SmallWorld Reads: 2011

Showing posts with label 2011. Show all posts

Saturday, December 31, 2011

2011: The Year in Books (The Sunday Salon)

In 2011 I read and reviewed 42 books here on SmallWorld Reads, and probably read a total of 10 others (juvenile fiction read aloud to my kids and/or books re-read for British Lit). This is down a few from my previous years. (See my other Best of the Years posts.) I have no excuses, other than that I fall asleep more easily than I used to. And so without further adieu, here are my lists.

Book Review: The Midwife's Confession

Diane Chamberlain’s The Midwife’s Confession was nearly impossible for me to put down—the perfect kind of book for Christmas vacation. The novel takes the reader on a wild ride of revelations in the lives of three long-time friends. Emerson, Tara, and Noelle have been a tight-knit trio for 20 years and think they know everything about each other. But Noelle’s suicide shocks her two best friends. Turns out Noelle led a secret life, filled with skeletons and betrayals. In their search to discover why Noelle killed herself, Tara and Emerson uncover most—but not all—of Noelle’s secrets.

The story unfolds through the perspectives of several characters both in flashback and in present day: Emerson, Tara, Noelle, and others. Noelle is the least knowable of the characters, veiled to the reader in the same way she is veiled to her friends. We never find out some of Noelle’s story, which did bother me. I like things all neatly tied together in the end. But all the other components come together fairly well, and a good twist or two provide a couple of satisfactory “a-ha” moments. I also appreciated that Chamberlian did not go where I thought she was headed a few times.

This is my second Diane Chamberlain book (I read The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes earlier this year), and I will definitely be reading more. Like CeeCee Wilkes, The Midwife’s Confession is filled with implausible events, but I didn’t care. I liked the stories so well that I allowed myself to believe them.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Book Review: When We Were Orphans

When We Were Orphans is my third Kazuo Ishiguro novel and definitely my least favorite. The Remains of the Day (my review here) was beautiful both in its simplicity and its complexity, and Never Let Me Go was absolutely fascinating. I felt a little lost, though, in When We Were Orphans. Honestly, I felt like Ishiguro is so much smarter than me that I just wasn’t quite getting it. I say this because I think it is important to give huge credit to Ishiguro for being an amazing writer and to admit that sometimes I just miss things as a reader. Or maybe I don't want to work as hard as I need to in order to fully appreciate such a masterful writer.

Christopher Banks is an orphan. He spent his first nine years in Shanghai, where his father worked for a British trading company in the opium business. When his parents disappear within days of each other, Christopher is sent to England. He never quite fits in at his school, but ultimately he becomes a world-famous detective. He enjoys his fame and is terrible proud of his career, especially in that he can show up his former classmates with his success. His ultimate wish is to solve the mystery of his parents’ disappearance. Are they dead or have they been kidnapped? He heads back to Shanghai to figure out what really went on in his fuzzy childhood.

Along the way he meets Sarah Hemmings, a society girl who is also an orphan. Her goal appears to be to marry someone rich and famous, and Christopher can’t seem to believe that she would actually love him, a misfit, even though he is a well-respected detective. Ultimately she invites him to run away with her, but he feels compelled to figure out what happened to his parents.

I didn’t exactly connect with the story, but I think the lack of connecting with Christopher is purposeful. He is emotionally detached in many ways, having left a secure life with his mother to being an outsider, alone in the world. I think that I could read a review of the book on someone else’s blog and hit myself on the head saying, “OH! So THAT’S what was going on!!” I think I would have liked this book a lot more in my 20s, when my mind was less filled with my own reality and more able to delve into the labyrinth of a novel like When We Were Orphans.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Book Review: Purple Hibiscus

I am absolutely astounded by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun (my 2008 review here). I read the latter a few of years ago and was blown away, and Purple Hibiscus was just as powerful. Adichie is a phenomenal storyteller and a lyrical writer—my absolute favorite combination. Here there is no stilted dialogue, no stiff, trite characters.

Set in Nigeria, Purple Hibiscus is the story of Kambili and JaJa, seemingly privileged children of a rich and powerful man. But there Papa has a dark side. While he treats the community generously, he is religious fanatic and punishes any family member who appears to be backsliding. His wife and children live in constant fear of the next beating; his father and sister live impoverished, barely able to eat, because he won't give them money without an implicit agreement that they will live according to his belief system.

At 15 and 17, Kambili and JaJa are reluctantly allowed to spend a week with their aunt and cousins. For the first time, they are exposed to what family life could really be like. Kambili is socially handicapped ("Is there something wrong with her?" asks her teenaged cousin), petrified of saying the wrong thing or of displeasing her father. She is certain that her Papa will know if she does anything that is unauthorized by him (he sends a schedule along with them to follow). I love how Kambili focuses on her relatives' laughter. The whole concept of laughter and conversation about anything other than religion is completely foreign to her, but she desperately wants to take part in this new life.

The short visit to their aunt's house is a turning point in the lives of Kambili and Jaja, and their life gets much more difficult as a result—but they also gain hope. They know that there is a life outside of their father's compound and people who love them without condition.

This book is difficult to read because of the horrible abuse, but it is so well worth it. I wish Adichie had more novels for me to devour, but I will be reading her book of short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck.

Linked up with the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Book Review: Backseat Saints

I've had Backseat Saints on my TBR list for quite awhile, so it jumped out at me as I was browsing the library stacks. But I hesitated, thinking "Didn't I not really like the last Joshilyn Jackson book I read?" Actually, I remembered being faintly irritated with the last one I read.

But I checked it out anyway and spent a few days or a week in the crazy world of Rose Mae Lolley, abandoned by her mother and abused by men. I noticed that the reviewers on amazon.com give this book 5 stars over and over again, so obviously there is something wrong with me. I just could not appreciate this novel. It was too snappy for me. I couldn't believe the character of Rose Mae Lolley—she didn't make any sense to me. Oh, I know. That was probably the point of the book in some way, but it just didn't all come together for me.

And I've got a name thing going on again with this book, as I did with The Girl Who Stopped Swimming. Rose Mae goes between that name (her given) and Ro (her current). In other words, in the past she is Rose Mae, and in the present she is Ro. Except sometimes she is Ro with Rose Mae trying to get through to the surface. So when she tries to shoot her husband, is she Ro or Rose Mae? I understand what the author was trying to do (bad girl self vs. good girl self); it just didn't work for me. Something was missing—some vital connection. Maybe, for me, the disconnect was in the writing.

Here's the thing: I am a poet. I love books that love and caress the art of writing, that can blow me away with a combination of words or make me ache with something indescribable. I tend toward loving books that are quieter and more thoughtful. Backseat Saints deals with a terrible subject—spousal abuse—and the abuse scenes are very well written. But something didn't connect for me between the powerful abuse scenes and Ro Grandee's snappy comebacks. I guess I wanted her to think more. I couldn't feel her enough.

This isn't a rousing endorsement of the book. Maybe you will like it, but there was too much going on in it for me. A mother who shows back up as a fortune teller in an airport, various saints who appear suddently in the middle of the book, sweet old boyfriends who turn out to be abusers as well, and a whole lot of make-up sex. Too much going on, too fast-paced, too much disconnection. But again, I am apparently the only person in the reading world who doesn't think this is an amazing book. So read it for yourself. The end.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Book Review: The Little Stranger

I've had Sarah Waters on my radar for awhile, so I picked up The Little Stranger on the to-be-shelved stacks at the library. So...this book actually gave me shivers. I was even scared when I awoke in the middle of the night and had to walk down our hallway to the bathroom. C-r-e-e-p-y!

The Little Stranger is a ghost story, although I didn't really know this when I began reading it. That's probably good, because I wouldn't normally willingly pick up a gothic ghost story novel! The story centers on Dr. Faraday and his obsession with Hundreds Hall, where his mother was once a servant, and its strange inhabitants, the Ayres family. Hundreds Hall is a decaying house, once the center of a great estate, where strange things begin to happen. The brother goes crazy, the mother unhinged, and Faraday and the sister, Caroline, engage in a strange dance. Faraday is insistent that the family keep Hundreds Hall intact, in spite of its obvious haunting.

This reminded me somewhat of Diana Satterfield's The Thirteenth Tale. And although I liked Satterfield's novel much better, this one was extremely engaging, providing just enough shivers, excellent writing, and memorable characters. I definitely recommend this and will keep Sarah Waters on my TBR radar.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Book Review: Away

I picked up this book by Amy Bloom on the to-be-shelved stacks at the library solely because of the book cover. Yes, I know the adage. In this case, I nearly tossed the book aside after the first 50 pages. It was so disturbing.

But I kept reading, and I'm glad I did. This isn't a book I'll throw at my book club and demand they read it. They don't, as a whole, like wading through tragic, depressing novels to get to the happy ending.

And Away is disturbing, depressing, and tragic. Lillian is a Russian Jew who witnessed the slaughter of her entire family, lost her three-year-old daughter, and then made her way to America alone in the 1920s. She does what she can to survive, including becoming the mistress of a Yiddish theatre director and his actor son. When a cousin arrives from Russia and informs Lillian that her daughter, Sophie, is actually alive, Lillian is determined to head to Siberia to find her.

Lillian is a focused, determined young mother on a quest, and she'll do anything to find her daughter. Traveling by train, boat, horse, and foot from New York City, she ultimately ends up traveling alone in the Alaskan wilderness, hoping to cross into Siberia. Along the way she meets an array of people, from exceptionally kind to exceptionally perverse.

One of my very favorite parts of the novel—and I absolutely loved this—is that Amy Bloom ties up all the loose ends of the cast of characters when they step out of the story. When Lillian leaves the director and his son back in New York, Bloom tells the reader what happens to them. When she parts ways with the prostitute in Seattle, Bloom follows through, in just a few paragraphs, with the rest of the prostitute's life. I loved that.

Away is loosely based on Lillian Alling, a woman who attempted to walk from New York City to Russia in 1927. The book is sexually explicit, disturbing, and terribly tragic—but at the end, I am glad that I continued reading. Without Bloom's device of following the futures of the characters, I'm not sure I would have been so satisfied. But I absolutely love closure, and she does it so very well.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Book Review: Saving Cee-Cee Honeycutt

In Beth Hoffma's debut novel, Cee-Cee Honeycutt spends her first 12 years in cold Ohio with an unstable, unhappy, and ultimately crazy mother who lives completely in the past, reliving her days as the Vidalia Queen in Savannah. Cee-Cee, a social outcast, is known in the small town as the crazy lady's daughter. Her father rarely makes an appearance, and when he does, her mother is even more miserable.

When her mother is killed in a car accident, Cee-Cee's great-aunt Tootie rescues her, much to the relief of Cee-Cee's cold and detached father. Cee-Cee is introduced to Savannah, Georgia, a world that is completely different from the only one she has ever known. A typical cast of quirky southern chick lit characters become Cee-Cee's circle of friends: the black housekeeper, the exotic neighbor, the rich snob, and, of course, Aunt Tootie.

I liked this book. It has moments of fluff and predictability, but I actually really loved Cee-Cee, Aunt Tootie, and Oletta, the housekeeper. The stereotypical neighbors were fine for a little diversion and levity, but the saving of Cee-Cee story was really sweet and well done. This is one of those perfect reads for between heavier (or depressing, as my book club friends insist) novels.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Book Review: One Second After

One Second After by William Forstchen is our November book club choice. This is not a book I would normally pick out to read, and that's just one of the many things I love about book club.

This novel is set in Black Mountain, NC, not too far from where I live. The main character is a history professor and retired military man with two daughters. One afternoon they notice a strange silence and discover that the cars on the interstate aren't moving. Eventually they discover that absolutely no electrical devices are working. The professor soon figures out that a nuclear bomb contained an electromagnetic pulse that destroyed anything electrical. I wasn't terribly interested in all that, but I'm sure some readers would find that discussion fascinating.

The rest of the novel focuses on how a town survives when it's thrust back hundreds of years. I really appreciated how Forstchen tackled the town bit by bit: what happens in the nursing homes, to people who rely on medicines, to the mentally unstable. How parents starve themselves so their children can have a bit of food. How inevitably, bands of terrorists form and roam the countryside, killing for food.

The writing itself was aggravating but I managed to get through it as a plot read. Way too much dreadfully forced, cheesy dialogue. Stiff action. Bad editing. But again, it was a great plot read. It doesn't hold a candle to Stephen King's The Stand or Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but it was interesting.

Linked up with Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Book Review: The Kitchen House

Oh my goodness. Have you read Kathleen Grissom's The Kitchen House? If not, go quickly and buy it, borrow it, or take it off your TBR pile. I wish I had another book guaranteed this good to anticipate!

The Kitchen House is the story of Lavinia, a little Irish immigrant orphan who becomes an indentured servant on a Virginia plantation, and the family that raises her—and the family that owns her. What Lavinia doesn't understand is that she is white and her adopted family is the property of the master: the slaves of the big house.

As she grows into womanhood, she is forced to acknowledge that she is a white girl, and her family is black. What she refuses to deny, however, is that they are, indeed, her family. She has to learn to carefully straddle the two worlds, to protect those she loves, and to simply survive a brutal introduction into adulthood.

I know. It sounds like a "been there, done that" kind of novel. The plot line I've given merely scratches the surface. There is nothing sentimental or trite about this novel. Grissom is a master storyteller. Told from the perspectives of both Lavinia as well as Belle, her adoptive mother who is the master's illegitimate daughter, the novel is fast-paced, beautifully written, and absolutely compelling.

In an interview, author Grissom hints that she may be writing more on some of the characters in this novel. I can only hope!

Linked up on Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Book Review: Song of the Lark

My son, now in his sophomore year in college, switched his major to English literature in the middle of his freshman year. I never imagined the burst of joy I would feel when I heard those beautiful words, "I think I'm going to change my major." It isn't that I didn't approve of his former major (entertainment industry), it's just that he is the quintessential English major.

All that to say: when I quizzed him on his favorite book all year, he named Willa Cather's Song of the Lark without hesitation. I am proud to say that I introduced my son to Willa Cather with My Antonia, which I actually didn't read until a few years ago. Oh my goodness. How I adored that book! I have no idea how Willa Cather escaped me all of my years as an English major.

But I had never even heard of Song of the Lark until my son had to read it for a class. I grabbed it from his bookshelf a few weeks ago when I discovered I had nothing to read. Notice I said "a few weeks ago." I was in one of those fall-asleep-after-3-pages kind of months. But that has no reflection on the book.

I loved it. This is the story of a little immigrant girl with a very big voice in a tiny town in Colorado. Everyone in Moonstone knows that Thea is different. It is no surprise when an inheritance from an admirer allows her to go to Chicago to study music. Ultimately she becomes a great opera singer, but not without tremendous sacrifice. This is the portrait of the artist as a young woman and more: the classic struggle of the artist with herself, with society, with the people who love her.

Cather's prose is phenomenal. This is one of those books in which I wanted to keep underlining passages and turning down page corners. Such moments of profundity! Such perfectly poetic descriptions! I am quite sure that Cather is severely neglected in the study of American literature. I don't understand why she is left out of the traditional canon. In my experience students respond enthusiastically to My Antonia, and I suspect Song of the Lark—with its themes of coming of age, search for identity, and struggle of the artist— would also widely appeal to students.

And adults, of course. I loved this novel, not as much as My Antonia, but tremendously. I noticed that there is a PBS movie of Song of the Lark. Sadly, neither Netflix nor our local public library carries it.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Book Review: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Barbara Ehrenreich— highly educated, financially comfortable— goes undercover to see what life would be like as a minimum-wage worker in America. How can someone survive on $6-7/hour?

Ehrenreich, a journalist by trade, spent a month in each of three locations—Florida, Maine, and Minnesota— as a waitress, hotel housekeeper, maid, and Walmart worker. (She did not inform her co-workers or bosses of her "real" life until her last day at each place of employment.) Her goal was to live like her co-workers (although with the benefit of three important tools: a car, a laptop, and $1000 in start-up funds).

Her life quickly became extraordinarily difficult. Affordable housing in all cases turned out to be barely habitable trailers, hotel rooms, tiny apartments. Her jobs were emotionally demeaning and physically hard. I'm sure that it was terribly hard for her that people didn't recognize her intelligence, although she never says this. I get the feeling that she often wanted to cry out, "You can't treat me like this: I have a PhD!"

Or maybe I'm projecting. I've worked minimum wage jobs as a college graduate. I've been that waitress in a polyester uniform, silently fuming because the boss was treating me like everyone else. Did he not recognize my ability to write A+ papers?

Yes, we are the privileged middle class, and the truth is, that while Ehrenreich's book is interesting and enlightening, she can't possibly present a picture of minimum-wage America with three short months in just three random cities. She needed to add in issues of health-care (when she got a rash from her work as a maid, she called her personal dermatologist and got a prescription) and family (as a single woman, she didn't have to face issues of childcare, etc.). She needed to give up her life for a year, not just a few months, and stay in one place—without a car and an emergency fund.

Ehrenreich tries, though, to present to her readers, presumably the privileged middle class, the life of millions of minimum-wage workers across America. It's hard. It's unthinkable to many of us that one could spend one's entire life working a couple of different jobs, 60-70 hours/week, on $7 an hour. Most people I know have worked in minimum-wage jobs at some point in their lives, but we all knew that we are working there temporarily—until we were done with college or graduate school, for the most part. Even working in those jobs for a set amount of time—with that light at the end of the tunnel—can be terribly depressing and demoralizing.

The author is condescending at times and often downright snarky, but I still think this is an important read. She doesn't offer any solutions, but she does raise a lot of questions and shed light on the plight of the poor.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Sunday Salon: August in Review

Books Read in August (Click on title for reviews)
Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich (totally forgot to review this one): dark and disturbing
Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore (Southern chick lit)
The German Woman by Paul Griner (WW2 lit)
The Judas Field by Howard Bahr (dark and gritty Civil War lit)
The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain (great story)

The Queen's Daughter by Susan Coventry. (historical fiction, medieval)
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (excellent journey into how minimum-wage America survives)

Favorite Book of the Month

Two very different books, but I loved them both: The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes and Nickel and Dimed.

Added to My Ever-Growing TBR List
Before the Storm by Diane Chamberlain
The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain
Father, Mother, God: My Journey Out of Christian Science by Lucia Greenhouse
You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl by Celia Rivenbark

Read Aloud to 10 Year Old
Island of the Blue Dolphins

Currently Reading
Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

Top 3 Most Visited Reviews This Month on SmallWorld Reads
Frankenstein
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Murder on the Orient Express

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Book Review: Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen

Yes, it is exactly what the title sounds like: Southern chick lit. And I’m okay with that, especially after reading a heavy duty book like The Judas Field. Who doesn’t need a little bit of contemporary southern melodrama after an intense, grizzly book about the Civil War?

Susan Gregg Gilmore's Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen is an old story. The preacher’s daughter can’t wait to get out of her tiny home town. Catherine Grace and her sister lost their mother to a drowning accident when they were little girls, and she has always missed her mother terribly. Her father was a great dad, and her next-door neighbor filled lots of motherly jobs, but there is still an emptiness.

As soon as the Catherine Grace graduates from high school, she moves away to the big city of Atlanta. Her boyfriend back home moves on, but she has no intention of ever returning, so that’s OK.

Eventually, things happen that force her to return to her tiny hometown.

Yes, you’ve probably heard that same story line before, but all stories are based on the same basic themes, right? I liked this one. It was fun, a little sappy, and a little surprising.

If you need a great light read, especially after something that takes a lot of concentration, this is a great choice.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Book Review: The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

My goodness. My reading tastes are so odd. This month I've read the hardcore The Judas Field and the fluffy Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, and now I'm somewhere in between with Diane Chamberlain's The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes. But I liked them all, and I really, really liked CeeCee Wilkes.

The story is pretty crazy and far-fetched, but I didn't care. CeeCee Wilkes is a 16-year-old foster kid smitten by a 22-year-old college student who asks her to do an unthinkable thing: kidnap the governor's wife. Out of love for him, she does it, but the results are disastrous. Well, sort of.

CeeCee is forced to go underground and take on a new identity until her world comes crashing down nearly 30 years later. I know: it sounds cheesy. But I was spellbound, seriously. I loved this story. Maybe I just needed a book that was dramatic and unlikely, but I read it in about 2 days.

Guess what? I am going to read more Diane Chamberlain books. Maybe they are cheesy, but at this point in my life, I don't care. I need some cheese.

(Thanks to S. Krishna for the initial review and recommendation.)

Book Review: The Judas Field

My 86-year-old father and I flew out to Seattle (from Tennessee) a few weeks ago to visit his sister, my aunt. Strangely, my father did not bring a book with him for the long flight, so I gave him Howard Bahr's The Judas Field: A Novel of the Civl War. He devoured it well before the end of the flight, which included a long nap on his part, as well.

At several points while reading, my father said, "Listen to this." He'd then read me a beautifully poetic passage from Bahr's book. My father and I are suckers for word crafting. When he handed it back to me, he said that he really enjoyed it but didn't know if I would like it.

I did like it, actually. The Judas Field is stark and sad, but the story is well told and vivid. Cass Wakefield is a Civil War veteran, haunted by the horrors of the war. Twenty years after the war, an old friend asks him to take her to Franklin, TN, where her father and brother were killed. She wants to dig up the bodies and rebury them in Mississippi.

Cass reluctantly agrees and embarks on a painful journey full of horrific memories and an array of ghosts. The discriptions of the battles as remembered by Cass are really amazing; Bahr is masterful enough to conjure up a nearly tangible vision of the horrors of battle. This novel is the gritty heart and soul of a soldier in the midst of slaughter that was the Battle of Franklin.

The novel is beautifully written and terribly sad, but a truly mesmerizing window into how lives are altered forever by war.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Book Review: The Queen's Daughter

Joan, the youngest child and only daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, is The Queen’s Daughter in this novel by Susan Coventry. I must admit to having forgotten most of the details of this medieval time period when Henry II, Eleanor, and Joan's brother Richard the Lionhearted took center stage. I read this solely as a novel, without being able to fit all this into a solid historical context.

I enjoyed the book. I wish I had brushed up on all the battles, the Crusades, and medieval history in general before I had read it. But as a story of a princess who is forced to choose between loyalty to her father, mother, or brothers and who has no choice but to marry the King of Sicily when she is only 12, the novel was good. There were way too many confusing battle scenes and political references for me, but someone who knows the historical details would probably love all this. My father, for example, who pretty much knows every single bit of history ever, loved The Queen's Daughter.

I actually read this book because I thought it might be fantastic for a European history class. This could be a good book to enrich a study of medieval history, but I wouldn't really recommend it for kids under 15, as there were several scenes focused on her sexual relationship with her husbands.

If you're a history buff, you may love this; otherwise, well, I'm not sure the writing was compelling enough for me to give it an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Book Review: The Secret Daughter

I am fairly sure that Shilpi Somaya Gowda's The Secret Daughter will end up on my Top 10 list for 2011. I was riveted from the very first page and totally satisfied with the ending. What gets better than that? Ah yes, Gowda's writing is great, too. This isn't just a satisfying plot read.

The book opens with a young Indian woman, Kavita, giving birth to a daughter. She knows her husband will dispose of the baby, so she escapes to the city to give her to the orphanage. On the other side of the world, Somer and Krishnan, both doctors, struggle with infertility. We see it coming, right? Somer and Krishnan adopt a beautiful girl from an Indian orphanage, and the story moves on from there.

The book then alternates between the lives of Somer, Krishnan and Asha, a privileged American family struggling to stay together; and Kavita and Jasu, whose life is full of hardship and, for Kavita, a constant sense of loss and longing for her daughter. Asha eventually makes her way back to India on a prestigious fellowship, and through her work there, she gains understanding of who she is and who her parents really are.

I absolutely loved this debut novel and look forward to reading whatever Shilpi Somaya Gowda has coming up next.

Thanks to S. Krishna's Books for the recommendation!

Other Bloggers Review The Secret Daughter
Helen's Book Blog
Luxury Reading
CaribousMom
The Book Chick

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Book Review: The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County was an impulse check-out at the library, and somehow I always score well when I have the rare opportunity to peruse the to-be-shelved (i.e., just returned) books. I don't know why this book never made it to my TBR list, but I'm glad I stumbled upon it! Tiffany Baker is a wonderful writer, and this novel is full of surprises.

Truly starts life out in a big way—so big, in fact, that her mother dies in childbirth. Truly grows at a tremendous rate (turns out to be a pituitary gland glitch) and soon outgrows her older sister, the beautiful Serena. They go through childhood as the beauty and the beast, for Truly is as ugly as she is big.

Eventually they are orphaned and split up: Truly goes to live with an impoverished family in the country, and Serena lives a privileged life in town. Woven into the story of Truly and Serena is the doctor, Robert Morgan and his son, also Dr. Robert Morgan, and their great-great grandmother, Tabitha, the witch doctor.

This novel has everything in it: mystery, romance, magic, and a fantastic story line.

Other reviews of The Little Giant of Aberdeen County:
The Book Lady's Blog
Caribous Mom
Bookopolis
Planet Books
Maw Books

Linked up with The Saturday Review of Books

Monday, July 25, 2011

Book Review: The Wednesday Sisters

I put this book on my TBR list because I guess some blogger really liked it and gave it a resounding review. Yep, so, I'm glad somebody really liked it. Oh, it wasn't terrible. There was one part that even brought a tear to my eye. But mostly I just found the particular narrative style of the novel hokey, unbelievable, and therefore faintly irritating.

So The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton is about a group of moms who find each other and become lifelong friends. There is a stereotype for each mom: the jock, the southern belle, the brain, the depressed, the unfulfilled. And the setting is fraught with potential: 1968 in Palo Alto, California. So somehow these women manage to somehow be privy to, whether via TV or in real life, every huge event that happens in the 60s and 70s. You name it, they experience it: women's rights, war protests, assassination of the Robert Kennedy, man walking on the moon, the beginning of the computer era. They witness way too much. And tragedies of all kinds happen to them, as well: infidelity, infertility, cancer, squashed dreams.

To top it all off, they all decide to be writers. A couple of them even have best sellers. I don't know. The novel just felt so very contrived, and I just couldn't get past that they all shared these huge historical moments together as young mothers and had deep philosophical discussions about the events. Seriously? I don't know how that works.

You might want to use this book as a filler between heavier books. Once you start reading it, you will want to know what happens to the characters and why one of them wears white gloves all the time, so you'll probably keep reading it. Afterwards, you'll might wonder why you kept reading it— or maybe that's just me.

Linked up with The Saturday Review of Books