The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Monday, Sept. 22, 2025--San Antonio

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee was published 8 years ago.  It was a nominee for the Kirkus Prize and listed as a top book of the year by NPR and the New York Public Library.  Set in the late 1600s, it's 3 main characters are teenagers.  Henry and Percy have just turned 18, finished their education, and are going on a tour of Europe.  Felicity is the younger sister of Henry who they are taking with them for a month in Paris followed by plans to deliver her to a girl's finishing school in Marseille.  Henry's and Felcity's father, a British Lord, has arranged it with notice to both of them--that Henry must return a more responsible young man or he will be disinherited and Felicity must give up her interest in science and medicine and return acting like a lady and ready to be married.  Percy is Henry's best friend.  He comes from a wealthy family, has been living with his uncle and aunt since he was a child and his father, a Caribbean merchant died.  Percy is half-Black, and his aunt and uncle are ready to be released from the responsibility of caring for him now that he is an adult.  Henry is very irresponsible and has survived on his charm.  He has no ambition at all.  And he is always ready to drink himself into oblivion on a nightly basis.  His constant mischief begins causing problems almost immediately after they arrive in Paris.  Taken to a party at Versailles by an acquaintance of his father's who has been asked to introduce him to the people of note he will need to know once he takes over the family estate, he over drinks, insults the Bourbon advisor to the King, disrobes in the Bourban advisor's bedroom to have sex apparently with the mistress of the advisors, steals what proves to be a very valuable trinket, and runs nude into the celebrating crowd of dignitaries outside at the party.  This causes the 3 of them, being chased down by the Bourbon official and his officers, to go on the run to escape them and leaving behind the escort the father has sent on the trip with them.  With little money and led by Henry's irresponsible brain, the story takes them on adventure after adventure involving lucky escapes from the Bourbon ministers men looking for them--from a highway robbery, from a family in Barcelona holding them, from being stowaways on a boat that is attacked by "pirates." etc.  Throughout all of this, Henry remains as immature and irresponsible as ever.  He's not a likable, much less a lovable, character.  His young sister proves to be the responsible and intelligent one in the family.  And Percy is a caring, reliable friend.  If you like a book where the main character is quite distasteful and irresponsible, then maybe you will enjoy this story.  I just kept looking forward for it to end because I was so tired of Henry being Henry with his stupid decisions and his drunkenness. It wasn't until the last 5% of the novel that Henry showed any signs of maybe starting to mature, but that was enough for me to raise my rating half a star higher to 3 1/2  stars out of 4.   

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025--San Antonio

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater has been named a top book of 2025 by several sources. It is a story that pulls the reader into it with interest and excitement--an historical novel with a touch of magical realism. It takes place at a resort hotel in the mountains of West Virginia during the first few months of WWII. The government has taken over the hotel to house diplomats and other non-citizens of the US who are from the countries of the Axis powers. Used to serving the richest of the rich, the hotel management and staff are charged with providing the same kind of service to these guests as has provided for elite guests. They do this in hopes that the Axis countries will be matching the services for the US diplomats and foreigners who were caught unexpectedly in those countries when the war began. Swiss diplomats are working with all the countries to create a plan for exchanging them all. Along with the foreigners, there are members of the Coast Guard, State Department, FBI Swiss diplomats to guard, debrief, negotiate, and manage the situation at the hotel during the approximate 6 months it took before the next stage of repatriation could occur. Although set in a fictional hotel with fictional characters, the events are based on true ones that happened at the various hotels where the US actually held Axis diplomats and citizens during this historical period in time and the hotel, its operation, and the reactions/expectations of its staff are also based on those from the hotels that were actually used for this purpose then. The magical realism aspect relates to the "powers" of the mineral waters that are piped through the hotel to bathrooms, the kitchen, to drinking spouts on each floor, and to the grand fountain inside the front entrance--the water's constant effort to take control of the hotel and the efforts used by the general manager of the hotel to temporarily mollify them on a regular basis. There's a love story. There's a famous guest who disappeared from public decades ago and has never left the room she occupies in the hotel since. There are the conflicts within the hierarchy of the country groups which have leaders who are not used to their "underlings" being treated the same as themselves, there are relationships that develop over time, there is a German family with a child they are afraid will be at a minimum sterilized, but more likely killed, by the German government once they leave the US because she still does not talk at the age of 5 years and also throws occasional tantrums. There's a lot in this book and it is all fascinating. I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The South by Tash Aw

Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025--San Antoniio

The South by Tash Aw has been longisted for the Booker Prize this year and is set in southern Malaysia during a summer.  Although the reviews talk about it as the story of two young boys gradually finding themselves attracted to each other and eventually establishing a sexual relationship between them, the book is really so much more than that.  It is the story of a family--an official one by law and an extralegal extension of it.  Within the legal family, the passage of time has been eating away at happiness.  The male professor is resentful for having been passed over multiple times for promotion and is argumentative with students who are complaining to the administration.  His wife, who is 15 years younger than he is and who was once his student is unhappy with her life in regards to a number of awarenesses--that she feels distant with her children, that she feels betrayed by her husband who has been having a long-distance affair with another woman for years and may have another child with that woman, that she gave up her plans for her own life to build this one.  And their story is somewhat a mirror of the husband's father's life who has just died and who also had an extra-marital relationship that resulted in a child.  There are secrets and "secrets"--things that are being kept from almost everyone and things that no one talks about but which everyone seems to know.  The family is spending a summer at an old farm which is failing due to a long-term drought and mismanagement--a farm that the husband's father left to his legitimate son's wife when he recently died.  It's also a farm that has been managed by the man who is the illegitimate son of the deceased father and, therefore the half-brother of the new owner's husband.  The two boys who are falling in love are the children of these two half-brothers.  The man's wife seems to feel closer to the half-brother who is not her husband.  And no one knows that her husband, the professor, was fired just before they left for this vacation.  It's not just the farm that seems to be dying.  All the relationships between the members of these families (including the budding one between the two boys) seem to be beginning an unraveling process with little hope for the future and a great likelihood of lots of depression ahead.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Flashlight by Susan Choi

Monday, Sept. 8, 2025--San Antonio

Flashlight by Susan Choi is longlisted for the Booker Prize this year.  It is the best book out of 3 of hers that I have read.  It's not a book one can say, however, "I enjoyed."  It is a book about lives that are frustrating and often lived without adequate love between characters.  The central character is a man of Korean parents who was born in Japan because his parents went there due to job opportunities during WWII.  Because he was very intelligent, he went to a Japanese school where he was a top (if not THE top student).  The family remained in Japan until The Korean War settled into a static situation with the Communist North and the U.S.-sponsored Democratic South.  By that time, Japan wanted to get rid of any of the Koreans that had come there and our main character was finishing school and had been accepted for studies at an Ivy League university in the U.S.  He married an American woman and they had a female child.  He accepted a professorship at a regional American university.  Throughout the years, there are lots of secrets kept from everyone and life has been difficult.  But what I have told is only the first third of the book.  Lots is about to go wrong!  It's a complicated story, but a fascinating book that I couldn't put down.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kenedy

Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025--San Antonio

Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kenedy is a novel from 10 years ago that fits within what I have read is a current trend of gay romance hockey stories.  It is well enough written that it was been translated into 10 languages.  There was one "hitch" at the beginning that made me question whether it was well written or not; I don't recall what it was.  But it turned into a well-written, funny, and entertaining story about two boys who attended an elite summer hockey training camp throughout high school, didn't talk to each other throughout their college years because of a situation that occurred the last night of their last season at the camp, but met again when they were both drafted for NHL teams at the end of their college careers, and spent a final summer together back at the camp as coaches.  One has been openly gay throughout college.  The other has believed he was straight but is now, in the summer before they report to their teams, discovering he is bisexual.  The one who is bisexual is questioning whether he really wants to go professional as a goalie since there is a good chance he might not get to play much and that he might be sent to a lower level team.  He enjoys coaching and starts wondering if he might be better off not reporting to his team and trying to find a job as a defensive coach for a minor league hockey team.  The one who is gay wants to make it as a professional, but he feels he must return "to the closet" at least during his first year as a profession due to homophobia being a known problem within professional sports.  As with most romance novels of any kind, I found it had more and longer descriptive sexual encounters than I really wanted to read; they just slowed down the progression of the story.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis

Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025--San Antonio

Penguin named The Stolden Queen by Fiona Davis one of the best books for the first half of 2025, but I disagree.   A major error occurred about halfway through as the 19-year-old character Annie, who has been taking care of her mother for 10 years in a hand-to-month living situation, rushes to their small basement apartment to quickly pack a bag and PICK UP HER PASSPORT!  Apparently neither the Columbia University graduate author nor her editor (presumably also a college graduate and living in New York) had the mental awareness to realize that a young woman in that situation would NOT have a passport and be unable to plan to leave the country for the first time in her life with a two-day notice.  As the fast-paced action took off from that point to its conclusion, there were just too many coincidences taking place at too fast a pace.  I thoroughly enjoyed the concept of the book and I finished it, but my rating kept falling after the mid-point until at the end of the book it landed at a generous 3 1/2 stars out of 4--not a qualifier for being named a best book of the first half of 2025!

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngodi Ardichi

Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025--San Antonio

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngodi Arichi was named as a top book of the first half of 2025 by BBC and an anticipated book by many known reviewers.  It is built around the lives of 4 African women--3 living in the US and 1 in Nigeria--who have all become close friends.  There are ups and downs in their lives which they share with each other.  All face problems because of cultural and family expectations.  Each looks back and questions decisions they have made in their lives.  Three are wealthy.  Two of those are passing the age of having their own babies while still unmarried.  The poor one is a hotel maid and is raped by a very high-ranking international politician in his hotel room.  When she "became of age" she was also "cut" (female circumcision) by her female family members.  The one living in Nigeria works for a bank which colludes with politicians for them to steal money through corrupt practices and becomes so sick of it that she starts stealing herself--not to have the money for herself but to provide "loans" to individual village women to expand their local businesses with the requirement only that they pay her back by helping at least one other woman in return.  Desires, relationship experiences, and the background histories for all 4 women are revealed over time.  It's a complex book, at times an uncomfortable story, and about 1/3 longer than most novels, so it took me two weeks to read the book.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.