Emily May's Updates en-US Fri, 04 Jul 2025 14:08:35 -0700 60 Emily May's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7580962444 Fri, 04 Jul 2025 14:08:35 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'Woman at Point Zero']]> /review/show/7580962444 Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi Emily May gave 5 stars to Woman at Point Zero (Paperback) by Nawal El Saadawi
bookshelves: 2025
A tiny, sharp-edged knife of a book.

Based on a real encounter Nawal El Saadawi had while working as a psychiatrist in an Egyptian women's prison, this novel is a disturbing portrait of a woman pushed to the edge by a lifetime of exploitation, betrayal, and injustice.

At the center of the narrative is Firdaus, a woman awaiting execution for the murder of a man. As she tells her life story to the unnamed narrator (a stand-in for El Saadawi herself), we are drawn into the world she grew up in, one where gender and class intersect in ways that trap women in cycles of subjugation. Firdaus recounts the abuse she endured from childhood through adulthood-- by her family, employers, husbands, and lovers-- with a chilling detachment. This emotional restraint, rather than dulling the impact, only intensifies it: she has endured so much pain that she is now numb to it.

The character of Firdaus left me feeling devastated, but it is not just her suffering that hurt... it is also her resistance. She tries again and again to claim control over her life-- through education, through work, and eventually through sex work, which she paradoxically finds more empowering than conventional employment:

All women are prostitutes of one kind or another. Because I was intelligent I preferred to be a free prostitute, rather than an enslaved wife.


In a world rigged against women at every turn, her assertion of autonomy is met time and again with punishment.

I found El Saadawi's prose to be really effective. She writes without sentimentality, just with a raw, brutal honesty. Firdaus' story is astoundingly bleak, yet her refusal to bow down even as she approaches her death sentence makes her an empowering figure and not just a victim. She is a character who will stay with me. ]]> Review7433371933 Thu, 03 Jul 2025 03:07:35 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'The Plague']]> /review/show/7433371933 The Plague by Albert Camus Emily May gave 4 stars to The Plague (Paperback) by Albert Camus
bookshelves: classics, 2025
“But what does it mean, the plague? It's life, that's all.”


This is a very interesting read a few years after the outbreak of COVID. The parallels between my own experience of living through a pandemic and lockdowns and that of the inhabitants of Oran in Camus' fictional story are striking.

In The Plague, an outbreak of the bubonic plague-- the monstrous Black Death, Yersinia pestis, that killed about half of Europe's population in the 14th century --forces the Algerian city of Oran into lockdown. As in our own times, the crisis exposes the best and worst of humans, both their noble and selfish impulses.

When you read this book, it becomes clear that there was nothing particularly special about the COVID pandemic. Even in the 1940s, Camus could predict how people would react. Of course, there was the devastation of loss, but it is more interesting how many of the town’s inhabitants see not the loss of life, but their own loss of freedom. Camus understood that those unaffected, or not yet affected, by the plague would be angry, especially at the doctors enforcing quarantines.

One such doctor is the protagonist, Dr. Bernard Rieux. We follow him as he trudges on, tending to the sick, observing as those around him struggle, despair, and experience loss of faith.

There is also this collective denial that persists well into the outbreak; the characters are deeply reluctant to disrupt normalcy, to even accept that it has been disrupted. And others, such as Cottard, quickly seek to profit from this new reality. He is the classic disaster capitalist-- the person who spins tragedy to his advantage and flourishes when society breaks down.

I had read before that this book is considered absurdist and existentialist, both of which put me off reading it for a long time. I am not a fan of abstract books where everything supposedly has a hidden meaning (but you'll have to strain to see it yourself because the author is faarrrr too mysterious to tell you how super clever they are, but trust them, they are super clever), but, thankfully, that's not this book. The narrative is compelling and the themes are clearly expressed and powerful.

It is existentialist in the sense that the plague is random, destructive, and senseless, and it confronts the characters with the irrationality of life. Rieux is a symbol of resilience, of soldiering on and doing one's duty in the face of meaningless suffering. The priest, Father Paneloux, has an especially interesting journey-- from someone who is adamant the plague is a punishment from god to someone who accepts it is not redemptive, not part of a divine plan.

The tone of the story is a mix of hopefulness and resignation. Camus seems to have faith in humans, some humans, like Rieux who continues to fight-- not for reward or even because he thinks he'll succeed, but because it's the right thing to do. But he also believes in a chaotic and irrational universe. Tragedy can strike whenever, wherever, and to those least deserving of it. We are ultimately reminded that the plague can resurface at any time. ]]> Review6694352351 Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:36:22 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'The Call']]> /review/show/6694352351 The Call by Edith Ayrton Zangwill Emily May gave 3 stars to The Call (Paperback) by Edith Ayrton Zangwill
bookshelves: classics, persephone, 2025
Many times I have complained about books with a slow middle bookended by a faster-paced beginning and end, but The Call was the complete opposite of that. A slow beginning eventually gave way to a compelling and dynamic middle that once again grew slow and lukewarm towards the end.

It didn't help that I had no interest in the love story and couldn't see the appeal of Tony. Every time the narrative focused on his relationship with Ursula, I started to lose interest. I actually don't think a love story added anything to this book at all and I just wanted to get back to the story of the suffragettes.

But the central story is a fascinating and horrible one. It follows Ursula through her awakening to the realities of law and politics in Britain, showing how a young woman in the early 20th century could go from disapproving of the suffragist movement to being an ardent supporter who sees women's suffrage as essential.

I have always found it very interesting that some women were anti-suffrage, and I think Zangwill does a good job of portraying why this was the case. Ursula is a brilliant and intelligent young woman, but she finds the suffragettes a bit silly and dramatic until she happens to witness a court case that results in, she feels, a grave miscarriage of justice. Like Ursula, many women were not privy to the legal injustices going on in their country, precisely because they had been kept out of law and government.

It also details the awful reality for imprisoned suffragettes who engaged in hunger strikes to protest that they were not treated as political prisoners. Many were force-fed, a controversial act that has been compared to torture.

Towards the end, however, the suffragette story was pretty much over, and the focus turned to the war and Ursula's relationship with Tony. I found all of this far less interesting, and the ending itself seemed a bit forced. ]]> Review7676972755 Mon, 30 Jun 2025 07:45:12 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'So Long a Letter']]> /review/show/7676972755 So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ Emily May gave 4 stars to So Long a Letter (Paperback) by Mariama Bâ
bookshelves: classics, 2025
A short, quick but powerful read in the form of a letter from the recently widowed Ramatoulaye to her friend.

The way Ramatoulaye writes is not sentimental, but I found her tale to be very upsetting. She tells of how her late husband took a second wife, without consulting her or any consideration for her feelings on the matter. It is especially painful because Ramatoulaye is a highly-educated, independent working woman with modernist values, and is both hurt and humiliated by the betrayal.

Mariama Bâ writes about the emerging conflict between progress for women and continuing patriarchal traditions in West Africa. Women like Ramatoulaye were changing Senegalese society in many ways, yet their husbands still had (and still have) freedom to practise polygamy-- and had no qualms about doing so. The indignity of this for these brilliant, educated women is hard to stomach. It is not merely a harmless cultural tradition, but something deeply hurtful and destabilizing, often used to assert male dominance or to discard aging or educated wives for younger, more "manageable" ones.

There is an especially poignant moment when Ramatoulaye reflects on the companionship she once shared with her husband, something now completely destroyed by the discovery that he did not value her in the same way she valued him.

A surprisingly quiet book that perhaps pierces deeper precisely because it doesn't shout and make a fuss. ]]> Review7144866003 Sat, 28 Jun 2025 08:30:18 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'Don't Let Him In']]> /review/show/7144866003 Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell Emily May gave 3 stars to Don't Let Him In (Hardcover) by Lisa Jewell
bookshelves: mystery-thriller, 2025
2 1/2 stars. While I did end up enjoying the last quarter or so of Don't Let Him In, it is one of my least favourite Lisa Jewell books so far. I have clicked back and forth between two and three stars several times now, and I'm still not sure whether I should be rounding up or down.

This is one of those books that is weakened by its own convolutions. There are so many different characters-- and two main timelines plus lots of further mentions of other pasts-- that it is genuinely quite difficult to follow, especially in the beginning. Once I'd sort of made sense of who was who and when was when, it got better, but there were still too many characters and too much jumping around for any of them to make much of an impact.

Also, the blurb hands you pretty much the entire plot of the book. Nina and Martha are both in relationships with a guy who seems too good to be true. A significant portion of the book is from the guy's perspective so we're not left wondering for more than a couple of chapters. There's no real mystery in this story; it's more about waiting for the characters to catch up and find out what the reader already knows.

And about those characters-- it is really hard to have any standouts when you are moving between this many people. They come across as cliche and underdeveloped. Ash, for example-- her whole personality seems to be "vegan". It doesn't help that so many of them are naive to the point of being unbelievable. Several characters in this book question how they could have been so stupid, and I have to agree with them: [spoilers removed]

That being said, there was some fun to be had. Plenty of wide-eyed, open-mouthed reading at the audacity, plenty of wanting the culprit to be caught. Jewell often shortens her already quite short chapters towards the end of the book, racing back and forth between perspectives until they eventually meet at the climax. It's effective; I was hooked towards the end.

So, quite compelling but lacking in strong characters. I would have liked to have seen more character development of them all. Even the character we spent most time with would have benefited from further exploration, I felt. I didn't feel I had a good understanding of him and his motivations, even at the end of the book. ]]> Review7580965124 Mon, 23 Jun 2025 05:23:33 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'Woman on the Edge of Time']]> /review/show/7580965124 Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy Emily May gave 2 stars to Woman on the Edge of Time (Paperback) by Marge Piercy
bookshelves: sci-fi, 2025
I know Woman on the Edge of Time is a popular book on various university courses, and I can see why. As a subject of study, it has a lot going for it-- political theory, feminist thought, speculative futures. But as a reader looking for a compelling story, I found it not my type of book. It contains more concept than character, more ideology than nuance.

It was a difficult book to enjoy. One of those weird reading experiences where a lot is happening, but it still feels dull-- largely because the heavy symbolism and abstract ideas meant it never quite felt real. The suspension of disbelief never came to me.

I was actually really interested in Connie at the start. The opening is dramatic: she’s imprisoned in a mental institution after defending her niece from an abusive pimp. But Piercy’s framing of Connie almost entirely as a vessel for political ideas-- her character, her pain, her mental health all become symbolic-- made her feel less like a person and more like a literary device.

While institutionalized, Connie is either visited by a time traveller from the future or experiencing some pretty intense hallucinations. The former is a wacky premise-- why would a messenger from the future appear to a drugged, vulnerable woman in a psychiatric hospital? --and the latter is significantly less interesting.

This time traveller, Luciente, sort of beams Connie to the year 2137 and the utopian world of Mattapoisett through a kind of telepathic time travel. Connie is, for some reason, a "receiver" and can form psychic connections, though the whys and hows are not especially well-explained, fitting with the general ambiguity of the novel.

In Mattapoisett-- where communal childrearing, fluid gender identities and ecological harmony are the norm-- everyone is kind, everything is shared, and conflict is minimal. Connie also glimpses a possible alternate future-- a nightmare world of surveillance, exploitation, and control.

I understand and appreciate the themes: warnings against human commodification, the misuse of technology, and oppressive systems. The ideas are sound. But the execution is clunky. Richly drawn characters and immersive world-building are notably absent. The dialogue often feels wooden and overly scripted, and large chunks of exposition slow the narrative down. The middle drags, as Connie shuttles repeatedly back and forth between the institution and the future.

Readers looking for a book that combines fascinating concepts with vivid characters and complex world-building should try Ursula K. Le Guin instead. ]]> Review2707799032 Wed, 18 Jun 2025 01:44:24 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'No Name']]> /review/show/2707799032 No Name by Wilkie Collins Emily May gave 4 stars to No Name (Paperback) by Wilkie Collins
bookshelves: classics, 2025
This is one of those books where, if you haven't already, I wouldn't suggest reading the blurb. The description spoils the plot of the first 200 pages or so, and I think the dramatic events hit much harder if you don't know what’s coming.

Of course, that makes it very difficult to explain what the book is about. You can probably guess from the title that it deals with issues of illegitimacy, such as they were in Britain in the mid-1800s, but it’s also a story of vengeance, told from the perspective of a spirited young heroine. Then add in some awful villains, disguises, and trickery... works for me!

Like The Count of Monte Cristo, one of my all-time favourites, this is the story of a young person who has been wronged. Deeply, awfully, infuriatingly wronged. And their determination to seek revenge and set things right. It’s hard not to feel angry on her behalf, hard not to want Magdalen Vanstone to succeed in her quest.

200 pages shorter and this might have been a five star book. Collins gets a bit wordy sometimes, especially with physical description-- a quirk I remember from The Woman in White. The beginning is excellent, and the later chapters are strong too, but some parts in the middle dragged, particularly the back-and-forth between Wragge and Lecount as they juggled that fool Noel Vanstone.

But still a great read with some compelling twists and turns. Though I think the book's greatest strength is that I liked Magdalen so much. ]]> Review7635734665 Wed, 11 Jun 2025 04:37:01 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'The Satisfaction Café']]> /review/show/7635734665 The Satisfaction Café by Kathy Wang Emily May gave 4 stars to The Satisfaction Café (Hardcover) by Kathy Wang
bookshelves: 2025, modern-lit, arc
Your life was the most terrible thing to give away. Day after day, when you passed it not as you wanted, when you spent it as a compromise.


I'm a big fan of Kathy Wang's books, though they seem to hover around a 3.2 average rating on 카지노싸이트, which is uncommonly low. But, looking over the reviews, I see a lot of misplaced expectations. People disappointed that Family Trust was not Crazy Rich Asians; others disappointed that Impostor Syndrome was not a thriller.

I don’t say this to dismiss those readers who genuinely just don’t enjoy Wang’s writing, but I do think it is very helpful to know what kind of story you’re getting. And what Kathy Wang writes are intimate and slow-moving character studies, sometimes about unlikable people. I find her books to be less about what happens, and more about how the characters process and respond to events psychically and emotionally. It's not Kevin Kwan or Harlan Coben. It's more Celeste Ng, Ann Patchett or Angie Kim.

This kind of storytelling works for me. I enjoy it. I can see why it would be boring as hell for a reader in the mood for a thriller or soap opera.

The Satisfaction Café is another slow-moving character-driven story-- primarily about a woman's life, but also about the cast of characters she meets over the course of her lifetime. While we're setting expectations, I think it's worth noting that the titular cafe does not make an appearance until later in the story. Before that, we see Joan coming to the United States from Taiwan, having a quick and disastrous first marriage, then eventually marrying Bill, an older and very wealthy American.

I found Joan very easy to sympathise with, and I eagerly followed all the ups and downs of her life story. She faces hardships, and sometimes she gets very lucky, while through it all Wang weaves in the stories of all those around her with emotional intelligence and empathy.

The actual cafe, when it does emerge, is a kind of talking therapy cafe dedicated to offering a compassionate and listening ear to all those who enter, a similar idea to the but with its own base (i.e. not hosted by other businesses.) Joan's observations throughout her life have been that most people are just looking for someone to talk to, to make them feel listened to, and so the cafe becomes her passion project.

Not a propulsive pageturner, but I found The Satisfaction Café to be a quietly compelling novel that rewards patience. If you appreciate nuanced character studies that explore the complexities of human connection and the subtle ways people cope with life’s challenges, this book will likely resonate deeply. ]]> Review7077220716 Sat, 07 Jun 2025 05:39:20 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'Atmosphere']]> /review/show/7077220716 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid Emily May gave 3 stars to Atmosphere (Hardcover) by Taylor Jenkins Reid
bookshelves: historical, 2025, romance
One of my most anticipated reads of the year turned out to be underwhelming ☹️

I preordered this book months ago, but it wasn't until my preorder showed up that I saw the book had a subtitle: "A Love Story." Romance isn't really my genre, but I reread the blurb and figured that maybe it was meant symbolically-- like a love for the universe, or for Earth. Something like that.

That's what this sounds like to me:

As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.


It wasn't. Atmosphere is maybe 20% about a woman in the 1980s space shuttle program and 80% romance.

And you know what? If you're looking for a romance with a bit of a space backdrop, then it's quite good. Very sweet. I liked both characters. Definitely cheesy sometimes, but it's hard to find vegan romance.

The beginning is the most arresting part of the whole book, and it certainly got my attention. Disaster strikes very dramatically, then we jump back in time to learn about the years leading up to this mission.

The middle of the book is where it had lots of ups and downs in terms of keeping my interest. I would become interested, but then it would get repetitive and I would just be reading to make it through that chapter. The subplot with Frances and that POS Barb had me invested-- more so than the love story, if I'm being honest. In fact, I think my interest in how this would resolve is what took the book up to 3 stars. Burning fury always speaks to me more than sweet romance, but, hey, that's enough about my issues.

The ending I won't spoil, but I will say I found it almost annoyingly predictable how everything played out.

So... written well enough, if you enjoy Reid's writing, and with a decent cast of characters. But I wanted more about Joan as one of the first female astronauts at NASA, and less about Joan as a girlfriend. I know we were warned-- it clearly says "A Love Story" on the front page of the book --but reading the blurb once again, I don't really think we were warned enough. ]]> Review6945850984 Wed, 04 Jun 2025 01:49:35 -0700 <![CDATA[Emily May added 'Vera']]> /review/show/6945850984 Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim Emily May gave 4 stars to Vera (Paperback) by Elizabeth von Arnim
bookshelves: classics, 2025
Strange how tightly one's body could be held, how close to somebody else's heart, and yet one wasn't anywhere near the holder. They locked you up in prisons that way, holding your body tight and thinking they had got you, and all the while your mind– you –was as free as the wind and the sunlight.

This book made my skin crawl. That's the best way I can think to describe it. From the unsettling build-up-- the very first chapters where you just know something is not right --to the horrifying events later in this story, I was on edge the whole time.

The premise goes like this: Lucy and Everard meet in the wake of two tragedies-- the death of Lucy's father and Everard's wife --and bond through their shared heartache. The pair quickly fall in love and get married, but when Lucy arrives at The Willows, Everard's country mansion, the ghost of his previous wife, Vera, looms in every corner. As Lucy is confronted by the reality of her new life, she starts to question exactly how Vera met her end.

If that sounds weirdly similar to Rebecca, I don't think it's a coincidence. I'm fairly certain du Maurier must have taken some inspiration from von Arnim. Though the result is two books different enough to both be worth reading.

As with Manderley, The Willows is an isolated and oppressive setting, almost a sentient character in its own right. Vera is steeped in Gothic tradition-- the gloomy house, the eerie presence of Vera herself through her life-sized portrait, the weak female protagonist, mental fragility and psychological doubt, and, of course, just a pervading sense of dread.

I found Vera to be a darker, more chilling and ultimately bleaker read than Rebecca, though I am being deliberately vague to avoid spoilers. Du Maurier's work is more subtle, more balanced and nuanced, perhaps, where von Arnim's is more straightforward with no question as to who the villains are; Du Maurier seems to be sympathetic to all her characters, von Arnim arguably to none. While I typically prefer Du Maurier's style of storytelling, I can't deny that von Arnim writes a powerful and claustrophobic tale here. And one, I should add, very different to The Enchanted April.

My least favourite part of the book was how the ending seemed to come so abruptly. I was getting anxious at the dwindling number of pages, thinking surely there's no way all the questions could be answered and everything resolved in that short a space... and I was right. I feel von Arnim could have found a better place to wrap things up.

But I'm still very glad I read it. Rebecca is often tagged as romance, but no one could make that mistake with Vera. It is a brutal, feminist study of [spoilers removed]. ]]>