The Invisible Life of Addie Larue

by V.E. Schwab

In 1714, in despair at being made to marry and spend the rest of her life in her tiny village in service to a man, Addie Larue makes a deal with… whom?... for more life. And is given just that. Given theoretically endless life, that will go on until she begs to have it taken away again. The catch? She can leave no impression of any kind on the world. Marks she makes vanish without a trace, items she breaks instantly mend themselves, and anybody she meets forgets her completely the moment she’s out of sight.

The only being on Earth who remembers her at all is Luc, the being with whom she made this bargain without understanding what it really entailed. He visits her every so often through the centuries. Each time he’s certain that the horrors she survives, the crushing loneliness she lives with every day, will drive her to beg him for release.

But she doesn’t. Sometimes it’s her ability to remain in awe of the world and all it contains that keeps her going. Sometimes it’s pure, deep-seated spite—she will suffer literally anything rather than let Luc win their battle of wills. And sometimes it’s the simple, biological will to survive.

And so she does. And then in 2014, in a bookshop, she meets a man who remembers her.

Without giving too much away, I can say that I assumed from the start that this was going to be a fairly simple be-careful-what-you-ask-for fable, with lush historical scenery. That would have been enough for me. But it’s not merely that. It’s the tale of the ultimate abusive relationship and a person’s resilience and ability to be true to herself in the face of it. And it’s a celebration of wonder and of what keeps a heart going, year after year after year.

Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma

read by Stephanie Racine

I’m not sure how to categorize this book. It's not a psychological thriller, though we do spend a lot of time on the edge of our seats wondering, claustrophobically, what's really going on. It's not contemporary realistic fiction, because people travel to and live on another planet. It’s not exactly science fiction, either—though a lot of it takes place on that other planet, in a near-future that’s scarily like ours.

That planet, Nyx, is a lot of things—on a surface level it’s what the narrator describes it as, a barren planet sufficiently Earth-like as to make colonization and eventual terraforming a possibility. Scratch just a little below that surface, though, and Nyx is a sort of anti-Earth, a symbolic and literal refuge for social media refuseniks who romanticise grandiose and permanent acts of rebellion, or for those who just can’t cope with life under the modern social panopticon. Its presence in the book, at the beginning at least, is clearly more about our current social ills than about actual and literal heavenly bodies.

So: in addition to being straight-up entertaining and a quick, fun read, this book is definitely literary, working on several levels and raising more questions than it answers. In fact, if I were teaching a freshman lit class in college, I'd want to assign this book, for those very reasons.

And so we come to the fourth paragraph on this review and I’m not sure I’ve even begun to tell you what you want or need to know. I may, in fact, have already scared you off from reading this novel. But in case you're still considering reading it (and I do recommend that you do), you’ll want some basic information. So:

It’s set in the near future, as I’ve said. A near future that’s maybe halfway between Life As We Know It here and now, and that Black Mirror episode where people constantly rate each other and their ratings affect what jobs they can have, what housing they can live in, and so on. What’s really different about this near future is that a wormhole has opened up on Earth. A one-way wormhole that leads to the planet Nyx, which humans are colonizing.

Nyx is beautiful and pink and Instagram-perfect, populated by like-minded folks who have no interest in being connected to the World Wide Web—which is a good thing, seeing as how the wormhole is one-way only. Once they go to Nyx, they can’t send home so much as an email. (And yet, strangely, social media posts complete with luscious images are sent to Earth on a daily basis, and they arrive just fine.)

Our protagonist, who does social media for a living, isn’t exactly a wiz at critical thinking. What she is is exhausted with her life and with having to pretend that it’s better and prettier than it is. She’s also suicidal—not that she wants anyone to know. After spending her entire (young) adult life putting a good and socially acceptable face on everything, she’s ready to pitch it all and head to where things are real, even if there’s no return from there. Especially since there’s no return from there.

And naturally, once she’s there and it’s too late, things aren’t quite what they seemed from Earth. A slow, intensely creepy unraveling of the minds and lives of the Nyxians ensues. And that's where I need to stop in order to avoid spoilers.

Read this book. Just don’t expect to know quite what to make of it, even after you’re done with it.

Note: Sharlene Teo summarizes this book brilliantly as "both ultra contemporary and timeless in its examination of mental health and existential and social purpose, it's the most hilarious and razor-sharp depiction of office politics I've ever read. The protagonist, Iris, hates earht so much she volunteers to participate in a reality show set on another planet."

See the entire article here.

Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

read by Michael Levi Harris

So what we have here is a kid who calls himself a “fractional Persian”—raised “American” in the U.S. by his Persian mom and blond “Übermensch” dad. (He loves Persian cooking, for example, but only speaks enough Farsi to be polite and talk about food.) He nerds out about Star Trek, Tolkien, Harry Potter, and, of all things, tea. He’s a little overweight and get teased at school and doesn’t have many friends, which makes him a constant disappointment to his dad. In fact, Star Trek is just about all he has in common with his dad. That, and depression, and a chronic inability to express himself.

He’s also smart and thoughtful and, it turns out, pretty decent at soccer, a.k.a. non-American football—and a really good friend. But we don’t know about any of this at the beginning of the story, and neiher does he. Well, maybe the smart part, but not the rest.

Things start to move when the family takes a trip to Yazd, Iran, to visit with the grandparents he’s never met in person before. His grandfather is formidable and his grandmother is sweet and he’s expected to make friends with the neighbor kid, Sohrab. Which actually turns out to be the greatest thing ever. Because Sohrab is super interested in Darius, and draws him out, and helps him feel like it’s okay to be himself, fractional or not.

What I loved about this book: it made me fall in love with Iran and with Persian culture (and made me super hungry for Persian food). The relationships were varied, three-dimensional, believable, relatable, and central to the story. The drama was dramatic indeed… but also understated (way more Benjamin Alire Sáenz than, say, Francesca Lia Block). There was tons of representation, most of it very off-hand, all of it spot-on, especially regarding depression. And Darius himself was such a sweet, dysfunctional nerd. I feel like I went out with him, or maybe I was him, in high school.

Highly recommend for all fractional Americans and most anybody else.

Robin by Dave Itzkoff

Read by Fred Berman

Wow. Just… truly. Wow.

When Robin Williams died, it hit me hard. Yes, he’d been in quite a few embarrassingly bad movies. But he’d also been the heart and soul of some that had been sources of joy and comfort and solace to me. He was a bright light in the world and the loss of that light made my world noticeably dimmer.

I was also deeply furious with him, for having taken his own life. And bewildered that somebody who was so loved by so many, and had such obvious and brilliant talent, would do such a thing. How could he fail to understand that the world would be a dimmer place without him? That lasted a long time.

Finally enough time had passed that when this book came to my attention I decided I could stand to read about him. And it was just right. Itzkoff takes us through his life story, from his parents and their backgrounds, through his lonely childhood and his insecure early career, to the years we remember best. And of course we didn’t know him at all. In some ways, nobody did; I came away with the impression of an incredibly lonely man.

Itzkoff is gentle with his subject, but thorough. This isn’t a money-grubbing, celebrity-shaming tell-all, by any means, and yet I came away with an impression of having at least glimpsed every side of Robin Williams, including the less-shiny bits. But I also came away with an impression of the whys. Why he became who he became, why he took those roles, why he ended his life. Whether my impression is accurate or not, of course I will never know. Nobody but Robin Williams really knew Robin Williams. But I feel like I know some of the reasons for that, and I’m glad. And devastated all over again that he’s gone.

The narrator, Fred Berman, does a great job giving us a feel for the voices of the people whose quotes he’s reading, without quite mimicking them. I’d give him five stars--but he somehow failed to learn that Marin (as in Marin County, where Robin Williams spent much of his adult life, so it gets mentioned a lot in the book) is pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable. This was seriously and frequently irritating and seems like a major oversight. Aside from that, excellent narration.