Review: Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel

A marriage is made up of so many different things: history, love, attraction, and the unknowable and unexplainable. We've been surprised when certain couples have divorced and have not been able to fathom what keeps others together. You just never really know what is going on in someone else's marriage. The only people who do are the two who are in it day in and day out. This novel gives an uncensored glimpse into a marriage, uncovering everything and allowing the reader to truly experience what we never can in life: someone else's marriage and life.

After a friend's wedding in Miami, Frances heads out to Stiltsville, a tiny community of stilt houses in the middle of Biscayne Bay, with a woman named Marse she's only just met at the wedding. They intend to spend a lovely relaxing day in the water and the sun with Marse's brother and Dennis, whose family owns the house. What Frances finds out there on the water, is her future husband. The native Atlantan moves to flamboyant Miami for Dennis, eventually starting a marriage and a family that the reader will follow for the next 25 years.

The novel tells the story of this everyday marriage, of its ups and downs, the challenge of raising a daughter together, the temptations that intrude, the waxing and waning of passion, the times of financial worry and unhappiness, the times of celebration and contentment, but most of all of steadiness and commitment. Daniel carefully draws the small, seemingly unimportant decisions that end up changing the direction of a life and a marriage because it's the commonplace as much or more than the extraordinary that drives regular life. Frances, the main character and narrator, is a little distant at times, holding her deepest feelings close to herself. We have to take on faith her abiding love for Dennis, her friend Marse, and her sister-in-law Bette since this is not a book of grand gestures but instead of the daily and the enduring. These secondary characters, including daughter Margo, are captured in snapshots, more shade than flesh, as ultimately unknowable to the reader as to Frances, as it would be in real life.

The plot is not mundane and yet it doesn't deal with the extraordinary very often. Daniel does weave in some of the terrible and affecting news of the time: the beating death of Arthur McDuffie and the acquital of the police officers in the case, the murders at the University of Florida in 1990, and Hurricane Andrew that flattened most of Stiltsville. These events serve to ground the story firmly in time and place. Without major happenings driving it, the pace of the novel is fairly slow. It's not an adrenline-charged summer read but instead a forthright look at the work involved in maintaining a marriage and facing the challenges of life with another person.

For more information about Susanna Daniel and the book visit her webpage, check out her Facebook page, and follow her on Twitter.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

For me, I can't wait to read: The Gap Year by Sarah Bird. The book is being released by Knopf on July5, 2011.

Amazon says this about the book: From the widely praised author of The Yokota Officers Club and The Flamenco Academy, a novel as hilarious as it is heartbreaking about a single mom and her seventeen-year-old daughter learning how to let go in that precarious moment before college empties the nest.

In The Gap Year, told with perfect pitch from both points of view, we meet Cam Lightsey, lactation consultant extraordinaire, a divorcée still secretly carrying a torch for the ex who dumped her, a suburban misfit who’s given up her rebel dreams so her only child can get a good education.

We also learn the secrets of Aubrey Lightsey, tired of being the dutiful, grade-grubbing band geek, ready to explode from wanting her “real” life to begin, trying to figure out love with boys weaned on Internet porn.

When Aubrey meets Tyler Moldenhauer, football idol–sex god with a dangerous past, the fuse is lit. Late-bloomer Aubrey metastasizes into Cam’s worst silent, sullen teen nightmare, a girl with zero interest in college. Worse, on the sly Aubrey’s in touch with her father, who left when she was two to join a celebrity-ridden nutball cult.

As the novel unfolds—with humor, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and penetrating insights about love in the twenty-first century—the dreams of daughter, mother, and father chart an inevitable, but perhaps not fatal, collision . . .

Review: Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

There are obvious casualties during war but there are also casualities that are harder to see, quiet casualties that should be attributed to war that are just as damaging and terrible as the physical wounds. This damage is widespread: children who will never know their father, parents who can't tolerate the sight of those who came back when their sons didn't, widows who can't face their grief as well as those who can't escape it, the tormented but returned men who wake screaming in the night, and the men who cannot build a family because they cannot inflict their broken selves or a society that condones war on children or on the woman for whom they long. War, even a "just" war like World War II extracts a terrible toll. Ellen Feldman's Next to Love weaves a tale from World War II to the start of Vietnam, centered on Millie, Grace, and Babe, women in the first flush of youth, coming of age as the world across the ocean from them is rent apart by atrocities and horror and the repercussions change the world everywhere.

Rather than a war novel complete with adreneline and grit and graphic scenes, Next to Love focuses on the people left behind when the men marched off to war. Safe back on the US homefront, friends Millie, Grace, and Babe's lives are dictated by the war. Opening as the men are preparing to leave, the naive and pure love between each of the husbands and wives shines brightly. But they are not leaving a perfect world no matter how idyllic it seems on the surface. Class prejudice, sexual assault, an under-evaluation of women, and more mar, but do not rend, the fabric of their comfortable lives. Once the husbands have left for war, lovely letters fly back and forth, proclaiming their love and looking to the future but also tracking changes in personality and perspective, giving subtle hints that nothing will ever be the same. And then the worst thing that can happen does and the three women are touched by what their love and fear could not prevent. And the aftermath of the war is hard and painful. But scars start to heal and the changed world and the people in it continue forward, sleepwalking at first until finally coming back to a muted sort of life. But Millie and Grace and Babe are changed forever, holding their secrets and their heartaches close to themselves, not even sharing them with each other, maintaining their untarnished facade through the next almost twenty years.

This is a heartwrenching portrait of the cost of war not only on those men who experienced it firsthand but also the families they left behind. Feldman's portrayal of the homefront and the odd suspended way that life exists during war is masterful and the way in which she has captured the post-war years and the altered expectations of her characters is illuminatingly realistic. The three friends are very different, in personality and in their manner of coping, and yet they are all sympathetic and the reader can't help but bleed for them as their lives unfold in ways that they never expected. Feldman draws a veiled happiness in those characters who know that great love can be wrenched from you in the blink of an eye, reminding the reader that some scars never heal entirely. A poignant and engrossing read, the book lives up to the quote from whence its title comes: "War...next to love, has most captured the world's imagination." (Eric Partridge, 1914) Feldman has indeed captured the reader's imagination with this paean to a lost time, to lost men, and to lost dreams.

For more information about Ellen Feldman and the book visit her webpage.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Review: Down From Cascom Mountain by Ann Joslin Williams

Some places catch at your heart and become lodged within you. For Mary Hall Walker, the cabin on Cascom Mountain, where she spent long days with her parents, watching them and learning to love from their example, is one such place. And so Mary, newly wed and deeply in love, brings husband Michael to this tiny community and the place that means so much to her. But Michael falls to his death on a day hike up the mountain and Mary is in danger of being dragged under by grief and sorrow.

As Mary wanders through the lush and rugged landscape of the mountain and of her memories and her own personal, raw grief, she comes to know some of the people around her who are also struggling. She babysat Tobin when he was a child and his mentally ill mother had gone away. Now as a teenager, exhibiting some OCD behaviour, Tobin struggles with his memory of this mother who so terrorized him, still living in fear of this vanished ogre. Cassie is a 16 year old girl who is working at the local mountain resort for the summer and who was on the crew to bring Michael's body down from the mountain. She is confused and trying to grow up as fast as she can, still straddling the line between child and adult as she willfully loses her innocence and then must face the emotional repercussions. Ben is the fire ranger on the mountain, quiet and solitary, who lives in the world of his own grief even as he works toward coming back to life. Drawn together by Mary's loss, these four different, damaged characters make the fragile and tenuous connections that keep people tethered to life and to each other.

As the summer draws onward, this very character driven, elegaic feeling novel moves to a conclusion and a continuation of life in some ways unexpected. The story plumbs the depths of howling grief, shock, and sadness but counterbalances it with a passion and drive toward life that proves healing and new. Although it is clear that the summer of the novel will reside in each character's soul forever, they have all grown and changed as a result of their time on Cascom Mountain. The mountain itself looms large over the story, proving not only the catalyst for Michael's death but also as the timeless, natural world enduring beyond human concerns. Williams does a beautiful job evoking the landscape, green and alive. Descriptive and beautifully written, this slow moving examination of the ragged way grief intersects our world and the various paths we travel to heal is haunting.

For more information about Ann Joslin Williams and the book visit her webpage.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I started the week off with a bang but then I took my boys to my parents' house and I have done very little reading or reviewing since, choosing instead to take the opportunity to shovel out the mess in their rooms and the basement without them around. As you might imagine, this has consumed hours of my time that I would have prefered to be reading. But man does everything look great! This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this week are:

Down From Cascom Mountain by Ann Joslin Williams
Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Vagabond by Colette
Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Next by James Hynes
Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann
Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel

Reviews posted this week:

Killer Stuff and Tons of Money by Maureen Stanton
The Art of Forgetting by Camille Noe Pagan
The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
Strange Relation by Rachel Hadas

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Slow Love by Dominique Browning
West of Here by Jonathan Evison
Made For You and Me by Caitlin Shetterly
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice
Twelve by Twelve by William Powers
Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum
The Wedding Cake War by Lynna Banning
Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney
Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
The Paperbark Shoe by Goldie Goldbloom
Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan
The Art of Saying Goodbye by Ellyn Bache
When the Killing's Done by T.C. Boyle
The First Husband by Laura Dave
Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister
Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

Monday Mailbox

Not much in the mailbox this week but hopefully that means I'll be better able to climb back to the top of Mount TBR instead of watching the summit recede in the distance day by day. This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Holy Ghost Girl by Donna Johnson came from Gotham Books thanks to Lisa at TLC Book Tours.
The memoir of a woman who grew up on the road with a charismatic and ultimately wildly successful evangelist, this hit my radar for its uniqueness.

Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber came from Norton.
I have read and enjoyed Abu-Jaber's previous books and so I'm excited to read this novel about a runaway and the family she left behind.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit The Bluestocking Guide as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: Strange Relation by Rachel Hadas

When someone dies, the survivors are expected to grieve. But what happens when your spouse of many years doesn't die, instead retreating into himself, suffering from early onset dementia? There are no books telling how to handle losing a spouse without actually losing his physical presence. And so faced with this terrible reality, Rachel Hadas, a poet and English professor at Rutgers University, has written a memoir of her own painful experience, weaving the literature and poetry that spoke to her and helped her face this familial tragedy throughout her thoughtful narrative.

Hadas' husband George, a composer and professor at Columbia, was always a quiet, introspective man and so his gradual slide into silence was subtle and unnoticed at first. It is hard for anyone to say just when the disease first found a hold in him but it eventually became clear over time that something was amiss. But this is not really the story of George's mental diminishment as much as it is the story of how Hadas must first adjust to him turning into a different person than the one she's lived with and loved so long and then to the reality of having to put George in a dementia facility. Hadas reflects on the changes in George and the changes in her own life. She illustrates her feelings, certain and conflicted both, through poetry and literary allusions and examples.

Deconstructing her own poetry, as well others', there starts to be an academic, instructive feel to the writing. And in some cases this exploration of the origins of her poems followed by the poems themselves becomes almost repetitious. For a class or for a group of people examining the genesis or inspiration for poetry, learning to correctly interpret text, this would be helpful and fascinating; for the casual reader, it is sometimes too reminiscent of school and detracts from the deep and genuine feeling with which Hadas is writing. The writing overall is contemplative and heartfelt and Hadas' pain over losing George is obvious but occasionally overshadowed by the didactic bits.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book to review.

Review: The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French

I first stumbled across Elizabeth Stuckey-French's novels with Mermaids on the Moon several years ago. I even dragged my children to see the mermaid show fictionalized in the book when we were visiting the area. Quirky kitschy and fun, I was looking forward to something similar with this latest offering. And while the premise is interesting and the little known underlying historical incident is horrifyingly facsinating, the book failed to strike that cord in me that would have me searching Florida for this tale's equivalent of mermaids.

Opening with Marylou Ahearn leaving her settled life to move into a Florida suburb and stalk the doctor on whom she blames her eight year old daughter's cancer and death decades before, the narrative takes off on a crazy, careening ride. Marylou changes her name to Nancy Archer, from the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, as she plans out ways to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs. As Nance, she plots Wilson's demise even while befriending his family, with whom he lives. But Nance's plans have to undergo a change as she realizes that Wilson is suffering from Alzheimer's and he has no recollection of the dangerous, toxic experiments he used to run. As a young pregnant woman, Marylou and her unborn child were used in an experiment without her knowledge and consent. Marylou was given a radioactive cocktail to drink "to help the baby" as the government explored the effects of radioactivity on the poor and unsuspecting. When her daughter developed childhood leukemia and died even before her tenth birthday, a part of Nance died as well and when she found out years later that she had been a part of the study pumping people full of radiation, she is convinced that her daughter's death was in fact a long drawn out murder, orchestrated by Dr. Spriggs, on whom she intends to seek revenge.

And so as Nance, she buys a home and spies on the good doctor and his family, discovering that their life is fraught with challenges, problems, disappointments, and unhappiness. Since she can't make Wilson Spriggs pay for his crime if he no longer remembers it, she will get to him through his struggling family. Wilson's two oldest grandchildren have Asperger's and the youngest, Suzi, is all but neglected because of older siblings Ava and Otis's need for more parental attention. As Marylou posing as Nance gets to know the family better, she keys in on each person's weaknesses and their specific needs in order to egg them on inappropriately. Just how far will Nance go to revenge herself on the good doctor and can she continue using his family once she discovers in fact just how much she really likes them?

Nance's original purpose and the tale behind it get lost in the present day goings on, making that plot line, which was ostensibly the reason behind the novel in the first place, too weak. And the continual addition of problem after problem for Wilson Spriggs' family made it feel like one thing too many for me. Nance was hard to like and she should have been likable, still grieving so many years later and extracting deserved revenge. Instead, she came off as mean spirited and nasty. I still think the idea underpinning the novel is fascinating. I suspect that other readers will appreciate the humor as black humor, a variety of humor I have long had trouble finding entertaining, and will appreciate the tempering of the quirkiness to which I had so looked forward. Not a bad book at all, I just didn't connect with it like I had hoped.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

For me, I can't wait to read: The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin. The book is being released by St. Martin's Press on June 21, 2011.

Amazon says this about the book: Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts’, suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage.

Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora’s story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James.

Review: The Art of Forgetting by Camille Noe Pagan

What wouldn't you do for your best friend? Friends are incredibly important in our lives and no one would be the same person without them. They keep our secrets, remember our pasts, and house a piece of us in their hearts. But what would happen if your best friend suffered a traumatic brain injury and became a different person, forcing you into a different role in your friendship?

Best friends Marissa and Julia have known each other since they were fourteen. They navigated high school together and made plans for the future, moving to New York together to realize their dreams. And then one day Julia is hit by a cab and suffers a brain injury, changing her personality and the very fabric of Marissa and Julia's friendship. For years Marissa has been the friend in the background, compliant and insecure, content to let Julia shine. But with Julia's abrupt personality change, Marissa has to come out of the shadows and learn to confidently stand on her own two feet without the comfortable buffer of Julia in front of her.

As Marissa copes with her changed relationship with Julia, now half a continent away back living in Ann Arbor with her parents, she is also at a crossroads with her boyfriend Dave and at her magazine editor job. But while she is trying to decide where her future lies, Julia is fixated on the past, reconnecting with Nathan, the boyfriend she asked Marissa to give up for the sake of their friendship so many years ago. This only complicates Marissa's present and she can't help wondering if Nathan is the one that got away even as her anger at Julia's interference mounts.

As much as this is a book about friendship, it is even more about taking charge of your own life and becoming confident, embracing happiness, and accepting change. Marissa's character undergoes a sea change, forced to confront her own hopes and dreams by the potentially permanent changes in Julia. She learns to advocate for herself and to hold onto what really matters, becoming less self-effacing and more self-reliant. Julia, as a character, is present far less than you might expect although Marissa thinks of her often, running decisions past her internal Julia in lieu of actually having her friend present and available.

Since Julia is hit by the cab within the first few pages of the book, the only evidence we have of Marissa and Julia's friendship prior to the accident are Marissa's recollections. And quite honestly, her memories make it rather difficult to like Julia, who comes off as manipulative, controlling, and selfish. And I suspect that we are not supposed to dislike Julia. So the deep and loyal friendship the novel is predicated on falls a bit flat although Marissa's growth still comes off as genuine and earned. Pagan's research into traumatic brain injury is well integrated into the storyline and I personally found the information on swans not having learned "the art of forgetting," holding lifelong grudges, to be fascinating. A very quick read with an abrupt and easy ending, this would keep you pleasantly occupied for a day at the pool.

For more information about Camille Noe Pagan and the book visit her webpage.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Review: Killer Stuff and Tons of Money by Maureen Stanton

I am not much for taking time picking through things at estate sales or flea markets. The only antiques I have have been handed down in the family. And yet I know there are wonderful treasures to be uncovered or purchased at these places, like the dented and filthy brass firewood bucket my grandfather discovered at a garage sale and subsequently polished back into beauty.

This fascinating creative non-fiction book introduced me to people who make a living dealing in antiques; the history behind certain kinds of antiques, auctions, flea markets, and the like; and the controversies rife in the antiques world. The author shadowed her old friend, mid-level antiques dealer Curt Avery for an insider's glimpse of the antiquing life. Stanton tells Curt's story as he works hard and tirelessly to support his family through his obsession. He is incredibly knowledgeable, mostly self-taught, and willing to share his information with Stanton as well as offering his customers historical tidbits about the pieces in which they show an interest. Interspersed with Curt's tale are lengthier history lessons about specific antiques and even auctions and flea markets themselves. Stanton looks at the obsession we Americans have for "stuff" and what collecting says about us, highlighting some different, even macabre collections.

The triumph of the book is the easy, casual writing and the way in which Stanton has made a somewhat esoteric topic gripping reading. She knows just when to veer from her main story and add an historical tidbit and how to raise the tension over whether Avery will win an auction or sell a piece for ten times the price he paid. She's captured the down and dirty aspects of a dealer's life and the feel of attending show after show after show, packing and unpacking wares at each of them. The book is incredibly readable, compulsively interesting and has even made me want to visit a flea market sometime despite knowing that I'd be the frustratingly ignorant customer at whom so many dealers scoff.

For more information about Maureen Stanton and the book visit her webpage or follow her on Twitter.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Sheer exhaustion from a whole lot of nothing has claimed me this past week. I do have several reviews half written so hopefully they will be finished up and posted in the not too distant future! This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this week are:

Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Vagabond by Colette
Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Next by James Hynes
Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann
Killer Stuff and Tons of Money by Maureen Stanton

Reviews posted this week:

Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
Strange Relation by Rachel Hadas
Slow Love by Dominique Browning
West of Here by Jonathan Evison
Made For You and Me by Caitlin Shetterly
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice
Twelve by Twelve by William Powers
Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum
The Wedding Cake War by Lynna Banning
Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney
Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
The Paperbark Shoe by Goldie Goldbloom
Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan
The Art of Saying Goodbye by Ellyn Bache
When the Killing's Done by T.C. Boyle
The First Husband by Laura Dave
Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

Monday Mailbox

A couple of surprises and a couple of books I had forgotten were headed this way made up my mailbox this week. This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Just My Type by Simon Garfield came from Gotham Books thanks to Lisa at TLC Book Tours.
I can't be the only person who reads all the typeface information at the back of published books, right? I am just the sort of geek to whom this kind of stuff appeals and so this book should be perfect for me.

Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel came from Harper Perennial thanks to Trish at TLC Book Tours.
A lovely sounding love story set among homes built on stilts in Miami's Biscayne Bay, just the idea of the houses themselves attracts me. The story of the marriage is an added bonus.

A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano came from The Penguin Press thanks to Trish at TLC Book Tours.
I first read Flannery O'Connor in high school (Wise Blood) so this fictionalization of grabbed my attention.

The Gap Year by Sarah Bird came from Knopf thanks to Lisa at TLC Book Tours.
Mothers, daughters, the ever entertaining Sarah Bird, does it get any better?

Stay by Allie Larkin came from Plume.
With that adorable dog on the cover, how could the book not call to me? And the plot sounds fun and charming too.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit The Bluestocking Guide as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann

This is a rather chunky book and one that has gotten a lot of buzz, having initially been self-published, found a devoted following, and ultimately picked up by a major publisher. It's the publishing equivalent of being discovered by Hollywood. So I was very curious to read it and see what all the fuss was about.

Eveline Auerbach is about to start her senior year in high school. She is still reeling from the death of her best friend's mother, whom she loved very much, over the summer and her own unreported rape. Curling into herself and retreating, depressed, Evie navigates the end of high school and her tortured relationship with the solipsistic and emotionally creepy Jack. It is in this final year of school that Evie meets the tortured and artistic Rourke, drama teacher extraordinaire. And the philosophizing, self-referential cycle starts again albeit this time with the "love of her life." There are markers of the time scattered convincingly throughout the novel and anyone who lived through the late seventies and early eighties will recognize the references, grounding the book firmly in time. But this is only ever the anthropology of one girl, not a more general take, as I might have hoped.

I think it has just been too long since I was in high school or college but I struggled with the angst and the self-conscious philosophy, finding it all too desperately earnest. I am not so old that I don't remember the navel gazing discussions and disagreements of late teen-life but I didn't find them terribly appealing to read. Then again, I never did like Catcher in the Rye, even when I read it in high school, so perhaps I'm not the target audience for the book given that the major marketing comparison here is to Holden Caulfield. I didn't find the characters particularly likeable nor, in the face of this lack, all that interesting and that is not good when a thin plot is meant to be character-driven.

This could, perhaps, have been saved by exquisite writing but similies and metaphors overwhelmed each page and some of the writing was absolutely head-shakingly incomprehensible. I'd even read sentences aloud to see if I could figure out what Hamann intended if I heard it rather than just read it. Descriptions were overdone, lending none of them more weight than the others and completely overshadowing the story. Sometimes simplicity in writing is not a bad thing. Obviously, given the enormous positive buzz I've heard, my reservations are by no means universal. The jacket blurbs are incredibly glowing and I have since read some gushing reviews. I really wanted to be one of the gushers but it just wasn't to be. Check it out yourself and feel free to come back and tell me what all I missed, because I certainly missed that something intangible that makes me want to force everyone I know to read a book and it's clearly there for quite a lot of readers.

For more information about Hilary Thayer Hamann and the book visit the book's website and Facebook page or follow Hamann on Twitter.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

For me, I can't wait to read: Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. The book is being released by Knopf on June 14, 2011.

Amazon says this about the book: The Kelleher family has been coming to Maine for sixty years. Their beachfront cottage,won on a barroom bet after the war, is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and threadbare sweaters are shared on chilly nights. It is also a place where cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and ancient grudges simmer below the surface. As Maggie, Kathleen, and Anne Marie descend on Alice and the cottage, each woman brings her own baggage—a secret pregnancy, a terrible crush, and a deeply held resentment for misdeeds of the past.

By turns uproarious and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to the family house, and to one another.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Still reading, still not reviewing. Must get back on it! This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this week are:

Faith by Jennifer Haigh
When the Killing's Done by T.C. Boyle
The First Husband by Laura Dave

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Vagabond by Colette
Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Next by James Hynes
Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann
Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

Reviews posted this week:

Faith by Jennifer Haigh

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
Strange Relation by Rachel Hadas
Slow Love by Dominique Browning
West of Here by Jonathan Evison
Made For You and Me by Caitlin Shetterly
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice
Twelve by Twelve by William Powers
Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum
The Wedding Cake War by Lynna Banning
Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney
Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
The Paperbark Shoe by Goldie Goldbloom
Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan
The Art of Saying Goodbye by Ellyn Bache
When the Killing's Done by T.C. Boyle
The First Husband by Laura Dave

Review: Faith by Jennifer Haigh

Faith is not an easy thing to define. It is unprovable and intangible and yet it very clearly exists. It can be rock solid or it can be rocked to its very foundations, as it was for many when the Catholic Church's suppression, deflection, and general sweeping under the carpet of accusations of priests molesting children came to light. Parishes were devastated, the victims were at the center of a firestorm, and the church found itself having to defend the indefensible. But were all of the accusations legitimate? Jennifer Haigh's newest novel, Faith looks at the damage wrought by such an accusation and at the deeper issues of sacrifice, goodness, family, and faith.

When Father Art Breen is accused of molesting a nine year old boy, his family reacts in differing ways. His mother is unable to believe it of him while his younger brother convicts him immediately. His sister Sheila wants to believe he's innocent and sets out to search for the truth. She is the primary narrator, clearly telling Art's story well after the fact. As she uncovers more and more about the accusation itself and Art's choice not to defend himself from the allegation, she shares the story of their family, in which Art was simultaneously his mother's revered eldest and the object of his stepfather's disdain and derision. Sheila also uncovers the checkered history of the troubled young mother, Kath, who has made the accusation against Father Art on behalf of her son. As her glimpses into a fuller picture coalesce, Sheila is assailed by doubt, wondering if the Art she knows and loves could possibly have done this monstrous thing.

Tightly written and evenly paced, this novel examines the many different angles every story contains. The adage that there are two sides to every story is true exponentially here. There is Art's story, as unknowable as it might be. There is Kath's story. There is the story Sheila is stitching together from various sources. And finally, there is the whole truth, unblemished and unattainable. Haigh has used the Catholic priest abuse scandal to raise questions about what we believe and why. This is not a religious book. Faith and religion are two different issues. But the struggles and wrestlings of faith are beautifully, sharply portrayed here.

Despite the factual inspiration of the novel and the way the accusation drives the plot, this is in actuality an intense family drama, an examination of the way in which the people who know Art best react to his possible guilt. As the story unfolds, glimpses of intrigue, of secrets as long kept as the Church's, threaten to spill into the open, changing the landscape of faith, just as the scandal in Boston did for so many of the Catholic faithful. Haigh has done a wonderful job portraying her characters as real and flawed. The reader, learning ever more, wavers, just as Sheila does, between having faith and doubt in Art's innocence. Tightly woven and engrossing, this is hard to put down, keeping the reader turning the pages until the very end, needing to know not only whether Art is guilty but also whether his family's faith, in the church and in each other, has survived this annus horribilus.


For more information about Jennifer Haigh and the book visit her webpage.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

For me, I can't wait to read: The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai. The book is being released by Viking Adult on June 9, 2011.

Amazon says this about the book: Lucy Hull, a young children's librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both a kidnapper and kidnapped when her favorite patron, ten- year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. The precocious Ian is addicted to reading, but needs Lucy's help to smuggle books past his overbearing mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly antigay classes with celebrity Pastor Bob. Lucy stumbles into a moral dilemma when she finds Ian camped out in the library after hours with a knapsack of provisions and an escape plan. Desperate to save him from Pastor Bob and the Drakes, Lucy allows herself to be hijacked by Ian. The odd pair embarks on a crazy road trip from Missouri to Vermont, with ferrets, an inconvenient boyfriend, and upsetting family history thrown in their path. But is it just Ian who is running away? Who is the man who seems to be on their tail? And should Lucy be trying to save a boy from his own parents?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I was trapped at the middle school all week running the book fair. If you think this left me any time for reading, sadly you would be incorrect. I spent more time straightening messes made by apathetic and attitudinal teenagers and counting the paltry sums we made than I did reading. And given that the school blocks so many websites, I couldn't write reviews to post either. Can you see me now at the bottom of the reading/reviewing hole I keep digging deeper and deeper? This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this week are:

The Paperbark Shoe by Goldie Goldbloom
Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan
The Art of Saying Goodbye by Ellyn Bache

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Vagabond by Colette
Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Next by James Hynes
When the Killing's Done by T.C. Boyle

Reviews posted this week:

When We Danced on Water by Evan Fallenberg

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
Strange Relation by Rachel Hadas
Slow Love by Dominique Browning
West of Here by Jonathan Evison
Made For You and Me by Caitlin Shetterly
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice
Twelve by Twelve by William Powers
Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum
The Wedding Cake War by Lynna Banning
Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney
Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
The Paperbark Shoe by Goldie Goldbloom
Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan
The Art of Saying Goodbye by Ellyn Bache

Monday Mailbox

Not too many books are coming in right now as I try to crawl out from the previous few months' deluge. But the one that did come is much appreciated! This past week's mailbox arrival:

The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald came from Random House thanks to Trish at TLC Book Tours.
This one about a "practice" baby who was raised by a group of women taking home ec in university has long been on my wish list.

Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger by Lee Smith came from Algonquin
I discovered Lee Smith way back in high school (and I'm not sure if that makes me feel old or if it should make her feel old) but I have always appreciated her lovely writing so I am looking forward to this latest story collection.
As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit The Bluestocking Guide as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

For me, I can't wait to read: Alice Bliss by Laure Harrington. The book is being released by Pamela Dorman Books on June 2, 2011.

Amazon says this about the book: When Alice Bliss learns that her father, Matt, is being deployed to Iraq, she's heartbroken. Alice idolizes her father, loves working beside him in their garden, accompanying him on the occasional roofing job, playing baseball. When he ships out, Alice is faced with finding a way to fill the emptiness he has left behind.

Matt will miss seeing his daughter blossom from a tomboy into a full-blown teenager. Alice will learn to drive, join the track team, go to her first dance, and fall in love, all while trying to be strong for her mother, Angie, and take care of her precocious little sister, Ellie. But the smell of Matt is starting to fade from his blue shirt that Alice wears everyday, and the phone calls are never long enough.

Alice Bliss is a profoundly moving coming-of-age novel about love and its many variations--the support of a small town looking after its own; love between an absent father and his daughter; the complicated love between an adolescent girl and her mother; and an exploration of new love with the boy-next-door. These characters' struggles amidst uncertain times echo our own, lending the novel an immediacy and poignancy that is both relevant and real. At once universal and very personal, Alice Bliss is a transforming story about those who are left at home during wartime, and a teenage girl bravely facing the future.