I normally do a separate book review for the books we read in the bookshop’s club (since I will be leading discussion and it helps me think through my impressions and opinions of a book), but I didn’t get around to this one—There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak—in March. (I have already written my review of April’s book, Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. Spoiler: didn’t like it but her fans be fanning.)

Blurb: On two different rivers at three points in history, a single drop of water connects three lives. (That is not the only way these lives will connect.) In Victorian London, Arthur is born on the Thames and has nothing going for him except his sharp intelligence and hyper-focus. In 2014 Turkey, a girl is going deaf when her grandmother decides it’s time to have her baptized in the Tigris—at the wrong time in history. And in 2018 London, Zaleekah walks out on her marriage and inexplicably into a houseboat on the Thames, where she plans to fade away into her depression. And in ancient Mesopotamia, a king with a hot temper stands waiting for a storm to begin when a single raindrop lands on his head.

I have to read more of Elif Shafak. I didn’t know about Shafak, who is the most widely-read female author in Turkey. She has other lauded books, and I can’t wait to read the next one because I found this one quite amazing. I can see how some people would find it… long. Wordy. I love great literary fiction, and this definitely did some literary things, like an experimental structure, like florid writing, like deep characterization. I kinda agree that maybe not every scene needed to be there, but most of them were leading us to the place we needed to be, and I loved the history lessons and the lush descriptions for what they were.

As it goes with books that one likes, there isn’t a tremendous amount to say about them until you rip them apart for critique of themes and whatnot. I don’t often do book reports here, just reviews. For There Are Rivers, I thought it was an excellent book that many historical fiction and literary readers will enjoy, and I will be reading more Shafak, probably The Forty Rules of Love or maybe 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

And then I came crashing down into Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz for my YA book club.

To be fair, there can be no comparisons between one of the great writers’ awards-nominated novels (There Are Rivers in the Sky) and a YA supposed-Gothic romance I’ve never heard of (though plenty of people younger than me had). Like because they are different animals. But I read lots of YA and I appreciate plenty of YA. (Recent review of Eleanor & Park as a case in point. And the Heartstopper series.) Many friends in club made comparisons between Anatomy and Chasing Jack the Ripper (also one I really didn’t like) and A Study in Charlotte (which I loved). Here’s the thing: topics, themes, even styles of writing aren’t what get me there with a book. Sure, I’m more likely to enjoy a steampunk Victorian fantasy with a strong setting and multiple POVs, but it’s the execution, the delivery, that I’m going to be sighing over and talking about to my friends. For that, I swung from the heights of Rivers to the depths of Anatomy.

Blurb: Hazel wants to be a surgeon. She is, however, a lady of status in Victorian Edinburgh, a girl whose life is already planned for her and who has a gilded cage that isn’t budging. But when a renowned physician teaches a certification course in town, she’ll defy her anxiety-ridden mother and her overbearing cousin (her betrothed) to attend. And she’ll meet Jack, a resurrection man (read: grave robber) who can get her the corpses she’ll need to study, but that won’t be all he brings to her life among the dead.
There are some Frankenstein and Jack the Ripper vibes, sure. It’s not really a Gothic romance, though. For that, it would need more romance. It’s very YA.

It is strange that there is an introduction to this book where Schwartz tells about why she wrote this book, about her writing residency in an Edinburgh castle with a dungeon, etc. While I found that—odd—it did intrigue me, partly because if you are awarded a residency, then you must be capable of writing well. Humph. Maybe not? I did have so many problems with this book, but it was easy enough to read that I went ahead and finished it. Plus, I wanted to like it for its genres and topics. But the further I went, the more I realized I wasn’t enjoying her (lack of?) writing style/chops. Repeat: I was not ripping this book apart from the first page, but I could have been. I was giving it time to develop, to grow on me.

For one, this book has that modern anachronistic thing going on, where characters and their motivations morph to fit our current worldview and cultural personality. Not my fave. It was predictable (for most people, not just for me, at least until the very end). I thought that some of the scenes chosen to tell this story were the wrong scenes. (Case in point: when Hazel and the love interest finally move forward with their relationship, we have a scene of them waking up in the morning. Um…) In other words, there could have been a lot more drama and tension. A lot more could have happened. Our club mused on the missed opportunities/the false set-ups of the mother coming back home, someone discovering the hospital, the fiancée breaking the engagement… all this tension that never climaxed. Hazel was constantly gambling with her future, but she was never made to feel the pain. And without spoilers, I am going to try to say that the actual climax of the book had me yelling things out loud because of 1) Hazel’s choice (being inconsistent with her character and dumb), 2) time folding in on itself/not running normally, and 3) Hazel conveniently being frozen for like literally hours. By frozen, I mean that not literally. But it would make more sense, perhaps, if she was literally frozen.

The resolution might have been my favorite part, but it was not nearly enough to redeem the book for me or to make me want to go on and read the next in the duology, Immortality: A Love Story.

I got lucky in March. I didn’t have to read all seven books for book club because I had already read three of them, and none of them very long ago.

I read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishigiro in 2023. I liked this YA light sci-fi book but don’t love it as much as I thought I would, with it always being on the Summer Reads table. I enjoyed the themes and the story itself, but didn’t love the pacing or how certain scenes played out. I would, however, recommend it and also the movie. For the full review, see HERE.

Hamnet just had a movie drop, which I reviewed HERE. I am a Maggie O’Farrell fan (am currently reading the ARC of Land) and Hamnet was my introduction to her, for a book club in 2024. I love this book. I don’t think it’s perfect, exactly, but it is a favorite and I have since then also enjoyed The Marriage Portrait and lined up two other books of hers—I Am, I Am, I Am and This Must Be the Place—already on my physical TBR shelf. (The plan was to read This Must Be the Place for St. Paddy’s, but I ended up substituting Land, which also takes place in historic Ireland. Ya’ll, it’s so good. I’m almost done.) Now, I am a Shakespeare fan and attend all the Renaissance festivals in cosplay, but this book deserves the awards and recognition, even if some people just can’t because of the brutal topics (mainly death of a child). See the full review HERE.

Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar is now tied for books I’ve read most frequently for multiple book clubs, with North Woods. I may have been the instigator once or twice with North Woods because I love that book, but Martyr! did it all on its own. It’s another book that I liked and I would recommend, for sure, but not a favorite. Why? The grittiness, I think. It’s also a great one for discussion. (Favorite pastime at this stage of life: guessing the books that will be read by half of my book clubs. My next predictions: James by Percival Everett, obviously. And then The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. Keep in mind that most clubs wait for the paperback and then have to put it on a schedule, so there’s a couple of years lag, but James finally gets its paperback release in May. The Correspondent, if they’re smart, will go to paperback for holiday shopping 2026.) See my review of Martyr! HERE.