Hey, it's a return to the classic single-month book review post! (At least for now!) I did some fun and sequel-icious reading in September:
→ WAYWARD SON by Rainbow Rowell is the second book of the Simon Snow series. In preparation for its release, I reread the first book, CARRY ON. The story of a Chosen One in his last year of magic school was just as clever and delightful on a second read. I may have even liked it more than I did the first time.
While CARRY ON tells the obligatory Chosen One story of saving the world, WAYWARD SON considers what the aftermath of that looks like. Simon and his friends survived serious trauma defeating the threats to the World of Mages, and they're each suffering as a result, in different ways. Rowell always writes well about relationship strains and mental health issues, and the depictions here are realistic and compassionate.
The characters are facing a more mature and mundane set of obstacles in this book, but they're also going on a new adventure: a road trip across America. Along the way, they discover that the World of Mages is a very British institution, and magic operates quite differently in the US. They make new friends, encounter dangerous new foes, and maybe sort of have to save the world again, but everyone's better emotionally equipped by then.
I loved how these wonderful characters grow and heal throughout this novel. The expansion of the magical world is smart and thoughtfully done, and the plot takes surprising turns. There will be at least one more book in this series, and I'll gladly follow the characters wherever they go next.
→ THE TESTAMENTS by Margaret Atwood is a sequel to THE HANDMAID'S TALE, but what's distracting at first is that it's also sort of a sequel to the three existing seasons of the Hulu series, which extends past the events of the original novel. Early on, too much of my attention was on analyzing this relationship and considering what details do and don't line up with the show. Though it took me some time to get past that, I was able to immediately appreciate that Atwood is still a fantastic writer, great at narrative voice. This sequel presents compelling characters, an exciting plot, and a fascinating further look into the totalitarian regime of Gilead.
The story is billed as taking place 15 years after the end of the first book, but that's not entirely accurate, since there are also flashbacks reaching as far back as the rise of Gilead (some of the best and most horrifying sections). The three narrators are women and girls with different perspectives on Gilead society, and this allows Atwood to show new aspects of the world, along with more sharp observations tailored to each character. One oddness of the book-show situation is that these narrators will be quickly identifiable to viewers of the series, while readers only familiar with the first novel may be more surprised by connections that are revealed later on.
This book is more plot-focused than the first, sometimes to its detriment. Certain developments strain credulity, and toward the end, events come at such a fast clip that the story and characters lose their earlier nuance. I don't expect THE TESTAMENTS to become a classic like THE HANDMAID'S TALE, but I found it an engaging read.
→ CHARMED PARTICLES by Chrissy Kolaya: In 1972, Abhijat earns a job at a world-renowned particle accelerator lab located in a small Illinois town. He brings his new wife Sarala from Bombay to join him, and they each take their own approach to settling into their marriage and community. Elsewhere in town, Rose has returned from traveling the world with her explorer husband to raise their child in a place she knows, though it's changed with the arrival of the lab. The daughters from the two families grow up to become the best of friends. But when the government proposes building a much larger collider beneath the town, everyone takes sides in the debate, and tensions rise.
This story of two families and a town divided contains a lot of great interpersonal dynamics. I enjoyed getting to know all the characters, whose complicated and evolving feelings for one another are well-depicted. Where the novel fell short for me was plot: Kolaya sets up a variety of promising conflicts, but issues with balance and pacing made the story drag at times. Still, I'll remember these characters fondly, and I'll look out for Kolaya's next novel.
Good Stuff Out There:
→ Kimi Eisele, author of THE LIGHTEST OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE, describes working on an apocalyptic novel for years as the world changed around her story: "When I started the novel, the U.S. was at war with Iraq, and peak oil warnings were sounding loudly, at least in alternative news outlets. Against that reality I began to imagine what it would really be like to lose not just light, but mobility, long-distance communication, instant information, central governance, bananas, and the kind of entitlement that an economic system built on exploitation and convenience seemed to enable."
