Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel
Random
House Publishing Group: 5/1/18
eBook review copy; 352 pages
ISBN-13: 9780399180118
Themis Files Series #3
Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel is the recommended third book in
the Themis series. This is not a stand-alone novel and the three
book series has to be read in the order they are written.
Since this is the last book in the series, I don't want to give away
too much of the plot. Basically a giant robot was found buried in
pieces around the Earth. It is put together and we are trying to
master the technology, when more fully operational robots are sent
to Earth and begin attacking. The attack is stopped, but all the
robots, including Themis, the robot that was put together here,
disappear from Earth. The human crew inside Themis, Dr. Rose
Franklin, linguist Vincent Couture, his 10-year-old daughter Eve
Reyes, and Gen. Eugene Govender, are stranded on the robots home
planet, Esat Ekt. After being stranded on Esat Ekt for nine years,
they return back to Earth, but the geo-political climate has
changed. The group lands in Russia, become prisoners, and discover
that America and Russia are battling for the supreme control of the
planet. Those in charge seem to be suffering from some kind of
collective insanity and rule by violence and fear, including vast
numbers of people sent to work camps and internment camps.
As in the previous two books, the story unfolds using interviews,
diary entries, mission logs, and covert recordings. The narrative
jumps back and forth between the time spent on Esat Ekt and after
the group returns to Earth. Most of the main characters were already
fully fleshed out in the first two books and are further developed
here, while new characters are a bit lacking in development. Russian
intelligence officer Katherine Lebedev comes across as an
unrealistic cartoonish caricature especially with the "jokey"
dialogue she takes part in. There isn't a lot of in-depth
worldbuilding on Esat Ekt, and what is presented doesn't seem alien.
The political climate on Earth is examined, but
Taken as a whole I'd
give the series 4 stars, but, for me, this was a weak ending. I'm
not entirely thrilled with Neuval's choice to make the plot so
political. I get it; the current polarized political climate is
disturbing. For me, however, all this did was make the presentation a
bit too preachy in this final installment of the series and I didn't
get as much of the science fiction, and robots, I craved.
Additionally, I can't help it, but I missed the unnamed narrator from
the first two books.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of the Random
House Publishing Group.
Into the Storm by Tristram Korten
Random House Publishing Group: 4/24/18
eBook review copy; 288 pages
ISBN-13:
9781524797881
Into the Storm: Two Ships, a Deadly Hurricane, and an Epic Battle for Survival by
Tristram Korten is a very highly recommended nonfiction account of two
doomed ships and a harrowing Coast Guard search-and-rescue
operation.
An informative slow paced beginning sets the groundwork for the story.
Korten opens up with an introduction to the brave, highly trained
members of the Coast Guard on duty who would be pivotal in the search
and rescue operations and a description of the two ships and their
captains. The true story happened in late September/early October of
2015 when Hurricane Joaquin raged across the Caribbean. A pair of cargo
vessels were in the path of this destructive storm. Captain Michael
Davidson's ship was the El Faro, a 790-foot American behemoth with a crew of thirty-three, and Captain Renelo Gelera ship was the Minouche,
a 230-foot freighter with a dozen sailors aboard.
After the ships
leave port and the storm develops and subsequently changes course, the
pace becomes more frantic. The Coast Guard was informed that the Minouche was
taking on water on the night of October 1. They worked in the dark through the raging storm, with rescue swimmer Ben
Cournia in the sea loading survivors into the helicopter rescue basket. They manged to save the crew of the Minouche. The rescue mission for the El Faro was not successful and became the largest U.S. maritime disaster in decades.
This is an extremely well-researched and well-written account of the
events during Hurricane Joaquin and the heroic efforts of the Coast
Guard in their search and rescue mission. A tension filled nail biter
that is a true life thriller. Into the Storm includes maps,
notes, and an index. (Korten's online GQ article about the hurricane
includes photos of the men involved and visual information that may be
included in the book but wasn't in my review copy.)
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Random House Publishing Group.
Property: Stories Between Two Novellas by Lionel Shriver
HarperCollins Publishers: 4/24/18
eBook review copy; 336 pages
ISBN-13: 9780062697936
Property: Stories Between Two Novellas by Lionel Shriver is a
very highly recommended collection of two novellas and ten short stories
that focus on property and how ownership of homes and objects can
affect the lives of those who own them. This is an excellent collection
of well-written, thought provoking, engaging short stories full of
insight into human nature. All the characters are complex and
multi-dimensional, even in the briefest of stories. Property is
an exceptional look at people and their relationship to their
possessions.Certainly this will be one of the best short story
collections I will have read this year.
Contents:
The Standing
Chandelier: A Novella - Artistically inclined Jillian Frisk has become
accustom to the bewildering experience of having other women dislike
her. When her long-time best friends Weston gets engaged to Paige, she
is expecting their 25 year friendship to endure, but Paige has other
plans.
The Self-Seeding Sycamore - A widow of
fifty-seven had left the gardening to her husband and now she must deal
with what was likely his nemesis, the neighbor's tree that drops thousands of seeds in her garden.
Domestic Terrorism - Thirty-something Liam
doesn't seem to find adult life especially compelling and refuses to
leave his basement bedroom in his parent's home, much to their chagrin.
The
Royal Male - Gordon Bosky, a postal carrier, begins to hoard half of the mail from his route rather than deliver it.
Exchange Rates - A miserly retired professor visits his son in England
and complains constantly about the exchange rate of the dollar versus
the pound. When he gives his son his pound notes as he leaves, he
expects his son to send a check and reimburse him so he can avoid the
exchange fees.
Kilifi Creek -
On short notice, Liana, a young woman from the USA, imposes on the home of an older couple living in Africa based on knowing friends of friends of
friends.
Repossession - Helen Rutledge buys a two-story semidetached on Lansing Terrace in record time and begins to fix it up.
The ChapStick - Peter's father is supposedly dying, again,
and he must fly down to see him, again, only this time the TSA takes
umbrage to his "attitude" and his ChapStick.
Negative Equity - A married couple breaks up during the housing crisis, but can't afford to leave or sell their home.
Vermin - A couple buys a house they loved renting, but ownership and fixing the house up destroys their relationship.
Paradise to Perdition - Barry Mendelssohn embezzles a huge sum of
money, changes his name to Rodrigo Perez, and moves into a tropical
resort, but discovers the easy life isn't quite as exciting as he
thought..
The Subletter: A Novella - Sara Moseley, a writer living in Belfast, instinctively keeps track of what other people owe.
She briefly considers moving to another country, and has young woman
set up to sublet her apartment. Before she can move, however, the two
are both living in the apartment which begins a passive/aggressive fight over territorial rights and possessions.
As usual, I have a plethora of quotes from Shriver that express many of
my thoughts to such perfection it's hard not to share them all.
"...how careless
people were with their antipathy, how they threw it around for fun; how
these days people indiscriminately sprayed vituperation every which way
as if launching a mass acid attack in a crowded public square. Sheer
meanness had become a customary form of entertainment." (The Standing
Chandelier)
"She couldn’t
speak for the human sphere, but apparently in the botanical world,
without the constant intercession of a benevolent higher power, evil
triumphed." (The Self-Seeding Sycamore)
"Though Liana
imagined herself undemanding, even the easy to please required fresh
sheets, which would have to be laundered after her departure, then dried
and folded. She would require a towel for swimming, a second for her
shower. She would expect dinner, replete with discreet refreshments of
her wineglass, strong filtered coffee every morning, and - what cost older
people more than a sponger in her early twenties realized - steady
conversational energy channeled in her direction for the duration of her
stay." (Kilifi Creek)
"Pricks get away with acting like pricks because they’ve always gotten
away with acting like pricks, and no one wants to interfere with the
natural order of the universe." (The ChapStick) This
perfectly captures the attitude of many people, and, to no surprise,
especially several of those I encountered on my last bout of flying, the
trip that made me declare I was never flying again.
"Apparently the gene for small-mindedness was passed down maternally like the one for hair loss." (The Subletter)
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers.
Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
Atria Books: 4/17/18
eBook review copy; 368 pages
ISBN-13:
9781501154645
Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell is a very highly recommended addictive novel of psychological suspense.
Ellie Mack was fifteen, the youngest of
three, and her mother's favorite when she disappeared in 2005. There
were never any clues and her case soon went cold. Laurel Mack's whole
life seemed to crumble after her daughter Ellie disappeared. Her
marriage with Paul ended and she became distant to her surviving
children, Hanna and Jake. When a final piece of evidence was discovered
ten years after her disappearance, Ellie is finally closed and Laurel is
trying to put her life back together, even though she still feels she
has no real answers as to what happened to Ellie.
When Laurel meets a charming man at a café, author Floyd Dunn, she is
surprised to find herself actually accepting a dinner invitation. As
their relationship becomes more serious, Laurel meets Floyd's daughters
and his youngest daughter, Poppy, takes her breath away because she so
resembles Ellie. When Laurel learns that Floyd’s former partner vanished
five years earlier after dumping Poppy with him, it brings back
unanswered questions and memories of Ellie's disappearance. But when
Laurel learns that Poppy's mother, Noelle Donnelly, was also Ellie's
math tutor, it seems to be too coincidental.
Then She Was Gone is a wonderful example of how excellent writing
and superb planning can elevate a psychological thriller to a perfect
rating. Will most readers figure out what likely happened to Ellie very
early on? Yes. Is the insight into the characters and the journey of
discovery more important than this one big puzzle piece? Oh, yes! Many
readers (and reviewers) of suspense novels can predict how a plot is
going to go, sometimes very early on in the novel. Personally, I believe
in this case Jewell acknowledges that truism and doesn't give a whit
about it. In fact she uses this detail and guessing/knowing is only
going to increase the suspense and deepen the mystery.
Part of the clever, skillful writing is found in the structure Jewell chose to present Then She Was Gone.
The novel is told by several narrators and is split into three parts.
The first part has chapters that alternate between the present day
events and ten years ago at the time of Ellie's disappearance. The
second
section begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. The first two sections are
primarily narrated by Laurel. The third section has several narrators
and those voices are in different time periods, past and present. The
structure keeps the pace quick. This, in turn, increases the tension and
the psychological suspense, while simultaneously building an uneasy
anxiety in the reader.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Atria Books via Netgalley
Liar's Candle by August Thomas
Scribner: 4/17/18
eBook review copy; 320 pages
ISBN-13:
9781501172847
Liar's Candle by August Thomas is a highly recommended thriller.
Penny
Kessler is a 21 year-old intern at the US Embassy in Ankara, Turkey,
when, during a 4th of July celebration at the embassy, a bomb explodes
killing 256 of Penny’s friends and colleagues. Penny is in the hospital,
sedated, and doesn't realize that a picture of her has gone global in
the media and she is the face that represents the international
incident. Showing up at her bedside in the hospital, demanding that the
doctor give her something to make her regain consciousness is Frank
Lerman, a senior State Department official who is assisted by Connor
Beauregard. Her
boss, Brenda Pelecchia, tries to stop him to no avail.
Penny is briefly questioned about her relationship with Zachary Robson,
an embassy employee who disappeared after the explosion, but then the
Turkish Prime Minister arrives and takes her to the presidential palace
as an "invited" guest/prisoner of Melek Palamut, daughter of the
president. She is being questioned about Zach and everyone assumes she
has some information that they all want. Penny miraculously manages to
escape from the Presidential Palace and manages to run into Connor, who
has been sent to retrieve her. Soon it becomes clear that there is a
whole lot more going on than either Penny or Connor realize. Penny is
believed to have crucial information everyone wants and someone wants
them both dead. Penny has become the woman who knew too much, but what
does Penny know?
Liar's Candle is a fast-paced thriller written with a nod to
sheer escapism. Thomas, who was a Fulbright scholar in Turkey, captures
life in Turkey and the local atmosphere, with an eye for detail, quite
well. Do Penny's many astounding escapes and strategic feats stretch
credulity? Sure they do. Do you have to suspend disbelief to enjoy the
novel. Yup. Is it worth it to get to the end? It certainly is worth
accepting everything this young, naive, untrained 21 year-old manages to
accomplish in order to enjoy the story. The novel held my attention
throughout, even when I was surreptitiously rolling my eyes over some
spectacular exploit Penny pulled off. The bad guys are bad, the good
guys good. Was I entertained? I certainly was and the rapid pace helped
keep me reading.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Scribner via Netgalley.
The Plague by Kevin Chong
Arsenal Pulp Press: 4/24/18
eBook review copy; 256 pages
ISBN-13:
9781551527185
The Plague by Kevin Chong is a recommended modern adaptation of Albert Camus's original 1947 classic novel.
The Plague is written as a historical account looking back to the year 201- when the plague occurred. The setting is moved from the original French village or Oran to present day Vancouver where the unnamed, omniscient narrator tells the story and follows three characters. After
the rats and subsequent other wild animals who live in modern cities
started dying in alarming numbers, then people began to experience
flu-like symptoms and swelling in their lymph nodes. The sick are clearly infected with Yersinia pestis, or the plague, and the city is immediately placed under quarantine.
Dr. Bernard Rieux is trap in the city while his wife is
off receiving alternate treatment for her cancer. He is trying to find a
way to redress the treatment-resistant
disease, while he is alternately seeking to find meaning in suffering.
Megan
Tso is an American writer who is trapped in the city while on a book
tour. She is trying to hide from an ex while assisting Dr. Rieux.
Raymond Siddhu, who is married and the father of twins, is a reporter
who is trapped in the city due to the quarantine.
Chong explores the same themes as the original novel, including the
nature of destiny and the human condition, the frailties of human
behavior, the psychological strain of being under quarantine, and the
bravery required in the face of futility. He also places the novel in
the present day by addressing many current political
and cultural anxieties. His characters are well-developed and
compelling. Chong does an incredible job developing his characters and
making them real individuals facing a stressful crisis.
The plot however, when it should be full of nerve-racking tension and
anxiety because, duh, it's the plague in a major city, is actually too
slow moving and, well, a bit dull. As a character study and used as a
comparison to Camus's novel, it is worthwhile to read; as a novel though
about the plague hitting Vancouver, the pace of the actual story is
rather weary.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Arsenal Pulp Press.
Raising the Dad by Tom Matthews
St. Martin's Press: 4/17/18
eBook review copy; 320 pages
ISBN-13:
9781250094766
Raising the Dad by Tom Matthews is a recommended drama featuring a dysfunctional family in an unimaginable situation.
John Husted's
family is struggling. The doctor for his mother, Rose, has diagnosed her
with Alzheimer's. His older brother, Mike, a ne'er-do-well drug abusing
rocker, has just been released from prison. His marriage of seventeen
years to Robin has become a stale, routine. His daughter Katie is
hanging out with a moody, fatalistic group at her high school. To add to
the stress, John, a grant proposal writer for a nonprofit group, is
falling behind on his job.
When an old friend of his father wants to meet with John at a familiar
restaurant across the street from the hospital that he and John's father
helped found, he agrees. John's father Dr. Lawrence Husted, had a
debilitating stroke thirty years ago and died. Since then, his family
has been struggling. What the old doctor shares with John is
unbelievable, overwhelming, and places John in an inconceivable
situation. What his family believed about his father's death isn't
exactly the truth. Now John's stress levels are increasing and he must
decide what to tell his family about the new revelations.
The writing is good and Matthews does address the history of the family
and the struggles they have encountered over the years since their
father's stroke. The characters are developed, and background
information is disclosed. Their relationship with the family patriarch
is portrayed realistically, helping to set up the conflicts and exposed
buried emotions. The characters make the novel worthwhile. There is
growth and development. There is change.
The actual situation that the family finds themselves in, however, is
truly unbelievable and, well, preposterous. In a farce, I could go with
it, but this isn't written as a satire so it was a struggle for me to
accept the situation. There is a story here and the interaction between
the characters is worth the read, but you will have to overlook the
impossible in the novel.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of St. Martin's Press.
The Big Ones by Lucy Jones
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group: 4/17/18
eBook review copy; 256 pages
ISBN-13:
9780385542708
The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them)
by Lucy Jones is a highly recommended look at eleven of the world's
greatest natural disasters. Dr. Jones tells the historical and
geological stories of the selected disasters, and what they have
revealed about the population effected. Each disaster covered was the
"Big One"at the time it happened and fundamentally changed the community
and culture in the region. Taken together as a whole, all of these
disasters can provide insight into how fear influences the response to
catastrophes and the reasoning behind those reactions.
The disasters covered are:
Pompeii, Roman Empire, AD 79: A volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius sent
down poisonous gases and heavy ash to bury the Roman city.
Lisbon, Portugal, 1755: On November 1, All Saints Day, An earthquake
occurred with the smallest estimated magnitude being 8.5 and the largest
is 9.0. A tsunami headed up the mouth the Tagus River.
Iceland, 1783: The Laki eruption in 1783-84 resulted in 10,000 deaths,
from the gases and famine. Pastor Jon Steingrimsson should be remembered
for his tireless work in trying to find food for survivors. The gas
emissions effected weather and health across Europe.
California, United
States, 1861–62: A devastating flood occurred in the winter of 1861–62, killing
thousands and
bankrupting the state. A three-hundred-mile stretch of California’s
Central Valley was covered under thirty feet
deep in water.
Tokyo-Yokohama, Japan, 1923: An earthquake of magnitude 7.9 destroyed most of Tokyo and Yokohama
and killed over 140,000 people.
Mississippi, United States, 1927: A flood covered over twenty-six thousand square miles of land had been flooded,
displacing over six hundred thousand people.
Tangshan, China, 1976: July 27, 1976 a magnitude 7.8 struck right on a
fault running right through Tangshan, a city of 1.5 million people.
The Indian
Ocean, 2004: The magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami hit
the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, on December 26, 2004. The physical
scale of it was unprecedented. The length of the
fault that moved in that earthquake was over nine hundred miles. Wave
heights from the resulting tsunami were 100 ft, 65 ft, to 35 feet and
travel across the ocean, slamming into the coastlines of eleven
countries.
New Orleans, Louisiana, United
States, 2005: Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3 storm that stretched some
400 miles across, struck the gulf coast of the United States causing
$100 billion in damages. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced
from their homes while FEMA was slow to react.
L’Aquila, Italy, 2009: An earthquake swarm starts in January and leads
up to the big one, on April 6, when a magnitude 6.3 earthquake tore
L’Aquila apart. The city sat directly on top of a fault and every
building sustained damage and twenty thousand were
destroyed.
Fortune Tohoku, Japan, 2011: On March 11th a magnitude 9 earthquake
occurred offshore, where a fault slipped 250
miles. The resulting tsunami was several times larger than expected,
with waves from 40 to 100 feet high. Waves hit the backup generators at
the Daiichi nuclear power plant and the cooling systems failed for three
reactors, which then overheated and nuclear fuel melted.
The final chapter is based on the likelihood that the San
Andreas fault will slip, resulting in a huge earthquake occurring in
Los Angeles in the future and the ShakeOut program that helps translate
the science of the earthquake into a tangible reality for citizens.
Finally, after empathy, these seven steps are suggested for those
involved in future natural disasters: Educate yourself; Don’t assume
government has you covered; Engage with local leaders; Work with your
community; Remember that disasters are more than the moment at which
they happen; Think for yourself. Dr. Jones includes notes, a
bibliography and illustration credits.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
The Life List of Adrian Mandrick by Chris White
Touchstone: 4/17/18
eBook review copy; 288 pages
ISBN-13:
9781501174308
The Life List of Adrian Mandrick by Chris White is a recommended debut novel that examines a life falling apart.
Adrian Mandrick is an anesthesiologist and avid birder living in
Colorado. He loves his wife, Stella, and their two children. He is
dedicated to adding birds to his life list of 863 species correctly
identified and cataloged. It is the third longest list in the
North American region, but the number two list holder just passed away,
so, if he can find more rare birds to add to his list, Adrian can move
up to the number two spot. He is also addicted to painkillers and
allowing that addiction to take over his life, again, while avoiding
replying to a call from his estranged mother.
Adrian is avoiding discussing his past and his current addiction with
anyone. In his past, his mother ran away from his father with him and
his
brother. A year later his father found them and told Adrian
that his mother had molested him when he was too young to remember.
That day marks the first time Adrian used pain pills and when he began
distancing himself from his mom. Adrian first learned his love of
birding from his mom. Now he avoids any contact with her, so when she
tries to contact him, he avoids her and turns back to using pills.
While Adrian's obsession with birds and pills is well-researched and
well-covered, White gave me no reason to sympathize with Adrian and his
psychological problems. (I will admit to having flashbacks to what I
will call "the klonopin novel" as various and sundry brand names
of different pills were thrown out.) In many ways this novel would have
been more successful and believable had Adrian submerged himself in his
addiction with birding, skipping the whole pain pills abuse, because
his love of birds is the most interesting obsession. Or tie his
addiction to both pills and birding more completely to his childhood and
that one memorable day.
Adrian is the only character that is looked at in any depth, which left
the rest of the characters feeling like stereotypes, but even Adrian's
concerns are referenced, but never completely scrutinized. Adrian's
Native American
heritage along with global warming and changing habitats of birds are
both mentioned, but never explored further. Mentioning buzz words or
current concerns in a novel is not the same as exploring how these thing
actually shape a character's personality or his thought patterns.
The emotional ending does succeed in redeeming some of the parts of this
underdeveloped novel, but it never set itself apart as one of the best
and brightest.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Touchstone.
The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin
Henry Holt & Company: 4/17/18
eBook review copy; 336 pages
ISBN-13: 9781250127525
The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin is a recommended intergenerational family drama following three generations of two
interconnected Cleveland families, one black, one white, from the 1970s to 2009.
The drama centers on a 1973 drug deal gone bad and is concerned with a
missing suitcase that may contain a quarter of a million dollars. Leland
Bloom-Mittwoch, a drug addict, witnesses the shooting of his dealer,
Reggie
Marshall. Leland takes off with a suitcase full
of cash. The story is then told from the multiple viewpoints of
members of both Leland’s and Reggie’s families for the next 30
years.
The novel is less of a mystery with members looking for the suitcase,
than it is a compilation of character
studies. Each character has a chapter to discuss their formative
years and a crucial event during that time that other characters share.
Since the novel opens with two pages of family trees, that fact that it
is a heavily populated novel shouldn't be a surprise. Frumkin places her
various characters in the same historical events from different
points-of-view. She has her characters throwing blame for their
misfortune on the other family. Her flawed characters deal with mental
illness, secrets,
self-delusions, addiction, poverty, and racism.
The Comedown is an ambitious debut novel with a complex plot set
in a well-researched historical context. It is also a novel that didn't
completely work for me. The individual stories are very strong,
engrossing character studies, but there are an overabundance of
characters, several of which didn't need to be a part of the novel.
There didn't need to be quite so many characters because, at the end,
there was a lack of a coherent connection between all of the characters
and a plethora of loose ends never addressed. As a reader, this bothers
me. I was also not a great fan of the style in which the novel is
written. The quality of the writing is quite good, however, which places
Frumkin as a novelist I will watch for in the future. Many people liked
the novel much more than me, so I'm sure that my issues with it are
more a matter of personal preference.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Henry Holt & Company.
Go Ask Fannie by Elisabeth Hyde
Penguin Publishing Group: 4/10/18
eBook review copy; 304 pages
ISBN-13:
9780735218567
Go Ask Fannie by Elisabeth Hyde is a highly recommended family drama.
Murray Blaire, 81, has invited his three surviving adult children to
his New
Hampshire farm for the weekend. Ruth, the oldest, is a wealthy lawyer
who lives with her husband and two sons in Washington D.C. Ruth likes
order, control, and plans in place to cover all contingencies. George,
the middle sibling, is a nurse and marathon runner who lives a couple
hours away from his father in Concord. Lizzie, the youngest, is an
English Professor at a college near her father.
Murray's only hope for the weekend is to have Ruth and George talk
Lizzie in to breaking up with her much older married boyfriend. Ruth,
naturally, has her own list of things she wants to cover, especially
looking at assisted living facilities for their father. George, who is
always squabbling with Ruth, is trying unsuccessfully to not quarrel
with her. Lizzie, however, arrives with news that changes her father's
plans. She broke up with her boyfriend, but when she was picking up
their mother's Fannie Farmer Cookbook, which she left at his house, she
discovered that he had dropped the book into a sink of water and damaged
it. Her reaction may result in criminal charges against her.
As with any family drama much of the action also concerns the past.
Lillian, wife and mother of the group, and sibling, David, died over 30
years ago. A good portion of the novel involves what happened years
ago, when they were a family of six,
not four. There are secrets and questions about that time that have
never been shared or asked, and the full story was really never told.
Many present day resentments and attitudes toward each other all stem
back to that time, when they lost their mother and brother.
Go Ask Fannie is a straightforward, well-written novel. Hyde also
allows us insight into the inner thoughts of her characters. The
narrative follows these characters during a weekend while uncovering the
story of the past and what happened years ago. The past helps explain
why they react the way they do and why they all relate to each other in
the predictable way they do today. This is not a story with dark
secrets or shocking twists, but it is a compelling family drama.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of the Penguin Publishing Group.
After Anna by Lisa Scottoline
St. Martin's Press: 4/10/18
eBook review copy; 400 pages
ISBN-13:
9781250099655
After Anna by Lisa Scottoline is a highly recommended domestic thriller.
Maggie Ippoliti is overjoyed to receive a call from her daughter, Anna
Desroches, since she hadn't seen or heard from her daughter since she
was six months old. After Anna's birth Maggie was suffering from
postpartum psychosis. Anna's father Florian Desroches divorced Maggie
and immediately moved overseas, cutting Maggie off from all access to
her daughter. Anna had also written to her mother saying she wanted
nothing to do with her. Now Anna, 17, is attending high school at an
exclusive boarding school in the States. Her father, his
second wife, and their two children were all killed in a plane crash,
leaving Anna alone. She is now reaching out to Maggie, trying to form a
relationship and family. Maggie's husband, pediatric allergist Noah
Alderman, is supportive and excited for Maggie. She has been a wonderful
stepmother to his son, 10-year-old Caleb, who has apraxia.
After Anna opens with Noah on trial for Anna's murder and
awaiting sentencing, so we know right from the start that this isn't
going to be the story of a happy family reunion. The chapters alternate
back and forth between when Maggie first received the phone call from
Anna and to Noah's trial for murdering Anna. To complicate matters,
Maggie's narrative is told in chronological order and move forward in
time, while Noah's chapters are told in reverse order and move backward
in time. It is also clear at the beginning that Anna is not to be
trusted, but that Maggie is too ecstatic to allow any doubts to creep in
to the burgeoning relationship.
The characters are well-developed. I will admit that at the outset
Maggie's over-exuberant, excited and positive exclamations over Anna's
sudden phone call and appearance turned me off. Sure, I get it, be
happy, but don't lose all sense of caution and discernment. Her actions
didn't seem plausible to me. Yes, encourage the relationship, but
goodness, use your head, take it slow, and tell Anna you want a
relationship with her, but you all need to take the time to get to know
each other. Or, if Maggie couldn't do this, Noah should have encouraged
her to take some caution.
Scottoline is an accomplished author, so she handles with aplomb the
complications of her novel and the expected twists and turns leading up
to the meeting of the two timelines and on to the conclusion. After Anna is
an entertaining story with complications, cliffhangers, and courtroom
drama. There are a few plot holes and the ending is a bit of a stretch,
but it will entertain and hold your attention throughout.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of St. Martin's Press.
Macbeth by Jo Nesbø
Crown
Archetype: 4/10/18
eBook review copy; 464 pages
ISBN-13:
9780553419054
Hogarth Shakespeare Series
Macbeth by Jo Nesbø is a highly recommended retelling of
Shakespeare's Macbeth for the Hogarth Shakespeare Series.
Nesbø sets his updated version in a hopeless, gloomy industrial town
during the drug wars of the 1970s. He keeps many of the original
names from the play, so a comparison is easy to make. Duncan is the
new chief of police, idealistic and determined to clean up the town
by taking on the city's drug lord Hecate. Inspector Macbeth is the
head of the SWAT team who is regarded as a natural leader, but he
also has problems with addiction and craves power. Add in the other
characters, three sisters/witches, and Macbeth's scheming wife,
Lady, and you have the stage set for corruption, guilt, ambition,
violence, greed, and murder on all sides.
Assuming readers will know the plot of Shakespeare's Macbeth
and have at least a little familiarity with the characters, it
quickly becomes clear that Macbeth translates well to a
crime novel and Nesbø is the perfect writer to tackle this play for
the Hogarth series. It is more violent than the play, but that is to
be expected with a Nesbø novel. He is an excellent writer and I felt
he did a great tackling the rewriting while keeping some of the
iconic scenes. Along with the adapting the plot of the original play
to a novel, Nesbø adds the descriptive passages that his other
novels are well known for, setting the scenes up in his own unique
way. The novel does go on a bit longer than necessarily warranted
and the opening is a bit slow, but as a whole this is a successful
addition to the Hogarth Shakespeare Series.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Crown
Archetype.
The Overstory by Richard Powers
W.W. Norton & Company: 4/3/18
eBook review copy; 512 pages
ISBN-13:
9780393635522
The Overstory by Richard Powers is a very highly recommended, masterful, epic saga about trees and our relationship to them.
"The tree is saying things, in words before words."
There are nine main characters in this story that spans over fifty
years. The novel is broken down into four main sections, Roots, Trunk,
Crown, and Seeds. The chapters in each section follow the main
characters introduced in "Roots." The characters include Nick Hoel. Mimi
Ma, Adam Appicj, Ray and Dorothy, Doug Pavlicek, Neelay Mehta,
Patricia Westerford, and Olivia Vandergriff. Their individual stories
are presented like short stories at the beginning, with a common theme
between them. Then in "Trunk" the characters begin to meet or join
forces, have epiphanies, or start their life's work. They are all
summoned in different ways by trees to take a stand to save the few
remaining acres
of virgin forest from industrial harvesting and environmental
destruction.
The writing is exquisite and meticulous in this finely detailed novel. I
appreciated the introduction and development of the characters in the
opening chapters, which resemble short stories. This choice to introduce
all of these characters before the larger story took shape worked well
for me and I was pleased to then see the characters begin to join
together. The connectedness of
all things is depicted in the overall theme and in the arrangement of
the story. Powers includes information about individual species of trees
throughout the narrative. The term "Eco Opera" is an apt description
for this monumental novel.
It is an emotional novel and I did find myself tearing up or becoming
incensed at several points. The time span of the story serves well when
considering the growth of a tree. While the novel does not attempt to
persuade any one to become an eco-terrorist or take on environmental
activism, it does have some wonderful insight into how humans need to
realize that everything is connected and how losing parts of the natural
world, trees, could eventually lead to our own demise. The Overstory is a novel to relish and appreciate the fine writing and the message.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of W.W. Norton & Company.
The Very Marrow of Our Bones by Christine Higdon
ECW Press: 4/3/18
eBook review copy; 440 pages
paperback ISBN-13: 9781770414167
The Very Marrow of Our Bones by Christine Higdon is a very
highly recommended debut novel which follows five decades in the lives
of two women and a mystery.
"Sometimes pain brings people together, helps them to cross the grand
abyss of human discord. The lost are found. Sons reach out to fathers
after years of silence. Sisters forgive brothers. Sometimes it’s too
late."
One November night in 1967 two women disappear from Fraser Arm, a small
town on the Fraser River near Vancouver. Bette Parsons and neighbor
Alice McFee disappear, seemingly without a trace. Bette left behind her
husband and five children. Her youngest and only daughter, ten-year-old
Lulu, found the brief note her mother left and, telling no one, hid it.
This event marked the beginning of Lulu's secrets and disengagement
from her family. Forty years later when talking to her brother, Lulu
tells him of the secret note and he says he had secrets of his own about
their mother, but dies before he can share them.
Doris Tenpenny, the mute pastor's daughter and egg seller, is a
confidant to many in the community, but even she has heard no secrets
about the two missing women. She does know secrets about Aloysius
McFee, husband to the missing Alice, however, and knows to never trust
him. When she sees young Lulu meeting him, she knows it means trouble,
but she tells no one about what she sees. Doris is an alert and
discerning witness to the lives and secrets around her. Both women become connected through a shared inheritance, as well as unspoken secrets.
The Very Marrow of Our Bones is a wonderful, well-written, and perceptive novel that follows the lives of these two very different women for over five
decades. I enjoyed this novel from beginning to end. As the story switches back and forth between Lulu's first-person account and
Doris' third-person narrative, it is in turns humorous, heartbreaking, maddening, revealing, and hopeful. Much of the pleasure in this fine novel is found in following the path that each of their lives traversed while heading toward the conclusion. It is an immersive reading experience.
Both of the characters are admirably well-developed and clearly written
as very different individuals. Even if the chapters didn't tell you who
was talking you will know because Lulu and Doris have distinct voices,
emotions, and characteristics. Although the mystery of the disappearing
women is always present, it really is also in the back ground, there but
pursued, for most of the story. The novel really focuses on the myriad
of different results that are direct consequences of secrets and
actions. I did have to think about the ending for a bit before writing this
review and decided that it was a fitting resolution to the novel.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of ECW Press.
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
Penguin
Publishing Group: 4/3/18
eBook review copy; 464 pages
ISBN-13: 9781594488405
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer is a highly recommended
coming-of-age novel that follows a decade in the life of a young
woman and explores friendship, relationships, ambition, and mentors.
Greer Kadetsky is a freshman at Ryland College who is trying to keep
a long-distance relationship going with her high school boy friend,
Cory Pinto, who is attending Princeton.
She has always been a bookish, intelligent, independent girl with
parents who were more self-involved than parental. She was also
accepted at and planning to attend an Ivy league school with Cory,
but her parents messed up the financial aid form, which Greer still
resents. When Greer gets groped at a frat party during her first
weekend at college, she is hesitant to report it. Her politically
savvy friend Zee urges her to, but she doesn't until other girls go
through the same thing. When the university hearing on the matter
results in no sanctions or actions, Greer and Zee are angry at their
inability to address the actions of this young man.
Greer and Zee are still angry when they go to hear the famous,
charismatic feminist Faith Frank, sixty-three, speak on campus.
Greer is mesmerized by Frank, asks her a question related to the
groping incident, and the university's empty response to the
charges. Later the two continue their discussion in the bathroom.
Faith is taken by Greer, talks to the young woman and gives her her
card. This leads to an opportunity after Greer graduates to work for
the feminist icon at her new foundation, Loci, which sponsors
conferences about women's issues.
The writing is excellent. I loved this: "You know, I sometimes
think that the most effective people in the world are introverts who
taught themselves how to be extroverts." It is clear from the
beginning that Wolitzer knows how to tell an entertaining and
engaging story while keeping her plot moving forward. The Female
Persuasion really becomes a saga as it follows Greer and the
others through the decade. The narrative follows Greer, Cory, Faith,
Zee, and another male character. These are all well-developed but
flawed characters, with strengths and weaknesses. The characters are
all distinctive and have their own individual voices. While Greer is
the compelling central character, in some ways Cory is actually the
more sympathetic and humane character.
Is this the feminist blockbuster of our times? Well, I'm not
convinced it is, but perhaps I'm too old for it. It is certainly a
very good novel and I was engrossed in the story. I would agree that
it explores embracing womanhood, yet also suffering because of it.
All the young characters start out emotional, wanting to change the
world, striving to make their mark on the world and do something.
They are also can be a bit entitled, naive, and sometimes, well,
whiny. I realize that they don't feel the need to acknowledge what
women before them have experienced, how many of us have been groped,
or worse long before they came along, but they also seem to want all
women to be pigeon-holed into walking lock-step with a set list of
ideals.
"'Sisterhood,' she said, 'is about being together with other women
in a cause that allows all women to make the individual choices they
want.'" Although this sentiment was shared, it was never really
embraced in the novel and perhaps that is what is bothering me. As
women, we fought for the right to be individuals and to be able to
voice our own opinions and be in charge of our own bodies. We don't
need to throw that away by insisting that it means only these ideals
or only a specific stand on certain issues. Sometimes I see women
destroying our own freedoms by not allowing others to have their own
views and opinions based on their experiences.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of the
Penguin Publishing Group.
The Waters & The Wild by DeSales Harrison
Random House Publishing Group: 4/3/18
eBook review copy; 320 pages
ISBN-13: 9780812989540
The Waters & The Wild by DeSales Harrison is a recommended mystery - for the right reader.
First Father Nelson Spurlock has a young women visit him, looking for something her father may have sent him. Later Spurlock
receives through the mail the confession, of sorts, from a man he
doesn't know. The writer is Daniel Abend, a psychoanalyst and single
father living in New York
City and father of a teenage daughter, Clementine, the young woman
who must have been Spurlock's visitor. Abend apparently had an affair
years earlier with a woman in Paris, presumably the mother of his
daughter. When one of his patients commits suicide, Spurlock delivered
the eulogy, which is what brought the man to Abend's attention. After
this death, however, his daughter disappears and Abend begins to receive
threatening messages, which lead him to examine his past.
While the writing is beautiful in this novel and the mystery is
intriguing, the presentation and the prose overwhelm the plot. The
beginning starts out strong, but after that the sheer barrage of
language eliminates some of the pleasure of following the twists and
turns of the story. The narrative mostly moves along at a crawl and I
began to lose patience with the florid language of the prose and snail's
pace of the plot. It must also be said that at times it was difficult
to follow which character was talking as they weren't presented from the
start as unique individuals. At the conclusion, it is an interesting
story but, for me, a struggle to finish. 2.5 rounded up for the right
reader.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of the Random House Publishing Group.
