Then and Now #11 (10/4 - 10/10)

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted @ Caffeinated Reviewer. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.  It is hosted weekly over at Mailbox Monday and every Friday they do a round-up of some of their favourite, shared reads! 

Last Week

What a week! Our new washing machine and dishwasher sorted themselves out once we re-jigged a few tubes and did some solid draining. So yay for that. And we found a new roomie as well, since one girl is moving out. I think the new girl will make a really nice addition to our slightly kooky household! 

I managed to catch an insane cold somewhere on Thursday which had me stressing until a self-test reassured me it was just a cold, not COVID. Still felt like I was dying for much of Friday and Saturday. But this did give me the perfect excuse to actually stay in bed and not do anything, which was nice. One of my housemates kept bringing me tea, which was lovely of her, while I coughed and watched Squid Game. (More on that below!) We have had some lovely weather, which is great but also a shame sine I didn't really want to go outside and get looked at weirdly while coughing up a lung xD

What I posted:

• Review: flower crowns & fearsome things by amanda lovelace (Poetry)
• Review: The Girl Who Died by Ragnar Jónasson, translated by Victoria Cribb
• Review: Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
• Friday Friyay: Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Recommendations

So of course Squid Game is one of my recommendations this week! I haven't finished it yet but it is an amazing show, I absolutely understand the hype. Like Parasite, it is an amazing commentary of the wealth-gap, on the horrors of personal debt, and on how the system is absolutely rigged against those people. It definitely is bloody, but I would still absolutely recommend it. I personally don't mind subtitles, am a bigger fan of subtitles than dubbing, also because it helps me actually focus on the show and not hop from the laptop screen to my phone screen like it's nothing.

Mailbox Monday

I Know You by Claire McGowan (Amazon Publishing; 10/19/2021)

When Rachel stumbles upon a body in the woods, she knows what she has to do: run. Get away. Do not be found at the scene. Last time, she didn’t know, and she ended up accused of murder. But when this victim is identified as her boyfriend’s estranged wife, Rachel realises she’s already the prime suspect.

With mounting evidence against her, Rachel’s only hope is to keep the truth about herself well hidden. Because twenty years ago she was someone else—Casey, a young nanny trying to make it as an actress in Los Angeles. When the family she worked for were brutally murdered, all the evidence pointed to her and she went to prison. Back then, she narrowly escaped the death penalty and managed to free herself on appeal. Now she’s fighting to save the life she’s spent years piecing back together.

But with her behaviour raising suspicion and the police closing in, Rachel can’t help wondering: Was her discovery in the woods really just an awful coincidence, or is someone framing her for murder? Someone who knows who she is, and wants revenge…

I am super intrigued by this plot! History repeating itself, secret or hidden identities and histories, having to fight for survival. Very into it!

This Way to the Universe by Michael Dine (Dutton; 2/1/2022)

This Way to the Universe is a celebration of the astounding, ongoing scientific investigations that have revealed the nature of reality at its smallest, at its largest, and at the scale of our daily lives. The enigmas that Professor Michael Dine discusses are like landmarks on a fantastic journey to the edge of the universe.
 
Asked where to find out about the Big Bang, Dark Matter, the Higgs boson particle—the long cutting edge of physics right now—Dine had no single book he could recommend. This is his accessible, authoritative, and up-to-date answer. Comprehensible to anyone with a high-school level education, with almost no equations, there is no better author to take you on this amazing odyssey.

Dine is widely recognized as having made profound contributions to our understanding of matter, time, the Big Bang, and even what might have come before it. This Way to the Universe touches on many emotional, critical points in his extraordinary career while presenting mind-bending physics like his answer to the Dark Matter and Dark Energy mysteries as well as the ideas that explain why our universe consists of something rather than nothing. People assume String Theory can never be tested, but Dine intrepidly explores exactly how the theory might be tested experimentally, as well as the pitfalls of falling in love with math. This book reflects a lifetime pursuing the deepest mysteries of reality, by one of the most humble and warmly engaging voices you will ever read.

Something a little bit different! I do love to read more about science, but I don't want to feel like I'm reading an actual textbook, if that makes sense? I hope Dine strikes the right tone, but I have a feeling from the blurb that he will!

Chloe Cates Is Missing by Mandy McHugh (Penzler Publisher; 1/18/2022)

The disappearance of a young internet celebrity ignites a firestorm of speculation on social media, and to find her a detective will have to extinguish the blaze.

Chloe Cates is missing. The 13-year-old star of the hit YouTube series, “CC and Me,” has disappeared, and nobody knows where she’s gone — least of all ruthless momager Jennifer Scarborough, who has spent much of her daughter’s young life crafting a child celebrity persona that is finally beginning to pay off. And in Chloe’s absence, the faux-fairytale world that supported that persona begins to fracture, revealing secrets capable of reducing the highly-dysfunctional Scarborough family to rubble.

Anxious to find her daughter and preserve the life she’s worked so hard to build, Jennifer turns to social media for help, but the hearsay, false claims, and salacious suspicions only multiply. As the search becomes as sensational as Chloe’s series, Missing Persons detective Emilina Stone steps in, only to realize she has a connection to this case herself. Will she be able to stay objective and cut through the rumors to find the truth before it’s too late?

Told from multiple points of view including Jennifer, Emilina, and pages from Chloe’s lost diary, Chloe Cates Is Missing is a suspenseful novel of a child pushed to the brink, and of the troubled family that desperately needs her back. 

Youtubers scare me, I'm not going to lie. There's something about the obsessive recording of every single thing that unnerves me, so of course this novel was right up my alley! Also, a 13-year-old, Jesus!

How to Survive a Modern-Day Fairy Tale by Elle Cruz (Entangled Publishing; 11/30/2021)

Claire Ventura is nothing like the poised and perfect heroines she reads about in her favorite romance novels. She’s a quirky, people-pleasing bookworm with a loving yet obliviously intrusive family and a passion for cookie decorating—all rolled into a five-foot-two Filipina American fueled by chamomile tea.

Then she meets Nate, billionaire CEO of a global tech company, the modern-day Prince Charming who sweeps her off her feet. Though he does his best to convince Claire that he’s genuinely head over heels for her, she knows he’ll soon realize she’s more underwhelming Plain Jane than jet-setting socialite. And once he meets her family, if their initial questioning doesn’t scare him off, then their tendency to decide “what’s best for her” certainly will.

Between her whirlwind romance with Nate and her meddlesome family, Claire wishes she had a fairy godmother to guide her. But this is the real world in the twenty-first century, and the only way to get her happily ever after is by grabbing firm hold of what she really wants—and letting her heart be her guide.

This book sounded adorable, so I couldn't resist! As someone whose both a massive cynic and a secret romantic, Cruz' novel could be right up my alley. 

So that's me!