Pick-a-Shelf discussion

February Shelf is magical-realism

What did you read? Love or hate?
Would you have shelved this book under 'magical-realism'?

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

In my opinion this is a perfect example of magical realism; there is a ghost and a few other magic elements, but you never know for sure if they are really real or it's just our everyday non-magic world.

It's set in a bookshop (a haunted bookshop) and gives a contemporary experience of COVID and the BLM movement.

This was the book I was hoping for; easy to read page-turner, with literary strength, a bit of magic, and great characters. As I was reading I wondered if the 2020 issues felt tacked on. I decided that they did, but that that's OK. That's how it was - we were all going about our lives, living our own stories, and then everything changed.

Used for 15/15 prompt 7
I nominate past-and-present

The Watchmaker's Daughter [6-02-2023] 4 stars

This was a fun and quick read. I'm intruiged about how the magic works and am looking forward to the next book

I nominate Female-detective

So happy I read Midnight at the Blackbird Café by Heather Webber for this shelf. ✭✭✭✭✭ Read 2/8/23

I don't remember, in my wanderings around Goodreads, where I first saw people raving about this book, but now I totally get it. It's heartwarming, without being sappy, and, in my opinion, it got the magical realism just right - not too fantastical, but just on the edge of "maybe it's magic, maybe it's not." A wonderful, uplifting story.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrators (Bethany Anne Lind, Nicholas Techosky, and Stephanie Willis) did a phenomenal job bringing the characters to life. Highly recommended.

PAS Challenge(s) used for: Fifteen for Fifteen (2023) (comfort reads)

I'd like to nominate: Feel Good

I read Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan
4 stars

I originally checked this book out from the library, then I left it behind accidentally. Luckily, some good Samaritan found it and returned it to the library. I wasn't sure if I would finish it, but I ended up buying a kindle copy and reading the rest on my phone. I'm so glad I decided to keep going.

At first, I found the book meandering and sort of slow. I'd been expecting something more fantasy-based, more magical. This is really a book about life in a small village in Indonesia. The magical realism aspect related to the tiger that lives in the protagonist's body is almost an afterthought to the story. But somewhere around the 35% mark, I found the rhythm of the book and was able to be carried along with the different stories being woven together.

I know nothing about Indonesia or its authors. I'm glad to have had this chance to broaden my knowledge of the world and its people.

I used this for Moving Mountains.

I'll nominate siblings

First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen 3 1/2 stars

This book has a bit of a slow start and it took me a while to get into the characters, but its been several years since I read the first book. This one isn't quite a good as the first book but it was still enjoyable. I did like the characters. I would have liked to learn more about the mother and I still love the apple tree!

I also used this for fifteen in fifteen prompt 8

I nominate survival

I read Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
4☆

I read The Great Believers last week, and it absolutely gutted me. I went almost a week before I was ready to pick up another book. This book provided a perfect bridge for me to get back into the world of fiction. Oona is a fun character, the message in this book is spot on, and the technical issues of time travel is handled in a believable way - well, as much as it's possible for time travel to be believable. There are plenty of twists, and keeping track of the story isn't particularly easy, but I think it works because the reader is playing catch up along with Oona. This book felt a lot like the movie "Memento," which in my opinion is a good thing.

I used this book for the Monthly Challenge for February and the PAS By The Month challenge as well.

I'm going to nominate Alex Awards

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire
4☆

I don't know if there's much point reviewing a book that is 7th in the series, you need to read the others first (starting with Every Heart a Doorway). It is a fabulous series though. I recommend it a lot for people who aren't sure about fantasy, it's light on the fantasy element, great character-driven writing, and short!
This installment continues the core story and is mostly set in the "real" world, at an alternative school to Eleanor West's. We meet several recurring characters again.

Read for seriously serial and 15/15 round 8
I nominate feel good

I read Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire 4 stars

Review: Rini lands in a pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. She comes from the Land of Confection. She finds out that her mother Sumi died in this land before she was conceived. That is why she is starting to disappear. She must race to undo her mother's death so she can exist. This was such a fun episode in this series. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Read for: Moving Mountains 2023 & Seriously Serial
I nominate: Ghost Books

Im reading The Cartographers

I read The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
4 stars

Let me start by saying that the narrator the audiobook did a fantastic job with the narration of this relatively long and complicated book. There are a lot of characters, a lot of story threads, and the narrator had a handle on all of them. Truly excellent production work.

I wish I were slightly more familiar with the actual Chinese history and lore that is in the background of this story. I'm sure better reference-catching would have enriched this reading experience. But even without that knowledge, I very much enjoyed this story. You can feel the author's prowess as a short story writer. Several of the characters have backstories told in the form of a short story. This worked remarkably well in a way that it doesn't always, which is largely attributable to the author's sense of timing for short stories.

I feel like I should read the rest of the series pretty quickly before I forget all the details here.

Read for: Seriously Serial, 15/15, By the Month
I nominate Alex Awards

I read two that I had planned, and one Toni Morrison book that I realized while reading it absolutely deserved to be on this shelf.
Clay's Ark - I wouldn't call this magical realism at all. To me, it seems like pure science fiction, with not enough "realism" to qualify for the shelf.
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe definitely belongs on this shelf. And such a sweet little story. I'm so glad some of you suggested it.
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison's first book.

@♞ Pat & Joanna

that's not a 'shelf' - could you nominate from a shelf please?

I read Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Joanna is struggling with the loss of her mother and her own battle with cancer. She heads to the field to do her graduate research on the nesting of birds when a little girl comes out of the woods.

The girl calls herself Ursa and says she is there from a different planet to study humans. Ursa is smart, charming and understands Shakespeare! Joanna and her neighbor Gabriel try to find out who she really is by calling the police and checking missing children websites.

The more time the trio spend together, the less looking they do to find out where the girl came from. Then the little girl's past catches up with all of them...putting them all in danger.

Read for: LOST 2023

I nominate post-apocalyptic

Well, so much for plans. I still haven't gotten to the book I had intended to read for this shelf, but I DID read The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa, which has a MPG of Magical Realism.

I enjoyed this book of a magical cat who helps a teenage boy grow into a fuller person by getting him to help save books. I gave it 4*.

I nominate Japan.

PAS wrote: "@♞ Pat & Joanna

that's not a 'shelf' - could you nominate from a shelf please?"

Ooops! Please use this one: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

I don't always like authors as narrators, but Erdich does a great job with this audiobook. She managed to differentiate the characters and give them authentic voices.

Erdich is one of those prolific American writers that I feel like I should have read but somehow had not. I'm pretty sure I have one of her books on my shelves waiting to be picked up, but just never quite got to anything of hers. I'm so glad to have finally read one of her novels.

I enjoyed the historical fiction here telling the story of legal shenanigans in the 1950s to try to take back land that had been given to Native Americans in North Dakota. I'd love to read more about the real history of this story. It's hard to know how much of what appeared in this novel was fictionalized to build these characters.

I would definitely read more by this author.

I nominate Priority

I finished The City & the City on February 18th but couldn't post my review as I was away for a couple of weeks. I was looking forward to this book and I actually liked it, but didn't love it as I expected. I love weird fiction but maybe this was too weird even for me?! And I must admit I prefer old-school weird fiction anyway.