JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep.

Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice – save the woman he loves, or everyone else? – while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the muse of nightmares, has not yet discovered what she’s capable of.

As humans and godspawn reel in the aftermath of the citadel’s near fall, a new foe shatters their fragile hopes, and the mysteries of the Mesarthim are resurrected: Where did the gods come from, and why? What was done with the thousands of children born in the citadel nursery? And most important of all, as forgotten doors are opened and new worlds revealed: must heroes always slay monsters, or is it possible to save them instead?

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor is the second and final book in this fantasy duology. The events in this book take place almost immediately after the end of Strange the Dreamer.

It’s been over 18 months since I read, loved and reviewed Strange the Dreamer for this blog. I’ve been desperate to get my hands on this sequel, and it’s been one of my favourite reads of 2018.

At the end of Strange the Dreamer, former librarian Lazlo Strange is revealed as a godspawn, a bastard child. 17 year-old Sarai has died after falling from the citadel and becoming impaled below.

In Muse of Nightmares, the reader is thrust back into the magical world of Weep and the Mesarthim, where dreams become nightmares and the godspawn want vengeance. Minya has saved Sarai’s soul so that she can live on, but she’s controlled by Minya and can’t always act of her own free will. She is at Minya’s mercy.

There were many questions at the end of the last book. What will happen to Sarai now that she has died? What will become of Lazlo and the city of Weep? What will happen to their powers? What really happened with Minya on the day that Eril-Fane slayed the children in the citadel?

“Sarai has lived and breathed nightmares since she was six years old. For four thousand nights she had explored the dreamscapes of Weep, witnessing the horrors and creating them. She was the Muse of Nightmares.”

Strange the Dreamer was really about Lazlo, but Muse of Nightmares is very much Sarai’s story. The blue-skinned goddess is front and centre in this book. And despite how the first book ended, she has a huge role in this sequel and her relationship with Lazlo strengthens and grows throughout this book.

We meet two new characters in Muse of Nightmares — sisters Kora and Nova. Both of them are intended to be sold by their father and married off, but they both harness very strong powers and are destined for much much more than that. We follow their journey throughout the book and as you can imagine, they cross paths with the other main characters in the story — Lazlo, Sarai and the other children.

The writing in the book is well-paced with concise sentence structure and the perfect build of tension. The story moves quite slowly but that’s not a bad thing. The reader can sense a big confrontation coming, but before we get there, we need to understand so much more about Kora and Nova and how the godspawn will seek vengeance on Eril-Fane and the city of Weep.

The character development is really strong in Muse of Nightmares. Minya holds a pivotal role in the plot, and we dive into her memories and find out more about her past and her trauma and how and why she’s transformed her army to benefit her own agenda. We come to understand her, and at times, sympathise for her.

“This was Minya’s dream. It if was keeping a secret, it was her secret, and her mind keeping it…Sarai thought that Minya must be hiding something with that blur. She needed to know what it was. She gathered her power around her. She was the Muse of Nightmares. Dreams did her bidding. They could not hide things from her.”

It’s wonderful to read a sequel that is just as good, if not better, than the original. I was invested in this book from the very first page, and this series has fast become one of my favourite fantasy series.

As Kora and Nova’s story develops and their paths cross with the other characters, tensions rise and the stakes become much higher and everything is brought to a very dramatic and satisfying conclusion.

In this sequel, love and hate, revenge and redemption, destruction and salvation all clash. It’s been worth the long wait for this book to arrive, and I highly recommend this duology to fantasy lovers.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Muse of Nightmares
Laini Taylor
October 2018
Hachette Publishers

Cicada by Shaun Tan

The story of a cicada who works in an office, and all the people who don’t appreciate him. The new picture book from multi-award-winner Shaun Tan, author of The Arrival, The Lost Thing and Rules of Summer.

A story for anyone who has ever felt unappreciated, overlooked or overworked, from Australia’s most acclaimed picture book creator.

Cicada by Shaun Tan is an absolutely beautiful picture book about an unappreciated office worker who is bullied by his coworkers and treated terribly by his bosses. He’s a hard worker — diligent and competent.

The little cicada is a data clerk and his colleagues are humans. He’s not allowed to use the office bathroom and he has to sleep in the office wallspace.

Cicada work in tall building.
Data entry clerk. Seventeen year.
No sick day. No mistake.
Tok Tok Tok!

When he retires from his city job after seventeen years of working in a confined cubicle, he walks up to the roof of the building and something extraordinary happens.

SOURCE: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Shaun Tan delivers such magnificent books. His illustration style is careful, considered and so vibrant. I’ve loved his work for such a long time and I love looking through his artwork.

Human never finish work.
Cicada always stay late. Finish work.
Nobody thank cicada.
Tok Tok Tok!

The illustrations in the book appear to be paintings, with such detail and depth that you have to take the time to really run your eyes over all the pages.

The book definitely speaks to many readers — it’s about someone who feels under appreciated at work, and I think a lot of people will be able to relate to this little cicada.

This may be a picture book, but it’s not just for children. Adults will pour over these illustrations and marvel at how beautiful this book is. The ending of the book even allows for some humour!

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Cicada
Shaun Tan
July 2018
Hachette Book Publishers Australia

Books About Inspirational Women

Ever since Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls was published, there’s been a definite trend in publishing. There are now so many fantastic books about inspirational women from history. I’ve been reading and reviewing a fair few of them for this blog, so I thought it’d be great to compile them all for one master post.

Forgotten Women: The Leaders & The Scientists
Zing Tsjeng
March 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

Forgotten Women is a new series of books that uncover the lost herstories of influential women who have refused over hundreds of years to accept the hand they’ve been dealt and, as a result, have formed, shaped and changed the course of our futures. From leaders and scientists to artists and writers, the fascinating stories of these women that time forgot are now celebrated, putting their achievements firmly back on the map.

Forgotten Women by Zing Tsjeng is a really wonderful new series, allowing readers to discover 96 women who I can guarantee you’ve never heard of before.

Each of these books features 48 incredible women of history, styled with beautiful artwork and colourful layouts. The Leaders is all about women who were true pioneers. They may not have lived long, or they may have been overlooked, but their contributions were important.

Grace O’Malley was a 16th century Irish pirate queen, Sylvia Rivera spearheaded the modern transgender rights movement, and Agent 355 was an unknown rebel spy who played a pivotal role in the American Revolution.

The series is both informative and interesting. I thought I would’ve gotten sick of these types of books, but I’ve found myself just as enthralled and intrigued as ever. In The Leaders, chapters are broken down into different categories, from rebels to warriors, rulers to activists. In The Scientists, the chapters range from Biology & Natural Sciences to Physics & Chemistry.

Each woman is given around three pages of information, so the books are pretty quick to read and the information not too heavy.

In The Scientists, we meet women whose scientific achievements or whose inventions have paved the way for the future, but unfortunately their successes weren’t as acknowledged or praised as highly or as often as they should’ve been.

Ruby Hirose developed a vaccine for polio, Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was a brilliant inventor who found ways to improve everyday struggles, and Ynes Mexia was a botanist who discovered 500 new plant species.

Both of these books are packaged beautifully. They’re hardback, with thick, high quality paper and bright colours. They look wonderful together on the shelf, and I hope the series will have more books coming out. I’m sure there are plenty more women out there whose achievements have been sadly forgotten.

SHE: A Celebration of 100 Renegade Women

Harriet Hall

March 2018

Hachette Book Publishers

SHE is a love letter to all the women who have thrown out the rulebook and threatened the status quo. It’s a toast to the brave, bold and brilliant women who make us proud to be ladies.

From fashion icon Coco Chanel to Queen Cleopatra, from literary legend Jane Austen to trailblazer Michelle Obama and from kick-ass activist Malala Yousafzai to the one-and-only Beyoncé, SHE honours 100 truly renegade women, from history through to present day.

SHE by Harriet Hall is a compact book highlighting 100 women from history who contributed to positive change within society. Some of these women have long since passed, but some are still alive today.

What I loved most about this book is that each woman was dedicated only two pages — one page had a black and white sketch illustration of the woman, and the other page detailed their life story. I loved that their story was summarised so succinctly.

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF MY REVIEW HERE

Rebel Voices: The Rise of Votes for Women

Louise Kay Stewart & Eve Lloyd Knight

January 2018

Hachette Publishers

A beautifully illustrated celebration of the brave campaigners who fought for women’s right to vote.

Discover that it was never illegal for women to vote in Ecuador, or how 40,000 Russian women marched through St Petersburg demanding their rights. Find out how one Canadian woman changed opinions with a play, and Kuwaiti women protested via text message. And learn that women climbed mountains, walked a lion through the streets of Paris, and starved themselves, all in the name of having a voice.

Meet the women who rioted, rallied and refused to give up. This book celebrates the women who refused to behave, rebelling against convention to give women everywhere a voice.

Rebel Voices by Louise Kay Stewart and Eve Lloyd Knight is gorgeous and inspiring, educating readers on the history of the female vote and how a woman’s right to vote was achieved in different countries.

This is a hardback book, the size of a portrait picture book. It’s quite large in size, to allow for all the stunning illustrations on every page. The quality is amazing — thick and heavy paper. And there are only 47 pages to this book and there aren’t too many words. So, it doesn’t take long to read.

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF MY REVIEW HERE

100 Nasty Women of History

Hannah Jewell

November 2017

Hachette Book Publishers

These are the women who were deemed too nasty for their times – too nasty to be recognised, too nasty to be paid for their work and sometimes too nasty to be allowed to live.

In 100 Nasty Women of History, Hannah will spill the tea on:
-the women with impressive kill counts

-the women who wrote dangerous things

-the women who fought empires and racists

-the women who knew how to have a good-ass time

-the women who punched Nazis (metaphorically but also not)

So, if you think that Nasty Women are a new thing, think again. They’ve always been around – you just haven’t always heard of them.

Well, this is just hilarious and so so fun to read. 100 Nasty Women of History is all about history’s bravest, most ballsy women. And most of them you’ve probably never heard of!

In the final debate of the 2016 US presidential election, Donald Trump leaned into the microphone as Hilary Clinton spoke about social security, and he called his opponent ‘such a nasty woman’. I’m sure Donald Trump didn’t realise that this phrase would go on to become a badge of honour for women around the world. Being a ‘nasty woman’ is now considered a compliment!

Hannah Jewell is a senior writer for Buzzfeed UK, so she brings into this book her wit and sarcasm. I laughed out loud many times when reading this book, chuckling on public transport to and from work.

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF MY REVIEW HERE

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

1974. Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

The Great Alone is — at its core — about a troubled Dad who takes his family into the wild Alaskan terrain to live. However, underneath all that, it’s about a family struggling to mend. It’s about a wife who loves her husband despite his demons. It’s about a daughter who must learn to follow her own path, despite knowing that it will have disastrous consequences.

This is a literary fiction novel about family and survival. It’s emotional, rich and unforgiving, with characters you fight for and a setting that you marvel. Leni’s family learn to survive the harsh winters in Alaska, but with the dark nights and cold temperatures comes another threat — from within the home.

“This time was bad, I’ll admit, but it scared him. Really. It won’t happen again. He’s promised me.”
Leni sighed. How was Mama’s unshakable belief in Dad any different than his fear of Armageddon? Did adults just look at the world and see what they wanted to see, think what they wanted to think? Did evidence and experience mean nothing?

The secondary characters in this novel are just as fantastic to read. The other residents in this small town support Leni’s family and help them prepare for the winter. They help Cora and Leni stand up against Ernt, who grows more volatile as the novel progresses. The reader relishes in the relationships that Leni forms, particularly with characters such as Large Marge and Tom Walker.

The Great Alone explores domestic violence, but in a very unique setting. Leni and her family live in a one-room log cabin, and when Ernt grows violent and starts beating Cora, it’s impossible for Leni not to witness it. She urges Cora to leave Ernt, but Cora loves him too much. She refuses to talk about what happens and she refuses to press charges. And so the winters roll on and Ernt grows more abusive. Leni grows up witnessing the horror of domestic abuse.

Leni knew what her father had done and the vandalism revealed a new side to his rage. It terrified her that he had done such a public thing. Ever since Mr. Walker and Large Marge had first sent Dad to the pipeline for the winter, Dad had been on his guard.

As Leni grows older, she wants to have a life of her own. She wants to fall in love, study, maybe start a family. But as her father grows more closed off and refuses to let her have a social life, she realises how difficult this will be. She wants to leave, but she knows she can’t leave her mother behind. For a while, she tries to juggle everything in secret. She pursues a relationship, whilst also standing by her parents and watching as her Dad builds an actual wall around their cabin. Soon, Leni becomes isolated, and the tension within the family and the town escalates.

This novel will appeal to readers both young and old. This is about a family navigating a difficult time in their lives, but this is also a coming of age story. Leni starts the novel as a thirteen year old, and by the end, she’s in her twenties. The reader follows Leni as she grows older, continues her learning, falls in love, and ventures off into the world to pursue her own path. There is both happiness and disaster in Leni’s life, and the reader follows it all. At times, this novel will have you smiling. At times, it’ll have you feeling dread.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Great Alone
Kristin Hannah
February 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

If you were told the date of your death, how would it shape your present?

It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

Their prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11, hoping to control fate; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin is a literary fiction novel that follows four siblings after they learn the exact date of their deaths.

Words can’t express just how much I loved this book. The writing reminded me of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara — Chloe Benjamin moves between time so effortlessly that the reader doesn’t even realise she’s doing it. In one paragraph, we’ll be reading about Klara’s life while she’s a teenager, and then suddenly she’s a few years older and the transition was so smoothly written.

Additionally, Chloe Benjamin juggles these four characters with such ease. Yes, each section of the book focuses on a different sibling, but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t present. During Simon’s life, he and Klara are very close and she’s in the storyline a lot. And yet, at no point is it confusing. At no point am I overwhelmed by the plot.

“Fourteen years later and ten states east, Daniel enters the Hoffman House to meet Eddie again…Like Eddie, Daniel is at least twenty pounds heavier than he was in 1991. Like Daniel, Eddie must be nearly fifty, if he isn’t fifty already.”

I devoured this book. I knew what was going to happen, and yet, I was desperate to get through to the end of each of their storylines. This is a book to be savoured, but it’s also a book to marvel.

These characters are beautiful, despite being incredibly flawed. They found out when they were going to die, and in a lot of ways, knowing that specific date put them on a path that led to that death. If they didn’t know when they were going to die, I wonder how different their lives would have been. But that’s the beauty of this book, because it illustrates what it would be like if you knew when you were going to die. Would you live your life differently?

It’s so common to read a literary fiction novel that’s either plot-driven or character-driven. The Immortalists was the perfect blend of both, drawing me deep into each character’s life but also filling me with dread because I am aware of their inevitable death.

“At his wedding, when he looked into the audience and saw only Gertie and Varya, something snapped in his heart like a branch. That Klara and Mira never met remained one of the biggest regrets of his life.”

Despite how much I adored this novel, I didn’t love Varya’s storyline. I found it kind of boring and completely dependent upon her career, whereas the other sections of the book heavily focused on the characters and their own thoughts and fears and their own concerns. Finishing the novel with Varya’s story felt like a letdown.

I’ve been recommending this book to scores of people. It’s not just for literary fiction lovers. It’s for those of you who are intrigued by the idea of knowing when you’ll die. It’s for those of you who love family sagas, or reading novels set in the late 90s. This is definitely a novel for adults, but I really think everyone will devour it.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Immortalists
Chloe Benjamin
January 2018
Hachette Book Australia

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