Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

July 10, 2024

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

June Hayward and Athena Liu have known each other for almost a decade, since they met as freshmen at Yale, but you wouldn't call them friends. Their lives have take dramatically different directions: Athena is an amazingly successful author with several bestsellers and a new one in the works, while June's single book was published by an independent press and barely sold a few thousand copies, and she struggles to pay the bills by ghostwriting college essays and tutoring lackluster students. When Athena dies in front of June, June makes a split second decision to steal Athena's latest manuscript and pass it off as her own work.

This book has gotten a ton of hype. A plot about plagiarism isn't new or original, and yes, the publishing world can be vicious, and writers can be jealous and sneaky. But there is more going on here than jealousy and intellectual theft, including racism, social media attacks, and the argument about who is entitles to tell a story, i.e., do you have to be of Asian descent to write about Asian history? I found most of the characters to be really unlikeable. The story reminded me a lot of Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne, which I really enjoyed and recommend to readers interested in writers and the publishing industry, rather than this one. Did not like the cover.

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

August 20, 2023

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

Mia and her twin brother John live with their parents and their autistic brother Eugene in a suburb of Washington DC. Their father is a stay-at-home dad who provides much of Eugene's care. Even during the pandemic, he ensures that Eugene continues to receive the therapy he needs. One day, Dad takes Eugene to the local park for his therapy session but only one of them comes home.

Family drama with a twist of mystery. I thought this was going to be a missing person story, but it turned out to be a story about living with an autistic child. (I know you're not supposed to say this, but I don't like books with autistic characters.) The first half of the book held my interest but I found myself skimming the second half. It reminded me of something that would be a selection for Reese or Jenna's book club. If you like family dramas with lots of angst, this one is for you. If you're looking for a mystery or a missing person story, look elsewhere.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Assistive technology keyboard for autistic children

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

August 23, 2019

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

The words secretary and secret have the same Latin root.  The women who work as secretaries for the CIA are expected to prepare necessary documents and immediately forget what they have typed.

At the height of the Cold War, Irina is hired by the CIA as a secretary.  But it isn't her secretarial skills that the agency is interested in - they are far more interested in her Russian background and ability to blend in without attracting attention.  Sally Forrester, a long-time operative, trains Irina on how to dress, how to act, how to perform a switch without anyone noticing.  At first, Irina works as a courier, picking up and dropping off information and documents.  One of her most important assignments is to meet a British agent and pick up two rolls of microfilm that contain the Russian text for the novel Dr. Zhivago, which has been smuggled out of Soviet Russia.

At his dacha outside Moscow, Boris Pasternak has completed one of the greatest novels ever written, yet he is unable to obtain permission to have the text published in the Soviet Union.  The Communist government feels that since the story is set against the backdrop of the 1918 Russian Revolution, it is critical of the Soviet government.  Pasternak makes the momentous decision to smuggle the text out of Russia to Western Europe, where it will be translated and published to world-wide acclaim.  But Pasternak's decision has dire consequences for himself and his lover Olga (the inspiration for Lara).

Dr. Zhivago has always been one of my favorite novels, so I was fascinated by the background on how it came to be published.  I knew that Pasternak had been awarded the Nobel Prize for the novel, but I had no idea about the controversy that ensued.  Well-researched and vibrantly told, The Secrets We Kept will appeal to readers of historical fiction as well as anyone interested in Soviet Russia during the Cold War, Boris Pasternak, or a legendary literary love story.

Boris Pasternak - very brooding Russian look

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in return for a review.