A Hundred Summers

A Hundred Summers
Beatriz Williams (351 pages)
Published by Putnam
Bookish rating:4

Set in the 1930s, this beach book is mostly set in on the beaches of Rhode Island, with lots of cocktails, cigarettes, gossip, and use of the word "darling." It follows the so-called friendship of our heroine, Lily, and her quasi-BFF Budgie, and Lily's past love affair with Nick, who is now Budgie's husband.

Cue the drama.

Williams writing style is tight and well-paced and the plotting is good. My biggest beef was that I couldn't identify WHY Nick fell so head over heels with Lily. They go zero to sixty falling in love, but . . . why? What did she adore about him, exactly? Why was she the most amazing woman he'd ever met? What was her sparkle? She wasn't funny and didn't seem to make him laugh; if she was smart, she didn't show it; she wasn't stunningly beautiful, but of course we like Nick more for that. In short, their obsessive ardor seemed . . . contrived.

Nonetheless, I found myself thoroughly entertained. It's rare to read 1930s-era books that aren't so depressingly Depression-esque. This one was fun.

Recommended.

Commencement

Commencement
By J. Courtney Sullivan (416 pages)
Published by Vintage
Bookish rating: 4

As I was reading Commencement, I enjoyed it but didn't really think it was anything too special. But a day or two or three after finishing it, I realized the novel kept creeping back into my consciousness. And with that? A bit of sadness that the book was, as Lorelei would say, "all done!"

Commencement chronicles four college friends at all-girls Smith who meet each other on that fateful first day of college. As someone who met some of my most beloved girlfriend on the day I moved into my dorm, I could identify with this. In fact, I identified with a lot of this novel. That made the reading extra fun.

Intelligently, Commencement doesn't end at graduation. Commencement is, as the book's title suggests, both beginning and end. Thus, graduation occurs right smack in the middle of the novel.  Aside from the girls (ahem, women) being a smidge too successful a smidge too young for believability (though I suppose they did go to Smith, right?), I liked their growth and change as they got older and maneuvered through their twenties.

This is my second Sullivan novel (I've read Maine), and as much as I've enjoyed both books, I do tire of feeling like I'm always reading backstory . . . .when I'm actually reading THE story. And that just seems to be Sullivan's style. I don't see a way around it--she has to cover an immense amount of time from four points of view--but something about it just lacks the smoothness of, say, Elizabeth Strout. Whom we all know I adore.

Overall, recommended to every female who graduated from college between 2000 and 2007 (because once the recession hit, all bets were off). And every one of my B-Y girls needs to read this baby.

The Burgess Boys

The Burgess Boys
By Elizabeth Strout (320 pages)
Published by Random House
Bookish rating: 4.5

Oh, what can I say about Strout's latest novel? Strout is one of my most favorite authors in the Whole Wide World, so I pace myself with her novels. I read Abide With Me (freaking LOVED it) and Olive Kitteridge (freaking LOVED it), so I was excited for this one.

What's remarkable about Strout's writing is that you don't quite realize what she's done with a character or town or theme until she has gone and done it. And then you sit in awe. She's subtle, that Strout.

The Burgess Boys takes place in New York and Maine, and follows a family, mainly the two brothers, as they return to their depressing Maine town to help their sister manage the crisis of her teen son throwing a pig's head into a mosque.

The novel is a brilliant exploration of family relationships, race and "otherness," guilt, class, and probably a dozen other themes.

Loved it. Read it, folks. READ. IT.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
By Carol S. Dweck (276 pages)
Published by Random House
Bookish rating: 3.75

This is another book that Carolyn Hax recommended, and she hasn't steered me wrong yet, so I read it. Of course I did. The research in Mindset is uber interesting, asking the question: What the heck motivates people? Especially children?

All 276 pages (honestly, it seemed a lot longer) come down to this: having a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset.

Dweck's research got an entire chapter in NurtureShock (which I loved), and Hax also recommended it, so it didn't feel self-help-y to me. Rumor has it that this book is sometimes shelved in the self-help section instead of psychology, though, and I admit it. This concerned me.

I like well-designed studies to inform popular belief, and that's where Dweck shines. Your kiddo doesn't win a medal at her gymnastics competition? Essentially, you tell her tough, you didn't deserve it, try harder next time. I mean, you deliver your sage parental advice in a way that encourages learning and effort and improvement, but you get the gist.

Nobody LIKES failure, but there's definitely truth in here: Learn from it. It's a simple but kind of HOLY SHIT realization. As my beloved prof would say when something didn't turn out real great: "Well? Did you LEARN?"

Recommended.

Ideas of Heaven

Idea of Heaven: A Ring of Stories
By Joan Silber (247 pages)
Published by W. W. Norton
Bookish rating: 4

This is a collection of six stories--some quite long (50+ pages) for being short stories. They're kind of sort of connected through various characters, though they cross continents and historical periods. They're more interestingly connected through theme, exploring how sex and religion are quite closely connected, even as they often combat each other. Or, as Silber more effectively portrays them, filling in where the other leaves off, these forms of love and devotion. It's all very interesting.

As is usually the case in novels-via-story-collections, some stories are stronger than others. "Ideas of Heaven," which is also the title of the book, was by far my favorite (and is the longest, I believe)--it's absolutely extraordinary, detailing the fictional life of a Christian missionary in China during the Boxer rebellion. It left me breathless.

Silber's work gives a top-notch opportunity to study the art of the short story in oodles of ways. I was entertained, sure, but I also learned a lot. Recommended.