“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” – Mortimer J. Adler

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you had a great week and were able to find some good things, even if things weren’t so good. Today’s Five Things will be about the four books I read in March plus a surprise good thing that happened this week!

• Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu – This book was…frivolous is the best word I can come up with. It was about an Indian-American girl who travels to India with her parents and her best friend to attend her wealthy cousin’s opulent wedding. One of the themes is identity, as the main character feels out of place in both America and India. She attempts to resolve this by finding the “real India” only to make some pretty serious missteps along the way. The book also divides its attention between several of the characters, each going through their own “crisis” during their time in the country, but I felt it didn’t give any of them really enough screen time. I think it would have been better served by not splitting focus. The book resolves well enough…but I didn’t find any of the characters engaging enough to be rooting for a particular outcome, if that makes sense. This book would be fine for a quick vacation read, but otherwise I’d say skip it.
• The Darwin Affair by Tim Mason – On the other side of the spectrum, I LOVED this book. It’s a murder-conspiracy story that takes place in Victorian London. It is a purely fictional story, but historical characters like Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Charles Dickens make appearances. It isn’t a whodunit, because the reader finds out pretty quickly who the killer is, but then you get to watch the detectives attempt to unravel the mystery from their perspective and there are certainly surprises for the reader along the way. If you like The Devil in the White City, I think you’ll like this book.
• Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley – I wasn’t 100% pulled into this book while I was reading it, but by the end I was satisfied with it. The first half was pretty slow in setting up the action for the second half. There are a lot of minor characters introduced for a few pages, then referenced in later chapters and I had a hard time keeping track of who was who in those instances. The writing also kept making me think it was written in the 70s and I would be jolted out of the story with references to cell phones and Ubers. But it’s a gritty look at a corrupt underworld of cops in New York City and the casualties caused when someone gets in the way. A very interesting book, written by a very prolific writer. While this book didn’t necessarily do it for me, the style of his writing makes me want to check out his other books.
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett – This was a page turner, as I knew it would be. Published last year, it hit the NYTimes #1 spot immediately and was on several “must-read” and book club lists. I was on the wait list to borrow it from my library for several months before I was able to get it and…it really lived up to the hype for me. The story is of twin girls who are Black and very light-skinned. They run away from home together but eventually one disappears and begins to live her life as a white woman. The themes of identity and authenticity are prevalent throughout the book, with the main characters and several more minor characters. I stayed up way past my bedtime several nights in a row to finish this because I didn’t want to put it down. There are a few overly convenient plot points designed but nothing out of the realm of possibility. Also, a lot of people I’ve seen review this book hated the ending, but I honestly thought it was the best possible way to wrap up the story. Highly highly recommend this book!
• And…I’m getting my first COVID vaccine shot this week! I have Kaiser insurance and had signed up on their waiting list a few months ago. On Wednesday I got an email from them saying it was my turn to make and appointment and I was able to get one relatively nearby for this afternoon! I won’t lie, there was a lot of anxiety and guilt wrapped up in making the appointment because I know people who are higher risk than me in my state are still having trouble getting appointments. But then I had to remember that every shot in an arm helps the whole community and this was my turn. Hope you are all choosing to get the vaccine as well when it’s your turn!