Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Sex and sleep with a marked individual is the way to the city of Palimpsest, a mystical and deadly place that exists beyond the borders of our world.

The first time you cross over, your spirit is bound with four other travelers. For what purpose, no one knows.

“Where you go in Palimpsest, you are bound to these strangers who happened onto Orlande’s salon just when you did, and you will go nowhere, eat no capon or dormouse, drink no oversweet port that they do not also taste, and they will visit no whore that you do not also feel beneath you, and until that ink washes from your feet… you cannot breathe but that they breathe also.” pgs 4-5, ebook.

A visit to the city leaves a visible mark on your skin, a map of the location you visited. You cannot travel beyond the borders of where you have already been, unless you sleep with someone who has a different map.

“It’s like a ticket. And once you’ve bought your ticket, and been to the circus, ridden the little red train, then you can sort of see other people who’ve done it, too. They walk a certain way. Smell a certain way. Their whole body becomes like an accent.” pg 42, ebook.

Palimpsest is so beyond belief, some people who have been there can’t believe it is more than a dream, at first.

“But it’s a dream,” Oleg insists. “It was fun. We won’t even remember it in the morning.” “You don’t know anything, Oleg,” sighs Gabriel. pg 73, ebook.

But, no one has ever woken up from a dream covered in blood.

Palimpsest showcases Catherynne Valente’s mammoth imagination and descriptive powers. The pieces of the city she allows readers to glimpse draw you in and make you want to see more.

Each location is unique, has its own backstory and feel. It’s an extraordinary work of urban fantasy.

The gates of sleep are two, a gate of ivory and a gate of horn. He had been horrified as a child, picturing a great door of tangled antlers and tusks. Surely that was the gate of Palimpsest.” pg 144, ebook.

It’s disturbing to read the main characters become more and more desperate to re-enter Palimpsest.

The way they seek out sex with strangers reminded me of a drug addict’s desperate search. The cost of entering the city is too high.

It ruins peoples’ lives.

I read Palimpsest years ago and couldn’t finish it then because the narration made me feel sick.

I think the trouble was that I used to put myself into the stories I read, imagining myself as the hero, villain, every part.

I’ve ceased doing that, at the cost of some grand adventures. But, in hindsight, it also allows me to navigate my way through stories I would not have been able to touch back then.

Because of its content, I’d recommend Palimpsest only for mature readers and fans of urban fiction. It’s a strange trip, but full of wonders if you can endure the cost to get there.

Thanks for reading!

Be Here Now by Ram Dass

A classic exploration of spirituality and consciousness by the former Harvard professor turned drug-fueled, then clean, spiritual seeker, Ram Dass.

What a strange book.

The first part is Ram Dass‘s life story.

He has trouble relating exactly how his guru changed his life. He also has trouble expressing his life changing spiritual insights.

This could perhaps be because of all the LSD he experimented with, but no judgement here.

I think Dass could have added another couple hundred pages to the first part and still probably not fully described his experience.

The next section of the book is block text printed on, what seems to be, brown paper bags. Monty Python-esque photos are drawn in, and sometimes behind, the text.

It reads like a stream-of-consciousness, path to enlightenment, how-to lecture.

Some of it is worthwhile, but I can’t sugarcoat it: It’s pretty far out there.

My description doesn’t really do it justice. Perhaps Be Here Now is one of those books that needs to be “experienced” rather than read.

The last section was a “cook book” on how to live an enlightened lifestyle.

If you have a question about how an enlightened person lives, it’s probably included in there.

Dass elucidates how he believes you should eat, sleep, breathe, interact with others, think, meditate, raise a family, form a commune and so on.

I didn’t like it because it felt too brain-washy, cult-ish.

Dass attempts to put the reader’s mind at ease to all of the strictures. He mentions that one needn’t be concerned about family or social responsibilities because, once you reach the ultimate level, you’ll realize that none of those things are real anyway.

Looking back on my review, it seems as if I don’t like Ram Dass, but I do.

I rather enjoyed his Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart and a documentary that I saw about him once called Fierce Grace.

I too have had life experiences that have led me to the belief that human kind is here to “be high” and not just to “get high.”

I don’t buy into the idea that life has to be lived a certain way to get certain results.

And, perhaps because I haven’t personally had the experience yet, I don’t get the whole guru relationship thing. I know it’s my western background speaking, but there you have it.

Recommended for spiritual seekers, but don’t forget to trust your own inner guidance.

Thanks for reading!

Speakeasy by Alisa Smith

Lena Stillman is a codebreaker during World War II. But she hasn’t always been a hero.

During the depression, she robbed banks with Bill Bagley and the Clockwork Gang.

What is she going to do now that the past seems to have caught up with her?

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Speakeasy had some interesting elements, but the story suffered from a back and forth narrative and flat characters.

“I spread my papers out in front of me, and at first they all looked the same: a random mix of roman letters divided always into five characters with a space between each set, so no word lengths were revealed. I was searching for any repetitions.” loc 15, ebook.

The story is told from Lena’s perspective and diary entries of one of the members of her old gang.

“Bill Bagley was being punished because he had failed at something for which he possessed genius.” loc 80, ebook.

The back-and-forth storytelling was jarring. I liked the stories separately, but together, it didn’t really work.

They interrupted the flow of each other. I think it might have fit together more smoothly in a Part I/Part II presentation rather than interspersed.

I think Bill Bagley, one of the central characters, didn’t have the depth required to pull off this story.

He’s supposed to be this charismatic, brilliant criminal who inspires the men to risk their lives again and again, and also captures Lena’s heart.

Bagley has some failings, but, initially, there must have been something to him to draw the gang together.

Instead, from the start, he comes off as a volatile jerk.

We meet Bagley as he’s denying the parentage of a child who looks just like him: “This un ain’t mine and don’t tell me again that it is,” he said, thrusting the baby back to a lady with burning red cheeks.” loc 80, ebook.

He doesn’t improve from there.

“I returned from a visit with Bill, received a threatening note from him, and now this. He must have a copy of it and wanted to hold it over my head.” loc 741, ebook.

I guess I just never understood what Lena saw in him.

Also, for a genius code breaker, she doesn’t seem to be able to puzzle out the people around her very well.

“My morals were just not like other people’s, because unlike the somnolent majority I saw society’s problems. In my youth I had been misguided, and picked the wrong way of lashing out against an unfair system. But I had left the gang behind, and found a greater ease in my soul.” loc 1781, ebook.

Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

There’s a twist that occurs during Lena’s code breaking era that I saw coming from miles away. And I’m not particularly good at calling plot twists.

My favorite part of this book were the gang-era years. My heart was in my throat during most of those chapters.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t carry the rest of this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book.

Thanks for reading!

The Wicked We Have Done (Chaos Theory, #1) by Sarah Harian

In a not-too-distant future, humanity has developed the technology to see inside the mind of criminals. Through simulations and tracking responses, the law claims to have the ability to measure motivation and “goodness.”

Evalyn Ibarra says she is guilty, but not of the crime she is on trial for. Rather than rely on a jury to prove her innocence, she chooses the “compass room,” the new technology, to prove her innocence.

If she is truly evil, the compass room will kill her. If she is innocent, she will walk free.

“My throat tightens, but there is no time to reflect. I had months to imagine this moment, months to mourn. That time is over, because today is the beginning of my inevitable execution in the Compass Room.”pg 7, ebook.

I found the premise of this book to be interesting, but it suffered in its execution and characterizations. Both were rather flat.

“The tension after Stella leaves is awkward and volatile. … We’ve been given provisions, so it’s obvious that, if this is the Compass Room, we are meant to head out. It’s either that or stay in a house full of psychopaths.” pg 25, ebook.

Did I mention that the compass room tries more than one criminal at a time? Very Hunger Games-esque.

“The one thing I do know about the Compass Room is that this test is supposed to see who you truly are, despite your research. Despite good acting or the lies you tell yourself.” pg 27, ebook.

Wouldn’t it be something if detecting evil was as simple as marking a chemical or hormonal response of the brain?

But then, of course, you wander into the problem: what if the technology gets it wrong? Or glitches?

“A terrorist attack finally convinced the Supreme Court. All charged in the bombing were forced to undergo the Compass Room’s exam. And they were all found to be, as reporters said on the news, ‘morally tarnished.'” pg 12, ebook.

The thing about execution is that there are no second chances or second guesses. Evalyn believes herself to be innocent. Will the room think so too?

I think if the author had fully explored the compass room and the psyches of those involved, I may have enjoyed it more.

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As it was, I felt like we only skimmed the surface of what was possible. It lacked complexity because of the number of characters she wrote into the story.

Also, the author includes some half-baked romances, perhaps to prove this is in the “new adult” genre? I don’t believe it added much.

There’s also some non-spooky horror elements, that are meant to evoke the harrowing nature of the compass room. They felt overdone.

If you must read The Wicked We Have Done, I recommend borrowing it from the library.

Thanks for reading!

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

A beautiful, magic-tinged tale of an aging couple, the bleak Alaskan wilderness and a child who appears one day in the wood.

Mabel and Jack always wanted a child, but after suffering a miscarriage, they begin to lose hope of ever conceiving. Mabel suffers in female society without a child of her own.

She begs Jack to take her to Alaska for a fresh start. He agrees. But it doesn’t work.

The weather is dark and freezing. The ground is hard and takes more effort than Jack can give. They aren’t thriving.

“All her life she had believed in something more, in the mystery that shape-shifted at the edge of her senses. It was the flutter of moth wings on glass and the promise of river nymphs in the dappled creek beds. … Mabel could not remember the last time she caught such a flicker.” pg 6, ebook.

Then, out of the blue, a child magically appears during a snow storm.

She is so light on her feet and silent, Jack and Mabel don’t at first believe their eyes. The child travels with a fox and barely leaves prints to follow on the snow.

“What did he expect to find? A fairy-tale beast that holds young girls captive in a mountain cave? … Or nothing at all, no child, no tracks, no door, only insanity bared in the untouched snow? That is perhaps what he feared the most, that he would discover he had followed nothing more than an illusion.” pg 72, ebook.

Mabel remembers a Russian fairy tale from her childhood, of a couple who builds a girl out of snow. In the story within the story, the girl becomes real.

Could Jack and Mabel have created the child they have always dreamed of?

“I am sorry to say no matter which version, the story ends badly. The little snow girl comes and goes with winter, but in the end she always melts.” pg 96, ebook.

How will Jack and Mabel’s story end?

Recommended for fans of historical fiction and tales that contain magical realism.

Photo by Gantas Vaiu010diulu0117nas on Pexels.com

“In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.” pg 189, ebook.

I thought The Snow Child was beautiful and well-told. Highly recommended.

I don’t think The Snow Child has been made into a film, yet, but it has been staged as a musical play.

Thanks for reading!

Artemis by Andy Weir

Jazz lives on Artemis, the first city on the moon. She delivers packages to eek out a living as well as other, more shady, methods of income.

“I live in Artemis, the first (and so far, only) city on the moon. It’s made of five huge spheres called “bubbles.” They’re half underground, so Artemis looks exactly like old sci-fi books said a moon city should look: a bunch of domes.” pg 5

One day, one of the richest men on the moon makes her an offer far too lucrative for her to refuse… all she has to do is something very dangerous and illegal. No problem, right?

“I’m sorry, but this isn’t my thing,” I said. “You’ll have to find someone else.” “I’ll give you a million slugs.” “Deal.” pg 46.

Andy Weir’s follow-up to The Martian was disappointing to me.

Unlike his first book, the science is watered down. It’s not as educational and quirky. In my mind, the exceptional science was what separated The Martian from other science fiction offerings.

The characterizations are one dimensional, like The Martian, but it was less of a problem in the first book. In that one, you were mainly dealing with one person, alone.

In Artemis, Weir tries to build a city of characters and I didn’t buy into it.

The main character, a female narrator, is particularly problematic. She just didn’t sound like a woman to me.

“I landed like a sack of sh*t. But I landed on the other side of the alcove and didn’t break anything. … Whatever. A clumsy, awkward success is still a success.” pg 124.

But beyond those small problems, Artemis is still enjoyable.

Weir put a huge amount of thought into how an economy on the moon would work. It is the most realistic I’ve ever read.

He also nails the human condition, the drive for novelty and tourism.

Weir describes the trouble with travel: Even when it’s a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. You leak money like a sieve. You’re jet-lagged. You’re exhausted all the time. You’re homesick even though you’re on vacation.” pg 152.

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Word.

Members of my book club voiced the opinion that Weir wrote this book as if he was prepping it for the screen. I agree.

If you’re going to read one Weir book, go with The Martian. Borrow this one from the library.

Thanks for reading!

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

Michelle McNamara was obsessed with the subject of this book. She believed that by using modern technology, a rapist and killer could finally be brought to justice.

She created maps and chased leads. She ran a true crime blog and this was one of her topics.

It haunted her. Then, tragically, Michelle died before this masterwork could be completed.

Her fellow researchers put I’ll Be Gone in the Dark together from her notes. It is a chilling but thorough portrait of the perpetrator of a series of unsolved crimes.

It also includes some autobiographical chapters to explain Michelle’s obsession with the man she named, “The Golden State Killer,” but also why she loves writing.

She writes about why she couldn’t stop researching and examines her complicated relationship with her mother: “No one would have taken more joy from this book than my mother. And I probably wouldn’t have felt the freedom to write it until she was gone.” pg 41

It is an amazing book. And, I believe, it has enough details that, if someone who reads this book knew that guy, he will be brought to justice at last.

He pointed a knife at her and issued a chilling warning: “Make one move and you’ll be silent forever and I’ll be gone in the dark.” pg 61

Gillian Flynn writes a stellar introduction: “I’ve always thought the least appreciated aspect of a great true crime writer is humanity. Michelle McNamara had an uncanny ability to get into the minds of not just killers but the cops who hunted them, the victims they destroyed, and trail of grieving relatives left behind.”Introduction.

This killer, whoever he is, is terrifying not only for the carnage he left, but the meticulous way he planned and carried out the murders.

He was organized and unhinged, as compared to other murderers whose passion and disorganization are their downfall: “It’s a tiny minority of criminals, maybe 5 percent, who present the bigger challenge- the ones whose crimes reveal pre-planning and unremorseful rage.” pg 14

I read this book in one sitting. It is that compelling.

But I paid for it during the night. Each creak, any small sound in the house and my heart would leap into my throat.

“He’s here,” my over-active imagination declared. “This is the end.”

It made it all too easy to understand the terror the murderer inflicted on his victims and the community he plagued. Multiple states away and decades removed from the crimes and I was petrified as well.

Recommended for brave readers, fans of true crime and anyone who wants to help solve an unsolved mystery.

Thanks for reading!

UPDATE: About a month after I wrote this book review, a man was arrested under suspicion of being the ‘Golden State Killer’.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

The story of an extraordinary book and the people who surround it.

And I did not enjoy it.

My reaction to this one was a huge surprise. I adored Geraldine Brook’s Year of Wonders and I thought this would be an easy hit for me.

I think the problem is fairly simple- never connected with the main character. I loved Anna from Year of Wonders. I couldn’t stand Hanna.

The small details of her work that she found so absorbing, I didn’t enjoy.

I didn’t like how she treated people sometimes. I thought she seemed rather arrogant.

I also didn’t like how the timelines bounced around from character to character. I was listening to People of the Book as an audiobook. Without being able to look back and check, I found myself getting confused when I stopped in the middle of a passage and picked it up again after a work day.

Brook’s writing is just fine. Again, I can’t believe I didn’t like this.

Highly recommend Year of Wonders. I give this a solid pass.

Thanks for reading!

Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga #4) by Pierce Brown

Darrow led an uprising and smashed the hierarchy that had held the worlds in its thrall. Now, ten years later, he is discovering the difficulties of maintaining rule and stamping out the last of the old regime.

More than anything else, Darrow is sick of war. Yet, unrest dogs his every step.

“I remember when you told me I was a good man who’d have to do bad things,” I say. “Your stomach go soft? Or have you spent so much time with politicians that you’ve forgotten what the enemy looks like?” pg 21.

The government Darrow and his allies have crafted out of the former rebellion is divided in how to proceed. The enemy is entrenched on the planets nearest the sun… and also the planets furthest from it.

“Like you, I wish for nothing more than peace. I wish for a world where the machine of war does not swallow our young. … Our enemies have held dominion over us for too long. First as slaves, then adversaries. And what stability, what harmony can we bring to the worlds we have freed while they continue to define us?” pg 89.

Pierce Brown has crafted a satisfying return to his dystopian world with characters readers loved from his first three books.

We also get to meet a few new ones like a wily thief who gets in over his head and a kind, young Red who discovers The Reaper’s new world isn’t anything like it was portrayed on the holos.

There’s sweeping speeches and heart-pounding battle scenes. Brown’s newest book is incredibly entertaining.

I have two regrets though.

The first is I read the other books so long ago, I forgot many of the small details. If I had it to do over again, I’d re-read the first trilogy before hopping into this one.

“It is our duty to embrace the scars our choices give us, to embrace and remember our mistakes, else we live believing our own myth.”pg 316.

The second is Brown hasn’t written his next book yet and he ends on, what seems to be for him, a signature cliffhanger.

I refused to read the first three books until the trilogy was complete because I really don’t like waiting for the next entry in a series.

“The key to learning, to power, to having the final say in everything, is observation. By all means, be a storm inside, but save your movement and wind till you know your purpose.” pg 355.

It’s a nod to Brown’s genius that I purchased this new title from the book store. I’m a library patron through and through, but this is one that is worth owning.

Here’s hoping Brown writes really fast.

Highly recommended for science fiction and dystopian fans. Start with Red Rising.

Thanks for reading!

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Category: Reviews

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Be Here Now by Ram Dass

Speakeasy by Alisa Smith

The Wicked We Have Done (Chaos Theory, #1) by Sarah Harian

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Artemis by Andy Weir

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga #4) by Pierce Brown

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