The Fertile Earth: A Novel
by Ruthvika Rao
A Poignant Story of Love Amid Social Inequities (5/29/2024)
Two brothers from the servant class of India's caste system, two sisters from the highest social class whose family own the land and thus the entire economy of the southeastern area of India are the stars of this well written love.
The author explores how love between the young couple survived the horrors of the communist terroristic attacks on the upper classes, and the struggles of not just the two but the entire community of Irumi. She has drawn her characters so authentic that I could visualize them.
Lots to talk about discussing this book. I highly recommend it to readers and especially book clubs.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
A Character Driven Novel (2/18/2024)
As I read "The Flower Sisters" and was introduced to the characters of this fictional Ozark town, I felt this is a novel about real people. Not only are the twin Flower sisters's characters well developed, but also the several people who had been part of a horrific explosion at a dance hall which killed 29 young people in 1928 and also those who survived and whom we meet 50 years later.
The author, Michelle Collins Anderson, has captured the spirit, the prejudices, the morality of the small town and its inhabitants who have to come to grips with what had happened on that August, 1928 date. And she uses a lonely, very bright teen ager girl who becomes the person who helps the town accept and finally put to rest that horrible tragedy.
Although the ending was a bit predictable, the book will be enjoyed by book clubs and readers. I definitely recommend it.
Banyan Moon: A Novel
by Thao Thai
A superb debut novel (5/16/2023)
Thao Thai has written a beautiful novel about three bright and beautiful women with Vietnamese background. Two were born in Vietnam and lived through the war years and the one is born in America of Vietnamese parents. Grandmother, mother and daughter are all narrators, thus giving the reader the opportunity to understand and appreciate each woman's point of view. The setting is in Viet Nam and Florida's southwest coast. A very large crumbling house, the Banyon House, surrounded by land also has a major role in this novel.
Motherhood in all its complexities is a major theme of this book. I highly recommend it. I know my book club will be reading it when it is published.
The Little Italian Hotel: A Novel
by Phaedra Patrick
The Healing of Broken Hearts (4/4/2023)
Our heroine is very good at giving advice about heartaches to others. However when her own heart breaks, she discovers the healing power of friendship even with people who were once strangers to her; and the healing power of spending three weeks in the Italian country side at a quaint and charming small hotel.
Ginny and the four strangers who accompany her on this trip find the beauty of nature, the beauty of art and eventually the beauty of friendship.
I do recommend "The Little Italian Hotel" for your summer reading and for book club discussions. Lots to think about in this book.
Homestead: A Novel
by Melinda Moustakis
A Beautifully Written First Novel (1/14/2023)
Homestead by Melinda Moustakis is a beautifully writte novel about two people with damaged pasts attempting to start over in the the Territory of Alaska. But this novel is so much more--it is of a marriage made in haste, the attempt to make it work as they are trying to tame the spectacular wilderness of Alaska and at the same time learn how to live with each other and create a family. Both characters, Lawrence and Marie are so well developed that the reader feels that she knows them. But the star of the novel is Alaska just before statehood. The author in poetic prose describes the beauty of this wild land that it makes one wish to have been there at that time.
I highly recommend this book.
Clytemnestra: A Novel
by Costanza Casati
A Fascinating Woman from Mythology (11/9/2022)
The author has managed to give us a fascinating portrait of a woman who in Greek mythology was known only as a revengeful queen. However, Clytemnestra was so much more. She is in fact a very complex figure according to the novel's author. She is strong, intelligent, caring for her family and especially her children and siblings.
Using as some of her sources, Homer, Aeschylus and Euripedes, Casati has introduced us in a very contemporary style of not only of who Clytemnestra was, but also gives us a very human picture of the mythological heroes of Ancient Greece. We see Helen not only as the beautiful face "that launched 1000 ships," but also as a bright and sensitive woman; we learn about the violent and cruel man who was Agamemnon; we see Penelope not just as the patient wife of Odysseus but as a bright and resolute woman. They were all real people in the novel, not just mythological heroes.
But the star of this novel is Clytemnestra! She is practically in every page. I was impressed by her intelligence and her strength. She was rare among ancient Greek women probably because she was from Sparta whose culture worshipped strength both mental and physical in both men and women. When she was forced to be queen of a different city state, she had to use both her mental and physical strength to not just survive but to rule. Her pain at the loss of her daughter Iphigenia was one act that she could not ignore. She felt her daughter was killed "for a puff of wind." And that is when the revengeful part of her personality emerges and remains the image the ancients had of her
Clytemnestra was a woman who had seen two of her children killed --one by her father and one by her husband. She had seen her beloved first husband killed by her father, the sister she had loved and protected was characterized as a whore.
She felt revenge was her only option even though she knew of the consequences.
I recommend this book. It is written well and should provide interesting discussion.
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden: Two Sisters Separated by China's Civil War
by Zhuqing Li
A Fascinating Portrait of Courage (5/13/2022)
This non fiction book reads like a novel--it literally is a page turner as the reader is eager to see what happens to these two sisters whose lives were shaped by the political turmoil of the Communist Revolution in China in the 1940's.
Jun and Hong Chen were two years apart, living as privileged and educated women in Nationalist China due to their father's position in the government. They were surrounded by a large family including two mothers--an Upstairs Mother (the first wife) and a Downstairs Mother (the second wife) The author of this fascinating book is actually the granddaughter of the Downstairs Mother. The family lived in a spectacular house with gardens, maids, gardeners and all the trappings of wealth and power in the China of the '30's.
All that changed when the Communists defeated the Nationalists in the Civil War.
The sisters through sheer accident were separated and would not see each other again until they were well into their '80's.
Jun ended up in Taiwan married to a general in the Nationalist army and becoming an entrepreneur. Hong lived her entire life in Communist China as a doctor. As each sister pursued the life they were thrown into, one can see the pain of separation each suffered. Each eventually succeeded in their chosen paths but the pain of separation was always there.
As I was reading this well written story of the sisters, I could not decide which one was the bravest as each lived their long lives. The important part however was obvious--the love each had for each other even though their lives and political views were so different. Of all the cultural and social mores Mao attempted to erase in Chinese society, the love of family was still very strong for the Chen sisters.
I highly recommend this book.
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