Review - "The Art of Escaping"

The Art of Escaping
by Erin Callahan
rating: ☆☆
published: 19th June 2018
spoilers? yeah, some

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

Perhaps the reason that this book disappointed me so much was that I was expecting it to be wlw. But it wasn't. And instead, I got a cishet character who kept implying that keeping a secret about escapology was in any way comparable to being in the closet. But I should back up a little.

The Art of Escaping tells the story of Mattie, who is obsessed with old escapologists such as Harry Houdini and Dorothy Dietrich. Living in the same town as Mattie is Miyu, the daugther of an escapologist herself, and Mattie decides that she's going to get Miyu to teach her escapology. She also decides that this is a deep dark secret which no one must find out about. (Yeah, this bit lost me too. Because what exactly are going to be the repercussions of doing escapology? Are you going to be ostracised from your family and friends? Is anyone really going to give a monkey's? Probably not.) One night, she's performing, and sees Will, a schoolmate, in the audience. And this is the bit that annoyed me. They swap secrets in some kind of "mutually assured destruction" deal. Mattie's secret is that she does escapology. Will's secret is that he's gay. And to be blunt: these are not nearly comparable. In no way does keeping a secret about escapology measure up to keeping a secret about your sexuality. Like I said earlier, is someone finding out you do escapology possibly going to result in ostracisation, some form of abuse, or whatever else you might think of? No. It's not. So reading a book that for 81% (I counted) implied that they were comparable was a bit of a slap in the face. And I know that, yeah, she has an epiphany late on that perhaps Will's secret is a little bigger than hers, but I really didn't have the patience for it given I'd had to read almost all the book with her blandly asserting that this wasn't the case, that they were comparable.

Besides all that, there were other aspects which annoyed me. (One note: I can't work out if I was annoyed by these things because the whole "comparing escapology to being in the closet" riled me up That Much, or if these were genuinely annoying things, so. There's that.) Firstly, Mattie gives off distinct "not like other girls" vibes, despite not actually saying those words aloud, and she's fairly sanctimonious about those "other girls". Secondly, everyone in this book goddamn whines. I swear to god, every other speaking verb was whined and it made me so frustrated. If I could be bothered, I would count the number of times each character was described as having whined, but Mattie was by far the worst of them. Just please, find some synonyms or something. Or just use said. No one notices if you overuse said.

The final points are mostly surrounding Will (my favourite character, it was an absolute travesty that he only got one chapter for every four or five Mattie got). Mainly, I am so tired of having high school age gay characters in a relationship with college age characters. I know Will was 18, but he was only just 18, and an 18 year old with a 21 year old? Makes me fairly uncomfortable. I'm 21 and I wouldn't even consider 18 year olds, that's just creepy. There's also a comment that Will makes at one point about someone being "an easily identifiable member of team-QUILTBAG". Firstly, what is people's problem with avoiding LGBT as a descriptor? Why am I having to read ""QUILTBAG"" in an actual published book? Secondly, way to stereotype I guess. An "easily identifiable member". What makes them "easily identifiable"? Because unless they're wearing a gay pride flag or holding hands or something, seems to me that means there's stereotyping going on.

Finally, there's a comment that Mattie makes within the first couple of chapters, when the guidance counsellor is asking her about joining school societies.

"Gay Straight Alliance?" "I'm apolitical."

Nice to know that LGBT people's existence is still considered political in 2018, I guess.

At least Will wasn't outed for the angst though, right?

Review - "Barbed Wire Heart"

Barbed Wire Heart
by Tess Sharpe
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 6th March 2018
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

Barbed Wire Heart is the story of Harper McKenna, the daughter of the most powerful criminal in North County. Her father's biggest rival, Carl Springfield, is starting to make moves against them, specifically with an eye on Harper herself, and if she wants to avoid a bloody and violent turf war, she must stop him at any cost.

I don't know many authors better than Tess Sharpe at writing compelling mystery thrillers. There's something about the way she writes that just keeps you on the edge of your seat, completely hooked from start to finish. She did it with Far From You and she's done it again in Barbed Wire Heart. Not only that, she manages to make you feel hugely for the characters when they're in the midst of doing some brutal things. (I say characters, I mean the women. The men - minus Will - can pretty much all choke I don't care.)

And it is a very brutal book - within the first few chapters someone is tortured and then shot, but it's never graphic violence, or violence for the sake of violence. There are points to these scenes and a lot of it actually happens away from Harper's point of view. And it doesn't romanticise these gangs, like some books veer into on occasion. It sets it up so you're in full support of Harper's mission to dismantle the whole thing.

The best thing about this book is the women. How many thrillers do you read that have a woman as the main character, let alone a capable woman who'll do anything to protect the other women in her care? Normally, the only woman involved is the love interest/person to be saved from the bad guys, and they only end up tagging along and being generally useless, so to have Harper as the main character was hugely refreshing. I think I'm going to be spoiled for thrillers from now on.

(A full list of trigger warnings for the book can be found here.)