River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh (Spoilers?)

This review has some information that could constitute a spoiler, so please take that into consideration.

I finally, FINALLY got to read this book, the sequel to my beloved Sea of Poppies, and the second book in the Ibis Trilogy. Before I started the book, I had no idea if it was a direct sequel but it did in fact pick up pretty much right where the previous book leaves off. We don't hear a lot about some of the characters, which is too bad, because I just love them all so much I actually missed them. A lot of the book is almost more about placing us in space and time than catching us up on the characters, but we do spend quite a bit of time with some of them, and catch glimpses of others. I will say that it had less of a cinematic feel than the first book, but of course it was still top notch and I highly recommend it. On to the next book!! 

Happy Land - Dolen Perkins-Valdez

I have mixed feelings about this book. The story was interesting but everything was sort of drawn out. I don't feel like the characters in the present-day part of the story were sufficiently developed to have an impact on me as a reader. I preferred the portions of the story that were set in the past - that was very inspiring and also, of course, infuriating because of the same hateful bigots that we can't seem to ever be rid of. It's really cool that it's actually based on a true story so I will be doing some research.