Where They Last Saw Her by Marcie R. Rendon *****

 Where They Last Saw Her by Marcie R. Rendon

#MMIW Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. A novel about women taking charge and putting their hearts, minds, and bodies on the line to care for and about one another. Nothing can stop Quill, not her husband, not the police, nor the traffickers. #MMIWG

Quill was training for the Boston Marathon. Her two running partners were Gaylyn (lives with her younger sister, abused mother, and meth-taking father), and Punk (green mohawk, piercings, and tattoos). These three women witnessed and rescued women who are abducted and abused. They witnessed victims of domestic violence, women who were drugged, and women who were murdered. They rescued women who were raped and discarded, and women who were being trafficked. When Punk was abducted, Quill freed her and brought her captor to justice. Not for the faint-hearted.

The three women joined others in protest, wearing red ribbon skirts.

Quill did all of this against the wishes of her husband, who only wanted Quill and the children to be safe. Even when he moved out and took the children to his sister, Quill stayed the course. Rescuing Punk came first.

 

Quill learned of the first woman when she was out running, and Quill heard her scream. Quill found her earring and used it to identify the missing woman. But could she locate Mabel Beaulieu and free her from her captors?

Two women were drugged in the casino and taken. One set of abductors was stopped by a security guard when he recognized the drugged woman as his cousin. Quill felt the woman’s neck for a pulse. The woman’s skin was cold and clammy. The edges of her lips were tinted blue. But there was a faint beat. “Get Narcan!” she yelled.  The other woman was only seen in a useless video recording.

Two women were abducted, raped, and discarded at the side of the road in their underwear. One froze to death, but Quill rescued the other.

Many of the abusers worked for pipeline companies. We’ve all heard the stories of the man camps out in the Dakota and Canadian oil fields and the increase in missing women. Apparently, these camps are lawless. Men with no families. And they’re protected by the oil companies’ own security forces. … Did that guy take her out in the woods, rape her, and dump her off? Kill her? Take her back to the camp and pass her around? He doesn’t know. Said the attorney for the oil company, all but laughed and said, ‘Boys will be boys.’ Treated Patrick as if being a tribal cop wasn’t being a real cop.

“We’ve been targets since the [white people] arrived here. First war. Then boarding schools. Then foster homes. And Indian women have been targets all the way back to Pocahontas and Sacajawea. Teenage girls taken and used. Women taken and used.” “Makes me sick. We don’t exist. Or if we do exist, we’re expendable. How many U.S. presidents said, ‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian’?”

Alert pings sounded on both phones, breaking the silence in the car. Fingers scrolled like crazy, trying to keep up with the messages pouring in. Child abducted outside Walmart in Duluth—White van grabs child outside Walmart—Child missing after being pulled into van.

This story was set in Northern Minnesota, near Duluth, in the winter. Quill put Cheerios, water, an apple, and gummy fruit snacks into a bag. Living in northern Minnesota meant you never left home for a drive in the winter without extra food, blankets, and good winter boots.

Quill found one abductor and brought him to the police, but not all of them. IN this way, the novel reflects reality. #MMIW, #MMIWG, #NoMoreStolenSisters, and #MMIWG2S

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for Omega Cat Press books and book recommendations. 

Heart the Lover by Lily King ****

 Heart the Lover by Lily King

Presentism: only what exists in the present exists at all. Yash lives in the moment. Eternalism: everything that is, has been, and will be exists right now and forever. Jordon lives in the eternal. An impossible love story, two people bound together.

Yash loves whoever is in front of him with total commitment. When Sam is in crisis, Yash is there, completely and totally. When he is at work, he is fully there, so his boss loves him. Children are drawn to him and bask in his unconditional love. Jordan has never had a lover like Yash. Their time in Paris is magical. Jordan plays the long game. When Yash doesn’t follow the plan, she doesn’t forgive him. When she has a child that doesn’t fit into the plan, she puts that child up for adoption. She marries Silas, and they have two children and a house according to their plan. Yet, when Yash is on his deathbed, Jordan returns to him. The reader is asked to mourn these lovers who could never be together.

Jordan has always had goals: to be a writer, a mother, a lover. She succeeds without finding happiness. Her eldest son has a tumor in his brain, certainly not in the plan. She reconciles with Yash. Absolutely not in the plan. Yash is surrounded by people who love him: family, people from work, acquaintances, Sam from college, but no plan. It is not enough.

This book explores two ways to be in the world. Jordan swims up the river with all her strength and energy. She does not let anything slow her down. When Sam abandons her, she moves to Yash. Without Yash, she puts their child up for adoption and bravely embarks on another path. When eldest son Jack gets a brain tumor, she finds the best doctors. In the end, she has a glimpse of Yash’s way. Yash is selfless, floating with the current, loving the currents that love him in return. When he is on his deathbed, he catches a glimpse of Jordan’s way.

I found this to be a fundamentally sad book.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for Omega Cat Press books and book recommendations. 

Invisible by Carla Buckley ****

 Invisible by Carla Buckley  

16-year-old Peyton called Aunt Dana too late to save her mother, Julie. Dana stayed for the funeral and to find out why Julie died. When Dana was 16, she gave up Peyton and left Black Bear, never to return. Black Bear was a city of too many secrets.

When Dana became pregnant in high school, her older sister, Julie, discovered that she couldn’t have children of her own. Adoption was out of the question because Julie’s fiancé could never love a child that wasn’t his biological child. The two young women found the perfect solution. They went away, and Julie returned with Peyton, whom she told Frank was his daughter. In exchange, Dana left Black Bear forever, without saying goodbye or ever contacting anyone. This was the beginning of secrets, assumptions, and bad feelings. All of this unraveled when Julie needed a kidney donor, and Peyton called Dana, the aunt she’d never met.

Zinc-oxide nanoparticles. Julie soon decides that the kidney failure cases are caused by zinc-oxide nanoparticles used by the Gerkey factory to make suntan lotion. The factory is Black Bear’s economic backbone. Many people support the factory. At Dana’s request, the EPA investigates. Even though they find high levels of nanoparticles, they do not act. Dana wants justice for her sister, and protection for Peyton.

Peyton’s parents. Many people have unresolved issues with Dana. Frank’s mother is in the nursing home with Brian Gerkey’s mother. These two old women appear to know something. Perhaps they know Payton’s true parents. Peyton’s father with 16-year-old Dana is a mystery.

Dana’s implosion. Dana is a demolition engineer. She places dynamite and implodes buildings. After the dust settled on her last job, the police found a dead lady in the rubble. The police are investigating, and any legal problems could be the end of her company and her job.

LT. LT has limited intelligence, wears foil hats, and subscribes to conspiracy theories. He supports Dana. He believes that the factory is killing people.

The book weaves all these plots together until the end, where they are resolved suddenly and without emotional satisfaction. Four stars.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for Omega Cat Press books and book recommendations. 

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker *****

 All the Colors of the Dark byChris Whitaker

Patch rescues a girl from abduction & death. His reward is decades of torment, searching, & incarceration. Good people with strong feelings & attachments despite unimaginable circumstances. “No good deed goes unpunished.” Much Love, no Romance.

Saint is accepted to Dartmouth but becomes an FBI agent. Misty goes to Harvard but doesn’t graduate. Sammy runs the Monta Clare art gallery. Nix is the Monta Clare chief of police. They all love Patch, but his priority is finding Grace and every other missing girl. Eli Aaron is on the lam, and Dr. Tooms is on death row. The lives of all the characters in this novel are intertwined. One might imagine them as a single polycule. This book is possibly the best endorsement for polygamy.

Misty had a child, Charlotte, with Patch. Saint and Sammy raised her. Saint has a child, Theodore, with her husband, Jimmy. Patch murders Jimmy. Unconditional love abounds, with shooting people, bank robbery, murder, jailbreaks, and lying all easily forgiven.

Patch is a painter who searches for families whose daughters have been abducted. He paints portraits of them that seem to bring them back. Sometimes the paintings literally bring the girls back when the girls are recognized and reunited with their families. Patch applies the same skill to the descriptions of buildings and towns.

Plot: At thirteen years old, Patch (a boy with one eye) rescues Misty, but gets abducted himself. While he is imprisoned in a lightless basement, he is visited by Grace, who tells him stories that he later turns into paintings. Saint rescues him, and Grace disappears. People doubt that Grace exists and encourage him to get beyond his trauma. He is obsessed with Grace and searches for her for decades.

In the end, many secrets are revealed, but the love that ties them all together never fails.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for Omega Cat Press books and book recommendations. 

Lia and Beckett's Abracadabra by Amy Noelle Parks ****

 Lia and Beckett's Abracadabra by Amy Noelle Parks

Lia’s grandma sets up a magic contest in Mirror Lake. The winner gets the Starlight Theater. Lia partners with Beckett. All tricks must come from Grandma’s original shows. While preparing, Lia learns the secrets of Grandma’s performances. YA romance.

Since magic has declined in popularity, the Mirror Lake magicians have resorted to using their skills to con tourists, sometimes for thousands of dollars. Even when the stakes were lower, the tourists might lose their bus fare and food money. Elliott took revealing pictures of Lia’s sister Emma and released them on social media. Montgomery girls do not get along with the Blackwell boys. This traces back to when Grandma Montgomery was the assistant for Henry Blackwell’s magic act. Fifty years ago. Lia hopes to address all these issues and win the contest.

Romance: As the book opens, Lia's short romance with her latest boyfriend [we’ve spent most weekends together, and I’ve lost a bobby pin or two—although nothing of importance—in the back seat of his car] ends because he wrote a poem to her mother. She’s had a lot of boyfriends, but when she meets Beckett, she doesn’t kiss him…which is unusual. She does kiss his cousin Chase. This upsets Beckett even though he has told her he only wants to be friends. Against Lia's desires, they agree not to kiss until after the contest. Lia finds this difficult, but she sticks with it.

The author is a math teacher and uses math in her books. In a later book, The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss, she explains that she didn’t follow the math rigorously. The compromise was for the purpose of making the book accessible to all readers. She did something similar here, but without an apology. Her De Bruijn sequence trick was only sufficient for 32 cards, not a full deck as suggested. The internet has an easier version of this trick with a 48-card deck. That is easier to perform, but harder to explain.

The book mentions several famous women. Christabel Pankhurst. Matilda Joslyn Gage.

The author’s books deal with kissing and women in STEM.

“Wearing lipstick doesn’t actually interfere with my ability to have a complicated thought.”

“This being-friends-with-someone-you-want-to-kiss thing is still pretty new to me.”

“But I’m tired of this—people believing I don’t have a single brain cell in my head because I’m a cheerleader and I paint my nails and I like music people have actually heard of. I get talked over in calculus and asked if I’m in the right place when I show up at math camps and cross-examined about cheating when I ace physics labs.”

Final note: Frozen custard is pretty much the best thing about living in Wisconsin.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for Omega Cat Press books and book recommendations. 

I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang *****

 I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang

Jenna & her cousin Jessica attended a competitive private school. Rich, beautiful Jessica won all the awards, got accepted to Harvard, & was lauded by everyone. Jenna, the proverbial poor relation, wished she could be Jessica. Her wish was granted.

The differences between the cousins were stark. Jessica Chen’s family was rich. They lived in a big house, and Jessica’s mom gave her hundred-dollar bills for lunch money. Jessica had a closet of expensive clothes. Everyone expected her to pair up with future doctor, Aaron Cai, the boy who matched Jessica’s achievements, poise, and good looks. Jenna Chen said, “I look like the dollar-store version of Jessica Chen.”

One fateful day, Jessica was accepted to Harvard, Jenna was rejected, and Aaron returned from a “fancy medical youth program in Paris.” Jessica’s family hosted a big celebration. Everyone was happy except Jenna. Jenna couldn’t avoid these celebrations because Jessica was her cousin, but they depressed her and reminded her of her unlucky fate. That night, Jenna and Jessica saw a shooting star and made wishes. Jenna’s was, “I wish I were Jessica Chen.”

From that wish, the book follows the expected story arc until (not really a spoiler) Jenna sees the error of her wish and returns home.

Regardless of the cliched story arc, the book offers a fresh look at the “there’s no place like home” theme.

Aaron’s mother died when he was young, and his father was an absentee parent. Jenna’s mother stepped into the vacancy. As a result, Jenna and Aaron grew up together. Like The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks, this situation produced a strong attraction, an awkwardness from familiarity, and an almost-kiss when puberty and romance approached.

The private school, Havenwood Academy, was divided. “An invisible line runs down the classroom. On one side, you have the legacies, the broad-shouldered boys and sun-kissed girls, the wealthy sons and daughters of law firm owners and university professors and construction magnates. On the other side, you have the Asian kids.”

The book contains a lot of Chinese cuisine and phonetically spelled Chinese with immediate translations.

An easy-to-read YA romance and “there’s no place like home” fable.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for Omega Cat Press books and book recommendations. 

The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks *****

 The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks

Caleb loved Evie long before he tried to kiss her at 13. He’s been afraid to try again. Evie is super smart and fearful. Now they are seniors at an elite high school. Evie chooses Leo for her first boyfriend. Is there any hope for Caleb and Evie?

Evie reasons that you can’t be open and comfortable with the same boy (space) friend, BSF, as the boyfriend you kiss. You must be careful what you reveal to the kissing boyfriend. Caleb has been her BSF since kindergarten. He will and has done anything for her. He knows about her phobias (spiders, social anxiety) and mental health issues (panic attacks, periods of silence). He has been there for her during her crises. She trusts and depends on Caleb and doesn’t dare risk that important BSF relationship with a kiss. A high school romance with jealousy, anxiety, and confusion.

Evie was selected for the prestigious Frontier Prize for high school STEM students last year. She won the opportunity to give one of the five presentations, but she had a panic attack. This year, she is entering with Caleb as her co-author so he can be with her if she is selected to present again. Leo is entering the contest on his own. Caleb contrives to meet Evie online as Milo. Evie is torn between boyfriend Leo, BSF Caleb, and BSF #2 Milo.

Caleb has supportive parents, but is on his own to navigate this teen romance. “I am her best friend. And I love her. And I almost kissed her fourteen times. I keep a mental list of almost-kisses.”

Evie is supported by her therapist, her school friend, Bex, and her mother. Her mother studies insanity in mathematicians, uses the DSM-5 as a parenting manual, and believes medication is the best way to deal with mental health problems. Bex’s father is a conservative pastor who “takes the worst parts of the Bible literally” and made her promise not to date while in high school.

This romance is sprinkled with STEM references and jokes:

“Because you know what they call physicists who fail?” No one takes the bait. “Engineers.”

“Do you remember the fine-tuning problem?” I shake my head, thinking she must mean a warm-up we did in physics. “The constants in our universe—the amount of dark matter and dark energy, the strength of electromagnetic and nuclear forces, even the weight of protons—all have to be almost precisely what they are for conscious life to exist. If any of those things were the tiniest bit different, we wouldn’t be here. And yet, here we are, in a universe perfectly suited for us. It’s entirely improbable.”

“Sure. And I want to talk about the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.” “Like, why math is so good at describing the world?” “Exactly. Doesn’t it seem a little uncanny that mathematicians keep predicting things that experimental physicists find, sometimes decades before they do?”

Sex? This book about contemporary high school romance is anachronistically chaste. While there is a lot of talk of kissing and actually kissing, the word “tongue” never occurs and “lips” only shows up three times. Hand holding also plays a big role. “As we walk home through the campus, [Leo] takes my hand in his, wrapping his fingers around mine instead of lacing them together the way Caleb does. It’s different, but nice.”

This book is a beautiful view of high school romance. I wonder if it is er like or if it every was like this.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for Omega Cat Press books and book recommendations.