Review: Humebeasts: Lizard Ambition

Humebeasts: Lizard Ambition by Lisa Munoz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was a book-of-the-month to read in the book club I'm a member of and the author, Lisa Munoz, is also a member of ).

I would say, it's a book mostly for adolescents, who are searching for themselves. It's a about growing up, facing the reality, the importance of friendship and connection with other humans/humebeasts.

The plot is placed in a dystopian future 50 years from now after the outbreak of a man-made virus, which turned half of the humanity to animal-human hybrids and the segregation era has arrived with these chimeras not being allowed to have the same education and "pure" humans, prohibition of marriages between the humebeasts of the different "species" etc.

Ziggy, the main character, who is a lizard chimera, is growing up in this world being underprivileged, with no money, but an ambition to become a singer. He has to leave his home, when he realizes that his alcoholic father took him away from orphanage only to milk him as a cow for Ziggy's future salary to be able to pay the rent thanks to it. Being in the right place at the right time, Ziggy meets Sam Clark who becomes his mentor in the music world and helps him to be safe at a difficult time of his life. He gathers a band and starts his path towards his dream future.

I think, it's an interesting world that Munoz has created. For me, the book is good, when in-between reading, I mentally go back to the story or the world during my regular daily chores, and this was exactly what was happening, when I was reading "Humebeasts".

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Review: Daisy Jones & The Six

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I came to reading this book, because the book club I am a part of was reading it as the book of the month. I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid and I didn't like it, so it wouldn't be my first choice to take a book of the author I didn't like. However, it would have been a mistake.

It's a book about a fake rock band, who became famous in the 70-ies. The vibe of this book reminded me of the movie "Dirt" about the Mötley Crew band - same sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, ruining hotel suites, sleeping with groupies left and right, cost of fame etc. Taylor Jenkins Reid seems to have done a lot of research on the era she placed her characters into.

You read the book more like a play - the characters give an interview to someone (we don't know who that is at the beginning), and tell a story of the band rising and fall from their points of view. It shows different perspectives on the events and you never know, who was describing the true story. And here comes the question: what's actually a true story? Isn't it what we think it is and not what's really hapenned?

Of course the impossible love of Daisy and Billy is in the foreground of all of the book - their growing into loving each other with one little complication - Billy has a family, who dragged him out of addition.

Billy is constantly feeling guilty and apologizing that he hurt his family by drugs, and alcohol and "owes" it to his wife that she stayed with him even after that. Billy says that love for his wife and love for Daisy are different kinds of love. But are they?.. Daisy is very similar to Billy and seems to be his reflection - very talented, beautiful, reckless drug addict. What if Billy's love to Daisy is just love towards a person he was before? What if he liked to be that way?

On the other hand, Camilla, BIlly's wife, is fighting not for Billy, but for her life with Billy in it. She knows that being a wife of a rock start comes with a price and she seems to be ready to pay it. She says, she won't let Billy ruin her life, she seems to like.

It's a book about choices people make and the sonsequences of your choices. When making a choice we accept what comes with it and we lose whatever could come with the choice we rejected.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is very good in describing emotions. All the characters have their own voice and their motivation, you can easily grasp. The book is very well written and keeps the reader engaged.

All in all, I am very happy, the book club made me read it - was definitely not the time wasted.

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