Review: The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel

This is a big, gorgeous, appealing mix of a book. It's an epistolary novel. It has recipes. It has pictures and doodles. In short, it is a beautifully designed, lovely feeling book. All of it wrapped up together should have equalled a book I'd rave over. And it was good, it just wasn't great.

Opening with childhood friends Lilly and Val reconnecting after years of silence, the friends start exchanging e-mails, thrilled to be speaking again. Until they have to face the issue that originally tore them apart, where it becomes obvious that each is still laboring under a cloud of hurt and recrimination and their versions of what destroyed their friendship in the first place are diametrically opposed. Before things get acrimonious between them again, they did recall fondly the Recipe Club they created as children whereby they sent each other letters and recipes on a regular basis.

The second part of the book takes the reader back to the beginnings of the Recipe Club and to the innocent times of their childhood. As they exchange letters through the years, their characters are revealed more fully as are their perceptions of their parents and others around them. The recipes included with the letters refer to something discussed in the letter or created as a reaction to an event. And the letters from these girls turning into young women continue on until the betrayal that is too big to be forgiven.

The third section of the book initially eschews the letter and e-mail format of the previous sections, instead using third person narration whereby Val discovers that Lilly's father has passed away. And this is the catalyst for a second reconnection between the women and the exposure of an explosive secret that changes everything. Lilly and Val must come to understand and forgive events far beyond their own control if they want to have any kind of relationship at all.

I love the premise of the book and the presentation but I thought the letters exchanged by the girls early on were a bit too sophisticated and in depth for their ages. I wrote letters to friends from the time I was in 3rd grade and saved all of their letters to me and the letters from Lilly and Val seem far more introspective and thoughtful than the letters my friends and I exchanged. The argument could certainly be made that Lilly and Val were just more sophisticated girls than my friends and I were but the fact that the letters never change in tone or point to emotional maturation on Lilly and Val's parts would then be incredibly troubling given their ages at the start of their Recipe Club.

The narrative arc of the story is well managed and the gaps in the narrative, while frustrating, would be true of a friendship based mainly on letters. As time went on in the story, the recipes did become more sophisticated, as would be expected. I flagged many of the recipes and they look really tasty. The theme of family and friendship and how they are created and maintained, how they inform and shape a person, and how they can break down is strong here. Having lost several very close friends over the years, I empathized with Lilly and Val's plight. But I had a tough time getting past Val's neediness and Lilly's superiority. Obviously this is a personal reaction to the characters as they are drawn and other readers might react entirely differently. I so wanted to be wowed by this book but was left vaguely disappointed and feeling just a little flat.

Thanks to Caitlin of FSB Associates for sending me a review copy of this book.

Review: 100 Shades of White by Preethi Nair

A novel with alternating narration, this is the story of Nalini and her children, Maya and Satchin, reluctant Indian immigrants to England. Starting with Maya's recall of their life in India before her handsome and charming father moved them to London, the novel progresses through the death of Maya's beloved Achan. Or at least her understanding of his death as created by Nalini in order to spare her children from the devastating knowledge that he has abandoned them, leaving them to fend for themselves without money in this foreign land. Because when Nalini takes over the narration, she admits that she has created out of whole cloth the story of his death, thinking this white lie is less terrible than the truth. And this is just the first of the shades of grey that teem through the pages of this novel.

Adrift and penniless in London, the family is taken in by the older sister of the young man/boy who delivered spices to Nalini in better times. And so they move to the East End of London, amongst so many other immigrants, while Nalini tries to eke out an existence for the three of them. And in time she not only finds her calling, in cooking spicy pickles to cure the problems people might not even know they possess, but she also falls in love again. But the white lie she has told her children still lurks in the background, lying in wait for the right moment to reveal itself.

There is much about families, families by blood and families created, and the sacrifices we each make for others, including the un- and under-appreciated sacrifices, in this novel. But the overarching theme, is, of course, that of honesty and the need for truth. Nalini's secrets, Maggie's secrets, and so many other secrets coursing through the narrative ultimately cause pain. But they also highlight the fact that life isn't lived in black and white and that intention is just as important in the telling of stories as the truth. Most importantly of all, regardless of the actual truth, it is most important to know the truth of yourself and who you are, as Maya finally comes to know in the end.

The novel is much less cheerful than the cover would indicate and far less about the differences between East and West but once you adjust your expectations accordingly, there is still much enjoyment to be found between these pages, especially for those who enjoy reading about the immigrant experience. There is some difficulty in separating the voices of Maya and Nalini, especially in the beginning of the novel but that becomes easier as the novel progresses. And it is well handled when the truth of Nalini's fib comes out, with each of the characters acting in character. Overall, this had a few problems structurally but I did enjoy it and would recommend it to those interested in Indian diaspora writing.

Review: Lift by Rebecca O'Connor

What do you think of when you think of falconry? In my head I see medieval knights atop warhorses with a raptor perched majestically on their chain mail clad arm. Obviously I have wild imagination issues. (Did people ever hunt with falcons from horseback? Probably not.) But even with my overactive imagination, I never really considered that people still practice falconry today. They do though, and author Rebecca O'Connor has written a beautiful memoir weaving falconry with her life.

The prologue opens with O'Connor and her peregrine out on a hunt. The falcon has injured a duck and O'Connor knows that she should put the duck out of its misery, as other professionals do, but she finds herself incapable of the quick, merciful pulling out of the duck's heart, wondering instead just who exactly she in relation to to this quick and impressive falcon, master, partner, or servant. From this somewhat grisly but introspective beginning, O'Connor peers into the very heart of her life, her love of birds, and the seductive appeal of the centuries old art of falconry.

Intertwined with the story of buying and training a peregrine, an act equal parts skill, luck, and trust, is the story of O'Connor's life with her falconer boyfriend, her somehwat estranged mother, and the grandfather who introduced her to and fostered her love of birds. While the chapters on the raising and training of Anakin were fascinating, the portions where O'Connor reflects on how her life is wrapped up in the majesty and religious experience of hunting with her bird are equally appealing. She has woven the threads of her life and relationships skillfully around and through the story of the frustrating and magnificent bird. Her descriptions of the natural world, the nature of prey and predator, and the delicate balance that exists between us all, human and animal, are lush and vivid, evocative and elusive, thoughtful and startlingly insightful.

It was lovely to be let into the world of this slight memoir and to examine the arc of relationships through the world of falconry. O'Connor's choice of working in concert with Anakin seems to mirror her own conscious choice to build a relationship with her mother. And although this metaphor could seem forced, it doesn't. It simply works and works beautifully. The writing is lyrical and yet somehow spare at the same time. The revealing nature of O'Connor's struggles with training Anakin let the reader into her life and head and also cause much self-reflection as well. This hypnotic glimpse into an ancient pastime will entrance more than just the falconry community. It should please anyone interested in memoirs.

Thanks to author Rebecca O'Connor for sending me a copy of the book for review.

A-Z Wednesday

Reading at the Beach is hosting A-Z Wednesday where bloggers take the time to highlight one book that starts with the letter of the day. This week is the letter O.

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens is a book I have had for going on twenty years now. And I've never read it. Yes, I am aware how pitiful that is (and it's not the only one of that vintage still languishing unread on my tbr shelves either). I have always liked every Dickens book I've read, starting with Great Expectations when I was in 7th grade. I feel certain I've mentioned this before but the boy who played Pip in the short dramatization the class above us did was cute as a bug and I fell hard (for him and for the book). Wish I remembered his name so I could send him the bill for all the Dickens books I've acquired (and not read) since then. Of course, in AP English in high school, we read Bleak House, a book that was such a doorstopper that I sort of drifted along reading a page here and a page there and falling farther and farther behind. That is, until I noticed that I was in serious danger of doing poorly in my very favorite subject, at which point I curled up with the book one weekend and emerged from my room that Monday morning, having finished the entire thing, and thoroughly enjoyed it to boot. So obviously Dickens, no matter how much past experience tells me I'm going to enjoy it, requires a hook for me to crack the covers (not literally, I can't break spines, just can't). And apparently I haven't had the correct hook with this one for almost 20 years. But I intend to dive into it as soon as I finish this post. And you can quote me on that!

Here's what amazon says about the book: Our Mutual Friend was the last novel Charles Dickens completed and is, arguably, his darkest and most complex. The basic plot is vintage Dickens: an inheritance up for grabs, a murder, a rocky romance or two, plenty of skullduggery, and a host of unforgettable secondary characters. But in this final outing the author's heroes are more flawed, his villains more sympathetic, and the story as a whole more harrowing and less sentimental. The mood is set in the opening scene in which a riverman, Gaffer Hexam, and his daughter Lizzie troll the Thames searching for drowned men whose pockets Gaffer will rifle before turning the body over to the authorities. On this particular night Gaffer finds a corpse that is later identified as that of John Harmon, who was returning from abroad to claim a large fortune when he was apparently murdered and thrown into the river.

Harmon's death is the catalyst for everything else that happens in the novel. It seems the fortune was left to the young man on the condition that he marry a girl he'd never met, Bella Wilfer. His death, however, brings a new heir onto the scene, Nicodemus Boffin, the kind-hearted but low-born assistant to Harmon's father. Boffin and his wife adopt young Bella, who is determined to marry money, and also hire a mysterious young secretary, John Rokesmith, who takes an uncommon interest in their ward. Not content with just one plot, Dickens throws in a secondary love story featuring the riverman's daughter, Lizzie Hexam; a dissolute young upper-class lawyer, Eugene Wrayburn; and his rival, the headmaster Bradley Headstone. Dark as the novel is, Dickens is careful to leaven it with secondary characters who are as funny as they are menacing--blackmailing Silas Wegg and his accomplice Mr. Venus, the avaricious Lammles, and self-centered Charlie Hexam. Our Mutual Friend is one of Dickens's most satisfying novels, and a fitting denouement to his prolific career.

Now I'm off to investigate skullduggery. (Man I love that word!)

Review: The Secret of Joy by Melissa Senate

While Rebecca sits at her dying father's bedside, he confides in her the fact that she has a half-sister, the product of an affair he had when Rebecca was just a toddler herself. Then he directs her to a safe deposit box that contains letters written but never sent to her half-sister Joy on each of Joy's 26 birthdays. In her grief, Rebecca cannot wrap her brain around the idea of her father, who had always claimed her mother was the love of his life, having an affair and turning his back on both the pregnant woman he abandoned and the child they created. And so she decides to search out Joy, her only remaining family, in the picturesque town where it all happened. But Joy hasn't been daydreaming about her half-sister and she just wants Rebecca to go away. She has more than enough stress in her life without a long-lost sister showing up unannounced on her doorstep. So much for an instant bond of sisterhood.

While Rebecca tries to absorb (and overcome) Joy's reluctance to be drawn into Rebecca's life, she is also trying to sort out her feelings for her live-in boyfriend. She loves Michael's mother and cares for him but she just doesn't know if loving a future mother-in-law is enough on which to build a hypothetical future marriage. Michael is having trouble understanding Rebecca's need to be in Maine near Joy when he thinks she should come home to New York, him, and the paralegal job at his divorce mediation firm that she detests instead. Obviously communication issues abound between Rebecca and Michael. And that might be another of her reasons for staying in Maine.

As Rebecca tries to understand Joy's position on their shared father, she must also examine her own stagnant relationship with Michael and the promising relationship with Theo that seems to be developing in up there in Wicasset. But Rebecca isn't the only one examining the meanings of commitment, marriage, and loyalty. Joy runs a singles tour company whose best customers are the divorced wives of Wicasset and Rebecca, who would prefer to be a therapist who helps people reconcile than a paralegal who helps mediate divorces, steps in to try and help these entertainingly endearing women and then to help the couples who go on a Rocky Couples weekend also under the aegis of Joy's company. This variety of characters gives Senate the opportunity to showcase many different examples of marriage and commitment.

The plot lines here run seamlessly, all having equal importance and none overshadowing the others. The characters are all thoroughly interesting and unique and I found that I really liked and sympathized with both Rebecca and Joy. The one slightly unreal character was probably Theo in that he was just a little too good to be true but don't we all need a little of that kind of magical and omniscient person in our lives sometimes?

The writing itself flowed nicely and kept me turning the pages because I needed to see how the characters would all get to the right (and best) place in their lives. One of the conventions that helped suck me into the narrative so easily was Senate's use of Rebecca's father's letters to Joy. I was initially frustrated not to be able to read all of them in one fell swoop but the way they were spaced out just ended up enticing me all the more. And I do generally like the use of correspondence in novels.

This novel examines some pretty deep subjects in it and the characters don't come to any easy answers. Ultimately they must all decide what feels good and right to them and what they can and are willing to accept from a partner, just as in real life. This was definitely a feel good book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I sat down with this and before I knew it, the book was finished in one short afternoon. It was definitely a book to devour greedily, even as it has left me a lot to think about post reading.

Be sure to check out the other blogs on this blog tour and see if they felt the same way about this book as I did:

Books, Movies & Chinese Food
Booking Mama
Frugal Plus
All About {n}
Rundpinne
Brizmus Blogs Books
Psychotic State
Books Reviews by Buuklvr81
Starting Fresh
A Sea of Books
That’s A Novel Idea
Book Junkie
My Book Views
Drey’s Library
Me, My Book & the Couch
Just Another New Blog
One Person’s Journey Through A World of Books
Booksie’s Blog
Keep on Booking
My Life In Not So Many Words
Beth’s Book Review Blog
Readaholic
My Reading Room
My Book Addiction and More
Crazy For Books
Bella’s Novella
Blog Business World
Reading at the Beach
My Friend Amy
Book Magic
The Life (and Lies) of an Inanimate Flying Object
So Many Books, So Little Time
Jeanne's Ramblings
Red Headed Book Child
Reading with Tequila
Books, Gardens, and Dogs
Jens Book Talk
My Own Little Corner of the World
Lit and Life
Entertainment Realm

Thanks so much to Sarah at Pocket Books for sending me the review copy of this book.

Review: Still Alice by Lisa Genova

One of my book groups chose this for this month's book. When I heard what we would be reading, I wrinkled my nose and sighed. This was a book I intended to give a miss as it just didn't much interest me and had such potential for the treacle that was evident in Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook (a book I loathed). I can't begin to explain how glad I am that I was forced to read this. The group's discussion was more personal than focused on the book but the book is really well done and viscerally effecting.

Alice is a Harvard professor whose specialty is cognitive psychology, specifically in the way that we make langauge. She is well respected in her field and frequently off giving speeches at conferences. Her husband is also a Harvard professor and their children are grown and pursuing their own lives. So when Alice starts to forget small things, she chalks it up to stress, tiredness, or perhaps even menopause, knowing that her symptoms are indeed normal for any of these situations. But when she goes out for a run and gets lost in harvard Square, a place she has been in countless times on countless days, she knows that she should see a doctor, still hoping that she'll be told that everything is normal and knowing that it isn't.

As Alice starts down the path of a probably diagnosis of Early Onset Alzheimer's disease, followed by genetic confirmation, Genova continues to have Alice herself narrate the story so the reader lives the denial, poignancy, and helplessness of the patient rather than the caregiver. And this decision adds to the power of the novel. Alice is a very intelligent woman. She knows exactly what she's losing, and it's more than her memories. It's the sense of herself and those things that make her uniquely Alice. In the early stages of the disease, she tells of her relationship with her grown children, and especially her youngest daughter, the family rebel. There is no suggestion that Alice has been the perfect mother, she details her failings honestly and believably, but it is the imperfect mother that they had whom each of her children wants to hold onto.

This is not a handbook on how to handle a loved one's descent into the fog of Alzheimer's. It is a powerful and heartbreaking look at the breakdown of the person, the family, and the relationships with outsiders that Alzheimer's strips from its victims. Alice's intention to leave this world before she can't answer her touchstone questions, the questions which define her sense of self is shattering, understandable, and begs the question of who a person is if those things that defined them, internally and externally are all gone.

Genova's novel is really exquisitely done. The characters are human, with the failings and frustrations of real people. And Alice is, of course, the central character, showing the reader, through the eyes of the afflicted, the great extent of this horrible disease. Each of the women in my book group who had had a family member affected by this disease, early onset or not was grateful for the insight into the mind of the sufferer, even when that insight was necessarily painful. And all of us admitted to sobbing in the end. This disease ravages so many, those with the diease and those caring for someone with the disease. It truly is a thief and Genova has shone a light on the great need for better understanding, more research, and ultimately a cure. Highly recommended.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading This Week?

This meme is hosted by J. Kaye at J. Kaye's Book Blog. I still have 10 reviews to write but since I finished several books this week, the fact that the outstanding review number has stayed static instead of climbing is actually rather a plus!

Books I completed this week are:

A Coventry Wedding by Becky Cochrane
East of the Sun by Julia Gregson
The Great Divide by Daniel Evan Weiss
The Secret of Joy by Melissa Senate
Enchanting Pleasures by Eloisa James
Nobody's Baby But Mine bt Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon
Shelf Discovery by Lizzie Skurnick
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Reviews posted this week:

Reed City Boy by Timothy James Bazzett
The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
Me, Chi and Bruce Lee by Brian Preston
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
Pink Slip Party by Cara Lockwood