This Strange Eventful History: A Novel
by Claire Messud
Labor of Love (5/3/2024)
Very unlike Messud's usual work, this is a sprawling family story that examines how history and chance work on families and can reverberate through generations. It is based on Messud's own family history so it is clearly a labor of love. It is not always an easy read, but you will want to to know what happens to the Cassar family.
The Critic's Daughter: A Memoir
by Priscilla Gilman
The price we pay (1/30/2023)
My initial reaction to this memoir was Priscilla Gilman was "ugh, too much daddy worship", but as I read on the book I realized I was reading an honest exploration of a complex father-daughter relationship. Just as you can never really judge a marriage unless you are a part of the marriage, the same can be said about a relationship between father and daughter. Richard Gilman was a brilliant critic, a member of the inner literary circles of the 1970's, someone that many people worshipped, none more so than his daughter Priscilla. The question becomes how much do you sacrifice to bolster another person's brilliance, especially when that other person is supposed to be nurturing you? There is no doubt that Richard Gilman loved his daughters, but he was a flawed man-child, the type that only the 1970's could produce. Priscilla Gilman worshipped her father but also loved him deeply. That their path through life as father and daughter was fraught with high drama is almost beside the point. What we are willing to endure to love and be loved is a personal decision, and Gilman very poignantly illustrated the price she paid and the depth of its impact.
Our Missing Hearts: A Novel
by Celeste Ng
Wonderful and heartbreaking (8/22/2022)
Our Missing Hearts is a story that should be classified as dystopian but is so close to a reality that to call it dystopian would diminish its impact. Ng has done something wonderful and heartbreaking with her third novel. She takes a mirror to our society, one that presents reality with just enough distortion to both reflect it and warp it into something unsettling but no less true.
This book is about motherhood, and racial divides, about what words mean and what kind of power they have, about what difference one person can make and at what personal cost. In this world there are no heroes, there are just poets and librarians and protesters and children trying to make whatever part of this warped society that touches them a little better.
Ng describing a meeting between the protagonist and someone she is trying to make amends to as “a small tug at a complicated knot that would take generations to unpick”. Our Missing Hearts feels like Ng’s tug at that selfsame knot and it makes you feel, at least a little, that the knots that bind us can be loosened, word by word, pick by pick.
Stories from Suffragette City
by M.J. Rose, Fiona Davis
Votes for Women (10/20/2020)
What a great way to live a little bit of history. Each story handles the October 12, 1915 suffrage parade from a different angle, through a different character's eyes--young, old, men, women, women of color. As you go deeper into the collection the kaleidoscope view comes into focus. You see how much the suffrage movement accomplished, and how much more it had to accomplish. There is something for everyone here.
Leave the World Behind
by Rumaan Alam
Harrowing (10/7/2020)
This book! Alam has managed to write a perfect COVID-era book that is not about COVID, but the desire to keep what we love safe in times of terrible uncertainty and coming away with no good answers. Harrowing is the word I keep coming back to. Couldn't put it down. Recommended for fans of St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. Forget DeLillo's upcoming novel, this is the book you want to read.
Actress
by Anne Enright
Mama Drama (11/6/2019)
An interesting look at how fame and celebrity impact the mother and daughter relationship told through the lives of B-list movie star Katherine O'Dell and her daughter Norah. In some ways, the story goes exactly how you expect it will--distracted, dissatisfied mother, daughter left to her own devices to figure life out. In other ways, the story surprises you, quietly. Enright understands the kind of quiet power that relationships can exert on those in the midst of them. You'd expect this story to be messy, but it's told in spare, lyrical prose. Recommended for fans of Anne Patchett and Enright's other books.
Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant
by Anne Gardiner Perkins
Scaling those ivy covered walls (8/7/2019)
Interesting look at the women reluctantly admitted to Yale in the late 60's, early 70's. Perkins introduces you to a sample of women from that class and gives you a sense of the potential of so many women that went virtually unrecognized.
Yale was meant to produce leaders and it was incomprehensible that women could be leaders. They could be bussed in for parties and assessed for their beauty and wifely qualities, but at Yale women were meant to support leaders, not to be them. But they times they were a-changing, and in order to stay financially viable (it often comes down to money, doesn't it) Yale had to change with the times. Very interesting to witness the transition through the stories told in this book.
Would be a good book group selection with a lot of meat to discuss.
Patsy: A Novel
by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Honest and heartbreakingly true (5/30/2019)
This is a book about searching for and being true to your authentic self, even in the face of deprivation, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, even in the absence of privilege. It is also a book about how motherhood--both as a mother and the mothered--can and does change everything. Dennis-Benn's Patsy is honest and the story feels heartbreakingly true. It is a must read for anyone who wants to better understand the life of an immigrant, the life of a complex woman, the life of someone trying to forge a life in a society that does not immediately see the value in all that she has to offer.
Recommended for readers who enjoyed Behold the Dreamers by Mbue or any of Chimamanda Adichie's books.
Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir
by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
Lip sync for your life (12/26/2018)
Very interesting memoir that deals with the way women have to deal with imposter syndrome and simply existing in the world as a body in a world that often views women as a body first and a sentient being second.
It's funny, we tolerate lipsyncing from pop stars without much complaint, but it never occurred to me that I would need to concern myself with artists "faking" classical music since classical music, I thought, was all about skill. Hindman manages to not denigrate the audience for the music that she "played" while getting across the fraudulent aspects of the Composer's body of work. It would be the easy way out to mock the audience for not knowing any better.
Recommended for people who enjoy light memoir. There are some heavier themes touched upon, but this is not as relentlessly grim as some memoirs can be.
A Ladder to the Sky: A Novel
by John Boyne
Ambition run amok (8/31/2018)
Boyne is a gifted storyteller and this tale of ambition run amok is compelling from beginning to end. It makes you absolutely hate the publishing world and the egomaniacs that people it.
Makes you think about:
Who does a story belong to--the person it happened to? The person who can tell it best? The last one standing?
Is there a price to success that is too steep to pay?
Does doing a bad thing to a bad person cancel out the "bad"?
Boyne captures something essential about ambition and about publishing. Yes, the story is extreme, but the spirit behind the action is not.
The Family Tabor
by Cherise Wolas
It's all about perspective (5/30/2018)
You might think this is a story of an alpha male brought down by his own hubris, but you would be wrong. It's a story about family: how the history of a family arranges itself around choices made by parents, around choices foisted upon grandparents by history, how the perception of a family can skew even slightly depending upon whose eyes you are seeing it through, how people can choose a role, create a personality, make mistakes and make those same mistakes again because a family pattern imprinted upon them.
Wolas asks the reader to consider big themes of family dynamics, religion/spirituality, atonement, Jewish history in the context of one beautifully crafted, glowing and flawed family.
Recommended for book groups who like a little meat in their discussions.
That Kind of Mother
by Rumaan Alam
Motherhood examined (5/30/2018)
I went into this thinking that it would be an "issues" book, but it is far more than that. It is really a character study of a particular woman, a particular mother over time. That this particular mother adopted a child of another race was important and would certainly generate discussion in a book group, but what fascinated me was Rebecca herself, her feelings, her motivations. I won't say that I liked her, because I didn't, not always, but Alam made me want to know what she was thinking. Recommended for readers who like literary fiction with compelling female characters and who don't mind if the "action" is interior growth. Good for book groups.
Listen to the Marriage
by John Jay Osborn
I think I need therapy now (5/22/2018)
I was hesitant, but I ended up really liking this examination of a single marriage, within a single room, because as unique as Gretchen and Steve's marriage is, that is how universal it is. I started out feeling like a voyeur and ended up in the same state as the therapist, hoping those two crazy kids make it.
All of the "action" of the novel takes place outside of the immediate narrative, but all of the emotional "work" takes place in the marriage counselor's office. As a narrative conceit it works. Do you really need to see Bill and Gretchen on a date in order to see what kind of relationship it is? Do you really need to see Steve setting up a home for the children in order to see that he is trying to change? No, and that is because Osborn is a master craftsman, and can pack all of that into short, punchy chapters that make up the couple's therapy sessions. That we are privy to the therapist's internal dialogue, adds another layer of interest. We are not just learning about marriage, but about therapy too.
This book had a very theatrical feel, not in a movie sense, but in the sense that I could easily see it as a single-setting, one act play. If you like that kind of feeling and also like stories where character study is paramount, I would highly recommend.
Vox
by Christina Dalcher
Complacency is complicity (4/27/2018)
First instinct would be to compare Vox to Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, because it mirrors similar themes: male dominated society comes back to power as a reactionary backlash to women's growing power, tamping women down by controlling what is vital to freedom--control over your body or control over your speech. I would also say that it has similarities to Sinclair Lewis' It Couldn't Happen Here because it mirrors its themes: the fragility of women's freedom, the fragility of democracy itself, how easy it is to believe that the world could ever spin backwards until it does. How just a few charismatic men can marshal enough support to change everything we take for granted. And think, I am already out of words. I would have already been brought down by electric shock, and I haven't said even half of what I could say, what I want to say. If you are a woman and can read this book without feeling edgy, then you might be part of the problem. In these harrowing times, complacency is akin to complicity.
French Exit
by Patrick deWitt
Perfectly strange (1/22/2018)
Read in prepub. Due out August 2018. deWitt takes characters that are so specific, so quirky that they seem a little too unreal and makes them come alive. The book is perfectly strange and funny, but also explores the meaning of family and friendship and the idiosyncrasies of romantic love (who can figure it out?). You've never met anyone like Frances and Malcolm and Little Frank, but once you've read the book you'll wonder how you ever got by without their acquaintance. Recommended for fans of Jonathan Ames, Maria Semple, Kevin Wilson. Would be a fun book group choice.
Idaho: A Novel
by Emily Ruskovich
Moments of grace (11/15/2017)
This book is not what you may think it is. It sounds so dark from the description, one of those edge-of-your-seat-are-things-really-what-they seem page turners. But what it really is, is a book about grace, how a complicated life, filled with unimaginable sadness, still has those moments of grace, of connection. This is a beautifully written book, it quietly builds tension and then just as quietly releases you from it, but never completely. Happiness is never quite attained, sadness is always lurking at the edges, and yet there is a satisfaction there, equal parts resignation and unexpected joy.
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
by Cherise Wolas
My new literary idol (9/6/2017)
Wow. Joan is my new idol. A strong female protagonist who unapologetically feels what she feels, who is creative and believes in her genius, believes that her art and her desire to create that art is important, even if she finds herself on a different path than the one she mapped out for herself. That Joan holds onto herself throughout her marriage and child raising without heartbreaking trauma is amazing. That she commits to that life, that she both chooses and doesn't simultaneously, and does the best that she can, knowing that her real self is out there, knowing that she can slip back into it as soon as she is able, as soon as life releases its grip a little bit is in a strange way empowering. Part of me was furious with her, but part of me got it. And the complex way that Wolas weaves stories within stories is nothing short of amazing. I will need to go back and read it again since there are levels of understanding that I think eluded me the first time through. The book is like an onion, revealing itself layer by layer. Would be an outstanding book group choice for the right group.
Young Jane Young
by Gabrielle Zevin
Breezy and fun (9/6/2017)
Easy read about a Monica Lewinsky-like intern who finds redemption. This book manages to deal with serious themes in a very funny, easy way. Another book with a quirky, precocious child (think Where'd You Go Bernadette or Zevin's other book The Storied Life of A.j. Fikry) but I found Ruby to be cute. Some of the nuts and bolts of the book felt clunky, but these moments were few and far between. Would be a great book club read that people could breeze through yet still have substantive conversations about.
Who Is Rich?
by Matthew Klam
Who is Rich? Who knows. (9/6/2017)
Read this if you like male protagonists who have literally nothing to complain about but complain anyway. Rich is miserable because he makes bad choices, generally originating from between his legs instead of his ears. In trying to prove himself he proves nothing.
Klam is funny and he creates a world that is so self-involved and self-reverential and ridiculous that it is believable and recognizable. The characters are well-written and yet I felt zero empathy for Rich.
I like to read books where characters are struggling with who they are. I enjoy existential crisis. So even if I didn't like Rich, I did like the book.
Less
by Andrew Sean Greer
I made a friend (9/6/2017)
Put this on your must read. I read this on vacation a week after turning fifty so I was ripe for Arthur Less' experiences, but on every page there is something to love. This is a book about the pull of nostalgia, of looking back, because the thought of moving forward is too painful or scary. This is a book about love and what makes a love affair, a marriage, a friendship a success (longevity? intensity?). It is a book about looking at who you are and deciding if you like who that person is and if you don't do you have it in you to become your best self? And it's a book where you make fictional friend and wish desperately for him to figure it out.
I loved Arthur from page one and soaked a sleeve of my sweatshirt with tears of sadness and frustration and joy and beauty. I also laughed. Which is how life goes, both tragedy and comedy, and hopefully we all end up like Arthur, with just enough of both.
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