Book Review: The Ring

The Ring. Florence Osmund, Self-published, 2021, Paperback and E-Book, 323 pages.

Review by Kelly Fumiko Weiss.

The Ring is a novel written by Florence Osmund. It explores the very complicated relationships of Paige and Jessivel, two strangers who seemingly have nothing in common. The story unfolds as the perspective jumps back and forth between Paige, a very well-off, caring, hardworking person, and Jessivel, a poor, struggling, stubborn person. You wonder how their worlds will ever come together, and the answer is partly through circumstance and partly through sheer determination (mostly on Paige’s part). Through these events, these two women’s lives become intricately and forever tangled.

While the drama of what is happening in their lives propels the story forward, it is Paige’s strength and influence that grounds the story, and it is Jessivel’s personal growth that fulfills it. It is truly rewarding to see these two navigate situations that are completely foreign, life-changing, and altogether difficult for them, and knowing that they ultimately become the better for it. However, I had to ask myself things like, how much more can Paige possibly handle? Is she even human? How does she keep going? Interesting to note, Jessivel has it much worse off. But because Paige is the anchor for so many people—her mother, her other family members, her staff—it seems the weight is on her.

At the end of the book, Kayla, Jessivel’s daughter, asks a question that sums up what this book is about. She asks, “When did you become an adult, Mom?” It’s a great question for a child to ask, but I think it’s also one that adults ask themselves all the time. When does that happen? When does it sink in that you are in charge? And when do you learn that to succeed in life you need other people? In many ways, that’s the journey that most of the characters in this book are on, and thankfully those journeys come to very satisfying conclusions.

Without giving away all the family details of this book, I sense that The Ring is also about all the different ways we can relate to each other. What do those relationships mean? How do they shape us? How do our personal narratives define who we are and how we act? And how do we come to terms with putting those thoughts up to a mirror for who we want to be?

I enjoyed reading The Ring. It was fast-paced, complicated, filled with characters who all had very different vibes and hurdles to overcome. I loved the way the storylines intertwined, and I felt emotionally invested in their journeys. I wouldn’t mind if Osmund wrote another story about this family. Many more characters were referenced than we have yet to meet. I’d love to see how they all fold into the world Paige and Jessivel created for each other.

Book Review: The Sweetness of Venus: A History of the Clitoris

The Sweetness of Venus: A History of the Clitoris. Sarah Chadwick, Wild Pansy Press, February 14 2021, Paperback and E-Book, 253 pages.

Review by Julie S. Halpern.

Women’s health, particularly gynecology and female sexuality, has been the domain of male doctors and scientists throughout history. From ancient physicians and scholars such as Galen (whose theories were regarded as the gold standard for over a thousand years!) to Freud, women’s bodies have been diminished, feared, and pathologized.

The clitoris may be the least understood and most maligned organ in the human body. Missing or poorly represented in most paintings, sculptures, and medical illustrations of women throughout the centuries, Sarah Chadwick asserts that the clitoris deserves respect and understanding. It needs to be seen as its unique and very important self rather than an inferior, inverted, or lesser version of the male penis.

Ms. Chadwick, a British-born educator now living in Chicago, was frustrated with the lack of realistic sex education material for her young daughter. In response, Chadwick has written an extensively researched book, balancing the false narratives of entrenched male attitudes with lighthearted humor. Refreshingly free of feminist buzzwords and political posturing, Ms. Chadwick’s warmth and light touch reveal her dedication to women’s freedom and enjoyment of their bodies. Drawing on primary medical sources and illustrations (ranging from the ridiculously laughable to the disturbingly graphic), Chadwick details various tortuous remedies and cures for real or imagined maladies ranging from hydrotherapy to actual genital mutilation.

Throughout the years, literature of all types offers cautionary tales of the “trouble” a sexually aroused woman can create. Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hester Prynne, and countless other heroines of the Romantic and Victorian eras exemplify the societal fears of the times. Soon to follow were scientific “discoveries” fabricated by male doctors, claiming that female sexual need or pleasure was in fact a serious mental disease, referred to as “hysteria,” a term still frequently used to describe a woman suffering from stress or trauma.

In the most delightfully scathing portion of the book, Ms. Chadwick channels and “interviews” several iconic and notorious female authors by inviting them to tea. Aphra Behn, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, George Sand, and even Jane Austen gleefully weigh in with their views of unbridled sexual enjoyment, set against the hypocrisy, paranoia, and often total cluelessness of their eras.

In the mid-twentieth century, researchers such as Alfred Kinsey, William Masters, Virginia Johnson, and Shere Hite and creators such as Georgia O’Keeffe and the Guerrilla Girls finally crack through centuries of ignorance and misunderstanding. The female body, particularly the clitoris, has at last come into her own. But even today, myths and fear, sometimes masquerading as religious doctrine, flourish, with the intent to subdue and frighten women. From masturbation to pornography, the still male-dominated scientific community is begrudgingly coming to accept the necessity for women to understand their bodies and embrace their sexuality.

Sarah Chadwick, an articulate and compassionate spokeswoman for a new generation of women, is to be commended for her exceptional research, kindness, and candor. May The Sweetness of Venus mark the beginning of a healthy (and hysteria-free) era for women.

Book Review: Last Hope for Hire

Last Hope for Hire. Matthew Wilcox, The Wild Rose Press, Adams Basin, NY, 2021, Paperback, 338 pages.

Review by Jose Nateras.

Last Hope For Hire, Matthew Wilcox’s debut novel, is an exciting, high-tech adventure exploit with futuristic mercenary Allen Moran as its protagonist. This book takes the trope of a super-soldier, the likes of Jason Bourne, and imagines what it might be like if said super-solider was a middle-aged father forced to put his experience to use as a mercenary to get treatment for his ailing son.

Wilcox effectively paints the picture of a loving father willing to do anything within his power to save his child while also building a world full of futuristic technology, robot soldiers, and a rag-tag team of adventuring associates—a testament to the author’s ability to embrace a variety of influences. Despite the high-stakes corporate espionage and sci-fi, action-hero antics of Last Hope For Hire, Wilcox never loses sight of the real world stakes at play for his hero—a real world where medical debt and access to health care are just the sort of struggles being faced by so many others. Similarly, by making his central protagonist a middle-aged father, Wilcox creates a character who is extremely relatable for his potential readers. A more typical Jason Borne-type protagonist, or even one similar to Liam Neeson’s character in the Taken films, while thrilling to watch, doesn’t encapsulate the experience of an aging soldier-turned-mercenary in the way that Wilcox’s Allen Moran does.

Despite this being his first novel, Wilcox creates a world and cast of characters that feel so thoroughly established that it almost feels like Last Hope For Hire might be the latest book in a larger series. For example, the book starts off with an exciting jungle escapade where Moran and the daughter of a former associate, Haley, battle off a robotic horde controlled by an out-of-control dictator. The sequence paints the picture of a man with a long history of former colleagues and field experience while establishing a relationship with a new generation of mercenaries. Right off the bat, Wilcox is building a world with decades of backstory and intergenerational relationships. The sequence also imbues humor to the sci-fi action as Moran’s cheaper, outdated weapons, and tech fail him.

Wilcox’s writing walks the fine line of genre fiction, allowing it to be familiar yet fresh, entertaining but grounded enough in relatable, real-world experiences. It imbues a sense of humor without undercutting the life and death stakes the characters are facing, nor the sci-fi action that makes this type of book so thrilling. Despite the fact that Wilcox’s Allen Moran starts the book off as a retired, returning to the fray to help his sick son, it feels as though Wilcox may be able to spin Last Hope For Hire into an ongoing series. He’s created a world and a rag-tag group of characters that are compelling enough for readers to come back wanting more.