Thursday, November 27, 2008
WOW.
I finished reading Serena at 1:30 this morning. I have been thinking about it on and off ever since. Wow. That was a Book. I can't wait to talk about it with all of you!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
The Mercy Rule: A Novel, by Perri Klass
The Mercy Rule follows Lucy Weiss, a former-foster-child-turned-doctor, and her family, as told by Lucy and her daughter, ten year-old Isabel. The other family members, Weiss' husband and officially-undiagnosed autistic son, Freddy, are described part of the story only through their eyes, rather than as first-person narratives.
Weiss works as a general practitioner with mothers who are part of the foster-care merry-go-round, meaning they are being watched by social workers, have already had children taken away from them, or some combination of both. We meet several people via Lucy's experiences in her various roles (parent, traveling guest lecturer, doctor) such as a young boy flying across country on his own, whose father abruptly abandons him at the airport with Lucy without so much as asking her name when she and the boy find their return flight canceled. The one great disappointment of the book is that these fascinating characters transition in and out of Lucy's life as they would in the real world, meaning that the reader has no idea what eventually happens to these people. It made me a little crazy, to be honest; of particular frustration was the disappearance of the housewife who was being investigated for abusing her children, but maybe was being abused by her husband, or was it the nanny who was doing the abuse?? Lucy brings up all these questions about people, and they are never resolved. Frustrating!!!
There are, however, many things to like about this book. For starters, I learned a LOT about the foster care system, through snippets of Lucy's lectures, the various people she meets, and through descriptions of her own, and her patients', personal experiences. Also, Lucy's daughter, Isabel, is a very intelligent girl, but retains an appropriate level of maturity for her age. For instance, when she snoops and reads a novel her mother is writing as a means of relaxation, she becomes paranoid and irate when reading about the daughter, certain that it is about her, even though she feels that it is nothing like her. A typical tween, she simultaneously prays for her mother's attention and becomes furious when that attention is given. Her part of the novel is much smaller, but still interesting.
The novel skips over certain periods, which helps the story to keep moving, although there is no major conflict that needs resolution. The novel simply Is; it tells the story of a certain period of a family's life, and that is that. Luckily, Klass is an engaging and emotionally-provoking storyteller, so it works. Anyone with a Difficult family past, experience with abuse, or who was actually part of the social services system, will find this to be a very, very resonant book.
Rating: four out of five stars - an easy, relaxing, yet engaging read
Weiss works as a general practitioner with mothers who are part of the foster-care merry-go-round, meaning they are being watched by social workers, have already had children taken away from them, or some combination of both. We meet several people via Lucy's experiences in her various roles (parent, traveling guest lecturer, doctor) such as a young boy flying across country on his own, whose father abruptly abandons him at the airport with Lucy without so much as asking her name when she and the boy find their return flight canceled. The one great disappointment of the book is that these fascinating characters transition in and out of Lucy's life as they would in the real world, meaning that the reader has no idea what eventually happens to these people. It made me a little crazy, to be honest; of particular frustration was the disappearance of the housewife who was being investigated for abusing her children, but maybe was being abused by her husband, or was it the nanny who was doing the abuse?? Lucy brings up all these questions about people, and they are never resolved. Frustrating!!!
There are, however, many things to like about this book. For starters, I learned a LOT about the foster care system, through snippets of Lucy's lectures, the various people she meets, and through descriptions of her own, and her patients', personal experiences. Also, Lucy's daughter, Isabel, is a very intelligent girl, but retains an appropriate level of maturity for her age. For instance, when she snoops and reads a novel her mother is writing as a means of relaxation, she becomes paranoid and irate when reading about the daughter, certain that it is about her, even though she feels that it is nothing like her. A typical tween, she simultaneously prays for her mother's attention and becomes furious when that attention is given. Her part of the novel is much smaller, but still interesting.
The novel skips over certain periods, which helps the story to keep moving, although there is no major conflict that needs resolution. The novel simply Is; it tells the story of a certain period of a family's life, and that is that. Luckily, Klass is an engaging and emotionally-provoking storyteller, so it works. Anyone with a Difficult family past, experience with abuse, or who was actually part of the social services system, will find this to be a very, very resonant book.
Rating: four out of five stars - an easy, relaxing, yet engaging read
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Selection for December
Hi there!!! The novel for December is.... drumroll, please....
Serena: A Novel by Ron Rash!
Here is the Amazon review:
Amazon.com Review
The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains--but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.
Serena: A Novel by Ron Rash!
Here is the Amazon review:
Amazon.com Review
The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains--but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.
Rash's masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a riveting novel that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.
***************
For being the first members of our little book club, I would like to offer Kristi and Chantal copies of this book for free!!! If you send me your addresses, I will send you Serena!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Conception, by Kalisha Buckhanon
Conception was much more than I was expecting. The inside cover described almost an entirely different book from what I encountered when I sat down yesterday afternoon. Now that I've finished, after barely being able to put it down, I can understand why the writer of the synopsis was so flummoxed as to how to describe what was within. (I also have to add here, as a white woman, my perspective on this novel is, I assume, vastly different from that of someone who can relate more personally on a racial level.)
While the premise of the story, one about a young black girl from a broken Chicago family who winds up pregnant (by the drug-dealing father of the kids she babysits) and confused, is one I've read before, the conveyance was truly remarkable. The people were so fully fleshed out, and Shivana, the main character, grew and changed as the story progressed in a way that was both believable and absorbing. Her struggle to emerge from the black hole that her life had become, and her simultaneous inability to see beyond her Present, until, ironically, her choices were almost nonexistent, completely pulled me in.
The most unique aspect, however, was that half the book was told by the stream of consciousness of Shivana's unborn baby. The baby's story spanned over a century of potential mothers as well as each one's untimely demise, providing a historical context by following the black female experience from slavery through five different women, and ultimately converging with Shivana's path. The baby's soul uses the sum of these experiences to try and connect with Shivana in a last-ditch effort to be born.
If that sounds slightly surreal and out-of-context, it was. Each time the baby's consciousness took over a chapter, it jolted me a little out of the story, but the tales of the past potential mothers were fascinating, and as well told as the rest of the novel. Really, the part that pulled my out of the story the most was Shivana's relationship with a boy in her building, and their ultimate travel towards what they thought was going to be a better life. It didn't make any sense to me that this boy was conveniently there, or that he just happened to seem so perfect for her.
The resolution of the novel was a jolt, but it also spoke to how caged in a girl like Shivana, a girl who knew nothing about even the most basic geography outside Chicago, can be. For her, there was only one way out of her situation, and the harder she struggled to change her fate, the more dramatically things unravelled and pulled her towards the vortex. In the end, the title refers not only to the infant in Shivana's womb, but also the more subtle, daring conception of a different life.
Rating: five stars out of six - engrossing second effort by a highly-praised author
While the premise of the story, one about a young black girl from a broken Chicago family who winds up pregnant (by the drug-dealing father of the kids she babysits) and confused, is one I've read before, the conveyance was truly remarkable. The people were so fully fleshed out, and Shivana, the main character, grew and changed as the story progressed in a way that was both believable and absorbing. Her struggle to emerge from the black hole that her life had become, and her simultaneous inability to see beyond her Present, until, ironically, her choices were almost nonexistent, completely pulled me in.
The most unique aspect, however, was that half the book was told by the stream of consciousness of Shivana's unborn baby. The baby's story spanned over a century of potential mothers as well as each one's untimely demise, providing a historical context by following the black female experience from slavery through five different women, and ultimately converging with Shivana's path. The baby's soul uses the sum of these experiences to try and connect with Shivana in a last-ditch effort to be born.
If that sounds slightly surreal and out-of-context, it was. Each time the baby's consciousness took over a chapter, it jolted me a little out of the story, but the tales of the past potential mothers were fascinating, and as well told as the rest of the novel. Really, the part that pulled my out of the story the most was Shivana's relationship with a boy in her building, and their ultimate travel towards what they thought was going to be a better life. It didn't make any sense to me that this boy was conveniently there, or that he just happened to seem so perfect for her.
The resolution of the novel was a jolt, but it also spoke to how caged in a girl like Shivana, a girl who knew nothing about even the most basic geography outside Chicago, can be. For her, there was only one way out of her situation, and the harder she struggled to change her fate, the more dramatically things unravelled and pulled her towards the vortex. In the end, the title refers not only to the infant in Shivana's womb, but also the more subtle, daring conception of a different life.
Rating: five stars out of six - engrossing second effort by a highly-praised author
Friday, November 7, 2008
The Heretic's Daughter, Question #5
At the time of the novel, Massachusetts had been through a difficult period of plague and crop failures. Does society foster the need for a ‘witch hunt’ or pariah around which to rally for blame in times of crisis? Can you name other times when this has happened?
The Heretic's Daughter, Question #4
How would Sarah’s life have been different had she remained with her aunt and uncle rather than returning home with her father?
November Club Questions on The Heretic's Daughter, Question #1
I'm going to post the discussion topics for The Heretic's Daughter in their own separate posts, so anyone who wants to can comment on each topic and we'll have an easily followable thread for each question. I'm not going to comment for a few days, because I want to know what you all think without my input! No one answer is 'right' or 'wrong', and the only rule here is to please be respectful of others' thoughts and words. Rude or disparaging posts will be deleted (but I know there won't be any!).
Question 1: Do you believe that Sarah’s uncle really killed himself out of desperate self-loathing, or did her father actually murder him?
Question 1: Do you believe that Sarah’s uncle really killed himself out of desperate self-loathing, or did her father actually murder him?
Goldengrove, by Francine Prose
As someone who has recently lost a young relative, I was both drawn to and repelled from this novel. It took me about a week of looking at it there in the basket before I actually picked it up to read. When I finished it this afternoon, I was both relieved and sorrowful.
Goldengrove begins with Nico, 13, and her older sister, Margaret, floating on a boat in the middle of a lake near their family's home in upper New York state. From the outset, even had I not known the premise of the story, I would have known that something was about to happen. The sensuousness of the story, the lush detail, dripped with foreshadowing. Within pages, Margaret is dead, and we are left floating adrift in Nico's devastation.
Unfortunately, the family drifts in completely different directions, retreating almost completely into their own worlds. While each makes small attempts at reaching out to the others, nearly the entire year after Margaret's death shows them all drowning in their own self-induced isolation. Prose focuses on Nico and her process of coping with the unspeakable, which includes browsing morbidly through medical texts and compilations of paintings of near-drowning victims while working at her father's bookstore, establishing an ultimately unwise relationship with Margaret's boyfriend, and facing the townspeople as they, too, fumblingly navigate the aftermath. Her parents' coping mechanisms are described and interpreted through Nico's eyes; one of the best lines in the novel occurs when Nico, who is trapped on a strained car ride worrying about obviously medicated mother, pauses in her adult worries about her mother's erratic driving and thinks, 'Why couldn't she help me first and deal with her own suffering later?' It is this sort of back-and-forth writing that makes the novel. Prose gives Nico just the right balance of adult-child comprehension and action, and forgoes the typical teenage angst that many writers feel compelled to imbue their characters with. It is an honest depiction of a normal child in a horribly abnormal situation.
My only complaint about the book is that about two-thirds of the way through, it started to drag a little. The stage had been set, the pot was almost boiling... and it stayed that way for a good thirty or forty pages. Sometimes I get the feeling that authors have a set number of pages in mind that will make their work the Perfect Length, and this is a mistake. However, the ultimate resolution for Nico is worthwhile, and Prose made me feel glad that I had followed her through to it.
Rating: Five out of six stars; engrossing, haunting, revealing, redemptive.
Goldengrove begins with Nico, 13, and her older sister, Margaret, floating on a boat in the middle of a lake near their family's home in upper New York state. From the outset, even had I not known the premise of the story, I would have known that something was about to happen. The sensuousness of the story, the lush detail, dripped with foreshadowing. Within pages, Margaret is dead, and we are left floating adrift in Nico's devastation.
Unfortunately, the family drifts in completely different directions, retreating almost completely into their own worlds. While each makes small attempts at reaching out to the others, nearly the entire year after Margaret's death shows them all drowning in their own self-induced isolation. Prose focuses on Nico and her process of coping with the unspeakable, which includes browsing morbidly through medical texts and compilations of paintings of near-drowning victims while working at her father's bookstore, establishing an ultimately unwise relationship with Margaret's boyfriend, and facing the townspeople as they, too, fumblingly navigate the aftermath. Her parents' coping mechanisms are described and interpreted through Nico's eyes; one of the best lines in the novel occurs when Nico, who is trapped on a strained car ride worrying about obviously medicated mother, pauses in her adult worries about her mother's erratic driving and thinks, 'Why couldn't she help me first and deal with her own suffering later?' It is this sort of back-and-forth writing that makes the novel. Prose gives Nico just the right balance of adult-child comprehension and action, and forgoes the typical teenage angst that many writers feel compelled to imbue their characters with. It is an honest depiction of a normal child in a horribly abnormal situation.
My only complaint about the book is that about two-thirds of the way through, it started to drag a little. The stage had been set, the pot was almost boiling... and it stayed that way for a good thirty or forty pages. Sometimes I get the feeling that authors have a set number of pages in mind that will make their work the Perfect Length, and this is a mistake. However, the ultimate resolution for Nico is worthwhile, and Prose made me feel glad that I had followed her through to it.
Rating: Five out of six stars; engrossing, haunting, revealing, redemptive.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Pretty Little Mistakes: A Do Over Novel, by Heather McElhatton
Oh, my God do I love this book!!!!
When I was a kid, Choose-Your-Own Adventures were where it was AT. As an adult, I've looked for some, but considering how popular when we were growing up, there are shockingly few of them out there now, both for children and, especially, adults. Where are the authors who read these novels until the pages started to fall off from all the flipping?!
Apparently, there are a few still around, and of the ones I've read, Pretty Little Mistakes is by *far* the best. This is probably due to her resume, which reads like a girl after my own heart; McElhatton has been a staple on NPR, working on The Savvy Traveler, Marketplace, and one of my personal favorites, This American Life, in which she has been involved both on radio and its new Showtime incarnation. Her dry wit and creativity, added to a wicked sense of humor, is apparent in the five hundred pages where you can choose multi-layered path after path.
The novel starts out with one simple choice: to follow a high school boyfriend to college, or strike out on your own. From there, you go through several strange and sometimes disturbing changes, always ending, eventually, with your death. Whether that death comes sooner or later, and is less or more pleasant, is entirely up to you. One time, I died a happy old woman in a beautiful home surrounded by butterflies. Another time, I ended up a 400lb tuna that was caught and turned into sushi. Seriously.
There is a sequel planned to ...Mistakes, called Million Little Mistakes. I will absolutely be getting it when it arrives, and several people on my list will be getting one or the other for Christmas this year.
Rating: Six out of Six Stars; entertaining, vicarious fun for women who wonder, What If?
When I was a kid, Choose-Your-Own Adventures were where it was AT. As an adult, I've looked for some, but considering how popular when we were growing up, there are shockingly few of them out there now, both for children and, especially, adults. Where are the authors who read these novels until the pages started to fall off from all the flipping?!
Apparently, there are a few still around, and of the ones I've read, Pretty Little Mistakes is by *far* the best. This is probably due to her resume, which reads like a girl after my own heart; McElhatton has been a staple on NPR, working on The Savvy Traveler, Marketplace, and one of my personal favorites, This American Life, in which she has been involved both on radio and its new Showtime incarnation. Her dry wit and creativity, added to a wicked sense of humor, is apparent in the five hundred pages where you can choose multi-layered path after path.
The novel starts out with one simple choice: to follow a high school boyfriend to college, or strike out on your own. From there, you go through several strange and sometimes disturbing changes, always ending, eventually, with your death. Whether that death comes sooner or later, and is less or more pleasant, is entirely up to you. One time, I died a happy old woman in a beautiful home surrounded by butterflies. Another time, I ended up a 400lb tuna that was caught and turned into sushi. Seriously.
There is a sequel planned to ...Mistakes, called Million Little Mistakes. I will absolutely be getting it when it arrives, and several people on my list will be getting one or the other for Christmas this year.
Rating: Six out of Six Stars; entertaining, vicarious fun for women who wonder, What If?
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