Caleb's Crossing

Caleb's Crossing
By Geraldine Brooks (300 pages)
Published by Viking
Bookish rating: 4.5

I'm a major Geraldine Brooks fan, and despite my high expectations for Caleb's Crossing, Brooks did not disappoint. So, yay. That would've broken my heart.

Set in the 1600s in what is now Martha's Vineyard, Brooks writes from a young girl's point of view to describe the "crossing" of Caleb, a Native American, to Harvard. How does he hang onto his culture and selfhood? How does he reconcile Latin and Christianity (oh, those misisonaries) with his own beliefs? Well, we never know for sure, as we only get to be inside Bethia's head, but Bethia is a fascinating character. Fake (as in imaginary), but fascinating.

Caleb is as well-drawn as he can be from a distance. He actually existed, so there is some truth to Brooks's story. The fledgling Harvard University and all the historical details surrounding its early, early years were extremely interesting and gave an entirely new way of understanding that school and oh so young Cambridge.

Per usual, Brooks gives us an absorbing, smart, historical read. I liked March better, but hell. That won the Pulitzer.

Long Live the King

Long Live the King
By Fay Weldon (352 pages)
Published by St. Martin's Press
Bookish rating: 3.5

This second novel in oh-so-witty Fay Weldon's Edwardian trilogy continues to help Downton Abbey fans cope with the Downton off-season.

All of British aristocracy is caught up in preparing for Edward's coronation, and here we again meet the Dilbernes. A comedy of manners that's light on plot but heavy on wit, the novel pretty much delivers what you'd expect: unflinching mockery of people who far care vastly about how long one's dress train can be for the coronation than orphaned relatives.

Weldon bounces happily from one character's head to the next, drolly revealing their rationalizations, weaknesses, and motivations. And again, we get to see the servants' points of view as well.

Typical Weldon fare, this is a fun, jolly ride. Recommended, just for the fun of it.

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
By Lorrie Moore (147 pages)
Published by Vintage
Bookish rating: 4

As Berie travels in Paris with her not-spectacular husband, she remembers, through a series of flashbacks, a youthful summer in 1972 and her relationship with her ballsy BFF, Sils.

Moore brilliantly captures the neurosis and optimistic anything-can-happen! nature of adolescence, along with the adult realization that life really isn't as sparkly or exciting as you had thought when 15 years old. Moore is witty and unbelievably clever with words--but in a way that benefits the text rather than showing off her ability twist words.

Although I understood Moore contrasting Berie's hum-drum stagnant marriage in what is supposed to be one of the most beautiful, exciting cities in the world--Paris--with her surprisingly MORE exciting existence in a small Adirondack tourist town, I couldn't quite figure out what the instigating reason was for Berie suddenly having all these 1972 flashbacks.

This was my second Lorrie Moore novel (having already read A Gate at the Stairs), and I love the originality and wry wit-plus-depth of Moore's writing style.

The Unseen

The Unseen
By Alexandra Sokoloff (328 pages)
Published by St. Martin's Press
Bookish rating: 3.75

It being the spooky month of October and all, I just can't help but dive into darker reading. I'm a Sokoloff fan, and The Unseen is a fun ghost (well, poltergeist) tale of the Rhine parapsychology experiments at Duke University (a real thing).

I actually worked--briefly--for the University of Virginia's School of Medicine's perceptual studies department (one of my multiple jobs in grad school), doing tasks related to paranormal research. For reals. So, Sokoloff's portrayal of the academic approach to and treatment of parapsychology actually seemed pretty accurate to me. Well, sort of. Sure, my disc man (yes, THAT long ago) never seemed to properly work around there, but that was the limit of any poltergeist activity I saw. Bummer.

Anyway, our heroine--Laurel--investigates a mystery as to why the Duke lab was shut down, eventually deciding to recreate what appeared to be the defining experiment--holing up with some sexually charged college students in a haunted house. Of course.

I liked how Sokoloff--like Shirley Jackson's classic The Haunting of Hill House (my all-time favorite ghost story)--uses the suggestion of evil or creepiness rather than just the overt icky to generate the thrills. Also, I'm partial to academic settings, which made this a fun book to read. The ending left me wanting  a little something and seemed rather rushed or incomplete, so I docked a quarter star from what would've been a 4.

So, bookish peeps: This is a well-crafted ghost (sorry! poltergeist) story, perfect for late October reading. Really, that's all you need to know. Recommended.

Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers

Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers
By Lois-Ann Yamanaka (276 pages)
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Bookish rating: 3

Here's the thing with books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux: You feel really obligated to really like the book. If you don't, you must entertain the possibility that you are not a very capable, sophisticated reader. And no bookish girl wants to believe THAT.

Here, Yamanaka's collection of stories is nicely done, providing some intensely creative insight into the back woods (does Hawai'i have woods?) of the Hilo area on the Big Island in the 1970s. It's a blue-collar area, and Lovey Nariyoshi comes of age with her BFF Jerry. Her family is Japanese-American, but Lovey longs to be and do things like the haole (translation: white) kids. Her parents, of course, mock this (understandable) adolescent yearning for something perceived as better, and the poor girl has a rough time reconciling identity with her burning desire to have a particular clothing item or a tape recorder.

Together, Yamanaka's stories successfully give a stirring impression of adolescence, Japanese-American assimilation in Hawai'i, and the almost-poverty of some of its inhabitants and exposes the fact that, like any tropical place colonized in one way or another, the islands are not all about surfing and suntan oil.

All that said, reading this book was slow going and tiresome at times. I could see the literary tricks Yamanaka pulled off, but I really felt like I was reading this for class. Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers is a good book--just not one that I enjoyed much.

A Likely Story

A Likely Story: One Summer With Lillian Hellman
By Rosemary Mahoney (273 pages)
Published by Doubleday
Bookish rating: 3.75

A Likely Story is an autobiographical account of one poor (literally poor, actually), hopeful teen girl's summer spent working for the, at that point, elderly, poor-sighted Lillian Hellman (playwright) in the 1980s in Martha's Vineyard. 

Mahoney ended up hating Hellman and complains relentlessly about her. A decade or two later, she's still pissed. Now, I've read/studied/worked on a LOT of Hellman history and lit, and Mahoney's account has a ring of truth as to how Hellman likely behaved, but a good deal of her criticism stems, I think, of Mahoney's disappointment in that her visions of Hellman seeing Mahoney's own genius and mentoring her instead of criticizing her inability to properly chop onions or whatever is hugely at play here.

The autobiography is overwritten and achingly self-conscious, which actually gives an effective boost to portraying Mahoney's younger self as so very insecure. For a book with "Lillian Hellman" in the title, too much time is spent on the details of Mahoney's past and childhood, which are rather unimportant, from a literary point of view, except for the heartbreak of her mother's alcoholism, polio-disabled leg, and early death of her father. 

I felt bad, truly, for the too-smart-for-her-circumstances Mahoney, and I'm sure writing this book was cathartic for her. My feelings are mixed. For a book about Hellman, there was too much Hellman-free Mahoney memoir. And yet? That part did inform so much of why Mahoney took everything SO personally. Recommended for Hellman buffs.

Maine

Maine
By J. Courtney Sullivan (509 pages)
Published by Vintage
Contemporary fiction
Bookish rating: 4.5

Maine is a slow-developing (in the best sense), unhurried tale of four flawed, strong-willed women of the Kelleher family: Maggie, who's knocked up with her a-hole boyfriends spawn; Anne-Marie, a Kelleher by marriage who wants desperately to be just perfect family-wise and thus projects this anxiety onto a dollhouse obsession; Kathleen, who detests everything her family stands for and thus is (of course) living in California on a worm farm in a hippie-esque existence; and Alice, the alcoholic matriarch of it all, with a past that would drive anyone to drink.

The story (stories?) are absorbing and enjoyable--I loved reading this book. The characters are fantastically and fully developed, warts and all, and Sullivan's ability to show how perspective is everything just shines as these women interact and judge each other.

Unlike other reviewers, I didn't get a strong sense of place with Maine. Perhaps this was due to so much being told in flashbacks (and thus not in Maine) or something. It just didn't seem coastal. I had no desire to put on a plastic bib and eat lobster like I expected. So, a half point docked there.

Ultimately, though, no matter. Maine is a thoughtful, entertaining read that shows how freaking complicated families are. Highly recommended.

Untold Story

Untold Story
By Monica Ali (259 pages)
Published by Scribner
Bookish rating: 4

So, I admit it. My decision to read Untold Story, a novel that explores identity and the what-ifs had Princess Diana faked her death and now worked at a kennel in a small American town, might have been slightly influenced by the recent royal birth across the pond.

My snobby side thinks the very bad reader reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are a result of mediocre readers who expected a non-literary, sensationalistic piece of crap and were thus disappointed that this novel was done so much better than that. Fortunately, I suppose, I had read Ali's Brick Lane, so I knew what sort of author she is: a good one. In other words, I suspected Ali would create a thoughtful novel that didn't scream OPPORTUNISTIC. She succeeded.

Ali presents the story from the perspectives of Lydia (Diana), her dying confidant and bodyguard (which ensures she ends up utterly alone), and a paparazzi photographer. We go deep inside her mind and internal conflict, which explores whether leaving her entire life behind was worth it. I wondered how Ali would handle making Lydia's decision to leave her sons, certain she'd come up short. What mother could actually do that, especially such a hands-on one? Well, Ali pulled it off.

Ultimately, Untold Story makes you seriously consider what sort of selfhood an entirely public figure might have. Where do the evening gowns and tabloids leave off, and where does real identity begin? At what point do you lose your mind?

Anyway, this is a thought-provoking, insightful read. Recommended.

Only God Knows Why

Only God Knows Why: A Mother's Memoir of Death and Rebirth
By Amy Lyon (192 pages)
Published by Chalice Press
Bookish rating: 4

This was another book I picked up from Chalice Press, which I mentioned in a previous review of one of their other mommy books. Only God Knows Why falls into the mommy memoir genre that I truly think exists and that I genuinely enjoy reading. But I hesitated on this one due its tragic topic, losing a child to SIDS.

No mother wants to read about her worst nightmare actually happening to someone else.

Yet I felt compelled to read this mother's story. Lyon felt driven to share her story; as a mommy, I needed to stop and listen.

Purely as an outsider, I'm a little bit familiar with the infant loss/bereaved mother community, and I marvel at how these women support each other. I think Lyon's memoir is a important contribution to that community.

As a reader, there's not much for me to critically judge or assess. I have not lost a child, so I'm not about to question Lyon's portrayal of it. She writes very candidly of the crippling postpartum depression she experienced at the beginning of her daughter's life, and to date, it is the best description of PPD that I have read. I also think it was tremendously brave to describe her PPD in detail. My heart just broke for her losing that time with daughter while in the grips of that awful disease.

Lyon depicts the events leading up to, during, and after daughter's death. I bawled my eyes out. I cried for her, I cried for her husband, I cried for those I knew who have lost children who surely endured what Lyon described, I cried for my own fear for my daughters. You cannot read of someone going into an empty nursery and not subconsciously imagine the horror of your own baby's blue and red nursery becoming empty, her laundry still in a basket and the smell of her lingering.

(Ironically, that book I reviewed also published by Chalice Press, Any Day a Beautiful Change, gives voice to this motherly fear for our seemingly perfectly healthy children in a beautifully articulate, accurate way that was deeply reassuring to me---I'm not crazy to worry about my children at this level.)

Lyon breaks your heart repeatedly but also shows how life, eventually, goes--oh so painfully--on. Not in a I-got-over-it sort of way, which would be insulting to anyone in her shoes, but in a one-step-in-front-of-the-other sort of way of just trying to figure out how to cope.

I'm not the intended audience (at least I don't think I am), but there is much in Lyon's experience that any mom can learn from. Recommended.

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady
By Elizabeth Stuckey-French (334 pages)
Published by Anchor Books
Bookish rating: 4

For starters, can we all agree that this novel has a spectacular title? And, for that matter, cover?

Marylou, who was given a radioactive cocktail (while pregnant) in the 1950s without her knowledge, has spent 50 odd years plotting her revenge on the doctor who gave it to her. She moves onto the same block where he now lives with his daughter and her messed up family.

The novel is heartbreaking--radiation! childhood cancer! Asperger's! Alzheimer's! marital discord! statutory rape! sexual exploitation! cheating! abandonment by your mother! --and downright FUNNY. This is where Stuckey-French shines. She oh so subtly turns that Very Serious string of events into satire that doesn't feel like . . . satire. It's quite interesting.

Various characters tell the story (via third-person), and all of them are complex and sympathetic and . . .  twistedly endearing.

This was my first Stuckey-French novel, and I'm game for another. Recommended.

Summer House

Summer House
By Nancy Thayer (351 pages)
Contemporary Literature
Published by Ballantine Books
Bookish rating: 3.5

Following three generations of women--Charlotte (30), Helen (50s), and Nona (90)--at their summer house on Nantucket, this summery beach read gets the job done: it's an escapist coastal novel with enough heart to not suck or make you stupider for reading it.

Charlotte runs an organic gardening business on her Nona's land, and Helen has the predictable wifely plot of a woman scorned plus midlife crisis. Nona is all wise and knowing because she's old.

The plots are fine and the characters okay, but the family dynamics are probably the most interesting. The character of Charlotte was the most disappointing to me, despite Thayer's excellent choice of name. Thayer has no wit and little voice when writing, so everyone sounds like a post-menopausal mom. I mean, really. Show me a 30-year-old who uses the terms "rascal" to describe a jerk, or "jive" to describe dancing. And such hostessy phrases like "Oh, how wonderful." Charlotte had nil depth--not a thing was special about her as far as her personality went, and she simply did not come across as young.

Overall, the writing is a pretty bland, but I enjoyed getting sense of water, sand, evening cocktails, and humid summer air. I'm ready for my beach vacation! Can you tell?! 

Beauty Queens

Beauty Queens
By Libba Bray 
Young Adult (390 pages)
Published by Scholastic Press
Bookish rating: 4.25

Beauty Queens is a campy, over-the-top tale of a plane crash of beauty queens on an island---think Lord of the Flies meets The Hills---and I loved it.

We meet each of the surviving beauty queens, initially through a Miss Teen Dream Fun Facts Page! (Exclamation point in the original, thankyouverymuch.) The girls are hilariously vain and shallow and ridiculous, but because this is Bray and Bray is ever the champion of girlhood, each girl has her own conflicts and--hooray!--substance.

As the girls spend more time on the island, they become more like themselves as less who the judges (read: society) expects. As Mary Lou observes, "'Maybe they need a place where no ones' watching so they can be who they really are' . . . . There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade, They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping. They were becoming." (p. 177)

Of course, Bray makes the ride to these girls finding their inner, not perfectly preened selves fantastically wacky and outrageous. As I've written in other reviewers of Bray's work, she obviously loves girlhood and boldly challenges the expectations we have for girls and, by extension, women. She covers everything from the virgin-whore dichotomy, to transgender identity, to lesbianism, to race, to mother-daughter relationships, to, of course, beauty. It's brilliant.

I knocked off a smidge of a point for the final climax scenes on the island. It had so many moving parts, I struggled to follow it. Overall, though, I loved this book and thought Bray's irreverent, on-the-girls-side, snarkily campy tone made the craziness of this novel WORK. Recommended!

Room

Room
By Emma Donoghue (321 pages)
Published by Back Bay Books
Bookish rating: 5

Am I getting too lenient in my book ratings? Or am I finally reading . .  . better books?

Yeah, I gave it a 5.

Room is narrated by 5-year-old Jack, who was born and lives in a small, 11'x11' room with his mother, where they are held captive.

And really, reading this right after all the Amanda Beery stuff? It's weird.

Jack's narration never breaks character, at least to my reading of Room. He always seems five years old, and his voice is believably naïve while also incredibly perceptive--which it has to be, if he's gonna tell this story.

Ma, his mother, makes Jack's life as full as it can possibly be, shielding him entirely from Old Nick, the sleazeball who kidnapped Ma in the first place, keeps them prisoners, and rapes her.

I thought Donoghue's contrast of the horror--the long, continual horror--of Jack and Ma's situation with the love a mom has for her child and happy life she was able to create for him out of bare nothingness was remarkable.

This book stuck with me for quite awhile after reading it, which is saying something. My attention span and memory aren't fantastic these days. Totally recommended.

Any Day a Beautiful Change

Any Day a Beautiful Change: A Story of Faith and Family
By Katherine Willis Pershey
Published by Chalice Press (118 pages)
Bookish rating: 4

I'm not sure if there's really a genre of "mommy memoir," but there seems to be, and I seem to like it.

I stumbled across this book while checking out the small publisher, Chalice Press, that had published Sabbath in the Suburbs--a book I've (ironically) not yet had time to read but that Chris was using to lead adult Sunday school. It turned out that Chalice Press was running a Mother's Day sale on Kindle versions of its mommy-ish titles, so I bought a couple.

Small presses are important, friends.

Pershey's memoir of life as a young mother-plus-pastor delivered far better than I expected. Extremely well-written and very honest, she brilliantly tackles head-on the very bodily nature of pregnancy, childbirth, recovery from said childbirth, and breastfeeding. She contrasts that with the more intellectual necessity of pondering theology and writing sermons. Then Pershey marries the two--physical and metaphysical--in a way that probably only a female pastor could.

Much of the book resonated with me, particularly when she wrote of her daughter. On the birth of her little one, she writes, "I'm not just called to be a mother. I'm called to be her mother." I was on a plane when I read that, and I had to use the coarse little square napkin you get with your beverage to dry my overly emotional eyes.

Despite also being a working mum, I really didn't connect as much with her on "having it all" like I expected. Probably because her work is what she's "called" to do, and mine is what I have to do, at least at the moment. Also, they had no day care and her husband worked part-time in the church office. (My dude works a lot and is less able to play housekeeper while I'm out earning moolah.) That's not to say Pershey skims over the conflict of work + family. Far from it. I don't know. I'm probably just envious she got to think up original ideas (not just fix others' crap), improve others' lives, and so on, all while earning a paycheck. Right?

Anyway.

Annoyingly, Pershey pushes Sears's theory of attachment parenting, which has nil scientific evidence but makes people feel (a) warm and fuzzy and superior or (b) guilty. Although Pershey approaches the theory in a mercifully non-extreme, sensible way, I think she could've avoided the term "attachment parenting" or Sears's name and just explained the family co-slept and she nursed for 2 years, both of which are perfectly lovely, if that's how you roll, without categorizing and labeling her parenting style. I mean, 99% (I totally made up that statistic) of working-outside-the-home moms can't breastfeed on demand (an attachment parenting requirement) if they, like, have to leave the baby to, um, work. And I say this as someone who has nursed a child during more than one conference call at home, and who has had to hit the straight-to-voicemail button on my work phone multiple times due to pumping, because those suckers (pun intended) are LOUD. My point? The attachment parenting term is alienating to a group--young working moms--with whom I assume Pershey is trying to connect.

Which brings me to, of course, breastfeeding. She describes nursing as "the most good and rightful thing I've ever done," which elicited--simultaneously--from me an eye roll and choked up throat, because I'm still mourning the very recent end of my own breastfeeding career, plus my guilt that I freaking WEANED--by choice--at 8 months, not the sanctioned 1 year, and certainly not TWO years. In short, Pershey fails to hide her anti-formula stance, invoking the American Academy of Pediatrics stance on breastfeeding for at least a year TWICE, along with a jab at the hospital that had the audacity to give her formula on her way home. (Good luck finding a hospital willing to do that these days, what with the Breastapo and all. But I digress.)

Small quibbles with my own personal sensitive areas aside (damn you, Dr. Sears and the Breastapo!), I enjoyed Perhsy's book immensely, finding it wise, wry, and compelling. Truly, the way she articulates her love for her daughter, well . . . it's just SPOT ON.

Absolutely worth a read.

Habits of the House

Habits of the House
By Fay Weldon (314 pages)
Published by St. Martin's Press
Bookish rating: 3.75

Shamelessly marketed to Downton Abbey fans, I shamelessly made a point to get this novel in my hands. Because you know what? We all have a Downton-sized hole in our hearts between seasons.

Set in London at the end of 1899, we face the typical aristocratic conundrum: old family, large estate, massive debts, and the need of a rich American with a large dowry or fortune to set it all right again via marriage.

In some ways, Habits of the House complements watching Downton, because you get a better understanding of how vested servants were in the maintaining the class structures, which is a weird thing for us Americans to understand. Reading this novel while simultaneously re-watching season one of Downton, I saw a lot of nuances in the show I had previously missed.

Weldon's characters aren't terribly likeable, and I don't think they're meant to be. They're spoiled, rich, hypocritical, conniving, politically naive, or some combination thereof. Weldon writes all of them with a sense of amused irony, which is fun to read. This is not the greatest novel ever, but it's a fun little jab at a class of people taking themselves way too seriously.

Recommended.

Little Bee

Little Bee
By Chris Cleave (267 pages)
Published by Simon and Schuster
Bookish rating: 5

Little Bee is another dually narrated book, told by a Nigerian woman and a British woman. All the marketing copy littering the book's back cover warns readers not to spoil to story, as "the magic is in how the story unfolds," and this is largely true. As a result, the reader starts off cold, totally clueless as to what this story is even ABOUT. But you know what? It's a good story.

So, I won't discuss plot. I will say that the characters are fantastically rendered, and the voice of Little Bee in particular is very compelling and believable--you can't HEAR her Nigerian-slash-British accent through the pages. Also remarkable is how the novel is weirdly witty and amusing while also horrific.

Little Bee is one of the best books I've read in quite some time. In fact, it's the first "5" I've given in almost 2 years.

A Gate at the Stairs

A Gate at the Stairs
By Lorrie Moore (322 pages)
Published by Knopf
Bookish rating: 4.25

Other reviews of A Gate at the Stairs have blasted it for its plotting, mostly pointing to lack of a clear destination. To them, I say this: [Lorelei's raspberry-blowing sound].

I can't discuss much of the plot without spoilers, but a central aspect concerns Tassie, a college student who nannies for a family who adopted a mixed-race toddler. We see the adoptive mother, Sarah, through Tassie's eyes, and she is fabulously capable yet insecure yet crazy yet likable. She's utterly believable and unlike any other character I've read before. I loved her, though most readers probably couldn't stand her.

The prose is incredibly, understatedly witty. Tassie has the endearing voice of an over-eager college student. She's sincere and naive while also a smidge too smart for her own good. I loved her, too.

Now, the book contains A LOT, and the lit student in me feels compelled to write papers on it, so you all can see how very good this book is. One hilarious subplot involves neighborhood meetings for parents of "children of color," which are done entirely through dialogue (with no identifiers of who is speaking), and it's so brilliantly done, I could hardly stand it. These folks expound, self-consicously, on post-racism and politics while their spouses take jabs here and there. It's just so human.

Which leads me to why I think this novel really, really works: Moore's depiction of events--which are, sure, a little jumbled--all have Tassie in common, but she's not really the central character of any of them, though she is affected. Moore conveys a startlingly poignant sense of how lived experience cobbles together who you are and why you see the world a certain way.

Recommended, if you can handle reading a book that's not constructed like a supermarket paperback.

The World Before Her

The World Before Her
By Deborah Weisgall (288 pages)
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Bookish rating: 4

Set (mostly) in Venice in 1880, an aging Marian Evans (who wrote as George Eliot) is a newlywed after her unconventional earlier life. Her husband is 20 years younger . . . and kind of a douche.

In a parallel story 100 years later (so, 1980), Caroline--entirely fictional, unlike George Eliot/Marian--is married to her own douche canoe, only this time she is the one 20 years younger.

Both women have mixed, mostly meh feelings about their marriages, artistic progress (Marian: writing, Caroline: sculpture), and general discontent. At times, their ho-hum feelings toward their own lives reads a little . . . affected. A tad (and needlessly) theatrical or dramatic, which made me a little impatient at times. I type this while quite aware of the lens through which I was reading the novel--at the time, I was juggling a demanding full-time job, sick children, my own (two) stomach viruses, and a traveling husband. So, I often wanted to shout, OH GOOD LORD, WHO HAS THE TIME TO ANALYZE THE INTENTION BEHIND A HUSBAND BUYING A PIECE OF JEWELRY FOR 3 WEEKS AND THEN JUST SIT AROUND FEELING MELANCHOLY ABOUT IT?!

I finished the book during the final week in April that my life was not (total) chaos, and I was better able to appreciate the language and style (very lovely and effective) and the complexity of Marian and Caroline.

Recommended for George Eliot fans. Or literature fans.

2012 Book List

Yeah, I know. I typically post my annual list of books somewhere around the first week of January.

And it's April.

The end of April.

But you see, I've been quite busy, and due to the new format (um, this Bookish blog), I neglected to work on the list as I went along, like previous years. Oh! And links! Adding links takes time!

Anyway, after adding a bit to the post here and there for a couple months, it's finally complete.

In 2012, I read 41 books. Not a record but reasonably respectable, methinks. After all, 2012 was a pretty big year for us.

Although no book received a rating of 5, a few did stand out as particularly good: Red Hook Road, My Name Is Mary Sutter, The Uncommon Reader, and Princesses of Iowa were among them.

A couple will probably stick with me more for the circumstances under which I read them. For example, the Crimson Petal and the White was an almost 900-page beast that I read mostly on my iPhone at 3:00 a.m. as I rocked newborn Lorelei. All Souls was read primarily as Lorelei slept on my chest during her early morning nap, when we had the house to ourselves. I read the quite long The Sweet Far Thing in record time to return it to the library before Lorelei was born.

Also, the duds. The Violets of March was on par with a cheesy Lifetime movie and the writing was bland and uninspired. The Story of Beautiful Girl utterly failed to deliver and was quite the disappointment. Finally, The Luncheon of the Boating Party bored me.

So, here's my take. Each link should take you to the book's actual (and sometimes snarky) review.

Enjoy! And I'll try to post next year's 2013 list before Spring 2014.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County           

Tiffany Baker 

Contemporary Literature (341 pages)     

Rating: 4

My Name Is Mary Sutter       

Robin Oliveira
Historical Fiction (364 pages)     
Rating: 4.25

The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them       

E. Lockhart    
Young Adult (193 pages)
Rating: 4

A Crimson Warning   

Tasha Alexander        
Mystery (322 pages)     
Rating: 3.25

The Uncommon Reader         

Alan Bennett  
Contemporary Literature (120 pages)     
Rating: 4.5

The Violets of March 

Sarah Jio         
Contemporary Literature (293 pages)     
Rating: 3

Dairy Queen   

Catherine Gilbert Murdock    

Young Adult (274 pages)     
Rating: 3.75

Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Practical Parenting from Birth to Six Years  

Jim Fay and Charles Fay        
Parenting (200 pages)     
Rating: 3

Rumors           

Anna Godbersen        
Young Adult (448 pages)    
Rating: 3.75

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine      
Alina Bronsky
Contemporary Literature (262 pages)     
Rating: 4.25

Balance Is a Crock, Sleep Is for the Weak    

Amy Eschliman and Leigh Oshirak  
Parenting (326 pages)     
Rating: 4

The Hunger Games    

Suzanne Collins         
Young Adult (384 pages)     
Rating: 4.25

The Story of Beautiful Girl    

Rachel Simon 
Contemporary Literature (368 pages)     
Rating: 3

Strange Saint  

Andrew Beahrs          

Historical Fiction (363 pages)     
Rating: 4

Love in a Cold Climate          

Nancy Mitford
Contemporary Literature (256 pages)    
Rating: 4

Mentor: A Memoir     

Tom Grimes   

Autobiography (245  pages)   
Rating: 4.5

Bicycle Days  

John Burnham Schwartz        
Contemporary Literature (253 pages)     
Rating: 3.5

The Thin Man
Dashiell Hammett
Contemporary Literature (201 pages) 
Rating: 4

The Lonely Polygamist          

Brady Udall   
Contemporary Literature (624 pages)     
Rating: 4

Red Hook Road         
Ayelet Waldman        
Contemporary Literature (343 pages)     
Rating: 4.25

The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules         

Carolyn Custis James 
Religion (224 pages)     
Rating: 4

State of Wonder        

Ann Patchett  
Contemporary Literature (384 pages)     
Rating: 4

The Princesses of Iowa          

M. Molly Backes        
Young Adult (464 pages)     
Rating: 4

When Washington Was in Vogue      

Edward Christopher Williams           

Harlem Renaissance (277 pages)     
Rating: 3.5

The Off Season          

Catherine Gilbert Murdock    

Young Adult (300 pages)     
Rating: 3.5

Catching Fire 

Suzanne Collins         
Young Adult (391 pages)     
Rating: 3.5

Galway Bay   

Mary Pat Kelly           
Historical Fiction (550 pages)     
Rating: 4

The Three Weissmans of Westport    

Cathleen Schine         
Contemporary Literature (292 pages)     
Rating: 4.25

The Pleasure of My Company           
Steve Martin  
Contemporary Literature (176 pages)     
Rating: 4

The Luncheon of the Boating Party  

Susan Vreeland          
Historical Fiction (429 pages)   
Rating: 3

Rebel Angels  

Libba Bray     
Young Adult (576 pages)     
Rating: 4.25

The Sweet Far Thing  

Libba Bray     

Young Adult (819 pages)     
Rating: 4

Book of Shadows      

Alexandra Sokoloff   
Thriller (320 pages)     
Rating: 3.75

The Hangman's Daughter      

Oliver Potzsch
Historical Fiction (448 pages)    
Rating: 3.25

The Leftovers 

Tom Perrotta  

Contemporary Literature (355 pages)     
Rating: 4.25

The Woman in Black 

Susan Hill       
Thriller (164 pages)     
Rating: 4

All Souls        

Christine Schutt         
Contemporary Literature (240 pages)   
Rating: 4

Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne          

David Starkey
History (400  pages)    
Rating: 3.75

The Gentleman Poet  
Kathryn Johnson        
Historical Fiction (314 pages)     
Rating: 3.75

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk         

Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish        
Parenting (277 pages)     
Rating: 3.75

The Crimson Petal and the White      

Michel Faber  

Historical Fiction (894 pages)     
Rating: 4

Bunheads       

Sophie Flack  
Young Adult (294 pages)     
Rating: 4

Splendor

Splendor
By Anna Godbersen (404 pages)
Published by HarperCollins
Bookish rating: 4

In the fourth and final installment of my guilty reading pleasure, the Luxe novels, our heroines and villains get their plot lines all tied up.

Godbersen keeps the plotting fresh and unpredictable. We briefly get to go to Cuba circa 1900, we still get a fun dose of scandal, and characters remain well-crafted and adequately complex (for the purposes of the genre--this ain't Shakespeare). In short, the entertainment value? Still there.

Now, I'm no prude when it comes to young adult fiction. I'm all for f-bombs, sex, drugs, alcohol, and any other Naughty Thing, so long as the said Naughty Thing adds to the novel (character development, conflict, plot, theme) and isn't just cheaply trying to shock or appear edgy. However, like the previous Luxe book, it IS a tad weird to read about marital dynamics in a book aimed at teens. Ya know? I get Godbersen's dilemma---girls married as teens in 1900! Still, it's . . . strange to me.  

Anyway,  the final book succeeds without losing steam or getting wacky plot-wise. The entire series is well done and embarrassingly entertaining. Have I mentioned how much I enjoyed it?!

Godbersen's next series, Bright Young Things, is set in the 1920s. OBVIOUSLY I'll be reading those.

In the meantime, SIGH. I'm kind of bummed the Luxe series is all over. It's a sad but satisfying feeling---the remnants of plain old good reading.

Unexpectedly, Milo

Unexpectedly, Milo
By Matthew Dicks (352 pages)
Published by Broadway
Bookish rating: 2.5

I realized that this is the first book I've read this year (so far) that was written by a GUY. And the author's last name is, um, Dicks.

Insert middle school snickering HERE.

Anyhoo, in Unexpectedly, Milo, we meet Milo, a home health care worker, who has some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that he has managed to keep secret pretty much forever.

Milo finds some videotapes in the park, watches them, and begins a road trip to find someone mentioned in the tapes.

The plot is thin, but thin plots only bother me when the writing is crappy.

The writing is crappy. Okay, not entirely crappy, but . . . not great.

Dicks is an over-writer. Every sentence, paragraph, and scene feels like he takes it too far--like the reader is to moronic to get the point, or (perhaps more accurately) Dicks's writing is too weak to be particularly compelling, so he must continually drive a point home. With lots and lots of words.

The narration overanalyzes too much, and in a tedious way that is, well, tedious rather than OCD-ish. Backstory and prior events are blatantly retold or excessively reiterated, wasting my time as a reader.

Frankly, the only reason I gave this a 2.5 (and not 2) was due to Dicks's description of Milo's "demands"--his compulsions that made him slightly more interesting.

Overall, a meh sort of novel. Not particularly recommended.

The Winter Sea

The Winter Sea
By Susanna Kearsley (527 pages)
Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Bookish rating: 4

The Winter Sea is a quasi-historical novel, jumping between 18th-century Scotland and the Jacobites aiming to restore King James to the throne, and current-day drama in the same place--a castle, Slains, on the Scotland coast where an author, Carrie, researches her next novel. As she dwells near Slains, she finds herself writing her novel as though she has her heroine's memories.

Kearsley gives an absorbing sense of time (both time periods, that is) and place, and you can just hear the cadence of a Scottish accent (and not just from the SUPER Scottish folk) in her writing and dialogue.

The drama is broad and sweeping, and the romance avoids total cheese. Plots twists genuinely surprised me, and the last quarter of the book was particularly well done.

Not a perfect novel, though: Carrie's voice was a tad generic for me, and there were A LOT of information dumps, where modern-day historians and experts just "dumped" massive amounts of history and context on the reader, in the guise dialogue and conversation. Kearsley could've gotten away with some of this and flown under the heavy sigh radar, but it happen so often that I got kind of annoyed. These information dumps also made it difficult to stay connected to the story and determine which historical details I needed to remember.

But a very good, read-by-the-fire sort of book. This was my first Susanna Kearsley novel, and I plan to read others. Recommended.

Envy

Envy
By Anna Godbersen (432 pages)
Published by HarperCollins
Bookish rating: 4

Envy is the third book in Godbersen's Luxe series, a historical young adult series that I'm a little embarrassed to enjoy to the extent that I do. The story is bubblegum, the characters are jerks and seem to be modern-day folks put into pretty ball gowns and white ties with tails, but you know what?

I totally love reading these books.

Envy is, actually, very well written. Godbersen conveys a very clear sense of time and place, from Manhattan to Florida (our characters take a little jaunt south in book 3.) True, I'm not super comfortable with the "young adult" designation, as the characters, three books in after all, deal with marital strife and their conniving reaches new levels usually saved for your grandma's soap opera, but at the same time, it being 1900 in Manhattan, the characters are, well, teenagers. Folks got married off very, very young.

The fact that the series ranks among the New York Times bestsellers tells me that, pragmatically,  the young adult genre has plenty of room for the Luxe series. So there's that.

One quibble: In Florida, Godbersen makes much of the fact that on the beach, people wear their historically accurate "swimming costumes" with chaperone patrolling the beach for any impropriety. And yet, after evening drama, there two separate instances where a heroine runs, angst-filled, onto the beach or grass, and Godbersen describes sand or blades of grass between toes.

Proper attire, I assure you, demanded stockings. Even in Florida. This was 1900, y'all.

The series includes one final book, and you're kidding yourself if you think I don't have book 4 on my nightstand. Envy is a strong third book, easily carrying us with lots oomph to book 4. Recommended.

The Winter Palace

The Winter Palace
By Eva Stachniak (440 pages)
Published by Batam
Bookish rating: 4

If you're a fan of royal intrigue but a smidge tired of Henry VIII and his merry wives, The Winter Palace delivers an entertaining story of Russia's (German-born) Catherine the Great's rise to power.

Told through the viewpoint of an orphaned palace spy, young Varvara, we see Catherine's story, and Varvara's story, too. This was a book club book, and some group members got miffed that the story was really Catherine's and thus told too distantly by Varvara, and they also argued that the relationship between the two women wasn't believable (for the record, I bought it as believable).

As I told the groupies, I didn't have much of a problem with these two (potential) flaws, and maybe it's the fact that I have so little time to read these days (5-month-old, 3-year-old, and a full-time job--need I say more?),  so temporary imaginative flights into imperial Russia with its sleighs and ornate gowns and spies were enjoyable enough for me to overlook possible shortcomings (and if this is the case, my literary criticism quality just plunged). Or, maybe I just disagree with them.

Overall, a good book. Yes, it gets a little aimless as we wait for the coup, and this novel being steeped in an actual royal coup means we have a lot of history to get through, which doesn't always lend itself to the most desirable plotting or pace. But the novel is written well, the language is lovely, and aside from some of the "then this happened" aspect of the history, I found The Winter Palace absorbing and worth reading.

So there.

The Milk Memos

The Milk Memos: How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business with Babies-and How You Can, Too
By Cate Colburn-Smith and Andrea Serrette
Published by Tarcher (384 pages)
Bookish rating: 3.5

I think a 3.5 rating for this book is on the generous side, but you know what? NO OTHER BOOK THOROUGHLY TACKLES THE TOPIC OF BREASTFEEDING AFTER RETURNING TO WORK. And, well, women work. Women with children. Women with breastfed children.

In fact, after a little innocent Web surfing or parenting-book reading to gather some tips on mixing work and breastfeeding, I found--repeatedly--the solution to all my breastfeeding problems: Don't work! Or, work from home and keep the baby home with me (and don't actually work!) Yes, the breast-feed-at-all-costs approach to reality.

You've got to be *#@!ing kidding me.

So, yay on publishing this book. It accepts that you work, doesn't try to talk you out of it (like the only other book about breastfeeding + working available), and there's an aura of honesty that this book contains that other working-mom books tend to gloss over, probably because it's uncomfortable: Some days, being a working mom--especially a mommy of an infant--are heartbreakingly difficult.

That said, this book could have been much better. Premise? A bunch of moms at IBM share a custodial closet where they pump milk, and they write cheesy jokes and notes back to each other in a notebook.

Some things bugged the poo out of me:

1. Like every other working mommy book I've read that claims to understand what MOST working mommies take on each day, this one's authors have: (1) a nanny, or (2) a husband who's a stay-at-home dad. THIS IS NOT REALITY. Don't tell me you know what a daily grind is until you've juggled daycare drop-off/pick-up, bottle packing, etc. Oh, and without a nanny or house husband to clean and sanitize all those pump parts and bottles. Frankly, this trend is so clear-cut, I kind of wonder if it's only those working moms with that sort of flexibility who have the time to write a how-to book on working mommyhood. Well, that's just freaking great.

2. The authors CLAIM that nobody should ever make you feel bad if you supplement with formula. And yet? One of our smug authors (I forget which one--they have completely non-unique voices) announces how she made it a! whole! year! without! a! single! drop! of! formula! For a book that claims to be rah-rahing on working mothers killing themselves to continue breastfeeding while working, and when supply so often simply cannot keep up with demand, especially with a pump that cannot perfectly imitate an infant suckle, this completely pissed me off. Working mothers are a sensitive lot, and the sole reason the author didn't edit out that line was to announce to the world, "Look at me! BEST MOM EVER!" The formula-is-okay inclusion was obviously mere lip service. As someone who is unlikely to get through the rest of this week without the freezer stash of milk running out, and for whom formula supplementing is an impending certainty, this bugged me. Short of waking up in the middle of the night just to pump (which I'm not willing to do), there's not a damn thing I can do about my supply. And yet . . . FAILURE! Thanks for the pep talk, ladies.

3. I believe it is the same author from above who writes annoyingly about how precious breastfeeding her baby is. How every second is treasured, even at 2:00 a.m.. Again, I seriously doubt that the majority of women feel that way. Or, maybe I'm a crappy mom. I would rather sleep than breastfeed ANY DAY. In fact, Lorelei sleeping through the night has significantly reduced my supply. I can't think of a more thrilling reason to mix that bottle of formula! Anyway, there is this weird tone that assumes you, working mommy, long to hold your suckling infant at your breast all the live-long day. But some of us don't. I like the evening nursing just fine, and if I'm telecommuting and don't have to fear spit-up on my work clothes, the morning session is reasonably sweet. But overall, especially if one factors in the awful early weeks? Breastfeeding is something I dutifully do, often resentfully.

Overall, the book accomplishes what it's supposed to: acknowledging that working while breastfeeding has its share of logistical challenges that aren't as simple as, what our (male) pediatrician suggests, returning calls while pumping. A lot goes into breastfeeding while working, and Milk Memos gets that.

Mostly.