The Witch of Lime Street by David Jaher

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Genre: nonfiction biography
Secondary genre: history, spiritualism
Format read: audiobook
Rating: planchet-3

In the wake of WWI, The Scientific American magazine announces a contest: $5000 to any medium who can prove before a panel of investigators that their powers were real.

And among those investigating was the master of sleight-of-hand himself, Harry Houdini.

After years of failure, one promising medium finally piqued the panel’s interest: Mina Crandon. Unlike most of the other psychics the SA had tried, Mina was not some stage performer hard up for cash. She was a society wife who performed seances for her friends. In fact, for the purposes of the investigation, Mina went by her middle name, Marjory, to protect herself in the articles the Scientific American published after her seances. Her “spirit guide” was her deceased brother, a sarcastic and ribald man who had died some years before. In her private seances, Walter told his friends secrets, made off-color jokes, whistled, played with a photograph and a selection of musical instruments, and played practical jokes on the sitters.

From the first, Houdini declared Mina was a fraud. While he repeatedly mimicked her act, he never made the attempt to catch her red-handed, as he did with all the other so-called mediums he examined.

The book chronicles roughly a decade of investigation into the phenomenon surrounding Mina. Though Houdini continued to declare her a fraud and mock her outright on stage, she only ever voiced the utmost respect for him.

I think Mina was a classy lady who pissed off a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. Some of it was straight up sexism. Some of it was prejudice against her vocation. But whether you think she’s an actress or really had conversations with the dead, there’s no denying she drew the short end of the stick after the investigation.

I do think the book was misleading, however. From the title, one would think it was about Mina, but about 2/3 of the book is dedicated to Harry Houdini, from his upbringing to his death, while Mina seems to arrive fully formed on the scene around the time the Scientific American prize is announced. Whether this is due to a lack of sources regarding Mina’s earlier life (it’s implied that she had a shady past) or the author’s choice is unclear, but the sexism that ultimately spelled her downfall in society can be felt in the author’s recounting of her story. It’s not overt, and in fact many will probably disagree with me on this point, but it was in the way the author spoke about her, and the quotes form those nearest to her. She was improper for a woman, and therefore could not be trusted or respected.

Have you read this one? Do you disagree?

$2.00 a Day by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer

Posted on by KnotMagick Studios

Genre: nonfiction
Secondary genre: sociology
Format read: audiobook
Rep: POC, disability, extreme poverty
Rating: planchet-4

This book takes a deep look at extreme poverty in the US. People so poor that on average, each member of the household lives on only $2.00/day. If you’re doing the math, that means only about $62 a month, or less. 

It was absolutely heartbreaking to read, and it hit so close to home. There have been many times in my life where I have been on the brink of eviction. When I haven’t been sure what I’ll eat for my next meal. When I’ve had to choose between feeding myself or my cat, or paying water or electric. 

And yet none of that can touch what some of these people have to do to survive. The book highlights the way prejudice forces people down, and the way that one small setback–like a cold–can send everything else spiraling downward, and the enormous gaps in the social support network. The gaps between WIC and food stamps, between healthcare and discount prescriptions, between homeless shelters and employment. 

Though it was a very stressful read and I had to break it up with other things for the sake of my mental health, I do highly recommend it, particularly for those who come from privileged backgrounds. If you think poor people “just need to try harder” or “aren’t working enough” or that they are all “welfare queens” then shut up, sit down, and read this book. 

The Book of Blood by H.P. Newquest

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Genre: nonfiction
Secondary genre: science/biology
Format read: ebook
Rating: planchet

Read the blurb, Sophie. 

Seriously, this is another case of me checking out a book based on the cover and title, and not paying any attention to the actual content of the book. 

In my defense, the subtitle mentions Dracula and DNA, so I thought it was going to be very different. Instead, what I got was an 8th grade level biology book. 

That being said, if you maybe missed the unit on genetics, or just want to brush up on some basic bio, this would be a good book to pick up. It’s quite short (the audiobook is only 2 hrs) and explores breakthroughs from around the world regarding blood, biology, and genetics. 

However…it is highly simplified for the target audience, to the point that some of the more complex subjects aren’t explained correctly. It was published in 2012, so some of the information may have changed in the last 7+ years. 

And one bit of a spoiler alert: While the cover does mention Dracula, he’s barely a footnote in the book. The chapter on “vampires” focuses on blood consuming animals, such as mosquitoes, bed bugs, and vampire bats. 

All it all, I found it to be a let down, but for someone coming at it from another angle with no background in biology, it might be a good basic primer to pick up.

Real Ghost Stories by Brad Steiger

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Genre: nonfiction
Secondary genre: paranormal
Format read: hard copy
Rating: planchet-3

This is a hard book to rate, because it has literally hundreds of stories in it, and some of them are better than others.

Some of them are traditional ghost stories. Others are personal experiences gained through interviews, newspapers, or the internet. Most of them are from the US, but there are stories from England, Germany, Australia, and other parts of the world as well.

My favorite section was the one on death bed apparitions and moment of death appearances. The chapter on possessions freaked me out and I skipped the one on “ghosts from outer space” entirely because few things freak me out more than aliens.

The two things I disliked the most were the author’s penchant for defending pseudo science, and the photos sprinkled through the book, most of which had absolutely no connection to the stories they were inserted in. I wish the stories had been presented without the author trying to justify them. I wish the photos that didn’t have stories were just in their own section, as some of them were pretty freaky and could sneak up on me when I was reading, like the bookish version of a jumpscare (which I hate).

It was a very interesting read, however, so if you are looking for a good ghost story or twelve (or a thousand) you might try to track this one down.

Witches of America by Alex Mar

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Genre: nonfiction
Secondary genre: sociology, religion
Format read: audiobook
Rep: WOC, Paganism, Wicca
Rating: planchet-3

It was supposed to be a simple research question, which became a short documentary, and then a full-on book: Are there still witches in America?

The short answer is yes.

Alex Mar, a New York City journalist, started her journey with a group of Faerie practitioners in California as a  simple observer, watching as a group of women called down the moon, cast blessings, and prayed to an unfamiliar goddess. Alex herself, of mixed Greek and Hispanic background, raised Catholic, had a professional curiosity and nothing more.

But as the documentary came to an end, her connections in the world of wicca and neo-paganism only grew and strengthened. This book documents her slow descent from high-brown journalist to supplicant as she begins not merely observing, but practicing, searching high and low for her personal path to divinity.

As a lapsed pagan myself, there were some parts of her observations that made me uncomfortable, but by and large her observations were treated with sensitivity. My one complaint was that most of the traditions she examined in this book were sex-centric, which certainly does not provide a good cross section of the pagan community. However, I did like that her explorations took her all over and she did try to keep it well balanced.

I did find the narrative to be somewhat meandering, with no real overall structure aside from Mar’s personal journey, which doesn’t become apparent until much later in the book. I wouldn’t recommend it as a book for someone who wants to learn more about paganism specifically, but perhaps if you have an interest in subcultures in general it would be a good read.

Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini

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Genre: fantasy
Format read: audiobook
Content warnings: Abelism, poor rep for Native American, POC, and LGBT+ communities, misogony
Rep: Chronic illness
Series: Worldwalker vol 1
Rating: planchet-3

Lily is allergic to everything. At any given moment, she could break out in hives, throw up, pass out, or even have a seizure because of them. It’s so bad that it’s unclear if she’ll be able to graduate high school, as more and more of her time is spent in sterile hospitals going through round after round of useless tests and experimental treatments. But despite all of it, no one can figure out what is wrong with her or why her health continues to deteriorate.

With an ever shrinking circle of friends, an unstable family situation, and no future in front of of her, it’s somewhat understandable for a fight with her best-friend-turned-boyfriend to feel like the end of the world, to feel like she has nothing worth living for.

Until a tiny voice asks if she wants a way out–a way to another world.

And the voice is coming from inside her head.

In a flash Lily finds herself transported to an alternate reality, a parallel universe where the witches at Salem didn’t burn–they took over.

Now America–which isn’t even a country–has been abandoned by Europe. White settlers live in thirteen walled cities run by witches who use magic to provide transportation, food, medicine, and everything the people need.

Outside the walls, is chaos.

Wild beasts–magically bred–rule the forests. The only people brave enough to live outside the walls are those who can’t gain citizenship: the Outland peoples who have banded together to fight off the monsters and the witches alike. Originally made up of native tribes, the Outlanders have “adopted” anyone who has been exiled for fled from the cities.

Salem, the largest and most fear city, is ruled by Lilian, the most powerful witch in the thirteen cities, who runs things with an iron fist. But here’s the crazy part–Lilian and Lily are two flavors of the same person.

When she realizes her doppelganger has instigated murder and torture in the name of “purity” Lily makes a run for her life. Captured by Outlanders, it takes time to explain that not only is the not the evil queen, but she’s not even supposed to be in this universe. But there’s more; the resemblance between Lily and Lilian isn’t only skin deep. Lily also develops magical powers. According to Rowan, the handsome man training her, her constant fever and “allergies” are her body trying to channel the energy around her into magic, and failing due to lack of training.

Lilian put a price on their heads. If Lily wants to get home, she will have to help Rowan and the other Outlanders defeat Lilian in all-out war. And it still remains unclear why Lilian brought her otherworldly twin to this universe to begin with.

As you might have gathered from the summary, this book has a lot of aspects that are downright problematic, from the repeated use of “painted savages” for Outlanders, to the ableism in Lily’s illness being turned into an expression of her magic. While I can’t speak with authority on the latter, I have heard the majority of disabled people dislike it when their disability is used in this way, though I’ve also heard of some who find it empowering. It depends on how they identify with their particular illness or disability. Personally, having read similar takes on chronic illness and mental illness, it makes me uncomfortable.

This book made me so angry because despite the many problematic elements, I wanted to keep reading. I really enjoyed the story and the drama. At this point, I can’t say if the problematic bits are meant to be social commentary to point out problems in our society by driving them to an extreme, or if they are actually as problematic and socially blind as they appear.

I may need to read the second book to find out.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

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Genre: YA Contemporary (Well, historical, now. 1990s)
Format read: audiobook
Content Warnings: mental illness/depression, mentions of abuse, rape, suicide and drug use.
Rep: LGBT, mental health
Rating: planchet-3

When we talk about mental health rep in YA, up until just a few years ago The Perks of Being a Wallflower was held up–is still often held up–as the best or only example.

Thankfully, we have more options now.

Charlie is starting high school. And through a strange set of circumstances that are never really explained, he decides it’s a good idea to start writing letters to someone who doesn’t know him, telling them his deepest, darkest feelings. 🤨

A few days into the school year, this shy, quiet kid makes friends with a group of seniors, and is drawn into a much more mature world than he expected. This is perhaps best illustrated when he reads a poem to all of his friends. It’s very obviously a suicide note, but the subtext goes completely over Charlie’s head, leading to several moments of very awkward silence in the middle of a party.

It’s hard for me to describe a plot for this book, because it feels more like a series of smaller stories that are interlinked; a slice-of-life book about a 15 year old boy.

The thing about this book is that the one theme running through it all is that all of the kids are abused in some way–emotional, physical, psychological. Which is important to show, but I would have like to see one person with normal, healthy relationships.

Which is another thing–Charlie’s relationships with his friends struck me as very odd. He’s often a passenger, rather than an active participant, though he does mention in his letters he’s trying to fix that. But it still felt like the power balance between him and his two best friends and his eventual girlfriend is way off.

The book put me in mind of My So-Called Life, which makes sense as it deals with a lot of similar issues in the same time period. It also made me think of The Beginning of Everything by Robin Schneider.

I think, more than anything, this book highlighted how much things have changed in the last *mumble mumble* years. At the time this book came out, I wasn’t even in elementary school yet, but so many things that were normal and acceptable back then are no longer viewed that way, like the toxic masculinity surrounding Charlie at home, and the behaviors some of the characters exhibit.

I still have divided feelings about this book, so it’s hard to give it a proper rating, or even to decide if I should recommend it. I think there are a lot of important things in this book, but I also think that we can do better.

Murder on the Quai by Cara Black

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Genre: mystery
Secondary genre: historical, political
Format read: hard copy
CW: violence
Rep: Little person
Series: Aimée Leduc, vol 16
Rating: planchet-4

Sometimes, there are happy accidents.

Like when you accidentally start with volume 16 in a series, thinking it’s volume 1, and it turns out to be a prequel.

I found book 9 in this series at a flea market a few months ago and earmarked the series for later. When I happened to see this book on display at my local library, I snapped it up. Somehow, I missed the bitty line at the top of the cover marking it as a prequel.

It’s the 1980s, and the Berlin wall has just come down. Amid the news, med student Aimée  Deluc is struggling with her finals, which are continually sabotaged by jealous classmates. Expecting help or at least commiseration from her father, she’s surprised to find him halfway out the door on his way to Berlin on a secret business trip he won’t tell her anything about.

At the same time, a distant cousin shows up on their doorstep, begging for Mr. Deluc’s help to solve her father’s murder. Aimée helps her PI father on his way, promising to meet up with him on a job when he returns, and volunteers to do a little digging for the mystery cousin, thinking it’s a simple matter of tracking down a woman he spoke to on the night he died.

But her simple open-and-shut research case turns up a second dead body killed the same way, and the links between the old men lead right back to a crate of Nazi gold and a series of murders in 1943. Then someone starts shooting at her and attempting to mow her down with a cab.

This book was a bit slow to start, in my opinion, but around halfway through things really pick up. I will warn you that there is a very sudden even on the last page that makes this something of a cliff-hanger ending, and I was not happy with the twist it added to the plot. I’m not sure if I want to go back and read the rest of the series now.

I do really like Aimée, however, and the little dog she and her grandfather adopt.

If you’ve read this series, what’s your opinion?

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

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Genre: Adult contemporary romance
Representation: Vietnamese, mixed race, autism
Format read: audiobook
Series: The Kiss Quotient book 2
Rating: planchet-4

Khai is autistic.

To his Vietnamese family, this word doesn’t really mean much–autism isn’t much recognized in Vietnam. To them, he’s just…odd. But he’s family, so they accept him despite his foibles.

Except for one thing: Khai’s mother is convinced he needs a good wife. To that end, she travels back to her home country in order to arrange for a good, Vietnamese girl for him.

After interviewing dozens of wealthy, beautiful applicants and finding all of them wanting in the personality department, she finds her son’s perfect match in an unexpected place: a hotel bathroom. Tran Ngoc My is a hotel maid who spends most of her time scrubbing toilets. She has the routine down to a science–she’s very good at making sure everything is just so, and takes great satisfaction in a job well done.

Mrs. Diep makes her an offer she can’t refuse: $20,000 US to come to America for a summer and woo her son. If he doesn’t like her, she can go home at the end with no consequences. If he likes her, then she’ll have a husband by September.

There’s just one catch: My has a little girl waiting for her at home, and Khai makes it very clear he never wants children. Will the two of them be able to find common ground, despite their secrets?

I loved The Kiss Quotient and was super excited to pick up the next book in this series. While The Bride Test is set in the same world, it follows a different group of characters, though we do see some familiar faces from the first book.

I really, really liked My. I also really liked Khai (I think I mentioned in my review of the first book that I wanted a story from his perspective, and here we are!), but there were some questionable elements in this book. I thought the way Mrs. Diep behaved, both in trying to find a wife for her son without consulting him and then forcing them to live together for three months was completely unacceptable. I’m willing to chalk that up to cultural differences, since it was very clear that she was a caring woman, but it still made me angry. If I were Khai and someone just showed up on my doorstep like that, I’d blow a gasket.

I also had a problem with some of Khai’s anger issues. A lot of it comes from him genuinely not understanding My’s emotions or certain social situations or norms, but at one point he completely blows up at her in public and manhandles her, which was not okay, and I don’t think he ever apologizes for it, not really.

I would have also liked to see My look into autism more, to try to get a better understanding of what this foreign word means rather than blundering around blindly and walking on egg shells.

All in all, I did think it was a good follow up, though. I’d be happy to read a third book in the series if one was ever written, but I also really like that it’s 2 loosely connected independent volumes.

 

Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen

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Genre: mystery
Secondary genre: historical
Format read: audiobook
Content warning: attempted sexual assault
Rating: planchet-4

Molly Murphy is in trouble. After accidentally killing her landlord in self defense–he was trying to rape her–she flees her rural Irish town for England, hoping to get lost in a factory town and start a new life.

But the police are already looking for her. A chance encounter with a dying woman, however, might be just the chance she needs.

Kathleen O’Connor is supposed to sail for American in two days, but her health check revealed TB. She will not be allowed to enter the country.

But she has her tickets, her husband is in New York, and her children need a better life than one ill woman can offer. The women hatch a plan: Molly will take Kathleen place, impersonating her, and deliver the children safely to their father.

But things go sideways when a man who harassed Molly and others on the crossing is found dead, and Molly and her new friend Michael become the prime suspects.

The police won’t listen, so the only way to prove their innocence is to track down the real killer.

This book was a reread for me, and an old favorite. I love the narrator of the audiobook so much that I actually refuse to eye-read it. This is actually the audiobook that got me using that format regularly.

I love Molly so much. My one complaint about this series is that every man Molly meets except two either try to rape her or imply it is an acceptable form of payment for whatever she is trying to accomplish. This makes her best friend, Michael, and her love interest the only viable options for her closest circle because they are literally the only ones who don’t do this.

This book does have a lot of questionable content, but it is still a really good series made better by an excellent narrator.