I’ve decided to mostly try to post mini book reviews every month or so, so here’s the next installment.

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Six of Crows

By Leigh Bardugo

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge.
A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager.
A runaway with a privileged past.
A spy known as the Wraith.
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Review:

I finally read this very popular book! It’s quite slow at the beginning. I thought that some of the world-building was a bit hard to follow if you haven’t read/don’t remember the Grisha trilogy, but you can definitely understand the whole story regardless. The actual heist part of the book also fell a little flat for me in that it didn’t ever feel very high stakes to me. Maybe I watch too much TV or something. However, as expected, Six of Crows features a compelling cast of characters, character dynamics, and relationships. They really drive the story and plot. They keep things interesting and leave you guessing and second guessing what’s coming next. I would read the sequel, but I’m not sure yet that this lives up to the hype. (Though, I definitely would have LOVED it if I had read it years ago/when it first came out).

One Way or Another

By Kara McDowell

The average person makes 35,000 decisions every single day. That’s about 34,999 too many for Paige Collins, who lives in debilitating fear of making the wrong choice. The simple act of picking an art elective is enough to send her into a spiral of what-ifs. What if she’s destined to be a famous ceramicist but wastes her talent in drama club? What if there’s a carbon monoxide leak in the ceramics studio and everyone drops dead? (Grim, but possible!)

That’s why when Paige is presented with two last-minute options for Christmas vacation, she’s paralyzed by indecision. Should she go with her best friend (and longtime crush) Fitz to his family’s romantic mountain cabin? Or should she accompany her mom to New York, a city Paige has spent her whole life dreaming about?

Just when it seems like Paige will crack from the pressure of choosing, fate steps in—in the form of a slippery grocery store floor—and Paige’s life splits into two very different parallel paths. One path leads to New York where Paige falls for the city…and the charms of her unexpected tour guide. The other leads to the mountains where Paige might finally get her chance with Fitz…until her anxiety threatens to ruin everything.

However, before Paige gets her happy ending in either destiny, she’ll have to face the truth about her struggle with anxiety—and learn that you don’t have to “perfect” to deserve true love.

Review:

This was honestly one of my most anticipated books of this year, and it did not disappoint. Though the beginning was a little weird/forced/a little over the top to me, once the story settles, it is great. It’s not a book for everyone – the main character has pretty bad anxiety and at times it was hard for me to read because it was just too real, too close to home. But it also made me feel so understood, like I could direct people to this book to get a better sense of what it’s like to be in my head (though not as extreme). I so deeply appreciate how the author told and handled Paige’s story.

Moreover, I loved the split narrative and think it’s clever and works perfectly for the story. The back and forth is only sometimes confusing to follow (mostly when similar things are mentioned in both storylines). Additionally, all the chapters almost all end in great cliffhangers that make you want to skip right back into that timeline. I enjoyed the ending, which implies which one was the “real” timeline, though ultimately, the ending is the same regardless.

Two Trees Make a Forest

By Jessica J. Lee

A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan. There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew. 

Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars. She bikes flatlands where spoonbills alight by fish farms, and learns about a tree whose fruit can float in the ocean for years, awaiting landfall. Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island. Joyously attentive to the natural world, Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labor and knowledge of local communities.

Review:

I’m glad I picked up this book. I really got through it so quickly. There’s a lot that the author both articulates here and which you can read between the lines that just resonates – about being Taiwanese and Chinese, being of the diaspora, trying to uncover your family history, and of the divides and bridges of language, history, family, and home. It’s a must read for diasporic Taiwanese and Taiwanese Chinese folks. The book is a great and interesting blend of memoir, travel writing, and botany/nature writing.

However, many of the botanical and more scientific sections pulled me out of the flow and just weren’t that interesting to me. When it was contextualized, the sections were better, but the nitty gritty about plants types or whatever just aren’t interesting to me. I appreciated the author’s insights, as well as her experiences with hiking. But as someone struggling with my scoliosis, it was sometimes hard to read too. I want to be able to do those hikes, but I can’t right now, and that creates its own kind of aching sadness in me.

Additionally, for all the scientific information and historical context and research, as well as the book being highlighted for its “anticolonial reclamation,” I was really disappointed by the lack of real attention paid to indigenous/aboriginal knowledge and not enough time spent on the indigenous population. Every once in a while, it’s thrown in there or the author mentions how colonizers viewed the indigenous population, but that’s it. I understand that her family history (mainlanders who fled to Taiwan) and acknowledge that it reflects a lot of my own family history, but it’s clear that Lee did so much research. So why do we still focus mostly on what colonial powers thought and recorded? What about indigenous knowledge of plants? Their names for native species?

At the end of the day, this book will stick with me for a long time and continues to encourage me to learn more about my family history and to learn about Taiwanese history. (Though, if you’re curious about popular Taiwanese street foods, I wrote about some of my favorites.) The ending could have been stronger and my critique above is really important to remember and to keep in mind, but I would highly recommend picking this book up.