Bluest Eye

I've been following the DrunkKnitter on Instagram for a bit because she's local-ish and a great knit designer. When the protests started happening against police brutality and BLM became a top news story, she started a #MKALBookClub (you can search Instagram for the hashtag). We would be reading a book and she was giving out a free mystery pattern to knit at the same time.

The book was The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The pattern is Pecola.

I had The Bluest Eye in my bookcase but I had not yet read it. Once I picked it up, printed the pattern and casted on....well, the knitting went by the wayside until I got the book finished. This is Morrison's debut novel and her writing from the start is just lyrical. I kept going back to re-read passages, initially because they were beautiful, then again because they were so impactful.

We're in 1941 and Pecola, a young black girl, yearns to have blue eyes. It's one of her greatest wishes.  Pecola is constantly told that she is ugly. Her family is ugly and everyone just accepts that this is true. Pecola is sure that if she had blue eyes, she couldn't be ugly anymore.  The novel is mostly narrated by Claudia, another young black girl, with whom Pecola has to stay with when Pecola's father sets their own house on fire.

Claudia firmly believes she is beautiful. She, and so many others, use Pecola's ugliness as a way to make themselves feel better. But I think Claudia is only person to acknowledge that in the novel. Pecola's father is an alcoholic, abusive man. Her mother shows more care and affection to the white children she cares for than her own kids. Her brother has ran away too many times to count, never taking Pecola with him. Eventually, Cholly, Pecola's father, rapes her. She ends up pregnant when she is still just a child herself.

Pecola eventually gets her blue eyes....in her mind. She descends into a mental breakdown and the final chapters put us in her head as she spirals downward.

The abuse Pecola endures, not just from her family, but from her community, is almost unbearable to read about. When Pecola wishes for blue eyes, it's to achieve the beauty of "whiteness" as if only white people can be beautiful. When I started unpacking that, I honestly didn't know what to do with it. I listened to interviews by Morrison about this novel and discovered it's the same today. Whiteness is held up as a standard a beauty, even for black people, and that makes zero sense to me. I know that beauty is supposed to be a virtue in our society. You must be attractive, you must be beautiful, to be somebody, anybody.  That is now, and always was, an incredibly damaging virtue to strive for. But it's even more damaging to tell black folks that they must strive to look as white as possible to be considered beautiful.

The world is unyielding (Morrison's words) to black girls. In this novel, you feel like Pecola doesn't stand a chance, that everyone sees her drowning and no one steps in to help. Claudia and her sister seem to be the only ones who are rooting for Pecola and her baby. Everyone else takes a step back.

This was an eye opening novel. Morrison has been on my list of favorite authors since I read Beloved so I'm glad the Drunk Knitter started her book club to get us reading.

And I finally got back to the knitting and it's working up so beautifully!

I like Toni's answer. Why would she be asked this when I would bet money that white authors are not asked the same question?

The Mountains Wild - ARC

I got this copy of The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor from NetGalley as an advance reader's copy. I had a bit of trouble getting into it, it felt like the upward ride on a rollercoaster, but then came the rushing climax and twists and I was hooked.

Set in Dublin, Homicide Detective Maggie D'arcy is back when clues of her missing cousin, Erin, turn up. Erin disappeared over 20 years, along with several other woman, and when some personal belongings show up of Erin's, Maggie heads back to Dublin. The detectives are reluctant to allow Maggie to help with the investigation but eventually concede when the parents of the newest missing girl ask for her help.

We get to go back and forth, with Maggie and Erin's upbringing, Erin's volatile history and her decision to up and move to Dublin from Long Island, and Maggie's first trip to Dublin when Erin first goes missing.

Once Maggie is in the case files and starts uncovering missing information is where this really picks up. Her mind is stellar, as she puts two and two together and realizes what really happened. I think the saddest piece is where Maggie began believing that Erin was responsible for the other missing girls. Erin's history was tragic, indeed, and she made it hard for people to get close to her.

This is an excellent mystery, well worth taking the time to read.

This book will be out June 23rd! Make sure you get a copy!

The Museum of Mysteries

This will be short and sweet :)

I got The Museum of Mysteries off of Chirp Audiobooks for cheap. It's co-written by Steve Berry and MJ Rose. I've ready Steve Berry, never heard of MJ Rose. So essentially, I got it for Steve.

It was a super short audio book, about 3 hours, and I kept waiting to hear Berry's POV somewhere. In short, not a fan of this one. Based on other reviews, it sounds like I'm not the only one thinking this was short on Steve.

Here's the GoodReads synopsis:

Cassiopeia Vitt takes center stage in this exciting novella from New York Times bestsellers M.J. Rose and Steve Berry.

In the French mountain village of Eze, Cassiopeia visits an old friend who owns and operates the fabled Museum of Mysteries, a secretive place of the odd and arcane. When a robbery occurs at the museum, Cassiopeia gives chase to the thief and is plunged into a firestorm.

Through a mix of modern day intrigue and ancient alchemy, Cassiopeia is propelled back and forth through time, the inexplicable journeys leading her into a hotly contested French presidential election. Both candidates harbor secrets they would prefer to keep quiet, but an ancient potion could make that impossible. With intrigue that begins in southern France and ends in a chase across the streets of Paris, this magical, fast-paced, hold-your-breath thriller is all you’ve come to expect from M.J. Rose and Steve Berry.

Brennan is the best.

I felt like I missed something when I read this. I scrolled back through the Temperance Brennan books and didn't seem to have missed anything. But we start off with Brennan's boss being murdered and Brennan having a brain aneurysm as well as being blackballed from her job by her boss' replacement. Did I miss where all this happened?

Either way, Brennan plunges ahead on a case of a faceless corpse that is found, without being in official capacity to do so. I worried about Brennan, she seemed a bit unhinged and paranoid in this book. But it turns out she had a right to be.

Something is very off about the faceless corpse, as well as the new head honcho's description of the case. Skinny Slidell, as well as others, don't have a lot of respect for the new coroner so they help Brennan out.

The key word in the title is Conspiracy. We went deep into conspiracy theories, the dark web, podcasts spewing garbage (much like what we have today) and Brennan went DEEP.  The rabbit holes are far reaching and you'll enjoy them more discovering them on your own.

We should constantly be reminded of what we owe in return for what we have.

Back in January, Masterclass had an all access pass on sale for all of their classes. I bought it, thinking 2020 was going to be my year of learning and change.

Oh hindsight. You so funny.

Since I've been stuck at home for over 2 months, I have delved into Masterclass classes and discovered Doris Kearns Goodwin had a class on Leadership (viewed through FDR, Johnson, etc). Kearns Goodwin is a presidential historian and I remembered being interested in her interviews on The Daily Show (The Jon Stewart version). But I never read any of her books.

I'm halfway through her class and decided to see if the library had any e-books available (I miss going to the library the most). I ended up with No Ordinary Times as an audiobook. I really enjoyed it. I knew little about FDR and Eleanor, really just the basics.

This book covers their relationship and the US's entrance into WWII. We learn a great deal about how Eleanor basically wrote the book on how modern (most modern) First Ladies would act: the causes they take on, the public appearances, and their dedication to America. In this case, Eleanor also had to act as an FDR proxy when the President could attend in person. Paralyzed by polio, he relied on Eleanor to report back to aid in his decision making.

I would say they were a great team.... and they were, but affairs and such always cause problems. The Roosevelt's were no exception.

FDR did a lot in his unprecedented four terms as President (term limits were set shortly after). His fireside chats, the New Deal, helping our allies defeat Hitler, etc. Eleanor was no slouch either in the human rights arena.

It's very interesting to compare the past Presidential decisions, Congressional decisions as well, to current day. It's also interesting to know that the New Deal was protested against, but is common day now. It's also interesting to compare the current COVID stimulus with the New Deal as well.  History is just damn interesting.

FDR - Fireside chat

Fast Facts about Eleanor

Once In A....

Here's another review I swore I wrote, but, in reality, I just discussed it with a friend. Am I losing it? Probably. I both need to interact with people and do not want to be around people. What strange times.

I quite like Jack Reacher, even if his circumstances are a bit unbelievable. In book #24, Reacher sees an old man, with an envelope full of money, fall asleep on a bus. He also spies a rapscallion who is eyeing the envelope. When the old man gets off at his stop, so does the rapscallion. And so does Reacher.

Reacher thwarts a robbery and, in his insistence on helping the old man home, is now eyebrows deep in gangsters and mafia goings on. How does he do this?

The old man is actually using the money to pay back a loan shark, and, for some reason, Reacher decides to act as the old man to get more info. We get the back story on why this old couple hits up mafia loan sharks in the first place (it feels slightly incredulous) and it must hit Reacher's sympathy bone, because he stays on to help them out.

A waitress comes along for the ride in taking down all of the mafia. Again...what?

If you disregard the credibility of such a story and you choose to go on the ride without thinking, this is an excellent book with an abnormal amount of violence, even for Reacher.

This is our story

I'm surprised I didn't write a review for Ashley Elston's book This is Our Story. I felt like I did. Maybe I just wrote it in my head and never actually put fingers to keyboard.

Today is a beautiful day in the Midwest. Windows are open, sounds of people out in their yards floating in. It's a great change of pace from the locked up (safe at home) dreary days of the past 2 months. I hope everyone is well and staying healthy.

I think this book was recommended by the Book Riot podcast but darned if I can find it! Either way, it was a pretty good story as listened via audiobook through the library. I'm fairly certain it's a YA book as the main characters are High Schoolers and, while the plot was more adult, it felt young.

Kate Marino is a senior and works as an intern at the DA's office (where her mom works). The River Point Boys are a group of five super wealthy and, naturally, handsome boys. They go into the woods for a hunting party, but only four boys come out. Who killed Grant? None of the boys are talking. And being from wealthy families, they don't have to.

Mr. Stone, the DA, ends up with the case and is ordered to get the boys off since the families are such good donors. Sad, but true. Mr. Stone, however, along with Kate, decide to dig in and see if they can get enough evidence to prosecute Grant's killer.

As Kate digs in, we find that Grant is a not so stellar guy and several people actually had motive to get rid of him.

I read it too long ago to remember a lot of the details but while it's called a thriller, I don't think that's true. It's a good mystery, a little unbelievable that a teenage girl gets as far as she does, but was fun to listen to and I ended up bingeing the last bit for the Whodunit.

Interview with the author