Review: Golden Child by Claire Adam

If you're a parent of more than one child, you have probably told at least one of your children that you don't have a favorite. But what if you did? What if one of your children has a potential that you don't see in another one? What if that child could get out of a bad or poor or dead-end situation, could excel? How much would you do for that child? What kind of sacrifice would you make? Could you, would you, make a Sophie's choice, sacrifice Beloved, be Abraham in the face of something larger than just your own wants and needs? Claire Adam has written just such a story in her novel Golden Child.

Clyde and Joy have twin thirteen year old sons named Peter and Paul. One night Paul, who has always been the less obedient, less present of the twins, doesn't come home. Angry and worried, his father stays up all night thinking on the trouble, large and small, this child has caused, planning how he wants to react when Paul finally does reappear. Except Paul doesn't reappear. The narrative then flips back in time to the birth of the boys. Peter's delivery is uncomplicated and easy while Paul was deprived of oxygen and the best guesses of the medical professionals witnessing his birth is that something is wrong with the baby. And so he grows up hearing that he is "slightly retarded," always knowing that Peter is incredibly smart, that Peter is something special, and is only held back because twins should stay together. Paul, meanwhile, struggles with school and with his image of himself, both in the shadow of his brother, who is always kind and caring with him, but also under the cloud of others' low expectations of his intelligence. Everything must be done to make sure that Peter reaches his potential; Paul's struggles are incidental. Their parents love both the boys but they cannot hide their loftier dreams for Peter as the boys grow. Then the narrative shifts once again to the days immediately following Paul's disappearance, showing not only what happened that night and those afterward, but also Clyde and Joy's decisions in the wake of this horrible situation.

The story is devastating on many levels, from the setting of crime ridden Trinidad to the familial jealousy and betrayal that drives the action. Adam has drawn a corrupt and scary Trinidad, a place rife with gossip, dangerous in what is said publicly, but also a place where people come together to try and offer help. She has captured the underhanded anger over inherited money and the strife it causes within a family if it is not seen to be shared evenly. The knowledge of the way society and politics work in this small island nation is eye opening, leaving no doubt that the book must end the way it does. As for the aptly named Peter and Paul, like their Biblical namesakes, they are each martyred in their own ways. The book is heavy and hard but it is exquisitely done. The framing structure of the novel makes the rising tension slacken at times, going from the worry of a missing child out all night to the day of their birth, but this is also an effective way of showing the reader the backstory on Clyde's perception of both of his sons. The third person narrative switches amongst Clyde, Paul, and Father Kavanagh, giving only a limited view of the family as a whole but this also effectively, narrowly focuses the story on a father facing an impossible choice, the gentle but unfavored child, and an outsider who tries but does not (can not?) understand. Most of the secondary characters are drawn very faintly, used primarily to show the deep and dangerous corruption in Trinidad except Father Kavanagh who seems mostly to be in the story to try and make Clyde see Paul differently and to be told exactly why Clyde's perception will never change. A novel of complex and tangled family dynamics, this is a heartbreaking story that will stay with the reader long after the last page has been turned.

For more information about Elise Hooper and the book, follow her on Twitter. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

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

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was 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. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray.

The book is being released by Berkley on February 19, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: The Butler family has had their share of trials—as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest—but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives.

Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband Proctor are arrested, and in a heartbeat the family goes from one of the most respected in town to utter disgrace. The worst part is, not even her sisters are sure exactly what happened.

As Althea awaits her fate, Lillian and Viola must come together in the house they grew up in to care for their sister’s teenage daughters. What unfolds is a stunning portrait of the heart and core of an American family in a story that is as page-turning as it is important.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten
The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya
Learning to See by Elise Hooper
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
The Bottom of the Sky by Rodrigo Fresan
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

Reviews posted this week:

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Books For Living by Will Schwalbe
Learning to See by Elise Hooper
The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
Sad Animal Facts by Brooke Barker

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

The Forgotten Guide to Happiness by Sophie Jenkins
Surviving Paradise by Peter Rudiak-Gould
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten
The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Review: Sad Animal Facts by Brooke Barker

Sometimes I blurt out random facts to astonished people. (We'll pretend their astonishment is at the sheer amount of bizarre but fascinating knowledge I have rather than at my complete social awkwardness.) I don't know why I retain these random facts but they cheerfully take up something like 90% of my available brain space. I am rather addicted to them and to the books that contain them so when I saw this appealing little book at the cash wrap at the bookstore, it was a foregone conclusion that I'd pick it up and take it home with me.

This is very much a gift book. Each page has a brightly colored, basic, hand drawn cartoons of an animal sharing something unknown about its species. Sometimes the fact is sad (if we anthropomorphize) but sometimes its just a fascinating little tidbit about one of the critters with whom we share this planet. Each of the facts is scientifically proven, which will leaving you wondering why science tested certain things in the first place (why did we need to know herrings communicate through farting, that turtles breathe through their butts, that squirrels can't burp, or that dwarf lemurs line their homes with feces?), and the alphabetical index in the back of the book offers more information on each fact. Lest you think there are only gross 12 year old boy type facts in the book (although don't pretend you didn't enjoy reading them just now and aren't going to use them at your next company party because you definitely are), there are also facts about sleeping habits, eating habits, species empathy, and more as well. The illustrations are cute, the facts Barker has chosen to illustrate are interesting (and only a few of them are common knowledge), and the book is a delightful little book to dip in and out of. As a side note, it is also very appealingly constructed, with smooth glossy pages and a heavy feel in your hands. Highly recommended if you too need new gems for your small talk repertoire.

Review: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

There are war stories. There are Resistance stories. There are soldier or spy or leader or civilian bystander stories. There are refugee stories.  There are family stories.  There are concentration camp stories.  There are tragedies and apologies.  Just when you think there can't possibly be another unique story to be told about WWII and the atrocities of the Holocaust, a tale unlike the others comes along and proves you wrong. Heather Morris' The Tattoooist of Auschwitz is one such story. Yes, it is a concentration camp story but it is also a love story, a survival story, a life story, made even more interesting by being based on a true story.  Would you tattoo your fellow Jews?  What is the cost of doing so?  Can any good come from being a Tatowierer?

Lale Sokolov was sent to Auschwitz in 1942. He was an educated Slovakian Jew who spoke several languages. Catching the eye of the camp Tatowierer (German for tattooist), a fellow Jewish prisoner, Lale learns to tattoo other incoming prisoners, leaving his work forever on the skin of his own people. His position affords him certain privileges, which he uses to try and alleviate some of the horrific suffering in the camp. Then one day a beautiful young woman is sent to him to have her fading tattoo re-inked. Lale falls hard for Gita and is determined that the two of them will survive the atrocity of the camp and make a life together. In his position as the camp tattooist, Lale has access to many different parts of the camp, allowing him access to the possessions of the murdered which he uses to buy extra food and medications for his fellow sufferers, and to German higher-ups, which gave him the opportunity to get Gita a less strenuous job, one which ultimately probably helped keep her alive. The two and a half years in the camp are full of harrowing occurrences, with both Lale and Gita coming to the edge of death at different times. But through it all, Lale remained completely devoted to Gita and to staying alive for her.

This was first written as a screenplay and it shows in its dialogue heavy writing and stage direction like actions. For a tale of love and hope in the midst of horror, it is somehow oddly emotionally flat despite its subject matter. It feels very simplified, only skimming the surface and telling the big picture without looking directly into the heart of it all. The character development is lacking too, almost as if, despite selling this as a novel rather than a biography, Morris wasn't willing to stray too far from Sokolov's reminiscences and fill in the blanks where he chose not to go. This makes it hard for the reader to really connect with Lale and Gita fully, viewing their story from a remove that unfortunately dulls the immediacy of their experiences. The history of the Holocaust is incredibly important and one we should never forget but it should be told in a way that grabs a reader, forcing them to face the reality of the genocide and the strong emotions this brings. This novel just doesn't do that.  Instead it is like Gita's tattoo in the beginning, indelible yes, but fading so that its impact is blurred. I am not entirely alone in my opinion but certainly the majority opinion seems to be the exact opposite so if you are a WWII aficionado, maybe you'll like it better than I did.

It is interesting to note that both Lale and Gita's only son and some serious historians of the Holocaust have taken issue with the purported "facts" of this book. Author Heather Morris' contention is that it is a novel only based on Lale and Gita's story and not a history.

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

Review: The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

The past number of years, the news has been filled with accounts of girls or young women kidnapped months or years before and suddenly found alive, having been kept hidden and held hostage by their kidnappers. This is the best possible outcome for kidnapped children although the lifelong emotional toll on the recovered children has to be enormous. But every parent of a taken child must be desperate for such an outcome. Rene Denfeld's novel The Child Finder introduces a character whose specialty is finding missing children, alive or dead, and this first book in a planned series starts off in a quietly spectacular manner.

Naomi is special. Called "the child finder" by her clients, she specializes in finding kidnapped and missing children, never giving up and combing over scant information from every direction possible to help her figure out where the children must be. She agrees to take on the case of little Madison Culver, missing for three years, who disappeared at the age of five when in Skookum National Forest picking a Christmas tree with her family. She seemingly disappeared into thin air and no further trace of her has ever been found but her parents have refused to give up hope even as their own marriage cracks under the strain of not knowing her fate. As Naomi methodically tracks the missing girl, her own story as a missing child, one who escaped but was never reclaimed or identified, haunts her dreams. Her own trauma informs her search for Madison and her concurrent search for the missing baby of a developmentally delayed young woman who has been charged with the baby's murder.

Naomi's own past, which is revealed to the reader in small pieces, informs how she goes about her work, antagonizing some people, pushing others, and only rarely opening up to anyone. She is clearly deeply affected by her own story, allowing her to connect with and have a surprising compassion for broken people even while she is uncomfortable around most folks. Interspersed with flashes of Naomi's past and her search, is a fairy tale of sorts. Calling herself the snow girl, a child tells herself the few small things she remembers of her life before being taken and what she knows and learns of the man with whom she lives. This latter piece of narration is absolutely gut wrenching for the reader but it is not horrifically graphic. Denfeld manages to create full and complex characters even in those only in the story for a brief amount of time, rounding them out as real and understandable in their motivations. Although this is billed as a thriller, because the narrative tension is steady and consistent it really isn't one. The story feels quiet, like it's muffled in the deep snow that quickly covered all traces of Madison's whereabouts when she disappeared. And although it deals with kidnapping and abuse, it somehow feels gentle and compassionate. At the end of the book, only one question remains, Naomi says that "it's never too late to be found" but will she be able to find herself over the course of the series?

Thanks to the publisher for supplying me with a copy of this book.

Review: Learning to See by Elise Hooper

If you've seen stark, weary portraits of unemployed and homeless people during the Great Depression, chances are you've seen a Dorothea Lange photograph. She captured the poverty, the hardship, the despair, and the resignation like no other artist working at the time. Her most famous photograph is probably the Migrant Mother. But who was the woman who saw right to the tired, downtrodden hearts of the people she was photographing, who exposed the truth and reality of their lives? Elise Hopper's newest novel, Learning to See, is a fascinating fictionalization of this skilled photographer's life, the hardships and happinesses of her own remarkable life.

Dorothea Lange had an eye. She saw and captured things in people and their circumstances that others missed. She was focused and driven, first to succeed and then to make a difference in the hardship and injustice she saw around her. Her own life had its share of hardship as well, from polio at seven that left her with a permanent limp and a disfigured foot, her father's unexplained abandonment that meant she and her younger brother accompanied their social worker mother to scenes they shouldn't have seen, to losing her entire life savings when the dear friend she was supposed to travel around the world with was pick-pocketed on their first day in San Francisco. Lange pushed through each setback, disappointment, heartbreak, and personal sacrifice to persevere, to emerge from the ashes and create the photography that documented the social failings of the mid-twentieth century, even as it took a toll on her family and her own health.

But Hooper's book captures and expands on Lange personally, in addition to professionally. Lange struggled to balance her life as a celebrated portrait photographer to the wealthy with her life as a wife to Western artist Maynard Dixon and mother to their two boys. She was already the family's chief breadwinner when the Great Depression hit and she became their sole support. But her heart was not in portraiture, it was in social documentation and activism so when portrait photography was no longer financially viable, she made the shift to documenting migration and the growing economic disaster of the 30s for the government. Doing so led her to make hard personal decisions that changed the very face of her family.

Told in the first person, the narrative starts when Lange is a brash and forthright 22 year old, newly arrived in San Francisco from New York. As it weaves through the story of her life moving forward, there are occasional chapters interspersed that are set in the 1960s as Lange ruminates on what is clearly a tense and fragile relationship with her oldest son Dan and the plans for a MoMA retrospective of her work, including that from her time working for the FSA (and its predecessor) but still not yet including the impounded photographs she took of the Japanese internment camps. These chapters from late in her life show her to be a woman still and always learning to truly see herself and those whom she loved. They interrupted the smooth flow of the otherwise chronological narrative but did so in such a way to emphasize that although Lange's work loomed large over her entire life, she suffered and her family suffered because of some of the decisions she made in the service of her art. The story is well done and engaging and the reader is swept along with it, seeing the dichotomy of working mother and home life, the treatment of and dismissiveness shown to women, the cost of divorce, and the power and threat of social justice.  Learning about Dorothea Lange, the woman and the photographer was fascinating and the novel will appeal to historical fictions readers of all sorts, especially those who enjoy reading about trailblazing women and the work of their lives.

For more information about Elise Hooper and the book, check out her webpage, like her author page on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter or Instagram. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

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

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was 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. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

The Sisters Hemingway by Annie England Noblin.

The book is being released by William Morrow Paperbacks on February 12, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: The Sisters Hemingway: they couldn’t be more different…or more alike.

The Hemingway Sisters of Cold River, Missouri are local legends. Raised by a mother obsessed with Ernest Hemingway, they were named after the author’s four wives—Hadley, Pfeiffer, Martha, and Mary. The sisters couldn’t be more different—or more alike. Now they’re back in town, reunited to repair their fractured relationships.

Hadley is the poised, polished wife of a senator.

Pfeiffer is a successful New York book editor.

Martha has skyrocketed to Nashville stardom.

They each have a secret—a marriage on the rocks, a job lost, a stint in rehab…and they haven’t been together in years.

Together, they must stay in their childhood home, faced with a puzzle that may affect all their futures. As they learn the truth of what happened to their mother—and their youngest sister, Mary—they rekindle the bonds they had as children, bonds that have long seemed broken. With the help of neighbors, friends, love interests old and new—and one endearing and determined Basset Hound—the Sisters Hemingway learn that he happiness that has appeared so elusive may be right here at home, waiting to be claimed.

Review: Books for Living by Will Schwalbe

Do you love books about books? Most serious book worms do. I know I sure love them. I am always happy to read a book that has the potential to add so many titles to my want to read list. If you're a reader, people like to ask what your favorite book is or what kind of books you like to read or what book changed your life. The answer to the latter portion of the question is that every book changes your life. Sometimes the ways in which this happens are big and obvious and sometimes the ways are so small as to be almost dismissable.  Sometimes the ways depend on what else is going on in your life and your head when you read that particular book.  I believe that each book, from the fluffiest fluff to the most serious philosophy becomes a part of you, shapes you and your way of thinking, changes you. So when a book like Schwalbe's essay collection about his reading life examined and illustrated with pieces of his non-book life comes along, it's a sure bet that I'll read it.

Schwalbe believes that you can find everything you need in a book and his collection of essays discuss what he has taken away from the books he's read, how it has made him look at his life in particular but also life and society in general. The essays center around a whole variety of books, classics and modern/recent books both. The reader sees right into the very soul of Schwalbe through the lens of the books that have shaped his thinking and his being and can, if they so choose, take Schwalbe's choices as suggestions for their own further reading and examination. His writing is conversational and accessible, personal and approachable. The books that touched Schwalbe came at just the right moment for him to read and reflect on them in terms of his life, his experience, and as such they are unlikely to represent the same things to his readers. I know several of the books he notes as seminal in his reading life left me cold but I have my own books that he doesn't mention. And that, of course, is the beauty of reading. We all come away from each book with something incredibly personal. Reading Schwalbe's insights into his reading did make me reflect on my own and seeing into the heart of someone else's life through their reading was fascinating. This is a type of reflective memoir I can really get behind.

Review: The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

I drink tea, cold in the summer and hot in the winter, but I never gave much thought to where it comes from other than whether it's a flavor I like. I have little to no idea about the lives of the people who grow, harvest, or sell the tea. Lisa See's most recent novel not only introduces one group of these people, the Akha minority in China, to readers, but also examines the ways in which their culture and their relationships are changing as the tea trade itself is changing.

Li-yan is a young Akha woman growing up in a remote mountain village in the Yunnan Province, bound by the long held beliefs and customs of her people. Li-yan's family has harvested Pu'er tea for generations, the women of the family carefully guarding the location of their prized "mother" tree from the men and all outsiders. Li-yan is caught straddling the past and the changing future where things like banishing those who bear twins will no longer hold sway over her culture. Falling in love, she commits the terrible sin of having a child out of wedlock, a sin punished by  the death of the baby. Having no other choice, she gives her tiny daughter up for adoption even as she has almost immediate second thoughts. Her journey through life is not an easy one and the shadow of her missing daughter follows her always. An ocean away in America, Haley is the much loved, adopted Chinese daughter of an educated, white couple. She has forever wondered about her birth mother and why she was given up for adoption. Part of her identity is completely unknown, unknown except for the unusual pressed tea cake tucked into her baby blanket. It is her search for answers about her origins and about this tea that sets her on her own journey back to China.

This is a dual narrative weaving Li-yan and Haley's stories. Li-yan's tale takes up the bulk of the beginning (and in truth the whole novel) and is told in the first person while Haley's tale is told through the many documents others write about her during her childhood, doctor's notes, her mother's letters to family, Haley's own school work.  Haley's story only becomes a traditional narrative at the end of the novel. Although Haley's search for self and the identity politics involved are important, Li-yan's life and the trials she overcomes are far more interesting to the reader, offering a history of minorities in China, a glimpse at an evolving minority culture, insight into all the levels of the tea industry, and the treatment and ultimate power of women. No reader will doubt where the novel is headed but the coincidences required to reach that point can be a little unbelievable. See does an amazing job with the culture of the Akha and with the quiet power and will of the women in this story. Haley's desire to know her own past is well done and believable and it's lovely to see her parents' support for her need for information. Those who like a goodly dose of history and anthropology with their fiction will definitely enjoy this story of mothers and daughters, identity, what is gained and what is lost through globalization, and the changing landscape of the tea world, culturally, economically, and ecologically.

A 2017 National Reading Group Month Great Group Read

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Forgotten Guide to Happiness by Sophie Jenkins
Surviving Paradise by Peter Rudiak-Gould
Sad Animal Facts by Brooke Barker
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
The Bottom of the Sky by Rodrigo Fresan
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
Learning to See by Elise Hooper
The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya

Reviews posted this week:

The Gown by Jennifer Robson
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by Ann Hood

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

The Forgotten Guide to Happiness by Sophie Jenkins
Surviving Paradise by Peter Rudiak-Gould
Sad Animal Facts by Brooke Barker
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

Review: She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah) by Ann Hood

I don't often delve into middle grade books but I am a big Ann Hood fan and I was gifted with her latest book, She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah), so I thought I'd give it a shot. Other than Hood's name on the cover of the book, I must admit to being completely the wrong audience for this novel. I am not even close to the right age (even my children are far past the age this is aimed at) for middle grade and I am not really a Beatles fan although I do know and appreciate their influence on the music that came after them. But I also know that Hood really knows how to write.

Trudy Mixer (please don't call her Gertrude) is the President and Founder of the Beatles fan club at her junior high, the first fan club in the entire state of Rhode Island. A wildly popular club in elementary school, all of a sudden, its 24 member high has dwindled to 4, the smallest it can be before it is no longer officially a club. It's hard that the three remaining members besides Trudy are odd but the most hurtful thing about the whole thing is the defection of Trudy's best friend Michelle to the Future Cheerleaders Club and her subsequent abandonment of Trudy for more popular girls. When Trudy's father, a workaholic who shares an interest in the Beatles with his daughter but otherwise doesn't give her the attention she craves, gets four tickets to the Beatles concert in Boston, Trudy is certain that this will restore her relationship with Michelle. Even this magic seems to fail so Trudy declares that she is going to meet Paul (her favorite Beatle) and that meeting him will change everything. How one junior high girl is going to meet her idol when even getting to the concert becomes questionable drives the novel forward.

Trudy's obsession with the Beatles allows her to rationalize her continued relationship with three unpopular kids. It is these three who stand together with Trudy, teaching her something about friendship, perseverance, and that her own problems aren't the only ones in the world. Hood uses the other club members to highlight several of the social issues of the 1960s and the impact they had on regular people: Vietnam and feminism, as well as love. While the book itself feels like a time capsule from 1966 given all of the exquisite time period details, Hood has also captured the universality of the pain and confusion and awfulness of navigating junior high, of trying to find yourself in an ever changing landscape of random popularity, never knowing entirely what will doom you to the devastating horror of being unpopular, what will lose you your long time best friend. The emotional upheaval and the magical thinking of junior high are absolutely spot on. The end to the book is both sweet and improbable but since you've long since started rooting for Trudy and company, it is forgivable. With Trudy as the narrator, the reader doesn't really learn much about the other three club members until quite late in the narrative when Trudy herself learns about them, looking beyond herself and becoming that little bit less absorbed in herself that allows her to open up to the idea of friendship with someone other than Michelle. A book about a Beatles obsessed 12 year old seems a little strange for today's middle schoolers but Hood's attention to detail and ability to draw the emotional reality of middle school might just make this more popular than I would expect.

Review: A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti

We all have books that we are reluctant to read, movies we're reluctant to see, or things we're reluctant to do that we know we should tackle. I find that sometimes this is pure laziness but other times it's because I don't expect the experience to be pleasurable; it's a daunting obligation for whatever reason. It's a little like medicine. You take it not because it tastes good but because it will help you get better. I fully expected Matthew J. Hefti's novel, A Hard and Heavy Thing, to be the book equivalent of medicine. I'd be a better person for having read it but it would be a painful experience in the reading. I mean, it's about war and the devastation it wreaks on the lives of soldiers even once they are back in civilian life. And while it was indeed a painful read, it was pretty magnificent too, far and away better than just taking medicine. It made me face unpleasant truths and it made me think. It made me reflect, it made me feel, and it pushed me, as the best books do. Reading about war is never going to be comfortable but it can be so much more than simply edifying and I need to remember that the next time a book with an uncomfortable topic arrives on my list.

Levi and Nick are in high school, drinking and doing drugs, generally wasting their lives in a small Wisconsin town. They have no direction, besides maybe getting Nick's beautiful girlfriend Eris to the ER after an apparent overdose, so when 9/11 happens and Nick suggests that they enlist, Levi agrees easily. If war can be said to go well, theirs does not.  They experience so much of what war is: boredom and waiting as well as terror and action, camaraderie and annoyance, power and subordination, life and death, and meaning and nothingness. And once the war is over for them, they each have to return home and find a way to move forward in regular civilian life with the people they love in the small town they thought they'd left behind.

The novel is Levi's book, written to Nick to explain their life and how they reached the place they were in. It's a suicide note, an explanation, the love story of their friendship, an apology, an examination, an unburdening, and a meditation. It is mostly in the third person, with Levi writing about himself and Nick from an outsider's perspective until his authorial voice breaks through and he addresses his audience (ostensibly Nick but also the reader) directly, philosophizing about the action and what it all meant in terms of their relationship, making sure that he was not misunderstood because of the goodness of Nick's heart. It is honest and hard. And although fiction, it feels like nothing so much as truth. Broken into three distinct sections, before, during, and after the war, the novel addresses such huge issues as guilt, suffering, PTSD, love, hope, and hopelessness. Nick and Levi are hard to like much in the beginning, just dumb, bored teenagers wasting their lives. But war changes everything and their essential selves solidify in surprising ways, making them more complex and more sympathetic. Hefti starts the novel with the boys taking Eris to the ER, worried she is dying and the narrative tension slowly escalates from there through Iraq and Afghanistan, and all the way back home as well. This is a powerful story that asks if absolution or redemption is ever available. What if the official take on events is undeserved? What is a normal life, especially after a life changing experience or tragedy? What is a human life worth and who is the judge of that? What is a friendship worth and how many betrayals can it survive? Ultimately thoughtful and heartbreaking, this novel shows us that both war and the heart are hard and heavy things. And Matthew Hefti has allowed the reader a glimpse into both.

A National Reading Group Month Great Group Read for 2016.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was 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. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

The Age of Light by Whitney Sharer.

The book is being released by Little Brown and Company on February 5, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: She went to Paris to start over, to make art instead of being made into it.

A captivating debut novel by Whitney Scharer, The Age of Light tells the story of Vogue model turned renowned photographer Lee Miller, and her search to forge a new identity as an artist after a life spent as a muse. "I'd rather take a photograph than be one," she declares after she arrives in Paris in 1929, where she soon catches the eye of the famous Surrealist Man Ray. Though he wants to use her only as a model, Lee convinces him to take her on as his assistant and teach her everything he knows. But Man Ray turns out to be an egotistical, charismatic force, and as they work together in the darkroom, their personal and professional lives become intimately entwined, changing the course of Lee's life forever. Lee's journey takes us from the cabarets of bohemian Paris to the battlefields of war-torn Europe during WWII, from discovering radical new photography techniques to documenting the liberation of the concentration camps as one of the first female war correspondents. Through it all, Lee must grapple with the question of whether it's possible to reconcile romantic desire with artistic ambition-and what she will have to sacrifice to do so.

Told in interweaving timelines, this sensuous, richly detailed novel brings Lee Miller-a brilliant and pioneering artist-out of the shadows of a man's legacy and into the light.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was 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. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

When You Read This by Mary Adkins.

The book is being released by Harper on February 5, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: A comedy-drama for the digital age: an epistolary debut novel about the ties that bind and break our hearts, for fans of Maria Semple and Rainbow Rowell.

Iris Massey is gone. But she’s left something behind.

For four years, Iris Massey worked side by side with PR maven Smith Simonyi, helping clients perfect their brands. But Iris has died, taken by terminal illness at only thirty-three. Adrift without his friend and colleague, Smith is surprised to discover that in her last six months, Iris created a blog filled with sharp and often funny musings on the end of a life not quite fulfilled. She also made one final request: for Smith to get her posts published as a book. With the help of his charmingly eager, if overbearingly forthright, new intern Carl, Smith tackles the task of fulfilling Iris’s last wish.

Before he can do so, though, he must get the approval of Iris’ big sister Jade, an haute cuisine chef who’s been knocked sideways by her loss. Each carrying their own baggage, Smith and Jade end up on a collision course with their own unresolved pasts and with each other.

Told in a series of e-mails, blog posts, online therapy submissions, text messages, legal correspondence, home-rental bookings, and other snippets of our virtual lives, When You Read This is a deft, captivating romantic comedy—funny, tragic, surprising, and bittersweet—that candidly reveals how we find new beginnings after loss.

Review: The Gown by Jennifer Robson

If I say the word wedding gown, what do you think of? Do you think of a royal wedding gown like Princess Grace's, Princess Diana's, Duchess Catherine's, or Duchess Meghan's? If you are royal obsessed, you probably think of some of those much photographed gowns. What about Queen Elizabeth's wedding gown? Do you think of that one? If you were lucky enough to see the "Fashioning a Reign" exhibit at Buckingham Palace in 2016 like I was, you got to see the intricately embroidered gown in person and it is impressive indeed. It was the wedding gown of the future queen but what of the people who made it? Designer Norman Hartnell was credited with the gown but the numerous people who had a hand in its actual creation remain anonymous. Jennifer Robson's new novel, The Gown, focuses on two women who played a major part in the meticulous hand embroidery and on the granddaughter of one, who never knew about the important part her grandmother played in creating Princess Elizabeth's glamorous wedding gown.

Ann Hughes had worked in the embroidery room at Norman Hartnell's Mayfair studio for eleven years, creating beautiful embroidery that had graced the royals' and other wealthy patrons' clothing when Miriam Dassin, a Frenchwoman new to London, joined the atelier. The year was 1947, a year of continuing austerity after WWII  The winter was brutally cold and food was scarce but at least Ann had a roof over her head, even if her beloved sister in law, her brother's widow, had moved to Canada, leaving her lonely and in search of a roommate. As Ann and Miriam worked together and got to know each other, Ann invited Miriam to move in. These two very different women became good friends as well as co-workers, sharing their secrets and their heartbreaks, the horrors of war and of life afterwards.

In 2016, in Toronto, journalist Heather Mackenzie is mourning the loss of her Nan. When she discovers several beautiful floral embroidery samples left to her by her grandmother, she decides to research her Nan's life before she moved to Canada, a life never discussed with her daughter or granddaughter. And when Heather discovers that the embroideries match those on Queen Elizabeth's wedding dress, she is more determined than ever to uncover the past her grandmother never shared, a past that will lead her to the celebrated artist Miriam Dassin and to the realization that her grandmother had a hand in the celebrated wedding gown.

There are three different narratives weaving together in this novel, Ann and Miriam in 1947 and Heather in 2016. Ann and Miriam's stories focus on the life of working class young women in the aftermath of the war, their growing friendship, and their dating lives while Heather's story centers mainly on her search to learn more about her late Nan, to uncover the mystery she left behind. Ann and Miriam's stories are a bit more engaging than Heather's, offering more tension and drama than the modern day narrative does. That the 1947 narratives offer a look into the lives of two women who gave their skill and their quiet, unquestionable loyalty in the making of the princess's wedding dress, women who are otherwise anonymous, makes for fascinating reading. Although the wedding gown is central to the story, and to Heather's discovery of information on her Nan, this is as much the story of the necessity of friendship as anything. It is their friendship that helps Miriam confront the nightmare of her past and it is their friendship that gives Ann the courage to do what she ultimately needs to do. It is also that friendship that opens doors and the future to Heather. Readers or Anglophiles looking for engrossing historical fiction, for a tale of women's friendship, or for well done multiple narratives will find this a quick and rewarding read.

For more information about Jennifer Robson and the book, check out her webpage, like her author page on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter or Instagram. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

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

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

Thanks a Thousand by A.J. Jacobs
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by Ann Hood
The Gown by Jennifer Robson

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
The Bottom of the Sky by Rodrigo Fresan
Surviving Paradise by Peter Rudiak-Gould
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

Reviews posted this week:

On the Same Page by N.D. Galland
Thanks a Thousand by A.J. Jacobs

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

A new year, a new slate! A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by Ann Hood
The Gown by Jennifer Robson

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Villa del Sol by Martha Reynolds came from me for myself.

This won the Independent Publishers of New England Literary Fiction Award for 2018 and I'm very curious about it.

She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by Ann Hood came from a friend for a book swap.

A middle grade book about a Beatles-obsessed girl who is navigating middle school in the 60s with all its attendant friend drama and unhappiness, my review is coming soon.

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory came from a friend for a book swap.

I enjoy romances so this one about a woman who says no to a scoreboard proposal by her relatively new boyfriend and then has to endure the social media fallout should be funny and flirty.

Learning to See by Elise Hooper came from TLC Book Tours and William Morrow for a book tour.

A fictionalized story of Dorothea Lange? Oh, yes please!

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren came from a friend for a book swap.

A second chance with your one true love? I am looking forward to getting stuck into this one.

The Forgotten Guide to Happiness by Sophie Jenkins came from me for myself.

A reader in her twenties and a writer in her eighties who is showing signs of dementia end up as housemates in this novel. It sounds absolutely perfect for me.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: Best of 2018

Unlike every other person and place on the internet, I can't bring myself to make my Best Of list before the year actually ends. Call it optimism (hope springs eternal that one of the last books I read will be positively amazing) or contrariness (the year's not over yet, ya cheaters) or what it probably is, a combination of forgetfulness and laziness, but I don't pull it all together until the previous year is officially in the rear view mirror. I read 192 books in 2018 across categories including literary fiction, narrative non-fiction, graphic novel/memoir, mystery, romance, and true crime(!) to name a few. I had great reads, good reads, mediocre reads, and reads that made me shake my head wondering how they were ever published. Some books surprised me (in both directions) and some fulfilled all my expectations. I am certain I acquired more books than I read, a circumstance that never changes no matter what else is going on in my reading life. Even if my fellow readers can echo pretty much everything I've said here, reading remains intensely personal so everyone will have their own favorites. Here are mine, in no particular order from my 2018 reading life:

1. The Reluctant Cannibals by Ian Flitcroft












2. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi












3. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt











4. In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills by Jennifer Haupt












5. Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson












6. The Lido by Libby Page












7. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann











8. Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce













9. Second Wind by Nathaniel Philbrick













10. The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sunjata Masssey












11. Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese












12. Maggie Boylan by Michael Henson












13. All Over the Map by Betsy Mason and Greg Miller












14. The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal











15. The Art of Failing by Anthony McGowan









16. What Luck, This Life by Kathryn Schwille












17. The White Darkness by David Grann












18. The Golden Egg by Donna Leon












19. Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton











20. The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H. Winthrop











What were your favorite reads of 2018?