General Fiction/Literature - The Irresponsible Reader

DETAILS:
Publisher: Mira Books
Publication Date: January 30, 2024
Format: Hardcover
Length: 346 pg.
Read Date: February 14-17, 2024

…it’s never changed. Nothing does.” Their eyes met, a sudden weariness to his pupils. “Except me.”

“And now me.”

“Yeah. It’s…” he bit his lip “…nice to not be alone. Everyone’s living their lives, and I’m just here.” He turned, the light catching his eyes enough to show a glisten. “It’s almost like playing a video game. You can do a few things differently, but everyone just returns back to start. You can scream and yell at the world, but everything snaps back. No one is aware. They just resume their lives. And then it repeats.” He bit his lip again, eyes scrunched as he shook his head. “It just repeats. Nothing matters. Nothing changes.”

What’s The Jacket Copy Say?

I’ve spent a month tossing out my summaries of the plot/setup to the book. I give up—I either make this bland (and that’s a crime), I get too detailed in trying to describe something (another crime, I’m dull at it, and Chen’s not), or it’s so sketchy on details that it’s pointless. So, let’s turn it over to the professionals:

Grieving her best friend’s recent death, neuroscientist Mariana Pineda’s ready fo give up everything to start anew, even her career—after one last week consulting at a top secref particle accelerator.

Except the strangest thing happens: a man stops her…and claims they’ve met before. Carter Cho knows who she is, why she’s mourning, why she’s there. And he needs Mariana to remember everything he’s saying.

Because time is about to loop.

In a flash of energy, it’s Monday morning. Again. Together, Mariana and Carter enter an inevitable life, four days at a time, over and over, without permanence except for what they share. With everything resetting—even bank accounts—joy comes in the little moments: a delicious (and expensive) meal, the purr of a tiny cat, a tennis match, giving a dog his favorite treat.

In some ways, those are all that matter.

But just as they figure out this new life, everything changes. Because Carter’s memories of the time loop are slowly disappearing, And their only chance at happiness Is breaking out of the loop—forever.

The Everyday Lifeness of it All

Mariana is not good at living in the day-to-day. She’s always been goal-driven, more focused on her dreams and plans and how to achieve them than about enjoying the journey. Her friend’s death has rattled her, yes, but she’s still essentially the same.

Carter, on the other hand, is great at living in the moment. Sure, he was (and could be again) good at the goal-driven life, too—but he chose a path his parents didn’t choose for him. He’s able to get Mariana to stop and smell the metaphorical roses–as well as the literal food in front of her. He shows her how to enjoy a good meal for the sake of a good meal, to take pleasure in the little things—not just to consume enough fuel to keep her going.

In the midst of trying to figure out what caused the time loop, what the effects of that flash of energy that sends them back to Monday are on the rest of the world, and how to stop it all, a real friendship develops—Carter and Mariana bringing out the best in each other.

The Groundhog Day/Time Travel

Now, if Chen’s Here and Now and Then taught us anything, it’s that Chen can write good Time Travel fiction—he gets the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas, the pitfalls to avoid, the way to keep it compelling. Adding in a Groundhog Day-like twist doesn’t change that, it just makes it better (and keeps this from being just a variation on his first novel).

This is a different kind of Time Travel than his previous book—and (as always) Chen gives us just enough of the science to make it believable, but not so much that you could go out and test it (or pick it to death in the details). The Time Travel aspect is important, but it’s not the core of the novel—that’s the stuff I talked about before.

What I personally found fascinating is how close Chen’s science-ish Time Travel resembled Gareth Brown’s magic-ish Time Travel, both in how it works and how it’s used. Two very different novels, with very different goals—but the overlap is fascinating. (at least to me)

So, what did I think about A Quantum Love Story?

I probably grinned through most of this book—particularly after the first loop for Mariana. I absolutely loved the friendship between the two—and then when it started to become more (not a spoiler, it’s literally the title), I was fully on board.

Chen was at his best here with his character design (the whole backstory about Mariana and her dead friend was so good…the kind of thing that other writers would devote a whole novel to) and the plot of the novel was even better. The best material happens so late that I don’t even know how to tell you about it without spoilers abounding—so I’ll be vague, once Carter’s memories start going, what was a great, heart-warming yet strange story becomes a dynamite emotionally-rich story with some of crazy turns.

No surprise for anyone who’s ever heard me talk about Mike Chen novels for the past six years—I strongly recommend that you pick this up. It’ll be one of those novels you relish and think about fondly for a long time to come.

4 1/2 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

PUB DAY REPOST: Strong Like You by T. L. Simpson: Love And Hate On The Edge Of A Knife

By HCNewton

On March 12, 2024

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, YA/MG/Children's Books

Strong Like You

by T. L. Simpson

DETAILS:
Publisher: Flux
Publication Date: March 12, 2024
Format: eARC
Length: 224
Read Date: March 1, 2024

What’s Strong Like You About?

Walker Lauderdale is a high school sophomore and a starter for his small Arkansas high school’s football team. He and his cousin/best friend/might as well be brother Sawyer are fierce players for the defense (and we see that almost instantly). This should be the best time in his young life—but there’s something wrong.

His dad has been missing for a month. He’s not there to watch his first game. He’s not there to burst with pride, to offer advice, or to cheer from the stands. He’s just…gone. Walker’s dad and Sawyer’s dad (also best friends and teammates on the same high school team before marrying sisters) took off one night and haven’t returned. The two boys are certain they’ll be back any time—they’re frequently checking the bleachers to see their fathers up there.

The book is an extended monologue—or a series of them. Technically, an apostrophe, but let’s stick with monologue. Walker is addressing his father—catching him up on the turmoil and victories he’s missing, the hurt Walker feels because of his absence, and how he’s trying to make things work until his dad comes back. The grief, loss, and anger jump off the page.

Walker’s dad isn’t a great one, either, it should be stressed. Rarely employed, his income is largely illegal and irregular. Both missing fathers are abusive to their wives and sons. But in the way that we all can recognize, the boys are just that much more devoted to them because of it—making their dads proud is a chief aim of theirs.

Walker becomes determined to go look for his dad—which involves starting with the man his dad and uncle were last seen with—a truly frightening and violent man. Sawyer tries to dissuade him, but that just makes Walker even more certain that he needs to act.

But does he truly want to find the answers he’s seeking?

Learning About Guns

Walker—like so many people in the U.S.—appreciates guns. He’s quick to grab a pellet gun to (try to) chase away his uncle. But his cousin Sawyer? Sawyer is a nut for guns, he has magazines about them all over his room. At some point, Sawyer comes across a pistol (and somehow gets money for many bullets for it—or at least acquires them). There’s a big difference between a pellet gun and a Colt 1911, and it doesn’t take long for Walker to start learning about them.

Not what you learn in video games/TV, not what Sawyer’s survival mags teach, or anything like that. But about the reality of them—how they can invite violence, how holding one affects you, what destruction they can bring even without trying. There’s no pro-/anti- gun message at work here. No lessons or sermons were delivered. But the reality of what a gun can do to a person, a situation, or an attitude is presented in stark reality. I’d say it’s easily one of the best things about this book, but if I started listing the best things about this book, we’d be here for a long time.

Anger

Walker and Sawyer are angry young men—it’s simmering right below the surface, and comes out at inopportune times. Although, it does sometimes come out when it should*—and we see an example of that in the opening minutes of their first game of the year.

* Arguably, anyway. Their coach and teammates would say it’s appropriate.

There are plenty of reasons for them to be so angry—even before their fathers abandoned them. The more time you spend with them—Walker in particular—you see just how many reasons he has. It’s part of what his parents have passed down to him, part of the example they’ve set and the environment he’s been raised in.

The guy his father and uncle runs with, Lukas Fisher, has another kind of anger inside him—and he doesn’t hesitate to express it—where Walker’s parents shape him by their anger, Lukas “trains” his pit bull with his.* While we can see a little constructive use of anger, we can see some people who are angry due to circumstance and situations—but Lukas? He seems to revel in it, maybe even feeds on anger.

* This is off-point, but Simpson’s description of the dog’s barking was both wonderfully accurate and a bit of a tension breaker.

But back to Walker, it’s his anger that lands him in weekly sessions with the school counselor before the book begins. This counselor is one of the few who seem to look beyond Walker’s attitude, his anger, his disinterest in education, and his abilities on the football field. It’s unclear how Walker will respond to him—or even if he can respond to this man appropriately. But it’s a rare example of how his anger just might put him in the right place.

The Meaning of Manhood/Strength

Walker’s primary concern at the beginning of the book is to be strong—strong, as the title says, like his dad. For him, strength equals control. Control over your life, your circumstances, your choices—it’s also tied into how to fix things. How to make things better.

Yes, it absolutely is about physical strength first and foremost, but it’s about more than that, too. For a character presented as not that intelligent (Walker would say worse than that about himself), he’s really perceptive. He’s spent more time than many—probably even he—realizes thinking about the nature of strength.

Ultimately, this is what being a man is for Walker (and Sawyer, too)—maybe even Hank and Rufus, too. Walker sees Hank as strong—physically, emotionally, and mentally. This is what he aspires to—for himself, for his mother, and possibly even for Hank. If Walker gets to be strong enough—on and off the football field—he can make Hank and his mom proud. He can make their lives better, fixing those things that need fixing (that his father never gets around to fixing, despite Walker’s deep-seated conviction that he could and will).

Over the course of this book, this understanding of what manhood means and what strength means are seen in light of that anger mentioned above. One of the bigger questions of the novel surrounds Walker and Sawyer—as they navigate toward adulthood/maturity, what will win out? Strength or anger? What kind of men will they be?

The Love Story

Okay…after a few attempts, I realize that I cannot say anything about this without a spoiler. All I will say is that it’s perfectly conceived, perfectly executed, and just what this book needed it to be.

So, what did I think about Strong Like You?

I have several more things I wanted to talk about—but this is too long, and almost two days behind schedule (it’s at least 6 hours after I normally post something). What’s worse, every time I start writing “just one more thing,” I think of two more. So I’m bringing this in for a landing, and I may bounce around a little bit here.

I do not even like football—why do I keep reading books featuring it? Okay, I live in the USA and it’s pretty hard to escape, that’s a large part of it, but still… There’s a large part of me that doesn’t care as long as it’s a book like this one. And sure, he’s talking about a different game entirely, but Walker would agree with Dani Rojas—”Football is life!” He thinks in football terms and metaphors, he can’t explain to someone why he loves football—he can’t even understand why that person doesn’t like football, it’s like telling him that they don’t like to breathe. Most of the time, Simpson doesn’t have Walker or Sawyer tell us this, they just live this. The way he does this alone tells me that Simpson is someone to watch (or, I suppose, he thinks the same way as Walker does and it’s coming out organically—but I don’t think so)

I really should spend a lot of time talking about Walker’s guidance counselor and the arc of their relationship, there’s so much about Simpson’s work here that should be commended. There’s also this strange little tangent featuring a recent graduate of Walker’s high school and his little sisters that tells us more about Walker than anything except his attitude toward football—who he really is, not who he thinks he needs to be.

You don’t have to read very far before you know a couple of things—1. despite his conviction—or at least the conviction he voices—things are not going to go the way he anticipates, and that rough times are ahead for Walker; and 2. you are not going to want to put this book down until you reach the last page. I glanced at the first couple of pages to make sure it downloaded correctly and had to walk away from my Kindle, because I had multiple other deadlines and I knew if I didn’t do that, I’d finish the book before I did anything else. I can’t describe it, but there’s something about Walker’s voice, the way he’s talking to that father that isn’t there that just grabs you.

I’m not entirely satisfied with the way the novel ended. I liked the resolution to the various stories, let me be clear. But I feel like I could see Simpson’s not-so-Invisible Hand working to get some of the resolutions to work out the way they did. I like the way the storylines ended up, so I’m not going to complain too much. And since it was only in the closing pages that I thought about maybe criticizing something in the book, Simpson earned a little authorial heavy-handedness.

This is a real winner—Strong Like You shares so much DNA with Eli Cranor’s Don’t Know Tough (but is not a copy in any way) and even hearkens back to Early Autumn by Robert B. Parker. And anytime a book can make me compare it favorably with those two knockouts, I’m going to put it down as pure joy.

If you’re someone who gets hung up on the YA tag, push “Pause” on that for 224 pages. This is a book that deserves a fair shake and many, many readers—Simpson’s debut is as strong as Walker hopes to be.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from North Star Editions via NetGalley—thanks to both for this.

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

Below the Falls by Ross McMeekin: A Mixed-Bag Worth the Effort

By HCNewton

On March 11, 2024

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

Below the Falls

by Ross McMeekin

DETAILS: 
Publisher: Thirty West Publishing House
Publication Date: March 22, 2024
Format: eARC
Length: 190 pg.
Read Date: March 1-9, 2024

What’s Below the Falls About?

This is a diverse collection of 25 short stories (some very short, some not). I’m struggling to say more than that about it.

The title comes from the first story, but it applies pretty well to the collection as a whole. Some more directly than others. Each story does deal with the effects of a fall–metaphorically, naturally (with an exception or two). Sometimes the protagonist is the one who fell (or is falling), sometimes they’re next to or observing the fall, maybe dealing the the consequences of it.*

* I fought hard against the impulse to say “dealing with the fallout” there.

The Publisher’s description puts it this way:

Two climbers in the North Cascades risk their friendship and lives ascending a frozen waterfall. The girlfriend of a famous comedian in Greenwich Village must decide whether she wants to raise a child in the spotlight of fame. A mysterious Bird of Paradise makes daily overtures to an elderly widow in the frigid Midwest. A Texas fracking mogul struggles to find the love his money prevents. The deeply rendered American landscapes of these stories emerge as a vital background for characters faced with conflicts that cannot be easily resolved, illuminating interior worlds filled with contradiction.

I might have picked other stories for the blurb, but then again, those are probably some of the easiest to summarize in a sentence.

So, what did I think about Below the Falls?

Like most short story collections, this is a mixed bag. And your results are going to vary (perhaps wildly) from mine. Which sounds like I’m trying to weasel out of giving a firm opinion, but it isn’t.

There’s a meme that I see everywhere (except for now when I’m looking for it) that says something about running across a sentence that makes you close your book for a while to sit and think about it. Nearly every story in this collection has one or two of those sentences, or at least sentences that I had to read a couple of times just to appreciate them.

Too often, those sentences were all I had to commend a particular story, however. My notes are filled with comments like, “why?”, “a plot would’ve been helpful here”*, or “what was the point?”

* Yes, yes, yes–they’re not always needed for compelling reading. But they are sometimes.

However…the other stories more than made up for that. For example, an early story was described aboe as “A mysterious Bird of Paradise makes daily overtures to an elderly widow in the frigid Midwest” story (“Small Firey Bloom”). It was haunting, beautiful, and is probably what kept me going after a rough start.

I’m not going to list the others that were as good–without getting into too much detail, it’d be hard to describe my reactions in a meaningful way. But more importantly, anyone who reads this collection is going to end up disagreeing with me about which ones I was knocked out by and which ones I found skippable or pointless.

So, I’ll just leave it with this–there’s a lot of dross in this collection. But there’s also some of the shiniest gold you’re going to find, too. You’ll have to do some sifting, some panning, and maybe even some chiseling to get it–but you’ll be so glad you did.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from the author and Lori Hettler of The Next Best Book Club in exchange for this post and my honest take—thanks to both for this.

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

Strong Like You by T. L. Simpson: Love And Hate On The Edge Of A Knife

By HCNewton

On March 5, 2024

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, YA/MG/Children's Books

Strong Like You

by T. L. Simpson

DETAILS:
Publisher: Flux
Publication Date: March 12, 2024
Format: eARC
Length: 224
Read Date: March 1, 2024