It has been such a busy month over here! Everyone's out of school, we had another birthday, traveled already, and started finally getting some warm weather! Do you have any reading goals for the summer? I don't make specific goals for summer but I love always having a book in one hand and iced tea in the other. I got in three books this month, so let's get started!
"Dead as a Doornail"- Charlaine Harris
This is the fifth installment of the Sookie Stackhouse series. The changelings of Bon Temps are under attack. Some are killed, while others maimed and near death by a sniper targeting those of unusual nature. But that's not the only issue. Sookie gets roped into the very political world of werewolves and finds more than one suitor to line up along the way.
I didn't care for this book as much as the others. This series has let me down several times but I feel like I'm too invested to let it go now. This book was really disappointing. The arc was incomplete, the plot was very unbelievable and there were several plot holes. It felt like maybe Harris got tired of writing it and simply ended it as easily as possible, but also dramatically for no real reason. Overall, this wasn't my favorite of the series.
"One Thousand White Women"- Jim Fergus
May Dodd, along with a hefty group of white women, volunteer for the "Brides for Indians" program in 1875 as a way to integrate white culture into Indigenous culture. At 25 May joined the program as an escape from the mental hospital after having children out of wedlock to a man beneath her station. May saw this as a way to start fresh, see the country, learn about a new culture, and return home to her children as a free woman. But that's not quite how it went when May and her band of white women joined the Cheyenne tribe on the brink of being forced into the reservations.
I liked the idea of this book, but Fergus really let me down. He wrote a very "woke" mentality for May that just wasn't believable for that time period and I often times found it contradictory. She would say she didn't believe in God (nearly unheard of at the time) yet she would occasionally pray, she would say she's a feminist (in the simplest term, also not very common for the time period) yet she would maintain that men and women keep work separated and such, she would say that the Cheyenne culture and people were beautiful and inspiring and in the same breath say that their beliefs were pure superstition and blasphemous while calling the Cheyenne people heathens, savages, and wretches. There's also the issue of a white 45 year old male writing from the perspective of a 25 year old woman. I feel like sometimes male authors can pull this off, but Fergus did not (for me anyway). I can't speak on the accuracy or authenticity of the Cheyenne cultural perspective except that it all felt extremely stereotypical and offensive. Also the other white characters felt extremely stereotypical (the women from Ireland had red hair, the southern woman's father owned a mansion and slaves, the Swiss woman was as big and hearty as an ox) and they all had these awfully tacky names. The biggest issue I had was about halfway through their stay with the Cheyenne (maybe four months) May would begin to say that she was "one of the People" and that she understood their trials and hardships but was then greatly offended when she was not treated as a white woman when they would go to the trading posts. It seemed all very convenient and appropriated and, no, she could absolutely not understand their struggle as a people from staying with them for a few months or even years. It was hard to read this and not see the parallels between what was happening then and what is happening in our everyday lives. If that was the point, then Fergus did something right, but I have a feeling it wasn't intentional. Overall, I did not like this book. I thought the style was not appealing, the main character not relatable or realistic to the time period, the cultural aspect of the Cheyenne felt lacking, and everything felt so stereotyped to the point that it was off-putting.
"Sin Eater"- Megan Campisi
When May gets arrested for stealing bread, she thinks the punishment would be mild. But she is sentenced to be a Sin Eater instead. Her tongue is branded, an iron collar is permanently fastened to her neck, and she must consume the sins of the deceased so they may arrive at the gates of heaven free of their sins. But when the senior Sin Eater refuses to eat a deer heart on a coffin and gets put to death, May must figure out what sin the deer heart represents and why the senior Sin Eater refused to eat it.
This book was a little slow but extremely interesting. There's actually a bit of history mixed into it that I found intriguing. One review said it was a mix between the Handmaid's Tale and Alice in Wonderland. They're not wrong. It was all very "off with their heads!" and conspiratorial. I didn't care for the ending (I thought there would be a better twist) but overall I enjoyed this one.
Well that's all I have for May! Such a lot of May's this month! Is there anything you've been reading that you enjoyed? Any recommendations for me? I'd love to hear them! Happy summer reading book nerds!
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