Review: Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co. by Maria Amparo Escandon

Libertad, an American citizen, is incarcerated in a Mexican women’s prison for a crime that she is unable to articulate to the other inmates. What she can and does do, is to start a Library Club within the prison where she ostensibly reads to the inmates. But she’s not reading the battered books she holds in her hands. She is telling the life story of a girl, who has lived her whole life on the road with her former professor turned Mexican fugitive trucker father, complete with embellishments, obfuscations, and straight narrative. The stories of Libertad and Gonzalez’s daughter intertwine, wrapping around each other as past and present mix. The fabricated (or is it?) story of Mudflap Girl (the handle Gonzalez’s daughter adopts) moves by fits and starts to meet up with the story of Libertad in prison telling the story. The story moves in installments, leaving the listeners in the prison and the reader outside the book wondering what happens next, a cliff-hanger technique Libertad claims to have learned from watching soap operas. Meanwhile, Libertad’s daily life in prison is also explored. Life in a Mexican women’s prison comes across as quite different from any other country. There are different classes of prisoners and different levels of privilege, the lines of which Libertad easily crosses as a storyteller.

The cover copy on this novel mentions magical realism but I didn’t find that at all here. What I did find was a delightful meta-story with a subtly done theme of women’s friendship woven through it that completely engaged me as a reader.  The story of Mudflap Girl is a coming of age tale while the narrative thread with Libertad in the women's prison is about storytelling and the freedom to own ourselves within a greater social framework.  The young girl who grows up in the cab of her father's truck, the mascot of many but without real friends of her own becomes, through her time leading the Library Club at the prison, an adult with meaningful friendships and connected, caring familial relationships.  And in both stories, what Libertad relates is a tale of community, first of the trucking community and then of the diverse mishmash of women incarcerated in this Mexican prison.  Both stories weave together throughout the novel, intricately twined together, explaining and embellishing each others' plot line.  While the idea of female empowerment shines through Libertad's storytelling, both in Mudflap Girl's story and in the stories of the different women in the prison, men don't come off very well, causing an unsettling imbalance.  But the created community of the prison, a family both by circumstance and choice, is an appealing refuge to an otherwise rootless woman and makes for an enchanting read.  Definitely unusual, this was a quick read that keeps the reader turning the pages to find out the fate of Mudflap Girl, Libertad's crime, and the way that each and every character's story unfolds.  Ultimately a redemptive story, it will leave the reader with a warm feeling and an appreciation for the Sheherazades among us who lighten our sorrows with their skilled storytelling.

Review: Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord

This slight book is about a psychiatrist named Hector who travels the world trying to understand what makes people happy (and conversely what makes them unhappy). He is not entirely satisfied with life himself and so he is looking for the keys to contentment. Hector finds small bits of wisdom throughout his travels and he jots these tiny kernels of truth down in a notebook, ultimately compiling a list of universal happiness factors.

Despite a barebones frame of a plot, this is really very much a self-help book masquerading as fiction. And indeed, it turns out that the author has written successful self-help books. I am certainly not the best audience for self-help, even self-help cloaked in fictional raiment as I find too many of the revelations to be self-evident. In this case, the lessons are also simplistic and trite. The fact that these truths are coming from a character who apparently finds happiness in (literally) a woman in many of the places he goes despite his partner at home also helped make this a slightly unpleasant read. Obviously I didn't love this parable and don't see the marketing comparison to Le Petit Prince but perhaps readers who need reminding not to compare themselves to others and that "happiness is a certain way of seeing things" will find more of interest here than I did.

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

Review: Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

Who needs more teen angst? Certainly not me given that I am living with a teenager and a pre-teen at the moment and at any given day the sky can be falling in on one or both of them. So despite having had this on my shelf for a very long time, I kept putting it off and putting it off. But I have looked at it consistently for more than a year, intending to finally read it. I am so glad I did. Jessica Darling is good fun and this book is delightfully entertaining.

The book opens with Jessica's best friend Hope having moved away and the book is presented in journal and letter form as Jess struggles with feeling newly alone. The journal is for those things she can't even tell Hope and the letters to Hope reinforce and illuminate some of the social and personal situations at school. Hope was really her only real friend and she is now marooned with a clique of girls with whom she's grown up but whom she can't really stand. She is frustrated by her friend Scottie's ongoing crush on her and she is mildly tormented by the school's slacker druggie suddenly latching onto her and calling her out for her superficial behaviour. Jess is a straight A student and a very gifted runner but she is moody and angry, lashing out at her parents and erecting a prickly wall that few people are willing to try and break through. When a new girl moves to school, she and Jess start to hit it off but everything is not as it seems.

The first in a series, McCafferty has managed to capture the misperceptions, uncertainties, and insecurities of high school in this book. She has created a smart, likable, bull-headed, and sometimes completely self-absorbed and casually mean narrator in Jess Darling. The wonder of it is that we do still really, really like her despite all her angst, her bouts of hypocritical behaviour, and her occasional obstreperousness. Even though I wouldn't go back to high school myself on a bet, I am looking forward to joining Jess on her further adventures in later books. More than just light good fun, this is a charming coming of age novel that manages to be both true to life and serve as a reminder that high school is rough for everybody, a reinforcement I'll need a mere year from now in dealing with my crew.

Review: The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins

Christy is a young Pavee gypsy boy traveling with his family in Ireland when his grandfather dies. As a traveler who feels claustrophobic when he is indoors for any length of time, he is horrified to find out that his grandfather's body is going to be buried and his wagon and all his belongings lit on fire. And so Christy and his cousin concoct a plan to burn their grandfather's body in the wagon instead of consigning him to the tiny underground space of a coffin. The intended conflagration doesn't quite have the intended effect, both depriving his grandmother of the comfort of long-standing tradition and making the adults angry. And because they are angry, Christy decides that he will not show anyone the newspaper clipping that fluttered, still intact, out of the fire. The clipping shows his mother, an unknown man, and a baby. Meanwhile, Christy's father and aunt have determined that it is time for Christy and his cousin Martin to make their first communion and so they stay in one place far longer than they ever have before, giving Christy time to unravel the mystery of the mother who died in giving him birth.

Cummins has drawn a beautiful and eloquent picture of gyspy life in Ireland and created a charming and insightful character in young Christy. Christy tells his own story in the vernacular but it is fairly easy to adapt to this non-traditional narrative voice. In searching for his mother, Christy is, in many ways, searching for himself and his place in the world. He both envies a settled life and he scorns it as unthinkable. He faces prejudice from the local townspeople, causing him to carefully evaluate the lifestyle in which he has been raised. He knows his father is a good man but what of the loose interpretation of morality as compared to the town folk? He finds good and caring people who value and accept him despite his gypsy heritage. And he finds the help he needs to unravel the threads of his personal history.

Christy is on a quest and what he finds will shake many of his assumptions, shaping who he will become as he goes forward in life. This novel of exploration, mysteries long-buried and unacknowledged, and a way of life slowly dying out is an unexpected delight to read. Cummins has written an engaging and evocative coming of age novel about an unusual boy. Thoughtful and respectful, loaded full of gyspy tradition and reasoning, this story happily satisfies.

Thanks to Angela at NAL for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Review: Seeing Stars by Diane Hammond

What young girl doesn't have dreams of Hollywood at some time or another in her life? It might only be in the deepest, darkest, tiniest corner of her unconscious, but it's more than likely there. And for all those little girls, those now all grown up or those still day-dreaming, this is a novel for them.

Bethany Rabinowitz has talent and wants to act in Hollywood. Her mother Ruth is more than committed to making that dream a reality, packing Bethany up and moving away from their home in Seattle in hopes that Bethany will be the one in a million who makes it as a child star. Leaving behind her slightly skeptical dentist husband, Ruth chases the impossible, spending money right and left, driving Bethany from agent to acting coach to audition and back again. How much will be enough before the Rabinowitzes burn out or Bethany books a big enough part is the looming question in this novel of dreams and desperation.

Bethany is lucky though because, despite her mother's sometimes restrictive rules, Ruth cares enough to try and carefully shepherd Bethany through the process while several other of the young characters have been abandoned in their talent manager's lax care. While Bethany's life is ostensibly the center point of the novel, the other child actor wanna-be's backgrounds are also filled in, providing a counterpoint to Bethany's very average, somewhat stereotypical, love-filled upbringing. As the kids learn their parts and do the rounds, it becomes more and more clear that what drives the Hollywood business of children's acting is money. Launching a child into the firmament of Tinseltown depends on so much more than a child's talent.

Hammond has drawn a novel that questions the process, highlights the insatiable beast, and makes the idea of turning a child into a star vaguely distasteful. First impressions, superficial and often mistaken, make or break these characters. The reader feels nothing but sympathy for the children abandoned by their parents into this morass and wonders why a loving, involved parent would insist on persevering for something so likely to end in failure and an empty bank account rather than glory and a dream achieved (although that begs the question of whose dream--mother or daughter?).

Both Ruth and Bethany learn the value of real friendship and the ephemerality of childhood and time during the course of the novel. The cast of characters here is a bit too extensive, making certain of the children mere props for the plot and taking away from the principle characters. Despite this top-heaviness, the story itself is quite interesting, what with its revelations about the inner workings of auditions and the Hollywood machine. The novel is completely outside my realm of experience and I felt certain I would not have pursued things to the extent that Ruth did, but she was still a sympathetic character and one who was achingly realistic. Anyone who has ever gone to great lengths for their child or who has had their heart rate pick up just the slightest bit when a modeling agency or casting call advertisement comes on the radio will appreciate this cautionary tale.


For more, be sure to visit Diane Hammond's website. There's information on all four of her books (Hannah's Dream, Homesick Creek, Going to Bend, and this one), tour info, and even reading group guides (not one for Seeing Stars yet though).


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

Review: Tender Graces by Kathryn Magendie

Virginia Kate has gone home to West Virginia after her estranged mother dies. Her brothers don't go with her so she is alone in the house to face her memories of a difficult childhood and an alcoholic mother alternately loving and dismissive. As Virginia Kate goes through the house, avoiding her mother's room, she uncovers mementoes that trigger her reminiscences, both good and bad. Virginia Kate, a child of the West Virginia mountains, is the only daughter of a damaged mother and a Peter Pan father still tied to his mother's apron strings. Mother Katie escaped her own abusive father by marrying but she couldn't escape the emotional scars of her upbringing nor the devastating loss of her own mother in a house fire. Crippled by alcohol and utterly dependent on her beauty to give her life meaning, she has few emotional reserves with which to care for her children. Father Frederick is a philanderer who drinks too much and can't give up the carefree life he so desires despite being married with children. And when his mother summons him home from West Virginia, he leaves his contentious wife and sad children behind. And so life continues on for Virginia Kate and her brothers, difficult and yet somehow rooted in the mountain hollow community. Until her father shows up periodically and takes a child at a time home to Louisiana with him to live, where their existence will start to take on a semblence of normalcy thanks to stepmother Rebekha.

This novel, with its whispering narration and swirl of emotion, is beautifully rendered. Much of the narration here takes place in Virginia Kate's past although her current day self does comment several times throughout the story, as well as framing her childhood story. The characters are fully rounded and while their emotional damage to themselves and each other is great, it feels natural given their lives and what they have endured and tried (often failing) to overcome. Virginia Kate, as the main character, is sympathetic and the reader roots for her to recognize the love she is given freely and the reasons why the love she is so desperate for only comes in ways that make it hard to recognize. The theme of home and family and belonging are rife throughout the novel and they tie everything together, as home and family should, even if they sometimes do it in surprising ways here. There is some sort of closure at the end of the novel but a sequel is coming out this year and if it is as beautiful and poetic as this one, it will be a treat indeed.

Thanks to Deb from BelleBooks for sending me a review copy of this book.

Author Kathryn Magendie lives in North Carolina and this post is a part of the Literary Road Trip for North Carolina.

Review: Fool by Christopher Moore

Are you a fan of an offbeat sense of humor? Of the completely warped? Of witty but completely irreverent re-writings? Of hilarious bawdiness? Have you made the reading acquaintance of Christopher Moore yet? I stumbled on his writing completely by accident but I should be upfront and honest and say that I have been in love ever since. This man has never yet failed to truly make me laugh out loud when I am reading one of his books. For him, I will even read vampire novels (and that's really going some). So it was inevitable that I would start reading Fool just about six nanoseconds after I walked in my door with it in my hot little hands. (I would have started earlier but reading and driving at the same time are too much of a challenge for this can't walk and chew gum at the same time kind of girl.)

So, a re-write of King Lear from his fool's perspective. Could be a tricky undertaking, at the very least one that will have Shakespeare scholars with their knickers in a knot. While a re-telling, Moore isn't overly concerned with absolute fidelity to the original, cleverly bringing in the witches from Macbeth and his own warped and delightfully nefarious twists. Pocket, Lear's fool, narrates the events of the novel and he's wildly entertaining, as befits a fool. He's also obsessed with sex and intrigue and naughty language (well, naughty anything really). He plays Regan and Goneril like harps, engineering much of the action familiar to Lear readers.

Moore is truly a wordsmith and he has crafted a sly and witty book (mostly) within the confines of Shakespeare's original. He has created some of the most wonderful insults in print today (a true talent given the difficulty of developing entirely new insults that are both effective and memorable) and throughout the novel, you can't help but have the sense that Moore, like Shakespeare has a real and appreciable love for language, its uses and the ways in which to manipulate with it and create things anew. I could rave about this one nigh on forever but I'll spare you the gushing. If you aren't easily offended by potty humor, like British slang (despite Moore's Americanness, his British narrator is believable and authentic sounding--although not terribly Shakespearean), appreciate likable characters, and are amenable to re-writings of the Bard's famous works, this might just be for you. But only if you have a wonderful sense of humor and don't mind perfect strangers looking at you oddly as you guffaw in public should you be so foolhardy as to read this anywhere but the privacy of your own home. And once you've read this (and have come back here and duly thanked me), go on out and try the rest of Moore's entertaining oeuvre.

Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

If you know me at all by now, you know I have a love hate relationship with highly raved about books. I feel like I need to have read them to join the conversation but I am also leery of the heaps of praise, knowing that my expectations for the book are likely to be all out of proportion, making for a cranky reading experience. So it was with a little trepidation that I picked this one up for my book club. I am happy to report that it turned out to be a better book than I anticipated and although I am the last one on the planet to read it, I am pleased I did. It is an outstanding book club book and would have kept a more focused group talking for a long time. But we were unfocused partly because we had more people at book club than we've ever had before, which is a testament to the appeal of the book, even if discussion suffered due to a group too unwieldy to be effective.

Told in various different voices, mainly those of the black help to the elite cream of white society in Jackson, Mississippi during the extremely turbulent period of the sixties, this both rings true and reminds us all of the civil rights struggles so recently fought here in the US. Aibileen is maid and child minder to a young couple and their baby girl. She is still reeling from the senseless death of her son and has come to realize in a very visceral way, the value whites placed on a black man's life and death. Her anger and bitterness (very much earned, I might add) have changed her personality and also slightly what she is willing to risk in her position. Through her eyes, we first see the young white matrons and their unmarried friend Miss Skeeter and it's not a very flattering picture. But we get small glimpses that Skeeter is not quite like the others, even if she seems complicit in their casual disregard and racist attitudes.

Skeeter is freshly home from Ole Miss and still unmarried, much to the chagrin of her mother. She has bigger dreams than just settling into the same life her mother and friends are leading but she tries to not rock the boat too badly, dating when she can. As she has yet to "take" with an eligible man, she also finds herself a job writing a homemaker's advice column. Of course, as she has never kept a home, she needs help writing her replies and she turns to Aibileen for help, hoping that one day Aibileen will also feel comfortable enough to tell her what ever happened to her family's long time maid, the woman who raised her, Constantine who disappeared not long before Skeeter graduated and came home. Through her connection to Aibileen and with her own ambitions, Skeeter starts writing a social history of the help, those black women who work for the local white families. She captures the good and the bad of Aibileen's experience and then moves on to other willing participants with Aibileen's help.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is the third narrator in the novel. She has been fired and falsely accused of stealing by the daughter of her last employer and is only hired by a woman who is so new and so far beyond the pale of polite society than she has no idea of Minny's reputation. Minny comes to be oddly protective of her seemingly indolent mistress, Celia. She tries to maintain a "proper" distance, foiled at every turn because Celia, of poor white stock who has unwittingly married into the upper crust, has no concept of where those boundaries are and is starved for kindness and friendship. Minny becomes the second maid willing to help Skeeter with her book, despite the fraught times and danger of being identified as having contributed to this rather damning piece of writing.

Stockett has created credible, very real characters here. They are sympathetic and yet flawed. None of them are too good to be true and none of them have the sorts of flaws that are really only assets in disguise. These could be real people in the 60's in Mississippi. The various plot threads wind together nicely, weaving around the main plot carefully. The tension builds as Skeeter's book forms and anxiety over whether she has done these women a disservice, laying them open to recognition increases as the pages turn. The black community too becomes more and more tightly wound as the narrative goes along and Stockett has done a great job showing that the greater civil rights movement, the murders, the disappearances and the injustices, is a cause of this as much as the incendiary book Skeeter is compiling with their compliance. The revelation of the book and the protections surrounding it are masterful and while the book's completion is not the end of the book, it certainly could be as the rest of the novel has a sort of epilogue feel to it. But even if it is an epilogue, Stockett wisely leaves some threads untied and the potential for disaster, so prevalent at the time, intact. This was certainly worth the buzz it earned last year, a quick, engrossing read, despite the length of the book. Book clubs whish haven't already done it will love it and have much to talk about. Lone readers will also devour it, taken back to a time in our recent past that we tend to want to forget. Stockett has brought not only the time but the everyday reality of it to the forefront of our memories again, for which we can only thank her.

Review: The Bread of Angels by Stephanie Saldana

Stephanie Saldana went to Damascus on a Fulbright scholarship to study the Jesus of the Qu'ran. She wanted to learn Arabic and read the Qu'ran in the original. She had lived in the Middle East before but Syria was new to her. The course of this memoir takes place over her Fulbright year, a year in which it wasn't easy to be an American in Syria as we were deeply into the war in Iran, a year in which she found herself trying to escape her broken heart and the seemingly cursed history that plagued her mother's family, a year in which she searched for God in the quiet of a monastery in the desert and the winding streets of the Christian area of Damascus, in a women's mosque, and in her own heart.

This memoir is very introspective and thoughtful. Saldana examines closely her life before moving to Damascus. She tries to look at her past failures in love objectively and to understand what she craves in her life. Retreating to a monastery for a month of silence and soul searching, she wrestles with whether or not she should commit to God and become a nun. After the month is over, she must re-immerse herself in not only Damascus city life but life at home in the US and ultimately make the decision whether or not to finish her Fulbright year as well as if she has truly been called to become a nun. But everything about her priorities changes when she returns to the monastery and falls in love with a novice monk. While she studies the Qu'ran with a respected teacher, learning the different but similar versions of scripture found within, she must also wait and see what path her own life will take, practicing a calmness, a resoluteness, and a patience that help her to come to terms with so much else in her life.

Well written and affecting, this is an openly honest and challenging story. Saldana has taken a long journey to know herself, to learn about a different culture, and to recognize and appreciate real love. She has drawn a vibrant and fascinating Damascus and has captured the multiple inhabitants, from the older man who adopts her as a granddaughter to the Iranian refugees humanly and with affection. The spiritual journey portion of the book was, to me, the weakest part of the book but I suspect that conveying the mystical in words for others is not an easy task. However, because this was a major portion of her narrative, it needed to draw me in more than it did. I found myself more interested when her journey involved other people, the Sheikha, the Abbot at the monastery, Frederick. And her reflections on her life prior to arriving in Damascus, her family's personal history, her vivid painting of Damascus itself and the people therein, and the love story all carried me along. This would make for a good book club book for those bookclubs which don't shy away from spirituality and will interest anyone with a fascination for the Middle East.

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

Review: Inside the Postal Bus by Michael Barry

I saw this book at the local charity shop when I went to drop off 9(!) paper grocery bags full of books and thought of a friend for whom I wanted to buy it. And because I am one of those kinds of friends, I read it first, of course. Written by a member of the US Postal professional cycling team, this is a combination memoir of the 2004 season (when Lance Armstrong won his record sixth Tour de France) and a bit of insight into what it's like to be on one of, if not the premier, cycling teams in the world.

I know next to nothing about cycling as a sport. I think the last time I went out for a ride on a bike, it had a banana seat. Not that that dates me or anything. But when I clip my cycling shoes into the pedals of the spin bikes (it's been months since I even did that), it makes me feel all fancy and professional. Ha! But I was curious about the life of a professional cyclist and thought this book would be a great opportunity to learn more. Barry discusses daily life on the team and talks about his team mates' accomplishments. He shares the grueling training regimen of a professional cyclist and the tactics and adrenaline-fueled race efforts that are such a major portion of their lives. The heady races around Europe (where the majority of the races take place) both powered by their own legs and the races on flights and by bus just to get to the races are described in detail. And each of the bigger races is broken down and analyzed in great depth.

If a reader is a cyclist, this attention to detail is probably fascinating. On the other hand, for those of us who only don bike shorts to go workout at the Y, the detail is exhaustive and a bit excessive. I think the book is intended to reach a non-specialist audience but it doesn't quite make it. The writing is often choppy and jumps from topic to topic. It founders a bit organizationally. There's little information about the author himself, which perhaps led to my feeling unconnected to the book. More personal information both about Barry and about any or all of his teammates would have been nice. And I don't mean of the expose sort. Entertaining anecdotes about things that happened on the bus, between roommates, at meals, etc. which told a bit about the personalities of the friends and competitors would have added immeasurably to the enjoyment factor here. There was some interesting information about the way that each team works, their strategies, and what it takes to ensure that a team's leader will win a big race. But the interesting information was overshadowed by a blow by blow recitation from each big race. By the time we reached the end, I had no doubts that the overall actions of the peloton and the groupetto would be much the same in each race and I didn't need to read about it repetitively. This book had the potential for so much more. I know Barry is a world class cyclist, riding with the best of the best, and in love with his sport. But who he and his teammates are in terms of human interest? Well, that's not in here and I for one wish it had been. Recommended for the hard core cyclist only.

Twenty Ten Reading Challenge

I've been reading away for this challenge without ever officially signing up. I figure it's about time I remedy that problem and let those of you who are easily corrupted and have a yen for challenges in on what this one is all about. Here's what Bart says about his Twenty Ten Reading Challenge:

The aim is to read a total 20 books, over ten categories, in 2010. (Was this challenge based solely around the name? I’ll let you decide!)

Rules:

Read 2 books from each category, making a requirement of 20 books total.
The categories are intended to be loose guidelines only, if you decide it fits, then it fits. (Apart from those marked **)
Categories marked with ** have tighter rules, and these must be followed.
Each book can only qualify for one category.
Crossovers with other challenges are allowed.
Books read from 01/01/2010 to 31/12/2010 are eligible.
So, on with the categories

Young Adult
Any book classified as young adult or featuring a teenage protagonist counts for this category.

T.B.R. **
Intended to help reduce the old T.B.R. pile. Books for this category must be already residents of your bookshelves as of 1/11/09.

Shiny & New
Bought a book NEW during 2010 from a bookstore, online, or a supermarket? Then it counts for this category. Second-hand books do not count for this one, but, for those on book-buying bans, books bought for you as gifts or won in a giveaway also count!

Bad Blogger’s ***
Books in this category, should be ones you’ve picked up purely on the recommendation of another blogger count for this category (any reviews you post should also link to the post that convinced you give the book ago).
*** Bad Bloggers: Is hosted by Chris of Stuff as Dreams are Made on.

Charity
Support your local charity shops with this category, by picking up books from one of their shops. Again, for those on book-buying bans, books bought for you as gifts also count, as long as they were bought from a charity shop.

New in 2010
This category is for those books newly published in 2010 (whether it be the first time it is has been released, or you had to wait for it to be published in your country, it counts for this one!)

Older Than You
Read two books that were published before you were born, whether that be the day before or 100 years prior!

Win! Win!
Have a couple of books you need to read for another challenge? Then this is the category to use, as long that is, you don’t break the rules of the other challenge by doing so!

Who Are You Again?
This one isn’t just for authors you’ve never read before, this is for those authors you have never even heard of before!

Up to You!
The requirements for this category are up to you! Want to challenge yourself to read some graphic novels? A genre outside your comfort zone? Something completely wild and wacky? Then this is the category to you. The only requirement is that you state it in your sign-up post.

Like I mentioned, I've already been reading away for this one but I hadn't settled on the last category. Now I think I have. Since it's called Up to You!, I do believe I will let you, my readers, choose my final two books. The first two people to leave me suggestions I haven't read yet and already own (this is not a restrictive requirement at all, trust me--just take a gander at my tbr tagged books at LibraryThing where you'll find me under whitreidtan) will have determined the two books I read for this category. The last time I asked for suggestions (which I completely flouted, I might add), more than one person each recommended A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents, The Toss of a Lemon, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and King Lear. I mention these for those of you who have no desire to wade through my LibraryThing list. Anyway, recommend away and this time, I will read your suggestions. I have to for the challenge, after all!

Review: Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

During a trip to Ireland, Norman Huntley, lay-clerk chorister and student organist, and his mechanic friend Henry stop in to tour a less than impressive church, as much to escape the rain as for any interest in the edifice itself. But on the tour given them by the sexton, they not only feign interest, they create out of whole cloth an elderly friend of theirs who had once been an intimate of the late, beloved vicar. Not content to throw out a made-up name (Miss Connie Hargreaves), they also endow their creation with any number of ridiculous eccentricities and oddments. The farce entertains them long after they leave the church and on a whim, they send a letter, inviting Miss Hargreaves to visit Norman in his home town of Conford, to the hotel they've decided she always removes to for that month of the year. As the entire thing is started as a lark, it is a little startling when Norman receives a telegram telling him when to expect Miss Hargreaves. It's beyond startling when Miss Hargreaves actually turns up, exactly as Norman and Henry have imagined her.

Miss Hargreaves, as she's imagined, starts to cause all sorts of stress for Norman within his family, in his job, and especially with his girlfriend. Worse yet, whenever there's a disturbance in the town, Norman can almost be assured that his Miss Hargreaves is behind it. And no one believes Norman when he tries continuously to explain that he made this strange, elderly woman up. Even Henry thinks that Norman has pulled a fast one on him. The only person who might believe Norman is his dreamy, distracted father, who seems to agree that the power of creation is enormous right before he drifts back off into his own world.

Norman is torn between being proud and slightly fond of his creation and wanting her to disappear entirely. But because he can't help but preen a bit, Miss Hargreaves feels snubbed and gaining in power, starts to create her own story, shucking off Norman's control entirely. And that is when bad things start to excelerate for Norman.

When I first read the description of this one, I was intrigued by the different sounding treatment of the Pygmalion myth and thought it was likely to be a gentle, sweet, and charming story (not that the original was either, mind you). But right from the beginning there is a sense of menace as Norman alludes to his being suspected of a crime despite there being no evidence. And as Miss Hargreaves grows and changes throughout the story, the sinister sense grows and certainly outpaces any light heartedness that tried to peek its head up. The tension builds, desperation becomes palpable, and the power of creation is acknowledged in this beautifully clad Bloomsbury Group re-issue of the 1939 novel. If I had had different expectations going into the novel, I might have liked it more than I did as it is really well written, starting out blurried and slowly coming into focus to shock the reader. I am still sorry it wasn't what I had expected but it's hardly fair to judge the book on my dashed expectations and I think that many other readers will appreciate it quite a lot.

Review: The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

When the novel opens, Nick and Susy are newlyweds enjoying a glimpse of the moon from the country home that they've borrowed from a friend for their honeymoon. Nick and Susy aren't typical newlyweds though. They have a deal and figure they'll be married to each other for about a year. At the end of that time (roughly determined as the amount of time in which they, the vastly entertaining but poor couple, can live off of their incredibly wealthy friends), they assume they will divorce and each remarry someone more suitable, by which they mean rich.

Although they've been living off the largess of their friends for so long, they have differing opinions about what is morally and ethically acceptable and so despite their growing care for each other, they come into conflict over the differences. Pulled apart by misunderstanding, each of them goes off with different friends and tries to slip back into the life led before their marriage. But the time together has changed them both, deepened them as people and made it possible for them to think of a life not led in the superficial, glancing world of the inordinately wealthy. It has allowed them to truly fall in love.

While the plot might sound like many a romance novel, Wharton spends much time on the shallow foibles of the moneyed set shifting around Europe in search of entertainment. Nick and Susy are a lens through which to see some of these excesses. The writing is fantastic, with accurate descriptions, backhanded wit, and astute insights. The tone here is casual and light although Wharton does get in the expected rapier thrusts about the ennui and the callousness so characteristic of the social class she's describing. And in the end, the story is not so much about Nick and Susy's sponging off of others or about the friends who collect and discard relationships like last year's hats, but it's about a pair who, despite the company they keep, grow and learn and understand the importance of love. I've been a fan of Wharton's for a long time and this novel just re-confirmed my feeling.

This review is a part of the Classics Circuit. Check the website for additional Edith Wharton tour stops and to browse through her other book offerings.

Review: The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg

Penny is completely disillusioned when she finds her boyfriend, whom she has been in love with almost her entire life, cheating on her. She's sick and tired of the way that none of the boys in her life have ever lived up to what she wants and expects. Convincing herself that all guys are jerks, she forms the Lonely Hearts Club (yes, from the Beatles song--after all, her name is Penny Lane) with herself as the founding and sole member. But when an old friend, who ditched Penny long ago for a boy, is dumped and wants to make amends for putting Ryan first, above their friendship, Penny finds herself sharing the concept. And slowly this club of one becomes the club to be in with members across all four years of high school vowing not to date for the duration of their high school careers, go to dances and social events as a group, attend Saturday night meetings, and always support their friends. But it's not that easy, with guys who are bitter about being ditched for a group of girls, a principal who is against the club, despite it not being either official or meeting on school property, and girls who are catty or just joining for the status. Hardest of all is the fact that Penny might have found a guy who's not a jerk, one who she might really like to go out with.

This is a very cute story. Eulberg has captured high school and teens pretty well. And her tale of female empowerment and sisterhood is one that so many girls these days need to hear. Penny is, of course, the best fleshed out of the characters while the rest of her friends, even her inner circle are much more superficially drawn and act mostly as foils so that Penny isn't talking to herself. Penny's parents are eccentrically simple and offbeat, being big enough Beatles fans to not only name their daughters after Beatles hits, but to become vegetarian simply because Paul is. Perhaps as would be expected, they don't figure much in the story either but the bits where they do appear, they are supportive and understanding. The burgeoning love story is sweetly handled and Penny's renewed friendship with Diane is maybe a bit too easily achieved but over all this is a nice anecdote to all the mean girl books out there. Being popular doesn't have to mean being a snot and having boys draped all over a girl. It can also mean being content with friends and happy in your own skin, as Penny is. A good lesson to share.

Thanks to Chelsey at Big Honcho Media for a review copy of this book. Also, check back here on Monday for a giveaway and more author information.

Review: The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

There is no doubt that Salman Rushdie has a way with words. He is capable of writing devastatingly gorgeous prose, but in this offering, despite the wordsmithing, he didn't twine his narratives together well enough to have the whole hang together quite like he's capable of doing. I first read Rushdie when I was in graduate school. Midnight's Children was a complete revelation. It was stunning and impressive and made me rush right out to buy everything else he'd written to that point. Not too long after that came the fatwa over The Satanic Verses and in my usual modus operandi ("if it's causing a kerfuffle or being banned, I must buy it and support the author"), I zipped out and purchased that too despite not being terribly intrigued by the premise. I finally read it last year. And it bored me silly. So Mr. Rushdie had hit both ends of the reading experience spectrum for me, high and low. Perhaps then, it makes sense that this read was middle of the road. He's just covering all his bases.

The novel opens with a yellow-haired traveler making his way towards the great city of Mughal Emperor Akbar. Calling himself the Mogor dell'Amore, this character is the thread that will ultimately weave the seemingly disparate story lines together. There is the storyline of Akbar and his imaginary wife, the story of three boys in Florence, and the story of the eponymous Enchantress of Florence, Qara Koz. In each of the story lines, especially as they come closer and closer to converging, Rushdie is clearly playing with apparent opposites: East and West, real and imagined, history and fiction. But he is also highlighting the similarities among things so seemingly different.

Our yellow-haired stranger in his patchwork coat of many colors tells a tale to Akbar, the tale of a forgotten Mughal princess who left the East for the West and was subsequently scrubbed from history. Is his tale true and if so, what impact will it have on the court of Akbar? There are multiple side narratives threading through the recounting of Qara Koz's life and Rushdie often interrupts his own narrative with asides to pull the reader out of the haze into which our storyteller has carefully led us. These textual interruptions, and indeed the many allusions (many of which I am certain I missed) scattered throughout, bring the reader up short, always pointing to the fictional and illusory nature of both this story and the story within the story.

Somehow, even with all the dazzling sleight of hand by Rushdie, ultimately the story was a little flat. Despite Qara Koz gaining in solidity throughout the telling of her story, she never came across as a fully realized character. She remained transparent, merely showing others through the lens of her actions rather than becoming the focus herself. Was this intentional and I've missed the point? Perhaps. I enjoyed the novel while in Akbar's city far more than I did once the setting changed to Florence and the maneuverings of the Medici family. The Mughal empire was more richly evoked than Florence, at least for me. It was clever to use real, historical people in this fictional investigation into the idea of the real versus the created but perhaps the novel wandered too far and wide to entirely and successfully pull off whatever ambitious intention Rushdie had for it. An interesting read, I was left feeling a bit let down despite recognizing Rushdie's undoubted brilliance.