Children of Blood and Bone - Tomi Adeyemi

Orisha is divided. 11 years ago, the government carried out a brutal genocide on the minority Magi - people born in clans of magic with powers tied to one of several gods. Zelie is a child of a magi mother and non magic father. Exiled from the home of her heritage, she lives in a tidal flat and eeks out a living in a family of fisherman. During the day, she trains with Mama Agba, a local woman who works to teach the children of magi - diviners - the skills they will need to survive in adulthood. Because few will reach adulthood. Most, shunned for the potential magic in their bodies, will enter the stocks, a brutal indentured servitude akin to slavery.

A new tax on diviners threatens to bankrupt Zelie's family, so she heads to the capital city to sell a rare fish. However, when leaving the trading hall, she's approached for help by Amari, Orisha's princess who, upon seeing the brutal slaughter of her best friend at the hand of her father, is running with a scroll which threatens to bring magic back to all of Orisha.

Together with Zelie's brother, Zane, the two set out to restore magic and rebalance the scales of power in Orisha. Hunted by Amari's brother, beset by enemies on all sides, will Zelie reach the shrine in time to perform the incantation?

This is all very riveting. Voiced by the incomparable Bahni Turpin, the audio of this story does not let up. Children of Blood and Bone is a total original. I can't wait to read the sequel.

4.5/5 Stars. 

Hunger - Roxane Gay

It took one round of mowing the grass and one road trip to finish up this brief but necessary read. I really like Roxane Gay. In Hunger, I love how straightforwardly she talks about the burdens of her body. I have had many of the same thoughts she voices regarding body image and none of the violet criticism she's received from being a fat person in a public space.

Also, WTF is wrong with people? From comments she receives to strangers pulling food from her grocery cart, why do humans believe it's appropriate to comment on other bodies. (Also me looking through magazines: hmmm look at those abs - I get it, our culture is sick with objectification of bodies, all bodies). I've been able to quiet the external voice but my internal voice is still a struggle. Because I've internalized all the same things Roxane talks about regarding body image. I know that society values thin people more than fat. I know that being fat leads to shame and judgment - it's part of why three times a week, I force myself outside to run. See how this memoir about her body turned into an internal debate about my own? She's so honest about herself it asks the reader to be honest too. That her size is tied up in her trauma is heartbreaking (because of the trauma) and must have come as a deep revelation to her family who only learned about it after the publication of Bad Feminist (you can read my review of that book here). I can't imagine carrying around that kind of hurt silently.

4.5/5 Stars. 

I read Bad Feminist last year and really liked Roxane's voice in that piece as well. I was happy to connect with her again on a work that feels important because it shouldn't be "groundbreaking" or "brave." It makes me think of all the times you read in a magazine about someone "showing off their beach body" when it's really just a celebrity who is going to a beach in the only body they have. That's not showing off, it's just living. So let's agree to stop clicking on those types of headlines.

We get one body for our whole lives. And it is OUR body. FU to anyone who wants to violate it, comment on it, or co-opt it for a clickable headline (including People Mag

Before We Were Yours - Lisa Wingate

This was a tough book to get through. I really dislike reading about cruelty to children. And I really dislike real people who are cruel to children. And so here's this book. It made me feel so many things. 

Before We Were Yours starts off in a Baltimore hospital where a Congressman's daughter has just suffered a stillborn birth but doesn't know it yet. Her desperate family want to fix it. Someone makes a call to Memphis. 

In present day, Avery Stafford is altering her life as a prosecutor to come back to South Carolina and hit the campaign trail with her ailing Senator father whose staff is looking for an heir apparent to his Senate seat. Avery is uncomfortable with the whole thing. Hers is a high stakes family, run mostly by her aggressive mother, Honeybee. In the background is a grandmother who's dementia has led to a nursing home placement. On a visit to a different nursing home, Avery meets May Crandall, who mistakes Avery for someone else. See, there's this blond curly hair thing that seems to be passed down from Grandma Judy.

So we whip back to the past, to a stormy night on the Mississippi river, when Queenie, aboard her shantyboat home, the Arcadia, is having a terrible time birthing twins. When all hope is lost and Briny must take Queenie to the hospital, the other five children, Rill, Camellia, Lark, Fern and Gabion, are left on the boat with a family friend to await their parent's return. 

Unfortunately, this is 1939 in Memphis and there is a real life demon, Georgia Tann, walking around, snatching children from poor families and selling them to rich ones to make herself wealthy. She snatches up the children and places into a boarding home for the Tennessee Children's Home Society. And there, well there is where all the bad things happen and I really just don't like thinking about it so you'll have to take my word for it that it's very very bad. 

What all this has to do with Avery and Grandma Judy you can probably guess but it all unravels over time. As Avery learns the truth about Grandma Judy, she discovers some things about herself as well. And while there are some sweet moments in the book, they are mostly bittersweet because although this is a work of fiction, it's based on real stories of things that happened to real children under the charge of Georgia Tann. That Georgia Tann got to grow old and die of cancer is monumentally unfair. That my Tennessee government had a chance to make life better for these children, but failed is also unfair. 

So go out, help a child, volunteer your time and talent to organizations that make life better for orphans and kids in foster care. And also, if you like crying, you can read this book.

4.5/5 Stars. 

Educated - Tara Westover

I shouldn't be surprised anymore when deeply flawed humans have children and end up being deeply flawed parents. I can usually chalk it up to doing the best we can with the gifts and faults we have and hope that kids can offer grace as they get older to realize their parents are, ultimately, human.

But then I read a book like The Glass Castle (you can read that review here), or now, Educated and I realize, yeah that's mostly true, except when it's not and parents make choices so fundamentally flawed that it's is or is almost criminal in nature. 

Neglect. Growing up in Southern Idaho, Tara and her siblings were given access to text books but no instruction to read them. Extremely mistrustful of the government and paranoid about the ramifications of being "dependent" on the government, the parents don't even apply for birth certificates for Tara and her younger siblings. From an early age, the children are expected to assist their father in the junkyard at the base of the property. Metal scrapping in dangerous conditions thanks to their father's love of shortcuts and eschewing of safety precautions, many of the children are deeply injured. Any decision to work elsewhere is seen as a betrayal of the family. 

So when Tara decides she wants more in terms of education, she has to figure it all out herself. She takes the ACT and fakes her way into BYU claiming she completed "home school". The first year is a rough education for Tara who was unaware even of what the word "Holocaust" meant. And she comes to realize some of the deeply troubling beliefs held by her father and the pervasive racism it engenders at home. 

Tara manages to go on and graduate from BYU with a prestigious Gates Scholarship to Cambridge University in England. And she does this all while trying to inform her parents that her older brother was physically and emotionally abusive toward her. Her parents refuse to acknowledge this truth and a rift forms. It's troubling and upsetting and even today far from over. 

There's something about a memoir that really reaches into the shared humanity of us all and life can sometimes be stranger than fiction. I wish Tara the best and hope she continues on a path of healing.

4.5/5

Every Note Played - Lisa Genova

It's 11 p.m. and I have one hour left to go in this audiobook that has continually crushed me through each chapter. Do I stay up and listen to the last hour or go to bed and leave the last hour for my commute today? Of course I stayed up, my sleep regulator (my husband) is out of town and book choices always turn into "one more chapter" affairs.

But honestly, with the amount of crying I did in the last chapter of Every Note Played, I'm glad I didn't try to arrive at my place of employment looking the way I looked when I finally turned out the light at midnight. 

ENP tells the story of Karina and Richard - estranged spouses, talented pianists, parents to a single child who has chosen sides in an ugly breakup of the family. Richard is a famous concert pianist, travelling the world to perform with symphonies. Karina gave up her own dream and possible career at the piano to raise their daughter in suburban Boston. There's so much resentment and misplaced anger in this story that it's hard sometimes to live in the heads of the characters.

Chapters alternate from Richard to Karina's points of view as we learn that Richard has been diagnosed with ALS, a debilitating motor neuron disease which has no cure and no real treatment. As we move through the stages of grief with Richard and then Karina as the disease slowly affects more and more of Richard's functions, the characters are forced to reckon with their past relationship and the resentments and disappointments they harbor for one another. 

I found myself more frustrated with Karina than with Richard through a lot of the book. I think she unfairly blamed him for things (not that he didn't deserve some blame) that were actually her issues. But, Genova knows her craft and in the end.... well. It's just a really good book, so go read it.

4.5/5 stars. 

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine - Michael Lewis

Yikes. You know it really sucks that a bunch of Wall Street a-holes created mortgage backed securities and in order to continue to feed their machine, bundled riskier and riskier mortgages together, and then decided to sell portions of those bonds over and over again in a way that nearly bankrupted the company. And with their giant government bailout they turned around and gave themselves big fat bonuses in amounts greater than average Americans will see in their entire lives. So yeah, The Big Short is infuriating.

But... as with anything Michael Lewis, it's so damn well written. I mean, I have an English literature degree, there's no way I should understand and be able to speak intelligently about collateralized debt obligations, but I can. So thanks Michael Lewis. 

This book takes a deep dive into the origin and abuses that led to the financial collapse of 2007/2008 and the following recession. It's a hard look at the people on the inside of Wall Street that care only about making money for themselves and had no qualms about what their actions might do for the rest of America. And it applauds without glorifying the individuals who figured out the system was on the brink of collapse and bet against it. Everyone was asleep at the wheel on this one and it could absolutely happen again. Which is probably the worst part. 

I watched the movie after reading the book and it's very well done. I don't say that often.

4.5 Stars. 

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain

When a light such as Anthony Bourdain is extinguished too early, there's a desire to revisit his work and try to grasp for just a moment a little bit of that lost light. That is what reading Kitchen Confidential is like, two months after his tragic suicide. 

Bourdain was a troubled but gifted young adult who grew, truly grew, to be an influential and curious traveler and culinary mind. In Kitchen Confidential, you can see the beginnings of his later works - No Reservations and Parts Unknown. Through his early stories of personal and financial failure and his burgeoning influence as the Chef of Les Halles, it's just possible to see the thread of the force he would become. 

To say he's gone too soon is an understatement. It's a loss for the world at large that this voice of understanding and global fellowship is now silent. The things I enjoyed most about his shows, was his unending curiosity of the people and the culture of whatever location he was visiting, and also his gratitude for the hospitality he was shown. He was un-entitled and warm. In Kitchen Confidential, you see hints of that, especially in the chapter detailing his trip to Tokyo, where he confesses to the ultimate travel sin of McDonalds and Starbucks. ("See, this famous chef is just like me when confronted with strange food!")

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and its look at the inside workings of a kitchen. I am saddened all over again at Bourdain's death. But am thankful for the gifts he gave us along the way.

4.5/5 Stars. 

Railsea - China Mieville

Back in 2017 when I read Kraken (that review here) and had a mixed review, other reviewers who felt the same as me said something along the lines of, "good, but not as good as Railsea." So Railsea has been on my to-read list since and I have to agree, it is a much better book than Kraken. Sham am Soorap is a doctor's apprentice on the mole train Medes. Hopelessly hopeless, Sham seems to not be very good at much of anything. But he's a likeable sort and somehow the train crew grows fond of him. 

In the world of Railsea, train tracks criss-cross the land for as far as anyone knows and in between the land lives subterranean animals of horrifying size and appearance, the largest of which are the Great Southern Moldywarpes. The mole train's purpose is to hunt down, slaughter, and sell the moldywarpes for meat and fur. The captain of the Medes, Captain Naphi, has taken on the hunt for a pale gigantic moldywarpe (her "philosophy" in Railsea speak) and she hunts him from end to end of the Railsea.

But you see, there is no end the Railsea. It's unthinkable. That is until the Medes comes upon a wrecked train and Sham finds inside a disk containing photographs of a single line leading into nothing. On the disk are also pictures of children and a home. Sham, an orphan himself, believes those children are owed and explanation of what happened to their parents. The rest of the book takes Sham and his train crew on an exploration of the end of the Railsea, of what the railfolk refer to as "heaven" and the forwards and backwards of history. 

The language of Railsea, the unapologetic drop into its world and its history without a guide are captivating stuff. The cadence and rhythm were made all the better by narrator Jonathan Cowley who does a spectacular job with all the varied and various characters in this creative re-imagination of Moby Dick.

4.5/5 Stars. 

A Man Called Ove - Fredrick Backman

A Man Called Ove is a thoroughly entertaining of a lonely curmudgeon who is really actually a good person. The writing is humorous and swift. There is a lot of detail but it doesn't bog the story down unnecessarily. This is a story of big sweeping themes about love and loss, friendship and family, told through small details about one individual person. 

The story starts with Ove attempting to buy an iPad and slowly through the story in various back flashes and limited description from other characters, we get to see what has brought Ove to be the person he is, and why he is so desperately unhappy. 

I liked this book so much that I went home after finishing it and stayed up way too late watching the Swedish language version of the film (apparently a Tom Hanks version is in the works but no real facts on that yet) and I cried even though I knew EXACTLY what was going to happen. The movie doesn't have some of the lightness of the book, but it's extremely well done. Highly recommend.

4.5/5 Stars. 

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

Wow. What a painful and powerful story. Their Eyes Were Watching God is about a naive but strong willed teenager, Janie Crawford who bows to her grandmother's influence and marries a man decades her senior. A former slave, her grandmother had visions and hopes for Janie that were different from Janie's own. And a loveless marriage makes Janie ache for those things she wants for herself. 

In order to find happiness she runs off with another man who promises her more freedom, only to find out that this man's definition of freedom is not her own. It is only as a wealthy but still young and beautiful widow that Janie meets Tea Cake, a young gambler who gives her a taste of the life she really wants. Their love story is simple and complicated at the same time. With great love comes great tragedy, and Hurston hits the notes perfectly.

Years ahead of its time in themes of feminism, self-discovery, and self-determination for women, Janie is a force, an unforgettable heroine in the midst of lesser models.

4.5/5 Stars. 

The Last Days of Night - Graham Moore

I really loved this book! I'm recommending it to everyone because it's so well done. 

The Last Days of Night chronicles the "current war" of the 1880s between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. No, A/C D/C is not just a band, they are the two types of current in which electricity flows. Thomas Edison was a proponent of direct current. George Westinghouse was accused of infringing on Edison's light bulb patent and so Edison sued him for $1B dollars. That's a lot of cheddar. 

In order to get around the bulb issue, Westinghouse adopted Nikola Tesla's alternating current (it didn't work for his lawsuit defense). The two men at times shamelessly worked against each other to promote their own system of electrifying the country, including a smear campaign aimed at alternating current which led to the invention of the electric chair. The first execution was terribly botched and actually proved alternating current was too safe to be used for murdering people. 

This book has it all, an upstart attorney, Paul Cravath (who would go on to develop the system of associate to partner track attorneys that now exists at law firms all over the world) a singing soprano with a past, a wiley inventor who answers to no one, and two industry barons trying to outdo each other. Yes Graham Moore took some liberties with the timeline and dialogue, but overall it's such great history that it's hard to believe it all isn't fiction.

Addition: And OMG this is going to be a movie with Benedict Cumberbatch. Click Here. 

4.5/5 Stars. 

Mothering Sunday - Graham Swift

I first heard of this book from an NPR story (you can read NPR's review here) while I was driving during my morning commute. I think the part of the review that caught my ear was "one of those deceptively spare tales . . . that punch well above their weight." I am a huge fan of short fiction and I appreciate those stories that can do more in 25 pages than some novels do in 500. Short fiction, I've come to understand, is not "easier" to write because the page requirement is less; it's actually far more difficult. A writer must do more in less time, evoke feelings and emotions in the reader that often take hundreds of pages, but do it in 20, 15, or 10. A writer that can do that should be commended. And Graham Swift is a writer that can do that. 

Mothering Sunday takes place on March 30th, 1924. A holiday in which service staff across the English countryside are given the day off to spend with their mothers. Jane Fairchild, maid to the Niven family, however, does not have a mother. Abandoned as a child, she has no family to visit on Mothering Sunday. At first she intends to spend the day with a book from the Niven library - a character trait that is teased out and expanded upon over the course of the book. 

Her plans are changed however, when she gets a call from Paul Sheringham, the only surviving son of a neighboring gentry family with whom Jane has been having an affair for some years. Paul is engaged to be married to Emma Hobday within a couple of weeks, and Jane knows this is likely to be their last tryst. 

Over the course of Mothering Sunday's sparse pages, Jane's character is lovingly teased out as we see the world through her eyes. We know only what she knows. We feel only what she feels. It's a remarkably limited, but also necessary point of view. As Jane wanders Paul's home after he has left her in his bed, we see the changing society reflected back through Jane's thoughts. The war is over - a generation of young men have been buried in France or Belgium, never to return home. And the life of those in service and those they serve, is changing (have you seen Downton Abbey?). 

The story slowly reveals Jane's future as an accomplished novelist in her own right - a path she was set upon maybe even before the events of that Mothering Sunday, but certainly a path that was clearer once the dust had cleared from the day.

At times evocative and luxurious, reading Mothering Sunday felt like a sprint and a marathon all at once.

4.5/5 Stars. 

The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

This book was soooooo fun!! Don Tillman is a genetics professor in Melbourne, Australia. And well, he's a bit odd. He's probably on the autism spectrum, likely Aspergers, but he doesn't know it. So he has a very calculated way of speaking and evaluating people. 

He has two friends in the whole world, Gene and Claudia, a husband and wife who have an "open" marriage as Gene attempts to sleep with women from all nationalities. And somewhere in the beginning of the story, Don decides to solve his problem of being alone with "the wife project." Don creates a questionnaire to find himself the perfect wife. And in true Don fashion, as his life is ruled by a strict adherence to reason and rationality (to say nothing of the best use of time) he cannot deviate from the results his questionnaire is giving him.

Sitting in his office one day, he is approached by a woman, Rosie, who has come to see him at Gene's insistence. Thinking she is a candidate for the wife project, Don asks her out on a date. But it's quickly apparent that Rosie has completely and utterly failed the questionnaire and is therefore, not a candidate for the wife project. Despite his adherence to rules, Don begins to seek out reasons to be with Rosie.

I really enjoyed rooting for Don in this book. Although he was completely clueless and obtuse at times, I really wanted a good life for him. He was a good guy. Feel good and funny... this book was a real treat.

4.5/5 Stars.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Screenplay) - J.K. Rowling

This is the first screenplay I have ever read and there was a definite learning curve over the first few scenes in the book. But once I caught the rhythm, this was a fast and fun read. I love the world of Harry Potter, I've read all those books through several time (not this year, I had too ambitious a reading goal for the year) and I recently read the libretto for London play Cursed Child (this is the Harry Potter "sequel" - oh what am I telling you for, you are reading a review of Fantastic Beasts, you're probably aware of what Cursed Child is, you can read that review here). 

In any case, Fantastic Beasts is a much more grown up Harry Potter world, with larger consequences, and no teen angst. However, Rowling's humor and wit are ever present even in the scant dialogue or details surrounding some events. I am not sure when I'll have time to actually go see this movie, so getting to read the screenplay was wonderful. And the amazing thing about reading a screenplay is that it's only part of the picture. So many people work with the words on the paper to bring the vision to life, and so reading a screenplay is only part of the overall picture. I don't feel like it's "ruined" the movie for me at all. 

In this story, Newt Scamander arrives in New York to repatriate a rare creature. He has a serious soft spot for magical creatures and is working to advance awareness of their needs and protection. Upon arrival he runs into Jacob, a no-maj (muggle is a way better word - 0 points to America for coming up with a cool term) baker who is looking for a loan at a bank. Tina, a former Auror who can't quite let go of the duties, and Queenie, Tina's gorgeous sister. Oh also, New Scamander is a Hufflepuff (Pottermore says I am too) so of course I'm wishing him loads of success. 

Newt ends up losing a few of his creatures and in his quest to recover them, Tina, Jacob and Queenie get pulled in for the ride. In the background of all this action, Grindewald is looking to cause an international showdown between the magical and non-magical (you may recall this was the cause of his ultimate falling out with Dumbledore who wasn't really down with that kind of elitism), and a Second Salem movement bent on discovery and eradication of witches has some pretty horrible repression going on with some sad and scared children. 

If anything, I was a little disappointed in the climactic scene/showdown portion of the story, but I'll withhold judgment on that until I see it on screen, as I'm sure some nuance is missing from the screenplay that might make this a little more palatable. 

See the movie or read the screenplay if you are a HP fan. It holds up.

4.5/5 Stars

West with the Night - Beryl Markham

I'm shocked I'm about to write this, but I actually liked this book a bit better than Paula McClain's fictionalized account of Beryl in Circling the Sun (you can read that review here). I should add, however, that these two books are extremely different. 

I would hesitate to call West with the Night an autobiography. It is definitely a memoir and Beryl's life comes in flashes of feeling more than cold recitation of facts. I'm immensely impressed with her ability to weave a tale and create suspense, especially considering I'm more than casually familiar with her life story (even more so because she was an amateur writer). 

Perhaps reading Circling the Sun allowed me to enjoy this book more than I otherwise would, but Beryl's storytelling ability made me feel like I understood her better after reading almost 300 pages of her memories than reading almost 400 pages of a fictionalized account from her perspective. 

Perhaps the most telling parts of Beryl's book are not what she includes, but what she leaves out. The experiences she relates are singularly her own - details of her own achievements and lessons learned. There is no mention of her three husbands, of her child, or the struggles with money which took up a large portion of the other book. Here, Beryl is in full command of herself and her life - and in this way, we get a very honest picture of how she sees herself and perhaps of the person she really is. 

In the final chapter, Beryl says, "You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself." I find it extremely remarkable that Beryl wrote this book in 1942 when she was still young and had 40+ more years ahead of her. Because honestly, West with the Night provides such a complete picture of Beryl, without the aid of many concrete facts that make up her official biography. And for that, this book was a rare treasure. I completely agree with Hemingway that this is a "bloody wonderful book."

4.5/5 Stars.

City of Mirrors - Justin Cronin

Peter Jaxon, Alicia Donadio, Michael Fisher, Sara Wilson, Hollis Wilson, Amy NLN - What can you say about characters who, through two thousand pages of text, are more like friends than fictional characters. Finishing City of Mirrors left me with the same kind of melancholy feeling you get when you look at old pictures from your senior year of high school, or those last parties from college, or that goodbye dinner you had at your last job. It's a bittersweet nostalgia - a longing for a feeling or a time to continue.

City of Mirrors (COM) is the final part of a trilogy that began with The Passage and continued in The Twelve. A bit of time has passed since I finished the Twelve, and if I'd had time, I probably would have liked to have gone back and re-read both books before diving into COM. The start of the book does a pretty good job recapping what has occurred in the prior volumes (through more excerpts from "The Book of Twelve", but you miss a bit of the flavor and detail that seems a little overwhelming when the narrative actually begins. 

When COM begins, Alicia is still outside the Homeland area having undergone some horrible brutalization there. She makes her plans to find Zero and kill him, thus ending the viral line. Peter, Sara, Hollis, Caleb, and Kate have started new lives in Kerrville, Texas. Amy is presumed dead, destroyed in the final battle of The Twelve. Here the narrative jumps around a bit in time. The characters age, and the entire population of Kerrville, some 200,000 strong, starts to disperse into outlying townships, beyond the protective walls of the city, as people begin to assume the viral threat is over. 

However, Fanning, the Zero, has other plans. He intends to finish what he started, the annihilation of the human race. Cronin spends a few chapters getting into Fanning's backstory. His love of Lear's wife Liz, her premature death, his own breakdown afterwards, and the depths of despair that led him to go about his vicious genocide. To be honest, I thought this ran on a bit long, and mostly because it turns out that even though this stuff makes you understand Fanning, it doesn't make him sympathetic. I kind of found him to be a pathetic whiner.

But then, the story gets down to business. And the threat to Kerrville, and a vastly aged Peter and co. - they are now in their 50s - must deal with the threat of a new viral horde. The tension Cronin builds in these chapters is incredible. He's really the master at taking things in directions you never see coming. The chapters also give you a good idea of just how worthy an adversary Fanning is for our friends; how he overpowers and out-thinks even Amy. (Spoiler - sorry, you didn't really think Amy was going to die in the second book did you?)

It was strange to see my friends all grown old. I think Peter, Hollis, Sara and Michael are all permanently in their 20s in my mind - as I am in my own. Peter makes an observation at one point that looking in the mirror is strange because your reflection sometimes does not match your own perception of yourself. This resonated with me, as for sometime now the adult transformation or epiphany I thought would arrive has left me as I always have been, me, still me, in a slightly older body. 

The ending of the book went on a bit long. Cronin does a wonderful job wrapping up every story line (except maybe Michael's) to let you know what becomes of all our friends, where the Book of Twelves comes from, and how the Global Conference on the North American Quarantine Period comes about. The fascinating thing about the epilogue, occurring 1000 years after the events in the first book, is how it makes you think of time. The reader has just left our friends and 900 years later, we are with a new character who is puzzling over the way time and distance distort and challenge historians. They have airplanes again? And industry? But yes of course, it's 900 years later. Look at how far our own world has come in 900 years. 

That being said, I also wouldn't have minded a little bit of mystery at the end, with Cronin allowing me to make up my own mind about the passage of time for our characters. Open-ended stories that left them wandering in my mind for some time to come. All in all COM was a great book, although I thought the Passage and the Twelve were a bit better. I'm so satisfied with the ending. But . . . I miss my friends.

4.5/5 Stars.