Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. In this post, I will be doing a wrap up of all the books I read in April. This month I completed more prompts for my reading challenge than last month, however I still didn’t finish it. No matter. The point with this reading challenge is to read books that I wouldn’t have read otherwise, not to finish all eight prompts before the end of the month, and I’m accomplishing that. I read some really good books this month, and I am looking forward to talking about each one. I read 10 books this month and no DNFs.
1. LIBRARY BOOK: Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
This book relates the story of Empress Orchid, a character based on the historical figure of Empress Dowager Cixi, romanized Empress Dowager T’zu hsi, the last empress of China. Empress Orchid, the first book of a duology, follows Orchid’s life as a young woman when she seeks to become one the Emperor’s concubines after she finds herself at the unavoidable crux in her life of marrying a man who disgusts her. Against all odds, she is chosen as the Emperor’s fourth concubine, and is now out of the hated man’s reach. Despite her newly acquired royal status, however, she is still beneath the Emperor’s notice, and it is several months before he calls her to his bedroom. But he does so when she bribes the Emperor’s head eunuch in order to get into his bed. Soon thereafter, however, she becomes the Emperor’s favorite concubine.
The story takes place over a course of several years, and we follow Orchid as she tries to survive in the Forbidden City knowing that her position as the Emperor’s favorite is not secure. Orchid finds herself constantly at odds with the Emperor’s wife, who antagonizes her at every turn. Later, when she gets pregnant, Orchid is set aside by the Emperor but her status within the Forbidden City is elevated to that of Empress as well, due to her being the biological mother of the Empire’s heir and the only one of the Emperor’s many concubines to give him a son. However, her struggles with the Emperor’s wife don’t end as she takes precedent over Orchid as head of the Emperor’s household, and it is she who is responsible for Orchid’s (and her) son’s education. Thus, Tung Chih grows up a spoiled and ill-suited heir to the throne. The book ends with the death of Emperor Hsieng Feng and Orchid’s fight to make sure her son inherits the throne.
I liked this book a lot more than I had expected. The only reason I didn’t give it a New Favorite rating is because I listened to it as an audiobook and the narrator is atrocious. Her voice is flat and emotionless, and you can hear very roll of her wet tongue as she swallows saliva. I put up with it because I liked the story and wanted to finish the book. I would have DNF’d it otherwise, but it wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the book itself. The narrator of the audiobook is just awful. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
2. The Last Empress by Anchee Min
This book is the second book in the Empress Orchid duology by this author, and it continues Orchid’s story, now as a co-regent of the Empire of China. This book focuses more on the politics of the Empire and the wars it suffered during the reigns of the Empire’s last two emperors and dowager empresses, wars that eventually led to the dissolution of Empire, the ruin of the Imperial family, and the birth of the Republic of China. Like its predecessor, this books relates events that took place throughout several decades and there are a lot of characters that come and go throughout those years that took a prominent role in the politics of China. However, amongst all of those, the one constant is Empress Dowager Cixi (Orchid), who lived past her seventieth birthday and passed away after reaffirming her nephew Puyi as the new heir of the Empire. However, after her death, the Empire soon crumbled and Puyi, the last recognized Emperor of China, soon became a puppet of the Japanese. Eventually, these conflicts would lead to the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.
Unfortunately, the audiobook for The Last Empress is narrated by the same person as Empress Orchid so I had the same problems with this one as I did with the first book. Nonetheless, I recommend both of these books to whoever is interested in reading about the First Sino-Japanese War and the birth of China as a Republic. I gave this book an I Really Liked It rating.
3. The Wolf In The Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky
This book was first published in 2019, and it had been on my radar since then. I read it for my book club this month, and I admit I really liked it. It is a New Favorite, even though I wasn’t a big fan of the ending. But you can’t have everything. The romance between Omat and Brandr was not the main course of this story (even though he does come back). That was the war between the Inuit and Norse gods, and I was here for all of it, honestly. First off, I will say that I’m an avid reader of the history of religion and mythology. And this book touched upon Inuit mythology, one of the least talked about mythologies outside of scholarly circles, and Norse mythology and the machination of the trickster god Loki to bring about Ragnarok. I really liked how the author goes about to unite these two mythologies and put them in opposition to one another when the Vikings first arrive to the shores of Greenland.
4. NEW RELEASE: The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
This book was released on March 29th 2022, and it is the story of Lyudmila Pavilchenko, a woman sniper with 309 kills to her name in the Russian army during the first few years of WWII. The book centers primarily on Mila Pavilchenko’s visit to the White House in 1942 as part of a delegation sent by Stalin to convince President Franklin D. Roosevelt to aid Russia against the Germans in the front.
This is not the first book that I read by this author. I read The Rose Code last year, which focuses primarily on the story and friendship of three women working as codebreakers in England during the war. In The Diamond Eye, however, we witness the war from the point of view of the Russians after Hitler attempts to invade the motherland in 1942 (As Napoleon once did before). And though we do follow Mila Pavilchenko as she learns to shoot and later enlists in the Army when war breaks out, the book is primarily about Pavilchenko’s life in the Army and her story fighting to defend her country against the invaders.
The publication of this book is auspicious in the wake of the Russian-Ukrainian War that broke a few months ago, and it is a stout reminder that there are many fighting and defending the same cities that she fought and defended during WWII today. I Really Liked this book and recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction set in WWII.
5. Harbinger of the Storm by Ailette de Bodard
This book is the second installment of the Obsidian and Blood trilogy by Ailette de Bodard, and I have to say it is the best book of the trilogy. I read Servant of the Underworld, Book 1, in February, and gave it a New Favorite rating. Book 2, however, is even better if it is possible to say that because I gave the same rating to both of them. In Harbinger of the Storm we once again follow Acatl, High Priest of the Underworld, as he finds himself unwillingly thrust into the deadly politics of the Mexica Empire again after Axayacatl, the Revered Speaker, dies and the bodies of high officials of the Empire start to pile up.
This book introduces new gods and I found myself liking all of them, and while I thought that the culprit was going to be one of the most feared goddess of the Aztec pantheon, it was not and that was an interesting twist. The magic and the intrusion of the gods in the affairs of men is one of the best things about this novel, and I definitely recommend this series to anyone interested in reading a murder mystery in an unconventional setting. I also appreciate that the author has done her research about the Mexica Empire and its religion well, and it shows. It gives the story a nice layer of authenticity and it feels as if you are within Tenochititlan alongside Acatl and all the other characters.
6. FINISH A SERIES: Master of the House of Darts by Ailette de Bodard
Now, given how much I liked Harbinger of the Storm I admit that I had really high hopes for this one. And it fell a bit short. It’s not bad, but it was not what I was expecting. I was expecting more from the Master of the House of Darts (after all, it is named after him) but his part in the story fell rather short and disappointing in the end. Again, the story is not bad, and I liked the book. And I was curious what the part the gods that showed up in this book was. But I did not love it. Also, you have no idea who the culprit is until the very end (and that in itself isn’t so bad, I guess) but the book did not have as good an ending as I was hoping. Nonetheless, I still wish that the author had continued writing books in this world because there are so very few well-written books set in prehistoric Mexico.
7. NONFICTION: A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
I read this book several years ago, and at the time I really liked it. Now, I found it rather simplistic and heavily based on Middle Eastern mythology. The book is a small collection of essays that separate the history of myth into distinct periods of time ranging from the paleolithic period to the Industrial Revolution and beyond culminating in the year 2000. That is a lot of time to cover. And the book is less than 200 pages long.
Given how many books I read this month concerning the mythologies of different and thoroughly distinct cultures, I thought it’d be a good time to read this book again. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy reading about Mesopotamia, Assyria, and the other cultures surrounding of banks of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, but I found that those mythologies in no way encompass the mythologies of all the peoples living in the world or that have lived on the Earth throughout its entire history, and I found that the book is heavily narrow in its perspective despite trying to provide a broad and generalized account of the history of myth.
The book also provides a rather basic classification of myths based on trade (hunter/gatherers as worshippers of a Sky God and creators of animal-oriented religions, farmers as worshippers of a Mother Goddess wherein agriculture is seen as a sexual act between the earth (female) and the seed (male), reminiscent to the human sexual act; city dwellers, who saw the gods as remote entities indifferent to the plight of humanity, etc.,) that doesn’t give much room for myths that don’t exactly fit the norm. The classification later focuses primarily on the Chinese, Indians, Greece, and Jews with the triumph of logos over mythos during the Axial Age, wherein new religions emerged, among them Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the three major monotheistic religions of current Western civilization. The death of mythology occurred with the advent of the technological era and capitalism. And with it, the end of seeing Nature as something to be respected and taken care of. Now, the Earth and all its resources are just things that we use to facilitate our lives. This I do agree with. We need to recover myth to learn how to take care of the Earth again.
Despite all the negatives, however, I Liked This Book And Will Probably Read It Again. I think it is a good book for the general reader to start reading about the topic, and it is written in a clear and precise way that doesn’t allow for much confusion or jargon. With this second read, I felt like I read it differently than the first and that made for some interesting critical thinking.
8. REQUESTED REVIEW: Where Have You Been, Bobby Marr? by Morris Dalla Costa
When I first started reading this book, I did not know what to expect. But I was pleasantly surprised to read the story of a man who battles with depression and mental health issues after coming home from Vietnam in the late 1960s. The book is the story of his life, and how his experiences in the front have affected him and his family. Read my full review here.
9. BOTM: Doing Justice by Preet Bharara
This book is divided into four parts: Inquiry, Accusation, Judgement, and Punishment, each one of which is a different phase in the process of obtaining justice for a wrongdoing. And in each section the author relates his experiences as US Attorney in the state of New York from 2009 to 2017 in doing so.
There were a lot of valuable things to take from this book, but here are some that resonated with me the most: The law does not do justice; people do justice, and in doing so they must always seek the truth. If anything, this is the most important message Preet Bharara is trying to convey in this book. People do justice; the law is just a tool to do so. But in doing so, people must also be mindful of several other things. For example, in the inquiry phase an investigator must always ask questions that will lead him to the truth; he must always begin an investigation with an open mind and acknowledge the possibility that he may be wrong, for things are not always what they seem. In the accusation phase, once the investigation is over, you must be certain of all the facts before accusing someone of wrongdoing. An accusation is a serious matter, and an investigator must be aware of the consequences it can bring about to the people involved; most notably the person accused, but the person who makes the accusation should also be taken into account. In the judgement phase, where trials take place, it is not up to the prosecutor or defense lawyers to dispense justice. It is up to the jury, and sometimes the verdict is not what you would have liked. Sometimes those who should have been acquitted are convicted or vice versa. And finally, punishment, the murkiest phase in doing justice, where most convicted people are forgotten about by the people who put them in prison.
This book was an interesting read. I Liked It And Will Probably Read It Again.
10. CLASSIC: The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino
This book is complicated, but I remember now why I loved it so much the first time I read it. Not many people might agree with me, but the originality of this book is in how Calvino chose to weave the stories he tells herein. In this book, all the characters lose the ability to talk when they stumble upon a castle (that might also be a tavern that once was a castle) in the forest and they can only tell their stories with a pack of tarot cards that their host hands over to them. How you interpret the cards will dictate your story, but the thing is there are many ways to interpret each card so there are endless possibilities, and any could be your story. The book is divided into two sections and in each one the stories are told with two different packs of tarot cards. In the first, the stories are told with a pack of Renaissance tarot cards whilst in the second a cheaper set is used. Whichever set is used, however, slowly stories such as those that have cemented our culture, e.g., Faustus, Oedipus, and Hamlet, emerge and we witness as the author weaves a tapestry of stories where one story intersects with another and surmise that each of the characters does in fact have crossed destinies with one another. I gave this book an I Really Liked It rating.
That’s all for this month. Thank you for reading.
