Review: The House I loved, by Tatiana de Rosnay

This is the first preview book I've read that I truly didn't enjoy. I didn't care for de Rosnay's writing in Sarah's Key, and this was far less sophisticated. Rose has spent all of her married life in the home on rue Childebert, and though Napoleon’s Prefect now plans to tear the neighborhood down in the name of progress, she is unwilling to part with it. While she doggedly awaits the impending destruction she writes letters to her beloved late husband, sharing memories from their past, both good and bad, and building up to a final confession that she has kept as her secret for thirty years. Set in nineteenth century Paris during the Haussmann reconstructions of the Second Empire, this story is as much about that iconic city and its legacy as it is about the strength of its citizens. Those who enjoyed Sarah’s Key will recognize de Rosnay’s love for France and trend toward poignancy and tenacity in her characters, but this newest novel is more one dimensional than her earlier work. Told entirely through letters, the story tends to feel choppy and forced, and events are not related in chronological order, leaving the tale disrupted and at times hard to follow.

Book 49 on my way to 52.

Review: Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay

I picked this one up because I received de Rosnay's newest novel as a review book from Book List and I figured I'd better brush up a bit on the author's previous work. In Sarah's Key, a woman in current Paris seeks information about the round-up of the Jews during the WWII occupation, specifically about a Jewish girl and her family who once lived in the same apartment. Throughout her search she is faced with the dark facts about the round-up while also dealing with problems in her own life.
I think book was warmly received, and it's hard to speak against it because of the subject matter—the roundup of Jews in Paris, France, is not a well known piece of history and deserves some highlighting, but I found this book tedious and depressing. Granted, the subject matter is depressing, but tackling it from the view point of a repressed woman in current times just added to the heaviness of the story. I see that parallels are being drawn between the time periods—repression then, repression now, and de Rosnay does a fine job of drawing the character of the French citizens, both now and then, but I expected something that felt uplifting, and never really found it. What I did find was florid and overly dramatic writing, and my attention waned about half way through.

Book 48 on my way to 53.

Review: Wild Abandon, by Joe Dunthorne

Blaen-y-Llyn, founded by Don and his wife, Freya, among others, is a commune dedicated to a natural way of life. Though once a thriving community of like-minded individuals, over the years membership has dwindled and now even Patrick, one of the founding members, has left to escape Don’s controlling nature. With Freya thinking of doing the same, Don’s marriage is faltering as well. In search of stability his teenage daughter, Kate, escapes to college, but living with her boyfriend’s family isn’t the haven of normalcy she was hoping for, and she left her beloved younger brother behind in her hasty retreat. As each of the characters comes to terms with the reality of their lives and relationships, a story unfolds that is about midlife crises, adolescent dramas, and self-discovery. With well developed characters and a dark humor reminiscent of that in his first novel Submarine, Dunthorne delivers hilarity and heart-break while redefining the essence of normal in this story about what makes a family, and what makes a family dysfunctional.
This was a great read.

Book 47 on my way to 52.

Review: One Moment, One Morning, by Sarah Rayner

I had a really hard time reading this one. Simon, only fifty-one years young, dies suddenly one morning on the train to work. He leaves behind a wife, Karen, and two young children (now you see why it was a tough read), but they are not the only people touched by his loss. Karen’s best friend, Anna, and Lou, a stranger who was also on the train that morning, find that their lives will also be forever changed. Though Karen, Anna, and Lou each have something different to learn from the loss, they ultimately find themselves bound together in a friendship forged during the most trying of times. While the subject matter tends toward the trite, Rayner’s writing is concise and contemporary, bringing her characters and their emotions to life in so realistic and believable a way as to avoid the cliche. Her portrayal of emotion is authentic, even to the point of being painful to read, but this story is as much about relationships, hope, and second chances as it is about death and loss, making the most valuable lesson of all that we each have only one life to live. A difficult read, but a worthwhile one for sure.

This was book 45 on my way to 52.

Review: Greasewood Creek, by Pamela Steele

This book was pure poetry. I started reading it like a standard novel and found myself a little befudled, but a few chapters in I caught on and really started to enjoy the language. The story was a bit depressing, though. Avery is just a child when her younger sister dies, followed close after by her father’s desertion and her mother’s slide into alcoholism. Surrounded by family and friends she is able to stay and grow up on the Oregon ranch where she was born. As an adult she finds constancy there, but cannot escape the guilt she feels over her sister’s death. She hopes for happiness finally in the child she is expecting with her life partner, Davis, but when their newborn son dies the same forces of grief that tore apart her childhood engulf her again. Avery’s inability to escape the past is palpable in this fragmented narrative that mixes the present with flashbacks to her childhood and teen years, and Steele’s poetic style brings the beautiful Oregon ranch setting to life. Steele has depicted the depression, grief, and guilt of living after a loss with expert clarity, making this a powerful and faithful story of finding the inner strength to move forward and be reborn.

Book 44 on my way to 52.

Review: The Millennium Series, by Stieg Larsson

I already reviewed the first book in this series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but it took a while to get around to the other two books in the trillogy. I really enjoyed the first book, which was a stand-alone, but the second two fell a bit short of the mark for me. The Girl Who played With Fire picked up where Tattoo left off, then immediately started to delve into the past of the most intriguing character. The mystery that follows through both remaining books touches on the issue civil rights as they stand in the shadow of government power. As with his first book, Larsson approached the mystery from multiple angles so the point of view changes from time to time, setting the stage for plenty of dramatic irony. My complaint about these second two books is that they seem to spend an unfortunate amount of time going nowhere or reiterating information from too many directions. Still, the characters are true and enjoyable and the end delivers enough of a payoff to make the reading worth while.

Books 39 and 40 on my way to 52

Review: Married but Looking, by Daniel S. Libman

The short story can be a difficult thing to master. I was skeptical about this collection, but about the third story in I realized I was really enjoying myself, and Anaïs Nin came to mind more than once, and I love Anaïs Nin. The stories are definitely out there; a man using an escort service after the death of his wife, a couple reevaluating their basic belief system after being relocated to a different country and stumbling upon head harvesters, a best man attending a wedding solo, failed vasectomies, attempted affairs—these are just some of the subjects in this collection of short stories that center around relationships and sexuality. As in Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus, from the mundane to the surreal each story in this collection is a well written and intense character study, the main character being most often a relationship or marriage. Be they a suburban father who desires to possess a Tantric prostitute, or a couple riding a tandem bike together to overcome perceived infidelities, Libman’s characters are very real in their everyday lives and flaws. Yet Libman's tales are anything but predictable, and they keep the reader hooked from one story to the next. With tones that vary from dark to light, these stories are cynical examinations of life and relationships that make up a truly enjoyable read.

Book 43 on my way to 52.

Review: Broadway Baby, by Alan Shapiro

This is a debut novel. A somewhat depressing one at that.
Miriam wants nothing more than to become famous on Broadway. Her love for the stage begins during childhood, living with her grandparents in pre-World War II Boston, but it lasts all of her life. When she becomes distracted by marriage and then children she projects those dreams of stardom onto one of her sons instead. The struggle to achieve her goal through him, and the damage it does to herself and to the rest of her family, is painful to witness. Shapiro has written the story of Miriam’s life much like a true memoir, the focus being on Miriam, but he has also created a book full of caricatures that reflect back to the reader recognizable personalities. Though tedious at times the story has something to say to everyone who has ever had a goal and failed to reach it. Far from being just a life story, this novel is about dreams and their sometimes tragic intersections with reality.

Book 42 on my way to 52

Review: The Fallback Plan, by Leigh Stein

Thanks to an awesome friend I've gotten a gig reviewing books for the ALA's Book List magazine. They send me four or five books every month, I read them and write a short review that will be published in the print ad online version of their magazine. It doesn't bring in much money, but it's a dream project for me—checking out new books and getting to talk about them? Sign me up. I'm allowed to share my reviews here after they've been published in the magazine, so I'll be posting them here with a few changes.
The Fallback Plan was interesting. I found it hard to get into, but warmed up to it after a time. The book is about, Esther who graduates from Northwestern University and finds herself jobless, directionless, and moving back in with her parents. When her mother finds her a job caring for the four year old daughter of a neighboring family she grudgingly agrees. But the family lost an infant child earlier in the year, and Esther, struggling with her own depression, finds herself caring for both the girl and the grieving mother. As she also navigates through romantic relationships with the girl’s father and a friend her own age we witness her inner conflict and personal growth. Although too referential to be as timeless, this well developed coming of age story is in line with Judy Blume’s Are you There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and Forever. Esther’s struggle with clinical depression might alienate some readers, but like Blume’s characters she is authentic and likable. Written with witty humor and an informal, contemporary language, Stein’s debut novel will resonate with a new generation of students for whom college is no longer the final step on the road to adulthood.

Book 41 on my way to 52

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

An honest journalist is under fire for libel and must leave his post as editor of the magazine he founded. In the aftermath he is hired by a Swedish business magnate to ghost write his autobiography and to research the thirty-plus year old murder of his grand-niece. He is helped along the way by the hero and title-character.

The good mystery and a healthy dose of suspense kept me riveted, but the book's greatest strength is in its characters. I love an author who can draw characters without breaking out of the story and Larsson does this well. Even better the personas are believable and their decisions form fitting even while they stretch the definitions of morality, responsibility, and consequence. This is what I would call an enjoyable light read, but Larsson demands a little more of the reader as he lightly takes on corporate corruption, and more heavily tackles violence and abuse. What makes us who we are, and what responsibilities do we have are some of the questions we are left with in the end.

That, and a light romantic cliff hanger, will drag some of the curious, and the hooked, right into his next book.

Book 31 on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo

A mouse and a rat both fall in love with a princess and a story of chivalry, revenge, and heartbreak ensues. Despereaux is a misfit in his own mouse world and is banished to the dungeon where he expects to meet his death. Roscuro is a misfit in his own rat world, but finds only rejection in the world of light above, and returns to the dungeon thinking only of revenge. Mig, the unloved peasant who is too simple to either love or seek revenge, wishes only to trade places with the princess. We hear their stories separately first, then they all come together to finish the tale. The story is generally charming, but while the beginning seems promising DiCamillo continually interrupts the flow of the story either by jumping without warning to another time, place, and character, or by playing the interrupting narrator. With so many disruptions it can be hard to stay interested, but the underlying messages, such as "have courage" and "dare to be different", are obvious, and the rich language makes the book a pleasant enough read.
As a parent I think this is a fine book to read to a young child, but I was disappointed by the quality of the story and writing. At age five Calvin was completely capable of understanding the the story as read to him, but would not have been able to read it fluently enough on his own to make it worth while.

Review: His Dark Materials triology, by Philip Pullman (a review of sorts)

Setting all issues and agendas aside, this is a beautifully written young adult sci-fi story. I found myself falling in love with Lyra and her friends right from the beginning of this tale. Like many series I enjoyed the first book the most, but unlike others my interest had not seriously waned by the very last sentence, and now that I've finished I'm even looking into reading Pullman's additional works with these characters. They seemed so authentic, so believable, even in a universe acceptable only via suspension of disbelief, that I just fell in love with them each immediately.

The scenes, the suspense, the characters—all were rich and imagination grabbing throughout. The series is a calling together of many a myth and many a mystical culture, all given a physical meaning and existence. It is the story of an orphan who finds she has a purpose, and family, as she travels through an earth that is mostly foreign to us. Her journey is full of honor, magic, and love, and as she progresses we see her beginning to grow up. There is witchcraft, quantum mechanics, religion, death, sensuality. There is war, Armageddon style. There is love, there is a coming of age, but what could have become sappy or uncomfortable was written with sensitivity and authenticity so that it never crossed that line. The story is woven tightly and well, and it never let me drift away.

It has been said that Pullman's story is just shy of propaganda—the atheist's C. S. Lewis I think I've read—and with each successive book a message does become more obvious. It is with sharp literary skill that he doles out revelations of the symbolism and understory in carefully measured amounts. The final book is the most clear in terms of agenda, and not everyone will be comfortable with it, and The Golden Compass could conceivably be read as a stand alone, albeit with a rather plot hanging ending.

Books 28, 29, and 30 on my way to 52 in 2011

The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells (a review of sorts)

I am not a big reader of science fiction, and haven't had much of an introduction to nineteenth century science fiction. I picked up this book because I've always been curious about Wells, and after reading The Map of Time I thought now was as good a time as any to discover him. At just over a hundred small pages, it's a quick read, but there's a lot packed in, namely imagery and symbolism revealing the social stresses of a time when industrial advances were forcing the issue between socialism and capitalism. Though written in symbolism the social commentary is so obvious as to be almost distracting, and the hero makes so many leaps in his mental discovery that the story is increasingly discredited. But Wells is offering a good, light story, too, quick to read and enjoyable as just that—a brief story. In addition, reading it now felt almost like a sci-fi rite of iconic passage, and I'm glad I did it.

Book 27 on my way to 52

Review: The Map of Time, by Félix Palma

I have to start by admitting that this book was a big disappointment to me. The cover, the synopses, the reviews all had me ready to read a book about the mysteries of time travel. Instead, set in late Victorian era London "The Map of Time" gives readers a bit of a love story, a bit of mystery, a bit of science fiction, even a bit of biography, but it fails to fully develop any of these aspects and left me feeling cheated on all fronts.

Palma does a fine job of setting the Victorian stage. Historical fiction lovers will gobble up references to locations, people, and current events that almost disrupt the flow of the story by being too frequent and without impetus. The writing itself is Victorian in flavor with a flowery prose and the faux pas of author intrusion, which I found distracting. Other than that I find the book difficult to sum up or review because it's just not cohesive. Divided into three stories it relies on common characters, mainly the character of H. G. Wells, and the concept of time travel, to make it into one, but it just feels like the author is attempting too many things. The several pages devoted to Joseph Merrick, for instance, have no importance other than planting the scene firmly in the late 19th century and setting up a brief red herring in the form of a magic basket that isn't magic.

There are hints throughout the book of a greater discussion—a deeper meaning—but the allegory is left incomplete. References to class discrepancy, gender issues, and colonialism are present but never expounded on and leave the reader hanging. And if I started enjoying the book in the last 50 pages I can only say that I wish the first 500 had been so engaging. Some people will really like this book, and for a light read it isn't bad, I just can't give it a rave review.

Book 26 on my way to 52 in 2011

Book review: The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor

The women of Brewster Place have ended up together in place and time. They are not necessarily friends, nor are they necessarily enemies, and at first look the book seems to be a collection of their individual short stories, but look more closely and it is much, much more. Though each of these women comes to Brewster Place with a story in tow, each with their own cross to bear, the book as a whole is less about their individuality than about their need to unite and claim their rightful place in the world.

In "The Women of Brewster Place" each character, seven women and one man, has followed her own road to come to the projects, to Brewster Place, where they have been shut off from the growing and modernizing world behind a wall erected long ago by those in power in the city, those who you can bet were neither African American or female. The women arrive carrying burdens, in many cases burdens that they have created for themselves, or have at least accepted, and further cripple their own strength by fighting amongst themselves, allowing the world to drive wedges between them. The end of the story shows them finally combining their strengths to tear down the wall once built by the outside world and release themselves from the cage they had been put in.

The thread of the African American story is strong Naylor's writing—stronger here than in Bailey's Cafe, but not so strong as in Mama Day. Shades of segregation and hints at abuse, and abuse of power, as well as the debate between embracing the culture of ancestry versus the culture of inheritance, all of these issues are very real, and Naylor brings them to life with her characters. But some critics have accused her of sidestepping the African American issue, of not making a real statement. And they may be right, but I don't think it's a matter of unwillingness, I just think she's writing about something else. While Gloria Naylor is often considered one of the most talented writers of contemporary African American fiction, the empowerment of women is also a common theme for her, and that is where her statement lies. She is writing about African American women.

Of the seven women we meet at Brewster Place, five have allowed themselves to be controlled or hurt by men or by their gender roles: Mattie by her son, Etta by her need of a man, Cora Lee by strict confinement to traditional gender roles, Ceil in the traditional sense by an abusive man, and Lorraine by both gender expectation and by male fear. And these women have more or less accepted their places, and are harassed not only by the world but by each other as well. They are trapped by their inability to change their situation.

Ben is their biggest hurdle. Though the janitor seems innocuous, he is the connecting piece between the neglectful, possibly abusive, landlord, and he has been there almost as long as the wall, is part of the wall as we see in the end. And it is because, at the behest of his wife, he refused to take action that his daughter suffered repeated rape and abuse at the hand of a white man. He allowed his wife's acceptance of that man's right to their daughter to stop him from acting, and when his daughter found her own strength and left, he lost her. Now he, and the wall, stand between the women of Brewster Place and their ability to find their strength and stop accepting the abuse, because that would lead to their leaving him just like his daughter. Lorraine is the first of the women to get to know him, and she sees him for what he is. After Ben is gone the women find their strength and they take the (rest of the) wall down together.

The characters of Brewster Place are expertly drawn, and the symbolism is woven finely throughout. Naylor's hallmark voodoo-like mysticism makes a short appearance at the end, and might be readable in the very beginning of Mattie's story as well, but I'd have liked to see more of it. I don't think Brewster Place is as tight a narrative as Naylor's other works, and the stories are not as neatly threaded together as they are in Bailey's Cafe, but The Women of Brewster Place is a beautiful novel and most definitely worth reading in its own right.

Book 25 on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: The Royal Book of Oz

First of all, this book, in most forms, is credited to L. Frank Baum, but this is not merely misleading, but completely incorrect: The Royal Book of Oz was written by Thompson after Baum's death. This is what I've read in many places, and certain newer versions of the book do properly credit the real author, but even without having been told nothing could have been more obvious than Baum's absence upon reading the book. If the writing style alone hadn't been a dead giveaway, then the characters having gone through complete personality changes probably would have done the trick. Ozma as cross? Dorothy as annoyed? The Wogglebug as rude and haughty? Though there were hints of their former selves, these were not the characters that we'd come to know and love, a change that was our biggest disappointment. And this was not the smooth and enchanting writing style to which we had become accustomed, either. Though Thompson does include some witty remarks and word play that will be enjoyable to older readers, some of her sentence formation—especially around the speaking of characters—is on the complex side for younger readers to follow. This is a far cry from Baum who, though writing at the turn of the century and with a style did reflect this, was still accessible for the younger set. And you might be tempted to wonder if the book would have been better were I treating it as its own thing, but first, she didn't write it as its own thing—she even published it under Baum's name!—and second, her style is choppy even when held up entirely on its own. This book was a huge disappointment to me, and though Calvin said he enjoyed it fine, for the first time Calvin he not asked me to get the next Oz book "right away", so I think we'll be taking checking out a new series for now.

Review: The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

I'm not really the right person the review this book—it's not really my type—but I picked it up for a little light reading break from Proust, and light reading it really was. Really a collection of three different stories, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs is absurdist humor of a dry English variety. What it lacks in depth it fails to make up in other arenas, except for maybe the relatively happy, if sappy, ending. I don't think I'll be trying any more of his books, but if I'm looking for another one-night read I just might.And I hear that if I'd picked it up as an audio track I'd be listening to Hugh Laurie as the reader, and that might have been funnier.

Book 24 on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: Day, By Elie Wiesel

I have now completed my tour through the trilogy that is not a trilogy. Day is the third of Elie Wiesel's books that are named with vague time references. As far as I can tell these books are lumped together because a) they are all written by the same auther, b) they are all about the same subject matter, and c) they do follow life chronologically even if they are not all about the same person growing older. Day is about a middle aged man (?) who has just been in a serious accident and is recovering. It is the symbolic final chapter in what is a loose story of life after concentration camps—the chapter in which our hero (who is different in every book) is struggling for a final time with his images and view of life and death. The accident itself brings this struggle to a head by almost, but not quite, ending his life, and then bringing him into contact with his antithesis: a doctor who loves life completely and without caveat. While I was not a big fan of Dawn, I was able to enjoy Day a little more, if enjoy is the right word for such a dark book.

Book 23 on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: Dawn, by Elie Wiesel

I have seen this book referred to as part of a trilogy, including Night, Dawn, and Day (also sometimes titled The Accident). Night, which I've already read and reviewed, is a memoir, so imagine my surprise at finding that the second book in the "trilogy" is a fiction. That was my first disappointment. The book spans just one night in time as the young man waits for morning, when he will have to kill a British officer in the name of the fight to free Palestine from British rule. During this time he is visited and spoken to by the ghosts of many people from his past. The story might have been fine—the struggle of a young man to come to terms with the sum of his existence—but for the use of trite symbolism and meaningless poetic text. Wiesel's clipped, contemporary writing style is what saved this from being a complete loss for me.

Book number 22 on my way to 52.

Review: Night, by Elie Wiesel

This book cannot truly be reviewed. I've read reviews calling it "poignant" and others calling "touching" while still others have complained either that it did not provide enough information or that it portrayed the inmates as "too much like animals", or too inhuman. Maybe these people failed to realize that this isn't a reference book on concentration camps, nor a literary work of death and survival. This is one man's memoir of a frightful history, the writing is completely human, the subjects drawn as he saw them then. Wiesel's writing is crisp, even terse sometimes, yet the language is poetic even when frightening. The story is told probably as it was lived—in a percussive fashion, jumping from one punctuating moment to the next, and yet it avoids becoming a collection of short anecdotes and remains a cohesive, depressing telling. Because it is a journey into a mind as much as a concentration camp the percussive style is authentic and natural. This book does not warrant a review because it is exactly what it should be, because it can only be exactly as Wiesel would write it.

Book 21 on my way to 52 in 2011