Book Report

[stormkeeper_lovedoris]

 Keanu Reeves Is Not In Love With You by Becky Holmes – I read it in one day. I laughed, I was horrified, I was enlightened. This is a look at the scary world of online romance fraud. Holmes had me dying as she pasted her interactions with would-be scammers (you know the ones. They are instantly in love with you. They want money. So she tells them she is getting a plane right now to go meet them. Suddenly they don’t want to meet yet.). She is always brilliantly funny in her replies to them, and throughout the book. In addition to the hilarity, Holmes takes a deep dive as to who these scammers are and what to do about the problem. There’s some scary shit here. Just as some young women are lured into the sex industry, it would appear there are scanner hubs where young folks are lured into jobs and then held at these hubs as they are forced to scam people all day (it seems most of the hubs are in Malaysia, Nigeria and Ghana). She even tracked down parts of a training manual which was chock full of icky stereotypes on how to lure women and “homosexuals”. I also liked Holmes’ exploration of the victims; people like to think they are all gullible idiots, but that is not the case. Each of their stories is enthralling. I will re-read this book. Wish I’d saved it for a boring plane ride, but I don’t have any plane trips coming up! I might just re-read it next plane trip. Grade: 9

 

The Kept Man by Jami Attenberg – This is one of the early novels by a writer who I like a lot. Though I tend to prefer historical fiction, she writes modern stuff and it’s usually incisive and witty and fast-paced. This one wasn’t quite as spot-on but I still enjoyed it. It’s about a woman in NY, married to an artist who has been in a coma for years, and then she finds some shocking revelations. Grade: 5

 

My Side of the River by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez – An excellent memoir. Gutierrez was born in the US, and her parents legally stayed in the country because they had visas. But their requests to renew their visas were denied, with no reasons given. Gutierrez and her family agreed that she will stay in the US because of greater opportunity and less violence than in Mexico. Thus separated from her parents as a teenager, Gutierrez sleeps on the sofa and is treated as a nuisance by the family that takes her in. She works her butt off though too. This is not just a ‘bootstraps’ story – Gutierrez lays out the ridiculous policies and racism that she struggled with. I was fascinated reading how she makes it all (finishing high school, going onto college, going into a very unfriendly corporate world) work. Grade: 7

 

Feast of Sorrow by Crystal King – A novel taking place in ancient Rome! Very appreciated since I’ve written fanfics using this setting. (My three highest kudo-ed fics are set in ancient Rome). This is a tale based on some historical truth, centering around an enslaved man who becomes a renowned master chef; some of the recipes in the books that his enslaver published still survive today. It was a nice, fast read with a driving storyline. The title doesn’t quite fit though? The main character has a great life for a Roman slave! Grade: 8

 

Lessons from the Edge by Marie Yovanonvich – Listened to this on audio, and it was 14 CDs long. Marie Yovanonvich has had a long, distinguished career in foreign service. But Trump was president when Yovanonvich was ambassador to Ukraine, and Rudy Guiliani saw her as standing in the way of deals he wanted to make with corrupt Ukrainians. And so – despite the fact that she had done nothing wrong, he begins an ultimately successful campaign to remove her. He was Trump’s personal attorney, he served in no official capacity that included any foreign relations duties – but hey, so what? This memoir starts with what happened, then goes back through Yovanonvich’s life and how she came to be a FSO (foreign service officer), and then concludes with the Trump/Guliani mess and her life afterwards. It starts out very, very interesting. Yovanonvic was told that most folks have no idea what it’s like to be a FSO and I loved hearing how she got started in her career, and her first posting which was in 1980s Somalia. But by the 7^th CD or so, it starts to really get boring. There is way too much detail about her time as US Ambassador to a small, former-Soviet country and then to Armenia. I hated to do it but I skipped some of the tracks on the CD. (I’m sorry, Ambassador Yovanonvich but I don’t think anyone apart from the current president of Kyrgyzstan cares this much about the corruption in Kyrgyzstan 25 years ago). The book picks up again around the 10^th or 11^th CD. The book is also read by the author and her voice is like okay but not like super-pleasant to listen to. Overall, despite my skipping some tracks, the book is good. It also shows what a right-wing witchhunt can do to a ‘normal’ person. Like here is a principled person doing their job and here’s how a disinformation campaign is mobilized against them. It brings the insanity of the Trump years to life. This is the second book I’ve read by someone who had to get therapy to deal with attacks by right-wingers. How many more lives will these people try to destroy? Grade: 8

Comments

[rhoda_rants]

LOL that title. Keanu doesn't deserve that! I did find out about scammer hubs not too long ago, I think from either Steven Colbert or John Oliver did a segment on them. Really scary stuff. The idea that people are terrible enough to even come up with a setup like that makes me feel sick.

I read a historical fantasy novel you might like, by the way: Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. It's structured like found pages of an academic journal written by the title character, taking notes of the local customs and superstitions of the place she's exploring to get more familiar with the Fae that hang out there. Fae are an undisputed fact in this universe, and she's one of the premiere experts on it, like a fantastical archeologist. There is a romance, but it's paced perfectly for me, and there's a couple of casually queer characters I wasn't expecting, who are unquestionably welcomed by their community. I know our reading tastes don't always align, but that one made me think of you!

[stormkeeper_lovedoris]

Totally agree - these hubs are just scary!

Thank you for the rec! I will add it to my list right now.

[nytshd3]

Well it sounds like the Keanu Reeves title is more serious than i'd hoped! But man, it is scary, and it's even scarier because people get sucked into it and have such a terrible hard time letting it go too, meanwhile they're getting bled dry. And it's everywhere, I even had a guy try to (I'm 99% sure) hook me in on words with friends back before I instituted my 'no chat' policy. He was telling me that he was working overseas, it was hard, they were going to be moving him somewhere else soon, where was i from, etc. He made a couple of romantic type comments and I told him I was very happily in love with my partner, which he just totally ignored. it's easy to see how someone could be sucked in, especially if they're lonely and looking for love.

BUmmer that the Attenberg novel wasn't as good as her other stuff!

My side of the river sounds good, but so painful! Ugh!

Are you going to be using stuff from Feast of Sorrow in your fics??

Man, how terrible for Yovanonvich. I used to follow a journal on lj a long time ago about a woman who worked in the foreign service (not an ambassador, but someone who works in the consulates in other countries), and it sounded really interesting - lots of crash course language classes, moving her whole family (spouse and kids) to whichever place they ended up being placed, applying for preferred locations but ending up somewhere else, finding out the place the government got for them was in an unsafe area, stresses of national politics on their positions, etc. I don't remember if she stopped posting on lj or if I just lost track of her or what but it sounded crazy. I can't imagine adding on having the actual president's personal attorney gunning for you in particular.

Speaking of detailed memoirs, i am about halfway through Patrick Stewart's, and at the point where i am, he is 24 years old! I can only assume it's going to pick up from here since he has several decades to go!

Thanks for sharing as always!

[stormkeeper_lovedoris]

I've basically finished writing my fanfic set in ancient Rome now, so I'm not sure if anything from Feast of Sorrow will appear in a future story.

Okay Patrick's memoir sounds really really boring. I'm not sure if I'm even gonna attempt it.