ARC Book Review: Of Women: In the 21st Century by Shami Chakrabarti

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Allen Lane

Published: October 2017

Pages: 229

Summary

A powerful, urgent and timely polemic on why women still need equality, and how we get there.

Gender injustice is the greatest human rights abuse on the planet. It blights First and developing worlds; rich and poor women. Gender injustice impacts health, wealth, education, representation, opportunity and security everywhere. It is no exaggeration to describe the position of women as an apartheid, but it is not limited to one country or historical period. For this ancient and continuing wrong is millennial in duration and global in reach. Only radical solutions can even scratch its surface. However, the prize is a great one: the collateral benefits to peace, prosperity, sustainability and general human happiness are potentially enormous. All this because we are all interconnected and all men are of women too.

BLOG TOUR Review + Giveaway: Steadfast by Michelle Hauck

I received an e-arc of this book via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review as part of the blog tour organised by RockStar Book Tours. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Harper Voyager Impulse

Published: December 3, 2017

Format: eBook

Series: Birth of Saints #3

Pages: 560

Find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks

Summary

The final novel in Michelle Hauck's Birth of Saints trilogy, Steadfast follows Grudging and Faithful in telling the fateful story of Claire and Ramiro and their battle against a god that hungers for blood.

When the Northerners invaded, the ciudades-estado knew they faced a powerful army. But what they didn't expect was the deadly magic that was also brought to the desert: the white-robed priests with their lethal Diviners, and the evil god, Dal. Cities have burned, armies have been decimated, and entire populaces have been sacrificed in the Sun God's name, and it looks as if nothing can prevent the devastation.

But there are still those with hope.

Claire, a Woman of the Song, has already brought considerable magic of her own to fight the Children of Dal, and Ramiro, a soldier who has forsaken his vows to Colina Hermosa's cavalry to stand by her side, has killed and bled for their cause. Separated after the last battle, they move forward with the hope that the saints will hear their prayers, their families will be saved, and that they'll see each other once more.

A stirring conclusion to the Birth of Saints series, Ramiro and Claire's journey finds completion in a battle between evil and love.

ARC Book Review: The Traitor by Seth Dickinson

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Tor

Published: September 2015

Pages: 387

Summary

Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up from the sand of her home and see red sails on the horizon.

The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. They'll conquer Baru's island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She'll swallow her hate, prove her talent, and join the Masquerade. She will learn the secrets of empire. She'll be exactly what they need. And she'll claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free.

In a final test of her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. Aurdwynn kills everyone who tries to rule it. To survive, Baru will need to untangle this land's intricate web of treachery - and conceal her attraction to the dangerously fascinating Duchess Tain Hu.

But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.

Book Review: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Publisher: Einaudi

Published: 10 June 2008 (first published 2006)

Pages: 456

Challenges: Library Challenge; Around the World Challenge; Women's Challenge

Rating: 4.5/5

  

Blurb

In 1960s Nigeria, a country blighted by civil war, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university professor. Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. And Richard, a shy English writer, is in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. As the horrific Biafran War engulfs them, they are thrown together and pulled apart in ways they had never imagined.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's masterpiece, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, is a novel about Africa in a wider sense: about the end of colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class and race - and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things.

Book Review: Jennifer Government by Max Barry

Publisher: Abacus

Published: 5 February 2004

Pages: 352

Challenges: Library Challenge; Around the World Challenge

Rating: 4/5

  

Summary (from Goodreads)

In Max Barry's twisted, hilarious and terrifying vision of the near future, the world is run by giant corporations and employees take the last names of the companies they work for. It's a globalised, ultra-capitalist free market paradise. Hack Nike is a lowly merchandising officer  who's not very good at negotiating his salary. So when John Nike and John Nike, executives from the promised land of Marketing, offer him a contract, he signs without reading it. Unfortunately, Hack's new contract involves shooting teenagers to build up street cred for Nike's new line of $2,500 trainers. Hack goes to the police - but they assume that he's asking for a subcontracting deal, and lease the assassination to the more experienced NRA. Enter Jennifer Government, a tough-talking agent with a barcode tattoo under her eye and a personal problem with John Nike (the boss of the other John Nike). And a gun. Hack is about to find out what it really means to mess with market forces.

Book Review: The Golden Cage. Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny by Shirin Ebadi

Format I Read/Publisher: Paperback, Rizzoli

Pages: 253

Rating: 5/5

Goodreads page

Summary

Conceived as a monument to all the victims of Iran's Islamic Revolution, The Golden Cage follows the lives of Shirin Ebadi's childhood friend Pari and her three brothers, as each of them subscribes to one of the different ideologies tearing the country - and their family - apart.