CBR16 Books 17-18: "The Kingmaker" and "The Rebel King" by Kennedy Ryan

Total page count: 711 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR16 Sweet: Binge

Kennedy Ryan's All the Kings Men Duet, as she calls it, spans more than a decade and contains a lot of passion, danger, and drama. I'm reviewing both at the same time since they don't really stand alone. The Kingmaker ends on one heck of a cliffhanger, and The Rebel King would not be a satisfying place to start the series. 

Maxim Cade is still just in college when he travels with his father to the location of one of their planned oil pipelines, which just so happens to be on the land of an indigenous tribe. They are naturally less than thrilled about the destruction of some of their sacred lands, and there's a massive protest that Maxim's father wants to stop. One of the leaders of the protest is a young, beautiful native woman whose rousing speech and fierce defiance take Maxim's breath away, to the point where he runs to save her when the police arrive with tear gas and very aggressive dogs. He even gets bitten trying to protect her and spends some time in jail with the other protesters after being arrested with them. The passionate young woman is Lennix Moon Hunter, whose mother mysteriously disappeared some years earlier, after organising a different protest. Lennix is half Apache but lives with her white father, a college professor. He might be smitten, but once he discovers that Lennix is only seventeen, he wisely tamps down any amorous thoughts, even after being bailed out of jail, he can't forget her and her cause.

Maxim was never enthusiastic about taking over his father's giant oil company in the first place, and after the protest, he refuses to listen to his father and cuts ties with him entirely. He puts himself through college on money he inherited from a relative and barely speaks with his family, even years later, when he and Lennix meet again by chance in Amsterdam. Lennix is there for a week with her best friends from college, and Maxim is about to embark on an expedition to Antarctica for his post-grad work. He knows that Lennix will never speak to him again if she discovers his father's identity, so Maxim uses his middle name to introduce himself to her (he never told her his name while they were bonding after the arrest). Lennix is no longer a teenager, and the two of them spend a few days together, giving in to all the sizzling chemistry between them before Maxim needs to leave for his months-long stay on the South Pole.

By the time they meet for a third time, Lennix is working on the campaign of a liberal politician and has discovered who Maxim really is. He and his expedition mates ended up in a horrific storm in the Antarctic, nearly dying, and had to be rescued by Maxim's father. The news of the dangerous rescue is widely broadcast worldwide, and Lennix discovers that the handsome and charming young man she thought of as Maxim Kingsman is, in fact, the son of a man she hates. Despite all of Maxim's attempts to persuade her that he is nothing like his father and wants nothing to do with his family legacy, Lennix tells him to f*ck off and never darken her door again.

A decade later, Lennix Hunter is known as the Kingmaker. She and her best friend Kimba are among the best political consultants in the United States and have ensured victories for a large number of progressive political candidates. When Owen Cade, Maxim's older brother, runs for president, there is no one else he wants organising his campaign, but if they take the job, Lennix won't be able to avoid Maxim any longer. Having completely broken ties with his father, Maxim has achieved a lot of the goals he set himself in his early 20s. He's a self-made man, having pioneered a lot of technology to limit pollution and save the environment, and he's rich enough that he never needs to rely on his father's money ever again. There is only one more thing Maxim has left to achieve, winning Lennix back and getting her to forgive him. 

These two books are intense, people. There is so much stuff happening here. The epic love story of Maxim and Lennix is told in three distinct acts, where the third one, while they're fully adult and very successful in their own fields, is obviously the longest. Did the sometimes sprawling story need to be more than seven hundred pages long, split into two books? I'm not really sure it did, although I respect Ms. Ryan's sense of the dramatic. By ending The Kingmaker where she did, she guaranteed herself another sale. I thought I owned both books in this series when I started reading. It turns out that the other book I had was Queen Move, which is about Kimba, and takes place after these two. As a result, I went online to purchase The Rebel King immediately after finishing book one (of course it turned up in an e-book sale only a couple of weeks later - isn't that always the case?)

There's so much plot here, though. Lennix' mother disappearing, the oil pipeline protest, their chance to take their relationship to a new level when they meet again in Amsterdam, Maxim's expedition in the Arctic and the dramatic conclusion to it. The fraught meeting between the two of them once Maxim's lies of omission have been exposed by the media coverage of the rescue mission is short, but significant. By the time we meet them again for the third act, the stakes are high and it feels right that Maxim has to work hard to convince Lennix that he's worthy of her. 

The path to their Happily Ever After isn't without further obstacles, involving Lennix in a very dramatic and dangerous situation and the lengths Maxim is willing to go to get her out of it. Even once they have decided to make their relationship work, their path isn't smooth. There are personal losses and grief, and both of them have to reconsider their priorities and dreams for the future. I can't go into more specifics, because I don't want to spoil all the twists and turns this story takes.

I'm adding these books to my CBR16 Sweet "Binge" category, because I originally planned to read these AND Kimba's book, which is a sort of unofficial third book in the series. I binged these two books in a very short space of time, but once I was done, and even began Queen Move, it turns out I was all Kennedy Ryan'd out for the time being. So that book will have to wait until sometime later this year.

Judging the books by their covers: I chose two covers that match each other for my image, despite the fact that only my copy of The Kingmaker has that cover. Since I got the first book in the series (free e-book, if I recall correctly), the covers have been redesigned, and instead of black and white images of people who are probably meant to be Lennix and Maxim, the books now have a completely different font, which looks hand-written and images of flowers on a black background. They seem very wistful and romantic, and don't really fit the dramatic, fairly high-spice and frequently rather angsty tone of the duology. At least they're not cartoony cutesy covers in pastel. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 47: "Jingo" by Terry Pratchett

Page count: 414 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Politics (the word is used 18 times over the course of the novel)

Official book description:

It isn't much of an island that rises up one moonless night from the depths of the Circle Sea -- just a few square miles of silt and some old ruins. Unfortunately, the historically disputed lump of land called Leshp is once again floating directly between Ankh-Morpork and the city of Al-Khali on the coast of Klatch -- which is spark enough to ignite that glorious international pastime called "war." Pressed into patriotic service, Commander Sam Vimes thinks he should be leading his loyal watchmen, female watch-dwarf, and lady werewolf into battle against local malefactors rather than against uncomfortably well-armed strangers in the Klatchian desert. But war is, after all, simply the greatest of all crimes -- and it's Sir Samuel's sworn duty to seek out criminal masterminds wherever they may be hiding...and lock them away before they can do any real damage. Even the ones on his own side.

Terry Pratchett was a genius. I don't really think that many people who know about his long career, even people who have never even read his books, would dispute that. What started out as tongue-in-cheek parodies of classical fantasy tropes in the early Discworld novels soon became something more and deeper and much more clever than anyone had expected it to be. In total (when including his middle grade books The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents and the Tiffany Aching books), there are 41 Discworld novels. There's also a number of spin-off books, like The Science of Discworld, The Folklore of Discworld, cook books, diaries, you name it. 

In the latter half of the series (this book is nr 21 of 41), a lot of the already well-written and entertaining books start to become somewhat sharper and more satirical. Pratchett used his incredibly popular authorial voice to highlight and criticise a lot of modern society, and in this book, the thing he is both angry about and wants to highlight is the absolute absurdity of most international conflicts and wars breaking out at the drop of a hat, usually because the other people (who are different from us and foreign and suspect and threatening) have in their possession that our country wants, or vice versa. 

In this book, Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is trying to solve a murder and prevent an international crisis, and subsequent war with Klatch (think any Middle Eastern country or culture you can imagine). Suddenly, all the Klatchians who have been living and working hard in the city are seen as suspect and threatening and a fervour of patriotism is rising among the nobility. War seems to be right around the corner, and it seems like it would be good to ease the tensions between the two nations before actual fighting breaks out.

The City Watch novels are the subsection of Discworld novels that on the surface read as police procedurals. Even this book, that covers geo-political conflict, has a murder mystery at its core. With each subsequent Watch book, Samuel Vimes reluctantly seems to rise in social status, and he also seems to be getting angrier, with good reason. The further up in society he rises, the more he finds to be absolutely furious about. 

I enjoyed the other two Watch novels I re-read recently, but Jingo is a step up, in general. The only reason I'm not giving it a full five stars is because I know there are later books in the series that are even better, and I have to save the top rating for them. This is absolutely not the best book in the series to start with, but once you're more familiar with Pratchett and the Discworld, it's one of the books that shouldn't be missed. 

Judging a book by its cover: The Josh Kirby covers are always quite busy, with a lot of details. I like the shades of green on this one. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR13 Books 48-50: "The Queen's Thief series books 4-6" by Megan Whalen Turner

CBR13 Bingo: Old Series (the first book in the series came out in 1996. The first book in this review came out in 2010 - it's taken a long time for Whalen Turner to complete it)

A Conspiracy of Kings

Page count: 362 pages

Audio book length: 8hrs 26mins

Rating: 3.5 stars

Sophos, the heir to Sounis, is rusticating with his mother and sisters, having been sent away from his uncle's court for generally being considered a disappointment. He keeps ignoring his tutors and weapons training, which turns out to be a problem when mercenary soldiers come to the estate with nefarious plans. Sophos is abducted and disguised as a runaway slave and discovers later that his mother and sisters were taken hostage and are hidden away by one of his uncle's rebel barons. There's a planned coup afoot, where the rebel barons want to kill Sophos' uncle and install him as their puppet king. Sophos ruins their plans by managing to escape, but as he has been very successfully disguised as a slave, he is recaptured by actual slavers and ends up working the fields at the estate of the very baron who seems to be leading the plot against the crown.

Meanwhile, Sophos' royal friends, like Eugenides, the King of Attolia, and Helen, the Queen of Eddis, believe Sophos to have been killed in the attack on his estate. They are therefore extremely relieved when he shows up unexpectedly in Attolia along with the Mage of Sounis, his former tutor. By this point, Sophos discovers that his uncle has fallen, and now he, Sophos, is King of Sounis. He needs to recount his tale of captivity and escape, before he begs aid from Eddis and Attolia to muster enough troops to actually secure his throne. 

Sophos shows up as a supporting character in The Thief and is later mentioned in The Queen of Attolia. I never thought much about him, and remember trying to start A Conspiracy of Kings once before, many years ago. I never really got very far because the story of Sophos just didn't interest me all that much, but this time, I was firstly determined to finish the entire series, and secondly, listening to the books in audio, with Steve West narrating, so I pressed on. I'm glad I did. While the book is in no way my favourite of the series, it Whalen Turner is a talented writer, and seeing Sophos come into his own was a much more interesting story than I had first expected. His understated romance with Helen, Queen of Eddis is also very sweet. 

Thick as Thieves

Page count: 384 pages

Audio book length: 8hrs 47mins

Rating: 3 stars

Official book description: 

Deep within the palace of the Mede emperor, in an alcove off the main room of his master’s apartments,. Kamet minds his master’s business and his own. Carefully keeping the accounts, and his own counsel, Kamet has accumulated a few possessions, a little money stored in the household’s cashbox, and a significant amount of personal power. As a slave, his fate is tied to his master’s. If Nahuseresh’s fortunes improve, so will Kamet’s, and Nahuseresh has been working diligently to promote his fortunes since the debacle in Attolia.

A soldier in the shadows offers escape, but Kamet won’t sacrifice his ambition for a meager and unreliable freedom; not until a whispered warning of poison and murder destroys all of his carefully laid plans. When Kamet flees for his life, he leaves behind everything—his past, his identity, his meticulously crafted defenses—and finds himself woefully unprepared for the journey that lies ahead.

Pursued across rivers, wastelands, salt plains, snowcapped mountains, and storm-tossed seas, Kamet is dead set on regaining control of his future and protecting himself at any cost. Friendships—new and long-forgotten—beckon, lethal enemies circle, secrets accumulate, and the fragile hopes of the little kingdoms of Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis hang in the balance.

Kamet is a very minor, barely mentioned character who appears in The Queen of Attolia, as the personal secretary of Nahuseresh, the Mede ambassador to Attolia. Due to Eudenides' schemes, Nahuseresh has to flee Attolia in disgrace, and hatred between the former ambassador and the former Queen's thief is strong. In this book, Kamet finds himself cast adrift, fleeing for his life accompanied only by an Attolian stranger, who claims he can help Kamet - but who can help a slave whose master has been murdered? The fate of all slaves in the Mede empire is to die with their master, as a runaway, Kamet is risking terrible torture and certain death if he's caught. 

Kamet's near-constant companion in this long journey from Mede to Attolia is Costis, once a guard in the Attolian royal guard, now sent on this special mission by his king. While Kamet remembers his time in the Attolian court as mostly a chore and has the impression of the Attolians as backward, primitive people, his time in and out of dangerous situations with Costis slowly begins to change his mind.

Very much a bridging book, spending time with two minor characters of the series, this book nevertheless shows the readers further aspects of Whalen Turner's excellent world-building and characterisation. Her books feature so many different cultures, traditions, attitudes, and religious beliefs and this "road trip" narrative (except the two protagonists are mostly on foot) is an interesting way to show more of the fictional universe of these characters. 

Return of the Thief

Page count: 480 pages

Audio book length: 11hrs 22mins

Rating: 4 stars

After the marriage of Sophos, King of Sounis and Helen, Queen of Eddis - who have both sworn allegiance and fealty to Eugenides, King of Attolia, the one-handed former thief of Eddis now finds himself High King of all three nations. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in all three countries who are unhappy about this and Eugenides and Irene of Attolia need to make sure there aren't civil uprisings within their own lands, as the powerful Mede empire prepares to wage war on the little peninsula, perfectly happy to annex all three countries.

In a story told mostly through the eyes of Pheris, a young physically disabled man who has been sent to the Attolian court by his ruthless grandfather, Baron Erondites. The king has ordered that Erondites' heir be raised at court, and in an attempt to spite the crown, Erondites sends his previously hidden away eldest grandson, who everyone believes to be a speechless idiot. However, Pheris, while unable to speak and frequently suffering terrible pains because of his disabilities, is very intelligent and has been taught to communicate through sign language by his nurse. He has learned that it's best to appear as insignificant and invisible as possible, but it doesn't take long before the Attolian king understands that his newest attendant is more of an asset than he appears, or Erondites ever suspected. 

After more than 20 years, this final volume in the Queen's Thief series came out in late 2020. That, and the "Old series" square on this year's Cannonball Bingo card, provided the impetus I needed to finish the series myself. It was really nice to revisit the first three books and remind myself of the early books, and the Audible audiobooks narrated by Steve West were all really well done. I appreciate the various ways in which Whalen Turner changes up narrators and explores unexpected parts of her fictional universe, to give the reader a bigger picture of everything going on. The characters are complex, multi-faceted and flawed in interesting ways. Being the final book in the series, Return of the Thief really won't have the proper impact if you read it without having read the previous five. Technically, you can probably skip Thick as Thieves, but all the books are very entertaining, so why deprive yourself of a few hours of good writing?

I saw one of the reviewers on Goodreads saying it was bittersweet to reach the end, but I really liked seeing where the characters all ended up, and appreciated the completion of the metaphorically and sometimes literally long journeys they have been on to where they finished their stories. I note that Whalen Turner has left the door open to return to her fictional world with a potential Queen's Thief - the next generation. Only time will tell if she does. 

Judging the books by their covers: As I said in my review of The King of Attolia, I really like these new elegant covers for the books, looking like little historical dioramas. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR12 Book 85: "Yes No Maybe So" by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed

Page count: 448 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Official book description:

YES

Jamie Goldberg is cool with volunteering for his local state senate candidate—as long as he’s behind the scenes. When it comes to speaking to strangers (or, let’s face it, speaking at all to almost anyone), Jamie’s a choke artist. There’s no way he’d ever knock on doors to ask people for their votes…until he meets Maya.

NO

Maya Rehman’s having the worst Ramadan ever. Her best friend is too busy to hang out, her summer trip is canceled, and now her parents are separating. Why her mother thinks the solution to her problems is political canvassing—with some awkward dude she hardly knows—is beyond her.

MAYBE SO

Going door to door isn’t exactly glamorous, but maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world. After all, the polls are getting closer—and so are Maya and Jamie. Mastering local activism is one thing. Navigating the cross-cultural romance of the century is another thing entirely.

Jamie is Jewish. Maya is Muslim. Their mothers used to be friends, and apparently, they were inseparable on the playground for a while when they were little. However, Jamie and Maya haven't seen each other in a very long time, and are now both in high school. Jamie has seen Maya in a couple of places and is instantly smitten, Maya is too busy being upset about her parents separating and her best friend is too busy to work and/or prepare for college to really have time for her at all. The two get thrust together to do political canvassing during an important local election in Georgia (very timely, really).

To begin with, Maya only agrees to continue with canvassing because her parents promise to get her a car after the election. Jamie's cousin is in charge of volunteering for the campaign and keeps getting crazier and crazier as the election approaches, so he couldn't really opt out, even if he wanted to. Any chance to hang out with Maya, even if it means talking to strangers about politics, is good with him. As they get to know each other better, the two teens also become a lot more involved in the politics at stake, and soon, the canvassing and trying to help the campaign becomes really important to both of them.

Yes No Maybe So is a collaborative work between the two YA authors Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed, who both live in Georgia. They were both gutted by the presidential election results in 2016 and wrote this book partly as a response. The authors have included local places that mean a lot to them, including restaurants and other public places, and thought it was important that both Jamie and Maya are just 17, too young to vote in the election they're canvassing for, but nevertheless working tirelessly to help make a difference. They wanted to provide a road map for other teens who might be feeling frustrated and who are wondering how they can get involved, even on a local level. 

I'm guessing Ms. Albertalli wrote all the Jamie chapters, and she mentions in interviews that parts of his personality and social anxiety mirrors her own. Ms. Saeed wrote the Aisha chapters (they alternate) wanted to really show the experience of a Pakistani American teen growing up in the USA today can look like, complete with racism, fear, bigotry, but also a sense of family and community and the joy that can be found in everyday life, and which can also offer resistance to racists and white supremacists everywhere. 

That I read this novel while romance writers, readers, and others all over the internet were working together to fund-raise as much as possible for the upcoming Georgia run-offs, an election that is way more important than the one featured in this book, just seems to be another one of those strange coincidences this year has brought. Here's hoping that Georgia remains blue in the January senate elections as well. 

Judging a book by its cover: The shades of blue that make out the majority of the background are really pleasing to me, and I love how the cover subtly reveals much of the development of the story  and Jamie and Maya's relationship without really spoiling anything. It's one of the better examples of little cartoon people on the cover of novels. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 4: "Red, White & Royal Blue" by Casey McQuiston - audio book edition

Page count: 425 pages
Rating: 12 hrs 15 mins
Rating: 5 stars

My original, and extremely enthusiastic review of this book, can be found here.

This was my first re-read (of what I'm sure will be many) and this time, I chose to listen to the audio book. When I first listened to the sample available on Audible, I was honestly not sure if I liked Ramon de Ocampo's narration, but after seeing the audio book of this highlighted on a bunch of best of the year lists, I decided to give him a chance. Of course, the samples never really turn out to be representative, as I always listen to the books in 1.5 speed (it takes far too long to get through the books otherwise). The long and short of it is, I needn't have worried, he turned out to be a great narrator. If I wanted to be super picky, I could note that some of his British accents were a bit less consistent and could have been better in places (note that I'm married to an Englishman and lived in the UK for six years, so I possibly have higher standards than some for this).

Re-reading this book just brought home once again that I was entirely correct to choose this as my top book of 2019. It's funny, touching, emotional, deeply romantic, very sexy. I didn't know that much about the author when I first read the book, and having since read more about her, it's great to see how pleased and surprised she is about the staggering success of her debut novel. The (frankly hilarious) chapter where Alex is coming to terms with his bisexuality and in the end realises that "straight people usually don't spend this much time telling themselves they're straight" is in part based on her own realisations in her early twenties that she was queer and she's had a lot of very positive responses from readers about it too, which just proves that the book reads true to a lot of people. I love that part of what she wanted with the book was to subvert the image of the perfect Prince Charming, and created Henry, who uses his looks and charm to hide to the world how conflicted, gay, rebellious and prone to depression he is.

Of the two protagonists, I love Henry the most. I just want to wrap him up in a warm hug and tell him everything is going to be ok, and he needs to stay brave, because everything WILL work out in the end. Alex is a bit much and can absolutely get a bit exasperating at times, but the two guys are just so perfect together and the semi-epistolary sections towards the second half of the book, when they communicate through text messages and poetic e-mails to one another make me swoon.

I mentioned in my original review that pretty much every single supporting character is solid gold as well. I would quite happily read whole novels about Alex' sister June, their best friend Nora, Henry's sister Bea or his best friend Pez, as well. I would happily read a book about President Ellen Claremont and how she met her husband, or the romance between Henry's parents, the princess with a doctorate and the actor who played James Bond. Even tertiary characters like the White House Chief of Staff, Alex' bodyguards or Henry's equerry are fully fleshed out and interesting to me. That barely ever happens in a novel and I both love and slightly hate McQuiston for giving me this perfect cast of characters and then never letting me find out what happens to all of them after Alex and Henry find their happy ending at the end of the book.

This book ended up not just on my (and tons of other) best of the year list, but won both the "Best Debut novel" and "Best Romance" at the 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards. It's an utter delight and very good escapist literature during these dark days of ours. I cannot recommend it warmly enough.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 2: "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

Page count: 480 pages
Audio book length: 19 hrs 3 mins
Rating: 4 stars

During the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, it became clear to me that Michelle Obama was a statuesque and beautiful woman, who was also clearly intelligent, caring and wanting to make a difference alongside her husband. Being part of the first African American Presidential couple in the White House and basically raising her young daughters more or less in the public eye cannot have been easy. Nevertheless, I didn't know all that much about Michelle Obama, which was why this autobiography was so interesting to me.

The book is divided into three sections - the first covers Michelle's childhood and early life, growing up in Chicago. The second section covers her life with Barack Obama from they met until he became president of the Unites States, and the third is all about their life in the White House. To me, the first two thirds of the book were absolutely the most fascinating. Of course hearing stories about being the First Lady, trying to get used to the Secret Service, travelling the world and meeting heads of state and famous people was interesting, the more compelling narrative to me was what made Michelle Obama the formidable woman she is.

Some of the things revealed in this memoir was probably more well known to an American audience. But to a Norwegian, who frequently tries to avoid too much current event news and especially politics (because even before 2016, it was pretty damn depressing), much of the things I learned in this book were new to me. I knew Michelle was from Chicago, but nothing much about her family background. I knew both she and Barack had legal training, but not that Michelle never really enjoyed the profession and how much more suited she was to different work. I knew very little about their life together before they became known on the world stage. It was a revelation to me that her two little girls are both the product of IVF. I suspect I will always feel kinship with women all over the world who, like me, have gone through fertility problems, and it made me feel a bit closer to this very impressive and accomplished woman.

I didn't realise just how against her husband's political career Michelle actually was, as she always seemed like such a supportive and enthusiastic spouse.  I can't really blame her for not wanting to share her husband with first a large constituency and then the entirety of the United States. Staying optimistic, idealistic and brave in the face of so much harassment and abuse online, both during her husband's campaigns and his time in office. She states outright towards the end of the book that she has no intention of EVER running for any kind of political office, and who can blame her? I think the Obamas have already sacrificed more than enough, thank you very much.

The final third of the book was also difficult to listen to in today's political climate, because the Obamas worked so hard, weathered so much criticism and abuse, because they genuinely wanted to make the United States a better place to live for as many people as possible. And since the election in 2016, that horrible orange toddler currently in the White House, not to mention the spineless, selfish, elitist supervillains in the GOP have done whatever they can to not just undo pretty much everything the Obamas accomplished, but they've made things much worse than before Obama even ran for President. Election night in 2016 was devastating to so many, but I can't even imagine how the Obamas must have felt. Michelle covers it briefly in the book, but doesn't go too deeply into it, exactly because you can tell that it's a very difficult subject for her, and also, because she's classy and still manages to go high when the temptation for mere mortals would be to go low.

If I recall correctly, even though it came out in late 2018, Becoming ended up being one of the best selling books of the year, not just in the USA, but ending up topping the bestseller lists in a lot of other countries world wide as well. I'm not entirely sure what Michelle Obama and her husband are doing with themselves these days (going to guess Michelle is going on a pretty extensive book tour, at least), but I hope they are relaxing and enjoying themselves, still trying to make the world a better place, on a quieter and smaller scale.

Judging a book by its cover: Michelle Obama is a beautiful woman. She looks happy and relaxed in the cover photo for her book. I like the font she's chosen for the title and that there's not too much going on here. The book doesn't need it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.