, but there is speculation he ate some poisonous seeds while he was already weak from malnutrition and he couldn’t survive. Krakauer retraces Christopher’s journey to this epic adventure, and he meets the people who were impacted while the young man was finding his way to his eventual demise. Several people called him an idiot, saying he had no business being in the wilderness with so little experience, some called him noble for following the passions of his heart, and his parents and family missed him terribly. Christopher burned bridges he didn’t need to, for reasons only he knew, and I think the hardest part of this story was seeing how his determination to do what he saw as necessary only alienated him from people who genuinely cared about him. It wasn’t so much the societal obligation of family, his parents legitimately worried about him and his sister lost one of the people she was closest to for a myriad of unknowns. Some people criticized Krakauer for glamorizing this tale, and I can see where they’re coming from, but for me this wasn’t a glamorization. It was a caution to be passionate, but be intelligent in passions that can kill you. Even the most experienced of wilderness dwellers can run into situations of extreme danger, and they will need to rely on their in-depth knowledge to survive. I admire Christopher’s drive to be who he was. I just wish the world had gotten more of it. I gave this book 9/10 stars.

5. If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
If you don’t like Shakespeare, this is not the book for you. The characters quote it pretty much every page and it is a serious, dark tragedy being uncovered throughout the course of the story. It’s told in flashbacks, with present day scatterings throughout, and that format works well for this. A group of theater students at an exclusive college for the arts forms a tight bond. Their friendly rivalries become dangerous, however, in the last year. The opening night of their final performance, something horrible happens, and one of them is killed. Was it an accident? Self-defense? Malicious? Even flipping through it now to write this post, my throat is closing up on tears trying to escape for the sadness inside this book. One of my quotes for the year comes from within the pages, said by a character toward the end: “Nothing is so exhausting as anguish.” I loved these characters, and I was broken hearted by the time I finished this book. It was beautiful and I gave it 9/10 stars.

6. We Only Find Them When They’re Dead: Book One, the Seeker by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo
I love science fiction. Once I discovered how vast a genre it is, my entire world opened up. Reading, yes, but also writing-wise. It encompasses the biggest part of being human: curiosity. There is curiosity in most genres, but in science-fiction, there are literally no limits. You can go into space, you can dive to the deepest pits of the ocean, and you can give it all a name that only makes sense to you. What I don’t love about science-fiction is how people tend to send their characters into space and then have them get spicy on a spaceship. There are several other things I dislike about modern science-fiction, but that is for an entirely different blog post. What this book did for me was give me the delight of curiosity I’ve hungered for. Humanity’s only food source is the bodies of dead gods that appear throughout the universe. One captain decides to find out where the gods are before they appear. This trilogy of graphic novels is stunning, both in art and storytelling. The characters are diverse and multi-faceted. They bring humanity into space and do something with that instead of arguing solely about politics and who owns what. There is some political arguing, but that’s simply the nature of the genre. I loved this series, and this part of it was incredibly magical for me when I first read it. I gave it 10/10 stars.

7. All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
Have you ever put a book on your list to read only to let it fester because you know it’s going to take a lot of your energy to read it and you don’t want to give those emotions much space just yet? That was this book for a few years. It’s been on my to-be-read shelf for at least three years, and I finally decided to read it. It’s about two sisters, one a concert pianist with a determination to die, and the other a single mother trying to keep everyone around her alive. The book hits on themes and thoughts I personally have had, both sides of the disease of depression, and I think I knew reading this one would be hard for me. It’s freeing to see your own thoughts on the page written by someone else, but it’s also incredibly exposing and leaves one feeling vulnerable to everything horrible. I read this book hoping it wouldn’t end the way I expected it to. I won’t say whether it did or not, because I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say it is worth the difficulty of being seen. I gave this book 9/10 stars.

8. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Even typing the title, I’m trying not to cry. The moment I finished this book, I wanted to ask Henry if he’d read it. McCullers published this when she was 23-years-old and I have never read anything by anyone that young who understood what it is to be human so clearly and purely. I initially wanted to read this book based on a quote I read probably a decade ago, “the way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear.” I have it on an index card hanging on my wall right now, and it’s been on every wall in every place I’ve lived since I found the quote. It’s haunted me, and now that I have the context for it, I am not entirely shattered from it, but I am a different person in some ways. This is, without hesitation, one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life. It is about surviving life alone, surrounded by so many people. It’s about being a kid without understanding why the adults are so serious, until one day you do. It’s about wanting to be heard, but no one can fully know the depths of your knowledge because they don’t have the experience you do. It’s about trying to do right by children who grew away from everything you taught them. It’s about love, the purest kind, and it’s about longing. To be held, to be seen, to be. This book is a gift, and I will love it always. 10/10 stars.

And that is the list I have. This is a long post, and I probably could have broken it into parts, but that’s not how I feel like living life today. I have reading intentions for the year ahead. I wanted to read 5 non-fiction books this last year, and I did. I want to continue that and make it a tradition this new year. I want to finish The Fires of Heaven because I do want to read the whole Wheel of Time series, but this one is the least compelling of the ones I’ve read so far. Rand is so annoying. I’ll probably post some book reviews this coming year, and I will absolutely be returning to the blog more frequently.

If you made it this far, I hope you are doing well. If you are not, I hope you are able to find some peace, inner or external, either one I wish upon you. You were not born to this world to suffer. Thank you for being here, and thank you for taking time to read this list of books that made my 2024 a solid year.

Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake book review, Life

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

“You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You’ll care only about the darkness and you’ll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you’re some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay.”

Johnny Truant, October 31, 1998 (House of Leaves introduction, page xxiii)

I’m going to start out by saying this book is not for everyone and I don’t think it was meant to be. It’s meant for those who need it most. I was recommended it years and years ago by one of my very good friends, and I just never got around to finding it. It is a book that must be found. It is, without hesitation, my new favorite book of all time.

Let me explain.

House of Leaves is a story within a story within a story. It begins with an introduction by Johnny Truant, who finds this manuscript in the apartment of a dead man. He then becomes obsessed with the story of a family who moved into a house with bigger dimensions on the inside than were possible. But is it his obsession or is it the dead man’s? Zampano, the writer of the manuscript, has his own story, and through Johnny’s footnotes, we get a glimpse of what Zampano’s life was before he died. So, we have the story Zampano wrote–which by all appearances is an academic treatment of the mysterious film/photographer William Navidson–and we have Zampano’s story told to us in pieces by Johnny, and then we have Johnny’s story included in pages long footnotes at times.

The beauty of this book is you become part of the story. You are shoved into your own obsession with the Navidson brothers as they try to explain this house that cannot be explained. It’s a psychological horror of which I’ve never seen before, and it takes you on a circular journey of your own past as you work through the mysteries with Navidson. Not only that, you are given insight into a very tragic character in Johnny Truant. I think I felt a platonic love for him by the end of the book because of his story, all of which I cannot verify if it was real or not. And by that I mean within the confines of the story. Was he telling me the truth or was it drug addled nonsense? Either way, I wept for Johnny at several moments.

I would like to go further into the symbolism of the house, but I feel like that trudges into spoiler territory, so if you’d rather not have spoilers, please skip away from the page.

The house is a pleasant enough place at first, set up in the middle of nowhere, Maryland. Inside the house, the family consists of Will, known as Navy, Karen, and their two children. The children each have their own rooms, and then Will and Karen have their room, and as all beginnings are, this is a hopeful place. A place of renewal.

A hallway appears first, connecting the bedrooms upstairs, creating a void of light. And then the door arrives in the living room, the door on the outside wall. When the door is opened, another hallway is revealed, and throughout the course of the story, Navidson ends up exploring it with his brother and one of his friends.

To me, the entire book from Zampano, to Johnny, and even the Navidson crew, it’s not about the house. It’s about the ways we try to keep ourselves hidden from those we love most. Those who would know when something is wrong just by looking at us. It’s about knowing oneself so painfully well that every interaction with a new person will go nowhere because we know we aren’t going to meet their expectations.

It’s grief.

It’s encompassing fear of the unknown.

It’s love.

I feel like I’m not giving the words justice. I feel like I’m not explaining just how deep of an impact this book had on me. Saying it’s my new favorite book of all time feels dramatic, like I’m making bold claims after only having read it once, and it’s a book that almost requires multiple reads. It’s formatted like someone went after it with a hammer and super glue, bending pages to fit into whatever origami felt right at the moment. There are footnotes within footnotes. Some of the text is backwards. Some pages only have two words, some have one. Entire spaces are condensed into a haphazard mess of black Xs across red strikethrough.

It is chaos, just as the house is chaos.

And yet, it’s home.

*******I read the 2000 Random House full color remastered paperback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake book review, Life

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

Who am I? I asked myself this question immediately following the finishing of this book and I feel like if Foer knew that, he’d either be pleased or he’d find me pretentious. But I didn’t ask it out of anything other than a gut reaction to the book ending. Foer is able to wield emotion like a sword, but with enough subtlety that it hits you after you’ve gone by a few pages, and you have to pause and sit in the feeling for a moment before you can go forward. It took me a bit to get into this book. I honestly didn’t remember why I picked it up (it’s got a sticker from the bargain bin on the back, so that’s the most likely reason, and I know I like his writing style, so I solved my own mystery), and as I read about the marriage of Jacob and Julia, I questioned even more why I grabbed it. It was about a loveless marriage, but also a marriage full of too much love. The kind of love you think is stagnant, but is actually hiding behind hurt. Unspeakable only because to voice the hurt would make it known to those who haven’t hurt you, but those you love and you don’t want to show them your vulnerability.

That kind of love is my favorite. And as I was slowly absorbed into the unfolding of this marriage, the explosion of a worldwide crisis of possible war, the outlook on Jewish people by the rest of the world, it all settles together in such a way you forget you’re reading about something heartbreaking. I think love is the entire theme of the whole book. There’s familial, romantic, platonic–it’s all in there. It’s the love that hurts, but the impermanence of pain is what draws me to it. It’s the understanding that while what I feel might be in the realm of anguish, it is not forever and I will be okay.

I told a friend of mine about some of this, my reaction to the book. But it was 3 a.m. and I’d had to read a brain numbing romance novel to get my head to calm down (seriously, all those people need to do is talk to each other. The lack of common sense and communication in those books is astonishing, but then I realize it’s real life in a way we aren’t ready to admit to, which I also know sounds like the opposite of calming my brain down). A sense of yearning took over, and I was filled with wanting. To be enough, to be wanted. And the part that makes my heart break is I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to accept that I am already good enough. I am wanted. Just as I am. It causes an ache in my ribs. When I breathe. I inhale, almost like when I run, and the life that fills me also takes my breath away.

The last time I wrote in my physical journal, I started a list of resolutions and I will expand on it offline. I know you might be wondering why this has anything to do with the book of this post, but I’ll get there. A person I follow on YouTube was talking in a recent video about how she calls resolutions her “intentions.” What does she intend for herself? The start of a new year, the reset, the fresh feeling. Some part of me that lingers in my self-hate is disgusted by the positivity of it.

But I think about a sunrise. A sunrise after walking all night, being so stuck in my head, unable to fully see even though all I’ve been doing is looking.

The sky lightens, letting the earth know what’s coming, but it’s that first burst of bright. That explosion of color that scars the sky and yet whispers hello.

My hope lives there. In that moment, that crack of a new day. Flash in the pan, almost. It holds me, though. Gives me enough courage to approach life one day at a time until a year passes and I am no longer witnessing the sunrise, I am the sunrise.

That’s who I am. I am hope, burning across the morning dimness with a gasp of colors. I am not ending. I am beginning and I am afraid. Afraid of understanding. Afraid of seeing. Not of failure, because I’m not failing.

I am becoming.

And that’s what this book did for me. I don’t know that I would say Foer is my favorite author, but he writes in a way that helps the world make sense as I see it. While I’m not a middle-aged Jewish man, or his wife, or their three sons, I have felt at times what they have, and seeing emotions I know so well, written in a way that feels like I’ve been flayed while saying thank you is something I don’t know I’d get from anyone else.

I give this book an 8.5/10

*******I read the 2016 Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake Life, writing

Small Update

Hey!

I published my first book. It’s out there in the world now, and that’s why I’ve been gone for so long. It went live on Amazon back on May 31st, and I kind of forgot this blog existed until a few days ago.

I probably should share a link to it, so I’ll do that at the bottom of this post. It’s available in paperback or on Kindle. There are some minor errors in the printing, but you know what? I care, but not that much. The story doesn’t suffer from those small errors, and there aren’t any glaring spelling issues so I’m leaving it as it is. I’m not intending to make it big, just wanted to tell a story I love.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. I’m currently working on the second book, The Keeper of Time and that has been smooth sailing (which is difficult for me to accept sometimes because it technically took me about fifteen years to write Fulcrum).

I hope you are well! Thank you for sticking with me. I think I’ll attempt to make more of an effort at updating this blog from now on, but please do forgive me if I go on a hiatus for no reason other than I forget.

If you’d like to read the prologue of Fulcrum and the first bit of the first chapter, it’s available as a “look inside” feature on Amazon. You can find all of that here:https://www.amazon.com/Fulcrum-C-D-Kleeberg/dp/B0B2TBJC56/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2DO6GGUROXZFD&keywords=fulcrum+cd+kleeberg&qid=1658454699&sprefix=fulcrum+cd+kleeberg%2Caps%2C324&sr=8-1

One day I’ll figure out how to make those links look like nice text instead of gibberish, but it is not this day.

Salisbury.Fake book review

January Book Dump

Okay, listen, I know I’m behind. I know, I know. I’ve decided to do a quick “hey, here’s what I read, maybe you’ll like it, too” post because while I could go through and review each of these individually, some of them are too short for a full post, and the others I don’t want to ramble as I’m wont to do.

Kicking things off here we have two books I received in a book subscription box probably almost five years ago and I started them but never finished them. So, I told myself not to let them sit unread on the shelf any longer, and wouldn’t you know it? In one, I only had ten pages left of it to read. Good job, past me. Fantastic work. Livin’ that dream.

Blue Fox by Sjon

This book follows a hunter on his trek to take down an elusive fox. The air is absolutely frigid, and the sun is harsh. It’s a stark, desolate sounding landscape, and yet there is life within. Sjon creates an atmosphere so well, one can almost see their breath while reading this book. It may sound trite and pretentious, but I thoroughly enjoyed the hubris of it all. A quick read if you don’t take five years to finish it.
******I read the 2008 Farrar, Straus, and Giroux paperback edition******

Gutshot by Amelia Gray

Another quick read, this is full of short stories, almost flash pieces (some are definitely not flash). When I first started reading it, I was enthralled by it. When I finished it, I was disturbed. This is not to say the writing is bad. It’s very unique and has a way of sticking into your brain after finishing one of the pieces. I felt like I’d witnessed something I probably shouldn’t have, and kept walking, left to ponder the choices I’ve made in my life to this point.
*******I read the 2015 Farrar, Straus, and Giroux paperback edition*******

So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood by Patrick Modiano

I found this book on a trip I took with my stepmom and I picked it up because the title was so intriguing. It’s translated from French, and sometimes I worry that the translations can miss the nuances of the original language (I’m lookin’ at you, Witcher books). What can be lyrical and absolutely beautiful in one language can sometimes be stilted and jarring in another. That is not the case for this book. I’m going to say it’s very French, something I have only my preconceived notions about what is “French” to back me up on, but it’s charming, somewhat dark, and left me wondering if I solved the mystery or if I just needed to enjoy the ride. It follows the story of a man trying to figure out a distant memory from his childhood, brought about by a mysterious man who shows up with a folder and a name. The name brings him back to memories he’d tucked away for later, maybe never again. It sets him on a small trail of wonder and intrigue. It’s a lovely told story. The ending is kind of unclear, but I also finished it when I was really tired, so that is probably on me.
*******I read the 2015 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardback edition*******

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

This book left me for dead. I know that sounds really dramatic and kind of problematic, but the amount of weeping I did after reading this is almost embarrassing. It is beautiful. It isn’t for everyone, but if you are ready for a look at sexuality, race, immigration, prejudice, a whole slew of things, please read this. So many moments in this are heart wrenching, but there is always this underlying hope. A potential for it to end well. It is stunning.

Written as a letter to the speaker’s mother, the young man tells the story of love and loss in such a way that leaves you breathless. It asks why, hypothesizes the answers, but then never fully commits to one, letting you work on it for yourself.
*******I read the 2021 Penguin paperback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake Life, Weekly Update

33

If I appear to have lost my zeal for posting on here, I haven’t. I’ve decided to approach this blog as more a tool for myself and less a desire for validation from strangers on the internet. It’s always been for me anyway, but to those of you who’ve been reading my nonsense, thank you. I do appreciate you being here. Cliche as it may be, it’s nice to know someone out there sees the things I say.

So that brings us to today. Today is my birthday. I turn 33. Holy frickin’ cow, dudes. It always catches me off guard and it always hits me in the face at the same time. Never one to appreciate attention on myself (which is where my need for validation on the internet becomes an internal eternal struggle), I’ve never been a fan of my birthday. I’d much rather spend it doing things with others and helping them. So I took some vacation time, hahaha. I am a firm believer in the idea that no one should work on their birthday. I realize that comes from a place of privilege and I wish it didn’t.

Every month in my bullet journal, I pick a quote to kind of guide my thoughts, and this month I chose something out of one of my very favorite books, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

“If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere . . .’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?”

I chose this quote because while the obvious reminder is that the little things matter and what’s important for someone else may not necessarily be important to you, it’s more a reminder of going back to the things that matter. I love this book enthusiastically. It’s a classic, and it’s such a lovely little tale about learning the way the world is, and it reminds me to think about what truly makes a difference in my life.

So, what’s been different this past year? I think the thing that startles me the most is the change in fitness. I began running, something I talked more about last blog post, and I stopped eating so much and I lost about 40 pounds. I’m not to my goal yet, but hey. I lost 40 pounds. It’s easier for me to keep up with Caboose, and it’s easier to jog after a piece of paper I dropped in the parking lot. I have a new way of controlling my thoughts, which is probably the most important thing about running for me. I’ve set a goal with one of my best friends to run a 5k next year. For the fall, though, because running in summer sounds like a fresh hell, or maybe a hot hell. Either way, a pass for me. But last year I wouldn’t have even considered such a thing. I would have thought it impossible.

Finding balance has been tough. Finding a way to shut out the bastard that lives in my brain and coax the small child forward who wants to be everything and anything is difficult as all get out. I hear a lot that I’m strong, and while I appreciate that, I don’t think people really know how exhausting that is. Mentally, I’ve not been well. The month leading up to my birthday is one of the hardest of the year for me because quite honestly, I’m always surprised I’m here. Kind of a “well shit, now what?” moment. And every year, I remember “oh yeah, keep breathing.”

I was going to go camping this year, but I decided not to because the idea of the effort took so much energy. Just the thought of it. I’m still going to go to my favorite park and hike, because that’s the thing I look forward to the most every year. The picture for this post is from a few years ago, but it’s the only one that I like of myself. It reminds me that I’m insignificant in the best way. That the world is so, so vast and I am so, so small in it, but that doesn’t negate my importance. I am necessary. I am a vital part of the system I created around myself, and I did that without even knowing I had.

So, the point of this post really is to just mark another notch on the bedpost of life. I survived another round, and I’ll survive until the next one, the sun willing. But it’s going to be more than survival. It’s going to be living. It is such a cliche to say there’s a difference between survival and living, and while yes, I know, it’s obvious, it is another thing entirely to fully realize that.

Paint your sunset. Read that book you’ve read fourteen times before and it still makes you weep at the end. Watch the entire season of a bad show in one day. Smile at babies. Give flowers to your mom, or your dad! I’m sure he’d like it. Tell someone you haven’t spoken to for years that you remember something specific about them. The world is so full of life and you have the right to have it.

Let yourself have it.

Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake book review

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

Everyone Brave is Forgiven grabbed me by the title and I pulled it from the shelf without much other thought. From the cover, it looked like it was going to be about London during WWII, and I was correct, but I still put it on my to-read shelf and forgot about it. I don’t know if I’ve ever said so on here, but WWII is one of my favorite times to read about, fiction or not, and so I tend to gravitate toward those stories. So many of them are similar, and yet all of them are different. I find sometimes they can be a bit predictable, and while at times this book was to me, I still enjoyed what I read.

What I liked about this book the most was the main female character, Mary. She comes from an upper middle class family (fairly more well-to-do than a lot of people), and when mobilization begins, she decides to join up in the form of becoming a spy. Well, they don’t need her to be a spy, but they do send her to a school to be a teacher. She has no experience in this field, but she takes to it easily, loving the children instantly. She becomes a teacher right before the evacuations took place and children were sent to the countryside of England.

Mary befriends a black boy, Zachary, and she promises to write to him while he’s away. Racism is a theme in this book, and while Mary sees nothing wrong with being friends with Zachary (he’s a small child), her family and friends tell her she’s being impertinent and socially incorrect. There’s quite a bit of language used that made me uncomfortable, and I know it’s “how they talked at the time,” but it still gave me some pause as I read it.

Zachary is abused by the people in the country, and eventually he’s brought back to London where he goes back to school with Mary as his teacher. Mary has a unique talent for getting what she wants, and when her class is evacuated, the first thing she does is go to the man in charge of her district and asks for another class. He tells her there isn’t anyone to teach, but she points out those who were left behind for “difficult circumstances.” Sometimes Mary’s privilege shows when she can’t understand why certain things are done the way they are, but by the end of the story, she’s learned. Mary is vibrant, sarcastic, and determined. Her enthusiasm for doing what she believes to be right is never quite squashed by the bombs dropped on her city.

There is heartbreak and absolute tragedy throughout the story. Depictions of violence and some graphic details of war wounds and building devastation. It all adds up to a well told story that by the end of we are possibly just as tired as the characters. The few moments where I was dragged out of the story because of my stretch for belief were few, and hardly significant past the moments they were.

I give this book an 8/10.

*******I read the 2016 Simon and Schuster hardback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake book review, Life

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Technically I haven’t finished reading this, but I reached the appendix and the notes, so I’m going to discuss my thoughts on this book today. When I picked this up, it was kind of on a whim. The title caught my eye at the store, and the yellow grabbed me, too. I’ve been struggling with personal habits lately, so I thought this would be an interesting perspective to read through. I was right. This book is incredibly readable. Typically when I grab non-fiction, I struggle to read it because it’s very factual and very thoroughly researched (hopefully, anyway). That’s not to say this isn’t well researched or full of facts, because it is that, but Duhigg approaches it from a reader perspective. Something I feel non-fiction writers tend to forget is how to appeal to readers of all genres and types. They get caught up in the truth they’re telling and the presentation is much like a lecture hall PowerPoint by someone at the end of their career and they’re waiting for retirement.

This is not the case for Duhigg. He starts with a story of a man with short term memory loss who can’t tell you where he lives, but he can go on a walk at 2 pm every day and still end up at home without knowing why. There are several intriguing studies presented throughout the book that made me realize I know very little about my own brain. He goes through how Febreeze became a household name, and how stores can predict your buying habits by going through your purchases when you scan your rewards cards. Something stores may not want put in the public eye, but while that’s creepy, it’s also incredibly fascinating.

The first part of the book focuses on individual habits, why we do what we do (which is the sub-title of the book). We create what’s called a “habit loop,” which consists of three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward. As we receive the same cue, then follow the same routine, and expect the same reward, a habit is formed. This is true for negative habits, too, which makes sense because even though we don’t typically think of the negative outcomes as rewards, they become ingrained as part of the routine, so we follow them. Sometimes unwittingly.

I’m not saying this book has changed my life completely, because I still have habits I consider unhelpful to the person I want to be, but it’s certainly opened my mind to a new realm of understanding. One of the key factors in habit change is belief. Duhigg uses the coaching style of Tony Dungy to approach the topic of belief and he talks about how no matter what Dungy did, the teams would revert back to their old habits in times of stress simply because their belief in the new ways faltered. This is honestly the stage of change I struggle with the most.

This last year I’ve been trying to revamp my thought processes–before I read this book, even more so now–and the process has been almost excruciating. I’ve spent almost 2 decades hating myself, and trying to switch gears and think differently feels like an impossible thing. But that’s the thing about it all. It isn’t impossible because I’m doing it in small ways here and there. I’ve talked about how my depression manifests itself as dishes to wash and laundry I move from hamper to mattress back to hamper. Well it still does, but not as badly. My dishes are never more than a few days left unwashed, and I fold my laundry within a day of doing it. I don’t know specifically what changed my brain to do this, but somehow I’ve convinced my depressive side that this is unacceptable and there needs to be something different we do when I get caught up in my head for too long.

I think this book is worth a read if you’re interested in habits, but I don’t think it’s a book everyone should read. Some people are living their best lives and have no need to go this far into their own heads. I give this book an 8/10.

********I read the 2014 Randomhouse Trade Paperback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake book review

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, edited by John Joseph Adams

Hey. How’s it going? Doin’ all right? Weather’s getting nicer. Finally. Today we’re talking about a collection of stories I picked up as research for some of my own work, and eventually just read it for enjoyment. Everyone has an apocalypse theory. A reason for why the world will end. Plague, natural disaster, humanity eating itself. Endless possibilities. It’s difficult to write a review for a collection of stories as a whole book, so I’m going to give my thoughts on the ones that stood out to me. The big draws for this book are obviously Stephen King and George R. R. Martin, but only one of those big names had a story that stood out to me. So, let’s get in to it.

There are 22 stories in this collection, and I’m going to touch briefly on eight of them. These are the ones that I’d consider the better of the tales being told, but that’s not to say the others don’t have their merit. My preferences tend to be on the more emotional side, the more “hit in the feels” kind of storytelling. That said, the opener for this was Stephen King’s, and I felt nothing for it. He’s not someone I actively seek out to read, and that’s not me trying to say he’s a bad author. He has a massive fanbase, and my opinion is more like a bloop in the ocean. My first choice of story that stood out, hah, is:

Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels by George R. R. Martin
This story centers on Greel. Greel is a man. He’s what’s left of humanity on Earth after the apocalypse forced most others off the planet. But the others have come back. What happens is a misunderstanding of the new life on a radiation ravaged planet, where life began anew underground. It feels almost like a commentary on the differences between cultures being mistaken for aggression, and instead of waiting to figure out a compromise or a way to communicate, it escalates to fatal proportions. It does have an expected feel to it, where as reading it becomes fairly obvious what’s going to happen, but I still found myself thinking about it after I’d finished. One of the things I like about Martin’s style is his descriptions. He’s very good at showing exactly what he wants you to see. I give this story an 8/10.

Waiting for the Zephyr by Tobias S Buckell
Mara is the girl who knows there’s more to life than her small town offers, and this story is all about that hope. One of the shorter stories in the collection, that doesn’t take away from the power of that hope. This story deals with expectations of small town life (I say small town, but really it’s more like a spot of life in a desert), and the ambitions of someone not willing to be tied to that life. It’s written well, and Mara is memorable. I give this story a 9/10.

Never Despair by Jack McDevitt
Another short piece of the collection, this is almost on the same level of optimism as “Waiting for the Zephyr.” It follows Chaka as she goes in search of answers. The world’s ended, obviously, and she wants to find out more, to understand what happened to those who’d gone before. Chaka talks to a projection of Winston Churchill, and they have such a charming conversation. That may sound sarcastic, but I don’t mean it to be. It’s really almost like a granddaughter telling her grandfather about her day at school. It’s in this story that my favorite quote of the book can be found: “The turnings of history are never directed by crowds,” he said. “Nor by the cautious. Always, it is the lone captain who sets the course.” I give this story an 8/10.

Artie’s Angels by Catherine Wells
This is the first one that kind of made me sit back and contemplate life for a while. It’s about a rough neighborhood and turf wars (that’s my very basic level description, it’s more than that), and a hero trying to live out a dream. It’s got the desperation for something more than what the world is offering, the frustration at never being enough for that success, and just so much more to it. By the end, I wanted to spend time with the people who matter to me. To ease the loss of something that wasn’t real in the first place. I give this story a 9/10.

Inertia by Nancy Kress
Holy balls, this one knocked me backward. It was a bit predictable in some places, but by the end of it, I was ready to go to war and fight battles for people that didn’t exist. It’s the story of an old woman in a neighborhood cordoned off for being a colony of diseased people at the end of the world. There’s lots of talk of “before,” and there’s lots of talk of how to make life better for everyone inside the colony. The best line from this story is, “She cannot change the world. It’s too old, too entrenched, too vicious, too there. She will fail. There is no force stronger than destructive inertia.” I give this one an 8/10.

Speech Sounds by Octavia E Butler
I feel like when Adams was putting this collection together, he saved the best stories for last, because this one is almost perfect. It takes a look at the scenario almost like the Tower of Babel from the Bible, where language fails at the end of the world, so no one knows how to speak properly or really communicate well. Grunts and hand gestures mean different things to different people. There’s no real way to say what is meant. Except for the main character, Rye. She can speak, which is a rare thing and seen as dangerous. It’s something she keeps to herself. The story would be perfect if there weren’t a lag in the later quarter of it. I give this story a 9/10.

The End of the World As We Know It by Dale Bailey
This story is almost meta in the way it calls itself out for being a story about the end of the world. It approaches the topic from the point of view of a lone survivor of some mysterious thing that’s caused everyone to die. He roams the leftover world to find something of a purpose, and it’s just pure desolation. I like this one because it gives a bit of a different perspective on apocalypse stories while still being cliche at places. I give this one a 7/10.

A Song Before Sunset by David Grigg
In the whole collection, no story ever made me close the book and set it aside because of the despair the apocalypse usually brings. Until this one. I would have cried if I’d let myself think about it too much. It follows Parnell, a man who lives by himself in a rundown city. It’s rough, as these stories are, but for Parnell, he tries to hold onto the beautiful things. The books, the art, the music–all past things now essentially obsolete because no one has a need for beauty in a broken, dead world. Parnell finds a way to get into a concert hall where a grand piano is waiting on the stage for him. He used to be a pianist. He trades with a kind of “general store” merchant, the Tumbledown Woman, for tools to repair this piano. And he plays it. There is a huge undercurrent of “what do we do with the beautiful things when the world ends?” running through this, and it is an excellent question. Because there will always be reason to hold on to the beauty, the bits of the past that aren’t useless, not entirely. But there will also be a need for necessity. It becomes a delicate balance of what is needed for survival and what is not. Practicality over frivolity. This story felt the most apocalyptic to me. I give this one a 10/10.

Episode Seven: The Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers by John Langan
The last story in this collection was one of the more interesting stylistically. I’ve never read work by most of the people in this, but I was not prepared for this one. Written entirely in one sentence over the course of forty pages, I was ready to hate this. Episode Seven is about a woman and her best friend running away from a pack of hyenas (maybe hyenas? I don’t think it was fully said they were hyenas, but they were animals like hyenas). These animals are smart and tracking them through all kinds of terrain, and all kinds of metropolitan destruction. There’s an added level of fear for her because she’s also pregnant and nearing the end of her pregnancy. Her best friend, Wayne, somehow knows all the things he has to do in order to help them survive in the busted up world. But there’s something not quite right about him. Something has been off the entire time, but she’s been unable to figure it out. I loved the ending of this story, and by the time I’d reached it, I hadn’t paid too much attention to the punctuation situation. This was a fun thrill ride of a final story, and I think it gets an 8/10.

*******I read the 2015 Titan Books paperback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake book review

Arc of a Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Y’all. When I sat myself down to write a blog post for this week, I was not expecting to do another book review so soon, but I need to be an absolute mess about this series. I love Neal Shusterman. 10000000% his storytelling is one of my favorites out there, and this series, hoo buddy. I haven’t enjoyed a series so much since Lord of the Rings (to be fair to the other series out there, I only read it in its entirety probably three or four years ago, so in reality, I’ve read quite a few other series before Lord of the Rings). Anyone who knows me knows that is a ridiculous amount of love, and I to this day annoy my brother with Boromir dying memes. Never forget the ones you love.

Anyway. Yes. The Arc of a Scythe Series. I was recommended this by someone who’s reading opinions I trust, and she did not let me down in the slightest. I want to go on such a ramble about this set of books, but I won’t because I don’t want to spoil it for those who want to read it. As far as modern fiction goes, I am not well informed. I have my collection of books to read and I don’t really deviate much from them. I’ll add classics and sometimes WWII non-fiction and fiction to my shelves, but very rarely do I branch out and get taken in by more recent leaps into the world of reading. I see all kinds of fervor over the Court of Rose and Something Something series on Instagram, but that’s not my cup of coffeecake. I like action driven, over the top dramatic sometimes, and at the end a very emotionally draining book.

This series has everything in it I love about reading. I read the first one, Scythe, back in January and I had to wait until I had my tax refund to get the second and third one. I read them both over the last three days. They’re not small books. They’re hefty enough that they’d hurt if you had one thrown at you. I regret nothing because I haven’t been so happy with a book in so long and I tell you what I need to ramble.

I went into this thinking I knew what was coming and I am very, very happy to say I was incorrect. What I expected happened in maybe two places, but everywhere else, I was not prepared. The level of intrigue, the level of depravity, it is so far beyond a standard YA fiction to me. And maybe I’m not as up on YA fiction as I could be, but one of the things I was concerned about (and my brother said this, too) was how young the protagonists are. The first book centers around Citra and Roman, two teenagers plucked from their lives to begin training with the ever mysterious group of people called Scythes. See, in this future world, no one dies. The omnipresent being called the Thunderhead has eradicated disease and misery in most forms. People are ageless, and so in order to maintain some semblance of balance (or population control as it’s referred to a few times), the Scythes were created. They are the ones who choose who dies, and they’re beholden to their own set of laws or commandments. The Thunderhead controls the general population, but it cannot have any bearing whatsoever on the world of Scythes. They govern themselves. People are either fearful or indifferent to the Scythes. Most go about their lives not really caring about death until they see a Scythe, and then it all gets real. To be selected for an apprenticeship is no light thing. Once one is chosen to become a harbinger of death, normal life is upended. Family no longer knows how to treat you. People bend over backwards to accommodate a Scythe, often giving them free access to things since they don’t make any money doing what they do. And while people die frequently (there are people who die for fun just to be revived at a revival center. The morbidity of this whole idea of death is so deep it’s mind blowing), no one stays dead. Unless a Scythe gleans a person selected for death, that person is dead. They can’t be taken to a revival center and be brought back from “deadish.” I’d go into more detail, but I really want people to read these books, so I’m going to leave it there.

The first book sets the scene so dang perfectly for the following books. While the two main protagonists are indeed teenagers, they are not left to fend for themselves, and often are in the presence of their mentors, or other fully instated Scythes. Of course, there are a few “save the world” challenges they face, but in the end, the teens work with the adults to accomplish what they must. They’re less burdened with the pressure and it’s kind of spread across the few good people remaining. There’s the standard bad guy who corrupts the meaning of good to fit his narrative, there are religious zealots who cause unmentionable suffering. There’s moments of levity and love. It’s intense in its drive to find the truth in all things, and when the secrets are finally revealed, I admit I held the book high as I screamed in delight.

I will probably read this again at some point, because it’s that good to me, but I will lament I can’t read it for the first time again. It’s a series I will recommend highly to anyone who enjoys reading.

I give all three of these books, individually and together, a 10/10. I’d go higher if I could.

*******I read the 2017, 2019, and 2020 Simon and Schuster Paperback editions*******