Review: Lost in Michigan's Upper Peninsula by Mike Sonnenberg

Since I spend every summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I picked this book up with the thought that I might find new places to visit around me and across the UP. Disappointingly I'm not entirely certain I found exactly what I was looking for though.

The locations highlighted here are arranged by general area in the UP and give not only street addresses but also geographical coordinates. Each place is followed by a short history of the attraction and recommendations of things to do (for example to bring jugs to fill up at a certain spring). The tone of the writing is folksy and conversational but I have to question Sonnenberg's enthusiasm for many of the sites he highlights, especially when it takes a good long time to reach a particular location and all a visitor can do is park their car and gaze at abandoned ruins. He misses including interesting information about some of the highlighted sites (at least in my area), such as unique geological features or the potential to see endangered flora. I'd have loved to see more quirky things included like the troll in Germfask (although Benny the Beard Fisher might be too new to be included in this edition, this gives a sense of the kinds of hidden gems I was hoping to find) rather than including little towns that he's deemed to be good places to get gas, sandwiches, and cell service. Honestly, reading through this didn't make me want to travel throughout the UP, which is a real shame and the exact opposite of what this book was striving to do.

Review: BIg Gay Wedding by Byron Lane

We can have hopes and dreams for our children but in the end, they are the only ones who get to choose what their lives look like. Sometimes this is hard for a parent to reconcile with what that parent wanted or had envisioned. This is especially true of Chrissy Durang, the mother in Byron Lane's novel Big Gay Wedding.

Chrissy has been running the Polite Society Ranch, a petting farm full of rescues, ever since she was widowed. She expects her only son Barnett to come home one day and take over the farm. Barnett is Chrissy's sun and moon and she can even semi-accept his homosexuality as long as he just keeps it quiet. But it turns out that Barnett's latest visit home isn't to tell his mother he's ready to take over, but to introduce her to his fiance, Ezra. And as for keeping his sexuality quiet, well, that's out too as the men want to hold the wedding on the ranch in this small Louisana town. There's a lot that will have to be overcome to make this wedding go off without a hitch, not least of which is Chrissy's and the town's homophobia.

Although the novel tackles some deep and important topics like homophobia, parental expectations, and acceptance, there is also a decidedly zany side to it as well. Barnett's grandfather, Paw Paw is a delight, loving and accepting his grandson as he is. Ezra's sister Nichole is completely over the top, especially in her wedding planning. Ezra's mother Victoria is crazy and has her own issues. Even Chrissy's constant elaborate checklists earn a giggle, with the checklist of things she doesn't like about Ezra coming back around positively in the end. Chrissy's struggle with her son's sexuality and his life choices, including not taking over the farm she's taken care of as his inheritance for so long, is hard and sometimes repugnant but realistic feeling. Seeking guidance from others on her struggle showcases the similarly misguided feelings of others in town but instead of reinforcing her feelings, seeing the homophobia in others helps her to reckon with and confront her own. Ultimately this ends up being a feel good novel with heart, even if it's not the most realistic you'll ever read and once you get past your anger at Chrissy's attitude in the beginning.

Review: The Trouble with Twins by Kathryn Siebel

What better time to read a middle grade book than during back to school season? I am not much of a middle grade reader in general but when I was cleaning out my kids' books I found a small stash that looked fun so I kept them to read myself. Kathryn Siebels' The Trouble with Twins was one of the books I saved in the last purge. It's a cute story and was a nice change of pace from my usual reads.

Twins Arabella and Henrietta are very alike, except Arabella is somehow prettier, tidier, and more popular than her sister. Arabella is unquestionably their parents' favorite. Mostly this has been fine because the girls are each other's best friends. But when Arabella gets annoyed with Henrietta, flaunting her popularity and ignoring her sister's loneliness, Henrietta decides to do something she can't take back. Banished to live with her eccentric and intimidating great aunt Priscilla, Henrietta misses her sister desperately. Back at home, Arabella too, is discovering that living without Henrietta is sad and lonely. While Henrietta is making her first friend outside of Arabella, enduring her great aunt's appalling dinners, and generally trying to make her downhearted best of everything, Arabella sets out on an adventure to reunite her with Henrietta.

The story is told in a similar manner to The Princess Bride with a mother recounting the story to her daughter and the text including the asides and brief conversations they have over the contents of the story. The parents (and nanny) here are pretty reprehensible in the way that they neglect Henrietta and favor Arabella so clearly. Most of the other adults, with the exception of Inez, the bookstore owner, come off as bumbling ding-dongs, reinforcing the quirkiness of the novel. There are a few plot lines that receive the briefest of treatments and deep, loyal relationships with others happen too quickly in many cases. As is though, this is a pleasant fairy tale-ish read that will appeal to many middle grade readers.

Review: Mrs. Lorimer's Quiet Summer by Molly Clavering

Dean Street Press is publishing some wonderful long out of print books from women writers of the early and mid-twentieth century. Molly Clavering's Mrs. Lorimer's Quiet Summer is one of these delightful reprints.

Lucy Lorimer is the middle-aged mother of four grown children and several noisy grandchildren, and a rather commercially successful writer. She is married to husband Jack, also known as the Colonel, who, at first blush, appears to leave all domestic dramas and organization to his wife. Her best friend Gray Douglas lives across the village from Lucy and is also a writer. The novel opens as Mrs. Lorimer is preparing to have her whole family descend on her for a visit and the logistics of where everyone will sleep is the biggest of her concerns. Of course, as the summer goes on, the adult children's problems, a health scare, and the unexpected reappearance of an old flame will complicate Lucy's life, leaving her to have anything but a quiet summer.

The novel really centers on Lucy and Gray's supportive friendship and the comfortable, respectful marriage between Lucy and Jack in this gossipy, quaint Scottish village. The stakes aren't terribly high, the worries and domestic difficulties small in the scheme of things, but they give just enough drama to keep the story moving forward. The result is an enjoyable and comfortable read with characters you can't help but smile over.

Review: Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

If you ask me, I will tell you that I am more than a little tired of books set around World War II. I will also tell you that baseball bores me silly. And yet somehow, I picked up Steve Kluger's Last Days of Summer this summer (I've had it untouched long enough that I discovered Borders bookmarks in the front) and thoroughly enjoyed this warm, delightful, hilarious, and ultimately heartbreaking epistolary novel.

It's 1940, and twelve-year-old Joey Margolis lives in Brooklyn with his mother and his aunt, his father having remarried and abandoned his son. Joey is the only Jewish kid on the block and he's bullied pretty badly so he and his best friend Craig Nakamura cook up a way to get the bullies off Joey's (and Craig's) back. Joey sstarts writing to Charlie Banks, an up-and-coming star third baseman, albeit a hot-headed one, on the New York Giants asking him to hit a home run for Joey. But Joey doesn't just ask for the home run, he claims to be dying of every malady under the sun as each of his letters to Banks only gets him a signed photo of the slugger rather than a radio broadcast home run dedication. Finally Charlie snaps and writes back telling Joey to cut it out with the letters. And somehow thus is born one of the most entertaining letter-writing relationships ever. Joey is precocious and highly amusing (and smart and Machiavellian) and no adult who comes into his orbit can resist him for long, not President Roosevelt's press secretary, not Charlie's teammate Stuke, not Charlie's singer girlfriend Hazel, not the rabbi in charge of Joey's Bar Mitzvah, not even his principal (although he might give his teacher a nervous breakdown). The letters that Joey sends and receives are priceless and his correspondence gives the reader a close look at what a boy his age was thinking and worrying about in the run up to WWII. In addition to hounding Charlie, he watches and interprets the situation in Europe writing to advise the president based on his deductions, and he and Craig keep eyes on their elderly German neighbor, convinced she's a spy.

All of the characters here are written convincingly and the reader will be as taken in by Joey's charm as all the other characters are. The news clippings score cards, school papers, and other ephemera included in and amongst the letters add to the period detail. Kluger includes difficult subjects here, such as the Japanese internment camps and Hitler's unchecked military advances in Europe, with a light touch but doesn't minimize them. And while the reader can see the ending coming many pages before it actually arrives, the book has to end that way. This is a book of both laughter and tears, each completely earned. You'll be touched by both Joey and Charlie and will continue to giggle when you think of them and their relationship long after you close the cover.

Review: Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

What happens when you have a reader who is almost completely unaware of pop culture who picks up a book written by a comedian and actress she has actually never heard of, one who apparently is celebrated for her whimsy and oddness? Well, you get one seriously disappointed reader who wonders if she should have taken the title of Little Weirds more seriously. Although this reader would argue that these are more than little; they are outsized weirds, potentially dreamed up under the influence of something mind altering that was never going to be as profound to someone not on the same trip as the author.

This collection of (semi?) autobiographical essays and strange imagined short fictions are often written in stream of consciousness or in choppy prose poem form. It was honestly exhausting to try and follow Slate's random trains of thought within each piece, never mind reading multiple pieces back to back. The pieces themselves feel as if they are trying too hard to be as quirky as possible, forcing the weird of the title, overwhelming the organic flow of the stories she's ostensibly trying to tell. This is billed as feminist and funny and universal and I have to wonder about the critics and readers claiming this. I missed the humor entirely (admittedly this could be a me thing rather than a her thing). I found some of her rage at the patriarchy manufactured simply for the sake of rage (and I say this as a woman who is not blind to the many faults of the patriarchy). And there was not one universal thing here as compared to my life (could I be too old to relate?). I am trying to give this book the benefit of the doubt with my parenthetical comments but to be completely honest, the reading experience was tedious and I was bored throughout.

Review: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Several years ago, I reluctantly picked up Charlotte McConaghy's debut novel, Migrations. It just didn't seem like the sort of novel I wanted to read. How incredibly wrong I was. Fast forward to this year when, despite Migrations being one of my top ten books for the year when I read it, I was conflicted by the idea of Wild Dark Shore. I bought it but then read everything else but it until finally, something pushed me to pick it up. And once again, I wondered why I hadn't devoured this tense and gripping novel immediately.

Opening with an injured woman rescued from the freezing water around Shearwater Island, this is cli-fi, a thriller, a warning, and a beautifully written literary novel all wrapped in one. Rowan is badly injured and nursed back to health by Dominic Salt, the island and former research base's caretaker, and his three children, Raff, Fen, and Orly. Dominic doesn't trust Rowan. Why would she be coming to Shearwater, this remote island near Antarctica? Rowan doesn't trust Dominic either. She's asking questions about the now abandoned research base and is skeptical about his assertion that all their communications equipment has been destroyed, severing their connection to mainland Australia. While Rowan and Dominic might be wary of each other and the secrets each senses the other is keeping, the Salt children are much more open to this enigmatic woman who has arrived on their shores, especially the youngest child, nine-year-old Orly who has a keen interest in the seeds kept in the seed vault on the island, a vault which is now in danger of imminent collapse due to encroaching sea water. As the sea water continues to rise and the characters have no choice but to wait six weeks for the scheduled arrival of the ship coming to evacuate them and the most vital of the banked seeds, so does the tension in the novel. All five of the characters narrate their own stories, giving glimpses of their pasts, fleshing out their characters, and sharing their tragic losses with the reader.

McConaghy's evocation of a windswept island being inexorably consumed by the sea, the wild life that makes their home on its shores, and the plants that survive in such an inhospitable environment made even more inhospitable by climate change is beautiful. Her slow reveals of each character's secrets, even as they forge deeper relationships to each other keep the reader turning the pages. There is an otherworldly feel to the novel but also a sense of reckoning, both for the characters and for the reader who must acknowledge that this apocalyptic version of the world could be scarily prescient. And although this is a novel grappling with the damage that human beings do to the earth, to the animals and plants around us, to each other, it is also a novel about love and hope and perseverence. Grief winds its way throughout the narrative but so does deep love. This is a stunning read.