The Pearl Diver by Jeff Talarigo

Fiction

Miss Fuji is the youngest pearl diver in her group. She feels at peace in the water and comes back daily with bounty from the sea. On one dive, she cuts her arm but doesn't notice the pain. She sees a spot on her skin in the same area where she got cut. She doesn't think too much of it until she finds another spot and goes to the doctor. Miss Fuji has leprosy.

In the mid 1900s Japan, those with the disease are shunned and sent to an island to live out the rest of their life. Even though Miss Fuji tries to hide, they find her and send her to this island.

The first part of the book focuses on the profession of pearl diving, which is incredibly interesting. Having recently visited the Korean island of Jeju where this practice is still in place, I really wanted to learn more. Unfortunately this part of the book ends pretty quickly and it moves right in to life on a segregated island. I was disappointed by this, but I blame myself for having incorrect expectations.

The majority of this book is about being in exile with others like Miss Fuji. She finds herself a job that is important to her and the other patients and seems to find some purpose in life. The book becomes disjointed in this part because it is separated by artifacts from the island and what they mean. It would have flowed better if told traditionally; there wasn't really much value in having these artifacts help tell the story.

Though this book wasn't bad, it really suffered because I expected a completely different story from it.

First Line: "Her words are the only remaining artifact of those days before she arrived."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Thriller

Susan Fletcher is the head cryptographer at the NSA and has a romantic weekend planned with her fiance. He gets called away on an emergency and it's not long before Susan also receives a call from her boss. She needs to come in to work and not say anything.

Once she's in to work she's debriefed by her boss. The super computer that the NSA has built and has never spent more than 3 hours cracking a code has been chugging away for more than 12 hours now. It has finally found the unbreakable code. This will be a complete reset for the NSA and their super expensive machine will become useless. The NSA can't let this happen.

Even though it's the weekend, there are others hanging around the NSA and they cannot find out. But the NSA is full of suspicious people and it's only a matter of time.

The setting for this book is interesting, taking place completely at the NSA headquarters. Despite this book being pretty old by now, it still reads as if it could happen in current day. The story starts off interesting. This code is unbreakable, what is the NSA missing and how do they find the code. It devolves into something completely unbelievable and overblown. The ending was pretty weak and at that point I was just happy the story was coming to a close. This probably my least favourite Dan Brown book.

First Line: "It said that in death, all things become clear; Ensei Tankado now knew it was true."

Rating:
(3/5)

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Science Fiction

I struggle to find the words to describe this book for me. It centres around two characters: Patricia and Laurence. Patricia is a witch who can cast spells, heal people, fly, and talk with animals. Laurence is a tech geek who can build incredibly complex machines and AI. The two should have absolutely nothing in common but they find each other as outcasts in school. When Laurence learns of Patricia's skills, they drift apart but reconnect as adults. Meanwhile, the world around them is turning to shit and it could be on them to fix it.

In a book of science fiction and fantasy, I expect some realism to ground the story but there were things that just didn't make sense. For example, in school, Patricia is made to look like she is cursing and throwing a dead animal at the guidance councilor. She runs away from the school and the entire town groups up to find her. Excuse me? Why does a town care enough about a school kid an a supposed curse to hunt her down?

There's also the trained assassin sent to kill the kids. He has a heavy presence at the start of the book, completely disappears for a while, then pops up again with an incredibly quick and unsatisfactory resolution to the point where I dont even understand the purpose of introducing this character at all.

The book was riddled with weird problems like the two described. I liked Patricia and Laurence as characters and the premise of science vs nature was a good one, but the execution just wasn't satisfactory for me.

First Line: "When Patricia was six years old, she found a wounded bird."

Rating:
(2.5/5)

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

Fiction

When the disease hit, the midwife was right in the thick of it working at the hospital as it took out almost all females and children. No babies survived childbirth and hardly any of the mothers. Men were contracting the disease as well, but the mortality rate wasn't as high as the females. When she falls sick she thinks this is the end for her as well.

Waking up in the hospital after society has fallen, the first thing she must do is find supplies. She soon runs in to two men, one of which is cooking food and invites her to eat. After eating, they enter a mall for supplies and when others in the mall learn there is a female, they attack. The men manage to keep them away but cut ties with her after that. They can't be responsible for keeping a female safe in these conditions. Many females are being kept as slaves and raped daily since there are so few.

Back on her own, she changes her appearance to be as male as possible and runs in to more people. Both those that want to help her and those that want to hurt her. She also finds a few small groups of people that are working together to survive.

I could not put this book down. I was completely invested in the midwife surviving her journey, wherever it was going to lead to. There were some interesting characters introduced along the way but all of them in passing. This tale, for the most part, is pretty lonely, but there are some relationships and companionship that give a bit of light to this overall dark tale.

First Line: "Mother Ina tapped her fingers on her hollow wooden belly."

Rating:
(4.5/5)

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Mystery

Libby Day was the victim of a horrific crime when she was a child. Her brother killed her mom and two sisters but Libby managed to escape and run away, only to finger him to the police later. Now in her 30s, she has run out of the money the community pooled together for her and needs to find a new way to sustain herself. She is offered money to appear at a nearby club that is interested in true crime and despite no interest in doing this, the money wins out. Attending this event, she finds that everyone thinks her brother innocent and Libby's testimony spoon fed to her by the police. Libby starts to question that night.

Going back and forth between the events leading up to the crime and current day for Libby, we slowly learn how that night unfolded while Libby starts piecing things together by speaking to those close to her family during that time. Libby herself is a bit of a mess, but it surprisingly doesn't really impact how she conducts her investigation in to that night, which is surprising.

Having read a few Flynn books in the past, I found this one a bit slower than her others and the ending not as surprising as Gone Girl or Sharp Objects. Because the middle part of the book was a bit slow, I'd say this was an average mystery and the worst of the Flynn books I've read.

First Line: "I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ."

Rating:
(3.5/5)