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Nica's Dream: The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness

David Kastin

(0 Ratings) Rate It

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It's a misty night in 1950s New York. A silver Rolls-Royce screeches to a stop at the neon-lit...

Lady In The Lake

Laura Lippman

8.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

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The revered New York Times bestselling author returns with a novel set in 1960s Baltimore that...

Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated Darius the Great is Not Okay in Books

Dec 25, 2018

This novel got a lot of hype before and after its release - and it deserves it. It has great minority representation, from Persian (and bi-racial!) to Zoroastrian and Baha'i, to clinical depression and male friendship. You could also read gay and/or asexual into it, but that's not explicitly mentioned. Romantic love is just never addressed; perhaps because the story just doesn't involve it, but you could definitely read the main character as ace.

Darius is a great main character. He's funny, self-deprecating, and complex. He has clinical depression, is medicated for it, and can sometimes tell when it's the depression making him think a certain way, but sometimes he can't. He's biracial, visiting Iran and his mother's Persian family for the first time, and adjusting to Persian social norms and traditions while trying not to lose sight of his American life. His connection with his father is tenuous and fraught with miscommunication, and lot of the book is spent wrestling with that relationship. His new friend, Sohrab, is a great foil to that, as his father is completely absent from his life, having been arrested and thrown in jail prior to the start of the story, largely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being part of a minority religion.

There are so many small things touched on this book - suspicion at customs when flying through, bullying at school for being Persian, not speaking his family's language because his mother didn't teach it to him (and feeling cut off because of it) - all little things that a lot of immigrant children deal with.

Aside from the cultural things the book addresses, there's also the mental health aspect. Both Darius and his father have clinical depression, and there's stigma attached to having the diagnosis, and to taking pills for it. We see how their mental states affects their relationship with each other and with the rest of their family, and it's quite powerful. The author talks about having clinical depression in an afterword, and includes some resources that helped him. This is an #ownvoices novel in more ways than one, and it really shows. Excellent book.

You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com

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Debbie Duncan (0 KP) rated Murder on the Orient Express in Books

Feb 5, 2018

You know the ending but it’s about the journey ! (0 more)

What a journey!

Contains spoilers, click to show

How do you a summarise a book that is a classical as this one ? We come face to face with Hercule Poirot as he joins the Orient Express at Aleppo in a rush to get to London. After getting in the train Poirot is approached by Samuel Ratchett, a malevolent, elderly American who wants to hire the detective as He believes his life is being threatened.

On the second night of the journey the train is stopped by a snowdrift near Vinkovci and Poirot's is woken by a cry emanating from Ratchett's compartment. The next morning we discover that Ratchett has been murdered and Poirot investigates the crime.
As we get to meet the other passengers we soon discover that everyone on the train has a motive to murder. Poirot discovers that everyone in the coach had a connection to the a famous Family called the Armstrong family who lost their daug in tragic circumstances. and a to kill . He proposes two possible solutions.

What does our detective friend do when he finds the truth?

Even if you know the ending the journey mpoint is weaved so wonderfully in and out like a train sneaking up the route of the Orient Express