What I Read in September
It’s officially cozy season. September said goodbye to summer Fridays and hello to the kids walking to school past my office window every morning. Our house is under attack from the acorns that are dropping like missiles from the four mature oak trees in our yard, and I once again fell for the pumpkin spice flavored coffee grounds that, unfortunately, taste awful. It’s fall, y’all.
But at least I read some good books this month! Read on September’s reviews.
Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens
3/5 Stars
This thriller involves a young hitchhiker running away from an unbearable living situation and hoping to fake her death along a notorious stretch of highway where women have disappeared before. A year later, a sister of another victim hunts for the killer.
This book had a great setting and the beginning sucked me in. It was easy to feel for Hailey's predicament, being stuck in a horrible living situation but being too young to leave, and the idea of running away was an exhilarating thing to pull off on the page. But then... the middle really lagged. It was a lot of waiting for things to happen, and then when things did happen, it was kind of improbable. We also didn't get to see too much of the killer, so this book didn't have that creepy, hair-raising effect that would keep you up at night. It was just all of a sudden: "oh, it's that person.
Revenge of the Rose by Nicole Galland
5/5 Stars
An impoverished yet talented young knight is summoned from his home in rural Burgundy to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor. There, he navigates the treacherous mores of court life with the help of his friend, the emperor’s minstrel.
This was such a witty and engaging read! I felt that the author gave just enough detail to immerse me in the world without wearing the research too much. Sometimes historical novels can get bogged down and start to sound like a history text book, but that's not the case with this one. The plot was juicy and had good tension between conservative and progressive characters. I could picture this comedy on the stage for sure.
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
4/5 Stars
A millennial woman leaves a job in book publishing for the promise of Silicon Valley at the height of tech idealism. There, she deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability.
This is an entertaining and juicy peek behind the curtains of the tech industry. The writing is exceptional. I flew through these pages.
But something is not adding up about this memoir. Throughout the entire book, the author maintains this naivete and other-ness that I can definitely forgive her for in the beginning, as she came from the publishing world. But she clearly has a lot more going for her than she lets on as she lands interview after interview, gets promoted, and eventually leads a whole team. But even at her height of career success, she still has this disbelief, and not only that, but a scathing view of the startup world that has treated her pretty well. So she wasn’t meant for Silicon Valley in the first place, hated it the whole time, yet worked hard enough to succeed there? Don’t get me wrong, I share all the same criticisms about the tech world that she brings up, but they sound disingenuous when they come from someone who so clearly thrived in it.
There was a really great point she brought up where she asks what was the cost of giving so much trust to young, overconfident white men to build the world we have now? What perspective was lost by not having women or people of color in those positions from the beginning? Besides the countless overvalued companies that resulted from the tech boom, there is also this insidious “bro” culture of tech that still exists today.
The book also gives solid insight on how big data works, and if you weren’t already furious, you will be after reading this book.
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen
3/5 Stars
A black woman with a demanding schedule trying to cope with some dire medical news.
3 stars for a perfectly fine book. It is readable, the characters are all likeable, and deep themes do get explored (infertility, police brutality, sexism and racism in the workplace, interracial relationships) but they were all handled as if this book were an introduction for someone who has never experienced or even heard of those things. There's just an obviousness to the way these themes are presented, like the author wasn't sure readers would understand unless she spelled it out. I think this could have been a richer story if it hadn't tried to speak to so many things, but then again, the title implies that black girls really do experience all these things at once. And that's fair, too.
