Book Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn
Gone Girl
2012
9780553418354

Sigh. If the author’s intent was to make the reader loath every character, not care about the outcome (and then become unsatisfied and angry about the outcome), and actually fantasize about violent deaths for all of them just to end it all, then this book deserves more stars. I tried. Either I failed or the book did. I don’t really care either way.

The only reason I gave the book two stars is because I really did like the layout of the story…the two perspectives and the time frames of them was a smart way to tell this story. I just wish I had enjoyed the actual story.

(Yes, that’s really all I have to say about this book.)

Book review: Hawk by Steven Brust

Steven Brust
Hawk
October 2014
dreamcafe.com
twitter.com/StevenBrust
9780765324443

I’ve been using Twitter to gush periodically while reading Hawk. I linked to Brust’s Twitter account in those tweets and he usually obliged me with a retweet, a favorite, and when I’ve been especially lucky, a response. I’m of the opinion that not enough people know and love this guy’s work. I consider it my sovereign duty as a voracious reader and as a bookseller to spread the good name of Brust.

So as soon as I finished the last sentence and left Vlad to retrieve his cloak, I immediately turned to Twitter to release my giddiness and inquire as to the publication date of the next Vlad novel. I was met with a message saying Twitter is under maintenance and to “check back soon”.

Sigh.

For those of you who haven’t read any Brust, let me give you some background on his Vlad books. I believe he started writing them in the early eighties (I don’t have internet access right now and my books are all in temporary storage in my RV) and is thankfully still writing them to this day. I was going to write a short synopsis of the series up to this point, but the book jacket of Hawk does that very succinctly, so I’ll quote that instead.

Vlad Taltos was an oppressed and underprivileged Easterner – that is, a human – living in Adrilankha, capital of the Dragaeran Empire. Life was hard. Worse, it was irritating. Then Vlad made a great discovery: Dragaerans would pay him to kill other Dragaerans. Win-win!

The years of Vlad’s career as a crime boss and top assassin were cut short by a revolution, a divorce, and an attack of conscience (not necessarily in that order). In the midst of all that, he broke with the Jhereg, the Dragaeran house of organized crime. He’s been a marked man ever since.

The world that Brust has created is detailed down to the very last aroma of Adrinlankha (never a good smell) and invented food that I desperately want to try (kethna, which I’ve always imagined tastes like chicken falling off of a spit, and klava, a beverage ten times better than coffee). The wit and humor in the midst of death and adventure brings me back book after book.

So finally, his latest installment: Hawk. I checked it out from the library on December 2^nd and read it in such short installments to make it last longer that I had to renew it in order to avoid late fines. I finally caved yesterday and read 80 pages in one sitting which brought me almost to the climax of the storyline. I held off on that until today. It officially took me 26 days to read and I’m already ready for the next book.

Hawk introduces us to a Vlad who is really tired of wandering, hiding, and not seeing his family. He realizes that if it’s going to stop being this way, he’ll need to be the one to facilitate a plan that gets the Jhereg off his back for good. And he believes he’s come up with one. But first, he needs to live through a couple of assassination attempts (one of which made me gasp out loud) and attract the attention of those who are trying to kill him with a money-making scheme that will hopefully get them off his back.

In the midst of his planning, hiding, and trying to stay alive, we’re given some memorable scenes with Sethra Lavode (the undead enchantress of Dzur Mountain), the Dragonlords Morrolan and Aliera, Kragar (Vlad’s former go-to man who now runs Vlad’s old business), Loiosh and Rocza (Vlad’s two reptilian familiars – have I mentioned Vlad is also a witch?) and my favorite of all: Lady Teldra. Pages 184 and 185 were a special reward for those of us wondering what really became of Teldra and I admit this sentence gave me chills: “…pleasure washes through me that I have not been forgotten”.

I continue to be astonished at how Brust is able to keep his books fresh, new, and captivating every time. There is never a dull moment or a feeling that you’re reading the same story over again and best of all, his series only gets better with every reread. The Dragaeran Empire is a place I’m really glad I don’t live in (I wouldn’t stay alive longer than, oh, maybe 5 hours) but one that I’m deliriously excited to visit every chance I get.

And I know that when reviewing a book, you’re supposed to mention something that you wish the author had done instead or some failing on behalf of the storyline, but honestly? I’ve got nothin’. It was perfectly enjoyable from start to finish, it had two gasp-worthy moments that stopped my heart both times (first fight scene early in the book and The Kragar Scene with a brief appearance by Aliera), and the ending was so well executed, I cheered.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Mr. Brust. Please keep writing. I don’t care how long it takes for the next novels; as long as they’re coming, I’m content with that. If you are ever in or around Fort Wayne, Indiana for some reason, message me on Twitter (@clarasayre) and I will drop everything (including my job as a bookseller*) in order to grab a drink with you.

*To my manager, I’d at least wait until my lunch break. Probably. Maybe. Can we discuss me using vacation days before I’ve actually begun accruing them?

Book Review: Something About You (Just Me & You Series) By Lelaina Landis

Something About You (Just Me & You Series)
http://lelainalandis.com/books/
By Lelaina Landis
Published 11/13

If you’re a virgin to romance novels like I was, you couldn’t do much better than to begin your foray into them (that is, if you’re looking to jump into the much reviled, yet much loved and purchased genre of romance) with Something About You.

Let me quickly give you a little background as to how I ended up reading and reviewing this book: Author Landis read my review of Sylvia Lucas’ childfree book, No Children, No Guilt and emailed me to see if I’d be interested in reviewing her debut book. She was careful to check with me first how I felt about the romance genre and my honest answer was that I’d never read anything from it and it wasn’t my go-to genre like science fiction and fantasy always has been. But I was intrigued and I told her I was up for the challenge.

I tried very hard to go into the first chapter with an open mind. But after almost 10 years of bookselling experience, the auto-pilot reaction of derision kept threatening to surface as I got to know the main character, Sabrina, and her first encounter with Gage Fitzgerald, who was undoubtedly being set up as the good-looking male in the inevitable forthcoming sex scenes. I rolled my eyes a bit at his name and the high society back drop that most of the characters lived in, but I kept going. I have a hard time relating to characters who have money, who name-drop alcohol (I’m not even sure what vintage port actually is), and I am completely oblivious to brand names in high fashion.

Here’s the thing though. The story unfolds around Sabrina, who is the Chief of Staff to an underwhelming, unlikeable Texan representative, and though she’s a bit high strung and tightly wound at times, you can’t help but like her. You admire her strength of character, her inimitable work ethic, and the fact that she knows what she wants and she goes for it. She is a feminist in all aspects of the word (though it’s never mentioned as such) and she has a healthy, strong, sisterly friendship with Molly, who marries Sebastian, who happens to be Gage’s best friend.

Molly and Sabrina’s friendship is a real winner in this book. While most television shows, books, movies, society, etc. focus on the petty, backstabbing stereotype of female friendships, this book focuses instead on a friendship between two women who have known each other for a very long time, who will call each other out in the most loving yet brutally honest way, and who have each other’s backs through thick and thin. By the end of the book, I was actually a teensy bit jealous of their friendship.

But this is a romance novel and so far I’ve only alluded to there being the inevitable sex scene. What may surprise you (because it definitely surprised me) is that the first hot and heavy scene (besides a make-out session in Chapter 2) doesn’t happen until almost 300 pages in. Don’t go skipping ahead now that I’ve told you where it’s at either; it’s well worth your time to get to know the characters and the plot before delving into the bedroom romp.

The story revolves around Sabrina and Gage, an unlikely couple of opposites who meet at a wedding and whose best friends are convinced they should get to know each other better. Throw in some complicated and dysfunctional family issues that every character is either trying to overcome, make sense of, or just live with and the fact that Sabrina has no desire to have children (a real relationship killer or so she assumes) and you have some good subplots to carry the book along. And there is an in depth story. This book isn’t focused on skimping over details and character development in order to deliver 50 pages of raunchy sex between strangers where the woman is a damsel in distress and the man is a self-assured, sexist demi-god. It guides you through the character’s day to day lives, it presents challenges (Gage is a shock jock on the radio and Sabrina is in politics; a bad match if ever there was one), and it doesn’t even get heavy-handed with the over-arching theme of being childfree, but neither does it shy away from the idea that a woman can know she doesn’t want children and not have it be the end of the world. Sabrina stays true to her desire to be an awesome auntie someday and not a mom ever even when it means experiencing heartbreak and tough love.

I wasn’t, unfortunately, a huge fan of how the book ends…literally. The last three sentences were a bit too schmaltzy and uncharacteristic of Sabrina for my taste. And there were definitely times throughout the story where it seemed to embrace a soap opera stereotype a bit too much for me: the prissy bitch of a stepmother who was Sabrina’s father’s mistress for the entirety of his marriage to Nola, Sabrina’s mother, the two characters with physical disabilities who find love in one another – though I did like the way they describe themselves, “…we’re the old, beat-up dolls no one else wanted to play with. The dolls with the missing legs and the purple knee joints.”, and the richy-rich environment that everyone fits into except Gage, who is from a podunk town in Iowa.

All in all, though, I would say I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book and especially enjoyed reading a strong, childfree female character in a romance novel. Her decision not to have children introduces the “crazy” concept of safe sex and various birth controls methods in the midst of sex scenes and lo and behold! that doesn’t take away from the steamy words you’re enjoying a bit more than you’d like anyone to know about.

(Two funny personal connections to the book: on page 11, when the city of Paris (France) is mentioned, a character assumes it’s Paris, Texas being talked about…Paris, TX is only 30 minutes from where I live now and the only “big” city worth driving to within a wide radius of my town. On page 323, Sabrina calls a number that turns out to be for Mercy Medical, a hospital in Des Moines, Iowa. My husband’s old band, Brandtson, wrote a song called Mercy Medical, named after that same hospital.)

Book review: No Children, No Guilt by Sylvia D. Lucas

No Children, No Guilt
Sylvia D. Lucas
Copyright © 2011 by Sylvia D. Lucas
http://sylviadlucas.com
All rights reserved.
Kindle Edition

“I have three cats and I like them precisely because they’re not children.” – pg. 22

I have had a pet cat for 12 years. Even as I type this, he is sitting on my lap, staring at me patiently, waiting for me to pet him and pay attention to him even though I am typing on my laptop. Soon, he will meow plaintively because I have not picked up on the cue that he wants all of my attention right now. And so as he turns around slowly to jump off of my lap, I feel immense guilt at ignoring him and begin petting him as he wants. I don’t do this purely out of love; I do it out of obligation and not wanting to continue the guilty feeling.

You see, I don’t enjoy having a living being fully dependent on me. I didn’t realize that until a couple of years into have a cat. But I also don’t like being the kind of person who just gives away her pet because it doesn’t fit into her lifestyle anymore. So we have kept the cat, given him love, food, and shelter, and we clean up hairballs with as little patience as you can imagine.

As I read Lucas’ e-book, No Children, No Guilt, I recognized in her the same type of person, though our decisions about not having children come from very different angles. While Lucas expresses an ambivalence toward children from a young age (her innocent carelessness with a doll and not understanding her friends cooing over baby clothes in high school), I didn’t realize mine until my mid twenties when it finally struck me that I actually had a choice in the matter. I was the kid who played with dolls obsessively (and Micro Machines, plastic dinosaurs, and Legos) and I made money babysitting while growing up (and enjoyed it). A few years ago, I was a friend’s nanny for her 4 month old until he was almost a year old.

And as Lucas delves into the childfree topic and picks apart the emotions and reasons behind it, I once again felt a sense of relief that someone else out there gets it and she wrote about it so that people like me wouldn’t feel strange or guilty. I write “again” because I had the same feeling when reading Jen Kirkman’s I Can Hardly Take Care of Myself. Because no matter how solid you’re feeling about the decision not to have children, there is always an underlying feeling of guilt that you’re letting your family, friends, the church, your community, and the Universe all down by not conforming to parenthood.

Which is why I loved a section on page 14 in Lucas’ book where she releases the reader from that guilt:

“Stop thinking you’re supposed to want them…Accept that…not wanting your life as you know it to go undergo an absolute and irreversible reconstruction is perfectly natural, and that being a mom simply isn’t the life position you’re looking to take on.
Accept that raising a child is just not your thing.
But do it without feeling like you’re an unimaginably horrible person.
You don’t have to want a baby.”

Lucas tackles the “selfish” argument deftly, acknowledging that childfree folks are, indeed, selfish but not necessarily in a negative way, rather as a statement of fact. She points out that parents are also just as selfish in their want of children as childfree people are in their lack of want.

One of the best parts in the entire book, in my opinion, shows up right at the end when Lucas points out that there is nothing wrong with childfree people dipping our toes in the waters of “what if?”. In fact, she writes that doing so isn’t any different than wondering what our lives would be like in another job or if we had chosen a different major in college. And my favorite quote comes soon after this section:

“Refusing to ask questions often means there’s some fear about the answers – and that’s a pretty compelling reason to ask them in the first place.” – pg. 45

I also appreciated how Lucas didn’t ostracize parents. She recognizes that her reader may be a parent and takes pains to admit that parents, particularly mothers, have to deal with judgment and criticism just as much as childfree men and women do. And she points out that it’s been her experience that the majority of people she’s met who have children firmly believe, “If you don’t want them, you shouldn’t have them.”

All in all, I enjoyed Lucas’ views on being childfree. While it reads more like an essay rather than an e-book, that didn’t take away from the knowledge being imparted. The openness in which she writes about her life, her two divorces, her pro-choice views (which are very eloquently and succinctly explained on page 16 in a way that made me give a round of applause), and her current marriage helps bring a personal touch to what can sometimes be a very academically-treated topic.

Because in the end, that is what being childfree or being a parent is all about: the personal touch we place on it. As Lucas is fond of reminding her reader throughout, “Live and let live”.

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Copyright (c) 2008-2014 quieter notions

Book Review: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

I have only read the introduction and part of the first chapter so far.

I think I’m in love.

I’m in love with this book because it is already giving me answers. It is giving me relief. It is explaining so much already about me to myself. I hadn’t realized what a mystery I am to myself, how much I hold against myself for things I thought I was doing wrong.

And then in just a few pages, Cain explains that these idiosyncrasies of mine are from being introverted. That’s all. They aren’t wrong, they aren’t bad, they don’t make me a good or bad person; they just make me me. Introverted me.

She has a short quiz you can respond to that helps give you a little more insight about your introverted/extroverted self:

1. I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities.	true false
2. I often prefer to express myself in writing.	true false
3. I enjoy solitude.	true false
4. I seem to care less than my peers about wealth, fame, and status.	true false
5. I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me.	true false
6. People tell me that I’m a good listener.	true false
7. I’m not a big risk-taker.	true false
8. I enjoy work that allows me to “dive in” with few interruptions.	true false
9. I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale, with only one or two close friends or family members.	true false
10. People describe me as “soft- spoken” or “mellow.”	true false
11. I prefer not to show or discuss my work with others until it’s finished.	true false
12. I dislike conflict.	true false
13. I do my best work on my own.	true false
14. I tend to think before I speak.	true false
15. I feel drained after being out and about, even if I’ve enjoyed myself.	true false
16. I often let calls go through to voice mail.	true false
17. If I had to choose, I’d prefer a weekend with absolutely nothing to do to one with too many things scheduled.	true false
18. I don’t enjoy multitasking.	true false
19. I can concentrate easily.	true false
20. In classroom situations, I prefer lectures to seminars.	true false

The more true statements you choose, the more introverted you are. I chose 18/20.

I was actually surprised by that high of a number. I’ve spent so much of my life carefully carving out an extroverted personality that I forget about my natural tendencies. My natural tendency isn’t to be the life of a party, to talk in front of hundreds of people, or to work customer service. Everything in me (if I don’t suppress it) pushes away from those things. I’ve become so used to the dread and the pit in my stomach when putting on my extroverted armor that I have mistaken it for my real personality and identity.

I have felt pressure my entire life to be more outgoing, more extroverted. Everyone does. As she writes in the book, an extroverted personality is the type to strive for and if you’re introverted, there’s cause for concern. It’s so ingrained in us to think that way that even introverts believe it. We think and hope that if we work hard enough, our introversion will dissipate and a “healthier” personality will take its place.

When I read #8 above, I teared up. Honestly. Because I’ve never had specific career aspirations or any direct path of what I wanted to be when I grew up, I worked retail. From the age of 15 on, I have worked retail, with very few breaks from it. I have never been able to understand why it took so much out of me, why it makes me see red when a customer interrupts me during a project, why I become short, snarky, and everything I am usually not after continual interactions with customers. It turns me into a person I do not like. The effort it takes to compose myself and move on with my day after work is so taxing that I usually melt into my couch and spend hours zoning out online. I have no energy or interest to do anything else.

If this book had been published when I was a teenager (or even as a young adult), I wonder how much different my life could be right now. I’m 33 years old and the damage from believing my introverted tendencies were bad is so a part of who I am that I’m not even sure I can disentangle myself from it anymore. I can unlearn some of them, sure, but they’ll always be there. It’ll take a long while before they aren’t the default.

But all in all, I’m grateful this book exists and I’m grateful it came into my life. There is freedom in its pages for both the introverts and the people who love them, but who may not understand them. And it gives us much needed reasons for our behavior, our thoughts, and our daily responses to life. Reasons that are empowering, not shaming.

I hadn’t realized I’ve been waiting 33 years for that. Thank you, Susan.

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Copyright (c) 2008-2013 quieter notions

Book Review: I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids by Jen Kirkman

I Can Barely Take Care of Myself
by Jen Kirkman
Simon & Schuster
Publishing Date: April 16, 2013
ISBN: 9781451667004
Price: $15.00

I am a childfree (CF) lady, just like Jen (I feel like we’re on a first name basis with each other since she responded to my tweet when I flipped out on Twitter about how much I loved this book). We’re both in our thirties and we seem to have the same sense of humor. Beyond that, our lives segue onto very different paths, but for a brief moment in time, while reading her book, I felt as though she could be my doppelgänger.

And being childfree (especially by choice, which I am) while trying to find others like you isn’t always easy. I’ve almost made it through every book on the subject and I’m always on the look-out for more (granted, there are maybe only seven books total, but writing that makes me seem like a scholar on the subject). When a book can combine self-deprecating humor and embarrassing personal anecdotes to tackle a subject like this, I’m instantly enthusiastic.

So I messaged Jen seconds after putting the book down (warning: contains some non-grandmother approved words):

Clara Sayre ‏@clarasayre

@JenKirkman Just finished your book (I work in a bookstore & got an advance)…FUCKING BRILLIANT.
@JenKirkman I could relate to everything. It’s said all the time, but I kept thinking you were writing about me….
@JenKirkman CF guilt? Chk. Saying “well, maybe”? Chk. 13 yrs. of ballet & no body fat? Chk. Weight gain after marriage? Chk. Anxiety? CHK!
@JenKirkman The list goes on and on and on…anyway, thank you. :) I’m going to be hand-selling the SHIT out of that book when published!

She direct messaged me back, appreciative of positive feedback regarding her book. My night was made.

I Can Barely Take Care of Myself is all memoir with none of the boring bits thrown in for continuity sake. Kirkman (a comedian/panelist on E’s Chelsea Lately and After Lately) doesn’t shy away from anything, whether it’s recounting the increasing paranoia & anxiety she experienced at the age of nine after watching the fictional nuclear war movie, The Day After, moving back in with her parents right after graduating college, trying to win back an ex-boyfriend by giving him a copy of Superfudge or her failed attempts at babysitting, which resulted in one child obsessing about untimely death and another one wearing his mom’s lipstick.

She takes us through her early years of stand-up comedy, relationships that came and went, and how she met her (now ex-) husband. She describes the familiar tale of getting engaged and immediately being hounded with questions about when they were going to have children (and then being asked why they were even bothering getting married if they weren’t having kids). Recounting one of these conversations with an aquaintance at a friend’s wedding, Kirkman is astounded at the woman’s audacity (“Help me. I’m being judged by a woman for an abortion I didn’t have!”) and later tries to convince her husband that he needs to to take the heat off of her by lying and saying he got a vasectomy.

But my favorite part, by far, is when Reverend Kirkman starts preaching toward the end:

I resent having to refer to my career as my baby in order to explain myself to parents. It suggests that as long as a woman has something she feels maternal toward, then she passes as a regular human being . . . Women don’t have to have maternal urges to be women . . . Men don’t call their careers their sons or daughters.

It’s a weird thing society puts on us women. They tell us that we can have careers . . . and then they tell us that we aren’t real women if we have careers but no babies, and if we dare pick a career over a baby…we better at least talk about that career like it’s a baby in order to blend in and not call attention to the fact that we’re selfish women who are not carrying on the human race.

I was giddy while reading this book. I was relieved, I was laughing, I was cringing. I dog-eared my way through (for e-readers: that means I bent the page corners over in lieu of a bookmark). I underlined passages that particularly connected with me. I fist-pumped after finishing two different sections that immediately made me feel less self-conscious about myself. Because not only was she able to share snippets of her life that read like a regular memoir but culminate into the many reasons why she’s not having kids, she was also able to connect with the reader on a personal level, especially those of us who wonder if our anxiety disorders play a part in not wanting to become parents.

This is the childfree memoir I’ve been looking for. This is the book that gave me the courage to write my CF story and submit it to a high-traffic blog, where it was later published. When this book is released in April, I hope that it inspires a whole slew of childfree memoirs by women who need to share their stories, but until now, haven’t found an outlet. I hope that it encourages discussion and awareness that women are so much more than our ability to reproduce.

And after all of that, you know what’s even better? It’s laugh-out-loud hilarious and a worthy addition to a bookstore’s Humor or Biography section, let alone a  Childfree section (hey, a lady can dream, right?).

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Copyright (c) 2008-2014 quieter notions

Book review: Renegade, by Amy Carol Reeves

Renegade by Amy Carol Reeves
Publishing date: April 8, 2013
Publisher: Flux
(ISBN13: 9780738732626)

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

(This review is based on an advance copy of the novel provided by Netgalley.)

Being that the author is an old college friend of mine, I expected, as I did in Ripper, that my bias would get in the way of how I really felt about this book. I figured I would read through it, enjoy it, but in the back of my mind, there might be this niggling disappointment that I wouldn’t want to admit to in order to save her feelings.

Thank god THAT didn’t happen.

I am not one drawn to mystery novels, nor do I much care either way about Jack the Ripper. I saw the movie From Hell with Johnny Depp and was vaguely blasé about it. Despite all of this, Reeves was able to draw me in, hold my attention and deliver a Ripper story that left me wanting more.

***spoiler alert***

Renegade picks up where we left off in Ripper. The Conclave is gone, Max is still alive in the shadows, and Arabella Sharp is returning to her work at the hospital. But life does not return to normal, nor can it, while the Ripper continues his plans. Newly murdered bodies show up in the graveyard, eviscerated fishermen are washing up on the shores of Scotland, and despite Abbie’s best intentions, Max has her right where he wants her all along the way. As she contemplates her feelings for the two physicians who love her, William and Simon, she must also contemplate two events from her past that haunt her to this day. And in the midst of all of this, there are rumors of the existence of a once-thought-only mythical creature patrolling the seas…a connection to the Conclave or another mystery altogether?

The characters continue to evolve as the reader’s loyalty is challenged several times; is Simon actually the better partner for Abbie or will William prove worthy? Who is Richard when he’s not playing the part of a butler and can he be trusted? Are Inspector Abberline’s investigations leading him on the right path or is he too blinded by his suspicious nature?

What I enjoy most about this series is the strong nature of its main character, Arabella. She does not play the heroine-in-distress easily, having defended her own life and those of her friends by single-handedly killing the members of the Conclave in the first novel. Abbie knows how to handle a knife, yet can sit with her grandmother for tea time. She is honest about her emotions, her passions, and what she wants most in her life (to be a physician in a time when female doctors are hard to come by), yet realizes that what comes first is to rid her world of the Ripper and his murders. She may be scared for her life along the way, but she never shies away when it comes to saving the lives of her friends and boldly staring death in the face. She is an ever-evolving character who is not perfect, who admits her flaws, and who is all the better for doing so.

My only critique is that I would have liked to have seen Richard and Abberline fleshed out a bit more this time around. They’re both such intriguing background characters who I have latched onto and want to know more about. Reeves answered a mysterious statement made by Simon in the first book (“You should know your butler better.”) with another mystery to string her readers along and spoken as a truly impatient reader, I hope that we get even more satisfaction in the next book. Abberline was a love-to-hate-him character in Ripper, but stayed more in the background in Renegade. Although his major scene with Abbie brought a bit more humanity to him, as he stumbles down the alley after they part ways, he also stumbles from the narrative into the shadows again. I’m excited to read his story; to find out why he is the way he is and if there will be redemption for him.

Well-written, engaging, and a strong follow-up to Ripper, I am already anxiously awaiting the third installment in this series: Resurrection, its publishing date set for 2014, according to Flux. But in the meantime, I will enjoy the story that has been given to us so far and think about what’s in store for us in the next novel, given the unexpected twist in the last two pages.

(And just wait until you get to the confessional scene…)