Book Review: The Likeness by Tana French

Six months after the events of In the Woods, Detective Cassie Maddox is still trying to recover. She's transferred out of the murder squad and started a relationship with Detective Sam O'Neill, but she's too badly shaken to make a commitment to him or to her career. Then Sam calls her to the scene of his new case: a young woman found stabbed to death in a small town outside Dublin. The dead girl's ID says her name is Lexie Madison (the identity Cassie used years ago as an undercover detective) and she looks exactly like Cassie...



Pages: 466
Author: Tana French
Add It: Goodreads
Series: Dublin Murder Squad (#2)
Publisher: Viking Adult

While I am still working on the fourth book in this series I can safely say, without a doubt, that this is my favorite book of the four thus far. It's hard to say what calls to me here. It could be the way I relate to Cassie and all of her darkest wants and needs. It could be the creaky old house that is reminiscent of so many great gothic settings that have come before. It could be the overarching theme that all anyone truly wants is to belong and to spend every waking moment feeling wine in their bones, bare arms swirling in the cool moonlight, the safety of a homemade family, and a kiss on their lips after midnight... preferably by someone who is not the stoic homicidal maniac that they appear to be. This book is intoxicating with its freedoms and dreams.



Before the story gets interesting, things start off by focusing a bit on Cassie and Sam to allow us to see how their relationship has grown since the events of In the Woods. Sure, Sam is about as interesting as a golden retriever* (so far anyway, where's his book that details all of his mental shortcomings, French?) but I am not in the camp that believes Rob and Cassie should have ended up together at the end of In the Woods. Sure, Rob's phone call to Cassie was heartbreaking, but I hoped that she really did leave the phone on for vengeance because I am kind of a vindictive bitch when scorned, and it pleases me to see my fictional counterparts doing the same and standing up for themselves. Maybe Rob and Cassie are meant to be (whatever that means), but perhaps not now, and I think that's ok. Rob treated Cassie poorly and abused the connection that they had. He has no one to blame but himself and it's certainly not Sam's fault for falling in love with her and treating her better. I read in an interview of French's that she has considered going back to Rob and Cassie's story some day, and that suits me just fine. I think it makes sense that Rob might get a better grip on his demons, Cassie might get a better grip on hers, and those crazy kids might just work it out yet. Patience, doves.

"And God the taste of undercover on my tongue again, the brush of it down the little hairs on my arms. I'd thought I remembered what it was like, every detail, but I'd been wrong: memories are nothing, soft as gauze against the ruthless razor-fineness of that edge, beautiful and lethal, one tiny slip and it'll slice to the bone."

Have you ever wanted to step into the shoes of someone else's life and just stop being you for awhile? Then the basic set up here will appeal to you. The set up will also appeal to you if you've ever dreamed of giving up your routine job and living in a house with peace-loving-manic-pixie-hippies. Is that a dream that anyone has? I bet it is, and you just don't know it, because I have to say I was jealous of the life that Cassie got to live undercover. As jealous as she was of Lexie. I also don't care if the plot that led her there is entirely implausible and something that would never happen because this isn't The Twilight Zone. This is fiction. I also don't believe a wizard named Dumbledore with a long beard is going to be knocking down my door to invite me to a secret wizarding school in England** but that's never stopped me from falling in love.

"In all my life I had seldom wanted anything as wildly as I wanted to be in there, get this gun and this phone off me, drink and dance until a fuse blew in my brain and there was nothing left in the world except the music and the blaze of lights and the four of them surrounding me, laughing, dazzling, untouchable."

You see that sentence there? I've never felt more put on paper. I know that feeling, and this is why Tana French's writing is so good. It feels like you're reading about yourself. I mean, granted, that's probably only if you're like me and partially mentally unstable, but be honest, you are, aren't you? I also know the feeling of a friendship so close and co-dependent that at its best it's the most wonderful feeling in the world because it feels like home, and at its worst it's murderous and leaking poison until it blurs your entire world. The writing and the characters are painfully raw and honest, and French is very good at making us all question our basic morals and beliefs. I would go so far as to say that this book was the most beautifully written of her Dublin Murder Squad collection. The mystery was subtle and the only one of the first three books where I can honestly say I didn't know how it would end. I would say that even if you didn't like or love In the Woods you should give this book a shot before writing off French completely. She may just surprise you yet.

*But Golden retrievers are fucking awesome, ok, those muther fuckers are so devoted to fetch they deserve a medal.
** Yes, I actually do believe that, and your attempts to disillusion me will be met with disgust and derision.

Review: In the Woods by Tana French

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

Pages: 485
Author: Tana French
Add It: Goodreads
Series: Dublin Murder Squad (#1)
Publisher: Viking Adult

"Move closer, follow the three children scrambling over the thin membrane of brick and mortar that holds the wood back from the semi-ds. Their bodies have the perfect economy of latency; they are streamlined and unselfconcious, pared to light flying machines. White tattoos-lightning bolt, star, A- flash where they cut band-aid's into shapes and let the sun brown around them. A flag of white-blond hair flies out: toehold, knee on the wall, up and over and gone."

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I picked up this book. Long ago I had asked for recommendations for books that would grip hold of my head and bend and twist it, until I was no longer sure of anything, much like the film Shutter Island or even the television show LOST. I grew up on Nancy Drew and was looking for that same excitement from reading again. I wanted to work my brain while I read and fall into the rabbit hole of the story until I hit the bottom, and all other light and sound was blocked out, because only the really good books can make pesky reality go away for awhile. When I read the synopsis, I wasn't sure that this book was what I was looking for. Crime fiction? I never read it. I moved this book to some dark corner of my to-read shelf where books go to die of loneliness because I can never read every book I want to read. It wasn't until Reynje read the book and I saw her updates and review that I decided to finally pick up the book on a whim, and I've got to thank Reynje, because I had no idea what I was missing out on by not having read this series yet. Everything about this book is lovely, the writing is atmospheric, and the characters are flesh and bone at your fingertips. The mystery isn't necessarily hard to figure out, but nor is it overly obvious, and it's still a worthwhile adventure to watch the characters minds break as the story unfolds around them.

"My gift, or fatal flaw, is for nostalgia. I have sometimes been accused of demanding perfection, or rejecting heart's desires as soon as I get close enough that the mysterious impressionistic gloss disperses into plain solid dots, but the truth is less simplistic than that. I know very well that perfection is made up of frayed, off-struck mundanities."

Certainly, I never thought I'd relate to Rob Ryan, but here we are. French creates characters so psychologically screwed up that I kind of love and hate myself for indentifying with them to any degree. It wasn't just Rob I related to, and towards the end of the story I definitely understood the feeling of being in Cassie's shoes, and wanted to hit Rob with a shoe, but that's just French's brilliance at work priming me for immediately moving on to book two which furthers along Cassie's story. I think that her books are probably infused with subliminal messages, but I cannot prove this with any amount of evidence other than my bank statements for the past two weeks, and I suspect those won't hold up in court.

"This was our last and greatest dance together, danced in a tiny interview room with darkness outside and rain falling soft and relentless on the roof, for no audience but the doomed and the dead."

I can see why people ship Rob and Cassie, and perhaps in some secret-dark-fucked-up-corner of myself I do too. In fact, I know I do, because they remind me of feelings I've felt too. Cassie and Rob are connected in every way; the good way and the bad way and everything in between. That makes it all the more heartbreaking, doesn't it? That they couldn't get it right? At the same time I think Cassie can (and does) find a healthier connection elsewhere. Sometimes connections that deep bring more sadness than happiness, and while they certainly can't be denied or ignored when they're at their best, when they're at their worst there's no armor thick enough to protect someone during the implosion. Sometimes people need a balance and not a... likeness. And in fact it was nice to see a realistic relationship played out on these pages. People don't always turn out to be who someone else thought they were. People let people down. People move on. People are so rarely heroes and people are so flawed, often too flawed to give themselves to someone else. Besides, Cassie is the hero of the story, and she doesn't need to be saved, so. I believe Regina Spektor wrote a song about her once.

it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
no one's got it all

You know what I am not moving on from though? That ending. I do think it's more haunting this way, but I'm the cat whose curiousity got her killed, and I NEEDED more. If you've read it, you know what I mean, if you haven't, you should find out for yourself. I don't want you to hold back from the story because that would be a shame. You should go into this book expecting the best and the worst, in every storyline, and every character, because this book builds you up and lets you down in turn.

"And then, too, I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn't find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there myself."

Book Review: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family. But after she’s convicted of murder, she awakens to a nightmarish new life. She finds herself lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new Chromes—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime—is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red for the crime of murder. The victim, says the State of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.

Pages: 352
Author: Hillary Jordan
Add It: Goodreads
Publisher: Algonquin
Rating: 2/5

How absolutely cool is the premise of this book? People's skin is genetically mutated a certain color to paint them as certain shades of criminal. Red skin means murderer. In this society, red skin also means someone who has had an abortion, a procedure that has been deemed illegal now that Roe V. Wade has been overturned. This novel had the potential to be as frightening as Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a novel that didn't seem entirely far fetched, and still does not in a world where women still have to fight for their right to have complete control over their bodies. I think books of this nature are especially important given the current fight over birth control that has cropped up as candidates fight to challenge Obama in this year's election. People like Rush Limbaugh really exist. There are groups of people out there who want a world like this one to be the one we live in. Books like this one are almost realistic fiction when you think about it like that. Terrifying.

The novel starts out strong. Hannah Payne has recently been transformed to become a Chrome, her skin mutated Red, to represent her crime of abortion. She must live her days on camera inside of jail, where her every move is being broadcasted to people at home for their entertainment. Experiencing with Hannah her first moments as a Chrome, alone in solitary, is deeply intimate. Because of her perceived crime Hannah is subjected to humiliation and psychological torture. It was very interesting and painful to be inside of Hannah's head as she dealt with this experience.

Hannah is soon released and dropped off in a religious facility aimed at "curing" women chromes and bringing them back to the light of Jesus or whatever. This section of the book actually wasn't half bad. There were some definitely great points made using Hannah's experiences in that facility; even if perhaps Jordan should not have been so heavy handed with the message and allowed the "evil" characters to be humanized a bit. A particularly frightening thing about this facility was that Hannah and others were forced to create and carry around dolls that represented the "child" they aborted.

Once Hannah leaves the facility things get a little far fetched. She joins a sort of underground program put in place by those that oppose the new government and after that it is one unbelievable situation after another. Hannah's narrative is also a little weird. She still considers herself a murderer even if she doesn't believe she deserves all of the ways she's been treated, and that is never resolved. I also didn't buy her loyalty to the father of her baby, or why she would put entire groups of people at risk just to see him one last time. Also, there is a brief segue into lesbianism that would have had more meaning if it had, well, meant anything at all and didn't seem to be just a convenient plot point to represent Hannah's supposed awakening.

I think this book would have been far better served if it had focused on Hannah being made an outcast by society as a whole, and the treatment she would have received trying to live a normal life as a Red.

I'm mixed on whether or not I'd recommend this one. It was a fairly enjoyable read, the idea of chromes was fantastic, the feminist themes were important, but in the end it fell short of everything it was trying to accomplish. I'd much rather recommend The Handmaid's Tale instead.

Book Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother's death and her family's bloody history.

With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how perilous it can be when love and hate - and gods and mortals - are bound inseparably together.

Pages: 427
Author: N.K. Jemisin
Add It: Goodreads
Series: The Inheritance Trilogy (#1)
Publisher: Orbit
Rating: 4/5

N.K. Jemisin is definitely a force to be reckoned with in the fantasy genre. Her ability to craft an exciting and imaginative fantasy world is evident from the very first. The story of the gods is both unique and unpredictable. I would venture to say it is the most original use of gods in a story that I have ever seen. Jemisin's gods are everything you would imagine a god to be. They do not get weighed down by humanity because they are not human. I think this is one of the book's greatest strengths.

Another credit to Jemisin, and perhaps the biggest one, is her ability to write. This woman can write the pants off of many fantasy writers and many writers in general. Her phrases are lyrical and raw and inspiring. I immediately wanted to write them down and share them with others. The stream of consciousness style of writing was the novel's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. I thought it was strongest when Yeine's narrative was being overtaken by Enefa.

“I gather her body to mine and will all of creation to make her live again. We are not built for death. But nothing changes, nothing changes, there was a hell that I built long ago and it was a place where everything remained the same forever because I could imagine nothing more horrific, and now I am there
Then others come, our children, and all react with equal horror
in a child’s eyes, a mother is god
but I can see nothing of their grief through the black mist of my own. I lay her body down but my hands are covered in her blood, our blood, sister lover pupil teacher friend otherself, and when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. No one can see them, but they are my tears.”

I also found the stream of consciousness style to be frustrating and melodramatic at times. Yeine would often begin a story only to swear she'd come back to it later and start telling another one. While it certainly was a unique way to tell the story, it was also very distracting, and confusing for me as a reader.

While I think that this novel was beautifully crafted, and such an original addition to the fantasy genre, I didn't absolutely love it. In fact, I found myself uncaring about the outcome and the fates of the characters and the plot. I think this is because the characters never felt relatable to me, and I couldn't say that I truly liked any of them. Sieh seems to be a favorite among readers but I thought he was actually a little creepy and unpredictable. I suppose that's as it should be, since he is a god, and they live their lives in shades of gray. I think that it was just hard for me to get outside of my own head and view the gods as non-human creatures who clearly don't play by our rules. If I had been able to do so his behavior would not have seemed so odd to me.

Yeine was my favorite but there was something about her that always kept the reader at a distance and didn't allow for intimacy. Perhaps it was because she was slipping away? Characters seem to make or break novels for me. If you can make me care deeply for at least one character then you've got me, but if you can't, then it's going to be hard to grab my attention much at all.

I'd definitely recommend this to fans of the fantasy genre looking for something worthwhile and unique.