Monday, July 30, 2012

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Heading home today, I suspect my post-vacation reading is going to plumet precipitously. Oh well. The real world awaits! This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

An Age of Madness by David Maine
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
The Absolutist by John Boyne

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins
The Right-Hand Shore by Christopher Tilghman
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
The Mercury Fountain by Eliza Factor

Reviews posted this week:

Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani
History of a Pleasure Seeker by Richard Mason
I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship edited by Wade Rouse
A Simple Thing by Kathleen McCleary

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

Stranger Here Below by Joyce Hinnefeld
Gathering of Waters by Bernice McFadden
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Little Century by Anna Keesey
All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith
Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
An Age of Madness by David Maine
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
The Absolutist by John Boyne

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Review: A Simple Thing by Kathleen McCleary

Kids don't come with a manual.  Frankly, even if they did, they wouldn't have read it so it wouldn't matter anyway.  Marriages and relationships also don't come with a manual.  I'd make a crack about husbands not reading one either but that's just too easy.  Since there's no right answer to raising children or being a good partner, most of us just muddle along the best way we know how. 

Susannah Delaney, in Kathleen McCleary's newest novel, is trying to do just that, even while she deals with her own complicated childhood history.  Susannah's young teenaged daughter Katie seems to be going off the rails, running with the wrong sorts of people at school, drinking, and becoming closed off and sullen with family.  Son Quinn, a quirky kid interested in animals and science and other things most kids don't care much about is being bullied unmercifully at school.  Both of these things combine to drive Susannah to a desperate act: pulling the kids from school and their Virginia home to spend the rest of the year living on remote Sounder Island, one of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, an island without electricity and only a handful of residents.  In doing this, Susannah leaves behind her husband Matt, a man she has loved since she was a child and whom she risks losing completely as she struggles to do the best thing she can for her children. 

But Susannah isn't just trying to rescue her chidren by moving to Sounder Island, she's also trying to face the long ago drowning death of her baby sister Jane, to forgive herself for not being able to protect Jane, and to forgive her mother for putting her child in harm's way.  Susannah has spent her entire motherhood trying to protect her own children from all the things that could be dangerous to them, to shelter them from her worst nightmares, to be the mother that she blames her own mother for not being.  But Katie, at least, is now rebelling against her mother's intense and worried love and the fears that have driven them all the way across the country to this remote place.

The woman who rents a cottage to the Delaneys is Betty Pavalak.  She's a long-time widow whose son and grandchildren live on Sounder too.  She is a charming and friendly neighbor who has her own ghosts of the past.  Sounder Island was her own way to try and repair a floundering marriage so many years ago.  She moved to the island so that her husband would be able to  live away from the city and the paper-pushing job that was destroying him and so that he would be less likely to stray from their marriage.  Despite his flaws, Betty stilled loved her husband and didn't want to lose him even starting to accept the idea that they would not be able to have children.  And once on Sounder, she managed to become pregnant and have a son even if she couldn't change the fiber of who her husband was.  But she also managed to come to peace with the path of her life as her husband worked most of the year in Alaska and she stayed behind on Sounder with their son and raised him alone.

The narrative slips seamlessly between both of these women who looked to this small island to heal themselves and their relationships.  It also moves from present to past and back again as both Susannah and Betty's whole histories unfold.  Susannah has to learn to accept her past before she can embrace her present.  As she struggles with Katie's continued rebellion and with Matt's growing emotional distance and hurt at her unilateral decision to disappear for the year, she has to learn truths about herself before she can ease up and let life unfold at its own pace, making not only her family happier but herself as well.  Betty, on the other hand, uses her wisdom and the care that she has spent the years cultivating to help Susannah and to add immeasurably to the lives of all those on the island whom she loves.

This is a novel of not just survival but of coming through hardships stronger than before.  It is about learning to let go when necessary and to let love and trust carry the day, even if doing so is one of the hardest things ever.  The back stories of both the women are engrossing although they are quite disparate in experience.  Some of the issues raised, such as Quinn's being bullied disappear handily and while there's really no chance for him to be bullied on the island, the emotional ramifications of the bullying also disappear pretty easily.  And given that Matt has been privy to Susannah's thoughts and feelings since before the accident that resulted in Susannah's sister Jane's drowning death and then also for so many years afterwards, he seems to have hit his breaking point sort of out of the blue now that she's not at home.  But their marital woes are ultimately fixed fairly easily once Susannah faces her past and absolves herself of responsibility for Jane's death.  Some of the emotionally laden situations are not developed to the extent that they might have been but in general, this novel of two women trying to make the right and best life they can for those they love is a quick and pleasing read.


For more information about Kathleen McCleary and the book visit her website, her Facebook page or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.  Also, Kathleen with be discussing A Simple Thing on Book Club Girl on Air on Tuesday, August 21 at 7pm ET if you want to listen in or participate.

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

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Review: I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship edited by Wade Rouse

I freely admit it. I am a sucker for great titles. I'm a sucker for dogs on covers. And I am a sucker for collections of essays billed as hilarious. There should have been no doubt in anyone's mind that I would not only buy but almost immediately make short work of a book called I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship: Hilarious, Heartwarming Tales About Man's Best Friend From Some of America's Favorite Humorists. And the best thing? It was delightful and funny and sweet and everything it was billed as being. I recognized my own yappers in some of the dogs and I recognized myself in the dog owners. As with the best humor, there were some blindingly fantastic truths presented in literally laugh out loud fashion in several of the essays. There are twenty dog tales here and while all twenty are obviously thematically connected, they were all different. Some were funnier than others but all were touching love letters to the furry, four-legged canines who run the homes of the writers included in the collection. Any and all dog lovers will appreciate this charmer of a book and will love even more the fact that editor Rouse, whose own contribution to the book is wonderful, is donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book to The Humane Society of the United States as well as mentioning all of the contributors' own personal favorite animal charities in their bios.

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.

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner. The book is being released by Simon and Schuster on August 7, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: You are about to read an extraordinary story. It will take you to the very depths of despair and show you unspeakable horrors. It will reveal a gorgeously rich culture struggling to survive through a furtive bow, a hidden ankle bracelet, fragments of remembered poetry. It will ensure that the world never forgets the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, when an estimated two million people lost their lives. It will give you hope, and it will confirm the power of storytelling to lift us up and help us not only survive but transcend suffering, cruelty, and loss.

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours, bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as the Khmer Rouge attempts to strip the population of every shred of individual identity, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of her childhood— the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author’s extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Review: History of a Pleasure Seeker by Richard Mason

I have not yet read Fifty Shade of Grey despite the fact that it seems to have captured the imaginations of housewives far and wide (and I use the term housewife without sarcasm as I certainly fit the description myself). It's not because I'm turned off by the idea of sex, graphic or otherwise in books, it's because the plot, such as it is, doesn't appeal to me. Richard Mason's History of a Pleasure Seeker, on the other hand, has some quite risque scenes in it but it also has a story line that piqued my interest in ways that the other did not.

At the start of the twentieth century in Amsterdam, Piet Barol contrives to get himself hired as the private tutor to a young agoraphobic boy. He is not the most qualified for the job but Piet has something special going for him: he's attractive, charming, and completely appealing to both men and woman. Piet is a hedonist who gives as much pleasure as he takes. He determines that he's not going to push his young charge to overcome his agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder until Egbert himself shows that he's ready to tackle his fears. In the meantime, he has to fend off the advances of one of the Vermeulen-Sickerts' daughters, he captivates Egbert's mother Jacobina while teaching her to value herself as a sexual being, and he gives Vermeulen-Sickerts father Maarten the joy and appreciation he craves despite his biblical denial of self.

The interpersonal interactions are fantastic here but what really shines is the critique of class distinction. The gulf between upstairs and downstairs is wide but not unbridgeable, as Piet shows through his accumulation of great appreciation for the sensuality of good food, fine furnishings, and other assorted trappings of wealth coupled with his savvy in negotiating belowstairs and captivating the help equally as much as he does the wealthy Vermeulen-Sickerts. There is a real skewering here, biting social satire coupled with a blush-inducing, racy, graphic sexuality and appreciation for carnality.

But Piet's charmed interlude with the Vermeulen-Sickerts' must come to an end and the second part of the novel finds him heading to South Africa via ship and continuing his irrepressible social climbing, still looking to make his fortune and secure the good life for himself. Life on-board the ship again highlights the huge gap between the fantastically wealthy and everyone else and Piet's natural charm and sexual appeal works on his behalf as the bridge between the two worlds once again.

The book feels very episodic and the two parts, while similar in theme, don't hang together particularly well. Piet is not exactly a snake-oil salesman, in other words, he's genuinely likable enough, but I as a reader didn't feel as attracted to him as a character as his fellow characters did. And no matter how pleasurable a read this was (and it was the literary equivalent of a meringue), the ending made me want to throw the book against a wall. Nothing in this world makes me seethe more than the three unexpected little words this book ended with: "To be continued." Had there been more of a resolution, I'd have been perfectly happy reading the next in the series. As it is, I'll have to see if my curiousity about Piet's further adventures trumps my pique.

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

Monday, July 23, 2012

Review: Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani

Iran is very definitely in the forefront of the American mind but as much as we don't necessarily understand the country today, we are almost totally ignorant of its long history. Those of us with an affinity for history might know some of the corresponding history of Europe in the sixteenth century but are unlikely to know anything about the turmoil of Iran at the same time. Anita Amirrezvani's historical novel Equal of the Sun, loosely based on the life of Princess Pari Khan Khanoom takes that history and breathes life into it, allowing the reader into the political intrigue, the harem maneuvering, and the limits of life for even the most privileged of women of the time.

In the late 1500's the peaceful reign of the Safavi Shahs was in jeopardy when the current shah died without having named an heir. None of his sons were particularly appealing prospects to lead their country and the machinations following his death were numerous. Although not able to rule in her own right, the Shah's daughter Princess Pari is the most well-suited to lead the country, despite having been secluded in the harem her entire life. She advised her father on matters of policy and had a quick and agile mind. Because of her sex, though, she had to use others to help keep her informed about life outside the harem walls. Chief among these people is her eunuch and vizier, Javaher, a man with secrets and a hidden agenda of his own.

Told from Javaher's perspective as he does his mistress' bidding, the tale encompasses both Pari's bid for power, her unsuccessful run at maintaining her influence even as her brothers become, one after another, the de facto heads of government, and Javaher's quest to uncover the identity of the man who murdered his father, a quest that started for him at the age of 17 when he voluntarily became a eunuch. As a Muslim woman of the time, Pari is destined to remain behind the scenes politically despite her intelligence and uncanny understanding of politics. She is cunning and not above manipulation herself but she does not seem to be willing to concede that her very success at ruling and preserving the country for her chosen brother is what makes her most dangerous and only able to hide behind her sex for so long.

That the tale is told from the eunuch Javaher's perspective makes the tale of a woman behind the scenes directing her country and trying to seize the reins of destiny more intriguing since that allows the reader to see Pari's flaws more clearly than if she was presenting her own story. Javaher can see where Pari is pushing the bounds and yet he is as unmanned with her as she is with the reigning Shahs. The court intrigues are tangled together and leave the reader wondering where ultimate power will come to rest with so many people working at cross-purposes. Pari is a surprisingly modern character for the time period and yet she was ostensiby raised as such by an indulgent father who recognized and appreciated her genius. Javaher as a character is fascinating but his own quest is not as gripping as the power struggle choking Pari and the unmasking of his father's murderer is a bit anti-climactic amidst the rest. While the tale of a woman denied power may be a familiar one, this is well written, chock full of history not well known to Americans, and engrossing enough to make putting it down a real wrench.

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

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Vacation, unscheduled time, and unrestricted reading. Only one more week and then I'm at the end. ::sigh:: This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Thread by Victoria Hislop
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Little Century by Anna Keesey
A Simple Thing by Kathleen McCleary
I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship edited by Wade Rouse
All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith
Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins
The Right-Hand Shore by Christopher Tilghman

Reviews posted this week:

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
The Thread by Victoria Hislop
Inukshuk by Gregory Spatz

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

History of a Pleasure Seeker by Richard Mason
Stranger Here Below by Joyce Hinnefeld
Gathering of Waters by Bernice McFadden
The Thread by Victoria Hislop
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Little Century by Anna Keesey
A Simple Thing by Kathleen McCleary
I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship edited by Wade Rouse
All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith
Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron

Monday Mailbox

My lovely husband calls me to tell me what goodies have arrived for me as I luxuriate in the vacation he can't be taking. If that isn't love, I don't know what is. ;-) This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Me, Who Dove Into the Heart of the World by Sabina Berman came from Henry Holt and Co..
About an autistic woman who is most comfortable at the bottom of the sea amongst the fish who finds a way to humanely save her family's failing tuna cannery, this sounds like it's going to make me want to go diving immediately.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mrs. Q Book Addict 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.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Review: Inukshuk by Gregory Spatz

People obsess over a whole range of things and often those obsessions are unfathomable to people who don’t share them. Sometimes obsessions are connected with a person’s job or vocation but they can simply be a topic or item that catches a person’s fancy and gives him a direction on which to focus with laser attention. Some obsessions are harmless but others have the potential to do damage. Inukshuk, the new novel by Gregory Spatz, is haunted by obsessions and the incredible depth of feeling of which those who obsess are so capable.

Thomas Franklin is a fifteen year old boy who is convinced he is distantly related to Sir John Franklin who led the ill-fated Northwest Passage expedition through the Arctic and perished in the attempt. This expedition is his consuming obsession. Thomas is trying to adjust to the fact that his mother has left to pursue her interest in environmental concerns in the far north of Canada without much remorse for the child she’s left behind, that his older brother has gone off to college, and that his high school teacher father has moved him to the remote, cold, barren town of Houndstitch while he works on finally completing a poetry cycle about a selkie that he’s been working on for years. Prior to the breakdown of his parents' marriage and the move to Houndstitch, Thomas had conceived of a movie about the fate of Franklin's expedition and he continues to work on his storyboards and screenplay becoming so obsessed with the men, the voyage, and their ultimate fates that he determines to give himself scurvy so he'll better understand their state of mind, the desperation and hopelessness that eventually leads to the crew's cannibalism.

His father John, not the John Franklin of the expedition, is so caught up in whether or not to accept his marriage's end, his renewed interest and insight in his poetry, and the subtle courtship dance he's conducting with a former colleague, who also happens to be the mother of the boy bullying and tormenting his own son, that he is blind to the despair and danger consuming lonely, outcast Thomas. All John knows is his own struggle and unrelenting pre-occupation with trying to put his own feet in front of one another such that he cannot spare much worrying about his son's well-being.

Told from three different narrative perspectives, that of Thomas, John, and of the men slowly starving to death on the Arctic expedition (or at least Thomas' hallucinations of same), all three narratives grow bleaker, more desperate, deteriorating slowly as the story progresses. Thomas and John's characters are isolated from each other both because of the screens of their obsessions, Franklin's expedition and poetry but also because of their inability to connect with each other emotionally, to step outside themselves and see and care about each others' suffering.

The shifts between the three different narratives were abrupt and were not delineated in any way stylistically and so could be confusing as the reader struggled to realize the scene had in fact shifted. The scenes with Thomas and his younger, almost girlfriend, both those that were sexually charged and those that weren't, were dreamlike and uncomfortable and probably fairly accurate renderings of a teenaged boy's thoughts. His father's similarly lust-fueled fantasies are equally descriptive. Thomas and John may be separated by thirty years but their confused and lonely crises are staggeringly similar.

The inclusion of Franklin's harrowing, doomed search for the Northwest Passage, one that has horrified and captured the imagination for so many years highlighted the unspoken despair felt by the modern day Franklin men. And Thomas's musings on ways to film the darkness and the dread without sacrificing the appropriate atmosphere provide some of the most interesting passages in the novel. Spatz is a good writer but like the unfeeling ice that trapped Sir John Franklin, there's a bone deep emotional chill in these pages that make it hard to really connect with the characters. The irony, of course, is that the characters cannot connect with each other either.

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

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Review: The Thread by Victoria Hislop

Greece has always been one of those places I'd love to see someday. But I, like so many other people, have always focused my future plans on Athens and the major historical sites there without too much thought to the rest of Greece, including the country's second largest city, Thessaloniki, a city with which I was almost entirely unfamiliar. Victoria Hislop's newest historical saga, The Thread, changes that, offering an intimate look at the changing face of the city since early in the twentieth century all the way up until today.

Opening with nonagenarians Dimitri and Katerina Komninos meeting up with their grandson, university student Mitsos, and offering him the reason behind their passionate refusal to ever leave Thessaloniki to live near their children in England or America, this is the tale of a vibrant city, a country's history, and an enduring love. Dimitri Komninos is born in 1917 into a thriving Thessaloniki peacefully populated by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. His birth has been long awaited by his wealthy father and his beautiful mother and he arrives just as the Thessaloniki is consumed by a raging fire that destroys nearly the entire city. As his father rebuilds their fabric empire first and eventually the showpiece home overlooking the sea, Dimitri and his mother live on Irini Street, in the humble home in which his mother grew up surrounded by all sorts of different and wonderful people. Dimitri's character is formed here in the loving and tolerant atmosphere.

Katerina is a Greek born in Smyrna who escaped the atrocities in that city on a refugee boat but in the process was separated from her mother and infant sister. She is taken under the wing of a surrogate mother, Eugenia, and becomes a small but loved part of that family as they make their way to Thessaloniki. And it is to Irini Street and the home of the Muslim family who were sent to Turkey along with the rest of the city's Muslim inhabitants that Katerina Sarafoglou and her adopted family come to settle in and make a new life.

Katerina and Dimitri and the rest of the children on the street play and grow together until finally the new Komninos mansion is complete and Dimitri and his mother are removed by his cold and determined father from the unsuitable and too democratic Irini Street. And from this point onward, Katerina and Dimitri meet mostly by chance as they live the lives expected of them. Katerina learns embroidery and becomes one of the city's most accomplished seamstresses. Dimitri goes to school and is determined to become a doctor.

When World War II intrudes, Dimitri joins the Greeks fighting against the Italian invasion and then stays on in the mountains with the communists to resist the German occupation. Katerina works for the Moreno family, a Jewish family who own the very best tailoring shop in Thessaloniki and dear neighbors on Irini Street, all of them initially protected because of their skill. But the Morenos, like the rest of Thessaloniki's Jewish population, are eventually taken to Poland on Hitler's trains.

The city of Thessaloniki suffers blow after blow as the history of the twentieth century and that of Greece as a whole is writ large upon its streets and its people. Katerina and Dimitri's experiences at the heart of the upheavals are completely realistic given the place that they live. And through all of it, from the fire in 1917 that heralds Dimitri's birth to 2007 as they share their long and complicated story with their grandson, they have persevered, tried to make their world a good place, and simply lived their lives the best they possibly could because even in the face of disappointment, tragedy, joy, and celebration, life goes on.

The framing device of telling the story to Mitsos is a bit distracting in the beginning but comes to feel natural by the end of the novel. As simply the repository of the tale, Mitsos is undeveloped and his reaction to his grandparents' story is perhaps unearned as a result. But Dimitri and Katerina are well-developed characters and their choices throughout the story feel authentic. The political tension between Dimitri and his father is completely absolute even when Dimitri realizes that none of the groups fighting has clean hands and his realization is never fully explored as it might make his father a bit less of a villain although given his collaberation with the Germans, that's unlikely. The love story between Dimitri and Katerina is muted by their experiences and the necessity and commitments they each have so it's really not the forefront of the novel but that suits the historical saga aspect better. The ending feels telescoped, with the years up until and including the 50's drawn out and elaborately told and the years following the recovery from the war quickly sketched in bare bones. Over all though, this was a fascinating look at a place about which I knew so little and a time in history that played out similarly but with unique permutations all over the world.

For more information about Victoria Hislop and the book visit her website or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

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

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman. The book is being released by Scribner on July 31, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: The debut of a stunning new voice in fiction— a novel both heartbreaking and transcendent

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.

The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Review: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Every now and again you stumble across a quiet gem of a book, one so lovely that you don't want to close it and say goodbye to the characters, that you just want to savor with a smile on your face and the book clasped to your breast. I know that sounds like hyperbole but The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce is in fact such a book. It is a delightful, satisfying treasure bursting with gentle truths.

Harold Fry is a quiet man, mid-sixties, recently retired, unassuming, without anything in his life that might be unusual or interesting. He and his wife Maureen, while still married, are living lives so separate and alone they might as well be nothing more than flatmates. Their son David's absence yawns loudly and Maureen blames this entirely on Harold. Their life might have continued down this track of quiet desperation and loneliness had Harold not gotten a letter one day.

The letter is from his former colleague Queenie Hennessey. They worked together twenty years ago and lost touch after Queenie did a good turn for Harold and left the brewery. Her letter is simply a thank-you for a long ago kindness Harold offered her and a goodbye as she is in the final stages of terminal cancer. Uncertain how to respond, Harold eventually pens a cordial response and sets off to post it. But when he reaches the first post box, it seems too easy to send and so he heads for the next one and then the next and the next. Eventually Harold, with the encouragement of a girl in a garage, decides to walk his way the 500 plus miles from his home in the south to the hospice in the north where he is certain Queenie will wait for him, will not die. And so his journey begins, unprepared and spontaneous, without even informing his wife of his plans.

Harold seems as surprised as anyone by his sudden determination to walk to Queenie. But he has faith in this unexpected pilgrimage and so he intends to do it, clad in his yachting shoes and his simple jacket. At first he is embarrassed mentioning his purpose to strangers but as time goes on, he finds that sharing his goal leads him to the best of other people. He passes through others' lives briefly as they do his, each touching the other in new and important ways. As Harold walks toward the dying Queenie, he has much time to reflect on his life, his failures as a husband and a father, on the sadness of his childhood, and the ways in which all of his experiences have shaped him. While he is on his physical journey, Maureen is on an emotional journey of her own, wondering how he could have just walked off and how their marriage and life had gone so sadly awry.

Both Harold and Maureen come to touching conclusions about marriage, family, life, faith, and love. And when Harold's pilgrimage attracts national media attention and followers, he ruminates on what is true and important and chooses his own path. Both Harold and Maureen are sympathtic characters who lead lives familiar to everyone. That they have their own separate, quiet epiphanies on their respective journeys is hopeful and lovely and offers a clear balance in the novel. As Harold suffers physically, the reader wants to reach into the pages and root him on, offer him a hand, and help him on this necessary pilgrimage. And as Maureen faces her part in their current lonely lives, the reader feels for her as well, wanting to give her a shoulder to ease her emotional burden for just a minute.

There are no explosions, no unexpected plot twists, no heart racing excitement here. What there is is a charming and slightly quirky man doing the best he knows how, finding gratitude in his life and searching for his way back to the happiness he once knew but that has missing for twenty years. If he does this by walking to keep Queenie alive so that he can say thank-you to her then this is a most important pilgrimage, one that will teach us all. I can't recommend this marvelous jewel of a novel enough. Wonderful and affecting, take a chance on Harold and his impossibly long walk. You won't regret it.

For more information about Rachel Joyce and the book visit her website. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

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

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Vacation, books, and reviews. It's all been just lovely. This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Color of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe
Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani
History of a Pleasure Seeker by Richard Mason
Stranger Here Below by Joyce Hinnefeld
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Gathering of Waters by Bernice McFadden

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins

Reviews posted this week:

You Came Back by Christopher Coake
City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell
The Color of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe
A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle
The Time In Between by Maria Duenas

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

Inukshuk by Gregory Spatz
Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani
History of a Pleasure Seeker by Richard Mason
Stranger Here Below by Joyce Hinnefeld
Gathering of Waters by Bernice McFadden

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison came from Algonquin Books.
A novel about a caregiver who is recovering from his own epic loss and who develops a relationship with the boy slowly succumbing to muscular dystrophy who is his first charge, this will certainly be a deep and touching read.

Those We Love Most by Lee Woodruff came Voice.
I have always been attracted to family stories and this one about how a marriage survives (or doesn't) a breaking point looks fantastic.

The Wedding Guests by Meredith Goldstein came from TLC Book Tours.
Published in this country as The Singles, this novel about people who have gone to a wedding without a date is right up my alley.

Five O'Clock Follies by Theasa Tuohy came from Meryl Zegarek PR.
A novel about a woman writer in Vietnam during the war, this sounds very interesting indeed.

The Sweetness of Forgetting by Kristin Harmel came from Gallery Books for a blog tour.
A woman sent off to PAris to uncover the secrets her grandmother, succumbing to Alzheimer's, fears she will forget. This sounds marvelous, doesn't it?

The Forrests by Emily Perkins came from TLC Book Tours and Bloomsbury USA for a blog tour.
Following a woman throughout her life, this novel sounds like it is a complete and epic tale, just the thing for the tale end of my summer vacation!

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mrs. Q Book Addict 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.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Review: The Time in Between by Maria Duenas

Looking at any book, a reader never has an idea of whether it is going to be a pleasing gift from the author or a slog of monumental proportions. When the book is a long one, this crap shoot has the potential to be exponentially better or worse. Maria Duenas' fantastic and epic, long novel The Time in Between definitely falls into the gift to the reader category. It is a completely riveting and fascinating tale of self-determination, espionage, and intrigue.

Sira Quiroga is a young woman learning her trade as a seamstress from her mother, engaged to a kind and constant if less than exciting man, and living in Madrid on the eve of the civil war that rent the country asunder. A chance encounter with a typewriter salesman sets Sira on a new course, breaking her engagement, meeting her father for the first time, and following her lover to an unexpected life in Morocco. Starting out innocent, naive, and stupidly trusting, Sira is forced by circumstances to adapt, mature, and take control of her own life. She makes influential friends and gains entre into a world she never imagined, one of politics and intrigue in the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco. As the dressmaker to the wives and mistresses of the Spanish officials and the leading Nazis in Africa, she has a front row seat to the rise of Franco and to the machinations behind the scenes as World War Two devastates Europe. Sweeping from Madrid to Morocco and back to Madrid, the scope of the novel is vast and complete.

Duenas' blending of fictional characters and actual historical characters gives a weight to Sira, later known as Arish's, trajectory and character development. The time and places of the novel are fascinating and the truth behind the creation of new spies, people previously unconnected with MI5, is engrossing. The plot is riveting and the narrative tension stays steady throughout the first half, ratcheting up as the stakes increase in the second half of the novel. The secondary characters are appealing and if their functions are sometimes a tad too coincidental with Sira's needs, the appeal and attraction of the story as a whole completely forgives this. Readers may find it takes a while to get into the story but once they do, they will be richly rewarded by this tale of a self-made woman who ultimately helps to plot the course of history.

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

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Review: A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle

I've read and enjoyed Roddy Doyle's adult books and his hilarious The Giggler Treatment for children so when I saw this middle grade reader, I was excited to read it. Doyle writes with warmth and humor in each different kind of book he writes and this quirky novel is no exception.

Mary is 12 years old, a quintessential Irish schoolgirl whose much loved granny is in hospital dying and whose best friend has moved away from the neighborhood. When a strange but kind woman who seems to know Mary's granny Emer speaks to her, she just assumes the woman is a new neighbor. Mary's mother Scarlett who speaks in exclamations, except when she is sad and focused on Emer's illness, assumes the same thing at first. Eventually though, both Mary and her mother realize that the woman is in fact a ghost, the ghost of granny's mother Tansey who died when her daughter was just a small thing who has appeared now to help ease Emer's own way into death.

Mary and Scarlett learn much about Tansey and the past as they try to figure out how to help Emer and Tansey come together (ghosts get too dim and disappear in too much light like those in a hospital) and how to give Granny/Emer the comfort she needs in her final days. Taking her out of the hospital and on a journey to the places of her childhood, they all learn the importance of memory and love and contentment. The four generations, all at four very different stages of life and death, strengthen their loving bond with each other and learn acceptance of the inevitable, demystifying and removing any lingering fear of death.

Although Tansey is a ghost, this is definitely not a scary tale and it really isn't a ghost story either. It's a simple, sweet, affecting novel about family and, in the end, accepting, even welcoming, the death of a dearly loved one. The characters are grand and lovely, caring, and careful with each other. Mary is a cheeky and entertaining preteen, bound to her mother but also realistically exasperated by her at times. Written mostly in dialogue, the novel moves along at a quick pace. Despite its speed, it is really a quiet book without much plot driving it; its characters are its all. The writing is well done and the characters are Doyle's own brand of just slightly eccentric but there's still a slightly unfinished feel to the tale as a whole. What is there is charming but it still leaves the reader slightly unsatisfied in the end.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

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.

Ten Girls to Watch by Charity Shumway. The book is being released by Washington Square Press on July 31, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: A radiant debut novel about stumbling through the early years of adulthood— and a love letter to the role models who light the way.

Like so many other recent graduates, Dawn West is trying to make her way in New York City. She’s got an ex-boyfriend she can’t quite stop seeing, a roommate who views rent checks and basic hygiene as optional, and a writing career that’s gotten as far as penning an online lawn care advice column.

So when Dawn lands a job tracking down the past winners of Charm magazine’s “Ten Girls to Watch” contest, she’s thrilled. After all, she’s being paid to interview hundreds of fascinating women: once outstanding college students, they have gone on to become mayors, opera singers, and air force pilots. As Dawn gets to know their life stories, she’ll discover that success, love, and friendship can be found in the most unexpected of places. Most importantly, she’ll learn that while those who came before us can be role models, ultimately, we each have to create our own happy ending.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Review: The Color of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe

Set in Macau, a former Portuguese colony in China where casinos are legal and a large ex-pat community lives, The Color of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe is a story of a woman learning to accept the hand she's dealt and to find happiness within herself. Grace Miller is what’s called a trailing spouse. She’s followed her husband Pete, who is building a new casino, to Macau. Uncertain what to do with her life in China but unwilling to wait tables as she’s done on their previous moves, she gets a phone call from her doctor in London confirming that she’s in premature menopause and will be unable to have children, news that sends her into a tailspin and alienates her from Pete, unable to discuss the death of her dream of a family with him. Their marriage frays and unravels as she drifts unseeing and undirected through her days.

A chance happening upon a store space for rent, a space with ovens, ignites a spark in Grace that has been missing for so long and she decides to open a French café specializing in coffee, tea, and macarons. With the help of Leon, the chef husband of another ex-pat and the man Grace has been fantasizing about, Grace learns to make the delicate and delicious macarons she intends to serve at her café. Still estranged from Pete, living separate lives while inhabiting the same apartment, Grace plunges into Lillian’s, determined to make a success of the café she’s named for her mother and which she’s paid for with the money carefully saved to pursue fertility treatments that will never happen now. Through the café, she will meet other strong women, Rilla, Marjory, Gigi, and Yok Lan, women from various cultures and of different generations who work with and for her, become friends, and grow into family. And through these different women, all facing their own challenges, Grace’s heart will unfreeze and she will learn to care again, finding meaning and happiness in her relationships and finally her marriage.

Narrated in the first person by Grace, the reader is allowed to see what drives her, why she makes the mistakes she does, and just how hurt and devastated she is by having to change her plans for a family. Her visceral grief for the loss of her dream of children is palpable, her displaced attraction to Leon and the life he represents, a life she is striving towards, is understandable if ill-advised, her inability to connect with Pete over their shared despair is heartbreakingly evident, and her struggle to first connect with and then open her heart and trust her friends and employees is authentic, coming as it does in fits and starts. Including letters Grace has written to her mother and never sent opens her character up even more to the reader as do the flashbacks to her childhood and her dawning understanding of the mercurial and unique woman who was her Mama. Aside from the chapter headings of exotic and delicious sounding macaron flavors Grace serves in her café, this is not foodie fiction as much as it is fiction about relationship and family. The ending of the book was a bit disappointing as it was clearly evident from about the midpoint of the story but it will suit readers who look for a happy ending. Over all a comforting and quick read, this novel is perfect for readers who want gentle women’s fiction with a touch of the exotic, especially if they can accompany the reading with a cup of tea and a macaron themselves.


For more information about Hannah Tunnicliffe and the book visit her website. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

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

Monday, July 9, 2012

Review: You Came Back by Christopher Coake

Do you believe in an afterlife? What happens to your loved one after death? What if that loved one was your child? Do you believe in ghosts? If you lost a child and believe that ghosts are real, would you choose to be haunted by the child? What if you don’t believe in ghosts but someone unknown to you who lives in your old house comes to tell you that the ghost of your son is there, is haunting the house, is calling for you? What do you do then? These questions and more are raised in Christopher Coake’s powerful and intense novel You Came Back.

Mark Fife was nearly crippled by the accidental death of his young son Brendan years ago. His marriage to college sweetheart Chloe disintegrated painfully and he almost drank himself to death so weighted down by grief. Seven years on, he is still accepting the loss of his son, the complete wrenching finality of Brendan’s death, but he is living with a patient, good woman, Allie, whom he has decided to marry, tentatively ready to start a new chapter in his life. But just as he starts to move on, a woman named Connie Pelham comes to him and tells him that Brendan’s ghost is haunting Mark and Chloe’s old house. Mark doesn’t believe in ghosts but he can’t bring himself to discount her story, worried that his denial of the existence of this one ghost is a refutation of his beloved son. He keeps most of the situation from Allie and is reluctant to share it with ex-wife Chloe either. He is completely conflicted about his life, uncertain whether to look to the past or leave it behind. He cannot see a way in which to keep both parts of his life connected, certain that it must be one or the other, convinced that he can be the old Mark Fife, husband of Chloe and father of Brendan or the new Mark Fife, fiancé of Allie. He does not understand how to be just one Mark Fife.

As Mark gets swept up in the possibility of Brendan’s spirit still inhabiting their old house, he does not think to include Allie in this life, hewing back to Chloe despite the terrible hurt she inflicted on him after they lost Brendan and naturally turning to her as not only the love of his life but also as Brendan’s mother. Mark must consider whether he believes Connie and her young son about their sightings and what it would mean if they are right about Brendan’s presence. Blindsided by the fact that he is suddenly not so certain about anything in his life anymore, not his engagement to Allie, not his former certainty that ghosts don’t exist, not his divorce from Chloe, not anything really, Mark tries to move forward, making decision after poor decision, hurting almost everyone around him including himself as he grapples with his feelings, desires, and the ultimate truth.

On the surface a novel about the supernatural, this is really a suspenseful look at faith, love, and loss and the ways in which these govern so much of our lives and decisions. The main characters, Mark, Chloe, and Allie are all complex, conflicted, and confused, grappling with this tragedy that will forever define who they are and how they go on. Although wallowing in grief, being sucked backwards by the possibility of his son’s ghost, and not coping well at all, Mark is a very sympathetic character. Watching him want desperately to believe in Brendan’s continued existence is absolutely heartbreaking despite the careless and selfish ways in which he ignores and crushes Allie in his overwhelming desire to find his lost son. Chloe and Allie are less sympathetic but the novel is far more centered on Mark and his internal struggles, only focusing tightly on the women as they touch his life and emotions.

Losing a child is every parents’ nightmare and Coake captures a depth of emotion here that is absolutely staggering. The plot tension ratchets up as the novel progresses and Mark’s skepticism waxes and wanes. And the reader is as undecided about the truth of Brendan’s ghost as Mark himself is as the narrative progresses. The continued, lifelong grief in the aftermath of Brendan’s death and the struggle to still make a happy life are carefully limned and authentic. This well-written and thoughtful novel is gripping and multi-faceted and the reader will clutch at his or her throat as each intense layer peels back in Mark’s quest for peace, acceptance, and understanding.

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

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Another busy week but the languid, book filled days of vacation are here now. Two days of driving at the end of the past week seriously cut into my reading and reviewing time but that will be more than made up for as I settle into the slow and easy pace of summer days at the lake. Ahhhhhhhh. This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle
And Laughter Fell From the Sky by Jyotsna Sreenivasan
The Time in Between by Maria Duenas
Inukshuk by Gregory Spatz

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins

Reviews posted this week:

Great_Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells by Lisa Cach
And Laughter Fell From the Sky by Jyotsna Sreenivasan
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

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

You Came Back by Christopher Coake
A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle
The Time in Between by Maria Duenas
Inukshuk by Gregory Spatz

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Review: City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell

As a young man, a Mennonite from Oklahoma, farmer Will Kiehn hears a missionary from China speak and after much soul searching feels called by God to join a group of newly recruited missionaries on the North China Plain. On his journey out to China, he meets Katherine Friesen, a nurse in training, the sister-in-law of the mission leader, and his eventual wife. Between them, Will and Katherine strive to follow God's plan for their lives even as they live through the upheavals and civil wars sweeping through China in the early years of the twentieth century.

Will starts a church in Kuang P'ing Ch'eng, the City of Tranquil Light, to minister to the Chinese people and lead them to the Christian God while Katherine ministers to their bodies. Will and Katherine are devoted to their calling and to each other. They are of the opinion that the way they live their lives, living godly lives, will show others the way to God rather than actively trying to convert the Chinese people they meet. And they are steadfast in their beliefs even as they weather great tragedies and terrible tests of their faith: losing their young daughter to dysentry, famine, Will's lengthy kidnapping by a robber bandit. They live through great changes in China, the crumbling of the last Chinese dynasty, the emergence of Chiang Kai-Shek, and the creation of the Kuomintang. They survive the reprisals against foreigners and missionaries in particular, never losing their deep love for their adopted land.

Told through Will's memories now that he's an old man in a nursing home and Katherine's diary entires from their many years in the country, the novel presents their faith and beliefs in non-preachy ways. The characters, based on the author's grandparents, are good, solid people whose sense of purpose, strength, and trust are the foundation for their various beautiful love stories: love for each other, love for God, love for the Chinese people, and love of place. This is a gorgeously rendered homage to Caldwell's grandparents that will resonate quietly for a long time.

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

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Review: The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

For whatever reason, I don’t tend to read many western set novels. I’ve only ever been to the west coast twice in my life so I am mostly unfamiliar with it. I’m an east coast kind of girl not only in my own life but it would appear that I am one in my general reading tastes as well. However reading something so different from the known and familiar can be a very rewarding experience. Amanda Coplin’s wonderful debut novel, The Orchardist, set mainly in the apple orchards in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, is just such a book: totally unlike my usual reading choices and yet such a treat to read.

Opening with Talmadge, a confirmed bachelor who lives alone on his apple farm, allowing two silent and skittish young sisters, Jane and Della, both hugely pregnant, to steal his apples and to find refuge amongst his apple trees, this is a tale of the families we choose, the connections we are driven to make, and the ways in which people get lost, some forever and others only until their battered hearts are finally touched. Talmadge is reticent and retiring, willing to live and let live, offering these two wild girls the slow, careful, free of obligation care that they need. After he discovers the horrors of their past, the nightmare life from which they are fleeing, he tries to save them but he can only save Della and the infant Angelene, Jane’s baby. As the years pass, Talmadge continues to care for these two, becoming their only family, allowing Della the freedom to choose her own life amongst horse thieves and hunters, despairing her loss and her eventual absence from his and Angelene’s life. Meanwhile Angelene grows out of babyhood in the care of this crusty, old man and his good friend, Caroline Middey, a sort of midwife and herbal wise-woman always knowing that Talmadge feels his failure to save Della from her own self and that while he cares deeply for Angelene, Della is his focus.

The novel is sprawling, epic in scope, spanning the long latter half of Talmadge’s life, the desperation and futility of Della’s, and the quietly hopeful start to Angelene’s. It is positively mesmerizing and utterly hypnotic in its writing. The characters are reserved and somehow unknowable but that much more intriguing for their almost complete inscrutability. They do not dwell on their past misfortunes but those misfortunes certainly shape them into who they are, impacting them deep and to the bone. The narration follows several different characters so that the reader can see the motivation for their decisions and can catch brief glimpses into their otherwise closed off hearts. Coplin’s depiction of a man who comes to form an unconventional family late in life with all the dedication and devotion with which he is capable is masterful. Her drawing of Della, too damaged to be saved, even by the careful attention Talmadge gives her is heart breaking. Both characters can only finish in the ways in which they are drawn even in the face of the tension of the major climax. Just how far can and should someone go to save a person they love? This is a book that will continue to resonate and haunt the reader long after the last page is turned.

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

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

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.

When in Doubt, Add Butter by Beth Harbison. The book is being released by St. Martin's Press on July 17, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: From the New York Times bestselling author of Shoe Addicts Anonymous and Always Something There to Remind Me comes a delicious new novel about the search for true love and all the ingredients that go into it.

As far as Gemma is concerned, her days of dating are over. In fact, it’s her job to cater other peoples’ dates, and that’s just fine by her. At thirty-seven, she has her own business, working as a private chef, and her life feels full and secure. She’s got six steady clients that keep her hands full.

There’s Lex, the fussy but fabulous department store owner who loves Oysters Rockefeller and 1950s comfort food; Willa, who needs to lose weight under doctor’s orders but still believes butter makes everything better; a colorful family who may or may not be part of the Russian mob; an überwealthy Georgetown family; the picture-perfect Van Houghtens, whose matriarch is “allergic to everything”; and finally, a man she calls “Mr. Tuesday,” whom she has never met but who she is strangely drawn to.

For Gemma, cooking is predictable. Recipes are certain. Use good ingredients, follow the directions, and you are assured success. Life, on the other hand, is full of variables. So when Gemma’s takes an unexpected turn on a road she always thought was straight and narrow, she must face her past and move on in ways she never would have imagined. Because sometimes in life, all you need is a little hope, a lot of courage, and---oh yes---butter.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Review: And Laughter Fell From the Sky by Jyotsna Sreenivasan

All parents have expectations for their children. We can't help but load our little people with what we want for them. It's practically in the parenting handbook. Children being as different as they are, some will strive to meet these expectations and others will fly in the face of them. There's just no predicting kids. And when parental expectations are combined with cultural expectations, such as is the case for the children of Indian immigrants, the expectations are exponentially larger and that much harder to fulfill. Jyotsna Sreenivasan's debut novel And Laughter Fell From the Sky looks at the impact such expectations have on the lives two young twenty-something Indian-Americans as they find themselves and face adulthood.

Rasika is a dutiful Indian daughter, at least superficially. She lives at home and has a good job that allows her to indulge her love of shopping and style. She's agreed to start meeting suitors vetted by her parents in preparation for an arranged marriage. But she's also got a secret life she has successfully concealed from her parents thus far. In fact, she has dated inappropriate men, had brief flings, and one night stands but she's sure that she'll stop all of this once she has met "the one" her parents will choose for her.

Abhay is incredibly smart but he is completely at a loss about what to do with his life. After graduating from college with a degree in general studies rather than the expected medical, legal, or engineering degree, he spent a year living on a commune. But that experience didn't offer him any more direction than his degree and he's now back at home living with his parents still undecided about where he's headed next.

Abhay and Rasika reconnect when each of them is most lost. Rasika is on the verge of meeting her first suitor and Abhay is going to start temping when these two, whose families have long known each other meet outside a restaurant in the college town of Kent, Ohio. After their meeting, they find themselves thinking more and more about the other despite their obvious mismatch. Aside from the fact that they are both Indian (from different castes though), they are incredibly different. Rasika is determined to be a dutiful daughter, doing just as her parents wish, no matter what the cost to herself and Abhay does nothing but dismiss his parents' desires for him and his future, determined instead to find his own direction. Each of them imagines that there is a perfect life and future waiting if they can just find it. In truth, Rasika cannot commit to the men with whom she's presented, unintenionally sabotaging meetings and Abhay is paralysed by a lack of passion for any of his options. What Abhay does have a passion for though, is Rasika, who in turn is not so certain of him, willing to use him sexually but determined to still conform to her parents' wish for an arranged marriage with an acceptable candidate.

While the end of the book and the outcome of Rasika and Abhay's relationship is not in question, their striving and growing as they each come into their own saves the story from being too predictable. Rasika as a character comes across as superficial and needy and she can be quite hard to like. Abhay's character is undirected and floundering but he was certainly more likable than Rasika. The fact that they are clearly destined for each other (and in a love marriage at that) is a tad unbelievable as they come across more as friends than anything else but relationships have certainly been built on worse foundations. Since both characters are trying to find their paths in life, honoring the cultural and familial expectations placed on them without subsuming themselves completely to these expectations, the novel has much thoughtful musing and many discussions between the characters about how to proceed with their respective futures. It was a quick and enjoyable read and those interested in Indian-American culture and the impact it has on the next generation will find this an appealing read.

For more information about Jyotsna Sreenivasan and the book visit her website, her Facebook page or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.
And if you'd like to hear more directly from the author, she will be discussing her novel And Laughter Fell From the Sky on Book Club Girl on Air on Wednesday, July 18th at 7 pm ET.

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

Monday, July 2, 2012

Review: Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells by Lisa Cach

Sex and beauty are power. They hold vast potential. But as women have reached for equal standing with men, sometimes this truth has been lost or discounted, even actively shunned. However, that does not make it any less true. And reconciling this truth with modern women’s studies can be a struggle, especially when sexuality and physical beauty are only seen as destructive or belittling forces. In Lisa Cach’s highly entertaining novel Great-Aunt Sophia’s Lessons for Bombshells, this pull between what is considered entirely superficial and the perceived deeper intellectual makes for a ripping good read.

Grace Cavanaugh is writing her Women’s Studies dissertation. Her topic: that beauty does not lead to happiness for women; in fact it leads to great unhappiness. And she whole-heartedly believes her thesis. So when her elderly great-aunt, a former B-actress and still a great beauty, asks for her to come live with her in her lush Pebble Beach mansion and be her caretaker while Sophia recovers from hip replacement surgery, Grace figures that she has discovered the perfect research subject. But when she arrives in Pebble Beach, she finds a woman who is far more complex and enchanting and far less unhappy and lonely than she had ever imagined.

When Sophia challenges Grace’s ideas and suggests an experiment, a bet of sorts, to prove that Grace is mistaken in her assumptions, Grace agrees to the conditions, albeit with some misgivings. Grace must take instruction from her great-aunt in how to transform herself from the quietly pretty, earnest intellectual who spends no time on her own appearance into a stunning beauty who has her pick of men. Grace will practice her emerging vamp skills on the two young men who orbit Great-Aunt Sophia: gorgeous Neanderthal-ish financial advisor Declan, and quietly unassuming Doctor Andrew. In return, she can study Sophia to her heart’s content and even earn a substantial paycheck at the end of her time in Pebble Beach.

Grace struggles with her lessons, fearing that this transformation will cause her to lose all self-respect and brand her as frivolous, especially when she admits that she secretly enjoys the frothy beautiful clothing, the barely leashed sexual tension, and the heady feeling of directing the course of her fledgling relationships. But the course of these relationships does not always run smoothly and Grace cannot always see them for what they are. She is determined to pay Declan back for her humiliation from their first encounter, toying with him even as she is coming to find him irresistible. Meanwhile, Andrew is holding back, leaving her frustrated and irrationally angry that while he admires her intellectually, he stays so detached physically, just exactly what she has always professed to prefer and which would lend most credence to her thesis.

But Grace is learning about more than superficial beauty as she progresses through Sophia’s tutelage, even if she does not recognize it right away. She is coming to the transforming idea that beauty is fed from within. It comes from a powerful belief in one’s own attractiveness and inner worth that shines forth on the outside enhancing mere physical features. It’s a heady power indeed. And just perhaps she has underestimated the true value of outward appearance.

On the surface a frothy, humorous, and light story rife with sexual tension and graphically erotic scenes, this is actually an interesting look at an expanded feminism, one that embraces all aspects of a woman, celebrating the whole person, inside and out. The characters are fantastic and complete. Great-Aunt Sophia is particularly wonderful, a master manipulator, scheming and sly but loveable and genuinely charming. Declan and Andrew both have depths slowly revealed through the narration that causes the reader to choose sides long before Grace realizes their respective worths. The long-held family secret is revealed rather suddenly, abruptly and seems almost out of place but it does in fact play into the theme of appearances and how they can either enhance or obfuscate depending on how they are manipulated. Interspersed with Grace’s quasi-scientific field notes, the narrative clips along at a good pace with the reader wondering when Grace’s myopia will clear, allowing her to see what, in fact, has been evident all along. Despite Grace’s obtuseness and her determination to hold to her thesis even in the face of mounting evidence against it, every step of the way toward her changing perceptions is highly entertaining and engaging and the book is a pleasure to read.

Thanks to Gallery Books for sending me a copy of this book to review for their blog tour.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Another busy week but the languid, book filled days of vacation are here now. Two days of driving at the end of the past week seriously cut into my reading and reviewing time but that will be more than made up for as I settle into the slow and easy pace of summer days at the lake. Ahhhhhhhh. This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Safe Within by Jean Reynolds Page
Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells by Lisa Cach
You Came Back by Christopher Coake

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins
Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle

Reviews posted this week:

The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey
Safe Within by Jean Reynolds Page
Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray
The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair

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

The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
You Came Back by Christopher Coake

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