shelfreflectionofficial's reviews
801 reviews

“Everybody knows everything about you in this stupid town. And they know nothing.”


I didn’t realize this was a novella when I first started this book. I don’t usually have much luck with novellas because there never seems to be enough space to do what the author needs to do.

I didn’t feel like that with this book.

The whole ‘thrills and chills’ thing worked pretty well! There was enough mystery and suspense to the plot that kept you reading and the setting gave it the Christmas vibes that made it a great, short read around the holidays.

Novellas can’t be too complex because of their length, so it’s not the most complicated thriller, but it also didn’t feel like it wrapped up (pun!) too fast either. I’m not sure if I really had it figured out until the end so that was nice too. It wasn’t shocking but it wasn’t boring either.


The premise is:

A true crime podcaster, Harley Granger, has decided to investigate the years old murder and possibly related disappearance cases of a group of friends.

Madeline Martin, owner of a bookshop (nice Hallmark movie type of touch), lost 3 of her best friends that fateful night and almost didn’t survive herself. She doesn’t remember much about that night but her testimony put away their supposed friend Evan for the murder. (Not the disappearances because there was not enough evidence to link them)

But Granger has come around with some interesting theories, including that the murderer had an accomplice that is still at large. This is alarming because Madeline has been getting a Christmas present every year on the anniversary of the crime. She thought they were from the guy in prison (which apparently didn’t bother her that much because she never told anyone about them) but now she’s wondering who is actually sending them.

Another girl goes missing and the investigation is hot again. Will it melt the snow and ruin Christmas? But like, metaphorically…


The book is told from Madeline’s first person POV, Harley Granger’s third person POV, and the abducted woman’s first person POV. We also get flashbacks to the night of the crime. My advanced reader’s copy’s formatting was a little disjointed jumping around but I’m guessing in the finished product things will be more clear.


One thing that bothered me:

When Granger gets Maddie to talk to him about the case he shows her pictures of all the missing girls and says one thing they all had in common:

“‘Five young women missing in ten years in the same fifty-mile radius… They all look like you, Maddie.’”

But this line of thinking is never continued or brought up again.

I read an advanced reader’s copy so it’s possible this was changed before the book’s publishing, but if not, it feels like a very loose end that either should have been removed or should have been followed through on. It’s a pretty significant plot point to drop it.



One thing I found pretty funny:

At the beginning of the book Maddie comments on Granger buying a book from her at her shop: “the latest runaway bestseller with foil embossed type, the author’s name in a bigger, bolder font than the title. The dark, foreboding image just a sliver of a girl’s face.”

The fictional author in the book was ‘John Henderson.’ And I’m 99.9% sure Unger was referencing James Patterson here haha. I don’t really read his books anymore for the reasons stated— too aggressive and run-of-the-mill. The author’s name bigger than the title is one of my book pet peeves. Sell your books, not your name.



Recommendation

I think if you’re looking for a Christmas thriller this is a great option. It’s like a murderous Christmas hallmark movie.

There was some swearing, and a lot for such a short book, so wasn’t a fan of that.

But overall, it was a good read for a novella. Probably at the top of the list for novellas that I’ve read. Which may or may not be saying a lot.

The only other Lisa Unger book I’ve read so far has been The Red Hunter (which was four years ago) and from my review I really liked it but it had a lot of f-words. I think I may still give one of her full length books another shot and see if she’s one for me to continue to read.

If you’re already a fan of Lisa Unger, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this book.


**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

[Content Advisory: 23 f-words, 7 s-words; the abducted girl works as a pole dancer at a topless bar so there’s some comments about that, nothing too graphic]

“‘There’s a dead cat in my son’s room at college… that’s the root of all the problems.’”

Having just finished The Dictionary of Lost Words, it was a surprise to be back in the Oxford setting during the 1800s. It was unplanned but fortuitous as my imagination was practiced in this setting and I gained even more knowledge about the university and the Bodleian.

I have read the first book in this series, A Beautiful Blue Death, and the 11th- An Extravagant Death. While I’m not sure if I liked this book better than either of those, it was still a decent read. If you don’t like Victorian England set mysteries with an independent detective who has a doctor friend…. like Sherlock…. then you will probably be bored.

But if you know what kind of read you’re getting into, you settle in and watch the master at work. I do think I waited too long in between books one and two. It’s not necessarily a series I would want to read back to back to back til it’s over, but you don’t want to wait too long in between each one. They’re pretty quick reads to squeeze in.


The main character, Lenox’s personality is not as flamboyant or brash as thee Sherlock, but I’m okay with that. One reviewer called Lenox too needy, but I kind of like that for something different.

It seems more popular to create a main character who is either super needy and mentally unstable, paranoid, etc, or a character who is super self-sufficient who needs nothing and no one and views relationships as a weakness. I think Lenox strikes the right balance of unique skills and independence, but a right desire for a family and companionship.


So about the cat… yes, the cat stabbed through with a letter opener in the college dorm was the primary signpost that something was amiss in George’s disappearance. That is the only animal death, but it was a little less than subtle.

Mr. Charles Lenox, detective, is on the case and happy to be back at Oxford.

“There were only a few things Lenox took special pride in, but as he read the Times he realized that Oxford was one of them, and told himself that if he couldn’t solve this case he might as well retire.”

The author of this book, Charles Finch, went to Oxford and it shows. It reads almost like a tribute to the school and we learn a lot about how things work there. You can’t help but see some of the similarities with Harry Potter (which isn’t surprising, just interesting.)

Lenox, then, is solving the mystery of the two missing boys, and eventually turns into a murder case when a body is found days later. Clues keep turning up pointing to the mysterious September Society and Lenox has to connect the dots before it’s too late.


This book was a little reminiscent of The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. The Maidens is a modern murder mystery of a student at Cambridge that also includes a secret society.


As is typical of Charles Finch books and what I like about historical fiction novels- you learn stuff! Here are a few things from this book:

agony column: a section of the newspaper for personal advertisements seeking advice or writing about missing relatives

swan song: there is some debate on when this originated; swans are said to not make noise until they ‘sing’ right before their death; Finch includes this bit but associates with the old British law that all swans belonged to the Crown and she would round them up at Christmas to serve at her feasts. 1998 was the year it was no longer an act of treason to eat a swan, however, swans are no longer a popular choice of food.

ballistics: Finch brings in a character who studies ballistics, which is a very new thing during this time (looking at a bullet’s grooves to determine which gun shot it, etc) I tried to find more on this during this time period but looks like it was going to take more time than I had, but interesting to think about the origins of the processes we take for granted today


Recommendation

If you like a good cozy mystery or a mystery set in Victorian England, this series is a definite must for you!

If you prefer more intense or darker mysteries, then you may be bored by this.

It pretty much just boils down to that.


[Content Advisory: no swearing or sexual content; death of a pet]

“Some words are more important than others. But it took me a long time to understand why.”

I’m disappointed I didn’t love this one. The cover made it look whimsical and I’ve always loved words. I used to collect words and definitions when I was younger and I still like to point out in my reviews new words or phrases that I read.

But this book has a more serious tone than I was expecting and some of the writing style was frustrating when it came to understanding our main character.

This book chronicles (in historical fiction fashion) how the first Oxford English Dictionary came to be. To liven the story up and explore the role, or lack of thereof, of women in this process, the dictionary’s story is wrapped around our main character— Esme— whose father is part of the decades long process.

Williams incorporates the threads of both women’s suffrage (throughout) and WWI (just the last bit of the book) which historically were happening at the same time as the dictionary project.


This is the kind of book where you kinda need to know WHY the author chose to write the book. What was she exploring and what message was she wanting to send? Here are a couple quotes from the author’s note to help us understand the origin and process of this book:

“This book began as two simple questions: do words mean different things to men and women? And if they do, is it possible that we have lost something in the process of defining them?

“I decided that the absence of women did matter. A lack of representation might mean that the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was biased in favor of the experiences and sensibilities of men… This novel is my attempt to understand how the way we define language might define us.”


My Stream of Consciousness

Even though it wasn’t necessarily a pleasure to read, I suppose this might make a good book club book purely for the discussion topics therein.

One of the things I was unprepared for as I read this book was the types of ‘lost’ words that were being collected.

As a young girl, Esme collects disposed, forgotten, hidden, or dropped words written on slips of paper as she huddles under the sorting tables. But as she grows she comes to think about what makes a word ‘ineligible’ for the dictionary and how that impacts the people who use them.

“‘Words define us, they explain us, and on occasion, they serve to control us or isolate us. But what happens when words that are spoken are not recorded? What effect does that have on the speaker of those words?’”

So she starts collecting words from people who perhaps have no voice. But they are mostly the crass or slang terms. One of her first words is the c-word. She adds to that clitoris, dollymop, shaft, etc. It seemed the more vulgar the more she wanted to document it.

Even in the story this exchange happens:
“‘She collects words.’
’What kind of words?’
’Women’s words. Dirty ones.’”


This made me think. Because my knee-jerk reaction is- why would we want to make sure to include vulgar words in the dictionary. Doesn’t that dignify them?

But the book’s argument would be less about dignifying the words as dignifying the people who use them. That their way of speaking that gives context to their person, their life, their identity, goes unnoticed, ignored, forgotten, if it’s not written down.

One character says, “We are arbiters of the English language, sir. Our job, surely, is to chronicle, not judge.”

And I suppose that’s correct. The dictionary is a book that is supposed to provide people with access to the meaning of words so that they might understand one another. It’s not meant to surmise moral merit on those words.

However, it has to give some sort of context to how the word is used— whether it’s vulgar or meant as an insult— or we won’t be understanding properly.


I know I don’t have the same perspective on vulgarity as many do. I don’t swear or speak crassly and I try to avoid books seeped in it.

A character says, “‘A vulgar word, well-placed and said with just enough vigor, can express far more than its polite equivalent.’”

I’m sure I’m naive to a lot of slang or terminology that is used regularly. And I’m personally glad for it. I don’t feel like it would be God-honoring to immerse myself in that. I’m not sure I’m convinced that even if it’s more expressive that we should use vulgar words. Is there something more important than being able to express our deepest feelings however we want?

I think the language we use can be a sin. Especially if it disrespects God’s name or his image-bearers. THIS ARTICLE and THIS ARTICLE give good biblical insights on the irreverence of profanity and vulgar language.

I’m not sure I would say it disqualifies those words from being defined, but I’m not sure if it’s right or dignifying to make sure we attribute them to people’s identity.

We have to use words to define ourselves because words are our form of communicating and understanding. But I think we can place too much emphasis on the words themselves then what the words tell us.


The Power of Words

One thing that can’t be denied is the power of language and the power of controlling language. I can see how the job of putting together a dictionary and defining words is a powerful position, one that must have accountability and voices heard from multiple places.

I couldn’t help but think of a couple nonfiction books I’ve read that explore this very thing.

First, Cultish by Amanda Montell is all about the ‘language of fanaticism.’ She says,

“With a glimmer of willingness, language can do so much to squash independent thinking, obscure truths, encourage confirmation bias, and emotionally charge experiences such that no other way of life seems possible.”

She specifically looks at the way language powers cults:

“From the crafty redefinition of existing words (and the invention of new ones) to powerful euphemisms, secret codes, renamings, buzzwords, chants and mantras, forced silence, even hashtags, language is the key means by which all degrees of cult-like influence occur.”

Similarly, Rod Dreher in his book, Live Not by Lies, explores how communist countries controlled and redefined words and how we’re seeing a lot of that today. Certain powers that be would like to redefine what a woman is or make hate speech the same as violence. And what about what ‘true’ means, because it seems less and less about reality and more and more about feelings.

It’s telling that Dreher would indicate- “language creates reality.”

He takes it further: “According to Hannah Arendt, the foremost scholar of totalitarianism, a totalitarian society is one in which an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality. Truth is whatever the rulers decide it is.”

If language creates reality then a force may try to control what creates that reality—language.

Another book that speaks a lot about language and power is Cynical Theories. It explores the postmodern thought that the way we talk about things holds a lot of power:

“Theory assumes that objective reality cannot be known, “truth” is socially constructed through language and “language games” and is local to a particular culture, and knowledge functions to protect and advance the interests of the privileged.”

and:

“If knowledge is a construct of power, which functions through ways of talking about things, knowledge can be changed and power structures toppled by changing the way we talk about things.”


The Dictionary of Lost Words looks at the power struggle between men and women in the time of the compiling of the dictionary and how poor or female voices weren’t allowed a big enough influence into what became written.

This is an important aspect of words, but if we were to look at how this book applies to us today, I don’t think it’s about how men vs women define words. I think it’s how progressives vs conservatives use and change language.

Women are no longer kept from virtually any job or standing. We have the vote. We can own businesses and property. We can be homemakers or CEOs. We can write bestselling books, billboard topping songs, or personal blogs that can be seen worldwide. We have a voice.

But progress never stops. It’s always going to find a tradition to tear down, regardless of its merit.

I won’t beat a dead horse, but I think it would be a really good discussion to think about how language is used and redefined today and whether we think that’s a good thing. Are all voices being heard and heard equally? Should they? If not, how does that relate to the time period this novel was written? How can we better separate what some people use a word to mean and what we think it should be used for? Is there an appropriate way to stop a redefining or new usage of a word?


A few other quotes worth a conversation:

- “Words are like stories, don’t you think? They change as they are passed from mouth to mouth; their meanings stretch or truncate to fit what needs to be said.”

- “I realized that the words most often used to define us were words that described our function in relation to others.”

- “‘Words are meaningless without action.’
 'And sometimes action can make a lie of good words.'"

- “If war could change the nature of men, it would surely change the nature of words.”


The Character of Esme

I mentioned earlier that one thing I didn’t like about this book was that it was frustrating understanding the main character. This is because it felt like every time some big life moment was about to happen Williams cuts it off and jumps ahead.

Even after Esme’s father dies we hardly know her thoughts or her grief. It’s like she didn’t want us to get too attached to Esme because the focus of the book was supposed to be about how the dictionary was put together. Esme is just there to point at stuff, we’re not actually supposed to know her.

The most extended feeling and transparency we get is when Esme talks about her baby that she has to give up for adoption. This struggle drew me to her because as a mother I know the bond of a mother to her baby and I can’t imagine what it would take to let go of that baby.

I am also glad for her relief when she finds out she is too far along to abort the baby. I was happy to know that even though she called it ‘an inconvenience’ she still recognized the little life and desired to see her borne and given life outside the womb even if she couldn’t be the one to sustain it. To me, this pain was the most humanizing part of Esme’s character.


At the beginning I wasn’t sure if I was even going to like her. She is described as a scapegrace (a mischievous little person) which is endearing at first. But her mischief and defiance aren’t always used endearingly.

She says of the words she has collected in her trunk:

“My trunk is like the Dictionary. Except it’s full of words that have been lost or neglected.”

Except really it starts as stolen words. A lot of the words she kept she didn’t even give them a chance to be considered in the dictionary. You can’t take a word and then complain that they didn’t care about it enough to put it in.

When she takes the word ‘abandon’ she basically claims that the word belongs to her because it describes her. There is some entitlement here. She feels justified in doing something she knows is wrong because she feels like the act is important to her identity. It’s a symbolic thing because she doesn’t need ‘the word’ to feel what it describes. I don’t like this attitude and it made it harder to like her as a character.

Of course, she grows up and resists her compulsion to take the slips. She goes and starts collecting her own words and finds a more constructive way to find her voice.


A Little Dull

Other reviewers have commented that it could have been a shorter book and I agree the length didn’t do it any favors. It seemed to drag a lot, especially because we weren’t allowed into too much of Esme’s life and we kept getting jerked back to slips and pigeonholes and fascicles and proofs. These words are probably used more than Esme’s name.

I thought it was clever how the author sectioned the book off with words like a dictionary- like the first and last terms in a volume or on a page. That was a unique touch. Some of the words I didn’t know what they meant and I probably should have looked them up to see if both words summarized the vibe or purpose of that section of the book. I’m assuming it did and if it didn’t, that’s a big miss for Williams.

The book covered so many years but it was hard to picture Esme progressing along. The chapters were headed with the year, but I couldn’t keep straight how old Esme was at that time. Sometimes it would eventually be said as you kept reading, but it’s hard to understand her character like we’re supposed to if we don’t know the age at which her actions, behaviors, thoughts, and words are being carried out. Again, it made it seem like we just weren’t supposed to focus on her.

It’s a bold move to write a book where the main character is an inanimate object (a dictionary) and a somewhat dull one at that. Readers need a relatable character they can connect with throughout the book and over and over again it seemed like Williams kept redirecting us from what we actually wanted to read about.


Recommendation

If you like historical fiction and are particularly interested in words or the dictionary, I would say this is a book for you, however, I would have categorized myself that way and I didn’t really enjoy it. So take it for what it’s worth.

It brings up some great conversation topics and touches on important things like the power of words and the people who define them, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the drag of the long book and the bait-and-switch character of Esme that the author uses.

It does provide interesting information on how the Oxford English Dictionary was compiled and historical things like Hart’s Rules, the Bodleian Library, the Esperanto language, the missing ‘bondmaid’ word, etc. I enjoyed learning these things and I’m glad that Ditte is a historical person because her letters to Esme were one of my favorite parts. So if you want to learn that information in a slightly more exciting way than just reading Wikipedia pages, you’ll probably like it.


[Content Advisory: some crass and vulgar language (i.e. the c-word) but from a distanced use; some descriptions when Esme first gets her period]

“How sinister it is to relive your life backward. To see things you hadn’t at the time. To realize the horrible significance of events you had no idea were playing out around you.”


So this book opens with a mom seeing her son stab a guy. And my first thought was- ‘I’m not sure if there is ever a right place or right time for that. But you know what Gillian? I’m gonna hear you out.’

And then the mom wakes up the next day… but it’s actually two days IN THE PAST and the stabbing hadn’t happened yet. And I was like- ‘Ohhhhh. Okay Gillian. I see what you did there.’

And proceeded to read and enjoy this time travel, crime solving novel.


It was a bit reminiscent of the movie Happy Death Day where the main character gets murdered and keeps reliving the day/murder over and over again until she figures out who did it.

In Wrong Place, Wrong Time the murder doesn’t keep happening. Actually, Jen doesn’t keep reliving the same day at all— so is it really a time loop? She just keeps going further and further back in time every time she wakes up.

The goal is still to figure out why her son would stab someone and see if she can stop it. Each day she relives in the past she sees through new eyes, catches new things, chases new leads, and learns more and more about her life and family and what led up to that fateful day.

“‘This isn’t time travel, or science, or maths. Isn’t it just— you have the knowledge—and the love—to stop a crime?’”


How far back does she go? Thousands of days. Each section is titled ‘Day Zero Minus (X Amount of Days)’— aka how many days before stab day. At first it’s fine, but how far back is 540 days, 3876 days? We don’t want to figure it out. It’s like saying your kid is 40 weeks old or 29 months old. IT’S NOT HELPFUL, it’s annoying.

Of course she writes her character saying it the normal way as you read on, but I’m still miffed by the chapter titles. Don’t make us do the math, Gillian, we’re busy solving a mystery.


A lot of people say they didn’t finish the book, that it dragged, or that the ending didn’t redeem the book. I disagree. I didn’t feel like it dragged. The entire concept of the book requires going back in time to various days to find out new information, that’s not dragging, that’s a book doing its job.

For those who didn’t like the ending— what?! I’m a happy ending kind of person. Perhaps it felt a little abrupt when we go back to ‘the day’ but if readers are wanting a different outcome, they must prefer darker books.


I don’t think this is a spoiler to say, but one thing I was worried about but didn’t need to be, was that the mom starts to wonder if her son ultimately made the decision to stab a guy because she was a bad mom. If she had spent more time with him, shown more interest in his interests, done things differently, would he have still stabbed?

I was worried the answer was going to be yes. And then I would have gone on a rampage. But, no, the mom relives her past and rekindles her love of being a mom. She throws off the guilt and knows that she loved her son and whatever choices he made were not because she could have been better.

Yes! Don’t let mom-guilt have a foothold. (Unless you’re blowing smoke in your kids’ faces and dealing drugs in the living room, and forcing them to cheer for the Packers, or some other things you should definitely feel guilty about.)


I thought it was interesting to think about how you could have the knowledge that your kid murdered and then wake up the day before it happened and have to interact with your child. How crazy your emotions must be to see your child in a different light. Would it changed how you saw them, how you loved them, how you treated them?

I suppose if we’re honest with ourselves, history (and the Bible) shows us we are all capable of atrocious things. It leads us to thankfulness for God’s grace in our lives and the lives of our children when he preserves our innocence in certain ways. It also reminds us of our need of a Savior, our children’s need of a Savior. Sin and temptation lurks at the door and we need God’s power to resist and fight against it.

The mom in this book shows us an unconditional love. Would we realistically be able to have that? Maybe, maybe not. But we can know that nothing we do can separate us from the love of God if we come to him. We won’t need time travel, just repentance. God’s love is not predicated on good behavior but in the fact that he’s our heavenly Father and Creator who loves us because we are his. That’s good news!


Anywho, I enjoy books with time travel. Some found it tedious and confusing or boring. I thought it was interesting and there were some surprises. Although I’m still not sure if what she was in could really be considered a time loop. I opted not to take quantum physics in college so now I’m completely in the dark on this stuff. Go figure. I did not need Algebra in life, but I guess I needed quantum physics.

There’s a lot of books and movies with time travel, so I thought it was funny when she included these “five easy tips to escape a time loop”:

 1. Find out why
 2. Tell a friend and get them in the loop with you
 3. Document everything
 4. Experiment
 5. Try not to die

Feel free to write these down somewhere and save them for later.

I think McAllister did a great job of maintaining consistency with the way the ‘time loop’ worked in this book. A lot of time travel happens when people go to the future and so they are able to send themselves messages in the future.

But when you go to the past, nothing you send or write is there because it hasn’t happened yet. That creates a unique challenge for someone who needs to solve a crime. No one remembers anything because everytime you wake up, essentially everything gets erased. I felt like Jen’s choices and figuring things out fit the context really well.


Other than the f-words, probably my next biggest problem with the book was the scene where Jen is looking through a window and catches a glimpse of a photograph. And she sees what color eyes the person has…. Nah. That’s not how life works.

Nobody notices what color eyes people have. If someone tries to sell me something at my door and then murders my next door neighbor and the police come and ask me what they looked like, eye color will have ZERO impact on my description.

So the fact that she looked THROUGH A WINDOW at a PHOTOGRAPH (and I think it was dark) and then noticed a person’s eye color….. that’s a big no for me.

Authors like to make much of eye color. But besides the few people like Daniel Craig where their eyes literally pierce you with their brightness, let’s just stop making it significant.

I dare you to figure out someone’s eye color… or better yet, from a photograph. You will have to try awkwardly hard. And you will know that I am correct.


Last comments: this book is very British. Some books are partially British where there’s some new words that jump out at you like jumper (sweater) and boot (trunk), etc. But Gillian is full-on Brit here.

“I don’t dob. I’m not a grass.” means I don’t tattletale and inform the police

“I’m doing dogsbody stuff” means I’m doing menial tasks. Definitely had to look this one up because things could have gotten weird real fast.

“Gear” means heroin. How many slang terms for drugs are there in the world? Talking these days is so risky.

“x” at the end of texts does NOT mean kiss. And everybody in the UK ends all their texts with an ‘x’ unless it’s a formal business exchange. Apparently it’s supposed to indicate you’re being friendly rather than cold and sarcastic… Feels like a lot of work to me.

The entire police department drinks tea in the morning. So proper. That would be an interesting study- do tea-drinkers solve more crimes than coffee-drinkers? Let me know the results!


Recommendation

This is hard to know how to recommend. I enjoyed the book, but there is a lot of swearing in it. A lot of f-words. I’m not sure if it’s worth wading through that.

Even though she writes a good story, I doubt I’ll read any more of Gillian’s books because of the swearing.

Swearing aside, I can’t think of a reason not to read the book. Unless you don’t like time travel.


[Content Advisory: like so many f-words]

“God used the offense of God’s word for the good of my soul.”

Rosaria’s newest book is a Bible-saturated and bold truth-telling book that the world needs right now. Her personal experience and background gives her every right to say the things she does.

“God created men and women  in marriage to do different and complementary things: husbands lead, protect, and provide, and wives submit, nurture, and keep the home. Because Satan would  like you to think that my previous sentence is conspiratorial hate speech, strong Christian women  need to know what the Bible says on this matter rather than what some famous almost-Christian feminist blogger says on Twitter.” 

Five Lies is not an op-ed. Fully based on Scripture, Rosaria’s book exposes the ways the church has compromised truth, with good intent or not, and calls us as Christians back to the truth— the full truth— even if it goes against our feelings and what the culture has deemed ‘nice’. 

The lies she writes to dispel are: 

Rosaria is very honest and transparent about her life and beliefs she had when she was a lesbian. She says that when she first attended church, she thought:

“[The church] was patriarchal (and that was bad), and I was a feminist lesbian (and that was good). The Bible was outdated and untrustworthy, and I was progressive and kind… I was confident that the Bible was androcentric (man-centered), heteronormative (promoting heterosexuality, which I thought was a bad thing), and misogynist (woman-hating). And I hated everything to do with the Bible, since I was a women-centered, pacifist, lesbian vegetarian (and this was all very good and moral, in my opinion).”

Throughout the book she shares how God and his Word challenged what she thought to be true and ultimately led her to saving faith. 

Her tone may come across as too forthright for some, but I see it as a woman who has walked the path the culture is celebrating. She experienced firsthand what the culture’s lies do. She was saved from that path and her plea and exhortation is out of love for others to escape the life she lived in bondage to her sin.  

One reviewer said Rosaria’s introduction was generating fear and that there is no fear in love. I disagree with her— I felt the introduction was written with sadness not to fear-monger. While we may not all encounter those things in our personal lives, they are happening. They are reality. And it is sad. Furthermore, there is a place for fear: fear of the Lord. Reverence for his Word. ‘No fear in love’ is not referring to fearing the holiness of God and delighting to keep his commands. 

This book is a controversial one and we can’t discount the courage it took Rosaria to put all of this down on paper. She is sure to get some backlash for sharing these truths and calling the church back from the lines it has crossed, but that does not mean that what she wrote is the problem. 

It’s easy to conform to the world and to compromise with the trends of the day. It’s hard to be the dissenting voice especially when the ‘opposing side’ has done such a thorough job of controlling the language in their favor. Those who reject Rosaria’s words do so in the name of love, empathy, grace, and compassion but as Rosaria reveals in her book, their path is a path of lies which is not loving, compassionate, or gracious. 

Rosaria caused me to rethink one of my beliefs. I hear it said a lot that we need to stop telling same-sex-attracted people that their sexual desires will go away. We don’t want to set them up for failure when the feelings don’t leave so we tell them it’s something they will have to continue to live with the rest of their lives and that God just calls them not to act on it. That the sin is in the action, not the feeling. 

But as Rosaria says, “we can’t domesticate sin.” Scripture tells us that hatred is the same as murder, lust is the same as adultery. Sin is more than just outward behaviors. It’s our thoughts and it’s our hearts. Scripture says that when we trust in Jesus we are dead to sin and alive in Christ. We are to put off our old self and put on our new self. 

Are we not in the process of sanctification— the process that we are made to look more and more like Christ? Are we to think sexual desires are too strong for the Holy Spirit to change? Are we to say, come to Jesus, but he can’t change you? 

It’s reasonable to say that we can’t expect change overnight or that it could take awhile, but it is wrong for us to tell people to expect to keep their sin. There is grace and forgiveness every day, but there is also power in the Holy Spirit and we have a wrong view of God and his Word if we think we won’t be transformed at all this side of heaven. The Holy Spirit can change our sinful desires and I repent for thinking otherwise. 

I took pages and pages of notes so I’ll just highlight some of the points that stuck out to me:

Preston Sprinkle gets his own little section in this review because he is increasingly one of the most influential voices in the LGBTQ+ conversation. His book Embodied has been very popular and influential. 

Christians who disagree with Rosaria may do so because of Sprinkle and so I think it’s important to consider some things.

He is known for his compassion in listening to and engaging with the LGBTQ+ community, seeking to practically help families whose loved ones identify as LGBTQ and being a bridge between the church and the LGBTQ community.

Rosaria has strong things to say about his teachings which will probably be a point of critique for a lot of readers. 

So what does Sprinkle actually believe? Because it’s not enough to just be compassionate and helpful. 

Sprinkle believes the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin. He believes there are only two sexes and that Scripture doesn’t allow for humans to be identified by anything other than male or female. (THIS seems like a balanced review of his book Embodied.)

However, he has some other concerning beliefs. He co-wrote the book Erasing Hell with Francis Chan back in 2011. Since then he seems to have changed his belief about hell and is now an annhilationist which essentially means he does not believe in hell. (Related article HERE)

He is currently complementarian but his recent Twitter posts regarding his exploration of the term ‘kephale’ suggests he may be rethinking that stance as well. This is significant because virtually all churches who ordained women as pastors also came to say that homosexuality is not a sin. 

“Egalitarianism is the highway to LGBTQ+ church leadership, as a faulty interpretation that endorses sin in one context is imported wholesale to another.” 

On page 239-240 Rosaria quotes in length a ‘story’ Preston re-tells about two men who have an intimate friendship. He tells of a poem one wrote of the other: “So moving, so intimate, so loving were the words of that poem that some people to this day believe that K.D. and John were gay.”

This is his retelling of King David and Johnathan. I don’t know the whole context of this story within his book Embodied, but the way he portrays it in his own words is irresponsible and misleading of the original text.

He is not willing to say whether or not intersex conditions are a result of the Fall. 

In Embodied Preston says, “Maybe using the fall to explain intersex conditions is wrongheaded, to begin with, as many disability theologians have reminded us.”

This is a concerning thing to say, though I don’t have the whole context of this quote. He seems to be affirming teachings of disability theologians. From a brief internet search (because I’m not familiar with disability theologians) it would seem that generally speaking they want to celebrate people with disabilities as if nothing is wrong with them to the point that they will have that disability in heaven. 

I would agree with disability theologians in the truth that all people are created in the image of God and should be treated with dignity and respect. Illness and disabilities do not make anyone less of a person. 

However, to try to convince someone with severe mental depression, a person who is blind, someone missing limbs, or someone who deals with health issues because of bodily defects that they should be happy to have their disability and that they should be overjoyed to know they will continue to endure it in heaven seems unbiblical. 

This quote seems to indicate that disability theologians think it’s wrong to point to the Fall as a reason for an intersex condition and, by extension, other disabilities or illnesses. 

Preston said he can’t be sure if we can blame the Fall because “he wasn’t in the garden.”

Rosaria counters: “For Sprinkle, the biblical first principle that sin, death, and illness entered the world with the sin of Adam is not at all clear because he wasn’t in the garden at the time of the fall. In other words, the Bible’s witness as the word of God is not sufficient, but what Sprinkle can see with his own eyes is.”

There is a lot more to unpack here than I have space to, but at first glimpse, this is something to look more into as it concerns Preston and whether or not his teachings should be revered. 

He is also a proponent of using preferred pronouns. Rosaria has partly used this book to repent of things she has previously said or believed that she now realizes were sins. Using preferred pronouns was one of  them. 

She says, “For years, and even as a Christian, I used and defended what are called ‘preferred pronouns.’… I falsely believed that this would aid and abet my ability to bring the gospel to bear on these people’s lives. I failed to distinguish between an illness (gender dysphoria) and an ideology (transgenderism).”

While it is not an easy thing to live by, especially if you have a loved one who wishes you to use different pronouns, I agree with Rosaria. If someone is anorexic yet claims they are fat, we don’t also call them fat. We seek to show them reality. Lying to someone by calling them pronouns that do not match their biological sex will not help them see reality but will further impress what they believe.

Again, it’s not an easy choice to make. If I was at risk of losing a relationship with my daughter because of pronouns, I can’t say now what I would do. It’s an impossible choice. I would hope that I would trust God that through truth, he could restore that relationship, but I know it could come at a great cost. 

It may seem wrong to some readers that Rosaria would come at Preston and call his book untrustworthy. But that’s really the point of her writing this book. If influential Christians and the church are teaching half-truths, they’re really speaking lies and we need to call them to speak the whole truth even if what they seem to be doing is ‘nice.’ 

Lest anyone see the word ‘critique’ and think it’s a reason to dismiss this book: none of this negates the importance, the relevance, and the truth of this book. Everyone should read this book. 

However, there are a few things that I felt would have strengthened certain areas of her book.  

We know that it’s important to define our terms so we understand what we are hearing and saying. For the most part Rosaria is clear in her definitions, but there were a few places that lacked clarity. 

She doesn’t really define what she means by feminism. She exposes the lie that feminism is good for the world and the church, but I think there are some people that identify themselves as feminists as defined by someone who just believes that women are equal to men and should be treated with dignity and respect and should not be discriminated against. This is not the same definition of feminism as largely held by the culture. 

She speaks briefly on the patriarchy and says that biblical patriarchy is not a sin, it’s a blessing, but she doesn’t really explain what she means by biblical patriarchy. She points out that liberal interpretation of biblical patriarchy is wrong but doesn’t clearly refute why. 

She makes the point that “a godly woman’s best defense against a potentially abusive husband is church membership in a biblically faithful church.” I agree with this statement but I didn’t feel like she explained the ‘why’ very well. She also could have spoken more on the topic of abuse in general. I feel like that’s a major issue people have when they reject the Bible’s teachings and it would go a long way for her to address that topic and explain how membership should be seen as protection. 

In her chapter regarding modesty I really liked how she considered social media’s role in creating a platform for immodesty in the things we post and our attitude when we do it. But based on the title of that lie I wish she would have also addressed how the idea that women revealing their bodies creates empowerment really doesn’t. Relevant here would be the porn industry or platforms like Only Fans where sex work is trying to become a noble occupation. What are the effects of this locally and globally? Other books speak to this and the effects of ‘immodesty’ in the world are great and far-reaching. 

Lastly, she spends a lot of space trying to talk about the nuances between ‘accepting’ vs ‘affirming’ which was mostly helpful. However, as she also indicates how some words are not neutral words and should be avoided I wonder if ‘accepting’ is one of them? The way she defines it makes sense but the larger population won’t use or see the distinctions she makes and I wonder if it isn’t so helpful. It’s one of the top words associated with this discussion so maybe she spent so much time on it because it’s a word we just can’t avoid so we might as well define it better? 

Rosaria’s book tells the truths everyone’s afraid to commit to. She forces us to recognize that a ‘Christian’ label does not automatically make something true and we need to be diligent in the ideologies we espouse to make sure they align with the whole of Scripture.

Aligned with God’s Word, Five Lies is an essential read to learn how a Christian should understand these topics and respond when/if their loved ones join the LGBTQ community. 

I think it will be a hard and challenging book for some, but one I would encourage you to wrestle with. It is not an easy thing to resist the pull of the culture, the pulse of the loudest voice. But we are called to fear God, not man. We are called to love Jesus more than our loved ones. And entrust them into his care because he loves them more than we ever could, and his design and boundaries he calls us to live in are because of that love. 

It’s easy to throw this book away, to criticize it and nitpick, but that’s not an honest response. Be willing to consider this even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it means you have a lot of changes to make. Allow his Word to speak to you through Rosaria. 

[There are also other books that speak more into what she cumulated here. I have read almost every book she quoted and I list my reviews and other resources below.] 

“Asking people in pain to define their own problem without stable, objective standards is the height of irresponsibility and cruelty.”  

“Our humanity is not in our feelings. Our sense of self is not in our sin. It is in Christ… The only way you can hate your sin without hating yourself is through union with Christ.” 

“The law of God is an anchor, and the only way to know if we are anchored to Christ is by our obedience to the word. It is not enough to say that you have a high view of Scripture. Faith is not measured by what you affirm or how you identify. You can affirm that you are a Christian, but if you do not obey God’s requirements as revealed in the Bible, then you are proving your affirmation false. Obedience does not make you a legalistic or a fundamentalist. Obedience to the word of God reveals that you are a Christian.” 

“A genuine Christian who experiences the indwelling sin of homosexual desire or transgenderism will find both the world that says, ‘Do what feels good,’ and a church that says, ‘You are a sexual minority and need a voice and platform in the church,’ as equally dangerous.”

(She references Side A and Side B a lot so here’s a brief explanation she makes of them:)

Torn by Justin Lee (Justin believes the Bible affirms homosexuality. Rosaria quoted this as an example of the opposing view. She also recommends THIS REVIEW of that book.)

Surviving Religion 101 by Michael J. Kruger

Men and Women in the Church by Kevin DeYoung

Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes Du Mez (as mentioned in my review, Rosaria takes several pages to talk about the problems of this book)

Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier (this is a secular book that is super enlightening on the reality of the transgender craze that is manipulating and harming our children.)

Finding the Right Hills to Die On by Gavin Ortlund (I agreed with Rosaria that the the role of women in the church should be a first tier issue because what you believe about that is based on your view of the inerrancy and authority of Scripture which is a top tier issue. Ortlund did not which was basically my only critique of this book)

Transgender to Transformed by (this is on my TBR)

Out of a Far Country by Christopher and Angela Yuan (this is now on my TBR- it’s a mother/son writing team and their journey through the son’s LGBTQ experience)

God, Technology, and the Christian Life by Tony Reinke (she references the Tower of Babel and what that represented and how God’s confusion of language was a protection of the people. This is a prominent point in Reinke’s book that I thought was really interesting and relevant in both conversations of LGBTQ and technology because in both areas humans are attempting to be their own God in a lot of ways)

Mama Bear Apologetics by Hillary Ferrar (Rosaria uses 2 Cor 10:3-6- we destroy arguments… and so does Mama Bear Apologetics. It’s a fantastic resource for parents in navigating the culture with our kids.)

What God Has to Say About Our Bodies by Sam Allberry (this is an excellent book about why our bodies matter and has a very compassionate but truthful tone for those who are in bodies that don’t feel good.)

Cultish by Amanda Montell 

Christians in a Cancel Culture by Rod Dreher

(Rosaria talks about the power of language and how controlling the language really gives a group a lot of power. Cultish is about the power of language in cults and Christians in a Cancel Culture reveals how this controlling of language played out in now Communist countries and how we’re seeing growing shadows of that today. 

Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay (Rosaria talks about intersectionality, language, and a lot of other things that overflow into this secular book that is a great resource on critical theory and all the ways it has invaded our culture without us even knowing it.)

Evangelical Feminism by Wayne Grudem (this book does a great job of fairly presenting all sides of the different issues surrounding feminism and women’s role in the church. It also presents compelling arguments of how feminism is a path to liberalism and the rejection of the inerrancy and authority of Scripture.)

The Gathering Storm by Albert Mohler

Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle

Radical Womanhood by Carolyn McCulley (This book and Eve in Exile both speak to what biblical womanhood looks like. Merkle’s writing tone is similar to Rosaria’s—blunt— which I find refreshing. If that’s not your favorite, Radical Womanhood may be a better fit. Both speak the same truths.)

**Received a copy from Crossway in exchange for an honest review**

“‘Last night I went beyond the wall. And I met Death.’”


The only other V.E. Schwab book that I’ve read is The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. My opinion on that book was a bit unpopular. I concluded in my review of that book that nothing really happened. .

And that’s my assessment of this book as well.

Gallant is a YA novel so we at least don’t have to read about a love affair with the devil, but the book just really felt simple and empty and quiet.



Schwab does a good job of setting the scene and creating this atmospheric mysterious vibe. The main character- Olivia- is at an orphanage. She is mute. And she can see ‘ghouls.’

“Merilance may call itself a school, but in truth, it is an asylum for the young and the feral and the fortuneless. The orphaned and unwanted.”

It’s obviously the classic ‘orphan that gets made fun of and the matrons are bad people, and she just wants to find a place where she is wanted.’

Her prized possession is the journal of her mother’s that she has, but it only offers more mystery: what happened to her mom? was she crazy? was she haunted?

Her mother’s last coherent words to her in the journal are- “The shadows are not real, the dreams can never hurt you, and you will be safe as long as you stay away from Gallant.”

Enter: a letter from Olivia’s uncle inviting her to Gallant— the one place she must not go.

So yeah. She goes.

“There are not many futures for a high-tempered orphan who cannot speak.”

I’ve read enough books to know that if I need to warn my kids of anything or make sure they know important information, it’s going to be quite detailed. Just a command NOT to go somewhere with no explanation for why or what will happen if you do is basically a big shove to do exactly that thing. Rookie move, Olivia’s mom.



Most of the book is all this build up of what was going on with Olivia’s mom, and what these ghouls are about, and what’s the deal with Gallant?

“A place this wild, the outside is always trying to get in.”

Gallant is a mansion in somewhat disrepair. There are gray weeds choking the roses. There is a wall in ruins in the garden that her cousin continues to futilely patch. And the ghouls that she can see here are actually deceased family members.

Olivia thinks she finally found a place to belong, but her lone cousin (who decidedly NOT invite her to come) wants her to leave.

“In her mind a family was a sprawling thing, an orchard full of roots and branches. Instead she has been given this single, scowling tree.”

And nothing really happens. For so many pages. And then EVERYTHING happens in like 20 pages.

As I was reading I really wasn’t sure where Schwab was going to take the book. (I didn’t read the book summary beforehand.) Was this just a book of discovery for Olivia? Just learning about herself and a new place? What’s the catch? What’s the conflict?

And then suddenly we’re thrust into a rescue mission. From a villain who is “inevitable.”

This part reads quick and intense, but I wasn’t super invested in it.



I like the idea of a house that holds secrets, and when Olivia discovers the globe thing (as pictured on the cover) where there is this duality of houses, I was intrigued. Reminiscent of the Upside Down on Stranger Things.

But the direction everything took just didn’t do much for me. It wasn’t big enough or complicated enough. The stakes didn’t feel high enough.

And the intricate house sculpture was inconsequential. I feel like a cool and specially designed contraption should have a bigger role in the mysterious mansion.



I thought Olivia was a good character— I hadn’t read a book with a mute character (well I just finished Please Tell Me which has a silent girl but that was trauma-induced silence) so that was interesting to see how the author had her communicate to people and how the reader got to see that interaction.

There were really only a few other prominent characters but prominent is probably too strong of a word. They were there to fill the space and they didn’t do it with much.

I know there was dialogue and noise in the book, because of course there is, but at the same time, it felt like a quiet book. Too quiet. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but something just felt missing.


It kind of reminded me of The Paper Magician— or at least what I remember of reading that book because it was so long ago. There’s some world-building and some weird but potentially interesting stuff going on and you’re following along waiting to see if it’s going to come together and make sense but when you’re done reading you’re just kinda like- What just happened?

There is a unique aspect of this book (other than it’s square appearance). Schwab utilizes imagery. Ink blot art. Again, I’m not sure if this added much for me personally, but it was an interesting element to include as part of Olivia’s mom’s journal. Maybe if I had studied each of the pictures longer I could have picked up some clues or something, but there wasn’t much that ended up hinging on those.

Plus the excerpts that were included about the ‘master’ of the house were white writing on black background in a script-type font and were very hard to read.



Gallant is a book that’s going to be hit or miss for people.

I think for a lot of YA readers it will be a fine read— they’re probably not looking for too complex of a plot, and it’s a pretty clean read if they want to read something eerie. The ghouls are just described as basically partial shadows. The villain is described in more detail and is more creepy, but I don’t think it would be the stuff of nightmares for a teen.

For adults, though, I’m not sure if there’s enough there to really enjoy. The other reviews I read were pretty divided. For some, the writing style is enough to mark it as enjoyable. But others were looking for more plot movement and complexity as I was.

Either way, I think V.E. Schwab is just not the right fantasy author for me.

[Content Advisory: no swearing or sexual content; creepy, ghoulish villain]

“She needed to get home, where it was… safe. Where there were no bad men, and where Mommy and Daddy could hug her and her doll.”


I read and really enjoyed Mike Omer’s Abby Mullen series. Please Tell Me is a stand alone novel with quite a different vibe than the Mullen series.

This book is intense and had a nice twist, but it’s a bit darker and it won’t be for all readers.

There are several things in this book that may be turn-offs or triggers for some people so I’ll list them up front: child abduction, a narcissistic parental relationship, quite a few Covid references, and some graphic and violent deaths- we don’t get the play-by-play as they happen but we are told how the people died after the fact and we know that the killer was inspired by several horror films.

Just one of these could be enough for someone not to read a book, so Omer took a risk in combining all of these things into one book. For some, it may be too much.

I wouldn’t be able to read books like these one right after the other and if all his future books continue in this trend I would need to stop, but for a one-off, I could handle it. It helped that there wasn’t a ton of swearing and the violence was not glorified or overdone like a horror novel. There were creepy parts and uncomfortable parts and danger lurking around the corners, but we weren’t subjected to blood everywhere and we weren’t forced into the killer’s mind as he committed his acts.



I wasn’t sure how I was going to like the book when it opens from the POV of a little girl walking along a road without shoes. She had been abducted and she had somehow escaped. It breaks your heart to read her thoughts. That beginning chapter is the only chapter where we are in the little girl’s thoughts.

I was glad that the book didn’t portray her within her captivity because it’s so hard to read about kids going through trauma. Instead, the book is about trying to figure out who took her. She (Kathy) goes to process her experience with a child therapist, Robin— our main character.

Kathy has been so traumatized that she doesn’t speak. If she could have just been able to speak or write (like the title- please tell me), this whole thing would have gone a lot differently, but that’s not how trauma works. There are no neat packages with little bows.

And so, we are drawn through her therapy process through play. Kathy starts to reenact what appears to be violent scenes using little figurines and a dollhouse during her sessions. Robin realizes what she is doing and she tries to help law enforcement by providing details of these sessions that start to match up with murders that have occurred since Kathy was rescued.

Can they help find her abductor before the abductor comes back for Kathy?



Comments

I was mostly satisfied with the direction Omer took everything, but I feel like we needed a little bit more background on what led her abductor to do what they did. It wasn’t clear what was behind that and so the twist feels a bit like a twist just for the sake of a twist instead of a logical progression. It definitely made for a surprise— which I liked— but after we found out, I would have liked more information on motive.

There develops a small romance between Robin and one of the investigators on the cases. I didn’t care for that. It added a bit to the character development of Robin, but not much to the story as a whole. I don’t really like the trope of ‘woman in distress falls for law enforcement person helping her.’ Overdone, not realistic, unnecessary.


I think Robin was a likable character. Some reviewers have mentioned the therapy sessions being boring or repetitive, but I didn’t feel like that when I was reading. I thought it was interesting to see how a therapist would handle these situations. Based on the acknowledgements at the end of the book, it sounds like Omer got a lot of input from professionals so I think what he wrote is a pretty realistic handling. And I appreciated that Omer included that Robin consulted another therapist while treating Kathy to make sure she wasn’t doing anything harmful. She didn’t have an ego and it added to the authenticity of her practice.

There are parts of her character that make her more complex— her relationship with her mother, her divorce, her miscarriage, and her own need for therapy. I think we view people like therapists on these pedestals like they don’t have anything traumatic or dysfunctional in their own lives because they have all this psychological knowledge and know what’s going on. But it makes sense that they should have their own struggles and might need to see their own therapist. I don’t think that makes them a bad therapist, it makes them a normal person.

I think Omer did a great job with some of Robin’s inner dialogue— like when she is doom scrolling on Facebook one night. Omer is very attuned to social media behavior and psychology and I found that section relatable and humorous. Like how she made sure to ‘like’ all the posts about Kathy’s return because she didn’t want to make her own post about it because ‘It always confused her when people stampeded their way to social media to share their feelings.’ but she also didn’t want people to think she didn’t like that Kathy was back. (Side note: Robin has more Facebook friends than me.)

I do wish Robin wasn’t a smoker. It seems like such a stupid habit for anyone to take up now that we KNOW all the harmful effects of smoking. Why would anyone do that?! So it’s hard for me not to see smokers as dumb people. I wish her coping mechanism was something else. Like candy. I don’t know.



One thing I thought was strange as I was reading it was that it felt like Omer only used the word ‘cop’ instead of police officer. Cop just feels like a negative way of referring to officers. If I was talking to my kids I don’t think I would use the term cop. But in the story Robin used ‘cop’ with Kathy.

I did double check this and my perception was a little off from reality. Cop was used 65 times— which is a lot, but then I checked for police and that was like 73. So he did interchange, but my perception while reading was that ‘cop’ was overused.

I know cop is just more informal, but it just feels disrespectful to me. Cop feels like the term perpetrators use. Police feels like the term victims and normal people use. Is that just me?



The Triggers

As mentioned, there are several trigger points or turn-offs.

Child abduction. As a mom, I’ve obviously worried about this scenario multiple times. I think Omer does a good job of portraying Kathy’s mom’s (Claire) struggle with what happened. Kathy was taken from her yard while she was playing and her mom was doing dishes. Claire endures judgment from people about not paying attention to her daughter, and the guilty ‘if onlys’ that plague her. And then once Kathy is back, Claire has to learn how to care for Kathy all over again because of her silence and her reactions to loud noises etc.

Narcissistic parent. Robin’s mom is a classic narcissist. I know of several people who have one of these in their life and the way Omer writes their interactions and dialogue seems very on par with reality. It is a frustrating thing to read and I can see how some who already deal with that in real life would not want that in a book they’re reading.

Covid. I’m not a fan of Covid being included in books. I’ve read a few now where authors have set their stories during or in a world where Covid existed. The way it’s talked about in the book is very pragmatic and normal conversations or comments about people’s lives: when they couldn’t leave their houses, when they had to wear masks, how people were fighting over toilet paper, how people cared if you were vaccinated or not, etc. There was also one reference to a shooter drill in school. It’s not everywhere in the book but it’s more than a few comments. I do think it’s an interesting point within the setting of the book. When Kathy first disappeared and they had the community help search, everyone had masks which obscured the police from really seeing who came out to help (since the abductor often shows up to those kinds of things).

Violent deaths. I won’t go into details here because I’ve already mentioned a few things, but the deaths are based on horror movie scenes and each one was different. I don’t feel like it was written like a horror novel at all which is good. It adds a darkness to the book, but it’s not super descriptive and doesn’t take up a lot of page real estate. Another element of this was that there is mention of these crimes and violence being an erotic experience for the perpetrator.



Recommendation

This is a hard book to know how to recommend. I think people who really don’t have any triggers and they just want an intense thriller will really like this book.

But I just think it’s important for the reader to consider if this combination of things will be okay for them to read.

If it was really graphic and dark I don’t think I would recommend it at all, but I don’t feel like that was the case here. It wasn’t over-the-top, it just had a unique combination of things that could be overwhelming to certain readers.

I would still definitely recommend Omer’s other books (they’re more crime/procedural thrillers with law enforcement being the primary characters) and I’ll keep reading his future books at this point!


[Content Advisory: 1 f-word, 31 s-words; no sexual content; violence and some graphic deaths described after the fact]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

“It’s the story of my life. Leave the bodies behind and move on.”


Tess Gerritsen is known for her Rizzoli and Isles series, of which I’ve read a couple. This is apparently her first swing at an espionage thriller.

I thought it was a really good book with some good characters! I wouldn’t say there was a huge shocking reveal or anything, but it had some nice twists/ mysteries that I didn’t have completely figured out. I think it’s a series I would continue to read.


The basic premise is this:

Retired CIA agent, Maggie Bird, has settled down in a small rural Maine town called Purity. Until a woman comes knocking with news that a former colleague (Diana) has disappeared from Paris. Maggie and Diana parted on less than ideal terms and Maggie has no desire to help out.

“Diana lit the tinder that destroyed my career. My life.”

But when her visitor’s body turns up tortured and dead in her driveway, Maggie has no choice but to get involved.

Her last operation was chaos and someone is back for revenge. If Maggie hopes to return to her idyllic retired life, she must put this to rest.

“When you live in a world of mirrors, the truth is always distorted.”

With the help of her other retired CIA agent friends in town, Maggie crosses the world to Bangkok and Milan and back investigating who has come back to hunt her down.

“Here we are, five old spies with five lifetimes’ worth of experience. Retired does not mean useless. Everyone here has brought their individual tricks of the trade.”



Gerritsen reveals in her author’s note at the end that the idea for this story came from her actual life. She lives in a small town in Maine (Camden, not Purity) and when her doctor husband started seeing patients there they discovered that many of her neighbors were retired CIA agents.

With only a population of 5000 people, she wondered what would lead so many retirees to their little town. Though she could never track down an answer to that question, it inspired The Spy Coast:

“Unassuming retirees with secret past lives make fascinating characters to explore, and that’s how The Spy Coast was born. I wanted to write about spies who don’t look like James Bond but instead are like my neighbors, quietly living as utterly ordinary retirees… until the past comes back to haunt them, and they’re forced to call on old skills they thought they’d never use again.”

I agree that this older cast of spies makes for a unique thriller!

Forms of this have been done in books and movies before though I feel like it’s usually with a humorous bent. But Gerritsen creates her characters to be taken seriously. Sure they have their joint pain and need naps in the afternoons, but they’re still very capable, observant, and intelligent people who can go on real missions.

Is that possible at the ages of 60 and 70+? I don’t know. I haven’t achieved those milestones yet. But Gerritsen didn’t have them literally chasing criminals down the street or fighting in hand-to-hand combat, so she did a good job of getting them in the field in an appropriate but still significant way.



The one character I have mixed feelings about is Jo, the acting police chief in Purity. She’s in her thirties and is trying to do her job in investigating the events surrounding Maggie. But she finds that Maggie and her ‘Martini Club’, as they call themselves, is always one or two steps ahead of her.

Her two catch phrases in the book seemed to be, ‘What the heck is going on?’ and ‘Who are you people?’

I think we’re supposed to like her and admire Jo’s doggedness in doing her job. We’re told she is good at her job and works hard for her community. But at the same time, she looks foolish when she can’t keep up and that these other people are figuring everything out before her. From beginning to end it works this way.

I think I would have liked it more if the Martini Club actually needed Jo’s knowledge or expertise at least once in this book. That there could be some sort of camaraderie. There is no animosity or hostility, but without actually working together, Jo looks the fool.

Perhaps in future books the tables will turn a bit.



I look forward to future books in this series to see what other skills the group has, to see more of the background of their friendships, and to see if the perpetrator at the end comes back into the picture.

I think this is a great book that most people will enjoy. It’s an easy to read spy thriller with unique and likable characters, suspense and danger, and a dash of humor.

Definitely a book I would recommend!


[Content Advisory: a couple handfuls of f- and s- words; a few sentences of sexual content but nothing extended]

“There’s nothing between us but secrets and threats.”

I really liked Payne’s book The Lucky One so I was excited to read another one by her. I didn’t like this one as much as that one, however it had a lot less swearing in it which is a plus.

What took this one down a few notches for me was a lack of mystery, a pretty one-dimensional plot, too much coffee, and the whole oft-used scenario where someone discovers something alarming and gets mad and hurt and even though the other person is like ‘Let me explain…’ the mad/hurt/scared person says ‘No. I will not listen to potential answers. I shall flee the scene and live in confusion and misunderstandings because I just can’t even. And don’t ever touch the same ground as me.’ And if they would have just listened for five whole seconds, everything could have been avoided.


As to the lack of mystery: there is a disclaimer at the beginning which warns readers of physician-assisted suicide in the book. I suppose that’s important in case that’s a trigger for some but for a thriller it felt like the author was giving away information that lessens the suspense.

Thus, I went into it thinking the book was going to be about deaths happening in a hospital and then them realizing it was a doctor assisting patients to die. This is partially right, except we find out pretty soon that the main character, Chloe’s ex-husband (Jameson), is a doctor who does physician-assisted suicides so the ‘mystery’ becomes more about whether or not the higher death rate at the hospital is actually because of him or someone else.

And that part I figured out at like 20%. To be fair, there were a few times where I thought maybe I was wrong after all, but overall, the book didn’t feel like the twisty psychological thriller it promised to be.



Another Annoyance #1:

It’s repeated and hinted at multiple times that Chloe and Jameson have some sort of shared secret that they’re guilty of.

“I never thought I’d get a second chance at happily ever after. Not after what I did, and to someone I loved, no less.”

“After what we did, he isn’t allowed to be the love of my life.”

I got annoyed with all the cloak and dagger stuff surrounding her past because when we find out what they did, we really aren’t surprised at all.


Another Annoyance #2:

The coffee and the wine. I get that it’s the Pacific Northwest and they are coffee fanatics out there and that doctors and nurses require much coffee, but I feel like every time the author needed to move the plot forward she used coffee or wine to do that- Hey let’s get drinks! Hey, can I grab you a coffee? Can you grab me a coffee? Should we go drink coffee? Can you reinsert my coffee IV line?

If you don’t believe me, here are the facts: the word coffee is used 85 times and wine is used 87 times. Folks, that’s much times. I cross-referenced these numbers with a few other digital books I have just to see and those books used these words less than 20.

Perhaps a reader who actually likes coffee will love this, but for me it felt like coffee was it’s own character. And a bitter one at that.


Another Annoyance #3:

I feel like there were a lot of plot holes required for this story to be a thing. I just think it would be pretty hard to hide all of this at a hospital. Especially when they have had a task force created to research the high death rate and determine a cause and then results go missing and people on the task force start dying.

And the hospital has cameras. Sure the camera was off during some of the deaths, but wouldn’t that also be a red flag?

At the end when a character goes missing from their room, even though Chloe had been looking at the cameras previous times, she doesn’t check them at that point. Probably would have helped.

I’m not familiar with how hospitals work and typically I can suspend reality for the case of a book in a lot of scenarios, but considering the whole high death-rate in a hospital where people might be killing patients is the entire premise and setting for the book, I wish it would have been a more plausible situation.


Another Annoyance #4:

They have a soap dish in their bathroom at home. What kind of psychos prefer bar soap to wash their hands??


Another Annoyance #5:

Chloe finds herself in a bit of a love triangle with her ex-husband and her current fiance. She suspects her ex-husband of murdering patients, but to her fiance it just looks like she’s obsessed with her ex-husband and he’s not super thrilled they’re working so closely together.

It creates some tension between her and her fiance. But no matter how bad it gets, she is just not ‘ready’ to tell him the truth. I get how this is important to the story as Payne wrote it, but I don’t like when a story requires a character to withhold information from a person they wouldn’t. Maybe at first, but there comes a point when withholding the information makes no sense anymore.



Physician-Assisted Suicide

Because this is a major part of the book, let’s talk about this controversial subject. (Also sometimes called ‘death with dignity’ or ‘right to die’ or ‘aid in dying’- AID.)

Whether or not physician-assisted suicide is ethical or moral is not really discussed in the book, it’s kinda just a given:

“he was doing it because he believed people had the right to choose when they died when they were terminally ill. When they were actively in pain and suffering and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I also knew how much he cared about people. How much he hated to see them in pain, and I knew this came from a place of caring.”

“Jameson was offering a great kindness. A great, horrible kindness.”

“he was so honest that he told me he was doing something that while ethical, was illegal.”

PAS or AID is different than euthanasia because the patient is administering the drugs, not the physician. The physician merely prepares the drugs and is present.

PAS should also not be confused with palliative care which is care given to patients by trying to alleviate symptoms and pain as best as they can as they are dying, which with modern medicine is usually pretty effective.


This is a controversial issue that has a lot of gray areas. Like the character in the book who had ALS, an incurable disease and a painful way to die, it’s hard to think about ‘forcing’ someone to endure that in the last days of their life.

I don’t know if I land on a concrete black-and-white stance in regards to this issue as I think there are so many factors to consider in each case and medical things that I don’t know about.

But here are some thoughts and information about it. It’s worth pondering and thinking through the implications of PAS.

The main argument for PAS is patient autonomy. People want to be in control of when and how they die. It is often driven by severe pain and discomfort that they want to be free of. They believe they should have the right to choose when they die.

However, a Canadian physician interviewed in this article reveals that research studies show that the driving force for patient autonomy is less about their pain and more about their desire to control their death.

He also says, “When death itself can be considered as a medical benefit, the sky seems to be the unfortunate limit for patient autonomy, and it introduces a level of subjectivity into medicine that we wouldn’t otherwise tolerate.”

Oregon, where this book takes place, is one of the eleven states that currently allows PAS. There’s some information coming out of there that gives pause.

After a high profile PAS death in 2014 in Oregon, numbers showed that others who ended their lives this way more than doubled. PAS can actually lead to more PAS just like how the show 13 Reasons Why led to an increase in suicides in teenagers.

Research also shows that doctors weren’t present for one-fourth of the cases. It’s unknown how frequent there are complications with this method of death.

Additionally, another factor often not considered when patients are electing to die is that their judgment may be clouded by clinical depression which can be treated, but this is rarely taken into consideration.

This article listing the arguments for both sides of the issue states, “Opponents of AID are concerned that in Oregon, greater than 70 percent of patients who elect AID are elderly and have cancer, but fewer than five percent are referred to a psychiatrist or psychologist to rule out clinical depression.”

While patient autonomy is important, I am a firm believer in the sanctity of human life. And that life should not be taken. While there are some gray areas as it stands, I think the ‘slippery slope’ opposing argument of PAS is a really important one to think about.

If we start legalizing PAS when patients want to alleviate their pain- where are the lines drawn for that? At what point is it too much pain? Which diseases qualify a patient? It would easily start applying to a broader and broader patient base than it should.

As Wayne Grudem fleshes out in his book Christian Ethics, the ‘right to die’ can also easily become ‘obligated to die.’

“If euthanasia is allowed for some patients, who are suffering, then how can we prevent it from being applied to more and more patients who are suffering?… a society can quickly move from merely allowing the ‘right to die’ to the belief that there is ‘an obligation to die’ on the part of the elderly and the very ill people who are ‘draining resources’ from the society.”

He then goes on to reveal alarming statistics coming out of the Netherlands where euthanasia is legal. It is estimated that “in 1990 nearly 6000 of approximately 130,000 people who died in the Netherlands that year were involuntarily euthanized.”

While there are some examples of people who used PAS that seem right, it’s hard to deny that the legalization of PAS and euthanasia can lead to more and more death. Death of patients that could still recover, death of patients involuntarily, death of infants of children who can’t make those choices for themselves, and an overall subjective scale on what quantifies a life worth living.

Just some thoughts to ponder!


Recommendation

I won’t write Jessica Payne off because I liked her other book and this one shows me she can write without using a lot of swearing. However, there were a few things, as listed above, that made this book a hard one to recommend.

I think if you’re easy to please when it comes to thrillers, you’ll probably enjoy this.

If you’ve read a lot of thrillers and have become a bit picky, my annoyances with this one may be yours as well.

I also would not recommend if physician-assisted suicide is a trigger for you.


[Content Advisory: 17 f-words, 14 s-words, a couple sex scenes are implied but only a few sentences of content]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

“‘Well that’s life in a nutshell, ain’t it. Lovin’ to go to one place and havin’ to go to another.’”


I really enjoyed Towles’ book, A Gentleman in Moscow. I didn’t like The Lincoln Highway as much. Still a good read, but what I liked about A Gentleman in Moscow was getting to know the primary character, his wit and charm and mischief and because The Lincoln Highway had a larger cast of characters, the whole vibe of the book was different.

It’s a different setting and a different flow.

I will say, I liked it better than what the cover made me think I would. The length of the book and the cover make it seem like a daunting and boring book. If I hadn’t already read one of his books I doubt I would have ended up reading it for those reasons.

But just like A Gentleman in Moscow, what seems like a book that will take forever to read, actually didn’t feel like it took me that long! The story engaged you well enough to keep the pages turning. So I was glad about that.


Probably the two biggest downsides for me was the character of Duchess (because he made me so mad) and the presented plot at the beginning that never really happened. You have these two boys who just lost their dad and they are about to cross the country via The Lincoln Highway to start a new life and supposedly find their mother who left them years ago. The Lincoln Highway because she had written them postcards sent from destinations along the route.

This is the adventure you think you’re going to read. And though this may be a spoiler, I feel like it’s an important one to point out to potential readers: That is not the adventure.

The adventure is three 18-year-old boys traveling 1500 miles (in the wrong direction) in 1950s America over the course of ten days. Instead of traveling West toward San Francisco, they end up heading east side-tracked in New York.

The book is the adventure before ‘the adventure.’ The end of the book is them finally setting out from Times Square toward the other coast.

To me, that was disappointing. I wanted to know what the deal was with their mom and how they were going to find her and what their lives were going to look like. Maybe at each stop of the postcard they would learn something new about their mom or themselves. Instead, it was a reading of constantly diverted plans due to Duchess screwing things up. Whether in books or movies I always have a hard time with the screw-up friend. I’m sure there’s an Enneagram observation to be made about me, but that’s where I’m at with Duchess.


Another thing that influenced the way I read the book was that I kept forgetting that Emmett, Woolly, and Duchess were just teenagers. The story begins with Emmett returning home after finishing his sentence at the juvenile detention center in Salina, KS. Woolly and Duchess had stowed away in the warden’s car and ‘escaped’ undetected. I kept thinking they were adults coming from prison.

The things that happen hit different depending on if they were teenagers or adults. Sometimes I was annoyed or thought they were stupid or questioned their choices, etc, but I had to keep reminding myself that they’re just teenagers so their frontal lobe is not fully developed and that’s really how they would probably act.

I’m not sure if there was anything that could have been written differently to have kept me on the right wavelength; it might have just been an issue with my brain. But I wish I could have visualized them better so I was processing the events in the right light.



Characters

The book is told from multiple POVs. Sally and Duchess in first person, the others in an extended third person narrative that retains a distinct character voice and way of speaking. I don’t have issue with the first person choice, but I wish it would have been used for Emmett’s character. He seemed so central to the story but so distant to the reader. He’s the honorable one you want to root for, but you don’t feel connected to him like the other characters.

Emmett was portrayed as the ‘hero’ type of character who made the right choices and held everything together. Who always knew what to do. He is also now the caretaker of his 8-year-old brother and has a plan for their future.

Billy says of himself that he is the Xenos figure— meaning ‘friend’— who, in stories, is there at just the right time to help. He is that throughout the book. All the characters have a connection to Billy and his book, a trust that puts Billy in some precarious situations but necessary to move the story in the right direction. He’s the character of innocence, who sees the best in people. He’s also the ‘know-it-all’ who likes to do things ‘by the book.’

Duchess. “Fast-talking, liberty-taking, plan-upending paradox known as Duchess.” He is “full of energy and enthusiasm and good intentions. But sometimes his energy and enthusiasm get in the way of his good intentions, and when that happens the consequences often fall on someone else.”

And so Duchess is the ‘selfish’ friend that you know has loyalty to the hero, but makes choices for his own benefit and asks forgiveness later. He’s a semi-antagonist. And it drove me nuts. Because we find out more about his background and what led to him being in Salina in the first place and it begs for compassion and grace for his behavior and choices.

But at the same time, he really made some bad choices that could have hurt Emmett and Billy more than they actually did. I don’t like giving a pass to that like- ‘Oh, well… his dad… so how else is he supposed to act?’ No. He can be a decent person and think about the consequences of his actions!

And I went back and forth about it. Again, my compassion landed more during the times where my brain was fully aware of his young age. He’s the guy you wonder how many second-chances you are expected to give.

Woolly is Duchess’s sidekick. Comes from money. In fact, his trust money is the reason he and Duchess left Salina in the first place- to head to the family cabin in the Adirondacks and get it. If you’ve read Rules of Civility (I haven’t), Woolly is related to the Wallace Wolcott in that story.

Woolly is the gentle-spirited, somewhat slow-minded friend who takes pleasure in the simple things. I was a bit confused by his intellect. I couldn’t tell if there was a slowness there or not because someimtes he seemed simple and other times he was making astute observations or using big vocabulary. I do like the writing voice Towles chose for him and that he had his own way of saying things. He was a likable character.

Sally kinda pushes herself into the story, refusing to be left behind to ‘duty’ and ‘service.’ She plays the traditional 50’s woman of the home type of character who spends her days doing laundry and making preserves.

“Time is that which God uses to separate the idle from the industrious… for what is kindness but the performance of an act that is both beneficial to another and unrequired?”

Always with something to do, she identifies with the Martha of the biblical Mary/Martha story in which she feels her service and kindness goes unnoticed and unappreciated. She desires a home of her own and some autonomy in her life.


I suppose another character of the book was Billy’s “compendium” of adventures he carried around with him. The stories of Ulysses, Achilles, Daniel Boone, Monte Cristo, etc. Stories of heroes, adventurers, and travelers. This is the heart of The Lincoln Highway.

To travel, to adventure, to write your story. To discover.

And that’s what we get with Towles’ book. We see them each on their own adventure. They’re in an in-between stage of life. They’re adventuring to find a new home.

Towles’ said the original title of the book was ‘Unfinished Business.’ As you read, you’ll know why. Starting fresh and trying to find a place to land often requires taking care of unfinished business. Tying those loose ends so that you can move on. One character in particular had more of those than the others.


Unique Formatting

Towles did something different with the dialogue in this book. Instead of using quotation marks like normal, he differentiated dialogue by using a dash (—) only. It took some getting used to and wasn’t as distracting or confusing as I thought it would be. Though, I’m not sure if it really accomplished what the author wanted by formatting it that way.

Another unique aspect of the book was that the chapters (or parts) counted down instead of up. The first section is titled ‘10’ and the last was ‘1.’

In an interview, the author stated that “it seemed to me that the reader deserved to have the same experience while reading the book that I had while writing it: of knowing that the story was not open-ended, but ticking down day by day to its inescapable conclusion.”

I like the idea. Although, in some sense the conclusion is open-ended because the book ends with a beginning— a new start on The Lincoln Highway— and we don’t get to know how it ends.


Randos

There were several mentions of Seward, Nebraska and their huge Fourth of July celebration. My sister lives there and I can confirm that even today The Fourth is a big deal! Seward’s population is around 7600, but their Independence Day festivities often garner an attendance of 40,000.


Someday I’ll read a book where a pastor is portrayed as a good person. It was not this day. Pastor John is a train vagabond with ill intent towards Billy and Emmett but with delusions that it’s ‘God’s Will’ that he do the things. Really the theological messages in this book are a bit lacking. Ulysses offers his own theological advice to Billy by saying:

“The Good Lord does not call you to your feet with hymns… He calls you to your feet by making you feel alone and forgotten. For only when you have seen that you are truly forsaken will you embrace the fact that what happens next rests in your hands, and your hands alone.”

We like this message because we like to know that we are in control of our own destiny.

I think it’s interesting to read the verbiage ‘forsaken.’ Because where do you read that in the Bible? Jesus says ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ as he is being crucified. But Christ’s death was the act that tore the veil forever removing that separation between man and God.

Deuteronomy 31:8 (which is repeated in Hebrews 13:5) literally says that God will never leave you nor forsake you.

The idea that God would make us feel alone and forgotten and that what happens is only in our own hands is biblically absurd and not a great way to live life. Just throwing this out there in case anyone was on the verge of labeling Ulysses’ words as profound. Yes, Billy was correct to kick the guy, but that doesn’t mean God wasn’t there or working in that situation. Just saying.


I like the tidbits of history that Towles dutifully puts into his books. In this one he mentioned the Civil Defense Test in New York (practicing for bomb drops) and how deserted Times Square was during those times.

See my original blog post for a picture of The Lincoln Highway route.


Recommendation

I would say if you liked A Gentleman in Moscow, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll LOVE this one, but I think there’s a pretty good chance you won’t hate it.

It’s deceptively long and reads quicker than you’d think.

If you like historical fiction and traveling adventures and 1950s New York, I think this would be a great read for you!

Amor Towles is a great storyteller and great at picking specific settings to put them in.


[Content Advisory: a handful of swear words; one scene at a ‘circus’ that is actually some sort of strip club, but it’s mostly implied and vaguely discussed]