Review: Breakfast With Buddha by Roland Merullo

One of my book clubs chooses the upcoming reads based on the recommendations of a varied collection of people (not all of whom are in the group). This being the case, someone either in the group or close to a group member obviously raved about this book to get it onto our schedule. I certainly wasn't fussed by the choice as the book has been resident on my to be read shelves for quite some time now. But over all, it was rather a disappointment, especially knowing it had the force of recommendation behind it and a delightfully different premise too. I was quite disappointed to miss the meeting where it was discussed if only to hear other perspectives on it.

Otto Ringling is a middle-aged, food-book editor, originally from North Dakota, who lives a happy and fairly fulfilled life with his long-time wife and their two cookie-cutter teenaged children. The book opens with Otto (aka Everyman) taking time off work to drive out to North Dakota with his sister Cecelia to make arrangements for the disposition of their parents' farm, said parents having died in a car accident some months previous. But when Otto gets to his eccentric and New Age-ish sister's home, she informs him that she is not going with him. Instead, she wants him to take her spiritual advisor, to whom she wants to give her portion of the farm, with him. Otto doesn't want to have this perfect stranger in maroon robes foisted on him and he certainly doesn't want to show this foreigner a piece of America, but with grave misgivings, he agrees. So starts not only Otto's road trip but also his spiritual awakening.

With thoughts of mortality and the meaning of life flitting into and out of his consciousness, Otto is, of course, ripe to open to Volya Rinpoche's teachings. Unfortunately, Rinpoche sounds like Robert Fulghum and all he learned in kindergarten, offering up easy platitudes about living life mindfully, in moderation, and without causing harm to others. Certainly there's nothing wrong with living life this way, and a lot to be said for following this path, but as a revelation designed to open Otto's formerly skeptical eyes, it just trickles and dribbles, a little trite and very self-evident.

While some of the scenes of the childlike Rinpoche delighting in the everyday are entertaining enough, I am still uncertain as to how Otto ended up agreeing to take the man with him. Not only that but I apparently missed the transition Otto made from wanting to get to North Dakota quickly in order to rejoin his own family after wrapping up his business to willingly extending the road trip and meandering through the midwest with a not Buddhist monk in tow (Rinpoche refutes Otto's charge of Buddhism, claiming that all religions are at root similar enough to be not worth differentiating). The character of Rinpoche was a bit annoying and the way that his ability to use English seemed to fade in and out was almost as if Merullo veered between not wanting his spoken language to be a caricature and forgetting that he had written a character who indeed spoke English as an inexact second (or eleventh) language.

The latter portion of this first person narrative (Otto narrates) is very much a spiritual awakening journey and less and less of the road trip journey, a fact that made me lose interest in the book almost entirely. The ending grabbed me back, though not in a good way. The ending to this book was one of the most dreadful I have read in a long time, an airy-fairy, feel-good ending that grated unbelievably. Perhaps I am not spiritually open enough, just plain unelightened, or languishing too far back on the path, but I didn't love this book despite having been so attracted initially to the quirky premise and having enjoyed Merullo's A Little Love Story previously. Others thoroughly enjoyed the philosophical nature of the book though so it could just be my own stubbornness that kept me from being receptive to this novel.

Review: Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi

I read the first Persepolis in an effort to overcome my dislike of graphic novels. And although my opinion of the genre didn't change, I decided to go ahead and read the second of these memoirs (mostly because I already had it waiting for me in the house). It also didn't change my opinion of graphic memoirs. I think I'm just not destined to like them much. It's not a snobbery thing. I appreciate how difficult it is to be succinct, draw aesthetically pleasing pictures, and manage to marry the two in such a way that they tell a complex and nuanced story. I just don't enjoy the result. A personal failing perhaps, but there you have it.

Persepolis 2 tells Satrapi's story from her early teens when she left a war torn Iran for Austria, through her unsettled and rootless life in Vienna as she faced culture shock, experienced racism, and rebelled against so much, to her eventual return to Iran and her family, her education once home, her marriage, and her eventual decision to leave Iran forever. As in the first book, the heavy, dark illustrations underline the bleakness of Satrapi's experiences. She endured much at an age long before anyone should be asked to shoulder such responsibility and the unsophisticated, simple artwork conveys that.

Her tale is a wrenching one but for me, the drawings detract from the sympathy I should have been feeling. And I couldn't shake the feeling that there was much left out, especially anything positive, at least in part because of the constraints of graphic novels. Overall, everything about the story felt detached to me. I know that both Persepolis and Persepolis 2 have earned much acclaim but they just didn't move me. Whether I would have appreciated the story told in a more traditional novel format I can't say, but I definitely think that graphic novels are not for me.

Review: Alexandra, Gone by Anna McPartlin

Opening with a cheery note written by Alexandra to her husband followed by her happily leaving her home to meet up with a friend, she heads off on the train, this being the last anyone will see of Alexandra before she vanishes. Husband Tom is devastated by her unsolved disappearance and he devotes his life to passing out fliers and trying to find any slim trail that might explain what has happened to his wife. Meanwhile, Jane, who has spent the last 17 years raising her son, still more than a little in love with his father, is sort of treading water when she, her successful artist sister Elle, and web designer Leslie are trapped in an stalled elevator with Tom at a concert. When Jane recognizes the Alexandra on Tom's fliers as an older version of her best friend from high school, a tentative alliance is formed in order to bring more attention to Alexandra's case.

All of the characters' lives revolve around the empty space Alexandra left behind but as time goes on, even as they continue to search and hope, they all learn to live their lives around the loss. Tom's sadness is palpable throughout the novel. He and Alexandra's mother lean on each other, believing in the impossible while Alexandra's brother and father seem to hold Tom responsible in some way. Jane jumps into the search for Alexandra thinking of her old friend and the way that they drifted apart when Jane got pregnant and Alexandra went on to college. Since Jane's life took a left turn, she has not only raised her son as a single mom, but she's been there for her ex as he waltzed through women, and has taken care of her flighty but incredibly gifted sister and their cantankerous mother. With her son finishing up high school, Jane's life is at a crossroads. Elle is childlike despite her powerful artistic gift and Jane's careful caretaking has allowed her to indulge in self-destructive behaviours driven by her manic depressive swings. Leslie, the one perfect stranger in the elevator, is reclusive, such a loner her neighbor, smelling something bad from her apartment calls the police, certain that Leslie has died in there. When she agrees to help design a website in hopes of finding new clues into Alexandra's disappearance, she starts to come out of her shell, making friends and choosing life instead of just waiting to die of the breast cancer that decimated her entire family. All of the characters face new beginnings in the wake of Alexandra's vanishing and while it initially seems impossible for each of them to wake up to the importance and potentials of their lives, they do indeed come to see the beauty in love, friendship, and new starts.

While the tone of the book could be overwhelmingly sad, and at times it is, McPartlin has managed to avoid making the novel one of nothing but loss, even though each of the characters' stories are indeed pervaded by loss. Alexandra's disappearance is the mystery around which all of the other characters' lives revolve, the reason they all meet in fact, but this is really more the story of how people carry on and how they face the next day and the next and the next and ultimately how they must go on to find some happiness in the world no matter how great the sadness weighing them down. The characters, are, in the end, to greater and lesser degree, hopeful. They've created connections amongst themselves and the reader certainly feels a connection to them as well. They are complex and interesting and well thought out characters.

The structure of the novel can be a bit choppy, as is often the case with ensemble casts of characters, with all of them being the focus of sections in turn. But it is important to see all of the characters fully so the structure needs to be this way. Alexandra, is of course, most present in her absence. And because of this absence, the reader will want a resolution to her story. But resolution is not the theme here and so the idea of renewal and continuation takes center stage. And while the reader does eventually discover a little of the mystery, the end of the book continues on, as befitting the theme. The cover here will appeal to readers of chick lit but there's a wealth of very serious topics covered within these pages. These topics add quite a bit to the story, taking this from the superficial to some surprising depths. The writing is not maudlin and the characters peopling the pages shine out of the pages. This is a devastating, hopeful, very good read.

Thanks to Sarah at Pocket Books for sending me a review copy of this book.

Second Challenge

I very frequently read a book by an author or start a series and much as I've loved them, I don't get back to them again any time soon. The Second Challenge should help alleviate this problem a little bit. Of course, me being me, I'm signing up for the fewest possibly books that will still qualify me for the challenge because, after all, I am also doing that New Author Challenge and I'm going to have to balance that somehow!

Here are the guidelines at the site:

1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.
--Non-Bloggers: Include your information in the comment section.

2. There are four levels:

-- Curious – Read 3 novels that are 2nd in a series or second time you've read the author.

-- Fascinated – Read 6 that are 2nd in a series or second time you've read the author.

-- Addicted – Read 12 novels that are 2nd in a series or second time you've read the author.

-- Obsessed – Read 20 novels 2nd in a series or second time you've read the author.

3. Any genre counts.

4. You can list your books in advance or just put them in a wrap up post. If you list them, feel free to change them as the mood takes you.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2010.

6. When you sign up under Mr. Linky, put the direct link to the post about the 2nd Reading Challenge. Include the URL so that other participants can find join in and read your reviews and post.

Sounds good, right? Here are my three choices, not that I won't later change my mind, of course:

1. something by Mia King
2. In Summer Light by Zibby Oneal
3. The Blue Star by Tony Earley

Review: The Blue Star by Tony Earley

Jim the Boy is growing up. On the cusp of America's entry into WWII, Jim Glass is a senior in high school. He and his friends are the big kahunas at school and they intend for their last year to be a good one. It's a year in which Jim falls in love and much changes. He still lives with his widowed mother and his three bachelor uncles, has the run of town in his car, and goes about with his buddies. But he's fallen in love with Chrissie Steppe, who lives up on the mountain and is the girlfriend of one of last year's seniors who has joined the navy and is stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As the story unfolds, Jim wants nothing more than to figure a way for Chrissie to be his girl, not Bucky's.

Earley has once again beautifully captured the feel of small town southern USA in the early 40's. He has delicately limned social issues through Jim, Chrissie, and Jim's friends, touching on racism, teen pregnancy, and the gathering storm of war. As charming as the first book, this one deftly handles a boy becoming a man and the reader is swept along as Jim comes to understand that so much of what lies underneath adult interactions would have been unknowable to him as a child. He is still a delightful and sympathetic character. Hearkening back to a quieter, in some ways more innocent time, this is a wonderful read that will please those who have read the first novel and will even enchant those who haven't as a stand-alone novel. Here's hoping we see more of Jim Glass in the future.

Thanks to Back Bay Books and the folks at Hatchette for sending me a review copy of this book.

Review: Through Thick and Thin by Alison Pace

Ostensibly the story of two sisters, living very different lives, who are going to tackle dieting together, this is not so much that as it is the alternating stories of Meredith, a zaftig restaurant critic, and Stephanie, a stay home mom with extra baby weight to lose. While they are indeed sisters, their lives don't cross much without effort and since both seem to think her sister's life is perfect, or at least as close as it gets, and therefore harbor a slight jealousy toward the other, their lives don't intersect as much as expected. Meredith identifies herself as a failure because she isn't thin and doesn't have the perfect husband. She is looking to meet her very own successful doctor, lawyer, stock broker and round out her lonely life. Stephanie doesn't feel like she fits in with the suburban New Jersey moms around her and wonders when her marriage stopped working, pre- or post-baby.

Both sisters have to face the fact that while their lives may not be what they imagined, only they can take charge and make the changes they so desire. Meredith falls in love with and adopts a mini daschund/terrier mix who leads her to start taking yoga and question her long held values. (Odd pathway, I know but true nonetheless.) Stephanie discovers her husband's prescription drug abuse and realizes that everything in her life isn't in her control.

Both of the sisters face their new lives without each others' support and each of their stories take place by turns isolated from the other. This makes the plot feel very choppy and as if the author had two different plot ideas and instead of fleshing one or both out into their own novel, mashed them together into this not entirely successful offering. The narrative occasionally breaks into second person, with the narrator directly addressing the reader, a tough convention to pull off and I don't think that Pace manages to quite do it. The premise is cute but there are some heavy-handed lessons in here about accepting oneself and appreciating the joy in life and plot lines that don't seem to be turning the proper way are simply abandoned. Not my favorite chick lit but fine in the long run if you aren't bothered by the narrative shift both from third person to second and from one disconnected character to another.

Review: This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

This YA book by Dessen has at its center, Remy, just graduated from high school, who doesn't believe in romantic love. Her own life experience tells her that it doesn't exist. Her mother is about to embark on marriage number five. Her musician father left before she was ever born, wrote her a now famous song when she was born (complete with lyrics exhorting her to not count on him), but never laid eyes on her. She's always skinnied out of any relationship that seemed like it might be getting too deep and the summer before she leaves for college should shape up to be just another in the same superficial dating scene. Then she meets Dexter, who crawls over all her barriers and makes her break all her rules. First, he's a musician and she's always had a no musicians rule because of her father. Next, she doesn't dump him for one of the myriad small reasons that she's tired of boys before. And finally, he's gotten under her skin in a way that no other boy ever has and he is persistent, not allowing her to pull back and retreat when she gets scared. So although Remy knows how a relationship goes, even to being able to predict how long it will last from first infatuation to last goodbye, nothing about Dexter is by the book for her.

Dessen has drawn very believable young adult characters, tapping into their belief that they know how the world will always work and in Remy's case, into the sad cynicism she uses as a shield so she won't ever be hurt. Although the adult characters are very secondary, Dessen skillfully uses them to help Remy grow and mature and see the world in a new way. There was only one instance in Remy's interactions with her mother that seemed a bit preachy and obvious, otherwise they were understated and subtle. While this was very obviously a teen romance, it was more than that. It was about the existence of love and the ways in which we close ourselves off from or conversely, open ourselves up to, that experience. It's not about first love or lasting love but just the willingness to accept love, with all its attendant hurts and healings, whether it lasts forever or just a short time. Readers of young adult literature will certainly appreciate this one as it is a nice representation of the genre. Teens will enjoy it too, whether they think love is ephemeral or that they have already met the love of their lives.

Review: Apocalipstick by Sue Margolis

If the title didn't give it away, the hot pink cover certainly would. This is chick lit with no apologies. Unfortunately it is as superficial as the critics of the genre contend all chick lit is. It opens with single girl Rebecca stopped in traffic, busily applying make-up, and not noticing that traffic has freed up, earning her a honk and nasty look from the good looking jerk driving behind her. Cut to Rebecca discovering that she has been moved from her desk at the heart of the newsroom to a corner to make room for new golden boy Max, who turns out to be the good looking jerk from the morning commute. You had to see that one coming, right?! But Rebecca isn't obsessed with dating (no, we are given her goofy grandmother for that trope). She's a reporter who wants to cover more than the beauty column on which she's currently filling in as a freelancer. She wants to be a serious investigative reporter. As such, she's going to chase down the story of a new wrinkle cream that contains a secret ingredient which makes it really and truly work, but could also cause serious, irreparable harm to the women who use it. Seriously. Over the top?!

In the meantime, her personal life gets a boost from the delicious Max, who seems quite keen on her. Well, he's at least as keen on her as he is on the gorgeous television presenter with whom he's working on an expose or so Rebecca thinks. And can our heroine see that he's one of the good guys who really does like her? Nope. She has to jump to conclusions and fly off the handle and just generally act like a complete dingbat of a teenager. And yet this is a woman who is supposedly reasonably mature and capable of serious investigative reporting. I didn't much buy it. In addition to the outrageously cliched plot and main characters, the secondary characters are ridiculous caricatures. Occasionally they inspired laughs but for the most part, they were as flighty and silly as Rebecca herself.

Rebecca misreads almost everyone around her and it is sheer luck that she hasn't permanently stuffed up her personal life, career, and everything else. This was the lightest of light reads, although it had some fairly overwrought sex scenes to balance out the fluff. I probably could have found a more fulfilling way to spend my reading time but for a book when you don't want to have to think at all, this was just fine.

2nds Challenge

The 2nds Challenge is another of J. Kaye's brain children. It can follow nicely on the heels of her First in a Series Challenge or it doesn't have to since the books don't have to be part of a series, just the second book you've read by an author. It is a nice incentive to read more of an author you enjoyed the first time. And if you're like me, you've stockpiled other books but have just never made it back to reading him or her again. This is the challenge to help you rediscover why you cheerily agreed to read more by these authors.

Here's my list as it stands right now:

1. something by Sarah Dessen
2. Laughter on the Stairs by Beverley Nichols
3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
4. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
5. Kristin Lavransdatter II: The Mistress of Husaby by Sigrid Undset
6. Apocalipstick by Sue Margolis
7. Through Thick and Thin by Alison Pace
8. Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland
9. A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev
10. Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith
11. The Old Forest and Other Stories by Peter Taylor
12. The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo

Review: A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev

Having read Shalev's beautiful novel, The Blue Mountain, I was eager to see if A Pigeon and a Boy was as gorgeously rendered as that one was. I have to say that I still find the other more enticing but this has an appealing dream-like cast to it. Two different stories that converge in the narrative, the story opens with a rich American, former member of the Palmach telling of the death of a boy and his symbolic release of a final homing pigeon as he dies in battle to the other tour members and Yair, their Israeli tour guide. From this point onward, the narrative splits into the stories of Yair's life and that of Baby, the young homing pigeon handler who died so many years ago in the fighting. But as the stories diverge, so they must, in the end, converge again. Both stories center on love and its loss: man-woman, mother-son, and friend-friend. Shalev draws Israel before Independence with minute strokes, describing the place and everything in it with a detailed richness that sometimes threatens to overwhelm the reader. His characters are lost and found again in love drawing understanding sympathies from the reader. The tragedies and betrayals, both physical and emotional, that play out in the novel are piercing and yet there is still ultimately a redemptive feel to the novel as a whole: the past melts seamlessly into the present and the present can be made right. I found it initially hard to sink into the book fully but once I made that effort, I was rewarded by a stunning book; one that will stay with me for a long time.

Review: Laughter on the Stairs by Beverley Nichols

I know I've already waxed rhapsodic about the first book in Beverley Nichols' Merry Hall trilogy (aptly titled Merry Hall) but I plan to be equally enthusiastic about this second book of the trilogy. This book focuses a bit more on the actual home that Nichols bought and its piecemeal restoration while the first detailed much of his fascination with bringing his gardens back to life. Like his previous book though, this is not nearly as boring as it sounds when I put it out there like this. It is a thoroughly delightful and entertaining book complete with more charming anecdotes about his eccentric neighbors, the previous owner whose taste was clearly egregious, and everyone else in Nichols' orbit. I truly wish I could have met Mr. Nichols (although he would likely have gently skewered me just as he does his other neighbors) and been a visitor to Merry Hall. I wouldn't even have asked for a cutting of his gorgeous flowers like his other much maligned, but fondly recalled nonetheless, female visitors. I truly don't know how to entice people to read these wonderfully witty and sly books since calling them garden books or estate books makes them seem far too tame and dull to do them any justice whatsoever. Suffice it to say, if you have any fondness for well-written, charm-laden non-fiction without event-driven narrative, you should read these. Even better if you happen to be a bit of an Anglophile. You can thank me later.

Review: Kristin Lavransdatter: II The Mistress of Husaby by Sigrid Undset

I read the first book in this trilogy years ago and struggled through it. At the time, I was told that the translation I happened to have was probably the hardest to plug through so I put off, and put off, and put off reading any further. But I wanted to because I had heard such wonderful things about this medieval set saga written by Nobel prize winner Undset. I don't really know what finally inspired me to pick up the second book this many years onward (good thing I have a decent memory for most books or I'd have been rather lost I suspect) but I am glad I did and am now looking forward to the third and final installment in Kristin Lavransdatter's life.

This portion of the saga starts with Kristin and Erlend arriving at Husaby, his ancestral estate, as they start their marriage. But Kristin and Erlend's life is not destined to be easy, even once they have the sanction of marriage, and Undset draws a full and captivating portrait of life in 1400's Norway. Domestic and political, male and female spheres, religion and secularity are all played out on a grand and a small scale, providing the reader with and intimate glimpse of a time long since passed from memory. Kristin is a strong and fascinating character but she has her faults. Erlend is weaker and more wayward as a character, a bigger picture thinker than his wife, who focuses on the small details. But their inability to temper each other's weaknesses in a true partnership leads them into great difficulty.

Once I settled into the language of this translation (and that took a bit), I was interested to see how Kristin and Erlend developed. In general I sympathized more with Kristin because she did so very much, always cognizant of the consequences of her actions. But there were times that I found myself getting annoyed with her, as if she was indeed a real person making poor choices and ill-advisedly holding onto grudges instead of a character in a book. The setting of the book was rich and well-detailed. And the historical imformation in the story line itself and in footnotes was fascinating since Norway's history is not even touched upon in classes in this country. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to live in the Middle Ages but I enjoy visiting there on occasion through the pages of a book. And I plan to visit Kristin in the last third of her story sooner rather than later.

Review: The Old Forest and Other Stories by Peter Taylor

Before I discuss this book, I feel it only fair to disclose my general inability to connect with short stories except on very rare occasions and with very few authors. This inability is all mine and shouldn't reflect on the authors, but of course, it does to the extent that I write reviews about their stories. Ah well. The joys of being a published writer at the mercy of folks like me, I guess. That said, on to the review.

I didn't much like it. Now that comes as a surprise, doesn't it? The stories were well-written, elegant even. They are set in a south (20's and 30's) that was rapidly disappearing even as the characters lived their lives of quiet, privileged seclusion of sorts. This is a time and place I generally don't mind visiting in my reading but there was something about these stories that just didn't resonate for me. I almost felt as if each small story was happening at a remove from me as the reader, that there was no emotional pull, tugging me into each story whether I wanted to be tugged or no. The stories themselves were not superficial in any way although they were muted and restrained, proper even. And perhaps I'm too messy and uninhibited to appreciate that or perhaps my usual disdain for short stories colored my perception of this before I ever opened the cover. For whatever reason, I was pleased to turn the last page and be able to get on with other reading.

Review: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

What a cool concept for a book: nesting stories like Russian babushka dolls. I read a later book of Mitchell's and thoroughly enjoyed it but was still leary of this one given that I already knew that Mitchell pushed the time period of at least one (turns out it was two) of his stories into the realm of the future and I am not often happy to follow where speculative fiction leads. But this was a marvelous book that managed to keep me engaged even through the sections about which I initially worried. Mitchell takes us through the centuries and around the world in his amazingly inter-linked story novel. We start in the 1850's in the tropics reading the diary of an upstanding American notary traveling home from an assignment. The diary ends abruptly mid-sentence as we jump to letters written to a friend by a penniless English composer in the Netherlands. We leave our composer mid-story to detail a young female detective in California looking into the suspicious deaths of several people in connection with a power plant funding corporate greed and carelessness. Our detective in mortal peril, we move onto a disheartening modern day England where a small publisher fleeing the thug brothers of his most famous author is committed to an assisted living home by his brother. Onward to a Korea set in the future where bio-engineering and corporate dissimulation have reached new terrifying highs. And thence to an island in the Pacific where the remnants of civilization, starting over after an unnamed catastrophic event has almost completely decimated the human race, we come to the apex of the story. Each story ties into the previous story in inventive ways and the arc of the story, especially as it gains momentum, running back through the earlier stories and telling the tales originally left untold, is masterful. This was well worth the time I spent and once I understood and accepted the form, it moved along swimmingly.